The Olympics are meant to unite the world—but what happens when global politics, terror threats, and hidden agendas collide beneath the surface of the Games?
In this episode of Plot Twist Radio, host Erin Egnatz sits down with author and former Olympic journalist Joe Battaglia to discuss his gripping thriller Beneath the Rings. Drawing from years covering the Olympics and international sports for NBC Olympics and major media outlets, Joe dives into the inspiration behind the novel, the realities of global sporting events, and the terrifying “what if” scenarios that fuel the story.
The conversation explores:
• The transition from journalism to novel writing
• Real-life Olympic experiences that inspired the book
• Geopolitical tension and international sports
• Creating Nova, a powerful female investigative journalist protagonist
• The hidden politics behind the Olympic movement
• Why Beneath the Rings feels so cinematic
• Possibilities for a future film or streaming adaptation
If you love political thrillers, Olympic stories, conspiracy fiction, journalism, or cinematic suspense novels, this episode is for you.
Follow Joe Battaglia:
Website: BooksByBattaglia.com
Instagram/X: @joebattaglia75
🎙️ Subscribe to Plot Twist Radio for interviews with authors, filmmakers, musicians, athletes, historians, and storytellers from around the world.
#Olympics #ThrillerBooks #JoeBattaglia #BeneathTheRings #PoliticalThriller #SportsJournalism #OlympicGames #Authors #BookPodcast #PlotTwistRadio
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Welcome to Plot Twist Radio, the show where creativity,
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storytelling, and the unpredictable path of the
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creative life all collide. I'm your host, Aaron Eggnatz.
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The Olympic Games are supposed to unite the world, but what
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happens when the world's biggest stage becomes the perfect
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setting for chaos? My guest today is author and
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veteran sports journalist Joe Battaglia, whose new thriller
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Beneath the Rings dives deep into the hidden tensions beneath
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the. Spectacle of the Olympics.
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Drawing from his real life experience covering multiple
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Olympic Games, Joe blends global politics, journalism,
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conspiracy, and high stakes suspense into a story that feels
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frighteningly. We talked about the transition
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from journalism to fiction, the inspiration behind his fierce
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lead character Nova, and the realities of covering
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international sports, and why the Olympics are about far more
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than medals and ceremonies. If you love cinematic thrillers,
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global intrigue, and stories that blur the line between
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fiction and reality, this episode is for you.
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Hello and welcome. To the show before we get.
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Started. Can you introduce?
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Yourself to the audience for us. Yeah, my name is Joe Battaglia
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and I'm the author of Beneath the Rings.
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Awesome, so you have an impressive career.
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I noticed that you've worked in media and journalism for
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listeners meeting you for the first time.
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Do you prefer journalism or do you prefer writing the book?
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Because I know there is a big difference.
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There are totally 2 totally different things.
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I think if I was being honest, journalism is kind of my
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wheelhouse. I've done that since I was 18
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years old. This was a a large step outside
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of my comfort zone, but something that I've wanted to do
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for a really long time and really proud to have
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accomplished that. I know that when I went from
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regular writing into novel writing, it's an uphill battle.
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It definitely is, but it's so rewarding when you get on the
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other side of it. Did you feel that way too?
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I definitely did. I mean, you know, the most most
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of what I've written in my life is kind of been in in short
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form, right? Whether it's filling column
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inches in a newspaper and like having, you know, a set there or
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when moving to digital, you want to keep things like within a
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certain word count to keep the, yeah, the audience engaged.
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You know, I've done some long form digital writing as well,
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but the I think maybe the longest story I ever wrote might
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have been pushing 8, 1000 words, you know, long form right now
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we're venturing out into, you know, 120, a 130 words,
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right? Yeah, that's two totally
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different things. But it, it really did feel great
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to come out on the other side of it, you know, once it was done.
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Oh yeah, absolutely. So what about right now made you
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put out? Beneath the ring.
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Yeah. So I was laid off of my job of
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nine years in February of of 2024 and suddenly found myself
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with a lot of time on my hands. I my parents have begged me my
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whole life. You got to write a book.
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You got to write a book. You know, I was a creative
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writer right from like when I was a little kid and.
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Yeah, well, I was started working full time when I was 18
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years old. I was a freshman in college and
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sports journalism and. And that grind is really all
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I've ever known. And, you know, once I stopped
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working at the newspaper after 13 years and transitioned to NBC
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Olympics and universal sports, suddenly I'm traveling, you
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know, all over the world for, you know, Olympics and, and
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track and field competitions and major marathons.
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And when you're doing that, like, when do you have the time
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to like squeeze it? Novel writing, right When I had
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that much time on my hands, I, I, I started with actually a, an
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alphabet book that I wrote and that was sort of the icebreaker
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for me. It is like once I self published
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that book, you know, I felt like, OK, I'm ready now to sit
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down and then tackle a novel. Gotcha.
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So as you kind of just mentioned, you've worked on
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covering the Olympics. So is that kind of the
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inspiration? For the book, definitely, you
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know, when I, when I sat down and decided I'm going to write
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this novel, I wanted to write from a position that I know a
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lot about. And you know, I've, I was
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fortunate enough to do, you know, to summer into Winter
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Olympics or NBC Olympics and then cover, particularly track
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and field at, you know, the Summer Olympics in Rio and Paris
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for flow, for flow sports. And you're right what you know
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best. And so I decided that, you know,
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I wanted to set this in the in the Olympic worlds, you know,
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for that reason. Gotcha.
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So the Olympics, which usually symbolize unity, your book took
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a little bit of a different turn there.
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What drew you to that contrast? It did you know, I, I wanted to,
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I wanted beneath the rings to be a high stakes thriller.
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I wanted it to be set at the Olympics, but a fictional
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Olympics. And I wasn't interested in in
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back dating it and writing like, you know, what historical
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fiction piece and you know, I wanted to future dated.
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So I put it not so far into the future where an Olympics might
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be unrecognizable, a cell phone might be unrecognizable.
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So I said it in Doha and I, I chose Doha for a particular
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reason. They're very active and hosting
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international sporting events. They've hosted track and field
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championships, they've hosted the World Cup, they've hosted,
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you know, a bunch of international swimming and
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gymnastic events, Asian game. So what I mean, it's not
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inconceivable that they could host the Olympics one day.
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So I, I, I, I chose them for, for the setting.
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And, you know, I, I kind of wanted it to be a sort of no
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holds barred capture of the Olympics that showed what
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hopefully the readers will come away with like a deeper
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appreciation for the Olympics. But can see, you know, the
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unfiltered soul of the Olympics. You got this, the magic of this
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human achievement, right? And you're behind the scenes.
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You've got politics and ethics and global tensions.
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And I've witnessed some of that first hand.
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I mean, not to the extent of what I wrote about, obviously,
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But I wanted, you know, there to be beyond the thrill of the
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conspiracy. You know, in the chase, I wanted
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people to reflect on how sport can expose truths and bridge
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divides and inspire resilience. And, you know, those are things
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that the Olympics do in real life, and those are the things
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that sort of shaped the story. Yeah.
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So, your lead character, can you tell us a little bit about Nova
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without, you know, giving away too many spoilers?
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Yeah, Nova was interesting. I, I, I kind of shaped her after
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a, a bunch of, you know, different people, you know, I, I
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wanted her to be from New Jersey.
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And so I'm from New Jersey. So I, I, I kind of went there.
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I've got a, I've got a really good friend.
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His name is Alan Abrahamson. He was our columnist at NBC
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Olympics. And he he has his own
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independent Olympic sports website called Three Wire
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Sports. And I, I, I, I, I kind of
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modeled Nova a little bit after him.
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Yeah, kind of drawing inspiration there.
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But then when you look at and you read the story and you see,
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you know, the, the grit and the personal loss and some of the
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things that, you know, Nova experienced, you know, I drew a
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little bit from Lara Logan. I, I, I drew historically from
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figures like Nellie Bly, Ida Torbell, and then some other
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like pioneering women's sports journalists.
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Helene Elliot from the LA Times, Leslie Visser.
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They were all inspirations for different parts of Nova's
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character. Yeah, that's really cool that
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it's a whole bunch of, you know, a Hodge project people, because
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it makes it easier to say, hey, this is my own character.
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Yeah, and I wanted, I wanted a female protagonist.
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I feel like, you know, that was important to me.
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I felt like if I, if I just modeled my protagonist strictly,
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you know, on Allen for, you know, like everybody would say,
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well, that's Allen, right? I didn't want to do that.
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And I, I, I did want to go a little bit different there in,
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in choosing a female. I, I feel like particularly in
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in Olympic sports, there aren't a ton of really well known
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independent female Olympic journalists.
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And yeah, I just kind of wanted to go there.
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That makes sense. So how could you balance the
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global scale of the story with the personal emotional stake of
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it? That was, that was difficult.
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You know, I think I started writing and I got maybe 5 or 6
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chapters in and I was like, OK, we've got this bad guy terrorist
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group and I wanted to root that in some kind of historical
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reality. And I'm no expert on geopolitics
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by any stretch. And I actually stopped writing
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and, like, went into a research phase and read up on a lot of
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different Middle Eastern conflicts and pick bits and
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pieces of things that I could say.
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Like, hey, like, these were pivotal moments in global
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history that I could point these guys back to and say, like, this
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was like the disinfranchised moment.
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This was the moment where these guys were radicalized and formed
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this group. You know, I didn't just want to
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make up something that like was coming from really from a place
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of ignorance instead of not putting it any other way.
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And so I did that for a few months and once I felt
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comfortable with, you know, what I had that I was able to like go
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back and and kind of start writing that that part of it
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again. The sport, the international
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sports part of it was really easy.
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I mean I that that part of it I got, but the geopolitics part
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was took some time. I can imagine, you know, there
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it's such a complex system and it, it seems to be something new
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every day as far as that goes. So you probably have a lot to
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pull from there. Yeah.
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And you know, who would know that?
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Like, there's even more now to pull from when you're looking at
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what's happening in the Middle East today.
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So you know that that's, like you said, it's constantly
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changing. But it was important to me to,
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you know, actually like root that back into something sort of
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factual. So your, your book, it, it
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sounds cinematic. It is.
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It's one of those things that you would expect to see on the
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big screen. When you were writing it, did
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you kind of see in your head a film as you were going, or was
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it just, you know, novel? Here we are.
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It started as novel. Here we are.
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But I think after I finished it and we went through the edit
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process and I, I read through it again, that's when it started to
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click. Yeah, maybe like this is, you
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know, suitable for a screenplay adaptation.
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And that's something I'm working on actually.
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And, you know, now I feel like it would be, it would be, I
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mean, fishing the novel, you know, what was amazing?
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The opportunity and the outside chance of seeing it either on a
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big screen or a limited series or, you know, whatever, you
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know, with the streaming medium. I mean, that would be a dream.
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That's not what I set out for when I started writing, but that
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would be amazing. I think it would be very popular
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too, because as we were talking about it, it is relevant to
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today. It's something that could
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absolutely happen and I think it would be very powerful for
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everyone, especially like Netflix, they're really big on
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the high action type streaming, so I think that would be a
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perfect one for their. As I was reading through it, I
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was like, yeah, this sounds like some kind of mini series or
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movie. So.
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So what do you hope readers feel when they finish the book
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besides Breathless? What do I want the readers to
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come away with? I want them.
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I want them to certainly feel the ride, the ride that Nova
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goes on. You know, I think, you know,
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she, she experiences a lot both from, you know, a journalistic
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standpoint and ethical standpoint and then and
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physically she goes through hell and back.
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You know, I, I, I certainly want people to, you know, come away
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with that. I do want people to, like I said
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earlier, come away with a deeper appreciation for, you know, the
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unfiltered soul of the Olympics. I think that's, that's really
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important to me. I, I, when I sat down and, and,
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and wrote this, I, I thought about the power of sport and
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sport communities and, and how there's a shared humanity there.
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And, you know, I, I want, you know, you see what, you know,
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that Israeli and the Lebanese athletes go through as an
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example in the book, right? There's some divides that are
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bridged there through, you know, there are, there are moments of
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connection. So that was important to me.
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And then at the world level, I wanted the book to provoke some
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critical reflection on the Olympic movement.
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It's, it's fragile. They're between the IOC ethics
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and geopolitical tensions. And like we said right now,
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there's an ever present shadow of terror right now in our
00:13:07
world, particularly in that region.
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And, you know, there's, you know, the Olympics have a, a
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glittering facade, but there's, you know, there's some real
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costs too. I I, I wanted, you know, to show
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that, that you know, that the Olympics can, can reflect all of
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that. And you know, at the same time,
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strength and demands for accountability.
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If if the games are truly what they're, you know, say they are
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and that's a, a, a modem to advance peace and progress.
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Very good, very good. So what's up next for you?
00:13:42
You. You were talking about doing the
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screen writing. Do you have any more books
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planned? I've been thinking about that.
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I left this book sort of open-ended, that it could go to
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a sequel. I haven't decided if that's
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something that I want to do or if I would just want to pursue a
00:13:56
totally different topic. But there's, there's, there's
00:13:59
another book in my future. I, I can feel it.
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I, I just haven't settled on what I want to write about yet.
00:14:04
Oh. Yeah, every author I've talked
00:14:06
to, it's always there's more coming.
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I don't know what it's going to be, but I now that I've started
00:14:11
I can't stop. I'm the same way.
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Once I started I thought I was going to be a one and done and
00:14:15
now I'm like 5 into it. Yeah, I, I, I didn't, I, it was
00:14:20
important me to get for, to get the first one done.
00:14:23
And I felt like once I did, you know, I wanted to focus a lot on
00:14:29
just publicizing the book and getting it, you know, in front
00:14:32
of as many eyeballs as possible. That's, you know, always, you
00:14:36
know, the, the primary goal. And then, you know, I've, I've
00:14:39
been working and with a friend of mine to, you know, try to get
00:14:45
a, a screenplay written and doing that.
00:14:48
And then all the other future writing, it's kind of been on
00:14:50
the back burner to, to all that other stuff.
00:14:53
But it it's getting to the point now where I'm probably going to
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be ready to, you know, creatively to, you know, sit
00:14:59
down and start a new project. Absolutely.
00:15:02
So where can the listeners find you?
00:15:04
They can. Find me out on my website is
00:15:07
books by battaglia.com. There's all the information on
00:15:10
how to purchase the book. It's available on Amazon.
00:15:13
It's available on Apple Books and Barnes and Noble and
00:15:16
everywhere digitally they you can find your books.
00:15:18
There's a lot of bonus content on the website where you can get
00:15:22
some more information and back story on the primary characters,
00:15:26
including Nova and all the bad guys.
00:15:28
All the main characters in the book have some back story there.
00:15:32
My socials on X Joe Battaglia 75 same as on Instagram.
00:15:37
Joe Dash Battaglia one on Facebook.
00:15:39
Yeah, you can find all my stuff there.
00:15:41
Awesome. I'll make sure that that is in
00:15:43
the show notes. Thank you so much for joining
00:15:45
me. Thanks, Aaron.
00:15:46
I. Appreciate the conversation.
00:15:48
Big thanks to Joe for joining me today on Plot Twist Radio.
00:15:51
Beneath the Rings is one of those stories that sticks with
00:15:54
you because underneath the action and suspense is something
00:15:57
very real. The idea that sports can unite
00:16:00
people, expose divisions, and reflect the world back at us in
00:16:03
ways we don't always expect. You can find Joe's book online
00:16:07
now through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, and learn
00:16:10
more at his official website, booksbybattaglia.com.
00:16:13
I'll have all of his links down in the show notes so you can
00:16:16
check everything out for yourself.
00:16:18
And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribe, leave a
00:16:20
review, and share the story with someone who loves thrillers,
00:16:24
sports stories, or behind the scenes conversations with
00:16:27
creators. Until next time, keep chasing
00:16:29
the story behind the story.