The Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic cauldron might be out, but we’re still keeping the flame alive! We talk with listeners about their favorite moments from these Winter Olympics.
Don’t forget that the Paralympics are coming up soon! Daily coverage starts Wednesday, March 4. Be sure to get ready for another round of fun – and this time, Jill and Alison will be closer to Cortina! We’ll see what adventures (and mishaps) they have as they bring you the most fun coverage of the Paralympic Winter Games.
If you appreciate the independent voice we bring to covering the Games, or if you appreciate coverage of the Paralympics, please support the show to ensure our flame stays alive! Also, tell your people about the show and help grow the community!
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 Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
430-Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics-The listeners speak
Jill Jaracz: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to a very special episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. If you love the games, we are the show for you. I am your host, Jill Jaracz at the moment without my lovely co-host, Alison Brown, because we’re doing a very special episode today.
We’re talking Milano Corino with you, the listeners, and, we’re in between the games, the Olympics and the Paralympics. I am in Lausanne, Switzerland for the week, and Allison went home to Connecticut for the week. So we [00:01:00] wanted to do a call-in show. Couldn’t do it at the same time, so we split it up.
Milano Cortina 2026: Listeners with Jill version
I’m taking people on European time and, uh, Allison will be talking to people on Eastern Time tonight, already joined by listener Pat. listener Pat? How are you? It’s so nice to meet and talk with you in person.
Listener Pat: Oh, well, you know, I’m actually missing the daily podcast from you guys.
That was always like the first thing that I would put on in the morning. And look forward to hearing all your many adventures. Well,
Jill Jaracz: always
Listener Pat: disappointed that you didn’t wanna go see the Juliet statue in Verona, but
Jill Jaracz: I, you know, I, I have pictures of it. I did go see the statue. I just didn’t need to go into the house.
Listener Pat: Yeah, I get
Jill Jaracz: it. Especially
Listener Pat: in a crowd, I would probably feel the same thing.
Jill Jaracz: It, well, you know, it was, and I kind of, my, my photographer friend Sergio, he kind of shoved his way in there and then he like cut, made me cut the line too, and like, okay, this is, we’re already, it was not a good [00:02:00] situation.
We made the man very angry at the counter. He is like, you should have, you should have told us earlier you were coming. So I think it’s just a very, very busy place. Have you been? It’s
Listener Pat: a lot know between all like the transportation stuff and
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. You know, and I’ll tell you a fun story. It’s not even a fun story.
I’m having so much problems getting so many problems, getting my package shipped. I got an email from DHL today, like, you need a customs number, we can assign you a temporary one. So I’m filling out paperwork that I don’t even know what I’m really doing and, and hoping and praying that stuff I bought for inflated prices gets back to the states.
Listener Pat: Yeah. And you know, I’ve noticed that just since all of our, our tariff stuff, you know, all of a sudden the packages I would used to send to my best friend in England are like, oh wait, she might have to pay a value added tax on this, but it’s just a magazine, you know.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Oh,
Listener Pat: $50 for She didn’t, it was okay, but still.
Jill Jaracz: That’s [00:03:00] good. That’s good. So Olympics, did you have a favorite sport?
Listener Pat: Favorite sport, I guess, you know, it’s cliche, but I really enjoyed the ice skating this time. I especially loved the gala because I felt like you just saw the tension melt off of them and they were having fun, you know?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, yeah.
Listener Pat: And of course, you know, the panda costume for me
Jill Jaracz: was,
Listener Pat: but I, I did enjoy the ski mountaineering, but I didn’t have to, you know, drive travel for six hours to get there for 45 minutes of, of coverage, either.
I was able to just pick it up and watch.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, yeah. And we want, when we watched on tv, we’re like, oh, this is kind of cool. And I was bummed that I couldn’t be there, but just the schedule was so rough on that one. It was, they started at nine 30 in the morning and no worries, you know. But for it, you know, it is a three hour drive ride out there, but.
A lot easier than getting to some other [00:04:00] places, that’s for sure. But I’m, I’m curious to see if French Alps will keep ski mountaineering and
Listener Pat: Yeah. It’ll be interesting. And also if they’ll continue to spread things out like that. I, I understood the basic premise behind it, but it does seem like if you’re not a major sports network covering things, it would make the cover.
Its really hard. It
Jill Jaracz: it does, it does. I talked with one reporter who spent like 37 hours round trip to get to Cortina to spend like five hours there. She saw like some curling, she saw some skeleton, and then it was a very long trip back.
Listener Pat: Yeah, yeah. And curling, which, you know, I knew nothing about, I think when I first started listening to your podcast.
God knows however many years ago that was, you all were talking about the Norwegian team and their, their pants, their famous pants. I passed that on to my husband and he, he got really interested in watching [00:05:00] curling. So we watched a lot of curling this year.
Jill Jaracz: And did you have a favorite team by the end of it?
Listener Pat: Um, I do, of course. You know, I was gonna back the, the US but especially the us the pairs, um, the two quarries, I, I like them. And, uh, we watched some of the game between in, was it the one where Italy finally got a win by beating us? trying to remember. I know there was one game we watched where the Americans lost, and that was sort of sad, but, you know, it was still fun.
We, we really enjoyed was just trying to finally get a handle on the rules and understand. You know, what constituted a point and why were they shuffling off these, uh, the stones and seeming to position them outside of the house and everything, what the purpose of that was. So we felt like we, we learned some things this time around that before we just like to watch it.
’cause it looks so funny when [00:06:00] they were like running down the ice with their broom and scraping.
Jill Jaracz: Would you ever try curling?
Listener Pat: No. No. Um, no. I, I’m typically just, both of us are just walker hikers. Like, you know, we did part of the Appalachian trail together and things like that, but
Jill Jaracz: Oh, nice.
Listener Pat: Generally do the whole winter sports thing or anything. We
Jill Jaracz: watch,
Listener Pat: we watch and we wait for the snow to melt here so we can get outside again.
Jill Jaracz: Whereabouts, where are you, where are you located?
Listener Pat: Um, Maryland in College Park, Maryland.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, so you had the Blizz.
Listener Pat: Yeah, well we just caught the edge of it. The people north of us were the ones who really got hammered. Okay. And the storm before that was worse because it turned into the snow creek kind of ice immediately and it was you really hard to like get your car shoveled out.
And of course the plows would [00:07:00] then come and back all the snow, ice back into your driveway. And so that was the hardest storm. That’s gone. It’s gone.
Jill Jaracz: Good, good, good.
Listener Pat: Today it’s like 50 degrees or something. And of course I watched the women’s, some of the women’s hockey. I felt bad for Canada losing like that to the us.
That was a heartbreaker for them. I’m sure.
Jill Jaracz: You, you know, it, it is kind of sad ’cause we do like Canada, but they have beaten us most of the time. Yeah. And the very last games was the exact opposite where you see the very sad Americans and the glory, you know, Canadians throwing their helmets everywhere.
And I think that’s just part of the, the hardship. I, I’ve heard people talk about team sports is really hard because you win a silver, but you won the silver by losing a game.
Listener Pat: Yeah, I can see that. That it doesn’t feel quite the same, I guess.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Listener Pat: And I was, I thought Amber Glenn was phenomenal. I just, [00:08:00] I love, she came back and the way she took to the ice and everything, and also the fact that to bring herself up from 12th to fifth like that and not just let that kind of derail her whole Olympics.
I really admired that.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, yeah, that was amazing. ’cause it was just so sad that even though she did such a beautiful double, it wasn’t a triple. Yeah. And ugh, it,
Listener Pat: it was hard.
Jill Jaracz: That was just heartbreaking. But IWI was really amazed that she pull Yeah. That her place really stood and she just jumped up like that.
I mean, it, it’s also kind of the same, same in the men in a way. The opposite.
Listener Pat: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Where you go, oh, I can’t believe that all these men are, are not doing as well.
Listener Pat: I know, especially after the short program where you saw like, um, I’ve forgotten the French guy’s last name, Adam. He did such a beautiful program.
I thought, oh, he’s gonna take, maybe take this. ’cause you know, [00:09:00] people were kind of messing up in the long program and
Jill Jaracz: mm-hmm.
Listener Pat: He messed up in the long
Jill Jaracz: program. Right.
Listener Pat: So, but, and I, I can’t remember it was you all, or whoever the commentators I, that I was listening to said, you know, he was a skater who, when he is really on, he’s on.
And when he’s not, he’s not. And he was,
Jill Jaracz: yeah. And he, that was rough. The, the whole long program. And then I felt so bad for Yuma ’cause I do love his skating and to have that, I mean, he just messed up enough.
Listener Pat: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: And it was so sad. ’cause his, that program is just so beautiful and he is such a good skater.
Ugh.
Listener Pat: And his short program was just a delight. He just, you know, kind of lit up the ice. And, you know, then of course I was real excited that a skate, the skater from Kazakhstan who just grew up skating in the mall, cut the gold medal.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right.
Listener Pat: And yeah, that’s nice too when the unexpected happens [00:10:00] like that in a, a night, a beautiful way.
Jill Jaracz: yeah. Yeah. And it’s funny because his coach is the one who unexpectedly won the gold at Lila Hummer, 1994.
Listener Pat: No, I didn’t know that.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So yeah, Alexia arm and, and it’s really nice to have the, the Kazakh legacy come up from Dennis 10 who got their first medal, I believe he got a silver in figure skating, and I forget what Olympics he was at.
It might have been 2010, and then just tragically stabbed to death.
Listener Pat: Oh yeah, you
Jill Jaracz: told
Listener Pat: us that story.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. He was just walking down the street and somebody stabbed him in the thigh and. Got the, got the artery just right and he, uh, died. It was such, so sad. Yeah. And the, the figure skating C he was just beloved in the c in the community.
So it, but it’s nice to see what he started living on in other skaters. ’cause it’s really hard to be the first [00:11:00] in a program, you know?
Listener Pat: Yeah, yeah. And of course I felt bad for, for Ilya. I, you know, but I, you know, I thought he handled it pretty well, considering he’s young and he had so much pressure on him.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Listener Pat: I look forward to, I hope that I’ll be able to watch the, the worlds when that comes on. It sounds like many people are planning to participate there, so that would be interesting to see.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, it will be interesting to see because usually, uh, people will drop out for the world. But I mean, if you got something to prove
Listener Pat: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: You got something to prove.
Listener Pat: Yeah. So it feels almost like it’ll be, you know, Olympic skating part two or something.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right.
Oh, anything else that you, what struck you? What did you, what did you think of this games overall compared to other games in the past?
Listener Pat: I, I feel like I kind of enjoyed them more, although I’m not [00:12:00] sure why. Although I really did enjoy the Paris Games a lot.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Listener Pat: Enjoy those. maybe it’s just because I’ve seen this one more recently, but we really, Dave and I really looked forward to, you know, watching it at night together and we, you know, made a pact not to check the results before.
Jill Jaracz: That’s good. That’s hard.
Listener Pat: So, uh, we would be surprised by whatever it was we watched, but, you know, he said a couple times after they were over, he was like, oh, I kind of missed that. And I was like, yeah, I, I thought they did a good job. , You know, there was. Not too much. It was kind of weird the way people already pointed out where the sudden kind of commercial cuts and things was like, wait, what’s happening?
I think I thought they were about to have a goal and now we have a commercial. But, um, it was okay. And there were places I thought where they did a good job of trying to show you the highlights. You know, you don’t get to see the whole thing ’cause time pressures and everything are, are [00:13:00] difficult. But I, I felt like the pieces I got to see in things like ski mountaineering still gave me a sense of the sport.
So I, I enjoyed it.
Jill Jaracz: Excellent, excellent. I liked it, you know, there were a lot of fun. It was nice to be able to do some of the other stuff that we couldn’t do in Paris, just for lack of time. Just so much going on in Paris.
Listener Pat: I did love hearing about your cultural stuff because I feel like that’s something you don’t really, you got to see a little bit of that, but you know, Tucci going around and eating as
Jill Jaracz: fast, right?
Listener Pat: Not too much. Not like you. You all presented it.
Jill Jaracz: Well, good. ’cause it’s, it’s nice to be able to, to tell people what the country’s like and
Listener Pat: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: And how, how we’re doing. And that’s, and
Listener Pat: you know, just hearing about the behind the scenes and how janky the stairs were,
Jill Jaracz: the stairs are, so, you know, the, the, the, the high, the women’s hockey stairs over in row, those were really bad.
’cause it was janky in the middle of a convention hall and you had to [00:14:00] jank up and jank down, just keep going up and down and up and down within like a row. So you’d go up a couple of, a couple of stairs and, and then have to go right back down to get to another section. It was so weird.
Listener Fran: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: So, uh.
Listener Pat: I see we have someone else.
Jill Jaracz: We do. Hello Fran, this is Film Coach. Hey, Jill. Hello.
Listener Fran: How are you?
Jill Jaracz: Good, how are you?
Listener Fran: Good. I was just finishing my lunch and, and I saw the blurb and I’m like, Ooh, Jill’s on right now. Go say hi.
Jill Jaracz: Hello. Meet, meet. Pat. Pat.
Listener Fran: I bet. Meet
Jill Jaracz: Fran. Hello. Um,
Listener Fran: I just wanted to tell you that you guys, you did a great job. I mean, oh, thank you. I, I, I think I, I listened to about more than, more than 60, 70% of the pods. Excellent. And I gotta say, I mean, you know, I, I know you suffered a lot, [00:15:00] but, but you drank a lot. You had a lot of fun.
Jill Jaracz: We did. No, I did. I drank a lot. And
Listener Pat: you really deserved it
Jill Jaracz: considering all
Listener Pat: that went through.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. The hard thing was, so, I was so happy to find the. Milan Cortina 2026 Prosecco. And I found that right away. And they had it in White and Rose. And I’m like, do I buy two bottles? And I’m like, I am not hauling two bottles in my backpack along with everything else I’m carrying around too.
Listener Fran: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: And by golly, I never got back to that store and it was a chain store, so I kept going to different locations if I was by one and I never saw it again.
Listener Fran: Ah,
Jill Jaracz: so,
Listener Fran: oh, sorry.
Jill Jaracz: That’s all right.
Listener Pat: I did, there were times where you could really hear in your voices just how exhausted you were and then I could,
Jill Jaracz: yeah.
Oh yeah. It did get tiring and, and especially when like [00:16:00] the, I think it was harder ’cause the events would end late.
Listener Fran: Mm-hmm.
Jill Jaracz: And they’d all be at the end of train lines, which was. Kind of good. Mm-hmm. Because mm-hmm. You could get on an empty train, but you were still like an hour away.
Listener Fran: Mm-hmm.
Jill Jaracz: And then another probably half an hour may.
We tried to get as in starting and recording as soon as possible. And then it’s weird because whoever’s in whoever walks in second, you just don’t talk to each other and you just set up as quickly as possible. Save it, save it for the pod. Yeah. We had to, yeah, we had to save it for the pod. You might say hello, but it’s just like,
Listener Fran: well, yeah.
You know, and it was weird because I was trying to figure out where in Milan, because we were there three years ago and I was trying to figure out like. Where the heck were these stadiums? Because I don’t remember seeing the arch at where the flame was. Okay. I don’t remember seeing the stadiums. I mean, we were only there for like two days, but mm-hmm.
Like we were, we were in the center where like the cathedral was and La Scala. Mm-hmm. And the, and [00:17:00] all the, and and we were like right by, our hotel was right by the central train station.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay, okay.
Listener Fran: Which was great because it was like close to everything. ’cause you just hopped on the train and you could go anywhere, you know?
But I mean, I couldn’t be, I mean, I, I was shocked that you said that the hockey was about an hour away from where you were staying.
Jill Jaracz: Like an hour away.
Listener Fran: Yeah. Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: That’s nuts. So they put. Hockey, women’s hockey mostly, but some men had to play out there too. And speed skating at this massive convention center complex.
Listener Fran: Mm-hmm.
Jill Jaracz: That’s all the way at the end of the red line. I think that’s the M1. And once you got there, you got off the train and then you had to walk to, down to the convention hall, and this was like convention hall number 20.
Listener Fran: Mm-hmm.
Jill Jaracz: Out of a line of, if you think of a giant convention hall, and then times that [00:18:00] by like 20, or they were mm-hmm.
Were side by side. it took like 15 minutes to walk there from the metro and you’re at the end of the train line. Mm-hmm. So there was that. And then if you wanted to go to short trek and figure skating, it was at this, Basically like a, an arena. It was a concert venue. You could go see a concert there.
They had, it was an ice skating rink and it was at the end of another train line, but it was kind of in the suburbs at that point. Hmm. And it was right off the highway too. The, and then the hockey was new and it was also kind of in, in the middle of nothing. Mm-hmm. That they’re trying to build up. And you got off the train and they had to shuttle you.
’cause it was really long, a long, long, if you want to, I don’t, don’t never tried to walk it. ’cause it was just like, because you got off the train and you couldn’t even see the hockey arena from where the train was. And, and then [00:19:00] you took the shuttle, you got off the shuttle and the hockey arena was still like way far away it felt.
Right? Mm-hmm. So it was, it was just like all of the venues were just so spread out.
Listener Fran: Yeah. And
Jill Jaracz: then the, the,
Listener Fran: and I really felt bad for you for having to go, like, when you went to la did you go to Lavino or did you go to Borneo?
Jill Jaracz: I went to Borneo. ’cause Lavino was the next, it would’ve been another hour farther.
Listener Fran: Yeah. I mean, it was, and I wanted to, to go mean, it was like, and I mean, you went like, how long to, and you were only there for like, what, two, three hours?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah.
Listener Fran: And then you had a high tail it back and I’m like, that just sucks.
Listener Pat: It sounded like the getting home was kind of even worse. Just the crowd
Listener Fran: dier
Listener Pat: venues and,
Jill Jaracz: yeah, because you did get the, the crowds with some stuff and there were, there were some things where it was like, oh, I think especially on the, the women’s hockey gold, uh, that goal [00:20:00] scored and we were out of there.
I was out of there as fast as I could get because I, I didn’t wanna Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I saw the medal ceremony on that one. I thought about going to the mix zone, but then it was like midnight and it was gonna be another hour before our people got through and I said, they can’t do it, you know?
Listener Fran: Mm-hmm.
Jill Jaracz: So, but there were some where we were like, okay, game’s over.
Gone. We’re out. Mm-hmm. So,
Listener Fran: well, you made it through,
Jill Jaracz: you did make it through.
Listener Pat: I have to say you did give my my husband some outright prolonged laughter when I told him all about the penis skate thing
Listener Fran: and I missed, I missed the pod with the, you were talking about the friends of Eric Heen, but I missed the initial thing.
Jill Jaracz: Oh
Listener Fran: my gosh. That made you talk about it.
Jill Jaracz: The big thing. And it was the day that it didn’t go to Spotify, like something happened with our, our oh post. And actually [00:21:00] something happened on Spotify’s end because all of these podcasts were not getting to Spotify and, and what happens?
You can imagine this Fran. ’cause Fran, pat Fran is, uh, friends with Allison. Allison just randomly goes, oh yeah, well I’m a friend of Eric Hayden, and, and I said, wait, what? Did you meet him? How are you friends? And she’s like, oh, I was in the same room with him or something. Or like, no, I’m a fan. I watched him on tv.
So now we’re friends and it’s like, wait a.
Listener Pat: It was funny. And the whole exchange about No, Dr. Hyden would be, he would never,
Jill Jaracz: and then, and then Allison, we found out, has delicate bones, so Oh, oh God. Eric Heen, if she needed surgery, Eric, her friend Eric Hein would, would step in. Yes, exactly. Oh my God. God.
X-ray, her delicate
Listener Fran: dog. Oh no, I, and I even texted her because when she brought up the Chinese stairs, when you guys were talking about S schmo, I was [00:22:00] cracking up. I’m like, that is priceless. I’m like, that’s a good one. That is a good one.
Jill Jaracz: Oh boy. Did. So Fran, did you have a favorite part of the Olympics?
Listener Fran: I like the, I like the figure skating a lot.
I mean, I like, I like seeing all the sports that you don’t get to see routinely, like the biathletes. Mm-hmm. And all the crazy jumping stuff. I mean, ’cause I don’t usually search that stuff out to watch. Right. that stuff’s always great. I, I miss the human stories though.
I feel like on other, other stations, they used to do so many more like background stories of athletes and
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Listener Fran: I didn’t feel like they really did as much. N bj
Jill Jaracz: Interesting, interesting.
Listener Pat: The main people, but yeah, there
Listener Fran: weren’t, right. It was all, they, they kind of pigeonholed certain people and like, and the, and the crazy thing was like Lindsay [00:23:00] Vaughn, like, they just talked her up nonstop, you know, and then she didn’t do what.
She, you know, was supposed to do, you know, and then, you know, and all of a sudden, like silence, you know, same thing with melanin, you know? Mm-hmm. They pumped this poor kid up and gave him such a big complex, and then he like, detonates. And then it’s like, you know, so I’m like, why? I mean, they just tried to pump certain people up.
Mikayla Schiffrin too, you know, they just pumped her up and then she crashed and burned, like for the first couple of events she was in. Mm-hmm. You know, and it was like, I was so tired of hearing them say, oh, well she’s going for the gold, you know, she’s gonna win the gold. And then it’s like, no, she didn’t.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And I, I wonder if that’s just like, okay, because I see that in my, my. Emails, I’d get the NBC emails and like, oh, it’s a half an hour until somebody’s going for the [00:24:00] gold. Like, don’t pump it up like that. But that’s what gonna get people to watch.
Listener Fran: Constant.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Listener Fran: Constant.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And I mean, I think we’re probably out of that era of where we got the stories of athletes just because now everybody wants to stream stuff and just watch the show, but Right.
I think there probably needs to be some kind of balance.
Listener Fran: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: And, and there’s just not enough time or resources to find out
Listener Fran: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Other people besides, oh, we know Lindsey Vaughan. This is easy.
Listener Fran: Right.
Listener Pat: A few snippets here and there. Like, Johnny Weir was talking about his correspondence with, The Kazak found skater, whose name?
Jill Jaracz: Oh, oh, mm-hmm. Yeah, me, Kyle Soff.
Listener Pat: I don’t know how, how he knows I like Pandas, but every email I get from him is signed Panda Power. And I was like, like knowing that about, I appreciate that, that little tidbit.
Listener Fran: Yeah. I mean, we got to know the, um, [00:25:00] the speed skater, what’s his name?
Listener Pat: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, Jordan Stoltz. Yeah.
Listener Fran: Yeah, they did, they did something decent on him. but it’s like, would it have killed them to do some, some background on some Italian athletes and French athletes and GB athletes and, you know, it’s like, you know, since
Listener Pat: was the host country, that would’ve been really nice.
Listener Fran: Yeah. I mean, and Tucci, I mean, Tucci did a couple of little things, but he didn’t even really get a lot of time No.
To like
Listener Pat: eating this, you know?
Listener Fran: Yeah. They, they did this thing with the skate, with the hockey girl, ladies, and. I thought they were gonna be longer. Like they barely introduced them at this table having lunch. And then they were like, see ya. And they’re just like, well they didn’t talk that much. You know, we didn’t even, I was like, okay.
They built this up and then it was like over, so it was just, it was weird. The coverage I thought was really, really weird. Mm-hmm. From my end, I [00:26:00] mean,
Jill Jaracz: interesting.
Listener Fran: I, I tried to watch the day feeds as much as possible ’cause I hated the night feeds. Interesting. I mean, they were just so packaged and it was so
Listener Pat: edited.
That was a
Listener Fran: problem. It was so edited. Yeah. I could
Listener Pat: go back and watch the day things after that. ’cause I had an agreement with my husband not to watch the day things until after we’d watched them together at night. Mm-hmm. But then the next day I would go back so I’d see the full skating. ’cause the, their coverage of the gala at night was terrible.
Listener Fran: It was, it was garbage. I waited all night. We couldn’t wait to watch the gala a lot. And we watched, like we started watching at eight o’clock. I was at my parents’ house that weekend, 10 30 before they got, it was 10 30 and they showed five skaters.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh. And there were like 50 people in that thing.
Listener Fran: They showed, there were so many
Jill Jaracz: people
Listener Fran: showed, they showed ia, they showed Alyssa Lou Amber. They showed Amber, they showed, uh, the pairs.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Listener Pat: The
Listener Fran: show, [00:27:00] the gold
Listener Pat: medal skater, did they, they didn’t, they didn’t show him. In the Panda costume?
Listener Fran: No, they didn’t. Oh. They didn’t even show the Panda. Wow. And so we were so pissed.
We actually started, we went on Peacock at 11 o’clock and started watching the Real Gala.
Listener Pat: Yes.
Listener Fran: And then we finished watching it the next day because my daughter was like, this is awesome, mom. Why didn’t they show any of this?
Listener Pat: Exactly. Because
Listener Fran: I
Listener Pat: start at the end, when they all come out and the, the of the,
Listener Fran: because I saw the feeds on Twitter about, uh, or threads about it, and they showed blurbs that, and I’m like, who’s this panda guy?
I gotta watch that part.
So I mean,
Listener Pat: there from them, from Jill and Allison. And then I was like, I gotta go back and watch it. ’cause I missed a whole bunch in
Listener Fran: the Yeah. It was a bummer. I mean, what they showed was just, they, you know what they did show? They built up for what’s his face, the speed skater.
Jill Jaracz: Jordan Stoltz,
Listener Fran: Jordan [00:28:00] Sto, they built up for the mass start race.
Oh. And that was where he completely like, didn’t do anything. It was like the worst boring thing. And they kept on talking about it, and then they showed that over the ice skating.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. It’s true.
Listener Fran: Because
Jill Jaracz: that, that
Listener Pat: was crazy. I, I mean, I was just interested in the chaos of it and how bizarrely it played out, you know, with Yeah.
Getting way, way ahead of the
Listener Fran: Yeah. And the, and the announcers were just like beside themselves. They were like, uh, this guy is just gonna win because nobody can catch him.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah.
Listener Pat: His husband was into it because he’s a biker, so he was like interested in the parallels of the bike racing and the speed skating.
But you’re right,
Listener Fran: right. I, I don’t know if he just, was he sick? I mean, what happened to him? He just didn’t get it.
Listener Pat: I heard an interview with him later. He said it just got to that point where he’s, of course he’s not a distance skater anyway. He’s a sprinter. But he said [00:29:00] that right. The rest of the Peloton was kind of hanging back, waiting for him to right lead.
And he knew he didn’t have that in him to be
Listener Fran: Right.
Listener Pat: Hang out in front of the Peloton that long and it would just mean everybody getting past him.
Listener Fran: Right. But then it happened anyway, so,
Jill Jaracz: yeah. Well, and, and also very angry about it was, Bart swings from Belgium who won in Beijing. He wanted to win again.
Yeah. And he got stuck in the Peloton. He was mad that those, that the, the Dutch man whose name it’s for it’s Bema maybe. Yeah. And, and the, the Danish guy who, Was so shocked that he got silver, you know? Mm-hmm. He was so, Bart Swings was really mad that those two went out, but you know, you gotta have a strategy.
’cause Yeah. Bergman was like, Hey, come on, buddy. Nobody, uh, you know, come on with me. Nobody’s going out. Mm-hmm. And we gotta do something. They make a, they make their move. American
Listener Pat: teammate either.
Listener Fran: Right. And it, it seemed like you needed a team to have a [00:30:00] strategy Yeah. To even have a chance. So maybe he just figured I’m not gonna win it, you know?
Yeah. Because the announcers were all, were playing him up. They’re like, oh, once Jordan hits this, he’s not, he’s not catchable. And, and I’m like, the dude is like in the middle of the pack. I think that
Listener Pat: part of the strategy of the two guys who went way out in front, they were like, we get out there gonna catch us.
Listener Fran: Nobody’s gonna catch us.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And then I guess there was a Dutch guy who was in the pack making it hard for everybody else to get around because he is like, my buddy’s out in front. I don’t know if I’ll catch ’em, but, we’ll, I’ll make life hard for everyone else back here.
Listener Fran: Right. So it was just like, stuff like that.
I mean, it just, it was too bad. Like they, the stuff they chose to cover, you know, and I mean, and they had really great announcers in Tara and Johnny. I mean, because they knew the sport, like,
Jill Jaracz: right.
Listener Fran: I felt like when Mike Tarico was doing his nightly thing, I mean, I, I [00:31:00] couldn’t tell if he wanted to be there, if he didn’t wanna be there.
He was just kind of blah. I mean, I don’t know. It just, it just felt like it was very boring, like, to watch the announcers. Like they didn’t have that kind of like, impression, like, wow, like these people are doing amazing things. You know what I mean? They were just kind of like, and let’s bring it over to this guy to talk about this, or let’s go over to, I, I like the British lady who was there before Mike Tico showed up.
Listener Pat: Yes. Okay.
Listener Fran: She was way better, or Australian or wherever she was from.
because Mike was at the Super Bowl, right? So he showed up late and there was this, and there was this woman with an accent who was there the first like two days.
And I thought she had more personality
Listener Pat: Yeah.
Listener Fran: Than they did. Interesting.
Jill Jaracz: So I’m sorry to hear that about my boyfriend Mike Tico.
Listener Fran: I know I like Mike, but
Listener Pat: it was true. I mean, I, I didn’t notice it because I had this habit of going back the next day to actually watch the, [00:32:00] the event as opposed to, even though I had seen the coverage the night before.
And so I, I kind of got lost in that, that part of it. But you are right,
Listener Fran: right. Well, the, the feeder, I, I caught some feed watching the pairs and there was no announcers. And that was even great because it was just the skating,
Listener Pat: it was really interesting
Listener Fran: and the results, and that’s it. And I was like, wow. You know, the only time I wish there was somebody was if they fell and like, ’cause then they would say, oh, well she caught her toe pick or whatever, you know.
But I mean, that was great because you could just watch it, you know, and just enjoy it without having them, like, just constantly talk over it. Mm-hmm.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And I mean, some of the feed announcers were so cruel. In a way, like they were, it was tough to watch some of them and, and I don’t know if they were stuck in a booth and announcing whatever sport they were, you know, ’cause it sounded, some of them [00:33:00] sounded like the same person was doing figure skating and something on snow and something sliding.
’cause it sounded a lot familiar. And I was like, oh boy, whoever this guy is, just get him off. ’cause he is kind of cr and not, I don’t think he means to be cruel, but I feel like there were some commentators who were just like, old guys who had been doing this forever and they had their like, oh, this girl’s gonna do it and add a girl kind of thing.
You know? It was just a, a little, a throwback to a time where, you know, that we, the rest of us have moved past.
Listener Fran: Mm-hmm. Well, the, the, the stupidest ones were the guys with the, um, what was it? It was the snowboard. Was it the big air or something, and they were talking about everything was butter. Like, oh, he did a butter that was a buttered.
And I’m just like, what the, I’m like, if I have to hear [00:34:00] butter one more time. I was actually trying to Google it. I’m like, what is the butter? I can’t see it.
I’m like, seriously?
Jill Jaracz: Was it they melted stuff?
Listener Fran: No, it was the way they took off. The jump before they jumped. They were like, oh, he did the butter before he did the nine, 20 or eight, you know, 1280 or whatever. And I’m like, I’m like, is it the way you took off? I’m like, maybe I missed the beginning when they explained it
Listener Pat: with the goofy stance was versus the,
Listener Fran: the goofy.
I know. Yeah,
Jill Jaracz: yeah, yeah. Which
Listener Pat: is really pretty basic. I don’t know why they have to call it goofy, but
Listener Fran: anyway, I know my husband was, my husband was like, oh, I know that from skateboarding.
Listener Pat: Mm-hmm.
Listener Fran: So that’s all skateboarding lingo.
Listener Pat: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: So,
Listener Fran: but no, it was, it was a great, I felt like it was a great [00:35:00] games in, in, in general.
I mean, I was really happy for Italy. I mean, I think they did a great job. Their athletes did a great job. I mean.
Jill Jaracz: Know athletes did do a good job, so we’ll see how they do next time because Right. I would imagine that the investment for Italy is not gonna be the same as it used to be as it was for this one.
It sounded like they really put a lot of money into, into stuff. Mm-hmm. And athlete training and, and I had read something about one of the Italians saying, yeah, we got a lot of support, but if that support goes away
Listener Fran: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: There’s, there’s stuff that money helps in a lot of ways.
Listener Fran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Listener Pat: But I did like a little piece on the Norwegian sports system and how the
Listener Fran: Yes.
Oh yeah, that was awesome.
Listener Pat: That was really interesting. And that,
Listener Fran: that was great. And that makes a heck of a lot of sense why they’re so dominant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: I’m [00:36:00] curious how long Clay Bo can. Keep going at it, man. He’s just a machine. It keeps getting better and better.
Listener Fran: The memes were great. I should have sent you some.
I, I think I, I don’t know. I sent a ton to my husband because my, my brother-in-law is a personal trainer and he is a, he’s an, a triathlete uhhuh, and he is done an iron man. And so like even he is like, this dude is just another level, like, dude just tastes crazy. Gold medal.
Jill Jaracz: That’s all right.
Thank you for co coming on, pat. It was so nice to talk with you live and thank you for all of your
Listener Fran: story. Nice meeting you. Bye bye. I know I’m probably gonna have to head off too. I’m still at work’s. I gotta, oh yeah. I gotta do work. But, but I just wanted to pop on and say, you
Jill Jaracz: know, well, it’s good to talk to you.
Listener Fran: It’s worth the agony. It’s worth the agony.
Jill Jaracz: We are not defeated.[00:37:00]
Listener Fran: I know. I was trying to figure out, I’m like, oh, can I help them from here? Like, can I be a wingman and try to get them to like, Corina
Jill Jaracz: it just took a, a, you know, I was sitting in hockey. And it was the women’s gold medal game. And, and I went to the press seats and there are fans sitting in the press seats. I’m like, wow. They, they must have sold some extra tickets. Okay. And this guy who is American but lives in Brazil, uh, he’s like, yeah, it’s Carnival week.
And I just said to the boys, let’s go to Milan and go see the games or go to Italy. ’cause they went to Cortina too. I’m like, how’d you get there? Oh, we rented a car. I’m like, yeah, yeah. That’s not happening in my world. There’s no way I’m driving over here for now.
Listener Fran: I, I’ve never driven in Italy. I, I don’t, I don’t think I’ve, I know the road signs well enough and
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, right.
Listener Fran: How to park parking is a disaster. I’ve heard.
Jill Jaracz: Especially in the cities. Nuts. Yeah. Because people were just so, I mean, like, [00:38:00] couldn’t fi figure out like what entitled you to, to park on the sidewalks versus, versus sidewalks. Oh yeah. They park
Listener Fran: everywhere.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. It was just nuts. And, and I was just shocked that they had so many, I shocked that they had so many cars in Milan, even though I realized, oh, there’s car manufacturers in the neighborhood of the city.
Right. Yeah. That, that makes sense. That there’d be all this stuff, but boy, boy was, there’s traffic.
Listener Fran: Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, but it’s a beau it’s a great spot. I mean, I, I think they did a really good job. I mean, like you said, I didn’t think they, they could have condensed the Alpine to one spot.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Listener Fran: I mean, they didn’t have to have like four different locations.
That’s garbage.
Jill Jaracz: No, no, no. But, and, but, but yeah, I think they did a really good job. And of course pulled it off like they, they intended to, I think it was a better games than Torino overall, you know? Mm-hmm. If you wanna compare those two, I didn’t think Torino was [00:39:00] that. Maybe it’s ’cause the US didn’t do so well in Torino or what, but, but, uh, these felt like they got more stuff finished than Torino got finished.
Mm. You know what I mean? Like they
Listener Fran: mm-hmm.
Jill Jaracz: Paint was drying, but they got a lot done and they did it with a lot more panache.
Listener Fran: Yeah. Yeah. But no, but it was good. And we’re looking forward to the Paralympics too.
Jill Jaracz: Excellent. We are
Listener Fran: too. And try to watch. Yeah, and try to watch as much as PO we were in. Whenever the skating came on, I was like, oh, IWI wish like you guys would’ve wore like bright orange or something in the crowd.
I’m like, maybe I could just catch you in the crowd. Too
Jill Jaracz: hard.
Listener Fran: Too hard. Hard. I was looking at the boards behind them. I’m like, oh, be awesome if I could just see them like sitting with their computers.
I’m like, oh man. That’ve been great, but oh well. [00:40:00]
Jill Jaracz: Maybe during the Paralympics. Uh, we’ll have to see what the, what the curling situation is like.
Listener Fran: Yeah. They showed way too much curling. They showed way. Oh, did they show too much curling every night? It was, I mean, it was good at first, but then it’s like, oh my God, there’s curling again.
Right. And again and again. did you see the Canadian guy who boop, the, the stone.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, I saw a little bit of that. I did go back and watch that one. Like, oh,
Listener Fran: the memes are insane. I mean, they inserted him into like the hockey, like the gold, like putting the puck in the, in the net. They’re like, we know how the puck got in. And, and they show the puck and they see this guy come out and go, boop.
And then they did one for ice skating. They did one where, uh, oh, this is why the men kept falling and like they showed them in the air and then this guy, they put ’em in there and they’re going, boop, on their [00:41:00] skates. It’s, the internet was great during this Olympics. It was really fun. Awesome, awesome. It was really fun.
But, but I do have to go because I do have to get some work done. I’ll try to, I’ll try to say hi to Allison tonight on her pop.
Jill Jaracz: We’ll try to get a, we’ll try to get a movie going this year. There might be something out there.
Listener Fran: I, you know what? I saw somebody mentioned it during the games. There was something, was it on CBO or
Jill Jaracz: there?
Yeah, there’s some documentary on cbo. I think
Listener Fran: it was something else, but
Jill Jaracz: yeah. We’ll, we will look around and see if there’s a movie we can do this year.
Listener Fran: Yeah. Okay. Sounds good.
Jill Jaracz: All righty. Excellent.
Listener Fran: All talk to you later, friend.
Jill Jaracz: Thanks for calling.
Listener Fran: Yep, no problem. Bye.
Jill Jaracz: Hello, how are you?
Listener Bryan: I’m doing good.
Jill Jaracz: Listen to Brian. We were low on four pees and five pizzas and three pizzas. This time around.
Listener Bryan: Well, you know, there were a few, but, um, it’s, it’s a difficult achievement in general, so [00:42:00] you don’t, you know, it’s, there’s always opportunities and then you get down to the nitty gritty of the one or two, three people that accomplish it.
And, you know, there were a few that, uh, got three pees and, uh, you know, there was arguably a four P in the, uh, mixed lose relay depending on, you know, how you feel about whether it’s the same event as the, uh, mixed relay was before. I can see both sides of that story. So yeah, a lot of good. you know, enjoyed the podcast, thought there was a, thank you.
You know, a lot of good stuff that, uh, happened. You know, there were seven athletes who got the full set of medals that, you know, they were looking for, seven, you know, the Alison likes.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I know I was saying it a lot. I didn’t realize it was seven though.
Listener Bryan: Right. And, uh, so that was good.
And um, I felt like a lot of athletes like Cla Bo and Fontana and Schiffrin and Teki kind of burnished their career reputation. So a [00:43:00] lot of positives from these games. kind of disappointed in the, how spread out it was, felt like a lot of the athletes may not have gotten to meet other athletes from other sports and other countries that they might have mingled with, at our past Olympics.
And the, and I think that’s a big part of the Olympic, um, experience for the athletes. So that’s kind of disappointing ’cause I think that didn’t happen as much for a lot of them.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. You know, when I was coming home from the closing ceremony, I was sitting next, I was sitting around a bunch of athletes and I was just kind of listening to them.
’cause I didn’t wanna be like old woman whose horns in on your conversation. And there were Canadian losers sitting with uh, German speed skaters. So they were kind of comparing their different village experiences, which, you know, Kirsty Coventry said everybody had the same experience across all villages.
And, and I not buying that one. ’cause they, they were like, oh, you got this, so we didn’t get that, or this was kind of weird. and the losers [00:44:00] said, oh, we only had like five sports in our village. And that was a lot, that was almost overwhelming. I can’t imagine what it was like for you guys in the big village, but even the big village only had like five or six sports when you came.
When it come down to it.
Listener Bryan: you know, I think that intermingling and just getting to meet people from outside of your realm of sports, the dumpster, you know, if you’re a loser or a, uh, freestyle skier, you kind of see these same people on the circuit week in and week out. So that’s kind of one of the big things that makes the Olympics different.
So I’m not really sure what the athlete experience was on that, but, that was what they did. And interesting enough, you
Jill Jaracz: know, yeah, I, I felt bad for the biathletes because they didn’t get to mingle with anybody except for the people they always see.
Listener Bryan: Right.
Jill Jaracz: And like you say in cross country and ski jumping and Nordic combined, well that’s a little bit more, but even so, you still don’t get the same, like you [00:45:00] say, oh, uh, you know, a Nordic combined athlete or a ski jumper is gonna be a lot different than, you know, somebody who does big air.
In a way, you know, just attitude and, and, who’s big in those sports? It’s, it is just, like you say, it’s just the opportunity to meet new people and mingle. And that’s what makes the Olympics a lot of fun for the athletes. Otherwise, it’s just another stop on the World Cup tour, you know?
Listener Bryan: Yeah, right. And I was kind of worried that that might’ve been the experience for, for some, because, but you know, it’s the Olympics and uh, you know, I was very surprised, uh, how well Italy did at these Olympics.
Uh, usually there’s the, there’s there is a home country bump, but they really, jumped up in the medal counts from past Olympics and, you know, and then I was kind of concerned ’cause it didn’t seem like China was gonna win very many medals, but it seems like with four or five days to go, they suddenly woke up and started putting medals on the medal charts.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And that surprised me with [00:46:00] how much. They invested in 2022 and invested in winter sports. I thought that for sure there would be more Chinese athletes at the top of the podium or even on the podium. But like you said, they really only came on at the very end. It was, and, and a lot of it was Eileen Goo too.
So it’s gonna be interesting to see what happens to Italy in the next games, the next winter games to see if the investment that they put in to look good here is something they’ll keep doing.
Listener Bryan: Yeah, I think so as well. You know, it’s, um, like I said there, it seems like every country gets a sort of hometown bump, if you will, at a, at every Olympics where there’s a lot more excitement and, you know, there’re, it’s a home country.
So, that’s not unusual, but it’s, uh, it seemed like Italy really benefited from their,
Jill Jaracz: really, from the Olympics. They
Listener Bryan: really did in a big way. And so, uh, that was kind of surprising to [00:47:00] me. But, you know, um, it was a very interesting, I kind of had a interesting watch experience. I, it was watching on TV listening as I drove on SiriusXM radio, sometimes up in the middle of the night watching streaming on the phone.
I had a very varied and disparate media listening to your podcast. refreshing ESPN Metal Tracker and us, uh, a today, uh, live results in the middle of the night. So had a lot of different, um, media, experience in, uh, keeping up with these games between doing some other work I’ve been, I needed to stay and do in the US uh, during this Olympics.
So
Jill Jaracz: what did
Listener Bryan: you think of
Jill Jaracz: n NBC’s coverage this time around?
Listener Bryan: I thought it was good. Um, certainly listening to what you and Alison had to say about the figure skating commentary, I thought that, you know, Tara and Johnny Weir are kind of coming into their own as commentators, like really, really smart commentary.
A lot of [00:48:00] really, I thought, uh, I know when one of the figure skaters finished their program and Terry Lipinski’s, like, and that’s the way you skate when you intend to win a gold medal at the Olympics. Oh, wow. Like, it was just very like, you know, direct and, on point throughout a lot of it and, you know, a lot of, interesting metaphors and similes from Johnny Weir that were entertaining.
So I enjoyed that. Uh, you know, I thought that the, um, in general, A lot of the coverage was what you expect. You know, a lot of it you’re watching on delay. So you know, someone like me, I already know what’s happened. I’m just watching it to see it happen, if you will. And Right. I think that was true.
’cause you know, they would kind of have stuff on in the morning and then the same stuff would kind of repeat in the afternoon and then again during the primetime coverage at night. So there were a couple days where I think I saw some of these events two or three times. Wow. For the choice of a day, you know, between holy cow, between USA network really early in the [00:49:00] morning and then the afternoon replays and you know, I thought the coverage was really good.
it’s the USA network television coverage of the Olympics. It’s very different than the feed. It’s very different than being there. It’s very different than what you see sometimes in other countries when you’re watching it on TV in other nations. So, you know, but. They pay for the rights and they bring in the big, guns.
I thought they brought in, you know, for the USA Canada Ice Hockey game, it seemed like they brought in every single person. They had a ian there, they had, they had Wing, were bringing everybody onto the, onto the, uh, you know, Mike Tikas gonna talk to every single person you’ve ever heard of in the world of ice hockey at some point during this coverage.
So, but that’s what they do. And, and it’s, it’s fun And, you know, you get, you get to watch stuff, you know, as, as usual, you know, if you’re watching alpine skiing or something, I always think the only way you’re gonna see someone’s [00:50:00] run in a downhill or a giant solemn is if this person.
Is making it on the podium, like Right. The way they cut it, you know, they’re not going to just show you 25 skiers in a row. Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: You’re gonna see five. Yeah.
Listener Bryan: And
Jill Jaracz: so, yeah, and that’s a bummer. ’cause that’s, you just get into it and then they pull away and that, or they, they only show you the five and that’s it.
They’re that great. I’d like to see more. I didn’t realize that when we actually watched it, when I actually saw that in live, I think they did about 30 skiers and then, uh, the Brazilian, whose name I can’t remember, but he won gold. He, won his gold and then they had like another. 30 to 40 skiers to go, which were all of the small countries that never send, you know, this is the one entry they’re gonna get, but they give ’em like the, they get the worst, worst snow, if you want to call it that.
Mm-hmm. They get the, the [00:51:00] course is gonna be a little bit harder for them, but then they go at 45 second intervals unless something happens on the, on the course and they have to shut it down for a minute. But I was really surprised that that’s how they did that massive event, just to make sure it doesn’t last 25 hours.
Listener Bryan: Right. Well, you know, you’re gonna, you know, you’re gonna get about 20 minutes of teasing the skiing in about 15 minutes of action.
But, you know, I, uh, you know, they had to burnish McKayla Schifrin’s, uh. career and I’m,
Jill Jaracz: oh
Listener Bryan: man. I’ve never felt like a person needed to win a gold medal more than she needed to win that gold medal in the slalom, at this point in her career. Which is amazing. Amazing. Like more of a relief than a, it’s, that felt a hundred percent like relief more than anything else.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And I, I’m so glad she won because, uh, I mean, being the greatest [00:52:00] skier on the circuit, uh, in history for as many World Cup wins as she has, and just having these issues at. Olympics. That’s really hard. And you know, in Beijing you could say, well, nobody knew the mountain very well, but here you’ve got a mountain that she knows.
Right. And to still have trouble that, you know, whatever block mental block she was working through and glad she got through it before her last race.
Listener Bryan: Yeah, well, you know, but now it’s just, she’s won gold at three of the four Olympics she’s been to. She might come to another Olympics. She never, I never say never on these Olympians.
I mean, some of ’em keep coming back. They say they’re done and then they come back. Right. They retire, they unretire. So, I don’t know that that was her last race, but if it were, it was, I think, you know, that was a great capstone to, an Olympic career that, you know, has had a lot of ups and downs I’ll say.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What do you think of the skaters who [00:53:00] retire and then unretire or they, they go out on top and they’re like, I’m gonna try one more time, even though that maybe it’s probably not a great idea to try again?
Listener Bryan: Well, you know, as, uh, Allison’s so admonished us, these are grown men and women who have rights to decide whether or not they can still compete or not compete.
So, uh, you know, um, I think sometimes, you know, I, I’ve never understood that. I think sometimes athletes retire and then. They miss it, or that’s a big, a bigger part of their identity than maybe they thought it was. Uh, yeah. You know, I, you know, or maybe they, they realize this is all I really want to do or know how to do.
Or they, take a year or two off and watch the sport on TV or, and they think I could still win out there. They believe that, or, you know, I could still be competitive. I, I don’t know. I [00:54:00] mean, you know, athletes are always c you know, I saw that, you know, they’re gonna have a, uh, rematch of the Manny pack, how, Floyd Mayweather fight.
And I’m like, why? Oh really? Oh my goodness. you know, like, why are the, what possible reason could there be for that? But, you know, you constant, you see this a lot in the world of sports across the spectrum. And, you know, the Olympics are no different, I guess. there were plenty of athletes over the age of 40 who won gold medals at these Olympics.
So. Why not?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, that’s, it’s amazing how with the right training and support and kind of financial stability that you can get, that you can keep going.
Listener Bryan: Yeah. I mean, I think what the ref, at least four or five gold medalists over the age of 40. Before the Olympics. I think the Alex Huno climbed that up building in Taipei.
He’s 40. Right. You know, like they’re acting like, you know, LeBron James is, over [00:55:00] the hill and he’s only 41 in the NBA. And I’m like, I’m just getting going compared to some of
Jill Jaracz: these people,
Listener Bryan: you know? Right. And so, um,
Jill Jaracz: and it’s funny to hear Kirsty Coventry still say like, oh, in four years time I call upon the youth of a of the world to come together.
And it’s like, yeah, it’s not really the youth of the world anymore.
Listener Bryan: Yes. The youth of the world and um, the parents of the youth of the world,
there was a lot of coverage of parents at the Olympics and, yeah. It’s good to see a lot of the sponsors are helping families travel as a family together on the circuit as they prepare and go through this. I think that’s, uh, a big, A big deal. I, it makes me think, especially when they get on the medal stand that it’s a difference that makes a difference for some of these athletes.
So.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. Exactly. And uh, you, you were telling me offline that Alana Meyers Taylor was getting massive coverage in Atlantic. ’cause that’s where she’s from. How was that?
Listener Bryan: Well, you know, um, I was in Atlanta on the, [00:56:00] uh, Georgia area on the day she won, like right after she won. And it was just all over the local media, a lot of excitement.
in a lot of major cities they have the elect electric billboards, you know, or the electronic billboards. Oh, yeah, yeah. Where it’s like if someone does something great or there’s a, uh, a great achievement, or even if, you know someone famous passes away, you’ll sometimes see the ad kind of intermixed in the rotation almost immediately or within a few hours.
And I saw a lot of the. as I was you know, going about running my errands and conducting business on that day, I saw a lot of those ads, pop through the rotation. Like, congratulations, Douglasville Zone, you know, that kind of thing. Nice,
Jill Jaracz: nice.
Listener Bryan: That’s
Jill Jaracz: always great.
Listener Bryan: You know, and I’m sure it’s like that in, all of the Olympians who won hometown.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Listener Bryan: I mean, it’s, uh, you know, and Atlanta’s an Olympic city, so they’re also very tuned into, the Olympic world, if you will.
Jill Jaracz: Oh,
Listener Bryan: [00:57:00] so overall positive experience, I thought.
Jill Jaracz: Excellent. Excellent. Even if you were sitting on, on that side of the Atlantic.
Listener Bryan: Yeah, it’s, uh, you know, good. you know, I do wanna say, I have nothing bad to say about, uh, William Shakespeare, late poet, and, uh, I’m sorry.
And, uh, playwright, uh, gotta get that in, in case my wife, who’s a, uh, English Lit Shakespeare professor is listening. Wanna be very clear. Don’t at me. Shakespeare’s great.
Jill Jaracz: Not, not, not my,
Listener Bryan: I have nothing. I, Shakespeare’s great like to think. Eric Hein is my imaginary friend too. Least you know, in my head
Jill Jaracz: to ary.
Listen to you.
Listener Bryan: I, I don’t know if he listens to me. I, I see, I saw that article. It was kind of interesting though. He is been hurt and he hasn’t been playing for the Warriors, and apparently his, the [00:58:00] orthopedist for the Golden State Warriors is the father of the. Leading goal score for Team Canada. Oh my gosh.
And he’s been in Milan. And so apparently Steph, they’re waiting until this guy gets back to Milan to like do his, um, evaluations of, uh, of Steph Curry as the team doctor before they make a decision. And I thought, well, it is someone in Steph Curry is literally waiting to, to listen to someone.
Jill Jaracz: Why not Allison? Right.
Listener Bryan: Right. Because right. You know, I mean, so, you know, at least that’s what the article I read online said. So, you know, I thought, you know, somebody’s listening to Steph Curry. You know, or he’s waiting to listen to somebody, but, you know,
Jill Jaracz: send him the message. Listen to Allison.
Listener Bryan: Right. You know, I guess, uh, we all have, you know, so I got all that going on and, um, yeah, so very positive experience. Always enjoyed the, Olympic time and making my charts and keeping up. I [00:59:00] always think I’ve, found every single three p and four p and potential athlete. ’cause it’s really, really hard to continuously win year, like, year in and year out at any of these events.
So it’s, it’s, it’s an amazing achievement And there’s a lot more of ’em than there used to be, or it seems that way, you know? I mean
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. With people staying in the game longer.
Listener Bryan: Yeah, so
you know, I saw Kevin Durant just announced like, I’m definitely want to go to 2028.
Jill Jaracz: Oh
Listener Bryan: yeah,
Jill Jaracz: yeah.
Listener Bryan: You know what I mean? You know, like that would be his fifth straight Olympics. So it’s, uh.
Jill Jaracz: wow.
Listener Bryan: I’m thinking like, five piece, six piece are kind of the new three piece at four piece for some of these people. Wow.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. Yeah.
Listener Bryan: or at least the attempt to do so.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. True That, true
Listener Bryan: it’s the line between accomplishing it and not accomplishing it can be so very, very small.
I think USA women’s basketball won their gold medal by one point in Paris.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Listener Bryan: Well, you know,
Jill Jaracz: yeah. That was [01:00:00] close. And basketball’s not the same as it was with the rest of the world catching up, so.
Listener Bryan: Right. So
Jill Jaracz: that’s gonna be, it’ll be interesting to watch for the next summer games and see what will actually happen.
Listener Bryan: Right. So, um, yep. Definitely gonna, you know, watch that. I know there’s a lot of people who, coming off their third or fourth gold medal after Paris. Excited. it’s gonna be in the USA, I could probably drive there from here.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Listener Bryan: You know, um, that’ll be
Jill Jaracz: nice.
Listener Bryan: I don’t know if it will, will be once you hit LA traffic, but up until it’s a nice drive across, New Mexico and Arizona.
Jill Jaracz: There you
Listener Bryan: go. But, um,
Jill Jaracz: there you go.
Listener Bryan: Anyway, but enjoyed the podcast. glad y’all got to, go. Have a good time. my big takeaway is that I don’t know that having Olympics this spread out is really brings people together the way. Maybe there’s a, there’s something that’s lost in that, but it’s hard to put a finger on and to out, you know, the plus minus [01:01:00] versus the environmental travel impact Right.
Is, is hard to weigh. But, you know, it did strike me that some of these athletes probably, this really did just feel like another event on the World Cup circuit to them, their
Jill Jaracz: experience. Yeah. Experie, it’ll be experie interesting to see what they say in like, whatever surveys they take afterwards to hear, because I, I think it’s the, push and pull or the win and the lose.
If you, if you wanna say Milan won for the organizing committee, saving money by having all venues that they used before, except for the hockey venue that they built and making some temporary venues. But then the losers were like the National Olympic Committees who had athletes all spread out and somehow had to have staff to.
Support them and athletes lose out because they don’t get the same kind of experience. And Yeah. And fans lose out because they don’t like you said, [01:02:00] people just don’t come together in the same way. So I don’t know. It’ll be interesting. I mean, and it was weird because in Milan at least, there were areas where people would congregate, but the events were all way far out of the city center.
So in a sense, there, you, if you were a regular Milanese person, going about your daily job was probably easy to do and you weren’t really stuck in all this Olympic stuff. But at the same time, you, you didn’t feel necessarily that the entire city was all excited about the games. Maybe they were, and that we just missed it.
But it was a little bit. It may be easy to push to the side. Maybe you had to, to hunt it out a little bit more, but it had a, a different feel in a big city than I would’ve imagined in something like Cortina or Li Laham or, or a smaller place. Even, even Salt [01:03:00] Lake City, you know?
Listener Bryan: Right.
Yeah, because Salt Lake City is, was mostly just, it’s Park City or Salt Lake City and everything’s, yeah, like in one of those two. But yeah, I don’t, I don’t know, but, um, it seems like this is. kind of what we’re in this phase with the Olympics, where they’re gonna have events, you know, I think Tahiti was a bit of a stretch, but
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Listener Bryan: But events that are spread out amongst, a very large geographical landscape. So, I don’t know, we’ll see how it, it works out.
Jill Jaracz: It’ll be interesting. It’s, it’s the exact opposite of let’s build, build, build. So, you know, we’ll see where the pendulum goes next.
Listener Bryan: Yep. Alright, well it’s good to talk to you and thank you for having
Jill Jaracz: us.
Great to talk to you Brian, and thanks for all your support and we, I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it and having you listen and, chit chatting about, stuff on the regular, so I really appreciate it. It makes it a lot more fun for us.
Listener Bryan: Alright. Have a good day.
Jill Jaracz: Thanks, you too. Bye-Bye.
Listener Bryan: Bye.
Jill Jaracz: Alrightyy [01:04:00] And that is gonna do it for my half of the show. I will turn it over to Allison now and hear what, uh, she has to say with. Alrighty, that is gonna do it for my half of the show. It’s been great talking with Pat and Fran and Brian and, uh, appreciate all of you listening and supporting the show and with all that you do for us and being part of our community.
And, uh, now we’ll turn it over to Allison and hear what other people have to say.
Milano Cortina 2026: Listeners with Alison version
Alison Brown: Thanks very much Jill. And I have Brittany with me now. How are you? Good, how are you? Good. What do you wanna talk about if it’s Milano, Corina? Um, well one, thank you so much for the podcast. It was so fun listening to you guys. Uh, every morning on my way to work. I would turn you, I’d get so excited ’cause I could turn you on on my way to work.
Listener Brittany: And it was a nice recap, which was a lot of fun. Aw, thank you. Good. I’m glad. Then, um, I watched quite a bit and I only do watch through streaming. And I will say the only thing I was disappointed in is that it just felt like the [01:05:00] previous Olympic, as far as the streaming service, like nothing changed from the previous one.
And I remember in the fall you guys talked to the NBC people and like, oh, we’re gonna have this, this, and this. And I didn’t see anything new. Really? Yeah. And maybe I just missed it. I know they did have like. A ringside live view for like the hockey game, the gold medal hockey game, but it was literally just like the NBC broadcast and then two other videos.
Two other boxes, one from Canada’s bench and one from the US’ bench. And I don’t, it wasn’t much of an enhancement of any kind to me.
Alison Brown: how were the feeds and how was the commercial placement? That’s always the two big questions.
Listener Brittany: So I found when it came to the actual live streams, I thought the commercial placements overall for what I watched at least, was pretty good.
and I watched like all of the figure skating and they did have a venue feed with no [01:06:00] commentary for that, which was really nice. So I got to watch all the figure skating with no commentary. So
Alison Brown: that’s always that that can be fun and that can be annoying. I’m always mixed about commentary and figure skating.
’cause when it’s good, it’s really good.
Listener Brittany: Yeah.
Alison Brown: And when it’s annoying, it’s. So bad.
Listener Brittany: Yeah. Well I will say like for me, I would prefer it not to have the no commentary personally. And it was honestly the only way I could get my sister to watch it. ’cause she can’t stand commentary. So like I’d have it on, it’s like, Hey, guess what?
There’s no commentary. She’s like, great. I will watch this with you.
Alison Brown: Do you have a favorite moment?
Listener Brittany: oh gosh. Do I have a favorite moment?
I think honestly it’s ha Italy winning the bronze and the team event for figure skating.
Alison Brown: Mm.
Listener Brittany: And just Mateo, ’cause he’s one of my sentimental favorites and seeing him do so well in that free skate.
Alison Brown: Mateo uh, Rizzo.
Listener Brittany: Mateo Rizzo. [01:07:00] Yes. So that was definitely a big one for me.
Alison Brown: Nice. Excellent choice, Brittany.
Listener Brittany: Yeah, so
Alison Brown: well, thanks for coming on.
Listener Brittany: Yeah, thank you once again.
Alison Brown: Love to, love to see you.
Listener Brittany: Yeah, and I am definitely looking forward to hearing all the podcasts for the um, Paralympics too.
Alison Brown: Thank you. We are looking forward to getting back and maybe actually getting into Cortina this time.
Listener Brittany: Yes. I was just, I felt bad for you guys not being able to get there during the Olympics.
Yeah. Travel sounds like a nightmare over there.
Alison Brown: It was, I, I never ventured outta the city. I was not as brave as Jill.
Listener Brittany: It, it sounded like a bit of a nightmare.
Alison Brown: Yeah, it was. It was a little, well, we’re hoping it’s a little better. We’re gonna get our transit app tomorrow Okay. Uh, for Paralympics, and we’ll see how everything looks and how everything’s gonna work and keep our fingers crossed that they’re actually trains in the evenings.
Listener Brittany: Yeah. Does it seem like it’ll be easier to travel for the [01:08:00] Paralympics since there’s not as many events?
Alison Brown: Well, we’re positioning ourselves in a different spot, so we’re gonna be in Venice instead of in Milan, because only hockey is in Milan.
Listener Brittany: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: And so we’re gonna try, so we’re gonna be on the proper side of the country, so we’ll have knocked off three hours of travel.
Listener Brittany: Okay.
Alison Brown: Just by going from Milan to Venice. And it should be a straight shot up. The question is, how late do the trains run?
Listener Brittany: Okay.
Alison Brown: And can we get home?
Listener Brittany: Oh no.
Alison Brown: Yes, that’s the big question. Can we get home from Cortina to Venice? We know we can get there.
Listener Brittany: Yeah. Okay. Well, good luck.
Alison Brown: Thank you. Much appreciated.
Listener Brittany: Enjoy.
Hopefully a little bit of rest between the games though, right?
Alison Brown: I slept for 14 hours straight after I got home yesterday, so I’m, I’m taking advantage of that.
Listener Brittany: All right, well all right. Rest up and, uh, look forward to hearing you guys in a couple weeks with the date. Great.
Alison Brown: Thanks so much.
Listener Brittany: Thank you. [01:09:00] Bye.
Alison Brown: Patrick from Chicagoland.
Listener Patrick: Hey. Hey. you know, this is the first people have been asking me like, oh, what do you like after the Olympic?
Because I’m like the Olympic guy here at work, and people are asking me, oh, what, you know, do you like the summer or winter better? And every time, I’ve always said summer. Up until now.
Alison Brown: What changed your mind?
Listener Patrick: Well, not like saying it’s better, but almost like it’s even just because I think this, because you know, the, uh, with the last couple Olympics, it’s been in Asia, so time zone has been different.
I’ve just liked how it’s not as overwhelming.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Listener Patrick: It’s like
Alison Brown: scale is much more manageable.
Listener Patrick: Yeah. I mean, yeah, there’s like maybe two or three events going on at the same time, but not like nine or 10. It’s almost possible to watch every, almost possible to watch everything.
Alison Brown: Well, not every single curling match.
Listener Patrick: No, no. Oh no. I’m not gonna watch four at a time, but yeah, it’s, I really enjoyed watching this year.
Alison Brown: What was some of your favorite [01:10:00] stuff?
Listener Patrick: Ooh. I love the curling, biathlon. I finally got into.
Alison Brown: Jill will be pleased.
Listener Patrick: Yes. I finally got into, also just the skiing itself, waking up at four 30 in the morning to watch.
It was around 40, 30 in the morning, central time for some of those events. So watching the skiing in full in terms of actually watching like all the runs gives some years you just watch the highlighted version and not every, not every skier, so it was really dramatic to watch skiing events live, which I don’t usually get to do.
Alison Brown: Nice. Did you have any beefs with your feed?
Listener Patrick: You know what, I’m not complained as much. Now, granted though, I watched a lot of it live as opposed to watching it with the ad breaks, but even then, I paid for the premium, so I didn’t have as many beefs as I do compared to past years.
Alison Brown: Don’t sound so disappointed, Patrick.
Listener Patrick: I know. Well, and, and, and, and you know how back in the day where you can only watch what you wanted to watch,
Alison Brown: right?
Listener Patrick: Um, peacock is [01:11:00] incredible in terms of just watching everything.
Alison Brown: Nice.
Listener Patrick: Yeah. So not as many. And yeah, there were, there were, the couple beefs were, for example, right? So you’re watching like the relay skeleton, right?
Alison Brown: Mm-hmm.
Listener Patrick: They would literally take a little break. For the women’s run.
Yeah, that’s
Alison Brown: sounds cool.
Listener Patrick: Yeah. They would take a break from the women’s run and then like, all right, now let’s go to the set, the, the men part. I’m like, wow. And this is like when they’re in the top 10,
Alison Brown: not cool.
Listener Patrick: That was one of the annoying parts. that sort of.
annoyed me a lot. I’m like, I wanna see everything, And then of course, the random, it’ll go in a go in an ad when they’re still talking and like, okay, but I’m used maybe ’cause I’m just used to it.
Alison Brown: Yeah, it’s true. When you get used to it, you don’t see the flaws as much.
Listener Patrick: Yeah. Yeah. So, but no, that was, that was, that was some of the feed beats, but not as, not as much. I think they’ve improved upon it though.
Alison Brown: Excellent.
Listener Patrick: So it’s not gonna be perfect. I mean, it’s not
Alison Brown: nothing, nothing [01:12:00] could be, could probably reach our expectations of how we want it to be unless we get personalized, uh, broadcasts,
Listener Patrick: personalized broadcast, personal broadcasts, no ads, like literally like no ads.
needed, they need to recoup that money somewhat.
Alison Brown: Exactly. Exactly. So what do you think? Changed your mind this time versus watching it? I mean, ’cause you’ve watched the winter before.
Listener Patrick: Yes.
Alison Brown: But somehow this feeling manageable switched your brain.
Listener Patrick: I think it’s because I literally could watch almost every, because it wa some of the only events I couldn’t watch are like the events that started like before 4:00 AM so I was willing to wake up at four 30.
That was my,
Alison Brown: that That was your cutoff?
Listener Patrick: That was my cutoff. And, and, except Sunday, the final Sunday I was like, okay, women’s ski, half 5, 3 30. I’m watching that. It’s like the final event. You know?
Alison Brown: It’s true. It wasn’t supposed to be, but because of the weather.
Listener Patrick: Yeah. So almost all, almost all the gold medal stuff were after four 30.[01:13:00]
Alison Brown: How aware of the weather were you? Back home.
Listener Patrick: Oh, you’re talking about the Italian weather or,
Alison Brown: yes, yes. That things were getting shifted around because of the weather.
Listener Patrick: Oh. Multiple times. Because I’m like, I, I would have it on my schedule. I would look at, alright, it’s at four 30 and then I wake up, I’m like, oh, it’s canceled.
Or it’s moved. Like that’s ski, woman’s ski. Half, five final was moved to Sunday.
Alison Brown: Right.
Listener Patrick: So the Olympics app was really good, by the way, looking at the schedule. It was, it was good. Yeah, it was good. So, yeah, um, it affected a little bit, so.
Alison Brown: Excellent. You know,
Listener Patrick: are you
Alison Brown: looking forward to anything for next week?
Listener Patrick: let’s see. Para Paralympics are what, the fifth, right?
Alison Brown: Yes.
Listener Patrick: Um, not, I haven’t looked at the schedule, but I’m, I’m, I’m gonna go watch. As usual. So, and considering how, there’s not as many events,
Alison Brown: right?
Listener Patrick: It’s even more manageable.
Alison Brown: Yes, definitely.
Listener Patrick: But however, though there’s probably not gonna be as many questions about the Paralympics as they were here at, uh, at work.
So,
Alison Brown: so [01:14:00] what was the big question that you were getting?
Listener Patrick: Okay, here’s the, I knew you were gonna ask this one. Um, the question was, oh, what are you guys thinking about the cheating? And then at first I talked to one guy, I was like, which cheating? The Norwegian guy or the Canadians? and
Alison Brown: they meant,
Listener Patrick: they meant the Canadians.
Alison Brown: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Because talking about the Norwegian cheating is rather uncomfortable.
Listener Patrick: I thought it was entertaining. I, I, I had a, a, one of our show hosts, she, I emailed her about it. She never talked about it. I was disappointed she didn’t. ’cause that would be like the type of story she. Glo on.
Alison Brown: Mm-hmm.
Listener Patrick: But, but no, it was, we had like a healthy lunch discussion about it a couple days ago about like, is it really cheating?
Did he really know what, what was he doing and stuff, you know?
Alison Brown: So we’re just, everyone we’re talking about the ski jumping suits and, and
Listener Patrick: Oh,
Alison Brown: and the alterations. No. And then the Canadian touching is the Canadian,
Listener Patrick: yes.
Alison Brown: Uh, you know, did he know he was really touching the stone or not? And
Listener Patrick: I was like, and I was trying to compare it to like [01:15:00] golf, like maybe you don’t know if you’re doing it or not.
And and then of course their reaction when I told them that they won, they were like, they won. I’m like, yeah, they won.
Alison Brown: Yeah, they won. They did.
Listener Patrick: So that was, that was the story, the, the non, that non like re results story I guess that like people asked me about, so.
Alison Brown: Interesting. Yeah. Everybody heard about the finger touching the stone around the world.
Listener Patrick: Yes. Well, I think it was because of the reaction too.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Listener Patrick: The, the reaction from the, if, if there was no like blowup, I don’t think it would’ve taken off.
Alison Brown: Fair enough.
Listener Patrick: Yeah. that was, yeah, that was like the story that, that resonated within general public here. So.
Alison Brown: Interesting. Oh, and here is film Buff Fran coming to visit us.
Listener Fran: Hello.
Alison Brown: Hello. How are you doing?
Listener Fran: I’m good.
Alison Brown: So what do you wanna talk about, Fran?
Listener Fran: Oh, well, I just wanted to come on and say how great a job you guys did. I talked to Jill earlier. I don’t know if she told [01:16:00] you. But I just wanted to say No, we
Alison Brown: haven’t spoken yet, so,
Listener Fran: oh, yeah. I, I phoned in earlier and I just wanted to say that I, I wasn’t able to listen to all the pods, but I listened to most of them and, and, Ava did too, and we just thought it was great.
Did we lose it? Great coverage.
Alison Brown: Great. Thank you. Thank you. That was really sweet.
Listener Fran: How’s it feel to be home?
Alison Brown: We have, it feels fantastic to be home, even for this little break. It feels fantastic. Do you have a favorite moment?
Listener Fran: Ooh, that’s a good question. you know what, I gotta say, I was really stoked when, Francesca. Lola Bridgette won. Her first gold.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Listener Fran: Right at the beginning of the Olympics.
Yes. That was a great moment.
Alison Brown: Trying to break. Break the Italian, needing to win a gold on home ice.
Listener Fran: Yeah, and
Alison Brown: she just took care of it and then went up from there. Italians did quite well.
Listener Fran: Yeah, it was [01:17:00] great too because, you know, the, the announce, I, I didn’t love the announcers during this whole, Olympics, but, you know, the best part was they had her down and out and they said, oh, she’s not, you know, she doesn’t have it in the tank.
You know, she’s not gonna do it. And then all of a sudden she just fired it up and she proved them wrong and it was good to see them eat crow at the end. but yeah, that was a great moment. It was just a pure moment of just determination and, it’s just the training and everything she had to do to, for that moment.
Alison Brown: Now, I know you are a Big Tara and Johnny fan. How’d they do this time out? Yep,
Listener Fran: they did. Okay. I don’t mind them. I mean, sometimes they can get a little long when they start going like, I wish I had a little more quiet time in between what they were saying during the. the performances.
but overall, I like the fact that they’re [01:18:00] knowledgeable, when they’re critiquing what’s on the ice, they really know what they’re saying, you know, and I do appreciate where the angle they’re coming from since they’ve been there and done that already.
It’s kind of nice.
Alison Brown: Agreed.
Listener Fran: But I mean, the outfits were a little crazy. I don’t know if you saw their outfits, but, um, no,
Alison Brown: I, I did run into Tara once very, very briefly, before the gala. We passed each other in the hallway and she looked very normal. So she was probably, she was not dressed for the show yet.
Listener Fran: Oh. She had like a white sequency dress on that night, I think.
Alison Brown: She didn’t have it on yet when I saw
Listener Fran: Maybe she didn’t have it on yet. No, they were good. you know, and then just all the other, like I, I was telling Jill too, I wish that they had s had done more profiles of other athletes. Mm. Like it just seemed like they kind of centered on a handful of [01:19:00] Americans, some international, but like just a handful of people and they really didn’t do those really cool down to earth human stories that they used to do.
You know, of the athletes of the games. I mean, they did a couple of ’em, but it would’ve been nicer to get more of a human connection to some of these people that you were seeing.
Alison Brown: Interesting. ’cause sometimes those can get a little shlocky.
Listener Fran: But it’s interesting
Alison Brown: that you missed it.
It’s,
Listener Fran: it’s nice. Well, it was interesting because like, you know, they would go to someone’s hometown, you know, and whether it was an American or whether it was someone in Europe, like you just see something different, you know, and then you see their training or they, you talk to their parents and get that kind of perspective of what it took to really get them to where they need to go.
But I, I, I thought the games were great. I mean, the whole atmosphere seemed really excited and I mean, except for the fact that it was disjointed being in different [01:20:00] locations, that I think was the only bummer that like nothing was close.
Alison Brown: Could you feel that though, just watching from home?
Listener Fran: No. No, not from home. Yeah, because, you know, they, they zapped to Borneo and then they zapped to Cortina and then they zapped back to Milan. So, you know, the only, the only times you really got a sense of it was when, I forget who they profiled. They actually showed, a commentator traveling from Milan.
I think it was to Bour meal, I’m not sure. But they showed him like, you know, travel the couple of hours there and then what it took to get on the bus and, and get to where he had to go. so I could tell that was a real, I know Jill was super disappointed, not being able to get to more places.
Alison Brown: Yeah, it was frustrating. And then the weather really played a part in that because once it started snowing mm-hmm. Yeah. It didn’t stop.
Listener Fran: Yeah. Yeah. It was [01:21:00] really snowy. I was surprised. and, uh, no, it was great. I mean, you know, they did a lot of curling, maybe too much curling. In the prime time. I like the curling, don’t get me wrong, but
Alison Brown: is there really ever too much curling?
Listener Fran: I don’t know. I know my brother-in-law now wants to start curling.
Alison Brown: Well, there’s a great place in Bridgeport that has it. Oh,
Listener Fran: believe me, I don’t know. He probably already made an appointment.
I personally would like to try the biathlon. Oh really? No. You said you wanted do the cross country. Oh, I wanna do the cross country. Yes. But.
Alison Brown: Yes,
Listener Fran: I wanna do trust country skiing. I wanna try that. I think that’d be cool. It would hurt, but I think I wanna try it. I think
Alison Brown: I, I fully support, I think the two of us should get out there before the snow is gone and, uh, see if we can get it [01:22:00] done.
Listener Fran: I think we could do it. What was your favorite, do you have a favorite moment
Alison Brown: for you?
Listener Fran: Do you have a favorite moment?
Alison Brown: I know I, I asked people their favorite moment and I don’t really have one so far. I’m gonna say Alyssa Lou.
Listener Fran: Yep.
Alison Brown: Because that night was just one good performance after another.
Listener Fran: Did you hear Ava clapping when you said that?
Alison Brown: I did. I appreciate that. Yeah, that was, that was a pretty special night that I think that’s gonna be the one that sticks with me.
But yeah, I did get to see that first, that first Lola Brita medal. Mm-hmm. Which was so exciting. And it was really sweet because all the volunteers when she raced, came up and wanted nice to see her race. And then when she got her medal, wanted to come and, and sing the anthem with her and, and, uh, just be there for that.
Listener Fran: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: So that was pretty spectacular.
Listener Fran: Well, and also too, with Alyssa Lou, I mean, you saw, you, you, she just exuded joy. [01:23:00] And it’s so different from the attitudes of all the other skaters. All the other skaters were just, so, the pressure, all the buildup, you could tell the tension, and it kind of really got to Ilia mallon, but all the skaters, like, you didn’t see that joy, you know, she just.
Skated unabashedly happily, you know, and she didn’t c not that she didn’t care, but she was just so happy to be there and experience it. And it just showed, you know, through every pour. And it was really beautiful to see. I mean, I wish everybody, I wish all the skaters could have felt that kind of freedom to just skate and enjoy the moment instead of feeling the pressure.
but no, she was wonderful. and you know, unfortunately, Amber Glenn, I mean, she was great too. I mean, just that one mistake in the, the short program. I mean, what a, you know, what a shame, you know, [01:24:00] it just, yeah. But that it really was her undoing
Alison Brown: and that she was able to pull it together in that, in that free program and come out with something so beautiful and powerful.
Listener Fran: Right. And, and also the Japanese skaters, I mean, Sakamoto and the, I mean, they were, they were great. I mean, they were really beautiful. I mean, they did a great, great job and they deserve their medals. I mean, they were really wonderful. I did not, we were spoiled. The mens, we
Alison Brown: riches this time around.
Listener Fran: Yeah, I didn’t get to see the men’s. I, I unfortunately got to see ia. Yeah. But I missed all of the men’s performances. Um, and I didn’t get back to see them yet. but I mean, the hair spoiler
Alison Brown: alert, spoiler alert everybody, but shot her off. Falls down.
Listener Fran: Wow. Well, did you see the, did you see the funny, did you see the funny Canadian meme with the Canadian curler?
They said that we [01:25:00] know why all the skaters fell and it’s ’cause the Canadian curler guy like little, you know, pinched him with his finger.
Alison Brown: Yeah. Poking all of them with his,
Listener Fran: poking all of
Alison Brown: them, his extended finger on,
Listener Fran: you know, and then, and then to end it with the, the men’s in the women’s hockey, you know, playing at such a great level.
I mean that was really exciting.
Alison Brown: Yes. And then the closing ceremonies
Listener Fran: and the closing. I mean, I, I like the opera. I mean, I, I agreed with Jill. It just seemed a little weird. Like it didn’t, like the flow of the night was a little odd. But, I liked the opera theme. I, you know what I wish though? I wished when the, the DJ came on, why didn’t the athletes go down and start dancing on the stage with them?
I thought everybody was just gonna get up and start having like a real, like a house party and everybody just kind of stayed in their, [01:26:00] in the stands.
Alison Brown: Yes. Safely tucked away.
Listener Fran: Right. But I mean, it, it looked, I mean, the, the, the scenery, like the Verona, you know, being in that amphitheater was just, it looked magical.
Yeah. And, and I know when Jill was talking about the flame, you know, that you couldn’t tell if it was being extinguished. You could unfor on the feed. They showed the main cauldron. They showed it slowly draining out. I don’t know if they must not have showed it on the flat screen while they were there, but
Alison Brown: Well,
Listener Fran: so we knew when it was out.
Alison Brown: Right. And it was the bigot tron, you know, it was a very small, nutty, jumbo tron
Listener Fran: right of a
Alison Brown: screen. So that makes it a little hard to keep your eye on.
Listener Fran: But no, it was, it was a great, it was a great games. I mean, you know, the USA really did a great job. I mean, I know we’re not usually as [01:27:00] strong in the winter as we are this summer, but kudos to everybody who really came and, and did their best and really excelled.
Listener Brittany: Yeah, agreed.
Alison Brown: Well, thanks for calling in for Ann. Always great to see you.
Listener Fran: That’s okay. I wanna just say hi. Welcome home. Before you go back. Before you
Alison Brown: go back,
Listener Fran: and then we’ll have to listen again. It’s hard to listen every day.
Alison Brown: It’s hard to do every day, but we do it for you. We
Listener Fran: do it. Bet for you. I bet. Well, I’m glad I had long drives going to com dance competitions so we can listen to a couple episodes at once.
Ava had to endure them in the car.
Alison Brown: Well, thanks to Ava as well for participating in these things
Listener Eva: up. Tow it like you started with two, like my toe hurts and I was like, what the heck?
Listener Fran: The toe one. Whose toe hurt?
Listener Eva: Allison.
Listener Fran: [01:28:00] Oh, your toe hurt. On one episode.
Alison Brown: Oh yeah, it did. I had a, I had a blister on my toe. I still do.
Listener Eva: It’s like we’re gonna a dance to, and she’s in Italy. Why is she complaining about her toe?
Alison Brown: Because it really hurt and I only had two pairs of shoes with me, which was my mistake.
Listener Fran: Yes, she tried to be too sassy.
Alison Brown: I tried to be too sassy and I got myself into trouble, and I’ve learned my lesson and I’m bringing ugly shoes now when I go back.
Listener Fran: But did you see all the handsome Meese people?
Alison Brown: You know, I think because it was cold, they were mostly bundled.
Listener Fran: Okay.
Alison Brown: But they did look rather stylish, but it was not as anti, it was not as intimidating as I feared.
Listener Fran: Okay.
Alison Brown: Cold. ‘
Listener Fran: cause there was a lot of athletes with like sweatpants and, and track pants on.
Alison Brown: Yes.
And, and cold [01:29:00] seems to be the great equalizer in style.
Listener Fran: Mm-hmm. Although I saw a lot of fur, I thought about her mom fur. At church,
Alison Brown: so much fur and real fur. Male, female, old, young, didn’t matter. They had a fur coat and they were gonna wear it.
Listener Fran: Nice.
Well, good luck rest up. Thank you. Get ready. I will. Ready for get part due?
Alison Brown: Absolutely.
Listener Fran: And hopefully we could see you when you get back from the, the Paris. We can’t wait. It’s gonna be exciting.
Alison Brown: Yes, absolutely. We will see you soon.
Listener Fran: Have a good night.
Alison Brown: Thanks, you too. See you soon.
And on that note, we’re gonna call it a A show. Thanks so much. The Olympics have been so much fun, but we are excited to see what Milano Corino [01:30:00] does for the Paralympics. As we were just saying, we will be back in Milan. And in Italy for those, uh, adventures and our daily coverage will start Wednesday, March 4th.
So be sure to tune in for that. We’ll be glad to be back with you and thank you so much for listening and until next time, keep the flame alive.