When swimming and athletics overlap, it can test the mettle and resilience of any Olympics fan….well, those who try to watch both of those sports on the same day.
That said, today’s competition was excellent, with many must-see moments. We’re looking at:
- Artistic Gymnastics
- Athletics – TKFLASTAN alert!
- Badminton
- Baseball
- Beach Volleyball – TKFLASTAN alert!
- Boxing
- BMX Freestyle Cycling
- Diving
- Equestrian – TKFLASTAN alert!
- Fencing
- Golf (yes, we actually talk about golf today)
- Handball
- Hockey
- Sailing
- Swimming
- Table Tennis – TKFLASTAN alert!
- Tennis
- Water Polo
- Weightlifting
- Wrestling – TKFLASTAN alert (well, all of wrestling is a TKFLASTAN alert due to the dulcet tones of Jason Bryant)
Plus, our popular segments:
- Where’s Marnie McBean?
- TKFLASTAN Watch
- Fantasy League/Brackets Update
- What’s Up with Mike and Maya?
Join in the fun – viewing guide, fantasy league, brackets and more at https://flamealivepod.com/tokyo
Text us/Leave us a VM! 208-FLAME-IT (208) 352-6348.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript. It contains errors. Please do not quote from the transcript; use the audio file as the record of note. If you would like to see transcripts that are more accurate, please support the show.
Jill: [00:00:00] Neat you out Olympics, fans, and lovers of shiftless fan. Welcome to Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. I am your host. Jill Jaris joined as always by my lovely co-host Ellison brown, Alison Konichiwa,
Alison: maybe having a bit of an adult beverage, but only in the privacy of my room.
Jill: That is very true. We are, uh, athletes are facing more discipline here on day 10 of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The, the new rules for COVID the, uh, athletes who wanted to celebrate by drinking alcohol could have it in their rooms, in the village, but they could not go out and party in the village public areas.
And yes. Some of them have. So, uh, there is an investigation under place. We will keep you posted. All right. Got a lot of action today because boy athletics is really just jumping right in with the big events, a follow up file. So Connor fields, our sockless Donnie BMX racer, uh, who had a horrible crash during his competition, suffered a brain hemorrhage at the venue.
Luckily there’s been no additional bleeding on his brain and no new head injuries have been found. He’s got some fluid on the brain, but it’s not increased. So that was within the first 24 hours. So there, the doctors were feeling good about that. According to his father who talked to USA today, and he also suffered a broken rib and bruised lung in the crash.
It’s going to be some painful healing. I’ve heard that broken ribs are tough.
Alison: Yeah. But that could have been so much worse. It’s the brain injury. We got to keep the eye on. Exactly.
Jill: Exactly. So Connor, we’re still thinking of you Simone Biles. The gymnast has withdrawn from the floor exercise and great Britain’s.
Jennifer got a robot will take her place. Okay. So I did go back and watch men’s trampoline. They were flying all over the place, only through the qualification because they were, they were flying. It was. Incredible. So we had a one gymnast and I I’m sorry, I don’t have their names in front of me, but we had a gymnast from Columbia who on his warmup bounces.
Cause they get like a minute to start the routine and they sit there and they jump higher and higher until they feel comfortable enough to be in control of their bodies and start their routine. Well on his warmup, he. Kind of skipped backwards on the mat and on a jump landed on the edge of the trampoline and the pad and scraped up his heels a little bit.
He still did his routine. Then the next one fell on the man’s during his routine, the American. Went through the mat. So he was jumping and got close to the side and it, and fell in between the trampoline mesh and the mat on the side. And his coach had been right there and had opted not to put in the safety pad because that would have stopped his momentum and his routine would have been over.
So it’s always a judgment call. Is he going to make it or not? And he did not make it so. But I’d never seen that before. And then next person, right after him also had the same deal with, he was getting dangerously, close to the side and his coach did put the mat in front of him. So he did not look happy that he got stopped.
And then gal just, he was doing his routine. This is the, the Chinese champion who was heavily favored to win, uh, was traveling forward and was getting close to the end of the mat or end of the trampoline, and then did a forward move that took him off the. And it, it, I don’t know. I kind of wonder, like, are you in the, in when you’re in the air, do you realize what’s going to happen by where you land and how much can you correct that, especially, or can you even change your routine mid routine?
Like if I, if I saw I was going to, uh, at the edge of the trampoline, And I knew I had a forward move next. That would take me off. Could I do change that into a backward move real quickly?
Alison: I don’t know. Well, I go, it’s all muscle memory, so it’s very hard to change the routine because you automatically go into the next move.
You don’t want to be thinking. So if you’ve ever had the situation where you’re driving somewhere, And you come to a turn where you always turn left, but that one day you’re going to have to turn. Right. But somehow [00:05:00] you still turn left.
Jill: Right? Imagine that times a thousand. Okay. So when they talk about Sunita Lee being able to improvise on bars, that’s just something so amazing that yes, don’t really realize it just by how the announcements.
Okay. All right. Still on the followup file. Uh, two athletes, the two athletes we talked about yesterday, uh, who had gone sightseeing and violated the playbook and had their credentials stripped were silver medalist in judo from Georgia fascia, mark, Russ Vili and Alaska chef to do . And Jordan Thompson, the American volleyball player we talked about yesterday, who injured her ankle in the game against ROC is not seriously hurt.
And she’s going to be able to come back to play the
Alison: Laffy and basketball player must have come by with this.
I’m not letting that go. I love that story
Jill: so much. It was just incredible. And other Olympics news, Italian rower, Bruno Rossetti has been awarded a bronze medal by the IOC. After he T he had been rowing in the heat and he then tested positive for COVID and had to miss the finals. And, uh, the original plan was, well, you didn’t race in the finals.
You don’t get a medal, but the IOC. Said, Hey, no, we’re going to allow you because you would have competed. If you hadn’t tested positive, you can get the metal. And then, uh, some other interesting news from the Bella Russian delegation, Christina was, is, uh, an athletics athletes, sprinter. She was, uh, due to compete in the women’s 200 meters coming up this week.
She. Told that she was going to get put into another race at short notice, because she was entered into the 400 meter relay event while she was not happy about that. She complained on social media and the Bella Russian Olympic committee said, pack your bags. You’re going to. Yes. Oops. Then she protested and she pled her case to the IOC.
The last update is she is at the airport. Did not get on her flight home because now she fears for her safety and this with the airport police
Alison: drama. Yeah. We haven’t heard a whole lot. Drama, other than that original athlete who disappeared from the village and was attempting to defect, I guess. Right.
But it’s been quiet in a way, considering how much drama there would be there just drinking in the public areas. That’s the drama we’re getting sounds like college.
Jill: Oh, right. Our fantasy league update. How’s our league doing? Shola ston still way ahead of everybody else. With 590 points. Colibra is at 2 24.
Uh, Patrick from green bay is at 1 97 and I am at 1 94, really close. I’ve finally figured out that you can select a points multiplier every day. And I only selected the points multiplier for like day one. So we went like nine more days with no. I had
Alison: Katie Ledecky as my points multiplier.
Jill: Oh, that was a pretty good choice.
I know. But now I still have
Alison: her and I can’t change her. Cause I
Jill: go to the next
Alison: day. I’ve keep trying, but I think I’ve used my swaps. I it’s. Okay. If you don’t know what you’re doing, join us. It’s ridiculously.
Jill: Brackets Shola stone is leading now one 10, uh, and you and I are tied at 100. I
Alison: do not know how that happened.
Jill: Probably picked well in rugby.
Alison: I did, I did have Fiji in both the men’s and the
Jill: women’s pools. You can still join in on all the fun and, uh, fantasy league and fantasy brackets. Go to flame alive pod.com/tokyo for. Now it’s time for a segment. What’s up with Mike and Maya, Mike and Maya have the Toyota first date ad where Mike asks Maya out to the school dance, uh, while he is in the hospital and he can do so with the help of Toyota’s magic robot screen, that rolls through the hallways.
You want to talk about Maya’s friends today? Well,
Alison: you were very concerned about Maya’s friend in the purple set. 1980s, roller Derby jacket.
Jill: She and I haven’t, I haven’t figured out her name yet, but she’s the one that’s got the look cause it, it kind of pans. Uh, w my, when they’re panning back from Mike to Maya, She is the one that’s got the look of most concern on her face.
And I’m wondering if she is a mean girl or if she is a Heather and she is kind of the ringleader of their little group and she knows Maya is way out of my sleek and is very concerned about this development. Maybe it will reflect badly on her. [00:10:00] I’m not, I’m not sure, but she just does not look happy about this development.
Alison: Well, you know, what reflects is that purple jacket she’s wearing?
Jill: So, if you have theories about Mike and Maya, let us know@flamealivepodatgmail.com. So where in Tokyo is Marnie McBean today?
Alison: So, so far I have found her at swimming track and field. They were moving OSHA, the Canadian moose from the flag area to the backdoor of the Canadian tower.
And she made it out to sailing.
Jill: That’s good. Was her drum audible or did she not see, I don’t
Alison: know if her drum was audible because she was on one of the viewing boats. Oh,
Jill: very cool.
Alison: So I don’t know if the wind, uh, drowned out the
Jill: drum. All right. Before we get to today’s action, we’d like to tell you a little bit about our Kickstarter campaign.
We have gotten media accreditations for the winter Olympics in Beijing. This came at a complete surprise to us. So we have less than 200 days to figure out how to get there. We are really excited for the opportunity to bring you a podcast experience. That’s going to be. More unique and more special because we’ll have on the ground coverage and be able to tell you things that are happening behind the scenes.
And what’s really going on there that you can’t see while watching TV, but we need your help to get there. So please check out our Kickstarter. Postcards, we’ll send postcards from Beijing. Uh, you can become a producer for a day. Your pet can be our mascot, which you have to jump on those because they’re going pretty quick and much, much more.
So check that out again. That’s kickstarter.com/profile/a flame alive. Big day on artistic gymnastics. Now we’re onto the individual apparatuses. We had men’s floor exercise and men’s pommel horse, and then women’s fault. And women’s uneven bars. I only dipped into a little bit of this, but I think you watched all of it.
I did watch all
Alison: of it. How was it again? It was an event you didn’t win. You survived.
Jill: That’s disappointing.
Alison: Lot of shaky performances, not many stock landing. It was,
Jill: it was disappointing. Well, I know on the men’s floor exercise, I did see the gold medalist perform and he was out of bounds. He stepped out of bounds
Alison: underwhelming.
So the gold and silver had to go to the second. Tie-breaker
Jill: really they, so
Alison: they got the same overall score. Then you go to the execution score, which was the same. And then they had to go to the difficulty.
Jill: Oh. And that broke the. That broke the tie. That’s interesting. Hmm. So the gold went to our Loma Dolakha yet from Israel.
A silver went to Roger lace the Bata from a spot from Spain and from China. One. Moving on to women’s vault. And this, I saw more of, so McKayla Skinner was the replacement for Simone Biles. And if you’re from the U S and you liked gymnastics, you may know that McKayla was an alternate for Rio, which was pretty crushing for her.
And she made the choice to stay in gymnastics for four years, and then she wasn’t competing in college and. Took a year off of college to train for Tokyo. Then the pandemic happened during that year. She got pneumonia and COVID, so it was a lot of comeback for her and for her to make this team make the team, as she did was impressive.
And just like a dream realized. But now she got put into the vault when Simone Biles withdrew. So this is like a huge deal for her.
Alison: So what was interesting was after preliminaries, because she was not. The USA team for that event, she was an individual. So she did not make any finals after qualifying. So after qualifying, she announced her retirement.
Oh, said she wasn’t going to, she wasn’t going back to compete collegiately, even though she still has a year of eligibility and said I’m done. And then two days later, she unretired again to compete. So it has been an emotional rollercoaster for McKayla’s getter.
Jill: Wow. And she walked away with a silver medal because of it.
Alison: Absolutely. Again, a lot. When you watch these vaults, you are not going to feel like you’re watching the vault finals.
Jill: No. Uh, Jade, Carrie, who was, is also from the U S so I saw her first ball and she kind of stutter stepped in the run, which made her miss the, do the round off in a weird place. And then her one hand was, she was a little to the side of the vault and her one hand almost, almost went off.
The vault as she’s springboard.
Alison: So she, she missed, she missed her steps and actually did not complete the vault that she was supposed to complete. She was supposed to clinically , but she took [00:15:00] out the twist because she had messed up the setup so poorly. Wow. Yeah. So her first score was in the 11th,
Jill: which is, which is frustrating.
I’m just glad she safe because that when I saw the replay, I saw how dangerous that could have been for. So, so the three medalists for vault where Brazil’s Rebecca and Raja, silver went to Mikayla Skinner and then Korea’s yell Zo. Uh, so Junge won the bronze, which seems like a surprise. Was she, she is strong in that category.
She is,
Alison: but it was a
Jill: surprise. Then in men’s pommel horse, what did you think of that competition? This
Alison: was the best competition. Really? Yes. This was so max wedlock again, won the gold medal and it is beautiful. Silver metal went to lead cheek high from Chinese. Also a beautiful routine. The only difference was Max’s was slightly more difficult, but the silver medalist actually had a higher execution score.
Interesting. So it’s two beautiful programs
Jill: to watch and then Japan’s Kaia cause took the bronze on that and then uneven bar. This is tough for the United States because Sunita Lee is arguably the best or one of the best uneven bars. Gymnast’s and she had a very tough routine.
Alison: I did. So she had taken out a couple of connections to go for a higher execution score though, our lower difficulty.
Oh. And she missed some connections. So she lost even more difficulty and some execution, but thankfully everybody had a much worse day. Well, not everybody, but almost everybody had a much worse day.
Jill: That’s really sad.
Alison: Even the gold medalist was not
Jill: clean. Yeah. I did see Sunni’s routine and it looked like stuff was missing.
That’s all I could, like, I’m missing some stuff here and she just didn’t and, but yet she’s still got the.
Alison: She was laughing after her routine, like, oh, that was not great. Yeah. And as she kept staying in third place, she just kept looking at everyone like really what is happening,
Jill: ah, that doesn’t bode well for competition.
So the other two mental lists for women’s on even bars were Belgium’s Nina dare wall. And then RFCs a Anastasia Iliya Canova one. Moving on to athletics where it was another incredible day and night. Holy cow, I have to go back and watch some of this because there’s so much going on with athletics that I can’t focus and, and they do have like three different feeds going on just for this one event.
So it makes it kinda tough to, to move around. But early on was the women women’s hammer throw qualifying round. So. I did watch this extensively and, uh, D Deanna price did qualify through to the final. Not great night for her. She did not meet the qualifying standard because if the deal is they have a qualifying standard distance.
If you meet that, you don’t have to keep throwing and she didn’t get it. She, uh, her best throw was 72 point 55 meters. She scratched on a thrill. And I was really worried for a long time, but a lot of people scratched a lot of people and most people didn’t throw very well at all. So I wonder if the weather conditions are part of it or what’s going on because I think only two people in her, her, uh, second, uh, got the qualifying standard.
So, but she is part of the final 12. She will compete again. Still written for your Deanna. We had a women’s ShotPut the finals happened for that. Did you see? I saw,
Alison: I saw, did I watch this? This was a fun competition. Okay.
Jill: So did you watch the OBS feed or did you watch and beat? Was this on NBC? Yes. I don’t know,
Alison: because I think I was watching the
Jill: feed.
Okay. Because I saw highlights and Michelle Carter was on the highlights and I’m like, oh, Michelle that’s right. Michelle Carter is an analyst for this. I want to watch it, but I don’t think this has been aired on NBC yet. So you must’ve watched the OBS feed. So gliding
Alison: is much prettier than. Michelle is
Jill: right.
I agree. And it was interesting because, uh, China’s gong Liao won the gold commandingly and she is a glider then Raven Saunders from the USA who wore a Hulk mask while she competed. And I guess in the early purple and green hair. Oh man, the hair has choice. And, uh, I guess in the early round she wore a joker man.[00:20:00]
Well, she competed. So, so, uh, she threw a massive last throw and it looked like she might be able to win it on that throw, but she filed. And so the
Alison: spinners were failing left and right. They’re going out of the circle,
Jill: but she did end up with silver and then bronze went to New Zealand van, Valerie Adams, which I’m really thrilled about for her.
Cause this is what her fourth element. I believe
Alison: it’s her fifth, but she’s metaled
Jill: four times. Yeah. This is her fifth Olympics. She’s been competing since 2004 and she’s a two time gold medal winner. Uh, silver and now has added the bronze.
Alison: The best moment was at the end, after she had secured the bronze and they gave her the New Zealand flag, she held up a picture of her kids to the camera.
Jill: That’s really.
Alison: She’s a beautiful thrower, man. Ah, just gorgeous to watch.
Jill: So that is a must see competition. I believe also a must see actually everything on this ticket was it must see night. It was really incredible. So let’s move on to men’s high jump, where the bar kept getting higher and higher. Uh, the athletes remaining were starting to go for Olympic records, but I don’t think they could get.
No, uh, but they could not get them. It was down to from Qatar and G and Marco, Tim Berry from Italy and Maxim. Nadeska from Bellaruse and the Belarusian was out first. And then it was down to the final, the Qatari and the Italian, and they decided we don’t want to do a jump off. We will share the gold medal, which I thought was beautiful.
Alison: It was a beautiful moment. The official comes over and ask them they both missed on their last jumps. So then it became, okay, now you’re tied. Should we do a jump off? And they both just immediately said, no, that was,
Jill: and then they were given the option and then hugging and jumping on all over each other.
Cause they were so thrilled. I bet they are going to be in the running for that peer to Cooperstown award. Is that what that spirit of friendship and solidarity kind of award? I bet they’re in the running for that now. Cause that was. In the women’s triple jump. Whoa man. Venezuela’s Yulia Mar Rojas got the gold with a world record jumped like smashed this world record.
It was a beautiful, beautiful job. She was so excited. Uh, Portugal’s Patricia, Memona got silver and Spain’s on a pellet taro got bronze. So that is a competition to go back and watch. And then the men’s hundred meter finals,
Alison: this was a little rough
Jill: false starts in the semis, false starts in the final. And then the results were so surprising.
And so. Kind of thrilling because this is the first time in many Olympics that Usain bolt has not been there. So now it’s a changing of the guard and that the new, uh, champion is Italy’s Lamont, Marcel Jacobs. USA’s Fred Curley took silver and Canada’s Andre de Grasse took Brian.
Alison: And we were talking about how so many things are happening at the same time.
So Tam Barry from HighJump comes running over to, uh, Jacobs in the 100, because he’s still got the flag wrapped around him. He had just finished and done, you know, a few minutes of celebrating and then this happened. So the two Italians are literally embracing and jumping up and down on the track.
Jill: It was, uh, that was really beautiful.
Uh, moving over to badminton. We had, uh, men singles had the semi-finals women’s singles had their finals gold, went to China’s Chen at UFA. Silver went to Chinese. Taipei’s a tie to yang and bronze went to India’s visa and Dupa Starla, uh, which is exciting for us. So glad love when India gets a metal.
Exactly. Um, and the baseball competition we are in the knockout stage. So Israel beat Mexico, 12, five, and Korea beat Dominican Republic, Israel and Korea will face off. And the U S a N Japan will be the other pair for this. In beach volleyball. It was the women’s round of 16, which included our Kelly Clayson, her partner, spirit, Sarah responsible who faced off Benzley and Wilkerson from Canada.
They won the first set 2321, but then lost the second 2 21, 17 and 1513. That was a heartbreaker because I was in and out of the room that were, it was on TV and it was exciting when they won the first set. And then I came back and they had a commanding lead in the second [00:25:00] and Wilkerson and, uh, Benzley CA uh, just made a comeback and then it was neck and neck back, and it was all back and forth within the two points all the time.
And then in the third set, they were. Near the end of the match and clays and sponsor challenged a call on the line, whether it was in or out, the referee agreed with them, overturned the call, which would have given place and sponsor the point. But then Canada challenged that call.
Alison: They challenged
Jill: the challenge, and even the announcer was like, I’ve never seen this before, but then the announcer also said, it’s so quiet in here.
You could hear her. And there’s nobody there. Come on, buddy. So the challenge of the challenge one, which did not make sense to me.
Alison: Absolutely. And then Sponsler and clay started arguing with the referee that you can’t challenge a challenge, and then they got yellow carded. So that killed their momentum.
They were totally distracted. And that was the end of the,
Jill: yeah, that was a real shame. So, uh, they are out of the tournament, but Hey did a great job B they’re young. So they’ll hopefully be back in future Olympics elsewhere. Uh, Brazil’s on a Patricia and Rebecca defeated China. China’s. And uh, and, uh, Latvia’s Gardena and, uh, crossing NOCCA defeated.
and Colomina Germany’s Ludvig defeated. Ho this is an upset, yeah. Germany’s load Vic. Costage defeated. Brazil’s Agatha Duda. Tuta one. Holy cow. That is huge because Brazil that they are near the top.
Alison: Yes, I think they are the top rock thing. Wow. Pain.
Jill: Wow. That is a huge, uh, Switzerland, uh, various Dupree and Heidrick, uh, beat, uh, Switzerland.
You rolled best chart and Australia’s our Choteau does solar and Clancy defeated. I believe this is another Chinese team, Joey and Wang. And then there were a couple of. Men’s round of 16, uh, games, Qatar, Sharif, and Ahmed defeated. USA’s Lucina and dollhouse, dowel, Hauser, and Norway’s mall. And Sorum defeated Netherlands Brower and Ms.
Paves and
Alison: both upsets. Wow. That’s big. Yeah, lots of upsets on the sand.
Jill: We’re starting to get some metals in boxing and that tournament is structured again where you have two bronze medals, but the bronze matches and the gold silver match are different day. So we have bronzes for the men’s welterweight.
They go to a great Britain’s pet McCormack who defeated Ireland’s Aiden Walsh by a walkover. And then Ranell Yglesias from Cuba defeated, uh, Andre Zakho. Um, On a unanimous decision and in the men’s light heavyweight Franz’s go-to great. Britain’s Benjamin Whitaker who defeated ROC OCS Kotcheff Emam on points and Cuba’s area.
Arlen Lopez defeated Alfonzo Domingo, Laura Berto from Azerbaijan on point. A new event for Tokyo BMX, freestyle cycling. So this was a two day competition. And I, I, again, I tried it a little bit and I didn’t, somehow I ran out of time today. I just ran out of time to watch stuff. So I watched a little bit of the women’s finals and I watched a little bit of the women’s qualifying and the.
Commentator on the feed. We had a British commentator and an American commentator and the American, like, didn’t even try to say some last names. It was like, Elisabeta. Yeah, that made me laugh. But again, just like skateboarding, they didn’t explain what was going on and I could tell things were cool. And I think it’s easier to see cool stuff in BME and BMX freestyle, because the bike is bigger and you see a wheel spinning around and I understand that the skateboard can flip and things.
It was just bigger on it’s like the large print version of a book.
Alison: I agree with everything you’ve said so far,
Jill: and, but I just didn’t understand how stuff was scored and what was a good trick and what was not a good trick. And, and what are you stacking? How are you building your routines? And it was interesting because at the same time I was watching the gymnastics feed and.
Bridget Sloan just right then would [00:30:00] tell you what a vault was. Oh, she’s doing a nominator that’s two and a half turns, you know, two flips in a twist or whatever an almond R is, but explained it in the same sentence, what the trick was and why it was important. Uh, and you just didn’t get that with these, with these newer park sports.
So I’m trying.
Alison: It’s almost like they just assume we’re going to think. It’s cool to look at, so we don’t need to understand there’s again, what we talked about before about NBC’s laziness. Just not giving us what we need to really enjoy these sports looking cool is
Jill: not enough, but this is the, the Olympic broadcasting services laziness at play, because that was, I was watching the feed.
They’re going to do this way. If they don’t fix it now they’re going to do it again for break-in.
Alison: Oh, absolutely.
Jill: I’m I might go back to watch this a little bit more to see what I think, or maybe I’ll just go back to try skateboarding in the. In the park, but it looked pretty cool. I will say that it looked difficult and dangerous as all get out as I get older, but you know, doing flips on your bike over a ramp, that’s kind of cool.
Um, gold went to Charlotte Worthington from great Britain, Hannah Roberts. Uh, from the USA got silver. And she said she was nursing an ankle injury prior to competition, which has got to be hard when you’re pressing down on pedals and stuff. Um, and then Switzerland, uh, Nikita DeCarlos won bronze on the men’s side.
Martin, Logan from Australia won gold Daniel dares from Venezuela, one silver and Declan Brooks from great Britain. One brown. Diving, I did catch the final round of diving action. This was women’s three meter springboard, and as expected, China went one, two, they have a phenomenal diving program in China and oh, and for so long, they’ve had a phenomenal diamonds and the gold medalist was sheeting mal.
Her final dive was just amazing how she could do so many. Flips and spins and go in the water with almost no splash. It was beautiful. She took old Wang, Hahn took silver and then bronze went to USA’s Christa Palmer. And this is the first time the U S has meddled in this event since 1988. And then Canada’s general Jennifer Abel, who is also as she metaled earlier in the competition.
And so she’s really strong on this event. I saw one of her dives on around three. She just over-rotated and went in a little too far. Splash was too big and that was. Even if with two dives left and you look at the competition, that’s all stacked up. She just did not have enough time to come back. And then you hope that the people at the top make mistakes, but you’re not going to get very many mistakes from the Chinese diverse over in a question are Phillip Dutton competed in the eventing cross country competition.
This was tough to watch. Like I no stranger to watching eventing, but it was very difficult to tell the writers apart and even with their numbers on, because they’ll have three or so writers on the course at any given time, because it’s so long they can, and you know, it cuts down on how long the competition needs to be.
So that’s fine, but they’ll have cameras stationed at certain parts of the course. So you just, I think they would. And did too many switches between writers because I couldn’t didn’t know, I tuned in a little late, so I didn’t know what the course looked like. And then I never knew who was riding at what, given time, because we’d switched back and forth between three to four writers who are all competing Simon, uh, almost simultaneously, and one writer.
Went and fell off his horse over a jump because the horse stumbled. And I thought that was Phillip and the announcer thought it was Phillip. And then I got corrected later on, but, uh, that was really scary because I thought, oh no, Phillip, but then he got back on the whole. So that
Alison: rider was the rider ahead of Philip on the course.
So Phillip was on the course at the time and he posted an Instagram, how he then is held on the course. They stop
Jill: him mid run, which makes sense, because you have to make sure the PR the prior rider is fine.
Alison: Well more importantly, he was laying on the course, so Z would have just come along and gala right over him.
So you could have had some additional issues
Jill: and his own horse kind of hooked him anyway. Right.
Alison: So Phillip was not complaining, but saying how you stop mid-course that throws off your momentum. So that gave, he was disappointed in his cross-country run because it was difficult [00:35:00] circumstances, but he said, Z handled it like a.
Jill: Oh, good for him. Oh, exactly. So he is in, uh, Philippines in 17th place so far, and the individual event and team USA stands in fifth. I have a new favorite horse. That
Alison: would be it’s the Sarah who is with Theresa Vick, Linde. I believe of the Netherlands and the horse lost her eye three years ago to uveitis, but it’s still elite level competitor.
Jill: Wow. That’s incorrect. But yeah, I wish they could figure out a better way to shoot this event to make it more, to, to not have it be like, oh, we’re dropping it. And you’ve never seen this event. And it’s kind of like, yeah, we know you watch this once every four years. So we’ll just show you parts. But I think.
I don’t know how they make it better because I bet they can’t use drones because the noise would probably not be good for the horses. And I’m not sure how much they do with helicopters either because again, with the noise. So I don’t know. I wish I wish it was. This would probably
Alison: be one of those few sports that would benefit from NBC’s focus on only certain athletes.
So they always air team USA and they air like the top five or six. So you’re going to miss seeing a bunch of athletes, but you’re going to follow single people through the entire course,
Jill: something to think. Moving over to fencing. It was the men’s foil team competition. France took the gold ROC, took silver and USA took the brown.
I watched some of this. They do. You watch
Alison: some of the U S uh, competition against Germany. Okay. And those foils are wild. Is that the latest?
Jill: Yes, I believe
Alison: because they were flicking and they were poking each other and flying all over the place. But what I love the best. Through the body language, you could see what the fencer was thinking, even though you couldn’t see their face.
And I did not expect that because I haven’t watched a lot of fencing. And I don’t know if that’s just foil because it is the most animated because it’s the
Jill: lightest weapon. Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, they’re all very different. In golf, the men finished up their individual stroke play gold, went to Zander chef shuffle up from USA whose mom grew up in Japan.
And, uh, Roy Sabatine from Slovakia won silver and, uh, Penn CT from Taipei won the bronze. There was a seven way playoff. Which is kind of mindblowing and handball. We’re still finishing up group play, but we had the quarter finals match ups for the men is going to be France versus Bahrain, Sweden versus Spain, Denmark versus Norway and Germany versus.
In hockey, we had the men’s quarter-finals Germany beat Argentina, three, one Australia, beat Netherlands. They were tied to, to through, but Australia one, three, nothing. And in a point, shootout, Belgium beat Spain, 3, 2, 1, and India beat. Great Britain. Three to one. Oh my gosh. I didn’t see this game. Oh, I’m so glad.
I’m so brilliant. And you know, I didn’t have the sound on for this, so there was some guesswork, but the. Pitch looked like it was sopping wet because when, when they were showing replays, you can see water just spray up when their hockey sticks are scraped the turf. And, uh, then. Uh, India had just really beautiful steals.
They had some really nice passing that set up some goals. It was, it was beautiful. So they are moving on to the semi-finals. They will face Belgium and Australia will face Germany on the, in the women’s tournament. The quarter final match-ups will be Germany versus Argentina, Australia versus India, Netherlands versus New Zealand and Spain versus grape.
In saline, two of the boats had metal races. So on the laser men’s gold went to Australia’s Matt Warren, which we knew was not going to be a surprise. Uh Croatia’s Tonchi uh, Stepanovich one silver and her Mon Thomas guard from Norway won the bronze in the laser radial women’s event. Denmark’s uh, and Marie random won gold, uh, Josephine.
Olsen from Sweden, one silver and merit bow. Mr. Won the bronze.
Alison: Yes, but is Josephine a Swedish Viking?
Jill: I would assume so.
Alison: She can helm a boat.
Jill: There you go. That’s what they need swimming, swimming. Okay. So now the swimming competition is over for the Olympics, which is kind of bitter.
Alison: It’s always the sad day of the last session.
Oh, [00:40:00] that’s my favorite
Jill: part. So you watched, I w I dipped in and out, but you watch most of it.
Alison: I did watch most of it. And I want to mention, cause we talk about rowdy Gaines a lot and he gets so excited, but he did say two really funny things last night that I wrote down. So in the 50 finals. He said about one of the swimmers.
It just breaks their heart in the first 15. He’s so good at the start. Meaning Caleb Dressel. And then in another one of the races, he said, okay, take a breath now. Hold. And then like two lengths of the pool later, he said, okay, you can let that breath out. Now we’d all be dead
Jill: rowdy. But did you notice that most of the 50 meter freestyle swimmers do not take a breath?
You cannot
Alison: win. If you take a breath,
Jill: it was, it was really interesting and they had a little shot of the warmup pool and somebody was warming up with like a snotty. And just to like, keep their head in the water, but still ha and get that, uh, feel I assume, but not, not turn their head to breathe. The amazing.
So in the men’s 50 meter free Caleb Dressel from the U S did win gold Francis fluoron Manu won silver and Bruno from Brazil, won the bronze and he was thrilled. Then we had the women’s, uh, four by 100 meter medley relay.
Alison: That was interesting. How so in that it, it went back and forth depending on the stroke.
And it was hard to gauge where people were. It was, it was a tough, it was a great race, but tough to watch.
Jill: Um, so for that one Australia, when the gold silver went to U S and Canada won the bronze, and I believe that bronze medal puts penny Oleksiak as the all time metal winner for. Which is very impressive.
Although, you know, we have talked about before how it’s impressive to a point because she’s in a sport that has many, many metal opportunities versus somebody like who plays hockey and can only win one medal,
Alison: but to be fair, she still beat out all the other
Jill: swimmers. Yes, that’s, that is very true. And that’s tough to do again and again.
During one, one competition. Then we went over to the women’s 50 meter freestyle. How was this one
Alison: fast? I mean, they call it the splash and dash for a reason. It just out of nowhere, I was so pleased to see that Sarah. So strum who’s a world record holder in this, came up with a metal. She has had a very disappointing Olympics she had.
Jill: And that’s it. I wonder how, what she thinks. I mean, I bet she’s disappointed, but I wonder how. How it was for her having the year off the extra year when it came down to it. Well, she
Alison: broke her elbow. Oh, this past winter. Yes. She slipped on the ice cause it is Sweden broke her elbow. So the fact that she was even here, that’s huge was a, was a big.
Jill: Wow. So in this race, Australia’s McCune one gold Sarah. So strum one, silver and Prunella bloom from Denmark. One bronze moving on to the men’s four by 100 medley relay. How was this one?
Alison: This was exciting because. You didn’t know if great Britain they have ad MPD who was going to be amazing. And the us, I don’t think has ever lost this race in the history of this race.
So they have that burden and it was back and forth and back and forth. And then at the end, the U S just pulled out and there was no doubt. Wow. The, before they aired it, you got several minutes of the guys waiting backstage to come out. So they had the girl with the clipboard and they’re bouncing up and down and bouncing up and down.
So I think it was Jack apple, all of a sudden breaks out his phone and starts texting. And he was texting rowdy Gaines. Oh my good ratty gain says I just got a text talking about their preparation.
Jill: That’s pretty good for that race. Us won the gold, great Britain won silver and Italy. It took the bronze.
Then it was the men’s 1500 meter freestyle, which how is that
Alison: long?
Jill: That is
Alison: a long race. But Bobby, think one, this show decisive. Very nice. It was an, it was a fun race to watch the light. Four laps of, okay.
Jill: Then Mukalla, Roman, Chuck from Ukraine, one silver and Florian, Vel Brock from Germany, one bronze. And that’s it for the swimming.
It was a great gains for Emma McCune of [00:45:00] Australia. She took home seven metals that ties her for the record. For number of metals, one at a single games by any female Olympian that record happened had been set at Helsinki 1952 by a gymnast Maria GORUCK show Skyah of the Soviet union. And she’s the first, also the first female swimmer to win seven metals in a single games.
So she joins Michael Phelps, mark Smith’s and met him ma beyond the, as the only swimmers with seven or more metals from a single.
Alison: But the only non-American in that group. Nice. Australia’s going to love that.
Jill: Exactly. They had a great games. It’s always great to see Australia swimming. Well, that’s, that’s always makes me happy because uh, seeing so many countries be strong, like great Britain really has been strong at these games in the pool.
And that makes me happy too. And Canada’s had a great show. Uh, you know, that shows that their program from Rio has continued on and gotten stronger. So that’s, that’s really good. Okay. And a lot
Alison: more, first time countries we saw in the metal stance in this one. Which we love,
Jill: we love moving on to table tennis, our surplus, Donnie Millie tamper actually competed in the women’s team round of 16.
And she and her partner, Michelle Bromley loft, Germany’s Patricia, uh, Sonya and Giana, Sean. They didn’t win a set in that game, but, and it wasn’t very close either on port points, but they made it to the round of 16. So congratulations. We will see Millie again in the Paralympic games and tennis. Okay. So this is, this is when I turned on the TV for the evening I turned on and tennis was on and I’m like, oh, I’ll see what’s going on with tennis.
And I think this is what messed up my clock a little bit, because they were showing the women’s singles event. And when I went to put the results in, in our associate, we talked about them yesterday. I was like, oh, I just wasted some time, I guess, but actually it was kind of interesting to see what was going.
Because I did not know that they swapped out balls quite regularly during the game. And they had a little graphic that said new balls. Yes. And I, they, I guess they get very heavy as the game goes on. Yes. You never knew that. No, and I don’t watch much tennis. No. Well, I don’t watch enough tennis anymore. I, or they have never mentioned that detail.
I mean, maybe the new balls just happened and nobody thought to tell us that we were giving new balls. They did think to tell us at the Olympics. So, uh, Ben sitch was playing Czech Republic market and near the end, there was a medical stoppage and Ben sitch wanted her toe fixed. It was like she had a blister or something on her toe.
So the medical was there also noticed that there’s a medical timeout. So I think they had maybe five minutes for this. And the feed announcer was not happy because it was before. Of us serve. And the feed announcer said that was not good for him for Benson. She, if she needed medical attention, attention, she should have done it before her own surf.
And that this could have been a ploy. It not apply, but it was a way to throw off on Drosophila. And then she, and then she said, well, I hope fun. Drove several wins. The next game they
Alison: should have just sent the Latvian basketball player out with his roll of tape, taped up her whole foot, take the shoe together, get back out there.
Jill: Sadly, even dressed about, did lose a game. And she ended up losing the match to who knows that, that had an effect on it. But we had the men’s singles gold medal match, and gold went to Germany’s Alexander’s Vera. He beat Carrie cotton off from ROC. Pablo Carino BoostA from Spain, won the bronze on that. It was also the women’s doubles and the mixed doubles, uh, gold medal matches.
And Ben stitch was going for the double sweep, as we said, however, she and her partner, uh, Victoria Gulu bitch one silver. Which denied vintage, the double gold and the gold went to checks, Barbara Crutcher Cova and Catarina Sinia Cova and bronze went to Brazil’s. Laura go-see and Louisa Steffani on the mixed doubles.
Gold went to our OCS on a stage of polishing Cova and Andre Ru bleph. Silver went to RFCs. Elaina vesnina and as long and crop stuff, and bronze went to Australia’s Ashley Barty and John Pierce and water polo. We have the quarterfinals set for the women’s side that will be Canada versus USA, Spain versus China, Netherlands versus Hungary and Australia versus [00:50:00] ROC.
Weightlifting in the women’s 76 kilograms event. Gold went to Ecuador’s, uh, Nessy, Patricia, the homeless Barrera. Silver went to the USS Catherine NAI. RMA is a Fuente Savella from Mexico, won the bronze. I’m kind of in the middle of watching this. We turned it on so I could could see, but we are, we realized really quickly that we were spending a lot of time watching group a and we needed to watch groupie.
So I got to go back and watch that the wrestling tournament has started. So, you know, this is probably. One of the very few good things about having no fans in the stands is that you can hear the dulcet tones of Jason Bryant. The in-house announcer a little bit. So we had round of eight quarter-finals and semi-finals action.
The men’s Greco-Roman 60 kilogram semi-finals uh, happened. The finals will be Japan’s Sumita con Kenny chiro versus Cuba’s Louis. Alberto. Or to Sanchez and in the 130 kilogram semi-final or a finals, they, they will be, uh, me on Lopez Nunez from Cuba and Georges Jacobi, uh, cut Jaya, and the women’s freestyle.
76 kilograms of finals will be between Adeline gray from the U S and Elaine roter, Falcon from Germany. Oh, my gosh. Okay. So all of these finals that you have to put this on your schedule to watch because they are all going to be unbelievable. The semi-finals you should kind of go back and I really suggest you go back and watch because there is nothing like watching a 130 kilogram man lift up another 130 killers.
I tell ya. Wow. The. The matches were tight. You can see the frustration on different wrestlers faces. As they’re trying to get out of pins, Adeline gray came out and really, uh, her match was close and kind of what decided it was, uh, that her challengers coach pressed the challenge buzzer and they lost. So Adeline got a point and she won her match three to.
Oh, yeah. And that was really tight. And at the very end, her opponent got her, uh, ankles and was almost going to flip her and how Adeline stayed on and played smart defense was just incredible to see. So. This is very exciting because Adeline had gotten out, I think, at the quarter in Rio and stayed in for this quad to have another go at it.
So her finals match is going to be in tense. Really, really exciting. Uh, remember in Rio, how, when they had challenges, they threw out Venetia’s.
Alison: Oh yes. So they don’t throw out Mira toy. Do they
Jill: know they have a buzzer this time and that’s for.
Alison: Oh, they don’t want anyone touching anything. Right. Is it a big, giant button that Giacomini have to like smack with
Jill: both hands?
No, it’s a buzzer. I think it’s on a little pyramid and it says challenge. That’s
Alison: disappointing. They missed a
Jill: chance there. Yeah, exactly. So we’d like to send a quick, special, thank you to our Patrion patrons, whose ongoing donations provide a lot of financial support that we really need to keep the show going.
Your financial support means the world to us patrons and be on the lookout for your August. Patron only show if you are subscribed at those levels, if you want to become a patron, find out more at patrion.com/flame alive. Chuck lust on watch
Alison: checklists on watch. So we’ve got the beginning of the artistic swimming competition.
So shit, Jacqueline Semino and her partner, Claudia holes, Nour will be competing in the preliminaries of the duet free routine. And Phillip Dutton will be finishing up his individual and team inventing with the jumping.
Jill: I am so excited to watch Jacqueline compete.
Alison: She is so excited. She and Claudia have been posting like mad once they arrived in Japan.
So they are pumped
Jill: and ready to go. Excellent. So it is time for us to say as always, you can email us@flamealivepodatgmail.com or text or voicemail us at 2 0 8 3 5 2 6 3 4 8. That’s 2 0 8 limit. Please don’t forget our Kickstarter and help us reach our goal of bringing you on the ground coverage at Beijing.
That is kickstarter.com/profile/flame alive pod. As we go out to music by mercury sunset. Thank you so much for listening and until tomorrow, keep the.[00:55:00]