How Politics Could Make the U.S. the Olympics Villain (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Of course, we remember the Dream Team in 1992, the great Dream Team with Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

[00:00:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, which as a kid, I was like, wait a second, they're the best players in the world.

[00:00:10] Speaker 1: Like, you can't lose. Like, what is this? Like, literally during games, opposing players were asking US players for autographs. And yet after the game was over, after they won the gold medal, Clyde Drexler was interviewed and he said, you know, nobody believed in us, but we went out and did it. Like, everyone believed in you. Everyone believed in you. Everyone believed in you.

[00:00:33] Speaker 2: I'm Audie Cornish. This is The Assignment. And you know how at Davos in Switzerland right now, you've probably been hearing about prime ministers and like bankers talking the equivalent of smack, basically, for people who are really interested in trade. So try and imagine what the Olympics are gonna be like. I wanted to talk with Will.

[00:00:55] Speaker 1: I'm Will Leach. I'm a contributing editor at New York Magazine. And a columnist for The Washington Post.

[00:01:01] Speaker 2: So the Winter Games start February 6th in Italy, and that's in less than three weeks, straight up. I forgot this was coming, folks, sorry. And Will is here to talk to me about not just like the, you know, the athlete stories and the narrative, but frankly, the geopolitical tensions at play that might make US, I don't know, the villain. Almost a year ago, I remember seeing a lot of news stories around how things were playing out between this big hockey game, between Canada and the US. I'm reducing it to the basics. Where people were like, started booing at the national anthem, right? When you heard the US national anthem, because of Trump's sort of, we can now effectively call it saber rattling at Canada. And at that time, you wrote, this could be the beginning of something. Like this was not a fluke. And there's more sports events to come where countries are going to show their displeasure with the US in these sport venues. And you have been right. I just have to say, well, I'm sure you love hearing that. It has turned out to be right. So put me in the way back machine when Canada was first mad at us and we're this surface.

[00:02:14] Speaker 1: Yeah, I would certainly love to be wrong about this, unfortunately, but yeah, here we are. So basically the term you're referring to is the NHL's four nations face-off tournament a year ago. It was a big hit. I think that until heated rivalry, that was like the big hockey thing for like casual fans for a long time. It was a very fun tournament. Had Finland, it had the United States, had Canada and the United States and Canada played each other in this very high stakes game. Now, as I, and what happened during the game, A, is the US and Canada always have good hockey rivalry, because they're both good teams. They're both good teams. They're generally pretty good. But this one, obviously this was in the midst of it, right? This was March of last year. This is when Trump was first kind of tossing out the 51st state business. And this, it was, became a huge, it added an extra level of intensity to the rivalry. But remember, this was happening across the board as well. This was happening at Toronto Raptors games. This was happening at hockey games during the national anthem when an American team would play in Canada. There would be booing, there'd be frustration.

[00:03:11] Speaker 2: One of the big- And just to slow you down for a second, there was also an election happening in Canada. So like the conversation around we as Canadians, who are we going to be? How do we stand up to our neighbor? Oh, wait a second. Do we have to stand up to our neighbor? Like that was a very present conversation. Rick Carney, who had been like a very, you know, huge banker in international trade circles, ended up winning precisely because of this like nationalist fervor that was ginned up by Trump.

[00:03:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, remember, Mike Myers was making commercials at Bibbary Serves, if I remember correctly, with him during that. So yeah, it was a very, very big time. This was even happening in professional wrestling. WWE had an event in Toronto and the national anthem was booed. And that actually crossed over to American audiences sometimes in a way that hockey didn't. So it became a really big thing. And what I found interesting too about that was you might notice one major country that was missing from the four nations face-off, Russia. Russia has been like basically banned from the world stage for basically since the Ukraine invasion. And I kind of posited the idea that like, is there a time where the US, if things continue on the way they're going, they start to become kind of the pariah on the global sports stage the way that Russia has.

[00:04:29] Speaker 2: Right, or global villain. I like that term. I really like that term because so much of international sporting events, they're just storytelling, right? Because they're trying to get you interested if you are a person who doesn't care about that particular sport. It's like, you don't care that much about judo. Sorry, judo, plenty of people do. But if you don't, there might be an athlete who has a backstory that's very dramatic and you're gonna get involved in all the storylines of it. And I think that's why I was so interested because you and I are roughly the same age. And I feel like we were raised on a story that was Russia is the villain, like Rocky movies. Right, right, right.

[00:05:08] Speaker 1: If I can change and you can change, we all can change. The old Rocky IV ending with Drago, of course. And that was, those were the bad guys across the board. And listen, there were boycotts of Olympics and all that was going on. This year, it's very difficult to argue that at this Olympics, and I think as we'll surely get to, upcoming the two major global events, sports events that the United States is going to be hosting, including one this year. The United States is very much this. They're the bad guys pretty much across the board right now.

[00:05:37] Speaker 2: You see this- Really, is it official? Because I have to admit, I didn't think about this. I thought about your article immediately when Davos was happening. And all of a sudden you have, of course, Canada again, the prime minister getting up there and talking in not so veiled terms about the US as a bully. And also you had even Macron of France, right, in sunglasses for reasons that were medical slash aesthetic. He looked good, he looked good. Where he was also, he was very French, he was very French. Even having that moment where they were talking about, they're dealing with something else, the potential collapse of NATO and with it, the world sense of the global order in which the US is the good guy or good cop that doesn't just police disputes or things like that, but upholds the international institutions. And with that feeling of that being pulled away with Trump, you can see all of these nations, I won't say panicked, Greenland's probably panicking, but there's this sense of like, wait a second, is this the bad place?

[00:06:47] Speaker 1: Yeah, and I really think you kind of can't underrate how big of a factor that FIFA World Cup draw was at the end of last year when Trump, when he was awarded the FIFA World Peace Prize, which apparently was not satisfying enough in that regard.

[00:07:02] Speaker 2: Well, because it was made up, right? Like, basically.

[00:07:04] Speaker 1: Obviously, yeah.

[00:07:06] Speaker 2: They wouldn't have satisfied me either.

[00:07:08] Speaker 1: Yes, yes.

[00:07:09] Speaker 2: They made up a prize to hand him, which was not a crazy thing to think about because the president likes to get shiny things. He likes to be appreciated and to show, yes, we the world appreciate what you, America, is doing for us. That's sort of the position at any given time.

[00:07:26] Speaker 1: But, you know, that event is one of, like, the Olympics are a big deal. The World Cup globally is like, everyone is keeping an eye on the World Cup. Soccer is the biggest sport in the world. Everyone was watching that. And the World Cup draw is a huge deal. It lets you know who's going to play, when they're going to be playing. Then we know this big event's coming up. To have Trump put himself not just at the middle of that, but in a kind of global villain sort of way where the entire world was watching, basically FIFA and everyone hand this man a little trophy so he'll feel better about himself and let him go on stage and do all of his eccentricities for the whole world to see, kind of got everyone being like, wow, there's like a lot of global events coming up. And is he going to be at the center of all of it? And I think that's actually a part of this too. We in America have gotten quite used to already whatever part of American life is going on, Trump is going to put himself at the center of it.

[00:08:22] Speaker 2: I know. But also you're right, in the world of sport, like when a suit comes on, you're kind of like, oh, there's a suit. You know what I mean? Like Prime Minister such and such, congrats to you. You're handing, you're not the center of it. In fact, that's the point, is that it's supposed to be this space that is not apolitical, but certainly takes a break from politics. Of course, if anyone opens a history book for a second, the Olympics and sports, they've always been at the heart of geopolitics. Like if you think that trade and all this stuff is the brain sometimes the heart, the story people are telling about a country at any given time, that can play out at the Olympics.

[00:09:05] Speaker 1: Yeah, and remember at that World Cup event, the leaders of Mexico and Canada were there and were not the center of attentions. And I think it just spoke to, there was a very vivid visual representation, particularly as we see with this year World Cup being the United States and Mexico and Canada, and also the summer Olympics coming in two years. It was a very vivid example of how everyone just kind of feels like they need to tiptoe around Trump in a sporting and a politics events, but also in a sporting events. Remember, it wasn't long ago that the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, was in the White House claiming, agreeing with Trump that he was the reason that Washington DC was getting a new stadium for the commanders, which was not true and nothing to do with it. But again, everyone just kind of feels like they need to appease. I think the world saw that. And so to have now that converging with the Olympics starting in Europe in three weeks, all of what's going on with Trump in Europe right now, it really is putting a very clear eye on how much of a centerpiece he's gonna make himself for really everyone to be looking out through all of these major sporting events.

[00:10:10] Speaker 2: So context has changed. Number one, the conversation with Canada had somewhat cooled, it's not perfect, but it had somewhat cooled. And now in the last month, the conversation about Greenland has ramped up to the point where you have massive street protests there. I mean, as massive as it can be because it's a very small country. You have Denmark kind of in a panic. France and other countries moving, actually like positioning for military exercises near Greenland or in Greenland. And then you have the seizing of Maduro out of Venezuela. Now, most people around the world are not trying to back Maduro, right? But the Greenland thing has really triggered something internationally. How does that contribute to the global, the sports villain of it all?

[00:11:08] Speaker 1: I mean, we saw, to go back to the Russia idea, we saw what happened when they invaded Ukraine. They were immediate pariahs on the global sports stage. If you watch anytime you, to this day, if you watch a tennis event, the flag will be blacked out. If you were, and when you watch the Olympics, the Winter Olympics, they're called individual neutral athletes. Wait, go back to the tennis thing.

[00:11:29] Speaker 2: They're doing what with the flag?

[00:11:31] Speaker 1: So you don't see the Russian flag, for example. If you watch a tennis event, if you see a player that's from Russia, you will not, like if you see a player from Russia playing a player from America, you'll see the American flag on like the little score bug, but you will not, the Russian flag is blacked out. And it has been like that since Ukraine. In fact, there was actually initially a debate whether Russian players should be continued to be allowed to play in tennis because of course, Russia is a major tennis country. The ultimate resolution was they would not, they'd be listed as independent players rather than people being from Russia. This will be the case at the Olympics this year as well. Participants from Russia will not be classified as playing for Russia. They'll be classified as individual neutral athletes. You will see, if you see a US skier going against a, so a member of Russian citizen skier, it will say USA and it will say AIN. That represents for individual neutral athletes. They're not a part of the global stage. The Russia was not allowed to even try to qualify for the World Cup this year. They have been a true pariah on the global stage since the invasion of Ukraine. The parallels here are difficult to miss at a certain level, right? The idea, the world's reaction to, again, the United States has not yet invaded Greenland, but if they were to do so, the reaction that we saw to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it will be interesting to see, certainly it's hitting closer, just as close to home. You see how Europe is reacting to this. The idea that the US, if they're being consistent, I would say, at a certain level, what the US would be doing to Greenland would not be dramatically different than what Russia did to Ukraine, which led to a ban on Russian athletes that's still extended to today.

[00:13:17] Speaker 2: We have not invaded Greenland as far as I know as of the time of this taping.

[00:13:22] Speaker 1: What time is it?

[00:13:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Let's give it a minute. But I think that one of the things that's fascinating about this is sports fans are crazy, in my opinion, and maybe because I'm from Boston, and so that's part of the culture. And so they're not gonna be like, oh, I can't boo Trump because he might raise the tariffs on wines. You know what I mean? They are happy to express their displeasure. The flip side is I feel like the Olympics, the US, especially in the 80s, really sees the narrative of the Olympics of like we make ourselves the heroes of the Olympics. And I think about this with something like gymnastics, right? Or any sport, frankly. Number one, the networks show us the sports where we excel. Like it's very hard to see other things, basically, unless you wanna pay extra money. And even if we've won like all the gold medals ever, we still ramp it up into a storyline about the individual athletes. So we don't see ourselves as, it's like somehow we make ourselves the underdog of the Olympics, even as we're like ramping up this count of gold medals against China or whatever. And I'm wondering if you think that, will this be an odd moment that will like mess with that narrative?

[00:14:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a long history of this with America and the Olympics. Two illustrative stories about this. Of course, we remember the dream team in 1992, the great dream team with Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

[00:14:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, which as a kid, I was like, wait a second, they're the best players in the world. Like you can't lose. Like what is this? Why are we like, oh, like what's gonna happen?

[00:15:06] Speaker 1: But your point about America always feeling like they're the underdogs is perfectly illustrated by that. Like literally during games, opposing players were asking US players for autographs. And yet after the game was over, after they won the gold medal, Clyde Drexler was interviewed and he said, nobody believed in us, but we went out and did it. Like everyone believed in you. Everyone believed in you. Everyone believed in you. And another thing the US famously does is like when there was years where they started to go down in the medal count a little bit in the summer Olympics, all of a sudden there were all of these X Games events, all of these events that the US kind of invented and excel in that became Olympic events to boost up the medal total. So I think the idea of being the underdog in the Olympics, listen, the Olympics are inherently an underdog event because there are no, no offense to Boston fans, there are no New England Patriots. There are no New York Yankees. Everyone, we really kind of don't pay attention to these sports in a lot of ways until we look at the Olympics. So even the most established star can't help but feel like a little bit like an underdog because we're not sick of them. It's all kind of a new, exciting story. That is a lot part of the fun of the Olympics. And I think it's led to the idea that United States athletes are never seen like these imperialist guys because they're new to us in a lot of ways. And none of these people are making $80 million a year like you're NBA and baseball players. And I think that leads to kind of an underdog aspect to it as well.

[00:16:28] Speaker 2: I was thinking about what you said about not being able to escape the American politics this year also because you're gonna have the summer Olympics in LA, right? And that's dovetailing in the moment when we're also gonna be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the US. We know that the administration wants to really celebrate that. Even with sporting events, like they've been talking about doing a UFC fight like Octagon at the White House. So it's like this, Trump likes sports, right? And he likes spectacle, but how is it complicated by like the LA event, right? Because he also doesn't like California, doesn't like LA.

[00:17:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, he's actually at times threatened with the upcoming World Cup to quote, take some of the events out of blue cities and bring them to, I'm trying to imagine how you could possibly do a Spain World Cup game in Birmingham, but I guess he can explain that. But at a certain level, that is, using the levers of power that they have for these events, they do kind of contrast with that need for spectacle. A great example of this was last year when they basically did a big global event where the president was there, Christy Noem was there, JD Vance was there. And they talked about some of the logistics for the World Cup this year for all the people, all the places they're having and all the people coming in.

[00:17:54] Speaker 2: Which for the record is a big deal after what was it, the Atlanta games where, and many other things, even let's say the attack on the Boston Marathon. There is this sense in the US that you do have to secure what are called soft events, like sporting events and both massive soccer tournaments. And of course the Olympics are gonna be on that list. So it wasn't crazy for Noem or for them to be talking about this. But what to you made it a moment that I think even international sports watchers were like, wait, what?

[00:18:22] Speaker 1: Because the World Cup is a, one of the reasons that FIFA has been leaned so much toward Trump is this, it just makes so much money. It is bigger than the Olympics. The World Cup is the biggest global sporting event on the planet. And people want to come from outside the country to come watch those games. It's a bucket list event for really any sports fan. And at this press conference, you literally saw Christy Noem, you saw JD Vance saying, we're happy to have people come here, but like you better get out of here as soon as the games are over, you're gonna have to talk to Christy over here. And that the idea of, the sports are supposed to be this welcoming thing, this place to come in. There have been reports about how the Department of Homeland Security is gonna, when you apply for visas to come in as to come watch the World Cup, they want to see your social media history.

[00:19:10] Speaker 2: For five years. Let me just say that. They want to see five years of social media history for your visit to the US to watch soccer.

[00:19:22] Speaker 1: To watch soccer. So if you're from like, honestly, if you are a, how much you want to watch Brazil or you want to watch your team, how much of is it like, forget it, I'll watch it on TV. Like this is supposed to be a big global event. If you think of 1994, the last time the United States hosted the World Cup, it is considered the launching point for American soccer and how it became, all the corporations embraced it. It's become like a massive thing across the world. That was considered a launching event. We've talked for years, oh, wait until it comes back. This is going to be a wonderful thing. We're gonna be able to show off how America has evolved in sport, in soccer, how much bigger it's come, how they can host this stuff. And now you basically have people in the administration saying, don't come. Right.

[00:20:04] Speaker 2: Or if you come, make sure you have your documentation. Basically, you will not be immune from our mass deportation sort of effort that is going on right now.

[00:20:16] Speaker 1: Which is the opposite of what the World Cup is supposed to be. And listen, to be fair, the World Cup has been hosted by Russia and Qatar. So the idea, but even those, they made a special dissemination to be like, we're hosting the World Cup. A lot of the things that we ordinarily might have going on here, we're going to loosen because we want people to come. We want to show off who we are. The fact that this administration is pushing, that's what people are very fascinated about, about the Olympics. Because the Olympics is obviously a big thing in Los Angeles. A lot of people in Los Angeles are concerned about it as well, to be entirely honest. But the World Cup is gonna be a very fascinating staging kind of idea. How they pull this off. How many people come. How it all works out. Theoretically speaking, we'll see how bad this continues to go with Greenland and Europe. But listen, the idea of someone boycotting a World Cup or an Olympics, it's a little late to do it for the World Cup, but.

[00:21:11] Speaker 2: I was gonna say, I've sort of, I've heard little murmurings like, oh well, maybe we shouldn't go or maybe we should pull our teams. But I have to admit, I just feel like, the trade conversation in a way, it's about us. Like you and me, the way we shop is part of U.S.'s power in the world, right? Our kind of consumer economy. And I don't know a country that wants to give up the market that is the U.S. And they'll kind of, as we can see with Trump, put up with a lot to maintain that access.

[00:21:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they'll, but there's a metaphor for this kind of doing it to ourselves in a lot of ways. The idea that like, sure the teams, I agree, I don't think any European teams are not going to come to the World Cup. But I think a lot of their fans aren't going to come. I think that is an issue. And I think that right now you're seeing, there's been a lot of complaints about ticket prices for some of these games. I'm very curious to see for all the talk of FIFA making these tickets super expensive on the resale market, actually a little lower than I think a lot of people thought. That's not stunning to be entirely honest. I think that, I think you're going to start to see in some of these soft factors, the excitement that people have had for so long for the World Cup to be here. I think you're just, you're already starting to see little factors. I live in Georgia. There's about 12 different games in the Mercedes Stadium in Atlanta. They're cheaper already than I thought they were going to be. I was ready to put aside college money to be able to go, to go see some of those games. I may not have to do that. If this continues like this, I think you'll see fewer and fewer people coming in for what, again, is supposed to be a global celebration and a huge financial windfall for everyone involved.

[00:22:52] Speaker 2: Well, I was looking at your medium and your sub stack. You are very progressive, very liberal. You are very upset with how this administration is behaving. The reason why I'm bringing this up is because how does that complicate things for you as a sports fan? Are you ready to be the villain?

[00:23:14] Speaker 1: Well, any sports fan can tell you that there's a certain compartmentalization you have to make when you are watching sports. I don't think there's any question about that. There it is. I don't think there's any question about that whatsoever. I think that certainly there are athletes, there are owners, there are teams, there are corporations that are involved with your favorite team. And if you're going to say, oh, I'm not going to watch that team, then then you're not going to be able to watch sports. I think everyone has kind of made a certain kind of deal with themselves on that. But I also think there's a lot of value in speaking out about this. Sports washing, for example, has become a very big thing involving in the Middle East and Dubai.

[00:23:51] Speaker 2: And yeah, just which for people to know, that's the idea of having an event around sports, because by definition, it's supposed to be about goodwill, which you use to then hope people will do more reporting on rather than on whatever human rights abuses or environmental abuses you're committing. I mean, in a way, I feel like that's what happened with the comedy festival, right? That was a kind of comedy watching where people were like, why are you there? What's going on? Because very quickly that was picked up on very, very quickly. But with sports, it's different, right? You can have your big golf tournament or your F1 or whatever. And I feel like sports fans, by definition, they're fanatics. They're going to be like, well, this is a great course. You know what I mean? And kind of carry on with it.

[00:24:37] Speaker 1: I mean, certainly I will say that if you share my personal political leanings and you want your favorite athletes and the team's owners to agree with you, you're going to not be able to enjoy sports very much. But I do think there's value across the board in still kind of speaking out about this and also being able to still enjoy like sports is fun, right? Like like why you cannot fully separate sports for the political world because you can't separate anything from the political world. The notion that you that every single time that you go in to watch a sporting event, be like, oh, well, that person gave money to this candidate, so I can't cheer for them. Don't watch sports, then you're going to have a really hard time watching sports if you continue to do that. So I think there's a certain compartmentalization that everyone has to do. But I do think the I think the larger things, what's so interesting about this, when I talk about sports watching, is that like, generally speaking, we think of sports watching as a regime that's doing bad things, but trying to make it look like everything is fine through its sporting events. What's so interesting about the United States hosting all the events and the way they are right now, the sporting events are actually not us also looking bad. They're actually like making America look worse on a global stage. I guess it's sports staining. I guess it would be the opposite of that. In a lot of ways, it's actually hurting America to have this spotlight on them at this exact time, which is the opposite of what sports watching is actually supposed to do.

[00:25:57] Speaker 2: Here's what I'm going to be mean to you, because I secretly have a really tough time with sports writers, the sports press and the way that American sports sort of lionizes itself. But you talk to a sports person, they're kind of like, we solved racism. Do you remember Jackie Robinson? And you're like, that's not how it went. You know what I mean? Or like forget that when those people put up their fist right at the games, alluding to the Black Power movement, like things didn't go great for them after. And I think that there's this way that we have of like pretending that politics, that our politics aren't directly reflected in how we talk about the games, the athletes and by games, I mean the games of any kind, because there is this way that people tend to be like sports is above that. You know what I mean? Like it is about this universal blah, blah, blah. And sometimes I'm like, you guys are full of it. I'm serious. I like I just again, it may be because I'm a traumatized Boston person. It was there for the sort of the way you would talk about some of those athletes. And I was like, he doesn't seem like that kind of a guy, you know, and that it didn't go over well. So can I get your point of view on that? Am I being mean that? Well, yeah. Am I being mean to the sports press, meaning you?

[00:27:21] Speaker 1: I can't I cannot speak for all sports writers. I do not believe sports. Oh, really? Because you are in the proxy. That's why you're here. But your your suspicion, I think, has some some clear merit to it. I think that, you know, you see this, you know, in major league baseball has a game every year on the day that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier where everyone wears number 42 and they all honor him in that moment. But it's increasingly a kind of a superficial thing because they never actually acknowledge any of what that struggle was. It becomes I always reminds me of like Spike Lee's line about the way that Martin Luther King is often celebrated. He calls it the Santa classification of Martin Luther King. You see that.

[00:28:03] Speaker 2: I loved it when he was here. It was great at that time. And I'm like, yeah, that's not how he and his family told the story. Maybe exactly something. But now sports.

[00:28:15] Speaker 1: Yeah, and it becomes a way to act like, no, no, no. Sports was always on the good side of this. And it's like, no, literally that's why Jackie Robinson mattered was because because they were very much on the wrong side of this. So I think I don't think there's any question that that happens. Sports. But I would say, A, that probably that happens in a lot of fields. I would hope that I think the. I don't think so.

[00:28:37] Speaker 2: In journalism, we don't pretend we solve things. Most of the time we're like, I don't know, we don't. We don't. We don't. So like it was a rough draft of history. We just like put it out there that we know we are probably wrong. And I feel like the sports world is very light. Let's do a doc about this and we're going to need violins. And you're just like, I agree.

[00:28:57] Speaker 1: No, I agree. And if you don't like this, the soft focus, the violins, the stories, the Olympics are going to be hard for you because there are a lot of a lot of like everything. Yes, everything is all warm.

[00:29:08] Speaker 2: It's me watching curling, rooting for just like some little nobody just like this is your time. And also I'm Jamaican, right? So it's very like it's bobsled time. I mean, it's very track and field. There's certain things that I'm really going to root for. And I don't want it to make it sound like I'm rooting for America, rooting against America no matter what. It's more like, you know, I think it's maybe, as you said, the sports washing. It's this idea that like I just I feel like I'm being sold a story when the Olympics comes along. And maybe that's really more of a media problem. You know, usually whatever network carries the games, like they really lean hard into all of it. And sometimes it feels very like propaganda.

[00:29:51] Speaker 1: Well, the Olympics are particularly prone to this because it's so much of it is storytelling because we don't follow these sports. The rest of the Israelites, even the most prominent athletes in this sports, where most fans are being introduced to them really, they don't know them. And so they want to hear their stories and the stories. One thing about sports, I think one thing you're very much onto about sports is the idea people want to pretend that when they are watching a sporting event, the outside world does not exist. It is a and on a certain kind of like lizard brain level. I kind of understand it in the same way. The idea that like I'm going to watch my Illinois basketball team tonight and I am not going to think about Davos or Greenland or any of that. I just want to watch my game. I get it. Like, I think everybody kind of understands on a basic level. How lucky are you? I know I will. I will fail at that. But that's what I like. What I want sports to do is that like I think I think a lot of people want sports to do that in the same way they want any sort of entertainment or diversion to do. They want to find a way to escape, whether it's the global affairs or the issues of the personal life or that they don't like their job. At a certain level, people want they want to put their troubles aside and enjoy a sporting event. And I get that. I understand the inclination. It's diversion. I understand that. I just think there's a certain level of irresponsibility, particularly during, you know, tumultuous times like we have now to pretend that there's the A, the outside world doesn't exist. And B, that sports is not inextricably twined with that world. And I think that sports, the best sports writers, and I someday hope to apply for their for for their lodge, the best sports writers try to keep this history in mind and try to understand that, like, nope, that's not what happened. Nope, that's not what happened. That's not the way it went down. But I do think sports at a certain level. Listen, sports is a base thing. You know, I always joke that nothing in the world makes me like jump up and spontaneously scream other than sports and like seeing a spider, like sports is like emotional, right? Sports makes you like fired up combo. Yeah. Yeah, right. Spiders are scary. And but at a certain level, you know, sports, there is something visceral about sports. There's something raw. It's a place that sometimes to get emotions out that maybe you don't you're uncomfortable with in the actual world. And so I understand that idea of wanting to keep it in this kind of little bubble. But I there is a certain level of irresponsibility. I've written a lot of story. I wrote a long story for New York Magazine a few years ago about more than a vote, which was LeBron James voter registration organization that now has since been transferred over to the WNBA. And what was interesting is, you know, in 2020 and 2021, that was the most politically active the sports world has ever been. I don't think there's any question about pushing out more than a vote. You're seeing less of that now from the athletes themselves. And when you talk to them about if you can get them to make any sort of comment at all. One of the first thing they say is, yeah, like, you know, my job is hard enough. I'm just trying to focus on the games. Athletes themselves try to do this. So I understand the idea. But I also think in a lot of ways, I don't need to tell you this. People have gotten pretty worn down by by the last half decade of American life. And I don't mean to excuse it. And I try not to. No, no, no. Because I'm actually but I do understand that.

[00:33:06] Speaker 2: I want you to tell me a sports lullaby. OK, well, now it's your time. Tell me, what are you excited to watch? What are the Cinderella stories to come? Give me something to look forward to about the Winter Olympics.

[00:33:21] Speaker 1: So there's a new event this year. It's called it's called Ski Mountaineering or Schemo is what they call it. It's a new event. I always love new events. It's a great part of the Olympics is there's always one or two new sports that you're like, oh, we're breakdancing now, OK? All right, sure. Let's all go with it. That'll be fun. And so this year it's Schemo. Schemo is basically ski mountaineering, which is it's basically generally what you think of skiing, except you have to go up the hill first. And so you have to do like cross-country skiing up the hill. And then once you get up there, there's no lifts. It's a timed thing. It's kind of a complicated, kind of a complicated sport. But it's so I think people are going to love the Schemo.

[00:34:06] Speaker 2: Are they going to put like GoPros on them? Like, are we going to feel like, oh, yeah, you're going to feel.

[00:34:11] Speaker 1: Yeah. And to me, I have to say I don't understand what it is like to be able to go down a hill and be able to fly with the grace of a beautiful. I understand what it's like to trudge up a hill.

[00:34:26] Speaker 2: Slowly, that feels like American life.

[00:34:29] Speaker 1: So so at a certain level, I think that's going to be a game. We're into it. We're into it. OK, what else? I do think the Lindsey Vonn thing is going to be a pretty exciting part of this Olympics. I think, yeah, I do. I you know, not only not only is I mean, she's older, she's in her she's 41 years old. It's the we there's something about as I'm a big baseball fan and I always love that brief period that's now passed when there were still baseball players that were older than me.

[00:34:58] Speaker 2: You know, we're also very occupied as a society with longevity and life right now. And so I think the athletes and we see this elsewhere, right? The athletes who seem to defy that, like it's there on top of being very good if they can somehow defy aging itself. We are like rooting for them. Can I eat? We're like, yes, yes, yes. Get in your refrigerators, drink your protein, whatever you're doing, you know what I mean? And then come back from Olympus and tell us how it works.

[00:35:31] Speaker 1: Yes, it's I guess the sports equivalent of the way that like boomers won't let go of power. It's like there's 22 year olds. They're like, no, it's my turn. Like, we'll be faster. And so I think I think and she, of course, overcome some pretty serious injuries as well. So I think that that's going to be a fun story, too. And I do think one thing that's going to be very, very fun in this Olympics that really should be noted to get back to hockey. The professionals are back in the Olympics this year. They have not been at the at the Olympics since the Sochi Olympics in 2014. It is.

[00:36:02] Speaker 2: Wait, on top of heated rivalry. There's going exactly. It's a hockey moment. Like Simon about it is a hockey eighties back, baby. I'm ready.

[00:36:12] Speaker 1: Oh, it is going to be very, very fun. I think I do think having the pros, having the best players in the world at the Olympics, again, not just on the heels of heated rivalry, which I totally agree on the heels of his rival, but also that event last year that became a very, very big deal. I think that's going to be a big part of these Olympics. For I think casual fans that are just kind of ducking in. But I should listen. This is the glory of the Olympics, right? Like there are always stories and you can duck in and duck out. I've I've talked to pass about like bill for hardcore sports fans sometimes see the Olympics the way that like was the old joke about partiers and drinkers see New Year's Eve. It's like, oh, welcome. Welcome, the rest of you. We're here all the time. And I think that's the glory of the of the Olympics is you don't have to be an obsessive like me and a lot of hardcore sports fans. You can duck in. You can find a funny new event you've never seen before. You can get it in rapture with one story that you've not thought with my kids.

[00:37:08] Speaker 2: What I would do is find sports that were like new or unusual just so that they could see them like quite literally like, oh, this is water polo. You know what I mean? Or this is this like equestrian thing. It was this tiny little window into the world. And it was interesting to see what they were excited about. Before I let you go, can I ask, because we had talked underdogs and everything. What is the deal with Greenland? Do they feel teams like through Denmark or like, how does it work?

[00:37:34] Speaker 1: So this is actually very funny. So Greenland has they do not currently have a FIFA recognized soccer team because they're not in the World Cup. They've actually applied for they basically got a team together. They're kind of late to the game a little bit. It's hard to you know, there's a lot of ice.

[00:37:50] Speaker 2: So it's a very small soccer mountaineering team. Like, yeah, that would be fun.

[00:37:57] Speaker 1: But but, you know, there are, you know, I mean, like obviously there are Nordic teams, Finland and Sweden have very good soccer team. So they've tried to they've actually applied to get into CONCACAF, which is the United States. And of course, they are. There are lots of countries that are provinces or properties of larger countries that still get to have their own teams. Greenland has been through this 10 to 15 year process of trying to get recognized by FIFA and trying to get in CONCACAF. And about two years ago, there was an interview with someone involving their soccer federation who said, I think we're going to make it. We're almost been a long process where we're almost there. I feel like twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five are the years we break through to FIFA. Well, I have some bad news. I have some I have some bad news. I'm afraid because I think that that is it appears that they have that their soccer team, this is a bad time for that to be happening across the board in a lot of ways in Greenland. But unfortunately, you can still get a Greenland kit. They have very sharp kits. I was if you're looking for a way to support Greenland during this time, maybe you can get one of those, but they will not be the World Cup, unfortunately.

[00:38:58] Speaker 2: And then in the Olympics, are they going to be or there are competitions that they're very good at? I think the president probably assumes.

[00:39:05] Speaker 1: Sledding, sledding, they're just very small, I think that's generally that's generally the issue is that there are there are there are some competitors in the Olympics from Greenland this year, but they're not a power because they are there. They are a very small country.

[00:39:18] Speaker 2: But that's OK. Just there's always when they do the parade of nations, it's always fun to see the different like outfits and everything. And there is always that contingent from a country that's very small, where there's just like four people and an enormous flag. And you're just like, you go, you know.

[00:39:34] Speaker 1: I and I think in Italy, in Italy, that might get an ovation this year. I will say the this is definitely going to get the most ovation. I think the Greenland contingency is going to get that probably in Olympic history.

[00:39:45] Speaker 2: OK, well, well, thank you so much for talking with me. Please tell people where they can find your writing. Where are you writing this these days?

[00:39:53] Speaker 1: So I write wherever they'll have me. But I'm a contributing editor in New York Magazine and I'm a columnist for The Washington Post. I also write about college football for the athletic and baseball for MLB dot com.

[00:40:03] Speaker 2: So I you're not in Substack Nation. You're not like I am.

[00:40:07] Speaker 1: I'm I do. I do have a subject, but it's free. It is just a way to like get thoughts out of my brain on Saturdays. I would never charge people for it. It's William F. Leach dot subsect dot com. But it's not it's not it. I promise it's usually not as political as it's been the last couple of weeks. It's just it's OK.

[00:40:27] Speaker 2: Listen, people are going to hear free Substack and they're going to say it's free. It's always free.

[00:40:33] Speaker 1: Yes, it's always only once a week. I will not bombard you a box.

[00:40:36] Speaker 2: No, no, that's amazing. Well, thank you so much for talking to me about this. It was super fun.

[00:40:42] Speaker 1: Of course. Thanks for having me. Enjoy the Olympics and good luck with all of it, with everything. With life, with all of this.