The flame is out and we say au revoir to the Paris 2024 Olympics. First, there were still some competitions to wrap up: Jill made the journey out to Versailles to see the women’s modern pentathlon finals, and Alison saw TKFLASTANI Ben Hallock and Team USA go for the bronze at water polo. Plus, the Marathon Pour Tous looked like a great time for some, but perhaps not for others. And we look at the unusually unjoyful Closing Ceremonies that Paris 2024 gave us.
Sports on today’s program:
- Athletics
- Basketball
- Handball
- Modern Pentathlon
- Track Cycling
- Volleyball
- Water Polo
- Weightlifting
- Wrestling
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Our researcher for the Olympics is Annalee Deabel.
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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 Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.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 16
Jill: Bonjour and welcome to day 16, closing day of the Paris 2024 Olympics on Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. I am your host, Jill Jarris, coming to you from the main press center and joined as always by my lovely co host, Alison Brown. Alison, bonjour! Comment ça va?
Somehow we survived that closing ceremony that went on for 326 years. We will get to that. We will definitely get to that. We are sitting here. We have our Japanese friend Makoto down the, down the table from us. It’s very nice. And there’s a few other stragglers in here after the closing ceremonies, which was three hours plus plus, and then another almost hour getting back.
So it’s been a fun day. We have some followup file. Uh, for, uh, pointed out to us, I think Claire Clorello pointed it out, the entire podium for the men’s triple jump were all Cuban defectors. What a
Alison: strange specialty to have that happen in. I mean, I don’t know much about, you know, I know Cuban for boxing and weightlifting and you expect those, but triple jump.
Jill: I know it was really interesting because. When we read these names and we look and go, huh, that doesn’t really sound like it matches all the time. But in this case, it really didn’t. So that was an interesting fun fact. Let’s begin the baguette.
Alison: So our baguette was from last night. So the Marathon Portsview happened at a very strange time.
They started it at 9pm.
Jill: Yes, with the marathon and then like the 10k went off, maybe about 11.
Alison: So these were there were 40, 000 runners participating in this, this was not a small event happening in the middle of the night in Paris, which I understand why they did it timing wise, because they didn’t want it to conflict with the Olympic event still going on.
Yes. However, this caused some problems late in the evening when the marathon was not Right,
Jill: because, and, and we’ve had, I think one of our Shoklistanis actually ran it. We haven’t heard back, but wanted some coverage of it. And we knew it was happening. We didn’t know the time of it. And we found out the time of it when we tried to call a cab at two in the morning
Alison: and said, you can’t get a cab because of the driving disruptions, because they had once again shut down the marathon route and you couldn’t cross the street, which I had run into.
Trying to get to, uh, uh, Place de la Concorde. Yes.
Jill: So, we couldn’t get, we couldn’t call cabs. We, like, like the Uber, the version of Uber that we’re using. And so we hailed cabs. Thankfully. We got one for you and then I got one a couple minutes later. And
Alison: the public transportation had shut down. Yes. It’s not like they had this marathon and said, oh, it’s gonna go late.
Let’s leave some night buses and night trains and things running. No, everything had shut down. Yeah. It was really bizarre. And you couldn’t walk because you couldn’t cross the street. If you had to get to the other side of the street, too bad on you. Right. Which
Jill: was too bad for producer Ben because he got stuck in there and he couldn’t get out.
And he took, he did not get home until three 30 in the morning and was so livid. That it was not, it was not a pretty situation to be around because he couldn’t get anywhere. He was dumbfounded that they shut down the transportation. Um, I guess people were still walking around in the morning. Uh, my sister in law in Charlotte left this morning and she took it.
It took her an extra hour to get out of the area because. everything was still blocked off.
Alison: And then they had the women’s marathon this morning. Yes. So then that added to the blocking off again. I mean, it made sense that they did the three marathons within the two days. Yes. But they didn’t do a great job of one, letting people know what streets were going to be closed, updating the transit apps to reflect that.
Right. And having some pass throughs to the same to different sides of the street.
Jill: Yeah, and, and Ben was saying that there were some people where you could get through some people you couldn’t get through with and it just was walking until you found the right person that would let you through during a break.
And it was like, there’s a break in the action, let me cross the street, please. No. Interdit. So that was a real, real big frustration from our side when you weren’t in it, but we heard that it was fantastic. that people love doing it. They put on a great show. Uh, I had talked to people today out at Versailles who were staying out in Versailles.
So they, they were like, they were running past us for hours and people were thrilled. It was a lot of fun to watch and great event overall. I saw some, uh, finishers from afar. I saw they were wearing their medals and the medals were gorgeous. Oh, good. So at least it sounded like a good time. If you were watching, And we’re on the right side of the street, or if you were participating.
So it’ll be interesting to see if LA continues this tradition. I mean, it’s, it’s a really great idea, but it would be, we need, you know what we need, we need like the signs on every pole going, there’s a marathon.
Alison: And this street is going to be closed during these hours. Here’s what to expect.
Jill: Yeah.
Alison: And just so you know, if you’re going to plan this, then.
Get home before sex because it’s gonna shut down.
Jill: Right, or at least for At least for accredited people, send us an email Because I wasn’t always getting into my info on the regular So if it
Alison: popped up, it wasn’t in my info. All it said was there’ll be travel disruptions But it didn’t tell you what they were Or they would say this line isn’t going to be running to the stop But didn’t tell you that the entire street was going to be shut down.
Jill: All right. Volunteer jobs. Let’s get to volunteer. Oh my gosh. I got a great volunteer job. Good. So I went out to modern pentathlon today and at the finish of the whole, the fifth event, the fourth and fifth event are combined, they’re the laser run, it’s the running and the shooting, and they have to run like five laps and do four to shooting things, and, or they run six laps, I don’t know, they run a lap, they shoot, they run a lap, they shoot, they run a lap, they shoot, they run a lap.
There might be a four shooting, but I can’t remember. And, on that last lap, There is a finish line that they cross and they have to have two volunteers with the ribbon run across and they like The very last person barely got into that last lap before the first person was coming in so it was like quick Run hold the ribbon and the winner crosses the line.
It was pretty awesome
Alison: So I’m gonna take a job from closing ceremony tonight, which we saw and this poor woman and I will be her helper She was trying to wrangle the athletes as they were coming in to the parade So they’re coming in There’s a walking path, but they’re not really filling up the space.
So she kept doing the, um, airport worker motion.
Jill: Yes. Move. Let’s move. Let’s move. Let’s branch out. Let’s spread out. Let’s spread out. Move
Alison: more quickly. Let’s move it along because man, that athlete parade was That was tough. Excessively long. Right. And if she had like three, and then finally the volunteers started jumping in to help her.
Yes. Because it was one woman managing how many athletes? What was it? 5, 000 athletes? 4, 000? 4, 000. So she needed a helper and I am there for
Jill: her. Very good. Some volunteer jobs that didn’t make the cut. I had two in reserve just in case that we didn’t find any. I wanted to be somebody from water polo who managed the wardrobes.
And we had discussions about this because you were very confused when I said I want to be a wardrobe person because you had only seen men’s water polo and I saw women’s and men come out. And they were wearing their Speedos and their sweatshirts and some flip flops. And there’s no wardrobe to manage.
And the women have robes. And they have, and then behind their benches were these closets on wheels, these wardrobes. And their stuff would be in there. And then, uh, all of a sudden a volunteer would, like, move. I think I noticed it moving from first half to second half because they switched sides. So that’s when I really noticed, like, they have closets on wheels.
I
Alison: I would be shocked if I missed the closet on wheel. I think they just throw their sweatshirts in a box.
Jill: Would not be surprised. The other one I really wanted to do was at beach volleyball because, uh, the players have a shaded seat to sit on when it’s, uh, resting between sets. And there is an awning that goes up and down that curves over them.
And it is a volunteer who makes sure it goes up and then it comes down because then it would, if it stays up, it blocks somebody’s vision.
Alison: I
Jill: think
Alison: you took that job in Tokyo as well. I think, I think you really, we’ve discussed this before.
Jill: Still love it. It’s still on my hold list. Maybe L. A. Watch L. A. have a just totally different setup for that.
Alison: Electronic, there’ll be
Jill: some guy with a button. Alright, time for everybody’s favorite segment, toilet talk.
Alison: Probably our last Toilet Talk because I don’t think we’re going to keep this for 10 minutes. No, I don’t
Jill: think so.
Alison: Unless
Jill: something drastic happens. Because I don’t know. I mean, I counted it up and you know, it’s like 18 days, 19 days, and we’ve had toilet problems or toilet stories every day.
This is ridiculous. So we don’t have any toilet stories today. But thank goodness, and I know I went to new venues, so you would think new toilet, but it was the trailer that had the sinks on the end on, on the outside, on the end. Didn’t need to go in.
Alison: Totally acceptable. But listener Catherine, uh, did have a toilet story and apparently she had spent, uh, time as a child going camping in in France and remembered there was squatting toilets.
And, you know, we assumed that squatting toilets were a thing of the past. Oh no. She found one. in a stop in Dijon. And so she sent, or I think she posted in the Facebook group, a picture of the squatting toilet in France, which brought us back to Beijing. Yes. And I said, Oh my goodness, everywhere we go, we have problems with toilets.
I’m hoping that would not be the case in LA, but knowing us. There will be California toilets that just do not work for us. So,
Jill: well, it’s been great bringing you toilet talk. I’m so embarrassed.
Alison: I am so proud of it. No idea.
Jill: I mean, there were some great things. Things we found. Because today I was thinking about Toilet Talk, then I remembered those pictures from Arena Suit,
with the bent legs and let me cover my crotch, because I’m really good. That is forever. Oh my gosh. So If you have enjoyed Toilet Talk as much as we have, please remember that we are an independent media outlet, and we provide independent coverage, so we are allowed to share these intimate moments with you in a way that no other outlet can. But we do, uh, because Independent outlet means also independent funding.
So we rely a lot on the listener support to help keep our flame alive. If you have enjoyed our coverage of the Olympics, please consider supporting the show financially. You can go to flamealivepod. com slash support, and there’s a number of ways to donate. We’ve got Venmo and PayPal. If you would like to be an ongoing patron and continue your donation flame year round.
We would appreciate that as well. Uh, during the games, and this will continue for the Paralympics, uh, listeners get a, all patrons get, yes, all patrons get a bonus pick of the day every day. And then, uh, if you’re at the 5 a month level and up, you will get bonus video. Took some today, over two minutes, so I gotta get it down.
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Alison: All right. So we have some revised daily results from the other day, and this is a little upsetting. So from artistic gymnastics, the women’s floor exercise has been revised. So gold still goes to Brazil’s Rebecca Andrade.
Still silver still goes to Simone Biles. Change was made in the bronze. Jordan Childs was stripped of the bronze. It was awarded to Romania’s Ana Barbosu. Having to do with the inquiry that Jordan Childs made at the, uh, at, at the time of the floor exercise. So it’s still, to me, somewhat unclear factually, but here’s what we know.
She was awarded, Jordan Childs was awarded a score. She protested the score. The score was revised and she jumped a third. Otherwise she was in fifth. Mm hmm. Anna Barbosu and, uh, Romania filed a secondary inquiry protesting the inquiry and the revision of the score that was upheld. So Jordan Child’s original score was reinstated.
Jill: And
Alison: this is based on the amount of time it took Jordan Child’s to file that inquiry. Correct. And this is a caste decision. So this went to the court of arbitration of sport. It’s not just, uh, the International Federation for Gymnastics. If that is a final decision, I don’t know, because I have a feeling, and Team USA and USA Gymnastics have already said they are going to support Jordan Child’s efforts to keep that bronze.
So this may not be the end of the road, we don’t know, because it depends on what appeal Jordan Child has based on the cast decision. I don’t know if based on the cast decision she can appeal. Interesting. So this is going to be an ongoing discussion that you will probably see floating around for some weeks to come.
Jill: We have some final results today in athletics. It was the Women’s Marathon Final. Gold went to Sifan Hassan from Netherlands. Silver went to, uh, Tsefa from Ethiopia and bronze went to Helen Obiri from Kenya. Our Fiona O’Keefe did not finish. She started, did not finish.
Alison: Barely started. She apparently was hurt before she even got out there.
So she just ran maybe a kilometer. Uh, and ran I think is a generous term. Uh, more sort of walk jogged. And so that she did in fact start and is in fact a 2024 Olympian. But on a better note, Stephen Hassan got an Olympic record.
Jill: Very nice. Very nice. In basketball, we had the end of the women’s tournament.
It was the women’s bronze medal game, Australia beating Belgium 85, 81. Uh, Very close game at the end. So, uh, Australia hanging on to win, even though Belgium was trying to make one surge to come back. Then we had the women’s gold medal game. USA beat France 67 66. I walked into the media center. Actually, I was getting my accreditation for the Paralympics.
It was on the TV down there, and about a minute or so left. And there was a timeout, and I’m like, okay, I can get into the main press center and come and watch. And I made it to the first floor of the main press center where there’s a big screen TV and all these people are standing around watching because this game is close and it was super exciting.
USA was down by 10 in the third quarter and the third quarter is the first time they got a three point shot. Unbelievable. Stayed close at the buzzer. Francis Gabby Williams hits a shot. But she was just inside the three point line, so it gave them 66 instead of tying the game up and forcing overtime. So, it’s a kind of a sloppy game.
I heard that they, uh, the shooting, the shooting percentiles were really low, and it was pretty scrappy, too. I mean,
Alison: uh, the score is not much.
Jill: No, it’s not.
Final results. Gold wins to USA, silver to France, and bronze to Australia. With that gold medal, Diana Tarassi ties Alder Girovich, a Hungarian sabrist, as only the second person to six peat an Olympic event. Thank you, listener Brian, for that tidbit.
Alison: Diana Tarassi, we claim her in Connecticut. Cause she was, she was a Yukon Husky.
Oh, well, yeah.
Jill: In handball, we finished up the men’s tournament today. Bronze medal, Spain beat Slovenia 23 22. And, uh, uh, Slovenia had one last final attack at the buzzer. Goalkeeper for Spain, Gonzalo Perez de Vargas was able to block it and they kept their lead and got the win. In the gold medal game, Denmark beat Germany pretty handily, 39 26.
So that means gold goes to Denmark, silver to Germany, and bronze to Spain. And that means it’s also the last career, uh, game with the national team for Nicholas Landon Jacobson from Denmark. And he got a second Olympic gold medal. In a modern pentathlon, which I went out to today It was cool. Okay, so a I texted you it was a bad morning, it was a really bad morning because we I stayed with producer Ben last night and Because he got home at 3 30 something We didn’t go to bed until late and we had to get up because this started at 11 o’clock and it was out in Versailles And it was the first time we were going to Versailles.
So it’s kind of freaked out about getting there We move slowly in the morning. Was a metro to an RER. You get out of the RER station and there’s going to be a bus that takes you to the grounds. There’s a Disney line of epic proportions for the shuttle buses and everybody wants to go to the same time.
It moves pretty quickly. They do have buses lined up and they’re pretty big buses. So. It doesn’t take super long, but it probably still took like 10, 15 minutes to get the bus. We drive, we see the front of Versailles, we keep driving and driving and driving. This is all the way in the back. And when you look and you see that this is on the grounds of Versailles, like I took pictures with my camera, Versailles is so tiny you can hardly tell what it is.
It’s so far away. I know they were like, this is the best venue of the Olympics. It’s Versailles. And I just went, are you kidding me? And, and, and I got really bitter because I, because I was just like, this is a huge castle that a whole bunch of rich people built. I don’t need to see this. I was grumpy. I tell you, I was really, really grumpy.
And
Alison: you couldn’t even see it because it was so far away.
Jill: Yes, because it was really far away. You get off the bus, And then you have to like walk a kilometer to get to the exit gates, the entrance exit gates. And surprisingly the media entrance was the same, but there was no scanner. They just looked through my backpack and asked me if I didn’t have stuff.
And I don’t really know what she was asking besides perfume. If I had it, I’m just like, no, I don’t have anything. I’m fine. And they let me in. And then I’m trying to figure out where to go. And then the competition has already started at this point. And the first element of modern pentathlon in this new one time only format is the horse riding.
And that’s the element is going and that’s the element I really want to see because I want to see what it’s like. And. I stopped at, so dumb, I stopped at an information point. I don’t know. It should be called the not information point. Not information for me, because I asked the volunteer, like, where does the media go?
She looks at me like, what? She, well, where’s your ticket? And I show her my credential and she’s like, what? And I’m like, I’m media, I don’t have a ticket. I’m just like, forget it. Kept walking towards the stands. Johnny on the spot volunteer. He’s like, media, you go here. Just get on up there. And that was great.
And there was another person up there who, you know, it found a seat and it’s, of course, you’re not getting your computer out because it’s hot as, it’s hot and it’s bright as blazes and I have a little blockage with OBS umbrellas in front of me because they really need to see their stuff. So, um, I kind of move up a little bit later and again, somebody helps me find either like, oh, there’s a table up there.
Go ahead and go, you know, really nice volunteers in the stands. The competition was kind of interesting. The, the horse riding, I wish I had been able to see more of it because we were down to like 12 competitors. So I wish I had been, no, no, no, we were down to three heats of six, 18 competitors. And I saw maybe five.
or so horses. And, uh, one poor rider got thrown, which was not great to see. And I only saw it out of the corner of my eye. And the, the jumps aren’t as high as show jumping, but they’re no joke either. And to take a horse that you don’t know and get them to do that was, it’s really pretty impressive. I will say that no element of the competition felt very long.
Okay. And I wanted it to go on a little bit longer. I thought the 90 minute format was too short. And maybe that’s because I’d never seen this live. I’ve watched some of it in, in, uh, on tape, or on tape. I’ve watched some of it when Samantha was competing. I would turn it, tune in. And, um, Samantha Schultz, that is one of our Shofastanis, but that was the old format too.
So you had a lot longer or more competitors and they’ve really They’ve really whittled this one down So after the horse jumping where they had penalties for time and penalties if you knock something down Then you moved on to the swimming and that was no no you moved on to the fencing ranking round the fencing The fencing pist wasn’t inflatable.
It wasn’t totally like the floor wasn’t inflatable, but they had this giant IOC flag on the course. So the, the jumping part took place in the jumping ring that was used for equestrian. And then they had this giant IOC flag that they untethered cause it was lying flat. And then there was a fencing pist.
on there and a big inflatable roof that went over it. So you weren’t fencing in the sun? Correct.
Alison: Which makes sense.
Jill: Yes, except for I couldn’t see it because one of the pillars was blocking my vision.
Alison: Yeah, I would think that the inflatable fencing stool thing would, um, block everyone’s vision from it.
Like you really can’t see. Right. If you were, if
Jill: you were in. The stands at face to head on you are fine, I think. And the fencing is, again, these one touch bouts. And if you are, the first two people go up. Whoever wins stays on the piste. And they fence the next person. And if they keep winning, they keep staying on.
And they keep getting bonus points. And that will help you later on in the laser run aspect of the game. So Um, sometimes it changed. I think one person went on like a five or six bout tear, which is really good. Um, once that was done, changed into swimsuits, did the swim portion, which was, uh, 200 meters in a 25 meter pool on the other end of the, the horse ring that they, it was probably a Martha pool that they just put in.
Alison: Probably quite refreshing after that fencing. I’m sure it was.
Jill: I’m sure it was. And they have to get changed pretty quickly. And all that gear is no joke. Changing out of an equestrian outfit into a fencing uniform, which is pretty heavy duty. And then you gotta get out of all that stuff and throw on a swimsuit.
And then get on. It’s like the Miss Universe pageant. It is, with a lot less sequins. And Vaseline teeth. I didn’t see any Vaseline teeth. Yeah. So then they swim and the time kind of ranks them again and they’re all getting points and the, the points give them standings. And then, The differential in points determines how far apart they start in the laser run.
And the laser run is really exciting. Because they’ve run a lap, and the lap is woven all in this whole course. So, the swimming pool is still kind of separate. They take down the inflatable and cover it back up. But the running lane, which is about 600 meters, is woven all throughout. the rest of the course.
So it’s really kind of funny. The other volunteer job I had was, uh, lane line flat and they were kind of, I don’t know what you call them. Like the
Alison: top of a house?
Jill: Yeah, it kind of looked like a roof, but it was just a thing that you put on the ground. Oh, okay. Like if you inverted our laptops and set it down on the ground.
Okay. It was a, just a marker. And for the run part or for the, the laser gun portion, they aim at a target and they’ve got to make five shots. And if they miss, they just keep shooting and shooting and shooting until they make them. So, um, France’s, uh, L. O. D. Cluvel had started in first, and she could not get one of her shots pretty quickly.
She got passed by Michelle Goulash, and that was kind of it, once that was done. There was some changing here and there, um, which was kind of cool to see, but it was so exciting. Everybody, the, the crowd knew the race. They also We’re familiar with cheering for every shot. They, when France, when, when you make it and you’re from France, they got really excited for that.
So, uh, gold goes to Michel Gouliash. France went to Elodie Clovelle.
Alison: Wait.
Jill: Silver. Silver. Sorry. Silver goes to Elodie Cluvel from France and bronze went to Sung Min from Korea. One other note. One of the British athletes who I had and I don’t have her name anymore, got sick. Kate French. Kate French. Thank you.
So, Kate French got sick and was replaced by Annika, um, Zelikins. Zelikins. who was Annika Schloy from Tokyo, the infamous incident with punching. The infamous horse beater. Yes, exactly. Annika, uh, Zelikins was in, she did not finish very high up.
So not, I didn’t see her ride. So I don’t know how that worked and, maybe did not do so great on the, in the fencing round either. But it was interesting to see her compete because I was like, Oh, she’s back.
Alison: I remember this name.
Jill: Exactly. during the victory ceremony, this is, this is the only reason I’m going to tear up today.
You could see the athletes line up on the side in between two of the stands and all the French were singing to Elodie and she lost it. I lost it.
Alison: Yeah, there’s been some moments like that where it, it, You see the relationship between the spectators and the athlete, and especially for the French athletes, how special that has been.
Jill: Yes. And it was really, really beautiful. Then they did a massive parade around the ring for the volunteers. All the volunteers came up in this venue, had a ton of volunteers. You
Alison: walked for 427 kilometers, so they had to have, you know, a volunteer at each kilometer marker.
Jill: So much set up and so many different kinds of officials needed for modern pentathlon.
That was kind of amazing in and of itself. And I think, I think some of those jobs may have been volunteers. I’m not sure how many actual referees and judges of modern pentathlon, race needs, but boy, do they need a lot of people. Friege led the parade. This was the most excited Friege I have seen. Because it’s been pretty hot, so Friege hasn’t been super active.
This one was like, hands out, come on, clap more, clap more, jumping, jumping around. It was fantastic. Then, another reason I’m bummed we were not on time, following him. Were three French courtesans? What? I don’t, I mean like, look like Marie Antoinette, and dressed like that? With the wigs and everything? On stilts!
And I was like, what is this? And I thought, well maybe that was the pre show? Woo! Maria took that on stealth? Yes!
Alison: But this one kept her head, unlike the one from the opening ceremony. Yes! But I couldn’t
Jill: tell, I was high up! But they had the wigs that made them taller! I know, they had the white wigs, and they were dressed in the silky robes and knickers, and I didn’t know what was going on, but they were, they were on stealth!
Alison: I don’t think I have ever, we haven’t said anything more French
Jill: in this entire
Alison: time. I went to Versailles and I saw three French courtesans dressed like Marie Antoinette on stilts. Doesn’t everybody have an afternoon like that when they go see Mona at
Jill: the Tableau? It was the weirdest and best thing ever.
And then during the victory ceremony, they had um, the laser gun lights flashing for the whole thing. It was just awesome. It was, it was a really fun day. Um, I really enjoyed watching it. We ended up being in line for the bus back, um, in front of a junior pentathlete named Poppy and her parents. It And we talked to her about the obstacle course and she unfortunately really likes the writing element.
so she was a little bit bummed. But the interesting thing they said about the obstacle course one was that it was difficult because you got blisters when you trained and you can’t build calluses because you swim and your skin gets soft. So you get these blisters and then because you get blisters on your hands, you can’t fencing train.
And probably shooting is problematic as well. Probably, probably. So that was one thing that was interesting. The obstacle courses are also really short, really, really short. These people are finishing them in like 34 seconds. And, um, Poppy’s dad said at some point, this is just going to be a non event.
Everybody’s going to finish the same. It’s not going to separate you at all in the results. So they’re going to have to think about how to, I don’t know, make it more difficult, make it longer for crying out loud, because 30 seconds seems like a little too short.
Alison: It doesn’t sound like that’s the right choice.
No. Yeah.
Jill: So we shall see what happens at LA 2028. You know, yeah. And it’s four years. So a lot of things could happen. They could retool a whole bunch. Track cycling. We had one last day at the velodrome. We had the men’s Kirin finals.
Gold went to Harry Laverson from Netherlands. Silver went to Matthew Richardson from Australia and bronze went to Matthew Glitzer from Australia. Um, and Harry Leverson. beat, uh, Great Britain’s for Kieran streak by, uh, uh, beating Jack Carlin for gold. In the women’s sprint gold went to Elise, uh, Andrews from New Zealand.
Go Silver, Farns. Silver went to Leah Friedrich from Germany and bronze went to Emma Ficain, Finnecain from Great Britain. And in the women’s Omnium, um, Gold went to Jennifer Valente from USA, silver went to Daria Pikaluk from Poland, and bronze went to Allie Wollaston from New Zealand. Go silver ferns, again!
And this is Jennifer Valente’s back to back gold for, uh, the Omnium.
In volleyball, we had the women’s gold medal game. This was a surprise. This is a tough loss.
Alison: So Italy beat the USA 3 to 0 and it really was 3 to 0. You know, it was never, we looked at the scores and, and the sort of the play by play of it. This was not a terribly close match, which is really surprising.
This is Italy’s first gold medal in volleyball. It’s its first medal for women’s volleyball at all. Yes. And USA does not win back to back. No, which was a surprise, but Italy just absolutely dominated this game.
Jill: And, and I got to say good for Italy, you know, it’s so nice. It would be nice for the U S to repeat.
We understand that, but it’s nice to see somebody win for the first time.
Alison: Absolutely. And the Italians. Have done very well. These games. We’ve been saying their name a lot in places. We don’t usually say their name. The pool here in volleyball. So that I don’t know if the Milan Cortina effect has pushed Italy to spend more money on the Olympic team.
And so this is nice for them going into there, even though it’s a winter games to have that seeing Italy on the podium a lot. Now, does that then push the Italian public to be much more interested and supportive? for 2026.
Jill: Let’s hope so. And for Monica DeGennaro, her fourth Olympics and she’s finally won a medal and it’s gold.
So congratulations to Italy on that. Final medal table is gold for Italy, silver for USA and bronze to Brazil. And in men’s water polo, you saw this.
Alison: I saw the bronze medal game and it was a humdinger. So it was USA Hungary. to longstanding rivals. Hungry is a powerhouse in water polo for many, many years.
The end of regulation, it was tied at eight, eight. Whoa. And this was a tight match. Not a lot of it didn’t seem to be feisty in that way. I didn’t see a lot of people getting sent to the little penalty of the penalty box where they continue to swim. But then the shootout comes in. Of course my heart is in my throat and the USA boom, boom, boom.
three unanswered goals in the penalty shootout and they’re done and they won. And ain’t no celebration apparently like a USA water polo celebration. Caps were flying, people were jumping in the water. Um, people were wrapped up in American flags like towels. Um, our own Ben Halleck was overwhelmed. Uh, I, I would say when they showed him on the screen, I was like, wow, that looks like a grown man.
and an overwhelmed kid at the same time. So that was pretty exciting. Unfortunately, I was sitting next to a Hungarian reporter who started to cry. And that really upset me because then I’m like, don’t you cry? Cause then I’ll feel bad. But yeah, so this is the first, uh, us metal in water polo. I think I said since 2004, eight, eight, 2008 for the men’s for the men’s since
Jill: And in the gold medal game, Serbia beat Croatia 13 to 11, and that means gold goes to Serbia, silver to Croatia, and bronze to the U.
- That means Serbia has won three consecutive gold medals, apparently. I’m not surprised. Interesting and weightlifting we had the women’s over 81 kilogram final gold went to Lee Wen Wen from China silver went to Park Hyung Don from Korea and bronze went to Emily Campbell from Great Britain and This is back to back wins for Lee Wen Wen In wrestling, we have the men’s freestyle 65 kilogram medals.
Gold went to Japan’s Kyuku Kotaro. Silver went to Rahman Amuzad Khalili from Iran. And bronzes went to Sebastian Rivera from Puerto Rico and Islam Dudieff from Albania, which I believe is, uh, I don’t know.
Alison: Albania hasn’t racked up that many medals. I think this was Albania’s, it was Albania’s first medal certainly of this games. Okay. I don’t know what their overall count is, but it ain’t much.
Jill: In the men’s freestyle, 97 kilograms gold went to Akhmad Tazudinov from Bahrain. Silver went to Jivi Macharashvili from Georgia and bronzes went to Magomedkan Magomedov from Azerbaijan and Amir Ali Azerpilu from Iran.
Uh, in the women’s freestyle, 76 kilograms, gold went to Kagami Yuka. From Japan, Silver went to Kennedy Blades from the U. S. and Bronze went to Milamese Marine from Cuba and also Tatiana Renteria from Colombia. And that’s it for competition. Wow. That was it. And then closing ceremonies. We didn’t know what to expect because, uh, Thomas Jolie, who did the opening ceremony, which too much controversy around the world, and we found out that they had retooled the closing ceremonies.
We don’t know what they started with.
Alison: And also we didn’t get the guide until we were already at the stadium. Yes, you know, for opening, they sent it to us much earlier in the day. This, they had a QR code for at the stadium for us to pull it up. So we only got the guide two hours beforehand. So we really didn’t get a chance to dive into it too deeply.
Um, and so we kind of went into it a little cold.
Jill: Yeah. And it was weird. I don’t want to say it was weird. It wasn’t, it was weird. And it was long. It was long and it wasn’t, it wasn’t interesting and it wasn’t a celebration. That’s, that’s the main takeaways. I, usually I get really sad at the end of the ceremonies, even with the snow flame, but this was so little fun involved that I didn’t get sad.
Alison: Everything, what I said to, to you on the bus ride back was everybody needed another few weeks of rehearsal. Everything was slow. Everything had dead air. Yes. All the transitions were slow. The athletes parade seemed to take forever and just getting, and I realized trying to wrangle all these kids is a nightmare, but they didn’t set themselves up for success in the pattern in which they were bringing the athletes in.
Jill: No, and usually with the closing ceremonies, everybody comes in together. But here they still kind of came in in delegations, in, in groups of delegations. You’d have a little intermingling, but they kind of walked, sauntered out. It really should have been, let’s all kind of run in together.
Alison: And even the parade of flags, they come, they came in and then paraded all around the stage.
And then they did a victory lap. And I’m like, the flags are still going. And then the athletes started coming in. So there was never anything happening simultaneously. There was always a wait time. Like there was always built in commercial time, right? When there shouldn’t have been. So that made it very frustrating from an attendee’s point of view.
I can’t imagine watching it on the live stream. Probably the primetime broadcast will be much better because they’ll just tighten it up. They’ll just cut all of it. But that live stream must have been just a nightmare to watch and agonizing.
Jill: Right. And, and the athletes kept coming in. The show did start up again.
At
Alison: some point they just said, Oh, we are going over. So let’s just start. So they didn’t even give all the athletes their moment because there was this kind of slow roll of everything. Yeah,
Jill: exactly. So we started in Tuileries in the garden where the cauldron is. There was a song there and then Leon Marchand comes out and he takes the flame.
Alison: Okay, which we have done. now know that in addition to the balloon, which is not flame, it’s the light. There’s a little candle. It’s the lantern. It’s a lantern. The lantern
Jill: that carries the Olympic flame in reserve for during the flame. Yeah. The backup flame for the torch relay. They have a flame. They’ve had a flame on display in front of the cauldron the whole time.
Alison: So he took the backup flame and started. in this somewhat pre recorded, I think, element, started walking down the walkway of the Tuileries and just kept walking. Again, why are we watching him walking for several minutes? Right. We get the idea he’s gonna bring the flame to the stadium. We got you. Let’s move on.
Like, why wasn’t that all happening while they were singing? Right? Like, things weren’t simultaneous. It was like everybody needed their turn. where we could have tightened everything up. Right. So then we come back to the stadium. Is that what happened next?
Jill: Yes. So he comes, we come back to the stadium. Um, flags are raised.
I gotta say the flan flag fan technology is not improved since 22 because we had problems with the fans going and then the flags wouldn’t catch. And that’s what happened
Alison: here. Like the flag seems to be stuck on something like all of them. I don’t know if they just weren’t stringing them up properly.
Like they all seem to be stuck on the string and not blowing in the wind appropriately.
Jill: We had karaoke time and there was a lot of thanking of the volunteers who got tons and tons of cheers,
Alison: which is great. But okay, we don’t need to see thank you for 10 minutes,
Jill: right? karaoke time. That was that was kind of fun because we had the Sean Bailey’s a song.
Yes. And like three others. Yes. Did the Women’s Marathon Victory Ceremony T Bach and Sebastian co were there for that one. Very nice. Uh, they showed clips from the marathon for two, obviously something for the TV audience, but still fun to watch. You had, um, the new IOC athletes commission electees come in and get introduced.
And then, um, then they had that song with the piano that was hanging in the midair and the guy was playing it vertically. I didn’t, I.
I don’t know. And then we had our big performance element.
Alison: What, what is the name of this horrid band that was playing? It wasn’t.
Jill: No, no, it’s not. No, we had the beginning with the rings. With the
Alison: rings.
Jill: How did you get that half
Alison: an hour? I blocked it out. So then we had the reappearance of Zorro, the torchbearer.
Yes. And the, um, pale rider of flag bearing death. Um. came back. And I did love the callbacks to the opening ceremony, but they didn’t do anything with it. No, they just showed up here and then disappeared again.
Jill: Right. And then we went into some dystopian world where you started with ancient Greece. And then the Golden Traveler appeared.
And then, uh, the games went away. And they had to dig the rings back out and bring them back. And this does not seem like a closing number to me. This is for an opening ceremony. And it
Alison: just went on. And I mean, how long
Jill: does it take to dig a ring out? I don’t know because they were digging it out of the stage and we’re going to put a pin in the ring thing.
The stage, I actually really liked. The stage was different platforms at different heights that were roughly made to look like the continents. And then there were little sections that had, uh, screens. So there was a little projection mapping. But what I loved about it that we didn’t have everything projection mapped.
This was a very There were a few, uh, arenas that had it in their, their shows early on. But we did not have this Opening Ceremonies with Projection Mapping Everywhere, or the Closing Ceremonies with Projection Mapping Everywhere, and I really love that. I mean, it’s cool. This is very old school
Alison: in that
Jill: sense.
Which, yeah, and even though projection mapping is really cool, we’ve seen it over and over and over. This was at least something different. Agreed. So basically, then we spent like 15 minutes watching groups of guys in gray. Digging out these giant rings and then they put them up in the air. And that was it.
It took forever. They’re doing like parkour stuff around and a little bit of break dancing. And it just takes a long, and they don’t really even do stuff with the rings. I thought there would be a lot of spinning in them. And that didn’t really happen either. So, right. It was just a lot of lame stuff to say, okay, I The Olympic rings are back.
They’re back together.
Alison: These giant golden rings hung were raised to the center and then just hung there. Yeah. And they, and they didn’t even light up. There was nothing. They didn’t do a cool light show on them. They didn’t do a nothing.
Jill: No, it was, it was just really long. I mean, we lit up more. We got the, the little bracelets with the lights on them so that they send, Uh, I guess they’re Bluetooth or something, so they have them programmed, and all of a sudden your wrist would light up.
It was great. It was exciting. But then we went on to the musical stuff, the musical portion, which were several, um, French bands. So we, we had, um, Phoenix, we had Air, we had Ezra Koenig, um, we had, um, uh, uh, Angela and I think Vanda were all in there. and also Kavinsky because that was the electronica people.
Alison: Seven or eight songs.
Jill: It was long. It was really, really long. Really long stuff. Kinda nice, and the audience loved it because they did know these bands and that was, that made it okay. Um, but it was a long stuff.
Alison: But prior to that, we had a little rebellion among the athletes.
Jill: Who rushed the stage?
Alison: So I think what they were told was that they, because originally they were sort of, um, bunched on what would have been the track.
Jill: Mm hmm.
Alison: And I think they were instructed to move forward and fill in the spaces around the platforms. Well, they didn’t take that, and they rushed the stage. And then, so they had hundreds of athletes on the stage. And now you can’t bring the performers out. Yeah, it was great. So then you have the announcer come on.
Dear athletes, please get off the stage. And they did not.
Jill: No, it took a while. It took your lady without the clipboard. to kind of gesture them off.
Alison: And it took a whole team of security getting on the stage. So they started, they got enough of the stage cleared so that the bands could come out. But there were still many, many, many athletes on the stage.
And then several security guards came and were still the whole time those bands were playing, pushing these athletes off the stage. And it just made me think this is a stampede waiting to happen. This is not going to end well.
Jill: And it ended not well, but in a different way. So, uh, once we had, we were done with all the music, then we had the speeches.
So Tony Estanguet talked for a while. Teebok talked for a while. And he said the games were sen sational.
Alison: You know, I, I give him, I cut him a little slack for that.
Jill: He tries to be hip with the young people. Right. Then it was time for the handover. So, and at this point it’s
Alison: 1130.
Jill: Yeah, it’s late. And two
Alison: and a half hours in, we’re finally getting to the handover.
Jill: Right. So the handover comes and we have, uh, her.
came in to sing the National Anthem at Live. And then who shows up on the top of the stadium? She
Alison: starts playing Mission Impossible. Oh, yeah, she did. Yes, that’s right. At the top of the stadium. We had heard rumors that Tom Cruise was going to be involved. And you sort of knew there’d be a stunt if Tom Cruise is involved.
And then she starts playing the Mission Impossible. And I was thinking, he’s going to jump off the top of it. And there he did. Yes, he did. Jumps down. And the crowd went wild the minute the light went on him at the top of the stadium. So even though we knew it was coming, it was still really fun. It surprised me how fun it was because I’m so anti celebrity at this kind of stuff.
Jill: Yes. And he makes his way. through these ramps that these platforms are on, where athletes are kind of surrounding him. And so of course, he’s some poor
Alison: woman. I shouldn’t say poor woman, poor Tom. Like grabbed him and kissed him. But,
Jill: you know, trying to get pictures and all that jazz and he’s saying hey to everybody and he goes to get the flag from the mayor of Los Angeles and Oh, by the way, and he’ll long go.
Alison: Yet another stylist dress. Yes,
Jill: again, Killing it. And so he gets the flag from the mayor of Los Angeles and
Alison: puts it on the back of a motorcycle and rides out of the stadium and everyone is screaming. at this riding out in the motorcycle. And then we get to the prerecorded segments where he rides the motorcycle onto an airplane, flies the, you know, jumps out of the airplane with the, the Olympic flag.
The prerecorded thing was brilliant.
Jill: It was great. But it also reminded me of old survivor. Actually, producer Ben says, Hey, it reminds me of the old survivor when Jeff Probst would take the boat, take the boat. across the ocean, and then show up in the studio for the live show.
Alison: So then you have the pre recorded segment of the flag traveling through Los Angeles, and you have Michael Johnson running with it, and Jagger even skateboarding with it, and then you finally have them arrive live at the concert stage at Long Beach.
Jill: But you forgot one of the better parts was that They took the Hollywood sign and with the two O’s in the wood, they added three other rings to make it the Olympic rings. Yes, that was so, so cool.
Alison: Now we have the musical segments from L. A., which started so perfectly with Red Hot Chili Peppers. Yes. And if they had ended the L.
- segment there, I would have declared it a perfect handover session. I would have said this is probably one of the most perfect ones I’ve ever seen, but they didn’t. They kept going.
Jill: Then they had Billie Eilish who sang a very slow song and then Snoop Dogg came on with Dr. Dre. Yes. And it was weird because Snoop had been here the whole time.
For weeks. And This kind of bummed me out that I get that having this in LA, all these performances in LA made it local, made the local people excited about it. It was also much cheaper to do. Okay, I get that. The same time, tickets for the closing ceremonies weren’t cheap. And you
Alison: watched half of it on TV.
Yes. So, and the athletes, once that LA segment started. And it was clear it was going to be on the TV. They all started leaving.
Jill: Yeah.
Alison: If they really started streaming out, I mean that they had been leaving from the early on, but then there was just this mass exodus where it said, Oh, anything that’s happening here is done.
We were just not going to stand out here in the fields in the heat. Yeah.
Jill: Cause it was hot. And a lot of the uniforms were long sleeved or had big jackets looking at you USA. Which was, I just was really bummed out that the only performance live was her. And I like her. I think she’s a great singer and a great guitar player.
But at the same time, it’s like, well, Snoop was just here. Why didn’t you have him here and throw it to
Alison: L. A.? Right. Or throw it back to him. Like, do the two L. A. performances and then throw it back. Paris with him. Right. Something to, but I think this is what we’re going to see now. They did it for Tokyo to Paris because of COVID where they weren’t going to have any of the Paris elements in Tokyo.
And I think they realized it’s a lot cheaper. It’s a lot more, it’s a lot easier to produce. It’s a lot more effective to get your message across. And it did look very LA. I mean, in this handover. We know what LA is going to do. Yeah, it’s going to be focused on Hollywood. It’s going to be focused on the beach aspects It’s going to be that LA cool Attitude.
Yeah, you really got that from this handover ceremony but We’re sitting in the stadium for three hours and watching a big screen.
Jill: Yeah,
Alison: that was a
Jill: that was a big bummer And then we got a bigger bummer which was Leon Marchand came out with the flame to cheers. Okay. Let’s, let’s just say like he is beloved here and that’s fantastic.
Had an amazing games. great person to have do this role.
Alison: And on the stage at this point, they had athlete representatives, one from each continent.
Jill: Yes.
Alison: With TBAC.
Jill: Yes. So we have Teddy, Teddy Reiner, um, Emma McCune, uh, Mian Lopez. Yes. From Cuba. And, uh, I can’t remember the other couple, but, uh, It was, they were standing there a long, long time because they came out before the speeches.
I think so. And Liam Marshawn comes out with a flame in his little lantern. Yes. Holding it like a baby. And then all of them gather around it. And they blow it out like a
Alison: birthday candle. I was horrified when they were holding it. You said they’re not going to blow it out like they couldn’t possibly do this.
And then they did. And I think the two of us just screamed both inwardly and outwardly like they just treated the Olympic flame like a birthday candle.
Jill: Yeah. Yeah. Cause it’s supposed to go out majestically. And it was on the level of snow flame from Beijing, 2022, when that came out and it just was the torch stuck in a big snowflake.
And you’re like, this is it. And that’s kind of what I have reaction to the whole Olympic flame thing. This is it. And we were talking on the way back and you said, look, they had these beautiful cauldrons for every leg of the torch relay. And they lit that every night. And we got stuck with a light. But it’s like when you go to a nicest restaurant and they have the candles on the table and you’re like, Ooh, candle on the table. It’s nice. And then you look in, you’re like, Oh, it’s a battery operated light that flickers.
Alison: It was frustrating because we did love the idea of that hot air balloon when we first saw it.
Yes,
Jill: it was cool. And I think they worked really hard to make it look like a flame. But then they did this, which kind of undercut the whole concept. Right. And the majesty of the Olympic flame, it just was bad. And then at the end, and then Timot goes, Well, that’s it. Is this how we end the show? We
Alison: were packing up.
Yeah, and walking out
Jill: and then kept going. And we’re like, Oh, this is not how they end the show. We have we did it my way. Yes. Uh, you salt She’s an independent pop artist. And she sang My Way, which was basically them saying, we did this Olympics our way. And it felt like a big slap in the face.
Alison: It did. It sort of was like, you didn’t have fun. Well, too bad for you.
Jill: We did it the way we wanted to do it
Alison: and then we had our fireworks the first fireworks we’ve seen
Jill: yes, and It was uh nice. I mean I enjoyed fireworks. They were very short,
Alison: which is fine. Yeah,
Jill: that’s fine. But Yeah, it was just really really weird and it didn’t wasn’t celebratory we didn’t have You know We didn’t have a ton of athletes intermingling with each other and dancing.
Yeah, a
Alison: lot of them were laying on the ground, the ones who stayed, right? Like, it’s hot, we’re tired. There’s nothing for us to do, right? We’re just going to kind of hang out here. And they all seem to not really know when it was over and streaming out and kind of wandering around. So this was definitely not for them.
Jill: No, and that’s really sad.
Alison: I hope they go home to the village and have a nice party.
Jill: Yeah. And I mean, we were on the side that France came out on and that was nice because they interacted with the fans a lot and we could see them jumping around on the side, but they were jumping around and all excited at first.
And then they were like, Oh, we can’t maintain this for like the hour. It’s going to take the rest of the athletes to come in. It was just, like you said, no joy in this.
Alison: And I think back to Tokyo when we watched that closing ceremony. how much joy they managed to inject in it. When there’s no fans and everyone’s wearing a mask.
Jill: And
Alison: yet there seemed to be so much joy in the show that they put on. And Parrish just said, that’s not how we do things. We do it my way.
Jill: Yeah, it was just, it was not a great way to end the show. It really felt off putting to me.
Alison: Tomas Jolie needs somebody to tell him no. We are not going to go on for three and a half hours.
Jill: And so there we have it. These games are done. They did do it their way. But you know what? Their way did not make me teary. I will say that.
Alison: I didn’t cry. When was the last closing ceremony we didn’t cry?
Jill: Oh, I know. Even Beijing. Like, just, ugh. That was, uh, oh, oh, that Beijing Paralympic ceremony. Oh my gosh, that is just, oh.
I’m curious to see what they do for Paralympics, because they were all like, hey, Paralympics are coming. This is just the first leg of it. So that’s nice that they’re getting people prepped and ready for more. Um, overall, if I took myself out of, myself as a journalist out, these were great games. Yeah.
Great venues, great crowds, great athleticism, great athletic performances. So many cool moments, so many great things happened. The way we had to deal with lousy living conditions, lousy people that we interacted with. And it was always, when we got a volunteer, it was nice and did their job and was super helpful.
That was amazing, you know, and it wasn’t, we didn’t get it all the time, which was a bummer. And also we had so many problems wayfinding.
Alison: Let’s see how we feel. Let’s let’s put a pin in it. See how we feel after para.
Since things should, in
Jill: theory, be better. They should. And we also know our way around most of the venues. Not all of the venues, but most of the venues. So we will see how Para goes. And I think when we have time to reflect and sleep, because we haven’t slept a whole lot and, and we got sick. So that didn’t help either.
Um, but I think, you know, we had some really cool experiences.
Alison: Yeah. I mean, we both saw Leon Marchand win a gold medal. Yes. Yes. You went to the village. We went to the village. That was, I ate a muffin. I hung out with Micron. Oh Jill, what should I do? I don’t know what to do with this international crisis and you are so smart.
Whatever.
Jill: I can, I can be his official toilet advisor. That’s all I have qualified for. But yeah, well. We’ll reflect on it. We will take a week off to recuperate. And then we’ll have a quick show ahead of the Paralympics because we interviewed Daniel Romanchuk before we came to Paris and are thrilled to bring you a little bit of information from him and as he gets ready for, uh, his competitions here.
Alison: And then we’re back with daily shows on Wednesday, August 28th.
Jill: Yes. That’s the opening day of the Paralympics.
So, one last shout out to our mascot.
Alison: Yes, so I’m going to say thank you to all of our mascots from the Olympics. Theodore, Serendipity, Polly, and Mittens. You will always get treats at Schookvlistant House, which is basically my house if any of you want to show up. And we’ve got new mascots coming for the Paralympics.
And thank you to our Kickstarter supporters who shared their friends with us and got us here to Paris.
Jill: and how did we end on the medal count? So our final medal count was seven golds, ten silvers, six bronzes. If you go by golds, we were, uh, between 13th and 14th, which was Uzbekistan and Hungary. If you go by total, we were between 11th and 12th, and that’s Canada, and there was a tie with New Zealand and Brazil below us.
Alison: I’m impressed. Not a bad haul and so proud of all of our Shukhfustanis for their competitions and their effort and how well they all performed and handled themselves in probably the hardest thing they’ve ever done. Exactly. So way to go team Shukhfustan. We are so excited for you. We hope your Olympics went really well and you had a great time and that you bring back a wonderful memories from Paris and they’ll cherish this time always.
Jill: You know what you could cherish listeners? Your very own official vacuumer shirt. You too can be a team. Keep the flame alive. Official vacuumer. I did not see vacuuming today. I saw raking because there was no real, I mean, there was maybe a carpet around swimming, but they didn’t have to vacuum it because I was late.
Alison: I did not see any vacuuming today. I did see some floor maintenance though. Okay. I did see a vacuum unattended. Oh, I think at our hotel. Oh yeah. I’ve seen that too in our hallway. Yeah. And if you want to be a official vacuumer from Shooklastan, you can get a t shirt at TeePublic. We have links to that at our website, flamealivepod.
com. And that will do it for this episode. Thank you so much to our researcher, Annalie Dable, for helping us out during the Olympics. We really appreciate the support you provided us. And if you want to let us know what you thought of the closing ceremonies, 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. 3 5 2 6 3 4 8. That’s 2 0 8 Flame It. Chat with us and other fans on our Facebook group, Keep the Flame Alive Podcast, and sign up for our daily, uh, Games Time newsletter and our regular weekly newsletter at our website flamealivepod.
com. Join us in a couple of weeks with our interview with Daniel Romanchuk and then again in Wednesday the 28th of August for our daily episodes of the Paralympics. If you enjoyed this, tell your friends because Paralympics are going to be even more fun. We’re super excited. More fun because there’s wheelchair rugby and there’s blind football and so much more.
Jill: I’m so excited.
Alison: Jingle jangle of the goalball!
Jill: Yes, oh my gosh, we are just going to have too much fun. So please come and hang out with us again for the Paralympics and all that Paris has to offer. Thank you so much for listening and until next time, keep the flame alive!