We have made it to Paris, but first it’s the last of our Team USA Media Summit! We’re talking with:

• Sport climbers Brooke Rabatou and Jesse Grupper
• Taekwondo fighter CJ Nickolas
• Badminton player Beiwan Zhang
• Weightlifters Jourdan Delacruz and Hampton Morris
• Archer Casey Kaufhold
• Shooter Mary Tucker
• Triathlete Morgan Pearson
• Modern Pentathlete Jess Davis Savner

Then we’ve got news from Paris:

• Travel issues
• What our hotel is like
• Safety issues with the neighborhood we were assigned to
• The Paris Media Center and its tours
• Riding the Wave! If you’re interested in doing this, check out Wave in Paris
• If you’re coming to Paris for the Games, be sure to check out the Terrasse des Jeux!

Daily coverage starts Wednesday, so be sure to get our Paris 2024 Viewing Guide to help you plan your schedule!

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 Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.

357-Team USA Olympians

Jill: Hello, bonjour, 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 as always by my lovely co host, Alison Brown.

Alison, hello, bonjour.

Alison: Bonjour. How

Jill: are you?

Alison: I am feeling very French. Okay, there is a Mariah Carey video that everybody must see. And she comes on, she says, Vive la France! We are in Paris! And that’s us right now. I gotta not hit the desk though. We’re in a different taping environments and I have to behave.

Jill: That’s right. We are in the Paris Media Center. We have been accredited for two different places. So it’s going to be a little confusing because they sound very similar. There is the, Games Accreditation, that’s Paris 2024, accredited us to go see, uh, events. and participate in the Olympic aspect of the press.

That is when we’ll tape from the main press center. Then the city of Paris has its own press center. Media services, they’re like pulling out all the stops to show off Paris to the media and get a lot of press and, uh, the social content out there about how the city, and that is the Paris Media Center. So we are there.

It is in the Temple du Corot, which is lovely. They’ve redone it. It’s, it’s beautiful. We’ll get pictures up and some video because we had a little cocktail party here when they opened it. We’ve

Alison: had a lot of cocktail parties already. And we’re gonna talk about that a little bit later.

Jill: Yeah, exactly, but it’s a stunning open space.

You might hear

Alison: I hear a vacuum. I

Jill: do hear a vacuum. This is pretty awesome. I did not expect that. It’s way off in the distance. I don’t know if it’s attached to a lady or not. There could be vacuums here, but we’ve decided to tape here tonight, uh, because we’re going to tape in both locations and, uh, get the show out to you.

We will have stories about Paris and our time here so far later on in the episode, but first we wanted to share with you the last of our Team USA Media Summit interviews with Olympians. First up, we have Brooke Raboteau, who is competing in her second Olympics in sport climbing, this time in the newly revamped combined event that combines lead and bouldering.

She finished fifth in Tokyo and won bronze at the most recent World Championships. We also have sport climber Jesse Gruper, who is competing in the combined event. This is his first Olympics. He is the reigning Pan American champion. Then we move over to Taekwondo, and we talk with CJ Nicholas, who competes at the 80kg weight in Taekwondo.

He earned his ticket to Paris by winning the Pan American championships last year. Then we head over to the badminton courts and talk with Baiwen Zhang, who will compete in the women’s singles tournament in badminton in Paris. She is the reigning Pan American champion. Then we’re heading into weightlifting, where we talk with weightlifter Jordan De La Cruz, who competes in the 49kg class.

Paris will be her second Olympics. And we also talk with Hampton Morris, who is a three time world medalist in the 61kg class. He’s going into his first Olympics, but he is ranked number two in the world. Then we’re heading to the archery range. We’re at only 20 years old. Casey Kaufhold is heading to her second Olympics in archery in Paris.

In Paris, she is slated to compete in the women’s individual event, the team event, and the mixed event. Then we’re heading over to shooting where we talk with Mary Tucker. Mary 10 meter air rifle mixed team event. She will compete in 50 meter small bore rifle and both.

Individual and mixed 10 meter air rifle. And then , uh, we talked with Morgan Pearson, who became the first American man to win a World Triathlon Championship series event since 2009. Morgan won a silver medal in Tokyo as part of the American mixed relay team. Also, Morgan answered our most pressing question about triathlon,

Alison: and we have seen what the steps probably look like now.

It’s an even more pressing question.

Jill: Right. And finally, we have Jess Davis Savner, who is headed to her first Olympics in modern pentathlon.

Alison: Also, if I had known this when I spoke to her, we would have had different questions. A proud Connecticut ution.

Jill: Take a listen to our interviews.

Brooke Raboutou Interview

Brooke Raboutou: Hi, I’m Brooke Raboutou. How excited are you that

Jill: speed got separated though?

Brooke Raboutou: I am excited. Um, yeah, I actually loved doing speed climbing. I think it was a really cool to Participate in like that different aspect of the sport and be able to get that like linear progression and feedback In that way, it’s very different than bouldering lead, but I’m really glad that both like the speed climbers get the recognition they deserve of, those world records deserving medals and being able to focus on just that and that for us, Boulder and lead, like it’s just very different than speed climbing.

So being able to focus on you know what we do and enjoy most is is awesome.

Jill: do you think it was easier for bouldering and lead people to pick up speed instead of the reverse

Brooke Raboutou: on that? Um, I think it really depends on the athlete and their abilities and skill set and strengths and weaknesses.

So yeah, there was, you could tell like there was some athletes that did really well in speed, that were mainly boulder or lead focused. And then there was others that really, it was hard for them. Same with the speed climbers. But I would say, it At that point, yeah, maybe overall, the amount of time focused on speed, you were able to progress a lot more than, for speed climbers focusing on boulder and lead, given the different, like, skill sets.

Jill: when you step up and get the problem, how long do you, Take to take in the problem before you start to solve it.

Brooke Raboutou: Yeah. it’s a good question because like most people don’t realize that when we turn around on those mats and see those problems, we’ve never seen like never tried them before, let alone even seen them before.

So we have to figure out on the spot how to do them. Um, amount of time, it varies. Sometimes it’s a really simple problem or there’s like literally two moves and you don’t have a choice. So you kind of see it, understand it and get on. Um, and others takes a lot longer. I’ve definitely work on Spending less time on the ground and more time on the wall and figuring it out and trusting my intuition, but it really depends.

Alison: You’re a pocket princess, like myself, so I, I, Couldn’t say that’s you. How is that an advantage, and how is it a disadvantage?

Brooke Raboutou: Yeah, it’s What’s really cool is climbing is for anyone and there’s a lot of different like body types and people that can excel in it and especially enjoy it. I think for me, I mean, clearly a weakness is just like the You know, length of moves, and like, especially vertical, like jumps, that’s always a hard one.

Of just like needing more height for those, but, Strengths, for sure, fitting in smaller boxes, being, uh, very flexible is helpful as well. And, Yeah, I think like having baseline like strength and physical ability to help, challenge my vertical challenge.

Alison: You’re, you’re taller than me, Brooke, so don’t even worry about it.

He’s waiting time, . Thank you Thank you so much. Enjoy

Jesse Grupper Interview

Jesse Grupper: Jesse grouper, okay

Jill: Boulder Lead. How long do you try to sit there and analyze it before you hop up and start solving it?

Jesse Grupper: Yeah, I think it depends on whether it’s a boulder or lead climb. Typically with like lead climbs I would spend maybe 40 seconds or so, um, yeah, getting the chance to look through it. Uh, with boulders, uh, it could be anywhere from, uh, 30 to 45 seconds as well.

Alison: You’re an engineer. Yes. So I’m assuming the engineering brain is the same brain that’s doing the puzzle.

Jesse Grupper: Yeah, they both, uh, climbing and engineering share, uh, a lot of similarities in the problem solving aspects of them. Whether it be, you know, trying to make an assistive device, for someone who might need it, or Uh, approaching a new climb where you have to figure out the best way to go from the start to the finish.

Both of them, uh, you have to think creatively, and there’s no one right solution.

Alison: I have a question about thinking, because I’m always interested what athletes are thinking about while they’re competing, but for this, you actually have to think while you’re competing. So how does, how does that work to not be overthinking?

Jesse Grupper: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that’s a constant struggle that, us climbers, like, have on the wall. A lot of the time, we’re, Trying to map out our next moves well before we have to actually make them so that by the time we get to them We’re like in action mode, and we’re yeah, just yeah, not thinking and just moving I think that for boulders.

It’s a little bit easier because there’s some time on the ground that you have to Kind of reassess the situation ahead of you whereas on a leap climb. Maybe you’re doing it on the wall You’re taking quick shakes or recovery Uh, recovering on the wall, uh, and you’re like looking at your next few moves.

Jill: How’s your grip strength?

Jesse Grupper: My grip strength is actually not, uh, the best in the world, I would say, but it’s pretty good.

Jill: So, I mean, like, comparatively, grip versus how much strength you need to push up, like, is it 60 40, 30 50, you know, now I’m really showing my not math skills.

Jesse Grupper: Yeah, I’m not exactly sure what the ratio is between the two, but I will say that, um, You know, 10 years ago or so, climbing wasn’t a very leg dominant sport, but where it is today, a lot of the movement, uh, with coordination moves where you have to throw your hands and your legs in different spots and be very precise.

having a greater leg power means that you have more time in the air and more time to react to situations. , so it really has transitioned to being a really full body sport. Whereas before, maybe it just mattered how hard you could pull on like a 10 millimeter edge. I see.

Alison: Thank you so much for going around.

Thank you so much. It was good to meet you.

CJ Nickolas Interview

Alison: CJ

CJ Nickolas: Nicholas, Taekwondo.

Jill: you’ve qualified kind of early. Yeah. How is that been for you? how does the pressure build up? Does it build up? What do you notice that’s different?

CJ Nickolas: Yeah, um, when I found out that I was going, there was this overwhelming sense of pressure that just hit me, you know, and I started thinking about it and, this is a moment that I’ve always worked for.

And , in an instant became that moment. I was there at that point, I had done it. , I was pretty excited, but going into training at the start of the year, I was super motivated and it It started turning sour because I was very perfectionist about it and I was treating it like, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I was treating every moment like I was in an Olympic match, like it was the Olympic finals.

CJ Nickolas: It’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself in every single moment, and so then I was, every time I made a mistake, I would. have like Visions of me like getting kicked in the face or something like that at the Olympics or something You know, that was the bad part about it, But I just needed to find a balance.

I was super motivated I am super motivated still and that pressure has alleviated and I got to talk to my coach and my mom really about it and they There are two people in my life that really know how to bring me back, from whatever extreme I’m in, so.

Alison: They give you your security bag. Yes, they

CJ Nickolas: give, they’re, my coach and my mom are my security bag, along with Pikachu.

Alison: So, how did you reset to now make sure you’re gonna peak at the right time?

CJ Nickolas: I just had to come to terms with the fact that, I’m not at the Olympics right now, and what I’m doing right now is preparing for it, and that I am a human, I’m not Superman, and even Superman makes mistakes, so, uh, I just have to be okay with that and, understand that I’m already prepared, like, I don’t need to get ready for the Olympics, I’m ready for it, I just need to make sure that I’m in the right mindset, like physically, I can win the Olympics right now, but I just need to make sure that I’m mentally ready for it, so.

Making sure I’m getting myself out of my comfort zone, making sure I’m staying healthy, making sure that there is a balance, there’s a yin and yang with it, you know what I mean? and really just making sure that no stone is unturned by the time I get there so that there’s zero doubt in my head. That was what I was dealing with a lot was, when I go into fights, these thoughts will come into my head about, oh I didn’t go hard enough in this drill, or I didn’t do this, I didn’t do that.

and the time One of the times that I have felt my best in the ring is when the preparation prior to I took myself to that place every day, you know, and, then I can just be free and confident in the fact that I, I’ve done the work and then I can do it. , at this point in time, I feel like I’ve done that, so I feel like I would step into the ring and be happy with my preparation and, yeah, just go to work.

Jill: Fantastic. How do you get your flexibility? because, okay, so we’ll come at this with, we’ve talked with artistic swimmers who have had problems with splits. Yeah. Taekwondo, you need, like, really flexibility. Yes, you do. Like, how do you build that as a man that’s maybe not an

CJ Nickolas: ace? Um, yeah, I’ve, uh, we stretch every day during training.

it hurts.

It hurts a lot. Um. From a young age, you know, when you’re younger, before you get puberty and stuff like that, before you get your man frame, you can, you know, you get me, like, you can, you’re a little bit more flexible in that way, but, um, you have to work on it every day and, It’s something that I still have to work on every single day, that I’ve been doing since, it’s one of those things in the sport that you have to work on from the first day that you’re doing it, when you’re a beginning, to when you’re an Olympic champion, you know?

Jill: Okay, so then what’s your futsal?

CJ Nickolas: My flexibility routine is we will It’s normally set for us In our training schedule, and so we’ll start training We’ll get our body warm and then we’ll do like a dynamic stretch Rather than a static stretch just to get the legs to open up get the hips to open up and stuff like that And then once we’re about 30 minutes an hour into training.

That’s when we We’ll start doing the static stretching so that our bodies warm. You’re not just trying to do it from like a cold, you know what I mean? Like the getting the body open and then stretching is the best, uh, the best practice. And then also what’s really important that people don’t know is stretching.

When you’re finished, um, you don’t stretch just to get the body to warm up. you want to stretch when the body’s hot, when the muscle fibers have been working and stuff like that. And that’s when you increase the flexibility is after training. So spending a lot of time after really opening up.

Open it up, you know, and then also just, rolling out is, is good practice. And then getting physio done for me is, is, is good practice.

Jill: Excellent,

Alison: excellent.

Beiwan Zhang Interview

Alison: You get to sit with us. Hey. You look like you need to sit. Yes.

Beiwan Zhang: I really needed.

Alison: I’m so, I’m so glad we can provide you with a resting spot. Do you get to eat after this? Yeah, good. So we will be efficient. Uh, we are keep the flame alive. We are a podcast for fans of the Olympics and the Paralympics. Can you

Beiwan Zhang: state your name into the microphone?

Okay. My name is Baewon Jang. My sports is badminton.

Jill: Yeah. How is this for you to, you know, you have three days of nonstop media, but Most of the time people don’t pay attention to badminton. So what is this experience? Is it a draining three days for you? Oh,

Beiwan Zhang: yeah. I don’t know why I’m signing up for this.

It’s really exhausting. And then like, I feel like, but I really wants to like, uh, promote this badminton. I have to do this.

Jill: You got to do it. Okay, so. As I was thinking about this, badminton lately has had a little surge with like change of serve. Weren’t they trying to change the serve in the Yeah, I

Beiwan Zhang: think that was before Olympics, uh, last Olympics.

They changed the height because, uh, before it was like under our waist. But right now it’s like under 110 centimeters.

Jill: Yeah. How does that change the game?

Beiwan Zhang: Of course, for tall people, they are not really comfortable. Actually, they have to bend down their knees to serve.

Alison: Yay, short queen!

Beiwan Zhang: Yeah, for me, it’s like I don’t really have that problem.

So, I’m lucky that I’m not that tall.

Alison: When you’re watching badminton, you’ve never watched it before, except for the backyard game. What should we be paying attention to?

Beiwan Zhang: Actually, you guys have to pay attention to, like, the speed, and the reactions, and mental games, and also, like, the setting ups. Everything’s really, like, neat. Like really short time, we have to think about how we can, how we can set up for next shot, yeah.

Jill: Can you try, when you’re playing somebody, can you read their body and guess what they’re gonna do? Or is it hard to do that?

Beiwan Zhang: Uh, it depends your opponent, because some opponent we don’t usually against, like some small countries. But most likely, if we, we play first set, after first set, we will, we will, um, definitely rate their, like, um, body movements.

Yeah.

Jill: What is it like playing in countries where badminton is a professional sport? Um I mean, like, not, you know, yes, you’re a professional badminton player, but there’s no big, like, badminton scene here.

Beiwan Zhang: Okay, um, for the, uh, for playing in the U. S., um, When, because I start representing us, uh, when I, uh, it is 2013.

That time is not really popular. So , every time when I pass through the immigration and they say, what did, what are you doing like overseas? I would say, oh, I’m, I’m professional athlete. And they, I was like, oh, which sports you are? I was like, oh, I’m badminton. And they say, what is badminton? , yeah. But. Been lately, they actually knows what is badminton.

So it’s, it’s great to see that this sports actually people are knowing, and then like it becomes more popular. Yeah.

Alison: What’s a great country to play in when you get to play? Uh, great

Beiwan Zhang: country. Uh, probably Indonesia. India and China, they are crazy about this sports and all I think because this sports is for all the age you can play.

Alison: Yeah. So when you’re there, but you’re the American. Yeah. So you’re the you’re the opposition. And how is that working when you’re in that arena?

Beiwan Zhang: Oh, actually, you know, like, he’s really proud to representing USA. And then when you walk in the village, you know, I can feel like people are really look up for it and our uniforms are actually the best

Alison: in the village.

Yeah. What are you looking forward to from the Olympic tournament?

Beiwan Zhang: Um, um, I don’t really have so much expectations, but I’m definitely gonna prepare as hard as I can and I’m aiming for the medals this time. Yeah.

Alison: I know it’s

what? Go ahead. No, no, no. Go ahead. How do you convince someone who hasn’t watched badminton to watch it? What’s your, what’s your pitch?

Beiwan Zhang: Yeah, this is actually is the fastest, uh, racket sports in the world. And if you, if you, they really have a chance to see the real game, they will be really impressed how fast it is.

Because In the video, when you watch on TV, definitely you feel so different, yeah.

Jill: How fast do you have to change the shuttlecock? Because it’s real feathers.

Beiwan Zhang: Yeah, um, it depends. Like, sometimes we miss hitting because the AC situations. Yeah. And also, like, there’s fast shuttles and slow shuttles. Yeah, and also there’s drills, every course is different, in the same stadium, every course is different.

Jill: Really? Yeah. Is it, what makes, is it, does like the air coming down, you know? Yeah,

Beiwan Zhang: and also the wind, there’s a layer. Okay. So, sometimes we heat flat, we have to heat the light, and we heat high, we have to heat like a, Harder so it also every course the situation is different. So we have like for example Today, I’m a play court four and they say I play court one probably gonna be different situations So we have to adjust on court Yeah, because sometimes we don’t able to have a chance to test in court before our games Yeah, yeah, how much communication can you get from your teammates?

Alison: Beforehand

Beiwan Zhang: Not really, because we have different events. We have five events, like singles, doubles, uh, women’s singles, men’s singles, women’s doubles, men’s doubles, and mixed doubles. And then sometimes they mix it up. We might have a chance to meet each other, but sometimes we’re probably not gonna see each other like, uh, in a whole week.

Yeah, it’s really funny.

Alison: So no one should tell you, oh, court two is slow,

Beiwan Zhang: and the

Alison: top half of court three is sticky, or whatever.

Beiwan Zhang: Yeah, but if they finish their game, but probably the wind probably gonna be changed. Yeah, because it also depends on the spectators. If they have more people, they have like, less people, also the winds are different.

Jill: Wait, do, does a lot of cheering change because you have people yelling out and blowing so that can, can change the turd, how the shuttlecock moves?

Beiwan Zhang: Yes, because the shuttlecock is really light and then people are working through the door, also going to change. So, so masking made a huge difference.

Yeah, it’s, Yeah. It’s really hard for us. So like just now the interviewer said like, Oh, what are you expecting? I don’t know. I have no idea. Because I couldn’t control anything a little bit. It’s to change everything.

Alison: Okay. So now we know if, if someone is beating you to breathe on their side of the court.

Beiwan Zhang: Yeah. You actually can see on the video of someone like, Do opponents do that? Yeah. The opponent said, when you’re going to hit to the net, this is almost over. They actually blow the shuttles. And that’s legal. That’s yeah. Actually, if you’re not touching the shuttle, it’s illegal. It happens.

Alison: Oh, now we really know what to watch for.

It’s like, it’s the coach sitting on the side, just.

Beiwan Zhang: Yeah. It’s interesting. Like people actually like, uh, sometimes they hit it out and then they just try to like swing their records. It happens.

Alison: So they’re not swinging racket in frustration. They’re actually trying to give it a little

Beiwan Zhang: closer. That might change a lot.

Alison: Wow. You don’t have to name names, but are there players where you’re like, Oh, I know they’re going to pull this little blowing.

Beiwan Zhang: Most likely the men doubles players will always play that.

Alison: Oh, now we know who to keep an eye on.

They need to sit in the corner.

We need to discuss this with them. Yeah. Oh, that’s fancy.

Jill: That’s amazing. So interesting. Now I, and I see us both going, badminton’s getting, you know, like we definitely had to put it on the, you know, get there, make sure we get there.

Alison: Yeah. Is it very distracting when there’s so much ha I mean, I know you’re used to it, but an Olympic arena is gonna be that much more complicated.

Mm hmm. But when you’ve got ten matches going at the same time and all those different

Beiwan Zhang: Actually, like, um, last, uh, Last two, two months, two months ago, we actually play in the Olympic court and probably they only have four courts going on. Yeah. But I actually play on court three and court two. I definitely feel different, but I’m not sure in the Olympics, they’re going to be the same situations because every time if they turn on the AC, the air blows and like different ways, it’s just going to be different.

So what is the floor like? The floor is gonna be green, I think. Most likely, uh, most of the time it’s green. Chords. Yeah.

McKenzie Coan: What is it made of? Okay. We’ll end there. Do you have a

Jill: good wrap up? Do you have a good wrap up?

Alison: I don’t have a good wrap up. Usually I do. Thank you very much. And! And! I know, we’re so exhausted.

What are you most excited? Who are you most excited to play against? Uh,

Beiwan Zhang: most excited? Hmm. I, I like to against An San Yang because I really, never really beat her. I want to beat her in the Olympics. You heard it here. Yeah, I will try to blow more.

Alison: We’ll be there. We’ll give it a good pop. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Jourdan Delacruz Interview

Jourdan Delacruz: My name is Jourdan Delacruz and I compete in weightlifting.

Alison: We’re very excited to talk to you.

Jill: Yeah,

Alison: because we had spoken to Phil Andrews when he was the head of weightlifting and he said, Oh, we have weightlifters who used to be cheerleaders.

Like that’s a big thing to

Jourdan Delacruz: be a good. Yeah, yeah. There’s a lot of us who have a competitive cheer or gymnastics background. I don’t really know how that kind of happened, but it does kind of make sense from a, sport, athletic standpoint, you have to be flexible. You have to be strong, explosive, have a good sense of body awareness.

So, I think that transition is, is pretty easy for those of us who do have that background. , and I think to, Age, timing, you can go to the high school or college level in cheerleading and gymnastics, but after that a lot of people are looking for a second sport, and so they find weightlifting.

When you have a good lift, and you drop the weights. Is there an end grain, like, cheer move that would still, like, I get up off the couch and I do a dismount. I’m

Alison: kidding. I’ve seen her

Jourdan Delacruz: do it. Yeah, I’d like to see a video of that. I’ll make it happen. Every time I get off the couch, I do a dismount. Yeah. But, do you, I mean, does it just, like, come from within, like, the, the cheer imprinting?

Yeah, I was made fun of a couple of times for some of my celebrations that looked like that. really cheerleader ish. I would say now, like that side of me doesn’t really come out as often. but when I do celebrate, it just comes from, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just so excited. And so whatever I’m doing, I mean, it probably comes out.

Jill: I was going to go into strategy. as you, Are more experienced in the sport. How much of the strategic side of the competition? Do you have input?

Jourdan Delacruz: I have a lot more input than I did going into Tokyo and especially as a youth and junior lifter And I think a lot of that comes from my coach having trust in me and my judgment and also me being able to recognize How I feel and my body signals.

So, um, I do feel like I have quite a bit of say on like the numbers that we choose, especially in, in, in training too. Like I can say, Hey, you know, I’m feeling this and he’ll take that and put it into a spreadsheet and be like, okay, let’s roll with that. So I think that required time maturity from both of us and, um, just better recognition with how I’m feeling.

Jill: how much of that goes into, like, do you set up a game plan going into a competition and then how much of that changes based on how you’re feeling during?

Jourdan Delacruz: Yeah, , I do my best when I do have a game plan that’s focused on what I can do. So we pick warm up attempts that make sense for an opener, which is a weight that you can do twice in a row.

You know, like it’s a, it’s a comfortable way. It’s still up there, it still sets you up for a pr, hopefully on your third attempt. and Sorry, what was the question?

What was the, oh, like do you, how much do you change during competition based on like, like, oh, I’m feeling great. Yeah, let’s pump it. Or like, Ooh.

You know, maybe we dial back just a little bit.

Yeah. A lot of that is actually my coach’s decision based on what the competition is doing. So if we need to change our plan by one or two kilos to be in metal contention, we will. So I think as a, as an athlete, you have to be flexible with going off course and just trusting that you can, , lift the weights that your coach puts on the

Alison: I’ve been reading a lot about this being the best.

Team USA weightlifting team in a generation, multiple generations. Where is that coming from for you as an athlete? Are you feeling that within the sport and within the team?

Jourdan Delacruz: Yeah, I think going into this call qualifications, we had, just a lot of athletes who, um, are so talented and it really peaked going into this last year.

And so to be a part of that, I kind of feel like I’m playing catch up, like I’m, I’ve been in the sport for so long and I’ve been doing similar numbers and to see these other girls just pushing the boundaries for not only themselves but for the world. for USA Waylifting for, where we stand from a world ranking standpoint.

Um, they’re really breaking the barriers and it’s really motivating and inspiring to be able to compete still with these women. right. Okay, thank you so much. so much, Jordan. Appreciate it.

Hampton Morris Interview

Hampton Morris: my name is Hampton Morris.

Jill (2): we understand you’ve been bulking up.

Hampton Morris: yes ma’am. Uh, just a little bit. Okay, so,

Alison: so why now? In terms of the timing, given when the competition in Paris is.

Hampton Morris: Yeah, so, ahead of competitions, for me at least, what I try to do is build up as much muscle mass as I can. before I start losing weight, and I do a very gradual weight cut, where I, I try to lose as much fat as possible while maintaining as much muscle as possible, but with this Olympic quad, it’s been just so many quick turnarounds.

some even as short as like a month, uh, between competitions. It’s been really, really hard for a lot of people. Uh, some people actually ended up dropping out of, Olympic qualifications because of that. Uh, like they ended up pulling out of it. I’m very proud of how well I managed that part of it.

Jill (2): So if you’ve got quick turnarounds on competition, like, how do you fit a training plan into them as well, and recovery?

Hampton Morris: Yeah, it’s just hard. Weightlifting is the only thing that I do. Everything, pretty much everything else that I do, all my free time is put towards recovering from training, making sure I’m ready to train again, the next day.

It is the only thing that I do. It’s my only focus. so I’ve, I was very fortunate in that I was already kind of prepared for that. I was already a little prepared for the quick turnarounds because of that. but, I mean, now I have four months before Paris, so I’m able to put on a little bit more weight.

Uh, try to build up, again, just build up as much muscle mass as possible. Then, maybe a month out, I’ll start. Dropping that weight a little bit. Again, just try to lose as much body fat as possible.

Alison: How much of a swing are we talking about?

Hampton Morris: about 5 kilos. Oh, okay. Um, That doesn’t sound, okay, that I can, yeah.

Cause now I’m gonna worry about it. Because there, I

Jill (2): mean there’s many, many weight class sports. Yeah. You hear stories of cutting weight and how difficult, or how much people try to do it very quickly, but that’s not a huge swing, it’s just, you gotta, it’s a process though.

Hampton Morris: Yes, very much is a process, and again, it is, I, do a gradual weight loss before the actual cut.

so it, it’s very much a healthier way to do it than to try to just drive off as much water as possible without any other kind of preparation. my dad is my coach, so he is very much invested in my, My health and longevity as a person, as well as an athlete.

Jill (2): between snatch and being a jerk, what, I don’t want to say what’s your favorite because you’ve got to like them both in different ways, but how do you like the snatch and how do you like the clean?

Hampton Morris: So, I mean, I’m a lot better at the clean and jerk.

The technique necessary in order for me to use my leg strength in the clean and jerk has been very natural. the snatch, I’m still working on how to use it. Working on, learning how to use the leg strength that I’ve built up. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to use my legs.

Alison: How do you work out a strategy going into competition with Who’s your competitors?

Where, how am I feeling? What weight do I start? How do you build that up? so,

Hampton Morris: that’s what the coaches worry about. All, all that I, uh, All that I do is just, uh, focus on, preparing myself as best I can, of, uh, staying focused with my training, with my diet. And then, in the competition itself, just making lifts.

Alison: How many max lifts do you do in a session?

Jill (2): In

Alison: a session? Or however, in a week, or in a Yeah,

Hampton Morris: So I have one day a week that I do, that I max out on the, like, classic Olympic lifts. But, a lot of the time, I’ll have, like, three or four other days where I’m maxing out on some variation complex of the movements.

Alison: And what’s the benefit of, uh, Is it just balance and muscles, different muscles?

Hampton Morris: The variations. Doing

Alison: variations, yeah.

Hampton Morris: it’s a kind of a natural way for me to limit the load. so I’m not going to be able to hang clean as much as I can clean from the floor. so I’m, even if I am giving max efforts on the hang clean day, I’m I’m not going to be moving as much weight, and I’m not going to be feeling, the effects of moving as much weight.

Alison: I was going to let him brag. What was that max that you hit in competition?

Hampton Morris: Uh, 176 kilograms, which is about 388 pounds. And what’s

Alison: your weight class?

Hampton Morris: Uh, 61 kilogram weight class, which is about 134 pounds.

Jill (2): Do people ask you to move stuff all the time? Like, you’re a good age. I’m like, hey, I need to move my couch.

This should be, like, just hoisted on your shoulder.

Hampton Morris: Uh, I don’t, I don’t get out of the house

Jill (2): often enough to

Hampton Morris: be asked that.

Alison: cause you’ve got that weird grip you gotta do.

You’re like, it hurts my thumbs. You’ll be all set. Great. Thank you so much. You really

Jill (2): appreciate it.

Casey Kaufhold Interview

Jill: Okay. Casey Kaufman. Yes. Okay. So you can be individual and team. Yes. How, when does the team form? do you compete together regularly or is this a, y’all qualified and now you’re throwing together?

Casey Kaufhold: There are a few different ways to qualify the team. We actually just qualified a full women’s team, um, last week at the Pan Am Championships. So, looking at it now, we kind of have an idea, like, with finishing up trials of who the team might be. Um, and we can, once trials are finalized, we’ll, um, start practicing together, getting more comfortable with each other.

And most of the girls in Trials I have shot with before, so that’s kind of nice to have experience with them already. but as we get ready for the games, the biggest thing is just practicing, being comfortable with each other, and um, being able to trust each other in those high pressure situations.

Jill: Can you build strategy for a match? Because, I mean, you always want to hit the ten.

Casey Kaufhold: Right. Um, I’d say as far as strategy, I mean, there’s not a lot of, like, uh, um, men, like, I don’t know how to describe it. There’s not a lot of, like, play strategy, if that makes sense. Like in, like football, soccer, like, basketball, that sort of stuff.

But a lot of it is just, like, creating strategies within your own team network. Like, something that we love to do is, like, We like to, you know, kind of be loud in a way and like have fun. So like when one of my teammates shoots like a 10, we all yell like, yeah, like good shot 10. Like I like to get a little loud and really into it because I think most of the time that makes the other team nervous.

They’re like, Oh my gosh, they’re like so hyped up. They shot like perfect 10, like, and so in a way it’s like sort of a strategy, but, and it also just works the best for us as a team.

Alison: What kind of conditions are you expecting in Paris?

Casey Kaufhold: The last time I shot in Paris, it was, you know, World record breaking conditions.

Like it was perfect. The sun was out, there was no wind, uh, no rain. It was just beautiful. I would be shocked if it would be the same weather conditions, uh, this year around just ’cause like that would just be so, you know, so insane. But I’m hoping that I love shooting in the wind. It’s so fun to me. I think it.

Like adds a little bit of extra to it. You have to like aim off because the wind carries your arrow, you know, to the left or right, depending on where it’s, um, what direction it’s going in. And so I, I hope there’s like, you know, a little bit of breeze, but I’m still like nice and sunny and warm.

Alison: What about shooting with the wind?

Casey Kaufhold: I love shooting in the wind because I have a pretty aggressive shot. And so for me, um, like I know even if I don’t aim off exactly where I need to, if I make an aggressive shot, it’s still going to be there.

Jill: Okay, we better wrap. Thank you so much. ​

Mary Tucker Interview

Mary Tucker: My name is Mary Tucker.

Alison: So we had talked to, um, Ginny Thrasher a couple years ago. And I am totally fascinated with shooting. I’ve never shot any form of rifle. And the stillness.

and the inner stillness. You’re very young. How is that to be physically still and to be mentally still?

Mary Tucker: They’re both very different things, honestly. it’s been a really big journey with both of them. So physically, you know, going from not training at all to realizing that I need these fine tuned muscles and I need all of these small things to be able to stabilize me and really work with my body as it is.

And, you know, your body’s ever changing. So it’s not like you can just do something once and it’s going to work for the rest of your life. It’s just something you always have to work with and something you’ve always got to change. , but being accepting of that is really important. And kind of on the same note of acceptance is mentally knowing that you’re not going to be calm, cool, collected all the time.

being more accepting of that instead of getting frustrated with it has been a really big thing. Um, really finding. Who I am as a person and who I want to be was life changing. It took me a really long time, but I’m happy to say that, you know, I really feel like I’m confident with who I am now. And I really believe in myself and that’s kind of translated into shooting.

I’m able to trust myself even more since I have a, I have a good mind body connection and I’m able to really work with everything that it gives me. I

Alison: mean, you’re not that, growing in many ways and your body is still very much developing. How has that changed? You know, do one day you walk into the range and just say, this just feels really different today.

Mary Tucker: Yeah. So it’s, it’s a little difficult to have, you know, bodily changes with our suits that we wear. So it’s been really interesting. in Tokyo, actually, you know, I weighed 115 pounds, but I weigh about 140 now. So it’s been a really big change. And that’s due to more education about nutrition and actually eating healthy and working out, um, in different ways.

So, being on that journey of, you know, trying to better my body has also made suits not fit. And it’s kind of, you know, there were a couple points where it’s like, oh my gosh, I don’t fit into this anymore, that’s so embarrassing. And then it’s like, no it’s not, because I’m actually more healthy now, and being okay with that.

And it’s like Getting to the realization of, I don’t need to fit the suit, the suit needs to fit me. So going and making those changes to my equipment, making those changes to my positions that I need to do to accommodate all my bodily changes, I’m totally fine with that.

Alison: And you’re a 19, 20, 21 year old girl, totally separate from sport, and that bodily change is hard on not athletes.

Mary Tucker: And travel and stress add everything in and, you know, different environments can really have a big impact and societal impacts on, you know, things that we think about and things that we necessarily didn’t think about, but now it tells us we should can have a big impact on anything.

Jill (2): Did finding the right body

weight give you more stability as a shooter?

Mary Tucker: It didn’t. Um, right now, actually, it was, but it wasn’t so much as. It was, you know, not finding a stable position. It was just that it was different. So I had a really big bit of time there where, you know, things felt really off and I was just like, What is going on? Why is it like this? And then I realized, like, you know, my body has changed.

I need to change the width of my feet. I need to move this one forward and then I don’t fall forward anymore. It’s not that big of a deal. So it was, you know, getting out of that mindset of, Oh, this is how I should be shooting. Why is it not working? And moving into, well, what is my body telling me I need?

And then when you ask your body, What do you need? It will subconsciously do what it needs. So, you know, when I asked myself, Where do you want to be stable? And my foot moved forward, I was like, Oh. Of course. So why don’t we just listen to ourselves?

Jill (2): I think one of the things about shooting that’s so interesting is that there’s so many tiny details and just that sliver of change makes a world of difference and just trying to find that extra, you know, millimeter here, millimeter there makes all the, I mean, it’s just kind of fascinating how much detail oriented this world

Mary Tucker: is.

Yeah, it’s very small details and really everything can change a lot Um, things move all the time, and you know, something that is fairly common in shooting is to try and have the same thing every time. And while that’s really great, I think it needs to be a little bit more publicized that you do want consistency, but there’s a range of consistency.

So, instead of, you know, setting the ruler down on the ground and making sure you’re between this mark and this mark every time, give yourself, you know, a couple inches, a little bit of wiggle room, because if you don’t Then, you know, when your body does change, it’s gonna be way off and you’re not gonna understand.

Whereas if you maybe don’t have the rule and you just know, you know, I’m gonna stand up there and where my feet are comfortable is where I’m gonna stand. That’s a better way to do it because it just, you know, allows yourself.

Alison: How do you find the balance between the necessary awareness of your body and an over obsession, hyper awareness that then becomes distracting?

Mary Tucker: There’s definitely a really fine line and I’m Just now kind of overcoming that um, you know being able to Find a healthy weight and realize what healthy is and what it feels like what it looks like nutritionally and physically Mentally even I was kind of just hyper fixated on you know Things are changing and why is it changing and I don’t like the mirror and stuff like that But you know once you realize like I’m doing better.

I am better. Then it’s kind of like, okay, so why? You have to look at why you feel those things. And that’s what’s helped me the most is really saying, okay, if I say I don’t like the mirror, why? What’s wrong with it? It’s not the image that I’m seeing. It’s that, you know, things have been said. So it’s more of just realizing, you know, being more accepting of what’s going on and the changes and that things change.

Jill (2): I’m gonna

Alison: hug her.

Mary Tucker: I’m gonna give mom a hug.

Alison: Why should we watch shooting? Because I

Mary Tucker: love that. Shooting is one of those sports where it’s either really interesting or really boring. And I am completely okay with that. To be honest, you know, it’s something that you watch it for the first time and it’s really intriguing because it’s like, what are they wearing?

Why are they standing like that? That doesn’t look like a rifle. You know, there’s all these things going into it. And then it’s like, well, wait, wait a second. What are they shooting at? Like, An electronic target? What is that? So it’s, you know, really intriguing to actually learn all these components of the sport But then I think something that is also very interesting is looking at the differences between all the athletes, you know, it’s a Sport for everyone and looking up and down the line.

There’s people of all different sight heights and sizes and nationalities and Really everyone can shoot pretty much the same, you know, it’s just finding what’s different for everyone And maybe hopefully we can inspire some people to go out and try it on their own because you never know You might be good at it Thank you, so thank you

Morgan Pearson Interview

Morgan Pearson: Uh, the name is Morgan Pearson.

Jill: Alright, we have one question for you. How are you training for the stairs?

Or preparing for the stairs? Uh,

Morgan Pearson: yeah, so I, I actually trained for them last summer.

Jill: Oh.

Morgan Pearson: We had the test event.

Jill: Yeah.

Morgan Pearson: Um, and I practiced, like, I ran up them like five times before the race. Thanks. I have videos. I mean, this is a podcast, so I can’t show a video, but, I got everyone on Team USA to do at least one with me.

So, and there, you know, we had more than, I think we had five men and five women, so maybe I did ten, I sprinted up it ten times.

Jill: How was it? How did, I mean?

Morgan Pearson: you know, my transition last year in Paris for the Test event was almost too good. I passed him. Like I, I was with a little group and then I got on the bike and I was too far ahead of that little group.

So I sat, I had to wait for them and then we biked and we caught up to the leaders after the first lap.

Alison: But they’re stone steps

Morgan Pearson: and

Alison: you’re wet.

Morgan Pearson: Well, they put a blue carpet rug on there.

Alison: But does that really, does that really make a difference?

Morgan Pearson: Yeah.

Alison: Okay. We’re concerned about your safety.

Morgan Pearson: I mean. Someone might fall, but I don’t know.

Alison: Not Morgan. We saw this and we said, this is an insane idea to have steps in the middle of a triathlon.

Morgan Pearson: Yeah, no, I actually, I was mentally preparing for it before the race, the test event, because I thought the same thing. I was like, this could be a kind of a make or break moment. so yeah, I, I think I, you guys are totally right.

Alison: How was the test event otherwise?

Morgan Pearson: It was okay. It was fun. Yeah, I did, uh, that’s where I qualified, so that was nice.

Jill: Fun is an understatement then.

Alison: How are you recovering in between, you know, qualifying and peaking at the right time? How does that process?

Morgan Pearson: Yeah, um, so I, the qualification race is in, uh, August. And then I race to the end of September.

And then I shut down my season because I was a little, well, I was injured and, uh, dealing with some, some back pain during races, but I actually took like a month off. No train, well, maybe more like three weeks, no training. I drank two, two protein shakes every day and ate lots of food, so I put on a little bit of weight, um, which was okay because I had like nine months to get, get back in shape.

So, uh, that’s how I recovered.

Alison: I think putting on weight is an excellent way to recover. Yeah, I

Morgan Pearson: mean, I was drinking two, so I saw this guy, this doctor, and he told me to drink two scoops of beef protein, protein shake, twice a day. cause he’s like, this will help you recover from your injuries.

And it was, it was pretty nasty. And I, it was

Jill: also beef flavored or

Morgan Pearson: it was chocolate flavor, which I don’t know if it’s any better or worse, but it was beef protein. And then I was talking to him a few weeks ago and he told me to do it. He’s like, yeah, I just take that beef protein twice a day again. And I’m like, I’m not doing that.

Uh, I did it nine, 11 months before, 10 months before, but I’m not going to do it leading up to it.

Alison: Okay. Tell me, you don’t have to answer this, but Is there a big difference between your in season weight and your out of season weight in other years?

Morgan Pearson: I mean, like a little, not a big difference. I like, probably like, I actually fluctuate weight a lot, but like during the day, like I’ll weigh myself in the morning and then I’ll be like five pounds more at night.

Jill: Same.

Morgan Pearson: Which, I don’t know if that’s healthy or normal or just me, but I would say in general, I could probably lose about seven pounds from the off season to being in really good shape.

Alison: I can do that in a weekend.

Morgan Pearson: Well, I could do that. I could do that too. But like, I mean, a true seven pound, right? Right.

Not the fluctuations. Like the

Jill: weight class sport where you got to make way. Yeah.

Morgan Pearson: Yeah. Yeah. But so my, my trick is, um, I run on the treadmill. And, uh, I have someone take a video of me. And you can just see if you’re in shape. Like, you see my muscles. If you’re lean or you’re out of shape. That’s the real test.

Jill: I never knew.

Morgan Pearson: It’s highly scientific.

Alison: Why triathlon?

Morgan Pearson: because In life you have to do things you’re good at if you want to be the best in the world. And that, I used to be a runner. Uh, I ran, I graduated in 2016 in college. And if you remember, that’s when the Rio Olympics happened. And I was watching the Rio Olympics. Um, well actually, so within the span of a week, I did an ocean mile swim with my little brother.

And he was a, college swimmer. I hadn’t swam in like five years. And I beat him in the swim. I mean, I, I sat on him and I, and use this draft and then out sprinted him. Is he an older brother or a younger brother? He’s younger.

Jill: Okay, well there you go.

Morgan Pearson: So he’s a college swimmer and I was like, wow, I just took five years off swimming and I could still be a college swimmer in a open water race.

And then a few days later I was watching the Olympics and it’s like, we’re talking about weight, like if I’m super skinny as a runner, I might be 150 pounds. I probably weigh like 40 pounds. Like I’m just, I was never going to be competing for an Olympic medal in running. Like you see those guys and they, I have 40, 40 pounds on them and they’re just, they’re built to run and I’m built to do a triathlon.

So I had to switch.

Alison: All right. They’re giving us the signal. Excellent. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Jessica Davis Savner

Jess Davis Savner: Jessica Savner.

Jill: Montpens, 90 minute format. Yes. Tell us how this is going to work.

Jess Davis Savner: it’s crazy. I actually love it, personally. It’s unpopular opinion, but I adore it.

, but yeah, we do now the fencing ranking round, , the day before to cut a lot of time. And that puts you into the ranking round just to do the fencing in the, you know, time allotted. So you’re just doing the ladder format, which means for layman’s terms, like if you’re in 10th place, 9th place. And you’ll do that all the way up to the top.

So just to earn some extra points.

Jill: So that, and that’s instead of fencing every day? Yes,

Jess Davis Savner: but you do, still do, do that. It’s just the day before. It’s not part of the 90 minute format. So that puts you into your rank for the ladder. Okay, so, on the day of finals, what

Jill: do we start

Jess Davis Savner: with? The riding, no. It’s now, it’s now the first thing you start.

So, yep, that was one of the big changes. It used to be you’d start with fencing, but now you start with the equestrian.

Alison: How has that changed your training, that that’s a different rotation?

Jess Davis Savner: Um, it hasn’t changed my, I still train exactly the same. but it changes your mindset for the day, for sure. Cause it, if you get to qualify on the ride, it’s a different event.

I guess you have the option to just finish, not finish the day if you don’t want to, or you know what, but it does, it changes everything. Did they

Alison: make the ride first? Because of weather so that the idea being it’s cooler when you start

Jess Davis Savner: I have actually no idea behind the change. I you know, if I had to take a shot in the dark I think maybe you know the emotional toll of being like in first place all day and then to lose it It’s like a little bit much at least if you start with it Then you kind of know what you’re getting into the rest of the day Okay, right then then you do the fencing, ranking round.

Okay. How much time are you in between? Very quick

Jill: That’s a weird gear down and a weird gear up. Sometimes

Jess Davis Savner: like five to ten minutes. Whoa. Yeah, so it’s very quick. That’s not even

Alison: enough time to change.

Jess Davis Savner: Yeah, it’s fast.

Alison: Because both costumes, both

Jess Davis Savner: uniforms are complicated.

Alison: Mm hmm.

Jess Davis Savner: Nuts. And then you swim. And then you run.

They run shoot last.

Jill: But the run shoot is also still the same format of when you go in for your ranking.

Jess Davis Savner: Yes. It’s now 5×600 and not 4×800, so it’s the only change that’s been made to that. So yeah, it’s 5 laps now instead of 4.

Jill: So do you do an extra round of shooting?

Jess Davis Savner: Nope. So you just have, it used to be that you started with the shooting, now you start with the run.

Alison: Okay, so the format keeps changing, the format keeps changing. Yeah. How is that, on your head, going into each new competition? It’s wild.

Jess Davis Savner: I mean, it feels like we have a rule change like every like, Two years, but they haven’t been for us other than like what’s happening going to the next one. It hasn’t been something so drastic that we can’t like But, um, yeah, I actually like the 5x600s a little bit better, so.

Jill: I’m kind of excited to see this, and I’m, to, to see the format shrink. And it seems like it’s going to be a little peppier.

Jess Davis Savner: Yes, higher energy, I think it’s going to be easier for people to follow. And, um, yeah, I’m excited to see how it plays out. At the Olympics.

Jill: Yeah. And it’s tough that this is the only one that’s gonna be it.

Yeah.

Jess Davis Savner: So I never gonna see the positive re ramifications of it. Are you running practice

Alison: competitions as part of your training?

Jess Davis Savner: I’m going to World Cups. Um, I’m actually leaving for one on Saturday. so I did one in Egypt back in March and I’ll do this one and then maybe one more competition. But yeah, so I’ve been doing some practice competitions just to keep me sharp and work on certain things.

Alison: Was there a test event?

Jess Davis Savner: No. Will there be? I don’t think so, no. Um, I like to just spend a minute, you know, petting their head, petting their neck. I am a big talker to horses when I’m riding them. Constantly cooing them, talking to them. Like, I don’t know. I have always, my whole life, have done that. So, I don’t know if it has changed.

Jill: How do you feel about, well, this is a dumb question, but how do you feel about competing at Versailles? Duh, it’s gonna be awesome. It’s amazing, yeah. I’ve been saying

Jess Davis Savner: to people, it’s been since I qualified, my least favorite question is, are you excited? Cause I’m like, yeah. Of course I’m excited. There is, there is no feeling or emotion that does enough justice.

Saying, I’m excited, I’m excited to eat chicken tenders post 9 7. Like, I’m not, I don’t know what’s, it’s a little bit more than, you know, feeling excited.

Alison: Wait a second, if those are coming with honey mustard. Yeah. But is there something overwhelming about the idea of, the Olympics at Versailles that you have to try and prepare for.

Jess Davis Savner: I think that that’s going to be like an in the moment feeling. I, I have small moments now where I feel overwhelmed because like I think when we spend as much time, like I train amongst people who’ve either been to the Olympics or training through the Olympics or they’re like on that path. So it starts to feel a little bit like, I hate to use the word normal because it’s not, but we get used to it.

We’re used to people competing at this level. And. I, you know, so I don’t get really so special just all the time. And then I’ll like walk into like a local restaurant and, you know, somebody who knows is losing their minds. They’re so excited and I have to remind myself like, oh, this is big. Like, this is not normal.

This is really exciting. And yeah, there’s just something that’s so gargantuan about being like this, like the Olympic Games. These things that I’ve been watching my whole life. It’s been like the pinnacle of sport and all my heroes have competed at. And I’m going to just. It’s, it’s wild. Every single day it’s a pinch me moment.

Jill: I’ve competed

Jess Davis Savner: there so many times.

Jill: Oh yeah, so they have a lot of really

Jess Davis Savner: good ones. They host good competitions. Um, it’s It’s chaotic from the minute you land to the minute you compete. It’s just a chaotic country, but I mean, I’ve been competing there so long. I say it’s my penance, because I begged my father my whole life to go to Egypt after watching The Prince of Egypt as a kid.

I was obsessed. And he wouldn’t bring me, for obvious reasons, because I was a child and it was Egypt. And now I spend the past Eight years of my life, I think I’ve gone to Egypt at least once or twice, to the point where now I’m like, please don’t send me anywhere but Egypt. So, you get what you wish for unfortunately sometimes.

Alison: Okay, you said you had a couple of World Cups in the spring. What does that schedule look like and what is the road to Paris? So

Jess Davis Savner: yeah, so I did Egypt back in March, uh, first World Cup, but okay. Just was a practice competition. I leave for Budapest, next week. So that’s also going to be a good practice competition.

Big stronghold in the sport, Hungary. Uh, I’ll stay there for a week afterward and do some training with some of the European fencers. And then I’m going to kind of judge whether or not I do another pentathlon with how I feel over the spring. But I think I’ll feel, I feel good with a big buildup. one of my best seasons was actually coming off of COVID because I hadn’t competed in a while.

I just had this long time to train and just, you know, get ready. And so I really wanted that same feeling going into the Olympics. So I’m trying not to compete too much. I’m trying to stay fresh.

Alison: What does success look like for you at the Olympics?

Jess Davis Savner: I want to leave knowing that No matter what happens, I don’t want to get hard on myself.

I don’t want to be upset. I want to know that no matter what, I’m leaving that day knowing that like that was, you know, that was the end because I am retiring after this Olympics. I want to know that that was the end of a really beautiful career and that I treated it with such respect.

Jill: You’ve now become a citizen of Team Keep the Flag.

Amazing! Our very own country, Shukla Stanis. so much! Yeah. Oh, I love it! We enjoy now having another modern pentathlete.

Jess Davis Savner: That’s awesome, I love that. Any eyes we can get on this floor is amazing. It’s a really great Yeah, and it’s, and it’s, I try to explain to people all the time, I’m like, you know, there’s this weird misconception that like, in our sport, we’re just mediocre at five things.

And that is not the case. The athletes in our sport are incredible at each of them. We have runners that could challenge Olympic runners. We have riders who’ve ridden, you know, On their teams. We have fencers who are currently fencing in their national teams, as well as doing the tap on. Like, these athletes are just insane.

So, it’s really like, watch it. I wish more people could see that like, these athletes are just insane. And they’re beautiful. Shagiria,

Jill: preach.

Jess Davis Savner: so much, Jess.

Jill: Thank you to all of our guests, and best of luck to you in Paris, and we hope you have a lot of fun here in the City of Lights.

Become a patron today! Get exclusive content from Paris!

Jill: We would like to give a special thank you to our patrons, and during Paris we have, while we’re here, so this is already started, we have decided that every patron, no matter what level they’re at, will get a picture of the day.

Sent to them that is going to be a picture that doesn’t get posted anywhere else So it’s exclusive content and then patrons at the 5 level and up will get special video content That will not be necessarily every day, but it will be Several times throughout the games. We’ve already had two things so if you’re at the 5 and up you get to see what our hotel room looks like and You get to see us catching the wave.

Alison: Tahiti, here we come. That’s all we’ll say.

Paris 2024

Travel and Accreditation Issues

Alison: est ta accreditation? I know I did it wrong, but you know what I mean.

Jill: Where is my accreditation? That is a good question. We have had some travel adventures. We have had some travel adventures.

Alison: You would think that this would have been a simpler trip, and yet we somehow managed to make it not simple.

Jill: Yeah. So, we both left on the same day and we were going to arrive within an hour of each other, I believe. You were flying JFK direct to Paris.

Alison: Correct. So out of New York.

Jill: Yes. I was going to fly Cleveland to Philadelphia, Philadelphia to Paris.

Alison: Thunderstorms had other ideas for you. Yes,

Jill: exactly. And, and we’ll start this with that whole, the beginning of the week, we have just been inundated from with emails from three different organizations and we’re trying to wrap everything up and get packed And I said, I will take a look at this all on the morning I leave. And I saw that You might need customs forms to have customs declarations. And I said, what would you need customs declarations for? And one of the things, it was two different kinds of materials. One would be stuff that you were importing permanently into the country, and one of the line items was goodies, like American, or Olympic goodies.

Chachkis and types of things. They didn’t say chachkis, but Olympic stuff and so

Alison: pins.

Jill: Yes And I’m walking through with bags and bags of pins because we do have our keep the flame alive pins here And then the other thing was temporary import and that included Technical gear of which I have an entire suitcase that is only gear for the podcast.

So I sat down and I’m filling out these customs forms, which includes building an inventory. And unfortunately I am not a list packer. So I had to open up my suitcase and do the whole inventory.

Alison: Ouch.

Jill: And then when I looked up, I saw that my flight had been canceled, my first flight to Philadelphia. And I’m looking around in the, of course the, the automated thing says, Oh, well, we’ve got another option for you and it says, oh, that’s the next day going to Charlotte.

I’m like, is it? No, that’s not, not an option. So I call American and shout out to Desiree. Oh, I had to talk with a couple of service representatives, customer service representatives from American. Both were fantastic. I cannot give them enough credit. Uh, so helpful, so quick. Uh, this was fantastic. And she said, Uh, and in the meantime, while I’m waiting on hold, the, I see that there is an earlier flight to Philadelphia and I cannot get there in time.

Alison: And it had not been canceled.

Jill: And it had not been canceled. No, it was going to get to Philly just ahead of the thunderstorms. And then I would have, I’m sure my flight in Philly would have been delayed, but I would have gotten there. So, um, Desiree puts me on Cleveland to JFK, JFK to London, London to Paris, and I’d get there.

Yeah, a few hours probably after you, so okay, let’s do it. The JFK flight gets delayed and delayed because now we’re in thunderstorm territory and the plane is supposed to come from JFK to Cleveland and we’re going to get on and go back to JFK and that’s No you’re not. No, because it got delayed so much that I was going to miss the next flight even if it had been delayed, it wasn’t happening.

So I go and get my bag back and I think I might be able to get on an Aer Lingus flight. Okay.

Alison: Which would not be a bad option.

Jill: No, it flies direct from Cleveland to Dublin, Dublin to Paris. Wonderful! But it took so long to get my bag back because now regular flights are coming in, plus flights are getting cancelled so all these baggage handlers have like double work to do.

And my bag eventually comes back and it’s way too late to buy a ticket. So, I got to spend another night at home. That was nice.

Alison: I did not. Off I went, flew to Paris. My flight was very delayed, but we got here. I get to the airport, got to the nice accreditation people. There was nobody at the accreditation desk.

It was a lot of the volunteers first day. They were lovely. I was not on one person’s list. I was on another person’s list. They found me, but I had no car. So I had to wait for like an hour and a half and shout out to the volunteer, Eric, who basically stayed with me for an hour and a half so that I didn’t get lost in the airport or you know, standing in the garage, which is basically where I was waiting for the car until he got me in my car and sent me on my way.

But your adventures did not end when you finally got on a flight and arrived in Paris.

Jill: No, because I got here on, you got here Thursday and you found our hotel and our hotel room. And then you had to do some enhancements. We’ll, we’ll explain that in a minute. But. that’s when the, the big tech outage hit Microsoft and it also affected the accreditation system.

So the whole accreditation system was down. Forget it. And so that meant I didn’t get, uh, my, my accreditation papers were not, valid yet. They couldn’t be validated. So I couldn’t get into the main press center if I wanted to go that day. I couldn’t get into any venues that day.

then. I also didn’t get my transit card because we also get a transit card here and that got tied to your accreditation and that all had to go at the same time. Um, I will say one quick aside when we’re talking about kind of the carbon efforts, carbon, uh, decreasing efforts that Paris 2024 has made.

When we went to China, when we got our accreditation cards, they were laminated. and in a little folder. This time around they just put the paper that goes into the lamination thing into our little folder and sent that so it was much lighter and we were talking about how many accreditations they probably have to send out.

Alison: Because it’s not just journalists, it’s Coaches, athletes, staff, as I say, Olympic family, I mean, there are thousands of accreditations that are going out.

Jill: Volunteers all have accreditation. Every, so many accreditations out there, so that the weight that they saved for shipping these things had to be significant.

Alison: Because you have to get it validated. You have to get your Accreditation turned on. So it’s not like they added a step for us. They just added a laminating machine at the desk of the accreditation people, which took all of five seconds.

Jill: Yeah. It was really, really quick. So props to, for them, to the organizing committee for thinking of that.

then,

Our Hotel and Personal Safety Issues

Jill: I just got into my car and, I was driven to my, the hotel and you were out. And I walked into the room, and you had warned me the room was tiny.

Alison: I had warned you a few things about the room.

Jill: Yes.

Alison: The room is tiny, which we expected. I mean, it is Paris. European hotel rooms are not American hotel rooms.

We knew that. We didn’t know that we didn’t actually have a bathroom. We have a bathroom in the room.

Jill: Right. . The way you described it to me, I really thought there was a showerhead hanging from the ceiling and we would like wrap a curtain around us and there was a drain there in the middle of the room.

That is not the case.

Alison: The sink is in the room.

Jill: Yes, out right next to the bed.

Alison: Right next to the bed and then the shower opens into the room like when you open the shower door you hit the bed.

Jill: Yes.

Alison: The toilet is in its, You can’t turn around in the little toilet room. No, it’s very Thankfully, we are small people.

Jill: It’s a very narrow toilet closet. And, uh, yeah, that’s it. And our closet consists of three hangers. There’s no closet. I’m sorry, there’s six hangers, and that’s There’s

Alison: a stick out of the wall of about maybe six inches. With six, six hangers on it next to your bed.

Jill: Right. So we have a funky, uh, We have bunk

Alison: beds.

Just say it. We have bunk beds and it looks like a prison cell.

Jill: Yeah, but it’s an L shape bunk bed. So I have a bed on the bottom. I got to thank you for the double. my bed on the floor sticks out parallel to the hallway. Your bed is perpendicular to mine. So you have a single, it’s bunked. And. I have a ledge on either side of my bed for a bedside table.

You have a ledge up by you.

Alison: Allegedly.

Jill: We have a tiny little desk that is maybe one and a half sizes of our, our laptops.

Alison: Oh yeah, two laptops can’t fit on it.

Jill: No. So, and then this tiny little sink that has a little ledge underneath it, a little shelf underneath it, and then we have a ledge along the wall that is where a lot of our toiletries are.

Alison: And basically we have things all over the floor. We’re living out of our suitcases. Yes. my college dorm was more luxurious back in the 80s than this.

Jill: Yes.

Alison: Yeah. I would, I long for my cinder block walls.

Jill: Right. At this point. Oh my gosh, that would be heaven. but we, like, there’s no drawers.

There’s no shelf to even put folded clothes on.

Alison: There’s no hand soap. I had to go to the dollar store to buy hand soap,

Jill: right? And the

Alison: Eurostore, excuse me, the Eurostore.

Jill: And you had to buy a hairdryer. There

Alison: was no hairdryer. There’s, you can rent an iron.

Jill: Which is great because I bought, brought almost all linen pants.

Alison: So the hotel that the Paris 2024 organizers have chosen as a media hotel is,

I don’t mean to make it sound like first world problems because. Yes, it is clean. No, it is not a viable option for anyone who is attempting to do work as we are. I mean, it would be tough as like an airport hotel when you’re just staying a night before your flight. We’re here for three weeks and we are trying to work and do a job and cover their event.

And at this moment, we’re going to go to the hotel after we finished taping and I’m already thinking to myself, we have to go back to the hotel. Yeah. Yeah.

Jill: Yeah. It’s tough because we, we cannot work there. If we can’t record there, the wifi is unsecured. So we are not doing that because the hotel is actually quite big.

so we don’t want to do that. It does have a gym. The gym, the gym is like five or seven posters on a wall that tell that each have a different exercise so that you can do it in the hallway to the breakfast room, which is just jam packed, crowded. And It’s a very simple breakfast. I know that I posted pictures of my breakfast in Beijing on Twitter every day, and I’ll post one breakfast here, but it’s going to be the same thing.

And

Alison: to be fair, Beijing, they were, we had a beautiful, luxurious hotel. I mean, we really did. We cannot expect that from Paris.

Jill: No, because My first hotel in Beijing was a three star. We ended up at a four star, which was very, very, very nice. And even, even without the, even if it wasn’t COVID times, it would have been a very, very nice hotel.

It was attached to a convention, convention center. And for Paris, we’ve requested three star hotels. This is a two star hotel.

Alison: It is listed as a two star hotel, but more importantly, and to the, and, and the real point we want to make is it is in an extremely unsafe neighborhood. And. I mean, truly unsafe, nevermind unsafe for two women traveling alone.

And the Paris organizers have not been responsive to our concerns. They weren’t responsive when we were concerned the first time around. When we got this assignment, we said, this doesn’t look like a safe neighborhood.

Jill: And they said, it’ll be fine. It’ll

Alison: be fine. And also kind of said, don’t complain. You can’t, you can’t have American expectations.

And I could honestly, I could live with buying hand soap. I could live with the quality of the hotel if we were safe and we are not. Paris 2024, that is not okay.

Jill: Yes. the hard thing is when, when the whole accommodation system was set up poorly because you, they divided the city into different regions and you, Could pick a region and then you pick the hotels.

They only let you pick one region for accommodation. And we had looked at a whole bunch of regions and we said, well, we’re willing to stay in like three regions. And when we got our sign, we wanted a three star hotel because we figured, yes, it’s small, but it will be comfortable. And that’s what our budget can do.

Uh, when we got this two star hotel, it was nowhere near anything we had requested. The only, Good thing about it is it’s cheap. It’s, it was, it’s half the price of what we budgeted. Come on half the price, but it really at during the day it’s working class neighborhood. A lot of refugees, it seems like a lot of immigrants and there’s some flea markets, open air flea markets, open air markets, which are, some of them are very appropriate for the type of cultures that are in, if you’re thinking of Africa or the Middle East and they had these open air markets and bazaars that we walked through one today that just, it was bustling.

And it was, it was fun. It was lovely. It was,

Alison: there was not. The problem is. That’s one block.

Jill: That is one block. You go a different direction, which is how we have to get to the tram, which will take us directly to the media center, or the main press center that is the flea market of people who dump whatever they can into a sheet and tie it up and then lay it on the ground.

And there’s also a lot of bustling and a lot of desperation there. And desperation can make people do weird things. We don’t know. During the day, that’s okay. At nighttime, the first night we were here, you, trooper, were just like camping transportation. We’re like going this way, we’re going this way. And then we start walking through.

A homeless enclave. So if you were thinking that all the homeless could get shoved out of Paris, they did not, they’re still here. We’re walking through them. And homelessness is tough to talk about in a way, because these people have problems and helping them with their problems to get them to a place where they can have stable and safe housing can take a long time and a lot of investment and it’s not for everybody.

So we were walking down the sidewalk. And we had, in the middle of the sidewalk was where you walked, and on one side by the buildings, people were camping out for the night. And on the other side of us was the curb area where other people were camping out for the night. And while we were walking, one man was having a bad day, and he started getting into it with another guy on the other side of us.

And I’m thinking, we’re walking through this. Why are we walking through this when our hotel, we crossed the street to be on this side and walk and our hotel is back on the other side of the street and then I looked over to see the other sidewalk on the other side of the road and went, Oh, it’s pitch black on that side of the street.

That’s why we’re not walking there because that’s also dangerous because we don’t know what’s there either. And that was a tough night to walk through.

Alison: Yes. But. We’re working on it. We’re, we are. We

Jill: tried again. We went to a different exit. We walked through a tent city. Um, it was quiet, but we don’t know what that means because this is not our city.

It’s, we don’t, We’ve lived in big cities and we’ve experienced walking through homeless areas. And we kind of know what America is like. We don’t know what it’s like here. We don’t know necessarily how the people are managing their lives. And if somebody’s having a bad day, are they going to, hear us come in and take it out on us.

Alison: And like you said, we’ve both lived in big cities. We’ve lived in Chicago, we’ve lived in Boston. You know, I’ve certainly spent a great deal of time in New York. I am not naive enough to think that big cities aren’t dangerous places, especially for a woman traveling alone at night. However, there are levels and there are places that You go and places you don’t go.

And obviously we do not know Paris and we trusted the organizing committee to select media hotels that were not in neighborhoods that you don’t go to. And they did not do that.

Jill: And they continue to say, this is okay. Sent a strongly worded email to Accommodation and got a response back today.

Well, we visited your hotel on this date and walked around and walked to the train stop. Here’s the tram. Here’s a picture of where you can go. It was perfectly fine. And I had to respond. What time of day were you going? Because the problem is we start recording at the end of this day, end of the competition day, which means we’re leaving the main press center At 1230, 1 o’clock, 1.

30 in the morning, and we have a half an hour tram ride back to our place and then we get off and we have to walk through who knows what

Alison: for several blocks. It’s not like it’s a block.

Jill: It’s like a 10, 15 minute walk, right?

And to feel so ignored. And to feel like they do not care about our safety. They don’t care about women. And it’s just like, Oh, but I’ve walked through this. It’s totally fine. Nobody you haven’t come walk with us.

Alison: And not only that, but we also start very early in the morning.

Jill: You

Alison: know, we’re not, we’re going to be leaving probably prior to morning rush hour,

Jill: right?

Alison: And is that going to be okay? Or are we going to have to change our production schedule, change our ability to cover your event because you can’t provide us with the base level of services.

Jill: Right. And the other, the solution they’ve come up with is, well, there’s a resale platform. You can see if somebody wants to buy your place and you get another.

Are you kidding me? We don’t have time for that.

Alison: We are trying to cover your event. You accredited media. And to me that says you agree to provide us with a very base level of services. We are not looking for a cheap room at Lomaridion,

Jill: right?

Alison: You know, we are not looking for a private car with driver. We are looking for.

base level safety.

Jill: Yes.

Alison: And a base level function to where, you know, could we work in the room? No, we have unsecured Wi Fi. Right. How, how, in what world, in what country, is that an acceptable business model?

Jill: Business model is the big key here. We can’t run our business in the situation that they put us in.

That’s tough. Thanks, Paris 2024.

We could talk about this for hours, and it’s probably not a great idea, but

Alison: I don’t want anyone to worry We are we are mitigating this we are figuring out ways to work around it. We’re together. We’re being careful mom. I’m okay

Jill: Ditto But yes,

Paris Media Center – Wave in Paris

Jill: we’re sitting in the Paris Media Center, which we got to Check into as well it is a lovely building like we’ve said and One of the things that the Paris Media Center is doing is putting on tons of press conferences to introduce you to different elements of Paris.

They have different events. They have tours, cocktail party, cocktail party. We went to a cocktail party for the opening with a lovely drinks, non alcoholic, alcoholic, and, uh, they had little hors d’oeuvres. That was very nice. they also have self guided tours that we can go on so that that’s something to look forward to.

But today we went on an event that we didn’t, we didn’t quite know it. I don’t even know why we signed up for this.

Alison: It seemed like a good idea at the time. And it actually turned out to be the best idea,

Jill: right? Cause we’re tired and we’re cranky from the stress we feel over the hotel situation. And we did this thing where we went to a place called, the wave.

The wave. And. It is a place in Paris that is it’s like, it’s not a wave pool.

Alison: No, it’s, if you, if you’ve ever been on a cruise ship and you’ve seen the artificial surfing surface, it’s like that, but better.

And I mean that quite literally because often those surfaces are hard and they’re more like the artificial ice that you’ll skate on. This was spongy and trampolini.

Jill: Yeah, it was more like a bouncy house.

Alison: With water.

Jill: With water and we got to bodyboard and wakeboard and Had a blast. This was something we never thought we’d be like I didn’t know if we could stand up on these things, to be quite honest.

You were great. Thank you. And you on the bodyboard, man, just zipping around. So we did that for like an hour. And the wave is really something when parrots,

This is a way people kind of get introduced to surfing a little bit, because the guys who are the instructors could just do tons of stuff and it kind of looked like they were skateboarding on these waves in a way, but it’s not like that. You got the feeling of what it must be like to surf.

Alison: very much, Paris Media Center, for providing that opportunity for us because it was a lot of fun.

And this is just open to the public. There were other sessions happening before us and after us and Families in Paris can just come and check this out. And

Jill: they have a squash court on the upstairs. The

Alison: volunteers who came with us, who escorted us there, ended up going upstairs and playing squash. And they came back laughing about their adventure.

So they are also providing these things for the volunteers as well, which is a nice benefit for them.

Jill: That’s very sweet. So we will have a link to The Wave in the show notes. If you are ever in Paris, we highly recommend checking it out.

Alison: Patrons.

Jill: Yes. The Wave. Oh, yes.

Alison: You may get to see some wave action.

Jill: That is correct. And we got interviewed by Austrian television. And all of a sudden,

Alison: I turned my head and Jill is being interviewed in German. I didn’t know what had happened. I mean, I knew you spoke German, but I didn’t realize that it was Austrian television because they were with us. And they came and they said, Oh, we’re going to ask you a few questions.

We’re going to film you. We said, fine. That just kind of. part for the course, you know, reporters helping reporters. And then all of a sudden Jill breaks out the German and I, what is happening behind me?

Jill: Well, it’s on all, they were from ORF, which I knew was Austrian television. And, we’re trying our best to speak French.

We’re really trying. And it’s funny because we both have very, we’ve been told we’ve had very good bonjour.

Alison: And then they talked to us in French, which is, I feel that’s very kind of them. And I’ll get like, and I said this to you before, I’ll get 50 percent of the first two sentences. And then I lose them, my brain explodes, and I have to say too much French.

And I’m trying.

Jill: And then they look at you and go, Oh, I didn’t know you didn’t speak French.

Alison: Because we’ll get a couple of, you know, I’ll get the, I can always get the question out. Because I practice the question before I say it. But then they expect me to. Interpret what they just said and be able to form another sentence.

That’s not happening. Right. Not yet. Ask me in a month. Maybe we’ll do better.

Jill: I hope we do better because then when I can’t think of the French word or don’t know the French word, I just switch into German because of course isn’t everybody’s second language German. So I have half thinking in, in very, very basic French and partially thinking in German and talking in English.

And it’s, It’s starting. It’s messing with me, but I did try. I don’t know. I think, you know, when they, when I said I spoke some German, they were like, Oh, do you want to try doing an interview? I’m like, yeah, we’ll try doing an interview in German. I think it was. super basic and they went, you don’t really speak German.

It’s been a

Alison: long time. And she didn’t ask you to do it again in English. No, so

Jill: that was good enough. I think, you know, get this weird lady off the stage.

Alison: This weird old surfing lady. So Tahiti, here we come.

Main Press Center

Jill: Exactly. So we have been to also to the main press center cause, the accreditation system did come back up and I am fully accredited now.

Can get in. You’re

Alison: legal.

Jill: And when we got to Beijing, I was walking around the main press center and everybody’s got these backpacks on. I’m like, what is this? Where do you go? And I turned a corner and discovered that, oh, the press gets a backpack and a little guidebook. in print of all of the venues and what’s on every day and where work rooms and stuff like that.

So you always had that on your pocket in case, you know, you couldn’t get on the system for whatever reason. And that was great. So we had a long talk about,

Alison: because you ended up getting two backpacks because you got an Olympics and a Paralympics backpack.

Jill: Right. And I didn’t know I was getting a backpack.

So I had brought a backpack with me and the backpack was too big to fit under, fit in Singapore Airlines, under seat. bag requirements. So I had to bring another tote. So I was suddenly walking around with four bags that I had to fit into other suitcases.

Alison: And we have since learned every Olympics the media gets a bag,

Jill: right?

Alison: Except now. So I got to go buy a bag. That’s the short, let’s just skip to the short version. The short, we didn’t get a bag. I got to go buy a bag. Yes. Which led us to the mega store.

Megastore

Jill: Right. So we have been to the mega store today. I still didn’t

Alison: buy a bag cause I didn’t like the bag at the mega store.

Jill: Yes.

Lots and lots of free stuff.

Alison: There is freeze. everywhere in that mega store, which is fantastic. We met the 800 euro giant Frige, both Para and Oli and they were lovely. Didn’t say much, looked a little creepy, but lovely.

Jill: They have some, they have a lot of t shirts, a lot of clothes.

Alison: As expected.

Jill: They have, a line of t shirts that is the pictogram, which are kind of cool looking.

They have, uh, Jigsaw puzzle of the poster. They have the posters, of course, they also have coloring sheets of the posters,

Alison: which I think I suggested when we,

Jill: yeah, you did.

Alison: Great

Jill: minds. Wow. and some other random stuff like baking a baguette kit and, notebooks, pens.

That kind of stuff. Pez dispensers. If you like Pez dispensers, you can get one with the Friege.

Alison: There wasn’t really anything where I said, Oh, I can’t believe they’re producing that item.

Jill: It was very

Alison: expected.

Jill: Yes. Berets

Alison: with the Friege and with the Paris logo, either there’s a black with the logo or red with the Friege.

Jill: Yes. So I spent a lot of money. I’m impressed. You walked out of there with nothing.

Alison: I like to

Jill: think about, I like

Alison: to mull.

Jill: Okay. I learned after not being able to get a Bing Dwin Dwin, just, you gotta buy it now. That’s, that’s my thought. So the mega store is there. It is open. we’ll put a picture up somewhere of one of the, you can only use visa here, which is great.

It’s this picture of Adam Petey and I know he’s supposed to be excited and it says, Oh, you can only use visa, but he looks like he’s yelling. I don’t have a visa credit card. What do you mean?

Alison: Don’t you say anything bad about my Adam Petey?

Jill: That’s right. So that is all good. We have had dinner with Ben Waterworth from Off the Podium.

In person. That was so exciting. So much fun to hang out with him. And yeah, we’ve just been trying to get acclimated and figure out what to do and where to go and what to get done. The Seine is really blocked off today.

Alison: We cannot get anywhere near the river. most of the bridges are shut down. Many of the stops, the Metro stops near the venues are closed right now.

Some of them will be open again after the opening ceremonies. Many of them will not. So bring your comfortable walking shoes or be happy you’re on the couch. You are going to walk. And I mean, not just, Oh, it’s a city. You have to walk. No, no, no. You may have to walk the distance of three Metro stops because that’s the closest Metro stop.

Jill: And we’re unsure of what’s going to change after the opening ceremonies is over. But if you’re coming in ahead of time, yeah, watch that. But you got to see the club.

La Terrasse des Jeux

Alison: So one of the other, Harris media center events was the opening of La Terrasse des Jeux, which is the. Courtyard in front of Hotel de Ville and they have set it up as a giant watch party, a giant demonstration space, a concert venue, pop up shops, food vendors.

it is fantastic. They can fit as many as 12, 000 people. in there. mostly it’s going to be 6, 000 at a time, but I think for like opening ceremony and some of the other big events, they’re going to configure it in such a way. And it is free for everyone. It is open to all it’s open every day between now and the end of the Paralympics.

So if you are going to be in Paris, Absolutely swing by and, and take a look. They’ll have screens and sports demonstrations and the whole thing is covered with the spongy sport floor, which is very strange to experience outdoors for me, for some reason. there are dedicated areas for French food, promoting French gastronomy.

There’s also a really beautiful space, for the victims of domestic abuse and violence. Where they have psychologists and other service providers on hand, where you can just kind of slide into the room and get help and assistance. So what an amazing way to use an open public space to highlight that issue and give people an opportunity to get some assistance and help and, and find a way out of, of those situations.

I did get sent to another cocktail party. Which I know is so rough and which led me to say to you, we as press are not experiencing certain things like the ordinary people. I didn’t have to wait in the line to get into La Tarrasse. I didn’t have to bring my own water. I didn’t have to bring my own snacks.

I didn’t have to stand in the heat. I got ushered up to the VIP terrace with the shade cover and the snacks and hors d’oeuvres and signature cocktail. And, Ice cream cones, ice cream cones.

Jill: It was nice. the pictures you have were pretty sweet.

Alison: So I absolutely do appreciate the opportunity that having accreditation has given to us that, that most people don’t get.

Don’t get you I have never been to a VIP room in my life There is and I swear I almost did a little dance when I saw the actual velvet rope It might not have been velvet. It might have been sort of plasticky But still they actually like had a security guard that I had to get by and it was it was It was a big giant man who looked down at me and said something in French, which I assume is, are you supposed to be here little girl?

And I held up my bracelet. I had a bracelet, like one of those little, the paper bracelets. And then he steps aside and like holds his hand out to usher me up the steps. I said, I, I think I’m in the wrong place, but yeah. So thank you again to the Paris Media Center for, for giving that opportunity. And we’ll have pictures of that coming up on the, uh, our Instagram account and you can find that at flamealivepod.

Olympics Heat Watch

Jill: And it was a good thing you got ice cream and cool cocktails because the last couple of days have been extremely hot here. It’s been over 90. We clocked, uh, we saw one. thermometer that said 35 degrees

Alison: Celsius.

Jill: we did get a thunderstorm rolling in last night, overnight, and it’s a little cooler today.

Hopefully those temperatures will hold, but, uh, yeah, it’s pretty sunny and pretty bright here. So. Keep that in mind if you’re coming and we’ll, we’ll have a heat watch on every day.

Alison: And if you are staying at home, be prepared to see a lot of sweat. And I don’t mean from the athletes.

Jill: the spectator guide has been released.

Alison: So this is spectator guides for people attending events. There is a guide for each venue and it’s tied specifically to the sports. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes. The one thing I want to highlight is it’s for all sports. The guide suggests arriving one and a half hours before your session begins.

So be prepared to wait in lines and for those staying at home, be prepared to hear about tough security, long lines, difficult, difficult difficulties in terms of getting to venues on the Metro. Just time. Everything is going to take a very long time to do.

Jill: Right, because I would imagine you’re wanding, at least you’re going through, at least the metal detector, because we have to put our stuff in metal detectors to get into each of our media centers.

Every

Alison: time we come in.

Jill: Yes, and get credentials scanned. So, Yeah, they’re on the lookout. There are so many cops and soldiers all over the city, different units. You’ll see different uniforms and we were told today that one of them had these flat berets. Oh, they’re from the Alps. And, uh, yeah, you really do see them all around and they’re really getting ready for the opening ceremony.

So hopefully That will all go off without a hitch.

Alison: Um, oh my goodness. I,

Jill: oh, the, the,

Alison: just as we’re talking about safety. Thank you, Paris, for giving us a little ambient noise appropriate to our story.

IOC Press Conference

Jill: While you were partying, I went to an IOC press conference because the IOC executive board is meeting now and they’ll have some press conferences.

Then the IOC session will have its meeting and we expect to hear the hosts name for 2030 and 2034, uh, the winter games. but one of the people at the press conference was your boyfriend, Kit McConnell. And because I was attending with Ben, who is decked out in Team Australia gear, Kit, who is a Kiwi, came up to him afterwards and they had a little chat.

I got to shake Kit’s hand and then got promptly ignored because I’m nowhere near Australia.

Alison: This may be the end of our partnership, Jill. You’re trying to steal my IOC boyfriend.

Jill: I am not trying to steal your IOC boyfriend. .

We do love our IOC staff. Exactly, exactly. So we’ll have more on that business front later on in the week. And yeah, we’re getting ready. It’s next episode we have will be, two days to go. We’ll

Alison: It’ll be Paris day minus two, there is competition starting, and we will be heading out and seeing some venues for the first time.

TKFLASTAN News

Jill: Exactly, exactly. Also, a shout out to Shukla Stani Alison Levine, who was officially named to Team Canada’s boccia team.

Alison: And at the U. S. para track and field trials, javelin thrower, Justin Fonks Savant qualified for the Paris Paralympics. He won with the third furthest throw in his class in history. Not to be outdone shot putter, Noelle Malcolm Ackie also qualified for the Paralympics.

Just going on, setting a new world record. So congratulations to both of them. We will see you in about a month.

Jill: Exactly. And that is going to do us for this episode. Let us know what you think of Team USA’s chances at Paris 2024.

Alison: You can find us on X YouTube and Instagram at flamealivepod. Send us an email at flamealivepod at gmail.

com. Call or text us at 208 333 4234. 3 5 2 6 3 4 8 that’s 2 0 8 flame it chat with us and other fans on our Facebook group. Keep the flame alive podcast and sign up for our soon to be daily newsletter that’ll be starting on Wednesday with even more Olympic and Paralympic info for you. You can do that at our website, flamealivepod.

com.

Jill: As I mentioned on Wednesday, we will start our daily coverage from the Paris 2024 Olympics. Please do not forget to tell a friend about the show if people are getting excited about the games and are starting to watch. Don’t forget you can still get your copy of our Olympics and Paralympics viewing guide that’s on Amazon and Apple Books and we will have a link in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening and until next time, keep the flame alive!