Olympic Luge with Ashley Farquharson, Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirkby

We are sliding down the luge track in this episode, interviewing three women from Team USA’s luge team, who are vying to compete at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.

First up, singles luger and 2022 Olympian Ashley Farquharson returns to the podcast to explain some of the technical details–and physics–of the sport.

Then we talk with women’s doubles lugers Sophia Kirkby and Chevonne Forgan. Women’s doubles is a new Olympic event, so the pair discuss how this event works. They were also part of the athlete testing group for the new sliding track in Cortina, so they share some insight on how it rides and what we can look for when we watch it.

We also have the latest news from Milano Cortina 2026, including a pause on ticket sales and Omega’s hospitality house. Team GB and Team France have unveiled their kit, and, in a first, Team USA’s medical staff also has its own kit sponsor! Also, if you’re in the Salt Lake City area during the Games, the city is hosting a massive watch party. And the CBC has announced its broadcasting team for the Olympics.

In LA 2028 news, the Ceremonies’ creative team has been announced. What does this mean for the viewing experience?

And Team Keep the Flame Alive has been busy! Hear what’s new with:

• Our sabre and foil fencers
• Speed skater Erin Jackson
• Pole vaulter Katie Moon and Para sprinter Jaydin Blackwell
• Former hurdler Dawn Harper-Nelson

Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!

Photo of Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirkby courtesy of Lillehammer FIL. Photo of Ashley Farquharson courtesy of Team USA.

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 Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.

416-Olympic Luge with Ashley Farquharson, Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirkby

Theme Music

Jill Jaracz: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. If you love the games, we are the show for you. I am your host, Jill Jaracz, joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison, hello, how are you?

Alison Brown: I have recovered from last week, and now I am ready

Jill Jaracz: for.

Alison Brown: I don’t know whatever’s happening.

No, I now, I’m at the point where last week pumped me up, you know, seeing everybody at the media summit and I’m like, okay, let’s go [00:01:00] to Milan tomorrow.

Get our flame to Milano Cortina! Support the podcast’s Games coverage

Jill Jaracz: We can’t go to Milan tomorrow because we can’t afford it. This is very true. So, uh, we are having a fundraiser for Milano Cortina to help us bring you the most fun coverage from the games we plan to be there for the entirety of the Olympics and the Paralympics.

And we’ll be podcasting, 30 some shows daily.

Alison Brown: Yeah, the plan was, I think 32. It’s a lot of shows.

Jill Jaracz: It’s a lot of shows, and it takes a lot of work and a lot of effort to be there, including, financial stuff. So, as you know, we have accreditations that covers t. Basically getting into events and it covers some, some local transportation.

Not all, but other than that, everything else is on our own dime. And so to help us bring you the coverage, we are a listener supported show primarily, and we need help from you, the listeners to do that. If [00:02:00] you are so inclined, you can join us@flamealivepod.com slash milano cortina fundraiser, and we have some fabulous gifts.

Alison Brown: Thank you. Gifts. Yes. I love, I’m excited about our thank you gifts. Actually, can I donate to ourselves and get one of the gifts?

Jill Jaracz: Might have to,

but they run the gamut from show shout outs, which are so much fun to do during the games. And, mascots, which liven up our daily email newsletters and, uh, they warm our hearts just ’cause we get to look at their pictures all day long. We have mascots for us this time around. We have so much fun, so, please again, look at the site.

Thank you for those who have joined us already and have contributed. We really appreciate your support. Keeps our flame alive. Keeps the flame alive inside my heart, which, uh. It

Alison Brown: keeps you warm on those Cold [00:03:00] Mountains.

Jill Jaracz: Oh, I got a test event myself.

Alison Brown: You did

Jill Jaracz: this week. This week I’ll get to it. but yes, again, that’s, flame alive pod.com/milano cortina dash fundraiser.

We cannot do this without your support, so please check that out today.

Women’s ice hockey Rivalry Series comes to Cleveland!

Jill Jaracz: And yes, I, I, I have another test event where I get to test my. Rink wear.

Alison Brown: Okay. Which is very different than, it sounds like you’re being sarcastic, but it really is a difference because you gotta be warm enough but not too warm.

Jill Jaracz: Yes, exactly.

Team, USA and Team Canada Women’s Hockey have a rivalry series every year, and that kicks off in Cleveland this week. So on Thursday I will be at the game covering it, and I got to go to practice this week and it was cold. It was, a hockey rink. I had to tap one of my hockey mom friends and say, what are your base go-to base [00:04:00] layers?

And she got back to me within nanoseconds. I think

Alison Brown: hockey moms are a special breed and I do love them,

Jill Jaracz: and I think I was the only one there. The, the practice was two hours and I know I was probably the weird one out because I did bring my seat cushion and lap blanket from Beijing. And even sitting there both practical, I was happy to have them.

Yeah,

Alison Brown: I’ll tell you.

Jill Jaracz: But, uh, I got to test out some new gear that I bought, to wear, you know, cure gear. I pulled up my biggest winter coat, I pulled out it’s kit

Alison Brown: new,

Jill Jaracz: oh, new sweaters. We’re gonna kit news later. We have a ton of kit news later. So yeah, we’ll look out for, news from the rivalry series.

I’ll say, we’ll talk about it on the podcast next week a little bit. And also, look for something in the newsletter from me as well, so you can find out how to get that. It is free. It is fabulous. ’cause Alison writes a fabulous story all the time. And you can get [00:05:00] that@flamelivepod.com. Scroll down to the bottom for newsletter or find us on Substack if you’re on substack.

Ashley Farquharson on luge

Jill Jaracz: Alright, today we are talking luge. First up we are talking with Ashley Farquharson. You’ll remember Ashley from, uh, when we talked to her in September to talk about, uh, online school. But then in that conversation we started talking about luge and oh my goodness, the stuff she had to say.

Alison Brown: We got excited about things that involve ice.

Jill Jaracz: So excited. So, uh, Ashley is a three-time junior national champion. She’s a three-time World Cup relay medalist. She competed at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, finishing eighth in women’s singles. so we did the first half of the conversation in September to talk about how she balances college and training.

This is the rest of that conversation, uh, which I believe we had like. Back in May if I remember. ’cause I, I know I was in Indiana when we did this. so much fun to talk [00:06:00] to Ashley and she kind of blew our minds with the science of the sport. Take a listen.

How luge compares to F1

Ashley Farquharson: And I could talk about luge forever and ever and it’s like I, we like to compare it to F1 because F1 has so skyrocketed in popularity recently and we. I think it was in 2021 when we were in China for three weeks testing the new Olympic track. We all watched the first season of Drive to Survive that came out and we were like, oh my gosh.

They’re just like us. Like they have a race every weekend and we have a race every weekend, and everyone’s sled is different and all the technology is secret and like. So we like to compare it to F1, but like in that sense that each team is very separate and secretive and it’s always a tech race before it’s like a skill race and all that stuff.

But I, yeah, I could just go on and on and on about it because most people think that you just lay there.

Alison Brown: So talk a little bit about the tech race and how that. Plays into what you’re doing [00:07:00] in your prep as opposed to all your physical training?

Ashley Farquharson: Yeah, so the sleds are a huge part of the race itself, and it’s just as much of a sled race as it is, we call it lines race, which is the actual, which you’re taking down the track.

and every team has different equipment and. It’s always like you get off the track, you immediately cover your sled so that none of the other coaches can come up and take pictures of it and there’s also like very strict requirements about what each piece can measure and what each piece can like go.

We have a lot of requirements around dampening materials because those are really hard to, they’re easy to cheat with and they’re hard to test for. So it’s like kind of. Figuring out how to make the best equipment legally and secretly. And also because we have two separate suspensions in our sleds.

every athlete and the way that they steer and react on the [00:08:00] track is gonna be different than the next athlete, and therefore, your sled is gonna handle very differently than the next athletes. So it’s a lot of working with your coaches and being very in tune with how your sled is handling on the ice and the way you’re moving, and then trying to figure out what equipment and what setup you can use every weekend that’s gonna be the fastest and give you the best odds.

The physics of luge

Jill Jaracz: Are you sure you didn’t wanna get an engineering device? I know, right? It feels like.

Ashley Farquharson: It feels like we all should.

Jill Jaracz: Because now I have 5 million questions about luges. I know. It’s way more

Ashley Farquharson: interesting than

Jill Jaracz: we get credit for. I know, I know. what is dampening material

Ashley Farquharson: like foam or rubber inside the actual part that we, that touches the ice. That rides on the ice. and it just helps absorb things that come into the track.

But it can be really dangerous because if there’s a lot of stored energy and something goes wrong, then your sled could [00:09:00] go haywire and like potentially hurt somebody.

Alison Brown: So it’s a question of kind of slide versus grip.

Ashley Farquharson: Yeah. ‘ cause you wanna be. The fastest is point A to point B, right in a straight line. But sometimes you can get more speed if you take an arc or if you go like cut through a pressure in a specific way, then you come out of a curve and you get all that stored energy and you go straight.

But if you don’t take that energy in the right direction, then you could just go straight into the wall.

Alison Brown: Or straight out the track. Straight outta the track.

Ashley Farquharson: Yeah. Athletes don’t usually fly out of the track, but the sleds have,

Jill Jaracz: does that vary from person to person because you’re all different sizes?

Ashley Farquharson: Yes, and every person’s sled is like pretty much custom and the way that you set it up in terms of how it handles and like which parts steer more or less.

And then the actual part that touches the ice. The runners, you can change. The [00:10:00] material or the shape, or we call it the roll and it can determine how much grip you have, but there’s also the ice conditions. And if the ice is really hard and it’s really cold outside, you’re gonna need more grip. But if the ice is really soft, you kind of wanna be flatter because that’s faster.

’cause you have less friction. But you have less control also. But that’s okay if the ice is softer. But then if the ice is too soft, then you’re sinking your steels into the ice too much, and that’s causing more friction because there’s more surface area actually touching the ice. So it’s like a really crazy game that we play every week.

Alison Brown: How much adjusting can you do on the fly? Can you adjust between runs or is it when you set it for the day you’re set? You

Ashley Farquharson: can adjust between runs. but we have this, every run is, every race is two runs back to back, except for the Olympics [00:11:00] is two runs on two days, and then it’s the combined time of four runs total.

A normal race is two runs back to back, and you can pretty much change whatever you want in between runs. But we get weighed before every run and you get your ice steels or the, uh, steel temp checked to make sure your steels aren’t too hot.

Luge in-competition sled monitoring

And then we also have a control system where after the first run, everyone hits a button, it’s randomly generated.

and if you get controlled, you have to go in for additional temperature and weight checks. And then if you get mega controlled, they take apart your entire sled and look for everything. And, um, they do that after the second run. So they put these really terrible, horrible, hard to get off stickers over all your bolts.

So you can’t change anything between runs unless you get special permission.

Alison Brown: Okay, mega controlled sounds fantastically awful. But also incredibly interesting. Yeah. So they actually take things apart. Yeah.

Ashley Farquharson: everything can come apart. [00:12:00] Like, and they take your fins off, which is that curvy piece at the front that your leg sits on, and they take your steels off your fins and they check like what’s in them or around them.

And then they can also check both of your suspensions.

Alison Brown: Okay. Now when you say there’s two suspensions, what? What does that mean? It means

Ashley Farquharson: there’s one in the front right under your butt, and there’s one in the back right under your shoulder blades.

Jill Jaracz: Have you been mega controlled?

Ashley Farquharson: So many times it does not feel random.

One time I got controlled for like the third week in a row and I walked in and our technical director was like. I, I’ve looked at this eight times in the last month.

Alison Brown: I don’t need to see your sled anymore. I outta here can put it back together for you.

Jill Jaracz: Have people been caught doing stuff? Yes. In your time on Wow. What kind of stuff do they get caught for?

Ashley Farquharson: Um, most often [00:13:00] people get disqualified for hot steals. after that, I would say the second most is being overweight.

And then you also can’t have any gaps between your steels and your fins because that’s like, it’s fast area if you have gaps, but it usually means the bolts aren’t tight enough and that can be dangerous. So if you have gaps, that’s also pretty common because that’s just like an easy mistake to make.

Your bolts aren’t tied enough, you have a gap. and then people have been caught using rubber bolts. People have been caught with major dampening materials under their steels. yeah.

Luge sled specifications and wearing extra weight

Alison Brown: So is the weight only for the sled or for you and the s sub Both.

Ashley Farquharson: So our sleds and singles can be up to 23 kilos, and then you have two additional kilos of clothing, weight, and then your body weight if you are under 70 kilos for women, you can [00:14:00] add extra weight in the form of like lead vest or lead pants. So every week we get weighed. Um, they’ll give you your body weight, your sled weight, your additional weight, and then total it for you.

And so if you are beneath your total. You’re fine. But if you get controlled, then they weigh everything individually. And if you have like more than two kilos of clothing weight, or if your sled is overweight or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So like each piece has to be within their own weight range. But like one of my teammates can wear up to 10 kilos of extra weight, but she only wears seven, and then she puts three of those in her sled.

So her sled is always overweight. She’s always under, but she just, um, you can like move it around like that.

Alison Brown: How much variance is allowed? Like if you ate too big of a breakfast, are you gonna get yourself in trouble?

Ashley Farquharson: Um, no. I think when I was a kid that was like a major fear [00:15:00] being like, oh no, have a race tomorrow. I can’t eat dinner. but. That’s not really how your body works. So as long as you’re not, you know, having a Thanksgiving feast, you should be fine.

Like it’s really, unless you like some athletes who are on the lighter side really push it and they’re like within 0.1 of their max weight, I don’t need to do that. I’m five 10, like.

Jill Jaracz: What do the lead pants look like?

Ashley Farquharson: so some people, it kind of varies per country, but basically you just get a pair of shorts and sometimes people cut up old suits into shorts, or one of my teammates has a pair of football pants. some of my teammates have like, uh, scuba equip, like neoprene pants, and then you make little slots.

That are like an inch and a half wide and we have these little squares of lead weight and you can tape ’em together and then you slide ’em into the pants so that [00:16:00] it’s still fully customizable, but hopefully they’re all secure and in there.

Alison Brown: So this sounds very DIY. Yeah, I mean, there’s not a lot of people out there who can custom make weight shorts.

Do you have just one pair of this or are you doing different things for different circumstances? Um,

Ashley Farquharson: no. You usually just have one pair and if you need to take or add weight, you can. It’s like pretty easy. And some people have like a vest and pants because they don’t wanna, like, there’s also a balance point aspect to your sled and where the balance point should be versus where it is compared to how you carry your weight in your body.

So some people wanna wear. Their weight closer to the back and some people wanna wear it lower down. So

Jill Jaracz: do men have to wear the lead as well? Do you use some underweight men and do they. I just feel like there’s an issue with putting lead shorts on male parts. Oh, well

Ashley Farquharson: it’s on your butt.

Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay.

Ashley Farquharson: Yeah, [00:17:00] because you still want like the whole top of your body to be aerodynamic, so you can’t have all that bumpiness on the top.

Flying with luge gear

Alison Brown: I’m also thinking, how do you fly? Like, do you ever get flagged when you’re flying? Yes. Because you have a legend. I, I’ve never really had any problem. I’ve always

Ashley Farquharson: been like pretty close to the max or over it, but, especially coming from Park City, flying to Lake Placid all the time, And you, first of all, sucks to put in your luggage because it’s so heavy. You immediately lose like 10 pounds of clothing space. But then if you carry it on, TSA is like, this is 100% a bomb. Like there’s literally no way this isn’t a bomb. And because it’s a pile of lead. So it’s hard. It’s tough. It’s tough out there.

And you’re like, no, I actually do luge. And they’re like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is a bomb.

Alison Brown: Your shorts are gonna explode. We shouldn’t joke about that, but it is funny.

Ashley Farquharson: And they’re like, we have to test it. And I’m like, [00:18:00] yeah, you’re gonna find out it’s lead. So.

I remember taking this one hilarious video with my, my friend Brittany, and she had pants and a vest and she was carrying it on and we do everything we can. Like, you’ll take it out, you put it in a separate bin, you’ll be like, this is lead still. They hate it. but she had like four TSA agents swarming her, trying to figure out what was in this bin.

She was like, it’s lead guys.

Jill Jaracz: We have, I mean, we’ve talked with shooters before who have issues going through the TSA. We never thought that. I mean, like a luge. Yeah. But you’re, are you carrying that on? Do you try to carry it off? So

Ashley Farquharson: in some cases we have to, but most of the time, especially at this level in the national team, we get our stuff shipped, so then it can just go in the shipping box and it’s not a big deal.

But sometimes like the shipping is obviously really expensive, so if we’re going somewhere for like one week or if it’s just a training trip, then you have to just [00:19:00] figure it out.

How long does a luge sled last?

Alison Brown: Do you have one sled at a time?

Ashley Farquharson: Yeah, some athletes do it differently, but I have one sled and then a couple of interchangeable pieces that I can switch around.

Alison Brown: And how long does a sled last?

Ashley Farquharson: Until it starts falling behind. the tech just advances so fast. I feel like you never really have a sled for more than two or three years before they find something that’s faster.

Jill Jaracz: Do you know when it’s sled versus technique that is the issue with a, a race result?

Ashley Farquharson: Yeah. I mean. When you’re fighting for thousands, there’s always gonna be a woulda, coulda, shoulda, like should have pointed my feet more, could have put my head back here. But when you are having pretty similar runs to the top athletes and you’re a second behind, that’s gonna be a lot of tech or experience.

Like there’s also that aspect ’cause you can have a [00:20:00] good. A good line and just be really worked up on the sled and not letting it run. And that’s gonna be a lot of time as well. But like if it’s a comparable athlete in terms of like sliding quality and you’re eight tenths behind them, then that’s a lot of tech.

Alison Brown: How much tech support travels with you during the European season? We

Ashley Farquharson: have two sled techs that travel with us. They also double as, uh, everything else. but we have two, our head coach is also a sled tech and then we have one major sled tech, and then we have one coach who, um, is more of a lines coach.

Doesn’t do as much sled stuff.

How lugers review footage

Jill Jaracz: When you’re working on technique, how much can you look back at like footage or, because I mean, when we see luge on tv, it’s just like a few curves. Mm-hmm. Here and there, because there’s only so many places to put cameras, but like how do you get a perspective?

Ashley Farquharson: So all of our coaches carry cameras [00:21:00] that we can review footage of, and then.

All the races. It used to be harder before, but now all the races are stored on YouTube, on the FIL channel. So if we’re going to a track that we haven’t been in a while, or we’re racing there next week, then we can just go to their channel and watch the race from years past. And that also helps ’cause you can see what you were doing last year as well as what everybody else was doing.

But we, we have video sessions built into our training days in the in season. So as soon as we get back from the track, we just go and sit down and watch everybody’s line back to back. And then we talk about it. And it’s really helpful and it’s part of the reason why I think the American team, one of the things that we excel at is we do work as a team and a lot of the other countries are kind of pitted against each other.

But like the other women singles athletes on my team and me, we all work together and we’re all willing to help each other, which I [00:22:00] think is a big, it’s a strength of ours.

Ashley Farquharson’s favorite luge track

Alison Brown: What’s your favorite track? I.

Ashley Farquharson: I think Park City, I, I mean it genuinely made me fall in love with the sport. It’s so fun and you’re going really fast and you’re not doing a lot of work to get that speed. So it’s just, it feels very true to the nature of the sport. other than that, I would say Seg Goda in Lavia.

There’s like nothing like that. It’s so fun and it’s so high pressure, and when things are going wrong, you’re like, I’m just going to bail. But when things are going right, it’s so cool to feel the way that the pressures push you. There’s one curve where you get a little bit past vertical that’s so scary and every time it happens, you’re like, and then you come in out and you’re totally fine and it’s so fun.

Alison Brown: How scary is it really? I mean, is there always that little bit of fear in your brain?

Ashley Farquharson: It’s [00:23:00] weird. I get this feeling sometimes, like it doesn’t happen so much anymore, but especially when I was younger and I’ll be sitting on the handles and they’ll call my name and I’ll get this feeling that I should be wearing a seatbelt, like as if that’s going to save me.

but. The way that there’s always a level of danger. Obviously we’re going really fast with pretty much just a helmet, but the way that you’re introduced to the sport and brought up through it is like you’re not reaching those insane speeds until you have. The mental and physical capacity to handle it.

So it’s why we see a lot less crashes in older athletes because when you’re younger, you don’t, A, you don’t have any idea how physics works. B, you’re still learning. You’re still learning how to be in your own body and how to like react when things are happening to you. So that’s definitely an experience-based sport and it’s part of the reason.

You start in curve 12 of [00:24:00] 15 when you’re young and you slowly work your way up into more speed and more advanced stuff. So it was scary when I was a kid and especially learning new tracks or like racing on a new, and I do start height for the first time, it can be really nerve wracking, but now I’m at a point where it’s mostly just fun for better or for worse.

How the new Cortina sliding track will affect Olympic competition

Alison Brown: Okay. Speaking of new tracks. What’s the scuttlebutt on tour about the fact that Milan Cortina is not done?

Ashley Farquharson: Well, nobody thought that they could do it, but it’s actually been pre homologated, so it’s looking like Milan Cortina. I think that the plans that they proposed to the IOC when they did this bid are so they’re like 12 feet under.

They’re so much deeper than six feet under, but I’m just happy that we actually will get a new track. Because having a home track advantage is so real. And when it’s a new track, it levels the playing field more than I [00:25:00] think other people realize.

Alison Brown: Is it just familiarity?

Ashley Farquharson: Mm-hmm. And knowing like, like I’ve probably taken 1000 runs on Park City in knowing that.

Whatever happens I can fix and it’s probably happened to me before. so learning a new track is like every man for himself, and it’s not just about finding ways to make it down, it’s about how to make it down the fastest and trying different lines and different equipment to be like, oh, this won me a hundredth, or this won me a 10th.

And figuring out how to be not just clean but fast.

How the luge track in Beijing compares

Jill Jaracz: Did you feel that way about the Beijing track?

Ashley Farquharson: Yes. That was a hard track to learn, and when I went home after the Olympics and watched the races back, it was actually frustrating about how they did their camera angles, especially in that bottom section because that is something I’ve never seen [00:26:00] on a track anywhere, and it was really hard.

If you got it wrong, you were just turtled, like you would just roll you right over and we saw it with some of the best athletes in the world and then you would watch it back on TV and it looked like a straightaway. And I was like, that is not funny guys.

Alison Brown: So what about it was, was so different? So

Ashley Farquharson: the curve just before, it was just long enough that from the women’s start it wanted to be a triple pressure.

But just short enough that if you let that third pressure take you, it would throw you right into the wall. and it also immediately after coming out would go uphill. When it goes uphill, you get weightless and anything you do on the sled is magnified. So you really have to be very calm and quiet on uphill sections.

So if you weren’t right on the money coming out of that curve, it was like over

Alison Brown: what’s a triple pressure? I’m

Ashley Farquharson: so in a curve, if you’re [00:27:00] watching and you see a sled go like this. That’s where the pressure kind of a wave. Yeah. And the gravity is hitting the sled and it’s pushing it up. And then where it falls back down is where that pressure is releasing and there’s nothing pushing it up anymore, so it just falls.

So that’s a lot of time, right? If the fastest line is a straight line, this is gonna be a lot of time. So ideally you wanna steer through those pressures to make it flat. Make it one line around the curve. There are some instances where in China, in curve 13, where it wanted to pick you up for a third time, we had to artificially create that pressure earlier in the curve so that way by the time the real pressure hit, you were already high enough to where it wasn’t gonna affect you and wanna pick you up anymore.

Alison Brown: So when you say artificially, do you mean high up on the wall? Yes. Or high up? Instead of

Ashley Farquharson: that happening naturally with the pressures on the track, we would have to do that with how we steered it.

Alison Brown: See, now I’m [00:28:00] doing physics in my head.

So when you’re, because normally going high is, is not an optimum line. Right? That would be too far off the line,

Ashley Farquharson: but. On this curve. So right as the curve was ending, it wanted to pick you up, and if you let it, you would get spit out into the wall. But steering through that pressure wasn’t an option because the curve ended and then there was nothing holding you down.

So if you steered literally one millisecond too long, it would throw you into the other wall. So what line ended up working the best for most athletes is using the pressure in the middle of the curve to move the third pressure earlier so that you had a little bit more wiggle room to get yourself down from that pressure before the curve ended.

Jill Jaracz: Once you figured it out, was it more fun? [00:29:00] Yes. Versus frustrating? Nothing

Ashley Farquharson: like it. Like seriously. Totally felt like a new element on a lose track. ‘ cause you would hit that spot where it would go uphill and then you would start going downhill. But the same thing happens, uh, except this time it’s because you have more weight on your sled than you usually do.

So anything you do is magnified and then it sort of banked like a bend away would. But instead of it being a bend away, like with regular walls, the right wall was ded. So it was like a little half baby curve, which is the reason why so many sleds were flipping there is because if you got too high into that dish, it would just roll you right over.

Alison Brown: And

Ashley Farquharson: do

Alison Brown: you really call it turtle? Yeah. Because you look like a little turtle. You’re just stuck there. You look. Makes perfect sense. The shell is on the top it

Ashley Farquharson: perfect. And we’re, it’s trained in us from a very young age to never let go of your sled. because if something bad were to happen and you couldn’t get outta the track, it could come back and hit you.

So. [00:30:00] If you’re Tared, you’re kind of like, well, how am I gonna do this without letting go and how do I get back upright?

Jill Jaracz: Have you gotten to try the. Milan track? No. Were you out there for the, the Ho Modulation? No. What have you heard from other sliders or is nobody telling you? The

Ashley Farquharson: athlete from America that got to try it was the Women’s doubles team of, Forgan. Kirkby. And they both said that it was kind of easy,

but historically speaking, if a track is too easy in the homologation. Whoever’s home country it is will kind of freak out and be like, oh no, we’re throwing away our advantage and change all the ice profiles to make them really hard.

Alison Brown: Okay, so ICE profiles,

Ashley Farquharson: that is the, I know, I’m sorry. Yeah. Of the curves on top of the actual track. So when they make ice, you can make. The curves look differently year to year, and depending on how dished or how much ice is built up [00:31:00] in each curve, it can affect how it fits you out and how you wanna drive it.

Jill Jaracz: All right, well that’s going on the list. Sorry, we have a lot of lists. Well, Ashley Sson, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about school and about luge. Yeah, anytime. We are very excited for Milan. Thank

Ashley Farquharson: you. Me too.

Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much Ashley. You can find Ashley on Insta. She is at Far Quo Sun. We will have a link to that in the show notes.

Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirby on women’s doubles luge

Jill Jaracz: And next we are talking with doubles team Chevonne, Forgan and Sophia Kirkby. Chevonne and Sophia are two time bronze medalists at the World Championships, and last season won seven World Cup medals and the national title.

Going into the 20 25, 20 26 season, they are ranked third in the world. Women’s Doubles in Luge is making its debut at Milano Cortina 2026. So they’re trying for their first Olympics, and we are excited to have Women’s Doubles luge on the program. Take a [00:32:00] listen to Chevonne and Sophia.

Alison Brown: Siobhan and Sophia, thank you so much for joining us. We’re excited to talk doubles. Luge,

Chevonne Forgan: thanks so much for having us. We’re excited. I mean, we can talk doubles, luge forever

Why doubles luge?

I wanna start with why doubles as opposed to singles.

Yeah, well Sophie and I actually both started as singles athletes, as a lot of doubles athletes do. And when we teamed up, it was, , our coach’s idea and they really wanted us to give it a try. And a few years before, I don’t remember which year it was.

Do you remember?

Sophia Kirkby: 2021?

Chevonne Forgan: The summer?

Sophia Kirkby: No. When it got announced? No, when we

Chevonne Forgan: tried it.

Sophia Kirkby: Oh, we tried it in the winter of, 2020. No,

Chevonne Forgan: so, so we actually, we took one run together years before we got together as an official team. I don’t remember what [00:33:00] year it was. We just tried it for fun randomly, and it was really fun, but we didn’t try again.

And then our coaches, suggested in 2020 that we should try it seriously. Mm-hmm. And so we got on the sled, we gave it a try, and it was a lot of fun for me. I just. I

Sophia Kirkby: was like, this is great. Sorry, I misunderstood. uh, we first tried doubles in, winter spring of 2018 because that was right before my junior prom.

Oh yeah.

Chevonne Forgan: So then, yeah, we took that one run two years before the official get together and yeah. Even then it was a lot of fun and yeah, just, it just kind of worked.

Jill Jaracz: Did they tell you why they wanted you to try double slosh?

Chevonne Forgan: Yeah, so, usually in doubles you want someone who’s taller and someone who’s shorter, and even though they’re kind of coming away from that now and you’re seeing a lot more double teams who are closer in height, that was [00:34:00] what initially kind of put us together as a great team because I’m on the taller end.

Sophie’s on the not so tolerant. Mm-hmm. and that year it was a super, well, we’ve had a super competitive women’s singles field for quite a few Olympics now. and that year we did have a very strong singles field and with the talk of women’s doubles being in an upcoming Olympics, it was a great opportunity for us if we.

If it worked out.

How doubles luge works

Alison Brown: who is driving the sled?

Sophia Kirkby: Yeah, for the most part, I let the boss drive the slack

for the most part, for the most part because if we do crash, we’re mostly flipping on top of her and she has some of the best visual. However, it’s my job to stay relaxed and help when needed. And the job of a bottom person oftentimes is to help save. And what I mean by [00:35:00] save is, I mean, adjust the sled to get back online if we are offline.

Uh.

Jill Jaracz: How do you know if you’re offline then Shavonne? Do you see it

Chevonne Forgan: I have full vision as full vision as you can when you’re in luge position. Right. Which is usually head back as far as it can go. Um, and I’m doing the major steering because I can see, and then.

Sophie is feeling everything out. so she can only tell if we’re offline just by feeling, but yeah, if I am, if I do something wrong or if we get into trouble, you’re the one who has to, fix the mess.

Alison Brown: How are you able to communicate with each other during a race?

Sophia Kirkby: We don’t, don. You don’t.

Alison Brown: It’s just.

Sophia Kirkby: Whenever Shaman did a does a turn and I didn’t like it, I just go

Chevonne Forgan: grab her hair. we do not talk at all when we’re sliding, but there is a lot of [00:36:00] communication off of the ice, so we. Talk through lines and our plan constantly over and over and over and over again. And outside of that, when we were paired up, we had very similar sliding styles just from having a lot of the same coaches, I think.

and so that works in our favor because we do slide so similarly. So it’s like we’re sharing one brain most of the time when we’re going down very, like 99% of the time we’re on the same track, and so we don’t really need to verbally communicate.

Alison Brown: Because I’m thinking are there taps, are there touching?

Yeah. Are there, are there any, any of those kind of things where you’re like, oh, I know what she meant because I felt her do this.

Sophia Kirkby: Kind of, I, for the most part, can feel most of what Shavonne’s doing because she’s laying right on top of me and in my head I’m also just thinking about it a [00:37:00] lot. what I’m doing when I’m feeling, when we’re sliding is I just feel the pressure of where you are.

Sorry, let me explain it this way. Have you ever swung on a swing before? Yeah.

Jill Jaracz: Of

Sophia Kirkby: So my job is to feel that swinging pressure and when I was a kid, maybe I’d be a little offline and you start swinging a little diagonal. That’s kind of a feeling you could get when you know something’s off. And then it’s my job to correct myself with the body because believe it or not, I do have more control of the sled than my top woman does because I am quite literally pressed up almost all of it with my body.

It’s my job to relax when we’re in trouble, ’cause my shoulders are connected and if I tense up it’ll be stiff, if that makes sense. But that’s the kind of swing effect and feeling that I could explain to my best.

Jill Jaracz: So when you’re going through [00:38:00] turns and when you visually look at it ahead of time, you look at the lines you want, but Sophia, you know, the GS you should be feeling as you go through all the turns in a way, right?

Sophia Kirkby: Correct. And then I also have really good peripheral vision that’s from just lots of trading. What does that help you do? It helps me see everything around Siobhan’s head.

Chevonne Forgan: Oh, nice. So that can kind of help like, if we’re going down a straightaway and the plan is to be as close to the left wall as possible going into, a curve, Sophie would be able to kind of see how close we are to that wall with her peripherals.

So that can kind of help where we are in the track. But the steers and the working with the pressures is a lot of feeling.

Sophia Kirkby: Good. that was well explained.

Chevonne Forgan: I will also say everything happens so fast. If there was any way to communicate, it would be, I think it would just be too late. You know, you just react so quickly [00:39:00] and especially when something’s going wrong, you’re, you’re trying to react before it even goes wrong.

And so there’s no time to even, you know, morse code, a signal.

Jill Jaracz: well, you got the gloves. You could just, it’s true. Do a nasty tap. You could but aren’t, but Sophia are, your hands are really tucked in, so mm-hmm. You can’t really do much on that. If she’s talking, I can hear

Chevonne Forgan: her, but

Sophia Kirkby: we don’t usually do that.

Just a little, a little

Chevonne Forgan: whisper. I do remember one time we were, we had just pulled a start and we laid down and I heard Sophie do this like huge sigh. I was like, well, what was wrong with that? What’s the problem?

Sophia Kirkby: It’s true. And I was a little shocked. I was like, you heard that? I don’t know. I just didn’t feel like I pulled my best and I just let out a sigh.

But it was really funny to have her come up and say, [00:40:00] what? Why’d you sigh?

Alison Brown: She may have even felt that a little bit too, like, wait a second, I, I feel you breathing, you’re, you’re breathing differently. That’s funny. But are there that level of sensitivity with each other in terms of just being so aware of one another’s physicality on the slide?

Chevonne Forgan: It’s, for me, I feel like I’m focusing on a lot of things. That I don’t really think much about what Sophie so is actually doing, because there’s so much to think about and I just know that we’re gonna be kind of synced up and so like I don’t have to, Think about what you’re doing, what your movements mean.

Usually I’m thinking of what I have to do, but it is a little different because your job is to match what I’m doing. Mm-hmm. My job is to kind of get us down there. Yeah. My job is just to be ready for [00:41:00] change and good to go for adjustments. Yeah. So she definitely feels a lot of what I’m doing.

Sophia Kirkby: Here’s how I explain women’s doubles when we’re working together. If you are familiar with flying, you oftentimes have a. A pilot and a co-pilot. I think of Chevonne as the pilot and I’m the co-pilot. We both have equal control of the sled, however, Chevonne is just controlling it a little bit more and calling the shots more.

But it’s my job to step in if we need it. Co-pilot,

Jill Jaracz: have you tried reversing? Or have you always done? No,

Chevonne Forgan: we haven’t. But it’s funny, we actually, we talk about it sometimes. So the thing is, our current sled fits Sophie, in it, and if I tried to lay in it, it would not fit me. So the trick would be finding a different sled to, to try reversing the roles.

Mm-hmm.

Doubles luge sleds

Jill Jaracz: Which is a nice segue [00:42:00] because suds are standardized for doubles now, correct?

Chevonne Forgan: For women’s doubles? Yes. Women’s.

Jill Jaracz: Oh, really? The men get to. Still customized or sleds?

Chevonne Forgan: Yes. there are of course, restrictions on the men’s doubles and on all of the singles athletes on what can be customized and what can be used.

But when they brought women’s doubles in as a new category, they wanted to do it with the standardized sleds almost as like a test for all the other, disciplines. Because the goal is to standardize everyone’s sleds across. Across the board. Really? Yes. Is that just

Jill Jaracz: the, is that to take out the tech?

We have more money for technology.

Chevonne Forgan: Yes. Yes. Uhhuh, the idea behind it is to even the playing field of the technology,

Alison Brown: so basically to hamstring the Germans.

Chevonne Forgan: I have never heard the term hamstring [00:43:00] like that.

Alison Brown: That’s funny. But I mean, they’ve had an incredible technical advantage over. All the other teams and it shows in the results.

Chevonne Forgan: Yeah, the Germans are so strong in the sliding sports. we have also seen the Austrian have been incredibly strong, especially in the past four years. I’m sure longer than that. But that’s our area of expertise. especially in women’s doubles. the Austrian team for the women I think they won eight out of 10 world Cups last year.

So they are a very strong competitor.

What makes Forgan/Kirkby a powerhouse team?

Jill Jaracz: What makes them strong slash what techniques do you work on to try to dethrone them?

Chevonne Forgan: Good question. Well, uh, we have our start, which is something that we can, we train in the summer. that’s, where we focus a lot of our summer training because we have our refrigerated start [00:44:00] facility here in Lake Placid.

So training on the start is some really good for trying to get that speed. something. That makes them such strong competitors is they Sliding is just so good. I mean, their race runs are perfect. Like I can’t even nitpick and be like, well they did this. They shouldn’t have been so fast. Their runs are like beautiful.

They’re incredible athletes, such good sliders. I do think our start is where we have, The start is where we have some of our strength, so that’s something we’re trying to build off of. What do you think?

Sophia Kirkby: in my opinion, Siobhan and I have proven that we have some of the best start times in the world start times, meaning the first interval of time and data collected. We have shown to have the fastest meaning that we are pulling off the handles and digging into the ice with our spikes. On average, one of the fastest.

We currently hold four start records in the [00:45:00] world today. The Austrians, they have had a slower start than us on numerous occasions. However, they have been able to build up speed right away. Like Chevonne said, they have great sliders that are controlling those sleds. And overall, the Austrian team themselves have developed great technology within their sleds.

So we are working on our strengths, which is the starts and all the training that we’ve had. As well as our technique with the sled and working on making that as fast as we can.

What makes the luge team relay event stressful

Alison Brown: I wanted to ask about starts with the relays, ’cause I know you’ve done relays with world championships. How does that, ’cause if you’re not, first you don’t know when you’re gonna start, always depends on how the person in front of you or the team in front of you finishes.

How does that affect the rhythm? How does that change how you start?

Chevonne Forgan: Oh my gosh. Team Relay is the most [00:46:00] stressful event. it is so stressful for me. you’re right, the setup is, we have four sleds in the relay and one after another after another. And when you hit the pad after crossing the finish line, the gate’s open for the next person.

So we. Prepare much differently than a regular start. And we usually, try to time it perfectly where once we, are ready, we usually try and give ourselves about five seconds, sometimes less, of time, give or take before the gates are gonna open, which is a hard thing to do. Because you only get two beeps during the time you’re at the handles, while the person before you is taking their run.

And each track will tell you where the beeps are gonna happen. Like when they’re going into curve 12, the first beep will happen. [00:47:00] so we use the beeps to try to get our timing and that’s kind of What we go for for when the gates are opening. yeah, it’s a tricky thing. And we also, when.

The person before us pulls. It’s a bit of a rush to get in the sled, to get strapped in, to get Sophie in the handles, to get everything ready before it’s time to pull off. It’s much faster than we would normally be getting ready for a start. And so we usually do mock relays in training and we’re like, we have 30 seconds to get on and get ready, and we just try to train that under pressure and time constraint.

Alison Brown: Sophia, does it matter who’s in front of you in terms of, you know, obviously in, in running relays and swimming relays, they practice those handoffs and those, those. those takeoffs at repeatedly with particular people, but do certain people when they’re in front of you, oh, their bottom half is always [00:48:00] faster, so we know they’re gonna speed up after that first beep.

Or weird little quirks with different sliders.

Sophia Kirkby: I think you have the right idea, thinking that, however, if there were to be a change, arguably between people’s times, it would be less than a second, so I just don’t think that that usually crosses my mind. What happens is you’ll know if someone has made a mistake or they will notify us if the pad was not hit.

During Team Relay in Women’s Doubles. Women’s Doubles is the last category in Team Relay to be released.

Before that is men’s singles, whomever that may be. I’m sure they will equally do the same amount within a second of it. So we just try to plan and prepare when the gate will open roughly, regardless of who it is.

Jill Jaracz: Because you have a gate that has to open. That also prevents a, I took off early, kind of Well,

Chevonne Forgan: it [00:49:00] does.

But people still will pull into the gate if you touch the gate at all. It’s a disqualification. So people have pulled early because when you’re in that compression, waiting for the gate to open, you’re. Literally like a rubber band. So, ’cause you’re in that perfect spot where you can really explode out and you just have to hold it and every little sound and every little movement, especially when there’s two of us, any little twitch and you wanna just pull.

So it’s, it’s very easy to pull early or, you know, do something wrong. But, usually with the beep and the gate opening. it’s enough to. To set the reaction, but you could potentially

Sophia Kirkby: pull early.

Chevonne Forgan: Mm-hmm.

Sophia Kirkby: Unfortunately, this past world championships in, uh, Whistler, Canada, there was an instance where the Italian doubles team did react too soon, and the top man’s foot hit the gate.

[00:50:00] That resulted in an immediate disqualification for team Italy in Team Relay, and the other sliders were not able to pull off. So it’s just easy as that how the disqualification can happen.

Chevonne Forgan: Oh, that’s just sad, isn’t it? I know. It’s such a bummer. There’s so many things that can go wrong in Team Rele. It’s such a high stress event. I mean, what I have seen

Alison Brown: is where people miss the button at the end. What is it called again? I’m sorry,

Chevonne Forgan: pad. We hit the pad. Yeah. Or the, the paddle or anything.

Yeah. That’s pretty common as well. especially depending on where it is out of the finish curve, because some of these pads are really high up the outrun, which is what is usually the uphill part. So there is a lot of room for error. If you mess up that last curve and you come out and your hidden walls, it can be really difficult to sit up and hit the pad straight on.

Jill Jaracz: If you pass the pad, can you get up and run and hit it?

Chevonne Forgan: No, there’s pretty strict rules about [00:51:00] what counts. Um, it has to be your hand and it has to be hit with a certain amount of force. So if you just graze it, most often than not, it won’t actually trigger the, there’s a sensor in there. and yeah, once you pass it, that’s it.

Jill Jaracz: I can see where it’s tough and tense.

Alison Brown: Yeah. And so different than what you’re normally doing day to day.

Chevonne Forgan: Uhhuh and the team aspect of it is so fun and I love Team Relay, but it’s the added pressure of, you know, you don’t wanna let your team down. You don’t want something to go wrong, but if something does, you also have your team to support you and lift you back up.

And so it is really such a fun event.

Team dynamics in doubles luge

Alison Brown: I wanna talk a little bit about your team dynamic, because now I’ve known you for all of 20 minutes and I can see a very different personality from the two of you, which probably is great for the team dynamic.

But talk a little [00:52:00] bit about just the two of you are, when you’re out there, it’s the two of you.

Chevonne Forgan: so we’ve been together for five years now, I guess. Mm-hmm. And each year of doing this, it felt like we figured out more stuff. We figured out how to work together better and it just kept getting better and better.

And it was definitely through a lot of communication and a lot of hard work because it’s difficult to go from doing singles where you’re all by yourself and everything is very personal to. Doing everything with another person constantly, and you have to be on the same page and you have to talk about everything all the time.

And so I would say I’m like very particular and I’m like a little crazy about everything and Sophie is very go with the flow, which is perfect because it, I mean, it really helps me to be going crazy and Sophie’s like, yeah, it’s fine. Whatever. Don’t even [00:53:00] worry. So that helps a lot. And I do think we kind of balance each other out in that way.

Sophia Kirkby: Recently how I’ve been describing it to people, my great partnership with Chevonne is she’s kind of like my luge wife, and I say that as that is. We’ve been with each other a long time. We spend a lot of time together, whether it be training on the road, in car rides, on flights. Or at meals. ’cause we’re usually eating as a team, taking that one step further.

Chevonne and I are often roomed with each other when we’re away and we’re sleeping. And by often she means all. Every time. Yep. And in Europe, they have this thing where they put two twin beds, they push ’em together and they count that one, or they count that two beds, but yet sometimes it has one bed frame around it.

[00:54:00] So over the years, I think we’ve just developed a better dynamic as we have worked together for the time that we have. But yeah, overall I would say Shawan is my luge wife. She is the boss.

Chevonne Forgan: Well, she says that, but like I wouldn’t, obviously this wouldn’t work if it was just me calling the shots, Sophie.

Works with me on everything I say and helps make every decision and like we definitely are a team. I’m just bossier. No, for

Sophia Kirkby: sure. Well, it’s a partnership. I step in when needed.

Chevonne Forgan: Mm-hmm.

Sophia Kirkby: Mostly I allow you to make whatever shots, but if I have an opinion, it’ll be brought up and we’ll discuss.

Chevonne Forgan: Mm-hmm.

Alison Brown: So that also works when you’re figuring out a line for a particular.

Race day.

Chevonne Forgan: Yeah. Yeah. Especially when it comes to lines. we’re constantly talking, [00:55:00] especially when something isn’t working, so it, you know, we have to talk about, what am I doing? What are you doing? What should we try, should we try this? Let’s try this one this time, and we’ll try this one this time.

it’s never ending it. Especially if it’s, we’re in a situation where we can’t find time or something’s not quite working. There’s so many different scenarios or situations we have to try. So yeah, we just, we do it, we talk it out, and then we give it a try.

Jill Jaracz: How variable does a track get? During a competition, so if a line’s not working and run one, but maybe it gets warmer or colder and the track changes, does it do a lot of tracks change enough to make that.

Calculation different on, on how you want to adjust for run two.

Chevonne Forgan: That is a great question and you can tell you’ve talked to luge, other luge people before, because that’s not something people outside of luge think about. [00:56:00] We love surface talk. I

Jill Jaracz: know. Don’t get it’s on the list. Surface talk.

Sophia Kirkby: So believe it or not, the track is slightly changing. Probably every week that ice is laid down by hand. It’s scraped by hand, and water is sprayed by hand. So very, the variables that are. Possible is you could have less ice on one curve one year. You could have more ice on another part of the curve and less ice on a certain other part of the curve.

How I have explained it to people, a lot of people are familiar with golf and how when you hit a ball, if the grass is wet, it’s gonna be slower. If the grass is uneven, you’re gonna have a tilt. All same theories with luge when you are sliding down. On

Chevonne Forgan: race day, I think a lot can change because like you said, it can be, the weather can be totally different.

And so what we see a lot is race day is a lot faster than training, [00:57:00] especially if we’ve had, snow or rain or warmer weather during the week and then it’s gonna be really cold on race day. That is something you really have to prepare for because when it is faster. Your steers or your drives can change a little bit and you have to be prepared for, different mistakes or Yeah.

Those little tweaks where you have to adjust. And something that we do before every training session, before every race is we walk the track, and this is where you’re kind of looking at the ice conditions and Trying to put to what, what you’re seeing, to what you’re gonna be feeling so that when you do walk on race day, if you’re noticing it’s looking really fast, it’s really cold out, you know it’s gonna be different and you know, you have to prepare for that.

Preview of the Cortina sliding track

Alison Brown: I think this is a good time to talk the Cortina track. Yeah. Yay. Okay. You got to go down. Tell us everything. [00:58:00]

Sophia Kirkby: Well. This was the first time Shavonne and I had ever slid down a track where there was no previously lines given to us. No one had any blueprints. All we were doing the first day was guessing, what’s this steer going to be?

How will we navigate this? What will be the pressure? How high will the sled be? We didn’t have anything this time, so that’s new for sure.

Jill Jaracz: How wide is that?

Sophia Kirkby: It was fun. We were part of the process. We were part of the team that were making the suggestive lines for the future athletes that come to that track.

We were one of 10 sleds, many were from other nations, and we all would get together at roughly three or so in the day and we would have discussions on what people did for steering, and we were essentially the first key parts of making blueprints for the rest of the circuit.

Alison Brown: So did that give you a lot of insight into what, how other [00:59:00] teams plan it out?

Because obviously during the, the World Cup season, you’re not talking to the Italians much.

Chevonne Forgan: That’s true. It, um. I honestly wasn’t really thinking about that at the time. I think it was super interesting to work with the other teams like this as one team, because yeah, people do, think about lines differently and they learn tracks super differently.

So being exposed to that was cool and being a part of that was really cool. Um, and to add to what Sophie was saying, we did get to do these track walks. With the rest of the athletes who were there and the coaches that were chosen to help, where we kind of made a very rough plan, before we slid.

And it was just such an incredible, it was so incredible to be a part of that group.

Alison Brown: How did that happen, that you got to do this?

Chevonne Forgan: Good question. [01:00:00]

Sophia Kirkby: We were selected, um, it was one sled from each country for the spots that could be filled, Chevonne and I were fortunate to be selected as the sled representing team USA for the Cortina 2026 pre allegation.

Jill Jaracz: Have you slid, uh, slid in Beijing? Yes. This past season was our first time in Beijing. Okay. Do you know if. Anybody who was with you in Corina was also part of like the group that got to go down Beijing for the first time.

Yes. Because now we have like two brand new tracks back to back, which is kind of an interesting phenomenon in the sport. It

Chevonne Forgan: is act and um, Korea was also new. That’s right. I believe Uhhuh and there was a couple people, I think maybe one person had been. Oh, one of the coaches who was there with us was, um, an old slider and he had been to six pre home obligations, I believe he said.[01:01:00]

And then a couple of the people we were with had been to the one in, uh, Beijing. So that was also helpful because they were kind of telling us what to expect, what’s gonna be helpful, what’s not gonna be helpful. that was super helpful.

Alison Brown: So Lake Pla, it’s a technical track. Whistler’s a fast track. What, what is Cortina?

Chevonne Forgan: Cortina is a very long track. All the curves are very long. All the transitions were very long and it had a very flat upper section and the curves at the end, a lot of uphill sections. So it’s. having just been to China and Pyeongchang for the first time, it’s similar to these other new tracks in the way that everything is, is kind of long.

And, we’re not seeing many of these like really tight [01:02:00] transitions and super high GForce curves and, really like. Insane things. So we’re seeing a lot more of these, longer flowier tracks, I think. And with that said, I do wanna say China and Pyeongchang are very different, but it’s just that similarity in the, in where you’re seeing those long curves.

Alison Brown: So what kind of slider does this benefit.

Chevonne Forgan: It’s kind of tricky to say. I think you have to be so. Precise on this track because with the upper section being so flat, anything you’re doing that’s slowing you down will just eat you up by the time you get to the finish line. It’s like anything out of place, any small movements that are wrong and you’re just bleeding time the entire rest of the way, especially with those uphills, any mistakes really, really come back and get you.

So it’s [01:03:00] feeling like one of those, you really gotta be a perfectionist

Jill Jaracz: when you’re dealing with a longer track. How does that work? What do you have to prepare for physically and then also mentally, because you had to memorize something that is longer, but physically you have to have more endurance, correct.

Chevonne Forgan: Yes. I’m not sure if the actual length of the track is longer than usual. yeah, it’s being in those curves for longer. that makes it feel so long. I think it’s gonna be like a real position track. You really have to be. The head has to be out of sight, you know, toes pointed, that kind of position.

and you really, really have to be relaxed in those flat sections. You have to really let the sled do the work. So I think. It would take a lot of like mental preparation on just, getting used to relaxing and kind of getting those [01:04:00] flowy movements. fitness wise, preparing would be similar to other tracks.

just ’cause I, I believe the downtime isn’t too much longer. We’ll see when we’re there in the fall. but yeah, you, you have to lock in mentally. When, when the track is a little longer, what do you think?

Sophia Kirkby: Yeah, this track. The top section of the Cortina Track, believe it or not, was to be based on the old track that they previously had.

So what they did was they took the top section and unfortunately they had to redo the bottom section because they were wrapping around public tennis courts. So for security reasons, they changed the bottom section, but the top section is quite similar to what it was before, as Chevonne said. There are technical aspects of this track, and it feels like there might be gliding ones too, but I look forward to see everyone else’s opinion as well, because unfortunately we’ve only had a small [01:05:00] selection of athletes test it and give us their opinion because truly it is just an opinion.

Yeah, and

Chevonne Forgan: Sophie’s right, the thing is this, it could change so much by the time we get to there in the fall. So every time we’re talking about it, it’s sort of like. We need a little warning. This may not be true in a few months.

Jill Jaracz: It’s like Brigadoon track, Alison, it’s Brigadoon. It won’t be there. It won’t be the same thing.

Yeah.

Alison Brown: Well, when you saw it, there was no start house. There was no roof, there was no row, there was no

Chevonne Forgan: stairs. Well, there was stairs for us. Nothing for our to get our sled off during when we finally got up to Lady start. What,

Sophia Kirkby: what?

Chevonne Forgan: What’s that

Sophia Kirkby: thing

Chevonne Forgan: called there? Well, there was like a little spiral metal staircase for us, for us to go up to get up to the start.

And the, our sled is big. Double sleds are bigger than single sled, so it was a real difficulty to get it up. And there was some, [01:06:00] like some machine excavator, something with an arm, and so they were like, we’ll just attach the sleds and it’ll just. Pick it up and, and drop ’em off nicely up at the start. And it actually worked very well.

So we’ve got some, some real thinkers,

Sophia Kirkby: correct. My apologies. There were stairs. However, how the ramp is designed, it is higher level than the natural ground and they put temporary stairs that are often used on construction sites with a skinny Z. Like a little spiral and it was just really difficult for me.

I was the first one to get off the truck and show if a double sled could get up there, and everyone saw me struggling. They mentioned it at the meeting later, they, they said that women’s doubles cannot bring the sled up. So the next day they brought us a crane. We kind did the sleds for the rest of the days.

Yeah.

Alison Brown: Were you afraid to put the sled in the crane though? Yes. Oh, [01:07:00]

Chevonne Forgan: I was not, so he wasn’t,

Sophia Kirkby: I wasn’t afraid we’d let the Italians

Chevonne Forgan: go first. Yeah. I was scared watching my sled up there, but it was fine. They did a great job. They were problem solving on the go.

Alison Brown: It’s like everything’s fine going down the track.

Oh, I got injured. Trying to get up the spiral sta

Jill Jaracz: to

Alison Brown: the start.

Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh. Ellison, it sounds like every media entrance we go in. Oh, it is At a and because we do nothing but stairs every time we go to a game. Oh my gosh. And we’ve had some pretty janky stairs. Pretty rickety staircases. It sounds like Italy’s gonna be fun for us.

Oh yeah.

Chevonne Forgan: Yeah. Well, honestly, so leading up to, the pre allegation there, we had not heard much. And so The general consensus was it was happening unless they told us otherwise, but not hearing much. It was kind of hard to believe it was gonna happen [01:08:00] because we had never, no one has ever seen a loose track be built in that amount of time, so no one really knew what to expect.

Getting there, even though there wasn’t, there was a makeshift fabric roof. It was incredible to see the amount of work that was done. And even just between the days that we were there, we would give feedback in between days and they would do their best. It was just amazing what the construction crew and what the FIL and all the teams working on it were able to do in that amount of time.

Alison Brown: Have you had a lot of communication with say, skeleton and bobsled and their reaction to the track?

Chevonne Forgan: we did, We did type talk to bobsled a little bit because there was one curve that was really interesting and really difficult and we talked to the bobsledders to see if they had a similar feeling and they did.

It was, curve four actually was feeling crazy [01:09:00] and they were also having a really difficult time with it. So that was fun to kind of, Talk about the track in that way. ’cause we don’t really cross over that much with the other sliding sports. and they also had that similar feeling where it’s these really long curves.

It’s a lot of flat, a lot of uphill, I think for bobsled too. That’s kind of, can be a bit tricky to find speed there.

The lead-up to the Olympics

Alison Brown: What does this life look like between now and February for you?

Sophia Kirkby: life between now and February is to have fun and do my best. So true.

Chevonne Forgan: That’s, um, our usual motto. Going into any kind of race, it’s as long as we’re having fun, we’re still winning.

But logistically we are gonna be training here for the next couple of months. We head out for our preseason sliding mid-October. [01:10:00] We will have a lot of preseason training all over Europe and then. First World Cup is end of November in Eagles, Austria. And then we have two North American World Cups before Christmas, which we are so psyched about.

And then what does that leave us? Five

Sophia Kirkby: After Christmas, we’ve got five days off between the last race and when we have to leave again. Cheban said we have the first World Cup beginning end of November in Eagles, Austria. That is the first Olympic qualifying race for the FIL circuit, followed by Park City, Utah, lake Placid, New York.

Woo. It’ll be very fun. I’m very grateful from the FIL that they gave us Americans two Olympic qualifying races. I think it’s shown that they really care about us and they’re trying to prove [01:11:00] that we can go to America and we can race.

Alison Brown: So for the qualifiers, are you qualifying as you or are you qualifying a slot for the United States?

Chevonne Forgan: We will be qualifying for us, which would be the single spot for the us. because there are 11, allowed sleds at the Olympics, which is tight. Uh, we do have another women’s doubles team who will be competing for that spot. So obviously we’ve never. competed in an Olympic season to try and make the Olympics since this is the debut.

So we’re not really sure what to expect. we’re just trying to keep our heads on our shoulders, do what we know how to do, and yeah, just have fun.

Jill Jaracz: Have you seen. A change in other sliders [01:12:00] who have been around longer, like, because it’s the year of the games. do you just see some kind of amping up or any kind of other behavior differences?

Chevonne Forgan: I feel like I have noticed, that people are definitely more focused. They’re kind of honing in, and that’s not to say that other summers. We’re just kind of going through willy-nilly, but it is a definite change. And, a lot of our Olympic teammates and people who know what to expect have warned us that it is a high stress year.

The coaches are gonna be stressed, our teammates are gonna be stressed, and it’s gonna be different. So we’re just trying to, yeah, we’re trying to be prepared for that by acknowledging that it is gonna be different, but we’ve, we’ve got our focus, we’ve got our plan. Yeah.

Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirkby’s favorite luge tracks

Jill Jaracz: What is your favorite track?

Chevonne Forgan: Favorite track to race at was like placid just [01:13:00] because having that many family and friends at the finish, at the start all throughout the track was just an unbeatable experience.

Hmm.

Sophia Kirkby: My favorite track would have to be Seg Lavia. I really like the accommodations that we have every year. We stay right by the track. In fact, when we go to Lavia, we don’t get rental cars. We are able to walk to the track, and I think that that’s a real pleasure. You can also walk to the town. Latvia, believe it or not, has great delicious pastries and coffee.

I really enjoy their culture and their food and the track. The track’s pretty, I think we’re slaying that track. We currently hold the start and track record in Sego. Lavia. I told that to the bartender right after we had our race. We went to the bar and I, uh, well, I was just like, I own this track. You know why?

And he was like, why? And I was like, I own the start and the track record. You know what he did? [01:14:00] He lined us up some shots. Hold on. This is the first time I’m even hearing this story.

Alison Brown: Do you know what they were shots of? Or you just didn’t care?

Sophia Kirkby: Oh, balsamic. They do great. Balsamic. Oh, Riga Black. Riga Black. Classic.

Alison Brown: See, now I’m really disappointed that Stockholm or a didn’t get picked because. Yeah, and we could have shots after the race.

Sophia Kirkby: Oh. I don’t know. So Italian vodka, if you’ve tried it, is great.

I think that they are arguably doing better than some of the Russian companies that I’ve tasted. We have a local coffee shop. She got her liquor license and she poured me some Italian vodka with a bloody orange. It was the best, so don’t worry. There’s shots everywhere. Well, I have

Chevonne Forgan: to say, if you both ever find yourself in the Lake Placid area, you’ve done so many of these [01:15:00] with luge athletes, you’ve gotta come try it.

Jill Jaracz: You might get me on a luge. You might get me on luge. I did, you know, I did try it in Muskegon, Michigan once. Oh, no way. Uhhuh and uh, did not take very well, but it was also really crummy weather.

So, mm-hmm.

Try luge at Lake Placid

Chevonne Forgan: Yeah. Well, if you’re here, you can even try it in the summer. In our start facility, we do, um, tours here and people get to try it on the start ramp. So that’s of fun. And for anyone, if you find yourself in Lake Placid, come try it over at the USA luge office.

Sophia Kirkby: Yeah, if you two ladies, come here and try it.

I will give you pins. There you go. Get in the car. Alison, I’m,

Alison Brown: I am getting my keys right.

Sophia Kirkby: Oh, and I’m just remembering, uh, the question that we were sent over. Did you want to discuss my glove with my father’s, words on it?

Jill Jaracz: So you have a glove with your father’s words on it?

Sophia Kirkby: Yes. This past season I began writing quotes that my father told me.

I don’t have many [01:16:00] videos or footage of my father talking, but. While he was getting sicker and sicker, my mom made him talk in a couple videos for me, and I like to pull the quotes off. My father said to me in those videos and write them on my glove because right before he passed away he told me.

So, I don’t know if I’m going to see you at the Olympics and I’m really sorry. But I would like to think that I’m there pushing with you, and it felt really good because he was right the first race we raced. After he passed away, we won. So I felt like he was pushing with me and I’m glad I put his name on my hand because he was there.

Alison Brown: That’s really special. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that. That’s pretty special.

Jill Jaracz: Thank you. Do the luge officials know that you have a triple luge [01:17:00] situation?

Chevonne Forgan: Do not tell them. Albano speed secret. Yeah. There we go.

Alison Brown: Well, Chevon and Sophia, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a lot of fun.

Chevonne Forgan: Thank you so much for having us. This was a lot of fun.

Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much. Sophia and Chevonne. You can find them on Insta. Sophia, do Kirkby and Chev dot forg. That’s CHEV dot FOG. And Sophia is also on TikTok. It’s Sophia Kirkby, all one word. We will have links to all of those in the show notes.

Milano Cortina 2026 News

Olympic ticket sales on hold

Jill Jaracz: Oh, we have some news from Milano, Corina, or lack of things from Milano Cortina. If you’ve been trying to buy Olympic tickets this week, you are out of luck. Ticket sales have been suspended through November 11th, [01:18:00] 2025, Only tickets for the Paralympic games and the hospitality packages that come with tickets are available for the time being and then they will reopen ticket sales for the Olympics. I couldn’t find any reason why. Did you see a reason for this? I did not.

Alison Brown: Okay.

Jill Jaracz: It’s

Alison Brown: a secret.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah, and And maybe they’re doing a new ticket doc.

Salt Lake City to host Olympics and Paralympics watch party

Maybe they have something. Something else to share, I don’t know. or the revamping something internally, we will find out what it looks like on November 11th, or actually November 12th if you live in or near Salt Lake City, Utah and cannot make it to Italy to watch the games in person, you are in luck because the city is hosting a free watch party throughout the entire Olympics and Paralympics.

I’m excited about this. This looks fantastic. Yes, so they will have, giant screens live streaming Olympic and Paralympic events. They will have food trucks, they will have family programming, they will have bands and [01:19:00] performances. They will have Olympians and Paralympians and guest speakers. Warming areas and more.

ksl.com reports that it’s gonna take place at Washington Square and Library Square, near 200 East and 400 South, so right downtown. This sounds like a good time.

Alison Brown: Well, it’s a perfect warmup for 2034, you know, gets everybody kind of, we’re excited and they’ll probably do it again for 2030 if it’s successful, but I know in Paris those watch parties in the square were huge success.

Of course, this is winter, but. This is Utah. People know how to deal with this. Right? Right. It sounds, and there’s

Jill Jaracz: warming areas. Yes. And gonna be a great time. So check that out. If you go, let us know what is going on there. Because it feels like everybody in Salt Lake City or the people who are excited about the games in Salt Lake City want them to happen tomorrow.

You know,

Alison Brown: they don’t wanna wait eight years, [01:20:00]

Jill Jaracz: but man. They will come up with so many ideas in those eight years. You got the time. Come up with some speaking

Alison Brown: of time.

Omega to open Olympic Hospitality House in Milan

Jill Jaracz: Yes. The official timekeeper Omega will have its own hospitality house in Milano at the Galleria of Vitor. E Emmanuel Duhe, I would guess, right?

See, according to watch pro, most of the house is gonna be VIP only, but the ground floor cafe will become the Omega Cafe by Racho. And we’ll be open to the public.

Alison Brown: Don’t be late.

Jill Jaracz: The house is just gonna be open during the Olympics from February 7th through the 21st.

More team kit drops

And we promised Kit News.

Alison Brown: We have Kit News from Great Britain and France, and then next week we have Kit News coming from Australia and the volunteer outfits.

Jill Jaracz: Oh, that’s right. Those are getting out. So.

Alison Brown: Adidas released the team GB uniforms [01:21:00] and, LA Cox TIF released France. I love ’em both.

Jill Jaracz: Well, talk to us about the team GB one first.

Alison Brown: Yeah, so Team gb, they doing the very traditional red, white, and blue. They have some really fun graphics with the numbers on it.

Like a spray paint, kind of look to it to me on some of it as well. knit caps, baseball hats, t-shirts, zip up bags. The jacket is quilted. Quilting seems to be the thing this year.

Jill Jaracz: I see that, and it, it’s not like your standard quilting, it doesn’t look like a standard puffy coat. It looks like the design.

Alison Brown: Right. It so it has that geometric, um, what’s that artist that I’m thinking of that used to do those strange figures in the early in, in the early to mid eighties,

B Basquiat. No,

Jill Jaracz: no,

Alison Brown: but it has kind of a graphic quilting look. This is a lot of fun, and this is my [01:22:00] favorite item. There is a cropped hoodie. Ooh, there is nothing better for a five foot tall woman than a cropped hoodie because regular hoodies, the bottom is down to my knees. There’s also a pink jacket.

Jill Jaracz: Ooh,

Alison Brown: they threw some pink in there, and it is modeled on a man.

Jill Jaracz: Wow. That’ll be nice.

Alison Brown: speaking of pastels, uh, LA Cox Tif did this light blue and ivory color for Team France, also icy, gorgeous pieces here.

Jill Jaracz: I do like these. the bummer part about the Team GB kit is that the, the ones that you can buy. Directly, they’re pretty much sold out.

Yes. Which is, which is frustrating. The France stuff, it looks cool. They have very cool pants with like pockets at the knee kind of thing. And uh, it just looks very hip.

Alison Brown: And then they also, so they have this light blue ivory and kind of a lime green, accents thrown in there. I don’t see any items that are [01:23:00] totally that lime green.

But it does have that icy quality to it. So a lot of fun so far from these kits and their jacket also very interesting. So jackets are gonna be the key piece, I think in kits this time around.

Jill Jaracz: Looking forward to it. You know who else has official kit? Team USA medical team. Yes, they have for the first time.

Their own kit supplier, and that will be figs. I think If you were a, work in the medical field, do you know what figs are? And scrub, right? Aren’t they Scrubs? Yes, they have. They do scrubs. They’re also gonna do outerwear, network and accessories made with figs, new FX fabric. And you can get some of these on sale to the public in January at where?

figs.com. They’ll also be at figs Community Hubs in Chicago, Houston, la, New York, and Philadelphia. the outfits themselves are. I mean, it’s, it’s red, white, and blue, but they do [01:24:00] have like a tricolor, ribbon waistband. And some of these look like they’re one piece scrubs.

Alison Brown: That sounds very uncomfortable.

Jill Jaracz: It does, but maybe it works if, you know, they’re still scrubs. So it’s kind of loose. but it is very bold, I would say. Like you have red scrubs. the USA blue scrubs. so it’s gonna be exciting for the medical team.

Alison Brown: And just as I said that, I’m thinking, if you’re. Doing a lot of motion, not having your shirt pop out from your pants.

You know, having that one piece actually may be very practical, but I hope we see none of these on television or the broadcast or streaming. ’cause if we see these guys, that means somebody got hurt,

Jill Jaracz: right? So hopefully we’ll see them behind the scenes

CBC announces broadcasting lineup

for our Canadian listeners. CBC announced their broadcasting team. This is exciting. They are gonna do 22 hours of coverage a day, and across all their platforms, they’ll have 2000 hours of live content.

Alison Brown: You know, [01:25:00] if you’re gonna do 22, just do the 24. Just don’t go off. Like why a nap? Why do you have to go off for two hours?

Jill Jaracz: The producers have to take a nap at some point.

Alison Brown: No, they don’t.

Jill Jaracz: Just

Alison Brown: grab a beer, keep going.

Jill Jaracz: So mornings from six. Eastern to noon. Eastern is going to be hosted by Ron McLean and Perdita Felicien. Noon to six Eastern will be hosted by Andy Petrillo and primetime coverage hosts will be two time Olympic speed skater, Anastasia Bsis, and Pro snowboarder Craig McMorris overnights, which is gonna be 9:00 PM to 3:00 AM It’s gonna be highlights and replays. You see, that’s when the producers can sleep. Opening ceremonies.

Hosts will be CBC, chief News Correspondent Adrian Arsenal and CBC Olympics Reporter Devin Harrow. So you are in good hands there. Also important is the hockey [01:26:00] commentary team for women’s hockey. Andy Petrillo is gonna be back for that. Teaming up with Soroya, tinker to host, Cassie Campbell Pascal and Hailey Salian will be in Milan.

Play by play and analysis will be Kenzie, Leland and Cheryl. Pounder Commentary is going to be Daniella Ponticelli and Becky Kellar and Claire h will report ringside for the men. James Duffy. Kevin, Bea, Elliot Friedman, Campbell Pascal and Pounder are the panel play by play and analysis will be Chris Bert and former NHL Player.

Mike Johnson commentary is going to be Matt Cullen and be Becky Kellar and ringside reporter will be Kyle Bukowski.

LA 2028 News

Ceremonies creative team announced

Jill Jaracz: We have just a little bit of news from LA 2028. They announced their producer for the opening and closing ceremonies. For both the Olympics and Paralympics. This will be Ben Winston who is behind the handover ceremony. [01:27:00] So if you like that, you’ll see more from him. If you didn’t like that, you’re gonna see more from him too.

Alison Brown: you know, he’s friends with Tom Cruise.

Jill Jaracz: Well, yeah. Yeah. maybe Tom Cruise will have a part in this.

Alison Brown: That would be interesting if they kind of brought back some of that element of it. Like he shows up again in LA at the opening

Jill Jaracz: that, you know, that would be very cool.

Alison Brown: That would be fun.

Jill Jaracz: And, and I will say, the one thing I really loved about the Paris. opening ceremonies was that through line story of we need to get the flame to the ceremonies

Alison Brown: with the masked. She yay.

Jill Jaracz: Yes. So you never know. Tom may need to, to bring it on in. So according to deadline, Ben Winston will be the executive producer and creative director.

Scott gis will be the executive producer of production, and, GIS has had roles at 15 Olympic games and produced 63 global ceremonies. He is a recipient of the Olympic order, so they know Olympics. [01:28:00]

Alison Brown: We’re in good hands, I hope.

Help the show get to Milano Cortina 2026

Jill Jaracz: We’re also in good hands with our listeners who will help us get the flame our flame. to Milano Cortina.

Alison Brown: We are blessed and I don’t mean it to sound all corny, but we really have some amazing listeners. Who have been so supportive and so kind to us over the years, and now we’re asking for a little more kindness and a little more support to get us through 2026.

Jill Jaracz: Yes, we do need your financial support to help us get there. You can find out more at flame Alive pod.com/milano-cortina-fundraiser.

International Olympic Committee News

IOC-sponsored ESport Games shelved

Jill Jaracz: Oh, this is a doozy. Oh yeah. We’ve got some news from the International Olympic Committee. Did you see this one coming? I did not, but yet did I totally get where you’re coming from because, hey, guess what? Remember those eSport games that we were gonna have in Saudi Arabia for like the next 12 years?

They’re [01:29:00] not, they’re not happening.

Alison Brown: Yeah. The agreement between the IOC and Saudi Arabia just has been called off. They just said, guess what? Not happening. but it does make perfect sense because we had the change in the presidency from Toma Bach, who was such a huge supporter of these eGames and of getting Saudi Arabia into the fold.

Now we have Kirsty Coventry. She doesn’t seem to be as much of a fan of either of those things.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah, so the eSports advocate reported that there was a little quote, unquote friction between Kirsty Coventry and the Saudi eSport games organizers. The Saudis did not want to work with the e eSports International Federations.

Per the Olympic charter you’re supposed to. And, uh, the Saudis didn’t wanna work with the federations ’cause they’re not really in great financial shape. And I believe they reported in there that [01:30:00] like some Saudis have been involved with those organizations as well. So they knew how, what was going on there.

the Saudis apparently want to create their own federation and Tebo was okay with that. Kirsty Coventry seems to be less in favor of that. Because it would not really have a democratic process and it would be part of the Saudi government, so you’d have to deal with that as well.

Alison Brown: Yeah, and I wonder how much the Saudis really love dealing with Kirsty Coventry at all.

Just full stop there.

Jill Jaracz: yeah, it’ll be interesting. they also didn’t seem to like having to put women in leadership positions and, follow rules on which nations could and could not participate. So this will be interesting. So, are we gonna have any games? The IOC says they’d like to keep it around and we will see.

Youth Olympic Games unveil mascot

Also we have less than one year to go till the next Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, Senegal. And they unveiled the mascot.

Alison Brown: This is so funny because I thought they [01:31:00] had already unveiled this mascot when I saw it. it’s ao Am I pronouncing that correctly?

Jill Jaracz: I

Alison Brown: believe so. He looks like every other mascot, but I love him.

It’s a lion he’s wearing a t-shirt, green shorts, socks and sneakers, and a traditional hat. Very charming, very friendly, very kid friendly. Appropriately. Mm-hmm. For the, the Youth Olympics. But I really thought we had this mascot like a month ago at least. ‘ cause it feels like I’ve seen posts. Of this very guy.

Well, they did announce it on October 31st, so it, it was a month ago.

it’s perfect for dekar, it’s perfect for the Youth Olympics. I like the little lion. I like that he’s not a weird lion formed from other pieces of animals. So I’m, I’m gonna stick with, I like a traditional animal mascot.

Jill Jaracz: There you go. And yeah, he, he looks like a kid that wants to go play sports. not like a kid [01:32:00] human, like a kid lion who wants to go play sports. It’s like the Lion King.

Okay. If you’re all done singing The Lion King to yourself, ’cause we don’t have the rights to play that, we’ll move on.

Team Keep the Flame Alive News

Alison Brown: Welcome to Shuk Stan.

Jill Jaracz: It is the time of the show where we check in with our team, keep the flame alive. These are past guests and listeners of the show who make up the citizenship of our very own country. Shuk Stan. First up,

Alison Brown: fencing. So FIE Senior season starts on November 6th at the Mayor York World Cup.

Lee Keefer. Lauren Scruggs. Maya Weintraub. Miles Cham Lee Watson, Nick Ikin, Alexander Macias and Garrick Meinhart are competing in foil and at the Algiers World Cup. Maya Chamberlain, Colin Heacock and Mitchell Saren are competing in Sabre

Jill Jaracz: Pole Vaulter. Katie Moon has been nominated for the 2025 USA Track and field.

Jackie Joyner, EY Female Athlete of the year. Sprinter Jaden [01:33:00] Blackwell is nominated for the Para Athletics male Athlete of the year. Voting is open until November 10th, and we will have a link to that in the show notes.

Alison Brown: Erin Jackson made the US speed skating Long Track World Cup team. She also has a lot of partnerships going into 2026, including as an ambassador for Lily and Coca-Cola and partnering with Sattva mattresses.

Expect to see her face. In every ad in commercial during the 2026 Olympics, do you know how excited I was to see that she was on Team Coke? you know, speed skaters don’t obviously make a lot of money, so we are very happy when Erin is making some cash and can keep the training going.

Jill Jaracz: There you go. and best wishes to former hurdler Dawn Harper Nelson and her husband Alonzo, who were on a business trip in Jamaica and got stuck there by Hurricane Melissa.

So they were evacuated for several days, Now have headed home. So, [01:34:00] glad you made it through her Instagram feed is full of the story of what happened, and it’s just pretty tough

Alison Brown: and lots of love to the people of Jamaica. They’re really, they’re really going through it right now, so.

Jill Jaracz: Exactly,

Review of the Week

Jill Jaracz: we’ve got a review of the week.

Alison Brown: So low dandy on Apple Podcast called us informative, fun, exciting, surprising, and funny.

Jill Jaracz: my brother would’ve said funny, funny looking.

Alison Brown: Well, that’s true too, but low dandy was nicer to us than that.

Jill Jaracz: So if you’d like to hear your name here, leave us a review on your podcast app or check out the other ways to get in touch with us in the episode details. And that’s going to do it for this week.

Please do not forget to support our fundraiser and help the show provide you better coverage from Melano Corina. Thank you so much for listening,

Alison Brown: and until next time, keep the flame [01:35:00] alive.