So much has been happening in the world of the Olympics that this week we’re catching up on all of the news. We start with the continued saga of boxing and the International Boxing Association (IBA) vs. the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It all came to a head at an extraordinary Session meeting of IOC membership, during which they expelled the IBA and no longer recognizes it as a federation.
This is a pretty big deal, as only recognized sports federations can take part in the Olympics. Now that the IBA is no longer recognized, will boxing be out of the Olympics for good? We won’t know for a while–the tournament in Paris is already being run by the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, so it will remain in the Games. The IOC has said that organizers will run the tournament at LA 2028–but LA 2028 hasn’t announced its final sports program yet, and boxing was already on the ropes. We’ll likely find out later this year.
We then take a look at the IOC’s eSports Week, which was held in Singapore on June 22-25. Will eSports be a bigger part of the IOC’s plan to reach youth? Maybe–but at least this year’s participants looked like they were having fun.
We also have an update in the Kamila Valieva situation, including a ballsy exhibit at the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum marking 500 days since the conclusion of the Team Figure Skating event from Beijing 2022:
The Court of Arbitration for Sport has finally set the date for the appeal hearing, which will be on September 26-29. This should be the absolute final ruling on whether Russia will be allowed to stay at the top of the podium, or if the positive doping result from Valieva’s Russian National Championship test, which wasn’t released until after the Beijing 2022 team competition, will disqualify them.
In our Seoul History moment, Alison has a surprisingly happy story resulting from Madagascar’s boycott of these Games. Here’s a scene from Reply 1988:
In our TKFLASTAN update, we have news from:
- Author David Maraniss
- Modern pentathlete Samantha Schutz
- Race walker Evan Dunfee
- Para powerlifter Louise Sugden
- Boccia player Alison Levine
We have loads of news from Paris 2024, including:
- Details about the Torch Relay, which you can see here
- The decision to not sell alcohol at venues
- Flying taxi plans
- The Athletes’ Village apartment sale/rental application. You can find out more details about apartment layouts and prices here.
- The French lottery’s Olympic scratch-offs
- Paris Musées’ plan for special exhibits during the Games
- Simone Biles’ comeback
Plus we have an update on the Winter 2030 bid, which includes the semantics of dialogue and targeted dialogue, a surprise on who’s in the mix, and a shocking number of cities that want to host the Winter Games.
And finally, the IOC gave out its Fair Play Awards from Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022, the latter of which has a TKFLASTAN connection.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript. It contains errors. Please do not quote from the transcript; use the audio file as the record of note.
Episode 293-Olympic Updates
Jill: 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 athletes and people behind the scenes to help you have more fun watching the games. I am your host, Jill Jaracz joined us always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown.
Alison, hello. How are you?
Alison: I don’t know. I’m having a weird day. I gotta say. How are you doing?
Jill: I guess weird as well. Okay. And then I guess that’s the news in the Olympics land is also very weird. Yes.
Alison: I’m going through all our notes and all our things, and I’m saying I am so confused and I bet a lot of listeners are confused.
So we’re gonna see if we can sort some things out and not be so weird.
Jill: Exactly. So today we’re catching up on some big news in the Olympic movement. This includes, eSports week and what’s going on with the Beijing 2022 team figure skating medal. But first, let’s start with boxing.
Boxing Update
Alison: Oh boy. Let’s start with boxing.
Now, once again, the, I Ooc has proved that they’re a much nicer person than I am.
Jill: Well, you know, diplomacy, they are well, well steeped in diplomacy,
Alison: let’s say. And as we know, there are several countries I can’t travel to because I just say things. So,
Jill: We’ve known that boxing has been a problem for years and decades.
Partially because of issues within the sport relating to corruption. But then we got into issues with corruption in leadership. And it kind of came to the [00:02:00] head last December when the I O C said boxing for LA 2028 is. Maybe gonna happen, we don’t know. It’s on the list of sports that can be chosen, but it wasn’t on the original program.
And part of that was because the I O C believed that the I B A didn’t. Really deal with the problems with judging that they had. Most notably at Rio 2016, they had huge problems with judging. They have problems with financial transparency, they have problems with sustainability, a lot of issues. So just like in Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024 boxing tournament will be run by the organizing committee, not by the International Federation, which.
Is not what normally happens. Usually the federation runs its own event at the games. Uh, i b a has not been allowed to do that. This will be the second games in the row for that. And the i o C laid out like i b A, you gotta change I X, Y, and Z in order to get back into our good graces. The I B A has done nothing but criticize.
Alison: What is Russian for some bad words is basically what the I B A said to the I O C
Jill: And they’re playing a victim. They claim they are constantly punished for a quote, a culture of corruption com that was created by an upper echelon of people from the I O C. And part of this was, you know, and not a Russian, but.
The former I o C member of the executive board, CK Wu was president of the I B A from 2006 to 2017. He caused a lot of governing issues, but those governance issues haven’t changed and Wu’s been gone for five years now. So you say what’s up with that? Huh? I b a, there’s been a lot of back and forth.
All year long. The I B A continues to make sponsorship deals with Russian companies, specifically gas prom, which [00:04:00] is a state supplier of energy. And the I O C is very worried about the financial dependency on gas prom and how bills are getting paid because, do you remember this happened a while back, like magically.
Millions were millions of dollars of deficit were just erased thanks to.
Alison: So the I b A President Omar Krem love, which is why we’re talking Russians just suddenly announced, yes, we’re good, we’re financially stable, and nobody really knew where the money came from.
Jill: Oh, so much fun. So. This year has just been a lot of back and forth of, and I wouldn’t even say back and forth, been a lot of forth from the I B A going, well, they said this and they said that, and they’re doing this to us and they’re doing this to that.
Finally several federations have said, enough is enough. We are leaving the IBA and we are forming our own federation called World Boxing. How many. More will join them, is yet to be seen. But this all came to a head in June. Huh? This was good. There’s nothing like I mean, I think in some instances we would just love Omar Crem love because he just talks off the cuff.
But you know, this is off the cuff in a way that’s dangerous. I was gonna say,
Alison: yeah, he’s off the cuff and, and going rogue, but, He may have significant ties to organized crime. So let’s not commend him too much here,
Jill: right? So he I could not believe he actually said this. He was speaking at a meeting of the American Boxing Confederation.
It was their continental forum in Brazilia in June, and he accused CK Wu of being, quote, a criminal who is killing boxing. End quote. And claimed he should be shot. That’s not a good way to go rogue. I will [00:06:00] say that, but I mean, the I o C fired off a very diplomatic statement saying you can’t talk about us like that and people who’ve worked with us,
And then this last week at an extraordinary session on June 22nd, the I O C expelled, the International Boxing Association, which is a huge deal cuz it does not
Alison: do this stuff right. That is no joke. You don’t go around willy-nilly dismissing federations because, It can affect so many people, so many athletes, so much sport around the world to just be like, okay, this federation is deed, but in the most interesting move to me is saying, but boxing is staying in.
Jill: Yeah. They have said the. The I Ooc has said repeatedly, it does not have a sport problem with the sport of boxing. It does not have problems with the athletes. They have a problem with the I B A and how it’s been run, how it continues to be run. And so that is the problem. And they also said that it could be potentially in la.
If it is in LA the organizers will organize the tournament again. But they did not talk really about world boxing yet. I mean, world boxing is just too new. I bet. I wonder if they wanna see what goes on with them in terms of their financial stability before it recognizes it. But right now boxing is not recognized as a sport on the Olympic program.
Alison: And you have the issue of there are a lot of boxing judges. But there’s only a limited number of boxing judges, and I think there’s still a concern. Will the issues with the I B A get transferred over to world boxing? Yes, the governance may be clean, but you’ve gotta get all the way down to the bottom, to the grassroots level to make sure that it was an issue of [00:08:00] governance corruption that was influencing the bad judging, not.
The bad judging working with the corruption.
Jill: Right. And the IBA threatened the judges as well, saying if you work
Alison: with worldwide, were they feeling threatened versus they were also corrupt? Because it takes time to be a judge. I mean, you know this, you’ve been an official. Mm-hmm. It takes a long time to be an Olympic level official, so you gotta make sure you’ve got enough of those.
But Tokyo was very well run. We did not have issues in Tokyo. When you get the IBA out in the mix. But here’s the thing that upset me the most. Crem live threatened Kit McConnell, my IOC boyfriend.
What say that is a bridge too far. Taking down an international federation, maybe I could have forgiven, but don’t come after. Forget. No, but I think this is actually a very good solution that the I O C came up with, where we’re gonna govern it on its own. I mean, it’s not the first time the I P C governs lots of sports.
Mm-hmm. So it’s not like they don’t have some template that the I O C can use, at least in the short term, to run these tournaments and kind of keep an eye on the sport and, The boxers will get to compete, which is always a good idea. You know, we always want the athletes to be protected.
Jill: Right. And it’ll be interesting to see how the qualification for Paris works cuz it’ll be something that the i o c and actually Paris 24 i o c let’s be honest, i o C is not running any element of boxing, but they probably are helping to organize.
The qualifications to make sure that the Paris 2024 tournament
Alison: goes as well as possible. And will you have, once again, any Russians competing? I mean, this is a huge issue because then if you get the Russian boxers in the mix, this is still messy as good as it is to see the IBA out [00:10:00] of the equation for now.
And sort of, at least on paper, we’re still not done with boxing.
eSports Week Update
Jill: Well, I think we are for this episode. So let’s move on to eSports. It was eSports week in Singapore you know it was right around Olympic Day. Yeah, it
Alison: was. It crossed over Olympic Day. It was June 22nd to the 25th in Singapore. This is the first time they’ve done this in person. It’s always been a virtual e-series, but now they had it at the convention center.
People could come and watch. The stands were full. The fans were very enthusiastic. They had a little opening ceremony. No Parade of Nations. but because it was on a stage, but it had all the bells and whistles of something Olympic. The winners did not get medals. They got trophies. Oh, interesting.
I did not watch any of the actual competition except for bits and pieces to see, you know, the very end and the winning moment. still don’t think the Olympics belongs. Mixing with eSports, but it looked like it was a tremendous amount of fun. And these competitors take it very, very seriously.
Excellent. Couple of interesting points that I wanted to make. Mm-hmm. So they attend sports and you know, when I look at the list of winners, there’s a lot of France and a lot of Europe in general. But it’s not a bad mix. You know, you’ve got us, you’ve got Australia, Singapore, Serbia, so you have, it’s clearly a worldwide competition.
But the coolest thing to me was the cycling team, first of all look like they could rake you in half with their thighs. These are incredibly in shape people because you actually are cycling on a, a stationary bike, but the four members of the team are each from different countries. Huh?
Jill: And that’s similar, what they try, what they’ve been trying at the Youth Olympic games where they’ve had like the break in competition at, , the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires that was [00:12:00] mixed nationalities.
I wonder how that plays out, you know, when you’re looking at cycling for eSports. How much does nationality matter?
Alison: Right. Cuz you can certainly train virtually. That’s the point.
Jill: Well it’ll be interesting to see. the IOC was very excited about
Alison: it.
They were very excited and I was reading an article and they pointed out that Singapore. Also hosted the Youth Olympic summer games in 2010. So Singapore is a bit of a hotbed for sort of these new ideas.
Jill: All right, well, we will continue to keep a, a side eye on it. I would say
see what’s going on. It’s interesting because when you look at professional eSports, we don’t talk about them as much as we did, I’ve seen a little bit of eSport pro leagues fading a little bit and how much eSports will have, relevancy will be interesting or will it always be kind of a side event and it’s just something to celebrate.
But we will see how much the I O C will continue to invest in that.
Beijing 2022 – Team Figure Skating Medal Update
Jill: So we have an update on the team figure skating medal from Beijing 20 22,
Alison: 475 years ago. No, actually they made an announcement that it was 500 days. That these athletes have gone without their medals. Wow. That
Jill: is a long time.
It is a long time. And the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum, whoa,
Alison: this was a surprise to me.
So they created an exhibit of the nine empty metal boxes. From the US team that their medals would have gone into to remind people that this case is still ongoing and none of those athletes from any country have [00:14:00] received their medals. So to go back, cast your mind back to December, 2021. So Camilla Val was found to, or was tested positive for a banned heart medication.
At the Russian Nationals. It wasn’t announced until after the team event had been completed in Beijing, and so then it became, wait. She shouldn’t be competing. Sada comes out and said, no, no, it’s fine. She can compete, but everyone else is saying, um, she tested positive. You can’t use the excuse of her being a protected class because she was only 15.
So instead of awarding the medals, going on, revamping the IOC said, we’re not gonna award the medals for the team event. Because remember in Beijing, they would have a. Bing DW DWS ceremony at the event, and then later in the evening or the next day would have the actual medal ceremony in the medal. What was it called?
Yeah, the Metal Plaza. Like Metal Plaza. Yeah. So that Metal Plaza event never took place, but US figure stating, c e o Tracy Marick reached out to the museum and asked them to do so. This was her brain child. I was wondering whose idea it was. she’s been doing the press for it, saying we need to remind people that these athletes are still waiting for a medal.
But the detail that I thought was so interesting was the night that should have been the medal ceremony. The athletes came back to their hotel rooms and these boxes are in their hotel rooms waiting for them. You know, the idea is, oh, you’ve gotten your medal, now you need a place to put it. Here’s this little box.
And of course, this is all planned ahead of time and organized, and there was a little note in it. You know, one of these standard. Notes that they’ll put with it signed by Toma Bach, not really signed, but you know what I mean. Saying an [00:16:00] Olympic medal is forever, but they have no medal to put in this beautiful box that they got.
So all they have is the box,
Jill: which would almost feel like a slap in the face cuz this is your night. You’re supposed to be celebrated, you’re super excited about what you achieved and accomplished and. Now you get none of that. All you get is an empty box, which is kind of like all of the emptiness that goes forward because a lot of these athletes, I mean, you’re talking, the Americans would have been moved up to gold if the doping violation goes through and Vale Eva’s results are nullified us would get moved up to gold.
Canada would get moved up to silver. In Japan? No. Canada, no. Japan would move up to To silver? No.
Alison: Japan moved to silver and Canada and Canada would be in bronze. Okay. But even just, they didn’t even have their silver medals, which they thought they were gonna have. They got nothing.
Jill: Right. Because then it’s like, well, you know, do you award what?
Based on the results and get something and therefore also get the other glory that goes with that. And i e that’s monetary stuff, which is very important to these athletes because it’s, it’s really tough living in, in figure skating, like almost every Olympic sport. Very expensive. So not getting that medal and not getting the other side benefits that go with that is very, Tough to deal with, and then you get an empty box that reminds you, oh, here’s your empty box of promises.
Alison: So on day 500, ironically, the court of arbitration for sport set the date for hearing the appeal on the val of a case for September 26th through the 29th.
So supposedly we’ll get a decision.
Jill: And that’s it. That’s the last one,
Alison: correct. That is the last stop. Because Sada said Val, Ava should have been allowed to compete. Wadada appealed that decision. The isu the International Skating Union jumped [00:18:00] in. So Cass is gonna hear this appeal.
Jill: Which, hopefully we’ll actually have an answer is nobody’s gonna be happy about it, but hopefully we’ll have an answer. And even if
Alison: you, we talked about Val Eva extensively, so I’m not gonna get into that. But even if the US and Japan just ended up with their medals, I mean, they earned those. Mm-hmm.
They deserve them. Whatever the color. And they shouldn’t be punished for any of this.
Seoul 1988 History Moment
Jill: That sound means it is time for our history moment all year long. We are looking at the soul 1988 games as it is the 35th anniversary of that event. Alison, it is your turn for a story. So today, what have you got? And
Alison: thankfully this is a happy story considering we’ve been talking about some not happy stuff, and I will explain to you what the Madagascar boycott.
Has to do with K-Pop. Oh,
Jill: whoa.
Alison: So even today, as we know, North and South Korea are still officially at war. So to No one Surprise in 1988, North Korea chose to boycott the games in Seoul. They were joined by Albania, Cuba, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Seychelles, and Madagascar Reports at the time. Mixed as to whether this was actually a boycott or a financial decision.
But Madagascar was an ally of North Korea at the time, but they’ve also only sent a handful of athletes since 1964, so we’re not quite sure, but they did not go, which is the important part. But they have participated in three Winter Olympics. Okay. One of which is 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea. They sent a skier who was born in [00:20:00] Madagascar, but grew up in France.
Okay. And she chose to represent Madagascar. Okay. So just kind of keep that in the back of your mind. In 2015, singer Hari from the K-Pop band Girls Day started a film called Reply 1988. And one of the stories they tell in this movie is about a girl who had been selected to be what they called the picket girl for Madagascar, for the opening ceremonies.
Now we know what they’re called. The picket girls are the girls who carry the country names. Oh, that’s their official title. So the movie includes several scenes where the character is practicing, where she has her costume on, where she’s being interviewed, to talk about why she’s so excited to be a picket girl.
Well, her dreams are of course, dashed when Madagascar chooses not to attend, and she doesn’t get to participate in the opening ceremonies. So for the 2018 Winter Games, the South Korean ambassador to Madagascar sang Woo floated the idea of inviting Hiri, the actress and singer to be the picket girl for Madagascar in Pyeongchang.
Wow. So organizers and the Madagascar Olympic Committee loved this idea. They extended a formal invitation to he Hari. But she was unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts, but through her spokesperson said she was very touched by the gesture. Oh,
Jill: that would’ve been awesome. We
Alison: love a good K-pop and she is well known for being the youngest member of Girls’ Day, so this would’ve all come together very nicely.
And I hope I haven’t mispronounced her name, cuz I know it’s a little. The Korean names can be a little different than their English interpret interpretation. So K-Pop fans don’t come from me.
Jill: So many good details in that story.
Alison: And we will put a link to some YouTube clips of this movie because[00:22:00] it’s adorable.
It’s fantastic. And if you love, as we do the Picket Girls, there’s some great scenes where she’s got the costume and the sign and she really wanted to do this. Aw, poor, poor Madagascar
Jill: picket girl. Boycott has so many ripples.
TKFLASTAN Update
Alison: Welcome to shlahan.
Jill: Now is the part of the show where we check in with our team, keep the Flame Alive. These are past guests of the show and our listeners who make up our citizenship of Shlahan. First up, David Marnis, one best sports book of 2022 from the National Sports Media Association, which would be his book on Jim Thorpe, which we talked with him about.
Alison: Modern Pentathlete. Samantha Schultz has officially retired from competition. She announced it on Facebook with contributor, which contributor Ben reposted in our Facebook group. If you wanna see a very, very touching message,
Jill: Race Walker. Evan Dunfee competed at the Vancouver half Marathon and got a personal best. He said he was two minutes faster than he was in 2019 and he’s got some downtime but is off to Sam Moritz next week,
Alison: Louise Sugden will represent Team Great Britain at the World Power Powerlifting, world Champs on August 22nd to 23rd in Dubai. This is her first competition in 18 months after her surgery. So fantastic news,
Jill: Louise. I was so happy for her and I saw that, so I’m so excited to see her compete.
And Bacha player, Alison Levine is competing at the Santiago 2023 World Bacha Challenger. She’s. Currently playing in the BC four individual competition, which right, like as of today is still in the pools. And she will be competing with Yu Banno in the BC four pairs competition on July 1st to second. We will have a link to the event in the show notes.
Paris 2024 Update
[00:24:00]
Alison: It’s your favorite time of year.
Jill: I know So much news from Paris. 2024 is the time of the year where the torch relay gets announced. Oh, this is so exciting. This is the time where it’s like we’ve gotten all these teasers and now we’ve got the route and the details. We, we’ve. Most of the information, which is fantastic.
Got me so excited. I watched their video, which I’ll try to put a link in the show notes to that. Got teary-eyed as I am, what to do. I can’t help it. I cannot help it. the Olympic flame will be lit in Olympia, Greece on April 16th, 2024 with big ceremony. I am excited to say I, you know, I. They always talk about the choreography and it’s always a lot of walking around and there’s usually a chair for whatever royalty from Greece shows up.
So the, these are the details I’m excited to see, and I know it’s weird, but that’s what like, oh, we’re gonna see that big chair again. Hmm.
I
Alison: always love seeing the Greek women with the bowls and they’re so dramatic and, you know, they’re. Actually, you know, talking tea in the, in the dressing room beforehand.
Jill: So then we’re gonna have the traditional relay in Greece until April 26. There will be a handover to Paris 2024 in Athens. And on April 27th, the flame is getting on a boat. It is going to be on the Berlin, which is a big tall ship kind of boat. And that ship made her initial voyage in 1896.
Year the modern Olympic movement came to be. then it is going to arrive in France in Marsai on May 8th, 2024. Big celebration there. Look for Coca-Cola sponsored concert to happen, which I thought was a big deal. Like wow, that’s gonna be huge. The torch relay is going to be 68 days and will take place in 65 French territories and departments.
[00:26:00] It will go through France from May 8th to June 7th, at which point it will embark on the ocean relay to visit five overseas territories. And apparently it’s gonna go across the Atlantic first, and it’s gonna be on a Tri Moran, which is one of these really high powered, fancy.
Boats, I don’t know how to describe it, but it goes very fast. It could go up to speeds of like 40 knots per hour. so it should shoot across the Atlantic in due course and go to French Guyana and then it will go over. To the Indian Ocean to visit Reunion. Then over to French Polynesia and Gudo, and then back to the Caribbean to visit Guadalupe and Martinique.
Then Relay is going to last about two weeks. Then it’ll be in Ni, probably in Time for Khan, and then go back around France. It will be in Paris proper. On July 14th, the 15th for the fe nationale, which is Bastille Day, and then it goes back out, and then comes back to the I de France on July 19th for the final trek to the opening ceremony.
There will be a list of sites and towns that the Olympic flame will visit, and that will be published by the organizing committee soon. One big one. It will visit Shaman on Olympic Day, June 23rd, which shaman is the site of the first ever Winter Olympic Games.
It’s gonna hit some iconic places. So we’re talking like Monte Michelle. It will go to Versailles, it’s gonna go through some famous vineyards. I would not be surprised if it visits Pierre de Cober town sites like his birthplace in Paris and his childhood home in Normandy.
They will showcase important figures who have contributed significantly to French culture. Including Jean Dark the a hundred Years War Hero that will be in Orleans. Robert Schumann founder of the European Communities and Council of Europe. He’ll be celebrated in Eastern France. Charles Degal, who is [00:28:00] French president and also leader of Free France in World War ii.
And then also celebrate Singer Edith pf.
La Von Rose.
There will be four public figures that will be the first ambassadors of the Torch relay. these will be actor Jamel Debus Dr. Marine Lin Teri Marks a French Gastronomist and Tomas Paske, a French astronaut,
By the time you listen to this, the application may be closed, but the application to be a torchbearer will be open until June 30th. So very exciting news. I’m looking forward to all the different ways that the. Torch will get around. Notably I think our listener, Nicholas, who runs Olympic Rings and other things, blogs said that it wasn’t planning to go to Grenoble and Albertville.
However, I wonder if the departments that those two cities are in said, no, we are not. Footing the bill for this torch relay thing,
Alison: right? Because I think it was last year we were having problems with getting departments to participate because it was very expensive to host the flame.
Jill: E. Exactly. And you’ll see in the map where they highlight the root, there are big holes in France where it just does not visit, which makes me remember the torch relay from Atlanta and how that went around everywhere.
And I’m very curious as to what they’re gonna do for LA 2028. As we noted in previous episodes, there’s going to be high security around the torch, the website, the local noted that when the torch was last in France, it was during the Beijing 2008 relay, cuz that really kind of went all over the world and there were lots of protests and they expect nothing less from other activists.
Alison: So, and as we were discussing right before the show started, Paris has been. Filled with unrest this early summer in spring. So I would expect that to [00:30:00] not just be Paris, but into other places in France. And you certainly don’t want that splashed across the world news that somebody blew up the torch or something horrific like
Jill: that.
Right? Or even snuffed out the flame.
Alison: You know, it’s such a simple action that we, let’s not give anybody any ideas, but it would be so. Symbolic to do something like that. And how horrific.
Speaking of snuffing out, I’m concerned about it going so fast across the water,
Jill: and that’s, some wind will just go, poof. They’re gonna have the lantern, it’s gonna be in the la they always had the backup in the lantern. I think we’re safe. I hope we’re safe. I mean, if they can take the flame underwater, they can certainly take it across the ocean and a fast boat
Alison: and in space. But still, I’m concerned, you know, you get in the, in a convertible and your hair gets all messed up.
I mean, that flame has gotta be looking good.
Jill: What we have not seen yet is the the torch. So I am looking forward to seeing when that design will be released as well.
In other Paris News, there will be no alcoholic beverages sold at any competition site during the games. Very interesting. I was very surprised to see this, but they, there’s a law in Paris that was passed in 1991. It’s an alcohol and tobacco policy that prohibits the sale of alcohol at places that are for physical activity.
That includes sports stadiums. There have been exceptions to this law, n but you have to apply for them. So like when the World Cup was in town a few years ago, I believe there was an exemption and there was alcohol. So in the stadiums, rugby has also gotten an exception to, to have alcohol in the stadiums.
But apparently Paris 2024 organizers are not going to ask for one.
Alison: Probably a good move.
Jill: Yeah, you know it’s gonna be hot, there’s gonna be a lot of crowds, and you don’t want people going crazy like you’re drinking too much and going crazy. They can do that on their own time.
Alison: Reference the Australian rugby team.
On the [00:32:00] plane flying home from Tokyo?
Jill: Yes. If you have purchased an hospitality ticket, there will be a alcohol in those hospitality areas, so you can get it there if you really want it or just get it after your event.
Alison: And in related news, They’ll be flying taxis cause we, because you definitely do not want to drink and fly.
Can you imagine one of the flying taxi operators gets pulled over? Oh my goodness. For drinking. I mean, is that, but is there even a law? Like has the law caught up? I’m with this flying taxi idea.
Jill: Oh, I’m, I, well, I’m sure that there’s. A law that states that anybody operating a flying object can’t be drunk and operating it.
I bet there isn’t. Get
Alison: on that Paris.
Jill: This could get interesting. There’s been a lot of talk of having flying taxis ready in time for the games. The local has reported that this will likely be mostly a shuttle service from the city to the airports. there’s going to be a Fairport. Which is going to be installed along the sen in southeast Paris.
And that ride between Charles Degal airport and the city will take about 10 minutes versus 45 minutes to an hour if you drove or took the r e r train. And then the other route will go between a hella port at, uh, EC Leno in the western suburbs to an airfield in Versailles. They’re gonna have dedicated air corridors for flying, thank goodness.
There will be lanes. They will fly at 200 to 300 meters in altitude, and the plan is that each taxi will be able to take five to six people plus a pilot. It looks like a one-way ticket would cost anywhere from 110 to 200 euros. And compared to a taxi that has a set [00:34:00] fare of 55 to 62 euros, depending on where you’re going in Paris and r a r, tickets are 1145.
Alison: We have to do this. Oh my God, we have to do this.
Jill: I see. I just have, Kobe Bryant flashing through my head. That’s what I haven’t, yeah, I know. I hate to bring that up, but that’s what goes through my head. Not a done deal though, so we may not be able to do this. The flying taxi operators need approval from the EU Aviation Safety Agency by Spring 2024, and they will need permission to fly over Paris because the city Has really incredible restrictions on drones flying, and it has a no-fly zone over the entire city. what will we be able to do? Who knows? Will you see us on a flying taxi? Yes.
All right. The apartments in the Athlete’s Village have gone on sale. This is part of the post-game strategy to have more housing in San Saint Deni. And many of the games in the past have put the village up for sale and then when the games are over, Then other residents can move in and live there.
you gotta sell ’em before the games in order to have that happen. The village, as you may recall, has a family look due to the use of a lot of wood from France, and they also used low carbon concrete in the constructions who give, it’s supposed to have like a really rustic and cozy homey aesthetic, which is nice.
A lot of the part apartments will have balconies. And the buildings seem to have inner courtyards to allow for more green space. Sometimes in the past, villages have looked like big high rises, like Tokyo had some big skyscrapers. This village looks like it’s going to be more shorter buildings. You might get some that are 14, 15 stories high, but it doesn’t look like we’re gonna have all of these towers all over the place.
And some apartments are for sale, some are for sale so that you can rent them out and some are to rent right now.[00:36:00] Studios or what they call a one room apartment starts at 209,000 euros. They go up to four rooms. That’s not four bedrooms, that’s a four room apartment, but it looks like the bathroom does not count in the room count.
Those are going for about. 494,000 euros. Some of them have two floor duplexes, which seems kind of cool to me. some include a parking space. And we will have more information about them in two, the show notes.
Alison: I hope they post some video of real estate tours of these apartments.
Jill: That would be cool. I wonder how much they’re finished on the inside, because what we’ve found has been like artist renderings of stuff, but I am excited about this. I would be excited to be the athletes who get put into one of these duplexes and be like, oh, we got a two floor apartment. This is awesome.
But it does look really cool. I would be very curious to see how well they sell. I would also be very curious at how many of these become Airbnbs and allow the likes of us to go and, uh, stay there one day. The French lottery is having Paris themed scratch off tickets with cash prizes and trips to the games. I did
Alison: not realize that scratch off tickets was an international phenomenon. I
Jill: did not either. I thought
Alison: this was such an American thing. Maybe British cause I have seen those at the postal stores, but I didn’t realize that scratch off tickets was international.
Jill: Well, it’s very exciting. inside the games reported that you could win a trip to the games, I guess, but I’m sure you have to just be in France. And I don’t know what the citizenship requirements are for winning the lottery there, and apparently the trips are, prime events to be quite
Alison: honest.
Jill: Paris Muay, which runs 14 museums in the city, is planning to have several special exhibits to coincide with the games.
Also from inside the games reporting. This muse Carnival will have an exhibition featuring artifacts from Paris, 1924. Perry [00:38:00] Galleria will have an exhibit called Fashion in Motion, which relates to athletes and their fashion. Mu de la Roman and the Cheri Museum will have equestrian focused exhibits.
The Victor Hugo Museum will have a show on fencing. The Bordell Museum will have one on archery and art, and the Paris Liberation Museum will look at athletes in World War ii. So this is all very exciting. I mean, I’m planning to be there like a week ahead of time. I don’t think there’s enough time to do all this stuff.
Alison: I, I was just thinking the same thing, like, I’m hoping they will leave these up in that time between the Olympics and Paralympics one so that, you know, selfishly we can go, but also there’s gonna be a lot of people who don’t go to Paris during the Olympics. They’re not gonna want. To be in that crush of people, but these exhibits matter and these smaller museums need a 10.
You know, a small museum is always struggling, so to have some of these, this excitement and build up to it. So I hope that people get a chance to, even if you’re not going to the Olympics, even if you can’t get tickets, that they’ll extend a lot of these shows so people can really get a good view of them.
Jill: E. Exactly. And even if you do have tickets, what if you got tickets for, and you have like downtime in between games or you can’t get you know, you have a ticket on one day and you plan to be there for, and what else are you going to do? This is something else Olympic related that you can fill some time with.
So I’m excited.
Alison: And you know what else? A lot of these museums, I don’t know this, but just museums, they will have to be air conditioned. And considering how hot I’m, it’s probably gonna be sort of like when you were a kid and your mom would send you to the movies so that you could sit in air conditioning or you know, you go to the grocery store when it’s hot and the apartment hasn’t turned on the air conditioning yet to people do that anymore.
Is that, am I really sounding old? But in France, certainly a lot of buildings are not air conditioned, Including some of the village. Mm-hmm. So we may see some athletes wandering around the [00:40:00] museum just trying to cool off.
Jill: And finally we got word that Simone Biles may be making a comeback. She is slated to compete at the US Classic on August 4th and fifth in Hoffman States, Illinois, which is just outside of Chicago.
And normally we wouldn’t mention this, I think, but she was such a big story at Tokyo and in even the I O C website put out a big story about this. I think they are more than excited to see this news and to have. That face of the games be there for them.
Alison: You know, they did the same thing with Michael Phelps.
You know, there’s always a, this generational star That brings attention like nobody else. And Simone is that athlete right now.
Jill: We have some Winter 2030 news. the U S O P C says it hopes Salt Lake City will enter targeted dialogue this fall. So it’s currently in the continuous dialogue phase of talking with the future host commission, which.
In a way that sounds like one of those corporate things where you’re like, oh, we’re going, we’re in this title. We’re talking with them. Okay, now we’re continuously talking with them.
Alison: Now we’re, now we’re really gonna talk with them. Yeah. It’s, we all know Salt Lake City does not want 2030. They want 2034.
Jill: But I was surprised to see that they weren’t already in targeted dialogue. That was one of the things I took. I’m like, wait, you’re not in targeted dialogue already. So they hope to be by the, in the session this fall. Sweden, we know was in dialogue.
Alison: Someone in the Facebook group said, I spoke that into being, because right after we recorded the show where I went on and on and on and on.
Which show, but the last one about how much I wanted it to go back to Stockholm, they released the statement saying, we’re in dialogue.
Jill: very excited about that. Uh, but here’s the
Alison: real news from, oh, this was
Jill: great. So this past week, the International Olympic Committee met the week that culminated in June 23rd [00:42:00] Olympic Day and the executive board met and they had press conferences and Christophe Dubi, the executive director mentioned that six cities were in talks to host and he let it slip that Switzerland is one of the places that wants to host.
Alison: What I thought was funny was that the reporters seemed to react with some surprise at six because we’ve been saying they can’t find a host for 2030, and all of a sudden, Christophe Duby says, well, we’re talking to six possible hosts. And then he’s like, yes, six. Like he really doubled down on saying that six number.
And so now we’re wildly speculating as to what the others could be.
Jill: Right, because does that number six still include Vancouver? Does it still include Sapporo? Are they still kind of on the list, even though they’re like, well, we’re gonna hold off, and the I O C just says, well, that you’re still in talks.
Alison: And surprisingly, there was a news report that came out that said the Japanese public sentiment is starting to change about Sapporo. That they may, even though they’ve officially dropped out, are they coming back into the mix? So this is becoming one of those old timey host city horse races that we haven’t seen since they initiated the new norm and all the different changes to the bidding process.
Jill: Yeah. So we shall see the. IOC it says it’s being flexible about when it will make a decision, so we don’t know what we’ll find out at the IOC session this fall, but they said for sure that a decision for winter 2030 would take place no later than the session at Paris just ahead of the Paris Olympics.
Alison: Stockholm. I’m speaking it into being.
IOC Update
Jill: A little bit of other i o c news. The I o C gave out its Fair Play Awards from Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 for Tokyo. [00:44:00] Do you remember in the Women’s skateboarding competition, the horrific crash that Miss Sugo Okemoto, who was winning the competition at the time, she had this really bad crash in the final round.
Alison: I do remember it and it still gives me chills.
Jill: so the fair Play Award went to skateboarders ca Raki from Japan and Poppy Olson from Australia for going to help her immediately after the crash. And then for Beijing 2022, the Fair Play Award went to speed skater Britney be for giving up her original slot in the 500 meters to our very own Ani, Erin Jackson,
Alison: who then went on to just win the gold medal in that race.
Jill: very well deserved for Brittany. It was very nice to see that act of sportsmanship rewarded. So that is going to do it this week. Let us know what you think about. The IOC and uh, its situation with boxing, what you think about the torch relay and anything else that’s on your mind regarding the Olympics and Paralympics.
Alison: You can connect with us on Twitter and Instagram at Flame Alive Pod. Email us at flame alive pod gmail.com. Call or text us at (208) 352-6348. That’s 2 0 8. Flame it. Be sure to join the Keep the Flame Alive Podcast group on Facebook. And don’t forget to get our weekly newsletter filled with other fun stories about this week’s episode.
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Jill: I’d like to give a special thank you to our intern Anna Lee Day for doing tons of research for this episode. Next week we will be celebrating Independence Day here in the United States, so we will have a lightning round episode with some unique insight from our shook Lassis.
You won’t wanna miss that. Thank you so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive.