Keep the Flame Alive Celebrates the Big 400!

This week, Keep the Flame Alive is celebrating a big milestone: Our 400th regular episode! This episode is an online party with many citizens of TKFLASTAN (Team Keep the Flame Alive, which are our guests and listeners of the show), and we’re thrilled to be joined by:

• Past guests Sean Colahan, Harry Blutstein, Rich Perelman, Roy Tomizawa and John Moorhead
• Listeners Ean, David, Mark, Patrick from Chicagoland, Meredith, Sarah and Tommy
• Producer Ben and Book Club Claire

Like all great party conversation, it runs the gamut and includes Milan-Cortina’s ever-expanding budget, potential politics at LA 2028, the IOC reexamining the host city bidding process, and some great ideas for where the Winter and Summer Olympics should be.

Grab a snack, a fun drink, and your best party hat and join in the fun!

Thanks so much for listening and for being a part of Keep the Flame Alive for 400 episodes (and nearly eight years!). Until next time, keep the flame alive!

TRANSCRIPT

Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.

400 – Keep the Flame Alive Celebrates the Big 400!

​Theme Music

Jill Jaracz: Hello and welcome to the 400th episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics.

If you love the games, we are the show for you. I am your host, Jill Jaracz, joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison. Hello. Congratulations. How are you?

Alison Brown: Congratulations. So I, I promised you Oh, no.

Jill Jaracz: Oh, I just have, I have to break out the bubbly. I’m

Alison Brown: sorry. I, I promised you I was gonna wear something, but I really didn’t think this through because I have headphones on, so I can’t really put Oh,

Jill Jaracz: you’ve, oh, yeah.

You’re, it’s a Beijing headband thing that you got. Right. So

Alison Brown: it, it was from the Beijing. I think someone gave this to me at closing. For Paralympics and, ’cause I have it on in the pictures from that. And I did in fact wear it for that. And I went into my Beijing box and I found it and I brought it to, I was all excited.

I got myself. And then when I sat down I realized I didn’t think this through. ’cause like the OI can’t really, so maybe I’ll attach the little round part to my, because it is two pieces to your headphones.

Jill Jaracz: Okay.

Alison Brown: to my headphones. You seriously brought bubbly. I did. I just brought water bubbly.

Jill Jaracz: Oh well I have that too, just in case.

I always needed an occasion to break out the bubbly. So I have a little rose prosecco.

Keep the Flame Alive past guest and video journalist Sean Colahan joins the party!

Alison Brown: Oh, that’s my favorite. Very nice. And we are also joined for our favorite cameraman, Sean Colahan. Hello, Sean.

Sean Colahan: Hello. Hello. And uh, Jill, can you not pop champagne courts? did you see the Wimbledon clip?

From last week, someone popped the champagne core when they were supposed to be silent before play started.

Jill Jaracz: Whoop was funny. Yeah, exactly.

Sean Colahan: So congratulations on 400, by the way.

Jill Jaracz: Thank you.

When I think of when you were on the show, it seems like yesterday, and then I look at the list and it was forever ago.

Sean Colahan: I know, I don’t even know what episode number it was, but it was early.

Alison Brown: Yes. I think it was like before 100 I, and I wanna say it might have even been our old na. It had to have been our old thing, right?

It’s old name.

Jill Jaracz: Yes. Yeah.

Alison Brown: So it was, it was a long time ago, So this winter I did break out maybe some souvenirs that, Sean sent to me, and my daughter tried to steal the hat, to which I said, oh no, Sean sent this to me. This is mine. No touchy.

Jill Jaracz: Sean, you were on show number 32.

Wow.

Sean Colahan: Wow. It’s

Jill Jaracz: been a long time. Yeah, it’s been a very long time.

Sean Colahan: I can’t believe it was that long ago. Like even just pyeongchang in in general.

Jill Jaracz: it feels like a long time ago and it’s gonna be exciting to have a Winter Olympics that is Olympic again with crowds. ’cause Yeah, because Paris finally had them, so you feel like, oh, the pandemic was pretty really over when Paris hit, but now we’re still like, it’ll be another four years

Sean Colahan: because Yeah, it was Beijing before that.

In between. Yeah. Yeah.

Jill Jaracz: So you’ll have way more time of, we haven’t lived in a pandemic and yet we haven’t had a winter Olympics.

Sean Colahan: A post pandemic Olympics.

Jill Jaracz: Yes.

Sean Colahan: Yes,

Jill Jaracz: exactly.

Sean Colahan: Yeah, because with Pyeongchang then Yeah, Beijing, which was basically a COVID Olympics and now we’re back hopefully to normal.

Jill Jaracz: Right, right.

Alison Brown: should we do some Milan news since we’re talking about Milan?

Jill Jaracz: But darn. Oh, whoa. We are happy today. throughout the show, you may think we’re gonna be a little weird because, listeners are hopping in and hopping out as they are able. To, we have, listener, mark, Shukla. Sean is on the line. Sean Callahan,

Listener David joins the party

and we also have listener. David. Hello, listener. David, how are you?

Listener David: I, I’m doing good. Uh, glad, glad I’m able to join.

Jill Jaracz: Thank you for being here. How long have you been listening?

Listener David: couple years now. I’m, uh, def definitely, at least since, um, after you were in, uh, after Beijing. So I don’t know if it was much before that, but, uh.

Been with you for, uh, for at least a couple years now.

Jill Jaracz: Excellent, excellent. have you had a favorite guest or do you have favorite things that we talk about?

Listener David: I’m, I’m in the TV industry, so anytime there’s anything TV related, Usually there. and just to note, I I, I did over my shoulder, I realized I have been to one Olympics, so Salt Lake over one set and then, uh, some, uh, some stuff from, uh, from hockey.

So I have been to one Winter Olympics. I will have severe FOMO if I don’t get to LA in 2028. So I was got really excited when I saw the competition schedule today. So, or you’re already gonna start a little planning. There,

Jill Jaracz: there, there you go. And we’ll talk competition schedule soon. David.

I don’t know if you’ve gone back to listen to episode. 32. But Sean Callahan, who works for NBC Boston, he was on that episode, he was a cameraman at, pyeongchang.

Listener David: Very nice. Yeah. I might have to go, uh, go back and find that one man.

A little Milano-Cortina 2026 news

Jill Jaracz: yeah, we will definitely get to the LA 2028. Schedule ’cause I don’t, we both have looked at it. Uh, but we’re gonna do a little bit of Milan Cortina news while we are hanging out here. love it. A Allison, did you see that Team Canada has partnered with jeweler, jeweler, Hilberg and Burke on a pair of sparkly red heart stud earrings?

Did you look at these? Yep,

Alison Brown: I did, but nobody yet has done my stackable bracelets or stackable rings. I know. So we on the Olympic colors, so we have to get on that, you know, some red, red studs, whatever

Jill Jaracz: They cost 74 Canadian dollars and $15 from every pair sold. Supports Team Canada. They’re currently available for pre-order. We will have a link to that in the show notes.

Producer Ben joins the party!

And we are joined by producer Ben. Hello, producer Ben. How are you?

Alison Brown: Hello, producer Ben.

Hello.

More Milano-Cortina 2026 updates

Jill Jaracz: a sports examiner reported that the Milan budget has been expanded again. Really? Yes. They added 300 million to the budget, so it used to be 1.7. Now it’s two

Alison Brown: Paris organizers.They are not,

Jill Jaracz: I know. Well, it’s hard. It’s gotta be hard with everything spread out. But we did find out in some of our press stuff that they will not be doing the metal ceremonies outside of the venues. All medal ceremonies will take place in the the venues, they will not have those medal plazas so that you could get tickets to that.

Alison Brown: because there was kind of a mixed. Reaction to that. ’cause on the one hand, everybody loved the medal plaza and all the medalists together in the evenings, but I think people who were at the venues at the events felt a little cheated with their, you know, bing dww ceremonies or just not the real deal.

Jill Jaracz: That’s a good question. Do you have opinions of that? any of you, Sean, David, Ben?

Sean Colahan: Well, I’m trying to think back to Salt Lake in oh two. Well, they had like a metals plaza. ’cause I was there as well. I’m trying to, I remember they had ceremonies there, but I think they were also sometimes like repeat ceremonies where like they had, you know, like a small thing at the venue, but then they would kind of have a, like a little more of a party thing down at the the plaza.

Yeah. I trying think if they did both or if there was only one of each.

Listener David: Yeah, if memory serves some Salt Lake, I think that they did some sort of just, you know, some something in the venue just to have it there. But then they definitely had the Metals Plaza. I remember it was right near downtown. They had concerts there every night.

in New York, I was at a Bare Naked Ladies concert last week, and I remember, uh, they did a show one night. Obviously they’re very passionately Canadian, so one of them showed up in like the Canadian speed skater outfit, for there. But, uh, I remember that, I remember that. I like for the, yeah, for the Winter Olympics when it’s only, you know, like, you know, maybe eight or nine medals per night.

I like, I like when it’s in one place, get everyone together, have an event, have a concert, have something there. So, you know, if they wanna do, they have to do something in the venue to acknowledge the, uh, the people that are there. But, you know, if they could have something central, which again, Juan Cortina kind of tough, but, uh, you know, I like that about Salt Lake.

So definitely, uh, tough point there.

Jill Jaracz: Are you all looking forward to Milan? Corina? I just cannot shake the, I don’t know, Milan, are you gonna be able to do it?

Sean Colahan: I mean, they say that at every Olympic venue though.

Jill Jaracz: That’s true.

Sean Colahan: Like, like, oh, there’s so much. I mean, salt Lake was even like that. Like, oh, there’s so much left to do at the last minute. I mean, they bought in a new, I think they brought in MIT Romney at the end.

You know, they call ’em the savior of the games. Well, the, the, the worst scandal. Yeah. I mean, it’s the Olympics.

I also think like, it doesn’t feel like winter. That’s true. So that’s very true. There’s something to be said about, you know, when, fall comes in North America and people start feeling that.

I’m like, Ooh, winter’s coming. Guess what? There’s an Olympics now. And that might. Change the vibe to a lot of people.

Listener David: Yeah, that’s my thing as well. It’s summertime right now. It’s, you know, it, uh, enjoy this while, uh, last and then we get to September, October, the weather starts to cool down. Yeah. You know what?

I’m gonna be ready for a Winter Olympics.

Alison Brown: I am excited. We’re also a little overwhelmed by the logistics of this one. Yes. Because it is so spread out. You know, Paris, we knew certain venues were gonna be far away, but we knew 70 to 80% of the venues were relatively easily reachable. This, you look at the map and there’s no way, like, if I were not doing this job, there is no way I would go to these Olympics because it’s just so spread out.

You know, it, I think it’s gonna be a much better experience sitting on the couch in terms of being able to see all the different events and, and really enjoy them, rather than spending your day on a train or just not seeing a heck of a lot. Now I haven’t seen

Sean Colahan: Any, any of the plans you guys have, have, have that information.

Are the mountains day trip for Milano, is it kind of like gonna require an overnight If you want to get up into the skiing and some of the sliding

Jill Jaracz: venues, some of the mountains are doable from Milan. So if you did, freestyle skiing and I think ski mountaineering, those are gonna be pretty. Doable. and

Alison Brown: doable if everything works the way it’s supposed to.

Listener Mark joins the party!

Oh, mark, can

Listener Mark: we get you now? Yes.

Alison Brown: Lovely to see you. Thank you for joining us.

Jill Jaracz: Oh, where are you calling in from? Mark,

Listener Mark: Toronto.

Jill Jaracz: Oh, excellent. Excellent. We were not, that’s the tower

Listener Mark: in the background. If you, if you can see it in the painting

Jill Jaracz: very nice.

Toronto is a lovely city. Be we are talking Milan, Corina, logistically to get to, Borneo and Lao where there is, uh, ski mountaineering and freestyle skiing. That’s gonna be three and a half to close to five hours from Milan via Yeah, that’s what they’re saying.

Wow. To get to Corina from Milan is gonna be another five hours. To get to Biathlon is at least six and a half. And, to get to cross country and Nordic combine is gonna be about four and a half. And that’s like everything working together. And there gets to be a point where if you are on a bus trip and it’s four and a half hours, you got a mandatory 45 minute driver break.

In there too. So the concept of, maybe you’ll get to Valentina because it’s close that, I’m sorry, vena. It’s close, but we don’t know.

Keep the Flame Alive past guest and author Harry Blutstein joins the party!

Harry Blitzstein, another shook.

Alison Brown: Hello. Oh, so good to see you Harry. Good.

Harry Blutstein: How are

Jill Jaracz: you?

Harry Blutstein: Oh, well a warm welcome from a cold place.

Alison Brown: Well, the last time we had Harry on, if you remember, he was upside down for half the interview, which was fantastic. ’cause we made the joke of course, because he was on the, the other side of the world. So we said Harry had to, was, was upside down because of that.

Jill Jaracz: Mark, what are you looking forward to come? Milan, Corina?

Listener Mark: Uh, well, I’m gonna be watching from home. I mean, obviously I’m looking forward to the NH lrs that’s, uh, that, that’s for sure. But, uh, yeah, I mean, Canada’s you know, so many prospects and all the, uh, different sports. Uh, yeah, looking forward to that and so, great, great that he’s gonna get, you know, maybe one last chance to play in the Olympics.

I mean, 2010. That’s, uh, that’s pretty much the, you know, greatest moment we’ve ever had here in, in the Olympics and all, like, just talking about the, you guys are just talking about the travel, I mean, respect for the people going over there, you know, going between these, uh, sites. I had a couple of train trips in France last year, but, uh, nothing like that.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah, it’s gonna be incredible. plus the people who are able to stay in Cortina, because from what I understand, it’s fairly small and the accommodations there are already expensive. So getting a place to stay there is gonna be tough. It’s gonna be tough for the Olympics or for the Paralympics.

And a, a lot of people were starting to say, oh, you should probably stay in Venice and then take the transportation from Venice to Cortina, which is in a couple of hours, I think. So we’re just trying to figure all that out.

Alison Brown: because Venice to Milan is reasonable in terms of time and then Venice to Corina is doable.

I have a fear though, that if Jill gets really mad at me one night, she just may push me off the balcony. I’ll end up in a canal. So I’m not sure if we wanna stay in a city with that much drowning possibilities.

Jill Jaracz: Well, I think that part of the city is, we’re by the train station is not very cane. I think everything is cane.

That’s the point. At least it’s not all cannoli.

Alison Brown: You know what? A city of cannoli sounds lovely.

LA 2028 Olympics schedule released

Jill Jaracz: why don’t, since the big news of the day is, LA 2028 schedule.

Alison Brown: Yeah. Let’s get

Jill Jaracz: to LA 2028. Schedule thoughts people. David, what do you think?

Listener David: well, the, the way that I’m approaching this, I know that everything is kind of in clusters. So if, you know, if I’m going to a basketball game, it’s the same spot as the swimming venue.

So trying to, you know, figure things out in little bits there. So, my, my plan is, okay, go to one, you know, go to one venue, one cluster one day, go to one cluster another day. So, just put it together that way and try to, try to figure out how to get around. I don’t know how the public transportation’s gonna be there, but, uh, I’m the type of person that wants to get to as much as possible, so I’m probably gonna overreach a little bit.

But, get me to a swimming night, get me to a track and field night, and then whatever else is in the area, if I could pile that on top of that, you know, gimme a random fencing, uh, you know, a preliminary round just to, uh, to say I’m gonna be there. But, uh, you know, again, just to see everything laid out, it’s like, okay, this is starting to come in focus grab, it’s three years away, but, uh, you know, it’s, uh, there, depending on how long I, uh, you know, can stay out there.

Hopefully I have some friends that could put me up so I don’t have to worry about hotels and, uh, you know, I can see a lot of events out there.

Jill Jaracz: Well, lucky for you, Uber has signed a partnership with LA 2028, and they’re working on the regular cars, getting bikes and scooters for multimodal transport.

And Uber Eats not just to the village, but apparently there’s going to be select venues where you can order delivery from. Uber Eats into the venue. I don’t know how that’s gonna work.

Alison Brown: I’ll just be happy if we can Uber eat some dinner at one o’clock in the morning when we’re eating

Jill Jaracz: I have no, uh, worries about eating late in California. ’cause it’s America.

Alison Brown: True. So the things don’t close in and out. Burger. I had my first in and Out Burger when we were in LA for the, the PIN show So I could work with that.

Listener Mark: They’re gonna make some business during the Olympics.

Oh yeah. I had, I had that in Vegas years ago. So, good.

Jill Jaracz: So triathlon is gonna be the first medal taking away shootings, thunder. ’cause usually air rifle is first menu metal. But triathlon, it surprised me that that was, it’s on the first couple of days

Alison Brown: surprised me too. That that was what they chose to be the first, uh, first medal.

Jill Jaracz: I mean, if you

Sean Colahan: think about like the California lifestyle, there’s a lot of outdoors swimming, biking, running. Could you make an argument for. Yeah,

Alison Brown: absolutely. And the venue I believe is would be Venice Beach. So you want that? Mm-hmm. As your opening shot?

You know, we’re gonna be at Venice Beach on day one, though there are of course, two days before day one of competition and they put a lot more on those early days. So usually it’s been, rugby, some basketball, usually some football. Now there’s gonna be basketball, cricket, football, handball hockey, rugby sevens, and water polo, all happening prior to the opening ceremonies.

So I think they’re just trying to make things happen in the different, you were talking about the clusters in the different clusters so that people will start arriving those couple days before the opening ceremonies. So today that the day we’re recording is three years to go.

Jill Jaracz: Pretty crazy. And, unlike Paris, competition on opening ceremony, stay No medals, but it’s gonna be in Oklahoma. So it’s not like they were gonna be able to come to the opening ceremonies anyway, because they’re scheduled for competition the next day as well. It’s canoe slalom, And we’ve got the whole swimming and athletics switched around. Mark, do you have thoughts about that? That,

Listener Mark: that’s interesting. I, and I saw like just how late the last swimming, like, that’ll be the last medalist of the game. So at least that’s gonna be a highlight. they said probably, uh, another forum like was talking about it that I was seeing on talking about pos, the medley relays would be the last events of the Olympics.

So that’s a good way to, uh, I guess end on and go, right. You know, basically the, uh, closing ceremony is right after that.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Well, I’m not sure that if you’re ending, you’re gonna get there because swimming is gonna end at four 30 in the afternoon. And the, ceremonies will start at

Alison Brown: It’s early. think it’s six o’clock. Six, yeah. The ceremony starts at six o’clock.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So if you’re gonna win a medal, then you have to sit and go through doping control. You have a ceremony, medal ceremony, you’re going through doping control. You’re not gonna get from SoFi to the coliseum in time unless the Olympic lanes are open and can get you there.

But I highly doubt that you’re gonna make it. it’s kind of sad in a way, but maybe they don’t wanna go either. Not everybody goes to the closing ceremony

Alison Brown: like us at Paralympics. Right,

Jill Jaracz: right. Um,

Sean Colahan: I mean, you’d have to think that they try to have some sort of special shuttle for any of the athletes Yeah.

Would think that are competing that to get to the closing, that the ones that wanted to, at least

Listener Ean joins the party!

Jill Jaracz: you would think. So. Hopefully that that’s been taken into account. Ian. Hello. Welcome listener, Ian.

Listener Ean: Hello. It’s good to be here.

Jill Jaracz: Where are you calling from?

Listener Ean: I am from Columbus, Ohio. So not far from

Jill Jaracz: Oh, you’re down the road. Excellent. Yeah. And how long have you been listening to the show?

Listener Ean: Uh, seven years, I guess. So you’re

Alison Brown: an early adopter.

Listener Ean: Yeah. I went, I went searching a few months after, uh, 2018, and it was like, well, I need some more Olympic content. And I found this and I never left.

Alison Brown: Well, thank you for, for sticking with us through some, um, rather hard years. The early years were a little rough.

I, I hope we have improved since, since then, but thank you so much. We’re,

Listener Ean: it’s been great. Don’t worry. It’s always a pleasure to listen.

Ben Jackson: but if anyone has question for us.

Oh, do you have a favorite episode?

Listener Ean: I, you know, actually I do. It’s probably your interview with, uh, Madeline Manning Mims. That, that’s probably my favorite. At least that’s the one I remember listening to because it was, I remember where I was when I was listening to the end of her story is it was a hard, it was joyfully heartbreaking.

Alison Brown: well, talking to her was amazing. But what I loved about when I was listening back to the episodes was the joy that she brought in speaking with us came through. Which I was so grateful for. Her energy was incredibly generous and warm and kind of like that Mr. Rogers thing where you can’t believe it’s real, but it is.

And she just is that amazing and strong and talented and hardworking and what, what a joy and what a joy to have gotten to speak to her at all. You know? That’s, I mean, that’s honestly, and I, and I’ve said this to Jill more than once, that’s been the gift of the show for me, as, as kind of on this side of it was the people I’ve gotten to talk to.

I mean, and then all of you and, and that whole community thing. And, and just never at this point in my life did I think I would be starting a different career and that it would get me lost on a mountain in Beijing. But

Listener Ean: that, that’s a great episode too. Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t sell yourself.

Alison Brown: You know, I, I’m working on a Milan, promo, a, a trailer.

So I’ve been listening back to some of the Beijing episodes and I listened back to it, and honestly, I made myself laugh, which is embarrassing and ridiculous. But, but I truly did.

Listener Ean: I’ve never been lost in a mountain on Beijing, but I think I remember in our, in your Paris stories that we shared an experience While we were there, I think, I seem to recall that you were treated by medical staff. Where were you treated by that, Matt?

Alison Brown: In the gymnastics venue in, uh, ey.

Listener Ean: I did mine in at Roland Garros.

’cause I tried very hard to roll my ankle walking from the, uh, park to PRAs to Roland Garros while I was walking across an overpass and needed them to get me an ice pack.

Alison Brown: And were yours as lovely as mine.

Listener Ean: They were absolutely fantastic. They,

Alison Brown: they were so happy to have something to do, I think. But was that your first time at Roland Garros?

Listener Ean: that was day two. I had been there two consecutive days, but yeah, that was my first time in general. Yeah.

Alison Brown: Was that the coolest thing ever?

Listener Ean: Oh my gosh. I, well actually, I, I, on the first day that I went, I went up to, uh, see Jill. That was after that the Do Alvarez. That’s, and that was amazing. That was amazing.

Oh my gosh. I had had an acid blast

Jill Jaracz: that was one of those like pinch me moments that was one of the things I really wanted to see was, being able to see Rafa in person. And that was just incredible. And it was incredible to be able to say hello to you. And then, it was not incredible that the media seating completely cleared out for Naomi Osaka.

and I felt so, and I understood what they say about tennis press at that point, and how women on the tour just aren’t always respected as much as men. that really showed, I’m like, but she is an amazing tennis player. Why? Why don’t you want to see her?

Listener Ean: Yeah. It was

Jill Jaracz: so

Listener Ean: really, really empty.

It was embarrassing.

The potential for politicizing LA 2028

Jill Jaracz: Harry,

Harry Blutstein: Yes. I guess I’m a little No good. I’m a little bit of the odd person out in this discussion ‘ cause you’re all really sports enthusiasts, whereas my interest in the Olympics is more the politics. I’m really wondering if I’m in the right place.

Alison Brown: You are absolutely in the right place. And in fact, Harry, we have had you on. Twice for two different, am I I’m saying this? Yeah. Two different books. Two different books. And then we also had you on your lightning round episode. So you are a three Peter Okay. Of a guest. So this is actually your fourth appearance on the show.

So

Jill Jaracz: we last had had you on, uh, your lightning round was episode, one 13. But your, we talked about Cold War games, which was Melbourne 1956. That was episode 1 0 5. And then, episode 2 0 8 was the Mexico City Book.

Harry Blutstein: Okay. Okay. But have you discussed the politics around la?

Listener Sarah: We have on the show. We haven’t today.

Harry Blutstein: Okay. Well that’s good. But it gets interesting because it’s gonna be more than a little bit interesting.

Jill Jaracz: Well, what, what are your thoughts?

Harry Blutstein: I think, at the risk of, going back in history, in 1936, it was used to, promote, a rather unpleasant regime in Berlin. And I can see Trump using this for self aggrandizement of himself.

in that regard. So, uh, I think it’ll be set up as a bit of a spectacular around him.

Jill Jaracz: I am curious to see if that will happen. There’s so much that, that Ken can happen and change in that time, but there is also, there are levers that he could pull to make it more about him. So I’m just very curious. Like every day is different and, and one of it’s one of those like, oh, stuff changes so fast here in the US that you get to a point where you’re like, well, this may happen in a, in a week.

He may change his mind tomorrow. He may change his mind. So,

Harry Blutstein: yeah, he doesn’t stand by. I know. He likes the

Jill Jaracz: story to be,

Harry Blutstein: he doesn’t stand by precedents or norms. So what’s going to happen when Iran wants to come? Will they get entry?

Jill Jaracz: That’s a good question. There. We’re already having those questions with, the World Cup for next year.

Harry Blutstein: There you go. what’s the timing with the next election?

Jill Jaracz: The next election happens a couple months after the Olympics,

Harry Blutstein: so another good reason. Oh,

Jill Jaracz: the, the next president? Yeah.

Harry Blutstein: Another good reason why it might be politicized. To use it more or less as an election plank? I mean, I guess, you know, again, I look at it as from a historian’s point of view and the politics has always been behind the Olympics, whereas it’s supposed to be an internationalist movement, the host country has always extracted certain things out of it.

particularly of late, you know, Tokyo and, well, Munich Olympics were more or less to S two.

Keep the Flame Alive past guest and author Roy Tomizawa joins the show!

Alison Brown: So you mentioned Tokyo and we have Roy Toma. Saying hello? Hello, Arthur Roy.

Roy Tomizawa: Hi Alison. Hi Jill. Hello. It’s great to be, uh, congratulations on your 400th.

Alison Brown:  Excited. Thank you. Thank you for being a big part of it. You were earlier days.

Jill Jaracz: Oh gosh. Well Roy was on, we talked about your book Roy, with one year to go before Tokyo 2020 in 2019. So you were on episode 95. I think Sean still has most of us beat Rich Perlman hopped on the line and he is an early person as well.

Roy Tomizawa: that’s when you were called something else.

Alison Brown: Yeah, we can’t say that. We can’t discuss that. Is there I

Roy Tomizawa: monitoring, uh, this, this event?

Alison Brown: You know, we never know and we don’t wanna get in trouble with them ’cause they give us our credentials.

Roy Tomizawa: I’m

Alison Brown: surprised they no be

Roy Tomizawa: honestly. Well see it. It’s just a testament to how big you got because my blog is still called the Olympians.

I mean, technically I guess they could strike that one down too.

Jill Jaracz: But you are not making money off of the blog with the word Olympian in it. Right. And that was the problem with us. Oh, okay. So we had merchandise and that was using their trademark.

Roy Tomizawa: yeah. Using your trademark.

No, you, you monetize. You monetized. Exactly. You were stealing money from the I ooc.

Jill Jaracz: No, I know. Well, not really. ’cause we didn’t sell much merch,

Alison Brown: so, but, you know, at the U-S-O-P-C has been very generous to us in terms of credentialing and media days. So we want them to stay to liking us. Well, that’s what I was, you know, this trail.

Right.

Roy Tomizawa: You guys got, you’ve got got credentials. was it for Beijing, right? Beijing and then, yeah, for Beijing

Alison Brown: was the first one.

Roy Tomizawa: Yeah. I I applied too late for, for Tokyo. It didn’t matter.

Alison Brown: No, I know. You could have gotten them for Tokyo and they would’ve said, sorry, don’t No, no deal for you.

Roy Tomizawa: Right.

Keep the Flame Alive past guest and writer Rich Perelman joins the show!

Jill Jaracz: Rich Perlman, I believe was on show number 53.

So you are also a storied part of of our past.

Rich Perelman: Yeah. I didn’t have any more hair then either.

Jill Jaracz: Oh, are you looking forward to Milan, rich? Are you going to Milan? I,

Rich Perelman: I think it’ll be interesting. I mean, you, they seem to be getting on, I, I think I’m one of the 20 or 30 people who actually monitor the website of Simco, uh, which is the group that is, uh, the government agency that building the facilities.

and they’re, they’re showing you pictures of things that keep getting completed. So it looks like the facilities part of this is, is going to be okay. And the Winter Games, as you know, is a tiny, tiny fraction of what the, Olympic Games is. And virtually all, not all, but virtually all of the events that are gonna be held in Milan and Cortina are going to be run by organizations that already do them as World Cups.

So, so is it gonna

Jill Jaracz: be much different than a World Cup experience be with just Olympic rings on the, on the floor?

Rich Perelman: Well, having worked on, four Olympic games and, and almost 20 other championship events, either multi-sport or world championships or regional championships, the Olympic Games is a totally different animal.

The size, the complexity, the number of people who come, the amount of broadcasting infrastructure, number of news media, is much different than any kind of World Cup, A world championship in a winter sport. It, it can get pretty close. Uh, the alpine, world Championships as an example, can be pretty close.

but it’s just a lot more complicated. And, the, the one thing that is the same, and when I do go to these, media summits that the US OPC would do, and, you know, if they would move the thing to Denver, I would go. but I I, I have a little bit of a problem having lost family in the early 19 family I never met in the early 1940s.

I take these things seriously as do my, my friends, some Jewish, some not Jewish. but, the big difference is that the infrastructure is much greater in Olympic games and that makes it different. The one thing that’s the same is the athletes, the same athletes who around the World Cup are in the Olympic Games.

I mean, it’s exactly the same thing. And so when I do go to the, uh, media summit, when I went to the one in, in advance of Paris, one of the questions I repeatedly asked was, how do you see this competition since it’s the same athletes you see in the world championships? And I thought they. the answers were very interesting, but the answers absolutely crystallized the question, uh, or the problem in some people’s minds of, well, you know, I’m an athlete.

I really work hard and I’m a rower and I earn nothing. So I should be getting a million dollars because I got an Olympic bronze medal. To which the response is, well, if you’re a rower and you are a championship rower, why is it rowing paying you?

Why is it incumbent on the International Olympic Committee, which did not develop your sport? It just puts it on, which, by the way, it’s put on by the federation. The IOC could put the event on itself. I’ve put on myself track meets basketball events, swimming events, gymnastics events. I don’t need fig, I don’t need world aquatics.

I don’t need world athletics. I need money, but I, I, all I have to do is agree to follow their rules. I get a sanction in the US by the way, in track and field. As long as I promise to obey the rules, I get a sanction automatically. I cannot be refused to sanction to put on the event. So, I think the Winter Games is great fun and what makes it interesting.

Is that it’s this kind of carnival of sport that goes on. It’s everything all at once, and you get to see it all at once and, and then it goes away. And there was a report last week in, in Fatto ano the daily fact in Italy that the budget, now the, the government threw another 200, 250 million euro at them.

So the, the Winter Game’s gonna cost 2 billion there.

Alison Brown: Yep. We were talking about that earlier.

Rich Perelman: that’s a lot of spaghetti. So I, I think Los Angeles in 28, I think has gone the wrong direction, but they feel they can raise the money to do it. It appears they’re on the, on their way to, to being able to raise enough money to do it.

but I think there is this question of gigantism again, and, and Coventry is gonna have to deal with this, that the games are still incredibly expensive and now there’s 7.1 billion Australian dollars being thrown into construction. And that, that’s a lot of construction. I ran a, a note last week that the labor department in Australia, in, sorry, in Queensland, said that they’ll be short 50,000 construction workers next year.

Now Australia does not, I mean, you can talk about immigration of the US all you want Australia, lets in nobody. And that that’s by design. They’re very, very, very careful because they’re, they’re concerned. They have a relatively homogeneous population and they’re very concerned about, who they let in and how they lit in.

Because if you look at the map, you know, you have the population on both ends, and there’s nobody in the middle. Right? It’s the, the, the back country. and they’re gonna have to find a way to get these, these workers. So can you imagine the flip side of a FIFA World Cup instead of in Qatar, Saudi Arabia.

Now you have all migrant workers going to Australia. This could be fascinating.

Jill Jaracz: It will be interesting. And Brisbane is something to think about with as much construction as they have proposed that they don’t necessarily need according to the IOC. But that makes me wonder, Roy, what has been the response post Tokyo with all of the building that Tokyo did?

Roy Tomizawa: Gosh, I’ve been out of the loop because after, after seven years of writing about the Olympics, I sort of switch gears to write about something else. But the immediate reaction, of course was, you know, it was post COVID, poor economy, poor take up a lot of the, uh. Uh, you know, it’s the same story that’s happened a lot about a lot of the, uh, other Olympics of, you know, white elephants.

I don’t think that’s been any different. the economy has been slow to pick up in general. Japan’s going through a, a slow maturing process. There’s no real technological energy that it used to, or financial energy that it used to have. but it’s a, still a fantastic place. It’s, it’s betting on, tourism industry.

but, a lot of those places are still, probably underutilized, probably expensive to maintain. Having said that, I live around the corner from, ZOA Olympic Park where they held the wrestling and volleyball and soccer field hockey. Those facilities are still being used in 64. I mean, it’s a, a lot of the, uh, places from 64 are still being used.

So, I don’t know if that’s the case in Nano. I don’t think that’s the case in Uao, you know, but what out, a four eight bed

Brisbane 2032 News

Alison Brown: speaking of Brisbane, should we do our Brisbane news?

Jill Jaracz: Yeah.

Brisbane News. as Rich Perlman alluded to a little bit earlier, the Queensland and federal governments have reached a funding agreement for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic games with a total of 7.1 billion earmarked for development. The Commonwealth government will contribute 3.4 or five, 3 billion, and the state government’s going to pick up the remainder and minor venues are going to be funded through a 50 50 split between the governments.

And as someone who I love sports, but I also live in a city that is having a huge fight about one American football stadium. I cannot imagine getting sacked with a bill for this.

Alison Brown: Yeah. And especially when Brisbane first did its proposal, it was, we are gonna be the greenest, we’re going to be reusing everything.

We’re not gonna build anything. We’re to, not only carbon neutral, we’re gonna be carbon positive. And then they came out with this insane building plan that was so expensive, so complex, and everyone just forgot about the green plans.

Rich Perelman: Well, wait, wait, wait. hold on, Alison. That’s not exactly fair.

This is what I love about this podcast because completely fearless. Forecasting from Alison, especially change of government. Yeah. Elections have consequences, right? This one has 7.1 billion in consequences. ’cause the previous government said, hell no, we’re not gonna do that.

Jill Jaracz: unfortunately, Harry left because I don’t know when their next election is.

if we don’t like something, we have about two years to live with it until we can make a change enough to force some kind of action or inaction. But how soon are we talking or, or is Australia a place where they can tr get rid of their government at will and call elections? Are they

Rich Perelman: No.

Well, the elementary system, so the answer is yes, but, they’re on four year cycle in Queensland. So that, that money, they’re gonna get a shovel in the ground in the beginning of next year.

and you’re talking about, you’re talking about a state government, the state, the, the results were not particularly close, so it’s not gonna be that easy.

They would have to call for elections in parliamentary system. You’d have to have a call for elections and they’re not gonna get a call, you know, any more than, than three years down the line. So that that money is gonna be spent, and those shovels are gonna be in the ground starting early next year if they can find the 50,000 workers

Jill Jaracz: right?

And that means some developers are going to make a tidy profit.

Rich Perelman: Well, most of these are actually, not, there’s one private facility that that’s gonna get built outside of the 7.1 billion. That’s the arena that they want to do. And so that’s gonna be completely different program. The rest of these are gonna be facilities that are gonna be owned and operated, by the government, either Queensland or the national government, uh, including this, this stadium.

The question that’s, that’s out there, and I’m not, I’m a lawyer by training, I dunno anything about Australian law, uh, is they have an environmental suit against plopping that 63,000, seat stadium in the middle of Victoria Park by, Green’s Group, that says, we don’t want you to take our park away.

And I, I don’t know how that’s gonna turn out. I mean, government is not worried about it. They’re continuing on, but with the permitting and, and so on, they’re starting to grade. But, that’s a potential complication that’s out there. But, uh, governments, um, uh, elections have consequences and, and that’s what happened in Queensland.

If, if, if the, uh. previous government had stayed, miles, government had stayed. they would’ve had something, totally different. Right? The organizing committee is thrilled Lius. Look, you’d be asking Lius about it, and he pops up like a Kool-Aid picture. There’s no difference between the Kool-Aid man and Lius when you ask about the new stadium.

They look identical.

Alison Brown: Yeah. the new plan was very, very different than the original plans. And it makes sense that the original plan was created to appease one party versus another, versus one governor versus another.

Listener Patrick from Chicagoland joins the show!

Okay. Let’s try Patrick from Chicagoland. Let’s see how we’re doing.

Listener Patrick: go. I’m using my phone, so, But it’s a blessing and pleasure to be, uh, on the, what is it, episode 400, right? Episode 400. Episode

Alison Brown: 400.

Yeah, I know. And you’ve been with us. since the beginning, almost,

Listener Patrick: almost am I considered og?

Jill Jaracz: Yeah, definitely. Because I would say so. Because you were there, you were there during Pyeongchang.

Listener Patrick: Yes, yes, So I don’t think the first episode, and I’m almost curious to hear why that first episode’s, like, I don’t think I’ve gone to it.

Jill Jaracz: No, you don’t

Alison Brown: to No, don’t listen to it. It, it’s not good. ‘

Jill Jaracz: for those of you who haven’t gone back and that’s fine. Don’t, when we first conceived the show, it was going to be a tight 30 minutes and it was going to have two stories and, uh, we’d be a little bit more NPR rish style.

We’d have a long feature. And then we’d have a trivia question for each other and maybe some news. But it was gonna be tight and it was gonna be short. And we did two of those shows and we found out how long it takes to write all of that kind of content and produce it. And then we also went to Lake Placid for an Olympian show and got the idea to contact the, Olympic Training Center and see if we could get a tour.

And they said, we don’t know who you are. You are not coming in here. And then, they said, well, maybe, you know, you could try some of the, federations that are here and see if they’ll let you talk to anybody. And, uh, USA bobsled and Skeleton thankfully said, hi. Yeah, we’d love to have our athletes talk with you.

And that’s, they set us up with, Josh Williamson and we met him in their offices, which happened to be in the Olympic Training Center. So we still got to go a little bit to the training center. then we talked to Josh and we talked with, Nick Cunningham and Lauren Gibbs, and that we realized we really enjoyed doing interviews more and figuring out how sports worked.

And that kind of set us on the trajectory that we have today. So thank goodness that only took like three episodes.

Listener Patrick: And did you guys have ever imagined that it would be so, I mean, yes. There’s a lot of news information, but there’s a ton of laughs and it’s entertaining. That’s what I like about it too.

It’s entertaining.

Alison Brown: Well, thank you.

Listener Patrick: Yeah,

Alison Brown: I think we had no clue what we were doing, especially at the beginning. So we just worked in what worked. You know, it was a lot of trial and error, and honestly, half the time, my goal for every recording session is to make Jill laugh, so she can’t talk anymore. Not because I don’t wanna talk to her, because that makes me happy.

So that was a very early goal, and once I realized I could do that consistently, I was like a crack addict. So then it became, what will I do this time to be as ridiculous as possible? And the best compliment I got was actually during, Beijing was, my best friend said to me, it was like, I was the same at home and on the show.

and I would say the same of Jill, like when she’s off mic and on mic, she’s absolutely the same. So that you find us entertaining, I’m gonna take as a personal compliment. Thank

Jill Jaracz: you, Patrick.

Listener Patrick: You’re welcome.

TBach on the Loch explained

Jill Jaracz: Meredith, we’ll get to you in a moment. I have something, I have my little wall of mascots behind me, and I have something here that Alison has no idea.

What this is, but you may wonder why is there an elf on the shelf as part of my mascot collection.

So this, this is an elf on the shelf and very early on, I wanna say it was the first year. Do you remember what we said? Uh, you probably don’t. No, we were joking about Elf on the Shelf and Tebo, and we said that there would be tebo on the lock and instead of Elf on the shelf. So I thought it was just enough time for me to run out to the store and find like the last elf on the shelf, and then I never doctored the box to send it to you.

And then we just kept calling it Teebo at home and then he just kind of stayed. So you might get a teebo on the lock someday, but not this one.

Alison Brown: No, that would have to be another one.

Jill Jaracz: So that is, uh, one early, early joke that never came back. But we did have fun talking about Teebo on the lock that day.

Alison Brown: Well, we have, we’ve always had fun talking about Teebo and I think because he’s so earnest and he, he does always bring up the, the 1976 gold medal and fencing and there’s so many things about him that we can laugh about, but we never doubted his love or his devotion to his job. as IOC President.

So our making fun of Tebo was always equally balanced with an admiration for how incredibly hard he worked at it. And we can only hope in our first change of IOC President since we’ve been doing the show that we get the same.

Jill Jaracz: We will do a little IOC news next because there are elements of Tebo that we did read about in the news where there was a lot of control that he liked and he liked to force things through and we already immediately see some change going on.

Listener Meredith joins the show!

But I would like to say hello to listener Meredith who joined us. Hello.

Listener Meredith: You are

Alison Brown: also pretty og speaking of oj. Oh,

Listener Meredith: I apologize for the dogs right off the bat. That’s That’s alright. We love dogs.

Alison Brown: Okay, so whenever a guest has a dog make an appearance during the interview, the running joke is, I’m like, no, no, bring the dog.

Jill Jaracz: Right. And Meredith, I guess I would blame you because you were one of the people who got us into the Paralympics who kept poking us and going, how about some Paralympic coverage between you and Superfan? Sarah? Yeah. Both of you were like, Hey, how about, I know, I know a Paralympian you could talk to and that push the stone down the hill and boy, boy, do we enjoy covering the Paralympics now.

So thank you for introducing us to that world.

Listener Meredith: I will happily take credit for that.

Alison Brown: that has been such an unexpected joy.

Listener Meredith: Yeah. I, I mean, I love the Paralympics. I’m trying to remember when I got into them. Oh my gosh, girls. honestly, I think they really just sprang into my awareness in Atlanta. and I, I just had so much fun watching the Olympics in Atlanta, and then I was like, and the Paralympic coverage, coverage was minimal, but I was, the Cincinnati inquire was wonderful. They still printed all the results, even though most of the country wasn’t paying very much attention, Wow,

Jill Jaracz: that’s impressive.

Listener Meredith: Yeah, and it wasn’t like front page or anything, you know, like during the, the Olympics, there was like front page stories about the Olympics every day in 1996 because, you know, it was America. but yeah, they still, it was, you know, like back in the sports section, they just printed like line by line results.

Alison Brown: I cannot imagine my life now without wheelchair hockey. I mean, uh, wheelchair rugby and, and para hockey.

Listener Mark: Yeah,

Jill Jaracz: wheelchair hockey.

Listener Mark reports on Para Ice Hockey’s World Championships

Listener Mark: That would be interesting. No, I got, I don’t know if that’s Mark did, did I share it with you got the, uh, from the sled hockey in Buffalo?

Jill Jaracz: No. Mark, you went to sled hockey in Buffalo and we have not heard anything about this, so please tell us what on.

Listener Mark: Yeah, you know, I, I may not have posed it in there, but I did go, uh, it was very interesting to see. I mean, it plays out, you know, similar enough to a, you know, standard ice hockey game. And the US team was just too good. So they, they were full value for that win. But, uh, yeah, that was interesting to see.

it was in the, uh, Buffalo Saber practice facility? Like the little, maybe oh thousand seater, 1500 seat arena, but they have right next to the, uh, savers Arena downtown there. And, uh, we just as an aside, the next day, my dad and I, uh, went to the minor league baseball game there, but it was about, um, 12 degrees or in maybe like low fifties in way you would say it.

We left after three innings. We’re not used to outdoor baseball and bad weather in Toronto anymore.

Jill Jaracz: Was it very crowded? ’cause you were at the, were you the gold was actually,

Listener Mark: there was one side with all the Canadian people, like a lot of them were probably friends and family in that.

And, uh, you know, we had Noisemakers and the o and the other side was if the Americans, but, uh, yeah, if it was not quite full, it was, um, well at, at least mostly full for the, for that one. Yeah.

Alison Brown: Excellent. And did you get to see Jack Wallace and the amazing puck handling underneath his sled?

Listener Mark: Yeah, I’m just impressed with how they all, uh, do that.

You know, that’s a, that’s a different kind of, uh, skillset they have Very, very impressive. It’s

Alison Brown: so much fun. And the hard part we were talking before about Milan is, para hockey is the only thing that’s in Milan during the Paralympics. Everything else is in Corina. So I don’t know how this is gonna work.

Keep the Flame Alive past guest and World Games athlete John Moorhead joins the show!

Jill Jaracz: So we have at least two more people have joined us. John fo is this you?

John Moorhead: Hi.

Jill Jaracz: Hello.

Alison Brown: So nice to see you again. We have another Shuk

Jill Jaracz: Ani, our American football player from the World Games.

John Moorhead: Good to talk to you. It’s been, it’s been about, I guess three, well, it’s like two years maybe. So it’s been, it’s been a minute. And you’ve been busy A little bit.

Yeah, a little Staying busy.

Alison Brown: We got the World Games coming up again.

John Moorhead: We do, we do. I’m working with, the fist ball team. I’m not going, but I’m just like working with the organizing of it and there’s still the women’s team qualified, so I’ve been like, in cahoots with them.

Alison Brown: Nice. And what do you think of flag football for la

John Moorhead: I think I have a lot of thoughts about flag football for la. I think it’s great, and I think other people might agree with me. I, I think that the team sports, the all got a little short ended with only six countries qualifying. And that’s just, that’s across the board. That’s flag, that’s cricket, that’s that baseball softball, like, that’s such a small number.

And I get it, like you have a two and a half week window to, do this tournament. But six teams is so limited. I wish it would expanded to eight. There’s gonna be eight teams at the World Games, and there’s only Women’s Flag at the World Games this summer. No men’s flag, but, um, I think it’s good.

I mean, FLAG is the Future Flags, flag checks, all those IOC boxes, gender equity, easy to access, Keeping, you know, small roster size, like that was the biggest problem with American football at the world to games in 2017, was just the 45 man roster and just getting all those guys over. and just, it’s just the numbers were inflated.

so it flag checks a lot of boxes. and as someone who’s played both American and flag, it’s a different sport. So I’m really tired of hearing the NFL verse, the, the flag player thing. I think, I think if you, you can’t, you can’t debate that the NFL players are elite athletes, but they’re not the best flag players.

So that’s gonna be interesting. now you give those guys six months of training, they would, they would end up beating the, the national flag team. But they’re not just gonna walk on the field and, and be great. So that’s a loaded question, but that, that’s my preliminary answer.

Alison Brown: You know, we’re gonna ask you a loaded question, John. I know you show up with us, we’re not just gonna say hello. I know, I know. But yeah, there has been a lot of controversy with the NFL players and, you know, when we talk to athletes about even just changing from, running 200 meters to 400 meters, it’s like a different sport.

This is a big difference when you’re talking elite level competition.

John Moorhead: Yeah. No, it’s, it’s a, I mean not just the rules being different, but the movements, the, the strategy, like a, it’s a, it’s a different sport. a again, I do think that the 10 person roster limit is really gonna, ’cause in the world games it was 12 in Birmingham, and it’s 12 again in Chengdu for the women.

But I think the 10 person roster limit, I know we’re trying to cut costs and, and, and drive that, that, that number quoted down on to around 11,000 total across the board. But that’s just, that’s such a small, small number. And I think you’re really gonna struggle. I think, I think with the NFL’s backing, they’re gonna want a, a few of their guys on that roster at least.

So it’s gonna take away from some guys that are really deserving to be on that, that 10 person team. so that, that, that is, that’s gonna be something to be interesting. ’cause I, you will, you will see an NFL guy or two, even if the flag players, end up being the majority of the roster.

Alison Brown: And it’ll be interesting to see what other countries do, because there are other, nationalities in the NFL, just like in the NHL.

And do you, just for visuals, just for optics, do you pull that NFL player onto your roster so that it gets that excitement?

John Moorhead: Yeah, I mean, the, so right now the NFL has a what’s called the international player pathway, and that means every NFL team gets to have a player. That is not from their country on their practice squad.

So the practice squad goes from 15 to 16. So every player gets that one bonus player. and I think you’ll see a lot of those. It depends who qualifies. I mean, I don’t know what the qualifyings gonna look like, but with six teams it’s gonna be very, very interesting. so, but I think you’ll see one of those pathway players on there and some of those countries, I mean like Mexico, Mexico beat the women’s team at the World Games in 2022.

Canada just beat the men at some exhibition in Southern California. So it’s, I mean, it’s not, it’s not gonna be like they’re, we’re just gonna walk out there and win. ’cause it’s football on, on a home soil. It’s, it’s gonna be competitive. I mean so Mexico’s good. Canada’s good Germany’s. Okay. Israel’s gonna use a lot of, if they qualify, use a lot of Americans who are, have that dual citizenship.

Alison Brown: Yeah. It’s kind of like the three x three versus five on five basketball. You see very different countries being at the top of that.

John Moorhead: Yeah. It was like the Israeli baseball team in, um, Tokyo.

Listener Sarah joins the show!

Listener Sarah: Hello?

Jill Jaracz: Uh, excellent. Introduce yourself, please.

Listener Sarah: well, hello everyone. My name is Sarah. I am from Chicago. been listening for about two years now. we have heard from you. Yeah. and, uh, I’d say my sport background is, uh, I have a black belt in Judo and I’ve been involved in that for, 15 years. And, uh, in particular, uh, I love, um, a lot of sports, but I find it very difficult to fi follow, um, ball sports ’cause I am legally blind.

So it is just, it’s very hard for me to follow sports like that. But pretty much like judo, gymnastics, the sliding sports and snowboards are like my favorites.

Jill Jaracz: Excellent. What did you think of this news that, happened recently with, uh, para judoka from, I believe Azerbaijan or Uzbekistan, who was caught having good vision?

Listener Sarah: Ooh. I guess that’s

Jill Jaracz: news to you, but,

Listener Sarah: it is news to me. and I think the unfortunate thing about, testing for vision is that it is very much like self-reporting in a lot of ways.

but I think there’s a lot of flaws with the process in general, just in like the short turnaround times. They want exams from medical professionals that are often hard to get an appointment with. And I know when I used to compete in judo that say when I would get tested for my vision, they, like, for me, like in my condition, lighting plays a huge factor in what I can see.

And so if you’re testing with terrible lighting, then it’s gonna look like I can see way less than I actually can. So I feel like that system has needed an overhaul for many years now. and I guess if someone studies people with visual impairments for a long enough time, they could get away with it, but that’s really unfortunate that that happened.

Alison Brown: Yeah. The more we’ve gotten into the Paralympics, the more, unfortunately the more what we’ve seen of this sort of thing. and we’ve heard the, the, the term class doping where people fake how, uh, severe their disabilities are. To get in a, more disabled class so that their abilities are different than the other people within the class.

Jill Jaracz: Or on the flip side, you have somebody like Nick Mayhew who was reclassified because he was too good for the class he was in.

Sarah, I will tell you a little preview. We have talked with, uh, some sled hockey officials and we just, I don’t, hopefully it will make the show now.

’cause I’m gonna say it. We talked about blind ice hockey and Oh, really? That is, yeah. It’s, it’s an interesting thing. And, and mm-hmm. We got to, you’ll hear the, the, how the puck sounds and it’s, it’s pretty cool.

Listener Sarah: Yeah. I know a few friends game who play it. Um, I know it’s gaining a lot of popularity. I, I haven’t tried it yet, but I very much want to,

Jill Jaracz: you will have to let us know if you do.

Listener Sarah: Yeah.

The International Olympic Committee to reevaluate the host city selection process

Jill Jaracz: Should we talk Alison about, what, Kirsty Coventry’s doing with the IOC?

Listener Sarah: let’s chat about, let’s President Kirsty.

Jill Jaracz: Alright, we have a little bit of news from the IOC as well. New President Kirsty Coventry’s, getting right to work. She immediately announced two working groups, one that we’ll look at and quote unquote strengthen the future host election process. A membership said at what they call a pause and reflect discussion, that they wanted to be more involved in the process of electing host cities and they want to figure out when to award the next host city.

Uh, they looked at LA and Brisbane. They were awarded 11 years out of the games and 2030 was awarded just six years out. And before this, seven years was the standard for a host city election. the other working group’s gonna be about protecting the female category. We’re gonna get to that. But Rich Roy, you’ve gotta have thoughts on the host city process election process.

Go ahead, rich.

Rich Perelman: Well, Lord Acton was correct. Absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. So if you look at the IOCs history, and you remember the Salt Lake scandal, which was personal for me, uh, only in the sense that I knew the players, right? So, uh, I had met Walsh, I knew Johnston Johnson, Dave Johnson, and, and I thought it was unfortunate, but they were playing the game that they felt had been played against them.

regarding the Nagano Games in 1998. So if you go back to the idea that the members are going to vote in a contested election for the host city, you opened the door to bribery again. Now they went in 1999, they had this scandal. Mark Coler, the, the FIS chief brought it up and, and it was a, a real shock to the IOC.

It had been whispered about, but no one knew exactly what happened. And, and it was fortunate for the Olympic movement, that it was, something that happened in the US because you had the US Justice Department and the FBI that got involved. So you got a lot of the details. You wouldn’t have gotten that in another country.

Uh, I think so. They got rid of some of these members. They made all these changes, some of which are still in today and 10 years later for Rio, it’s absolutely clear that the Brazilians were vying votes in the first round. Absolutely clear, no question about it. So these, uh, reforms as lasted all of 10 years.

Great. That’s real long-term reform. 10 years. So I think the, the, the nature of the IOC membership is different. I had a, a friend who called me, he said, you know what, what about this bribery? ’cause he had the same idea. And I said, well, it’s gonna be a lot harder to, uh, bribe Princess Rema because her, her price is gonna be pretty high as a Saudi fam uh, uh, Royal family member.

You’re gonna have to, you’re gonna, it’s gonna take a lot of money to buy her vote, maybe some oil wells. but at you, you’re not gonna do much with Rema and you’re not gonna do much with, uh, some of these other folks. The, the, uh, former Ian president, uh, you’re not gonna do much with. So they have a better membership.

I think they, they don’t have, uh, scoundrels, uh, at least have fewer s scandals, than they had. We don’t have diac, involved who very, capably took over for Nelo, who I knew. and Nelo was a, if he ever wanted to meet a, a, a, someone who would’ve been in the US of Mafiosi, it was Nelo. He was completely crooked.

but if he made a deal with you, he stuck to it. So he is not, that makes him an honest crook, right? So Nebido succeeded by Diac. Diac was, was, uh, and his son were, were doing business. And what Bach did is he got rid of the voting, therefore he got rid of the corruption. And you can say, well, Los Angeles didn’t turn out well.

I would suggest to you that had nothing to do with 11 years. Ahead of time. It had a lot to do with who was responsible for working from 11 years to three years, which is today. And Brisbane, uh, the thing descended into a, uh, uh, a change of, uh, administrations. so we don’t know how it’s gonna turn out in Brisbane.

Hopefully it’ll turn out well. They certainly have somebody in Lius who should be very capable as a, a chief executive guy knows what he’s doing. Uh, at least his, his history shows that. So I, I think every candidate for the IC presidency promised that they were gonna get the members more involved.

I think Coventry is pretty smart. I don’t know a lot about the politics of Zimbabwe, but I did some reading and they are rough and tumble and nasty and racial and all the things that a country you would expect of any kind of, any size. It’s not an absolute dictatorship like North Korea, would go through.

So she’s, no, she, she’s not somebody who hasn’t been through this. So I’ll be interested to see kind of what comes up. But I think you’re gonna end up seeing some sort of a blended, approach may be where the future host commission comes up with two or three names and they only announce the, Results at a session and you vote the next day, something like that, where you, take the bribery opportunities down to a minimum, but it has to be something like that because they’re just opening the door to corruption.

And, and she knows that. she, I’ve not met her. I’ve only done press conferences with her. It’s very clear she’s a serious person. Right. And she will understand this.

Jill Jaracz: And I do wonder about the whole selection process of how quickly Brisbane got through and how much did that have to do something with John Coates being involved and the membership realizing, oh, we’re kind of just a rubber stamp on the process.

And it feels like the pendulum swung, has swung too much in the other direction of taking a process. That was a pretty broken, because I think people like the idea of a pageant, but it costs millions of dollars for every city. And it’s, it turns into a big kind of debacle and opens itself up to bribery.

But then you get into a situation where all the time you have these questions of, well, who’s gonna be the next host city? We need another host, city chosen now. So people are already talking about 20 36, 20 40. And it’s way too soon to elect these. Host cities, but there are some people who can’t let that go.

So they just keep pushing that button. And yes, behind the scenes you have to start talking about that and thinking about it and planning, but we don’t need to bring that to the forefront. Now,

Alison Brown: you know whose vote will never get bought? Princess Anne?

Rich Perelman: Well, there there’s another one who’s there got a, you know, pretty stiff bank account.

So I, I don’t, you know, she and Rema can, can compare financial statements between countries, right? they have better, people, but I mean, the corruption thing is, is real. The other thing, which I think it is a detail but is going to get changed is the way that they do the announcement because, uh, I think this was crystallized better.

I think that is something that you might see. In the IOC business because there’s an easy way to do it. you, uh, put the, uh, bid cities, whoever they are, in, in rooms, satellite rooms, and you announce the winner, and then you bring in the winning delegation, and then there can be a reception afterward and everybody can come.

But, you know, it’s, it’s a terrible thing. And I’ve been in rooms where we’ve, you know, where LA has lost, where I’ve been part of the, the bid committee. and it’s a terrible feeling. I mean, it’s great that someone is celebrating, uh, good for them, but you know, you know what you did and you know, you know where you think you stood and you didn’t get the result that you thought was appropriate, whether it was winning or being advanced to a next round.

I’ve been in a room, uh, as a bid writer and being told, well, your bid wasn’t very good. And I’m going, well, let’s see. I got a call this morning from somebody who was on the staff who told me we had the highest, score, highest technical score. So you’re lying to me, aren’t you? Oh. So that has to be eliminated.

Uh, you, you have to find a way not to humiliate, bidders. And you have to, uh, Jill’s exactly right. You have to find a way to maintain this very, very, very low cost. Of bidding. However, I would point out to Jill and to Alison as well as for my own good, that the old style of bidding was fabulous for podcasts like yours and websites like mine because Oh yeah, mid East would spend thousands of dollars for absolutely no return whatsoever.

But it’s what broke around the rings, and it had a significant impact in breaking, inside the games because that bid money was insane. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars and every two years. Right.

Listener Tommy: Wow.

Rich Perelman: So, you know, in some ways I wanted to come back so I can make some more money, but in, in a lot of ways, especially in terms of trying to keep the Olympic movement, healthy.

and Bach has left it tremendously healthy in many ways. There, there’s things that I don’t like that he did okay, but I graded him the number three IOC president in history behind to Cuper 10 and Samran. And, and I don’t think it’s close. Uh, there’s a huge gap when you go down to four. but this is something that he brought in that I think is the right thing to do that needs reform.

It has to be tweaked. It’s going to be tweaked, but you open to an open vote and you don’t have some sort of a mechanism where it’s, you know, rapid turnaround. So there’s no way to. Get the checkbook out. Right. I, I think the IC is just inviting corruption. I hope they don’t do it. Other than that, I have no opinion on this.

Jill Jaracz: Does anybody else have an opinion on this?

Roy Tomizawa: I just have a thought.

Jill Jaracz: Yes, Roy,

Roy Tomizawa: about I, I mean, look, I, this, the Oly, the big, big 10 sports always has this issues with, corruption. Um, don’t know how that’s gonna be resolved. Hopefully we are in a better place. But what’s interesting to me was, I’ve been out the game this for quite a while, but coincidentally was talking to, a sports marketing friend of mine who, who works for a company that’s, is, uh, charged with helping the communications bid for India in 2036.

Which, you know, I hadn’t been keeping track of that. But, uh, AMBA is one of the, of several companies, uh, countries that are vying for 2036. and, uh, you know, it’s been a while since we’ve had a summer games candidate, uh, or city that is having, its coming out for the country. So Rio was, I guess, the last major one for summer games.

picked in great economic times and then debuting in poor economic times. And this has always been the, the trap of these games. But, you know, I look at the, uh, India and Indonesia as two huge countries, right? I mean, just population alone. 1.4 billion, 1.5 billion for India. uh, Indonesia is the fourth biggest, uh, population in the world.

I think around 240, 200 50,000 people. Indonesia, a huge, huge country, a petro economy, a democracy, an anomaly in, in the world, in an area. I’ve been living in Asia for, you know, 30 years plus, and, uh, watched it go from, a, a emerging economy to a, a behemoth of an a global economy. And China, India in particular are driving the global economy, or will be driving it over the next few decades.

India will be interesting, as will China. I think we cannot predict the impact AI will have on global socioeconomic, political politics, but, uh, India and China, of course India is a huge center for AI research and development. What we see of India now will be totally different in 10 years. It’ll be interesting, to see an India debut in 2036.

I think it’ll look totally different. I think the global economy will look totally different. it could potentially be a spectacular coming out party for India, so it’d be interesting to see how that bid plays out. Indonesia also a very interesting, bid prospect as well. Maybe not on the scale as India, but uh, I look at those two prospects as, as, as very interesting.

Uh, if we still view the Olympics as this incredible, global marketing platform for a nation

Jill Jaracz: that will be interesting. Tommy, I see you. We’ll get to you in a second, but, I am heartened by the fact that India wants to bid, although I’ve read, and I can’t give you a source recently that they’ve been told, well, get your house in order first was the basic message I got with you have a lot of problems with governance in within sports, but there’s also the fact that you haven’t done very well on the Olympic stage, so why should you host the Olympics?

Roy Tomizawa: And we don’t work Billion, 1.4 billion high. Yeah. Well

Jill Jaracz: that that true. Yeah, the eyeballs. But how is that gonna play? if they can’t, if they’re having problems with governance, how are they gonna be able to run a bid or just will, if you have 1.4 eyeball, 1.4 billion eyeballs, will they tune in to see India fail?

Or will there be enough athletes to draw them in? ’cause they’ll watch if cricket’s in ’cause cricket will be in. But, well, cricket

Alison Brown: I think is gonna be an interesting test case for that. You know, in LA will India’s, television viewership of the Olympic shoot up because people are tuning into cricket.

And then if you tune into cricket, you stay for other things. And when you’re talking about the governance, remember when we read, Abinov Bin’s book, how he talked about how poor the governance was just for shooting and how much trouble he ran into so that it’s not a new problem that, that India’s dealing with.

Ben Jackson: But does India have 1.4 billion eyeballs? Like how many people in India own televisions or have the means to

Roy Tomizawa: watch? And even if it’s half that, even if it’s half that, it’s still twice the American population. Well,

Ben Jackson: that’s true, but I mean, you know, I, I,

Roy Tomizawa: I don’t know how quickly 10 years from now India will be.

Ben Jackson: Yeah, that was my question. Like if, if they’re growing very quickly. Yeah, I, you know, I did some research on India a few years back for a work thing that I did. And that was always one of the questions was, ’cause they wanted India, the Indian government wanted people to adopt electronic payments, move away from cash.

And the hard part about that was helping people understand how, how things like that work. And so, the, the growth of the middle class, I think will be an important factor in, how many eyeballs they have. I, I’m, I’m not denying it at all, it’s just that I think will be a, bid question that will come up.

Roy Tomizawa: Well, maybe not, but even if

Listener Patrick: it’s not television particular, I think the mobile viewing ship is something to factor in these days. And that could, that could be the tipping scale.

Ben Jackson: That’s a good thought. Yeah.

Roy Tomizawa: I mean, who are the

Ben Jackson: competitors? I’m stuck in the past thinking about television.

Roy Tomizawa: I mean, when I look at the Wikipedia page, it says Santiago Chi, Istanbul, Turkey, are the two bid, two interested, confirmed bids in addition to Indonesia and India. So. It’s not as if everyone’s raising their hands for 36.

Rich Perelman: Roy, that’s not exactly true because you, you have at least a half a dozen others who are talking to the IOC sub rosa, and they don’t wanna be known that they’re involved. They don’t want, and this is the advantage of this continuous dialogue business. Hmm. There’s at least 10 who are seriously interested.

the best place to find this is games bids.com. If you read, that side, you’ll, you’ll see, uh, Robert’s work and it’s excellent. he’s got stories that talk about, you know, how many are in there. But he has an excellent story. It came, he was reporting on the Times of India story, uh, which, went a little deeper than what Jill just said.

Is that the IOC apparently enclosed doors told them the times of India, had the story, that they have very significant governance problems. They can’t hire a CEO of the Indian Olympic Association. They can’t do it. Not because someone doesn’t want the job, ’cause no one will approve it. The board is, is fighting with each other.

They have terrible doping problems. Uh, they’re number two only to Kenya in athletics. 129 people India on the athletics. List of ineligible people. The US by contrast, has 14, right? And then, some of us, this is back when I had hair, some of us went through the, the crucible of trying to get involved in the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

And I was bidding to provide services with my event management company. And I’m glad we lost because, half the contractors didn’t get paid.

So I’m glad I didn’t get that gig. But that Commonwealth Games was terrible. All kinds of corruption, all kinds of problems. And Bach has said, well, that’s okay. Alison is right. Bach is looking at cricket and is looking at the television rights. And he said, well, you know, that was a long time in the past.

Uh, it’s not so far in the past. So India has a long way to go. Long, long, long way to go. And Jill, to your point about 2028 being 11 years and 2032 being 11 years, I would give you a two word answer. Safe hands.

Jill Jaracz: Well, yeah. and I think the different the fact that they were both 11 years is different because LA’s.

Awarding came because we were down to two cities and Bach said, let’s not have any losers. Brisbane came about because of this future host commission.

Rich Perelman: Well, Los Angeles Garcetti, the mayor at the time, Garcetti, also told Bach, if you don’t give us the 28 games, we’re not beating again.

Unknown: Can’t have that.

There’s not that many cities who can do the games this big anymore.

Alison Brown: And I think a lot of, to, to your point Rich, that a lot of people or a lot of cities are talking under the radar. We kind of saw the opposite of that happen with 2030, how all these cities came up. It was such a public thing. Uh, Sapporo was in, and then it was out.

Calgary was in, and then it was out. And that was not great for optics for the IOC that these cities are in and out and in and out. So I would see the benefit to kind of these discussions quietly happening when it’s so far ahead of time. it makes a lot of sense.

Listener Tommy joins the show!

Jill Jaracz: Well, I would like to say hello to listener Tommy, who’s been here for a while. Hey. Hello. How are you, Tommy? Good. Good.

Alison Brown: when did you join us, Tommy? How long ago?

Listener Tommy: as a listener. Probably, right around Tokyo 2021. Yeah.

Alison Brown: I knew, I knew it had been a while. I knew you’ve, you’ve stuck around.

I’ve been very active on the Facebook group, so we’re always happy to, to get a chance to say hello.

Listener Tommy: Yeah. I kind of obsessed over the metal count and stuff, and, on my Facebook page I kept a running, tab on every day of, of Paris trying to see who’s gonna win the medal count. And, yeah, us kind of, sort of came out on top at the end.

Alison Brown: Okay. So when you count medals, do you count totals or do you count Golds?

Listener Tommy: Golds, because that’s like the classic way that I always saw people do it. And, yeah, I, I go by gold medals and then silver and then bronze.

Alison Brown: And I do wanna say credit to you, your pre-PA prediction for the host nation, if I remember correctly, was right on target.

Listener Tommy: yeah. I got lucky on that. Yeah, so I, I have a book that I wrote on the 1980 Olympics, which is coming out within a month or so. So I look forward to, sharing that with everyone.

Book Club Claire joins the show!

Alison Brown: And speaking of Books, book Club Claire is here. Hello. Hello. Lovely to see you representing with your fabulous t-shirt.

Book Club Claire: Yes, I am wearing with Pride. I almost forgot I was doing book stuff and all of a sudden I went, oh no, I forgot my computer. And so I’m on my phone. So when did you first become a listener? Uh, it was during the Pyeongchang games. Pyeongchang? Yeah. So you

Jill Jaracz: and Patrick are kind of OGs and, and Meredith as well?

Meredith was here. She’s, she had to step aside, but, yeah. You’ve been around a long time.

Book Club Claire: Well, I was it, I actually explained this, to Ben. Uh, he asked me why I was listening to your podcast and I said, well, during Pyeongchang I was looking for podcasts about the Olympics, and I wanted to see if there were any podcasts by women about the Olympics.

’cause so many of them are done by guys. And I’m like, okay, I listen to enough podcasts with guys, I wanna hear some female perspectives. And yours was the first one that popped up. And I’m like, oh, they’ve only been doing this for like a few months. And then I just kind of kept doing it. And when you said, Hey, we’re looking for contribu.

I said I could help. And they said, Hey, do our book club. And I said, okay. And that’s how it started. Wait, okay.

Jill Jaracz: So how I remember that was somebody might have been, you suggested, why don’t you read some books? And I said, how about you lead that, that, that in my brain is how that conversation went. That that’s more accurate than what I, what I

Alison Brown: I have no memory.

Claire, before the Cro Monsour we shared in Paris.

Book Club Claire: Oh, that was a delicious croak. Monsour. Actually that

Alison Brown: was a good day because we had never met before in person. That’s correct. Which was so funny to me. And that’s what’s, you know, I think Jill and I both have had this experience and, and Sean and I have never met in person and, and all, and, and, well, rich and I have, we’ve met in New York, but all these people I haven’t met in person who are friends.

And then when we were finally together, it was like, oh my goodness.

Book Club Claire: Yeah. The, the artwork that of that street where we’ve gone the correct Yes. Right there. So very nice. We bought that the same like within an hour of us meeting for the first time to commemorate our meeting. And uh, yeah, it made it to my travel wall, which is what’s behind me right now.

Listener Sarah: Outstanding.

Keep the Flame Alive and TKFLASTAN present options for future host cities

Jill Jaracz: I would like to go around the horn and ask everybody let’s say it’s possible to host the Olympics, no matter how big your city is, what city, they can host it, no matter what, what city would you want to see? summer games and a winter games in? I’m gonna start at my bottom left and go Ian first.

Listener Ean: So I, I can pick any city,

Jill Jaracz: any city, any city. Doesn’t matter if they are capable of hosting the games, but they would be in our magical world.

Listener Ean: I, some, some cities. I just don’t know where you’d put it,

but I, I mean, I always joke that you would have a, it’s, we don’t have an allea stadium of the appropriate size, but I would love to see a nice ceremony at Ohio Stadium here in Columbus. Let’s be honest.

Jill Jaracz: Oh yes. The Ohio State University Stadium is pretty, uh, legendary in terms of stadiums.

Listener Ean: Yeah.

So I’ll, I’ll, I’ll just be a homer and pick my own city ’cause I think that would be fun. Okay.

Jill Jaracz: what about. winter games,

Listener Ean: for winter.

I’m pretty sure they’ll never do it, but I would like some, some place in New Zealand. I think that would be the best opportunity. But I, I believe it’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure they’ll never do it for environmental reasons, but That’s okay. Yeahs,

Jill Jaracz: Sean Callahan,

Sean Colahan: uh, I’m gonna go Boston.

I know there was a hot second where, uh, the city close to me is, uh, was putting a bid for 2024 for the summer games. decided not to put that bid in. and I think it could actually work for both the summer in the winter games. I think New Hampshire is close enough, especially, I mean, thinking about what it’s gonna be like, what, five hours to get to Cortina, that you can be up to go to

Jill Jaracz: Vermont to killing people, Vermont, even

Listener Patrick: Northern New Hampshire.

And you can be up there in two and a half hours. So, I, I think Boston would be, the visuals for the television would be great. I think it has the venues for, keeping the, building costs to a minimum for either a summer or the winter game. So I, I think it’d be fun to see, uh, something in the Northeast.

Jill Jaracz: I like the idea of Boston as a winter host when you put it like that. And we see how spread out Milan Corina is, but I, I, when I lived in Boston, it was going up for 2024 and it was like, ugh, the traffic. And the, the not so great subway system. but I do think a Winter Games is a nice idea.

Sean Colahan: They did it up for, but Salt, but Public City has

Jill Jaracz: an O Olympics

Sean Colahan: and we have a better subway system than they do. I mean, they have great public transit that they’ve built up, but, you know, everyone talks about the public transits, like, well, you look at some other venue, it’s like pyeongchang has like, had zero public transit.

It was, it was all just Olympic shuttle buses. So

Jill Jaracz: Roy Thomasa, what would you say for a summer host?

Roy Tomizawa: I’m from New York City, so, you know, when I read about the plans for transforming New York City and the 2012 Olympic bid, of which actually quite a lot happened with Bloomberg and Dr. Rose plans, um, it would’ve been, it would’ve been accelerated a lot of the development in, in Queens and, and Brooklyn and, and, and of course Manhattan.

of course it would’ve been, I think the New Yorkers would’ve hated it, uh, would’ve just totally screwed up their lives. But it would’ve been interesting to have it there. But, you know, I, I, I have a, a soft heart for Detroit, which lost nine summer games, bids. And, you know, we think at Detroit now, and you know, it’s not the place that you would think would bid, but in, in its heydays in the fifties and sixties, Detroit was probably one of the greatest cities in the world.

And they lost it every single time, from the forties into the seventies. And I think Detroit would’ve been a spectacular place. It would’ve represented New York America’s, uh, economic and cultural power, right? With Motown and, and, uh, with the auto industry. so it would’ve been interesting, but, you know, Rome and Tokyo and, uh, uh, Mexico City got it instead.

And, those were great games as well. But, I just feel bad for Detroit. I hope one day it, it does get it. But of course, Detroit is no longer the economic and cultural epicenter. It once was. So just a remorseful thought.

Jill Jaracz: Do you have an idea for winter games?

Roy Tomizawa: No, I have no idea. I hate snow. Okay.

The only Olympic game plugged into is of course it was freezing.

Jill Jaracz: uh, rich Pearlman, what are your choices?

Rich Perelman: My summer games idea would be a, uh, Olympic Games in Jerusalem, hopefully with a, piece in the region. the European Junior Track and field Championships were held in Jerusalem a couple of years ago, and the comments from the athletes, uh, none of whom were Jewish, about how they were completely overwhelmed by being in Jerusalem and, and being around the, uh, the history and so on, uh, some of whom were, were deeply religious in their own faiths, that Jerusalem was an important place for them.

but I think Jerusalem, which does actually have facilities, along with Tel Aviv and Haifa, uh, would be amazing. Uh, it’s not the right time now, but maybe in the future it could be. Uh, in terms of winter games, uh, only the fins who do this, maybe with the Swedes, but to have a winter games above the Arctic Circle, which is already partially done, with the slalom that, uh, is done every year.

The reindeer slalom in Ruca. Uh, so Fis actually does go every year in Alpine, above the Arctic Circle. Uh, and they have the business where if you win, you get to name a reindeer. but I think having a winter games actually above the Arctic Circle, that would be the epitome. Of a Winter Olympic Games,

Jill Jaracz: Patrick from Chicagoland.

Listener Patrick: so given some time to think about it. I have an answer. I have a US answer for both and a world answer. A non-US for both. Oh,

Unknown: lay on this.

Listener Patrick: Alright, us answer for, summer, I’m biased. I, I, I’m originally from LA but I live in Chicago just because it’ll be easier for me.

Chicago. it would’ve been fascinating if they won it in 2016, how that would’ve gone. and they’re building more, like I know they’re building a new soccer stadium, which probably would’ve been u which could be used, you know, for an Olympic facility as well.

So Chicago, and American Winter, even though they don’t have mountains, or I think they do, but I’m not sure. The Twin Cities.

Jill Jaracz: Oh yeah,

Listener Patrick: yeah, yeah. The Twin Cities, you know,

Jill Jaracz: and then you could just, I mean, if we’re doing regional games, they can just go to the Rockies,

Listener Patrick: might as well. I mean, yeah. I mean, look, Tahiti’s surfing, right?

and then world, oh, I, I completely blanked out now. Okay. I remember World for winter though. World for winter. definitely Sweden just because they kept losing and losing and losing.

Jill Jaracz: Listener Sarah from Chicago. What say you?

Listener Sarah: Gosh darn it. I also had the idea of the Twin Cities, but I don’t wanna give it to them ’cause I feel like they’d be insufferable afterward. and I was also tempted to give it to Chicago because of our failed bid, but for the winter games, I’m gonna go with Denver just because it’s, I know a wintery city I can think of that isn’t the Twin Cities.

and then for the summer games, I wanna see it go to Guadalajara in Mexico because it’s the second biggest city in the country. And now that they’re more united under, their current president, I, I’d like to see Mexico redeem themselves after the 68 games.

Jill Jaracz: That is an interesting concept. I like, I like these ideas that are coming out.

I also, like, I do Jerusalem would be pretty powerful. I will say that, rich. Mm-hmm. It would be, that would be a games that would just overwhelm everybody and there’s not enough. Puffs in the world, I’d just be having a box around my neck with my credential.

Alison Brown: You know what would be amazing with the Jerusalem games, if they, I’m gonna go pie in the sky with Rich, if they did a joint bid with a city in one of the countries surrounding them, if it was an Israel Jordan bid, Israel, Egypt, you know, something in that Well, that,

Rich Perelman: that would, that would be their concept.

I mean, they have an organization, uh, already that puts on the Maccabia

Unknown: Yeah.

Rich Perelman: Which has been going since 1932 and has about 8,000 athletes. So they already understand how to do this, and they do it, on, on a, a tiny budget. They understand exactly how to do it. and they would do a remarkable job, but the idea would be to try and do something regionally that would show, show off peace between Israel and its neighbors, and, that’s not happening right now.

but in the future, who knows.

Jill Jaracz: Interesting. I would also, I, I think Denver is an interesting choice as well, because A, it’s a pretty big city, but BI would love to see what they would do given that they returned the games and if attitudes were different in this day and age versus in the seventies. moving on to listener.

David, what do you say?

Listener David: Alright, well, I, I’m a lifelong New Yorker, so Roy kind of took my, uh, my thunder a little bit there. I remember watching the, the vote and the presentation back in 20, uh, 2005. Uh, I kept saying to myself, this could work, this, this might, that’s my work. But I knew it wasn’t gonna happen.

But in Roy’s honor, I’m gonna go with my college town. I’m gonna say Philadelphia because they have, uh, the world, uh, a, a very, uh, wonderful and historic track and field stadium. They’ve got a sports complex that has, you know, plenty of room and stuff to put there. So I know that there were a couple of rumblings around maybe for like 2016 that they were trying to throw their hat in the ring.

But, uh, you know, you’re close to New York, you’re close to Washington. It would’ve been right in that northeast corridor. So that would’ve been, uh, that would’ve been cool to see. And then, uh, for the, for the winter side, uh, I was rooting for Stockholm to get it for 2026. I know nothing in the world is ever gonna top lily hammer.

It would be nice to get back to Scandinavia. I would love to travel to Sweden. I might have gone for that, uh, for that Olympics. I’ve been to Italy league before, but, uh, hopefully at some point in the not too distant future, we, uh, we fund, uh, a Winter Olympics back in Scandinavia. ’cause that would, uh, that seemed like it would be a fun time.

Alison Brown: And that Philadelphia mascot has gotta be a bell

Jill Jaracz: producer Ben, what say you.

Ben Jackson: So for the summer games, I would go Chicago. ’cause I, I saw some of the, uh, the plans and things. We were living in Chicago at the time. We were standing in the plaza when it got knocked out on the first vote. And there was palpable disappointment. But I was part of a local citizens council at the time.

and bid committee came in and talked about the bid. And there was just this sense, and I do attribute a lot of this to Mayor Daley that they were gonna do right by the city. there were big plans for the public transportation and big plans for some of the housing and things like that.

And so I think that Chicago would’ve been one of those cities where if it had come together, it would’ve benefited the city for a long time. if, you know, the other place that I think had well I don’t know anymore, but that would’ve had potential for a summer games might have been Hong Kong, back when it was an international, more, more of an international city.

I was there once. It’s, it’s obviously a very tight location, but I think it’d be easy to get to venues and get around. it would, and it was such a neat city because I was there in 2000 uh, 2001 right after the handover basically. And it was just such a melting pot city that I think it would’ve been really interesting.

for winter. I don’t know. I do like the Twin Cities idea. I also like being above the Arctic Circle, but we could make it truly international and put it in Antarctica, you know, and just have it on neutral territory altogether. but those are kind of my thoughts off the top of my head.

I, I, I don’t hate the idea of Boston though. Having, having been up in New Hampshire, like you say, you know, and the White Mountains and all of that. I think there’s a lot of potential, or maybe even if, if space is no object, Northern Michigan or they’ve done some, some training for that kind of thing as well,

Alison Brown: and sliding could be in Lake Placid, like they keep wanting to put it in

Book Club Claire: Book club. Claire, what do you think? Well, I was gonna say Detroit as well due to the, uh, many, many bids that it had early on.

but I’m gonna say for the Summer Olympics somewhere in Africa. ’cause we gotta hit up that continent sometime. I’m not really sure if we go to South Africa, Johannesburg or something like that. But I think that would be a good place to, to host a games, for the winter. I’m gonna definitely give it to Denver because they keep saying no and we’re just gonna force it on ’em and say Tough.

You have everything we need. Just host it already.

Jill Jaracz: I am curious to see how the Youth Olympic Games goes in Senegal. listener, Tommy,

What do you say? Yeah,

Listener Tommy: so they tried to do it in 1988 and they came up just short.

And I go with Nagoya, Japan. I’ve been to Nagoya. That is an amazing city. it has, the transportation there is just out of this world. It’s amazingly efficient. they would do a really good job at. Getting people to different venues, maybe they’d have to build some stuff. But, yeah, Nagoya would be an amazing place for the Olympics.

winter Olympics, I just think Sweden. So not very, creative with that pick. But Sweden would be my pick.

Jill Jaracz: Excellent listener. Ian, I’ll go back to you if you have, because you were first up. That’s, it’s hard.

Listener Ean: I’ll, I’ll stick with my New Zealand for winter. Absolutely. Okay. but if I, if I had to pick a non-home city, I think I actually really like the Boston both idea.

I, I been to Boston a few times. It’s one of my favorite cities here in the US so I would probably go to Boston at that point.

Jill Jaracz: Alright, well I’ll see if you were listening,

Alison Brown: Jill, you didn’t tell us your choices. Oh, my

Jill Jaracz: choice. Oh, well I, you know, I haven’t thought about this question to be honest. How about you?

You go first. I have to think.

Alison Brown: Well, we all know, I’m gonna say Stockholm for winter. ’cause we all know I’m obsessed with the Stockholm bid. summer, I’ve got two shots. One, I want Canada to have another shot at the summer. ’cause Montreal was such a disaster financially for them. And it’s such a great sports country.

So possibly Toronto, possibly, um, I don’t know if Ottawa could handle it, but we’re doing pie in the sky, so Definitely. And if we wanna do an African bid. I had such an amazing time in Morocco with the Moroccan people, so I’d love to see a joint North African bid, you know, possibly a Morocco, Egypt, something in, in that neck of the woods.

because it was such an amazing country and, and they do love their sports and they do, just love surprisingly hosting foreigners and, oh man. If I could get some more ta

I would not argue with that.

Jill Jaracz: You could get that without the Olympics.

Alison Brown: Yes, but the joy of it is that then I can always charge it back to the podcast.

Jill Jaracz: Alright, I have a Winter Olympics idea that pie in the sky. We can do whatever we want. I say we take over Lichtenstein.

Alison Brown: Oh, you know, I love Lichtenstein

Jill Jaracz: and you know, we’ve got an IOC member who is from Lichtenstein, one of the royal family. Yes. You just take it over and then you can farm out, like you can go over the borders for your different events.

I think that would work

Listener Sarah: Nice. I do like that

Jill Jaracz: I was so sad when Chicago lost the bid, and that would be a great city to host. I, Ben and I have talked about this a lot, where we don’t think they could host now because of the leadership.

The leadership of Mayor Daley was special. And, uh, not sure that it can be replicated at the moment. kind of wanna see Egypt. I’d love to go to Cairo. I’d like to see it would be the, the idea of that backdrop would be so beautiful for television. And they’ve done squash in front of the pyramids, so we know that, that people like that bid and they’re also good at modern pentathlon.

But, you know, summer, yeah, I’m not, I’m not sure it’d be, it would be nice if Africa could host it also. Might be nice if you could put it in Chile. I think Santiago might be an interesting choice,

Jill meets Jacque Rogge

Alison Brown: but, well, you know, who would not be happy about going back to Chicago?

Jill Jaracz: Who?

Alison Brown: Jacque Roge.

Jill Jaracz: This is, I don’t know, for those of you who don’t know what, so, Alison and I used to work at a consulting firm and they were one of many people who were very interested in the Chicago bid.

And, uh, Jacques Ro and a host of classic, uh, Olympic legends, including Nadia and Edwin Moses. So, came to the Union League Club of Chicago, uh, which is one of those big, business titan organizations where we have, uh, lunches and we listen to speakers and we hobnob.

So, Jacques Crow was coming and I said, Ben, we gotta go. And my company was getting a table or getting a lot of seats and we kind of glommed on and we went and we were running late. And I will tell you that I did not have a lot of money and also did not have very nice clothes. And the only thing in my closet that morning that was clean and ironed was a pair of Navy blue Liz Clayborne pants.

So they got at Marshalls. And so I know I wore, Alison is just looking, shaking her head and I probably had a shirt that I may have had to iron, but probably not if I knew me. so we’re going and Ben and I decide to go kind of on the later side of the social hour ’cause we weren’t gonna know anybody and, not, I’m not good in that kind of situation.

We get there and we’re checking in and somebody looks at me and goes, you need to go to the VIP room. You’re supposed to be in the VIP room. And I did not understand why. My name got on the VIP list, but I suddenly am in the VIP room drinking a glass of wine and shaking Jacques R’s hand and, not knowing what to say and also be like, I don’t know why I’m here.

And then I had to sit at the VIP table next to one of the more influential priests of the city. And, uh, another very nice woman. And I got through lunch somehow, and I knew not to eat dessert because none of the other ladies at my table ate dessert. And Alison, you know what I’m talking about. So we go and, and Jacques was going to talk and Mayor Daley is going to introduce him and he says, repeatedly calls him Jacques Roge.

And if you listen to a man with a Chicago accent, say Jacques Roge over and over again. And I’m cringing on the inside and I’m like, I’m not sure we’re gonna get this bid people. We got a mayor that can’t even say the president of the IOCs name correctly.

Alison Brown: And that is why Chicago got knocked down in the first round.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah, that and a host of other things. But, but yes, Jacques Roge. It was a very good lunch. I will say that. I don’t even know where you sat, Ben, were you in the back? I was right. Dead center. It was amazing. I, I want that VIP status again.

Ben Jackson: Yeah. I don’t know where I, I was in some random seat somewhere.

Jill Jaracz: But too bad I wasn’t smart enough to parlay that into something else. That would’ve been, that would’ve been very smart of me. But that went back to my, my,

Alison Brown: it was before we were doing the show. You did not know,

Jill Jaracz: I know The Road

Alison Brown: Jack Gay would lead you to.

Jill Jaracz: I know. Exactly. Exactly.

Alison Brown: And 400 episode later, right?

Thank you for being a part of the Keep the Flame Alive podcast

Jill Jaracz: Here we are. Here we are. And we’re here with all of you. And so thank you so much for being part of the show. Thank you for years and years. For some of you, even if you haven’t listened very long, we, you know, we just so appreciate the community that, you all have built.

Rich Roy, the other people who were, uh, Sean, we appreciate you being guests and taking a chance on talking with us. We’re always amazed when people say yes, but, you have made the show what it is and it’s being able to talk to smart people like you and smart listeners who have made this such a ride.

And we hope it can keep going for years and years to come. We hope we can figure out who’s gonna get 2036 in person

Alison Brown: as we go along with our canes. So

Jill Jaracz: I’ll take it. I will take it. So, well, well, then we, we can, that’s it Jill. We’re gonna do another 400. That’s right.

Alison Brown: Hey, all the cool people got canes. Don’t worry about it.

Jill Jaracz: Right. We will be the accessibility ACEs at that point.

So that is gonna do it for this show. We’re so thrilled to be able to celebrate it with all of you. if you weren’t able to come along tonight and be part of this show, please let us know what your favorite moments from the past 400 episodes have been.

Alison Brown: And we do love hearing from you. You can chat with us and other listeners on our Facebook group. Keep The Flame Alive Podcast. Email us at Flame Alive pod@gmail.com.

And the voicemail and text line is always open at 2 0 8 3 5 2 6 3 4 8. That’s 2 0 8. Flame it. And if you need more Olympics and Paralympics in your life, ’cause 400 episodes is not enough for you, please sign up for our newsletter@flamelivepod.com. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes.

Jill Jaracz: Next week we will be talking with Paralympian and Survivor Star Noelle Lambert, and we’ll, , talk all things running blades and, uh, what she’s working on in, training for LA 2028.

So on that note,

Lorry Luscri: this is Lori l from Oak Park, Illinois saying thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive.