Paris 2024 Olympics: Day 8

It’s Super Saturday here at the Paris 2024 Olympics, with so many swimming and athletics  finals (and some rain). Jill ventured out to Colombes to check out the hockey competition, which is in the original 1924 Olympic stadium, then went to the Stade de France for a big night in athletics. Meanwhile, Alison got to see some heart-stopping artistic gymnastics apparatus finals, thrilling swimming races, and more importantly, worked on getting rid of her cold.

The sports on today’s program are:

• 3×3 Basketball
• Archery
• Artistic Gymnastics
• Athletics
• Badminton
• Basketball
• Beach Volleyball
• Boxing
• Canoe Slalom
• Cycling – Road
• Equestrian
• Fencing
• Football
• Golf
• Handball
• Hockey
• Judo
• Rowing
• Sailing
• Shooting
• Swimming
• Table Tennis
• Tennis
• 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: Jill Jaracz

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 Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.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 8

Jill: Bonjour and welcome to day eight 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 Paris Media Center, joined as always by my lovely co host, Alison Brown. Alison, bonjour, how are you?

Alison: Bonjour.

Jill: Oh, you’re less sexy today.

Alison: I’m less sexy and a little more just raspy. I forget what we called her. I think we called her Ethel. Ethel has come to Paris.

Jill: But we also are joined by Contributor Ben.

Ben: Hello.

Jill: And Claire Rillo.

Claire: What’s up, y’all?

Jill: Welcome. You all have had a fun day. We haven’t talked with Claire in a while, so we have a lot to catch up on, Claire.

Claire: Absolutely. A

Jill: little bit of follow up file. Uh, I have feed beefs. I shouldn’t have feed beefs. I’m here and I have feed beefs I went to watch the judo eliminations from yesterday because I wanted to see what you told me about Teddy Reiner.

Alison: Oh, on the feed?

Jill: Yes, on the feed.

And when I clicked on judo, I got beach volleyball.

Alison: Well, I’ve been having a lot of trouble. So we get, um, max for the Eurosport feed, which I guess is the Olympic carrier here in Europe. And trying to get replays, almost impossible.

Jill: It can be, if you want to get it a day later for, it’s kind of like forget it, it seems like. I was able to get Artistic Gymnastics Vault Final, which happened today.

Alison: It’s like there’s a sweet spot where it’s not too soon after the event, but it’s not too late after the event. And either of those things, you may or may not see what you want. Which was the problem we were having for three years ago in Tokyo.

Jill: Very true. Very true. There’s apparently some Athletes Village controversy.

Ben, you had found this. Uh, where the athletes were complaining about the conditions and Ariana Titmus apparently said that, uh, she’s a swimmer from Australia, claims that the living conditions cost her the world record in the 400 meter freestyle that she did on July 27th. Now, one of the things that’s up with a world record, I’m not sure if World Aquatics does this, but a lot of places, if you get a world record, you get a monetary bonus and that’s a big deal.

When you are in a sport that may or may not make a lot of money, she probably does all right for herself. But

Alison: she’s not the only one.

Jill: Right.

Ben: So But weren’t they talking about this pool is supposedly slow?

Alison: Yes, but the conditions are not just, it’s not just her complaint. There are several athletes that have left the village.

I know I had read an article, uh, where several of the Korean team have left and moved to hotels because of the poor food and the heat and just the difficulty in transportation. They’re not getting special transportation.

Jill: Wow.

Alison: Yeah. So it’s, it’s become a real problem to us. Not surprising.

Jill: Right. But it’s surprising that the athletes are getting treated like this.

I know, uh. Coco Gauff, the American tennis player, said that ten athletes are sharing two bathrooms. And especially if you have a bunch of women sharing two bathrooms, that’s tough.

Alison: And that only improved because she then posted five of them left to go to hotels.

Jill: Not good. I, I, and people are ordering mattresses to have shipped in.

The beds aren’t very, obviously, very comfortable. A lot of grumbling here. Uh, also nutrition issues because there’s not enough meat. They’ve been promoting the sustainable vegan lifestyle. Well, not every athlete decided that it would be a good idea to switch to vegan during the biggest event of their lives.

Alison: So they’re rationing eggs, they’re rationing portions of meat so that athletes can’t get the nutrition that they expect prior to their events. So

Jill: word is that they are improving that. and getting more eggs and meat in, but we will see what happens. Any happy news?

Alison: I’m not dead yet.

Claire: You do sound better.

Thank you. I have happy stuff. Well, we’ll get to you.

Jill: Let’s begin the baguette then. All right, Clarillo, you have happy stuff. You’ve done culture. What have you been up to?

Claire: Well, I did a variety of Olympic events and had just the most wonderful time. Volleyball, beach volleyball, archery in the Leeds, which was beautiful.

I got to go to Roland Garros, which was amazing. I saw football at the Parc de France and I saw table tennis and I think I already mentioned badminton. Um, but now my events are over. Which I’m kind of sad about, but I’m still here for another couple of days. And I’ve signed up for a few press tours yesterday.

I got a tour of Saint Denis, which is actually where the athletes villages, as well as the Stade de France. They have really been trying to improve Saint Denis, uh, that commune. And. They’re in the midst of a renovation project. So we saw the new metro station, some of the pedestrian walkways, they explained everything and it was very detailed and it was all in French.

Alison: Did they bring you up there? On the metro or on a bus? They

Claire: told us to meet them at the metro station up there.

Alison: Okay.

Claire: So it’s, it was, it’s been different every time. Like today on my trip, we, we were only going a few metro stops over. So we met here and then they actually had cards if you didn’t have one, which I do, um, that would get you onto the metro.

No problem. The

Alison: reason I ask is because I know when I took the bus to the athlete’s village for my tour. I saw a lot of Saint Denis that would not be on the tour, and I

Claire: was kind of looking for that, but we did not go that direction. We went the opposite direction, closer to the river. They had a nice river walk that they’ve been working on.

I think there was a celebration village. Celebration park that the public could go to so yeah I think that is part of the area that they’re looking to improve in future years because I did seek a kind of a timeline Of that so I did put a video of that up Yesterday I went to the artistic Alley that has been purchased by the city of Paris.

Apparently it had been owned by someone that wanted to tear it all down. And in the, this was built in the. I want to say the 18th century. So it was a beautiful area. You wouldn’t even tell you were in the middle of Paris because of you just go into this alleyway and it’s completely quiet. A lot of the artists were gone.

I think there’s 50 in there usually, and they do a variety of things. So the, the three we met were, um, uh, wood sculptor who kind of does the It almost looks like plaster work that you put on to the, like almost crown molding, but even prettier. And then we met a bronze sculptor who was marvelous. He talked for a very long time and this, this one, they all talked in French, but I, one of the handlers from the Paris media center did give me synopsis of what was being spoken so I could understand it.

And the bronze sculptor, he. He makes bonsai sculpting and they’re beautiful. And he just came out with this cup of leaves and he poured out the leaves and he said, you could each take one. So I got this maple leaf and that’s

Alison: beautiful. I

Claire: will take a picture and I’ll give it to the ladies and they can post it on our stories.

And so that he had maple and oak and ginkgo. So, um, don’t tell my mother. She’s probably going to get this for her birthday. Uh, it was beautiful. I’m so glad that I did it. And then the third guy was an umbrella guy, was an umbrella guy who not only does like regular umbrellas, but he does parasols and he makes props for theater shows.

And he was like, he’s been obsessed with umbrellas since he was three. And then he, He’s apparently the only guy in Paris that does this kind of work and the umbrellas that he Produces are gorgeous. And

Alison: yeah, the only guy how many umbrella guys are there gonna be?

Claire: Yeah, the video I took I it’s probably gonna come out later next week just because I have a few lined up But I made sure to get some really good video on this.

So stay tuned. So it’s been a really good time.

Jill: Excellent. Excellent So is artists alley kind of like studio type thing, like artist studio center.

Claire: They each had their own studio. So like the, the guy that does the umbrellas and parasols, he was up on the second floor and had like an open area. The, the bronze sculptor had a lower level workshop, um, where he could heat up the, the metal and, and.

Melt it down. I almost thought that he might be connected to making the the metals, but that doesn’t seem to be the case But he does do a lot of work for architects and he was working on a table like the bronze legs of a of a Living room table, you know the coffee table kind of thing. It looked beautiful.

So he was he and the the umbrella But Manufacturer that they were both wonderful. So learned a lot from from that. Umbrella, man

Alison: We could have used umbrella man, there’s been a lot of rain the past couple days There

Jill: has been a lot of rain Ben. What have you done culturally?

Ben: Culturally we So two things one yesterday I went to the Musee de l’armée Mm hmm.

They had an exhibit on dueling.

Jill: Okay, this is right up your alley.

Ben: A temporary exhibit, and they talked about how dueling So, my French is a little weak, but they talked about the history of dueling and they talked about how dueling evolved into fencing.

Jill: Oh, that’s cool.

Ben: So, you saw the old dueling swords and how Fencing training was originally to prepare people if they would ever have to fight a duel.

And then, through that, you started to see the beginnings of the equipment, and the masks, and the jackets, and they had excerpts from movies that featured dueling. They had video of actual duels from the early 20th century. So that was pretty neat. Visit. It was right next to the archery venue. So when there were big things happening in the archery venue, you could sometimes hear the cheers as you were walking through.

And there was a

Alison: lot going on in

Ben: archery

Alison: yesterday.

Claire: I know I was there. About 40 percent of the crowd was South Green. You heard Claire

Alison: screaming specifically. I know you just pulled her voice out from all the other few hundreds that were there.

Ben: But that was an interesting it wasn’t part of the Olympics but it was an interesting sort of adjunct to think about where did this sport come from.

And the museum is part of the Olympic community. Invalides complex, which was originally built for injured soldiers. And it has Napoleon’s tomb in it, and it has a couple of churches and big exhibits on the various wars that the French have fought in, and it was interesting to see the world war two exhibit from the French perspective.

Jill: That’s interesting.

Ben: And the way in which they kind of perceive things. And there was a lot in there about the free French army, the free French, the French resistance, what happened when the Americans landed at D Day, those kinds of things. And a remarkable amount of equipment on display from the various armies.

So German and. American and French and Russian and even Japanese Militaria from, from World War II was all there, so.

Alison: But then you and Claire had an even bigger adventure today.

Ben: So today, Claire and I went over to the Cultural

Claire: Yeah, Parc de

Ben: la Villette. Parc de la Villette, the cultural, the country houses, country houses.

Yeah. And so we visited several that were free. We went to the Slovakian house, the Serbian house, the South African house. We looked at going into the French house, but it was trochere, as they say.

Claire: Brazil as well.

Ben: Brazil. You’ve got

Alison: cookies at Canada House, which I’m very jealous about. Yes, we do. Well, so,

Ben: so Canada House, we walked past and we decided that we should go to at least one that you had to pay to get into.

And, you know, for the journalistic research, we went into Canada House and they had exhibits and sponsor events. The very first thing when you came in was Nabisco?

Claire: Yeah, and Cadbury and all that.

Ben: And so you got your picture taken and they had you answer a survey about the kind of snacks that you like and then they assigned you a category and they put you in that category and made a little picture.

Trading card, I guess, or ID card for your category. Claire, what did you end up as?

Claire: I was a Cadbury girl. And what were you Ben?

Ben: I was an Oreo. I can see that. And so we go around and they had a big table of snacks and they said, and I brought you guys chocolate, but they said the, you could take as much, you know, Oh, please take.

These cookies take this candy and I go to get my card and the woman handing out the cards looks at me and she says, do I know you?

Alison: That happens to me all the time. Did you know her?

Ben: No. Of course not. We, we walked through like all of the places that each of us had lived. She was from France, but she had lived in Milwaukee, no, not Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Madison, Portage.

Yeah. And, uh. Had visited Chicago. So maybe we met each other in Chicago at some point. I don’t know. Uh,

Alison: you buried the lead on that story, Ben, you have chocolate for us

Ben: as a matter of fact. Um, and then we walked around the, the Canada, the rest of the Canada house and saw. They had a little area, RBC Bank had its spotlight stage, and we saw Abbie Dent and Avalon Wostenese from the Canadian rowing team.

They won silver, the Canadian 8s won silver. And they were there with their medals, and they did a little game where you hold up the phone and the other person tries to clue you as to what’s on the phone. Oh, heads up,

Alison: heads up. Yeah.

Ben: Yeah. And, and then after they did their little promotional video, they paused for a minute and took pictures with a couple of the fans and showed people their medals.

It was, they were really engaging and nice. And, and then we went over to Air Canada. Because Air Canada had a special little area and

Alison: did you get an upgrade? I got a

Ben: cooling towel. Which may be

Alison: more valuable right now.

Ben: So if you all want a cooling towel for the rest of your adventure. Oh, you got a cooling towel too.

Those are nice. Oh, it’s

Claire: nice. Those are really nice. I have my own. So, I mean, I’ve been sitting on this one. So you might not want it though.

Alison: It’s okay. You gave me Oreos, Claire. I don’t need anything else from

Ben: you. I will share my cooling towel with you. Um,

Claire: We did meet some people. We were doing some pin trading.

Ben: So we had fun with Jamie and John from Air Canada.

Claire: From Toronto. Hello, Jamie and John.

Ben: Hello. And Jamie’s family were volleyball players and so she was very excited. I traded her a Moscow 1980 volleyball. Oh nice.

Alison: Oh that’s a score though.

Ben: For an Air Canada pin and then I traded them, we gave them Flame Alive pins.

We did. And got a Canadian.

Alison: The vacuum just came out.

Jill: Oh my gosh, this is just incredible.

Ben: Vacuum is

Alison: rolling out.

Ben: But, but we got Canadian pins, Canadian team pins. So that was merch store in there and we were going to go back down and buy pins. We were going to try to buy

Alison: You don’t want to buy the Lululemon Canada gear.

That is It

Claire: was, it was a, well, some of it was really nice, but like when they were wearing it, the, like the, What do you call it? The trophy? Not the trophy, the podium. Yes, it kind of brownish and they were see through in the arm. It looks like they’ve been

Alison: shot and they’re bleeding all over their clothes.

Claire: Well, the design doesn’t really matter to me, but it’s kind of the fabric that they use, kind of interesting. But it overall, the Canada house was a lot of fun, worth 30 euros and you know, that was like what we say a tenth of the price of the USA house. Yeah. So it was that,

Alison: and you got Oreos for those 30 euros and chocolate.

So I think that’s a score. Recommend

Claire: it. It was not hard to get the tickets online. It’s a big space. Cause I think it’s like one of their science museums usually, and you just go down into the basement area where they have this all. So big space, you could watch events in several areas and they had a few snacks and some things for purchase.

No poutine. Oh for. But yeah, it was, it was just a really good time. So recommend it. Yes.

Ben: Yeah, they were, they were really, like, Claire and I were talking while we were there, and it was like, oh, we were at our friend’s house and hanging out watching the Olympics, and it was really nice. So Canadian. I, I, I did point out though, have you ever looked at a Canadian flag and seen the two arguing people?

Alison: No.

Ben: Oh, if you look at the, the maple leaf? If you look at the maple leaf, there are two people arguing in there. They’ve got their foreheads next to each other. And they’re like Okay, I’m gonna, once

Alison: I see it, I’ll not unsee it, I’m sure. It’s a negative space. Yeah, no, I want to just, I just want to see the leaf, so I don’t even want to look.

There you go.

Claire: But for free houses, I think the Slovak house won for us. There wasn’t a very long line to get in. The other ones, like Chinese Taipei and Columbia, They had very long lines, but Slovak was very quick to get in and they had a band that was playing. Uh, but you did have to exchange your euros for, what was, what’s their monetary system there?

Ducats? Ducats. Yeah, yeah. Oh really? And then you purchased the food. So I thought that was really odd. Oh, that’s fun. Four, uh, no. Yeah. Four euros for one Ducat or, or vice versa. Okay. It was very interesting. But that, I think that was my second favorite house. And they had cute little, um, plushy chairs you could sit in and relax.

Jill: Excellent. Excellent. I think I’m going to try to check out the hospitality park tomorrow. That’s part of my day.

Ben: And we, we did do some pin trading there. They had one place set up where there was pin trading. Oh, the pin

Jill: house. Yeah.

Ben: And, uh, we met a guy, well, first of all, I saw Brian Carberry as I was walking around.

Nice. Listener

Jill: Brian.

Ben: Listener Brian. And, uh. He and I talked for a little while and then we went in and we were trading pins and we met a guy from, from Moscow and he didn’t want any of the Moscow pins, but he, he wanted kind of modern stuff. So I was able to score a pin that I didn’t have from him. And he was telling me that his cousin is.

was the Russian fencing champion from Sydney.

Jill: Wow. Well,

Alison: look who that was.

Jill: That is very, very cool.

Ben: So it was an adventure. It was, it was a lot of fun to kind of poke around and see the, see the different houses and we tried to go to Mongolia, but they were closed for a private event today.

Claire: It was very busy too.

So just be warned. It, you know, there’s no, there’s no, there’s security around, but they do bag checks in front of each house instead of in, before you get to the park. So just be aware of that.

Ben: Yeah, everybody had their own level of security, and I accidentally walked away from the guy too soon because he wanted me to empty my pockets.

Oops.

Jill: Um, and speaking of pin trading, the pin trading folks are having two more pin trading days here in Paris at the Coke Food Fest Pavilion that is in Invalides. And it’s going to be Tuesday the 6th and Friday the 9th from 11 to 7 if you get a food purchase. Those days, they’re going to have special Coke pins.

Alison: Don’t get the wonton nachos.

Jill: Don’t get the wonton nachos, but I may show up again. I have to do a little inventory of how many pins we have and, and there may be some stopping there as well. But that’s a lot of fun and it’s a lot of fun to hang out there and, and just, it feels very Olympic. And speaking of the food fest, so yesterday when we went there, we did go there yesterday, right?

Yes, that was yesterday. Okay. Um, and we had lunch with Jason Bryant and we sat down and we were talking to this woman from Seattle and then with her were, like, relatives, or, like, her daughter.

Alison: Yeah, that’s right.

Jill: And I thought she looked like somebody. She may have been a Swiss runner that was running tonight.

Alison: Oh my goodness! But

Jill: I don’t know for sure.

Ben: Yeah, I

Jill: know. It just was really weird. So I don’t know.

Ben: I don’t think so. I think her daughter was Canadian as well.

Jill: Okay.

Ben: Or maybe even American. Well, just

Alison: like some random woman thinks she knows Ben, now you think some random Canadian woman is a Swiss runner.

Jill: That could be.

I don’t know. It happens all the time. Yes, exactly.

Ben: Yeah, it was, it was a little, Unnerving to have somebody be so insistent that she knew me from somewhere.

Alison: I think we’re finding secrets out about you, Ben.

Ben: And so, we handed her a pen and said, go to the podcast and find out why I’m famous. Okay, there you go.

Jill: Excellent. Did you have any cultural moments today?

Alison: No. I basically went to my event, tried not to cough or sneeze while people were competing, and then went to my next event and did it over again.

Jill: How is the new medicine from La Pharmacie?

Alison: It’s good, but you know, cold medicine only goes so far.

Jill: Gotcha. All right, uh, volunteer jobs or officiating jobs you would like to do?

We’re on the horn. Allison?

Alison: I got a good one because it involves a measuring tape and having to wear socks and no shoes. So when they bring the podium out for artistic gymnastics to get it perfectly centered, there’s a measuring tape. So there’s a man who’s the manager of this operation who measuring tapes and nobody, and this is, if you’ve ever been in a gym for a gymnastics gym, you can’t wear shoes on the mat.

So they all take off their shoes at the edge of the podium, come up in their socks, set it all up, wipe it down. It’s also a wiper. That’s just, that’s his only job. And then they go off and get their shoes.

Claire: Nice. Claire. I went to a lot of volleyball and had the best time. And yeah, actually yesterday on the train, I heard somebody in front of me yelling monster block.

So I want to be the DJ at volleyball. Not only do they have the standard three cheers, so they’ve got the monster block, the ace and the, the boom, here comes the boom, you know, super smash. And they also will do. Music that pertains to the country that is current, that is playing. So when I went to Japan, Argentina, which was the one ticket that I desperately wanted and got, um, I heard a lot of the Japanese.

music from the volleyball TV show that got me in back into volleyball. So like when they won, they played this, um, it’s called it’s by burnout syndromes called fly high. And that was the, the theme music to one of the, um, seasons of the show. So they were doing country specific songs and I thought that that was really great.

So whoever’s doing the DJ work at, uh, indoor volleyball props to you. I want your job.

Alison: It’s so funny. You bring that up because I have a story. related to music that we’re going to get to with my events.

Jill: Oh, excellent. Excellent. Uh, Ben, do you have an officiating or volunteer job you would like to do?

Ben: So while we were at Canada house, we were watching the decathlon feed.

Jill: Okay.

Ben: And the Canadian, uh, men’s decathlete.

Jill: Wait, hold on. I have his name. Damian Warner? Yes. Damian Warner.

Ben: Damian Warner. So he was doing pole vaults. And he had a really bad pole vault, which took him out of metal contention. And at one point, when he went to pole vault, there was actually the base of the previous jumper’s pole.

In the The little hole thing? Hole where he’s supposed to So, when he hit the bar, he got a do over. He did argue it, because you could see on the replay that thing come popping out Wow! of the But, out of the, the place where you place the pole, but I think he got rattled because he still missed the next jump.

But one of the things that I saw was when the pole vaulter hits the pole and it comes down, there’s a guy sitting next to the uprights. He places the crossbar on there and then he presses the button and takes it up to the proper height.

Claire: And apparently they did have issues with that. mechanism yesterday when they were doing some qualifications.

So I did notice though, that it also lights up like the rugby uprights. So if they make it, they turn green. If it misses, they’ll turn red. Oh, wow. Watch out for that. If you’re watching.

Jill: That is very cool. Sadly, uh, Damien Warner did pull, withdraw after no, he no hided and he withdrew and he was just devastated.

Ben: Yeah. The Canadian announcers, they actually talked about whether or not he would finished. The competition and the one, I don’t know the Canadian announcers, but the, the one had said, you know, if that were me, I’d be on the next plane back to France and somebody else said, well, he might want to stick around and finish out just to show that he can perform well.

And to sort of hand the torch off to the next generation, but he said, no,

Alison: apparently he was

Ben: just, and I can understand, I mean, You, again, you could see he was rattled by the bad early jumps, and I think the level of disappointment was just so huge on that.

Jill: And then to, yeah, because you’d have to turn around and do five more events today.

And then, it’s just, it’s, it’s just. It’s draining. It really, you can see how much by the end, you can see how much this takes out of everybody.

Claire: Well, it’s a tradition now that they, they have a picture with the, the camera that goes over of all the decathletes and heptathletes for the women lying on the track.

you know, after the, their final race. So that’s the tradition is them wiped out on the track.

Alison: Do you have a volunteer job? Oh

Jill: my gosh. I have so many jobs. I don’t even know what to pick. So we might have like a bonanza at the end because I did go to athletics tonight and there are all of the jobs. There are so many jobs at athletics.

Shout out to Listener Brittany for, uh, putting the squeegee on. It did start pouring at the Stade de France and luckily I was under a roof. But, uh, the women’s triple jump was going on, and the run got so wet, there was like a guy with a roller, and he rolled a big, big roller, and he had to roll the, the runway.

And it was so cool, and I saw it on my feed, and I just went, WHAT IS THIS? And hopefully the lovely Spanish man, my new friend, did not hear me say that, and immediately whipped my phone out so I could take a picture of the feed, because it was just the most amazing thing. That would not be what I wanted to do.

Because I went out to hockey today, it’s probably going to be my one and only time at hockey. Again, so many jobs at hockey. There are flags, so at the beginning of every match, there are Uh, a group of people who take the flag out and they hold it at an angle in the middle of the field so, uh, the teams can stand by their flags, and then they come off, and then they have to fold the flags into thirds, and then they fold them in half, and then they give them to somebody else, and by that point, they’re kind of rumpled.

And I can tell you, as an American, I know how to fold a flag. You know how to fold a flag. There’s very strict rules

Alison: about folding a flag. Yeah,

Jill: in my world, there are. And these people got a little sloppy. Yeah. So I was a little disappointed, but then there were ball people and ball people they were amazing.

So they had one on either side about three meters back from on the sidelines from the goal line and That’s on either side and they’re there if balls go out of bounds and they get them One poor girl the ball bounced back in bounds and she’s like, can I go out and get it? Can I go out and get it? Then I They also have to do protective gear.

And I was kind of looking down and I looked up and on the corner of my eye, I see all this gear flying across the goal. And then I saw what it was later on because it happened again. It is when a penalty shot happens. Some defenders, like three or four defenders, are allowed to put on face shields and gloves and go stand in the goal to help block the goal.

And then when the penalty shot thing is done, they whip all that stuff off and they throw it behind the goal and then the ball person comes and picks it up. But they can’t do it if the ball is on their side of the field. So there was one poor guy who would be like, Okay. I can go and pick up stuff. I can go pick up stuff.

And then the ball was coming back and he had to run back to his, his section of the, the ball field so he could be ball person. Then at, when halftime was over, all the ball people got in the middle, the center of the, the pitch and they like ran around in a circle and then they went to their respective places.

It was so cool. It was, it was a great day.

Alison: Though it seems like not a great day. for our next segment at Hockey For You.

Jill: Oh, Toilet Talk. Everybody’s favorite segment is Toilet Talk. Well, it, no, I would take that back. It was a semi great day, because I went to Cologne, which was, I left from here, and the, if I took the route that the app told me to take, it was going to take, Over, way over an hour.

And two bus, two trains and a bus. And the bus had all these disruptions mentioned on it. And I couldn’t quite decipher everything. And I didn’t want to get stuck somewhere in the middle of, we’re back in the suburbs of Paris. And I said, forget it, I’m taking a taxi. Because if I took, uh, the buses, by the time I got there, then it would be time to turn around again.

So it was just like, take a taxi, the taxi’s telling me it’s going to take an hour. And it took like 20 minutes. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad at all. He dropped me off right at the entrance. Great. Get in. Signage. Perfect. Everywhere. Venue. Oh my gosh. The snacks. Uh, granola bars. And a whole fruit basket. Which was bananas, apples, apricots, and peaches.

Alison: Wow. I haven’t seen a piece of fruit all day.

Jill: Wow. And then, uh, signage was great. Amazing volunteers who are like every, do you need anything? One got me water at halftime. She’s like, do you need your water bottle filled? And she went and filled my water bottle for me. I know. The only thing was that there was no signage for where any toilet was.

Alison: And you got your water bottle refilled. Yes.

Jill: So we had a situation. So I’m wandering in between pitches, because there’s two pitches there. There’s pitch one which is in the 1924 stadium, which let’s be honest, it doesn’t look anything like 1924 anymore. Except for there’s like an outbuilding that looks old.

And it’s probably not from 1924, but who knows? I don’t know. But, um, I’m wandering around and I finally go back. I, I wander by this big stand alone toilet that’s got a sign on it that says, Get the key from the transit manager. And I thought to myself, well, if I find the transit manager, I will never find the bathroom again.

And if I find the bathroom, then I’m never going to find the transit manager. So I said, this can’t be it. And I did see a man get the key and go in, and then I realized that’s for the bus drivers. So I had to go back into the Venue Media Center and go, where are the toilets? And they’re like, they’re around the corner.

And again, it’s a trailer situation, but nicer than the Archery and the Concord ones. They were slightly bigger. They had windows, so they ventilated every stall. little sink. It was, it was quite pleasant.

Claire: Out of all of the events that I attended, my best toilets were at rowing. Really? Yes. They were individual stalls.

There was no separation of men and women. They just had them littered throughout the two kilometers. So there was never a line. Like, even in the grandstand area, I never had to wait in line for, for one of the rooms and everything was, you know, there and they had washrooms that were completely separate.

So I mean, the worst were definitely volleyball and Roland Garros also needed way more bathrooms, but rowing was top. Nice. Excellent. Good to know.

Jill: The other situation with the hockey is I had wandered into the spectator fan hangout area and I wandered back by the, the, I had to wander past Spectator Toilets and the men’s was open with the men at the urinals.

Alison: I had that experience too. That was unpleasant.

Jill: So shut your doors, men. Shut the door to the whole thing. How have you been with toilets, Ben?

Ben: Don’t give me that look. Fine. I’m so relieved to hear that. So am I, clearly. But, the one odd thing was And this was in team Canada house. I was in the men’s room and there was a woman who came in to clean and she just kind of cleaned around

Claire: in the train station.

Um, the east station, there was a guy that was cleaning the women’s rooms, but I mean, those, the stalls are so. closed off compared to American restrooms, um, that it didn’t really faze me all that much. You know,

Alison: maybe it’s me cause we know I have a penchant for walking into the wrong bathroom. So maybe those people just have gotten Allison bathroom disease.

Ben: I mean, I think, I mean, she’s in there to clean and she’s doing her job and it’s fine and. You know,

Alison: you’re not that interesting, Ben. She’s not interested in you in the bathroom. They’re

Claire: cleaning the bathroom. Thank goodness. I have not been short on toilet paper at all in this week. So thank goodness. I

Ben: mean, we kind of take it for granted, but all of these people doing all of this cleaning, like that’s, what’s keeping everything together.

These are the people who keep entropy from like taking over everything. And, and it’s just like, thank goodness that there are all of these people who are on top of this stuff.

Jill: Right? I did have a moment last night here, or, the last time we were here, I went into the bathroom, and you know how you’re supposed to say bonjour to everybody, and there was somebody in the bathroom washing their hands.

I didn’t know whether I should say bonjour or not, because I thought that would be weird, so I erred on the side of caution.

Alison: I think the person who’s already in the bathroom has the right of way in that situation and makes the decision.

Claire: I think if you don’t make eye contact, then you can get away with it.

Jill: All right. We can do this thorough investigation of Toilets of Paris only because our listeners support us financially. This show is, uh, It’s expensive to be here, and we are an independent media outlet, which means we need independent financing, and we are highly supported by our listeners. Thank you for all of you who do support us on the regular.

We appreciate it. And if you are enjoying this coverage, we ask you to think about contributing. Two our cause and keeping our flame alive so that we can continue to do this show once the games are over. You can find a number of ways to support us@flamealivepod.com slash support. And if you’d like to be an ongoing patron, you can go to flame uh patreon.com/flame Alive.

Pod patrons during Paris are getting all, all paid patrons. Get a photo of the day and uh, today’s photo was walking through the 18th. Market. Pigeons.

Alison: Yeah.

Jill: That’s all I have to say. And, yeah.

Ben: So can I come back to your travel thing for a second? Because when I was supposed to meet Claire, I got delayed because they had huge chunks of the city blocked off for the bike race.

Yeah. Yes, yeah, today was bike race day. And so. So, I think that may have been part of your delay is that the, the bike race were, were all set up and I came out of my hotel and was trying, I had to make two right turns to get to the proper train state, the proper train station to go meet Claire and I couldn’t do it because of, you know, the cops everywhere and the bike and there were only certain places where they were allowing people to cross and so.

It was kind of cool to see the bike race. I didn’t see the race, but to see the, the course, and it went right through the neighborhood I’m staying in, so.

Jill: Very cool.

Alison: Okay, well let’s get to some daily results.

Jill: That’s right.

First up is archery. We had women’s individual medals today. Gold went to Korea Lim Si Young. Silver went to Korea’s Nam Su Young. We’ll And bronze went to Lisa Barbalon from France. Casey

Alison: Caulfield, or Casey Caulfold, excuse me, was eliminated in the round of 16.

Claire: I did yell at her yesterday after she got her bronze.

Yeah. She was in the mix zone and I happened to be hanging over and I said, where did I go Casey? And she looked up and so I got to wave at her. She was great

Alison: on the podium. She and, she and Braid Ellison were, oh yeah, yeah.

Jill: I did watch a little of the feed here and it was. It was women’s team, Indonesia versus India, came down to a one shot tie break and India lost.

And they were showing the heartbeat thing. I don’t think that makes a difference because there were people who had heartbeats that would go into the 90s and they’d go low and they’d shoot an eight and there are people where their heartbeat would be a hundred and two, over 100, which is, you know, it’s like my blood pressure with these archers.

And, uh, they’d shoot a 10. So I don’t really know what the deal is with the heartbeat. But if you’ve been watching it on the feed, let us know if you think that’s cool. If you’ve noticed any trends with that. Artistic Gymnastics, you were there.

Alison: I was there today. So we have apparatus finals. It was men’s floor exercise, women’s vault and men’s pommel horse, which is really why I went to this session.

A couple of interesting things that I noted during the apparatus final, there’s no music in the arena. Whereas during the men’s event and the team, the men’s team event, there was music constantly going. And then obviously during the women’s team and the women’s all around, the floor exercise music is going.

It is totally silent while the, the gymnast is on the apparatus. And talk about everybody in the stadium just staring at you because only one apparatus, obviously, is going at a time. So, It is a spotlight. It is a spotlight like you wouldn’t believe. Um, on the floor exercise, have you noticed that the out of bounds flag people are gone?

Jill: Yeah, because I was looking for them during the women’s team. Um, because Simone stepped out of bounds and I thought, did, did I see that correctly? And there was nobody there.

Alison: That’s exactly what happened to me. One of the athletes stepped out of bounds and I’m looking for the flag. And not only is there no flag, there’s no corner judges.

So I’ve reached out to Nicole Langevin to see if I can find out how that is judged now, if that’s electronic on the floor, which is, I assume how they’re, cause she’s still got the deduction.

Jill: Right.

Alison: So it’s, it’s still happening. Um, coolest thing though. About the floor exercise. Look at the medals. So gold went to the Philippines, uh, Carlos Edriel Yula.

This is the first Filipino man to win a gold at the Olympics.

Jill: It’s incredible. That is so phenomenal that, that he did that.

Alison: And he was very early in the rotation. Uh, he went right after the, the silver medalist and, and then just led the rest of the day and just had to sit there and do it. hold his tongue and bite his nails the rest of the way.

So silver went to Israel, uh, Artem de Colpiat, and bronze went to Jake Jarman of Great Britain. Then we get to the women’s vault finals. Of course, everyone goes crazy for Simone. The screaming, the screaming, the camera constantly on her. Um, she ends up with the gold. Yeah, great. Rebecca Andrade of Brazil ends up with the silver.

Jade Carey gets the bronze. Uh, she is also from the U. S. The one thing I want to mention, and I’m going to get in trouble for this. Those hops at the end when Simone lands, they’re far. These are not little hops.

Claire: I have noticed that anytime I see her fall lately,

Alison: she’s going halfway off the mat and she was still getting an execution score of 9.

5. She deserved the gold. She was the best of the medalists today, of the, of the athletes today. She didn’t deserve to win by as much as she did.

Jill: Interesting. But Rebecca Andraja, she did nail her first vault. Her second vault was not so good. The landing was off. The landing was bounced and her

Alison: difficulty is not as high.

But those hops are huge. And I didn’t notice it as much on the TV as in person how far she’s going.

Jill: I wonder if it’s kind of like figure skating where they give you points for trying and even if you do something Well, they

Alison: get I mean there is a difficulty and an execution score So she gets the difficulty, but they’re still giving her in my very uninformed very humble opinion a very generous Execution scores.

Ben: So you see that though, I think You In any sport where there’s judging, where somebody is a star or somebody is, and even in, so right, this is kind of a slightly different example, but like in fencing where there’s right of way. If the director believes that one fencer is a better fencer, they err on the side of that person.

Oh,

Alison: absolutely. I, I recognize the, the reason it’s happening. It just makes me a little sad. But, I do want to point out, my two new gentleman, uh, Irish gentleman friends from Limerick that we met on the walk back to the train, pointed out have a

Ben: Limerick about them? I do not. I met two

Alison: men from Ireland. I, I do not.

And they pointed out, and I do agree with them. The stadium was full and the stadium was full to see Simone Biles. So what she’s doing for the sport in terms of exposure worldwide is pretty amazing. Were people

Ben: not watching gymnastics before?

Alison: I don’t, it’s not that people weren’t watching gymnastics. I think more people are doing gymnastics.

Claire: Not only that, but they, they’re, there’s a presence now. People used to just go to gymnastics because it was gymnastics, and that’s what you do to see the little teenage girls do their thing, but now they go to see Simone Biles. And that’s a, that’s a big draw. Like, in swimming, you go to see Katie Ledecky, you go to see Michael Phelps.

Those, those draws really bring people in.

Alison: It puts the sport on a, not pretty girls in glass boxes. It puts it in, these girls are true grit. And I think that makes a difference. Yeah. But here’s the event that I really wanted to wait, can

Jill: I, can I say what I was really surprised about the vault? Was there was a woman from the, from North Korea in the finals.

Uh, Ahn Chung Ok. And she did pretty well. She

Alison: ended up in fourth and she was on the podium for quite a while. Jade Carey was the last, uh, falter to go and bumped her to fourth. We’re going to see her again in floor exercise and uneven bars. So yeah, all of a sudden North Korea and she was quite good. She was quite impressive.

Jill: Very impressed. The country distribution is getting very, very good in gymnastics. Agreed.

Alison: Speaking of country distribution. We got to pommel horse.

I have been talking about going to this event final, I think since the schedule came out. Because I thought it was going to be a battle between Ireland’s Rhys McClennagan, the UK’s Max Whitlock, But no, that’s not where we ended up. We ended up with the podium of, as it should be Ireland’s, uh, Reece McLennigan on gold.

Silver went to Nariman Kurbukhnov from Kazakhstan. He was the first up. And when I saw his score, I was like, Oh, wow, we’re going to have some high scores. And then he was, he just stuck around. And then bronze went to the United States, Steven Nenorosek, who was incredibly charming. But let me, and Max Whitlock ended up fourth.

And he, he was also early in the rotation. I want to say he was second. He knew, he knew when his score came up that it wasn’t, it wasn’t going to be enough. And he is retiring. He’s already announced this was it. He’s not coming back. Um, which is sad and amazing that he’s had such a long career. And I wish I could have seen him perform better because it was shaky.

There was, there was mistakes, not huge mistakes, no falls. But you know, if you’ve seen Max Whitlock do a world championship or an Olympic pommel horse, you knew this wasn’t that Max Whitlock. Uh, Rhys McLennan was just in a league by himself. Absolutely. That one arm full turn. Holy cannoli in person is even more impressive.

So yeah, Steven Nedorosik was as charming as ever. Someone gave him a cape.

Claire: It was just the flag.

Alison: No, no, no. It was an actual cape. Oh,

Claire: it was a cape. Because I heard

Alison: someone talking in the mix zone. Allegedly the person who had this done and said, Oh, yeah, I told the guys if he gets the medal, give him the thing.

And I’m thinking, Hmm. You gave him a cape. It was cool, but also slightly tacky. But, so here’s what I want to mention about the music. Put a pin in this, because we’re going to come back to it. Reese wins. Ireland wins a gold medal, first in men’s artistic gymnastic. After the medal ceremony is over, and they’re kind of doing their lap of honor, they start playing U2, Beautiful Day.

I think, this is not coincidence. Just hold that until we get to swimming.

Jill: All right, let’s move over to athletics. Uh, we, we, two sessions today. The morning session, uh, Kenny Bednarik, uh, did the early rounds of men’s 100. He has ranked first, uh, overall out of all the heats with a time of 9. 97. And that tied with USA’s Fred Curley.

He keeps being asked about being an underdog. And he’s like, I don’t think I’m an underdog. I’ve been an underdog. I’m not trying to be an underdog. I want to be the top dog. So, uh, he is focused and ready to go. Um, evening session, I was there, super fan. Sarah and family were there. I spotted them with my binoculars.

It was pretty awesome.

Alison: Was, was flat Theo there?

Jill: I don’t know. Binoculars were not that good. Um, but, uh, they were very cute, all matching USA shirts. I got there very early. So I got to see pad removal from pole vault. And that was a very interesting and long process. Uh, I got to see a lot of measurement, because they were setting up the javelin run for decathlon.

They also were setting up shot put for shot put finals for the men. Uh, the javelin got the robot cars returns. Uh, shot put got like a bowling ball return. Little, like, thing that they throw the shot put down. So I was a little disappointed there, but they don’t have to go as far.

Claire: Um, unless Ryan Krauser throws and Joe Kovacs.

Oh, we’ll get to that. My babies.

Jill: Uh, I happen to be sitting maybe about 30, 35 meters into the 100 meter dash. So it’s more on the side of the shot put and, it was hard for me to see the triple jump. I was lucky enough to get a spot two and a half hours early and it was really hard to find a table. And I got something with a monitor and I kept having to switch channels on the monitor because I kept getting like the warm up feed and I didn’t want to see warm ups.

I wanted to see what was going on on the other side of the track. But eventually we got there. Lovely friend from Spain on one side of me across the track. row of cables was the Jamaican journalist. So when Shelley and Fraser Price did not show up for the hundred meter semifinals, I was like, what, Hey buddy, what’s going on?

He’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know. And he starts working the phones. And just the Trinidad and Tobago journalist from Just down the row. He comes over. He’s like, what’s going on? He’s like, I don’t know They worked it and then we found out that she did withdraw from injury. That’s what they’re saying There was a little bit of news saying that she wasn’t allowed to warm up.

So the athletes were the buses were slow getting them there, but The word from the chef de mission, I believe and in the Jamaican newspapers was injury

Claire: Yeah, they changed the rules apparently overnight where the athletes can access the warmup track. And so she and Sha’Carri Richardson both got turned away at a certain entrance and the video of Shellyann was the one that surfaced.

So everybody has been circulating that, but that’s not the official news, um, that has been released. But you know, it’s only been a couple hours. Yeah, we’ll probably

Alison: get the official word from, from Team Jamaica tomorrow.

Jill: Huge shock. There was a little car race ahead of time. It was Friege in one car and the other car was empty.

That was signaled the rest of the world. And hey, guess who won? Friege won. And, uh, there is a victory bell for the winners at Paris 2024. They made like a mini bell cast. a bell out of lead or bronze or whatever and they come and win, they ring it when they win.

Claire: Is that the same one from rugby since it’s the same stadium?

Jill: It’s a Paris 2024 bell.

Claire: Okay. That’s

Jill: all I know. That’s all I could get.

Claire: I know that when in, in rugby, when the women won, some of them went over and they rang a bell. I’m wondering if that was the same thing.

Jill: Could be, could be. Um, there is a three coupes handler.

Alison: Oh.

Jill: that tells them when to do the stick. So he’s like, gives them the sign to do every beat with the stick and then gives a thumbs up because you did a good job.

Uh, that was a cool job to see. Um, this was hard to watch in person. I will say that because I didn’t know where, it’s chaotic, I didn’t know where to look. I had stuff I was trying to do and there was things going on everywhere and it wasn’t just. the action. It was also things being set up. So they’re set while javelin is going on and some amazing javelin throws.

Like there was an Olympic best, javelin throw tonight in one of the groups and just they’re soaring. It’s so beautiful to see these javelins thrown in person. Then we’ve got men’s shot put going on. There’s triple jump in the back and they’re all kind of going at the same time. Plus there’s 1500 meters running.

So like the 1500 meter men were, it was a repassage, repashage rounds and they would start going and the javelins would have to pause because they’re part of their run, crosses the track. Please don’t

Alison: kill the poor men who are trying to run.

Jill: But as they go around, like you’ll see somebody throw the javelin in between before they come back around.

It’s not good. It’s that kind of chaos. Then they’re setting up starting blocks for the sprints and There’s little light up lane lines They’ve got to move the starting blocks in everything everything needs to be tied in Got to watch where there’s a mixed relay the 4×400 mixed relay. So Watch the starting block teardown of that that has to be done within a lap because there’s a they have starting blocks and they have lane line numbers behind them all of that has to come off before these runners come around that’s not a very long time to get this two part job done it was it was very impressive the The reprise was really interesting.

I think that the runners really liked having that opportunity again, because of course the, the winners were thrilled to, to go through, uh, uh, Cathal Doyle from Ireland, uh, odds and mean hops from France. Of course. So the French crowd was going crazy. Uh, and, uh, Frederico Riva from Italy and Charles Philibert.

Tiboteau. From Canada, I believe those are the four that won and are moving on. Uh, men’s shot put final. Oh man. Ryan Krauser started just with a bang. He didn’t make any records tonight, but he didn’t have to. He, his first throw won the whole thing and it was gorgeous. He threw and he got two successive throws that were better than the last one.

And then he scratched a couple of times and he didn’t need to do the final throw. But I kind of wanted him to do the final throw because I kind of wanted him to try for an Olympic record, you know. Uh, Joe Kovacs was, he won the silver. He was not in good shape until the last throw and he pulled one out.

It was phenomenal. And, uh, powered himself up into the silver. Bronze went to Rajendra Campbell from Jamaica. So we were thinking there could be a possible three peat of a podium, which that has never happened. Never happened in Tokyo that a whole podium repeated. Tom Walsh would have been the third one.

He did not make it into the final rounds of throws. But

Alison: Ryan Krauser does have the first three peat in shot put.

Jill: He does have the first three peat in shot put. And Rajendra Campbell, oh man, he threw some good stuff too. He is one to watch for.

Alison: And I want to give some love to Joe Kovacs. I mean, this guy has got three silver medals and would be a legend in any other generation.

And probably, I mean, I don’t know how he’s viewed in the, in the athletics community, but then you have this once in a century shot putter like Ryan Krauser and on his team.

Claire: Yeah. Well, he, the two of them in 2019 had an intense Competition at Doha Worlds and actually same thing Joe Kovacs was behind final throw He beat Ryan Krauser to take the world title in 2019 And it’s probably the best shot put competition that anybody has ever seen I’ve heard that multiple times even five years later and ice I got to see it too And yeah, it just his reaction and everything.

So he has a world title I think he might have to but he never got that Olympic title, but he he never seems to let that down. His wife is the throws coach, Ashley. And so he gets a lot of support from her and he supports her in her work. So I just have to give him props for being such a supportive husband to Ashley, who’s doing so much for the throws community.

And they’re two little kids. He’s got twins. Do you think he

Alison: ever throws them?

Claire: I hope so. When, when they get a little older, he’ll throw them into the pool. I hope

Alison: he does just sort of like toss the baby to Ashley. Oh, I would love

Claire: that. So props to both. Yeah, both of them. It’s just I love hearing about the shot putters.

It’s so great

Jill: Yeah, so I was thrilled to be able to see that in person Ryan Krauser though, you know

Claire: It doesn’t even look like it’s a heavy ball. It just floats in the air

Jill: and he well and he’s got such Small small legs for the size of the top of his body Okay, here’s the funny thing that I just I found adorable and They get the flags and they’re doing their lap of honor, but he’s wearing his backpack with his stuff because that’s what they have to take.

Like, isn’t there a

Alison: handler who can take the darn bag for his lap of honor?

Jill: Did he wear a cowboy hat? No, he did not. Not that I noticed.

Thea Lafond from Dominica could be their first medal. Uh, Jamaica’s Shaneika. Ricketts won Silver and Jasmine Moore won bronze. She’s from the US and I believe this is the US’ first medal in Triple Jump,

Claire: which I think is crazy, but yeah, I I’ve heard that too.

Jill: Uh, then we had the four by 400 meter relay.

This is the mixed relay finals. This was just so intense and so insane. US was leaving right off the bat. They led a. Three quarters of the way and three quarters of the way through the final lap and Netherlands Femke Boll just turned on the gas and beat Kaelin Brown from the US at the end. It was just an intense, intense race.

Alison: What she does, right?

Claire: Yeah. It’s also not the first time they’ve done that. At Worlds in 22, they lost to the Dominican Republic in the same way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jill: But, and you can tell, like, uh, Shamir Little, who was the second leg, went out a little too fast. Cause, you could tell the anticipation and the, I’m gonna do it, and he went out really fast, had to settle back down, and, and did okay.

But, uh, yeah, even Caelan just looked really good, and Femke just blew her down. It was amazing. So, Gold to Netherlands, Silver to US, and Great Britain wins the bronze. And then we had the women’s 100 meter, we had the semis, and we had the finals. Surprise! And at this time it is pouring rain in the stadium.

So the track is partially wet here. They start in dryness, the track gets wet. I don’t know how much that affected anything, because I know the track is pretty porous, but I wonder if that plays, how that plays with you, even at this level. Gold went to St. Lucia’s, Julian Alfred first gold medal for St.

Lucia.

Alison: Well that’s good ’cause we almost lost St. Lucia in the opening ceremonies. Remember they were in the little boat

Claire: that

Alison: was just bouncing along the sand and we thought it was gonna overturn.

Claire: She’s an NCA champion if I, if I heard correctly. Okay. Yes. Okay.

Jill: Um, silver went to Shari Richardson and Melissa Jefferson from us also won the bronze

and. I will say that Sha’Carri looked good for the semi finals, and when she was coming out for the finals, and I went back to the replay and watched this again, she looked nervous. And she was pretty subdued the whole time, but she looked a little nervous in her face, and maybe that’s just me, but, but, it was surprising how in command Julian Alfred was in this race.

I will tell you in person. That 10 seconds is the slowest 10 seconds of anything in the world. It just seems to drag on and on and on. When you’re watching it on TV, it’s over so quickly, but here it’s just like, they’re never going to get there. It was really interesting to watch in person. And then we ended with the men’s decathlon 1500 meter final.

Which is survival of the fittest. Uh, you never, like, this, the field is so spread out on that. If there was one more lap, they would have lapped somebody, I think.

Alison: Well, and then you get the shot of them collapsed on the track.

Jill: That’s right. Uh, final decathlon totals. Marcus Ruth from Norway won the gold. Leo Neugebauer from Germany won the silver.

A lot of Neugebauer fans in the audience. And, uh, Lyndon Victor from Grenada won the bronze. You a Lyndon Victor fan?

Claire: I’m a, I’m a fan of not normal countries getting medals. And I know Grenada has had, um, athletics medals in the past, but just to have a decathlete, you know, it, it just, it makes me pumped up hearing these countries, Dominica and St.

Lucia and Grenada. Yes.

Jill: And I will say that the Jamaican journalists, when, uh, Yeah, Julian Alfred was doing her lap. They gave her a standing ovation. That was really nice. Know it was

Alison: kind of like West Indies stick together. Yeah. Yeah. You,

Jill: you know, all those, they’re, they all know each other. Moving over to badminton, we had women’s singles, quarterfinals, and then the women’s doubles matches.

Gold went to, uh, Chen, Ching, Chen and Han from China. Silver went to lichen and tanning from China and bronze went to. Japan’s Matsuyama Nami and Shida

Alison: Chiharu.

Jill: In basketball, we are still doing some group phase work, uh, women in the women’s side, China beat Puerto Rico, 80 to 58, Spain beat Serbia, 70 to 62, USA beat Puerto Rico, 104, and the men’s side. The USA beat Puerto Rico 104 83 and Serbia beat South Sudan 96 85. The tops of three groups are, in the men, the top of each group is still undefeated at 3 0.

Group A is Canada, Group B is Germany, and Group C is USA. Uh, Basketball 3×3, we had some women’s pool round and the women’s play in round. Uh, the women’s pool, Canada, Germany, France, and the U. S. all won. And the play in round, Canada beat Australia 21 10, and China beat the U. S. 14 12.

Alison: So the U. S. is out, and we’ll go into now the knockout rounds of women’s 3×3, and this same setup happens for 3×3 for men tomorrow.

Jill: All right, we are still on preliminary phases for beach volleyball. Reminder that Kelly Chang and Sarah Hughes have advanced to the round of 16 and their tournament begins on August 4. In boxing, we had quarterfinals and semifinals for women’s 50 kilogram, women’s 66 kilogram, men’s 57 kilogram, men’s 71 and women’s 60.

They’re going to start moving over to Roland Garros for their finals.

Alison: That’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. is physically set up. Like, where are they putting them?

Jill: Maybe they take the net down and put it just in the center.

Alison: But then everybody walks across the clay?

Jill: They walk across the clay in tennis.

Alison: Well, yes, but then they play on the clay. They don’t then get in a boxing ring. They’ll

Jill: lay

Claire: out a carpet or something.

Jill: You’ll have to go.

Alison: I haven’t been to Roland Garris yet, so. Oh, you should. I’ll get there eventually.

Jill: At Canoe Slalom, we had women’s kayak cross early rounds. Luka Jones finished second in her race four of round one, and she qualified for the heats, as did Evie Leapfart, who was in a different race of the rounds.

So we will see both of those paddlers moving on. Road cycling, you saw a little bit of the spent, well you saw the set up then, were people already out waiting when you went by?

Claire: No, it, it, I mean, I, from what we saw before the country houses, there wasn’t, but were there any by your, um, hotel?

Ben: Not by where I was staying, no, they were just kind of setting things up and blocking off roads and making sure that everything was ready to go.

Oh, okay.

Jill: This was the longest road race in Olympic history and went all through the city. I had, there were a lot of people who had the feet on in athletics. So I put the feet on and watched the end of it. And it was interesting because a lot of the time that they had people three and four deep on the roads.

And then there were a few areas in the city where there weren’t so many, but it was nice to see a lot of people catching the action. Another Olympic first. The winner of the road race also won the time trials and that has never happened before.

Alison: That’s a surprise to me.

Jill: Yeah, it is, but it’s, it’s incredible.

So, uh, uh, Remco Evenepoel from Belgium won the gold. He started attacking with like 90 kilometers to go and he lost the last rider who was with him, who is, uh, Valentin Maduse from France. with 13 kilometers to go. Then with four kilometers left, he got a flat tire and had to wave and get another bike. And you can see him kind of freaking out because Medusa was like a minute behind him.

And you thought, well, maybe he can’t catch up, but he just had the legs. He just, and then he got another couple seconds on him. It’s like he didn’t even lose any time.

Alison: It’s funny because when we were talking about mountain biking, there was flat tires there too.

Jill: Well, the cobblestones. Here, so, uh, gold went to Remco Evenpoel and then France won silver and bronze, uh, Valentin Madouas from France won the silver and Christophe Laporte won the bronze.

In equestrian, we had the Grand Dressage Grand Prix special team final, gold went to Germany, silver to Denmark and bronze to Great Britain. Fencing, we had the women’s sabre team medal finals. Gold went to Ukraine, silver to Korea, bronze went to Japan.

Alison: My girls, my Team USA Saber team finished in fifth.

Jill: Pretty good.

Alison: They’re the, they were the youngest team in the tournament. They are very young and I think it’s first time out for all of them on, on the Olympic stage and, and that is not a bad finish at all.

Jill: In football, we had women’s quarterfinals today. U. S. beat Japan one nil. That went into overtime, and as the first overtime rolled into stoppage time, Trinity Rodman, uh, scored a goal.

So that was the one goal that U. S. needed to make it on to the semis. Also, uh, winning, Spain over Colombia. They had tied 2 2. They went to penalty shootouts, and Spain won 4 2. Canada and Germany. We’re scoreless, but Germany won in a 4 2 shootout, and then Brazil beat France 1 0. In golf, we are through round three, and the leaderboard now on top is John Rahm from Spain.

He is 14 under par, also, and tied with Xander Schofle from the U. S., and then Tommy Fleetwood from Great Britain is right behind them at 13 under par. In handball, We are still on preliminary rounds. Netherlands, France, Brazil, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark all won today. In hockey, uh, pool stages for the women.

Argentina, Australia, China, Belgium, Netherlands, and the U. S. all won. I saw the Australian versus Spain game. And that was a lot of fun. I heard my first Aussie, Aussie, Aussies, Oi, Oi, Ois. I haven’t heard

Alison: that at all. Nothing at swimming with that.

Jill: That’s, that is shocking. I hadn’t even

Alison: thought of it until you mentioned it.

Jill: Um, uh, really fast. I think you would like hockey. If you like ice hockey, you would like hockey on ground. And these women can run. They are so fast. And, and it’s just a really fast game. The pitch looked beautiful. They had some blue stuff on the ground outside the bus area where we got off, like paving the way.

And I touched it and it was grassy and I wondered if it was the polytan stuff or if it was some other kind of blue carpet. I don’t know. A girl can dream. Uh, they did water it down at halftime, halftime, yeah, I think it was halftime. And they had. Water spigots at every corner and then two in the middle.

And they would just spray, take their turn spraying the whole thing. So that was very impressive to see. I don’t know how much water they didn’t use because they keep talking about being More waterless and more waterless with that pitch, but Right.

You don’t, there’s still a lot of water. You don’t

Alison: have the comparison from having seen it before. Right. To know were they doing it after?

Jill: Right.

Alison: Every 10 minutes they’re spraying water on it. Right.

Jill: But I did enjoy my time. I did go and see the last maybe half a quarter of USA versus, uh, South Africa and got to see Abby Tamer play.

She looks a little young. I, you know, she is young.

Alison: She’s very young. She’s

Jill: very young. But, uh. The, I think confidence needs to come. I think the confidence needs to come for the whole US team, but it’s a young

Alison: team,

Jill: young team. And it was a surprise, not a surprise, but a big achievement for them to get into the tournament.

In judo, the mixed team medal rounds happened. Gold went to France, crowd goes wild. Silver went to Japan and the bronzes were shared between Brazil and Korea.

We have another odd suspension.

Alison: I don’t have any more information on this one.

Jill: Mohammed Sameem Faizad from Afghanistan has been suspended for an adverse analytical finding. He’s been disqualified from the men’s 81 kilogram event.

Alison: We’ll get some more details on that.

Jill: In rowing, we had the women’s and men’s single skulls finals.

Women’s gold went to Caroline Florian from Netherlands. Silver went to

Gold went to Netherlands, Caroline Florian from

in rowing We had the women’s men single skulls final as well as the eight finals in single skulls for the women, Caroline Florian from Netherlands won gold, Emma Twigg from New Zealand won silver and Victoria Sant’Cuccia from Lithuania won bronze. For the men, Oliver Zeidler from Germany won gold Uh, yeah.

Yeah. Haney’s a Lottie from neutral athletes, one silver and Simon van Dorp from Netherlands, one bronze in the women’s eight gold went to Romania. Silver went to Canada and bronze went to great Britain. Not a surprise because Romanian team is just been a powerhouse for years. And then in the men’s side, gold went to great Britain, silver to Netherlands and bronze to the U S what did you think of rowing when you went out there

Claire: and you stand in one spot and you see them go by?

But they do set up the, the screens in good intervals, so that basically no matter where you are, you can see what’s going on, and the commentators do a very nice job, actually, they probably do the best job of all of the announcing, explaining exactly what’s going on, um, giving you some behind the scenes stuff with who is doing the, uh, Who is competing like that’s where we found out that one of the women’s teams I think was double skulls.

They both were mothers and that was like the first time that it ever happened So we’ve heard that in the feed It was very interesting and I made sure to move over a few places just to kind of see the vantage points from different places But yeah, I mean you go in one spot They go by, you cheer, and then you look at the screen.

So if, if you would rather see stuff in person, rowing probably isn’t the one for you. Plus you had to walk a very long way from the train station to get to rowing. So just a word of caution.

Jill: In sailing we had, uh, Action in the men’s stingy men’s and women’s stingy, the mixed stingy and the mixed multi hole, and we were able to get the windsurfing finals done for the men. Gold went to Tom Veni from Israel. Silver went to Gray Morris from Australia and bronze went to Luke Van Sland from Netherlands.

For the women gold went to Marta Mati from Italy. Silver went to Sharon Cantor from Israel and Bronze went to Emma Wilson from Great Britain. In shooting, we had women’s, oh, the vacuuming has started. Great day. Women’s 25 meter pistol final. Gold went to Yeon Jing from Korea. Silver went to Camille Jajaruski from France and bronze went to Veronica Mayor from Hungary.

In the men’s skeet, gold went to Vincent Hancock from the US. Uh, he has become the sixth Olympian to win four gold medals in the same event. So. Uh, this is not a four peat because he did not get the gold in Rio. So he’s got two before that, two after that. He joins a, an exclusive group that includes Al Order, Paul Elstrom, Carl Lewis, Michael Phelps, Leon Lopez.

So that is a pretty good feat. And then he overtook his teammate and training partner, Connor Prince, in the last four clays. Conor Prince won silver and bronze went to Li Menhuan from Chinese Taipei. In surfing, stuff keeps getting to be rescheduled. We’re

Alison: still struggling to get the, uh, the event finished.

So semifinals, uh, are going to be moved. They might happen overnight. They might not. The finals are rescheduled to August 5th, which would end up being nighttime for us in terms of the time. That may happen. That may not. We’ll see. Who knows?

Claire: I did see as I was getting water that it looks like there is some surfing going on right now.

Alison: Okay. Well, they have a lot of ground to make up.

Claire: True.

Alison: I hope the wave is big, but not too big.

Jill: There you go. Uh, swimming. You were at swimming tonight.

Alison: I was at swimming tonight, but first in the earlier session, Bobby Fink will be moving on to the 1500 meter finals tomorrow, which will be the last night of swimming.

We’re at that point. So went back to swimming. A couple semis I want to mention was the 50 free. Simone Manuel did not make it out of the heats, which was disappointing. And Sarah Sostrom just set an Olympic record. Like you do. Like you do. Uh, first we had up the 100 meter fly, the men’s, and the gold went to Hungary, uh, Christophe Millac.

Silver went to Jos Liendo from Canada. And another Canadian medalist for the bronze was Ilya Karun. The more interesting race came next. That was the women’s 200 individual medley. So we thought we had the medalist when the race was over. But then the little sign came up on the scoreboard that said official review and we knew things couldn’t be good.

So originally Alex Walsh from the United States, uh, looked to be winning the bronze. She was disqualified for an illegal turn between the backstroke and the breaststroke rounds. The official statement said she went, uh, had gone past vertical, but when we were looking at the replay, it almost looked like she just turned too soon.

Um, and switch positions. So when you’re in backstroke and going to breaststroke, you can’t turn over until you reach a certain point. So she was disqualified and lost out on the bronze. So the podium ended up being Summer McIntosh from Canada with four golds with a new Olympic record. Kate Douglas from the United States won silver and Kayleigh McEwen from Australia ended up getting bumped to the bronze.

Now, here’s this music point. When Summer Macintosh got her medal and came off the podium, they started playing Summer of 69 by Brian Adams, who is Canadian. So I think it’s a thing. These DJs are getting smart. So I think they’re playing music for the lap of honor for artists from the country of the gold medalists.

Very nice. Let’s start paying attention.

Ben: That’s a weird choice.

Claire: Hey, music is music. I love that they’re being clever about this. You

Alison: know what? I thought it was fantastic because I started to recognize a pattern and I love that. So then we had the very long women’s 1800 meter free.

Jill: Wait, 800 meters. What did I say?

1800. That would have been really long. So the 800

Alison: meter free thing. And this was a race, uh, Arianna Titmuss stayed with Katie Ledecky pretty much the whole way through. Then Ledecky pulled away and then Titmuss tried really hard, but it wasn’t going to happen. So Katie Ledecky of the United States won gold.

Arianna Titmuss from Australia won silver. Paige Madden from the United States won bronze. Yeah, Ledecky out here doing a four peat.

Jill: Pretty amazing.

Alison: And she didn’t look tired afterwards. The other thing that surprised me was how fast they go for so long. Mm hmm. Because usually when they show the long races on TV, they cut to commercial.

You know, they have to fill the time.

Jill: Were you waiting for a cut?

Alison: No, because I had this fantastic British reporter sitting next to me. who’s like, Oh, Titmuss is going to make it a race. Like he was commentating for me, which was great. But she was so the way she swam was so calm and kind of relaxing to watch.

Like you felt like you were in good hands during the race, which was wonderful. Then you, we ended the night with the mixed four by 100 meter relay. This was an interesting race because of the choices teams made as to when to put in a woman and when to use a man. So all the teams made the choice to use a male, uh, swimmer in breaststroke.

Jill: Interesting.

Alison: And then all the others were mixed. The final push between the United States and China in free, uh, freestyle, two women going down to the wire, which made it terribly exciting. So the United States did pull out the gold with a world record time. China won the silver and Australia won the bronze.

Jill: In table tennis, we had the women’s singles medal finals. Gold went to Chen Meng from China. Silver went to Sun Yingxia from China. And bronze went to Hayate Hina from Japan. Who I feel connected to because I saw her.

Alison: She’s your new best friend. Oh no, wait, that’s Macron.

Jill: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, me and Macron.

Alison: Angèle, what should I do about my relations with Germany? I

Jill: don’t even want to go there. Uh, tennis, we had the men’s singles bronze medal final, and Lorenzo Muzzetti from Italy beat Félix Auger Aliassime from Canada, 6 4, 1 6, 6 3. The women’s singles had its gold medal final, and China’s Shen Qingquan beat Félix Auger Aliassime.

Beat, uh, Donna Vekic from Croatia. That was a big win. And, uh, last night, uh, Iga Svantek won the bronze in the men’s doubles. The gold medal final happened in Australia’s Matthew Ebden and John Pierce beat, uh, Austin, uh, Krejcik and Ram, uh, Rajiv Ram from the U. S. And, uh, Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul won the bronze.

And I believe that is the first double medal. for the U. S. in tennis since St. Louis 1904. Oh, wow. I think our Bill Malin had pulled that fact out. I, that just seemed like something Bill would know because he’s here, here, uh, volunteering with the U. S. for, as a historian. In volleyball, uh, we still have some preliminary rounds, uh, Dominican Republic?

Alison: Yes.

Jill: Uh, beat Netherlands 3 1, Japan beat Kenya 3 0, and the men’s side Poland beat Italy 3 1 and, uh, Serbia beat Canada 3 2. Water polo, it was a men’s day, and winners were Spain, Croatia, Australia, the U. S., who beat Montenegro 12 7. Serbia beat France 15 8, and then Italy routed Romania 18 7. And that is it for the day.

It was a big, big day.

Alison: I don’t know where we’re going tomorrow. Do you know where you’re going?

Jill: I’m going to go see some hospitality houses, and then I’m going to check out some 3×3.

Alison: Okay, I have no idea, so I’ll be dealing with the schedule. But before we do that We have to say hello to our mascot, Serendipity, who lives with Kickstarter supporter, Amy.

So thank you so much, Amy, for sharing her with us. Serendipity lives in horse country up in Western Massachusetts, so we expect that she will be keeping an eye on the equestrian events up in Versailles. I would like to see Serendipity ride a horse, because I believe horses and dogs should be

No change in the Shuklastan medal count.

Jill: That’s good to know. Uh, still have a bunch of Shuklastanis in action. Deanna Price begins qualification for women’s hammer throw tomorrow. Kenny Bednarik heads to the semi finals in the 100 meters. Team USA plays its last pool round of volleyball? I think, I think volleyball.

Alison: No, that’s water polo.

Jill: Oh, okay. And, oh yeah, cause volleyball’s further down. Uh, Kelly Chang and Sarah Hughes begin their round of 16 action in beach volleyball. Luke Jones and Evry Leapfart continue in kayak cross. USA Fencing competes in men’s foil. Bobby Fink swims in the 1500 meter final. And Jordan Larson and Team USA play France in women’s volleyball.

Wow, that might be a match to go to, man. That’s gonna be nuts. We have some shout outs. We would like to thank our Kickstarter supporters who helped get us here today. We would like to give a special thanks to Nicholas Wallover, who is our friend from Olympic Rings and Other Things blog. That is fun to read as well.

Also, uh, Rosie, I’m going to mess up your name and I’m really sorry. Uh, Wawrzyniak and then Hayley S. Thank you so much, all three of you, for helping us get here and making sure that this show happens and helping us find, like, vacuumers.

Alison: You can never have enough floor maintenance at the Olympics.

Jill: Also, don’t forget that Jay, uh, the dulcet tones of Jason Bryant are selling a wrestling guide and, uh, listeners can save 5 by using the discount code flame alive.

When you go to mattalkonline. com slash Paris, we’ll have a link to that in the show notes. If you want to get prepped for the wrestling tournament, which is going to get underway soon, and that is going to do it for this episode special. Thank you to our researcher, Annalie Dable.

Alison: And you can get in touch with 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 sign up for our daily special Games Time newsletter at our website flamealivepod. com.

Jill: And join us again tomorrow for more action from Paris.

We’ll have some more Hospitality House news. Maybe Canada will still have some Oreos after a couple of Americans took them all. Hey now. But thank you Ben and Clarillo

for your contributions and for being here tonight, we really appreciate it. Thank you also for listening. And for tuning into the Facebook group and keeping the conversations going on there, there’s been a lot of interesting conversations and threads, and we really appreciate your participation there. Tell a friend about the show so that we can find more of our people and we’ll catch you here again tomorrow. And until then keep the flame alive.