Rugby coach Ben Ryan led the Fiji men’s rugby sevens team to the country’s first-ever gold medal, which they earned at the sport’s Olympic debut at Rio 2016. We talked with Ben about how the sport works — and got some sunscreen tips.
What are our TKFLASTANIs up to this week? We’ve got news from:
- Chellsie Memmel
- Laura Wilkinson
- Mallory Comerford
- Tom Scott
- McKenna Geer
- Dawn Harper-Nelson
- DeAnna Price
- Michelle Carter
- Jacqueline Simoneau
- Samantha Schultz
- Stephanie Roble & Maggie Shea
- Andrew Maraniss – Here’s the link to his upcoming conversation with Reggie D. Ford.
In our Tokyo 2020 update, we talk about the final version of the Playbooks, which are to give guidance on how to navigate the Olympics during Covid-19. This includes how to navigate showering and ice baths.
Also, Brisbane has been approved by the International Olympic Committee Executive Board to be the host for the 2032 Olympics. The final step: One more vote by the entire IOC membership at the upcoming IOC Session that takes place before Tokyo.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo courtesy of Ben Ryan.
TRANSCRIPT
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193-Ben Ryan
Ben Ryan: [00:00:00] But the cool thing about sevens is out of the 12 teams plus seven, at least probably that you could say could win Olympic gold medal,
Theme Music
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. Hello, how are you today?
Alison Brown: I have been having so much fun this week, watching Olympic trials. I’ve been watching diving. I’ve been watching swimming. I’ve been even watching, uh, European [00:01:00] gymnastics, apparatus finals. I have been getting ready and my daughter walked in and she said to me, oh, have we lost you now?
and she said, I didn’t think the Olympics started yet. And, and, but I explained the trials and she said, oh, so these are like the fake Olympics, but she did understand not to bother me. So that’s all that matters.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, we’ve trained her well.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Ben Ryan Interview
Jill Jaracz: Uh, we are going to continue on our exploration of sports on the summer program.
So today we are talking rugby sevens with rugby coach Ben Ryan Ben led the Fiji men’s rugby sevens team to the country’s first ever gold medal, which they earned at the sports Olympic debut in Rio 2016. We talked with Ben about how the sport works and got some sunscreen tips. Take a listen, talk to us a little bit about how the game starts and [00:02:00] what are the rules around getting the ball to your scoring end?
Ben Ryan: Yeah. Okay. So, so I guess one simple way of trying to explain rugby and, and I’m not trying to shy away from the fact that it is a complicated game, but, um, back in the early 19th century, in the 18 hundreds, um, William wear bed list at rugby school was playing football with his mates and he decided that he wanted to pick up the ball and run with it.
Because he thought that would be a better way to try to score. And it kind of started then, um, rugby. And so if you imagine football, but you can PA you can use your hands and, but you can only pass the ball backwards. So there was no forward passing. And then it’s all about getting that ball by passing it backwards to the other end of the pitch where you, you put it over the, over the scoring line, the try line as we call it and you score a try.
So, so instead of a touchdown, it’s a try. And then you score a try. And then there’s a, instead of the one pointer, which is always in the American football in front of the posts, you score a conversion. Uh, so you, you [00:03:00] get an extra two points, but it runs wherever you scored the try along the try line.
That’s where you then will take the ball back and try to kick the ball. So it’s can be very difficult if it’s on the ends and very easy if it’s in the middle. And so that, I guess that’s the, the basics and there’s no padding, no one wears any pads or anything like that. It is contacts, you know, you have to, you have to tackle below the shoulder though below the.
And, uh, and yeah, it’s been a professional game here in, in the UK and across the world since the mid nineties. Um, but it originally started off, you know, in the early 18 hundreds.
Alison Brown: So one of the other things that I noticed was a play never seems to be dead, you know, no matter how down the player is, it seems to continue.
So what are the rules around being, you know, being tackled and yet you can continue to play.
Ben Ryan: Yeah. So, so if, if you’re, if you’re the ball, um, the referee is there in the middle of the field and you can stop if there’s anything serious, but normally they’ll play an advantage. So if you gain let’s for your, for most of your listeners, if they come from [00:04:00] an American background, then if it’s American foot, when someone, someone throws a, a throws, a pass and they, and they, they drop it normally, you know, they’ll wait to see if someone lands on the ball and then they’ll, they’ll decide who’s got it.
But in rugby, that ball will be alive and they might be turned over. The opposition might have it, and then they can run it back and. Just because the ball’s on the floor, it doesn’t mean it’s outta play. Um, you just have to let go of the ball. You’re not allowed to hold onto the ball on, on the floor, but then you have something called a rock, um, um, or a breakdown where you have to go over the ball to contest the ball on the floor a bit like if you see an ancient versions of, of the em wall game and things like that, that that would that maybe your listeners can, can Google, but the Eaton wall game, which is played along the, the side of the wall at the public school Eaton and mob games, you know, between villages in, in England, you’d have to go from one village to the other and get a ball across.
It’s effectively a similar-ish version of that. We just modernized it and, and it’s continuous until, until somebody’s advantage [00:05:00] runs out or the referee decide they have to stop. And they have a restart, which is an altogether more complicated. Cause we have scrums and line outs and kickoffs.
Alison Brown: Okay, so what’s a scrum.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. I was gonna say, what is a scrum and when does it happen during a game?
Ben Ryan: Well, again, American football, you have your scrimmage, but they don’t actually like bind onto each other. They’re they’re just opposite each other. But in, in rugby, we have eight players from each side and 15 aside and three players from each side and seven aside where they bind onto their opposite man.
And they form this scrum, that’s connected with eight players or, uh, on each side. And then the scrum half, the, the, like the quarterback pushes the ball, rolls the ball into the middle and it’s hooked, it’s struck. So it goes back to the, to the back of the scrum and then they can play from there. But obviously, you know, the, the other team can push you off the board as well.
And, and it’s a pretty unique, I guess there’s not, there’s no really other, other sports that have something like, like that really. So it’s a combination of kind of wrestling and, and scrimmaging, I suppose.
Alison Brown: So one of the [00:06:00] big differences I noticed between fifteens and sevens was fifteens seems to focus a, the scrums take a long time, whereas in sevens, because it’s only six people you’re not in that scrum for long.
Ben Ryan: Yeah. And, and, uh, so I remember when, just before lockdown, I was in Los Angeles for the world seven series and we travel around the world and play in different tournaments around the world. And LA is one of the stops. It used to be in San Diego and, um, Las Vegas, but it’s now in Los Angeles. And I sat with some American supporters that had never watched the game before.
And, um, within about a half an hour, an hour, they had they’d grasp it. They’d understood what was going on with the scrums cause it is in and out. And it’s very quick. And the essence of sevens is that all the complicated stuff around fifteens, normal rugby. Is stripped away to allow this very fast kind of basketball game, um, that occurs without the forward passing.
And that that’s effectively to where we are. I remember going to the New York Knicks after the Olympics and Roger who’s one [00:07:00] of the trainers athletic trainers at the NS said he watched all the games of the Olympics in, in the, in the, uh, changing rooms at the next, at Madison square gardens. He said it just like basketball, but with the ball going backwards, um, and the Fiji team, you know, they’re big guys, 6, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, some of them, um, he, he really related to that and thought that a lot of, you know, he could see the, the transfer, you know, and then basketball’s five rugby sevens is seven, but very fast, very quick paced, um, lot of movement, lots of skills.
And that sevens, I guess.
Alison Brown: Yeah. I think the, the analogy between rugby and football. Actually confuses Americans where I, if we made the analogy between rugby and basketball, it would be closer because it just looks more like that.
Ben Ryan: Yeah. I mean, we, we do have crossover athletes from like my days with England that have gone on to, to be in NFL rosters.
So ones at the Buffalo bills at the moment, and one just left it, the Atlanta, um, Hawks, uh, sorry, not the Hawks, the Falcons,
Alison Brown: the [00:08:00] Falcons
Ben Ryan: Falcons. Yeah. Wrong sport. Um, uh, and so they do cross over a little bit from there, but actually basketball is a natural one. If we were trying to get crossover the athletes in the UK, we would look to basketball, you know, primarily that would be a, a great crossover sport to try to find some talent to come into rugby.
Jill Jaracz: What are some of the common penalties that you see in rugby? You mentioned that you can’t tackle below the, above the shoulders above the chest. So I would imagine high high tackles is one
Ben Ryan: yeah. High tackle or a late tackle. If someone’s already passed the ball or an early tackle, if someone hasn’t had the ball and he’s been cluttered.
So, so anything around the tackle, we’re very, um, our, our welfare is very, is very high for the players, you know? So avoiding concussion, avoiding any long term injuries for players, um, during or after their careers is paramount for us, really. So we’re very careful on that. So very technical tackles is, you know, it’s, you, you might be running at 30 [00:09:00] kilometers an hour and so might your opposite man.
But technically it’s a bit like a judo throw. You’ve got to have your head in the right place, your arms in the right place. You just can’t set into someone. So if you ever get that wrong, then it, then you’re penalized. And then that there’d be the more new P penalties really, which is, you know, if you handle the ball on the floor or you are off side, or you do anything that we have a strict conduct, um, so you can’t be rude at all to officials.
You know, there’s, there’s not, it’s not the same as in, in what we’d call football or you guys call soccer. You know, you, you talk back to the referee, that’s immediately, you know, a penalty or a yellow card, you know, you, there is, there’s no dissent in rugby. It’s, it’s not, it’s never been allowed. And I think it’s a, it’s a good aspect of rugby.
Jill Jaracz: What makes a good sevens player and maybe a sevens versus a fifteens because it. You have to have a lot of sprinting.
Ben Ryan: Yeah. So repeat Sprint’s really good. And I go back to like a 400 meter runner, you know, that edge of anaerobic, aerobic, um, speeds. You’ve gotta have a good, [00:10:00] fast, flat time, but you’ve also got to have repeatability.
So, you know, in the us team at the moment you’ve got Carlin Isles who, um, actually reached the us indoor 60 meter finals, you know, so he he’s world class sprinter, but he’s repeatability is, is, is fantastic. So he can just keep banging out very quick, uh, repeated distances, and then you’ve gotta be athletic your hand eye.
Coordination’s gotta be good. You know, they’ve gotta be able to pass a rugby ball well, off your left hand and your right hand, as well as make good decisions. So it’s, as far as athletes, they’ve gotta be a pretty, pretty rounded athlete. You can’t have somebody really, that’s not great in one aspect of what I’ve just talked about and, and they, they wouldn’t survive.
They don’t think at the, at the top end of the game,
Alison Brown: one thing that surprised me given how much contact there is in this sport. When I was watching games, there don’t seem to be a lot of in game injuries.
Ben Ryan: Yeah. I, I think, um, there’s a reasonably high robustness [00:11:00] with, with rugby players, you know, a, a bump or cut to a graze, um, generally just gets shrugged off.
And if it is serious, Generally that’s that we, we, we tend to get them at the serious end and the low end, which is a cut that requires, you know, any blood. Then obviously they go off the field and it’s because in sevens, particularly it’s the serious injuries that will occur while the, all the small injuries only because occasionally athletic, the athletic makeup of these, of these guys, you know, the, some of the Fijians were six foot, 520 kilograms, and they can run fast.
So if, if they’re going against somebody else, it’s a similar size and somebody gets their timing wrong. It can result in a, in a nasty injury, just because of the, the pace of those contacts. Um, and so we might get, you know, more serious end crucial injuries or shoulder injuries, but we won’t get those middle injuries that you might get in slower, slower sports, but by and large, you know, they can have a long career and, and few players are having to not many players will [00:12:00] have to leave the sport because of an injury they’ve suffered.
Jill Jaracz: You talked a little bit about making good decisions on the. I’m I’m curious after watching a bunch of it, what strategies you develop, because it really looks like a lot of chaos on the field. Like I’m running and then like, oh, I’m gonna get tackled. I gotta pass. Maybe somebody’s there. Maybe they’re not.
I mean, how do you develop gameplay?
Ben Ryan: Yeah, it is weird sevens that, um, once you, I guess get some submerge in it and rugby as a whole, there are various national traits that seem to accompany the way that you play the game. So, you know, if, if you’re playing against the English, then generally they’re pretty, um, organized, they’re structured.
They might have a set plays that they’ll, they’ll try to do. Um, and the same as the new Zealanders, but then you come and play the Argentinians. Then they’ll, they’ll have a bit more Latin flare. They’ll try to throw the ball around a bit riskier. They want to entertain. So with the French, um, whereas the Fijians.
The best way to describe it [00:13:00] is living in Fiji. You’re in a third world where you live in the present, you have no idea what will happen tomorrow. Um, there might be a Cy storm. You, you know, you, you live and enjoy the present. They play their sport like that. So they they’ll be in the moment and they’ll throw a, a ridiculous pass or try to attempt something.
But because it feels good in the present and they’ll deal with the consequences of it. And so, so in Fiji, we played a very high risk, very exciting pattern because everyone understood that you played in the present, they’re all on the same sheet and then they can get their movement around the way they wanna play.
So it’s a, it’s an old analogy, but the Harlem Globetrotters and the way that they would entertain people, that that is the way that Fijians will play the game because they’re in the present culturally and therefore they play their team sports in the same way.
Jill Jaracz: It’s interesting because then when you play a structured team, You look at at the gold medal game from Rio and Fiji just kind of destroyed great Britain.
But if you have that very [00:14:00] in the moment game versus a very structured game, I mean, you don’t have a whole lot of time to change your game, play to match, to, to beat the other person. Right?
Ben Ryan: No. And, and, and so somebody that was playing against Fiji, they won’t try to out Fiji, Fiji, they they’ll try to, you know, go take us down to playing a very structured, um, game that, that suffocates the natural flare of, of a Fiji.
And so. As a coach, you know, knowing that that’s gonna happen. And the players understanding that they’ll start to see the cues and the, and the tells when an opposition of trying to drive you into pointing to play that way or forcing you. And then you are, you’ll find different ways of, of getting yourself out of that.
And so it’s a, it’s a really interesting, um, format of, of a sport because you play these six games, you know, you play, there’s 12 teams in the tournament and the Olympic format, you play six, six games against different teams with different tactics techniques, with different players. And it’s a really interesting one as a coach, [00:15:00] because you do have to constantly look at the opposition and work out how you’re gonna do things, uh, and your players have to be on the same aligned as you are to make sure that those things work.
Alison Brown: So having watched the games with you as a coach, you seem to be a very gentle coach. You’re not a screamer, you’re not, you know, gesticulating wildly on the sidelines. Was that your style just in general or was that something specific working with the Fijians? It GNS.
Ben Ryan: It was probably my style at the very start of my coaching career in, you know, I dunno what you’d call supply teaching.
Do you have, do you have that in the us supply teacher? So a, a relief teacher, I guess maybe that’s what it is. Substitute. Yeah. Substitute. Yeah. So I, that, you know, when I left professional rugby, I was a substitute teacher in, in London, you know, and you rock up at these schools and they know you’re a substitute teacher, so it was a pretty hard gig.
And, um, and you had, you know, you had, you had to be, [00:16:00] you had to be on, on, on your, uh, On your metal. Sorry. I’ve suddenly forgotten what the first, what your question was and why I talked about substitute teacher.
Alison Brown: no, cause I was talking about you seeming to be a very gentle coach.
Ben Ryan: Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I, I realized quickly earlier my coaching career that that to, to suddenly, um, meet fire with fire as a substitute teacher was not gonna work.
And I had to. Find other ways to negotiate what I wanted to get out of them. And then, and then I am very laid back. I think, um, coaches should be in the shadows players should be in the light. Um, but I think, you know, when I went through the professional game in England, you do get a bit more pressure and a bit more stress.
And there were times that I felt that I was not my best version and a bit too animated, but then Fiji reset me really and reminded me that it, it is okay to, to be calm, get, to get, to get what you wanted across in Fiji culture. It’s very rude to, to argue publicly as well. Um, it’s also rude to swear in, in public, in Fiji, um, and all those things I think helped me as a coach.
[00:17:00] Just remind myself on, on what, where, when I’m at my best and that’s relaxed and calm getting my point across, being consistent with my emotions, caring for the people that, that around me, they know that they can trust me. Um, they can have a safe conversation with me. And, and I think that that gave the Fiji boys, um, the op the opportunity just to be able to go and do their.
So
Jill Jaracz: since the Olympics you’ve moved on from coaching Fiji, how are they doing today?
Ben Ryan: Yeah, so I, yeah, I left in 20, you know, a couple months after, after the Olympics and then they had a, um, a search for a new coach and they had a, I guess like, you know, it happens in Olympics. You have a bit of a cycle where, um, some players, you know, Lose their form.
Some so different things happened. I think they had got about certainly from the starting team from the Olympic final five of those seven remained in Fiji. So they had a good, a good group of players that were gonna carry on, but they then didn’t win the world title for the next two [00:18:00] years. Um, and then in 20 19, 3 years, us Olympics, they won the world title.
And then last year they came, I think, third or fourth in a very truncated season with COVID. So they’re certainly going into the Olympic games as one of the favorites for the, to, to the title in Tokyo and has been up until five days ago in Fiji has been very, very low. And so they’ve been able to play.
Competitions within the islands, um, regularly and train regularly, which none of the other countries have been able to do. So they’ve had a, a big advantage, which is suddenly ground to a whole four days ago because COVID has suddenly slipped into Fiji, which is a real shame. So they’ve got, they’ve had curfews and they can do that in the islands.
They can shut down towns, shut the borders, have national curfews, um, have roadblocks that it’s very something that they can quickly do in Fiji. So, um, yeah, they, they’ve had a bit of a, an upsurge again. So, um, fingers crossed in Tokyo. If the [00:19:00] Olympics happens, it will be or systems go,
Jill Jaracz: who are some of the other teams that we want to watch for?
I know in New Zealand, but who else is strong?
Ben Ryan: Yeah. So New Zealand have, have been the form team post the Rio Olympics in South Africa, South Africa and New Zealand have been one and two and the lot since the Rio Olympic games. Um, and they’ve been firing it, vying for it really. But the, but the cool thing about sevens is out of the 12 teams, plus seven, at least probably that you could say could win an Olympic gold medal.
So although you have the regular contenders, South Africa and New Zealand and great Britain, you also have, um, the Australians that are, that are very, very good. The Argentinians are outstanding. Um, the USA team have been brilliant in the last three or four years, and they’ve got, I think the most experienced team they’ve ever had some really talented players and some crossover athletes, Nate, Nate Ebner.
Who’s a super bowl winner for the new, for the Patriots, you know, he’s he played in the last Olympics and he’s trying out again for [00:20:00] these Olympics. So they’re definitely not to be underestimated. In, in their tilt at the Olympic games and, and in the women’s games, um, it it’s similar as well, but there there’s still, and one more tournament to go to, to a global rep charge to provide one more, one more team for the men’s and women’s and teams like Samoa and France, uh, uh, are fighting it out.
And the French, both men’s and women’s teams haven’t qualified, but if they do qualify, they could, well, they could end up winning the whole thing. So it’s, it’s quite balanced. And I think that is one of the allures of the Olympic I with the IOC to bring rugby in is that it’s not gonna be generally the normal people on podiums as, as you get.
And also it’s, it’s, it’s a wide open competition
Jill Jaracz: having in Japan with the, the rugby world cup was in Japan. The last one is that what? Cause I just reminded, but were they much of fans before. The rugby, I guess I’m asking about the rugby culture in Japan, because it, [00:21:00] that turned out to be a very successful world cup and people were really into it.
Ben Ryan: Yeah, no, it’s, it’s, rugby’s very big in Japan. Um, they have a, they have a, a top league it’s called the top league. It’s a fully professional league that most of their companies will, will have these teams. So famous Japanese, you know, the Hondas Mitsubishis, the Sonny, the sun TOIs, they’ve all got teams. Um, and they can bring in some star players from around the world to play in these.
And in the last Olympic games, Japan were the surprise package. They were incredibly well organized in the first. They upset the, the, the, you know, one of the, one of the, one of the favorites, New Zealand to beat them in the first game and went all the way to the semifinals where, where we played them. Um, and they, they really did, they did get that right.
And so I think on home soil, um, they could also be a team to watch out for and perhaps get on the podium. They, and, and they appreciate rugby in Japan. [00:22:00] And, um, it’s ingrained in their colleges and their schools and their universities as well.
Alison Brown: In the celebration speech in Fiji, you talked about Fiji and just the development of the women’s game.
So is that developing in Fiji? And how is women’s rugby developing around the world?
Ben Ryan: Yeah, the, the women’s game, I think women’s rugby has been the fastest, um, growing women’s sport in the world. Don’t, you know, well, you can quote me on it cause I’ve just said it, but I, but I’m pretty sure that’s true. And it’s, if not, it’s certainly one of the ones that’s, that’s quickly increasing and we are seeing nations emerging and moving through.
And that is, is very encouraging. Especially at the younger age we’re seeing. Girls picking it up at schools and over here and across the world and Fiji, she’s the women’s team in Fiji. They only probably had about a hundred girls playing in Fiji in the last Olympic games. Um, and they still, you know, beat the USA in one of the who, who were one of the very strong women’s teams, um, narrowly lost out [00:23:00] in the quarter finals to great Britain.
And I, and I always thought it came a little bit too fast for them. They hadn’t got used to playing at that level consistently and training at that intensity and being able to commit fully to it as well with the funding, um, four years on they’re a different team. Um, you know, they’ve had that time together.
They they’ve, they’ve got a wider base. Um, after we finish the Olympic games, the first match of rugby that. In Fiji was a women’s, uh, girls schools, rugby match, um, that normally, you know, only the closest of friends or family would turn, turn up to watch. And it was 40,000 people in the national stadium cuz they just wanted to watch a rugby match cuz of the success and the sevens.
And so there, there is that ripple effect in the women’s game. And, and I think, you know, I, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if, if the men certainly probably probably even gold gold favorites in the men’s tournament, but the women could be the surprise package in for Fiji.
Jill Jaracz: [00:24:00] When you talk about different levels of play, what do you see in the top levels of play and the, the top athletes that you don’t necessarily see in the lower levels?
Like how is the game different.
Ben Ryan: It’s such a fast game that we have the speed accuracy trade off all the time. You know, the, that you can do something very quickly, but sometimes the accuracy disappears, but at the top end, it doesn’t. So they have both of those. They can be accurate and quick and make good decisions and just they’re very good athletes.
So from a fitness point of view, you know, these are de athletes. Really, a lot of them look like de athletes, you know, um, but there’s also room for the smaller athlete in sevens. The, the guy that might be in the middle of the field, directing traffic and deciding where, where they’re gonna play and, you know, the best player in the world, the guy that’s just been voted player, the decade is the Fiji called Jerry tooi.
He played in the Olympics and, um, he’s probably only 5, 5, 5, 6, but he he’s just [00:25:00] a, an unbelievable, um, footballer, you know, he he’s so, so, so talented and so skillful. And so athletic. So probably that’s what marks them out the consistency to be able to do things at a high speed with high accuracy, and they can make good decisions.
Alison Brown: Yay. For the little guy
Jill Jaracz: I gotta ask about the good decisions, cuz I came up before and I wanted to, to ask about what are good decisions versus bad decisions. And I’m guessing it has something to do with turning over the ball, but making good decisions. What, what does that mean?
Ben Ryan: Well, I guess I always look as a coach at decision making and problem solving.
So, um, decision making is in the moment, you know, do you pass that person? Problem solving is the slightly longer thing that a coach might be looking at the, from the side of the field thinking, okay, how am I gonna change the momentum of this game? How am I gonna, what am I gonna say it half time? What changes do I need to make?
And, and they’re all decision making, but they’re at different continuums. So for the players, they need to have this [00:26:00] autonomy, this feeling that they can CR they can see everything that’s going on. Um, and there’s so much going on and they can make very good decisions based upon things that they probably can’t even explain.
It might be a shoulder that’s slightly wrong angle, or it might be a foot that’s getting suddenly they’ll see all of this and see there’s an opportunity to, to take a break or make a decision. Um, and it’s multiple decisions in sevens because it’s all about creating an overlap, trying to get, find an edge, trying to find some space and not a face.
And I mean, it’s all done very quickly and it all requires lots of communication. So it’s a sped up version of kind of high level football where you can pass a ball backwards in football, in, in, in soccer, but in, in sevens there’s only seven of you. And so you really have to be, um, very good at making those decisions on when to pass, when to hold, when to run, when to tackle, when to leave the ball, all of these things because penalties and momentum are, are very important in sevens.
Keeping the ball possession is everything.
Book Club Claire: Plus you don’t [00:27:00] have a lot of time. It it’s only seven minute halfs. Some people might anticipate rugby as being the same length as a, a football or an American football game. But that is not the case for rugby sevens.
Ben Ryan: No, that’s it. You know, and, and they’ll run in that seven minutes each half, um, you know, they’ll run up to three K maybe a bit more in a game and they’ll reach the top.
Boys will reach 35, 37, 38 kilometers an hour. And then, so in this, in a tournament over two, three days of the Olympics, they’ll run 20 K. Most of it are high speed. So that recovery, the stuff that’s so big in, in say the NBA getting players recovered in between games. It’s absolutely crucial in sevens to get all of that.
Right. So, yeah, short games, but very, very high intensity.
Book Club Claire: Uh, you had mentioned before about crossover athletes. Um, do you, had you found when you were coaching in rugby, that you were getting more, uh, athletes who had grown up on rugby or ones that had been. Uh, coming from a different sport entirely, whether it was, uh, football or athletics or, [00:28:00] or something like that.
Ben Ryan: Yeah. You, you Def I think it there’s two, two different answers for this in the men’s game. There’s more that are coming up growing, growing up, playing rugby, but there will be some guys that will come late into it. You know, then for example, in the UK, it might be that they join the army and there’s a regiment rugby team, and they’ve never played rugby before.
Um, or, you know, university, they suddenly decide to take, take it and, and, um, in our to get use the right terminology, but in the us public schools. So we call ’em state schools, but. 90% of those don’t play rugby in England. So they come from the private schools. Um, and so the general population, 90% of them don’t, don’t, don’t hit rugby in their early years.
So they, they, we have to find other ways to try to encourage them or, or have outreach programs, but in the women’s game, there’s more, um, opportunity, I think for, for crossover. And we play in the UK, uh, netball, which is a version of basketball, I [00:29:00] guess, um, that you can’t bounce a ball and you can’t run with the ball.
Um, but it’s, it is very, uh, popular. And a lot of those athletes that play high level netball in New Zealand, Australia, the UK ball will go into rugby sevens and we’ve done a few talent transfer projects with UK sport. Um, when I was England coach, where we found some very good, uh, athletes that, that moved from the women’s high level sport into women’s rugby sevens and, and we’ll play at the Olympic games.
Alison Brown: So you went from the UK very long sports history, you know, as long as you can get of Olympic history to Fiji, which had never won an Olympic medal, had I’m sure very little support for a new sport and then a very different political system. So I’m sure there was one a shock to your life system, but I’m curious as to what the shock was to the coaching system.
Ben Ryan: Yeah, it’s a good question. I mean, I, I, from a coaching [00:30:00] point of view, you know, it was a, it was the opposite really to, to everything I had had in, in, in the UK, because we didn’t have any money and we didn’t have any raw resources, no real infrastructure. And then I, you know, I wasn’t then linked into the, a bigger body like UK sport over here.
And, and then the British Olympic association we had, we had the FAOC, which is the, the Fiji national Olympic committee. Um, and then OC also the Oceana, um, would help out as well. And they could, they could see very early on that Fiji had an opportunity alongside Samoa to, to try to get on the podium for Oceana in, in the Olympics.
So they helped us whenever they could and supported us. But it was, it was very different from that point of view. You’re putting things into place yourself, um, to try to create a foundation and a pathway of some of the important things that you, that I, things that I think is important for creating a high performing, um, culture.
But also it reminds you that not everything. Needs to [00:31:00] have cash behind it. There’s plenty of things you can do to create a high performing culture that doesn’t cost as sense. You know, being, being nice to people, creating, um, good values, um, and behaviors, measuring those values, creating good guardrails, you know, around discipline and how you treat each other and protocols, setting, setting, getting your program, right, your planning, right?
Understanding stress cycles, peaking for events, all these sort of things. You know, I, I could bring in that didn’t cost a sense. And, um, and we saw a really big uplifting performance by just putting those basic foundations into what we were doing. And I guess it, some of that stuff goes back to my earlier chat about the four meter hurdler in Fiji, you know, just give them that basics foundations you’ll see a massive uplifting performance.
And then hopefully from there, then some more funding might come and then that will give them, lift them up to the, to the consistent level that they then can challenge to get places in teams that can go to Olympic games.
Alison Brown: Did you ever have any [00:32:00] personal struggle with coming from the UK, coming from a democracy and then working in a country that was not,
Ben Ryan: yeah.
You know, it, it is difficult going from in it’s national sport in Fiji. So everyone’s crazy about sevens. And also if you are the, um, You’re in charge of the country. You are also head of the Fiji Andro union. So when I joined, um, Frank Binna Marrama was the military dictator, you know, he had two COOs and, uh, his second co he took control of the country and he was also president of the Fiji Andro union.
And he had put his brother-in-law who who’s recently left his, his position in charge of me. And he had been in prison for, for very serious offenses. And, and so it very, it is very different to try to understand the system and that how closely aligned it was to political system of the country as well.
But, um, I, I, you know, I tried to make sure that I kept those people aware of what I was trying to do. I didn’t give them any curve [00:33:00] balls. Um, I was honest with them. I was up front. I didn’t, um, make any decisions that were political. You know, I wasn’t dropping people because you know, their parents were. In the opposition party or anything like that.
Um, we, we kept everything away from, from the, from the team like that. And my manager VEI was very good at helping me, um, navigate the, the waters early on where I wasn’t quite sure you know, why these decisions or these players were being thrown at me. And so we navigated it and, um, I think very quickly, everyone understood that we would just select the best players and we wouldn’t, you know, we wouldn’t serve any political, we, we just wouldn’t, we wouldn’t pander to anything other than wanting to get the team as good as it could be.
Jill Jaracz: When you have a Federation that is led by people who are put in there, maybe not necessarily because they have the skills, but because they have the connections, how does that help the athletes? How does that hinder athletes? [00:34:00]
Ben Ryan: Well, it can do both depending on that person, because you know, I have come across people that have got their positions.
because of that, you know, because they, you know, they know someone or they relate to someone and they’re actually brilliant at what they do. And then I’ve had others that, that are, are terrible, or have been given a, a favor favorable position because, you know, someone’s had a vote to get onto a board or something else like that.
And, and you’ve just got to filter all of those out very quickly. And. If you’ve got a good culture where everyone understands what what’s required and then you’ll filter out the people that aren’t, aren’t up to it really naturally. And then you’ve got to make the tough decisions when there’s people that are being put, put, you know, I like to always have the quote, you know, only involved those that are involved.
And, and so a reminder really that you have occasionally people that shouldn’t be in their positions, but you can have a hold of fast line with them to make sure that, that, um, they stay far, far enough away from your program. So they don’t cause any problems. Um, so, and in Fiji, I, you [00:35:00] know, the fast knock I is very, you know, that they they’re under resourced.
They haven’t got huge amounts of it. No experience of, of creating world class programs. And now we were the first team really that got anywhere near. But they’re very, there’s people there that have care about sport deeply and care about and understand the use of sport to help community. And they were very, they wanted to create equality.
Sometimes it would frustrate me, you know, that, um, I’d find some funding to fly the boys first class to the, to the Olympics. And it was such a long way. And some of our boys are six foot seven and they just couldn’t, you know, they, we needed to have them in, in, at the front and fast knock were like, okay, well, you can, you’ve paid, you’ve paid for it, yourselves with the funding.
You’ve got, you can fly them there because of the performance reasons. But on the way back, they’re gonna have to fly economy with the rest of the team. And, and, and that’s what happened even though we had tickets for, to fly back in first class. Um, it wasn’t until we did our last leg from New Zealand back [00:36:00] to Fiji that, uh, New Zealand airways saw the boys out the back and, and they actually cleared first class and business for us and let the boys have four hours sleep, which was, I thought really lovely of, of.
Um, so, you know, I got a lot of time for Fasten knock. I thought there’s some genuinely love lovely people, you know, that, that have, have dedicated their entire life to helping people become better. And, and yeah, so I was very grateful for their support and, you know, I I’m here. I, I work as consultant with UK sport and, and it’s the same over here.
You know, that when you work with some of these governing bodies, there’s people that are their heart’s exactly in the right place. And it, it does remind you on, you know, on all the positive aspects of sport and, and how it can, uh, help and create community.
Alison Brown: So here’s the most important question you were awarded the companion of the order of Fiji.
Does that come with a title? Are we properly addressing you
Ben Ryan: that doesn’t re that, that one doesn’t it just [00:37:00] comes as CF at the end of me. So, you know, if I was in Fiji, they they’d they’d. That my English pronunciation would just be Ben, Ryan CF. Um, but the Fiji, um, chiefs also gave me, uh, chiefly status. So I think I am the only non Fiji that is the chief in Fiji.
So if you wanted to call me my, by my, by my chiefly name that’s is RTU penny Royal. And, um, RTU means chief penny is, is Fiji for Ben. Royal is Fiji for Ryan. Andra is the, um, is the clan, the chiefly clan that I’m, I’m a chief of, which is in the province of Seru. So, yeah, so, so that, that, that was probably the coolest thing I happened to me in Fiji.
Alison Brown: No, the coolest thing is you’re on a coin.
Ben Ryan: Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah. I’m on a Kona coin on a note. Yes. 50 cent piece and a $7 bill. So, um, both those things were, well, it shows you how, how much they, they love rugby and [00:38:00] Fiji and how happy they were to, um, To show off their success, you know, and, and I think we always used to call Fiji and rugby sevens team, the people’s team, because a lot of the boys would come from, they all came from humble backgrounds.
They’d often hold jobs down, um, at the same time as playing rugby. So there’d be, you know, Porter in a hotel or a farmer or a fisherman, uh, or an AR in the army or a policeman. Um, so the people would see them regularly. You know, they, they, they weren’t these superstars that were in big houses, they’d be walking amongst the, the public.
And so therefore they really felt an affinity towards the team. And so when, you know, coins and notes and chiefs and all these sort of stuff, that, and three day bank holidays and things like that are created, you kind of understand it because they, you know, they, they really did love the team. And, and they’re so passionate about sport.
Jill Jaracz: You have a podcast about the Ben Ryan podcast. Uh, you talked to coaches. Why is it important to capture [00:39:00] that knowledge in some.
Ben Ryan: I’m a big, thank you for giving me the plug. Yeah. The Ben Ryan podcast, um, is available on, on wherever you go and get your podcast from. And we just finished the first series and I speak to people that, that are mainly the people behind the people.
So it’s not necessarily the superstars. It’s the people that have, have helped those athletes or outside of sport might be someone in military or, or in the corporate world. And I think it’s important to I, what I wanted to do was I wanted to kind of test out what I think is important to create the right culture, the right.
Performance high performance, um, environment, and then hear from other people that have, have achieved high levels in whatever they’ve done and seen it, is that what they think is important and how, how do they do it, deliver it? How do they put it together? So it’s all around that really? Because in sport, we, we, we spend, you know, we can measure nearly everything.
You know, I, the stats coming out of sports is incredible now, but we never can. We haven’t yet got to the point where we can [00:40:00] really measure just how good your culture. And yet, you know, that is what will elevate, you know, your performance and your organization or your athlete’s performance. If you have consistent culture, that’s really high performing.
And so I wanted just to get under the skin really of, of speaking about that. And I’ve had some brilliant conversations from, you know, Margo Wells, who you probably never heard of in the states, but you know, she, she coached her husband, a Wells to win the a hundred meters in the 1980 Moscow Olympics. You know, so that in itself is a, is a pretty cool story.
There’s not many, um, Her husband and wife partnerships that have gone on to win to, to, to coach them to go to gold. And Jessica S who is a, he athlete over here in Olympics, you know, her coach, Tony Niello, you know, you want, I want, I wanna just wanna hear about not just the preparation, but I wanna hear what happens when you get to the athlete to the stadium, you know, what you do, then you just, you know, sit back or how can you, how can you get involved?
And, and so the things maybe that it, it’s kind of those fireside conversations between that. I’m always lucky to [00:41:00] have as a coach and, and in all the roles that I do around the world. And I thought, well, well, let’s make them more public and have those as a podcast.
Jill Jaracz: Well, and it’s interesting because.
Different people respond to different cultures and different ways of motivation. So there’s no one right answer. It’s it all varies on the type of people you have together at that given time. Correct?
Ben Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and so for me wanting to like talked about Jerry too, I who’s the, you know, the best player in the last 10 years in world sevens, you know, he came from nothing, lived in a settlement and, you know, five brothers and sisters and, you know, he, he used to sell fish on the side of the road, wanting then to have a conversation with him about how I can get him better and what his drivers are, is very different from me talking to a premier league footballer over here, that’s on 400,000 pounds a week.
And so, uh, it’s interesting, there, there is crossovers. Some of them, some things they will have in common. And so it’s yeah, like say it’s, it might be the same problem, but very different solutions that people will have to try to [00:42:00] overcome or create their own environment.
Jill Jaracz: Are, are there things you’ve learned that you’re gonna steal.
Ben Ryan: It’s I tell you, my, one of my guiding principles was talk to people that I wanted to have a really good conversation with. Who do you wanna chat to? And also reconnect with people that had been part of my journey. So I, I speak to my sports psychologist, lecturer from university, you know, that, that a long time ago, um, it’s about the only lectures that I turned up to at university and, and he had a huge effect on me.
And so we ended up having two podcasts and talked about all sorts of things. And yeah, I’ve learned, I’ve learned a lot actually, um, from everybody I think. And I think that’s the point about being open as a coach, you know, to, to understand that, you know, that there’s, there’s sharing a knowledge, you are constantly evolving, constantly learning.
A lot of what I do now is, is that with coaches, try to help them give them the resources and support to, to just get better every day. And, um, and, and I love that about what you know about coaching.
Jill Jaracz: When does, [00:43:00] uh, series two start.
Ben Ryan: In July. So, um, we, we just had 10 episodes of series one. We’ll have 20 in series two.
So I’m actually off to, to Loughborough, which is the, you know, the number sports university in the world tomorrow to interview Anthony Joshua’s, who’s the world heavyweight champion, his, his coach, and coming at it from a different angle again, cause he’s also setting up a, an academy at the university at Lura.
Um, so yeah, and there’s, there’s so many people and I I’ll go stateside as well. Um, so last series, it was with IWiN Valencia, who’s head of rehabilitation at the New York KNS and, um, is a polymath. So that’s a very, a pretty cool listening to him that, you know, he can bend spoons, um, and as well as do what he does for the New York Knicks.
So, um, yeah, and I, and I work for Nike’s consultant, so I get to touch a professional sport in America on a quite regular basis.
Alison Brown: Very cool.
Jill Jaracz: Very cool.
Alison Brown: Well can, well, we didn’t ask the most important question. Ben’s advice on sunscreen.
Jill Jaracz: Oh yeah. [00:44:00]
Ben Ryan: well, I, I dunno where to start with that. Really? The, the players always used to take the Mickey out of me because there’s a very famous bridge in Scotland called the fur for fourth bridge.
I dunno if you’ve ever heard of it, but, but, um, they paint that bridge. It takes a long time to paint the bridge and when they finish painting it, they have to just start again, you know, cuz it’s ready to paint a game. And that was exactly the same as me and Fiji, you know, I’d apply all my. 110 some factor and put my hat on and everything else.
And then I’d just have to start all over game. I’d finished that process. So, um, I had to be well organized to make sure that I got all of that right. And apply it, you know, before. So I’d get my vitamin D early in the morning where I didn’t have any, anything on and I’d get some vitamin D and then I’d cake myself in sun block.
And then by the late afternoon, early evening, when the sun was not too ferocious, I’d get my vitamin D as the sun factor wore off. And that was my kind of pattern. I just about managed to get myself to a level that looked less than kind [00:45:00] of terracotta a bit, a bit, a bit more brown. .
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Ben, you can follow Ben on Twitter at Benjamin Ryan and on Insta he’s Ben Ryan sevens, and the seven is a number and his website is Ben ryan.co.uk.
You can also listen to the Ben Ryan podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Alison Brown: I had so much fun researching before we talked to Ben, because I didn’t know much about rugby. I didn’t know anything about him really. And the more interviews I watched with him, the more I absolutely came to adore him. So by the time we interviewed him, I had a full on fan girl crush.
I had to work very hard not to embarrass myself, but he was so great to talk to. And so, so much fun. So that was, I hope it comes through because we had a great time with him.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. He was so generous and his podcast is really interesting too. If you like learning about, uh, [00:46:00] coaching and how to draw the best out of people in, uh, sports and probably other areas of life, uh, take a listen to his show.
It’s I think he said the season two debut is coming up real soon in July. And if you like Ben, Ryan, you’re gonna love his book. A seven, seven, the beautiful chaos of Fiji’s Olympic dream, which is our next book club selection. If you buy your copy through our bookshop.org site, you’ll be supporting the show.
We get a commission from all books purchased through our link, and that goes toward funding our on the ground coverage at Beijing 2022, we are at constantly adding new titles to our storefront. So check it out. It’s bookshop.org/shop/flame alive pod.
TKFLASTAN News
Alison Brown: Welcome to shook Luan so much going on.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. So it’s funny cuz last week on the show, we didn’t talk about Chelsea memo. We talked about Chelsea memo before the show and then totally forgot that we needed to talk about how she did at [00:47:00] us nationals on the show itself. So we’ll backtrack a little bit.
Chelsea did compete at us nationals. She competed on bar and vault and balance beam and did not do floor exercises. So day one was great. She did great vault. Her beam routine was much improved from the us classic. Uh, she stayed on the beam and then bars. She also did a really good routine day two, not so great.
Alison Brown: Not so good. Yeah. She had a rough day two. She just said it wasn’t her day, you know, and that happens when you’re coming back. You know, even when you’re a very seasoned competitor. You have good days and bad days.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm .
Alison Brown: And when I was watching her bar’s routine, which really kind of fell apart, the minute she did her Mount, I said to my daughter who I made, watch this with me, she’s too jazzed.
And I think her nerves got to her.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, it’s a shame, but at least she had a good day. One out of it. And
Alison Brown: she’s not stopping.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So
Alison Brown: she’s still training. So we’ll see where [00:48:00] this goes from, from here forward.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. So she was not selected for the us Olympic trials, but like you said, she is still training
Alison Brown: diver.
Laura Wilkinson made the finals of the us diving Olympic trials and she finished 10th and she did a more difficult dive list than when she had competed previously, which is pretty exciting. And she certainly looked great and looked so happy to be there.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. I was able to catch some of it, you know, when she did her last dive, you know how we complain, how, uh, gymnastics, the camera is constantly on Simone.
Like NBC, can’t go to commercial without focusing on what Simone is doing. So when Laura did her last dive. The camera followed her around and they talked about how wonderful she had been doing just her legacy in the sport. And it just said so many nice things about her and you could hear other competitors diving in the background.
And I was like, I don’t care. I’m so glad they’re giving Laura some attention.
Alison Brown: And what was nice is she was one of the first of the competitors to congratulate the [00:49:00] winners. And they seemed so excited to be competing with her because I’m sure she’s one of their idols just given the age differential mm-hmm
So that was real exciting. And the whole clan of Laura was there. Her parents were there, all her kids were there. Everybody was there. It was great.
Jill Jaracz: So congratulations. I’m, I’m very curious what she’s going to do next as well. Mallory Erford is currently competing in the us swimming trials. So she’s supposed to be in a few events.
She did not advance to the semi-finals in the hundred meter butterfly, but she’s got the a hundred meter freestyle and the 50 meter freestyle still to.
Alison Brown: Karate athlete, Tom Scott lost in his second round of competition at the karate world qualification tournament and continental quotas did not swing in his favor, so he will not be going to Tokyo.
Jill Jaracz: I was so sad. Did you see his Instagram?
Alison Brown: It was beautiful.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. He, I think it took a couple days for him to process what happened, but, you know, he just said it wasn’t, [00:50:00] wasn’t
Alison Brown: meant to be.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. McKenna gear is currently competing at the world para shooting world cup event in the Lima, in the R four mixed 10 meter air rifle standing sh two, she placed a 10th, which meant she did not qualify for the finals.
She has yet to compete in her other event, which is the prone. So if, uh, you’re new to this podcast and didn’t get last week’s interview with McKenna, be sure to listen to the episode, uh, because it’s really interesting what she does in her sport. Check that out wherever you got this podcast,
Alison Brown: Dawn Harper Nelson will be competing on Saturday at the us track and field trials in Eugene, Oregon, and Deanna price and hammer throw.
And Michelle Carter and shot put will be competing on Thursday, June 24th, more Olympic trial excitement
Jill Jaracz: go team. Artistic swimmer. Jackie semio competed in a FEA series event in Barcelona, Spain. She won gold in the, the solo technical event and bronze in the team event.
Alison Brown: And [00:51:00] Samantha Schultz competed at the modern pentathlon world championships.
She placed 25th and the us women’s team placed 10th overall
Jill Jaracz: sailors, Stephanie Roble, and Maggie Shay competed in their last competition before Tokyo. They finished in fifth place, just five points out of a podium finish. So they were really thrilled with that result. They fly to Japan on July 10th and hit the water on the 14th for the Olympics.
Alison Brown: Stop saying that it’s coming. And finally author Andrew Marinus will be in conversation with Reggie D Ford author of perseverance through severe dysfunction, breaking the curse of intergenerational trauma as a black man in America. Uh, this is a virtual event through parses books, uh, Facebook page, and will take place on Tuesday, June 22nd at 6:00 PM central.
And we’ll have a link to that in the show notes,
Tokyo 2020 News
Jill Jaracz: right before we get to our Tokyo 2020 news, we are looking for your favorite Olympic party recipes, send [00:52:00] them to flame alive pod@gmail.com. We will compile them and put them on our Facebook group ahead of the opening ceremony so everyone can make the best food for their parties.
Alison Brown: Here come more playbooks.
Jill Jaracz: Woo. Woo. Um, I don’t know why I said
Alison Brown: that. are they arriving by train
Jill Jaracz: by bullet train train. They’re
Alison Brown: no, they’re arriving by the bullet train
Jill Jaracz: so, okay. Version three of the playbooks is coming out. They have released the ones for athletes, press and broadcasters. So, and they still have marketing partners, international federations and the Olympic family and workforce ones that that will come out over the next few days.
So a lot of specifics around testing and things like that. For athletes that they test positive, they will not be allowed to compete or continue competing. But IOC sports director kit McConnell said according to inside the games that athletes would not be disqualified. [00:53:00] So if they hadn’t started competing yet, it would be a, probably a did not start.
And then if they have to stop competing and especially if they were in line for a diploma or a medal, they would get the minimum. And this is gonna vary from sport to sport on what, what happens to you. So every Federation’s gonna handle their sport differently, but they will all be kind of similar in the, in what will take place.
So say you play badminton and you were gonna be in the finals and then you got a positive COVID test. You would get the silver, you would not play, but you would end up with the silver. Does that make sense?
Alison Brown: Yeah, no, that, that does make sense. You know, I was thinking of more of, in terms of swimming or track where you make the final, but if you didn’t start, you would finish eighth mm-hmm , they wouldn’t put you as a DQ, which I’m sure affect.
In, in many sports world rankings and funding that they get. So this is actually, it [00:54:00] sounds like a technical difference between getting eighth or disqualified, but it, it matters
Jill Jaracz: exactly
Alison Brown: when it comes down to funding and rankings and standing.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. So, um, if they do have to do test positive, they will be taken to a general business hotel that will be their isolation facility.
They will be provided with three males a day and wifi for free . I do love the free wifi, but your team will be able to bring you things, except they may not bring you raw food, alcohol cigarettes, or dangerous objects. And you may not smoke or drink during recuperation, which,
Alison Brown: which is probably a good idea.
Anyway. Exactly. Since it’s a lung disease,
Jill Jaracz: athletes will be required to wear a mask. If they’re going to use the village gym for training, which makes sense. There is a whole section on the physio aspects. And, uh, one thing that I thought was interesting. So if, if you use ice baths for [00:55:00] recovery, you have to disinfect your hands first, keep a safe distance, use baths one at a time, or in small groups and avoid facing each other specifically, specifically laid out.
Alison Brown: I’m just thinking of, you know, I, I assume people who are doing the ice baths together would be teammates like a soccer team, right. Or a field hockey team. Mm-hmm, not just some random athletes getting in the tub together, which brings up a whole other subject . But now I’m imagining these teammates like sitting around the edge of a ice bath, like.
Like shrimp cocktail facing outwards. , you know, hanging their arms over the side, like the tails. I just can’t imagine this is gonna work
Jill Jaracz: in, in the changing rooms. They have to remain physically distanced when showering and changing. And that the, the organizer said, you might have to wait for a shower to be in, you know, and changing rooms to be available.
If there’s not enough [00:56:00] space between people. And they said, if possible, use the village, not the venue for this, which just made me picture like. Busloads of sweaty, stinky athletes, going back and forth to the village so that they can finally shower.
Alison Brown: Well, the bus drivers will be bearing masks and they will never be so happy to be wearing those masks as when the boxers get on.
Jill Jaracz: And the other big thing is that you’ll you’ll notice cuz this’ll probably show up on the feed. The athletes will be required to wear face masks in seating areas on or by the field of play. I believe that if they’re seated with their team, they don’t have to cuz it’s the team will be all together. But basically we notice this in gymnastics.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Cause they’ll still have their Facebook wearing
Alison Brown: their masks when they were not on the apparatus. But to be honest, they were on, they were off, they were half on, they were on the chins, they were covering their masks, not their noses. It seemed [00:57:00] very performative. Nobody was really being protected by how these athletes and coaches were using the masks.
I don’t know if in Tokyo there will. Stricter because the majority of people at the us tr at the us championships were vaccinated
Jill Jaracz: mm-hmm
Alison Brown: so maybe they felt more lax. So we’ll have to see what actually happens, especially for the indoor arenas.
Jill Jaracz: And then the victory ceremonies will take place at competition venues, the athletes and presenters will have to wear masks.
So that will make it interesting because looking back on this years in the future, when you look, you will always know what Olympics Tokyo 2020 was because the athletes will be masked on the podium.
Alison Brown: I wonder if athletes are disappointed about that,
Jill Jaracz: you know, I kind of would be just because, you know, it’s it’s that moment and you that’s a well, okay.
So another thought just popped in my head because the podium moment is always like a really [00:58:00] good picture that you want for the rest of your life, or you want that moment. It it’s imor, but. Yeah, maybe it would prevent some podium protests too.
Alison Brown: Or are the masks themselves gonna be the podium protests?
Jill Jaracz: Oh,
Alison Brown: are people gonna be putting things on their masks?
You can’t tell them to take it off.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: So that may get interesting. It’s another, because it’s not on their uniform. Right. So they wouldn’t be defacing the uniform, but
Jill Jaracz: right.
Alison Brown: You know, especially the American athletes.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And, and do you remember like last year’s us open Naomi Osaka every day had a new mask on with a different message,
Alison Brown: right?
Or way back, there was a football player who used to put messages on his headband.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay.
Alison Brown: So they they’ve always found a way mm-hmm athletes have always found a way to get their voice.
Jill Jaracz: It’ll be interesting. It’ll be interesting if suddenly in everybody’s kit appeared the team mask and
Alison Brown: oh, I have no doubt.
Jill Jaracz: Press and broadcasters [00:59:00] are. I thought these two tidbits were very, very interesting. They are strongly encouraged to stay in official Tokyo, 20, 20 accommodation. And if they have self arrangeanged facilities, they would have to be certified with Tokyo 2020 to ensure they comply with accommodation guidelines.
If you had been accredited as, as an independent journalist and you are still going to the games may or may not stay in, in the provided hotel, you may think you could find something cheaper. Broadcasters will be allowed to interview athletes for, and this is like mixed zone interviews. 92nd maximum. So you know how much we’re, we’re getting
Alison Brown: well, I wonder if that will, because often they’ll do that right after the event, quick shot mm-hmm but then certainly in the us, on NBC, they have the big names come into the studio,
Jill Jaracz: right.
Which has different sets of guidelines,
Alison Brown: which are different guidelines. And they’ll probably do those outside and with a certain amount of distance. So I think in the end, we’ll [01:00:00] get the same thing cuz in the trials they’ve been doing these quick after interviews and we’re still getting some fun tidbits.
I think we will avoid the stupid questions.
Jill Jaracz: Hopefully, hopefully it’ll make people work harder to find more fun questions.
Alison Brown: We can only hope.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And so you’ll also see commentators, uh, and on air talent, probably here and there. They’re allowed to take off their masks to do their job. But if they’re interviewing athletes, they’ll have to be able to maintain the two meters distance in order to not have to wear their own mask.
So I think we’ll see a mix. And if you’re wondering, why are they wearing a mask and why aren’t they wearing a mask
Alison Brown: indoor outdoor distance?
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm
Alison Brown: number of people, vaccinated, unvaccinated. There’s gonna be so many factors
Jill Jaracz: exactly.
Alison Brown: That we’re just going to have to trust in a way that everyone is behaving in good faith.
Exactly. And with the health and wellbeing of everyone involved being taken to heart.
Jill Jaracz: Cause if they are not, they could be sanctioned with [01:01:00] warnings temporary or permanent withdrawal of your accreditation, temporary or permanent ineligibility or exclusion from the games with consequences set forth in the Olympic charter disqualification or financial sanctions.
So they are kind of laying it down, please comply, or we could hit you with some stuff. The Japanese government is going to lift the state of emergency in Tokyo, Hoka and seven other pre fixtures on Sunday. Part of those restrictions include allowing up to 10,000 spectators or no more than 50%, uh, capacity at major events.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean the Olympics because the organizing committee has not yet decided about spectators in kit news. We have good kit news and bad kit news.
Alison Brown: well, the best kit news this week was the reappearance of IOC kit McConnell. [01:02:00]
Jill Jaracz: he just got to Tokyo,
Alison Brown: my pretend IOC boyfriend, who’s been in quarantine for like two years.
We have not heard from him. So that was the be ki best kit news I got this week.
Jill Jaracz: Right? Some other nice kit news is that South Africa has released its kit. Uh, their kit is a very funky, Ooh, I like those shoes.
Alison Brown: right. They have, so they have shoes that have bright yellow souls with bright matching yellow laces.
Those are like hush puppy, but we used to call hush puppy shoes,
Jill Jaracz: right? Like bucks or something,
Alison Brown: right?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: Very snazzy.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: The whole thing is snazzy.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And the, the uniform parts of the kit are green and yellow and, uh, they look very sharp. I’m excited to see those in action. Then we found out just after we talked about India’s kit, they announced a couple days after the show aired last week that they will not be using that kit because it is a Chinese brand.
And there’s a lot of protest about [01:03:00] using a Chinese brand for their kit. Now we did not realize last week that the brand was Lee Ning, who was an Olympic gymnast in LA 1980. so you
Alison Brown: founded this sportswear company.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. So India has said, it’s now going with unbranded apparel for its athlete uniforms.
They’re using, uh, a different brand for the formal ceremony uniforms. So we’ll see what
Alison Brown: those look like. We’ve talked about this so many times, going back several Olympics where Ralph Lauren got in trouble because the us uniforms were made in China. This is not hard. You don’t have that many uniforms to make, just make them design them, get the fabric from your own country.
I mean, if you are a tiny little country that doesn’t have any of that, you’re probably not gonna get in trouble anyway. But if you’re a big country, India, the us Canada, you know, all the way, just make it at home and save yourself. The headache, [01:04:00] just cook your own dinner and stop with the takeout. You know, it’s not good for you.
Jill Jaracz: Vaccine eligibility has been extended to volunteers for the athletes village, the organizing committee and domestic media in Japan. Uh, the government struck a deal with Pfizer for 20,000 vaccinations for these groups and the number of workers guaranteed to be vaccinated by the Olympics now stands at 40,000 and in torch relay news, the Olympic flame got up to Sapporo.
The relay has been really scaled back in Hakaido due to the state of emergency there. So in a couple of cases or a couple of days, at least they’ve had only one torch bear for the day. And then they’ve had the ceremony where they light the caldron at the end, and they’ve read the names of all the other torch bears that were supposed to have been in the relay.
International Olympic Committee News
Little bit of IOC news, [01:05:00] Brisbane, 2032 has moved one step further in the process of becoming a host city. The future host commission and executive board have approved moving that to a vote in front of IOC membership. So they will take this vote at the session meeting ahead of Tokyo 2020, which means we could have a host city named for 20, 32, 11 years ahead of time.
I don’t know what to think. Like I think Brisbane will be, would be an excellent host. Don’t get me wrong, but I do have a problem with awarding the games 11 years ahead of time.
Alison Brown: I mean, we’ve seen recently how we’ve gotten into trouble.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm
Alison Brown: with Rio with, even with Sochi, certainly with Beijing, how things have significantly changed in the seven year, the typical seven year span?
Not that I think Brisbane is gonna fall under some sort of dictatorship. I think Australian’s government is kind of good [01:06:00] and safe and secure yet. Would we have expected a world pandemic even two years ago? So it’s, it’s, it’s a hard balance on the one hand you want to give them just like LA has so much more time and we’ll probably not go over budget and less likely to have some of these issues, but oh goodness.
11 years is a long time.
Jill Jaracz: We’ll see. But if that seems to be the case, all of you listeners out in Brisbane, you got 11 years to prep for us. Cause
Book Club Claire: we’re coming.
Jill Jaracz: We’re definitely coming. That
Book Club Claire: starts setting up that guest room.
Jill Jaracz: we will need. All right. And on that note, we will call it a show. Let us know what you think about rugby seven S
Alison Brown: email us@flamealivepodgmail.com.
Call or text us at (208) 352-6348. That’s 2 0 8. Flame it where flame alive pod on Twitter and Insta and keep the flame alive [01:07:00] podcast group on Facebook.
Jill Jaracz: Join us next week when we find out what it’s like to be from a smaller country. When we talk with swimmer Felicity Passon, who will be representing the say shells at Tokyo.
As we go out to music by Archdale. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, keep the flame alive
End Music: recreation off. What.
Sometimes you love just journey,[01:08:00]
Alison Brown: just cook your own dinner and stop with the takeout. You know, it’s not good for you.