Who’s winning the Olympics? The mountains. Alpine Skiing proved to be a tough course, and getting down was a victory all in itself.
Jill went out to the biathlon range to watch TKFLASTANI Clare Egan in the Women’s Individual race and witnessed a big day for the US Biathlon team.
It was also a big day for Canada on the ski jump and freestyle slopes, and Irene Wust became the first individual to win gold medals at five different Olympic Games. Take that in for a second. Five. Different. Olympics.
Sports on today’s program:
- Alpine Skiing
- Biathlon
- Curling
- Figure Skating
- Freestyle Skiing
- Ice Hockey
- Luge
- Ski Jumping
- Snowboard
- Speed Skating – both short and long track
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive.
TRANSCRIPT
Note: While we make efforts to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, please know that it is machine-generated and likely contains errors. Please use the audio file as the record of note.
Beijing 2022: Olympics – Day 4
[00:00:00] Jill: Ni Hao fans of and welcome to day four coverage of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics on Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. I am your host, Jill Jaracz joined as always by my lovely co-host Alison Brown. Alison, ni hao for like the third time.
[00:00:25] Alison: I know we’ve had several false starts that have been credited to me and to the field.
So we’re going to hope that this one works.
[00:00:35] Jill: Well, yeah it’s tough. The we’re having some audio issues as you may have heard. I guess the bright side is we have gotten through the magical hour of vacuuming here in the Main Media Center. I did notice that they are done for the time being, I mean, last night they started up again. So you never know. I have created myself a little fort, hopefully that will help with sound quality. We shall see
[00:01:02] Alison: I have to screenshot that set up.
[00:01:08] Jill: I’m all bundled up. It’s cold because I’m by the doors and it’s cold outside and I want to grab my coat, put it on, but then I think that would make too much noise.
So I have a little, I don’t know. I put something on my head to keep me a little bit warmer, even though I’m wearing three layers of top and two on bottom. I know it’s not super cold, but it’s just like the gust of wind that comes in when they open the doors. Like, oh, I just want to be warm. I just want to be warm.
Anyway, let’s get on with today’s show, starting off with what officiating or volunteer job would we want to do. Alison, what would you like to do today?
[00:01:42] Alison: Well, as a call back to Tokyo and the rhythmic gymnastics, that lovely team that brought buckets out to collect fallen crystals. There is a team to collect fallen crystals, feathers, and sparkles at figure skating so that they don’t get caught in the Zamboni.
[00:01:57] Jill: What amazes me is that we have never seen this before. Like you would think that we would know this exists.
[00:02:04] Alison: Right. We’ve always seen the little girls who collect the flowers and the toys being thrown on the ice, which you found out as being banned this time around.
[00:02:13] Jill: It is for being for COVID. So, I’m not that I’m upset because they’re the few spectators that we have. That’s nice to have. But I can understand that’s one less thing to deal with and gathering all the stuff would be complicated. And you’d have to have a lot of people altogether, and that’s not really what we want to have here.
[00:02:39] Alison: They have a little brushes and like ice lint rollers.
[00:02:43] Jill: This, I mean, that makes me want to go to figure skating even more. I’m planning on going tomorrow.
We’ll see is the men’s short program. So I am pretty certain that it’s going to be pretty mobbed because I understand the practice was mobbed today. And that’s because Yuzuru Hanyu is in the building. And I think people are looking to see what he does, but anyway, we’ll get to it. I also would like a Tokyo 2020 job, which is the mask on mask off girl, holding the signs during the medal and panda ceremony. So that the athletes know when they should take their masks off for the pictures and when they should put them back on to be safe.
Moving on to feed beef for the day, I beefed about this so much to you in our practice shows that it’s not a beef anymore, but the one thing that’s bothering me today is that we’ve got this beautiful info system and scores on demand and all this information. Right at our fingertips, except for tournament standings.
We cannot seem to find these and it’s really making it tough to do the curling tournament and the ice hockey tournaments. And we know we’ve made mistakes. So please bear with us. We’re working on it, but you know, IOC help us out.
[00:04:11] Alison: The time difference is working against us because NBC does have a good results site. Problem is you gotta be on the right day. And I’m functioning on China time, but they’re posting them on US Eastern time.
[00:04:27] Jill: But I will say we also have some cheers. We have heard some really good things about the feed. So that’s good. Listener Patrick from Chicagoland said that Peacock is putting some announcers names in the event descriptions, which is awesome because we didn’t know it.
They don’t always say their names, especially if you’ve got the OBS feed. So it’s really nice to get to know who they are. Also Book Club Claire has been impressed with Hannah Kearney’s commentary on moguls and said that NBC Peacock is providing easy access to replace without spoilers. That’s important.
[00:04:59] Alison: Yeah. Unfortunately, nbc.com is starting embargoing things. Oh, but
[00:05:08] Jill: I’m sorry to hear that, but I do. I agree. I’m so glad that NBC’s using the athlete commentators a lot more again, as we found from Tokyo, it was super successful and it’s nice that they’ve beefed up their coverage for the winter games too.
[00:05:26] Alison: Oh, we’ve got a lot hanging out with me in Connecticut.
[00:05:29] Jill: That’s right. Chad Samela is on, he’s like functioning on China time and it’s just not working for him. So it’s like, he’s feeling, I feel you Chad, it’s like you’re home. It’s like you’re jet lagged, but you didn’t get to go anywhere.
[00:05:48] Alison: Hey, Stamford, Connecticut is lovely.
[00:05:52] Jill: All right. Follow up files. We’ve got some news from the opening ceremonies. This has made headlines over in your neck of the woods, and I just happened to see it. A Dutch journalist was doing a live shot outside of the Bird’s Nest on opening ceremonies night and got kind of accosted by Chinese security who didn’t want him filming anything. This happened on live television. So. It was interesting, but what’s going on.
[00:06:20] Alison: It is definitely a story here and it is getting some play. The hardest part is that there’s an issue. The one bad thing that the Olympics did do is that the IOC said it reached out to the Netherlands broadcasting company, and the Netherlands broadcasting company said we have not heard from the IOC. So not quite sure who talked to who, but it clearly was not the correct people.
[00:06:47] Jill: Ouch, ouch. 1 detail that I believe you heard on the feed in the opening ceremonies night. And it was in all of the information. I’m sure that I got access to, but I didn’t look at it or didn’t, you know what?
No, it wasn’t because they embargoed all the information about the torture. And I didn’t go back and look, but one of the final torch bearers was a Uyghur, which has been a very touchy situation here because there’s a lot of concern over human rights with the Uyghur population. And this was a woman selected.
She’s an athlete selected to be one of the final torchbearers to be kind of a symbol of that as well.
[00:07:26] Alison: So NBC had two commentators on top of uh, Savannah Guthrie and Mike Tirico specifically about political slash cultural issues in China. One of whom was Andy Brown, I believe his name is, who was the former bureau chief for Bloomberg in China.
He had a lot of political commentary as to propaganda elements that China had put in the opening ceremonies, one of which was the torchbearer, the final torchbearer.
[00:08:00] Jill: Interesting.
Well, let’s get into the action. Big day of competition here, starting with Alpine skiing. Whoa. So I was, I watched some of this on the feed and I had, oh, while I was editing yesterday’s episode and I kind of glanced up a little and just saw a skier sliding down the mountain side. Not on the course. She had gone off the course and just couldn’t stop sliding. And I just went, what is going on there? And that’s when I saw that Mikaela and was out and all these other people did not finish. And this run looks unbelievably difficult.
[00:08:43] Alison: Very steep, 19 skiers went out on run one, an additional 11 skiers went out on run two.
[00:08:51] Jill: Wow. Wow. I will say one of the things about this feed is that you get a beautiful shot of an overhead shot that allows you to see more of the course action. Because a lot of times usually you get like this turn, that turn and the next turn, but now you can see the skier do the entire course.
And I wondered how they were doing that. So I reached out to Peggy Shin who had authored one of our book club books. She has been out in at the sliding and downhill venues, and she said, there’s a helicopter hovering overhead to get those shots. And I would like to remind you that we have no cauldron because it uses a lot of gas.
[00:09:37] Alison: Now don’t, you know, that the helicopter is suspended in the air by the sheer will to keep it up there. There is no fuel involved.
[00:09:46] Jill: Oh boy. So the women’s giant slalom. They got three people who could get down the mountain. They had more people who got down the mountain, but boy, the amount of the list you had just boggles my mind.
It’s really incredibly a tough course, although in a way that makes it Olympic and that’s part of it. Part of the sport is getting done. It is steep and it is fast and it is exciting when you stay on your skis because they are doing some great runs.
So for the women’s giant slalom, gold went to Sara Hector from Sweden, who was the silver medalist in 2018. Silver went to Federica Brignone from Italy and bronze went to Lara Gut-Behrami from Switzerland.
[00:10:33] Alison: So the one scary crash, most people just lost an edge, stayed on their skis. There was a very scary crash for American Nina O’Brien in run two at the very end of the course, she got taken off on a stretcher and has a pretty serious leg injury.
Everybody looked pretty shaken up by this crash. Team USA’s reported that she is alert and responsive. She is clearly pretty seriously hurt.
[00:11:01] Jill: Oh that’s horrible. I’d seen a mention of this on social media and it’s just, it’s really sad, especially right at the very end when you think you’ve nailed it.
And just one last thing goes wrong and hopefully she’s going to be all right. They’ve got her. She’s probably in very good hands here and hope you heal up soon, Nina.
Over in the men’s downhill. I didn’t really see much of this, but I did see the medals ceremony and everybody, every medalist was so excited and I took that to mean they were so excited they got down the hill and got a medal.
[00:11:41] Alison: This was also a rough course. So this was postponed from the previous day. And originally the women’s giant slalom had been canceled because of the weather. And then they said, oh no, it’s a beautiful day. Let’s do the race. So they did both of these races today.
And there were, there was a lot of crashes, especially right off the top. So first guy down gets down. Second guy down is Dominik Schwaiger. He crashes. He’s got to get stretchered off the course. Wow. Yes, then Sochi silver medalist Italian Innerhoffer, he bounces off the course. Wild. Bryce Bennett, the American, bounces all over the place, manages to stay on his skis, gets down the course, and then the Austrian Hemetsberger gets down the course. At the end, his face is covered in blood. His suit has blood splash all over it. I’m not sure whether he hit the gate with his face or his hand bounced off the gate and his hand hit him in the face, but he starts wiping the blood off his face. And then he looks at the camera goes, ah, like you didn’t care.
[00:12:55] Jill: Wow. Wow. What a competition.
[00:12:59] Alison: And there were more crashes. As you expect in an Olympic men’s downhill, it was everything an Olympic men’s downhill should be. It was fast. It was wild. It was full of crashes. Thankfully I think only Dominik Schwaiger is the one who took any serious hits.
Oh, okay. And Hemetsberger with his bloody face, but he walked away from it. He was fine. He scoffed it off.
[00:13:23] Jill: Wow. I do wonder if not knowing the hill very well plays into all of this did not finish and all of the crashing out
[00:13:34] Alison: Ted Ligety, my favorite did comment on that and said that
[00:13:39] Jill: Hot diggity.
[00:13:40] Alison: He said that these guys don’t know the course.
It is extremely tough. And they did lose out on a training run because of the weather.
[00:13:50] Jill: And yeah. Now I wonder how much that is a factor in the whole thing. If they knew the course a little bit better, would they be able to navigate that steepness? Beause it is so challenging. So challenging. So gold went to Beat Feuz from Switzerland. France, or silver went to Johan Clarey from France and bronze went to Matthias Meyer from Austria, son of the Hermaninator, Herman Meyer, who won gold in Albertville.
[00:14:20] Alison: And Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who was the favorite, finished fifth, did not have a great race. He’s another one who kind of bounced around, made a few mistakes.
[00:14:29] Jill: Wow. Wow. Wow. Uh, Moving over to biathlon. It was the women’s 15 kilometer individual race today. I was out there for this. It was very exciting. I also got into the mixed zone.
Mixed zone passes can be tough to get at the, at practices and stuff. Sometimes you can just walk in, but usually what you do is when you get into the venue media center, you sign up and then they divvy up as many as they have slots for. So sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t. I managed to get one today. So that was great. I could say hello to Clare. Unfortunately, Clare did not have a good day.
[00:15:08] Alison: Shooting was a little rough. Was it windy? It didn’t look terribly windy.
[00:15:12] Jill: No, the conditions were actually better than the relay. It was not as windy. It was not as cold. And I, she doesn’t know what’s wrong. Because I asked her, what’s up? And because I said, well, I said rifey, he didn’t look like it enjoyed doing prone today.
And she says, I don’t know what happened. I had to talk with my coaches about it because really it just wasn’t, I wasn’t hitting anything and she had zeroed properly, but the problem is when they zero their rifles ahead of time, because they have to do it so far ahead of time. Sometimes the weather changes and you don’t have a zero correctly or so maybe that was a little bit off and sometimes it throws your whole shooting off.
But she did have, she was doing all right and in pretty good position. And then she hit her second prone shooting bout and missed three targets. And that just added three minutes to her time. And that’s that’s over for her.
[00:16:05] Alison: That’s right. I saw that round and she had some choice words for rifey when she got up from prone.
[00:16:15] Jill: Oh man. I bet she did. But she finished 39th. So hopefully that is good enough to keep moving on in the competition. And she was hoping that it could get her some world cup points as well. She did say that the course is really nice. It’s very kind of rolling. And she said, oh, I’d come back here and ski for fun because. That’s how much she enjoyed the course.
Wow. That’s a surprise. Yeah. So that’s really nice. In the race, gold went to Denise Herrmann from Germany. Silver went to Anais Chevalier-Bouchet from France and bronze went to Marte Olsbu Roieseland from Norway.
I have to say at the dulcet tones, Jason Bryant if you are listening. This in-house announcer drove me nuts because I am quite sure he was not a, no, he did not have the pronunciation of many of the names correctly.
It really was driving me crazy. Like there’s a Marketa Davidova and he was saying, David-Ova. That’s how he was saying that all of the Belarussians, and all of the shooters from Belarua, he was messing up their names and it just, I cringed and I don’t know where they got this person.
Jason, I’m sure you would cringe too, but it’s important knowing how to, that’s part of your job is knowing how to pronounce these names. And he just, he wasn’t doing a good job.
[00:17:37] Alison: Um, there are people who have guns. Get their names, right, babe.
[00:17:44] Jill: Big story for the USA. Skier, biathlete, Deedre Irwin. She has not been on the world cup very long, just a couple of years. And she ended up finishing seventh, had just the race of her lifetime. She’s never finished above like 50 something in a world cup race. And she shot 19 out of 20, or hit 19 out of 20 targets.
If she had hit that 20th target, she probably would have been on the medal stand. Wow. But she ended up in seventh place. She had been like NBC had been talking with Irwin, she came over to the mixed zone and she was crying. She’s like, I’m not going to stop crying. I’m so happy. This has just been the best. I, you know, I’m social, I love the support. And she just said, I, you know, I’ve raised my game. I had these mantra words that she used for the shooting and then just got her through. And somebody I think asked her about the missed, you missed one. She was like, I shot 19 for 20 and that’s a really good day for me.
[00:18:45] Alison: And nobody shot clean. None of the medalists were 20 for 20.
[00:18:50] Jill: Oh, okay. I remember.
[00:18:55] Alison: She did as well as the people on the podium, they just skied a tiny bit faster than her, but yeah.
[00:19:00] Jill: And her being so young compared to Denise Herrmann, who has medaled, she medaled in cross-country, I believe in Sochi. And then she switched over to biathlon and now she’s gotten a gold medal there.
If you’re in Norway, you’re skiing when you’re like two, if that, if not earlier, pretty much. So for an American to do as well as they did, it was fantastic. So great day. Hopefully you’ll see a lot more of Deedre Irwin.
Uh, moving over to curling. This is where my beef comes in with the standings, because yesterday when we had taped, well, this morning when I was editing and I had looked at social media and realized that games had kept going, and we didn’t know they were still going on.
And I don’t know I’m going to confuse myself talking about it, but basically we didn’t have all the data from last night when we taped and then we woke up from we’re like, oh, our show is kind of wrong.
[00:20:03] Alison: There were two more sessions of curling round robin after we taped. One was in progress as we taped, one was this morning, our time.
Okay. At the time. So there were nine round robin games total, yesterday. We only had the results from seven. So now we’ve got the complete round robin results.
So Italy finished round robin undefeated 9-0. Norway and Great Britain were both 6-3. Sweden was 5-4. Canada, also 5-4. And for the Czech Republic 4-5. Switzerland was 3-6 as was. Unfortunately the United States pair, China and Australia finished 2-7.
So the semifinalists are Italy, Norway, Great Britain and Sweden.
So Australia ended up winning two of their round robins. One of which was the last one was against Canada, which was a huge upset. And here’s the best part of it, not the best part, but kind of. John Morris, who is the male half of the Canadian mixed doubles pair, coached the Australian pair through the qualification tournaments. All the Australians have been training in Alberta with John Morris.
[00:21:24] Jill: Wow. Just wow. Incredible.
[00:21:28] Alison: It was great, but that defeat took the Canadians out of the medal rounds.
[00:21:35] Jill: Oh, ouch.
I don’t know what to say about that, but that’s a tough blow.
[00:21:42] Alison: Yes. But congratulations to Dean Hewitt and Tahli Gill, what an amazing debut for Australia in curling.
So we did have the semifinals, we have more results. Okay. Italy defeated Sweden 8-1, and Norway defeated Great Britain 6-5.
[00:22:02] Jill: Wow. Just, wow. I’m going to try to go to curling tomorrow night to see the medal rounds. And I can take in that Italian curling dreamboat.
[00:22:11] Alison: He is a curling beast, man. Yes. So good. So good.
[00:22:18] Jill: There’s a story. Did you know that the bagpipers were Chinese?
[00:22:22] Alison: I did discover that they’re Chinese, that the bagpipers were not imported. I shared it actually in our newsletter and they are Chinese and they are doing quite a job.
[00:22:35] Jill: So, that’s impressive. I’m glad they had the bagpipes. It’s really nice. And it’s nice that they are a local players as well.
[00:22:42] Alison: I wonder how much work Chinese bagpipers actually get.
[00:22:50] Jill: Maybe they play for fun?
Moving over to figure skating. We finished up the team event. So there was a pairs free skate, the ice dance, free dance and the women’s singles final skate or free skate, actually. I saw bits and pieces of this on the feed as I worked. So talk me through some of the.
[00:23:08] Alison: So we started with the pairs and started off very nice.
And then the Russians Mishina and Galliamov, get on the ice. They are the reigning world champions. Program’s going beautiful. Last 30 seconds. They hit the ice in a lift. Oh. And it was most frightening because Mishina was upside down. She was head down toward the ice and looks like Galliamov, just lost his edge.
And he, as he was going down, you got to give this kid props. He lifted her slightly up. So her head did not hit the ice. I don’t know how he managed to protect her as well as he did, but that left the door open for other teams and Sui and Han did not skate for China in the pairs event, Hang and Jen did the long program, but that they made mistakes.
So the one who really capitalized on all of this was Japan. Okay. And they ended up being third. And I think the judges were kind of primed for giving them bonus points because they skated clean. So that definitely helped them out. And then in ice dance the US won that portion. Chock and Bates, yes beat the Russian pair who is ahead of them on the world rankings. So that boosted the US again unexpectedly. Wow. You get to the, then you get to the ladies’ portion.
And of course Valieva, the Russian skater won the women’s portion with this insane score, but she did have a fall. Huh. And she was in tears because of that fall because she knows if she falls in the ladies program, she is not winning the medal.
[00:25:07] Jill: Very true. Interesting.
[00:25:10] Alison: Only huge disappointment to me, Kamila Valieva, uses “Bolero.”
[00:25:16] Jill: That is Torville and Dean’s.
[00:25:18] Alison: It’s not even just that it’s Torville and Dean’a. It’s just, it’s actually not great skating music.
[00:25:26] Jill: No, you’re right. It’s it is a very slow piece.
[00:25:29] Alison: It works for dance. It does not work for singles skating.
[00:25:35] Jill: And true. It will be interesting to see. I will say I loved Japan’s ice dancing costumes. The woman’s dress was this blue kimono style outfit. That was just breathtakingly. Beautiful.
[00:25:51] Alison: The music was from Memoirs of a Geisha, so that was the costumes. It was quite beautiful.
[00:25:59] Jill: In the standings, gold went to ROC with 74 points. Silver went to USA with 65 and bronze went to Japan was 60.
[00:26:08] Alison: So this is the first time in the team event that Canada has not medaled. And the first time that Japan has, so this ended up being a much more interesting competition than anticipated.
[00:26:21] Jill: Interesting. Interesting. We’ve heard some comments on the Facebook group, how they preferred that the team event be at the end of the competition.
[00:26:31] Alison: Right? So there’s a lot of discussion as to why, for example, Sui and Han didn’t skate both portions and Nathan Chen didn’t skate both portions where clearly he would have improved the chances for the U S team and Sui and Han would have improved the chances for the Chinese team. Problem is they still have their events to compete.
So these skaters do not want to get burnt out and dealing with the pressure. So from the beginning of the team, which was in 2014. A lot of fans are saying, why isn’t this at the end? Because you’re putting an odd amount of pressure on some of these skaters. You can’t swap out everybody on your team between short and long program, but you can swap out two portions.
And if you can, they do, because they don’t want to burn out on being able to medal in their own events, which I think is more meaningful to them.
[00:27:26] Jill: I think so too. I think that the team event is a lot of fun and they get a lot of comradery out of it, but it’s a long day for them or a long couple of days because this competition has been going on for what, two, three days now?
[00:27:39] Alison: Yes, there were three sessions.
[00:27:42] Jill: And when you’re on the team, you still have to sit there and watch. So that’s. Yes, you’re watching skating and you’re analyzing it, but that’s also time that you’re not focused on your performance and what you have to do to be in your top shape. And I get it, like I would want my individual event done first and then the team event is kind of fun.
I’m curious to see what Italy will do for in Milan-Cortina and see how they schedule it up.
[00:28:10] Alison: So next up are the men.
[00:28:13] Jill: Yeah. So I’m going to try to go to that tomorrow. I gotta get up early and I don’t know if I’ll be able to get space because I think a lot more press are here for that competition and see what happens.
Somebody who will not be in it is Vincent Zhao. We got news today earlier in the day that he had tested positive for COVID and then they said, this is pending. Potentially still skate depending on his, the next round of tests that come out, but it came out positive again. So he will be out of the competition.
[00:28:48] Alison: And this also means that the entire U S team is close contact because they were all sitting with him during the team competition in the kiss and cry.
[00:28:59] Jill: Right. It’s gotta be some really stressful. And Vincent had posted a video on Instagram about how, you know, how much care he had taken with his health all throughout this pandemic and leading up into coming here to Beijing.
And it’s just kind of fallen apart and he’s got a key, you know, he’s going to use this as a tool to make him stronger, but it’s still very heartbreaking now. And this is just another heartbreaking story and a whole series of heartbreaking stories for athletes who have not been able to compete due to COVID.
Moving on to freestyle skiing, we had big air going on today and we had the women’s and men’s did their free ski qualification runs. And I haven’t got a chance to see that. I have heard that the venue is very cool though.
[00:29:46] Alison: Watched a little bit. Got dizzy, just watching, looking forward to the finals.
[00:29:54] Jill: All right. Well, let’s take a break to talk about our red envelope campaign.
This show does cost money to produce, and while our listeners have been extremely generous in supporting us through the Kickstarter campaign that got us to Beijing and also through Patreon patronage, we’re coming up on two and a half years until another Olympics. So to celebrate the lunar new year, We’re asking for donations of at least $8 to help us get through to Paris 2024, go to flamealivepod.com/support to donate.
And so many of you have already stepped up to donate and we just were so touched by your generosity, and we really appreciate it. Thank you so much. It really means the world to us that you value the show and what we do enough to help support it financially.
[00:30:40] Alison: And I just want to mention, we will send some personal thank you notes after Beijing, we are seeing the donations. We are very grateful and hang on, just like at a wedding, you get six months to send thank you notes. We just need like an extra month and a half. So hang with us and thank you so much.
[00:31:01] Jill: Moving over to ice hockey, we had some more women’s preliminary round action. Canada beat ROC six to one. Denmark beat Czech Republic, three to two. Sweden beat China, two to one and Switzerland beat Finland three to two. So the standings in group A are Canada and the U S are both tied at three wins, zero losses. ROC is one and two. Switzerland is one in three, and Finland is 0 and three. In group B, Japan is two and one as is the Czech Republic. China is two and two and Denmark and Sweden are one and two
[00:31:47] Alison: Next up tonight in US time, US versus Canada in the round robin.
[00:31:55] Jill: Ooh, that’s going to be a match. That is going to be a good one.
In luge we had the women’s singles runs one and two. I don’t know if you saw any of this. I have an, what I saw one person go down on luge track on a feed. So no fans on the sides. There are a couple of volunteers here and there, but it’s, there are fans, I believe at the bottom of the hill who are watching, but um, it’s pretty quiet up on that luge track.
In ski jumping, we had the mixed team, normal hill competition today. The gold went to Slovenia. And that makes Ursa Bogataj a double gold medalist. Silver went to ROC and bronze went to Canada.
[00:32:39] Alison: Yeah. This was an interesting competition because there are two men and two women and they combine the scores. So for instance, Poland, I think ended up in sixth. Their men are very strong. Women, not so much. So the teams that won had at least three really strong jumpers, and you can have one that was a younger, less experienced, or not quite as strong.
You couldn’t have two that were super dominant and then two less. So it speaks really well for that Slovenian program that they’ve got these two incredibly strong women who in the individual won the gold and the bronze, and they could put together this team that just looked fantastic.
[00:33:23] Jill: Interesting. That’s good for them. Good for them. It’s nice to see small countries step up like that.
In snowboard there was the men’s snowboard slopestyle finals. Gold went to Max Parrot from Canada, who was the silver medalist in 2018. So he bumped up a spot. Silver went to a Su Yiming from China and bronze went to Mark McMorris from Canada, who’s now a three-time bronze medalist and defending gold medalist, Red Gerard finished 4th.
[00:33:54] Alison: Like the women’s competition, it was up and down, you know? No, none of the top competitors, like Jamie Anderson yesterday, and had no clean runs. Everybody at least got one good scored run. The story that I loved the best was that of Su Yiming. He’s a baby and his big hero and who he’s based his whole style on is Mark McMorris.
[00:34:19] Jill: Oh, wow.
[00:34:20] Alison: And then he beats him in his first Olympics. So that was really exciting. And of course, Max Parrot has become best known as having to beat Hodgkin lymphoma in 2019.
[00:34:34] Jill: That’s right. Holy cow. Wow. Good for him. Good for him.
[00:34:39] Alison: He looks gorgeous out there on the run and in the interview afterward, he said, it’s the best run he’s ever done in his whole career. Oh, and that’s what you want. You want.
[00:34:49] Jill: Nailing it and right at the Olympics. I will say the wall that they’ve built to block the wind does look cool. The course looks really cool.
[00:34:58] Alison: The course looks cool. There were no sparks today in the men’s events. So I don’t know if conditions were a little cleaner for the men than they were for the women the day before.
[00:35:10] Jill: Okay, well, let’s move over to speed skating. On the long track, it was the women’s 1500 gold went to Irene Wust of the Netherlands. Wust is now one of the greatest Olympians ever, correct?
[00:35:25] Alison: She is the most successful speed skating Olympian, male or female, by achieving at least one gold medal in each of five consecutive winter Olympics. And she’s the only athlete to win an individual gold medal in five Olympics summer, or winter.
[00:35:43] Jill: Wow, that is incredible. And she did so in Olympic record time, which the longevity she has is incredible.
[00:35:53] Alison: And what’s amazing to me is she’s only, I think in her mid thirties, it’s not like she’s 45 years old. Wow. A child when she started winning these medals. But man, she is just gorgeous. Those Dutch do not fool around.
[00:36:09] Jill: No, not in speed skating, not at all. So, congratulations to her for what an achievement and what a career. And as far as we know, it’s going to keep going. The silver medal went to Takagi Miho from Japan. And the bronze medal went to Antoinette de Jong from the Netherlands. Brittany Bowe from the US placed 10th, which is, she’s a big story here because she gave up her 500 meter position to our Erin Jackson.
You know what? This reminds me that we have not talked about our fantasy league yet. And I think I had Irene Wust. Which would have been the only good thing about my fantasy league, because I don’t have a star at that. I’ve keep forgetting to go back and put in new days and it’s just usually, I have to get out and get on the next bus or the next train and don’t lock it in.
I’m going to move on to short track while you look that up. We had the women’s 500 meter today. Gold went to Arianna Fontana from Italy, who is now the most decorated short track skater with 10 medals over four Olympics. Wow. Silver went to a Suzanne Schulting from the Netherlands and a bronze went to Kim Butin from Canada, who is a repeat bronze medalist. In the men’s 1000 meter, gold went to Ren Ziwei from China and silver went to Li Wenlong from China and bronze went to Shaoang Liu from Hungry. So how are we doing with fantasy league?
[00:37:42] Alison: Okay. Psgola, our friend Patrick from Chicago-land has taken the lead with 67. DLN with 66 is tied with Schollestan also with 66. And let’s see where we are. Oh, I’m in 14th place.
[00:38:01] Jill: Wow. Congratulations.
[00:38:03] Alison: Because I had Irene Wust. Jill you’re down in 38.
[00:38:08] Jill: That’s okay. I’m doing okay for, I will take that for the amount of effort I have put into the game. I will take 38th place for right now, but if I remember to put in a league, everybody should watch out I’m coming. What else should we watch for our who’s coming up tomorrow.
[00:38:30] Alison: So nobody’s going to be an action. Tomorrow Brianna Decker will be on the sidelines of the USA/Canada hockey game, which I think we all need to watch.
[00:38:40] Jill: Definitely.
[00:38:41] Alison: And our friend, Jackie Wong has been making appearances on Olympic Ice on Peacock. So check him out over there.
[00:38:49] Jill: Excellent.
[00:38:50] Alison: You be the judge. If we think Luna is a tiger in this year of the tiger.
[00:38:54] Jill: Right? And you can get our newsletter by going to flamealivepod.com and scroll down to the bottom. We’ve got a sign up there. We’ve got dailies coming out every day. We would like to thank our Researchers for today, that’s Bernie Bierbaum and Manu Paavola.
[00:39:11] Alison: And we want to say a special thank you to Listener Beth who has shared her beautiful cat Luna with us. She is still our mascot and she used to share her kingdom with a bearded dragon Drag who sadly passed away last year. I have been assured that Luna was not involved.
[00:39:32] Jill: I don’t quite know what to make of that, because part of me is like, well, good Luna is not involved, but then I wonder, why would we think of Luna being involved?
[00:39:42] Alison: Well, there will be a picture in the newsletter of Drag and Luna together.
[00:39:46] Jill: So pictures and stories and more, Alison’s doing a great job putting them together and they are a lot of fun.
So that’s going to do it for this episode. Tune again, tune in again tomorrow for more action from.
[00:39:59] Alison: And you can celebrate the games with us at our Keep the Flame Alive Podcast group. Jill is on Twitter. I am on Insta and those handles are @flamealivepod.
You can email us at flamealivepod@gmail.com or call or text us at (208) 352-6348. That’s (208) FLAME-IT.
[00:40:28] Jill: We will catch you back here tomorrow with more news and results from Beijing. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, keep the flame alive.