It’s the penultimate day of competition at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, and there’s mayhem and beauty on the ice and snow. Can anyone stop Johannes Klaebo? Plus, Alison has opinions on finish line marriage proposals.
Sports on today’s program:
- Biathlon
- Bobsled
- Cross-country skiing
- Curling
- Figure skating
- Freestyle skiing
- Ice hockey
- Ski mountaineering
- Speed skating
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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 Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics-Day 15
[00:00:00]
Jill Jaracz: Bonjourno and welcome to Keep the Flame Alive. Day 15 coverage of the Milano Corino 2026 Winter Olympic Games. I am your host, Jill Jarris, coming to you from Shuk Stan House. Joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Allison chow com Must die
Alison Brown: Tao. I’m I’m better now that I ate dinner.
Jill Jaracz: I know, I just, I didn’t know what I was eating.
’cause it was schpeel tiros ti It’s from ti and, and I thought it was gonna [00:01:00] be noodley and it turned out to be like the green bean casserole of Tiro,
Alison Brown: which is not a bad option.
Jill Jaracz: No, I’ll take it.
Alison Brown: Surprise.
Jill Jaracz: I’ll take it. It’s been a, it’s been a weird eating day. ’cause I did have a, a sandwich at the ice hockey venue because I had to, it was, it was not a good food day.
There were a lot of carbs and it just, stuff that had no, I had stuff. But that had no substance. Not, yeah, no substance. And I needed some substance. So it was a, well, first they thought I wanted the microwaved, maybe it was risotto with shrimp on it. Oh. And if there’s nothing that makes me turn away more than, I’m like, I did not order that.
Uh, then they were like, oh, the chicken sandwich. Okay. The, the cutlet. I said, polo it. And I guess they needed to hear cutlet. And it was also microwaved, but it was, it was what I needed.
Alison Brown: I have just been hungry all day. Mm-hmm. You could not fly me with enough food today.
Jill Jaracz: I know.
Alison Brown: [00:02:00] So I, I went to the figure skating exhibition and I was, I was distracted by how hungry I was.
Jill Jaracz: Oh no.
Alison Brown: But I did, I did enjoy it. And we will get to that later.
Jill Jaracz: Alright. Excellent. We have, uh, a little follow-up date, uh, Camilla Cellier from Poland who had that horrific. Accident at the short track event. Oh, yes. Uh, also it cut her eyelid, the skate blade also cut her eyelid. I know apparently she’s doing well.
She had some sort of surgery and seems to be okay. She has been posting on Instagram so
Alison Brown: Well, God bless her. I hope she’s doing well. That’s, that’s exactly, that is scary. So I did forget something yesterday.
You
Jill Jaracz: did good. ’cause I don’t think I forgot anything
Alison Brown: from, from the Canada match, uh, the Canada Hockey game.
Um, they played, you ain’t seen nothing yet at the end of the game. Now this was the same song that they had used for the Canada goals in the women’s games.
Jill Jaracz: Oh. But they didn’t do that for the men’s,
Alison Brown: but they do not seem [00:03:00] to do the goal song for the men’s games.
Jill Jaracz: Uh oh. They had goal songs tonight.
Alison Brown: Did they?
Yes. Well, they didn’t yesterday.
Jill Jaracz: Huh?
Alison Brown: Or maybe I just didn’t realize it, but they didn’t have the same one that they had for the Canadian women, but then they played that song at the end of the game when Canada won.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, that’s interesting.
Alison Brown: So it was a confusing musical endeavor here.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Well I will, I have notes about the songs for, for Finland and Slovakia, which I was glad I got to hear both of those.
It was one of those like, oh, here’s a bonus for coming to this game. You don’t just get to see Finland, you get to hear the song
Alison Brown: and we know the song’s the most important thing.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Um, we got some feedback. So listener Patrick looked up for us. Um, we talked about how figure skating and the, the women’s figure skating free skate and the women’s gold medal hockey game were on the [00:04:00] same night.
We thought that was odd, but Patrick from Chicagoland looked it up for us and, uh. When he saw 2022, he remembered the reason. Yes, it was because China wanted the pairs to be the last scape because of sway. And Han.
Alison Brown: Yeah, because generally the women’s is the last discipline that goes, but the Chinese mixed it up because they were counting on getting that gold medal in the pair.
So they wanted that to be the highlighted discipline. So they were at the end. And boy did we need that. Then
Jill Jaracz: after, after the women’s competition, we certainly needed swaying Han
Alison Brown: We needed some joy in Mudville. That was for sure.
Jill Jaracz: Um, and, uh, listen, Brian also, uh, had a hot take on that, which I’m gonna paraphrase.
He thinks that the, the women’s hockey is not the second most important event on the overall cal, uh, calendar since the main markets are like North America and parts of Scandinavia. So, [00:05:00] and that’s where you see that breaks out over the last 30 years. Canada has always been in the gold medal game. Ever since women, the women’s hockey has been on and the only one who hasn’t been besides the US is Sweden or who has been, it’s been the US And one time Sweden got into the gold medal game, so,
Alison Brown: so nobody cares except for North America.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Kind of. And even though, you know, we, that’s
Alison Brown: fair.
Jill Jaracz: So you know, you’ve got Women’s Alpine, which is bigger worldwide freestyle skiing, which is bigger world, you know, regionally it’s big everywhere. So we’ll see. But it’d be nice
Alison Brown: because you can’t have everything not on the same night.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: Either are gonna be some things.
It’s just kind of the, it was an odd scheduling choice. And on a Thursday
Jill Jaracz: at least for, for North American
Alison Brown: Exactly. For North E. Especially when I think it was, we noticed it, especially because there was an American in a position for gold medals in both [00:06:00] events.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: And see and ended up being. American victories in both.
Mm-hmm. So certainly the American audience was very conflicted. Yes. As to as to what to watch. Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, is there an officiating or volunteer job you would like to do?
Alison Brown: Well, I would like the volunteer portion of this. So in the, in S Schmo. Mm-hmm. I was watching the Relay today, and there’s a volunteer that stands in the transition area.
Now he is not the official who is watching the transition.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: He just was standing there. I did not know the purpose of the standing there volunteer in the transition area. Like if things fell out of it, was he supposed to go and fetch them or was he just, he didn’t say anything like he wasn’t encouraging the racers, which I certainly would’ve done in that role.
So I would like this role ’cause I would like to know what it actually entails besides just standing there while they transition wildly
Jill Jaracz: and maybe. They have different, I, I [00:07:00] went down a rabbit hole because of the Facebook group, uh, talking about how there was, a protest, I think yes. In, in one of the events.
And, uh, a penalty was given and, the US thought it should have been more.
Alison Brown: Yes,
Jill Jaracz: we’ll get to, we’ll get to it, but, but I did find out that there are some wild penalties for like, you have to lay down your ski poles. In the transition.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: And there are penalties that range from like three seconds to a minute.
It’s, it’s really complex and detailed, but we’ll get there. Um, I think I wanna be the bobsled ice plasterer.
Alison Brown: Oh, that’s a great job.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. I saw that today one when poor Austria, I saw them wipe out, like not that far from the top. They flipped over and on, on the side, I guess, thank goodness. And then just kept going
Alison Brown: and then got stuck and they couldn’t get the driver out.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And they couldn’t get over the finish line either. [00:08:00]
Alison Brown: Were laughing at it because they all walked away from the accident. Yes, yes. But it was rough. But it was, and so there were giant chunks that came out of the, uh, the track and these little people came screwing in with their pales.
Jill Jaracz: And they’re their,
Alison Brown: and their spackles.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, exactly. And they just spackled it and. And made it smooth again. And I thought that was a pretty good job.
Alison Brown: I thought so too. I enjoyed that
Jill Jaracz: You had a cultural moment today.
Alison Brown: I went to the train station and I am really, really concerned about getting to the airport.
Jill Jaracz: Oh no. Oh no.
Alison Brown: Sent trolley station is huge.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, it is very big
Alison Brown: and it is very complicated. And I’m going to have a suitcase and the volunteer was so sweet. He showed me how to go, but I don’t remember because it was so complicated. So I, I am hoping that when I get there, there’ll still be a volunteer in that office.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, no. [00:09:00]
Alison Brown: So he can show me again when it’s actually time.
Jill Jaracz: Was there a special track you have to take or,
Alison Brown: well, there’s a special, um, lane that we can go in.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay.
Alison Brown: Which is good. And then after that, then you find your track.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay.
Alison Brown: But you’re out at the tracks. There’s no board.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay.
Alison Brown: At that point. So I am, I’m considering just giving up and getting an Uber because I have to be there so early
Jill Jaracz: and it’s a very long way to the airport.
It’s a good hour on the train.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Good luck.
Alison Brown: Thanks.
Jill Jaracz: We are so close to the end. There’s only one more day left for Milano Cortina 2026. But we, we, the podcast we’re not done. The cauldron at the flame, the cauldron at Keep the Flame Alive, never goes out. But that said, it does require financial fuel to keep it going.
And we appreciate the support of listeners like [00:10:00] you who make sure that happens. If you would like to be one of those supporters, please go to flame a live pod.com/support and see the variety of options we have available. If you appreciate the independent voice we bring and how it helps you, uh, enjoy the Olympics even more, please consider supporting us today.
That’s at flame ipod.com results. Lot of lot of stuff ending today.
Alison Brown: A lot of stuff ended today, but it’s almost surprising how much stuff was still going on today.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Considering tomorrow is closing ceremony day.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Uh, we have biathlon. It was the last day for biathlon. The women had the 12.5 kilometer mass start in a very snowy on holds.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: And uh,
Alison Brown: well, let’s just start by saying there was a very snowy place. Everywhere except in Milan,
Jill Jaracz: right where it was very hot again, beautiful day, slight nip in the air, slight spring nip in the air. So I dressed for that and [00:11:00] not the hockey venue.
Alison Brown: Oh, were you cold enough?
Jill Jaracz: I’m freezing.
Alison Brown: Oh, the hockey venue yesterday was pretty comfortable.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And not today. Not today, unfortunately not today.
Alison Brown: I’m sorry. That’s okay. But yes, so there was snow. Snow everywhere. We’re gonna be saying that a lot.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Uh, gold went to O Ocean. Michelin from France who. Expected to do just one race at these games and got did four and she got two golds and the silver, she was crying so much at the end, she couldn’t believe it.
And we’re, we’re seeing like the, a new generation coming up here in with this Olympics. It’s, it’s bittersweet ’cause I’m gonna miss the old guard, but it’s nice to see the new guard come in. Uh, silver went to France. Julia Simone who, uh, just edged out Theresa Rinca, uh, for Bo born Kova from Chea.
And, uh, this was, uh, the last race for Ital, uh, alias Italy’s do. The [00:12:00] Vera, who’s one of our household favorites, she placed fifth, unfortunately, had a, a little bit of trouble in some of the shooting. She was leading for a good chunk of the race. And then, uh, bad times happened. And then FCA proce from Germany, she placed 28th, they did a little farewell ski together.
And there I saw
Alison Brown: that
Jill Jaracz: with the
Alison Brown: flags
Jill Jaracz: and there was a big banner across the front of the stands that, that said, thank you in three languages. It was really beautiful. Could not cry.
Alison Brown: Biathlons big on that sort of thing.
Jill Jaracz: It is. They’re, they, they know how to do it. I mean, it’s a huge sport in Europe. Well, it’s a huge sport in Germany and Norway and Sweden and it’s, I mean, you would think it’s big in Italy, but Dorothea Veer has said like they don’t really show it on TV here, even though she’s been one of the big biathletes.
In the last several years and the, sometimes the Italian team does very well, but, I guess not.
Alison Brown: Hmm.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, and in France is huge too. So you get these crazy biathlon fans
Alison Brown: that follow the circuit.
Jill Jaracz: I [00:13:00] know I wanna follow the circuit one year, maybe write a book about it. But the, the fans are nuts and it’s so exciting and they really showed, showed up in on holds for that, uh, producer Ben sent me a message.
He’s like, do you have time for a call? And I immediately thought something is wrong. And I hustled my way out of the long track speed skating rink and got outside and like, what’s wrong? And he’s like, oh, there seemed to be a hot mic situation on Peacock. And it wasn’t bad, but it was somebody who wasn’t a commentator, so he thought it might have been a producer had basically said like, oh, the women’s race was so much more exciting than the men’s, so, well, they’re not wrong.
If you heard that on Peacock, let us know. ’cause I, I’m, that’s on my list for when I get home and see if it’s on the replay. So yes, biathlon is done. It’s, it was an exciting competition with a [00:14:00] lot of new winners and new medalists. So it’s gonna be a fun rest of the season, I think. Well, I’m sure people are gonna be very tired still.
Like that’s gonna be tough for the last three World Cups, but,
Alison Brown: but boats. Well, for the next quad.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, that’s right. Over in bobsled we had the first two heats of the Four man, and then we had the rest of the women’s two Women competition. So in the Four Man, it’s. Germany, Germany, Germany, Johannes, Lochner, FRA, uh, Francisco Friedrich and Adam Amor.
Are your drivers in that order? Uh, Frank Del Duca and Josh Williamson and the, the two other men in there, whoever, ’cause we don’t care about them. We care about them because they’re a team, but we didn’t interview them. So they’re in 12th overall. They got 14th in their first run and ninth in their second run.
So a little tough. The track looks really, the track looks tough to drive.
Alison Brown: I would agree with that because it seems [00:15:00] like even the top drivers are banging all over the place.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And, and I keep thinking more people should be flipping over.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: The way they hit the, the, there’s a couple of curves where there’s wood involved at the top and you think that they’re just gonna go up in the wood and flip and they don’t.
Alison Brown: Yes. I keep thinking, why is there wood there? Why is there no ice there? ’cause they get very close to it. I know. Of course. That could be just a, um. A perception it could be issued from the tv, but I don’t think it’s,
Jill Jaracz: I don’t know what we should find out, but it also was like, well, did they, is it done or is it finished?
That’s also what I started thinking is, was that how it was supposed to be? But those turn, those turns, some of ’em looked just really, really tight. Um, also, Adam Edelman and his sled are from Israel. They are in are in 24th.
Alison Brown: Yeah. Three teams crashed out today. You mentioned Austria, but also France and Trinidad and Tobago will not be finishing [00:16:00] the race because they crashed.
Jill Jaracz: Did you see them at all?
Alison Brown: Uh, I saw the Austria crash.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Because I tried to watch as well, and I was triple screening with one screen being the live thing in front of me. And because the HBO Max popped up, it was like gold medal curling match. It’s in the ninth end. And I was like, fine, I’ll put it on too.
I just couldn’t keep track of everything. Then we had the end of the two women competition gold went to Laura Ulti and Deborah Levi from, uh, Germany. This is a repeat gold for them. Silver went to Germany’s, uh, Lisa buck’s and, uh, Nila, Shean and Bronze went to Kaylee Arm bus Brewster Humphreys and Jasmine Jones from the US It is the sixth career Olympic medal for Kaylee.
She’s tied with Alana Meyers Taylor for most by a female bobsledder from any nation, and tied for second in terms of all bobsleds. [00:17:00] That’s pretty amazing.
Alison Brown: No joke. These, these women in the bobsled, I know they are amazing.
Jill Jaracz: In cross country. We have our second to last race, but this is wrapping up the men’s competition with the 50 kilometer mass start Classic.
Alison Brown: Okay. And before we give the results, I bet you can guess who won the golds.
Jill Jaracz: Can you believe that? I can believe this, but it’s just wild if you’re looking for the goat of the games. It is. Johannes holds Kbo who won gold for Norway. He’s six for six in his races. Six races, six gold medals. Unreal.
Alison Brown: So the only two men who have won more gold medals in a single Olympics, mark Spitz and Michael Phelps.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. There’s nobody that’s touched on him in the winter side.
and this is his third games. That’s what’s amazing to me is. He’s [00:18:00] now in his prime, I think three games in, I think, I think he’s in his prime, like we could find his prime next time. But, uh, yeah, he was drafting a little bit. The, the, the podium is all Norway, so it was kind of a team working together for a little bit.
You know, they decided not to switch skis ’cause I guess you can partway through the weight race. But they were worried about the wax, you know, the, the, the wax they had on their skis was good enough
Alison Brown: and they didn’t wanna mess with that.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, exactly.
Alison Brown: Fair
Jill Jaracz: enough. So, uh, they were all tempted to, but they decided not to.
but, CLA Bo finished 8.9 seconds ahead of his teammate, Martin Strom Nge and bro went to Amal Everson Our Shuk Ani, Gus Schumacher finished 13th. So it’s been a really good game for the US men’s cross country team.
Alison Brown: Yeah. They’ve, they’ve made some real progress. I mean, a medal after 50 years, not the least of which being that
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, well, two medals.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: So [00:19:00] I mean that, that’s like double the improvement
Alison Brown: and it’s, you know, you’re never gonna be Norway. We’re never gonna be Norway.
Jill Jaracz: No, but we can try.
Alison Brown: Everyone tries to be Norway or you just try to be Johannes collabo. He and of himself wins all the medals.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So really, if you’re thinking about having children and you’re thinking about your children becoming gold medalists in cross country skiing, you start skiing now women so that they can start skiing in utero
Alison Brown: like
Jill Jaracz: the Norwegians
Alison Brown: do.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And we know your uterus is not gonna fall out.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Pretty, pretty assured. That the skiing will not contribute to that. Uh, and then once they start toddling around, I think even crawling, you could probably just put their knees on little skis and say, let’s get you started.
Alison Brown: You wanna [00:20:00] be like Johannes Kla, right?
Don’t you?
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: I don’t wanna do it Bobby. I don’t like skiing. I don’t care.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Just give roller skis. No bikes. No bikes. Just all roller skis. And then it’s cross country skis, thighs of steel. Right. It could be done someday. Someday.
Alison Brown: I don’t want cross country ski anymore. Mommy. It’s boring.
Jill Jaracz: I’ll give you boring.
Uh,
you boring is not a fourth. Placement is. That’s boring. But that’s bad. That’s mean. ’cause they tried. Oh, over in curling we had the women’s bronze medal game Canada beat the US 10 to seven.
Alison Brown: There were some mistakes.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, on the US’
Alison Brown: part? On the US side. There were some, some bad rocks that that happened in this.
And it was, it was a very frustrating game to watch because they were getting super frustrated. Oh, that’s [00:21:00] tough. And that was hard to watch. That’s tough.
Jill Jaracz: But it, I guess it’s one of the best finishes by the us.
Alison Brown: Fourth place is not bad.
Jill Jaracz: No, not at all. So very good. Even though in cross country,
Alison Brown: fourth place is nothing.
But I got fourth place. Mommy. It doesn’t matter. Gold or nothing, child.
Jill Jaracz: It’s okay, but I’m from the us.
Alison Brown: I don’t care. We are Norwegian and Spirit.
Jill Jaracz: Alright. Curling. We’ll have the gold medal game tomorrow between Switzerland and Sweden. And then we had the men’s gold medal game, which was Canada versus Great Britain.
Whoa. Canada won nine six. This really was it, I guess it was back and forth. And then Canada got three in the ninth when I tuned in and then it was eight six and Great Britain had the hammer on the last end, but they couldn’t clear enough stones and Canada won. [00:22:00]
Alison Brown: This has gotta be controversial because of Mark Kennedy and his finger gate.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. I’m, I’m sure there are people who are not too happy about this. Yeah.
Alison Brown: Well,
Jill Jaracz: so interesting, interesting curling in the news. Uh, we’ll keep fair enough, keep looking at it. Uh, cold goes to Canada, silver to Great Britain and bronze to Switzerland. So the, um, the men’s curling is all wrapped up just waiting for the women’s game figure skating. You went to the exhibition?
Alison Brown: I did go to the exhibition and they made a theme for it, which I thought was very interesting because obviously all these skaters have their exhibition programs that they do on their own, but they tried to put a theme around the show and it was talent take shape.
So throughout the, uh, the evening, uh, Valentina Marche and, um, Ben Augusta would come on and give these little, little poetic tidbits of, you know, what we think of talent. And now it’s, now you’re coming into your own and now the [00:23:00] world is discovering your talent. And it was it. It was nice.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: It was a little unnecessary, but I appreciated the effort.
But you know where we’ve been talking about how they don’t do any, um, projection mapping?
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: That’s ’cause they saved it all for the exhibition. Oh. There was more light show projection things happening during this exhibition gala than I have seen the entire Olympics.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: So many. And so that’s where the
Jill Jaracz: budget went.
Okay.
Alison Brown: That’s where that budget went. And it was really lovely. You had all the medalists and then you had a select skaters like, uh, ia, melanin. ’cause you wanted him to come. He’s the only one who got a standing ovation for the night. He did a program that was about being overwhelmed with pressure. And did
Jill Jaracz: he just choreograph this?
Alison Brown: I don’t know if it’s a, I do not think it is a new program. I think this has been his exhibition program for the season. [00:24:00] And it was just so timely. And at the beginning of the, of the program, he’s getting, um, voicemails and emails and messages and dms and, and he’s like pretending to be on a phone and the music has all the do, do do do do do do.
Beep beep, beep, beep, beep. And he just gets so overwhelmed with it. So it was, it was really dramatic and really beautiful. And of course you do a back flip and the crowd goes wild. Couple of questionable choices. I say questionable, but they were really a lot of fun. Um, guns N Roses.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: Shakira
Jill Jaracz: fine.
Alison Brown: There was a Mortal Ko Okay.
Themed program. But the best Michael Shutoff brought the panda costume back and did the kung fu ba kung fu Panda.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, that’s
Alison Brown: great program. He jumps. In the full panda costume.
Jill Jaracz: How does he pack that? That has to be big.
Alison Brown: You know what I I, that maybe comes in freight with like the Kazak [00:25:00] luges or something. I don’t know how the panda costume makes it, but it’s great.
And you gotta love the Olympic gold medalist. Just having no shame whatsoever and being like, I’m gonna put on a panda costume and mimic a fart in the middle of the program and I’m just gonna go for it and it’s gonna be fun and everyone’s gonna love me. ’cause we all do. So, yes. The one thing that made me laugh that wasn’t supposed to make me laugh was chalk and baits because.
I’ve spoken about how that, uh, long program costume with the matador, cape slash skirt has a visceral reaction, and I hate it so much. It’s like they heard me and they brought a bedsheet to dance with, so it was sort of like a Lycra material so it would move. And so they used it like a rope, and they used it like a chain, and they used it [00:26:00] like a scarf.
And then at one point he wraps her up in it like a mummy
Jill Jaracz: far out.
Alison Brown: It was very cool. But all I kept thinking was, you just wanted to irritate me with this bed sheet ’cause the skirt wasn’t enough. And then at the end they all come on, all 50 skaters were involved in this.
Jill Jaracz: Holy cow.
Alison Brown: Because the all of team USA did a team number.
All of Team Italia did a team number.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: Then you had all the medalists and then the additional guests.
Jill Jaracz: Holy cow.
Alison Brown: So at the end we had 50 skaters on the ice, which was pretty great.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. That’s impressive.
Alison Brown: I, I would go back, if you haven’t seen it, just to see shatter off, do a, a double jump in a panda costume, man.
Highly recommend 10 out of 10
Jill Jaracz: and, and figure skating. I think we need like a lose. I, I need a sliding gala.
Alison Brown: I know, I know. You’re not a big fan of the gala. [00:27:00] ’cause you feel like, what’s the point of a gala? It’s a competition. Mm-hmm. Nobody else has a gala.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: But nobody else can dance with the bed sheet.
Or
Jill Jaracz: you don’t know that
Alison Brown: or, yeah, I mean, I guess if they’re gonna lose with a bed sheet and in full panda costume, I am all for that gala.
Jill Jaracz: Right. You could, you could cross country ski with a bed sheet. You’d be, you’d be bringing back ski ballet.
Alison Brown: I, I am not against that, by the way.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. We are gonna move over to freestyle skiing where the men had the ski cross today. And I had this on a little bit in the beginning. And this is what I think the ski mountaineering needs for the sprint event to make it longer and more enjoyable. They had a single run for seeding, so everyone went down the course individually to seed them, get the heats.
And I think we need to do that with the ski mountaineering.
Alison Brown: Huh?
Jill Jaracz: Send everybody up alone. ’cause that way you get to see the course more.
Alison Brown: When we get to ski [00:28:00] mountaineering, yes, we’ll talk about that because this was a very different race than we saw.
Jill Jaracz: It was
Alison Brown: in sprints.
Jill Jaracz: It was, um, but uh, again, the weather, a lot of snow and that changed every lab of the course and, and how fast it was.
So it, it really was a lot of technical work for these men. And, uh, Italy came out on top, uh, Simona Dar Daras one Gold, Federico Toni one silver in a photo finish. And, uh, he lives very close to Lavino, so this is really home turf for him, really. Home
Alison Brown: snow,
Jill Jaracz: home turf for him. And, uh, bronze went to Alex Viva from Switzerland, who is 40 years old.
Alison Brown: We’re, we’re gonna say that again today.
Jill Jaracz: I know it’s been a good day for the 40 year olds, and the other two are like 25 and 28. So it, it, he’s like, yeah, I felt, I felt my age today, but he still got a, he still got a medal. [00:29:00]
Alison Brown: He felt his age and his age felt bronzed.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. Uh, in the mixed team, aerials, gold went to USA, silver to Switzerland, bronze to China.
So the final four teams, uh, which the fourth team was Australia, Switzerland, China, and the US all had two males and one female. But Australia had two females and one male. So I’m curious about like, do they have a strategy for team makeup or is that just a, well, this is who we’ve got here kind of thing.
Alison Brown: Who qualified?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So I do wonder and. You also, invariably, because there are only three skiers in this, you have an event that creates inequality for either gender, you know what I mean? Because you’re gonna have a team with two males and one female. Right. So then there’s fewer females who get to participate.
Or if you have two females and one [00:30:00] male, then the males get
Alison Brown: accepted. Right. Just by its nature.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So
Alison Brown: I’m wondering, but making it more may then limit who can do the event. Not enough countries then could field for,
Jill Jaracz: I, I am curious about that. Is, is the talent that deep? It might be, it might not be. Or they just don’t want to have another quota.
I don’t know. But, uh, could go on the list. ’cause we haven’t talked about aerials in a long time.
Alison Brown: That’s true.
Jill Jaracz: The last jump, China biffed, the landing, which was the, I know the notes are not. Perfect. So listeners, it’s been a long two weeks and we’re on, on the penultimate day. It, it’s the, the couple who has won gold, they’re both on the team, and then there’s a person that’s not in the couple
Alison Brown: that we know of.
It could be a
Jill Jaracz: throuple for all we know. We don’t, don’t wanna know. It’s not, that’s too much information for me.
Alison Brown: China’s [00:31:00] team is a throuple.
Jill Jaracz: No, we don’t know that for sure. No. Um, but it had a huge degree of difficulty and boffed the landing, but that huge degree of difficulty put them into the medals. Oh.
It was one of those, it’s kind of like the, the degree of difficulty is so high that even though the landing is messed up, you still have so many points coming your way versus. Some of the other, some of the other jumpers, especially the females, uh, in some of the teams had really low points and I did not see the whole competition.
So I don’t know if they, uh, had troubles with their landings or just some of the degree of difficulty was not as nearly as high as the the men. Hmm. And their team, uh, USA did not have the same degree of difficulty as China did, but they nailed everything. So that helped them out. Snow falling there can affect the approach.
Speed [00:32:00] learned that today. That was interesting.
Alison Brown: Huh?
Jill Jaracz: So if you affect, if you are slower going in, you’re probably not able to do as many twists and flips or whatever
Alison Brown: makes sense.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, this is a back-to-back gold medal for the us. Not necessarily a repeat,
Alison Brown: right? Because it’s different skiers.
Jill Jaracz: Probably women’s free ski halfpipe.
The final has been rescheduled to tomorrow morning because of snow. So we’ll see how that goes. But Cassie Sharp from Canada, who had qualified third had a crash. She has not been medically cleared to compete in the final, so sorry for that because it’s, we don’t want to hear that. But hopefully she’s gonna be on the mend soon.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: In ice hockey, as I said to, who has two thumbs and can’t dress for the hockey rink, this girl, after two weeks of this, I’m still like not picking the right clothes for the hockey. I’m picking for the right clothes for walking around Milan.
Alison Brown: Yeah. [00:33:00] It’s very difficult when it’s 60 degrees out and then you go into a hockey arena and it’s 45 in the arena.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And we no time to come back and change and go ’cause it’s just too far away.
Alison Brown: Right. And, and so you’re either carrying layers with you, which is what I’ve been doing, which is kind of a pain.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm. With
Alison Brown: all of our. Are other things that are coming with us or you’re sweating to death in the train?
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: And then, trust me, nobody wants to sit next to you in that hockey game
Jill Jaracz: and that’s fine. Well, it didn’t matter. I got a seated table. I was there early enough. I kept thinking this started at eight and apparently it started at like nine. ’cause I was there Mondo early for this. Oh.
Alison Brown: I had it written down as eight too.
Jill Jaracz: Like eight or eight 10. It just felt like it did not start until much later. Huh. And, uh, I was not happy about that, but it is what it is. I got a table and I’m one of the first in my row, but I, I’m, I’m like three or four tables up, right? And so I can’t see chunks of the [00:34:00] rink. And I’m standing up during the game.
I stand up to look at something and I look down and I realize like I’m the only woman in the Press Tribune. I’m like, whoa, wait a second. And I see a couple women who are in broadcast, not on the mics, but doing broadcast stuff at the tables like. Whoa, this has been a while since I’ve had this situation.
Go on.
Alison Brown: Yeah. Not, not so much here. We haven’t felt that.
Jill Jaracz: No. But today was the first time I felt that, and that was weird.
Alison Brown: Hockey.
Jill Jaracz: Hockey. But it was the bronze medal game for the men, uh, Finland, crushed Slovakia six one. I left after five one, which was not that much left to go in the game. By the time I got down all of the stairs, I heard the horns go again.
And then I heard the party to the left song, which is for Finland, and there’s a whole bunch of other words, but Party to the Left is a big phrase. And [00:35:00] then, uh, Slovakia has some other song that people knew in the audience. So that was a big Slovak pump up song. But Slovakia did not look great, although they, they were kind of close on scores.
Alison Brown: Wait, wait. The note you wrote. For the Slovakia song.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, it’s teeny, teeny bop. Well, I only heard it once, but
Alison Brown: teeny, teeny bop. I don’t even care what song it is. But the fact that that’s how you identified it, I think needed to be acknowledged.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So the, the Slovakia goal was like, sounded like teeny teeny bop to me, but I could not tell what it was
that they knew it,
Alison Brown: which is all that matters.
Jill Jaracz: One thing that I did like is that they did the freeze cam.
Alison Brown: Yes. We do love freeze cam.
Jill Jaracz: They put a baby on the freeze cam, like a brand, not a brand new baby, but somebody who was maybe like four months old with, with the big headphone cans on and [00:36:00] it was just dad holding the baby up freeze and turning it and turning it.
Then oh freeze. That was fun. Wonder Wall was our karaoke for the night.
Alison Brown: Yes, it was our karaoke last night as well. Why?
Jill Jaracz: I, I don’t know. But people were happy about this of course. And a lot of singing happened. Even though Wonder Wall is not a pep tune, but it is peppier than Imagine.
Alison Brown: Oh,
Jill Jaracz: anything but imagine which is the worst karaoke song that we’ve got on the, the rotation.
Still, I’m not happy that we don’t know any fun Italian songs. Yes, because I heard like Freed from Desire at least twice tonight at Hockey Alone, and that always makes me think of Paris.
Alison Brown: Yes,
Jill Jaracz: that’s a Paris song. So Italy, you’re making me sad about the, the, the soundtrack. If I think about the soundtrack from the games, it’s Freebird for me,
Alison Brown: that’s definitely up there.
Jill Jaracz: So boy. Oh boy. But, but Finland, well done. [00:37:00] It was, uh, exciting to watch them. It was a little sloppy, I’ll tell you that. A little bit sloppy of a game. But they pulled it out. That pulled it out in a big way. But yeah, they got, they got a couple of goals, pretty handily. And then Slovakia came back with one. I thought, oh, now we’ve got a game.
And then goals four and five came very close. No, two of the, two of the next four goals,
Alison Brown: 432 came quickly.
Jill Jaracz: Right. They had another two that came back to back basically. And then it was kind of like, oh, this is over.
Alison Brown: I hear you
Jill Jaracz: ski mountaineering. So we watched the mixed relay today.
Alison Brown: Yes. So. So this was a much longer race.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. This
Alison Brown: was closer was to half an hour. So you really got a good view. So,
Jill Jaracz: and then I was like, when I saw how much it was like, oh, I wish I could have gone, but it was also snowing there.
Alison Brown: Right. I was gonna say, you couldn’t have gone, ’cause I never would’ve gotten you back because I kept getting notices in my transit app about how the buses weren’t running
Jill Jaracz: well.
I almost didn’t get [00:38:00] back anyway ’cause I couldn’t get out of the train station tonight again. Oh, this is what I needed to tell you before I forgot. So the deal is with our transit, uh, tickets that we get, they give us free transportation locally and also special buses and regional trains. And so it comes on a QR code and the, the, you have to code into, go into the trains and code out to come outta the trains.
And the QR code reader is right next to the tap and Go reader. So if you had a credit card and weren’t paying with a credit card, you’d get that. So sometimes my QR code won’t load. First off, I have that problem sometimes. Secondly, it wants me to verify it’s me. And how are you
Alison Brown: supposed to do that?
Jill Jaracz: I don’t know.
I don’t know if it’s trying to read off of the tap and go if I’m too close to that one. But sometimes it’s just like it won’t let me through the gate. ’cause it wants me to verify it’s me. [00:39:00] Well, tonight we had another problem and I thought this was gonna happen when it happened. I’m like, oh boy. Leave hockey.
Get on the shuttle. Go to the train station.
Alison Brown: Yes,
Jill Jaracz: walk in. And I’m trying to tap my QR code and it wants me to verify it’s me. It’s not clicking through. And there’s a transit worker right there and she just taps me in. Well, she taps me in. That means I can’t tap out
Alison Brown: because you never tapped in, tapped
Jill Jaracz: in.
So I get to Jerusalem, our station, and I try to tap out and it’s like, uh, you didn’t tap in? And I was like, oh no. Oh no. And I, I’m gonna try to sneak through with other people again. I just can’t quite do it. And then I’m, I go to the other side where you tap to go in and I’m trying to think, can I put my phone across and tap [00:40:00] in and come out and then I text you, please come and get me,
Alison Brown: which I didn’t see immediately.
Jill Jaracz: And. Then something else happened and I got in and or I got through and then there were two women standing there and they were like, we wanted to make sure you got through. We didn’t know how to help, but we wanted to say we, you know, we wanted to make sure you got in. And I think it just opened somehow.
I was able to get in with another person, but it was just like, oh, my worst fears were realized right here.
Alison Brown: I’m so sorry.
Jill Jaracz: It’s okay. It’s okay. I would’ve would’ve figured it out somehow. But yeah, the transit and, and it’s not hard. I love the transit app. I will say that I love the QR code.
Alison Brown: It, it’s very simple.
When it works properly,
Jill Jaracz: yes, but it’s very phone dependent. So if you have a, if you have a glitchy phone day, you’re gonna have trouble with your QR code.
Alison Brown: You’re in trouble.
Jill Jaracz: Anyhow, back to schmo,
Alison Brown: back tos, schmo. So there are two courses. [00:41:00] Two sections of the course. So they go through it.
Jill Jaracz: So they go up and then down and up and down.
Alison Brown: Each person. Correct. Each person. And And they do it twice?
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So that’s four laps.
Alison Brown: Yes. And it took close to half an hour to go through this. So
Jill Jaracz: fantastic.
Alison Brown: In one course, it had the steps, and in one course it did not.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: It took me a while. It took me at least five minutes to understand how this was explained to me.
But then as I watched, I got it. I was like, thank you. Now we’re, and they called the obstacle course, the diamond course.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, because you had to do a diamond around,
Alison Brown: we need to do a diamond shape, which I was like, oh, it’s a diamond course. That made it sound fancy. But the wildest thing was the up and down and up and down means you have to take off the skins, but you also have to put the skins back onto the skis.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And then you came down the hill. There was something like they had [00:42:00] to put the skins,
Alison Brown: so the women had to put the skins back on after they came down the hill to go back to the men To tap them out.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. That was wild.
Alison Brown: So they had to do an extra skin adhe, adhesion, you know, always make the women do an extra work so that they could then tag their partner to start his leg.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. That was wild of race. That was wild. That was wild. But I did like this. And that course is really steep.
Alison Brown: It’s extraordinarily steep.
Jill Jaracz: And I’m not sure TV showed that super well, but having been to Borneo and knowing how steep that was, like, Ooh, they’re really working.
Alison Brown: Yes. I was exhausted just watching them.
I was really fascinated with the skins on skins off. Skins on portion.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: I really wanna find out about that. [00:43:00] Like, do you ever screw it up?
Jill Jaracz: You might. I bet it takes a while to get the rhythm. Yes. ’cause everyone had a rhythm. And if you don’t put ’em in your little pouch that’s on the front of your body correctly, you get a penalty for that.
Alison Brown: You get a penalty for almost anything.
Jill Jaracz: But I will say there, there was more room here for passing. Yes. In sections. Yes. Especially on the first leg of the course that the big obstacle was stairs.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Because when you had the diamond course, again, it’s still harder to pass, but people would go, if you were close to somebody, you wouldn’t go follow them on the same side.
You’d go to the opposite side of the diamond and maybe you could pass ’em there.
Alison Brown: Right. And there was definitely passing happening in the downhill portion.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay.
Alison Brown: In in it certainly. Passing of, not necessarily up front. ’cause the front runner was the front runner, but as they were going along, you saw some movement in that downhill section, which was much more interesting than the sprints.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: Sprints were just [00:44:00] too sprinty.
Jill Jaracz: Too sprinty too. Not competitive. Well, well, as we said all the, the passing happened at transitions and I don’t think that’s fun.
Alison Brown: It’s not fun to watch.
Jill Jaracz: No. But this was fun to watch or more and more interesting. It was nicer to have a longer race so that you could be invested in people because, uh, most of the people who won the won medals in the sprint won medals here too.
So, uh, gold went to France, the team of Emily Harrop and Tebo Anme.
Silver went to Switzerland’s, Marianne Ton and John Kissler and Bronze went to Spain’s, Anna Alonzo Rodriguez and or Orel Cardona Cole. And, uh,
all of the women won both medals and two of the men were double medalists.
Alison Brown: Yeah, just poor John Kissler is not a name we’ve said before, [00:45:00]
Jill Jaracz: which in a sense shows how strong the podium athletes were, but it also makes me wonder how deep is the field really in s schmo. I was expecting Italy to be up there because they’ve been pumping this like nobody’s business.
Alison Brown: A US finished fourth, which was apparently quite a good finish for them.
Jill Jaracz: But I, I’m curious how well represented this sport is.
Alison Brown: It’ll be interesting to see if it sticks around.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, I’m, I’m not sure. It may have been fun, but people said breakin was fun too,
Alison Brown: right? And thankfully that went away.
The protest came because Spain, the Alonzo Rodriguez did one of her transitions, not in the transition zone, so you get a penalty for that. [00:46:00] So the question is, what was the level of penalty? They received a three second penalty, so that was not enough. For the United States to catch them as the fourth place finisher.
Had they received a more severe penalty, 30 seconds or a minute, the United States would’ve won bronze.
Jill Jaracz: Interesting.
Alison Brown: So that gets into how our different penalties assessed. And the announcers, at least when I was watching the feed, really didn’t understand. They knew some of the penalties. They said, oh, okay, she’s gonna get a penalty for transitioning out of the transition zone.
But what that penalty was gonna be, they were not clear on.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, because there’s a whole chart, right? I went to the rule book and I was thoroughly confused, and I wonder if this was people who were trying to brush up on the sport and didn’t have enough footage to watch or footage with commentary or good commentary to watch and prep and went, well, if it happens, we’ve got a list.
[00:47:00] But the, the penalties are different for individual races and team races and relay races. And we didn’t have a team event here. We just had a relay and an individual. So it’s really difficult to know what they’re gonna do.
Alison Brown: And difficult on the fly too. Yes. When you’re on air and you’re trying to do the announcing, you’re covering a race and there’s a penalty, you don’t have time to sit there and look through the rule book.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: Or look through your charts to figure it out. So I certainly don’t blame the announcers. No. So given this is a new sport for the Olympics, but they were trying to explain what was happening. Okay. Here’s the
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: Penalty. We don’t know how it’s going to be assessed.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: So we have to wait until the end of the race, but it’s coming.
So let’s see what happens.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, it’s interesting. It makes you wonder how training works for that kind of thing. Or if they’re just kind of like, here’s the rule book.
Alison Brown: Good luck.
Jill Jaracz: Good luck. Yeah. ’cause there were stuff in the rule book to break, to break, [00:48:00] uh uh uh, in heats in some stuff. If there’s a tie, a photo finish is gonna be used.
If you can’t break the tie with the photo finish, then the bib number breaks the tie and the lower bib number goes first, gets first or gets ranked higher, it’s, well, that
Alison Brown: seems unfair.
Jill Jaracz: It does seem unfair. And we won’t go any deeper than this because I did copy and paste a whole bunch of stuff going, I don’t understand this at all, but you probably don’t see these penalties a whole lot, that kind of thing.
So yeah, it was a lot of fun to watch and people seem to be having a good time, even if it’s cold. Oh, hey, more fireworks. Right?
Alison Brown: More fireworks.
Jill Jaracz: We had, you know, we didn’t, we didn’t tell you this. It’s not that we forgot to, it’s just that, you know, when we finished taping at one 30 in the morning. There are fireworks going on outside
Alison Brown: and now
Jill Jaracz: it’s, it’s one 20 and there are
Alison Brown: fireworks.
Fireworks. I [00:49:00] guess this is the hour of fireworks.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. I don’t know how do they get away with this? But it’s not even fireworks. We can see Happy Chinese New Year, I guess. I guess. Or we’re still celebrating carnival. I don’t know. It’s really wild. Let’s move over to speed skating and another confusing event.
Alison Brown: Yeah. Mass start.
Jill Jaracz: So Mass start
Alison Brown: is also known as mass chaos.
Jill Jaracz: Mass chaos, mass start. Uh, this is the third Olympics for this event. And I’m still semi unclear on how it works, but basically everybody starts at the same time and the results are determined by sprint points. So every, it’s like 15 or 16 laps and every few laps there’s a sprint lap and they get points for who wins the sprint except for the very last sprint is the last lap or so.
And they get those skaters, 60 points, 40 points, and [00:50:00] 20 points versus like five, three, or one. So basically, if you’re one of the top three finishers, you’re gonna get all the points and you’re gonna win. And I guess
Alison Brown: for the people for and below, yeah, the sprint point, ma, sprint points matter.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So, um, for the men,
gold goes to you at Bergsma, who’s 40 years old. He’s the oldest Winter Olympic champion in a hundred years. Silver goes to Victor Hyde. Thorpe from Denmark. He’s the first individual winter medalist for Denmark ever in a winter Olympics.
Alison Brown: And I think the last winter Olympic medal for Denmark was 28 years ago.
Jill Jaracz: Probably like a curling team.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And then bronze went to Andrea Giovanni Giovanni, who edged out Jordan Stoltz for the bronze.
Alison Brown: And edged is the
Jill Jaracz: yes
Alison Brown: operative word there.
Jill Jaracz: Big name in the crowd because the crowd was not all [00:51:00] orange today.
Alison Brown: It was not. It had some yellow,
Jill Jaracz: it did because Burt swings defending gold.
Medalist was on the track. He finished ninth. Not, not happy about this.
Alison Brown: No. One of my favorites from Beijing,
Jill Jaracz: because this was just a wild final. So Bergsma and Thorpe were like last and second to last, to make it out of the semifinals and get into the final and. They said, oh, the pace in the semi-final was high, but then when it came to the final, no one’s making a move.
And they’re all just going around kind of casually. And so Bergsma goes and breaks out and says, I’m just going to go ahead
Alison Brown: and Thore goes with him.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, because he bergman’s like, Hey, come on. Like, makes a little move on his back. Like, come on buddy, let’s go. And so they get way far ahead,
Alison Brown: like half, uh,
Jill Jaracz: yes.
Alison Brown: Half
Jill Jaracz: the oval.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: And, and seriously, there was a semi-final where [00:52:00] the, the breakout person, it was a breakout woman, I believe, basically left the field and eventually she got, she got tired ’cause she was all by herself. And the, the pack all caught, caught up to her, but she made it into the final because of that strategy.
She just went out ahead. And that’s one strategy. Another strategy is just to hang out with the pack and then you break out every once in a while. But so Bema and Thorpe break out and they spend a lot of time working with each other. And then, uh, they also had the Netherlands, uh, steam Vanderbilt, Debo helping them in the Peloton because he caused a lot of chaos and disruption in the Peloton.
So that could not move fast and help the, the two in the front keep way in the front. And that was it. Like they were so far [00:53:00] ahead on that last sprint. Nobody was gonna catch ’em. And then, uh, Thorpe couldn’t catch Bergsma at the end. At the end. At the end, yes. So Bergsma is our friend with the mullet and was skating around on his victory lap.
Somebody had tossed him some hair
Alison Brown: as if he needs more.
Jill Jaracz: So that was a lot of fun. He was thrilled. Uh, Thorpe beyond ecstatic.
Alison Brown: Giovanni was not thrilled.
Jill Jaracz: Oh no. He was proud. He was very, very proud to have beaten Stoltz.
Alison Brown: He was very proud, but he was very frustrated with how that race
Jill Jaracz: went. Well get out in front.
If you see a pack, you know you’re gonna have to go. You can’t just automatically assume that they’re gonna get eaten again. I mean, it’s a weird, weird race and it’s almost like big short track races, you know? Like I was watching the 1500 yesterday and again, you had that slow start and [00:54:00] somebody’s gonna have to make a move.
Yeah. What are we gonna do? Hey, the
Alison Brown: announcer kept saying they’re being cagey. They’re being cagey. I’m like, they shouldn’t be cagey. They’re racing. Just race.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah,
Alison Brown: just race. Make it. Maybe we need to make the mass start shorter so there’s not as much of this
Jill Jaracz: cage. I don’t know, but it was, it was wild.
Alison Brown: It was
Jill Jaracz: wild.
It was also that it was a wild, wild race. Then we had, uh, the women’s Master start Golden that went to, Marika Grunewald from Netherlands, who right after the race got engaged. That was a surprise to her. Uh, silver went to Ivanni Bloon from Canada. This is her last Olympics. And then Bronze went to Mia, Manganello from America, USA, this is her last Olympics too.
So she was thrilled to kind of end everything with the bronze medal in the second semi-final. Greta Myers did this from the us, [00:55:00] did that same thing, went all the way off on her own in front and got sprint points, got rained back and dropped to the back, but she just qualified for the final based on that move.
Alison Brown: Can we talk about this getting engaged after the racist thing? Can I, can I, can I talk about this for a minute?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: Okay. This makes me so angry
Jill Jaracz: because I’m sure people are like, Allison, I think you would love this. It’s love.
Alison Brown: No, no. I hate this more than anything because this is a woman’s professional success and who does he think he is coming in and stealing her spotlight. Now it’s about him and his proposal and, Ooh, I wanted the world to see us.
No, no. Let her have her moment by herself
Jill Jaracz: and get engaged later that
Alison Brown: day. Get engaged at the restaurant, get engaged at the, uh, at the
Jill Jaracz: party afterwards.
Alison Brown: [00:56:00] Yes. Let her have her success and stops trying to steal the spotlight with your stupid ring.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. I’m neither here nor there about it,
Alison Brown: to be quite honest.
Oh, it makes me so angry because it’s just the man can’t give her a moment to be successful without him. Oh, will you marry me? No.
I just won a gold medal. I’m not gonna marry you. Loser.
Jill Jaracz: Well, what if you wanted to marry him?
Alison Brown: Well, that’s fine. That’s your own stupidity. I can’t help you there.
Jill Jaracz: Wow, wow, wow. I’d even give that an Oh wow. As we ranked them into my house. You just got an Oh wow. For that. Oh, we have one more day of fun. So speed skating is all done.
Ma start [00:57:00] was Massey and Wild. They did the parade of volunteers to say thank you. What does that mean? So I saw this in, uh, Paris. I saw it for the modern pentathlon. ’cause that was also like last day. It was the last day of competition for this venue.
So all the volunteers. At modern pentathlon went around the entire ring. And that is also when I saw like the Marie Antoinette people on stilts and I wondered where they came from and how they all fit into this thing. And Freia bouncing all over the place. It was quite wild and quite lovely. And so they had a parade of volunteers and I’m looking all over the venue for like, where are these volunteers?
Why can’t I see them? And they came in one gate for the, like the seating area, like a spectator gate and then went two gates down and then went back. ’cause they had to do their
Alison Brown: jobs.
Jill Jaracz: No, but it’s like you can’t send them mostly around the track. ’cause they could go mostly around the [00:58:00] track. It was, I felt very bad for them that they didn’t, they got their big Aron celebration ’cause that’s not super jumbotron in there.
So it was like, oh, put you on the big Aron and, and walk a few feet. Let’s not give you the big parade. Parade.
Alison Brown: We don’t have Marie Antoinette on stilts here. This is
Jill Jaracz: Italy.
Calm
Jill Jaracz: down. Can pull on Da Vinci again. Come on. You could catapult a volunteer. Didn’t he make catapults? We could put ’em with the wings.
Right? Come on, let’s do something more for these volunteers. They, and, and by pulling the volunteers, that meant the Chinese guy next to me could film most of the, most of the stuff.
Alison Brown: Did he film the volunteer parade?
Jill Jaracz: No. Of course not. Of course not film. Why would he do that? Filming races. Busy filming races.
There was a lot of filming going on in our section. Oh, but one more day of competition.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: But sh Stan is still competing. [00:59:00]
Alison Brown: Yes. Frank Del Duka and Josh Williamson finish up the four man bobsled along with Adam Alman and his sled.
Jill Jaracz: Excellent. Well, good luck gents. We do have mascots today.
Alison Brown: We have a mascot of the day with I think the best name of any of our mascots, Wolfgang Von Ffel.
Jill Jaracz: It is an excellent name.
Alison Brown: It is a fantastic name. And Wolfgang is a silver. I’m not sure how to pronounce this Auti Guinea pig, so I apologize if that is not how it’s pronounced. And, uh, Wolfie evaded rescuers in a Chicago park district for a forest for two weeks in the winter before he was captured, brought in from the cold and adopted.
He is super chill. He’s a big boy who has a heart condition but is full of love and is an expert at making hay forts his favorite snack. Parsley. I love it. And you know, parsley is very good for animals to give them fresh breath. So then wolfie won’t smell bad. [01:00:00] Very good.
Jill Jaracz: And we, I, I am so impressed that we have so many Guinea pig mascots.
Alison Brown: We have a lot of Guinea pigs. You know, we, we had an other official ma uh, animal of Shuksan, but I think that is out the window. I think it is the Guinea pig.
Jill Jaracz: It it, it needs to be, ’cause there are so many who are shuk Stanis as well.
Alison Brown: That’s right.
Jill Jaracz: National. We’ll work on that. Work on that for next quad is making more shuk Stan stuff.
We also have shout outs.
Alison Brown: And our shout out today is Enga from Medford, Massachusetts.
Jill Jaracz: Like, and, and Angu is really Angela.
Alison Brown: Ah, okay.
Jill Jaracz: Because there’s gotta be no Angu Olympians. But there is a paddler, Angela Hanna from Great Britain who competed in canoe sprint, the kayak events at London 2012 and Rio 2016.
So you have a, a, a namesake. Sort of there a friend. ’cause you have the same name because [01:01:00] you know it would fall under your friend categories.
Alison Brown: I don’t see the problem there as long as nobody’s asking her to marry them. When they get to the finish line, we can be friends.
Jill Jaracz: Allison’s rules for friendship.
Alison Brown: That’s a big one.
Jill Jaracz: Alright, that is going to do it for this episode. If you would like even more fun, more of the most fun coverage of the games, hit us up. We’re at flame live pod.com. That is your source for socials, newsletters, direct ways to contact us. Don’t forget, we have a Facebook group that has been hopping all games.
It’s been a lot of fun. And that’s Keep The Flame Alive Podcast group. Be sure to tune in tomorrow. I’m not sure we’re gonna forget. Well, how would I know if we forgot something today? Until we turn off the tape?
Alison Brown: We’ll know tomorrow.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. Or in five minutes. What we forgot to tell you about today?
Tomorrow’s closing ceremony.
Alison Brown: Very exciting.
Jill Jaracz: I’m heading out to Verona.
Alison Brown: We will only be one [01:02:00] gentle woman of Verona. That’s right. I’ll be back here. But that’s Stan house holding down the fort.
Jill Jaracz: Excellent. So,
Alison Brown: and until next time, chow and keep the flame alive.