It’s the last day of the Paris 2024 Paralympics, but there’s still plenty of competition before the Closing Ceremonies. Jill heads to para powerlifting to see TKFLASTANI Bobby Body lift, while Alison sees a major showdown at Bercy Arena for the end of the women’s wheelchair basketball tournament. Unfortunately, scheduling issues prevented our heroes from getting the required stickers to see the Closing Ceremonies (which, given their reaction to the other three ceremonies, may not have been a bad thing), but they celebrated the end of the Games at the Paris Media Centre for one last time.
Sports on today’s program:
- Para Athletics
- Para Canoe
- Para Powerlifting
- Wheelchair Basketball
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Our researcher for the Paralympics is Elizabeth Emery.
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TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
Paris 2024 Paralympics: Day 11
Jill: Bonjour, and welcome to day 11, the last day of the Paris 2024 Paralympics 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 DU Podcast. Joined us always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison Bon
Alison: Bonzo. We have been here two months and I still don’t know the words to Oe
Jill: I need the, uh, the karaoke version.
Alison: I get Definitely I get Am or am, but, and just jump in with oe. Yeah.
Jill: That’s all you need to do, really, because I think that’s what some French people do, too.
Alison: It’s the sweet Caroline of the Paris Olympics and Paralympics.
Jill: All right, let’s begin the baguette.
Okay, I, an issue today and we’re going to start this by I got maybe two, two and a half hours of sleep last night because it was, we’ve had, uh, some equipment issues. It’s made, uh, my, my editing job a little harder. I was super tired last night. And we watched Kelju do the whole thing cause it was the last one.
Right. And so that made us So we got a
Alison: late start and then you had a super early start this morning. So everything conspired against you to get a minimum, I mean, that doesn’t even count as a nap, honestly.
Jill: It was, it was a rough morning. And, uh, I’m sitting at para powerlifting because, uh, our Bobby body, Bobby.
at like the nine o’clock or 10 o’clock session. That’s why I had to get out there and get up early. So I’ve seen, I’ve honestly, I’ve seen this before. And if you’re a patron, if you’re a 5 a month patron, you got the whole story today cause I posted it almost immediately. I didn’t realize some hype stuff was going on and I was just looking at the pair of power lifting thing.
Cause it’s my first time at the venue. And the whole thing is set up. It’s in the badminton venue. It’s, uh, really cool. The setup, I think, is really neat.
Alison: Agreed.
Jill: And they’ve got this hexagon stage for where the, the lifting bench is and uh, these women come out and they’re Uh, sweeping and I thought, Oh, they sweep at the pair of powerlifting.
Alison: They do not sweep.
Jill: No, they turn in the stupid broom dancers and I was so mad that I was hoodwinked by them. So mad. And because you have
Alison: seen versions of this broom dance at many, many events and it feels like the longer the Paralympics go on, the more they’re relying on the broom dance as the hype show.
Yes. Yes.
Jill: And, and it really is, it’s volunteers who come out with the brooms, and they start sweeping, and then music kind of kicks in, and they’re not really sweeping, they’re dancing to make you feel good. excited. And it’s, I’m now very, very annoyed by it because I’m more into floor maintenance than I am to the hype dancing.
Alison: And disappointment for you, you’ve never seen the Can Can hype dance.
Jill: No, I haven’t. That’s the one I haven’t seen.
Alison: Which I got today. And I have seen several times in recent days.
Jill: Oh, I saw a different song being sung by the A. I. 1924 athletes. Oh, and I can’t remember what it is.
Alison: They’re all terrifying. So just move on.
Did you see them do believer?
Jill: I think I saw
Alison: them do believer yesterday. I am NOT a believer.
Jill: Did you do anything cultural today?
Alison: No. Well, I hung Snoke. So that was pretty cultural.
Jill: That was pretty awesome that you got to do that.
Alison: So Rob is, uh, he’s a former Paralympian. He is an announcer. We had a You’re right. He is always a Paralympian. Um, we originally met on a bus in Beijing as we were circling trying to get, and we reminisced about this, where you used to be, you could go from Curling to hockey.
And that was very quick, but no, no, no. The other way around. Yes. Curling
Jill: to hockey was the backwards way. Cause it’s the wrong direction.
Alison: Right. And if you went the wrong direction, you then had to do the 20 minute bus circle. So it was great to see him. He was the OBS announcer for wheelchair basketball.
And then during the Olympics, he was the CBC announcer for swimming. So he’s been hardest working man in Paris. Um,
Jill: you know, I also have been working hard. I think we have been working very hard.
Alison: And you’ve been working on no sleep. You have been getting a lot less sleep than I have.
Jill: I’m ready to sleep in tomorrow.
I’m really ready to sleep in tomorrow. But We’re working hard because we want to bring you a very, very fun experience of the Olympics and Paralympics that you can’t get anywhere else. That’s because we’re independent media and independent media means self financed and financed by independent means. So that, That means we need your help in order to keep our flame alive.
If you have enjoyed the coverage here, we would appreciate it. If you could support us financially, we’re just looking for 20 and 24 cents. We’ve got a number of ways to support us on our website. That’s flamealivepod. com slash support. And if you do want to be an ongoing patron and see the broom dance video, and other stuff.
All, all patrons get a free photo of the day, which today I was flags because the mixed zone of pair powerlifting, I saw the flags. That were in the wings waiting to be used.
Alison: I haven’t even seen that picture. Yeah. No,
Jill: it’s pretty awesome. And uh, then Uh, if you’re at the five dollar a month up you get the pictures and you get videos And some audio and there’s more audio and video that have just kind of piled up that i’m working on getting through So you will get more of that even after, uh, we get home from Paris.
So that’s also, the link to that is also at, uh, flamealivepod. com slash support. We do have the last of the competition today.
Alison: Yes, we do. So there were the marathons today. And first up was the men’s T54. This is the wheelchair class. For our purposes, it is the Marcel Hugues slash Daniel Romanchuk, uh, class and Marcel Hugh got his first gold of these games from Switzerland.
Jill: He’s had a tough game in a way. I don’t want to say tough games because he’s been on top a lot. He had a great games in Tokyo.
Alison: He had multiple golds here. He’s had, I believe, two silvers and a bronze. So this was, this was his gold. Uh, silver went to Jin Hua of China and bronze to Suzuki Tomoki from Japan.
Yeah. Hugh led from the beginning. He was never not first in any of the time checks.
Jill: Wow.
Alison: He just went out won this race Daniel ended up being fourth. He was four minutes back only a minute behind bronze.
Jill: That’s not bad So
Alison: I I hope he’s happy with the race. It looked like he There I had it on Um, after you left and it didn’t look like they were major mistakes.
It just looked like, okay, that, that was his time today. Um, so he’s had a great games.
Jill: He, yes, he has had a great game. So good on you, Daniel.
Alison: And then on the women’s side of the T54G, Katrin De Bruyne from Switzerland won gold. This is a Swiss sweep of the marathon of T54, which is kind of fun. Uh, Tokyo, uh, gold medalist Madison de Rosario from Australia won silver and Susanna Scaroni from the USA got bronze.
And again, de Bruner read the whole, the whole way. There was never a doubt. So she finishes Paris with five golds. One silver.
Jill: Amazing.
Alison: There were two, uh, there was a visually impaired class as well, uh, T 12 for men and women. Gold in the men’s went to Tunisia Tunisia’s Wajdi B uh, silver to Alberto Suarez lasso from Spain and bronze to a Min Chen from Morocco.
All of those runners had seasons bests
Jill: very nice
Alison: on the women’s side. Gold to Fatima As as Hara El Idrisi from Morocco. She had a world record. Silver also goes to Morocco, Miriam, and Nuri. She has a guide, Abdelhadi El Hardy, and Bronze to Mishi, Cito Masato of Japan.
Jill: Very nice. Last day of paracanoe. All paddlers have disabilities in their leg and trunk and the, the numbers of the classes signify how much they can maneuver their body in the, in the canoe in the seats because sometimes they can slide and sometimes they can’t.
For women’s kayaks, single 200 meters, KL1. Gold went to Chile’s. Catherine Vollermann, uh, who got a personal game or a Paralympic games best.
Alison: I’m going to save you some time. Yes. Everybody got a parallel. All the gold medalists today got a Paralympic games best because
Jill: they don’t have world records in this sport because the course always kind of changes,
Alison: but it was a fast, fast water today.
Jill: Nice. Uh, silver went to Marina Mazula from Ukraine and bronze went to Idina Muller from Germany for the women’s KL two. Gold went to Charlotte Henshaw from Great Britain. Uh, silver to Emma Wiggs of Great Britain and bronze to Anja Adler of Germany for the Women’s KL3. Gold went to, uh, Laura Sugar from Great Britain, silver to Nelia Barbosa from France, and bronze to Felicia Lauberer from Germany.
For the men’s, we did Vaa. That’s the outrigger boat that’s specific to the Paralympics. We had the VL2 and VL3 classes for VL2. Gold went to Fernando Rufino de Paulo from Brazil. Silver to Igor Alex Toffolini from Brazil. And bronze went to Blake Haxton from the USA, who we talked with a little bit at the media summit, but we didn’t, it was like while he was waiting for pictures to be taken.
Alison: Right. He Uh, you and I and Matt Stutzman had a lovely chat waiting for photos discussing, uh, which version of Clark Kent, uh, Blake looks most like.
Jill: He does. He really does. He really does look like Clark
Alison: Kent. So nice to see him on
Jill: the podium. And then in the VL3 class for VA, Gold went to Vladislav Yepifanov from Ukraine, Jack Ayers from Great Britain won silver, and Peter Cohen from New Zealand won bronze.
Alison: For the last time. Go Silver Ferns!
Jill: Um, pair of powerlifting. So I went, and now, did we talk about this? Where they had this, they have this thing on the screen where they have cards with the referees names and faces on them and they get to choose. They’re going to choose the referees for this. I think
Alison: we did talk about it on the show.
We definitely talked about it us and I think we did talk about it yesterday. So that
Jill: is a gimmick.
Alison: Thank goodness because they’re
Jill: on the start sheet.
Alison: Thank goodness. I never got start sheets yesterday.
Jill: Oh, okay. So
Alison: that was. Probably why I didn’t, yes, because we talked about where they were positioned. So I’m relieved because that felt very uncomfortable.
Jill: Here’s the pool of referees. We’re just going to draw you out of a hat. They need to know how to work together that any, any configuration does.
Alison: Okay. I mean, it made sense in the idea of, well, it would reduce cheating, but it also didn’t make sense just in a practical way. Functional way.
Jill: We had first the men’s up to 107 kilogram final.
Gold went to Ali Akbar, uh, Garb, Garb Shahi from Iran who got a Paralympic record with 252 kilograms. Silver went to a Asana Pili. And Kabayar from Mongolia and bronze went to Jose de Jesus Castillo, Castillo from Mexico. Our Bobby Body finished fourth. And this was a bummer because his second attempt was, uh, he, he lifted 218.
That was his first lift and it was clean. Then the second attempt was 230. He just did a big jump. He had a failed press sequence. So his kind of his arms were uneven when he pushed up, challenged it on successful. So then you’re up to the last attempt. He did two 32 again, failed the sequence out of challenges and That’s where he ended up in fourth.
I got a lot of time with him in the mix on we’ve talked for We and two other reporters he stayed with us for maybe 10 minutes. He’s a talker. He is a talker. So I appreciated that He of course, obviously he did Didn’t want this to end this way. He did talk a little bit about what kind of threw him in the second Lift attempt.
So that’s kind of interesting to listen to and I’m gonna tell you right now If it doesn’t show up on today’s show because I don’t know by the time we finish talking today How much I’ll be able to put on the end of the show it’ll show up in the next few days because I’ll just put a separate episode up of just Mixed own stuff that we haven’t gotten to yet that you should really hear Uh, Bobby did say going to, he was pushing for LA.
He’s also pushing for Brisbane. He said, I’m doing two more and I’m retiring when I’m 60.
Alison: I was going to say, I guess he’s planning to use his social security money.
Jill: That’s what I said. You can collect the social security. Uh, he’s also not had the chocolate muffin.
Alison: Oh, because he had to, he was, yeah,
Jill: because
Alison: if you’re competing the last day, I was thinking about that today.
that I, I wish they didn’t have individual events on the last day, but they kind of have to obviously. Yeah, yeah.
Jill: There’s only so much you can do.
Alison: But that’s hard that you really, he really couldn’t enjoy the village, right? Because his competition is so, so intense. Late in the story.
Jill: Exactly. The interesting thing about this, the contests were really between Iran and Mongolia and then Mexico and the USA because Mexico had failed their second and third lifts as well.
So it was really that open around that. Made the difference and just
Alison: looking at the weights that they’re lifting. Yes. Uh, you know, the gold medalist is at 2 52 and even Bobby’s highest attempt was at 2 32 mm-Hmm. . And then the bronze medalist was in the 2 22 range. So they’re kind of,
Jill: there’s different stratas, there’s different, yeah.
Alison: And you’ve got the two and the two mm-Hmm. strata that just kind of function on, on that, that level.
Jill: But not to, he apparently set a legend world record. according to the stats. Because he’s old. Yes, his age group. So good for you, Bobby. We’ll look forward to following you over the next quad in the women’s up to 88.
86 kilograms. Gold went to Tiana Medeiros from Brazil. Silver went to Feifei from China and bronze went to Marian Alejandra Serrano Guajardo from Chile. The crowd got bigger. I looked up and all of a sudden there was a big crowd because nobody was coming in the morning. There wasn’t a bad crowd in the morning but there was just like all of a sudden it was full and they were excited because it’s really cool to see somebody heave that much weight up.
Yes! It’s kind of wild. This was Zheng Feifei’s competition until it wasn’t. And she started with a clean lift at 150. Medeiros was next at 137. So Zheng is in the lead. Zheng’s second lift was clean at 155. Then she went for a world record at 160 and failed. Madero’s got a 147 on her third lift. So she’s still in second place and because she was clean the whole way through, she can do what’s called a power lift.
And she goes, I’m going to go for a Paralympic record. And she went from 147 to 156 and was clean and snatched the gold away.
Alison: It was something see now when they explained to power lift yesterday to us They said that the metals had to be decided already and you could only use it for going for a record
Jill: I didn’t quite understand it because they didn’t If they explained it, I wasn’t listening or couldn’t take that in because all of a sudden she was doing a fourth lift and I thought, I just put it in through my head that she was clean and nobody else was because then why wouldn’t Zhang just get to try another lift?
But I bet you
Alison: would have to be clean. And I think at least from what they said yesterday, you have to try for a record on that lift and she did that.
Jill: She was trying her Paralympic record. and got it.
Alison: So we’ll, we need to do some more digging into power, power lifting, because now we’ve come across rules and things that we didn’t, we don’t understand.
Jill: Right. So be looking forward to that. I am excited because this was just fun, fun, fun. In the afternoon session, we had the, uh, it was heavyweights. So we had the women’s over 86 finals and the men’s over 107. For the women, gold went to full of shady, Owafa Mayo from Nigeria, Silver went to Deng Xue Dumei from China, and Bronze went to Ali Nadia from Egypt.
I believe, because I didn’t write this down, um, Owafa Mayo set a world record, I believe. Probably. And, uh, It was so amazing. Like this, the, the women’s final was so exciting and loud. The men’s was loud and kind of exciting, but it just. didn’t have the same suspense that the women did. So in that one, gold went to Amad Amin Zeda from Iran, silver went to Anton Krukov from Ukraine, and bronze went to Akaki Jinjaraja
from Georgia. And that was pretty cut and dry. With, um, Amanzada was above the rest the whole time. Wheelchair basketball.
Alison: I ended up getting to both games today, the women’s bronze medal match and the women’s gold medal match. The bronze medal match, unfortunately, was not much of a match. Uh, China defeated Canada 65 43 and they, China just dominated.
And that was frustrating. Um, in that not only did China dominate, they made Canada not play terribly well and not as well as they’re capable of. From what Rob was telling me, he was frustrated in seeing that China really got under their skin and unsettled them. Then came the gold medal match, which was USA versus defending gold medalist Netherlands.
And USA came out super hot. to eight to one.
Jill: Ooh.
Alison: And that was the last time they left.
Jill: Ah,
Alison: Netherlands was better on every statistic. Field goal percentage, uh, penalties against, um, free throws, rebate, everything. They were just that much better. And they also have this player named Beau Cromer. Mm hmm. And Um, whatever team this woman is on then becomes the favorite team.
She was that dominant. Wow. Just, when she was on the court, everything revolved around her. And she’s not physically imposing. She’s not the tallest player on the court. She’s not the biggest, but I believe she’s probably the fastest
Jill: and
Alison: the most accurate.
Jill: That’ll do it. Every time.
Alison: So, Netherlands defeated the United States 63 49, uh, so gold to Netherlands, silver to the U.
S., bronze to China. And you had some attendance statistics, which I loved because the, for both matches. It was pretty darn full and pretty darn loud.
Jill: Yes. So, uh, they have been posting some attendance statistics more for team matches or where it’s possible for the gold medal match. The audience, uh, count was 12, 629.
That is 97 percent capacity for Bercy arena. Bercy is just over 13, 000. So that is incredible. I mean, every time I
Alison: went there, there was, there was a lot of people.
Jill: Exactly. And so for the men’s tournament, the total capacity was 92%. Women had 90 percent capacity. That is really good considering how, how ticket sales were.
Ahead of the Olympics
Alison: and also a lot of those matches were weekdays. Mm
Jill: hmm.
Alison: I mean, yes, a good number of them were in the evenings, but still weeknights and school has started. And then there was all those weekday matches. So to get the 90 percent is really impressive and says a lot to how what we’ve said repeatedly over the past couple of weeks.
Paris seems to have really bought in.
Jill: Yes. They, they really have. They understand the sport. They’re excited to get to cheer for, for somebody, usually a French person, but if they get to cheer and sing the Marseille, Marseillais, and all of that jazz, they’re happy.
Alison: Yeah. There, there was a lot of Alele Blue.
Today at wheelchair basketball and there are no French playing But they don’t care they want to cheer
Jill: Competition so if you’re a metal person China was on top of the medals by far
Alison: Yes, and Great Britain was second which surprised me a little bit. It doesn’t surprise me
Jill: because The movement started in, in Great Britain, so I think there’s always going to be a tradition there. And then USA got third. USA
Alison: was third.
France got a total of 76 medals. Excellent. Which is nothing to shake a stick at. Then we have the closing ceremony. So we did not get to go to the closing ceremony in person. There was an, I think there was an admin snafu in the ticket distribution, so we didn’t get our stickers.
Jill: Right. And the, well, the other problem is that, The National Paralympic Committees get their allocations and then it’s up to them to distribute them to us.
They told us, Team USA told us, here are the hours you can pick up your stickers. And they were not hours we could get to because the main press center where we would have to pick them up is the National Paralympic Committee. So, we were both at competitions to watch Sukhfastanis.
Alison: And during the very limited hours that they gave us in the middle of the day.
Jill: Yes. So that that meant just no closing ceremony for us. But in a way, in one way, that was okay. Because Okay. It went full circle, rained for opening ceremony of the Olympics, and then it rained tonight as well. So I was very glad we weren’t out in the rain. So even though we would’ve been covered,
Alison: right, because the, the tribune is covered in the, in, in the Stad.
Um, so we ended up back at the Paris Media Center, which is where I spent the Olympic opening ceremonies where you were out in the rain and they had the same food, and the same beverages available. And what was really funny is one of the. Uh, product reps. They had these mocktails with this, uh, ginger shot called Gimber.
And whenever they served these shots. It was the same product rep mixing the drinks. So we haven’t been to the Paris Media Center much during the Paralympics. So I hadn’t seen him in three and a half weeks or so, maybe a little longer, closer to four. So he was there. And we were having a whole chat like, how have you been?
What’s going on with the past month? Because they did several, several Gimber events during the Olympics. So we saw each other and they’re really good.
Jill: It is. It’s a very spicy ginger beer type mixer, right? And then
Alison: they mix it in various things. Mocktails. Yes. So he’s coming to New York with his family next week.
Jill: All right. Is he making a side trip up to Connecticut? He is
Alison: not, but we had a lovely chat about some things he should do with his children. So it’s, I think it just speaks to a lot of some of the strange connections that you make as this process when you’re here for such a long time and intensely working in these, these very small environments.
Jill: The show did have a theme, which was Paris. Paris is a party. And the stage in the Stade, I thought it looked like the fencing set up, so it had a very long ramp down the center and then, uh, two small stages on top of, uh, on one side of the ramp and two small stages on the other. So to me, it looked like the fencing pissed areas.
And I thought it looked like an
Alison: airport runway.
Jill: Oh, well, yeah, it was very, very long. I will tell you that. Um, we started off with another singer dancing on top of a piano. In the rain. Another piano sacrificed. We had a very lovely version of the Marsalais.
Alison: Beautiful! The trumpeter, uh, who has a disability.
So let’s get that in there. The only, it was a beautiful version. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he had wings. I didn’t understand why he had wings and I didn’t care. I loved it because it did call back to the opening ceremony where they, they had a character as part of the, the show that had wings. And I didn’t understand the wings that time either, but I didn’t care because I, you know how I love a callback.
Jill: Yes. So that was nice. Very long. Flag procession.
Alison: It did seem very slow, didn’t it?
Jill: It did. And you know, the even the Olympic one felt slow to
Alison: agreed
Jill: because I think they did. There’s a big circle. Yeah.
Alison: And also the path they took was, I think, through that center, uh, runway and then all the way around the stadium.
Jill: Yeah. And during that there was, uh, like, uh, Army band. I believe that is the same,
Alison: uh, band that played in the opening ceremony of the Olympics with that rapper.
Jill: Don’t look at me like I know. I was busy watching Parade of Boats. That’s all I saw, really. And I’m excited to go home and watch the opening closing ceremonies.
It’s weird because you go, oh, I was there. Well what, what was that like? I don’t know. I saw it on a TV screen. I was under a tree. Yeah. Um. So while they were doing this, this band plays Chariots of Fire, 1924 callback, that was a nice time, and, and several other songs that we’ve heard throughout the games, speeches, people are loving Tony Estanguet.
Alison: And, you know, I don’t think anybody loves Tony Astenguay as much as Tony Astenguay does. Ouch. I mean, yes, he’s a very attractive man. And he’s done, clearly, this has been a very successful game, so let’s, let’s give him props on that.
Jill: He’s probably thrilled. Like, look what we did. The whole country has rallied behind this effort and it was probably a slog because the country is also pessimistic first.
Alison: So I think he kept talking. And I think that came from a place of just, look mom, I did it.
Jill: Um, Andrew. I lost my mic there. Andrew Parsons spoke passionate as always.
Alison: So many languages. I love what he throws in because he does, he obviously speaks English beautifully and his native language is Portuguese. He says his French is not good.
Jill: Oh, well it’s fine. It’s
Alison: fine. So he just kind of throws in. As many phrases in multiple languages as possible to make everyone happy because it, you know, whenever a non French person comes up with French phrases, the French crowd goes wild.
Jill: Yes. And we don’t exactly know what he’s saying because he’s talking in English, but they they, uh, they dubbed it so
Alison: loudly that we couldn’t catch it.
But we know what he was saying. He was saying, this has been great. Thank you, Paris. Thank you, athletes, volunteers.
Jill: You’ve
Alison: overcome so much.
Jill: Then we have the LA handover.
Alison: Okay. Can we compare this for a second? Yes. Oh much better. Oh, I’m so glad you thought it
Jill: So because it was shorter first off
Alison: shorter more effective The only criticism I would have is I wish they had done that little That little segment with the music and the skateboarding in Paris,
Jill: oh Because you could
Alison: have done that in the stadium Um, kind of brought California to, I know why they did it.
It was very effective as film. It was much less expensive, um, much less risky because you could film it ahead of time and make it perfect. I thought it was incredibly effective. And when the song ended, I said to you, end it now, end it now, because this is, this This is it. You’ve done it. And they ended it.
Jill: They did. Yes. And then we’ll get to that in a second. But basically there was a little opener montage to California Dreaming, which featured our Samantha Bosco and our Jamal Hill. That was really, really fun to see. Then we shifted to The Beach and Anderson Paak and somebody else who I can’t remember off the top of my head.
They did music and then while that while you’re looking that up there was a a skate park there, a bulls skate park for the most part and uh, disabled people were using the skate park. There were, uh, some skateboarders who had no legs or one leg. Wheelchairs were using this. It was amazingly cool. I, I thought, you know, uh, That made me wonder like, oh, is there a pair of skateboard competitions and I could get behind that.
Alison: So the jazz pianist that played first was Matthew Whittaker. Uh, the violinist, uh, was Galen Lea and then the rapper who came on was Garnett Silverhall.
Jill: Okay. But yeah, it was a couple of numbers while you watched skateboarders in bowls and we were done and it panned out to the ocean. And that’s when you said, please be done, please be done, please be done.
And then there shows another group of singers. And for a minute I thought, Why are they singing in French?
Alison: We were so confused about where That was not a great trans Their transition wasn’t clear. What they needed to do, because what that was, was the, uh, they went to the balloon. They went to the cauldron.
Instead of the camera shot of them And you know what? I bet if we had been in the stadium we would have been equally confused. Instead of the camera shot of them on the singers. They needed to do the camera shot on the cauldron so that we placed ourselves.
Jill: Yes. So there
Alison: was an announcement at the beginning of the show that originally the cauldron was supposed to rise and be extinguished in the air.
But because it was pouring here, I mean, it was not just raining. It was pouring. Pouring. They could not lift the balloons. The balloon did not fly tonight.
Jill: Which that’s a shame, because that was really a centerpiece of the whole games.
So then the flame comes, because of course the cauldron is a light, and the flame comes in, and Hugo Didier, the French swimmer, para swimmer, and, uh, many French, actually many, many French athletes, yes, medalists, come and they do a little kind of relay slash parade. It’s like, The one comes and then they hand the little lantern off to somebody else, but they’re all still walking together until they get to The top of the ramp where the flags are and there’s Auriel.
What’s her last name?
Alison: Uh, Aurelie Aubert
Jill: who is the boccia player who won gold
Alison: And has stolen the heart of Paris.
Jill: Yes, totally a lovely lovely woman and she was the one that blew it out and that’s The one moment that got you, got you, I was in tears.
Alison: That was rough because I’m going to get cheery again because as they came up and we saw Orly on the stage, I said, please don’t do this to me.
Please don’t have her blow out the birthday candle. And they did. And it did. It was, it was such a beautiful moment because they had all the medalists. There was no, um, token celebrity. It was a group of French athletes who had achieved their dream at the Paralympics blowing out the, the light. It didn’t bother me as much that it was a birthday candle this time.
Maybe because I was prepared for it. It
Jill: could be. And there was no, like, massive pomp and circumstance with Leon Marchand taking it from the Tuileries to, like, The, the stadium that that was a bit much
Alison: and just that focus on the athlete aspect to it. Um, did me in
Jill: and, and it didn’t hurt that all of those athletes had so much joy, right?
And we had
Alison: seen them compete and we had seen them and we’ve seen them on Kelzhu and their personalities were so huge. Of course, I’m sure that’s why they were chosen because there were many, there were 76, there were 76 medals won by the French team. And then the light goes out and I’m like, Oh my goodness, that, that just did it.
That’s we’re done.
Jill: But the show was not done.
Alison: The show, my goodness, was the show not done.
Jill: Okay. So then we had an electronic dance party for over an hour with 28 different DJs and EDM performers. Not Daft Punk, because they said they weren’t getting back together. But we have heard so many Daft Punk songs over the last couple of months.
I’ve got Robot Rock just stuck in my head right now. It would have been awesome if they had watched the games and been captivated and said, Oh yes, we would like to come back. But that wasn’t happening. And they were mad at Tomas
Alison: Jolie for Tomas Jolie coming out and saying, No, Daft Punk is not performing.
Jill: Yes, yeah, I know. Um I will say this, we have said for the last three ceremonies here, made for TV, made for TV, made for TV, this was made to be there.
Alison: So one of the things that we complained about a lot at the closing ceremony for the Olympics was it was this very solemn, serious story based show and there was no party to it.
This was all party. Yeah,
Jill: they got a concert. It was for the athletes. The athletes got a concert and there wasn’t much else to it. And I think that was, for me, that was okay. If I had, if we had been there. I think we would have a very different reaction because this, it got to be, this is long and forever taking because watching DJs perform is, there was no to watch them paint dry.
There was nothing
Alison: to look at and they could have so easily fixed that because they did a little breakdancing segment, which was very effective because it was a, a, uh, uh, breakdancing troupe that had people of different Uh, physical abilities. Why were they not breakdancing when the DJs were playing?
would have been very effective. Then, at some points, they had decorated friezes. So, they had human sized friezes that were sparkled and in bathing suits, and it was
Jill: Very cool. Mustaches and
Alison: Mustaches, sort of dressed up for the occasion. Maybe they weren’t on stage because of the rain. I speculated that that was, that they were supposed to be out there.
But, Is that, that’s what you’re going to count on as a Sparkle Frige?
Jill: And lights and a lot of smoke. I think the smoke made it worse because you couldn’t see anything after a little bit. And then they had lots of fire, fireball power, pyrotechnology type stuff, and then some fireworks here and there. But there were 28 different DJs and then you got the list out so that we can go, how many are left?
And when you got the list out, there were 11 left and we were, we were already tired. And we did recognize some of the songs. because they’ve been playing here, but I, I don’t know them. And I, but I will say the French knew them. And the French team was having a
Alison: great time. Right. So at one point, We finally panned to the athletes dancing, which was at least something to look at besides the DJ standing there, you know, bopping back and forth, except for that one DJ with that red latex swollen suit.
That was terrifying. So once again, we have said this for every ceremony, nobody tells Thomas Jolie, no, nobody edits him. This would have been a great day. 10 minute segment, maybe even 15. If you had done like quick hits with all these different French DJs, then let’s move on to something else. Or if you’re going to do this, let’s have something for the TV audience to look at.
I think Tokyo, and we keep talking about Tokyo, Tokyo did this very well because they had those segments where it was a lot of dance music, but they had those. Fake cityscapes and skateboarders and things happening so that yeah, you can get the concert aspect But you have something to look at besides a firework on TV.
Jill: Yeah. Yeah, I Like like I said, I think it would have been really fun in person Much much funner if you were a EDM fan if these were your people you were having a blast it was a killer concert, I think, but it, it just didn’t play well on TV. And we were curious, there’s one song that had the F word bleeped.
Repeatedly. Yes. And we’re like, Oh, how is Peacock dealing with this? That’ll be fun. So if you watched it on the feeds, let us know. You might have heard because they, but we didn’t even have any commercial breaks on ours. So I don’t know what they’re doing.
Alison: And I don’t know if Peacock and I I’m very curious to hear what people were saying, if they’re just going to cut certain of those DJs out for commercial breaks and tighten it up, you know, tighten it up that way.
Cause you have 28 of people that certainly American audiences don’t know. So what happens if you cut a couple of them for your commercial stretches? No one’s going to notice.
Jill: Uh, but that was, that was the end and
Alison: it just sort of ended. In a way.
Jill: Yeah. In a way. And it’s funny because I did notice that athletes had been clearing out and I, this crowd didn’t look like it had cleared out much, but a crowd in the media center where we were, that cleared out too.
Alison: It was empty by the time we left, you know, so it was a full party, watch party for us until it wasn’t.
Jill: Right. And people just were like, Oh, no.
Alison: Uninterested. You know, why do we need to
Jill: not, uh, yeah. 14 watch DJs. Yeah.
Alison: You know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of like, in, in high school or college, when your boyfriend invites you over to watch him play video games.
Jill: Oh, yeah. .
Alison: That’s how I felt when I was sitting there. Like, am I supposed to be having fun in this situation?
Jill: Well, you can always learn how to play the laser. There was one DJ who had, and I got, I will give him props for having a setup and something interesting to look at and being more of a performer than somebody who stands behind the DJ booth and wears headphones and kind of bops along.
Alison: You know what we skipped today? We skipped our volunteer job.
Jill: Oh, geez. Speaking of volunteer jobs.
Alison: Well, the reason that I thought of my volunteer job that we didn’t talk about was because I want to help that poor kid who was the umbrella holder for one of the singers, one of the first of this little EDM singing group. And the singer was moving around so much and the umbrella guy is trying to like shift to the left and shift to the right and follow him around
Jill: and not look like he’s too into the music.
He’s trying to be very nonchalant about the whole thing and none of it is working for him.
Alison: And I totally felt him because I would have wanted to dance, but you can’t dance and he knows it. He knows he’s on camera. So he’s trying to have this neutral expression, but he’s failing miserably.
Jill: I’m sorry, I forgot the volunteer job.
I would like to be in para powerlifting. There’s one person who does the wheelchair or crutch wrangling for athletes, and she also cleans the bench in between. I saw
Alison: that! A little disinfectant? Yes.
Jill: I know that’s my kind of job. But there we have it. Do you have anything more on the closing ceremony? It just wasn’t much to really talk about.
Alison: No.
Jill: Well, I will
Alison: say the athletes were wrapped in plastic for freshness.
Jill: Yeah, because they they were placed on the ground level in seats before the show started that Um, that did save time, but once again, they were not, they were segregated by countries and it was that weird, we’re not going to integrate.
But then when the party started, yeah, they were jumping up and down and dancing around and intermingling as well.
Alison: Last day with our mascots. It is the last day. So I want to say a special thank you to Waldo, who served on the second half and Sonny and Sadie who served on the first half, uh, as our official Shook Fliston mascots throughout the Paralympics. And to all our mascots, you are always welcome at Shooklastone House.
Which is basically my house, where I promise there will be snacks and napping spots, and I will always take care of our mascots. And thanks to listener Don and Cindy and all of you that supported the Kickstarter campaign that got us to Paris.
Jill: What is our final medal count?
Alison: So our final medal count is 14 gold, 6 silver, 3 bronze.
It puts us 23rd on the country medal table. I will take that. That is a great medal.
Jill: outing for us. And that’s going to do it for the games. That’s going to do it for our time in Paris. I know. I know. And I got to say, I’m glad I’m a little tired so that I don’t think about I’m. Looking forward to going home.
This has been, the games have been nice. The, it’s been an amazing experience seeing a summer games in action, in person, experiencing it the way we did and having a lot of, uh, amazing memories that go with that. Some weird stuff that goes with that, but you know, and, uh, I think the closing ceremony being what it was, Didn’t choke me up enough.
Maybe it would have if we were there, but it didn’t choke me up enough to get emotional for you listeners tonight. And I guess that’s probably a good thing. We don’t need me crying tonight.
Alison: You’re too tired to cry.
Jill: Oh, I’m not too tired to cry. I can tell you that. I can cry anytime.
Are you ready? Are you, uh, have you, uh, what have you thought of Paris so far?
Alison: And I’ll, uh, I’m, I need to be home in process. I think, I think that’s kind of where we are at this point. It’s like you said, there’s been so many amazing experiences. There have been so many just plain awful stretches through it.
But what was never awful was seeing the competition, right? Getting to see our people. Win or lose, it didn’t, that didn’t matter, you know, seeing them get here and be here and be out on that field or that court or that mat was certainly something I’ve never experienced. And I’m not sure my heart can take that too much more.
That was hard. I need to not get so attached to our people.
Jill: And I will say, being able to experience the French fans, it, I may have said this before, but Paris ended up being the perfect host for the post COVID games. I think. Yes. There’s the whole concept of games wide open, which I don’t know why I didn’t like that turn of phrase, but I still don’t like that turn of phrase, but the fact that they put so much.
So they put in so many special details that made these games really unique, really unique to them. And they found ways to bring everybody into the Olympic and Paralympic movement. Plus you had all these French fans who were just rabid sports fans and they love their country. And I think they showed us how to cheer.
For a lot of people and Paris does give L. A. some big shoes to fill.
Alison: Agreed, L. A. Les Bleus. That’s
Jill: right.
Alison: So, on a production schedule side, Mm hmm. Because Paris is over, but we don’t go away. That is correct. We’ll be back.
Jill: We’ll be back soon. Uh, we are going to take a week off to sleep.
Alison: Well, to get home first and then to sleep.
Jill: I plan on sleeping in tomorrow. I’m sleeping now. And, uh, uh, then we’ll be back the week after this week. So I can’t tell you the day we’ll put it in the socials, but we’ll be back. And we’re going to have a call in show because we are dying to talk to you live and hear what you thought of Paris and how you experienced the gains.
Whether you came here for a little while, whether you watch them at home, whether you watch them in a country that’s not the U S and that kind of coverage, we’d love to hear from you. So keep an eye on our socials and we’ll put the day and time that we will have our call in segments and hopefully you can join us.
I’d say, well, a special thank you to our researcher, Elizabeth Emery. Also merci to you listeners for being part of our Facebook. Merci to those of you who’ve donated money because, oh my gosh, that’s just been really lifting up our spirits, especially on some really bad days. So, and merci beaucoup for listening and being part of Shukla Stan.
Until next time, keep the flame alive.