It’s Day 2 of the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympics, and we head back up to the mountains for the finals of para snowboard, then into Cortina for some wheelchair curling. Plus we got an up-close look at several medal ceremonies, which meant we got an up-close look at the podium people outfits, and we have thoughts.
Did Alison survive the bus ride? How did our fearless podcasters fare on the janky stairs at the para snowboard park? Hit play to find out!
Sports on today’s program:
- Para biathlon
- Para snowboard
- Wheelchair curling
We’d like to give a big shout out to our donors who got us to Milano Cortina, as well as our patrons who keep our flame alive throughout the Olympic and Paralympic quad. If this show helps you enjoy the Games more, please consider sending a financial contribution to ensure the show can continue through LA 2028. Find out more here. If you’d like to become a patron, you’ll get exclusive bonus content throughout the Games.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympics: Day 2
Jill Jaracz: [00:00:00] Bonjourno and welcome to Keep the Flame Alive. Day two coverage of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games. I am your host, Jill Jarris, coming to you from Shuk Stan House and Venicia Mere joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Allison Ccia. Sai
Alison Brown: doing so much better than yesterday.
Yes, Dramamine is a wonder drug.
Jill Jaracz: We also had a good Giuseppe today.
Alison Brown: We had a very [00:01:00] gentle Giuseppe in the evening, which made sleep very helpful. So I’m not, I mean, I’m tired. Mm-hmm. But I’m not absolutely wiped out. ’cause I was starting to fall asleep at curling.
Jill Jaracz: Oh yeah.
Alison Brown: And I, then they started smacking rocks and that helped.
Jill Jaracz: But the morning, Giuseppe man, uh, ‘
Alison Brown: cause we keep ha so, so Giuseppe in the morning and we really probably should call him Giacomo.
So that we, because he’s the same one every time. We’ve had him every morning,
Jill Jaracz: but he’s been in a different type of bus it feels like. ’cause we had a panoramic bus today and maybe I just haven’t noticed the panorama
Alison Brown: before. Maybe we haven’t sit so far forward before.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Okay.
Alison Brown: But it’s the same driver with his cigarette and his really loud phone calls and his very loud music.
Jill Jaracz: I love the music though.
Alison Brown: The music was great. The music was like being in for me, it was like being back in college. It was all these songs I haven’t heard since the late eighties. It was fantastic
Jill Jaracz: and even better the, the volunteers who were in like their [00:02:00] late teens, early twenties, knew all the words, so they were singing along to, I will Always Love You.
By Whitney Houston. Whitney Houston.
Alison Brown: It was fantastic. They were, they were a great addition this morning. Yes, they definitely brought the energy up on, on, yes, on the bus and more importantly,
Jill Jaracz: I didn’t get sick. That’s very important, except for Giacomo in the morning. Got, uh, he has been late every day, so it was,
and
Alison Brown: he really pushed it to that,
Jill Jaracz: to today.
He was a half an hour late before it was 15 minutes and 20 minutes now. We were a full 30 minutes late. We also stopped for gas and at the, and
Alison Brown: a bathroom break.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. At the, we do make stops along the way to pick other people up. And we had a, an emergency, uh, situation for the bathroom at stop, number one.
So we’re finally getting into the mountains, and I look at the time on the clock and, and it’s like. The time we’re supposed to be in Corina. And then I look at the map [00:03:00] and we’re 40 minutes away. Oh
Alison Brown: no.
Jill Jaracz: And just about that time, Giacomo started speeding up. Like he realized he had to get to Corina too.
Sweet. And he, it wasn’t that late, just about like
Alison Brown: maybe 15. We certainly made up at least 15, 20 minutes along the way.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Still we’re late to Paris snowboard. We would’ve been on time to Paris snowboard. But we were late,
Alison Brown: but we only missed one, uh, set of quarterfinals.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, we didn’t miss very much, so that was great.
Um, the, uh, first time in the mountains for you
Alison Brown: it was, I, I climbed the mountain. And,
Jill Jaracz: and also, um, boatload of janky stairs that we have neglected to talk about.
Alison Brown: Yes. Well, not to worry, the janky stairs are featured prominently in the newsletter and will be again. They were, they were featured yesterday.
There will be another set discussion of them tomorrow. ’cause I had a different [00:04:00] newsletter planned for today. Um, because yeah, it was not only janky, well, I’ll just tease this. It was not just janky stairs. Mm-hmm. It was a whole trestle.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Yeah, we have to go over the road in janky stairs. Let’s just. And it’s, it’s a picture.
Alison Brown: We’ve got photos and
Jill Jaracz: there’s also a little escalator
Alison Brown: in this
Jill Jaracz: track,
Alison Brown: which I did not get a photo of. So if you’re back up there tomorrow, try to, okay. Try and remember to get a photo of the escalator, ’cause the escalator. Also slightly janky and a little frightening because it vibrated, I don’t know if you noticed this.
It sort of, it not only went up and down, it also went slightly side to side.
Jill Jaracz: I did not notice. Maybe it’s ’cause it’s really short and you go, why is there an escalator here? But it must be steep enough. And if
Alison Brown: you had skis and a helmet. And you’re trying to get to the gondola, you wanna make that as convenient as possible for the skiers.
Like we have [00:05:00] to remember, this is a working ski resort. It’s not usually for, uh, this kind of event, because today actually, it’s
Jill Jaracz: usually for one dumpy media person hauling around with band stuff in her pockets.
Alison Brown: You, you were contraband left and right today.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, it was a bad day. I gotta, I got a, uh, I’m, I am gonna let this.
Cookie go through.
Alison Brown: You got scolded for your cookie?
Jill Jaracz: A little bit. A little bit, but they were like, oh, hmm.
Alison Brown: Maybe they just wanted the cookie.
Jill Jaracz: I, I would not be surprised. But made it to snowboard it. And you were to snowboarding were you were moving it. Quite a clip. I was impressed.
Alison Brown: Was I?
Jill Jaracz: Yes, because I’m a very slow.
Getting myself up the mountain person.
Alison Brown: I don’t like to be slow because if I lose momentum, then I’m gonna slide back down the mountain. So I think sometimes I move quickly because I think if I get to the flat surface faster, then I’ll be safer.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. [00:06:00]
Alison Brown: I think that’s really my thinking ’cause I’ve had the tumbling backwards experience and I don’t wanna experience that again.
Thanks very much.
Jill Jaracz: Alright, well we will get to more of our time in the mountain during Paris snowboard. Um, did we forget anything yesterday?
Alison Brown: I don’t think we did. I don’t think we
Jill Jaracz: did either. That’s pretty good.
Alison Brown: I’m, I’m gonna be excited for that.
Jill Jaracz: And, and if I forgot something, I don’t remember. That. That’s okay.
Dust in the wind. Alright. Uh, before we get to today’s results, we would like to take a moment to say thank you for everybody who has donated financially to get this little independent podcast to Milano Cortina. Thank you to those of you who have signed up for our Patreon, uh, program, including listener Allison who signed up today.
Thank you Allison, that, that we will be getting some stuff out to you. Um. That that has really helped us because there are real costs involved with putting on this show and we would love to keep [00:07:00] going until LA 2028. So if you have appreciated the coverage we have brought you particularly. Live from the train station.
Alison Brown: I still can’t believe we did that. Honestly. There’s a piece of me that can’t believe we haven’t had to do that before.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, that’s really, that’s really it. And, if you, uh, appreciate the coverage we’ve given you so far, please consider donating to the show.
You can find the links@flamelivepod.com. Alright, today’s results. We had a bunch of para biathlon today.
Alison Brown: Yes. So we’ve had women’s individuals sitting and the gold went to Yuji Kim from Korea, uh, silver to Anya, vicar from Germany and bronze to. Shook Stan, also the US Kendall Gretch oxide Masters finished fourth and she wasn’t disappointed with her fourth place finished.
Uh, she said that fourth, with the circumstances that I have, I’ll take, and she had some challenges and [00:08:00] apparently she can’t hold her poll and she has to be taped to the pole, which I’m slightly confused about because then how do you switch to the rifle?
Jill Jaracz: I wonder if it’s the. Hand that holds the rifle
Alison Brown: and then she continues to hold the pole at the same time.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right,
Alison Brown: right. We’ll have to watch.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, because remember how she was taped up at Pyeongchang?
Alison Brown: Yeah. She was held together with spit and tape and a prayer. So she said that her tape job today wasn’t as good and that her hand cramped up. So she was really proud of herself as she should be. Fourth place is no joke in these races.
Jill Jaracz: And, uh, then, uh, continuing. Its individual day in Biathlon. So we had the men’s sitting, uh, China Lee won gold, silver went to Mount Zung W from China, and bronze went to Taurus. Rod from Ukraine, who I believe we mentioned yesterday.
Alison Brown: Yes, he won the gold yesterday. I think.
Jill Jaracz: And [00:09:00] China is really cleaning up in biathlon.
Alison Brown: Yes. And actually I saw a couple of different comments by various Chinese Biathletes and Ukrainian Biathletes saying how much they love the competition between the two teams.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, nice.
Alison Brown: That they’re really enjoying. Oh, you’re a very strong team. We’re a very strong team who’s gonna come out on top with more, uh, biathlete medals.
Nice. So it seems like a nice, friendly. Rivalry and our Aaron Pike finished fourth, which I think is one of his best finishes, uh, in biathlon over his. 427 year long career.
Jill Jaracz: Um, uh, Taurus Rod also said today the weather was different and was harder because it’s warmer.
Alison Brown: It is, it was warm up. We both took our coats off at, up in the mountain.
It was, I was sweating today and it was supposedly 39 degrees, but I think that was a big fat lie because in the sun, people were, were sloping on the sunscreen and, and. [00:10:00] Sweating to death
Jill Jaracz: in the women’s individual standing gold Went to Canada’s Natalie Wilkie Silver. Went to XO Jing Queen, uh, ing from China, uh, who is a repeat silver. She said she missed a shot and got distracted. And that’s, uh, and her gun jammed in the final round of shooting. So this is, that was a tough day to come out with silver.
That’s pretty good.
Alison Brown: That’ll distract you.
Jill Jaracz: And bronze went to Alexandra Anova. From
Alison Brown: Ukraine.
Jill Jaracz: From Ukraine. Uh, Natalie Wilke. So she’s been wearing glitter.
Alison Brown: Glitter is a theme this time around. Yes. We’re seeing a lot of the abrea Huck hat on glitter. Even some of our press people Yes. Had on or the press attache hat on glitter.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So, uh uh, Natalie’s been wearing it. She picked silver. The other day and won a silver medal medal
Alison Brown: and won a silver.
Jill Jaracz: And so she picked gold today and
Alison Brown: well smart move Natalie, [00:11:00] because you ended up with the gold. Yeah, so, uh, both con Nova and Wilkie medaled the other day. So we get to see some repeat medalist, which is exciting.
But it’s nice to see Natalie upgrade.
Jill Jaracz: In the men’s individual standing gold went to Kai from China, which is his second gold of these games. Silver went to Mark errands from Canada. He was a fifth in his previous race, so this is a, a better result for him. Also adding on another medal to his total career score of 13.
So, wow.
Alison Brown: I thought that name looked a little
Jill Jaracz: familiar. Yeah, right. I do remember that. Uh, and then bronze went to Germany’s, Marco Myer, uh, this is his second bronze of the Games, and He is the para Nordic skier wearing shorts because it’s so warm.
Alison Brown: Yes. And he has said yesterday he didn’t like wearing the shorts, but the shorts seem to be working for him. He seems to be, uh, doing quite well in the shorts. And Kai also mentioned that he had to change his [00:12:00] tactics from his first rage, which I don’t really know why. ’cause he won gold the first time around, but he felt like he needed to do something different this time.
So he was gonna go a little slower at the beginning and faster at the end. And try and be stable in the shooting range, to which I say, isn’t that what you do all the time? And that’s how you won a gold the other day.
Jill Jaracz: I dunno, maybe he went out fast and then nobody could catch up
Alison Brown: interest and then he couldn’t draft and
Jill Jaracz: yeah,
Alison Brown: burn himself out a little bit.
But it seems to be working for you.
Jill Jaracz: In the women’s individual visually impaired class, uh, Wang Hue from China won her second gold of these games.
Alison Brown: Oh,
Jill Jaracz: Simona Anova from Czechia won Silver and Johanna rec involved from Germany won. Bronze, uh, she had two fourth place finishes at Beijing.
Alison Brown: Yes. And she talked about how frustrating that was, but that she didn’t let it stop her from continuing to train and train hard with the goal of getting a medal and getting [00:13:00] breaking through that fourth place wall.
So, nice job for her.
Jill Jaracz: Nice job. Um, for the men’s individual, visually impaired gold went to China’s dge song, silver Went to Ukraine’s, uh, Maxim, Makoski and Bronze went to Demitri. Farco, uh, the last race, Demitri was fifth and got the bronze today, so that was also night for him. And he, he’s. He, he had some issues.
The, the Ukrainian delegation had some issues because, uh, last night Russia, attacked the country with a bunch of drones and missiles. And today has not been very easy for the Ukrainian delegation. And today he said, I didn’t wanna start, but my guide said, okay, start running, start shooting.
And we’re doing it basically is
Alison Brown: sometimes you just need that person who knows what you want. Yes. And knows what you wanna achieve. I mean, clearly he wants to be here and what he wants to race, but the weight of what is happening in [00:14:00] Ukraine, we saw it last time around in Beijing.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: How sometimes they could not start.
I remember there was that one athlete whose father was uh uh. Captured.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: And chose not to race. And that there were many situations like that. So this, you’re worried about your family, you worry about your home, you worry about your friends, but you’re here to do something and you’ve gotta do it. So the guide is just like, just race, just focus on the race.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Moving over to Paris Snowboard.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: So what do you think? Okay, so we got there, and this was unlike yesterday. The mixed zone is jam packed.
Alison Brown: Jam packed and hot because it was hot that today it was frustrating because we really could not see any, we were basically watching a television.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: With announcers that were.
On a different schedule than our television in that there were a few seconds ahead. So we’d be watching a race and they would announce the finish,
Jill Jaracz: not just a few [00:15:00] seconds. It was like 10 seconds. So if you, if you have feed beefs, we have feed beefs and we’re watching it, we’re there.
Alison Brown: But the problem was we couldn’t really, we could see about half a second of them coming over that last roller
Jill Jaracz: right
Alison Brown: from where we were forced to stand.
Jill Jaracz: So. So the feed, this was the you. I don’t think you could see this, uh, because of where your height.
Alison Brown: I was gonna say, are you trying to be nice and say
Jill Jaracz: I couldn’t see it? ’cause I’m short, so, so we have the announcer who. Still sounds like an AI voice. He
Alison Brown: dull is dishwater.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. He does not seem to know anything about the sport but was hired ’cause he has a nice voice.
I don’t know. Or he’s ai that’s other possibility. Um, we had our feed, I realized he’s telling us they’ve started. I look and they’re just getting into the start gates. Our feed was like 10 [00:16:00] seconds behind both him and the big screens. ’cause I could see the big screens and I’d be like, oh, they started, and then I’d look at our thing and they’re still getting ready.
And it was so hard because then you didn’t know. When they were gonna come over the rise so that you could quick look up and see a couple of seconds of actual race and oh my gosh, that was so hard to deal with.
Alison Brown: Very frustrating.
Jill Jaracz: And, and you couldn’t, I at least I could not take the part of my brain that was listening to the announcer.
And put that in my brain to store for 10 seconds later when I would be seeing it on my screen.
Alison Brown: Well, then each time you saw it on your screen, it was a surprise with somebody won, even though he just announced it. And also, we weren’t seeing the same thing as you said with the big screen, so that the crowd that was just behind us who could see the big screen would react, and then the mixed zone would react several seconds [00:17:00] later.
So it was a very. A Twilight Zone existence, right? Where you have reality one screen and a different screen, and three groups of people are all reacting to it at different times because of what they’re seeing.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And then you took one look at that screen and during the first race and said,
Alison Brown: I don’t remember what I said.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, well let me, let me, oh, the course is really easy.
Alison Brown: Oh, yeah,
Jill Jaracz: yeah. You, you noticed it right away
Alison Brown: after that first race, I thought to myself. They barely look like they’re bouncing over rollers. And the, and, and the speed was so slow. So we were talking to another journalist and, and he said they deserve better.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, yeah.
Alison Brown: And I couldn’t agree more.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And they really only had one huge jump right at the beginning thing they, they had to climb up and, uh, I think they call that a step up.
Alison Brown: Oh, listen to you.
Jill Jaracz: Well, you know, I’m trying to sound a little [00:18:00] smart here, but um, yeah, it was a lot of rollers and a lot of turns, not a lot of places to get speed, not a lot of places to pass.
So there were a lot of races where if you got out into the lead. You were almost guaranteed a win almost.
Alison Brown: Right? There was a few, there was a little bit of passing that happened toward the last third of the race. That seemed to be where there were some passes made at the very end. But yeah, it was, they really struggled to, to get some speed going.
And that was probably incredibly frustrating and actually probably made it more difficult. Mm-hmm. Because if you’re used to a faster speed and now you’re functioning it with, with less velocity. How do you maintain the balance if you’re used to going faster?
Jill Jaracz: Right. And Noah Elliot told us in the mix zone that he had tweaked his knee.
His knee, uh, the, the knee that is the prosthetic is. A different pressure than he normally races [00:19:00] with because the snow was so slushy.
Alison Brown: Right. He said there was a little bit of ice on top, but then it got slushy. And then he said as the day went along, ’cause they do quarter semis and finals, he said it just got slusher and slusher.
’cause that sun was just beaten down clear. There was not a cloud in the sky, which was beautiful. Mm-hmm. It was a gorgeous day up in the mountain, but made for some difficult racing for them.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. Tough day. Tough day. Uh, in the women’s. Uh, snowboard cross. They only have one classification. Brenna Huckabee’s still the only person that is racing in this classification.
That is not an LL two.
Alison Brown: Yes, she’s an LL one.
Jill Jaracz: Um, she. Had a medal in Beijing. She did not medal here. Uh, she got, she was in the small final though.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, but gold went to Cecile Hernandez from France. Uh, she’s 51 years old.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, silver went to Kate Delson from USA, who is 20 years old and [00:20:00] bronze went to Wang Nu from China.
And when we, the only really cool thing about where the mix zone is, is. The podiums are directly behind us. So the medal ceremony happened there, and the podiums are in within the boundary of the Paralympic family zone. So we have all these Paralympic family delegates who are cheering for their people, which was awesome because the Swiss brought cowbells.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: And um, the, then we saw, we had the front row view of all of the medal ceremonies and, uh, Cecile’s daughter. Somehow snuck into the mix zone, pushed her away in front of me, and had a big flag with her mom’s face on it, and she is sobbing,
Alison Brown: sobbing. Uncontrollably and, and so emotional. And when her mother came out to receive her medal, her mother is sobbing pretty partly.
Yeah. I,
Jill Jaracz: I thank goodness I had sunglasses and [00:21:00] could just cover up the tears in my
Alison Brown: eyes. It was, it was very overwhelming and, and. They’re motioning to one another. Know this medal is for, you know, this medal iss for you. So the mother is saying to her daughter, I’m dedicating this medal to you and the mother and the daughter is saying to the mother, no, I do everything for you.
So it was a, and this is an adult daughter? ’cause she’s 51. Yes. So her daughter was probably in early, early twenties. Yeah. Yeah. She looked about 20 and just. The Anthem comes on and she tries to sing, but she’s crying too hard to sing
Jill Jaracz: and trying to take a video too.
Alison Brown: Trying to video this all at the same time.
So I give her credit ’cause she was balancing a camera, her tears, her amazing eyelashes, and her flag all at once,
Jill Jaracz: right? And then somebody is trying to interview her. As well from the, from France, it was, there was a lot going on in front of us.
Alison Brown: So yeah, it was, it was actually a really beautiful moment that we don’t usually get to see and certainly don’t usually get to see quite that close up.
[00:22:00] And to feel the emotion between the two of them was pretty special.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, in the men’s, uh, so the, the men have three different classifications. So the upper limb, the, uh, China’s. Got silver and gold. Gia defended his title for gold Jew Yung Gang won Silver, and Aaron Farney from Switzerland won the bronze, which caused a lot of cowbells
Alison Brown: and also a lot of excitement in our little section of Media Tribune because we were with the Swiss.
Yes. So they were quite excited by this medal and, and apparently there’s going to be a, a hum dinger. I don’t know if that’s what you say in. In Switzerland, but of a party tonight at Swiss House.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. In the, uh, L one category, China’s WWE won gold. Uh, Noah Elliot from Shuk Stan and USA won silver, which now gives him a full set, which he actually mentioned.
Alison Brown: He did [00:23:00] and I appreciated that he mentioned it. So he came through the mix zone. So we got to talk to him a little. Him and his amazing mustache, uh, got to talk to them at, uh, for a few minutes and he, I think he realized he had a full set as we were talking. ’cause he’s like, oh, I got a silver, I have a golden bronze.
Now I have a whole little set. And I’m thinking to myself, you are, you are coming to the realization of how cool this is at this moment. And I am enjoying this.
Jill Jaracz: And, uh, Tyler Turner from Canada, who was the champion in Beijing, he got the bronze.
Alison Brown: I thought it was very interesting. He was much taller than most of the other competitors.
And I wanna ask him, not that I’ll get a chance, but maybe I will, you know, is that an advantage or disadvantage?
Jill Jaracz: Very good question.
Alison Brown: You know, when you’re snowboarding, is it, does it help to have that higher center of gravity, or does the lower center of gravity make you faster?
Jill Jaracz: Well, that’s on the list.
Alison Brown: That’s on the list,
Jill Jaracz: alright. And in the LL two category, [00:24:00] gold went to Emmanuel Marathoner from Italy. So the golden crowd goes wild except for not as wild. As, as Cecile Hernandez’s daughter, which surprised me. And then, uh, silver went to Ben Tut up from Australia, who won bronze at Beijing. So he stepped up a bit and the Australians were there in full force.
Alison Brown: They were, and they were loud. They were very loud when we were in the mix zone trying to talk to people too.
Jill Jaracz: So beyond the fact that music was still playing. So we can’t use the tape on the air. Um, we’ll figure out something about this tape. Um, and then bronze went to Lee, Jay Yolk from Korea. So, uh, the Italian Emmanuel Marathoner, he competed at the 2014 and 2018 Olympics.
And in 2021 he had a bad training accident that sent him on his Paralympic journey.
Alison Brown: Yeah, he had a knee replacement. So he has [00:25:00] a bionic knee like Lindsey y Vaughn, and. It allowed, it’s enough of a, uh, disability that he is now a Paralympian.
Jill Jaracz: So, uh, nice to have, uh, an Italian gold medal right there in front of us.
Alison Brown: Always great when the home crowd wins a medal and the home crowd gets to enjoy it. And we get to see that because as I noticed that the version of the Italian anthem that they use is especially long and, and has a lot of flourishes. And the Italian crowd loves every second of it.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we do need to talk about the medal ceremony since we’re here, because now
Alison Brown: I have the medal ceremonies that took forever.
Jill Jaracz: Well, I also still have the opening music in my head, the, just the, the two phrases. I can’t get past that. I don’t know the rest of the music and it’s killing me right now. This is not Paris. I will tell you that this is not horrible, the, the threads, but I can’t, it’s just not memorable at all. [00:26:00] We gotta talk about the podium people.
Alison Brown: Podium people. Were not doing a very good job today.
Jill Jaracz: What, how, what, what kind of,
Alison Brown: okay, so there was two problems. One, they stood so cl the, the, um, metal and, uh. Toy people. Yes. The Trey people stood so close together that they couldn’t walk around one another, and they kept bumping into the podium every time that they went to walk past it with their pan, their two colored pants that looked dirty.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. The pants in person in the sunlight are
Alison Brown: bad.
Jill Jaracz: They are navy. They are shiny, but they change color in the light to brown. So it looks like the brown of their coat. Collar,
Alison Brown: yes. So it’s an iridescent fabric where you interweave the two colors.
Jill Jaracz: Oh.
Alison Brown: Which can be quite pretty if you interweave them with good colors, like sometimes you’ll see a blue and a pink [00:27:00] interwoven.
Mm-hmm. And it gives this really metallic effect. This just ended up looking like dirt was on their pants and when they walked.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. And the puffy coats are not great. It did not help that an Italian was on the podium and that sharp, sharp Armani outfit. Yeah. And you could tell like. The difference between a design house with decades of experience versus a student, right, who won a competition
Alison Brown: and they, and one group of volunteers was telling the medalists to do one thing and the other volunteer was telling them to do something else when they walked.
That’s why some of them were so confused about where they were supposed to walk,
Jill Jaracz: right? Because the podium, this podium was smallish and it has a ramp. Behind it. And so the, the athletes were supposed to stand on the ramp and then kind of go o over the ledge of the, the lip of the ramp to be on the [00:28:00] actual podium.
And some of them finally said, no, I don’t want to because I don’t wanna fall or trip or something on the podium. And that made it kind of difficult. And I thought to myself, is this really supposed to be for a wheelchair? Maybe, but I don’t think so. I think this one was designed for. Prosthetics, but it looked weird.
I mean, and, and that’s not a nice way to say it, but, but it was just, it was complicated and clumsy.
Alison Brown: Well, I think the problem was the way that they walked out, they should have walked around the lip and that not walked over the lip. So one of the volunteers was telling them, no, stand back behind the lip.
But I don’t think that was actually what they were supposed to do because that didn’t work with how they were lining up. So they were getting mixed information so they were all confused. And they also have to think about, gee, I’m standing on two prosthetic legs and I don’t wanna [00:29:00] fall in front of everybody.
Right? Uh, and, and possibly hurt myself for this metal ceremony. I’m just gonna do what’s gonna work for me.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, uh, not particularly well designed and it’s in a tight space too, ’cause there just wasn’t a whole lot of room for anybody to move. The athletes are walking like through the Paralympic family to get to the medals and it, it just was very, very tight.
One nice spot that you had was the coat rack. Okay.
Alison Brown: So along the way there was a rolling coat rack with all the flags. With little metal hangers. No metal hangers? No. These head hangers. But they were clipped on like a skirt hanger. Yes. And they were just prepared for this situation.
Jill Jaracz: They were. ’cause the flags were kind of.
Behind us.
Alison Brown: Yes. We couldn’t really, we could see them when they hit the top mm-hmm. Of the pole, but not, but not prior to [00:30:00] that.
Jill Jaracz: So seeing the, the coat rack of flags, that was quite a nice treat.
Alison Brown: That was a little bonus.
Jill Jaracz: So, yeah, interesting medal ceremony and it’s nice to have a whole bunch of ’em. And people were thrilled, everyone was happy.
It didn’t matter what place they came in, it was pretty awesome. Um, so I’m looking forward to seeing some more. Maybe in in clouds that would be nice. Wheelchair curling. We, uh, the team had two sessions today. They had the morning and the evening, and then the doubles had the middle session, which we caught some of.
Alison Brown: Yeah, we caught about half of that
Jill Jaracz: session. Yeah. So that was good. So in the team in the morning, uh, or well actually. Team, all two sessions together sweetened Sweden, beat Latvia, 10 to two and six, six ends. They were up eight, nothing by the third. So this was not gonna be a good day for Lavia. China beat Italy five, three and [00:31:00] seven ends and it was one, one after two, but then China scored points in the next four ends to go up five.
One. Italy got two in the seventh, but then in the eighth, China knocked their stones outta contention midway through, so that was a concession. Slovakia beat Norway six four. They were down four, nothing but got six points in the last two ends.
Alison Brown: Wow.
Jill Jaracz: That was a game Canada beat Great Britain. Five, four, halfway through they were up to one, and then Great Britain was ahead for three ends.
They got up four, two, and then, uh, Canada scored three in the eighth. Got it. Then they went on to beat Norway. Nine two called, got six points in the sixth end, and Norway said, that’s it. We’re done.
Alison Brown: How is that even possible? I didn’t think you could do that.
Jill Jaracz: I know that was crazy. And then China beat. Korea, seven, five.
That one went down to the end and then Korea just missed their last shot and that was the [00:32:00] game. So standings now, uh, we have three teams that are three and oh, that’s Canada, China, and Sweden. Slovakia is two and one. Great Britain, Korea, Latvia, the US are all one and two. And Italy and Norway are both o and three.
So in the double session. We had, uh, China beat Great Britain, 10 to five in seven ends, and geez, at the end of three, great Britain was up five one, and then China came out.
Alison Brown: China decided, I am done with you Great Britain. Yes, I am going to make you lose.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Which they’ve done more than once, where the first couple ends are close or they’re down and then they just roar back out at the end.
Mm-hmm. And, and take care of business.
Jill Jaracz: Maybe the stone. The stones finally listened to them ’cause everyone’s yelling
Alison Brown: at the stones. Oh, the yelling. The yelling that’s going on. But the yelling can’t do any, but clearly they think the yelling does.
Jill Jaracz: Latvia beat Korea five four. And this was a [00:33:00] really tight match.
We were watching, uh, USA Italy on the closest to us, and all of a sudden I heard this squeal and I’m like, oh. Oh, Lavia won.
Alison Brown: And Lavia is not a loud team. We don’t usually hear a peep from them, so she was pretty excited about that one.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Uh, Japan beat Estonia eight to three. So this one was just over after seven ends.
Estonia has done this multiple times where they’re just like, we are playing.
Alison Brown: Yeah. They don’t concede and that’s. I mean, you don’t have to, right. There’s no rule saying you have to concede. It’s, it’s kind of a courtesy. So if they choose not to and they wanna keep throwing
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Then
Alison Brown: you gotta keep throwing into,
Jill Jaracz: and they went well into the eighth before they said, okay, we’re not gonna win.
It’s obvious. So, um, that was an eight three win for Japan. And then USA Italy, which pretty full house today. Yes. Mostly Italian fans, [00:34:00] including
Alison Brown: Italian, Italian.
Jill Jaracz: Including a bunch of school kids who loved cheering and making everybody else cheer.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: And they hated Laura Dwyer’s family
Alison Brown: who kept cheering U-S-A-U-S-A.
So anytime the, the, the American fans would cha, USA, the. These, this group of kids would get up and start screaming Alia until they drowned them out and got the whole crowd going. And there were a few other Italia chants that I don’t recall at the moment, but they would break one out.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Right.
Alison Brown: They would vary it.
They, they were very clever with their cheers because they didn’t just do the same one over and over again. Yeah. They broke it up a little bit.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Americans, just in general, we need more cheers than USA.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: We gotta do better, more something. We’ve gotta have something else for LA 2028, what I loved was there.
I think there was one point where I. The US scored, it was mid game and the US scored and USA started cheering, [00:35:00] not, not Steve and Laura, but the, the fans started cheering and, and Italy had no Italia back.
Alison Brown: Yeah. They were just like, okay, we’ll let you, we’ll let you have your moment. But it was quite a game.
Came down to the last stone, and then the Italians just blew the throw.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: Just made a mistake and we all couldn’t believe it just sailed
Jill Jaracz: on fast. Very, very, very precise. Sure.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: Um, I have to say, I, I question whether the team of or Alberto and Paolo Iati is actually Italian.
Alison Brown: Why?
Jill Jaracz: Because they are stone faced.
There’s no possible way an Italian can be stone faced for that long and repeatedly. Yes, they are all about business. They are, they do not emote for anything and I just,
Alison Brown: no. And not even with each other.
Jill Jaracz: No.
Alison Brown: They are very even and very. Steady, and I [00:36:00] hadn’t noticed it now until you just said that. Yeah. They don’t smile.
They don’t
Jill Jaracz: do anything,
Alison Brown: anything, nothing. She drinks water.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, she does.
Alison Brown: It’s really funny, whenever I have noticed that when she becomes a little stre, when it’s a stressful throw, she always takes her sip of water. Replenish her soul almost. And then she could throw the stone.
Jill Jaracz: But, uh, they, but I do like watching them ’cause they are so serious, which is, and, and I get like the, the male counterpart of the Estonian team also quite serious.
Alison Brown: Oh,
Jill Jaracz: he’s terrifying. He’s, he’s terrifying because he just won’t give up.
Alison Brown: No.
Jill Jaracz: He is there and determined and competitive, and I’m sorry that Estonia is not doing as well as his competitive streak is standings right now. China is still the only unbeaten team at six and Oh, great Britain. Oh, did we say us? Oh, we did say USA 1 7 5.
Yes. Okay. [00:37:00] Uh, great Britain, Japan, Korea, Latvia, and the US are all three and three, and Estonia is two and four, and Italy is one and five. This is gonna be a battle to get into the medal round.
Alison Brown: Yeah. That three and three bunch are all kind of sitting there together. So each round, and Stephen Laura both said this early on, that this is a long, it’s a long tournament.
And a lot of teams are very good. So you can see how so many teams being bunched together like that shows how even the competition is.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: And that it’s gonna be, you know, one or two lucky breaks that are gonna make that difference between in the mental rounds and not.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. But it’s exciting. The, uh, Steve and Laura thrilled, they really shot well today, and, uh, they were a lot of fun to talk with in the, as
Alison Brown: always.
Jill Jaracz: So that is the end of competition for today. Yes. Who’s coming on tomorrow?
Alison Brown: Well, gee, Steve and Laura are back [00:38:00] tomorrow, this time against China. And then tomorrow Team USA’s, uh, para hockey team is back. They will play Germany. So we’ll see. Declan Farmer, Malik Jones and Jack Wallace.
Jill Jaracz: Whoop boop. And we have shout outs.
Alison Brown: Yes. So first up is Dan from Brooklyn, New York,
Jill Jaracz: like Dan Knoon. Para Nordic skier at 20 14 20 18. 2022. He has two golds, four silvers, and one bronze, and is a former Navy seal.
Alison Brown: And then next up is Benjamin Smith from Charlotte, North Carolina.
Jill Jaracz: We will be going with David Smith, BCHA player from Great Britain.
He’s been in five games, starting with Beijing 2008. He is three golds, one silver, and two bronze. You might remember him if you watched a lot of Bcha because he dies as hair funky.
Alison Brown: Oh yes. You know that guy? I do. I do. And then last up for our shout outs is Rosie w in rk uh, Vermont, who is trying to indoctrinate her 6-year-old daughter who into also loving the Olympics, and I [00:39:00] hope also loving the Paralympics while we’re at it.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And there is a Rosie Louisa Jones, who is a British comedian and writer and actress with Sarah. Cerebral Palsy, who was a roving reporter at Tokyo 2020 for the last leg. But let’s look out for Rosie Long, who is a potential wheelchair basketball player for Canada. She’s competed for Team Canada at the 2025 Osaka Cup.
So if things keep going her way, she keeps working hard. Doing well. She gets
Alison Brown: indoctrinated.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Uh, she could be at LA 2028. You never know.
Alison Brown: Next up is Alia Roberts from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and she volunteered at the speed skating during the Olympics. And she had to do the walk.
Jill Jaracz: She did have to do the walk a lot.
Alison Brown: Maybe she helped others as they, she guided them through the walk.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. Valued. Give a shout and let us know how that walk was every shift. And we will be going with Jaylene Roberts from the USA who competed at Tokyo 2020 in Paris, 2024 in long [00:40:00] jump. And the 200 meters, she has three silvers and one bronze, and
Alison Brown: we
Jill Jaracz: have a
Alison Brown: mascot.
Mascot of the day is Wolfgang von Ffel. He is a parsley loving Guinea pig who was rescued from the Chicago Parks. And we do love our Guinea pigs here in CH Stan. We
Jill Jaracz: do. So next time we have mascots. If you got a Guinea pig, I think we’re
Alison Brown: ready.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Yes. Yes. And that it’s gonna do it for this episode. Oh, you know what, uh, before I forget, we did have comments on the clothing, the attire.
I think. We’ll, we will, uh, the podium people. I think we’ll collect those for tomorrow. Okay. With the, I’m going to remember now so I don’t forget later.
Alison Brown: Understood.
Jill Jaracz: Something like that. But tomorrow, that’s a, that’s a forward promo for all of you. We’ll tease that. So if you, if you got thoughts about those podium people, outfits and how they look on the screens, let us know.
’cause in person, in person up, close person far away, [00:41:00] they were okay. They were
Alison Brown: okay. I, I kind of liked them far away, but up close, they don’t fit well. They have puddle pants where the pants were all too long for them.
Jill Jaracz: They are not the 1924 people.
Alison Brown: No,
Jill Jaracz: I’ll tell you that. Or. The Beijing. Oh, the Beijing
Alison Brown: ladies.
Jill Jaracz: You know you’re gonna, you’re gonna, it’s uh, that’s tough to beat that one. Anyway, that’s gonna do it for this episode. If you would like even more of the most fun coverage of the game, hit us up. We are at flame a life pod.com. That’s your source for our socials, our newsletter, which Alison has been putting out daily and is a lot of fun to read.
And, uh, sure if you like janky stairs, you got more janky
Alison Brown: stairs probably coming tomorrow.
Jill Jaracz: Because boy do we like climbing up and there’s janky stairs and we’re getting into janky rubber mats and all sorts of fun. So be sure to sign up for the newsletter,
Alison Brown: see if our ankles survive,
Jill Jaracz: and then uh, other ways to directly contact us.
Be sure to join our Facebook group that’s Keep The [00:42:00] Flame Alive podcast. That’s where we’re posting things first and chatting with everybody and get in on the know there and get in on the fun ’cause it’s a fun group to be with. So be sure to tune in tomorrow and hopefully we will remember to talk about the puddle, the Puddle people.
That’s what I call, I call now the podium people and what you think about them.
Alison Brown: And until next time, chow and keep the flame alive.