It's In Their Blood: Siblings Eye 1st Mixed Curling Gold At Winter Olympics
(Left) United States’ Becca Hamilton releases the stone during a match against Switzerland in the Women’s World Curling Championship in Beijing on March 23, 2017. (Right) Becca’s brother, Matt Hamilton, delivers a stone during the bronze medal game between the U.S. and Japan at the World Men’s Curling Championships on April 10, 2016.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP; Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
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Mark Schiefelbein/AP; Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
When Matt and Becca Hamilton are on the ice together, it’s pure chemistry. The brother and sister compete in curling, the “roaring game” where players take turns lunging down a sheet of ice, pushing a 44-pound rock.
They sweep the ice with a special broom to help glide the rock to a target, known as the house. The team that ends up with rocks closest to the center of the house gets the points. It’s similar to shuffleboard or even bocce ball.
“It’s almost poetic,” Matt, 27, says. “All you can hear is your broom sliding on the ice, and the rock sliding, the occasional sound of rocks hitting each other. It’s kind of serene. It was very Zen.”
Now, the Hamilton siblings are heading to PyeongChang next month to represent Team USA at the 2018 Olympics.
Matt and Becca Hamilton grew up watching their family curl at the Madison Curling Club in Wisconsin. Matt was not always impressed with the sport, he says.
“I remember in eighth grade, I watched my dad do it,” he says. “And, I did not think it was cool when dad was doing it.”
Matt eventually found an interest in the sport. He got hooked on curling and then taught his younger sister.
“Once I was drug out on the ice, I didn’t look back,” 26-year-old Becca says. “I was down [at the curling club] every single day before school and after school, playing in multiple leagues at night. I was hooked.”
Matt is competing with the men’s team, and Becca is playing with the women’s team. But it’s their mixed doubles that’s getting all the attention.
The mixed doubles event is new to the 2018 Olympics, and the Hamiltons will be on the ice competing against seven of the best curling duos from around the world. The siblings are hoping to make it to the podium, taking home the first gold medal in mixed doubles curling.
The duo praise one another for their talent on the ice. Matt says he thinks Becca is the best female sweeper in the United States, and Becca says Matt can make almost any shot.
Their ability to communicate also drives their success, says their mixed doubles coach Jake Higgs.
“I would say it’s a better vibe than you get from spouses or significant others playing together,” Higgs says. “Typically when things blow up for spouses it can take a number of ends or games to talk to each other again or like each other again whereas with Matt and Becca, it’s a quick transition.”
Becca says her dynamic with Matt on the ice is different than with teammates on the women’s squad.
“Matt and I feed off each other and we ground each other at the same time,” Becca says. “So he’s pretty involved with the crowd and he’s got an upbeat personality and I’m kind of the calm out there that reels him back in when you need to.”
And because they’re related, Matt says they can be more open with each other.
“If someone’s struggling or something like that, we can tell each other with absolute honesty what we’re seeing and know that that’s not going to offend her,” Matt says. “I’m not telling her what she’s doing wrong to be mean. She knows I’m doing it to help her get better and play better.”
Texas Governor Orders State Investigation Of Claims Of Sexual Abuse At Karolyi Ranch
A sign points down the road to the Karolyi Ranch near Hunstville, Texas, in 2015. Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday he has ordered a criminal investigation into claims that former doctor Larry Nassar abused athletes at the facility, which served as the training site for the U.S. women’s national gymnastics team.
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott requested on Tuesday that the Texas Rangers launch an investigation into the allegations of sexual abuse at the Karolyi Ranch.
Multiple athletes have come forward with allegations of abuse by former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar while they were training at the famed facility, located in East Texas near Huntsville. Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison last week.
Two weeks ago, Olympic gold medal-winner Simone Biles posted on Twitter, “It breaks my heart even more to think that as I work toward my dream of competing in Tokyo 2020, I will have to continually return to the same training facility where I was abused.”
Three days later, USA Gymnastics announced it was cutting ties with the Karolyi ranch. “It will no longer serve as the USA Gymnastics National Team Training Center,” USA Gymnastics president and CEO Kerry Perry said in a statement.
A website for the Karolyi summer camp has only this statement:
“After nearly four decades of spiriting young gymnasts towards greatness in sport, our yearly tradition of the Karolyi’s Gymnastics Camp has come to an end. Bela, Martha, and the rest of the camp staff wish to sincerely thank all participants, USA Gymnastics, and everyone who has been a part of our extended family for 35 years of unforgettable memories.”
The Walker County Sheriff’s Office said last week that it had an open investigation into the ranch, and Abbott commended the office for its diligence. He said he was bringing the Rangers into the matter because the “criminal action has been implicated across multiple jurisdictions and states.”
“The public statements made by athletes who previously trained at the Karolyi Ranch are gut-wrenching,” Abbott said in a statement. “Those athletes, as well as all Texans, deserve to know that no stone is left unturned to ensure that the allegations are thoroughly vetted and the perpetrators and enablers of any such misconduct are brought to justice. The people of Texas demand, and the victims deserve, nothing less.”
Bela Karolyi coached the U.S. women’s team at the Olympics in 1988 and 1992. Martha Karolyi coached the team in 1996 and was assistant coach in 2008.
As Dvora Meyers reported on Deadspin in May, USA Gymnastics brought Bela Karolyi out of retirement in late 1999 to fill the new role of national team coordinator, and grueling training camps at the ranch became part of the Olympic team selection process.
He remained in the coordinator role until 2000; Martha Karolyi held the role from 2001 to 2016.
Cleveland Indians Will Remove 'Chief Wahoo' From Uniforms In 2019
The Cleveland Indians have agreed to remove the Chief Wahoo logo, which for decades has been publicly protested as racist and offensive “[T]he logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball,” said Commissioner Rob Manfred.
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Patrick Semansky/AP
The Cleveland Indians will be removing “Chief Wahoo,” the bright red caricature of a Native American the team uses as a logo, from players’ caps and uniforms starting in 2019.
The divisive logo, which has been publicly protested as a racist and offensive image for decades, will remain on official merchandise available for purchase by fans.
“The team must maintain a retail presence so that MLB and the Indians can keep ownership of the trademark,” The Associated Press reports.
The Indians announced the change on Monday. The team name — which has also been criticized as offensive — will not be changing.
“Major League Baseball is committed to building a culture of diversity and inclusion throughout the game,” MLB’s commissioner, Rob Manfred, said in a statement. “Over the past year, we encouraged dialogue with the Indians organization about the Club’s use of the Chief Wahoo logo. During our constructive conversations, [Indians CEO] Paul Dolan made clear that there are fans who have a longstanding attachment to the logo and its place in the history of the team.
“Nonetheless, the club ultimately agreed with my position that the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball, and I appreciate Mr. Dolan’s acknowledgement that removing it from the on-field uniform by the start of the 2019 season is the right course,” Manfred said.
Ray Halbritter, a member of Oneida Nation and the leader of the “Change the Mascot” protest campaign, celebrated the change.
“The Cleveland baseball team has rightly recognized that Native Americans do not deserve to be denigrated as cartoon mascots, and the team’s move is a reflection of a grassroots movement that has pressed sports franchises to respect Native people,” Halbritter said in a statement.
Other Native activists expressed more skepticism.
“It’s a small step in the right direction, but it is just that — a small step,” Cleveland activist Sundance told NPR.
Sundance, a member of the Muskogee Creek Nation and the executive director of the Cleveland American Indian Movement, has been a long-standing critic of Chief Wahoo.
“The team is still going to be able to license Wahoo and make money off of that racist image,” he says. “The environment down at the stadium is not going to change for the better. … People are still going to wear Wahoo to the stadium, they are still going to dress in red face, they are still going to give war whoops, all under the rubric of being Indian.”
Sundance was involved in a lawsuit back in 1972, attempting to force the team to drop the logo.
As Indian Country Todayreports, Native resistance to the logo has continued ever since, including at annual opening day protests:
“Those Native American protesters who gather at the ironically named Progressive Field—some of them members of the Cleveland American Indian Movement (AIM) and the Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance—have not been met with open arms or friendly words. Cleveland’s baseball fans have hurled beer cans and spat on them. The protesters have been called stupid and ‘Custer-killers.’ Cleveland AIM calls the use of the Chief Wahoo mascot ‘bigoted, racist and shameful,’ and the Committee of 500 complains that the logo is a negative stereotype against indigenous people.”
Protesters have objected to the Cleveland Indians’ name as well as to the Chief Wahoo image.
And those protests will continue, Sundance says. “We’re still going to be out there on opening day, until that name is changed,” he says.
The National Congress of American Indians praised MLB for “setting the example for how professional sports leagues can and should respect Native peoples.”
Other sports teams — most conspicuously, Washington’s football team — have also faced decades of protest and criticism for their use of offensive racial stereotypes, caricatures or slurs as official names or mascots. But notably, the debate over the Cleveland Indians logo has resulted in visible changes, as The Associated Press notes:
“Under growing pressure to eliminate Chief Wahoo, the club has been transitioning away from the logo in recent years. The Indians introduced a block ‘C’ insignia on some of their caps and have removed signs with the Wahoo logo in and around Progressive Field, the team’s downtown ballpark.
“National criticism and scrutiny about the Indians’ allegiance to Chief Wahoo grew in 2016, when the Indians made the World Series and Manfred expressed his desire to have the team eradicate the symbol. Earlier in that postseason, a lawsuit was filed while the club was playing in Toronto to have the logo and team name banned from appearing on Canadian TV. That court case was dismissed by a judge.
“The Indians’ bid to host the 2019 All-Star Game, which it was ultimately awarded, further heightened debate over Wahoo.”
Supporters of the logo have expressed frustration and sorrow to see it go — and promised that it’s not disappearing from stands.
“Sadly, the Indians caved to the politically correct society that we are now all forced to live in,” Zach Sharon of Cleveland Sports Talk wrote. He said the logo is a representation of the team — one that reminds fans of the glory years of the ’90s, when “those great teams all sported the Chief Wahoo on their jerseys and those memories give myself and other fans goosebumps.”
“Thankfully, fans will continue to wear their Chief Wahoo apparel, probably even more now,” Sharon wrote. “I know I will. You’ll see it in the stands and around the city every Indians game. It’ll never truly go away.”
Cleveland lawyer and sportswriter Peter Pattakos, who opposes the logo, also predicted that the change will lead to more Chief Wahoo in stands, not less. For him, that was a cause for frustration, not celebration.
Here’s one of those times when the phrase “Only in Cleveland” is actually an understatement. #Cleveland#Indianspic.twitter.com/rFlzrqNz4q
— Peter Pattakos (@peterpattakos) April 4, 2014
Pattakos spoke to NPR in 2014, after he tweeted out a viral photo of a Native man confronting an Indians fan in red face. He described how he grew from a kid who “didn’t think of a Native American at all” when he saw the logo to an adult fan who says “the impact is so obviously racist and demeaning.”
Now he is frustrated with how MLB decided to implement this change.
“If they acknowledge that ‘the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball,’ what’s the excuse for waiting until 2019?” he tweeted. And the name hasn’t changed, he noted, writing, “Cowardly half-measures won’t do.”
Adrienne King, a Cherokee writer who runs a blog about the appropriation of Native cultures, met the news with a celebratory word — “FINALLY!!!”
FINALLY!!! (This is not a culture jam, btw. The real deal.) ?? “The logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball” https://t.co/0z10JEd1SO
— Dr. Adrienne Keene (@NativeApprops) January 29, 2018
She celebrated the fact that instead of just quietly changing the logo, MLB said it was inappropriate to use.
“Important to note: Even with this decision, you can still buy Chief Wahoo merch in Ohio and at the stadium, and the name is still the Indians,” she wrote on Twitter. “Not done fighting, but BIG step.”
American With Korean Heritage Will Play On Korea's Women Hockey Team At Olympics
Athletes from North and South Korea joined together for the Olympics. NPR’s Michel Martin talks with Randi Griffin, an American whose mom is South Korean, about playing on the women’s ice hockey team.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Olympics are just a couple of weeks away now, so we’ve been taking some time to meet some of the athletes who will be competing at the Games. And one of the biggest stories that emerged even before the festivities begin is the evolving relationship between South Korea – the host country – and North Korea. After negotiations, it was agreed that North Korean and South Korean Olympic teams will march under a unified Korean flag at the opening ceremonies. And the biggest compliment of North Korean athletes will be joining the women’s ice hockey team, which will merge and play as one unified team.
Now that bit of sports diplomacy aside, you might have another reason to root for the Korean team. Her name is Randi Griffin. She was born and raised in North Carolina, and she joins us now from Jincheon, South Korea, where she is training for the upcoming Olympics. Welcome. Thanks so much for breaking away to talk to us for a little bit via Skype.
RANDI GRIFFIN: Yep, no problem.
MARTIN: I think a lot of people are used to watching professional players in the NHL take a break and go back and play for their countries of origin in the Olympics. I think people are used to that – in any Olympics – both summer or winter – people are used to that. But how is it that you, as an American citizen, are able to play for the Korean team?
GRIFFIN: Yeah, so this is obviously a very different situation. Back in 2014, I got an email from the Korean Ice Hockey Association, and they basically said, we just found out that we’re going to the Olympics. They gave us automatic entry as the host country, but we don’t have a lot of hockey players, so we’re looking for North American-raised, Korean-heritage athletes to join our team and help bring up our level for the Pyeongchang Olympics.
So I went over for the first time in the summer of 2015, and I was there along with an American, Marissa Brandt, and a Canadian, Danelle Im. And for all of us, it was our first time there, and we met the team, we played in this little summer league, which was just three teams. The age range was, like, 13 to 40. And this was literally all of the Korean hockey players in existence. And I think for all of us, it was this combination of a great hockey experience but also a really cool cultural experience.
MARTIN: So your mom is Korean, as I understand it. Your mom…
GRIFFIN: Yes.
MARTIN: …Immigrated from South Korea.
GRIFFIN: That’s correct.
MARTIN: And I understand that there was a little bit of trouble finding you. I don’t think that Griffin is a particularly common Korean name from what I understand. (Laughter) And I understand that when they first reached out to you, you actually ignored it because you thought it was a scam.
GRIFFIN: (Laughter) Yeah, that’s true, but I’m a little embarrassed to say that. I’m actually pretty good friends now with the guy who sent me those emails, so I feel kind of bad when I have told the press that.
MARTIN: So how did they actually finally get in touch with you?
GRIFFIN: Yeah, so what I heard was that it was actually a player named Caroline Park – and Park is a Korean name. Their initial kind of search involved just scouring college hockey rosters in the U.S. and Canada, and they were looking for Korean names. So they found Caroline Park, and they reached out to her and her family. And Caroline Park was actually a Princeton grad – 2009 – so we overlapped for three years, and we played against each other.
MARTIN: And you played for Harvard.
GRIFFIN: I played for Harvard, yes. And…
MARTIN: So she knew – she steered them toward you.
GRIFFIN: Well, I think it was actually her dad because he was in the stands, and my mom was in the stands for a game, and I think they noticed each other because they’re not used to seeing Korean people at a hockey game. And so they struck up a conversation, and that was how he found out that I was half Korean because I’m not sure if he would’ve known otherwise.
MARTIN: Here’s the elephant in the room here – is that when they decided to combine the teams, it’s been well reported in the South Korean press that some of the South Koreans aren’t particularly happy about this, and I wonder if any of that has been communicated to you there.
GRIFFIN: Yeah, I think all the players on our team are very aware of that. I mean, we sit in the dining hall. We look up, and we’re seeing ourselves on the news every night – like, us playing the North Koreans and they’re talking about it.
MARTIN: And how are you dealing with that?
GRIFFIN: Honestly, we’re trying not to pay too much attention to it because the way we’re looking at it is this is completely out of our control. And with two weeks to go before the Olympics, we want to just focus on the athletics side of things and try not to pay attention to this.
MARTIN: So what’s next for you after the Olympics? I know you’re trying to focus on the Games, but what after that?
GRIFFIN: Well, I’m actually working on my dissertation still while I’m here. So I’ve had a very understanding dissertation committee who basically said as long as you’re still working on your dissertation and progressing towards your degree, if you can manage that with your training schedule, then you can do it in Korea.
MARTIN: Well, then you obviously are very busy and so we’re going to let you get back to your day. So thank you for taking time to speak with us. Good luck to you at the Games. And do you have a number yet so we can at least know you who you are with your mask on?
GRIFFIN: I do. My number is 37, and I’m actually wearing my Korean name, Hisu (ph), on my jersey.
MARTIN: OK. Well, that is Randi Griffin Hisu. She will be representing the unified Korean women’s ice hockey team at the Olympic Games. She was kind enough to join us from training in Jincheon, South Korea. Randi, thanks so much for speaking with us. Good luck to you.
GRIFFIN: Yeah, thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF DJ BOSS MAN’S “RUTHLESS”)
Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Nassar's Exploitation Of The Climate Of Fear At A USA Gymnastics Training Site
Olympic gold medalist Dominique Moceanu, an early critic of abusive behavior in the USA gymnastics program, talks to NPR’s Michel Martin about recent reporting on the sport’s widespread sexual abuse.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This week marked an important moment in the ongoing story about the sexual abuse inflicted upon some of the country’s elite female athletes. By now, you’ve probably heard that Larry Nassar, the former Michigan State and USA Gymnastics doctor, was handed a sentence of up to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing young patients, patients who were required to see him as part of their training. Others have been forced to resign or fired. USA Gymnastics recently announced that the gym run by Bela and Martha Karolyi, where the victims alleged some of the abuse took place, will no longer be used to train Olympic contenders.
In the wake of this, some are wondering how this could all have happened without anybody knowing or intervening. But some in the sport have spoken about the kind of environment that could allow this to happen. Dominique Moceanu is one of them. She is a former gymnast and the youngest American to win an Olympic gold medal. And she has long been a critic of the Karolyis and their training methods. She even wrote about all this back in 2012 in her memoir called “Off Balance.” She’s with us now via Skype from her home in Cleveland. Dominique Moceanu, thank you so much for speaking with us.
DOMINIQUE MOCEANU: Thank you so much for having me.
MARTIN: Forgive me, I do have to ask. Did you experience the kind of mistreatment – sexual misconduct under the guise of medical treatment that has now been revealed?
MOCEANU: No, I was not a victim of Dr. Nassar’s. And more importantly, now he’s inmate Nassar because I don’t consider him a doctor at all but more a master manipulator. So no, I was not a victim of his, but I applaud all the women who have come forward so courageously to share their stories. Because if the world did not hear them one by one by one, they may not have believed how egregious these acts of manipulation were and how vulnerable young children were in the arms of this really toxic environment and this prolific pedophile.
MARTIN: Well, I do want to ask you about the environment, specifically at the Karolyi Ranch, because you were coached by them intensely – personally by them. So could you talk a little bit about the environment that you described?
MOCEANU: Well, the environment at the Karolyi Ranch is a place where I know very well. And I lived there before the Summer Olympic Games in 1996, and it holds some of my darkest and worst memories of training. It was a very cold place. It’s not welcoming. The expectations I have no problem with – discipline and respect and hard work. I’m all for those things. But what they had there was fear, intimidation tactics, shaming tactics. If you didn’t go along with everything that they wanted you to and what wanted you to do, well, you were blacklisted immediately. You may not be put on an Olympic team.
And that fear is what did not allow so many young gymnasts to speak up when they were being abused because some of them didn’t even recognize it was abuse initially. So the abuse became normalized. And Nassar knew and saw the abuses take place not only with the Karolyis but at the gym with John Geddert in Michigan at Twist Stars. He knew the psychological abuses, and he took an oath to do no harm. And he was exploiting the abuses for his own personal pleasure on top of it.
MARTIN: Why do you think it’s taken so long, though, to get attention to this issue? Obviously, the sexual misconduct is a crime but also this kind of closed environment, this attitude of you can’t question authority. You can’t say anything. You’re not, you know, not allowed to speak about it. Why do you think it’s taken so long to get attention for this?
MOCEANU: It’s taken so long because it took countless courageous women to come forward for people to believe. It took Dr. Nassar – inmate Nassar, correctly speaking – it took his child pornography and for him to get arrested, first of all, to start getting more attention paid on this. We have to give credit to the investigative journalists at the Indy Star. They broke the story of abuse and they stayed on it. They got a lot of heat for it, but they stayed on it. And then the next step was kind of all of the women little by little coming forward and then all of them forward.
MARTIN: The practices that you described, the kind of the demeaning the athlete, you know, this kind of toxic environment, do you think that’s changing?
MOCEANU: I absolutely see it changing because it has to. Look at the attention worldwide this has received. I mean, right now, it’s an embarrassment to our sport. And it’s a humiliation to the powers that be and who ran our sport. And if any coach thinks they’re getting away with this in the future, you have another thing coming to you because it’s not going to happen. And a lot of eyes are going to be much more serious and watching the behavior of coaches. I mean, there wasn’t an inmate Nassar just because he was super clever.
Sure, he was a master manipulator, but there were also a lot of people who helped him. You have John Geddert, who allowed him a private room in his gym club. There was – the Karolyi Ranch was the perfect breed for a prolific pedophile. He got to go unchecked. And there is also the institutions who never reported any instances of sexual abuse. They brushed it under the rug. So that arrogance is what got us here. There were a lot of enablers. And now we have to hold people accountable. So for me, I just want the healing for these young women. I want everyone to heal. And I want to get rid of all of the abusers. So one by one, they better be careful because we’re coming after you.
MARTIN: That was Dominique Moceanu. She is the youngest American ever to win a gold medal in gymnastics, which she did in 1996. I want you to know that we reached out several times to the Karolyis for comment, but we have not heard back.
Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Fallout Between USA Gymnastics And U.S. Olympic Committee Continues
The sentencing of former doctor Larry Nassar has increasingly put pressure on the U.S. Olympic Committee and USA Gymnastics. NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks to Juliet Macur of The New York Times about the fallout.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
USA Gymnastics says its entire board of directors will resign. This comes after the U.S. Olympic Committee threatened to revoke the organization’s status as a national governing body for the sport of gymnastics. It’s the latest fallout from the Larry Nassar case.
The sentencing of Nassar, the former team doctor, has focused scrutiny on institutions associated with him, including both USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee. Juliet Macur has been writing about all this for The New York Times. Welcome back to the show.
JULIET MACUR: Thank you.
KELLY: What is your reaction to news of the entire board stepping down?
MACUR: It’s about time. The USOC sent a letter just yesterday requesting that the entire board step down and all this reorganization going on with USA Gymnastics. But that letter is probably a year and a half too late.
KELLY: The letter that you mentioned laid out six demands. This demand that the entire board step aside was the first one. What else leapt out at you in terms of what the U.S. Olympic Committee is calling for?
MACUR: They’re calling for the new USAG board to have ethics training, which I thought was interesting, that they might not be trained in ethics already…
KELLY: Yeah.
MACUR: …And also sexual abuse awareness training, which you would figure is necessary for any organization that governs tens of thousands of young people in sports. So the USOC said USA Gymnastics has to go through that training if they want to remain the governing body of the sport of gymnastics.
KELLY: This is the SafeSport training that is supposed to already be in place. Is it working? Is it enough?
MACUR: The problem with this is we don’t know if it’s working or if it’s enough because we’re not sure how many girls or boys or men and women out there have reported to this organization. And we haven’t really heard about any numbers or any information from SafeSport on how successful they’ve been. So that’s the biggest question – is how good is this new organization going to be in tackling these problems that obviously have been a gigantic problem for the USOC and USA Gymnastics?
KELLY: You know, it strikes me that this is a list of demands coming from the U.S. Olympic Committee to USA Gymnastics. Is the Olympic Committee blameless here?
MACUR: Absolutely not. I mean, they would like to think that they are blameless, but I think that we’ll find out exactly how much blame should be placed on them based on all these investigations that have been called for.
KELLY: Yeah. I mean, who are they accountable to, the U.S. Olympic Committee?
MACUR: Well, they would like to think nobody. But they are accountable to Congress. So Congress has asked for an investigation as to how and why this happened both with the USOC and the USA Gymnastics.
KELLY: Yeah. I mean, we should note that this is not the first time that instances, allegations of sexual abuse have come up with Olympic sports, something – you have the swim team and the many coaches who’ve been banned from coaching in that sport.
MACUR: Yeah. I think the biggest takeaway from all of this is just this is not a gymnastics problem. This is a problem that goes on in every single sport in America likely, not necessarily at the level of Larry Nassar. But what the USOC and all these federations can do is take a good look at their regulations and fix them so this doesn’t happen again.
KELLY: Juliet Macur, thank you.
MACUR: Thank you.
KELLY: Juliet Macur – she writes the Sports of the Times column for The New York Times.
Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Ex-USA Gymnastics Doctor Sentenced; Michigan State President Resigns
A judge sentenced Larry Nassar to 175 years in prison after more than 150 victims spoke at his proceedings. And, the president of Michigan State University, where Nassar also worked, resigned.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Wednesday was the day of judgment for Larry Nassar. A judge sentenced the former USA Gymnastics doctor to up to 175 years in prison. She said, you’ve done nothing to deserve to walk outside a prison again. The judge allowed statements by many of Nassar’s more than 150 victims, any who wanted to speak.
Wednesday was also a day of accountability for the president of Michigan State University, where Nassar also worked. President Lou Anna Simon resigned. Michigan Radio reporter Kate Wells has been covering this story for more than a year. She’s on the line.
Good morning.
KATE WELLS, BYLINE: Hey, Steve.
INSKEEP: Can you work us through the timeline here? When did victims start reporting crimes by Larry Nassar so far as you know?
WELLS: More than 20 years ago, according to these women and girls. We know that multiple women and girls say they have been talking to their MSU coaches, trainers, staff. We heard from one of them in court this week, Larissa Boyce. She says she told her MSU gymnastics coach that Nassar’s so-called treatments were becoming sexual. This was back in 1997.
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LARISSA BOYCE: I told somebody. I told an adult. Instead of being protected, I was humiliated, I was in trouble and brainwashed into believing that I was the problem.
WELLS: And we know that from an administrative standpoint, this school launched a 2014 Title IX investigation against Nassar. But that investigation ended up clearing Nassar at the time and letting him go back to work, even as a separate MSU Police investigation against Nassar continued for more than a year. And we know that Nassar assaulted more than a dozen girls during that time.
INSKEEP: OK. So Lou Anna Simon was not university president when these reports began coming in. But was…
WELLS: Right.
INSKEEP: …The university president from 2004 onward. When, so far as you know, did she learn how bad this was?
WELLS: During – at least, we know that she heard about the 2014 investigation. And she says she told the school to play it straight. But the anger towards her has really been building over this last year and a half. She has been seen as kind of tone deaf on this. At one point, she told victims that it would have been impossible to stop a determined sexual predator like Nassar. In her resignation letter last night even, she said, as tragedies are politicized, blame is inevitable. As president, it is only natural that I am the focus of this anger.
So victims feel like they’re not really feeling, even now, accountability from MSU.
INSKEEP: Wait a minute. She’s not saying, I’m responsible for what happened, and I have to take ultimate responsibility because I’m the top person. She’s saying, I just want to avoid a political fight.
WELLS: She’s certainly saying, you know, I’m really sorry to victims that this happened. But no, nothing in terms of – look, we could have done this better, and we really messed this up.
INSKEEP: Does Michigan State University face further investigation?
WELLS: Definitely. MSU is now under open investigations by the NCAA, the state attorney general, and they’re facing more than a hundred civil lawsuits in court.
INSKEEP: Kate, thanks very much.
WELLS: Thanks, Steve.
INSKEEP: Kate Wells of Michigan Radio.
(SOUNDBITE OF VETIVER’S “STRANGER STILL”)
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North Korean Women's Hockey Players Arrive To Begin Olympic Training With South
North Korean female hockey players arrive at the Inter-Korean Transit Office in Paju, South Korea, on Thursday.
AP
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Twelve members of the North Korean women’s ice hockey team have crossed the heavily fortified border to begin training with their South Korean counterparts ahead of next month’s Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Wearing red, white and blue team parkas emblazoned with the North Korean flag and “DPR Korea” on their backs, the women arrived on Thursday after the rival countries agreed to field a joint team at the games for the first-time ever.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, quoting the South’s unification ministry, says that an eight-member delegation from the North’s sports ministry was also arriving on Thursday.
The joint team will march under a unification flag at the Olympics’ opening ceremony. NPR’s Bill Chappell says, “South Korea’s athletes have previously marched alongside their North Korean counterparts at several Olympics, including the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics in Sydney and Athens, respectively, as well as the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.”
On Saturday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) agreed to allow the 12 North Korean players to join South Korea’s 23-member team. However, the move has been met with criticism because it will mean less time on the ice for the South’s players.
Sarah Murray, the South Korean team coach, said Monday that it was a “tough situation to have our team used for political purposes.” She conceded, however, “it’s kind of something that’s bigger than ourselves right now.”
As NPR’s Elise Hu reported earlier this week, many South Koreans have also expressed their dismay with joining Pyongyang in the games, reporting, “In Seoul, protesters Monday set fire to the North Korean flag and a photo of Kim Jong Un. The South Korean president’s approval rating has dropped in recent days as well.”
In a gesture that seemed certain to be received with even more skepticism, North Korea’s state media called for “all Koreans at home and abroad” to make a “breakthrough” for unification of the divided peninsula without outside interference. It said military drills with “outside forces” as being unhelpful – an apparent reference to joint U.S.-South Korea war games that have raised the ire of Pyongyang in the past.
KCNA said Koreans should “promote contact, travel, cooperation between North and South Korea” and that Pyongyang would “smash” any efforts by outside forces to block reunification.
The breakthrough over the Olympics came after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in his New Year’s address that he would be open to it. At North-South talks that followed, the two sides reached agreement on the joint team, as well as the reinstatement of a hotline between the two sides and other dialogue aimed at easing tensions.
Gus Kenworthy Will Be The Second Openly Gay Man To Compete For U.S. In Winter Games
Skier Gus Kenworthy speaks during the 100 Days Out 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics Celebration with Team USA in November.
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Having earned a spot Sunday on the U.S. Ski Team, Gus Kenworthy is the second openly gay man who will compete for the United States at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Kenworthy, 26, placed second at the final Olympic qualifier for freeski slopestyle, according to NBC.
Twenty-eight-year-old figure skater Adam Rippon, the first openly gay man to qualify for the Winter Olympics, was selected for the figure skating team on Jan. 7.
Before this year, the U.S. had never sent an openly gay man to compete in the Winter Games. The last time an out male athlete competed on Team USA in the Summer Olympics was 14 years ago in Athens, Greece.
As NPR reported earlier this month:
Another gay athlete, luger John Fennell, was also vying for a spot on Team USA this year, but a sled malfunction slashed his chance at qualifying in December.
Figure skater Johnny Weir faced speculation about his sexuality while competing in 2006 and 2010, but he avoided questions on the matter. In 2011, he publicly confirmed he was gay in his memoir, Welcome to My World.
My run from today that secured my spot to PeyeongChang as the top ranked US slopestyle skier!!! pic.twitter.com/R5Cz2rANrH
— Gus Kenworthy (@guskenworthy) January 22, 2018
Kenworthy came out publicly in 2015, a year and a half after he took silver in slopestyle at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
He told Reuters earlier this month that competing as an openly gay athlete had boosted his confidence on the way to Pyeongchang.
“I am more open with everyone in my life, and I think it just translates into me being able to ski a little bit more freely and not have so much to focus on and worry about,” Kenworthy said.
Rippon made headlines earlier this month for publicly criticizing the selection of Vice President Pence to lead the U.S. delegation to Pyeongchang, citing Pence’s alleged support of gay conversion therapy. (Pence’s spokesperson called “this accusation … totally false.”)
nothing has made me feel more PRIDE than getting to wave a rainbow flag in a national TV commercial! #ShouldersOfGreatnesshttps://t.co/aL7kfvm2Lf
— Gus Kenworthy (@guskenworthy) January 19, 2018
Both Rippon and Kenworthy have indicated they would not accept invitations from President Trump to visit the White House with Team USA after the Winter Games.
Over the past two years, Kenworthy has become a vocal advocate of LGBTQ visibility in sports — and is widely known as “the gay skier.”
He was recently named a brand ambassador for Head & Shoulders and appears in a new commercial, sporting a Team USA uniform and a rainbow flag.
“The Olympics is a cool opportunity to represent our country, which is amazing,” Kenworthy told Reuters. “But I have another community I am competing for, and that is the LGBT community.”
New England Patriots To Face Philadelphia Eagles At Super Bowl
