We’re heading into the home stretch of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, but some sports are just getting underway. Alison ventures back into the icebox that is the Grand Palais for taekwondo, while Jill watches the crystals fly at rhythmic gymnastics and discovers that the velodrome is really a sauna (on purpose). There’s some controversy on the track, and a number of medalists in multiple sports successfully defended their medals, including a TKFLASTANI! Plus, a puzzling interpretation of good and bad toilet use, spotted at the velodrome:
What does this even mean?
Sports on today’s program:
- Athletics
- Basketball
- Beach Volleyball
- Boxing
- Canoe Sprint
- Diving
- Football
- Golf
- Handball
- Hockey
- Marathon Swimming
- Modern Pentathlon
- Rhythmic Gymnastics
- Sailing
- Sport Climbing
- Table Tennis
- Taekwondo
- Volleyball
- Water Polo
- Weightlifting
- Wrestling
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If you’d like to prepare for the wrestling tournament at Paris 2024, the dulcet tones of Jason Bryant is selling a 93-page guide that is up-to-the-minute with information to help you learn about the competitors. Get your copy at MatTalkOnline.com and use code “flamealive” for $5 off!
Our researcher for the Olympics is Annalee Deabel.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
Paris 2024 Olympics: Day 13
Jill: Bonjour and welcome to day 13 of the Paris 2024 Olympics on Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. I am your host, Jill Jaracz, coming to you from the Maine Press Center here at Paris 2024, joined as always by my lovely co host Alison Brown. Alison, bonjour. How are you?
Alison: Bonjour. Are you recovering from chocloflu?
Jill: Pretty much there. You know how it rises up. Yes. So it’s at the tip of my nose. Okay. You know what I mean? So it’s just about done. Yes. A little tired still. A little tired.
Alison: Yeah. I still have the drip. Yeah. Which is annoying. But moving right along. Yes. And moving right along out of the system.
Jill: Yes. And, uh, You know, it never, it always has felt like a cold.
It never crossed my mind that this could be COVID. Apparently we have some COVID issues today.
Alison: I know it never crossed my mind either. I have never had COVID. Neither have I. Yes. But it didn’t, it felt like a cold. Yeah. This for me behaved like a classic, Cold. Yes. But I guess we should have tested. But we infected each other.
Right. There was no way. We tried very hard not to. Right. And I don’t think we infected anyone else because nobody else talks to us.
Jill: Well, producer Ben.
Alison: Yeah. And he got infected as well, but that’s your fault.
Jill: Yeah. Well, thanks. All right. We’ve got a little bit of follow up file.
Alison: Yeah. Story we didn’t talk about.
There was an Australian hockey player who was arrested for buying cocaine. So Tom Craig. on Tuesday night after Australia was eliminated, went to the ninth on Dismount, not our neighborhood. And attempted to buy cocaine. And more of the story has come out. He ran from police and when he was caught, he was in possession of a personal use amount of cocaine.
Um, He was brought in front of a judge, given a warning, so was not charged. He has been stripped of his Olympic credentials, so he has left the village. He has not been sent back to Australia because he came in front of the press today and issued an apology but took no questions.
Jill: Okay.
Alison: So he will be, I assumed, sent back to Australia, maybe not on the same plane as the rugby players from Tokyo for that little drinking incident.
You know, the Chef de Mission, uh, Anna Mears said, he’s apologized, he’s sorry, he made a mistake. But wow, that’s kind of a big mistake. Oopsies, I didn’t mean to buy cocaine.
Jill: We also have more follow up in the Vinesh situation in wrestling. She, as you remember, did not make, was going to be, uh, India’s best medalist performance, was going for the gold in her wrestling, uh, weight classification.
This was a classification lower than what she had done. before, which always means a lot of weight cut and wrestlers will do this because they’ll be bigger than other people who would normally be at 50 kilograms. I think it was a 50 kilogram weight. Although if everyone’s doing it, then you don’t have the, I mean, you’re all just putting yourself in a lower class.
Right.
Alison: The idea is to put yourself in the lowest class possible, but you can’t live at that weight. No. So that you’re training and you’re much stronger. And then at the last second you cut weight for the tournament.
Jill: Yes. So, um, she was 100 grams overweight and had to, and got disqualified. So she could not wrestle for the gold and a big deal in India.
They talked about her, her coaches talked about what they tried to do. for weight cut because the issue came about in her, the previous day she had wrestled three bouts. So she had a lot of water to be hydrated for those bouts. Well, her weight went up more than usual. And even though they cut, she wasn’t coming in at weight.
They went to measures such as cutting her hair and shortening her clothes so that they could take off that extra weight and it didn’t come off. And then, uh, when she didn’t make weight, she ended up going to the Olympic hospital because she needed fluids. She was dehydrated.
Alison: Oh, there’s a shocker. You know, we’ve talked about eating disorders in a lot of sports and anything where there are weight classes, we know eating disorders often follow.
Wrestling seems to be the worst in that category. in that bad group. And I remember there was some discussion that they were going to start weighing wrestlers out of competition. That there was some discussion and we’ll follow up with the dulcet tones of Jason Bryan where that proposal stands. The idea being that you have to have West wrestlers wrestling at livable weights.
I mean, it’s one thing where you got to lose five pounds or 10 pounds even, you know, everyone’s got your fighting weight and then your resting weight. But this is insane.
Jill: Yes. Yeah, it’s really bad. So they’ve appealed her disqualification to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and would like to be awarded a joint silver medal.
Vanesha’s had a tough Olympic history. She was in Rio. She got a dislocated knee in the middle of the quarterfinals. That was not a great situation. And then in Tokyo, she was knocked out in the second round. roundly criticized at home. So she went to near depression levels. Uh, that was really bad for her mental health.
And it’s been, this is not a pleasant situation to be in. So she did, uh, Abhinav Bindra, whose book we wrote, read, sent her, uh, I think he went to meet her in the village and wrote a lovely message on Twitter. How just, you know, how much she has meant to the sport and things are tough, but it’s, it’ll be better.
Um, Unhappier news.
Alison: We did not mention this yesterday. The United States and Japan finally received those team figure skating medals from Beijing. 30 months after the event, both teams came to Champions Park and received their medals. We were not there. I did see some of the photos. I didn’t see the video.
Uh, that seems to be geo blocked for us, of course, not a big surprise that, but uh, listener Patrick did say it did play on American television. So I was very grateful for that. I did hear that they played the Beijing music.
Jill: I heard that too. That’s awesome that they did that, that they got, they got the music they were supposed to hear.
That’s, it’s, it’s an important moment. And even though the, the metal moments here are great, it’s a Paris moment. It’s not the same. as what you were getting in, especially if you were competing and you kept hearing that music over and over again, you’re like, I won’t mind.
Alison: Right. And they had the, their Bing Bing Duen, or their, their Bing Duen Duen moment, And then they lost out on the medals because of the Valley Avis situation.
So really beautiful moment finally. And as all the athletes posted in their social media, a celebration for, uh, clean sport.
Jill: Yes.
Alison: And I want to mention in Champions Park seems to be a. Tremendous hit both with the crowd and the athletes. I read today in Lamont in the English language version that athletes have been adding themselves to the list.
Jill: Oh, nice.
Alison: That they, once they’ve heard what’s happening now, everybody wants in on it. So yesterday it was 11 sports. Today it was 17 sports. So it’s not necessarily the sports from the day before. I think it’s when athletes finish their competition and now more people are jumping on this bandwagon and really enjoying the accolade and the celebration and just the fun atmosphere of Champions Park.
Jill: Nice. And also Japan received their medals from Beijing as well because they got bumped up to silver. the IOC Athletes Commission elected new members, Alison Felix. from the U. S. is one of those members. Kim Bui from Germany, who is a gymnast. Uh, Jessica Fox, Australian canoeist who cleans up the medals.
And then Marcus Daniel, who is a tennis player from New Zealand are the other elected members. So I believe, uh, Allison, they serve eight year terms. So that sounds right. So that’s good. And, and Allison Felix has been, was one of the drivers to get a nursery in the Olympic village for mothers so that they had a place to be with their babies.
And also, uh, for our American listeners, Katie Ledecky and Nick Mead will be flag bearers at the closing ceremony.
Alison: So we’re starting to get those announcements coming through, which is exciting and sad because if we’re getting details of the closing ceremony, that means we’re almost at the end, which is amazing that we’ve survived.
Yes. Shook flu flu
Jill: and
Alison: also incredibly sad.
Jill: Yes. All right. Let’s begin the baguette.
Alison: I did nothing cultural today except eat a quiche.
Jill: Oh, that’s not bad. What kind of quiche did you eat? It was
Alison: a spinach quiche and it was so lovely. It was at the Paris Media Center.
Jill: Oh, nice.
Alison: I was so happy eating a real meal.
Jill: I know. That’s, that’s the thing. Uh, I was at track cycling and we got done early. Before track cycling, I had what I thought was going to be meal, which was grocery store. Sandwich and they had watermelon cups, so I got a watermelon. Oh, it’s so good and some chips and I thought that would be meal. And then, track cycling was done kind of early, and I’m like, I could go for a pizza, because I had time for another meal.
And so I went across the street to Pronk’s Pizzeria, which we have joked about, because they’ve got the thug life. going on in there. They do have, like, toy guns on the wall.
Alison: I’ll be the judge of whether it’s Bronx pizza.
Jill: Oh, one of the pizzas. This is the only one that’s really theme themed. Well, they have, they have a couple there.
There’s, uh, There’s a couple of ones that have swear words in them, but the one that’s big is Jon Bon Anchovy.
Alison: Sounds a little fishy.
Jill: Um, what volunteer or officiating job would you want to do?
Alison: So I got myself over to Taekwondo at Grand Palais today and Um, after the, the athletes finished with their bout and they come off the mat, a volunteer helps them take off the chest protector.
Oh, that’s cool. And it’s such a, I would have thought that would have been a coach, but it’s just a volunteer who unstraps them from the back and it, and the way they have to undo it, it’s like a corset. Okay. It’s,
Jill: it’s, it’s, it’s a
Alison: very intimate process in a way. And I saw a lot of them laughing with their.
With their athletes and the volunteer and it seems like it was, it became a very comfortable moment for a lot of the athletes.
Jill: Nice. That would be a good job. I went to rhythmic gymnastics this morning. And even though I went to track cycle and, you know, the Kieran motorbike. That’s a cool job. But there was a lot of shepherding going on at Rhythmic Gymnastics.
So you shepherd the coach and the gymnast in, and they stand by the stairs. Then the gymnast gets shepherded up the stairs to the mat, performance mat. The coach gets shepherded over to a little side area. And then afterwards, they get shepherded into the Kiss and Cry. And then they sit there for their scores and the following performance.
Alison: Oh, they stay.
Jill: And then they get shepherded around the rest of the mat to, uh, pass the mix zone and then to backstage.
Alison: So did the shepherdess have a headphone? There were multiple
Jill: shepherds. So it was like you got handed off. But my favorite was the man who was telling the gymnast to come down the stairs after their performance.
And then go to the kiss and cry and he had both arms outstretched and it was just like here you are Go to the kiss and cry
Alison: Congratulations, you have survived your bendy. Oh, well, we’ll get to it when you talk rhythmic gymnastics
Jill: Everyone’s favorite segment toilet talk.
Alison: I Saw the madam peas
Jill: in
Alison: person and they are even more horrifying in person.
But what I in fact saw today at athletics, so there are bathrooms in the stadium, but outside the stadium, they do have trailers on the side of the trailer. We’re just outdoor urinals.
Jill: Oh my.
Alison: Thankfully I did not have a games wide open moment. Nobody was using them, but. That was horrifying. Like no door, no little swinging salute, nothing.
Games really wide open.
Jill: I was thinking about Madame P today. Why is there no Monsieur P?
Alison: Because Monsieur P is just P’s on the street, apparently.
Jill: I see. I see. Well, I was at, um, track cycling and I was in the velodrome part of the complex. And I stumbled into another bathroom. And there was another sign that was, uh, reminding of good and bad toilet usage.
So, it’s a sign that’s got an angry face. And examples of what would make the angry face would be, you know that Calvin peeing? So, it’s a very angry Calvin peeing on something. And it looks like he’s peeing on germs. Two little peeing germs. Bacteria things. I don’t understand what that means.
Alison: Maybe if you pee on the floor, it spreads germs?
Jill: No, because then there’s a thing that’s got a, a pictogram of a man peeing, and the pee misses the toilet and goes on the floor. Oh, that would
Alison: make me an angry face. That’s
Jill: a big X through that. Yes. Things that would make them happy. Making it to the toilet on time. Well, the first picture I don’t understand.
Because, it’s, it’s. Okay. I’ll show this to you in a second. You’re gonna have, maybe you can explain. Okay. It is a woman standing next to a toilet. Maybe she’s lifted the lid. I don’t know what, this is good behavior. And then the next good behavior is a little kid flushing. So be sure to flush when you’re done.
So here, take a look at these.
It’s just absolutely bizarre.
Alison: Well, I’m very glad that that little boy is, is flushing. I don’t know what the woman is doing. She is becoming one with the seat. Maybe she’s, I don’t, don’t die from shukla flu.
Jill: I’m,
Alison: I’m definitely concerned.
Jill: That’s what I said.
Alison: And why is it all, I don’t even, I don’t understand. Why are there boys? And why is the woman looking in the toilet so concerned?
What does she see in there?
Jill: It’s just bizarre. So we’ll post that. And maybe you know the answer. Why does she look into the toilet so concernedly?
Mysteries of the unknown. Anyway, this investigative look into the toilets of the Paris region is brought to you by an independent media outlet. And because we’re an independent outlet, we rely on our listeners for financing and support to help us get to Paris and bring you all of the action from the Olympics and Paralympics that you want to hear.
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Ongoing patrons receive a bonus picture of the day during Paris, and they also at the five dollar a month level end up, there are bonus videos, and I believe I posted one today. Yes. Because there was some vacuuming at Rhythmic. There was a lot of vacuuming.
Alison: Well, yet there was a lot of sequins, right?
Jill: I did pose a little problem. So there’s drama at the rhythmic vacuuming scene. Okay. Well, we’ll get to that when we get to that. All right. In daily results. Oh, and thank you everyone for your support. All of you who donated so far, it really has meant a lot to us. Really helping us get through Paris and be able to pay our bills and, uh, looking ahead to Milan Cortina.
Uh, Daily Results Athletics. You were at the Stade de France tonight.
Alison: I was at the Stade de France tonight. Uh, in the afternoon session, the men’s four by 100 meter relay, uh, making a correction from yesterday, Kenny Bagnaric did not run in this, uh, round. He ran in the first round and I’m sure he’s going to run in the next round, semis and finals coming up tomorrow, but USA moved on.
There was a lot of wild stuff going on at Stade de France tonight.
Jill: It looks incredible.
Alison: Right. So we’ll go with the, we’ll start with the easier things, which was the women’s long jump final. Gold went to Tara Davis Woodhall from the United States. Silver went to Meleike Mahombo from Germany. And bronze went to Jasmine Moore from the United States.
Tara Davis Woodhall looked like she was as shocked as anybody. Really? That she had won. She was leading throughout the competition. But I think the realization of that, that she had reached that goal was a lot.
Jill: Was Hunter there?
Alison: Hunter was there.
Jill: Right.
Alison: There was a lot of celebrating in the, uh, the Davis Woodhull family there.
Uh, early in the night we had rounds of, uh, men’s javelin and Arshad Nadim, in I think it was the second round, goes and throws an Olympic racquet. Whoa. And everyone’s kind of settling in, it’s maybe an hour into the session, including when they gave the medals beforehand. And he just unleashes and everybody notices like, wow, that was really far.
And then the Olympic record notice comes up on the, on the board and the crowd went wild for an Olympic record. Nice. Which is fun. That’s really fun. Um, And that was early. Still lots of throwing to go, but nobody could come close. It was great. So in Men’s Javelin gold went to, uh, Arshad Nadiem from Pakistan, silver went to the defending gold medalist Neraj Chopra from India.
I was sitting next to some Indian journalist. Oh,
Jill: that had to be fun.
Alison: Which was, which They were excited surprisingly about. Pakistan, but also upset. Right. Right. And Bronze went to, uh, Anderson Peters of Grenada. Yeah. Then we had the Surprisingly, the men’s 200 was not the headliner of the night. So, uh, gold went to Letzily Tabogo from Botswana. That is Botswana’s first gold in athletics. Really? Wow. No joke. Our very amazing Kenny Bednarik got silver.
Noah Lyles got bronze. It has come out now that he ran with COVID. He’s dead.
Jill: Interesting.
Alison: He also has a history of asthma. So after the race he kind of collapsed on the field and medical came and surrounded him. So I don’t know if they knew that he was at risk or if it was just reacting to the situation.
Jill: Interesting.
Alison: Needless to say, there’s already a lot of controversy surrounding, should he be running with COVID and exposing all the other athletes? I don’t know if he’s isolated in the village. I don’t know if he was isolated, uh, backstage, um, in the dressing rooms. It did not look like the medical staff were wearing masks that were attending to him that I could be wrong because we were seeing it on the big screen and sometimes it’s very hard to see details.
you know, as I realized with a shock for flu, it is contagious, things are contagious and we’re not going to keep people from performing because it’s different.
Jill: Yeah.
Alison: So he also got a, um, a penalty for unsportsmanlike behavior. Oh, I have not been able to find what that was. It could have been his insane intro.
He came in and everyone just sort of, you know, walks in, does finger guns at the camera. He comes in like a lunatic, jumping, screaming.
Jill: Yeah, he did this in the 100 too.
Alison: Yeah. So I don’t know if that was, the warning. So I’ll see if I can get some more details. Nothing’s come in, uh, since the race has finished.
Jill: Interesting.
Alison: No light show for this 200
Jill: interest. Also interesting.
Alison: I think it’s scheduling. It has to be dark for a light show.
Jill: All right. That makes sense because like the pole vault lights, we didn’t see him for a long time last night. So the people who told me that the pole lights up, it was very cool.
That’s very cool. Um, but congratulations to Kenny, double silver.
Alison: Can’t complain about that. And then we had what was for me, the most exciting race, which the women’s 400 meter hurdles. Sydney McLaughlin Levrone didn’t come close to losing.
Jill: I know. It doesn’t look like she even breaks a sweat. It
Alison: was so beautiful.
What a beautiful runner. Just. easy and gentle. And we know she’s trying tremendously hard because she goes and breaks her own world record tonight. And we knew it was fast. Like we in the crowd, you could tell it was fast. And Femke Boll from the Netherlands, who was supposed to be her, her great rival, was nowhere close and was devastated.
I would be very surprised if if that mix zone is not Fireworks from, from Femke Ball. She was already in tears before she left the, uh, the, the track.
Jill: That’s too bad.
Alison: But, uh, gold goes to Sydney McLaughlin lone, uh, from the United States with a world record. Silver also goes to the United States for, uh, Anna Cockrell and Bronze to the Netherlands Femke Bowl.
And then the last race of the night, I did not see, oh, yes. Don’t know why. I went in the workroom thinking we were done. Oh, and then on the screen comes on the men’s 110 meter hurdles, which was another barn burner of a race. Gold went to Grant Holloway from the United States, silver to Daniel Roberts from the United States and bronze to Rashid Broadbell from Jamaica.
Jill: You know, cause I saw the semis in this and I spoke before about the hundred meters looking like it’s so much slower and it’s the longest 10 seconds you ever. watch, the 110 meters hurdles goes by so fast. Like you really can’t tell what’s going on almost. The
Alison: 400 meters went by fast. I know you had said that about the 100, but every race that I was watching, I felt like I could feel the speed.
So now I’m like, why did I not see the 100? Because now I’m curious. On the list. Basketball. Oh my gosh. Also wild. Neither one of us were there, but we were both watching it on the feeds, I think.
Jill: Yes. Yes. I was in the, in the Bronx pizzeria and I got there in the middle of the second quarter for USA versus Serbia and they were down by like 14 and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.
And The halftime score was Serbia 54 USA 43. And then,
the third quarter score end of third quarter. It was 66 to 63.
Alison: I came in, they turned it on here in the, uh, the media center with maybe five, six minutes to go on the clock in the, in the fourth quarter. And Serbia was still up? Yes.
Jill: They weren’t, they weren’t. The US did not get the lead and if they had the lead in the first quarter at all, but they were so outscored in the first quarter.
I saw, um, they didn’t get the lead back until like two 19 left in the game. It was so tight and so such a big gap in the, in the play. But man, you could tell the U. S. was like, no, we are shutting this down. We, we have a job to do. Let’s get the job done. And they, they made it happen.
Alison: Barely.
Jill: Barely, but they made it happen.
And it’s, it was right at the end. They knew how to close, um, couple of, you know, missed shots and, and people getting rushed. That, that kind of got Serbia in the game. They just couldn’t come back once the U. S. took the lead.
Alison: So the U. S. ended up winning 95 91 over Serbia. In the other semifinal, France beat Germany 73 69, which sets up a USA France gold medal match.
Which is going to be incredible. I think Tony Parker’s going to come out of the stands. Oh my gosh. Be like,
Jill: we are winning this. It’s going to be insane.
In beach volleyball, uh, we had women’s
Alison: semifinals,
Jill: semifinals today. Thank you. Um, and, uh, Melissa and Brandy from Canada beat Huberly and Brunner from Switzerland to one. They got to match point in the second set. They were, Canada was down a set, got to match point for Huberly and Brunner and, uh, Melissa and Brandy.
won that point and then came back to win that set and the next one to win. That must have been a match to watch. And then, uh, Anna Patricia and Duda from Brazil, Pete, um, Murhafi and Clancy from Australia, two to one.
Alison: So then we also had the men’s semis, Ehlers and Wickler from Germany, meet Moll and Soren from Norway,
and, uh, in the second Men’s Semi, Ahmed and Helvig of Sweden beat Cherif and Ahmed of Qatar.
Jill: In boxing, we had some more semifinals and finals matches and also some bronze winners for some weight classes. In the women’s 75 kilograms, we had the semifinals and then the bronze medal matches. Bronze medals went to Caitlin Parker from Australia and Cindy Nagamba from the Refugee Olympic team.
This is the Refugee Olympics team, very first medal since the team was formed in 2016 in the men’s 57 kilograms, uh, they had semifinals and then finals. The bronzes went to Charlie senior from Australia and Javier Ibanez Diaz from Bulgaria,
Alison: And then we’ve got the, uh, medal finals for the men’s 51 kilogram. Gold went to Uzbekistan, Hassan Boy Desmetov. Silver went to Bilal Benamah from France. bronze went to David Depenia from
Jill: Cape Verde.
Alison: Oh, nice. And, uh, the other bronze went to Junior Alcantara Reyes from the Dominican Republic.
That in the women’s 54 kilogram gold went to China, Chang Yuan, silver went to Hattice Akbas from Turkey, bronze went to Cholmy Pang from North Korea, and the other bronze to Ah Ji Im from South Korea.
Jill: In Canoe Sprint, uh, Nevin Harrison did heats today. She won her heat in the C1 200m and has qualified for the semifinals. That will be on Saturday. We had the men’s C2 500m finals. Gold went to Li Hao and Ji Bowen from China. Uh, silver went to Gabriella, uh, Casadia and Carlo Ticini from Italy. And bronze went to Joanne and Tony Moreno and Diego Dominguez from Spain.
In the men’s K4 500 meter finals, gold went to Germany, silver went to Austria. That was a photo finish for gold. And Germany defended its Olympic title there too. Bronze went to Spain.
Alison: And then in women’s K4. Oh
Jill: wait, hold on. There’s more. Uh, one of the German, uh, paddlers, Max Renschmidt, that’s his fourth Olympic gold in the event.
He has now won all of his Olympic races, including heats, since Rio 2016.
Alison: Way to overachieve, Max. There you go. But I have won better. Yes. In the women’s K4 500, uh, meter finals, gold goes to New Zealand, silver to Germany and bronze to Hungary. Oh, look who’s on the silver ferns. Lisa Carrington, who is now New Zealand’s most decorated Olympian in history.
Jill: Very nice. That’s her seventh Olympic medal. In diving, we had women’s three meter springboard semis and the men’s three meter springboard final. Gold went to Ji Siyi from China. He has defended his Olympic title, and he had come back from retirement to do this, too. Because
Alison: the Chinese don’t have enough divers.
I know, right? They need to bring him out of retirement.
Jill: His countryman Wang Zhongyao from China also won silver and Osmar Olvera Ibarra from Mexico won the bronze. In football, it was the men’s bronze medal match. Morocco beat Egypt six to zero. No extra time in this game.
Alison: It’s probably the first one we’ve seen, but you know, notice an all African bronze medal match.
Jill: Fascinating. It’s also the biggest margin of victory recorded in a medal match in men’s Olympic football since 1928. In golf, we had round two of the women’s tournament, uh, leading the On top of the leaderboard is Morgana Metral from Switzerland. She is 8 under par. Second is Ying Ruoning from China, who is 7 under par.
And third is Lydia Ko from New Zealand at 5 under par.
Alison: Go Silver Ferns!
Jill: And handball! We had a, oh man!
Alison: I saw some of the France Sweden. I saw the end of that game. Yeah. Nobody can celebrate quite like a French handball team.
Jill: They beat Sweden 31 28 in overtime, which the
Alison: crowd just must have been going crazy.
They were going crazy and the players were going crazy. And it was such, it’s great when it’s an even match like that, where it really is just great play after great play after great play.
Jill: Uh, the other women’s semifinal was Norway over Denmark, 25 21. So, we will have France versus Norway for the finals, and I believe France is the defending gold medalist.
I believe. I know they’re supposed to be a great team, so this is going to be a good one. In hockey, we had the, uh, men’s, end of the men’s tournament. Bronze medal game was India versus Spain. Spain got the first goal, but India’s Singh scored a goal in each half to give India the victory and they win the bronze medal for the second straight Olympic tournament.
Gold was between Germany and Netherlands. They tied at the end of regulation and Netherlands won in a penalty shootout.
Alison: So gold to Netherlands, silver to Germany and bronze to India.
Jill: Modern Pentathlon is getting underway. We had the men’s and women’s fencing ranking rounds today. Our Jessica Davis Savner ranked 21st in the fencing ranking round and she competes on Saturday.
Alison: And then we got to rhythmic gymnastics and I’m going tomorrow, but you got there today.
Jill: I did get there today. It was individual all around qualification, which I initially thought would be a great thing because I got to see a lot.
Alison: Did you get to see too much? Was it slow?
Jill: Well, okay. First off routine, I, I only stayed for one session and then I stayed until I sat there and watched what was going on until like the next session started coming in.
They did, um, ball and hoop. And then, um, then the next session in the afternoon was clubs and ribbon. So everyone went to, uh, they would rotate which implement there was. So if the first gymnast did ball, the next one would do hoop. And in the next round of the session, they would do the opposite one. So you didn’t have to see all of the ball and all of the hoop at the same time.
But let me just say that routines were a minute 30 and judging took at least a minute 50.
Alison: We, Um, we saw that in Tokyo where there were so many, uh, uh, objections is not the word that I protest protests and so many questions about judging and it was such a slow competition on TV. It was slow,
Jill: but this wasn’t even with protests.
This was the natural rhythm of the judging. The judging took longer than the routine itself that I could just go. I wanted the diving judging. I wanted those judges there who would just bam, bam, bam. Number in. Yeah. I mean, there were some obvious flubs, you know, like implement or apparatus went out of the ring kind of flubs and they have backup ones along the side so they can just grab that and keep going, but not for me.
Alison: Okay. I’ll let you know. Cause tomorrow I’m going to see individual and team. Um, so maybe team will be faster. Probably. I
Jill: don’t know. And it wasn’t necessarily the speed, excuse me, not necessarily the speed of everything. It’s just that I couldn’t get into it. The crowd loved it. The crowd was a rhythmic gymnastics kind of crowd, and they loved these routines.
They loved that they knew who to cheer for. I just didn’t, I didn’t know. And I just didn’t, after a while, I just didn’t understand. why this was, not why this, I don’t want to denigrate it by saying why is this a sport, but I just didn’t understand how it evolved into what this became and what it is now.
And, you know, if I don’t see a ball roll down somebody’s belly, or back or up their legs and everywhere else, I don’t need that one. You know, my life might be okay.
Alison: But there was some floor maintenance issues, it sounded like.
Jill: Well, they did have three vacuumers. They had two with, uh, they had two, and then the third person came in, and that third person got a talking to, because I guess he didn’t have the right vacuum because he was not on the mat.
But they, they didn’t have, there were times where I would see sequence on the floor, and I’d be like, where did it go? And I, and then I’d miss if somebody came to pick it up. Because I remember
Alison: in Tokyo and the feeds we saw people with little
Jill: No, they didn’t have that. I did see one manager pick up a bead.
But otherwise, I didn’t see. But then I did see people picking stuff out of the carpet. So I don’t know how much they left in there, but it was, I don’t know. I’ll keep an eye
Alison: tomorrow. Let me know what you think. And our Evita Griskenis, uh, finished 20th, so she did not qualify for the finals.
Jill: She was also first in the rotation.
So that is always a hard place to be, and I missed her first performance and her second one. It was fine. So I don’t, and I don’t know how she did on the other two. Hey,
Alison: we got some medals in sailing and we got, and we got a race that was rescheduled.
Jill: So
Alison: we have a mixed multi hull and gold goes to Italy, Ruggiero Tita and Caterina Mariana Bonti, silver to Matteo Maddalini and Eugenia Bosco from Argentina and bronze to Micah Wilkinson and Erika Dawson of New Zealand.
Go Silver Ferns. And we have repeat champs. Yeah, so those gold medalists are, uh, do overs. There we go. We also had the mixed dinghy. The mixed dinghy. And gold,
Jill: I love how you crack yourself up with this one. I know every time I say it, I love it.
Alison: Um, gold goes to Lara Vadlau and Lukas Mayer of Austria. Silver to Okada Keiju and Yoshiako Miho from Japan.
Bronze to Anton Dahlberg and Lovisa Karlsson from Sweden. And last we have women’s kite. Gold goes to Eleanor Aldridge of Great Britain. France wins the silver, Lauriane Notlow. And the Netherlands takes bronze, Annalaus Lammerts. So we’re supposed to have the men’s kite, supposedly. We’ll get it tomorrow.
Jill: Hopefully.
Alison: Because that’s the last reserve day on the schedule.
Jill: And if they don’t, uh, If they can’t finish that, they award the medals by the opening series standings. So that’s how that will work. Had some more sport climbing today.
Alison: Yes, and our book, Raboteau, is fourth after the semis. She will be heading to the finals on Saturday.
We also got med speed medals tonight. Vedrik Leonardo from Indonesia won gold. Wu Peng from China won silver. And Sam Watson from the United States wins bronze. Excellent.
Jill: We got some marathon swimming happening.
Alison: Amazing. We got some marathons, marathon swimming happening.
Jill: Um, strong current today. Seemed tough.
Um, gold went to Sharon, uh, Ro, Rovendahl from Netherlands. Moesha Johnson from Australia won silver and Ginevra, Ginevra Tadouchi from Italy won the bronze. Uh, Van Roendel. is the first athlete to ever win two Olympic gold medals in marathon swimming. She has three medals total. So she got gold in Rio, silver at Tokyo, and now she has gold again from Paris.
Alison: Hey, if she survived the Rio water, Paris is nothing.
Jill: Maybe that’s what her, what helps her.
Alison: If it’s contaminated. Yeah. Right. Tokyo was too clean. Is that what we’re saying? She needs the germs to swim well.
Jill: Um, in men’s table tennis, or in table tennis, we had men’s team semis and women’s team semis. Uh, China beat France three to zero.
Alison: In the women’s side, China beat Korea three zero and Japan beat Germany three one. I was at Taekwondo for the early rounds. Yes.
Jill: Wait, can we go back to, I didn’t realize how much of a star that French table tennis player was. With the glasses. And I’m sorry, I don’t know his name, but I’ve seen him in commercials.
There are two of them. I know there are two of them. They have a commercial about Nintendo Switch something and they’re playing together.
Alison: So who knew French table tennis men.
Jill: I know. Stars.
Alison: Okay. So I was at Taekwondo. I was cold again because it was in the Grand Palais. Okay. Okay.
Jill: doesn’t help the cold. The, the Shook Flu Flu.
The Shook Flu Flu,
Alison: when the air conditioning is blowing directly on you is, is rather uncomfortable. Yet another fighting sport that I could not get into. I recognize the athleticism. This is the one where I really can see the kicks and the extension and how beautiful it is. It is a beautiful fighting sport.
But I didn’t, again, understand it enough. Got no help from in house announcer said nothing. They do a little quick minute long video before the competition starts,
Jill: not
Alison: enough and not with anything that I’m looking at.
Jill: Right. Cause as you see something, if it’s explained to you what you just saw, that helps.
Alison: I kept thinking it looked like, especially the men’s event that I saw, like. The two brothers got told by their mom they weren’t allowed to hit each other and they were trying to figure out a way around that. Like mom, we’re not hitting each other. We’re just kicking each other in the head. But and I don’t mean to, to, to diminish it because clearly the balance, the flexibility, the strength of these athletes was so on display.
I just wish I had somebody telling me what was going on. So the big thing that happened in my session was Bradley Sinden from Great Britain. He’s the Tokyo silver medalist lost in the semifinal and then withdrew from the bronze medal match. Don’t know why could not find information on it. So there was a lot of Brits in the audience.
Very upset when Sinden lost. But in the men’s 68 kilogram, we did get some medal results. Gold went to Ulugbek Rashtaf and he’s defending gold medalist. So he’s a repeat. Zaid Karim from Jordan won silver. Edeval Pointes from Brazil and Yuxie Liang from China won bronzes. And then the women, the women I want to point out, So gorgeous when they do this because they’re all tall or they seem tall They may not actually be tall with these legs that go on forever so when they kick it just beautiful to watch And then it was like mom got yelled at.
But in the women’s 57 kilogram, Kim Yujin from Korea won gold. Nahid Kayen Chenday from Iran won silver. Elizadeh Kamiya from Bulgaria and Skylar Park from Canada won the bronzes.
Jill: Or it’s track cycling. I was at the velodrome tonight. How steep is that? It was pretty steep. It’s, it’s really steep on the camera may flatten out a little bit, but it’s, it’s steep.
It’s an impressive track. It’s beautiful. Um, it was so hot in there. Yes, you, you texted me that you were melting. tHe velodrome is kept warm to protect the track because, well it’s not even to protect the track, it’s because warm air has fewer molecules, so there’s less resistance and it contributes to faster times.
Alison: That feels like it’s
Jill: made up. And they’ve obviously done some research. I don’t know, but it was warm.
And then of course there were lines for everything to get beverages and ice cream and things like that. Forget it. And because of course, we weren’t even separate in the media. You had people above you, you had people all around you. It doesn’t seat a whole lot of people, but of course it’s a big full crowd.
Everyone is excited because they know what’s going on. They’re big tracks, likely because that was really fun. they also, uh, apparently have done a lot of work to make the track better in the last few years. They check the shims between the track surface and the support beams every, before and after every race.
to see if they’ve, that vibrations haven’t changed the track in any way. And there’s a lot of track maintenance. Like if there’s a crash, they got to go and like patch the track so that there’s no splinters left in there and tape it up. And it’s very involved. I will say that. They used a real starting gun.
Really? It freaked me out every time. It was so loud. It should be like, what happened? I’m so used to a digital starting gun. Yes, it was freaky. they also cycled through the mixed zone because the mixed zone was in the middle. all the bikes and all the, the team stuff is in the middle as is the mixed zone.
So they would cycle through the zone when they were done with their races.
Alison: That feels Like a mistake, but like it happened by mistake once and now it become, it became the way we do things.
Jill: Right. So we went back and forth on a number. Number of races we had men’s sprint quarters and classifications.
We had the men’s Omnium and we had the women’s Kirin. We had the quarters and the semis and then the finals. So it would be like, Oh, this race has semi or quarter finals. And then we’re going to go to another race for the Omnium and we go back to the sprint. And then we go to back to the Kirin. And then we just kept going and going to give the cyclists some rest.
So, um, the sprint is a sprint. And it’s, you go really slow and then you go fast. That’s okay. That was, that was all right. The Omnium is like, remember when you saw the Madison in Tokyo and you went, didn’t know what was going on, but it was fantastic. The Omnium is the same, fantastic, but it’s like long distance crazy.
So the Omnium is four races. The race one is the scratch race and it’s like 40 laps. And the first person to finish gets points. What we’re going for is getting points in every You amass points in every race. And There are so many bikers, and so many, there’s bikes everywhere on the track. People just flying left and right across them.
And then you’ve got the starter guy who has to pay attention to who’s in the lead, and points at them as they go by. They’re like, this is the lead guy, or this is the you lose track
Alison: of the laps. You lose track
Jill: because, yes, they can lap, and if you get, if you lap the peloton, you get like 20 points. And if you get lapped, you get like minus 20.
So there’s. All this scoring going on. I think I saw our scorer friend from curling at Beijing. Oh, Sylvan! Yes, I think he was down there because he also does track cycling. I think he was in the big scorers table and that just looks like chaos. This whole race thing was chaos. So, you have the scratch race.
Poor Egypt is in last. He’s got like minus 39 points. He never went above zero all day long.
Alison: Well, you can’t do worse than zero. They can’t take anything away from you.
Jill: Well, you, he did. Well, I mean like lowering
Alison: points, but like, what are they going to do? Come and take his left tire?
Jill: No, no, they’re not going to do it.
Race 2 is a temple and that is 40 laps. So they did four laps and then they sprint for points. And then that’s another one. If you catch up to the peloton, you get 20. And if you get lapped, you get minus 20. Race three is the elimination. This is the easiest one to remember. Every couple of laps, they take the last person over the, over the finish line out.
And there were somewhere that there was one round where they had no loser. They didn’t take anyone out because they were just, it was photo finished kind of thing. So they’re like, okay, guys got to go again, keep going. Um, then we had the points race. The points race is a hundred laps.
Alison: How long does this go on?
It
Jill: goes on for a while.
Alison: That’s a long race. You have
Jill: to pay attention too. Cause I’d start to be like, Oh, let me, it’s a long race. No, no, don’t lose your focus. No, you should forget it. Every 10 laps they do a sprint. And that’s again, a sprint for points. And at this point, Benjamin Thomas from France. Of course, we have the whole French crowd going nuts in the audience.
They’re super excited. They’re excited. He fell near the end, but he got back on his bike or got a new bike. No, he got a new bike, brought to him, got back on. He had two laps on the peloton, so that didn’t matter. And he didn’t win that race, but he won the whole thing with the whole total points. And of course, the crowd goes wild.
It was great. Women’s Kieran.
Alison: So wait, let’s do the
Jill: results for Omnium. Benjamin Thomas from France wins gold. Lourie Letaio from Portugal wins silver. And Fabio van der Bosch from Belgium wins bronze.
Alison: Okay, so now we’ve got Kieran.
Jill: Yes, we had a big crash in the quarterfinals after the finish. Extensive track maintenance.
Did not notice the motorbike headlights are on and the taillights on the whole time. The motorbike was just fascinating because what it does is paces. And so it, they do like three warmup laps with the motorbike pacing them. And it goes faster every lap. And then it peels off and you have like three laps sprinting to the finish.
Alison: I’m really surprised that the motorbike is even there given trying to maintain the track. I couldn’t the motorbike mess it up. No, because it’s got rubber wheels. Still, it vibrates. Nah, not too much, I don’t think. Um, very, very exciting races. Gold went to Elise Andrews from New Zealand. Go Silver Ferns!
Jill: Silver went to Hedy van der Waal from Netherlands. And bronze went to Emma Ficain from Great Britain. Then we head over to volleyball. We’ve got the two women’s semis. Go Silver Ferns! Uh, so that’s USA beat Brazil 3 2. That’s a barn burner. And Italy beat Turkey 3 0. So it’s going to be the US and Italy.
Alison: That’s a bit of a surprise.
Jill: Yeah, but that’s going to be exciting. I know.
Alison: Then we have, uh, we’re coming to the end of the water polo, uh, tournament. So in classification matches, uh, this is in the women’s tournament, Italy beat Canada 10 5, Hungary beat Greece 12 9. And then in the two semis, oh no, the United States lost to Australia 14 13.
Right,
Jill: so they will not repeat. They’re gold medal for the fourth time. They’re 4P. Yeah, I know. I kind of see what Flava Flav thinks of them.
Alison: I know, but they’ll be going for the bronze. Yes. Against the Netherlands who lost to Spain 1918.
Jill: And both of those games were decided in shootouts at the end. Pretty amazing stuff.
Alison: And then over in weightlifting, we had the women’s 59 kilogram. Gold went to Lu Shifang from China. Maud Caron of Canada won silver. And Qiu Hisongcheng from Chinese Taipei won bronze.
Jill: And we had an Olympic record set in the clean and jerk, I believe on this one.
Alison: Won’t argue with that. And then over in the men’s 73 kilograms, gold went to Indonesia, Rizki, Junisaya, uh, silver went to Wirafond, Wichuma from Thailand, and bronze went to Bozidar, Dimitrov, Andreev from Bulgaria.
Jill: Another Olympic record here.
In wrestling, we had, um, a lot of early round action for several weight classes, but we also had finals for the men’s Greco Roman, 67 kilograms. We had gold going to Saeed Esmaili from, uh, Iran. Silver went to Parviz Nazibov from Ukraine. And bronze went to Hasrat Jafarov from Azerbaijan and the other bronze went to Luis Alberto Orta Sanchez from Cuba.
In the men’s Greco Roman 87 kilogram finals, gold went to Semen Novikov from Bulgaria. Silver went to Alreza Momadi.
Momadi Pinyahi from Iran and bronze went to Zhian Belianuk from Ukraine and also Tirpal Bizultanov from Denmark. And in the women’s freestyle 53 kilogram finals, gold went to Fujinami Akari from Japan. Silver went to Lucia Yamileth Iepez Guzman from Ecuador. And bronzes went to Choi Hyo Gung from China.
from, uh, North Korea and Pang Xianyu from China. And we have a mascot to thank you. Oh, oh, my other culture moment. Oh, no. I had a three Shien moment on the, on the tram today. Did they
Alison: let you say hello to the Shien’s? I had
Jill: one say next to me who,
Alison: who
Jill: liked my Would
Alison: not be denied.
Jill: Would not be denied.
Alison: I think word has gotten out.
Jill: Very, very cute. And they,
Alison: and they said, is this the right crazy old American lady who likes the dogs?
Jill: Perhaps. I got a little chew it on.
Alison: Well, Anytime our mascot Theodore wants to come over and chew on my shoe, he is welcome. He did not make the trip to Paris. But kind of did, because superfan Sarah brought a cutout of Theodore that she referred to as Flat Theo, and he attended several events.
We’ve got some great pictures of Flat Theo all around Paris. So thank you very much to Sarah for sharing Theo with School for Stan and for supporting our Kickstarter campaign that got us to Paris.
Jill: And we have more medals for Shooklaston today. We
Alison: added a silver today, so it’s six golds, eight silvers, and five bronze.
Jill: Excellent. And we still have some competitors going on tomorrow.
Alison: Yeah, the list is getting shorter. Kenny Bednarik runs with Team USA in the men’s 4×100 meter relay. B Girl Sunny Choi competes in break in. CJ Nicholas competes in the men’s 8×100 relay. 80 kilogram class of Taekwondo and Ben Halleck and Team USA take on Serbia.
Oh, Serbia in the semifinals of men’s water polo.
Jill: It’s going to be a good day. Oh, that’s
Alison: going to be a match. Maybe I’ll make my way up there.
Jill: And we have shout outs to our Kickstarter supporters.
Alison: Yes. So special thanks to Beth Harper, Claire Elizabeth, Lori Luskry, and Jacqueline Tuthill.
Jill: And don’t forget that if you still want to follow along with the wrestling competition, you can get the dulcet tones of Jason Bryant’s wrestling guide, which is an incredible wealth of knowledge.
He is selling those at matttalkonline. com slash Paris. If you use the code flame alive, you’ll get. 5 off. And that will do it for this episode. Special thank you to our researcher, Annalee Dabel.
Alison: And if you want to get in touch with us, you can find us on X, YouTube and Instagram at flamealivepod. Send us an email at flamealivepod at gmail.
com. Call or text us at 208 352 6348. That’s 208 FLAME IT. Chat with us and other fans on our Facebook group, Keep the Flame Alive Podcast, and get our special Daily Games Times newsletter. You can sign up for that at flamealivepod. com.
Jill: Join us again tomorrow for more action from Paris. And please do not forget to tell a friend about the show and hang out with us in the Facebook group because it is still hopping with people who are just getting home, people are coming, people are doing stuff, people are watching it on TV and, and finding all sorts of amazing things going on.
Love hanging out there. Thank you so much for listening. And until tomorrow, keep the flame alive.