[RADIOLAB INTRO]

ROBERT KRULWICH: Hi, I'm Robert Krulwich.

LATIF: And I'm Latif Nasser.

ROBERT: This is Radiolab. And today we're going to do something completely upside down.

LATIF: And inside out.

ROBERT: Yes.

LATIF: It's a sports story.

ROBERT: Sort of, but like none you've ever heard, and therefore, we found a reporter who is a sports reporter like none you've ever heard.

LATIF: Yeah.

MIKE PESCA: I've been to a gym lately.

LATIF: Mike Pesca. He's the host of The Gist podcast, put out by Slate. Formerly of NPR, still sometimes works with NPR. And now he's here telling this story to us.

MIKE PESCA: Yeah.

LATIF: And how did you even first hear about this? Were you covering it?

MIKE PESCA: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Renée Montagne: This is Morning Edition from NPR News. I'm Renée Montagne.]

MIKE PESCA: I was covering the 2012 Olympics for NPR.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Renée Montagne: Good morning.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Mike Pesca: Hello!]

MIKE PESCA: And ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: I declare open the games of London.]

MIKE PESCA: The stories of the Olympics. You try to find your own stories that are obscure, but if there was a big story, you chase it. So in those Olympics ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Renée Montagne: So for you, what were the most notable achievements in the first week of the games?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Mike Pesca: Well ...]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: It's history of the best kind.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Mike Pesca: ... Michael Phelps breaking the all-time record, obviously]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: So in over 100 years, nobody's won as many medals at the Olympic Games.]

MIKE PESCA: And everyone knew that ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: On their way ...]

MIKE PESCA: ... Bolt ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: And here comes Usain Bolt!]

MIKE PESCA: ... and his record-setting quest in the 100 would be huge.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Oh, he's retained his title in the most emphatic way. Brilliant, brilliant!]

MIKE PESCA: But then this badminton story pops up, and everyone rushes to figure out what the heck's going on with badminton.

LATIF: Because the 2012 London Olympics' badminton tournament just it took this somewhat obscure sport and it morphed it into this bizarro thought experiment about competition and integrity and what it means to win.

ROBERT: Okay.

MIKE PESCA: But mostly, I think that the players ...

LATIF: But to be fair, Mike, he jumped on this story for very personal reasons.

MIKE PESCA: As a New Yorker, I say a lot of words and they're mispronounced, and the NPR audience would jump on them. But I always can say the "N" in badminton and get a lot of plaudits. So, I'm attracted to badminton.

LATIF: Oh!

ROBERT: But what's the wrong way to say badminton?

MIKE PESCA: Most people say, "bad-mitten."

LATIF: "Bad-mitten."

ROBERT: "Bad-mitten."

LATIF: Like you're talking to some handwear in wintertime.

MIKE PESCA: Yeah. Like you're chastising a playful cat.

LATIF: Right.

MIKE PESCA: "Bad, mitten! Bad!"

ROBERT: I see.

LATIF: And then also, you know, you and I probably think of badminton as this backyard, fun, silly game. But according to Mike ...

MIKE PESCA: No!

LATIF: ... this is anything but.

MIKE PESCA: It has nothing to do with the badminton you play in your backyard. It's much faster than you think it would possibly look.

LATIF: You get these players ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Wow, what a shot!]

LATIF: ... flying all over the court. Stretching, reaching, diving.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: How on Earth?]

MIKE PESCA: The skill of the competitors is, you know, readily apparent.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: This is pulsating badminton!]

MIKE PESCA: A shuttlecock is a funny thing, and perhaps not as impressive a thing as a tennis ball, but it looks, you know, a lot like tennis. And there's a lot of tension.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Severe pressure!]

MIKE PESCA: And there's a lot of grunting. and it totally seems like every bit of a legitimate and highly-skilled sport.

LATIF: Wait. I'm gonna start. Okay, so Robert?

ROBERT: Mm-hmm.

LATIF: If you haven't seen this yet, but I would like to show you something. Okay, this is an ad.

ROBERT: [laughs]

LATIF: Yeah, this—okay. This is the game that is at the center of this whole story.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Women's doubles group A.]

LATIF: Women's doubles badminton. It is not a medal round. It's in the group play stage. There's a huge crowd here. Like, the place is packed.

ROBERT: Yeah.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Please welcome, representing the People's Republic of China, Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang.]

LATIF: So these two teams come out. You got China.

ROBERT: Yellow and red uniforms, yellow shoes.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: And their opponents. Representing the Republic ...]

LATIF: Versus Korea.

ROBERT: Mm-hmm. Purple and white.

LATIF: Yeah. And let's just skip ahead here.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Kim Ha-na, Jung Kyung-eun.]

LATIF: All right, so here we go. Game on. This is the first serve.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: So the Korean pair ...]

LATIF: Korean serve. So the Korean player flicks her wrist, the shuttlecock goes over the net. China returns.

ROBERT: Hmm. Right into the net.

LATIF: That was it. That was the whole thing.

ROBERT: Oh, that was just a bloop.

LATIF: All right. So Korea, second serve. And Chinese return. And same thing happens.

ROBERT: And they hit the net again.

LATIF: Yeah. So the service is turned over. Now the Chinese are serving.

ROBERT: Okay.

LATIF: China, Korea, China.

ROBERT: Into the net again!

LATIF: Yeah.

ROBERT: This is not exactly scintillating, I just gotta tell you. This is like ...

LATIF: Okay. Well, just watch this next point. So the Korean player serves it.

ROBERT: Yeah.

LATIF: It sails over the net. And then it goes, goes, goes, goes, goes, and the Chinese player clearly is right there. She has it. She then winds up just a slight bit, like, you can see it's like she has this deep, ingrained muscle memory from years of doing this. She winds up, she's about to hit it and then she stops. And the shuttlecock just plunks onto the floor inbounds, point to Korea. And then, tellingly, she looks back at the back corner of the court where her coach is sitting.

ROBERT: Ah. They both are!

LATIF: Yeah.

ROBERT: This is a fix. They're fixing this, like ...

LATIF: Well ...

ROBERT: This is ...

LATIF: Yes. But ...

MIKE PESCA: There have been plenty of occasions where one side wants to lose, and it ain't hard to lose. And the more important thing is it ain't hard to get away with it.

LATIF: Usually you wouldn't even notice it.

MIKE PESCA: You know, it's the difference between a couple serves over the line, a couple balls into the net. But ...

LATIF: In this case, as the match goes on, you start to realize ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Very lethargic start from the Koreans.]

LATIF: ... the Korean players seem to be trying to lose, too!

[ARCHIVE CLIP: They're serving faults!]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: True. Yes.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: They're serving ...]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: They're trying to get them to rally, of course. But ...]

ROBERT: Why would everybody be trying to lose? Like, both sides?

LATIF: Well, it's actually a strategy. Because the way the tournament is laid out, both these teams are gonna be moving on to the medal rounds. But whoever wins this game is gonna have to play another Chinese team, a really strong team.

ROBERT: I see.

LATIF: And whoever loses is gonna play a way easier Danish team.

ROBERT: Ah!

LATIF: So both teams are hoping to lose.

MIKE PESCA: Yeah. And it is the rare instance where you have both sides incentivized to lose that you get something that should be scored by Spike Jones. It's a little bit of a prisoner's dilemma, right? Either side could lose, but when both want to lose ...

LATIF: It becomes this surreal waiting game.

MIKE PESCA: Right.

LATIF: You know, who's gonna crack first and score a point?

MIKE PESCA: And so ...

LATIF: You got the best players in the world who just start hitting the shuttlecock out of bounds. [ARCHIVE CLIP: They're serving fault after fault.]

MIKE PESCA: Faulting on purpose, and ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: They're just hitting the ball straight in the net.]

MIKE PESCA: ... hitting the shuttlecock into the net.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: I'm sorry. You know, it's blindingly obvious what's going on.]

MIKE PESCA: And, you know ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: They're both trying to lose.]

LATIF: Sometimes they hit it below the net.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: And that is unforgivable.]

LATIF: They're hitting it straight into the ground.

MIKE PESCA: All but tripping over their own shoelaces purposefully.

LATIF: Until what you get is ...

ROBERT: Serve. Uh-oh, into the net.

LATIF: ... point ...

ROBERT: Serve ...

LATIF: ... after point of just terrible badminton. And it just devolves into this absurd, repetitive crazy-making lose-a-thon.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: This is an absolute disgrace.]

ROBERT: It's so obviously lame. I mean, this is not—this is not sport. This is ...

LATIF: But it is kind of a sport because—and this is why I really love it—at a certain point, these two teams have to start competing with each other to lose.

ROBERT: What?

LATIF: Let me play you this point. So China serves it, Korea hits it back. But it's going way out of bounds. Now in a normal world, China would obviously let that fall so that they could take the point, but they lunge to save it, right? And they're hitting it back. Now Korea then, they are like, "No, no, no. You know what? We're pretty sure we want it out of bounds." They hit in the opposite direction even further out of bounds. So now China goes to save it once again, but they don't get there in time. So the point goes to China, which China actually didn't want, and the Koreans wanted the whole time.

ROBERT: So what are you saying then? Is it ...

LATIF: Well, it's like—it's like they invented a whole new sport, which is the exact opposite of badminton. It is—it is photo-negative badminton. But then, towards the end of the first set ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: From the referee, has been pulled forth.]

LATIF: ... out comes the referee.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: And here comes Torsten Berg.]

TORSTEN BERG: Hello, Torsten speaking.

LATIF: Hi! How are you?

LATIF: Torsten Berg was the head Olympic badminton referee who got that call.

TORSTEN BERG: And I also heard the spectators' boos. So I went to watch. It looked pretty awful. This was not right.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: The referee is pulling the players together.]

TORSTEN BERG: And told them that they were not playing seriously, and they were making a very serious mistake. And they played stupid and said, "No, we're playing. We're trying our best."

JUNG KYUNG-EUN: [speaking Korean]

LATIF: We were actually able to get in touch with three of the four players in that match. Both Korean players ...

JUNG KYUNG-EUN: [speaking Korean]

LATIF: ... Jung Kyung-eun, and ...

KIM HA-NA: [speaking Korean]

LATIF: ... Kim Ha-na. And also, one of the Chinese players.

WANG XIAOLI: [speaking Mandarin]

LATIF: Wang Xiaoli. And ...

WANG XIAOLI: [speaking Mandarin]

LATIF: And Wang Xiaoli told me they were trying to lose in that match.

WANG XIAOLI: [through interpreter] But what we didn't expect is South Korea would do the same thing.

WANG XIAOLI: [speaking Mandarin]

LATIF: And as for the Koreans, Jung Kyung-eun said that they too were trying to lose, at least during certain moments in the game. But when the crowd started to boo ...

KIM HA-NA: [speaking Korean]

LATIF: ... and the ref came out, her partner Kim Ha-na said that ...

KIM HA-NA: [through interpreter] I was surprised and embarrassed.]

LATIF: ... they were just scared.

KIM HA-NA: [through interpreter] We just wanted to get out of the court as soon as possible.

KIM HA-NA: [speaking Korean]

LATIF: So Torsten walks off the court.

TORSTEN BERG: They went on court again.

LATIF: And then the second serve after Torsten walks off the court, nothing but net.

TORSTEN BERG: [sighs]

LATIF: So for the next few points ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: [boos]]

LATIF: ... it does not get much better.

TORSTEN BERG: No, it didn't look like world-class badminton at all.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: No, no, no.]

LATIF: So the set comes to an end. Korea wins the set. And while the players are waiting on the sidelines ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Here comes the tournament referee again.]

LATIF: ... Torsten comes back onto the court. He walks up to the players and he pulls out of his pocket almost subtly and shows to the players this black card.

TORSTEN BERG: The black card, which means disqualification.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: This is absolutely extraordinary. He has given both teams a black card. Or has he threatened them with a black card? I'm really not terribly sure. The players have returned to court.]

TORSTEN BERG: It was now that they should play or they would be in deep [bleep]. Sorry, maybe I shouldn't say ...

ROBERT: No, no, no. The black card says that pretty clearly.

TORSTEN BERG: The black card. The black card was out, and I was ...

LATIF: The [bleep] card.

TORSTEN BERG: I told them in very clear words and very seriously that in order to help themselves, they better play now.

JUNG KYUNG-EUN: [speaking Korean]

LATIF: The Korean player, Jung Kyung-eun ...

JUNG KYUNG-EUN: [speaking Korean]

LATIF: ... said that she turned to her partner ...

JUNG KYUNG-EUN: [through interpreter] And I told her, they are them and we are we. So let's just play and do our best.

LATIF: The second set starts, and pretty quick ...

WANG XIAOLI: [speaking Mandarin]

LATIF: ... China's Wang Xiaoli told me ...

JUNG KYUNG-EUN: [through interpreter] Both sides changed a little bit.

TORSTEN BERG: Instead of just serving into the net ...

LATIF: Things start to get better.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: A rally.]

TORSTEN BERG: ... they would get the rally going.

LATIF: But then as the points kept coming, you started to notice, like ...

TORSTEN BERG: They were playing very slowly.

LATIF: ... there's something still really off here.

TORSTEN BERG: They were not hitting the board very hard.

WANG XIAOLI: [speaking Mandarin]

LATIF: Now the Korean team wouldn't admit this, but Wang Xiaoli said that both teams ...

WANG XIAOLI: [through interpreter] Didn't change the basic fact.

LATIF: ... were still trying to lose.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: [boos.]]

LATIF: Which I have to say is exactly what it looks like when you watch it, because for the rest of the match you get a bunch of these points where, like—where just they'll lob it super high, you know, as if to say, "Hey, smash it down on us. Take your point." Or they will, you know, hit it out of bounds and then facepalm. Just, you know, practice their swing after they missed one just to say, "Oh, you know, my mechanics are off. I just gotta just practice this a few more times." Because it's like we've entered a whole third iteration of this game where it's like, they're not just trying to lose, they're trying to ...

ROBERT: Cover up badminton.

LATIF: Cover up badminton. You're trying to lose, but you're trying to look like you're trying to win.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: [boos.] There goes the crowd.]

ROBERT: I don't think they're fooling anybody here. No, no.

LATIF: So finally, after 20 long minutes of this, the Korean team loses the match by winning it.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Tonight has left me with a very nasty taste in the mouth. Tonight was not sport. It was a disgrace. Good night.]

KIM HA-NA: [speaking Korean]

LATIF: So all four players walked off the court, and Kim Ha-na told me ...

KIM HA-NA: [through interpreter] It was not a pleasant winning at all.

LATIF: ... that her parents were in the audience that day. And afterwards they asked her, "What happened?"

KIM HA-NA: [through interpreter] What happened? And why—why do you have to get the boos from the audience and et cetera? And I was—I was sad and felt defeated. So I didn't even want to talk to my mom. So I remember just going—went to the hotel and had rest.

KIM HA-NA: [speaking Korean]

TORSTEN BERG: And the next morning at eight o'clock, all four pairs in fact were disqualified according to the disciplinary regulations of the Badminton World Federation.

LATIF: Which has a rule on the books that you can be disqualified for failing to use your best efforts.

TORSTEN BERG: And the same evening they were on the plane home.

LATIF: They were just thrown out of the Olympics.

[NEWS CLIP: A scandal at the Olympics.]

[NEWS CLIP: This whole to-do about the badminton players.]

[NEWS CLIP: Everyone was talking about some losers.]

[NEWS CLIP: Shuttlecocks were going out.]

[NEWS CLIP: To be tapping the shuttlecock into the net.]

[NEWS CLIP: Like a five-year-old at a backyard picnic.]

[NEWS CLIP: It was downright humiliating.]

TORSTEN BERG: It was just sad that they were committing suicide in that tournament.

WANG XIAOLI: [through interpreter] After that time, the punishment hit me quite hard. I was very sad and I felt helpless.

KIM HA-NA: [through interpreter] I was perplexed, and didn't know what happened. We just cried.

ROBERT: This doesn't sound like it's getting any better.

LATIF: No, but there's still more after the break.

ROBERT: Okay.

[LISTENER: Hi, this is Naila from Hamburg, Germany. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org.]

ROBERT: We're back. I'm Robert Krulwich.

LATIF: And I'm Latif Nasser.

ROBERT: This is Radiolab.

LATIF: And when we left off, the Korean and Chinese women's badminton teams had just been disqualified, kicked out of the Olympics.

ROBERT: So what—so then what happened to the—were the players, like—what happened to them?

LATIF: Well, all four of them did keep playing badminton professionally after this. Jung Kyung-eun from Korea even went on to win the bronze in Rio. But at the time, this was a brutal punishment for all of them.

ROBERT: Well, but, you know, they did something wrong. This wasn't right. Right?

MIKE PESCA: I—you know, I don't even—I question whether it's even unethical. I think it's ethical, in a way, what they did.

LATIF: Really? What the players did?

MIKE PESCA: I do. I think it's ethical.

LATIF: How so?

MIKE PESCA: Okay, so is the definition of ethics in sports to win? Sure. Without cheating, yes. Does that mean to win every point? No, not necessarily. You know, in baseball, there's the thing called the intentional walk.

LATIF: Sure.

MIKE PESCA: In football, a team will take a safety instead of punting and letting the other team score a touchdown. So this is a calculation where a point here or there is not as important as the whole, and the whole is the game. So okay, let's move back. Let's pan out a little more. I think an individual game is often lost. Look, we're not gonna put our good starter here, we're going to manage the lineup. Because the goal is to win the championship. And the thing to remember about these players is if what we want is players who are hyper competitive and actually want to win at all costs, that's exactly why they were losing so badly, because they wanted to win the overall championship at all costs. And the Badminton Federation had a set of rules that all but guaranteed that this would happen.

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN: Well, yeah. I mean, it's stupid to have an event where people are trying to lose if that event is a sporting event. Especially at the apex of—you know, the only time people care about badminton. It seems really dumb ...

LATIF: So this is Chuck Klosterman. We called him in because he writes a lot about sports, and also because he wrote The Ethicist column for the New York Times Magazine.

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN: Now is this a—some kind of tragedy? Well, it's not. I guess unless badminton is really important to you, then it probably is.

LATIF: Well in this case, I think the thing that people got really upset about is this—is this idea of the Olympic ideal.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, athlete: In the name of all the competitors, I promise that we shall take part in the Olympic Games.]

LATIF: The athletes' oath.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, athlete: In the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of the sport and the honor of our teams.]

LATIF: To transcend, the—in the way that as a superb athlete you're transcending your humanity, but then also as, like, this representative of your country. And to—I think it did poke a lot of people. Like, a lot of people did seemingly get kind of upset about it.

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN: Well, yeah. I mean, for some reason it is disturbing to see athletes failing on purpose.

LATIF: Hmm.

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN: That just—it seems to kind of like tap into some, like ...

LATIF: It feels immoral, somehow.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Tonight has left me with a very nasty taste.]

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN: Yes. Like—like, I don't know if not trying in a sporting event is a moral question, but it feels that way when you see it happen.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: That is unforgivable.]

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN: Here again, one of the interesting things about sports is that we watch these adults playing multimillion-dollar games, but they're the same games that, like, a six year old or seven year old plays. So when you have a seven-year-old kid, you would say, "It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it doesn't matter what happens, just play hard. You don't have to succeed, it's the trying that matters." So when you see people at the highest level not trying, there's—it almost sort of wrecks the entire idea of why we play sports at all. You know, why if you're at a playground and two kids race across the playground to see who can get to the swing faster or whatever, like, that's a biological thing. Maybe we are biologically driven to compete. So that's the baseline expectation of what we have of these badminton players. That they will try to compete, you know?

ROBERT: But it seems to me there's an opportunity here for true athleticism in a kind of topsy-turvy way.

LATIF: Flip it and reverse it.

ROBERT: Flip it and reverse it and see if you can do that as well as you do the other one.

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN: I mean, sports only work one way, though.

LATIF: [laughs]

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN: They don't work both ways. I mean, it would—it would be like going to your wife and saying, like, "Okay, you say you really love me? Prove it by hating me in a creative way."

LATIF: [laughs]

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN: Or to go to a great piano player and say, like, "If you're so awesome at playing piano, bang your fist against the keys in a way that I will be—you know, I will be sickened by it." Yeah.

ROBERT: But wait. But if we take it out of matters of the heart and put it back on the field, what would be the most radical solution that you could imagine if your desire was to convincingly and astonishingly athletically lose?

LATIF: Yeah.

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN: I suppose if they were both trying to do it in the most convincing way, it would be. That was not really the case here.

LATIF: [laughs]

MIKE PESCA: Like I say, they never confronted it. How do you lose on purpose if the other side's also trying to lose on purpose? And I'm trying to think, there are some sports—so in football—let's say in American football, let's say both sides wanted to lose. Well, here's how the sport would go. You can't make the other team score, but you can score a safety on yourself. So the quarterback would get the ball and start running towards his own end zone. And then there'll be a jail break by the defense to tackle the quarterback before he got ...

ROBERT: [laughs] Yeah.

MIKE PESCA: Baseball is hard. You could hit the batter. That would be—that would be an interesting game.

LATIF: Yeah. What ...

MIKE PESCA: What about darts? Instead of aiming at the dartboard, just turning around and aiming at your opponent?

ROBERT: [laughs]

LATIF: That's also—that's like the baseball strategy a little bit.

MIKE PESCA: How about the sport of bodybuilding? Think about the implications of ...

LATIF: Bodybuilding! I would win that!

MIKE PESCA: ... who would be the worst.

LATIF: I would win that!

MIKE PESCA: Would you?

LATIF: I think I would win that.

MIKE PESCA: I see like a Will Ferrell movie out of this.

ROBERT: Yes. That's what I was thinking, the loser.

LATIF: Yes, the loser.

MIKE PESCA: We get to a point, our team, "All right, this is what we need. You gotta go out there and lose."

LATIF: No, and then there's a loser on the other team who's also very happy to lose. And ...

MIKE PESCA: Yeah, and the two losers are eyeing each other down the line.

ROBERT: Two losers.

MIKE PESCA: Yeah.

LATIF: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then ...

ROBERT: You can hear more of Mike Pesca on his podcast, The Gist. More of Chuck Klosterman in his latest book, But What If We're Wrong? Big thanks to all the players who talked to us, and to those who helped us get those interviews: Joy Le Li, Mikyoung Kim, Yuni Kartika.

LATIF: Thanks to Aparna Nancherla, who came in and helped us puzzle this whole match out. And in addition, a special thanks to Greysia Polii. Greysia was on the Indonesian badminton team in those same Olympics, and an hour after the match we featured, she faced off against a different Korean team. All four players in that match were also disqualified for not using their best efforts to win. She really helped us understand what it was like to be in that situation.

ROBERT: This story was produced by Matt Kielty and Annie McEwen and Latif Nasser. I'm Robert Krulwich.

LATIF: And I'm Latif Nasser.

ROBERT: And I guess that ends the game at this point.

[ANSWERING MACHINE: To go to the next message, press 6.]

[MIKE PESCA: Hi, it's Mike. I'm gonna do this. It's possible that even though it's the fifth time I've said 'David Gebel' wrong, but I'm gonna do it once and I'm gonna do it with an intro of myself and here goes. Hi, this is Mike Pesca here to tell you that Radiolab is produced by Jad Abumrad. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Soren Wheeler is senior editor. Jamie York is our senior producer. Our staff includes: Simon Adler, Brenna Farrell, David Gebel, Matt Kielty, Robert Krulwich, Annie McEwen, Latif Nasser, Malissa O'Donnell, Arianne Wack and Molly Webster. With help from Tracie Hunte, Nigar Farrell—no, Nigar Fatali, Phoebe Wang, Katie Ferguson, Alexandra Leigh Young, W. Harry Fortuna and Percia Verlin. Our fact-checkers are Eva Dasher and Michelle Harris. Thanks for listening.]

[ANSWERING MACHINE: End of message.]

MIKE PESCA: Here's an idea I have. There's an old riddle and it goes like this: a king talks to his two sons, two princes, and he says, "Here's what we're gonna do. Get those horses out of the stable. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to jump on your horses and ride to the city gate. Whichever horse gets to the city gate last, you're gonna inherit the fortune." Maybe he was a crazy king. So the two princes look at each other.

LATIF: Oh, man!

MIKE PESCA: They both think. And then they jump on the horses and they ride as fast as they can. Why?

LATIF: I don't know.

ROBERT: To reign in their horses at the very last minute, jump off the horses and say "Whoa!" And then wait until the other one—I don't know.

LATIF: Are they—are they planning on just—just removing a section of the gate and then just smashing it up against the other horse?

MIKE PESCA: Yeah! No. That's terrible!

LATIF: No. Okay.

MIKE PESCA: You'll like the answer.

ROBERT: What is the answer?

MIKE PESCA: They jumped on each other's horse.

LATIF: Ah!

MIKE PESCA: They jumped on the other brother's horse. Maybe ...

ROBERT: Wait, let me just think about that.

LATIF: Wow! That was fun! That was great!

ROBERT: They jumped on the other's horse? Of course!

MIKE PESCA: He said whichever horse gets there last, so ...

 

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