It’s the penultimate day of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, but we’re still going strong with incredible competitions. Jill went to weightlifting and discovered way more than you see on TV. Then she headed to the final night of artistic swimming to cheer on TKFLASTAN in their duet competitions. Alison made it to the men’s breaking competition–what does she think of Paris 2024’s new sport?
Sports on today’s program:
- Artistic Swimming
- Athletics
- Basketball
- Beach Volleyball
- Boxing
- Breaking
- Canoe Sprint
- Diving
- Football
- Golf
- Handball
- Modern Pentathlon
- Rhythmic Gymnastics
- Sport Climbing
- Table Tennis
- Taekwondo
- Track Cycling
- Volleyball
- Water Polo
- Weightlifting
- Wrestling
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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 Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.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 15
Jill: Bonjour and welcome to day 15 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 at Paris 2024, joined as always by my lovely co host Alison Brown. Alison, bonjour, comment ça va?
Alison: Bonjour, are you sure it’s not day 1500? Again, feels long and then it’s like, oh no, they’re done tomorrow. I know it’s, it’s, it is that. So long, so much. And then we’ve hit closing ceremonies and we don’t quite know what to do with ourselves. I know. And it’s almost like, no, I
Jill: don’t want it to be over.
There’s an L. I know you’re looking at me like, are you serious? What is wrong with you? Because it’s, it’s been a slog. This is the, we knew that the summer games were going to be bigger and more, but man, they have been a slog and they’ve been tough.
Alison: Right. And the logistics issues and the heat and the safety issues have all occurred.
compounded that three weeks of intensity?
Jill: Yes. So you know how the Paralympics always say, well, the Olympics are the people who get all the problems out of the way and we can have fun. Let’s hope that works for us for the Paralympics too.
Alison: Well, I do have to say that when I went back to some venues, the um, artistic swimming venue being one of them, the signage for the media entrance did improve from the first time I went to the second time I went.
And the avenue I had to take to the press tribune was much more clearly laid out. So even within a venue, within the context. of the games itself. There were some improvements. And then there was today,
Jill: and
Alison: I’ll get to
Jill: that. Well, we do have a fun fact in the follow up file for you. Yesterday, Germany won the women’s or they won bronze in the women’s four by 100 meter relay.
And listener Brian pointed out that Alexander Burkhardt, who was part of that four by 100 team, becomes just two years older. The seventh athlete ever to medal at both a summer and winter Olympics. She also won silver in bobsled, the two women at Beijing 2022. So that is a very cool fun fact. Let’s begin the baguette.
Alison: And speaking of baguettes. I had a fun trip today involving baguettes.
Jill: I know I’m very excited about hearing about this because there was a special invitation from the Paris media center and you jumped on it, which was great. I did. So
Alison: what’s been, what has been fun is we get these random emails that say, Oh, we’re doing this press tour.
Would you like to get credentialed for it? To which I say, wait a second, there’s food involved. I am on it. So this was a visit with the baker. for the Olympic village. So those chocolate muffins have gone viral, particularly, uh, because of Norwegian swimmer, Henrik Christensen. So they did an event today in the village, in the, the outer cafe.
So we still didn’t get into the dining hall of the baked goods. Oh, and this wasn’t just a meet and greet with Tony Duret, who is the chef chef. He’s the head baker. Nice. And he made every bit sure everyone knew he was the chef of the bakers. He was very insulted when the Sodexo man called him one of the bakers.
He said, no, the chef. I was like, okay, Tony, take it down a baguette. And we got to sample the chocolate muffins.
Jill: Were
Alison: they good? Were they worth the No, no, that’s not true. They were good, but man, were they sweet and chocolatey and heavy and Really? It was very intense. And I was joking with one of the other reporters there and I said, Oh, this is, this is very sweet.
And he said, yes, you know, I, I didn’t really enjoy it. I said, I’m American and I didn’t enjoy it that much, you know, because our food does tend to be sweeter and have certain stronger, especially a chocolate flavor. Um, it’s a cupcake. Oh, okay. It’s really a cupcake in the shape of a muffin. Okay. Okay. Like the texture was more cupcake y than muffin y.
Okay. And there was a filling inside that was not Nutella. It was fudgy.
Jill: Oh, okay.
Alison: So, we got to eat some cookies, which, uh, Evie, uh, Liebfarth, our, our rower loved the, I mean, our, our paddler, loved the cookies. She posts about the cookies. Cookies were quite good. Oh, nice. But also felt a bit like biting into a stick of butter.
For, but they also were talking about how the bakery is unique to the Paris village. Usually baked goods are bought. brought in. Oh, they’re shipped in frozen and they’re not produced on site. So having a bakery on site in the village is unique to Paris and they make like a hundred, uh, 900 baguettes a day and thousands of these muffins and cakes and, uh, all kinds and cookies.
And, and the Sodexo woman also mentioned she was so surprised at how the treats went over with the athletes because she expected them to have a healthy diet. Oh, come on. But you’ve got distance swimmers who need, you know, remember the, the Michael Phelps, 10, 000 calories a day. So you got 400 calories of a chocolate muffin.
Not bad. And, uh, muffin man, Henrik Christiansen was at the event available for interviews. And he talked a lot about how Yes, it’s fun that his role as the muffin man, the lover of the choccy muffs, has taken off on social media, but that it’s more important that people learn about these athletes, other sides of them, that they’re not just these robots, that they do love a good choccy muff.
And I appreciate that. Also at this event, admiring the muffins, LaFriege. In our photographs, there is a picture of moi at La Frige. Ooh. Very nice. And then I sat in, cause they didn’t kick me out. I sat in the courtyard on the giant screen in the cushy, uh, lounge chairs and watched the end of the marathon.
Very nice. And the village is beautiful. was so lovely this morning. It was sunny. It was a little cool. There was a breeze coming off the river and I could see how people could just be comfortable in the village, which I didn’t get that experience the first time I was there when it was so packed. Gotcha.
Gotcha. And that makes sense.
Jill: That makes sense. So not plus one for the muffin, but plus one for the atmosphere.
Alison: Absolutely.
Jill: Very nice. Well, I’m glad you got there. I’m glad I got to sample some things. Um, speaking of finding things. I found Pierre today. Oh, you did? Did you take a picture with Pierre? I did take a
Alison: picture with
Jill: Pierre.
Is that going
Alison: to be our Patreon picture of the day?
Jill: No, the Patreon picture of the day is how I was scheduling things to give you behind the scenes. But I can, you know, I might put Pierre up for everybody. Um, I was walking around Arena Sud trying to get into weightlifting. Which building
Alison: was it in?
Jill: Six. Oh, yeah, that’s a that’s a hike.
You gotta go up the hill. Yeah, you got to go up the hill. And And that point, which I may have had to go up the hill twice, I wanted to go to volleyball because, uh, it was the men’s final and my metro train was full of fans and we get to the stop and it’s the end of the line and the, the driver comes on and he says all in French, you know, this is the end of the line.
Take all your stuff. Bonne journée.
And then he says everything in English, except for go for it. He left that part out. Yeah, I know. It was so funny. So all these French fans are going and there’s a volunteer on the megaphone outside the arena. Saying like, a lay lay blue, and there’s some Polish fans were like, la pol nay, pol o nay. Trying to get the megaphone from the volunteers so they could cheer for, get everyone to cheer for, for Poland.
It was, that was fun. I was like, yeah, that would be fun to go to. There would be a lot of monster blocking. It would be crazy in there. But I went to weightlifting, and we’ll get to that later, because that was still a good choice. But, excuse me, very happy to see Pierre. And I did, he was walking with a suitcase, he was walking down the hill, I’m walking up the hill, and I’m like, oh, Pierre, and he shook my hand.
Alison: Oh, he did? So you had a nicer Pierre than I did? I did. Because I was
Jill: just like, Pierre, I
Alison: found you.
Jill: And yeah, he shook my hand and then in the photo, of
Alison: course, today, and I can’t remember what event I was at. I was at break in. My peer was very young. My peer was much too young. It was very
Jill: young peer. But not too bad. Also, In the cultural segment, we’d like to inform you that we have new T-shirt for sale in our tea public shop.
It you can become an official vacuumer of keep the flame alive. It is our, our official vacuum, uh, uniform shirt. If you would like, we might have some other designs available in the vacuum line, but for now we have the official vacuumer. So please, if you have enjoyed vacuum discussions and, and I’ve got another floor update.
later on too. This was exciting. And, uh, if you’ve enjoyed all the vacuum talk, which why you tune into an Olympics podcast for the vacuum talk and the toilet time? Why? I don’t know. But here we are. So if you’ve enjoyed that and would like to show your vacuum solidarity or be part of our vacuum team, check out our TeePublic shirt.
We will have a link to that in the show notes. Also some news. The closing ceremonies apparently has been retooled umpteen
Alison: times. Well, we did come across the change in schedule because each time I looked, we were making some other plans for tomorrow. And I said, Oh, it starts at 2000 hours. And then all of a sudden it started at 2100 hours.
And at the last minute, I mean, that was in the last few days, the times have changed. So I am not surprised that there have been. Edits, shall we say.
Jill: Yes. So they have retooled a lot of things, learning from the controversy over the opening ceremonies. Apparently they want to take away any potential controversy in the closing ceremonies.
This is according to the Guardian. So we’ll see what happens. I’ve also heard that the LA segment will be a little longer than a handover segment tends to be. And you also heard
Alison: that Tom Cruise is involved. Yes, probably, because he is here. He is here. He was at the basketball game tonight or the football game?
I think he’s been at beach volleyball too. Okay. He’s been around. So he’s floating around Paris, may show up tomorrow during the closing ceremony. Exactly. Okay. What volunteer job or officiating job would you like to do today? You know, I can’t believe I haven’t chosen this yet. I want to be the metal helpers with the cool outfits.
I never said it, how great they look in person, how fantastic they’re doing. I would not want to be the person handling the posters because giving the people posters on the podium is stupid. Right. I want to be the metal tray with my LVMH tray looking sharp in my fly. High waisted pants and cap.
Jill: And, and we’ve got the men’s basketball medal ceremonies going on right now, and I have seen some of these basketball players eyeing that tray, like they want one for their home.
Well, wouldn’t you? I know, they are gorgeous.
Alison: Do you think some of the medal helpers smuggle them under their loose fitting pants?
Jill: I doubt it. I’m sure somebody carefully counts those. every single night. But yes, the 1924 people are really nice. And I mean, I do, the posters are an interesting thing. And we have choice.
Yes, we haven’t been to Champions Park. So we don’t know
Alison: if they get their friezes. I believe they do because I’ve seen the photos, but I’m also not entirely sure that they
Jill: do. But we know that the metal friezes exist because I went to the factory and they’re making them. But I’m It’s kind of sad to not have that tradition on the medal stand too, or on the podium.
The
Alison: box is just odd because I know a lot of spectators and a lot of television viewers had no idea. Why are they giving them a box? I mean, I understand wanting to get rid of the flowers. I mean, they did that in Beijing where they made the knitted flowers.
Jill: Which actually, when I was at Valette yesterday, Somebody had a, uh, one of those crocheted bouquets from Beijing in their display case.
Alison: Nice. So that was, in terms of sustainability, it makes sense to not hound out bouquet after bouquet after bouquet of flower. Mm hmm. The box is so awkward and odd looking
Jill: and probably does not pack well still also does not pack Well, because I probably could get crushed
Alison: and then if you get multiples, what do you do with multiple posters?
I guess they’ll be up on eBay. I’m sure we’ll see them up on eBay
Jill: Anyway, I went to weightlifting today and I have to tell you the loaders are the hardest working group in the games No doubt. They are, there’s a team of four of them, and there are two who put weights on either side of the bar. There’s one to wipe the bar off, and another person who rolls the bar into place when everyone’s done.
So I would like the
Alison: rolling job, because then you can’t make a mistake.
Jill: Right.
Alison: Yeah, yeah. I’d be very nervous about loading.
Jill: The adding weight, uh, is, is high pressure. And then there’s another person that has a Swiffer, Just in case like somebody fell during their lift, then they have to swiffer off the floor.
Um, and we have in the back there, in, in between times there’s another vacuumer to do the rest of the thing. So there’s the, the
Alison: sweeper and the vacuumer.
Jill: Yes, two different jobs. And once you get to a, the high weights, especially in the clean and jerk, there is a, a pole, a bar jack, pole jack. That comes out, it’s a little thing on wheels, and it’s got a long handle, so it kind of looks like a fertilizer spreader, almost maybe, but not as deep, so you have a little thin, uh, not deep.
Like a car jack? Yes, it’s like a car jack. You put it under the bar, it lifts the bar up, so they can add the huge weight plates to it. Right, because normal people can’t do that. Right. Right, so that’s, that’s another interesting element, and I will, I will tell you, these loaders would come out and they put some weight on, and they’d run back down, they were all fast, fast, fast, and then the announcer would be like, and we have a weight change, because there was constant weight changes back, they’d, they’d never go back, but it was just like, oh, we’re going to add another two kilograms, they’d run out again, okay, we’re going to add another kilogram on, they’d run back out.
And every once in a while you’d see them be like, come on, just pick some weight, dude. Was it the same
Alison: loaders the whole competition? Yes. Yes. Wow. Well,
Jill: and I was only there for one weight class. But still. But it’s a, yeah, so it’s up the stairs, do their thing down the stairs, up the stairs, do the thing down the stairs.
But they were, they were fantastic. Nice job. All right. Everyone’s favorite segment. Toilet talk.
Alison: I had a very quiet toilet day. Oh, that’s good. So my day was uneventful because I was mostly here in the, in the broadcast, in the media center.
Jill: Okay, so have you noticed in the media center,
when we, we can choose bathrooms, there’s bathrooms to the left and there’s bathrooms to the right. Yes. And. Don’t ask why, but I tend to be, go to the left
Alison: on the bathroom. You know, I can tell you why. Because that, we used to always sit on that end of the room. Right. When we started, we sat on that end of the room, so that became your bathroom.
No, that’s just in life. I
Jill: tend to go to the left. Ben has pointed this out to me. But you’re not left handed, so that’s a surprise. No, but I had one, the apartment that I lived in when we met, the bathroom was on the left, and I’d come home, drop my bag, go to the left. And his apartment, the bathroom was on the left, so I’d, whenever I went there, it’d be go to the left.
And he’s like, if I walked in and didn’t go to the left, he’d tease me. So I just always go to the left. A couple days ago, I started going to the right. That’s it. Have you gone to the right? I, I usually go to the right. They don’t have issues with the lights going
Alison: out in the stalls like they do in the left.
Oh, maybe I just automatically, you know what, maybe subconsciously that’s why I started going to the right. Because,
Jill: because the left is like you sit on the toilet and you have to wave your arms around because every two seconds the lights turning up and you’re in the dark. This, no problems whatsoever.
It’s amazing. But I, I did almost lock myself in at all. The Arena sued press venue. Yes. Yes. It was so hard. I was so scared because it’s not the biggest of stalls and I have a big backpack and there were some schmutz on the floor. So I’m trying to keep my backpack out of the schmutz and I can’t. I’m having problems nowadays with sometimes the locks turn.
Sometimes it’s a bar that goes over a thing and something because again, it at Artistic Swimming. It had the weirdest lock. It’s, it’s, it was a round handle with a bar on the end so you had to slide it. But you would think turn because it’s round. Yes, and I kept turning the bar and, and I, I was having problems with Artistic Swimming.
But at Arena Suite in the main press center, so I went to Convention Center bathroom, which has been clearly marked for press only at this point, finally. And the volunteers slash staff have to go upstairs. I took pictures of this. They have to go up a big staircase in order to use the bathroom. And there was some poor, I would say some poor guy was stuck.
sitting outside the bathrooms, but I think he was really manning a door that was next to the bathrooms that nobody needed to go through. Yes. That,
Alison: that was the man who I was so happy to see that that day. And when I finally found the bathroom in the press center, I was like, Oh, how did you get this job?
You poor thing.
Jill: I know. But when I was stuck in the bathroom, I was glad he was there. Cause I thought if I have to yell for help, maybe at least somebody is out there who can hear me, but I just couldn’t get the lock on done. And it just was stuck and stuck and you can’t remember which way does it turn and you, you turn it one way and it doesn’t move and you turn it the other way and you lock yourself in further.
It
Alison: just was scary. You know that, I think I told you that that happened to me at the Paris Media Center where I thought I was just going to die in there. But that, that’s
Jill: at least a nice big bathroom.
Alison: That is, I wasn’t stuck, and I figured if I started yelling, someone would hear me, but where the Arena Sued Media Center is, you’re really just in this isolated hallway.
Yes. And it’s dark and dank, and you think you’re going to die there.
Jill: Yeah.
Alison: Yeah, but
Jill: luckily I’m here to tell the story. All right. That, that, uh, our, our toilet talk investigative series can only be brought to you by the listeners, and that is because we are an independent media outlet, which means we get independent funding.
And a lot of that comes from listeners like you. So if you have enjoyed our Olympic coverage, uh, we would love to see some support in the form of a donation. We’ve got a whole list of ways you can support the show. We have PayPal, we have Venmo, we have Buy Me a Coffee and some other ways. If you’d like to become an ongoing patron of the show, we have a Patreon.
And our patrons during Paris 2024 getting special exclusive content. Everyone who is a paid contributor gets a picture of the day. And, uh, Those at the 5 a month and up level get videos, and I know I put one up today. I can’t remember what it is. Oh, you know what it is? You know what it is because Arena Suit is a fun place to be.
It is. And it’s a party there. And it’s a party because there is a mobile DJ. And I put the mobile DJ up.
Alison: I had not noticed the mobile DJ. This was the first time I saw him. I mean Arena Suit is a lot of fun just because the venues, there are several venues there and it doesn’t feel forced. It just naturally has become a meeting place for all these people going to different events.
Jill: Yeah, it’s a lot of fun to be there. It feels very Olympic to me. So yes, there was a mobile DJ getting the party started today. So that was a lot of fun. So patrons got that look at what that was like.
You can find all the ways to support us at flamealivepod. com slash support. Thank you to everybody who has contributed so far. It really goes to keep our flame alive. It’s helped with safety because we did not have budget for cabs and our place that we are living in at the moment. We’re almost out of there.
Almost done. It’s in a really crummy neighborhood, so it hasn’t been safe to go home at night without being in a cab that can drop us off at the door. And so we appreciate those of you who have helped cover those rides and those of you who continue to contribute so that we can keep this show going after Paris is over.
All right, we got
Alison: results. Daily results. First one is artistic swimming, which you got to. I got to go to.
Jill: Very excited to see the duet free routine. This is the last night of competition and I was really excited to see our Jackie Simenow compete as well as Megumi Fields. the duets were, they were interesting.
I got there in time for some warm up stuff, which was nice. Um, there was a lot of bird themes going on. We had condors, we had phoenixes, we had flying birds, we had, we had a lot of birds theme and a lot of screeching birds in the music. Enough that I went, I’m done with birds right now. I’m really done with
Alison: birds.
Sort of like my spoken word music from breathing yesterday. Yes.
Jill: And what You talked about the music sheets that we get access to and how the in house announcer uses them to tell you things. I wish she would tell you the things beforehand, because what she does is, what happens is, the team does their routine and then when they’re waiting for the scores, that’s a great time for the in house announcer to do filler commentary to tell you a little bit about the team or what they did.
The problem is I would love to know what the theme of the routine is before going into the routine. And that would help you put two and two together, I think. So, we did have, uh, Megumi Fields and, uh, her partner, Jamie, uh, Zarkowski. They did, uh, a routine to, uh, Dark Necessities by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Oh, which is actually one of my favorite Red Hot Chili Pepper songs and Loved they just you could tell how much they loved doing it.
They were they did well, but they finished Ninth in the the routine they went somewhat early, but not not too early and then Jacqueline Simenon and Audrey Lamothe Finished they had a really great routine. They looked really good in sync You Seein Jackie compete in person. No joke, right? Oh my gosh. She is so good.
Smile all the way across the venue, you can see it, and you can, you could tell that Audrey is a younger swimmer and that this was really good for her to get, um, Get the Olympic experience, especially when they put so much difficulty into their routine, putting that on such a young swimmer, champ to her for taking on that challenge and doing so well.
And I know they really had struggled with synchronicity in, uh, the technical routine and that put them, you know, put them at the bottom of the rankings basically. But, you For such a young swimmer to take that on in a field that has some really talented, you know, there’s so many talented countries. And they’re very experienced.
Yes. So I mean Mexico was at their third Olympics, I think, together as a team. So, hats off to you, Audrey. You did a great job. They, they finished the Third in their free routine. And so that gave them ninth place overall pulling themselves up from
Alison: 15 plus.
Jill: Yes. And
Alison: in a sport like artistic swimming, you see motion, but six places.
Jill: Yeah, it was one routine. They did so, so well. So really, really happy for them. The head pieces were back. Everyone pretty much had a headpiece. So, so much for that. No, that was in Rhythmic, where I said the headpieces were gone. Oh, okay, okay, sorry, sorry. But there were headpieces back here. Um, I will say, uh, Netherlands did a Van Gogh routine, and their swimsuits were gorgeous.
They had, like, the Starry Night kind of on one side, and I think they had the Sunflower on another side. They were beautiful. Um, one fun fact that we didn’t have, There were four sets of twins in the top five after the first round of competition.
Alison: Well, you don’t have to worry about matching
Jill: physically if you’re swimming with your twin.
So that was really interesting. The, uh, sets of twins are China and Austria, Netherlands, and Ukraine. And you can tell Ukraine also did a really funky routine. And did you watch this? I have to go back and find the music. They used some French music. Did they use Moulin Rouge? No, no, no. Oh, thank goodness. It was something that just went up, down, up, down.
I have to find it. I think it’s from a TV show. Mexico. There’s somebody, Mexico also did, uh. used music from a very popular French movie that I didn’t know, but the crowd knew it instantly and loved it. It was, they did really well as well. So, um, And, and we had one bolero. Thank goodness, there’s not, you know, it is not a competition without
Alison: a bolero.
I had a Carmen yesterday at Rhythmic. Wow. So, yeah, you gotta go with those themes.
Jill: They’re classics for a reason. I know, and that was France who pulled out the bolero.
Alison: Surprising.
Jill: Yeah, it was surprising. Um, Gold went to China. Wang Liu Yi and Wang Cheung Yi. Silver went to Great Britain. Kate Shortman and Isabel Thorpe, they were thrilled.
And then bronze went to Breja de Brouwer and Noortje de Brouwer from Netherlands. In athletics, we had the marathon this morning. Gold went to Tamara Tola from Ethiopia. Silver went to Bashir Abdi from Belgium. And bronze went to Benson Caputo from Kenya. This, you saw some of this.
Alison: I saw some of this after I had my muffin.
So, uh, Tola got an Olympic record. Which has stood, I believe, since 04 or 08. Oh, wow. So it’s, it’s not a new record that just, that tumbled this morning. That was a big one. But the difference between gold and silver was 21 seconds. Wow. Difference between silver and bronze 13 seconds and the top six came in all within a minute of each other.
Wow. Then it’s a big group at the front. It’s a big group at the front and even the top 10 couple of minutes, it was very quick for that top 10, 12 to come in. Usually they straggle out a little bit more. So nobody dominated this race. It was tight until the end and it was, I think, comfortable temperatures, maybe a little warm, but nothing like we were dealing with in Tokyo.
There was a nice breeze this morning. It was, it was cool enough, I think, for them to run this comfortably, which makes sense. They end up with an Olympic record. But you gotta love an exciting finish in the marathon. Yes. Yes. Did you notice if people were out at all? I was watching it on television, but it certainly looked like there were crowds at the end, at the very least.
Very
Jill: good. In the evening, we had another round of finals for athletics. In the men’s high jump, gold went to Hamish Kerr from New Zealand. Go Silver Verns! Silver went to Shelby McEwan from USA. And bronze went to Mutas Essa Barshim from Qatar. Now, there was a jump off for gold. So,
You may remember from Tokyo that Barshim and, uh, Tamarini, I believe his name was, chose not to do a jump off and chose to both win gold.
Alison: These two said, no, we, we want one winner.
Jill: Kerr won in the head to head duel. Barshim is medaled in his fourth consecutive games. So that’s impressive. And McEwen is the first U. S. jumper to medal since Eric Kinard, who received his reallocated gold medal from London 2012 earlier this week. In the men’s 800, we had, uh, Emmanuel Wanyanyi from Kenya won gold, Marco Arup from Canada won silver, and Jamel Shadati from Algeria won bronze.
This was also a really tight match. Um, second place was a hundredth of a second behind gold. And, uh, silver wasn’t, or bronze wasn’t that far off either. In Women’s Javelin, gold went to Japan’s Kitaguchi Haruka, silver went to Joanne Van Dyke from South Africa, and bronze went to Nikola Ogren Ogrennikova.
Alison: Ogrennikova. From Chechya. Oh wait, are they Chechya now? Yes, Chechya. There you go. I’m so proud of myself. But then I doubted myself because I’m like,
Jill: wait, is that right? In the women’s 100 meter hurdles, this was also a race. Gold went to Masai Russell from U. S., silver went to Serena Samba Malaya from France, and bronze went to Jasmine Camacho Quinn from Puerto Rico, 0.
03 seconds separated gold from bronze. So, uh, Russell was a hundredth second faster than, uh, the silver medalist, and, uh, bronze time was three hundredths of a second after that. It was incredible. In the 5, 000 meter final, gold went to Jakob Ingebrigtsen from Norway, silver went to Ronald Quimoy from Kenya, and bronze went to Grant Fisher from the U.
- Uh, Grant Fisher came back. He was way far back in the back, past three runners in the final 50 meters to get the bronze. Uh, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, which we know him from the 1500, has moved up
Alison: as well. I was watching some of it here from the feed and the announcers were saying of late he has been much more successful in this longer distance.
So that may be. as he’s aged, I mean, because he’s so old, as he’s aged, that the longer distance suits him better.
Jill: We find that with a lot of runners who move up from like the 10, 000 to the marathon, that kind of thing. So maybe this is his progression. In the women’s 1500, Faith Kipiagon from Kenya, three peak gold medalist, Jessica Hall from Australia, one silver, and Georgia Bell from Great Britain, one bronze.
And got a national record. In the men’s 4×400 meter relay, Gold went to USA with an Olympic record. Silver went to Botswana, and Bronze went to Great Britain. Uh, Ry Benjamin
Alison: anchored this race. You know, usually he’s a hurdler. And the commentators had a lot to say about, yeah, he’s a hurdler, but man, he’s a hurdler.
Did he know how to run this 400 flat and run it well? Right. He, uh, held off Botswana by 0.1 seconds. So that was anchored by Laci Toba to Bogo who won the 200. Oh yeah. So these are, uh, botswana’s making a statement Yes. In
Jill: athletics this time around. Yes. And in the women’s four by 400 meter relay gold went to USA.
Silver went to Netherlands and bronze went to Great Britain. Femme Kippel
Alison: looked much better in this, in this race. And again, Sidney McLaughlin Lerone, known for hurdles, and then comes around and runs this gorgeous 400 flat.
Jill: Right. Because she had been running the 400 in between Tokyo and Paris with the thought that perhaps she would do the double.
And then decided to focus on hurdles and repeat in that and, you know, get another world record.
Alison: I also want to mention, um, gold medal for Connecticut, Alexis Holmes. There you go. Nutmeg her.
Jill: Connecticut cution. Oh, that’s right. That’s right. Uh, US’s time was only 1 seconds off the world and Olympic record.
Which was set at Seoul 1988 by the Soviet Union. That’s, that’s gotta
Alison: be other than, um, Bob Beamon. The oldest Olympic record in athletics. One of them, one of them. I mean, to see a record from 88
Jill: is
Alison: That’s
Jill: odd. Right. And surprising. And I know, I think one of the women’s sprint races is back from there too, but there’s not that many.
We’ll have to look at records in our off seasons. Great Britain overtook Ireland on the home stretch to take the bronze. in basketball. In the bronze medal game, Serbia beat Germany 93 83 and then USA beat France 98 87. This did not seem to be a question.
Alison: They seem to have decided that they that the United States was not playing around.
They were done with that little scare they had with Serbia, and they were, they just came in saying, Nope, not happening.
Jill: In beach volleyball, we had the men’s, uh, finals night. Gold went to Amund and Helwig from Sweden, who beat Germany’s Ehlers and Wichler 2 0. And then in the bronze medal, Mol and Sorum from Norway beat Sheriff and Ahmed from Qatar 2 0. So Sweden gets gold, Germany gets silver, and Norway gets the bronze. In boxing, we had, uh, more finals.
Women’s 57kg, gold went to Chinese Taipei, Lin Yu Ting. Silver went to Poland’s, uh, Julia Jeremeta. And bronzes went to Ezra Yildiz Karaman and Neste Pedesio from Philippines. Chalkin it up, Philippines! Good for you! Uh, in the women’s 75kg final, gold went to Li Jiang from China. Silver went to, uh, Athenia Bebeci Bailon from Panama, and bronzes went to Caitlin Parker from Australia, and Cindy winner Janku Nagamba from, uh, the refugee team.
We mentioned that the other night when they won. In the men’s 57 kilogram final, gold went to Abdumalik Kalokoff from Uzbekistan, Silver went to Munarbek, Saitbek, Ulu from Kyrgyzstan, and bronze went to Charlie Sr. from Australia, and Javier Ibanez Diaz from Bulgaria. Do
Alison: you think if Charlie Sr. has a son and then he names the child Charlie Sr., then you’d have Charlie Sr. Sr. and Charlie Sr. Jr.? Probably.
Jill: Don’t do that, Charlie Sr. or Charlie, senior Junior to get Charlie Senior, junior the third , , however that goes.
And in the over 92 kilograms for the men, gold went to, uh, bho. Dear Yellow L from Uzbekistan, silver went to Aub, uh, GA from Spain, and Bronze went to Jamil. A. from France and Nelvi Roman Tiafok from Germany.
Oh, so, uh, Chinese Taipei got their first Olympic gold boxing medal. So that is a, uh, a note for the books. And breakdancing, you went to the men’s
Alison: competition. I went to the men’s competition. So today, uh, there was the men’s marathon, as we mentioned, and then tonight there’s the marathon. Poor Jew. For two.
For two. So the marathon for everyone, which is, I think, still going on.
Jill: Probably. Yeah, it started at like nine something in the evening and then the 10k started maybe at 11.
Alison: So what this meant was that there were many, many street closers. So I couldn’t take the bus to La Plata Concorde. I had to take it to Grand Palais and then walk.
And as the driver kept telling me, or as the guide kept telling me, it’s five minutes.
Jill: Yeah, it’s not that far. I walked. It’s not that far. I did the reverse walk yesterday. Right. Okay, so I did make one wrong turn. Okay, that’s a half an hour out of your way, just with one wrong turn. I can tell you that. Yes, it was.
Because
Alison: all along this route were road closures. And not just road closures for cars, but road closures for pedestrians. And I would get to the end of a street, that I was allowed to go down, but not continue past the end of that street. So I cannot tell you at least three or four times I was allowed onto the street, but then allowed, not allowed off the street.
So I had to turn around and walk
Jill: back.
Alison: They were toying with you. They were like,
Jill: we will let her go through and then laugh when she comes back.
Alison: I think they were. That five minute walk. And I am not exaggerating because I timed it. Took me 65 minutes. Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. And honestly, my mistake should have been a 10 minute mistake.
Jill: Oh yeah. No. I, I, I feel you. I feel you. It’s like when I got stuck in Plastilat Concord, I couldn’t get out for 45 minutes. So
Alison: I finally get there and so now I’m cranky. Yes. Because it got hot again. Yes. And Plastilat Concord is the third ring of hell. When it comes to the heat, you just bake. So I get over to the venue, I get up into the stands, and the Tribune is just in the blazing sun.
Yeah, there is, there is no shade at all. The seats are black. Yes. Whose idea was that? Somebody who doesn’t like people. So I get to my seat, and there’s no, relief sitting in the seat and I have to put everything under the desk because I can’t take my computer out because it’ll burst into flames. Yes. My water bottle that I had sitting on the table for a few minutes got too hot to touch.
So I had to put that under the seat and now I had hot water. It was useless. Oh gross. So finally the competition starts and the emcees just keep yelling at me. Not me personally, but there was so much yelling going on in Breakdancing.
Jill: Yeah, well, they were hyping things. You know, stop yelling. You’ve already had a bad day.
This is not good. And I’m guessing you did not sit by my friends. No. Because you couldn’t. No, because
Alison: they were, they were in the shade. Oh, really? We were all in the sun yesterday. No, there was a section of the press tribune that was in the shade that nobody was sitting in. And I said, what? No, no. Press can’t sit there.
But it’s the Press Tribune, in the shade, but nobody could sit there. I don’t know why. So, They’re yelling at me and all they kept saying was all the way from, so the dancer all the way from Australia, the dancer all the way from China. And I’m like, not everything is
Jill: all the way from. I did notice they said that yesterday because then they had to say all the way from France.
Right. It didn’t make sense.
Alison: And I’m like, we’re in France. He’s not all the way from France. I mean, maybe he’s from the South Coast. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. So then finally, we actually get to the dancing all the way from China.
Jill: Oh, wait, who did your Trois Coupes? Did you know?
Because I saw that. I did not recognize
Alison: my Trois Coupes. Because it was somebody. It was somebody hip hop. Yes, it was a winner of Francis Got Talent. Oh, okay. I think it was the first, I think that seems familiar. And he did a little move. Yes, he did some moves. Where he hit the stick and then did a little body roll.
Yeah. And the judges did their dance again.
Jill: Okay.
Alison: I
Jill: mean, I would have loved the artistic swimming judges to dive in. Can you
Alison: imagine the rhythmic gymnastics coming out in their beaded outfits? Oh my gosh, beaded blazers. Swimming their hoop
Jill: around. Yeah, beaded, beaded
Alison: officials blazers. So they twirl the hoop.
They’re finally dancing. And honestly, after two battles, I was done. Really? I was. tired of getting yelled at. I was tired of baking in the sun. I was not enjoying the dancing because it was a whole bunch of mess. And then a few power moves is how it looked. Okay, we do some I guess what’s top rock. The women were much cleaner.
Okay, to watch it. Of course, I wasn’t baking when I was watching the women, but it felt like the men were just power moves and mess. Interesting. Did not like the battle aspect. I found it, it’s a show. It’s not a sport. And that doesn’t mean it’s not difficult. It’s extremely difficult. Doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining and doesn’t mean it, it, uh, a break dancing competition isn’t appropriate, but it felt all personality and very little substance.
Interesting.
Jill: Because I did catch a little bit of it here on the TV, and I noticed that the men could do more difficult moves just because of the strength factor.
Alison: I also saw way too many naked torsos. Oh, okay. You know, because they don’t tuck their shirt in and they don’t wear a tight shirt. They wear these big giant loose shirts and they’re spinning on their heads and their shirt gets stuck around their head.
And I’m like, put your shirt on. I did not come here
Jill: for this kind of show. LA 2028, if anybody is listening, please invest a little bit of money into audience sunscreens. Thanks. Or visors, or awnings, or something. It would not have
Alison: been difficult. Like we’ve said a million times. Because there is a shade, because this was the 3×3, and they just didn’t make it big enough.
Jill: No, yes. So there is like a circus tent look that covers the field of play. But it doesn’t
Alison: cover anything else. And as I found in 3×3, that doesn’t keep the sun off that field of play depending on the time of day. Right. So it was clearly temporary venues. We don’t care. So we’re not investing.
Jill: No, and, and then you’ll look out from the Press Tribune and look at the rest of Place de la Concorde, which is kind of busy and it would have been much more fun, I think, and would have been a great place to hang out if it wasn’t so hot.
Because people would just crowd under the little, the mini shade, the mini shades. Cause there were a few little areas where you could crowd under. We had some rain, so we had to use the tarps that were on every, every desk had a roll of plastic tarp that you had to put over your stuff so that you didn’t get soaked.
Your stuff didn’t get soaked. And um, You know, some people would be sitting in stands to watch. I don’t know if they had a special ticket to sit in the stands or they just wanted to sit and watch. But they were baking too, even if they’re watching on a screen. So there was, and, and Place de la Concorde is just dusty.
It’s just a dirt packed, gravelly area, and you just get dirty, and it’s, it’s, it was, I don’t know how much fun it was for people who were hanging out at the Urban Park. It was fun because they could watch people warm up.
Alison: And that was cool. And at breaking, they had a group of people sitting on the floor surrounding the stage, which I thought was interesting and weird, but fun.
Jill: Yeah.
Alison: To be that close.
Jill: So we’ll see. I don’t know. And, Was it crowded to it? Yes,
Alison: to an extent. Honestly, and I, and I know a good amount of 80s hip hop music. Every song sounded the same to me. I heard several, and I said, I’m not hearing the difference in the beats. I’m not hearing anything recognizable, which I would expect because, you know, there’s, my knowledge stops at like 1987.
But, I wasn’t hearing something that would get the crowd more into it, and I think would inspire the dancers more, like a little more variety. Mm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So it was, it was a disappointing experience overall. Sorry to hear that. That’s okay. But how did their boy Jeffro? Yeah. So Jeffro did quite well.
He made it to the quarterfinals. Nice. Um, where he lost to the eventual silver medalist, Danny Dan from France. And the names bothered me. I’m not having real names. I just wanted to say to them, stop with the stupid names. Just tell me your name, which I know is cranky old lady. Well, and some of them used their first name, basically, when we’ve, Sunny.
I mean, her first name isn’t Sunny. It’s actually Grace, but everyone calls her Sunny. So, But logistics.
The names really bother me. I was like, what does your mother call you? Can we go by that, please? Because no other sport does this in the Olympics.
Jill: Roller derby!
Alison: That’s
Jill: not in the Olympics! Well, I’m sorry.
Alison: Medal finals. Gold went to Canada, Phil Wizard. Silver went to France, Danny Dan. And the United States won bronze. That was Victor.
You know what? Just go spin on your head. Let’s see how it goes.
Jill: Yeah. So I’m, what I’m curious about is what do people think of this at home? We have some conversation going on in the Facebook group, but I really want to know kind of what the take on it is in the media, in social media, beyond the Facebook group.
Poor Ray Gunn’s outfit. I did notice that the Oh
Alison: yeah, the Australian also wore the shirt and pants. He didn’t wear the shirt that had the collar on it. And he didn’t wear the hat, but he had the green and yellow, too. Which one?
Jill: You know, I don’t mind if they wore the kid, but why didn’t they give him a little bag ear pant?
Or keep the shirt untucked, or do a French tuck or something if you don’t want to uncover your torso. Well, no, there’s no
Alison: French tuck in Men’s Breaking because we all have to see their torso and their shirt has to end up around their neck as they’re spinning around on their heads.
See, I don’t like a sport that makes me feel like a cranky old lady. And this really made me feel like, get off my lawn! Okay. Okay.
Jill: Get off your breakin pad. Go put your shirt on. Well, we’ll have to see what the, the feel is and the vibe, because I got a kind of an okay vibe in the venue. What I loved in the venue, and I saw some of these people there today, is the old school hip hop people who came to be in the audience.
And not necessarily household names, but people who were really important, obviously, or into hip hop in the earlier years. And to see them be so excited, I had a whole row of them. That I could see high fiving everybody as they came off. Oh, see, I didn’t see any of that. Okay. Okay, because I had seen some other women in the audience on the feed today and that I love to have that vibe there and to see them love the fact that their art slash sport was on a world stage and the world was paying attention to it.
That was really cool. So we’ll see. I’m curious, because there’s, there’s Scuttlebutt that LA could throw it in. But I don’t know how popular it was. Because I think the vibe I felt was people kind of dug it, but they kind of
Alison: didn’t get it. They won’t miss it if it’s not there.
Jill: Not that I’m sure. I thought that maybe it was more successful at the Youth Olympic Games in Argentina.
But I also thought that part of the problem was the heat. And being out in the sun and people are just not, that’s, that’s not a great venue area. It’s hard to be there. And it went
Alison: on a very long time. The competition was, was very long. And that also took away from it.
Jill: So we shall see, Breakin Are you one and done?
Or could you come back? We don’t know. Canoe Sprint. We had a lot of finals today
in the men’s C1 1000 meters, Martin Fuxa from Czechia won gold, Zaccheaus Quiros from Brazil won silver, and Sergei Tarnovichy from Moldova won bronze.
Moldova is amazing. at least got four medals that we’ve said. Something like that in canoe sprint. Good on you, Maldova. Way to have a sport. In the men’s K1 1000m finals, gold went to Josef Dostal from Czechia, silver went to Adam Barga from Hungary, and bronze went to Balint Kopasz from Hungary. In the women’s K1 500m finals.
Oh, geez. Gold went to Lisa Carrington from New Zealand. Go silverest of silver ferns at Hungry Winter. Silver went to Tamara Csipas from Hungary and bronze went to Emma Astron Jørgensen from Denmark.
Alison: I watched these last two races that we’re going to talk about and uh, Csipas gave her a race. Lisa Carrington did not walk away from, uh, walk away with us.
Interesting. It was a nice race. Apparently, uh, Csipas is not a good starter. Oh, but she had a very good start, so it really looked for a while there that Carrington was not going to pull this out. But of course she and her gorgeous braids just won another gold medal because that’s what she does.
Jill: In the women’s C1 200 meter final, gold went to Katie Vincent from Canada, silver went to our Nevin Harrison from USA, and gold went to, wait, bronze.
Bronze went to Yaroslav Sero Dubois
Alison: from Cuba. This was a photo finish, and I really thought Nevin had won when I watched it. Uh, so the margin of, of victory was a hundredth of a second. Wow! And it was a while before they called this race. Wow. I say wow, but for these races, usually there’s no question you have a winner.
And they were sitting there and sitting there and waiting and paddling over and Ohu won. So it was as close as close could be.
Jill: In diving, we had the men’s 10 meter platform final. Also I got to see some diving board maintenance go on at Artistic Swimming. Like they took the whole. Plank off. Oh, were they taking it
Alison: apart?
They
Jill: put them back on, but they, I don’t know if they were like oiling things underneath. I don’t know how that works, but they had, they had a lot of people around fixing diving boards today. In the men’s 10 meter platform, gold went to Chow Yung from China. Silver went to Tamae Rikuto from Japan and bronze went to Noah Williams from Great Britain.
China has swept the diving golds. In football, we had the women’s gold medal game today. USA beat Brazil 1 0. This was a very physical game. They had 19 fouls in just the first half. So, nobody scored until US got their goal in the 57th minute. And there was added time, as is per usual for most games. We’ve had the one that had no added time because it was just a route.
But in the fourth minute of added time, Uh, goalkeeper Alyssa Nair saved a massive, did, had a massive save and that, uh, kept the victory sealed. So gold for USA in our Emily Sonnet, silver for Brazil and bronze for Germany. In golf, we had the final round of the Women’s Golf Tournament. Gold went to New Zealand’s Lydia Ko.
Go Silver Ferns! Having a nice games, my silver ferns. They are having a nice games, and this is a really good moment for Lydia Coe. We’ll get to that in a second. Esther Hensleit from Germany won the silver, and Lin Chiu Janet from China won the bronze. So if you remember, after three rounds, Coe and Switzerland’s Morgan Matreau, who has been on our leaderboard pretty much the whole tournament, they were tied at nine under par.
In the opening five holes, Matreau went to five under par. Overpar. Ko also bogeyed but then got a some birdies that gave her a four shot lead with nine holes to go. Uh, Hensley got within one, but co managed to hold out and get the victory. She has a full set of medals now. She is the I love a set. You love the set.
Only golfer to medal in every games since golf’s return. There’s only golfer, men or women. Also she earned the final point she needed to qualify to get into the, uh, LGPA
LPGA. Ladies Professional Golf Association. Okay. She also earned the final point she needed to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame, which is a huge deal. She’s only the 35th inductee and the first one from New Zealand.
So thank you, listener Patrick from Chicagoland and also listener Brian, uh, who, uh, sent in that fun fact, cause that was a really good story. That happened over on the golf field, and you know, I could have gone if you wouldn’t have killed me.
Alison: You know, for a story like this, and for one of my Kiwis, that I would find acceptable.
Okay.
Jill: I’m
Alison: really being cranky about sports today.
Jill: Yeah. It’s okay. It’s all right. One more day. I’m not going to keep at handball. I liked handball. Yeah? Yeah? Tell me about it. I didn’t watch it. Oh, okay. So we had the women’s tournament ended today in the bronze medal match, Denmark beat Sweden 30 25, and in the women’s gold medal game, Norway beat France 29 21, I believe that means we have a new Olympic champion.
Gold to Norway, silver to France, and bronze to Denmark.
Alison: I would have much rather been indoors. Watching handball, being so happy, and baking in the sun, getting yelled at, at break time. Very true.
Jill: When you finally get there after an hour of being lost. And in an hour, it’s horrible when the hour of being lost is really, you’re within like, a quarter of a mile.
Alison: Every time I looked at my phone, to recalibrate where I was, it told me I was within 11 minute walk. Nearly an hour. Oh boy.
Jill: Modern Pentathlon, we had the women’s competition early round. Jessica Davis Savner finished 14th in the semifinals, does not move on to the finals, which are tomorrow. We had the men’s individual final.
Gold went to Ahmed Elgendi from Egypt, silver went to Sato Taishu from Japan, and bronze went to Giorgio Milan from Italy. first gold medal for Egypt of these games. Also the first time an African has won gold in modern pentathlon. I mean, this is a really European dominant sport. So it’s amazing to see someone from Africa win.
And I know Egypt. And the silver medal also to Japan. This is
Alison: not a European podium.
Jill: Yes. It’s, it’s very fascinating. It’s nice to see these other countries come up. I know Egypt’s been pretty strong, but now we finally have a winner here. He was, uh, and he won silver at Tokyo. So he stepped up. He was one of just six competitors to have a clear round in the horse jumping stage today.
And this is the last Olympics for the horse jumping portion. He does say he plans to continue on to LA 2028. And do learn how to do the race with the obstacle course that’s being brought in to replace the equestrian portion. We’re going to probably see a lot of retirees in from, uh, after these games in this sport, just because the obstacle course racing uses a totally different part of your body than the rest of the rest of the sport, basically.
Alison: And not only retirees, because they don’t want to change training retirees, because they don’t have the skills. for that or was horse, uh, was the equestrian portion, their strongest element. So without it, they’re no longer competitive.
Jill: Right. And a lot of people get to the sport through the riding segment and they love the riding segment.
So they are, there’s a lot of athletes who are really upset of the changes that have happened.
In rhythmic gymnastics, we had the group all around final. Ooh, Goldman China. This was interesting.
Alison: They were an impressive team. Okay. When, when I saw them very, and I, I said this, I think with artistic swimming, very physically uniform. Oh, okay. There’s a, there’s a uni, a uniformity in these Chinese, uh, teams that produces some beautiful images and beautiful lines.
Silver
Jill: went to Israel and bronze went to Italy. One thing we did not mention that we both noticed about Rhythmiq and just totally forgot to say on the show.
Alison: So when the athlete is introduced and walking out, we saw several of these girls have a towel in their hand, which makes sense. You want to dry your hands and dry the apparatus before you go out there.
And they very aggressively threw the towel on the floor. Yes. And it was this really, and I understand where it comes from, this release of tension and this, I’m going to go do it. It’s kind of like when the divers throw the towels, cause some of them are, they toss them. They don’t know. Some of them are aggressive.
Some of them are aggressive. But this was like, I will kill you now. This is my hoop and threw the towel down. And it must be something culturally in the sport because several of these girls did that same move. I thought it was hilarious. It was, once you, once you caught, once you caught on to it, it was like, Oh, is she going to throw the towel?
Jill: In sport climbing, the women’s bouldering lead had their finals today. Gold went to Janja Garnbret from Slovenia. Silver went to our Brooke Raboutou from USA. And bronze went to Jessica Piltz from Austria. Rabiteau was only 4 points behind after the boulder segment, but Garnbrett outscored her on the lead by 12.
1 points to seal the win.
Alison: Silver medals, nothing to shake a stick at. No, and I gotta say What pound to stick at? Well, and you know, that was good. Thanks.
Jill: I do want to say the silver medals with the iron in them are beautiful.
Alison: They’re slick looking. You know, I can’t remember if I liked the medals originally or if I was poo pooing because was I in a bad mood that day and I didn’t like the medals.
But up close and seeing so many of them. I remember I didn’t like them because I thought they looked like cupcake wrappers. Yes. And I still hold that. But that iron piece is really sharp looking. It is. It’s very, very cool. But it’s not like the Sochi medals where you barely could see what color they were.
Oh, yeah, yeah. You really can see it’s a gold medal. You mean, do you mean the Albertville medals or the Sochi medals too? No, the Sochi medals were all stone except for the one corner. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then the Albertville with the giant glass and just the little piece. Yeah. But these, it’s mostly the medal with this nice center shape of the Eiffel Tower.
Yes.
Jill: You know, they call these the Jeux Olympique. Here in France, that’s how they say Olympic Games. It’s like the Jew old grumpy lady over here. I
Alison: don’t mean to be. You know why I’m upset? And we had forgotten about this. They don’t have the flying taxis. Remember they promised me flying taxis. They did. And they cancelled them.
And I could have really used one today.
Jill: Too bad you couldn’t hop on that balloon, cauldron thing. I have a cauldron story that I’ve
Alison: been holding. Oh, wow. Sounds like a good place to tell it. It’s really short. Yeah, go ahead. The other day I wanted to see the cauldron. Yes. So I went to the entrance. Yes.
Because they promised us. A media line. Yeah. No. No. No. Did we have to sign up? No. The media line’s around the corner. Around
Jill: which corner?
Alison: Exactly. Three of them? A gauche or a droite. So I went around what I thought was the corner she pointed to. There was nothing there. So I went around the other corner and there was a person and they said, no, you go to the main entrance.
They sent me here. So I went back, asked somebody else, and they said, No, you have to go into La Plata, La Concorde media entrance to get to the media entrance of the, Oh, good luck with that. Right. So I was going to Plaza La Concorde anyway. So I went in and I asked them and they said, No, it’s all the way on the other side.
So I never saw the cauldron because I just could not get there. I got close enough.
Jill: I got close enough. That’s kind of how I felt. Right. And I didn’t see, I’ve seen posted that the lantern with the actual flame is down there, like being kept okay, which then, because now I see the cauldron and then I realize it’s not the real flame and they still have to baby the flame.
Because the flame has to be alive. And then that makes me like the cauldron, the, the sustainability cauldron. It’s, it’s not getting much better than the snow flame. Really? I mean, the snow flame was, I have a thing for the fire and I get that they’re mimicking it, but you know it’s fake. You know, deep down, it’s fake.
Though it is really beautiful
Alison: at night when they put it up in the air. It is really cool. Comes down in the morning. That is a beautiful image.
Jill: And we did see them pull it down. Well, we kind of saw them pull it down. We were waiting and then we turned away and then all of a sudden it was down. Not
Alison: there because we never got to see it, really.
But yeah, so, Had I signed up like a spectator and just gone in, I would not have such a negative experience. And that seems to be the running theme. You know, we hear from spectators, they’ve had such a great time. Because Games Wide Open, they really did that for not broadcast press. They said,
Jill: game’s not
Alison: for you.
Jill: Yeah, it’s been, it’s been a struggle. It’s been hard finding where to go. It’s been hard getting there. It’s, but I see, and I try not to be grumpy because I realize how much fun the spectators are having, or when we go through spectator areas and spectator entrance areas to go find our entrance, and I see all of the volunteers who are like, let me take your picture, let me do this, let me do that for you, and let’s have fun.
And I can see everybody getting hyped and When you’re going to an event of this magnitude and there’s and you’re going for fun, it’s a lot of fun.
Alison: And then to have our experience be so not that.
Jill: Yeah, and it’s been, there’s been ups and downs, but I’m trying to get the ups back into the upswing.
Alison: Maybe we should go up in the cauldron.
Oh, that would be cool. My flying taxi replaced with a hot air balloon. Driven by Pierre.
Jill: and Alice. Yes. Right? Yes. Okay, table tennis. Now for something completely different. Table tennis, we had the end of the women’s competition. The women’s team, bronze medal final, Korea beat Germany 3 0, and in the gold medal final, China beat Japan 3 0, so we have gold to China, silver to Japan, and bronze to Korea.
In TaeKwonDo, we had the men’s over 80kg final. medal finals. Gold went to Aryan Salimi from Iran. Silver went to Kayden Cunningham from Great Britain. Bronzes went to Cheikh Salah Sisi from Cote d’Ivoire and Rafael Alba from Cuba. And in the women’s plus 67 medal final, kilogram medal finals, gold went to Althea Laurent from France.
That must have been a night to be in the Grand Palais.
Alison: I did walk by the Grand Palais in my adventure today and you really can hear the cheering from the outside.
Jill: It’s amazing. Silver went to Svetlana Osipova from Uzbekistan and bronzes went to Lida Bin from Korea and Nafiya Kusaydin from Turkey. in track cycling.
You know, we have a message somewhere, might be from Patrick, who talked about how we haven’t seen Cuba in a lot of the medals. And, and there’s something about a, uh, a bunch of people defected. Did you get
Alison: that message? I don’t remember that. I don’t know. Okay, we’ll look into that.
Jill: In, uh, we had the men’s Madison final today in the list of track cycling, uh, events.
Gold went to, uh, Portugal, the team of Yuri Letao and Rui Oliveira. Silver went to Italy’s Simone Cossoni and Ella Viviani. And bronze went to Denmark’s Niklas Larsson and Michael Morkhoff. And in volleyball, we had the women’s bronze medal game, which, uh, Brazil beat Turkey, Turkey, uh, three to one. And then the men’s gold medal game, France beat Poland three to zero.
And I got to the venue media center with France didn’t, uh, They were working towards match point. Well, okay, there was a fair amount of the game left, and then I went to the bathroom. And we know what happened there. Yes. So, getting back, we were on match point. And I was like, oh, I guess it’s too late to go over there.
Because I thought, maybe if Poland won a game, then I would go over. We had six match points. Wow. At least in this, in that final game that France pulled out to win, but I can tell you that place was hopping. There were so many fans going into that game. It was going to be just an
Alison: amazing one to watch.
Probably better you weren’t there because the monster block scaffolding shaking. Yeah, I know. I was a little worried about that,
Jill: but it was almost like,
Alison: Oh,
Jill: I really want to go. It’s worth it. It’s worth it to die to see this game. But I did go to weightlifting and that’s totally different. I’m coming up.
Gold goes to France, silver to Poland, and bronze to the U. S. In water polo, we had men’s classification matches. Italy beat Australia 10 0. We had women’s classification matches. Greece beat Canada 19 10. Hungary beat Italy 15 12. And then we had the women’s bronze medal game. Netherlands beat the U. S. 11 10.
So the U. S., which was the three time gold medal champions, won Going home without a medal. And this was tough because the U S was in control of the game until the final four minutes, Netherland goes on an offensive tear. Uh, Vivian Sevenich from Netherlands scored twice within the 30 seconds. So they’re now 10, nine.
They got an extra player goal with a minute 20 left that made a 10, 10, and then with one second left. Sabrina Vandersloot scored and took away the women’s, uh, medal hopes. In the gold medal game, Spain beat Australia 11 9, so our medal podium is Spain at gold, silver goes to Australia, and bronze to Netherlands.
Weightlifting. So, I saw most of a weight class. I got in during the snatch, and then they had the Cleveland jerk. If I was disappointed about not going to the crazy fan commotion of volleyball, there was a totally different kind of raucous fan at weightlifting. Really? Okay. It was fascinating. It was so cool.
There was one guy from Uzbekistan was getting people to clap for everybody. Um, Everyone’s yelling for people to make lifts. If, uh, some of the competitors, when they’re approaching the platform, they’ll yell something in their language, and a few people in the, you know, their fans will yell something right back to them.
Like a call and response. Yes, in fact, it’s like, let’s go! And then be like, yeah, come on! In whatever language they’re talking, because there were multiple athletes who did that. We came close to seeing a world and Olympic record being set. Um, so much chaos going on and we didn’t even see the backstage camera for a while.
It came out eventually, but so much changing of weights and people going up and really trying to be strategic about it.
The other thing is, when you are watching what you don’t see and what you don’t feel by being there in person. You know, when you’re there in person, you see the way it’s getting slammed down. You also feel them getting slammed down. And you know where the, we were in the, uh, old handball, the original handball venue, I think.
Yeah, it was kind of a small venue. And That weight when they slam them down, I want to know how they support that podium. Because these men are You lifting hundreds of kilograms and when they slam them down because they’ve made their weight, they’ve made their lift, that shakes the entire venue.
So, you see them bounce and you hear them bounce off that podium, that shakes and then the, it kind of ripples back to, to where I was vibrating in the podium, in the, in the media trib, tribune. You also don’t know that people backstage are doing the same thing. So you will hear weights slam at different points.
Oh, so they’re practicing? They’re practicing back there too. Oh. Like warming up and stuff. So they’ll still slam stuff down until you hear BLAM! And then you’ll kind of feel some of those too. It was really incredible. So you have that paired with these raucous fans And then, right at the end, I realized that, oh, , all the referees are all dressed in suits.
And then I remembered, although those suits have Swedish pockets and we still don’t know what Swedish pockets are, okay, so let, let’s explain Swedish pockets. So it’s years ago now. When we first talked weightlifting, I somehow got into, oh, ’cause we talked with
Alison: a referee, right? So we were talking about the uniforms.
And so we went down the rabbit hole of finding the guidelines for the uniforms, and there was all these. Tailoring instructions. And one of them involved that the jacket must have Swedish pockets. If it’s the jacket, it might be the trousers. And we have asked seamstresses, we have asked tailors, we have asked people in different countries.
Nobody seems to be able to identify exactly what makes a pocket Swedish.
Jill: Right. And so I immediately thought, can I get to one person at that table? and ask. And I look at the list of judges and there’s really, there’s like one guy from the U. S. but I don’t think he’s wearing the suit. So that’s a problem.
I couldn’t figure out if anybody would speak English and not look at me like I was just absolutely nuts for, A, knowing that existed and B,
Alison: asking the question. Yes,
Jill: exactly. Um, and then the, the The, um, entrance to the main floor was chained off and monitored by volunteers and I didn’t need to get into it with them.
Alison: So I didn’t need to try to explain in a second language to the volunteer that you really wanted to learn about Swedish pockets. You just
Jill: have to say hello to a referee. So I thought maybe somebody would be in the press office in the venue center, the media center. No, and I figured that they were all still working with the competition and it was time for me to move on.
So I think that because I did look up the uniform requirements and the Swedish pockets are still in there, because that’s what’s on the website, I’m going to have to send an email.
Alison: To explain what Swedish pockets are, we need this answer.
Jill: We do need this answer. Alright.
Alison: We have been haunted by Swedish pockets for years,
Jill: years.
Uh, so I saw the men’s 102 kilogram final. China’s Li Juan one Gold, uh, silver went to Aba Jev from Uzbekistan, and Yai uh, sisu from, uh, neutral athletes won the bronze. It was really fun. I, I gotta say, uh, Ruth from Olympapod loves weightlifting. She is so totally right. This was a fun, fun event to watch. In the women’s 81 kilogram final, Gold went to, uh, Sulfried Kowanda from Norway with an Olympic record.
Silver went to Sarah Ahmed from Egypt. And bronze went to, uh, Nessie Patricia de Lomas Barrera
Alison: from Ecuador. So, uh, Kowanda got an Olympic record both for total and for the clean and jerk.
Jill: Very
Alison: nice. And
Jill: in the men’s over 102 kilogram final, gold went to Lasha Talakadze from Georgia. Silver went to Varjdad Lajan from Armenia and bronze went to Gore Minasan from Bahrain.
Talaqazi is a three time Olympic champion in three Olympic Games and, uh, it’s, it’s, I’m, I’m hopeful that weightlifting is around the corner with their issues because they’ve had a lot of issues with doping. They’ve had a lot of issues with doping. Judging. Judging and live transmission. Corruption. Yes. Oh, and there were some reviews today and we couldn’t always tell because they did really good about putting them up on the screen.
Sometimes the judges had to use the big screen for video review. Sometimes they got to use a different kind of review. And, uh, Uh, or their own video screens for video review and they were probably correct, but it was a lot of nobody got their lift revoked. And of course everybody booed.
Alison: Do Georgians boo better than American audiences?
Jill: Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s a different kind of booing, but it was it was still fun. It was just a good good time. There’s nothing like people loving other people lift as much weight as possible. In wrestling, we had, uh, Uh, finals in the men’s 74 kilogram freestyle gold went to, uh, Rossumbeck Zalimov from Uzbekistan.
Silver went to Takatani Daiichi from Japan. Bronzes went to Kyle Dake from the U S and, uh, chairman Valiyev from Albania. This is the second career bronze for Kyle, Kyle Dake, who made an amazing comeback in the final minute of his match to defeat Hatik Kabalov of Serbia’s 10 to 4. In the 125kg freestyle finals, Gold went to Uh, Gino, uh, Petrosavvili from Georgia, silver went to Amir Hossein Azari from Iran, and gold went to Taha Wait.
Bronze. Oh, I’m sorry. Bronzes went to Taha Akgul from Turkey, and Georgi Um, Meshvildishvili from Azerbaijan in the women’s 62 kilogram freestyle. Gold went to Motoki Sakura from Japan. Silver went to Irina Koliadenko from Ukraine. Bronze went to Asilu Tinebikova from Kyrgyzstan. And Grace Jacob Bolen from Norway.
And that wraps
Alison: up a big day. No, it’s always amazing to me how the last couple days we still have, we still have events tomorrow. We do. Yes. We still have Shukla Stani’s competing tomorrow. Yes. We still have things going on. And then we’ve got closing ceremony. So maybe we’ll get some rest tonight.
Tomorrow’s going to be a late night. Yes.
Jill: But it’ll be it. It’ll be hard to believe. We are finally saying, uh, au revoir to the Paris Olympics.
Alison: But before we do that, we have one last day with our official Choukvastan mascot, Theodore. Uh, Thea’s family has been reunited after their adventures from Paris, and we are sure Thea is happy to have his pack back with him.
So something that we say in my house with, with our dog is the pack stays together. And I’m sure Theodore feels very strongly. Yes. That the pack stays together. So thanks so much to superfan Sarah for sharing Theo with Shookfast on and for supporting the Kickstarter campaign that got us to Paris.
Jill: And we have more medals for Shook Placetown.
We
Alison: did, we added a gold and two silvers, so that is seven golds, ten silvers and five bronze.
Jill: Very nice. And
Alison: as you said, Shook Placetownies are competing tomorrow. Yes, so Fiona O’Keefe runs in the women’s marathon, Jordan Larson and Team USA plays for gold in women’s volleyball, and Ben Halleck and Team USA play for bronze in men’s water polo.
Excellent. And we have Some shout outs to our Kickstarters. So to Erica C, Sarah Patton, and Amy Card, thank you so much for helping us get here.
Jill: Exactly. And for those of you who were in the postcard level, I mailed your postcards today from the Media Center. So they’ve got special Paris 2024 stamps and their special Paris 2024 La Poste postcards.
So I’m very excited to get those out to you. And that is going to do it for this episode. Special thank you to our researcher, Annalie D’Abel.
Alison: And to get in touch with us while we are staying in Paris, find us on X YouTube and Instagram at flamealivepod. Send us an email at flamealivepod at gmail. com.
Call or text us at 208 833 4232. 352 6348. That’s 208 flame it chat with us and other fans on our very busy Facebook group. Keep the flame alive podcast and you can still get our daily special newsletter at our website flamealivepod. com.
Jill: Join us again tomorrow for more action from Paris. And please don’t forget to tell a friend about the show and hang out with us in the Facebook group.
Thank you so much for listening and until tomorrow, keep the flame alive.