We’re on the shooting range with SPC Tim Sherry of Team USA and the US Army Marksmanship Unit. Tim walks us through the sport of 3 Position Rifle, including:
- How to shoot in wind and rain
- Dealing with your feet falling asleep during competition
- How puberty affects your shooting
- The cost of a rifle
- Why the new Olympic mixed rifle event will be exciting to watch
Follow Tim on Facebook, Insta and Twitter.
Plus, our TKFLASTANIs are arriving in Tokyo, and we have more team news from:
- Jordan Gray, featured in the New York Times
- McKenna Geer
- Renska Lok
In Tokyo, the other shoe dropped, as the city reentered a state of emergency and officials declared there will be no spectators at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. We talk about the implications of that, both now and in the future.
Athletes are arriving in Tokyo to prepare for competition, and not everyone’s so happy about some of the wording used to help keep the bubble intact.
Plus, TBach has made it to Tokyo! We’re getting ready for an IOC family reunion at the next IOC Session.
Also, Alison’s been on the hunt for Team USA Oreos for quite some time. How successful has her latest shopping trip been?
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo courtesy of USA Shooting.
TRANSCRIPT
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Episode 199 – Tim Sherry on 3-Position Rifle
Tim Sherry: [00:00:00] There’s been times where it feels like I’m gonna get blown over, but it hasn’t happened yet. But yeah, if the wind is strong enough, it’ll, it’ll blow us back and forth. Our bodies actually will, will be blown back and forth. Um, what makes it pretty hard to hit, you know, besides your pinky nail targets, 50 meters away,
the greatest festival of our contemporary society, the Olympic games is about to begin. This is going to be close.
Jill Jaracz: Hello, fans of shook Alliston and welcome to another episode of keep the flame alive. The podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. I am your host. Jill Jaris joined as always by my lovely co-host Alison brown, Alison. Hello, how are you today? It was fine until a piece
Alison Brown: of my microphone just fell off, [00:01:00] you know, but we’re professionals.
So we’re just going to keep going. There you go. It’s like your, your skate comes on tied, you know, something falls off, you just, you just keep going.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Kind of remember that
Alison Brown: race. This is years ago where this guy was doing a downhill and he lost a pole and he just kept going. No, it’s probably like 84, 88.
And I didn’t know how he didn’t kill himself. So this is not as risky as downhill with one pole. So I think we’ll be okay.
Jill Jaracz: Excellent. Well, we are. Less than two weeks away from the Olympics, which is incredible to think about during the Olympics. And pretty much any time you can text us at 2 0 8 3 5 2 6 3 4 8.
That’s 2 0 8, flame it. So if you’re not in our Facebook group, not on Twitter or not on Instagram and want to connect with us while you’re watching, feel free to text us and we will text you back.
Tim Sherry Interview
All right, the, today we [00:02:00] are talking, shooting with a specialist, Tim Sherri, Tim competes in men’s town, 10 meter air rifle, and three position rifle.
He is part of the us army marksmanship unit and will be an alternate on team USA for Tokyo 2020. We talked about that, how three position works and whether or not his feet fall asleep during training and competition, take a listen,
How Olympic three-position rifle works
small bore rifle, three position. What is this? And what’s the basic purpose or goal of a competition.
Tim Sherry: Uh, so the goal of the competition is to get the highest possible score. You’re using a 22 rifle. So it uses size 22 caliber, long rifle cartridge, a single shot, and we’ll go through three positions, 40 shots in each position. So it’ll start with the kneeling position, but so after you do 40 shots of that, you’ll move to a prone or laying down, do 40 shots back and then move to standing up and do another 40 shots there.
So you have a total of 120 shots and each strap [00:03:00] can count for up to 10 points. So zero to 10 points for a grand total of 1200 points. If you shoot perfectly, the world record right now, I think is eighty nine, eleven hundred and eighty nine points. So he missed the 10 ring, 11 times out of the 120 shots possible.
And you’re trying to kind of get the highest score out of.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Is this like air rifle in that the, the 10 ring is divided into millimeters too? Or are we just dealing with one through 10 integers
Tim Sherry: for 22? It’s actually not like that. So it’s, it’s just for the qualification part of it a bit confusing. So in order to make the final of top eight, we do it all based off of integer scoring 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, and then they’ll take the top eight based on that 120 shot complication.
And [00:04:00] then we’ll move on to do a 45 shots final, and we use the same target, but similar to Aragon now they’ll do a decimal scoring. So the tendering is now divided up into decimal points that we can do at some 0.1 10.0 10.9 is the deepest shot that you can shoot in.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. And then in the 45 shot final, are you doing, uh, 15 shots per position?
That’s
Tim Sherry: correct. Yeah. So the scene shots and everything’s based on time. So for the you’ll, you’ll go five shot series in, in each position and you’ll do three, three individual five shot series and kneeling, and then we’ll change over to prone and do the same thing. And everyone’s on the same time. So everyone knows, you know, right where we’re at, they’ll call out scores in between each of those five shot series.
So, you know, who’s sitting in first, who’s sitting in eight, um, to try to keep things competitive.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. How much time do you have to
Tim Sherry: shoot for the qualification side of it? So for the [00:05:00] 120 shots, they’ll give us two hours and 45 minutes and it’s just block time. You can use those two hours and 45 minutes, however you choose.
So you have some people that will shoot, you know, prone or kneeling a little bit quicker and take longer standing or. For the final everyone’s on the same time. So they will call us the line and give us five minutes of preparation fighting time. So that gives us time to site in our guns, make sure that nothing’s gone despite time and got bumped or anything like that.
Uh, when we walked over to the finals hall and then once they call stark, we’ll have three minutes and 20 seconds for five shots in the eye. We’ll do that three times and then they give us seven minutes to change our rifles over, uh, from kneeling to prone. And during that change over time, we get a sighting shots again, because most of us are changing our sites.
So we get additional time to make sure our sites are, are on. And then we’ll start in the five shot theories for prone, which are fired in two minutes and 30 seconds. And [00:06:00] then after our three from series, we’ll move on to another change over period, which is nine minutes long to change over to standing.
Uh, same thing we can, we can get some sighting shots. And then for the five shot series and standing, we are a lot of four minutes and 10 seconds.
Jill Jaracz: The target is the same size for each position, correct? Yes,
Tim Sherry: that’s correct. So it’s the same, it’s the same height. So it stays down there. I think it’s three quarters of a meter or something like that above the ground.
And it’s 50 meters away from you. So, uh, it ends up being the same height. It doesn’t look like it’s really too high or too bottle if you’re standing up or laying down since it’s so far away.
Jill Jaracz: And how does the
Alison Brown: size of the small bore target compare to the target for air rifle?
Tim Sherry: I think, uh, so, so the, the size of the target, if it’s 154 millimeters total, I know the 10 ring is 10 millimeters, which is about the size of the colored part of your eye [00:07:00] or your, your pinky nail.
And that’s what we’re shooting for every time compared to the Aragon target. I think it’s actually just Gale. From a 10 meter target, if you’ve just scaled it to, to be out 50 meters, I think it’s the same size target. I’m not, I’m not a hundred percent sure.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. But that makes sense. When, when I think about it, it didn’t seem, it
Alison Brown: is the short answer.
Tim Sherry: I know 10 millimeters and that’s, that’s kinda what we go off of. And, you know, like I said, it’s not the colored part of your eye that we’re, we’re trying to hit
How the different positions affect shooters’ bodies
Jill Jaracz: when you’re going from position to position. I think you kind of inferred because you get time to site in between each round when you’re kneeling versus lying down versus standing up.
How did the sites differ? How does your aim differ? Does that
make
Tim Sherry: sense? It does. So we’ll start with kneeling. We, uh, as a right-handed shooter, my left arm will be on the [00:08:00] far end of the gun and I’m wearing a swing in, in both kneeling and pro. Um, so that, that will help hold the gun up. So I’m not using.
And then my left elbow will be resting on my left knee and then my right knee will be on the ground. So I have a one, one day on the ground
Jill Jaracz: and then Neil is pretty compact. Right. Because you want to be as close to the ground as possible. It’s not like your, your, your left leg is in a 90 degree angle, correct?
Yes,
Tim Sherry: that’s correct. Yeah. My, um, I guess my left, the lower part of my left leg is a 90 degree angle for the ground. So it’s pretty close into, uh, close into my butt. Um, and then I right knee isn’t isn’t spread out too far. I try to be pretty compact and pretty small.
Jill Jaracz: That’s correct. Okay. Do your feet ever fall asleep?
Tim Sherry: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So that’s, I’m, I’m sitting on my right foot the whole time and I’m usually in positions for about 15 minutes for it, for the qualification part and the am. I sort of fall [00:09:00] asleep within probably 15 minutes of that. So it’s asleep for majority of.
Jill Jaracz: Sorry, we’re both kind of like mouth open here.
Alison Brown: So you have to train yourself to not be distracted by that.
Tim Sherry: Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s, that’s a big part of it for both prone and kneeling because we’re also swinging our left hand up against the gun, so it kind of pinching it against the gun. So our left hand will also fall asleep and both prone and kneeling a lot of times.
So it’s a, there’s a level of stamina, I guess, that you have to kind of build up to, to be comfortable being that uncomfortable for, for that period of time.
Jill Jaracz: What do you do to build up that stamina to say, Hey, I’m okay for right foot to go. I’m cool. I’m cool with falling
Tim Sherry: asleep. I’m in the position. Uh, just by training and enough.
I, I know some people, especially when you’re younger, uh, some people will go grab a roll that we will kneel on set. So we [00:10:00] sit, we have a roll underneath our right foot to kind of help. Um, and they’ll sit in front of the TV and just sitting on that right foot to touch me, get used to that right. Foot falling asleep.
Um, we, we train enough, we spend enough time on the range that, that I don’t need to go sit in front of the TV and do that. But a lot of it, it just comes from, from time spent in the position. And that you start to notice that if I take a break, um, after about a week or two, the first couple of times I come back after a break, we kind of noticed that that stamina has gone.
It it’s, I dunno if it’s a muscle memory thing or just a, a brain thing that it hurts a little bit more. The first few times you get back in after a break.
Alison Brown: Okay. Now, do we need to be concerned about we, like, I do this long-term nerve damage? Like, is there some long-term injury from constantly having your hand or your foot fall asleep like that
Tim Sherry: I’ve never heard of anyone having an issue with that?
Yeah. I, I, there’s a lot of people that come shop for, you [00:11:00] know, 40 years or something like. And I’ve never heard of anyone, you know, losing feeling in their fingers or anything like that. So I don’t think it’s a problem. I’ll let you know if I get a little older and start to have any issues
Jill Jaracz: when you stand up.
Does your, I mean, I would also wonder if your foot is trained to get the blood or in your brain is trying to get the blood right back fast too. I that’s not even making sense. I know, but like, because you are an elite shooter and you have to deal with this, do you also recover faster when you get up or is everybody just kind of limping around for a couple of minutes in their next preparation?
Tim Sherry: Yeah, I think, I think you ended up limping around a little bit because we have that change over time. We’re changing over our guns. We’re changing sites, I guess. I didn’t quite get to that part of it. And I can talk more about that, but we spend usually a handful of minutes changing over our guns and getting prepared for the next.
I think in that time the blood [00:12:00] flow comes back. Um, it might happen a little bit quicker just because of how often we do it. Um, or maybe we just don’t notice it. And it, it, it isn’t really a problem because it takes long enough for us to, to prepare for the next position. But it’s not really anything that we have to take into account.
Alison Brown: Okay. Tim just recognize right now, none of this conversation is going to go in a straight line. So just accept that right off the bat,
Tim Sherry: but you know, talking to a straight line. So,
Alison Brown: so I just have one more question on is falling asleep because clearly Jill and I have totally had our minds blown by this. So let’s say you’re doing something else entirely like, you know, sitting and reading a book and your, your right hand falls asleep, you know, something that doesn’t happen as related to shooting.
Are you suddenly like, oh, so that’s what that feels like. Like, you don’t even feel it in your right foot and your left hand anymore. And then when it happens to another part of your body, you realize what you do every day.
Tim Sherry: I’ve never thought about that. Although I, you might have [00:13:00] kind of put this on my mind.
So the next time
it really is kind of a fact of life. Like it’s so comfortable. I didn’t even think about it. I’m an astronaut. I shot 40 shots in kneeling this morning and I didn’t even consider that it was, it was odd or unusual that my foot was asleep when I stood back up.
Alison Brown: Okay. Now we’ve ruined his whole screening. Oh my God.
Jill Jaracz: All right. I think we’re done with limbs falling asleep.
The process shooters go through
What happened back to back to the process before we so rudely interrupted?
Tim Sherry: Oh, you’re all good with kneeling. The contact points will be my left hand on the forums. My right hand on the grip. And that’s what I pull the trigger with is my right hand.
And then my space we’ll touch the, what we call the cheek [00:14:00] piece. Um, and so I’ll kind of rest my head against the cheapy. So I don’t have any tension in my neck. Um, and I’ll be looking through the, the site, both the rear side and the front side with my right eye. And then there’s a abut plate, uh, which is kind of custom adjusted for us for each position.
And that’ll be touched by right shoulder and so on our rifles that are heavily customizable and inter interchangeable, or very easy to change over so that we can change them over for prone to standing to kneeling. So in between a chamber period, I moved the contact point on my forehand where my hand will go on the forehand.
There’s a, there’s a called a hand stop is what I press my hand up against. And that, that helps connect me. So I moved that forward for prom and then I’ll change out both my cheek piece, my buffet plate and my sights. So really only the kind of the spine of the gun of the stock stays the same. And [00:15:00] all my contact points pretty much will change out along with the sites themselves so that I can, uh, get kind of a little bit different head position.
So, so my head is a little bit higher up in kneeling and then a little bit lower down, closer to the, the barrel itself and prom.
Jill Jaracz: Why is that optimal?
Tim Sherry: Um, it just depends on kind of how your position is set up and angles that your neck is in. So in prone, if you want, or if you were to leave, uh, a little more gap between the barrel and your sites, uh, in prone, if it’s going to cause kind of a kink in your neck, and it’s really difficult to leave your neck.
Uh, for 40 shots, whereas the kneeling you’re sitting upright to my, my back and kind of straight up, my, my torso is straight up. And so it kind of makes more sense for my neck to be straight up as well. And so it’s a little bit easier to have a [00:16:00] higher distance between my, my barrel and my sights, uh, to kind of keep that, that angle with my neck.
How body type affects shooting
Alison Brown: Okay. Now, is there an advantage to being taller or shorter as a shooter?
Tim Sherry: That’s a good question. I haven’t found any advantage either way, cause we have a lot of people that are our tone and shoe. Well, especially there’s a lot of the man, a lot of lanky or shooters. Um, but there’s also plenty of, of shorter shooters that shoot very well.
I think the biggest thing that needs to be taken into account is the ways that the positions are set up. So for kneeling. My, the lengths of my way, especially the, I guess, between my hip and my knee, uh, the length that length really affects my whole position. So if I, I personally have really long legs and really bomb arms, so my position looks a lot different, especially [00:17:00] more different than a lot of our shorter girls who have shorter legs and shorter arms, um, compared to their torso length so that you can shoot really well if you’re shorter or taller, but you can’t necessarily shoot in the same positions, um, as, as a taller person, if you were a shorter person,
Jill Jaracz: but if you could not fold your body into the optimal position, that’s that means you won’t be a good shoot as good of a shooter, correct?
Tim Sherry: That’s correct. But I think most people, I haven’t really seen any people. I mean, even coaching, uh, kind of junior shooters or novice shooters, you know, first getting them into position. Everyone can get into some semblance or a good position. It’s not necessarily the exact same position that I use. Um, but like I said, there’s, there’s a lot of different body types.
And so there’s, there’s several different types of positions that you can use and, and still achieve, um, similar results. It just depends on, on [00:18:00] how your body is shaped and, and how flexible you are in some cases.
Jill Jaracz: So as you’re growing up, do you ha you have to adjust to different Heights as you grow and have growth spurts, correct?
Tim Sherry: Absolutely. Yeah. That was a really difficult thing. I started when I was about 12 years old. So every time I felt like I got a good, you know, a good position or a good understanding of what I was trying to do, um, you know, with my daughter, my adjustments on my gun, I had a growth spurt and everything changed, and I basically had to start over.
Hello, puberty.
Alison Brown: I
Jill Jaracz: know it’s so frustrating and, and
Alison Brown: you’re not a short kid, so it’s sort of like, it would come probably in big stretches.
Tim Sherry: Oh yeah, absolutely. I was like an intro to, I thought, I think it’s worth saying, I think that’s why a lot of the obese shooters are a little bit older than, than most other Olympic athletes.
Like we’re not, you know, my female gymnast or 16 and stuff like that. Most of our elite shooters are I think, in their [00:19:00] thirties, maybe early thirties before their eyes started to rating. But it gives you time to find the adjustments that you need and actually hone the technical side of the positions. Um, after, you know, all the gross bursts are finished and everything like that,
Jill Jaracz: it’s really to stop
Alison Brown: growing to be a good tutor.
Yeah. There’s that sweet spot. Stop growing. Still not need bifocals,
Tim Sherry: stop growing. And then also kind of mastered the, the mental side of things. Um, whereas it’s very similar to golf. And I think similar to that, you have some older, older golfers. You also have older shooters where they’re able to keep their bodies going for a little bit longer and they’ve got the mental and physical bathroom so that they can stay competitive with some of the younger competitors.
Let’s look, let’s
Three-position rifle: Standing
Jill Jaracz: look at standing.
Tim Sherry: Okay. So standing is going to be virtually identical to air rifle. You’ve already talked to Jenny about that. The difference really at [00:20:00] this point, it is just a gun. So, um, we’re shooting a 22 as opposed to a 0.1 77 caliber air rifle. So you’re gonna have a little bit more weight that the gun can be up to 17 and a half pounds.
So it’s about five pounds heavier than an air rifle. And there’ll be recoil with the 22, as opposed to with. So for most shooters, the positions are set up very similarly. Although some people will change their position for 22 to help handle the recoil a little bit. But in terms of that, I guess the mechanics of the position, we don’t have any swings.
So, so the only time we can use this thing as a kneeling and prom, so standing at all, I guess it’s kind of a free position. You’re just using a muscle tension and bone support to hold you and the gun up and for a right handed shooter. Uh, I guess the best way I can explain it is we kick our left hip towards the target.
So we’re standing, my chest is [00:21:00] facing not facing towards the target, I guess. So I’m, I’m turning to the right of the target. So my, my left hip is pointing out the target. If that makes sense.
Jill Jaracz: It’s like, what else? And it’s like biathlon. So your target, let’s say, yeah, you know, you’re on mute there. I
Alison Brown: moving my body as he’s speaking so I can get the.
You can’t see me doing this, Tim, but I don’t shoot. So this is sort of like me physically trying to get this. So she knows what you’re talking about.
Tim Sherry: What was in my left hip is facing towards the target and I’m going to kick it forward towards the target. So most of my weight will be on my left foot.
It’d be about 70% of my weight on my left foot and 30% of my right foot. Um, and so what that does is that kind of gives me a shelf with my left hip to wreck my left elbow. And so that allows me to use bone support and it might, my Don will be sitting on my left hand. And so hopefully ideally, um, I’ll be using bone support going all the way down through the left arm, through my [00:22:00] left hip and my left leg.
Uh, mostly bone support supporting the weight of the rifle and most of my own way.
Alison Brown: So how strong is the recoil? How much has that kick?
Tim Sherry: It’s pretty minimal. If it’s 22, I don’t totally know what to compare it to, but it’s pretty much the. That I can think of one of the simplest calibers that is, you know, commercially available tissue.
It’s a, it’s a very small recoil. It doesn’t, it doesn’t hurt it. I thought it’s not going to bruise you or anything like that. Um, the biggest concern for us is that the recoil can, uh, I guess I can kind of break down the physician over 40 shots. So if your, if your position is set up poorly and there’s a whole lot of reasons why it could be set up for me, but it won’t come back consistently every time because of the recall.
Um, so it’s basically the record. Just kinda, it seeks out any imperfections in your position and, and can make them more, can kind of amplify them throughout the course of a 40 shot match.
Jill Jaracz: Maybe Alison, [00:23:00] maybe it’s like, you know how somebody just may be pushing punch in the shoulder a little bit that, Hey buddy, they don’t do.
Tim Sherry: And I mean, it it’s pretty small, but yeah. I mean, it’s noticeable. You’re going to see it, but yeah, it’s a.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So then is the challenge trying to get back, you know, you, you set up and you’re in the ultimate ultimate position. You shoot, you have recoil, that’s going to push you out. So it’s always trying to get back to that position.
Tim Sherry: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s kind of the name of the game. It’s just consistency. And it’s trying to do the same thing over and over again for 40 shots in both are each kneeling prone and standing, and there’s a whole lot of stuff that can compromise the position over those 40 shots. You know, like we talked about hands and feet falling asleep.
Um, we’re relying on some muscle tension, so your muscles can fatigue or, or even stretch out with the way my condition is set up. Sometimes my hip flexors will kind of stretch out and cause my, my hips to start to turn and [00:24:00] do weird things and spinning, and the recoil can add to that as well. Uh, just, just making it difficult to find a consistent position again, every single time, the exact same way for 40, 40 Shopkins.
How weather affects three-position rifle
Jill Jaracz: What about weather factors? How does win? We’ll start with the wind. Cause that’s a noticeable one because they always have wind flags. So what happens if the F if we go through kind of directions, how, how do they affect your shot and how do they affect how you say it? So if the flags are blowing toward you, what does it do?
What do you have to do to compensate for that? Or do you, so,
Tim Sherry: so if the fives are going to me, it’ll, it’ll put the bullet lower than my intended, you know, then I know wind situation, so it’ll drop the bullet down. And then the counter to that is if the wind is coming from behind me, it’ll, it’ll raise the bullet up.
So it’ll go a little bit higher.
Jill Jaracz: And then what if they’re blowing left or
Tim Sherry: right after, you know, if it’s blowing from the [00:25:00] left Oz, the bullet to go right, and actually a little bit down. Um, so it’s actually kind of sitting at, if you’re looking at the hamburger pocket, it’ll be about four o’clock. If it was blowing from the left and then as it was blowing from the right, it’ll be.
Uh, to the left and a little bit up. So it’ll be in about 10 o’clock on a clock
Jill Jaracz: and you take the wind factor into effect. I mean, you’re still shooting at a very, very tiny space. So what, like, do you just try to adjust your gun a millimeter or two, two, or, you know, how you hold it to account for the wind?
Tim Sherry: So actually are the sites that we use, although they’re open, not using a scope or anything like that, but the site itself has adjustment knobs on it. So I can, I can correct left right up and down with the knobs on my site to compensate for, uh, you know, if I, if I, um, to my sites, but also if, if there’s wind blowing or any other conditions I can, I can try to [00:26:00] compensate for, for those conditions with my sites.
Okay. So usually for way of adjusting for any environmental conditions is, is to try to try to correct with. Or better yet. Hopefully just wait for one condition to come back. So that’s another, I guess kind of tactic that you could use is just waiting. So picking one condition, you know, I say, I want to shoot with a wind blowing from Lester, right?
So, I mean, ideally I will only shoot if the wind is blowing from left to right. If it, if it turns out and starts blowing at me or blowing from right to left, I’ll just stop and wait. And that’s kind of the, the benefit of having that two hours and 45 minute block time for qualification is I can sit there and wait for say five minutes and wait for my condition, my wind condition to come back.
And then I have to shoot a little bit quicker, but I can, I can shoot without, you know, kind of gambling that my, my guess is right on, on my side adjustments.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Will they ever call a match
Alison Brown: because [00:27:00] of weather like pouring rain or other conditions?
Tim Sherry: I think about the only time that they’ll call a match for whether it is with thunder.
I, I I’ve shot in rain plenty of times. A lot of times, especially for these international competitions, we have a cover over our heads. We don’t necessarily get rained on unless the wind is really blowing pretty hard and it’ll, it’ll blow the rain sideways at year. But yeah, even if that’s the case, they’re not too bothered by it.
The, the match officials, I guess, as long as people don’t get struck with lightning, they’ll keep the match going. No,
Alison Brown: they’re not bothered. They’re not trying to be out there hitting this minuscule target.
Tim Sherry: And I mean, some of the times the wind is bad enough. It blows our body, especially in standing. Um, cause you’re of you’re standing sideways.
A lot of times the wind will be blowing left or right. So it’ll be blowing right at the cross-section of your body. There’s been times where it feels like I’m going to get blown over, but it hasn’t happened yet. But yeah, if the wind is strong enough, [00:28:00] it’ll, it’ll blow us back and forth. Our bodies actually will, will be blown back and forth.
Loading technique in three-position rifle
Um, what makes it pretty hard? You know, besides your pinky nail target 50 meters away
Jill Jaracz: when I was watching some video. And when you load, because you have to load each bullet individually, correct? Right. Okay. But when I was watching this, I noticed you don’t usually move your face away from the gun and you do everything kind of, I feel w why is that?
That
Tim Sherry: kind of goes back to the repeatability thing that I was just talking about, the fewer things that you move away from the gun. If you were things you’d have to put back in the same spot. So especially personally for prone and kneeling, it’s easier for me just to leave my face on it. I just know where my bullets are and I know where the loading port for my rifle is.
And it’s really easy for me just to pick up the bullet, put it into the loading port and close the boat without really looking at anything. Um, and that’s just one last thing that I have to put [00:29:00] back. If I were to pick up my head at the time, I’d have to put it back in the exact same place every time. And if I didn’t, that can cause some changes in, you know, the angle that I’m looking through the site or pressure on the gun or muscle tension in my shoulder or neck.
It’s just another variable that, that I’m able to take out and hopefully not have to worry about quite as often.
Jill Jaracz: It’s kind of meditative in a way. It feels like, like when you watch it, it’s very meditative. It doesn’t feel that way too.
Tim Sherry: Sometimes it depends on how easy it’s going. Yeah. I mean, it is very repetitive.
I mean, it’s, it’s slow and methodical and can take, you know, for standing, we have over a shot of minute, uh, during qualification a lot of times, as long as you use your time. Right. Um, It can be really meditative and, you know, meditation practice actually helps, helps me quite a bit kind of train my mind to get ready for shooting.
But yeah, there are other times where it kind of feels like the exact opposite [00:30:00] where it’s very frustrating because things are going well. Or, or even like I was saying with the wind, you know, you sit there and you wait for your wind for five minutes and then all of a sudden your condition is here and you have to get the shoot really quickly because you don’t know how long that that wind condition will be there.
So sometimes it’s meditative, sometimes it’s, uh, you have to use kind of situational awareness and the really, really smart with, with how you’re going to work with anything that arises, whether it’s muscle tension or fatigue or heart rate racing, or wind conditions and weather conditions going on outside of.
Tim Sherry’s rifle
Alison Brown: Okay. So I want to ask a little bit about your relationship with your gun. Do you, which sounded really creepy and sounded less creepy in my head. Do you think of, do you anthropomorphize your gun? Do you give it a name? Do you think of it as a teammate? Or is it more of a tool
Tim Sherry: for me it’s more of a tool I’ve gone through.
Like I said, I’ve [00:31:00] been shooting since I was 12 years old, so I’ve gone through a lot of different types of guns and, uh, different equipment, you know, like I was talking about that she’d pieces in place and stuff like that because it’s all interchangeable. I change it out often or make changes to it often.
So yeah, a lot of times I just see it as a tool and it’s an, a very important tool to helping me perform the way I want to. But, uh, in my mind, it’s just kind of a means to an end, I guess.
Jill Jaracz: What, what type of gun do you
Tim Sherry: have? Uh, the rifle that I shoot is a, it’s a Blicher it’s made in sweater. And our, uh, we’ve done Smith here.
I shoot with the army marksmanship unit and we have done Smith that actually placed that barreled action. So it’s just a, it’s the actual gun portion, but they were able to put that into a different stock. So it’s a German manufactured stock, uh, made by on shoots. And it’s just, it’s a stock that I’ve shot for longer and I’m more comfortable with, so I have a [00:32:00] better performing action and, and barrel put into, uh, a stock that I’m a little bit more comfortable with.
Alison Brown: I’m sorry. I immediately thinking, oh, I hope that Swiss Harold speaks German and isn’t a French speaking Swiss piece,
Tim Sherry: but luckily our gunsmith are very good at helping them speak the same language, I guess,
Alison Brown: uh, warned you about a straight line to him.
Jill Jaracz: It’s so fascinating. How different gun parts. Come apart and come together because I have a 22 because my husband and I did some, uh, summer biathlon. And I think I have like a Savage stalwart. Did it cheap. So I have a Savage dock, but then somebody had biathlon, no, sorry.
Savage action with a, uh, homegrown stack. So it’s a little, it’s a little Frankensteiny I guess
Tim Sherry: you could say. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I was actually gonna use that same adjective for, for my rifle too. I probably a little more [00:33:00] expensive than yours, but it still feels really find anywhere you’re, you’re putting a barrel of action that was never meant to go in this stock, into this stock.
Um, and you’re making it work and it, it works very well. Uh, it just takes a little bit of finagling
Jill Jaracz: now in glad you brought up price. Cause I’m, I like the money side of this stuff. We know that we know that shooting is a very expensive sport on the whole, what are we talking about with how much your rifle
Tim Sherry: cost.
Uh, so the Blicher rifle, if you bought it in the stock would cost close to $10,000. And then I think if you were to buy just the barrel of action, separate, I think that’s about 5,000. And then for the on-street stock that I use, that’s another 4,000. So I guess in the grand scheme of things, we’re about 10,000 before you start adding in gunsmithing and all the extra accessories that go on it.
Jill Jaracz: So, so being in the U S army marksmanship program is very helpful because you have access to the gunsmith and things like that.
Tim Sherry: [00:34:00] Absolutely. Yeah. So they have brought in the, not only the gunsmith, but also the action and the stock. So if they’re gone that I’m using, and then on top of that, uh, I I’ve mentioned barrel action.
One important part of that is the barrel itself. And that’s what the bullets spends most of the time in. So we will actually change out. And test different barrels and different boxes of ammo to try to find the best combination that shoots the tightest possible groups off of the bench. And that should help me shoot the tightest possible groups out of my position.
It’s
Jill Jaracz: very scientific all of this testing.
Tim Sherry: Yes, absolutely. And scientific. And it’s also time-consuming. I mean, it, it takes a lot of time away from training and that’s kind of where I see my, my rifle as a, as a tool that requires a lot of attention because I need to take a lot of time to make it shoot on par with my competitors around the world.
Before I can even start focusing on making myself shoot on par with my competitors around [00:35:00] the world. So it’s, it’s a constant balancing act. It was, you know, how much time do I need to spend catching my rifle and working with the gunsmith to, to make it work the best I can for me. And I’m working on myself in my own technique to perform as well as I possibly
Alison Brown: can.
How much ammunition do shooting athletes use?
And how much ammunition would you go through in a training center?
Tim Sherry: Each day, I go through a hundred to 200 rounds and I’ll do that six days a week. That’s without testing ammunition, uh, a normal testing session will take probably close to a thousand rounds just to go through every different lot of ammunition that we have available to us and see, uh, what batch or what lot is best in that given barrel.
Jill Jaracz: Well, when you’re in competition, D does the competition provide the ammo or are you providing the ammo?
Tim Sherry: We provide our own ammo. Okay. So it just has to be a commercially produced ammunition also. There’s no, you know, home, home, home reloaded, 22 or anything like that has to be commercially produced, [00:36:00] but we will purchase our own ammo and that’s preferred for us because we spend so much time finding the right, the right loss of ammo and the right manufacturers and our own ammunition to, um, that match our.
Jill Jaracz: The complexity of the sport just has blown me away. It just, when talking with Jenny, we also talked with McKenna gear and just so it’s so complex, it’s
Tim Sherry: amazing. I mean, and that’s just, that’s just the barrel, the action and the stock side of it. I mean, it, it extends beyond that, you know, I can buy different butts place in different sheet pieces.
Cause those are interchangeable. Like I said, just based on what I want and those, those are usually like three or $400 as well each and they’re completely adjustable too. So I can, I can adjust them left right up and down side to side, all these different adjustments to make them fit me exactly perfectly.
The shooting suit
And then we go into the shooting suit, which is also very complex and very adjustable too. [00:37:00]
Alison Brown: So do you ever feel like Batman? No.
Tim Sherry: I’ve never felt like that.
Jill Jaracz: Have you ever felt like Woody from toy story?
Tim Sherry: Yeah, I think that’s probably more accurate. Are so stiff kind of waddling around like a penguin. Most of the time you don’t feel cool wearing it.
How the new Olympic shooting team event works.
Jill Jaracz: How does the team event work? Is it just you guys get together and everyone does it’s combines or scores or how, how does it,
Tim Sherry: so they just came out that totally shot at once. We just found that the last world cup in India, I would expect it’ll probably keep changing. Um, just based on, on their, you know, kind of interpretation of how it went this last time.
Well, for the, I guess we have two different teams, that’s we have a men’s, uh, a men’s team events. So that’ll be three manuals in online next to each other and shoot the team of that. And then there’s also a mixed team event and I shot that with Jenny over in India. And so I have [00:38:00] a male and a female from the same country we’ll shoot together.
And the way you get into the final is a little bit different with each. For the men’s team to that, they take our qualification scores. So the same score that we use for our individual qualification to get into the individual final they’ll use that. And so they’ll just take all three shooters from the USA and combine them together, add them up and compare them to every other country.
And they take the top eight, I believe, and move them onto a semifinal. Uh, whereas for the mixed team, Jenny, I had to shoot a mixed team qualification event and then move on from there into a, a semifinal. And then again, into a final after that.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, that’s interesting. Is, is the about the amount you’re shooting in the time it takes the same for the two rounds versus the three
Tim Sherry: rounds.
The, the semi-final and the final are, are more similar to our three position, individual finals. So it’s like 45 shots, or [00:39:00] I think we do like 30 shots in the middle of there for, for the quarter fine artists semifinals. So it’s a, it’s a smaller number of shots and it’s very intense that small number of shots.
So I guess it takes a little bit to feel sad or different mindset to go into those because you’re, you kind of feel a little bit rushed and, and you also are very aware that every shot matters at this point. It’s probably going to be decided by a point or two. So you’re just really, don’t want to mess up.
This is basically the best way to say it.
Jill Jaracz: Interesting. But I bet that’s kind of exciting to
Tim Sherry: watch. Yeah. Hopefully I, I actually really, haven’t got to watch it a whole lot. I just shot at once, but I think because it’s a little bit shorter period of time, it should be a little more exciting to watch and a little more head to head, especially for the final, for the, I guess, both the mixed team and the, uh, individual or not individual, but same gender team final.
Um, it’s head to head. So [00:40:00] each country will pick who they want to shoot in a position. So for the next team, it’s kneeling and standing, they kind of get rid of prone, snow for that. Uh, we made the, I guess the bronze metal match Virginia and I did in India. So I shot kneeling and to head against India’s kneeling shooter, which happened to a girl and Jenny shot fanning.
So, so we chose that. I was shooting kneeling and Jenny would she standing and we were competing against India and they kind of showed the opposite. There they’re female shot kneeling and they’re male shot standing. But the way it works is it just goes shot to shot and it’s head to head. So I just have to beat India’s kneeling shooter to get a point for USA and the same for Jenny, she just has to be any outstanding shooter and she worked, she would get a point for us and they set up a point total.
I, I don’t recall what the point total was for the next team, but the first country to reach that point, total wins, wins that battle, whatever metal round. Oh,
Jill Jaracz: that’s very cool. I like that sounds
Tim Sherry: like a fun. It was real fun to shoot. It was really cool. And then we [00:41:00] did the same thing. The same gender team runs very similar.
It’s just that you have free shooters and now you’re shooting from Stan ambulance. You get all three. Yeah. It was a really fun format. It was, it was cool and unique. I think
Tim Sherry’s competition routine
Alison Brown: what kind of superstitions or things must you absolutely do on competition day?
Tim Sherry: Yeah. Assets a lot. And I really don’t have any superstitions, I guess.
Um, there’s are certain things that I like to do to help me perform well, but there’s no, like, I need to tie my left boot first or where are these lucky green socks or anything like that? Um, it’s just certain things that I’ve found that helped me perform well. So, um, we talked about shooting being really meditative, I think, to do you know, about five minutes of meditation before, at some point in the morning before I shoot, um, just to kind of balance me out and I guess help me understand where, where I’m at mentally that day and, and kind of prepare.
And then other than that, it’s a lot of really specific shooting warm-up stuff. So I’ll do some balance [00:42:00] warmups and, uh, holding in my positions just to try to understand, uh, how tight, how tight certain muscles are that day or how the position deals, and just kind of get a feel for the position before we start actually shooting record shops,
Jill Jaracz: shootings, not known as a big spectator sport necessarily.
What’s it like when you have spectators versus no spectators?
Tim Sherry: Um, I think it’s really exciting how to expect it is. I know some people kind of freak out because it is new. It doesn’t always happen, but I like being able to share my sport with other people and I kind of feed off of other people’s energy, whether it’s a teammate, write up another reason why I like these new team events, but also the spectators.
Uh, some of the more memorable lashes I’ve had are, are having more spectators in the cans or. And then having my family around in the stands, being able to wash my competitions. So I definitely feed off the spectators a little bit. And then as, as the energy [00:43:00] increases in these finals, sometimes we get a lot more clapping and noise.
It gets pretty exciting. And I think it’s, I think it’s the way forward for our sport. And I really enjoy having the spectators around to watch what we do.
Traveling with a rifle
Alison Brown: Okay. Okay. Bizarre travel story with your gun or whatever your issue.
Tim Sherry: Well, I guess it always just, it takes forever in an airport, so it doesn’t matter where you go, whether it’s in the us or internationally, um, we can fly with our rifles, obviously.
That’s how we get there, but, uh, we have to go through all these different approvals, um, in the U S we’ll we’ll look at our guns. We have to declare them and they run them through extra scanners. And, um, we find an extra piece of paper that says, you know, our firearm is unloaded and stuff like that. If we’re going to international, uh, or any other countries, a lot of the time we have to provide.
Our gun information before we even get there to get these kind of clearances to come into the country with our, our rifles. So whether we’re getting into the country or leaving the country, usually it takes quite a bit longer for them to check me [00:44:00] appearances. And, uh, not this last time we were in India, but the time before it took so long to go through this clearances, we, we missed our flight and we ended up staying in India.
Another like five days. I think it was, there was some other, other political stuff going on in India. That kinda kept us from getting another flight. But what led us to missing our flight was just taking forever, getting clearances for our guns and our ammo. And that’s kind of par for the course. They usually take several hours in the airport just to, just to clear our guns through customs or through to DSA.
Wow. So always pack extra
Alison Brown: socks.
Tim Sherry: Yep. Absolutely. Yes, we, we have a, uh, our carry on bag always has extra, at least a change of clothes in case we get stuck in an airport or hopefully. But yeah, if we get stuck in our country with our checked bags already in the U S we prefer to have some toiletries and some extra clothes, just in case this
Jill Jaracz: rifle get checked.
Are you [00:45:00] allowed because it’s unloaded. Are you allowed to bring it on board?
Tim Sherry: Yeah, but it has to get checked. That’s part of the process. Okay. The check, the bag, they double-check it just to make sure that it is unloaded and there’s nothing, I guess, uh, out of the ordinary or out of there for them all the check it and put it on
Jill Jaracz: the, how nerve-wracking is it to hope that it comes off the plane?
Tim Sherry: Um, it can be pretty nerve wracking. I think that’s probably the biggest concern. Is it not having your rifle or your equipment when you get there? So you’re going to be travel with a rifle case and an equipment bag. So that’s two pieces of luggage that I have to hope that the, uh, the airline didn’t misplaced on the flight over or, or, you know, on the term action and getting onto the carousel that it comes out on.
I don’t think I’ve actually ever had a problem with that, but I know plenty of teammates that have so for, uh, for, for important competitions. A lot of the times we actually, uh, kind of, I will bring my, [00:46:00] one of my teammates, rifles, and one of my rifles in my rifle case, and my teammate will bring one of their rifles in one of my rifles in their case.
So that way we kind of have a backup in case my, my gun case goes missing. Um, at least then I have, I have some facial tissue and still be able to compete and be competitive at the whatever competition is that we, we just traveled to so
Jill Jaracz: complicated. You don’t think about when, when you’re just watching the Olympics center.
Yeah,
Tim Sherry: I think the travel, I would assume for probably most sports, the travel was something that, that you don’t even think about or don’t even consider. I always thought about, I guess, just being in a sport, you know, like pull bolters and stuff like that. I have no clue how they use a manage those to travel with their stuff.
Jill Jaracz: Let’s tell you about canoes and kayaks.
Tim Sherry: There are just some days that I wish I was a runner and I can just travel with, uh, you know, a pair of clothes and a pair of shoes and be ready to go for my event.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Tim. You can follow [00:47:00] Tim on Insta, Twitter, and Facebook at Sherry Tim USA. We will have links to all of those in the show notes. Uh, before we move on to our shortlist on update, we would like to give a shout out to all of our Patrion patrons. They help keep us financially afloat as there is a lot of money and time that goes into producing this podcast.
If you are able to and would like to help us out, we would greatly appreciate it. You can find out more at patrion.com/flame alive pod.
TKFLASTAN Update
Alison Brown: Welcome to checklist on.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, it is time to check in with our past guests who are members of our team. Keep the flame alive. What do you got?
Alison Brown: Parachute or McKenna gear has been selected for team USA and we’ll be heading to Tokyo.
Jill Jaracz: I am getting really excited for the Paralympics. That’s great. And
Alison Brown: there’s going to be a lot more coverage.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Which is going to make it good
Alison Brown: and make it a little easier to be [00:48:00] excited when you can actually see things.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, decathlete Jordan Gray is featured in a New York times story about female decathletes and their quest to get the event in the Olympics. We will have a link to that in the show notes,
Alison Brown: uh, questions, Phillip Dutton and Sydney Colliere are on their way to Tokyo with a stop off in OCHIN first and Luca Jones, Stephanie robo and Maggie Shay have arrived in Tokyo and are doing their various quarantining and examining of facilities.
So that’s been exciting to see and beach volleyball player Kelly clase will take off in a week. So. All the arrivals, all the Australia and, uh, athletes got all their kit, so they got the suitcases. So they’ve all been posting about that. Um, so yeah, it’s really getting serious
Jill Jaracz: and I’m brought aside here and, uh, tying in with our, our last team update.
I’m very curious as to how they’ve, they’re adjusting to the [00:49:00] new time zone and how long it’s taking them to adjust to the new time zone, because are a sleep study specialist rents go lock, received her doctorate from the university of Groningen. So congratulations to wrenska.
Tokyo 2020 News
Alison Brown: We got some bad news from Tokyo.
Jill Jaracz: We did get some bad news from Tokyo. The prefecture is under a state of emergency until August to 22. And that means that the government has said no, fans will be allowed to watch any of the games. And that has been expanded to include baseball, softball, and football venues outside of Tokyo.
Uh, public is urged not to go and watch the marathon or race walks up in Sapporo and, uh, or go and watch the road cycling, which is happening around Mount Fuji.[00:50:00]
It’s frustrating. I was very angry last week when I got this news,
Alison Brown: but not surprised.
Jill Jaracz: Not surprised. You know, I was chatting a little bit with about this. And he said, you know, basically there’s enough people who don’t like the Olympics and general does satisfy, you know, worrisome about outsiders coming in and visitors from all over the place.
And that’s going to create this surge. So it’s not surprising given that Tokyo’s COVID numbers were going up, but it is disappointing that it got to this
Alison Brown: point. It will be a unique experience, both for viewers at home and for the athletes. Right. And it will be difficult for everybody involved. Nevermind the monetary ramifications of this.
I mean, I don’t even want to think about that, but for us watching at home, well, we’ll, I’m sure during the games, we’ll be talking a lot about what the [00:51:00] experience is like, and this will be interesting when they, when our Chicago son has come home and we got to chat with them. Was it worth having them without spectators?
Jill Jaracz: Good question. Because many of them have competed without spectators to begin with. Some of them have been to Olympics before some of them haven’t been to Olympics before. So what is that all going to be like when you have a different expectation of what this magnanimous event
Alison Brown: is? I mean, one of the things that we love so much about the Olympics is the world comes together for this one event.
You know, the greatest sporting event in the world kind of thing. And the world isn’t coming together. One of the things that we talked about months ago was this would be a sign of hope that we’re moving past the pandemic. And it feels like a sign of despair in a way saying we’re not moving past the pandemic and, [00:52:00] you know, with any.
And I don’t want to say luck because it’s not luck. It’s actually an incredible amount of hard work. Beijing will be that, but Beijing won’t be that for other reasons.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: So are we really looking at Paris now to be that, but that’s years away. So this is
Jill Jaracz: years away, but we also don’t know how long this pandemic is going to last.
Right. So
Alison Brown: is having Tokyo more damaging to the Olympic movement than canceling it out? Right.
Jill Jaracz: That’s an excellent question. Because then what do you, you know, how, and you’ll only know this after it’s happened,
Alison Brown: right. And maybe 10 years from now, but in a funny way, wouldn’t that put Los Angeles. Back in the same position that it was in 84, right?
Because the Olympic movement had been so damaged by the boycott had been so damaged by [00:53:00] the financial scandals of Montreal. And here comes LA right. That reinvigorated the movement. And of course I’m skipping a couple of there, but, you know, would LA then again, be that again, another turning point, the Olympic
Jill Jaracz: movement, which is always very interesting because, you know, we all know that America gets on the outs with the Olympic movement just in general.
I mean, right. You know, we are w we understand America’s, it’s very, it’s very interesting how we’re a powerhouse and, and all of these things, but then we also do stuff that is not very diplomatic. And so it doesn’t make for great relations sometimes, but LA has always been there at some kind of pivotal point.
Like, you know,
Alison Brown: during, you know, even, uh, 32, when you’ve got this depression, oh, LA still happened. Right. And then 84 LA still happens. So 28 LA still going to happen and where are we in the Olympic movement? It’ll be [00:54:00] a very interesting time to be studying the Olympics. Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And I’m very curious what historians are thinking about right now and what they’re looking at right now to see, okay, these are the kinds of things I’d, I’d like to know about as they happen, but you know, you only get time is a very important part of being a historian because you need that reflection and you need to see what happens afterward.
I mean, like you say, this is now a bigger financial tobacco for Japan than it was in the past, because we knew that these were gains are really, really expensive because it’s the last of the mega building blitzes. But. Now the government has taken away a big source of revenue,
Alison Brown: right? Because when we talked to, uh, can Hanscom, he was saying, this was the most subscribed Olympics.
They were getting the most requests for tickets. The most requests for press passes [00:55:00] and everything was selling out and all the hotels were already booked. So they were counting on literally a million people coming into the country and all that yen so that they were going to make up a lot of this money just because there was going to be such a, an influx of people.
And now, not only is there nobody coming, you can’t even have spending within the country.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Because I’m sure that whatever the maximum was going to be for a venue, I would bet that there would be enough people within the country to sell out those tickets. I agree. It’s interesting because there is.
Pro baseball and pro soccer. Uh, other professional sports are going on with spectators in the stands. It’s just that the Olympics has this big kind of stigma attached to it almost. And just the assumption that it’s going to be people from everywhere and [00:56:00] therefore nobody can
Alison Brown: go. And now you’re also going to have the glut of memorabilia because not only do they already produce all the things they were ready for 2020, you had all the mascots and all the t-shirts.
Now, even within Japan, as you said, there’s a stigma. So they’re not even going to get sold. So are we going to have this huge influx into the United States of all the mascots and then nobody’s going to want them, and in the future, we’ll Tokyo 2020 slash 2021 memorabilia be more valuable because people didn’t want to buy it because of all the stigma around.
Jill Jaracz: That’s a good question too. I kind of wonder if it is, uh, dependent on what the memorabilia is.
Alison Brown: So is this going to be beanie babies in the nineties or beanie babies in the two thousands?
Jill Jaracz: Good question. It’ll it will definitely be [00:57:00] interesting to see what happens and we don’t know what’s going to happen or are suddenly local people going to get excited for the gains when they start seeing the competition, especially some of the sports that, uh, Japan is really strong in, then will they go out and buy gear and things like that?
I don’t know. It’ll be really, really interesting. And then how, as an organizing committee, do you drum up excitement about this? So I don’t know, but what we’re going to hear and what I don’t want to hear is in like six months when they’re like, oh my gosh, these games were so expensive. Well, you cut off your revenue
Alison Brown: socks, right?
Because. Expensive, like you said, expensive to begin with expensive to postpone and expensive. Do you
Jill Jaracz: have no fans there? Right. Right. And you kind of want to go, come on T buck, the IOC, just slip them a level check. You know, they, they really have bent over backwards to make your event happen. And we all know, I also was [00:58:00] really good about not taking responsibility for a lot of stuff, but doing my salad slip on Molly.
Now you got seven figures, eight figures sitting around somewhere, maybe even nine.
Alison Brown: I can’t count that high.
Jill Jaracz: It’s a 10 and 10 take a billion off. Come on, use it with all that energy savings you’re getting from Olympic house.
Uh, anyway, so, uh, the not so fun part about how to handle the COVID situation is. A lot of weird stuff is going on. So the Kyoto news reported that the ax haka XL hotel, Tokyo in central Tokyo, trying to sell them a separate the elevator usage. So they did that by putting a Japanese only sign on one set of elevators and foreigners only sign on the other set of elevators.
So that [00:59:00] was tough. And apparently some of the Japanese were like, well, can we take the foreigner elevators anyway? So they got a little criticism. Chinese officials were also upset. Their sailing team is in a hotel. And the officials said, yeah, we’re separated by floors from other guests. However, everybody’s mingling in the line, the lobby and the restaurant.
Anyway. So what’s the point. So you’re going to have that. I mean, people are still traveling in Japan. And there’s no way to really keep some of these athletes separate because they’re having satellite villages closer to venues that are far away from Tokyo. Do you
Alison Brown: remember there was an issue where South Korea was protesting the look of one of the symbols, because it looked like the Imperial Japanese flag.
Oh, right, right. Yes. It’s a cup. This was, you know, a couple of years going back years, it was early 20 [01:00:00] 18, 20 19 when we lived in a different world. But we need to remember the historical context of Japan in greater Asia. That those memories are still with those countries. And if you start isolating and saying Japanese only, and foreigners only us would have the same problem.
Yes. We did things like that. You know, there’s that a phobia is still there. Okay. We’re already having all these issues around the Olympics. And I keep saying this, please don’t be stupid. And yet people keep being stupid, but yeah, you have to be extraordinarily sensitive and careful and ask lots of people before you do any of these things.
Because as simple as yes, we should have separate elevators, like I remember I had to go into the hospital during COVID and if you were an inpatient versus going to the outpatient, you literally [01:01:00] were in different wings of the hospital and, and different elevators made perfect sense. But in a hotel that’s catering to travelers having two different elevate leaders, separated by race, ethnicity, or nationality.
Yikes. Is the only thing I can think
Jill Jaracz: to say. Right. All right. I wonder if the organizing committee is going, we only have so many days left of.
Alison Brown: Well, I posted on our Facebook page, a video of one of the Tokyo officials announcing how there’s not going to be spectators. And, you know, in this very Japanese way, he apologizes multiple times and, and says, he’s sorry.
And he gets choked up. Ah, and I think it’s also, he’s upset and disappointed, but the stress of this, I can’t even imagine the pressure that they’re under,
Jill Jaracz: but Hey, T buck arrived safely. Yes, he’s quarantining. That’s all we really know at this point. [01:02:00] Um, I’m not sure he had made plans to go to different parts of the country.
I don’t know if he’s going to end up going, because there’s not a lot of support for that in the country. Um, but he’s. We’re going to have an IOC session soon. So the whole IOC family will be together again in person, instead of on zoom, that’ll be fun and interesting and chance to
Alison Brown: pass the hat,
flip the waiters and envelope at the end of the P of the wedding.
Jill Jaracz: Right? So, and then, uh, we noticed when Kelly place announced that on Instagram, when she was, she’s got a week before she travels rule 40 is going to in effect soon. So you were probably seeing a blitz of sponsors thinking right now because athletes will be under embargo for awhile.
Alison Brown: But do you know where rule 40 does not go into effect where on our podcast? So if anyone is [01:03:00] interested in sponsoring our every day, Tokyo coverage can send us an email@flamealivepodatgmail.com.
Jill Jaracz: And that’s going to do it for this week. Do we have
Alison’s update on the Team USA Oreos hunt
Alison Brown: IRC? I have something very important to share before we go.
Oh, I found my team USA Oreos. Oh, you were at my stop and shop this week. There was a whole display. Nope, there was no, there was no people yet. It was just a rack. And
Jill Jaracz: your
Alison Brown: Oreos. I
Jill Jaracz: haven’t tried them yet. Okay. I was going to ask you what I haven’t seen and it’s really disappointing is any Coke stuff. Good point like Coke did summer and they’ve had, or they’ve had logos on just like, oh, Hey, we, we are an Olympic and Paralympic supporter, but there’s no like promotion or anything.
I wonder if they were just like, well, we don’t know if it’s going to happen, so we’re not going to do anything. And I wonder if
Alison Brown: some of the [01:04:00] sponsors are hesitant because there’s been so much backlash
Jill Jaracz: that could be, but I, I don’t know. I mean, you have this event anyway that you’re spending money on. Right.
I don’t know. It’s a very good
Alison Brown: question. I’d be curious to know if other countries are seeing things yet. I mean, obviously the U S does more than anybody else with these kinds of product placements. But I’d be curious to see, cause we talked about the Cheerio’s and Canada, and I know there are other sponsors around the world.
So I’m wondering if people are seeing things in their grocery stores. Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Let us know if you do that, we’ll do it for this episode. Let us know if you will be tuning into shooting during Tokyo.
Alison Brown: email us@flamealivepodatgmail.com. Call or text us at (208) 352-6348. 2 0 8, flame it we’re playing alive pod on Twitter and Insta and keep the flame alive podcast group on faith.
Jill Jaracz: Join us on Thursday for our interview with Greco-Roman wrestler, Alejandro Santo as we go out to music by mercury sunset. Thank you so much for [01:05:00] listening. And until next time, keep the flame alive.
Alison Brown: okay. Now, do we need to be concerned about we, like I do [01:06:00] this.