***Content warning: In this episode, we discuss the ways that individuals used harmful and abusive methods in their coaching tactics and their impact on athletes.***
In the first part of our interview with former choreographer for Béla and Martha Karolyi, the Romanian Communist State, and US national gymnastics team, Geza Pozsar takes us through his experiences living in Romania and working for the famous gymnastics’ duo in the 1970s and 198-s. This is the first part of all the history about the Karolyi’s and the Communist Romanian sport system that is left out of every Western media portrayal of the coaching duo. Geza explains how Bela’s coaching tactics in particular were not representative of the Communist nor Romanian sport system. Rather, their system was much more brutal. Geza does not excuse the Karolyi’s methods and condemns them as he has done for the last 10+ years. Importantly, he contextualizes their world and his role in it by recalling the pressure that the Romanian state placed on winning medals in international sport, and also the high stakes involved for coaches if they did not produce Olympic champions in terms of their daily life at home. These conditions, along with Geza’s assessment of Bela’s limited technical coaching abilities, explain their motivations for defecting to the West to try their hand at coaching careers there. By contextualizing this history for us, Geza moreover confirms the dangerous fallacies in our anti-Communist, pro-American, capitalist narrative of Cold War sport that we have discussed in episodes prior.
For more on Geza Pozsar, check out Dvora Meyers' terrific piece here. You can find Geza on Twitter @GezaPozsar.
After listening to the episode, check out our recent piece "Canceling the College-Football Season Isn't Enough" published in The Chronicle of Higher Education
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@Derekcrim
@JohannaMellis
@Nkalamb
@EndofSportPod
www.TheEndofSport.com
**For a transcription of this episode please click here. Huge thanks to @Punkadmic for making this happen!**
Episode 140: The Columbia Encampment
Episode 139: The Political Economy of Women's Sport
Episode 138: Sport and the Climate Crisis with Madeleine Orr
Episode 137: The Hegemonic vs. Inclusive Masculinity Debate
Episode 136: How the Anti-trans Movement Shields Cisgender Sexual Predators
Episode 135: Hungary, Sportswashing, and Global Fascism
Episode 134: Masculinities and Sport with Raewyn Connell
Episode 133: Gunpower and Sports with Patrick Blanchfield
Episode 132: The Barstool Sports Episode
Episode 131: College Sport NLRB Extravaganza
Episode 130: The Definitive Netflix Sports Rankings
Episode 129: Higher Ed 'Crisis' with Asheesh Kapur Siddique and Joe Darda
Episode 128: On The PWHL with Liz Knox
Episode 127: Gaza Genocide and Sporting Politics with Karim Zidan
Episode 126: Football, Manliness, and the Conjuncture
Episode 125: Israel and Russia Don't Belong in Paris 2024
Episode 124: The Swiftie Bowl
Episode 123: Palestine Solidarity
Episode 122: Why Canada Needs a Judicial Inquiry into Sport
Episode 121: Anti-trans Discourse, Sport, and our Fascist Moment
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