Hang Up and Listen - The Potemkin Village Olympics Edition
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 26 July 2021
⏱️ 84 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Joel Anderson, Stefan Fatsis, and Josh Levin discuss the weirdness of the Tokyo Olympics being staged without spectators. They also assess the wobbly starts by the U.S. men’s basketball and women’s gymnastics teams. Finally, they examine the implications of Texas and Oklahoma seeking to leave the Big 12 for the powerhouse SEC.
Olympic atmosphere (2:39): The absence of fans has made for a weird start to the Summer Games.
Olympic sports (24:41): Simone Biles and the U.S. women’s gymnastics team stumbled in the preliminary competition.
SEC (47:11): Will Texas and Oklahoma usher in a major realignment in college sports?
Afterball (1:09:12): Josh on baseball broadcast pioneer Mary Shane, the subject of the latest episode of his new podcast series, One Year.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains explicit language, including the words, well, you'll just have to wait and see. |
| 0:10.0 | Hi, I'm Stefan Fatsis, and this is Slate's sports podcast, hang up and listen for the week of July 26th, 2021. |
| 0:17.7 | On this week's show, lots of Olympics will discuss the reality of staging the games during a pandemic, the masked athletes, the positive COVID tests, the stadiums void of fans. |
| 0:29.7 | And we'll also look at the competition so far with some American favorites, including the former dream team, the women's soccer team, and the omnipotent women's gymnastics team, |
| 0:40.0 | all looking various degrees of wobbly. |
| 0:43.2 | Finally, we'll talk about the latest college sports money grab, Texas and Oklahoma, angling to join the SEC. |
| 0:51.1 | I'm the author of the book's word freak, a few seconds of panic, and the landmark Wall Street Journal column from the 2004 Athens Olympics, a game we ought to play about team handball. |
| 1:04.2 | I'm in Washington, as is my pal Josh Levine, who is Slate's national editor, the author of the queen, and the host of Slow Burn Season 4, and the new podcast series One Year, 1977. |
| 1:17.4 | Hey, Josh. |
| 1:18.8 | Hey, I was dismayed that you didn't work team handball into the intro, and then undismayed when you worked into your self-description. |
| 1:27.7 | I'm a pro. What can I say? |
| 1:29.9 | We expect nothing less from you. |
| 1:31.7 | Joining us from Palo Alto, California, |
| 1:33.7 | it's the host of Slow Burns Season 3 |
| 1:36.4 | and the upcoming Season 6 about the 1991 beating of Rodney King by L.A. Police. |
| 1:43.5 | Joel Anderson, Hey, Joel. |
| 1:45.6 | Hey, good morning. I didn't prepare anything for handball. I didn't know that there was going to be handball this morning. |
| 1:51.9 | There's always handball. It's Olympics. You didn't watch Germany. Wait, no, who was it? I can't remember. Spain, Germany? |
| 2:00.2 | Wow. You're a real fan here. This is your source for handball |
| 2:03.3 | news today. Denmark was crushing Japan when I turned it off. So you don't know who was playing |
| 2:10.4 | and you turned it off. Just digging yourself a deeper, a deeper ball. My credentials as a handball |
| 2:14.5 | czar are clearly taking a beating right now. |
... |
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