The SportsThink Review #106
August 9, 2024: One Last Olympic Roundup
Welcome new readers! The SportsThink Review highlights my favorite sport-related reading and related content. Most things I share are recently published, but some are not; the only rule is that I’ve read or encountered them recently. Some are relevant to my day job as a professor teaching courses on the business, history, and philosophy of sports. Others are just plain interesting, relevant to my lifelong obsession with the games we play. I also occasionally share articles and assorted musings on Twitter. The newsletter is free, but comes with two requests. 1. I’m always open to suggestions, so send me the good stuff that you read! 2. If you enjoy the newsletter, please share it with other folks who might enjoy it as well. Finally, I try to focus on non-paywalled writing, but if you find yourself unable to access anything, just hit reply to the email and I’ll do my best to get you a copy. Thanks for reading!
Howdy folks, happy Friday. Hope you’ve been enjoying the Olympics as much as I have. I’ll admit that withdrawals are creeping up on me and I’m not looking forward to the return of “well, what should we watch?” being the evening motif in the household. But for now, there’s a few more events to enjoy and some things to read. Definitely a bit of grab bag this time around, but I trust you’ll find something worth your time. Let’s get to it.
One High School Has Produced an Olympian at Every Summer Games Since 1952 (Jeff Eisenberg, Yahoo! Sports)
I love stuff like this. A look at the absolutely prolific track record of Long Beach California’s Woodrow Wilson High School. I feel that it’s important to note that BACK IN MY DAY, we beat them in soccer.
What the 2024 Olympics Tells Us About Geopolitics (Simon Chadwick and Paul Widdop, The Conversation)
Decidedly less fun than the piece above, but a good read. Maybe not substantive enough for the folks who study the subject, but a good summary and introduction of the ever present geopolitical entanglements of the Olympics and global sport.
Some Fun Olympic Stats (David Epstein, Range Widely)
This is breezy and cool. Epstein tags in Olympic historian Bill Mallon for some good odds and ends from the games. Here’s my favorite: Guatemala has participated in fifteen Summer (and one Winter) Olympics, and never won a gold medal. On Wednesday, Adriana Ruano Oliva — a former elite gymnast who switched sports after a spinal injury — won the country’s first gold medal in trap shooting. She competed at the previous Olympics, but finished last. This time, she set an Olympic record, hitting 45 out of fifty flying targets.
Simone Biles Goes Too Big to Fail—or to Properly Fathom (Katie Baker, The Ringer)
A solid and lengthy profile of the GOAT at the end of her storied career. Written/published after the team competition, so it’s a bit of a preview for events that have now passed, but very well done nonetheless. And the title rings true: I’m still trying to wrap my head around what Biles does out there, especially on the floor when she’s literally higher than a basketball hoop.
How U.S. Swimmers Are Using Math to Win Gold in the Pool (Henry Bushnell, Yahoo! Sports)
This will probably end up on the syllabus for my sports and innovation class. On the gold-medal collaboration of UVA/US swimmer Kate Douglass and her math professor, Ken Ono.
Sacred, Perilous Movement: On Breaking (Leo Kim, Cleveland Review of Books)
What are we to make of the fact that when confronted with the wretched, we dance? A long—almost 4,000 word—treatise on breakdancing breaking, the newest Olympic sport. I groaned a bit as I got into it, but Kim writes from the inside and does an admirable job of pushing past the standard, gatekeepy rants of aggrieved lifestylers. His ambition outpaces his skill in places, but ultimately a thought provoking read, especially for those of us who get overprotective of the things we hold dear.
As always, thanks for reading. Send me good links and please keep sharing the newsletter, I so appreciate it!
See you next time,
Tolga