The Tokyo Olympics have now come to a close in Team USA, came away with the
big winner with a total of one hundred and thirteen medals, thirty nine of them gold.
Earlier today, I spoke with sports columnist Christine Brennan, who joined me from Tokyo
to discuss the highlights of Christine Brennan.
So good to have you back on the news hour.
We all watched the closing ceremonies last night.
And from here, I think by most measures, this was a very unusual
Olympics. You have been there the entire time.
What was it like for you being there?
It was the strangest one I've covered.
And as you know, I've covered a lot of them every once in L.A.
in 84 and nothing quite like this, obviously.
No crowds, no fans, empty arenas, empty stadiums.
You're looking at whether it's beach volleyball or skateboarding or swimming, just
sections of of arenas, entire sides of arenas, all, of course,
empty. And that is jarring. No matter how many times you saw it, it really was strange.
And yet these athletes out there doing what they do the best in the world and still
performing beautifully. So, you know, anyone can see these games.
It was the athletes. And I think in many ways they did.
With regards to the US Olympic team, the US really surged at the end
and racked up a lot of medals, and particularly the US women did
phenomenally well. And you wrote a column recently where you credited a lot of that to
Title nine back here in the U.S.
Can you explain that?
Absolutely. That's the law, William, that Richard Nixon signed almost 50 years ago,
June of 1972, basically mandating that women and girls would have the same opportunities
as boys and men to play sports in high schools and colleges.
And it opened the floodgates for for those girls and women to be able to play
like their brothers and sports the way that they always had done for generations.
And it is the evidence is clear.
For the fourth consecutive Summer Olympic Games, women in the United States won
more medals than men and this time close to 60 percent
of the U.S. medals. One were won by women.
For example, April Ross, the women's beach volleyball player, won the gold medal.
She said if there if there wasn't a Title nine, I wouldn't be here.
She said it's just a fact that her college experience getting a chance to get a
scholarship and play in college led to her years later winning this
gold medal here in Tokyo. Katie Ledecky, the same thing, saying the opportunities that
she was given because of Billie Jean King and Donna Karan and other pioneers fighting for
Title nine all those years ago, that that has made her the athlete
she is. If you women, women, William, were actually a country, they would
have finished fourth in the medal count ahead of almost two hundred other countries,
including Australia and Japan and Great Britain.
That's how remarkable the U.S.
women were at these Olympic Games.
It is such a tremendous legacy.
And there are obviously some standout performers among those women, too,
as well. Allyson Felix certainly being one of them.
Tell us a little bit about her remarkable run.
Thirty five years old, her last Olympics she has with her 11th
medal, which she won in the women's four by four hundred, relays a scintillating
race of past, present and future American women stars and running when
they won the gold. That's her 11th medal, making her the most decorated American Olympian
ever in track and field. Also, as a mother, she is this is her first
Olympics as a mom with having had her daughter in twenty eighteen.
And she had to fight for equal pay and for maternity
and paternity leave from Nike, one of her major sponsors.
And she's one of the biggest names in the Nike stable.
And they did not want to to pay her while she was pregnant.
And she fought that battle and she won.
So she's not only excelling on the track, but she is taking and as a veteran in
her 30s, she is now taking on issues for not only women her age,
but women who are going to be coming along, professional Olympians who want to also be
moms, continuing to compete because of Title nine.
And they will have rights and they won't be able to make money
that they otherwise would not have made because of Allyson Felix.
And lastly, you recently wrote that the this Tokyo Olympics,
even though the face of protests and the pandemic and no audience that it did go on,
but the future of the Olympics as a real cultural touchstone
is changing. And it is not as clear that that's going to be going forward the same
way. Can you explain?
Certainly TV ratings have plummeted just in the past and I'm sure
around the world as well. It's just it's just not the must see TV that it once was
when you raced home and without DVRs and and videotaping,
if you got home a few minutes late and that was on from eight to 11:00 in the East, the
Olympic Games that got home at eight, 15, those 15 minutes were gone forever.
You could never get those Olympic minutes back.
So you did it was appointment viewing and you had to be.
There and now you, frankly, can follow the Olympics without ever turning on the
broadcast, there's certainly the Olympics are going to be here for a
long, long time, but they're changing.
They're basically just not as special as they once were.
And that's OK. It's just the reality of our sports landscape and all the options
people have for watching and viewing sports.
All right. Christine Brennan from USA Today, joining us from Tokyo, Japan.
Thank you for all of your great coverage of these Olympic Games.
Great to see
you, too, William. Thanks so much.