For “only” 21 sports on the agenda, today had an incredible amount of action! Especially from Cuba! And there was a podium protest!
Today’s recap includes:
- Artistic Gymnastics – in which mistakes actually cost you
- Artistic Swimming – with TKFLASTANI Jacqueline Simoneau
- Athletics – and an interesting bit about Najma Parveen, a sprinter you may not know
- Badminton
- Baseball
- Basketball
- Beach Volleyball
- Canoe Sprint
- Track Cycling – WITH SPECTATORS!
- Equestrian – TKFLASTANI Phillip Dutton finishes competition
- Football – a shocker for the USWNT
- Handball
- Hockey – a stunning shootout
- Shooting
- Table Tennis
- Volleyball
- Water Polo
- Wrestling – a 4-peat! Repeat, a 4-PEAT!
Plus, our popular segments:
- Where’s Marnie McBean?
- What Officiating/Volunteer Roles Would We Want?
- 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 Please do not quote from the transcript; use the audio file as the record of note.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] Olympic spans and lovers of shook, Liston, and 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 Alison brown, Alison Konichiwa.
Alison: I’ve got my gelatin tear and my waterproof mascara, and I am
Jill: ready to roll.
You are going to hop in the pool for some artistic.
Alison: Absolutely point my toes. And here I go.
Jill: Yes. So now that we’re in week two, a lot of new sports are starting their competition. So it’s really exciting time. Uh, we, I was surprised we only had 21 events on the program today and we have so much to talk about.
So that’s good to it. Follow up file. Uh, this is. So in the eventing competition, any question during the cross-country portion, Swiss horse Jetset suffered a blown leg ligament and had to be euthanized. So our thoughts are with the rider and the, the owner of jet said it’s, it was so sad to hear that.
Alison: Yeah.
And it wasn’t a fall. He came up lame after a jump. So you knew he was hurt, but it didn’t seem quite as dramatic. But I guess horse people recognized it right away because the announcers were saying, oh, that’s not good.
Jill: So yeah, they did. And of course he was checked extensively before they made the decision to euthanize them.
But, uh, that’s really tough. That’s a horrible decision to have to make. We have a couple of followups from golf. Apparently people, you know, you, you don’t tell you there’s some stuff to say about the golf tournament. You do. So, um, listen, Brian pointed out that the silver and bronze medalists used their wives as caddies.
So that way they got family into Japan to, well, they had to be with them on the court, on the, on the golf course, but, uh, they did skirt that family, no family allowed. Issue listener. Nick pointed out that, uh, the commentator, oh, you didn’t like the three X, three commentator who liked to say the round thing goes in the round thing.
Home listener. Nick noticed that the one of the golf commentators said after a golfers ball landed in tall grass, like a homesick Jermell, it just disappears.
Alison: What does that even mean?
Jill: I don’t know. 14 people have had their credentials revoked their Olympic credentials revoked for violating COVID rules.
Yeah. So
Alison: we mentioned the two, but I wanted to make sure we pointed out that there are a few others who have not been following the
Jill: rules as well. Any interesting stories to go along with those 14?
Alison: Okay. Not that they’ve published because they’re supposedly for privacy reasons, they have not issued detailed.
So unless reporters go after the stories like they did with the Jordan, uh, Georgia and Juco.
Jill: Okay. The Belorussian sprinter, Christina , who was, uh, told to pack your bags and go home when she was not happy about being added to a relay race. Uh, she did spend the night at the airport. The IOC is looking into the case.
They’ve asked for it. This is great. This is, this is so IOC Mark Adams, his spokesman said, and this is reported in inside the games they had asked for quote, a full written report.
Alison: Would they want a book report
Jill: from her? Exactly. And then the BBC reported that Poland has offered her a humanitarian visa. So she will not necessarily have to go home, but her family is still there and she worries for their safety.
And
Alison: she won’t have to keep sleeping in the airport. Right? What a mess.
Jill: Yeah. That’s really tough. We, we haven’t talked about the Belorussian situation very much, but it sounds like it could be a tough times in that country because of their leader who is a little bit of an autocrat and a little bit might be nice to say,
Alison: what’s going to say a little bit of an autocrat.
Is that like being a little bit pregnant?
Jill: In new news, we have our first major podium protest. So over in the athletic stadium from the shot, put victory ceremony, uh, Raven Saunders, who was a silver medalist for ShotPut crossed her arms in an X over her head and stayed on the podium. This is, and this happened after the national Anthem had been played.
So the athletes are on the podium. Doing, uh, just basically posing for all of the photographers who want to take pictures. So that’s when she did her podium protest and, uh, [00:05:00] she said she was asked what she was protesting and she said the X was the intersection of oppressed people. Uh, African-Americans LGBTQA and.
She also talked about mental health being one of those items as well. Uh, the New York times mentioned that fencer race in Boden also had a symbol drawn on his hand during his team metal ceremony. And that symbol was not on his hand when he was competing, apparently, but I have not seen any other mention of this, so I’m not sure the best part though, is what do we do with Raven Saunders?
Because if this is considered a podium protest, Then she’s in trouble for violating rules. Well, this is the rule that they don’t like protests. And they understand that over the last year, they understand that that athletes are very involved with social change and they want to use their platform to bring attention to issues of social justice.
The tricky bit is. The time that the athletes are most visible is when they’re competing and when they’ve won in there on the podium, but the IOC doesn’t want a protest to take away from the games and the sport. And so they did a big survey of the athletes over the last year. And the athletes also said we don’t really want protests.
Feel the play. We don’t, we really don’t want poet protests on the podium. And the IOC did relax some of that this year, this games, because you have seen players taking a knee before game, start in, in protest, but that kind of protest is okay. The podium is still pretty much off limits. This was great. The IOC, when they found out about this, they said, well, Yeah, the national Olympic committee needs to manage any sanctions that happened to Raven Saunders because that’s a, it’s a national Olympic committee thing.
And pretty much at the same time, the U S OPC was like, well, this is the IOC rule rule rule fit your rule. So it’s your problem. You got to figure out what sanctions and the USO PC has said that as long as their athletes are not, uh, protesting. Uh, actions of hatred or oppression against a person or group of people.
They’re fine with the protest. And they have already told, said that. Yeah, we’re fine with what Raven Saunders did. We’re not going to do anything about it. So now the IOC has to kind of scramble and figure out that, oh, we actually have to do something which goes back to our pre Tokyo contributor round table.
When I was. When I said the IRC is the Teflon pan. They do not want to deal with this. And they tried to pass the buck. The buck got slapped right back on their table. I
Alison: also heard that the IOC has been dialing up world athletics. Yes. To try and rope world athletics into taking care of this. And we have heard Sebastian COE in the past, not be a fan of podium protests.
He is very anti protium protest, but he’s also very anti punishing. The athletes. So I don’t think he’s going to have much to say, Hmm,
Jill: this is hilarious to me. We laughed so hard yesterday,
Alison: right? Because the IOC makes a rule, but makes everybody
Jill: else enforce it. Right. And they never said, what sanctions would happen if you violate this rule, it’s always like, well, you know, we’ll, you know, there’s going to be sanctions, but what are they?
Well, there will be sanctioned.
Alison: Right. And then you have the issue of did race and Boden intend a protest with assemble on his hand because he has done it in the past. He did protest at the Pan-Am games. Whereas Raven Saunders, clearly it was a protest. She said it was a protest. Here’s what I’m protesting.
But now we going to get into the issue of, we have a black woman and a white man, possibly both violating the roles. And how was that handled?
Jill: Right? Is it is your time on the podium over when the national Anthem is finished and you are done because they only stay on the podium at the request of photographers.
And she didn’t do a Tommy Smith and John Carlos that was during the metal ceremony. So, I mean, this is a little different, but she did make a statement. And according to the U S OPC. That’s fine with them. So now it’s the IOC to figure out, okay. Was this a protest that we don’t want and violates our rule?
50? Would we do about it?
Alison: I’m surprised it took us this long to get here. I know
Jill: there were no swimmers who protested. That’s interesting. It’s interesting, but also not really surprising. But
Alison: at the [00:10:00] world championships, the swimmers were protesting left and right. But mostly because of doping.
Jill: Right. And that, that swimmer was not at this competition.
So problems.
Alison: Teflon pan IOC and Mark Adams is just trying to be all cool and calm about it, but you know, he’s losing sleep. His phone is blowing up. He’s throwing things in his hotel room
Jill: more to come on this. All right. Where is Marnie McBean?
Alison: So Marnie McBean has been at wrestling soccer and at the track, and she has promised to go to more escape. Oh, okay. She’s excited for more skateboarding.
Jill: All right. A segment that we didn’t have yesterday. Cause I forgot to put it on the sheet is what officiating our volunteer job would.
Alison: So I’ve got to, I had one from yesterday and one from today. I want to be the towel person at swimming. There’s somebody who stands there and as the swimmers come out, hands them
Jill: towels. Oh, nice. When they get out of the pool. Yes. They can come
Alison: over to the towel table. Like it’s a resort.
Jill: That would actually be a really good job.
Alison: Congratulations. Nice job. And then my second job was from watching hammer throw. I want to be the divot star. Oh, okay. So the guy pulls the hammer out of the ground and then stomps the ground back down.
Jill: Okay. Okay. Also a good job. Somebody has pointed out to me that there is a good one in baseball. I have not seen it live myself because I have to, I need to go find a baseball game and just fast forward to where a relief pitcher would come in because they are in some of the professional parks.
And when a relief pitcher comes in, Into the game they’re coming in from their warmup area, which is in the outfield. So it’s a long ways for them to come and they have a little car that drives them. And I want, I might want to be the driver that drives a car. So thank you to the listener who pointed that out in the Facebook group?
The I, and I’m also infatuated with track and field. I would, but I can’t decide what I want. So since you were doing the divot, I would like to do the measuring. Um, we could work together. We could work together. The other cool thing about the divot. Well, maybe not the divot guy, there’s the person who puts the hammer into the autonomous robot car, who then the car goes back and delivers the hammer back.
But it’s cool how they put it in the car and they’ve got a whole little stand for the, the chain to go into. So it stays up nice or the wire to go into. So it stays upright and stay straight. I think that’s a cool
Alison: job. You totally left out the most important thing about. Relief pitcher cart. The pitcher sits in a seat shaped like a baseball glove.
He is crinkled
Jill: in the soft leather of the glove. It is also. And isn’t the, the floor of the car? A baseball field? Yes, it looks like a turf. Okay. Okay. All right. The fantasy league, how are we doing? Oh man. . Is doing it just, he’s running away with this one. He’s got 632 points jumping into second is India delight with 2 27.
Cole is at 200 and I’m at 1 97. I know I didn’t get my pics in. So I think I’m stuck with people who aren’t competing right now in our brackets. We are unchanged from yesterday, social astounds at one 10. And you and I are at 100. There might still be time to get in on all that action. If you want to play a little bit of fantasy, especially brackets, because now we’re getting into the good part of all of these tournaments and you can pick, you’d be able to pick like semi-finals and finals.
And, uh, maybe you could jump ahead, go to flame alive pod.com/tokyo for all of the details on how to enter. Okay. What’s up with Mike and Maya, Mike and Maya of the Toyota. Uh, first date commercial. Mike asks Maya. I w. In the school hallway, but he is actually in the hospital, but he is there in the hallway because he is on a rolling digital screen.
So we have a couple of theories here. We have one from listener, Nick who says, if Toyota could play this out during Beijing 2022, we will see Mike and Maya hauling a kid around to a skating rink in a Toyota Sienna. And then the kid grows up and gets on some Toyota mobility device. The Olympics in the future?
Alison: Well, no, this wouldn’t be at Beijing. This would have to be at like Brisbane 2032. Cause the kids in the commercial only 13, they could have a kid. Well, if the kid is going to the skating rink, we got to wait a few years. This could be a whole generational story of Mike and Maya from every games from now until 2040.
Jill: So if Mike and Maya, you think there are 13. I think [00:15:00] they’re 13. So they’d be like in their mid twenties. So that’s when you have the
Alison: wedding and then all the cans are tied to the, to the Toyota. Hmm. Cause we could have them going off to college together and say 20, 24, 20, 26.
Jill: I don’t think this relationship works.
And maybe I’m a Heather along with Heather and the sat and jacket, but I’m not sure. I think it’ll, I mean, they’re going to the school dance, but, and they’ve got soccer in common, but I’m not sure that like once they get to high school and they’re mixed with other middle schoolers around. The poll is much bigger.
Alison: Oh, I think this relationship has legs and a robot
and not a broken leg. I think this is a meet cute for the future.
Jill: Okay. All right. Well on that, if you have a theory on what is up with Mike and Maya, please let us know you can call or text us (208) 352-6348. That’s 2 0 8 4. Or get at us on the Facebook group. Before we get to today’s action. We’d like to tell you a little bit about our Kickstarter campaign, which if you’ve been listening to the daily shows, you know, okay.
It’s like, okay, we got it. You’re going to the Olympics and the Paralympics in Beijing. Surprise, you got media accreditations. Awesome. The more awesome thing is that we’ll be able to make a better podcast experience for you and give you all the details on what’s going on behind the scenes and what it’s really like on the ground at the Olympics and Paralympics, the problem is it’s going to be expensive and this is not something we had budgeted for.
This year and next year. So we need your help in getting there. Uh, we’ve put together a Kickstarter with some really cool rewards so that you can also take part in the fun. And today we to let you know, we today, we got our hotel bill for Beijing and we got the second I’ve already made a deposit on the Olympics hotel.
And we got bill number invoice, number two for Olympics, and we have invoice number one for Paralympics. And they’re both due on October 1st. And the Olympics one is almost $2,700.
Alison: And this is not a
Jill: luxury hotel. No, no, we’re definitely not living by IOC standards with five stars. It’s like, do you have anything?
You know, three stars is a luxury hotel for us, so we have our own bathroom. Right. So that gives you an idea of the cost that’s involved with this, and that’s just the hotel there’s flights. We were going to have to invest in some technology, especially with COVID. We’re probably going to need a special microphone that we can use to maintain distance and still get decent sound.
So we could really use your support with this. Check out our campaign at kickstarter.com/profile/a flame alive pod for more details. And I will let you. Your pet could be our mascot for one of the weeks of the games. And we are down to one mascot. So get in on that wall, it’s available because that’s going fast and we’ve got other great rewards as well.
Thank you so much for your support with this. We’re doing well. We’re about at 25% of the way. So if we can get to 50% by the end of the Olympics, I’d call him a little nerves, a little anxiety in this person. All right. Big day and artistic gymnastics.
Alison: Yeah, it was a fun day too. It was actually the best day of competition.
We have seen, there were clean performances. There was enthusiasm. It felt like the Olympics finally.
Jill: Nice. Nice. So D I didn’t, I only watched the women’s floor exercise and watched it all, and I watched it on mute. So I will let you know that. So I, I did see some of it, but I have not watched the whole thing, what happened.
Alison: Okay. So whenever you get to the apparatus finals, you start seeing countries that you don’t usually see in the team events or in the all around, but that didn’t necessarily make it on the podium. Oh this time around, but what was nice was in the men’s rings. We had two Chinese gymnast, top podium, and China has not had much of a say in this whole competition.
Jill: No. And if you look historically at China and gymnastic in men’s gymnastics, in the Olympics, they have had some very strong gymnast’s throughout time.
Alison: Yes. So this was a surprise. So. In the rings, you have Lu yang and you how we’re a gold and silver from China. And then the bronze went to Greece. Petron new yet.
Then you moved on to the floor exercise, and this was so much fun. You got all the ridiculous music that you expect from women’s floor exercise, lots of clean routines. And when Rebecca and stepped out of bounds, she was out of the metal race. Oh, that’s what, that’s what you see. [00:20:00] Right? So in a comeback performance, Jade, Carey, when the gold, she had a disastrous.
Performance yesterday. So that was nice. Reynosa Ferrari of Italy got the silver. And there was a tie for bronze with Murakami ma from Japan and angling a male Nicola from ROC.
Jill: Very nice. The
Alison: one thing they did not explain is there are two tiebreakers
Jill: cause they had to do that in the men’s competition at some point, correct?
Yes, it was
Alison: for pommel horse. Where they had to break a tie to go to the second tiebreaker. So I don’t know if they tied all the way down or if an apparatus finals, when it’s the bronze, they just let it go. That I’ll have to look into again, but there was rate performances that’s worth going back and watching.
And then men’s vault was the way men’s vault should be. It was. Gymnast flying all over the place, crazy tricks, but this was a fun, final. So shin J won of Korea when the gold Dennis ABL is and here’s the best one for our or a Sebastian Armenia when its first gymnastics medal, our territory VTN, uh, won the brown.
That’s exciting. I, you know, or is just jumping up and down on this one.
Jill: That’s exciting. So I want to share a fun fact. I learned while listening to a gymnastics podcast, I did not know this, but the men are required to click their heels, like all the time. So if you go back and watch the floor exercise, after every pass, they click their heels.
And at the end of every routine, when they dismount say off the pommel horse or dismount off of parallel bars, they have to click their heels and they also have to salute. And if they don’t, that’s a deduction and it’s only on the. I knew they had
Alison: to do the heel thing for the salute, but I didn’t realize it was during the program as well.
Jill: Go back and watch floor exercise. Cause then I know I did notice it yesterday and I forgot to mention it like, huh, they do click their heels after every pass, they don’t go home. And then you go, why is this a thing? This is just kind of a ridiculous rule. So, uh, one more day on artistic gymnastics.
Alison: Yes. And Simone Biles has said she is competing on the.
Jill: This will be interesting. And I wonder if her twisties are just for twists and her, she doesn’t have flippers.
Alison: Well, there’s less flipping on the beam. We talked about this yesterday, so we’ll see what her program looks like if she downgrades it.
Jill: Yeah, that’ll be interesting. So, uh, it should be an exciting being competition.
And then the men will be on,
Alison: we’ve got parallel and high ball. Hi bar is the best apparatus final. It is wild.
Jill: It is. I’m so excited to watch that. All right, moving over to artistic swimming. Plus Donnie, Jackie Semino is competing now and she is in the duet. They did their free routine. The prelims today, she and her partner, Claudia holster are in fifth place and they have the technical do what technical routine.
They looked so good. They look like you said before we started recording the announcers just loved them. So
Alison: this is sort of like I would say to the nineties where the, they do a lot of interpretive routines. So we had evil dolls. We had a Malik Waneya we had robots, we had samurai. We had exploding stars.
We had sharks that actually had fins on the top of their heads.
Jill: Goodness, wait, which team was that? The Greeks,
Alison: we had a Robin hood routine who was pretending to do the archery move.
Jill: In the water.
Alison: Yes.
Jill: Yeah. You know, that’s and that’s where artistic swimming people go. This is wacky athletics. Uh, we have some follow-up from book club, Claire, because Claire, I’m just apologizing to you now.
Cause I feel like we’re going to let you down on all the athletics coverage. I had this on. I had yesterday, I had, I was trying to catch. And so I was cooking dinner and catching up and then prime time started and prime to, I thought, oh, I’ll just go to prime time coverage and they’ll do the catch-up for me.
And no, they went straight to beach volleyball. So then I had to go back to the feed and the feed is so long and it is it’s long. It’s beautiful when you’re watching it, like. It’s really hard when you’re trying to play catch up on anything. So I’m playing catch up and also trying to watch like hammer throw qualifying, and it’s an end cooking dinner and it’s not working, but, um, Claire was telling us that pole from the mixed relay, which Poland.
Poland [00:25:00] is well known for their prowess in the middle distance, especially the women. So they’re in, and they’re incredibly good at relays. So she’s not, she wasn’t surprised that they won the mixed relay meant, uh, four, four by 400. She was more surprised that the Dominican. Placed well, so that was interesting.
Then the, I had mentioned the introduction for the women’s 100 meters and the, the big light show, which they also had for the men’s. She said that was something that was very similar to what happened at the last athletics world championships in Doha. And it’s called projection mapping. So things look like they pop up out of the ground when they’re actually not.
And they only do the big introduction for the final event of the night when everything else has done. So. Mess everybody else’s game up. So the field events get ignored because the final events always have running event. So thank you very much, Claire, for that explanation. Let’s see, we had a whole lot of action going on.
One thing I want to bring up before we get to finals in, in early, uh, in the first round of the women’s 200 meters, I was watching it and there was a runner who. Wor, uh, like leggings and like Capri leggings and a regular t-shirt or what looked like it could have been a, a sport shirt, but, uh, it was definitely not a form hugging tank top or half tank top.
Uh, running bikini shorts that many other athletes wear and w and she finished way behind everyone else. And I was like, who is that person? And that was, uh, she did finish last in her heat. Her name is Nazma Parveen she’s from Pakistan. She is Pakistan’s top female sprinter, and she’s the first female athlete from that country to represent Pakistan in two Olympics.
So this is her second. And I thought that was really interesting. She also, according to geo news, she apparently almost did not make it to Tokyo because the athletics Federation of Pakistan wanted to withdraw her entry without consent. But the Pakistan Olympic Federation managed to reenter her into the Olympic.
So little TIFF going on between the internet, the national Federation and the national Olympic committee over Nazma. So I kind of wonder what her, what it’s like for her running in these competitions. She’s she’s pretty good, but I think the heat may have got the humidity may have gotten to her more because she has better times than what she finished.
Alison: And it sounds like leading up to the games. There was a lot of
Jill: stress. Yeah, definitely. A men’s long jump happened. Gold went to Milky. Yadis tend to glow from Greece who had, did really well. And this was exciting to watch. And a silver went to one Miguel at Cheveria from Cuba and bronze went to Michael Maso from Cuba.
Silver and bronze for Cuba. It was, it was an exciting competition. Um, they also had a whole bunch of rain in Tokyo LA, uh, over in the evening. So I know that pole vault. Pushed back. I don’t know if it’s, uh, got totally postponed. So that was women’s pole vault call qualifying. I know that this has got delayed for a while, but they went back to it and finished it.
It might’ve been in the rain cause I saw a little hubbub on Twitter about, uh, why are they still holding the disc as competition when everything is well. In that disc is competition. USA’s Valerie almond won the gold Germany’s, uh, Kristin pedants won silver and Yemi Perez from Cuba. One bronze Bennett for Cuba.
It is a good night for Cuba and they had a great night in wrestling, too. And women’s 100 meter hurdles, uh, Jasmine Camacho Quinn for a one gold for Puerto Rico. This is a Puerto Rico’s second gold medal overall and their first in their Olympic history and their first golden athletics, which was a surprise to me.
Alison: I would think Puerto Rico would have been more successful.
Jill: Yeah, I don’t know, but I am surprised that there, there aren’t more runners from. Silver went to USA’s Kendra Harrison, who was thrilled to get the silver, you know, that was one of those like, oh, so excited to get the silver. I’m just shoot because she didn’t make Rio.
And. Uh, kind of expected to make the Rio team. And then Jamaica is Megan Tapper won the bronze in the men’s 3000 meter steeplechase Morocco’s one gold Ethiopia’s. Uh, Guillerma won silver and Kenya’s Benjamin Keegan one bronze. And in the women’s 5,000 meter, uh, Seifun Hasson from Netherlands won a gold Helen obituary from Kenya one.
[00:30:00] And Ethiopia is a good off CK, one Bronson in badminton. Women’s doubles action, uh, ended the gold, went to Indonesia’s team of, uh, Greg Pauly and raw. Who, who beat China’s chin, chin, chin, and , uh, two to zero, but honest to Pete. 2 cents to zero. Sounds like a blowout, but their gains were really close. Rallies were long.
They had a rally that went almost a minute. It sounds incredible. I do want to go back and have that on huge upset. Yes. Oh yes.
Alison: And the, if you watch nothing else, watch the Indonesians dance after they win. Oh.
Jill: I’m there for this. And then for the bronze metal Korea’s Lee. So he and shin soon, John defeated.
Korea’s Kim. So young and Kong. Hey, young too. Also too. Uh, the men’s singles tournament is also over and Victor oxytocin from Denmark, took the gold with a decisive to zero victory. He beat China’s Chen long and bronze went to Indonesia. Anthony seen the sukkah DJing thing who beat Guatemala’s Kevin cordon.
Tos is two to zero. I know. I want to see that too, because I do not think of Guatemala and badminton together. Denmark. Uh, you know, there has been, I sometimes read what’s going on in the badminton world, and I know there’s, there are a few Europeans who are near the top. So I don’t know if this was an upset or a, an outlet.
We expected this to happen, but this is surprising on paper, but I don’t think it’s as much of a surprise, but maybe that’ll be on the followup tomorrow because I’m going to be watching some badminton this afternoon. Baseball. We are in the knockout stage. So Korea defeated Israel, 11 to one in Japan defeated the U S 76.
Did you see any of this? No, neither did I. You know that seven to six, it’s the two baseball powerhouse countries. So that must have been a thrilling game to watch. Uh, the gold medal match will be Korea versus Japan and bronze will be us versus Israel. Well, I was going to say
Alison: these two matches will be very interesting to watch back to back because.
As we know many of the Israeli players are Americans. So you’ve got Korea and Japan, which will have a similar playing style. And then the U S and Israel, which will have a similar playing style, but are very different from each other. So the gold medal match, I think, will look very, very different from the bronze medal match.
Hm. So if you’re a baseball fan of the technical differences, I think this’ll be a fun back-to-back to watch.
Jill: Nice in basketball, the women finished up their group action and, uh, ended with Spain, U S N China, all undefeated. The quarter finals will be Australia versus USA, China versus Serbia, Japan versus Belgium and Spain versus France.
For the men, their quarter finals start tomorrow. So it’s Slovenia versus Germany, Spain versus USA, Italy versus France and Australia versus Argentina. And beach volleyball. We are in knockout stages and moving on to the quarterfinal for the women. It’s P uh, Canada’s Lavonne and Humana parodies versus Clancy, or Racho Del Solara from Australia, and then a lot vias crutch, Covina, and Gardena versus, uh, Canada’s Bensley and Wilkerson then Brazil’s and a Patricia and Rebecca will face Switzerland’s Heidrick and various Dupree.
And finally, Uh, cold soup and Ludvig from Germany will face off against Ross and climb in from the U S. In the men’s quarterfinal, it will be our OCS seminar, unless you cough versus molten. Sorum from Norway. Uh Latvia’s and, uh, touch us from a lot via we’ll face off against Brazil’s Alison and Alvaro. Uh, Qatar’s Sharif and Ahmed will face off against Italy’s Nikolai and Lupo and Germany is totally Tola and will face off against our OCS Crosland knockoff and a stone of us.
No.
Alison: And if I have to point it out, the Alison playing for Brazil is not me though. We do spell it the same way
Jill: canoe sprint started up and they were in heats and quarterfinals. And I’m only mentioning our, uh, we did have this on, in the background and watched a little bit, and you’re just watching kind of random races.
So I’m not sure what I saw, but we did see some women’s action. I think in kayak singles, these women are so. Oh, their upper bodies are just enormous. We wondered what their, [00:35:00] you know, how their lower bodies looked compared to the upper bodies, but they just look like they could crush you with their hands and or if not, they give the best hugs.
Cause they’re probably nice. So there will be more of that action. This week, track cycling started up. I watched this. I watched them too, and I had it on because you know why, and I’m just going to be glued to track cycling because they have a venue where they’re allowed to have fans, because, and this is a great story because they’re allowed to have 50% capacity.
The velodrome is out in easy it’s it’s far out from, uh, Tokyo. And when. The organizing committee was planning the venues. They were supposed to build a new velodrome and then the budget started blowing up and they said, you know what, we’re going to use this one out easy. And the cycling international Federation was not thrilled about it because the athletes wouldn’t be able to stay in the Olympic village and have that athlete experience.
However, now who’s laughing because they are pretty much the only sport that gets to have fans in the stadium. And I
Alison: think. Little mini village is probably way more normal than the main athletic village,
Jill: probably so, and it, and I think the, the downside is that they’ve just see all cyclists that they see all year round anyway.
So they don’t get the interaction with other sports, which is kind of a bummer, but they do get competition with spectators and you notice. So today we had the women’s team sprint event and gold went to China. So silver went to Germany and bronze went to ROC. What do you think?
Alison: I found this so calming to watch you, you know, when you talked about rowing, you said there was something Zen about watching the rowing.
I found this end with the one rider peeling off and coming around and just. And as smooth as cycling around the velodrome, of course, if somebody has an accident, it will ruin my Zen, but there was no accidents today. So it was just beautiful, beautiful cycling.
Jill: Nice. And, um, men also, their team pursuit had some qualifying action as well.
Um, they’re, they’re gonna, I like the races that are coming up because there’s different, different formats of races and they’re, they’re very interesting. So I would suggest tuning into tracks to track them. Um, over in a question and the inventing competition ended the team competition. Gold went to great Britain.
Silver went to Australia. Bronson, went to France, our Shukla Stoney, Philip Dutton and team USA finished sixth. And then in the individual competition, Germany’s Yulia, won the gold. Great. Britain’s Tom McEwen won silver and Australia’s Andrew Hoyer one bronze. No. Andrew Hoyt is now the oldest Olympic medalist for Australia.
He is age 62. This is his eighth Olympics. And we talked about him when we talked about the Australian inventing team in 1996 and we were amazed then, I mean, he just continues to amaze us, um, in the individual competition, our shirtless Donnie Phillip Dutton finished 21st. He had a lot of penalties on both rounds and the jumping.
So I think it just was not a great day for him.
Alison: Andrew Hoyt and Phillip Dutton used to be teammates because Phillip used to compete for Australia now competes for the U S and Phillip is in his seventh Olympics. So I wonder if they’re never going to retire as long as the other doesn’t
Jill: could be. I mean, but when we talked with Phillip, he said, well, I still got to make the team.
And he does not have any expectations, but I wouldn’t be surprised if both of them kept trying. It’s like a weekend
Alison: at Bernie’s where they just cross them up on the horse. I mean, obviously a question requires more than that, but because Andrew has got that one more Olympics and Philip they’re just constantly going to be competing too, so that Andrew stays one.
Jill: Right, right by 2032, it’ll be like Andrew here’s my cane. Put me on the horse. And then, and then he just flies as the most beautiful test. Amazing. Wow. Big action in and surprising results in the women’s semi-finals football tournament, Canada defeated the U S one to nothing. It was Marnie and her drum. Oh.
Oh, did you watch any of this? No. Okay. I also did not. I just saw a little bit of reaction, um, which was very surprising because the U S was highly expected to be in the finals if not get the gold. And they just did not have a very good tournament, I will say so far. We’ll see what happens. They will be playing Australia for bronze Australia, [00:40:00] lost to Sweden, one zero.
So Canada Sweden for the gold medal will be interesting. I bet Marnie will be there with the drum, like. In handball, we are done with a group play on the women’s side. Norway ended pool play as the only undefeated team. And they had a huge gold differential compared to the other teams. So they’re looking like the favorite going into the knockout stage.
First round of not, uh, the quarter finals will be Norway versus hungry Montenegro versus ROC France versus Netherlands and Sweden versus Korea on the men’s side. Five teams ended up with the top record of four and one. And the goal differential among them is really, really tight. So the knockout stage looks like it’s going to be really tough competition.
You’ll want to start watching handball. Now if you haven’t started already. Cause I know some of you have and the games have been really good when, when you have watched them. So men start their quarterfinal action tomorrow. It will be France versus bum rain, Germany versus Egypt, Sweden versus Spain and Denmark versus.
In hockey, the women had their quarter final match-ups Argentina defeated Germany, three, nothing. India defeated Australia, one zero Netherlands for a defeated New Zealand, three to zero and great Britain defeated Spain. They were tied to two at the end of regulation, but great Britain beat Spain to zero in a shootout.
I tuned into the shootout because I was happened to be looking at the BBC website and they were like, there’s a shootout happening now. And I quick flipped it over. That was exciting because you get, instead of like the shootouts in soccer, where you kick the ball and either the block of the goalie blocks it, or the ball goes into the net or, or over the net in hockey, you have eight seconds.
So you can hit the ball if the goalie blocks it and it comes back and play, you can try to hit it back in and get, get off the rebound. Yes. As long as it’s within that eight seconds, you could, you could shoot twice or more times, I guess, if, if you’re really fast and don’t make the goal. So that was really cool.
Somewhere in a followup file. And. Some somebody told me. And I’m really sorry. I can’t remember your name listener. Uh, the hockey pictures are apparently soaked on purpose. Cause I, I mentioned that when you see them, especially slow motion, you see water flying up. Whenever the, the players make, uh, try to make a big hit with.
Sticks. And that is to make the ball not so jumpy cause they’re on turf. So if the ball, the ball is hard and it hurts pretty bad, I guess when you get hit with it. And if the turf is wet, the ball doesn’t have that much action on the shooting range. It was the men’s twenty-five meter, rapid fire pistol event Francis, uh, John Key compar won gold cube.
Laura’s Popo when silver and Lee who hung from China, one at bronze. So again, Cuba, good day. And the 50 meter rifle, three positions for the men’s. Uh, it was, uh, China’s Zhang Changhong who won the gold with a world record and it’ll end in the Olympic record. Uh, silver went to ROC OCS Kamensky and bronze went to Serbia’s Malenka seven.
And table tennis. We are in the quarterfinal stage for the men’s and women’s team event. So in the men’s side, Korea defeated Brazil three, zero, and China defeated France three zero on the women’s side. Uh, Hong Kong defeated. Romania three, one Japan defeated Taipei three, zero tomorrow. We’re wrapping up the quarter-finals men will be Japan versus Sweden and Taipei versus Germany.
On the women’s side, it will be Korea versus Germany and China versus Singapore. And then there’s also going to be a women’s semifinal between Hong Kong and. Super excited to see that the volleyball tournament finished up its pool play. Uh, and the women’s side, four teams ended up with a foreign one record.
So again, really close match ups go into the knockout rounds. The quarter finals will be Poland versus France, Italy versus Argentina, Japan versus Brazil and Canada versus our own. Really the U S didn’t make it out
Alison: in either one and either the men’s or the
Jill: women’s really what happened.
Alison: It’s the first time in, I don’t know how many years the men’s haven’t made it, but yeah, it was just one of those tournament’s where they’ve they did not do.
Jill: And on the men’s side, uh, the leaders of the tournament after the pools are Poland and ROC there, their quarter finals [00:45:00] start tomorrow. It’ll be Canada versus ROC Japan versus Brazil, Italy versus Argentina and Poland versus France in water polo. Uh, we also are finishing up pool play here. So on the men’s side, Spain and Greece, top to the pool rankings.
And the men’s quarterfinals will be a USA versus Spain, Greece versus Montenegro, Italy versus Serbia and Hungary versus Croatia on the women’s side, USA and Spain ended up on the top of the pool rankings and their quarter finals start tomorrow, Canada versus USA, Spain versus China, Netherlands versus Hungary and Australia versus ROC.
I love the
Alison: med. Uh, countries that are involved because when we spoke to Tony Acevedo, now it’s a couple of years ago. It was basically, those are the countries where water polo is king
Jill: and he played professionally in one of them for many years. He played professionally
Alison: in more than one of them.
Jill: Alright in weightlifting, we had competitions from the women’s 87 kilos and the women’s over 87 kilos competitions in the women’s 87 kilos.
Goldwind to China’s one shoe show you silver went to Ecuador’s. A Tamara Yahara, Salazar, RSA and bronze went to the Dominican Republic. Chris Mary Domingo Santana . In the over 87 kilograms, gold went to China’s Lee. When, when, who had a, just, I saw a good chunk of this one, she lifted 18 kilos, more than second place in the snatch and 19 kilos, more than second place in the clean and jerk.
It was. Beyond what you think
Alison: beyond a natural human
Jill: possibility. I don’t know. And I’m going to hopefully, and not speculate, but that really like send up a lot of red flags to me, but maybe she’s just that strong naturally. Okay. I don’t know, but, uh, silver went to Emily, Jade Campbell from great Britain who had a fierce hair game going on.
She had her hair in, uh, two buns and then one side of her head was red and the other side was blue for the British flag. It looked really good and she was really happy up there. And then bronze went to the U S is Sarah. Uh, this is the, uh, category where the trend were transgender lifter. Laura Laurel Hubbard from New Zealand was competing in.
So I saw an inside the games that this event was just jammed with requests for media to go to. ’cause they wanted to see it. And she ended up failing in all three of her lifts in the snatch person. So she was a, did not finish. And of course, because she didn’t, didn’t complete a lift in the snatch. She couldn’t move on to the clean and jerk.
And she did, I, she did have one lift that looked like it was going to be okay. And two out of the three judges ruled that a no lift. In wrestling. We had a lot home. My gosh, we watched a lot of wrestling yesterday and it was a really exciting, really, really good in the men’s, uh, Greco, Roman 60 kilos. We had gold went to.
Cuba’s uh, Louis Alberto auto Sanchez. Silver went to Japan for me to Kenny chiro and bronzes went to China’s Wiley, hon asylum, the gay and ROC Sergey Emelyn in, in the men’s Greco, Roman 130 kilos. Finals, which honestly you should, you should go back and watch this because, uh, Mian Lopez Nunez from Cuba one.
This is a for Pete. He has won gold in the last four Olympics. This is his fifth Olympics overall. He’s just an amazing, amazing wrestler. And he beat a Jacobi cause Jaya from Georgia. Uh, and then the bronzes went to Turkey’s Risa, uh, Kai up and, uh, ROC Sergey seminar on the women’s side, it was the, uh, 76 kilos in the freestyle event.
And this was so sad. I watched,
Alison: this is the only one that I watched.
Jill: It was, it was Adeline gray from us was so strong in all of her matches, leading up to the finals and she looked so confident coming out into the finals and then just, she was up against alien, uh, roter, Falken [00:50:00] from Germany. And for some reason, She didn’t have it.
She’d go for attacks. And then Elena would just use that against her and score a point. And
Alison: at 1.0,
Jill: yeah, it was, it was really rough. And if aniline had gotten one more point, that would have been it. Uh, but. Just wasn’t the match we’d hoped. It would be because Adeline was really gunning. She had not gotten out of the quarterfinals at Rio was really disappointed and use that to fuel her, to get to a better position in here in Tokyo.
And we knew she was gunning for gold, but we just felt so deflated when she won silver. And I feel bad saying. Because silver is a huge achievement, but hopefully she’ll find the silver lining to this match.
Alison: This match reminded me very much of the Japan, USA softball final, where AYLIEN Rotter, FOC, and just was better on that day.
Yes. You know, it wasn’t that Adeline graded anything wrong or wasn’t as good as she could be. It was just the German. Was that tiny bit better. And there’s nothing you can do. She didn’t
Jill: fail. No, no, by no means it was, it was, it was tough, but yeah, it was, uh, uh, uh, another good bout and man, Ilene Rotter, fucken, she looked really.
And tough, tough, tough, tough competitor. Bronze is on that. One, went to China’s Xiao, Chiang and turkeys. Yasmin ADA. Okay. Shukla, ston watch for tomorrow. Got a little
Alison: bit going. So Alex honcho begins. Greco-Roman wrestling for the 67 kilos size Deanna price. We’ll have her finals for hammer throw and Jacqueline Semino.
We’ll be back with Claudia hoes, Nour for the. Technical routine in artistic swimming.
Jill: Well, it’s going to be exciting day tomorrow as well. We would like to take a minute to give a shout out to all of our Patrion patrons who support us with ongoing financial contributions and they really help keep our flame alive.
If you would like to give money on an ongoing basis, check out patrion.com/flame alive pod. So as we say, Sianora getting excited big day ahead.
Alison: I need a nap and some tea, and I won’t drink any of my Saki in public
Jill: as always. You can email us@flamealivepodatgmail.com, text or voicemail us at 2 0 8 3 5 2 6 3 4 8.
That’s 2 0 8. Don’t forget our Kickstarter and help us reach our goal of bringing you on the ground coverage at Beijing in 2022, 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, if the flame alive, .