On today’s recap of all of the action from the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, we welcome Superfan Sarah as our guest co-host! Sarah and Jill give the lowdown on the results from today’s 15 sports. Also, you should be watching goalball.
Today’s sport program includes:
- Archery
- Athletics
- Cycling – Track
- Equestrian
- Judo
- Powerlifting
- Rowing
- Sitting Volleyball
- Swimming
- Table Tennis
- Wheelchair Basketball
- Wheelchair Fencing
- Wheelchair Rugby
- Wheelchair Tennis
We need your help! For the upcoming Winter Olympics and Paralympics in 2022, we’ll have an on-the-ground presence. This will allow us to bring you an Olympics audio experience like no other. But getting to Beijing will be difficult, so we’ve got a Kickstarter campaign running to help get us there. Please check it out and support our efforts to bring you a better show. Thank you for your support!
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
Tokyo 2020 – Paralympics – Day 4
Jill: [00:00:00] Konichiwa, Paralympics fans and lovers of TKFLASTAN. Welcome to day four coverage of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics on “Keep the Flame Alive,” the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. I am your host Jill Jaracz, joined today by a new voice. Cause my lovely co-host Alison Brown is taking her daughter to college today. So filling in for us is Team USA’s number one fan, Superfan Sarah. Sarah, konichiwa.
Sarah: Konichiwa!
Jill: Thank you so much for joining us.
Sarah: Thank you for having me.
Jill: How has your Paralympics been?
Sarah: It’s been good. I think like everybody else, it’s been a struggle with trying to stay on top of watching everything. It is certainly different than watching the Olympics a few weeks ago, but I am grateful that we’re in Paralympic season.
Sarah: I feel like we’re seeing more and more fans that are being made of Paralympic sports. And so yeah, it could be better with being able to watch more, but so far what I’m able to see has been great.
Jill: Excellent. You know, today I was like, oh, there’s more sports, there’s more sports starting. This is going to be so exciting. And then I start watching athletics and go, oh, there’s more sports starting. There’s 168 metals in athletics alone. And that it is a lot. So a lot of reasons, which is awesome, also means a lot of coverage, a lot of understanding of classifications.
Jill: So hopefully we can help walk you through all that as well. Some news and from the followup file, I totally forgot to talk about this uniform issue from the wheelchair rugby game of USA versus Canada. Did you watch that game?
Sarah: I did. I saw just a little bit of it, and then I went back and watched the highlights, but yeah, the uniform [00:02:00] issue. That happened,
Jill: it did happen. I looked at that and went, oh, that’s Navy versus black. That’s not a good, that’s like a referee’s worst nightmare because you can’t tell anybody apart. And I have officiated some games that have been pretty bad. I had my worst experience was like two grays. I’ve also officiated black and yellow versus yellow and black. That was fun too.
Sarah: Yeah, it, it was interesting how, and I will say this game, it’s on the highlights. I went back and looked at highlights this morning. There’s like a six minute recap and it is pretty funny. Cause even the announcer is like, and now one team is back in white jerseys.
Jill: I was glad listener Patrick from Green Bay noted on Twitter. He was like, oh, they’re wearing white jerseys now. Somebody got told to change. Nobody’s making that mistake again.
Jill: Power lifting. I saw some power lifting! That was super exciting! One lift, just like Alison said, the highlights. They showed highlights and it was one lift, but it did answer a question. This was in the 49 kilogram class, and the gold medalist from Jordan Qarada lifted 173 kilograms and the silver medalist Vietnam’s le van Cong also lifted the same, but Qarada won, because he had a lower body weight. So that’s how they determined the tiebreaker. That was really interesting.
Sarah: That is interesting.
Jill: Some news. One of the self-driving buses in the village hit a visually impaired Paralympian. You shake your head and go, how did that happen? But it did. The Asahi Shimbun reported this. There were a few athletes in the bus and as well as two operators who were watching what was going on and the bus was turning right into a crosswalk and the athlete was there.
Jill: They thought the athlete would have known that there was a bus coming and would have stopped crossing the street. [00:04:00] And the athlete did not know there was a bus coming and did not stop. It’s really in a way it’s just like really? It’s interesting what you don’t think of. And maybe operators didn’t know, or I’m not sure the bus knows what to do with a visually impaired person, especially if they weren’t walking with a cane or anything, but even if they were, would the bus have known what to do in time?
Jill: The athlete in question is Japanese judoka Aramitsu Kitazono, who is scheduled to compete in the 81 kilogram division on August 28th, except for they believe he, his injuries will require two weeks to recover. So speedy recovery for him.
Sarah: Yeah. That’s so sad. Well, and, I know that everything’s exciting with technology and the self-driving bus and that brings in all of those potential issues, but it’s really sad that it happened in Tokyo, which I want to be careful how I say this because I am able-bodied, so I’ve not been in someone else’s shoes, but from my experiences in Tokyo, it’s a city that is very courteous. Like they have birds chirping at crosswalks to tell people when to walk in case they can’t see the crosswalks, they have little bumps on the street guiding people where to go.
Sarah: And so the fact that this happened in the Tokyo Paralympic village, just what a gut punch.
Jill: Yeah. Yeah. So get well soon and hopefully he’ll still be able to compete. I got some beefs on a feed and since Alison is not here, I’m threatening to turn this into a daily segment.
Sarah: Oh no. Oh no.
Jill: So I have some beefs on the feed and we heard some beefs from a listener.
Jill: I was watching broadcast most of the time. We had a feed going early on in the Tokyo day. But when I got up at the end of the Tokyo day, I was basically catching up on all the broadcast that was on my DVR. And they had some wheelchair tennis. And I was so excited because I like watching wheelchair tennis, [00:06:00] and it was a match between Japan’s Sanada and Netherlands’ Anker.
Jill: Sanada was up one set to nothing. And he was up in the second set four to one and they got to deuce in the sixth game of the set. And in the middle of a point, they cut away to athletics to watch the finals of the women’s hundred meter, T 35 race. Mid point! Mid point! And I think if I went back and watched carefully, the point was kind of ending as they faded out, but it still the score, went to advantage for one of the players. So it’s not like the game was over. Do you have any feed beefs?
Sarah: Well, there’s that I feel like, I feel
Jill: I’m dragging you into this!
Sarah: I know, I know. I mean, part of me is like, Ooh, Alison’s away. What kind of super powers do I have to complain about the feed all day, but no, I mean, yeah, it’s frustrating. I don’t really know what else to say other than that.
Sarah: That, yeah, there’s times that, you know, I was watching that wheelchair tennis game and you know, here we are saying, Oh, yay. All this coverage. And then that happens. And why would someone keep watching? What if they’re really into the game? And it’s so hard to imagine that it’s impossible to have a split screen.
Sarah: Like we’ve seen it happen with other sports where they can go back. They can say, Hey, well this is going on. Look at what’s happening on the track and go back and forth. At least circle back and give us an update or something. So yeah, it’s frustrating.
Jill: Yeah. The split screen is a great idea because they did have introductions and you know, that the run up to any kind of sprint on the track is a good two to three minutes. Cause there’s introductions; they’re getting ready. They get into position and all this stuff. You could have shown at least the end of the game. And like you say, when you, when you talk about [00:08:00] impossibility that it’s a nice segue. If we got a lovely email from listener Jim who noted the irony of Toyota’s Nothing is Impossible campaign, especially with using Bebe Vio as one of the athletes in the campaign, and nothing’s impossible, except for when you’re trying to watch powerlifting and wheelchair fencing and TaeKwonDo. And he mentioned that he and his seven-year-old son were really upset not to watch, be able to watch TaeKwonDo because they watched it in the Olympics and really loved it and wanted to keep watching for the Paralympics.
Jill: So you know, OBS, IPC, if you’re watching, you’re crushing children’s dreams, but he and listener Brandon from Australia have noted that there’s fencing available in Australia. So at least in the US we might see some VPN action happening.
Jill: All right. Time for What Officiating or Volunteer Job Would You Like to Have? Have you thought about that?
Sarah: Yes, I have. So I was ready. I was ready to come in with my job, but Alison took it yesterday.
Sarah: I want to be a medal assistant too. Cause you know me, I love watching people’s dreams come true. And so getting to be that up close and personal with watching their dreams come true, even if I can’t touch their medals. I mean, that’d be really great. But the other thing, okay. So in wheelchair rugby. They have someone on the sidelines that looks to be sitting by the rugby ball. And I guess that that’s the spare. Maybe they disinfect it. I need to keep watching, but this morning when I was watching games from overnight I noticed this just one person sitting by herself with the ball and it’s like, she’s protecting the ball and I want to be her.
Sarah: I want to be ready to give the ball when they call upon me to deliver the ball to the game.
Jill: I love it. I will stay on the disinfection train with you. Because when I was watching judo, [00:10:00] they had a break and they had to disinfect the tatami mats. So what happens is there’s a one or two people that have like sprayers.
Jill: They have a, a container spray that they kind of hold on their shoulder and then like a little wand that they then spray the whole mat with. And then there’s people behind them who come and sweep up the spray and mop the floor and make sure it’s all spread out and nice and clean. When I saw that disinfection, I thought immediately that you could make that into a dual thing because it looked a lot like how they make curling ice.
Jill: And you could probably parlay that experience as a disinfecting sprayer into a career or a volunteer career of learning how to make curling ice. Because when they go to pebble the ice, the pebbles get made from the spray that comes out of the wand and they spray it just the same.
Sarah: That’s a really smart idea.
Sarah: I will say, in light of recent events, aside from a sporting event, I think my volunteer position would be, I want to be on the automated buses and make sure no one gets hit.
Jill: I think all the operators are now learning a new lesson that if there’s somebody who looks like they might be crossing the street, they might be actually gonna cross the street and not stop. So I think everyone’s getting a little extra training today.
Jill: Okay, before we get to today’s action, we’d like to remind you about our Kickstarter campaign. We are accredited to go as media for the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing. And that is very exciting. It’s coming up very soon, which is a little scary for us.
Jill: This has been a goal of ours as a podcast to become accredited, and really, the plan was to be able to do that in hopefully 2024 or 2026 because the accreditation process is very, very competitive. So we were surprised to get it so early. And what’s also surprised is our budget because it’s quite expensive to go there.
Jill: And we’re, as an independent podcast, we really rely on listener support to make this show [00:12:00] happen, so we’re having a special campaign to fund our to help fund our trip to Beijing. And we need your support. You can find out more about the campaign, check out our fabulous supporter bonuses. You can-we’re sending postcards from the games. You can be a producer and tell us where to go and what sports to cover for a day and much more. Check it out at kickstarter.com/profile slash, flame alive pod. And thank you to everybody who’s already given so far. We are at 40%, which is fantastic. That means that so much to us. So thank you. And please, if you haven’t supported, please consider doing so.
Jill: Do it, do
Sarah: it, do it. I feel like, I feel like I can shamelessly plug even more because I’m not going to Beijing, not part of this other than being a supporter, but seriously, everyone support, support.
Jill: Thank you. And, and we’ve noted that there’s really not much Paralympic coverage, especially in the podcast space so I think we’re kind of unique in these doing these daily recaps and being there would make this so much better and it’ll be a really great experience for you and make a better show.
Jill: So we’d love to have better Paralympic coverage and hopefully we can make that happen.
Jill: Okay. We are up to a 15 sport day, which on the Olympic side, I would go, oh, that’s nothing. Now I’m starting to think of, oh, like you said, smaller sporting number, smaller sporting program, but larger number of events.
Jill: So, whoa, hold onto your hats folks. Archery started up today with a ranking rounds for the individual events. So in Paralympic archery, we have two different kinds of bows. You have the recurve bow, which if you watch during the Olympics, that’s the bow you’re used to seeing.
Jill: There’s also a compound bow, which has mechanical pulleys and telescopic sights and release aids. So that is really cool to watch as well. Classification wise, the sport breaks out into [00:14:00] two classes for competition. There’s a W1, which is a wheelchair class where the competitors have impairment in all four limbs and they use a wheelchair, but you’ll also see in what they call the open class, athletes who will be in wheelchairs. They have a lesser degree of impairment and they compete with other types of abilities. So that is one to watch for.
Jill: Athletics. Oh boy. Okay. Day one of athletics just reminded– part of me was like, oh, athletics is starting! Look at all the feeds we get, you know, because they have separated throwing feeds, which I love because the throwing sports on broadcast television tend to get overshadowed by the track events.
Jill: So I was very excited about that. And then when I started to put stuff together for the show, I went, oh yeah, this one’s really hard to keep organized. So bear with us for a couple of days while we get our stuff together and make sure we figure out how to recap this the best way we can. So we had the events with medals. Men’s 5,000 meter T 11 class. This is a visual impairment. So the runners run with guides. Did you watch this? Cause I watched this. I just want you to–
Sarah: We did! Yes, even my little one, Wilson, who I know I post about him too much, but even he was cheering, saying, run, run, run, and yeah, it was a family affair. We were watching and I learned something new. I didn’t realize that because of the length of this race, they can switch their guides in the middle of the race.
Jill: I didn’t know that either. Cause I saw when they were doing the introduction, they had guides and like, why do they have two guides? Cause there’s only one there. And then at the end of the race, because we also had a stream of judo going on, so I’m looking back and forth. Cause it’s 5,000 meters. It’s pretty long. And at the end I look at it, I’m like, wait a second. Those guides, aren’t the ones that were at the beginning of the race, what happened?
Jill: And I had to rewatch it because yeah, they switch out in the middle of the race and it was [00:16:00] kind of hard to tell, but you got to see a couple of the swaps if you watched the broadcast. That was fascinating. And yeah, I wonder how that works because it seems like it’s so hard to, to get a guide in the first place, much less two guides. But I think like if I knew I was only running two and a half K you don’t have to be as fast for as long, if that makes sense.
Sarah: Yeah. It was really interesting because I got really interested in this whole guide swap situation. Okay, so I was reading about Karasawa from Japan and how he has just a consistent distance runner as a guide for the first part of his race, and then towards the end, he switches it out so that the second guide helps him basically sprint to the finish. So it’s someone who he knows is strategically going to help him have a really fast finish.
Jill: That is so interesting. Wow. I have more thoughts on this. I think I just don’t know how to phrase them yet, but that was that’s really cool.
Jill: And I’m looking forward to watching the women’s too, because now I know what to look for. And it is interesting how you have a guide that can kind of push you, but they also have to make sure they don’t get ahead of you. And that’s, that’s always interesting to see at the end of the race. And I noticed this throughout the race too, because the guides have to stay a little bit behind the runner and because of runner has to direct or lead the action.
Jill: And so at the end, it’s really noticeable because they have the little straps on their wrists and they’ve really stretched out because the athletes taking charge and really going over the finish line first. So I’m really curious about this. In the results gold went to Yeltsin, Jacques from Brazil and his guides were Laurindo Nunez Neto, and Carlos Antonio dos Santos. Silver went to Japan’s KarasawaKenya with guides Mogi Hiroakiand Kobayashi Koji, and [00:18:00] bronze went to Japan’s Wada Shinya with guides Yajima Kengo and Hasebe Takumi.
Jill: We had the women’s 100 meter T 35 class. The T 35 class, the runners have some affectation in their legs and sometimes they have movement or coordination issues to a low degree in their trunk and arms. When you watch these runners, they get up to speed because they’re using shorter, faster strides, and wow, you know, who had a fast stride was China’s Zhou Xia who got a world record. She just blew everyone out of the water. Did you see this one too?
Sarah: I did. Yeah. It was impressive.
Jill: Yeah. And silver went to Australia’s Isis Holt, who got an area record, and bronze went to Great Britain’s Maria Lyle.
Jill: In the women’s Shot Put, the F 41 class, which is for athletes with short stature. Another world record world. Records were dropping like crazy in the track arena. And gold went to Tunisia’s Raoua Tlili and silver went to Columbia’s Mayerli Buitrago Ariza who got an area record and bronze went to Argentina’s Antonella Ruiz Diaz, who got a personal best. And I love it when athletes get their personal best at the Paralympics.
Jill: In the long jump we had T 11 class, which is four jumpers with near total vision impairment. On the women’s side gold went to Brazil’s Silvania Costa de Oliveira. Silver went to Uzbekistan’s Asila Mirzayorova, and bronze went to Ukraine’s Yuliia Pavlenko. In the men’s competition, gold went to China’s di Dongdong. Silver, went to USA’s Lex Gillette, who’s gotten silver, multiple Paralympics and has been pushing for gold. So that’s probably some frustration for him, although it’s a silver medal.
Sarah: Yeah, I think what is it? Since Athens he’s gotten a silver medal every time. I’m going to [00:20:00] double check that, but I think it’s been since happens.
Jill: But I do like watching him because his sports assistant yells fly, fly, fly, because the assistant’s there to give them cues when they’re getting close to the takeoff pad. And I just love that cue of flying.
Sarah: I did just confirm since ‘ 04 It’s been Athens.
Jill: Wow. All right, Lex, do you got another three years in you?
Sarah: He’s so great though.
Jill: Oh, he is great. And bronze went to France’s Ronan Pallier. In the men’s javelin throw the F 38 class, for field athletes with coordination and movement effected to a low degree in the lower trunk and legs or down one side or the whole body. So these athletes have to compensate for their asymmetry and slightly reduced coordination of muscle movement. And by the way, thank you to LEXI for the lovely descriptions of the classes. This is really helpful.
Jill: The gold went to Columbia’s Jose Gregorio, Lemos Rivas, who had a world record. Silver went to Ukraine’s Vladyslav Bilyi, who had an area record, and bronze went to Columbia’s Luis Fernando Lucumi Villegas.
Jill: In the men’s Shot Put F 55 class. F 55 is for field athletes who have movement effected to a high degree in the legs or they don’t have any legs.
Jill: So they generate their power through an almost full range of body and arm movement and are close to optimum sitting height when they release their throwing implement. So in the men’s shot put gold went to Brazil’s Wallace Santos who got a world record. Silver went to Bulgaria’s Ruzhdi Ruzhdi, and bronze went to Poland’s Lech Stoltman.
Jill: In the women’s discus throw also F 55 class. Gold went to China’s Dong Feixia, who had an area record. Silver went to Latvia’s Diana Dadzite. And bronze went to Mexico’s Rosa Maria Guerrero, Cazares. And I [00:22:00] believe listener Patrick from Green Bay also noted that when they compete, they throw all their throws at once in this class.
Sarah: Yeah. I didn’t see this one either, but that’s really interesting.
Jill: Back on the track. We had the women’s 200 meter T 37 event, and T 37 class is for athletes who have movement and coordination on one side of their body. And it can be moderate, so there’s a lot of asymmetry that they have to compensate for in their start and stride and overall power distribution. In this race, gold went to China’s Wen Xiaoyan, who got a world record. Silver went to China’s Jiang Fenfen, who got a personal best, and bronze went to France’s, Mandy Francoise-Elie.
Jill: And then the men had a T 37 race for the 100 meters. Gold went to US’ Nick Mayhugh, who got a world record. I think he broke his own world record. It was impressive. That was an impressive race to watch. Silver went to RPCs Andrei Vdovin, who got in area record, and bronze went to Indonesia’s Saptoyoga Purnomo, who also got an area record and was thrilled to like, it was one of those where it was a close finish. So I always love it when you have close finishes and you see, well, it’s heartbreaking for the people who don’t get the medal, but it’s exciting when somebody realizes, oh, I did it. I got the me so good for you.
Sarah: Yeah, that was, that was a good race. And I know, Nick Mayhugh, he’s kinda making a splash. I’m seeing him a lot on social media and whatnot, but it is really cool that he started as a Paralympic soccer player. And then I think it was only two to three years ago, he started seeing if he could sprint and working out pretty well for him!
Jill: Moving over to the men’s 100 meter T 47 events. So this is arm impairments. Gold went to Brazil’s, Petrucio Ferreirados Santos, who got a Paralympic record. Silver went [00:24:00] to Poland, Michel Derus, who got an area of record, and bronze went to Brazil’s Washington Junior. It was really fun cause Washington Junior was one of the favorites in this race and he was really excited and you could see him dancing a little bit before the start and then he was excited to get bronze, but he just really loved celebrating with Petrucio.
Jill: In the men’s 400 T 52 class T 52 is –oh! I saw this race too. This was a wheelchair track athlete who has movement affected to some degree in the upper body and pretty severe degree in the trunk and the legs. So you know, I want to know how, and I know this is really basic, but I do want to know like what the skill is to turn a wheelchair on a track and what racing a wheelchair on a track versus on a road feels like, and I get that if you’re road cycling, you’re also going to turn in different directions, but I, I don’t know why I’m kind of really fixated on that, that mechanical stuff.
Sarah: Yeah, no, I hadn’t considered that, but now I’m super interested in that. That’s a really good question.
Jill: And do you have to watch your wheels and swap them out? Because one, if you’re always turning left, does one wheel get worn out more than the other?
Sarah: Huh. Well, if we have anyone who’s listening who has experience in this, please let us know because I’m going to go down. I guarantee you, when we’re off of this, I’m going to go down a rabbit hole and start researching this. Gotta call. Taylor Taylor!
Jill: Yeah. Right. How does this work?
Jill: So gold went to Japan Sato Tomokiwho got a Paralympic record. This was a fun race because you thought that USA’s Raymond Martin was going to win it. And again, this was like the swimming race I saw yesterday where the hometown athletes said, no, no, no, not in my house. And just put on [00:26:00] another speed gear and rolled away with gold. Bronze went to Japan’s Ueyonabaru Hirokazu.
Jill: In the men’s Shot Put F 37 category. So this is seated again. Gold went to RPCs Albert Khinchagov, who got a personal best. Silver went to Tunisia’s Ahmed Ben Moslah, who got an area of record, and bronze went to Brazil’s Joao Victor Teixeira de Souza
Jill: And in the women’s club throw the F 32 class, which is for athletes who have movement and coordination effected to a high degree in the trunk and the legs. And they also have some affected parts of their arms and hands as well. They throw while seated and they achieve consistency through overcoming involuntary muscle movements, which I want to go back and find this because I, it, you know, it’s a new event to me, club throwing. Gold went to Poland’s Roza Kozakowska who got a world record. Silver went to Ukraine’s Anastasiia Moskalenko, who got a personal best. And bronze went to Algeria’s Mounia Gasmi. And that ends athletics for day one.
Sarah: Well done. Well done on the pronunciations.
Jill: Okay. Moving over to the velodrome, we had a lot of time trials today, and a couple of individual pursuits in the women’s C 1-3, 500 meter time trials, gold went to Australia’s Amanda Reed. Silver went to Netherlands’ Alyda Norburis, and bronze went to China’s Qian Wangwei. In the men’s C 1-3 class, 1000 meter time trial race, gold went to China’s Li Zhangyu,silver went to France’s Alexandre Leaute, and bronze went to Great Britain’s Jaco van Gass.
Jill: One thing I noticed from yesterday, we talked a little bit about adapted time. It’s called factor time. So because they’ve combined all these classes athletes who they, they factor in a time or they give a little [00:28:00] percentage extra to an athlete who’s in class with more impairments. So that was kind of interesting to see the factor time. Something I still need to master understanding how the factors come in, but that’s how they can combine classes and have a one big race.
Jill: In the women’s C 4-5 class 500 meter time trials, gold went to Great Britain’s Kadeena Cox, who got a world record. Silver went to Canada’s Kate O’Brien, and bronze went to Netherlands’ Caroline Groot.
Jill: In the men’s C4 4,000 individual pursuit. Gold went to Slovakia’s Jozef Metelka. Silver went to Romania’s a Carol-Eduard Novak, and bronze went to Colombia’s Diego German Duenas. And finally in the men’s C5, 4,000 meter individual pursuit. Gold went to France’s Dorian Foulon, silver went to Australia’s Alistair Donohoe, and bronze went to Ukraine’s Yehor Dementyev.
Jill: Equestrian, more individual testing. Did you see any equestrian?
Sarah: That one, I did not get around to it.
Jill: Do you have Alison’s love of the dressage?
Jill: I don’t love it as much as she does, but I do enjoy it. It was in my queue this morning, and I just didn’t get it.
Jill: I hear you. I am enjoying the more I learn about the dressage, the more I enjoy it.
Jill: So today we had individual tests. Again, this was Grade I and Grade III. So athletes in Grade I have severe impairments that affect all the limbs in the trunk, and athletes in Grade III have severe impairments in both legs with minimal or no impairment of the trunk, or they have moderate impairment of the arms and legs and trunk. So the impairments allow them to use compensating aids to help them guide their horses. And that’s important to know when we get to Grade III.
Jill: In the Grade I individual test, gold went to USA’s Roxanne Trunnell, who is riding Dalton. Silver went to Latvia’s Rihards Snikus who is on King of the [00:30:00] Dance. And bronze went to Italy’s Sara Morganti who is riding Royal Delight. In Grade III, gold went to Tobias Thorning Jorgensen, who is riding Jolene Hill. Silver went to Great Britain’s, Natasha Baker, who is riding Keystone Dawn Chorus, and bronze went to Netherlands’ Rixt van der Horst, who is riding Findsley.
Jill: So, Ireland’s Kate Kerr-Horan competed with incorrect compensating aids. So she got a penalty of 10 percentage points that got deducted from her final total. And she ended up finishing last because of it, but it looked like the 10 points would have bumped her up only a couple of places overall. But now I definitely want to go back and see what this do is all about.
Jill: Goalball action. I watched a little bit of this, but it was watching men’s Japan versus USA. Oh man. That was a tough match to watch if you’re American. If you’re Japanese, wow! What a great match!
Sarah: Exactly.
Jill: Because Japan beat the US 11-1. That was a game. Also on the men’s side, Belgium defeated Turkey, six to four, China defeated Ukraine, seven to three, Brazil defeated Algeria, 10 to four. On the women’s side, Japan and Brazil tied at four all. China defeated Australia 6-0and USA defeated Egypt 10 to zero.
Sarah: Yeah. If you haven’t watched goalball yet, you need to watch goalball. My family is hooked and I’ve watched goalball before and found it fascinating. But the other night, this is just a little story I have to share. My husband who, you know, he likes the Olympics and Paralympics, but we know who is the real fan in the house. He was about to go to bed and I had goalball on and he stopped and looked at it. And the next thing I know, he is sitting on the couch, getting really into it. And I mean, even yelling a little bit where I thought he was going to wake up the kid. And so if you’ve not given [00:32:00] goalball a chance, give goalball a chance. You might get hooked. It’s fun to watch. And I know that we’ve that you guys have already talked about on podcast, but knowing that they are blindfolded and that even if they don’t have a vision impairment, everyone is blindfolded. So that it’s a level playing ground, and it’s just fascinating to watch and to imagine what it must be like to play.
Jill: I know, and, and watching yesterday really got me in the, I would like to learn how to play goalball, or at least try it once or twice, because I know you, you look at it and go, how hard is it to stop a ball? And you’ve got three of you, so you’re stretched out and you know, how is this possible to get a ball into the goal?
Jill: But I know that once you actually get on the floor, it has to be so complicated and mean, you see the athletes with their fingers all taped up, you know, it’s a tough sport. And I think it would be fun to try it, probably really, really fun to play. So yeah. Goalball is where it’s at so far.
Jill: Judo started up last night, which meant a lot of judo feeds going on in my house, including, okay. So there’s one point when they took the break to disinfect the mats, somebody who was running the camera, put their hands in front of the camera. And it was like, they gave a thumbs up and then they just put their hand. I think they were probably testing levels or something, but it’s just like, Hey, what’s, what’s going on there? You still got the feed on.
Sarah: Excuse me.
Jill: Right. And judo is all visual impairments. In the women’s 48 kilo class gold wentto Azerbaijan’s Shahana Hajiyeva,silver went to France’s Sandrine Martinet, bronze went to RPC’s Viktoriia Potapova and Ukraine’s Yulia Ivanytska. This is another sport that’s got the double bronzes.
Jill: So that’s why we have two. I watched the gold medal match and it went into golden score, which is what they call overtime. And overtime is as long as it takes for somebody to score. And [00:34:00] the commentators were talking about France’s Sandrine Martinet, and how her fitness was so much better than, Shahana Hajiyeva’s, and you could tell Hajiyeva was just like huffing and puffing. And Martinet was just like, this is nothing. I could go for like 10 more minutes. Bring it.
Sarah: Wow.
Jill: But Hajiyeva managed to get a score and that’s how judo works. It’s over in the blink of an eye. So that was a fun match to watch.
Jill: In the men’s 60 kilos gold went to Azerbaijan’s Vugar Shirinli, silver went to Kazakhstan’s Anwar Sariyev, bronzes went to Turkey’s Recep Ciftci and Romania’s Alex Bologa.
Jill: In the women’s 52 kilo class gold went to Algeria’s Cherine Abdellaoui. Silver went to Canada’s Priscilla Gagne. Bronzes went to RPCs Alesia Stepaniuk and Ukraine’s Nataliya Nikolaychyk.
Jill: In the men’s 66 kilos, gold went to Uzbekistan’s Uchkun Kuranbaev, silver went to Spain’s Sergio Ibanez Banon, and bronzes went to Japan’s Seto Yujiro and Azerbaijan’s Namig Abasli.
Jill: Powerlifting. Still can’t watch, but you might see a highlight.
Sarah: Here’s hoping..
Jill: I know. I keep hoping, cause I really, I would love to watch this. Men’s 59 kilos, gold went to China’s Qi Yongkai, silver went to Egypt’s Sharif Osman, bronze went to Estonia’s Hebert Aceituno.
Jill: In the women’s 50 kilos, gold went to China’s Hu Dandan, silver went to Egypt’s Rehab Ahmed, bronze went to Great Britain’s Olivia Broome. In the women’s 55 kilos, gold went to Ukraine’s Mariana Shevchuk, silver went to China’s Xiao Cuijuan. Bronze went to Turkey’s Besra Duman.
Jill: And in the men’s 65 kilos, gold went to China’s Liu Lei. Silver went to Iran’s Amir Jafari Arangeh, and bronze went to Algeria’s Hocine Bettir.
Jill: Rowing started [00:36:00] up. They just had heats today, so we’ll keep an eye on when they have finals action and get it on our viewing schedule.
Jill: Sitting volleyball also started, and I haven’t gotten to see this yet, but this is another one I really want to watch because it looks really exciting. We had pool play going on in the women’s side, Italy defeated Japan 3-0. Brazil defeated Canada, three to two. On the men’s side, RPC defeated Japan three-zero, and Bosnia and Herzegovina defeated Egypt three-zero.
Sarah: Yeah. And plug for sitting volleyball. It is exciting. I haven’t been able to catch a game yet, but I’m very much looking forward to it. It’s one of my favorites to watch. And did you hear that one of the United States’ players is 20 weeks pregnant?
Jill: Really?
Sarah: Yeah. Okay. So for Team USA, Laura Webster is competing in her fifth Paralympics, but it’s the second one she’s doing while pregnant and she is 20 weeks pregnant, competing for Team USA. So keep an eye out for her. I’m really excited to see kind of what she does.
Jill: That is fantastic.
Sarah: Yeah. Women can do anything.
Jill: That’s right. All right. Moving on to swimming. So we’ve got some S 12 races. This was a a hundred meter backstroke in the S 12 class, which is a visual impairment. In the men’s 100 meter gold went to Azerbaijan’s Ramen Salei, silver went to Ukraine’sSergii Klippert, and bronze went to Great Britain’s Stephen Clegg. On the women’s side, gold went to Great Britain’s Hannah Russell. Silver went to RPCs Daria Pikalova, and bronze went to Brazil’s. Maria Carolina Gomez Santiago.
Jill: Then we also had the S8 class, which is an amputation of one arm or severe restrictions across the hip knee and ankle joints. For the men’s 100 meters, gold went to USA’s Robert Griswold who got a world record. I saw this race, this was a good one. Cause it was, it was another [00:38:00] where the commentators were like, it doesn’t look like he’s going to get the world record. And then he just, you know, with maybe 10 or so yards to go, he inches over that yellow line that we all get to see.
Jill: And that was exciting. And then, they showed his family in the corner. His family was, did you see this?
Jill: I didn’t
Sarah: see this part, but I saw I did see a clip of his medal ceremony, and he was bawling. So of course I cried, but no, I didn’t see the family part.
Jill: They had the, his family watching while the race was going on, and that was, that was enough for me and the tears. Cause I just started crying. They were so excited. And then afterwards they were doing the interview on the pool deck and they were like, oh, Hey look, your family’s here. And then he started crying, and they were crying and it was just like, oh, but that was a really great race.
Jill: Silver in that race went to Spain’s Inigo Llopis Sanz. Bronze went to China’s Liu Fangqi. On the women’s 100 meter backstroke S8, gold went to New Zealand’s Tupou Neiufi. Silver went to Ukraine’s Kateryna Denysenk o, and bronze went to USA’s Jessica Long, which was exciting because she’s one of our superstars in the pool. And she started out her competition today. And this was an interesting race because it went straight to finals. There weren’t enough swimmers for heat. And Jessica apparently has got a few races like that. And I wonder what that’s like, because they said, oh, you know, she’s got enough experience doing this. She knows how to prepare for just a final, whereas somebody who’s newer to the Paralympics might not be able to do that as well.
Sarah: Yeah. And if we’re keeping score, that was her 24th, Paralympic medal. Casual.
Jill: But really, no Neiufi really swam away with this one. She was really far ahead of everybody else. And just an excellent race from her.
Jill: We also had the S 11 class for the 50 meter freestyle. This is near [00:40:00] total vision impairment. You’ll see the Tapper at the end of the race tapping the swimmer to let them know that the wall is coming up. On the men’s side, gold went to Brazil’s Wendell Belarmino Pereira. Silver went to China’s Hua Dongdong. Bronze went to Lithuania’s IEdgaras Matakas. And the women’s 50 meter freestyle has been postponed. So we will try to figure out why that’s been postponed.
Jill: But moving on to the 50 meter butterfly for the S5 class. These are swimmers who have movement issues in their mid trunk and legs, or they have the absence of limbs. So they have difficulty holding good body position or swimming straight through the water. And so in the men’s 50 meter butterfly gold went to China’s Zheng Tao. Silver went to China’s Wang Lichao, and bronze went to China’s Yuan Weiyi. On the women’s side, gold went to China’s Lu Dong, silver went to Spain’s Maria Fernandez Infante, and bronze went to China’s Cheng JIA.
Jill: One thing I noticed I meant to mention yesterday about one of the visual impairment classes when the women were doing the 400 meter freestyle, and the commentators noted that visually impaired swimmers often have a hard time staying straight in the water too, because that perception is gone. So they try to learn to swim right next to the lane line. But man, that would hurt if you’re constantly whacking that lane line. But I did note you could see in a longer race how some swimmers would zigzag and then that adds distance onto the race too.
Jill: Let’s move on to S 14 class, which is intellectual impairments. We had the men’s and women’s 200 meter freestyles. On the men’s side, gold went to Great Britain’s Reece Dunn, silverwent to Brazil’s Gabriel Bandiera, and bronze went to RPCs Viacheslav Emeliantsev. On the women’s side gold went to RPCs Valeriia Shabalina silver went to Great Britain’s Bethany Firth, and bronze went to Great Britain’s Jessica Applegate.
Jill: Then we had the 200 meter individual [00:42:00] medley for the SM 7 class. And so this is movement is affected in the, arms legs and trunk, moderately down one side. You could also be an athlete who short of short stature or you are missing limbs. So there’s a lot of classes together here at play. In the men’s side, gold went to Israel’s Mark Malyar, silver went to Ukraine’s Andrii Trusov, and bronze went to Colombia’s Carlos Daniel Serrano Zarate. In the women’s 200. IM, gold went to USA’s Mallory Weggemann, silver went to USA’s Ahalya Lettenberger, and bronze went to Australia’s Tiffany Thomas Kane.
Sarah: One fun note that I thought was interesting. Going back to the men’s 200. IM, Mark. He has a twin brother, Ariel who’s also competing at the Paralympics.
Jill: Oh, very cool.
Sarah: I just stumbled across that while trying to figure out why the 50 meter postponement happened.
Jill: And we’ve rounded out the day with, the 400 meter freestyle for the S 13 class, the men’s side gold went to Belarus’ Ihar Boki, silver went to Ukraine’s Kyrylo Garashenko; bronze went to France’s Alex Portal. On the women’s side, gold went to Anna Stetsenkofrom Ukraine. Silver went to Italy’s Carlotta Gilli, and bronze went to Australia’s Katja Dedekind.
Jill: Table tennis. We’re still doing a lot of qualifications, but we are moving out of pool play and into quarter finals. So we will have more details on results starting tomorrow. That’s exciting because we’ve got a TKFLASTANI still playing, so that’s very cool.
Jill: Wheelchair basketball. A lot of women’s and men’s group action. On the women’s side, Canada defeated Japan, 61-35, Netherlands defeated Algeria 109 – 18. Wow. Part of me wants to go back and see that just cause I need to watch a game with the Netherlands since this team has been really jelling together and, and putting up some impressive wins.
Sarah: Yeah. That’s scary, honestly.
Jill: Right?[00:44:00] I feel really bad for Algeria, but on the same side, I wonder if, even though it was a rout, they learned a lot because I know in roller derby, we’d see, some games where a really low level team would play a really high level team, and the score differential would be enormous, but the low level team would be so excited every time they got a point, or they learned so much just from playing the other team that hopefully, you know, that knowledge bleeds out and bleeds further out into the world.
Sarah: Yeah.
Jill: China defeated Spain, 46 to 29 and Germany defeated. Great Britain, 53 to 35. On the men’s side, Australia defeated Algeria 83-37, Turkey defeated Canada, 77 to 73. Oooo, close match there. Spain defeated Colombia 74-56. Germany and Great Britain played on the men’s side too. And Germany also won this 171- 59. USA beat Iran 65-41, and Japan defeated Korea 59 to 52.
Jill: In wheelchair fencing there was epee team action. So on the men’s side gold went to RPC, silver went to China and bronze went to Great Britain. On the women’s side, gold went to China, silver to Ukraine and bronze to RPC. I bet those were good matches.
Jill: And wheelchair rugby. It was the end of pool play. So France defeated Denmark 52-50. Saw the end of this match. TV cutaway to it. Denmark was really trying. They were really trying to come back .France, just, just held on. Japan defeated Australia, 57-53. US beat Great Britain, 50 to 48. This was also a close match. The US was down for a long time. They were down by eight, 10 points or so, and just slowly crawled back in the second half to take the win.
Jill: Canada defeated New Zealand, 51-36. So going into the knockout round, it’ll be Denmark versus New Zealand for seventh and eighth place, [00:46:00] France and Canada for fifth and sixth. And the semi-finals will be Japan versus Great Britain and US versus Australia. That’s going to be one to tune into.
Sarah: I cannot wait! Murder ball!
Jill: Wheelchair tennis started, as we mentioned before. So it’s a lot of first round action for the men’s and women’s singles. The quads doubles are into the quarter final stage, so we’ll start having more results tomorrow. If you were wondering what happened in the match that was on NBCSN and cutaway, midpoint Japan’s Sanada Takashi did defeat Netherlands’ Carlos Anker 6-1 6-1,
Sarah: Well done on all those recaps,
Jill: Now we’d like to give a quick thank you to our Patreon patrons, especially those of you have to have joined during our Olympic and Paralympic coverage. Your ongoing financial support helps us provide more features in the show. Because of you, we are able to now have transcripts with episodes. That has started with the Paralympics. It’s really exciting. It also means I’m learning new software, so the episodes are getting out a little late. So I hope you are patient with me on that. But we are really excited to be able to make that happen and make the show more accessible to more people. If you would like to contribute on an ongoing basis, please check out our Patreon page at patreon.com slash flame alive pod.
Jill: All right. TKFLASTAN Watch. What’s on tap for our TKFLASTANIS tomorrow?
Sarah: Well, I’m going to say this in honor of Alison. Miss you, Alison. Coming up in table tennis, we have Melissa Tapper against Qian Yang in quarterfinal 2. At Tokyo Metropolitan Gym, table number three. August 28th at nine 40 and by nine 40, is that US or something?
Jill: In the US it’ll be on like this evening. So maybe, and I know they only have a couple of streams, streams for table tennis. So I’m really hoping that now we’re in the [00:48:00] quarter finals that this will get on the stream. And it’s interesting because this is Australia versus Australia, so I’m sure these two know each other and their competition styles.
Sarah: Yeah, it’ll be exciting. So, and if you’re watching, talk about it in the Facebook group, we love the Facebook group. Everyone knows. I love the Facebook group. Yeah.
Sarah: Exactly.
Jill: Exactly. We are having so much fun there and it is worth joining Facebook or reactivating your Facebook account just for the couple of weeks during the games, because we have a lot of fun.
Jill: Okay. It is time to say sayonara. 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. Flame it. On social media we are @ flame alive pod. Alison is on Facebook and Insta. I am on Twitter. Like Sarah said, join the Facebook group. That’s Keep the Flame Alive Podcast.
Jill: Please don’t forget our Kickstarter and help us to reach our goal of bringing you on the ground coverage at Beijing that’s 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 flame alive.
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