Episode 254: Paralympian Louise Sugden on Para Powerlifting

We’re excited to have British Paralympic bronze medalist Louise Sugden on the show this week to help us learn about the sport of para powerlifting.

Louise began powerlifting in 2017, after retiring from wheelchair basketball, having competed in that sport for Team GB at the Paralympics in 2008 and 2012. After only nine months in the sport, Louise won a silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. At the Tokyo Paralympics last year, Louise won the bronze medal in the women’s powerlifting under 86 kilos category. We spoke to Louise about how para powerlifting works, her journey in the sport, and what it’s like to buy clothes when your upper body is jacked.

Speaking of para powerlifting, the European championships start on September 24. Unfortunately, Louise will not be competing, as she has to have surgery, but let’s cheer her on in her recovery!

All year long, our history segment focuses on Albertville 1992, as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of those Winter Games. Jill takes to the cross-country competition to tell the tale of Raisa Smetanina, one of the greats in the sport and the first winter athlete to achieve an amazing feat.

Check out Raisa in Olympic competition:

You can learn more about Raisa at her museum (which also happens to be her home).

In our visit to TKFLASTAN, we have a number of updates from our Team Keep the Flame Alive members, including:

• Boxer Ginny Fuchs
• Andrew Maraniss — pick up his new book Inaugural Ballers (and shopping through that link supports the show)!
• The dulcet tones of Jason Bryant
• Table tennis player Millie Tapper
• Speedskater Erin Jackson
• Modern pentathlete Jo Muir
• Ice Dancer Charlie White — check him and skating partner Meryl Davis at the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony:

We have a brief update on the Kamila Valieva doping situation from Beijing 2022.

Paris 2024 has announced more details about ticket sales for the Olympics. Check out our Paris page for the latest info. Members of Le Club get first crack, so sign up today!

The International Olympic Committee’s Executive Board met this week, which means we have some news on Paris 2024 venues and cost optimization possibilities. And could we see some of the athletics events take place outside of the stadium?

We also have some updates on the torch relay, and maybe more importantly (at least to Jill), what the Coca-Cola situation is going to be like at the Games.

Also, mark your calendars: Paralympic Day is taking over Place de la Bastille on October 8. Be there!

The IOC Coordination Commission visited with LA 2028, and one reporter got a couple of eye-opening answers with regards to the Olympics and the issues of homelessness and affordability in Los Angeles.

Back to the IOC Executive Board meeting. A couple of National Olympic Committees have been suspended–one of which has forced the postponement of next year’s IOC Session meeting, the one where the 2030 Winter Games host is supposed to be announced. That decision will also now be delayed. And could Egypt 2036 be a possibility?

Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!

Photo: ImageComms, courtesy of Louise Sugden

TRANSCRIPT

Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript. It contains errors. Please do not quote from the transcript; use the audio file as the record of note. If you would like to see transcripts that are more accurate, please support the show.

Jill: [00:00:00] Hello, fans of TKFLASTAN, and welcome to another episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast four fans of the Olympics in Paralympics. I am your host. Jill. Jaracz joined as always by my lovely co-host Alison Brown, Alison. Hello? How are you?

Alison: Better than you

Jill: well, it was a week last week.

Alison: well, let’s start by saying everybody is okay

Jill: now. Yes. Yes. That’s very, very true. So. Last week. I will tell you already that this week’s interview was very technically difficult to put together because when it happened, Computers kept freezing. We had to give people off and on again.

So it was a lot of stringing parts together. And then when we taped, we also had technical issues. So there was a lot of extra editing to be done to fix that. And I was. Taking a long, a lot longer than I meant it to take. So, I was still working on the episode and had a whole bunch of other deadlines for work happen.

And then on Friday, went to lunch with somebody at a Chinese restaurant. And did you have this stewed eggplant dish in the dining hall at Beijing at.

I did not.

Okay. Cuz we didn’t always have meals together and I didn’t see it very often during the Paralympics.

I only had it a couple times. it’s like a stewed eggplant with some other vegetables, but it was very tasty and a friend and I went to lunch and we went to this place here in Cleveland that has Beijing specialties on the menu as a whole section. I know. And they had this eggplant dish and it was even better because it was fresh because the eggplant one in, Beijing.

Was in the cafeteria line. So it was a little under the warming oven, but it was still very good. So I had this wonderful eggplant, dish living life, and all of a sudden I’m looking at the menu board behind her. And I start seeing these squiggly lines in my vision and I already have pretty bad vision in anyway, I’m very, very nearsighted history of eye problems in my family.

So. I was internally freaking out, cause I didn’t wanna freak out in front of her and started seeing all these squiggly lines with kind of black on the top of the line and red underneath the line. And then I started seeing kind of a halo effect and then my right eye got a lot of pressure in, it started to get a lot of pain and I thought, oh my gosh, my Retin are detach.

This cannot end well, so, finish lunch, get outside the squiggly lines go away. Headache in the eye still happens. So we get to the eye doctor emergency eye doctor visit retina looks fine. That’s good. They said you just had an ocular migraine, never had one of these before. Nobody knows why they happen.

Lasts for about 20 minutes or so. And. They just kind of disappear. So the problem was with this, I had to have my eyes dilated and the dilation takes hours and hours to wear off in me. So I could not really look at a computer at all. And that just meant no show last week, but we’re okay now.

Alison: Okay. I just, there’s so many things to the story that we’re gonna discuss when the show is over, but here’s the one thing I’m gonna point out you could have been having a stroke.

and your first concern is you don’t wanna freak out in front of somebody else cause some stress.

Jill: Well, I think if I’m having a stroke, well, I don’t know. I mean, I would think somebody might notice I’d be STR out,

Alison: but you’d be so concerned about everything being okay for everybody else. That we would find you in the street and be like, oh, Jill just collapsed on the sidewalk.

So next time alert your dining guest because I’m sure she would want to know if you were about to collapse that the eggplant was so good that it killed you.

Jill: eggplant was so good, but it would never kill me cuz a eggplant dish would never kill anyone unless I guess you’re allergic to egg. but point taken Julie noted, but now I know what to look for, so that’s okay.

Alison: but on a happier note,

Jill: yes.

We got a good interview this week.

We have a great interview with a lovely person. We’re talking with Louise Sugden, who is a para powerlifter. She began powerlifting in 2017 after a long and Lu illustrious career as a wheelchair basketball player. She competed in that sport for Team GB at the Paralympics in 2008 and 2012.

And after. Only nine months as a pair of powerlifter. She won a silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth games at the Tokyo Paralympics. Last year, Louise won the bronze medal in the women’s powerlifting under 86 kilos category. We spoke to her about how para powerlifting works and her journey in the sport.

Take a listen.

Louise. Thank you so much for joining us first off, pair of [00:05:00] powerlifting. We’re just gonna start at the basics. So the goal of the sport is pretty easy. Lift the most weight possible in three tries, correct?

Louise Sugden: Yep. That’s pretty much it summarized. They do make it a little bit more difficult with the rules.

So, you have to pause the bar on your chest and you always have to lock out together. There’ve been a couple of rule changes recently. But essentially that’s the basics, the

Jill: basics. So this is a bench press and you’re lying down. When you lie on the bench, where do you want to physically place your body?

Louise Sugden: So when I’m setting up on the bench I like to have my eyes underneath the bar. And then when I’m pressing because of the arch that I have, I like to bring the bar down to just below my boobs.

And that’s because I have quite a wide grip. The width, your grip will actually determine where you wanna bring a bar to. So, it’s a preference thing, but also There’s a little bit of science to it.

Jill: Okay. So the arch, your back will arch, is that, that what you’re talking about?

Louise Sugden: Yeah. I don’t have a huge arch partly due to my disability. I just can’t maintain it. But I, I do what I can. Because that helps you retract your shoulder blades which keeps your shoulders in a safer position um, while benching. And it means that you have to press slightly less distance.

Jill: Oh, okay.

That’s interesting. I had not realized that. Mechanics put that back grip. That’s back in my brain, cuz we’ll get back to that too. So grip, is that a personal preference? Does that also depend on how broad your shoulders are or where is it safest to grip?

Louise Sugden: I think there is some preference to it.

I have always had quite a wide grip. I have quite wide shoulders. Um, That definitely will make a difference to you. But I know that for example, some people might have a recurring issue if they have a wider grip, whereas a narrower grip doesn’t bring the symptoms on of the issue that they have.

So, bit of a preference thing it’s also what you practice. So if you practice a narrower grip, you’re gonna be better at a narrower grip.

Jill: Does where you grip the bar help determine how much weight you can put on or is it just like, well, my muscles like it when it’s narrower versus my muscles, like it, when it’s wider or, and my shoulders,

Louise Sugden: it depends what muscles are more developed in you.

And, and that’s a practice thing. So like a narrower. We’ll use more triceps, whereas a wider grip we’ll use more pecks. So it depends what muscles are more developed in you as an individual. Yeah. Oh, that

Jill: reference interesting little bit that’s. So if you end up, if you’re a person that has stronger pecks, you want a stronger or wider grip to leverage that the better part of your body.

Yeah. And ver vice versa. If you have something else, a different part of your body, that’s more stronger, more.

Louise Sugden: Yeah. And we will, we will work multiple different grips to develop other areas. But majority of the work we do will be in our competition, formal grip.

Jill: Oh, that’s interesting. We’re still lying on the bench or getting to lie on the bench and, and as you said, this is where I like the bar to end up and I would imagine everybody has their own preference.

Louise Sugden: Yeah. And it’s something that I’ve worked on over the last couple of years is finding that place where I can get a really good pause on my chest. And it’s also a good position in relation to where my body is and where I press well from. Okay. So practicing a little bit

Jill: are there times words just like, ow.

I, I feel like this is not a good position. Like, I can feel that when I bench press stuff and like, oh, this is not a good position. I put my body in.

Louise Sugden: Yeah. Yeah. They’ll definitely be certain positions and you’ll be like, no, that felt wrong. So yeah, sometimes you’ve just gotta go with what you feel. .

Jill: Now when you compete, you strap yourself to the bench, does that provide stability?

Louise Sugden: Yeah, for me it definitely does. I am a paraplegic. I have no use of my legs, no ability to kind of brace through them. So the straps that hold me to the bench, just give me that extra stability that I just don’t have because of my disability.

Jill: Do they have regulations around strapping?

Louise Sugden: It’s not allowed to be any higher than your hip.

It’s not allowed to be on your foot. I believe that it’s, it used to not be allowed to be over your knee joint, but I think that’s changed recently.

Jill: why would any of those be an advantage?

Louise Sugden: Um, I think if you were to come higher up your body, so like above hip, it would definitely give more stability to people. And it, I think it’s just a way of standardizing across all the competitors. Okay.

Jill: How heavy is the bar?

Louise Sugden: 20 kilos.

Jill: 20 kilos. Okay. So [00:10:00] walk us through a lift. You get yourself on the bench

Louise Sugden: then. Get myself on the bench. line myself up where I normally line up on the bench, lay down get myself into my body position with my arch. Which is probably not what most people would call an arch, but I try um, set my grip up on the bar.

And then normally I’ll have someone pass the bar to me. Because another thing with my disability, I, I just really struggle to get it off the racks. So someone will pass the bar and then just take a breath brace, bring the bar down to chest and then give it everything to get it back up to one’s length.

Jill: How long do you have to hold it?

Louise Sugden: So in competition, you’ll be given a stark command. and then once it’s on your chest, normally your coach will call a drive call. And then you have to wait until you are given the rack command to get it back in the rack. I know that in everybody bench, the referee will also give the drive command, so it’s a little bit different

Jill: for us.

Oh, that’s interesting. what does the successful lift look like?

Louise Sugden: It just looks very controlled, I think is the best way to describe it. The main criteria is that you are in control of the bar at all times within the lift. So you’re controlling it to your chest and you’re controlling the press.

So for example, if one arm is way ahead of the other, you’re not fully in control of the lift or that they, they deem that you’re not you have to have your elbows locking out together. So I think control and smooth. Press is a really good way to, to differentiate.

Jill: Do you use hand grips or wrist wraps?

Louise Sugden: Uh, I use wrist wrap.

Okay.

Jill: what do those do?

Louise Sugden: So from all my years of basketball my wrists are pretty knackered. So they just give a little bit more support when you’ve got such heavy weight.

Jill: What did wheelchair basketball do to your wrists?

Louise Sugden: Quite as strong as they used to be. And so I use the wrist wraps to just support them while I’m lifting. Okay.

Jill: chalk, Do you use it? Where do you place it? how does it help

Louise Sugden: So, I use chalk when my hands get a bit sweaty, if it’s a particularly hot. Or when I get up to big weights I don’t want my hands slipping on the bar. So I tend to put it up just on my hands. Okay. Rather than all over the bar and everything, some people use it in other ways.

I’m kind of a minimal user, to be honest.

Jill: What is the strategy to choosing how much weight you put on the bar at any given point in the competition?

Louise Sugden: So obviously you’ll have an idea of where you are in terms of what weight you can lift. Uh, That kind of thing. I will normally go for something that’s pretty comfortable for my first lift.

And then depending on the other competitors will kind of determine what your next lift will be. And you might change what your planning on lifting on depending on what other people have got on the bar. Depends what your goals for the competition are. And what I mean, your chances are of being on that podium.

So that will determine somewhat what you attempt to lift.

Jill: And then in the back room, are you allowed to change that as you see, like, do you have to submit, this is the weight I’m gonna do next. And then as other competitors go, you can see what they lived and swap that out.

Louise Sugden: So, you in, in power, powerlifting, you go in Starting weight order.

You have to submit that and you can only make changes up to five minutes before the first lift. The second lift, once you put it in, you can’t change. So the second round. So it’s done in round. Um, And then the third lift you can change um, a number of times, I think it’s a limited number of times, to be honest with you.

That’s what I need my coaches to deal with. I don’t really think about

Jill: that side of things.

Louise Sugden: I trust them completely with the

Jill: decisions. Do you ever know, like not, do they tell you what you’re gonna lift ahead of time and that, or do they just like get on the bench, Louise, you’re gonna pun. We’re not even gonna tell you what you’re lifting today.

Louise Sugden: sometimes like, I, I always need to know, but I do know that some people actually prefer not knowing and just completely trust that their coaches know what they’re doing. I’m a bit of a control freak, so I absolutely have to know what’s on the bar. And what I’m attempting. But. I I’ve been in this situation quite a few times where I’m lifting stuff in competition that I’ve never even attempted in training.

So that’s quite a daunting prospect.

Jill: I wondered that because I, what I’m curious about also is how you improve and what you do in the gym, but also like when you’re in competition, do you have extra adrenaline that maybe [00:15:00] helps do some of these lifts or like how, what do you do for your mindset, especially when there’s a weight that you haven’t tried before?

Louise Sugden: To be honest, I think the only way to deal with that is to not actually think about the weight. Just the process about what you do, how you press it and what you need to focus on to get it pressed. I mean, you’ll have a feel on the day as to how warm up when um, how your preparation’s gone. So you’ll know whether.

Stuffs within your capability or not. Even if you’ve not done it in training, I think you just have an idea from the amount of training that you’ve done. So I think it’s just a confidence thing. And going out there and wanting to beat

Jill: people,

what do you do to build confidence?

Louise Sugden: for me that comes from training and working on technique and just generally any, so I find working on technique really works for my confidence because then I can go out there and I’ll be like, well, technically I’m very good. So get the weight on the bar and I’ll use that skill that I’ve got and do what I can with it.

For me that that’s the, the biggest thing I think having a great. Build up obviously will help and being confident in the weights that you’ve got, all the weights you’ve done. And the, the, the preparation that you’ve done is also really big for confidence, obviously. It’s not always the case. You don’t always have a good build up, so you kind of just have to focus on stuff that is going well.

And the stuff that you can take confidence from,

Jill: what do you do to work on technique in, in training?

Louise Sugden: I’m always working on technique. So for me pause is the most difficult bit because of my disability. I I’m a little bit unsteady. And then every now and again, I’ll like dip to one side, that kind of thing.

So that’s the bit that I work on probably more often than anything else. And it’s just a repetition thing. And then. making a kind of mental note of how a good rep feels.

Jill: What are some of the things you work on to study that dip? do you have use of all of your abdominals

Louise Sugden: majority? Okay.

I’ve done quite a lot of work, like core work over the years, and it has made a big difference to that technical element. It’s something that I’m gonna have to work on for the entire time. I’m powerlifting, because my core is quite a Bimal. But I am trying to make it better and uh, make improvements in that area.

Jill: and I know how fun sit ups are. They’re not, they’re not fun. Core work is not fun.

Louise Sugden: Is it? I absolutely cannot do a sit up.

Jill: Well. So what do you do for core work?

Louise Sugden: So, I do like our own little variation of a P off press. So it’s more rotational stuff that benefits for me. And I basically have to distract myself to the bench cuz otherwise I just don’t get any benefit from it.

And that’s something that we’ve developed over the years to try and figure out how to, to get core work in. That’s actually productive rather than just doing it for the sake of doing it.

Jill: Interesting. That’s really interesting. And in a way, if I was a coach, that would be an interesting challenge. To try to figure that out.

You know what I mean? I don’t know if it’s interesting for you to figure it out, just cause I would imagine it would be frustrating to not know what or go through a whole bunch of stuff and, have to try to find out what works.

Louise Sugden: Yeah. My coach does enjoy that kind of stuff. So, I think uh, it got his brain working we found a good solution.

So

Jill: good. How do you get stronger to be able to add more weight to the bar? Like what are the things you do?

Louise Sugden: So everyone thinks that to bench big. You’ve gotta just bench, but actually there’s a lot of, I do a lot of back work as well. Because you’re back, like you just need to be balanced as much as possible.

So there’s, there’s a lot of access to rework. Probably a lot more than I’d like, but , I do it because it makes me a better athlete. I don’t enjoy it, but I do it . But I think the, the way to progress is, well, most importantly, I think is consistency. Getting in doing sessions all the sessions that you’re required to do by your coach or whoever.

But when you’re in those sessions, always try and do something a bit better than last time, because if you’re constantly doing something a little bit better, like an extra kilo on the bar, or pressing the bar faster, even that is indication of progress. And I think that’s something that a lot of people will go to the gym and they’ll like tick things off and they’ll be like, okay, I’ve done it.

But actually, if you are constantly trying to improve [00:20:00] something just a little bit, then you will get stronger just from doing the work.

Jill: when you finish a lift, what do your muscles feel like?

Louise Sugden: Oh, I mean, it depends on the lift and it depends how hard it was. Um, There have been times where I’ve done an absolute grinder of a wreck and I’ve just had to lay there for maybe five, six seconds just to compose myself before I could sit back up again cuz like you just put everything into it and yeah, it’s just a full body exhaustion sometimes that I feel.

And then there’ll be others other lifts where I’ll be like, well, that would really well. Okay, great. So depends on the scenario.

Jill: Okay. how long is a training session usually for.

Louise Sugden: My training sessions are normally two to three hours. Okay. But being a powerlifter, my rest periods are generous.

Let’s say

Jill: well, I wouldn’t, I mean, you need recovery time,

Louise Sugden: obviously. Yeah. Between bench press exercises will normally take four to six minutes. Oh, okay. Um, To give you that’s nice. yeah. and then like accessory stuff will be like two or three minutes, so. Okay. You obviously wanna try and get as much out of your bench stuff, which is why you take the slightly longer rest.

Jill: So you have very strong back shoulders, chest. How hard is it to find clothes?

Louise Sugden: Incredibly difficult because nobody caters for somebody who has shoulders like mine. 90% of the time I end up in men’s clothes which I hate. But every now and again, you’ll find a brand that actually can cater. What I do find is that I normally have to go so big for my shoulders, that it’s baggy everywhere else, but, at least it fits my shoulders.

Long sleeve tops night dress like nice dressy tops. Absolutely not. They’re always cutting off my arms. ah, I normally go for desktops. That’s generally my uh, safe bet.

Jill: You were a wheelchair basketball player, what did you like about wheelchair basketball besides the fact that it’s cool. That’s what , that’s what we learned from Tokyo. It’s really cool.

Louise Sugden: yeah, I think I started playing it cuz I was 13 years old and I, and my friends played and it was cool. But wheelchair basketball for me just gave me this freedom that I didn’t get in everyday life.

It was fast. It was skillful and I just, I just really enjoyed. being on the basketball court and spending a lot of time with friends that were on the team, that kind of thing. It was um, yeah, it was just a really, really enjoyable game for me.

Jill: And you got to go to two Paralympics as a wheelchair basketball athlete.

What were those experiences like?

Louise Sugden: So I think the first Paralympics I went to it was the first time I’d really had any kind of responsibility within the team. So it was quite overwhelming for me. And I think maybe a little bit of a blur. Very enjoyable blur. I did enjoy it. But I think, I mean, London was just as a home games was just completely, I, I dunno that it’ll ever be topped the atmosphere as a, an English or a GB athlete was just phenomenal and yeah, London was just a really, really special experience, like the basketball, not so great, but just the crowd and the whole experience was amazing.

Jill: What was Tokyo like? was it part of the goal when you, when you switched powerlifting, it was 2017. So you had a few years, but how, I mean, how long does it take to develop in the sport and did it help that you were already an elite athlete?

Louise Sugden: It definitely helps that I was already an elite athlete. I started from a 77 and a half kilo bench press. So it’s already a really good bench press. And that’s from all my years of training in the gym when I play basketball Tokyo, it being delayed by a year, probably did help me in some ways, because I was very new to the sport.

And I did say in maybe 2019 maybe 2018 that I wanted to medal for the Paralympic games. And my coach kind of looked at me and went, that’s a big goal. No, one’s achieved that in one cycle. And I was like, I need the big goal. Like that’s what gets me excited is that ridiculous goal. And. Having that extra year, it was really tough, really tough at times, but it gave me more time to get stronger.

And I think it was a blessing and a curse. But it was, it was a fantastic games and I [00:25:00] thoroughly enjoyed it and I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it. I was worried that it was just gonna be completely overshadowed by all the COVID stuff.

Jill: How did they make it not so COVID,

Louise Sugden: I mean, it was very COVID. We were, we were in a bubble and there was a lot of mask wearing.

But it wasn’t as restrictive as I was expecting it to be as expecting it to be, you can stay in your apartments, you can do this, but essentially, as long as you had a mask on, you could be out of your apartment, you could. Socialize with other people at distance. So it was very cl but I think it was a really good balance between still allowing the athlete experience and keeping people safe.

Jill: How were the cardboard bits?

Louise Sugden: I uh, I’m really fussy when it comes to beds and they had these little, you could move about the mattresses mm-hmm to make them in a different order. And then there were different firmness. And I was like, this is just too complicated. I didn’t really understand it. To be honest with you. Um, They were. They were fine.

I slept quite well by the end of it. But initially I did struggle. ,

Jill: you know, I was in Japan once and, and we were on really hard beds in Western hotel, quote, unquote, Western hotels, and then moved over to futons on the floor. And that was, that was took a while for my back to adjust to that. But it did.

in the run up to Tokyo, how much competition did you have.

Louise Sugden: Very little

Jill: BEC and, and I said, because your, your bronze medal winning lift, would’ve been a Paralympic record and just people were lifting stuff like crazy at Tokyo. It seemed like

Louise Sugden: the, yeah. The standard in, in the women’s competition, especially from Rio to Tokyo, just absolutely skyrocketed. And my lift would’ve probably got me a silver or a gold in Rio.

So it just shows you how the standards improved over the last couple of years. And it’s fantastic to see women just getting confident, being strong makes my life a bit harder, but , I,

Jill: I was gonna say, it’s good as you, well, we’re of a certain age. But as you age, like how much more difficult is it this quad to stay?

Are you, are you gonna try for Paris?

Louise Sugden: Um, I’m gonna pro definitely try for Paris. Okay. I think that because I’ve not been in this sport for very long, there’s still progress that I can make. And I think it’s to do with, well, I was always told it’s to do with training age. So my training age in power, powerlifting is actually quite young.

So there’s more progress that I can still make. But I do say to my coach, sometimes that he’s gotta stop coaching me. Like I’m a 20 year old because my body can’t cope for this. I’m nearly 40. Can’t be doing with it.

Jill: Do you find, as you are getting older that it’s tougher or do do well, I mean, training the training age bit is interest.

Louise Sugden: yeah. I mean, I dunno if there’s any science behind that, but there’s a bit of a theory there, I guess.

Jill: do. Okay. So do you have terrible twos when you’re in training?

maybe ,

Louise Sugden: I do find as an older athlete that my body just hurts more, I think. So there’s definitely more time with the physio than the younger athletes. But yeah, I mean, I couldn’t have imagined that my body would’ve taken to this sport, like it has, it’s just been an absolutely insane five years to be completely honest with you.

Alison: We feel the same way about our show.

Jill: that’s how long we’ve been doing this? questions, Allison?

Alison: Well, I’m always interested in injuries. So what’s, powerlifting to me. The injury would be, I drop it on my head, but for someone who actually knows what they’re doing, what are the injuries you gotta worry about?

Louise Sugden: I definitely try not to drop it on my head. I did a school visit recently and I, I was asked multiple times what happens if you drop it on you? I was like, well, I train really hard so that I don’t drop it on me. I mean, I haven’t touched with had these issues, but um, PS are a big one. Just because the amount of strain that you put them through for me, I actually get a lot of nerve pain.

and I think that’s probably from my basketball days maybe a lot of whiplash that went undiagnosed , [00:30:00] but nerve pains, a really big one for me. And every now and again, back like upper back, middle back just yeah, makes getting into my body position really difficult.

Alison: What’s the reaction of people around you when you talk about being a powerlifter?

Louise Sugden: Well, the first question is always, what can you bench? And then when I tell them I can bench 130 kilos, they’re like, oh wow. That’s more than I weigh. I. Well, yeah, I’m like third in the world. So you’d wanna think that I could lift a good amount.

they also I’ve also been asked, like, if I say I can lift 130, they’re like pounds, I’m like no kilos. So, yeah, I mean, it, obviously it depends on the audience, but I know that in America you work a lot on pounds rather than key that

Jill: did some translation. Okay. We work on that. do you ever try to lift anybody or bench anybody

Alison: or does anyone say, oh, can you bench me.

Louise Sugden: All the time. Absolutely. All the time. I haven’t actually tried it because I just, I, I think it’s gonna put my wrist in a really bad position to be, to try it. And can you imagine if I got injured like that? My coach would absolutely lose it. So, it’s not worth the risk, but I’m sure once I’ve finished my career and I’m, you I’ve still got some string, there’ll be some party tricks happening.

Jill: this’ll be like when you’re 90 though.

Louise Sugden: I hope not.

Jill: Do people ask to arm wrestle you?

Louise Sugden: Yes, they

1. You have, because I’ve got, I’ve got big arms, so they’re like less arm wrestle. But I’m not very good at arm wrestling cuz you need core or you need to hold on. And as we’ve discussed, my core is pretty terrible, so yeah. And holding arms cheating. So.

Alison: Do you ever get backlash or negative reaction to what you’re doing?

Louise Sugden: I haven’t to this point I know that some people do, I haven’t made it onto TikTok yet, mainly because of that. And I don’t want feed forward to start. I D know all their trolling. Generally speaking, most of my interactions on social media are really positive. But maybe because my social media following’s quite small currently maybe that will change as things get bigger, but I’ve had a little bit, but generally speaking, it’s pretty positive.

People are just kind of impressed with how much I can lift.

Jill: Nutrition. What do you.

Louise Sugden: It depends on my goals at that point in time. But always protein is a big priority just to recover from training, that kind of thing carbs, obviously you need for the energy to train, but without the protein, your body’s not gonna be able to recover.

And yeah. So

Jill: is there a lot of like boneless chicken breast in your life?

Louise Sugden: there is, yeah. there is chicken and Turkey as well. Cause it’s so lean. Are you away

Jill: protein? Way shakes or,

Louise Sugden: I do, I prefer I’d prefer a protein bar myself rather than a, a shake. Just because I struggle with the shake sometimes.

See

Jill: I have this conversation in my house because my husband likes way and I say no way, he likes the protein shakes. I am also a bar person. So I, I hear you on this.

Louise Sugden: Yeah. And I know that there’s a lot of added stuff in the bars. So I try to do like food first, but there are times when you just need to get the, the, you have to have a snack and it’s easy and convenient.

Isn’t it? mm-hmm

Alison: So you’ve been to the Paralympics. You’ve been so successful. You’re thinking you’re gonna stay for paris. What. What motivates you to keep going?

Louise Sugden: well, there’s one goal that I’ve got, that’s kind of within my sights.

And that is the most ever lifted by British female power, powerlifter. And it’s 136 kilo place. So I’m nearly there. So that’s one goal that I’ve got. I don’t have a world championship medal which is a problem for me. And I guess it’s just every competition. I go to finding what I want to achieve at that competition.

So for example, I’ve got the European championships coming up. I’m current European champion, so I want to retain my title. And then we’ve got world championships next year, which I’d like to medal at because I don’t have one yet. And then Paris, it will be a case of wanting to get something better than Bronx.

So it’s just finding goals all the way along. I think being able to lift 140 kilos, I’d really love to get to that. And [00:35:00] it’s so close, but yet, so far, , it’s gonna take a hell of a lot of work, but yeah, that’s what I enjoy about it is the challenge and ha finding the ways to get up to those kind of weights.

Alison: Yeah. I can’t even imagine that kind of weight

Jill: How is it. To be in an individual sport versus a team sport.

Louise Sugden: Initially, I really struggled with it not having that team around me because I was so used to having, four girls with me on the court 11 in the team. And it did take a lot of adjustment because I think that I went to my first competition and I just, yeah, just, I felt quite isolated.

And actually that’s one of the things I now enjoy the most is that I am fully in control of what I achieve rather than having a team around me and the team, all of us needing to perform to achieve some things. So, I have no one to blame, but myself, if things go wrong and yeah, it just took a bit of adjustment over, over time.

Initially. Very difficult there.

Jill: Excellent.

All right, Louise. Thank you so much for joining us first off, pair of powerlifting. We’re just gonna start at the basics. So the goal of the sport is pretty easy. Lift the most weight possible in three tries, correct?

Louise Sugden: Yep. That’s pretty much it summarized. They do make it a little bit more difficult with the rules.

So, you have to pause the bar on your chest and you always have to lock out together. There’ve been a couple of rule changes recently. But essentially that’s the basics, the

Jill: basics. So this is a bench press and you’re lying down. When you lie on the bench, where do you want to physically place your body?

Louise Sugden: So when I’m setting up on the bench I like to have my eyes underneath the bar. And then when I’m pressing because of the arch that I have, I like to bring the bar down to just below my boobs.

And that’s because I have quite a wide grip. The width, your grip will actually determine where you wanna bring a bar to. So, it’s a preference thing, but also There’s a little bit of science to it.

Jill: Okay. So the arch, your back will arch, is that, that what you’re talking about?

Louise Sugden: Yeah. I don’t have a huge arch partly due to my disability. I just can’t maintain it. But I, I do what I can. Because that helps you retract your shoulder blades which keeps your shoulders in a safer position um, while benching. And it means that you have to press slightly less distance.

Jill: Oh, okay.

That’s interesting. I had not realized that. Mechanics put that back grip. That’s back in my brain, cuz we’ll get back to that too. So grip, is that a personal preference? Does that also depend on how broad your shoulders are or where is it safest to grip?

Louise Sugden: I think there is some preference to it.

I have always had quite a wide grip. I have quite wide shoulders. Um, That definitely will make a difference to you. But I know that for example, some people might have a recurring issue if they have a wider grip, whereas a narrower grip doesn’t bring the symptoms on of the issue that they have.

So, bit of a preference thing it’s also what you practice. So if you practice a narrower grip, you’re gonna be better at a narrower grip.

Jill: Does where you grip the bar help determine how much weight you can put on or is it just like, well, my muscles like it when it’s narrower versus my muscles, like it, when it’s wider or, and my shoulders,

Louise Sugden: it depends what muscles are more developed in you.

And, and that’s a practice thing. So like a narrower. We’ll use more triceps, whereas a wider grip we’ll use more pecks. So it depends what muscles are more developed in you as an individual. Yeah. Oh, that

Jill: reference interesting little bit that’s. So if you end up, if you’re a person that has stronger pecks, you want a stronger or wider grip to leverage that the better part of your body.

Yeah. And ver vice versa. If you have something else, a different part of your body, that’s more stronger, more.

Louise Sugden: Yeah. And we will, we will work multiple different grips to develop other areas. But majority of the work we do will be in our competition, formal grip.

Jill: Oh, that’s interesting. We’re still lying on the bench or getting to lie on the bench and, and as you said, this is where I like the bar to end up and I would imagine everybody has their own preference.

Louise Sugden: Yeah. And it’s something that I’ve worked on over the last couple of years is finding that place where I can get a really good pause on my chest. And it’s also a good position in relation to where my body is and where I press well from. Okay. So practicing a little bit

Jill: are there times words just like, ow.

I, I feel like this is [00:40:00] not a good position. Like, I can feel that when I bench press stuff and like, oh, this is not a good position. I put my body in.

Louise Sugden: Yeah. Yeah. They’ll definitely be certain positions and you’ll be like, no, that felt wrong. So yeah, sometimes you’ve just gotta go with what you feel. .

Jill: Now when you compete, you strap yourself to the bench, does that provide stability?

Louise Sugden: Yeah, for me it definitely does. I am a paraplegic. I have no use of my legs, no ability to kind of brace through them. So the straps that hold me to the bench, just give me that extra stability that I just don’t have because of my disability.

Jill: Do they have regulations around strapping?

Louise Sugden: It’s not allowed to be any higher than your hip.

It’s not allowed to be on your foot. I believe that it’s, it used to not be allowed to be over your knee joint, but I think that’s changed recently.

Jill: why would any of those be an advantage?

Louise Sugden: Um, I think if you were to come higher up your body, so like above hip, it would definitely give more stability to people. And it, I think it’s just a way of standardizing across all the competitors. Okay.

Jill: How heavy is the bar?

Louise Sugden: 20 kilos.

Jill: 20 kilos. Okay. So walk us through a lift. You get yourself on the bench

Louise Sugden: then. Get myself on the bench. line myself up where I normally line up on the bench, lay down get myself into my body position with my arch. Which is probably not what most people would call an arch, but I try um, set my grip up on the bar.

And then normally I’ll have someone pass the bar to me. Because another thing with my disability, I, I just really struggle to get it off the racks. So someone will pass the bar and then just take a breath brace, bring the bar down to chest and then give it everything to get it back up to one’s length.

Jill: How long do you have to hold it?

Louise Sugden: So in competition, you’ll be given a stark command. and then once it’s on your chest, normally your coach will call a drive call. And then you have to wait until you are given the rack command to get it back in the rack. I know that in everybody bench, the referee will also give the drive command, so it’s a little bit different

Jill: for us.

Oh, that’s interesting. what does the successful lift look like?

Louise Sugden: It just looks very controlled, I think is the best way to describe it. The main criteria is that you are in control of the bar at all times within the lift. So you’re controlling it to your chest and you’re controlling the press.

So for example, if one arm is way ahead of the other, you’re not fully in control of the lift or that they, they deem that you’re not you have to have your elbows locking out together. So I think control and smooth. Press is a really good way to, to differentiate.

Jill: Do you use hand grips or wrist wraps?

Louise Sugden: Uh, I use wrist wrap.

Okay.

Jill: what do those do?

Louise Sugden: So from all my years of basketball my wrists are pretty knackered. So they just give a little bit more support when you’ve got such heavy weight.

Jill: What did wheelchair basketball do to your wrists?

Louise Sugden: Quite as strong as they used to be. And so I use the wrist wraps to just support them while I’m lifting. Okay.

Jill: chalk, Do you use it? Where do you place it? how does it help

Louise Sugden: So, I use chalk when my hands get a bit sweaty, if it’s a particularly hot. Or when I get up to big weights I don’t want my hands slipping on the bar. So I tend to put it up just on my hands. Okay. Rather than all over the bar and everything, some people use it in other ways.

I’m kind of a minimal user, to be honest.

Jill: What is the strategy to choosing how much weight you put on the bar at any given point in the competition?

Louise Sugden: So obviously you’ll have an idea of where you are in terms of what weight you can lift. Uh, That kind of thing. I will normally go for something that’s pretty comfortable for my first lift.

And then depending on the other competitors will kind of determine what your next lift will be. And you might change what your planning on lifting on depending on what other people have got on the bar. Depends what your goals for the competition are. And what I mean, your chances are of being on that podium.

So that will determine somewhat what you attempt to lift.

Jill: And then in the back room, are you allowed to change that as you see, like, do you have to submit, this is the weight I’m gonna do next. And then as other competitors go, you can see what they lived and swap that out.

Louise Sugden: So, you in, in power, powerlifting, you go in Starting weight order.

You have to submit that and you can only make changes up to five minutes before the first lift.[00:45:00] The second lift, once you put it in, you can’t change. So the second round. So it’s done in round. Um, And then the third lift you can change um, a number of times, I think it’s a limited number of times, to be honest with you.

That’s what I need my coaches to deal with. I don’t really think about

Jill: that side of things.

Louise Sugden: I trust them completely with the

Jill: decisions. Do you ever know, like not, do they tell you what you’re gonna lift ahead of time and that, or do they just like get on the bench, Louise, you’re gonna pun. We’re not even gonna tell you what you’re lifting today.

Louise Sugden: sometimes like, I, I always need to know, but I do know that some people actually prefer not knowing and just completely trust that their coaches know what they’re doing. I’m a bit of a control freak, so I absolutely have to know what’s on the bar. And what I’m attempting. But. I I’ve been in this situation quite a few times where I’m lifting stuff in competition that I’ve never even attempted in training.

So that’s quite a daunting prospect.

Jill: I wondered that because I, what I’m curious about also is how you improve and what you do in the gym, but also like when you’re in competition, do you have extra adrenaline that maybe helps do some of these lifts or like how, what do you do for your mindset, especially when there’s a weight that you haven’t tried before?

Louise Sugden: To be honest, I think the only way to deal with that is to not actually think about the weight. Just the process about what you do, how you press it and what you need to focus on to get it pressed. I mean, you’ll have a feel on the day as to how warm up when um, how your preparation’s gone. So you’ll know whether.

Stuffs within your capability or not. Even if you’ve not done it in training, I think you just have an idea from the amount of training that you’ve done. So I think it’s just a confidence thing. And going out there and wanting to beat

Jill: people,

what do you do to build confidence?

Louise Sugden: for me that comes from training and working on technique and just generally any, so I find working on technique really works for my confidence because then I can go out there and I’ll be like, well, technically I’m very good. So get the weight on the bar and I’ll use that skill that I’ve got and do what I can with it.

For me that that’s the, the biggest thing I think having a great. Build up obviously will help and being confident in the weights that you’ve got, all the weights you’ve done. And the, the, the preparation that you’ve done is also really big for confidence, obviously. It’s not always the case. You don’t always have a good build up, so you kind of just have to focus on stuff that is going well.

And the stuff that you can take confidence from,

Jill: what do you do to work on technique in, in training?

Louise Sugden: I’m always working on technique. So for me pause is the most difficult bit because of my disability. I I’m a little bit unsteady. And then every now and again, I’ll like dip to one side, that kind of thing.

So that’s the bit that I work on probably more often than anything else. And it’s just a repetition thing. And then. making a kind of mental note of how a good rep feels.

Jill: What are some of the things you work on to study that dip? do you have use of all of your abdominals

Louise Sugden: majority? Okay.

I’ve done quite a lot of work, like core work over the years, and it has made a big difference to that technical element. It’s something that I’m gonna have to work on for the entire time. I’m powerlifting, because my core is quite a Bimal. But I am trying to make it better and uh, make improvements in that area.

Jill: and I know how fun sit ups are. They’re not, they’re not fun. Core work is not fun.

Louise Sugden: Is it? I absolutely cannot do a sit up.

Jill: Well. So what do you do for core work?

Louise Sugden: So, I do like our own little variation of a P off press. So it’s more rotational stuff that benefits for me. And I basically have to distract myself to the bench cuz otherwise I just don’t get any benefit from it.

And that’s something that we’ve developed over the years to try and figure out how to, to get core work in. That’s actually productive rather than just doing it for the sake of doing it.

Jill: Interesting. That’s really interesting. And in a way, if I was a coach, that would be an interesting challenge. To try to figure that out.

You know what I mean? I don’t know if it’s interesting for you to figure it out, just cause I would imagine it would be frustrating to not know what or go through a whole bunch of stuff and, have to try to find out what works.

Louise Sugden: Yeah. My coach does enjoy that kind of stuff. So, I think uh, it got his brain [00:50:00] working we found a good solution.

So

Jill: good. How do you get stronger to be able to add more weight to the bar? Like what are the things you do?

Louise Sugden: So everyone thinks that to bench big. You’ve gotta just bench, but actually there’s a lot of, I do a lot of back work as well. Because you’re back, like you just need to be balanced as much as possible.

So there’s, there’s a lot of access to rework. Probably a lot more than I’d like, but , I do it because it makes me a better athlete. I don’t enjoy it, but I do it . But I think the, the way to progress is, well, most importantly, I think is consistency. Getting in doing sessions all the sessions that you’re required to do by your coach or whoever.

But when you’re in those sessions, always try and do something a bit better than last time, because if you’re constantly doing something a little bit better, like an extra kilo on the bar, or pressing the bar faster, even that is indication of progress. And I think that’s something that a lot of people will go to the gym and they’ll like tick things off and they’ll be like, okay, I’ve done it.

But actually, if you are constantly trying to improve something just a little bit, then you will get stronger just from doing the work.

Jill: when you finish a lift, what do your muscles feel like?

Louise Sugden: Oh, I mean, it depends on the lift and it depends how hard it was. Um, There have been times where I’ve done an absolute grinder of a wreck and I’ve just had to lay there for maybe five, six seconds just to compose myself before I could sit back up again cuz like you just put everything into it and yeah, it’s just a full body exhaustion sometimes that I feel.

And then there’ll be others other lifts where I’ll be like, well, that would really well. Okay, great. So depends on the scenario.

Jill: Okay. how long is a training session usually for.

Louise Sugden: My training sessions are normally two to three hours. Okay. But being a powerlifter, my rest periods are generous.

Let’s say

Jill: well, I wouldn’t, I mean, you need recovery time,

Louise Sugden: obviously. Yeah. Between bench press exercises will normally take four to six minutes. Oh, okay. Um, To give you that’s nice. yeah. and then like accessory stuff will be like two or three minutes, so. Okay. You obviously wanna try and get as much out of your bench stuff, which is why you take the slightly longer rest.

Jill: So you have very strong back shoulders, chest. How hard is it to find clothes?

Louise Sugden: Incredibly difficult because nobody caters for somebody who has shoulders like mine. 90% of the time I end up in men’s clothes which I hate. But every now and again, you’ll find a brand that actually can cater. What I do find is that I normally have to go so big for my shoulders, that it’s baggy everywhere else, but, at least it fits my shoulders.

Long sleeve tops night dress like nice dressy tops. Absolutely not. They’re always cutting off my arms. ah, I normally go for desktops. That’s generally my uh, safe bet.

Jill: You were a wheelchair basketball player, what did you like about wheelchair basketball besides the fact that it’s cool. That’s what , that’s what we learned from Tokyo. It’s really cool.

Louise Sugden: yeah, I think I started playing it cuz I was 13 years old and I, and my friends played and it was cool. But wheelchair basketball for me just gave me this freedom that I didn’t get in everyday life.

It was fast. It was skillful and I just, I just really enjoyed. being on the basketball court and spending a lot of time with friends that were on the team, that kind of thing. It was um, yeah, it was just a really, really enjoyable game for me.

Jill: And you got to go to two Paralympics as a wheelchair basketball athlete.

What were those experiences like?

Louise Sugden: So I think the first Paralympics I went to it was the first time I’d really had any kind of responsibility within the team. So it was quite overwhelming for me. And I think maybe a little bit of a blur. Very enjoyable blur. I did enjoy it. But I think, I mean, London was just as a home games was just completely, I, I dunno that it’ll ever be topped the atmosphere as a, an English or a GB athlete was just phenomenal and yeah, London was just a really, really special experience, like the basketball, not so great, but just the crowd and the whole experience was amazing.

Jill: What was Tokyo like? was it part of the goal when you, when you switched powerlifting, it was [00:55:00] 2017. So you had a few years, but how, I mean, how long does it take to develop in the sport and did it help that you were already an elite athlete?

Louise Sugden: It definitely helps that I was already an elite athlete. I started from a 77 and a half kilo bench press. So it’s already a really good bench press. And that’s from all my years of training in the gym when I play basketball Tokyo, it being delayed by a year, probably did help me in some ways, because I was very new to the sport.

And I did say in maybe 2019 maybe 2018 that I wanted to medal for the Paralympic games. And my coach kind of looked at me and went, that’s a big goal. No, one’s achieved that in one cycle. And I was like, I need the big goal. Like that’s what gets me excited is that ridiculous goal. And. Having that extra year, it was really tough, really tough at times, but it gave me more time to get stronger.

And I think it was a blessing and a curse. But it was, it was a fantastic games and I thoroughly enjoyed it and I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it. I was worried that it was just gonna be completely overshadowed by all the COVID stuff.

Jill: How did they make it not so COVID,

Louise Sugden: I mean, it was very COVID. We were, we were in a bubble and there was a lot of mask wearing.

But it wasn’t as restrictive as I was expecting it to be as expecting it to be, you can stay in your apartments, you can do this, but essentially, as long as you had a mask on, you could be out of your apartment, you could. Socialize with other people at distance. So it was very cl but I think it was a really good balance between still allowing the athlete experience and keeping people safe.

Jill: How were the cardboard bits?

Louise Sugden: I uh, I’m really fussy when it comes to beds and they had these little, you could move about the mattresses mm-hmm to make them in a different order. And then there were different firmness. And I was like, this is just too complicated. I didn’t really understand it. To be honest with you. Um, They were. They were fine.

I slept quite well by the end of it. But initially I did struggle. ,

Jill: you know, I was in Japan once and, and we were on really hard beds in Western hotel, quote, unquote, Western hotels, and then moved over to futons on the floor. And that was, that was took a while for my back to adjust to that. But it did.

in the run up to Tokyo, how much competition did you have.

Louise Sugden: Very little

Jill: BEC and, and I said, because your, your bronze medal winning lift, would’ve been a Paralympic record and just people were lifting stuff like crazy at Tokyo. It seemed like

Louise Sugden: the, yeah. The standard in, in the women’s competition, especially from Rio to Tokyo, just absolutely skyrocketed. And my lift would’ve probably got me a silver or a gold in Rio.

So it just shows you how the standards improved over the last couple of years. And it’s fantastic to see women just getting confident, being strong makes my life a bit harder, but , I,

Jill: I was gonna say, it’s good as you, well, we’re of a certain age. But as you age, like how much more difficult is it this quad to stay?

Are you, are you gonna try for Paris?

Louise Sugden: Um, I’m gonna pro definitely try for Paris. Okay. I think that because I’ve not been in this sport for very long, there’s still progress that I can make. And I think it’s to do with, well, I was always told it’s to do with training age. So my training age in power, powerlifting is actually quite young.

So there’s more progress that I can still make. But I do say to my coach, sometimes that he’s gotta stop coaching me. Like I’m a 20 year old because my body can’t cope for this. I’m nearly 40. Can’t be doing with it.

Jill: Do you find, as you are getting older that it’s tougher or do do well, I mean, training the training age bit is interest.

Louise Sugden: yeah. I mean, I dunno if there’s any science behind that, but there’s a bit of a theory there, I guess.

Jill: do. Okay. So do you have terrible twos when you’re in training?

maybe ,

Louise Sugden: I do find as an older athlete [01:00:00] that my body just hurts more, I think. So there’s definitely more time with the physio than the younger athletes. But yeah, I mean, I couldn’t have imagined that my body would’ve taken to this sport, like it has, it’s just been an absolutely insane five years to be completely honest with you.

Alison: We feel the same way about our show.

Jill: that’s how long we’ve been doing this? questions, Allison?

Alison: Well, I’m always interested in injuries. So what’s, powerlifting to me. The injury would be, I drop it on my head, but for someone who actually knows what they’re doing, what are the injuries you gotta worry about?

Louise Sugden: I definitely try not to drop it on my head. I did a school visit recently and I, I was asked multiple times what happens if you drop it on you? I was like, well, I train really hard so that I don’t drop it on me. I mean, I haven’t touched with had these issues, but um, PS are a big one. Just because the amount of strain that you put them through for me, I actually get a lot of nerve pain.

and I think that’s probably from my basketball days maybe a lot of whiplash that went undiagnosed , but nerve pains, a really big one for me. And every now and again, back like upper back, middle back just yeah, makes getting into my body position really difficult.

Alison: What’s the reaction of people around you when you talk about being a powerlifter?

Louise Sugden: Well, the first question is always, what can you bench? And then when I tell them I can bench 130 kilos, they’re like, oh wow. That’s more than I weigh. I. Well, yeah, I’m like third in the world. So you’d wanna think that I could lift a good amount.

they also I’ve also been asked, like, if I say I can lift 130, they’re like pounds, I’m like no kilos. So, yeah, I mean, it, obviously it depends on the audience, but I know that in America you work a lot on pounds rather than key that

Jill: did some translation. Okay. We work on that. do you ever try to lift anybody or bench anybody

Alison: or does anyone say, oh, can you bench me.

Louise Sugden: All the time. Absolutely. All the time. I haven’t actually tried it because I just, I, I think it’s gonna put my wrist in a really bad position to be, to try it. And can you imagine if I got injured like that? My coach would absolutely lose it. So, it’s not worth the risk, but I’m sure once I’ve finished my career and I’m, you I’ve still got some string, there’ll be some party tricks happening.

Jill: this’ll be like when you’re 90 though.

Louise Sugden: I hope not.

Jill: Do people ask to arm wrestle you?

Louise Sugden: Yes, they

1. You have, because I’ve got, I’ve got big arms, so they’re like less arm wrestle. But I’m not very good at arm wrestling cuz you need core or you need to hold on. And as we’ve discussed, my core is pretty terrible, so yeah. And holding arms cheating. So.

Alison: Do you ever get backlash or negative reaction to what you’re doing?

Louise Sugden: I haven’t to this point I know that some people do, I haven’t made it onto TikTok yet, mainly because of that. And I don’t want feed forward to start. I D know all their trolling. Generally speaking, most of my interactions on social media are really positive. But maybe because my social media following’s quite small currently maybe that will change as things get bigger, but I’ve had a little bit, but generally speaking, it’s pretty positive.

People are just kind of impressed with how much I can lift.

Jill: Nutrition. What do you.

Louise Sugden: It depends on my goals at that point in time. But always protein is a big priority just to recover from training, that kind of thing carbs, obviously you need for the energy to train, but without the protein, your body’s not gonna be able to recover.

And yeah. So

Jill: is there a lot of like boneless chicken breast in your life?

Louise Sugden: there is, yeah. there is chicken and Turkey as well. Cause it’s so lean. Are you away

Jill: protein? Way shakes or,

Louise Sugden: I do, I prefer I’d prefer a protein bar myself rather than a, a shake. Just because I struggle with the shake sometimes.

See

Jill: I have this conversation in my house because my husband likes way and I say no way, he likes the protein shakes. I am also a bar person. So I, I hear you on this.

Louise Sugden: Yeah. And I know that there’s a lot of added stuff in the bars. So I try to do like food [01:05:00] first, but there are times when you just need to get the, the, you have to have a snack and it’s easy and convenient.

Isn’t it? mm-hmm

Alison: So you’ve been to the Paralympics. You’ve been so successful. You’re thinking you’re gonna stay for paris. What. What motivates you to keep going?

Louise Sugden: well, there’s one goal that I’ve got, that’s kind of within my sights.

And that is the most ever lifted by British female power, powerlifter. And it’s 136 kilo place. So I’m nearly there. So that’s one goal that I’ve got. I don’t have a world championship medal which is a problem for me. And I guess it’s just every competition. I go to finding what I want to achieve at that competition.

So for example, I’ve got the European championships coming up. I’m current European champion, so I want to retain my title. And then we’ve got world championships next year, which I’d like to medal at because I don’t have one yet. And then Paris, it will be a case of wanting to get something better than Bronx.

So it’s just finding goals all the way along. I think being able to lift 140 kilos, I’d really love to get to that. And it’s so close, but yet, so far, , it’s gonna take a hell of a lot of work, but yeah, that’s what I enjoy about it is the challenge and ha finding the ways to get up to those kind of weights.

Alison: Yeah. I can’t even imagine that kind of weight

Jill: How is it. To be in an individual sport versus a team sport.

Louise Sugden: Initially, I really struggled with it not having that team around me because I was so used to having, four girls with me on the court 11 in the team. And it did take a lot of adjustment because I think that I went to my first competition and I just, yeah, just, I felt quite isolated.

And actually that’s one of the things I now enjoy the most is that I am fully in control of what I achieve rather than having a team around me and the team, all of us needing to perform to achieve some things. So, I have no one to blame, but myself, if things go wrong and yeah, it just took a bit of adjustment over, over time.

Initially. Very difficult there.

Jill: Excellent.

Thank you so much, Louise, you can follow Louise on Instagram @loulousuggers and on Twitter at @louisesugden13 Louise suffered a shoulder injury after we spoke to her and that. That injury forced her to withdraw from the Commonwealth Games this past summer. And she will not be competing again this season, although right around now is when the European para powerlifting championships are.

So hopefully we can throw a link to those in the show notes . Hopefully you can watch the sport in action. So, Louise is out for the season. She did have surgery. It seems like it will be a successful surgery. and she has a long recovery ahead of her.

She’ll have to wait at least six months before she can start training again. So Louise, hope you have a speedy recovery and then we’ll see you back on the platform.

Ah, that sound means it’s time for our history segment all year long. We are looking at Albertville 1992 because it is the 30th anniversary of those Olympics. My turn for a story. And we are going to the wonderful world of skiing.

Alison: Oh yes. We have not done this so far.

Jill: No. And, and we’re not gonna talk about we’re just gonna focus.

We’re just gonna focus on one main player in the women’s competition. Her name is Raisa Smetanina, who she was a Soviet skier. And then, because this was the first games featuring non Soviet union, the unified team. She also competed for that team. She is from the Comey Republic in Siberia. So that obviously a lot of snow, a lot of cold.

She became a quite good skier. She was an only child. She focused on sport relentlessly to the point where she, I don’t know if she’s ever married to be quite honest, but she didn’t have time for relationship while she was competing. 1992 was her fifth Olympics. And she’s also the first athlete to get onto the podium at five different Olympics.

Alison: This is not a sport. That five Olympics is common, two or three, maybe, but five.

Jill: No, she started in 1976, met there 1980 1984, 1988. And then 1992, she was a classical specialist in the style. So even though she competed a [01:10:00] bit in, when the free skating style came out in the early 1980s, that was not her best area.

So she didn’t compete in it very often.

Alison: Well, she competed in the 17 hundreds, except of course she would go with the classical style. .

Jill: So at her previous Olympics, she had been doing three to four races each, but at Alberville, she was only doing the 15 K and the four by 5k relay. And she’s coming into these games with nine medals under her belt.

And the question will be, or the question was, will she become the most decorated winter? First race was a 15 K. So this is the first time in Olympic history that the women got a 15 K race previous to this. They had a 10 K race. So she is up against some tough competition. Worked her way up from sixth position throughout the race to finish fourth.

Alison: Oh, the worst position of all,

Jill: but then her other chance to medal was in the four by five kilometer relay unified team, all stars. They kick it off with Elena VEBA who had already won five bronzes at 1992. She finished her leg in 14 minutes, 51 seconds, leading Norway by 30 13 seconds. She passed it to Raisa.

Raisa had a very respectable time of 15, 15, but she fell into second place when she stumbled on a turn with 125 meters left to. In the leg and that allowed anger, Helene nein from Norway to overtake her. So it’s looking rough for Raisa, but she passed to Larissa Liz who got them back into the lead, more on her in a bit.

The anchor was Lu buff, yer Rova who won three golds and five medals in Albertville. She finished her leg one minute faster than Raisa had finished ensuring the team of victory. So Raisa is now got 10 Olympic medals when she would one goal she’d been alive 39 years, 354 days. Making her the oldest female gold medalist in winter Olympics history at the time, I believe that’s been surpassed she’s now fourth on the list.

So BEC and, and the reason that is because curling came to be on the program. Right. A lot of curlers. Yes, you have. There are two Swedish curlers and one Canadian ice hockey player ahead of her on this list. I know it doesn’t make you go, wow. Someone’s playing ice hockey when they’re in their forties.

Alison: So makes my back hurt.

Jill: Right. But you know, if you went by birthdays, Raisa would be the youngest medalist ever because she was born on February 29th. On leap your day and was just about to have her 10th birthday Ray’s record held for a couple of more games until 2002, which we’ll go back to Larissa lizard for this.

1992 was her first Olympics. She kept competing. 1998 was her big year. She medaled in five events. She had a total of seven Olympic career medals. She continued on to 2002 would have tied S Smithtown in those record, but she was caught doping disqualified from two, three races.

Yes. She was disqualified from three races, two of which she had medaled in. So she was caught doping after finishing first in the 30 K classic race at 2002, they found that right away. She was stripped of that medal, was initially allowed to keep her other two medals, which would’ve given her a career total of nine. In 2003 they found more positives. She got stripped of the other two medals given a two year band. She was effectively put into retirement. So all of those doping discoveries in 2002, put Italian Stefan bill Mondo onto the podium. She also had competed in Albertville 1992. So be Mondo is now tied with, but she had retired.

She had first competed in Calgary and 2002 was her last games. So who was competing in their first Olympics at 2002 was Marit Bjørgen who would go on to breaks net record. In 2018 at P Chang, where she ended up with 15 medals, most of any winter Olympian. So back to Reza, just to wrap this one up she talked about retiring, starting at lake PLA in 1980.[01:15:00]

she actually retired in March of 1990. At her farewell party, the government of the Comey Republic gave her the keys to a house in a CIF car, which is the capital city. The ground floor of that. And she lives there. Apparently still the ground floor is now a museum that you can go and visit. It has honors her career, the careers of other successful skiers from the region, and then the history of cross country skiing in the last half of the 20th century,

Alison: which Raya basical. Did

Jill: right. Right. this museum won second place in the all Russian competitions of Museums in the Olympic and Sports Movement, which was established in 2010, 2011, by the Russian Olympic Committee. She’s become a ski coach. She has a ski complex named after her in the city as well. It has cross country by Athlon and a.

You know, so go and stay. And then of course she was a torch bearer for Sochi 2014 throughout her reason, her throughout her region. But that is how we got one of the most decorated winter Olympians of all time.

It’s uh, time to vote for next year’s Olympic history. games that we will focus on all year. Next year will be a summer games. So we have narrowed it down to three that you will be able to choose from. That will be Beijing 2008, cuz it’s the 15th anniversary of those games. And some of you can now feel old for that.

Seoul 1988. It’s the 25th anniversary of those games. And London, 1948 will be celebrating its 75th anniversary. In 2023. We will have a poll up in our Facebook group. So join that. If you’d like to have some input, it’s Keep the Flame Alive Facebook group.

Alison: Welcome. Tola

Jill: It’s the time of the show. When we check in with our Team, Keep the Flame Alive. These are our past guests who make up our country. OFAN boxer. Ginny Fuch’s first professional fight was postponed due to the death of Queen Elizabeth. And it is now scheduled for October 15th at the O2 Arena in London,

Alison: Ice dancers Charlie White and Merrill Davis were inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.

Jill: Author Andrew Marin’s latest book, Inaugural Ballers was released last week.

It is about the first woman’s basketball tournament in 1976. We recommend you get a copy because you will need it for our show for 2023. And you can get that through bookshop.org/shop/flame alive pod. And if you purchase something through that link that will help support the show.

Alison: The Doce tones of Jason Bryant were in Belgrade where he was announcing the 2022 World Wrestling Championships.

And he mentioned, this is his 25th trip out of the country to announce wrestling.

Jill: Wow. Good for him, man. That’s really, that’s really cool where a sport can take. You. Table tennis player. Melissa Tapper was part of a dominant Australian team that competed at the 2022 I T T F Oceana championships. Millie took home bronze and mixed doubles and gold in the women’s team event.

Alison: At the roller skating Pan-American championships.

Erin Jackson, one gold in every pack sprint. So that’s 500 meters, one. Thousand meters and a silver in the 100 meters. She was also selected to carry the us flag in the opening ceremonies and recite the athlete’s oath

Jill: Modern pentathlete Jo Muir finished second in the women’s competition at the modern pentathlon European championships. And she was also part of the first place winning women’s team.

There is I grown because there’s a slight update on the Kamila Valieva situation. So Christine Brennan from the USA Today reported that I guess The investigation is over, but Christine talked with Ru public relations manager, gal Corova. And who said in an email that hearings will take place in late September or early October.

So. What this means, we don’t know. We don’t really know when a final decision will be made. And if there is a final decision, it will likely be appealed, which would go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. And this is all with regards to the figure skating team competition in which Camilla, Val [01:20:00] Ava competed, even though she had been dis.

It was after the team competition that they discovered the doping, right? Correct.

Alison: It was reported the day after the team competition had been finished, that she had been guilty of a doping violation back at the Russian nationals.

Jill: So the story will continue to go on for quite some time. which is kind of tough for anybody else in that competition who may get in a medal upgrade or.

Has to just knowing what what’s going on with the, final results.

Alison: Well, they don’t even have any medal, so nevermind a medal upgrade.

Jill: Oh yeah, that’s true. They didn’t even have a ceremony for this. I forgot that.

Hey, we have ticket information for Paris, 2024. This is exciting. So, the Paris 2024 organizing committee made an announcement on September 20th with regards to the ticket sales timeline. So here you go. If you’ve been waiting. From December 1st of this year to January 31st of next year, there will be a registration window to sign up for a ticket lottery.

And if you are a member of the club, you will have priority for this first round of sales and joining the club is free.

Alison: It’s a website that you put some information in and then you are a member and

Jill: you get email. It’s very simple. Yes. Yes. So it’s free.

You get emails. And then February 13th, 2023, this is 48 hours before tickets go on sale. If you are in that lottery and you win, you will get a notification that you will be able to take part in the first round of ticket sales. Then from February 15 through 18 lottery, winners will have 48 hours to purchase tickets.

You will get like a package deal where you get three different sessions and you can choose from 32 sports on the program. But apparently no tickets will be available for surfing in Tahiti, expect prices to vary based on popularity of the sport and the type of session it is. A preliminary session will be a lot cheaper than a finals and gymnastics is going to be a lot more expensive and swimming will be a lot more expensive than say probably TaeKwonDo.

Just depends on what the demand is there uh, February 19th, the general public will be allowed to purchase ticket packages. And then in May, 2023, single tickets will go on sale. This apparently will also use a lottery system.

Opening and closing ceremony, tickets will be in this sale. So tickets for ceremonies will start at 90 euros. These are for tickets in the low keys between P Doster, Litz and PT Delina, and they will go up to 2,700 euros. So. Currently tickets for the upper keys are free of charge. Although some French websites are reporting that the organizing committee is still discussing ticketing for the ceremonies.

Now I’m gonna interject here and go, oh, Hey, when you just decided that there will be 600,000 people watching, watching the opening ceremonies on the send, and then you decide to ticket it. Wow. You’re gonna bring in some money.

Reports are though that the organizing committee is still discussing ticketing for the ceremonies. And then at the end of 2023, any leftover tickets are going to go on sale. Now expect tickets to be a hundred percent digital. Prices for single tickets are going to start at 24 euros, but who knows how many of those seats will be available?

So they will go up in price. There will also be an official resale platform. If you need to transfer your tickets to somebody and you’ll be able to transfer the names on the tickets to another person as well. So, you won’t be stuck with tickets if you cannot go to an event, all of a sudden .If you’re local to France, There will be 1 million tickets available for local people at special pricing.

These will be for local authorities and I’m not quite sure what that means, but they’re probably being sold to specific populations, like people who volunteer in sport, a lot people who are the education sector and people with disabilities. those groups of people will have, uh, in France will have another bucket of tickets to pull from.

There will be hospitality packages, which is tickets plus experiences. They’ll be provided by On Location, which is the official provider of hospitality packages. These contained [01:25:00] guaranteed tickets to most of the sporting event. As well as additional services, like in venue, hospitality, accommodation, and tourist activities, sales for those began in fall 2022.

Packages are first come first served. Tickets for the Paralympics will go on sale and fall 2023. But there’s no more details about that process yet. So again, if you want a better chance of getting tickets, join the club. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes and also on our website, flame alive pod.com/paris.

We have a lot of information there as well, and we will keep updating it as we get more information. So, check that out. If you have just general questions about the Paris games,

Alison: you know what word you did not say? What. Cos

Jill: sport. I did not say cos sport,

we’re not dealing with authorized ticket resellers anymore. So this was a whole process. if you’re new to Olympic ticketing it used to be that the organizing committee would contract with ticket resellers. There would be about nine of them who all had different territories around the globe. And those resellers got a certain block of tickets and they sold them.

And so you had to go through their ticket laies and deal with their pricing and you, well, you’d get ticket. you’d pay what was the price of the ticket, but you also had to pay a cos sport fee on top of it. So this is the first games where the organizing committee is managing the ticketing process itself.

So we will see how this works because they now have to manage it for the world. But it could be a better process.

Alison: I would expect it would be cheaper for. Consumers.

Jill: I hope too. I mean, I, I would imagine you’re still gonna pay some kind of service fee to, to cover the cost of the platform.

But I think because it’s, I, I believe it’s built from Alibaba, which is a top sponsor of the IOC. So. Hopefully, this is a process that will uh, make ticketing easier. Or, and, and I don’t wanna say more transparent, but at least more understandable because you’re dealing with the demand of the entire world at the same place.

Although hopefully that won’t knock the system down either. We’ll see. But oh, one of the things, so, uh, the IOC executive board met last week and in one of the conf press conferences afterwards executive director Christoff, Dubee got into talking about cost optimization for Paris, 2024. And. He said, oh, we’re getting into some details of cost optimization of where we could shift things around.

And one of the places they were looking at was accredited seating. And I know that listener, Nick had brought this up, I believe in the Facebook group. And wondering why so much seating or else we talk? No. Or we may have talked about it on a, a call in show. That’s where it was. We talked about it on a call show.

And why did the press have so many seats in a venue allocated to them, especially if they weren’t always used. So they, the organizing committee might be able to look at accredited seating, understand where the press is going. And resell seats right into the end. So if they are not going to cover as much of say, you know, maybe there were 200 seats allocated to artistic swimming, and they’re only finding that 75 members of the press are showing up.

Well, they might be able to reallocate that unused space. Sell it off as tickets to the population.

Alison: What I think will be very interesting with that is what we found in Beijing and, and what we did in Beijing. We didn’t necessarily go to entire events. Sometimes we would pop around. So what happens if you oversell an event where basically you take away press seats, but then say for the final round press wants to come in, but there are no press seats.

Jill: That would be interesting. Would there, would they start making a. Press needs to sign up. And there are some events where especially at the Olympics, that would be ticketed anyway, because demand was too high for the space that they already have. That, that didn’t happen at Beijing because there weren’t as many press there as there usually is.

But I would imagine if you’re looking at finals of gymnastics, finals of swimming, finals of athletics, you’re gonna have a lot of demand for some of those sessions. Or a lot of demand from the press for some of those sessions. So I bet they are going [01:30:00] to, they would adjust allocations accordingly or, or they would ticket that for the press and say, you need to sign up for those tickets.

And, and if you get one great, if you don’t, you don’t. So it’ll be interesting to see if that actually happens in their cost optimization stuff. Also in the. Executive board meeting, they approved venue changes for Paris 2024. So, the Eiffel Tower will now host beach volleyball for the Olympics and soccer five aside for the Paralympics, which, oh man, what a venue is that gonna be?

The PLA de LA Concord will be renovated before Paris, 2024. uh, inside the gains reports that they will. That there are going to be light replacements of repairs on two of the statues and fountains and repairs to the drainage system. Huh? Lord Sebastian Coe head of World Athletics is now lobbying to get some athletics events put outside of the sta de France, which is where athletics is going to happen.

So he wants to put some events downtown to democratize the sport and bring more attention to it. Like they’ve had many diamond league events in athletics that. Have had things like pole vault in a downtown street or shop put in a downtown street and it, it can be very exciting competition.

There’s a different energy. More people can go by and it races a lot of awareness for the sport. But I think this is kind of a curve ball thrown at the organizers with less than two years to go. And we

Alison: should say that the athletes really enjoy this. This has been very popular among the athletes in the diamond league.

So sub co is not just pulling this out of his hat saying, wouldn’t this be fun? The athletes do support this, but where are you going to put this in the middle of

Jill: Paris? Right in, in play. I mean, and I don’t know if the. Area that’s the urban park would even have space for it, but yeah. Where do you put it that you haven’t already blocked off traffic?

you

Alison: long jump over the

Jill: vault over the Eiffel tower,

Alison: make it really. Into the city.

Jill: Could you imagine a long jump? How, how far into the sun could you jump

Alison: well, remember we talked about ages ago where we talked about some of the extinct sports and it was diving for

Jill: distance. Oh.

but seriously, I mean, they would have to the. And he said, co did say he knew it posed challenges in terms of security and cost, but you know, it was really in line with the IOC vision. But I, I, and I understand that you wanna see, get as many eyeballs on your sport as possible, but like it, the cost, you, you gotta think of the cost at this point because you would need signage and.

A way to have people watch. So that’s cost of bringing in bleachers. and what do you have for like changing rooms and things like that? Well, they already have the

Alison: sand for beach volleyball near the Eiffel tower. So I’m thinking long jump is kinda you’re halfway

Jill: there, just, just in, in between games and the beach volleyball.

Okay. Just put down the, the lines for the long jump. And here you go. Absolutely. Why

Alison: not? You could charge more for the ticket cuz you’re getting two sports.

Jill: So we’ll see what happens with that. Although I wouldn’t be surprised. Those ideas are being taken to 2028 and maybe you’d see something like that for LA 2028 would be interesting. We have some news about the torch relay. Thanks to aha Tani, Ken Hanscomb Coca-Cola has become an official sponsor of the relay along with B PCE.

And there’s supposed to be a third sponsor, but they’re still negotiating that contract. There are going to be at least 60 departments involved with the torch relay. Department is akin to a state or a province. And those departments have already committed to being in the relay. Total numbers should be known by November.

So right now they expect the relay to last 70 to 80 days and go through about 700 cities. We should look for the final root and torch design in mid 2023. So this article that he mentioned, which was from lympho, durable.fr also talked about the Coke situation.

That’s gonna be at Paris 2024. And I, I thought this was more interesting than the actual torch relay update.

Alison: so will you have your diet Coke? That’s all we need to.

Jill: I’m pretty [01:35:00] sure that’s gonna happen, but if you go expect drinking fountains, returnable, glass bottles, reusable cups, and returnable cups, there will be recycled plastic bottles and use. There will be no cans of Coke products. So I thought all of that was very, very interesting.

They’re trying to be as eco-friendly as possible with this situ.

And then mark your calendars because the inaugural Paralympic day will be on October eight at PLA de LA BAE in Paris. They will have exhibitions some try the sport options, cultural and artistic events. And we know what October eight is. It’s your anniversary. It’s your birthday. what part way? I know.

So, little bit of news from LA 2028, the IOC coordination commission visited LA and checked things out. And of course, things are going very well in the organization and planning nothing, super noteworthy, except for what Chuck Liani rich Pearlman reported in the sport examiner. This week. This I loved because a reporter from K C R w, which is a local national public radio station asked how the 2028 games were going to resolve the cost of living and homelessness issues.

And the reporter got two answers, one from IOC member and coordination commission chair, Nicole Hert. And she said that. The games adapt to a city. They don’t expect the city to adapt to the games. They don’t wanna take over city. They wanna incorporate themselves into a city. She said, we’re not so naive to think the games are going to be solving these issues, but they have to be addressed.

That’s a fact. And then the organizing committee chair, Casey Waserman said the challenges that we face with homelessness in the city are real. And if we sit around hoping that the Olympics will do something to fix those, or is going to do something to make them worse than 2028, we failed this C. We as leaders in this community have a responsibility to deal with those problems today.

Because if the Olympics weren’t here in 2028, those problems exist today and they will continue to exist unless we deal with them. If we just closed up shop and went today, homelessness in the cost of living will still exist and they will still exist in 2028. And no one should be confused about this,

Alison: I think this makes a lot of sense in the sense of there’s the Olympics. That is something that the city really wants to do, and all cities across the United States. Have a big problem with homelessness and cost of living, not just LA and that needs to be dealt with like Casey Wasserman said, you don’t wait another six years to try and deal with it.

You deal with it now. And is the Olympics going to make it better or worse? It could make it better. In the sense of, are you building a lot of facilities that could be used for low income housing? Could it make it worse because the city is spending money on the Olympics and not on domestic issues. Yes.

But it’s really two different things.

Jill: Right. And it’s, I, I find it interesting when you get to the no Olympics, people who protest basically saying that the Olympic. Pushes the homeless hell. Well, they do kind of cover up whatever homeless problem they can. So people don’t see the blight when they’re in for the games, but the Olympics is not the source of cause of homelessness.

And it’s not going to be the solution to homelessness in any city. So it it’s, to me, it’s really a naive argument to make. and like you mentioned, are they diverting resources from homelessness? To put the Olympics on, who knows, because we’ve found so many times that money for many necessary infrastructure projects does not get allocated.

And those projects do not happen until they have the deadline of the games to make them happen. And

Alison: we are not so naive as to think that the Olympics doesn’t bring some corruption, doesn’t bring misspending of government funds. I mean, we know that, but so do a lot of things. right. And I do think it’s unfair to blame a city’s problems or to stake a city’s rebirth on the Olympics either way.

Jill: Exactly. Exactly.

So back to the IOC and its EB [01:40:00] meeting a couple of things on national Olympic committees were decided. So Guatemala has had some issues with the government interfering in the national Olympic committees doing so the IOC has suspended them. Just the announcement of that made the committee behind the central American games. 2022, which Guatemala was supposed to host with Costa Rica. This decision said we’re gonna cancel the games.

And this is a little bit of frustration for athletes because this was gonna kick off their Paris, 2024 qualification bids. So that’s kind of a rough situation for Guatemala, India. Huh? Boy. They postponed elections in 2021. They have a lot of internal problems, a lot, a lot of governance shortcomings.

So, the IOC has given them a final warning. And in December when they meet again, they could suspend India. and the suspension basically means that they don’t get funding from the IOC, which has gotta be very important for their bottom lines. For India specifically, the IOC was supposed to have its session meeting its next session meeting in India in May, 2023.

That ain’t happening now. The IOC has postponed at session meeting until the fall of 2023. And they’ll decide later whether this session will take place in India or not. So the interesting thing about that to note is because at this session meeting was when they were going to announce which city would host the 20, 30 winter Olympics that has now been pushed back to whenever this session will take.

India

Alison: just doesn’t seem to learn its lesson.

Jill: it’s

Alison: been it suspended at least once or twice before that I can think of off the top of my head.

Jill: Yeah. I guess history is doomed to repeat.

Alison: Are all NOCs run by middle school girls who are just testing their parents.

well, you’re not gonna take my phone away. You’re just threatening it. Oh yes, I am. I mean, come on

Speaking of suspensions.

Jill: So, one of the reporters from Inside the Games mentioned, oh, Hey, since you’ve been suspending people, what’s up with North Korea and they are suspended. The response was that the suspension is supposed to end at the end of 2022. They IOC has made contact with North Korea and hopefully they will be able to meet up and discuss what is going on with the north Korean situation.

So, as to find a pathway back into good graces, also the IOC also announced that it has approved the creation of an Olympic forest network. so they wanted to have an Olympic forest. Nearby. They wanted this around the world. Hopefully in a couple of months they will plant the first trees in the first forest.

But look for more news on that. Is this

Alison: how they’re making contact? The trees are talking

Jill: to each other. I don’t know.

message whistles through the leaves kind of thing. And finally tach is going to visit Egypt because Egypt is keen on hosting 2036, which that was also a Rich Perlman Sports Examiner note. The country has been investing a lot of money in sports facility since 2015, including a stadium, two arenas.

And Aved. So what do you think about a games in Egypt? I

Alison: think it would be fantastic to have a games in Africa. I think it’s, the only place the games have not gone and should, but there’s a lot of issues with going to the countries in north

Jill: Africa. Yeah. I mean, I, I have not looked at the aftermath of when South Africa hosted the world cup in 2010, because that was the first time that FIFA had put the world cup in South Africa. So, and that was a huge issue back then. So I kind of wonder how that affected the country and, and how the organization of that went as well.

Because obviously you don’t wanna repeat of R.

Alison: Right. And you don’t wanna have an issue like we would’ve had now. I so when Beijing was awarded 2022, the other choice was Kazakh.

There’s now fighting in Kazakhstan. So we couldn’t have had 2022 and not that Egypt is Kazakhstan, but they had a coup and a revolution, not that many years ago. And is this really the best time to make that choice? I mean, obviously 2036 is a long way off. And I would think for that kind of region, you have to go back to that seven year awarding time.

Because it’s still so tumultuous.

Jill: Yeah. [01:45:00] That would be interesting. gosh, can you imagine the backdrop of the pyramids everybody would be just besides themselves?

Alison: Well, you got sand for beach volleyball in spades,

Jill: so we will keep an eye on that. But that’s, it’s something to keep in mind who knows what will happen. All right. That will do it for this week. Let us know what you think. Power, powerlifting, and also make sure you get on our Facebook group and vote for which historical Olympics we will do next year,

Alison: you can email us at flame alive pod gmail.com.

Call or text us at two zero eight three five two six three four. That’s 2 0 8, flame it, you can hit us up on social at flame alive pod or join the conversation and vote for next year’s historic Olympics in the keep the flame alive podcast group on

Jill: Facebook. Next week, we’ll be talking with Blake Hughes, who is a former competitive ski jumper.

And now the director for the American women’s ski jumping team, so we’ll learn a lot more about ski jumping and oh my gosh. We’ve got, we’ve got talk on the ski jumping suits galore.

So get excited for that. Cuz that was a good conversation. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, keep the flame alive.