The Olympics have always been my favorite sporting event. Besides the fact that the sports I cared most about (namely swimming) shone at the Olympics, I think I always enjoyed the pageantry of it. The opening ceremonies, where the iconography, aesthetics, history, music, and culture of the host country was put on grand display, where each country parades out in national dress beneath their flag, where the symbolic lighting of the torch marks the opening of the games… to the closing ceremonies, where athletes don their medals and wreaths and mingle across nationalities, beaming, taking in all the grandeur to celebrate their physical prowess.
As I’ve grown older, the Olympics, as with any institution, has lost some of its allure, as stories of cheating, abuse, and discrimination have surfaced. This week, we join Friend of High Noon Myka Kielbon on an exploration of one of Olympic History’s key blunders, a mistake in Sydney in 2000 that caused a lasting impact but which hasn’t been properly explored until now.
Please enjoy this special guest edit of High Noon. xxSCREMES (Shawn)
And now, over to Myka…
As the world returns to — I will not say normal — face-to-face human interaction being considered medically safe along with everything social that entails, we are still living in the ripple of the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, we always will be.
Personally, the last year or so signaled a tide change. I've split my time in the Pacific Northwest, where I grew up, and LA, which has become my adult home. My creative and professional life shifted, despite my holding onto the same job.
Over the same period of time, I have been involved in telling a story about perspective, about how something out of your control changes everything that follows. This story is Blind Landing, a limited-release podcast that is this week's Long Read (and Listen).
Watching sports indoors on a summer day brings me a certain kind of nostalgia. But this year is different, partly because of the state of the world in a pandemic, partly because of the inherent injustices that come along with this global competition, and partly because of how working on Blind Landing has changed both my perspective and investment. Nostalgia, however, can be something you take with you — even when you're facing change, even when you're pushing for it.
Myka Kielbon makes radio and writes poetry on the West Coast, among other things. Follow her on Instagram or Twitter.
The Roundup
Links to the stories you should be reading this week
A vast dimensions database, including "tall" gymnast Svetlana Khorkina. ✺ Kyle Chayka explores the long-tail repercussions of the now-dominant “creator economy.” ✺ Naomi Osaka speaks out about athletes’ relationships to the media and mental health. ✺ The AI-generated voice in Morgan Neville’s new Anthony Bourdain doc is end days level weird. ✺ Invite-only Raya’s recent spate of leaked celebrity profiles calls into question the ethics of dating app culture. ✺ Sally Rooney blesses us with a new short story… or is it a sneaky excerpt from a forthcoming novel?
The Long Read
The week’s keynote story
Only going to read one thing? Read me.
Blind Landing | Myka Kielbon | High Noon Original
The 2020 Olympics are upon us, although it is 2021 and although the string of complications that come with pulling off the 125-year-old gathering of nations seems endless. The buzz is at an all-time high and the games appear, for better or worse, set to begin this week. One of the sports generating the most conversation is Women's Artistic Gymnastics.
Spectators love gymnastics for the seemingly impossible feats that these athletes reach (I'm looking at you, Simone Biles). And that drives a lot of the buzz. It's not all glory and perfection, though. Over the last couple of years, more and more elite gymnasts have come out with stories of abuse they experienced in the sport, including some of the stars set to compete in this year's games.
That's the backdrop in which I joined the team covering a different story, one that happened over twenty years ago. As this podcast's host, Ari Saperstein, puts it, it's
[a] story that’s been pretty buried. A story about gymnasts and trust — trust in authority, in the Olympics, in the rule book, in themselves, in blind landings. And when that trust backfires... There’s been so much important reporting lately about the bad things that happen behind closed doors in gymnastics. And this is a story about a bad thing that happened televised, live, on the world’s biggest stage, right in front of our eyes.
It all happened at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. During the Women’s Gymnastics All-Around Final, gymnast after gymnast fell on the vault. Gymnastics competitions, of course, are often decided by who sticks it and who stumbles... but this? This was weird.
Nearly a dozen competitors had uncharacteristic mistakes. Some of these falls were nearly deadly. At first, everyone chalked it up to nerves – but halfway through the competition, one gymnast found out what was wrong.
I won't give away what the mistake was — you'll have to listen to the show. I will say that it was tiny, but unprecedented. However, for many of the gymnasts competing at Sydney, the initial mistake wasn’t even the worst of it; things somehow devolved further, they say, when the officials tried to fix the problem. Blind Landing is the story of the vault controversy told through the voices of the Olympians, their coaches, the officials and gymnastics experts, exploring the impact two inches had not only on the competition but how it rippled through the gymnasts’ lives.
Often throughout stories of controversy like this one, you're left wondering why the athletes keep going. Blind Landing asks that question, and what comes out is a story about control. Elite gymnasts have more control over their bodies than all of us, but the ways they find control in their lives after something unprecedented is something we can all relate to these days.
Below is a link to listen to the whole series - it's about two hours of audio over five episodes, perfect to binge on a summer drive or flight.
Listen
Listen to Episode 1 of Blind Landing, with Team USA gymnast Elise Ray.
Cheers
This week's drink is a Japanese bar staple: the Whisky Highball. If you're lucky, you're in a city where you can order a Toki Highball on tap. But if you're not, you can make one yourself. And frankly, a simple highball is the perfect drink for summer heat and odd-hours sports viewing.
2 oz Japanese Whiskey
Soda Water
Place one large cube of ice in a highball glass. Stir until a frost appears on the glass. Pour off any excess water. Add one more cube of ice, then add the whiskey to the glass. Stir exactly 13 times clockwise. Place another cube of ice in the glass (the ice should fill the highball at this point). Top with soda water and stir three times to incorporate.