It’s the latest installment of our retrospective on the 25th anniversary of the Sydney 2000 Olympics and Paralympics! October is the official anniversary month of the Paralympics, which ran from October 18-29. In light of that, Jill looks at the Paralympic Football 7-a-Side competition.
Today’s Paralympic program does not include Football 7-a-Side, which is also known as Cerebral Palsy football, or CP football. This game is for those with CP or other neurological disorders like traumatic brain injuries or strokes. The rules are a bit modified from able-bodied football, but the competition is just as intense.
At Sydney 2000, the reigning Paralympic gold medalists were the Netherlands, in the hunt for their fourth consecutive gold medal. Will they win? Or will another team rise up and take the title? Jill has the details.
Then Alison explores the Olympic television advertising campaigns in the U.S., and let’s just say that advertising in 2000 was….interesting. For Nike, it was pretty misguided.
Check out the ads we talk about on the show:
Coke:
McDonalds:
Adidas:
Buick:
Visa:
Nike’s attempt at humor:
What were your favorite ads from Sydney 2000? Let us know what ads you saw!
A complete list of sources used in this episode is here.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
412-Sydney 2000: football 7-a-side and Olympic advertising
Jill Jaracz: [00:00:00] Hello Olympics and Paralympics fans, and welcome to another history 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, good day.
How are you?
Alison Brown: Good day. I went kayaking this weekend, woo. And did not see any sharks.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, well that’s good. what river or pond did you kayak in?
Alison Brown: It was in the Saugatuck River. I didn’t even see a fish, but as I was paddling, I thought of our triathletes that we talked about last time going, yeah, no sharks here.
I think I’m okay.
And I didn’t drown too, which we’ve talked about before. That’s good. My fear of drowning. So all worked out quite well. Did you,
Jill Jaracz: did you stay in the boat the whole time?
Alison Brown: I [00:01:00] did. Very good. Very proud of you. Thank you. Did And I had to wear shoes.
Jill Jaracz: I was just gonna ask you shoes or no shoes.
Alison Brown: I wanted to be barefoot, but, the place where we got the boat said, no, you, you have to wear shoes.
And I was very upset about this. I said, you know. I know Olympians and they don’t wear shoes. But I didn’t do that because I wanna go back and be able to go to this place again.
Jill Jaracz: Well, I’m glad you had a good time. Excellent. That was great.
Correction from last week’s episode
Jill Jaracz: Correction to the record, last week, I believe I put Snoop Dogg on NBC’s coverage under LA 2028 News and he will be at Milano Corina 2026 instead.
I, I would not be surprised if I was foreshadowing the 2028.
Alison Brown: I think it was just crystal ball.
But this does lead to the segment, and we talked about this in our Facebook group, that you have Snoop and Stanley Tucci working together, hopefully with the idea of [00:02:00] we know what Snoop is famous for and it’s not rap music. And you do tend to get a little hungry, and Stanley Tucci can take care of that.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, so well Snoop will be on your screens in a few months, maybe also he’ll be on your screens in a few years at LA 2028 too.
Sydney 2000: Paralympic Football 7-a-side
Jill Jaracz: But back to history. And this year we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Sydney 2000 games by looking back at some of the many stories that come from those Olympics and Paralympics.
October is the official anniversary month of the Paralympics. Those ran from October 18th through 29. So, I have a story about the Paralympics, and I thought it’d be good to start with that and celebrate Excellent. The anniversary of those games. And, you know, I love blind football.
Alison Brown: You do love the, you do love when they clank on the.
Uh, the goalpost. Oh my gosh. I
Jill Jaracz: love the visualizing, the visualizing or spatializing, the goalpost section. But, it used to be [00:03:00] called football Five Aside. Well, Sydney did not have football. Five aside, they did not have blind football. They had seven aside football, which is. Cerebral palsy football or CP football.
Interesting. Yes. Okay. And that is a sport for athletes with cerebral palsy or other neurological disorders like traumatic brain injuries or strokes. it’s on a smaller field than a standard soccer field. Other rule differences from able-bodied football are 30 minute halves. Smaller goalposts, no offsides.
And if the ball goes outta bounds, players can throw or roll the ball back into play. Football seven aside, debuted at the Paralympics in 1984, and Belgium was the first Paralympic champion. But then apropos to your recent newsletter about how the Dutch women crush it in wheelchair tennis and wheelchair basketball.
The Netherlands became the dominant team in football seven aside, [00:04:00] and they won the gold in 88, 92 and 96. So they are gunning for gold medal number four. However, in 2000, the Netherlands team roster saw a massive turnover, just four of the 11 men on the roster. Also, men’s men only sport just like playing football is today.
For the 11 men on the roster were returning from 1996 that included three time gold medalists, Arnold De Young and Yap de Reese. Percy Zer joined the team for 1992 and beyond, and Rudy Van Braman was returning from 1996 and then they also had, 19 88 gold medalist, fer. Henick came back to the team.
For 2000. So yeah, a big span of time off. And he was back. It did not go well. Oh no. Yes. the Netherlands roster trended older. They in Spain had more players born in the [00:05:00] 1960s than any other team. Yap. Dev Reese, who was the second oldest player at the tournament, would celebrate his 35th birthday during the Sydney Paralympics.
So the tournament had eight teams split into two groups. Each team played three group games, and then they had knockout rounds pitted the like standings against each other. So Netherlands lost two games and they had a zero zero tie with Portugal. That dismal record put them at the bottom of the group standings and into the seventh and eighth place game against Host Australia who had one of the youngest teams in the tournament.
Alison Brown: Which makes sense in a way. Yeah. Because probably with host countries, a lot of times they’re starting teams they haven’t had before because you get that host,
Jill Jaracz: right? Like we talked with, uh, Molly Quinn.
Alison Brown: Yes. About, uh, about how the US is gonna have entries in LA that they’ve never had before.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So they’re building their own blind football team now.
so [00:06:00] seventh and eighth place Game Australia beats the Netherlands two to one. Australia’s only win of the entire tournament, sending Netherlands from gold to the bottom of the rankings in the span of one game. So if Netherlands was out, who was in, would it be reigning silver medalist Russia, or reigning bronze medalist Spain?
Well, Russia and Spain were in the same group. So that makes it tough for Spain. They, uh, Spain had a one, one tie with Brazil. They beat Australia one zero. Russia had a two, two tie with Brazil and beat Australia, three zero. So when Russia and Spain met, you’d think it’d be fairly even, but Russia crushed Spain three nothing.
And that set Spain into the fifth, sixth place game against Argentina. Argentina won five two.
Alison Brown: You know what I love? Whenever we talk about football, no matter what kind of football it is, Brazil is there. [00:07:00] Right. Women’s five aside, seven aside, they don’t care. You will find Brazil in that tournament.
Jill Jaracz: So, uh, Brazil is now in the semi-finals.
They are pitted against Ukraine. Ukraine won group A and Brazil was second place in group B. And then the other semi-final is Portugal and Russia. Russia winning Group B and Portugal coming second in group A. Russia beats Portugal. Three one. So they are going to go for the gold. Ukraine and Brazil.
They had a pretty lopsided match. Ukraine had six shot 16 shots on gold. Brazil only had six. Brazil had 10 falls and one yellow card. Brazil had six falls, yet the score at the end of regulation was one. One. However, in extra time, Vladimir Banov. Scored the winning goal for Ukraine. Ukraine goes to the gold medal [00:08:00] match.
Alison Brown: You know what I love about this year in particular talking about Sydney, is I’m realizing what an incredible history that Ukraine has at the Paralympics. Yes. I feel like we say Ukraine,
Jill Jaracz: every single show we do. They have a long tradition and sadly. It’s gonna be even more so with the war that’s going on, because we know that war creates Paralympians.
so the medal matches take place on the final, final day of the games. Bronze medal matches first. It’s at 10:00 AM in the morning, decent weather, partly cloudy, 70 degrees Fahrenheit, 21 Celsius. Beautiful day. Portugal struck first when Nuno Germano scored in the 20th minute. Brazil’s Luciano Rocha tied it up in minute 35.
Brazil, kept the falls down. This time they committed just five to Portugal’s eight and they were way making [00:09:00] way more shots on goal than Portugal, but nothing’s going in until the 59th minute when Luciano Rocha scores again, giving Brazil the win right at the end of the game.
Alison Brown: And unlike blind football, when you’ve got a team, Portugal and Brazil speaking the same language, a trash talk of this must have been fantastic.
Jill Jaracz: Gold medal match is directly after at 1230. Sun’s come out, it’s warmed up a couple degrees, so we are having a perfect day for our football final and also a perfect day for, closing ceremonies. To be quite honest, Ukraine stacked out and they’re blue and yellow. Russia is an all white. We’ve got the two best teams in the tournament.
They are ready for a showdown, and this was an evenly matched showdown
Alison Brown: and also probably some really good trash talk.
Jill Jaracz: I would imagine there’s a lot of Ukrainians speak
Alison Brown: Russian as well, so, yeah. Right. And
Jill Jaracz: it’s an [00:10:00] interesting kind of period in time because the Soviet Union has fallen and we are ahead of, Vladimir Putin is pretty new as a prime minister.
He’s come up in this podcast series before, but he’s relatively new. And, we are several years away from their first invasions into Crimea. So we’re in this kind of, is it peaceful time?
Alison Brown: I think it was. They didn’t know what their relationship was going to look like. It could be but I still think there was great trash talk.
Jill Jaracz: So we have evenly matched, this is what you want in a football match. 14th minute Russia’s. Jimmy Star, he scores the first goal of the game on a penalty kick. Eight minutes later, Andre Otoka ties it up for Ukraine. Two minutes after that, VLO America Bonoff comes back. He’s putting Ukraine ahead, and they’re leading at the [00:11:00] half two, one Ukraine.
Then Russia comes back. Jim is charged, really is on a mission. He scores in the 37th minute to tie it up and then two minutes later he scores a go ahead goal. It’s a lot of scoring. It is a lot of scoring. Russia holds off Ukraine for the TW final 20 plus minutes and they get the gold medal. score is three, two.
Russia, they won gold, silver goes to Ukraine, bronze goes to Brazil. Uh, Russia’s, Jim and Ukraine’s. Banov tied for the most goals scored during the tournament with seven each. And those two teams continued to dominate the sport from there on out. Ukraine won gold at Athens 2004. They beat Russia for gold in Beijing.
2008, they met again in the final at London 2012. This time Russia won. And the final games for CP football was Rio 2016, and [00:12:00] Ukraine won the final gold there. Do we know why it went away? We do. Thank you very much because hey, we’ve
Alison Brown: been working together for a while. Lemme tee you
Jill Jaracz: up. So, yeah, football seven aside was dropped after, Rio 2016, partly because the women’s game was not developed.
Mm-hmm. Partly for cost reasons, and partly because the IPC would’ve had to reduce male athlete quotas in other sports. And Andrew Parsons said, that would’ve meant that high support needs athletes would’ve lost slots, and that would go against the organization’s guiding principles. So, and by this time, blind football was already in the Paralympics.
So you had two footballs going against each other and, Blind football was smaller as well. So you had five aside versus seven aside, two football events. It and no women
Alison Brown: in either and no women
Jill Jaracz: in either. Yes, exactly. So, the International [00:13:00] Fed Federation of Cerebral Palsy Football keeps trying to get back into the games and about a month ago.
They announced the appointment of Kat Hicks as its new director of the Brisbane 2032 Paralympic campaign, and Kat will be heading up the drive to get back into the games.
Alison Brown: Interesting.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. That they’ve hired a person specifically.
Alison Brown: Well, the, the IPC does not do what the Olympics does in the, the host gets to pick an extra sport.
They don’t have that getting new things in the same way.
Jill Jaracz: I would say yes and no. ’cause I mean, LA picked sport climbing. It’s just that new sports don’t get, seem to get added to the Paralympics as much. And I know that sports want to get in or get back in ’cause we’re sailing is also in the same boat they wanna get back in.
but. It seems like, not to throw shade at Host, but it seems like adding sports to the Paralympics is not a priority. Fair. So, and, and [00:14:00] maybe they’re like, by this time, oh, we’ve, we don’t have the budget. Or how much more can we do? But, we’ll, we’ll see, because I mean, the IPC just kind of retroactively.
Approved the sport climbing Federation for, uh, a recognized federation for the Paralympics. So we’ll see what happens. Well,
Alison Brown: football would make the Brazilians happy.
Jill Jaracz: It would, and it would make, it would make Brisbane 2032, more special, I would say. Ah, so you’ve got a story, but I will tease that.
After your story, we have got, the results from our vote because it’s time to choose next year’s games that we will cover, and we’ve got the, we’ve got the winner. It was as close as that gold
Alison Brown: medal match.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, exactly. So what do you got for us?
Sydney 2000: Olympics Advertising
Alison Brown: I have such a different story than yours, so I’m gonna talk about some of the advertising that was happening, particularly during the Olympics.[00:15:00]
So let’s start, and we’re talking mostly in the US because there was some wild stuff going on TV in the US in 2000. So back then, television Network, NBC, paid $705 million for the broadcast rights for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, part of a larger $3.5 billion deal with the IOC it. I don’t even wanna think about these numbers and production costs for the Olympics reached about 125 million.
Not to worry. NBC sold $900 million worth of advertising. Whoa. Wow, a 32nd commercial cost about $615,000. Of course, things vary depending on day and time, and some I’ll,
Jill Jaracz: can I just say like, if you’re an advertiser out there. [00:16:00] A commercial will cost much less on this podcast.
Alison Brown: And remember, this is all in $2,000.
In 2000 year dollars. I have not adjusted anything, for what it would be worth now, and some experts in the advertising world really thought NBC should have charged more. For their 32nd advertising. Holy, holy. They thought cow, thought they undersold.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. And, and I know this wasn’t part of the equation, but I, I’m curious what a Super Bowl ad would’ve cost at that same before and after, because of course we had this huge sporting event and.
Super Bowl probably still had some ad time available.
Alison Brown: I know in the things that I read, NBC was very concerned because they wouldn’t be showing a lot of stuff live and even though we didn’t have social media or a a huge internet presence at the time, evening news was still reporting winners. [00:17:00] At six, you know, five, six o’clock.
So by the time you got to primetime, if you didn’t specifically not watch the news, not pay attention, you were spoiled for the winners. And that was a big difference, obviously from Atlanta where all of Prime, most of Primetime was live. So I think that’s why they were concerned about how they were pricing the 32nd ads.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, and, and now if you get spoiled, there are a lot of people like me who, okay, I know what the result is. How did they get that result? I wanna see what happened, especially if it was a surprise result, right? Because we’re
Alison Brown: in a such a different time now. ’cause. Now you almost expect to know who the winner is before you watch.
Like that’s just part of the sports culture. Now in 2000 being spoiled was like, what’s the point of watching? Right. So who was buying all those ads? Well, major Olympic [00:18:00] sponsors at the time, like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. We’re in on it. Coca-Cola launched, launched it’s Taste the Feeling campaign, which included ads.
And we’ve got, we’re gonna have links to this in the show note because it’s so much fun going back and watching these 25-year-old ads. It featured a bus trip across an Outback like landscape, a soda fueled evening at a drive-in movie. Oh, so you take the bus, you bring the bus to the drive-in, and you’re drinking Coca-Cola.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. The whole
Alison Brown: time
Jill Jaracz: sounds like a good night to me.
Alison Brown: I know. I’m like, bring on the, and they didn’t even, weren’t even advertising Diet Coke and I was in.
This was fun. McDonald’s created a 2000 Olympic Games, big book and calendar, and their ad featured McDonald’s characters, including Ronald McDonald Grimace and the hamburger [00:19:00] racing into the fast food restaurant to get the book. Now, if you are younger than say 35, you may not know who Grimace and hamburger is.
Who? Who they are. Please go watch this commercial and you will fall in love with Grimace.
Jill Jaracz: And if you have one of these big books lying around, like share pictures please. There
Alison Brown: were stickers, there were coloring pages. it was great. I mean, if I were a kid in 2000, I would’ve absolutely wanted this big book, end calendar ‘ cause it had the dates of all the events.
it was pretty fantastic. They get a, did a nice job. USOC, no P in this point. Uh, sponsors Adidas and Buick also bought spots. Adidas featured athletes from all different sports like gymnastics, swimming, and high jump, attempting to saddle and ride horses. Okay. It sounds crazy, but it was actually a really fantastic ad and golfer.
[00:20:00] Tiger Woods, who has never competed in the Olympics, started an ad for Buick where he tries to use his golf club as a javelin, a fencing sword, and an archer’s bow. Far out again, sounds terrible, but in the context of 2000 culture. This was a really fun ad before Tiger Woods had some issues.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And he is in his prime basically at this point.
Alison Brown: Exactly. So most ads aim to be funny and lighthearted using catchy jingles and familiar faces of characters or celebrities. Visa’s tagline for it said Sydney campaign was. Have fun. Alright. Nike went in a different direction. Okay. Reebok had pulled out of its agreement with the IOC at the last minute, and Nike quit then, then the IOC partnership.
Reebok was supposed to be the sportswear [00:21:00] sponsor. They could not come to grips with the IOC.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: It was very fuzzy in what I found in why this happened, but Nike saw the, the opportunity jumped in. Wow. The agreement between Nike and the IOC was signed in January of 2000. That’s how fast they moved on this, and this was the first time Nike would have an official relationship with the Olympics.
So now its ads could run during the Olympic broadcast in the us.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. Hey, Michael Payne, we got questions for you.
Alison Brown: And they of course created one centerpiece ad and it debuted the ad. The first weekend of the Olympics, which is September 16th and 17th, the ad titled Horror was created by ad agency, widen and Kennedy, and there’s multiple versions of it.
The full ad is a minute long, and there were three 32nd edits, but they [00:22:00] all basically tell. Same story. American Middle Distance runner Susie Favor. Hamilton is first seen alone in her house at night, getting ready to take a bath. Suddenly, a masked man like Jason from Friday the 13th, slasher movies appears in the reflection of her medicine cabinet mirror.
He lunges at Susie wielding a chainsaw. Good thing Susie hasn’t taken off her Nike running shoes. She dashes past him and runs into the woods. Scary man follows with chainsaw close behind. Susie screams and she crashes through branches with the constant hum of the chainsaw, whirring through the night
She keeps running. Wearing nothing more than her Nike Sports bra, short shorts and Nike shoes.
Jill Jaracz: Wait, she is running through the woods? Yes.
Alison Brown: Being chased by Chainsaw Man,
Jill Jaracz: probably through branches. [00:23:00] Yes. Nighttime. And she’s wearing a sports bra and shorts and Nike shoes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But still all probably getting scratched up as well.
Alison Brown: Yes, because remember, she was getting ready for a bath,
Jill Jaracz: right? Okay. In your traditional getting ready for a bath outfit.
Alison Brown: So chainsaw man trips, stumbles struggles. He starts to pant. Susie keeps going. Chainsaw man. Can’t keep up. He stops, takes off his mask and tries to catch his breath. Then we get the tagline, why sport?
Because you’ll live longer. Whoa.
Jill Jaracz: That is a weird way to, to depict. You’ll live longer.
It’s so weird. Do you remember this ad? I have no, I have no re me recollection of [00:24:00] this.
Alison Brown: The reason I wanted to do this story is because I do remember this ad and I remember seeing it and thinking, whose idea was this and how is this gonna sell more running shoes? Well, I. Was not the only one. The backlash was swift and virulent.
NBC and Nike were flooded with complaints. The ad was called Stupid repellent. Ill-conceived, misogynistic, tasteless, tacky, disgraceful, extreme, and worst of all. An Olympic critic said it glorified violence against women. It was inappropriate for family friendly viewing and it set back the cause of women in sport.
’cause remember, this is playing during the opening ceremony broadcast.
And Nike pushed back obviously against the criticism, saying the ad was tongue in cheek. Michael [00:25:00] Wilkie, VP of marketing at Nike at the time, claimed the ad received huge numbers of emails from women in support of it. Saying they got the joke. He went so far as to say that this kind of advertising show how equally Nike was treating its advertisements directed at women and men.
Jill Jaracz: But I mean, like the sports bra is at least very covering. It’s not like, right. There’s nothing, it’s,
Alison Brown: she’s not overly sexualized. No. In the sense of she’s overly made up or, in, very revealing clothes. Yeah. I mean, it’s definitely a play on those slasher movies of the eighties and nineties.
And this was a classic scene, you know, a girl getting ready for a bathtub, uh, getting ready for a bath and the water running, and then you see the guy in the medicine cabinet. But geez, Nike Clear, you know, there was no women at that table when this Right. A put together. So, so far,
Jill Jaracz: I mean, the bigger question I have.
did she run back to the [00:26:00] house in time before the tub overflowed and threw into the floor?
Alison Brown: So Russell Davis, planning director at Ed Agency, widening Kennedy, said, Susie favor, Hamilton is the victor, not the victim in this ad. And his quote. Does me in, so this is from Russell Davis, from Wyden and Kennedy. So now women’s sports are higher profile. They’re much more on equal footing with men, and the advertising is starting to reflect that.
In the last year or so, Nike has injected a lot more humor, a lot more playfulness in its treatment of women athletes. Its treats. Susie Hamilton, pretty much the same as Andre Agassi. It’s not a role model, go out and be like Susie kind of thing. It’s more like we have athletes we love and we want to put them in our communication.
I don’t think Andre Agassi was ever half naked in a bathroom [00:27:00] having a chainsaw wielded at him in a Nike ad.
Jill Jaracz: Just, no, no. It’s showing him being super sporty usually.
Alison Brown: Here. Here’s the perfect thing to sum this up. Longtime sports columnist for the Orlando Sentinel, Jerry Green wrote how much he liked the ad.
Okay. I thought it was funny. My wife hated it.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, there you go.
Alison Brown: So NBC bowed to the pressure and maybe found a little bit of good sense because they did ban the ad from air. After that first weekend. Nike continued with other sport. Other Nike continued with other spots in its wise sports series, but those were more in line with traditional inspirational Olympic ads.
No athletes were murdered in those commercials.
Jill Jaracz: Well, SU Susie didn’t get murdered either ‘
Alison Brown: cause she could run in her Nike shoes. Right. Wow. What struck me so much [00:28:00] in all of this is how not far advertising of female athletes has come. Like I could see the same controversy happening now.
Jill Jaracz: I would agree with you on that,
Alison Brown: but if you look at the commercial with the right eyes, you will laugh that this ever got off the boardroom table.
Jill Jaracz: Maybe they just didn’t have a lot of time and this is the best they could come up with.
Alison Brown: Yeah, thankfully Nike did get better as an advertiser at the Olympics over the years.
Jill Jaracz: Well, wasn’t, didn’t they have in 1996, that whole billboard controversy of like, you lost gold, you didn’t win silver, you lost gold, or something like that.
Alison Brown: I don’t remember like
Jill Jaracz: marketing,
Alison Brown: I don’t remember which Olympics it was, but yeah, they definitely, there was, you don’t win silver, you lose [00:29:00] gold.
Jill Jaracz: So they don’t have a great track record.
Alison Brown: So after you watch the Suzy Hamilton, uh. Nike ad. Just go watch the McDonald’s ad with grimace and hamburger and you’ll feel so much better about yourself. You know, that’s the kind of criminal you should be putting in your advertising is hamburger is a hamburger, not Jason slasher chainsaw man. Piece of advice is we’re going into Milan, leave out the serial killers, put in the cartoon characters.
Jill Jaracz: True, true. And now advertising is different because a lot of it’s streaming. So you have either short ads or you know, we have Mike and Maya from Tokyo 2020. I will
Alison Brown: forever love Mike and Maya.
Jill Jaracz: Heart, heart hands. That’s right. That’s right. Oh boy. Oh boy. If you remember these commercials or [00:30:00] if you have commercial, if you’re outside of the US and you have commercials that you remember from Sydney 2000, share those with us.
’cause I love seeing the stuff that’s not in the us. It’s always interesting to see how they target different, how, how different areas of the world think about the same event. So yes, please share those with us. you can get at us on a social we’re at at Flame Alive Pod. On Insta and X and Facebook, I’d think about that and keep the Flame Alive Podcast Group on Facebook.
And, also, flame Alive pod@gmail.com is where you can hit us up or send us an email or send us a voicemail at 2 0 8 Flame it.
Sources
Alison Brown: So, sources for me are Wall Street Journal, Forbes Guardian, the Washington Post and Sports Business Journal.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you and sources for me. Were inside the games International Blind Sports Association, international Federation of CP Football, [00:31:00] international Paralympic Committee, and the National Paralympic Heritage Trust.
Announcement: Next year’s History Moment Games
Alison Brown: So should we make our big announcement now?
Jill Jaracz: Yes, we should make our big announcement. Wait, do I have a drum wall?
Our historical games for 2026 that we will be covering is
Alison Brown: Corina Ezzo 1956.
Jill Jaracz: Yes, that will be the 70th anniversary of those games, and 2026 will be the return to Cortina for some of Milano Cortina. So hopefully, knock on wood, that we’re gonna be able to get to Cortina. I’m really hoping, but we will hopefully be there to see what, what’s left of the sites there and walk around and see what Cortina is like as a little village and, explore some of the stories from those games.
I’m very excited. So no Paralympics
Alison Brown: for next year? Yes, because in 1956 there were no [00:32:00] Paralympics. Uh, this won by two votes.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So close.
Alison Brown: It was close. I think the idea of the Italy, Italy connection is what swayed voters. Not that I took a poll, but this is my own personal
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. The Italy. Italy. And also that we’re gonna be there and celebrating it.
So what were those games like? So we are excited to be looking into the history of that and uh, seeing stories that people don’t remember. For the very first time. We certainly don’t, we’re not that.
Review of the Week
Jill Jaracz: Oh, but we also have a reviewer
Alison Brown: comment of the week. So this was a comment from YouTube from Claire Nettleton, 1945. Ladies, I look forward to you, my friends, every week when I need a knowledgeable, friendly duo with a sense of humor, I turn to you. The giggles lift me up, and the coverage of all things Olympics and Paralympics is outstanding.
Jill Jaracz: Thank you very much, [00:33:00] Claire Nettleton, 1945. We appreciate you listening to the show. And if you would like to be in this, featured in this segment, just drop us a review anywhere. we’re available on your podcast app right now and, uh, we will hopefully feature you as well. So thank you so much, Claire.
Your, comments lift our spirits and actually it just makes me wanna laugh a little bit more.
Alison Brown: I wonder what people do think of our laughs, you know? ’cause I’ve always been made fun of for my laughs. So now I’m kind of curious like how it sounds over in podcast world.
Jill Jaracz: I have heard that when we were at, when we are at the games and we hit the day where we lose it and we just. Can’t stop cracking herself out.
And it happened very quickly at Paris. It happened so fast. I think it was day two. Yeah. Yeah. We, and usually we can, we can make it to like day seven before we just lose it. But, uh, I’ve, I’ve heard that’s a, [00:34:00] when we hit our breaking point,
Alison Brown: that’s the favorite episode of the, of the Olympics. It’s especially at the Olympics.
’cause Paralympics, we seem to hang on, like we’ve had that regrouping for two weeks.
Jill Jaracz: Right. You know, in between we, except for in Beijing, we lost it over the pup buses.
Alison Brown: Fair enough. But I think, I don’t think in Paris during the Paralympics we lost it because we kept, no, because we got to go back to the hotel and eat and
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: And sleep and have air conditioning. So we’ll see what happens in Milan. This is, oh boy, this could get interesting ’cause there’s gonna, there’s gonna be some putt putt trains, you know?
Oh my God. If there’s a train strike,
Jill Jaracz: well, we’re, we’re stuck. Hopefully not on the side of a mountain. And the other side of the mountain. Don’t want that either. So. Alright, that is gonna do it for this episode. Next week we will be back with more, interviews and news [00:35:00] from the game. So thank you so much for listening
Alison Brown: and until next time, keep the flame alive.