Doomed to Fail - Re-Release: The Ancient History of the Modern Olympics

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Here we go! Happy Olympics 2026! Let's re-visit our episode where we went over how it started in Ancient Greece, & how it got to be a modern event! Greece still gets special bonus treatment in the Olympics! They get to go out first & they get special access for tickets. Good for them.  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortenthall James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. And we are live and recording. Welcome to Doom to Fail, the twice weekly podcast hosted by myself Fars and Taylor about things that are doomed to fail. Hi, Taylor. How are you? I am good. How are you? That was a great intro.

I got feedback from my husband. very like your intro sucks do better. Was that a better intro? That was for sure. Should I ask Juan to rate it? Yeah, maybe write us one or something. I can cry about it. Yeah, Juan. Once you do one

better. Yeah. Yeah. Make your own twice a week podcast about items that are doomed to fail and then you do your I'm derailing. Okay, anyways. So happy Sunday. Happy Father's Day. Happy Father's Day. To all the fathers are there. And dog fathers count.

So happy. Sure. Father's Day to me. And Juan, who I just railed against, heavy Thursday. It's my victim. Okay. Anyways.

So we are off to another topic. And I think, Taylor, I go first this time. I thought I did. But you can. I don't care. Because we did last week. I went, you went first. You did you Sarah that I had a reaction.

So I go first. You go. Okay. Okay, well, now I feel like I'm not ready. Now I feel, I've thrown into this. Cool. You were going to go first anyways. I know, I'm just kidding.

Okay. As I told you last week, I'm going to do a four-part series starting today. And this should be an entire podcast on its own, and I'm sure that it is, because there's like a thousand different stories to tell about this thing. I'm going to do, I'm going to tell you some stories about. about an event that is about to happen in Paris. Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, Olympics. The Olympics.

The Olympics, indeed. So today, let's talk about the ancient Olympics, what they looked like, who was there, and then their revival in the late 1800s, early 1900s, how you get in the Olympics, and then what's going on in Paris right now as they're getting ready to host the Olympics starting in July. Then, part two will be Olympics, but now Hitler is here, which will be pre-1950 Olympics. So I'm going to tell the story of the 1936 Berlin Olympics and some other anecdotes that happen between then and then. Part three will be, they're even more political. It's going to be civil rights involved.

There's going to be the massacre at Munich involved. And that will get us from 1950 to 1980. and then part four will be about Los Angeles and the police, the Atlanta bombing. Honestly, I can't remember what that was about. So I'm excited to try to remember that. I don't remember at all.

Who did that or white? Richard Jewell, was that his name? Yeah. Was that him or was that the guy who we thought did it? That's the guy that we thought did it. But really, it was a white supremacist who is now at the Supermax ADX in Florence, Colorado.

Nice. I know that because I was like, go I started like looking up weird prison stories and I found out what ADX Florence was. I was like this sounds like hell on earth who would possibly be here. It was like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. That makes sense. All the day.

We'll talk about that in part four. There's also going to be some fun stories. You know, like we'll talk about Michigan Bob sled team because that's the light and like all the things. So we'll talk about little things, but there's some big mean stories. But today, let's start us off with what the Olympics were, where they were, and then how they were done. Cool. Sweet. Do you enjoy the Olympics first?

You're going to be shocked to hear that I do not. Oh my God, I love them. And I know it's stupid and I don't care I cry every time. I'm going to talk more about that later. So in ancient Greece, the Olympic Games took place every four years, four year

time span is called an Olympiad. If you ever want to put your life into those quadrants, you can say, I went to high school for an Olympiad. I think you can say that because it's four years. You are a total nerd. Don't you sound cooler to that? Anyway, they took place every four years from 776 BC to 339 AD, so a long time.

They were mostly a religious event. Like, yes, there were sports, but it was had a religious context, and it was to celebrate Zeus. There's a few myths on, like, why they do this for Zeus and like, why this came up. But essentially, like, the Greek and Roman gods, they're always, like, wrestling. other and fighting and trying to figure out who's the strongest. So sports were, you know, the same, the same thing for humans. And all free Greek males could compete. So it was all all dudes. They had to be free, so they couldn't be a slave. But anyone from like a poor person working in a shop

to a king or an emperor could compete. And eventually they would become the Panhellenic games, which means like more of Greece, but this is basically the Olympics in Olympia. Women had their own games. They were called the Herrera Games. And they would have one race every time the Olympics was done. And it was a 190 meter race. And it was divided into groups based on age.

So like you would win based on your age group, just like the 5K that I was in that did I win. But that you did participate in and then newspaper did not recognize. Indeed. Thank you for remembering. So the one thing that women could do is they could own a chariot. And when a chariot won a race, the owner was the one who got the prize.

And so in 396 BC and 392 BC, Kinisca, the daughter of a Spartan king, did win the victory wreath, which is like an olive wreath, those two years. So she's the only woman who won in the Asian Olympics. It's because she owned a chariot. And that was something that she was allowed to do. So there were games like all over Greece. These people were sporty, like I said. The most common one was Olympia.

So now they have like excavated stadiums. It could hold 40,000 people like the big stadium that they had there. It's also where the great statue of Zeus, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world was as well. So it sounds like it was pretty fun, pretty awesome there. They had a lot of stuff. Huge stadiums. They probably had a ton of infrastructure. It was like a big party for Zeus.

Obviously, they're like slaughtering all these animals to Zeus, but really that means it's a barbecue. Lots to meet. Yeah. Everyone's eating. There's like vendors outside selling stuff like dumb t-shirts, you know, like you get it at a concert. Probably scalping tickets. Yeah. So all this stuff is happening.

They're probably tailgating in some way as well. The stadium in Olympia would be rebuilt a few times during like the thousand years of the ancient Olympics. And when it wasn't a stadium, it was a wheat field because Olympia was. really populated except during that time. So they would grow wheat in the field and then harvest it and then have the Olympics again. Every Olympiad, which is how long? Four years. Perfect. So I don't basically talking the summer Olympics. So there was a book that I did not read that I was trying to find a book to read about this. And I found one on Amazon, but I couldn't find it at the library and like all the things. So I read some articles instead. But one of the reviews was like,

this book on the ancient Olympics doesn't talk about the winter Olympics at all. Like, do you think they were fucking skiing in Greece a thousand years ago, 2000 years ago? No, what was talking about? I mean, yeah, I guess if it's invented in Greece, it doesn't make sense. There's no, like, Bob's Led, there's no luge in ancient Greece. You know, it's just like, obviously that the, I'll talk about when the winter games came, but we're talking Summer Olympics.

We're not talking Winter. And honestly, it's really the Summer Olympics that we're excited about. Like, the winter is like, whatever. But winter has figure skating and that's always fun. And speed skating also fun. But yeah, no, we're just talking summer Olympics. Everyone who participated in the Olympics was naked, which seems hard. Like, I don't have, I have girl parts, but like, if I'm not running with like seven sports brasons, it's really, really hard to run.

So it feels like it'd be hard to run a race naked. I don't know. I mean, I could. You're okay with it? I think I'd be okay with it. I think I'd probably do better naked. All right. Because they want to like be out of my sight as quickly as possible.

So I've got faster. That's fair. Everyone's looking at you and you're like terrified. Running as possible. I like that. That makes sense. Some of the things that started off in the ancient Olympics, some of the games that were played,

there was wrestling, obviously, and boxing. There was something called the pancreas. pancrethian i didn't not look up how i say it p-a-n k-r-a-t-o-n which is both wrestling and boxing and there are no rules it's kind of like m-m-a i feel like but like really there are no rules so some of the people who are like famous for being ancient people who were in this um in this event one guy his name was archion he was in the middle of this like wrestle punch battle and he he was being strangled. I'm acting this out for you.

He was being strangled with like one, one arm from the guy that, the guy that was strangling him. Then Archeon took his hand and crushed the guy's foot and the guy screaming out in pain and he gave up, like raised the finger to like, I give up. And as soon as he did that,

the guy died anyway. So he won post-mortem. The guy who crushed the foot is the one who died. Mm-hmm. Weird. That he took his last bit of strength. ranks to crush the foot and then he died. But he won because the guy had surrendered or tapped out, tapped out.

One guy named Milan of Croaton, he was huge. He was a famously huge guy. He would bring in his own cow when the Olympics started, like on his back. Like he would hold it like Paul Bunyan. This all sounds like bullshit. This all sounds like weird myth building. He would hold the cow on his back and then he would eat the whole cow in one day just to prove how big as strong he was. Then he would drink nine bottles of wine and then he'd go out and do this event.

And then eventually he was like 40, he couldn't do it anymore, which is fair. And he lost his last, his last fight in the Olympics. But even though he lost, they like held him up and they were like, he's a champion. Like we really, like, you know, he's a legend. And then later, he died because he was trying to pull up a tree stump by himself with his bare hands. And he got 10. tangled up with a tree, he got eaten by wolves. That's probably not true, but it's fun. I know, but what a fun story. Yeah, but you could anybody,

anybody could be anybody back then, because whoever makes the most audacious, stupid lie is like only, I don't know, whatever, we can move on. I know, that's what makes it fun. Yeah, even if ancient history isn't true, you have to believe it. Yeah, I think that's the Dan Carlin thing. another guy named Sostris of Sion, his signature move is he would break fingers.

So I feel like he'd be like, oh, man, I don't want to go in there with that guy. I'm going to break my hand, you know. So there was that. There was a long jump where you would hold weights that were like, kind of like a curve, like a half circle with like a handle. And the weight would help you jump further, you know? So you would like store yourself forward with the weight. that's how they would long jump.

Does that make sense? Would that work? I did watch a recreation of it and it like kind of worked. I feel like you're weighted down so you can't even get enough inertia. But you're like throwing yourself with the weights. I feel like that would totally work. Yeah. Do we know why they stop doing it?

Well, they stopped doing the whole thing. So I'll tell you why they stopped doing the whole thing. Yeah. So there were javelin and discus, which we still have today, chariot races. The very first Olympic game was probably the stadium, which is that 190 meter race. And that's where the word stadium comes from. So that 190 meter race was called the stadium.

That's where we get the word stadium from. There's also a pentathlon. And I think there's a modern pentathlon that is a little bit different because the ancient one was running, long jump, discus, throw, javelin, throw, and wrestling. I think we took out wrestling and added something else in the pentathlon. But there's that. People actually, I mean, actually obviously died in these Olympic games, whether it was from, you know, exhaustion or being beat up or being murdered or whatever.

And technically, the Greeks invented sports medicine because they had a lot of people to take care of after these, you know? Yeah, of course. Imagine all the shins. Other countries weren't there, obviously, but it was just like different Greek city states, like against each other. So there's a lot of, like, nationalism. Like there's now. Like you're excited for your country. another thing is like when you were running races it wasn't to break records it was just to win

it's probably because you couldn't like accurately time something you know i mean yeah there's no photo finish you're not going to like break it down to the seconds or milliseconds really yeah sometimes emperors would do it so a little bit toward the end of the ancient olympic games Emperor Augustus held a revival and King Herod from the Bible, he helped pay for it. So it's happening on then. You'll remember that Nero wanted to win everything and he would win a bunch. He won a chariot race even though he fell off his chariot. I mean, he's a hero.

Good for him. So obviously, like, he did a bunch of it. But the ancient game stopped in 393 because Theodosius, the first, or maybe his son, they're not 100% sure. Just said, cut it out. It was probably because, like, polytheism was going out of fashion,

and it was a thing for Zeus, also the temple burned down. So they just, like, stopped doing it around then. And there were still, like, games around the area, but nothing like the Olympics. Like, you know,

you know, hundreds of thousands of people would come to these games to watch them, to sell their things. It was like a huge deal. And they stopped doing it around 393. 80. Um, So let's talk about the modern Olympics for a little bit.

So like I said, I love the Olympics. I think they're super fun. They're almost impossible to watch because, like, cable stations will have them. Some of them will have commentary and some of them won't and they'll be at weird times. And it's just like they make it as hard as humanly possible to watch them on TV. Let me ask you, Dela. What do you love about them? I like a sporting event.

I like stories of people who work really, really hard all their lives for like their one thing. thing and then they get it. And I like the part where all of the countries come out and they're all dressed differently and they're all like really excited and happy to be. They're really proud. And I like when I like watching the metal. I do the whole thing. I like watching the metal count.

That's really exciting. I'm just happy for people who have like something to do. Yeah, that's true. I don't know. I just like, I think it's fun that people get together and do a thing. And then like as we're going to talk about in the next month, we can't just get together and have a good time. because people are terrible. But if we could, how fun would that be? I mostly like the things that are fun and cool to watch.

Like, I think, you know, like that figure skating is incredible. I think that the gymnastics, it is always incredible to watch that. But I also think about, like,

the people who've spent like 15, 20 years becoming the best at something. something kind of useless. I mean, like the curling people or like the archery people where I'm like, you're never going to be on a serial box. You're never going to.

How are you going to turn this? Like you could have literally just learned a skill in that time. Well, no, I get it. But like, then what? They'd be like the best accountant at their accounting firm. Who cares? Well, no. I just look at it.

Like, like, it's, sucks that somebody could become the best that's something that is kind of useless and leaves them high and dry sort of you know I know but I but I I'm laughing because I'm like

yeah but like I'm not the best of anything well I mean you know like if I'm not going to agree with you I'm the best at like one random ass sport like that's really cool but I so the other thing Taylor is like I look at basketball in the in the Olympics and I just do not understand

it because it's supposed to be amateur it's supposed to be amateur sports that's the whole point of the Olympics and then the US takes LeBron James Steph Curry like the greatest by leaps and bounds in the sport and puts them on a team and calls a team USA and it's like what is how is this amateur sports like these are the well I think that they changed that in 1994, right? Let's talk about it later because we'll talk about the dream team. And I had that really great CD that had a bunch of songs on it, including, I think, possibly songs, a lot of songs I Will Smith on it. But they changed that rule. But it's amateurs on purpose. And I'm going to tell you who decided it should be amateurs. And then we can go from there.

Let's keep learning. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because I agree. That is weird. And also, we like didn't win last time. I don't remember. I definitely don't watch the basketball stuff. I watch the ice skating in the anyways. Go ahead. Yeah. So, okay, ancient Olympics done. Things are Romans, the Greeks, empires, blah, blah, blah. They're not doing it anymore. So, modern Olympic. I did go to a special Olympics opening ceremony in L.A. and I cried the entire time. It was lovely. It was so fun. Everyone was so excited. See if you wonder, sang a song, Michelle Obol. was there. It was a cage.

And the Kennedys. When was that? It was in Florence was a baby. So it must have been in 2015. Wait, the Olympics were in L.A. when we were there? The Special Olympics. Oh, the Special Olympics.

Okay. The Olympics are going to be in L.A. in 2028. No way. So the next Summer Olympics will be in L.A. And we're definitely going to something weird. Like something weird that you can get tickets to. You know, like, that you can get tickets to. Yeah.

Okay. That was the other thing. I was going to say that, like, I am turned off by the Olympics. It feels like a luxury thing to a, attend. It feels like you have to be like in the upper upper upper class, even consider attending. I mean, especially if you travel, you know, if I'm like, oh, I'm going to travel to Paris to go watch the Olympics. It's going to cost me so much more than normally would to travel to Paris because of the Olympics, you know, and then I have to like buy the tickets

and stay in an expensive hotel and like blah, blah, blah. I'm sure that like you can't get an Airbnb in Paris in July at the moment. So yes, it's a very privilege to be able to go to for sure. privileged. I think there are some, you know, obviously like we've seen in films, I'm thinking of the cutting edge, but like, you know, if your child wants to be an Olympian and something and they're good and keep doing it, it is such a time and money commitment. It's like crazy for a family, you know. Yeah, like, I mean, yeah, like, like, if you want your kid to be a master, figure state, or like, that's like, yeah, we've all seen the Nancy Kerrigan, Tonya Harding movie. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, gosh, I didn't even think about that. I'm going to put on my list of things to talk about. So now it is 1894. And we are in France. And there is a dude. His name is Pierre de Cobartine. We'll call him Pierre. He's an aristocrat. He's a rich guy. He goes to boarding school. Most people at the boarding school go home. You know, sometimes he stays there the whole time. It becomes pretty religious. And after he's done, he's like, okay, what do I do now with my life? He could pretty much do anything. He has.

a lot of money. And he goes to England, like on vacation. And he sees all, he's like, oh, the people here are in much better physical shape than the French. And they work well together. And he attributes it to physical education. So he sees like people in England, you know, playing sports and doing things as a team. And he's like, this will be helpful when there's a war that they already know how to work together. And we're not doing that in France. And we're like, not prepared to work together in this way. So he goes back to France. And, and tries to start like a physical education revival thing in France. But it doesn't really work out.

But it does give him an idea to start the modern Olympics. So he's like, let's give people an opportunity to like work in a team to train to like be physically active because it really wasn't that in France. This is what's why he did it. So there's a lot of back and forth, but he creates the International Olympic Committee, which is still around. Wait, Taylor. Are you basically saying that from 300, whatever, AD until the 1800s, there was in Olympics?

Yes. That's wild. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it was like. It was a Frenchman that did it? Yeah.

Weird. Right. Because he was like, these French guys need to up their ante. Start working out. Yeah, like stop just having wine and cigarettes and baguettes. Run with your cigarettes.

Run with your cigarettes. There we go. Get naked and run because you're embarrassed. Until you're not. anymore. So the first modern Olympics were in 1896 in Athens. The second were in Paris in 1900. Sometimes they were coordinated around the

World's Fair. So it'll be like at the same time that the World's Fair was. But finally in 1906 it kind of like gets going and rolls into more of what we know today. Somehow Pierre, the man who brought the Olympics back, won a gold medal in poetry which feels like that is not currently an event. That is the opposite of a sport. But whatever. And so there's some criticism about him.

Like, he was definitely like a romantic and idealized ancient Greece and was like, this is going to bring world peace. This is going to bring people together. People are going to love this. And it does not, obviously. Humans don't want world peace. Humans don't want peace. Like, it's just not in our DNA.

No. But he, but I mean, you know, bless his heart, he, I can see how you would think that it could, you know. But it didn't. So a little friendly competition between all the people. So that's going. The Winter Olympics start in 1924. And those include the things like bob sledding, curling, ice hockey. Nordic skiing, which is like the one where you cross-country ski and then shoot a gun.

Have you seen that one? No. You're like cross-country. Yes. You cross-country ski and then you shoot like a target. Okay. That's what I'm talking about. Like if you had just worked at Burger King, the griddle at Burger King for like those 25 years, you could have owned a Burger King.

But instead all you learned how to do was a leisure sport like ski and shooting gun, which points to the fact that like why I'm kind of. against the Olympics in this context, because it's like only the Uber, Uber, Uber, rich can possibly have that. Is there only thing they do for like 20 years? A thousand percent. So I agree.

And I, yes, I totally agree with that. It's definitely a rich person's sport. A lot of these things are. Like Princess Zara, who has Prince William's cousin, she was like in the Olympics for like horses. You're like, well, of course you were a fucking princess.

You can have a horse. and be in it all the time and learn how to ride it really well, you know, whatever. But the... Sorry, dogs were barking. Yes, understood. But you know what I mean? And then like, but also like, you only have one life. Shit.

You got like something. Go do it. We'll talk about more inspirational stories. We'll talk about inspirational stories of poor people doing this. I mean, the vast majority of my resentment towards everything has to the fact that it's, ritual can do it so I can't, and therefore my resentment builds. no that's totally fair totally fair um so yeah there's there's a the whatever whatever it's called like the cross-country skiing and shooting i'm gonna look at up it's called something oh it's called

the biathlon is just skiing and shooting anyway bias okay cut that out no no we don't we don't do you really want me to cut that out no it's fine there's like the minutes where I was Googling. You can cut you out. If I told you that my hobby is to fish and then when I catch a bass detonate a bomb, it's like, you know what you're talking about? Well, it comes from, okay, so it comes from the Norwegian military because that's how they would have to learn how to fight is they would cross country, and then shoot, because it's coldest shit up there.

It is so charming. I wish I was in a war as like a Nordic soldier. You've come around. Um, no. And then there was also like, I remember one time, oh gosh, I'll talk about the stimulator, but there used to be like ski dancing who would like dance on their skis in like the 80s. So there's like some sports come and go. Some are more popular than others. But two things I wanted to note about the winter versus the summer Olympics. One is both come from my childhood. So one, I did report on speed skating in fourth grade and I had to write a letter to like the American Speed Skating Association. they sent me back like a bunch of pamphlets and a poster. And it was very cute. That's very cute. But that's how you, that's how you researched in the 80s.

And then, oh my God, I remember. So the last Winter Olympics, they used to be the same year as the Summer Olympics. Do you remember this? So they were always held the same year. The last one was in 1992, where the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics were held in the same year. Then they'd wait four years and then they would, you know, do it together again. They changed it so that then the next one was in the same year. in 1996, so it kind of like pushed it out a little bit.

And now they're every two years. It's one or the other. But it changed in the 90s. And I remember I had this fucking bitch of a English teacher in sixth grade. And this is when people were, this was like a thing that was in the news. And she was like, let's talk about something that is in the news right now that is like, we could have like a debate about or whatever. And I like raised my hand.

And I was like, what about the Olympics? And she was like, already decided that. That's dumb. She told me I was dumb. She was such a bitch. And so I always think about her when I think about the Winter Olympics and I wish I didn't. And then last night I was like, I hope she's dead. I looked it up.

She's dead. She died in 2021. I read her obituary and I smiled like three times because I was like, I'm so got that bitch is dead. When I was in like second grade, it was like a weekend. And my mom took me my brother to like the local park. And it was like springtime. And so blue bonnets were everywhere. And I picked a blue bonnet so I could take it to my teacher on Monday.

And I took my teacher. And she took me outside of the classroom. She grabbed my arm and took me outside. outside of the classrooms, like, picking a blue on it, which is a state flower of Texas is illegal, and this is a crime. And she basically made me seem like I was a criminal for trying to give her a flower. And I don't remember her name. I cried for like fucking weeks after that.

And I now as an adult, I'm like, I hope you're dead. I was dead too. I'm so sorry. What a piece of shit. Yeah, I'm kidding. Yeah, what a bitch. Anyways, if you're a teacher, if you're a teacher, be better. Yeah, and you know that we remember you.

Yeah, we will remember you and we will spite you and we will wish bad karma upon you. I know being a teacher is hard, but she was terrible. So that's when they separated. So now the question you're asking is, how do I get my city to host an Olympics, Taylor? That's what I was. Because I would love to do this. Yes, I would love to have all of this. I'd love to spend billions of dollars, really.

I'm like itching to do it. Does it host in the Olympics almost always inevitably bankrupt the host city? Yeah, it's horrible. So the IOC will have a bid. The International Olympic Committee has a bid for the game. So you have to kind of like fight for the game. Even to bid, it's tens of millions of dollars. So you have to like put together infrastructure plans.

You know, you have to like do marketing, put up your case, all the things. It's settled about seven years in advance. So Paris announced its intention to bid for this year in 2015. And it ended up going down to Paris. and Los Angeles for this year. And they made a deal that Paris got this year and L.A. gets 2028. So once you get it, now you're in trouble because you have to build Olympic villages. You have to build more transportation.

You have to build the Atlanta airport was new in the 90s because of the Olympics. You have to like rebuild everything. Some of the Olympics had it have like absolutely insane price points. The Beijing Olympics in 2008 reportedly cost around $45 billion, and the Sochi Olympics exceeded $50 billion in 2014. Because that was in Russia. They probably had nothing infrastructure-wise to begin with. But I will say, if you're the mayor of a city,

a really incredible way to completely fuck over your successor is to win the Olympic bid. Because at the time, you're going to look like a superhero. are like, oh my God, do you believe Paris, the guy at Paris did this? And then like, fuck the guy in seven years who has to execute on all this. Oh, my God. Let me tell you about the Paris mayor in a little bit, which what her deal is. So, so yes. And of course, also, like, there are to build these things if they're like, aren't things already.

Because you have to build, like, all sorts of stadiums. So the, you have to move people around. So in both Rio and Beijing and everywhere, they're doing it in Paris right now. they're displacing unhoused people and people who like live in the areas that they need in Beijing they displaced 1.5 million people and they were doing things like just putting up walls between the Olympic stadiums and like really poor neighborhoods so you couldn't see them. Um, so how else did you do it? No, I know. But there's also then like now they're going to displace the rich people. I know.

But like, but so that's what I'll say that's what people in France are protesting right now is they're like couldn't we use this money to help the poor people? rather than like box them up behind a wall. Like you're the first one kicked out of this behind the wall. Yes. Whoever raised the topic. Exactly. So they're building these huge buildings in record time. So they're cutting corners.

And what do you do with them afterwards? Like do you need 17 stadiums in your city? You probably don't. So a lot of the ones like in Beijing are like in ruins already. Like they're like falling apart. No one needed them. No one uses them. So now it's 2024 for everyone to listen to this in the future.

And Paris. France had Olympics in 1900 and in 1924. So it's been 100 years since they've had their last Olympics. This year, they're hosting the Summer Olympics. It starts on July 26. And the Paralympics start right after. So the Paralympics is for people with like physical disabilities. They'll be right after also in Paris. They're going to be games in 16 other cities around Paris, like in the Paris metropolitan area and one in Tahiti, which France technically still owns part of. some of the stadiums already existed and were renovated some fun things

is beach volleyball it's going to be held in a park in front of the Eiffel Tower it's fun yeah that'll be delightful the equestrian events and the modern pentathlon

will be held at Versailles super cool very cool the oh guess what the first do you want to know the new sport is this year? I

could not even venture, yes. Break dancing. I guess that's as much of a sport as skiing down still and fucking shooting a gun is. Yes. So break dancing to be the first time, which will be super fun.

And the mascot, John Oliver talked about this other day. The mascot is this like cap called the Syrigan. It's like a French cap. It's like a red cap that kind of like pops over. So it looks like two weird droplets of blood, but it's like a cap. It's very strange. But there's like people dressed like it and like waving. That's their mascot this year. There's already some

problems happening already. There are some security concerns. France, obviously, they are, they love protesting. They're big protesters. So there's going to be a lot of protests. The Katari Amir is coming. So they've got to be extra security for that. Japan and the United States are modernizing their command structure. That's supposed to be a to like help with security. Do you know who the U.S. ambassadors to Japan is right now? No clue. It's Rahm Emanuel.

I just feel like I didn't know that. Weird. Weird, right? Man, they can be good for himself, huh? What a fucking job. He's been crushing it since like 2008. Like, good for him. I know.

They are worried about the opening ceremonies, that there might be some sort of like attack or violent protests or something. So it's been cut down. Initially, you could just show up and now you have to have like a special ticket. Like, they're going to be really careful. And hopefully everything is, is okay. But the fun thing that involves the mayor of Paris and Macron, the French president, is that they want the swimming events to be held in the sun, which is the river that goes to Paris.

Did you just watch under Paris? No, what's that? Oh, my God. It is a Netflix movie. all of the dead bodies no it is a shark movie and it's based on people doing a

competition in the sun which is incredible yeah you gotta watch it it's very very stupid it is dumber than shit open like three bottles of wine for you and one and then have the kids asleep

and then just like after your first bottle's done when you're a little bit tipsy then start playing in it's fun um it looks really fun no I like I love one because I want I'm like the

the crocodiles or the alligators were all over Florida like eating people in a hurricane it was great um no that's exciting um but yeah it's in the send so but you have not been able you have not been allowed to someone this end since 1923 and that was before the last time that Paris hosted the Olympics 100 years ago that's how dirty it is it's like parts of it have like no life it has no life in it like

it's no fish there's no it's full of ecoli it's like really really gross and it's not ready So it's today's June 16th. It's going to start in a month or so. The river is not ready. They're going to spend $1.2 billion to clean it up. And the mayor of Paris has said that she will swim in it.

And so did Macron, but they're both keep pushing their dates back because it's just like still disgusting. And then people are protesting. And there's a hashtag that's in French that I do not. I'm not going to venture to say out loud. But the hashtag is I shit in the sun on June 23rd, which is a whole bunch of people are planning to shit in the send. prior to the mayor swimming in it. And there's a website that you can go to to show where you are in the sun, like upriver and what time you should poop so that your poop gets there at the right time.

People are nuts. This is what you can have nice things. Yes, this is what I can't nice things. So that's what's happening in Paris right now. We will see what happens. And of course other things are happening like underpaid illegal immigrants are building the buildings. A lot of unhouse people have been displaced. They're definitely not prepared for,

the influx of people and events. So we'll see how they do, but we'll learn all about it as we move up to it. And I think then I should be, we should be pretty much done with this series by the time it starts. So we'll know a lot about it by the time we get to the Olympics. And we can talk as a group about our favorite events

and what's happening. If we can figure out how to watch it without like getting our parents cable password and trying to figure out how to get it on TV and then watching it without commentary in some ways. and that's always so annoying. But I'm super excited for gymnastics. I'm excited for the running.

I'm excited for a lot of it. Wait, the mayor of Paris is a Hispanic socialist woman? Yeah. When did this? I do not keep up with other countries politics. Anne Hidalgo, Spanish-born French politician. She's been mayor of Paris for 10 years, so we're way behind. We're wait. She's from the socialist party. Oh, yeah, she's literally, wait, she was born in Spain.

That is like weird. Like, I'm shocked that French people are that open about things. They seem like an uppity people, right? Yeah, it looks like she moved to France. There were refugees in France. after the Spanish Civil War. Man, they must be super liberal in France or in Paris. I think they are. That's part of all the protests and such. She gets to live.

Oh, my God. She gets to live in this huge palace. Really? Yeah, the Hotel de Ville. Super fun. Anyway, I'm excited. excited. That's how it started. That's what's going on right now. And then next week, I will talk about the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which was hosted by Hitler. And also, I learned in this research that Berlin tried to host again and they've been on a thing a couple of times and people are like, no. You've lost your privilege. You can maybe do it in Hamburg, but like you cannot do it in Berlin again. So, Berlin's dope though. I love Berlin. I know, Berlin's awesome. But like, you know, we'll see if they ever let them do it again. This palace, the mayor lives in, is. insane.

I know. Like what on earth is this thing? Oh my God. It looks like Versailles. It does. I just want like higher ceilings. You should watch that movie. It's really fun.

The whole thing is about swimming in the sand and how they find this shark and the shark tracks itself into the sun. And yeah, it's a whole thing. That sounds amazing. I love that. I love the, I mean, I love, well, I love thinking, talking about Paris and how, like, the catacombs of Paris is, like, built on top of a bunch of dead people anyway. Terrifying. Yeah.

That's always super fun. And then, yeah, I love the idea of being chased by a shark. I had a friend who was going to swim from Staten Island to Ellis Island one time. And she asked me and Juan to be her partners. We would be in a canoe and she would be swimming. But then she ended up getting sick and not being able to do it. but I was like 100% yes I'll be your canoe person and we would like canoe next to her and like give her snacks

that's a lot of responsibility I think I know but I was like this thing's awesome I'm bummed we never did it because I think that would have been really fun well as always next time sweet well this is exciting our topics are actually gonna overlap this week kind of like sort of almost but they're like sweet little bit little bit there's something there so awesome please um yeah

Please, friends, if you have something about the Olympics that you love or like a little story that you want to want to hear more about, let me know because I'm going to do like the big ones, but also some other fun little stories in there too. So let us know what you think. We're at DoomtaFelpod at gmail.com. We had a couple people write in Kiara sent us a bunch of ideas that I'll forward over to you, Farris. So you can have that. And then Nadine, our friend Nadine is in London right now. She was just telling me that she was in London, which is super fun. So I asked her to report back if she sees that weird ass painting of the king.

So creepy, did you hear you have vandalized? Yes, it's so stupid. Has the balls and grommet on it about cheese or something. Yeah. It's just what it is. But yeah, finance on all of the socials at Doom to Fail Pod, I swear to God, I'm going to get our website working. I'm going to potentially murder someone. But now I have stopped even trying to do scene names and text records.

And I'm now moving the URL over to Squarespace. All right. There you have it. We will have a website soon. assuming. Who the fuck knows? We'll try our best. Well, thank you. Thank you, Taylor. Thank you for sharing. Excited. Always love your multi-part

series. And this one's especially topical given the Olympics. And yeah, there's so much richness to, like, the topic. You got like what happened in Munich. You got the Nancy Kerrigan situation I just mentioned. You got the Atlantic Bond. There's a lot that's wrapped up in it. So, you know, I might have to add like just like fun scandals as like a last one or

something that we'll talk about. because there's like all of the drugs. The doping, Project Acris, all that stuff. Yeah. There's a lot of it. Yeah. So we'll see.

Sweet. Anything else you want to say before we wrap? Nope. All righty. Write to us again at Dumafelpot at gmail.com. And we will join you again in a few days. Thanks, Taylor. Thanks.