The 2022 World Games are underway, and we are glued to the feeds! Today we talk about the sports we’ve been watching and how the World Games has made us love multi-sport events all over again.
If you haven’t been watching the World Games, check out the feeds at Olympics.com. It’s really cool to see some sports with disciplines that aren’t in the Olympics. It’s also cool to get to know some new sports that aren’t in the Olympics (though some are trying for LA 2028 – looking at you, flying disc, lacrosse and flag football).
Sumo has been one of the more popular–and controversial–events during the first weekend of the games. If you haven’t watched the Men’s Lightweight Finals Gold Medal Match between Ukraine’s Demid Karachenko and Egypt’s Abdelrahman Elsefy, it’s a must-watch.
But first, watch the bronze medal match just before it–it’s at 38:25 on the stream. It’s a tough battle between Ukraine’s Sviatoslav Semykras and Bulgaria’s Pencho Dochev. We won’t spoil it here, but this match emulates everything we love about multisport events and sport’s ability to inspire people. The “oh, man, you got me–that was a good move” gesture at the end? What sportsmanship!
The gold medal match starts at 40:20, and during it, we meet our new favorite person Katrina Watts, who’s the in-house announcer and has spent decades involved with the International Sumo Federation. Elsefy, who has been warned about showboating after his semifinal (see it at 29:50), does something that causes a chain of events, the likes that Katrina Watts has never seen in her 30 years of high-level involvement with the sport. And while the officials discuss the situation at hand, Watts does an excellent job of explaining the issue and the honor, tradition and respect that is essential to the sport.
Following the World Games and want to talk about them? Check out our Facebook Group — the conversation is hoppin’ and some listeners are there reporting back!
We also have updates from TKFLASTANIS:
- Karate athlete Tom Scott
- Sailors Stephanie Roble and Maggie Shea
- Hurdler Dawn Harper Nelson
- Para shooter McKenna Geer
- Decathlete Jordan Gray – check out her decathlon clinic!
- Boxer Ginny Fuchs
- Retired water polo player Tony Azevedo – he’s on “One Team: The Power of Sport“
- The dulcet tones of Jason Bryant
- Hammer Thrower DeAnna Price
- Sport Climber/Ninja Warrior Josh Levin
The Paris 2024 Board of Directors had a meeting, so we’ve got news from those Games, including thoughts on the Paralympic opening ceremonies, the Paralympic schedule and some venue switcheroos.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo: International World Games Association Flickr
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 TFKLASTAN, 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: I am not Alison anymore. You can now address me as Vulcan and I will call you Vesta
Jill: So you are hooked by the World Games mascots.
Alison: I am hooked by those amazing people who are wearing those costumes in the Birmingham heat.
Jill: Oh, I, I saw them in the stands at one of the outdoor events and I’m arch archery. No, I did. I haven’t seen any archery. Oh, it was a, something. It might have been a parkour.
I, I don’t even know. And, and warning folks, we’re going back to like, PyeongChang 2018 coverage of games because I have to say a mixed blessing that we could not be there, although I’m dying to go now. I wish I, we could be there. But it, we I’ve had some personal stuff go on. So I haven’t been able to watch much.
You’ve had some stuff been going on. You haven’t been able to watch a ton, but I I’ve
Alison: been watching a ton. I, yeah, I have stuff going on, but that doesn’t mean that my computer’s not with me.
but man, it, I’m sure they got tips from the Disney characters on how to wear costumes and that heat, because it has been hot and humid today. They’re dealing with thunderstorms. Oh boy. So they’ve had to move some events around. So the World Games have had to be as nimble as the Tokyo organizers.
Wow. In terms of dealing with the weather.
Jill: But I did notice them and I felt so bad for them wearing They almost look foam heavy costumes and they’re, gray and they are like chiseled gods and it’s gotta be tough. It’s gotta be hot. And they are working it every bit. They can so props to the mascots
Alison: and Vulcan’s got hammer and I’m like one of these days, somebody is just gonna really make him mad, throw a cup of beer at him.
And he is just gonna take that foam hammer and, put them right through the archery target
Jill: so today we are talking World Games, coverage, and what we’ve been watching and just some thoughts on how the games are going so far. We’re probably about halfway into them at this point and been able to watch quite a few things.
It’s it is. my goodness. It’s just sparking my love for multi-sport events in general. Let me say that. Doesn’t it take you back
Alison: because I’ve been watching it on YouTube. Mm-hmm olympics.com is streaming just hours and hours of constant coverage, but you can only watch one sport at a time. You can’t jump around.
Jill: You can have two windows open, you could and one on mute. I mean,
Alison: but we know how I feel about two windows open. I, I definitely have trouble with that, but it takes me back to, Wide World of Sports and the old school watching of the Olympics where you could only watch what was on. You didn’t have streaming.
You didn’t have multi-channels, you didn’t have cable and it forces you to learn something new.
Jill: Yes. and this whole program is forcing you to learn new things or, or even things you didn’t know about certain sports. I mean, you go gymnastics. Oh, okay. And you don’t realize there’s this whole section of aerobics and a rhythmic that’s not in the Olympics and you don’t really necessarily know if, if you’re a fan of Olympics and Paralympics and multi-sport events and that general vein, you’re not necessarily going to know that these sports exist.
So it’s kind of cool to see them get the recognition. And also thank goodness that the IOC has, has offered to put so much investment in this to show the streaming. I haven’t been able to see any of the CBS sport coverage yet, but I it’s minimal for us in the us. And it’s been so nice to be able to watch the streams.
It’s been nice to have some of my favorite Tokyo commentators. Again,
Alison: Ollie.
Jill: Oh, yes. Oh my gosh. He is so fabulous. And who’s the woman who does gymnastics, cuz I was listening to her today. Uh, life, I think her name is yeah. Oh She is phenomenal. they’re doing a great job. Interesting. As Patrick from Chicago land noted in our, our Facebook group flying disc has their own little crew of people on [00:05:00] site doing like the halftime show or the pregame and postgame wrap up.
But there’s actual OBS commentators doing the actual commentary during game play. And they’re like the only support that’s doing that.
Alison: Right. And that’s from the Federation. Yes. That and like the Olympics, the World Games, each Federation puts on its own competition. They’re the ones running it, making the rules um, making some of these decisions and flying disc, put a little extra effort in.
Jill: Which has been good. I, I did see them today. I paid attention to their commentary on one of the matches today ahead of one of the matches. And I, I found ’em to be very insightful. so I really appreciated having that.
Alison: So, you know what? Commentary has not been insightful.
Jill: Oh, no
Alison: break dancing.
Jill: okay.
See, see, this is a thousand times better than it was for the Youth Olympic Games. Let me tell you, and it’s a B girl who’s who has done the commentary. Every once in a while, she will tell you something that makes sense.
Alison: Right? So most of the time when the competition is on, she doesn’t say anything.
She just lets you watch it, which I appreciate to the extent of, I wanna hear the music. I wanna see each of the dancers perform, but I don’t know what I’m watching. Do. These moves have names. What are the judges looking for? And unfortunately she made the comment and has repeatedly made the comment of what the judges prefer.
The judges prefer this dancer over the other dancer, which makes it sound like you’re tasting cake. There’s no objective criteria that’s being scored, which is not the case. I mean, there has to be something that they’re scoring
Jill: there. Yeah. There is some scoring system. The one thing I could use is more overlays to show that scoring system, besides the camera kind of having it in the background and you see who’s winning because she was not doing a good job of explaining like, oh, so, and so got this many points to this many points and won that round of the battle.
But every once in a while, she’d mention threading as a step and a little bit on transitions. And that helped. But. I totally agree. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I don’t know what I’m looking at. I did get the impression that there was bias. Maybe there’s not, but I, there is a perception from me, the viewer that there is bias in judging this sport and the other, the other note that she said that I did not like, because I think it’s anti Olympism ideal type things.
And I know the World Games is different, but this is also breaking and it’s gonna be in the Olympics where, oh, this is the bronze medal match. And these people have egos and they’re upset that they’re not battling for gold. So they’re just not gonna give it their all maybe.
Alison: Wow.
Jill: Yeah, that was particularly, I remembered that from the men’s bronze medal match, cuz I did, I have watched a lot of breakin because I would say listener, Brian will just text me and go Break it’s on.
So ,
Alison: I watched a lot of it simply because I know it’s gonna be in Paris. I thought this would be a good primer to what to look for, who to look at, you know, who the big players are, because this is a qualifier. I think this affects your qualifying points. It’s one of those events that you can add up, but I got nothing.
Jill: Right?
Alison: The Japanese are good. I mean, that’s all I got out of it and they go by one name, like the Brazilian soccer players.
Jill: Right. And, and that’s okay. That’s, I mean, they’ve got the B names and I don’t know how much we’ll see this carryover into Paris, 2024, but I can work with that, but it’s still the big lack of understanding of how this sport works.
That makes me frustrated, makes me want to turn it off.
Alison: Okay. Good. Announcing. couple of things, parkour. I definitely feel like I got an understanding of what parkour athletes are being scored on. The announcers were telling us names of moves. They were telling us, okay, they’re getting difficulty points for that.
They’re getting execution points for that. They’re losing execution points. When they put a hand down, it really just looked very much like messy gymnastics in the parking lot, but at least I understood what was going on. Were
Jill: you watching? Speed parkour or freestyle parkour or both freestyle. Okay.
Cuz I also watched a little freestyle, but I will also disclaimer, I have a situation where I tend to dip into an event part way through. So I don’t hear the beginning explanations. And if the commentator’s not good about repeating that throughout the game, cuz some of them are some of them aren’t I will not necessarily understand.
And I did get the [00:10:00] beginning of one of the women’s competitions or qu a qualifier for the women and it was blazing hot. Oh. That I wanted to know what that, course was made out of because the bars were black that had to be medal. But the, paneling that they ran up, I didn’t know what that was.
Cuz it did look like rusty brown stuff. I’m like, oh is it just so hot to touch?
Alison: It didn’t seem to be because at different points they were rubbing chalk on it. Mm-hmm . so they seem to be able to do that. And the commentators never said it. I mean, they talked about the heat, but they didn’t talk about it in relation to the color or that the course would be too hot to touch.
and the athletes did not seem to respond to the course in that way. That’s good. I did dip into par core rule book to try and find your answer to what it could be made of. And it’s very loose because parkour is based on found sites. Mm that’s interesting. So it’s, there are certain safety parameters, but materials are not one of the parameters.
Huh?
Jill: It, it was interesting to watch the freestyle parkour because it, did look like some of the competitors had. trouble kind of thinking of where to put a move when or what kind of move to do. And there some moves I thought were awkward and, and more gymnastics based than I would think that parkour would be like, like one where you squat down on one leg and then whip your other leg around and jump over it.
You know what I’m talking does that, that has a real name. The, from Sanco?
Alison: No, I have no
Jill: idea what it’s called. Well, it might be that, but, but there were somewhere it’s just like, I’m on top of this block, let me just squat down and whip my leg around and jump over and let’s move. So that kind of felt a little awkward to me.
I would like to, but I was also seeing qualifying and the runs would be a certain length of time and people would finish. They’re run a lot earlier. They would decide they would choose to end it early. Cuz apparently you can. And I believe this is in the Facebook group that, basically if you figure you’ve gotten enough points to get farther in the competition, you’ll just stop and save it for the next round.
In that heat. It makes sense.
Alison: Right. And we’ve talked to many athletes who do that multi swimmers and track stars. You’re not putting it all out in the first round. Right, right, right. And even gymnasts in the early rounds. Sometimes if it’s qualifying, won’t do the most difficult move for the point.
So it, made sense.
Also good announcing Sumo wrestling.
Jill: Oh my goodness. Oh, there has been a lot of Sumo talk in the Facebook group, which has been phenomenal.
Alison: Okay. So there was a huge controversy yes. On the first day. Okay. So I, I have details of this. So it was the men’s lightweight gold medal match between Egypts Abdelrahman Elsefy. And Ukraines Demid Karachenko okay. I,
So CEFI beats, Kara Chenko in the match pushes the out of the ring. And at the end of the match, CEI does a back flip in the ring. That is not according to Sumo etiquette, Sumo etiquette, as the amazing announcer Katrina Watts told us it’s very proper. It’s very rule based. It’s very strict. So then all the judges get together and they’re gesticulating, wildly and talking really fast.
And Katrina’s trying to fill in space. Like we do not do this. We do not do this. then it’s announced that CEI is disqualified, basically for unsportsmanlike conduct for this back flip. And he had been warned for excessive celebrating in the semifinal. Well, the crowd goes nuts. The Egyptian coach Abdelahman Shalan, who is a former Sumo wrestler himself.
And here’s the best little tidbit I put picked up. His wrestling name was Osunaarashi. He storms onto the mat and is yelling and screaming and carrying on. And here comes Katrina Watts announcing saying, get off the mat. No, no. All of a sudden she got all school mom. She was fantastic. She was fantastic. And six police officers.
come on to escort the Egyptian coach off the mat. It was a wild scene. So then the judges get back together and have another wild kerfuffle. And they come up with the idea that we’re gonna have a rematch crowd is going wild. Katrina did a wonderful job explaining everything that was happening. Right.
Jill: And, and she was saying like, in the 30 years I have done this, I have never seen this before.
So this is just unprecedented. [00:15:00] And, and she, you could tell how upset she was by the disrespect of the action towards the Sumo ring, because because there is so much tradition and respect in the sport that not showing that respect was.
Not it, he was like being a heretic.
Alison: It was, it was unfathomable to her. I mean, apparently this woman is the defacto queen of Sumo. I mean, people I’ve been reading about her and she does announcing around the world. She’s an amazing ambassador for the sport. She really knows this. And she was personally offended by ELS’s behavior.
You could hear it in the way she spoke. She’s like, that is not what is done in Sumo. And I don’t think the American crowd got it because it was so American football que to have sort of this big end of competition celebration, do a back flip cheer, pound your chest. So the American crowd was clearly on the side of the Egyptian wrestler, but all the Sumo purists and Sumo fans were on the side of the judges.
They have a rematch, the Egyptian wins again, though, again, a controversial. When, because of who stepped outta the ring first.
Jill: Right. And, Chenko was really in control right then, and was in the process of throwing his competitor outside of the ring.
But he, in the kind of momentum of it all stepped out first.
Alison: Here’s the best part. The International Sumo Association banned Egypt for the rest of the competition. What, because of the coach’s behavior good for them. And there was two or three more days of different weight divisions, men and women and Egypt is out.
Jill: Wow.
Alison: So International Sumo definitely took Katrina Watts side of this and saying. We do not do this.
Jill: Wow. Holy cow. That, I mean, while we’re on Sumo, I have two more thoughts. A, I do feel bad for the officials because they are in solid white clothes, white pants, white shirt, and a little black, maybe with a little white in it tie that they have to wear.
And it’s like a it’s it looks bow tie esque, but it’s not a bow tie. and there’re in this ring that is, I don’t even know what the surface is, but it’s dirt or clay or something like that that needs to be swept. And that would be my job that I would want, I would want to be, as, as Ben said, the ring master and sweep it up, just so chalk out what you need to chalk out.
Just it’s very proper. You do it in a certain way. I like that idea.
Alison: So to interrupt our discussion of the action. One of our favorite spots from both the Olympics and Paralympics, what volunteer or officiating job would you want? Yes, this is yours
Jill: ringmaster at, at this point in the conversation, cuz because we are not doing dailies, I have found multiple things I would want to do.
And, and I will say listener, John is there and he has been so good about posting jobs that are possible. And I am just loving every post he makes,
Alison: there are so many cleaning jobs that I can do.
Jill: You would do the racquetball window cleaning. Right?
Alison: I saw that picture. So racquetball is played in a glass cube.
It’s not glass, but a plexi-glass cube. And in between sets, they come out with the Windex and the sques and they clean the glass so that everyone can see better. if I were taller, I would need to bring a step stool.
Jill: I’m sure that could be arranged
Alison: to do that job. That was also a, a fantastic job. So many cleaning jobs.
There is again, a towel girl at the pool in life saving . I could go back to my towel girl job. There was the floor ball floor cleaners. Okay. Okay. They had things on their feet and they had a broom. I was
Jill: all over that in floor ball. One thing I think would happen, but I could never quite see it on the feed is because the side wall is quite flexible and gets moved outta position.
And I think there was a volunteer at the corner who was responsible for putting that back in place. That would totally be my thing.
Alison: Did you watch much floor ball?
Jill: I have watched some floor ball and uh, I did watch a good chunk of the men’s gold medal match between Sweden Finland, which was. bananas because Finland was down by like four or five points. And the poor commentator said, well, you know, if Sweden’s about wrap this up and Finland had a chance to tie it up right.
In the, literally the last second. And they, they couldn’t pull it out.
Alison: So floor ball is basically hockey without ice or field [00:20:00] hockey indoors. Right. Did you ever play that
Jill: in gym class? I, I did. I didn’t play it with the type of ball that they had or the type of sticks that they had.
I mean, our stick was solid. They have some kind of air going through their stick. And I think that has to do with the ball being like a wiffle ball, and if you, you don’t know what a whiffle ball is, it’s, it’s. Light plastic ball with holes in it. So that air goes through it and makes the it, it adds some resistance to the ball so that it’s easy to catch.
I was a little dumbfounded that the goalies were all dressed, like head to toe long sleeve covered helmet and face mask on, and then like no glove protection. Although the finished goalie did have gloves on, but they weren’t like padded or anything. They were just tight form fitting gloves.
Alison: But I have to say, if you’ve not caught a floor ball match, you may wanna go back. The Swedish and the finished players. Not so hard on the eyes.
Jill: That is correct, but it’s a lot of fun to watch. I mean, it just, it made me wanna play it again.
Alison: I know these sports feel more reachable than a lot of the Olympic sports.
Jill: Right. I kind of want my recreation department to have gym class for adults. Yes. Where you have units on different just, you know, you have your bad mitten unit and you have your floor ball unit and you have all these other sports that just, you, you end up playing in gym class. And maybe that would be a good breeding ground for getting people involved in this and, and getting it up to a World Games level and, and having more interest in it.
Alison: Bowling
Jill: bowl. I have not seen any bowling.
Alison: I watched the men’s bowling Australia won. That was a lot of fun. Yeah. It was very interesting cuz I, I think of bowling as, so quintessentially American mm-hmm you know, the Midwestern bowling league on Friday nights kind of thing. Mm-hmm and yet there were no Americans in the medal round.
Wow.
Jill: That’s nice.
Alison: So that was fun to watch. , you know, what else was fun? Canoe marathon, because they have to get out of the water, run their canoe back to the start and get back in the water.
Jill: I totally agree with you. I was mesmerized by this. I watched, I think this might be the thing I have watched the most because it’s it’s calming to watch, the portaging was incredible.
Alison: Oh, you use fancy words. I just say the carrying of the hope ,
Jill: Every once in a while somebody would get a time penalty. I, what I wish they did for this was, and, and I’m asking a lot of OBS, cuz I, I, I do realize that they’re, doing a solid to the World Games. I wanted drone coverage so I could see how big the course was above.
Because it did feel like they were, they were going in a big circle, but I couldn’t figure out how long the course was and how much it how far they were going for per each lap. But it, the Portage thing was so cool. and one of the races, one of the, kayakers had to dump out his boat, cuz I guess his pump wasn’t working and he kept getting water in the boat.
It was, it just was so cool. And then at the end, when they put that pour on a sprint after they’d been doing several K’s worth of paddling, then they just poured all on, in a sprint at the end, it’s just phenomenal to
Alison: watch.
And the venue is Oak Mountain State Park. it’s beautiful, really, really lovely.
And you know, a lot of times cities bid for these games to get more people to come to the city. And that is a place I would love to go paddling in. It just looks manageable and lovely. And not in July. because you will need the water, but really, really nice.
Jill: Uh, What else have you been watching drone racing?
Oh, I have not been able to find, I missed it on the live stream. I have not been able to find a replay yet, yet. Poke. It
Alison: is very hard to watch on, I think it’s much easier to watch in person because the drones are moving so quickly and the camera can, it sort of remember when I was, we were watching trampoline and Tokyo and I said that one camera angle made me feel motion sickness.
Mm-hmm drone racing does that as well for me, but here was the coolest little tidbit I picked up. Luisa Rizzo is a drone racer from Italy in a wheelchair. Oh, cool. So this is one of the only sports. In the World Games or, in any international competition where you have able bodied disabled varying levels, all competing on an even playing field with each other.
Jill: Huh? I had not thought about that.
Alison: That is, is pretty cool too. and you were mentioning John being there and, and posting some [00:25:00] jobs. Apparently there is a person who, if a drone crashes, it is that person’s job to go find all the pieces, which I, and collect
Jill: now I have so many questions about drones and, putting them back together when your drone crashes, all that jazz.
But no, that is one that I do wanna see now that there has been mention of it in the group and, and your description as well.
Alison: You have to watch it with sound, do not put that on mute because that is the. Fun part of
Jill: it. Okay. What else have you been watching life saving? Oh, life saving is
Alison: fun.
Want a mannequin that I gotta pull out of the pool and save its life.
Jill: this also has the cool job of maybe you are the mannequin holder at the end of the pool, or maybe you are the scuba diver who places the mannequin at the bottom of the pool, which I also loved.
Alison: And then the swimmers who put the obstacles and reset the obstacles mm-hmm along the pool. Um, So life saving you, you swim in a regular pool, but there are obstacles that you have to swim under.
And then they have certain events where you have to rescue a mannequin, usually from the Bon row of the pool, and then swim a certain distance with the mannequin. So there’s different distances and speeds. And it’s swimming. Plus it’s like swimming with sprinkles. Right.
Jill: and some of the events they have their fins on at the start.
and the, the one I watched they did the first entire length, which is a 50 meter pool, underwater swimming with the fins, and then they picked up their mannequin and then, then they could go above the water and you’re holding your mannequin and you’re swimming with one arm and you’re trying to get to the end first.
Alison: Fin swimming with mannequin.
Oh, okay. Cause there’s fin swimming without mannequin, there’s fin swimming obstacle, and then there’s fin swimming with mannequin and at different distances. Ah, okay. And what’s interesting is you will have Olympic swimmers also competing in this.
Jill: Yes. Because Alyssa, Brian did mention that there was a swimmer from Hungary.
Her name was Petra. She swam in the world championships on the Hungarian swim team. No medals there, but she is racking ’em up here in
Birmingham.
Alison: She needs those fins and mannequins.
Jill: Yeah. I mean, that was just, it’s fascinating to watch And I think what I was slightly disappointed in the obstacle course, just because I had seen, and I believe Meredith posted this in the group or else she tagged me on Twitter the a swimming obstacle course where they went over obstacles in the water and then they also went under stuff.
And then I was like, oh, these obstacles are only under the water. I want them over the water too. But, but obviously when you’re lifesaving. you aren’t necessarily gonna be going over something, but you’re likely going under something.
Alison: You’re not some sort of proto amphibian coming out of the water. but speaking of crossover athletes, can we talk about bet?
Bart Swings? Yes. Roller sports. Yes. So Bart swings won mass start speed skating, long track medal in Beijing. First winter medal for Belgium in 70 something years. 74 years. Yeah. Turns around. He is also one of the most decorated World Games athletes ever.
Jill: He’s been incredible. I
Alison: know. And he is the first person I saw this somewhere and I apologize.
I don’t have the reference, the first person to win an Olympic medal. And a World Games medal in the same calendar year.
Jill: Yes. Listener, Brian also mentioned that. So, this is probably dually noted every in, in many places. which is an amazing feat, especially when you’re switching from ice to back to inline and vice versa, the technique is very different
Alison: and this is road in line.
So he’s going from the indoor oval to the outdoor in line. Very,
Jill: very different , especially on the roads of Birmingham, apparently because they have this course set up in front of an old power plant, I think. And it, it goes uphill. It goes downhill. They’ve gotta make left turns. They’ve gotta make right turns.
It’s a really kind of a cool course, but there are also parts of it where the athletes gets pushed to the side and they end up having to jump the curb.
It’s rough. It looks tough. And the road is not newly paved. It’s not full of potholes either, but you can tell it’s a, it’s a little worn and that’s gotta be tough and you’ve gotta negotiate different elements in the road too.
Alison: No problem for the flash. That’s his nickname flash though. I think it probably should be Lule [00:30:00] is Beji.
also at inline cheering on Team USA, TKFLASTAN sighting, Erin
Jill: Jackson. Yay. I bet she’s excited to see her teammates compete there
Alison: cuz she start, she started in inline. So this is her, her roots.
Jill: We did have a TKFLASTANI competing, Tom Scott competed in karate. I have not been able to see that yet. Have you seen it?
Oh
Alison: my goodness. He lost in the bronze medal match and it was really close, really close. He had a great tournament. He looked good, but it was Stan. Now I’m gonna have to say this name, right? Mm-hmm oh, dance and Beck. Oh, Tabba
I’m sorry to the Uzbeks if I’ve insulted them by my pronunciation, but he beat Scott in a very close match.
Mm.
Jill: We mentioned flying disc or ultimate. I have seen a little bit of that. Have you watched any of that? That I have not also kind of fun to watch. It’s easy to figure out. I believe this is a game. Cause I read this probably in the Wall Street Journal years and years ago, they don’t have any referees. They referee themselves.
So everyone’s, there’s an element of, sportsmanship in saying you have a penalty or not, but you also know the rules well, and it’s kind of fun to watch the disc. it’s just fun to watch. And I, I, I haven’t seen full games.
I will say that, but when it’s on, I’m like, oh, I will tune into that.
Alison: Been watching some
Jill: lacrosse. I have watched some lacrosse too. It does not
Alison: quite fill The sled hockey and wheelchair rugby hole in my heart, which will be filled next week when wheelchair rugby comes back. But it’s close.
It’s nice and fast and easy to follow in the sense of when the ball goes in the net you score. And I like the six game. It’s a lot faster than the game I watched in
Jill: college. I, I will say so I’ve watched some lacrosse too, and maybe it’s my stream, but I don’t necessarily think it’s a good TV sport.
Agreed. And I’m thinking about that. And when I was watching flying disc and in the lens of all of these sports that are trying to get on the 2028 program for LA, I know lacrosse is making a big push flying disc is making a push flag. Football will be making a push. I really had a hard time watching lacrosse because I didn’t necessarily know where the ball was because everyone’s running around with a stick and the ball is trapped in your stick.
And the net is fairly small and goes deep. So it’s really hard to see when the ball is going in. Maybe if I had a bigger screen that would help, but I, I just had a hard time watching it. and I wanted, I wanted rugby sevens. That’s what I was just like, well, this is rugby sevens with a stick in a way.
Alison: That’s important, as you said, because lacrosse is trying to get into 2028 and most viewers are TV viewers.
They’re not attendees. So how can we make this easier to watch on TV? Is it color of the field, color of the ball? Graphics, like they’ve included in some other sports, you know, what what could be done to make this easier?
Jill: So it’ll, it’ll be interesting. One really cool thing about the lacrosse tournament is that one of the nations competing is the Haudenosaunee nation, which is an indigenous nation here from America.
And it’s been a lot of fun to watch them compete and show their talents in the sport that they invented. although they like getting their penalties that’s, that’s just one within the little bits that I watched. It was just like how many more penalties can hold it. I think they were down to two people on the field at one point in the men’s game.
Alison: That’s a problem.
Jill: Uh,
I caught a little bit of fist ball today. I gotta tell you, this is not a sport. I’m gonna give it another try maybe, but this is not a sport that I am driving with because it is basically volleyball on a soccer field.
The ball can bounce and the net is just a little thin strip that goes across the field. So I’m having, I was having a hard time. I’m watching it going, what is this first off? Because of course I jump in, in the middle of something and the only, there are not very many overlays. I will tell you that. So it’s not always, when you just tune into the live feed, the live stream, because it olympics.com or Olympic channel is doing three streams.
So they’ll have one that is just live and then they’ll have like, here’s this sport and here’s this sport. So when I tune into live and it’s fist ball, I don’t know what I’m watching and there’s nothing up to tell me. And, and I gotta say it [00:35:00] was, it felt like an awkward combination of sports.
Alison: Did it feel like a sport born on the island of Dr. Moreau
Jill: Maybe, maybe it did feel like a gym class, something you’d make up in gym class kind of sport. I know that people love playing it. I wanna give it another, try to see if I can find the magic in it, but first glance, not, digging it too much today.
I also saw some aerobics.
Alison: Did you just wanna pour a Crystal Light and put on your leg warmers?
Jill: No, because it hardly looks like that at all. Really. Yes, really. . It was a session that had aerobics and it had rhythmic.
I didn’t see any of the re like I saw aerobics pairs cuz there were only like four or five pairs in the finals and then something came on with team aerobics and I saw about 30 seconds of it went. I, I need to really watch this when I can sit down and pay attention because there was a lot going on there, but aerobics seems like it would be a dance competition, but it’s got gymnastics elements because it’s governed by the gymnastics Federation.
So I believe there are seven different. elements you can put in. So you see like when there is a pushup in a way, but it’s not like a, they stop and do a pushup. They may jump and land in a pushup position and hold it for a half second or something. So you realize, oh, this is a pushup, or there’s something more acrobatic to the routine, but it’s still kind of a dance routine.
And every once in a while you see some high knees and they’ll go like, oh, that’s when I want my leg warmers.
but I’m trying to understand
why this discipline, not why it exists. And I, cause I don’t wanna denigrate it because people love doing it. But again, it’s amazing how many sports are out there and how many evolve into, and, and come under the wing of a certain Federation, because you would almost think this is a dance routine that you could see in dance sport, but it’s not a traditional dance number.
It’s got these gymnastic
Alison: dance sport really evolved from ballroom dancing
Jill: mm-hmm and this didn’t, but you would think that it’s got so much dance to it.
Alison: Well, parkour is under that same issue where it’s being fought among federations, who does this really go with? Mm-hmm I’m gonna watch some of the aerobics and some of the acrobatics and some of the rhythmic just to see the differences. I mean, I think aerobic competitions are wild.
Just the concept of them. I mean, I remember the Crystal Light National Aerobics Championships but I have not seen any in, I don’t know, 25, 30 years, so I am ready.
Jill: I’m curious. I wonder if some of the old stuff is on YouTube. It is. and looking to see what the differences are today.
I may have to do that
Alison: less hairspray.
Jill: True.
did catch a tiny bit of power lifting and saw a
Bonica Brown was lifting. Everything was really close. I saw her last lift. It was cleared, gonna be a world record. She’s jumping for joy, got the gold world record. And then it was taken away. Cuz there was a protest. That was a little rough, but I think she was still happy and proud of her achievements and her silver, but it still was tough to watch.
Alison: Another cousin of mine.
exactly. And speaking of my cousins, Hannah Brown, our archery official is running the archery competition in Birmingham. So,
Jill: and trying to stay cool.
Alison: Her English blood is not designed for Alabama that’s
Jill: for sure. And I understand that Olympian, Brady, Ellison is doing well in the archery competition.
He has won the silver medal in the individual field recurve, and that’s the third time he’s won it. So he’s a Threepeat
so yeah, a lot going on. Did you see any of the opening ceremonies cuz I have not. I did not.
Alison: And I haven’t been able to get the repeat of it. That’s been my one feed beef. I cannot get re-broadcast of the opening ceremonies.
Jill: Well, we will look into that. Hopefully you can see the closing ceremonies but this has been so much fun to be watching a multi-sport event.
Again, like I said, I’m, I’m loving, watching new sports and it’s nice to know that there’s more sports than are in the Olympics. There’s a
Alison: whole world out there. Yeah. Competitive sports that we don’t get to touch. So it’s fun to, to dip into some of it
Jill: and. It almost feels like there are so many sports vine to get into the Olympics and there’s no room for them anymore.
The Olympics keep saying, look, our quote is now 10,500 athletes. But if we build up the World Games, I mean, granted, I’m sure the Olympics doesn’t wanna be like, oh wait, we don’t want them to surpass us. We still wanna be the top dog of Multisport events in the [00:40:00] world, or even just the top sporting event in the world, but it would be nice to make the World Games seem valuable.
And I know it means something to the competitors who are there, but I think it needs to start being more well known in the public.
Alison: Of 100 countries, 3,600 athletes.
Jill: It’s got room for growth,
Alison: it’s got room for growth, but it’s, it’s not a job in the bucket. I mean, that’s quite a size event.
Jill: and I think that if it gets more recognition and more awareness in the general public, then it can be a, a bigger event as well. But I, I think we need to work on appreciating this event a little bit more.
Alison: We’ll just run around yelling. Pcore
Jill: all right. So next week we’re gonna take your calls and we’ll talk World Games. What you’ve seen, what you’ve watched, what you’ve of the whole experience.
It will be Tuesday, July 19th. The phone lines will be open at 8:00 PM. Eastern 7:00 PM. Central. You can give us, give us a call then at two zero eight, flame it. So we are looking forward to talking to you then
Alison: Welcome to TKFLASTAN.
Jill: It’s the time of the show where we Check in with our Team. Keep the Flame Alive. This is our roster of past guests from the show who are our team representing our country of TKFLASTAN. Sailors, Stephanie Roble and Maggie Shay finished sixth in the 49 FX or European championships.
Alison: We have babies coming to TKFLASTAN.
Jill: We have, we have two babies.
Alison: Oh, oh my gosh. So Dawn Harper Nelson announced that she is pregnant with her second child. And McKenna Geer is expecting her first child, a baby girl due in January, 2023. So congratulations
Jill: Decathlete Jordan Gray will be hosting a two day women’s decathlon clinic on July 23 and 24 in River Falls, Wisconsin.
We will have a link to that in the show notes.
Alison: Water. Polo’s Tony Azevedo was featured on NBC’s One Team, the Power of Sport. And he is actually the picture, the thumbnail. Oh, cool. On there. So we will have link to that as well.
Jill: Boxer Ginny Fuchs will be doing a professional fight on September 10th.
It is going to be in London at the O2 arena. And we will post details as we get them.
Alison: The dulcet tones of Jason. Bryant will be at Fargo 2022, which is the 16 and under national championships of wrestling,
Jill: Some sand news.
Hammer thrower. Deanna Price will not be defending her world title in hammer, throw at the World Athletics championships, which kicks off this weekend, I believe. She dropped out due to a really tough bout of COVID. She said she lost about 12 pounds. So not necessarily, it’s been a tough year for her, again with surgeries and now this, but hopefully this will all be behind you.
Now she’s looking forward to moving on and getting back into competition and competing at the next athletics world championships and Paris
Alison: 2024. That’s what Deanna gets for hugging. Everybody could be. Oh, but yeah, she’s had a rough year, so we’re hoping for better next year for her. Yes. And finally, Josh Levin is back competing at Ninja Warrior this summer.
He made it through the San Antonio qualifier and is on the next round in Los Angeles.
Jill: The Paris 2024 board of directors had a meeting. They have released more details about the Paralympic schedule. The actual schedule will be released later this year overall there will be one fewer day of competition than in Tokyo. So that means more events will be cramed into each. , they will have no competition on opening ceremonies day so that everyone can take part in the opening ceremony.
So that’s nice 549 events in 269 competition sessions. That means there’s going to be 3.4 million tickets available, which is the most ever for a Paralympics. And hopefully they will sell out. This Paralympics will have eight more women’s medal events than in Tokyo and women will have almost 1900 me slots in the game.
So they’re really upping the women’s participation, a little note that they said that there’s also 339 gender free slots for the Paralympics, which I thought was very interesting and something to look into.
Alison: So there are sports that both men and women compete in against one another. Yes. So, I guess some of those slots are
Jill: gender free, like shooting McKenna Geer, Tim competes against men in her sport.
Team [00:45:00] sports will all be standardized to have eight teams to per competition, which that is kind of nice because it’s easier to understand across the format of the games. I’m curious if they would ever do that for the Olympics. No, I cannot see that happening. No,
Alison: the reason they can get away with this is because the International Paralympic Committee is still the sporting Federation for a lot of sports.
So you don’t have to discuss it with anybody. You lean over, yell down the hall. Hey, could we have eight teams in this competition?
Jill: Okay. Right. I would imagine the maturity of the sport is also behind the Olympics because as the Olympics grew or the sport grew, they added more teams as they could.
And the Paralympics just doesn’t have necessarily the same levels of participation around the world. So they’re going to have, but eight teams for a competition. That’s kind of nice to remember. And then the closing ceremony day will have medal events in para athletics, marathon wheelchair basketball, para canoe, and para power lifting.
Also mentioned that they’re working on. Having the opening ceremonies of the Paralympics at plaster, the Concord, they need to think about and talk with the IPC about how to make that work. But they want to have that open quality to the Paralympics opening ceremony that they are having with the Olympics opening ceremony.
They just can’t do that whole athlete’s parade down the sun on the Olympic side, we’re still sorting out some venues.
Alison: I read today that preliminary basketball may get moved to Leo as well.
Jill: I, I saw that and I saw that handball was upset about something because those are the oh, getting moved. Yes. So we’ll see what happens with that. but the, one of the big moves is that shooting and para shooting, which is going to be in uh, LA Corno, which I believe is near sense on de knee, which is the big place of revitalization that Paris 2024 is touting they’re moving, shooting and parachuting out of that to she row, which is about three hours south of Paris what’s there is the French national shooting center, which means they’ll be able to save a lot more money.
And according to games, ju.com renting that shooting center would cost 5 million euros versus 17 million euros for putting together a venue and or temporary venue. So now the original shooting venue area is going to be the start of the para marathon and the mass event road cycling race. And the area needs decontamination work.
So
Alison: it seems like the Sanny area, which was supposed to be revitalized through these games, just like London revitalized that whole
Jill: area. Oh, well, don’t go there because there’s a big Guardian article about the housing situation and that, that from that legacy, and it’s not what they said that was supposed to be.
I have not read that yet. Cuz it’s the Guardian’s long
Alison: read. So the short answer is San Saint is getting almost nothing. It feels like everything just keeps getting pulled outta there because it’s too expensive to house there.
Jill: The other problem is with inflation. Their budgets are going all out of whack.
And I feel like there is immense pressure to have a cost effective games, not just from the IOC, surprisingly, but you know, from the French government, from, even from within Paris, 2024, there’s just a lot of pressure to make sure that these were going to get the cost of the games down. And so you might not be able to build the way you planned on building and revitalizing that said they are putting boxing preliminaries in south San Dini and fencing ranking rounds for the modern pentathlon, as well as sitting volleyball.
Alison: Okay. Boxing and modern pentathlon boxing might not even be there with the way boxing is going and modern. Pentathlon it. Talk about a boxing analogy is so on the ropes. I mean, come on, you’re gonna stick those two sports as your consolation. Wow.
Jill: Wow. they’re also moving final stages of boxing to roll on garages, to take place after tennis.
So, and then the basketball and handball situation. They’ve got a proposal out there. Again, they’re hoping for IOC approval. So when we get that, we’ll share it with you, cuz it’s just warm, back and
Alison: forth. And what is so bad about Leo? Nobody wants to go to Leo. Is it a terrible place? I have never been
Jill: there.
Neither have I. It is a lovely name.
Meanwhile Sir, Craig Reediie, who is a longtime IOC member told the Guardian that Russia and Belarus could be banned [00:50:00] from 2024. He thinks there’s a little chance of them being allowed back into international sport anytime soon, but they also have to make a clear decision on whether or not to let them back in or let them participate in 2024.
the easy way out would be it’s we’re getting to the two years out stage, which means we are time for qualifying. And if international sports aren’t letting them participate, they won’t be able to qualify for the games. The easy way would be like, oh, well, whatever that said, cycling, judo and tennis does let Russians and Bella Russians compete.
So there could be potential for them to qualify and tennis, except for Wimbledon. Wimbledon did not allow those athletes to participate this year.
Alison: So once again, the IOC on the one hand is kicking the can to the federations saying, well, if you’re not allowing Russians and bell Russians to compete in the qualifiers, we don’t have to do anything, but they need to do something either way, because if they don’t outright ban them, they’re just being hypocritical.
Right. You know, We’re not taking a stand, let’s keep politics out of sport, but they have the out of saying Russia and Belarus violated the Olympic charter. They violated the Olympic piece and there’s punishment for that. Or there should be punishment for that. There should be, and it’s not like Russia has been star student all along, you know how many times?
And we’ve said this so many times on the, on the podcast, how many times. Is Russia gonna hit you before you hit back? And I think this has gotta be it. I think the IOC finally needs to take a stand because it’s violating its own rule. There is an Olympic piece. There is an Olympic charter. These countries are signed onto it.
You broke the rules.
Jill: Yes, I, I would agree. And I think that Sir Craig Reedie did seem to make that point of this time. We have to make a decision. So I hope they do what and whatever it is. I hope I just want them to make a decision.
Alison: We don’t wanna repeat of that press conference that we were at in Beijing where you’re announcing countries being banned with athletes already have arrived at the games.
Right. And sending them home. this needs to be clear and this needs to be definitive and it needs to say we have rules, let’s stick to them.
Jill: And I kind of wonder if they’re hoping that the war will end soon and they don’t wanna make a decision two years out, but at some point you’ve, you’ve gotta make that decision.
Alison: And you know what, whether the war ends or not, they still broke the rule. They still should be punished for violating the Olympic charter. Never mind everything else that came before it. If we’re just looking at it a one issue, that’s a big one. I mean, breaking the Olympic truths. I mean, that’s, to me, that’s a, a non-starter like you can’t pull that off, right?
You don’t deserve to be here.
Jill: Well, we shall see. Oh, we would like to give a big shout out to our Patreon patrons who keep our flame alive. Find out more about patronage at patreon.com/flame alive pod. Or if you’d like to support the show in a different way check out flame alive pod.com/support for more options. That will do it for this week.
Honestly, if you are not in the Facebook group and you’ve been watching the World Games, get in the Facebook group at least for these two weeks,
Alison: and you can also get in touch with us through email flame, alive pod gmail.com. Call or text us at (208) 352-6348. That’s 2 0 8. Flame. It that’s the number you will use next Tuesday for our call in.
You can reach us through a social media at flame alive pod. And as Jill said, be sure to jump on the Facebook. That’s keep the flame alive podcast group.
Jill: Right. Next week, we will be talking to you. So phone line’s open Tuesday, July 19th at se 8:00 PM central oh 8:00 PM. Eastern 7:00 PM. Central. We look forward to talking with you then, thank you so much for listening. And until next time, keep the flame alive.