Today we are talking with 2x Paralympian Noelle Lambert who competes in the 100m and long jump. We get into the details of running blades (and how much they cost), how she improved her 100m between the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Paralympics, and how she’s training for LA 2028.
Running blades cost a lot–and you need different ones for different kinds of sports. Noelle got a lot of help from different foundations when she was first getting into sport, so to pay it forward, she developed her own foundation called The Born to Run Foundation, which raises money to provide sports prosthetic legs for amputees.
Also on this episode:
- London 2012 and Paris 2024 doping news
- Milano Cortina 2026 releases its medals
- Drama for French Alps 2030 Olympic and Paralympic venues
- News from Team Keep the Flame Alive (TKFLASTAN)
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo courtesy of Noelle Lambert.
TRANSCRIPT
401-2x Paralympian Noelle Lambert
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’m your host, Jill Jaracz, joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison, hello, how are you?
Alison Brown: Bojo? I have been getting all the one year since Oh, Paris posts and the one today I mentioned to you, I was in the Paris Media Center where they had the ice cream tasting.
Jill Jaracz: Mm.
Alison Brown: It’s good. Oh, that was so good. It was very
Jill Jaracz: good. Very good ice cream. Yes.
Alison Brown: But it’s been so much fun because, and I, we say this every, every time. I can’t believe it’s only a year and I can’t believe it’s already a year since Paris
Jill Jaracz: agreed. Like it seems so long ago, and yet it was not that long ago at all.
But, we have to get ready for gelato.
Alison Brown: I know
Jill Jaracz: we’re less than 200 days away from gelato.
Alison Brown: Let me tell you something. I am always less than 200 days away from gelato,
but yeah. So less than 200 days for Milan Cortina. And there’s a lot that’s gonna happen between now and then.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. Exactly. thank you to everybody who showed up at our,
Alison Brown: Virtual
Jill Jaracz: P last week. It was so much fun and just I was a little overwhelmed at how many people showed up.
Alison Brown: Then we got the messages after from the people who couldn’t make it with all that love.
I was embarrassed.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you to all of those who did make it. Thank you to those of you who tried. Uh, hopefully you had a lot of fun, and hopefully those of you who listened to the show enjoyed it as well. It was great to celebrate the show with Shuk Stan, our community of listeners. We know there are more people out there though.
So listeners, if you’d love the show, please share it with a friend. Help our citizenship of our country grow so that we can have more fun at Milano Katrina. ’cause you know, I’m already holding my head thinking about what. Trouble we’re gonna get into or Or stupid things that I’m going to do. I don’t. I don’t know.
Alison Brown: Yes. Because they can’t throw me out. Right. They can throw you out.
Jill Jaracz: Well, you know I’m charming though.
Alison Brown: It’s true. You’re lovely. I’m usually the one that causes the international incidents, so this could get really interesting.
Jill Jaracz: Definitely. You know else who is interesting and charming.
Alison Brown: Our guest today?
Jill Jaracz: That is correct.
Noelle Lambert Interview
Jill Jaracz: We are talking with a two time Paralympian Noelle Lambert. Noelle competed at Tokyo 2020. She placed sixth in the women’s 100 meter T 63 class, which is four above the knee amputees at Paris 2024. She placed seventh in the same event and also added the long jump where she placed fourth.
And additionally, she has played lacrosse at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, where she was one of the few amputees to compete in an NCAA 18 sport. And. She scored a goal in her first game back after losing her leg. Noelle was on the TV show Survivor on season 43, so you may remember her from that if you are a Survivor fan.
She placed eighth there and then recruited another contestant to become a Paralympian who also competed in which was pretty amazing. Uh, she also pays it forward through the Born to Run Foundation, which raises money to provide prosthetics legs for amputees. She’s also dabbled in competitive.
Paris snowboarding as well, but has opted to focus on the track and is currently training for LA 2028. We talked with Noelle at the end of March about her adventures in PariSport. Take a listen.
The scoop on running blades
Jill Jaracz: Noelle Lambert, thank you so much for joining us. You run sprints on an above the knee amputation. Let’s talk a little bit about the running blade you have. do different lengths of amputations have different lengths of blade?
Noelle Lambert: That’s a great question. Uh, first and foremost, thank you so much for having me.
and I would say, um, basically how long your limb is. Um, it plays a part, so you’ll see a lot of below the knee amputees have different sprinting blades than above the knee amputees. So the blade that I use is a specific for, um, the manufacturer’s Oser. I’m sure you guys have, uh, have heard of it. I am an OSER athlete.
And the oar sprinting blade that I use, it’s not even specifically meant for just sprinting. So it’s meant for shorter distances and, it’s just, it’s not meant for marathons. So when I was presented, um, this running blade, it’s more so of the alignment in how you connect the blade to the knee, into the socket.
So, you know, the first three years of my, you know, professional career in sprinting, I didn’t know a ton about prosthetic blades, sprinting blades, how important it is to really focus on your alignment and your stiffness of the blade. I didn’t start learning all of that until actually last year. I actually traveled all the way to Italy, uh, and I went and I worked with all three of the Italians that I compete against.
I worked with their prosthetists, John Luca, and they were all very nice. Uh, we asked their permission if it was okay if I went out and worked with them and they were completely fine with it. pros to ’em because I’d probably be like, absolutely not, you know, your competition. but, uh, they’re very nice over there.
And going out there, I really started learning about all the different, mechanics and how important it is because I started to see, the alignment that the Italians were using and how dramatic it was. And basically what they were doing is they were connecting the blade in the knee. At a certain degrees, back against my socket.
So if I’m trying to say this visually so people listening can understand. So basically like what I was doing before is I would have my socket and then my knee would be at, and my knee and my blade would be attached directly underneath. We are now moving it negative 14 degrees back. So it’s very dramatic and I saw that the Italians were doing this and I more so thought it was because they had a longer limb, because they are considered above the knee amputees, but they are cut off right at the knee.
So I believe they’re called need artex. And I thought that was the reason. It was because their limb was too long. They couldn’t put it right at the bottom. But what I was realizing and what I was struggling with in the a hundred meters, I would get out great. Um, and I would keep up with, you know, all of my competitors.
But after 40 or 50 meters, I felt like I was working against the blade and. The blade was kind of pushing me back, so I was leaning back. I wasn’t leaning forward, I wasn’t able to have the strong core that’s needed. When you’re sprinting and with this new alignment, it’s basically the blade and the knee are already back behind you and you’re at the tippy toe on the blade for the alignment.
And that’s exactly where you wanna be. If you’re an amputee and you’re sprinting is you wanna be on the toe because if you’re a little behind and you’re like more so in the middle of the blade, then the blade isn’t working properly in order for you to get the the most out of the sprinting blade. And.
So I’m going out there, I’m learning all these new things. And it was crazy because there was a language barrier. Uh, John Luca, he didn’t really speak a lot of English. We were using Google Translate. I was going out to Rome, Italy by myself. you know, one of my teammates, uh, Trenton Merrill, he was already out there and he was working with him.
And I was, I was actually the last American that was allowed to go out to Italy to work. ’cause I think the Italian, uh, the Italian national team was getting a little skeptical ’cause there was a few of us going over there. and this is what he told me. He said, listen, with this new alignment, you’re gonna be running an entire second faster.
Obviously he’s telling me this and I’m not entirely believing him, but then. three, four months later, I start competing and I, my time is dropping and it’s dropping to 15 seconds flat. I mean, these Italians are running still, low fourteens, mid fourteens, but I was always very, very much behind them. So even to have that, that cutoff, um, I thought it was incredible, but it was just, it comes to show how important that is.
and another thing that I learned is the stiffness of your blade. I mean, typically when you’re an amputee and you want a running blade, they’ll, they’ll just calculate your weight and they’ll say, okay, you’re probably a category three. And a category three can be anywhere from a 2.5 all the way to a 3.5.
And so you could get any type of blade. But what I was learning is we needed to be very, strict on the point decimal. So I was asking Oser, I’m like, listen, can you send me a 0.5, a 0.6 or 2.5? 2.6, 2.7? Then I learned how incredibly difficult that is to do when you are making a blade and they need to, it’s you, when they make a blade, they can’t get it exactly on the decimal that you want.
So I was just trying everything I could. I think right now I’m at like a 2.7, uh, 2.8, but the blades, they soften up over time as much as you use them. So if you could compete on it for three months. Your 2.7 is turning into a 2.5, 2.4, and it’s just losing its value, which is again, something I never knew because I was running and competing on the same blade for three years.
So I’m still learning. But yeah, that was a mouthful. Um, but yeah, I mean it’s, it’s crazy because I, it was just things that I had no idea about and it makes me think, okay, well is there still more that I can do to my alignment to get even shave off even more? I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s incredible.
Alison Brown: Are there regulations regarding the blade?
Noelle Lambert: No, not for single, uh, single amputees. If you’re a double amputee, they measure your wingspan and they give you a certain height and they will measure you in the call room. And if you are even a centimeter over the height that you should be at, they will not let you compete. it’s not allowed.
But for, uh, regulations on what you can do for different alignment, what you can add to the blade, what you can’t add to the blade, there’s actually nothing. And that’s something that I am, learning a lot with, with my long jump set up. because we’re adding like a foam crepe to the bottom just because, me being with Oser, uh, they don’t have, I wouldn’t say they have a specific long jump blade for above knee amputees.
They do for below the knee amputee. but I mean, they have one called the Flex Run large that I use. And it’s a lot different than if you were to. Use, say their competitor, an auto B long jump blade. that’s specifically meant for the long jump, but what I’m using with the foam crepe on the bottom of my blade is I’m adding a little bit more height, so that when I add the speed, I can get a little bit more.
Um, and it’s basically just mimicking what this auto blade does in my knowledge. I’m honestly just copying what I’m seeing other competitors doing, and it’s crazy because nobody on the female side was adding that crepe. Uh, I saw an athlete from Denmark, he’s an above knee amputee and OSA athlete, and he was doing that to his blade.
So I was thinking, and he had great success, so I did the same exact thing. And then that’s when I started having really great success too. And then, um, I saw that a couple of my other competitors, uh, they started adding it to theirs as well because, you know, I. I started long jump in January of 2024 and was able to jump over five meters in five months and everyone was wondering how is this girl getting this high?
How is this girl doing this? I mean, I have an incredible coaching staff, I have to credit them to that. but it was more so just about the mechanics of the blade. I mean, you look at some of these below the knee amputee men that are long jumping and there are I believe three of them now jumping over eight meters.
And two of them are very, very close to touching nine meters. And if they touch nine meters, that’s never been done before and from the able body side or the Paralympic side. So that’s why we’re trying to get, uh, my teammate Derek Luxon. It’ll be very incredible. I know he can do it. He is an insane athlete.
But it’s gonna be interesting once he does do it, because then the whole world is, I mean, we get comments on our social media every other day saying, you’re cheating. You have an advantage. You don’t feel it when you’re running. But it’s crazy because people, one, don’t realize that I’m competing against people with my own disability.
I’m not competing against people who are, uh, able body one, two, I’m not generating the same results. me personally, I know that the, uh, the amputee men are generating the same results as the Olympians. but what they don’t realize is we’re not generating the same amount of speed that somebody with two legs is on the runway.
that’s my problem. I mean, if I had all this speed on the runway, I would be able to jump, you know, six meters. No problem. I’m sure. But it’s because the fact that I’m an above knee amputee, I’m missing a knee and a foot, and. Yes, my blade is springy, but I’m lacking in so many other things, um, that a lot of people don’t realize.
But it’s, it’s just so funny. We get those comments all the time. You’re cheating. You’re cheating. I mean, I love it because listen, you comment on my social media, my engagement goes up. So call me a cheater all you want. I’m getting, I’m getting more engagement, I’m getting more followers, and I love it.
Managing body imbalance as an amputee
Alison Brown: Talk a little bit about that imbalance in your body, because that’s gotta go from bottom to top probably.
Noelle Lambert: Yeah, I mean, it’s now it’s, it’s crazy because now I don’t think of it as much. I mean, obviously when I first lost my leg, but don’t get me wrong, there are so many, I mean, last, last week at practice, I’m out in California and I’m training with a, with my training group. And I mean, I fall randomly all the time because sometimes the blade, I mean with a running blade and above knee amputee, so I.
With my everyday walking prosthetic, I have a microprocessor knee. I have to charge it every single night. It has, it has a microchip inside it that allows me to walk a lot, smoother. That gives me the stability I need. So basically, when I put all my weight on the blade, uh, on the walking leg, it lowers me down very slowly.
So if I were to stumble, I’d be able to catch myself with my running blades. That’s the complete opposite, because the knee is, probably three or four centimeters big. So if I take one wrong step, the knee will give in and I’ll fall, like, just like that. And it, it always looks a lot worse than it feels.
It never, I never feel it never hurts, but everyone is always like, oh, no, walls on the ground again. and it’s just because I, there’s just moments where I misstep I’m being lazy and I’m not lifting up my legs how I should. But it’s definitely, I mean, I’m so used to it. It never happens when I’m sprinting.
it happens when I’m walking. Obviously, the running blades aren’t meant for walking. They’re meant for sprinting. So there are very, very limited of times where now I am, you know, I’m falling watch. I mean, I’m probably gonna fall in the next race that I compete at, but hey, it’s fine. It’s all part of the learning experience.
I don’t mind falling, because that’s when I know that there’s something wrong with either the alignment or there’s something that I did wrong where I was being lazy and I wasn’t doing the mechanics that I needed to. but as far as, walking every single day or doing my everyday day life things.
I’m so used to it by now. I don’t even remember my life with two legs. The only time that I actually remember or like think that I’m actually disabled is when I’m walking upstairs, because I can’t walk one after the other like everybody else because of my knee. I mean, they do have, I mean, my microprocessor knee, if I wanted to, I can swing it back and I can go one after the other, but it just takes longer.
and I’m very impatient, so I just go two out of two at a time, always. it’s things that just, you have to learn over time and just get used to. But once you’re used to it, it’s, it’s like something that’s in the back of your head. Um, but it’s very, it’s very challenging when you change alignment or when you get a new blade or you get a new setup because you know, you have to trust basically this prosthetic leg, like it’s your own.
And it’s crazy because it’s not, it’s just something that’s attached to your body in you’re trying to mimic it. On your sound side. and that can be a little tricky, but that comes with having, a camera and you’re videotaping every single step. You’re checking alignment. And that’s the most, they, that’s probably the most tedious thing about being, you know, a paralympic amputee sprinter is there’s just so many things that you can change on a blade.
And I still haven’t perfected it. I mean, it’s, it’s crazy because we were messing with a lot of things when I was in Paris trying to get the most out of it. And it just, it went the opposite direction. I honestly, it honestly hurt myself more in Paris because I had no idea what the type of leg I was running on or jumping on.
So, I mean, nowadays I’m very skeptical of anybody touching my alignment. I have to, I’ve limited to my processes back in New Hampshire, and that’s about it.
The cost of running blades and foundations that help cover those costs
Jill Jaracz: So. your running blade wears out kind of like a running shoe.
Noelle Lambert: Yeah. Okay’s.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So how much does that cost to replace?
Noelle Lambert: Very expensive. Luckily, I’m very fortunate enough to be, um, sponsored by Oser so we get all the blades that we need. But it is, it is tough to see all these other amputees out there. I mean, luckily, not, luckily, I will say that amputees that aren’t pursuing the sport professionally, that want a running blade, they’re not using the running blade every single day, three, four hours a day and wearing on it.
So they’ll last a lot longer. but I mean, there are athletes out there that don’t have the resources that some other athletes do, and a blade, a running blade can cost anywhere from, you know, eight to $10,000. It’s, it’s insane. And I honestly wish that there was. A way that, I mean, I think that there’s so many different, um, organizations out there and so many different people trying to get bills passed in their local states.
but I will say, you know, Oser and Otok do a great job at, doing whatever they can for athletes, who are trying to pursue the sport professionally, all the different foundations out there. when I first started training in California, one of my training partners, Derek Lockin, who I was just talking about, I showed up to practice and I was watching him, I was watching him jump on.
It wasn’t a sprinting blade. It wasn’t even a jumping blade. It was a blade that you probably get when you’re newly an amputee and you’re just starting off running and he’s jumping and he’s jumping seven meters with this blade. And I’m just wondering, I’m asking our coach, I’m like, why doesn’t he have a.
A specific long jump blade yet, and he was telling me, you know, they’re, they’re too expensive and he’s working on it. And I mean, I, I have my own nonprofit. And I told him, okay, well my foundation will donate it to him, no problem. And he gets his blade and he goes to world championships and he gets a silver and the, and the men’s long jump.
So it’s really all about, I mean, if you’re an amputee listening to this and you really are looking for a running blade, never be afraid to use social media use resources like reaching out to amputees, asking how they got started. I mean, there are so many foundations out there. I mean, I myself, I. I mean, I have my own, but I also have been helped by three other incredible foundations, um, that don’t, before I even was an OSER athlete.
So there’s so many different opportunities that a lot of people don’t realize. just solely based on the fact, because I didn’t realize it until I started reaching out to, you know, mentors of mine. and they started, filling me in on everything. Uh, one of my mentors, Amy Purdy, she has a nonprofit organization that teaches you how to snowboard if you have a disability.
And I remember reaching out to her ’cause I wanted to start snowboarding. and even resources like that, it’s, you know, you’re disabled, you want to, you wanna learn a new sport. Okay, this foundation will pay for you to come out and train with the best of the best. I mean, having Amy Purdy and her husband, her husband is an incredible coach.
They will get you to what, what you need to do. Um, and then when I first started track, I mean, what my teammate Mita, I Beku three time Paralympian. Um, she was introducing me to coaches, to people, to foundations. So it’s, it’s really all about just reaching out to the community and sooner or later you will find opportunities, you will find resources.
and I’m just very grateful and fortunate enough to have received those, all the helping hands that I’ve received, because that’s the sole reason why I’ve made it to where I am today. I mean, I’ve done nothing on my own. it’s all been the incredible people that have allowed me to, or have given me the opportunities to do so with blades or grants or things like that.
Jill Jaracz: So you’ve got your own foundation that helps people get running, specifically blades to pursue sports in some ways.
What made you wanna start that?
Noelle Lambert: When I was in, uh, college and I was, uh, a junior in college and I’ll, the only thing I wanna do is play Division one lacrosse again, but I don’t have, I don’t have the blade, I don’t have, the type of running device that I need to be able to pursue this.
And the Challenge Athletes Foundation ended up donating my running prosthetic and then. Uh, shortly after that I was going on vacation with my friends and my microprocessor knee. A lot of microprocessor knees are not waterproof. There’s only a select few that are, and I had one that wasn’t waterproof and I needed a waterproof prosthetic to go to the beach and to be able to go in the water with my friends.
You know, I don’t wanna take my leg off and hop in the ocean, like I wanna just be able to walk in, in the Heather Abbott Foundation, she’s one of the Boston Marathon survivors. She has her own foundation, called the Heather Abbott Foundation, and she donated my waterproof prosthetic. So right then, I mean, I’m a year into my accident.
I already have, two of these specialized prosthetics that are very expensive, and they were both donated. And just seeing the work that those foundations did for other amputees, that’s it really inspired me. And then once I was able to play again. I wanted to give the resources that I received and I wanted to be able to give that to other people who were in need.
Starting The Born to Run Foundation
Noelle Lambert: So with the help of my incredible family, I was able to start the Born to Run Foundation, and we did focus in the beginning, we focus on just, you know, running prosthetics, but now we’ve opened it up to any different specialized prosthetic because we’ve had the resources to do that now. And so if you want, you know, a running blade, a waterproof prosthetic, a prosthetic to go mountain biking with anything you can think of, snowboarding, we are happy to help.
And we started it in 2018 and I believe we’ve had 37 or 38 different, beneficiaries to this date, which is something I’m always so grateful. to have, have been a part of, because it’s a full circle moment for me. I was, you know, that one amputee that just wanted one prosthetic leg so that I could live the life that I wanted.
And I just really wanted to create a community within a foundation so that when people either are born with a disability or they lose their leg or an arm in an accident, that we can introduce them to people like them so that they can see, because that’s all I needed when I lost my leg. I just needed to see somebody that looked like me.
And if they were doing it, I thought, okay, well if they can do it a hundred percent so can I. And so that’s really why I wanted to start the foundation, because I wanted to show, especially after I returned playing lacrosse, I wanted to show the world that if I could do this and overcome this. Then anybody, anybody on this earth can do it.
I’m living proof of that. And so that’s, I’m, I’m very passionate about it and I’m very lucky to have an incredible mother she does all the hard work. I am just the face of it. She’s doing, doing all the tough work and the late hours on top of having a full-time job.
So I’m very grateful to my mother. but I’m very fortunate enough to have people in my family wanting to, create this community and help me with this dream, because it’s something that, a lot of amputees, a lot of people with disabilities will say it’s, it started with this one foundation and then you started learning about all these other foundations, this whole community, you know, once I started, uh, competing in the Paralympics and I was introduced to that world, it was, it was amazing.
I loved showing up at a track meet and watching all these incredible athletes with disabilities not only perform at a level. That’s high for people with disabilities, but they’re competing at a level that they compete against people with able body. And I thought that was just something that so amazing to be a part of.
Such an like, it’s just so inspiring. And I know a lot of people who are in the disabled community sometimes hate that word, but I mean, if I’m having a tough day and I don’t wanna go to practice. I’m so fortunate enough to be able to practice with the incredible training group that I have in Chula Vista, California because we have people who are visually impaired.
cerebral palsy, wheelchair athletes, amputees, and I get to be a part of it, and we just get to compete against one, one another. Listen, I’m the slowest one in the training group. I will say it, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have fun with everybody else. I always know him alone. He is the fastest Paralympian that team USA has.
He’s visually impaired. Every single day I line up on the starting blocks next to him, like, all right, no, I’m gonna get you on this one. I’m gonna get you on this one. And it’s just, it’s that community that I’m so lucky to be a part of. And every time I’m having a bad day, I just look over at them and I’m like, well, they’re here.
They showed up. Why can’t I do it? I should, I should show up even if I don’t have a smile on my face. Still work hard because you never know what tomorrow’s gonna bring and just be appreciative of where you’re at. So I think it’s just, it’s amazing community to be a part of and I’m just, I’m very grateful.
Jill Jaracz: Well, and getting people into sports. we talk with so many people how sports has changed lives and it’s kind of nice to be able to have foundations that get people into sports so they can have these transformative experiences. Mm-hmm. Really?
Noelle Lambert: Yeah. I mean, our first beneficiary that we ever donated to, he was a 2-year-old boy and his parents wanted him to have a running blade so that he could play sports just like the regular kids.
And so I’m sitting in the prosthetic office and this little boy puts the running blade on and he starts running down the hall like he’s had at his entire life. And I’m sitting there and one, of course, I’m like. Almost crying, seeing this, seeing his family and their reactions. But I’m also jealous because it took me two weeks to get off a treadmill being harnessed on a treadmill and that I could run on my own.
And this little dude is doing it and the first time he gets this blade. So I think it’s, kids are resilient. I mean, I went to a disabled kids camp called Mobility, and everyone, when I got home, everyone was like, oh, did you do a lot of, uh, did you inspire a lot of kids to start sports? I’m like, absolutely not.
They were the ones inspiring me because you know, when you’re born with a disability, it’s, you don’t know what life is like without it. So obviously you’re gonna think you, you’re, you are going to think that I can do whatever. And that’s exactly how they should think. It’s anybody can do anything. It’s just what if you put your mind to it?
And so. That’s why when we donated to this little boy, it was just, it was so amazing just to be a part of that moment. And every single time, I mean, we, we meet a young, a young little boy or a young little girl, and they’ve been born with a disability. It’s insane. I mean, look at Ezra Fre and the things that he’s been able to do, in the 19 years of his life.
it’s amazing. It’s inspiring
Noelle Lambert’s sporting life
Noelle Lambert: and it’s just, I mean, I think sports is, so, I grew up playing sports. I would not be where I am today if it wasn’t for sports. I mean, sports was the, is the reason why I live my life. Um, I’m a very competitive person. I have three older brothers. They all played sports.
So at a very early age, I knew that this was something I wanted to do with my life. And people, I mean. if you don’t grow up playing sports, I mean, it’s not a bad thing, but what I’ve learned so much of my, like just life lessons from sports and it has nothing to do with being an athlete, it’s, it’s time management, it’s being disciplined.
It’s, being a part of a team and, not being selfish and all these different things that I’ve learned from just being an athlete that I’ve taken into my everyday life that have nothing to do with athletics. You know, when I was going into college, a lot of people are terrified to go into their freshman year of college because they’re going into a whole new environment.
They don’t know anybody. I was walking in with 30 sisters automatically that I know that I’m gonna be bonded with and that I’m gonna be able to connect with and that’s going to help me. So that’s why I always say, if you ever have the opportunity to either play a sport in college or even if it ha if it’s not even a sport, if it’s to play a music, like be a musician, I’m trying to think of like all the different things that you can do or be a part of a community in a group.
Absolutely do it because it’s going to get you outta your comfort zone and it’s, it’s gonna help your social life. It’s, it’s gonna help with time management. I’m always 15 minutes early to everything be because of the fact that I have PTSD from college and being late. So it’s just, there’s so many different things that you can learn from sports and I just always love how.
You know, I, I get it. A lot of people, sports are just not for them, but just find that one, find that something, find that hobby. And if you’re an artist, anything that can just, get you outta your comfort zone. ’cause that’s when you really figure out who you are because you’re going to fail at everything you try in life.
But it’s kind of how you respond and it’s how you wanna work towards it that you can realize, be like, oh my God, I just went through the hardest thing of my entire life. How did I respond? I never wanted to quit. Okay, well I can take that into my everyday life and realize that if I work hard at something, then I’ll be able to accomplish it.
Playing lacrosse with a prosthetic
Jill Jaracz: When you got your prosthetic and could play lacrosse again. How was your agility?
Noelle Lambert: Terrible. Oh my God. It was awful. That was something, I mean my, when I told my coach that I wanted to play again, obviously, like she’s like, oh, whatever you need.
Absolutely. The team, the university behind you a hundred percent. Whatever you need to do, get it back on the field. Did she believe that I was actually gonna play again? No, and she did admit that to me because there was never an above knee amputee that ever played collegial lacrosse. And to be able to play lacrosse, you need to be able to cut back and forth.
You need to be able to change directions. You need to be able to backpedal, how am I going to do this if I’m missing not only a foot, but a knee as well. And I. That’s when I was introduced, uh, to my incredible assistant coach. And she was only like a few years older than me, and so she was practicing every single day.
So she took it upon herself to whip me into shape. She made me practice with her before and after practice every single day, and we would work on footwork drills. That’s the only thing we would work on. And just getting comfortable with going in the ladders, being able to cut back and forth. And believe it or not, I actually could cut better off my prosthetic side than my real side because when I’m cut cutting off my prosthetic side, I’m automatically leading into, you know, my sound side, my actual leg.
And so I just needed to figure out a position that would work for me. So I just would work the inside game on the offense. And I would do a lot of cut throughs. I would create space, but then people would forget that I was even there. And then I’d be wide open. So. It took a lot of work to kind of figure out and to trust a prosthetic blade that was not even mine.
But it just took practice. And I mean, I look back on some of the videos that I was doing with my assistant coach or the footwork drills, and I don’t even know if I could do that today. I mean, she was having me do all these crazy things, but I mean, that was the reason why I was able to return because my assistant coach admitted to me one day at practice, she’s like, Noelle, I can’t even tell the fact that you have a prosthetic leg that like I, if I just looked from, you know, the waist up, I would not be able to tell.
And that was just solely based on me practicing the footwork, footwork, footwork, and just getting in my mind that I can’t worry about the bottom half of my body when I’m playing lacrosse because your eyes always have to be up. You have to be able to catch, catch the ball. You need to be able to throw it and see the field.
So that’s just what I was able to learn. And again, very fortunate enough to have a coach that was willing to take that time with me because obviously it would’ve been very easy to push me aside, gimme a couple drills, throw me into my last game of my senior year. But no, we, we both, uh, were very passionate about it and it worked out.
Alison Brown: Female lacrosse players have a history of blowing out their knees. Were you worried about your able leg?
Noelle Lambert: No, honestly, never. I don’t know, um, because that is so true because I’ve had, I mean, one of my teammates, uh, she blew her knee out twice and it was just, it was so terrible to see. and I felt for her,
Coming back to sport after amputation
Noelle Lambert: and I always say like, I always compare my amputation to an ACL surgery.
’cause I was out for a year and I basically had to learn how to reuse my knee. I think what I just focused on was just keeping my, my real leg as healthy as I could. and not trying to overload it, but also being in the weight room to strengthen it as much as possible. And I think honestly, when I didn’t have my walking prosthetic on in the beginning, um, I would use crutches a lot.
And I think that would help with, you know, the stability with creating strength. Um, I, I was still squatting a lot and I was, when I first started squatting, I would only put the weight on my actual leg. I wouldn’t even use my prosthetic side. Now that’s a big no-no. I need to put equal weight on each side.
but yeah, it was just, it comes down to the fact that, and that’s what a lot of people don’t realize is professional athletes who are amputees. and if they’re a single leg amputee, it’s like our real leg takes a lot, it takes a lot of workload, but it just, it comes to show that you have to.
Take the time and the energy for recovery, for strengthening it the right way. but I’ve been very lucky, in that aspect. But yeah, it was never something that crossed my mind injuries was I was the type of athlete that always worked through injuries or played through injuries. I didn’t even, I, I supposedly, I had a stress fracture on my, um, the only leg I have left, the only ankle I have left.
And I didn’t even realize I had it until I lost my leg and they took an x-ray of my other leg and they were like, do you know that you have a stress? I’m like, from the accident? And they were like, no, it’s been there for, and I always had pain in my ankle, but I was always the person. I never wanted to miss a game.
I never, even to this day, I mean, if there’s something that’s bothering me and it’s not terrible, terrible, I will train through it because I don’t wanna miss practice. I don’t wanna miss a game. I mean, I don’t wanna miss a competition. Probably not the smartest thing to do as I grow older. so I mean, luckily.
I have an incredible, uh, training facility where I have a live of sports medicine access, so ice baths, saunas. Almost every day I get massages. There’s any, anything that’s really, really bothering me, I’ll tend to, but if it’s just something that’s like, doesn’t feel right that day, I am like, oh, I’ll just train through it.
It’s just my, it’s my body telling me I’m tired.
Noelle Lambert’s Paralympic journey
Jill Jaracz: Let’s get into the Paralympics. you found out about the Paralympic movement during 2016. Was it nice to have that extra year? For Tokyo 2020.
Noelle Lambert: Absolutely, yes. I always say it was a blessing in disguise, because I had a whole extra year to train. That’s something that I wasn’t great at. and just getting to learn it and I wouldn’t even say like, it gave me more experience ’cause it, I didn’t get any more competition experience, but what it did give me was time to practice, um, a lot more and to just focus and do things with my coach that I needed to focus on.
but yeah, definitely that extra year definitely helped. Did I feel for all the athletes training for that entire four years. And I got put absolutely, I mean, I felt terrible. Uh, obviously there people, that’s what they’re, that’s what they trained for. And then, but I mean, luckily it wasn’t canceled and we were still able to get it, to get it in.
But, uh, yeah, I, I spent every single day, that extra day, all those extra days that I, that I had was given. I used it to my benefit and to try to figure out a way to solidify me making that team.
Jill Jaracz: So your 100 meter final was in the rain, and you had an outside lane. So what do you, and you’ve had an outside lane in Paris too, for the finals.
do you have lane preferences? Have you been able to develop that in the time you’ve been playing track field?
Noelle Lambert: Yeah. So how it works is, uh, typically the athletes that have the best, seed times, they get the middle. I don’t have a preference.
I don’t really care. obviously, like I’m competing against all these other incredible athletes that have been doing it a lot longer than I have, especially in Tokyo. I mean, I can’t really use that excuse now. but in Tokyo I was just, I was ecstatic to be there and at that point I was just, and I was, I loved that it was raining because, you know, I grew up outdoor athlete, I mean, in all different types of conditions.
I, I’ve played in the pouring rain, the freezing rain, the snow blizzards I played in it. I’ve played in it all. So. I was hoping that it was gonna be downpour, so maybe you could give me a little leverage on some of these other experienced athletes and some of these other athletes that were stronger than me.
but yeah, no, I mean, I’m grateful to just continuing to make the finals, because I mean, if you look at my race in Tokyo and in my race in Paris, you’ll see the athletes and you’ll see some athletes who have both of their legs. and everyone always asks me in my family, they’re like, why are, it’s not fair?
Like, why are they doing this? I mean, it’s, it’s nobody’s fault. And what I try to tell them is every single classification group in the Paralympics, they have something like that, and it’s just solely based because there’s not enough people in their classification, like a T 42, they always run with T 60 threes, which is an above knee, A VT, I’m a T 63, and they don’t have enough people to separate it.
So what they do is they see what their times are and they’ll put them with the people who have similar times. So I’m running against people who have two legs and I’m also running against the need artex. So I’m a true above knee amputee. You you call me a true ak I’m just happy to be in the finals.
I am. Uh, and I’m happy to be keeping up with them and getting like, inching closer to them each year that I do compete. but I mean, that’s why I switched to Long Jump. That was a big reason why I switched to long Jump because I knew that if I could keep up with them for 30, 40 meters, that’s all I have to, that’s all I have to run on a long jump.
Runway. Runway. So if I can just learn how to take off, I’ll figure this out. but yeah, I don’t have a preference. I don’t really care. You could put me in any, any different type of, uh, conditions as long as we’re all running in the same conditions and. Preferably we’re running in a tailwind. Never a headwind.
Please. I mean, it’s crazy because you go to national championships or you go to, when we had trials, That’s when, like I always get very worried about the wind because when you’re trying to make a Paralympic team, I’m not just competing against the people in my classification group above knee amputee women.
I’m competing against every single woman with a disability. And basically how it works is when you make the national team, there’s an A standard and a B standard. When they are picking these world championship teams or Paralympic, teams, the people who have the highest percentages, like are closest to their A standard, that’s who gets to go.
So say if there’s only 25 slots after trials, they’ll put every si say if we’re just talking about the woman, they’ll put every single woman. Into a spreadsheet and whoever has the highest percentages, if say, if you’ve hit your a standard 110% or say if you’ve hit your a standard at 92%, you’re just put in and they go down the line 1, 2, 3, 4.
Even if they’re not in your disability, like be like, they don’t care if, you know, I going to Tokyo, I think I hit 93% of my A standard. So it wasn’t a sure thing. So if there were people that hit a higher percentage than me that were not in my disability, they wouldn’t have made the team if that, if that makes sense.
And so that’s what a lot of people then realize. It’s not like the Olympics where you go to trials and the top three automatically go. You can win the race and you could beat everybody there. But as long as if you don’t hit your standard or if you’re not close to the cutoff line, then then you’re not going.
So. that was just something when I made the Tokyo team, it was crazy because they didn’t even announce the team until a week after, trials. So everyone’s texting me, congratulating me because they watched me win my race. But I was responding like, I have no idea if I’m going yet. And I mean, obviously there’s people, I mean, what they did, this la this past trials, team USA did is they, uh, put this website where you can see where you’re, where you lie on the spreadsheet or on the percentage wise.
And I thought that was great. And, you know, it gives people a little bit of ease and sees what you need to make to make the team. But now it’s getting, it’s getting tough. So that’s another reason why I started long jumping because I wasn’t hitting my A standard and I was sick of that. I didn’t wanna put the, you know, I wanted to put my fate in my own hands.
I didn’t wanna wait and see if, you know, maybe some people have a bad day or maybe. You know, a lot of people won’t hit their a standard. I wanna hit my a standard every single time now. And so that’s what the long jump has done for me. But I’m getting very, very close to my a hundred. and I mean, if it was up to me, I would’ve retired the a hundred meter after Paris, but my coach is telling me I gotta do it.
So whatever coach says
Noelle Lambert on para long jump
Jill Jaracz: for long jump, what leg do you take off of?
Noelle Lambert: Prosthetic prosthetic one. Yeah. Was that like a no-brainer choice? Absolutely. I mean, you look at all the, uh, the people competing. I just, I would watch and see all the other competitors who were amputees, uh, single leg amputees, and I would see what leg they would jump off of and everybody jump off the blade.
And that’s why I never did it at first. I never understood jumping off of a leg that wasn’t entirely yours and having trust in it because it’s scary. You’re running full speed and then you have to trust that your knee’s not gonna give out. You have to hit that you have to take off in the correct position, or you go flying.
I mean. A couple weeks ago it was, it was raining out and my teammate Eric Luxon, and he jumps with a blade, he runs full speed down the runway. And because the board was a little slippery, he jumped and basically did like a back flip in the air into the sand. I mean, it’s, it’s terrifying and that’s why I never wanted to do it.
but I had a coach that believed in me and said, listen, I could get you jumping over five meters. All you have to do is move out to California. It’s that simple. And I was. I was at the point where, you know, I was, I was really struggling and this was before I changed my alignment before I went out to Italy, you know, in 2023.
It was right before, it was a year before the Paralympic games and we had world championships. And when they called the, the team that was going to Paris for world Championships, my name was not on it. Um, I didn’t hit my percentage and that’s when I was really struggling with the fact, if I should retire or not, because it was just getting more and more difficult.
I didn’t know if I could keep up with everybody. But then I started learning about different alignment and I started having a coach in California that really believed in me, that told me that he could get me to the next level. So obviously, you know, me being an athlete, me being stubborn, I was not gonna hang it up just yet.
Obviously I wanted to try to make it to Paris and it’s been the best decision of my entire life because I’m running faster than I could have ever imagined. And I’m also, I. I’m up there with all the jumpers. I’m jumping five meters. Before I started long jumping, only three above knee amputee, women in the entire world have ever jumped over five meters.
And it was crazy because I was trying to do that in my very first season. So, it was terrifying. But it just took believing and it took hard work and it just took, you know, showing up every single day. It was a lot easier in the beginning ’cause I had no idea what I was doing, so I just had to listen, listen to my coach.
Now that I know that I’m what I’m doing, I tend to overthink a lot. So now that’s, that’s what happened in Paris and so that’s what we’re learning and working towards for world Championships this year.
Noelle Lambert’s Paris 2024 Paralympics
Alison Brown: So let’s talk a little bit about Paris Wild atmosphere in the stadium. What was that like, just being there and, and being in the middle of all that?
Noelle Lambert: Oh, it was something I had never experienced in my entire life. I mean, coming from Tokyo when we had nobody in the crowd to 70,000 people in a stadium and. You know, you think all eyes are on you, obviously like any, any one of us, but it’s, it was surreal. It gave you the adrenaline, it was just walking into the stadium, just getting to see that.
And I think the best part about it was that it’s a Paralympic games, it’s not like, it’s not the Olympics, it’s not, you know, an NBA game, an NFL game, even though those are all very special moments. We’re getting to experience this and getting the recognition that we obviously deserve as, as professional athletes.
So, I mean, getting to look up in the stands, I couldn’t find my family during the a hundred, but for the long jump I knew exactly where they were sitting. So, and they were right. They were right there with me. Just getting up to seeing, looking at them, that really is what calmed me down. yeah, it’s, it’s scary at first, but that’s why I love long jump too, because you’re out, you’re not just out there for.
20 seconds, you’re out there for, you know, probably an hour. So you adjust and you get used to it, and then you have fun with it. I was having fun with the crowd. I told myself, listen, you’re gonna engage with this crowd and you’re gonna try to use it to, in your benefit, and use it to just calm you down a little bit and just enjoy that moment.
Because when I look back on the experience, like, yeah, it sucked that I didn’t, I didn’t medal in, in the long jump and I, I missed out on it and I was centimeters off the podium, but I got to experience that. And just being in that environment and just that’s a once in a lifetime thing that, you know, a lot of people don’t have the opportunity to have and people would kill for it.
So that’s what I told myself is just be in the moment and enjoy this and just soak it all up. and it’s crazy even looking back on pictures and videos and just seeing the crowd and it just makes me, uh, so excited for LA because the best part about Paris was watching. If you were watching and there was a French athlete.
At the time, competing that stadium was so loud and so just, it, it just gives you goosebumps and it gets you really excited for LA 2028. they, we have big shoes to fill from Paris, but obviously I think we can do it. and it’s gonna be electric. But yeah, that was something that I, I, I couldn’t even dreamt of that.
I mean, it was just, it was amazing.
Jill Jaracz: Noelle, thank you so much for taking time for us, and we will be cheering for you. Awesome.
Noelle Lambert: Thank you so much for having me guys.
Follow Noelle Lambert and the Born to Run Foundation
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Noelle. You can follow Noelle on social. She’s on TikTok and Instagram at Noelle Lambert. Her foundation is the Born to Run foundation.org. Uh, the Born to Run Foundation has two fundraiser golf tournaments every year to support its mission. The next one will be on Monday, September 22nd at Brook Meadow Country Club in Canton, Massachusetts.
They are looking for golfers, sponsors and volunteers. So if you wanna help them provide prosthetic sport legs to amputees, contact the Born to Run foundation@gmail.com and we’ll have a link to that and their, uh, socials in the show notes so you can learn more about that Very important event.
Doping News
Alison Brown: We, we’ve been hanging onto this one for a little while ’cause we didn’t wanna bring down the parte.
Jill Jaracz: No, we did not. have an official reallocation for the Women’s 1500 meter race from London. 2012. This is one in a long series of real allocations, which, you know, I cannot wait for the book to come out where this is the dirtiest race in history and not sold 19 88, 100 meter
Alison Brown: right?
Because the headline, I believe it was The New York Times when they were talking about the reallocation, called this, the Dirtiest Race in History. And I said, I guess this is the dirtier, dirtiest race. And honestly, we thought soul was bad. This is unbelievable. How many of these women were, were doping,
Jill Jaracz: right?
So now, Tatiana Tova from Russia has been disqualified as the silver medalist and the reallocation. She got disqualified a while ago, but the real allocation is what’s official now. The new silver medalist is Abe Awa from Ethiopia, and bronze goes to Shannon Berry from the USA. Just crazy. from Paris 2024.
We also have a reallocation in the equestrian team event. The diplomas have been reallocated. Belgium was disqualified. France moves up to fifth Sweden, sixth, Finland, seventh and Austria eighth.
Milano Cortina 2026 News
Alison Brown: Man,
Jill Jaracz: not that many. Well, I would say not that many Js, right? Is that what they say? What you’re saying?
Alison Brown: I’m saying many days to go, because I. Can’t say numbers.
Jill Jaracz: We’ll work on that.
Alison Brown: So a hundred, a hundred is Chen. So
Jill Jaracz: Chen
Alison Brown: du ti I think, oh Lord, they are gonna throw me out of the country. All
Jill Jaracz: right, well it’s less than 200 days to go to Milano Cortina and also three years till a, and we just got the word that it’s seven years to Brisbane. So just keep that in mind.
The Milano Cortina 2026 medals have been released
Jill Jaracz: The metals have been released. They are created by the ito. Graphical is Deto, which is basically the mint, and they’re two halves that are. Pushed together, Milano and Cortina, the soul of victory and the effort it takes to achieve it. Two halves brought together by the Olympic and Paralympic values.
Two dimensions, reflecting on the culmination of an athlete and para athlete’s journey, and all of those who stood by their side along the way.
Alison Brown: You said that with a lot of contempt and an even worse Italian accent than I do?
Jill Jaracz: Well, it’s from the press release. Okay. So, and you know, everything has to have a big story behind it.
So basically it’s two halves that come together. I did like that aspect of it’s Milano and Cortina and you kind of see it, there’s a little bit of a 3D element to each part of the half, so you get a 3D aspect. Then in the center is the logo, so it’s either the Olympic rings or the Paralympic Cheetos.
And then the back has the logo in one corner and the event etched in the other corner. And if you’re a Paralympian, you also get the event in braille. And on the side of the metal are notches with a one, two, or three that you can be able to tell, uh, tactily whether what, what metal it is.
in pictures. These look pretty bland. To me, except for you don’t really realize through the pictures that one side of the metal is kind of granular and the other half is mirrored. So I’m very hopeful that in person, these are beautiful.
Alison Brown: I think like everything else, we said this when we talked about the, uh, pictograms in motion.
I think everything is gonna look better. It was a little plain in the static but, I have complained about weird materials being used in medals. I’m looking at you Albertville and Sochi and them not looking like Olympic medals. Mm-hmm. These are medals. Your gold medal is gold. Your silver medal is silver, so there’s no, oh, wait a second.
What did you get? Mm-hmm. But. Yet again, like everything else with design, Italy’s been a little underwhelming.
Jill Jaracz: Right? And they went with a very minimalist Italian look, which, okay, I get that. I get, there’s a lot that I get about these medals, but I do think they look really plain.
Alison Brown: I feel like we wanted over the top Italian design and we’re getting the, like you said, the minimalist Italian design. there’s two styles.
Jill Jaracz: Right? Right, right. and maybe that’s because when you look at the last winter medals, Beijing’s was very, very intricate. Pyeongchang was also quite intricate.
And you’re coming off of Paris with that, I gotta say iconic medal. Paris medals are really something. And this, especially with the front of it being just the rings or the atos in the center is underwhelming to me. I just hope that it’s better, but at
Alison Brown: least it’s not the Ali Crystal ones where you couldn’t even tell what you won in Albertville because it just had that, it was all crystal and then just the tiny little strip of the medal.
Jill Jaracz: I have to say, I wrote a blog post about this and I looked back at the other medals that were in Italy’s past for Winter Olympics, and you remember the Torino CDs.
Alison Brown: Talk about iconic. They are, they may have been ugly, but nobody, nobody doesn’t know what those metals are from,
Jill Jaracz: right? That, so tho those do live large and they are also quite minimalist in design.
But they are, I think, still the largest physical metals that have ever been put out, and very distinctive. The Paralympic medals for Torino are beautiful. They’re very colorful, like enamel, almost enamel or painted on what the sport is, and they’re just lovely, lovely. So check out that blog. Uh, Cortina is also, I actually quite like Cortina.
It’s got a big snowflake on the back over superimposed over the, the big. Mountain in the Dolomites. That is an iconic, uh, symbol of this. I, I thought they were quite nice as well. So the, this one next to those two, this one’s gotta grow on me, but I’m really hopeful that if we see it in person, we’re gonna go, oh yeah.
Alison Brown: Sparkly. That’s
2026 Paralympic broadcasters for Canada and Brazil
Jill Jaracz: right. Paralympics Broadcasting News. If you are in Canada, look for the Paralympics to be on CBC and Radio Canada on tv. Digital audio and social platforms. If you are in Brazil, the Paralympics will be onlo across linear free tv, pay, tv, digital, and audio.
Did you see this article or this interview by our friend Nick Ardi?
Nick Zaccardi interview with Christophe Dubi
Alison Brown: I have not read it yet, but I did see that it popped up and I just thought the idea of Nick Ardi sitting down with Christophe Duby from the IOC, such a talk about iconic pairing, I would’ve loved to been in that room.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And I wonder how much time Nick got with him and I wonder if what got put on the cutting room floor. So, uh, Nick Ardi interviewed Christophe Dube, the executive director of the IOC, just about the upcoming games. And of course, Christophe Dube is very bullish about Milan, Corina. He says The country, including the general public, is very excited and they are ready to party.
The volunteer campaign was too successful. Ticketing is ongoing and they have sold about 750,000 tickets, which is good. off the top of my head, I can’t remember, but there’s a couple million tickets available maybe. Maybe they’ve sold close to half. Yeah, I was thinking there was more like a million and change.
So they’re doing okay. Yeah. Still a lot of work to do. They have to do all of the temporary installations, so ice. Spectator stands, mountain builds. So the excitement, but also the extreme sense of duty with the calendar, which is managed minute by minute, is a direct quote from him.
The sliding track still needs a lot of work for the final HO modulation. The ice is done, but not the actual track. Due to the work that’s been done so far, the IOC is not worried about it but know that there is still a lot of work to, to be finished up for the, that sliding track. There is a plan for allowing all athletes to participate in the opening ceremonies in some way, which is interesting because, there will be athletes just all over the region basically.
’cause many athletes who compete in the next day or two. Likely will not be able to do the opening ceremonies. so they’re coming up with some sort of plan for them to participate. I think kind of like how they had the athletes in Tahiti for surfing, they did a drone shot of them. very curious what they’re doing.
They’re not saying anymore, but they have a plan.
Alison Brown: Do they also have a Plan B that involves Lake Placid?
Jill Jaracz: I don’t think so. I think that’s out the window now. They’re done. they’ve got ice that works. They have built a structure in an amazing amount of time.
I am very hopeful that that structure is good and solid and will be a bobsled track for Italy for. Generations to come, not the Torino element where we find out later that it was really poor construction. ’cause this one was like, it went up so fast that you, from the outside, from very far away, you get really worried.
But I also don’t know a ton about construction. Maybe there are new methods and maybe they did have them work around the clock.
Alison Brown: I’m worried, but as long as it is safe for the games, let’s go with that step first. Yeah,
Jill Jaracz: yeah, yeah. But I would, I would love that this is not just, we threw money to get this up for the games and then find out in 10 years or less that it’s not stable and functional. So hopefully, hopefully they’ve got that.
Worked out a little follow up on Esther Eska as, uh, Nick and Christoph Duby talked about her as well in this interview. She wants to compete in both Albine and Snowboard. The schedule does not work for everything that she wants to do. Duby said they’ve been talking with her. She will be able to participate in the two events where she won gold in, uh, Pyeongchang.
That was the Alpine Super G and the snowboard parallel giant slalom. So snowboard is February 8th and Lao super G is February 12th in Cortina. So there is time between those to get the competition done, travel, rest, and go ’cause. They’re a distance, but it’s not like you’re traveling across the other side of Europe.
She also wants to do alpine downhill, though that is also on February 8th, the same day as a snowboard competition. It is really hard to change the schedule do be said, but they’re still talking. Maybe they can make something work logistically because he said the more opportunities for athletes the better, and I, I’m very curious as.
To whether they can make something work. I envision a helicopter, kind of like when somebody races the Indy 500 and they also wanna do the NASCAR race that same day. That’s, uh, down in, I think one of the Carolinas You’ll see that every once in a while somebody has to, can’t finish the race because there are too many cautions in Indie and they just take off and go to, uh, I think it’s a Coca Coca-Cola 600, but, maybe, maybe Esther Eska will be doing that.
Alison Brown: And it’s such a great story. It’s such a great thing that the World Press could really latch onto this Es mm-hmm. Esther Eska story. So if they can. Get her to be in two. You know, if they can work out the times, work out the though the weather is always a wild card for both, for everything. So fingers crossed that, you know, ooh, maybe the downhill gets delayed today and she shoots herself over there.
Maybe they’ll cannon her over, you know, just like stuff Esther into a cannon and shoot her over the mountains and see how that goes.
I do not wish them to do that to ster.
French Alps 2030 News: Venue drama
Alison Brown: Oh, Mandu.
Jill Jaracz: We have some drama from the French ELs 2030. We don’t get a whole lot of French ELs news so far. but this was good. This was really good. Maribel, the Alpine Ski Resort in the area is withdrawing from being a venue for. French Alps 2030. many publications talked about this, including Frank Shu snow industry, snow industry news, and snow brains.
They all report that the original plans had Maribel hosting Women’s Alpine and all of the Paralympic skiing. But, Alps President, Edgar Gross Baron met with Maribel officials and presented some other options. One of which was to move the women’s Alpine to Valdes air and leave Maribel with just the para alpine skiing.
And then Teri Monan, the mayor of Lalu, where Maribel is located, did not take kindly to this proposal. It said this is against the Olympic Charter. Men’s and women, Al Men’s and Women’s Alpine have been at the same venue since 1992, so apparently he has not been paying attention to Milan Cortina.
Separating the events is quote, I would say a Google Translate quote. An aberration, logistical, financial, environmental, and symbolic end quote. This violates the spirit of the games and commitments made during the 2030 bid process, and in translated versions of the mayor’s press release, there’s also mention that the Paralympic participants will be discriminated against.
It’s gonna cost tens of millions of more euros to do this, and Maribel does not en course endorse the, the. Kojo position and wishes. Good luck to the athletes and to the organizing sites. End quote,
Alison Brown: and this is so strange because both Maribel and Val Dzer host World Cup events, this is not like he hasn’t done any, you know, this, this mountain hasn’t done anything between 1 19 92 and now it’s been a stop on, on the tour, but he just threw a little tantrum And took his marbles and went home.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So French ELs 2030 hasn’t made a final venue decision yet. Uh, Bert re uh, reports that they are looking for the best arrangement for sport and entertainment that is friendly on budgets and the environment in terms of venue planning. So meanwhile, Valdes Air was not on the original venue list.
It’s back on now. Could be inexpensive decision because Frank Xi said that the president of the Provence Alps Coat Deur region, was quoted in La Figaro saying that, uh, Val Deser would cost a minimum of 25 to 30 million euros to get them all fixed up.
Also, we are down to two options for the speed skating oval. It could be in Herrin, Veen, or Turrin.
Alison Brown: What countries are those in?
Jill Jaracz: Well, my guess is that her and Veen is, the Netherlands. But I did not know about Turrin because my guess was that Turrin was to reino. It is. Are either of those countries, France.
No, but they have also said that they are not building a speed skating venue
Alison Brown: oval. But it’s not like either of those are even close. Those are really far from the other places. I mean, this is beyond a regional games now. This is like, let’s just have everything across Europe. Why don’t they just use, you know, Latvia for the sliding?
They could. Let’s have it in Lake Placid,
Jill Jaracz: the Global Olympics. We are getting to that point. I mean, this
Alison Brown: is, this is spiraling. I mean, I get the regional games, but this is spiraling to me.
we’re losing the thread of having people come together.
Jill Jaracz: You know? I agree with you on that. And I get that they don’t wanna build venues.
It also is an opportunity to build that sport in your country. So where is the trade off between let’s invest in speed skating or let’s not build a venue, let’s have it elsewhere. I don’t know. And do you bring the, the magic of the games to other cities? Like they brought it to Lil and to Marse
Alison Brown: and Tahiti, but the, well, the Tahiti, but the, the lil and Marse and like having the, so like if they wanted to do that with preliminary hockey, have it on different ice rinks all around the country, like they do with football and basketball.
That made sense because then the finals came to the center of, of the Olympics. That made sense. This. Doesn’t, to me this is a little too scattered.
Jill Jaracz: Well, we will see, I have a feeling that the French Alps 2030 is gonna be scattered.
Alison Brown: Oh yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Because it just, it kind of gets lost in the discussion.
And because I’m very curious now, so nieces, If you’re saying nice, it’s three hours, 20 minutes drive from Turrin. Okay?
And, nice to the Netherlands. Location is, that’s a 15 hour drive, 15 and a half hours.
Alison Brown: You know, who wouldn’t have a scattered Winter Olympics?
Jill Jaracz: Salt Lake City,
Alison Brown: Stockholm.
Jill Jaracz: Well, wait, no, no, no, no, no. ’cause they were gonna go to Lavia.
Alison Brown: Yeah. But there was a high speed ferry that they were gonna run back and forth.
It was like a half an hour ferry that they were gonna run. And the p you know, the sliders would’ve been able to go to the opening ceremony.
Jill Jaracz: We shall see how this works out.
Team Keep the Flame Alive News
Alison Brown: Welcome to sh Stan. Hey, this
Jill Jaracz: is the time of the show where we check in with our team, Keith, the Flame Alive. These are past guests and listeners of the show who make up the citizenship of our very own country. Sh Stan, we got a lot of news to catch up on.
Alison Brown: I have so many fencing results. So from the Pan Am Zal Championships, there was a US sweep in Men’s Foil gold to Alexander Macias Silver to Nick Ikin, and Bronze to Garrick Meinhardt, and the gold in the team.
Events in Women’s Foil Gold to Lee Kiefer and Bronze to Lauren Scruggs and Gold in the women’s team. Gold for Meyer Cha Maya Chamberlain in Women’s Saber and Team Women’s Saber. Gold for Colin Heacock and Bronze to Mitchell Saren in Men’s Saber Gold to the team. And in Women’s at Bay Hadley Hasian won bronze in the individual event and gold with the US team.
Wow. I know. And one more fencing result at the US summer Nationals. Eli Ditz Dershowitz won gold in Men’s Saver.
Jill Jaracz: BMX freestyle writer Hannah Roberts won gold at the X Games in Salt Lake City.
Alison Brown: Artistic swimmer Daniella Ramirez and team USA finished fourth in the team. Free and sixth in the team. Technical at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.
Team, acrobatics still to come on Friday, June 25th. And
Jill Jaracz: speaking of world aquatics, uh, championships. Jacqueline Simino is nominated for the Athletes Commission, I believe for, for swimming. Nice. Yes. So good for you. Good luck in your election. Paratriathlete, Grace Norman was nominated for best athlete with a dis disability at the 2025 SP Awards.
Alison Brown: Para swimmer, Jamal Hill WA has launched a fundraising campaign seeking to raise $3 million. Jamal is also one of four featured para athletes in peacock’s. New docuseries, adaptive, and the show debuts July 28th and will be on Peacock and Team USA TV
Jill Jaracz: team. Schuster is going to have to look for a new lead.
John Steiner, who was part of the 2018 gold medal winning team has decided to retire from competitive curling
Alison Brown: Badminton player Bay Wang. Jean won this year’s US Open. Ooh. And got a nice $18,000 payday.
Jill Jaracz: Not a bad thing. I mean, people always like badminton. What’s that all about? There’s a lot of money in badminton.
Alison Brown: I think and we, and we like it. Going to Shuk.
Jill Jaracz: Stanis. That’s right. So good on ya. By wing, beach volleyball is back in season, so that means Shuk Ani Kelly Chang is on the volleyball World Beach Pro tour. She’s competing with temporary partner Molly Shaw in Gestad. They won the pool but lost in the round 12, and they are currently ranked 21st in the world.
Alison Brown: Weightlifter Hampton Morris swept gold in the men’s 65 kilogram at the Penn American Championships and set a world record in the Clean and jerk
Jill Jaracz: historian, George Ler won the Georgia Author of the Year Award in biography for his book, genius of Sport, Pierre De Bertan Paris, and the Birth of the Olympic Movement.
Also, his documentary, the Games in Black and White, which is about Atlanta 1996, will be on Delta Airlines in flight Entertainment from September one through December 31 of this year. So if you see it on Delta, let us know.
Alison Brown: More Shuk Ani babies. So BMX racer Uh, Elise Willoughby and her husband Sam, welcomed baby Bo Matthew on July 14th, mama and nine and a half pounds of baby.
Theme Music: Whoa. God bless you, Elise
Alison Brown: are home and doing well Also to Kathleen Jordan Gray. Eckert and her husband Andy have announced that they are expecting a baby in December.
Get in touch and coming soon
Jill Jaracz: Oh, yay. That is going to do it for this episode. Let us know how you are training for LA 2028
Alison Brown: We love hearing from you. You can chat with us and other listeners on our Facebook group. Keep The Flame Alive Podcast. Email us at Flame Alive pod@gmail.com and the voicemail and text line is always open at 2 0 8 3 5 2 6 3 4 8. That’s 2 0 8. Flame it and if you need more Olympics and Paralympics in your life.
And who doesn’t sign up for our newsletter@flamealivepod.com. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes.
Jill Jaracz: And you have just talked about Shuk Stan and what it is. So if you are like, what is this Shuk Stan stuff, get on that Substack newsletter and uh, take a read. Next week we will have the return of Booklo Claire.
Claire will be here to discuss the book Above and Beyond Tim Mack, the Pole Vault and the Quest for Olympic Gold by Bill Livingston. So look forward to our discussion with her. It is always a good time.
Listener Dan: And this is listener Dan from Brooklyn, New York saying Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive.