Listen to this Hang Up and Listen Olympics Extra with Josh Levin by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:
Subscribe in iTunes ∙ RSS feed ∙ Download ∙ Play in another tab
Slate Plus members: Get your ad-free podcast feed
Become a fan of Hang Up and Listen and join the discussion of this episode on Facebook here:
In this Hang Up and Listen Olympics Extra, Josh Levin speaks with Dwight Stones, a longtime NBC commentator and a two-time Olympic medal-winner in the high jump, about what’s wrong with NBC’s track-and-field coverage. Plus, David Epstein of ProPublica debunks the myth that Usain Bolt wins races because he decelerates at a slower rate than other runners.
Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned on the show:
- After the Argentina men’s field hockey team won gold, the Buenos Aires Herald said “field hockey will no longer be considered a female sport.”
- The U.S. women’s basketball team will play for gold on Saturday against Spain. They will win.
- Wrestler Helen Maroulis gave up chocolate and salad dressing to make her 53-kilogram weight class. She then became the first U.S. woman to win a gold medal in wrestling.
- Japanese badminton players Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi won gold.
- Usain Bolt clocked a relatively slow time in the 200-meter final but still won easily.
- Americans Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs won gold and silver in shot put.
- Ashton Eaton won his second consecutive gold medal in the decathlon.
- Follow former Olympic high jumper Dwight Stones on Twitter and check out his website.
- Canada’s Derek Drouin won gold in the high jump, clearing 7 feet 9¾ inches.
- As Daniel Lametti wrote in Slate in 2012, Olympic high jump and long jump marks are regressing.
- Former Olympic long jumper Carl Lewis called the long jump the “worst event in the world.”
- Follow David Epstein on Twitter and buy his book The Sports Gene.
- Publications like the Wall Street Journal have perpetuated the myth that Usain Bolt slows down slower than other runners.
- Watch Bolt win the 100-meter final at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
- Josh’s after-torch: Andrew Clarke, the inventor of a tug-of-war machine called the Pro-Tug, promises it “will bring tug of war to the future and make it more appealing and modernised to the younger generation of people.”
Podcast production and edit by Dan Bloom and Efim Shapiro.
Our intern is Laura Wagner.
You can email us at hangup@slate.com.
