It’s one day to go until the Paris 2024 Paralympics! We are back in Paris, which means we have more (mis)adventures to share with you. We’re in a new hotel, we have a new Main Press Center, and we’ve been to some interesting events. Alison saw a sneak preview of the Opening Ceremonies and has a full report. Meanwhile, Jill checked off another Olympic swimming pool with a visit to the Georges Vallerey Piscine, swimming venue for the Paris 1924 Olympics.
Interior of the pool with the roof retracted.
Approved to have the Olympic Rings on it!
What’s a Games without anyone to cheer for? We have a whole roster of Team Keep the Flame Alive members (past guests of the show), who compete for TKFLASTAN (our own country). We’ll tell you who’s on the roster and what sport/event they’re competing in. Want to listen to their episodes? Here’s a list:
Alison Levine – Boccia
Calahan Young – Goalball
Matt Stutzman – Para Archery
Jaydin Blackwell, Noelle Malkamaki, Justin Phongsavanh and Daniel Romanchuk – Para Athletics
Samantha Bosco and Dennis Connor – Para Cycling
Liana Mutia – Para Judo
Bobby Body and Louise Sugden – Para Powerlifting
Olivia Chambers, McKenzie Coan, Jessica Long and Jamal Hill – Para Swimming
Ian Seidenfeld and Melissa Tapper – Para Table Tennis
Evan Medell – Para Taekwondo
Grace Norman – Para Triathlon
Marco de la Rosa and McKenna Geer – Shooting Para Sport
Kaleo Kanahele Maclay and Lora Webster – Sitting Volleyball
Brian Bell – Wheelchair Basketball
Ellen Geddes – Wheelchair Fencing
Chuck Aoki – Wheelchair Rugby
David Wagner – Wheelchair Tennis
Be sure to look out for them and cheer them on!
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo: Jill Jaracz
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
Paris 2024 Paralympics Day -1
Jill: Hello and welcome to Day minus one of the Paris’s 2024 Paralympics and keep the flame alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. I am your host, Jill Jaracz, coming to you from the main Paris Center for the Paris 2024 Paralympics, and joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown.
Alison Bonger.
Alison: Bonzo, how are you? I am okay. We are back. In the saddle, so to speak. It’s a very small saddle. I don’t know why making a press center is so hard for Paris 2024.
Jill: I don’t know either. We had explained for the Olympics, we were in the PAL to Congress, which is kind of a convention center. It’s a convention center with a mall in the bottom part.
And then, uh, there might be some offices in there too, and there’s a Hyatt attached to the back. So that’s kind of that kind of big building set up. They have moved the US for the Paralympics. Originally we were, we were supposed to be in the swimming venue.
Alison: Oh, that’s right. I had forgotten that.
Jill: And then they decided to totally change it and put us in the Paris 2024 headquarters office.
What they neglected to tell us was that there’s no room in the Paris 2024 headquarters, apparently, that is big enough to host any kind of number of Prats.
Alison: So we are basically in a converted,
Jill: Cafe. Cafe.
Alison: Right. That’s maybe appropriate for 30 people to work in at best.
Jill: Right. So it’s like 15 feet wide, maybe, maybe 15, 18 feet wide and uh, maybe 50 feet long.
Alison: And the tables we have, you can’t work back and forth. To front like you can’t work to across because you can’t have the computers, but we are Because there’s so many people in here today. You’re gonna hear a lot of strange voices No vacuuming though
Jill: No, you couldn’t even fit a vacuum in and they have a coffee and water for us But when I went out to get water, the water crafts are empty Luckily, there’s a bottle or bottle filler in the little cafeteria that they have.
With
Alison: gassy water! Yeah, they
Jill: do have gassy water which is exciting because nobody’s filling up these carafts again, we know this. Um, But this is probably our only day here at the press center. And the main reason is because it’s so far away from everything. The Paris 2024 headquarters were put in Saint Denis as part of the idea that they were going to renovate.
this area, revitalize this area, and it’s kind of near, kind of near the Stade de France.
Alison: Near kind of like Connecticut is near New York.
Jill: It doesn’t take 40 minutes to walk to Connecticut.
Alison: Well, you know what? It takes 40 minutes for me to get to New York from where I live in Connecticut, and that’s kind of the equivalent.
Jill: Okay. Um, but it’s, it’s pretty far north of everything else and our hotel has been moved so we are no longer on the north side of the city. We are closer to the Seine, uh, closer to Notre Dame, basically. We’ll get to
Alison: that.
Jill: Yeah, I know, exactly. So, it’s very cool. It’s nice to see the headquarters. I will say that when we got in, we didn’t know where the press center was.
And honestly, I didn’t realize it was this little teeny tiny room. And we’re like, where’s the press center? We found somebody from, they had a Team USA shirt. I just went, hey, Team USA.
Alison: You just tackled her, poor thing.
Jill: Where do we have to go? And she brought us up to the first floor, which is where the Team offices are and if you’re a publication that rented office space, you’re up there and the IPC has stuff and there’s games observer stuff up there.
And the main press room is up there for press conferences. It’s also small, but it was pretty full. It was basically full for us. Cause we went to a Andrew Parsons, Tony Estanguet press meeting today. Just, they don’t have a ton of press conferences with the IPC. So that’s a little bit different from the Olympics.
So they didn’t really need a ton of space, but it was pretty tight in there. It’s pretty tight in here. I don’t know if they expect most of the journalists just to be at sports all the time.
Alison: Well, for most days at the main press center, even during the Olympics, there weren’t a ton of people there.
Jill: Right.
And there are some who just stay in the press center all the time, but I don’t know how much that is for the Paralympics. And there are definitely fewer press here, but there are more press than before for the Paralympics. So it’ll be interesting to see how the facilities shake out as how the numbers shake out.
And it’s very different from Beijing because they just had one big press center. building and they kept it for Beijing. And so it was just very, very empty. Close the doors. Very, very empty. Um, we have a new hotel, as we mentioned. Oh, let’s begin the baguette.
Alison: So we’re in a new palace. Oh my
Jill: goodness. With the White Knights who will attend to us 24 7.
Alison: You no longer need to worry about our safety. You no longer need to worry about our comfort.
Jill: Or, or, uh, access to food.
Alison: The hotel is so lovely. I, I, I almost cried when I walked in that room. Yes. It’s very small, which we expected. It’s French, uh, hotel, European hotels in general are going to be small, but oh my goodness.
There’s so lovely there and breakfast is lovely and everything about it is just Lovely.
Jill: Yes, it’s very nice. As you mentioned, we have a tiny room with a one bed that we’re sharing, but instead of having to like shuffle around everything, we can actually walk. Uh, there is no, we have a little desk that works, we have a refrigerator, we have air conditioning, we have shelves in a real closet area, a refrigerator, everything that goes in the bathroom is in one room.
It’s amazing. There are shelves.
Alison: You are so excited about those shelves and hooks on the wall, right?
Jill: The only weird thing is that, um, we don’t have a toilet paper roll holder.
Alison: I noticed that. Have you dropped the toilet paper across the room yet? Not yet. Oh, I have.
Jill: So that’s the only thing that’s missing here.
We have, it’s just, it’s very nice. It’s very comfortable. The breakfast is fantastic. It’s a little buffet with the continental breakfast buffet, but instead of like, as you like. Oh, stop. It is
Alison: not a continental breakfast buffet because these people are desperate to make us omelets. That
Jill: was coming, that was coming.
But the, the main buffet, it’s a continental breakfast buffet. Before we had, uh, in the old hotel, prison food, we had like a gigantic metal bowl, mixing bowl full of yogurt, a smaller but equally large bowl of apples that went on, they may have been jarred. They may have been canned that went on top of your yogurt if you so desired.
There was, uh, uh, a plate, a tray, a baskets of croissants that weren’t very good. Uh, uh, one. tray of sad looking ham and sad looking slices of cheese. Which was usually
Alison: not actually there.
Jill: Yeah, because it was always gone. There was some cereal, there was some milk, and there were like slices of bread, and then a Nutella dispenser that, that you used an edible cup for.
Alison: And I think what you also need to point out is that most of this was quite inedible.
Jill: Yeah, it wasn’t very good. And, and sad fruit. That was the other thing. Which
Alison: often was not actually there.
Jill: Yes, because it was a very crowded, because it was a cheap hotel. So it was very crowded and with a lot of kids. So that, that was kind of the elements that we had to work with.
So now we have, um, two kinds of roles every morning. Multiple. Plus, plus, plus, plus. Croissants and pain au chocolat and today we had there was a little like like a strudel with no no filling or no topping so it was like a very flaky bread with apple filling. That was very lovely. There’s two kinds of yogurt in individual glass bottles and uh, uh, They had a little fruit dessert thing.
Was it like applesauce? Yes. Okay. And then a plate of, it’s a small plate, but it’s a plate of various types of meats.
Alison: That is refilled.
Jill: Yeah, that’s refilled as needed. There’s butter. There’s very nice jam. There’s honey. There’s Nutella. There’s a plate of cheese and butter where, uh, it’s, and then they come and ask you, Oh, do you want tea or coffee?
Would you like us to make you eggs or an omelette? Oh, sometimes there were hard boiled eggs.
Alison: Yes.
Jill: Would you like us to make you a fresh omelette? Do you want cheese or ham in your omelette? The answer
Alison: is always yes.
Jill: Would you like jus d’orange?
Alison: The answer again is always yes.
Jill: They cannot help you enough.
They cannot feed you enough because they look at you like, Do you, you don’t want any, you don’t,
Alison: They get insulted if we don’t let them make us eggs. Right. I think their feelings are hurt and I don’t want to hurt their feelings. And
Jill: you have to have a full plate. And go back for more. It’s unbelievable.
Alison: I will not make the White Knights feel bad.
Okay, let’s explain first what the White Knights are. So they do have signs saying that the White Knights are the people who work at the hotel. So that’s why we call them that. And they are so lovely.
Jill: And there is a mannequin in like a suit of armor kind of thing. It’s a little, it’s a little medieval.
Themed. Themed. But, uh, yes, very lovely hotel. It’s very nice to be able to spend the Paralympics there. We are so grateful.
Alison: It is a palace. You don’t understand.
Jill: Oh man, could you imagine if we were actually like Olympic family and staying in a five star hotel, what we would do? We wouldn’t know what to do with
Alison: ourselves.
I would jump on the bed. I would jump on the bed. Okay. Let’s just put that out there.
Jill: All right. Uh, you have been to some opening ceremony preview fun.
Alison: Yes. Or not
Jill: so fun.
Alison: So yesterday they, uh, allowed press to come to a very small rehearsal of a very tiny section. So we got to meet Tomás Jolie. Uh, unfortunately.
did not provide English translation for anything. So I couldn’t understand anything that he whispered to the group of journalists. And we saw literally three minutes of the show, one dance segment. But what I will say is Place de la Concorde has been completely redone. All the temporary venues that were there are gone and they’ve set it up as one big oddly shaped stadium.
So the seating is not. in an oval or only in one area. It’s a bit snake like. The obelisk is going to play a central part, it seems like, in at least a few numbers because there were several dancers dancing about the obelisk. It’s funny because today in the, and we’ll, we’ll talk a little bit about the press conference, but today Andrew Parson said something about a traditional ceremony in a non traditional setting.
When he was asked about the opening ceremony, and it’s so funny because yesterday when I came back, I said to you, I feel like this is going to be a much more traditional opening ceremony than we saw the first time around, even though the entire artistic team is the same.
Jill: Right.
Alison: The little segment that they showed us was a whole bunch of people doing a dance number.
Kind of classic opening ceremony. Fair. So there’s screens involved.
Jill: Okay.
Alison: We know that much, but that’s about all we saw.
Jill: Okay.
Alison: But here was the coolest thing. And I never thought of this. And, and if people knew this, then I’m jealous of you. All of the dancers had vests on with a number. So that’s how they keep track of all the dancers.
Oh. So you say like number 110, number 46. Oh. Or like numbers 0 through 20, you’re on this side. Numbers 20, 21 through 40, you’re on this side. So they all had their vests on with their number. Very cool. Interesting. Never knew that’s how you coordinated those giant dance numbers.
Jill: Do you want to talk about your trip to see the costume?
Alison: No, but I will. So we sound all excited. We sound all pumped, but Paris 24 has not completely changed. So part of this opening ceremonies, uh, press availability was we were supposed to be able to go to the costume shop where the costumes are being produced. I had directions, I had an address, I had a time that I was supposed to show up, and it took me to a, a garage, like a mechanic garage, and then the building next to it was under construction.
And I tried to find another Avenue de Metallurgie in Paris, there was not. So I never found the costume shop. Maybe it was in the back of the garage? I don’t know. But I fear that even though we supposedly know what venues we’re going to, like they completely redid the Place de la Concorde, have they redone things,
Jill: shifted the entrances,
Alison: moved the press entrances, moved the tributes, which I do expect that they have done.
Jill: Somewhat to make some accessibility measures.
Alison: And also because certain venues are hosting very different sports. So have we kind of rejiggered everything?
Background: We’ll find out.
Alison: And as Tonya Stenge told us this morning, uh, they’re trying to find seats in some of these venues. They’re trying to add seats because some of the sports are sold out, which is amazing and fantastic.
But when I hear you’re trying to find seats, that to me says you’re taking away the press tribute because you know they’re going to make it smaller if they need seats. Or move it and then I’ll never find my way home again. And I’m going to blame Tony Astanguay personally. I’m going to hold him responsible when I am standing in a venue and I cannot find this sortie.
Jill: Well, while you were getting lost, I got to go to the Paralympic Village, which I was very excited about because I didn’t get to go to the Olympic Village. I had a very different experience than you did.
Alison: Yes, I had this very open, wandering around, let me see everything, and you were on a leash.
Jill: Yeah, they had a, it was there specifically because they were having athlete interviews and press availability with certain athletes.
And there was a, you, you got in and you got a, you know, like you said, you turned in your credential, you got, we got a different kind of credential. And all the, uh, and. Then we could go into this plaza area. And they kind of, you could wander a little bit, but going over the bridge to the one side of venues, that was blocked off with a security person there.
Uh, anything that led to living quarters or training quarters, uh, that was kind of closed, fenced off with, security there and they were looking for your ID. I tried to go into the store, Interdeet, because I didn’t have the right credential. I went, wandered into the post office. In the post office in the village they have a make your own stamp because you’re an athlete.
Interdeet. Interdeet for press and it was just like, well everything is Interdeet. I’m just going to go back to the plaza because I’m already really bad at paying attention to where the athletes I wanted to talk to are. Um, and, That’s because, as per usual with this game, anybody with a video camera gets first dibs.
So, athletes had to go through, like, five different video segments, including NBC. So, sometimes the NBC could take a long time. And then they would get to us where they would have some of them were happy to stay around for a while. Some of them were like, I can do like three questions. And then I get
Alison: depending on probably when they arrived, when their competition schedule is, what their training schedule is.
Jill: Right, right. So that made for some complications. I did get in on Marcel Hug. I was late because I wasn’t paying attention. And then it was all of a sudden, Oh, wait, Marcel, he was, he was, he was taken up with cameras for a while, video cameras. Did you
Alison: not see his silver head?
Jill: No, because he did not have the silver helmet.
See,
Alison: that’s, Marcel, he just needs to go around life with that silver helmet.
Jill: But, um, I do have some audio from him. I’ll try to get it on to, uh, either the end of this show or we’ll find a way to put it up. He’s very soft spoken.
Alison: It doesn’t surprise me.
Jill: I would not be surprised if this was his last games.
He’s in his late 30s. And he did talk a lot about how difficult it was to maintain. The high competition level that you need to have at this, uh, at this level of play. So, I, I don’t know how much longer he’ll be competing for a Paralympics. I mean, he may go on for marathons for a while. I’d be curious to know if you’re, we, we talked about how, as, as, uh, able bodied athletes age, they do longer and longer distances and settle into marathons.
I wonder how that is for a wheelchair user.
Alison: And what age is. You, you’ve kind of passed the point, you know, because certainly marathoners, able bodied marathoners, it’s their early, late twenties, early thirties, it seems like, even though many of them continue. But he’s, I think, thirty eight. He’s thirty
Jill: eight.
Alison: So, is he, yeah, I’m, well, you know, I, I adore him, so I would love On
Jill: the
Alison: list.
Jill: Also talked with Matt Stutzman.
Alison: Always good to talk to him, right?
Jill: Super excited. He has actually been to Paris a lot. And really has, uh, spent a lot of time in the Leeds, where the archery venue is. He is Yeah. Super excited to be here.
And he’s like, you know, I smelled the grass. I’ve done everything to get to know that venue because he has some hip issues a little bit and he really needs to have his hips because those are everything, you know, legs and arms for him. And he said, I didn’t do as much training as I usually do, but he’s focused a lot on mental training.
So getting to know the venue inside and out he said when he went to a training session the other day It was like being at home. So I he’s yeah He’s no he
Alison: was he was very disappointed with his performance in Tokyo and also speaking about getting up there. How many more? Yeah, this is rodeos. Is he gonna go to
Jill: he is saying this is probably it Doesn’t know he made the siren sound of L.
- Yeah, that’s going to
Alison: be a hard one for a lot of people to pass up to have a Games at home.
Jill: Yeah, so we’ll see how he does, but he’s also ready to help promote the movement. He says, you know, doing that as an athlete is hard because you’ve got so much work to do to maintain your competitive level, but he’s super excited.
We’re
Alison: super
Jill: excited to go see him. I know, then in the afternoon I got to visit the 1924 pool. Thank you. Paris media center for this one.
The, uh, 1924 pool is known as the Georges Vallerey Piscina. It is named for Georges Vallerey Jr. who competed at London, 1948. He was a world war two hero. He, um, was famous for rescuing. soldiers out of the Mediterranean during the war and, uh, then became a national swimmer and he competed at London 1948. He got a bronze medal there.
Uh, he died when he was 26 years old. He got some kind of, uh, kidney infection or something like that disease and died very quickly. And so in 1954, they decided to name the pool after him. Coincidentally, his father is also Georges Valéry, who competed at Paris 1924, also a swimmer. His sister also competed in swimming at London 1948.
So it’s a whole family of competitive swimmers. He needed to be
Alison: to the Valéry family piscine.
Jill: Exactly, exactly. So this is located in the 20th arrondissement. It’s near the metro 11 line. And I noticed on the line, that at the stop that we got off of, it was the Porta Lila stop, and that stop and the ones after it on the line, which was like seven stops or so, were all marked as wheelchair accessible. I almost went out the other way just to see, but I didn’t have time. The station that we got off at has a big sign saying we’re going to be under construction in 2025. So I think the accessibility is coming to that. So I’m very, we, we learned a lot today in the IBC press conference about the accessibility measures that Paris 2024 has, or the city of Paris has done to make the city more accessible.
And as IBC president Andrew Parsons said, This is where the city was seven years ago when they got the games and where they are now is an incredibly different place in terms of accessibility and you can say yes, the Metro is not accessible, but they’ve made all their buses accessible. They’ve they’ve tried to have the most impact with what they could do and the time allotted and then also.
Uh, going forward, they’ve invested more money. So that’s good to know. Because that
Alison: is something we were concerned about, just going around the city saying, I don’t see the accessibility. But I think it’s we don’t see the accessibility.
Jill: Because we don’t have to use the accessibility. So it’d be interesting to hear how that plays out as people come to the games.
Um, so, uh, 1924, the Olympic pool is where Johnny Weissmuller won three gold medals. Uh, then it was known as, uh, Stade Nantique Torellis, renamed in the fifties, and somewhere along the way it fell into complete disrepair. So when the games got awarded, uh, the city decided to renovate this building. They dumped 14 million euros into it.
And, uh, took 18 months to renovate. They tried to reuse as much of the material as they could. So there’s a lot of woodwork inside. They reused 95 percent of that. They added accessibility in there. So there’s an elevator. There’s a place where you can store strollers. There’s a kennel for your service dog.
That kind of thing. Um, There is a mobile roof on this pool. It is a, uh, arched roof, but it, it opens and shuts and that was completely broken. So they got it working again. It is unbelievably beautiful how this is so, so, so beautiful. And it takes like 15 minutes to open the roof and shut the roof. So. It, it kind of is in three sections that kind of collapse into each other on each side.
So it opens in the center. You can have sunlight in. It was a beautiful day yesterday. They do have netting across the entire length of the pool area so that no birds can come down. Because you know that would terrify
Alison: me. You know how I feel about birds in the inside.
Jill: And you know they would do that too.
It would be like pigeon heaven. Hanging out, swimming around. Um, but they can have the roof open on nice days, on bad days. The, the top of the roof is like frosted glass, kind of. So, it, it, uh, will still let in natural light. They’ve got permission to have the rings on the outside of the building. They’ve also put like an, uh, they’re in silver on the inside.
It’s really faint, but I bet at night, or they could light up. The glistens. Yeah, yeah. So, that’s really cool. The, uh, Place only seats 1, 500 people now. It’s, it’s configured a lot differently than when it was in 1924. If you see these old pictures, the stadium is packed all the way around. Well, they’ve taken the, uh, seats out of the ends of the pool and put in, they’re just walls, because there’s like, uh, overlooks and things like that for people getting around in the back.
They’ve got these huge locker rooms, so there’s big locker room entrances. So that’s taken away some of the seating on the side. So that’s why for, for the Olympics, it was a training venue for marathon swimming and triathlon. So that’s really what it can be used for.
Alison: And also that makes it much more usable for the community.
Jill: Yes, yes. I mean, what’s
Alison: the point of having a 20, 000 seat swimming arena in this neighborhood?
Jill: Right, right. And, uh, so eight lanes, 50 meters, they can reconfigure that to, They can refigure it a different way to have a bigger side and a smaller side so that you can have like, uh, uh, smaller bats to work with.
Busy it was Busy already and just reopened too because after the games lots of little kids on swimming lessons, so they’re crawling along the wall You know trying to jump off the edge and grab the pole that the teacher has in the water There were two lanes like were for open swim, and then they had the rest of the lanes were Different types you can do four strokes in a couple lanes one a couple were only for crawl that kind of thing Um
Alison: So
Jill: was the
Alison: renovation kind of part of Paris 2024?
It’s
Jill: part of the legacy effort. Nice. So this is a, it’s just really beautiful, uh, and a really great way to reintroduce it to the community. We got to swim, if we wanted to. Did you? I had my suit. I know you brought it, but I didn’t. I brought it. I was ready to go. Forgot my toiletries.
Alison: Well, you didn’t smell like chlorine when you came back because I wasn’t sure if you had swam or not.
And since you didn’t mention it yesterday.
Jill: Kept it quiet.
Alison: Oh, good for you. How was it?
Jill: It was beautiful. It was, I mean, the air was like 24 degrees. The water was 26 or something. It was, it was, it was nice temperature. Um, the pool for the most part is tiled. And, but there’s one side that isn’t, there’s some other kind of floor surface and wall surface.
And it’s maybe, in the shallow bits, it’s like shallow, then deep, then shallow again. But that’s, shallow is relative, because that’s like three meters deep. It’s, it’s, it’s kind of down.
Alison: I would be underwater. Let’s put it that way.
Jill: Everybody’s underwater. Even Ben would be underwater, and he’s 6’5 But it’s, it’s really pretty deep.
They have on the starting block side, there’s a little ledge that you can stand on, so you can hold the, the wall. And that’s it. It’s helpful, I will say. But it was so nice to swim. I swam for a half an hour. Uh, lots of people there. The backstrip flags were Frieges and Paris 2024. I know it was great. But, uh, yeah.
Beautiful, beautiful renovation. And we’ll have pictures up too. So, look out for that. It’s
Alison: nice to see Legacy already in motion. Yes. To see that, okay, we don’t need this pool now for Paralympics because they have law defense that they’re using for all the swimming and there’s two pools there. So they’ve got a training pool and a competition pool.
And okay, let’s just get this back to the community. And I mean, a community pool is every community wants a good pool that you can use year round because swimming lessons are so essential.
Jill: So very nice. Very, very nice. I meant to go back to that legacy report that the Olympic IOC put out during COVID because I’d like to see what they said about that venue at the time and what they were doing.
But they may have known that renovations, they
Alison: may have said under renovation because there were some things that were marked as that.
Jill: Um, so it’s been a good couple of days today. We went to, we came here to the main press center and saw the kind of inaugural press conference. We’re getting, you know, it opens tomorrow with, uh, IPC President Andrew Parsons and, uh,
Alison: Paris 2024 President Tony Astengay.
Jill: And their respective communications people, which would mean Arshil Klastani, Craig, Craig Spence. Always
Alison: great to say hello to Craig Spence. Exactly.
Jill: And
Alison: he was, he was in fine form today.
Jill: Yeah, he was enjoying himself.
Alison: And you know what, it’s what struck me was the last time we got to see Andrew Parsons in person was in And even at the end of that, even though he was so pleased with how Beijing went, those first few press conferences when they were dealing with the Russia, uh, invasion of Ukraine were so heartbreaking.
And so you could see Andrew Parsons can’t hold anything back. And to see him today. It did get me a little bit because he’s, he’s so excited and he’s so thrilled and he’s so thrilled to have fans back and he’s so thrilled to be in Paris and he’s so thrilled that everybody is jazzed about the Paralympics and that tickets are selling well and that the athletes village is all going well.
I, I can only imagine what dinner was like with Andrew Parsons last night because he mentioned that he had dinner at the Athlete’s Village. That must have been just an absolute party.
Jill: Oh yeah. Yeah. And it’s great because the IPC, as we have said before, when we said this in Beijing, it is a totally different feel than the IPC.
The IOC, because the IOC does a lot, it’s just very diplomatic and whatever. And the IPC is, we got bigger fish to fry. We got a lot of other, you know, we’ve got other stuff to deal with. So not that they’re not diplomatic. But that’s the difference. And also
Alison: Andrew Parsons is a different, he is just a different person.
He winked at me. We met up in the hallway. And I said hello and he winked at me. My day is made. I think my whole Paralympics was just made. Nothing bad can happen to us now. Andrew Parsons winked at me.
Jill: Well, one of our favorite journalists asked a question about war, you know, the, the, the games being an implement for peace.
And, you know, in Beijing, there was war, and now we still are. It’s worse. And, and he gave a very long answer that got very passionate. And then he goes, I’m sorry for being passionate. That’s just who we’re like,
Alison: but that’s Andrew Parsons. That’s why we love you.
Jill: So So yeah, that’s looking good. Um, so we’re excited.
Alison: Okay. And I do, and I do want to mention this on the show. I said this to you earlier. I have been somewhat critical of Tony Astengue at various points, but now that I am seeing him in person, he’s kind of a smoke show and I can see how he gets away with a lot. He is very charismatic.
Jill: Very.
Alison: And you’re sitting in a room with him, even in a press conference.
And I thought to myself, Oh. Now I see how you’ve gotten things done just by the absolute power of personality.
Jill: Uh, listeners, if you are into Roblox, we want to let you know there’s an immersive Team USA ultimate obby for the Paralympics.
Alison: So just like there was for the Olympics. And yet again, it’s filled with Chuck Flastonis.
Jill: Yes, so some of the Paralympians who will be there include Chuck Flastonis, Brian Bell, and Jamal Hill. You can get Paralympic accessories. You can get them in gold, silver, and bronze versions that you can get for purchase via soft currency in the Team USA shop. Roblox person, but hopefully if you are, that makes sense to you.
And they’ll have video highlights of things in the Roblox, uh, game. That’s, if you do this, let us know what it is like.
Alison: Please explain it to us. Cause stuff like this makes me feel so like, What are the kids doing on their TV games?
Jill: Alright, so we wanted to talk a little bit about what Shooklastone is. If you are a new listener, welcome.
Please join our Facebook group. It’s going to be hopping. It’s Keep the Flame Alive, Padcrest. group on Facebook, uh, and even if you’re not on Facebook, just join for the next two weeks and then you can be part of the team and then you can leave again and not deal with Facebook. But, uh, Shultzistan, as we like to call it, is our own country, here, in, that competes competes.
It’s made up of our past guests. Also listeners, you are Shook Fastanis as well. The reason it came about is because guests become members of team, keep the flame alive. Does not acronym very well.
Alison: And when we, uh, had to change the name of the show, which we don’t need to get into the history, but Jill and I were, we’re joking about the new acronym, the TKFL, And we sort of joke, well, how would we pronounce that?
And how would we say it? And as we were doing this, we said, Oh, it sounds like an old Soviet block country. And somehow that made sense. Became Shokhlistan.
Jill: Yes. So that if you wonder what Shokhlistan is, that is the country of the show. And we have people who compete for us. So we have a huge team to cheer for.
So
Alison: it’s almost 30 Paralympians have been on the show. Uh, thank you team USA media summit day. And we were very excited to get a lot of people through because of that. The majority of them are team USA, but Not all.
Jill: Yeah. Which is very exciting. I’m very excited that we have a global reach for Team Shuklastan.
Starting off, we have Allison Levine, who’s Canadian, and she will be competing in women’s and mixed pairs bacha.
Alison: And Callahan Young is on the Team USA men’s goalball team.
Jill: Matt Stutzman, as we have mentioned before, he is competing in the compound open class of para archery.
Alison: Jaden Blackwell, I don’t know how he is capable of doing 100 and 400 meter on the track, but he is, and he’s amazing.
Jill: Uh, we have two throwers, uh, Noel Makamaki does shot put, and then Justin Fong Savan does javelin.
Alison: And if you see a wheelchair race, Chances are, Daniel Romanchuk will be in there. We just had him on last week. So he’s our newest shipless donny.
Jill: Uh, so we have two cyclists, Samantha Bosco and Dennis Connor.
They are both doing, uh, Samantha does road and track. And Dennis does road, but they’re both going to be doing the time trial and the full road race. So look for them. Uh, uh, Dennis is in the trike class and, uh, Samantha is in a two wheel class.
Alison: Uh, she’s C4, I think. Uh, Liana Motia is para judo. So we’re going to get to see some para judo and actually cheer for people.
She’s in the under 57 kilogram.
Jill: Uh, we have two pair of power lifters, Bobby Boddy, who is in the up to 107 kilograms class, which I thought that was just his biceps.
Alison: I swear, I have never seen biceps that big. And we were able to, because we met him at the summit, so we saw him in person. Talk about busting out of your shirts.
He was wearing a tank top that day and I think that’s all he is able to wear.
Jill: All right. The pair of power lifter is Louise Sugden from great Britain and she is in the up to 79 kilogram class.
Alison: Then we have a whole host of swimmers, which is fantastic. So basically every evening session of swimming, you will have somebody to cheer for.
So Olivia chambers, McKenzie Cohen, Jamal Hill, and Jessica long.
Jill: We have two table tennis players. Ian Seidenfeld is going to compete in singles and doubles. And then Melissa Tapper from Australia is competing in singles and mixed doubles.
Alison: Evan Medel is in para taekwondo, the over 80 kilogram. I’m hoping he doesn’t break anything this time.
Jill: Very, yeah, yeah.
Alison: Please, please Evan, I know you’re a rub some dirt in it kind of guy. But, oh, goodness gracious, because I am gonna go see him in person, and if he gets hurt, that’s gonna be a little rough on me. Like it’s all about me. Let’s make it all about me.
Jill: Um, we have a paratriathlete, Grace Norman, who’s from Ohio, so woop woop.
Alison: Uh, two shooters, Mark, uh, Marco Della Rosa is pistol, and McKenna Gear is rifle.
Jill: We have two women on the Team USA sitting volleyball team. Kaleo Conahala McClay and Laura Webster.
Alison: On the Men’s Team USA wheelchair basketball, we have Brian Bell.
Jill: On wheelchair fencing, we will have Ellen Geddes represent us and she will be doing FOIL and FA, both individual and team. She’s going to be doing a lot of work.
Alison: She’s going to be busy. You know, we have a wheelchair rugby player.
Jill: Gee, if you don’t know, you’re gonna know really quick.
Alison: Chuck Aoki, who I absolutely fell in love with in. Tokyo and who will link back to the interview. I was so sick that day that we interviewed Chuck and I tried to eke out my questions.
Chuck does not know what is coming for the Press Tribune stands and if somebody warns him you’re in big trouble because then he won’t come visit me in the mixed zone.
Jill: And then finally we have David Wagner who is a wheelchair tennis player in the mixed quads. I’m excited to see wheelchair tennis at Roland Garros.
Alison: So if you have questions about any of these sports that we just talked about, we’ve got episodes on all of them. And especially the longer episodes, we really get into how these sports work. So if you’re new to the Paralympics, take a listen back to some of them because it’ll just give you the intro. And then you also have somebody to cheer for, which always makes it more fun.
Jill: And, and then if you’re like, but Allison, I don’t have time to watch the current Olympics and listen to old episodes. We have transcripts of a lot of these on our website.
Alison: To which I say, just don’t sleep. There’s wheelchair rugby to watch, people. There is wheelchair rugby four games each day.
Jill: Whoa, that’s, it’s gonna be good.
That’s all I have to say. It is gonna be good. So we need to prep for that. And that’s gonna be doing it for this episode. Let us know what you are excited about for the Paris 2024
Alison: Paralympics. 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. You can chat with us and other fans on our very busy Facebook group, keep the flame alive podcast and sign up for our special daily games times newsletter at our website, flamealivepod. com
Jill: Wednesday. Tomorrow we start our daily coverage from Paris, 2024.
There’s an opening ceremony. that hopefully one of us will get to attend.
Alison: We don’t know yet. We will find out, we hope, tonight.
Jill: Exactly. , there’s gonna be some torch relay news because we’re gonna be able to see the torch relay go by. So, that excitement will all start tomorrow and we will bring it all to you every day.
Please don’t forget to tell a friend about the show and thank you so much for listening. And, yeah, tell a friend about the show because we need to spread the, the, uh, Fabulousness of the Paralympic movement and what it does for people with disabilities and and for sport and it’s just
Alison: good sport, man There’s a wheelchair rugby to watch.
Jill: It is Thank you so much for listening and until next time keep the flame alive