Day 9 of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics turned into a wild day on ice and snow – we’ve got all of the results for you!
Alison went to the figure skating pairs short program, where big names had some big issues on the ice. Jill went to speed skating and did not get to join our newly minted Friends of Eric Heiden club, but she did see TKFLASTANI Erin Jackson compete in the 500m.
Also in Olympic news, cross-country skier Johannes Klaebo has become the most decorated Winter Olympic gold medalist of all time, thanks to a win in the men’s relay.
All this, plus the day’s results on today’s episode. Sports on today’s program:
- Alpine skiing
- Biathlon
- Bobsled
- Cross-country skiing
- Curling
- Figure skating
- Freestyle skiing
- Ice hockey
- Skeleton
- Ski jumping
- Snowboard
- Speed skating
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 Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.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 2026 Olympics – Day 9
Jill Jaracz: [00:00:00] Urano and welcome to Keep the Flame Alive. Day nine, coverage of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games. I’m your host, Jill Jaracz, coming to you from Shuk Stanhouse. Joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison Chao, commo.
Alison Brown: Ty I love, that’s like Van.
Do you know how many times I’ve had to break out my mi pi? I don’t speak Italian sentence, and
Jill Jaracz: hey, at least you know that, which I, I forget what it all is. [00:01:00] I just get angry.
It’s been a beautiful day.
Alison Brown: It are. We in the Spring Olympics. It, it’s so confusing to my brain to to go outside and it’s hot, and then go inside and I’m freezing in the, in the ice houses.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Today was like 59 degrees. It was sunny and beautiful and also sunny and sweaty. If you’re us. Yes.
I mean like I pulled out some heavier pants to wear ’cause it was sitting in an ice rink. I’m like, I can’t do it. Good thing. And I wore something pretty lightweight and I was perfectly fine.
Alison Brown: Yes,
Jill Jaracz: it’s not, it’s not good. But it was gorgeous outside, which I enjoyed the semi view from our window as I sat and did photo management and logistics all morning.
Alison Brown: I know
Jill Jaracz: you did, did Just looking so angry about this. It’s, it’s frustrating. So I may have to take a trip to the travel desk and transport desk to [00:02:00] find out. I think the thing is in, we have an app to use and they’re very big on, well you look it up on the app. The app is slow. All of the apps they have are slow.
The, the media system we have is clunky
Alison Brown: and the other problem is it doesn’t allow you to play. With different options.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: You can’t say, okay, then what’s the next train? Or, oh, what if I tweaked this step? You have to start from the beginning and do a whole new trip.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. It’s a, it’s a pain in the butt.
So I just start putting in, well, what’s on at like one in the morning? And then I somehow get a list. But I didn’t figure out, ’cause we’re trying really hard to get to Cortina. We might be able to make it happen if we can get home at the end of the day, wherever home may be for a couple days. And it took me forever to figure out that maybe the main bus stop is not like I was, ’cause I was just putting in curling and or sliding center [00:03:00] because I could find, I could find our entrance for that.
But then I realized that there’s a more main bus hub it seems like. But I need to get confirmation on that.
Alison Brown: Yes. The only thing I figured out is the last train is before eight o’clock.
So that doesn’t leave us a lot of leeway. No. And that still gets us back at like one in the morning.
Jill Jaracz: Oh geez. That’s not fun.
Alison Brown: No,
Jill Jaracz: because a lot of stuff happens after eight o’clock at night.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: In Corina. Well, we’ll see. We’ll look for that news in a couple days. We have to make a, make a decision. So make a decision.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Alright. What did we forget to tell you yesterday?
Alison Brown: Well, I forgot nothing ’cause I’m perfect.
Jill Jaracz: Oh,
Alison Brown: that’s what we forgot.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Yeah. Well, all right. Um, uh, have you had the chocolate muffin here?
Alison Brown: I saw the chocolate muffin. I did not get the chocolate muffin. I think I can get it tomorrow. I will be back in that [00:04:00] venue.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Yeah, so when I was at ice skating, they have muffins there and one is something that looks like the famed chocolate muffin from Paris 2024. So I did get it, eh, fine chocolate muffin with a little bit of pudding in the. I mean, I can see if you’d like it, you really, really like it. And if you, you’re kind of meh.
You know, I, I tried it, it was nice. Maybe they’re better, like hot and fresh
Alison Brown: with a glass of milk or some tea
Jill Jaracz: potentially.
Um, I forgot to tell you, I got controlled in the train on the way to Borneo.
Alison Brown: What does that mean?
Jill Jaracz: It, it’s passport control. Oh. So, so when I say controlled this, this dates back to when I did study abroad and I was in Vienna and it was, uh, honor system, um, public transportation. And we had monthly passes and they would randomly come around and they’d have, uh, people, not, guards is the [00:05:00] wrong word, but they had control officers.
And they’d come in and check your passports. They’d open a car and be like, all right, where’s your ticket? And if you didn’t have a ticket, you got like a 200. Shilling. This is how,
Alison Brown: how
Jill Jaracz: long ago? It, it was. How long ago? It was, uh, uh, fine. And so you were never without your pass and, but it was kind of a, a big deal to get controlled.
’cause you, I mean, some people I don’t think ever got controlled in our class the whole semester we were there. So,
Alison Brown: but you got controlled in Borneo,
Jill Jaracz: got controlled on the way to Borneo. It was pretty awesome.
Alison Brown: So can they just randomly ask for your passport? Is
Jill Jaracz: that the point? Yeah. You get a couple, a couple of yards.
A couple police guys came on and they were like, where’s your passport?
Alison Brown: Wow.
Jill Jaracz: And granted that it’s different from getting controlled on a ticket. This is kind of a weird one. I don’t know of how much I’d like getting controlled on a passport. ’cause they, I think they, they put it into a little, uh, handheld device and I think they’re checking for visas.
Alison Brown: Wow.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, it’s pretty [00:06:00] cray. Um, I forgot to tell you, I saw an argument on the street between a man and a woman and she kept saying, pasta. Pasta.
Alison Brown: It’s my favorite Italian word.
Jill Jaracz: I thought of you.
Alison Brown: It’s my favorite Italian word, pasta.
Jill Jaracz: She was not happy with him.
Alison Brown: Clearly she had had enough.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. Alright.
Do you have an officiating or volunteer job you would like to do today?
Alison Brown: Yes, I do. And, and I’m very upset about this.
Jill Jaracz: I love the jobs where we’re like, we can do this so much better.
Alison Brown: So, went to figure skating tonight.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: Wanted a start list so I could make notes.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: I was told I could not have a start list.
I could take a picture of it and I said, I don’t need a picture of it. I have it on my computer. I want a piece of paper so I can write notes on the piece of paper. And she said, well, we don’t wanna be copying and having all this paper. And she just,
Jill Jaracz: I get that. Yeah.
Alison Brown: Refused.
Jill Jaracz: [00:07:00] Wow.
Alison Brown: To make a copy. Another man stole the one copy from the desk.
’cause I saw him with it and I said to him, did you get a paper from the desk? He said, I stole it.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. I don’t think they understand. I, and I get the not putting out reams of paper
Alison Brown: because Yes. But if someone is asking you for it
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: Then they’re obviously going to use it.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: So I would be the media desk person so that if somebody asked me for a printed start list.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: And then when I said, you can take a picture of it, they said, no, I want a piece of paper. I would give it to them.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Because it, I mean, especially for photographers. It helps so much to have that paper. And they were scrambling at, uh, skiing yesterday ’cause they were printing out start lists and people needed them.
They obviously weren’t gonna have their computers out, so if they wanted to make [00:08:00] notes or anything, they needed a paper start list. And Oh, they, they were running outta toner. There was a hullabaloo there.
Alison Brown: So clearly they have been told not to print. But if somebody is asking you
Jill Jaracz: right,
Alison Brown: for paper,
Jill Jaracz: yes. We really don’t have the same amount of paper that even we had in Paris.
Alison Brown: Yes. And I have no problem with having to ask for it.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: They have no issue with that. The same thing happened at hockey. I asked them for it. ’cause I wanted a piece of paper to make notes on. ’cause I did not know the players very well.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So you needed to numbers and you could put a name with them
Alison Brown: Exactly.
And to keep track of it. So I didn’t have to have my computer up, distracting me from watching the game.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: Happily gave me the piece of paper.
Jill Jaracz: Very nice. Very nice. Because I remember at Beijing, less so at Paris because they were really getting in on the don’t use paper scam. [00:09:00] Um,
Alison Brown: yeah. Beijing gave us paper we didn’t need.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. But it’d be like weather conditions. And now I’m really, I’m really digging for weather conditions. So I’m not ha I mean I, I did like that paper, but I did also think they had too much. Because there was just a lot of stuff that they, you didn’t need. But there’s, there’s stuff you do need. Paper is still essential.
Don’t knock it. Especially when you have a clunky system. I can’t tell you how much we, we have this section called, uh, news, which gives us a lot of quotes and things like that. But you, uh, scroll down to the bottom and to get to the next page, you have to scroll up to the top because that’s where the next page clicker is.
Don’t get me started anyway. And you, you listeners don’t, don’t care about Media Zone, let me tell you that. And Media Zone is a new name for us and I don’t know if I like it. I don’t like the old name either. It was my info.
Alison Brown: Oh, my info. Yeah. That was very, very distinct.
Jill Jaracz: Alright, um, I would like
Alison Brown: your [00:10:00] officiating
Jill Jaracz: job.
Yes. I would like to be the false start flag man. Speed skating. ’cause that was what I went to today and I, I
Alison Brown: never saw him, I never got a false start when I’ve been out
Jill Jaracz: there. We had a lot of false starts today and I noticed this just on like the last one, of course. But it’s a guy who’s standing somewhat near the bell and the start finish line.
The finish line, not the start. And it’s a, a little red flag with Olympic white Olympic rings on it and it’s on a very long pole. And he sticks it out. And I was trying to figure out what that meant. Maybe it would stop. I don’t know.
Alison Brown: Pause was, do not go past this point because it’s a false start. So go back to the starting line.
Jill Jaracz: So that’s, that’s what I would be up for.
Alison Brown: Young skaters.
Jill Jaracz: , Did you have any cultural moments today?
Alison Brown: I had no culture today. No culture, except I did get the hot food at [00:11:00] figure skating.
Jill Jaracz: What did you, and what did you think
Alison Brown: today was? Green lasagna.
Jill Jaracz: Ooh.
Alison Brown: Which was quite, it had green onion.
Jill Jaracz: Oh,
Alison Brown: an asparagus and string bean.
Nice. Plus a little potato.
Jill Jaracz: Nice.
Alison Brown: It was very strange and very good.
Jill Jaracz: Nice. Isn’t the hot food delightful?
Alison Brown: It was just delightful to have hot food during the day,
Jill Jaracz: right? Oh, they, I will say that I’m, I’m quite pleased that we not only get the regular sandwich option,
Alison Brown: but a plate of the day,
Jill Jaracz: but a plate of the day.
Thank you. I, uh, did a lot of logistics.
Alison Brown: You’ve become so intimately enmeshed with the train system of Northern Italy.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my goodness. Don’t even get me started. , I, I did go on a little scavenger hunt today because, uh, listener Nicholas from Olympic rings and other things, he has been telling us different things that he has found.
Yes, and one of them I didn’t even know, I ran into him at speed skating and he said, oh, [00:12:00] he had, he was giving out these little ceramic carts that he and his sister had made with little Olympic rings stamped in them. They’re really cute. And he had them in this little Tina and Milo tin. And I’m like, where did you get that?
And he’s like, didn’t you get my pictures? And it came in when I was coming back from cross country and getting low on phone battery, so I was freaking out. And so I don’t download stuff then. And I had seen, he had gone to a sandwich bar and I had seen something later on and I totally missed all these cute little tins that he sent us.
So I was gonna go look for those. , He also told us that Burger King was having a deal with Coke. And if you buy a, a large meal, and then if you spend a little bit more, you could get socks or a little, it’s not a balaclava. They call, they’re calling it a SN here. So I can’t tell you what I would call it, but it’s a little buff.
It’s a buff. And they will have upcoming and, and eye mask. So I did get the socks. Oh, you [00:13:00] did?
Alison Brown: Oh, you got
Jill Jaracz: the socks. They’re long red socks with, uh, little snowflakes that have the Olympic colors on ’em. Oh, those are nice. One Euro 60 and uh, really not so great. Cacho pep burger.
Alison Brown: Oh, that doesn’t sound good.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, it didn’t have much sauce on it. It’s just, you know what, it don’t, it didn’t taste the flame grill.
Alison Brown: Oh. Maybe the cutie peppi drowned out the grill.
Jill Jaracz: No, there wasn’t a whole lot of sauce, but there wasn’t a whole lot of flame grill in this burger either. So I don’t, I don’t know what’s going on with the Burger King here. Probably not gonna find out again. Tell you
Alison Brown: that you, because you got the socks and your got the socks.
Job is
Jill Jaracz: done. Happy. Um, on my way to try to find these tins, which I didn’t even get to that stop. ’cause it was like, oh, we gotta get back. I, we, I had to transfer at the duomo and I was like, well, I’m here. Let me see what the line’s like at the mega store. Zero line, walked right in.
Alison Brown: Wow.
Jill Jaracz: I think it says it’s Sunday night.
Sunday night. Uh, [00:14:00] new items in stock,
Alison Brown: really.
Jill Jaracz: They have brought out all of the gloves and mittens. So there are gloves with, uh, tactical
Alison Brown: fingers,
Jill Jaracz: fingers, and then several different kinds of mittens that are very cute. There’s a team, Italia Mitten. There’s ones with, uh, 26 on the, the. The palm kind of thing.
And uh, very cute. Very nice. Currently priced, I think at like 25 euros.
Alison Brown: You never know what it’s gonna be tomorrow.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh. Because, and, and they’re still putting price tags on everything in the mega store or on a lot of things in the mega store. Other stores, I stopped in the hockey speed skating store too because they just have a handwritten price tag on top of the rack or buy the thing because that will change, that will fluctuate.
And people are complaining about the prices changing all the time. They have these fuzzy tote bags that are like the head of Milo, [00:15:00] so it’s a big tote bag with this face on it, but the whole tote bag is brown fuzzy.
Alison Brown: Oh,
Jill Jaracz: it’s really cute. Probably. I feel a little too old for that, but it is adorable. It’s adorable.
Alison Brown: You’re never too old.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Well, I also didn’t know how much it cost. That’s, that’s really the issue. Right. let’s see, where else are we at here? Um, yeah. Um, so I’m still on the hunt for these tins of candy that may come tomorrow. We did have a listener, Beth noted in the Facebook group if you were wondering why there were coffee pots in the opening ceremonies. She was thinking partly because Mocha coffee pots were invented by Alfonso ti, whose first independent workshop was in Omega, Italy, about 60 miles northwest of here.
And, uh, that could be it those, and they’re those little pots that are [00:16:00] like. Octagonal or something like that.
Alison Brown: Right. They’re very distinctive. They’re not just your everyday stove chop espresso makers. These are very distinct style.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And design. And I have seen on a different Facebook group that there are Milano Cortina, 26 versions of these.
Alison Brown: I just wanna be a pink one. Maybe purple. I’m not sure which shade is really my color, but I just wanna be a dancing mocha pot.
Jill Jaracz: You could do that anytime
Alison Brown: here, I think. I think I have my Halloween costume.
Jill Jaracz: There you go. There you go. Uh, before we get to today’s results, we’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who’s donated to our fundraiser to get us here. If you’ve just found us, we are an independent podcast, uh, primarily listener funded.
We’re doing 32 daily episodes from Milano Cortina over the course of the games. Uh, we need your help [00:17:00] in keeping our flame alive throughout the year and leading up to LA 2028. If you go to flame alive pod.com/support, you will find a lot of options for donations and, uh, we really appreciate everybody who’s pitched in so far because I tell you, I understood today why Andrea Joyce had like three assistants with her in Paris at all times.
Alison Brown: She did.
Jill Jaracz: She has a whole little team. I needed my team today.
Alison Brown: I know,
Jill Jaracz: because I can’t split myself into like three or four people.
Alison Brown: That would be very messy.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. That would be messy. Oh, uh, also cultural. We got news today that Gabriel Ponte, who is a dance and electronic music, uh, composer, will be performing at the closing ceremony.
Are you excited about this? You have a, you have a look. I have no idea who this is.
Alison Brown: I, I don’t have any idea who this is either, but I am slightly concerned that we’re gonna get a repeat of that Paris closing ceremony.
Jill Jaracz: I hope we don’t,
Alison Brown: which would [00:18:00] be not good.
Jill Jaracz: Not good at all. Okay. Results today, women in alpine skiing, women had the giant slalom gold went to Freda, uh, Brionne, who broke her leg very badly last year and has come back from that.
Did really well. Uh, silver went to Sarah Hector from Sweden. And, uh, also silver, because there was a tie. Was Theo Louise, uh, St. J stunned from, and also silver, because there was a tie. Went to Theo Louis St. Jeon from Norway. And, uh, it’s rare to get a, a double silver,
Alison Brown: you know, especially in a race that has so many skiers.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: And just such a surprise.
Jill Jaracz: So a IGN said that Italy has invested a lot in winter sports over the last four years, and it is no secret that more investment means [00:19:00] better training. And is, uh, it basically said we can’t have that end after the Olympics. ’cause I bet the writing’s on the wall. You know, we had our games, we’re, we’re done investing.
Good luck to you kids. Over in Biathlon. It was a very windy day for the men’s and women’s pursuit, but it was an exciting day.
Alison Brown: It was so good. It was
Jill Jaracz: so good. So what I loved was, ’cause I had to watch it on the feet, actually. I watched the data on the train pumping my fist, as you will. And, uh, then I came home and watched the feed.
And, uh, Uriel Eckel, who is from Norway, big champion, she’s since retired. Uh, she said the Swedes were not in great shape and the commentators kept talking about how bad the Swedes were doing, except for today. Martin and Cel Loma from Sweden showed everybody. And he started in seventh in the Pursuit.
’cause this is a, we chased the leader who was Ken May, uh, [00:20:00] CEL Loma had amazing shooting and he really benefited from others not having amazing shootings. So Sweden is back. Uh, silver went to Sterol Reed from Norway. I don’t know if another medals enough to get your lady back.
Alison Brown: Yeah. I don’t think the number of medals is going to make a difference.
The problem was the number of girls involved in the relationship. No way.
Jill Jaracz: Are you saying there was more than one?
Alison Brown: No. Well, I’m saying that he had a girlfriend and then he found somebody else.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: Thus too many people in the relationship?
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Yes. And then bro went to Amil Jacquelin from France. , Jakob Fa who, is further down in the rankings, he’s in his fifth Olympics. I mean, he’s a, he’s been, uh, a stalwart there for a long time.
So it was cool to see him do yet another Olympics. The number one bib, the starter was con. My photo finished with Campbell Wright for seventh and eighth.
Alison Brown: Oh, nice. Yeah. Good [00:21:00] job Campbell. He’s been struggling. He
Jill Jaracz: has
Alison Brown: up until this point, to hear him get a top 10
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: Is, is good for him.
Jill Jaracz: He said he had a really great last lap. I think he’s settling in. So still, I think a couple races left for them. crowds are great. The commentator said it’s been a little corporate the last few days.
Alison Brown: I heard that as well on yesterday’s race where he was saying, oh yes, we’ve had a lot of sponsor guests, is how he put it.
Wow. And now that the real Biathlon fans are coming out.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, and the crowds are math massive. ’cause they, they get like 20,000 people in there and it is the biggest fan venue out of all of ’em here. And I, as
Alison Brown: you would expect.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And I’m surprised Cross Country doesn’t have more spectators, but maybe they don’t have enough places on the, on the tracks because Biathlon, they get big holding areas and there, there are huge places where it’s like five people deep.
It’s amazing. [00:22:00] Um, over in the Women’s 10 kilometer pursuit. Gold went to Lisa Ozzi from Italy.
Alison Brown: How happy are you?
Jill Jaracz: I am so happy she is. I did not realize the first Italian to win in a biathlon gold.
Alison Brown: I’m surprised she hasn’t won before, or Doro hasn’t won during their career, their career.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, I think relay stuff, but Doro got a bronze in the individual, if I remember correctly, in Beijing.
Um, Doro started, uh, do Dorothea Veer also a favorite in my household. Uh, she started 44th and finished ninth, which is amazing. Best isolated pursuit time for that. And that was amazing. She said she hasn’t been feeling great, didn’t know she was gonna start the race, but felt better with every lap. And now she’s feeling like herself again.
So we still got a couple races for you. Doro, come on. Um. Silver went to Marda from Norway and bronze went to soy minken in from Finland. Hooray. [00:23:00] Manu. That’s right. This is Finland’s first biathlon metal since 1998. Nano.
Alison Brown: My goodness.
Jill Jaracz: I know. So exciting to see the fins back.
Alison Brown: Now. Is Finland the one that you get the celebration cake?
Jill Jaracz: May Manu get on that for us. That might be
Alison Brown: that you, you, you get a special cake when you get home.
Jill Jaracz: Leave it to us to remember the celebration cakes
Alison Brown: because if this is true, I would like to know exactly the components of the celebration cake.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, yeah, recipe would be helpful. So we can make it. Yes. Wouldn’t it be awesome to make finish celebration cake?
Um, uh, our very own Deidre Irwin started 47th. She finished 35th, had a little trouble on the shooting range, uh, but ended strong, so that is good for her. Tomorrow is gonna be special in biathlon, and it’s going to be a metal reallocation ceremony from V [00:24:00] Vancouver, Vancouver, 2010, and, uh, also one from 2014.
The, the Vancouver 2010 is a men’s Fi 15 kilometer mass. Start. The original person to cross the line first was Yevgeni Soff from Russia. He was found guilty of blood doping in 2020. He appealed and that was denied in 2024, he got disqualified from his results from January, 2010 through the end of the season.
In 2014, he appealed to the Swiss Federal Tribunal, which is like the Supreme Court of all of the stuff that appeal got rejected in May, 2025. So the IOC announced the updated metals in September, this past September. So that means, uh, for the men’s 15 kilometer mass start, Maran for cod got upgraded to gold.
Paval hu Hiat from Slovakia is going to get the silver and Christophe [00:25:00] Suman from Austria will get the bronze. And, and then um, that case also changed the results of the Sochi 20 14 4 by 7.5 kilometer men’s relay, which Russia had finished first in. Gold will now go to Germany, silver to Austria and bronze to Norway.
So it is a bummer about the original moment, but ’cause you don’t get that podium again, but at least 20,000 people are gonna be there cheering for you and the Boo Brothers and Ole Ar Arna Bjorn Dalin will be back to get some medals. So it’ll be nice to see all the, the old guys again. Thank you Meredith for that little tidbit.
I had not seen that. Uh, let’s go over to bobsled.
Alison Brown: Lemme tell you something. I was watching Bob Sled today.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Which is MU’s Mono Bob and something was off.
Jill Jaracz: Really
Alison Brown: because a lot of the women were bouncing all over the course. These were not smooth runs and not smooth [00:26:00] runs from people like arb. Bree Walker, who as the announcer put it, is probably the best pilot on the circuit, was having a rough day.
So his estimation was that the runners that they had put on the sled were not correct for the, uh, situation, for the the environment because it changed from when they set the sled to when they actually ran in enough that it affected which runners they should have used.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, that is a bummer. So we have, um, I.
Laura Nolte. So we have currently after two runs, Laura Nolte from Germany is in first setting a track record on the first run. Uh, Alana Meyers Taylor is 0.22 seconds behind her and Kaylee Am arm, Bruster Humphreys from the US is uh, in third place right now.
Alison Brown: Yes. Bree Walker [00:27:00] right now is in seventh. She pulled up from 12th in the first run.
Yeah, this is not like her. So she’s still in the hunt. We’re hoping tomorrow’s gonna be a better day. Chris Foyt sighting.
Jill Jaracz: Nice.
Alison Brown: So he was helping all the us uh, sliders put the sled into the grooves at the top.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, nice. Okay. So
Alison Brown: I was like, hi Chris. Hi Chris. So every time they showed him, ’cause there are three Americans, I was like, hi, it’s my friend Chris, who actually is my friend.
’cause I’ve met him.
And the other thing I wanted to mention, and this is gonna come back up when we get to hockey. On the feed, they kept showing the women’s husbands and or partners who were at the race. So Alana Meyers Taylor would run and then they’d show a shot of Nick Taylor.
Jill Jaracz: Hmm.
Alison Brown: Which made me question, I haven’t seen too many wives.
Jill Jaracz: Hmm. I don’t know. We’ll have [00:28:00] to Now we’re on wife watch.
Alison Brown: Just just hold that thought until we get to hockey.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Alright, let’s get to cross country skiing. First, the men had the four by 7.5 kilometer relay gold went to Norway in a resounding uh, finish. They finished 22 seconds ahead of silver medalist France and bronze went to Italy.
This gives Johannes Kbo his ninth Olympic gold medal. He now has the record for Winter Olympians passed. Ole r Bjorn Dalin, Bjorn Daley and Mar Bjorn. Who had eight. It’s amazing.
Alison Brown: Now he has nine.
Jill Jaracz: I know. And now they’re talking Michael Phelps. But he doesn’t think he’s gonna ever catch Phelps. ’cause Phelps has so many medals.
Alison Brown: True. But I mean, he is, he’s not even 30 yet.
Jill Jaracz: I know he,
Alison Brown: he certainly could do in theory two more.
Jill Jaracz: Well, we will see. Yeah. [00:29:00] In curling. We had more round robin action. The men had more of the sheet today. Uh, US beat Sweden. Eight six Germany lost to Great Britain. Nine four Norway beat Italy. Ten seven Canada beat China.
Six three USA beat Norway. Ten eight. Italy beat Czechia 10, five and Switzerland eked out a victory over Great Britain, six five in an extra end. That game, the lead changed six times.
Alison Brown: I can believe it. It was tight all the way through
Jill Jaracz: and uh, Mark Kennedy from the Canadian team said, Hey, we’ve cleaned up our releases.
Alison Brown: Oh, I bet you have Mark
Jill Jaracz: and they’ve got umpires watching now.
Alison Brown: But here’s the question, has he cleaned up his mouth?
Jill Jaracz: Don’t know.
Do you need a bar of soap when you go out to Corina?
Alison Brown: Apparently I do. Come here, mark. Sit down. We have the little chatty chatty about your mouthy mouth. [00:30:00]
Jill Jaracz: Here’s
Alison Brown: the life. Boy,
Jill Jaracz: the local blind.
And the men’s standings are, Switzerland is still undefeated at five and oh. Canada’s at four and one. Great Britain and US are four and two. Italy and Norway are three and two. Germany’s two and three. Sweden is one in four and China and Czechia both have not seen a win yet In the women’s round. Robin Korea beat Japan.
Seven five, Denmark beat Italy, seven two. Sweden beat Great Britain, ten seven and the US beat China six five. Sweden is undefeated for the women. Uh, US is at four and one Switzerland. Three and one Denmark, Korea are both at three and two. China is two and two. Canada, great Britain are one and three. Japan is one and four, and Italy is oh and five.
Alison Brown: I gotta get my eyes on Italy now to see it. Are they playing [00:31:00] that poorly?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. We gotta, we gotta pull up a, excuse me. We gotta pull up a game.
Alison Brown: Gotta watch them and see what’s going on. ’cause this is, this is ridiculous that Italy hasn’t won a match yet.
Jill Jaracz: All right. Figure skating. Take it away.
Alison Brown: Take it away. So we had the pairs tonight and it was some wild stuff going on in pairs. A lot of the favorites that we’ve talked about previously literally fell or stumbled or tripped or dropped their partner or not quite, but it was pretty bad. But let’s start off with the good thing.
So Spencer Howe and Emily Chan had a really nice program, uh, just one little touchdown by Emily on the side by side jumps, uh, rather on the throw triple loop. They are currently in ninth, so we will see them in the free skate. The standings. I, I don’t even know what to do with this because Sway and Han, the defending champions are in sixth [00:32:00] place.
The, the world champions, Miro and Khari are in fifth place. They, uh,
Jill Jaracz: what happened to them?
Alison Brown: Couldn’t do the, uh, the lift. They started to go after up, up on the lift and he just never got her in the air.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, no. That’s huge.
Alison Brown: So it’s just a completely blown element.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, and it looked horr. I mean, he was so distraught at the end.
Alison Brown: He was crushed. Zi and Achi, who both Sarah Hughes and I had picked to win are down in eighth. They had trouble in the side by sides. Here’s the really wild one. I gotta scroll this all the way down. Deanna Stiletto. Dak and Maxim Duchamp are in 14th.
Jill Jaracz: Oh no.
Alison Brown: She had a fall at the end of the, uh, lift, and they had trouble on the side by sides.
Jill Jaracz: And I, I did see that one. I was paying attention to that one. And, uh, that freak fall coming outta the lift, it was like she, she stumbled or hit something.
Alison Brown: It looked [00:33:00] like when she came down, she just wasn’t square on her skate. She was too far back and just, you know, the ice is slippery and out her feet came from under her.
Jill Jaracz: So, and she was not happy. You could tell
Alison Brown: that she was not happy. No,
Jill Jaracz: but hey, she got here and she’s an Olympian officially
Alison Brown: and she competed. Absolutely. So in the lead are Hassan Odin from Germany, and second are, are Medal kena and B bar lava from Georgia. Third, the other Canadians who competed so nicely in the team event, Pereira and Moad in third place.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: Very much a surprise. I mean, cam and O’Shea are in seventh. They looked great.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, I, I noticed theirs too. And he wa he looks so calm and happy out there, and you can tell she’s nervous. You can see it. And she’s a little tight on some stuff. And so she had a touchdown with her hand. Mm-hmm. [00:34:00] On, on one of the jumps.
But eventually, like, well at the end, she relaxed, but you can, you can tell she’s just a little tentative.
Alison Brown: The magic that they had in the long program of the team has carried over. However, they, they’ve got a spark this week and I am hoping they can pull off a little, a little bronze medal upset.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, that’d be, that would be nice.
I, I’m just hoping for a great program from them.
Alison Brown: I’m just hoping for some clean skating. There has been much, too much tripping and falling and hands down. In, in this program this time around.
Jill Jaracz: So a fun fact about Sway and Han uh, who are the Chinese pair who defending Olympic champions. Well, they’ve retired and then they’ve decided to come back.
Sway is studying choreography. And then Han has said that his goal is different this time around because it’s always been medals, but they now wanna show what they can do. They want to have some fun while [00:35:00] they’re here, it sounds like, and they want to influence the next generation. He said it was a big challenge to lose weight and recover his technical skills.
Alison Brown: I can believe it, because they weren’t just. Not competing, but kind of training. They had retired.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: And were completely off the ice and had not skated together until this past year. That’s a, that’s a big change.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Big, big change, uh, in the audience was a guy in a manor costume.
Alison Brown: I did not see that.
Jill Jaracz: It, it was surprising to me too, like, wow, that is, that is a getup.
That is, that is a choice. Moving over to freestyle skiing,
we had the men’s dual moguls. It was a dad podium. Michael Kingsbury from Canada won gold, silver went to Kuma Hiroshima from Japan, and bronze went to Matt Graham from Australia and his ho uh, Hiroshima lost control of his speed in the final run.
Alison Brown: He was going down, he was going down [00:36:00] so fast that as he went to do the second jump, he just could not control it and had to bail.
So just sort of literally just jumped up and landed safely. Wow. And that was all he could manage.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: So, kind of handed Kingsbury, the gold medal with, with that over speed, uh, run, but it was still pretty cool to watch.
Jill Jaracz: We also had free ski, free ski, big air qualifications today because it’s very, uh, the weather’s gonna be pretty bad starting, uh, Sunday night and then all through Monday.
So they moved stuff up for the free skiers. The standings after the qualification rounds are marked. Forehand from the US is in first. Um, mate, wanker from Austria is in second, and Birk rude from Norway’s in third. They said it was very cold today out there, and the jumps in the sun, so it gets softer in the sun and then it freezes up at night.
But they’d like it. They say it’s very consistent
Alison Brown: and predictable.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm. [00:37:00]
Alison Brown: Which makes for, for some good big hair. I wish it had a better name.
Jill Jaracz: I don’t know. I don’t What do you, what do you expect?
Alison Brown: I know.
Jill Jaracz: Come on. Um, we could come up with something. They would, it would not be any better. I could tell you.
Alison Brown: Icy flip flop.
Jill Jaracz: Well, okay, let’s talk ice hockey.
Alison Brown: Okay. I got to the big arena today.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, you did? How was your journey?
Alison Brown: Long. You know, we’ve joking how it takes an hour to get everywhere.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: This is an hour and a half.
Jill Jaracz: It’s, it’s a, it’s a trek.
Alison Brown: It’s a trek. And each time you think, oh, I’ve hit a point at which I’m going to make some progress.
Oh, I’ve finished with the train. Here’s the shuttle. But you have to walk to the shuttle and then you get off the shuttle. Oh, I’m off the shuttle. No. Then you have to trek to the door’s. A
Jill Jaracz: [00:38:00] long walk to the door,
Alison Brown: very long, walk to the door, and then you get to the door and you say, oh, I’m at the door. No long walk to the Tribune to find the elevator.
You forgot to tell me about that part.
Jill Jaracz: I, you know, ’cause I didn’t know where the elevator was ’cause I was taking the stairs. I also took a different set of stairs, which I don’t know if I’m allowed up, but I took them,
Alison Brown: well there is an elevator that I was directed to, but didn’t tell me what floor to get off on.
Jill Jaracz: Did you go to all the floors?
Alison Brown: Thankfully I did not. ’cause there was a sign in the elevator that pointed to the floor. So I figured that was, since this was the media elevator, that the little sign that they had the pointy to would be where, where I was supposed to go. Just to guess.
Jill Jaracz: Do they still have the tanks in the plaza by the shuttle buses?
Alison Brown: The tanks? No, there were no, I didn’t see any tanks.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Maybe they’ve moved them, you know, decided they didn’t need to show their display of force.
Alison Brown: You know, in general, I did notice this today. [00:39:00] There’s much less security than we saw in Paris. Much less,
Jill Jaracz: but it is all over the place. Let me tell you. I had a, uh, in yesterday in Borneo, I had a woman who, uh, she was thorough about checking every zipper, every zipper in my backpack.
And today at speed skating there was a guy who saw my credentials like, just come this way. Skip the, skip the metal detectors Ram. Yes,
Alison Brown: I had that guy yesterday.
Jill Jaracz: I love him.
Alison Brown: I was very appreciative of that. And my woman today started up. I started to unzip the bag and she said, no, that’s okay. I know we are women.
Jill Jaracz: That’s awesome.
Alison Brown: I was like, thanks. You know I have a lot of stuff in here, but it’s just ’cause I’m a woman. But that’s actually what I wanted to talk about a little bit was because this arena is gorgeous. It is a beautiful NHL quality arena. It is huge. You can see where they ran out of time to make and then have the [00:40:00] temporary uh, seating.
Yeah. You can see the distinct line, but it’s gonna be fantastic when it’s actually finished.
Jill Jaracz: What we should place bets on, when it will be actually finished. ’cause I bet that seating doesn’t get replaced. Fixed for a long time. Well, because they’ll have to like return the rented seating.
Alison Brown: Right. And then just have two thirds of the seating.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Well we stage it can
Alison Brown: Good enough for now.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah,
Alison Brown: but here’s what got me upset. Why did the men get an actual stadium and the women get a high school gym?
Jill Jaracz: It, it, it’s really upsetting.
Alison Brown: It is so stark. It’s, and, and the women’s games are only in the actual arena semifinals and up
Jill Jaracz: except for the,
Alison Brown: except for that one US Canada game.
Mm-hmm. Which I guess they thought would sell out, but they didn’t even try.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Well the game did sell out. I mean, it was fall in, in, uh, the Santa Julia [00:41:00] arena for the US versus Canada game. It was packed in there. It was phenomenal.
Alison Brown: There is no way that women’s hockey should be treated, nevermind, like the ugly stepsister, like the neglected third cousin.
I mean, it’s such a stark contrast, not just in in the quality of the arenas and the size of the arenas, but what you’re saying about the sport.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: You’re saying only men’s hockey matters.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And it’s like because they had the NHL, but we don’t make a big deal about the professional Women’s Hockey League being part of this as well.
’cause there are a lot of pro hockey players.
Alison Brown: Yes. And not just on the US and Canada.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: On other teams as well.
Jill Jaracz: It, it feels like they said, oh, we have to scramble to put together a team for Italy, so nobody must like women’s hockey.
Alison Brown: Was, it’s so stark that it reminds me so [00:42:00] much of, we talk a lot about gender parity isn’t equality.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: And yeah. Okay. We have an equally number, uh, an equal number of teams in the men’s, in the women’s draw, but there is no equality here.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And, and they would say, come back and go, well, we don’t have too big arenas for this. Well, why don’t you put the men in? Why don’t you swap ’em back and forth?
Put the men in the small arena. See what, like, see what they think about it.
Or
Alison Brown: honestly, there were so few games that needed to be played at the same time. You didn’t need two arenas.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: You could have done it with one.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Or make, do the practice arena. There is a practice rink I believe in, in the Santa Julia one.
Alison Brown: There has to be,
Jill Jaracz: uh, put practices there or have ’em practice at row too. They can do it.
Alison Brown: They’re big boys. They can handle it.
Jill Jaracz: Right. They’re just excited to be at the Olympics Anyhow. What game did you see?
Alison Brown: So I saw the, uh, Switzerland [00:43:00] Czechia game.
Jill Jaracz: Ooh, that’s a fun
Alison Brown: one. Which was a good game. It went into overtime, it was scoreless, and then all of a sudden we got all these goals.
Jill Jaracz: Did they have songs? What were their songs?
Alison Brown: I did not recognize the songs.
Jill Jaracz: Were they, well, did the checks have that?
Alison Brown: They did not have the same song that the Czech women had.
Jill Jaracz: Ooh.
Alison Brown: So I don’t know if they have songs or it was just music that they played. Yeah. Are we treating this like an actual game?
Jill Jaracz: Well, I don’t mind the songs for the team.
Alison Brown: It’s, yeah, it was a very partisanly Swiss crowd, which really surprised me. I don’t know why. I mean, there was a good number of Czech fans.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: But when the Swiss scored, it was all of a sudden the, the, the whole arena erupted and red flags waving everywhere. And at first I couldn’t always tell who was cheering for the checks and who was cheering for the Swiss ’cause.
You would see red and white. Mm-hmm. And it could go either way unless they put the blue in. [00:44:00] But yes, I am a fan of the arena. You are right. It is a gorgeous stadium.
Jill Jaracz: Ah. So that is, they are in group A if you’re keeping track at home, uh, also in group A Canada beat France 10 to two. Ouch. And then in group C den Denmark beat Latvia four to two and USA beat Germany 5 2, 1.
So this was a huge win for Denmark.
Alison Brown: That’s big over Lavia.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And yeah, over Lavia. Come on. Uh, they got an empty net goal at the end, which they were very excited about because at the points are important for ranking, so that could be something that pops ’em into the elimination round. We’ll keep an eye on that.
Skeleton had the mixed team relay today. Gold went to Great Britain, the team of Matt Weston and Tabitha Stoker. And that’s a double gold for Matt Weston. So good on you.
Alison Brown: Yeah. Team G, team GB has not been having a great games, so this is a big, [00:45:00] a big boost for them.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, silver went to Germany, Axel Jung and Susanna Kreer and Bronze also went to Germany.
Jacqueline Pfeiffer and Christopher Grote. In ski jumping, we had the women’s large hill. This is the first time large hill has been, been competed in the Olympics for women.
Alison Brown: And you know, there wasn’t a single uterus that fell out.
Jill Jaracz: I cannot believe it. Geez. And they, they were like, we, they were thrilled.
They’ve been fighting a long time for this Of course, proving that uterus do stay in the body when even
Alison Brown: on a large hell.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. That’s right. So gold went to Anna ena drum from Norway, that’s double gold for her. This games silver went to, uh, iron Maria fondle from Norway and Bronze went to Nika Previz from Slovenia.
And she got a gold in the team and the silver on the normal hill. So [00:46:00] she’s got a full set for those games.
Alison Brown: And she also has bragging rights over her brother Doman, who she won the team gold with.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: But he won on, uh, the large hill as well, but didn’t medal on the normal hill. So now she’s got more medals than her brother.
Jill Jaracz: Ooh. Moving over to snowboard. We had the mixed team cross, I believe, correct?
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. So gold went to Great Britain’s, uh, Hugh Nightingale and Charlotte Banks. What they said in the media zone was that this was the first Olympic winter goals for Great Britain in 102 years. Didn’t Matt Weston win one yesterday?
Alison Brown: Yes, he did.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay. Thanks Ella.
Alison Brown: Maybe on the snow as opposed to on the ice.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, that could be. Could be. I. Now I gotta fact check. Don’t make me do that, but it, but it was very exciting. That Great Britain’s cleaning up a little bit, a little bit here. Silver went [00:47:00] to Italy’s, uh, Lorenzo. Riva and Mikayla Oli and Bronze went to France.
Lu Juan bolo and Leia Casta.
We also had the slopestyle qualifications, rescheduled from Monday because of bad weather. So standings are, uh, Dane Menzies from New Zealand’s in first Marcus Cleveland from Norway in second, and Mark McMorris from Canada is in third, as you remember, mark McMorris huge crash.
Alison Brown: Yeah. He had a crash in training on February 4th.
He had a concussion and bone bruising and an abdominal strain. He did not get medical clearance to get back on the slopes until Thursday.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: And he’s here it is Sunday and he’s in third place.
Jill Jaracz: That’s pretty good. And they moved up his competition. So he had won less day to recover than, than we all thought he would.
So, uh, the women also had their slopestyle qualifications. Standings currently are, uh, defending champion Zoe, uh, Sadowski senate from New Zealand is in first.
Alison Brown: [00:48:00] No, not until she wins.
Jill Jaracz: Well, she’s in first in the Oh, okay. I’m sorry. Not,
Alison Brown: not unless she wins. Does she get a little? Mm-hmm.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Alright. Uh, second is, uh, Kokomo Moe from Japan and third is San Yu from Japan.
So we’ll see those. Uh, I think the medals are still gonna be on a Tuesday for this.
Alison Brown: That’s the plan.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. We’ll see. Uh, speed skating. This is what I went to today
Alison Brown: and apparently got yourself into some trouble.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, well I was not, I didn’t have to book it too much. I was pretty much on, on time for being early, although I was still in seats.
But I did do the lap seat. Like you did, but that section started filling up. Oh. And people kept looking for seats. So I put my feet down after a while and put my laptop away so that somebody could sit down in front of me, except for one of the, uh, reporter bros. One of the press bros put, we had a few of them who claimed another seat for their bags.
And you’d have press people coming [00:49:00] in and be like, where can I sit? Where can I sit? And the, the volunteers would be like, well, I don’t see it. And they should have said, Hey bro, do you need that second seat? You don’t move it over. And uh, they didn’t. But I was trying to take pictures and you have to wait and focus a long time.
And I’m sitting there with my camera focused at an empty track, and I get yelled at for ta, no filming. And I’m like, I know that I did, did kind of outburst. I know what I’m supposed to do. You don’t have to tell me I’m not filming a blank pit picture of ice. I’m going to take a photo hopefully when they skate by into my frame.
I also almost burst onto the field to play. How did this happen? Because I couldn’t remember where the proceeding was. It’s, you go in the back, we have to go in the back of this and it’s everything. It’s the Olympic family entrance is right there. There’s uh, one little, uh, and it’s just office, [00:50:00] temporary office walls everywhere.
They’ve got a little gym in one of the offices. There’s mix zone one way Press Tribune one way. I don’t even know where the media center is. There’s just office after office, after office and I’m, I burst in the door and I’m looking around for Press Tribune and I see stairs and I almost went, went down.
Telling them up them. And that was the stairs to get to the center of the track.
Alison Brown: Yeah. Don’t go down those stairs. It’s like the time in Beijing where I went up the hill and I
Jill Jaracz: just, when did you get the gondola? You went, took the wrong gondola.
Alison Brown: I took the wrong gondola and almost ended up on the, they were gonna make me ski down the mountain.
If they had gone up that way,
Jill Jaracz: that would’ve been fun. ’cause maybe you would’ve beat the mountain.
Alison Brown: No, the mountain definitely would’ve beaten me.
Jill Jaracz: Um, I also, uh, found, another friend of Eric Heiden, and that would be a listener of Brian, who sent me a picture of Eric Heiden with Snoop Dogg at the, festivities [00:51:00] last night with Jordan Stoltz.
And he co, he, uh, captioned it, not pictured on the left as Alison Brown of Keith, the Flame Alive podcast, who was also in the audience, which made me laugh all night long. So thank you Brian. And he said, you know, uh, by the application of your rules. He is also good friends with Aaron Heid, Eric Heiden because he was a big fan when he was a little kid.
And he’s been to Lake Placid and Colorado and saw his Olympic skates at the museum in Las Vegas. So he’s my friend too. So we have a whole little club forming friends of Eric Heiden.
Alison Brown: I see no problem with this. Brian. You are, you are welcome in the Friends of Eric Heiden Club.
Jill Jaracz: So if you are also a friend of Eric Heiden, please let us know.
I will be your secretary ’cause I’m not a friend. I’ll just administrate this stuff. You can all friend him together and we’ll, we’ll get this club going. Not, you don’t have to be a fan. It’s not a fan club. You’re a friend club,
Alison Brown: you’re a friend. Poor Eric Hayden has no idea the shade that is being [00:52:00] thrown in his direction.
Jill Jaracz: You know, who also had no idea what to do with me? ’cause I was delirious at this point in the night for no good reason. A lovely woman who was writing stuff for team USA and when she said Team USA, my, my brain transferred that into US speed skating. So I told her this story ’cause I’m like, is Eric hiding gonna be around tomorrow?
And I tell him this story and then a few minutes later I realized, oh, you’re not with us speed skating. And I’m really sorry I told you that weird story. She’s like, it’s okay. She was very sweet. And then I could not grab the US speed skating person
to as well. Air cried to me around. He’s got friends who are coming and wanna be in the room with him. See now I can’t go to speed skating. Yes, you, you have to. You have to. [00:53:00] Actually speed
Alison Brown: skating’s not on the calendar tomorrow.
Jill Jaracz: Well, there’s still speed skating to come. We’ve got time.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Um, I forgot. Oh, almost got to put this on the, what I forgot to tell you today.
They had Tebo there. Tebo was there. They pulled him into the field of play and we’re doing, was doing a little interview with him and, and, and she’s like, Thomas, Bach everybody. And nobody, nobody clapped. Nobody really knew Who, I don’t think people, oh, I don’t think people realized what, who that was or whatever.
And, and he was, you know, smiley about it. But it’s just kind of funny
Alison Brown: port
Jill Jaracz: in Aba
Alison Brown: once he got out of the presidency. Everyone’s forgotten him.
Jill Jaracz: I know. Well, you have a crowd full of Dutch fans again. Sea of orange.
Alison Brown: Sea of orange.
Jill Jaracz: It’s amazing. Um, first up tonight was the men’s team pursuit quarterfinals. So Italy, USA, China and Netherlands.
Move on to the semis. France and Norway will be in the C final and Germany and Japan will be in the D final. I really enjoyed this. Because you saw pursuit. No. You saw, yeah. [00:54:00] You saw pursuit last night. Yes. So I saw it tonight. And what was funny was most of the time they’d just be in the line. I, I thought they changed positions.
Oh. And they don’t. Um, but they would be like, I’m gonna have my hand behind my back, kind on my butt. And the, the guy behind him would be touching the hand. So it’d be kind of like, I’m keeping my hand. I got you. I’m staying in contact. I’m touching your butt. But, uh,
Alison Brown: in an appropriate way.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, exactly.
But then I felt bad when, when somebody on that back end fell off, you know, fell off the line and you’re like, come on, catch up. You gotta do it.
Alison Brown: You’ve got to stay together.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. Uh, we also had the Women’s 500 Meters. Uh, this was a Snoop Dogg in the house for this one. And, uh, gold went to fem cock from Netherlands with an Olympic record.
Silver went to Yuta Lada from Netherlands, and uh, that’s her second medal of the [00:55:00] games and bronze went to Mijo Tki from, uh, Japan or Erin Jackson. Oh, this was tough. A little tough to watch. It got it gets better. She was fifth, she had the fastest opening 100 meters ever. It was phenomenal. And then in the back stretch, she said her feet got away from her a little bit and she stumbled.
And that was it. And from my, my vantage, ’cause I was in like curve one, I saw something happen. It’s just like, Ooh, what happened there? Because that was it. That just didn’t look right. And yeah. And she was, uh, she started on the outside.
And, uh, just Femke got her, I think she started, no, no, no. She started on the inside. So she started on the inner lane and had to switch to the outer lane, so you got the, the harder part coming around the backside. So, but, but Femke cock, whoa. That was a skate. And, uh, well, Aaron missed the [00:56:00] podium by 0.05 seconds.
I went down to the mix zone ’cause I wanted to talk to her. And, uh, she is an amazing person because she’s, she basically was really chill about the whole thing and she said, I really love pressure and all this environment and I stumbled and missed the podium and that’s what it is. This is what happens.
And was like, no big deal.
Alison Brown: Good on her.
Jill Jaracz: I mean, it was, it was really a good lesson. They need to bottle whatever is in her brain and, uh, try to share that with other people. Um, she would like to keep competing. So hopefully we will continue to see her. She also said, and
I asked her about technique compared, ’cause she has not been on ice skates for a long time. She’s been, I mean it’s been like eight years now, but compared to say a Dutch person, she hasn’t been on skates hardly at all. And I asked like, what about her technique does [00:57:00] she still need to work on and stuff?
And she said, well you know, this year I’ve been working on my thousand ’cause I really wanted to make the Olympics for that. And uh, working on that meant she was, she still had to work really hard to keep her fast feet for 500 meters. Yeah, fast feet. What’s up with that now? I got more stuff on the list.
Thanks, Erin. But she was very, very, very lovely and as always, and that was really fun. Uh, also what is fun is watching the athletes greet their fan friends and family at the end. There were a few of those that I got to see. That was really nice. Uh, I do wanna call out. Uh, the first person to skate had skate alone.
Uh, Ellie Sm Seding from Great Britain. She, uh, of course skating alone, Netherlands, cheering for her all the way. And at the finish she wiped out and smacked into the boards, haled, the [00:58:00] track, everybody, massive repair going on. And they brought out flatters and they brought out big purple spray bottles.
Alison Brown: Oh, I’ve seen the spray bottles.
Jill Jaracz: Isn’t that cool?
Alison Brown: Yes. There’s like little mini hand zambonis.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they have some kind of spray bottle. They pump it. It and it shoots out something. ’cause they really had some grooves that they had to fix. So it took a while. But ice, ice people all over it tonight. So good night. It was a, it was a really good race.
And Aaron had said like, look, Femke has been the best in this distance all year long. So it’s not a surprise that she won.
We got Team Keith, the Flame alive coming back tomorrow.
Alison Brown: We do. We’ve got some good ones. Frank Del Duca will be piloting with Josh Williamson as Pusher and the two man bobsled runs one and two in Win-Wins Mono, Bob Bree Walker and Alana Meyers. Taylor will be finishing up their competition and as I mentioned earlier, Spencer Howe [00:59:00] and partner Emily Chan will be skating in the pairs free skate.
Jill Jaracz: All right. And we have shout outs.
Alison Brown: Yes. First is Tommy Phillips from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an author of the book, the 1980 Moscow Olympics,
Jill Jaracz: which we will be, uh, looking at later this year. So you should pick up a copy and hopefully we will be talking with Tommy about that soon. we don’t have a Tommy Phillips or even a Tom Phillips or a Thomas Phillips, which I didn’t search Thomas, but there’s no Tom Phillips in the, who’s been an Olympian.
But we have Don Phillips, which is close, and he, uh, competed in 1968 in ice dance when it was not a metal sport yet,
Alison Brown: not until 1976.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. And then we also have.
Alison Brown: SKA from Boston, Massachusetts.
Jill Jaracz: And we don’t have a ska either, but we have a seat. Vander Land sit. Vander L from the Netherlands who competed in speed skating in 1976 and 19.[01:00:00]
So thank you very much to both Tommy and Cka, and we also have mascots.
Alison Brown: We do. We have our daily mascot. Today is Daisy, the short-haired cat Daisy was found on a porch hiding next to a watering can, which is how she got her name.
Jill Jaracz: Aw.
Alison Brown: She’s grown from a tiny three week old orphan to queen of her castle and living a royal life.
She likes to dress up because she has learned there are always treats involved and the picture that we are going to have in the Substack newsletter will prove what a queen that she is. Aw. So thanks to Lori and Lily for sharing Daisy with Shuk Stan. Aw. And for helping us get to Italy.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Lori and Lily.
I’m excited about the newsletter. You can sign up at flame i pod pod.com and that’s gonna do it for this episode. If you want even more of the most fun coverage of the games, hit us up@flameipod.com. You can get our socials there. Again, sign up for that newsletter ’cause it’s pretty fun and uh, other direct ways to contact us.
[01:01:00] Be sure to tune in tomorrow for what we forgot to tell you about today. Fingers crossed that I have remembered it all. I think you
Alison Brown: have,
Jill Jaracz: you might. So we will see and, and we might have more. New members of the Friends of Eric Heiden.
Alison Brown: You never know it’s an ever-growing club
Jill Jaracz: except for you won’t get one member unless I become an actual friend of Eric Heiden.
He seems like a
Alison Brown: very nice man, so I, I think he’d be happy to have more friends.
Jill Jaracz: Alright, well we will, we will work on our friend status with him over the course of the games Congrat Milli, per
Alison Brown: and until next time, chow and keep the flame alive.