Jason Kelce recently defeated Olympian Nicole Heavirland in an arm wrestling match, but Travis Kelce isn’t so sure his brother won fair and square.
During the Wednesday, August 28, episode of their “New Heights” podcast, the siblings discussed how they spent their time away from the show following the end of its second season in July. While Travis, 34, spent much of the summer at training camp with the Kansas City Chiefs, his older brother got a front-row seat to some of the biggest events at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“First Olympics I was able to go to,” Jason, 36, said. “Obviously when you’re in training camp, you miss the Summer Olympics, and when you’re playing in the football season, you miss the Winter Olympics.”
Though the duo kept up with the Olympics their “entire lives,” Jason said seeing the action up close was even more “electric.” He traveled to Paris with his wife, Kylie Kelce, returning to the same city they honeymooned in after their 2018 wedding.
The couple “had an absolute blast” cheering for Team USA in field hockey, men’s volleyball, women’s gymnastics and more, but Jason was especially excited about seeing the women’s rugby team make history. This summer marked the first time the U.S. earned an Olympic medal in rugby sevens, taking home the bronze.
Jason met a handful of the U.S. rugby stars — including Ilona Maher, who recruited him to be the team’s No. 1 celebrity fan — and he even got in on some of the action himself when Heavirland challenged him to an arm wrestle. In a social media video that has since gone viral, the 29-year-old ultimately lost to Jason, who was wearing a beret and American flag shorts.
“If you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying 😂 … thanks for letting him win @nicole406heavirland,” the official “New Heights” Instagram account captioned the clip last month.
In the footage, Jason gripped the table with his free hand before knocking over Heavirland’s arm. While discussing the challenge on the podcast, Travis and Jason disagreed on whether any rules were broken.
“Everyone knows your off hand has to be free,” Travis claimed, to which Jason replied, “That’s not true. Watch any arm wrestling sanctioned event.”
Jason argued, “Any legitimate arm wrestling event, your off hand is grabbing something,” insisting that Travis was “making this up.”
While the official rules of arm wrestling might be debatable, Travis emphasized that leaving your free hand off the table was a sign of “respect” toward the other competitor. “You just don’t grab anything else … ’cause now you’re torquing, you’re using core and you’re using more muscles,” he said. “Everyone knows this.”
Despite his victory, Jason confessed that he’s not the biggest fan of arm wrestling in general. “It’s a lose-lose,” he said. “Especially when you’re challenged by someone smaller who’s than you. Because if you win, it’s like, ‘Oh, cool. The big guy just won an arm wrestling event.’ If you lose, it’s like, ‘You just got your ass kicked by someone much smaller who should not be beating you in arm wrestling.’”
In the end, however, it was an offer he couldn’t refuse. “I get challenged by an Olympian, what do I do?” Jason explained. “I can’t say no. … And now I have legitimate arm wrestlers challenging me.”
Going head-to-head with a Team USA athlete made Jason’s entire Olympic experience even more memorable. “We love sports, we love competition, we love world events,” he previously told the Associated Press about the chance to go to Paris. “This is such a unique place where the entire world gets to come together and bond over competition and sports.”
