GymCastic Podcast

If you’re looking for comprehensive coverage of gymnastics on both a micro and macro level, join the GymCastic fandom. This year, GymCastic host Jessica O’Beirne traveled from her home in L.A. to Japan not once, but twice, to cover both the Tokyo Olympics and the world championships in Kitakyushu (for which she and her team were the only foreign media present who were not affiliated with a gymnastics federation). The podcast accommodates both “four-year fans” — their term for those who start following the sport during an Olympics, where it is the most-watched event — and the people who set their alarms for 4 a.m. to catch balance beam event finals at worlds and can mimic Soviet floor choreography from the 80s. O’Beirne and her regular cohosts, Spencer Barnes and Kensley Behel, are a perfect podcast blend of emotions and statistics.

The GymCastic fandom makes the world a better place by taking gym fans beyond the sport and informing listeners about gymnastics’ broader cultural and political influence over time. They have done episodes about the Cold War and the breakdown of the Soviet Union and how both affected the sport. If you thought political protest in sports started with Colin Kaepernick, listen to O’Beirne’s impassioned discussions about the 60s gymnastics legend Vera Caslavska and how her Olympic protest of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, her home country, affected judging and scoring at meets for years afterward.

A decade from now, GymCastic will be remembered for its comprehensive coverage of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal that rocked the sport of gymnastics. They were on this story from the very beginning, when many rumors but few facts surrounded Nassar’s dismissal from his work with USA Gymnastics, and long before major media outlets put it on the front page. It is not an exaggeration to say that GymCastic’s coverage of the Nassar scandal and its repercussions has shaped how the media now talks about abuse in sports and covers the victims of abuse.