The Rush: Olympian Simone Manuel on inspiring women, her COVID-19 diet, Simone Biles and more
Olympic gold medalist Simone Manuel hops out of the pool to guest co-host The Rush! She and Jared chat about life in COVID-19 quarantine (spoiler alert: Simone’s just like us...doing home workouts and eating poorly), her relationship with fellow Olympian Simone Biles, the pride she takes in inspiring others, sports without fans, Tom Brady’s workout with teammates in Tampa, and whether or not she’s pulled a Michael Jordan “flu game” with competitors poisoning her pizza.
Video Transcript
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JARED QUAY: I'm so excited to have Olympic gold medalist Simone Manuel on the show today. She's here with the BIC Soleil Sensitive Advanced Razor and the Game On Campaign. Simone, how are you doing?
SIMONE MANUEL: Perfect.
JARED QUAY: All right. I see the 2020 Olympics have been postponed because of COVID-19. Has that changed the training?
SIMONE MANUEL: I have been training in a backyard pool, so I'm still getting nine practices a week in. I have been doing weightlifting training at home. It's not my favorite because I don't have all the equipment that I'm used to. I'm kind of like putting books in a backpack and just adapting to the circumstance and just doing the best that I can with the situation.
JARED QUAY: What about the diet? Is the diet going to change? Like, now you got to keep in shape for a whole other year.
SIMONE MANUEL: So I'll be honest and say that my diet hasn't been extremely great during this time because I'm in the grocery store trying to adapt and figure things out. And so then I just end up going and getting frozen pizza, ramen, some cookies that make me feel good. So I'm excited for when it gets back to normal so I can eat salads without them going bad and me going back to the store.
JARED QUAY: Last Halloween you dressed up as fellow Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles cartwheels and all.
SIMONE MANUEL: Yeah.
JARED QUAY: Did she see the costume? What was her response to that?
SIMONE MANUEL: She did. She did comment. I think I did a pretty good job of nailing it.
JARED QUAY: You killed it. You killed it.
SIMONE MANUEL: I guess you had world championships, and people continuously were congratulating me and tweeting at me. So I was like, since y'all mixed us up, I might as well dress up as Simone Biles.
JARED QUAY: You and her four years ago made history. Tell us your thought process on that. Has it evolved now-- the fact that y'all made history?
SIMONE MANUEL: It's been awesome for me to learn more about myself and how my experiences can help someone else behind me. And so that's what's also been awesome about partnering with BIC Soleil Sensitive Advanced Razors. Their mission is just to continue to inspire women and instill this confidence in them, but also it's more important to not be afraid to show it.
JARED QUAY: Boom, you're somebody's role model now.
SIMONE MANUEL: Yes.
JARED QUAY: On Tuesday, Tom Brady held a private workout with a few of his Buccaneer teammates, and the NFL's pretty much gearing up to play without fans. Do you think swimming can still survive without fans?
SIMONE MANUEL: I think it can. Fans bring a level of excitement to competition. I have some crazy capacity to literally like not hear anything and just be laser focused on my race.
JARED QUAY: You're underwater doing your thing.
SIMONE MANUEL: Yeah.
JARED QUAY: How do-- can you hear people screaming? I don't know if you watched "The Last Dance," but Michael Jordan said when he was in Salt Lake City some guys poisoned a pizza. Obviously, if the pizza guys came on and said they didn't poison Michael Jordan. Do you ever feel like competition tries to wear you down, and they'ed be like, Simone, maybe you should eat all these snacks over here before we race?
SIMONE MANUEL: No, I haven't had that experience. So can't relate.
JARED QUAY: OK. Just don't eat pizza in Salt Lake. That's what I tell you.
