More great competition from the Paris 2024 Paralympics today, as Jill had an adventure (and some sore obliques) learning how to play sitting volleyball. She made the trip out to Versailles to catch some of the para equestrian team competition, then headed to para swimming and miraculously didn’t get lost in the venue. Meanwhile, Alison went to the Stade de France for para athletics and then got waylaid at Team USA House getting Team TKFLASTAN interviews (and cookies).
Sports on today’s program:
- Para Athletics
- Para Canoe
- Para Cycling Road
- Para Equestrian
- Para Judo
- Para Powerlifting
- Para Swimming
- Para Table Tennis
- Sitting Volleyball
- Wheelchair Basketball
- Wheelchair Fencing
- Wheelchair Tennis
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Our researcher for the Paralympics is Elizabeth Emery.
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TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
Paris 2024 Paralympics_Day 9
Jill: Bonjour and welcome to day nine of the Paris 2024 Paralympics on Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. I am your host, Jill Jarres, coming to you from the Haute Val Dieu podcast. Joined, as always, by my lovely co host, Alison Brown. Alison, bonjour. I’m not even going to say ça va, because I know you are très, très bien.
I’m okay. Oh, stop it. Stop that right now. We all saw the picture on Facebook.
Alison: It was the greatest moment of my life. No, it was, it was, I spent some time at Team USA house today and I had some fun with Chuck
Jill: Aoki.
Alison: And since, as I said to him, we were off the clock, we did a selfie.
Jill: Very nice. Very nice. We have some stuff in the follow up file.
Alison: So speaking of Chuck. I mentioned yesterday that he seemed to really enjoy the monster block. He confirmed that that is his new favorite thing, but here was the really great part about it. Brody Roble, who is a sled hockey player, we saw him play in Beijing. He has been all over the place in Paris. He’s who I saw at the HPC trying all the sports.
Jill: He
Alison: was with Chuck last night, and apparently they all thought the same. That the, the chant was monster truck until the fourth quarter, which made me just love them both all the more, but they had a grand old time at sitting volleyball, yelling monster truck.
Jill: Good. Well, you know, there you go.
Alison: Other little follow up that I came across today and I wanted to mention it, um, Alice Tay of great Britain.
She won two golds, a silver and a bronze. She won two medals in Rio as a very young teenager. Last year, or rather in January 2022, she had her club foot amputated. Oh, wow. And had to completely relearn how to do her stroke, how to do her kick, how to compete in swimming at an elite level. She was reclassed.
So she had to compete in a new class. And she came back and had the best Paralympics of her career.
Jill: Wow. That is amazing.
Let’s begin the baguette.
You went to, I just want to know what happened. Okay, so I went to, wait, you went to Team USA house at a better time than I did because I was there like 1 o’clock to maybe 2. 30 and you went later because the athletes were available later.
Alison: Correct. So we have some tape from Olivia Chambers and Liana Muccia who Spent some time with me.
And then when I was done, I said to our USOPC woman, can I just take a walk around? And she said the most dangerous words anyone says to me, stay as long as you like.
Jill: Oh wow. That was lucky.
Alison: So I said, Okay, so the festivities really get started at six o’clock. Oh, that’s when they bring out the food. That’s when the waiters with hot plates start walking around.
That’s when the program starts. So athletes are there giving their people the order of ecos, icos, I apologize, I’m not entirely sure. And these are those medals. To give to the special person who helped you get your Paralympic medal.
Jill: Oh, that’s cool.
Alison: So, Ian Seidenfeld was there, gave it to his dad. Uh, Leanna gave it to her coach.
Olivia gave one to her coach and one to her mom. So, different, someone gave it to his brother. So, there’s, who’s ever been an inspiration, a support? So that’s, they come up and they, each of the athletes comes up and speaks and has the opportunity to give one of these away. And then they’ll interview different people.
Jill: Wait, wait a second. Procter and Gamble is still a sponsor. Right?
Alison: Of this, it was actually Michelob Ultra. Was this No, because
Jill: I would think you’d need puffs on every table.
Alison: You would need puffs on every table, which they did not provide. Instead, Michelob Ultra sponsors this part of the program. So they just want us to Are you crying in your beer?
Apparently! So at the end of each presentation, they take a photo of the, uh, the, The athlete, their person, and the host of this little part of the program, whose name I did not catch, toasting with the beer. And then the whole back of the platform lights up in red, white, and blue. So it makes a fantastic picture.
The big screens are on with all the evening events. And when an American races, everything stops. The sound on the TV goes on and it’s the American broadcast. So I got to watch American TV in English, which was. It’s pretty cool. I didn’t realize how much I missed knowing what was going on. And then if American medals, the horn goes off and the lights in the room start flashing.
You know, gold, silver, bronze doesn’t matter if they win a game. So the, when I first got there, the American women were playing a wheelchair basketball. They won their semi. Spoiler alert, they won their semi. And when they won, the horn and the flashing lights went off. So I kept trying to leave. I really kept trying to go to fencing, but I kept talking to people as I am wont to do.
So I spoke to, uh, Leo Merle’s family. He’s running tomorrow in the 1500, hi Merle family, um, because the mom said to me, don’t I know you? Which as I’ve said to you, happens to me. All the time. People around the world think they know me. I have, I don’t know, I must have been like a Borg and was cloned at some point.
There are many of me. But then of course we got into a whole conversation. I spoke to Ariel Middleton’s mom because she was getting interviewed and poor mom. Looked exhausted and I said, has anybody asked you how you were doing? She’s like, oh, thank you She’s like I took a little nap in the in the green room because She’s only 16.
Oh, so mom gotta be there mom Not only has to be there mom actually has to do stuff. You know, she has to be the the responsible adult Talk to Chuck which was so much fun. He’s so gracious to me and I am like the most ridiculous fangirl You And he’s so kind. Brody and I had a whole conversation about all the things he’s been doing around Paris and he gave me a special pin, which I’m not supposed to talk about, but I’m going to tell you anyway.
He gave me one of the goat pins. I know. I hope I didn’t blow your cover, Brody. Yeah. Um, had a conversation with Tyler Marin, who is has been USA goalball for five Paralympics. He is definitely absolutely without a doubt retiring or so he says. Long
Jill: career. Well, well.
Alison: No, I, I think, I think this is really it.
But he did tell me something very funny about our Callahan Young, apparently. Callahan sometimes goes a bit rogue during interviews.
Jill: Oh yeah, he totally will go rogue. I love Callahan.
Alison: So there’s usually somebody monitoring him when he’s around the press, which I thought was fantastic and true because he just, he says what he says.
There’s no artifice, which is why we love him.
Jill: Right.
Alison: I was in the elevator with Oksana Masters, and I did get a chance to say to her something that we talked about last night. I said, of course, congratulations, and I said, every single time, you look shocked. I said, do you not understand how amazing you are?
And she just said, I am shocked. I am truly shocked. Every single time. Wow. She does not understand how amazing she is. And then, this was the other funny part, she, she was scolding her handler. Cause she had that one stray hair that’ll fall into your forehead. You know, it’s always, and she had been on camera, and she’s like, Oh, how could you not tell me how funny I looked?
And I just looked at her. And you know what’s gonna come out of my mouth. I’m like, Oksana Masters, you are gorgeous. Just stop right now. But that’s not how she, clearly that’s not how she sees. She also loves a good arugula and ham pizza. They were bringing pizza. She and her people were enjoying their pizza and beer.
So she’s, you’ll be happy to know Accent of Masters is appropriately celebrating her success. Went into the store 40 percent off. Oh, really? Yeah. But the problem is the t shirts were 72 euros. So there’s t shirts that you’ve seen a lot of the American athletes, uh, interview in. Sort of turquoise with that funky lettering.
Mm hmm. It’s a t shirt. Wow. 72 euros.
Jill: Wow.
Alison: Even at 40 percent off.
Jill: That’s that’s that’s too
Alison: many euros for a t shirt the blue sweatsuits. You see everybody in this jacket 141 euros for the jacket
Jill: see part of me went. Oh, that sounds okay And then I realized oh, i’m just thinking in ralph loren dollars now,
Alison: right, but it is very soft Michael johnson was there.
He was not wearing gold shoes I just want him to wear gold shoes All the time, like for the rest of his life. Well, of
Jill: course. I’m sure everybody wants him to.
Alison: And then the couple races. This is why I kept not leaving. Because then a race would come on. So the Hunter Woodhall race came on.
Jill: Oh, well there you go.
And nothing That would have been crazy in there.
Alison: It was the Leanne Smith swimming race. I was standing near a bunch of the other swimmers who were there that day. Oh. So, Olivia and some of the others. So, I kept not being able to leave. It wasn’t my fault.
Jill: Would it have been worth the money? Because you got a better thing, you’ve got a better sense of what it was like in there than I did.
Alison: I, I, I’m of two minds. This was really a friends and family. That’s who’s, I think, been the house for the Paralympics. I bet this is how it felt at previous cycles.
Jill: Right. There were athletes, there
Alison: was families. There was some press like me, but there wasn’t just strangers and that was kind of fun as a press person But if I was the one stranger in the room, it would have been extremely uncomfortable Because the fun is you’re talking to people but you’re not talking them up, you know Yeah, I was talking to Chuck but you know, I was saying to him Oh now that we’ve known each other all this time.
We have to have a selfie Right. You know, so it wasn’t a stranger coming up and being like, Hi, I’m a fan, though I probably, you know, though he saw me and he started laughing, which was fantastic. You know, and I also got to see, you know, people from judo, people from, uh, blind athletic, you know, people that we’ve met over the last couple of years, the officials, some USOPC people.
I think at the Olympics, it had a very different feel, much more crowded, much more you’re at a hobby. Yeah. And also you’re at a staged party. This was very relaxed. So, I wouldn’t have wanted, as a, as a public person, to pay to go into this. Mm. Because it would have felt like I was crashing somebody else’s wedding.
Okay. And I don’t know if the Olympics, what it was like, because I think it was a very different scene. But the hot dogs were gourmet. And there was ice. Oh my goodness. That bartender, she, she understood. I went over and I just said, I just want a Diet Coke with as much ice as you can put in there. And every time I went back, she added more ice to the glass.
That’s worth the price of admission.
Jill: All right. Well, oh, oh, I had, I will say a good map day, in that, I know we leave in a few days, but things in the map are finally clicking into place in my head, the map in my head. So, I was supposed to be at Periquestrian all day. I was not at Periquestrian all day. I had a little field, not a field trip.
Went to the Parish Media Center for something. And, after, after I had my breakfast, Which was late and I ate big so that I didn’t have to necessarily have lunch. I went and got ice cream at Bertilian because it was open and I will say that if you go you don’t need to go to the ice cream place. They didn’t have like 31 flavors that aren’t at other restaurants.
Just go find a restaurant that’s got it. You’ll be fine But I went I got my ice cream and then I walked across the rest of the island like oh I’m by the Hotel DeVille. Let me walk through the Terrace de Joux Have you ever gone over there? I’ve only seen the outside of it. Because we walked around it.
You went in for the field trip thing. And I was like, well let me look around. And there were people there, lots of kids. And, um, I would say it’s probably a good senior citizen hangout. But there were regular people there too. And they had screens on and the play it up, play it, uh, try things out. And it looked like it was a fun place to hang.
When I came back tonight, I It was, uh, DJ was on, and there were, I don’t think it was super crowded, but it was loud. Well, it’s Friday, so that makes, um, It was loud, and it was, people were having a good time, though. You know, even if it was small. I also saw the, the entryway for where the horse and the knight are, uh, you cannot see it from the,
Alison: You need your ticket.
you
Jill: need your ticket, and they, well. No, you need your ticket to go in right away. If you don’t have a ticket, there is a line, but I don’t know when they would be letting people in. It’s just kind of wait for when there’s space, kind of a line. So, that is there. I’m like, oh, well that courtyard looks nice.
Wish I could see the horse from here. But I couldn’t, but that’s okay. And then I was going to the Paris Media Center, and then it clicked that the Hotel de Ville was where we picked up our Paris Media Center. I remember.
Alison: Credentials.
Jill: Credentials. And I knew how to walk, and then it was like, oh, here’s all this stuff we saw, like, right in the beginning of the trip.
And then you notice a little bit more, like, I didn’t realize we walked by Renzo Piano’s workshop, the architect.
Alison: And
Jill: so I’m like, ooh, these, this stuff is in the window, and oh, we walked by this other thing that I saw, and it was like, all this stuff. And
Alison: Go ahead. We’re our crying show.
Jill: But it was just kind of nice. I will say that.
Also nice because I went to the Paris Media Center because they were having a, you talked about yesterday, at Sitting Volleyball, they had the Try It there. They had Try Sitting Volleyball at the Paris Media Center. They did not! They did too. It was so much fun. It was so hard and they had, they brought in this coach and there was a player from the French team there.
Wait, did you? Where was it? It was in the living room. It was in the media center? Yes, in the media center. They set it up and there was probably 8 of us. And then some people, maybe there was like 10 and people crapped out early. I would have kept going. I would have been more sorry than I was. In about an hour.
It’s hard. My obliques hurt. I thought my obliques were gonna hurt after that wheelchair fencing lesson. Oh no. My obliques hurt so much. I think I pulled something. Trying this, trying this sport. But it was, it was really fun. The coach was hilarious because he’ll go over to New York, uh, every once in a while and work with people.
And, um, we started out with balloons, trying to get that feel for balloons in the net. And then you move to balls. We tried to have a game and people weren’t always clear on the the bump set spike thing or even a set set spike. And I wanted to do monster blocks. And I kept saying like monster blocks and ace, ace, and nobody picked up on it.
And then I realized probably none of these people had seen or been in the volleyball venues because they weren’t accredited for those things. And they probably did not get tickets. So I was being the fool, but that was okay. Cause I was having a good time. I monster
Alison: truck. Okay.
Jill: But, uh, yeah, it’s a really, really hard sport.
You do, I mean, you whip your legs around a lot and the agility you develop, I mean, it takes a lot of practice, I would say, but there’s a lot of agility to develop. And it was, it was funny because some people were, they had to put cushions down on the floor and I just wanted to be like, dude, you can’t do that.
You can’t put a cushion on the floor. You have to, it’s butt. Keep one cheek down
Alison: Well, it’s their first time Jill Bella Carolli training center
Jill: But I do have a little bit of video the coach was hilarious and he he’s Was excited that I was excited I will say and he’s just like we have to do stuff to it he swore grow the sport because it’s He loves it obviously and he sees what it’s done for the people on his team and he just wants more people to get that opportunity.
So if you ever get the chance to try sitting volleyball, I would because it’s, uh, fun. There’s different ball handling. You do use your core in a way that I didn’t know was possible and it’s kind of fun to whip around on the floor and kind of scoop back and forth and learn how to move like that. So, props to all the volleyball players out there, because they got a hard, hard sport to, to play.
What officiating or volunteer job would you like to do?
Alison: So this morning I went to Parathletics. I did end up in the mix zone. One of the things that a volunteer is in charge of in the mix zone is basically being a traffic cop because you have people in their racing wheelchairs come through the mix zone.
Then you also have people in just wheelchairs. Then you’ll have people in Blades, or motorized scooters, or, there are a lot of vehicles coming through the mix zone. And you must obviously keep people safe, but there’s no lanes. There’s no stop signs. So the, the, one of the volunteers was kind of walking through the athlete area, kind of stopping, erasing a wheelchair from rolling down and just plowing through someone.
And I would like that because I like to yell at people.
Jill: Very good. I, I did go to equestrian today. I think I would like the ring entrance job, which is two people and they sit, er, when a horse comes out, they are by the fence where they go in. And when the bell rings, they take away the little section of fence that the horse needs to go through.
They let the horse pass, they put it back, and then they go sit in the bushes. What do you mean they sit in the bushes? There are two special bush areas with seats tucked inside them, so they’re hidden from view, basically.
Alison: From whose view? The horse? Maybe the
Jill: horse. Oh.
Alison: Hmm.
Jill: There was a lot of interesting stuff about equestrian, and I don’t, because I didn’t get to Olympic equestrian, I don’t know if this is special to, um, para, but it.
Alison: I have a feeling it isn’t because it’s probably the horse that you’re concerned about, not, the rider’s fine. The rider, you gotta worry about what the horse does.
Jill: For, for this job and putting in the bushes, that I totally get would be the same.
It was an interesting day at Equestrian. It’s fancy. I will say that. You know what else is fancy?
Alison: Money.
Jill: Money is fancy. You know what we aren’t?
Alison: We are not fancy. We are
Jill: not fancy because we are an independent podcast and we are independently producing this, which means, uh, we got to come up with the money to get here and stay here for about seven weeks to bring a coverage like none other for you.
So. So, if, uh, you have enjoyed your time with us during these games,
Alison: One, stick around, because we don’t go away. Yes,
Jill: we do not go.
Alison: Whether you want us to or not, we do not go away when the games are over. Oh
Jill: no, these women, they don’t go away. But we do need help in keeping our flame alive. That cauldron light, that’s going to go out.
Alison: But not us. Not
Jill: us, no, but we need help in making sure we don’t go out. So please help keep our flame alive. Uh, we’re asking for 20. 24 right now. If a lot of you chip in, that really helps keep us going and keep our operating costs afloat so that we can prepare for Milan Cortina 2026, hopefully. have actual wood in this room.
Uh, We are in a fancy hotel and we got real wood. Okay?
Alison: Hotel du podcast is Très chic. Très chic.
Jill: but yeah, it’s We get home and I bet in like two months two and a half months we will get the wood Please apply for accreditation for the next Olympics. So we always constantly have to think about that and it costs a lot of money to prepare.
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Alison: We’re going to start at athletics, which is where I started my day. Uh, first event that I was really focused in on was the men’s javelin throw F54.
This is John, Justin Fong Savant’s class. He threw first. Oh
Jill: no, he got first draw.
Alison: He got, he got first draw. And when I asked him about it, he said no, that he was happy or he wasn’t unhappy about it. Because he felt like he could set the standard. Unfortunately, he did not have a great day setting that standard.
None of his throws were above 30 meters. His best was 29 31. And his season’s best was 31 81. All the medalists threw over 30, but if he had done his season’s best, he would have won. By a lot. By a full meter.
Jill: Justin, I’m so sorry.
Alison: I know. He, we, I spoke to him after. We have a little bit of tape, uh, from him.
And I did ask him the question that we, uh, I always hate to ask is the how are you feeling because as he was talking to me, he’s smiling and and being very, um, jovial is not the right word, but kind of at peace with everything and and the energy was good and his vibe was really good. And finally, I just said to him, just him, how are you feeling in your soul?
Mm hmm. And he said shattered. And I said, okay, now, because I wasn’t sure if he was just not absorbing. He absorbed. He absorbed. So, uh, gold went to even Ivan Revenko from Neutral Power Olympic Athletes with a personal best. Silver to Edgar Ulysses Fuentes Llanes from Mexico. And bronze to Greece, Emmanuel Stefanidakis.
So that was a little way to not a great way to start my day, but always talking to Justin will will cheer me up a little bit. So lots of throws today. Men’s discus at 37. Gold to Taliboy Yoldashev from Uzbekistan with a personal best. Jesse Sesu from Canada won silver and Ali Hadar from Pakistan won bronze for men’s shot put F57, uh, Yasin, you know, this is why I have you do the names.
I
Jill: can, I can take over.
Alison: Because I’m ruining everybody’s name and I feel bad about it.
Jill: That’s okay. I’ve probably done my fair share too.
Alison: But you say it with much more confidence. Oh, well, there
Jill: you go. There you go. Well, gold for that goes to Yasin Khosrafi from Iran, who got a Paralympic record. Silver to Thiago Paulino dos Santos from Brazil.
And bronze to Hokado Hotose Seema from India, who got a personal best on the day. In the Women’s Shot Put F12 class, it’s Modern Impairment, oh, this is the Visual Impairment class. Gold goes to Assunta Lignati from Italy, silver to Safiya Burkanova from Uzbekistan, and bronze to Zhao Yuping.
Alison: Nobody had more fun on the podium than Assunta Lignati.
Jill: Oh, yeah?
Alison: Yes. First of all, the Italian, uh, anthem is very long. Oh! It really goes on and on. It has a whole warm up, and then it starts with the lyrics. So I’ve got a lot of work to do to learn this anthem. And she just was having a party on that podium. Good. As were the Italian reporters down the road from me.
I’m sure I’m
Jill: sure that’s awesome.
She also does like the Kenny Bagnaric thing where he’s got, he has a headband. that he specializes for every competition. She has her eye mask that she links between Italy and the host country. So her eye mask this time was the Mona Lisa, which is painted by an Italian painter, Leonardo da Vinci. Very cool.
Uh, discus, women’s discus F38, which is a low degree of mobility and coordination impairment. Gold goes to South Africa’s Simone Kruger, who got a Paralympic record. Silver to Liying Li from China, who got a Paralympic record as well. This must be a combined class. And bronze to Jamara Saldarriga Hernandez from Colombia.
And javelin, F46. Uh, that’s moderately affected on one side of the upper body. Gold goes to Daniela Naibis. Daniela More Morillo Gil from Venezuela with a Paralympic record. Silver to, uh, Shannon Kahn, uh, You get to Lieva from Uzbekistan and bronze to Holly Arnold from Great Britain. Where did they put all of this javelin?
Because javelin is a long competition to begin with.
Alison: It wasn’t as long as you think it was. And some of these were in the morning and some of them were at night. But shot put and javelin were going on opposite sides of the field. Jumps were going in its normal jump pit, and then the races at the same time.
Sometimes they even had multiple, not multiple javelins, but they sort of had two throw areas on one side. So you could, in theory, have three full, three throws going at once. Though I only saw, in my session, there was only one going at any one time.
Jill: Oh, okay. Because with, uh, the night session I was at. No, no, I was in a morning session.
It was shot put and javelin and discus going on at the same time. We didn’t have all four going, but it’s, it gets
Alison: wild. It was wild. It, it felt wilder than the Olympic sessions. And I don’t know why that was. It could have just been that there were more, more events happening, or it could just be that I was trying to focus on a lot of different things.
Jill: There you go. We had a lot of long jump as well. In the women’s T47, which is a low, uh, an arm impairment, uh, gold goes to Chiara Rodriguez from Ecuador with a Paralympic record. And then we have a couple of personal bests from a patron, Petra Luneran from Hungary and Bjork Noramark from Denmark, who won the silver and bronze respectively.
In the long jump, women’s long jump T20 intellectual impairment class, gold goes to Chiara Rodriguez from Ecuador.
Alison: So, for the Women’s Long Jump T20, this is an intellectual impairment class. Gold goes to Karolina Kucharczyk from Poland, uh, Zelady Castellano da Silva from Brazil won silver, and Fatma Dahlem, no, Fatma Damla Altin from Turkey won the bronze.
Jill: And then we had the men’s high jump T 64 class. It’s, uh, absence of one leg below the knee. Gold goes to Kumar Praveen from India. Silver goes to Derek Luxident from the U. S., who got a Paralympic record for the T 64 class. Bronze is tied. We have, uh, one going to Timur, uh, Timburik, Gyazan from Uzbekistan who got a personal best in the T 44 class, and then Maciej Lepiado from Poland won the other bronze.
Alison: This was going on while I was in the mix zone, and, uh, Derek Locksident passed on a couple of heights, and then missed. And then he had to hit this jump and, uh, Justin and Kristen Gowdy from USLPC and Justin’s track and field guy were there and we all stopped what we were doing, watched it, and then we made a little scene in the mix zone because we were so excited about this.
Jill: That’s always fun. Moving over to the track, we have the, uh, Women’s 100 T 64 Class Absence of One Leg Below the Knee. Gold goes to Fleur Young from Netherlands. She’s having a good meet.
Alison: So is Netherlands.
Jill: Yeah, oh my gosh, they sweat the podium. So, uh, the silver went to Kimberly Akamade and bronze to Marlene van Gaalswinkel.
All of them are having good meets. Uh, in the Women’s 1500 T20 class, it’s an Intellectual Impairment gold to Pola’s Barbara Beganowska Zajac from, well, Poland. And silver goes to Lyudmila Danilina from Ukraine, who got a Personal Best.
And bronze goes to Antonia Calis from Brazil.
Alison: Banganowska is a four peat.
Jill: What?
Alison: This is her fourth time. She also has a gold from Sydney in the 800 meters in this class.
Jill: In the men’s 100 meter T51 class, which is a wheelchair class. Uh, gold goes to Cody Forney from Canada, who got a Paralympic record. Silver to Peter Gennen from Belgium, and bronze to Tony Pispanen from Finland.
Alison: His second medal of the Games. Oh, man.
Jill: It’s nice seeing Finland. It’s nice because of Listener Manu, but it’s nice to, to have our listeners have people from their country winning medals.
Because not every country gets to be. China. China. In this game. China. Who just sweeps podiums left
Alison: and right.
Jill: Um, in another wheelchair class for the men’s 100 meters, gold goes to Maxim Karabin from Belgium, silver to Marcus Paranao Dailey from Great Britain, and bronze to Sato Tomoki from Brazil.
Alison: And I want to point out, I got to see these guys come through the mix zone.
Those racing wheelchairs. are wild up close. First of all, they’re very bouncy. You know, we’ve talked about the bounce.
Jill: Yeah, yeah.
Alison: But when they’re just riding around, you know, tooling about, they’re bouncing. To the point where I was a little concerned somebody was going to do a header and like flip backwards.
They really are. They’re very maneuverable and designed for speed and very lightweight. It looks like I got to try one.
Jill: Maybe they’ll have something in the living room tomorrow. Give it a
Alison: go!
Jill: In the men’s 400 meter T62 class, this is the Hunter Woodall class for Americans. He did take home the gold, Hunter Woodall, gold for USA.
Silver goes to Johannes Floers from Germany and bronze to Olivier Hendricks from Netherlands who got a personal best. Very glad that Hunter Woodhall won.
Alison: Big relief. So is Tara. She was there. Very happy. As was the entire Team USA house.
Jill: But this is also his race. Yes. So, glad, good on you, Hunter. And
Alison: he, it was a pretty comfortable win.
Jill: Oh, good. In the men’s 1500 meter T20 class, which is intellectual impairment, Gold went to Ben Sonderland from Great Britain. Silver went to Sandro Baeza from Portugal, who got a personal best. Oh, Ben got a world record, by the way. Just casual. Casual. And bronze went to Michael Brannigan from USA.
Alison: There were runners.
collapsing all over the track at the end of this race. And a lot of 1500 racers do this, but the way these guys did it, they just didn’t get up. They all just collapsed on the track and stayed there for a while. And I wanted to say, yes, I understand that inclination.
Jill: And then we had your favorite.
Alison: Which I did get to watch at the Team USA house.
Jill: Okay. Okay. Four by 100 meter universal relay.
Alison: Gold goes to China, silver to Great Britain, and bronze to the USA. I wanted to point out, on Great Britain, is Johnny Peacock, who was the star of London 2012. I didn’t realize he was still in the mix, and still running, and still getting a medal. He also competed in the T6400 meters,
Jill: finishing 5th!
That’s not, that’s good for as long, I mean that was 12 years ago to, to be on top as, as the sport continues to evolve and get more competitive and more competitive. Wow, that’s impressive. This is also for, uh, Tatiana McFadden from the U. S. who is part of the bronze medal team. And she got her 21st medal overall.
Who now, she is the most decorated American Paralympic track and field athlete of all time. Surpassing Bart Dodson, who competed from 1984 to 2000.
Alison: He just stuck around forever.
Jill: Right?
Let’s move over to para canoe. We had heats today in para canoe. We’ll have, uh medals tomorrow, but the one thing that’s different about Paracanoe, the, uh, Olympics has canoe and kayak, Paracanoe has canoe and kayak and va, which is an outrigger canoe that has a second pontoon as a support float. They use a single blade paddle for it as well, and I’m bummed that I can’t go out to, uh, see this because it is something I wanted to see in person.
In person, but there’s just, there’s just no way.
Alison: Too many, too many events, too many places.
Jill: Right.
Alison: And you could just keep seeing VA.
Jill: Right, and you might be able to see it. We’re gonna, we’re gonna try.
Alison: It’s on the schedule for Sunday.
Jill: Exactly. Um, Paracycling Road class. We had, uh, , several big races today.
out in, uh, Clichy sous Bois. Uh huh.
Alison: Which nobody can get to, except on a bicycle.
Jill: We looked this up and it’s the most isolated suburb of Paris. It’s got no major highways, no transportation going to, public transportation going to it. And it’s, we were just like, Let’s stick
Alison: a Paralympic event out where nobody can get to.
But I have to say, if you watched any of it, The town clearly turned out for this race.
Jill: Yes, it is exciting. They are out and cheering. And they get to go through the woods. It looks very nice. And a second job that I thought I might want is the guy at the start who counts them down and uses his hand to count down.
And he’s got a suit on and it looks really nice.
Alison: Go.
Jill: Anyway, we had the men’s C to four, five, four to five road race today. Gold goes to Yehor Dementyev from Ukraine. Silver to Kevin Lecoumf from France and bronze to Martin van der Poel from Netherlands in the women’s C four to five race. Gold goes to Great Britain’s Dame Sarah Story
Alison: again.
Silver goes
Jill: to France’s Heidi Gauguin. and bronze to Paola Andrea Ossovelloza from Columbia.
Alison: Our Samantha Bosco finished fourth. The gold and silver were a faux to finish. They have the exact same time as, as their official time. And, uh, Ossovelloza and Sammy were in the lead pack. There was four of them that did a first breakaway.
And they had matching times up until, uh, 42. 6 kilometers. She was hanging in there. The other three stayed together. Samantha fell back a little bit. But the bronze was only two tenths back. Wow. This was a tight, tight race.
Jill: In the men’s B road race, it’s a visually impaired class. So we had men’s and women’s B road races for visual impairment classes.
Gold for the men goes to Tristan Bangma from Netherlands with Patrick Boss as his pilot. Silver to Vincent Tercheur from Netherlands with Timo Franssen and bronze to Alexander Ylvares from France with Johan Paio. And for the women, Sophie Unwin from Great Britain wins with Jenny Hall. Silver to Katie George Dunleavy from, uh, Ireland with Kelly, with Linda Kelly and bronze to Laura Faeci, Great Britain, from Great Britain with Corinne Hall.
Alison: I feel like with every bee race, this is the three names we’ve said.
Jill: Yeah, I know. I thought this for a second. I thought, didn’t we already do this?
Alison: The answer is yes. They’ve switched around a few times. But they’ve, I think they’ve all won, I won’t say it, but I’ll say it anyway, I think they’ve all won one of each.
Jill: Excellent. In Par, oh, Paraquestrian. So I did go out.
This was the team event, which is a mix of classes. All five classes go, it was an all day thing. And I got there. For, the end of one class. I saw the end of grade two and then saw all of grade three. , it’s interesting. The whole production. Partially because you have to be quiet. I didn’t know why. And so we had silent clapping, which was waving your hands.
Alison: Like jazz hands? Yes, like
Jill: jazz hands. So there was silent clapping. Silent clapping. This was extremely hard for the French to do when the French Rider came out. There was a slight bit of cheering and some shushing going on from other people in the audience. they do have companion horses for some riders.
Don’t quite know when a horse wants a companion horse. But that’s something that’s going on the list because, um, it’s interesting to see that they need their buddy. And their buddy doesn’t always stand in the same place. Sometimes it will be on one side of the ring, sometimes it will be on the other side.
They’re always outside of the ring and there’s always a handler and a couple other people around. But the companion horse can be there. There’s music going on. It is very soft so you don’t hear it because it’s got to be quiet So the horses don’t get startled and I will say a lot of school children were there and I could hear those School children from outside they were outside the stadium.
I totally heard them I don’t know how those horses did not get spooked by those kids
Alison: Because school kids are scary
Jill: The Uh, music was very soft and In the past, the National Paralympic Committee has picked the music for their team,
But Paris 2024 has put all the music together. Which, when I got there, sounded vaguely Okay, so when I get there, and I’ve been to Versailles before, so I get to Versailles and I go in the same way I went before, because I was getting instructions to the back, where the media entrance is, but But let me be quite honest, I was very afraid of going to the back or trying to navigate because it wasn’t a TC bus or it wasn’t anything else.
It was, I should have gone to a different train station and taken some sort of tram or local bus that would have driven all through the town and then dropped me off at the back gate. Hopefully. And then on the way out, again, my mobile data has crapped out on me. So, yeah. So I had to go back into the media center to get I had to get the Wi Fi so that I could get directions And, uh, the transport app was telling me No, no, just go right out this back door and take some random thing And you’ll supposedly get to where you want to go Which, I was like afraid of because the sun was starting to go down and I went, I can’t be wandering around the back end of Versailles at night.
Alison: Do you think the ghost of Louis the 14th is coming for you? Probably.
Jill: And so I went with everybody else, found a different train, found everything I needed. Maybe it was a little longer.
Alison: I don’t know, but it was safe. You made it back to me in one piece. So I am grateful.
Jill: And I did get to trade pins with one of the Dutch team members.
Uh, support staff, I think, and I got the wooden shoes.
Alison: You did. We did well with pins today.
Jill: We did do well with pins today. Um, so, when you go into Versailles with the regular people, we do have a separate line to go in, but they don’t x ray our bags. Really? No, they just look through them a little bit, and they’re just like, Get it off.
Don’t have anything metal because you got to go through. They’re more concerned about that metal detector. And so you go in and I knew where, what stand the media tribune was, but I did see a media tribune sign. I went, sign. Awesome. Go in and you couldn’t go in until the horse was done. That makes perfect sense.
And everyone was being, all the volunteers were being very, very quiet and I was handing them pins and they were like,
Alison: Harrison.
Jill: You know, very, very quiet. And, uh, then they directed me to the Media Tribune. And it was the Accessible Media Tribune because it was a table right in front. And I was looking back up at the Media Tribune going, I’m supposed to be up there.
And I sat there and nobody is sitting there and we’re almost done with the day. We have like another hour to go. And I thought, and I thought, I don’t really feel comfortable spreading my stuff out here. Even though I’m close, I also kind of wanted the higher up perspective, so I did haul myself up to the main press center, main press tribune, which of course not many people were sitting at at this point, but um, the music they were playing, very soft, and when I first heard it, it sounded vaguely Paris 2024 theme song, but then it shifted.
And I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on because I did hear Copacabana. I did hear, I think it was that Shania Twain song, you know, Let’s Go Girls? I think there was a little, but it was all like instrumental, schlocky versions of it. And then I think I got something that was hooked on classics.
And there was an O Sole Mio in there somewhere. There’s always
Alison: an O Sole Mio. Was there a Malaguena?
Jill: I don’t know. I don’t You say that like I know what it is. I just block that out because it’s used all the time. And there was that Funiculi Funicula song. That was in there too. It was just the It was, I didn’t understand.
I didn’t understand why they chose it. And stuff didn’t end right. You know, it didn’t, it didn’t, it wasn’t matched up with what they were doing. I will say one really cool thing was that they have live scoring that you can see. So there’s little, um, score, I don’t want to say scoreboards, but probably digital signage on the ground.
And I believe it was on all sides of the venue and it would say what the move was and how they scored. It was a little bit behind what they were actually doing and that took me a few writers to figure out. I’m like, oh, I gotta figure out what they just did and how that scored because I don’t know all of the steps and what they all look like and all all the things.
I will say it was pretty cool to watch, but I needed to be more educated myself. I did notice, uh, um, I saw Rebecca Hart, who was with the U. S. I could tell that she was the best out there. And Team USA did win gold out of all that. Silver went to Netherlands. Bronze went to Germany. Uh, Great Britain placed further down, but I wanted to mention that Natasha Baker, who’s on Great Britain, four time Paralympian, riding Don Corris here, she had a son last year.
And overall, she has nine Paralympic medals. She’s a force to be reckoned with.
Alison: And she’s got a horse.
Jill: Right. And then, uh, Rebecca Hart has a new horse this year. Yes, and this is her fifth straight Paralympics.
Alison: This is the first time the United States has won gold in team para dressage.
Jill: They are very excited about that.
Alison: Yeah, and, and Rebecca Hartwinkle, this has been an extremely successful Paralympics for, for Paratressage USA.
Jill: Very nice. The medal ceremony was very involved. It’s probably the most beautiful podium set, because they trucked in greenery along with that. So, the, the podium got set up in the ring, but, uh, They had pick up trucks hauling in.
Oh, you’re serious?
Alison: When you say trucked in, you actually mean trucks. Yes,
Jill: they brought pick up trucks with trailers on the back that had the pieces of the podium and volunteers put all that together. And the beds of the trucks were full of ferns and topiary that they dressed the whole podium area with.
It looked beautiful.
Alison: I think that’s amazing. It’s the equestrian. Yes. Like that’s the tradition in equestrian. Yes. So of course you’re going to have it at the Paralympics.
Jill: So they have, I mean the area is, there’s uh, some groomed like grass and flowers. It’s very, very lovely to look at. It’s not just a dirt track.
They really put effort in doing it. The judges sit in little gazebos. It’s really, it’s nice.
Alison: And then the volunteers hide in the bushes.
Jill: That’s right, that’s right. Some of the medalists had really blinged out hats during the ceremony.
Alison: During the ceremony? Not during competition. Yes. Not during
Jill: competition.
’cause I was, I, I noticed it and I went, wait a second. I didn’t see any of this in competition, I don’t think, but I don’t know what the story was behind him. Just like, well, you brought out bling or did you add it? Did you, do you have a special helmet? That’s your metal, your metal helmet? I don’t know, but it was, maybe it’s part of their kit.
It was fun moving over to para judo. Uh, we had, uh, men’s up to 73 kilogram class in the J1, which is a higher degree of impairment to J2. The gold went to, uh, Florin Alexandru Bologa from Romania, silver to Yirgali Shami from Kazakhstan, bronzes went to Lennart Saas from Germany, and, uh, Gibrillo Ivava from Portugal.
In the J2 version of this, gold went to Seta Yujiro from Japan, silver to Gyorgy Galdany from Georgia, bronzes to Uchkun Kuranbenef from Uzbekistan, and Osvaldas Barikas from Lithuania. Uh, for the women in the, uh, Up to 57 kilogram. J two Gold goes to Junco from Japan, silver to Kamoan. Uh, Eva from Uzbekistan, bronzes to Diana Fva from Kazakhstan and Marta Aha Pano from Spain in the up to seven KI 70 kilograms.
J one for the women Gold to China’s Leo Lee Silver to Brenda Sousa Nephritis from Brazil. Bronzes to Teora PDO from Greece and Nicolina Heim Goodrich from Sweden and in the women’s J two class for the same weight. Gold goes to Alana Martinez Maldonado from Brazil. Uh, Juan Hu from China when silver and us to O Ogawa kazoo.
Kazusa from Japan and, uh, Kaldani Ina from Georgia. Can you do powerlifting, please? Yeah,
Alison: absolutely. So, para powerlifting started today. We have men’s up to 72 kilograms, uh, gold to Bonnie Banyan Guston from Malaysia with a world record, silver to Hu Peng from China, and bronze to Donato Telesca from Italy.
in the women’s up to 61 kilograms, uh, Onyinyeki Mark from Nigeria, with a world record, won gold. Kujiang Jin from China won silver. And Amalia Perez Vazquez from Mexico won bronze. In the women’s, up to 67 kilograms.
Uh, the gold goes to Tianyu Jiao from China with a world record, silver to Elian Fatima from Egypt, and bronze to Maria da Fatima Costa da Castro from Brazil. And, finally, in the men’s up to 80 kilograms, Ruhala Rastami from Iran, with another world record, won gold, Gu Xiaofei from China won silver, and Rasul Moshin from Iraq won bronze.
Jill: I always expect world records to go down in powerlifting because these people are so
Alison: strong. Every single one of these golds is a world record.
Jill: Moving over to para swimming. After Equestrian, I thought, it’s only like six. I have time to go to something. What shall I go to? And I realized that swimming isn’t that far.
It’s still like an hour plus to get there. But were you able But it’s in the same side of the city. Were
Alison: you able to just shoot on the RER?
Jill: Uh, yeah, I actually took a different RER that went north to, uh, La Defense. It still took a long time, but I got there, and I thought, well, I’ll have an hour. That’ll be great.
Well, I had an hour to watch like two and a half races and a lot of medal ceremonies That was my hour of paraswimming and I’m going in and people are streaming out and like why are you leaving already? There’s still stuff to do and then I realized that no, it’s all medal ceremonies and your person is done But it was still a fun night.
People are still Cheering like crazy for all of the swimmers. We had a Um Uh, several men’s 50 freestyle, uh, and women’s 50 freestyle races for the men’s, uh, S3 class, which is legs and trunk. Gold goes to Umut Unlu from Turkey, silver to Denis Astapchenko from Ukraine, and bronze to Yosha Tim Alexander Topf from Germany.
in the S4 class, which is moderate, uh, level of, uh, coordination, affection. Gold goes to, uh, Sebastian Masabi from Canada with a new world record. Silver to, uh, Suzuki Takayuki from Japan, and
bronze to Ami Omar Dadaon from Israel.
Alison: So, the Women’s 50 Freestyle S4 is the race that I saw with my new friends from the U. S. Swim Team at the, at Team USA House. so gold went to the United States, Leanne Smith, with a world record, just to make the buzzer go even louder. silver to Tanya Schultz from Germany. and bronze to Rachel Watson from Australia.
Jill: We still had, it was a lot of freestyle tonight here in the men’s 100 meter S8 class. Gold went to Callum Simpson from Australia, silver to Noah Jaffe from USA, bronze to Alberto Amodeo from Italy. You know, uh, Noah just lost this race. I saw this on the feed. Yeah. And He was doing fine on the medal stand and then he went to see his family and then he lost it.
I mean, they were so thrilled for him and happy and proud. But you could tell that’s when he just was like, I lost the gold. So that was a little rough. No, it’s okay. Silver is a beautiful medal.
Alison: And you beat everybody else.
Jill: That’s right.
Alison: I mean, it’s hardly, I said this today to Liana, like, you can’t shake a stick at that silver medal.
Right.
Jill: S6 class, which is a one side impairment. Uh, gold goes for men’s 400 meter freestyle. We also have the women in this class. To Gold goes to Tson, Enrique Glock from Brazil, silver to Antonio Fontin from Tel Italy and Bronze to Jesus. Alberto Gutierrez, Bermuda from Mexico. For the women gold goes to China’s j Yian, silver to Nor Meister From Switzerland and bronze to Maisie Summers Newton from Great Britain. In the S5 class, we have a couple of 50 meter butterfly races. China sweeps the podium for the men. Guo Jingchen won Wei Yi and won Li Chao, gold, silver, and bronze. Women almost do a sweep. Gold and silver go to China. That’s for Lu Dong, who set a world record, and He Xin Gao, uh, and then bronze went to Silvie Ozturk from Turkey.
We have next in the butterfly, uh, S11 class, which is visual impairment. Gold goes to Kimura Keiichi from Japan with a Paralympic record. Silver to Danilo Chufalrov from Ukraine and bronze to Japan’s Tomita Uchu. In the S9, 100 meter butterfly men. Gold to Simone Barlam from Italy, silver to Timothy Hodge from Australia, and bronze to Lewis Bishop from Australia.
In the women’s 100m butterfly S9, gold goes to Kristi Raleigh Crossley from USA with a Paralympic record, silver to Sofia Conkely from Hungary, and bronze to Emily Beecroft from Australia. S10, which is, uh, highest level of mobility and coordination in the swimmers, uh, men’s and women’s hundred meter back for the men.
Gold goes to Olivier van der Voort from Netherlands. Silver to Stefano Raimondi from Italy. We’ve heard that name before. And bronze to Thomas Gallagher from Australia. For the women, Bianca Popp from Hungary going gold, Alexander Truitt from USA is silver Pierre from France wins bronze, so we should see her on Keljou soon.
Alison: Probably tomorrow night.
Jill: You know, I, I, my love of Keljou will not stop. And Keljou, we, we actually realized, I actually put two and two together today, because my brain has not been good, and realized it’s a live studio audience. There might be tickets available. And there are, but they’re all gone. for the rest of the games.
Alison: I’m sure they got scooped up very quickly because Kelju is fantastic. And the audience is also quite small.
Jill: It is a small audience because it looks like they’re filming in the Grand Palais, which I will be at tomorrow for fencing. And I’m gonna have to start poking around and going,
Alison: Kelju, where are you?
Jill: Love Kelju.
And finally, for the swimming, we end on in the S14 class, which is intellectual impairments. 100 meter backstroke for both men and women. Gold for the men goes to Benjamin Hance from Australia, silver to Gabrielle Bandera from Brazil, and bronze to Great Britain’s Mark Thompson. For the women, Poppy Maskell from Great Britain wins gold, silver to Valeria Shabalina from neutral Paralympic athletes, and bronze to Olivia Newman Baronius from Great Britain.
We have table tennis,
Alison: and we’ve got lots of Classes finishing up, which is fantastic. So men’s singles class one, Yungay Fernandez from Cuba won gold. Robert Davies from Great Britain won silver. This is another two bronze sport. Federico Falco from Italy and Andrei Major from Hungary. In the Men’s Singles Class 6, Matteo Parenzan from Italy won gold, Rongjan Thanayiam from Thailand won silver, and Peter Rossenmayer from Denmark and Ian Seinfeld from the United States won bronze.
Peter Rossenmayer was the Dane that I saw play. Oh,
Jill: cool.
Alison: And the Danes went absolutely nuts. So I’m glad he ended up with a medal because, again,
Jill: Streamers everywhere.
Alison: Streamers everywhere. And honestly, those Danish mans might have rioted.
Jill: There’s no pair of table tennis riot like a Danish table tennis riot.
Alison: They take the tables and bash them over people’s heads and take them. I mean, there are paddles. There are paddles. In the Men’s Singles Class 6, uh, Yan Shuo from China won gold, William Bailey from Great Britain won silver, and Jean Paul Montanus from the Netherlands, and Charlem Pong Phu from Thailand won bronze.
Couple of Women’s Singles Classes 1 and 2, Giada Rossi from Italy won gold, uh, Lu Jiang from China won silver, Dorada Bakla and C Sue y from, uh, Poland and Korea, uh, win bronze. And finally in women’s singles, class three Andela Mos Chin from Croatia. One gold, uh, y from Korea, one silver and bronzes to Ragga, excuse me, Carlotta Ragni from Italy and Chuan from China.
Jill: Sitting Volleyball is going to end.
Alison: The men’s tournament ended tonight, and they did have this on for a little while.
Jill: Okay.
Alison: And so I got to see some of it, and man, was that gold medal match getting a little chippy.
Jill: Was it really?
Alison: There was a lot of call questioning. And very, um, animated?
Jill: Well, looking at the teams, we have Bosnia Herzegovina and Iran.
I’m sure they are very, very animated teams, both of them.
Alison: So in the bronze medal match first, uh, Germany lost to Egypt three to two.
Jill: Wow. That went all the way. We haven’t
Alison: seen 3
Jill: 0, But not 3 2, wow.
Alison: So, and then in the gold medal match, Iran defended its gold medal beating Bosnia Herzegovina 3 1. So we have Iran with the gold, Bosnia Herzegovina with the silver, and Egypt with the bronze.
Jill: In wheelchair basketball, we had some men’s classification games.
In the 7th and 8th place game, Spain beat France 72 to 57. In the 5 and 6 game, Australia beat Netherlands 82 to 75. Then we had women’s semi finals. USA eeked out a win over China, 50 to 47. This one was a tough, tough game for US. They were down at halftime, and they had a strong 3rd quarter. And that was it that turned the tide.
They will face, uh, Netherlands, so it’s going to be a repeat of Tokyo. Netherlands beat Canada, 72 to 61. Wheelchair fencing, it was Epe Day today. In the Women’s Epe Category A, gold goes to Chen Huan Dong from China. Gold goes to Chen Huan, yeah, forget that, well, it’s an edit anyway. In the Women’s Epe Category A, gold goes to Chen Huan Dong from China.
Silver to Kwon Hyo Kyung from Korea and bronze to Gu Haiyan from China. in Category B, which is our Ellen Geddes category. Gold went to Sai Suni Janna from Thailand, who won in foil.
Alison: This is, I think,
Jill: number
Alison: three.
Jill: Yeah, because a lot of it’s, it’s interesting because in wheelchair fencing, a lot of athletes do multiple weapons and you don’t really see that.
There’s no multiple fencing in Olympics. Yeah. So I’m, I’m curious to know how long that goes on, but I’m sure Because it’s a small sport, it’s easy to, to switch over. Um, silver in this went to Kang Su from China, and bronze went to Olena Fedota Isayeva from Ukraine. Ellen placed 10th.
Alison: In the men’s at bay category A, gold to Sung Yang from China, silver to Piers Gulliver from Great Britain, and bronze to Hakan Akayaya.
Wait. Akkoye from Turkey, and for Category B for the men, Demeter Kotya from Great Britain won gold, Visit Kingman Ngo from Thailand won silver, and Michael Dabrowski from Poland won bronze.
Jill: And, uh, wheelchair tennis, I believe, finished today?
Alison: Uh, no, I think it’s actually No, no, it’s The men are not done. Oh, okay,
Jill: yeah, the men are not done.
Alison: But we had the women’s singles today. Bit of an upset, again. Uh, Kamaji Yu from Japan beat Didi De Groot from the Netherlands, uh, 4. So that went the distance. And then in the bronze medal, tell me the name, because I apparently have pronounced this wrong. Anique. Anik van Koot from the Netherlands won bronze.
And then in the men’s doubles, Great Britain team of Alfie Hewitt and Gordon Reid won gold. The Japanese team of Miki Takuya, thank you, and Odo Takedo won silver. And Spain won the bronze. That’s Daniel Karasaski and Martin Delacuenta.
Jill: And that does it for today. Except for giving our mascot Waldo a shout out.
Alison: Absolutely. So Waldo is an indoor cat, but back in 2020, he headed out for an adventure and was gone for 89 days. So needless to say, listener Cindy did everything possible to bring Waldo home, but she was reunited with the help of a very kind family who found a very friendly cat in the playground. And apparently the woman remembered seeing all the signs and dug through her emails and, and Facebook to find Cindy.
So they were reunited. Cindy made a point of saying that Waldo’s never ventured out again. So apparently the the adventure was not what Waldo expected.
Jill: Poor guy.
Alison: And we thank Cindy and Waldo very much for sharing, uh, uh, sharing with Silk for Sedan.
Jill: How’s our medal count doing? We got
Alison: no new medals today because we counted Ian’s in yesterday even though they were awarded today.
Uh, so we’re still at 9 gold, 5 silver, 3 bronze. We are tied for 22nd with Switzerland.
Jill: That is good to me. But we still have more chances tomorrow.
Alison: Dennis Connors cycles in the men’s T1 2 road race.
Jill: Louise Sugden competes in the women’s up to 79 class, kilogram class of para powerlifting.
Alison: We got last races in the pool, Mackenzie Cohen in the women’s S750 meter butterfly and Jessica Long in the women’s S800 meter butterfly.
Jill: Ellen Geddes faces, fences in the Women’s Epi Team event.
Alison: Laura Webster, Kaleo Kanaheli McClay, and the rest of Team USA’s women’s sitting volleyball play China for gold.
Jill: And Brian Bell and Team USA men’s wheelchair basketball play Britain, great, play Great Britain for gold. And that’s going to do it for this episode.
Thank you to our researcher, Elizabeth Emery.
Alison: And if you want to get in touch with us, you can find us on X YouTube and Instagram at flamealivepod. Send us an email at flamealivepod at gmail. com. Call or text us at 208 352 6348. That’s 208 flame it. Chat with us and other fans on our Facebook group. Keep the flame alive podcast.
And to get our daily Special Games Time newsletter, sign up at our website flamealivepod. com.
Jill: Join us again tomorrow for more action from Paris and please hang out with us in our Facebook group because that is hoppin We do have tape after this. There is Olivia Chambers, Liana Mutia, and Justin Fong Savant.
So look forward to all of that coming to you and look forward to us tomorrow. So please join us then and in the meantime, keep the flame alive.
very much.
Alison: I told you I was coming. I’m so happy you’re here. Not the day you wanted. No. You look super frustrated. Were you frustrated with What were you frustrated with and if that’s what I was seeing?
Justin Phongsavanh: Um, expectation is always high. You go into any competition and you’re wanting to win. I went into this competition, rig number one, the world, where my season’s best was equivalent to and higher than everyone else’s PR in the field.
Um, I think, you know, it’s one of those things where, you know, you can do great things, you know, you can do it. It’s just putting it together on a given day. And, um, today I wasn’t able to make the changes that were needed to, uh, get on the podium. But, you know, it’s a, it’s a lesson learned moving forward.
You know, it’s just, uh, it’s a hard lesson to learn, especially in front of 50, 000 people.
Alison: Yeah, and talking to me is probably like the last thing you want to do right now. No, no, you’re
Justin Phongsavanh: great. You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine.
Alison: Did going first throw you off?
Justin Phongsavanh: No. Okay. I, uh, if anything, it was one of those situations where if I can go out and set a tone right away I will strike fear of God into every single person and that’s exactly the mentality I had going in.
If I was last, like I was in Tokyo, now I’m playing catch up. Now that’s, that’s when the real pressure comes in. That’s when you know what you have to throw and you have to ride to the occasion. Um, just like in Tokyo it was crazy because I was Talking about this, what won gold in Tokyo, um, was a meter further than what won gold here.
But luckily we had more people here. The average was higher. Competition is getting greater, so hopefully come L. A. we have more people and we get bigger throws. How
Alison: are you doing, just, in your soul right now? It’s shattered. It’s absolutely
Justin Phongsavanh: shattered. I mean, we just finished the season with the fourth place in the world and the fourth place in the games, but still ranked number one somehow.
So it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, It’s, it’s, when it comes down, it’s just, you need consistency and I needed consistency in this. But, you know, we’ve had a lot of wrenches thrown in the plans this year, a lot of things that have happened that were out of my control, you know, between injuries and accidents and whatnot.
It was, uh, not an ideal situation. We were able to turn around and run a trials and unfortunately we weren’t able to piece it back together in time, which, you know, I can only control what I can control and this time I wasn’t able to control everything. Wow. Thank you, Jeff.
Alison: So Leanna Motia, silver medalist. Congratulations. That’s very exciting. As I mentioned, Jill couldn’t come today, but she had questions she wanted to ask you. Um, she noticed on the podium. You were very, very serious, but then after the podium, it was a very different story. So what was, what was that happening?
Liana Mutia: Oh, I couldn’t tell if they wanted me like smiling or frowning or whatever, so I was, I just kind of held my face until, um, not literally, although that would have been a little bit funny, until I felt that it was natural to just act the way I normally act. So that was nice.
Alison: Are you very good friends with the gold medalist?
Because that is what seemed to be the case, your relationship with the gold medalist.
Liana Mutia: Oh, I just, I don’t really have any enemies or any like, animosity towards any of my opponents because, uh, it’s just. a job, and I think that would be a little strange if there were any sort of rivalry.
Alison: How do you feel? I mean, obviously the result was great, but how do you feel like the competition went for you?
Liana Mutia: Um, decent. I wish I could have gotten a gold. I’ll be there to, I guess, try for one in LA. Or I guess to get one in LA, that’s a better way of putting it. So yeah, I guess that really sums it up.
Alison: Disappointed. Has anything surprised you about this time versus last time?
Liana Mutia: I didn’t think I would get that emotional after every single match.
I thought that I’d really gone through every emotion before and after fighting, but I guess I hadn’t. So that was nice.
Alison: That first match was One of those blink and you missed it kind of matches and when you have a match like that Are you able? Is it almost anticlimactic and then to try and get your head ready for the next match?
Liana Mutia: Um, not particularly. Uh, with any of my, with any and all of my matches, I like to simply finish them as quickly as possible. Simply because I am not that athletic and I’m really not that strong, despite, uh, somehow winning a gold, not gold medal, sorry, despite somehow winning a silver medal.
Alison: What are you going to do in the next couple days?
Liana Mutia: I would like to take as many naps as possible. I won’t even lie to you. I am running in four hours of sleep. I had to go be back on call to work today and I was actually just done with a meeting by the time I started, by the time I was transported here physically.
Alison: When you say go back to work and on call, what do you mean?
Liana Mutia: I brought work with me. Yeah, I have,
I could have like Not done that, but I don’t know. I, I really like, I really like what I do. But also I think it would have been a very bad idea to leave things as they were. Despite the fact that I am here, well, I was here competing because I’m done competing now. I still have like a normal life to take care of.
And I don’t exactly want to let that rot while I go and do my extracurricular activities.
Alison: You mentioned being a little sore.
Liana Mutia: I am a
Alison: little sore. So what was that from?
Liana Mutia: My second match, I bruised my ribs. I think I have a torn labrum in my left hip. I’ve blown out my left shoulder. I’ve broken all my fingers before, so sometimes they get like a little sore just from like gripping because they get um, dislocated quite easily.
Uh, that’s, that’s not me though, honestly. Who knows? Whatever. Um, I’m also old. I’m 25. So I have to go watch my body a little bit more than when I was younger.
Alison: So, Emotion’s 24 hours out, and then we’re gonna talk a month from now. So, where, where’s your head today?
Liana Mutia: Um, I was more content yesterday thinking like, Oh, you know, I got a silver medal, that’s like, that’s fine, I’m pretty okay.
You know, 66 percent success rate. But now that I look back at it, I’m Disappointed. I think I could have done more. I think I could have done more prep. Um, I’m not, I’m definitely not like a physical player, but I am the smartest player. There must have been some other way I could have like Oh my god. I could have gotten around that Chinese, uh, the Chinese player.
But she is very strong. A silver medal is nothing
Alison: to shake a stick at.
Liana Mutia: I’ll shake a stick at it. I’ll shake a stick at a silver medal anytime.
Alison: That is why you are here and I’m not. Because that’s the attitude. Is
Liana Mutia: it? I don’t even know. I think I’m just a little bit stubborn. And I also have gold jewelry and I like to like match.
So the silver medal in my pocket right now does not match my gold jewelry.
Alison: Can I see it?
Liana Mutia: Oh yes
Alison: you can. Because I do want to take a picture.
Liana Mutia: It is so heavy. Do you it?
Alison: Do you mind? I don’t mind at all. Jill is going to be so jealous because Jill said the silver is the most beautiful of all. The way that the silver and the iron combine.
Okay, I’m going to take a quick picture and I’m going to say thank you.
Okay. Olivia Chambers, multi Paralympic medalist. The results are great, but how do you feel like you swam? Are you happy with how you performed?
Olivia Chambers: Yeah, I’m really happy with how I performed. Um. You know, getting best times and, honestly, I’ll accept for one of my events is really incredible and, you know, you can’t be mad about that.
So, yeah, I’m really happy with how I performed. I didn’t go into it with many expectations. I just wanted to have fun and that went well.
Alison: How were the expectations versus the reality, in terms of what it was like being here? Um, I, like, in the village and stuff? Just with the competition, in the village, anything that seemed very different than what you anticipated?
Yeah,
Olivia Chambers: um, I did not expect that many people to be in the stands. It’s super cool to have that many people come and support paraswimming, but definitely the first time I walked out, I was like, Whoa, there’s a big crowd out there. So that was definitely something that I had to adjust to. What kind of adjustments
Alison: do you need to make in that sort of, in that situation?
Olivia Chambers: Um, just knowing that it’s going to be loud and that it’s going to be an experience. atmosphere and to just, you know, take it all in.
Alison: What was, so far, what’s been your favorite moments of the competition as opposed to the village?
Olivia Chambers: Um, my favorite moments? Besides winning. Um, just, you know, getting to, uh, like, watch all my other teammates compete in the pool and to just really, you know, take in all ten days of competition because there’s a lot that happens and just to, Celebrate with others and, you know, celebrate your own wins.
It’s exciting.
Alison: I’m going to ask you this question probably two months from now. Okay. You’re going to try and chat again. But, where is your head at now in terms of what happens next? What happens in the immediate future? What is, what does it look like for Olivia?
Olivia Chambers: Yeah, um, I’m going back home and starting my senior year of college.
So, um, definitely looking forward to that and getting to You know, do all the, uh, fun things with my teammates there, and so I do have the college season coming up. I’ll take like a couple weeks off, but you know, get right back into, um, college season and short course training. I kind of switch up the events a little, so that’s exciting and, um, just to have a lot of fun there as my last year.
Okay, that was everything. Great, thank you so much.