It was probably about year five of watching gymnastics when I started to finally feel like I actually

Got it the it being

All the convoluted minutia that makes up the sport.

The scoring, the rulebook, the qualifications procedures,

the difference between a toan chappash half and an embar chipposh half,

that's about how your feet touch the uneven bars.

The penalties for not saluting the judges.

It's just, it's a lot of information to store in your brain. But the thing is, once you have all that information, you start to see the bigger picture.

You start to see how seemingly irrelevant minor things tie together in a significant way.

Like I was what to say, let's not get too much in the weeds, but when you're talking about

gymnastics, it's just all weeds.

This is Devorah Myers.

She's a long-time gymnastics journalist who literally wrote the book on it. It's called The End of the Perfect Ten.

And Devour's book, along with the rest of her reporting, is all about getting into the weeds of gymnastics in order

to pull out threads that can often get lost in the mix.

You asked me to be on the messiest episode.

Why did you choose this topic as an episode?

I know, I know, I know.

You are very brave to tackle this, I appreciate you.

The messy, messy topic that DeVora and I know

know it this is the US Gymnastics Olympic team selection procedures.

I know this sounds like the driest thing in the world, but in some ways team selection procedures are arguably the most important

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