During Day 4 of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics, we check out new sports, new train stations, and new venues. Alison has become a navigating fool, while Jill had to learn how to navigate to and from the new ice hockey arena built especially for the Olympics (and finished literally seconds before the first player took the ice).
Note: Jill forgot to tell you about the actual navigation to and from the venue, which is a doozy, so that will be on tomorrow’s “What we forgot to tell you yesterday” segment.
Sports on today’s program:
- Alpine skiing
- Biathlon
- Cross-Country skiing
- Curling
- Figure skating
- Freestyle skiing
- Ice hockey
- Luge
- Short track speedskating
- Ski jumping
Team TKFLASTAN is on the podium! Props to luger Ashley Farquharson for her bronze medal performance!
Keep our Flame Alive! We podcast about the Games all year. If you appreciate the independent voice that we provide, please consider supporting us today. Go to our support page to learn about our one-time and ongoing patronage options (as well as the bonus content for our patrons).
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
Milano Cortina Olympics-Day 4
Jill Jaracz: [00:00:00] And welcome to Keep the Flame Alive. Day four, coverage of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games. I am your host, Jill Jarris, coming to you from Shuk Stanhouse. Joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison Chao, commo Sta
Alison Brown: I’m really confused about what day it is.
Jill Jaracz: We are on take two of this recording and it’s, it’s 1 25 in the morning.
We’re a little punchy.
Alison Brown: We’re, yeah. And it’s Tuesday. It’s still, well now it’s Wednesday, but it’s. We’re talking about [00:01:00] Tuesday.
Jill Jaracz: It’s not tu it’s not Wednesday until,
Alison Brown: until we go to sleep.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Okay. It’s day four, so
Jill Jaracz: it’s not really Wednesday until we get up.
Alison Brown: It was day four, it was Tuesday, and that’s what we’re gonna talk about.
The Follow-up File
Jill Jaracz: We have some follow up file, so if, uh, you have listened to daily episodes in the past, this tends to happen. We have questions from, uh, listeners. We have questions from ourselves and we have to follow up on them. So we had a question on the Facebook group, which is Keep the Flame Alive Podcast on Facebook.
Uh, about Breezy Johnson, downhill skier from, uh, USA who won gold. She had a knitted headband, I believe. Listener Gabby or listener. Uh, Rochelle wanted to know whether or not she used a pattern for head her headband. The answer direct from US Ski and snowboard, which I’m happy to report. I got to ask, is No, she just makes them.
Alison Brown: She free hands them.
Jill Jaracz: It’s [00:02:00] pretty awesome. But she makes a new one every time. So I guess that’s you. You don’t need a pattern after a while,
Alison Brown: and it’s for her own head so she doesn’t have to measure it repeatedly.
Jill Jaracz: What if she’s got a tape measure with her and she goes to a teammate and goes, Hey, measure my head today.
Alison Brown: Okay. My mother has knit headband. For my daughter.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: And I have had to measure her head. I, I do know this, that this is a, this is a, a true fact, but once you’ve measured her head, you don’t have to repeatedly measure her head.
Jill Jaracz: Well, let’s hope not. Um. Also exciting that I, I tuned into x for, uh, a brief moment today.
And immediately the algorithm served me team New Zealand’s haka for Zoe Sadowski Senate, uh, from who won the silver medal in Big Air yesterday. And you know, I love a good haka.
Alison Brown: You, you love a haka.
Jill Jaracz: Ah, so come on, go Silver Ferns. We need more Hawkes in [00:03:00] our lives. The big news from figure skating
Alison Brown: was a big oopsies by the organizers.
Jill Jaracz: I got their big oopsies. Okay. We had the medals breaking right and left.
Alison Brown: Yes. Yeah, because, uh, Alyssa Lu’s medal has also broken.
Jill Jaracz: Right? And another, uh, another sport. Somebody has broken their medal there too.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: They were out celebrating and the medal broke.
Alison Brown: Yes. Listener Meredith had a good idea. She said that LA should give their medals to a rambunctious 4-year-old to test this on.
And I say that as a brilliant suggestion
Jill Jaracz: that they should. So, um, beyond the medal snafu is the fact in figure skating when the team event had their medal ceremony.
Alison Brown: They skated out.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Climbed onto the podium, but they had put a non-slip surface on the podiums, which are like sandpaper, which means you destroy the blades of the figure.
Skaters. [00:04:00] Skates.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Nobody had their skate guards because that would look weird. And I, I gotta say, when I watched the medal ceremony, I did wonder. Wow. They’re out there in their skates. I didn’t think, I really didn’t think they were gonna break the blades, but I thought like, wow, that’s really interesting that they had them skate out like that.
Alison Brown: Usually they do. I mean, most skating podiums, you do skate out, but usually the top of the podium is that rubber matting,
Jill Jaracz: right,
Alison Brown: that you have on the the sides as well. No, this was sandpaperish.
Jill Jaracz: And so now everybody, as you said, they, all, their blades were ruined. Uh, well, not ruined enough, but they were really
Alison Brown: damaged.
Jill Jaracz: Damaged, so the organizing committee apologized for that, and they offered to have everybody skates, sharpened. Meanwhile, poor Madison Chalk and Evan Blades. Uh, the ice dancers from the United States had to not only like get to bed and try to get some sleep [00:05:00] because they had to practice in the morning and compete in the evening, and to have your skates need sharpening on top of that.
Alison Brown: When do you get that done? Do you get that done before practice? Well then didn’t sleep. If you got it done after practice, well, you probably just had a bad practice,
Jill Jaracz: right? And to have that going into the most important competition. That you’ve trained years for. And, uh, I’m not surprised. They’re second.
Once I saw that, I’m like, oh, I, and they’re not in second place by much point. But still it’s, that’s because the French team who is in the lead in the rhythm dance, they did not have to skate to a podium. And they did not have to skate the night before. So, tough one. Um,
What we forgot to tell you yesterday
Alison Brown: in our recurring segment, what we forgot yesterday,
Jill Jaracz: what we forgot to tell you,
Alison Brown: and we know yesterday was Monday because today’s [00:06:00] Tuesday.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: Even though it’s actually Wednesday,
Jill Jaracz: right? So what does that mean? I don’t even know.
Alison Brown: It means you forgot things yesterday.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. So, uh, I. Oh, I forgot to tell you that, uh, when I went to Val, this is a fun fact. Val’s up by the Swiss border, so people from Italy go to work in Switzerland because the incomes are higher, and then people from Switzerland go to Italy to grocery shop.
’cause it’s cheaper down here,
Alison Brown: you know, in the United States and Canada there, there’s several places.
Jill Jaracz: Well, you don’t even have to go to Canada. The same reason you could live on the border of Illinois and Indiana. That’s true. And know that you go to Indiana to get gas and you go to Illinois because you could buy liquor on Sundays.
But I think the Indiana laws have changed a little bit since I lived there. But you know, y’all have that. Um, they also have a cool, like bike [00:07:00] through and hike through path because you can go from somewhere in Switzerland all the way down to like Lake Como,
Alison Brown: nice
Jill Jaracz: trails wise. It was really, really beautiful.
Um. We heard from the lovely tour guide Matilde that the neighborhood pins that the city of Milano has put together for the Olympics that celebrate, um, several neighborhoods, and then several things about Milano, including panton. Uh, these pins are on like a scavenger hunt thing and the lines. For them are extremely long because every day a new pin drops and people line up to go get it.
And, uh, it’s, it’s crazy.
Alison Brown: People like their pins,
Jill Jaracz: so that, that’s fun though. I’m, I except for if you’re like the one person at the front of the line who doesn’t get the pin, you know, they stop right before you. Kind of like how I got stopped by that gate at San Zero. Save yourselves. Oh, that’s right. Um, this [00:08:00] is not a good story.
Listener, Ben, or not listener? Ben. Ben Waterworth from Off the podium. The podium. We were talking at hockey last night. Well, he had gone to the official store at hockey and they were selling cowbells, and that was the first time he saw a cowbell. Huh? Great. Paid 40 euros for it, only to have it confiscated at the hockey entrance.
They said no cowbells. So why are they selling cowbells in the the store at hockey and speed skating? Speed skating, I get because people will do cowbells, but
Alison Brown: if they’re not allowed, why are you selling them?
Jill Jaracz: Yes. That’s crazy. Then our friend Tim, from every four years podcast, who I hung out with all day today.
Um. He saw something similar where he was hanging. He was going into the venue with another, uh, a group of Americans who had a Snoop dog cowbell, and the, it was gonna get confiscated and the woman [00:09:00] goes, oh, I’ll take it back to the car. She didn’t have a car, so she hid it behind a garbage can and
Alison Brown: hoped for the best.
Jill Jaracz: Gone.
Alison Brown: Yeah,
Jill Jaracz: because they would not let them get it back. It was really, really, really sad also. Um, did you go to row today?
Alison Brown: I did.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, did you get the new way to leave where they don’t let you go into the station and walk through all those station things?
Alison Brown: Oh.
Jill Jaracz: Did you get shunted outside now?
Alison Brown: That happened to me the other night.
Jill Jaracz: Yes,
Alison Brown: it happened to me in the middle of the night. Where it was midnight and I was walking in the dark, scary street, but thankfully there was a nice Nona who was walking in front of me, so I felt safe.
Jill Jaracz: That’s good. Also, Tim, from every four years, he is like magical in talking to people and finding people and, and it’s something I so admire.
Who did he meet at speed skating the other night and trade pins with [00:10:00] Teebo? He
Alison Brown: did not.
Jill Jaracz: He did, he had a pitcher.
What officiating or volunteer job would we want to do?
I know. I know. So moving on to what officiating our volunteer job would we want to do?
Alison Brown: So tonight at figure skating, I saw the woman who was in charge of all of the volunteers who manned the doors.
Jill Jaracz: Oh,
Alison Brown: you know how there are all the volunteers who get you to your seat?
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: Well, I think I saw the woman who’s in charge of them.
She had a clipboard. She was sending people to different stations.
Jill Jaracz: You had me a clipboard.
Alison Brown: I know you love a good clipboard, but I love this organizing of the staff.
Jill Jaracz: I, I would not agree with you, Les. Well, or more, I, I could not agree with you more.
Alison Brown: And what have you been doing?
Jill Jaracz: Um, well, I did think about being a, a volunteer who got thanked on the jumbotron, and then I went down to the mix [00:11:00] zone in hockey and there was a poor, very frazzled volunteer who was trying to organize mixed zone requests.
Alison Brown: Oh.
Jill Jaracz: And trying to help pull the players who. Journalists wanted to talk to, which I thought was very, very nice to have that set up. And then there was another volunteer with the tray. So that if you were standing far away, you could put your phone on the tray and they would hold it closer to the skater so you could get the in information too, which I thought was also lovely.
But this poor, fairly frazzled volunteer had a roster for both teams and clearly it helped when we said what number we wanted. ’cause she didn’t know the names yet. She’ll get there.
Alison Brown: And it’s a lot of teams with a lot of names. Yes. And a lot of similar names.
Jill Jaracz: And a lot of different names in different languages.
Alison Brown: Right.
Jill Jaracz: So I would,
Alison Brown: you
Jill Jaracz: would assist
Alison Brown: her?
Jill Jaracz: I would, I would [00:12:00] gladly take on that responsibility and be like, I got your number. I would know all that stuff by now. Um, okay.
Cultural moments
So cultural moments. Did you have cultural moments? I went
Alison Brown: to a new train station. You did? I made a new transition, yes. I went directly from women’s hockey to figure skating.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. How did you do that?
Alison Brown: It took an hour.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: Because
Jill Jaracz: everything, oh wait. Is that a good thing or a bad? I don’t even know.
Alison Brown: No, it was an appropriate amount of time. ’cause everything takes, it takes you an hour to get every anywhere, but it was just, I had to change at a different station.
Jill Jaracz: Oh.
Alison Brown: I was very proud of myself for figuring it out.
Jill Jaracz: Very good. I also went to a new station today because I went directly from speeds, short track in the morning, which at the same. Uh, venue as figure skating and I went directly to the brand new hockey arena. And to do that, I had to [00:13:00] take an S train.
Alison Brown: Oh,
Jill Jaracz: I’m
Alison Brown: afraid of the s trains.
Jill Jaracz: Um, this was not bad.
Alison Brown: Okay.
Jill Jaracz: So that was good. And it got there much more quickly than taking the metro all the way in and then all the way back out. But we will get to the hockey venue. For sure. I ha went to the grocery store this morning and have started using the self checkout line.
Alison Brown: That’s impressive.
Jill Jaracz: Note to all American grocery stores.
This is how you stop, start preventing loss at the self checkout because in America we have a little issue with people. Stealing stuff from the self checkout. You get your receipt, it has a barcode on it, there is a gate to get out, and you have to scan your barcode on your receipt in order for the gates to open.[00:14:00]
Alison Brown: But then how does that prevent you from
Jill Jaracz: I stealing things, things I, I, I mean, maybe just you don’t get out fast enough and if they see you on the cameras.
Alison Brown: Oh. France was like that too, with the barcode scan.
Jill Jaracz: Oh,
Alison Brown: that, the self checkout. Oh, that’s
Jill Jaracz: right, that’s right, that’s right.
Alison Brown: No, I like go I, I like visiting my friends who get seats so much better.
The checkout people get to sit down in Italy. There’s no reason that they need to stand, give those poor people a chair.
Sponsor watch
Jill Jaracz: We have sponsor watch.
Alison Brown: Yes. So what I have noticed today was that the. Participatory elements are given a sponsor name, so when they encourage you to do the rave, it’s the Corona wave.
Jill Jaracz: We had that in hockey.
Alison Brown: Yes. Yes. That’s, it was in hockey this morning. Um, omega is on the jumbotron.
Jill Jaracz: With the countdown clock, which I do love this video. Very, very [00:15:00] much.
Alison Brown: Yes. And TCL is also a, A manufacturer, and that is on the jumbotron. And then the Alibaba Cloud replay moment is another participatory thing that they do, but they call it, it’s not just a replay moment, it’s the Alibaba Cloud replay moment.
Interesting. So these are kind of not on television, it’s only in the arena. You’re seeing this. But still it’s that that sponsor creep.
Jill Jaracz: Did, did I tell you that you didn’t need the Corona wave at speed skating because. The Dutch were an audio corona wave. It was, it was really amazing when, when skaters go around, just the audio goes around with them.
’cause every, everybody from the Netherlands is cheering like crazy.
Alison Brown: I think everybody from the Netherlands period, not just in the stadium. I think you could have robbed a bank in the Netherlands during that race and nobody would’ve [00:16:00] noticed.
Keep our flame alive
Jill Jaracz: All right. Before we get to today’s results, we’d like to take a moment to thank everybody who donated to the fundraiser we held to get us here and provide 32 daily episodes from Milano Cortina over the course of both the Olympics and Paralympics, in order to give you the closest experience possible to actually being here.
This is a little expensive to produce, and we are one of the few podcasts to published episodes year round. So we need a little help in keeping our flame alive. For the, for the between times until LA 2028, you can go to flame alive pod.com. You’ll see a, a little pop-up there, or click on the support link and uh, we’ve got all these options for you.
You can do a one-off donation if you’d like to become an ongoing patron. We have some. Uh, exclusives throughout the, the gains for patrons and, uh, we would appreciate it. If you appreciate the independent voice we bring, please consider supporting us [00:17:00] today@flamealivepod.com.
Milano Cortina 2026: Results
We’ve got results
Alpine skiing
Alison Brown: Alpine first?
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Did you watch any of this?
Jill Jaracz: I did not get to this. I did. Went on my list to see what happened.
Alison Brown: I watched some of this and lots of people were crashy, crashy, not so much on downhill as in the slalom portion. A lot of people were crashing outta slalom. Oh, really? Yes. Apparently there is one section of the slalom course that, uh, forces the skiers to do a tempo change, and it’s very difficult to anticipate and they lose their rhythm and slip out.
Jill Jaracz: Huh. That’s interesting. Okay. And that happened to McKayla Shiffrin?
Alison Brown: No, McKayla finished.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay. Oh, okay.
Alison Brown: But she struggled with it because her partner, breezy Johnson, won the downhill section, but she ended McKayla Schiffrin ended up fourth in, uh. The slalom section and did struggle in this little tempo [00:18:00] change spot.
So they finished off the podium.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, that is a bummer. But gold went to Austria’s, Ariana Radler and Katerina Huber Silver went to Germany’s. Uh, Kira. Ariel Kelman and Emma er and Bronze went to the us’. Jacqueline Wiles and Paula Malon. Oh, and Sophia Gaja crashed.
Alison Brown: She crashed in her down. She actually crashed but didn’t, thankfully was not hurt.
So we’ll be seeing her in Super G.
Biathlon
Jill Jaracz: Moving over to Biathlon. We had some great pictures and stories from listener Patter who we thanked a couple days ago. He was at Biathlon for the mixed relay. And we might get more of a report for him. Gotta collect it with a lot of other stuff. But thank you, Peter, for all the great pictures you had from Cortina and from uh, biathlon.
I’m very, very jealous.
Alison Brown: Yeah, I [00:19:00] know. This is, this is breaking your heart that you’re not seeing Killing by
Jill Jaracz: Alon. It’s, it’s killing me because, you know why? Because there are like 24,000 fans there. This, there’s more, there are more tickets sold for by Alon than any other sport at the games.
Alison Brown: Not a big surprise.
Jill Jaracz: Not a big surprise. I heard on the feed. That they don’t have the same amount of cheering as a normal World Cup would have.
Alison Brown: Are they being Olympic reserved?
Jill Jaracz: No. The commentators thought that maybe there were people who were new to Biathlon.
Alison Brown: Oh, good. Well,
Jill Jaracz: oh, good.
Alison Brown: So
Jill Jaracz: good that they’re new to biathlon, but, rough that, uh, they’re not doing the same amount of cheering.
They will get there, I’m sure.
Alison Brown: They can’t, it, it gets you. And you cannot control yourself.
Jill Jaracz: Cannot control yourself. You pay for a seat, you only need the edge. Uh, today we had the Men’s 20 k individual gold. Went to Norway’s Johan, Olaf Botin, who [00:20:00] honored his recently deceased teammate, silver, uh, gut bachan.
When he crossed the finish line, he yelled, we did it silver into the cameras. That’s really tough because Silver was a, a goodbye athlete on the World Cup circuit and passed away really suddenly from a, a heart issue, I believe, and that’s been really, really tough On the Norwegians, uh, silver went to Eric Perot from France and then bronze went to Ster La Home Reed from Norway, who is having a bad week
Alison Brown: because let me tell you something, this man may have won bronze, but he is a walking red flag.
Oh. Or a skiing red flag, as the case may be,
Jill Jaracz: might be, I don’t know why he did this, but in the mix zone, he said, been the worst week of his life. Six months ago, he met the love of his life, and then three months ago he cheated on her.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. And, and then last week he told her, uh, [00:21:00] so he said, I, I had to pull up the press conference for this.
Watch a little bit of it, and he goes, you make choices. And today he made the choice to tell the world, and I guess it just shocked the Norwegian press.
Alison Brown: Why would you lay? Because it’s not about him really. Why isn’t he prote? Well, he cheated on her. Why isn’t he protecting her? The,
Jill Jaracz: I think, well, I mean, I don’t think he named her or anything
Alison Brown: like that, but still, how long is it gonna take for people to figure out and publish this woman’s
Jill Jaracz: name?
I know probably, but he, I think the, the part of it was he tries to be a good role model and he said I did something stupid and I need to own up to it. I think that’s where he’s at in the processing. I do think it’s a bad time to be at that place in the processing. ’cause the Olympics ain’t the best place in the world to, to do that
Alison Brown: process.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah,
Alison Brown: yeah. Well, at least he announced to the [00:22:00] world, don’t date me. So he did protect the women of Norway. So I guess that’s as a role model, should
Jill Jaracz: alright, Shuk, Ani, Sean Dougherty finished 80th. He had a rough shooting day with six penalties. So tough. I’m sorry, Sean.
Hopefully the sprint will be better.
Alison Brown: He’s got more races.
Cross-country skiing
Jill Jaracz: He does have more races. That is for sure. Let’s move over to cross country. We had the Sprint Classic for both the men and the women today.
Alison Brown: You know, who had a good day today?
Jill Jaracz: Ben Ogden from the US and, and, uh, Johanne. Sobo,
Alison Brown: no, Sweden. Oh yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Look at the
Alison Brown: women’s results.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, yeah. Which I did have this up, to be quite honest. I had this up and I watched it. Sweden swept the podium for the Women’s Sprint Classic. It, uh, gold went to Lin Fan, silver went to Yana Sling and Bronze went to Maya Alquist. It was a race. They were just. [00:23:00] Amazingly good and so fast, and it looks like they’re running on skis.
It’s really, really fun to watch. Shuk Ani, Julia Kern made it to the finals, which I was so excited about.
Alison Brown: This is the best finish of an American woman in this particular race. So she came up sixth. Pretty good,
Jill Jaracz: right? She was a lucky loser to get into the final and that’s the mark in the system. I saw the ll and I’m like, is that lucky Loser?
Alright. Um, and she was in the mix right in the beginning and something happened on one of her last hills and she just got out of the tracks. I don’t know if that was strategy to get on. Uh, to, to, to
Alison Brown: pass.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And she just fell behind. So I, I, it was tough, but I was so proud to see her do so well.
Alison Brown: And Bruno Mora was 74th.
She did not make it outta that first qualification, but she raced. She’s an Olympian.
Jill Jaracz: That’s true. That is [00:24:00] very true. Congratulations, Bruna, if you, uh, follow Jesse Diggins. She did not get out of the quarterfinals due to bruising her ribs in that crash in the triathlon. Ooh. And she said it made it difficult to accelerate.
Alison Brown: Can’t breathe.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And the men’s side gold went to Johannes Kbo, who won his seventh gold medal. Out of all the games he’s been in and he still has more racing to go.
Alison Brown: And he’s not even 30 years old yet.
Jill Jaracz: I know he is a machine. Uh, silver went to the USA’s. Ben Ogden, also a Lucky loser to get to the final.
And speaking of Breezy Johnson d Headbands, uh, he is also a knitter and he is working on mittens with Joan of Ark on them.
Alison Brown: That’s a very particular style, but he’s the first American man to win a cross country medal since 1976. So that
Jill Jaracz: that helps, that helps that streak. Uh, I, [00:25:00] well, we, we’ve, uh, broken that streak.
That’s good.
Alison Brown: And bronze.
Jill Jaracz: Bronze went to Norway’s, Oscar Ostad Vike. And, uh, our Gus Schumacher finished 31st in qualification. One spot out of advancing. Oh
Alison Brown: gosh. That’s a heartbreaker, isn’t it?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Curling
Moving over to curling.
Alison Brown: Speaking of Heartbreakers,
Jill Jaracz: oh
Alison Brown: man, these matches were tough.
Jill Jaracz: They, they really were.
If you had tickets to curling today, you saw some good stuff going on. So we had the metal gains for curling. Gold went to Sweden, silver went to US Bronze. Went to Italy. Huh? The Sweden versus US game. Sweden won six to five, came down to the final two stones. USA was winning five four in the last end. But Sweden had the hammer, which meant they threw last.
And the USA was in scoring position. Sweden knocked him out, got two points, got the [00:26:00] win. That was tough, but still first US medal for. The best. Um, and then bronze, your beloved Italy,
Alison Brown: my boy Amos
Jill Jaracz: pulled it out. They beat the favorites. Great Britain, five to three
Alison Brown: and nobody got more than one point per end.
It was just a chip, chip, chip kind of, uh, match, which whoever hangs on longer is, is who wins.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, so very glad to see them medal and I think they are pleased even though it’s not the repeat gold, but they did get on the podium at a home games
Alison Brown: and the announcer called her Queen Stia of Cortina because Cortina being her hometown where she grew up.
Jill Jaracz: Aw. She dedicated her medal to her teammate and best friend Angela Rome who, uh. Uh, [00:27:00] was not named to the Italian national team. In favor of Rebecca Mariani, daughter of technical director Marco Mariani Rome appeared appealed to, uh, she appealed to Cass, the court of arbitration for sport. Her appeal was rejected,
Alison Brown: and that naming was very, very controversial because Rebecca Mariani is much less experienced than, uh, Angela Roma and much less, um, successful on the World Cup circuit.
So this was a pretty clear favoritism call, but because of the way the rules are written in the naming of the team, there’s enough subjectivity in those rules that cast could not take the case,
Jill Jaracz: which is tough because then you have three teammates who have to play with her and may not appreciate that she’s there and she has to work with three people who may not appreciate that [00:28:00] she’s there.
So we’ll see how Italy does in the team competition, but that’s something to keep an eye on.
Figure skating.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: You went to the men’s short program tonight?
Alison Brown: I did, and at first it was kind of low energy and then Donovan Korea came out and just absolutely wowed everybody. He did have some uh, some stumbles.
He stepped out, but the crowd adores him. The,
Jill Jaracz: he is so much fun to watch.
Alison Brown: He is so energetic and the Mexican flags everywhere. There were people in Sombreros, there were people with Day of the Dead makeup. I mean, it was no joke for this kid who’s like in the second group.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: Brian Boitano showed up at one point with Ben Gusto and, and, uh, Valerie Marche.
Uh, Valentina Marche for the little chitchat on the screen. And all of a sudden Brian Boitano just pops up. I think he’s in [00:29:00] a little box, like first he popped up as your bartender. Mm-hmm. At the Boitano Lounge. Now he popped up at, at this event. The stuffed pierogi was back for the Polish skater.
Jill Jaracz: Nice.
Alison Brown: I know that’s been a big hit.
And remember when not Olympic champion, Sarah Hughes was on the show and she mentioned Children of the Void.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Well, I have a nomination for at least someone who’s looking into the edge of the void, and that is Alexander Ko from Estonia. He did a short program to Prince’s Kiss.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: He wore a little purple, bolero sparkly jacket and a mess shirt.
Jill Jaracz: Whoa.
Alison Brown: And there was a lot of kissing at motions and a lot of hip shaking that went into this. It was supposed to be sexy, I think, but it was slightly ish. So I will, I will have to nominate that to Sarah’s children at the void if it’s, if it’s quite void enough, but more importantly, at the end of the night.
In [00:30:00] the standings, IA Molina did come out on top. He had put in, and he does this often. He puts in one program, but then skates a different one. He had actually planned to do a quad axle in combination. What? Which I don’t think he’s competed yet. He ended up not doing that. He did the quad lutz in combination and a triple axle.
So this is not the highest. Point value short program he can do. So he’s only like five points ahead,
Jill Jaracz: only,
Alison Brown: right? Uh, whereas sometimes he’s 10, 20, 30 points ahead. Um. And Yumi is in second. He had a little step out on, on one of his jumps, but he’s only, I believe five points behind
Jill Jaracz: that is correct.
Alison Brown: So that’s given that Ilya backed off a little bit and he had a step out that was pretty close.
And third is, uh, [00:31:00] Francis, Adam ca, him fa brought the house down. Absolutely brought the house down with his Leonardo da Vinci program. Ooh, just stunning. Surprisingly, Daniel Grassl from Italy had a gorgeous short and is in fourth,
Jill Jaracz: which is good because then we get to see the conclave.
Alison Brown: So the pope will be named in the long program of, of the men’s, uh, figure skating competition.
It’s very important. He’ll be in the final group and then rounding out, the final group is gonna be Mikhail Shutoff from Kazakhstan, and this is where I get to mention his coach, Olympic champion, Alexia Romanov, who I had a moment with back at the World Championships. Ooh. Where he’s very paternal with.
Macal, he’s very protective of him. And you can see that in all their, their interactions. And during the press conference at the World Championships, uh, shutoff was [00:32:00] clearly very nervous. He’s very young. He’s not meddled a lot in these kind of level of, of competitions. And Umoff was really. Encouraging him to, to do well at the press conference.
And I saw him encouraging him. And then Armando winked at me and I will live on that wing forever.
Jill Jaracz: Very nice. Very nice. Sato is not doing well. Did he have a bad night?
Alison Brown: He had a bad night. He had a fall, just a straight out fall and a stumble. So he, I believe is in eighth,
Jill Jaracz: ninth. He’s in ninth. I have this pulled up.
Also because Donovan Carillo, he is in 23rd place. Just qualified.
Alison Brown: Just qualified for the finals.
Jill Jaracz: So good for you, Donovan.
Freestyle skiing
Moving over to freestyle skiing, we had, uh, qualifying for the women’s moguls. And so in, uh, first place right now is, uh, Kar [00:33:00] Anthony, who is the def, uh, from Australia, who’s the defending gold medalist. Second place is Elizabeth Lendy from the USA, and third place is Olivia Jacko from the USA and from your very own.
Alison Brown: Connecticut. She’s the Connecticut girl. In fact, my state senator sent out a list.
Of all the Connecticut and not only is she from Connecticut, she’s from about two towns over.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, nice.
Alison Brown: So I, you know, I’ll, I’ll wave at the town when I get home and be like, that’s where Olivia lives.
Jill Jaracz: Knock on her door, ask her to be on the show.
Alison Brown: I might do that. I probably know her family.
Jill Jaracz: We had men’s free ski slopestyle medal competition today.
Gold went to Norway’s Birk. Rude silver went to Alex Hall from the USA and bronze went to Luca Harrington from New Zealand
Alison Brown: Go Silver fur.
Jill Jaracz: So I’ve got a haka to look for. Uh, Harrington had two blown runs.
Alison Brown: Everybody had two blown runs. [00:34:00] It was, nobody got more than in the finals, one solid rundown.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: I don’t know if they were, and it seemed to be, they were just taking big chances.
So big risk, big reward, or big disaster. So nobody got more than one solid rundown. So it was really, who could at least put it all together once and then keep going.
Ice hockey
Jill Jaracz: Wow. Wow, wow. Um, let’s move over to ice hockey follow up file. Shuk ani, Ava McNaughton. Got to play the last one minute and 48 seconds of yesterday’s game.
Alison Brown: Excellent.
Jill Jaracz: So good to see. ’cause she’s brand new to the team, so it’s good to see that she’s getting a little bit of playing time.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: I went to the USA Canada game
Alison Brown: that they put in the bigger arena.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Thank goodness we got ourselves in Olympic Arena.
Alison Brown: Is it big? It’s big. It’s
Jill Jaracz: [00:35:00] good. It’s
Alison Brown: be better if it was finished.
Jill Jaracz: Not finished, but it’s done.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: And so I got there like four hours early. I went straight from speed or short track. To this venue because I knew the tables would go and I was bound and determined to have a table seat. I was the first one there for quite some time.
Alison Brown: Nobody else had the lack of confidence in number of table seating that you had?
Jill Jaracz: No, because I, I had no, because I had been burned so many days. The, the venue is. Once you get up the Press Tribune stairs, although you could take an elevator, but I took the stairs, which are many, many flights. I don’t even know how many flights it is between B level and C level, which is, and there’s probably an A level and there’s probably one lower than that, which is where the media go in.
Alison Brown: You go in [00:36:00] the zero level
Jill Jaracz: and. The stairs between B level and C level might have been five flights just on their own. But there is an elevator. There’s an elevator.
Alison Brown: Oh,
Jill Jaracz: yeah. But I, I meant to count and then I just, I You lost count. You got tired. Yes. But you can see in the stairwell there hasn’t been painted it, you know, there’s patchy bits.
The. Concrete tile, cement. Tile. I’m not quite sure what makes up the flooring, but there are cracked pieces that just got put in. Uh, you can see the massive amount of construction materials and machinery that is next to the arena waiting to come back in and finish. Uh, our friend Tim, from every four years somehow got to talking to the venue manager.
And brought him how
Alison Brown: he finds these people. I don’t know.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So we talked with him for a long, long time. He was so nice and said [00:37:00] they got done about a second and a half before the first skater went on the ice. And there’s stuff that’s still not done because I put this picture up in our Facebook group.
The there, if you see like bright blue seats on one end and banners from Milano and Corino, those blue seats are temporary. They’re supposed to be permanent, and the banners are on this special wall that is hiding the construction. Behind there, because that’s supposed to be seats. And I know in the planning group, people were like, wait, there’s supposed to be 14,000 seats in the venue.
Why am I keeping getting, moving around? Well, they couldn’t finish the seating in time. So that’s that. The jumbo tron weighs like eight tons. They had an issue with the jumbo tron and they couldn’t, didn’t have time to lower it down. So they had to get somebody [00:38:00] to repel. down from the ceiling.
This is a specialized person if shocking, repelled on the ceiling to diagnose the problem. It also took a specialized person to fix the problem, which I can’t remember what the problem was, but a specialized kind of electrician to fix this problem, but the electrician could not repel, so they ended up getting like meta glasses.
The Repeller had them on and the electrician told him how to fix it. That sounds like a really bad idea. Well, it worked. The jumbotron worked. Okay.
There is an organ, this is like a real venue, like I feel so bad for the USA who still has to go back to the row, which is. Like a high school or college venue at this point, at best, a bad college venue at this point, [00:39:00] and they have to play another game when you have a taste of this venue. It’s crazy. The ice, I think the, the neutral zone looks a tiny bit smaller.
It’s a maybe a little bit different than the other rink and they were like, nah, it’s no big deal. Um, I don’t think it made a big deal in the play. As I said, there is an organist who, played during his warmup. Welcome back, Kotter, because Jim was like, wait, that’s welcome back. Do you recognize this song?
It’s Welcome Back Kotter the theme. And he played the Foo Fighters learning to fly. Uh, during the game, he played the duck dance and put on a happy face. Pink Pony Club, shake it off Benny in the Jets,
Alison Brown: all the classics.
Jill Jaracz: I know, right? That you won a hockey game and the karaoke song that they played was I of the Tiger.
Again, I, on the train back, talked to [00:40:00] listener Matt, who thank you for telling me you listened, Matt, because I was very, very shocked to hear a listener, CEO listener in the Wild. That was very nice. Yeah. And uh, he said also was talking about the lack of the Milano and Corina song.
Alison Brown: Nobody is singing. They made a song, they made a dance.
They have been encouraging Volare karaoke, but it’s inconsistent. Let’s have more theme going here.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Bring back the Milano Cortina
Alison Brown: dance. And this, we have to say, going back to Paris, Paris was prime. On the consistency across the venues that you got the same experience everywhere you went.
Jill Jaracz: Y yeah. I think in terms of songs and in terms of let’s do X thing.
I mean, think different venues had different things based on the sport. Yes, but, but you got similar songs and similar, [00:41:00] weird, creepy, 1924. Videos that had been AI altered,
Alison Brown: but I’m coming to appreciate it because it really gave a feel of the games.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: There’s not enough feel of consistency with these games.
Jill Jaracz: They’re trying at the big hockey arena, I think. Okay. So we, I saw, I had my first Tina Sighting. They had a Tina there.
Alison Brown: Excellent.
Jill Jaracz: The in-house host was quite good. A lot of singing, a lot of. Encouraging, uh, funky stuff on the jumbotron cameras, but you also had a packed house. There were very, very few empty seats.
So I would, if, if it was 99% sold, that would be a conservative estimate. It was pretty much almost full, but it was Canada versus us. Right. So you have a built in crowd.
Alison Brown: Everybody wants that game.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And And you did have the Canadian fan who got on the jumbotron and gave the elbows [00:42:00] up. That was awesome.
But what
Alison Brown: happened at that game?
Jill Jaracz: Well, no. Okay. No, let’s get to Coke bottles and food. The food situation I’ve heard is not great. They have like hamburgers and hot dogs, and I’ve heard the hot dogs are not good. They also have sandwiches. That are like, you know, like the takeaway sandwiches in a container.
They have coke and bottles, but they don’t have the cups here. The cups I have only seen at the opening ceremony. Huh. But they do, and, and in Europe they have a, a law where you have to have, the manufacturer has to. Have the cap for the bottle permanently attached. So when you twist it off, you don’t twist off the whole cap.
Right. It stays on because they have found that, uh, a large part of sea plastics are bottle tops. Cap. Yes. Except for at this [00:43:00] venue, they rip off the bottle top. I have no idea why they do this, but they do Rip it off and give you the plastic bottle and say, please recycle it.
Alison Brown: Huh.
Jill Jaracz: So that was just kind of bizarre too.
I, I heard they sold out of a lot of food.
Alison Brown: I have heard that as well.
Jill Jaracz: So we have not planned well food wise. Um, this was a good, well, no, I don’t know if it was a good game or not, but it was fun to watch because it felt like you were in a pro stadium watching a pro game, and you don’t get that feeling. The small arena for the women.
Alison Brown: No. No.
Jill Jaracz: And that made me really sad.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: That, yeah, that women’s hockey, which is such a beautiful product,
Alison Brown: was treated so poorly.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
It was a blowout.
Alison Brown: [00:44:00] Shocking. Really? Yes.
Jill Jaracz: But. Canada’s Captain Marie Philippe Pulant was hit heavily into the boards early in last night’s game that they played, and so she sat the rest of the game, suffered some sort of lower body injury, and is day-to-day now. And so she set out this game versus the us It’s group play, and I think Canada has done well pretty so far.
Alison Brown: Yeah. Canada has advanced to the, I think already before this game was guaranteed into the quarter finals. So for them, the game didn’t matter, so they may have played some of their less experienced players,
Jill Jaracz: right,
Alison Brown: to give them some ice time to get them ready if they need them. If people start going down.
Jill Jaracz: And they got a wallop pin five zero US and it started with, uh, 1615 left in the first period, first US goal. So all free Bird tonight for [00:45:00] the goal songs?
Alison Brown: No. B baby?
Jill Jaracz: No. No. Well,
Alison Brown: we,
because
Alison Brown: apparently you have seen nothing yet.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. Um, our little bruiser. I’m not sure she’d like to be called our little bruiser, but our bruiser, Rory Gilday, she was bruising and in her first period she got into a little scuffle that almost turned into a big fight.
That was fun to watch. And I talked with her briefly in the mix zone. So, um, I asked about the ice and different. Kind of brushed that off in a way that it didn’t, you know, it doesn’t matter as much as the press has made this out to be. She didn’t say that, but that was the impression that you got. It’s like this was blown out of proportion as the presses want to do, but, uh, had a good time.
So excellent. Those of those patrons who get audio, I’m gonna try to [00:46:00] string together some audio. I took a fair amount of audio in the mixed zone. We’ll see how well some of the quality is because, uh, Layla Edwards came through. Layla scored her first Olympic goal.
Alison Brown: Oh, nice.
Jill Jaracz: So a lot of people wanted to talk with her.
And I have the phone on the tray and she’s kind of soft spoken, so. We’ll see what, uh, what the quality of the audio is like, but know that it exists.
Alison Brown: Game that I was at earlier was Japan and Sweden. Sweden won four nothing. Sweden is good. Ooh, Sweden is very good. And there was an entire section in matching Swedish jerseys of the fans.
They, it was like they brought a school group except it was. Old men. So I don’t know. Honestly, this could have been like the parents of the team. It was just a really large group in all matching shirts, which made it even more fun. And then Germany beat,
Jill Jaracz: oh, well, what’s their song?
Alison Brown: [00:47:00] I think it’s a Swedish pop song.
I didn’t recognize it. Okay. There was a lot of, oh, and then a lot of words. I didn’t know what they meant. Uh, Germany beat Italy two to one and Finland beat Switzerland, three to one.
Jill Jaracz: Very nice. So the fins are making a comeback after.
Alison Brown: Nice to see them get a win over Norovirus along with another team.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
So the quarterfinals are gonna be held back in the small arena and the semi-finals move to the big arena.
Luge
Moving over to Luge, which we have some excitement,
Alison Brown: just a little bit. Little bit.
Jill Jaracz: I, I did, when I saw the press release come through our email,
Alison Brown: you went back and watched.
Jill Jaracz: I did go back and watch, but I also pumped my fist and yelled.
Yeah. Thankfully not many people were in the Press Tribune yet.
Alison Brown: Okay, so do results first.
Jill Jaracz: Alright. Gold went to, uh. Women’s singles Luge Gold. Went to Yulia Talbots from Germany who set a [00:48:00] track record on run number two and never looked back. Silver went to Alina Botta from Avia, who had two start records over her four runs, and then bronze went to Shukla Son’s very own.
Ashley Farson. Who represents the USA, but in her heart, we know she represents Team Keith, the Flame Alive.
Alison Brown: That’s right.
Jill Jaracz: She moved up to the third place on run number three and stayed there for the bronze.
Alison Brown: And she had some of the best reactions on the podium. So if you have not seen this medal ceremony, go back and check it out because she’s so emotional.
All three of them are very emotional. She is especially emotional. Um. Also fun ’cause she’s ours.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And what I loved about her last run is just before she pulled off, she’s got this little smile that comes over her face and it was just like she was having such a good time.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: And it’s just so nice.
And, uh, you know, she did it. She believed [00:49:00] in herself and she got on the podium and well, worked really hard. Let’s, let’s not
Alison Brown: discount that. Yes.
Jill Jaracz: But yes. Super proud of you, Ashley.
Short Track speed skating
Moving over to short track speed skating. I went to some of this because went to bed very late last night. Uh, and you know what?
I’m not gonna forget to tell you this. I woke up before my alarm because I heard noise outside and I heard a big bang and I thought, I heard people yelling and I thought, what is going on out there? And it was apparently nothing because I did not hear continued screaming and I did not continue hear continued banging, and I slept right through it.
And I, well, you should have because it was nothing, but I was up then. So I was not happy about that. But I did miss the 500 and I thought to myself, well, if you don’t get there on time, something bad’s gonna happen. And it did because our Corinne Stoddard did not [00:50:00] advance out of the heats for that. Then the men’s had, the men had the 1000 meter heats today as well.
I also missed those, but I was there in time for the mixed team relay,
Alison Brown: which was the most exciting race of the night.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh. It was. It was just insane. How, because the mixed team relay has 25,000 people on the track all at the same time, all doing different things. So you’ve got four people racing.
You’ve got the rest of the people, some of them who are recovering. And some are who are getting ready to go out on the track. And
Gold went to Italy, silver went to Canada, bronze went to Belgium. It’s their first medal of the games. They were excited. Italy is thrilled. It’s the first medal of the games for Ariana fan Fontana, who was in her fifth Olympics, and likely was a. Let me give a home home games experience.
Alison Brown: Well, she started her Olympic career in Torino and [00:51:00] now ending her Olympic, most likely, I should say, she hasn’t announced it, but most likely ending her Olympic career.
Again here in Italy, the woman has 12 Olympic medals now.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. It is amazing.
Alison Brown: More than any other short tracks speed skater in history
Jill Jaracz: for the us This was heartbreaking. Yes, because they were doing really well in the semi-finals and stumbled and fell, and that was it for them. They couldn’t recover from that.
And then in the B final, which Netherlands got an Olympic record on the B final,
Alison Brown: that’s how tough this, this, uh, race was.
Jill Jaracz: They, uh, one, uh, I think it was Kristen Santos, Griswold tripped kind of in the middle of the track. Um, Tim, of course, was talking to one of the ice guys [00:52:00] as he talks to everybody and finds out the most fabulous stuff.
There are spots in the soft that are ice. There are spots on the ice that are soft, and I wasn’t sure if that was soft for short track or soft for figure skating. So they’re working on it and trying to, the, the ice is getting better and better, but it’s still kind of a work in progress. Um, uh, the US ended up finishing eighth overall, so our Corin daughter has a diploma, but I don’t think they’re gonna be very happy with this.
No, it was really, really frustrating and you could tell. Just how down they were. And, and I believe, don’t quote me, but somebody else, like Korea or China, China felt had a big fall and that caused them to be out of the metal hunt.
Alison Brown: I mean, and the fact that we’re not seeing Korea here. Says that there was something that went wrong for them as well, because there’s such big gangbusters on short track in general.
Jill Jaracz: Right. You know, and then on the [00:53:00] final, China and Italy were one and two, and it was really close. It was back and forth really close. And then Italy, uh, surged ahead and China stumbled and that was it. So I wonder if the ice is something going on or if it’s just. Jitters or just mistakes. You know, shorts can, weird days, short track, anything can happen.
Alison Brown: Chaos.
Jill Jaracz: It was chaotic, but it was fabulous and, and we are here for that. Moving over to ski Jump, we had the mixed team competition. Gold went to Slovenia, silver went to Norway, and bronze went to Japan. So the Ski jumping competition continues, and that, that is on my watch list.
Alison Brown: You’ve got more to catch. I know.
TKFLASTAN Watch
Jill Jaracz: I, I also realized like I have a five hour train ride in a couple of days, so I might be catching something. We do have people from Team Keith, the Flame alive, , competing tomorrow.
Alison Brown: Yes. Chloe Kim in snowboard, halfpipe [00:54:00] qualification, Deidre Erwin in Women’s 15 kilometer Individual Biathlon and Sivan.
Forgan and Sophia Kirkby in doubles luge.
Shout outs
Jill Jaracz: And we have shout outs.
Alison Brown: Yes. Benjamin Smith from Charlotte, North Carolina
Jill Jaracz: and Olympian, Ben Smith. Well, he, he’s not. An athlete Olympian. He’s a coach. Olympian was the US Women’s Ice Hockey Coach from 1998 through 2006, during which the team earned a full set of medals, and then he also coached the 2012 Youth Olympic Games US Boys Hockey Team
Alison Brown: and Rosie W in Vercher, Vermont.
Who is trying to indoctrinate her 6-year-old daughter, uh, into also loving the Olympics. What’s killing me about this is we must have spoken to Rosie on one of our call-in shows. Yes. After Tokyo because that girl was a baby when we first talked to Rosie. So Rosie has been with us for quite some time, and I’m very [00:55:00] excited about being a part of this indoctrination process for this child.
Jill Jaracz: I am too. I am too. And we, we will need to have superfan Sarah on for like, how to indoctrinate your children episode because her son Wilson is just Mr. Team USA. And that happened from a very, very young age.
Alison Brown: Raising him, right?
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. You’re raising her right. Rosie? Rosie. Like Rosie Brennan, who is one of the us’ uh, cross country skiers, and this is her third Olympics.
So we’ve got somebody to cheer for, but.
Our mascots
And we have mascots.
Alison Brown: Yes. So we’re talking about Jill’s mascot for the games. Abby, who we posted a picture of Abby, which then encouraged other people to post a picture of their Olympic loving cats. So in the Facebook group, keep The Flame Alive Podcast. There is a whole chain of Olympic loving cats.
If that’s what you’re into, which you know I am
Jill Jaracz: excellent and that we’ll do it for [00:56:00] this episode. If you want even more of the most fun coverage of the games, hit us up. We are@flamealivepod.com. That is your so source for our socials and newsletter, which, oh God, a compliment on that today.
Alison Brown: Oh, thank you.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. . Oh.
Hey listeners, Jill here that, oh is kind of an appropriate place for our recording to go completely haywire and cut off for reasons unknown to me. But, uh, it’s three in the morning. Allison has already gone to bed, so I’m just hopping on to say, uh, be sure to tune in tomorrow for what we forgot to tell you today.
Uh, immediately I remembered stuff I forgot to tell you about the new hockey arena. So you’ll wanna tune in for that ’cause it was little eyeopening as well. And, uh, also thank you so much for listening. Your listenership means everything to us and we hope you’re having as much fun watching the games with us as, uh, you would [00:57:00] just be on.
Being on the couch by yourself. we really appreciate the community that you bring to the games, and it’s why we love doing the podcast for you. So thank you so much for listening. Re and Chow. Until tomorrow, keep the flame alive.