Interview: Adam Rippon, Olympic Figure Skater and U.S. National Champion
In this episode, Jessica Luther talks to Olympic figure skater and Dancing with the Stars champion Adam Rippon about queerness in figure skating, the challenge of making a living as a skater, everything that happened with Russian skaters at the Beijing Winter Olympics, his transition from competition to media and what inspired his costume design while he was on the ice.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Transcript
Jessica: Welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast you need. Jessica here. Today I am joined by the one and only Adam Rippon. I don't know that he needs an introduction, but I'll be a responsible host and tell you that he is an Olympic figure skater who won a bronze medal in 2018. He is also a Dancing with the Stars champion and, as I saw People Magazine put it, a television personality. He's been in a Taylor Swift video, and guest hosted RuPaul's Drag Race. He's also an author. His memoir, Beautiful on the Outside, came out in 2019. Adam, welcome to Burn It All Down.
Adam: Thank you so much for having me, what a lovely bio. Thank you for being responsible.
Jessica: [laughs] You’re welcome. I can't help it. So, I always like to start at the beginning, and so I want to know how did you get into figure skating?
Adam: Well, I live in California now, but I'm originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania. And so in Scranton we have, you know, really cold winters.
Jessica: Sounds terrible. [laughs]
Adam: It is a lot different than the winters I experience now. So, every winter my mom would take me ice skating, and every winter I hated it and never wanted to go. The only thing I wanted was a soft pretzel and a hot chocolate, which, can't blame me, right? Sounds delicious. And finally, there was one winter where there was this person in my class and they were having a birthday party, and we went to this new indoor rink. And at the rink I saw people skating in the middle, and in the middle…If you've ever been to like a public skate, in the middle is usually where like the skaters that know what they're doing are. And all of a sudden I was like, I need to be in the middle! [Jessica laughs] And I wanted to keep going back to the rink after that, because I had this goal of making it into the middle of the rink. And I ended up really falling in love with it. And, as a birthday present for my 10th birthday, I got signed up for the group lesson classes at that rink, and then the rest is history.
Jessica: When did you know you were good?
Adam: I mean, I like to think that I knew I was good at that birthday party, [Jessica laughs] when I knew that I wanted to be in the middle. And then, you know, when I was young, I started to really progressed quickly. And I think I really, really enjoyed that, because I did a little bit of everything. I was a former tennis player, a former swimming star.
Jessica: What did you swim?
Adam: I swam at the Nichols Village hotel's pool and did drop out of those classes when we needed to open our eyes underwater. [Jessica laughs] So, I swam very recreationally. I didn't really make it pro, per se.
Jessica: Okay. Gotcha, gotcha.
Adam: Yes. Death by chlorine, sort of.
Jessica: Yeah. Fair.
Adam: And tennis was…I liked playing tennis, but I truly only liked going to the Birchwood racket club. None of these are sponsored, by the way. I'm really just kind of name-dropping everything. [Jessica laughs] The Birchwood racket club, I only wanted a red Powerade. And so skating was the first time I was doing something that I just…I loved it. I loved the skating. And as like a young kid in Pennsylvania, it was like the first time I found a sense of community at the rink, because it was like I loved skating and everybody who was there loved skating. And it was the best thing for me.
Jessica: Well, that's a good origin story. You were recently on the latest season of the excellent podcast Blind Landing, talking about queer figure skaters and queerness in figure skating. And you were famously, I'd say, publicly out going into the 2018 Olympics. Why do you think that there's still so much homophobia in this sport?
Adam: I think that there's homophobia in sport in general. I'm a firm believer that homophobia in sport is based in misogyny. And it's based in this sort of mentality that women are weaker than men, and a man is tougher than a woman. And I think that when you're in sport, you never want to come off as weaker or vulnerable or not tough. And I think that sometimes being gay can be perceived as being feminine, and I think that there is this fear that someone won't think that I'm strong enough where I can handle pressure or they'll think less of me. And I think that that's just a mentality in sports that's incredibly hard to break and, you know, poisonous to so many of the athletes. And when I say so many, I mean all of them. It’s poisonous to think in that mindset. Being tough has nothing to do with the way you are perceived, or sexual orientation or gender identity. You know, none of that has anything to do with being a good athlete.
So, I know that the first time I really considered coming out publicly…Because there was a time where I thought, like, I'll never say anything publicly because there's no point, you know? I am who I am. My friends love me. My coaches really admire the way that I work and how dedicated I am. And you know, I don't need to explain who I am. And the first time I felt that it was important was heading into the 2014 Games in Russia. And right before those Games, Russia came out with this famous anti-gay propaganda law – which is still to this day as vague as it sounds. I remember being asked about being gay, and I never said anything, and I really regretted not saying anything. I didn't make that Olympic team. So, I mean, it didn't matter. But I knew in the next few years that I wanted to go back and I wanted to like amend a few of those things that I felt…Like, I wish, if I could go back, I would redo that.
So, in the next few years, heading into the 2018 Games, I tried to focus on doing that, because when I was coming out in my personal life, it gave me a lot of strength to hear and read about other people's coming out experiences, you know, outside of sport and in sport. I really vividly remember Jason Collins coming out. And I wanted to just kind of put my voice into that conversation. When I came out, it was to like, you know, a small skating audience. It was like…If you're a member of US Figure Skating, which is like the governing body, and it's like a subdivision of Team USA. So like, Team USA has all these branches and these NGBs. So like, the national governing bodies. So there's a USA Swimming, a USA Gymnastics, and there's a US Figure Skating. So, if you're a member of US Figure Skating, there's a magazine that comes out like bi-monthly, and they were doing an interview with me. And in the interview, I just kind of hinted that before the interview I was like, I want to talk about my coming out experience.
And I heard from like the president of US Figure skating and the director, and they called me and they were like, “We just want you to know that we're behind you 100%.” And I said, you know, I don't want to make it a big thing. I just want to put it in, because you're going to ask me about like, you know, my story and things like that, and I want to be able to include that because it's an important thing for me and it's something that I think really helped shape me into the athlete I am today. And so it was just tucked in there. And so like maybe two weeks after the magazine came out, you know, somebody said something on Twitter. A few people were like, you know, that's great, we love you. It was very low key and it was fantastic. The best coming out experience you could have as an athlete. So, obviously it was never something that was in the forefront of my mind, because it wasn't something I had recently talked about.
Jessica: Oh, interesting. Okay.
Adam: But obviously, getting ready for the 2018 Games, I had been an out athlete for like three years at that point. I was out when I won my national title, I was out going to world championships. So when I made that Olympic team, you know, being an out athlete wasn't even something that had crossed my mind.
Jessica: And then it was you and Gus.
Adam: And then it was just the two lone Rangers all of a sudden. [Jessica laughs] You know, when I was out as an athlete before the Games, I was the only out competitive athlete. I wasn't the only gay athlete, but I was the only out. You know, I knew that and I was aware of that, but I felt like I had a little bit more foresight into…You know, it was really important for me to be out, even if nobody read it or it didn't affect anyone. It was me just redoing something I wish I could have done better heading into those 2014 Games. So I did it for myself. I did it for that younger version of myself. I did it for that person who watched those coming out YouTube videos. So, I did it for like a super personal reason.
Jessica: Have you met Jason Collins?
Adam: I have met Jason Collins.
Jessica: He’s so nice.
Adam: He's the best.
Jessica: And he tells the story of meeting Martina, like, for him…You can just sort of see the lineage that you are now a part of.
Adam: What an honor for me to be a part of that lineage. But you know, Jason is just…He’s been one of the nicest and best people I've gotten to meet because of the Olympics. And I just admire him so much. I remember reading that article and what it like meant for me to see that and to read that.
Jessica: Yeah, it was wonderful. So, I did ask the Twitters if anyone had questions, and Twitter is like the most embarrassing space, because someone who goes by @ProperSneakers asked a very good question, and I have to give @ProperSneakers their credit. [laughter]
Adam: Don’t we always?
Jessica: I know, right? “Will figure skating ever move away from heteronormativity in pairs skating? Will this category ever include more expansive pairs?” What do you think about that?
Adam: So, what I think about it is that – I might be wrong, but I don't think I am – that there is no rule that says that it has to be a man and a woman. But what I do think is that when you're thinking of pairs skating and the elements that need to be done, there needs to be one really strong, tall person, and there needs to be one very light, shorter person.
Jessica: It sounds like they've built the heteronormativity almost right into it. [laughs]
Adam: It does feel that way when you are saying it that way. Yes. And so to be a really good pair, which is just two skaters, you're going to need somebody who's very light and acrobatic, and you're going to need somebody who's very strong and grounding to that acrobatic skater. So, unless the rules change or the demand of what like the pairs need to do, I don't see it changing, but, you know, I don't think that there’s…I think people, if there was like a man and a man skating together and they could do all the elements and they could be competitive, I think people would be totally for it. I think they'd be getting a lot of kind of side-eye, but you know…I think somebody would only do it if they felt like that would be their winning advantage.
Jessica: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, I would like to hear a bit about your transition from being an athlete to being a “television personality.” Did you find it hard to leave the ice and leave performing? Like, what was the biggest challenge for you when you made that transition into media?
Adam: You know, I think of Michael Phelps and his Weight of Gold documentary every time I kind of talk about this, because I truly believed in my heart that, like, I was not going to go through this slump, because I knew what I wanted to do after my sport immediately. You know, I wasn't expecting sort of the attention I got at the Olympics, but I knew that I loved engaging with people and I knew that I loved getting to communicate with people and making people laugh and entertaining them. And I think that skating was that for me for a very long time, and I felt that I could transition that into being a coach and that I could help, you know, relay the lessons I had learned as a skater to my students. And I felt like I would be a good coach. And so I'm like, I'll be a good coach because I can make people laugh, which is a yes and no answer. And when I was at the Olympics it was just, you know, the way that I could make my friends laugh and I could engage with people, it was showcased for the first time.
And I had always wanted to get into entertainment, but I never saw a direct path. And when I was there, all of a sudden it was like the doors were opened, and I was like, yes, this is what I've always wanted to do my entire life. And so, getting to channel what I had channeled into my skating now into this really creative and entertaining space…I love it. And it's honestly like from career to career, it's a seamless transition if you are like an entertainer. And that was my favorite part about the skating, was like the entertaining and the interviews. And to be able to turn that and move it into just a solely entertainment position is like, for me, it feels like a perfect fit for who I am.
That being said, going from being an Olympic level athlete into any sort of job after or post-athletic career is so weird. And there was this like two and a half year slump where I was working a lot and I was super grateful to be working, but the inconsistency of the scheduling and, you know, it's just so different, because if I were to say, okay, hey, we're going to get ready. We're going to be a pair. We're going to also follow into the heteronormative, you know, we are going to do it, because we want to win, you and me. Let's get ready for the Games in Milan. If we sat down and we got a calendar out, I would be able to tell you where we would be in October, November, December for the next three years, when we would have a time for vacation. Like, your life is regimented almost down to the day for years, years ahead. And you know, in what I do now, things could change in an instant. You can get a call one day and be like, hey, you're going to be working for the next two weeks and you also could be, you know, not working for a few months. So, that inconsistency drove me wild. And there's also this like, you don't want to go to the gym anymore, because you used to do that all the time and you don't have a…You have a weird relationship with it, because you only know how to go and train for the Olympics. You don't know how to go just for like your personal health.
So there's a huge serotonin drop, that like you just are so used to…It’s a really wild transition. And I think, for me, when I watched that documentary, I think there's a few things where people who are at the very, very, very top of their sport, there's a lot of attention on them. And, you know, I was really good. I was a national champion, Olympian, Olympic medalist. But I was not the person that had all of those eyes on me. You know, when I didn't make that Olympic team in 2014, I felt like I had kind of fallen out of good grace. Lost my health insurance because it was through the Olympic committee. I wasn't on an Olympic team or a world team, so I was off the health insurance. I needed to figure out how to get that on my own. You know, so many different things that you just don't really think about as an athlete that all of a sudden you're like, okay, this is real life. And if I don't perform, it's not there. So, in a way, I'm lucky and I'm grateful for it, because I knew to be prepared for that when I left and not when I felt like I was being pushed out.
Jessica: Wow. That's so interesting. I didn't even think about loss of health insurance.
Adam: I mean, you know what's crazy, is that like I feel like in my sport, in the US, there's very few people who make really good money. And I think to really completely financially cover yourself without the help of like sponsorships or without working, you need to be at least in like the top six in the world, because that means you're medaling. That means you're getting good prize money. It means you're being invited to shows that pay well in Europe and Asia and US tours. So, you have to be super, super elite to be able to be making an income. And I would say in the last few years of my career, I that's where I was. So I was, you know, making good money, but all of it was being completely thrown back into my sport. And I remember that I broke my foot a year before the Olympics, and I knew that my funding was going to get taken away. I knew that it was going to be really expensive. I wouldn't be able to do any of the shows in the summer. And I knew that because it's based on criteria. That being said, I was the reigning national champion at the time and had been doing really well the whole year. There was no reason to believe that I wouldn't be in the top two or three again. So, when I broke my foot, I was also left off the insurance again.
Jessica: That is so hard for me, for you to tell me that you broke your foot and that's why you lose your health insurance.
Adam: Yeah. And then also for our health insurance, it can't be a sport related accident to get covered.
Jessica: [gasps] Stop.
Adam: Yeah, that was the other thing, where I was lucky, because I broke it off the ice. I was warming up and…It’s wild, that if it's a sports-related injury it's not covered by the insurance. Which is insane, correct?
Jessica: You're paying out of pocket–
Adam: Yes.
Jessica: –for your sports injuries?
Adam: Through your sports insurance.
Jessica: Okay. Okay.
Adam: You know, if there was little things, it was like making sure that you could find a way that it wasn't sports-related, that you needed this, or it wasn't like a preexisting sort of condition. When you're an athlete, everything is preexisting!
Jessica: Yeah, of course.
Adam: I remember that I was like, I already know that all of this medical care is going to be expensive, and rehab, and like, I can't afford it here in Los Angeles. I can’t. It's just impossible. But I was still like a Team USA member, and I was still able to relocate to Colorado Springs where there's an Olympic training center. And so I got in my little Jetta, I packed it all the way up, drove the whatever, 17 hours. I don't know what it is. I drove all the way out. I lived there for a few months and my rent was covered, my food was all covered, all of my rehabilitation was all covered. I’m so grateful for that outlet. But I was told to order this like bone stimulator machine, which is this little ultrasound machine, and that I would do it on like my foot to help it heal. I remember they were like, it'll be covered by your insurance to get this. And I was like, okay. Well, when I ordered it, that's when I had been kicked off the insurance.
Jessica: Oh no.
Adam: So after the Olympics, at this point I now am making a regular income because I'm working all the time.
Jessica: Yeah. You’re Adam Rippon! [laughs]
Adam: Yes. I'm post-Olympics me. And so I get a bill and it's like $15,000!
Jessica: [gasps] Stop!
Adam: And I was like, I'm going to get this cleared up. But I remember thinking that like…
Jessica: I would want to vomit if I got a bill like that.
Adam: Oh, it was truly insane. And I was like, what if I was just…What if I never made the Olympic team? I would really be stuck with this bill. And so, you know, I called, it got settled immediately. I didn't have to pay anything. But I really thought about, like, I could have been in such a horrible position to then, you know, leave my sport, retire, and then all of a sudden I'm slapped with another $15,000 bill?
Jessica: And now you’re in debt.
Adam: Yeah. More so, even more so, you know, because I was really truly able to train because of the good grace of so many people who waited until I could pay them back.
Jessica: Wow. Well, I just really learned something there, man.
Adam: Yeah, it is a wicked road.
Jessica: I wanted to talk about Beijing. So you went, right?
Adam: I did.
Jessica: Because you were coaching Mariah Bell.
Adam: Yes, I was.
Jessica: How did that partnership come about?
Adam: So, Mariah and I trained together while I was training for the Olympics in Korea in 2018, and Mariah was an alternate to that team. Mariah was, you know, she's a few years younger than I am, so we didn't really like fraternize much, but we were very friendly and I really liked her and we had a lot of fun together and a lot of fun training together. Maybe a year after I had retired, Mariah called and asked if I would do some choreography for her. And that's pretty non-committal because it's like, you only need a few days to put something together. You know, there's a few days on my end to do like prep work of getting music and, you know, going back and forth with her, but then on the ice it's, you know, three or four days.
Jessica: Okay.
Adam: And we had such a great experience, and we had so much fun. And she worked with the coach that I worked with, Rafael Arutyunyan. So it was lovely to be able to see my old coach and connect with all of my old skating friends and see them. And then as the seasons progressed, Mariah and Rafael asked me if I could be more involved. And so that turned into doing another program with her, and then that turned into coaching her and giving her a few lessons here or there. And then that transitioned into being like her assistant coach, which I truly was only able to do and take on that responsibility because she worked with Rafael. And Rafael was really accommodating to my own schedule, and Mariah was like a full woman adult, you know, in her twenties. And so, you know, I didn't have to like babysit anyone. And it was more of like a mentorship sort of role.
But I would say that that mentorship turned into like a real leading coaching role in the last, like, especially this last season. But it was truly able to work because she worked with Rafael. It was like a once in a lifetime sort of opportunity to be able to go to the Olympics as a coach. I was going to work for NBC, but so many of my friends that work at NBC were like, do you plan on coaching ever again? And I was like, probably not. This is probably like my last event as a coach. And they were like, you will work other Olympics, but you'll never go as a coach. And I knew it was really important to Mariah. I knew it was something Rafael really wanted, so I was able to make it work, but it turned into a real full-time thing in the last season.
Jessica: That's lovely. So you were on the ground for what was easily the biggest story to come out of Beijing. And when I met you at South By Southwest and we talked about you coming on the show, I was like, I really want to talk about Valieva. And if someone listening doesn't know all the ins and outs of that, I highly suggest listening to episode 238 of Burn It All Down. We went into everything around that fiasco, which was big. You were very vocal in your dislike of how that case was handled. I actually remember logging in to Twitter and seeing your tweets and just being like, thank you, Adam. Especially because you were there and part of the skating world. Who do you think was at fault there in terms of like the institutional side of how things went down? The decision makers around delaying the medal ceremony or allowing her to compete. Like, we call it the alphabet soup, like WADA, RUSADA, IOC, CAS. Who was at fault institutionally?
Adam: Well, I do think it's the perfect storm of chaos, right? Because nothing is normal in these times, and it all comes back to we are still living in a pandemic. Things are delayed. Results come back late. You know, things take longer. And so it stems from that. I think, to go back even a little bit further, I remember watching Kamila skate at the Olympics. It was the first time I had ever seen her skate in person. And I remember I called one of the analysts for NBC. You know, all of NBC was working in Connecticut, and so I was on the ground, and I remember calling just to kind of like chat about what I was seeing and what they were seeing from their point of view. And I was like, Kamila is…I’ve never seen anything like. I was like, I've never seen anybody who I think is so clearly better than everyone else that she could make multiple huge errors and it won't be enough for anyone to catch up. It's unbelievable. I remember saying, “It's unbelievable.” And then it was just a few days after that, where it was like she had this positive drug test.
That being said, we have always been suspicious of the Russians in every Olympic sport – especially after this huge state-sponsored doping program was uncovered after the 2014 Games. And if you do follow figure skating, the Russian young women, all under the age of 17, have been incredible dominant. There is one girl in her twenties, but every other girl, teenager. And not only teenager, but doing quadruple jumps, triple axels that, you know, if you go back to the 2018 Games, Mirai Nagasu was the only lady to land a triple axel at those Games.
Jessica: I remember screaming when she did it. [laughs]
Adam: Me too! And so there's only been a handful of these incredibly difficult elements. That being said, you know, technique and everything, that improves, and the skating improves and that it develops. But only these Russian women are consistently not doing a quadruple jump – multiple, 5, 3, 3 and a triple axel. They're just head and shoulders above everyone else technically that it's impossible to catch up. And I think the rest of the world has always kind of scratched their head and was like, okay, we just have to work. Which, the answer is still, yes, we just still have to work. And then when the revelation of this drug test came forward, it was just…I was so angry, because I didn't know what to believe. And I was so ready and we were all so ready to celebrate this incredibly young, talented girl. And we couldn't. And I think because, at that point, I had, you know, one foot out of the skating world and one foot in, that I was like, why is nobody saying anything? And I was like, it's really important to me. And I had a conversation with Mariah and was like, I want to say something, but I won't if it's distracting to you. But you know, Mariah was like, it's more distracting that nobody's saying anything.
Jessica: Yeah, of course.
Adam: I would be more distracted and I'd be like on the brink of blowing up if no one was saying anything. So, I said what I thought was the truth, that doping does not belong in sport, it does not belong in Olympic competition. And where do I think that she was failed? I think she was failed at home. I think she was failed by people around her and people that she trusted. God, love that they're doing an investigation, but we'll never know.
Jessica: My memory is that it RUSADA is doing the investigation.
Adam: Right. Which...They’re incredibly trustworthy.
Jessica: Yeah. Of course. [laughs]
Adam: One of the most trustworthy anti-doping agencies. But you know, if you don't know this story, how she had this positive test was that she had done a local domestic competition in Russia. She was drug tested per the regulations of that competition, and her sample was on Christmas day. It was a Christmas pee.
Jessica: On Christmas. Easy to remember. [laughs]
Adam: Yeah, because Christmas came early for a lot of the girls that day! [laughter] And so a sample was sent to a lab in Stockholm because it was a World Anti-Doping Agency test that was administered by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency. Well, she competed in her first event, which was the team event, and blew everyone out of the water.
Jessica: Yeah. It was incredible.
Adam: It was absolutely incredible. I remember just thinking, this is insane. It's insane. It's unbelievable. It truly was unbelievable. And now we know it's not believable. So, it was maybe the next day…I remember the athletes were getting ready to go to the awards ceremony, on a bus that got just turned right back around.
Jessica: While they were on the bus? Wow.
Adam: They were on the bus and they were just told that it was some, you know, legal issue, whatever. And then all of a sudden everybody's talking about what could it be? Could it be this, could it be that? But you know, nobody really was that suspicious of anything at that point. But then it was the young 15 year old phenom, and it was just infuriating. It was infuriating.
Jessica: I do want to ask about Tutberidze and her coaching, because I think…Like, when we were talking about it and doing research, like, it was pretty clear that she breaks her skaters. Like, the stuff that her skaters have talked about as like not being able to drink water and they break their bones in really catastrophic ways all the time. Why do you think it took Valieva's positive test for there to be like any real scrutiny around her coaching? I honestly…I don't know how you feel about it, but I study abuse in sports all the time, and there's a part of me that thinks nothing will actually come of this, like, that her coaching will continue in sort of the same vein. That's really hard for me to wrap my hands around.
Adam: Well, it's hard for us as like Americans because of how we deal and see sport, right? Like, if you're a coach in the United States, you're a coach as a profession and as a career. And that means you are a teacher, but you're also in the service industry of like, there's a lot of people, the majority of the people that you coach, they will not go to the Olympic Games. A really good coach can get someone to the Olympic Games, but they can also have all of their former students who stopped working with them because they went to college come back and want to visit them, because that person was so impactful on them as a young person. Because of that, they were able to really achieve so many other incredible things outside of the rink. In Russia, all sport is funded by the government. So you're a government employee, and your job isn't to raise healthy athletes. Your job is to get medals and your job is to get results. So we're looking at it from two different complete perspectives, because if they're not medaling, it doesn't matter.
Jessica: Well, let me push back just a little bit.
Adam: Please.
Jessica: Like, Tutberidze was like coach of the year from the ISU in 2021.
Adam: Yes.
Jessica: I'm wondering what it is in the figure skating world in general. Like, I understand that dichotomy that you're setting up, but she's so accepted within the figure skating world in general, even though we do know all of this stuff from her skaters. We can literally see it. It's like, there was this one girl – they're all girls – who broke her hip in warmups or something?
Adam: I think that's where it gets…
Jessica: I think that's where my frustration is. Like, young bodies, eating disorders, injuries, abuse. And when you look at them, Joan Ryan's Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, the two sports are gymnastics and figure skating, right? And then you look at Valieva and you look at Tutberidze and sort of her wake, I would say. That's where I'm like, where's the figure skating world on this? How is ISU giving her coach of the year?
Adam: Right. I think ISU giving her coach of the year is…A lot of people didn't agree with that, because results aren’t what makes a good coach, you know? Results are like a by-product of being successful and being, you know…You have to have be a good coach to have good results, but like, are you a good coach if your skaters are…That your students are at the top, but they're constantly changing because they're getting injured, they're retiring or, you know, having mental breakdowns? That doesn't make–
Jessica: We saw…Oh my gosh, the women's competition, the girls’ competition with the like breakdown–
Adam: It was so awful.
Jessica: The most surreal.
Adam: You know, it was just…You could see the way that they have all been pit against each other, because I don't know if you could see it like on TV, but the way that was and the way there was this footage of just like the winner of the event, Shcherbakova, sitting alone in this room–
Jessica: Alone with her little stuffed animal!
Adam: But where she was, that her teammate, who is second, was having this screaming, like, “I'm not getting on the podium. This isn't fair. I should…” You know, whatever. She’s having it in the doorway. So, Anna wasn't by herself. She was in that room and was like basically barricaded in by her teammate, screaming that everything was unfair and that they knew this and all of this stuff. So, Anna's in that room, in that space. All of her coaches are right there and they're seeing this, and this is just business as usual. It was really awful. It was very, very…I mean, as young skaters, we watch the Olympics and we remember those Olympic moments, and the young skaters who watched this, like, that's what they have to remember. These controversies, these mental breakdowns. It’s awful. And I think that there was this sort of mentality of like, okay, she might have questionable coaching techniques, but she gets the job done. And like, I guess we just need to find a way to like work harder and get there. And this was like the first international response of like, actually, we knew it. We knew something was wrong, and now we know it for sure. And I can guarantee you that, like, this is not something…Maybe in Russia, but not in the international sports community that will be swept under the rug.
Jessica: And you believe that? You believe that?
Adam: I really hope to believe it, because I think that people have felt like, wow, what they're doing seems impossible. And now I think people are upset. And you know, there's the argument of like, an endurance drug can't make you do a quad, which is true. But like, if that golden theory of like 10,000 hours makes you excellent at something, you can get to 10,000 hours a lot faster if you're never getting tired. And that's the mentality.
Jessica: And there's the part of it…I mean, she had just started skating on the elite circuit, right? Like months before. So I had never seen her, and I tune in for the team competition and I was like, she is so skinny. And that's part of it too, right? The ability to do a quad, it's like, you can't have hips. There is that sort of infantilized body.
Adam: Right. You have to donate your hips, yeah.
Jessica: Yeah. That part makes me really uncomfortable. I don't know. There's just so much about it that bothers me. And it's such a bummer on some level, because like you said, she's fantastic. Like, you could just tell you we're seeing something different.
Adam: Yes. You were watching something different, but now we know we were watching a science experiment.
Jessica: Yeah. And like, where will she be in three years, you know?
Adam: Right.
Jessica: And we'll probably never see her again.
Adam: Exactly.
Jessica: The Olympic cycle will go by and she'll be too old. She'll probably have hips by then.
Adam: But you know, I think that that mentality of like, in skating, there's obviously this aesthetic part to it, but people drive themselves nuts to be as thin as possible for performance’s sake. You know, I did it.
Jessica: Someone told me, someone on Twitter told me, that you celebrated being able to eat dressing on salad after years of somehow subsisting on two pieces of dry toast and coffee. And I was going to ask you if that was true.
Adam: Yeah. It was true.
Jessica: Okay. That was from Kelly, I want to shout out. And she wanted us to know, like, are training situations healthier now for most or all skaters? Like, did your struggles, did they help raise awareness and help skaters be healthier? Are you seeing changes around that?
Adam: I think that it is healthier. I hope it is, right? But I do think that that mentality of like ‘be as light as possible’ is almost becoming a lazy mentality.
Jessica: Will you explain that? What do you mean by…?
Adam: I think that it's just easier to think that somebody who is a thin and they get there in an unhealthy way, I think that we can see now, because people try to skate longer or the elements are so much harder, that that wear and tear on a body that's not getting nourished properly doesn't sustain, that there’s…You have to find a balance. And I think a big reason of why I broke my foot was that like I just wasn't eating. And so like in that next year–
Jessica: Oh, Adam. Oh.
Adam: Yeah. And it was like, I had no body issue. I never looked in the mirror–
Jessica: I wanna, like, Doordash, you some fries or something after you said that.
Adam: Don't worry. I've had my fair share of them in the last few years.
Jessica: [laughs] Good.
Adam: I'm not…Yeah. But I think I was just trying to be as good as I could be. And I was like, I know that this isn't good, but I don't have a problem because I don't see like, oh, I wish I looked this way. I was like, I'm just…If I'm a robot, I'm going to do everything I can to make this robot work as well as I could. And you know, the sick and twisted thing is that I wasn't as much getting praised for my size, but I was getting praised for how much better I was getting. And I would say in that year of the Olympics I was heavier, albeit a few pounds. And I was consistently heavier and I changed where like my goal weight…Because, you know, in sport, it's really hard to be like, I'm not going to weigh myself. You have to weigh yourself, because it gives you a gauge of where am I and, you know, in the summer, when you're not doing a lot of run-throughs, you're going to gain weight. And so if you're going to gain weight, it's harder on your body to do your harder elements.
And so what my coach did would be like, he would say, make sure you're always checking your weight and don't start doing the harder things until you get your body into shape. And what he meant by that was that you need to start doing run-throughs and you need to take it off in a normal way. You need to take it off through cardio, not through starving. And when I would do that, you know, I wouldn't be like making mistakes or trying to muscle through something and then like mess up my knees or have my hips start to hurt. And so it's important to know where is your weight so you learn like what's too low, you learn what feels too high, and you learn, like, what's my range? And that range is like seven pounds. And so you have to be comfortable in knowing that that's where I am because I have a body and I'm a human. And I think that people are learning now that finding that range is more important to your overall health as an athlete, more so than like just being as thin as possible and throwing it all out there and just seeing what happens because the elements and the skating is too demanding to do that now.
Jessica: Yeah. Wow. I know I've taken up a lot of your time, and I appreciate it. I have just a few more questions, if that’s okay.
Adam: I don't mind at all. I love chatting with you.
Jessica: Okay, great. So, one of my co-hosts, Shireen, has some questions for you, and these are very strange questions, which will make sense when I ask them to you.
Adam: Okay.
Jessica: Okay. So, her first one is: where did your costume design inspiration come from?
Adam: Okay. So, who made my costumes was a friend of mine, and I always said that I wanted them to be as tight as possible, and kind of slutty. I wanted them to be kind of slutty because I was always sort of like, this is a little dangerous. And so I would think about that and less about being at the competition.
Jessica: What did slutty mean to you? What does a little bit slutty mean?
Adam: Slutty meant mesh, different colors of mesh. I just wore…Because I also didn’t, like, sometimes when you're in practice, you wear tight clothes and you wear tight fitting stuff so that like, you know, there's nothing just like flying around. And sometimes in competition, somebody will be like, “Wear a flowy shirt,” and I'd be like, uhh, where does all this material…? And so I was like, I just want tight shit, and I want to look slutty. And for me that was like maybe a nipple isn't covered or like, you know, whatever. Like, I have like the zipper down a little lower. Of course, this is like very sort of CCD Catholic school version of being slutty. [Jessica laughs] That’s where my inspiration came from. So basically I gave him very small perimeters to work with. I was like, tight, mesh, slut. Go ahead!
Jessica: [laughs] Oh, that's wonderful. Okay. She also wants to know, if you could skate with one skater in the past or present, who would it be?
Adam: I think I would have to choose Michelle Kwan, and I've gotten to skate with her! But if I could like train with somebody, obviously I think, you know, she's probably my biggest idol in the sport. And as a person, I just think she's just amazing.
Jessica: And this is literally the most Shireen question that exists in the world. Do you have a favorite food? And if so, what is it?
Adam: Okay. My favorite food is ice cream. I think cookie dough ice cream. I could eat it every day all day.
Jessica: We have a store here in Texas called H-E-B. It's our grocery store. And they make their own ice creams, and they have one called Cookies Over Texas, and it is cookies and cream mixed with cookie dough. It's a perfect food. The next time that you come to Texas–
Adam: Oh yeah. I have to.
Jessica: We'll get you some Cookies Over Texas.
Adam: It’s mind blowing that that hasn't been done nationwide.
Jessica: I've been told that there is…Some cashier at H-E-B told me that there is some bigger ice cream. So I'll have to look for it.
Adam: Okay. Well, from their lips to God's ear.
Jessica: And then the last questions that I got from Twitter were about USA Skating. And so Jen asked, “What's next for USA Skating given some serious retirements this year?” And then related, from Kimmy, she wanted to know, “How do you keep US skaters relevant without a nationalized system?” So, where's USA Skating right now?
Adam: I think a good question is where is it, and also, like, where is the world level of skating? There's going to be a huge amount of retirements. And also, I think because we think there will be a huge amount, there might not be.
Jessica: Right. Right.
Adam: That there's going to be a lot of carry over. But in the last probably two Olympic cycles, I think probably for the last like eight years, US Figure Skating has really tried to overhaul their whole program, and it's a completely different system than I grew up in. And they really are trying to make sure that they can get their higher-level athletes all together to train more consistently together to kind of foster that competitive environment, because you know, in skating, everybody trains with their own coach and our own training town. So, I trained in Los Angeles. There were Team USA teammates that were in Colorado Springs and Boston and Florida, like, all over the country. And I think now they're trying to make sure that they can get everyone together so that, you know, the coaches can collaborate, the skaters can see what's going on, they can foster more of that competitive environment. And I think that we'll see if this overhaul pays off in the next Olympic cycle, because a lot of those big stars are gonna start to kind of creep through the rankings now. And I think, you know, there's going to be like a lot of fresh faces coming into when we watch the Olympics again in Milan.
Jessica: Maybe we can have you on again, when we get back to that Olympic cycle and you can tell us all about these new skaters.
Adam: I'm ready. I'm ready.
Jessica: Awesome. Well, Adam Rippon, thank you so much for coming on Burn It All Down. It was a real honor.
Adam: Oh, the honor and privilege is all mine.
Jessica: That's it for this episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our web and social media wizard. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Follow Burn It All Down on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Listen, subscribe and rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play and TuneIn. For show links and transcripts, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com. You can also find a link to our merch at our Bonfire store. And thank you to our patrons. Your support means the world. If you want to become a sustaining donor to our show, visit patreon.com/burnitalldown. As always, burn on and not out.