Freakonomics Radio - Extra: Shawn Johnson Full Interview

Episode Date: October 1, 2018

A conversation with 2008 Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio series “The Hidden Side of Sports.”

Hey there, I'm Stephen Dubner, and this is a Freakonomics Radio Extra, our full interview with Sean Johnson, who's been appearing in our Hidden Side of Sports series. Johnson won a gold medal on the balance beam in the 2008 Olympics, as well as silver medals in the floor, all-around, and team competitions. This interview was conducted by Freakonomics Radio producer Harry Huggins. Johnson was incredibly candid about the path to becoming an elite athlete and her conflicted feelings for the sport that changed her life. You can hear many more of these full interviews from our sports series and other episodes by subscribing to Stitcher Premium. You'll also get early access to our special Freakonomics Radio live episodes like our game show, Tell Me Something I Don't Know. Just go to stitcherpremium.com slash Freakonomics and use promo code Freakonomics for one month free.

All right. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Sean Johnson. And thanks for listening. So first off, can you just say your name and what you do? And I don't know if you go, do you, have you started going professionally by Sean East or are you still trying to work that out? Uh, still trying to work it out, but I think more so Sean Johnson professionally. Okay, cool.

And then Sean East on the side. And I was a former professional Olympic gymnast, now turned, I guess, entrepreneur slash social media influencer. Is that the right word? I think so. Yeah. I first wanted to start with your childhood. You've said that you don't come from a particularly athletic family. So I'm curious how you got into such an athletic sport. Well, I mean, my dad kind of did every sport when I, or when he was growing up. He was a hockey player. He wrestled. He did BMX. He raced Moto X, motocross, sprint cross. I mean, everything. He was kind of this adrenaline junkie. My mom on the

other side was kind of dead stereotypical. She was a cheerleader a little bit. She also did kind of recreational gymnastics, but nothing serious. She ran cross country for, I think, a week and then that was about it. And then when I came along, I think I was just this bundle of energy that they had no idea what to do with and put me in a gymnastics class, a mommy and me class when I was like two and a half years old. And I just fell in love with it. I just ran with it. So you started very young.

And then around six, I think you started training with the coaches that went on to take you to the Olympics. First of all, how lucky were you to end up with those coaches? I was incredibly lucky to end up with my coaches. It was kind of this freak occurrence. I started out at a gym called Urbandale Dance and Gymnastics, and it was like the only gymnastics place within a 30-mile driving radius of Des Moines, Iowa. And I loved it. It was awesome. But Chow, my coach that took me to the Olympics, opened up a gym about five minutes from my parents' house when I was about five or six years old. And my parents ended up switching me to his gym because it saved gas money. And it was more affordable for them and the lifestyle that I was choosing. So that was how we ended up there. It

was just kind of, I guess, meant to be, but I was super lucky that way. Do you, I mean, that's one way that you might've been a little lucky. It was like this great coach, this great trainer moving to your town. Do you think there's a lot of luck involved in being successful, as successful as you've been? oh my gosh uh i i yes absolutely i think a ton of luck is involved and i feel like that might make it seem like i don't know for successful and elite athletes they're not as elite as you would think but i feel like with luck and with elite athletics it's just all about falling into the right place in time um it's kind of like this miracle math kind of equation that has to equal the perfect answer. I mean, you can't get hurt.

You have to be healthy. You can't have the flu on the wrong day. You have to find the right coach in the right city. You have to be able to afford it. You have to be the right age. It's all these random things. And when you get all the people who fit that equation, you're not left with many people. So I guess I was just the best of the very few who fit that

equation. Obviously, any athlete who's achieved what you have in any sport, whether it's gymnastics or football or baseball or hockey or whatever, you have to start taking that activity very seriously very, very early on in your life. Can you tell me about that moment when you decided to invest yourself in gymnastics so much from such a young age? Yeah, I think I was a little bit unique in that sense that I was never that child that turned 10 years old and said, oh, my gosh, I'm going to be an Olympian. I need to give up everything and everyone and just commit my life to the Olympics. I had this unique story of, you know, blue collar family, all American, Midwest, just kind of parents that wanted me to be normal. And they pushed me to be in so many sports and so many activities and tried the oboe and clarinet and piano practice and

mock trial and all these things that kind of distracted me from this Olympic dream that I had. But it kind of always gave me this perspective of I love everything, but I love gymnastics more. And so whenever I was at gymnastics practice, I kind of focused more than any other activity and kind of gave more effort there because I knew that was my favorite. And I think I was probably 14 years old, two years before the Olympics. That's so weird to say. I was 14 years old and talking about the Olympics. That's just a baby. Yeah, but only two years after that you were there. I know. That's so weird to think. I'm

26 years old now and feel like I could never do the Olympics, let alone being a 16-year-old baby. But when I was 14, I made the national team and started traveling the world. And I think that was the first time I thought to myself, maybe I could do this thing. I mean, that's abnormal, right? Like most gymnasts from what I've heard have to make that decision or like make, not have to, but they make that decision from a very, very early age and are put into like those walled off training camps where they don't get in touch with the outside world and they have private tutors and stuff.

And you actually like went to high school full time when you were training and you kept kept a semi, as you said, you kept at least a partially regular childhood. Do you think that level of intensity is kind of necessary in some sports, but not others? And why do you think you were able to do without it? Wow, great question. So I had this interesting setup with my coach. My coach was Chinese, born and raised Chinese. When he was three years old, living in China, he was taken away from his family and actually put into kind of their Olympic system and raised to be an Olympic gymnast in China. And he kind of had this career within the gymnastics world in China that I would say almost traumatized him. He lost his childhood. He kind of lost his family in this crazy career.

So when he was 21 years old, he actually left China, came to the United States, opened a gym in West Des Moines, Iowa, of all places, and had this dream, this American dream, to raise an Olympian or Olympians that were also children and had a balance in life and were, you know, fun-loving and had a true childhood. And I was really, really blessed to fall under his guidance and his coaching because he let me go to school. I mean, not even let me. He kind of demanded that we go to a full day of school. He encouraged us to go to school dances, to go to Dairy Queen after practice. He incentivized us by letting us sleep over at the gym and have popcorn and ice cream.

And he just was this fun-loving guy. And I think because he let us have fun as children, but yet pushed us and challenged us at the same time, it challenged us and encouraged us to go farther in the sport. And I feel like the intensity of elite athletics, you weed out a lot of people just because you burn them out so quickly. So no, I don't think the intensity is necessary. I think you need intense training, but in small doses, not, you know, the 80 hours a week people think. Right. And I mean, you still did make the decision to go all for it at age 14, like you said, which is pretty young. Do you think that having made that decision that young makes you a little bit different than other people your age? A little bit, I would say. Deciding at 14 years old that I was going to

devote kind of my teenage childhood to the Olympic Games kind of gave up that area of my life, of anyone's life as kind of a teenager, adolescent, of kind of dreaming of the things that they would become later on. I mean, for me, choosing to be an Olympian was choosing to be an Olympian for, you know, one moment at the 2008 Olympics for that, you know, short period of time. And then after that, I'd have to start over. So I think it makes me a little bit different because as soon as the Olympics were over, I kind of was set back in a way because I had already completed that future goal and I had to figure out what was next. Right. And then the other thing that brings up, and then we'll move on from your early years. But another thing that brings up to me is that when you do make that decision,

and especially with people who go into gymnastics full throttle earlier than you did, I mean, you're a kid and you're basically putting your life in the hands of adults who aren't your parents, like the coaches and the trainers and stuff from a very young age. Did you ever feel that kind of vulnerability as a young athlete? Yes and no. I mean, I was a very, very fortunate child within the gymnastics community to have very loving, very, very protective people around me. My coach had very, very strict rules when it came to anybody kind of being, I don't know, another opinion or another coach or another professional figure in my professional career, whether it was a trainer or another coach or even the United States coach. I mean,

everything had to be okayed by him. He was kind of like my protector. And I think there was a vulnerability there because I trusted him so much, but I only trusted him so much because my parents trusted him. And he, I mean, given today's society, I can thankfully say that he kept me safe. And I am forever grateful for that.

Going back into your career, before you even go to Beijing, you got a lot of attention. I remember you were in ads for Coca-Cola and McDonald's. And this is all before you even competed on the, this is all before the Olympics. I think I saw that you were inducted into the Iowa Hall of Pride

and they had a butter statue of you at the state fair, which is amazing. So weird. So you're married to another athlete, a long snapper in the NFL, and I'm just curious how your experience with that level of attention compares to his, being that his sport is in the public eye much more regularly, but not with the same intensity as yours is. Wow. Yeah, I think it's completely different. I love that I did marry an athlete because I don't feel like it would have worked out any other way. We are so competitive by nature with everything.

It balances each other out to compete against each other. But with gymnastics and kind of with that celebrity status, that crazy, you know, the thing that happens right after the Olympics, I think with the Olympics and especially gymnastics, you have this 16-year-old child on the screen that you're watching on NBC for, you know, one hour a night for four weeks. And you kind of see this icon of an athlete. You don't get to know them. You don't get to know their sport. You only see them once every four years.

And I think it puts you on this pedestal as a celebrity athlete where you do get like butter statues and stuff, those weird things right after, but it's kind of a commodity that kind of comes and goes. And I think the difference between gymnastics or Olympic sports and something like the NFL is no, you know, my husband might not be one of those huge names that sticks out amongst every NFL player within the NFL industry. But yet he's a part of an industry that the entire world knows. And they watch every Monday or Sunday night or watch during preseason or watch training during offseason. I mean, it's something the world is committed to, whereas the Olympics isn't. So I think, in way he's a lot bigger of a celebrity than I am just because people are such avid fans of the NFL.

But you did get that kind of superstar treatment during the Olympics like when you were there and stuff. Did you feel like the sport of gymnastics gets you kind of like a superstar treatment in general at the Olympics? Did you, I mean, did you feel singled out or anything? Or did it just kind of, you were too focused on everything going on at the time? I was pretty focused on everything going on, but I would say yes, the gymnasts and kind of gymnastics as a sport at the Olympic Games is a very, very popular sport. I feel like when you walk around the Olympic Village, when you're doing interviews, when you get those media requests, when endorsements come in and sponsorships and all of these opportunities, I think gymnastics along with track and field and swimming are kind of the top three. So, yeah, I mean, in a weird way of saying that,

I did feel pretty, I guess, superstar-ish. But then for the rest of the season, going out to the Olympics and then when you were trying to qualify again after that, what is gymnastics like? Because I know a lot of people don't really follow it then, sadly. But what is it like then? What's the regular season like in gymnastics for our non-gymnastic head listeners?

Gymnastics during the off season with like celebrity status, I would say, or media coverage, I mean, you kind of fall off the face of the earth. Nobody cares. Gymnastics is one of those sports where people care a lot about it during the Olympics once every four years. But then outside of that, it's kind of like, well, what is gymnastics?

They don't care, which is weird during the offseason because that's when the blood, the sweat, the tears, you know, the dedication you've put in your entire life and the real purpose of your sport. That's kind of where it lies. Can you run through what the regular off-season or the regular non-Olympic season looks like? Because I just think people are so unfamiliar with all the other events that are happening throughout a year, throughout three years. Yeah, an off-season year for kind of an elite level or an Olympic level gymnast

is, I mean, you never get a day off. You get every Sunday off of the year, but that's about it. No holidays, no birthdays, you know, it's all year round. And you compete probably 10 times a year. And you're competing at these world championships and kind of international events all over the world against the same girls that you would see at the Olympics. But you compete in the off season or kind of off Olympic season to kind of build your name and build your status

and build that, I don't know, reputability with judges and international competitors that kind of builds you up for the Olympics. So then going to the Olympics in Beijing, you were the only gymnast. I've read this, so tell me if it's not true, but you're the only gymnast to compete in every event every day. Is that true? That is correct, yes.

Is that for the U.S. or for just, do you remember if that was just for the U.S. girls or for all of the gymnasts in all of the countries? It was just the U.S. girls. Oh, okay. So you were the only U.S. girl and the only U.S. gymnast to compete in every event every day. And you're performing, obviously, to the max of your ability under the max amount of pressure. Can you walk us through what you're thinking about and what you're focusing on and how you're dealing with that pressure in the middle of a routine? Oh my goodness. So let's go through like a lifetime's worth of sports psychology here. Yeah, basically. and the people in the stands and, you know, paying the bills at home and your kids or whatever it may be.

You're kind of just that 16-year-old that's obsessed with whatever you're obsessed with. So for me, I was lucky that I was this 16-year-old teenager that was obsessed with gymnastics. And the sports psychology side of it, I mean, going into an event like that with, you know, 15,000 people in the arena and millions of people watching live on NBC or whatever it may be. For me, it was just this game that I would play with myself. I would tune out the entire world,

kind of reimagine the arena I was in as if it were my home gym and take it one routine at a time. I truly, in a very odd way, I don't know how to even say that, I would try to convince myself I wasn't at the Olympics, and I would try to convince myself that it was no big deal and go numb almost. Yeah. So I heard that you were trained to think of a different keyword to focus on during your routines,

like during every second of a routine. And I'm curious what that actually means. What are some examples of those keywords? So if, for example, if I were to teach you a standing backflip, okay, just a regular backflip, I would probably tell you to like lift your shoulders or kick your feet or keep your chest up or whatever it may be. So these key words, we choreograph a routine that you guys see visually. It's the physical routine that we are competing on the balance beam or the floor or the bars. It's the flips, the tricks, what you witness. But we also choreograph a mental routine. And it's this kind of sports psychology trick, I would say, where the second we start this routine, if I'm thinking of something every second of that routine that's choreographed,

that's part of this practice, that doesn't allow me to think of anything else, if that makes sense. So if I can keep my brain occupied for 90 seconds of routine, which is the full routine, that means I don't allow myself to kind of wander my brain and allow myself to think of like, oh, I might fall off or whoa, that's a bright colored shirt someone's wearing in the audience or whatever it may be. So you're thinking of what you're doing at that time? Or are you thinking about like, I don't know, like, so say you're in the middle of a backflip on the beam, and that thought is hamburger or something.

Yeah. Actually, you're not too far off with some things. I did most of my skills. Like if I jumped up on the beam, my very first skill was, say, a backhand springback layout. I would think tight, raise your arms, kick your legs, stay square with your hips, you know, finish with your feet together, whatever that might be. But then I distinctly remember I had this skill in my Olympic beam routine. It was a standing backflip with a full twist. So like a 360, 360, but it was on the beam. And I don't know why, but I would always think to myself, whatever stays in motion or whatever is in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force, you know, law of physics. But I would say that to myself every time I did this routine and I did this skill. And it was my way of saying, essentially, unless I act upon the momentum that I'm, you know, I was such an art. Oh my gosh. Unless I act upon the momentum that I'm like,

you know, propelling my body into, I'm going to fall off the beam. So I was an art. But yeah, I was thinking of things like that or hamburger. I mean, that's very smart. Obviously it's a little smarter than hamburger. Um, I mean, do you have any more of those examples? That's, I mean, that's fantastic. That's super fun to hear about. Uh, especially as someone who's watched it very intensely during the Olympics and stuff. And it always, I'm sure everyone watches it who has never done gymnastics before. I can't even do a cartwheel. And I see people doing these flips up on the beam or on the uneven bars or anything.

And you're like, how the heck can they will their body to do these things. And obviously the mental aspect has to be at some point more important than the physical aspect because you're just doing stuff that doesn't look like bodies should be able to do. So I guess you must have some tricks for like getting over the fear of if I throw my head over my legs like this, I'm going to fall and hit myself. Oh, absolutely. I think we've become masters of that because gymnastics is terrifying. I mean, now that I'm 26 and I haven't been practicing these like psychology tips and tricks, I am terrified of gymnastics. Like I would never get up on a balance beam right now and try to flip. I would hurt myself. But when I was competing, I mean, I always said, my coach always said it as well. I feel like anybody in the world can be trained physically for an Olympic event. It's just a matter of like how the body works. You can train your body to do it. push aside thoughts that are negative learning to you know calculate the risks involved and

still take that risk of injury or a failure or of falling on your face in front of the entire world is really difficult to kind of to do and especially as a kid you you think of the repercussions involved but I think you become so good at telling yourself it's just not going to happen that you start believing all of the positivity and you believe that things will turn out properly so your body kind of does it for you well that's I mean that's why I find gymnastics and figure skating so interesting, but especially gymnastics is you're not really competing against anyone other than your own yourself. And even with that, you're setting your own standards that the judges are going to judge you against. So I'm curious how much like risk assessment and evaluation there is when you guys are picking your routines beforehand? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you submit to the judges what your routine is going to be

for any particular routine, and then you have to perform it. But beforehand, you could say, you know what, I'm going to set my routine to be something I could nail 100%. I'm not going to have that much risk involved, and I'm just going to do it. How much of that risk assessment are you guys doing beforehand? Well, first, I'm very impressed how much you know about this, because I've never heard someone understand that. So props to you. I'm telling you, I love gymnastics. I love it. So when you're competing at the Olympics or any international competition, you do submit your routines before you compete them. So it's usually the day before you're warming up, you're in competition, you're doing these routines, and the judges get to kind of

get a look at what you're going to be doing. And you formally submit a form that says, this is the routine I will be competing tomorrow during the medal round. Now the calculated risk you're talking about is, I mean, our entire sport. I feel like that's what makes or breaks a medal round and an athlete is calculating do I go for the more difficult skills to get a higher score or do I go for the safer skills where I know I'm going to hit them perfectly and I'm not going to get any execution deducted? And for me, I was an athlete that I took a lot of risk, but I put a lot of effort behind the scenes in those risks that I was taking to kind of give it a balance of I am doing the harder skills to get the higher score, but I also have the confidence behind them to not lose any execution.

I would say people would agree when I say I was more of a risk taker than other people. I pushed the boundaries of our sport and our difficulty and our skills. I was doing skills that normally just men do, which was interesting for the women's artistic gymnastics world to see, but I loved it. I was confident with it. And because gymnastics is a sport judged on bias opinion, judges are literally allowed to score you based on their impression of what you're doing. It's subjective. I felt most confident being risky, and I think it rewarded me that way. So does that subjectivity and the judging, does that ever factor into how you react to, like, does it make losing a little bit easier? Yes and no. So we kind of train ourselves as athletes

knowing that the judges are subjective, almost to like an extreme extent to where like if we, if I were to be competing at the Olympics and I fell or I made a mistake in my routine, I am trained by my coaches, by myself, to not show any emotion. Because it goes into that kind of psychology idea that if I look upset and the judge sees that, she must then interpret that there must be something wrong. And she might say, oh, I didn't see anything wrong, but she looks upset, so I might take something from it. Does that make sense? So when we're training, it's all about your demeanor. It's about how you're presenting yourself.

It's about even when you make mistakes, you have to fake it and make it look like it was actually intentional. So it's just this whole kind of facade you put on. And even when you lose, I guess it's not any easier because you practice the facade so much that you kind of feel like your facade wasn't good enough. Right. So I mean, speaking of losing, so I mean, I was heartbroken by this too, but you came so close in the all-around in 2008. And it's not like you did anything wrong, but it's just kind of you're the casualty of like an otherworldly performance by Nastya Lukin. Do you think that like you—

I know you guys are friends, so I know you won't say anything bad about her. Yes, best friends. Best friends. But man, she could have just not had her best day that day and it would have been good with me. I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking. It was for the United States. Yeah.

Do you think that gymnasts learn to deal with losing differently than other athletes because of how individual the sport is? Oh my goodness. No. Goodness, no. I feel like if you are an elite athlete, losing per se never gets easier. I mean, I don't care if it's a team sport or an individualized sport. I almost feel like because it is an individualized sport, it's almost harder to lose because there's nothing to blame it on but yourself. I mean, you can't blame your teammate or your competitor for having a great day. You can only blame yourself for not having a better day than them. So I feel like as gymnasts, we almost probably take it harder than anyone else

because it's all on us. Wow, that's super interesting to hear. So I want to go to the gold medal routine then on the beam. What do you remember of that routine? Because it seemed like in the interviews that you've given before that you actually blacked out during it. I did. Is the amount that you remember for that gold medal routine more or less than you remember of your other routines, especially in the team and the all-around ones, like the earlier routines? Oh, it's so much less.

I remember everything about my floor exercise medal round, my all-around medal round, the team competition and the Olympics, all of it. But I just don't remember the beam. And I think it's funny because going into that day, like you said earlier, I had been competing for months on end without any break. And I was exhausted. I was ready to go home. I was ready to be a 16-year-old kid where I ate hamburgers and laid on the couch and just relaxed. I didn't want to be an elite level athlete anymore. And I woke up that day during the medal round for the beam, which was the very last day of the Olympics. And I was tired. I was exhausted, mentally drained. I actually had the flu and it was just the worst

day ever. And I went into practicing, getting ready for that big performance and everything was off. I kept falling. I kept making mistakes that were just uncharacteristic of me. I, you know, just was not myself. And I remember just beating myself to death trying to get myself snapped out of it. I would do routine after routine after routine, warming up in the back, just trying to get my kind of that motor memory, you know, to kick in. And it just wasn't working. So I went running out onto the competition field when it was my turn. I'm white in the face.

I can barely breathe. I'm just exhausted. I still, you know, feel like I'm going to throw up because I have the flu. I remember saluting to the judges and getting ready to start that mental routine of, you know, what stays in motion or whatever. And I just blacked out. My body took over, my mind shut off, and all I remember was finishing my dismount. And it was the weirdest experience of my life because I felt like I truly just wasn't there. It was an out-of-body experience, but it was pretty cool because I looked at the scoreboard afterwards and I had won,

which was kind of crazy. I mean, you must have watched the video since then, too, of your performance. Did that, like, jog your memory or anything? Like, bring back anything? Yes and no. I do remember finishing my beam routine and thinking to myself, that wasn't my best performance. And that being like the extent of my thoughts, usually after a beam routine, I could break it down for you and say, this skill was a little off in this way because of this. You know, my technical execution of this skill was a little off because of this. I mean, I could go through every detail. And with my Olympic medal round routine, I knew it wasn't my best, but I didn't know why. And so when I went back and watched the

videos, I was like, oh, that's why I wobbled on this. And this was a little off but my memory and my brain just went black I mean that's like Michael Jordan had his old flu game everyone talks about is making him the best of all time too so it's probably good sign to have a good day when you have the flu I guess so do you think you could do any of it today? Oh, any of my Olympic. I mean, obviously. But do you think you still have it in you to do any part of that routine still? I have actually wondered if I could do it again. I mean, the training, all of it.

And I've actually had thoughts of trying to do it again. Really? But, yeah, I'm definitely not going to. Don't worry. All of it. And I've actually had thoughts of trying to do it again. Really? But yeah, I'm definitely not going to. Don't worry. But every once in a while. I mean, I love gymnastics with every ounce of my soul. So every single day is kind of that day where I'm like, oh, man, I wish I could do it again. Why not try? But I do think that, you know, my brain, my body, everything as a teenager and an adolescent

is different than me as an adult. Do I believe that I still have the capabilities and ability to channel that kind of monster, beast, whatever I created back then. Yes. But I think it would just be different. I calculate things different. I have that not naive brain anymore. And I think that would hurt my gymnastics performance. So this is kind of a theme that we are trying to bring up a lot in the series that we're the sports series that this is going to be for. But I'm curious where you fall on it. So do you think that ability in you to kind of just hone in and focus on, you know, focus that hard on anything? Do you think that is something not necessarily genetic, but that you were born with or is something that's unique to you? Or do you think it's something that anyone can learn or

like a lot of people can learn interesting i think this contradicts my last answer i would say it's definitely just born i mean you're born with it at least part of it only because i ever since the olympics i have i've gone coaching. I've been able to work with some of the best athletes of the world, in the world in gymnastics and little kids in gymnastics of all age ranges and talents and abilities. And I have seen some of the most physically gifted and talented gymnasts I think our sport has ever seen. But they just do not have the mental capability to get themselves to that elite level. And it's not a matter of training them

or getting them to the right sports psychologist or getting the right people around them. It's just, it's not there. So I would say, I think you have to be born with some sort of innate ability to, you know, push out all pain and emotion and push yourself to past a boundary that 99% of the world kind of operates within. When you say that they like just, it's just not there, they just don't have it. Can you talk a little bit more about what it is like that's missing there like specifically you don't have to give any names obviously that'd be

mean but like what does it look like when a gymnast like what keeps a gymnast from reaching that olympic level i would say as a coach a lot of like the traits that you see is you might have a girl who has the perfect body type. I mean, she's flexible. She's powerful. She, you know, can flip. She can twist. She can do everything. She's coachable.

But yet doesn't have the drive, doesn't have the internal, I don't know, just voice that's pushing her to go farther. As a coach, you can only push an athlete so much with words and with cues and with training, but an athlete has to have some drive in them that pushes them that extra yard that puts them on an Olympic podium. And if they just don't have that passion within them, I mean, you can't fake that. So switching gears a little bit. So what then makes a great

gymnast? And by that, I mean, like a combination, like what combination of like natural physical traits or personality traits or, and I mean, you can bring in luck in here or whatever, but what, what makes someone great in gymnastics? What makes a great gymnast? I would say if you, if you are looking for an Olympic gold medal gymnast, you need confidence, obviously, just, I mean, talking about the subjectiveness of our sport if you aren't exuding confidence you aren't you know wishing and willing these judges to give you a score you you have to be able to kind of push your emotions onto a judge um you're you need power you need flexibility and grace you need a lot of luck.

Gymnastics is a very, very dangerous sport and one that forces a child to become an adult in a very adult-level playing field, I guess. And I feel like as a child, just your ability to burn out or to get injured, it just goes up from there. And luck plays a huge part in that. I mean, it does seem weird that watching TV, like watching the Olympics,

we do expect these 16-year-old girls to be performing athletic feats that we wouldn't be able to expect of our 30-year-old NFL stars. Exactly. No offense to your husband or anything. No, not at all. I mean, if you watch the Olympics,

you have a 16-year-old competing for your country, wearing your country's colors and, you know, your flag and everything. And you're sitting at home screaming at this child, like saying, come on, win our gold medal, bring it home. And you're putting a pressure on what you assume is an adult, but is actually this adolescent teenager who has no idea what it is they're doing. And I think it's just interesting because the training that goes behind that, you have to strip a 16-year-old of all emotion, of all childlike features,

and make sure they understand the magnitude of the situation so that they don't let down those people at home sitting on the couch. Do you think that that makes, like that kind of pressure makes not just gymnasts, but other athletes your age more mature than other normal 26-year-olds or any other way different than other normal people who aren't athletes? I would say unfortunately, yes. And I say unfortunately because as a 16-year-old kid, I think you should be allowed to be a 16-year-old kid and I know asking for that on top of being able to be an Olympic level athlete or Olympic caliber athlete is asking for like my cake and icing and eating it all too um so I know that's probably not possible but I think you do sacrifice

with these children a child's like you know emotion and part of them that they will never get back because you're forcing them to become an adult, to live on their own, to not show emotion, to take on the pressures and the weight of your country and your world on the world's biggest stage. And that's a lot. That's a lot for anybody to handle at any age, let alone a child. Yeah. Thanks for it. That's kind of a tangent that I wanted to go on, but thanks for following me down. I kind of want to go back to this word itself. And you mentioned

kind of how you were a lot more athletic than previous gymnasts and other gymnasts have been, especially women gymnasts. And that's kind of a trend that it's been continuing even past you, but I think you may have started or other people have started before you. But how much has the sport changed recently with extremely athletic gymnasts like you and like Simone Biles becoming more common? I mean, I don't want to make you question your friend, but do you think like Nastia Lukin would be able to win today in four years? Do you think the sport's going to be totally different than what it was like 10 years ago? I think our sport is ever-changing. And there's actually this kind of law rule in play where every four years, the head figures at play, whoever they are, the people who make the rules, they're allowed to take the rule book and essentially throw it

in the trash and start over. And based on their rules and what they write every four years, that's how these gymnasts train for the next Olympics. That's how they train their bodies. That's how they're training them to look like, to perform, everything. And for example, in 2008, our new rule book favored Nastia's style. It definitely favored the long, you know, flexibility and grace and leaps and, you know, the more, I don't know, Nastia-like skills, whereas it didn't favor my type of skills, the more powerful, stocky, men-like like sounds so attractive um gymnastics whereas fast forward four years from 2008 our rule book was thrown out it was rewritten and it favored my style of gymnastics now put both Nastia and I in the 2012 Olympics I don't know if either of us could have kept up. I mean, the level of skills they were throwing in 2012

made my skills look like, you know, recreational gymnastics. And same with 2016. So I don't think we could ever compare, thankfully, because I think I would fail miserably in every, you know, Olympics but my own. But yeah, I think it's just an ever-changing sport that continues to push these athletes past another boundary. For example, Simone Biles. I mean, she's, in my opinion, the greatest gymnast we've ever seen in the history of our sport. And I think she's just going to continue pushing past those boundaries. Do you think that kind of flexibility and capacity for change in a sport is good for it or detrimental?

I think it's good most of the time and detrimental some of the time. When the code in the rulebook is written in such a way that it hurts certain athletes for attempting skills that are new, that are unique and are evolving our sport, I guess. I think that's, the rulebook that was written was so, I don't know, restrictive on the athletes that one of the beautiful things of our sport is because it is subjective, because it is artistic, we as athletes have our own ability to give the audience our interpretation of our sport, if that makes any sense. Right, right. our interpretation of our sport, if that makes any sense. So I can go back into my own gym and choreograph what I think is the most beautiful Olympic caliber routine and it be completely different than the Russians or the Chinese. But in 2012, what was detrimental was the rulebook that was written was so restrictive that you looked at the Russians, the Chinese, the United States team, the Brazilians, everyone, and they looked identical because that rulebook that they wrote

didn't allow for interpretation or artistry. And I think that's when our sport is hurt by these changes. Do you think 2012 was the worst for that then recently or even worse than when you were competing in 2008? is hurt by these changes. Do you think 2012 was the worst for that then recently? Or even worse than when you were competing in 2008? I would say 2012 was the worst for that. I feel like it was the most restrictive rulebook or code. We call it a code.

I think it was the most restrictive code we had ever seen. But I think it did correct itself in 2016 because you got to see Simone Biles, Allie Raisman, Gabby Douglas, Madison Koshin, Jordan Weber all come out looking like completely different athletes, but succeeding and winning gold medals on all different apparatuses. Right. So that kind of actually brings me to what I wanted to do next anyway, was talk a little bit about USA Gymnastics, which is, correct me if I'm wrong, that's the governing body in the U.S., right? Correct. They act as that at least?

Like they would function as the NFL for gymnastics in the U.S.? Correct. Can you kind of talk about the role they play in the sport, especially compared to how the NFL functions in the life of your husband? Yes. So the way our governing bodies work under, I guess, the U.S. Olympic organization is as follows. There is the U.S. Olympic Committee, which is kind of at the top of the pyramid within the United States. And they are a non-profit government-funded organization that governs every sport within the United States. Under them is a governing body for every sport that competes at the Olympics in the United States. For example, USA Gymnastics. USA Gymnastics, their governing body, their responsibility is to essentially pick the

Olympic team find a place for them to train to give them some organization to give them some funding and a protective board or governing sense that protects the athlete's rights. And I guess the difference between that and the NFL, I guess, is no different. Well, there's, they don't really, I'm curious about like the, how much they look into or who is looking into making a living from it or any of the money side of it.

Mostly because it's still unclear to, I think, most people how, or if at all, people are able to make a living doing these sports while they're in their full capacity to do them. Like, well, I want to get into this soon, but gymnastics, obviously, you're only able to do it professionally for a short amount of time. But for other Olympic sports, you can do it until, you know, like, I don't know how old Michael Phelps is, but till, you know, a little bit longer. And I'm curious as to who's looking out for kind of like the wealth and well-being of Olympic athletes.

Yes. Interesting. So that is what is interesting about the governing bodies of the Olympic sports within the United States. I might be wrong in this, so don't quote me by law, but I'm pretty sure that every governing body or unique governing body gets to dictate their compensation for those individual athletes in each individual sport. For example, USA Gymnastics dictates our compensation or our salary as professional United States gymnastics, you know, performers or Olympic caliber athletes. So when I technically qualified under the USA Gymnastics Committee to the national team or the USA national team, I signed a contract that states I will be paid, you know, $1,500 a month. I will not be allowed to do, you know, X, Y, and Z or compete for other countries. I will give all of my profits to USA Gymnastics when it comes to winning.

I will share 20% with my coach. I will share 50% with the organization. And I mean, yada, yada. I mean, it's very restrictive. And one of the unfortunate things about gymnastics, I don't know the details of every sport, is that our compensation was, in a nice way, put nicely, I think very inappropriate for the jobs we are doing. How so? However, I think you asked earlier who is looking out for the best interest of the athletes. Well, the interesting part of that is the interest of the athletes is also dictated by the same governing body that is paying us, which I think shouldn't be the same organization. When both people are trying to make a profit

but also trying to protect themselves, I think that is a conflict of interest. So when we would compete, we would get these prize monies from China, Russia, whatever it may be. And that prize money goes directly into the USAG president's bank account or whatever bank account that might be. And that is then distributed amongst the athletes

after their shares are taken. And it's the president of this governing body that gets to determine what those cuts are. Oh, fascinating. That's so interesting. It's like that. It's a little different than NFL. A little bit.

It's not obviously the same playing field of income or profits as NFL, but it's still, I mean, that actually kind of brings me to retiring. So obviously gymnasts are some of the youngest retirees in sports, I think. You retired at 20, but it's not uncommon for people to retire earlier than that. And I mean, some people, I think some people make it to like 22 or 24. But you retired at 20, which is before most other athletes have even made it professional in other sports. And for the most part, like, I don't think it doesn't sound like the average professional gymnast will make enough money while you're competing to just retire full

time after that. So when you were still like in full eyes on the prize for Beijing, were you thinking or was anyone talking to you about life after gymnastics yet? Not at all. When I was training for the Olympics and signing over endorsements and getting my monthly paycheck of anywhere from $1,200 to $2,500 from my governing body, as a 16-year-old, I'm not thinking about the future, and I didn't have anyone talking to me about the future. I did have my parents kind of being, you know, the responsible parents saying, we should think about college, we should think about scholarships, we should think about at least making enough money to pay for college,

you know, kind of putting that into my ear. But as far as like a governing body or anybody within the Olympic organization protecting us as children in our best interest in our future, as far as compensation and money went, we didn't have anyone. It was just perform, do your duties, and then off with you. And wait, so you didn't even get money from the endorsements? How the majority of Olympic endorsements work is you sign an Olympic endorsement, such as a Coca-Cola, a McDonald's, a Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, before the Olympics even start. And the way they select these athletes is based on essentially Las Vegas gambling or betting

odds. They say, Sean Johnson looks like she's going to win X amount of medals. But the way these contracts are structured is these athletes aren't paid any money up front. The only way they win money or they earn money is by winning medals. So if you sign a deal with Nike that's, say, a million dollars, whatever it may be, but you go to the Olympics and you don't win a medal, you don't earn any money, which I guess is similar to like an NFL contract. You might sign a $2 million deal,

but if you don't play a season game, you don't get paid. But there is this gamble of you don't make money unless you succeed at the Olympics. And when you're talking about thousands and thousands of athletes who have reached the pinnacle of their sport by just qualifying to the Olympics, the fact that they aren't getting compensated for their journey that's gotten them to that point, and saying to them, you're only going to get compensated if you win, I think is pretty extreme. Yeah. And what you left out there is that you have to dedicate 100% of your time to get to the Olympics in the first place.

So it's not like you were working part-time making a decent-ish living while you were trying to qualify for the Olympics. And so this whole amateur is not getting paid thing doesn't matter that much to you. This is a big deal did did they um did it matter whether you got like if you did get a medal what the medal was like the fact that you got three silvers instead of uh four golds uh did that like hurt my income. I mean, favorably. Really? or $5,000. If you win a silver, you would go up from there. So 5,000 for a bronze, 50,000 for a silver, 500,000 for a gold. Wow. So if you calculate in, I technically lost

three golds, I'm out over a million dollars. Jeez. Wow. I mean, did you ask Nastia for some of that cut? Yeah, I wish. I'll ask her tomorrow. Maybe she could buy you a car or something. Hey, can I get my paycheck? Yeah. So you, is there like a typical life after gymnastics then? I want to get into what you specifically are doing, but for your fellow gymnasts, have you noticed like a typical post-career?

I would say the typical post-career for an Olympic athlete or Olympic gymnast is to go to college and become a collegiate coach or a gymnastics coach of some sort and kind of just live within the gymnastics world for the rest of your life. I mean, that's been the most common trend amongst the past probably 12 Olympic Games. Which, and then you didn't do that, right? I think I heard that you were going to maybe go to Vanderbilt, but then decided not to. I'm just curious about that decision and then like going, then feel free to talk to me more about, um, the projects you're working on now and how you got into them. Yeah.

Um, my life, I, okay. To start, I was one of those children that like wanted to plan out my entire life. I wanted every day planned, every year planned. I had a path for myself. And what's funny is the Olympics were not part of that. I wanted nothing more than to go to Stanford University. I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon and I wanted to live in Iowa and just be an orthopedic surgeon. That's what I wanted to be my entire life. And when I qualified to the Olympics, I competed at the Olympics. I was successful, but I still had that thought of tomorrow. I'm going to fly back to Des Moines, Iowa.

I'm going to finish out my senior year. I had already gotten into Stanford university and I was getting ready to go out there. That was my plan. And when I won that, that one gold medal that kind of pushed me over the edge when it came to the media, I was flooded with these opportunities of entertainment and hosting and TV shows and speeches. And it just seemed to be like month after month, year after year, I was just staying busy. And I was making a decent income. I was learning a ton on the road, but I still hadn't gone to college to become that doctor. And year after year, it became more and more difficult to see myself giving up this kind of career I had built to start back over to become the surgeon. So fast forward, I met my husband through actually an Olympic cyclist that

I met in the 2012 Olympics. And my husband went to Vanderbilt University. So I saw that as an opportunity. Vanderbilt's an incredible school. I thought about going there as well. So I said, let's give up Stanford. Let's go to Vanderbilt, see what this guy is about and take on a new career path. I still wanted to be a doctor. I just didn't know what kind. I ended up getting into Vanderbilt. I went to start my first month at Vanderbilt and I booked Celebrity Apprentice. And again, I found myself back into this career that I had built already. So fast forward again, I had transferred then from Vanderbilt to Penn State Online. It was an online college program where I could do the entertainment career, but also get my collegiate degree.

And I kind of found a middle, a happy medium there, I guess. Got my degree in business and yeah, gave up that path I had planned for myself. I wish I had more time to get into the reality TV stuff because I'm a huge fan of a lot of reality TV shows. But I don't want to keep you too long and I do have a couple important questions left. First of all, I want to make sure we do mention the stuff that you're the projects that you're working on now i think um you have your youtube channel um and then there's the cnbc series ac2 it's what was that it's called adventure capitalists right is there anything i'm missing in that um i actually just launched a new um health and fitness brand called Fit, F-Y-T. But we're doing a bunch of online, I guess, health and nutrition programs for people.

So that makes the answer to this next question fairly obvious, at least for that one. But I'm curious how your other projects, especially your YouTube and your CNBC series, how those relate to your life as an athlete in terms of like, is it drawing on your competitiveness, your other, I don't know, your other things that you've developed

in your career as an athlete, as a gymnast? I feel like everything that I have kind of dove into after the Olympics, career-wise, has been kind of random. but I feel like the common connector there is just, it takes me out of my comfort zone and it's things that

I truly enjoy, but they're just completely random and weird things. I was approached with the CNBC show to be a venture capitalist on essentially like a shark tank. And I knew business. I knew how to invest. I, you know, knew all the ins and outs, but I had never kind of done that on television. So I didn't feel like I could do it. And my husband always encouraged me to kind of be uncomfortable or be comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I just started taking on these things that gave me this competitive feeling of, it might not be my Olympic beam routine, but I could make it that if as cheesy as that sounds. That's not too cheesy. Okay.

And then, so finally, I don't like want to end on a down note, but what gymnastics is in the news for now isn't the best stuff anymore. And I know you had very, very strong words for USA Gymnastics after the Larry Nassar trial. I want to say you said, quote, USA Gymnastics has failed as a governing body to protect the athletes that it supports and claims to care about. And I think you've also said that you still think gymnastics is the best sport in the entire world. I think that's a direct quote. But if you had kids, you wouldn't let them do gymnastics, at least not in its current state. So I'm just curious what would have to happen to get you to reconsider that. What would USA Gymnastics have to do to reclaim your trust?

Wow. That's a good question. I don't know. I feel very hypocritical when I talk about this because everything that I went through as an athlete, Larry Nassar was my doctor. He was my personal doctor from the time I was 12 years old to the time I was 22. I was lucky enough to not be a victim of the sexual

assault, but I could also say, you know, just having him be in my room and having him be my personal doctor is part of that survivorship. And going through all of that, I would still go back and do it again. I would do it again a million times. But when that parental kind of instinct starts to kick in, in thinking about future children, I couldn't imagine allowing my daughter to go through that. I mean, just the thought of it just it just makes me ill and it's very hypocritical of me but I think that's just the protective side that would come out of anyone I do believe gymnastics is the greatest sport in the world I think it teaches young girls and boys so many valuable lessons that they can use for the rest of their lives physically and. And I feel like for my trust to be earned by USA Gymnastics again, I know some great people within the sport will have to be probably let go and hurt by that. But I think for the sport to trust that industry again,

they have to start over. They have to have no doubt in anyone's mind that there is anyone left within the organization that could potentially have malintent towards these children. And I think that's the only way. I hate to say that because there are great people involved, but when you're talking about something so devastating as what's going on, I think that's the only option. Yeah, it makes sense. Well, I have come to the end of our time here. Thank you so much for being so open

and honest throughout all of this. And I wish you a lot of luck with the rest of everything. It seems like you have your life kind of put together at least for now. And I hope it keeps going how you want it to go. Thank you. I really enjoyed this. And I don't feel like I have my life together, but it's such a compliment to hear that.

That, I think you would agree, was a pretty fascinating conversation. Thank you so much to Sean Johnson and Harry Huggins. If you haven't already, check out Freakonomics Radio episode number 351, which featured Sean Johnson. If you want to hear more of our interviews from the athletes and experts featured in our Hidden Side of Sports series, sign up for Stitcher Premium. This week, you'll hear former NFL player Dominique Foxworth on the before, during, and after of the athlete's life. And history professor David Canton on the huge fall in African-American participation in baseball. Just go to stitcherpremium.com slash Freakonomics. Use promo code Freakonomics for one month free. Coming up next in our regular Freakonomics radio feed, a conversation with Roberto Azevedo, Director General of the World Trade Organization.

That's next time. Thanks for listening. Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. Our Hidden Side of Sports series was produced by Anders Kelto and Derek John with help from Harry Huggins. Our staff also includes Allison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Greg Rosalski, Alvin Melleth, Zach Lipinski, and Andy Meisenheimer. We had help on this episode from Rebecca Douglas and Nellie Osborne. The music you hear throughout our episodes was composed by Luis Guerra. Our show can also be heard on NPR stations across the country. Check your local station for the schedule, as well as on Sirius XM, Spotify, and even your better airlines.

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