The fantastic sporting action at the Paris 2024 Paralympics continues on, but the lovely weather doesn’t. Jill managed a lot of venue issues, including rain at Invalides during the para archery competition. Alison got to the velodrome for a toasty day of para cycling track.
Sports on today’s agenda:
- Boccia
- Goalball
- Para Archery
- Para Athletics
- Para Badminton
- Para Cycling Track
- Para Rowing
- Para Swimming
- Para Table Tennis
- Para Taekwondo
- Shooting Para Sport
- Sitting Volleyball
- Wheelchair Basketball
- Wheelchair Rugby
- Wheelchair Tennis
Plus, we have mixed zone interviews with para track cyclist Samantha Bosco, para archer Matt Stutzman and sitting volleyball player Lora Webster.
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Our researcher for the Paralympics is Elizabeth Emery.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
Paris 2024 Paralympics: Day 2
Jill: Bonjour and welcome to day two of the Paris 2024 Paralympics on Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. I’m your host, Jill Jaracz, coming to you from the Hotel du Podcast. Because I forget that we haven’t said this, where we are, because it’s not loud. In the place of where we’ve been loud, but I’m joined as always by my lovely co host Alison Brown.
Alison, bonjour. Comment ça va?
Alison: Resting against my pillow. It’s like the casual podcasting stance. Should probably sit up straighter and get a better, be more professional.
Jill: I don’t even know what to do with that. That’s okay. Go to follow up file. Follow a file. I forgot to tell you yesterday when we talked about the strict society and the creative gang from the opening ceremonies, right? Yes. And then we looked it up in French what those were because we thought it was bad translations and it was like the strict society and the creative gang.
So color me surprised when I’m riding the bus back home from uh, paratrack cycling. And as you have seen on the highways, there’s nothing but tagging all over the place. Yes. Lots of graffiti, some street art, but there’s, if you’re on a highway and it’s got a wall, it’s been tagged. Well, I did see a tag that was there.
The evil gang.
Alison: Is that, that almost sounds like a combination of the two, like a splinter group.
Jill: And I thought, well, I guess this is just the French touch.
Alison: Honestly, the evil gang were the torch dancers. They’re gonna set you on fire.
Jill: Let’s begin the baguette, shall we?
Alison: What happened?
Jill: You know, it has been a great sport day. It has been a tough venue day.
Alison: Oh
Jill: So I will start this off with It rained today. Yes, it was rainy and it’s chilly The the weather has really changed people came back from vacation vacation ended and it’s like we’re in fall
Alison: And then tomorrow it’s going to change back.
Jill: Oh, okay. Well, the other day I saw that all next week was going to be sunny, and then I looked at the weather app today, and it’s like, thunderstorm, thunderstorm, cloud, there’s no sun coming back.
Alison: It’s very unpredictable over the next few days. So,
Jill: yeah, so today I, uh, passed Jill, I’m very disgruntled with her, decided, and I came back up to the room after breakfast.
Alison: See, I, I take some blame for this because I told you it was going to be hot today because that’s what my weather app said. You asked me and I said, no, don’t take your jacket because it’s going to be hot. So that was my fault. You can be angry at past Allison.
Jill: So Past Jill also went into the room, put something away.
in the fridge, left the room halfway down the stairs. Oh, I forgot this. And this happened three times. So I went back and forth, finally looked out the window and said, Oh, it’s raining. Take your umbrella, but don’t take your coat. You’re having an inside day. For the most part, I went to sitting volleyball.
Then I went, I was going to a couple of archery matches. So I was like, I will not be there long. And then para taekwondo. That was my day inside day. Don’t need a jacket. Well went to Sitting volleyball, which is in the Paris North Arena
Alison: far
Jill: It’s a far drive, but it’s not bad because the train is right here by our it’s right by our hotel One train no transfers and I think when we were in the other hotel for the Olympics this was the arena for the boxing preliminaries and I Uh, I think when we were in the old hotel, it was just like so hard to get to
Alison: multiple trains.
Yes
Jill: And now it’s just one you do have a very long ride, but that’s okay one train no transfers you Get off at the station and there are people going this way this way this way There is a covered walkway that goes directly to the venue. You are right there. It is amazingly close
Alison: Okay, good to know
Jill: Then, you won’t just hold on to your horses there.
There’s volunteers helping, you know, guide people through this covered walkway. One looks at me with an accreditation and goes, Oh, don’t go that way. You need to go this other way. And he was right. I know.
Alison: That’s fantastic. I don’t know what they have done. Did they train these volunteers over the break? Or Are they just nicer people?
Jill: Well, I think they trained the volunteers because they took away all the signage. Then what happened was I go in through the media entrance and then it’s like, well, where’s the press tribune? Where’s the media center? And volunteers are saying, just keep going down, keep going down. And then you go in. So there’s no signage to tell you this as well, that I can, that I’m confirming along as I go.
So I finally go into the last door and I see nothing that tells me. Venue media center this way nothing and I start wandering around like I am want to do and I wander up and down and then I finally asked somebody where’s the media center and Where the media center was was where I entered there is a whole, you know temporary wall with a door in there.
And there’s a security person sitting by the door, but there’s no signage as to what the door is. So that was the entry to the media center. Then I go into the media center and I get my roster for the first game. And then I leave the media center going back out the door, and now I cannot find signs that say Press Tribune anywhere.
And I finally, I just went up and saw where Looked for the tables. I looked for the tables, I made my way over there because I could, I didn’t have to go back down. I could just scooch over and, you know, wander in throughout the venue to get to the press tables. And then when I went down to the mix zone, I was looking around for how do I get back up here.
And what it was, was that when you go into the unlabeled doors of the press venue, you, there’s a sign right there telling you certain things, but it doesn’t tell you Press Tribune this way. You are supposed to turn around and look at the back of the wall.
Alison: Of course you are.
Jill: And go the direction it says.
So that was that frustration. And then of course I went down to the mix zone because I wanted to talk to Laura Webster. I only could find the athlete entrance to the mix zone. So I went in the athlete entrance and just hopped the wall because that’s what you do. It’s
Alison: a half wall. Don’t worry about it.
Jill: That’s
Alison: right.
Jill: So that.
Alison: Interdite.
Jill: That was Arena North. On the way back, Express Trade. We skipped six steps. It was amazing.
Alison: Isn’t that the best, that hearing the words express train can be your absolute greatest terror or your greatest relief, depending on where you’re going.
Jill: It was fantastic. And that meant I got to archery on time, except for we got to the stop that’s closest to our hotel and I really had the, do I go back to the hotel and get my coat?
But that’s a 20 minute. adventure in and of itself to get there and get back. And then I thought, well, no, because Matt’s scheduled to go on at this time, not realizing that it had rained a good chunk of the day. Because when I was at north, it had stopped raining and then it started raining on the train back.
And I didn’t know that it had rained enough to delay archery a bit.
Alison: Yeah. Cause you have to look at my info. Right. Which is not convenient to do on the fly.
Jill: No, no, it is not. And that’s, and that’s the way it is. That’s fine. I’m okay with that. Uh, so I get to Archery. Archery is at Invalides. It’s a beautiful venue.
It, it, with, with no shade. So, on a rainy, cloudy day Well, on a cloudy day, that’s fine. On a rainy day You’re dealing with Invalides, which is kind of, it must be a park during the regular time, and parks here are a chunk of grass and a lot of dirt paths for you to walk on because you can’t walk on the grass in a lot of parks.
So, the dirt paths have been covered with, uh, the temporary walkways. They have the black temporary walkway, which is very sturdy, and then the gray temporary walkway, which is not. And as these are dirt paths, they have ruts in them. And whenever it rains here, I’ve noticed that it’s almost instantaneous flooding, and you don’t know because the walkway is straight whether or not you’re going to step on a rut.
Alison: And you will.
Jill: And you did. And then all the water that was already gathered there, so my socks and shoes were soaking wet. Oh, did you fall? Instantly. Did you fall? No, I didn’t fall. Oh, good. Okay. This is just like you stepped and you went down and then the water came up and covered your shoes and you went, oh, you’re kidding me.
And then I had to walk through, they don’t have track all over everything. So when I had to go to the bathroom, I was walking through dirt and I got my pants all muddy. So now I have, like, I have, uh, you know, it’s, it’s the choice of, do I wash these pants and hope they dry one day before we leave and, or do I just say, screw it, these pants are done and we still have like 10 days left.
Alison: Or you save those pants for when you have to. Another
Silence: rainy day? I just look like, oh, I’ve been through the ringer already.
Alison: Or like when you, when we’re watching road race, you know, road race or the marathon, no one will notice because you’re outside and you’re going to have to walk through dirt paths to get to that, too.
Jill: That’s true. That’s true. Uh, archery I did today. You’ve not been to archery. Archery is a lot of walking back and forth. So when you enter in the back, you have to walk through the whole archery venue, like alongside of it. But you walk basically the length of the archery venue to get to the media center.
So I go into the media center because I need to put my stuff down so I can use the bathroom because we are now in teeny tiny bathroom land. And I know that me and a backpack don’t fit very well. So I do that and then I walk. I want to see where the store is.
Alison: The store at the venue.
Jill: Yes, because we have learned that there there’s these really cool shirts that they have With the pictogram on them and we have learned that for the for the Olympics They were in the megastore and then they sold out pretty quickly And I don’t know if they were at they were at some venues
Alison: and they were not at the megastore when I went to visit
Jill: right, so there are every venue and I kind of wanted to see the archery one and That meant walking back the lane not just the venue or I went to the venue you And, uh, walked the length of the venue, I walked the length of the ranking round venue as well, because it was all the way in the front, the store, the one store, and then had to walk all the way back, cut over, walk to the other end of the, the archery venue to get to the press tribune.
It’s raining again. So the press tribune seats are wet. President Jill was grateful that past Jill had hoarded tons of napkins and had them in her backpack because then I could wipe off a chair.
Alison: That’s helpful.
Jill: And I had my umbrella. And then eventually, I just covered myself as best as I could with the plastic tarp that they have.
Right, they put the tarps
Alison: on the ta on the tables, you mean? On the
Jill: tables, yeah, for, for people who are working with, uh, computers so that you can cover everything you’ve got. While it’s raining outside. So I sat there with umbrella backpack and me and my backpack are sharing a chair because the napkin hoard only goes so long.
We’re watching a little bit of archery. We’re watching Matt Stutzman. And I’m like, I got to get down to the mix zone. And it took me a while to figure out, think where the mix zone might be. Luckily it’s in the same little quadrant that the press tribune is in. So I hustled down there and, uh, stayed for quite a while.
It was a while for Matt to show up and that’s okay because things happened that we’ll get to, but that was a lot of walking. And then to like get out, then I went to Pere Taekwondo, which is in Grand Palais, which meant walking the whole length of the archery venue again to get out and crossing the bridge.
And then I was in the Grand Palais. And once I got to the other side of the river, I realized, oh, I didn’t want to go this way, because now I’m in between the Grand Palais
Alison: Which is the wrong side of the venue.
Jill: Which is the wrong side of the venue. So I had to walk around the whole venue. Which is
Alison: also dirt paths.
Jill: Yes. And not just, they’re not dirt paths. You’re, well, you’re dirt paths until you’re mud paths, because people have cut through grass enough and made a little cow path. Kind of thing and they’re muddy and they’re slippery at this point and there’s massive cheering coming out of the grand play I’m like I am missing something very cool right now
Alison: Well to be fair every time you pass the grand play and there’s an event going on in there There is massive cheering and it makes you feel so much FOMO
Jill: Right, so I know to go around the back Right, there’s no signs anymore.
And I don’t know if I tried to get in one entrance too soon because there’s still no signs telling me where media is. I’m just kind of going. And I show up at a gate which is closed and there’s people on the other side and I just show my badge and they’re like, yeah, come on in. And they let me in and I walk through security and then I’m just in a place.
And to one area, again, I’m in the land of forklifts and pallets and just detritus stuff that is not even good. Like it’s not, it’s just junk. And I actually walked through part of that going, well, maybe there’s an entrance behind there that I could walk into.
Alison: Now has the path, maybe you don’t remember, has the pathway itself changed?
I don’t know. Because there was a lot. Oh, okay, well then maybe
Jill: not, then maybe not, and it’s just, they took the sign off. Because I thought, after a while, I thought, maybe I didn’t go far enough around the palace. I’m in the back.
Alison: Yes. But
Jill: I ended up in the area that was the athlete’s entrance.
Alison: Oh.
Jill: And that was, there was an accredited that seemed to be broadcast in the athlete’s entrance.
And then this whole big detritus pile.
Alison: Oh, well, I’m heading over there tomorrow.
Jill: And you know this part and I feel like yeah, I was
Alison: at the Grand Palais a lot So maybe it’ll look did you ever end up in the room of many doors?
Jill: No, I didn’t because I just kind of looked around I wandered I wandered I wandered and then I finally went to to security going Like how do I get in here?
And they finally said well, I didn’t go in the athletes athlete I went into a different door that got me to I was just like I see uh risers You I see seats. I’m going this way, there was a, a little, uh, rope up, but I walked around that, and then I couldn’t find the press tribune. And I’m walking in and out of bleachers, underneath, and, uh, I just can’t see block A or block B, and I see Tribunes in D.
Well, I don’t know where D is, so I just kind of keep going around, and I get to an area where they’re like, no, this is for broadcast, because I must have been near a mix zone. I’m like, I’m just press, I’m just looking for the Press Tribune. And I look up, I am on the opposite side of the venue. Oh, wow. On the complete opposite side of the venue.
Alison: That’s hard to do. At that venue
Jill: well, it’s not hard if I apparently went in the whole wrong entrance and all the security people are like Yeah, come on in and I I don’t know if it’s they see the pins on my lanyard and they want to talk pins with me Or if they’ve got nothing else to do and they’re excited that somebody’s coming through Or if they’re just toying with me at this point
Alison: because I were all of the above and
Jill: you really
Alison: that I, I mean, I had many problems at Grand Polite and, and, but I got to tell you, I never ended up on the other side.
Jill: I know. And, and I somehow made it to the Press Tribune side. I somehow found a stair, I, of course, nothing is labeled anymore. There’s only, uh, little signs here and there for Wheelchair Accessible Tribune. And there’s nothing else I could find that said Press Tribune. So I finally just went up and I. Got to where I was going because I could see it and I could reach it and then I sat down and at this point we’re getting, it’s past dinner and I didn’t have any dinner.
I didn’t have any dinner with me either. I had lunch. I had lunch at a different venue with my, I had lunch at Sitting Valley. I had my lunch that I packed with me. All I have with me is baby carrots, which Past Jill thankfully bought and I found a couple of things of Nutella that are on our breakfast buffet
Alison: that you had thrown into your bag.
Jill: Yes, that I have thrown into my bag at random points and I found a third one later. Thank goodness because I was going to be down to eating ketchup. Um, So we go to pair TaeKwonDo and they’ve, and as I walking by the boutiques, I see that they have good pictogram shirts. I’m like, oh, producer Ben, do you want a nice pictogram shirts?
And he’s like, well, I’d always support the Kondo. And, and I said, well, I’ll see if it’s open, because I am afraid to leave my seat now. ’cause I don’t know if I will find it again. Even if it’s a, it’s a Press Tribune. The Press Tribune is really easy to find
Alison: because it’s tables.
Jill: Yes. But I am. I’m scared at this point that even if I have a space at the Press Tribune, and there’s a lot of space there, that I can’t leave anything because I won’t find it again, and I didn’t want to pack up and like go down and miss a match and find, so, uh, no, no pair of taekwondo suit for, for
Alison: Christian Brenn.
Well, I will, I will see what I can do tomorrow. Okay.
Jill: Tell me where the entrance is, because there’s wheelchair fencing coming up, and I just don’t know if I need to do
Alison: this. Right, so, was the Tribune at least where it was before? Yes, the Tribune
Jill: was exactly where it was before. I don’t know where the Venue Media Center is, because I didn’t see any signs for the Venue Media Center, but I was also never on the side of where you came up from the Venue Media Center to go into the Tribune, so that may be where the only signage is.
Alison: Okay. I
Jill: don’t know. I’m, I think that the problem really started that I didn’t go far enough around the building.
Alison: And you didn’t go in the media entrance to begin with. And maybe that’s the only place where there’s Signage
Jill: that that’s my theory at this point. You will tell me tomorrow.
Alison: Okay,
Jill: what happened?
So yeah, it’s been and so I was gone and then when I was an archer, I remembered Oh Pastel told you don’t bring the jacket. They cranked the air conditioning
Alison: at grandpa
Jill: Yes, the air conditioning is not super cranked, but it is still on
Alison: it’s still the grand play
Jill: And I still had wet feet.
Alison: Oh. I was
Jill: not a happy camper.
No. So it was not a pleasant night. So it’s, I got grumpy and then I was hungry and then I had to get McDonald’s again. Which is somewhat, you know, it was satisfying because it was actually
Alison: Hearty?
Jill: It was something a little, they had protein in it.
Alison: So. You’ll be happy to know that you are correct. The grocery store we went to in the Grand Palais is under construction.
Jill: The Palais de Congress? The Palais de Congress, yes. Oh, thank goodness.
Alison: You have not lost your mind. So that was my baguette adventure today was I did have to go through the Palais de Congress and I went downstairs and you are not losing your mind.
Okay. That was freaky. That was really freaky. It was very strange to be back in the Palais de Congress and how quickly Any trace of us is gone.
Jill: Did you see the big, we hosted the press for the world sign? They have a huge poster up that says we hosted the press of the world.
Alison: And then kick them out and washed every last That’s elements that we were there.
Jill: There’s a conference there now convention there now. So that’s that’s that is what it is
Alison: I felt a little unloved you couldn’t keep some of the signage up But apparently they can’t even keep the signage up in the venues. We’re still using
Jill: that’s true Well, hey, how about volunteer jobs?
Alison: So I spent my day at track cycling.
That was the only event I got to today And I had a choice for myself. One was the red flag man.
Jill: I know who you’re talking about That was I I’d that job
Alison: so red flag, man stands next to the cyclist and he holds up the red flag if they’re not ready to go. And then he puts down the red flag and he’s pretty much the last person that can say anything to the cyclist.
And my guy did.
Silence: Oh,
Alison: he was talking to, I mean, I’m sure some of what he was saying was, you know, are you ready? But he also had some body language that I think he was telling them good luck and giving them a little, you know, like you go get them tiger, kind of, which I liked. And then my second one was, there’s a starting, what would you call that?
A starting
Jill: block?
Alison: Yes. So there is something that they use to hold the, um, track cycles because they’re, you They’re not exactly, there’s no breaks. They’re not exactly balanced. And two men on my side, it was two men came out and set it up, but there was a third man who just like pulled the wheeled part of it back on a cord.
He did not need any physical effort. He just kind of hung out, did his job for two seconds, then watch the races. I liked his job too. Cause I couldn’t do the setup cause that was really physical.
Jill: Yeah, it was, it was, it was really interesting because The starting block has, uh, little levelers, I would say, because the track is banked.
So you had to have these levelers that had to be unscrewed enough to make the starting block level. And then, especially when you had the visually impaired cyclist, because you had two, both
Silence: people
Jill: who were sitting on the block had to stand on it so it stayed level. stable while they started. So there was usually one person standing on it and I had that job too.
It was pretty cool. I have to say that.
Alison: And you’ve got, you’ve got an archery job.
Jill: Um, I have, I have a choice of two again. So archery, there’s something I called cord. So. It sounded like my job with the cord. The archers warm up in the ranking round fields and there is a pathway for spectators to go down That is in between the field and the place for athletes behind the scenes where they walk on, on, uh, unbothered by spectators.
So what happens is when a athlete needs to cross the spectator path, They like yell cord. And these guys have ropes and they make a little cord so that the, uh, they block off the spectator walkway and make a walkway for the athletes.
Alison: You know, they do that at swimming as well. Oh, so I guess I’ve never mentioned this.
So the, the, where the press tribune is crosses paths, which with how the athletes get from the pool deck to the mix zone. Oh, so when the athletes are coming through, there are two volunteers that pull through Exactly like that. They pull the cords across so that if anybody, any press or any other volunteers are coming through, you are stopped and the athletes get precedence as they should.
And then they release the cords and we go through. So it, it doesn’t happen very often because obviously there’s not a ton of swimmers going through. Probably you saw a lot more action than if it was spectators that had to go through. But yeah, so I think that’s it. Just traffic control and protecting the athlete.
It was
Jill: that was a cool job. Um, uh, then I got to taekwondo and I gotta tell you so I I did have a hard time watching taekwondo. We’ll get to that for Weird reasons, but I did not have a hard time watching the referees the referees. It’s a team of four They changed every bout, and I think it was just like there was a women’s crew and a men’s crew.
So they come out in formation, two and two. There are three who are fully in suits, and one that is in a white shirt and pants. And one of the women, um, Uh, because they’re the ones on the mat and one of the women had a headscarf and the, they come out in formation. They all go up onto the mat. They each have kind of like a corner, even though it’s like a hexagon, they each take a section of the hexagon.
They face inside, face the center. They bow in unison and then the three in suits go to their positions, which are on three sides of the. mat, three corners of the mat and they sit at a little desk and I think they help score. I’m not quite exactly sure what happens because that’s on my list to look for.
And then the last one stays on the mat. And what I loved is that there was one guy who, I don’t know the words that they are saying. I am going to assume they are Korean because it is a Korean based sport and they must have words that signify certain actions. And one guy would just be like, Yep, yep and and would say that a lot and then there was a signal for you’re not fighting the passivity signal which was they held their arms out in front of them and like kind of knocked their fists together like you got to get fighting.
Let’s fight now. I love that.
Alison: Kind of like Mortal Kombat. I
Jill: love that. I love that so much. And, cause they were not putting up with it. You gotta, we don’t have that much time here. You gotta be fighting cause you’re in a fighting sport. And then at the end of the bout, they all get back on the mat and they do a bow and they, they leave.
I just love that. You love,
Alison: you love when officials have choreography. I,
Jill: I just, well, I love officiating. So there you go. You know what else I love?
Alison: Money.
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Alison: Tell you about mud and Nutella.
Jill: That’s right
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Alison: which means there are halftimes.
And it also means there’s a lot of table Tribune.
Jill: Yes. Yes. So, uh, be looking for more of that. You’ve had, uh, you’ve had some so far during the Olympics, a little bit in between and now, uh, Looking to give you some more content because I’ve got that stacked up for you. So, thank you to everybody who has supported us so far.
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Alison: Bacha!
Jill: We did have some more bacha tonight. We had Men’s and women’s individual competition in all classes, which meant our Allison Levine was playing again today. She won her match against Ukraine’s Koneko Five to three, so that’s really good.
She is playing in the quarterfinals tomorrow against Lady Chica Chica from
Alison: Columbia. I
Jill: want to say Columbia. Hold on. I look it up real quick.
Columbia. Yes.
Alison: Look at us paying attention
Jill: Uh, uh, gonna move on to goalball. We had, uh, some men’s preliminary action today. Brazil beat the U. S. 13 to 8. Ari Callahan Young scored 6 of the team 8 points, which was pretty awesome.
Alison: I’m sure he would have taken a win overscoring being the lead scorer, but they’re back tomorrow against France.
Jill: That is true.
That’s
Alison: gonna be wild.
Jill: That will be wild and Callahan loves the crowd. He has said he gets really pumped up by them. He loves it when they’re cheering for the other, excuse me, for the other team because it pumps them up, pumps them up to shut them up, which I love. I heard that, um, uh, one of the other journalists who was at archery had seen goalball in the morning and they’re like, he is really tall.
Alison: Callahan? Yeah. Oh yeah, he’s very tall.
Jill: Really tall, which means he can really stretch out and block. So I’m looking forward to seeing goalball soon. We also had Ireland beating, oh no, I’m sorry, uh, Iran beating France 12 to 8, Ukraine beating Japan 9 to 8. Close. So on the pool standings, on top of the pool A is Brazil with 6 points, and on top of pool B is Ukraine with 6 points.
Then in the women’s preliminary action, Israel beat Brazil 8 to 4. Japan beat Canada two to one.
Alison: Defensive struggle.
Jill: Right? And then China beat Turkey seven to five on top of the women’s groups. Uh, Israel and China are tied with three for group C and in group D, Japan is on top with six points. Then we had archery.
Alison: And you, and you were there.
Jill: For a tiny bit, I will say, I would say a couple hours, but about an hour. Plus was in the mixed zone. So I was kind of watching on a screen. So that was a bummer and the bummer about that was when I was in the mixed zone proper Because it took me a while to find the right spot in the mixed zone Um, there were I was by uh people waiting for Team Japan guy to come and there were some volunteers helping that person and they were like, hey Jackie Chan’s here What?
He’s oh He’s on the other side of the the scoring hut.
Alison: You can’t see him Jackie Chan is everywhere.
Jill: Yes. Jackie Chan was there
This is this will be on Some audio, I’ve got some audio with Matt Stutzman and he’ll tell the full story, but basically he got an email from our Craig Spence saying, Hey, You want to meet Jackie Chan, basically. And he’s like, yeah, whatever. And, you know, he’s like, yeah, right. Stutzman is a huge Jackie Chan fan.
Alison: Oh!
Jill: Jackie Chan is a huge Matt Stutzman fan.
Alison: Oh, no way!
Jill: Yes! So after Matt Stutzman’s match, you know, we’re in the mix zone. But he has a meet and greet with Jackie Chan.
Alison: That’s amazing.
Jill: And World Archery has posted pictures. I, I’ve seen them on Facebook, so maybe I can share them in the group, but of the two of them talking and, uh, signing archery targets for each other and that kind of thing.
It’s, it’s really, really special. So that is really cool. And Matt was pretty blown away by the whole experience. So that was really cool. If, if, you know, that, yeah. That’s fine. Could not
Alison: happen to a better guy.
Jill: Right, right. So I was there for the, uh, part of the match before Matt’s saw match. Match. He competed in the men’s compound open against, uh, Victor Sardina, uh, Viveros, who was ranked ahead of Matt.
Matt finished the ranking round at 19th. The reason why he was so bad was that there was something wrong with his, uh, um, release. on his bow. So he couldn’t do anything to it until it was halftime. Basically, they have a break partway, uh, halfway through the ranking round so that you can
Alison: Yeah, because they have only, they only have a certain amount of time to shoot, so you can’t go fiddling.
Jill: Can’t fiddle, no. So he had to wait till break. He fixed it and then did so much better. And he’s like, you know, the last time I broke my release, I won the whole thing. It was a big championship.
Alison: And that’s so Matt Stutzman to not be thrown by, he’s been doing this a very long time. So he’s going to stay calm and not let that throw him.
Jill: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And he is all about having fun. This match was, so Victor was actually ranked ahead of Matt, but I think because of the release thing, that’s the, the rankings, uh, are, Sound bad, but there’s not that many points separating like 1 through 15 So that’s gonna be kind of interesting to see how that plays out in the brackets further on first time in Paralympic history Two armless archers met in a match
Alison: Really?
Yes. I remember a couple years ago. There was a second armless archer that met in competed against, it must have been the world championships. Yeah,
Jill: different, different meat. It wasn’t Paralympic. Yeah. So now there, there might be like five of them. He says this, he talks about this in the tape too. They’re all his
Alison: babies, basically.
Yes.
Jill: And, uh, just the fact that there, there are so many more of them, even though the number sounds low, the fact that these athletes are finding archery and.
Alison: And there’s a woman as well.
Jill: Yes. There was a woman from India. He talked about her. And, uh, it’s, it’s really cool. And he says, you know, when you look towards LA, there’s going to be more, there’s got to be more.
And he’s really excited to help other armless people find the sport, obviously. So that was really cool. Um, I believe he got like five perfect tens in a row. Of course he did. Yeah. So perfect first end. then just kind of kept the momentum going all the way through. He was having fun. Uh, you could tell he was just relaxed.
He was happy and he’s just like so happy to be there, happy to be doing what he’s doing. He loves shooting archery. He keeps saying this is his last one and his coach keeps saying, we’ll take a break and then maybe come back for LA. Cause I think I, you know, to have that, to
Alison: walk away from LA is, uh,
Jill: It’s hard.
Alison: That’s a tough.
Jill: It’s hard. I mean,
Alison: especially for someone like Matt Stutzman, who’s been so, so central to the movement in the United States. Yeah. To not compete in LA, or at least not try to compete in LA feels really hard. wrong, but on the other hand, I could totally see him retiring from competition and being so important to those LA Paralympics on the other side.
Jill: Yes. Yeah. Cause he does want to help grow the movement and give that time. He also has some hip issues and he needs his hips.
Alison: He’s not 21 anymore.
Jill: Nope. That’s true. And he does drag racing as we’ve talked about. So we’ll, we’ll see. I could. see a little percentage of possibility that he does take a three year break or something like that and or two and a half year break and then see where he is back.
Yeah. If he’s physically, mentally, where he is at with drag racing, that kind of thing. So we’ll see. But he looked great. He sounded great. He sounded so happy. Um, There were some other great matches, uh, uh, after him was, uh, uh, Yera Forsberg from Finland. That’s who’s meeting up next because, uh, Yera won his matchup.
There was a, oh, I’m going to look this up. Uh, a gentleman from Australia who, uh, almost had a perfect game. We talked about it in the Facebook group. And, uh,
Jonathan Milne, uh, Jonathan Milne from Australia almost had a perfect game. And he said, uh, In the mixed zone, he talked about how the placement of the bow when he drew back, where that string was on his face. He had been trying to train himself to have a different placement, and he did that for most of the match, and then it kind of slid back to where it used to be, and that made the difference.
I will say it rained, Matt had to compete in the rain, it would stop, then it rained harder. Then it didn’t rain. Matt didn’t have much wind and then the wind picked up and it swirled around a lot. So it was a tough day for archers. Did find out that it was a great day for photographers. They love the rain because the gray sky makes the arrow stand out a little bit more.
The rain makes it stand a little bit more. You have beads of water dripping off the string, off the arrows. It’s just, they get better pictures. And there’s apparently there’s a camera now that will do 130 frames a second. where most of them will do 30 to 40. So you can get, you can get the perfect picture just because of technology, but you just have to do the work to go through all the pictures to find it.
That was cool. So yeah, Matt will compete again in a couple of days. He’s he’s looking good. He’s sounding good. I’m hoping to get there on Sunday. Excellent for that
Alison: next round.
Jill: Excellent But it was fun. I do love the archery venue is really beautiful The competition has been great and it’s just that that’s been a fun one to go to both Olympic and Paralympics So good on ya.
Great venue choice. I will say Parathletics We had, uh, jumps and throws and track everything you ever wanted today. Today we had, uh, the men’s and women’s long jump for the T11 class. That’s a visually impaired class, the lowest level of vision. So they have a guide assist with them. For the women, Gold went to, uh, Asila Mirzairova from Uzbekistan, who got a Paralympic record, breaking the record set
Alison: in Atlanta.
1996.
Jill: That is amazing that that record stood for so long. You
Alison: know, there are so few track and field records that stand more than two games on both the Paralympic and the Olympic side. So when you see something like this, I said, that can’t be right. That’s got to be a typo. No, no typo. So good on her.
Jill: Uh, silver went to Zhou Guogua from China and bronze went to Alba Garcia Falligan from Spain.
For the men, gold went to Di Dongdong from China who set a world record. Silver went to Chen Xichang from China and bronze went to Juan Munar Martinez from Spain who got a personal best. In throws. We had women shot put F 41 class. That’s a short stature class. Gold went to, uh, ra, uh, t from Tunisia, who got a seasons best, which is always nice.
Silver went to Kabarro, uh, kava from Uzbekistan and Bronze went to, uh, Antonella Ruiz from Argentina.
women’s discus throw in the F55 class. So this is a, uh, sitting class that’s, uh, high impair, high levels of impairment or loss of, uh, lower limbs. Gold went to Erica Maria Castano Salazar from Columbia. Silver went to Dong Fei Xia from China and bronze went to Rosa Maria Guadalupe. Guerrero Caceres from Mexico.
In the women’s club throw, it’s a F32 class, which is a seated class for high impairment in the trunk and legs and arms or affected arms and hands. Gold went to a Rosa Kazakowska from Poland who set a world record 31. 30 meters. Silver went to Mara Ibrahimi from Tunisia and bronze went to Parastu Habibi from Iran.
Uh, in the men’s javelin throw F38 class, which is a low degree of mobility or coordination impairment. Gold went to Jose Gregorio Lemos Rivas from Colombia, who set a world record.
Alison: All these world records in the rain.
Jill: Yeah, it was a really rain. It must’ve been not a fun day at the Stade de France.
Alison: And yet it was a very fun day at the Stade de France.
Exactly.
Jill: And then we had a couple of season’s best for silver and bronze. Vladislav Bilya from Ukraine won silver and bronze went to An Dongguan from China. Yeah. And in the men’s shot put F37 class, which is a one sided impairment. Gold went to, uh, uh, Kudva Tilokhan Maruflajeva from Uzbekistan, who got a personal best today.
Silver went to Ahmed Mosla, uh, Ahmed Ben Mosla from Tunisia and bronze went to Toliboy Yildizhev from Uzbekistan.
Alison: Uzbekistan is doing quite well.
Jill: Then we have, um, and shot put if it’s F55 sitting class, which is a high level impairment. Absence of lower limbs. Gold went to Ruzhdi Ruzhdi from Bulgaria, silver went to Naboja Duric from Serbia, and bronze went to Lex Stoltman from Poland. Then we moved to the track.
Alison: Slippery track. Must have been.
Jill: Uh, the women’s 100 meter T35 class, which is, uh, Modern impairment of legs, maybe some impairment in the upper body.
Gold went to Xiaojia from China with the season’s best. Silver went to Guo Xiangchang from China with a personal best. And bronze went to Priti Pal from India with an, and also who got a personal best. Then we moved to the women’s 200 meter T37 class, which is modern impairment on one side.
Gold went to Wen Xiaoyan from China with a Paralympic record. Silvio went to, uh, Kobar, Natalia Kobar from Ukraine and bronze went to, uh, Jiang Fenfen from China. Uh, Staying with the T37 class, but moving over to the men’s 100 meters. Gold went to Ricardo Gomez de Mendoza, uh, Mendoza from, uh, Brazil who got a season’s best silver went to SAP to Yogo, uh, Pernamo from Indonesia and bronze went to Andre Violdovin. from a neutral Paralympic athletes.
And then men also had a hundred meter race in the T47 class, which is low to moderate impairment in one arm or absence of a hand. Gold went to Patricio Ferreira dos Santos from Brazil. Silver went to Corbin Best from USA who got a personal best today. And then bronze went to Imani El Hadoui from Morocco.
We also had men’s 400 class. We had a wheelchair class today. T52. T52. Uh, gold went to Maxim Karabin from Belgium, silver went to Sato Tomoki from Japan, and bronze went to Ito Tomoya, uh, Tomoya from Japan. And in the men’s 5, 000 meter, uh, T11 class, which is a visually impaired class that uses a guide runner, uh, bronze, uh, gold went to, uh, Julio Cesar Agurpi.
Agrippino dos Santos, who got, from Brazil, who got a world record today. Then Silver went to Karasawa, Kenya, from Japan, and Bronze went to Yeltsin Jacques from Brazil, who got a personal best. Very nice. A lot of good days for people on the track. Considering
Alison: how poor the conditions were. That was some remarkable results.
World records and personal best and season’s best.
Jill: Love it. Uh, we did have pair of badminton action. There’s group play going on for men’s women’s singles and then also doubles in a variety of classes that because it’s group play, it’s really hard to report. So we will have standings when they get more towards the, uh, Uh, knockout rounds in paracycling track.
This was you. This is
Alison: me. I ended up spending the entire day here. So I, I went in the morning to see the qualifying rounds and Samantha Bosco made it into the bronze medal, uh, race for, we’ll get to that race in a second. And so I ended up just staying, seeing everybody.
Jill: What did you think of the venue and could you find your way in?
Alison: I found my way in. I had lovely volunteers who practically walked me to my seat. They wanted to escort me to the venue media center, escorted me to the mix zone. It was fantastic. Um, the venue is fantastic.
Silence: Isn’t it beautiful?
Alison: What a beautiful venue, easy to find, very far away.
Jill: Yeah, it’s fun, but not too bad.
I thought it wasn’t too bad. It was a nice bus ride
Alison: It was a nice bus ride. It was simple and I saw the BMX venue So sad when I saw that BMX venue that I hadn’t gotten out there because that looked like it would have been amazing. Well, you went out there to be able to sit there and they were right next to each other.
So that’s great that they’re going to have that training facility for just, if you cycle outside, if you cycle inside, if you BMX, if you track you’re here.
Jill: Right. And they have a hotel right there. They have these restaurants right there. It’s not a bad place to like go and train for a while.
Alison: And not isolated.
I didn’t feel like I was in the middle of nowhere, which we’ve been at some venues. I’m looking at you, Beijing. So the crowd, I know you talked about the crowd being very subdued. I think they were just hot. because anytime I had a lot of chance because I was there for so long to talk to a lot of people, a lot of t shirts, a lot of t shirts with whoever their writer was.
And there’s a lot of British writers. So there was a lot of Brits there. Cause as they tell me it’s so close, it’s like a home game, but more importantly, they speak English so we can have chit chat and They were all so excited. They all talked about the energy in the venue. And I said, I, I think it’s just not a raucous.
sport, or maybe normally it is, but in this situation, they’re enthusiastic and the vibe is good and the energy is good. The volume is marginal.
Jill: That must be, that’s a good way to say it because it was a different volume for the Olympics and maybe because of the types of races that they do for Paralympics where it’s a lot of time trials.
There’s not a lot of. Um, there’s one on ones, but they start on opposite ends of the track. So the kind of excitement you get is when one can pass another.
Alison: Which only, because then you’re, you’re basically lapping the person and that doesn’t happen too frequently. People were very enthusiastic and there were, again, the world records falling.
What I thought was interesting, and you had the same experience yesterday, the world record records, excuse me, fall in the qualify. not in the medal rounds. And I’m wondering if that’s because they don’t quite realize how fast this track is going to be. And so they’re going guns blazing out in qualifying and then realizing, Oh, wait a second.
I burnt myself out a little bit.
Jill: That could be, or it’s, there’s only so many qualifying spots. I have to get one.
Alison: Right.
Jill: I felt, I felt that kind of energy off of some of these races where it was just like, There’s not much room there. There’s only four spots sometimes. That’s, I got to go fast.
Alison: Brigitte Macron was there.
Jill: Ooh.
Alison: So I happened to be waiting for the bus when she and her car was, were leaving. So there was all This
Jill: is me thinking that Brigitte’s gonna take the bus with you.
Alison: I don’t think Brigitte has ever taken a bus in her life. But so the entire traffic stopped. That was one of the reasons it took me so long to get back because for a good 15 minutes, they stopped all the traffic and then all that traffic had to unwind.
So our bus was a very long time coming up. Did you see metal races at all at the velodrome? No, because
Jill: when Samantha didn’t qualify, I
Alison: But even at the Olympics?
Jill: Yes.
Alison: Okay. Did they shoot off firecrackers when somebody won a medal?
Silence: No.
Alison: So every time the medal winner crossed the finish line, a firecracker went off.
Silence: Huh.
Alison: The first two times I thought everybody in the Tribune was going to go under the table. Like it was really frightening. You hear that sound. And our brains are, are very attuned to be afraid of that sound. So then we realized what was happening and it was.
Jill: That’s interesting. And you know what I didn’t hear this time?
And I don’t remember now that I think about it, the shooting gun, the starting gun being a real gun because it was a real gun for track cycling in the Olympics, but it wasn’t a gun.
Alison: No, it was a beep, beep, beep, beep. That’s
Jill: right. It was a beeper. It was a beeper.
Alison: So it had. four or five setup beeps and then the go beep.
So there was no gun, but there was a real bell for the, for the bell. Yes.
Jill: And there were two bells because you started on two sides, which made me happy.
Alison: I think there was only one bell.
Jill: Oh, it depended on, I think if you started If you had people starting on two sides, they each had their own bell.
Alison: Oh, maybe because so many of the, honestly, these races were pretty close.
Jill: Okay.
Alison: There was, I think there was only two races I saw the entire day where somebody lapped the other rider.
Jill: Because they had their own bell and they had their own sign that told them how many laps they were doing.
Alison: Yes, I saw the sign, but the bell, I didn’t notice separate bells, but honestly, it, It might not have, it might not have been so different that I would have taken note of that.
Jill: And you have one on the opposite end of the track, which may be covered up by noise for you.
Alison: I, I was, yeah, that’s true. Cause I couldn’t tell, but it was fun being able to see all the action in the center. That was very busy in there.
Silence: It was.
Alison: Okay. So first we started out with the men’s C4 and 5, 000 meter time trial.
This is the highest level of coordination. Gold went to Corey Bodington from Australia, silver to Blaine Hunt of Great Britain and bronze to Alfonso Cabello Llamas from Spain. Then it was the men’s C2, 3, 000 meter individual pursuit. This is low impairment over, uh, all over. one side or an absence of limbs.
This was fun in the prelims. Uh, first Matthew Robertson from Great Britain breaks his Paralympic record. Then Hewitt Romont from Belgium in the next pair breaks the record. And then Alexander Luthi says, Oh, that’s cute. Comes in, breaks the world record in the next pair by a second and a half. And that ended up being your podium.
So gold went to Alexander Luthi from France, silver to Hewitt Romont from Belgium and bronze to Matthew Robertson from Great Britain. This was the best podium reaction. Cause of course you’ve got a French man on the podium. Crowd goes wild. He’s very young. He’s about 22 or 23 and he’s just this kid with this goofy floppy curls and his, puts his glasses on when he gets off.
He was in tears doing his victory lap after the race. And the crowd of course reacted to that. And then he finally gets on the podium and reacts and the coach reacts. And it was, it was a lot of fun. It’s always fun when a Frenchman. wins, uh, in Paris, but he was just, he looks like such a good kid with his goofy hair.
then you had the men’s C3 3000 meter individual pursuit. Uh, this is a low impairment all over greater impairment in the hips or the absence of two limbs. Yet again, we have two people going back and forth with the new world record, two Brits, uh, Finley Graham sets a new world record. And then, uh, in the next pair, Yako Van Goss, who is the Tokyo gold medalist says, Oh, excuse me, that’s mine.
And takes it back by two seconds.
Silence: That’s a lot.
Alison: That is a lot. Uh, and yes, Yako gets to take another gold. So he’s a repeat gold medalist. medalist. So gold goes to Great Britain’s, uh, Jakob van Gass, silver to Great Britain’s Finley Graham and bronze to Alexander Hayward of Canada. Then we get into the women visually impaired.
So this is the B1000 meter time trial. These are the tandem bikes and those are big bikes.
Silence: They are big bikes.
Alison: I don’t know why I didn’t think of it because it’s not like a, you know, you’ll see tandem bikes just riding around. This is not that.
Jill: These are
Alison: very long and straight.
Jill: Yes.
Alison: And then you
Jill: have multiple.
did you have a Ghana situation or what? Okay. No,
Alison: there was no, these racers were all very well equipped, very well prepared, had teams with them. There was nobody that was an outlier in terms of that. So Gold went to Elizabeth Jordan of Great Britain with her pilot, Danielle Kane. silver to Jessica Gallagher from Australia with her pilot, Caitlin Ward and bronze to Sophie Unwin also of Great Britain with pilot Jenny Hole.
Then we get to the women’s C4 3000 meter individual pursuit. This was Samantha Bosco’s race. She qualified for the finals. She finished in fourth. I talked to her a little bit in the mix zone. And she was disappointed, but so excited, I think by. there. She still hasn’t lost that. I almost died.
Jill: Yeah. She had such a bad accident.
Alison: Such a horrific accident. And every moment of this is thrilling for her. And she mentioned actually, after I turned off the recording and we were getting ready to leave, she kept talking. So that was my, my journalist error. And she was talking about how, In the village, she did a baguette baking class, which she had posted the pictures of, and just her nephew had gotten up at five o’clock in the morning to watch her race.
So she is really, really soaking in this experience and she’s ready for road. So we’re, we’re ready for her to do so well on the road. More world records. gold medalist, Emmy, Petricola from Australia. She got the new world record in qualifying and a Taylor from New Zealand won the silver and Keely Shaw from Canada won bronze.
Silence: Nice day.
Alison: It was, I have to say, I think this may change what I do the rest of the Paralympics doing entire sessions.
Silence: Mm hmm.
Alison: Is, I haven’t, I guess I didn’t do that too much during the Olympics. I kept bouncing in and out and it felt more complete and I think I got a better feel of the venue and a better feel for the event.
Oh, because you did a full, I did a full day.
So, and also, heck of a lot easier with transportation when you’re only going one place. So and also the timing worked out that I didn’t get back into town until well after seven. So it was kind of hard to get anywhere at this point. So we’ll see what happens tomorrow for Para Taekwondo.
I do have a long day there, Evan. I better have a long day, Evan Medell, please. Depending on how he does will depend on how long I stay there.
Jill: We had a pair of roaming, rowing today. There was heats for women’s and men’s single skulls, mixed double skulls, mixed Cox four in a variety of classes, a pair of rowing competition.
It’s not that long. So we’ll have medals for that coming soon in Paris swimming. We had a whole lot of races today. We start with a backstroke, 100 meter backstroke for the S 13 class. This is a visually impaired class. that’s, uh, has the ability to see the furthest and has the last, uh, has some peripheral vision issues.
So for the men, ihar Boki from the neutral Paralympic athletes got gold. Silver went to Vladimir Solzhenikov from neutral Paralympic athletes and bronze went to Alex Portal from France. For the women, Gold went to Gia Pergolini. Silver went to Rossini Riannon from, uh, Iran.
And bronze went to Carlotta Ghili from Italy.
Alison: And this is the second gold medal back to back for, uh, Pergolini.
Jill: Very nice. Very nice. Uh, for the 100 meter breaststroke SB eight, this is a high overall coordination or use of one leg or arm or partial absence of one limb for the men. Gold went to Andre Kalina from neutral Paralympic athletes.
Silver went to a young Guan Long from China and bronze went to Carlos Daniel Serrano Zarate from Columbia who got a perfect score. per Paralympic record for the SB seven class. Yes. This is a
Alison: combined class. So there, uh, SB sevens combined for the Paralympics. So his, uh, Paralympic record is specifically for the SB seven class
Jill: for the women’s, uh, 100 meter breaststrokes in class.
Gold went to Anastasia Demetriou, Demetriou from Spain. Silver went to Brock Whiston from Great Britain and bronze went to Victoria Ischilova from neutral Paralympic athletes. For the, uh, 100 meter breaststroke SB9, this is lower body coordination, issues or, minor limb absence on the lower part of the body.
Men, uh, the men had, uh, Stefano Raimondi from Italy, won gold. That is a name I remember from Tokyo. Okay. I’m gonna, we’re gonna, We gotta look that one up. Follow up file there. Silver went to Hector Dener from France and bronze went to Maurice Wettekam from Germany. For the women in the same class, gold went to Chantal Zijderveld from Netherlands.
Silver went to Zhang Meng from China and bronze went to Lisa Kruger from the Netherlands. In the men’s 100 meter freestyle S4, this is a high degree of impairment in the trunks, legs, and hands, absence of legs, partial arms. The, uh, these swimmers use, uh, get their power from their shoulders, basically. Gold went to Amir, Omer.
Data done from Israel silver went to Suzuki Takayuki from Japan. Bronze went to Angel De Jesus Camacho Ramirez from Mexico. for the 100 meter freestyle S5 class. This is moderately affected coordination. same with the lower absence of limbs there. Uh, in the men’s side, Alexander Komarov from Ukraine won gold. This is the first gold medal for Ukraine. He got a Paralympic record. Oh yeah. Let’s just
Alison: bring it all in there, Alexander.
Oh, I
Jill: know. Uh, silver went to Guo Jing Chen from China and bronze went to Kirill Polvor from a neutral Paralympic athletes. So Komarov, you know, this will get you these stories that they have. He lived in Maripol and was in the city when the Russian planes bombed. So his house got destroyed. He’s lucky he didn’t die.
Trained for two years without his coach. He’s He doesn’t live in Ukraine right now. It’s a very hard time for him and for his fellow Ukrainians. Uh, he was, obviously you’re thrilled to win a gold medal, but this for Ukraine means a whole lot more. So he says, uh, it’s very important for Ukrainians here to win gold medals to, you know, bring some joy to their country and, you know, meaning to what their movement is doing back home.
So that’s tough, but congratulations for the women’s 100 meter freestyle as five gold went to Tully Carney from Great Britain. Silver went to Irina Podia from Ukraine and bronze went to Monica Boglioni. From Italy.
Alison: Gee, what a shocker. From Italy.
Jill: Tully Carney has won two gold medals in 24 hours. That’s a
Alison: nice day.
Jill: Not a bad thing. But it’s interesting because she said, you know, I need to stop questioning myself. There seems to be a little self confidence issue with, and, and, you know, I think imposter syndrome more than self confidence.
Alison: You hope getting two gold medals at the Paralympics would make you feel like, geez, I’m not so bad at this, but I understand.
I understand where this comes from, you know, especially I think for Paralympians who, depending on their disabilities or what has happened to them, are constantly dealing with what they can’t do and limitations and, and things they have to adapt. And then they. find this success and world success and international success and two gold medals in 24 hours.
And it’s look at what you can do. And everybody is respecting you for that.
Jill: For the 400 meter freestyle, the S11 class. This was a visually impaired class, they wear the blackout goggles and they have the head tappers. It’s,
Alison: I, I meant to tell you this yesterday. They really don’t tap them on the head.
Jill: Oh, they really
Alison: tap them between the shoulders.
Jill: Oh, okay.
Alison: I know. Cause you always call them head tappers and they’re really not tapping them on the head. And I am so glad because it felt like tapping them on the head was weird. So they’re more like back tappers.
Jill: All right, back tappers. That’s good to know. I don’t know when I’ll get out to swimming, but I You
Alison: have all week.
Jill: I do have all week and I, I love to see a variety of classes. I remember when, uh, a few years ago I did, uh, some officiating at the master swimming, championships for the U S and it was just after the Paralympics because one of the winners was there. And, uh, it was fun to see him swim really, really fun.
So I’m looking forward to, to getting out to swimming, back to 400 meter freestyle as 11 class gold for the men went to David Crutchfield. Um, from Czechia silver went to Roger Dorisman from Netherlands and bronze went to Tomito. Tomita Yuchu from Japan. For the women, gold went to Lizette Brunsma from Netherlands.
Silver went to Zheng Xiaotong from China. And bronze went to Daria Lukianenko from Neutral Paralympic Athletes. For the 200 meter individual medley SM6 class, this is what we tend to call a hodgepodge. class? Because coordination affected on one side, uh, could be high degree in legs, could be short, uh, people with short stature, could be an absence of limbs.
Alison: So these hodgepodge classes, I just want to mention this. the point of the hodgepodge classes is one, they don’t fit anyplace else. And two, if the ideas, these disabilities affect their ability to create power in the water in a similar fashion. So it may not look similar to us, but according to the exercise scientists, it works the same in the pool.
Jill: Yes. So for the men, gold went to young Hong from China who set a world record today. Silver went to Nelson Oh, Crispin Corzo from Colombia. That’s
Alison: a name we
Jill: definitely know from Tokyo. Welcome back, Nelson Crispin Corzo. And bronze went to Taliesin Henrique Glock from Brazil. And oh, Yang Hong is a three time Paralympian, but first time gold medalist. So that is really exciting. Yeah,
Alison: first gold medal, break a world record. It’s just a normal Friday.
Jill: In the, uh, Women’s 200 meter, uh, I am same class. Gold went to Maisie Summers Newton from Great Britain. Silver went to Ellie Marks from the U. S. who is in the U. S.
Army’s world class athlete program, which we learned about through reading Joanna Garten’s book, All in Stride, earlier this year. So that’s cool to see the world class athlete program, uh, taking some prominence there. And then China went, China’s Liu Daomin won the bronze. And then we had the mixed 4x50m freestyle 20 points relay.
This is a combined classification. Numbers cannot be more than 20 points across your entire relay team. Gold went to China, setting a world record, which is 4 seconds faster than the silver medal. This was a big lead. 4 seconds is a lot in the pool. That’s a
Alison: lifetime.
Jill: Silver went to USA and bronze went to Brazil.
Moving over to pair table tennis. We had a doubles day, so we had many wheelchair classes, some standing classes, and then, uh, We did quarterfinals, we did some semifinals, semifinal losers get bronze medals. That’s how this tournament works out. So we end up having a final for silver and, and, uh, gold. And then in the semifinals, whoever loses gets bronze.
So we have two bronze medalists. And for the women’s doubles WD14 class, that’s a standing class with more mobility and coordination. Gold went to Huang Wenjian and Qi Yuchen from Chang, from China. Silver went to, uh, Stephanie Graber and Juliana Wolff from Germany. And bronzes went to Felicity Picard and Bly Twomey from Great Britain, as well as Aida Husigdalen and Meredith Tvjatin from Norway.
in the women’s doubles WD5 wheelchair class. Uh, the gold medal went to, uh, Su, Seo Su young and Yoon Chi yul from Korea. Silver went to Liu Qing and Xue Wan from China and bronzes went to Katia Oliveira and Joyce Oliveira from Brazil and, uh, Darurar Asayut and Chilchi Parak Bhutwansirina from Thailand.
And then we had Perthai Gwondo,
Alison: which you survived, it sounds like.
Jill: I got there eventually, I missed a lot. I got into some semifinals and bronze medals and gold medal matches for para taekwondo. I discovered that you really had to focus because it’s fast. It’s so fast. And I’d look away for a second or glance at something else.
And then I hear the little drum noise that meant a point got scored or two points got scored, and I’d be like, what happened? They had to bring a doctor out for somebody. And I missed what happened to bring the doctor out. It was, it was a hard night for Jill, a pair of Taekwondo, because I also hadn’t been on my computer for a while.
So I wanted to try to do a little bit of work. No working. You can’t, you can’t
Alison: miss because then the medic comes out and you don’t know what happened.
Jill: Exactly. Exactly. So, Great, great crowd at Paris Taekwondo.
Alison: It’s like they get into Grand Palais and people lose their minds.
Jill: They do. They really do. They really knew what was going on. That was fun. It’s always fun. It will. I mean, when I came to Paris, I thought just tennis, French tennis fans were exciting. It’s every sport and they know what’s going on.
So it’s not just we need to cheer for the French person, although that helps, but really knowledgeable fans make. a good, good experience for everybody involved. So we first had, uh, men’s K44, uh, minus 63 kilograms. The gold medal match went into golden score. Is that like sudden death? Yeah. Sudden death over time.
And I went, Oh, we’re in golden score. Let me sit back and bam, we’re done. Was it like, Oh, I missed it again, but that was a super exciting match. Mom, uh, both techie from Turkey, a one gold silver went to a bull or air, uh, Denia Gabbat from Mongolia and bronzes went to Antonio Basolo from Italy. And I, uh, do each from Morocco, we had some trend going on where.
The gold medalists would bring up the silver medalist and they both had their flags on the podium together when they’re doing their I know It it that got me right there in men’s k44 minus 70 kilograms The gold medal match was really really really one sided which was tough, but exciting gold went to Uh, Imamarin, uh, Kalilov from Azerbaijan.
Gul Silver went to Faith, uh, Celik from Turkey. He tried to Be done with the match with like two point two six two seconds to go. Did he get the
Alison: fight symbol?
Jill: Well, it was 15 to 2. That was the final score and he’s like I’m not winning Let’s end this and the referee was like no and I think awarded a point to the Azerbaijani because Celik took his helmet off and stuff.
He was like I’m done like no, you’re not point.
Alison: They do not play around. No, they
Jill: don’t. They don’t. And then the bronzes went to Juan Diego García López from Mexico and Juan Eduardo Samorano from Argentina. In the women’s K44, we’re gonna start with the minus 57 kilogram class. Gold went to China’s Li Yuji.
Silver went to Gamze Gurdal from Turkey and bronzes went to to, uh, Sylvia Maiara Cardoso Fernandez from Brazil and Polisha Govindan from Nepal. And then the one that everyone was waiting for is the K44 minus 65 kilograms. Deleka Dialo from France was competing in the gold medal bout. So you can only imagine what the crowd is like at this point.
Alison: Are your ears still ringing?
Jill: Just about. And the other matchup with her was a Brazilian who also had a presence in the crowd. There
Alison: have been so many Brazilian fans. It’s been wonderful because the Brazilians have been doing, they did well on the track. They’re doing well in swimming and everywhere they go, they have their fans and the Brazilian fans are fantastic.
Jill: They are. And I, I, I don’t want to assume, but I would imagine some of the strength of the Brazilian team comes from having hosted.
Alison: Can’t hurt. You’ve got facilities.
Jill: You’ve got facilities. You’ve built up some awareness in your country. So hopefully they’re more athletes are getting, uh, you aware of the Paralympics movement in, uh, Brazil and they’re getting access to sport.
But, uh, sadly France did not win.
Alison: But happily Brazil did.
Jill: Brazil did. Ana Karina, Carolina Silva de Moura, handily won this. Really handily won this and she was pretty dominant in the couple of matches. I saw her in Juleka Diallo from France takes silver and bronzes went to Lisa Cuellar from Denmark and Christina Kenso from Greece both with sizable crowd participation.
There’s a whole big Denmark section.
Alison: Well, it’s, I hope it was some of the, I hope it was some of the Danes from our opening ceremony. That would
Jill: be great.
Alison: Cause there was the Danes had a big, uh, contingent at swimming last night too. I think it’s, I mean, it’s not far. I mean, let’s, this is not a hard trip for them, but just there’s a huge group of Danish fans here.
Jill: I am here for this.
Alison: And they had balloons.
Jill: In shooting parasport, uh, we had the women’s 10 meter air rifle standing SH 1 final. Gold went to Avani Lakhara from India with a Paralympic record. Silver went to Lee Yun ri from Korea and bronze went to Mona Agarwal from India. In the men’s 10 meter air pistol SH 1 final, Uh, gold went to Jo Jung Doo from Korea, silver went to Manish Narwal from India, and bronze went to Yang Chao from China.
Sadly, our Marco De La Rosa finished 22nd in the qualifiers and did not advance to the finals. And then in the R4 Mixed 10 meter Air Rifle Standing SH 2 Final, which our McKenna Geer is in. Gold went to, uh, Franček Gordzad Tirsic from Slovenia. Silver went to Tange De La Forest from France. And bronze went to Seo Hun Tae from Korea.
McKenna finished 23rd in qualifiers, did not advance.
Alison: She’s got two more events.
Jill: We’re here for that. Sitting volleyball.
Alison: Now, who did you end up seeing?
Jill: First match of the day, rematch of the gold medal bout from Tokyo 2020, China versus the US. This was amazing. A, sitting volleyball is a sport that does anthems.
So that was interesting to watch. The stadium is kept pretty dark with this, with the, court lit up. And this is also a good, the court was smaller than I thought it would be. I know it’s a small court, but it’s smaller than I thought it would be. And, uh, the venue size is actually pretty good for sitting volleyball that there was maybe half to a little over half full, but they were spread out.
So it looked a lot more full than it was. Everyone was ready for Monster block, monster block, monster, monster, monster block, and boom, there goes the, oh, it was great.
Alison: So they have brought the Olympic volleyball songs and DJs
Jill: back. They are the hardest working men in, in announcing right now. They were non stop.
They were fantastic Everyone was ready with all of the stuff. It was it was fun. And it just was like, okay I know it’s friday daytime And that’s probably why people aren’t here,
Alison: but they brought the boom.
Jill: They brought the boom and uh They oh i’m sure when france plays it’s going to be packed So we shall see and the first up were the women it was usa versus china You Score sounds bad.
China won three to one. women won the first bout. U. S. women won the first bout. Then it was close the whole time. So, uh, U. S. won 25 21. They lost 20 25, You felt the momentum shift mid middle of the second game and they said Afterwards a lot of them were like we made errors. We made errors. We’re not worried We know we have to fix stuff.
It’s not them as an opponent that we have to worry about It’s our job to fix ourselves. And then somebody else was telling me later. They’ve never won a pool play game against China Oh, or they haven’t won it for years and years years So yeah,
Alison: but and then they’ve beaten China in the elimination rounds.
Yeah the metal rounds. Yes
Jill: It’s like
Alison: they get their jitters out against China.
Jill: Yeah, and and they said in a way It’s good to have this game behind them in a way. It’s like, oh, you know with the hard one first That makes it tough, but now that it’s in the rear view mirror, they can adjust a lot of things.
They’re gonna, I believe, play France next, or coming up very soon. France is the lowest ranked, and they’re pretty low ranked in the world. My guess is that because they’re the host, that’s when they brought up a team. So it’ll be interesting to see how they do. They’re, oh my gosh, this was so much fun to watch in person.
And, Laura Webster, near the end of the fourth game, she made this block, and I saw the look on her face from, I’m, I’m kind of far away in the tribunes
Alison: are never that close.
Jill: And I saw her face say, we are not losing this game. They did lose the game, but she was determined
Alison: her face said monster block.
Jill: Yes her face did say monster block But it was what a fabulous match really evenly played It just was so good.
So so good. So I know we’re having issues with uh, getting feed access?
Alison: Well, originally the preliminary rounds of the U. S. women were not going to be shown. That changed. So there get as far as I know from the reports, Peacock is showing all of the women’s, the U. S. women’s sitting volleyball.
Jill: That’s good.
Alison: Let us know if that is not the case.
Jill: then I saw the first men’s game, with a detour. Of course, I needed to, uh, take a little break from the Press Tribune and, and wander around. What did I wander into? Oh, the take a photo with a freeze set up. Not the, not the ma the stuffed freeze, the big giant stuffed freeze.
And I got the foam finger.
Alison: Oh, the pink foam finger. Yes.
Jill: Foam finger and a freeze. What more could you want?
Alison: So everywhere we go, the pink foam finger points you where you’re supposed to go.
Jill: Yes.
Alison: And you got to handle a pink foam finger. I
Jill: did. I did. I did. And then I bought a Coke.
Alison: I’m surprised you didn’t smuggle that back here.
I’m kind of surprised that pink foam finger isn’t propped against the door.
Jill: But then I caught a Coke and the guy kept going, is that all you want? Yes, that’s all I want. All you serve is beverages and chips here. What more do you think I need?
Alison: Apparently he thought you had a family that could come with you and you needed fork oaks with the little handle case.
Jill: But then I popped into, uh, Iran and Ukraine a little bit late. I really wanted to see Iran. I really wanted to see Iran because I believe they’re the defending gold medalists They also have a player who is uh named Morteza Um miraj zalikzani and he has gigantism. So he is Really tall in this sport where being taller in the torso can be a very big advantage and having, cause you’d also have long arms if, if they’re proportional.
Alison: Talk about a monster block.
Jill: Right. He did not play very much. He played in the first game, maybe a little bit of the second and he sat on the side. Iran. Is an amazing team to watch. They are sharp. They are coordinated as a team. They are. I can see why they were a gold medalist. Uh, they are a team to watch and really looking good.
I will say that Ukraine. Not so bad, but it felt like they had not been together as long or didn’t not didn’t have the ability to practice together as much Which could that that could also be the case. I don’t know.
Alison: I mean Ukraine certainly is dealing with a Lot of a lot of other issues. So putting a team together never mind training is is a challenge And they probably haven’t been together as long.
I don’t remember Ukraine being at Tokyo So this could be a relatively new You grouping, but Iran has been a powerhouse in sitting volleyball for quite a number of cycles, so they know what they’re doing.
Jill: They had a little bit of momentum, but they couldn’t get it together to win a, a set at all. Uh, so Iran won three sets to zero, uh, 25 13, 25 12, 25 18. So, uh, nice. Some, some good crowds again. We had a little Ukrainian contingent. We had a little Irani contingent, big USA contingent came out. So that was all very, very nice.
Little, little China. But they there were people they show up
Alison: and they they bring the volume
Jill: that’s right. Wheelchair basketball we’re ending up with uh, men’s preliminary rounds spain beat australia 68 60 Canada beat france 83 68 And then in the women’s prelims, uh netherlands beat Uh, Japan, 87 34. Uh, U.
- beat Germany, 73 44. And China beat Spain, 64 38. Got wheelchair rugby. I did
Alison: not go.
Jill: I know. And I kind of wish you had.
Alison: I kind of wish I had to
Jill: prelim round still Great Britain beat Denmark 5553. Japan beat the US 4542.
Alison: You know, I think I didn’t say this on the I can’t remember if I said it on the air yesterday or not just to you, but I was talking to somebody else at wheelchair rugby yesterday.
at how even all the teams are. And, you know, everyone’s so sure that Australia, Great Britain, Canada, and the U. S. are going to be the semifinals. Don’t say that this time because Japan beat the U. S. And apparently it was a very scrappy match. It was, it was no joke.
Jill: And, uh, Chuck Aoki, our Shukla Stani led the team with 19 tries.
He’s got four. 40 so far for this tournament and they’re going to have their final group match tomorrow. And well, I will hopefully be there for that. Also in the prelims, Canada beat Germany 54 47 and Australia beat France 55 53. Uh, so on top of the pools in group A is Japan and then group B Great Britain.
Uh, we had wheelchair tennis got off the ground today as well. First round action for men’s singles, women’s doubles, and quarterfinal action for quads doubles. And we’ve got mascots.
Alison: We’ve got mascots. We’ve got guinea pigs, Sonny and Sadie. And every time I look at their picture, it makes me happy. Uh, there was a third sibling, Heidze, who has since crossed the rainbow bridge, but Sadie is the youngest of the group.
Yeah. So we have two beautiful little guinea pigs and special thanks to listener Don for supporting the Kickstarter campaign that got us to Paris and for sharing Sonny and Sadie with us.
Jill: And, uh, tomorrow, what’s Shook Fustan up to? We
Alison: got a lot going on. So Alison Levine moves on to the quarterfinals and women’s BC4 boccia.
Jill: Callahan Young and Team USA men’s goalball have the next prelim match against France.
Alison: We start with para athletics. Jayden Blackwell runs in the men’s T38 100 meters. Oh, and Daniel Romnichuk races in the men’s T54 5, 000 meters.
Jill: And in the pool, Jessica Long swims in the S8 100 meter backstroke and Olivia Chambers is back for the S13 400 meter freestyle.
Alison: Evan Medel competes in the 80 plus kilogram category of men’s para taekwondo.
Jill: Brian Bell in Team USA Men’s Wheelchair Basketball plays Netherlands.
Alison: And as Jill mentioned, Chuck Aoki and Team USA Wheelchair Rugby have their last preliminary game against Germany.
Jill: And then David, David Wagner will play Ahmet Kaplan in quad singles of wheelchair tennis.
And that will do it for this episode. Thank you to our researcher, Elizabeth Emery.
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 to get our special daily games time newsletter, sign up at our website, flamealivepod. com.
Jill: After this, we’ve got some mixed zone tape. We will have Samantha Bosco. And then we’ll be Matt Stutzman and then Laura Webster. I don’t think any of us put names in front of them when we taped. So that will be the order of play for those.
So just you keep in mind, there will be for the ones I was in, uh, For Matt Stutzman, there’s going to be another reporter there as well. So you’ll get a little bit of questions from two people there, but some really fun insight. It was really fun to meet Laura in person. She’s great, isn’t she? She is lovely, got a nice hug.
So it was a lot of fun. So I hope you enjoyed that audio and join us again tomorrow for more action from Paris. Please tell your friends about the show, especially if they’re getting into the Paralympics and hang out with us in our Facebook group because it is Hoppin and thank you so much for listening and until tomorrow keep the flame alive
Alison: I’m
so glad. We wanted to say congratulations. I know you’re upset. Yeah, it’s hard not to be upset. Yeah, we wanted to say hello and just, say whatever, I don’t even want to ask you a question. I just want you to
Samantha Bosco: I don’t know. I’m a little lost for words today. Wasn’t necessarily a target race for me coming in, but you’re here.
You can do all the races you want. I thought I had a chance and I’m sorry. I thought I had a good chance. There are a lot of strong girls here and they brought their a game and they just had better legs on the day than I did. So just looking forward to the next couple and a chance of redemption, a chance of, Going for the races that I targeted.
How are you feeling
Alison: overall, just this week?
Samantha Bosco: Oh my gosh, the whole gambit of emotions. I started super excited. Actually, that’s kind of a lie. I was excited when Donald the Duck, I call him Donald the Duck because of my nephew. Shout out to Reed. Um, haha. He congratulated me on getting to be selected for the team.
So that was when it first felt real and it was really exciting and it was like a big excitement moment. And then getting on the last plane here, I had all the emotions of relief and tears of joy. Because here I am, like, I’m getting on that plane. Finally, it’s been a few years later, but I’m on that plane.
And then I get to the village and it’s just cloud 12, I guess. Because everything, just all of the little things, all of the big things, were so much more significant. And it was so fun. Yesterday was kind of just like a day to get the jitters out and it was bigger than I anticipated it being. Today was kind of the same.
I had good legs going in. I was less than a second from personal best on the track. So I’m happy with my performances. Bummed that I didn’t get on the podium, but couldn’t have lost the podium to better women in the field. I love every single one of them. They’re amazing and I’m so proud of them and so excited for them, but I’m coming for them one.
But we’re so proud of you
Alison: and we’re so happy to have you on our team. So road is next. What, what does it look like for the next few days for
Samantha Bosco: you? All in for the time trial. That’s the next race. That’s my baby. I’m all in. I’ve been all in since 2021 for this time trial. So it’s the biggest, it’s the biggest race of the games for me.
I got my parents here, my husband here, my really good friends who became family, my cal like, she’s even my California mom, they’re here, my brother’s watching because he couldn’t be here, my extended family’s watching, my in laws, my sister in laws, my brother in law, like, I’m just so full of joy just to be here and to be racing.
Medals a sign. Life’s amazing. And we’re cheering for you. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Alison: Yeah, I think that’s perfect.
Brian Pinelli: Brian with Team USA. Ah, hello Brian. Hello man, nice to meet you, nice to see you, nice to watch you succeed. Um, how did it go? How would you assess the ground early on by taking care of what you need to do?
Matt Stutzman: Yeah, uh, I actually, uh, you know, I’m just gonna be honest and candid and everything.
When I went out I got very emotional. I was trying not to cry. I wanted to stop my family. I was like, uh, yeah, so. But it worked out that I was able to start off strong. And then the guy, Victor, um, he’s, he’s going to be the future of the sport. Uh, of course I had to remind him that, uh, I still am better than him right now.
Uh, but honestly, like the future of the sport with armless archers is going to go well above and beyond what I’ve started. And to me, that’s my gold medal. And just being here, um, having my family watch me underneath this awesome venue and the iPod tap, like just everything, like, whatever happens from here on out, I’m, I’m satisfied.
And of course I’ll still do my best, right? But, uh, I’m, I’m happy and satisfied. And, they took me in there and I got to meet Jackie Chan. We
Brian Pinelli: heard. I bet
Matt Stutzman: he’s a hero of mine. I’ve watched all his movies and stuff like that. And, uh, apparently he knew that, so he wanted to come watch me specifically. And I didn’t know that.
So we were in the, I walked in and he’s like, he gave me a hug. Like I felt so starstruck. I didn’t even know what to say. I was like, it was so, I don’t know. It, I don’t know how you really top today except for winning a gold medal, but. Like I said, I feel like, uh, gold medal has been one in my heart already, so.
Did you spar at all with Jackie? Uh, he would definitely beat me, but, uh, he picked up my bow and he’s like, Whoa, it’s so heavy, you hold this with your legs. And I said, that’s why I have to hold it. It’s so heavy, I have to hold it with my legs. But, uh, one thing I do want to say is that, uh, the history of what people watch today.
I don’t know if you guys know this, but this is the first time two armless people have competed at a Paralympics head to head before. That was a very first, that was a very first time this has ever happened in the history of the sport. So, I knew it was a historic moment going out there. And of course I want to be on the winning end of it.
But just that the history of the fact that no one imagined armless people competing with armed people in archery and yet here we have amazing happen. I think that was awesome. How many,
Brian Pinelli: sorry, I don’t know how many, uh, in total. you know, at the high level are right
Matt Stutzman: now. There’s actually five. Okay. One guy is from Russia, but he didn’t come to the games, but he was very good.
Um, but here at this game, we have four and, uh, last games was just me and, uh, The guy from Belgium, so there’s two. So every games, we double. So, and based on the people that we’re working with now, and all that kind of stuff, I bet you in LA we have probably closer to seven. Wow, awesome. Yeah. And honestly, that’s In an ideal world, like, if you could have 20 armless people all shooting against armed people.
That would be pretty awesome, right? Let the best man win. Exactly. Anyway.
Brian Pinelli: Last important question now after all that amazing info you just shared. Uh, is it a little tougher shooting in the range? Things slip? Yeah. Things move? Is it a little more challenging?
Matt Stutzman: If you noticed on that last shot, as soon as I shot, I knew what happened.
I was just like, oh, like I didn’t even, no one needed to even tell me what happened. But, uh, uh, one of the issues that people with arms. Sorry, uh, shooting with their feet run into is that, um, we can’t like grip the bow like people have hands. So when, when our feet get wet, uh, it’s harder to keep kind of grip of the bow and keep it as steady.
Like it kind of wants to slip a little bit here and there. So, um, but I mean, it was good enough for me to win today and I’ll take that hats off to Victor. He did so well. He did good for his first ever games. I told him at the end when I hugged him and I had him wave at my family, I said, uh, you’ll be the next champion.
And so I hope he understood what I was saying. That’s
Brian Pinelli: good.
How does, uh, do you prefer rain and not, you didn’t have much wind it seemed like, versus
Matt Stutzman: No, most of my arrows, if I missed, were up and down. I had one to the left, and then the last one doesn’t count, because I already knew what happened there. But, uh, I prefer rain over wind.
Oh,
Matt Stutzman: It’s, uh, I’m an Iowa boy and we have rained a lot. So it really, when it was, I was practicing and it was raining out. I just knew like, it’s like, it’s going to be a good day for me.
Brian Pinelli: Take advantage of what you can. Absolutely. What’s kept you going for so long, right? Your fourth Paralympics, the silver all the way back in London, 2012.
What’s, what’s kept you going and motivated and competing at such a high
Matt Stutzman: level? My family. Is still the main focus, still the main motivation for me. Uh, when I, I told my kids that if I made the team to come to Paris, I’d bring them along. And then when I, when I did well in trials and found out I had won my spot, I was like, Oh, this is gonna be interesting.
Uh, Jessica’s gonna have ten people that she has to, who have never flown before! On a plane leaving the country for the first time and I don’t get to help her with that. I feel so bad for her. But, uh, there’s still my motivation even today. And I think that’s why I tried to fight back the tears when they interviewed me because of how special this moment is.
And most likely will be the last time I get to do this. So
Brian Pinelli: the kids just tell, tell me briefly the names and ages here today.
Matt Stutzman: Yeah. So between Jessica and I, our family, we have five boys. Caleb is 21. Carter is 18. Cameron is 17. Cason is 12 and Alexander is also 12. They were born like two days apart.
Brian Pinelli: Yeah.
Five
Matt Stutzman: boys. Five boys. Wow. So she is, uh, reminds me every day about how we should have had a girl. But hey, you know what? It happens. I can’t control that. So, yeah. Anyway, yeah, it’s
Brian Pinelli: Well, it takes, uh, you know, this gentleman was telling me that, you know, you maybe could have Shot a little bit better in prelims, but you know, you have, but continuing on that, what will it take to, to, you know, to move forward strong and, uh, give yourself a chance at a metal potentially gold here.
Matt Stutzman: Yeah. So, uh, here’s the, here’s the cool thing. So I actually had the equipment issues with my release during the first half of elimination or qualifications, um, had a bunch of dirt in it and the more I pulled, the more it was shoot left and we figured it out, but now the rules are, there’s no, So if you have an equipment issue, they just keep shooting.
And if you don’t shoot, they get zeros. So for me, I just had to struggle through it until half, which is they give you 15 minutes to go to the bathroom and I fixed it, cleaned it all back up, got it working good. And then, uh, uh, you know, had a good strong second half. And I, I remember telling myself like, They’re going to be in for a treat and elimination day because I started rolling good again and I was like, the release is working good and I’m confident again.
And ironically, the last time I released broke was in 2022 and where I went into eliminations basically in last place and won the whole event to become a world champion. Okay. Still
feels like home? Still feels like home.
Matt Stutzman: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s, uh, everything I’ve been dreaming and practicing and mentalizing for the last, you know, eight months, nine months.
Brian Pinelli: Does, uh, does the other hobby, the drag racing, help you balance out and give you some variety and, you know, keep the mind not just on one, one thing to
Matt Stutzman: focus on? Uh, this takes such a mental effort. mental focus. It’s good to have something that you do that you forget completely about our trees. So for me, it helps quite a bit.
Plus, it’s an adrenaline thing. So I can have adrenaline while I’m racing. And then if I get my bug shoot right after that, I’m learning. How to control adrenaline because out there you get it no matter what and how do you practice that at home? So that’s one of the ways that I practice kind of with adrenaline.
Brian Pinelli: What kind of cars are you racing?
Matt Stutzman: Uh, I race a drag car drag. Uh, it’s called a I call it jigsaw. It’s a 68 camaro Um, it’s a what called pro mod chassis 2200 horsepower Zero to 60 under a second And it has the potential I haven’t done it yet this year, but 200 and You Probably 201 miles per hour in about six and a half seconds.
And it’s weirdly now, I’m the only guy without arms that does that too. So I mean,
Brian Pinelli: stupid question, all the shifting with feet, how? Yeah,
Matt Stutzman: I do my feet, I drive with my feet, I do it all, I activate the parachutes and everything. But what’s cool about drag racing is that everybody I compete against have no disabilities.
So I’m literally racing against the best of the world and the best of what they do. And I love that challenge. And that’s what pushes me, you know, when it comes to that stuff, because I want to just be the best. I don’t want to be the best armless guy. I want to be the best in the world.
Brian Pinelli: This, uh, post archery career, uh, Keep you fulfilled and keep at it, you think?
Matt Stutzman: Uh, absolutely. I got, uh, drag racing is taking off. I’m getting a lot of, you know, sponsors and things like that. And I’m doing well at it, so that’s definitely my future. Uh, also, I’m gonna kind of dabble in making parts and releases and stuff like that for the archery community. Solely, specifically, like, focused on armless people.
So maybe like some custom chairs, a better release system, because nobody’s really doing that. Um, so I kind of have to do it myself. That’s kind of my focus.
Uh, Forsberg is next. What are you looking forward to?
Matt Stutzman: Oh, I don’t know who I was facing, so. Oh, okay. It doesn’t matter to you? None of it matters to me.
I’m here to have a good time and, and uh, one era at a time and whatever it is is what it is. Enjoy. That’s my mindset. Sorry, I was chatting with KJ. So, Jackie Chan, what was, what was that? One second. Coach! Are you coming back? All my stuff is still in there. I haven’t been able to, yeah. Why can you just look, I need to make this fast so I can go with you guys.
Give me, I got my whole family waiting on me. I can’t take too much more time. Uh,
Alright, I just need one person. So, if you can give the boat a K. J., you just wait like one more minute. Uh, Jackie Chan was awesome. Uh, Craig Spence from the IPC had sent me a message like yesterday. He goes, dude, what would you do if Jackie Chan watched you shoot? And I was like, ah yeah, whatever, like Jackie Chan ain’t And sure enough, Coach!
I’m ready. So, come on in here, come in here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, him and I, we have a little shake and a handshake. Anyway, as soon as I win, we come off stage, and I get, World Arch is like, Come with me, Jackie Chan wants to meet you guys. It was legit, we walked in, and I’m like, oh, and he just starts hugging on me, and like, it was crazy, I like, I didn’t even know what to say.
It was amazing. Like, he’s been a guy, I watch all his movies, I’ve watched him ever since I was little. And he, he’s like, I come to just watch you. And I’m like, oh my, like, mind blown, like, I, someone who is, has that persona around him, or that, uh, aura. They’re motivated by me. Like, I know, I’m motivated by him, and he’s a superstar, and yet here he is.
Looking at what I’m doing and is motivated by it. So as long as he doesn’t make any movies that have an armless archer, unless I’m the arm, unless I’m the arm. You up in Germany? You won’t
need a stunt double, will you? Yeah, I could be my own stunt double. I was just saying, you know, I know you’re retiring from the Paralympics, but you’re in your element.
You’re stamping your feet when you’ve got, you know, five tens in a row and playing to the crowd and Jackie Chan and your feet. Yeah. How can you walk away from
Matt Stutzman: that? I know, I know. So here’s the thing is, I was noticing, I was the only one having fun out there. Everybody looked pretty like, focused. Yeah. The only way you shoot good is if you’re having fun.
And I know that some people could take it as not focused, but we worked for four years to be here. You need to have fun, because if you’re not having fun, then why are you, like, you know what I mean? Like, fun is huge. Like, you got, you have to smile and laugh, and laughing relaxes you. People don’t understand that.
So anyway, Matt says he’s retiring, but I keep telling him that he gets a break, but we’re not going to retire just yet. We’re going to go a little bit, maybe to L. A., maybe a little longer. He’s twisting my arm, but I might, I might slowly relax. I’m just, I’m just finding out,
to make sure he’s not coming to family, how, how, how key was that?
How, how important was
Matt Stutzman: that? That was the most important thing I’ve probably ever done in my career. Um, just having them in the stands. Like I said, I was trying not to cry when they introduced me, because I knew how important it was. And how awesome it was. And I’ll probably never, I’ll never have an experience like that again.
So, it, it will always forever be the most important thing in my life this
Brian Pinelli: family.
Jill: Hi, Jill from Keep the Flame Alive. Hi,
Lora Webster: yes, hi! Um, I saw You saw Allison the other day. Allison, thank you. She was so excited. Yes, how are you? Sorry.
Jill: Good, no, that’s okay.
It’s different to see you in a different context. I know, I know, exactly. And, uh, oh my gosh. You were not going to lose that last game on that one fight you had. Just the intensity up in the press tribute, we could feel it. I’m happy that you could feel it up there, we needed it. Um, how is it to, uh, get your big rival first and then out of the way?
I love it.
Lora Webster: I think there’s no better way this team thrives on competition. I love, like, how it works. In our practices, I’m always the one that’s like, let’s do our free ball drills because they’re the fastest and they push us and there we have no time to recover. And so it’s just nothing but like back to back constant movement.
And I love that energy. So playing against a team that we know so well and that we love to compete against, it’s great because it really There’s no hanging over us. It’s, we get it done, we know that we have to compete, and now they’re behind us, and now we get to focus on the next games instead of always like keeping an eye out for them.
So we get to, it’s done, there’s no anxiety over it anymore, and it’s a great game to start with, simply because you get all the nerves out, and it’s the highest level of nerves, you know, to play a competitor like that, so. I’m really happy that we started that way, and I’m really happy that it’s behind us.
Now we can like, settle down, and then move on to practice tomorrow and work on what we need to work on.
Jill: When you have those amazingly long rallies, how do you maintain the momentum or the focus? Because there are some really long ones. There were, yeah. Is that, wait, is that typical or is that special too?
With teams like this, yes.
Lora Webster: When you have teams that can play defense and that can walk and cover and have the, everything, have all of the skills, then yes. And those rallies are just so much fun. They’re not fun to lose because you put everything in. But we’re used to those rallies because when we train against each other, we have rallies like that all the time.
We just had one a couple days ago that USA Volleyball posted that had it just, I don’t even know what the time was, but it was just constant. Um, and that’s what we love and everybody just falls down like exhausted at the end of it. But that’s what really pushes you. And you finish those rallies going, Okay, let’s do it again.
Let’s get the next one. So, those rallies are great because they’re just fun. I mean, you don’t play this sport because you don’t like to compete, you know? That’s why we’re here. That’s the bread and butter of being a competitor. Is those rallies that make you feel like you can’t give any more, but then you get it, and it’s just, it’s fulfilling.
It’s really just the
Jill: best. There felt a momentary shift from game one to like mid game two. You could feel that too? Yeah, yeah. And then it started to come back. How is that, when you feel it go away, um, when you’re hitting it, like, there’s, there’s never like, oh we flip the switch and it comes back. There’s One point at a time.
Yeah.
Lora Webster: Um, those ones are really tough, because it’s nothing tangible. I was talking to my teammates when I, cause I don’t play background, so when I came out I was like, What feels different? Because you can’t pinpoint it. It’s not any one person, it’s just a feeling. And like, we all hate that feeling, because there’s times where you’re like, I don’t know what to do.
Like, because there’s not, it’s not like, hey our passes are bad. No, it’s, sometimes the pass is bad, sometimes the set isn’t fair, sometimes the hit isn’t fair. So it’s like, every aspect of the game is going wrong at different points, and they just back to back. So. I think that really speaks to the mental tenacity of our team, because we did come back and we almost won that fourth set, or third, fourth set, yes.
And so, that’s the grit that we pride ourselves on, because we really don’t quit. And finishing a four set match like that, the way that we finish, It’s like, man, I just wish we had three more points, you know, and so the yuck is the stuff that we have to work on. And that is solely on our side of the court, um, which is a great place to be because we can fix that side.
You know, China played a great game. We love pushing them to play their best because we know our best is better than theirs. And so walking out of a game like
that,
Lora Webster: we know that it’s in our control and that’s not cockiness. It’s just confidence. This is confidence in my team. We train so hard and not that the other teams don’t because I know that they do.
We know that we have a big target on our back, um, but we really are committed and we don’t take any match lightly. And so knowing that we can make the steps to improve, we’re, that’s going to be, it’s just all internal. It’s all the 12 of us and we’ll do it together.
Jill: Do you hear the monster blocks?
Absolutely. Do you hit a block or an ace and you’re like, that’s going to be a monster block?
Lora Webster: Blocking is where I feel like my value is to my team. Um, I don’t always get, you know, middles are always the toughest set. set to, for the setter to make just because of the flow of the game. And with sitting volleyball, we’ve got even less room to move around.
Um, and so I feel like my value to my team is really blocking, which stinks because there are games where they avoid me. Um, and it’s like, I looked at Katie and I was like, can I please like, at least get like, give me a half of it. Like, please, come on. So like, but it’s, I just, I, I. Those blocks like it just brings just all of the energy and um, and it’s those kind of plays that can really Seeing your teammate just stuff them and there was one that it went off her head and it’s just like just you know It’s the momentum shift and it’s that energy and that’s what I love We were down by like seven when I had a block and the whole team was acting like we were up by 20 And so it’s that, like, that digging in for that energy is what our team is about.
And that’s the joy that we have, and so it’s fun to, even when we’re losing, we still act like we’re winning. And when we’re winning, we often play like we’re losing. Like, it’s just, we’re still digging deep and always just waiting for the net, you know? So, we’re just, we’re all over the place. But we’re doing it together, which is a great place to be.
Jill: so much. It
Lora Webster: was
Jill: so good to see you. for being here. You’re welcome, you’re welcome. We’re so happy to be here.