Wheelchair rugby is a mixed-gender sport, but not many females play. One way to increase their numbers and playing time is to see if they’re classified fairly. We talk to Dr. Thomas Rietveld, research associate in wheeled sports and technology at the Peter Harrison Centre for Disability Sport at the University of Loughborough, who worked with Dr. Vicky Tolfrey on a project for World Wheelchair Rugby to reassess the classification system for female players.
We also talked to Dr. Rietveld about his research on wheelchair tennis, which was part of our episode featuring wheelchair tennis player Charlie Cooper.
Also on this episode, Milan-Cortina 2026 stores have opened (but not the mega store), NBC announced its Opening Ceremonies team, and the neutral athlete program will be back in place.
Team Keep the Flame Alive has had another busy week, so we take a trip to TKFLASTAN to see what’s going on (and in Alison’s case, have fun with pronunciation).
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo courtesy of Dr. Thomas Rietveld.
TRANSCRIPT
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410-The Science Behind Classification in Paralympic Wheelchair Rugby
Theme Music: Ladies and gentlemen, the most transformative sport event on Earth is about to begin. Those who are in the stadium are on their feet. It’s just a long niggly climb because it is desperation now. And there it is. Gold. What a results. Another remarkable athlete. About to write another chapter in Paralympic history.
Jill Jaracz: Quiet
Theme Music: please.
Jill Jaracz: Hey. 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: We have had such an Alison themed string of shows lately.
We did para ice hockey. We did a couple of my favorites that I found from Sydney. Loved our last Sydney episode, and now we’re doing more wheelchair rugby.
Jill Jaracz: Happy co-host. Happy Life. Happy show. Happy co-host. Happy show.
Alison Brown: I love people crashing into one another.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Yes, we are talking wheelchair rugby today. We’ve got Dr. Thomas REIT. Felt back to chat with us about the, uh. Reassessment of classification system for female players, which could change rules and stuff like that.
Dr. REIT felt is a research associate in wield sports and technology at the Peter Harrison Center for Disability Sport
at the University of Loughborough. He and Professor Vicki Tollfree were tasked by World Wheelchair Rugby to reassess the classification system for female players in order to get more females involved with the sport. Fascinating stuff. Take a listen.
Dr. Thomas Rietveld and his resesarch into women’s strength in wheelchair rugby
Alison Brown: Dr. Reve, thank you so much for joining us. We are so excited to talk wheelchair rugby. As, listeners know, I’m kind of obsessed, so anytime I get to talk about this sport is a good day for me. So, came across this absolutely fascinating research that you did.
start with describing how this, how this came to be.
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: Well, I think it was, I. 2022 when we, um, got in contact with GB Wheelchair rugby, but also World Wheelchair Rugby and World Wheelchair Rugby. Um, yeah, wants to increase the participation of women in, in, in wheelchair rugby because I think that it’s about 5% now.
and they want to obviously increase that, and get more women into the sport. well, here at Loughborough University, we’ve got a long standing collaboration with World Wheelchair Rugby, and working at the Peter Harrison Center for Disability Sports. there has been a lot of research going on in, in all the wheelchair sports.
And wheelchair rugby is one of the main sports in that. And yeah, that, that’s how it all started actually. Yeah.
Alison Brown: So let’s talk about the point system a little bit for wheelchair rugby. So the players on the court have a certain number of points, but in the past they’ve gotten a bonus for having a woman.
How does that work?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: Yeah, so I think that role came into place in 2011 if I do it on top of my head. and the idea behind that was to increase female participation. and that was mainly driven behind the fact that women are well less strong than, than their men counterparts. and since wheelchair rugby involves a lot of crashing into one another and trying to divert someone on and off the court, it’s, yeah, well it’s quite influenced by strength as a factor.
And to compensate, uh, a team for putting a female on court. they were allowed, half a point extra, as a team, total per female on court.
Alison Brown: But that half point, there was no reason for it in the sense of there was no reason, oh, let’s just make it half a point. It just sort of, they pulled it outta the air.
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: Well, I wouldn’t say they pulled it out of the air, but it’s definitely something that they’ve given some thought to and they, they’ve spoken to a lot of people before they implemented that those rule changes back then. But it’s not that there was any research behind that.
It was just based on the fact, like the general knowledge of that women are less strong than men are. which you can see in, in the entire population. so their assumption was since it influences people on a daily life basis, and normally we make a distinction between sports with women and sports with men, and since this is a mix mixx sports, it, well, they just thought it wasn’t fair to do it like that.
Alison Brown: your research seemed to wanna quantify that half point. Is it accurate? so was this more wheelchair rugby’s idea, more your idea or kind of a combination of the two?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: Well, it, it was mainly driven by wheelchair rugby. we just facilitated the research behind it and discussed with classifiers, but also with other researchers, to come up with a protocol, how to test the strength difference between, uh, men and women.
And in the, in the past, let’s say 10, 15 years, there’s been quite a bit of research in wheelchair rugby, but it’s. It’s all dominated by men. And, and if there was some research involved with women included in the study, then sometimes they actually excluded those women, uh, from the data, data analysis just because there’s such a difference between men and women.
so that’s a pity. And that’s, the gap that we wanted to fill. So that’s, why we started the research that we did.
Alison Brown: Okay. So let’s talk about what that protocol was. What did you actually do with these, these female rugby players?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: well, since wheelchair rugby is played with well with your upper body.
So you are using the, the muscles in your arms, in your trunk. We for now, mainly focused on testing the strength of the, the elbow and, and the shoulders. we spoke to our technical department to get a portable strength break because we wanted to do the testing at a tournament because it’s easier to go to a tournament and test players then to get all the players into the lab.
especially if you want to get a group of international players. So the technical. Department at our university build a strength rig. and that just means that there’s a, the four transducer and you can pull on the four struc on on one end, and then it measures the force that you’re producing.
So what we did is we did some elbow and and shoulder strength testing. We wanted to do some trunk testing as well. But it’s quite difficult to do that in a standardized way if, if you. You need to bring a portable device. so we kind of did that using, what we call a push and a pull test. So it’s, it’s still a strength gauge, but the strength gauge is connected to your wheelchair, and you try to push as hard as you can.
So actually it’s quite, it’s quite sport specific test. and that involves the trunk, but it also involves the muscles in, in the arms as well. So it’s not an isolated trunk trunk test, but it kind of measures trunk in a way. And alongside those strength tests, we also did, a sprint test on court.
So they did it. 10 meter sprint on court. Um, and we measured the time at the two meter point as well to get a bit of an idea of what the acceleration was.
Alison Brown: What’s a force transducer?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: yeah. How do I explain that? It measures the force that you can produce.
but yeah, the whole mechanics behind it, I, I’m not, I’m not complete entirely sure how to explain that.
Alison Brown: Fair, fair enough. But what does the athlete have to do to use this device and, and what does it kinda look like?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: Yeah, so, so what it looks like is. Basically you put your wrist or your, upper arm into a strap and you try to pull or push against that strap as hard as you can.
Um, so you, you try to be in a stable position, so you try to sit as still as possible. for example, if we, if we try to test the elbow flexion strength, then we put a strap around the wrist, and then you try to push or you try to pull as hard as you can.
Alison Brown: How many women agreed to be lab rats for you?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: I think in total, there were 27. And that seems like a low number in a lot of research. but for a Paralympic sports, 27 wheelchair athletes is actually quite an impressive number, especially if you talk about the women, total wheelchair rugby population, which I think if we look at the database, there are.
Around 1300 wheelchair rugby players, which are registered. and like I said, about 5% of that is probably females. so 27 is probably around 40% of the entire wheelchair. Rugby female population.
Alison Brown: So what’d you find?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: so what we found is that, well, like we expected that women are a lot less strong than their male counterparts.
but if we looked at the different classification levels, then you could actually see that if you’ve got less function, then there are less differences between men and women. Uh, which kind of makes sense because you don’t have any triceps function, for example. Um, and you compare someone without tricep functions with, a counterpart who also doesn’t have tricep function, then, you won’t find much difference, um, while if someone has a lot of function.
So if you look at the high point players and then especially the three, three point fives. Um, which still have quite a lot of muscle strength, depending on their impairment type of course. then we saw a, a big difference between men and women. So there was a big difference between men and women for the high point players and for the low point players.
We saw differences, but they were not as big as for the high point players. Which makes sense, I guess.
Alison Brown: Yeah, makes sense. If you, if you don’t have upper body strength, you don’t have upper body strength. gender doesn’t matter in that scenario. Yeah. So in wheelchair rugby players are classified 0.5 through 3.5.
Mm-hmm. So what was your cutoff as, what was that point? That the difference mattered and the difference didn’t matter?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: yeah. So the cutoff point was. Between 1.5 and two. So if you are classified as a two or higher, then the differences were bigger or larger, compared to the points on underneath, But the interesting thing. It actually was that if we looked at the sprint testing, so if we did a look at the strength testing, we, if we looked at the sprint testing, then there weren’t any significant differences between men and women on both groups. And that could have to do with the, smaller groups that you, you encounter.
And then if you. Test a few more that you might find a significant difference. ’cause it’s close to significance. it’s always difficult to say but that, that actually means that if, if we purely look at the sprinting capacities, then they could actually compete with their, uh, meal counterparts in a way.
Then the interesting factors as well is that a lot of the women are, well less heavy than their men counterparts. and if you correct, for body mass, which is typically done, as well because then you, you kind of look at the. Impact that you can make. So if you, if you make a sprint and you’re sprinting against someone and someone tries to drift you off to one side or the other, but someone is 50 kilos and, and your other person is 80 kilos, then you can put a lot more weight into it.
so in research we’ve got a term which is called sprint momentum, which kind of combines the. Body mass of the athlete with the sprint capacity of the athlete. and gives a bit more of a realistic, variable, I guess.
Alison Brown: And that sprint test is, is really important when you’re talking wheelchair rugby because that’s what they’re, you know, a lot of the game is how fast can you get yourself down the court.
Yeah.
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: Yeah. So it’s also, it’s also interesting from, from a technical perspective. So if you are a coach and you’ve got a high point female, uh, player in, in your squad, and you want to use them to the full potential, then you might actually argue that it’s good to protect that athlete, to make them do that sprint and, and use the, uh, full, full potential of that player.
Alison Brown: I don’t know if you know the answer to this. Would a player that weighs a lot less also have a wheelchair that weighs a lot less? Or all the wheelchairs roughly the same weight?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: Well, all the wheelchairs are roughly the same weight, but if you, if you, if you look at the sport like wheelchair rugby. The chairs are a lot heavier compared to other sports, and that’s mainly because of that impact and you want to be able to make that impact as well.
They’re not as heavy as they used to like years ago. although if you, if you look at a lot of the day chairs as well, um, it’s sometimes quite. Brutal that some people are still pushing around in, in heavy chairs, which you don’t want to see. But no, I don’t, I don’t think that makes a massive difference.
but yeah, it definitely, it has an influence on your acceleration as well. If you, if you’re heavier, it’s, lot more difficult to accelerate. So you could maybe. Divert someone a bit easier or make a bigger impact, but it will show, surely have an influence on other parts of the game.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. ’cause I was gonna ask, with so few women playing the sport, you have, just the chairs, the chair, and we’ve designed this chair. It’s mostly for men. Will, if more females get involved with the sport, do they start developing chairs that are more specifically for females?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: that’s actually a valid point, and I don’t think that’s, that’s addressed in a lot of sports.
And I, I, well, you see the trend going on with, well, shoes for example as well. Shoes were always developed for, for men. And you see it in, in, uh, football or soccer as you call it in the States, That the developers are now looking more and more into specific characteristics for women as well.
so that might make sense. But then, then again, I think in a sport like wheelchair rugby, but actually all the wheelchair sports, all these chairs are different, and all these chairs are already individualized in a certain way. So from that sense, I think you already made a few adaptations when you’re a woman compared to when you’re a man, because, just because you individualized it to, to your own chair.
but there’s a need still some, some bits to win in that area.
Alison Brown: world wheelchair rugby really jumped on your research in the sense of they made some big changes. So what was their initial response when this came to them?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: I would say the initial results that we presented were in, I think near the end of 2023.
and they, they thought it was quite interesting to see that there were. A lot bigger differences in the High point group compared to the low point group. And we, we didn’t give them any, um, direction of what they should do. We just advised them that if it, that there, there are differences between the high point and the low point players and that there might potentially be an argument that you need to compensate them in a different way.
But we also said to them, that’s up to you. It’s not, it’s not our decision to make any judgment or any changes in any rules. but they, they were actually convinced that, that it would have a major influence. And now they had some research to back up the thoughts that they already had.
So the fact that that women were compensated in the game, had some research behind it now, but they took it to another level by also making a difference between a high point player and a low point player. Um, and they implemented those rules since the start of January. And, but that’s also as a trial period.
So this year is used as a, as a trial to see how it works. and we’re actually already discussing with World Wheelchair Rugby if there’s a way to, um, and I think that working group is working on that as well to see what the, uh, perspectives are of the players, of coaches of support staff. of classifiers as well to see what they actually think of the rules and if it makes an impact.
yeah, and just to get the perspective from the players because I, I know it can have an impact on, players. Yeah.
Alison Brown: So higher point players, I’m gonna see if I get this right, will now get a one point bonus as opposed to a half point bonus for being. A woman on your court. Yeah. So you get a little, you get even more leeway.
Yeah. By, by adding women onto your team. What has been the response from players? What have you heard?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: Well, it’s always difficult to judge on that because there’s always, there’s always a few who have a very loud voice. and there’s always people who don’t agree with. changes that, that are made.
But like I said, we’re, we’re, we’re currently evaluating what, what the actual perspectives are of players and coaches and we’re discussing what will, wheelchair rugby as well, how to, um, how to do that in a best way. So there are some qualitative researchers involved in that as well, who do, who usually do.
like semi-structured interviews with, coaches and players and, and support staff to get their perspectives. but it’s a difficult one because usually the people who agree to take part in, in such interviews are the ones that want to show their voice, and it’s also. The reason behind changing the rules is also to get more females or women into the game.
so there’s a lot of voices outside of the sport, that they want to attract into the sport. And if you still have the players that are currently playing, it’s always difficult. ’cause they, they never, like if they’re threatened, for their position. Which makes sense because if I were a player as well and, and, and it would mean I, I get less court time.
I, I wouldn’t be happy. But Yeah, we try to make the sport as, as fair as possible. And, and we as researchers, we try to support in every way we can, but, um, we just give advice and it’s up to the sport, what they do with that advice.
Alison Brown: Dr. Reel, you’re being very diplomatic
and saying some people didn’t like your results.
W what was fun about working with the wheelchair rugby players? or not fun? You c you don’t have to be diplomatic. You can say what a pain in the neck they were.
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: No, to be honest with you, I always like doing the testing part. and I, I, I got into research in, Paralympic sports or adapted sports.
Um, and especially focused on, on wheelchair sports just because I, I like to work with this population. because it, it gives me a lot of joy to see that people are active and people are, trying to push themselves to a limit in, in a sport that they can play.
I actually quite liked the research and working with the players. of course it’s sometimes quite difficult to recruit and some players or coaches are, a lot more difficult than others. but in general, I think, the responses were quite well received. yeah, and. I think this is just a start and we should do a lot more in this area.
Like I said, we just focused on on ARM strength for now, but I still think we should look at trunk strength as well. And, those are all like standardized, movements alongside the game, but. It would be interesting to look at the actual gameplay metrics as well. just ’cause I know we can do a lot during tracking, during gameplay, not only with performance analysis, uh, using videos, but also tracking.
Using little sensors, which you can put on a chair to, to see what their, um, philosophies and, rotations and, and impact, during hits looks like from a, a women and a men’s perspective. Um, so hopefully this is just a start and there’s a lot of, new areas to explore as well, but. That all depends on funding as well.
And it’s a small sport, and the fact that we were able to do this was already, um, well a big step forward. But it’s only a small step. I think there’s still a lot of steps to make to actually, build on that evidence, because that, that’s what you want, want in the end.
Jill Jaracz: do you have any of the women you tested go, oh no, I gotta go hit the weights now.
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: yeah. I, I think there were a few who, who were a bit hesitant and, yeah, well, you will, you will always have that. but. most of them were lovely and were quite happy to, to do any testing in the future if needed.
But, it’s also about giving back to the sports. That’s, that’s what a lot of these women said as well. I, I, I just want to make it a bit better as well for not only for me, but also for the next generation. yeah.
Alison Brown: What research is next for you? Are you doing more follow up on this?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: Yeah, like, what we try currently try to set up is a bit more of a qualitative research to track the actual responses, um, of the players and coaches and, and support staff.
but also to look at, because The rule change that they did in January that the women’s rule change was just one of the rule changes. They had a few more, which were a bit more like time-based. So I, I think there were a few more. I can’t, I can’t. Recall them from top of my head, but there were a few more changes that I made.
and I want to track those changes throughout this year to see if it actually made an influence on the game. So, comparison some video footage from this year during Europeans or, the American variant of Europeans. I make a comparison to last year, but it, it’s, it’s also gathering that data from tournaments like last year tournaments or the years before, but usually there are a few countries who make some video footage of almost every match.
So I’m sure we will get a head start with that soon.
Alison Brown: Jill, I’m immediately thinking I clearly got into the wrong field. I could be watching wheelchair rugby all day as my job.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, but you would never want the research to end that would, I mean, this is true. I’ll
Alison Brown: just research this forever. Mm-hmm. are you able to take your scientist hat off?
Like during Paris? Were you able to just watch wheelchair rugby as a fan?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: well, although I’m working in the uk, I, um. I come from, from the Netherlands. and we hope to be at the Paralympics next time. We actually did quite decent that the Europeans this year, but, they’re still a long way to go to get to the Paralympics, but the Paralympics were an amazing experience and just being in, in the stadium in Paris.
It was unbelievable because the atmosphere was, was what it didn’t ma matter if F France was playing or any, any other team. The atmosphere in that arena was magnificent. and of course you’re, you’re supporting the G team if you, if you’re there with your GP colleagues as well.
but I think we did as a GB team, they did really well. but the final was just amazing to see. I actually thought that USA was, were going to dominate that game after that first quarter. and I think no one would’ve predicted that Japan would well get back so strong.
Alison Brown: Japan just outplayed them.
Yeah, right. It was just, it was so amazing to, to be there. And do you still hear the music in your head from that stadium?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: Yeah, it’s not, it’s not only that stadium, it’s I’ve, I’ve been to wheelchair basketball as well and that was crazy. And I, I still have the Seane song in my head that I kept on playing in that stadium.
Alison Brown: Well, I’m glad you got to wheelchair basketball ’cause your Netherlands flag really got to fly.
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: Yeah, yeah. Our, our, our Dutch women are, are, are, are doing very, very well in, wheelchair basketball. And, the man. they didn’t win win like the women, but, I still thought they prayed pretty well as well, yeah.
I actually went to one of those games, uh, I think it was against Spain, if I recall. but they lost it in one of the quarters and then game was done. And they actually play quite decent, but it just, it was just one quarter that they just lost focus and. But it was an amazing experience. And if, if we can get an atmosphere like we had in Paris, in LA as well, which I hope we do.
then I think the Paralympics are, are in a good place.
Alison Brown: What did I not ask about the research that you want people to know about?
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: whew. That’s, that’s a good one.
Alison Brown: You can take your absolute nerdiest take on little tiny tidbits that got you excited as you were going through the research.
Dr. Thomas Rietveld: well, I, I, I actually, we, we spoke about the strengths testing, we spoke about the sprint testing as well. I’m just excited to, do any follow up testing. I’m excited to do follow up research on this, but like I said, it’s all dependent on, on, on finances and, and getting grants.
And getting the support from, from the university. and well, like I said, there’s still lots to explore. And, and, well, my, my personal preference is still in, in tracking the, the athletes during a game. cause that just excites me because I, my background is a bit more in wheelchair tennis and we used to put.
Little sensors on the chair that make you track the chairs on, on their, their velocities and the rotations during a game. And to make, to make a study like that and compare women to men during gameplay, that that would be, uh, a really interesting one to look at. So it’s, it’s a lot of exciting new re research opportunities.
But you, you will always keep that at the end of a research. It’s always talking about what, what can we do in the future and what can we do better? but like I said at the start, there’s still so much to explore.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Dr. Reit felt. We also talked with Dr. Reit, felt about his research on wheelchair tennis. If you missed that, that was part of our episode with Charlie Cooper in June. And we’ll have a link to that in the show notes, and you can find more about. The Peter Harrison, center for Disability Sport at L Boro, L-B-O-R-O.
DO ac.uk/research/phc. We will have a link to that in the show notes as well. How do you feel about the whole new system?
Alison Brown: Okay, so first of all, we need to talk about how Dr. Yel was so sweet ’cause we ended up having to do the interview twice. Yes. And which means he had to talk to me on my own the first time and what a brave man he was.
’cause then he came back and you were there to monitor me and make sure I behaved appropriately. So thank you so much Dr. Refield for technical difficulties in coming back twice. Anything that gets more people playing wheelchair rugby. is great in my eyes and we talk a lot on this show about gender equity and making things fair and making sure more women participate and let’s get behind the science of making things fair and improving gender equity and wheelchair rugby has actually been very progressive.
In terms of getting more women, I mean, I, I know in Tokyo, every team had a woman, and I think only one team in Paris didn’t have a woman. We talked about it on the daily shows during Paris, but Australia had three women on its Paralympic team. So we’re seeing it slowly, and now with this rule, I think teams actually will pursue it more because they see how it works.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Do you think there will be eventually enough for men’s and women’s kind of like para ice hockey?
Alison Brown: I can only hope because then I get to watch twice as many games that I think is gonna take a while because every sport has to grow slowly in a way. but this is so much fun.
Oh my goodness. This is the best sport ever. I don’t know how I lived my life before I discovered wheelchair rugby. Honestly, that was a sad, lonely life before I had that.
Like every time I watch it, I feel better about the world, which we need right now, right? That, yeah, people need that crashing into each other, make me feel better about the world. But there’s so much joy in that sport, and it’s so good. World wheelchair rugby. I will do commercials for you any time.
Jill Jaracz: You know what else?
We have time for, time to vote. It is time to vote. It’s time once again to choose the next historic Olympics and Paralympics that we will dis we will cover in our history shows for 2026. as per usual, we do anniversaries. Next year is a winter year, ’cause we did summer this year. So the choices are Torino 2006, INNSBROOK 1976, Cortina Ezzo 1956, and Garnish Parton.
Kyan. And. 1936. So you can vote at our Facebook group that’s Keep The Flame Alive Podcast Group, or send us a message on Instagram at Flame Alive Pod to decide which games we’ll cover in our history episodes next year. If you are not on social media, you can always email us@flamealivepod.com or leave us a voicemail.
That’s 2 0 8. Flame it and we will take your votes that way. Voting is going to end October 1st, so get those votes in. It is very close right now. It is very close. I voted, I, I saw that.
Alison Brown: And then I also put another Facebook post on my personal Facebook saying, please go vote, but don’t vote for this one. So I, I think I changed somebody’s vote with, um, my lobbying.
So yeah, it is very close. We’re very excited about this one.
Jill Jaracz: So yes, don’t forget to vote.
Voting ends October one. You decide what we get to do with our historic time next year.
Milano Cortina 2026 News
Alison Brown: Wow.
Jill Jaracz: What does that mean?
Alison Brown: That means I’m going shopping.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, excellent. Excellent. So yes, Milan, Corina is starting to come out with more and more news. Very exciting. The first official stores are opening, they’re both in Milano. one is on the Via Luca Beltrami, and the other is, uh, Milano San Babela at the Piazza San Baa.
they are open every day. From 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM right now, they will have clothing accessories, pins, mascots, a collection created by Solomon, which which is one of their licensees that will have apparel and winter sports equipment. If you wanna pay by credit card, they only take Visa. They also take cash.
So you got two options there. Neither of these will be the mega store. The mega store is going to be in the Piazza Duomo right in the center of the city opening in the next couple of months. We will keep an eye on that. Very exciting that the stores are coming. ‘ cause you know, I just, those mascots are so cute.
Melo and Tina are our friends. The IOC has announced that it’s going to have a neutral athlete program again for athletes from Russia and Belarus, basically the same as Paris. They’ve got their flag, they’ve got their Anthem. There’s a committee that decides who gets to go. You know, they, they have to qualify if the sport allows ’em to qualify.
Not all sports are allowing athletes to come in. No teams. No teams. So we’ll see. Unfortunately
Alison Brown: there are gonna be figure skaters.
Theme Music: Yeah,
Alison Brown: because they had the last qualification figure skating, competition last week. And we got two women from Russia who qualified one man. Do you know what that means? ZA has a skater in the women’s competition.
Oh,
Theme Music: oh, oh boy. Oh boy.
Jill Jaracz: Well, we’ll see how that plays out. Gonna be interesting. Tell me something. Happy Jill. NBC has announced that, they’ve got their hosts for the opening ceremonies. That will be this time. Savannah Guthrie and Terry Gannon. Terry Gannon. You may recognize his voice, American listeners, because he does figure skating commentary with, Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir.
And then Sean White’s gonna be part of the broadcasting team. I believe he’ll come in on the Parade of Nations. Mike Tika will have a part in this. not sure what he’s going to do, he’ll add something, but he is going to be in the US in San Francisco for the Super Bowl, which also is the same time.
this happened in Beijing as well, where he had double duty, but I believe he did do double duty for this and this this year. It’s kind of like, nah, we’re not doing that.
Alison Brown: What do you think? Savannah Guthrie is a favorite. Okay. I think she’s gonna, I think she’s done very well in the past.
Terry Gannon not my favorite, but I think can be very good in this role.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. I think he’s very, he is a very good commentator. Yes. But he doesn’t necessarily. Have, he’s very neutral commentator, which he’s got that neutral voice,
Alison Brown: which given the opening ceremonies, we’ve had some bad ceremony commentators who just say absolutely ridiculous and offensive things, and I don’t think we’re gonna get that with Guthrie again.
And I think we’re in safe hands. Sean White is actually the, the wild card in all of this because We’ve seen him certainly in, in talk shows and on different, and he can be very mature and very insightful. And then he can be the flying tomato, so I I think it’s gonna be fun to, I mean, we won’t get to see him.
We’ll have to record it and, and watch it later, but yeah, so listeners, you’re gonna have to tell us how NBC handles this, which will be Right. Which will be fun.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And having them in San Zero, which coincidentally is having its 100th anniversary around the time of the opening ceremonies. So prepare for that to be a big deal.
Uh, at, I wouldn’t be surprised if, the city does a lot to. commemorate that, but I think they’ll be mentioning it a lot on the show too.
Team Keep the Flame Alive News
Alison Brown: Welcome to Shik Stan.
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 the citizenship of our very own country. Shook Stan, and it’s amazing. We didn’t have LA 2028 News with another sponsor. I’ll say that they took a week
Alison Brown: off to let us catch our breath,
Jill Jaracz: right?
Right From Milano to Stan. first up.
Alison Brown: A little bit of news from the end of the world. Athletics, championships. Evan Dunphy sustained a bad hamstring tear during his 35 kilometer gold medal race, and he had to drop out of the 20 k and there is, he did post video of when it happens in the race. So if you wanna be even more amazed by Evans Gold medal, he did that last portion of the race.
I don’t think being able to feel. This like half of his body.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. Wow. It’s incredible. I saw some interview with him, on CBC, which was great. And he talked about the prize money. He got $70,000 US for that, gold medal, and he’s like, this is life changing money for me. And it’s true for a lot of athletes that it is life changing money, particularly if you’re an athlete where you get one event.
You have one chance. Like I thought about Katie Moon and I, granted she’s got a Nike contract and she’s had really good, she’s had a really good season. But that big payday at the end is super valuable for a lot of athletes. It was a fun world athletics championships
Alison Brown: and honestly, that could not have happened to a nicer person than Evan Dante.
Yes, true. So we are thrilled when the Shuk fsis. Succeed and get the recognition that they deserve.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. and ch Stan, thank you for talking about it on the Facebook group ’cause that was so much fun. It was just a whirlwind of events every day and it was fun to chat
Alison Brown: with you all.
We didn’t have this in the show notes, but Kenny Bedrick, was on the relay team for the four by 100. Oh, was he? Yes, he was on the US men’s team that, uh, won gold.
Jill Jaracz: Yay, Kenny, the Redemption.
Alison Brown: And he ended up with silver in the 200 I think, because I think last show he was, we hadn’t finished it. Oh, right,
Jill Jaracz: right, right, right, right, right.
So yeah, that was tough. He, by a very, very tiny margin. Lost gold in the 200, but redemption in the relay. We’ll take it. Josh Williamson Shuk Lesi number one, was officially named to the US Bobsled World Cup team as a break man, and the Olympic team will be chosen from this World Cup team. They will be named on January 19th, 2026.
So it is. How does the first part of the
Alison Brown: season go? Ashley Farks. Corson. I apologize. Ashley. finished third at the Luge Push Championships here in the us.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, yay.
Alison Brown: Beach volleyball player, Kelly Chang and her partner Molly Shaw won the Beach Pro Pro tour.
Elite 16 In Jo Paa Brazil
Jill Jaracz: at the Badminton World Championships. Byan Chong made it to the round of 32
Alison Brown: .
At the World Wrestling Champs, Alejandro Sancho got pulled in the REI round but did not make it out.
Jill Jaracz: Sorry,
Alison Brown: you made me say repa.
Jill Jaracz: I just realized it. You did a good job though. You did a good job and at the Para Swimming World Championships.
It’s been a fabulous meet for Shook Liston. Olivia Chambers won gold in the Women’s 100 meter breaststroke SB 13, and the Women’s 100 meter freestyle S 13. She also took fourth in the 100 meter butterfly S 13. Meanwhile, Jessica Long took sixth in the Women’s 400 meter freestyle, S eight fourth in the Women’s 100 meter.
Fly S eight and bronze in the Women’s 100 meter freestyle S eight.
Alison Brown: I saw a cute little interview with Olivia because she’s so sweet and, and when I got to talk to her in Paris, so much fun and so young. But she was saying she’s so humble about the whole thing. She was like, yeah, I’ve been working really hard at my breaststroke.
I’m like, I think so. Olivia gold medalist. But yeah, congratulations. It’s, it’s been a fun week.
Review of the Week
Theme Music: You know what else is fun from this week? our review of the week.
I didn’t know where you were going with that. I, I, I don’t know what, uh, uh, listeners, I don’t know what’s going to stay in and
Jill Jaracz: what’s going to be taken out of this show, but if, if you wonder why we’re just cracking ourselves up, it’s because we have made a lot of flubs
Alison Brown: this week. Oh, the mouth is not working, but.
Mr. Mojo rises wrote on Apple Podcast that we are hands down the best Olympics podcast, top of the podium. It’s ’cause we edit.
Theme Music: That’s right.
Jill Jaracz: And if you’d 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, and we will maybe feature you as well.
So thank you, Mr. Mojo rises that may, that’s touching my heart, making me feel good about my weird tongue today.
Alison Brown: You made me say re shush, and as I mentioned on the Facebook group. I had to do the pole vault story. I did it again for sydnee and apparently pole vault, repartage reservoir. These are all words that are now on the Alison Cannot say them on the show list.
Jill Jaracz: Got another list to start. Countries you have made angry and words.
You cannot say this is gonna be good. So. That’s gonna do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening,
Alison Brown: and until next time, keep the flame alive.