Sports and culture scholar Dr. Johanna Mellis joins the pod for a discussion on athletes, mental health, and the failure of organizations to care for or about them. We start with Hungarian Olympic athletes during the Cold War who defected to the West only to find that capitalist conditions were often no better than what they left behind. We discuss how their activism created positive changes in their home country. Then we shift to Olympic athletes today, e.g. Simone Biles, Becca Meyers and Adam Peaty, and look at the struggles they face from institutions and fans who care less about their well-being than their artistry. Dr. Mellis also explains the long and sad history of racism and swimming and how that took shape for hundreds of years and into the present.

Dr. Johanna Mellis is an educator and historian of Cold War/Hungarian/international sport. A former Division I swimmer, she also co-hosts the End Of Sport podcast.

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