Simone Biles Rising & The 2024 Paris Olympic Games

[00:00:17] Welcome back to Recap Kickback, where we chop it up about TV, movies, and music while being sure to highlight Black media at any chance that we get. It's me, your host Chappelle, coming back again for another iteration of Recap Kickback, this time talking about something that is near and dear to my heart, something that I always forget about until it's about time for it to happen again. It's the Olympics. Yes, that's right. This week, the Olympics is upon us. We're going to Paris, y'all.

[00:00:44] And we cannot talk about the Olympics at all without talking about one of the greatest to ever do it, the greatest gymnast of all time, the GOAT, Simone Biles.

[00:00:56] But with me to talk about Simone Biles, I had to bring in a regular gymnastics analyst, someone who knows Simone Biles' work, and also someone who could tell us a little bit about what the Olympics is looking like moving forward for Team USA in the realm of gymnastics. It's LaTanya Starks. LaTanya, what's up?

[00:01:13] Hello. I am so happy to be here to talk about Simone Biles and her new Netflix documentary and also Olympic gymnastics, which is the Olympics, especially the Summer Olympics, one of my favorite things in the world.

[00:01:30] And gymnastics is probably my favorite sport. I follow it year round.

[00:01:34] So I'm just excited that we're in an Olympic year with such a great team and that I get to be here with you to talk about it.

[00:01:43] I cannot express how patriotic I get about the United States when the Olympics roll around.

[00:01:51] Any other time, I can't do the proud to be an American thing. I'm not saying I'm not proud to be an American.

[00:01:56] I very much, you know, I like the African and American parts of me. Both of them things exist.

[00:02:01] But when the Olympics roll around, I just feel like it's time to put on like the full blown like red, white and blue dipset outfit with the stars on it.

[00:02:13] Like I need to come outside and let everybody know that it's USA and we about to win all the golds.

[00:02:18] Because every sport in the Olympics I watch closely and I critique, you would think I was an expert.

[00:02:24] And I only watch this stuff once every four years. OK, so the Olympics is upon us.

[00:02:30] And one of the biggest sports, especially for the United States, Latonya, it's gymnastics.

[00:02:35] And, you know, it's about to get real.

[00:02:37] It is. I mean, it's the marquee sport of the Olympics, really.

[00:02:41] So many people, millions of people tune in to watch gymnastics every four years.

[00:02:49] And there's just something about women's gymnastics in particular.

[00:02:54] I mean, we have a really great men's team this year, too.

[00:02:57] But there's something about women's gymnastics in particular that is just so much more reflective of what the United States looks like these days than it ever has been before.

[00:03:10] And, yeah, there's just so much about gymnastics I'm excited to talk about.

[00:03:15] I love that sport so much.

[00:03:17] Oh, yeah. We're about to get into all of that and more.

[00:03:20] For this assignment, we do end up watching the Simone Biles Rising docuseries on Netflix that is available right now.

[00:03:27] It talks about how Simone has gone from her bout with the twisties and her childhood trauma to where she is today preparing for the Paris Olympics.

[00:03:36] But first, I have to remind you all to make sure you subscribe to Recap Kickback.

[00:03:42] Make sure you come here on our YouTube page, youtube.com slash at Recap Kickback and hit that like button, hit subscribe.

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[00:03:56] So you can keep up with all of the Recap Kickback coverage that we've had in the past and the stuff that we have coming in the future.

[00:04:04] Right now, we have some Olympics coverage coming with this Simone Biles conversation.

[00:04:10] But we always have different topics and conversations coming up with my various co-hosts here on Recap Kickback, including House of the Dragon, which I talk about every week with Mari Ford.

[00:04:18] So if you haven't been keeping up with that or if you like House of the Dragon or you want to get into it, please check out our companion podcast, House of the Dragon Hot D, the Westeros Kickback, here every week on Recap Kickback.

[00:04:30] And then again, make sure you subscribe.

[00:04:32] That said, LaTanya, we got to talk about the GOAT.

[00:04:36] It's time.

[00:04:36] It's time.

[00:04:37] Simone Biles Rising.

[00:04:39] This documentary, we saw it coming weeks ago, months ago.

[00:04:43] And I remember immediately thinking, well, I got to talk about this with LaTanya, right?

[00:04:47] LaTanya, how do you feel now that you've finally seen it and that we have the Olympics so close to being right up?

[00:04:54] I mean, by the time this releases, I think the Olympics actually is going to start on the same day as this podcast dropped.

[00:04:59] So it's very topical right now.

[00:05:02] It's incredibly topical.

[00:05:04] This documentary has near unprecedented access behind the scenes with Simone.

[00:05:09] Simone Biles, they've now been following her for two Olympic cycles because they were with her for the Tokyo Olympics, which I did not.

[00:05:19] I mean, I knew this documentary would talk about the Tokyo experience.

[00:05:22] I did not think that they would be following her during that period of time and be able to get her thoughts in real time.

[00:05:28] So it's timely.

[00:05:31] It's reminding us of what happened with Tokyo.

[00:05:34] For those of you all who don't know what the twisties are, it is essentially the phenomenon that Simone experienced during the Tokyo Olympics,

[00:05:44] wherein she decided to pull out of many of the Olympic events, including the team final, the all-around final, several event finals like floor.

[00:05:55] And the twisties happen when your mind and your body are not in alignment and you can't count the number of rotations that you've done in the air.

[00:06:03] So you can land in a really precarious position, including like on your neck, and you could kill yourself.

[00:06:12] So, you know, just like a really scary thing that gymnasts experience, but especially a gymnast like Simone, who's been through so much trauma in her past.

[00:06:25] Yeah, Simone Biles Rising really does show the side of Simone Biles that I think I tend to forget about.

[00:06:30] To me, she really comes off as superhuman with the athleticism that she displays.

[00:06:34] But this documentary starts off with highlighting her struggles with the twisties, as you said, and the self-doubt since the events of the Tokyo Olympics.

[00:06:42] So she talks about how she was feeling alone and isolated.

[00:06:45] Her parents weren't there for that Olympics.

[00:06:49] And as she is about to do her vault during the warm-ups, she starts to falter a little bit and she can tell something's off.

[00:06:55] And then eventually we see that she will pull herself from the competition after trying to vault in the competition.

[00:07:03] And in the moment, I remember thinking, well, damn, something must be wrong with Simone Biles because she is the GOAT.

[00:07:09] She can do whatever she wants to do.

[00:07:10] There must be something off.

[00:07:11] And we will see that she goes and talks about her mental health at that point and really tries to bounce back from this.

[00:07:17] But this documentary reminds us that a lot of people were not supportive of Simone Biles when this happened.

[00:07:22] She got a lot of negative criticism.

[00:07:24] People were calling her a quitter.

[00:07:26] And the audacity of people who cannot even do the basic of, you know, gymnastics moves or even stretch, do a split or anything of that nature,

[00:07:34] criticizing one of the greatest Olympians of all time or greatest athletes in their sport of all time,

[00:07:40] probably the greatest, the most, you know, dominant athlete in any sport ever, Simone Biles.

[00:07:45] Isn't it wild to Latanya that that's really what we had to go through or that she had to go through around that time?

[00:07:51] It's wild.

[00:07:53] It's just the amount of mediocre men on their dumb sports podcasts, anyone with a microphone and a platform really during that time,

[00:08:04] who have no idea what Simone has had to go through, not just like in her younger life with being in foster care and being with a mom who struggled with addiction,

[00:08:15] but surviving one of the most prolific sexual assaulters in sport in terms of Larry Nassar being the Team USA doctor,

[00:08:26] having going through the Marta Caroli years when she was in charge of USA Gymnastics,

[00:08:33] where she just regularly verbally abused all of the gymnasts.

[00:08:40] Like you're regularly told you're not good enough.

[00:08:43] And then for you to be representing your country and really go through a mental health crisis and have all of this backlash coming at you from all of these people who could not do a cartwheel,

[00:08:56] as Simone said in the documentary.

[00:08:58] It's just wild.

[00:08:59] And I can't imagine having to deal with that and being away from your support system.

[00:09:05] Yeah, we see that that is going to be something that really takes a toll on Simone.

[00:09:09] But you're right.

[00:09:10] It was some people who had no business speaking on Simone Biles.

[00:09:13] It's like, how dare you even open your mouth, Jason Whitlock?

[00:09:15] You know, like, what are you going to do?

[00:09:17] Like, what knowledge do you have about this where you feel like you can comment on Simone Biles or calling her a quitter?

[00:09:23] But to me, it seems highly logical that somebody whose main bread and butter, their sport, is jumping into the air and just letting go and letting God and their talents shine through could get, you know, really thrown off by the amount of spins they're doing.

[00:09:40] You know, it's one thing to be brave enough to do this, but you also have the capacity to do this.

[00:09:44] You're questioning somebody who we'll even see in this docuseries said four different techniques in gymnastics named after them because people just can't do them.

[00:09:53] And so to call that person a quitter when they're inventing.

[00:09:57] Yeah, five now.

[00:09:58] Yeah.

[00:09:59] To call that person a quitter and they're inventing portions of the sport that has been around for years, years and years and years.

[00:10:06] And here she is creating new stuff.

[00:10:08] It just seems so ridiculous to me.

[00:10:10] Like, how dare you have the nerve to do this?

[00:10:12] And we saw it left and right.

[00:10:13] And it really did take a toll on Simone Biles.

[00:10:16] It did.

[00:10:17] And for people who follow the sport, starting with, I mean, in the documentary, they show you team final.

[00:10:24] But starting with the qualification meet for the team final, I was watching Simone's gymnastics and saying there is something wrong and guessing that it was something to do with the twisties because she was not landing in a safe way.

[00:10:38] It was scary.

[00:10:39] So if you follow the sport, then you notice what it looks like when someone is not able to count the rotations.

[00:10:46] If you're just like a four-year fan, someone who comes in who loves gymnastics during the Olympics, which we love and we welcome people like that because we want to grow the sport, then it may be something that you're unfamiliar with.

[00:10:59] But then you might just say, oh, she quit or she gave up.

[00:11:02] But, you know, all you have to do is one Google search or listen to any of the experts that were talking about what this was at the time to know that this isn't a time to be down on her.

[00:11:13] She needs support.

[00:11:14] She needs to be lifted up.

[00:11:16] But that's not what people do.

[00:11:17] They love to tear down people.

[00:11:20] Yeah, I remember in the moment when she is at the warm-up and they show the clip of her going up and then basically changing her game plan like midair.

[00:11:29] They didn't say, oh, Simone messed that up.

[00:11:33] Everybody said it looks like she got lost in the air.

[00:11:36] You know, and it was like for me watching it at home, I was like, oh, she just changed her mind or she was going to do something and just, you know, decided not to do it.

[00:11:42] Or maybe she didn't get the good, like I felt like, oh, maybe she didn't approach it the right way.

[00:11:46] You know, I'm thinking about this in a technical sense.

[00:11:48] But to really think, no, in the air, she was not able to do the mental gymnastics, if you will, of trying to make these twists happen.

[00:11:57] And they knew it from jump.

[00:11:59] So, like you said, the experts could tell you from the very beginning that there was a lot more to this than meets the eye.

[00:12:04] But gymnasts all around knew exactly what Simone was going through because so many of them have experienced this, I'm assuming.

[00:12:10] Right. Yeah, I feel like just about every gymnast has had the twisties at least once.

[00:12:16] It's something that Jocelyn Robertson, who trains with Simone at World Champion Center, which is the gym that Simone and her family own in Texas,

[00:12:27] and who is an alternate for this year's team, Olympic team, was talking about how she's had the twisties several times in her career.

[00:12:35] And it's one of those things where, you know, apparently the lights triggered Simone.

[00:12:43] Like, just you get into an arena and just something happens, right?

[00:12:48] And she probably thought back to being in an arena and having the team doctor be there, right?

[00:12:57] And that team doctor is Larry Nassar, or at least was for such a long time.

[00:13:02] Simone was the only person on the Tokyo team who was a survivor of Nassar's.

[00:13:09] So it really does go back to trauma.

[00:13:13] It's a trauma response.

[00:13:15] And in this case, Simone had not done what she needed to, you know,

[00:13:20] she hadn't gotten help because she didn't realize there was a problem until there was a problem.

[00:13:25] So, Latonya, how did you get into gymnastics?

[00:13:27] Because I know you're very, like, in on a granular level for gymnasts.

[00:13:32] I see your tweets.

[00:13:35] I know that when I started, like, seeing a lot of gymnastics stuff on the timeline,

[00:13:39] I was like, okay, I know Latonya's getting active.

[00:13:41] There must have been something going on.

[00:13:42] But how did you get into this world of gymnastics?

[00:13:46] Well, I actually never got to do gymnastics.

[00:13:48] I was told when I was four that I was going to be too tall.

[00:13:52] So that's why I did dance instead.

[00:13:54] But I was always interested in just the idea of, you know, like,

[00:13:58] being able to flip your body around in that way and control what your body could do.

[00:14:04] Really, it's just something that my family has always watched.

[00:14:07] Like, whenever there was an Olympics, they were always on in our house.

[00:14:12] And the marquee sports in the summer are, you know, gymnastics.

[00:14:17] And then in winter, it's figure skating.

[00:14:19] So I got really into both because, you know, my aunt was so into both, really.

[00:14:26] And she's the reason I got into a lot of different sports.

[00:14:30] She's the reason I would wake up at 5 a.m. to watch Wimbledon, for example.

[00:14:36] So there are a lot of random sports that I like because they were played in my house all the time.

[00:14:42] Interesting.

[00:14:43] See, to me, like you said, this is one of the flagship Olympic sports.

[00:14:46] And so it's always stood out as something that I could really just jump right into.

[00:14:49] I don't need to know a lot of the background.

[00:14:51] But in recent years, I've been seeing so much of it, you know, with the Worlds and the, I guess, Simone's, you know, return to the Olympics.

[00:15:00] Because since the twisties, she did have to go back into training because this isn't something that happened one time and the next day she's okay.

[00:15:08] You know, this is something that it really shook her to where she was not confident anymore in throwing herself into the air and potentially not, you know, landing in a safe way.

[00:15:17] And so we'll see in this documentary that she goes back to work.

[00:15:22] She has to start with the basics again before working her way up to be able to do the twist that she's going to be doing again in this Olympics.

[00:15:30] Yeah, her coaches, Laurent and Cecile Landy, they're a married couple who actually have a daughter who's going to be in the Olympics this summer, I think, for diving.

[00:15:40] But they talk about how she just came back into the gym at first for like over a year, I think they said, just to flip on the trampoline, just to like start with basic skills.

[00:15:53] Because when you have the twisties and it's that bad and it derails you from something like the Olympics, you really do have to just take a little time to relearn all your skills and get comfortable with twisting again and like believe that you can twist again.

[00:16:10] So this has been like a process of basically rebuilding an athlete for Simone in the last four years.

[00:16:18] Yeah, and it's hard to watch. It's hard to really watch somebody who is at the top of their sport struggle with something like this.

[00:16:24] I watch a lot of sports and I can't think of something that like any sport where a mental block is so detrimental.

[00:16:31] You know, I think in football, like obviously your body is in danger of getting hit by these large, you know, people, you know, running into you like a freight train a lot of times.

[00:16:40] But those are a lot of like physical responses, right?

[00:16:44] Like if you take your mind off of it, obviously something can happen to you.

[00:16:47] You know, if you're not bracing yourself for impact in a way when you go up to catch a ball or something like that, a defender is hitting you.

[00:16:53] All those things you really have to be mentally focused on.

[00:16:56] You don't want to drop the ball. All those you have to be tapped in on.

[00:16:59] But the twisties in Simone, her going up and doing things with her body that people just cannot do.

[00:17:06] I think it takes another level of focus and bravery because it's not that somebody else could hit her.

[00:17:11] It's all on her. You know, it's all on her.

[00:17:14] Being able to go up and then trust in her skill enough to land a lot of these flips and to land them in a way that she can actually get points for them.

[00:17:21] Because there are a lot of things you can get deducted for in gymnastics. No?

[00:17:26] Basically, everything is a deduction in gymnastics.

[00:17:29] Up until very recently, you know, just being a black gymnast was a deduction.

[00:17:34] Because gymnastics is such a subjective sport.

[00:17:38] And it is an individual sport in a lot of ways.

[00:17:42] There are just, like, times during the World Championships or the Olympics where we put teams together.

[00:17:48] Or college, it's way more of a team sport than it is an elite.

[00:17:52] But, yeah.

[00:17:54] I mean, you really are just judged by what the standard of beauty is for gymnastics.

[00:18:01] Which for so long has been very thin, like, blonde white girl.

[00:18:08] With, obviously, like, blonde straight hair.

[00:18:10] So, people have gotten deductions from their hair being too curly.

[00:18:16] Or from, like, their hairstyle being too ethnic, for example.

[00:18:20] But you have a set of gymnastics that you're going to do.

[00:18:24] And all of it can be deducted from.

[00:18:27] From the form that you have when you are completing a skill.

[00:18:31] To how you land that skill.

[00:18:33] Do you take a step?

[00:18:35] Do you take a hop?

[00:18:36] Like, all of that can be deducted from.

[00:18:38] Yeah.

[00:18:39] Wasn't there a movie about that?

[00:18:41] Was it Stick It?

[00:18:42] Was that the movie where all the gymnasts rose up against the judges?

[00:18:46] Because, like, how dare you be on my back about this little tiny thing?

[00:18:53] And I think Stick It did bring awareness to that kind of stuff.

[00:18:58] But I think it almost misses the point.

[00:19:01] Stick It is the battle of these gymnasts who are oppressed by these judges.

[00:19:06] But in reality, it's the entire culture of gymnastics.

[00:19:09] It's not just the judges.

[00:19:10] It's their coaches.

[00:19:12] It's, you know, all the gymnasts who come before them who set this standard of it has to be exactly like this.

[00:19:19] Or it doesn't matter.

[00:19:20] Or it doesn't count.

[00:19:21] Or it's not good.

[00:19:22] And then we'll see the judges' scores reflect that.

[00:19:24] Because you brought up Simone's training.

[00:19:27] But she'll talk about how it was almost militant.

[00:19:30] The way that there was perfection was demanded of all of the gymnasts.

[00:19:34] And it wasn't just Simone.

[00:19:36] You know, she is the best that we have.

[00:19:38] But this is gymnastics across the world was like this.

[00:19:42] Very strict and also very uniform when it came to what they were looking for and what they demanded of their players.

[00:19:50] And a lot of times it was to their players.

[00:19:53] A lot of times it was to their gymnast detriment.

[00:19:56] Yes, because for such a long time, the gymnastics medals were won by the Soviets, right?

[00:20:03] The Soviets were dominant.

[00:20:05] And then when the Soviet Union kind of like fell apart, we got the defection of some of the coaches.

[00:20:13] The people who coached Nadia Comaneach, Bella and Marta Karoli, were essentially paid to come to the United States and to take over our Olympic team.

[00:20:23] And they were encouraged to use all of the training methods that they used to get perfection out of Nadia here in America.

[00:20:33] So that meant, you know, severely restricting what the gymnast ate, weighing them twice, three times a day, training for, you know, eight hours every day, not allowing parents anywhere near the gym.

[00:20:53] All of those things that fostered one of the most abusive environments in sport were considered okay.

[00:21:02] And then when we got to the 2000s, we were like, okay, Bella Karoli has, you know, become a bit of an outcast, but his wife is okay.

[00:21:11] We can have Marta take control.

[00:21:13] But really, she was still doing things like allowing Larry Nassar to be, you know, to be the team doctor.

[00:21:21] And he came off as the kind person who was willing to sneak them in food, for example.

[00:21:28] Like, he used all of the things that Marta Karoli, Bella Karoli set up the system to do.

[00:21:34] He exploited all of those things to be able to take control of athletes.

[00:21:40] So it really was an environment that fostered one of the most abusive, like, things ever, environments ever to exist in sport.

[00:21:53] So coaching has really changed a lot, but not that much.

[00:21:59] I mean, the reason that this documentary is so awesome is because of the access.

[00:22:03] But Simone does things like call out Maggie Haney, who is a coach who I believe is still allowed to coach gymnastics, but she has two athletes.

[00:22:16] One of which, who is Laurie Hernandez, who was on that 2016 Olympic team, have come out to say that she has been incredibly abusive.

[00:22:24] And she's featured being abusive in this documentary.

[00:22:27] So it's still something that the sport is dealing with.

[00:22:31] Yeah, even the OGs that we get in this documentary speak out against that kind of stuff, too.

[00:22:36] We get Dominique Doss, who talks about how, you know, she was flat-footed and she would have to stretch her feet till her bone was almost popping out sometime because people didn't.

[00:22:45] That was the stand that they were looking for.

[00:22:47] And it is very toxic and abusive because you can't harm people's body in the name of sports.

[00:22:52] You know, that's just that doesn't make any sense because it can have physical ramification and mental ones as well.

[00:22:57] So I think there's a Netflix documentary right now, is it Athlete A, where they get into a lot of the Larry Nassar stuff, right?

[00:23:04] Yes.

[00:23:05] Athlete A is a really good documentary to watch if you are at all interested in the culture of gymnastics because it delves deep into the Larry Nassar stuff.

[00:23:15] Athlete A herself being Maggie Nichols, who is Simone Biles' best friend from gymnastics.

[00:23:20] And she was one of the first in her generation to come out and say explicitly, Larry Nassar is abusing me.

[00:23:29] Larry Nassar has been abusing us, which led to really a landmark trial where the judge understood the weight of this situation and allowed each of the survivors that wanted to speak to speak at sentencing.

[00:23:45] Hmm. And I think that Simone being very outspoken in that realm is something that we don't see a lot.

[00:23:54] I don't think we see a lot of the top athletes speaking out about things that can be detrimental to their career or things that are very important socially.

[00:24:02] Because I know that for a lot of football players, for instance, when kneeling became a topic of conversation in the NFL, there were people like Colin Kaepernick who were really at the front of that.

[00:24:13] And they were getting the brunt of the backlash from people even like President Donald Trump at the time was like, tell those son of a bitches to kneel.

[00:24:21] You know, I mean, not to kneel and stuff like that.

[00:24:22] You know, and then you had bigger names who were kind of silently supporting or just being silent altogether because they weren't willing to risk their spot when they're seeing that Colin Kaepernick is potentially being blackballed by the NFL.

[00:24:37] And, you know, and the owners are conspiring against them and things of that nature.

[00:24:40] So it's really bold of Simone Biles to say, no, I'm the biggest name in this sport.

[00:24:45] And I'm going to speak up for this because it was the job of the people in charge, the trainers, the coaches, the judges, all of those people to protect these gymnasts at the time.

[00:24:56] And nobody was there to protect them.

[00:24:58] And so Larry Nassar did take advantage of them.

[00:25:01] And I mean, eventually justice will be served, but that does not change the amount of trauma that these gymnasts went through during that time.

[00:25:08] Exactly.

[00:25:09] And Simone really had to learn the power of her own voice.

[00:25:13] And it's something that is rare, especially in gymnastics, because it's such a close-knit community.

[00:25:19] The same people that are friends with people you might speak out about are the people who might judge you on events, right?

[00:25:26] Also, gymnastics is really unique in that people start really young and they peak around, you know, like this is one of the oldest Olympic teams we've ever had.

[00:25:37] But like, or not ever, but like in the recent new era of gymnastics, I think Simone is the oldest gymnast to represent the United States in the Olympics in the last 72 years.

[00:25:50] So, but like, normally we have a situation like we have with Hesley Rivera, where she's 16 years old and she's going to the Olympics for the first time.

[00:26:00] These are minors.

[00:26:01] So, you know, they, they're not going to be that outspoken.

[00:26:04] Simone has grown and she realizes the power of her voice because she was the one who, you know, when Larry Nassar was arrested and all of these people from USA Gymnastics stepped down,

[00:26:16] she said, I don't want to go back to the Caroli Ranch for training.

[00:26:20] That is where we were abused.

[00:26:22] I don't want to do that.

[00:26:23] She just tweeted it.

[00:26:24] And then all of a sudden the ranch was shut down and all of the training was moved to a different place.

[00:26:30] So I think she started to realize the power of her own voice there and has been really great about being outspoken.

[00:26:40] Simone has, she is the most decorated like gymnast that I've ever seen, you know, just to witness do what she does best.

[00:26:51] But I thought it was pretty cool that they brought in these other big name Olympians and former Olympians as well.

[00:26:58] Who were your big standouts that were commenting on Simone and the sport of gymnastics throughout this docuseries?

[00:27:03] Yeah, my idols growing up were Betty Okino and Dominique Dawgs.

[00:27:09] So when I saw that they were in this documentary, I was over the moon.

[00:27:14] Another person, Svetlana Boginskaya, who was a Soviet gymnast who competed for so many years and now coaches.

[00:27:25] Also another big name that I wasn't expecting to see in this documentary.

[00:27:29] And I know they're going to be more and more as it goes on.

[00:27:33] But I also wasn't expecting to see her teammates, the people that she trains with on a daily basis, represented here.

[00:27:43] Like that's really cool that they get the chance to share, you know, the behind the scenes.

[00:27:49] Like what it's like to really know her in this documentary.

[00:27:53] Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool seeing Allie Raisman because I know her from the USA team.

[00:28:00] How did you feel seeing their interaction?

[00:28:02] So I love when Allie and Simone get together.

[00:28:06] They really have remained such great friends from when they were Olympians together in 2016 and competing in the all around together.

[00:28:16] And back then, Simone called Allie grandma because Allie was the oldest on the team and Allie would like to get her sleep and like wanted things just so.

[00:28:26] And now Simone kind of considers herself great grandma because she's so much older than everybody on the team.

[00:28:33] I love whenever they're showing moments between those two.

[00:28:37] Like them getting together, getting ready together and like Simone trying to do her lip liner.

[00:28:43] Just give me a documentary that's that, you know?

[00:28:47] Yeah, you can tell there was a lot of camaraderie between the two of them.

[00:28:50] Simone was talking about how Allie was her idol.

[00:28:52] And I think that's got to be pretty cool to come in, meet your idol, get autographs and all that stuff.

[00:28:58] And then one day get to compete next to your idol and against your idol.

[00:29:02] You know, Allie, her best event was the floor.

[00:29:05] And Simone's best event is everything.

[00:29:08] So it's got to be tough to go up against, you know, somebody who you thought you were mentoring, who has now surpassed you by leaps and bounds.

[00:29:16] Yeah, I mean, even when they were competing against one another, Allie never beat Simone.

[00:29:22] So, you know, it's really great to see.

[00:29:24] And then we see like this current group of gymnasts come in, like the gymnasts that Simone trains with,

[00:29:30] who, if you watched Olympic trials, you saw pictures of them when they were young and not competing,

[00:29:37] but like watching Olympic trials or getting Simone's autograph, like Tiana Sumonesegra or Jocelyn Roberson.

[00:29:45] So it just really keeps going.

[00:29:47] It's nice to see the tradition continue.

[00:29:50] Jocelyn Roberson was kind of great in this.

[00:29:52] I liked every time she taught.

[00:29:54] She was the one who really explained the twisties.

[00:29:57] And you could tell she kind of was like, like she just, I don't know.

[00:30:01] She had this knack for being able to really talk about Simone from a firsthand perspective,

[00:30:05] but also kind of put gymnastics in perspective as a whole.

[00:30:10] So she was very fun to watch out here, but this was pretty cool.

[00:30:13] I like seeing all the past gymnastics moments that the Carrie shrug moment,

[00:30:19] which I'm sure is a sign of those times, but also something that was cool then,

[00:30:24] but probably we would frown upon today.

[00:30:26] And the thing that most people who only follow gymnastics when it's on for the Olympics don't know is

[00:30:33] Carrie shrug did not have to do that vault for them to win.

[00:30:37] Actually, like mathematically, she did not need to do that vault.

[00:30:41] It was determined after she had done that vault, they still would have won gold.

[00:30:44] So what I remember, like, I have vivid memories of watching the 96 Olympics and being so excited about who our team USA was,

[00:30:57] and the possibility that we could win in our country.

[00:31:02] And I was just like everybody else when Carrie shrug did that vault.

[00:31:07] I was just like, oh my gosh, that's amazing.

[00:31:09] I can't believe that she was able to do that.

[00:31:11] But now I look back on it and I realize the reason that Dominique Dawes,

[00:31:15] the person who went before Carrie shrug fell on both her vaults is because she had a broken leg.

[00:31:22] She was competing on a broken leg.

[00:31:25] Carrie fell on her first vault, clearly injured herself.

[00:31:28] Her coach is noted for saying, you can do it, you can do it.

[00:31:33] That's Bella Caroli, the person who pushed all of his gymnasts,

[00:31:37] which included Dominique Mociano and Carrie shrug to compete injured.

[00:31:41] And then Carrie did that vault.

[00:31:43] That's great.

[00:31:44] She managed to stand up a one-legged vault.

[00:31:46] But then she had to pull out of the rest of the competitions because she had broken her leg from doing that vault.

[00:31:55] It's just wild what, you know, we would ask the gymnasts to put on their backs just for representing this country.

[00:32:03] Yeah, that's insane.

[00:32:05] No, I don't think I ever knew that she would have already,

[00:32:07] they would have already won even without that one-legged vault.

[00:32:12] But it's such an incredible moment in history.

[00:32:15] Like, I think even when I was growing up and they would show the Olympic highlights,

[00:32:18] how many times have you seen that clip?

[00:32:19] Probably a billion, right?

[00:32:21] So many.

[00:32:21] Yeah, a billion.

[00:32:22] And I don't follow gymnastics.

[00:32:23] And that's one of the moments that I could point to in, like, just watching in Olympic history where I'm like,

[00:32:29] yeah, that's one of the things that made us, you know, such a powerhouse,

[00:32:34] is that we were willing to do whatever it took.

[00:32:36] You know, these women were able to go far above and beyond all expectations,

[00:32:40] no matter what, put their bodies at risk, blah, blah, blah,

[00:32:43] to stand up and represent this country.

[00:32:47] And then I'd start thinking, they're like 15 years old.

[00:32:50] This is wild that we would put them through this.

[00:32:52] Like, there's no other sport where you would, like,

[00:32:55] would you would push somebody to go out on a broken leg?

[00:32:57] Exactly.

[00:33:00] And to do, I mean, like, you imagine the impact that comes from, like,

[00:33:04] hurtling yourself at an apparatus that is stationary and then flipping and then landing on a broken,

[00:33:12] like, like an already broken leg is wild.

[00:33:17] Whose idea was this?

[00:33:17] And that's just what we...

[00:33:19] No, seriously.

[00:33:20] Who...

[00:33:20] That's just what we expected.

[00:33:21] Who came up with this?

[00:33:23] No, seriously.

[00:33:23] We have to really talk about the vault as a torture device at this point.

[00:33:28] Whose idea was it like, if you run it this day really, really fast,

[00:33:31] I wonder how many flips you can do off of it.

[00:33:33] What person and what were they smoking?

[00:33:37] I guess you have to ask the ancient Greeks,

[00:33:39] because gymnastics is one of the original Olympic events.

[00:33:43] Yeah, it's...

[00:33:44] It has stood the test of time, despite all the things we just said,

[00:33:47] which is wild in and of itself.

[00:33:49] I actually...

[00:33:50] I actually slipped over into gymnastics TikTok lately, because...

[00:33:55] Well, because I started looking at the Simone Biles clips,

[00:33:58] and then next thing you know, my algorithm said,

[00:33:59] oh, so you're a gymnast.

[00:34:01] And so I started seeing all these clips,

[00:34:04] and it really started...

[00:34:06] I started seeing some things that would talk about male gymnastics

[00:34:09] versus the women's gymnastics.

[00:34:11] And I thought it was so interesting,

[00:34:13] because to me, I just thought this was women doing gymnastics.

[00:34:17] But they're essentially two different sports, Latonya.

[00:34:19] I didn't know that.

[00:34:20] They are.

[00:34:20] Yeah.

[00:34:21] So women have four events.

[00:34:23] They have the vault, the bars, the beam, the floor.

[00:34:27] Men have six events.

[00:34:30] And they only share, I think, the floor in common.

[00:34:34] So they have floor...

[00:34:35] They share the floor and the vault.

[00:34:37] And the vault, yes.

[00:34:38] They have floor vault, high bar, parallel bars, rings, pommel horse.

[00:34:46] I think I said all of them.

[00:34:48] Yeah.

[00:34:49] And even though they...

[00:34:52] I mean, they do share some of the same vaults.

[00:34:55] Like most of the people who can do Simone's,

[00:34:57] your chinko double pike, are men.

[00:34:59] Like she's the only woman who knows how to do that.

[00:35:02] There's a really cool side-by-side from several Olympics ago,

[00:35:06] Mikayla Maroney, who was like famous for her vault,

[00:35:10] which was your chinko two and a half,

[00:35:12] being like better than the best men's gymnast to ever exist.

[00:35:18] But yeah, I mean, like if you were to look at floor exercise,

[00:35:21] for example, the men don't have music.

[00:35:23] There's no dance.

[00:35:25] It's...

[00:35:26] They're almost completely different things.

[00:35:29] Yeah.

[00:35:30] And they take different skill sets.

[00:35:32] I was watching one of the TikToks I was watching

[00:35:34] was showing that men couldn't do a backward, like a walkover.

[00:35:38] Right.

[00:35:38] Because they're not trained in flexibility like that.

[00:35:42] Right.

[00:35:42] There were several techniques that like they just,

[00:35:45] they don't know how to do it.

[00:35:46] I think an illusion is one of the things.

[00:35:48] An illusion turn, yeah.

[00:35:50] Yeah, a lot of them weren't able to do that

[00:35:52] because men's gymnastic is more based on just like the shoulder strength.

[00:35:56] Exactly.

[00:35:57] And, you know, that's why the pommel horse is a thing, I think, right?

[00:36:00] The pommel horse.

[00:36:01] Yeah, that's a thing.

[00:36:03] You've been watching Ian Gunther's videos, haven't you?

[00:36:05] Listen, I watch a lot of things.

[00:36:07] I watch a lot of things.

[00:36:07] When it comes up on TikTok, I'm like, yes, please play.

[00:36:10] Because I'm trying to get myself psyched for these Olympic events.

[00:36:15] Tanya, tell me about the U.S. Olympic team now.

[00:36:18] So we have Simone, as we know, as our front runner.

[00:36:23] She is the favorite to win gold in every Olympic gymnastics event,

[00:36:27] probably, that she's going to be competing in.

[00:36:29] But who else do we have on Team USA?

[00:36:30] Because there's been some controversy recently that I've seen on the timeline.

[00:36:35] Yes.

[00:36:36] So this year on the team, we have a lot of returning Olympians.

[00:36:41] We have Simone.

[00:36:42] We have Suni Lee, who you might remember from Tokyo,

[00:36:45] won the all-around championship.

[00:36:47] And Simone's absence.

[00:36:49] Then we have Jade Carey, who was an individual Olympic gymnast that was there.

[00:36:57] She got the gold on the floor in Tokyo.

[00:37:00] And then we have Jordan Childs, who you all might remember from just going viral,

[00:37:05] being like a UCLA gymnast, in addition to being an Olympic gymnast.

[00:37:09] And getting, like, I think she got, like, signed things from Megan Thee Stallion and Beyonce recently.

[00:37:17] And then we have newcomer and first-time Olympian, 16-year-old Hesley Rivera.

[00:37:22] So a lot of people from Texas, I will say, number one.

[00:37:29] Really, really, really, really like Texan Olympic team.

[00:37:33] But a really strong Olympic team as well.

[00:37:38] But not the Olympic team that anyone would have really predicted.

[00:37:41] Maybe even, like, three to two days before the trials happened.

[00:37:45] Because we thought that Shilise Jones and Sky Blakely, who are also Black women gymnasts,

[00:37:55] were shoe-ins to be on the team.

[00:37:57] And then they immediately got injured in preparation for the trials.

[00:38:02] So they had to pull out of the trials.

[00:38:05] I'm pretty sure they both tore their Achilles.

[00:38:08] And then another gymnast also tore her Achilles.

[00:38:12] So it was just a really stressful Olympic trials.

[00:38:16] We were all just hoping that everybody got out alive and well.

[00:38:21] More so than we were worried about who the Olympic team was going to be.

[00:38:24] But then it started to shape up by the second night of trials.

[00:38:27] And you could tell that it was going to be mostly a team of all the previous Olympians.

[00:38:33] And then the real spot, the fight was for one spot.

[00:38:36] And that spot went to Hesley.

[00:38:38] Gotcha.

[00:38:39] And I think we see Shilise Jones and Sky Blakely in this documentary at one point.

[00:38:45] Because were those the two women that shared the podiums with Simone

[00:38:50] as they got first, second, and third place at Worlds?

[00:38:53] It was.

[00:38:55] Shilise Jones was one, but it wasn't Sky Blakely.

[00:38:58] That was Rebecca Andrade, who is a woman from Brazil,

[00:39:03] who probably is the top contender to beat Simone in the all-around.

[00:39:10] Okay, but is anybody going to beat Simone in the all-around?

[00:39:14] I mean, it can be done.

[00:39:16] I don't know if it's going to happen.

[00:39:18] I'm just saying it can be done.

[00:39:20] Like, if Simone falls on her vault, she'll still get a very high score

[00:39:23] because she's doing the hardest vault that's ever been done by a woman ever in the history of gymnastics.

[00:39:29] But if she falls on her vault, she has room kind of to fall again.

[00:39:34] And if she falls twice, then yes, she could lose.

[00:39:44] Look, I can't help but laugh because I told you,

[00:39:47] the Olympics brings out this extremely competitive patriotic side of me that's like,

[00:39:51] we about to win this.

[00:39:53] Ain't no way.

[00:39:53] They not messing with Simone.

[00:39:56] Because she's been through so much to get here.

[00:39:58] And don't get me wrong.

[00:39:59] There's nothing that can tarnish her reputation and her legacy as a gymnast.

[00:40:02] She could go in and just decide, like, I don't want to do this somewhere.

[00:40:04] And we'd be like, all right, cool.

[00:40:05] You know, because to do what she did in the Rio Olympics was just something that we hadn't seen before.

[00:40:13] But I like that Simone was able to really pick up the mantle where we left off with saying,

[00:40:18] like, maybe like a Gabby Douglas.

[00:40:20] You know, we saw some conversation about Gabby in this documentary as well.

[00:40:24] When it came to the unfair criticism a lot of the Black gymnasts had been getting about their hair.

[00:40:30] I remember those days.

[00:40:31] Okay.

[00:40:32] I remember those days.

[00:40:34] Because I, you, Gabby Douglas was Simone Biles before Simone Biles was Simone Biles.

[00:40:38] You know, we thought Gabby could do no wrong.

[00:40:41] She, that little girl, we were so proud of her.

[00:40:44] And then people just really started to pick on her for no reason, except they didn't like her hair.

[00:40:48] She was 16 years old and the first ever Black American woman to win the all-around title.

[00:40:55] The first Black woman, period, to ever win the all-around title in the Olympics, right?

[00:41:00] 16 years old.

[00:41:02] And the headline the next day, I turn on the radio, right?

[00:41:06] It's WGCI in Chicago.

[00:41:08] And what are they talking about?

[00:41:10] But this 16-year-old's hair.

[00:41:12] Hmm.

[00:41:13] Like, did you all expect that there would be a hair salon for her to go to at the Olympics?

[00:41:20] And in between flips, she would just go and get it taken care of?

[00:41:24] Why are you focusing on her hair when she just won?

[00:41:27] She just made history.

[00:41:30] Yeah.

[00:41:32] It's insane to think about that.

[00:41:34] We have one of the most electrifying athletes that we had seen.

[00:41:39] Gabby Douglas was up there just, I mean, I think she had unified all of, like, all the Black Americans were like,

[00:41:46] nah, that's our baby.

[00:41:47] That's Gabby.

[00:41:48] She's up there.

[00:41:49] She's doing her thing.

[00:41:50] You go, Gabby.

[00:41:50] And then to see that, you know, the haters are going to rear their ugly heads no matter what, it really did suck.

[00:41:56] Because you couldn't imagine that happening to a man or a male Olympian, right?

[00:42:01] Kevin Durant had to brush his hair since at least the NBA draft.

[00:42:05] And nobody says nothing.

[00:42:07] Nobody says nothing.

[00:42:08] I mean, don't make fun of him a little bit.

[00:42:09] But there's never going to be the headline.

[00:42:11] That's still Kevin Durant.

[00:42:12] But they really did try to minimalize Gabby Douglas' impact.

[00:42:15] And then Simone's as well about her hair.

[00:42:17] And look, Gabby and Simone ain't the same.

[00:42:20] They're not.

[00:42:21] Simone is a cut above, but she's still getting some of the same criticism that even Gabby got.

[00:42:27] Right.

[00:42:27] It's pretty much impossible to be a successful Black woman in the world.

[00:42:35] And we've seen that, you know, people still have those same beauty standards, especially for gymnasts.

[00:42:43] They talk about in the documentary, you know, well, there was Dominique Dawes, but she was in the shadow of Shannon Miller, right?

[00:42:54] There was Betty Okino, but she was in the shadow of, like, insert whatever Caroli gymnast you want to insert there, right?

[00:43:02] Like, people are only comfortable with Black women succeeding when they're in the shadow of a, like, more successful white woman in gymnastics.

[00:43:11] And there's something, like, people need to look inward before they start putting all of these things out into the world.

[00:43:18] They need to look inward and figure out if there's something wrong with how they think about things before they start criticizing other people.

[00:43:28] I do have one critique of Gabby Douglas, if you don't mind.

[00:43:32] Yes.

[00:43:33] Many people do.

[00:43:34] Have you ever seen her do the Dougie?

[00:43:36] Oh, it's not great.

[00:43:37] It is bad.

[00:43:39] She was a little baby.

[00:43:41] She was.

[00:43:42] Yeah.

[00:43:42] Same time.

[00:43:44] I didn't watch and laugh at Gabby Douglas doing the Dougie at least a billion times.

[00:43:48] I swear.

[00:43:50] It's just like, I say a billion.

[00:43:51] And for every view on YouTube, I probably, I count for every, like, two of every view that that clip got on YouTube because.

[00:44:00] Yeah.

[00:44:00] I don't know what she was doing.

[00:44:02] I don't know what she was doing.

[00:44:04] But, you know, they, she was very excited because she won Olympic trials.

[00:44:10] Yeah.

[00:44:10] Um, like she was kind of in the, in the shadow of, you know, gymnasts like Ali and, uh, and, you know, like people weren't really expecting her to win because Jordan Weber, who's now the head coach of Arkansas gymnastics have been world champion and, you know, winning most of the competitions.

[00:44:30] But then Gabby was like, yeah, no, I'm going to win trials and get like the one spot that's guaranteed.

[00:44:36] And I'm going to be so happy that I'm going to terribly do the Dougie.

[00:44:43] But look, she was celebrating the best way she knew how.

[00:44:46] Okay.

[00:44:47] She was.

[00:44:47] Yeah.

[00:44:47] Yeah.

[00:44:48] Two time Olympian, Gabby Douglas.

[00:44:51] Right.

[00:44:51] Like how dare I even sit here and laugh at her and not being able to do Dougie and I can't even reach how she can reach.

[00:44:57] You know, my arm don't even go as high as her arm goes.

[00:44:59] My toes, my toes could never point.

[00:45:01] Like I can't do nothing she can do except the Dougie.

[00:45:04] That's probably the one thing I can get her on.

[00:45:08] Latonya, is there anything else in this docuseries that you want to talk about?

[00:45:14] Um, I think that we hit on just about everything.

[00:45:19] I will say that the first time I watched and her mom was talking about how this was the first competition where I didn't braid her hair.

[00:45:28] I definitely cried.

[00:45:29] Like any, any scene with her mom, the one where, you know, she calls her.

[00:45:35] Cause I remember this from the Olympics because it was the COVID Olympics.

[00:45:39] They were just like, let's just put all the families in a room, like their living room and put a camera on them.

[00:45:45] And the, you know, the documentary showing how Simone called her right before she decided to like pull out of the team final.

[00:45:54] What really got to me, like all of the family moments are really nice here considering how hard fought they are.

[00:46:02] Like they wouldn't have even been a family if, you know, Ron and Nellie hadn't taken Simone and her sister in.

[00:46:09] Uh, you know, another cool moment in this documentary.

[00:46:11] We saw the star of claim to fame, Adria Louise Simone, bio sister.

[00:46:20] So it is documentary.

[00:46:22] And I was like, I know her.

[00:46:23] I know her.

[00:46:26] I don't know why that just tickled me.

[00:46:28] If y'all haven't watched claim to fame season one, please watch it.

[00:46:31] Adria is Simone's little sister and also damn near her twin.

[00:46:34] They got the same face.

[00:46:35] And the premise of claim to fame is that they have to come in and these, um, relatives of celebrities have to convince or not convince, but kind of keep people from guessing who they're related to.

[00:46:45] And Adria walks in and 90% of the cast is like, Oh, look at Simone Biles, not Simone Biles sister, but actually Simone Biles.

[00:46:58] That's really funny.

[00:46:59] I hadn't seen that.

[00:47:01] Oh, Latanya, please go watch claim.

[00:47:03] I'm not even joking.

[00:47:04] Please go watch episode one of claim to fame season one.

[00:47:08] You will have, first of all, you would be very great.

[00:47:10] You will be very good at claim to fame, but also season one, episode one is iconic.

[00:47:15] And Adria Biles is one of the stars of the season.

[00:47:18] And it's, it's so funny, but I too, I enjoyed seeing her family, her sister.

[00:47:22] I liked seeing her story about how they came up in foster care and how they now, you know, like how, how they are now as she's one of the most known faces in, uh, America in, in world gymnastics and world Olympics and competition.

[00:47:37] She's one of the flagship athletes that we have over here.

[00:47:40] She'll go down in history as a legend.

[00:47:42] And I don't know if there will be another Simone Biles for a while.

[00:47:45] Um, and that's okay.

[00:47:46] I like having her as the go.

[00:47:48] I like that.

[00:47:48] She, uh, she, she holds it, uh, in high regard.

[00:47:52] And then she set a standard for it that I think a lot of people are going to have a really tough time meeting.

[00:47:56] And that makes me happy.

[00:47:58] Yeah.

[00:47:59] I'm, I'm really glad that, you know, she's still not finished.

[00:48:03] She is still, uh, going to light up these Olympics.

[00:48:09] I think, uh, you know, Paris is a great place for them to be because it's the city of lights.

[00:48:14] So I, I'm really excited for what is about to come and I cannot wait for all of the gymnastics competitions that are going to happen.

[00:48:24] Yeah.

[00:48:25] Yeah.

[00:48:25] Me neither.

[00:48:26] Uh, what else, uh, when it comes to the Olympics, what else do you watch closely?

[00:48:30] I love, so I watch men's gymnastics now.

[00:48:34] Uh, I got into it like in the last four years and, uh, our men's team is not nearly as diverse as our women's team is.

[00:48:44] Uh, but Fred Richard is this young black gymnast from the university of Michigan who, uh, qualified number one at the Olympic trials.

[00:48:54] I'm really excited to see what he's going to do, uh, at, at this year's Olympics.

[00:48:59] I love swimming a lot.

[00:49:02] So I watched all of those and there are like 5 million swimming events.

[00:49:08] So there's a ton of that to watch.

[00:49:10] I watch track and field.

[00:49:13] Um, of course I watch diving and volleyball beach volleyball.

[00:49:23] Hmm.

[00:49:24] I, um, yeah, I, I don't miss any of the events that you, that you named.

[00:49:28] I'm going to be seated for all of them.

[00:49:30] Uh, beach volleyball is the one I probably watched the least, but not when you tell me that the United States is making a run for the gold.

[00:49:36] Like if you tell me like we're, I'm like, all right, I got to check them out.

[00:49:39] Uh, but yeah, definitely swimming.

[00:49:43] And, you know, it's going to sound a little conceited as far as being American, but that's what we came here to do today.

[00:49:49] I just really don't like the atmosphere around the Olympic swimming right now because people act like they're going to beat the United States.

[00:49:57] And I don't like that.

[00:49:58] I'm so used to us being dominant in swimming.

[00:50:00] I'm like, wait, what you mean?

[00:50:02] Michael, I saw Michael Phelps had to come and make a statement.

[00:50:04] He was like, Hey, Hey, Hey, we got to shut these people up.

[00:50:07] Cause what are they saying about it?

[00:50:09] Did you see the video of him watching that video of like the Australian swimmer talking about how, how obnoxious the United States is?

[00:50:16] Uh-huh.

[00:50:17] And he was like, I might have to come out of retirement.

[00:50:20] You know?

[00:50:20] Exactly.

[00:50:22] Like, and he's commentating this summer.

[00:50:25] Uh, so I'm excited to see what he's going to have to say because he has never, ever let anybody get by talking smack about Team USA.

[00:50:36] Like he, he avenges it every time.

[00:50:39] I just don't know.

[00:50:40] Like, I don't know who our, who do we have a Michael Phelps this year?

[00:50:42] Who was our person?

[00:50:43] Cause I, women swimming, we be, we be packing them up.

[00:50:46] Okay.

[00:50:46] Like we, we really do.

[00:50:47] Yeah.

[00:50:48] We, we have Katie Ledecky, uh, for women swim and Simone Manuel.

[00:50:53] She's literally a fish.

[00:50:54] Yeah.

[00:50:54] Yeah.

[00:50:55] She is like, she just wins every event, like in, in dominant, like Michael Phelps style.

[00:51:02] Yeah.

[00:51:02] And not nearly enough people talk about it because she's like, okay.

[00:51:05] Like she doesn't really, she doesn't have the bravado that like Michael Phelps had where he was just like, Frenchie was talking some smack, you know?

[00:51:13] So we had to shut him up, which is a thing he actually said on television.

[00:51:18] Uh, and he shut them up.

[00:51:21] Yeah.

[00:51:23] Um, but like on the men's side, we don't really have anyone as dominant as Michael Phelps.

[00:51:28] Well, we do have a lot of really good, like young up and coming swimmers that have made the team this year.

[00:51:35] I'm excited to see about that.

[00:51:37] Uh, of course, track and field.

[00:51:39] I will definitely take some time to sit with that.

[00:51:41] Sha'Carri.

[00:51:42] Sha'Carri.

[00:51:43] Look, the U.S. versus Jamaica.

[00:51:45] What can you do?

[00:51:46] You know, we got it.

[00:51:47] We got to tune in.

[00:51:48] A little black on black crime ain't never hurt nobody.

[00:51:52] It's the only time we allow it.

[00:51:54] It's the only time I accept it or acknowledge it.

[00:51:56] Okay.

[00:51:57] Uh, but yeah, there's so much going on right now.

[00:52:00] The Olympics is this week.

[00:52:01] And so, uh, I'm excited.

[00:52:02] I'm going to be tuned in.

[00:52:03] I'll be sad.

[00:52:04] Maybe we'll tap back in somewhere during the Olympics and, uh, maybe do a rundown about all the gold medals we've now collected as a country.

[00:52:10] I would love that.

[00:52:11] Uh, the medal count is one of my favorite things, uh, to see every day at the Olympics.

[00:52:16] And it's always great when the U.S. is on top.

[00:52:19] Uh, do you also rule for everybody black?

[00:52:22] Yes.

[00:52:23] Of course.

[00:52:24] Yeah.

[00:52:24] I don't care what country you want.

[00:52:26] That's why, that's why I was like, it's possible Rebecca Andrade because black.

[00:52:32] Yeah.

[00:52:33] Because black.

[00:52:34] I'm rooting for Simone, but if I have to lose.

[00:52:36] Right.

[00:52:37] Yeah.

[00:52:38] I, I'm like that for the most part, but there are definitely times where I, I make no exception and I just refuse to see Simone Biles lose.

[00:52:45] Uh, same thing with, uh, track and field, uh, the way I'm ready to watch Gabby Thomas, Thomas, uh, run circles around these people and just like, like leave them in the dust.

[00:52:54] It's going to be, I just, I can't wait.

[00:52:57] I'm just going to sit down and glass of wine and watch it.

[00:53:00] Yeah.

[00:53:00] It's going to be so good.

[00:53:02] I'm excited.

[00:53:03] Uh, Latonya, thank you so much for being here and letting me like vent a little bit about the Olympics because it's coming, but also for talking to me about this Simone Biles docuseries.

[00:53:13] I'm very happy that I got to be here.

[00:53:15] This was a lot of fun and I really do hope that we can stop somewhere maybe after the first week, uh, talk about what's been going on with the Olympics.

[00:53:25] I have always wanted to podcast about the Olympics.

[00:53:28] I have to admit.

[00:53:29] Yeah.

[00:53:30] So maybe this is our chance.

[00:53:33] Who going to stop us?

[00:53:34] We in charge, baby.

[00:53:39] Latonya, thank you so much.

[00:53:40] Yeah.

[00:53:41] Come on back.

[00:53:41] We can talk about more.

[00:53:42] I think I am going to talk about sprint.

[00:53:44] I have a guest in mind.

[00:53:46] Uh, but aside from that, yeah.

[00:53:48] Uh, more Olympics coverage to come maybe fingers crossed if we have the time to do it.

[00:53:52] Uh, but in the meantime, what else are you working on?

[00:53:56] Um, you can find me each week on a page and screen podcast talking with DM Philly about house of the dragon.

[00:54:05] Uh, that is something that we, uh, talk, we have in common talking about house of the dragon,

[00:54:10] trying to figure out what the hell is going on in Westeros and why.

[00:54:14] Um, so yeah, catch me there.

[00:54:16] And then for anything else, you can find me on Twitter at LK Starks.

[00:54:21] All right.

[00:54:22] And, uh, yeah, for me, y'all know what it is.

[00:54:25] It's a recap kickback where it's all the time.

[00:54:28] So come here, follow us, subscribe, make sure you, uh, follow Latonya, subscribe to all the things she has going on and stay tuned.

[00:54:35] Cause we might bring you some more Olympic coverage.

[00:54:36] And we also take requests.

[00:54:38] Suit us an email, um, recap kickback at gmail.com and let us know what you want us to talk about here.

[00:54:42] And I'll try to assemble a team to do it.

[00:54:45] Also this week, 40 years ago, purple rain became a movie.

[00:54:48] It was a big deal.

[00:54:49] And we're celebrating 40 years of purple rain here on recap kickback by talking about and revisiting purple rain, the movie with Camille AF.

[00:54:57] Being Camille AF is my guest.

[00:54:59] It is, she is a Prince super fan and, uh, people don't know this, but so am I.

[00:55:02] So, uh, imagine just an hour and a half of us ranting about Prince and talking about the legacy 40 years after one of the most ridiculous movies I've ever seen.

[00:55:10] Uh, so check that out here.

[00:55:12] Recap kickback, uh, check me out on RHAP talking about big brother this summer, uh, talking about below deck every Wednesday live with Sasha Joseph.

[00:55:21] If you're not, uh, if you're a fan of below deck, then please go, uh, subscribe to that podcast, the below deck wrap up podcast, and then make sure you're following and subscribe to all the recap kickback content, uh, to keep up with what we have going to, or going on as well.

[00:55:36] Uh, Latonya, that's about it.

[00:55:37] Hey, these people ain't got to go home, but they do have to get the hell up out of here.

[00:55:41] We will talk to you all next time.

[00:55:42] Until then, peace.