We’re back from a recording hiatus, and boy, do we have a lot of Olympics news to catch up on!
First, Milano Cortina 2026 released its final report, and we go between the lines to suss out its venue delivery expectations, celebrity initiative, and a major issue they should have figured out earlier–as in, during the bid process.
LA28 has made a ton of announcements over the last few weeks, so we have the latest on:
- The Paralympic schedule
- Ticket drop #2
- Cycling routes
- Volunteer applications
- Modern pentathlon’s new obstacle course licensing
- Hospitality house updates
- And more!
We also say au revoir to French Alpes 2030 and bonjour to Alpes 2030 (which we most certainly will mangle), along with its new logo.
Alpes 2030 finalized its sport program, and the changes have been shocking. Great new events come onto the Olympic program, and an OG Winter Olympic discipline gets the boot.
In Doping News, we’re still talking about medal reallocations from London 2012.
International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry’s Fit for the Future platform is creating big change, including:
- Olympic Charter changes that affect political neutrality (hello, Russia) and make it easier to change the entire sports program
- Defining the differences of “sport,” “discipline” and “event” when it comes to the Olympic program
- Paying athletes – a new Olympic grant program makes waves after Coventry’s first big press gaffe
- And more!
We also have an announcement about our 2026 Book Club selections, which you can get at our bookshop.org storefront (affiliate link)
Summer of Nostalgia: We’ve been cleaning out the files and found a treasure trove of never-before-seen photos and videos! All summer long we’re sharing them on our Patreon platform. Relive great moments from the last three Olympics and Paralympics in Keep the Flame Alive style (and you know that means we focus on the weird stuff)! Join as a patron or buy the collection outright – check out our Patreon site today!
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
If you liked this episode, be sure to check out:
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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 Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
439-Shocks in the Olympic World: An Olympics News Update
[00:00:00] Theme Music
Jill Jaracz: hello and welcome [00:00:30] 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. I am your host, Jill Jaracz, joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison, hello. How are you?
Alison Brown: I am doing okay. How are you doing?
Jill Jaracz: It’s been, it’s been a few weeks. It’s been- We have not seen each other for a few weeks.
Alison Brown: This is true. This is the l- this is, again, we say this every once in a while whenever we take little breaks, it’s like, “Oh my goodness, I was with you 24 hours a day in [00:01:00] Milan.”
“And then I don’t see you for a month.” It is like the strangest relationship
Jill Jaracz: ever. It, it very much is. It very much is. We have had a, a few weeks off that you may not have noticed because we still had shows going on. Uh, but we needed some time to recover and deal with family health issues. And also, uh, you know, I, it just, I found mountains and mountains of problems that have piled up over the [00:01:30] last eight years, so I have been slowly chipping away at those and, you know, we’re back.
Just in time- In time for, like, a ton of news …
Alison Brown: I know. We came in just… We timed this actually quite well.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Yay us. Back pat, you know, pat on the back for us. But I think chipping away at administrative problems should be part of Fit for the Future at an event. Oh my
Jill Jaracz: gosh. Yes. Right? Oh.
Alison Brown: But we’ll get to, we will get to that.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, right, right, right, right, right. First, okay, [00:02:00] so we are going, uh, just buckle up, people. Buckle up. We’ve got a lot of news. We have a lot of big news. So we’re just gonna get started right away with Milano Cortina.
Milano Cortina 2026 News
Alison Brown: Buongiorno, Milano
Jill Jaracz: Oh, buongiorno and
Alison Brown: arrivederci. Yes.
Jill Jaracz: so Milano Cortina 2026 has released its final report. You gotta do some deep reading on this [00:02:30] one, which I did do today.
Alison Brown: I was gonna say, you love a final report. There is nothing that excites you more than an organizing committee’s final report.
Jill Jaracz: I know.
But what I love more is the organizing committee’s final report where they talk numbers, like budget numbers, not… They’re happy to talk a lot of other numbers here, like engagement numbers and how much we have saved the environment numbers. What they don’t really talk about is, like, how much we spent and how much- Of course
over budget we were. So I wish they would do that. there are many things that [00:03:00] I read between the lines here. So the, the IOC talked a lot about how having spread out venues, like Milano Cortina was, which was spread out over, like, 400 miles. And it’s not like Paris where we had sailing in Marseille.
And not, take the Tahiti thing out of the question, ’cause it looks like every Olympics is getting it, its own Tahiti now. Right. but take, you know, in Marseille and they were up in Lille, so they’re a few hours away, but that’s, like, one event. This was kind of like we take most of our sports and spread [00:03:30] them out across 400 miles.
And-
Alison Brown: We spread ourselves very thin.
Jill Jaracz: They did. They did. So the IOC did talk about how this is a possible model for the future and how feasible it is. They talked about the sustainability initiatives, touting that 85% of competition venues were existing or temporary, and most venues used renewable electricity.
And this one I thought was interesting and wished they had gone further in on, they used [00:04:00] 24,000 items from Paris 2024. It’s like Paris packed up a bunch of stuff and shipped it to Milan. What that was, I don’t know.
Alison Brown: You know what one of them were definitely? Were those chairs that the volunteers would sit on.
Oh, that’s right. Those really high chairs.
Jill Jaracz: Like the lifeguard chairs thing?
Alison Brown: The lifeguard chairs. Yes. Those, I bet those were recycled from Paris. Right. They just painted them.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. I bet you’re right. So I, I’m not too sure what else got reused, but it’s nice that they just said, “We got all this stuff that [00:04:30] we can just send to you.”
Alison Brown: I wonder if some of them were, again, like the volunteer signs, like this way. You know the big foam fingers- … that were just pointing us in the correct direction. Right,
Jill Jaracz: right. Well, they did have big foam fingers. They’re-
Alison Brown: Exactly … you know,
Jill Jaracz: it’s fun going from Games to Games and seeing what elements stay.
Alison Brown: Because we- Foam fingers …
Jill Jaracz: Foam fingers was one of them. The report says that the Games accelerated nearly 100 local infrastructure projects with [00:05:00] over three billion euros of investment. You know I love a good infrastructure project that t- only happens because the Games has a deadline.
Alison Brown: I mean, we saw all kinds of road construction happening up in the mountains- Oh my gosh … when we were driving through. So I can only imagine what had been happening then in the previous five years.
Jill Jaracz: Right. one thing I wanna talk about is the Celebrity Olympics Fan Initiative I did not know this was- I didn’t know this
Alison Brown: was-
Jill Jaracz: an official initiative, right?
Alison Brown: Exactly.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. [00:05:30] So this built off a successful Paris 2024, and- My guess is becau- well, they had the Troyes troupes, and so you had to get celebrities for that. And of course, you have Snoop Dogg walking around everywhere and Flava Flav. and I’m sure there were other celebrities in and about Paris.
This was a coordinated initiative with relationship building across more high-profile guests whose presence was leveraged for visibility, if I can put that last [00:06:00] bit into quotes.
Some of these celebrities, uh, got, uh, accreditation, ticketing, dedicated support, and, uh, bespoke gifting.
Alison Brown: I would like a bespoke gift.
Jill Jaracz: Right? More than 360 celebrities from 34 nations were involved in this initiative. That included Snoop, Jeff Goldblum, we’ll get to him in a second, Emile Livingston, Novak Djokovic, Simone Biles, Sung Hoon, [00:06:30] Donatella Versace, Vera Wang, and Ilona Maher.
And that resulted in the celebrity accounts from these 360 celebrities generated 347 million engagements from 1,000 posts. So you got to be a celebrity, and you could post less than three times, and you might get- And get
Alison Brown: a bespoke gift.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, get a bespoke gift. And, and I know people are compl- we’re tired of you complaining about no [00:07:00] backpack, Jill, but-
Alison Brown: No, because it’s not the no backpack, ’cause Paris gave us a water bottle.
Right. And I was… They gave us something to say- Right … you matter.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Yes. And, and we have clearly fallen to the bottom of the, the pool.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: The, the bottom of the ocean, the dregs. That’s where I feel like we are now. so how’d the public do on social media? They had, [00:07:30] uh, one billion engagements from 839,000 posts by the public and other media referencing the Olympics and celebrities.
So if you’re in the, uh, as we said, you’re in the celeb program, you get a ton of special treatment. You may have to do an in-house interview, like Simone did. I saw her in figure skating. Mm-hmm. And, post on social less than three times. And, there are social accounts like us who post, “Why are they interviewing Jeff Goldblum?”
[00:08:00] No, I know.
Alison Brown: Milano saw that- But that’s still, that’s still
Jill Jaracz: engagement I know. They were like, “That’s positive engagement. Those, those ladies over at Keep The Flame Alive are talking about Jeff Goldblum. Woo-hoo.” Oh, my gosh. So, did not re- I mean, yes, you have celebrities, and it made a big splash. I mean, what did you think of seeing the celebrities in Milano, which was, in a way random, but in a way, like s- the in-house [00:08:30] guest at some places?
Alison Brown: I remember it more seeing the Where’s Waldo elements that we saw in Paris. Mm-hmm. Where you and I would text each other, “Oh, so and so is, you know, Tom Cruise is in the house.” Right. Or, like, that celebrity was, was a lot of fun. The random guests I found kind of irritating, to be honest, because I want the focus to be on the event, not on the celebrity.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Right. So- And depending on who it was. Like, why is Simona figure [00:09:00] skating?
Alison Brown: Right. Although good- I mean, at least there she’s a gold medalist, and she can speak to, oh, what the nerves are like. Mm-hmm. And, and that doesn’t bother me as much as Jeff Goldblum. Like, I mean, as much as I adore Jeff Goldblum.
What is he bringing to the table here?
Jill Jaracz: Right. Right. And why Jeff Goldblum? I wanna know, out of all the celebrities you could pick across all the countries, Jeff Goldblum made your list?
Alison Brown: Well, to be honest, he’s so enthusiastic [00:09:30] whenever you see him at an event on the jumbotron-
Jill Jaracz: Right …
Alison Brown: that I could see why you would want him.
Because he’s not going to be cold or unfeeling. He’s gonna be, “This is the greatest moment I’ve had all year. This is just so exciting for me.” “I’ve defeated aliens, but here I am at luge, and it is so much better.”
Jill Jaracz: Right. Right. So again, lack of numbers. I would love to know how much this initiative cost.
Alison Brown: Cost, yeah.
Who,
Jill Jaracz: who’s paying
Alison Brown: for this?
Jill Jaracz: This had to be big. Yes. And [00:10:00] besides accom- acc- acc- accreditation, are you paying, a fee? Do you pay travel expenses? what are you paying for Moving on to the Cultural Olympiad, 500 plus projects for the Cultural Olympiad, 2,000 plus artworks created or specifically commissioned, along with a host of other things.
But it was pretty impressive, I thought, that- Yes … and we kept seeing stuff here and there, like just random
Alison Brown: Cultural Olympiad moments. We saw it at, we, we saw it around Milan, not as much as we did in Paris, [00:10:30] I think because Paris had that Paris Media Center that did- Right … such a good job of highlighting all the stuff that was going on in the city.
Mm-hmm. And Milan did have a media center, but it’s much smaller.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: And once we got tuned in with them, then we started seeing the different things and, and, and getting some of that environment. But yeah, it’s, it’s really exciting to see when the Cultural Olympiad takes root and has that e- effect on the city.
Jill Jaracz: back to the [00:11:00] report. Uh, the two new venues that were late, well, it’s because the developers were late in handing them off, and so all of the timelines got compressed from then on, to which one would think, uh, maybe you should’ve started the project sooner.
Alison Brown: But the projects that were totally under the OCOG, like the, sliding center, got done somehow.
Jill Jaracz: It got done, but they were, tight on time. Yeah. And I think it really [00:11:30] compressed everything else. And I get that the pandemic really put a, a harsh on the groove of Milano Cortina in ways that we don’t remember because the early planning and things getting launched was right at the start of the pandemic basically.
And Italy got hard hit
Alison Brown: early. Hit
Jill Jaracz: hard. Yes. Yeah. So we have to give them a little grace there. Uh, they learned some lessons on event delivery. I bet they did. So they [00:12:00] used what they called event delivery entities to run venue operations in the different clusters, and so the mileage varied on how well they did.
And the OCOG noted that the entities may have been strong in knowledge of a sport or they’ve been strong in knowing the venue really well, but they didn’t necessarily get the Olympic system as a whole. They didn’t get Olympics, and that meant experiences in Anterselva where biathlon was, Val di Fiemme which I believe was like cross-country ski [00:12:30] jumping area, and Cortina were vastly different and inconsistent.
And the, the first two of those were effective in sport but needed, quote, “clear guidance” to align with Olympic-specific requirements. And in Cortina, they didn’t have capacity at the local level to do this. So local, expectations weren’t aligned. Town didn’t have resources. They just kind of assumed that the OCOG or the entity would pick up the slack, [00:13:00] and sounds like things fell through the cracks Transportation. Transportation. They did not prioritize cross-cluster travel, which-
Alison Brown: Really?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And, and it really comes across that they didn’t understand that people needed to travel across clusters. And I will say as I’m reading this, I hear somebody I overheard at, at Para alpine skiing go, “I really don’t wanna have to drive back to cross-country and biathlon again.”
Right. Like they had been [00:13:30] doing that for days back and forth.
Alison Brown: Yeah. well, we knew this. We couldn’t cross culture ourselves across venues
Jill Jaracz: So stakeholders had to adapt. That created duplication and limitations in different places, like limiting our ability to cover half of the events or more-
Alison Brown: Right …
Jill Jaracz: like really.
Alison Brown: Because we had the whole issue of there are trains that we can’t go on, and there were buses that stopped running, and that was just during Para.
Never [00:14:00] mind during the Olympics where i- there was a weather issue and they just stopped running things. So there were probably a whole bunch of people who were driving cars with one person in them back and forth and all around northern Italy, where if you had just had cross, cluster busing that, you know, actually worked with a time schedule that made sense, could’ve saved a lot of issues.
And, and- And gotten better coverage.
Jill Jaracz: Right, and better use of [00:14:30] resources,
Alison Brown: right.
Jill Jaracz: athlete experience. Athletes like the proximity between accommodations and venues, but aspects of the games that are unique to the Olympic experience, like meeting other s- people from other sports and feeling national pride, that was severely dismin- diminished.
If you had a traditional Olympic Village experience, 74% were satisfied with that. If you were in the single sport hotel accommodation, [00:15:00] 53% of athletes were satisfied with that. You really could tell that if you were in a single sport area, they were not thrilled about it.
Alison Brown: No, because it just felt like a world championship event. Right. It didn’t feel like they were there. I would be curious to see the breakdown of this Olympics versus Paralympics.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Yes.
Alison Brown: That would be interesting to see if that made a difference, but they don’t have those breakdowns.
Jill Jaracz: No, no. [00:15:30] the fan experience was also uneven.
Too difficult to experience the event as a whole because it was so spread out. many people were required to stay outside of local competitions and had significant travel that they had to do to get there, and when they bought tickets, they didn’t get great information about travel times or accommodations, and, it’s– just were really frustrated about that.
if you were in a remote venue, you had little [00:16:00] support, maybe few activities, so that was also frustrating. And then fan villages and onsite programming were developed too late, and then they got diluted because the, the deadlines and they couldn’t do it. Livigno apparently did a great job with fan activation, so that was cool to hear.
and then the ceremonies when they spread the parade of nations out across villages, stakeholders and athletes especially liked that, and I liked it for the athletes too, but they noted that the experience in the stadium was [00:16:30] impacted.
Alison Brown: we would agree.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. they did acknowledge that stakeholder operations got really complicated.
And they, they said, you know, for sponsors it was a cool opportunity because they got to spread stuff across locations and reach more people. So if you’re a sponsor looking for more customers, all right, I get it. But everybody else, whoa, that was not great news. This was where that was really telling, because they said if, if doing this model in the [00:17:00] future, they recommend that organizing committees should assess the stakeholder implication before confirming the game’s footprint.
Like, they should have thought about this at the bid stage.
Alison Brown: Right.
Jill Jaracz: And it sounded like they did a really bad job of understanding how much stakeholders got affected.
Alison Brown: I hope French Alps is reading this report half as closely as you are.
Because, well, we’ll get to [00:17:30] what, what they’ve announced, but it feels like it’s gonna be even more thinly spread.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, I, we’ll get to it. We’ll get to it. Yeah. ‘Cause I disagree. I disagree.
Alison Brown: Okay.
Jill Jaracz: There’s an element that’s bad. and, uh, we’ll, we’ll get to that.
To, to- We’ll get to that,
Alison Brown: okay … to, to
Jill Jaracz: each game- Hey, h- put, put a
Alison Brown: pin in that …
Jill Jaracz: right, to each games their Tahiti, let’s just say. Um, one, one last note about Milano Cortina, Canadian Paralympic medal winners got a [00:18:00] bonus payment from the Paralympic Foundation of Canada, and for the first time, this payment equals the Olympic bonus that Canadian athletes get.
So they got $20,000 for gold, 15,000 for silver, and 10,000 for bronze. It’s very nice.
Summer of Nostalgia
Jill Jaracz: We’re gonna go to LA next, but before we get to LA news, we wanted to let you know about a fun opportunity over on our Patreon page. That’s patreon.com/flamealivepod. I’ve been cleaning out the files And I found a lot of pictures.
Like a lot of pictures [00:18:30]
Alison Brown: And let me tell you something, these are a ton of pictures that I’ve never seen, so I’m having fun with what you’ve been putting on Patreon.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So, uh, during June, July, and August, we are celebrating the Summer of Nostalgia and sharing never before seen photos and videos from games we’ve attended in person.
If you listen to our Daily Games Recap episodes, you will know that we find the unusual to showcase. So in June we looked at Beijing 2022, looking at [00:19:00] Paris now, and August will be Milano Cortina 2026.
You can get access to these fun things two ways. Join our Patreon, so all paying members get photos, and if you are at the $5 a month up, category, you will also get a couple of videos a week and, and the photos are like five days a week. So you, you’re getting a lot of content for like next to nothing, let me tell you.
You can also buy these as a collection, for a flat fee, you can get access to photos, to videos, or to both. [00:19:30] So check it out, patreon.com/flamealivepod. our patrons ensure that the show keeps going and they cover operating expenses, which have increased this year due to vendor price hikes.
Uh, we are on the lookout for more people to join our patrons.
So get your dose of games nostalgia today at patreon.com/flamealivepod.
LA 2028 News
Jill Jaracz: All right, we have LA 2028 news.
Alison Brown: We have a Paralympic [00:20:00] schedule.
Jill Jaracz: We do. Paralympics are starting on a Tuesday, but really they start on Sunday because we have day minus one and day minus two.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: every Games now is day minus one, day minus two, and now we have, like, day minus four for LA.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Why can’t they just change the opening day?
Alison Brown: they just won’t do that. They just can’t do that. That is turning the Titanic. They’re just gonna keep adding minus days until we have a…
We don’t [00:20:30] know what day we’re in-
Jill Jaracz: Until they’re
Alison Brown: six- … from the very beginning …
Jill Jaracz: six months long.
Alison Brown: It’ll be like St. Louis all over again.
Jill Jaracz: All right, so, competition is starting with wheelchair rugby. And, uh, boccia also starts the competition. The closing ceremonies are on Sunday, August 27th, along with seven finals for blind football, athletics, [00:21:00] badminton, climbing, para powerlifting, sitting volleyball, and wheelchair basketball.
Alison Brown: Yeah, in Paris, we had powerlifting and wheelchair basketball, I remember, ’cause we were both at those.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: And c- but I don’t think there was events in all of these.
Jill Jaracz: I don’t think so either. I
Alison Brown: mean, it really closed out, like- I mean, well, that’s a lot for closing day. Yeah. Because sitting volleyball definitely was over before then because we had seen it.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: It was the day before.
Jill Jaracz: [00:21:30] So yeah, it’s gonna be a big, big day on closing ceremonies day.
Ooh. Super Saturday is day 11. That’s Saturday, August 26th. 13 sports going on that day. Everything except football will have a medal event.
Alison Brown: Nice.
Jill Jaracz: Para climbing is new this year. It’s the last four days of the games. Eight events going on there.
para table tennis and para triathlon will have additional women’s classification. This is the result of splitting up a class that was combined before. So now we [00:22:00] have more people involved with the sport. That means we can separate people into classes and n- and have more, equality in terms of the level of disability in each class.
So that’s a good thing. That’s always a good sign when more people can compete. Yeah, when
Alison Brown: you’ve got more classes, that means more people in the class.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And then para swimming is going to have a new relay for swimmers with intellectual impairments. If you’re a ceremonies person, they will both be held at the LA Memorial Coliseum.
[00:22:30] Para cycling road and time trials will start and finish at the LA Zoo. And the marathon is gonna start at Venice Beach and finish in front of the Coliseum. So big, huge venues on some of these. The zoo is gonna be cool.
I wonder what some of these animals will think. I don’t know if that means you ride by the animals- I think that would be awesome … or you’re just
Alison Brown: out front. It could be you’re out front.
Jill Jaracz: But would be funny to see what the animals think of all of this. [00:23:00] Rawr. If they have penguins, just bring them out and have them do their, their penguin dance.
Have
Alison Brown: them do a little dance.
Jill Jaracz: We have ticket drought number two is scheduled. It, it seems weird that there’s
Alison Brown: only ticket drought number two. I know, ’cause it feels like we’ve been talking about ticketing for literally a year at least.
Jill Jaracz: So ticket drought number two will be August 10 through 20.
Tickets will be available for all sports and at all price points. [00:23:30] We’ll say right now, don’t expect to get those $28 tickets, and if you do, you are very lucky. That’s all I’m gonna say. If you’re already registered, you are still in the ticket lottery. If you’re not registered, you can go through tickets.la28.org, registration is open through July 22. if you did not get selected for the first lottery, you’re still eligible, you don’t have to re-register for that. lottery is random, so if you don’t get in this time, there’s [00:24:00] gonna be other drops, I can guarantee you that.
Alison Brown: Oh, right. The, not everything is gonna be sold.
And then continually as they set up final plans, they add seats. Right. And tickets get released. So even if you’re in, you know, ticket drop six, there’s still gonna be tickets at the last minute. And then we haven’t even talked about the resale platform.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: We don’t have that information yet. So if you’re a year ahead, two-year ahead planner, fantastic.
If you are a two-month ahead [00:24:30] planner, we will get you. Don’t worry.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. there are ticket maximums of course, and if you haven’t reached the maximum, you can still be selected for this lottery as well. 12 tickets for Olympic events, plus 12 football tickets per account. Ceremonies are maximum four.
That does count toward your 12 ticket maximum. Now there’s gonna be a visa pre-sale
You can’t use anything [00:25:00] else.
So that presale is July 29 through 31. You get notified on July 27th. You must confirm your status, as a Visa card holder before July 22. And how you do that is if you’re already in the ticket draw, go back to your LA 2028 tickets account, check the presale box for the Visa presale box and save changes.
If you’re registering for the first time, check that Visa box when you sign up. So you can not register multiple [00:25:30] accounts, only one registration per person, and it’s gotta be the same as your LA28 account. random drawing again. If you get selected for the Visa presale, you will be out of the main ticket drop.
But if you don’t get selected, no big deal, you’ll still get possibilities in that ticket drop.
Alison Brown: And all of these registration are no commitment.
Jill Jaracz: Correct.
Alison Brown: You don’t have to buy tickets if you get selected for this if there’s no tickets that you want in there. So don’t feel compelled because you got [00:26:00] picked to buy tickets that you don’t actually really wanna go to.
Right. Because like we said, marathon not a sprint.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. Exactly. The LA 2028 has finalized the cycling routes. the Olympic road race will start at Venice Beach Boardwalk and end at Griffith Observatory, which if you are familiar with that, is on a hill.
So it- It’s
Alison Brown: not a very big hill.
Jill Jaracz: It is a big hill, yes. the road time trial [00:26:30] will start at the LA Zoo and finish at the observatory. Nar. So they’re both in Griffith, right.
both those things are in Griffith Park, so I wonder if it’s just a, a loop up there.
Alison Brown: Mm-hmm.
Jill Jaracz: . Volunteer application, that will open on July 14, so that is coming up finally.
Alison Brown: I know.
Um,
Jill Jaracz: you must be 18 years or older at application time. You must be proficient in reading and writing English. They did not specify proficiency in speaking [00:27:00] English.
Alison Brown: Well, you know, there are jobs who even if you don’t speak English terribly well, but if you read and write it-
you could do.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Yes,
Alison Brown: and- And they always are looking for other language proficiency as well.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, definitely. Definitely. you have to be available for 80 hours during a games period. That is 10 eight-hour shifts, non-consecutive. The Olympic Games period is March through August 2028, and then the Paralympic Games period is August through September [00:27:30] 2028. Um, application will be online. They say it’ll take about a half an hour to do.
You’ll be asked for personal information, your past experience in volunteering if, in, and in sport. If you have any specialties, like do you have medical skills or things like that, uh, where you would like to be located. there will be greater LA, Oklahoma City, but there’s also gonna be the football tournament cities, so New York, Columbus, Ohio, Nashville, St.
Louis. San Jose, and San Diego will also [00:28:00] need some volunteers. , They’ll ask you for your clothing sizes, and, if you don’t have experience, don’t worry. If you still wanna be a volunteer, apply. That’s not necessarily gonna ding your application if you don’t have a ton of experience in volunteering and in sport, but, you know- They’re looking for all kinds.
Alison Brown: They really are, ’cause, you know, all the volunteers that we’ve run into, there are so many jobs and so many skill sets that they need that you may think, “Oh, I don’t have a skill set [00:28:30] that really could be used.” You would be surprised.
Jill Jaracz: And they do like the young people applying.
Alison Brown: They do like the young’uns.
Jill Jaracz: apply early so you don’t miss the deadline. That’s what they’re hoping. They say there will be three phases for selection. That’s application, assessment, and training. If you are selected for an assessment, that’s gonna be done either in LA or virtually. If you are selected, then there will be online training.
Those assessments and selections will take place on a rolling basis [00:29:00] throughout 2027, so don’t really expect to hear something for a few months after you apply. they are planning for 60,000 volunteers. 20,000 of them will be allocated to sport. How many applications do you think they’re gonna actually get?
Alison Brown: Oh, over a million.
Jill Jaracz: You think over a million? Okay.
Alison Brown: I think they’re gonna get a million.
Jill Jaracz: Writing this down. Alison thinks one million.[00:29:30]
Okay. I think… Oh gosh, that makes me wanna raise mine. Um, I was gonna say like 200,000. Okay. but I might go up to 300,000. I’m, uh, we’ll, we’ll do Price Is Right rules, closest to- Oh … without going over.
Alison Brown: But then I’m gonna lose.
Jill Jaracz: okay, if you Price Is Right rules, how would you change that?
Alison Brown: Then I would say 800.
Jill Jaracz: 800, okay. Price Is Right rules- Yeah … is 800. Final, [00:30:00] final answer?
Alison Brown: It’s, that’s my,
Jill Jaracz: that’s my final answer. Okay. I will stick with 200,000, but- Okay
it could be 300. I’ll be wishy-washy. volunteer roles, you can fall into the ca- following categories: ceremonies, communications, driving experience, medical, operations, sport, or technology. they’ll ask what you wanna do. It’s not guaranteed you’ll get there unless you have some specialties, so, be flexible.
Remember, volunteer roles are unpaid. N- no expenses are [00:30:30] covered. So if you are traveling, you will have to pay for your travel and your accommodations while you are there.
You do get cool kit, and you get the experience of a lifetime,
Alison Brown: All the volunteers we’ve spoken to, it, it’s always been just an incredible experience for them
Jill Jaracz: good luck. If you apply, and if you get anywhere in the application process, let us know.
We’d want to hear from you, especially if we think we’ll be able to see you somewhere.
Like if you get assigned
Alison Brown: the [00:31:00] media center.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. I mean, that’s not even guaranteed. I think Valja was at speed skating. Yes. And we never ran into her.
Alison Brown: Never ran into her. Yeah. Never there when we were there.
Jill Jaracz: . LA City Council has decided to train- change one of its street names.
At their May 27th meeting, they unanimously voted to change the name of s- 39th Street between Main and Figueroa to Paralympic Way. So that’s very cool. the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations had its [00:31:30] general assembly and the, chief sport and games delivery officer for LA 2028, who is Shayna Ferguson, , she had some interesting information. So, LA will have four Olympic villages. They’re gonna have UCLA in LA.
They’re gonna have one in Oklahoma City of course. UC Irvine in Orange County will be one, and there’s gonna be one in northeast Los Angeles County as well. LA has 720 employees as of that general [00:32:00] assembly. They expect to be 6,000 full-time staff when the games start. So if you are looking for a job, look and see what jobs are open at LA 2028.
we don’t really talk about the LA CEO, Raynard Hoover, who is, if you remember LA 1984, he’s the Peter Ueberroth of the games. We talk a lot about Casey Wasserman.
Alison Brown: Wasserman, right. He is the- But he’s the chair.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: He’s not the CEO.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: So Casey Wasserman is more the public face.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: [00:32:30] Although- And Raynard Hoover is- Right
doing some heavy lifting.
Jill Jaracz: Although Peter Ueberroth was still more of the public face than the… But I think Casey Wasserman was just so out there and is so well-known- Right … that that’s just the face. But, let’s talk a little bit about Raynard Hoover. He is a retired three-star army general,
Alison Brown: so he’s getting that organization into shape.
I would love to work in an office with him.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh. They are already talking through potential scenarios, and they will start simulations in [00:33:00] 2027, and they plan to do tests focusing on sport technology, venue infrastructure, and event management. I am very excited that those games will be run really well. That is my hope
Alison Brown: Fingers crossed
Jill Jaracz: the Modern Pentathlon International Federation, UIPM, signed a licensing contract with TBS for a Sasuke Ninja Warrior course to be- Ugh … at LA ’28. Oh, my gosh, I love Ninja [00:33:30] Warrior.
Alison Brown: Yes, but Ninja Warrior does not belong in modern pentathlon.
Jill Jaracz: That you know of yet. I keep meaning to- Yeah … watch a World Cup, and I haven’t gotten there yet. they are going to use certain Sasuke Ninja Warrior intellectual property, and, I mean, by Sasuke, I mean the Japanese version- Yes … not necessarily the American version that we see here. and that means, like, the design of certain obstacles, and, the deal also includes collaboration and global cross-promotion in the run-up to LA [00:34:00] ’28.
So that’s a huge coup, I think, for modern pentathlon because when w- uh, Ben and I had talked to, a young junior pentathlete while we were in line for the bus after modern pentathlon, and she’s like, “Yeah, people are getting through this obstacle course really quickly.”
Alison Brown: It’s too easy. So,
Jill Jaracz: yeah, too easy and too similar.
So I’m sure the Sasuke… And then people know Sasuke, so they’re gonna be like, “Oh, I wanna tune into this event.” And we’ll get into when we hit [00:34:30] 2030, staying relevant and increasing popularity, modern pentathlon made a big move
Hospitality House news. My gosh, we still have so much to talk about. thanks, a hat tip, a lot to, uh, Rich Perlman over at the Sports Examiner, and over to the House Party blog. That’s houseparty.blog if you have not found them before. They have a lot of har- house party news. So there’s going to be a House of Switzerland in Santa Monica at the Camera Obscura building [00:35:00] on Ocean Avenue.
It will have views of the Pacific Ocean. They get the building from June 14 through September 21, 2028. there’s potential for them to also use part of Palisades Park with this endeavor. Club France will be at Annenberg Beach House, and will have the property from June 30 to August 4, which makes me think no Paralympics, Club France.
That’s, uh, that’s sad, seeing that you just hosted. Belgian House will be in downtown LA, no confirmed location yet. [00:35:30] Team Ireland House will be at Ovation Square in Long Beach, and they’re gonna partner with restaurants The Ordinaire and The Old Dubliner for food. Japan House has been proposed for a temporary dome and more at Mangrove parking lot on East Temple Street in Little Tokyo in LA.
And Team USA is in ne- negotiations with Santa Monica to put Team USA House at the Santa Monica Pier in Sandbox South, 85,000 square feet of [00:36:00] sand- … south of the pier to Acadia Terrace That’s gonna be a house, a big hou- That’s gonna be- And, and I know they’re going all out … a very
Alison Brown: big house.
Jill Jaracz: I wonder how much the tickets will be for this if it’s public.
Alison Brown: Oh, geez.
Jill Jaracz: Right?
Alison Brown: A
Jill Jaracz: lot. Um, this appears to be a new trend. More sports are going to have their own houses. fencing will have one. Artistic swimming has announced that it will have a house at Altar Society Brewing and Coffee Country, Company in Long Beach. [00:36:30] That’s, uh, less than a mile from the venue, and it will be open on the days that artistic swimming is competing.
That’s July 25 through 29, for five hours after the events have ended. $300 per person per day, but kids under five are free.
Alison Brown: Oh, geez.
Jill Jaracz: That gets you all-inclusive food and beverages, Olympian appearances and autograph signings, watch parties, ’cause they’ll show stuff after the events, sponsor stuff, and the opportunity to buy [00:37:00] merch So lot of LA stuff
Alpes 2030 News
Alison Brown: au revoir French Alps- … 2030. Bonjour Alps. And I was looking at this going, “Is it Alpe?” No, it’s just Alps. It, it’s no different. They
Jill Jaracz: just
Alison Brown: dropped the French.
Jill Jaracz: How many people are going to say Alpe? Many. [00:37:30] Many. So French Alps has had so many things go on.
let’s start with the logo, People on the Facebook group- It’s a mountain … it’s a mountain. It’s a mountain or the absence of a mountain.
Alison Brown: Right.
Jill Jaracz: So the Alps 2030 Olympic logo is a mountain in lines that is blue and over to the end of the, the mountain it’s kind of orange-ish, red-ish.
Alison Brown: Pink.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: I [00:38:00] think that’s pink.
Jill Jaracz: And then the Paralympic logo, the mountain is just white.
The tri- there’s a white triangle surrounded by rays coming off of it. The streaks of, of color. Yes, exactly. thoughts on this logo?
Alison Brown: I like it. I know a lot of people were like, “Oh, it’s so boring.” I think it’s very effective in that it’s simple, but the two logos are distinct, but together. You know, the mountain or the absence of the triangle [00:38:30] or the triangle.
I liked that. I like the color scheme that they’re going with with the blues and the pinks. I don’t see the problem here.
Jill Jaracz: I don’t either. there was a, a little bit of Tron talk, and I get that- Oh … with these, these rays out. But I, I agree with you. I like the fact that they complement each other very well, and that the, the mountain of the Olympics sh- is supposed to fit into the white space of the Paralympic model- Right
logo. So I think it’s cool. it’s different from Milan. [00:39:00] I think there’s an element- Right … of class to it. Somebody said there’s a little bit of throwback to the Albertville 1992, I think in the type a bit. so I kinda like that as well. it’s not a bad logo.
Alison Brown: I think it works.
Jill Jaracz: I’m sure it’s…
Alison Brown: It works for Alpes.
And what sports are gonna be in Alpes?
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh. Oh, geez. let’s talk sports. Oh, this is great. So in the time we’ve been off, we’ve [00:39:30] had exa- IOC executive board meetings. We’ve had an IOC extraordinary session. We’ve had another IOC executive board meeting today. And, sport-wise, Alps 2030 said, “We would like ski mountaineering to stay.”
And the IOC said, “Okay, that sounds good.” So skimo is back. We like that. That is nice. Then, they have added many new disciplines. Now, it, we’re gonna have to start talking about things in terms of sports and disciplines and [00:40:00] events because that is how the IOC is going to classify everything in the future.
So a sport would be something like skiing, and skiing has a lot of disciplines like ski jumping, alpine, cross country, those are all skiing disciplines. An event would be something like the women’s downhill. think of it like that.
In the summer you have something like swimming as a sport, but artistic swimming, swimming, diving, water [00:40:30] polo, those are all disciplines within swimming. That kind of thing.
Alison Brown: Right, and then the event would be 200 meter butterfly.
Jill Jaracz: Butterfly, yes.
Alison Brown: If you’re confused, that’s okay.
Jill Jaracz: we’ll get used to it.
So it’s a process because the IOC has been working on figuring out how a sport gets into the Olympics.
Alison Brown: Right, because they, they did away with Demonstration sports ages ago. And now it’s been, you know, the, host city can pick sports to put in, and [00:41:00] sometimes they stay, and sometimes they go, but there’s no official process anymore.
Jill Jaracz: Right.
Alison Brown: And they wanna do away with the, their, I mean, how does the IOC not have an official process for something? That’s just wrong. Oh, I can
Jill Jaracz: see that happening. I could see, see
Alison Brown: a bunch of people- It’s happened to us over eight years, right? With, you’ve been cleaning up the, the no official process. But we don’t have Kirstie Coventry yelling at us.
Jill Jaracz: I know, but she-
Alison Brown: Telling us how to do things … she’s,
Jill Jaracz: I will say she is inspiring me to be for the [00:41:30] future in terms of getting this boat in order. Um- I
Alison Brown: know …
Jill Jaracz: so, uh, big excitement is they’re adding disciplines eve- and events in four sports. So biathlon will now have a mixed singles relay. figure skating is adding a synchro nine event.
Alison Brown: Eee. I’m just a little excited about that.
Jill Jaracz: I’m excited that they’re actually adding synchro ’cause it’s-
Alison Brown: I’m thrilled … it’s, it’s a beautiful event to watch. [00:42:00] It’s everything that we love about figure skating without the insane drama.
Jill Jaracz: And the potential hip replacements.
Alison Brown: That too.
Jill Jaracz: And I think having the nines event, ’cause typ- typically what synchro teams are what, like 15 or so? Six- 16? I was gonna say 16.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: They’re, yeah, they’re very large. So cutting it down and having a smaller event, I think really helped get them into the Olympics.
So this’ll be beautiful to watch. Um, speed skating will [00:42:30] have a men’s and team sprint, and a women’s team sprint event. So I’m excited to see what that’s gonna be like. Uh, ski is n- Chaos is what that’s gonna be Ski and snowboard is adding free ride as a discipline with men’s ski, men’s snowboard, women’s ski, and women’s snowboard events.
Freestyle skiing will add a mixed team ski cross. Snowboard will- Oh. I know. snowboard will add a mixed [00:43:00] team snowboard parallel event. Ski jumping is adding a women’s super team. Ski mountaineering is adding, uh, the individual discipline onto the la- the Milano Cortina program, which was men’s and women’s sprints and a mixed relay.
So now we get a men’s and women’s individual. So everybody who said- So
Alison Brown: they’ll be longer.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. If
Alison Brown: you- That we were all saying, “We want these races to be longer. We didn’t really get a chance to get into the sport.” They listened. They [00:43:30] listened to us, Jill. Right.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: It’s all about what we had to say.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So very excited that there’s gonna be…
If you’re bringing ski mo back, let’s have more of it.
Alison Brown: Yes.
Jill Jaracz: If it’s that popular, let’s bring it back. No longer on the program?
Alison Brown: Nordic combined. They have totally- So they dealt with the problem of not having a women’s event by cutting the men’s event, which we had been anticipating. Yes. We said they’re [00:44:00] either going to have to add the women’s event, ’cause you can’t have an event, or really in this case a discipline, with only men.
Jill Jaracz: Right, and they’re really pushing the, the gender equality and pari- well, gender parity, ’cause they know winter’s just not getting gender equality soon. so two things were on the, docket for cutting, and that was snowboard parallel giant slalom and Nordic combined. Parallel giant slalom has improved.
Nordic [00:44:30] did not. And so across most of the popularity indicators, Nordic combined ranked lowest among all Olympic Winter Games discipline at Sochi, Pyeongchang, Beijing, and Milano Cortina. And at Milano Cortina it was r- the lowest ranked discipline in 11 of the 14 popularity indicators that they assessed.
So already y- they’ve given them four games to get their acts [00:45:00] together and go, you know, “You’re not a popular sport. Get bigger. Get better.” It is, an issue in terms of universality and participation, and they noted that only five national Olympic committees won medals in Nordic combined across the last four editions of the games.
So-
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: You don’t have a lot of
Alison Brown: participation. It’s not a surprise. Yeah. Yeah, it’s not a big surprise. It is disappointing, and it’s certainly disappointing to the Malyszinskis that we have become- Yes … so fond of, you [00:45:30] know, the, the Nordic combined athletes. But you can’t, and this is gonna be something we’re gonna be looking at for Brisbane.
Mm-hmm. You cannot have these sports just hanging on. There has to be worldwide participation, or at least significant continental, uh, participation. And you can’t be unpopular and stick around.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Right. You
Alison Brown: know? And it’ll be interesting- TV revenue and streaming revenue- Yeah … is, it is the [00:46:00] key to your survival.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, so we’ll see what happens with Nordic combined. It could be work. I mean, and they, the, the federation has known this for a long time. I don’t know what they plan to do with Nordic combined as a sport. it’s gonna keep going, obviously. But we’ll see how much it can keep going. Nordic combined will stay in the Youth Olympic Games for 2028, but because that was already on the schedule.
And the discipline does have the potential to come back for [00:46:30] Utah 2034 or future games. So we’ll see if they can, come back at all, but it’s- An OG Winter Olympic sport no longer.
Alison Brown: But that’s not gonna keep you going.
Jill Jaracz: No, right?
Alison Brown: History is not gonna keep you going. Mm. And that’s, I think, the biggest change that we’re gonna see in the Coventry era, that history is not cement.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. the IOC is going to be proudly trumpeting that they are finally achieving gender [00:47:00] parity by quota allocation for the first time at the Games.
females will have 50% of quota spots, and there will be pretty much gender parity in terms of the number of events for men and women. 56 for women, 55 for men, 15 mixed. four sports are increasing the number of females. Luge is going from 44.3% to half and half. Skiing will go from 48.6% to also 50%.
[00:47:30] Bobsleigh is going from 32.9% to 39.5%, which the big, the big issue with bobsled is, uh, the
Alison Brown: fact that- You’ve got four-man versus monobob …
Jill Jaracz: yeah, so that’s a big deal.
Alison Brown: I mean, that’s actually pretty good that they’re able to get that much parity. But when you think about it, when you’ve got, you know, you’ve got the two man and the two women, great, that’s even.
But then the other one is a monobob versus a four-man. I mean, right off the bat you have three more men-
than women, so even getting [00:48:00] close to any kind of parity is really difficult.
Jill Jaracz: And then ice hockey is gonna go from 43.4% to 45.6. I have been living in, like, Winter Olympics mode for a long time.
I am so excited about 2030 all of a sudden. I’m glad. Ah. We didn’t even talk about where the venues are. Oh my gosh. Nice out of the picture. Everything-
Alison Brown: Lyon …
Jill Jaracz: Lyon is gonna be your big ice city, [00:48:30] metropolis, cluster. I think there’s gonna be some stuff in the, the Lyon suburbs.
So you’ve got your, Haute-Savoie cluster, your Savoie cluster, your Briançonnais cluster, or Briançonnais. I’m not sure how to pronounce that yet. And then, your Herrenveen cluster. So-
Alison Brown: See, that’s not… There are t- no. No. I have such a problem with this. You cannot have that many clusters because h- what could be happening [00:49:00] in each of those clusters but like one or two things.
That’s not a cluster.
Jill Jaracz: Very true. I’m guessing they’re s- uh, taking towns and going, “Well, there’s one event here, and then there’s two events here, and you’re kind of close together, so we will cluster you and put a village there.” So there you go. It’s not a cluster. That’s a… Yes. yes, Lyon will have everything on ice except for speed skating, which will be in the Netherlands.
Alison Brown: I mean, I know why they’re doing this, but why?
Jill Jaracz: Right. It’s the [00:49:30] stadium. Uh, b- and th- that is because France has no 400-meter ice rink for, speed skating. They would not like to build one, and apparently, why, why I wanted numbers, I wanted to know how much that temporary ice rink cost in, Milano Cortina.
They also opted not to do that, which I thought would be kind of a thing. But maybe Lyon… Well, well, and they also had issues with, trying to use Nice, and Nice finally saying, “No, we don’t want the games here.” There may have been- Right … a place [00:50:00] in Nice that was big enough, and maybe nothing in Lyon is big enough when you consider all of the sports that are going to happen in Lyon.
So you’ve got, Heerenveen, which has a, a big iconic speed skating stadium in speed skating mad Netherlands, which that will be awesome. What’s not awesome is how far away is everything else, and it’s like a good 10-hour drive or so. Maybe- It’s insane … an eight to 10, eight to 10 hours by train, ’cause you have to go to Amsterdam and then you have to go from Amsterdam to Heerenveen, [00:50:30] and it’s just insanely far away, and, forget going to see speed skating basically.
I think the Dutch will like it, and they’ll
Alison Brown: be- Oh, the Dutch- They’ll- … will be thrilled, and they’ll make it the best event that we’ve ever seen in terms of their enthusiasm and excitement, and the atmosphere in that venue will be magical, no doubt. S- Because the Netherlands is never gonna get an Olympics.
Jill Jaracz: no. And there hasn’t been an Olympics since, Amsterdam 1928, so-
Alison Brown: Right … [00:51:00]
Jill Jaracz: they’re excited. And that’s, cool, but it’s just gonna be, it’s the Alps, Tahiti.
Alison Brown: Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: I will say I think Lyon and the rest of the clusters are only a few hours away from each other.
Alison Brown: So when I- Well, we’ll see what that actually means. I- No, don’t, don’t make that face at me. If they give me a stupid bus that I can sit on and at a normal hour, I mean, I will get up at 6, but as long as Giacomo’s not driving- … so I don’t get sick again, then that’ll [00:51:30] be fine. But I’m not counting on that.
Doping News
Alison Brown: I hate that sound.
Jill Jaracz: I know. Because that means we have doping news. It’s 2026.
Alison Brown: And we’re still reallocating 2012. Yes. Which, on the one hand, I’m so glad that these people are get- still getting caught, and still getting called out, and still losing their medals. But for all the clean [00:52:00] athletes, 14 years is a heck of a long wait.
Jill Jaracz: Right. That just shows you how slow the legal process is. Right. ‘Cause a lot of this is waiting for them to exhaust all their resources-
Alison Brown: Right …
Jill Jaracz: and all their avenues. So yes, we have another medal reallocation from London 2012, and if you guessed maybe the women’s 800 meters, which is like … we read a few years ago the, The Dirtiest Race in History, about the men’s 100 meter at Seoul in 1988.
They, they got nothing on the women’s 800 meter at London [00:52:30] 2012 now. Man, man, I’m waiting for that book. Ekaterina Pozdyatova, who is now, uh, last name is Guliyev. She is from Russia. She had the silver medal. She was disqualified because of an anti-doping rule violation. That decision came in March 2024.
The appeal was dismissed in May 2025. World Athletics has modified the results. Now that all appeals have been exhausted, the IOC is finally reallocating the medals. the original [00:53:00] podium was, uh, a Russian whose last name is Savinova, and, she had won gold. Caster Semenya had silver, and, Pozdyatova, who’s now Guliyev, was bronze.
Savinova was disqualified in 2016, so then Caster Semenya got the gold, Guliyev went to silver, and Pamela Jelimo went to bronze from, Pamela’s from Kenya. now Jelimo is upgraded to silver. She originally finished in fourth. Allyson [00:53:30] Montano from the US will receive the bronze. She was originally fifth.
Alison Brown: Boo, hiss
Jill Jaracz: I hope this is the end of London 2012.
Alison Brown: I agree
International Olympic Committee News
Jill Jaracz: We are Fit for the Future. We are Fit for the Future. A lot going on at the IOC ’cause Kirsty Coventry’s Fit for the Future platform, which I like better than the name Agenda 2020+5. this rolls off the [00:54:00] tongue a
Alison Brown: little more smoothly.
Jill Jaracz: Man, is she gonna whip this organization into shape. So this is supposed to build on the foundation of previous IOC work, , athletes are at the top of the, structure. then we had the Olympic Games Olympic impact, and, Olympic movement It’s basically everything the IOC does is getting examined here.
Each of these pillars have, has a goal, an ambition, objectives for 2032, and [00:54:30] commitments, which is just like when I tried to read everything that was going on with this, Boggled.
Alison Brown: Did, did your brain explode?
Jill Jaracz: Yes, it did.
Alison Brown: It was not fit for the future.
Jill Jaracz: Oh my gosh, this was a training plan beyond all training plans.
Alison Brown: It really is. she’s such an athlete first. You know, and really getting, this youn- I mean, young for an IOC president, and this very different attitude towards this organization. You know, we said before that history is [00:55:00] not cement, and Coventry is basically saying, “I don’t… Not so much I don’t care what you’ve done before, but just because you’ve done it before does not mean we’re gonna continue to do it this way.”
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. it’s gonna be interesting to see how this shakes out over the next few years. uh, one of the first changes we got was, IOC membership approved changes to the charter, the Olympic Charter, which is kind of their governing constitution. One change added more language about neutrality and keeping the [00:55:30] IOC and the Olympics politically neutral, which has resulted in, Russia being allowed back into the games.
We will get to that. The other now says that the Olympics program is made up of sports, disciplines, and events, which we talked about earlier with Alpies 2020, 2030. I may have to call it Alpies.
Alpies. What, what have you started? With Alps 2030, we talked about that. The [00:56:00] IOC is gonna examine everything here with sports and disciplines and events. Nothing is sacred. And what they changed in the charter is that there was a list of the international federations that were on the Olympic program. So once you made that list in the charter, you were just guaranteed- You can’t change it
to stay on. Yeah, unless you really needed to change, which was why boxing and, weightlifting have stayed on so long even though there’s just been a ton of corruption and issues with their, uh, international federations over the [00:56:30] years. now all those federations have been taken off the charter, so it’s easier to take sports on and off the program.
And I can’t wait to see what they do with Brisbane 2032.
Alison Brown: You know, Kirsty Coventry does not like how big the games have gotten. She feels like they’re too big, they’re too sprawling, they’re too expensive for cities to manage. And we’re seeing that with, both LA and Brisbane are kind of far-flunging some of these events because you, you can’t do it all in one [00:57:00] place.
I mean, Paris did a pretty good job of, of keeping a lot of things close, but even they had to kind of- Yes … even without Tahiti, as we like to say. Right. Everybody’s gonna have a Tahiti now. But they still had to go further- Right … afield than they would have liked. Like,
Jill Jaracz: like shooting. Shooting was in- Right
the center of the country because that’s where the national stadium was.
Alison Brown: Right.
Jill Jaracz: And, they didn’t want to build a shooting stadium in Paris.
Alison Brown: Fair enough. So now it becomes every federation, to an extent, [00:57:30] has to prove its worth.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: I think she’s going from the attitude of you’re on the program, so you’re gonna just by default stay on the program, and now she’s looking at all these sports the other way and saying- Yes
“What are you bringing to the table?”
Jill Jaracz: Yes. ”
Alison Brown: Why should you stay in, not why should we throw you out?”
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Very much so. It- it’s a very different perspective, and she’s very concerned about the number of fields of play, because once you [00:58:00] start adding disciplines that require different fields of play, you are adding complexities, you are adding costs.
And I think they’re really getting worried about being able to hold a Summer Olympics in different cities around the world. You’ve already taken so many cities out of the mix. I don’t know exactly who’s trying to get into 2036, because there, you hear speculation and, We don’t talk about these speculation things ’cause they often don’t go anywhere. you know, it’s just wasting [00:58:30] air, I think sometimes. Agreed. To be honest. Agreed. You know, hey. Oh, look, India wants to host again. Right. You know? You know, they’re not gonna get it together in time for, for a while.
Who knows? They may host it at some point.
Alison Brown: And one of the things that they said today at the, executive board press conference was, we don’t have a date that they’re going to announce the Brisbane program. They have not set that in stone. So I think they’re really going to look at every single sport, every single [00:59:00] discipline, every single event, and each one has to prove that it should be there.
And we know things are gonna get cut ’cause Kirstie Coventry has already said it’s too big.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Because if you look at the way LA presents itself, it presents itself as having 51 sports, which is not exact- You know, it depends on who you talk to, and the way that they’re talking about it, it would not be 51.
It would be more like 38.
Because they mix these discipline/sport terms. Right. You know, they, they split up [00:59:30] canoe sprint and canoe slalom, which really shouldn’t be split. But still, even if you’ve got 38, that’s too big to manage.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Yes.
Alison Brown: So what does that mean going forward? She hasn’t said how many they’re gonna cut because there is no goal.
It’s not like, “Okay, we wanna get down to 25.” No, it’s, “We wanna get down to a number where there’s a reason for each of these sports to be here.”
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And the federations are well aware of this. Kirstie also spoke [01:00:00] at the Association of, Summer International Federations general assembly and said, “We’re talking with you now.”
and I do believe that she is working on big dialogue with everybody in conversations, with everybody involved because she said she doesn’t want this to be a surprise and doesn’t wanna be a mandate, “Hey, we’re, throwing down the, gauntlet and we’re saying you must do this.” We’re saying, “Okay, international federations, let’s work together.”
Alison Brown: Right. And if your sport is going to [01:00:30] stay, we want it to be a success. We want it to be a television, an attendee, and an athlete success.
Jill Jaracz: I’m excited for our Substack newsletter.
Alison Brown: We’re gonna start speculating as in who’s in and who’s
Jill Jaracz: out. Yeah. Yeah, so if you don’t already get our free newsletter that comes out once a week, find it at flameoflifepod.com.
If you scroll down to the bottom, we- if you’re on Substack already, just look for Flame of Life Pod and sign up because, yeah, w- this is [01:01:00] gonna be a fun game to play.
Alison Brown: Wild speculation ensues.
Jill Jaracz: This’ll be exciting.
Alison Brown: We, we don’t have to be fit for the future. We can just put down whatever we want.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. some of the international federations are, have already gotten ahead of this because, hat tip again to Rich Perlman at the Sports Examiner.
He wrote about the International Canoe Federation, who announced on June 30th that it wants the Olympic canoe sprint program to be centered on 500-meter racing, complemented by long distance [01:01:30] racing. currently canoe needs a venue that’s at least two kilometers long, so that puts them way far out there, far away from everything.
usually athletes have to sta- stay elsewhere, or they have long travel times. So they want to be smaller focused, and then maybe they can have more options for more venues closer in. And you go, “Hey, we’re not as big and unwieldy as you think we are. We’ll save the big races for our own [01:02:00] world championships.”
Alison Brown: Right.
Jill Jaracz: it’ll be really interesting how it works. Pierre Ducret, who is the new Kit McConnell, not quite Kit McConnell, I will say.
Alison Brown: there’s no replacing Kit McConnell in my heart.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Let’s just put it there. So
Jill Jaracz: he is the games director at the IOC, I believe. When you’re talking sports, you talk with
Alison Brown: Pierre.
He’s a sport– I think it’s sport program-
Jill Jaracz: Sport program, okay …
Alison Brown: is, is the title.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. And they, he says they plan to treat every federation like it should be treated. But that means they’re not gonna [01:02:30] treat every federation the same way, which will be interesting. Not every session will be treated the same. So prelims are not the same as finals, so perhaps one is treated lower and one is treated higher, which may help for organizing committee planning.
So if you’re thinking about games delivery and the fan experience, that may mean that early sessions might not be as invested in maybe with the bells and whistles that finals are. Don’t know. [01:03:00] We’ll see what happens to that. other things that the IOC has announced In the run up to LA ’28, International Federations are going to be able to use an LA ’28 qualifying event label to give it better clarity and get people more excited and have some understanding, about this is a pathway to the games.
Alison Brown: So it’s not just a World Cup event, it’s not just, this cool thing we’re doing. Oh, no, no, no, people are qualifying for the Olympics here.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. You may see more International Federation [01:03:30] branding in venues because the IOC wants people to know that the International Federation is running the field of play at the games.
Alison Brown: Right. Because at the games there’s just a small banner. I mean, it’s very small. Right. And, I don’t even remember seeing it in many of the venues. It was, you know, one venue I saw, oh, oh, it… And then I finally realized that it’s always there. But it is very obscure, and the IOC would like to get some other people in trouble once in a while.
Say, “[01:04:00]
Jill Jaracz: No, we don’t run this.” a little note on the future of hospitality. As we know from talking with Paul Caine from On Location, they have the hospitality contract through LA 8, ’28, so the IOC is launching the request for proposal for 2030, 2032, and 2034. They’re trying to learn what worked and what didn’t work t- but this time they’re also looking for dedicated options for stakeholders, like a federation lounge in a venue, s- not just a [01:04:30] hospitality lounge. So six agencies have been invited to propose for this event, and they plan to e- award the contract in the first quarter of 2027. also during our break, Kirstie Coventry had her first really big press gaff.
Oopsies. You know, it’s kind of good that we’ve been off because it would’ve been fun to talk about it while it happened, but a lot of stuff got resolved. Yes. this one caused a big ruck- ruckus and Kirstie had a big learning [01:05:00] moment about dealing with the press. Big, big learning moment. Kirstie Coventry gave an interview to Alex Chapman of New Zealand’s Sport Nation, for a May 22nd, 2026 article. The headline ended up being, ” I don’t believe in paying athletes,” IOC boss on the Olympics future.
yeah, Kirstie Coventry was talking about her Fit for the Future program and how the IOC needed to evolve. so then he writes, ” Where they won’t be [01:05:30] evolving though is athlete payments. The current model for Olympians sees them financed by a combination of national sporting organizations, often through taxpayer funding, sponsorship, and self-funding.
However, once they get there, they don’t receive any payment for participation at the Olympics or for winning. Quote, ‘I don’t believe in paying athletes,’ end quote, Coventry’s told Sport Nation. Quote, ‘I come from a small comp- country, I come from a sport that doesn’t necessarily pay athletes very well, and I still don’t think we should be paying athletes at [01:06:00] the Olympic Games.'”
End quote. barrel of monkeys opened And
Alison Brown: is so strange is what ended up happening from this.
Jill Jaracz: so the athletes, of course, were not thrilled and caused a heck of a lot of hullabaloo online. And this re- caused, uh, Kirstie to push a, message out on Instagram through Athlete365, the IOC program, with an explanation and an apology ’cause [01:06:30] she’d learnt her lesson.
she should have said she doesn’t believe in paying athletes prize money at the Olympic Games,
Alison Brown: which is much- Which is a very different- … big Very different statement than what was, what she said.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. then after all, all of this, hullabaloo, a couple weeks later with the Fit for the Future program, they announce a new grant.
starting with Milano Cortina 2026, every [01:07:00] Olympian will have the opportunity to apply for a $10,000 grant for making the games. So if you make the Olympics, you get $10,000. they talked about an application because you don’t have to take the money if you don’t want to, so they’re making you apply for it, but they’re not gonna judge anybody’s income.
‘Cause in one of the press conferences somebody goes, “Well, you know, are basketball player- NBA basketball players and hockey players gonna get this money?” And, and she’s like, “You know, we don’t wanna judge anybody’s income. [01:07:30] Maybe they do want it. Maybe they don’t. It’s not up to us to decide. If they don’t want it, the money goes back into the pot.” And they came up with $10,000 because, an Olympic solidarity grant is $5,000 and, 10,000 would get you to a couple of world championships in between, in your cycle. So, the IOC set aside $140 million for this initiative.
They expect to pay about 14,000 Olympians per Olympiad, so that’s summer and winter [01:08:00] games.
Big change
Alison Brown: Huge change. And what is so strange is this idea of the $10,000 grant could not have come up in just the couple weeks before, between her statement and when this was announced. This $10,000 she knew about, and she knew about it, it existing, and this was being worked out, and had to be, in fact, in the final stages of being hammered out.
And then she comes out and says, “I don’t believe in paying athletes.” So [01:08:30] it was definitely a cross purpose in her brain that was happening there, where she was answering a question that’s not the question that was asked of her.
And she learned very quickly that you better be careful with what you say.
You are now the IOC president, and every word is gonna get dissected. And then when they did announce the $10,000 grant, it seems like it was a response to what she had said.
Which undercuts what they’re doing as well, even though obviously you can’t make up a [01:09:00] program at the IOC that quickly.
But still, it looks like I ran off and got engaged ’cause my ex-boyfriend got married.
the, the whole
Jill Jaracz: didn’t, didn’t have good Tough. Tough. But it’s a interesting program. I think it’s good. It’ll be helpful. They said, you know, basically this could keep people in sport for a little while longer. Absolutely. and, and I think the importance here was paying [01:09:30] everybody and not just the winners.
Alison Brown: Yes. ‘
Jill Jaracz: Cause winners do get a lot of stuff thrown at them. So to be able to pay somebody who comes in the middle of the pack, the bottom of the pack, and them feeling like they have just as much worth as, being on the podium, that’s, I think, important
the program is for Olympians only, not for Paralympians. Two different organizations. So we will see if the IPC comes up with anything for this. [01:10:00] Tough, ‘ cause the IPC’s got a lot they’re trying to do.
Alison Brown: One thing at a time.
Jill Jaracz: Right? I’m pausing and sighing ’cause we have to talk about protecting the female.
females, you will be protected at LA28.
the IOC is not gonna require any qualifiers to be competed under the protection of the female rule, where you have to get a gene test to, prove that you are a [01:10:30] female. But if athletes go to the game, they’re gonna have to do the, the gene testing, and they keep saying it’s a one-time screening, it’s not a big deal.
Well, the test is not legal in some countries, so the IOC says, “Go to another country where it is legal.”
Alison Brown: Here’s your $10,000 so you can go to another country.
Jill Jaracz: Right, exactly. And, and don’t know who’s picking up the, the cost for the test. Right now it seems to be the athletes have to do that, and that can be, like, up to 300 bucks depending on where you live.
So this isn’t the [01:11:00] best approach to, you know, talk about slapping a program together.
Alison Brown: Right. It’s like, yes, you have to get this gene test, but you can’t get it everywhere, and it’s expensive, but you have to get it.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So it’ll be interesting to see who is in and who is out because of this test, or if we’ll even hear it, if that just doesn’t get talked about.
We have changes to the host city selection process. if you are a longtime Olympics fan, you remember there were beauty pageants. Milano-Cortina was the last [01:11:30] city chose u- under the, the beauty pageant method. those cost a lot of money to put on. They, caused a lot of cities to drop out of the process.
So Thomas Bach, the predecessor to Kirsty Coventry, introduced a new way of bidding, took out the bulk of the selection process and put it behind closed doors. So there was a- Which a lot
Alison Brown: of people didn’t like
Jill Jaracz: and not just media people.
IOC members didn’t like that either. you would have this dialogue process with the [01:12:00] future host commission, and eventually when the commission thought you were getting close to ready to host, they’d throw you into targeted dialogue, and that was kind of a done deal, and then the membership just had to rubber stamp it once you got out.
and that’s how, Brisbane got elected and basically how Utah 2034 got elected, and French Alps to an extent. but now there’s gonna be another step before targeted dialogue called strategic dialogue, and that’s when cities will have to answer a future [01:12:30] host questionnaire and submit their financial guarantees before they can move on to the targeted dialogue final stage, before IOC membership votes.
I think the IOC membership will have more visibility into what’s going on. Process also seems to be shifting back to a seven-year timeline for host cities for planning because, uh, Brisbane 2032 was 11 years out. That, that bid really got run through.
Alison Brown: Yeah. They just picked them and said, “You’re [01:13:00] getting it and we’ll figure it out later.”
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And then Utah 2034 has had 10 years and you’ve seen them. They’ve been like, “This is a long time.”
Alison Brown: Right. ”
Jill Jaracz: And we’re ready.” Um, so basically we’re looking at mid-2029 for the IOC to vote on the 2036 host. last bit of, IOC news, two members are hitting the 70-year-old age limit for membership, but they are members serving in the capacity of a specific role.[01:13:30]
So the IOC voted to extend their IOC membership until they’re done serving in their other role. They are Tricia Smith, who is the president of the Canadian Olympic Committee. Her term was extended until 2028 when she is done being president. Also, Sebastian Coe, president of World Re- Athletics will leave in September 2027.
I am curious what World Athletics does. Oh, we haven’t talked about Russia. Russia’s back in the fold.
Alison Brown: Russia’s back in the fold. [01:14:00] so they have lifted the ban provisionally on Russia and Belarus and on their Olympic committees. They have not announced what that means in terms of neutral athletes, and what Kirsty Coventry said today in the press conference was, “We’re going to talk about anthems and flags and all those things going forward.”
But because they changed the wording in the charter to be as non-political as possible, if you’re kicking them out because of the war in Ukraine, you can’t do that anymore because that’s a [01:14:30] political stance.
So since it’s a political stance, we have to accept them back in. Now, part of that expulsion, it was all about Ukraine, but it wasn’t.
It, you know, so much of that had to do with the doping history but because that’s a separate issue and, and Coventry talked about RUSADA, and if RUSADA is not compliant, we’ll deal with that as a separate issue. So we’ll see how this plays out. I mean, it’s not, they’re not gonna be welcomed back with open arms to a lot of the sporting community, [01:15:00] that’s for sure.
Jill Jaracz: No, and it’s a federation by federation thing, and I believe World Athletics has said no, they are still out.
Alison Brown: Right.
Jill Jaracz: So some of the
Alison Brown: feder- But figure skating in the break has said they’re back.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So it’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out sport by sport, although we had Rio where there weren’t Russian track athletes, with the exception of, like, two people who-
Alison Brown: Right
Jill Jaracz: were able to prove that they didn’t dope and were clean. it’s hard because you [01:15:30] have the, caveat of Russia attacking Ukraine during the Olympic truce.
Alison Brown: Right.
Jill Jaracz: And the Olympic truce obviously now has no teeth to it if you keep that into effect. I’m curious how they’re gonna treat the Olympic truce in the future. But I think it also quietly says, “Okay, we don’t wanna have to say anything to America for invading Iran.” Right. Also during the tu- truce.
Alison Brown: Right. Or [01:16:00] Israel.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: Yeah, that, that eliminates a lot of other problems-
the- … for them
Jill Jaracz: there wasn’t as much of a stink about the US because, Iran had one Paralympian that was supposed to be- Right … at the games. If they had a, team as strong as Ukraine, different story. Right. But then you have a host city, what do you do? So I think we’ve, like, tried to fix language so we can sweep this under the rug.
Alison Brown: Pretty much. I mean, this was a big issue for Thomas [01:16:30] Bach. I mean, he really got hammered on this, and I think Coventry is trying very hard to not deal with Russia and hope for the best.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And they said they were not going to have any events in Russia, so that’s off the table still, but I think they wanna deal with- The sporting aspect of Russia being a problem child versus the political aspect.
Alison Brown: It’ll be very interesting to see how this goes with figure skating because figure skating significantly [01:17:00] changed without Russian athletes.
Other Olympics and Paralympics News
Jill Jaracz: Um, we do have other Olympic and Paralympic news very quickly.
We have an announcement from Team Belgium that their Olympic and Paralympic committees are going to merge as of January 1, 2027.
They will be known as Le Comité Olympique and Paralympique Belge or COPB. this is the sixth country to combine the two groups into one organization. The others are Netherlands, US, Norway, uh, South Africa, [01:17:30] and, Saudi Arabia. this is a interesting development, and I wonder if we’ll see more of these down the road.
we, although we wanted this when USOPC came into being
Kit news From Australia. They have launched a stretch reconciliation action plan that’s part of its work of reconciliation through sport with First Nations peoples. To that end, you will see part of this effort on its kit for LA ’28 and French Alps, and Alps 2030 in the [01:18:00] form of new team artwork. It’s called Doontz Doontz Kamilan Together by artists Peter Farmer Sr.
and Peter Farmer Jr. from Noongar County in Western Australia, and Alick Tipoti from the Torres Strait. it’s a beautiful pattern that is going to be featured on all of the kit going forward for these next couple of editions, and I think that’s really cool.
Alison Brown: And they’ve done things with this where they’ve included Aboriginal art in some of the kits, so now they’re, I think they’re just formalizing- Yes
[01:18:30] and using this particular, print and making a point of it.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. and also part of this action plan is a new scholarship called the, uh, Australian Olympic Indigenous Athlete Scholarship designed to provide financial and career support to emerging First Nations athletes.
Phew. That is a lot of news That’s
Alison Brown: a lot of news. We take a month off and the world explodes.
Jill Jaracz: I know, exactly, but wait, we’re not done. We have more news.
Keep the Flame Alive Book Club 2026 Announcement
Alison Brown: Book [01:19:00] club
Jill Jaracz: Yes, book club is back for 2026. We are reading two books this year with Book Club Claire. first up will be a book called Heroes, Villains and Velodromes: Chris Hoy And Britain’s Track Cycling Revolution. This is by Richard Moore, who also wrote The Dir- Dirtiest Race in History. So if you’ve read that, you know he is a good writer.
this is interesting ’cause it’s published in 2008, and we know what’s happened in track cycling since then, which is, you know, 2012. Man. so [01:19:30] that will be on tap for August, looking mid-August for this book. And then our second book for the year will be Limitless: The Power of Hope and Resilience to Overcome Circumstance by Mallory Weggemann with Tiffany Yeck Brooks.
Mallory is a multi-medal winning Paralympian, and we will be looking at her book in November. Get your copies of these books at bookshop.org/shop/flamealivepod. That link will be in the show notes. Every purchase you [01:20:00] make at bookshop.org through that link goes to support the show. And We’re Paying a lot of legal fees this year. This is not, not what we wanted. We could use all the help we can get ’cause, um, we’ve had to register our trademark again, and that costs a pretty penny, and we have had to, uh, over the break, we’ve been enforcing our trademark, which also incurs some substantial legal fees.
None of which I’d love to be paying, but we gotta protect [01:20:30] the trademark ‘ cause we can’t have people saying weird stuff and other people associating it with us. We like to keep- That’s true … our own weird stuff as our weird stuff. For
Alison Brown: ourselves.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Right. So, uh-
Alison Brown: We’re, we are Rule 40-ing people, and we do not feel shy about it.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. Exactly. And to be more clear, ‘ there is another podcast out there that has started within the last few months or so called Keep The Flame Alive. It is a relationship podcast [01:21:00] And unfortunately for them, we own the trademark to Keep The Flame Alive, and as a podcast, they are not allowed to use it. Well, and, and we’re not gonna be really horrible about it.
If you are a longtime listener, you will know that this show used to be called Olympic Fever, and we- Can we
Alison Brown: even say that?
Jill Jaracz: Well, we can now. It’s, say it. No, but we, uh, and the Olympics is, the intellectual property of the US Olympic and Paralympic com- uh, [01:21:30] Committee, and we are not allowed to use it in that term, especially to make money off of, uh, so they need to protect their brand.
We understood. We had to change a whole lot of things around. You will see, uh, in our very early episodes, they are all disclaimer-ed. Uh, they were very kind to us about it, so I would like to be as kind to these people. But, you know, you can’t use Keep the Flame Alive ’cause I don’t know what you’re saying in your relationship talk.
What if you’re saying that you should only be married to your horse? Well, we talk about equestrian. [01:22:00] I don’t want people thinking that when we talk equestrian, we say horse marriage, so.
Alison Brown: Of all the ways you could have gone with that, that is not the example I thought you were gonna throw out there. But okay, let’s go with it.
Jill Jaracz: What did you think?
Alison Brown: I didn’t know. I really didn’t know.
Jill Jaracz: I had to go outlandish ’cause- You did.
Alison Brown: I
Jill Jaracz: see that. so yeah, that’s been a fun legal issue to work through, [01:22:30] and you know, it’s just like anybody who’s trying to use the terms March Madness or Super Bowl in marketing stuff, or World Cup, you know? That’s, you gotta talk about the big game.
But that’s, that’s how we’re doing it here, I guess. I don’t know. It’s frustrating. You wanna know how the break’s been? It’s been frustrating, folks. But anyway, that means please buy stuff through bookshop.org/shop/flamealivepod so we can pay our legal bills and, uh, uh, keep the [01:23:00] show going. So that’s gonna do it for this episode.
We appreciate you listening through this whole one. It’s been a lot.
Alison Brown: It’s a lot of news happening. Things have, things have been rolling down the hill.
Jill Jaracz: we hope you have enjoyed it. If you have, please tell a friend about it and have them go to our website f- flamealivepod.com for a link to their favorite podcast app.
There are links to get involved with our Facebook group, get our free newsletter, and find ways to say hello. So thank you so much for listening. It’s so nice to be back and chat with you all.
Alison Brown: And [01:23:30] until next time, keep the flame alive.