You know how Olympic and Paralympic athletes go around and speak at schools and do other types of education-related events? How do they get those gigs?
Well, there are organizations who help with that. Athletes for Hope is one of those connecting organizations who work with athletes on causes that are near and dear to them and connect them to schools and non-profits so they can do speaking and other types of advocacy work.
Today we’re talking with Jason Belinkie, chief executive officer of Athletes for Hope and Jenny Sichel, a Rio 2016 silver medalist in para mixed fours rowing to learn how Athletes for Hope came about, how athletes participate, and the positive impacts they can have on youth.
Athletes for Hope is having its annual Play for Good Gala on Saturday, December 6, 2025 in Washington D.C. Find out more here.
Follow Ahtletes for Hope on Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.
In other Olympics and Paralympics news:
- Milano-Cortina 2026 has released more tickets for the Opening Ceremonies, and the Ice House is coming!
- LA 2028 announced ticket sales information and some new sponsors.
- Salt Lake City 2034 announced an innovative Games funding drive.
- New International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry announced some interesting working groups that could bring some changes to the IOC and the Olympics themselves.
Plus, TKFLASTAN is having a great time at the 2025 World Athletics World Champs–and there’s even more news from Team Keep the Flame Alive!
Like this episode? Have thoughts on the show? Let us know, and you may be our review of the week!
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photos courtesy of Athletes for Hope.
TRANSCRIPT
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409-Athletes for Hope-Jason Belnicke-Jenny Sichel
Theme Music: The greatest festival of our contemporary society, the Olympic Games is about to begin. This is gonna be close. Oh, they’re all completely gassed. They’ve given it everything on the.
Brilliant. Brilliant, brilliant.
Jill Jaracz: But that
Theme Music: ready?
Jill Jaracz: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. If you love the games, we are the show for you. I am your host, Jill Jaracz, joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison, hello, how are you?
Alison Brown: I got new sneakers and I am so fast.
Jill Jaracz: Are you as fast as Kenny Ric?
Alison Brown: Nobody is nearly as fast as Kenny bed. Na, and I can jump really high.
I want proof.
I’ll make some videos for everybody,
but have you been watching? World Athletic Championships.
Jill Jaracz: I have watched clips here and there, but then, producer Ben, was like, oh, did you see that Men’s 100 Meter Kenny? He just was slow out of the blocks. He felt bad. I felt horrible. I was so hoping Kenny Nar would do well.
Alison Brown: There has been a lot of fun at these championships and what we talked about.
It’s in the Tokyo Olympic Stadium and prior to Tokyo we talked about how much Tokyo loves track and field, you know? Mm-hmm. How much they get behind it, and this is what 2020 would have been like. So that has been amazingly fun to watch. The crowd is wild. Even on tv you can see it.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And it’s so nice that World Athletics chose to put the championships there to give Tokyo the people, the opportunity to see that, to give the athletes the opportunity to experience Tokyo with fans.
the marathon, as we’ve had talked about in our Facebook group, the marathon men’s finish was unreal. That never happens. Photo finish. That was wild. I watched, uh, Tara Davis Woodhall long jump. That was unbelievable. Beautiful. Ryan Crowser pulling it out again. The men’s shot put competition.
Unbelievable. Does he
Alison Brown: age? he’s like a shot put robot that just is never going to break down. But he did break down this year. This is like his first competition this year. Oh, see, I don’t pay attention until the big moments when track and field. Oh, okay. We all know Brian. I’m not a true track and field fan.
I just love the people. Like, I love all these people and I love watching them in the big moments, but I don’t, I don’t pay attention enough. I should.
Jill Jaracz: And, uh, I mean, we’ll talk about it again later, but Evan Dunphy, did you cry? Oh yeah. And I haven’t even watched the whole thing yet. You know it, I, I, I’ve cried on the little tiny clips.
I cried at the news. I am so, so happy for him.
Alison Brown: But he knows we’re excited for him. ’cause I sent him a message and he answered. So he was very grateful for all the love he’s been feeling.
Jason Belnicke and Jenny Sichel on Athletes for Hope
Jill Jaracz: Oh man. You know where else you feel the love. Where else
Alison Brown: do you feel the love
Jill Jaracz: at school? and do you know how athletes go around and speak at schools and do other types of education related things and do lots of pep talks and and stuff like that?
Evan is big on that. Evan is big on that, and I’ve always wondered how athletes get those gigs. So there are organizations who help with that, and Athletes for Hope is one of those connecting organizations. They work with athletes on causes that are near and dear to them, and they connect them to schools and nonprofits so they can do speaking and other types of advocacy work.
So today we are talking with Jason Beki. chief Executive Officer of Athletes for Hope and Athlete, Jenny Sitel, who won a silver medal at the 2016 Rio Paralympics as coxswain in Mix four’s rowing and we talked with them to learn more about how this works.
We recorded our interview in early July and we are excited to bring it to you now. Take a listen.
Jason and Jenny, thank you so much for being here. Jason, from your perspective, tell us a little bit about what Athletes For Hope does.
Jason Belinkie: Yeah. So number one, thank you for having us. me and Jenny, uh, it’s such a pleasure.
I have, been fortunate enough to be at Athletes for Hope, um, since it began, almost two decades ago. Sinces been about 19 years. back then, uh, a FH was founded by some of the biggest athletes in sport. who by the way, are nearly all Olympic athletes. most notably Muhammad Ali, Andre Agassi, Mia Ham, Jackie Joiner, ey, uh, Alonza morning, just to say a few.
And they had devoted so much of their lives, um, to using their platforms for good, and they wanted to pay it forward by creating a free resource for other athletes, would provide guidance about how to get back to their communities. So they had known, many other athletes who wanted to do good, but either got bad advice or just did not know where to go.
So they wanted to use their credibility to create athletes for hope as a lifelong free resource that athletes, whether they’re active or retired, can use at any stage in their career.
Jill Jaracz: So what are the different programs that you have at Athletes For Hope?
Jason Belinkie: interestingly in the first, eight, nine years of Athletes for Hope, we did not have our own programs.
Um, we were connecting athletes out to other great organizations. So just to take a step back, there’s really three things that Athletes for Hope hones in on. Uh, and then I’ll tell you the programs. One is education. So that was a big reason why a FH was created. we deliver this education, this philanthropic education.
Through workshops that we do with, groups of athletes. And, you know, we’ve done many different Olympic teams over the years. we are also in the process of right now meeting with a lot of the pro teams, um, specifically the NFL, um, meeting with a lot of their new rookies who are just drafted. And these conversations are just all about exploration and how an athlete can use their platform for good.
And then they have an opportunity to sign up as members of Athletes for Hope, which again is completely free. And then we work with athletes individually at the Paralympic, Paralympic level to help them find the passions, they’re interested in, in the community, and then either connect them out to other organizations that align with those passions or connect them to our programs.
And so, I, I give you the background because we noticed trends over the first eight years of athletes for hope that. There were some gaps, out there and we felt like we could create some programs that met some of those needs and simultaneously aligned with what our athletes are interested in. And I would say the biggest causes our athletes are most interested in are, one, working with kids, um, and underserved kids.
And two, physical and mental health and helping to boost not only daily physical activity, but also giving tools around how we can equip people to deal with all the different challenges that pop up in life. So we created a couple years ago during COVID. As I’m sure you all felt yourselves as people were confined to home.
it was a very tough environment for everybody, particularly for athletes who wanted to train and, and compete and couldn’t do that. And, um, you started to see a rise in athletes’ willingness to talk about their mental health publicly. And we started to hear from a lot of athletes who felt like there wasn’t necessarily a place for them to come to, to connect with one another and also share stories and then go a step further and actually activate and advocate around mental health causes.
So we have a program that allows them to do that called the whole Being Athlete. It’s actually how, um, Jenny and I have worked together a bunch, and she’ll give you more on that later. I would say our, our biggest program is our Champs program, which is focused on elementary school youth. It reaches more than 200,000 kids a month, um, roughly a thousand schools across the us.
The athletes facilitate that program. Jenny’s also participated in that. and they talk about themes that have played an important role in their life, such as courage and perseverance and positivity. And they translate that into skills, health skills, um, the kids can use practically as elementary school students.
Like how to better express your feelings, how to be there for your classmates when they’re going through things. and it’s been a really effective program that, felt like the athletes have ownership over because they can share their own personal insights in, in teaching that. and we have some other programs too, but I would say those are the two biggest ones.
And then a Hospital Heroes program that connects athletes to different children’s hospitals all over the country. so that, you know, in a nutshell is, uh, is mostly what we do internally with the programs and. We have more than 12,000 athletes who are part of athletes for Hope. So it’s a pretty big network.
So any given day, we, probably have between 10 and a hundred athletes who are doing things out in the community.
Alison Brown: So my first reaction is, oh, this is not reinventing the wheel. Every time an athlete wants to do something from their community, what’s the reaction when athletes discover you or you, get in touch with them?
Jason Belinkie: Yeah, us usually the reaction is like, what’s the catch? You know, like, what do you want from us? Because that’s what we’re used to hearing. Like, Hey, this is great. but like, when you say free, what does free really mean? we do have to remind them all the time and then. You know, eventually as they, they hear about who else has worked with us, they realize that, we are just there in any capacity that benefits them and we try to keep it pretty flexible.
um, and then, you know, the word spreads to the rest of their team. And, in bringing this kind of full circle to the Olympic movement, I think that’s one of the things that I’m, I’m most proud about that Athletes for Hope has done over the years is being there in that way for the Olympic community.
Because, you know, as you all have probably heard in many of your previous conversations, that support network is not always there once you’re out of the spotlight. And, um, particularly it depends on the sport. The different associations have different resources, but we don’t discriminate. So we really don’t care, you know, what sport an athlete came from or whether.
They’re a 70-year-old retired handball athlete versus somebody who’s in, you know, their prime. in a sport that everybody watches, we give the same attention. And, um, I just don’t think they’re used to that. and, and in that way too, I think it helps bring together people across different sports who are united around the causes they care about.
And that, that’s really kind of the essence of athletes for hope, is bringing people together, um, regardless of sport and background.
Jill Jaracz: Sorry, I’m trying not to, trying not to say, could this become athletes and two podcasters for hope?
Jason Belinkie: Yes, please. Um, please, please come on board and, uh, we’re ready to tee you up. Um, whenever you wanna activate here.
Alison Brown: I, I’m kind of curious, as you were saying, mental health and physical health and, and working with children. Has there been something where somebody came to you and you’re like, I don’t think we can do that.
You know, sort of the strange cause that, that may have come along?
Jason Belinkie: that’s a very good question. I would say we don’t normally get too much of that because usually if we don’t do it, somebody else does. I think more, more so is like a redirecting, you know, like a lot of the time we’ll hear from somebody who wants to do 10 different things right?
And they wanna do it all right now. And we hear that particularly from the young athletes, right? they, for example, in certain sports, I’m not gonna name them, but they might get encouraged, to create their own foundation for their own legacy and, and have a bunch of ideas. Without being ultra specific and, and really not thinking too much about what impact they really wanna have.
So that’s what we’re here for, is like, not to diminish their enthusiasm in any, any, any way, but to like give them, examples of other athletes that we work with. And that’s a big reason why, um, we actually recently created, our Athlete Leadership Council. That’s, that’s led by Steph Curry, Katie Ledecky, Nathan Chen, um, and Elena d Ladon.
Because we were going and facilitating workshops with athletes and we started to notice that a lot of them did not know who our founders are anymore, and felt like they needed to hear from people who, which is crazy, right? Like I did a workshop with Bowie State Track and Field, And there were 50 people in the room and less than five knew who Jackie Joiner EY is.
I know.
Alison Brown: Take their team membership away breaks your heart.
Jason Belinkie: I know. I’m sorry for any buoy, state listeners that might be listening. I’m not holding this against you. Um, but I took that as my opportunity to educate them about this amazing person who has also voted the female athlete of the century. and that unfortunately, other than Muhammad Ali, that’s usually the reaction we get.
Alison Brown: A century they weren’t born in.
Jason Belinkie: Yes,
Jill Jaracz: Wow. you know, you talk about the your own foundation kind of thing. You’ve got a, on your website, a like causeway roadmap for philanthropy. and there’s like things you can do and connect and partner and engage, but like proceeding with caution is establishing, is that what you’re talking about when you’re talking about establishing a foundation?
Jason Belinkie: Yes, exactly. And that’s, become very relevant the last few months as I’ve been doing a lot of workshops with NFL players because, if you look at the landscape of athlete foundations more than there’s roughly 1100 athlete foundations and more than half of them are NFL foundations. And when I am doing these workshops, a lot of the time when I’m in the room with the youngest athletes and I do ask the question, how many of you have considered starting foundations?
Almost all the hands go up almost all of the time. so it speaks to the importance of making sure that they’re being educated around all the things before starting your own foundation. And that’s, that’s all those other steps that’s really at the crux of athletes for hopes philosophy and working with athletes is giving them a roadmap.
As athletes that they can visualize how they wanna get involved in the same way they visualize their progression in their career. And being able to hear from different athletes that we work with who are at different stages along that causeway and to just reinforce the fact that it is not a race to get to the end.
We know athletes are ultra competitive, wanna win, wanna get to the end, and we tell them that’s why it’s a big perceived with caution is like, please don’t start here in establishing something. There’s so much good that you can do. I mean even hearing from someone like Steph Curry, ’cause he’s filmed a bunch of stuff for us and you know, we actually show videos from him in every one of our workshops and he talks about all the time he spent out in the community working with organizations like nothing but Nats getting acclimated in Oakland to really feel out what were the needs before he observed the gaps.
And it was not an easy decision. For him to choose to start his own organization. And for 99% of other athletes, our point of view is they should not start their own organizations. They should partner with great ones in the community that could use their help. And by the way, they can have the exact same impact they want to have without all the headaches of, creating their own organization.
And, you know, take it from me and somebody who’s done this for 19 years, you know, and been on the brink a few times, like not knowing how things were gonna go with athletes for hope that’s usually not what they’re thinking about when they’re starting an organization. So we don’t, again, it’s always in a positive frame of bind, but we just want them to be equipped with all the information before they really decide if that’s the choice they’re gonna make.
Jill Jaracz: Jenny, did you think about starting your own foundation?
Jenny Sichel: I still do. No, I would say that. I mean, definitely. But at the same time, I think I come from a very different sport and sporting background than let’s say a football player, an NFL football player. And when I was competing and even right after retirement, I think it would be amazing to be able to start my own foundation or organization.
But there’s also a slightly different perspective from me in the sense that there wasn’t much money involved that I could put towards anything. So there’s an added step in that to, uh, creating something that might expand or extend my legacy. So I think that the way athletes for Hope for me, came into play was absolutely allowing me to have a platform to stand on.
That I may not have had in the first place. Being a paralympic rower, it’s not something that’s often broadcast. In fact, in Rio, I don’t think anyone in the US could see my race when it happened. So, uh, while broadcasting is getting better, while promotions getting better, there’s still not much money in this amateur spurts world.
So I think that it would definitely be amazing to do something like that. And have I thought about it? Absolutely. Do I still think about it? Absolutely. Do I have the capacity to do something like that? No. I think Jason’s idea to go to an organization that’s already established already in the communities is so brilliant for athletes, especially when they start out.
I think it gives athletes an opportunity. To test the waters a little bit too, you know, dip their foot in, see how that works. And then, uh, maybe from there, once they establish themselves a little more, then they wanna start potentially going out on their own or giving back to these organizations even more so than they could initially.
Alison Brown: What was your idea of what your cause would be as to how it evolved once you were working with Jason and his group?
Jenny Sichel: before I started working with Jason and Athletes for Hope, I had no clue what my cause would have been. And while we haven’t specifically discussed what. A cause could be. It has naturally formed over the years into, uh, right now the two things I am wildly passionate about, and I think there needs to be so much more support for athletes with are mental health culture on sports teams as well as coaches education surrounding mental health.
We have SafeSport in the US where we have, at least with US rowing, all these coaches have to be SafeSport certified. All the athletes have to be SafeSport certified. So why can’t we add something into that in all of the national governing bodies where coaches have to go through mental health first aid training of some type athletes have to go through it and just, I hate the word normalize, but normalize the conversation.
Why does it have to be something that is so taboo out there that. We’re afraid we’re going to get cut because we speak out about our mental health. When in fact, if we’re able to speak out about this, just like physical health, we’ll actually become stronger athletes and stronger teams in general. So I think that would be my, uh, main platform right now that I would love to branch out on, create an organization for.
But some of those already exist too. And so it’s how do I amplify what already exists right now for me versus going out and setting foot on my own to start something else?
Alison Brown: Jason, how are the, because you are dealing with NFL and then para rowing, where the financial resources are very, very, very different. So how are you advising athletes in this kind of broad spectrum of financial resources?
Jason Belinkie: Yeah, it’s a hot button topic for sure. the important thing to note for athletes for Hope is that, you know, we’re focused on athletes giving their time, so that’s something that we, we constantly have to remind, uh, sports like the NFL, right?
Where they’re again asking, what do you want from us? They’re used to that and we remind them again, like, we’re here to just remind you and teach you about what are all the options at your disposal. Even though we’re teaching about, like a lot of the workshops that I’ve been doing lately, it gets into the nuances of that established step on the causeway, and it talks about it’s not only starting a foundation, if you really want to give your money.
It’s lots of other giving vehicles. You need to think about, you know, donor-advised funds, community foundations, and they’re, they’re far less effort and there’s professionals that can advise you on that. That was not something that we were discussing that much before. And I think we’ve obviously noticed with the rise of NIL dollars that are coming in to lots of sports, you know, a lot of football, a lot of basketball, athletes having money than they never anticipated they would have earlier in life than it.
It’s really, we view it as a responsibility of athletes for hope to start talking about that more, but we never view it, as a requirement to have an impact. Right. Like, and that’s where I think it’s the great equalizer across all the athletes in all the sports we work with. of course, you know, athletes have their own personal challenges in every situation that may prevent them from being able to even have the time.
To be able to give back, right? Like I know that there have been some Paralympic athletes in particular who I’ve talked to and some of whom were barely making it to be able to train, right? Living out of their car, you know, not sure if they were even gonna be able to have the resources to even get to The Paralympics, these are things that, most people take for granted, right? So we, completely empathize, and hope that we can be that mouthpiece for the athletes if they’re willing for us to be able to share that story. To inspire other athletes that they can make it and they can do it and they can pay it forward and, you know, they can get in front of those kids who would’ve never thought this was an opportunity for them that they could pursue.
and, you know, to hear from people that seem normal on the surface and then they walk in and you hear this story and you’re just blown away. And I’m, I’m sure the two of you, feel this every time you, you do these podcasts, right? and that, that’s probably a big reason why you love doing this. and I feel that same privilege, you know, having done this for almost two decades, like those are a lot of my favorite stories.
The, the people that I hear from that I just, they were never on my radar. so I think that that is what we all feel so lucky and passionate to be able to do is being able to make sure those stories are told as much as they can be, um, without resources, you know, getting in the way of.
Jenny Sichel: Can I chime in here really quickly?
Yeah, of course. just to second what Jason just said, when I first started with Athletes for Hope, even though I was a paralympic silver medalist, I felt like a nobody in the sports world almost. And that was mostly because there was no media around this. There wasn’t the money. I mean, in Rio Paralympic athletes got one fifth of the medal payout to what Olympians got, which ended up equalizing for 2018 and beyond.
I didn’t get to benefit from that, but that’s okay because it equalized. But I think that working with athletes for Hope made me realize that I am just as powerful of, as an athlete, as Steph Curry, as Katie Ledecky, and, uh. When we’re able to give our time and our energy and use our platform to speak out about what we want to speak out about and what we’re passionate about, it is the great equalizer and it really made me feel that I am actually just as cool of a person as any athlete out there, and it really allowed me to amplify my message, which I’m eternally grateful for and wanna keep doing.
But I think that from going, living below the poverty line while I was training to being able to even just be on this podcast with you right now shows that while not everybody has the same financial income or is able to donate or give back financially, we’re all able to give a little bit of our time and change people’s lives at the same time with that.
Alison Brown: And the kids get equally exci as excited when they see your medal, right?
Jenny Sichel: Oh, a hundred percent. And it makes me feel like a rock star. So, and I don’t know if you guys know this, but the real medals make a noise.
Jill Jaracz: Oh wait. Mm-hmm. I think I remember that because they had that thing on the inside for the para metals, remember?
Yes. So each of
Jenny Sichel: the different colors makes a different noise. Oh my God. So that blind, visually pair athletes have a sense. And I remember I was signing autographs at a race here in Boston, and I had an Olympic gold medalist next to me signing autographs, and someone picked up my medal and I went shake it.
And they shook and they’re like, whoa. And then they go to the Olympic gold medal and they shake it and she’s like, mine doesn’t make a noise. And they’re like, oh.
Jill Jaracz: , So you’re in Rio 2016. How did you hook up with Athletes for Hope?
Jenny Sichel: I don’t remember the exact year. It might’ve been like 20 16, 20 17, 20 18, somewhere around there. While I was still competing, I, uh, got an email. I wanna say it was from the US Olympic and Paralympic committee.
Somewhat, one of these organizations sent an email with a bunch of opportunities for athletes to connect and I saw Athletes for Hope listed on there as a way to give back and I really wanted to be able to use my platform to give back at that point. So I re, I filled out their form online and I actually just looked the other day and found the email that Jason was sent back to me and it was a very thank you for filling out our form.
We will be getting in touch with you in the near future type of email. Little did he know that we would be on a podcast together 5, 6, 10 years later, but it was not more than like a day or two later when I actually had a human reach out to me and it. Started this cascade of, oh my God, this is amazing that I can give back.
And it also started my journey to speaking out about my mental health disability and how that affected me when I was competing and training and how I want to be able to let people talk about that and create permission for people to talk about that because it’s so wildly misunderstood. So yeah, that was how I got in touch with athletes for Hope.
Jill Jaracz: the interesting thing is going through this time of when we’re still really not talking about mental health and then the transition to where we’re starting to talk about mental health more. how was it in the before days and in the and and in that transition and now, how is it for you to talk about this stuff?
Jenny Sichel: Before days. I actually in 2012, I believe it was, so I started my first national team I made in 2010 and in 2012 during selection camp that year, I think I disclosed to the coach at the time that I had a mental health I, I had mental health challenges. I didn’t realize that it could be considered a disability at that point, which it was fully, but I didn’t know that and ended up not making the boat that year and absolutely devastated.
Did not disclose it to anyone until probably 2017 after that anyone that I was competing with, anyone that I was being coached by, I was too afraid that it was going to jeopardize my seat in the boat. And even then. I didn’t actually disclose it to my coach until after I retired from rowing in 2019 because I was so scared that I was going to not make the boat and that it would be held against me and that I wouldn’t be seen as fit for competition.
Even when I was in college, I was discriminated against for, and so I think that it’s not in rowing in other college things, but I think that even now it’s still extremely stigmatized. It’s becoming slightly better and slightly more. Okay. To talk about it and say the word mental health. And that is in part, due to these amazing nonprofit organizations that are working so hard to get the media out there and have it on your TV set that you’re watching, uh, at 7:00 PM at night primetime tv.
That’s primetime for me ’cause I go to bed so early. But, so I think that it has changed, but there’s still so much more to do and so much more to go. I had a friend, actually someone who I coached pass away from a mental health disability and I think that whether or not that could have changed anything like that, I think it really, that was the impetus for me to start saying, actually, we really need coaches to be educated about mental health because they’re often the first line of defense in someone’s journey in sport.
And so, uh, why can’t we get them educated about mental health? Why can’t we just change the culture? You know, you sprain an ankle, you’re like, Hey, coach, I sprain the ankle. And he’s like, okay, be back in a week. See, like, whatever. But if you say, Hey coach, I’m really anxious about this upcoming competition.
I don’t really know what to do. It’s making me freeze in place from fear. They’re gonna be like, oh, okay, we’re gonna vent you, but we’re not discriminating against you. But we also don’t think that you can handle this when in fact you really just need to chat with somebody. Or maybe you do need to take time off, but then you need to be welcome back too.
Alison Brown: Just, just calm down, Jenny. Just, just take a deep breath and calm down.
Jenny Sichel: Don’t even get me starving, like, oh, honey. Jenny.
Jason Belinkie: Jenny. I was gonna, yeah, I mean, obviously only share what you’re comfortable sharing, but I was gonna ask you for the audience because it, it had such an impact on me hearing more about how your mental health challenges kind of manifested as you were training and during your journey and how you manage that.
so if you’re willing to share some of that, I think it would be really interesting.
Jenny Sichel: Yeah, absolutely. And I share this because I think it is so important to talk about am I sometimes afraid to share this for fear that people are gonna judge me? Absolutely. But if we don’t start talking about this, it’s gonna just propagate the problem.
And that’s not gonna be helpful to anyone. So I think that my first major thing that I remember within at least competing at the elite level was when I didn’t make the boat in 2012. And I remember I started speeding out of the parking lot, not realizing that I was speeding and stopped myself and said, Jenny, just get back to the host family house.
Just get back there. We’ll figure it out from there. And I remember calling my dad when I got back to the host family house and had him fly down to Virginia from New Jersey that night to come pick me up and drive me back home the next day because I didn’t feel comfortable. Driving myself back home, and this was after I had already been diagnosed with severe OCD.
This is after I’ve been in treatment for it and was functioning at, you know, at high level. I had my support system that I need it, but it doesn’t mean that you still don’t have mental health to think about. And so I remember that was my first thing. And then I remember so distinctly during selection camp, one of the other years, I wanna say like 2015 maybe, and I was so anxious before I went to selection camp every day that I would walk up and down the street as quickly as I could before anybody woke up.
And then during selection camp, I remember at the end of it, actually the coach had chosen me for the boat and actually approached me and said, Hey, you were super calm at selection camp this year. It was awesome. And I was like, oh, if only you knew that that was actually me shutting down. ’cause I was so wildly anxious.
But I can’t tell you that, so I’m not going to. But thanks. So I think that it is something that people often deal with and work through. And for me it’s always been around.
And if we can start even just opening up that conversation more, it’s going to help athletes immensely with everything they do.
Jill Jaracz: And athletes for Hope recently put together like a mental health program, correct, Jason?
Jason Belinkie: Correct. we’re, you know, kind of riffing off what Jenny said, there is a lot that we are trying to do to change the stigma.
we are in the process of co-producing three, uh, what we’re calling out of the dark mental health films, in partnership with wida, which is PBS’s local affiliate in the DC area. will be shared, um, through the wellbeings.org platform. actually the first two films we’re finishing up the third right now has already been shared.
It’s been the highest performing, Items on the platform, it’s, uh, I think it’s reached more than 200,000 views over the last three months. so it’s been, you know, really highly received. we’re having public facing conversations all of the time, um, through our digital outlets around anything you could think of, you know, preparation for competitions, transitioning careers, you know, particular times in the year.
and, we’re just trying to bring people together like we do, uh, across all the other things we do. so we’ve created an Athlete Mental Health Alliance, uh, which includes more than 150, people and organizations that are trying to make a difference in the athlete mental health space. And, you know, again, the goal is to just make sure we’re all aware of what everybody’s doing to be able to, you know, advocate together when it makes sense.
Locally and nationally and, you know, to be able to pick times in the year where we can come together, you know, and that’s, that’s a big reason why we created a Na National Athlete Mental Health Week, um, that we did, the second straight year, earlier this year. so we’re, always, trying to find new ways just based on how our athletes tell us they wanna activate.
And, um, all of this is gonna culminate into, a national athlete mental health, uh, center of excellence that we’re creating, um, that will launch in about three or four months that will bring all this stuff together. It will be a national, uh, digital hub for people to come to, to athletes of every level, youth all the way up to Elite.
And to your point earlier, Jenny, the second audience will be coaches, you know, making sure the coaches have education, they have a, a platform to be able to share insights. and to be able, like we have the last five years, give athletes a continued opportunity to advocate and activate, around this space as much as they would like to.
But it just feels like there needs to be a place that, all of these resources can exist. so somebody who’s going through something can know that there are so many other people out there that have already gone through it, are currently going through it. And, and that we’re here for each other in that respect.
Jill Jaracz: So we’re talking, end of 2025 to look for this? Yes. Okay.
Jason Belinkie: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Jenny, I’m really curious. When you talk with people through the Athletes for Hope stuff and you talk about mental health issues, do you find that. Younger children and younger athletes are like, yeah, I wanna be able to talk about this. And then you get a different response from the adults in the room.
Jenny Sichel: I would say somewhat, yes. I think that at least when I’ve been able to do, I’ve done a lot of Champs visits and when I’m able to do the Champs visits, it’s really amazing when the kids ask the questions and when the kids are able to interact with you because, uh, they ask some amazing questions. Kids are really smart man, but it’s also, uh, they’re so interested in it and it’s not something, at least it feels like not something that is often talked about with them.
And so they ask all these questions, they’re so interested in it. And with the teachers in the room at least. You can kind of see their eyes widen almost, for lack of a better way to say it, when you start being so open and discussing this. And I’m not sure that the teachers have ever really sometimes heard about this either.
So it feels most of the time that people are very accepting and very thirsty for this knowledge. But I do think that the kids especially take it a different way because they haven’t necessarily, maybe some of them have, and I can’t speak for everyone out there, but they haven’t necessarily been introduced into that stigma fully yet.
So if we can speak to first graders, second graders, third graders, when they’re just starting their athletic journey, when they’re just starting their journey through life. Even more amazing. I wish somebody had spoken to me about this when I was that young. I used to tell people that I was going to the doctor when I couldn’t hang out with them on Saturdays.
I never said, oh, I’m gonna speak with my psychiatrist, because I was so scared that I would have no friends anymore. So I think having athletes of all levels who maybe have gone through this and realize that it’s okay to talk about it or are in the middle of it and talking about it, which is even more powerful for these younger generation kids, I think is just amazing.
And there’s no better way to break the stigma than with the younger generation.
Jason Belinkie: That it can be a strength, right? I mean, that’s the thing. It’s, no, it’s not a weakness, it’s a strength and a hundred percent That’s right. And that you’re investing in that strength. And, and interestingly, I have, um, so I have a, about to be middle schooler, and uh, also a first grader and my daughter who just finished fifth grade, would come home and talk to me a lot about the fact that a lot of her classmates very openly talked about, um, the therapy they were going to and, and not as something that they were ashamed about at all.
You know, as something that was just widely accepted as like, this is great, this is helping me. And to Jenny’s point, I mean, that was never happening when I was growing up, right? Like, I would hear about it sometimes. It would come through like my parents’ friends. It would kind of be like, Hey, you know, did you know that this, this person’s going through this?
It’s not that way. now I can’t say it’s that way in every community, of course. And I think that that, needs to be analyzed in communities that are much less resourced and how to best reach them. And that’s where I think Champs, Jenny’s doing such a good job there. And, and that is really why we want the focus to be on a lot of the underserved communities is because, they don’t have the same resources that a lot of other communities like mine does.
And they might not have a therapist in their school that kids can easily go to. And so to be able to teach those skills directly through an athlete’s lived experience like Jenny, I do think without them, like to your point, they haven’t even stigmatized it yet. And hopefully they don’t for a long time.
It’s just another thing that they know that’s gonna help them mitigate things that come up without calling it mental health.
Jill Jaracz: I’m really curious to know, Jason, when you get new athletes coming in, and Jenny, when you’re going through like the initial developing what you want to talk about and how you talk about and understanding what your story is, do you ever have like Wizard of Oz moments where people didn’t know they had courage or didn’t know they had heart or whatever that is?
Jason Belinkie: yeah, so obviously I have a lot of examples to draw upon from people that have done this kind of thing over the years. And, um, I’ve loved seeing the people that come out of their shell during this program. You the kids and, and the. hear from teachers all the time who, that’s one of the favorite parts of the job is to hear the testimonials of a teacher I didn’t even know was receiving this program and how big of an impact it’s had.
And, you know, there was one particular example of, um, teacher in DC who talked about a kid who was just acting out and he didn’t even really know why he was acting out until we did an uh, we did a session on accountability and it kind of taught about actually taking responsibility for what was going on, or at least trying to figure out why something was happening.
And, and he actively, after that session, tried to take responsibility for what was going on with his actions and wanted to better understand, like genuinely better understand like why he was acting that way. And he realized there are some other things going on in life. And it was only because of that conversation that came from an athlete that, he had the courage to, actually speak out about that.
And I think on the same time with athletes, some of the most compelling stories are the athletes who, um, show up who have previously been uncomfortable, you know, public speaking setting, and often have the most genuine stories that have not been told. And, you know, when they get in that environment and then they start to feel more comfortable just seeing that light bulb go off about how much it means to them to be able to kind of get over the hump, be able to do this kind of stuff and then see them come back.
particularly a lot of the young athletes who maybe don’t have that confidence yet, haven’t done a lot of public speaking. it’s powerful stuff to be able to see it. and it’s been, you know, real privilege, um, to be able to see it over almost two decades. All right, Jenny, you’re up.
Jenny Sichel: I am so ready for this.
I have a great example of this now. So it’s not with the Champ Champs program specifically, but it is with Athletes For Hope and something I did with them, they had a program with some high school students, I believe, and Jason, correct me if I’m wrong, here in the California Southern California area. Yes.
Jason Belinkie: High school leadership Academy. Yep.
Jenny Sichel: Yes. And I got to speak to their high school leadership academy one evening. It was pretty late on the East Coast. I think it was 10 30 on the east coast that I got to speak to them. My bedtime’s 8:00 PM usually. But it was awesome, and I spoke to them about my journey and mental health, and I wanna say the next day or a couple days later actually.
Athletes for Hope received an email that they then forwarded to me as well, that one of the athletes on the call actually had some stuff that he was trying to work through and, uh, was able to work through it because of that call. And, uh, I don’t know what it was, it doesn’t matter what it was, but the fact that they were able to write two athletes for hope to let them know is first off absolutely amazing.
And then the fact that I now know that we are, even if we’re only able to change one person’s perspective, and I’m sure that’s not the only person that either I’ve spoken with or other athletes have spoken with that have changed something or done something with the information that we’ve given ’em. But to know that is such a gift for me too.
And I think that was probably one of the first times, and this only happened a couple months ago when I really heard that someone benefited from what I was saying.
Jill Jaracz: Jenny, when you do the chance program, which is going into classrooms and speaking, do you also find that kids didn’t know the Paralympics and para sports exist, are you able to make connections or maybe get another generation of athletes coming along because of that?
Jenny Sichel: Absolutely. For me, what I’ve found, both with Champs program and speaking to kids in general, and adults for that matter, a lot of adults do not know the Paralympics exist or confuse them with the Olympics or confuse them with the Special Olympics.
And there are three separate things. And the biggest branching tool that I have, and I tell people this all the time, is actually my metal. Because I can tell people so much stuff, I can speak so much, but when they have something tangible in their hand that’s heavy and it is so cool, and they’re like, whoa, wait, you’re actually legit.
And I’m like, yeah, I’m actually legit. Whether or not I believe that, I still don’t know. But that’s besides the point. And I think that that moment when athletes, when kids and adults get to see that, that’s my branching tool because for me, like yeah, the medal iss amazing and great. It was more about the journey for me.
but I do think that the medal is such an amazing branching tool that we can use in the Paralympics. And it’s also the stories and the pictures. I haven’t really shared pictures with the Champs program, but the stories I’m able to share that humanize the Olympics and Paralympics a little bit too, I think, make students realize, oh wait, maybe I could be in the Paralympics one day, maybe I could be in the Special Olympics one day or maybe I could, uh, participate in the Olympics one day.
You just don’t know. And I mean, the disability community is one of the only minority groups that anyone can enter at any point in their life. So, uh, you may not know, you may be gunning for the Olympics, and uh, something happens, you just don’t know, and now all of a sudden you’re like, wait a second, I can still compete at an elite level.
This is amazing. And so I think the more we can, uh, inform people about that and educate people about that, whether it be through media, through athlete engagement, through a Paralympic medal, just is gonna be so crucial and valuable in the future. But yes, I do think a lot of kids don’t know what Paralympics is and we need to change that
Alison Brown: I’m, curious, Jason, because you’re, you spoke before about it is free for the athletes, but it’s obviously not free for you to do. This is a, this is a lot. So where are you getting your funding from?
Jason Belinkie: Yeah, it’s a, it’s a great question. How much time do you have? that’s been the biggest challenge, uh, over the years, you know, with, with the model. I mean, I. I have never questioned that it’s the right choice, even when we’ve been in the darkest of times at Athletes for Hope, because it is kind of instant credibility.
Um, seeing who founded Athletes for Hope and knowing that we’re not asking for anything. Um, and, and that has been our goal from the beginning is reduce all barriers to entry, to service. So, um, yeah, that’s put pressure on us, but I, it’s really been healthy, to make sure that we cultivate great relationships with corporations like Deloitte has been a, a major supporter of a FH Under Armor.
we’ve had, plenty of others in the foundation space, like as we’ve kind of activated around mental health and grown our presence there. We, we’ve partnered with the American Psychiatric Association Foundation. They’ve been behind a lot of the great stuff that we’ve done. Um, and they will be involved in our, um, center that we’re launching as well.
and then, you know, our events, we host two events a year, a golf tournament, and a gala. that probably raised close to half of our fundraising a year. And, interestingly, we actually honored Jackie, um, at our gala last year. and Mia Ham has an award in her name that she gave to Jackie. So, as you can imagine, that was.
Quite an evening, um, getting the two of them there. And Elena Della Don was actually our, community hero award winner. So all of these really powerful women and Olympic legends were in the room, together. And I wouldn’t say that made it easy to fundraise, but it made it easier, um, for sure. but yeah, you know, when you’re, when you’re in a nonprofit, especially if you’re leading a nonprofit, like there’s no resting on your laurels, right?
Like, you know, especially a small scrappy organization like Athletes for Hope, even though we have many, many athletes we work with, we’re still pretty small and nimble staff and, um, you know, we’re in a better position than we’ve ever been. But that doesn’t mean that we can be complacent and we never will because, that’s just not who we are.
And I enjoy the chase, you know, and, and bringing in dollars to athletes for hope, because obviously I’ve been here for almost two decades and I, I live and breathe this work, so it’s not, it’s not hard for me to make the pitch because I really, really believe in it.
Jenny Sichel: Can I just say I’m chuckling a little bit because Jason, uh, you mentioned the, a FH is scrappy and enjoy the chase and I’m like, God, those are so qualities of athletes.
It makes so much sense now.
Jason Belinkie: Well, I did not achieve at the level that you have, but, um, once upon a time I was a track and field and cross country guy. So that is, uh, as you know, um, in rowing that. I am always inclined to hire, distance athletes because I know that they’ve had to put in the work to get to where they are and they will bring that same level of discipline to athletes for hope.
So I might be a little bit biased, but Yes, you’re right. It’s all about the grind.
Alison Brown: Yeah. As we’ve spoken to several distance athletes, they enjoy suffering,
Jason Belinkie: enjoy in quotes. Yeah. You know, maybe some of the time
Jenny Sichel: I’m holding my breath here because, I am definitely a coxswain for long distance sports, and I might encourage this in my boat.
Jill Jaracz: I, I have one question that just, I don’t know why this didn’t come to me sooner. How do Muhammad Ali and Andre Agassi and Jackie Junior, EY and m him, get in the same room along with other people to come up with this idea?
Jason Belinkie: Yeah, it’s such a good question. And honestly, I should have, that was an oversight, not to mention that earlier. That’s okay. But like, really, like, yeah. How did they get together? Like, yeah, it, it was not easy. It took, as you can imagine, it took, probably over a year, uh, to get this group together. And it, it initially started with Mia Ham and Andre Agassi.
So those, those were the first two. They knew each other. we started to talk, they started to talk, I wasn’t part of this in the beginning, but, um, they started to talk about like, who else did they know, who were their friends, who like really met the quota of being a founder of this organization.
And so we got a few of the initial people, and then right towards the middle of that, you know, everybody kept mentioning Muhammad Ali, of course, you know, and, and we were like, okay. He, he’s the big kahuna. That we, we need to go chase and get him to be involved. And, um, in our previous CEO, Ivan Blumberg, um, always shares the story of his conversation with Lonnie Ali, in which he was like, you know, we say no to everything because Muhammad’s already got his own legacy and he already has so much that he’s doing, but we just can’t say no to this because it’s just too important.
And you know, this is the essence of who Muhammad is as a person, who the champ is as a person. and true to her word and his word, he was very involved in athletes for hope until he passed. As you can imagine, he would show up to these workshops with athletes and they wouldn’t even know that he was coming some of the time.
So, like, I was in the room with some, you know, major league baseball players and these were like the biggest stars in sport and they just were beside themselves meeting him. I mean, and he, at that point. He could talk, you know, he just, when he was on his Parkinson’s medication, it would, it would kind of reduce the tremors, but it would make him unable to speak when he was off the medicine at home, he could actually speak, but publicly, you know, he wanted to make sure that he was strong and, and he was super strong regardless of everything he was going through.
But he would still engage with people. Like he could speak, you know, he would shadow box with them, he’d make eye contact. And I know for a fact these athletes were forever changed by meeting him. And when we launched Athletes for Hope, despite having all of those huge athletes, you know, other than Mohamed, he was like the godfather of the group and they were all in awe of him.
And he showed up to launch the organization on Good Morning America. And, um, obviously being there, um, at the beginning of Athletes for Hope, it’s, it’s a memory I’ll always have. And with a group like that, you can’t bring ’em together that often. Of course. but they did come together, and they’ve, a lot of them have continued to be involved in Athletes for Hope.
Case in Point, Mia, um, now having her award that she gives away every year.
Jill Jaracz: Jenny, how cool is it to be somebody who brings that energy into a room and, even if you change one person that day or that year, you’ve done it because of who you are.
Jenny Sichel: I always say that my journey has never been linear despite being like a math major in college and that there are a lot of things that have happened on my journey ups and downs, but they’ve made me who I am and I love who I am.
So I would never change anything and to be able to walk into a room with that mentality and be able to pass on that mentality to anyone that’s in that room. Pretty cool.
Jill Jaracz: Excellent. Well, Jason, Jenny, thank you so much for joining us and letting us know what Athletes Hope For Hope does. you know, well, I’m sorry, athletes for Hope and two Podcasters.
What? Or Athletes and two Podcasters for Hope. See, I already don’t even know what I’m talking about. Let’s do it.
Jason Belinkie: Rebranding. Who knew it was gonna be a marketing call here? Right?
Jill Jaracz: Just
Alison Brown: two podcasters for help. We’ve been through a rebrand. We can help you with that. Exactly.
Jill Jaracz: Alright, thank you so much.
Jason Belinkie: This was amazing.
Thank you. Thank you guys so much too.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Jason and Jenny. You can find out more about Athletes for hope@athletesforhope.org, and they are on Facebook, Insta X and YouTube at Athletes for Hope. The play for Good gala is coming up. It will be on Saturday, December 6th, 2025 in the Skyler, the Hamilton Hotel in downtown Washington, dc.
If you go, let us know.
Alison Brown: Tickets for that are available. So we’ll put a link to that in the show notes and we’ll have Jenny back again to tell her side of her athletic story later on in the fall. We had a lot of fun.
Jill Jaracz: Oh yeah. Talking with her about that part. Yeah, it’s, she is such a fascinating story about being a coxswain because I did not know this, and I don’t know if you know Knew this before. coxswains don’t have to be disabled. They can be able-bodied and, uh, she is an able-bodied coxswain and, uh, she’ll talk about how that works in the Paralympics, so very, very cool.
Milano-Cortina 2026 News
Alison Brown: You’re sounding very good. The accent of my ancestor comes through, but I do not know the words.
Jill Jaracz: Hey, you, you fake it until you make it. I mean, we had really good bonjours.
Alison Brown: We did have good bons.
Jill Jaracz: I think you’ll do well in Milano. so Milano, Corina, as you said, did another ticket drop for the opening ceremonies this week, and they added a more affordable category D ticket bracket, nosebleed seats, but their 260 euros compared to category C, which is 700 euros.
Alison Brown: And the thing with the opening ceremony is it’s designed for a big viewing. You know, so even if you’re up in the nosebleeds, yes you won’t be able to see the athletes’ faces, but in terms of the show, it’s gonna be fun to be there.
Jill Jaracz: And it will be fun to be in the nosebleeds ’cause you can see like the patterns a lot better.
I think there’s something to be said for being close and further down. There’s something to be said for having the bird’s eye view. and it’s. Comparatively relatively affordable. You can get a maximum of four tickets at for one person, and they do only take Visa. This also tells me that tickets are not selling.
If they are adding a cheaper level, this is not a good sign.
Alison Brown: That’s very true. Yeah, we’ve been talking a little bit about that. It feels very quiet in this runup so far.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, and I did a little spot checking of tickets this week and like hockey gold medal men’s game that’s sold out it looks like, but almost everything else seems to be available in some way, shape, or form.
Maybe it’s really pricey tickets. Maybe it’s hospitality only, but there still seems to be availability and we have not gotten to the resale platform yet. So, you know, people who bought tickets and then decide maybe they can’t get to the whole games, maybe they can’t get to a couple of the things they thought they would get to.
What’s gonna happen when that opens? So hopefully local people will be interested and, uh, be able to go and, and decide at the, you know, later on, closer to the event, like, oh, we should go. Why not? We have some hospitality house news again, another quiet area. Of the games, but we got something new this year.
There’s some, uh, US figure skating, USA hockey and US speed skating have combined forces to create the ice house. And that will be for athletes, families, and media.
Alison Brown: Oh really?
Jill Jaracz: We get to go, they’re gonna have a place for like us to work it. They specifically called out like content creators and podcasts and stuff like that.
Yes.
Alison Brown: This is exciting.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So public not there. Public not allowed. But we would be able to get in, knock on. And you
Alison Brown: know, if we get in, the listeners get in.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, pretty much. this will be at the a Theos Milan hotel. They’ll be open, uh, February 6th through 22. So they will have activities, meet and greets, medal celebrations, and watch parties and be a great place for families and athletes to hang out.
Basically.
Alison Brown: It kind of sounds like a smaller version of the, what they did with the team, USA house in that. They’re having the watch parties, you know, in Paris? Yes. Where it was the kind of scale down versus, especially during the Paralympics where it was the athletes would come and hang out. We could do interviews there.
they had watch parties for the various events. This means there’ll be a place where I can get drinks with
Jill Jaracz: ice. Oh yeah.
and maybe this frees up team USA to do hospitality in the other half of the country or, um, I, I mean, skiing is really kind of spread out, but it does offer the opportunity for another hospitality house because that’s a big production. And I don’t think Team USA could have done two of them.
Realistically,
Alison Brown: I think that’s why it’s been so quiet with the hospitality houses, because in Paris they had that spot where the great majority of the hospitality houses were. Right. There’s no spot for that in Italy because you’ve got these multiple sites.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And that makes it tough. And it’s gonna be important for certain countries like, you know, Switzerland and Austria and Germany, they’ve all announced that they’re having houses and Netherlands too.
It’s, those are big deals and those countries are right there. That helps. But, this, I think it’s interesting because, especially because all of those sports are the ones in Milan, so we will see that NBC is gonna be there and have a presence center. ICE programming will take place there. expect to see stuff from NBC, I would imagine.
Get onto your streams, Stanley Tucci.
Alison Brown: I am poor. Stanley has no idea how bad I’m gonna stalk him. I am such a fan of his. He has no idea what’s coming. He shows up at the ice house and I’m there. You thought I was bad with Chuck Aoki?
Jill Jaracz: No.
Alison Brown: I hope Tuc Chi’s got a bodyguard. ’cause we’re having wine together,
Jill Jaracz: right?
Well, you know, and then the next day there will be a sign on the door. Podcaster’s not allowed anymore.
Alison Brown: Tucci would love me.
Jill Jaracz: Maybe it would be a nice collaboration. Come on, Stanley. You’re listening, right?
LA 2028 News
Jill Jaracz: We’ve got some news from LA 2028. So, uh, listener Manu had noticed this on Instagram and talked about it in our Facebook group because they started teasing tickets and we were like, what’s going on? They announced the ticket process this week. their ticketing partners are a XS and event.
Im, and I believe that’s different from what Paris and Milan have had for their ticketing partners. on location is doing hospitality again. So here’s the deal. Registration will open up in January, 2026 on LA 20 eight.org. It will be a similar deal to the last ticket, productions where you’ll get a, a draw.
there will be a draw for purchasing time slots. Again, we’re, we’re having that lottery system. There will be several, quote, several purchase options for individual tickets and quote, curated ticket inclusive hospitality experiences and packages. Those will be revealed in on sales of the general public in 2026, no timeframe, but the hospitality packages start going on sale early 2026.
So we can expect Olympic tickets to be on sale one plus to two years plus ahead of the games. Paralympic tickets go on sale in 2027. If you live in a community around a venue, you will have early access to tickets. This is probably a thank you for. Putting up with this, and also gives the local population opportunity to, to get in on the action.
There will be a resale platform. I have asked if, because there seem to be different vendors, if that means there will be dynamic pricing this time around. I don’t know. We have not yet heard back.
Alison Brown: No. When you’re talking about dynamic pricing on the resale, you’re saying one of the problems we had in Paris is you had to buy a resale ticket.
More than 24 hours before the event. Right. And it was a set you, it was the face value.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. There was no, uh, you could call it gouging. If it’s something is in high demand, prices go up. you could also say that if there is no demand, prices could go down.
Alison Brown: That’s what people were complaining about with the resale platform, the people who were trying to resell their tickets. Mm-hmm. That they would’ve been happy to take a price cut and just get some of their money back. But the system did not allow for that, and there was that 24 hour waiting. So that people at the last minute really couldn’t get tickets.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And that was a problem. It was also a problem that if you had six tickets, you had to sell them in a block. You could not sell them individually. So somebody who wanted one ticket or two tickets couldn’t, and there were only six available. You could not break those up. So I’m wondering if with these ticket partners, if we’ll be able to slice and dice it a little bit.
More differently.
Alison Brown: We’ll keep you updated as we hear and, and we’ll ask the questions and see if we can give them suggestions because honestly they’ve got a long time to figure this out because that resale platform is not gonna come on probably until those that six months before, you know, probably 2028.
We got a lot of time to make a resale platform that works better than. Paris did.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So, and the Milan platform doesn’t open up until December. So we’ll see how that works and what they’ve learned from Paris as well. More sponsors for LA 2028. Starbucks and
Alison Brown: T-Mobile. I wanna say LA is becoming the Allison Olympics because first they had sva.
The mattress. I have a Safa, I have T-Mobile.
My daughter is a big fan of the Star, uh, Starbucks refreshers. So, you know, I, I don’t see why I am not getting a cut of these sponsorships.
Jill Jaracz: Well, you will be able to cut. Something in a Starbucks cafe, perhaps at a venue, I dunno. But Starbucks basically will have, they’ll set up a cafe in the village for the athletes. They will also have setups at venues. So if you want coffee at a venue or tea or something like that, you’ll be able to get it at the venue and it will be Starbucks.
They are partner partnering with NB Cuni Universal. So look for product placement, look for, quote unquote storytelling opportunities.
Alison Brown: How I drink my Starbucks before I go to training.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So be prepared to put up with that. That’s what, well, what may be
Alison Brown: fun is there could be a lot of opportunities for Starbucks stores to do some fun cross promotions in the stores, you know, in the lead up. That could be a real fun new exposure opportunity. For, team USA and the Olympics and the Paralympics to get in front of a different audience that maybe they’re, they haven’t been reaching.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. I wonder if they get a merch opportunity. I don’t know if they would.
Alison Brown: Oh, like a
Jill Jaracz: commemorative cup? Yeah, a commemorative cup or. Something, maybe it’s not LA 2028 branded, but it’s kind of still branded in a way. I, I don’t know, but it would be great to have some Starbucks merch.
Alison Brown: Well, you’re gonna have to have an LA 28 blend. Oh. Or like a a, a special LA 28 drink. Flame roasted.
Jill Jaracz: Just sand. Just sand
Alison Brown: sparkles.
Jill Jaracz: It T-Mobile for business is gonna be the provider of the connectivity between the International Broadcast Center and OBS and venues. We’ll link to a pretty geeky article about this and if you enjoyed her interview with Pascal Wa, where we talked tech with him, you understand the magnitude that this is because T-Mobile is going to be connecting over 110 sites, including 40 competition AR arenas, and that is a pretty massive undertaking
Alison Brown: and they still have to provide me with my cell service, right?
We know which one of those is the most important.
Salt Lake City 2034
Jill Jaracz: We have a little news from Salt Lake 2034. This week they announced a funding program called Podium 34. And if you’re an American, I, I’m not sure what you think about this in other countries, but as an American I get this.
Typically games are, funded through sponsor revenues. Salt Lake City developed a program that targets donor, individual donors and philanthropic groups to donate money to the games. I don’t think that’s been done before.
Alison Brown: And what’s interesting is Salt Lake City, the first time around. Made a huge change in how many volunteers were involved.
Mm-hmm. They sort of tapped into that, that Utah culture of volunteerism, and I think they’re doing it again, tapping into the Utah culture of philanthropy, which is what you want from a host city. Use what you’ve got.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So salt Lake targeted. To get $300 million in revenue from this, they launched the program on September 8th with.
$200 million of revenue in commitments already. they have, um, 22, what they call founding captains and donors. In this initial round of funding, founding captains all gave $20 million or more, and founding donors gave between one and 15 million. Needless to say, our names are not on this list.
Alison Brown: in the United States, philanthropy is a big way that some very wealthy people get tax breaks. Yes. And I think when we see some of these donor numbers from not Americans, I wonder what people outside the country think of this kind of system. Good.
Jill Jaracz: Good question. Should bring that up in our, in our Facebook group.
Or if you have, if you’re not on Facebook, we’d love to hear from you. We’re Flame Alive Pod do, flame Alive pod@gmail.com. But yeah, we’re going a philanthropic route with how we fund the games. Will this translate to other nations? I don’t, maybe not sure, but it’s, it is an innovative way to be able to fund your games, and they’re getting a nice.
A nice chunk of what the games is gonna cost to put on.
Alison Brown: I mean, they’re two thirds of the way there. They’ve gotta raise their target. I mean, if their target is 300 and you launch and you’re at 200, man, you’re aiming too low. Utahns have some cash to burn. Apparently
Jill Jaracz: They do. There, there are a lot of, well as you said, community of giving in Utah.
Alison Brown: We, we gotta make more friends in Utah. Apparently.
Jill Jaracz: Apparently, apparently. This is exciting news for Salt Lake City. It helps a lot with funding, especially, there was always concern with the games so close to each other that, sponsor funding would get kind of tapped out and LA is really starting to kill it with the sponsors, I think.
So, being able to tap into an additional type of revenue. Funding is really good for Salt Lake.
Alison Brown: And also you don’t wanna get these two American games because American Games already had a reputation of being heavily commercial. And now LA with the naming rights for venues, seems like Salt Lake City’s go in a very different route, which is good, I think, for balancing that out.
Yes.
International Olympic Committee News
Jill Jaracz: Speaking of revenue issues, new IOC President Kirsty Coventry has formed four working groups to address some of the issues within the Olympic movement. One of those is commercial issues and how the IOC works with its marketing partners and how they can evolve those relationships and perhaps generates some more revenue from the Olympic Channel and OBS or the in-house Media Broadcasting services.
Several members are on all of these committees. This one features, uh, names familiar to us would be Juan Antonio Samran, Jr.
Alison Brown: Junior,
Jill Jaracz: and, uh, gene Sykes, who has the O-U-S-O-P-C slot in the IOC membership. I thought this was really interesting.
I immediately thought, well, you took ole channel off my cable stations, but I also am one of those people who still has cable. And I wonder how much revenue they got from that. Really,
Alison Brown: I’m most excited about the working group that’s gonna cover the sports program, and I think that’s the one that’s gonna get lost.
So the other three are gonna be protection of the female category. We all know where that’s going. One, looking at the, uh, youth Olympic games, but the fourth one that we’re talking about, looking at the sports program. And one of the things that that. Brought up in the first information about these groups was should we move some sports that aren’t snow and ice into the Winter Olympics?
Jill Jaracz: Which is very interesting idea, particularly as more and more sports want to get into the games. If you slide some of those indoor sports, perhaps over to winter, those games do become a little bit bigger, but. It’s not such a discrepancy from winter to
Alison Brown: summer. And do you get countries that don’t care about winter sports, like entire consonants who don’t have representation there?
Then more represented in the Winter Olympics, and then those grow because there is a great concern that the Winter Olympics are shrinking in terms of interest, shrinking, in terms of participation. It’s too. Europe and North American focused. So let’s mix up the program, but because we’ve got that female category working group, I feel like the other three are just gonna get ignored in the press.
Jill Jaracz: I, I think it depends on when they release information. if there are big changes in the sports program. That’s gonna be big news. Big, big, big news. they’re also looking at the calendar and how climate change is affecting things. So you may see that the Summer Olympics in 2036 gets moved on the calendar because it might be too hot to hold the games anymore.
that’s another interesting thing. Some cool people on this committee, Sebastian Coe. Tony Stange, who is head of Paris 2024, and Alison Felix also on this committee.
Alison Brown: Alison Felix seems to be going the Kirsty Coventry route and really getting into Olympic management and taking that avenue, which is great ’cause she’s a very smart woman, has really good ideas and she knows her stuff.
Jill Jaracz: So yeah, this is gonna be an exciting category to look at. I am also looking. At the working group about the Youth Olympic games because one of the things that they are looking at are the potential and relevance of the event and also shape the process of picking the 2030 host. However, I wonder if that’s a sign of two.
We still have the Youth Olympic games.
Alison Brown: Oh, definitely. I mean, every time the Youth Olympic Games comes around, I think it’s really. Is this worth it? Yeah. Is this a good place to put our resources? Money, time, effort? I mean, that’s not a small, uh, undertaking.
Jill Jaracz: No. And it is a cost sink because people don’t buy tickets the same way.
They don’t sell broadcasting the same way. How much money does it cost? And do you wanna put that money into it anymore? I wonder if they will look at whether it’s good for kids to be in that much of a world stage. And I’ve realized that every sport’s got juniors events, world, global juniors, titles.
Should we have that? Who knows how much does. It’s a myriad, it’s a whole, set of issues of what, how much do youth need this? We are seeing. Like we’ve said before, we’re seeing athletes who have competed at the Youth Olympic games showing up in the Olympics. Does that make a difference? Is it going to be, well, you need the stepping stone, or does it really matter because competition is competition?
Alison Brown: Well, Kirsty Coventry hit the ground running and we are definitely seeing where her focus is going to be, at least in these next couple years, which is so exciting. And different. And she is already putting her stamp on the IOC.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And change is a coming as it should. I think every organization needs to evolve and change.
There’s gonna be some stuff from, there’s stuff from every president that sticks around a little bit, but it, it’s time to get the ball rolling.
Team Keep the Flame Alive News
Alison Brown: Welcome to Shuksan.
Jill Jaracz: It is the time of the show where we check in with our team, keep the flame alive. These are past guests and listeners of the show who make up our, the citizenship of our very own country. Shuksan World Athletics Championships, as we talked about at the top
Alison Brown: of the show. Jeff Whiteman is doing in-house announcing and son Jake Whiteman finished second at, in the 1500 meters. Gianna Price was fifth in hammer throw Kenny bed. Naric was fourth in the hundred. He has qualified for the semifinals in the 200. So as we were recording, that has not happened yet.
But here’s the really. The really exciting stuff. Evan Dunphy won gold in the 35 kilometer race walk, and Katy Moon won gold in the pole vault with a season’s best 4.9 meters. Evan has been all over my socials. I am so excited for him.
Jill Jaracz: I and
Alison Brown: well deserved. So hard earned and well deserved. And if Katy Moon had breathed out.
In her last jump, she would’ve missed.
Jill Jaracz: Really? Oh, she was that close to knock on the bar over. It bounced. Oh, I have not seen this yet. I didn’t get a chance to watch all. If you have
Alison Brown: not seen Katie Moon’s last jump, hold your breath while you’re watching it. It really, really fantastic. So great. And Deanna Price is coming back from a torn hamstring.
So the fact that she is even competing was, A testament to how hard that woman works.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And on, XI believe Evan Dunphy got approached by the enhanced games to compete for them. Somebody was working for the enhanced games and said, Hey, you wanna get paid? You, why? Why don’t you come and be for us?
And he’s like, do you not? You don’t understand what I stand for.
Alison Brown: Of all the athletes to approach
Jill Jaracz: cat in clean sport is not one of them.
Alison Brown: Oh, well, when he gets home from Tokyo, we’ll reach out to him and, and see what he has to say about that conversation.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, it was, he, he posted a big, long screen cap on X and it was fantastic.
So good on you, Evan.
Alison Brown: Bob Litter Josh Williamson. Finished fifth in the Indivi Individual competition of the 2025 Team USA Push Championships. In the Combo competition, Josh joined Charlie Volcker and Boone Nien Hoffer for the fastest push of the day. Coach Josh also at the Push Championships. Lauren Gibbs. Made her kind of last appearance.
She recovered from injury. She wanted to come and retire on her terms, so she came, she did it, and now she has officially retired, so I guess she’s shukla on citizen two.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: So our, our original Shuk Stanis really showing up at the push championships.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. Archer Casey Kaul finished ninth at the 2025 World Archery Championships.
The US women finished fourth in the team event
Alison Brown: Kayaker Evie Le Barth finished third overall in the World Cup series for both women’s kayak and Kayak Cross
Jill Jaracz: Artistic swimmer, Jacqueline Semino, has been appointed to the world. Aquatics Athletes Commission.
Yay.
Alison Brown: Shooter, SGIN Madena went to the New York State Fair to help out at the US Army’s Syracuse Recruiting Battalion Booth
Jill Jaracz: and para runner. Noel Lambert married her fiance Mark bi. Me and Fencer. Eli Dershowitz married his fiance Karen Baranoff, both over the first week of September. Congratulations to all.
And congratulations to us. We got a great review this week.
Alison Brown: Yeah. So from the Apple Podcast reviews, MX Sandy 12 said, inspiring a great listen. That lifts me up.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, that’s so nice. Thank you. MX Sandy, 12. If you would like to hear your name here, leave us a review on your podcast app or check out the other ways to get in touch with us in the episode details in the show notes.
And that is going to do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening,
Alison Brown: and until next time, keep the flame alive.