This interview aired during Morning Edition on WVIA Radio.
KAT: We're in a lull right now between the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games. They are also in Paris and begin on Wednesday, Aug. 28. Jackson Breslin interned with us here this summer at WVIA.
Hi Jackson.
JACKSON: Hi Kat.
KAT: He leaves us next week to begin his sophomore year at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. Jackson is a North Carolina native. His family now lives in Scranton. So you also had your first Scranton summer.
Jackson, you like covering sports. We sent him to a barn in Columbia County at 5 a.m. on Saturday. He watched Zain Retherford wrestle with the Benton Community.
So that was your first time in Benton?
JACKSON: It was, yeah, it's a town of about 700 people, but, I mean, they were all really welcoming. And it was a great experience. The Retherfords have a family farm market in Benton. So a lot of people know them through that.
But also some people I talked to, one person taught Rutherford in psychology in high school. Another had him throw hay bales to gain strength at his farm.
"All you had to do is make a phone call to the to the right guy in charge, and there'd be six or eight wrestlers show up to help with rough, hard jobs like that, and that was their workout ... they were happy to get out and do it," said David Keller the morning of the match.
KAT: So, what did you discover? You know, while you were at the watch party very early in the morning.
JACKSON: I think what, it's not so much of a discovery, as it is a realization that the Olympics really do provide such a unique opportunity for people. What other sporting competition will you have a boy from Benton, Pennsylvania, be able to compete in front of millions in wrestling, having that opportunity to see someone like Zain compete, the people in Benton never could have seen that coming. So I think it's just such a unique opportunity.
KAT: Did it change your perspective on the Olympics as a whole?
JACKSON: It's a new way to look at the Olympics, because you don't really think about it when you're watching you know, you think of them as world class athletes. You don't really consider the fact that they're from somewhere, that they have people who know them, who say 'I knew that guy growing up.' So seeing those people who could point to it and say, 'yeah, that kid threw hay bales on my farm growing up,' like that's a crazy experience.
KAT: The United States tied with China for the most gold medals. Is that correct?
JACKSON: That is correct — 40 each.
KAT: But we won the most medals overall.
JACKSON: Yes.
KAT: And I say we as someone who did nothing in the Olympics ... But it was not without controversy. So American Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles was stripped of her floor exercise bronze medal.
JACKSON: So the medal now is going to Romania's Ana Bărbosu, who was in third. Chiles was the last to go. Her routine was originally a 13.666 However, her coach, Cecile Landi, challenged the difficulty rating of the routine, and after review, it was given a 13.766 which put her in bronze.
Now the Romanians challenge says that the Americans challenge was four seconds after the one minute time slot that they have to challenge. What this really results in being is an appeals process that could take months or even years to really be figured out.
KAT: The Olympic games may have wrapped up on Sunday with Tom Cruise diving out of a plane and a ceremonial passing of the torch to Los Angeles. The city will host the Summer Olympics in 2028.
How is LA preparing for the 2028 Olympics? It's known for its traffic. It's known for its lack of public transportation. How are they kind of preparing? Are they building stadiums? Are they using what they already have?
JACKSON: I think that you can see that clearly clean up and the Olympics go very well together. If you look at the River Seine and how they spend over a billion dollars for the triathlon to clean up, clearly they're willing to spend some serious money to get ready for the Olympics. LA is, it's already a sports mecca, in ways. So many people go to LA to watch sports, so I think the infrastructure that they have is already pretty solid.
But you know, the momentum coming from the Paris Olympics. I think a lot of the people that watched it said that it was one of the better Olympics in recent memory. So the momentum going into LA is already pretty high, not to mention the fact that they're adding sports like flag football. They're bringing back sports like baseball, softball and cricket, and luckily, they're getting rid of sports like breaking.
KAT: The Winter Olympics in 2026 are scheduled for Italy. Jackson, thanks for joining me today.
JACKSON: Thank you for having me.
KAT: And thank you for being our intern this summer.
I'm Kat Bolus, WVIA News.
