Invariably at an Olympics, we’re packing so much in that at some point we break. At Milano Cortina 2026, it’s Day 8, when Alison tells Jill about a very special friendship.
In other Olympic fun, Jill went out to Bormio to catch the men’s Alpine giant slalom–and Brazil’s first-ever Winter Olympics gold medal.
Alison went to speed skating for Jordan Stolz’ second gold medal of the Games and the wildness of the team pursuit.
Sports on today’s program:
- Alpine skiing
- Biathlon
- Cross-country skiing
- Curling
- Freestyle skiing
- Ice hockey
- Short track speed skating
- Skeleton
- Ski jumping
- Speed skating
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
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Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Day 8
Jill Jaracz: [00:00:00] Juan Journo and welcome to Keep the Flame Alive. Day eight coverage of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games. I am your host, Jill Jaracz, coming to you from Shuk Stan House. Joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown, Alison Chao com
Alison Brown: Chao. We’re halfway through.
Jill Jaracz: We are halfway through,
Alison Brown: so we’re now we’re on the downward slope of the S Schmo route.
There we go. We’ve climbed up and now we ski down.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. That’s right. When And s Schmo hasn’t even started yet. S schmo. We hardly knew. Ye. [00:01:00] That’s what we’re gonna say when this is over. Um. It’s been a day. It’s been a long day.
Alison Brown: You, you’ve had a very long
Jill Jaracz: day. Very long day. I’m I, I hit the wall about, uh, 30 minutes ago, I think.
Alison Brown: Uh, yeah. You need to get some sleep,
Jill Jaracz: so, yes. So, uh, did we forget anything yesterday?
Alison Brown: I don’t think we did.
Jill Jaracz: We did. I’ve forgotten that. I forgot something. So
Alison Brown: let’s go with it.
Jill Jaracz: That’s good. Um, what, I’m sure there’s something I’ve forgotten and I think on the train back from Borneo, I remembered something that I forgot.
I didn’t have to
Alison Brown: write it down.
Jill Jaracz: Means to write it down. Yeah, well I did but I just didn’t think to do that. Train was a little crowd. Anyway, let’s, uh, maybe we’ll remember tomorrow. Um, what officiating or volunteer job would you like to do?
Alison Brown: So, I was watching a metal ceremony actually on the television tonight.
And there are people who prepare the trays with the metal and the, uh, mascot and they lay it out just so, and put the ribbon, just [00:02:00] so that is right up my alley.
Jill Jaracz: There you go. Um, I went out to Alpine. I would like to be a forerunner.
Alison Brown: Okay. What is that?
Jill Jaracz: That is the person who goes down the track or people, there are several forerunners.
They go down the track before everyone else, before the competitors to make sure that the, the course is okay. Ski wise, you don’t have to go as fast as they do and people cheer for you at the end.
Alison Brown: That sounds very lovely.
Jill Jaracz: Um, cultural moments, ’cause you would’ve had them today. I
Alison Brown: guess I, I did have some cultural moments today and one of them is they do in fact celebrate Valentine’s Day.
Okay. In Italy, not as big of a deal. But the flowers at the Esee Longo were going fast.
It was extraordinarily crowded at the grocery store today and the two aisles that were busy flowers, chocolate.
Jill Jaracz: Oh yeah, sure.
Alison Brown: So the gifts here are the same as they are [00:03:00] in the United States.
Jill Jaracz: I am sure of that. I had a little bit of a cultural moment ’cause I walked around Borneo before I got on the bus to come back and, um, they had a fan zone.
Alison Brown: Oh, nice.
Jill Jaracz: So a little fan. Borneo is a very cute village, like the, the center of the city or village town, whatever you wanna call it. It’s not really a city, but the center is that really old. I don’t know how far it dates back to be quite honest, but it’s the stucco buildings painted a lot of ’em painted in different colors.
Buildings are close together. Roads are super narrow. Um, cobble stones, all that jazz.
Alison Brown: The, the traditional Italian Alpine Village.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So, uh, we had a fan zone. They had a little food stand, they had a stage that was playing some stuff, some feed, but in front of it was a band, a Rolling Stones cover band, complete with lead singer who was trying to be Mick Jagger.[00:04:00]
Alison Brown: Did he have moves like
Jill Jaracz: ick Jagger? He did try to have moves like Mick Jagger. I don’t know if he succeeded, but he tried really hard. He was committed to the bit.
Alison Brown: Were they singing in Italian or English?
Jill Jaracz: No, it was, it was English.
Alison Brown: Oh, nice.
Jill Jaracz: So that was kind of cool. They do have an official store there. That has a little bit different stuff.
Uh, no. Milo and Tina, or Milo and Tina, I guess we should be saying
Alison Brown: yes. Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Um, no Mascots.
Alison Brown: Yeah, the mascots. I, I actually, what? That’s what the newsletter this today is about.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: Cool. Is about the, the dearth of mascots
Jill Jaracz: and, uh, the running outta sizes of clothing. Harried, harried. Workers in the store, but I did get a little, uh, Borneo notebook.
That was cool. There was another store down the street that had some magnets that were kind of big and heart shaped. They were official products. They also had official, like wooden [00:05:00] forks, kind of like a wooden spoon, but it was a fork and it had Milano Cortina logo in it.
Alison Brown: Well, I wonder if they would take away the wooden forta.
Like they took away my medal forta, I dunno. When I went to uh, uh, short track,
Jill Jaracz: was that today?
Alison Brown: No.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Was that a forta from here?
Alison Brown: That was
Jill Jaracz: between me and the cabinets, which we will tell you about that when we get home and you win the four. KET does. This is not gonna be this pretty. Um, but yeah, it was, uh, formula was very cute.
Uh, lots of skiing places. It seemed like lots of people with cowbells and fun clothing. Uh, Swiss have a house there, so that’s pretty cool. And the Swiss had a good day, so they were all happy. And it was guest list only at the House of Switzerland.
Alison Brown: They didn’t want any of the riffraff?
Jill Jaracz: No, I guess not. No.[00:06:00]
Um, before we get to today’s results, we’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who donated to our fundraiser to get here. Uh, if you just found us, we’ve done, we’re doing 32 daily episodes from Milano Cortina over the course of the Olympics and the Paralympic. Little pricey to produce. We’re primarily listener supported, so we appreciate those.
We appreciate you listening to the show first of all. But we really appreciate those who go and, and support us financially and make sure we can come here. And they also help keep our flame alive throughout the year. And you know, LA’s next big games.
Alison Brown: Big money,
Jill Jaracz: big money, and I forgot big ideas. We’ll see how, how much we can do.
But if you, uh, appreciate what we do, if you could go to flame alive pod.com and there’s a, a donate link. There’s also a popup to help, uh, keep our flame alive throughout the year. We have some options for one-off donations and if you’d like to become an ongoing patron, we’ve got some [00:07:00] exclusives going on throughout these games.
Uh, so that’s flame Alive pod.com. We appreciate you results. Alpine.
Alison Brown: Well, I guess we start with you ’cause you were, yeah, you were there. Lady
Jill Jaracz: got to the mountains
Alison Brown: and you got home from the mountains. That’s
Jill Jaracz: both. Oh, this one’s easy peasy. Okay. Easy, easy. Uh, Tesero, the cross country stadium is one thing because it’s like one choice of of time.
You have to be on the, the thing, the bus or the train. Uh. Born mules every hour.
Alison Brown: That’s helpful.
Jill Jaracz: So I got on a different train coming home ’cause I was done a little bit early and of course I, I got on the, I got on the earlier bus and the bus got to the train station just as the train I wanted was pulling out.
But that’s okay. Um, ’cause
Alison Brown: there was one in an hour,
Jill Jaracz: uh, less than an hour. ’cause there were a few of ’em, but I think it was a slower one. But anyway, that is neither here nor there. [00:08:00] We, you go to Milan Central, you get on a regional train. And going there. I didn’t realize that there was a first class car. I thought regional was just all second class.
But there is a first class car. First class means tables, which I could have used today ’cause I was trying to edit on the, on the fly. Um, the tables have a cute little game imprinted on them. If you had dice and wanted to play a board game, you’ve got one right there that’s cute. And uh, you take that for a couple hours maybe.
You get to Toronto and then you get off the train, you exit the station, there’s a little group of volunteers there, happily directing you to the bus. That should be right there, ready to go. And you ride the bus for an hour through the mountains and it’s a gorgeous scenery.
Alison Brown: Nice.
Jill Jaracz: And then you get off and then you have to walk, probably close to a kilometer to get to the venue, but it’s not bad.
And then if you wanted to go to Lavino, you’d get on the next bus, you’d go to Levine. It was so [00:09:00] simple.
Alison Brown: Oh, that’s good.
Jill Jaracz: So, uh, crummy weather day up on the hill.
Alison Brown: It was snowing. Was it as,
Jill Jaracz: oh no, it was snowing up top and raining at the bottom.
Alison Brown: Oh, even worse.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So like goggles were fogging up and things like that.
You really had to feel the course if you were. If you were competing, um, the media center, I walked in and it’s wild because, and all I could think of was Pascal Wato, who, that our technology director that we’ve talked to, there are cables everywhere, cables, all these pink cables coming from the ceilings.
So you have your basic it, it’s fold long folding tables and they’re back to back. So you have. Just rows of two folding tables. Mm-hmm. All the way down. And every row of folding tables has its own. Chunk of pink cable and there’s like a pink [00:10:00] cable for every seat. So you can get higher speed internet. Hmm.
You plug right in so that you don’t get wifi glitches and that and helpful. I get, I, you know, I tried to plug in and it just didn’t work for me, so I don’t know what my system is like, but it, I tried. I still could use wifi and that was fine. First time I got a printed start list.
Alison Brown: Ooh.
Jill Jaracz: But you need it because there’s no.
Press Tribune, or at least today, there was no Press Tribune and they didn’t really even know where the Press Tribune was, but they knew where the mix zone was. And it’s basically, you stand in the mix zone and watch. So, um, the mix zone for, if you’re looking at the hill, if the mix zone for me was on the right side and the mix zone for broadcast was on the left.
Alison Brown: Okay.
Jill Jaracz: And
Alison Brown: that actually makes sense. ’cause when you see them come down, they sort of.
Jill Jaracz: They go that way because they go that way. That’s where the the sit and wait is. ’cause it’s not really kiss and cry. It’s a sit and [00:11:00] wait.
Alison Brown: Sit and wait. Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Um, oh, they did have, uh, walking, walking to the, the venue. There were, uh, parking spaces on the ground for Kissen ski.
Alison Brown: I saw that. I saw that photo. You had kissen ski.
Jill Jaracz: I thought that was so cute. And. So I’m standing there. It’s raining, it’s chilly. I am, I dressed well, Meredith, I dressed well. Um, I had hand warmers. I did have to use them, so that was nice. And I had a hat, but I, I was very pretty, pretty toasty, but it’s still chilly.
And you’re still, you’re getting wet. Sot you’re getting kind of miserable.
Alison Brown: There’s nothing you can do when you’re getting wet.
Jill Jaracz: Right? Heard this familiar voice. Turn around and it’s Tom Kelly. Oh. So that was nice to see him.
Always
Alison Brown: nice. See a familiar face when you’re in a very unfamiliar situation.
Jill Jaracz: But he, he was funny ’cause he’s like, I saw you.
I didn’t wanna yell. I was gonna, uh, like yell or kind of cross where you weren’t supposed to walk. He’s like, I didn’t wanna get yelled [00:12:00] at.
Alison Brown: Well, good to know that even Tom Kelly gets yelled at,
Jill Jaracz: right, right,
Alison Brown: right. At these situations.
Jill Jaracz: And so I basically had to stand in the us. Carol, for lack of a better word, ’cause they had kind of angled fences in the media thing and different countries had different sections.
And then the, the volunteer running the mixed zone said, oh, there’s only a couple of you, you can come up by the Reuters and a FP. ’cause they were going to do it interviews in English. So if you wanted the Americans, we could do that. Our Americans were River Radius who turned 28. A couple days ago, and I meant to ask him if he got a cake, but he did not have a good day, right, and was not happy.
So I did not ask that. Well, I also forgot by that time,
Alison Brown: but more importantly, probably not it, it probably escaped your brain because you knew
Jill Jaracz: instinctively
Alison Brown: not the time.
Jill Jaracz: And, [00:13:00] uh, you know, he’s, he’s been in the youth Olympic games too, so I wanted to, I did wanna ask him. Did being in that really, how does that prep you for the Olympic stage?
But maybe someday we’ll talk to him. Also, uh, talked with writer Sarchet, who, if you were watching the feed, ’cause I know NBC showed, well, I know NBC showed this, so it was on, caught on the feed. Uh, he had a handwritten bib number. And they showed them writing in Sharpie on a blank bib, his number, and I thought, what’s up with that?
And. I said, Hey, when he came down, he was talking with us. I was like, what’s the story behind the handwritten bib? And he said, oh, I, after the last run, I took it off and I put it in my coat pocket and I had a banana in there and the banana smashed all over it.
Alison Brown: Olympic skiers, they’re just like us,
Jill Jaracz: right?
This is the kind of reporting we do for you as listener. Laurie [00:14:00] told me. So that was a fun story. Um. It was, it was kind of sloppy and not sloppy, sloppy. But the, the great thing is, uh, Brazil has won its first ever Winter Olympic medal gold. And that goes to Lucas Pinero, Brothen from Brazil, obviously. Uh, silver went to Switzerland’s, Marco Mont and Bronze went to Louis Millard from Switzerland as well.
Um, uh. Lucas com was raised in Norway and he competes for his mother’s country of Brazil. Uh, he was so excited. Um, you know, even Marco Mont was, uh, very, very happy with his performance ’cause it did get sloppy. Uh, the course does change. I, I do have some audio that hopefully I can pull up for, uh, more color when I’m awake, I guess.
Um, but you know, he’s got three medals and four races, so [00:15:00] that’s, he’s pretty thrilled about that. Um, one of, and
Alison Brown: now he’s done,
Jill Jaracz: oh, is he done doing the swallow? Yes, he’s
Alison Brown: done.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. And, uh. The format was interesting because they did, for the, for the second and final run, they did the top 30 competitors.
Alison Brown: Hmm.
Jill Jaracz: And then after that, 31 through 73 were the minor countries. So, and when they go, they start at 45 second intervals.
Alison Brown: So they’re on the course at the same time?
Jill Jaracz: Yes, and it’s utter chaos. You look at the mountain and it’s just like when one goes past all the course, people go out and they’re fixing flags and all that stuff, and they get right off before the next person comes down, and it’s just really bizarre to watch.
And then if somebody falls, they have to close all the course and [00:16:00] make sure he’s okay and get him off.
Alison Brown: But what do you do if somebody falls but somebody else is already on the course?
Jill Jaracz: Uh, they have try, I don’t know,
Alison Brown: kind of like in a car accident. Yeah. You just gotta move it off the, uh, uh, off
Jill Jaracz: the road.
Yeah, I guess so.
Alison Brown: I guess so. Quit fast.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, it’s, uh, it was an interesting show. I will say that when you see the course from the bottom. You lose maybe 30 seconds of the run from the top, and then like they just kind of appear and they’re so tiny on that hill that that hill is so big and they are so tiny.
That’s my takeaway from watching Alpine in person with how big, and then you can also tell how much stronger the favorites were. The, the top tier athletes compared to the bottom tier. Not that they weren’t bad. I mean, obviously they made some Olympic standard and got here, but the, obviously the speed, [00:17:00] the way they could get lower and the way they attacked the course, so much different than the other ones.
But it’s good to have the participation. I mean, there was a guy from Eritrea there.
Alison Brown: Yes. I, we saw them in the opening. Uh, we saw s
Jill Jaracz: March March in the opening ceremony. That’s right. That’s right. There was an IOC. Person behind me chatting with some volunteers and they were naming all the flags that were posted on the thing. And then I just jumped in. ’cause I was like, no, Singapore’s that one.
Alison Brown: You could, you couldn’t resist.
Jill Jaracz: I could not resist. And then I told the IOC guy about flag all this game.
I like to play with producer Ben. Guess the flag every day. It’s awesome.
Alison Brown: I did, I did that with myself. Mm-hmm. At, uh, speed skating because I’m terrible with flags. Mm-hmm. I’m still working on Europe, but I got them all. Oh good. And I was so excited that I remembered Latvia,
Jill Jaracz: but that was a lot of fun to play, play guess the flags with people, I was really glad I went. I was surprised at how small the stands were because [00:18:00] they were pretty much the width of the course. Then there was like a general admission pen that was on the left side if you looked at the, the thing, and that was where the, the masses were, but it, it just felt small.
Hmm. And I don’t know if that’s normal for. Alpine venue or for that venue in particular, but it just felt like there, it could have been bigger for such a big event at the Winter Games, but I don’t know.
Alison Brown: And it was full. It sounds like
Jill Jaracz: it was full.
Alison Brown: Oh,
Jill Jaracz: wasn’t good. Not so much the mosh pit area, but the stands were full.
Alison Brown: Okay.
Jill Jaracz: It was good times. Uh, biathlon women had the 7.5 kilometer sprint. Today we are, we’re getting a new generation of Biathletes here. Whoa. What results? So gold went to Marin Kiy. Uh, from Norway, who’s 22, silver went to O [00:19:00] Ocean, Michelin from France, who’s 23 and bronze went to luau from France.
Alison Brown: So Michelin was leading, leading, leading, leading, and then wasn’t.
It was one of those last lap. Uh, uh, catchups and the announcers were losing their minds at these. Oh, I’m
Jill Jaracz: sure.
Alison Brown: Young Biathletes coming up, doing really well. The one thing I wanted to point out to you was, uh, Dorothea Vera had a, she
Jill Jaracz: had a bad day,
Alison Brown: had a really bad day. She had three shot penalties and finished 44th, which for her is just.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, that’s really, really bad. Skiing must have been off too, or the wax maybe was off. I don’t know. Uh, Elisa Ozzi shot clean. She finished fifth. I was really surprised about that, but she looked like she was struggling on the skis.
Alison Brown: It was not great weather there as well.
Jill Jaracz: Hmm hmm. And in fourth, a different Bulgarian.
Milena [00:20:00] Todorova. Where are they coming from besides Bulgaria People? I know they’re coming from Bulgaria, but they just are out of the woodwork, man.
Alison Brown: So something about the new generation has decided that we’re gonna make a little show at the Milan Olympics.
Jill Jaracz: Moving over. Oh, what’d they say?
Alison Brown: and before we do that, Deirdre Irwin.
Jill Jaracz: Oh yes. Thank
Alison Brown: you. Shot clean.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Finished 47th qualifies for tomorrow’s pursuit race.
Jill Jaracz: Very good. Again, with the skis.
Alison Brown: Right. The, her shooting was great. And then she was slow on her skis, which is not like her at all.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So
hope, hope the pursuit is better.
Jill Jaracz: In CrossCountry, the women had the four by 7.5 kilometer relay gold. Went to Norway, silver went to Sweden, bronze went to Finland. Uh, Julia Kern, our. Team Keith, the flame alive, cross country skier and team USA finished fifth tough day there for them.
Alison Brown: More crummy weather. It was crummy weather all across the mountains today,
Jill Jaracz: boy, oh [00:21:00] boy.
But interesting tidbits. Uh, Astrid or Lind from Norway got her first Olympic gold medal at age 38.
Alison Brown: Never too old.
Jill Jaracz: I guess not. And that’s surpri. I mean, really in Norway, the competition to be on that team is just. Incredible. So good for you for getting there and sticking with it for so long. And then, uh, Sweden.
Has had just killed it in the individual stuff. But Ava Anderson fell twice during her leg
Alison Brown: and did just fall. It really looked like she lost her ski at one point. She, she was this poor girl who is a very accomplished skier and has medaled in the individual events, had a very rough leg, so it’s kind of a miracle that Sweden pulled, uh, pulled out a silver on this one.
Wow.
Jill Jaracz: Let’s go over to curling. The women’s round robin, they had most of the sheets today. Uh,[00:22:00]
but every, everybody played one game. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Uh, China beat Italy. Eight seven, great Britain, beat Canada. Seven six Japan beat Switzerland, seven five Switzerland. Then uh, beat Canada. Eight seven USA beat Japan, seven four. Denmark, beat Korea six three and Sweden beat Italy eight six. So a lot of pretty close matches.
We have one undefeated team, which is Sweden. They’re four and oh. Then, uh, Switzerland and USA are both three and one. China’s two and one Denmark and Korea are two and two. Great Britain is one and two. Canada is one and three is as well as Japan and Italy is oh and four. With that. We talked
Alison Brown: about the, the controversial team, the controversy over the technical official’s daughter being named to the team over another, uh, curler who had much more international [00:23:00] experience, and how that really rattled the team and that the other three members of the team were not terribly thrilled and it is showing up and these results.
There’s no way Italy should be, uh, winless at oh and four. That just doesn’t reflect their scale.
Jill Jaracz: In the men’s round robin, great Britain, beat Chea seven four Sweden, beat China six four Switzerland, beat Canada nine five and USA beat Germany eight to six. Big controversy yesterday.
Alison Brown: Yeah. So in the uh, Sweden, Canada match, uh, Oscar Erickson was complaining that Mark Kennedy was double touching the stone and not only double touching.
So you’re only supposed to touch the stone by the handle. You’re never supposed to touch the granite. So apparently, uh, Erickson said that Kennedy was releasing the stone and then hitting the granite with an outstretched finger official. Went to the hog line, [00:24:00] watched several throws of Kennedy’s, and did not call him on it.
However, if you see the video replay, it’s pretty clear that he did. Wow. And those should all have been burnt stones. But they weren’t, and they don’t have video replay and curling. And so whatever happened during the match is happened during the match and that’s it. But what really got nasty was the argument between Erickson and Kennedy and the officials and Kennedy got.
Really offended and pulled out some colorful language, let’s say, and that is what he’s been given a verbal warning for. For from world curling, so that if he has any other outbursts, he’s going to face some consequences for this. They don’t appreciate blue language.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: In curling.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: And in the end, Canada did beat Sweden in this match, eight to six.
So did it matter? Was it just a positioning of [00:25:00] his hand was odd? Who knows? But now obviously he’s going to be very closely watched Yeah. For the rest of the tournament.
Jill Jaracz: And I mean, if you’re going to be watched, if, if this is, if he is doing it, let’s say if he’s doing this and that is one of the tactics in his toolbox.
If you’re being watched, you’re not gonna do it.
Alison Brown: Right. But he was being watched and still did it.
Jill Jaracz: Oh,
Alison Brown: while the official was on the hog line. Oh,
Jill Jaracz: okay.
Alison Brown: Because that’s where they have the video footage from. But maybe it was, his finger was simply outstretched. And if you look at it from an angle, it looks like he’s touching it.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right.
Alison Brown: But he’s really not. But. It seemed touched.
Jill Jaracz: Hmm.
Alison Brown: Which is why Sweden was losing its mind.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. Men’s standings. Right now, Switzerland is the only undefeated team at four and oh. Canada and Great Britain are three in one. Italy [00:26:00] and Norway are two in one. Germany and USA are two in two. Sweden is one in three.
And Sweden said they, they’re skip fed. They’re, they usually start slow and come on strong.
Alison Brown: Well, they’re fired up now.
Jill Jaracz: And then China and Czechia are O and four. I’m almost sur surprised. I, I’m almost surprised about China because they hosted the last games, but then it’s the wheelchair curlers that just dominate there
Alison Brown: and still do.
So I don’t think we’ll be seeing o and four when we get to the Paralympics for China.
Jill Jaracz: Sure enough, freestyle skiing.
Alison Brown: And I was just thinking, and if we do hear them oh and four, we’ll hear that woman Crower screaming at us for reporting it.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. In freestyle skiing, we had women’s double moguls today and gold went to Jaka. Anthony from Australia, silver went to Jalen Ka from USA and bronze went to Elizabeth Lemley from [00:27:00] USA.
Alison Brown: And this is apparently a new event for the women.
Jill Jaracz: Oh,
Alison Brown: nice. Doing dual moguls. Okay. And yet again, the conditions were so bad all over the mountains.
It was snowing, the wind was blowing. It was really difficult. Visibility. There was fog. It was crazy. But one thing I did see, because the conditions were so bad and they kept talking about the white sky and the white ground.
Jill Jaracz: Oh,
Alison Brown: where the techs throwing the branches.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: On the moguls. To get that visual relief.
Jill Jaracz: Alright, Stephanie, there’s one bit of an answer for you.
Alison Brown: So for moguls, they just kind of throw them scattered.
Jill Jaracz: I have a question in Stephanie about ski jumping. We’ll get ski jumping, but I see them there.
Alison Brown: Those
Jill Jaracz: yes
Alison Brown: are placed carefully by hand.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, we’ll get there.
Alison Brown: So, but this makes three golds medals for Australia, one [00:28:00] silver.
It’s the most medals Australia has won at a winner Olympics.
Jill Jaracz: Nice.
Alison Brown: Previous, uh, record was Vancouver and three medals and Lemley just killed it in the bro in the bronze medal match. Nice. Edged her out. It was really, really good racing. If you wanna go back and see those last two races, they’re, they’re pretty fun to watch.
Jill Jaracz: Excellent. Uh, we also had big air qualification for, uh, free ski. And the standings after that, uh, Megan Oldham from Canada’s in the lead, followed by Eileen Gu from China and Matilde GMO from Switzerland. So they compete on Monday for the finals. We had some ice hockey going on.
Alison Brown: We still have ice hockey going on.
Let’s see what’s happening. Oh, ICEA is done.
Jill Jaracz: Okay, so men had some group play. Sweden beat Slovakia. Five three. Finland crushed Italy, 11 to zero. Yeah. And then, uh, Latvia beat Germany four three
Alison Brown: and the US beat Denmark six to [00:29:00] three.
Jill Jaracz: Oh wow. Okay. And the women had their quarterfinals Canada beat Germany five one and Switzerland beat Finland.
One zero.
Alison Brown: That was tight match.
Jill Jaracz: I’m sure It was. Tough One, tough one. Uh, moving over to skeleton, that’s what’s taken over the, the sliding track right now. Women’s, skeleton had the last two heats and. Obviously the finals and medals were awarded. Janine Flock from Aus, Austria won gold. Susanna CreER from Germany, one Silver and Jacqueline Pfeiffer from Germany, one bronze.
Alison Brown: But the wildest moment happened to the Italian Valentina, Margo, uh, Margo. She lost pieces of her sled on Run four. We watched this. She seemed to hit the top of the run, and then a few seconds later, two little pieces of her sled came flying off.
Why she didn’t seem to notice. So I guess it wasn’t ones that she needed.
Jill Jaracz: Well, and she’s done with the [00:30:00] race at
Alison Brown: that point, and she’s done with the race, so she was okay. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything serious that caused any, uh, injury to anyone.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: Maybe it hurt the drone.
Jill Jaracz: You never
Alison Brown: know that they damaged the drone from flying up in the air, but you could see it very clearly that these two pieces just fly off the side.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, she finished 16th. She’s the oldest, uh, athlete on the circuit and has the push record.
Alison Brown: So she’s dealt with this before? Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, moving over to Ski Jump, we had the men’s large hill today. Gold went to Doman Previ from Slovenia. That’s the second gold of the games for him. He also won Golden Mixed Team.
Uh, his second jump was the longest of the night
Alison Brown: and he just hung up there and kept going because actually some of this I was listening to. Mm-hmm. Rather than watching, ’cause I was doing some other work and I would. Would take, I could hear the takeoff and then wait for the landing. And in this jump I was like, wait, [00:31:00] he hasn’t landed yet.
So I switched it back to see and no, no, he hadn’t landed yet. He was still going.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, Ren NTO from Japan won silver. This is third medal of the games for him. And Casper Toma, uh, Temasek from Poland won the bronze, and that’s his second medal. So top guys are cleaning up
Alison Brown: and pretty, uh, standard countries in ski jumping mm-hmm.
To do very well.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Yes. Uh, for Valentine’s Day, they put a heart image on the normal hill. So that was really cute to see if they, they showed the two runs from the front. Um, but you were talking about the pine branches.
Alison Brown: Yes. So if you notice the pine branches in ski jump, they’re in very strict rows. Yes.
And very strategically placed. So those are placed by hand. ’cause I saw them cleaning or at at least they were tidying them by hand.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. [00:32:00] Interesting on the list. Stephanie, it’s still on the list. I did, did put a question in to ski jump too. Uh, we’ll see if they come back with anything.
Legendary. Polish jumper, Camille Sto. Finished 21st in this event. This is his sixth and final games. He started at Torino 2006. Over his career, he’s had three golds and a bronze, including a sweep of the individual competitions at Sochi 2014. He says he’s happy he made it to the games and has had such a long history of the games, but obviously disappointed in his performance.
Alison Brown: And again, I love the circle of starting in Italy and, and then finishing it in Italian games again.
Jill Jaracz: That is very cool and I am very surprised he’s here. I was actually surprised he was in Beijing, to be quite honest. I saw him there. I’m like, whoa, what are you?
Alison Brown: You’re still jumping.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, and he is tiny.
They are all so tiny.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: I worry about ski jumpers. [00:33:00]
Alison Brown: We need to feed them.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. I mean, feeding them is one thing. I, I’m, I’m very curious, I mean, we talked about this a while back, about how eating disorders run rampant, especially among men, to get them to be lighter as PO light as possible so they fly farther.
Yeah, it’s tough. It’s tough seeing, it’s tough seeing that in person.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Ski jump is a little too far to get out to, but
Something we’ll have to revisit. Yes.
Uh, in short track speed skating. We had several races today. Were you there for some of this or no? You were at speed skating?
Alison Brown: I was at speed skating.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. So short track, we had the men’s 1500,
gold went to Yinz vent from Netherlands. Korea’s Huang de Young. One from one silver and bronze went to Roberts K Kurtzberg from Latvia,
Alison Brown: so the Dutch win again. He’s a double gold medalist now as they like, as they’re want to do when they’re [00:34:00] supposed to skate fast.
Jill Jaracz: Very good. Uh, women’s had the 1000 meter heats.
Our Corinne daughter did not advance out of those. Um, tough. She’s having a tough game.
Alison Brown: I’m really sorry. She’s having a tough game. And she wrote a very, uh. She’s struggling. It seems like she wrote a post, uh, apologizing for her poor performance, to which I say she doesn’t have to apologize to anybody except
Jill Jaracz: no,
Alison Brown: maybe herself.
’cause I know she’s struggling with this.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah,
Alison Brown: yeah. But those of us who are fans do not. Yeah. Feel any animosity towards her for having a rough games? We feel concerned that she’s having a rough games. Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: And she’s young. She’s allowed, it’s, I just, I’m sad for her because it’s on the biggest stage and, and you’re not having a great race.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And obviously the feeling that she needs to produce. Produce a medal, and we’re starting to get to that point in the gains where you look at the medal table and then that people are going, Ooh, [00:35:00] us isn’t doing very well, and we’re supposed to have more gold medals than we do now, and we don’t. And it’s hard to put those expectations on because yeah, you want people to win gold medals, but you also don’t want them to be so stressed out.
That they break
Alison Brown: Ileum. Melanin, yeah. Yeah. It’s, we gotta, mental health matters more than gold medals. Mm-hmm. And doing well matters more than gold medals. Mm-hmm. And I wish we focused more on did you have the performance that you can be proud of?
Jill Jaracz: Right. I do appreciate it when they put seasons best on everybody’s and, and that’s not just in speed skating or in figure skating.
You see that in other sports too. Time sports. And I just, I think that’s really helpful to remember that. That’s what’s important. If you’re, if you, you come here to do your best and not everybody’s gonna get to the podium. Not everybody has that [00:36:00] level of talent. But if you come out and you’re 14th and you get your seasons best in something or PR awesome.
Alison Brown: Can’t do better than that.
Jill Jaracz: No. Um, the Women’s 3000 meter relay had their semi-finals today and, and back to short track. Uh, Corinne Stoddard and team USA finished third in their semifinal. They do not advance. Do they go to the B final?
Alison Brown: They go to the B final.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. The final, a final will be Canada, Korea, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Oh, and we didn’t mention what a crazy race the 1500 meter for the men’s was. ’cause it was like nine people on that track.
Alison Brown: There were nine people. Uh. In that race, and there were two crashes during the race, though none, uh uh, really affected the results.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And cones everywhere. It was like those cone guys could not get there fast enough.
So cones are flying. They can’t get picked up. And
Alison Brown: skaters are flying. Yeah, cones are flying. It was, it was a mess.
Jill Jaracz: But the orange gets [00:37:00] something to celebrate there. There was a whole little contingent of Netherlands people at Alpine.
Alison Brown: Well, they’re very easy to spot.
Jill Jaracz: I know
Alison Brown: they travel in packs.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: They’re long and mean, no harm.
And they have the most outrageous orange outfits on. I mean, and I don’t say that because they’re orange. ’cause some people, uh, who, who cheer for the judge just wear normal pieces of clothing and orange. And then there are people who are in orange later hosen,
Jill Jaracz: right. With orange wigs and
Alison Brown: with orange wigs and orange lays and giant orange capes.
I saw that today. Two women had. Felt orange capes that clearly they had made themselves and they were gorgeous. They do it to themselves.
Jill Jaracz: Well, you know, if you, if you’re gonna be orange, be proud.
Alison Brown: Exactly.
Jill Jaracz: And then wrapping up tonight, we had speed skating, which you went to tell me all about it.
Alison Brown: Jordan Staz, man is [00:38:00] something to behold.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: The speed, obviously this was the 500, so this is the, the, the sprint, the speed and the power that comes off of that man is really breathtaking in a way that obviously all these sprinters are powerful and fast, but the way he comes off the line and can just gets faster as he’s going. I, I have never seen anything like it, even in sprinters.
I haven’t seen it because this is 500 meters of that and it’s on the, the, the ice. So you’ve got that slide and glide. I cannot express to you that my amazement in, in what a human body can do. Watching him. It’s wild.
Jill Jaracz: So he took the gold.
Alison Brown: So Jordan Stoltz took the gold with an, [00:39:00] uh, Olympic record.
Netherlands took, uh, silver, it’s ying debut, and Canada’s Lauren de Brew, uh, took the bronze and in his pair, he broke the Olympic record first, and then Stultz and debut broke his record coming up in the, in a following pair. So it was, it was wild. Of course, the Americans in the crowd, there was a good contingent.
Loved it. Uh, this is de boo’s second silver for he’s been silver behind Stoltz both times, and I loved this. So this is the second gold for Stoltz in the two shortest races, the 500 and the thousand, and he’s the first American man to win both races since our friend Eric Iden in 1980.
Jill Jaracz: Is he our friend now?
Alison Brown: He’s always my friend.
Jill Jaracz: I didn’t,
Alison Brown: I like to imagine that. He’s my friend.
Jill Jaracz: What, wait, let’s, let’s pull back the curtain and step into your imaginary mind. [00:40:00] The stage there. I was like, wait a second. I forgot. We met Eric Hayden. We’ve never
Alison Brown: met Eric Heiden, but I’ve, I’ve been a fan of Eric Heiden since I was eight years old, so in my brain, he’s my friend.
And I imagine that someday I’ll break my leg and Dr. Hyden will have to fix it for me, and I’ll be like, Hey, Dr. Eric, I broke my leg and I’m your fan. Will you take care of me?
Jill Jaracz: And he will say, yes.
Alison Brown: He will say, of course. I appreciate you and I appreciate that. You’ve been my admirer all these years,
Jill Jaracz: and I have a student I have a resident in, so they’re gonna do most of the work.
I’m just gonna,
Alison Brown: he would never, Dr. Hayden would take care of me himself. He wouldn’t pawn me off on some resident. I’m an old lady with delicate bones.
He would [00:41:00] appreciate the challenge to his medical prowess.
Jill Jaracz: I didn’t, I, I can see the x-ray now. Ooh, these are delicate.
She’s an.
How did we get here?
Alison Brown: Well, you judged my friendship with Eric Heen.
Jill Jaracz: Question with Eric. Do you have like an Eric Heen doll or paper doll that you’ve made that you like play with so you can have a conversation? He doesn’t have a podcast. How can you be friends?
Alison Brown: Why you think I only have friends through the podcast?
You don’t think I have any real friends
Jill Jaracz: I know. I know you have real friends, but they don’t include Eric Hayden because he [00:42:00] doesn’t live on the East coast. Wait, you zoom with or so.
I have telehealth with Dr. Gosh. I be, he costs a fortune too.
Alison Brown: We also had some pursuit going on,
Jill Jaracz: pursue this,
Alison Brown: pursue my friendship with Eric Garden. So we had the quarterfinals to the women’s team pursuit. So the semifinal matchups are gonna be Canada versus the us. That’s gonna be a rip roar.
Jill Jaracz: Oh,
Alison Brown: and Japan versus Netherlands.
Jill Jaracz: Oh man. That’s gonna be tough. That was that fun to watch in person.
Alison Brown: Oh my goodness.
Jill Jaracz: Because it’s, I mean, it’s, what I like about it when they show it on, on the screen is that they in invariably put the, the two finish lines.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: And then you see that happening. But it’s more fun. You get like the whole picture of what’s going on.
Alison Brown: You get the whole picture and how the teams. Work as a unit. It is three people [00:43:00] functioning as one. And that’s, that’s special to watch. And I did get confused with the two finish lines. ’cause when they were first going, I forgot about that.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: And then I got all confused. I was like, wait, why are they on?
But then I settled down and
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: And, and, and remembered, remembered how this race worked.
Jill Jaracz: Did you get seats?
Alison Brown: Oh, did I get a table? No. No. I never get a table at speed skating. I just get my seat with my feet on the chair in front of me. I make a little lap desk, okay? And if anybody looks at me because I have my feet on the seat, I just look back at them and dare them to say something to me.
’cause I’m gonna get my friend Eric Hyden to come and defend me.
I just have all these things. I have all these things going through my mind. [00:44:00] Can’t this broke you? Apparently my friendship with Eric, more than unusual friendship.
Does he wear the doctor’s coats to your play dates? I think I do need to make a little now.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.
Kleenex. I have all those Kleenexes. This is never where I need Wait. Oh man. Napkin. Oh my gosh. Wow. Well this has been a show. We’ve got some team keep the the flame alive to watch tomorrow.
Alison Brown: Yes, we got plenty. So Women’s Mono Bob is starting, so Bree Walker and Alana Mayers Taylor will be racing in that.
And as we mentioned earlier, Deidre Irwin will be racing in the Women’s 10 Kilometer Pursuit in biathlon.
Jill Jaracz: That’s tomorrow.
Alison Brown: [00:45:00] Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, both the men and the women are racing tomorrow and we don’t have any men from Team Keith, the Flame Alive.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: On there. Thank you.
Alison Brown: Uh, Aaron Jackson will be speed skating in the 500 meters, and Spencer Howell will be starting the Paris program with the short.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh.
Alison Brown: We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.
We
Jill Jaracz: do have a busy day, and I was thinking about going out to Lavino.
Alison Brown: I was gonna tell you, I don’t know if you wanna go out to Lano tomorrow, because the weather is supposed to be very bad tomorrow and Monday. They’re moving some things around.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Then I’ll take a look at the schedule. Maybe I’ll, because I do want to see Aaron’s skate at some point.
Alison Brown: Well, this is your last chance.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. ’cause she already did, she
Alison Brown: already did the thousand. So
Jill Jaracz: you’re staying,
Alison Brown: you’re staying in
Jill Jaracz: town I guess. So getting some sleep, because obviously I need it with, I, I can’t take in the information of your, of all your Olympic friends.
Alison Brown: If anybody wants to make me some paper dolls, I am here for it. [00:46:00]
Jill Jaracz: I might go to the main press center tomorrow
and learn how to hook my, my computer up to the printer. I’ve got scissors.
Alison Brown: They take them away from you at the main press center?
Jill Jaracz: Not if I print it out and bring it home.
Alison Brown: Oh, that’s true. Because they tried to take my scissors away at the main press center. They said, why do you need scissors? And I said, because I’m an office person.
I like having scissors. But apparently they thought I was gonna go after Kristy, uh, Kirsty Coventry with my scissors or something.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my.
Alison Brown: Which I would never, never, I just, I just use it to cut the a four paper into normal American sized paper. That is what I do with the scissors.
Jill Jaracz: Well, then you, you need an A four folder, which there are a dearth of, in Italy.
I’ve not really seen them around. I’m kind of bummed about it.
Alison Brown: I’ll go to Esso Longo.
Jill Jaracz: I did go to, I went to Esono. I looked, they have, they have some kind of folio stuff, but I’m a big a four folder and not that I need another a four folder in my life, let’s be honest. But I do [00:47:00] love having
Alison Brown: you do love a four paper?
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Okay. We’ve got shout outs today
Alison Brown: and oh, to our very good friend who’s actually our friend.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: David Davis.
Jill Jaracz: Like David Davis, the handball player for Spain who won bronze at Beijing 2008. It’s kind of cool that there is another David Davis. I’m sure there are many David Davises out there in the world, but But
Alison Brown: not as good as our David Davis.
Jill Jaracz: No, that’s true. That’s true. And if you haven’t read any of his books,
Alison Brown: you should,
Jill Jaracz: should. He’s a beautiful writer. And if we have mascots,
Alison Brown: we’ve got listener. Charlotte’s Abby shared with you all games long well.
Jill Jaracz: And that is gonna do it for this episode. If you want even more of the most fun coverage of the games, hit us up.
We’re at flame alive pod.com. That is your source for our socials, our newsletter, which is fun and direct ways to contact us. And, uh, be sure to tune in tomorrow for what we forgot to tell you about today, which is probably some more friendships that we’ve [00:48:00] cultivated in our minds.
All right, well, we figured it out. It’s what day seven today. It’s day eight. Day eight. We broke
for listening.
Alison Brown: And until next time, chow. And keep the flame alive.