Today we’re on the shooting range with Paralympian McKenna Geer. McKenna is a Paralympic bronze medalist in the sport of rifle shooting. At Rio 2016 she competed in the R4 – Mixed 10m Air Rifle Standing SH2 and earned 24th place and the R5 – Mixed 10m Air Rifle Prone SH2, where she took home the bronze medal. We talked with McKenna about how rifle works on the Paralympic side of the sport.
Follow McKenna on Facebook and Twitter – and cheer for her this week as she competes at the World Cup event in Lima, which is the last qualification opportunity for the Tokyo Paralympics.
What are our TKFLASTANIs up to this week? We’ve got news from:
- Paralympian John Register
- Hurdler Dawn Harper-Nelson
- Taekwondo athlete Madelynn Gorman-Shore
- Cross-Country skier Kikkan Randall
- Beach Volleyball player Kelly Claes
- BMX rider Connor Fields
- Modern Pentathlete Samantha Schultz
- Canoe slalomist Luuka Jones
- Diver Laura Wilkinson
- Karate athlete Tom Scott
Plus, tons of news from Tokyo 2020 (including an Atlanta 1996-related moment!) and the International Olympic Committee. Guess what? More medal reallocations due to doping – can you guess which sport is responsible for some of them?
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Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo credit: Team USA
TRANSCRIPT
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192-McKenna Geer on Para Rifle Shooting
McKenna Geer: [00:00:00] So disability, you know, can absolutely have a huge impact on your match. You know, you can’t control good and bad, you know, body days, if you will. So it’s just something that a lot of para athletes have to learn to work with
Theme Music: mid the greatest festival of our contemporary society. The Olympic games is about to begin.
This is gonna be, oh,
brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. But that is an Olympic chat. Ready?
Jill Jaracz: Hello. Fans of shook, Liston and welcome to another episode of keep the flame alive. The podcast four fans of the Olympics in Paralympics. I am your host. Jill. Jarris joined as always by my lovely co-host Allison brown, Allison, how? Hello? How are you today? It’s [00:01:00] really steamy.
Alison Brown: I’m hot, but that gets me ready for Tokyo.
This is my temperature training.
Jill Jaracz: it’s very true. I mean, it’s been really hot and humid too here.
Alison Brown: Remember, remember when we would talk about, oh, let’s worry about the temperature in Tokyo.
Jill Jaracz: Well, that, those were the days, right? Those
Alison Brown: were the days man.
Jill Jaracz: and now it’s all COVID, COVID COVID the public doesn’t want the games, but you know what?
I know we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, but cases are falling in Japan. COVID cases are falling
Alison Brown: and vaccination rates are going up steadily.
Jill Jaracz: Right. They’re still pretty low, but they’re going up and public sentiment is improving, but we’ll see, you know, things are chugging along.
Alison Brown: We’re doing okay.
And remember when we thought COVID was gonna be killed by the summer temperatures.
Jill Jaracz: Oh yeah. That’s
Alison Brown: oh yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Well, I
Alison Brown: guess how foolish we were.
Jill Jaracz: Well, you know, that’s just proof that we’re not [00:02:00] epidemiologists. we’re it’s if people needed
Alison Brown: more proof
Jill Jaracz: all right. Uh, before we get into today’s interview, we would like to take a second to give a shout out to our Patreon patrons.
These folks help us keep the show going with their financial contributions. Well, and their support helps keep this show going. Especially as we look ahead to Beijing 2022, where we will have an on the ground presence. If you appreciate what this show does for you and would like to show some support, check out our Patreon site at patreon.com/flame live pod.
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Jill Jaracz: That’s right. Cuz we like to find more of our people. We’ve had more people join the Facebook group, which has been awesome. So it’s, it’s a lot of fun to be in there. All right.
McKenna Geer Interview
Today we are talking with McKenna gear.
Par McKenna is a Paralympic bronze medalist in the sport of rifle [00:03:00] shooting at Rio. She competed in the R four mixed 10 meter air rifle standing sh two and earned 24th place. And then she also competed in the R five mixed 10 meter air rifle prone, sh two, where she took home the bronze medal. We talked with McKenna about how rifle works on the Paralympic side of the sport.
Take a listen. Thank you so much for joining us. So you do two events. You do the 10 meter air rifle and then also the, the three position.
McKenna Geer: So I have, I have three of,
Jill Jaracz: oh, you have three events. You have two, did you do two in Rio?
McKenna Geer: I had two in Rio. They were both airgun, uh, airgun standing and airgun prone. And then the year after Rio, they added 50 meter prone for me.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. And that’s the one that’s outdoors?
McKenna Geer: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. We’ll talk about the, how the elements affect shooting in a bit, but let’s go with the 10 meter air rifle, uh, standing and prone standing in your [00:04:00] class is, is sitting correct?
McKenna Geer: It is.
Jill Jaracz: You are in a wheelchair. And what is the purpose of this event?
McKenna Geer: And on the Paralympic side of shooting, uh, we are classified based off of our disability.
There are two main classifications based off of your upper body. So if you have an upper body disability that affects your ability to support the rifle on your own, you are called an sh two shooter, which means your, your gun rests on a literal spring. To try and mimic the Olympic position as much as possible.
So the top of the spring, um, is, uh, a Y shape flat bottom, and then two sides, gun rests there supports the gun for you. So if you have an upper body impairment, like I do, you don’t have to, um, support it on your own. The other classification is called sh one, and that means that you don’t have an upper body disability, uh, that affects your ability to [00:05:00] hold the rifle.
So you support it on your own. An example of an sh one disability could be a lower leg amputation. So something that wouldn’t affect how you held, uh, a rifle or pistol. So standing air gun, I am sitting in my wheelchair. The gun is rested on the spring stand, but I do not have any support under my elbows.
So besides the spring stand, it is just the stand in my body, supporting the gun, uh, while I’m shooting.
Jill Jaracz: So with that spring, when, when you say it mimics the Olympic one, is it a spring? Because it can kind of move if you’re not careful. And that’s because of, uh, if you can use that arm for support, your arm could move.
McKenna Geer: Yes. So they don’t wanna shooting off of a bench rest. They want to have some dynamic movement in it that we have to work to control cuz an Olympic shooter, uh, would not have any of that added support. So they wanted to bring that movement in a little bit for us. [00:06:00]
Jill Jaracz: How mobile is that spring? Is it really sensitive?
McKenna Geer: Depends on how you look at it. I don’t consider it sensitive anymore. Um, cause I’ve been shooting with it for over 10 years, but when you’re first starting out, I think some people, or, you know, even someone trying it is a little surprised at how much movement it does have.
Jill Jaracz: What do you do with your body to control it?
Like, do you lift weights or something to, to help keep it stable?
McKenna Geer: We do, uh, I am in the gym four days a week, two days a week, uh, or two of those sessions are, uh, strength. And then two days a week is cardio. So helping have a lower heart rate, which he, you know, helps keep your body still. And then a lot of my strength sessions are focused on core and shoulder because to make things even more exciting on the Paralympic side, not only do you have the two main classifications, but there are subcategories within those classifications to bring everybody in that same category, up to [00:07:00] an equal level.
So for me, I do use a wheelchair, but I can also get up and walk around. So I have a fairly decent core. Someone who has a high spinal cord injury, isn’t going to have the same core that I do. So they’re allowed to shoot with the back rest. I am not. In addition to that, uh, a quadriplegic who has even more limited use of their upper body can have a stronger spring that doesn’t move as much as the weak spring.
So I shoot with a weak spring and no back rest while you know, one of my teammates shoots with a strong spring and no back rest, cuz his upper body is more affected by his disability.
Jill Jaracz: Do they then test the spring and make sure what I I’m guessing they do all these checks before competition and spring would be one of the things.
McKenna Geer: Yes they do. They check just about every piece of equipment that we use. [00:08:00] Everything falls under pretty strict standards. Um, so that we’re all on the same level playing field. When we go to competi.
Alison Brown: Is the target the same as the Olympic target. It
McKenna Geer: is
Alison Brown: Jenny Thrasher was telling us it’s like the period on the end of a 12.5.
McKenna Geer: Yes. Our air rifle. Yeah. Our targets are the same between the Olympic and the Paralympic sub.
Jill Jaracz: Is your gun modified any differently?
McKenna Geer: Personally? Mine is not, but they can be
Jill Jaracz: okay. Okay. Depending on your classification and your abilities.
McKenna Geer: Yes. Yes. So I know some quadriplegics will have, um, trigger adaptions that they’ll make to either make it longer or easier to reach or whatever it may be.
Some people will add a hand rest in a different place. Um, since the gun is supported by the spring stand, our non trigger hand can rest on the gun in another area. [00:09:00] So that could be an adaption is to make an easier to reach handhold.
Jill Jaracz: Interesting que the other question I had was about why were some people in chairs and, and some people in wheelchairs?
McKenna Geer: Yeah. It can be pretty interesting. Some people shoot out of wheelchairs, some people bring their own platform. And then on the sh one small bore side, for someone who has just a lower leg amputation, they will actually shoot their prone event laying on the ground, just like an Olympic shooter would.
Alison Brown: So how does your prone event work?
McKenna Geer: So prone in comparison to standing, both of them sitting in my wheelchair gun rested on the spring stand, but for prone, I have a platform that I attach to my wheelchair and I get to rest my elbows on it.
Jill Jaracz: And that provides the same stability as us lying down
McKenna Geer: as if I was laying on the ground. Yes.
Jill Jaracz: So, uh, I, I did read that those are special tables, like,
McKenna Geer: yes.
Jill Jaracz: [00:10:00] What, what are like the specs of that. And I’m guessing they cost a pretty penny
McKenna Geer: specs differ for every single shooter. Majority of us have the tables custom made for either for our wheelchair, or it can be a standalone table that has a chair, either attached or detached, depending on preference. And because they’re all custom made.
Yes, they are can be quite expensive.
Jill Jaracz: what do we talk? Cause people, I mean, I’m a fan. I wanna know this stuff because sometimes in three to sport is getting into a sport is easy and then you find out it’s, it’s a, it’s a commitment.
McKenna Geer: So my first table, uh, the table that I competed on in Rio actually was. I believe it was around $1,200 and the machinist that made it donated, uh, a portion of his time to me and what I was doing when we [00:11:00] first get Paralympic shooters started, um, at least like at the training center for camps and such, we actually go thrift shopping and find donated walkers.
And we put a piece of plywood on top of the Walker, and that is a very entry level table that we can use to get people started in the sport.
Alison Brown: Now, are you wearing the weighted jacket and the, the particular pants as well?
McKenna Geer: Shooting from the wheelchair? I do not wear the pants, but I do have the, uh, leather and canvas jacket.
Jill Jaracz: And is that purpose the same to kind of weigh you down and keep you stable?
McKenna Geer: Yeah. Yeah. Help with stability. Keep your heart rate away from the gun as much as possible. Um,
Jill Jaracz: heart from the gun. Wait. Wait, Jenny did not tell us about this. What, I don’t know a better question than what’s up with that,
McKenna Geer: your heart rate, especially. I mean, it can affect both small boy and airgun. I see it a little bit more in airgun as your [00:12:00] heart beats. It will make the site that you make, you know, make the gun move or it can, some people have figured out positions where the heart rate won’t affect it as much, but I can definitely notice that when I have an elevated heart rate, I see a lot more movement, um, in the sites.
Alison Brown: Okay. So if you have to shoot between heartbeats
McKenna Geer: very difficult. Yeah.
Alison Brown: I’m just trying to think like, and let, let me sort of preface up saying how do you breathe when you shoot? Are you holding your breath?
McKenna Geer: Yeah. So when we shoot, we’re usually, you know, taking a couple of deep breaths during our shot process.
And then for me personally, I exhale about half on that last deep breath and hold it from there to take my.
Alison Brown: Because if you breathe, the site moves.
McKenna Geer: Yeah. Yeah. You’re moving a lot. If you’re taking a breath and trying to shoot doesn’t doesn’t work very well.
Alison Brown: And we’re talking millimeters, so a heartbeat or half a breath and you miss.
McKenna Geer: Yeah. Yeah. Because [00:13:00] missing for us is, you know, not shooting at 10.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Cause I knew that in, by Athlon it makes a big deal, but you’re also doing cardio ahead of your shooting, but I didn’t quite realize it was the same, same deal for
McKenna Geer: yes.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, shooting sports.
McKenna Geer: Yeah. So with, uh, by Athlon they just have to hit that black circle.
Right?
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm
McKenna Geer: our black circle is about the same size, but we have to hit a half millimeter.in the middle of it. So we may not be doing cardio beforehand. However, our, our bullseye is a half millimeter dot.
Alison Brown: So, let me ask you a question about your disability, because it does affect muscles, I guess, in your extremities.
Do I have that correct?
McKenna Geer: Yes. I was born with Arthur GSIs. So Arthur GSIs usually comes with, uh, the loss of muscle at birth, along with the contracture of joints.
Alison Brown: So are you dealing at all with involuntary twitching or contractions that you have to manage as well? [00:14:00]
McKenna Geer: Occasionally I don’t have in, in my opinion, I don’t think that I have as much as someone who is paralyzed.
Um, cuz there can be a lot of involuntary movements because of the lack of signals occurring. Um, I know a lot of athletes will get spasms in their leg and have actually had athletes need their, their coach or their, their physical therapist or sports therapist, um, come onto the line and help them through, uh, their spasms.
Jill Jaracz: When that happens. Do you also have like a time limit? You have to shoot your shots within a certain amount of time?
McKenna Geer: Yes we do. And the time limits will vary or differ a little bit from the Olympic side, but it’s usually about 30 seconds, uh, at the lowest, you know, lowest point, uh, for a shot.
Jill Jaracz: So if somebody has a spasm and they need to have it kind of worked out, do do they get kind of some time compensation or it’s just, you gotta figure out how to make it work in the time limit.[00:15:00]
McKenna Geer: You have to figure out how to make it work. So disability, you know, can absolutely have a huge impact on your match. You know, you can’t control good and bad, you know, body days, if you will. So it’s just something that a lot of para athletes have to learn to work with.
Alison Brown: Now, I would think that would be also a.
Mental part of it, because so much of this is mental, the concern about that and the anxiety related to is something gonna go wrong with my body, uh, at that moment
McKenna Geer: that absolutely can be an issue. And again, something that we have to learn to deal with, uh, because everybody is so different and, you know, have different reactions to travel and jet lag and different food
Alison Brown: so you are wearing glasses.
And since when, when Jenny was talking about the vision, I can’t imagine wearing glasses and doing shooting. So [00:16:00] tell me about just what your, what your vision is and how that do you wear contacts? Do you wear glasses? How does that work with, with your shooting?
McKenna Geer: So I have a, a stigmatism and. My optometrist actually said that my astigmatism is so slight that most people wouldn’t even notice it, but because what we’re doing is so precise, uh, especially, you know, an air gun, not only are we shooting at a half millimeter dot, but they break that down into 10 of millimeters too, that I noticed it and I, you know, had issues with it.
So in the past they have recently changed this rule. Uh, we had these really funky looking like robot spy glasses, kind of. So it had a, uh, a very small lens about the size of a quarter and the way that those glasses worked, you could move each part and make sure that as you were shooting, the lens was perfectly parallel with the site, cuz you wanna make [00:17:00] sure that you’re looking through the best part of the prescription.
Now we are allowed to Mount the lens directly to the site. So that helps makes things a little bit easier.
Jill Jaracz: Okay, so you have a lens mounted on your gun so that you don’t have to wear your glasses.
McKenna Geer: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: While you, while you compete. Okay. That’s interesting. Alison there hope for you.
Alison Brown: I know. Well, I, my astigmatism is pretty bad, so I, I would certainly notice it.
So you would have the lens then the rear site and the fronts that kind of all lined up.
McKenna Geer: Yes.
Alison Brown: I’m just totally fascinated by the equipment of all of this, because there’s so many such small little pieces that affect the whole picture.
McKenna Geer: There are so many moving parts to the sport. And then, you know, with para you have the added adaptions that you make as well.
Jill Jaracz: Do they allow you to lock your wheelchair in place?
McKenna Geer: They do. So we’re allowed [00:18:00] to put our brakes on so we don’t move around. They, we, we’re not allowed to lock ourselves into place. On the firing line. So we have to be able to remove ourselves from the firing line in a fairly quick amount of time. So for example, if you’re eliminated from the final, you need to be able to get out of position quickly.
So you can’t have like this super intricate setup that keeps your chair from moving so much that you can’t quickly leave.
Alison Brown: Okay. I got the visual of someone who forgot to put their break on
McKenna Geer: doesn’t really happen. luckily.
Alison Brown: No, I wouldn’t think so. Cause that sounds like it just, I imagine a road runner cartoon and it just is not, not very professional.
McKenna Geer: Well, I will say some of us athletes, uh, have smart drives on our wheelchair. So it’s like a, a motorized fifth wheel, so it can make a manual wheelchair electric and the new system, the watch it’s Bluetooth connected to the SmartDrive. [00:19:00] So you tap this, watch on the rim of your wheelchair and that’s how it goes.
So, if you forget to turn that off and you are shaking, somebody’s hand putting equipment together, or going through TSA, I’ve had a teammate go through TSA and just plow a table because they forgot to turn the smart drive off. And, uh, yes, it’s funny. we all, uh, you know, have to share in the laughter of some of these mistakes.
I’ve done it to myself and accidentally run into a wall. So , the SmartDrive is super helpful because it absolutely like saves your shoulders. But yeah, don’t forget to turn it off.
Jill Jaracz: Are, are athletes allowed to have loaders for the ammunition?
McKenna Geer: Yes. So sh two athletes, uh, that use that spring stand. We are allowed to have a loader load the gun for us each shot and make side adjustments.
So as they’re on the line with us, however, they aren’t allowed to talk to us. So if your loader is also [00:20:00] happens to be your coach, which for a lot of athletes, that’s true, they would have to leave their loader role. Step back from the line, raise their hand, ask the range officer, uh, to speak with us, have whatever conversation they need to have.
Step back off the line, raise the hand and then resume loading duties.
Alison Brown: So they have to keep the two roles separate.
McKenna Geer: Yes. Because if you think about it, you know, being up right next to the athlete throughout the entire match, you see a lot more from that perspective than you would as the coach who has to stand however far back from the line.
So they want to make that role separate so that no one gets an unfair advantage. Having that loader, coach them, when they get to see everything from, you know, such a great spot,
Jill Jaracz: but even so like, what is the hope do they ever get denied? Like, no you’ve been, you’ve been there for a while. You, we’re not gonna let you coach
McKenna Geer: not really.
Not really.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
McKenna Geer: Um, just because you know, it is such a distinct [00:21:00] line, I guess, because you can’t the loader isn’t allowed to talk to us. So if you’re talking to an athlete and they’re actively shooting that you can’t, you can’t be doing that. So they usually pay the range. Officers will usually put, pay pretty close attention to what’s going on.
Jill Jaracz: One of the other things I, I noticed while doing some research is that for your events, are they all mixed competitions with men and women shooting together?
McKenna Geer: Some are mixed. Some are not currently. Some of the sh one events are separated by gender. All of my sh two events, the two argon, and then the 50 meter, small board event are all mixed gender.
So it kind of just depends on what the event is and how they decide.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, I was gonna say, is that mostly because of like number of participants.
McKenna Geer: It can be.
Jill Jaracz: Can you talk a little bit about the classification [00:22:00] process and what, what that’s like
McKenna Geer: complicated ? So usually the classification will take place. Um, the first couple days before training starts at a world cup and we it’s, uh, medical professionals that have been trained to put our bodies through a range of movements to see, um, either look at strength or restrictions that we have because of our disability.
Um, and then they will classify us from there. Uh, shooting is fairly straightforward on the classifications to scale cuz you either can’t hold the gun or you can’t, you either have core and don’t need a backrest or you don’t have core and need a backrest. So for some sports like swimming, they have a ton of different classifications based off of, you know, really tiny differences.
In disability
Alison Brown: for Tokyo, they were talking about doing the classification once you [00:23:00] arrive. Is that gonna be true though for team USA or are you able to do that here before you go?
McKenna Geer: So we do not typically get classified at every competition in shooting. So for shooting, you either get a confirmed classification or a reviewable classification.
The confirmed classification basically means that you have a disability that isn’t going to change. So for me, I have a confirmed classification for someone that has a progressive disability that can get worse or get better as time goes on, they will have a set timeline for how often they need to have their classification reviewed.
I believe it’s yearly,
Alison Brown: right? At certain sports. I know they were changing classifications this time around for some of the track and some of the swimming.
McKenna Geer: Yes.
Alison Brown: So that’s gonna throw things into confusion as well. Thankfully for you, we’re keeping it steady.
McKenna Geer: Yeah. For shooting. I think everything, at least at the moment is fairly set.
So some of our [00:24:00] athletes may need to have their classification reviewed at the world cup before we go to the games. But I it’s been, it’s been a long time since we’ve traveled. So I’m not sure exactly how that’s gonna work right now.
Alison Brown: surprise. .
McKenna Geer: I was gonna say for the, those who have the reviewable classification, I think it’s safe to assume that, you know, if you go in thinking that you might need to be classified, then you’re prepared for it and ready to, you know, deal with that, you know, mentally and physically, and know how to recover from it.
Jill Jaracz: Let’s talk about the, uh, 50 meter event outdoors when you’re shooting. How do you account for the elements? And I know that’s pretty vague, but I’m, I’m always very curious when the wind is wi uh, going one direction. What do you have to do with your gun to compensate and make sure that the, the bullet stays on target?
McKenna Geer: Uh, there are a lot of different methods that can be used, uh, for wind or different elements. I will admit that I am fairly new to small bore have only been shooting it [00:25:00] for a couple years and the training center. We don’t have an outdoor range. So my time to shoot outdoors is limited. However, one of the biggest things that you can do to work with, uh, wind especially is using the siding time that you have before the match.
So you have that 15 minute siting period before your first competition shot that counts and is recorded. And a lot of people will find a first of all, a dominant condition. So what way does the wind blow at what speed. Most often then they will shoot in that condition and adjust the sites for that condition.
So you know that for the most part, you can only shoot in that condition and have it go into the bowl. If the condition changes, you have the choice to wait until your condition returns or you can, uh, do what we call shading. So that’s where you purposefully aim off [00:26:00] target in order to account for the change in wind.
Alison Brown: So besides wind, what does heat and humidity, uh, due to
McKenna Geer: the heat and humidity, isn’t going to affect the bullet itself too much, but it will affect, you know, your body and how, how your heart rate is, how much you’re sweating. You know, if you’re overheating, especially those 50 meter events overheating can be a huge issue for people who can’t regulate their body temperature, as well as an Olympic athlete.
So cool down and warm up systems are very important for us. You know, traveling with an extra blanket. If it’s going to be cold, putting a blanket over your lap, traveling with hand warmers, bringing those cooling towels so that when you get ’em wet and like snap, ’em put that around your neck, use it on your forehead, whatever it is.
So a lot of the heat and humidity is just how it affects you personally.
Jill Jaracz: So we all [00:27:00] have heard that Tokyo is going to be very hot and very humid, although it might be a little cooler by the time the Paralympics roll around. But what kind of things have you done to prepare for that?
McKenna Geer: So our team has actually looked into like cooling vests, where it is a, uh, tight fitting vest on your upper body.
And you can fill it with cold water or ice, and that will kind of circulate around and help you lower your body temperature. You can’t wear it in competition, cuz it’s so bulky, won’t fit under your jacket, but you can wear it before you get up to the line and help keep your body temperature a little bit lower.
Um, so that’s one of the ideas that we’ve had and then, you know, just, I travel with that cooling towel, how stick it in and ice bucket or something before everything starts and uh, really just making sure you stay hydrated. Hydration is absolutely key, especially when you’re in hot and humid areas.
Jill Jaracz: When I look at shooting and, and I [00:28:00] know it’s more than just you point your rifle down and, and hope you’re hitting a, a tiny target, but obviously you have to train for this, but so what kind of drills do you do and what are some examples of things you do during practice?
McKenna Geer: Little bit of everything. It seems like. So what has been important? This quad that I’ve worked with a couple of our coaches on is period periodization. So. Looking at your calendar, breaking it up into different segments, uh, volume rest and recovery, a change period, an intensity period. And that can kind of help direct depending on what period you’re in, will help direct the drills that you’re doing throughout the day.
So if you’re in a volume segment, like I am right now involved with a little bit of change, you’re mainly focused on getting shots down range, getting the repetition in, making sure that, you know, everything is lined up and doing what it needs to do. [00:29:00] Um, sometimes it can get a little boring because you’re just trying to get so many repetitions in for a day.
Um, when you’re in an intensity period, which will usually come closer to before a competition, you are not necessarily getting as many shots down range, but every shot that you’re taking counts. So it’s the type of day where you don’t let yourself have an off shot you’re so into it mentally a change period is exactly what it sounds like.
You know, looking at changing position equipment, something with your process. So I’m looking to, uh, make some slight changes to my table within the next couple weeks. So some of the drills that we can do within that, um, for volume, you can shoot a couple matches a day, few matches more than you would normally do to help get those repetitions in during an intensity period.
One of the games I like to play, I guess, is [00:30:00] to see how many shots you can get in a row above a certain score. It just adds a little bit more pressure than. Getting those repetitions down.
Jill Jaracz: So has the pandemic kind of helped when you want to make adjustments? Cuz you’ve got a little time to play around with stuff or, or does having some kind of competition where you can really see if your testing works help as well?
McKenna Geer: Definitely a little bit of both. This has definitely been a very unusual time. It’s the only time that we’ve ever had a delayed games. And I think it’s been a challenge for everybody to work through. A lot of people were able to train through the pandemic. I chose not to. I didn’t have easy access to a range here in Colorado.
I would’ve had to travel, uh, to a different state. If I wanted to get the same training in that I had pre pandemic. I had also just got married four months before. So it gave me, you know, some [00:31:00] time to adjust into, you know, a new part of my life. We got married the end of 2019. We had a cat, we got a dog two months after we got married.
Um, so there was a lot of change happening, you know, in my personal life. So one of not regrets, but one thing that I wish I would’ve changed after Rio is taking a little bit more time off. So in a way it kind of gave me a little bit of time to just breathe because I think for shooting, we forget to do that.
I mean, I’m sure all athletes forget to do that sometimes, but I only took two about two months off after Rio. And I was really starting to feel that was really looking forward to, you know, the downtime after Tokyo. And then when we got to lady year and we’re gonna have to stay sharp for another year, decided to use, you know, a couple months of that to just take a minute.
Alison Brown: what does competition day look like for you? What kind of rituals do you have? [00:32:00]
McKenna Geer: Uh, I live in my headphones most of the time I really like to listen to music. I used to get very anxious, had a lot of nerves going into competitions and, uh, some of my teammates can even tell you that, uh, he, you know, got a little bit snappy, you know, without meaning to just because I was so worked up about going into competition day, but as I gained experience, um, feel like that’s definitely calmed down a lot, but I still like to, you know, listen to music, have a warm up routine to make sure that my body can start in the same place every time.
You know, being selective about who I have conversations with, if they’re gonna help me during that day, or if it’s a conversation that maybe needs to wait until later. and definitely making sure that I get anxious about time having enough time to get everything set up. So getting to the range early, getting all my stuff out and ready and being confident in the work that I put in for it
Jill Jaracz: [00:33:00] superstitions.
McKenna Geer: Not really. not really,
Jill Jaracz: what’s on what’s on your playlist.
McKenna Geer: Oh, it depends on the depends on the day. I’m not really a huge rap fan or techno fan, but other than that, it really just depends on how I’m feeling. Sometimes it’s punk rock, sometimes it’s country, sometimes it’s Christian just depends on what I’m feeling.
Jill Jaracz: So Rio, what was that like? Cuz is shooting’s a cool sport because you can do it for so long. So to go and to be the first us woman to win a Paralympic medal in the sport. Well, I guess how was that? The answer is, well, that’s pretty awesome, but talk us through like qualifications for Rio and, and all of that.
McKenna Geer: It was pretty awesome. I will definitely echo that. Um, so going into Rio, um, I was only 20 and I actually had not MedEd at a world cup in my career. Up to that point. [00:34:00] I had made a couple of finals, but I had not MedEd yet. And apparently I was just saving all of it for the games, which I’m totally cool with.
Totally cool with that. Um,
but going into Rio, I had the two airgun events, uh, standing was up first and then I shot my pro event and going the couple months before the games, I had had some issues with the fit of my shooting jacket, which plays a huge role in your stability. Especially since I don’t get to use that backrest, the shooting jacket, you know, can help my core a lot.
So. Standing not getting to rest my elbows either. I was really having some struggles being necessarily being competitive, but keeping my scores competitive enough to make finals. So going into the games, we decided to use my standing event as a test event. Um, because the couple months [00:35:00] leading up to the games, I had the decision to have mediocre standing and okay.
Prone, or I could have mediocre standing and phenomenal prone. So I decided to put a little bit more of, you know, more of my focus on my prone event, which ended up working out great. But using my standing event as a, as a test event, I think really helped me going into my first games because there, I don’t know, I guess there wasn’t as much pressure on the match because I was going into it wanting to learn as much as I could about what the atmosphere was like, how I was going to react to, you know, the different pressures of being at the games.
and learning how to handle them, respond to them throughout, you know, the competition. So that’s exactly what I did. Um, went into my standing match and I shot about my average and finished in 24th place. And, uh, got to, you know, officially call myself a Paralympian, which was pretty exciting. Um, I was happy that [00:36:00] I had maintained good focus.
I wasn’t super nervous. Um, the thing, you know, learned a few, few little things about, you know, the crowd, how many people were gonna be there, how loud it was gonna be and just how the process was gonna work. So going into my prone event, I knew that I had put the time in, I knew that my scores were competitive and I knew how to handle the environment after shooting that standing match.
So I get asked a lot of questions about how the prone match felt and you know, details about all of it. and I don’t remember because I found my flow state in that prone match. And when that happens, you know, everything’s going well, you’re running your process perfectly. You’re taking breaks when you need to, your mind is clear heart rate under control and everything just went.
Right. I remember coming off the line and my coach asking me how I felt about that [00:37:00] competition. I knew what my score was. I didn’t know where I was on the leaderboard. And, you know, I just got to tell him that it felt amazing. It felt so good. You know, regardless of where I had finished, I was so happy with the performance that I had put in during the.
And then my coach told me that I’d finished in third
So top eight, make the finals. I was sitting in third, going into the final. Everything starts over from zero. So you shoot two series of five shots in two and a half minutes, and then you move on to single shots that are fired on command in, uh, you have a 32nd period, uh, to get that shot off. So not a lot of room for, for error in prone.
So I remember as soon as my match had finished, I, you know, waved to my parents who were able to, uh, come down to Rio and watch me compete. And I put my headphones in because this was my first really important final. And my coach knew that a lot of my fellow, either [00:38:00] teammates or friends from around the world that also competed were gonna come up and congratulate me and, um, just needed to have some space to myself because I was excited.
I can’t get too excited yet. Cuz you. Event’s not over. So going into the final had talked with my coach a little bit, just about really anything. We just kind of shoot the breeze, hang out, talked a little bit just about life and not necessarily about, you know, the nerves of the final and, uh, going into the final.
We have a shorter siding and preparation time. So as soon as I got in, I had a couple small issues with the stability of my wheelchair. We were able to get that remedied. And my first couple shots were a little scary. They were, uh, they were not up to standard that’s for sure. Um, so we were able to get that fixed and, um, the final started and what I remember from the final, [00:39:00] my head was clear.
I wasn’t having any racing. Thoughts didn’t really have any nerves. It was a little bit louder. You know, you have the announcer talking through. Everything, you know, talking about how the shooters are doing, uh, where everybody’s ranked. Um, so at a slightly elevated heart rate, which was okay, you know, exciting times but I remember about halfway through the final, I think they had just eliminated sixth place.
The one thought, like clear thought that I had in my head was I’m going to metal today and we kind of smiled a little bit. We, you know, accepted the thought and, uh, and we did, um, that was. Like unde, you know, indescribable. It’s really hard to describe that moment when fourth place was eliminated, you know, for sure that you won a medal, it’s just a matter of, you know, what color you’re going to earn.
And I knew my dad was in the crowd crying[00:40:00]
I knew both my, my, my mom had access to my, uh, my Facebook page and they were posting updates. And looking back on those now, you know, they were so clear their excitement in that moment. And, uh, uh, I remember the excitement of knowing that I was gonna medal, but really motivated to, you know, keep my second place position and had a okay shot.
Wasn’t great. But the other shooter had a really phenomenal shot. And on that last one, it was just enough to overtake my lead. So brought home bronze instead of silver, but for my first Paralympics and my first medal, I was over the moon. Over the moon. I remember, uh, getting back, uh, after getting back to, uh, my coach and my loader, uh, came back with me and, uh, my coach was sitting, the athletes were sitting in front and then there was a row of chairs just behind us for our coaches.
And my coach whispered in my ear, uh, you know, [00:41:00] congratulations and everything. And then, uh, he said, I made the mistake of looking back in the crowd and finding your parents after fourth place was eliminated. And it made me cry too. so my coach had found my parents and both of them were just, you know, over the moon, thrilled, they, you know, helped me get started.
And he’s like, yeah, definitely kind of made a mistake, looking at them at that moment, but , um, everybody was super, super excited for me in that moment.
Jill Jaracz: What has that medal and accomplishment done for the sport and for people getting into it?
McKenna Geer: It has opened. So many doors. I think our last shooting medal was in 2004 in Athens and I was the first female to win a Paralympic shooting medal.
So I think I, I, I think that bringing home the medal in Rio was open the door for other up and [00:42:00] coming disabled shooters to get going. Um, I don’t think many people, you know, many people don’t realize that shooting is in the summer games, let alone Paralympic shooting. So really, if anything, I just hope that bringing home the medal and bringing more light to, uh, the sport changed people’s lives like it did mine because I know like I met my husband through sport.
I earned my degree because of shooting and I just, I just wouldn’t be here without the sport. So I hope that other people find their passion. Through it as well
Alison Brown: in the years, since, since you’ve stayed in the sport has being Paralympic medalist been a burden or a motivator for you as you’ve moved on
McKenna Geer: a little bit of both, , um, try really hard to keep it in check, but sometimes it can [00:43:00] be a little intimidating going into another games feeling like you need to defend that title or the expectations that you think that people may have, because oftentimes they’re not there, but you know, if you think the expectation is there, that’s more added pressure.
Right. But I also think that I’ve become a better athlete since Rio. I’m really excited about the 50 meter event being added for us, sh two shooters. So I’m really just motivated to go in and see. What all of my work over the last, you know, four years since Rio has come to, because I think that even with all of the, all of the craziness that has occurred over the last year, that we’ve also had the opportunity of time that most people aren’t given.
Jill Jaracz: All right. Have you found in these last four years, the ability to tap into that flow state is easier or [00:44:00] is that still something you have to work really hard on? Because that’s that, that the flow state is pretty awesome to feel, but it can, is sometimes elusive
McKenna Geer: it’s sometimes it can be. And I think the best athlete doesn’t rely on flow because sometimes it doesn’t come and you have to know how to work with yourself to produce the best result, because you’re not always going to have the best conditions.
You’re not always gonna have the best sleep or the best nutrition. So I think that it’s almost better to train with distraction without the ideal conditions, because then, you know, you’re ready for it. When the opportunity comes, you know, you’re prepared for whatever may happen,
Jill Jaracz: fun stuff about Rio. And what did you, cause you were done early?
McKenna Geer: I was, um, fun stuff about Rio. First moment. First memory, favorite memory of Rio was before competition even [00:45:00] started getting out of the longest travel day. It felt like after going through team processing and all of the emotion that came with getting the gear and the, you know, the swag, you get your fitted for your ring and you’re tired.
You’re hungry. Don’t know how you can stay awake any longer. And then you get off the bus, go through security and walk into the village for the first time. That was one of my. Aha moments, I guess if you will, when I really felt like was really a Paralympian. So that was really, really fun moment. Another fun memory was I was actually able to, my parents came in the day before opening ceremonies.
And at that point you could still bring guests into the village. So they came immediately came from the airport, so had all of their bags and everything came directly to the village. And they were able to see, uh, where I was living for the [00:46:00] three weeks that I was there. They were able to get, you know, meet a couple of my international friends.
And then they were also doing the team USA welcoming ceremony that day. So they got to witness that as well. So to get to share that moment with them was really cool. And I think just getting the opportunity to spend so much time with international. Friends after the competition was over, because I think that’s one of the things that I love most about, especially the para shooting community is how close everybody is.
Um, some of my closest friends are also my biggest competitors.
Alison Brown: How much of a pain is it to travel with a gun, your gear and a wheelchair?
McKenna Geer: It is ridiculous sometimes, actually most of the time because not only when you’re in a wheelchair, um, you can’t carry the majority of the, of your gear on your own. So you’re relying on the staff that are sent on trips and [00:47:00] sometimes we don’t have enough help, so it can be travel can be a little complicated, but yeah, wheelchairs.
Gear guns is another extra added stressor when traveling, um, so many different rules in different countries, you really have to make sure that you’re on top of, you know, getting the right paperwork in order before you leave. So, uh, definitely thankful for the staff that we’ve had on trips because they make the travel process so much easier.
Jill Jaracz: Last question for me about shooting and Alison’s gonna gimme a dirty look for this. Has anyone ever joked and or is this just a bad joke? If somebody goes well, aren’t you worried about shooting your eye out?
McKenna Geer: That is a bad joke.
Jill Jaracz: The regular, that the regular public just go, oh, you’ll shoot your eye out kid.
McKenna Geer: I think the hardest part is just the, the negative connotation that can come with shooting. and, you know, just around guns because it can be, [00:48:00] you know, definitely can definitely be an unknown for many people who only get to see the, you know, more negative and scary side of guns in the media. And, you know, that’s not what we’re doing, not even close.
Um, we really want to be good ambassadors for the sport, you know, range, safety and gun safety are absolutely paramount, you know, any time that we’re on the range. And, um, I think really at the end of the day, we just want to be those ambassadors and promote the sport in a positive light, because it has changed lives.
It’s changed, you know, it’s a, a high school college sport. It has changed middle school and high school kids for the better given them something to, to focus on. And I just hope that we can continue to inspire the next generation of shooting sports athletes.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much. McKenna, you can follow McKenna on Facebook.
She’s at McKenna’s dream on [00:49:00] Instagram. She is Kenna do one 0.9 that’s D AHL and on Twitter, she is Kenna doll, and we will have links to all of those in the show notes. This weekend, she is competing at the world shooting para sport, world cup Lima, which takes place from June 10th through 19th, and is the final event before Paralympic team selection.
So cheer her on this weekend and you, you know, world shooting para sport said on Facebook that they are going to live stream the finals. So hopefully we can watch her in action.
Alison Brown: So between that swimming and diving and track and field trials starting, my family is now no longer, no longer going to see me without some sort of screen being carried around room to room, possibly too.
Send us your favorite Opening Ceremony recipes!
Jill Jaracz: I know it is not just the, oh, what screen? What’s the screen situation gonna. It is also the house decor. When do I get that started and
Alison Brown: right. You gotta work that in.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And then all the [00:50:00] other preparations, like we’ll have a daily newsletter, we’ll have other stuff we’ve gotta check in with all of the things in the Tokyo 2020 fan zone and including like the predictions game that they’re gonna have and figure that out so much to do so excited.
Alison Brown: Oh, you know what we need?
Jill Jaracz: Hmm.
Alison Brown: We need recipes.
Jill Jaracz: Oh yeah.
Alison Brown: We need a sh Liston cookbook.
Jill Jaracz: That’s great
Alison Brown: for Tokyo.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So listeners, if you have recipes and I’m looking at you superfan Sarah, but I know others of you Meredith probably have some good eats planned for watching. Send them to us@flamelivepodatgmail.com or, uh, drop them in our Facebook group.
And we will compile those and put them out.
Alison Brown: So either with a Japanese theme or Olympic theme
Jill Jaracz: mm.
Alison Brown: Or particular sport theme we’ll take anything. Right? We like food.
Jill Jaracz: I got my recipe. It’s called [00:51:00] popcorn.
Alison Brown: I think this time I’m actually gonna have to make the jello Olympic rings.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, wow. That is doing an effort.
Cuz those, those are tricky.
Alison Brown: It’ll be like pentathlon cuz they’re
Jill Jaracz: right. Or you take one jello mold and do five layers. One ring, jello mold, five layers of jello.
Alison Brown: I think that’s taken a shortcut. I think that’s like the person who jumps in the marathon at mile 20.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Okay.
Alison Brown: Either
Jill Jaracz: go big or go home. Well, we don’t eat a whole lot of jello in our house, so that would be the solution for a otherwise I would be eating five rings worth of jello and I don’t think that’s a good idea.
Alison Brown: Sugar free.
McKenna Geer: 40 calories a
Alison Brown: box. Don’t ask me how I know that
TKFLASTAN News
welcome to shook list Dawn.
Jill Jaracz: It is time to check in with our team. Keep the flame alive. These are past guests who have been on the show [00:52:00] and are now citizens of our country shook Stan Paralympian. John register was named tackle what’s next athlete of the month for June. This organization serves as a community and support team for athletes transitioning to from sport to what’s.
Next
Alison Brown: Herr. Don Harper Nelson has qualified for the us track and field Olympic trials due to Medling at the world champs in the previous four years. Her time has not yet met the standard, but I have no doubt. It will cuz you don’t wanna tell Don Harper Nelson? No.
Jill Jaracz: TaeKwonDo athlete, Madeline Gorman shore won gold at the pan American champs,
Alison Brown: ke and Randall is stepping down from her role as a member of the IOC due to, as she said, unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances.
So they will be replacing her on the athlete’s commission, but we don’t have too many more details on that. Yet
Jill Jaracz: beach volleyball players, Kelly, clay, and Sarah [00:53:00] spon won their second tournament in a row with the gold medal at the final OBA qualifier in Estrava
Alison Brown: peaking at the right time.
Jill Jaracz: I know it’s so exciting.
Alison Brown: And BMX writer, Connor fields is continuing a partnership with Ralph Lauren, which included an Instagram post where it was the Ralph Lauren Olympic Kendall.
not really, he just looked like it and it was really great.
Jill Jaracz: Samantha Schultz is competing at the 2021 modern pentathlon world champs for the women’s relay. She paired with Claire green and the two of them have finished in 10th place. So, uh, there’s a post in our Facebook group. That’s got more details of how they did in each stage of the competition, but good work for them.
Uh, Samantha competes again on Thursday, June 10th in the women’s competition.
Alison Brown: And Luca Jones will be competing in the canoe slalom world cup event this weekend in Prague, the Czech Republic.
Jill Jaracz: [00:54:00] competing for a spot at Tokyo this weekend, Laura Wilkinson in, uh, diving. The, the prelims are happening right now while we’re taping.
So I’ve been monitoring the Twitter feed and trying, trying to figure out how she’s doing. They’re in like the third round right now, but so
Alison Brown: calm down.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, I know. It’s just, I’m on the edge of my seat. I hope she makes a semis. That will be tonight. This is Wednesday the ninth, but, and then the finals will be Sunday night.
Tom Scott, our karate athlete will be competing in the karate 2020 Olympic qualification tournament in Paris from June 11th through 13th. So big weekend for him to send him some good vibe. Before we move on to Tokyo 2020 news book club is coming up this fall, but cuz we didn’t, we didn’t have time for it before Tokyo, but we’re reading Ben Ryan’s seven sevens heaven, which is about the, uh, Fiji rugby sevens teams [00:55:00] winning golds for the first time first medal for that country.
And also the uh, at the first time rugby seven S was at the Olympics. So it’s, I’m working on it. It’s a really good read. You can get it through our book. shop.org site that’s bookshop.org/shop/flame life pod. We get a commission from all books purchased through that link. So, and that goes towards funding our coverage at Beijing 2022.
Tokyo 2020 News
Alison Brown: Oh my goodness. We
Jill Jaracz: are
Alison Brown: so close,
Jill Jaracz: so, so much news. And we’re gonna say, it’s gonna be so close every week.
Alison Brown: It is, you know, and honestly, I was complaining about it being hot, but it being hot really did, you know, I’ve been wearing shorts all week and I’m like, oh my goodness, it’s the summer we’re having the summer Olympics.
It’s like something about this week. Flip [00:56:00] the switch for me. And I think I’ve said this like every week and yet it keeps amping up. I gotta tell you, by the time Tokyo comes, I think my head is gonna explode
Jill Jaracz: with all the people to cheer for
Alison Brown: all the people, to cheer for all the excitement, this whole, you know, that extra year just kind of built more into it.
Jill Jaracz: Lots of
Theme Music: things from Tokyo
Jill Jaracz: exciting, exciting news. They, uh, the organizing committee released all of the things for the victory ceremonies. So they podiums theme music, costumes metal. All of it revealed all of it. Super exciting. Did you see this? Did you watch these videos?
Alison Brown: I did not watch these videos, but I am gonna go back now that cuz their reveal videos have always been very good for the, the ch I remember when they revealed the torch, that video was gorgeous.
Mm-hmm so it doesn’t surprise me.
Jill Jaracz: So I watched the, uh, making of the podiums video and
Alison Brown: this was all recycled material,
Jill Jaracz: recycled [00:57:00] plastic, 3d printing they’re made in like squares and that are put together almost like a Lego block, but they have qualities that tie in with the logo, with all these small squares that the Tokyo logo has.
And, uh, they’re, they’re very cool. I will say that the music is fine. It’s I wanna say, I don’t wanna say it’s generic, but it, it is it’s very Western. The composer said he did not want to really have, uh, super Japanese sound influencing this. Anthem. So it’s kind of very, it’s a very fanfare type sound to it
Alison Brown: by, by contrast, the costumes are very Japanese.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, they are. They have layers to them and they’re kind of flowing, but they also look cool because I think that’s one of the things the costume designer said, you couldn’t go too full on Japanese because it would be so hot.
Alison Brown: Right. But it has that kimono shape.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm
Alison Brown: and the, the [00:58:00] reminiscent of kind of the, that robe quality to it.
But the fabric looks very light and breezy.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So those
Alison Brown: look nice, that beautiful shade of blue that they’ve been using throughout
Jill Jaracz: mm-hmm and then the trays are. Kind of simple, but they’re also very elegant in that they’re kind of shaped like a fan almost, cuz they, they have a kind of a wide wider curve on the outside and the metals laid nicely on them.
Alison Brown: It’s so funny because it, when we were, when you were talking about the music, I never noticed that there was different music for the different Olympics in the medal ceremonies. And I, I mean, other than obviously the, the different, um, anthems for the, the winning, uh, for the gold medalist mm-hmm , but that, that sort of entry setup music was different.
I wonder how long that’s been true.
Jill Jaracz: That’s a good question. That’s something to look at because I want to say that at salt lake city, when I saw a metal ceremony, that they had special music for [00:59:00] that, but I don’t know what it was. So something to look into
Alison Brown: when did the metal ceremony become things that had to be designed.
Jill Jaracz: Probably when they introduced the podium
Alison Brown: kit, kit and more kit.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, so exciting. So team India released its kit team GB released its formal wear and the Australians released their luggage.
Alison Brown: And then I saw today on Instagram team, New Zealand has started processing. So they’ve been showing off pieces of their kit.
Jill Jaracz: Oh man.
Alison Brown: The GB formal wear though may is gonna make all the Olympians look like James Bond. Even the women. ,
Jill Jaracz: it’s very, very, uh, understated suits,
Alison Brown: very chic, very quiet, very British. Um,
Jill Jaracz: the, uh, India kit is white with blue and orange accents and the orange is kind of flame like going across their [01:00:00] torsos.
Alison Brown: We have an affinity to it.
Mm-hmm
Jill Jaracz: So I’m looking forward to that. And then the Australian luggage, I mean, that threw me for a loop, but it’s, it’s nice. It’s green and yellow and says Australia and looks like it holds a lot.
Alison Brown: Well, they get a lot of pieces of, of stuff. And then they smuggle all these things back home. like from Rio, how many people have told us about the blankets that they came home with?
So they need luggage for that. Gonna stuff that in a double bag,
Jill Jaracz: uh, the IOC named its refugee team this week. So they had 55 hope poles in the pool and they selected 29 athletes in 12 sports. And then they also took coaches and, and officials in, uh, this is up the, the team is larger than Rio’s team, which was only 10 people.
So, I mean, it’s nice that more refugees are getting the opportunity at the same time. It’s sad that there are more [01:01:00] refugees who need the opportunity. The gender balance is 19 men and 10 wo women. And at the IOC press conference this week, that revealed the refugee team. Uh, James McLeod who’s with the IOC, said that in an ideal world, they would want to be gender equal here, but they don’t have that luxury in a refugee situation.
So, uh, they took that into effect, but they also looked at sporting elements and geography and tried to build a balanced team. You know, some COVID related changes. Uh, prime minister Suga is not having a foreign dignitary reception on opening ceremony day that usually the prime minister, the head of state has, which that’s kind of a bummer.
Could I just, when I, when I read that I wanted to be in the room for that party, can you imagine,
Alison Brown: oh, I would think it would be really boring cuz everyone would be on their best behavior.
Jill Jaracz: Best behavior. Yeah. But you know, if [01:02:00] some of them know each other pretty well. And then if Joe Biden was there, president, if president Biden was there, you know, he loves talking to people.
uncle Joe might get us into trouble again. Hey Justin. Hey, macro. what’s up
Alison Brown: your uncle .
Jill Jaracz: That would be me to be quite honest. And then, uh, another gray cloud silver lining element is that about half the volunteers for the cycling road race have withdrawn. So they had started with 142 volunteers they’re down to 78.
The organizing committee said, yeah, there could be more dropouts at this month’s training because they’ve been having monthly training trainings, but they are not considering additional recruitment of volunteers because they don’t think that level of drop off is going to affect the event.
Alison Brown: Well, they’ve had a huge drop off overall or dropout [01:03:00] of volunteers.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And I wonder if they just over recruit, thinking that people aren’t going to show up or if they recruit and have too many and they’re just kind of all over each other.
Alison Brown: Well, it can also, I mean, I’m sure this is all about COVID, you know, people not wanting to travel from other places in Japan and because you’re having so many fewer visitors athletes there at one time that the dropout isn’t going to have a, a, a great effect because they don’t need as many people at any one time.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: I mean, the village is only gonna be half full at any given time.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: Nevermind the lack of visitors. So if anything, the dropouts have prevented firings
Jill Jaracz: that, and, or having too many volunteers, cuz I’ve been, have you been in those situations where you’ve volunteered for an event and there are like 10 people in your group when like five would [01:04:00] do.
And so everybody’s trying to crawl all over each other to do the thing that you’re there to do and nobody’s happy about it.
Alison Brown: Right? So they’ll be the ones that will be there will have their jobs. And I think there will be more than enough and it’ll, it’ll be fine. I feel like I’m Ann Allison saying the wedding is going to be fine.
Just don’t worry. I’ll fix it with some ribbon and soda water. It’ll be fine.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, and I know we’re not doing Atlanta moments well, but you
Alison Brown: have an Atlanta message.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my goodness. So Frances Jill de BNE I believe is how he pronounce this, the name he earned a Tokyo 2020 spot in the men’s singles class 10, uh, table tennis tournament.
He had a dramatic win at the world qualification tournament in Lasko, in Slovenia. He is a three time Paralympic champion earning two titles at Atlanta, [01:05:00] 1996. And then he also won gold at, uh, Sydney 2000. And he’s a nine time Paralympic medalist overall. You know, he,
Alison Brown: he in and of himself is in Atlanta moment.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. That’s right. Fantastic.
I also know that we don’t wanna have a ton of IOC news, but you know what they.
Alison Brown: They keep coming out with things that we just can’t keep to ourselves.
Jill Jaracz: Right? So they’re going to sell NFT pins. So if, uh, you’re not familiar with NFTs that stands for non fungible tokens. So basically it’s a digital file of something and you own it, and nobody else has the rights to it unless you sell it.
So it would be like a piece of artwork in a sense that could change hands, but you’d have to sell it in order for it to change hands. That’s about as much as I [01:06:00] know about these things and can rent, this is
Alison Brown: like Bitcoin of Olympic pins,
Jill Jaracz: right? So the IOC is getting in on this trend and they’re going to sell an Ft pins.
They will be sold and distributed on Nway play.com starting on June 17th. They will cost between $9 and $499 per pack. So some of these ain’t cheap and they will have a peer-to-peer online marketplace later this year for you to trade your NFT pins. And, uh, they’re also going to have some cross play multi-player video games, and it sounds like you might be able to earn NFT pins by playing that or an Olympic video game that’s due out before Beijing.
So I think part of the NFT appeal is that you can use these pins as prizes for these games and not have to do actual item fulfillment, which is [01:07:00] tough. But on the flip side, I posted about this in one of the pin collector trading groups on Facebook, and nobody was happy about ’em.
Alison Brown: Well, I think it’s a mistake to think of these as a replacement for pins.
And I think they, the IOC may have made a mistake calling it pin trading. Because I think this idea of an online marketplace for this other unique item could attract a whole other group of people. You know, the same people who use discord for their video games and have this different vision of online collecting.
But physical pin collectors are not gonna want to muddy the waters.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: It’s sort of like how, when they call it vegan chicken,
Jill Jaracz: mm-hmm
Alison Brown: no, it could be good in and of itself, but it’s not chicken. So let’s give it a different name entirely.
Jill Jaracz: It’ll be interesting to see who [01:08:00] they target. Are they hoping that somebody who prefers having a virtual collection of things wants a pin pack that’s $500 or are they thinking that actual pin collectors physical pin collectors are their markets?
So it’ll, I’m curious to see what this will be.
Alison Brown: I, I don’t want any NFT pins, but I also don’t collect regular pins. I am not a collector.
Jill Jaracz: I don’t want NFT pins because I would lose them. They would go into the black hole of all of the files that are on my computer. I don’t have my photos organized. How can I have pins organized?
And I like looking at them. I would not pull them up all the time.
Alison Brown: Yeah. I don’t have the collector mindset. So this is I, they are not targeting me.
Jill Jaracz: And one more bit of news.
Alison Brown: Oh no.
Jill Jaracz: Also this week, the IOC has reallocated medals from five events. And guess what? Three of ’em are weightlifting from [01:09:00] London.
Alison Brown: Oh,
Jill Jaracz: so yeah, three of the events are from weightlifting. One from javelin competition in London, and then a cross country relay in pong. Chang has been reallocated as well.
Alison Brown: For a second.
I thought you were gonna tell me that Michelle Carter moved up again. . She moved up like three spaces.
Jill Jaracz: She’s
Alison Brown: just a step away from getting a London medal. 10 years later,
Jill Jaracz: they’re on the throwing events. So maybe they’ll work there. A javelin comes before shot put in alphabetical order. So
Alison Brown: Michelle, you may still win that London medal.
Jill Jaracz: And on that note, hold on in, uh, round four of the preliminaries, Laura Wilkinson has scored 200, 5.05 points.
Alison Brown: Calm down, Jill, calm down. They’re playing kids.
Jill Jaracz: So excited for her.
Alison Brown: I’m gonna go
Jill Jaracz: watch it now. right. I am too. So let’s get outta here that [01:10:00] will do it for this week. Let us know what you think about parachuting.
Alison Brown: Email us at flame alive. Pod gmail.com. Caller text us at 2 0 8 3 5 2 6 3 4 8. That’s 2 0 8 flame. It we’re flame alive pod on Twitter and Insta and keep the flame alive podcast group on Facebook.
Jill Jaracz: Speaking of Ben Ryan’s book seven, seven, we are having him on next week to talk about rugby sevens. So join us then.
For his story. And as we go music, thank you so much for listening. And next time, keep the flame alive
Alison Brown: I mean the costumes they’ve always had, you know, what the, what the metal girls wear.
Jill Jaracz: Can you call them something different? no, cause there’s a metal boys too. They have men and women’s costumes for that.
Alison Brown: Just cut the whole thing out. Cause I’m not saying anything else besides metal girls. Cause that’s what I call [01:12:00] them.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Maybe I’ll leave it
Alison Brown: in. Be sexist
Jill Jaracz: tonight. Maybe I’ll add. Maybe I’ll leave it in.