Book Club is back in session! Book Club Claire returns for our first book club episode of 2026, featuring Heroes, Villains & Velodrome’s: Chris Hoy and Britain’s Track Cycling Revolution by Richard Moore. This book covers Hoy’s early cycling career and the development of Great Britain as a cycling powerhouse until Beijing 2008 (or if you get the right edition, through Beijing 2008).
Claire joins us for a rousing discussion of Chris Hoy’s early success, the 1000m race, keirin racing in Japan, and the Wild West days of track cycling. Plus, we make a surprising discovery about this title.
Also on this episode, we discuss the second ticket drop for the LA 2028 Olympics. Plus, we learn about more hospitality houses that plan to be at the Games.
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TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
443-Book Club-Heroes Villains & Velodromes-Chris Hoy
Theme Music
Jill Jaracz: [00:00:30] 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: It’s been hot.
Jill Jaracz: How hot?
Alison Brown: It’s been LA next summer hot
Jill Jaracz: How about LA two summers from now hot?
Alison Brown: Oh, that’s true.
Jill Jaracz: Please let the games still be two years
Alison Brown: away. Two years away, [00:01:00] yeah, yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Two, two years away for planning purposes, one year away because of excitement.
Alison Brown: Okay, there you go. That’s true. I do, I keep messing up what year I’m in. I don’t know why. It’s like Milan seems like it was so long ago that we can’t still be in the Milan year.
Like, that can’t be possible, and yet here we are. It’s only a few months out. So yeah, I’m, getting a little nervous for the heat because I don’t do well in the heat. I’m like an ice cream cone, I kinda melt. So we’ll- [00:01:30] Understood … we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed I’ll get the ice packs and that cooling thing, that neck thing you have.
That’s what I need.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Yeah, yeah. Th- those are excellent. you will need your floppy hat back.
Alison Brown: The floppy hat will be absolutely making a reappearance, no doubt.
Summer of Nostalgia – join us!
Jill Jaracz: Excellent, excellent. But, Milano Cortina, I have been living in Milano Cortina- … because it is the summer of nostalgia here at, Keep the Flame Alive.
I have uncovered a treasure trove of never before seen [00:02:00] pictures and video
Alison Brown: One of which you posted on, Instagram yesterday.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, but that wasn’t part of the, special package. But yes, I did find that because I saw the kinda chic trend, and I said, “Well, this is kinda chic.”
Alison Brown: I was laughing at myself because I said, “Oh, what a, you’re kinda chic there, Alison. Nice job.”
Jill Jaracz: It was very fun. but all summer long we’ve been living in past games [00:02:30] through pictures and, video, on our Patreon site, and, uh, that is patreon.com/flamealivepod. Uh, Beijing was June, Paris was July, and now we are living in Milano Cortina, and, uh, it’s fun stuff.
I j- something creepy’s coming up.
Alison Brown: Oh, no. Creepy, really? There wasn’t too much cr- I would think Be- Beijing had a lot more creepy things.
Jill Jaracz: I, uh, yeah, maybe, but this was [00:03:00] from the main press center. Oh, okay. And it was one thing that I thought was pretty creepy. And, but you, if you’re a video subscriber you’ll find out.
And, uh, you can get that and more. everybody who pays, for our Patreon gets access to the daily photos. It’s every weekday you get a new photo and a story that goes along with it. And, uh, couple times a week those at the $5 a month and up level get videos. And, yeah, they’re fun. I have some Brian Boitano coming.
Alison Brown: Oh, [00:03:30] nice.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So that’ll be fun. eh, you can also, if you don’t wanna become a, an ongoing patron but are very curious to relive these games with us, you can buy the collections outright. Those are also at our Patreon site, patreon.com/flamealivepod. we appreciate the patrons very, very much because they are the lifeblood of the show and keep it going with their financial contributions.
So, without them w- we probably wouldn’t have a show-
Alison Brown: This is true …
Jill Jaracz: to be honest. So, so we like having this community and keeping it going, [00:04:00] so thank you to those of us who keep our flame alive.
Book Club Claire on Heroes, Villains & Velodromes
Jill Jaracz: But hey. It’s book club time.
Alison Brown: So excited.
Jill Jaracz: I so– You know, it feels like forever since Claire’s been here.
Alison Brown: I know, exactly.
It was great when we were recording. We had about, almost a year of stuff to catch up on when we were talking to her, it felt like.
Jill Jaracz: But yes, Book Club Claire is back to talk British track cycling with us through the book, Heroes, Villains, and Velodromes: Chris Hoy and Britain’s Track [00:04:30] Cycling Revolution by Richard Moore.
This book covers Hoy’s early cycling career and the development of Great Britain as a cycling powerhouse until around Beijing 2008. That’s a hazy timeline, but there is an interesting reason for that, that we discover in our conversation. And remember, you can get the book club selections and any other books through our bookshop.org/shop/flamealivepod storefront.
The commissions we earn [00:05:00] from sales through that link go to support the show’s operating budget. So let’s get into it. Take a listen to our conversation with Claire.
Book Club Theme: Book club
Jill Jaracz: Claire, welcome back. We are talking Heroes, Villains and Velodromes: Chris Hoy and Britain’s Track Cycling Revolution by Richard Moore. What do you got for us?
We discover we’ve read different versions of the book
Book Club Claire: I have a book that’s kind of interesting. Uh, I, I full disclosure here, I thought that this book was more [00:05:30] about current Team GB cycling, but it actually is much more about, like, the ’90s, 2000s, uh, UK brac- track cycling, which is good because that means that we see that it was at its low point getting to the high point.
But I don’t think it really reaches the pinnacle, because the pinnacle kind of came in 2012 in London. This book, at least the version that is currently out, was printed in the, in later 2008 [00:06:00] following the conclusion of the Beijing Olympics. But-
Jill Jaracz: That is not the– Wait, that is not the version I had. Oh. My version ends in 2007, before 2008, and I thought, “Oh my gosh,” when I saw the version, .
i, I looked up what happened in Beijing and saw all the gold medals, spoiler alert, and went, “Oh, this stinks that that is how this ends before the games, the big games.”
Book Club Claire: Yeah, it was published in April of 2008. Is, is the last line in your [00:06:30] actual, like, manuscript, “All I will say is there’s more to come”? Is that, like, the very last thing for you?
‘ Cause that means you, you have a first edition. Congratulations.
Jill Jaracz: No, it does say, “All I, all I will say is that there’s more to come.”
Book Club Claire: Okay. Yeah. That’s the end of the basic, but they also have an epilogue attached in my copy. So it does talk all about- Oh … the Beijing Olympics, but it’s only, like, 10 pages, and if you’re gonna have Chris Hoy on the cover, which my cover has him holding his three gold medals from [00:07:00] Beijing, which must be different from yours, I’m guessing.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Book Club Claire: Yep. Sure enough.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, we have him– I, I have mine, and Alison, this is your copy, too? Yes, it is. Which is Chri- Chris Hoy racing on a bike on the track.
Book Club Claire: And I have him just, you know, posing with three gold medals, kind of a- a la Michael Phelps with his eight gold medals at the same Olympics. yeah, so that makes a little bit of a difference in maybe what we thought of the book, but at the same time, I’m not a huge fan of just the little tag, side tag of, [00:07:30] “Oh, by the way, he went to Beijing and got three gold medals.”
You know? It’s, it’s like, okay, I needed more. I need, like, another year for Richard Moore to come up with more things, if it’s gonna focus on Chris Hoy and Team GB. Or, you know, to have another version, based after the London Olympics because of how popular, the velodrome was in London for 2012 and how well Team GB did at that one.
so it’s kind of disappointing that the timing of this book and how it was released kind of doesn’t [00:08:00] work for the history that was there. I have a few other problems with it, but I’m not gonna say them because I wanna hear what you guys thought of the book first, and maybe you guys will come up with the, the one issue that I had.
So what did you guys think?
Timing is everything in writing
Jill Jaracz: Okay. So I bet this book was written for people to get excited about Beijing. And there’s like when we talked with Joanna Garden about, , writing her book about, , Elvin Kibbit and, , Samantha Schultz, and, , she said, “At some point you [00:08:30] have to stop and it has to be done.” And it’s– with sports it’s always there’s another event, another Olympics, another- Mm-hmm
whatever. And so I wasn’t– I was kinda surprised reading this from so far in the future that this ended like this. Mm-hmm. And it was a little frustrating, but I guess if you put yourself back in the time when it came out, you get excited about track.
The surprising elements of the book
Jill Jaracz: I was surprised at how little funding was available even [00:09:00] for popular sports in Britain before the lottery came about.
, it was also interesting that Chris Hoy had a BMX background and how the economy tanked BMX as a discipline. I, I thought that was really interesting. And, and I thought it was interesting how, yeah, we focus on Chris, but we also talk about the whole system in a way, and how Chris is very focused on process and that’s not necessarily every other [00:09:30] cyclist.
Alison, what did, what did you think?
Alison Brown: You know, one of the questions that we get a lot for the show is what do you do when the Olympics aren’t on? And I think this book is very much an answer to that in a way, because I think probably federations get that question a lot, like what happens on the off years?
And so from that point of view, it was, okay, so what does the federation do when it’s not the Olympics? What does the federation do ground level to [00:10:00] when there isn’t much funding, when there isn’t a system, when there isn’t a process? How do they make that happen and put that together? So there was the Chris Hoy story, but then there’s also the Team GB story, which to me was the more interesting of the two simply because of, our viewpoint on the Olympics, where we’re looking at federations and kinda that more complex piece.
So there were times where I wanted more of either story because they were doing [00:10:30] both. But I did, I did overall enjoy this book a lot because of that Federation, viewpoint.
We break down the book’s structure and themes, and whether they worked for us
Book Club Claire: Jill, did you have a preference over which part of the book you enjoyed considering what Alison just said?
Jill Jaracz: No, not really because I enjoyed the athlete approach and how different athletes were…
Different athletes in the book, especially from different countries, had different approaches to cycling, some successful, some not as successful. and I did find the [00:11:00] Wild West-ness of it kind of interesting, and also the, “Okay, we, we need to get serious,” and the fact that when more serious things happened, it, it’s that whole chicken and, and the egg of do you invest in the athletes and they produce results, so therefore you get more money, versus, do the athletes have to perform and then we give you the money kind of situation.
Book Club Claire: Me personally, I actually preferred the Chris Hoy stuff, and when it [00:11:30] got into all the d- little de- dingy details about, politics and, the federation and getting money and all that, I was just, I was out. So the middle of this book, near the beginning of this book, I was just, like, so bored.
I did not enjoy this book clearly as much as you guys did, but you guys seem to be more into that kind of fine details- Yeah. Yeah … you know, the ins and outs, whereas I’m just like, okay, I, I like hearing about that to a certain extent, maybe not a, a giant, nonfiction book for a book club.
[00:12:00] so there were some times when Chris Hoy wasn’t featured for multiple pages ’cause they’re busy talking about, dingy offices in the Manchester Velodrome and, all that kind of stuff. The, the one chapter I did enjoy on, along those lines was the mind games chapter, that was chapter eight, which talked more about the mental health and sports psychology kind of aspect, which was at this time, he mentions 2007, but, you know, at that, in the 2000s, that was starting to become a really important thing for a lot of [00:12:30] sports.
They were realizing how they could really work with athletes and have them overcome the challenges mentally that they’d had, uh, to envision success and and to help them physically as well. So I did enjoy that one a lot. I know a lot of people struggle with mental health issues, so being able to, to see how that translates into the, mindset of athletes and how, psychologists can help with that, was very cool to read.
But when it got into, like, money and [00:13:00] building stuff and making teams, that’s where I kind of had an issue.
Women’s cycling ignored
Book Club Claire: But I’m still, we still haven’t covered the part that I thought was greatly missing from this. on the back of my book, which c- is different from yours, it’s the second edition, you can see there are two women featured.
Um- Yes. Okay. There was, like, no talk of the women’s side of UK track cycling. There were mentions of certain, women who competed, especially in that last chapter when it talked about the [00:13:30] success of, the, UK team at Beijing. so that was nice, but again, there was only, like, a couple people mentioned, you know?
And I’m like, okay, you can’t mention, all these men all the time. I’m getting used to these names, and then a woman pops up, and it’s like, oh Oh yeah, there’s women on this team too. why is he not talking about them? So that was my biggest issue with the book was, was that kind of subtraction of, the women’s side, y- which also ended up [00:14:00] being, becoming very successful themselves.
Alison Brown: You know, the, the biggest woman star in the book is Chris Hoy’s mother, Carol. I mean, we see her more than any of the female cyclists and get more, uh, insight into her perspective than any of the women who were actually competing
Jill Jaracz: And maybe that’s because Richard Moore the author, was a- also a cyclist, and not necessarily at track cycling.
Um, he, he was a racer, [00:14:30] but, maybe ’cause he knew the men’s world better, and maybe there’s also an attitude that the women don’t matter at this point
Book Club Claire: that, that I have a major problem with. But you’re probably right. Yeah. Yes. like Vicki Pendleton gets a lot of mention in the book, and Yvonne McGregor.
But they’re only mentioned in passing. Th- I don’t think they were ever interviewed, uh, or mentioned. the women that got medals in Beijing do not get interviewed, but mostly because [00:15:00] how are they s- how is he supposed to know, you know, with the addendum that apparently got added. So I g- I guess s- noting, knowing now, a- a- as we have been talking about at great length with this, with this book, that this was a lead-up into the Olympics, it seems like the women maybe should have gotten a little more, time and energy from Richard Moore to talk to them about, you know, all the struggles that they have to deal with.
Because, you know, especially in women’s sports, you have additional challenges that could have been mentioned in the book [00:15:30] instead of talking about, more of the finer details in it.
Linear vs. segmented storytelling
Book Club Claire: It does mention Chris Hoy’s early background, and then he kinda fades away, and then he comes back at the end of the book.
Did you kinda, did you like how it progressed linearly, in that way? Or, or would you have preferred to be a little more segmented in the, in the story where it kind of pops up, okay, here’s one section, here’s another section? Do you kind
Alison Brown: of agree? I’m, I’m a great, I’m a great lover of a linear story because it was easier for [00:16:00] me to follow kind of how the events were leading into one another.
Okay, this world champion, this success at world championships led into this change in funding, led into this level of success. So I’m, I’m a linear girl, so I did appreciate that, and it was easier for me to follow the story. But I can see the appeal of jumping around and getting more of that Chris Hoy story as a whole rather than in pieces.
Jill Jaracz: [00:16:30] I didn’t mind the way it jumped around to be quite honest. I mean, there was some linear elements of Actually, this book took me a long time to read, and I did put it down for, uh, um, I went to LA for a week, and I had maybe 50 pages left or 100 pages left, and I wasn’t gonna bring it on the plane with me so I did have a, like, a week separation from Chris Hoy, and it took a little while to get back into it.
so maybe that’s part of why I’m kind of hesitant about the story format [00:17:00] and jumping around. But I didn’t mind jumping around, because eventually, like, those– stuff ties together a little bit or we get the, oh, why, this is why we’re talking about athlete performance, or this is why, uh, this is coming up.
So, it worked for me. I mean, to go back to the non-focus on the women, yes, it was weird when he even brought up women, in a way. It was just, like, such offhanded references that I just assumed this book was going to be Chris Hoy and, I guess, [00:17:30] men’s track cycling. I did not think it was going to be all Great Britain, and I think this is a real tell of what the times were like back then when, he probably got high praise for even mentioning the women.
Let’s be hon- You know, I just think that the times and the attitudes towards women’s sports, and especially women’s cycling back then, were so bad and in the weeds that, I’m surprised they were even considered. And that’s not saying that’s right at all. It’s a shame that we don’t have those stories from [00:18:00] women cyclists, but, uh, you know, it’s not what I was expecting from this book.
Book Club Claire: Yeah, I think I recall from the last book that we did, which was “A Team of Their Own,” that you guys had a problem with them bouncing around because it was hard to keep track of everything. So this was much more manageable for you, even though for me, when you get to those non-Olympic times, that’s when it got kind of dull for me, and it, it, I guess, I felt like it kinda could’ve used more of a pop there.
Jill Jaracz: I, I think [00:18:30] for me it was because my brain did not expect the people in the association to be big characters. So my brain just went, coach, whoever the coach was now, or whoever was the director now. It was just people in the office, and it didn’t matter to me who they were.
And in “A Team of Their Own,” it mattered to me who the athletes were, and trying to keep them all straight was a lot harder to do. Here we had Chris Hoy, and we had Arnaud, the French cyclist, and, and Boardman, another [00:19:00] British cyclist, and a couple of others here and there who were very, very minor players.
And to me that, was a lot easier to keep track of.
How people read differently
Book Club Claire: And there were a few that came up in the 2008 epilogue that barely got any mention earlier, even in the men’s side. So I wonder if Richard Moore was just like, “Oh, I should’ve spent more time with that guy, I guess, because I didn’t know that he was gonna win a gold medal too.”
So it’s kind of funny to see how all of that added up. I also– This is a really stupid thing, [00:19:30] so pardon me for, for mentioning this. since Richard Moore, I believe, is Scottish, and Chris Hoy is also Scottish, and then there were some Australians in there too, and there were some Dutch. I read and hear in my head, so I am trying my hardest as I’m reading these quotes to read them in Scottish accents.
And then when the Australian has this giant, uh, diatribe in the middle of the book, I’ve, I’m like, “Okay, I have to make this Australian.” This is a problem I have. I’m sorry. Um- Love it … but meanwhile, I’m also reading a non– or a fiction [00:20:00] book that has a lot of different accents with it, so a big issue I have with this book is just that I couldn’t get the accents straight in my head as I’m reading.
I, I know not everybody has that, um, that kind of reading comprehension as I do. They just see words. but that’s how I interpret it, so that also made it difficult. It’s like, “Oh, why can’t I keep track of these accents? I don’t know if he’s British or Scottish. He, he needs to tell me.”
Alison Brown: Well, it’s funny because Chris Hoy played a significant role in the [00:20:30] opening ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games.
So if you had watched that prior to reading the book, you not only would’ve had his accent in your head, you would’ve had his actual voice. And he came out of the TARDIS in the Commonwealth Games, and it was funny ’cause I was reading. I had just finished, and then watched this, and I was like, “Oh, I know him.”
You don’t know him. What are you talking about? But I know his life story now, and I’ve met his mom and dad, so we’re friends. It’s- So that was kind of a fun, [00:21:00] confluence of events to be reading the book and then he makes an appearance at that Commonwealth Games.
Chris Hoy today
Book Club Claire: Yeah, and I just read an article from a couple days ago.
He is dealing with stage four cancer as well. so he got diagnosed back in, I wanna say 2023. It was made public in ’24, so they only said he had a few years to live. so, that’s something that he’s currently struggling with, and I know he had a big accident at the end of last year, I wanna say.
So kind of some more [00:21:30] modern things, knowing that for a time he was the most decorated British Olympic athlete, , until I believe Tokyo. I needed to get a little more digging because the book ends in 2008, but he was still so successful and so prevalent in, in the world from that time.
Issues with Olympics books published before a Games
Book Club Claire: Again, a-another, issue with publishing it to lead up to an Olympics is you don’t get anything that follows unless you throw in an epilogue, apparently. But I, I do kinda wish that there were… Like, [00:22:00] the reason I chose this book was mainly because it was all about track cycling. We had not covered a track cycling book yet.
It se- it featured Chris Hoy, one of the most popular track cyclists of our time. Um, I didn’t look at the date, so I wasn’t aware of the publication, and I don’t know if there’s really any other books. Like, I don’t know if Richard Moore has done a follow-up book. I wish there was a book at least that could be purchased in the United States, , as well as worldwide, that covered Chris Hoy’s full career instead of [00:22:30] just this.
, Because yeah, I think that’s my biggest thing is I, I, I didn’t do enough research on the book itself. I just kinda looked at the cover and went, “Ooh, track cycling. Let’s do it.” And I know you guys like track cycling, so let’s, really get you guys all geared up for it, which it seems like it worked.
but that, that made it a negative for me, unfortunately. But I’m glad you guys liked it.
What we learned from this book
Alison Brown: The one thing that this book really told me was how little I know about track cycling, about the ins and outs and h- the different races. No matter how many times we talk about [00:23:00] it, and now we’ve read this book, I still feel like I still do not understand the keirin and the Madison and the omni and all these different races.
And he did a good job explaining them to keep the book going and keep the story flowing, but in terms of when we go back now and in LA we’re watching them, am I gonna know the differences? Probably not, which is frustrating.
Jill Jaracz: I did like the chapter that went to Japan- Yes … and talked about riding on the [00:23:30] keirin circuit, and that was really cool because it’s such a different beast, I guess I would say, because the people who like keirin in Japan like it because there’s betting and they don’t like it because of the cycling aspect so much.
It’s, it’s just an interesting viewpoint and the rules for that type of keirin are very different and precise and you have to talk about your strategy [00:24:00] of how you’re going to race the race before the race happens so bettors know how to place their bets. And it’s just kind of fascinating how that all works.
It’s still kind of bending my mind a little bit to think about it, but I really enjoyed reading that chapter and would love, of course I would love to have another book on the keirin industry and how that really works in Japan.
Book Club Claire: Think the thing that surprised me the most about this book and how it was laid out was that in a book that was supposed to [00:24:30] drum up excitement for the Olympics, he spent a lot of time in Bolivia, which is where Chris Hoy was trying to, , achieve a world record, in a sprint, and he w- ultimately failed in, at the, the bigger one.
Uh, but he achieved the 500-meter world record like the, the day later, and so it gets two whole chapters, whereas like Athens, I believe only got a chapter, maybe less. and I found that to be very interesting. I [00:25:00] think maybe perhaps Richard Moore was suspecting that this, that was gonna kinda be the pinnacle of the book, him achieving the world record, and then he didn’t, so it kind of all kinda just crumbled by the end for, for him.
That’s, that’s author speculation, I guess. but you kind of– when you’re writing something as events are taking place, it’s a little harder for you to get a real grasp on what your book’s all about.
The pages about Bolivia
Book Club Claire: So did you have any comments on those Bolivia chapters? I,
Jill Jaracz: I thought it was really interesting to go to [00:25:30] Bolivia.
I did not realize there was a track at that altitude and that people tried to do that. I did mean to look to see if anybody has broken the record since
but yeah, I wonder if that was supposed to be the high point of the story, and then we could wind it down, and then it didn’t happen, so what do we look for next? I, was surprised that there was very little on Athens, but maybe Richard Moore couldn’t get in.
Maybe he couldn’t try to get accredited and couldn’t get accredited, and maybe he could not [00:26:00] get tickets to go. So there could have been those elements that made it less important. But yeah, that was really odd that that first success was just kinda downplayed compared to, even compared to Keirin, and even compared to, the time in Bolivia.
the other thing I meant to look up was when the kilometer was taken out of the games, and that also seemed to be a big problem, because [00:26:30] that was Chris Hoy’s event, and all of a sudden his event, and what we focused on for this whole book, is gone. And what do you do with that? So it, uh, it almost feels like, We can’t talk to Richard Moore ’cause he has passed away, but it would be interesting to know, like, how much of this book blew up in his face in terms of what he planned and what actually happened.
Alison Brown: I thought the biggest thing with the Bolivia chapters was the insight into Chris Hoy as a cyclist [00:27:00] and how he thought of racing and how he thought of these kind of achievements, that they mattered obviously, but he was okay with not achieving the world record and that he was focused on, “Okay, now I’ve done this.
I’m not gonna keep chasing it. I’m gonna do this other thing.” And he seemed to have that same attitude with the kilometer, “Okay, you’re gonna take my race away. What do I do now?” And that he was [00:27:30] very good at readjusting in that way. That made him good at what he does
Book Club Claire: And he was able to really take that and go into way more than he, I think he ever thought he would get.
He ended up with six gold medals and a silver, and I think if he’d stayed with the kilo, he might have gotten far less than that. So that’s y- y- it’s a very good point to make. That, that is kind of the turning point of the book, is that, okay, his bread and butter is gone. Now [00:28:00] what? And he, he was able to take it and go.
I did see that, Tournant’s, record lasted until 2023. Um-
Jill Jaracz: Wow …
Book Club Claire: a Dutchman named Jeffrey Hoogland broke it in, Mexico, so, uh, uh, once again at altitude.
Jill Jaracz: Interesting. Interesting. Yes, and well, first off, the kilo, which is the big race we focus on a lot in the book, that was Chris Hoy’s first gold medal, and that’s the last Olympics that it was at.
So then, like you [00:28:30] say, what do you do? But then there was an element of did Arnaud cheat on that world record? Because there’s no record and, and there seems to be a begrudging respect for Arnaud throughout the book, but you kind of see the British side and Scottish side be favored through, you know, if you want– It’s not necessarily impartial
Book Club Claire: Yeah, it’s, there is that respect in the book.
It’s like, okay, they’re, they’re gonna not [00:29:00] say bad things about him because this is a, you know, published and a lot of times you get flack for, say what you speak. We’ve, we’ve read books like that. and I did appreciate that. It was– if everything was shrouded in mystery, apparently there’s not a lot of, documents or even videos about the 2001 world record, by Tourneur. it’s interesting to see that, and it’s interesting also to see that it took another guy ov- 22 years to, finally break that record, again, at altitude.
They do have, [00:29:30] world bests for the kilo at sea level, but it’s a whole different animal when you’re actually breaking it for real, so.
Final thoughts on Heroes, Villains & Venlodromes
Book Club Claire: Any final thoughts on the book?
Alison Brown: You gotta love the Hoy family. I mean, they come off, I think, best out of everybody in this entire, i- in this entire, book, which was kind of fun, you know, to get that insight into the, athlete’s parents and growing up, and how involved yet not involved they were.
You know, involved when he was a kid, but then [00:30:00] when he started taking it over, he took it over, and his parents let him do that.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, a- agreed. And that was also interesting to hear how father and son going to races on the weekends, that was kinda like their thing and their bonding time. But it really felt like they were reasonable when it came to the cycling, and didn’t push, didn’t pressure, [00:30:30] but let Chris be the driver, and they supported him, but also knew when it was like, “Okay, this is your thing.
You’ve gotta take ownership of it.”
Book Club Claire: Agreed. Yeah. It, it’s nice. I think you guys read a few books where there were very, um, pushy parents last year in your striving to become an Olympian in your Patreon.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Book Club Claire: We definitely
Alison Brown: did. So
Book Club Claire: this was the… You, you definitely took note of that considering- … everything that you’ve read.
Alison Brown: I don’t even think I realized that that’s [00:31:00] now on my radar, you know? How pushy are these parents, and how controlling are these parents from that very experiment that we did where we read all those memoirs?
Book Club Claire: Well, I don’t have much else on the book. Well- It is a sign of the times, so, so- Yeah … read it if you want.
Jill Jaracz: It– I will say I enjoyed, I enjoyed the process of reading this and getting that glimpse in the back. Do I, I– compared to, um, “The Dirtiest [00:31:30] Race”- ”
Book Club Claire: The Dirtiest Race in History”? Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Com-
Book Club Claire: Which was Moore’s other book.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Compared to “The Dirtiest Race in History,” that was a much more interesting book. Mm-hmm.
And maybe maybe Moore was too close to this world, ’cause he was a cyclist, to get that distance. , And, this one didn’t hit the same mark for me, but I’m also not sad I read it, so there’s that.
Book Club Claire: Yeah. Uh, publish more track cycling books so I, we can read more of them, please. That would be great.
Thank you.
Next up for Book Club
[00:32:00]
Jill Jaracz: All right, Claire, what is next on our book club list?
Book Club Claire: We are gonna wrap up the year with “Limitless.” It is a – Paralympic book. Mallory Weggemann, , wrote it, with the help of Tiffiny Yeck Brooks. So, that is a rather recent publication, thank goodness. so maybe you would like to read it along with us as we go through our Paralympic journey. It’ll be nice to read another Paralympic book. I do appreciate that more of those are coming out, and again, [00:32:30] more of those can keep coming out, ’cause it gives me more stuff to read for book club.
So that is what we’re doing at the end of the year.
Jill Jaracz: Excellent, Claire. Well, thank you so much as always, and we will see you next time.
Book Club Claire: Thank you very much.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Claire. If you’ve read this book, let us know what you think. you can email or send us a voice memo at flamealivepod@gmail.com, or you can leave us a voicemail at 208-352-6348. That’s 208-FLAME-IT. Our next [00:33:00] book is “Limitless” by Mallory Weggemann, and it too is at our bookshop.org site.
That’s bookshop.org/shop/flamealivepod. We will be discussing that near the end of November
LA 2028 News
Jill Jaracz: I’m still waiting for something from, from you. Like, like every foreign language one you’ve got a, a thing, a, a little phrase to say to introduce the game segment, but it’s hard when you speak the language.
Ticket Drop #2 in progress
Alison Brown: [00:33:30] It’s not the same, but I was gonna say, it’s ticket time.
Jill Jaracz: It is ticket time again for LA 2028.
Ticket drop two is underway. We heard from listener Manu, who got lucky and had an early time slot in ticket drop number two.
Alison Brown: He got a, he got some beautiful tickets.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So he did want to report that affordable categories sold out quickly, and, uh, Swim Swam has reported that all aquatics sports are sold out for ticket drop [00:34:00] two, which is not surprising given the demand.
Alison Brown: And I don’t know how limited those tickets are. We don’t know the percentages yet as to how many of the tickets they’ve released.
Jill Jaracz: Right. We don’t, we don’t have the blue dots. Let’s just say that.
Alison Brown: Yeah. So it could be 25% of the swimming tickets are sold, it could be 50%. We have no idea, but we know that the ones that were available are gone.
Not a big surprise.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right.
Alison Brown: They want that, though. They want [00:34:30] these, drops to sell out.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. that’s very true. So they want the demand to build, and, I know people feel defeated when they can’t get tickets, or they look and they go, “Oh my gosh, everything’s $1,000.”
Alison Brown: Fear not. Yes.
There’s more coming. Yes. I mean, this is only ticket drop two, and we’ve got two years to go. So I mean, they’ve gotta be at least, two more ticket drops.
Jill Jaracz: Well, are we going from lottery to just drops?
Alison Brown: Right.
Jill Jaracz: So [00:35:00] that’s a different… When it’s all free for all, then you have a different situation.
We’ve had, listeners in the Facebook group who have not been in either ticket drop, and that’s frustrating. They were not selected.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. but hold tight. There’s stuff coming. There’s still more out there. Um-
Alison Brown: And we haven’t even hinted at the resale top- uh, platform yet. We don’t even know what that’s gonna look like yet.
So y- you know, up until the last minute, there are tickets available if you are flexible.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, and maybe have a [00:35:30] wallet that’s got a lot of money in it.
Alison Brown: That too.
Jill Jaracz: but you also may luck out. W- we don’t know what’s gonna happen over the next two years. You may find that people need to sell their tickets.
You may find that half of the handball venue decides, “Yeah, I really didn’t want this ticket,” and they all put them on the market at the same time. You never know. You never know.
Alison Brown: And we, we don’t say that sarcastically. a lot of that happened in Paris, where a lot of tickets ended up on the resale platform, I think because people did buy them two years in advance.
Mm-hmm. [00:36:00] And you, two years is a long time make those plans.
Jill Jaracz: It really is. And like, uh, Producer Ben, he bought a ticket for handball, one of the medal matches, and he didn’t realize it was in Lille, didn’t buy a train ticket early ’cause he figured he could just hop on the train, and could not buy a train ticket.
Alison Brown: Logistics sometimes play-
Jill Jaracz: Stuffed it on the resale, yeah …
Alison Brown: exactly. It plays a part with, uh, being a benefit to people who wait. [00:36:30] So fear not, the tickets will be available if you’re flexible and you’ve got some money to spend. You will get your tickets.
The tennis world is not thrilled about the Olympic tennis schedule
Jill Jaracz: Yes. also up in arms, tennis world.
Alison Brown: I saw this, and this is crazy.
Jill Jaracz: the LA ’28 tennis schedule starts three days after the Wimbledon final
Alison Brown: how are you gonna get peo… I mean, that’s just a long flight right off the bat. Just even if you’re out early in Wimbledon, to fly all the way over and be [00:37:00] ready to compete again that quickly.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And you’re, you’re going from grass to hard court, so you have a different surface to deal with. There’s no time to prepare.
I don’t know. the, the flight, it’s so much longer than you think when you’re talking about England to LA.
Alison Brown: Right, because you think England to New York- Right … which is, I think it’s a six hour.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: But then New York to LA is also a six hour.
Jill Jaracz: Right? It’s a [00:37:30] long, long way.
Alison Brown: That’s a, that is a long flight for these athletes to then be ready to turn that around so quickly.
Jill Jaracz: Right. With a large time adjustment, too. So I don’t know if the schedule will change at all, but it- Well,
Alison Brown: Wimbledon’s not gonna move its schedule.
Jill Jaracz: No, it’s, it’s not going to move its schedule. But, uh, I, I would imagine if people get out of Wimbledon, they are on the first flight out of there-
Alison Brown: Right
Jill Jaracz: ready to go to LA. not great news, we’ll, but [00:38:00] we’ll see what happens with that.
More hospitality houses coming
Jill Jaracz: But great news.
Alison Brown: Oh, this is fun news.
Jill Jaracz: More hospitality houses are coming.
Alison Brown: And the one that you have first actually I think has, is the one I’m the most excited about.
Jill Jaracz: Really? Okay. So thank you houseparty.blog. has more house announcements.
House of Baltics.
Alison Brown: Just the name in and of itself makes me excited. That just is gonna be such… There’s no way that that house cannot be absolutely stunning. [00:38:30]
Jill Jaracz: Oh, yeah, right? I mean- With, with all of the traditional folk stuff and art and, and everything that they have, and the food is gonna be good I bet.
So it’s Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Those National Olympic Committees are bonding together. They will have Ukraine as a guest of honor, and their house is going to be at the Wende Museum in Culver City. Check your house is searching for places. This is the National Olympic Committee along [00:39:00] with the Czech Consulate General in LA.
House Party says this could be located downtown, which would be cool if you’re by the downtown district or the downtown zone for, competitions. There could be a house right there for you. we have talked about Santa Monica putting together that Nations Village in a park. Brazil and India are looking at spaces there.
Could be cool. We were at Brazil House in Milan.
Alison Brown: That was a lot of fun.
Jill Jaracz: And then also likely in the works after [00:39:30] successful runs at Paris 2024, Kenya House and United Arab Emirates House.
Alison Brown: Hmm.
Jill Jaracz: And then, more news on the Team USA House. It seems like Santa Monica, that location is a go, and there will be three aspects of Team USA House.
There will be an athlete experience, a fan fest, and a hospitality house. So more information to
Alison Brown: come. So it will be open to the public in some fashion.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. That’s what it sounds [00:40:00] like, and I, I like this idea of having a separate place for the athletes to go and hang out, as that’s been the traditional aspect of Team USA House.
But it’s a home games. How can you not have something for fans?
Alison Brown: Open to the public. Yeah. Right? You, you’ve gotta pull that. Right. Yeah. It’s gonna be enormous, though, if they’re having all these different aspects. Oh, yeah. It’s gonna be- Yeah, yeah … I mean, it was big in Paris. the location that they used- Right
had multiple floors and really used that space well. But [00:40:30] man, this is gonna have to be the size of a, an industrial park.
Jill Jaracz: But I’m hoping that the fan fest aspect is free, and the hospitality aspect, the house aspect. it was a paid ticket in Paris. Expensive ticket comparatively for hospitality houses.
But I can imagine that they still want that paid experience and clubhouse for fans, and then have something for fans who, who don’t want that element but [00:41:00] still wanna be hanging out with Team USA. Very cool. So by House Party’s count, we’re up to 15 confirmed hospitality houses with at least six in the works.
So you could spend days just going to hospitality houses. Just
Alison Brown: going to houses. Right? I mean, you could get no tickets at all in your drop. Just go to the houses.
Jill Jaracz: Right?
Alison Brown: Go- And have an amazing experience …
Jill Jaracz: go see cycling, go see the marathon, go to houses. That’s all you need. and then that’s all we need for this episode apparently [00:41:30] ’cause that’s it.
It’s August. It’s slow news time. It
Alison Brown: really is. It’s hot, and people don’t wanna bother.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. All right, so that’ll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.
Alison Brown: And until next time, keep the flame alive