It’s Day 7 of the Paris 2024 Olympics, and Olympic fatigue is starting to settle in. Alison battles a sore throat, but finds another pharmacy and rallies to go to trampoline and 3X3 basketball. Meanwhile, Jill gets into the pin trading game and sees a France podium sweep in BMX. It’s her first visit to the velodrome/BMX racing park, which, of course, means a new toilet to visit!
The Sports on today’s program are:
- 3×3 Basketball
- Archery
- Athletics
- Badminton
- Basketball
- Beach Volleyball
- Boxing
- Canoe Slalom
- Cycling BMX Racing
- Diving
- Equestrian
- Fencing
- Football
- Golf
- Handball
- Hockey
- Judo
- Rowing
- Sailing
- Shooting
- Surfing
- Swimming
- Table Tennis
- Tennis
- Trampoline Gymnastics
- Volleyball
- Water Polo
Don’t forget – the only way that we’re able to bring you this unique look at the Games is thanks to donations from listeners like you. Please support us financially so that we can continue to keep our flame alive. We have many ways to support us — and if you sign up as a paid Patreon member, you’ll get exclusive content!
Our researcher for the Olympics is Annalee Deabel.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo: Keep the Flame Alive
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
Paris 2024 Olympics Day 7
Jill: Bonjour and welcome to day seven 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 main press center here at Paris 2024. I am joined as always by my lovely co host, Alison Brown. Alison, bonjour, comment ça va?
Hi.
Alison: So we have a bit of a Bob Costas in Sochi pink eye situation in here. So, my, I have now developed a full blown cold. I have gotten more medicine from the pharmacy. And we’ll see how this goes tonight.
Silence: Oh, well, it could be super sexy.
Alison: You know what? If they saw me snotting everywhere, that would take care of the sexiness.
All
Jill: right. Well, let’s get into this so we don’t have you talk too much and begin the baguette.
Okay, you have been back to La Pharmacie, the same pharmacy?
Alison: No, because I was at a different part of the city. I went to a different pharmacy. And I had another lovely pharmacist, who was again able to help me in English. And though we had to use some interesting words, is my nose blocked or running?
Silence: Ooh.
Alison: You know, is it hurt or is it so, but we got it to brought out a whole array and I could select based on my symptoms, my symptoms. So thank you to the pharmacist who I’ve tried it and it really does help.
Silence: Oh, that’s really good. So we will hope that some sleep helps as well.
Alison: A little tea, a little sleep, and I have my schedule worked out for tomorrow that I can still see at least two events and get some rest.
Jill: Excellent. Excellent. So I went to the pin trading session at the Coke pop up food fest. Something is wrong with my phone because I don’t have internet connection unless there’s a wifi. And I didn’t realize there was wifi there until Nicholas Wolover from Olympic rings and other things said, Hey, there’s wifi here.
But that took a long time into my time at the Coke pavilion because I wanted to eat. And, uh, they had to
Alison: order off a QR code to order
Jill: off a QR code, which, you know, thank goodness that Ben was coming and contributor. Ben, of course, is on his phone trying to see it because we’re all old now. And this is great.
And he’s trying to order. He gives me the phone, says, QR code? Order what you want. I thought I had ordered these wonton nachos cause I thought that sounded interesting and a cheeseburger just cause and fries cause I just needed something. I thought I had ordered some whole plate thing. You did not. I ordered wonton nachos cause that’s all that came out for me and they were a very sad.
Sad. Bowl of nacho, bowl of wonton chips that were kind of soggy, kind of crushed, and they had drizzled on them like some kind of white sauce, white sour creamy maybe, and a little bit of pepper flakes kind of stuff. Did you get a
Alison: coke?
Jill: I got a coke and then Ben was like, we will get you more food. So Meredith, I’m sorry.
Ben is looking out for me. He’s making sure I eat because it was just like I have to eat all of the food I can eat right now because I don’t know if I’m eating ever again.
Alison: And I did get a meal today. I did actually sit down at a proper restaurant.
Silence: How was that?
Alison: That was amazing. Though between my lack of French and my lack of voice.
It was a lot of pointing and nodding with the waiter who was extremely lovely and helpful. But I asked for, this is my one sentence that I have, is un ver, uh, wait. Un verre glace. Because I want a glass with a lot of ice. That got me two cubes today. I have to preface this with like, Je suis American. I want American level ice.
Jill: Well, it’s funny because the first round of ordering, because Ben got a cheeseburger and fries, and we got, uh, cokes, but they said, you have to go to the bar behind you for your Coke. And we didn’t know why, but we thought, well, maybe they’re out of the Coke zero. So we go to the bar behind us and they did, it was a bar.
So they were putting, making cocktails and they did put ice in our Coke. the glass, just one cube
Alison: and
Jill: some lime for the Coke Zero. So that was lovely. And, and the dulcet tones of Jay and Jason Bryant were there and ate with us. And he’s like, you got ice.
Alison: Beaucoup de glass is the is the way to go. And I think I really need to start prefacing it with Je suis American.
American glass.
Jill: Um, but I ate my sad wonton nachos. And, and there’s other people eating like stuff that looks decent, like salads and some Vietnamese bowl. And there was a lot of pizza going on that looked kind of interesting, but I just what I needed some protein. And so then I ate, Ben ate about half of his fries, I ate the rest of them.
And then I got another cheeseburger and fries to eat. That really set me up for the whole day. Nice. And then did the pin trading and it was kind of a mob scene in there, but it kind of came and went. So lunchtime people came in and then the kind of died down a little bit. The pin traders had like the back.
third of the thing. So many, many pin traders out. A lot of little kids wanting to do trades, which is good. I have a little bracelet. Oh, you’ve got a
Alison: friendship bracelet. Yes, a
Jill: little rubber band one, not a beaded one, but these little kids could not make these fast enough. They were like, I was giving pins away because we have a lot of pins and there’s no trading.
And I did trade some. So I have some really nice pins that I like. But, um, yeah, these little kids were, they, they got that you’re supposed to trade. So there was a little consternation that I was giving away in these kids. Like, okay, it’s free. Okay. But I did manage to give a bunch of pins away. Sharon from Sanofi, if you have not given away that extra pin, I will be very upset with you, so please, I hope you have done that.
Sharon was lovely.
Alison: Excellent.
Jill: Well, I’m glad
Alison: you saw some of our pin trading friends. Oh yeah,
Jill: they were, they were happy to be trading. You could get kind of good trades because people just wanted to trade so badly. Yeah, it hasn’t
Alison: been at the venues, it hasn’t been floating around. I haven’t seen people wearing a lot of pins.
No. On their, on their badges. But
Jill: going through that, you did start seeing people with pins and they did start getting, so I do want to hit up a hospitality house area at some point because that is, there’s another pin traders center there and they, they’re selling pins, but there’s also hopefully some trading going on there.
So we got some action. We’ll see what happens. The rest of the show. Um, Volunteer job that you would like to do.
Alison: Oh, I got two good ones from trampoline today. So at the very beginning, before the competition started, one of the volunteers got up on both of the trampolines and stood in each of the corners and was getting a thumbs up from the broadcast desk.
Ooh. So he must have been adjusting things for the camera. That was pretty cool. But then there’s a kiss and cry at trampoline.
Jill: Ooh, really? Was there? I don’t remember. There’s no kiss and cry at artistic gymnastics.
Alison: No, because they move around to different, uh, rotations. Whereas trampoline it’s one event and then you sit down until the next round.
There’s a person with a headphone.
Jill: And?
Alison: And they get to direct the people into the Kiss and Cry and out of the Kiss and Cry. But they have a headset, and a microphone, and a clipboard.
Jill: I know. Clipboard will get me any time.
I got to go to BMX today. That was my event. And because I did the pin trading for I was there for a long time. So I was surprised at how long I was there. But it was it was worth it because it was fun.
And my the job I would like a BMX is track.
Alison: What does that mean?
Jill: That means there are people with brooms. big push brooms that have to sweep down the corners all the time. There are people with long things that look like squeegees, but they’re not squeegees. They’re there to put the dirt in the right spot.
Because you have to, yeah, yeah. Kind of level it out. And then there’s hoses, which they had these gigantic hoses that they, and, and there was a whole system of, the hose gets wrapped up in a container and the container gets put into like the ground. And there’s a cover that goes down. I think I have it on video, but there would be people that got up on top of all of the bumps on the track and would hose them down a little bit so that the dirt wouldn’t come up as much.
Alison: You do love a good track maintenance job.
Jill: Oh my gosh, it was great. I mean, we’ll get into BMX later. It was, it was a night. I will tell you that. Toilet talk?
Alison: I have toilet talk. Oh,
Jill: good, good. I have toilet talk too, but it’s not, it’s not a, it’s not an embarrassing one, thank goodness.
Alison: So the other place I went today was Place de la Concorde for 3×3.
And I went into the trailer. Well, first, I couldn’t find La Toilette Pour Femmes. There was, there was, there was two doors for Uh, Les Hommes, and no door for Les Femmes, but I found it finally. Only one. They have two bathrooms for men and one for women. Oh, because
Jill: there are so many bros there. You know.
Alison: Anyway, get in there. It’s fine. It’s clean. Everything works. But the stall. is so tiny and the door of the stall opens in.
So I was fine going in, but then coming out.
Jill: You kind of do like that matrix bend backwards.
Alison: I almost had to sit back on the toilet to open the door. So I was kind of straddling the toilet. holding my bag behind me, just trying to open the door and get out. But I managed not to fall in and I was very pleased with myself.
Silence: Those, those are the worst, I think.
Alison: The tininess. I mean, this was really tiny. I mean, I am five feet tall and my knees were touching the door when I was sitting down. I mean, This was a, this was a stall made for Oompa Loompas. I mean, it was really small.
Jill: Um, I did go to the bathroom at Coke and it was a toilet on a platform.
Alison: Oh no. Which I was
Jill: worried about, but I made through okay.
Alison: You didn’t fall off and go crashing through the door.
Jill: No. No, because I would have been stopped by the door. I think it was another one that pushed, came inward. I don’t know. I just tried to put that experience out of my mind because I saw a platform and I went, oh boy.
Alison: We know how Alison did.
Jill: In
Alison: the mountains of China. Was there a Swiss woman around going, are you
Jill: okay? No. But then, of course, I went to a new venue today, so I had to do the bathroom situation there. And at BMI, so I go to the front desk at the media center and say, you know, and she said, Oh, there’s one right to the left.
And then if that’s full, you can go this way. And I went to the one, I went to the biggest toilet in Paris.
Alison: Wait, the biggest bathroom or the actual biggest toilet? No, it
Jill: was a single stall person. It was a, but it was a whole room. It was like a wheelchair person could get in there. And I almost did a dance.
Alison: And you had room.
Jill: I did have room. It was, it was phenomenal. I did not know stuff like that existed in Paris or the Paris region, because this is a little outside of the city, but maybe that’s normal.
Alison: You hit the suburbs and the bathrooms get big.
Jill: That’s right. All right. Well, you know, thanks to your support, we can do important investigations into the toilets of Paris and also bring you Olympic results every day.
I don’t know what’s more important.
Alison: You know, we
Jill: have gotten
Alison: mixed responses as in some people really like the toilet talk more than the daily results. And we so appreciate that.
Jill: So but it does cost a lot of money for us to be here and bring the show to you. So please help keep our flame alive by donating to us.
You know, you could send us 20 and 24 cents for 2024. That would be so appreciated. And it will make sure that we can Take a cab home and get home safely. Oh, we gotta talk about safety talk. We got a safety talk update too.
Alison: Okay.
Jill: And um, but that will help keep us safe at night when we go back to our super sketch hotel neighborhood.
And it will also help make sure that we can keep the show going after we get home from Paris. Should we make it home?
Alison: We’re gonna make it home. We won’t make
Jill: it home. I don’t want to be that far. And the pharmacy
Alison: is keeping me alive. They’re
Jill: good. They were good. Alright. You can find out. How to donate at flamealivepod.
com slash support we accept PayPal and Venmo and you can also become a patron patreon. com slash flame alive pod those ongoing patronage donors if you If you’re one of those, every day you get, well, every day and maybe twice a day because some days I forget. I forget what day it is every day now.
Alison: You know, at the Team USA office, they have a sign on the wall saying what day it is.
I think we need to start doing that. Just like on our heads. Just like write it on our arms. That’s
Jill: the only place we’ll see it. I might have to write it on my arm, Dave, whatever. But the lousy soap in our bathroom wouldn’t, wouldn’t clean it off,
Silence: I can tell you that. And
Jill: we’d just be crossing it off. It’ll be, it’ll be a new tattoo look for me.
Don’t make me laugh,
Alison: I’m going to choke.
Jill: And it’s not funny, but it’s funny. Anyway, uh, ongoing patrons, uh, at any level will get a picture of the day. If you donate at the 5 a level month or more, you get random videos that show up of things we take that, and all of this content is exclusive to you for being an ongoing patron.
So thank you so much for everyone who has supported us so far. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it.
Alison: Makes me happy every time I see the emails come in.
Jill: I know. I know. I, we feel the love and that helps keep us going, especially as our immune systems have decided to stop. So once again, that’s flamealivepod.
com slash support.
Back to safety. So we went to the tram today and we’ve been told that there’s heightened police presence in our neighborhood. Thanks to our interventions.
Alison: Supposedly.
Jill: Yes. Supposedly. So, at the end of our street corner is a flea market, and sometimes it stalls. Today it was all street flea, which is a little, it’s a little more desperate when it’s all street flea.
And that, that had not yet expanded to across the street, really, because it will eventually expand down and do a couple blocks.
Alison: The whole weekend we know. That that section is going to be street free.
Jill: Yes. So we walk under the peripheral boulevard and that’s a little dicey. The next couple of blocks are a little dicey.
Then you get to a block where there’s a restaurant on the corner and the restaurant looks perfectly fine. And a
Alison: lot of shops and a lot of things going on.
Jill: Yeah, and that’s when it starts to get better. And it’s not as sketch, but it’s still a little sketch. And then we get to the corner with the tram and that’s, that’s, that’s better.
The tram
Alison: station is totally fine. Yeah,
Jill: that is totally fine. And we’re in good hands. So we’re walking and we get to the corner with the adequate restaurant. Yes. And. Oh, there’s our police presence.
Alison: Six cops standing there, talking to each other, nobody at the street flea, nobody in the sections of the neighborhood that are actually of concern, they’re just hanging out chitchatting on the nice corner.
Jill: Right. And one’s on her phone. Yes. And two of them have backs to the, it’s not, they’re not even patrolling. They’re not even looking around. Thank you, Paris. And thank you, Paris 2024. All right. Onto today’s results. We start with archery. We had the mixed team medal rounds. Gold went to Korea’s Lim Si young and Kim Woo jin.
Silver went to Germany’s Michelle, uh, Kroppen or Michaela Kroppen and Florian Unruh. And bronze went to Brady Ellison and Casey Coffold of the U S, uh, they beat India in the bronze medal match, six to two. I was, uh, walking by, by to the bus when this was going on, when they were doing their thing. So it was kind of cool to catch a few shots on the Jumbotron.
And it was fun because, uh, in the Invalides area where the archery venue is, the backside, the side where the archers stand, it’s not open in the back, everything is. fenced in, but, uh, you could stand in the street behind it in front of the Place d’Armes or Musée d’Armes, and you can see the jumbotrons. So there’s always a crowd of people watching what they can for, for free.
Nice. It is nice. I like it. And we are getting athletics in the Stade de France is getting underway. Today was the first half of men’s decathlon. And we had early rounds of several events and then the men’s 10, 000 meter final in the men’s decathlon at the end of day one. The top five are Leo Neugebauer from Germany, Aiden Owens Delama from Puerto Rico, Sander Skottheim from Norway, Damian Warner from Canada, and Johannes Ehrm from Estonia.
140 points are separating first through fifth place. That’s
Alison: not much. No,
Jill: it’s not. It’s anybody’s game at this point. And in the 10, 000 meter final, it’s the men’s race. Joshua Cheptege from Uganda got a gold with an Olympic record. Silver went to Berhu Aragawi from Ethiopia and bronze went to Grant Fisher from the USA.
In badminton, we had the medal matches for the mixed doubles. Gold went to Zhengxi Wei and Huang Yicheng from China. Silver went to Kim Woo ho and Jeong Na eun from Korea. And bronze went to Watanabe Yuta and Higashino Arisa from Japan. In basketball, we have more men’s group phase action. And Brazil beat Japan 102 to 84, Greece beat Australia 77 to 71, Canada beat Spain 88 to 85, ooh that’s a close one there, and Germany beat France 85 to 71, um, we still have some undefeated teams in the groups, Canada is undefeated in group A, Germany in group B, and the U.
- in group C, but I think group C will be underway tomorrow because they’re all a game behind everybody.
Alison: Yes.
Jill: All right, basketball 3×3. I’m glad you got there.
Alison: I got there and I was intending to go to the whole middle session and I got there a little early so I went in the workroom to get a few things done, get started on our paperwork, and I put my head down on the table and I fell asleep.
And I woke up and I had missed part of the session. I probably was snoring in the middle of the workroom. So I’m so sorry to my fellow reporters. I hope I didn’t disturb you. But I did get to see The women’s U. S. team and the men’s U. S. team.
Jill: Very nice.
Alison: So they both, the short answer is they both won their games, and they were both extremely exciting.
Um, the U. S., both teams were playing France. Which will be nuts with the crowd. Nuts with the crowd. And, um, At the Place de la Concorde is the first place I’ve been. It feels like an Olympic Park. It does. It really does. There’s a lot of people walking around. There are multiple events happening. . There was a huge crowd and there was a, uh, a courtyard, for lack of a better word, that had a DJ and misters, lots of places to get food, lots of places to shop, lots of shades set up like little awnings.
Oh, not enough. Not enough. But at least there was some. And what was really cool about, uh, 3×3 is if you didn’t have a ticket, you could stand on the left side of the court and see the game.
Jill: Oh, you could see the game because some of the other stuff, it looks like you couldn’t see. And I bet you had a better experience and the feeling of the park because it was cooler today.
We had a thunderstorm last night.
Alison: Well, it wasn’t that cool. It was still pretty brutal. Well, and. The most frustrating part was 3×3 allegedly has a shade over it. Problem is shade’s not big enough. And two, it’s positioned in such a way. I don’t know who was shading. The court was still sunny. The whole section, the whole side of the stadium was still sunny.
It’s, it’s like they put a little tiny Band Aid on a giant cut so that Um, it maybe covers a third and depending on the position of the sun, most of the stands and the court are still in the blazing sun. Needless to say, the media tribune never get shade because it’s, it’s never under the awning. The hype men, fantastic.
Oh, I gotta go. He comes out and he sings on the court and like leads the, uh, the crowd in, in some wild songs. The two announcers, the French and the English announcer, explained everything wonderfully. You know what’s going on. And they took turns. So he, one of the, the French announcer would explain a few things in French and then the English announcer would take off.
It was definitely like Oscar from Beijing. Oh, good, good, good. They played off each other really, really well. Um, crowd was as expected to be really enthusiastic. U. S. men. are struggling and I found out why they’re struggling. Jimmer for debt got hurt and can’t play.
Jill: No.
Alison: So they’re playing with three. So in other words, they are not substituting in any game.
Jill: Oh my gosh. So that means, I mean, in this blazing heat to not be able to tag out. Whoa.
Alison: And they were all, all four or all three of them, and even Jimmer as well off this to the sides, really upset about the officiating. I don’t know enough about basketball to tell you why. And also 3×3, a lot of the rules are different.
Just watching it. I’m saying, isn’t that traveling? Isn’t that traveling? That’s all I kept thinking, but I guess it’s not. So they were very demonstrative in, in their upset mint with, with their displeasure with the officiating, but pulled out the wind, pulled out another wind today. Sweet. So they got two wins.
Jill: Nice. Do, do you know what on Jim Rafferdet is Hurt?
Alison: I do not know. I was not able to find a statement. Okay. We’ll
Jill: look into that. Um, cause do you remember in Tokyo, one of the medalists played Hurt? Remember that story vaguely? Yes.
Alison: Oh,
Jill: man. It’s a grueling game. I will say that. It’s tough.
Alison: And also I learned that um, Kareem Maddox’s nickname, Madman, is Hurt.
Jill: I love it. All right. In the women’s pool, uh, Germany beat China 1815, Australia beat Azerbaijan 21 to 12, Spain beat Australia 21 to 17, USA beat France 14, 13. Azerbaijan then beat China, 21 19, USA beat Canada, 18 17, wow, these are really, really thrilling games. They
Alison: were tight.
Jill: Uh, Spain beat Canada, 22 20, and Germany beat France, 14 13.
And over in the men’s pool, did you notice a difference between like the women’s style and the men’s style at all or no?
Alison: Not as much as I notice in full court basketball. I mean, it’s such a fast, aggressive game that. And I didn’t see enough matches, I think, to make a difference, but it seems closer to each other.
I mean, obviously most of the men are bigger, so there’s maybe, but it’s not like the women were not physical or aggressive, but this, this is a fun game to watch. You absolutely need to get over there.
Jill: Okay. Top of list. I have, I worked very hard on logistics. We have talked about how much time it takes to do logistics and I’m trying to figure out.
Week two, because now we are getting to the, you will miss the sport if you don’t go on this day, or you will miss this event that you really want to see. And we’re, we’re starting to realize we’re just not getting to some events. There’s too many, there’s not enough days and we can’t figure out how to split ourselves.
Alison: Right. And if it’s far away and it’s the one event you can like Versailles, if you go to Versailles, that’s it for your day.
Jill: Put a pin in that. In the men’s results, Lithuania beat China 21 16, Netherlands beat Poland 21 17, Netherlands then beat Lithuania 19 18, Latvia beat France 22 20, Latvia then beat Serbia 21 14. Oh, that’s a good point. That’s a good win. Serbia is a good team. Uh, USA beat France 21 19, Serbia beat Poland 21 12, and then China beat, or I’m sorry, USA beat China 21 17.
Over in beach volleyball, we still had some more men’s and women’s preliminary phase matches. Our own Kelly Chang and Sarah Hughes, uh, beat, uh, Germany’s Muller and Tillmann. They won two to zero and they have now qualified for the knockout round. Cycling, BMX racing.
Alison: You got yourself out there. Oh
Jill: my gosh.
Okay, first off. It was, it’s, it was one of those days where we were like, Oh my gosh, we have to, we like, do I really want to go out there? Because it’s out in the burbs. And you, you just get to a point like, I don’t know if we’ve hit the wall and, and we just had to work and break through. But I was like, do I go like, Oh, it’s the last day of BMX.
And I really, you know, it’s a two day affair and I really wanted to see it. And let me tell you how easy it was to get there. It was, I was coming from Invalides, so I took a bus to the, I took a TC bus to the, uh, main transit hub here at the main press center, and then got another bus out to, uh, the Velodrome area, and the app said that ride would take an hour.
It took 25 minutes.
Alison: That is the first time the overestimate at the time.
Jill: Yes, I couldn’t believe because they were telling them the voice on the the speaker kept saying, please take all your stuff and get, you know, get off the bus, but make sure you have your stuff was her catchphrase. And I was like, we still have like, 40 minutes to go.
Why are you telling me to take my stuff now? And we were there. It was unbelievably fast. And Versailles is a little bit closer. Really? Yes. So, if you look at the map, Versailles, we passed exits for Versailles. Okay. So, Versailles might not be as bad as we think it is.
Alison: Okay.
Jill: So, that’s looking up there. Um, oh my gosh, A, you’ve got to go to the Velodrome.
I have to go back out and I’ve got to go to the Velodrome now, too.
Alison: So, this is going to be the same facility for track cycling?
Jill: Yes. So, the Velodrome, you get off the bus and it’s the Velodrome and the BMX track are right there together next to each other. Signage, amazing. I found everything right away.
Everything was so good. The, the, the hardest thing I had was the exit just because I needed to walk like five more steps and look to the left and there it was. And the venue, media, I think it has a dining hall.
Alison: Nice.
Jill: Did not explore that. They had a decent snack area. They’re a decent kiosk for the media. I have new snacks.
We have the sand, the, like the Biscoff cookies. Nice. We have another like chocolate chip cookie. And we have the Saint Michel galettes butter cookies.
Alison: My goodness, you scored.
Jill: And they had a bowl of dried fruits and nuts and you can make a little, a little nut cup for yourself.
Alison: Come on.
Jill: I know. It was amazing.
I just was like, what is this magic? Because I didn’t go past the snack table when I went in. I went in the door, got paperwork because they had stuff there. Oh,
Alison: they had paperwork for you. They had
Jill: paperwork. And I went, first went past the media kiosk. And I was like, oh, let me get a snack and another Coke.
And then didn’t get a good glass there. So I got my cash back. And. Then I went and sat down in the workroom and I put myself by a monitor that had Judo on because everyone was cheering. Teddy Reiner had just won. And so they did some replays and watched everything and Macron was there and the place was going absolutely insane.
And his, uh, Ippon throw is beautiful. I will say that on the replay, it was just beautiful. And he did his magic. He won gold at home. This is a multiple gold medal for him. unbelievable moment there in Judo. President Macron was there.
Alison: Your friend?
Jill: Yes, my, my, my good pal.
Alison: Did you wave at him?
Jill: I thought about it.
And then, um, I worked for like an hour and then it was time to head out. I knew I had to get to the venue. Well, it wasn’t that hard to get to the Tribune. Everything marked really well. The stands are. more permanent stands because it’s a, they’re permanent like National Training Center venue. And so there were stairs and everything, but everything seemed a little bit more solid, which was nice.
Best volunteers up there. Oh, good. There was a woman in the back. And I think she might have been a cyclist. Cause she said, I’m trying to get to LA 28. She, I guess she didn’t make it here, but she was volunteering some, and it was hard to find a seat of course. And some guy down the, and I wasn’t going to have my computer open because the sun was behind me.
And I didn’t forget that. And behind me, a beautiful little lake. So it was cooler. And then it got cold. the roof, we had talked about the shit. Oh, wait, no. So there’s guys to the right of me complaining because the outlets are weird and they couldn’t plug their computers in. She went and found extension cords that would fit. Thank
Alison: you.
Jill: Yes. During. The, the semi finals happen and the semi finals and each of the, it was semi finals and finals.
Semi finals are three runs. At the end of the second run or, you know, while you’re waiting, it was, they’d go men then women, men then women. While we’re waiting for races to happen because they also have to do track and volunteers would come back with, do you want a sheet with printed results from the first two runs?
So you’re ready to go for the run three? Yes, I would. Thank you. It was phenomenal out there. So good. It was so, so nice. Unreal. Places packed, of course. The, uh, for the finals, they were doing, they did actual karaoke, even though they had the karaoke stuff on the talk. But the in house host did put a microphone in front of individual people.
Nice. So that was kind of cool. Uh, France has a lot of BMX cyclists, so huge French contingent in the crowd. Also a nice Dutch contingent in the crowd. The stadium is just beautiful. I will say that. Bigger than I thought it would be. Somehow to me that the BMX tracks seem so small because they’re going so fast.
Alison: But also on TV, they only show one section of it and at any given time you don’t see the full breadth.
Jill: Yeah. Yeah. So, um, it, it looked a lot longer. I did notice like there was shadows, even though the thing, it’s got a roof over it, there were shadows, but they did light it up so that there were fewer shadows to no shadows on the corners, at least.
And I don’t know, I bet if you were riding the shadows that I saw from the stands were probably negligible for what you could do, um, medical everywhere on the track, they had positioned. I don’t know, 12 to 14 teams there. It was amazing how many medical staff were there. And, uh, it just, it, it just looked stunning.
It was great. I was so happy to be there. And the racing was phenomenal. Men, uh, gold, silver, bronze podium sweep for France. They were going nuts when they, When they won, they all came back out. I was on the finish line side of the stands, and so they’re all coming out, running down the track, throwing gloves, one threw his helmet into the audience.
He may want that back. He probably, he’s got a sponsor. He doesn’t care. Um, could not be more excited. So gold went to Georges Daudet from France. Silver went to Sylvain Andre from France and bronze went to Romain Mathieu from France. Um, our Cameron Wood had a tough night. He, um,
Silence: he
Jill: had one, he had one race that was just really, really bad. And his, uh, and. But then his final race in the semifinals, holy cow, he went so aggressive and he got second place so that because he was on the bubble for points of what they do. They don’t go by the you get timed. and then they give you a point ranking depending on what your time is.
So he was on the bubble on getting into the finals and he just did so well on that last semi final race to get into the finals. Had a tough time in the finals. So it was just, France was unbelievable.
Alison: So he ended up fifth, which is, I mean, come on. Right. It’s hardly anything to be ashamed of.
Jill: Right. In the women’s side, Gold went to Saya Sakaki, sorry, Saya Sakakibara from Australia.
Silver went to Manon Veenstra from Netherlands and bronze went to Zoe Klessens from Switzerland. Our Elise Willoughby finished sixth. She did well until the final race. She just couldn’t get the line and, uh, Saki, uh, Sakibara was, So dominant throughout the whole thing. She just took control right away on that first race, but every race she had that night, she led, she was phenomenal.
And the other sad thing was, uh, Bethany Schriever from great Britain, she had also been dominating in her semifinal races. And then I don’t really know what happened to her. And, but it, it, it looks like if you don’t get, uh, lucky or find the right line. It was very hard to get out. And there were a couple of wipeouts.
There was one where I don’t know if you’d ever see this on TV. So it was one way. Hold on. I had to count this in my head. So there’s turn one, there’s turn two and there’s turn three. So there’s three big turns. And on turn two, there was another Australian, I think this might’ve been a semifinals. where she kind of wiped out there and she knew she was just going to be in last.
She left the track and ran between the like the third straightaway and the fourth straightaway and went to that other curve and hopped on and kind of rode in from there. It was really, really weird. And I just caught it out of the corner of my eye and I don’t know why that is, but I’m guessing it’s because you need to finish the race to get points.
So that was just probably we all know you’re finished and last just get over the line. So excellent night at BMX. Highly recommend. I would like to go. I know there’s a There’s pump track by me that I have been on but I’m a very nervous Nelly about that stuff So I’d start with a little baby things. I went there once I started with a little baby stuff But I was telling my neighbor hello Brad that I have to go on a day where like school is in session because I need to be by myself, that’s really popular.
So, and there’s another track not that far from me. So, you know, at 11
Alison: o’clock on a Tuesday in late September.
Jill: Yeah, exactly. And I’m also not on a BMX bike, which, which is a different story. Those, the bike wheels are tinier than I thought they would be. Because somebody was walking through the, our accreditation entrance with a like, Oh, those are really tiny wheels.
And You can see just how much they have to work to pump those bikes. So it was tough. It looked like a nice challenging technical course, just like Cam Wood told us it would be. in boxing. Oh, wait, I also did not tell you about the attack of the bugs.
Alison: Oh, no.
Jill: As the sun went down, like waves of not mosquitoes, but that size bug gnats and stuff like that came over the new tribute thing.
And I’m like, what are these bugs doing here?
Alison: They’re coming. They were looking for me. Yeah,
Jill: right. And then they kind of dissipated. And then we got another wave. It was really like, what do we do with these bugs here? People are spotting them around. So maybe
Alison: I will enjoy the indoor track at the Velodrome.
Yes,
Jill: you will enjoy it. And, you know, nighttime is a different situation. Also, when I was going to the bus, because it was like, even though the medal ceremony would have been off the hook, I wanted to get back here because we got to get some sleep. I get to the bus, and, No traffic is going out or coming in, because Macron has made it to the velodrome.
Alison: He’s following you.
Jill: He is not following me. He’s busy glad handing it with his national hero. He’s saying, oh, where is
Alison: Gilles? I want to see Gilles again.
Jill: But, yeah, and then it was like, oh, we are not getting home anytime soon. But they, it was like, You didn’t seem to do
Alison: too badly getting back. No, no, they
Jill: opened the perimeter pretty quickly.
So, and that, and that was before the medal ceremony came in. So maybe they were trying to get him in and then we would be okay. So that was a big adventure at BMX today. Um, in boxing, we had some more rounds of 32 or 16. We, in the women’s 57 kilogram and the men’s 51 kilogram, men’s 80 kilogram and men’s over 92.
kilogram and some are moving on to the quarterfinals as well. Controversy
Alison: follow up. Yes. So I did some more research on this gender testing situation and it involves Algerian Amani Khalif and a fighter from Chinese Taipei, Lin Yuting. They were both, as we said yesterday, but now they’ve been named, disqualified from the 2023 IBA World Championships because of undisclosed testing that claimed They did not meet the requirements of female boxers.
What that testing was has never been disclosed. It is rumored to be either or both testosterone levels and chromosomal analysis. So an X, Y, X, X situation. This is not a transgender issue. And actually Mark Adams, uh, the spokesperson for the IOC. There was a, he, he mentioned this in the, in the daily press briefing saying, there’s no question that these fighters have been women, that there’s, nobody’s saying they’re transgender, but it’s kind of a Castor Semenya situation where, what makes a woman?
Jill: Interesting.
Alison: So, and this really came to a head yesterday because, uh, Khalif, uh, was fighting Angela Obama. Uh, Angela Carini from Italy. And, uh, Khalif just nailed her with two shots into the face that were really, really brutal. And, uh, Carini quit the fight. Wow. So there’s a whole discussion of keep men out of women’s sports.
So I don’t think this issue is, is going to go away from boxing because, uh, Lin Yuting still in the tournament.
Silence: Interesting.
Jill: All right, we’ll keep an eye on that. In Canoe Slalom, the Women’s Kayak Cross had its time trial. Luca Jones ranked 4th and Evie Leapfart ranked 6th. Round 1 is tomorrow, heats are Sunday, medal rounds on Monday.
Going to those medal rounds. That, you know, being at BMX said, you get there. I know it’s a hike, it’s a real big hike to go to Canoe Slalom, but I definitely want to go. Diving. We had Men’s Synchro three meter springboard final. Gold went to Chyna, Long Diao Yi, and Wang Zhongyao. Silver went to Juan Celaya Hernandez and Osmar Olivieri.
Oh, I’m sorry. Silver went to Juan Celaya Hernandez and Wang Zhongyao. Osmar Oliveira Ibarra from Mexico, and bronze went to Anthony Harding and Jack Loeffler from Great Britain.
Alison: So, so far, as expected, China has been sweeping diving.
Jill: In equestrian, we had the jumping team final. Gold went to Great Britain, silver went to the USA, and bronze went to France.
Alison: Is that such an equestrian podium?
Jill: It’s very interesting, for sure. In fencing, the men’s epee had its team finals. Gold went to Hungary, silver went to Japan, and bronze went to Czechia. And Czechia beat France for the bronze, 43 to 41. Wow. That’s a tight match. That was happening. Oh,
Alison: you want to see a tight match?
The gold medal match Hungary beat Japan 26 to 25.
Jill: Oh my goodness. That must have been just insane in the Grand Palais. That’s for sure. Football. We had the men’s quarter finals, Morocco beat USA 4 to 0. Now. Okay. So Morocco did really, really well in the World Cup and we know that this is under 23 with a few extras, but man, that says something about the future for Moroccan football.
Well,
Alison: I think that World Cup team was quite young, so I think there’s a lot of players that carry over. It’s a very young team from what I read today.
Jill: Well, that is exciting. Spain beat Jap Spain beat Japan 3 0. Egypt and Paraguay tied at 1, but Egypt advanced in a penalty shootout 5 4. And France beat Argentina 1 0.
Wow! Oh! Oh! With the bad blood going on there and them beating Argentina. That must have been something.
Alison: I’m kind of glad I wasn’t there.
Jill: In golf, we had men’s golf round two. After two rounds, there is a three way tie for first, uh, with Zander Shuffla from USA, Matsuyama Hideki from Japan, and Tommy Fleetwood from Great Britain.
they’re all at 11 under par.
in handball, we had, we’re finishing out the preliminary rounds here. So Denmark beat Hungary 28, 25, France beat Argentina 28, 21, Sweden beat Croatia 38, 27, Germany beat Spain 33, 31, Slovenia beat Germany.
Japan, 29 28. Wow, that’s a, that’s a tight one. And another tight one. Egypt beat Norway, 26 25. So, so far, Germany, Slovenia, Denmark, Norway, and Egypt have all qualified for the quarterfinals. I
Alison: think there’s two more slots available.
Jill: Okay. Whoa. Well, we will hold onto our seats for that. In hockey, in the women’s pool stage, Germany beat China 4 2 and Netherlands beat Belgium 3 1.
In the pool standings, we still had three teams that are undefeated. Belgium’s at 4 0 and Australia and Argentina are both at 3 0. In the men’s pools, Ireland beat New Zealand 2 1. South Africa beat France 5 2. Netherlands beat Spain 5 3. India beat Australia 3 2, and there was a tie between Belgium and Argentina at 3 all.
And Great Britain beat Germany 2 1. Uh, nobody is undefeated here anymore, but, uh, Germany is sitting on top of Pool A, and Belgium is on top of Pool B. Big night at Judo.
Alison: Wild night at Judo.
Jill: Big night because we had big men at Judo.
Alison: The big boys were out tonight. That’s
Jill: right. We had the women’s, uh, 70 and over plus 78 kilograms metal rounds and the men’s plus 100 kilogram metal rounds.
In, uh, the women’s side, gold went to Beatrice Sousa from Brazil. Israel’s, uh, Raz Hershko won silver and bronzes went to Kim Hye yoon from Korea and Romaine Dico from France. She seemed upset. I mean, of course, when she met, well, okay, so Macron was there too. And this, I was watching this and she was a little teary when she was talking to him and he’s like, It’s okay.
It’s okay. You could see him trying to comfort her and say like, you’ve done a great thing still. And I know that she probably felt huge pressure to win the gold and then probably huge pressure to medal and take home the bronze at least. So, um, sadness but relief, but it was nice to see Macron, you know.
Comforting. It was, it was kind of bizarre, but it was really nice.
Alison: But what he was really saying was, you know, who would help you is Jill. My friend Jill would really cheer you up.
Jill: And the men’s plus 100 gold went to Teddy Reiner from France. Oh my gosh, you could just tell how insane that arena was.
Alison: French hero cauldron later.
Jill: That’s right. And he defeated Kim Min jung from Korea for this, who took home the silver and bronzes went to Tamer Rakhimov from Tajikistan and Alisher Yusupov from Uzbekistan.
Alison: So you would think that would be the wildest part of the night, but it was not because in the quarterfinals between Teddy Reiner and Guram, Tushish Vili from Georgia.
Um, our friend Guram got a little upset when he lost. And when the referee declared that he had lost, he was on the mat. So he was, he was laying down. So he started kicking Teddy Reiner from the ground, knocked him over, repeatedly kicked him, pushed him in the face. What? This is all after the match is over.
So they’re, they pull him off of poor Reiner, who now has to go continue to compete. So amazing on Teddy Reiner to keep his composure in the rounds following and just handle it like the champ he is. But now, uh, Tushas Vili is banned from competing in the mixed doubles. Uh, team event. He was banned from competing in the reperchage rounds of this event.
And international judo has suspended him from any judo competition until there’s a full investigation.
Jill: Wow. They do not play around.
Alison: They don’t. And the statements made by international judo are very definitive and very strong that this is not the way. This is not the way we do things in judo.
Jill: Wow. Wow.
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
Alison: Wow. Hooray on a federation who puts their foot
Jill: down
Alison: and protects their athletes.
Jill: One thing I noticed on the podium, the podium selfie that everybody has to take is with the Samsung flip phone. Oh yeah.
Alison: That we tried out at the Samsung pop up.
Jill: I just kind of, I put two and two together when I finally watched the medal ceremony on TV and it was like, Oh, you got that top sponsor in there.
Good on ya. That was, that’s a nice moment. That was a nice moment. In rowing, we had finals for the men’s cockless pair, women’s cockless pair, and men’s lightweight double skulls. And the women’s lightweight double skulls, in the men’s cockless pair, um, goals went to Martin Sinkovic and Valent Sinkovic from Croatia.
Silver went to Oliver Griffin Wynne and Tom George from Great Britain and, uh, Roman Rusli and Andrin Gulic won the bronze there from Switzerland for the women. Uh, Jymke Clevering and Veronique Meester from Netherlands won gold. Uh, Roxanna Angel and Johanna, uh, Vrinchu, Vrinchianu, from Romania won silver, and Annabelle McIntyre and Jessica Morrison from Australia won the bronze.
For the men’s lightweight double skulls, gold went to Fintan McCarthy and Paul O’Donovan from Ireland. Ireland’s cleaning up. They’re doing very well these games. We haven’t even gotten to the boxing medals.
Alison: It’s like Ireland said, we have these really ridiculous opening ceremony outfits, so we need to make ourselves look better by actually winning stuff.
Jill: Oh, um, silver went to Stefano Oppo and Gabrielle Suarez from Italy, and bronze went to Antonios
Papakonstantinou, and Pedro’s, uh, Kindnesses from Greece.
Alison: So I knew I recognized Paul O’Donovan’s name. You may remember him from Rio with his brother, Gary. When they won a medal, they became just the viral heroes, because they talked about rowing like a dog. And that became the catchphrase. And they have very, very heavy accents.
So nobody could understand what they were saying. So, nice to see him continue, even though his brother Gary has retired. Paul has continued, and continued this amazing rowing Irish tradition.
Jill: In the Women’s Lightweight Double Skulls, Gold went to Emily Craig from, and Imogen Grant from Great Britain.
Silver went to Giannina Elena Van Groningen and Yolena Cosmicu from Romani Yolena Livia Cosmicu from Romania. And bronze went to Dimitra Kontu and Zoe Fitzoui from Greece. And our Michelle Sexer finished eighth.
Alison: And she’s retiring. And she’s retiring.
Jill: She got a diploma there. You know
Alison: what? She made the final.
I think she posted something really beautiful today about how the sport has given her so much and how grateful she is. And we got that impression when we spoke to her that that was her attitude towards this whole Olympics. So I’m thrilled for her.
Jill: Yeah. Yeah. In sailing, uh, we had The end of the women’s and men’s skiff regattas.
In the women’s side, Audley Van Aanholt and Annette Dudes from Netherlands won gold, Vilma Bobek and Rebecca Netzler from Sweden won silver, and Sarah Steyart and Charlene Picon from France won the bronze.
Alison: And our Maggie Shay and Stephanie Robel finished 10th.
Jill: Not bad, not bad. In men’s skiff, Uh, Diego Botan Lachevere and Florian Trittle Powell from Spain won the gold.
Isaac McCarty and William McKenzie from New Zealand won silver.
Alison: Go Silver Ferns!
Jill: And Ian Barrows and Hans Hinken from France. USA won the bronze. The, there’s also supposed to be women’s and men’s windsurfing medal races today, but they have been postponed for a lack of a wind.
Alison: You know, earlier in the regatta, it was too much wind and now they have lack of wind.
So they’ve been having some rough conditions up at Marseille.
Jill: In shooting, there was qualification rounds for men, women’s 25 meter pistol and men’s skeet. And then we had women’s 50 meter rifle three position finals. Gold went to Chiara Leone from Switzerland. Sagan Madalena from USA won silver and Zhang Qiangqiu from China won the In surfing, Uh, they had no medal rounds today because there were small waves.
Alison: So earlier, again, earlier in the week, the waves were too big. Now the waves are too small.
Jill: But defending champion, Carissa Moore was defeated in the quarterfinals. So if you were looking for a repeat, that will not happen this time. Wave is tough.
Alison: The wave has no joke in Tahiti.
Jill: That’s right. We had some big finals in swimming.
In the men’s 50 meter free, gold went to Cameron McAvoy from Australia. Benjamin Proud from Great Britain won silver and Florent Monodue from France won the bronze.
Alison: So Florent Monodue, I got to see him do this in person. He’s the one who puts the water in his mouth and he like slaps his whole body and then spits the water out over in the pool.
If you haven’t seen his little warm up, I’ll find something on YouTube because it is terrifying and kind of disgusting, but also of course he does this. He’s a 50 meter splash and dash specialist. Of course he does this.
Silence: I’m so grossed out by that. And I know there’s chlorine involved, so
Jill: me. But really, no, no spitting in the pool.
Also, putting the pool
Alison: water
Jill: in
Alison: your mouth, I’m getting nauseous just talking. I’m going to start gagging in a second.
Jill: Uh, in, uh, Caleb Dressel from the U. S. finished in sixth on that one. In the women’s 200 meter back finals, Kaylee McKeown from Australia won gold, and she got an Olympic record for that.
Regan Smith from the U. S. A. got silver, and Kylie Messi from Canada won bronze.
Alison: Hey, Leon Marchand race, do you know what that means?
Jill: Gold, and this time an Olympic record! Oh no,
Alison: they’re all Olympic records. Oh my gosh! All four of his events, four golds, four Olympic records.
Jill: That’s incredible. Geez, man. It’s like the Michael Phelps.
We’re getting another one.
Alison: It’s exciting. And I understand that Macron showed up for this too.
Jill: He’s been everywhere. He was
Alison: like the Where’s Waldo of the French Olympics today.
Jill: So men’s 200 meter IM final. Liam Marchand won gold with an Olympic record. Duncan Scott from Great Britain won silver and Wang Sheng from China won the bronze.
Great Britain’s doing pretty well. Not bad. There’s a nice country distribution in swimming now and I understand that in the U. S. we have been used to dominating everything and also Australia, it’s been big rivalry between us and them and they have dominated a lot of events too. But I, I do enjoy seeing other countries step up.
Alison: Clearly, Australia has won more golds in, in the swimming, uh, competition. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but just of what we keep saying, and the U. S. has not. I mean, they’ve won a good amount of medals, but not golds, and U. S. swimming is used to gold medals, and this is a big difference.
Jill: I’m very curious as to what the, uh, response will be or the thoughts will be once, once we get home.
Alison: And going into LA 28.
Jill: Yes.
Alison: Are, is USA Swimming going to say we cannot be embarrassed at our home pool?
Jill: Yeah. I mean, I do think home field advantage helps on that because even though Leon Machon is a phenomenal talent, but I do think there, we know this, there’s usually Montreal 1976 accepting. A home field boost and the host nation usually gets a few more medals than usual.
So, but that can only go so far. Right.
Alison: Especially when it’s the U. S. that’s used to dominating. You know, where do you, where do you put the resources? You can’t dominate in everything.
Jill: Very true.
In table tennis, we had semifinals today in the singles matches. In, for the women, Chen Meng defeated Korea’s Shin Yubin, 4 0, and China’s Sun Yingxia defeated, uh, China’s Japan’s Hayate Hin, 4 0, and she was the one I saw yesterday, so that made me a little sad.
Alison: Yeah, and Shin Yubin was who I saw, playing doubles.
Jill: And in the men’s semis, China’s Fan Shendong defeated Felix Lebrun from France, 4 0, and Trulia Moragard from Sweden defeated Hugo Calderano from Brazil, 4 2 2. In tennis, we had some semifinal matches and we had some medal rounds today. In the men’s singles, Carlos Alcarez defeated Felix Alge Aliasim from Canada, 6 1, 6 1.
And Novak Djokovic from Serbia defeated Lorenzo Musetti from Italy, 2. So this is Djokovic’s fifth Olympics and this is his best result so far. He’s never gotten to pass the semifinals.
Alison: Well, I think part of that is it’s never been on clay before.
Jill: That could be. That could be.
Alison: But Alkrez and Djokovic and the final biz is gonna be fireworks.
I know. I know.
Jill: So He is aiming to be the fifth player male or female to complete what they call the career Golden Slam. So that is the four Grand Slam tournaments and winning the Olympic gold medal as well. The others who have done it are Steffi Graf, Andre Agassi, Rafael Nadal, and Serena Williams.
Alison: We should point out that Steffi Graf did a true Golden Slam and did it all in one year.
Jill: Yes.
Alison: Let’s, let’s give her, her two on that one. That was,
Jill: that was a
Alison: breathtaking time in tennis.
Jill: So yes, Djokovic will face, uh, Carlos Sacres, who is the current French Open champion in, in, uh, pretty soon.
Alison: Let’s hope Djokovic behaves himself a little better on the Olympic court than he does sometimes in the majors.
Jill: Well, there you go. Men’s doubles semifinals. Um, Matthew Ebden and John Pierce from Australia defeated a Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul from the U S seven, five, six, two. And in the women’s double semis, um, uh, Mira Andreeva and Donna Schneider from the neutral neutral. Nation.
Alison: AIN?
Jill: They defeated Kristina Buska and Sarah Tormo Soribes from Spain 6 or Soribes or Sarah Soribes Tormo from Spain 6162 and then Sarah Irani and Jasmine Paolini from Italy defeated Karolina Muchova and Linda Noskova from Czechia 6362.
We had the bronze medal final for women’s singles and Iga Smiontek from Poland came back to defeat Karolina Anna Smetalova. from Slovakia, 6261.
Alison: Oh, that was a rout.
Jill: Yeah. Well, you know, it’s, I mean, she, yeah, she’s good on clay. And then in the mixed doubles bronze medal final, we had, uh, Gabriela Dabrowski and Felix Ajay Aliassime from Canada defeated Demi Shores and Wesley Kulhoff from Netherlands, 6376.
And then we also had the mixed doubles gold medal final, that went to Kateryna Sinyakova and Thomas Mahatch from Czechia, and they defeated Wang Jingyu and Zhang Aisen from China, 6 Wow, that’s a rare three set match here in Olympic tennis.
Trampoline.
Alison: I was there
Jill: and it was
Alison: amazing. So I went to the women’s event in the morning. They do two rounds of qualification of two Okay, so first of all, you had mentioned the ballerina breakdancer combination, they were back. Yeah. They, they were back today, and that was quite terrifying.
Jill: It was so weird.
Alison: It made no sense.
Jill: Did, wait, did the break dancer guys dance to Michael Jackson? Yes, he did. Okay, so they just whipped out the same routine again.
Alison: Yes. There are two trampolines going, so you can choose, the athlete can choose which one. So they’re just two trampolines next to each other, and I guess they have different feels.
I didn’t notice if people were switching.
Silence: Okay.
Alison: Um, because they had a bad routine in the prelims, did they go to the other one, but clearly people had preferences as to, as to which one, um, qualification was wild. Some people missed very badly. Sofiane Bateau missed horribly in her first, uh, first routine, came back the second one, nailed it, squeaked into the finals in eighth.
And then you come around and here comes Briony Page. In the prelims, she was beautiful. In the second round of prelims, she was more beautiful. She’s the second to last gymnast. Up on the podium in the finals, and when I tell you she was in a class by herself. There are four scores in trampoline. Uh, time of flight, execution, difficulty, and horizontal displacement.
That, the horizontal displacement is how much they go back and forth.
Jill: Okay. How far
Alison: away they get from the X that’s in the center. So
Jill: they want to be as close to the X as possible all the time.
Alison: She won in three of those categories in the finals by a good amount. Her horizontal displacement score was a 9.
- She did not go past that center rectangle. The elegance was a step above everybody else. I don’t know if it’s her experience. I don’t know if she just decided that was it. She was going to win this time. It’s, it is a gorgeous, gorgeous routine. In that final, sadly, the defending gold medalist from China, jhu Ying qualified in first and did not have a good final round.
She ended up in fourth, and the poor kid was just sobbing. You know, from the minute she came off. She knew her score wasn’t enough and, and she was early in the round and just kept dropping and dropping behind. Oh, everybody else. So that was, that was a little hard to, to watch, but Briony page is 33. She’s got a silver from Rio, a bronze from Tokyo, and now a gold.
And the fun thing to me was the silver medalist is just turned 19
Jill: last
Alison: month. And then the bronze medalist from Canada has her 26th birthday tomorrow. So I loved that age range within the sport. You saw a lot of people in their mid twenties, but there were some who were on Olympics number four.
Jill: That’s amazing.
And you love it when they get a full set.
Alison: I do love it when they get a set. And this was especially difficult because there’s one medal. So she had to stick around for a long time for that full set. She was very overwhelmed and a little humbled. I think just her face, she was like, look what I did, but I do want to mention it.
I have not seen this before. They have the tape, the TV screens where the medalist can see their family back home. Oh, they’re back. I have not seen them. They were at gymnastics and she was talking to her Nan. And a few other people, but clearly that was Nan, and that just as if I wasn’t crying enough. So for final results, gold went to Brianna DuPage from Great Britain.
Silver went to Violetta Bardislowskaya from the Neutral Athletes. And bronze went to Canada’s, Canada’s Sophie Anne Minto.
Jill: Then we have the men’s, but you did not stick around for the men’s. You did not
Alison: stick around, because this was three hours?
Jill: Wow.
Alison: Of one event? Yeah. Wow.
Jill: Too bad they don’t have it on different days.
I will say that.
Alison: I see why they do it because you have to be consistent for three routines.
Jill: Right. But, no, but I mean have women’s on one day and men’s on another day. True.
Alison: But now they got to turn the gym back over to artistic for apparatus files. Oh, that’s true.
Jill: And that’s true. In the men’s side, gold went to Yvonne Litvinich from Neutral Athletes.
Silver went to Wang Tsai from China and bronze went to Yang Langyu from China. I had heard, I talked to a pin collector who was at the women’s trampoline too, and he just was going on about it. So, I may have to put that on my, put that on your
Alison: list to rewatch. It’s a lot of fun. It was just, they didn’t go as high as I thought they did in a way during the routine before their routine, but they do the sort of set up.
Oh
Jill: yeah.
Alison: It’s terrifying. But as they go along, it gets a little lower and a little less terrifying, but still terrifying.
Jill: In volleyball, we still are on preliminary rounds. Germany beat Argentina 3 0. Brazil beat Egypt 3 0. Slovenia beat France 3 2. Oh man, the crowds for that must have been just Dying with the, that, uh, back and forth and then U.
- beat Japan three to one, uh, on, we still have some undefeated teams in pool A, that’s Slovenia. They’re at three and O in pool B, that’s Italy and Poland, both at two and O and in pool C that is the USA at three and zero. And in Water Polo, we still have women’s preliminary round action. Australia beat Canada 10 7.
Italy beat Greece 12 8. USA beat France 17 5. And Hungary beat China 17 11. So the top four in each group qualify. Right now, that’s Australia, Netherlands, Hungary, Canada, Spain, US, France, and Italy. China and Greece are the two teams on the bottom of their pool. So they are on the verge of being out of the tournament.
Well, I saw Friege at, uh, BMX. Oh, also we had to look for Pierre. So yes, I
Alison: both looked for Pierre and, uh, Alice. I forgot to tell you about my encounter with Pierre at fencing.
Jill: Wait, what? You met Pierre?
Alison: So yesterday.
Jill: Oh, wait, wait, not a, you met Pierre. Like,
Silence: oh, What, what happened?
Jill: Because you
Alison: met
Jill: Pierre.
Alison: I was walking behind the venue trying to get to the media center, which we know is a challenge on those foam walkways.
And here comes Pierre with his handlers.
Jill: So
Alison: the man dressed up as Pierre was coming into the venue and I said, and the poor man just looked at me like, I am not on duty yet, lady. Do not start with me. Wow. He wasn’t rude. He just sort of side eyed me like, Oh, it’s gotta be an American doing that to me.
Jill: Hey, an American knows who you are, Pierre.
Let’s get excited about that. But he
Alison: looked really good close up.
Jill: Oh, really?
Alison: The makeup is well done. Yeah.
Jill: All right. Well, maybe we will have an encounter with Pierre, too.
Alison: I’d rather have an encounter with Alice. She seems nicer.
Jill: Okay. You know who else I would like to have an encounter with?
Alison: Serendipity, our official mascot for this week.
Jill: Yes. Adorable. So,
Alison: Serendipity apparently loves to cuddle on the furniture. She’s a curl up on the sofa cushions kind of girl. And I’m thinking, Serendipity, you and I have something in common. And I could use you right now. Aww. Aww. But special thanks to Kickstarter supporter, Amy, for sharing Serendipity with Shookflist on this week.
Jill: Excellent. And our medal count.
Alison: We added a bronze today from Casey Kaufhold. So we’ve got five gold, three silvers, and four bronze.
Jill: Excellent. And competing again tomorrow, we’ve got Luke Jones and Evie Liebhardt will begin their Round one of kayak cross.
Alison: USA Fencing competes in women’s team Sabre.
Jill: USA Women’s Hockey takes on team South Africa in the end of pool play, which sadly, I don’t think USA is moving on because they don’t have a win yet.
Alison: I don’t think so. Bobby Fink is back in the pool for the men’s 1500 meter heats.
Jill: Ben Halleck and the U. S. men’s water polo team plays Montenegro.
Alison: And we got some athletics. Kendi Badnarek runs in the first round of men’s 100 meters.
Jill: All right. And our friend Jason Bryant is selling his, uh, digital guides to the wrestling tournament.
Alison: Excuse me.
Jill: Who? The dulcet tones of Jason Bryant. Sorry, Jason. But, uh, he has put together a guide to the wrestling tournament here in, uh, in Paris. It is up to date. And by up to date, I mean they had two scratches today and he updated the guide. So you will get the most complete information available. It will help keep you on track and up to date with everything that is going on in the tournament.
It starts soon. Very excited about that. If, uh, we get a little discount for Shuklastan. Uh, if you go to matttalkonline. com slash Paris, you can use the discount code flame alive and save 5. And that is going to do it for this episode. Special thank you to our researcher, Anneli Dabel.
Alison: And to get in touch with us, you can find us on X, YouTube and Instagram at flamealivepod.
Send us an email at flamealivepod at gmail. com. Call or text us at 208 352 6348. That’s 208 FLAME IT. Chat with us and other fans on our Facebook group, Keep the Flame Alive Podcast, and get our special daily games time newsletter. You can sign up for that at flamealivepod. com.
Jill: Join us again tomorrow for more action from Paris.
Please do not forget to tell a friend about the show and hang out with us in the Facebook group. I unfortunately could not hang out in the Facebook group much today.
Alison: Oh, well, you missed out on a lot.
Jill: I know. I’m gonna really have to get the Wi Fi going tonight. Thank you so much for listening. And until tomorrow, keep the flame alive.