Day 1 of the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympics starts off with a wild (and nauseating ride) that does not end well for Alison, as the windy road leading up to Cortina did make her sick on the bus, which was not fun to deal with throughout the day. That said, she rallied and got to an exciting day of wheelchair curling, which included her first look at the mixed team event.
Meanwhile, Jill went up into the mountains and made a questionable choice going to para snowboard cross seeding instead of para alpine skiing medal events. But, she got some interesting intel about the para snowboard cross course, which has changed drastically over the last few days, in response to several athletes crashing, getting injured and having to drop out of the competition.
That said, several athletes were not thrilled by the severity of the changes and how the course had gotten much less complex. Keith Gabel of Team USA said in the mixed zone that it was like being at Sochi 2014 again, when athletes weren’t as skilled as they are today, and that the course was showcasing their disabilities rather than their abilities.
Jill also took a gondola ride that could get you within walking distance of the para alpine events, and we know how taking a gondola at the Games could end in sadness. How did she make it down the mountain?
Sports on today’s program:
- Para Alpine skiing
- Para biathlon
- Para ice hockey
- Para snowboard
- Wheelchair curling
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
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Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympics – Day 1
Jill Jaracz: [00:00:00] Ano and welcome to Keep the Flame Alive Day one, coverage of the Milano Corina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games. I am your host, Jill Jaracz coming to you from Shuk Stan House at Venetia Mare. Joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison Ciao. Almost die. Ano and welcome to Keep the Flame Alive Day one, coverage of the Milano Corina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games. I am your host, Jill Jaracz, coming to you from Shuk Stan House at Venetia Mare. Joined as always by my lovely [00:01:00] co-host, Alison Brown. Alison Ciao. Almost die.
Alison Brown: I’ve been better.
Jill Jaracz: You have been better.
It’s been a day
Alison Brown: It’s, it was a little bit of a rough start to the day. Let’s just say that the bus and I did not get along.
Jill Jaracz: No, we gotta talk about the bus. So we have to get on a seven 30 bus that gets us to Cortina about 10 30.
Alison Brown: Roughly
Jill Jaracz: towards is the schedule? Well, the bus, we’ve taken it twice. It’s been late both times
Alison Brown: starting
Jill Jaracz: and
Alison Brown: significantly late.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, like the first time was 15 minutes and the second time was 20. And you get the feeling that Giuseppe the driver, they’re all gonna be Giuseppe to me.
Alison Brown: Fair
Jill Jaracz: Says, oh, I’ll make up for it. We’ll, we’ll catch up and get back on schedule on the road. And on the road means. On that mountain pass, it’s like they go the normal speed on the highway and once they hit that tiny windy mountain road, they just take it as fast as humanly possible and [00:02:00] today did not do so well.
Alison Brown: Today was not good. It it, yeah. Let’s just say I’m not eating breakfast before we leave tomorrow. Oh. And I’m bringing a plastic bag. Oh. And hoping for the best.
Jill Jaracz: It was bad And even And, and you had some issues with throwing up. Yes. Which was not a fun way to spend your day smelling like puke. And uh, I even was bounced around so badly.
In the, the morning that I got nauseated and couldn’t do anything, I was trying to sleep a little bit ’cause we did go to bed late last night. Right. Had to get up really early this morning and um, so I was bounced around not feeling so hot. And then I heard you and I was like, oh no, this was not gonna
Alison Brown: be a
Jill Jaracz: good day.
This is, it was not a
Alison Brown: good day.
Jill Jaracz: Uh,
Alison Brown: but the day did get better.
Jill Jaracz: The day got better. We’ll get there and, but on the way home you fell asleep. Thank goodness.
Alison Brown: Yes. I was very glad to fall asleep.
Jill Jaracz: And I, we [00:03:00] decided we were sitting in the front of the bus from now on. Yes. Because the back was just really bad.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: And then. I started looking out the window and the windows on this coach bus were the ones where like the oncoming headlights were like three sets. Oh, it, it was a triple splintered. Yeah. Yeah.
Alison Brown: Reflected strangely
Jill Jaracz: and. That made me nauseous.
Alison Brown: Oh no.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So, uh, along with wi, winding through the mountains as fast as we possibly could, taking these giant roundabouts.
If you live in Massachusetts, you know, the big rotaries, we get some of those here, and sometimes we have to go the threes around them. To get off and it’s so, oh my gosh. I’m surprised these things don’t tip over.
Alison Brown: So the good news is I do have Dramamine in my arsenal that I brought with me, so we’ll break that out tomorrow.
I am very willing to share it is the less drowsy formula.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: I’ve discovered when I just pulled it out, [00:04:00] so I’ve got 16 tablets, which should get us through
Jill Jaracz: the rest of the time.
Alison Brown: The rest of the time.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh. It’s, it’s, it’s rough. I will say that.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Um, people, whenever I say we’re staying in Venice, they look at me like I have two heads.
Yes. Like, why would you wanna do that? And. I mean, we had no real choice because we don’t have a fixer and it was so hard to find lodging
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: That we aren’t staying closer. Plus we also didn’t know what, how, how to get around. It was just really, really bad. And I could not spend two weeks figuring out the, the hotel situation for Cor Cortina.
So, uh, yeah, a three hour commute. Well, although on the way home it’s like two and a half. They are so fast.
Alison Brown: Yeah. For some reason, and it doesn’t. It’s not as rough of a ride in at night, and yet we get home sooner.
Jill Jaracz: It’s amazing. But I, I’m, I’m wondering if going downhill helps.
Alison Brown: Sure.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. But the [00:05:00] traffic is bad up in the mountains.
The traffic is really bad.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: So there, there is a, a lot to be desired, I guess. I don’t know. It’s, it’s not good. Did we forget something last night? I don’t think so. The only thing I, I forgot was if we had a job that we wanted to do, and I think listeners, we usually, for the Olympics, we had the wood officiating or volunteer job.
Would you want, and we aren’t gonna get to see. Enough, I think to have jobs to see new jobs Yes to, yeah. That we haven seen before. So that might be on pause, but I did like the guy who at the opening ceremonies was greeting every delegation as they came down the ramp with the stop
Alison Brown: Yes
Jill Jaracz: sign that flipped around to follow me and he took them to their seats.
So I liked that.
Wanted to take a moment to remind you that we are independent. Podcasting doing, [00:06:00] doing this. If you heard us yesterday at the train station,
Alison Brown: you know we’d do it on the fly, man.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So, um, it, it does cost a pretty penny to be here and provide you with, uh, the most fun voice of the Paralympics and we make you feel like you’re really there.
Case in point yesterday, but we need your help to keep that flame going through LA 2028. If you go to flame a alive pod.com, you’ll see a little support banner at the top. If you are able, we would appreciate some financial support to keep the show going beyond these games. And if you aren. Uh, able to please share the show with a friend signed up for our substack newsletter, and share that around as well.
Uh, anything you can do to help us grow our base and find more people just like you to watch the games with. Again, that’s flame life pod.com. Okay, we have some results today.
Alison Brown: Yeah. We’re gonna start with para alpine skiing, which started off [00:07:00] today, and we’ve got the downhill for the men and the women in three different categories.
So the Women’s Downhill, visually impaired was the first medal that was awarded of the game. Okay. So we’re gonna start right there. It helps us. So gold went to Austria’s, Veronica Ener Silver to Kiara, mazel from Italy and Bronze to Alexandra Reva from Slovakia. We gotta talk about the ener ’cause we’re gonna be talking about them for the next week.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: We talked about them a ton in, in, uh, Beijing, I believe it was. They won 10 medals in Beijing. Altogether the three of them. So there’s Veronica,
Jill Jaracz: oh nine out of the 11 medals that Austria earned.
Alison Brown: Okay. Veronica, Barbara, and Johannes. And then their sister Elizabeth was also a guide. She’s no longer a guide.
So we’re not gonna hear her name, but get used to hearing us say the ener for, uh, para alpine skiing.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And, [00:08:00] um, I, I will, I wanna say like. When we chose what we were going to go see today, ’cause we were up in the mountains and our choices were para alpine, para snowboard and
Alison Brown: curling.
Jill Jaracz: Curling. And you went into curling ’cause we needed you to sit and not take on another event.
Adventure of getting up to the mountains.
Alison Brown: Yes. Not get on another
Jill Jaracz: bus. Right. Um, and, and I said, oh, I’m gonna go to Paris Snowboard. And you, you said like. You’re not gonna go to Alpine. And I will tell you that Alpine started at nine o’clock and I figured like by the time I got there it would be done. And it wasn’t done As I watched the, the results when I went to snowboard and was questioning my snowboard decision a lot.
Alison Brown: Oh no.
Jill Jaracz: But snowboard was when, like I got there before it started. Was able to be there for the entire event.
Alison Brown: Oh, that’s a bonus.
Jill Jaracz: So that was a bonus. But I did miss medals and I did think about [00:09:00] going to Alpine instead. But I’m glad I’m stayed at snowboard ’cause I got some good intel. Excellent. That we’ll get to, um, uh, Alpine is close to snowboard.
Alison Brown: Okay. Do you get there the same way ish?
Jill Jaracz: I, I don’t know.
Alison Brown: Okay. We’ll find out. We’ll find out. That’ll be our next adventure.
Find
Jill Jaracz: out in the, in the snowboard. Portion of the story today. Oh no, we won’t get to transport fun.
Alison Brown: Okay, so,
Jill Jaracz: okay. Uh, women’s downhill standing, uh, gold went to EBA Arjo from Sweden who won the super combined in slalom in Beijing.
Alison Brown: Yeah, I knew her name was familiar. So she could end up with, uh, a whole host of medals this time around again.
Jill Jaracz: Oh boy. Uh, silver went to Orel Richard from France and Bronze went to Avara. Hmm. I said this before. Ava Avara CIAA from Russia, our first Russian medal
Alison Brown: [00:10:00] under the Russian banner. Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: As evidence by Russia.
Yeah. So, we’ll, we’ll see how much they win, but they’re back. Uh, women’s downhill sitting, uh, on Elena Forster from Germany won gold. This is her fourth Paralympics. She won silver in this event in Beijing. Audrey Pascal Seko from Spain won Silver, and Leo Ong from China won bronze.
Alison Brown: I wanna keep an eye on the Chinese because when we were in Beijing and we talked so much about how much money that China had dumped into PariSport, and would they continue to do that when it wasn’t in their backyard anymore?
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: So I just wanna keep an eye on how many medals we’re, we’re hearing from China to see have they continued pushing that boundary of supporting PariSport even when it’s not, when they’re no longer the host nation.
Jill Jaracz: Well, they are the biggest delegation here. So that is [00:11:00] says something for that. I don’t know, it’s something to look into how they compare delegation wise to the last time they were, when they were hosting the Paralympics.
If they have a bigger or smaller delegation from that. Um. Also to watch.
Alison Brown: Yes. Uh, Anna Foster is going for a three-peat in slalom and super combined.
Jill Jaracz: Ooh.
Alison Brown: So we’ll have to keep an eye on her, uh, because I remembered that name. So then when I looked it up, I said, oh, that’s why I remember that name. We said it a lot.
Jill Jaracz: Then the, the men’s downhill also happened today. Visually impaired category. Johannes Ener from Austria, one Gold, Kyle Cali Erickson from Canada, one silver and Giacomo Bar tag, Noli from Italy. One bronze.
Alison Brown: It’s the ener.
Jill Jaracz: They’re back, they’re back with a back in
Alison Brown: better than ever,
Jill Jaracz: And then we had the men’s downhill standing, uh, gold went to Robin Kush from [00:12:00] Switzerland, silver went to Arthur Boche from France. Bronze went to Alex Booga from Russia, Russia’s first medal here at the games. He said he was happy. He said, quote, let’s quote this one. ’cause it was good. I’m happy. I suppose first medal for me for Russia since 2014 from Sochi, although I think he won some stuff at Pyeongchang, but
Alison Brown: not for Russia.
He would’ve had to have been a neutral
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So he, he is happy to represent his comp country. So I think we will see stuff like that, obviously from those who are here from Russia in the men’s downhill sitting category. Uh, Yesper Peterson from Norway, one Gold. Upgrade from silver in Beijing. Uh. Neils DeLong from Netherlands, one Silver and Kurt Oay from Canada, one bronze.
Alison Brown: I wanna mention about Kurt Oay. ’cause before Beijing 2022, he had a [00:13:00] crash that he broke his collarbone, three ribs at five places to two ligaments and punctured a lung. Whoa. And he is in the sitting category because of a spinal cord injury in 2007. So this was not his first rodeo of serious injury. And he said that he didn’t want that to be the way his career ended.
So he focused on rehab and dry land trading and getting back into, into the, into the races.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. That is amazing. And to get a bronze. Because it’s tough. I mean, the, the downhill, there were several DNFs today, so
Alison Brown: yes. It was not a, the mountain didn’t quite win the way it did in Beijing.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: But it was that TKI is no joke man
Jill Jaracz: in para biathlon.
We had the women’s sitting sprint gold went to Oxana masters, Stan and USA and this is her 20th [00:14:00] Paralympics medal, her 15th winter games medal. And, uh, listener Brian said she. Bumps into the top 50 of all time. No joke there.
Alison Brown: She’s unbelievable.
Jill Jaracz: Um, silver went to Kendall Gretch of USA and
Alison Brown: and Shuk. Stan.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And gold or bronze went to Anya Vicar from Germany and Oxana Master, who is always amazed to win. Because she was, sounded pretty amazed to win here. And she said that her summer started out with surgery, and then the last three weeks she’s had, uh, not a ton of training time. She had infection, concussion and, uh, battling a lot of stuff.
So leading up to the games, not been easy. But, uh, she. Said she just trusted the process.
Alison Brown: If I remember correctly, she was injured right before Paris as well.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. It, it’s,
Alison Brown: doesn’t that sound familiar? Yeah. So this seems to be a cycle for her and the fact that she keeps going and keeps coming back for more.
What kind of [00:15:00] punishment does this child love? She just, she loves to win. She loves to race, she loves to compete, but man, does she put herself through it to get to that point?
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. In the women’s standing sprint gold went to Alexandra Canova from Ukraine,
Alison Brown: and she’s got 10 medal. Over five Paralympics.
Wow. And just winter, you know, a lot of times, like Ana and Kendall Gretch compete in both winter and summer. And we’ll say, oh, they’re in their seventh Paralympics. They’re in their fifth, she’s done five winters.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: It’s a long time to stick around.
Jill Jaracz: It is a long time to stick around. Uh, Natalie Wilke from Canada, one silver.
Alison Brown: This is her first biathlon medal. She, she’s won in cross country and she felt very strongly in some of her comments saying, I really wanted a medal in biathlon, kind of to prove to herself and to everybody else that she can, she can do biathlon. ’cause the shooting is the hard part for her. Skiing is much easier.
Jill Jaracz: Bronze went to Ludmila Chenko from [00:16:00] Ukraine,
Alison Brown: also a multi medalist and three time Paralympian. Wow.
Jill Jaracz: It’s incredible. You know, it’s just amazing how we’re gonna have that over and over and over again. ’cause there are a lot of Paralympians who stick it out for many, many games.
Alison Brown: Multiple games. And Sidney Peterson raced in this.
We missed that ’cause it was like, oh, she’s doing biathlon this time around too. She finished. Fourth, only six seconds outta the bronze medal position, so that was quite a nice race for her.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. Okay. In the women’s visually impaired category, gold went to W from China, silver went to Karina. Uh, Rova from Czechia and bronze went to Leone.
Maria Valter from Germany,
Alison Brown: who had a lot to say about the conditions.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, did she?
Alison Brown: She did. She said, quote. The conditions on the course were very difficult. There is slushy. No. Slushy snow and a few sections are icy, so that’s gotta be rough. When you’ve got slush and ice going back and forth,
Jill Jaracz: how do you deal with that?
And [00:17:00] you, how do you wax for that?
Alison Brown: You, you, you wax one, one ski for one and one ski for the other. I don’t know. But I also, I love this coat from Ang Rova, um, because apparently she has a love-hate relationship with the biathlon. And she said, quote, I was never the patient one. Mostly I just wanted to throw the rifle at the Target.
And Corina, I feel you, I I absolutely can feel that. And it was also interesting because she competed last time around for Austria. Oh, wow. And she switched to Czechia. So if that name is familiar to people, uh, you would’ve heard it. But for a different country,
Jill Jaracz: uh, in the men’s sitting sprint category, gold went to Taras rod from Ukraine.
Who was the gold medalist from Pyeongchang,
Alison Brown: so waited eight years to come, come back to the top of the podium, and that
Jill Jaracz: silver went to Li Auo from China and bronze Went to Li Shu from China,
Alison Brown: and Aaron Pike was in this race. He finished sixth, but most [00:18:00] importantly, he shot clean. Gotta love a clean shooting day.
That that
Jill Jaracz: is good. So again, we are seeing more China
Alison Brown: here. We are definitely seeing more China. They did quite well today.
Jill Jaracz: And in the men’s sprint standing, let’s continue that. Gold went to China’s Kai, who first gold and international competition,
Alison Brown: and now he’s retiring.
Jill Jaracz: Holy cow.
Alison Brown: So these Paralympics are gonna be his last hurrah and he goes out with a bang.
Jill Jaracz: Uh. I’m gonna ignore that one. Uh, silver went to China’s bin and bronze went to Marco Meyer from Germany,
Alison Brown: who also. Had some complaints about the conditions though. He said, quote, they were better than yesterday. Wow. That was the best thing he could say. But he raced in shorts, so if you see any of these photos, it’s really funny.
He said he doesn’t like to do it, but he felt like he had to given how warm it was.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. That makes me think how warm it’s gotten. And I was talking about this with [00:19:00] someone who. Just briefly about how the snow is really slushy. The sun is really warm. I, I didn’t get a chance to look, but when, when I was looking at alpine skiing and thinking about trying to get there, um, the last race had been canceled, but then it got put back on the program and I don’t know what happened.
And I couldn’t find any immediate communication as to why they, they did what they did, and. I think conditions are gonna be a problem. The conditions of snowboard really changed and you got the middle of the day and the sun was beaten down. It’s not great. They were not thrilled that it was sunny. To be quite honest.
Alison Brown: We had this problem in Beijing as well. Mm-hmm. That it, you know, when you get to March and certainly the further along you get into March, it really does get too warm now to, to have these events. Does this mean we’ve gotta push the Olympics back? So Paralympics can be in February,
Jill Jaracz: right?
Alison Brown: [00:20:00] Or do we do Paralympics first?
Because it is so small it might work as opposed to the way they do it for the summer.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. It depends on how the qualifications work too. Because if you’re all qualifying for your, if everybody’s qualifying for the games, right, in the weeks beforehand. Then who can you put first?
Alison Brown: Right?
Jill Jaracz: So I don’t know, putting climate change on the list, I think.
In the men’s visually impaired category, um, ahead of time, the Ukrainian men and men’s and women’s teams were sitting around and joking, it would be great to get a podium sweep. Uh, well, that’s what they did here. And, uh, gold went to Alexander Kazak. He was silver. In this event in Beijing, silver went to Yaroslav, uh, rich Ky and bro went to Anatole, uh, Ky.
There was in Beijing, [00:21:00] one of the events, I think in either by Alon or Cross Country, it was a para Nordic, where Ukraine also was sweeping podiums.
Alison Brown: Yes, we’ve, we’ve seen Ukrainian sweeps more than once in, in Para Nordic events.
Jill Jaracz: It was such a big deal.
Alison Brown: Yes. Last
Jill Jaracz: time.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: So they’re, they’re, uh,
Alison Brown: they’re having a good day.
They lead the metal table at the end of the day with three golds and six total medals. But you know, who’s tied for them at six total? The ener?
Jill Jaracz: The ener.
Alison Brown: The ener. No, they don’t have six medals yet. They probably will, but Chy has two golds, two bronze, two silver.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: So they’re, they’re coming out strong right from the gate.
Jill Jaracz: Interesting. Very interesting. Uh, let’s move over to pair of ice hockey. Uh, we had first day of competition. Zea beat Japan, three to two. China. China beat Germany 12. Nothing.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. I’m curious to see what China looks like now because they remember how fast they were.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: And nobody knew how they were [00:22:00] playing.
But then immediately, um, we found out that like China had no discipline.
Alison Brown: Well, we’ll see how they go along in the tournament. Clearly they’re fast if they’re able to score 12 goals.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And then. So USA played Italy and we watched the game on the feed or afterwards and uh, Italy got a goal within like 25 seconds.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: And the crowd goes nuts. There’s almost 9,000 people in the crowd. It’s packed. It’s fantastic. And then. The US went on to win 14 one.
Alison Brown: Yeah, that one goal in the first 25 seconds is the only goal that poor Italy scored. It is a record for 14, the 14 goals in a paralympic uh, ice hockey game.
Jill Jaracz: It’s amazing.
So I will say Italy did not look bad for the first period, and then they just fell apart afterwards. You could tell that they weren’t quite, I mean. [00:23:00] It’s really hard to compete against the speed of the US And I think until, and Italy, I believe the commentator had said, had not played in the world championships.
Alison Brown: It, they did not play in the seating tournament.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay, okay.
Alison Brown: Because they had already gotten a,
Jill Jaracz: the Oh, the
Alison Brown: buy. The buy and the host and they chose not to to compete in the seating tournament. And they may regret that.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. ’cause it probably would’ve been good to have some competition,
Alison Brown: some more international exposure.
Jill Jaracz: And Canada Slovakia is going on as we
record
Alison Brown: it is period three and Canada’s up eight. Nothing.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay. So it’s looking good for Canada.
Alison Brown: I think that’s pretty, pretty good. Yeah. So there was a lot of blowouts today.
Jill Jaracz: It’ll be interesting as, as, uh. Other teams start facing each other and we’ll see how, how things start shaking out again.
Um, in Paris snowboard, I went there. That went to, today, I went to, I went to today ’cause because I could see the entire event and I got there and it was snowboard, cross seeding. And I went, oh boy. [00:24:00] This is not really what I wanna watch today. ’cause snowboard, cross seating not super exciting. So let’s talk about getting there.
We get off our bus, yes. Today and uh, I stop at the info point and I say, how do I get to Paris snowboard? And the guy in the booth says very clearly, just go down the street. You are going straight to curling. I had to go. If you were facing the curling stadium, I had to go left.
Alison Brown: Okay.
Jill Jaracz: Down the street with no sidewalk and a curve that cars were coming very quickly around.
This is a theme. And also in Cortina, no sidewalks and fast drivers. And uh, you got to a church and there was a little parking lot across kind of thing, and buses were there. And I saw a city bus and I said, oh, it’s this. You know, I yell on the inside ’cause there’s a guy with a credential. I said, is this for Paris Snowboard?
He said, yes it is. So I hop on bus gets packed up and uh, we go and we stop and we pick up more people, pack ’em in and, uh, get to [00:25:00] Paris, snowboard. And I, it, it’s fairly clear where to go until you get in. And then I’m like, media Tribune. And people are looking like, huh? That’s a good one. And there’s no media seating.
Alison Brown: Okay.
Jill Jaracz: Media has to stay in the mix zone.
Alison Brown: Oh,
Jill Jaracz: yes.
Alison Brown: So you, you know, I think it was like that in Beijing too.
Jill Jaracz: No, there was seating for, for Beijing, because that’s where you fell down the stairs.
Alison Brown: Yes, but I never sat.
Jill Jaracz: Oh yeah. But there was a place for us, there was a place for, for us, there was a place for us.
Alison Brown: Okay.
Jill Jaracz: Um, this is, uh, the place for us is in the mix zone. Okay. Where they did put two monitors on and then no snowboard came on because they weren’t filming it today. ‘
Alison Brown: cause it was the seating round.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So people who wanted to watch snowboard at home, ’cause they did see this on Facebook, not in our group, but in another group.
Uh, were [00:26:00] angry. Yes, that they could not get their snowboard fix. And, uh, at the beginning of the seeding rounds, they would show the co competitors starting and you could see ’em go up to like the first obstacle and then they disappeared. And then you would see them go down. You, we could see them come down like the last four rollers.
And that’s all we can see. We can see about 15, 20 meters. And the well, having the monitors in the back will help, um, behind us. Is the family, the Paralympic family, I believe. Lots of Japanese cheering for every Japanese period. They were so awesome. Fair enough. That was so much fun to hear them. Um, you can’t really see the big jumbotrons very well from our angle.
They’re angled funky for us, so that was not fun in trying to see, uh, any kind of action from the top. And then they just [00:27:00] replaced it with a pitcher of the mountain. So the, the dolomites here,
Alison Brown: here is
the
Jill Jaracz: Mount. That this was not a fun experience. So this is why I was questioning myself. But I stayed because people eventually came through the mix zone, who we, we had talked to.
And uh, I also started talking with a woman from the Athletic. The athletic has sent two people here. Hmm. And they will be focusing on features. They will not be like reporting on the action. So, uh, this is her first games and she was very excited. Um, and, uh, we were talking with Keith Gable and Keith is, uh, upper limb, uh, snowboarder I believe.
And he said, and everyone was talking about the course and how they don’t like the course. Anymore because the course was taking out athletes and in the upper limb, this is when we saw that like, uh, Ali, [00:28:00] I forget his last name from Australia, had yes. Gotten the concussion. He’s a snowboarder, got a concussion on.
The course here and like five other athletes in the upper limb category, uh, did not fare so well. They’re all out, lots of athletes are out.
Alison Brown: Wow.
Jill Jaracz: From training runs. They also had them do like the test run, so it was like test run training runs, and then today’s competition and it’s like, why are you having test runs done with the athletes?
So. All these athletes are getting taken out by the course and FIS, who is the International Federation in charge of snowboard since 2023. So this is their first Paralympics. They kept fixing the course by like taking out obstacles or making them much, much easier. So now everything is [00:29:00] super easy. And you don’t go as fast, you don’t go anywhere.
And, and Keith said, this is like Sochi 2014.
Alison Brown: Mm.
Jill Jaracz: This is how bad the course is now. He’s like, it does nothing to showcase our abilities. It showcases our disabilities. Oh. ’cause it’s so easy now it’s just kind of a lame course. And, and he’s like, yeah, there were parts that were dangerous and that you, I mean, you had to figure it out.
And if you hit something wrong, yeah, stuff happened. And I don’t like the fact that my friends are crashing out, but they, he’s like, they could have fixed one part here and it would’ve been a lot better. And, uh, it was come kind of a, uh, a roller that was just off a jump and that was taking out a lot of people.
Um, I do have some audio that we can’t play on the show because. The speakers blasting music were right behind us in the mix zone. Oh, I don’t know how anybody on camera got [00:30:00] any good stuff, but they’re all, they’ve all got micd up, so I can’t play anything because, uh, we can’t, it’s music rights. Can’t hear.
A can’t hear it. B can’t hear the music on, um, the commentators. I was gonna cry. I miss Oscar and the American guy. Yes. So much. They have a guy now. Who is I? I don’t wanna rag on him too much, but I did think partway through. Is this an AI voice?
Alison Brown: Oh no,
Jill Jaracz: it’s, he’s not good. He’s reading his stuff. He’s got his statistics, he’s got his homework done.
But he doesn’t know how to make it exciting. He doesn’t know how to talk more about it on the fly. I don’t know if he knows the sport very well.
Alison Brown: Hmm.
Jill Jaracz: I also don’t know if he can’t see anything. He’s just talking statistics or like, this person’s this old or whatever. And uh, or. So 29 [00:31:00] years young, and then the next person was like 30 years old.
It was like, oh boy. Oh, I miss you guys. And then there’s a, a woman speaking in Italian who of course sounds more jovial because Italian’s a very fun language to listen to. So we’ll see if they get better tomorrow.
Alison Brown: And maybe with the seating runs, it’s not exactly like you were concerned about it being interesting.
Yes, it’s definitely more difficult to announce than the actual races.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And it’s also difficult because you had two, uh, athletes on the course at the same time kind of thing. So one started and they got so far down and then the next person started. So I, I am sure that was a little issue too, but I really hope he can get some excitement going.
For tomorrow. ’cause that was not good. Um, uh, Charlotte from the Athletic did tell me how to get to para alpine skiing.
Alison Brown: Oh.
Jill Jaracz: Which is just up the mountain. So we hopped on a [00:32:00] gondola ’cause you could, and we went up and we get out and I see the walk. To Alpine skiing.
Alison Brown: Oh no.
Jill Jaracz: And I hear the music playing for the medal ceremonies, and I know there’s probably like six or seven medal ceremonies going six to eight going on right now, and I think, okay.
And hoards of people are struggling to get up the mountain.
Alison Brown: Oh no.
Jill Jaracz: It is a long, steep, windy walk from the gondola. However, I did see a parking lot. That was closer to the, um. Action. So I would say take the bus, maybe the bus that they told us to get on from curling, although I wondered if my bus kept going and stopped it.
Alison Brown: We’ll have to find out,
Jill Jaracz: but
Alison Brown: we may wanna do that adventure together simply because we may wanna [00:33:00] have the ability to pull each other up the mountain.
Jill Jaracz: You would take two steps and be like, I’m getting back on the gondola. It is so steep and there were some elderly people walking and like holding chest. Oh gosh.
Because you’re at not just altitude, you’re higher than you are in Corina. And it, we didn’t go very far ’cause Charlotte was like, I don’t really wanna go all the way down there. I’m like, okay. I’m cool with that. As I, I kept not wanting to walk because you probably have to walk. It’s minimum 200 meters.
Alison Brown: Okay. On an incline,
Jill Jaracz: uh, on stairs built into a hill.
Alison Brown: Oh, no. With
Jill Jaracz: rubber matting,
Alison Brown: not the stairs, with the rubber matting again,
Jill Jaracz: yes. It’s it’s not pretty. It is not pretty. But it might be. I might be generous with the 200 meters. It might be like 400. [00:34:00] Because it went down and it wound around some trees and we couldn’t see where the path went after that.
That’s the gondola ride.
Alison Brown: I’m frightened.
Jill Jaracz: I I was frightened too. I’m like, how, why are they telling people to go this way? I mean, it is kind of quick, but why are they telling people to go this way? Because you have to. Going down might not be that bad, but boy, getting up, getting up was gonna be really, really rough.
So I don’t know.
Alison Brown: So maybe we’ll try the bus.
Jill Jaracz: We’ll try the bus. Try the bus first for sure. On that. It was not. Not the best day in, um, uh, Paris Snowboard. I also managed to get scolded while I was there. Oh, no, because I, Brenna Huckabee came through the mix zone and I just went to where the, because I was like, oh, I don’t know where to stand because of course there’s just fencing there.
And, uh, there were some reporters and she was talking to them. So I hustled over [00:35:00] to there, and then a man came over to me, he goes, Nope, those are the agency. Thing. So Reuters and AFP and all those, uh, wire services and news agencies, they get special attention. They got this during the Olympics too, where they get first dibs on athletes and then the rest of us have to wait.
And I didn’t realize that we had agency pens again, but we did. So fun, fun day. Um. The course that we have. Is something like 980 meters long.
Alison Brown: Mm-hmm.
Jill Jaracz: It’s not super long. People were getting down in a, in about a minute and it’s got 24 features on it, so jumps and rollers. Um, it was a sunny, sunny day, so the course changed drastically and got very slow.
So, um. Some of the, especially in the men’s side, the second runs weren’t counting because you, [00:36:00] um,
Alison Brown: you do two runs
Jill Jaracz: and your
Alison Brown: better run counts.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, yes. So that was going on a fair amount by the time the men got down to their, their second one. So, um, we have, uh, three classifications for men. One’s upper limb, two are for lower limbs.
Women just have a lower limb classification. So in the men in the, uh, upper limb class, China has three of the top four spots with Wang Penya, leading in the SBL one Defending Champ. Tyler Turner from Canada’s in the lead, uh, sh Ani and American Mike Schultz is in fourth, and Noah Elliot also sh Stan in America is, uh, in fifth and in the SBL two category, I, uh, Italian.
Italia, that’s, I’m just gonna say that all the time now.
Alison Brown: Hi Italia.
Jill Jaracz: Hi
Alison Brown: Italia.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, Italy’s, uh, Emmanuel Peron is leading and in the women Brenna Huckabee from [00:37:00] USA, and I’ve talked to her a couple times now. Uh, so she’s getting close to becoming a member of Team Keith, the Flame alive. She, uh, won gold in 2018 in bronze in 2022, and uh, she is on the lead in the women’s side.
Her snowboard, they talked about this on the. The announcers commentary, um, her snowboard is covered with pictures of her cat, whose name is Mouse.
Alison Brown: I love when animals are named after other, other animals,
Jill Jaracz: so she’s leading on the women’s side. She’s followed by Cecile Hernandez from France, who is 51 years old.
Alison Brown: Oh, nice. Yeah, I, I read about some of the discussion of Mouse, and it has to do with the idea that her two daughters are here mm-hmm. With her, but Mouse is not, and Mouse is kind of the, the, the last member of the trio that supports her. So she wanted her with her as best she could. So the pictures on the board are, are what she could do.
Jill Jaracz: So tomorrow is the snowboard cross [00:38:00] finals, which is what I am pumped to see because it is four at once and we’ll see some action, hopefully yes. The, I, I could not go into the store at the Paris Snowboard venue. It was closed by the time I got down from the gondola, and they were, they were ready for everybody to go home.
Uh, we had a port-a-potty situation going on. That was gross, but I, I had to go because I had to prep for the possibility of a blood pressure test. Which did not materialize.
Alison Brown: We did not, we did not have the blood pressure people out. Unfortunately,
Jill Jaracz: not today. They were taking a break when I went to wheelchair curling, and then they were not, they, the blood pressure machine was not there when we walked home.
So
Alison Brown: this is your quest for the rest of the games.
Jill Jaracz: It’s, I know. I’m so excited. Uh, over to wheelchair curling, which you spent
Alison Brown: some time at. Yes. So I spent the morning at wheelchair curling, uh, with mixed team. And then in the afternoon we had doubles. So it was a little bit of a, a back and forth, but let’s do the results first.
Uh, [00:39:00] so in the mix Team event, great Britain lost to Slovakia nine two. Korea beat Latvia. Ten two. The USA lost to China. 12 seven, uh, Norway lost to Sweden. Six two. Great Britain beat the USA, uh, six five. That was an extra end.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay.
Alison Brown: That was interesting. And, uh, Sweden beat Korea. Eight six. Also an extra end.
Latvia beat. Slovakia nine zero and Canada beat Italy. Nine, eight.
Jill Jaracz: Whoa,
Alison Brown: that was tight One.
Jill Jaracz: Tight one. So Mix team had two sessions.
Alison Brown: Had two sessions once in the one in the morning that I saw and then one in the evening that we did not see. ’cause we were on the bus trying to make it home and somehow made it home in two and a half hours or less.
I,
Jill Jaracz: Giuseppe,
Alison Brown: I don’t know what Giuseppe was doing, but
Jill Jaracz: you know, he was talking on the phone a lot too.
Alison Brown: He was, he was, no, rephrase that, he was yelling on the phone a lot. He kept getting phone calls and they’re like, Chao, Chao. He was very angry with whoever was calling [00:40:00] him and bothering him. ’cause there was a lot of C, see?
C, C, C. C. C, Lolo, soul, Lolo, soul, just so he was just, he had had enough of whoever was calling him. But the Chinese team, the screamers are back, and not only are the screamers back, but they now have invaded the entire team. The entire Chinese team are now screamers.
Jill Jaracz: It’s gotta be fun.
Alison Brown: It’s a little, it’s a little rough.
Jill Jaracz: It’s intense. Well, and they’re yelling at the stone as if they had sweepers, but they’re really yelling at the stone to tell it
Alison Brown: what to do to do things. And sometimes they even use hand motions as if, if they push the air, it’ll move the stone. But I can’t. Comment on that. I shouldn’t comment on that because I do that too, you know.
But like when we were trying to catch the bus the other day, I was like, please don’t leave. Please don’t leave. Like he could hear me.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right, right.
Alison Brown: Please don’t pull away. Please don’t leave. And, and, but it did [00:41:00] work. So maybe they’re moving of arms and yelling at the stone Works for them. Somebody smuggled in a cowbell.
Jill Jaracz: Did it get taken away?
Alison Brown: It did not. It got rung. Hmm. So cowbells apparently are allowed at curling. Hmm. I don’t know size and shape, but I definitely heard it.
Jill Jaracz: I can tell you why it was easy to smuggle in a cowbell. I could have done it ’cause I didn’t look at my backpack today. They are really wild. I got scanned, my accreditation finally got scanned at curling and worked.
And worked. Although I am in desperate fear that it’s gonna not work all of a sudden again. And, uh, but no, they were like, nah, just go in. You know, they wanted me, but we were like, yeah,
Alison Brown: whatever. Yeah, whatever.
Jill Jaracz: I guess I’d look innocent,
Alison Brown: I guess. So later on we saw the The wave your flag situation.
Jill Jaracz: Yes,
Alison Brown: yes.
But before that, in the morning, there was this group of Korean women who had a whole routine for how they wave their flag in the [00:42:00] stance. I don’t know if they were family or if they were just fans, but they had a whole flag waving routine.
Jill Jaracz: I love it.
Alison Brown: It was fantastic. There were four of them, so it was like a whole little ronettes set.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: It was fantastic, and I would encourage all fans to not just come and wave your flag, come with a prepared routine.
Jill Jaracz: I would agree wholeheartedly. What. Do you remember what side they were sitting on?
Alison Brown: They were sitting, if I’m sitting in the, in the press box, they were on the left lower side.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay.
Alison Brown: So a lot of the family does sit mm-hmm.
In, in that section. So it could have been that they were, they were in fact prepared.
Jill Jaracz: Okay.
Alison Brown: But they did left hand, right hand, two hands swaying. I mean, this was no joke.
Jill Jaracz: I love it.
Alison Brown: It was fantastic.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh. I hope that gets on the feed for everyone and.
Alison Brown: The US has a secret handshake.
Jill Jaracz: How do you know?
Alison Brown: Because I saw it. [00:43:00]
Jill Jaracz: How is it secret then?
Alison Brown: Okay, well, it’s, oh, let, let me rephrase it then. The US has a special handshake and it involves, you know, they, they slap, they. Bump fists. They do firework motions.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, wow.
Alison Brown: And sprinkle her down. It’s fantastic. So it’s like slap, slap, bump, bump, firework, sprinkle.
Jill Jaracz: Far out.
I’m gonna
have,
Alison Brown: you gotta watch for it on the feed if you see it.
Jill Jaracz: Nice.
Alison Brown: And then over in the doubles, the results, uh, were China Beat Estonia 12 two Ladia beat Italy, nine four. That was the match that we saw the very end of where they. Almost pulled off.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Coming back from such a large deficit. Yes. On that last stone,
Jill Jaracz: big, big Italian crowd.
Super excited about everything. Some beautiful shots from the Italians.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: And, uh, they just couldn’t pull out and they had to measure a couple of times and, [00:44:00] and, and one time double measurement,
Alison Brown: double measure with two officials that neither side was happy. No, with whatever they were measuring, because both of all four of them were all involved in the discussion.
Usually it’s just one of the pair is involved in the discussion. Oh, no, no, no. All four players were in on that one, and they measured it with, and he, she said, go around the circle again, and they were both like, yes, yes. Do it again. Do it again. Uh, just to finish up, great Britain beat Japan 11 to two, and sadly, Steve Ed and, uh, Laura Dwyer lost to Korea.
Ten one in just six ends.
Jill Jaracz: That was tough.
Alison Brown: It was not a great match for them. It just seemed like they could not read this sheet.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, and you could tell the sheets are just, I, I don’t know if it’s wonky, but the, the. Stones really do some numbers that I’m wondering how it looks on the feed, because you [00:45:00] really see it in real life.
Yes. How the ice changes just within few inches of it, of each other.
Alison Brown: Right. And it was, they weren’t it, it didn’t seem like the stones were curling. They were just staying straight.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: Which is so strange to I, I’ve never seen a, I mean, not that I’ve watched so much curling, but I’ve watched enough that I was surprised
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: With how straight they
Jill Jaracz: were sitting. And, and I do wonder, we did not go to the mix zone for this one because, you know, it was tough, tough, tough loss when you’re conceding at at n six, but there was no way they were coming back. No. And, uh, you might as well just save the energy and not go on. We were some of these other matches.
We were really surprised that they went the full,
Alison Brown: they did
Jill Jaracz: not
Alison Brown: concede.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. You know, like Estonia, I think, uh, you can see the, the man of the. Pear [00:46:00] is very determined.
Alison Brown: He did not care that they were at, you know, nine, two.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: That he was like, no, we are playing the full ends and we’re gonna see how this plays out.
Jill Jaracz: Nuts. So standings are, China is undefeated. Five and oh, uh, great Britain and Korea are three and two. Estonia, Japan and Latvia and the USA are two and three and Italy is one and four. So it’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out. This, this. Mega point loss today is really tough on the team, probably in the standings when you have, uh,
Alison Brown: when you have ties.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So we’re getting close, not not getting close to the end, but they’ve only got a few more days.
Alison Brown: Well, they do take a break, not tomorrow, but there is, with the team competition, it does overlap a little bit as we’re seeing, so that I think they’re gonna have, not tomorrow, but I think the next day they have a day off to.
They’ll have a chance to, [00:47:00] uh, regroup and kind of see where they wanna go from here.
Jill Jaracz: Distract yourself for a day, guys.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Let’s not think about curling.
Alison Brown: Go up to para alpine and try and get, to
Jill Jaracz: try and wheel around the snow. Yeah. That’s gonna be fun.
Alison Brown: Aper, TiVo, how about
Jill Jaracz: that? Right, right. Aper. TiVo. Right.
Take you, do something fun. Take your mind off stuff. Um, okay, so we’re gonna attempt to have a shuk on watch because people are keep popping in and out of events.
Alison Brown: Exactly. So part of the problem here is that in our system, the competitor list, the start list is not available yet for tomorrow’s events. So I’m basing this on what I know these competitors usually compete in.
So we’re gonna miss some people. We may say some people who don’t end up being in the races, but we’re doing our best here to keep the Shook list on Watch Alive. So Oxana Masters, Kendall, Gretchen, Aaron Pike, [00:48:00] possibly Sidney Peterson. I, we don’t know. ’cause all of a sudden she’s doing biathlon and they are back for individuals sitting biathlon tomorrow.
Mike Schultz and Noah Elliot will compete in snowboard cross and Steve Ton, Laura Dwyer face, Italy in wheelchair curling. Ooh, that’s gonna be big. That’s gonna be a fun match.
Jill Jaracz: Alright. And we have shout outs.
Alison Brown: Yes, we do. So first up is Ross
Jill Jaracz: from Tennessee, which is like Ross Flood from New Zealand, who competed at Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004, and won the first ever medal for New Zealand in Bcia.
Their team won silver.
Alison Brown: Hmm.
Jill Jaracz: So that was exciting to find.
Alison Brown: Then next is author Lee Addison Smith in southwest Michigan.
Jill Jaracz: Okay, so Lee Addison Smith has a tough name in terms of Paralympians because there was a Smith with her spelling male, and, uh, same Lee also had and no real. The closest we can get is Tasman Addison, who is an Irish para [00:49:00] dressage writer who competed at Tokyo 20.
She writes on, uh, did I say Tokyo 2020.
Alison Brown: You
Jill Jaracz: said Tokyo? I said to
Alison Brown: 2020.
Jill Jaracz: Okay, so Tasman Tasman competed at Tokyo 2020. I wonder what Tokyo 20 would be like. You wonder,
Alison Brown: you know, where it could have been
Jill Jaracz: 20 ad. Yeah,
Alison Brown: it could have been at the Verona Arena,
Jill Jaracz: right?
Alison Brown: Because that was around back then.
Jill Jaracz: That would’ve been fun.
Uh, she, uh, Swin rides on the horse Fahrenheit and, uh, she’s born and. She was born and based in England, but her, her husband is Irish, so she ended up competing for Ireland. She became the first person in the world to regrown a bo regrow a bone in her upper arm after being diagnosed with cancer when she was 21.
Alison Brown: That is a fun fact for
Jill Jaracz: today. I don’t even know what to do with that. I know, right. And our last shout out for today is Max from Seattle, Washington, and [00:50:00] Max like Max Nelson from Team USA, who was in Para Nordic Maxie, which is his nickname. He was at Beijing 2022, and he’s here at Milan Malano, Milano, Cortina 2026.
So you have somebody to root for Max.
Alison Brown: So we’ve got a mascot for today and actually it’s two. It’s some of our favorite Guinea pigs. We have lots of favorite Guinea pigs.
Jill Jaracz: Yes,
Alison Brown: apparently I had no idea. Shuksan was so full of Guinea pigs. But this time it is sunny and Sadie and they have been our mascots multiple times and we adore them.
And we also adore listener, Dawn and his family for sharing them with us and for supporting the fundraiser that got us here to Italy.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Don, Sonny and Sadie and family. And that’s gonna do it for this episode. If you would like even more of the most fun coverage of the games hit us up. We are@flamealivepod.com.
That is your so source for our socials newsletter and direct ways to contact us. Join our Facebook group. That’s where we’re posting things first and [00:51:00] chatting with people. So if you wanna know what’s going on, be in the Facebook group and uh, be sure to tune in tomorrow. ’cause I’m betting I forgot to tell you something about today.
Hopefully not. Fingers crossed. So,
Alison Brown: and until next time, chow and keep the flame alive.