We’re closing out our year of podcasting with a new feature: Rekindled. This is where we bring back some favorite interviews we’ve had over the years. If you’re a newer listener and haven’t gone back into the archives, it’s a great way to hear how we met some of our TKFLASTANIs. If you have heard it before, it’s a lot of fun to go back and listen to the interview now that we’re post-Paris 2024 and see how our original conversation played out.
Alison chose to rekindle our 2023 interview with para archer Matt Stutzman. Matt has been a trailblazer in the sport as its first armless competitor. At his first Paralympics in 2012, he took home a silver medal. He also competed at the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Paralympics before taking gold at Paris 2024.
It’s been a big week for Matt–he celebrated a birthday, and he announced his retirement from para archery. Both Jill and Alison got to spend time watching Matt compete at Paris and talking with him. That’s a great reason to look back and see whether 2023 Matt was ready for gold.
Also on this episode, Milan-Cortina 2026 has released the Olympic sports competition schedule, and we have news from TKFLASTAN.
We’re nominated for a Sports Podcast Award! Vote for us to be the Best Olympics and Paralympics Podcast and help us get to the top of the podium. http://tinyurl.com/flamealiveaward
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
371-Rekindled: Matt Stutzman
Theme Music
Jill Jaracz: Hello and welcome to another episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. If you love the games, we are the show for you. Each week we share stories from the athletes and people behind the scenes to help you have more fun watching the games. I’m your host, Jill Jaris, joined as always by my lovely co host, Alison Brown.
Alison, hello. How are you?
Alison Brown: this past week I’ve been cleaning out a whole bunch of boxes and things from Paris and also from Beijing. And I opened a box from Beijing and it smelled of that center, that the sachet that we got from the hotel for International Women’s Day.
And it brought back all the good memories from Beijing. And I said, Paris, why did you not give me a smell sachet so that I will always have a smell for memories?
Jill Jaracz: I have that sachet, I’m looking at it now, it’s on my bookshelf. The whole box is in a plastic bag to keep that scent contained. It is definitely a strong one, I will tell you that.
Alison Brown: So now it’s going up in, in my storage area. So now my whole storage area will smell of Beijing, which is not the worst thing in the world.
Jill Jaracz: Very nice. Very nice.
Patron of the Week
Jill Jaracz: You know what is also a very nice thing? Our patrons, they are lovely. Yes. So this is the time of the year where we give shout outs to our gold and committee member level patrons.
We’re celebrating a patron every week for a while. This week we are celebrating listener Dan Meyer. So thank you so much, Dan. We got to meet Dan in person. We did, and I got to sit with him, uh, I think at fencing. We, we got to visit for a while, so that was great. Very cool. Dan got a gig working with NBC for the games, and it was a lot of fun.
He’s been a lot of fun to hang out with also in the Facebook group. I hang out with him on, uh, X Uh, I’m sure he’s on Instagram. Yes, he is. Dan, thank you so much for your patronage and your support of the show.
We could not do this without you. And did you know, dear listener, that you can now gift Patreon memberships. So with the holidays coming. Shopping for others might be difficult. Shopping for you might be difficult. If people ask, like, what do you want for Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate and you just don’t know, this is now an option you can give or get.
Keep the Flame Alive Patreon membership at any level. Check out patreon. com slash Flame Alive pod for more info. Next year we are doing special bonus content is going to be a theme on can we become Olympians by reading. Olympian memoirs and autobiographies. So excited about this because we are starting off with a bang.
I will tell you that it’s going to be good. So many notes right now.
Alison Brown: I’ve already started changing my diet.
Jill Jaracz: So we’ll be talking about this in the coming weeks, but yeah, check it out. Patreon. com slash Flammable iPod. And Dan, thank you so much again for being a loyal patron.
Introducing Keep the Flame Alive: Rekindled
Jill Jaracz: All right, onto this week’s show, we are starting a new type of episode for Keep the Flame Alive.
We’re calling it Rekindled, where we bring back some favorite interviews we’ve had over the years. If you are a newer listener and haven’t gone back to the archives, this is a great way to hear how we met some of our Shook Lestanis. If you have heard the interview before, it’s a lot of fun to go back and listen to it again, now that it’s post Paris 2024, and we can see how the original hopes and dreams of some of our, uh, athletes played out at these games.
Most of this will be the interview this episode. We do have some news to go along with it cause some stuff dropped. So Rekindled episodes in the future may have some news if big things happen, but we’re going to keep them brief and streamline these episodes a little bit for you. Alison. You’re up this week. So what have we got?
Rekindled: Matt Stutzman
Alison Brown: So we’re going back to listen to now Paralympic gold medalist, Matt Stutzman. We spoke to him back in 2023. And this was such a joyful interview. And we had originally seen him on the online commentator. news, conferences that we did for Tokyo. And I said, we got to interview him and it took a little while and we did.
And since then he’s had quite an amazing run and it was fun to go back and hear what he was thinking ahead of Paris and where his head was at. And then seeing what happened that, that all just came together for him.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. So this week is, Matt’s birthday. Happy birthday, Matt. He has also announced that he is officially retiring from Paraarchery.
he did go out on top with a gold in Paris. So let’s take a listen to our interview with Matt.
Alison: Matt Stutzman, thank you so much for joining us. We’re really excited to talk to you.
Matt Stutzman: So thank you very much for having me.
Alison: So in the Paralympics, you compete in open compound power archery, and I really wanna break down what all those words mean. So let’s start with compound and that’s equipment. So let’s start there.
Matt Stutzman: Yes. The equipment that I use, my bow has like what we call cams and poles. And what this does is it makes the bow more efficient. So let’s say at the beginning of the cycle uh, the bow is 60 pounds. By the time you get to full draw, it could be like, 12 pounds if you wanted it. So it makes it actually a lot easier shooting.
Whereas like a recurve bow, let’s say you start off at 30 pounds, the more you draw the bow back, the more it gets. So you could end up at like. 35 or 40 pounds trying to hold that string back. And it makes it a little bit more tough, I guess, to shoot it. So I, I choose that division. As far as the open part, that is the highest level of competition that I can compete in at the Paralympic Games, which means it’s the class that has.
We’ll say like 99 or 98% of the people who shoot that division have a disability, but it’s usually something that is from the waist down. So it normally doesn’t affect, usually everybody has, above their waist, so their arms are fine and it doesn’t affect you know, them shooting, like if you were to take a picture of them shooting from the waist stop, they would look like what we would call an able-bodied.
Alison: Yeah, I noticed watching Cuz before we spoke, I watched a bunch of matches and it felt like Open really is open, it is a lot of different disabilities and so I’m wondering how does that play into how people shoot? So is obviously you are using your feet, but people may have one arm, both arms using a wheelchair.
So how does that actually work? Mechanic.
Matt Stutzman: Well, let me just state this first. The reason why, one of the reasons why I chose that division is cuz I, I have this burning desire to just to be the best archer in the world. And if you’re gonna be the best archer in the world, you have to shoot against the best archers no matter what.
their disability is like you. So like , I’m jumping into the big boys and I’m shooting against the best and the best, you know, and I don’t think about them as somebody that has a physical disability. Like they are very capable archers that are the best at what they do. And that’s where I wanted to be. As far as equipment and stuff, all our equipment in this division is the same, What I mean by that is we may have different manufacturers, but there’s certain rules that guidelines to our equipment, which means.
the bows have to be at like a normal compound bow, no electronics of any, any sort. We can run magnification on our site. We can run along stabilizers. Our release aid also has to be a mechanical release aid, and that is the device that attaches to the string that allows the bow to shoot. So if you were to compare my equipment compared.
Everybody else’s equipment that I’m shooting against. It’s basically the almost exactly the same type of stuff.
Jill: And I would imagine, are there restrictions on that weight when you had that draw weight?
Matt Stutzman: Yeah, actually you’re not allowed to have more than 60 peak pounds of draw weight, and they do this because just to kind of level the playing field, because let’s be honest, I the rule wasn’t made specifically because of me.
And in fact, I think it was around maybe before me, but since I used my legs, I can draw. 80, 90 pounds, really easy, whereas most people with their arms can only draw 60 and then let alone shoot that bow a hundred times in one day for, you know, for score or something. And that is an unfair advantage when it comes to bows because the more poundage, the arrows goes faster and is less affected by wind and elements.
So that’s kind of the only restriction that they’ve pretty much added is the 60 pound. Peak weight.
Jill: Okay. thank you for answering that because one of my questions was legs are stronger than upper body . .
Alison: When
Matt Stutzman: I’m just guessing there, I don’t really know. Cause my upper body isn’t that strong, but I’m guessing on normal , I’m guessing on normal, that legs are a little stronger.
Jill: when you first came on the scene, Competition organizers go, oh wow. We have a new, element of shooting to deal with, with that leg strength.
Matt Stutzman: You know, it, it actually ironically wasn’t because of the leg strength, but it was does Matt fit all the all you know, Does he fit all the rules that we have in place?
Do we, you know, the one thing that we were kind of concerned about and they changed it over some time. When I first came into the archery, they allowed like 20 seconds an arrow, which is not a lot of time. And my process takes a while cause I have to grab the arrow off the ground and the way I load is completely different.
Now in the, like in the finals arena, we get 30 seconds. , which is plenty of time. But other than that, they just were like, Matt, how well can you adapt ? These are the rules and, and we’ll discuss ’em if we think there’s gonna be a problem. But there really wasn’t that big of a problem adapting really.
Alison: Okay. So you mentioned you got 30 seconds. Let’s talk about how the match goes. if you’ve never seen a power archery match, how does it work in terms of, I’m watching people shoot arrows, but what’s actually going on?
Matt Stutzman: Yeah, so let’s use um, the war championships in Dubai. The last international tournament I was at, I was shooting against a guy from Russia who also ironically had no arms and he was missing a leg, which is amazing, by the way.
Sometimes I joked that he was trying to outdo me, but anyway , he, he’s an incredible guy. Depending on how you’re seated, you choose to shoot first or second. You each get you know, you have three arrows essentially, and you take turns alternating shooting. So I’d get my first arrow and I would have 30 seconds to shoot that arrow.
And I’m shooting at a target that’s 50 meters away, so that’s about 55, maybe 55 ish yards. The bullseye is a 10, and that’s actually the size of a cd. . So that’s pretty far away for something really small. And then it goes the scoring rings are 10, 9, 8, 7, so forth. So in my 30 seconds, I have to make a shot, half football filled away.
When I make my shot and the arrow hits a target, then my opponent’s time starts. You can load the arrow. You just can’t draw the bow back or have your release attached. and then you just go back and forth till you shoot. Uh, Equivalent of over the course of that event or that little matchup. 15 arrows, whoever has the highest score wins.
Whoever has the lowest score. We’ll see you at the next one.
Jill: And, and that’s in like five groups of three, correct? The Yes. They call
Alison: it an. .
Matt Stutzman: Yep. Yep. You shoot three arrows and then there’s usually, you know, like a minute, minute and a half or, you know, you have a, a summon down at the target that scores the arrows and brings you back your arrows, and then you, you do that five times.
Correct. Okay.
Jill: It’s head to head matchup, but. How do you build strategy? Is it, I mean, you, you’re head-to-head against somebody, but you’re also you versus a target, so mm-hmm. , how do you build a strategy for a match? Or is it just like, I gotta hit 10 all the
Matt Stutzman: time? I’m always striving cuz I, you know, for the middle.
So my strategy there, lemme back up a little bit. There is a little bit of strategy. . For me, it’s mainly hitting the 10, and I’m gonna tell you why. If usually I try like to be the highest seed going into a match, I try my best to always put a lot of stock into qualification because if you’re the number one seed, you get to decide things like which side of the, like what you know, there’s which target, or if you shoot first or second, and I’ll tell you why that’s important.
You wanna normally shoot first because if you open up the whole elimination round with a 10, that kind of sets the bar and you don’t really have the pressure, the guy who’s chasing you has the pressure because he now knows Matt just shot a 10 and if I shoot a nine, I’m gonna be a point down right now.
Right. And right off the bat you can kind of get in their head a little bit. I have had this happen to me before. I’m one of the slower shooters. My process just takes a little bit longer than most, and people have rushed their shot process to put me into a time pickle . I don’t, for example, I’m shooting outdoor nationals.
Uh, I’m made to the gold medal mat. This is able-bodied. I’m shooting against Chris. and he knows, and at that point, the time was still 20 seconds an arrow. And he knows I struggle with the time. And because of that, like he just, he shoots first, he draws the bow back and gets on target and lets it fly.
He shoots his arrow in like two seconds. Well, I’m, I don’t, I’m not even ready. So now I’m rushed to get ready, load to bow and quick get ready, and then, and then he’s sitting there waiting. So as soon as I shoot. by the time I get my bow, I almost sit down to grab an arrow. He’s already shot his second shot.
You see what I’m saying? So he pushed, he puts me in this big rush where, cuz if you run out of time, you know you get a zero. People have, he was successful at that. I ended up second there and then we changed the rules. in the parasite to 30 seconds, and I’ve trained enough now that people in their mind think they can rush me, but it doesn’t matter anymore.
Jill: what was that training
like?
Matt Stutzman: It was a lot of out of the comfort zone stuff where I did because I’m a slow shooter. I like to pick my time and I have, you know, a way I do things. And so what I learned to do was speed up the process. But do it while still maintaining control. And I did that by just lots and lots of just practicing that s that exact moment.
One of the ways I did that is I shot against my boys and we have an Archer game on the Xbox and they use the Xbox and I do real. Because the, in Xbox, everything goes fast on Xbox, so they, they shoot fast and then I actually, you know, compete against them. And to this day I can still beat them even though they’re on the Xbox.
I can out shoot the Xbox uneasy, which is crazy. But that’s, you know, one of the, one of the training methods I used. Get the
Alison: kids involved. I love it.
Matt Stutzman: Yep. Mm-hmm. , , they don’t like pulling arrows. I’m like, all right, here, I don’t you uh,
You know what kind of exercise you get when you uh, have to walk half a football field one way every five minutes for eight hours, , it’s actually good for you, .
Break: Vote for us in the Sports Podcast Awards
Jill Jaracz: It’s Jill breaking in to let you know that keep the flame alive has been nominated for a sports podcast award as the best Olympics and Paralympics podcast. It’s a great honor, but getting to the top of the podium is by popular vote. So we need your help. Go to tiny url.com/flame alive award and vote for us by January 13th, 2025. That’s tiny url.com/flame alive awarded.
We’ll have that link in the show notes. Thank you.
Back to Matt’s Training Regimen
Alison: So what kind of off field training are you doing as.
Matt Stutzman: I don’t know how long you followed my career, but in 2016 I was overweight a, by a lot.
At that point I didn’t think being the best in the world had anything to do with weight. You shot a bow, you weren’t running a, you know, a triathlon or whatever. And then I had a, a guy named Michael, uh Johnson, the Olympic runner. He’s like, Hey Matt, look it man. Like if you really wanna be a true athlete, you gotta play the part, which means you have to do everything.
You can’t just be the guy who sits in a chair that’s 200 and whatever pounds you have to train, like, you know. And so I, after my loss in, in Rio I took that to heart and you know, I lost what is like 60 some pounds. I’ve been that way actually. Since 2007, let’s see, about 17 or 18. I’ve lost that around then, and I’ve maintained that.
And I trained in the gym. I train in my yard. I do a lot of me. In fact, actually what I did is, is cut back on actual physical archery training. I don’t do that as much. I focus more on mental training and strength training really. I have learned that that helps. Ironically enough because it, you know, I don’t know if you guys, do have you, did you play Nintendo back in the day or do you like puzzles or crosswords or any of that?
You ever work on something that’s like really hard and you spend like hours and you can’t figure it out and you just say, I’m gonna go to bed. You go to bed, you wake up and you just solve it right away. Mm-hmm. , sometimes that’s what happens. With archery, I struggle and struggle and struggle and then I’ll just put the bow up for a week and I’ll come back out and I’ll like crush a world record.
And I, I think I learned that I just need, sometimes your body, your brain just needs to separate that for a while. It’s not going away. You’ve been pr trading for a long time to do it. It just needs that separation of doing something different.
Jill: when you lost the weight, what differences did you know?
Notice
Alison: seriously? Cause it comes
Jill: on slowly, but like, taking it off, you noticed things,
Matt Stutzman: you know. There was times where I was very frustrated, like, Because I, even when I was big, I still was okay with who I was as a person. Mm-hmm. . So there was times where I’m not gonna lie, I’m gonna be like, I just wanna be big again, because I was shooting better
I know that sounds really stupid, but everything changes. You know, like your body’s just used to a certain thing. And when you’re talking about a precision sport, Where everything is set up, you know, and you’re used to it. When you lose a bunch of weight, things get changed, you get shakier uh, you get, you know, obviously not as stable as, I guess the same as shaky, but you learn that your stability and your control isn’t as good.
And I know that. sounds dumb, but I also have a theory on that too. And this is, I don’t know if we’re talking theories today, but.
When you’re a little bit heavier, you’re more stable. If you talk to all the competitive shooters that shoot rifle, they wear weighted vests. They wear weight on purpose to remain steady. And I’m not promoting being big while shooting because you also have to be healthy. But I think there is something to it a little bit because uh, when you’re heavier, you’re less affected by a wind blowing you.
You know, it takes more wind to move you. And, and there also is, once weighted is in motion, it stays in motion. There is that theory as well, but by that time, you’ve already shot your arrow and you moved on to the next one. And so when I transitioned to being 60 pounds lighter, it took a good year at least to kind of gain that confidence back that I had made the right decision and that I could still shoot at, at a good level while not being as.
Jill: Besides health benefits, is there an athletic benefit to being lighter in your sport?
Matt Stutzman: I don’t know. You know, it’s more just the benefit for me. I, I will tell you this, I can shoot f you know, I could honestly go out now and shoot for, you know, eight hours and still be okay to do other things like, I don’t get as tired as fast, my longevity of shooting is much, much better.
But other than that, I don’t really see much besides the personal of what you had said earlier about just, you know, being healthy. I don’t really see much of an advantage to being, skinnier while shooting, you know,
Jill: squats or lung.
Matt Stutzman: I did handstands when it allows me to
the other day, some, I was at the gym and someone said, and this might have been a year or two back, but someone’s like, someone had messaged me like, what are you working on today? And I, I had my spotter, I had her, she was standing over me and she was holding. The bench press bar and it looked like, and I was doing this and it looked like it was, I was doing it myself, , and I sent a picture.
It looked like I
Alison: was bench pressing .
Matt Stutzman: I’m like, I’m working, I’m working on these guns. And then I, they’re, it’s funny cuz their response is like Uh, oh. What did we just learned? Does that mean you have arms? Which means you shouldn’t be in the Paralympic division right now? I’m like, oh, shoot. Maybe I shouldn’t post that.
Alison: be careful who you send these pictures to. Matt .
Matt Stutzman: Uh, It was, you know, most people get my humor. But you know, I, I don’t have a preference on the workout as far. Squat, squats probably be more of my favorite. .
Alison: Okay. You mentioned wind and getting blown around. So I want to talk a little bit about weather, because I know in Tokyo that was a big factor.
Mm-hmm. . So how does weather play a factor in making adjustments and, and what you’re dealing with?
Matt Stutzman: Yeah. You know, When you have wind blowing left to right and circulating, let’s say you think you aim in the middle and you shoot in the middle and you hit five inches to the left or six inches to the right, and there are nines instead of tens.
that’s the wind we’re talking about. That’s what’s persuading your shot. So you have to on the fly, almost pre predict where the wind’s gonna be before you shoot. and the only way to do that is experience. Cause like I said, you don’t have a lot of time, so you pretty much have to just be in it all the time.
I I remember several years ago I was getting ready for Arizona Cup and I remember going down and there there was probably five or six professional archers at this, building that I was at. Uh, I was in Utah and every one of them, The whole week leading up to the tournament, they were all shooting inside, and I was the only one outside and it was windy.
I was getting blown all over the place and all that kind of stuff, and everybody kind of gave me crap, if that’s allowed to say. Everybody kind of gave me that because wh you know, why, why are you outside when you don’t need to be? Well, when the tournament came, it was. I’d been out on all week and they were professionals and they were indoors, but it took ’em.
It took ’em half a half a tournament to get used to the wind again, but that was what I needed. That was what I needed to pull out. The wind though, that first half is where I, you know, they couldn’t catch me after that. So there was some benefit of, if I were to give advice, unless it’s 30 miles an hour and balling you completely off of your stool, it’s okay to shoot in the wind.
We have to shoot in wind anyway, so you might as well learn the wind.
Alison: What about heat, cold and humidity.
Matt Stutzman: Humidity is a, Tokyo was bad for humidity and the heat was just like, I never shot anything quite like that before You could shower, walk outside, just stand there and just instantly be covered in sweat again.
it was just that hot. Well, we actually had bows falling apart because it was so hot, some of the glue that they were using. There was competitors Bowes that were falling apart. And I mean, I was, it was, it was crazy. But what got me in, Tokyo was my confidence cuz I did have some me mechanical issues with my bows and then I never just gained confidence back in them.
I know that sounds crazy, but I just didn’t have as much faith in ’em as before I got there and it wasn’t because the bow manufacturer was bad, my bow showed up. Broken. So I put ’em on a plane in Iowa, they’re good to go. I showed up in Japan and opened my boat case and they’re in pieces and so I actually had to find parts that they didn’t have and put parts from other things together and kind of Frankenstein a boat together just to shoot the games.
And it was shooting good, but my confidence just wasn’t there. And for as much as you tell yourself that you’ve prepared for that moment mentally , it’s really hard to overcome that. .
Alison: Okay, so what is involved in transporting a bow?
Matt Stutzman: Yeah. A lot of people say you put a bow on a plane. Yep. , they go in these big cases and they go underneath the plane.
when you check in, you tell ’em you have a bow, and you see it when you arrive at the other, at the end of the destination. It’s pretty, pretty simple actually. In 13 years of flying with a bow, I’ve. . I’ve got lucky enough I’ve never really, I think I had one loss one time, but it showed up a week later.
Other than that, never had any issues. Besides broken bows. I have had several broken bows but majority of the time it’s safe.
Jill: Does that count as oversized luggage or are you lucky enough that it’s an average size that they’ll take without, a fee. That’s what
Alison: I’m going for.
Matt Stutzman: no, this is, you know, , let me tell you that there are some advantages of having no arms, and I’m gonna tell you one of them are, you can , if you walk into an airport and you’re carrying your bow and, and you have no arms, right? They kind of feel sorry for you. So 90% of the time, they’re just. They waved the
They’re like, I don’t know if they’re just afraid to charge me or , but they don’t ever ask. They’re like okay, well sir, Mr. Stutzman, thanks for flying with, you know, whoever. Here’s your stickers. We’ll see how enjoy your flight. I’m like, thank you. You know, so, but I have heard from other people depending on the airlines and how they’re feeling that day, they can charge oversize.
You know, one place was trying to charge 150 bucks, but if you kept your receipt from the flight there, which was, it’s usually, let’s be honest, it’s usually about 50. , maybe on the high side, maybe 75 bucks to fly your, your bow one way, usually. But here’s what’s cool about it. You know, you have a weight limit, so if you’re underweight, you can also put your clothes in there, right?
So you don’t need to ca, you know, take multiple check-ins or carry-ons or whatever you call it. .
Alison: And the clothes can cushion. Yeah. Protect
Matt Stutzman: the bow. Yep, . And then you get to where you’re going and you open it up and you’re like, why is my underwear on that side? Cause I know I put it on this side. , . Why is my socks move?
You know? And then you realize that in you realize in the bow case they had looked through your stuff. But I mean, they do that on every, everything. Anyway. ,
Alison: how expensive is your bow?
Matt Stutzman: Well, if you were to fully buy my setup um, you’re probably talking. Close to three grand or even probably 3,500 bucks for one setup.
Arrows are expensive too. People don’t understand, but you’re talking 80 bucks for one arrow. So if you roll into a tournament with 24 arrows the, on the low end , and then it can be expensive.
Jill: Do you have to provide your
Matt Stutzman: own arrow? I’m lucky enough once again that I’m sponsored. So, but you have to
Jill: bring your own to a tournament.
So you set up with the boat and with the arrows and I, I’m guessing you have to go through an inspection for everything
Alison: as
Matt Stutzman: well. Yep, everything, everything’s gotta fit the rules. In fact the company send me the products and I actually build them myself to make ’em fit to my bow. So I get all these components and then I saw and cut and glue and everything, and I put ’em together.
And then I have to write my initials on ’em. The reason why you write your initials if you have a miss or it goes through the target, somehow they can verify that it was your shot and your arrow. And then. Yeah, but now not to scare anybody away, the stuff that I use is like the most high-end possible that you can use in, in the sport of archery.
So, and arrows last a really long time in, you know, they might have their life cycle and phase like I I’ll every year. I, you know, I start with a new several dozen every single year, but I have arrows from. 2016 that I still use in practice that still hit the middle. They might have a slight wobble, but they’re still good enough for practice, you know, so they do last a very long time.
if you take care of them,
Alison: what happens to an arrow that causes it to not be as prime?
Matt Stutzman: they get bent they get a little bit of a wobble in them. And, and it’s funny because visually looking at them, you wouldn’t know this, but every time I pull arrows, whoever’s helping me pull arrows, On the way back, they inspect the arrows one by one.
They can do it pretty quickly, and then they spin ’em in their hand. If you spin ’em in your hand you can actually feel like a little bit of a vibration. And that’s how we know that that’s about Arrow. We’ll take the knock off when we put it back in my chair, it still might hit the target, but it might be a nine versus a 10.
Right? And we’re talking about the one point is a big difference in this game.
Jill: What’s your pathway to qualify for Paris?
Matt Stutzman: Well, this year we have war championships again. . So we have a tournament in the United States called trials, and based on that trials process, the top four of us in the United States we’ll go to world Championships and then depending on how we finish, we got at least finish in the top 16.
And by doing that, we will earn what we call slots 14 usa. , we can earn up to three slots. Then next year after we’ve earned those slots, this year, next year, we will once again have another tournament in the United States. And it’s a long, drawn out process over the course of several weeks or even several different tournaments, and at the end, the top three in the United States that finished that qualification.
Trials process actually get to go represent America in Paris. So it’s a long road. if I can qualify again, this will be my fourth games.
Alison: what’s different now that you’re old in the sport? . . I know that’s, that’s to where you started. No,
Matt Stutzman: you know, listen, that’s completely fair and I love that. I tell that, I tell that to myself all the time. I am still one of the youngest guys on the team though, which is crazy. I, I know there’s some new and up comers, but usually the top five of us who are usually at all the tournaments that usually win all of it.
I’m still the youngest by a year or something like that, , so I feel like I’m good to go. However, I will say my longevity in the sport is. I am not super certain enough and, and um, I’ve been having some I hip issues, you know, in the past year. If you watch how I shoot, my body’s just not meant to do that, right?
So, What we can figure out is that my body, cause I’ve been doing this for 13 years and, and I was shooting eight hours a day for most of those 13 years. My body just doesn’t ever get a break. So if I’m shooting eight hours a day and then I’m going to the gym, and then I’m doing my normal daily life, which is still taking, you know, I gotta feed myself.
I use my foot and my foot’s up on the table and I’m eating and my hip is con my, my legs never get a break because, They don’t have off days like hands. You would, you would do your exercise with your legs, but then you shoot your, both your arms so your legs aren’t doing anything. And I think I’m just wearing my body out, to be honest.
So my plan is to go to Paris. I’m still shooting good, I’m still shooting great scores, but I can’t tell you how mu, I mean, at some point I gotta figure out if Four is enough or is five enough? And then, cuz otherwise I’m probably gonna have to, I, I bet you someday I’ll have to have hip surgery, But that is, I would, I would never go back and change my decision. I would do the same thing over and over again. But that’s just how it is with me.
Alison: do you ever wear shoes?
Matt Stutzman: Actually I do. Yeah. Yep. It’s funny because when you talk about being a rule pusher, one of the rules in world archery and U S C archery is that you have to wear close towed shoes when you’re shooting . And I was like, I was like, Rob, he’s the president. I was like, listen, man, like. Does that mean I can’t shoot?
Cuz I obviously gotta take my shoe off to shoot a bow. , I gotta hold the bow in my foot, but your rules state that I gotta wear closed shoes, towed shoes, . And of course they laughed and they was like, no, we’re not worried about you. And they made the exception. However, if somebody really wanted to protest me by a law, they could probably get away with it, but no one does.
But on the field of, of play where. . I wear shoes on my left foot the entire time. Cause my left foot is more just for balance. If I walk down to the target, I slip on my shoe. If I walk back, I take it off. That kind of stuff. I will tell you though, I wear, I need to find a sock sponsor because I go through hundreds and hundreds of pairs of socks.
Cause those are like my glove. , right? Just to kind of help keep my feet clean. And if they get holes in ’em, I just throw ’em away. But otherwise flip flops if I’m around the house, just so I have easier access to things, if I go out shoes. some, you know, somewhere nice, but,
Alison: and then in the snow right now, , it would be a little scary.
You know, listen, I wear shorts right now. I know
Matt Stutzman: that sounds crazy. Everybody’s like, you know, it’s snow , there’s snow on the ground, it’s like 10 foot of snow or whatever, and you’re out here in shorts. And I’d be like, well, when I was younger I used to wear jeans in the winter and. I remember going into a restaurant and when I took off my sock shoe and I to eat, I took my, put my foot on the table, it got, there was snow on the bottom of my pants and it went like all over the table.
And I was like, that’s stupid. You know, my bottom of my pants froze. And I was like, that’s dumb. So I was like, I’m just gonna wear shorts. So now I wear shorts pretty much all year round.
Jill: Bring back some
Matt Stutzman: nickers. Come on. Yeah, I’m trying.
Well,
Jill: thank you so much.
Matt Stutzman: Thank you so much guys. Thank you. Thank
Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Matt. Matt may have retired from archery, but he is still drag racing, which is very exciting because I, now his social feed is full of drag racing stuff. And it’s fun to watch him take on that sport as a new, career outlet, look for him on the track. You can still follow him on Insta and X at Armless Archer, and he is on Facebook as well.
Milan-Cortina 2026 News
Jill Jaracz: We have details of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic schedule. They have now been released, highlights.
Alison Brown: So competition will start on February 4th, two days before the opening ceremony. So now the winter is starting early, just like the summer. We’re going to start with mixed curling round robin, which I think happened in Beijing as well.
They had to start ahead. Yes. Um, unlike at the summer Olympics. There will be competition on opening ceremony day. There’s going to be some hockey and some more curling going on. So no rest for the wicked at the winter Olympics. And this I thought was really interesting. It looks like the first medal awarded on February 7th, which is the The second full day of competition, , will be men’s downhill.
That will be interesting. Kind of wild.
Jill Jaracz: it’s one of those where again, you’re like, okay, build up, build up, build up. And then medals happen almost immediately and downhill will be taking the spotlight, which will be exciting.
Alison Brown: They’ll be speed skating and cross country medals happening that day as well.
But just the timing looks like downhill is going to be the first one coming out.
TKFLASTAN Update
Alison Brown: Welcome to Schöckflustan.
Jill Jaracz: It is the time of the show where we check in with our team, Keep the Flame Alive. These are past guests and listeners of the show who make up our citizenship of our very own country, Schöckflustan. Some big stuff happening this week.
Alison Brown: Yeah. Bobsledder Bree Walker finished fifth in the first race of Monobob for the World Cup season in Altenburg, Germany.
Jill Jaracz: Race walker Evan Dunfee and boccia player Alison Levine got to meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when Canadian Olympians and Paralympians were honoured in the Canadian Parliament.
Alison Brown: Ginny Thrasher retired from competitive shooting.
Jill Jaracz: And fencer Jackie Dubrovich and her coach Brian O’Keefe. Kineshige were married last month, so congratulations to them.
Alison Brown: Lots of weddings this fall. I love it.
Jill Jaracz: Right. That’s right. Well, you finish up with your competitive season. You got time to get married. Unless you were Daniel Romanchuk and you just get married before your the big meet of the year.
Alison Brown: Right in between nationals and, and Paralympics. Let’s just have a wedding.
Get in Touch
Alison Brown: All right, that is going to do it for this episode. Let us know your thoughts on our conversation with Matt Stutzman and your favorite Matt Stutzman archery moments.
We do love hearing from you. You can chat with us and other listeners on our Facebook group. Keep the flame alive podcast. Email us at flamealivepod at gmail.
com and the voicemail and text line is always open at 203 208 7111. 3526348, that’s 208flameit. If you need more Olympics and Paralympics in your life, and who doesn’t, sign up for our newsletter at flamealivepod. com. We will have a link to that in our show notes.
Coming Soon
Jill Jaracz: Next week we will be dipping back into the ocean.
into the archives. Next week, we’re dipping back into the archives for our last episode of the year. Plus we will have some news about changes for the show in 2025. So be sure to tune in for that. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, keep the flame alive.