Episode 10: Mind Boggling
In Episode 10 of Burn It All Down, Shireen Ahmed, Brenda Elsey, Lindsay Gibbs, and Jessica Luther marvel at the way pseudoscience is used to police female athletes’ bodies. They discuss women’s concussions, attempts to regulate women’s natural testosterone levels in track and field, Wimbledon thus far, and check in on Monica González, former captain of Mexican national soccer team after her world record breaking climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro to play in the highest ever regulated soccer match. So much to burn and so little time.
The state of research on women’s concussions and concussion protocols in women’s sports. (17:49) Interview with Katrina Karkazis on the IAAF’s regulation of women’s testosterone. How the IAAF polices wome fo color in particular, the racial identity of Dutee Chand and Caster Semenya (30:44) Our first reactions to Wimbledon and the stellar women’s matches. Go Venus! (34:09) Shireen Ahmed and Brenda Elsey interview Monica González about her climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro to play in the highest altitude regulation soccer match in history. The group of women, from 20 countries, were part of Equal Playing Field’s initiative, to raise awareness of gender disparity in sport. Gonzo Soccer Peace Foundation is launching a number of exciting initiatives, working with girls in Colombia, Mexico and with others on the horizon (48:01) Burn Pile – Shireen burns burkini bans in Corsican courts (51:29) Jessica burns the “Who Reports It First Game?” in sports social media, sparked by free agency drama. (53:51) Brenda burns the Guardian article that invented a protest supposedly hidden in the goal posts of the 1978 World Cup (57:20) Lindsay burns Jaime Horowitz and Fox Sports. After decimating Fox Sports, it turned out that Horowitz had sexually harassed journalists (1:01:28) Bad Ass Women of the week: Bianca Sierra and Stephany Mayor, Mexican soccer players who have denounced homophobia in Mexico. (1:03:48) Honorable Mentions: Shireen, Khadijah Diggs (1:05:39) Katinka Hosszu (1:07:29) Danielle Kang (1:08:58)
Correction: Shireen Ahmed said that Rowan Stringer died in 2003. She died in 2013.
Links
On female concussions: http://www.espn.com/espnw/sports/article/19775123/why-does-seem-cares-female-concussions and http://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/page/espnwbodywagner/figure-skater-ashley-wagner-talks-concussions-costumes-collisions-body-2017
And women soccer players’ protocol: http://www.excellesports.com/news/womens-soccer-concussion-protocol-nwsl/
Chastain donating her brain: https://thinkprogress.org/the-significance-of-brandi-chastain-donating-her-brain-to-concussion-research-f4c52fb8c02d
Ostapenko’s name preference and fan base:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/08/sports/tennis/jelena-ostapenko-latvia-wimbledon.html?smid=tw-nytsports&smtyp=cur
Guests:
Katrina Karkazis: http://katrinakarkazis.com; @Karkazis
Monica Gonzalez: gonzosoccer.org; @MonicaGonzo
Article on Equal Playing Field’s initiative on Mt. Kilimanjaro:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/29/football/female-footballers-mount-kilimanjaro-world-record/index.html
Burn Pile:
http://m.rfi.fr/france/20170703-france-cour-appel-marseille-ressuscite-affaire-burkini
Bad Ass Women of the Week:
Bianca Sierra and Stephany Mayor:
http://diosasolimpicas.com/DiosasTV/bianca-sierra-y-stephany-mayor/ and https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/sports/soccer/iceland-soccer-stars-in-love-find-acceptance.html
Khadijah Diggs:
http://www.atlantamuslim.com/2017/jun/18/atlanta-muslim-khadijah-diggs/
Katinka Hosszu:
https://swimswam.com/katinka-hosszu-launches-pro-swimmers-union/
Transcript
Brenda: Welcome to this week of Burn It All Down. It may not be the feminist sports podcast you want, but it's the feminist sports podcast you need. This week, our panel includes Shireen Ahmed, a freelance sports writer in Toronto who focuses on the intersection of sports and race; Lindsay Gibbs, sportswriter for ThinkProgress on sports and politics, based in Washington, DC; Jessica Luther, independent writer and author of Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape – she’s in Texas. And driving the Burn It All Down bus this week is me, Brenda. Elsey a history professor at Hofstra University.
This week, we'll discuss the issue of women athletes’ concussions, the pseudoscience behind limiting women's natural testosterone levels in track and field, our reactions to Wimbledon thus far, and we check in on Monica González, the former captain of Mexican national soccer team, after her world record-breaking climb up Mount Kilimanjaro to participate in the highest ever regulated soccer match. So much to burn, and so little time. So, let's jump right into topic number one, maybe the only time that we want women's soccer to follow the NFL’s lead? Maybe? When it comes to concussion protocols. Jessica, do you want to lead us into this one?
Jessica: Sure. So, the latest issue of ESPN magazine – it’s actually the body issue, so you've probably seen it – it features an article by Peter Keating about why no one cares about concussions when it's women who get them. So, Keating writes, “The latest studies continue to find that women get brain injuries more often in sports also played by men, but research into why and how is lagging to non-existent, as our efforts to reverse the trend, which means millions of female athletes are putting their brains at risk unnecessarily.” He notes that, “When it comes to looking deeper into the experience of concussions among female athletes specifically, researchers for the most part have been uninterested, unwilling or unfunded,” which basically sounds like science about women in general.
So, in that same issue of ESPN magazine, figure skater Ashley Wagner talks about the impact of the five concussion she has had in her career. And I will admit that I had actually never even considered concussions in figure skating before I read this. And it is simply quite shocking to read about how this brain trauma has altered Wagner's life. So she says, “The concussions definitely rewired my brain and the way that I process information. My short term memory is not that incredible. Talking to me is a little bit like talking to Dory from Finding Nemo.” She goes on to talk about how she has trouble remembering choreography. She forgets in the middle of performances what the next thing is that she needs to do. And then get this – this sort of blew my mind. She says, “A lot of times in figure skating, whiplash is what gives you a concussion, more than anything else. You don't even have to hit your head on the ice to get a concussion. So, having that neck strength has helped a lot in that aspect of my life.” I mean, that is just…Wow.
So, this gender disparity in concussion and brain trauma research has bigger ramifications than just in sports. Outside of athletes and soldiers, the group that experiences these issues the most are domestic abuse victims, the overwhelming majority of whom are women. And of course, still women are rarely the focus of the science around this. And so one of the things I think about when this comes up, and it comes up repeatedly, is how do you even make people care about this? Like, it just feels to me like another example, and there are just so many, of our general societal shrug at the harm done to women. What do you guys think?
Lindsay: Yes. [laughs] I think that all, all…That’s kinda the only word that's coming to mind right now. But I think that, look, you have so many compounding factors to why this is such a limited discussion. First of all, you have the fact that, in science, women are also often ignored, period, right? This is not a concussion specific problem. You see it with all types of medical testing, that women are just ignored because it's a little bit more difficult when you include women in the study. And so people just don't. So, you have that. You have the fact that female athletes receive such a small amount of society's attention anyways, that it makes sense that female athletes would be disregarded in this way. And then you also have the fact that a lot of people within women's sports are a little bit scared to talk about this because the data which proves that women, in comparable sports, women suffer concussions at higher rates than men do.
That's a kind of scary statistic to point out there, for multiple reasons, mainly because there's still such a large section of society that thinks that really women shouldn't be playing these competitive sports at all. So, I've always sensed that there is a fear, and Peter Keating does touch on this in his article, that this is just going to give more credence to those who want women to just stop doing this physical activity. So, there's so many factors. It was really glad to see this Peter Keating article come out this week. I actually met him at the international summit on female concussions, which was in Washington DC last year. I learned so much at this summit. I was going through a piece I wrote at the time, right after the summit. Brandy Chastain donated her brain to CTE research. As of last year, there were 307 brains in the Boston University brain bank, which is studying CTE, and only 7 were female. So it's really important to get these female athletes to donate their brains to be studied, because until we study more things, we're not going to know.
But a few takeaways from some of the researchers that were talking at this conference that I was at. There were some really interesting things. First of all, when we go back to the studies Dr. Angela Colantonio, who worked for the University of Toronto, said that in an analysis of 200 TBI studies – that's traumatic brain injury studies – only 7% included sex-specific data. So, only 7% of the studies even separated women out of the data. So, that's really jarring. That really shows how long we have to go. There's also just differences within women and men's brains, biologically, that show that we would need to have different studies. The sexes display a variance in blood flow, glucose, metabolism, and interconnectivity in their brains, estrogen levels and neck strength are also factors that cause TBIs to differ between men and women. And there's a big difference between…You have the progesterone, which is a part of women's menstrual cycle. It's why women who are of childbearing age are the most likely people to get concussions, most susceptible to concussions.
And there's just a lot of science about when the concussion happens during a menstrual cycle that relates to how bad the concussion actually could be, because of the level of progesterone that is present. And sorry, I'm not a super comfortable talking to all these science terms, but thank you all for bearing with me. One more thing: Dr. Gill found that seven days into a TBI, women have tau concentrations that are 30% higher than the mean tau concentrations found in men, which is an indicator that their symptoms will be worse at 30 days. That really interests me, because CTE is all about – which is chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is the chronic brain disease that has been most associated with football players. But that brain disease is all focused on the concentration of tau proteins as such a big indicator for CTE. Whew! Okay.
Brenda: That was a lot of wading through science, but it's really important that we do it. Shireen, did you have something to add here?
Shireen: Just to sort of touch up on what Lindsay was saying about, you know, gender and the studies and the research, Ontario passed a law called Rowan's Law. And I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but in 2003, a 17 year old rugby player from Ottawa named Rowan Stringer suited up for her last rugby match, and she actually died because she had not been aware and ignored the signs of concussion. She had two in one week. So, what ended up happening, the coroner did an inquest into her death and came up with 49 recommendations which were then forwarded in the form of like an advisory committee bill by an MPP named Lisa MacLeod. And they were enacted into law, and what this means is that this study was sort of…The catalyst of this was Rowan's death, of course. And there's a couple of factors here. And this is specifically to Ontario, not the entire country, which I believe it should be.
But what's happening here, it was based on the fact that also athletes themselves sometimes don't know. And I think the information and the education for athletes is important as well, because Rowan didn't know the signs of what a concussion was. She didn't know the symptoms, and she suited up for what would eventually be the last game of her life. And I think it's really important they mentioned in some of the reporting that she had Googled “concussion” on her phone to find out what it was, because she didn't even know. The National Post did a four part or three part series on this. And I remember, I played rugby, knock on wood, 35 years of soccer playing. I've not had a concussion. My kids haven't had concussions. But it is so common. My daughter and her club, I don't know how many do.
And the thing is, the research has also shown, and all the reporting that had come out of Rowan Stringer’s death, was that once you have one, the propensity and the possibility of having them increases greatly. And when you are starting with young girls, like as young as 13, 14 in competitive sports, it can have absolute effects on their lives, as we know, moving forward. And I think it's just really important. And also the research that needs to be done not only has to be, you know, relevant to gender because it's important, but also to age as well. And I think that that's something that we need to keep in mind and, you know, hopefully everyone's heads are safe. Because concussions are really, really scary. And particularly if the young girls who are out there playing don't know what even to do about it and their parents don't know. And this is something that the Stringers have come out and said, that they wish they had more information about it to.
Brenda: Jess did you wanna…?
Jessica: Yeah, I want to piggyback right off of what Shireen just said, actually. So, earlier this year I coauthored a feature about women's rugby at Quinnepiac that was published in April at SB Nation. And one of the things that I remember is talking to one of the young athletes and she was telling me that one of the issues that they had there with resources was that they only had one trainer for the team. And this was a point of contention between the team and the university, because it made it very dangerous for them. Like, she remembered a very specific experience where she was injured. I don't think it was a concussion, but she needed to go to the hospital. And so a coach had to leave the game and go with her because they needed some kind of adult to go with her, and the trainer needed to stay there in case someone else got hurt, because this was rugby, so inevitably someone would. But you can just imagine, like Shireen said, the athletes themselves don't have a lot of knowledge about this. If you only have like a single trainer, especially for a team that's playing a game like rugby and they're all trying to manage with very little resources on this stuff. You can see how this very quickly becomes a problem, that of course is worse for women's sport because they're so under-resourced compared to men’s.
Brenda: And just to bring it back to the beginning of the topic, Linz, did you want to talk a little bit about protocols in soccer or other women's sports?
Lindsay: I do. I mean, protocols, as you mentioned at top, the NFL has come a long way when it comes to concussion protocol. They still have a long way to go. But the scary thing is, as far as the NFL still has to go, other leagues are lagging dramatically behind, including women's sports. There was a great article on Excelle Sports this week about the concussion protocols in the National Women's Soccer League, and it is just staggering how horrible these concussion protocols are. So, just reading from this article, according to the league's current protocol, all players must take an impact test, a computerized concussion assessment exam, before the season starts. And that establishes baseline data, which is a good thing to have. Before you start any of this stuff, you need to have each player’s baseline data because concussion symptoms and just normal cognitive functioning varies from person to person. So now, whenever a player is suspected of a concussion, she has to be given this impact test again and then she has to keep taking it until she passes it. And there's usually a week in between. However, when the player passes that test, they go onto the next phase, which – wait for it – is headers.
Jessica: What? [laughter]
Brenda: Oh god.
Lindsay: Sorry. I feel like I've been talking a lot, but I just have to read this. Day one, you were to head the ball eight yards away, five times forward, five times on the right, five times on the left. Sky Blue FC player Kelly Conheeney, who has suffered multiple concussions, told Excelle Sports of the process. Day two, you are now 18 yards away from the ball and this same procedure follows. Five times forward, five times on the right, five times on the left. Day three, you are to stand 30 yards away and a trainer is supposed to kick the ball for you to head five times forward, five times left, five times right. It is absurd!
Jessica: Lindsay. I don't under…Can you explain, what are they looking for when they're doing this?
Brenda: Aggravating concussion?
Lindsay: I don't know, really. I think they're looking…I mean, that's what it ends up doing.
Jessica: I don’t understand this at all!
Lindsay: I don't understand it at all. I mean, because what it ends up meaning is that a player ends up having to, in the course of three days, head the soccer ball 45 times in three days!
Shireen: There's no specific proof that it's headers that cause the ball…I mean, from the things I've read and the experiences I've had, collision is actually one of the biggest causes of concussions of women in soccer. So I don't even understand why these incessant heading drills are happening. Like, I just don't get it.
Lindsay: No, I don't understand this at all. And the piece doesn't really go into exactly why this is the protocol, though that is definitely reporting I would like to continue to do. But it does say in the piece that a lot of the coaches and players, the coaches would encourage the players not to do this part of the test – because of course! Because it's ridiculous!
Jessica: It doesn't make any sense. Okay. [laughs]
Lindsay: It doesn't make any sense. I wish I had more information for you guys and I wish I could explain this, but I cannot. I think what it seems like it's trying to do is to test this fine theory that we all have, you know what I mean? Like, “I'm fine.” But obviously this doesn’t… [Jessica laughs] This just makes sure you're not fine, instead of like figuring out if you are fine. And look, it comes down to also the NWSL, and the article goes into this. The NWSL does not have independent doctors, which is something that the NFL finally does have. And so it goes back to a resource thing, you know, which you see it's better of course than a lot of high school and college sports, but even on the professional level, women's sports don't have the resources that men's sports have. So, they don't have the trainers around. They don't have the education. And look, a lot of these women…I mean, you are all competing for such a small part of the pie in women's sports.
And I often hear that women report concussions more often or it's not as big of a deal because there's not as much money at stake. But for me it's even worse, because such a large portion of your future is based on whether or not you can play this game or not and whether or not you can earn this money. And you have such limited time, and there’s…I mean, the money that goes around is not enough for even everyone to live month to month, let alone to sustain the rest of their career. So there's just so much pressure on these female athletes, and the protocols and the science are all lagging behind. And it's sad.
Brenda: Speaking of pseudoscience and gender disparity in sport, let's move on to topic number two. The International Association of Athletic Federations, or the IAAF, continues to meet and examine regulations surrounding women athletes’ natural production of testosterone and its relationship to their supposedly athletic advantage. This week, a number of stories appeared regarding whether Dutee Chand and Caster Semenya among others could be forced to undergo hormone therapy to compete. Earlier this week, I interviewed expert Katrina Karkazis to break down the media misunderstandings for us.
Hello. I'm here with Katrina Karkazis, and she is a senior research scholar at the center for biomedical ethics at Stanford University. Burn It All Down is thrilled to have her here. She is the author of forthcoming book Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography, which is under contract with Harvard University Press. And she's writing it with Rebecca Jordan-Young. This week, we saw a number of articles come out surrounding Dutee Chand and Caster Semenya, and new supposed findings about testosterone and its production in athletes. And we wanted to ask Katrina today to talk to us a little bit about what's going on with the use of science and policing women's bodies. Katrina, hey.
Katrina: Yeah, hey Brenda. Nice to be here. Thank you for reaching out. Man, what a week, what a week. What a bad week. So, we kind of got hit with media flurry that honestly really surprised me, because there's nothing there. And so what do I mean by that? Well, a couple of years ago, Dutee Chand won her case, which was basically a case taking down the testosterone regulation that the International Olympic Committee and the IAAF, which is the governing body for track and field, had had in place for about four years, putting a ceiling on women's natural testosterone levels. And the deadline is coming up where if the IAAF wants to make an attempt to reinstate this regulation – which is suspended right now, and it has been for two years – they have to file by the end of this month. And so they have published very little regarding evidence that they would need to reinstate this policy at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and they are the ones that heard this case.
And basically they have a task…So, I kind of want your listeners to know what this task is, because it becomes important. It was completely missed by the media, which was really frustrating and sloppy. So, here's how this regulation works. It basically says testosterone is jet fuel for athletes; women who have naturally higher levels have an unfair advantage over women who have lower levels. And the IAAF submitted some evidence to the Court of Arbitration for Sport showing that maybe, at best – and this was really spotty, problematic evidence at best – you might see a 1 to 3% performance difference between women with higher levels and lower levels. But even that…I won't go into it, but we need to be skeptical of that. This was really shaky evidence. And the Court said not good enough. This is a regulation that discriminates against women, and if you're going to discriminate there has to be a valid reason.
And what the IAAF has argued is that these women have male typical advantage. Okay, what does that mean? Well, it got quantified in the court and they said roughly 10% is the kind of advantage that men typically have over women. And so if you're going to discriminate against women with higher testosterone levels who have every right to be in the women's category, it needs to be along the lines of a 10% or so performance difference. So that's what they have to show. And we don't need to be scientists to understand that they can't show this. Why can't they show it? Well, because if women, these women, were doing 10% better, they would be clocking male times, right? [laughs] They would be at that level. So anybody can look at the times and see that, you know, women like Dutee and Caster are nowhere near male times in their events, right? Which is 800 meter for one of them and 100 meter for the other.
So, this study came out. The Guardian went with a splash, they've done some really horrible coverage, very pro-regulation, and argued that this is what the IAAF needed to reinstate the policy. And it's no different than the evidence that they showed in 2015 when we tried the case – which is, again, 1 to 3%, so it's nowhere near what they need to show of 10%. And where people are getting confused, and I think to kind of finish up the thought here, there’s two problems. The IAAF and the people working with them – and, by the way, they did this study, so all of the science that they keep citing are basically done by house scientists, so to speak, right? People with a real vested biased interest in this policy. They put out this study, they had an op-ed also by an IAAF person, and they kept talking about it being a significant advantage. Well, it's statistically significant, but it's not the kind of significance that CAS wants.
So, statistically significant is what you need to publish, right? A p-value of a certain percentage. But it's not the 10% that they're looking for. And so they're using a sleight of hand in reporting it and almost all the media missed that, that this is no different than the evidence that they showed two years ago. It's showing the exact same kind of performance difference. And yet the media ran with it and published a lot of really one-sided stories. Certainly not everyone, but definitely the Guardian, one-sided story. There was actually no alternative opinion expressed in any of the Guardian’s coverage of this. So that's frustrating, because they have a huge readership. So, that's kind of where we're at right now.
Brenda: And can I ask you, just on a very basic level, aren't all elite athletes outliers, to a certain extent?
Katrina: It's certainly unusual, right, for anyone to get to the Olympic level. That already means that you have done something extraordinary, right? It's a very small percentage of people that rise to the top. And part of what troubles me about this conversation, including the conversation about the science, is the certitude that people seem to bring to bear on this conversation. “We know testosterone is the primary driver of athleticism.” “We know that women with higher T have advantage.” So everybody…The zinger in this study, there's a throwaway sentence in there like four or five pages in that says that…So, there's a study that looked at men and women athletes. The men, they found no relationship between testosterone and athleticism.
Brenda: Wow.
Katrina: None. I mean, not only is that just sort of unbelievable for many people – not for me, because you know, I've been reading some of the research, so it doesn't surprise me. But common thought is that testosterone drives all things masculine. It doesn't drive athleticism here. And, regarding the regulation, it completely undermines their theory that this is the primary determinant fueling men's performances ahead of women's, you know, women with higher levels above women with lower levels, right? So, it's not the primary driver. And certainly they didn't look at any other physiological factors. So, we’re at the beginning, I think in some ways, of understanding the genetics of athleticism. And no matter what, it will be complex. So the idea that there is one biological factor or one thing that is the primary driver, you know, most people in sports science will tell you no way, no way, right?
Brenda: No way.
Katrina: Yeah. Meaning it's gotta be many things – training, nutrition, access to technology. You know, the training is huge. I interviewed a gold medalist, a female Olympic rower that said what propelled her to Olympic medal level was that she started doing CrossFit. [laughs] It was nothing else, right? That was the main thing that she had changed her training regimen. So things like that matter.
Brenda: Of course. And it seems so common sensical, but when science gets thrown into the mix, people seem to have a hard time challenging it in the same way.
Katrina: It carries such a weight that is unbelievable. I've been looking at this regulation now for about five years, or actually I guess six years now. And it is the claim that needs no evidence. People will come out, even people with sports science backgrounds, some of them, they don't know this area, but they believe the T mythology, and therefore they spout these things that aren’t…They have no scientific grounding, but it sounds right. And it sounds right to people out in the world, right? This kind of folk wisdom. And we pay a high price for that. I don't pay a high price, but these athletes do. And the one thing that I thought that the Guardian got right was the headline, because what it said was that women with high T would be forced to undergo medical interventions if this regulation comes back, and that's true. That acknowledges the coercive nature of these regulations, that you will have no choice if you want to continue competing, you'll undergo surgery or drugs, right? In order to keep running in the category you've always run in.
Brenda: Yes. And can I just ask one follow-up question? Last one. I know you're busy. But if these women were white, do you think they would get the same degree of scrutiny?
Katrina: You know, I have a paper right now that is under review that talks about the really complex way that race is operating here. It's actually one of the hardest papers I've ever written, because there is a way in which the operation of race is working in multiple ways, and often by insinuation. So, it's not directly racist. It's one step over in another lane. But there's a couple of ways that women are becoming scrutinized. There is no question that this overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, affects Black and brown women from the Global South. That’s undisputed. Then the question is why? And that is where it gets complicated. But certainly, if you are someone who is performing well, who is in some way read as being gender atypical or gender non-normative, right? Which could just simply be being more muscular, right? Or wearing a different kind of outfit as you perform your athletic task or you compete. That brings attention. But there's a complex set of intermingled things going on here that make it such that it becomes Black and brown women. And it's absolutely true that the idealized phenotype here is a softer kind of fleshier woman with light skin, and anything outside of that becomes a kind of body that gets scrutinized in ways that other bodies don’t. it's viewed as aberrant. So it's not exclusively that, but that's definitely a piece of it.
Brenda: There's a healthy love of tennis here on Burn It All Down, and of course we are in the thick of the Wimbledon tournament. Lindsay, are you having fun yet?
Lindsay: I am having the time of my life. Only way it could be better is if I was actually there. Wimbledon is my favorite tournament of the year. It's probably the reason I love tennis as much as I do. And yeah, we're going to be quick here, you guys, but we just want to take a few minutes to talk about…There is a stellar round of 16 lineup for the women, which you will actually hear this podcast after Manic Monday is complete, so we're not going to get too into the matchups here. But you've got players like Venus Williams, defending last month's French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko, you’ve got Angelique Kerber, the world #1 has found some form. There's just some awesome things. There's been some hard things to watch too, such as Bethanie Mattek-Sands, the #1 doubles player in the world who was going for her fourth doubles grand slam with her partner, Lucie Safarova. She hurt her knee and there was a really horrible injury that she received in the second round of singles. And that was really hard to watch, but we wish her the best recovery. But look, Jess and I just wanted to take a second to chat about this. Jess, what have been your biggest takeaways from this week?
Jessica: Oh, I think easily…This is one of those tournaments where I'll just say, the best matches have been on the women's side so far in this first week. And like, you are a bad tennis fan if you believe that only men's tennis is worth watching or that having five setters is some magical formula for perfect sports drama. The women have just destroyed that in this tournament. We get this every once in a while where it works out this way, but they have just been spectacular. We have had so many tight three setters with really intense, beautiful tennis happening on the court. And it's just been really fun to watch the women's side of this. And I just want to give them props.
Lindsay: Props! And I just want to shout out my friend Ben Rothenberg who wrote what is my favorite article at the first week, which is Jelena Ostapenko’s fans don't cheer for Jelena. They Cheer for Alona. This is just one of those random like cultural stories, but Jelena Ostapenko… Jelena is her real name, but apparently she wants everyone to call her Alona. And apparently everybody in Latvia calls her Alona. And we will of course put this in the show notes. There's some crazy misunderstandings here about how this all came about. At one point, Ben quotes someone from the terminology and legal translation department at the Latvian state language center, which…I am so jealous that I have never had an excuse to source that department. [laughter] But anyways, it's just a fun story to get to know the French Open champion a little bit better. And of course, as always, for me, go Venus.
Jessica: Yeah, go Venus.
Brenda: Go Venus!
Shireen: Always go Venus.
Brenda: As much as this is Loving Serena Zone. It's clearly also Loving Venus Zone.
Lindsay: Hopefully she won't have lost by the time this goes live. [laughter]
Jessica: We’ll still love her. No matter what.
Lindsay: We’ll love her even if she does lose. We love her unconditionally.
Brenda: Absolutely. Well, thanks very much for that wrap up. Okay. And also earlier this week, Shireen and I checked in with Monica González, who participated on this Mount Kilimanjaro exercise for Equal Playing Field, trying to raise awareness of the disparity of women in sport.
Shireen and I are thrilled to have with us Monica González, the former captain of the Mexican national soccer team and founder of the Gonzo Soccer Peace Foundation, a soccer not-for-profit for girls in underserved communities. Now in Mexico, Colombia, and soon to be in Nicaragua and Dubai. Last week, she was part of a group of women that broke the world record for the world's highest altitude soccer match, played on Mount Kilimanjaro. Monica, are you recovered? Was the track of everything you hoped it would be?
Monica: The good thing is I went without expectations. So it was everything and more. And no, I'm not even nearly recovered. I fell asleep at 4:00pm yesterday and woke up like around between seven and eight this morning in like all my clothes, which is something I never do. And I had just come back from a massage and a Gonzo soccer meeting. So that was something I forgot to plan for. It was a lot more physically taxing than we thought it was going to be.
Shireen: Well, for the one thing, you’re professional soccer players so you understand what that is. But then to play after climbing a mountain, like, I just want to explain what this is for a lot of people–
Monica: And sleeping on rocks in tents! Like, we're in the middle of the night, you wake up and you've slid halfway down the tent, and Lori Lindsey is kind of halfway snoring in your ear and poking you every other half second so that you can stop snoring. [laughter]
Shireen: Well, I mean, yeah, it's not exactly optimal pre-match conditions, I don't think. But just for the few of our listeners that actually don't know, Monica was part of this really incredible project called Equal Playing Field, and what it was is women from more than 20 countries around the world played a match after climbing Kilimanjaro. So, they climbed 22,000 feet, I believe it is, the elevation?
Monica: Up to 19,000 feet. So it was like 5,800 meters is the actual summit. And the game, we had to go down into a volcanic crater because this is the highest single standing mountain in the world. So it's just like one beautiful volcano that you kind of do a dance with for eight days walking around, you know, you feel like you're walking in circles, but they have to climatize you little by little. And they took a NASA doctor. I mean, they weren't messing around, and had us do evaluations. To have the US national team fitness trainer with us and have the little sleep watches on and the GPSes in our bag. We had a practice game halfway up. And there's dust the whole way blowing in your face, and wind, and it's freezing cold. You know, you're on your feet all day, you get dehydrated because it's altitude. You get altitude sickness starting from the first day, or headaches and nausea and diarrhea. I mean, it's like every single thing that you never have to go through as a real player. And then yet you're asked to do that, wake up at three in the morning, climb another 1500 meters and then walk into a volcano and change into shorts and play a soccer game for 90 minutes. So, that's kind of what we did. We were like, this is beyond crazy. Let's see how it goes. The minute they said, “We're going to have a couple oxygen tanks for you guys up there if you need to run to the sideline – Monica, don't go take it all.” [laughter] I was like, all right, I'm going to make it.
Shireen: And just so everybody knows, we want to congratulate you as being part of the team that actually accomplished this, and you did break the world record, and it will be submitted for evidence for official recognition to the Guinness World Records. And so it's in there. And the point of the whole initiative was for, what, to draw attention to inequality in sport around the world?
Monica: It's an advocacy thing, you know, because they bring in women from all over the world, these women play for national teams and, you know, the other one that's from Latin America, her name is Josefina, she’s from Argentina. She works for the government and for a cause that on Twitter you can find it #NiUnaMenos, which means not one less, which coincidentally entered into my life last December when I accidentally stayed in an Airbnb where they had kidnapped raped, abused, tortured, and murdered a seven year old girl named Yuliana Samboní while I was in Bogotá to found, you know, formerly the Gonzo Peace Foundation there in Colombia, where I've had five schools for the last three years.
And it was obviously something that was kind of traumatic for me because I wasn't told over Airbnb exactly what had happened, and I had been there for three days, and I had decided to go do this in the mountain, to take her flag up to the top. And that was my cause. You know, that was my personal reason for going in. All of these women are like the biggest badasses from England, from France, from Saudi Arabia, from Jordan. And they've all either been willing to give their lives or put their lives at risk to play this game, you know, this game they love. And they realized that it's a symbol of the injustice in this world against women. And if men all over the world are already paying attention to football, why not use football as a means to show them exactly how unfair this world is and exactly why it's in their best interest to start fighting for our cause and to start fighting for balance.
Brenda: That's really beautiful. That description is really moving, Monica. Thank you.
Monica: Thanks. Well, the mountain is in me now, so. [laughs]
Shireen: I just can't get over the oxygen tanks at the sidelines. That's incredible.
Monica: I didn't even go use them until like, you know, we got those like emergency…Those like extreme weather breaks every 22 minutes when it's like 88 degrees, like, you know, in Jordan for the u-20 World Cup. And they're like, we're going to go take a break. Okay. Pause, time out. You know, regroup. Well, we got one of those and it was like legit really needed. We had sand flying in our face. Since I've been home I've been coughing up like black stuff from my lungs. This is something that people have never done before, and we needed 350 guides to carry our stuff, porters to carry all the stuff that we were all carrying 9 or 10 kilos in our own backpacks, but they had to carry the goalposts. It was a FIFA regulated game, you know?
Shireen: Oh, wow. [laughs]
Monica: Like, I never had to take a shit in the wilderness, and I only had to pee twice in all these days. So the organizers did an absolutely wonderful job in trying to make sure that we were as well taken care of as we could be on the way up.
Brenda: That's amazing. While we've got you on the line, and I know we don't have a ton of time when you're really busy, could you tell us a little bit about Gonzo Soccer Peace Foundation's projects right now?
Monica: Sure. I mean, I think it's just something that as I've grown up and realized that soccer actually gave me everything, from being able to get a college scholarship, you know, an education, playing professional, having it be my job, on television, and keeping me close to the MLS, later doing Champions and doing it in Spanish. And now switching over to Mexico, working in the union with FIFPRO and being able to defend the rights of the players, you know, just as soccer's exploding everywhere…I just feel like I came about in a really important time. And I'm such a nerd, I guess, for the game and for the women's game, that starting Gonzo Soccer has given me a way to be able to make sure that our game grows in the places it needs to grow and in the right ways. Because in the United States, inner city girls don't get a chance to play and it's becoming something that's very exclusive. I think you see it at the national team level. And in Mexico, it's something that every girl everywhere should have the right to play. And only girls in private schools get to play and nobody there takes it serious.
So, I got a little frustrated with the fact that Mexico kept having every single World Cup team have half the girls from the United States, you know, which is how they got me. It sounds funny, but I do think that you need to grow the talent here in Mexico. And I started doing that with Gonzo Soccer. Being able to provide a place for these girls to go after school, with time, taught me that when they're on a soccer field with a bunch of other girls, they're learning about themselves, they're learning how to socialize, they’re learning how to work well with others, how to deal with losing, with winning, and they're becoming empowered. And if we can sit them down and teach them about the inequalities in this world, and we can teach them about how to follow their own passions and expose them to different things, that's probably the best way that I can use all my experiences in life and all my knowledge in life to help make this world a better place.
So, I'm just lucky that I found my niche. And maybe it's only a grain of sand in the whole beach, you know, because it's 800-900 girls in all of the US, Mexico and Colombia. But I know now for a fact, because my coaches have talked to me that many of our girls have been prostituted by their own parents and now having an experience of a real life. I know that many girls grew up in orphanages and live there now and get to come be part of, you know, a real family. And me going to Kilimanjaro just exposed me again to what being a part of a real family is like, you know, and being a part of a team and a bunch of women who are part of the same cause that you are is really powerful. 30% of the people that try to climb this mountain don't make it. And we had every single person in our group except for two people make it. Over 65 people.That says a lot, you know? It’s a cause that has a lot of power right now. And, you know, soccer is something that everybody loves and that girls love playing too.
So, I have to continue doing what I can, to keep providing that opportunity and then letting the team and the program serve as a vehicle for them to be empowered and for them to learn what social service is and what being a part of a community is, because that's part of our program. If they give me 20 soccer balls for free, I give 10 to the team and I tell them that they need to go give 10 away to a group less fortunate than they are. And they can come up with the way to do it. You know, they just need to post it on Facebook so that we can see what they're doing. And that's kinda what Gonzo Soccer is. I'm still learning and still getting after it. But I guess in a way it's like my kid.
Shireen: Well, your baby is adorable, your kid. [Brenda laughs] And it’s absolutely encouraging and totally badass because just listening to you talk about it is incredible, and using football essentially as a means for development and empowerment for marginalized women, like, it means so much to so many. For me personally, and for so many. So, for me, thank you so much.
Brenda: Thank you.
Monica: And when as I was there, my buddies, I met like a super hot chick from Saudi Arabia that I was like chasing halfway up the mountain, kind of caught her, but not really, but at some point learned enough about, you know, she lives in Dubai, and a couple other girls from the trip do too. And one of them is a coach. So out of this trip, We're probably going to end up, because we've already started the business plan, starting a Gonzo Soccer, my first Gonzo Soccer in the middle east, which as of about a year ago I had put on my vision board as this is the next place I want to take Gonzo Soccer.
Brenda: Well, really best of luck to you with that, Monica. And we want to thank you so much for taking the time to be on Burn It All Down. We admire your work and we think it's amazing that you're a badass world record holder.
Monica: Thank you. I was kind of not really thinking about that part at the beginning and now that, accompanied with a message I got from one of the founders that said Dr. Dana – which is the NASA doctor – wants to know what you smoked before the game, because your GPS readings showed that you outworked everybody on the field. And I was like, yes! I worked so hard they think I smoked something. [laughter]
Shireen: Brenda and I get the honor of saying that we played pickup with you in a park at Duke University a while ago. So, I get to be able to say that, that I played pickup with a world record holder who also just climbed a mountain. So I'm going to insert my own stuff in there.
Brenda: Kilimanjaro, no less. [Shireen laughs] It's not just any mountain.
Shireen: [laughs] It’s the famous one. Yeah.
Monica: Loved that, by the way, big time.
Brenda: Yeah, loved it. Loved it. So, congratulations again. And thanks for taking the time, Monica.
Monica: No, thank you. I love what you girls do. Keep it up.
Brenda: Now. It's time for everyone's favorite segment. We like to call it the burn pile, where we pile up all the things we've hated this week in sports and set them aflame. Shireen, will you start the fire?
Shireen: Gladly, happy to burn it all down. This particular thing has had me really, really frustrated. I don't know how many of our listeners are familiar with this dramatic and racist and xenophobic law that was tried to be enacted in France last year. In addition to being a summer of glory for women's sports, 2016 in France also became a place where women's bodies were discussed and trying to be, you know, policed severely. The burkini ban came out. I wrote about it for The Shadow League and I was incensed at how local law and lower courts…And actually what happened was mayors were trying to ban burkinis for whatever reasons, talking about wanting to keep their spaces “secular.” And for me, any discussion about what a woman can wear is not a discussion to be had except for women who want to choose what they want to choose.
So, this particular week, a lower court in Corsica finally reached a decision about the appeal. It's really horribly ironic because the decision itself does not actually include a burkini. The catalyst for this was a family that were fighting with the community, a North African family. There were no burkinis at all involved in this. It's just a family that's having conflict with the community. And so a judge in the lower court decided that was a reason to ban the burkini. So it's upheld this ban. I had been speaking to a friend of mine named Rim-Sarah Alouane and she's in France and she's really awesome. She's written about this as well, and I'll put a link to her work in the show notes. She told me, and this is over…We were ranting and raging over Twitter DMs. And she said I could share this, because she said that basically the judge failed to demonstrate the connection between the fight and the wearing of the burqa/hijab. He doesn't even understand the difference between a burqa, a hijab, and a bikini. It says that prohibiting these garments was justified “to prevent public order disturbance.”
So, when she said this, I was literally like, did you say PUBLIC ORDER DISTURBANCE? In caps, because I'm shouting at this point over Twitter DMs. And that's the reasoning that was used. And again, we see women's bodies used as a battleground for stuff that they're not involved in. And why, you know, banning women from participating in sport and having access to the beautiful, beautiful parts of France, which are the beaches and the public spaces, if they choose to wear that. So it's like, I want to burn this to no extent. Like, I want it to combust and implode and explode and everything else. I'm so sick of this issue and it's so frustrating and just absolutely incinerating.
Brenda: Burn the dead wood. Burn it completely down. All right, Jessica, what are you going to burn?
Jessica: Mine's a little bit more on the petty side this week, but I’m always willing to engage my petty side. [Brenda laughs] So, on July 4th, sports media was consumed by the question of where will Gordon Hayward go? Hayward is a pretty boy small forward in the NBA who played for the Utah Jazz for the last seven years. He decided this year as a free agent to go to Boston. Okay, fine. But that day, while deciding which team he would play for next season, there was endless speculation about it. It went on for hours, finally capped off with a piece Hayward wrote – or at least put his name on – at The Players’ Tribune, announcing his decision. Again, fine. But once the announcement was official, there was this thing that happened in sports social media that I hate. I just hate it so much. First, I just feel like I should preface by saying that I know why fans are into the drama of the NBA free agency decisions, and I'm not begrudging any fan that. Like, it's the simplest form of sports drama. You can be deeply invested in these decisions and you risk nothing at all. So, I get why people are into it.
The part that bothers me is the “who reported at first?” game that happens in media. It was all about who should get credit for first reporting that Hayward would go to the Celtics. Who cares?! I mean, I understand that when people work hard to uncover information that's previously unknown, they want credit for that work. Like, I absolutely understand that impulse. But this stuff? Someone in an organization or close to a player or a coach told you a thing first that a couple hours, sometimes minutes later, will be announced to the world, just to create media buzz? Like, good for you? I don't know. There are people in sports media who are paid tons of money because people high up in teams or organizations leak information to them just before those same people put it in a press release and tell the entire world. I think I'm sensitive to this right now because of the people getting laid off all over sports media who are doing other kinds of work that I think is maybe more important. So it's such a weird thing to see people fighting over who has the best in at an organization or with a team. I don't know. Good for you. Good for you. But I just wish that I never had to see this kind of back and forth again. So this week I just want to burn it,
All: Burn it.
Brenda: And the “who reported it first?” game complaint is a perfect segue to my burn, which is who reported it worse game. [Lindsay laughs] And this week I joyously read a headline in the Guardian, The political message hidden on the goalposts at the 1978 World Cup. And indulge me a little bit in history here, because it's kinda my thing. The 1978 World Cup is notorious because it was organized by the military dictatorship in Argentina and it took place amidst the most brutal period of the regime. The military government was torturing, disappearing, detaining citizens. Anyone seen as being leftist, but really it cast a much wider net than that. And I wanted this article to be true. I really did, very much. Essentially the author claimed he noticed something as a child, that had the bottom of the goalposts of the final in 1978, which was held an organized in Argentina, they were painted black.
He claimed that after 40 years he went to Argentina, talked to a waiter, talked to a groundsman, and he had discovered that those were painted as a protest in remembrance of a victim. And as I read, I realized that this author was either completely misled or had totally invented this story because goalposts were commonly painted that way in Chile, Argentina, heck, even Spain in the 1950s, because many refs thought you could see if a goal was actually made – the ball crossed the white and the black, the contrast there. And so it was a really popular thing to do then. And the author claims it was contrary to FIFA. Well, you know, FAs did stuff contrary to FIFA all the time in the 1950s. This was pre television. The first World Cup televised in 1962.
So, this isn’t a FIFA thing. And I'm furious. I'm furious here because it's a typical gringo – and I'm one of them, so I'm speaking about that – who feels like he's the first fellow that ever had a clever thought [laughter] to investigate this. You know what I mean? You know, he claims his Spanish is appalling, so his Spanish is appalling, but he's gonna figure this out? You know, thousands of people spend their lives trying to examine the military dictatorship and cultural protests and things like that. He didn't interview a single journalist or scholar in Argentina. And I can tell you, there are many who spend, like I said, their lives researching this relationship. And in essence, for me, it's about trafficking in trauma. It's about knowing that this audience would eat it up, including me. I was one of those. I was like, first person like, yes, yes, be true! Because I want football to be this place, or soccer, of resistance to authoritarianism.
But I can't stay in the cavalier way in which the Guardian let this pass. It's disrespectful to the victims. And despite my constant trolling, [laughter] they have not retracted the article. I should say it was published in cooperation with an indie football publication called In Bed With Maradona, which has since taken the article kind of down. So, get out of bed with Maradona and find a fact checker. He’s creepy. And I just want to burn that way in which you report these things, because it kills those of us who really wanted this story to be true. So, sorry for that lengthy journey down memory lane.
Jessica: No apologies.
Brenda: But yeah, fuck that.
All: Burn.
Brenda: Lindsay, Lindsay, you got something else to add to the pile here?
Lindsay: You know I do. Jamie Horowitz and Fox Sports, welcome to the burn pile. Jamie Horowitz was the…What was his official title? He was a high ranking executive at Fox Sports who was fired this week after pretty much himself burning Fox Sports to the ground. So, let's just set the stage a little bit here. He worked for ESPN where he was responsible for the show we all hate, First Take, but that got really great ratings so he became the golden boy in media circles. He then went to The Today Show for a very short stint before the struggling sports network Fox Sports hired him. The past couple of years, he has proceeded to pretty much turn Fox Sports into a D-list ESPN without the great reporting and commentary that keeps ESPN above the fray in so many ways. So, guys like Colin Cowherd, Jason Whitlock, Skip Bayless have all migrated – thanks to millions and millions of dollars – over to Fox Sports.
And you will notice that I am saying guys because Horowitz seems to be one of those people in sports media, and there are many, who really idolize the male talking heads above all else and seem to think that the job for women in sports media is to sit in the middle of these conversations and police them and look pretty. So, that was already horrible. And then a couple of weeks ago it was announced that all of FoxSports.com's editorial staff had been laid off by Horowitz, and that basically FoxSports.com, which used to have pretty good actual, real journalism, was now going to become basically aggregating what the talking heads said. So people could keep their jobs if their articles were basically ghostwritten for like Colin Cowherd and Skip Bayless. And it was all their original takes.
Now, this is just not smart. And Jamie Horowitz has never been an editorial content guy. But the ego knows no bounds. Well then last week, everyone was shocked when he was pretty abruptly fired by Fox Sports, just a week after he had fired all of the editorial staff. It pretty quickly came out that this was because of sexual harassment, something that unfortunately is not surprising. Not only has Fox itself had a lot of problems with sexual harassment, but sports media is rampant with it. And we don't know much about exactly what happened yet, though it must be pretty bad for them to have abruptly fired him. There is an ongoing investigation. The only thing we know so far is that one woman who worked in production talked to Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated. And she said, “I have been working in sports for a long time and no one has ever been that bold with me. I saw him at Fox one day and he wanted to catch up. He said we could meet up to talk. The hook was that he could get me some more work.” Of course, that was the hook.
“Fox HR called me last week. They asked about what happened. I gave him some details.” So she's saying that they handled it very quickly, but she also says it Horowitz attempted to kiss her at an offsite location under the guise of trying to get her more work. So, onto the burn pile, Jamie Horowitz, and people who were, uncreatively trying to destroy sports media while belittling and harassing women in the process. And just my thoughts go out to any women who were harassed by Horowitz and any women who were made to feel unsafe in their workplace because of this guy.
All: Burn.
Brenda: Burn, burn it up. Okay. After all that burning, it's time to celebrate some remarkable women in sports this week with our badass women of the week segment. And I'd like to congratulate Bianca Sierra and Stephany Mayor, who are this week's badass women of the week for their brave badassery. The two of them came out as a lesbian couple about a year and a half ago. And then this week, the New York Times ran a story on them. And it’s lovely. But more importantly than the beautiful pictures – which I hope they'll treasure and frame, because they’re just gorgeous – these two soccer players have sparked a real discussion in Mexico. They've denounced the previous national women's team coach, Leonardo Cuéllar, who, if you follow Mexican soccer, is a pretty notoriously controversial coach. He's since been fired, but he was the longtime coach of the team. And they explained that he forced them to keep their relationships secret, and that basically before he left after poor performances, they weren't called up anymore for the pre-Olympic squad. And both of them felt like they had to leave Mexico.
So, these two really talented young women had to leave Mexico to find professional opportunities and to feel like they could find acceptance. They were harassed when they came out about a year and a half ago. And we'll all remember Burn It All Down has mentioned the homophobic chant in Mexico. So, they were subject to that when they played. And basically they've really taken on a culture where fans have justified homophobia as being traditional. Like, “We like our homophobia to have a long history.” It's terrible. So, the context is really brutal, and they did a beautiful job of explaining that in all the articles they were interviewing. After playing in Norway and Iceland respectively, now they’ve both landed jobs in the same club. And there's really good news about this, which is that the new coach for the women's soccer team, Roberto Medina, has called them both up to play this weekend for a friendly against Sweden. So, it's really exciting. And I think they've had a lot to do with that change. And so, at Burn It All Down, we'd like to recognize Bianca and Stephany for their courage in the face of bigotry.
Lindsay: Yay!
Brenda: Yay! I know, it was a really beautiful story. And Shireen…I know, I know, it was really beautiful. And the New York Times did just such a great…We’ll post some links to the pictures of them and their story on the page. Shireen, did you want to start us off with honorable mentions?
Shireen: Yes. Thank you so much. I'm also still reveling in the gorgeousness of the photos and the story of Bianca and Stephany. Wow. Yes, well done for choice, Brenda. Moving on to honorable mentions to recognize other total badassery, was a friend of mine, a woman who's become a friend of mine, named Khadijah Diggs. Now, Khadijah is a Black Muslim American woman, and she has two triumphs that I just wanted to recognize. First of all, she competed in her first open water swim competition and she came in third, but then she actually won the 1K, I think after starting two minutes late. I love her so much and she's an inspiration. She was one of the Muslim athletes I featured for a Buzzfeed piece about how they train during Ramadan. So this is also, keep in mind, only a couple of weeks after fasting for a whole month. She started competing again rigorously. And the other thing about her that I'm really excited about is a lot of what Muslim women deal with, is uniform accommodation. She has literally been trying to lobby to get her uniform for the USAT and the ITU to approve, and that finally happened as well. So now her kit that she had designed and created, which is a little bit of a longer shirt and tights, is fully approved. It says DIGGS USA on it. She looks fabulous and I'm so excited for her about these accomplishments.
Jessica: Yay!
Brenda: Awesome. Other honorable mentions?
Lindsay: Shireen, did you have another?
Shireen: I do. [laughs] Oh my goodness. I'm like…This is one of my favorite parts of this podcast, is just like coming across fantastic news. And my first thought is, oh my god, this is amazing. Second is, oh my god, I need to put this into the podcast somehow. So, I love this space.
Brenda: They’re like a phoenix from the ashes.
Shireen: [laughs] So, Katinka Hosszu is a swimmer and this is really, really…I love this. She created the first professional swimmers union in order to influence FINA, the international governing body of swimming. And I think this is great because what it does is it stems to amplify the voices and the needs and the concerns of swimmers, and the fact that it was created by and started by a woman is I think super, super important. And I quote, “In her previous letter open letter, Hosszu, speaking on FINA’s leadership, said, ‘Our leaders seem to think our sport is amateur. Therefore we are amateurs. And that is exactly the way that they treat us.’ Referencing the Association of Professional Tennis players, ATP boycott of Wimbledon in 1973, Hosszu believes that it is time swimmers unified in the same manner to give athletes a more equal share of the profits garnered by FINA and other broadcasters of swimming events.” And I'll actually put up a link as well. It'll be in our show notes. And this is just really, really, really relevant because not only does it talk about more financial security for athletes, it talks to amateur athletes and professional athletes, it talks about giving them an amplification of their needs and concerns. So, I'm all for unionizing athletes.
Lindsay: Definitely. I have one quick one to add. I just wanted to shout out Danielle Kang, winner of the 2017 KPMG women's PGA championship. This was her first LPGA tour win, and it happened to come at a major, which is just incredible. She is lovely. I actually was doing a piece on Lydia Ko and the LPGA tour a couple of years ago, and Lydia Ko wasn't free to meet. And so they actually put me in touch with Danielle, who is Lydia's best friend, and she called me out of the blue just to chat about Lydia for awhile for my piece, which, if anyone knows, is just the rarest thing to get an athlete to just call you – not for a piece about them, but for a piece about their friend and competitor, you know? So I was really happy to see that she won this week. There's been a lot of fun.
She's been really great on social media and there was a really touching moment when her caddy stole the official bib from the championship, which he wasn't supposed to do. And they brought it to her dad's grave. Her dad passed away a couple of years ago and they brought it to his grave, and that was really sweet. And for you meme lovers out there, Michelle Wie, another LPGA golfer, while filming Danielle receiving her trophy, said “the floor is lava!” and made Danielle get onto a table. And so that was just lovely. It was a really great win, and I just wanted to give her a shoutout.
Brenda: That's amazing! All right, so that's it for this week's episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was edited and mixed by Ellie Gordon-Moershel and lives on SoundCloud, but can also be heard on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, and TuneIn. We always appreciate your reviews and feedback, so feel free to subscribe, rate, and tell us what you liked or what you didn't about the show. We also hope you'll follow us on Twitter @BurnItDownPod, and on Facebook at Burn It All Down. Check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com, and you can find there our show notes, links to the topics that we discuss, and so on. And please take some time if you're there to check out our GoFundMe page and consider making a small donation. We really want to improve this podcast and make it a sustainable endeavor. We're grateful for everyone who has contributed so far. So for Shireen Ahmed, Jessica Luther, Lindsay Gibbs, and myself, Brenda Elsey, we'll see you next week.