Debi Thomas with Leslie Gray Streeter
You're Wrong About
Sarah Marshall
4.6 • 23K Ratings
🗓️ 25 April 2023
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1988, twenty-year-old American figure skater Debi Thomas headed to the Calgary Olympics to face off against East German juggernaut Katarina Witt. In the process, she became the first Black American in history to medal at a Winter Olympics. Then she disappeared from the sport. Where did she go, and who wasn’t there to catch her when she fell? This week, Leslie Gray Streeter tells Sarah about growing up watching Debi skate, where she is now, how her sport and her country failed her, and just how many people are missing from the stories we tell and the dreams we dream.
You can find Leslie online here.
Debi cover of TIME
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Where else to find us:
Sarah's other show, You Are Good
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Links:
https://lesliegraystreeter.com
https://youtu.be/CHUI3QpYnl4
https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19880215,00.html
http://patreon.com/yourewrongabout
https://www.teepublic.com/stores/youre-wrong-about
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/yourewrongaboutpod
https://www.podpage.com/you-are-good
http://maintenancephase.com
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Oh my god, yeah, I mean seriously, like it cheerleaders, it's terrifying what they're |
| 0:06.2 | capable of. |
| 0:08.2 | Welcome to your eye about I'm Sarah Marshall. |
| 0:20.9 | Today we are learning about Debbie Thomas, a name you may not know, but we'll be very |
| 0:26.5 | happy, you know, after you hear Leslie Grace-Reader tell you about it. |
| 0:31.8 | Debbie Thomas is an American figure skater and world champion who competed in the 1980s |
| 0:36.9 | and specifically and most famously in the 1988 Calgary Olympics where she went head-to-head |
| 0:43.5 | with East German juggernaut, Caterina Vitt in the legendary Battle of the Carmans. |
| 0:50.0 | She was also the only black figure skater competing at that level at that time and very |
| 0:55.2 | few people have followed in her footsteps and today we are going to talk about why that |
| 1:01.0 | might be. |
| 1:03.1 | Leslie Grace-Reader is a calmness for the Baltimore banner. |
| 1:07.0 | We were talking about topics that she might do on the show and Debbie Thomas came up and |
| 1:11.8 | it became clear that that was the only thing we could talk about. |
| 1:15.4 | I have been thinking about Debbie for a while. |
| 1:18.6 | Leslie has been thinking about Debbie Thomas for her entire life for the most part. |
| 1:23.1 | She grew up watching her and the conversation that we have about her today is a combination |
| 1:31.4 | of sports history, autobiography and structural oppression in America. |
| 1:39.7 | Even if you don't care about sports or even if you don't care about figure skating or |
| 1:43.6 | have no foreign knowledge of the topic, I think this is an episode for you because our |
| 1:48.9 | sports stories are really in my opinion about the people who we want to be the success |
| 1:55.5 | stories that we allow ourselves to imagine and the dreams of transformation that we have. |
... |
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