We finally got to see a new sport today! Sitting Volleyball has made its way to our feeds, and we’re here for it! Plus, Alison is excited when she hears who one of the OBS feed announcers is.
It’s a 13-sport day, so our recap includes talk on:
- Archery
- Athletics
- Boccia
- Equestrian
- Football 5-a-side
- Goalball
- Powerlifting
- Shooting
- Sitting Volleyball
- Swimming
- Table Tennis
- Wheelchair Basketball
- Wheelchair Tennis
Only a few days left to support our Kickstarter project! 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 7
Jill: [00:00:00] Konnichiwa Paralympics fans and lovers of TKFLASTAN and welcome to day seven 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 as always by my lovely cohost, Alison Brown, Alison, Konnichiwa!
Alison: Konnichiwa. I know what day of the week it is, I know a day we’re on, but I have watched the same race at least four times.
Alison: Oh, I know exactly what you mean. I do not know what day it is today. I think keep thinking it’s the weekend and it’s not. But I am with you on the multiple races, multiple games at the same time.
Jill: This happened because when I turned on the TV, it was wheelchair rugby again. And we’ve had a long conversation about this in the Facebook group and then a wheelchair basketball came on and then like, oh, I haven’t seen this one. And the shirts were in a different pattern on the seats. And then I looked at the schedule and realized, oh, it was a game from the day before, too, because it was a US game. It’s like, well, guess I’m not getting current action.
Alison: We do the best we can.
Jill: Oh boy. Well news from the followup file. The IPC is flying their flags at half-mast in Tokyo today because IOC, former president Jacques Rogge has passed away. Really sad news, and the IPC and the IOC really started working well together under Jacques Rogge’s tenure.
Jill: They said that under his leadership that London 2012 really happened for the Paralympics. And that’s really their best Olympic and Paralympic games, if you’d look at them combined. And during his time as IOC president, he signed several agreements that offered the IPC, some stability and enabled the organization to grow and flourish.
Jill: So [00:02:00] it’s really because of him and his leadership that the IPC has such a strong partnership with the IOC and is, I think that’s really helping the games get a lot more prominence. Former president of the IPC Philip Craven said if, if it wasn’t for Jacques Rogge, the IPC would have reached financial disaster, basically.
Jill: Jack rogue was 79 years old, and sad day in the Olympic and Paralympic world.
Jill: Yesterday, we talked about Ecuador winning its first Paralympic medals.
Alison: It gets even better.
Jill: Well, we were excited because Ecuador, won some medals. I did not know at the time that they were their first Paralympic medals and they’re sisters. So this was women’ shot put in the F 20 class, if you remember, and the two sisters walked away with gold and bronze.
Alison: That just makes me happy. I love all these family dinners where people can just be like, oh yeah, I’m just wearing a necklace today with my outfit. It’s like, oh, so am I.
Jill: I’ve, I’ve noticed as I’ve been editing that I’ve forgotten to include some countries of athletes. So I wanted to quick run through them. In the women’s 100 meter T38 class, bronze medalist. Lindy Ave is from Germany. In the men’s High Jump T 47 class Nishad Kumar Nishad Kumar is from India in the shot put F 40 class for the men, Miguel Monteiro is from Portugal, and in the men’s 400 meter T 54 class Dai Yungqing is from China. So I apologize for those errors.
Jill: And also followup file, just mentioned that wheelchair basketball and the designs with the shirts covering seats that somebody is doing there. So the other day it looked like it spelled Yoko 50, but listener Kaori said that might be Yoko so which means welcome in Japan.
Alison: Oh, that’s nice. With a smiley face. It makes so much sense.
Jill: It does make sense. And I am going to believe that [00:04:00] because it does look nice. And the last one they had was a checkerboard pattern. So now I kind of want to keep watching wheelchair basketball to see what the patterns are. I bet somebody is having fun.
Alison: And you know what? Someone is very appreciative that you are noticing. There is someone in Tokyo saying, oh, Jill Jaracz noticed my pattern my day is made.,
Jill: You’ve got some information about the wheelchair rugby tournament that we would like to hear.
Alison: Yes. So wheelchair rugby made a change this year that gave being a woman an advantage in your point system.
Alison: So you know how you can only have a certain number of points based on the disabilities on the court at a time. Well, just being a woman, they subtract half a point.
Alison: So shockingly, we’ve had the most women ever in this tournament, which was four. So four different countries had women on their teams, but more importantly, team GB’s, Kylie Grimes is the first woman to win gold at the wheelchair rugby tournament.
Alison: And because Japan, Kurahashi Kae won a bronze, it’s the first time two women have been on the podium.
Jill: That’s really cool. I like hearing it. And then what’s the other thing you got follow up on.
Alison: So yesterday, we mentioned that there was a protest made in one of the discus categories.
Alison: Well, turns out that it had to do with the classification for Vinad Kumar, who won the bronze. And it just came out this morning. I’m reading this as I’m talking to you, he has lost his bronze. It’s in the F 52 category because he was deemed ineligible based on the classification that he should not have been in that class.
Jill: Wow. Okay. Now we have to dig into this a little bit more.
Alison: So his classification was done in Japan after arrival, which we knew was going to be problematic. [00:06:00] So we’ll have to get some more information, but this was just reported on ESPN at eight o’clock this morning. So this is new new news.
Jill: Wow. So interesting. And we know the classification can be such a hairy issue.
Alison: And can you protest the protest? So this is going to be interesting to see. When we saw that yesterday, we were so confused as to, oh, why are these results being protested? Because there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the competition, but it was much deeper than that.
Alison: So we’ll have to see if this is generally an issue or if this is new to Tokyo because of the difficulty with classification, because of COVID
Jill: interesting. Okay. Segment that I keep hoping we don’t have to have every day, but it’s time for feed beefs.
Jill: The big beef was. We all are happy about repetitive rugby matches, and I love wheelchair rugby, but when you have an entire program of other sports and you choose to replay the same match. This is the third time USA- GB has been on.
Alison: Yes. And it’s on the feed. This is actually something you can get video on demand on the streaming site.
Jill: Who’s running the show at NBC? I mean like we need to bring in like a projector and those transparent slide things-what do you even call those anymore?.
Alison: Transparencies?
Jill: Yes.
Alison: With the dry erase marker.
Jill: Yes, exactly. So if we bring in that little setup and we draw on there, like video on demand exists. And DVR technology exists because I’m sure even DV, if people go, why would you have something on the DVR still too probably, but maybe if we explain it in a way they could understand, they don’t need to re- show the same things over and over. And my guess is that the argument on their side would be, well, this was a really important game and we want to try to get as many audiences as possible, but, [00:08:00] you know, just put it on your social media and say, go to the replay.
Alison: I could understand them with one reshowing because they had it live. It was at like six o’clock in the morning. Okay. But they did a mid day on Olympic channel. And then the evening on the prime time coverage. Pick one or the other of those afternoon replays.
Jill: Right. You know, how about some archery? How about some boccia? Cause we got some highlights. They went around the horn again for some sports. So I saw a one point of archery. I saw a winning score in judo. I saw a one throw of a shotput only because an American got on the medal stand. And then I think Carolyn Manno said, well, let’s see if we can take a look at boccia.
Jill: And then they showed a couple of rolls and they explained like boccia is an extremely popular sport with its with its audience, but showing one or two rolls, with not really explaining how the ramps work and how the assistant helps It was pointless.
Alison: So this reminds me of when we were kids watching the Olympics, you know, through the eighties where you had you know, at that time it was mostly ABC, but you had one channel.
Alison: And then we got all excited when cable came in and you could get two more channels. Remember we were talking about the triple cast.
Jill: Oh, yeah.
Alison: And this is what this feels like. And we have the technology to not go back to 1984. So let’s use it.
Jill: Right. And I feel like the thought process is, well, people don’t have much of an attention span, so we show them a little bit and then they can go and look into it more if they want to. Here’s boccia, here’s a sport that people don’t necessarily know about. A general audience. So do we put boccia on for two hours or do we put on a minute and then maybe they’ll go and look [00:10:00] it up if we make it available, which we probably won’t.
Alison: You know, to be fair, we did complain during the Olympics about being bombarded with too much coverage in a way, but on the flip side, the real problem is, is it’s so poorly organized. It’s not amount or volume or lack of amount or volume, it’s access and organization. And clearly they need a whole team of cataloging librarians to go to NBC and work this out because they will clean this mess up within three days.
Jill: Very true. It’s very hard to find stuff. And I think part of it is, is also the style of website layout we have today too, with big squares and bigger pictures. You have to scroll a lot more, so you can’t necessarily see as much on one screen. And it’s a lot harder to find.
Alison: Which is so antithetical to using a phone for this. You know, the mobile version is no better than the desktop version in terms of not having to scroll, finding things easily.
Alison: The search is ridiculously poor, but if you want to see Daniel Romanchuk win multiple times of the same race, you will see that.
Jill: Which is hard, because I believe he also competes in multiple races.
Alison: He’s in like six different races. So I was like, oh, is he winning more than one medal? No, he just keeps winning the same one. It’s the Groundhog Day of the track competition.
Jill: All right, let’s get off of that. Cause we could, we could go for an hour. How about a little bit of name that OBS commentator or presenter?
Alison: So we have sent out our team to search out the super spies and especially Patrick from Green Bay has been particularly helpful. So he said the equestrians are John Kyle and Debra Criddle. So Debra Criddle is that lady that you love.
Alison: Okay. We have to find out more about her and her [00:12:00] background.
Jill: Well I got some news from listener, Jim, and thank you Jim, for pointing this out because I totally meant to mention it to you yesterday, and I forgot. So I had wheelchair tennis on the feed. And the commentator also does TaeKwonDo. It is John Cullens, who is from Scotland and yes, you will just die over his accent. It is beautiful. You just go pull up some wheelchair tennis, listen to John talk. He could say anything and it would sound beautiful.
Alison: That Scottish accent, man, kills me every time.
Jill: All right. Time for what officiating or volunteer job do we want? What do you want today?
Alison: Since we got to watch the wheelchair rugby 46 times, I got to see the turnover of the court to the medal ceremony. And there are these volunteers that come out like little worker bees and just clear the court of anything court like, set up all the boxes, put out the runners, put out the tables. It was like the people who turn over a catering hall at a wedding. The speed and the efficiency with which they did this was beautiful. And I want to be a part of it.
Jill: I can understand. It sounds like a lot of fun, especially when you’re working as a team, everybody’s got their job, they know what they’re doing, and they do it all quickly and perfectly.
Alison: The choreography was beautiful. Nobody was tripping over each other and they’re rolling out rugs and bringing out pieces of furniture. And yet it all just came together so beautiful. And all of a sudden the wheelchair rugby court is turned into a medal ceremony. Beautiful, fantastic. No flowers got dropped. It was great.
Jill: I think I would like to go to table tennis and I’ve got a couple of jobs I’m weighing. I would like to today be, I believe it’s the umpire, but it is [00:14:00] not the person who calls the points and if shots are in or out, it is the person who keeps the time. And when there is a timeout, the umpire comes out from behind their little table with a little like, it’s almost like a lantern, but it’s a clock.
Jill: And they put the clock on the side of the table that is the player who called the timeout and it got a countdown screen on it and counts down the time. And I love that.
Alison: And you’d get to show off your little blazer.
Jill: Right? So if I think they just might wear the red shirts, which I would be fine with too. Cause I really liked those.
Jill: Okay, before we get to today’s action, we would like to tell you about our Kickstarter campaign. Six days left. We were 40% funded yesterday, 41% funded today. So thank you so much for those of you who have jumped on board to support our trip to Beijing and doing the podcast from Beijing for the winter Olympics and the winter Paralympics next year.
Jill: So this is because we got media accreditations several years before we thought we’d actually get approved for them. And we have a small budget. A trip to China is a big budget item for a little podcast like us. So we are having a Kickstarter project to help fund our activities there. We are really excited to be able to go there and bring some coverage to you, especially on the Paralympic side. As we’ve noted, the coverage is rough and we are one of the very few podcasts that does anything for the Paralympics. So we would like to make our coverage better and this trip will help. So check out our campaign. If you are able to, please support it. When the Paralympic flame goes out, so does our campaign. So we’ve got a ways to go to get there and you can help us do that. Find out more and check out our great supporter bonuses. You can find them out at [00:16:00] kickstarter.com/profile/flame alive pod.
Jill: Okay, archery, which we’ve seen a couple of points now, I believe. We had the women’s individual compound open. Gold went to Phoebe Paterson Pine from Great Britain, who won by one point, and her path to gold included knocking off her teammate and friend and defending gold medalist jess Stretton. That had to be a tough match. Silver went to Chile’s Mariana Zuniga Varela, and bronze went to Italy’s. Maria Andrea Virgilio. And the men’s side. This is the w one individual competition. And these are for people who have moderately affected coordination or highly effected range of motion, or an absence of limbs.
Jill: Gold went to Czech Republic, David Drahoninsky, who won by one point. This is his fourth Paralympic medal in four games. He won gold at Beijing in 2008, and silvers at London and Rio. Silver went to Turkey’s Nihat Tukmenoglu, and bronze went to Turkey’s Bahattin Hekimoglu.
Jill: In athletics, starting out with a long jump. We had two men’s long jumps competitions today. The first one was T 12, which was a visual impairment class. Gold went to Amir Khosravani from Iran with a personal best jump. That’s nice. Silver went to Leinier Savon Pineda from Cuba, who got an area record, and bronze went to Said Najafzade from Azerbaijan.
Jill: In the T36 class, which is a low to moderate impairment in all four limbs. Gold went to a Evgenli Torsunov from RPC who got a Paralympic record. Silver went to William Stedman from New Zealand with an area record, [00:18:00] and bronze went to Roman Pavlyk from Ukraine.
Jill: Moving over to the discus. Women and men each had one competition today. The women had an, it was the F53 class, but we combined a whole bunch of classes together, cause there’s none enough competitors for some of the classes. So these are athletes who are affected to a high degree in the trunk and legs or a low degree in the hand grip. Gold went to Elizabeth Rodrigues Gomes from Brazil, who got a world record. Silver went to Iana Lebiedieva from Ukraine, who got a Paralympic record because she is in a different class than Elizabeth Rodrigues Gomes. And this is the same deal for bronze, which went to Zola Ovsii from Ukraine, who also got a Paralympic record. Cassie Mitchell from the USA who set a world record for the F51 class in May took fourth. That’s gotta be tough when you have combined classes like that.
Alison: Makes it hard to gauge your competitors.
Jill: And I get combining them if there’s not enough athletes, or if we, I mean, when we talked with , he said that, you know, sometimes they don’t offer a race, or they don’t offer a a throwing event because there’s just too many events on the program. Maybe it’s just like, well, at least I get to compete in this go around.
Jill: In the men’s discus F 56 final. This is a class where athletes are affected to an increasing degree from the top of the legs to the feet, or they have an absence of legs. Gold went to a Claudiney Batista dos Santosfrom Brazil with the Paralympic record. Silver went to Yogesh Kathuniya from India, and bronze went to Leonardo Diza Aldan from Cuba.
Jill: Moving over to javelin. The men had two different competitions today. The [00:20:00] first one was the F 46 final, which was a moderate disability in one or both arms or the absence of one arm. Gold went to Dinesh Priyan Herath Mudiyanselage from Sri Lanka with not, not just a world record, but also Sri Lanka’s first gold medal.
Alison: Nice.
Jill: Silver went toDevandra from India who got a personal best, and bronze went to Sundar Singh Gurjar, also from India.
Jill: In the F 64 class, which is a moderate disability or of, or absence of one or both legs. Gold went to Sumit Sumit from India, who set a world record for the F 64 class. Silver went to Michel Burian from Australia, who set a world record for the F 44 class. And bronze went to Sri Lanka’s Dulan Kodithuwakku from Sri Lanka, who set a personal best. That was awesome.
Alison: India’s cleaning up in track.
Jill: They are doing really well. They’ve gotten a whole bunch of medals this time. I’m really happy for them, and Sri Lanka coming on the board too.
Alison: I got to take a look at the medal table daily to see what’s going on because we’re saying so many different countries, you know, we mentioned Azerbaijan yesterday, but clearly India is going to be up there as well.
Jill: In ShotPut men had two competitions yesterday, and women had one. For the men’s F 11 class, which is total visual impairment, gold went toMahdi Ola d from Iran. Silver went to Alessandro Rodrigo da Silva from Brazil, and bronze went to Oney Tapia from Italy.
Jill: In the F 41 class, which is a shorter stature class, gold wentto Bobirjon Omonovfrom Uzbekistan with a Paralympic record. Silver went to Hagan Landry from USA with an area of record, and bronze [00:22:00] went to Niko Kappel from Germany.
Jill: In the US you’re probably going to hear about Hagan Landry a bunch. I think we’re going to see his throw, he is a glider. I will note that he’s from Louisiana, and Louisiana just got hit with hurricane Ida. So that is going to be mentioned a fair amount for him.
Jill: Women’s ShotPut F 54 class. This is a seated class with a high degree of disability from the mid trunk through the legs. Gold went to Chile’s Francisca Mardones Supulveda, who set a world record. Silver went to Gloria Zarza Guardarrama from Mexico ,who set a personal best, and bronze went to Nukhon Kurbanova from Uzbekistan, who also got a personal best.
Jill: That makes me happy. I was looking at some of the sheets and even further down, there are a bunch of people who got their personal best. And I think even if you can’t medal, getting a personal best at the Paralympics must awesome.
Alison: You can’t do better than that. You can’t do better than your best. And you can’t. And we’ve talked to so many athletes about this. It doesn’t matter what other people do. You can’t control that, but if you come out with your personal best…
Jill: …fantastic. Okay. Moving to the track. We had five different races for the hundred meters in the men’s side. Starting with T33, which is a high degree of disability in both legs, low to moderate disability in the trunk, arms or hands. Gold went to Andrew Small from Great Britain. Silver went to Ahman Almutairi from Kuwait. Which we have not said Kuwait yet. And bronze went to Harri Jenkins from Great Britain.
Jill: In the T 34 class, which is high degree of disability in both legs and low degree in trunk or arms. Gold went to Walid Ktila from Tunisia with a Paralympic record. Silver went to Rheed McCracken from [00:24:00] Australia, and bronze went to Mohamed Alhammadi from United Arab Emirates. Also one we don’t hear about,
Alison: I bet that’s, it’s certainly their first medal this time round. I wonder it’s their first medal ever.
Jill: I dunno. Something to look up. In the T 35 class. This is moderate disability in both legs. So we see how it’s progressing along as we move up in the numbers. Gold went to Dmitii Safronov from RPC with a world record. Silver went to Ihor Tsviet ov from Ukraine with a personal best, and bronze went to Artem Alashian from RPC, also with a personal best.
Jill: In the T 63 final. This is absence of one leg above the knee. Gold went to Anton Prokhorov from RPC. He set a world record, but he is technically in the class T 42, so his world record is going to be marked separately. Silver went to Vinicius Goncalves Rodrigues from Brazil, who set a Paralympic record for the T 63 class. And bronze went to Leon Schaefer from Germany, who got a personal best.
Jill: When I saw Vinicius, that just made me think of the Rio mascot.
Alison: I thought I was being bad for thinking that, like, oh, is that discriminatory? That that’s the only image I can get in my head of this guy is that very frightening mascot from Rio.
Jill: I just think that means that it’s good, that we work together on this.
Jill: And the last men’s 100 meter race was for the T 64 class, which is the absence of one leg below the knee. Again, this was a mixed class. So for gold that went to Felix Streng from Germany. Silver went to Sherman Guity Guity from Costa Rica, who got a personal best. There was a tie for bronze. Johannes Floors from Germany got the Paralympic record [00:26:00] for the T 62 class. And then Johnnie Peacock from Great Britain won bronze as well, but he is in the T 64 class. So, I mean, it’s complicated with the class system complicated, more complicated when it’s mixed.
Jill: And then when you’re like, wait, you got a Paralympic record and you got the bronze? We’re working on it. It makes sense once you understand. Also in this race Mpumelelo Mhlongo from South Africa, finished fifth, but he did get a Paralympic record for the T 44 class.
Jill: And finally, on the track, it was the women’s 1500 meter T 11 final. This is a visual impairment class. Gold went to Monica Olivia Rodriguez Saavedra from Mexico who set a world record. Silver went to Louzanne Cotzee from South Africa, who set an area of record. Nancy Chelangat Koech from Kenya took the bronze.
Alison: So there have been several Mexicans on the track who have won medals and the Paralympic Instagram page posted a picture of them wearing the masks that the wrestlers wear in Mexico.
Alison: I guess there’s this whole culture of–
Jill: Oh, the lucha libre?
Alison: Yes. Yes. So a bunch of them had the masks on with the Mexican flag behind them. So I’ll repost that in a story, but it was great. Mexicans know how to throw a party when they win a medal.
Jill: In boccia there’s more preliminary competition, but I think they’re going to start showing it on TV soon. Knock on wood, but hopefully we can have some more news for that from you on that.
Jill: Equestrian finished up today. Did you watch any?
Alison: I have not watched it yet.
Alison: Okay. Cause
Jill: it was on broadcast TV. A few horses were.
Alison: I actually was watching sitting volleyball finally for the first time.
Jill: As was I.
Alison: So, equestrian, cause you need a good chunk of time for equestrian, especially with the individuals.
Jill: You do, and that made it very hard [00:28:00] because they would show like one rider and then they’d go away and then they go to another sport and then they came back and showed several riders. Watching the feed makes it a lot easier because you have the time to sit and watch what happens and the commentators have the time to explain what’s going on as well.
Alison: Yes. Your beloved Debra Criddle will serve you a cup of tea. And pour the milk in first and explain to you what is happening.
Jill: So all five grades had their individual freestyle test today. In grade one, gold went to America’s Roxanne Trunnell on Dolton. Silver went to a Latvia’s Rihards Snikus on King of the Dance, and bronze went to Italy’s Sara Morganti on Royal Delight. In grade two, gold went to Lee Pearson from Great Britain on Breezer. Silver went to Austria’s Pepo Puch on Sailor’s Blue, and bronze went to Great Britain’s Georgia Wilson on Sakura. In grade three, gold went to Denmark’s Tobias Thorning Jorgensen on Jolene Hill. Silver went to Great Britain’s Natasha Baker on Keystone Dawn Chorus, and bronze went to Norway’s Ann Cathrin on La Costa Majlund.
Jill: Grade four, Netherlands’ Sanne Voets won gold and she’s riding Demantur. Silver went to Sweden’s Louise EetznerJakobsson on Gold Strike B.J. Bronze went to a Belgium’s Manon Claeys on San Dior 2.
Alison: Oh, San Dior 2 is back! So, you know, his Papa, San Dior 1 is, you know, stomping, his hooves in joy.
Jill: And in grade five, gold went to Belgium’s Michele George on Best of 8. Silver went to Netherlands’ Frank Hosmar on Alphaville, and [00:30:00] bronze went to Germany’s Regine Mispelkamp on Highlander Delight’s. I wish I had more time to watch Paralympics. I still have a whole list of stuff I want to watch in the Olympics, but I would like to go back and see more of the Paralympic dressage competition.
Jill: In football, five-a-side, we had more team preliminaries. Oh. So one thing I did find out today is that the women’s game is growing. So perhaps by Paris, we will have a women’s competition as well. They did have their first world championships in 2019. So we know that there are more and more countries participating on the women’s side. So I’m very excited. I’m hopeful that we will see more competition on five-a-side.
Jill: So in the team preliminaries, China defeated France, one to zero. Brazil defeated Japan, four to zero. Thailand defeated Morocco two to zero, and Argentina defeated Spain two to zero.
Jill: So I did see some of the Brazil and Japan game, which again, passionate, passionate, Brazil. Fun to watch. Some of the goals were like Brazil got a goal right through the goalie’s hands. And it was amazing. The one thing that struck me today though, was that, you know in goalball, you hear “quiet please” all the time? And the Brazilian sideline was just yelling up a storm. And I don’t know how these players on a court that’s probably, it’s bigger. I think it’s a little bigger than a goalball court and you’re outdoors. And you have your team yelling at you or your coaches yelling at you, and you have to hear a jingle ball. How do you do it? I I’d love to have a microphone closer to the field of play so we could hear just how loud that ball is because what these athletes can do just is really impressive. To block out all that noise and figure out where the ball is.
Jill: Over in goalball, we [00:32:00] had both men’s and women’s preliminary match-ups . This ends group play. On the women’s side, Brazil defeated Egypt, 11 to one, China beat Canada, four to two, United States, beat Turkey four to three. And in the men’s side, I saw this one Lithuania beat the United States, 13 to three. They won by the mercy rule. So if you have a 10 point lead, the game is over. And this was a rematch of the 2016 gold medal game. So it was telling. Turkey beat Ukraine, one to zero, and China beat Germany eight to three. So our quarter final match-ups on the women’s side, it’s going to be China versus Brazil, USA versus RPC, Turkey versus Australia, and Israel versus Japan.
Jill: On the men’s side, it will be Japan and China, Ukraine and USA, Belgium versus Lithuania and Brazil versus Turkey.
Jill: In power lifting, this was also the close of competition. So if, if you’ve seen any more than the one lift from the first day, let us know. And I know they’re, I do know that world para power lifting has been live tweeting this, but somehow the live tweeting, just, it’s not the same.
Alison: That’s not television coverage. That’s not where you can just sit and watch it like everything else.
Jill: And with the rise of CrossFit over the last 10 years or so, I would think that you’d have more coverage of para power lifting because more people would be interested in it. But what do I know?
Jill: Anyway, it was the women’s 86 kilos and the over 86 kilos, the women had the 86 kilos class, gold went to Nigeria’s Folashde Oluwafemiayo, whose best lift was 151 kilos. That’s a world record and a Paralympic record. Compare that to [00:34:00] silver, which was won by Zhenk Feifei from China, whose best lift was 139 kilos. So that’s just a huge differential.
Alison: Yeah. We’ve seen a lot of big differentials between gold and silver, and then silver and bronze tended to bunch. So it’s sort of like someone is so amazing. And then the rest of the competition sort of settles into a group.
Jill: Yeah. That’s, that is an interesting point, and if anybody knows why..
Alison: ‘Cause you got to see it.
Jill: Yeah. Would love to know. Bronze went to Louise Sugden from Great Britain, whose best lift was 131. In the over 86 kilo class, gold went to Dang Xuemei from China whose best lift was 153 kilos. Silver went to Loveline Obiji from Nigeria, whose best lift was 147 kilos, and bronze went to Marzena Zieba from Poland whose best lift was 140.
Jill: In the men’s top weight classes. The first one was a 107 kilos. Gold went. We got our first Mongolian name. That’s all I have to say. When I saw this, I thought of the dulcet tones of Jason Bryant, Mongolia’s Sodnopiljee Enkhbayar gold. His best lift was 245 kilos.
Jill: He got a Paralympic record for that, and he broke his own Paralympic record doing that. He holds the world record. So, you know, he can lift more as well. Silver went to Malaysia’s Yee Khie Jong, whose best lift was 237 kilos, and bronze went to Saman Razi from Iran, whose best lift was 231.
Jill: And in the men’s plus 1 0 7 kilos, gold went to Jamil Elshebli from Jordan, whose best lift was 241 kilos. Silver went [00:36:00] to mentor Mansouur Pourmirzaei from Iran who also lifted 214 kilos, but the weight differential. As we know, if you have a lighter body weight, you get the higher prize. So monster weighs 159 point 52 kilos, and Jamil weighs only 134 point 86 kilos.
Jill: What a massive differential in weight. Impressive. And bronze went to Faris Al-Ageeli from Iraq, whose best lift was 2 28.
Jill: In shooting. We had the, R two women’s 10 meter air rifle standing S H one class. So these shooters can hold the rifle without any support. And they may shoot from either a sitting or a standing position.
Jill: Gold went to Avani Lekhara from India. Yay. She equalled the world record of 249.6 points and got a Paralympic record as well. Silver, went to a Zhang Culping from China with a score of 248.9. Bronze went to Irina Shchetnik from Ukraine with a score of 227.5.
Jill: So our listener Meredith is with Superfan Sarah out in Colorado Springs for the USOPC watch party because her friend Taylor Farmer is in this event. Taylor placed 14th out of 21 in qualifications, and only the top 8 move on to the final.
Alison: And since we’re talking about the event in Colorado Springs, if you are not on our Facebook group, you must join us because Superfan Sarah and listener Meredith will be posting videos from their experience out in Colorado Springs. So that is Keep the Flame Alive podcast group on Facebook, and you’ll get some really cool things like how Superfan Sarah broke the COVID machine.
Jill: I did wave back at the video. I don’t know. I hit the age where I love a good wave.
Jill: In [00:38:00] the men’s R1 10 meter air rifle standing S H one class, gold went to Dong Chaio from China with a Paralympic record. Silver went to Andrii Doroshenko from Ukraine, and bronze went to Park Jinho from Korea. And in the R4 mixed, 10 meter air rifle standing SH two. So these athletes use a stand to partially support the weight of the rifle and fire from a sitting position. This would be the class that our TKFLASTANI McKenna Geer is in.
Jill: So gold went to Philip Jonnson from Sweden, who set a Paralympic record. Silver went to Francek Gorazd Tirsek from Slovenia and bronze went to Andrea Liverani from Italy. And McKenna finished 21st in qualifications, and therefore did not make the finals.
Jill: Sitting volleyball, which we actually got to see. On the women’s side, RPC defeated Rwanda three to zero, China defeated USA three to zero.
Jill: And if you want a repeat from 2016. Well, actually from most Paralympics in the last four to five games, the gold medal match has been China versus USA. So in 2016 USA finally won gold, but China has won that quite often previously.
Jill: On the men’s side, China defeated Germany three to one, and Iran defeated Brazil three to zero.
Jill: So in the pool play RPC and Iran are undefeated in the men’s tournament. And on the women’s side, Brazil and China are undefeated, and we have two more days of pool play. So what do you think of sitting volleyball?
Alison: I’m still a little, I get the basics, you know, I understand what’s happening, but I’m still confused as to how they move around because it seems like there’s a very wide range of disabilities of the players. And that confuses me. So I wonder if there’s also a point system with what players can be on the court. Like there is in wheelchair rugby because it [00:40:00] seemed like certainly people had a lot of mobility in their lower body and then other people didn’t. So I’m wondering how that comes together.
Jill: Yes. So that’s to look up and also I didn’t understand some of the calls that were made and it would be like, oh, the USA got the point. Oh no, they didn’t. Unforced error and no real explanation as to why I looked– the commentators for this sport are Tanith White, who is the wife of our TKFLASTANI Charlie White, and former US player, Kari Miller- Ortiz. And you can really tell it’s Miller Ortiz’s first time in the booth, and she didn’t talk a whole bunch. You could tell she was nervous and a little stilted at first. She was getting better and warming up in the game that I saw, but I she’s got some work to do to really be able to talk about the facts like some of the other other commentators do, like I think in swimming, I do love Michelle Konkoly. She has done a fantastic job at explaining what’s going on in a very succinct, but comprehensive way.
Alison: Agreed. Though, to be fair. If people listened to like our first season…
Jill: Watching that game and listening to the commentary, you start to understand how difficult that role is. Because it’s easy to complain about your commentators, but I can tell that tan with white, with white, you know has done a lot of commentary, and she’s very good at commentary. She’s learning sitting volleyball, and I can tell that. Then we have a first-time commentator who knows the sport and is learning how to commentate. And I know she’s been practicing, but you can really tell how difficult it is to talk intellectually about a sport and communicate what’s going on and, and take it in at the same time. It’s, it’s really tough to do.
Alison: It’s kind of fun to listen to the team because clearly these two women have never worked together before.
Jill: Right.
Alison: It’ll be interesting to [00:42:00] listen to them as we go along in the competition, we’ll be sort of watching the competition and watching the development of these announcers, which is a strange level that’s very niche-y for us, but it’s stuff that we love, the stuff that we love.
Jill: You know, if, if you are interested in that kind of thing, listener Meredith, if you could post that in, I think you were the one that hits me to a podcast uh, it was a running podcast and they talked with Kara Goucher who did the long distance races for the US commentary on NBC during the Olympics.
Jill: And this was between the US Trials and Tokyo. And she talks a lot about how much she had to study up for Tokyo because she knows the American scene, doesn’t know the world scene as well. And just the progression from audition to making some mistakes, to getting better. And it was a really great interview.
Jill: In swimming, we had a lot of backstroke today, so we had 100 meter races. We had 50 meter races. In the men’s 100 meter backstroke S seven class, which, which I know I’m just calling it the hodge-podge class. It’s got a load of arm disabilities, leg disabilities, trunk disabilities, side disabilities, missing limbs, short stature.
Jill: Gold went to Andrii Trusov from Ukraine. Silver went to Pipo Carlomagno from Argentina, and bronze went to Mark Malyar from Israel. For the same class in the women, gold went to Mallory Weggemann from USA. Silver went to Danielle Dorris from Canada, and bronze went to Julia Gaffney from USA. I know I saw this race.
Alison: Yes. And Mallory and Julia are training partners. There was a lot of sister joy, so to speak.
Jill: In the men’s 100 meter backstroke S nine finals, which this class, it’s a disability in one [00:44:00] leg or an absence of one leg or a moderate disability in all four limbs. Gold went to a Bogdan Mozgovoi from RPC. Silver went to Yahor Shchalkanau from Belarus, and bronze went to Timothy Hodge from Australia. In the women’s S nine version of this race, gold went to Hannah Aspden from USA. Nuria Marques Soto from Spain won silver, and Sophie Pascoe from New Zealand won bronze. And this was another one where the commentators were talking about Sophie Pascoe, and she just died with about 50, not even 50, like 25 meters to go. I think. She just slowed way down, and the other two passed her. Cause she had been winning. It was, that was a tough race, I think for Sophie.
Alison: I think Sophie is the world record holder. So this was an upset. And Hannah Aspden they call Hurricane Hannah. And, you know, I love a good nickname.
Jill: And then we moved back to the 50 meter backstroke. This is the S5 class for both men and women, which is a high level of disability in the mid trunk and legs or moderate disability in all four limbs. So on the men’s side, China swept the podium. Zheng Tao took gold. Ruan Jingsong took silver, and Wang Lichao took bronze. For the women. Gold went to Lu Dong from China, silver to Teresa Perales from Spain, and bronze went to Sevilay Ozturk from Turkey.
Jill: So you’ve got the results for the men’s 200 meter free S four class.
Alison: Yes. It’s a high degree of disability in both legs and trunk, or the absence of multiple limbs.
Alison: The gold went to Ami Omer Dadaon from Israel. Japan host country takes the silver, Suzuki Takayuki, and RPC with the bronze Roman Zhdanov
Jill: In the women’s [00:46:00] 100 meter freestyle S three class, which is going to be a higher degree of disability. Gold went to Arjola Trimi from Italy, silver went to America’s Leanne Smith, and bronze went to Iulia Shishova from RPC.
Jill: Moving over to butterfly, we had the men’s and women’s 50 meter fly. The S six class, which is a moderate affectation on one side or highly effected in the hips and legs or short of stature. For the men. China took both gold and silver Wang Jiangang won gold, Jian Hongguang won silver, and your friend Nelson Crispin Corzo from Colombia took the bronze. For the women, China’s Jiang Yuyan took gold. Nicole Turner from Ireland, yay, won silver, and Elizabeth Marks from the US won bronze. This one I saw as well. And once Elizabeth Marks had won one race, then you know, the commentators want her to win every race. And she does not have a quick reaction time off the blocks. And I think this was too short of a distance to catch up. Because yeah, Jiang Yuyan just was flying.
Alison: I mean, they call it the splash and dash in the Olympics and it’s got the same distance. So the slow reaction time really makes a difference
Jill: We had four races in the 200 meter that spanned two classes. So there was SM 11 for both men and women and SM 13. These are both visual impairment classes. SM 13 is a lesser degree of visual impairment. For the SM 11 for the men. Rogier Dorsman from Netherlands won gold Mykhailo Serbin from Ukraine took silver, and Tomito Uchu you from Japan took bronze. For the women. Ma Jia from China took gold. Cai liwen from China took silver and Anastasia Pagonis from USA [00:48:00] took bronze. For the SM 13 class. Ihar Boki from Belarus took gold. And they said like, he went for six, for six in Rio for gold. And he’s four for four now.
Alison: They keep saying his name.
Jill: They call him the beast.
Alison: Oh. And he’s the Belorussian beast! Let’s make it even better!
Jill: Silver went to Alex Portal from France, and bronze went to Thomas Van Wanrooij from Netherlands.
Jill: And on the women’s side for that class, Carlotta Gilli from Italy took the gold. Colleen Young from USA, took silver and Shokhsanamkhon Toshpulatova from Uzbekistan, took a bronze.
Alison: I just want to mention Colleen Young and I share an alma mater. So go Stags!.
Jill: Oh, that’s very cool. Has your alumni association been all excited?
Alison: Yes.
Jill: That’s good. That’s very good. And then the men had, their 4 by 100 meter freestyle relay, 34 points race. Gold went to Australia, silver to Italy and bronze to Ukraine. I don’t know if this had any drama, like the drama from the women’s race.
Alison: The women’s race? No, it seemed to be very drama free.
Jill: Oh, that’s good. For table tennis, we had more singles finals. For the women, we start with the Ws six class which is standing with moderate disability to the arms and legs. Gold went to Maryna Lytovchenko from Ukraine. Maliak Alieva from RPC took silver, and bronzes went to Raisa Chebanika from RPC and Stephanie Grebe from Germany. For the Ws seven class, which is standing and a low degree of impairment to all four limbs, or a moderate to both arms or both legs. Gold went to Kelly van Zon from Netherlands. Silver went to Viktoriia [00:50:00] Safonova from RPC and bronzes went to Anne Barneoud from France and Kubra Korkut from Turkey.
Jill: In the women’s Ws nine classes standing, a low degree of disability in one arm or one leg. Gold went to Australia’s Lei Li Na. Silver went to Xiong Guiyan From China, and bronzes went to Karolina Pek from Poland and also Alexa Szvitacs from Hungary. In the Ws 10 class, this is standing, oh, this is Millie Tapper’s class. So gold went to Australia’s Qian Yang, who beat Millie earlier on in the knockout stage. So again, like we said before, if you’re going to lose, if you lose to the gold medalist, not bad. Silver went to a Bruna Costa Alexandre from Brazil and bronzes went to Natalia Partyka from Poland and Tien Shiau Wen from Taipei.
Alison: So I do want to mention that the team is a mixed class. So the gold medalist from class nine and class 10 will join Millie Tapper on the Australian women’s nine, 10 class team.
Jill: Oh, nice.
Alison: So I think that bodes well for the Australian ladies team there,
Jill: I’m looking forward to that. I will have my little timer lantern ready to go, should they need a time out.
Jill: On the men’s side, we had four finals. The first was MS1, which was a wheelchair Wheelchair class where the is locked into place and the, the competitors have moderate disabilities to their arms and shoulders. Gold went to Joo Young Dae from Korea. Silver went to Kim Hyeon Uk from Korea and bronzes went to Thomas Matthews from Great Britain and Nam Ki Won from Korea
Jill: the Ms. Two class, also a [00:52:00] locked wheelchair with moderate disability to both hands, but no restrictions in the arms or shoulders. Gold went to Fabien Lamirault from France. Silver went to Rafal Czuper from Poland and bronzes went to Cha Soo Yong from Korea and to Park Jin Cheai from Korea. In the MS4 class, this is a wheelchair class, but they can move the wheelchair backward and forward. Gold went to Abdullah Ozturk from Turkey. Silver went to Kim Young-Gun from Korea, and Maxime Thomas from France and Nesim Turan from Turkey, won bronzes.
Jill: And finally the MS8 class final. This is a standing with a low level of disability in both arms or both legs or moderate impairments in one leg.
Jill: Gold went to Zhao Shuai from China. Silver went to Vikto Didukh from Ukraine and bronzes went to a Maksym Nikolenko from Ukraine and Peng Weinan from China.
Jill: In wheelchair basketball, we had the end of group play for the men. Canada defeated Colombia 63 to 52. Germany beat Iran, 56 to 53. Japan beat Turkey 67 to 55. Great Britain beat Australia, 70 to 69. There were some close matches today. And then you get to USA beat Algeria, 86 to 25. The, the groups ended. Spain was the only undefeated team in the whole tournament. They top group a and then in group B Great Britain and USA both had a four and one record. So our quarterfinal final match-ups will be Spain versus Germany, USA versus Turkey, Japan versus Australia. Great Britain versus Canada. Colombia and Algeria will be playing for 11th and 12th place. Korea and Iran will play for 9th and 10th. [00:54:00] Start their knockout rounds on Wednesday because tomorrow is the women’s quarterfinals with Canada versus US, Germany versus Spain, China versus Great Britain, Netherlands versus Japan. And Australia and Algeria will play for ninth and 10th place.
Alison: Oh, that Canada-US game is going to be good.
Jill: And we had some wheelchair tennis. Heat delays, again, postponing some of the results. In the quad singles quarter finals, Niels Vink from Netherlands defeated. Great. Britain’s Andy Lapthorne 6, 4 6 1. Sugeno Koji from Japan, beat David Wagner from the US 6 4 6 2. This bums me out, and I haven’t gotten to see him play yet. Well, now I have to go back and watch him play. But I do like if it Wagner and we saw him
Alison: on the media day. And he’s practically our age, which I like even more.
Jill: Sam Schroeder from Netherlands beat Heath Davidson from Australia 6, 2 6 1, and Dylan Alcott from Australia beat Bryan Barten from us 6 0 6 1. and the difference between, because in wheelchair tennis there’s men’s and women’s singles, and then a quad class and the quad class has more arm impairment.
Alison: Yes.
Jill: And sometimes they have to tape their racquets to their wrists to make sure they stay on, which has got to hurt with the tape.
Alison: And also, when you think about the heat, if you’re wrapped up in tape, that’s gotta be, it limits your body’s ability to regulate temperature.
Alison: Cause you can’t sweat through tape. It’s not going to evaporate.
Jill: In the men’s doubles quarterfinals Great Britain’s Hewitt and Reed beat Gerard and Vendora from Belgium six to six, two, and France beat Spain, the team of Huda and Pfeiffer 1 6, 3, 6, 4, and other matches we’ll be on the lookout for,
Jill: it was a quieter day.
Alison: Are you kidding? [00:56:00] Were you sleeping on the couch through it? And that’s why it was quieter?
Jill: I did fall asleep on the couch again. Maybe it felt quieter because we watched the same stuff over from days prior. So it made you feel like, oh, there’s not much going on today. I know there were fewer sports.
Jill: We’d like to take a second and think our Patreon patrons who give an ongoing contribution to the show. Their support has been invaluable to us, especially because the new patrons that we got during the Olympics and the ones who have signed on during the Paralympics so far have allowed us to provide transcripts of our shows. And that’s something we’ve wanted to do for a while because it makes the show more accessible to more people. So thank you very much patrons. We could not be here without your support. If you would like to make an ongoing contribution, sign up at patreon.com/flame alive pod.
Jill: We have a TKFLASTAN Watch.
Alison: We do. We actually have both TKFLASTANIS in action tomorrow. Melissa Tapper will compete with the Australian women’s team in table tennis in class nine and 10 and McKenna Geer is back with the mixed air rifle prone, S H.
Jill: Very exciting day. I’m super pumped to watch.
Jill: Okay. That means it’s time to 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. We’re @flamealivepod on social I’m on Twitter. Alison’s on Insta and Facebook. So please get at us there. Join the, Keep the Flame Alive Podcast group on Facebook, and don’t forget our Kickstarter and help us reach our goal of bringing you on the ground coverage at Beijing. That’s kickstarter.com/profile/flame alive pod.
Jill: As we go out to music by Mercury Sunset, thank you so much for listening and until tomorrow, keep the flame alive.
###
Attempts have been made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, but it may not be fully complete. Please cross-reference the audio.