It’s one year to go until the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics! Tickets went on sale today, which means it’s time to figure out travel plans–and because Milan-Cortina is really spread out across northern Italy, travel between venue clusters is going to be much more complicated.
Not to worry though. Our Olympics travel expert Ken Hanscom is back to talk about traveling to Milan-Cortina for the Games. He shares:
- What to think about when buying tickets
- Why Milan will be a great host city for the Games
- Where to stay if you can’t find a hotel in Cortina
- What the roads are like between the different venue clusters
Besides travel, there’s a lot of news from Milan-Cortina, which we dive into. The slidingnovela continues on, with both AP and Reuters articles citing sources that say progress on the new track is going well, but we’re not sure what that actually means.
If you’re going to Milan-Cortina for the Olympics, please let us know!
In other Olympics news, French President Emmanuel Macron plans to bring back the Paris 2024 cauldron and have it fly throughout the summer months over the next three years, until LA 2028.
The Paris 2024 cauldron captivated the city at night.
This episode also features news from Paris 2024, LA 2028, French Alps 2030, and a visit to TKFLASTAN to check in on our past guests. Many of them of competing right now in hopes of qualifying for Milan-Cortina!
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo courtesy of Ken Hanscom.
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 Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
377-Ken Hanscom
Jill Jaracz: Hello and welcome to another 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. Each week, we share stories from athletes and people behind the scenes to help you have more fun watching the games. I am your host, Jill Jaracz, joined as always by my lovely co host, Alison Brown.
Alison, hello. How are you?
Remembering the Washington Plane Crash
Alison Brown: Hello. It has not been a great week. No. No. Well, let’s, let’s start with the tragedy of the plane crash and just our hearts go out to USA Figure Skating and all of our friends in the figure skating community who lost so many people on that flight. And then the following day, Dick Button dies as if he could not handle that sadness.
So you know, to, to all our figure skaters and figure skating fans, you know, we, we are with you in that sadness.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, that’s, it was a tough loss and so many skating clubs affected and just immediately I thought of the 1961 crash. Absolutely. And how that just devastated the U. S. skating team, so much young talent lost, and it’s really, really sad.
Alison Brown: You know, a lot of skaters, several of the skaters came from the skating club of Boston and Nancy Kerrigan, who skated in from that club herself, came out and spoke. And she was so eloquent and so heartfelt. And one of the things she said was, even when it’s hard, you get up and keep going. That’s kind of how I feel right now.
Like you just, you get up and you keep going.
On a happier note.
Oh, I didn’t say that right, but I’m trying. I’m trying.
Interview with Ken Hanscom
Jill Jaracz: Yes, it is one year to go until Milan Cortina. And that means we are talking with our friend, Ken Hanscom. Ken is the COO ticket manager and expert in Olympic travel planning. We talked with Ken about what you need to be doing now, if you’re planning a trip to Italy, because he’s been on the scene So, uh, if you plan to go next year and are trying to work out your travel plans and how you’re going to get around an entire region of the country to see a whole bunch of winter sports, he’s got some tips for you. Take a listen.
Alison Brown: Ken Hanscom, thanks for coming back on. We have you every year to get ready for the next games.
Ken Hanscom: It’s my pleasure. It’s uh, I can’t believe it’s already coming and Paris is just barely behind us and we’re almost like a year away from Melon Cortina kicking off.
Alison Brown: So we’ve seen the announcements for tickets.
What do we know about that part?
Ken Hanscom: It’s going to follow us, you know, a very similar. Themed I think what we saw Paris, right? It’s it’s a, it’s a same tech baseline technology, you know, event him that we saw, with Paris. And, you know, we have this kind of early bird phase where we have, you know, 350, 000 people registered, probably very similar to what we saw with the early phase of of Paris.
And then, you know, later this year, we get into kind of 2nd phase, which they consider more open sales. That stuff usually moves around. So, it’s, it’s interesting. Uh, I’m interested to see what the demand is. There’s not quite the same, let’s call it, fervor over, tickets, I think as Paris and Paris was incredible.
And I think Milan Cortina will be incredible. I think the demand for winter is just. Very, very, very different. And, you know, I’m not the only one that’s kind of been using this term, but, it’s really a game that’s very spread out. And so when you think about going as a fan, and if you’re a, I don’t want to say a super fan or someone who likes to go to 15, 20, I did 36 events in Paris is what my total ended up being.
you know, I have to be a lot more. Deliberate than maybe I normally am to figure out where I’m going to start and where I’m going to go and how I’m going to do that. And so, yeah, I think this in the phase is nice. It’s some people either are going or, you know, maybe local that want to get a nice pack made some early bird cheaper tickets.
But I think we’ll see it continue to develop over time with probably that 1st major on sale might be similar to what we saw the lottery in Paris and where, you know, you can really get some of the, if you get the right draw, you can get in there and get some of the best tickets for, you know, face value, which, you know, pretty reasonable price.
So, you know, whether it’s figure skating, whether it’s ice hockey finals, depending on what you’re looking for.
Jill Jaracz: Paris was the first time they did this ticketing system. What did you see from your professional angle that worked well and, like, hiccups they had that they have to work on?
Ken Hanscom: Yeah, you know, it’s interesting.
It’s the first time they used a centralized system, but it’s the same, I would say, pattern. That’s been repeated since London and before London, where we kind of have this early phase where there’s maybe a smaller amount of tickets that maybe are either cheaper priced or bundled together or limited. And then we kind of go into this more, formal, uh, I would say sales processes and venues get, you know, capacities and all those, uh, those sorts of things.
I am, frankly, very complimentary, uh, in terms of how the entire process worked for Paris for a super large event. Yes, I know there’s a lot of criticism about, you know, not enough Cs and Ds. There’s never Ever going to be enough season these tickets, for for the man, especially for a first summer game when your games are different, right?
We’re talking 8th, the number of tickets that are out there. It’s, you know, it’s a spot. But when I look at, you know, things to improve on, maybe there was, you know, some of the delivery stuff that was closer to the games. I think that didn’t, you know, that maybe took a little bit longer than people expect.
But other than that, my perspective is, I think The Paris ticketing process, again, you can disagree or agree about what it was fair and how it wasn’t fair, for whatever, right. The one argument might be as, Hey, there weren’t certain, certain allocations set up for the people in France, which has traditionally been something that’s happened local.
It was more of a global thing. So I could argue that from, from my perspective, that I had a better chance than ever to get the tickets that I wanted or people that were traveling to Paris. And, you know, we can argue whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but that was the method they chose. When there were waiting rooms or those sorts of, I think, scenarios, they were not intolerable, right?
If we look back to some of the early, uh, don’t want to talk about, previous ones. I mean, there was an 18 hour, wait to find out whether or not you won a lottery at some point, uh, and not too long ago. So when I look at kind of the execution, the delivery, I didn’t have any scan issues or ticket issues when I, when I was on the ground, right?
Everyone was up in arms early on about whether, you know, mobile tickets are good or not. It’s the way we do things here, at least in the United States now, and we’re very used to it. I always have my tickets on my phone. There’s no more paper tickets. Yes. I understand souvenirs and actually from a corporate standpoint, it can be maybe a little bit more difficult to, to move things around last minute and change.
But I think for when we look at a global system that had to serve, what, 11 million tickets across. Up to 3 million people, depending on what numbers you look at of people that traveled and visited Paris. I think, I think the ticketing system was a fantastic success.
Alison Brown: How can we judge demand? Because we had a COVID Winter Games, we had an Asian Winter Games, then we had Russia and a lot of people were advised not to travel there.
And then we’re back, you know, 2010.
Ken Hanscom: I don’t know if we can. You know, the proxy I’m using is, is what is the size of the Milan Cortina group? As opposed to how it was for PyeongChang and Paris, right? And then that group sitting around, you know, 1200, people probably immediately followed over from the Paris group.
And the Paris group got to be 50, 000 people. So, and I think by this point a year, year in advance, I think we were in the 20s. So I, you know, to me, it looks like it’s about what I would expect it to be is, you know, a winter games demand is, you know, 1 15th of what you see in a summer games.
And it’s also it’s more difficult, you know, if you think about summer games. You’re a family of four. It’s super easy to say, Hey, this is my summer vacation. I’m going to take my family over. We’re going to go do that. But in February, do you have a ski week maybe right? Or you have this light. And so if you look at the turnaround and to be able to go that.
So I think it also just timing. It’s just the way it is. It’s not anyone’s fault one way or the other. The timing of it. This year, it’s gonna compete directly with the Super Bowl. So if you look the first weekend of, opening ceremony, the first couple events, at least from a U. S. Demands standpoint, it’s going head first that that Sunday, that for Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday.
So you’re also going to see, I think some of those things, you know, really, again, that’s a us centric view, I think from a European standpoint, right? When you look at that, yes, you have some of those challenges perhaps with travel, with vacation that you don’t have in the summer, but I think we might see a little bit more European demand than, than us managed to, you know, typically has been, I think when we get to Salt Lake, right?
Salt Lake is, is not going to compete. I mean, I’m sure NBC is not real, real thrilled that this opening weekend is, is competing with, with the Superbowl and I’m sure Salt Lake won’t. And it’s cold. It is, but you know, Italy’s not PyeongChang cold. No, I mean, the first week and I was driving around there, the car I had, I never saw the temperature gauge get above zero for the first week.
Now, now the second week was balmy comparatively speaking, but that first week. You know, and I still, my Ashley still gives me a really hard time. She’s like, you didn’t take any pictures once opening ceremony started in PyeongChang. I said, yes, because it was negative 35 wind chill out there.
And I couldn’t like move my hands to get to my phone. I didn’t want to take off my gloves to take pictures. There’s one picture of me, like a selfie standing, like with an empty stadium in the background. And that’s the only picture I have for opening ceremony at PyeongChang.
Alison Brown: You mentioned the distance.
So let’s talk a little bit about our four centers of activity.
Ken Hanscom: Yes. I’ve driven them all by the way.
Alison Brown: Okay. Fantastic. Because what I’m going to ask you is number one, how far away are they really? Cause I’ve looked on the map, but what does that really mean in terms of distance?
Ken Hanscom: So I visited all the sites in June of 2023 and it took me 16 hours to get from Milan.
To Bormio, living know what hit then hit the ski jumping facility and then coming all the way around, which also includes an 18 kilometer for a into into Switzerland. Beautiful drive. You go over a couple of great mounds of Dolomites like Cortina is the most beautiful place that you’ve never been to.
Like I had no idea how just gorgeous that place wasn’t. I will go there even if just for a day regardless of sliding center or not or any of those other sorts of things just because that place is so gorgeous. But it took me 16 hours to do that trip. So I think I think day trips are really challenging.
I’m even up to like, I think I think that’s, you know, it took me 2 hours. I’m not driving slow in the summertime. Right? So, if you think about potential for weather, if you think, and then you think about if you’re planning out programs, if you’re planning out those sorts of things, I think it’s very common that a lot of people are going to be based on them alone.
I’m personally planning probably a Milan base and then maybe either a. Venice or a Cortina base for for Portia. Venice is fairly accessible. I think up to Cortina. It’s a two hour train ride sort of thing. But I think if you’re looking at day trips, I think even with trains and whatever else, it’s a bit challenging.
And to get to some of the more remote places like Perdazo and really specifically ski jumping, maybe even up to the biathlon venue. I, I think those are gonna be challenging day trips from a major metropolitan center. So I think you’re gonna have to think about hopping around a little bit, and that, right, when you’re carrying bags and all this sort, sort of, it’s a little bit more painful than like, in a place like Paris where you can just like unpack your bags for a month and you kind of feel a little bit like home and you go off and do, do what you’re going to do.
And I think you need to be very conscious of that as you think about what events you want to see, uh, and the experiences that you want to have.
Alison Brown: Is driving the only option from Milan?
Ken Hanscom: For the trip I was going to do, it was I looked at train and it actually hit all the sites and like I had a very small two day window to do that.
I think getting from Milan up to Borneo, for example, I think there is a train, but I’m not sure what the time frame is on it. I think it’s close to 2. 5, 3 hours. And so if your events a night event. Moguls or, or you know, whatever it may, may be, you may not be able to get back depending on how the train, train schedules go, right?
If you’re vented in Intel 11 or, or you know, 12 whatever that may be. And again, they could extend the train schedule. We, we don’t know what they are a year from now. And I think also, I think Venice is, you know, you can get up to Cortina, on, on a train in about two hours. So that’s, that’s likely maybe something I’d do do, take a 5:00 AM train up, see a couple of sessions of, maybe some skiing, maybe some curling and then head back for the day. Because I think a lot of those hotels up in those smaller mountain towns are going to be taken by dignitaries, by teams, by athletes, by support, those sorts of things. Uh, yes, there, there will be some available for, for fans.
but again, if depending on what you’re going to do now, if you can just go see one sport and park yourself in, in Cortina for a week, great. I think it’ll be fantastic.
Alison Brown: I do want to go back to the hotels, but I do want to ask a quick question about the driving. How was it actually driving those roads?
I realized it was the summer.
Ken Hanscom: Yeah, so getting a direct into Borneo was, was, uh, and Livigno, Livigno. I’m butchering the name, so you’ll have to have to actually doing very well. Okay. Okay. my wife, we have family in Italy and they’re probably listening to me. They’d be like, Oh my gosh, like stop.
But the direct roads there and back to Milan was great, but then when I had to go between the venues, it was switchbacks. Uh, it was very slow going 25, 30 miles. And I remember, like, mentioning to Ash, I was like, can you imagine doing this in a bus? Right. If you’re on a program and doing this like a bus trip for the day or something like that, I think that’s what you’ll see is I think you’ll see some of the hospitality groups.
They’ll they’ll run at least at least up to that particular cluster. They’ll probably run some day trips up there
Alison Brown: because I fear for my life trying to drive that.
Ken Hanscom: Yeah, I mean, summer. It was fine. And it’s beautiful countryside. I mean, it is just words don’t describe it until you’ve seen it. I’ve traveled quite a bit. I’ve seen a lot of things and, the beauty just blew my mind away. we, we had such a fantastic time. It’s something that we hadn’t experienced before.
Alison Brown: Okay. Hotels. You mentioned there’s not a ton of hotels up in the mountains. So what can people expect in terms of availability there?
Ken Hanscom: I think that’s going to be competitive, it’s going to be competitive like we saw, you know, maybe in Paris and, you’re going to see that sort of, I would say, typical Olympic behavior. I think Milan’s going to be pretty simple. think if your base is going to be Milan for a couple of weeks or a week or I think there’s going to be readily available.
hotels for that, maybe not right away, but I think as as we closer when we look at from from a demand perspective and even venice. And again, I don’t know how many programs are planning to run out of venice. That’s just something that I’m considering for myself, for a couple, of day trips up to Cortina.
Given, you know, where I would like to stay, I know that hotel is not available. So, I know it’s taken, so I won’t be able to get in there. so I’ll probably end up staying, down in Venice.
Jill Jaracz: In the past, you have talked about waiting for hotels. It’s not a bad strategy because they’ll open up as, federations and NOCs have to move their blocks.
Do you think this will happen again? Or are we talking about in some clusters it’ll be too tight?
Ken Hanscom: I have a dear friend who doesn’t book things until 48 hours before I need the same thing with Paris, and he got a very good room. So, I personally don’t have the pay. Like, it really depends on what your what your tolerance for uncertainty is.
And it’s not for for pain or potential not having. I think it’s really uncertainty. And I think a lot of people who are planning a trip who bought all these tickets, they want some level of certainty. I do think that we will see. availability 90 days in, good, I mean, good places in Milan, good places in Venice and maybe up in some of the mountain locations to
that would I recommend waiting or not? again, right? It’s always this balance of what certainty do I want to have? I know I’m going, I know I’m landing and they’re like, , it’s hard. I mean, and I witnessed this in the parish group a lot. There’s people it is. Yeah.
They feel this, this, like, like in their inner, they have to have it like all set aside right now. We have people booking Airbnb’s 14 months out, which we know will oftentimes get canceled, but they just want to know. And so you have to, I think you have to balance that with what your budget and your other constraints are.
And what I always say is when you find a place you like in a location you like for a price, you can, you should probably pull the trigger. And I think everyone feels differently about that. and so there’s some people who don’t care and they’re like, Hey, well, if I don’t, if I, you know. Maybe I have some tickets.
Maybe I don’t. If I don’t get something in, Cortina, but I can get in the next town over from it, I’m fine with that. And so think it depends on the individual. I personally like to have things at least six months in advance that’s what my general level of tolerance is.
Alison Brown: You mentioned Airbnb and Airbnb was officially involved with Paris.
Do they have any connection with the Milan organizers?
Ken Hanscom: I mean, there’s still a top sponsor, so they have, whether it’s whether it’s announced or not, there’s likely something. Is it going to have the same as Paris? we’ll see.
Alison Brown: I don’t expect there’s as many Airbnbs in Borneo as there were in Paris.
Ken Hanscom: Yeah, but I think I mean, it is a city town, right? When you think about these locations, these are these are normal resort towns that people go to in the winter. our cousins who live in Florence and grew up there, they’re born there and grew up there. they told me about all of their winter trips going up to the Cortina and Dolmettis to do so.
It is also a very Yeah. it’s a tourist attraction for people, whether it’s a city or other countries to come and visit. So I expect that there is, you know, on an ongoing basis, there’s some level of that, whether it’s you want to call it vacation rentals, whether you want to call it Airbnb’s, you know, however it’s managed, there’s definitely some level of the population and some level of the homes in those areas that will be available.
Alison Brown: What are we seeing in hospitality packages already?
Ken Hanscom: Well, I think it’s early, right? I think we’re going to see a lot of the same things that we saw in Paris. I think the challenge that everyone is working through right now is how do you make, like, it’s If you’re a hospitality provider, or if you’re a, Olympic committee, or anyone who’s operating these various, whether it’s the houses, whether it’s hospitality programs, you’re actually having to make some choices, right?
Am I going to operate in 3 clusters? Am I going to operate 1 or 2 clusters? You know, where will the Team USA house be? Probably Milan. Will there also be one up in Cortina? Maybe, right? That’s what the House of Switzerland is planning to do. You know, at least, at least those two. maybe you have some sponsors that are more, oriented towards, park sports or, you know, snowboarding.
So they will do something up there. They’re still getting put together in terms of, you know, what are the hospitality options going to look like? I think it’s going to be narrower than it was your options in Paris simply just because the volume is very different in terms of what you see there.
But we’ll see a significant portion of the tickets and, The premium, events go through hospitality, that’s what makes the most sense for the organizers and for everybody running is that, those premium assets, just like whether it’s a Super Bowl or anything else are going to go through a, a hospitality like program.
Alison Brown: When do you expect that we’ll be seeing those? Because certainly for Paris, we were seeing them at this point.
Ken Hanscom: Yeah, we’re probably a few months away. Really? I think so. Might be sooner.
Alison Brown: We don’t know is the answer, Ken.
Ken Hanscom: We don’t know. I have a sense of for, for when it will be. We don’t know, but they’ll probably next few months.
there’s a few things are still being finalized.
Alison Brown: Okay. Getting around Milan. I know there’s public transportation.
Ken Hanscom: Easy. Easy.
Alison Brown: Oh, thank you so much for saying that.
Ken Hanscom: in less than six hours, I hit every venue in Milan.
Alison Brown: So with the buses, trams, what was the
Ken Hanscom: 100 percent metro. 100 percent metro.
Alison Brown: Nice.
Ken Hanscom: And all of the metro, there’s a metro station near all, all of the venues. and what I thought was very well laid out is that the most of venues are on ends of different lines. And so if you even think about events starting similar times and in different times, like congestion, I think about this when I was there and experience, I’m like.
there’s not going to be like this choke point where, people are coming out of ice hockey, but also they’re coming out of speed skating. And also, there’s going to be this crush at 1 particular, you know, metro station or metro line, you know, in terms of how those things are, how it’s laid out across the city.
it was, like I said, took me, like, Mhm. maybe four or five hours to see every single venue starting from, this hotel I was staying in was close to the, you know, central train station.
Alison Brown: How lost am I going to get?
Ken Hanscom: Well, if you figured out Paris, you’ll figure out Milan.
Alison Brown: I appreciate your confidence, Ken.
It’s,
Ken Hanscom: the Metro is very easy to use. I would say the cars were bigger than in Paris, and it operated very efficiently. I mean, again, it was summer of 2023. I found it very easy to get around. I actually did drive up because because my cousin was getting married in Florence, and then that’s what we decided to tack on these and and that the trip to go do this.
I drove up from Florence to Milan, but once I was in Milan, I didn’t drive the car at all. Uh, we used the Metro to get to wherever we needed to. It was very, very accessible, very easy to use, very safe.
Alison Brown: How much Italian do you need? I
Ken Hanscom: don’t speak any and, and I’ll be able to get by and, uh, you know, don’t try Spanish.
It doesn’t work well.
Alison Brown: No, then they’ll get mad at you.
Ken Hanscom: Yeah.
Alison Brown: And definitely don’t try French.
Ken Hanscom: No, no, It’s like, I would say most modern cities in the world, Milan is a very modern metropolitan city and, we have all these phones and technologies. If we need things translate, we just put up.
It’s it’s not and I don’t tend to be, they’re going to think that everyone’s going to speak English to me, but in situations where I need to figure out something, um, there’s technology and capabilities that I can figure that out. the good news is I know most Italian foods, so at least ordering off, off a menu, makes it very easy even without that.
And there’s a couple of things I really like.
Alison Brown: Kitchen Italian is what you have.
Ken Hanscom: Yes. Yes, that’s right.
Alison Brown: What else do we need to know to get ready?
Ken Hanscom: it’s a standard when we think about, when I think about planning, I think what’s most important, we briefly talked about it, is that more than ever, you really want to plan out what events you want to go to.
It’s just like any event, I know people will want to go and like, do tourism and see other things. So maybe the only time they go to Italy, but because of the distribution of the venues, your trip is going to be driven by what sports are operating in what clusters at what time. And so you just start by laying your schedule out with that.
And then once you have that, then you can start worrying about flights. You can start worrying about trains. You can start worrying about hotels. And unless you’re going to stay in Milan, you know, unlike Paris, you may need to plan to have 2 or 3 different hotels and maybe pack lighter than you normally would.
Me, if I’m going to be in two or three hotels, I probably bring a little less team USA gear than I normally would. then, you know, then if I’m going to be one, right, where if I’m just one, I have no problem bringing two suitcases and just storing, storing them in the apartment or whatever it is for a month.
So those are the things I, you know, if you’re not a cold weather person, I, I would invest in, you know, Some, some folks like me from Southern California, who I don’t ski. I don’t really go, I’m a more of a beach person than a mountain person. You’re probably going to want to invest in some, some good gear, some, some boots, some beanies, and I’m sure there’ll be funny team of team USA or Canada or whoever you support gear that will help outfit you for that.
I think that those are the things that I think about. It’s really, and I would say save time for the other things, right? whether it’s the, the hospitality houses, you know, one of the things very different about winter games is that they don’t necessarily have the ceremony in terms of the awarding the medals.
At the venue, yes, there’s a few that do you figure skating is a good example of that. But, you know, that’s going to happen in Milan in 1 of the greatest squares, uh, in Europe. And so I think when you think about your planning to, you may want to, you know, if you had to take usually whites work, they haven’t announced it officially yet.
Is that if you had a ticket. For an event that day, you get access to this area to be able to go see, the middle ceremonies. And so I think that’s something that’s very different. So, when you think about your evenings, hey, maybe it’s dinner, maybe it’s a house, but now you have this thing that happens.
And again, there was a little bit of this at, at, at Paris and. It was more or less popular depending on who you talked about it, but you actually will see the athletes getting their medals for the very first time. they’re in Milan. And I think that’s something that’s very unique to it, or more unique to it, to a winner games than maybe a summer games where, almost every single, you know, medal is, word at the event or at the next session for that particular event, like, like athletics.
Alison Brown: We haven’t talked at all about Paralympics. I know that’s not your, your ballywick, but do you know differences, other things we’re going to need to know for Paralympics versus Olympics?
Ken Hanscom: I don’t, nothing that is different, like materially different than what I know from, Paris or, other sorts, I guess even at the same sort of accessibility challenges exist more throughout Europe than, than they do.
in the us And so I, I would say those, those are some of the, things I think about. And I think going back to your other question about other things to think about, winter games are different than summer games and a couple of key areas. And one, the, one of the areas is that not every event. Is great in person. when I say that is that, yes, you’ll get the experience. But depending on how passionate you are about sport, you might only catch a 10th of a second of it on the track.
so when you think about those sorts of events where maybe not the entire time you’re cheering the team and the kind of experience it in the venue, you want to think about what is the rest of the experience that you want to have While you’re in that venue, and that’s 1 thing that was probably surprised me more that I didn’t really think about before I went to PyeongChang was that, you know, whether it was downhill or with some of the others.
Right? You just see the last 10 seconds of that. And you’re watching the rest on the screen. You want to think about? Well, where do I want to be? What are the people I want to be around in the venue? I know that my country do I want to be around the fans? Transcripts Those are the sort of experience versus, you know, just particular watching, or am I going to choose?
I actually want to watch that, the particular event, in a house, so, so I think you want to maybe think about some of the sports, that way to determine where you want to be, where you think you’re going to have, uh, the best experience, right? People ever want to say the best experiences, you know, they’re in venue, but they’re also, Some of these events that, have other alternate viewing options, that are almost as powerful as that too.
Alison Brown: But you got to be around the Italians for Biathlon. Jill, Jill will definitely want to be, to see those screaming fans.
Jill Jaracz: It’s just going to be hard. It’s going to be, I, that’s the, challenge I think is where can you go? And. How long will travel take versus what you’re going to be able to watch?
Ken Hanscom: Yeah, you’re, you’re so right.
I think when you think about your schedule, yeah, since you can get away with three sessions a day in Paris, I did, I did several of those. I think, I think you’re running a lot of risk if you try that in Cortina, because the one thing that we’re going to know is we can’t predict weather. And in February, will a snowstorm come in?
Well, you know, and what are the traveling conditions? And now is it going to take an extra 25 minutes to get from Cortina to the biathlon venue? And what does that mean? So I think as we talk about this is you’re probably going to want to pad. You know, if you’re in Milan, right, go for it. Right. But I think if you’re doing the mountain travel, I think you’re going to want to look at really padding your schedule, and making sure that you have spare time because it will.
Okay. Unpredictable things will happen
Alison Brown: and events get postponed. I mean, I think we only had one day in Paris where anything got postponed because of weather and that was because of thunderstorms, but in the winter, it’s a very different story.
Ken Hanscom: There’s some events that if there’s an example, I too much wind.
You know, you just, you, you simply have to wait for the next day. you know, surfing’s another one of those, one of those, but, outside of that, and then to your point, the BMX and everything that was in, uh, uh, in that particular park was supposed to basically postponed for a day because of thunderstorms in Paris.
Alison Brown: They are selling tickets to sliding, which I thought was interesting because we don’t actually know if sliding is going to be there.
Ken Hanscom: I sure hope it is. I really hope it is. it is a beautiful location. So when I was there in 2023, and then I posted some pictures on this, previously, maybe.
I went up and walked and, and it was just, you know, yellow tape. There was no, no cement. Uh, it was all dirt and you could see it. But from that point on the hill and, and the view from there, I really hope. That, that sliding does take place there in Cortina.
Alison Brown: There’s still no cement.
Ken Hanscom: There’s no? I thought I’ve seen some recent pictures where there’s some
Alison Brown: We were talking about this last week that supposedly there is no cement in some places and possibly some cement in some others.
Ken Hanscom: Okay. And that’s probably what I would expect for, for this point in time. And there’s the whole system with like the screens and awnings and, you know, reversing the cooling for heating. And, you know, I wish them Godspeed and, and hopefully, compete, you know, I would love to see it there.
I would, I mean, it just that cluster, that area, I think is just a phenomenally beautiful, uh, the people that were super friendly. The food was great when we were there. I sure hope it happens.
Jill Jaracz: One of the hiccups I thought in the Paris ticketing system was the resale platform, especially with resale tickets going offline 12 hours before, an event.
So if you wanted something last minute, you couldn’t get it last minute. If you wanted to sell it last minute, you couldn’t sell it last minute. Have you heard anything about that? If, if they’re able to tweak it a little bit better for Milan.
Ken Hanscom: Yeah, you know, we’ll see that there was the other kind of point of contention with it was that, it’s still sort of available, even when it was sitting in someone else’s cart before it was gone.
So, you know, normal resell, like, whether it’s. 1 of the 1 of the things that we have here, whether it’s ticket master, resell or, tech pick or, you know, seeking or 1 of the others that are out there. Right? It’s not this, you know, 1000 people trying to refresh the same page at the same time. But, you know, a lot of frustration that people would say to me is.
Okay, it’s still saying it’s available, even though it’s in someone else’s cart. And that’s what I think. That’s 1 aspect into your point. I think the 12 hour thing is, is should be adjusted. I’m sure there’s a reason for it, but it was security and they felt like they needed to check it. You know, background.
Who knows what was going on for that? There’s there’s there’s no reason, In under normal operations, I’ll say Olympics are very different, just like FIFA World Cup. So Olympics is the most complicated event to pull off in the world. There’s nothing that’s FIFA World Cup is the next closest thing to it in terms of number of events, number of locations, 400 events in 17 days.
That just doesn’t exist in the world. but getting it down to being like an hour or less would, you know, I think benefit a lot of people.
Alison Brown: And you couldn’t discount either. You had to do face value. Yeah.
Ken Hanscom: I don’t know if that was really a problem. I, I don’t know if the, if the discounting really, really drove, drove there to be a lot, not resold.
Yes. And maybe in some of the lower, demand events. Yes. But everything from swimming to, you know, you, you could sold, sold some of those tickets that did double the price of what? Of what people, I mean, I, I know, I know of, people who are trying to find tickets through other and offering ungodly amounts of money.
for for the gold medal basketball final, hearing people asking, you know, offering 20 grand, to get, you know, these tickets are face value at, you know, 1000 bucks, you know, and I think that’s the other question is we also look towards L. A. Even beyond this is, is are we going to have a more Let’s call it normal market where people do set prices.
that that’s kind of what we have and people argue both sides of it. Well, then, you know, regular fans can’t get tickets. And the other side of it is, Hey, it’s, it’s driven demand. If there was not a market for the ticket at that particular price, then no one, no one would buy it. And probably both people have, have a point, but that’s just kind of the, the market that we have here.
I think some of the, it’s your point, some of the ticketing pricing right now. some of it I thought was, was, I won’t say aggressive is the right word, but, um, more costly than what I thought some of the events would be. So we’ll see how that plays out in terms of, demand and what actually gets purchased.
Alison Brown: Yeah. I was seeing on a lot of the, Facebook groups and on the boards, people complaining that the prices seemed a little high.
Ken Hanscom: People are always going to complain about that though. right.
Alison Brown: again, it’s hard to compare, right? Because the games are so different.
Yeah, over the past few cycles.
Ken Hanscom: Yeah, it’s very different. You look at some of them figure skating finals. You can charge whatever you want for them. You can ice hockey final. Same thing, and then we look for the pricing, maybe open closing ceremonies. We’ll we’ll see what the demand is is is for those.
I would say that those aren’t complete. Like, if you even took Pyeongchang prices, which I think we’re 1400 roughly 14 equivalent of 1400 US dollars for. Like 80s. I think these are 2900. You probably run inflation or whatever it is. You probably get close to something around 2500 bucks. Uh, so maybe 2900 euros isn’t too far off from that.
we’ll see what the hospitality prices are, right? If you’re looking at 2900, you’re probably looking at 10, 000 euro for a hospitality ticket, for that same category. So you’re right, we don’t have a great comparison, but I think if you just kind of look back to what the pricing was, and we know what the demand was in PyeongChang, but and you kind of fast forward.
I don’t think anything’s too out of line. I just don’t know if the demand is is such a the case that we had in Paris again, ice hockey final figure skating finals, but we’re definitely going to see incredible demand for those events.
Alison Brown: What are you most excited for to see?
Ken Hanscom: I really enjoy curling so much more than I expected in Pyeongchang, so, I’m definitely, that’s the last time I’m going to get to Cortina, I’m definitely going to get there.
You know, I do want to see Nathan Chen, I want to see him, him skate, there’s a few things along those lines are probably the most exciting for me. you know, and I just enjoy, being around people at the Olympics and, you know, team USA house is where I spent quite a bit of time.
Um, last few, I’ll spend some credit time meeting a lot of great people, friends I have now and friends I’ll meet along the way. So, you know, I’m not a winner sports fan, for the most part. I’m much, much more of a summer. So, for me, it’s really about enjoying meeting and talking with people and having a good experience.
So I’ll probably spend a little bit more time city side. It’s going to be really hard. Right? Your 1st Olympics of any kind, I think is very difficult. To surpass, and my first winter games was PyeongChang and to see Chloe Kim win, to be there when Sean White had to hit, you know, that last magical run to win the gold medal, like I saw some things that when I think if I look at top 10 events of I’ve been to all time, those things start ticking up there and I’m not sure yet what those will be.
From a long Cortina yet, but as we start progressing, we start seeing who’s who’s going to be there. Who’s going to going to make it. I think there’s going to there are always those stories every single every single Olympics. But as I look at it, I don’t know if I’m going to have that same experience. You know, it would be, be able to beat that, but also I think I’m all really looking forward to getting back to Cortina, like if you can’t, it just, it left an impression on me that, I was not expecting my visit for the first time about 18 months ago.
Alison Brown: I want to ask a quick LA question because we’ve been seeing you’re, you’re in that neck of the woods. Has the fire damaged any of the venues and are there concerns?
Ken Hanscom: It’s a really difficult question to answer. it’s just an absolute terrible tragedy. and just an insurmountable loss, right? People I know. lost homes, and it’s going to take time and I’m not going to get into whether it’s 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, whatever that number is, that fire is ended up, I think, about 3 miles in the worth of where the Santa Monica pier is.
So, if you look at the closest sort of, Venue to where that locations and then also also the fire up north is maybe closest to the Rose Bowl, for example, would be 1 with a potential venues. There’s not an immediate impact there. But, you know, when you look at housing, when you look at the ability, we don’t know what it’ll be 3.
gosh, it’s just a little over 3 years from now. Uh, what it will be. There’ll be some impacts. city has to make the decisions of state. They have to come in and help and get it done. Hopefully help it build back as quickly as possible, but I think it’s too early for me, and I’m not in a position to speculate, if there would be any, you know, significant impacts one way or the other.
Alison Brown: Well, Ken Hanscom, thank you so much, as always. One of these days we’ll actually get to meet you in person.
Ken Hanscom: Yeah, I don’t know what happened in Paris. I know what happened in Paris. They got out of control for me. I’ve never done so much stuff in my life. And, you know, I loved every single minute of it.
It was, you know, I feel like I rolled Paris and Tokyo all into one and everything I ever wanted to do in my life. I kind of fit into that 17 days. Cortina is much more, maybe much slower for me.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Ken. You can find Ken on Insta and X. He’s a ticket manager, is at Ticket Manager, and his personal account is at Ken Hanscom.
Support the Show at Bookshop.org
Jill Jaracz: You know what else you need for a winter escape? A book. That’s right. Uh, if you are trying to get through the rest of winter, I don’t know if, I think Groundhog’s Day is kind of ridiculous because it was Groundhog’s Day this week.
And, you know, some places you saw a shadow, some places you didn’t. Winter always ends when it ends.
Alison Brown: And on Groundhog Day here. It snowed. So I stayed inside actually reading the next book for our Patreon shows.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, excellent. Excellent. So yes, we’re doing a lot of reading this year. So if you need a book, look through our shop on bookshop.
org slash shop slash flame alive pod and find a title or two to get you through the rest of winter. bookshop. org now has ebooks. So if you prefer reading on a tablet, you’ve got that option as well. With your purchases through our store link, you not only support small booksellers, but you also support the show and help keep our flame alive, which is very necessary this time of year.
As we look ahead to trying to get to Milan Cortina again, that’s bookshop. org slash shop slash flame live pod. If you want to get some books and don’t know what to do, maybe try beyond expectations. Our next book club, which, is by Sydney Collier. A Shooklastani. So it’s a win win. We love Shooklastani authors. if you’re a Patreon patron, we are also reading
Tiger Bell by Wyoming Attias next. So that’s a good read. I’m just telling you that right now. It’s a good read. So check out those books and more at our bookshop. org site, bookshop. org slash shop slash flame alive pod.
Paris 2024 News
Jill Jaracz: French President Emmanuel Macron announced on X that the Balloon Cauldron will come back to the Parisian sky every summer until LA 2028. It will be in the Tuileries Gardens it’ll be there from June 21st, which is when an annual music festival takes place, and then it will go all through the summer to September 14th, when there is a new sports festival happening in the area.
He’s really milking this.
Alison Brown: You know, that was a lot of money. So I don’t blame him for trying to get his money’s worth, his Frank’s worth. Wait, there’s no Frank’s left. His Euro’s worth out of that balloon.
Jill Jaracz: I know. And I think it’s just like, we need the magic back. My life is not. You know, the political situation in France is a little tough right now. Let’s bring back that magic because man, that garden was just packed with people all the time.
Alison Brown: And that balloon would go up at night and it was a 24 hour event. Yes. And when it went up and down, so yeah, not good on you, Emmanuel Macron. Wear that dress again.
Doping News
Alison Brown: Oh man.
Jill Jaracz: Continuing on with Paris 2024 news, we have some doping issues going on. Belgian dressage writer Domien Michels was disqualified from Paris 2024 for an anti doping rule violation according to the International Testing Agency after his individual competitive results during the Versa. Team Grand pre-event, he tested positive for, do Olamide a band substance, which it was apparently an inadvertent positive because he got it from giving his dog eyedrops.
Wow. If he had taken the eyedrops himself, that would’ve been an okay use. But if it gets on through your skin. or some other inadvertent way, topically or transdermally, then it is a banned substance because it can be a diuretic or a masking agent. So that is how he got the ban. he accepted his disqualification.
That only affected the individual results and, that also did not affect the podium or the diploma levels for that competition. The Belgian team. finished fifth in the dressage team Grand Prix, but their results were not disqualified.
Alison Brown: Okay. You know, I’m going to totally defend this guy, because he’s taking care of his dog.
That is wild.
Jill Jaracz: I knew you would be upset about this.
Alison Brown: Yeah. You, you take care of your dog. You’re giving us, I just, poor thing had a little infection probably that was like oozing. And then the dog is scratching at his face all the time. And he’s just trying to be a good dog owner. I mean, and it’s dressage.
So he’s taking care of an animal. Wow. That is tough. Wow. I’m going to be mad about this now the rest of the day.
Milan-Cortina 2026 News
Alison Brown: andiamo a Milano.
Jill Jaracz: Well, it is one year to go exactly today, the day we release this show. One year to go till the Olympics. So a lot of one year to go information is up and running. And of course that means an update on the bobsled novella.
Alison Brown: Tell me, Jilla, what is happening?
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh, this is great. Uh, Andrew Dampf of the Associated Press wrote a very long one year to go article reports that during a visit to the track, Fabio Saldini, the Italian government commissioner in charge of the construction project said that almost 70 percent of the track was completed.
I do not know what 70 percent means. Yeah, I, because I just went, well, you know, you’ve got a construction project that is on a tight time frame. Is that 70 percent of the track? 70 percent of the whole project? What are we talking about here?
Alison Brown: Don’t worry, don’t worry, Jen. We get it done.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Well, Dampf noted that it was hard to tell actual progress through all of the construction work.
So, don’t know. He did report that 180 people are working on the project every day from 6 a. m. until 1 a. m. to get it done. That is a lot, that is a lot of hours. I hope there are shifts. ICE is supposed to go on at the beginning of March and it’s, testing will happen during March in order to, uh, render it safe for use.
and then there’s a test event in October. Very important because as one of the many articles I’ve read about this said, Hey, don’t forget 2010 when, We had a fatal crash on the track, so it definitely needs to be tested and we’ll, we’ll see what happens in the progress. AP also reported that 800 trees have been cut down to make room for this track.
And supposedly they, I’m going to try to say this with a straight face, but I really can’t. Supposedly they will be planting 10, 000 when they’re done.
Alison Brown: Well, you know, if they’re just throwing seeds down, that’s pretty easy. Yeah. We’re just going to scatter 10, 000 seeds. That’s 10, 000 trees right there.
I hope they at least did something with those 800 trees, like that, that wood didn’t just get. Yeah, thrown out.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, so I mean, we’ll see how many trees actually make it to the site. Because if you made room for a track, there’s also no room to, where are you putting the trees? What? Tell me that.
Alison Brown: So if you write to the Arbor Day Foundation, at least this was true like 20 years ago, they will send you a tree and the tree is about four inches high.
So maybe they have some agreement with the Arbor Day Foundation and they’re getting like these little tiny trees that they’re just going to put everywhere.
Jill Jaracz: And then hope the squirrels don’t eat them.
Alison Brown: Do they have squirrels in Italy?
Jill Jaracz: I don’t know. They’ll have some, some little animal that likes to eat
nuts and tree roots.
Alison Brown: Well, they have ermine, which is the mascot. Yes, exactly. So there you go. Stoats, excuse me. That’s the Italian word for it.
Jill Jaracz: Lake Placid is going to be plan B because it required no investment from Milan Cortina.
Remember how Innsbruck was ready to go. All these other places in Europe were like, yeah, we’ll host. We have no problem hosting except for we need a few million to fix up the track. So, and Milan does not want to do that and invest in some other countries, bobsled facilities.
Alison Brown: Well, they’re working 20 hours a day.
Can you imagine how over budget this project is going to be? I can’t wait for that report.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh. to the plan B, The, uh, organizing committee president Giovanni Malago, said it’s just a formality, there’s no substance to it. So he does not think there will be a plan B put into action.
Alison Brown: You know what else there’s no substance to? This track getting done on time. Malago, I think you need to go. Start hammering.
Jill Jaracz: so in their one year to go article, Evira Polina, Cristiano Corvino and Claudia Greco from Reuters talked with Cortina Mayor Gianluca Lorenzi, who downplayed the situation also and said, there are backups for everything, but as of today, a plan B for the Bob races does not exist anymore because it has made clear, been made clear the sliding center is being built here.
It may be being built, but will it be done? I mean,
Alison Brown: you know, I’m very glad they have a plan B. I am happy on the one hand because it is in Lake Placid. I am sad on the other hand for those sliders if they do end up in Lake Placid and don’t get to participate in it. the Olympic part of this, but at least we know their races, unlike in, what was it, 1960, where they just didn’t happen.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, right, right, right, right, right. Because I had to think for a minute.
Alison Brown: Yeah, in California, where they just didn’t build a track and there was no sliding.
Jill Jaracz: True. But I mean, when you think about it, how much of an Olympic experience are most of these athletes going to have because they’re so spread out. How many are going to take the time to get to Milan for the opening ceremonies or get to Verona for the closing ceremonies or mingle with other sports?
Because that’s always the fun part. There’s going to be just not so much of that. I, I think just in general,
Alison Brown: it’s going to feel like another week on the world cup circuit.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. For a lot of people, I think it is. So I think if Lake Placid does end up being it, I think they’re going to try to do something to make it super special.
Alison Brown: So and what a, what a boon for that area of New York state, which is, is struggling financially.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Right. I also love the fact that, Amsterdam in the AP article kind of starts out with. Sochi being so far behind with their construction and Rio being insanely far behind and John Coates saying, there’s no plan B for Rio.
We have to go to Rio. So I think from those two elements, at least they got so worried that they made sure that a plan B is in place because they don’t want to go through this again. The IOC.
Alison Brown: They’ve had, they’ve had enough of this, right? And you know what? It’s their own fault. Mm mm. Fault. Because they went to Italy and they didn’t go to Scandinavia, where everything would have been flat packed and done and on budget.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right.
Other, uh, one year to go elements, the AP article also talks about tickets, private boxes for the opening ceremony at San Siro Soccer Stadium have already sold out. And then, uh, hospitality packages are going, and so far the most popular ones are for ice hockey, biathlon, and figure skating. Very shocking.
Not, yeah, not shocking. still more construction going on to build the Lavigno snow park, which is a venue for freestyle and snowboard as well as the Milano, uh, Santa Julia ice hockey arena, which I will include a link to this article in the show notes because they have pictures of the construction and the picture dated January 15th.
The outside of this ice hockey arena is still being built.
Alison Brown: It doesn’t look good. It does not look good.
Jill Jaracz: And I don’t know how much of the inside, and I know stuff can go up fast. I mean, they’re building a Dick’s sporting goods, not that far away from me. And we’re surprised at how quickly that’s going up, but let’s come on.
That’s a Dick’s compared to a ice hockey arena is, you know,
Alison Brown: you know, I do want to say, you know, it is very good. You’re doing great with these Italian words, these Italian names. You’re, you’re doing better than I am. My ancestors are just like beating me right now.
Jill Jaracz: I’m eating a lot of pasta. That’s what’s doing it to me.
Reuters also noted that 90 percent of Italy’s ski slopes rely on artificial snow cause they’re already talking about climate change and how that is affecting the area. Milan Cortina will be using the Italian company Tecno Alpen for its snow glider. guns. They also supplied Beijing 2022. So, we’re good hands.
They know what they’re doing. And snowmaking systems are already in place all over Italy. So this should not be an issue for the making of snow, but I would not be surprised if we hear how much snow has to be made. Uh, there will be some one year to go events across the host regions, uh, specifically in Milan.
The Omega countdown clock is going to be unveiled and that will be near the Piazza del Duomo. the Milano Cortina’s 2026 sports village will also be opened and there will be a ceremony at the Strahler Theater to officially invite the National Olympic Committees to the games. Also, tickets go on sale.
That’s a lot. It’s a lot. It is a lot. It’s exciting. We know some of you are Registered for ticket sales. So keep us posted as far as we’ve seen that in the Facebook group Keep us posted on how what you get or drop us a line at flamelivepod at gmail. com If you’re going let us know where you’ll be.
Alison Brown: Molto fantastico
Jill Jaracz: Right, and I want to know how the ticket buying process is gonna go this time We’ve had a we had a run with Paris 2024, but I’m looking Forward.
Well, no, not looking forward. I’m curious to see how the ticket sales process will go again and how Smooth it will be and if any of the hiccups that we saw in Paris will be taken care of
LA 2028
Alison Brown: I have no handy catchphrase for La because I do pretend to speak English.
Jill Jaracz: well, we have a little bit of LA 2028 News World Triathlon has introduced new rules that’s going to affect LA 2028. uh, we’re gonna start with the mixed relay. the order in Paris for the mixed relay was man, woman, man, woman.
For la it will go back to the Tokyo, 2020 order of Woman, man, woman, man. And, uh, We’ll give a hat tip to our friend, Rich Perlman, over at the Sports Examiner for that bit of info. I don’t know why they want to go back.
The Paris finish of the mixed relay with the women finishing was super exciting because the podium was decided within a couple of seconds each other and they needed a photo finish for silver and bronze. It was a wild, wild race and other rule changes. Drafting penalty times have been reduced. Athletes will now be allowed to wear uniforms with elbow length sleeves.
And then, to avoid injuries, finger and toenails will need to be short in order for the athlete to be authorized to start. I don’t want to be the person who has to check that. I can, you know, if we want volunteer jobs, or officiating jobs, I do not want to be the person who has to check fingers and toes.
Alison Brown: I think that would be fun.
I mean, I understand the fingernails. Like a lot of, the acrylic nails are very popular and, and I can see that we’ve seen athletes certainly on the track wearing some very, very long nails, but that they had to. specifically call out toenails is a little concerning.
Jill Jaracz: Well, I, I mean, when they’re in the water, they’re so bunched together that you just get scratched.
I’ve done a couple of triathlons and yes, you are clumped together. You get kicked. You probably get scratched. you get grabbed at it’s, it’s pretty rough there in the water. Yeah.
Alison Brown: But who’s got talons on their toes? Well, maybe, maybe they’re scraggly. Who knows? I would, I would love that job and I’d be like, Oh, he’s out too long.
Except you know what I would end up doing? I’d end up, uh, I’m a terrible person because if I see a foot, I’m like, I’m tickling that foot.
Just be happy I never did. That’s you in Paris.
Jill Jaracz: I’m relieved. Put my feet in a box now, keep them away from you. Also forbidden jewelry and watches. jewelry I get watches is an interesting choice because everybody’s got to watch on to, time how they’re doing and keep track of their time. The head ref may authorize watches though for a specific race.
Swim water quality standards have also changed for levels of enterococci and E. coli. Water used to have to be excellent quality. Now good is okay. Ooh. We’ll see how that goes. I wonder if levels in Paris were just so enough that I, I wonder what the quality does health wise versus what it does in delaying races.
Does that make sense?
Alison Brown: But we know that triathletes got sick.
Jill Jaracz: Well, that’s right. So we’ll, we’ll see how that goes. We’ve got a few years to figure out if good is really good enough. Uh, any cancellations due to water quality will now be done by a minimum three person committee that includes medical people rather than a single person making that call.
French Alps 2030
Alison Brown: The Grand Montagne.
Jill Jaracz: Ooh, I like that.
Alison Brown: Right. You’ve forgotten all my French .
Jill Jaracz: we have some news from France 2030.
former by Athlete Maran for cod, also esteemed Olympian. He has withdrawn his application to lead the 2030 winter games in France. The AP reports that there were too many differences of, of opinion about basic elements like the mode of governance and the vision of the project. Laki notes that, for did not like the.
Fact that the organizing committee’s headquarters would be near Lyon and Lyon is close to the Alps But apparently does not have an identity that aligns with mountains like say Grenoble is an IOC member so he will be part of the board of directors for those games But that’s a very limited role compared to the Tony Estanguet of the whole project Some are not sorry to see him go Renaud Mousselet, president of the Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur region, said it was interesting that Four Cod’s all upset about the choice of Lyon as the headquarters when that has been known for a few months.
Mousselet also said, and this was all to AFP, said that Four Cod was a loner who could not work in a team. Snap.
Alison Brown: , my God, going after Martin.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, Feng Xu says there are other candidates for the job, including biathlete Vincent Zhe and freestyle skier Marie Martineau. the leadership for the organizing committee is due to be announced on February 18th.
There are only five years to go.
Alison Brown: I know. It’s so funny because we’ve talked about how far ahead, say, LA28 was awarded. And these were awarded on the old system. You know, in terms of the seven year, and we’ve totally forgotten about them.
Jill Jaracz: No, they weren’t awarded in the seven years. They were awarded less, I thought.
Alison Brown: Oh, you’re right! Yeah, it was last year.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So they were awarded with maybe five and a half, a little more years to go. And that is such a tight timeframe. That’s the tightest timeframe yet, I think for a winter games at least, even if you do have a lot of venues ready to go, because obviously they’re going to use.
Venues, much like Milan Cortina is using stuff that’s on World Cup circuits all the time. So they’re basically ready to go for an Olympics. They’d have to be zhuzhed up for games, but you still have to get some of your ice venues going and things like that, especially with again, another regional games because stuff was going down to Nice.
Remember?
Alison Brown: Right. Yeah, this is, this will be interesting. These next two winter games as to what the direction of winter games are going.
Jill Jaracz: Cause we also, I mean, Salt Lake City has been in the news a lot, at least in our news. headlines because, well, A, they just got awarded officially, but B, they’ve been ready for a long, long time.
They don’t have much to do.
Alison Brown: And they could host the sliding events. They could host, they could host the whole thing if they had to.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So it’s really interesting to see this juxtaposition of Salt Lake City, which is, we’re ready and we’ve been ready and we You know, they don’t have the games for nine and a half years.
or, it’s nine years to go, I guess, until 2034. and we have Brisbane 2032 so, so far out. It’s just kind of weird that this one’s so close. And it’s going to fall through the cracks. Like, it keeps falling through the cracks in my memory, but they’re going to really have to, to work. Hard.
Alison Brown: No one else is falling through the cracks because it’s not a city. Yes. Because it’s like French Alps. What does that mean? I mean, at least Milan Cortina, it’s a lie. That it’s Milan Cortina, but so is Beijing for that matter. I mean, all these winter games, you know, there’s always a split. Even Salt Lake City, we have Salt Lake City and then the mountains.
They don’t have a good name for it and that doesn’t help.
Jill Jaracz: No, that’s very true. But that’s interesting when you talk about, like some of the presidential candidates for the IOC job want. To make more regional games or games around the world. Well, so much of an Olympics, you’re right, gets tied to a city identity.
Where do you go if it’s just a region?
Alison Brown: And is it just then a World Cup event? Especially for winter because summer, at least you’re always going to have a bunch of events in one place. You’ll always cluster some things, but winter, you know, they have the, the men’s and the women’s downhill. In Cortina, not happening anywhere near each other.
Jill Jaracz: I noticed that today too, like, the women’s is in Cortina and the men’s is someplace else. Is it in Borneo? Which is Probably not odd for them, but it’s odd to me and somebody who would think skiing would all be in down I’ll pine skiing would all be in one place. But okay, This will be interesting to see how it shakes out.
Can’t wait to see what its Nobella. It’s gonna be
TKFLASTAN News
Jill Jaracz: Welcome to checklist on now. It’s the time in the show where we check in with our team keep the flame alive. These are past guests and listeners of the show who make up our citizenship of our very own country, Shuklastan.
Alison Brown: Paul Vaulter Katie Moon won the Women’s Paul Vault at the Dodds Invitational in Manhattan, Kansas, with a world leading vault of 4. 8 meters.
Jill Jaracz: At the end of January, cross country skier Bruna Mora competed at Hohenzollern in Germany. She picked up FIS points for a 24th place finish in a 1. 6 kilometer sprint and a 35th place finish in a 10K.
Alison Brown: Snowboarder Chloe Kim won the women’s half pipe at the FIS World Cup in Aspen, Colorado. She’s having a rip roaring season, man.
Jill Jaracz: Good for her. the women’s Nordic combined tour was in Seyfeld, Austria for three days of competition. Our Annika Malasinski placed 22nd, 11th and 15th.
She will be competing at the Nordic combined world cup in Otepe, Estonia next week. It’s three weeks to go into the world championships and she is currently ranked 15th in the world. Good for her.
Alison Brown: I know. Erin Jackson was back in form for the ISU World Cup race in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She placed second in both the women’s first 500 meters and the second 500 meter races.
Jill Jaracz: At the 2025 USA Curling National Championships, Team Schuster made it to the playoff round, but were lost to the eventual winners, Team Dropkin, 3 11 in the semifinal. That was a big discrepancy.
Alison Brown: Terrence Burns is teaching the globalization of sport at Belmont University in Nashville if you feel the need to go back to school.
Jill Jaracz: Someday he’s going to let us on it someday.
And congratulations to our friend, Ben Waterworth and the gang over at off the podium for once again, topping the podium in the sports cast in the sports podcast awards, they won for best Olympics and Paralympics podcast. Sadly we did not finish in the top three That’s going to do it for this episode.
Let us know what you’re looking forward to in Milan Cortina.
Alison Brown: And we love hearing from you. You can chat with us and other listeners on our Facebook group, keep the flame alive podcast, email us at flamealivepod at gmail. com. The voicemail and text line is always open at 208 352 6348. That’s 208 flame it.
And if you need more Olympics and Paralympics in your life, And who doesn’t? You can sign up for our newsletter at flamealivepod. com. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes.
Jill Jaracz: Next week, we’re going back in time. We are once again celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Sydney 2000 Olympics and Paralympics with two more stories from those games.
Also, please do not forget to get a book or two through our bookshop. org site to keep the show going. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time. Keep the flame alive.