The action at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics keeps getting better….or maybe we’re just seeing the same races over and over, thanks to the joys of NBC’s coverage.
We’re starting to see some new sports come up on the feeds, and Alison has found a replacement for the rugby wheelchair-sized hole in her heart!
Today’s sports program includes:
- Archery
- Athletics
- Badminton
- Boccia
- Cycling – Road
- Goalball
- Shooting
- Sitting Volleyball
- Swimming
- Table Tennis
- Wheelchair Basketball
- Wheelchair Tennis
Plus, our mainstay segments:
- Feed Beefs
- What Officiating/Volunteer Job Would We Do?
- TKFLASTAN Watch
Our Kickstarter project ends on Sunday, and 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 9
Jill: [00:00:00] Konnichiwa Paralympics fans and lovers of TKFLASTAN, and welcome to day nine 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 co-host Alison Brown, Alison, Konichiwa.
Alison: Konnichiwa. I am getting the remnants of hurricane Ida today and tomorrow.
Alison: So I am feeling the pain of those athletes who are standing out in the rain. I can’t imagine trying to run and jump as these torrential downpours are coming.
Jill: Yeah, it’s tough. It’s really tough.
Alison: Well, I had to do is take the dog out and I was complaining the whole time.
Jill: Well, it was big day of action again, all across Tokyo. So we’ve got a big show for you. Some news and follow up. First off let’s check in on what happened during the women in athletics. We had two big dramas there. So the women’s 100 meter T 11 class, which was a visual impairment class. And it turned out that they only awarded a gold and a silver.
Jill: I did go back and watch this and still didn’t quite understand. I saw the one pair whose tether broke right away.
Alison: she’s the world champion. So she was absolutely devastated.
Jill: That was Jerusa Geber dos Santos. And then the other one was an another rule violation, which was 7.9 0.3, which thanks to the inner sanctum.com.au for spelling this one out. So what happened to the other Brazilian, Thalita Vitoria, Simplico da Silva. She was disqualified under rule 7.9 0.3, that states that the athlete and the guide must remain attached by the hand tether from the start until the finish. It’s the tether didn’t break, but I [00:02:00] guess they must have come apart somehow.
Jill: And then that China’s Liu, QQ, Ching was supposed to, she won the silver and she was, should have been disqualified under rule set, six point 15.4, which states the regulations under which the tethers must be adhered to. So I’m guessing it’s a certain type of tether and it has to be I’m sure, just so long, but she was still given the silver. They just gave her a yellow card.
Alison: And then the other big dispute going on is from the men’s shot put. where the Malaysians were disqualified because of a, a time violation to showing up to the ready room. And now there’s news that I read this morning on ESPN, that the Ukrainian athletes are getting all kinds of online hate for this.
Jill: I’m sorry that the athletes are getting hate for this. I think it’s their team managers that need to face the heat.
Alison: Yes, though what ended up happening that one piece of information we didn’t have yesterday, they were, the Malaysians were competing under protests. The Ukrainians had filed the protest prior to the start of the competition. So it wasn’t like, oh, we lost. Then we filed the complaint. So there was a complaint lodged right at the beginning of the competition.
Alison: But because the officials didn’t have all the information regarding the ready room, they allowed them the Malaysians to compete and win and get a world record. But technically they should not have been allowed to compete to begin with, which is what usually happens with the ready room violation.
Jill: Yeah. And that’s really tough because once you’re allowed to compete, I’m sure you think, okay, everything is fine. I’m competing. I throw a world record throw twice, and then all of [00:04:00] a sudden I’m disqualified for something that happened before the match. And what, what do you do? That’s, that’s really frustrating. It’s upsetting all the way around.
Alison: So the Malaysian team did file a protest with the IPC and with World Athletics, and both upheld the protests. So saying that the Ukrainians do in fact, get the medals and the Malaysians were disqualified properly.
Jill: That’s tough. That’s really tough. I wonder how much of a, like, were they hours late? What goes into a ready room violation?
Alison: Right. So that still was not clear this morning in the information I was able to gather. So this is not done. That issue is not going to go away too quick.
Jill: Okay, then we have one correction from yesterday. I said that in the results for the women’s 50 meter breaststroke in swimming, the SB three class, the gold went to Marta Fernandez Infante from Spain, not from Estonia.
Jill: All right. Once again, I started off the Tokyo day thinking coverage is okay. I could get boccia on the stream. They actually showed some boccia on TV. I thought there would be no feed beefs, but NBC in their great abilities, has given me plenty of beefs to beef about. What I don’t like is the, and this happens all the time in Olympic and Paralympic coverage. I really hate the tactic of, we will show you a game. And then all of a sudden, the game skips ahead, you know what I’m talking about? So they showed boccia, they were showing the BC three class and the gold medal game. So they had the whole first end, they went to commercial.
Jill: They come back and it’s in the middle of end three.
Alison: Well, that’s, they’ve been doing that for 40 [00:06:00] years, but they should stop. It’s like TV shows age the baby. And all of a sudden you come back from the summer and the baby is now 10.
Jill: Okay. Well, I don’t like that stunt. They pulled it in goalball too. And we missed an Amanda Dennis goal.
Alison: Not okay with missing anything about Amanda Dennis.
Jill: I know. Then they were talking about shot putter, Josh Cinnamo from the US, and they showed a package. They showed this package on during the, the trial. So, so I understand them reusing a package. That’s fine. But the package, plus talking about his social media posts and showing him on the podium all lasted, I think a rough estimate would be seven to 10 times longer than the actual competition they showed, which was his one throw.
Alison: You know, this goes back to something I said yesterday. It feels like the coverage of the Paralympics is such a throwback to the eighties and nineties of Olympics coverage, where it was more package, less sport. And they’ve, they’ve improved that on the Olympic side, but the Paralympics are, are lagging in that way.
Jill: Right. And, and there seems to be still an urgency to like, please tell us why you are disabled. And I don’t necessarily care. I want to know the classes because I want to understand what the thing that ties all of these athletes together, because we’re not doing just one race for, or one competition. They do get broken up into classes. So, okay. Please tell me what the classes are. So I can put something into context, but I, I care more about what the athlete can do versus what is making them be a Paralympian.
Alison: And my feed beef was finally, and we’re on day nine. I got a fleeting glimpse of LEXI.
Jill: Oh, you did!
Alison: Yes. I was watching swimming this morning. I was [00:08:00] catching up from the overnight swimming and there was one block that they put up for the S7’s, which we’ve talked about being this hodgepodge. And I saw the LEXI graphic, and I said, why do you not make this just on the screen? We’ve talked about this.
Alison: It was there for a second. And then the athletes came out, and I’d already forgotten which class we were in.
Jill: Right. And they can just put that small across the top in the corner. You can do it, it can be done. They’ve done it. But you know, you can go to, I believe it’s LEXI global. If you search that and LEXI is all in capitals and if you need Paralympic or classification, and you’ll find the LEXI system and you can see for yourself too, how it breaks down and oh, it’s helpful.
Jill: Do you have another feed beef?
Alison: So the race that I saw multiple times this day was the 400 meter T 37. And this is the race that Nick Mayhugh of the USA won silver. So of course in the USA, they kept, I saw this at least three times, and these were all, this was not feed, this was television airings. And I kept getting confused, cause Nick Mayhugh is in multiple races.
Jill: Yes. So it’s very hard when you have athletes in multiple races, and you have races with multiple classes, keeping everything straight when you’re seeing the same race over.
Alison: Yeah. It’s really the Olympic Channel reairing in the afternoon that’s screwing me up because I understand you show it live ish in the morning and then in primetime, but that middle of the day, why? There’s so many things you didn’t show in the morning that you could be showing.
Jill: I agree. All right. Time to name that commentator. So I found out that the gentleman who is accompanying Lisa O’Sullivan on goalball is named Danny Coleman Cook. He’s doing well. It’s a nice little team [00:10:00] they’ve got going on there.
Alison: Almost as charming, a name as Nelson Crispin Corzo.
Jill: Which I did notice today. The swimming coverage that they just don’t, they don’t fall for that name . It is a fun name to say,
Alison: I know, and the feed commentator did fall for the name. So every time I’m watching the NBC coverage, I’m like, come on, he’s racing again, get into it.
Jill: Okay. Time for what officiating or volunteer job would we want to do? What do you have today?
Alison: So today I noticed that sitting volleyball, there’s a volunteer that stands behind the officials table and seems to be their assistant. So I don’t know if he or she gets the water or passes papers around, but I want that job because I have a feeling you’ll be sitting at the assistant table and I could say, yes. Ms. Jaracz, would you like some tea?
Alison: I don’t know because I, I, I can tell you what I would not do at sitting volleyball, and that would be being an actual referee or umpire or the people making the calls, mostly because that is, honest to Pete, the worst referee uniform I’ve ever seen. And I don’t know what their dress code conversation was like. I have been a part of some horrific dress code conversations, but these are kind of brownish muddyish, greenish polo shirts. And I’ve never seen this: that the patch that they wear- usually it’s over your left chest- the patch is right underneath where the buttons are on the polo shirt. So it is definitely, if you’re a woman, I just go look right here at my patch.
Alison: Definitely a decision made by men.
Jill: Made me uncomfortable. But what I think now that we’ve talked about the call room violations, I think I might want to go back to athletics and work in the call room and see what that process is. Like, make sure everybody’s all [00:12:00] checked in, go, “Where are they?” Say, 30 minutes to call.
Jill: And you know what I would probably do? If they have to tell, like, give announcements of how much time they have til the race, I would probably say, “It’s Showtime!”.
Alison: You would have a clipboard and you’d hold up the number of minutes because you’ve got to work with different languages. So you need some, some visuals as well.
Jill: I would be happy to do that.
Alison: But as long as you have a stopwatch and a clipboard, we are good to go. Would you like a cup of tea as well?
Jill: All right. Before we get to today’s action, four days left in our Kickstarter campaign. We are growing, growing, growing. This is great. Thank you so much to everybody who’s hopped on board overnight.
Jill: We are up to 44% funded for our trip to cover the winter Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing. As you may know, media accreditations were bestowed upon us quite unexpectedly. We applied, we didn’t think we’d get them, but we did. So we’re really excited to go to Beijing and tell you everything that’s going on on the ground and what you don’t see on the feeds and what you don’t see on the broadcast and all of that fun stuff that we can only do by being there.
Jill: The fact is that this is an expensive endeavor, and we are a little independent podcast with a shoe string budget that didn’t plan to have this kind of expense so soon. So we’re having a Kickstarter program to make sure we can go and we need your help to get there. Check out our campaign at kickstarter.com/profile/flame alive pod.
Jill: We’d really like you in this last four days, just channel your inner Oksana Master. Help us muscle through. Have you seen how jacked she is? I think Ben
Alison: She is amazing!
Jill: Ben posted a picture of her. I believe in the Facebook group. Just her muscles are [00:14:00] unbelievable. So. Channel her muscles. Help us muscle through to the finish.
Jill: We take all dollar amounts, large dollar amounts, small dollar amounts. And if the more backers we get, the more the, his profile gets uplifted and it becomes more visible to others. So if you’ve given already, thank you so much. Share this. If you haven’t given, please consider doing so. And if you, and either way, if you could share this with your friends and family, we’d really appreciate it. That’s kickstarter.com/profile/flame alive pod.
Jill: We’re starting with archery. Still haven’t seen any archery.
Alison: Still haven’t been able to see any archery. So this was the event that was rescheduled from yesterday.
Jill: Oh, so archery must have had an off day. Oh, they did. They were scheduled to have an off day and this is the rescheduled competition.
Jill: So this is the women’s individual w one class. Gold went to China’s Chen Minyl. Silver went to Czech Republic’s Sarka Musilova, and bronze went to Great Britain, Victoria Rumary.
Jill: And you know what I noticed when I looked at that? I said, oh, there are no Koreans on this medal stand. And I looked down the top Korean was ranked sixth. I wonder, because the Koreans just have an amazing archery program on the Olympic side, I wonder how developed their para archery program is. And if it’s not as well developed or they just don’t have the same number of participants or how that works. But I thought that was an interesting note. Something to look into.
Alison: We haven’t done a lot on archery period. We had had Hannah Brown, who is the official, so we definitely need to look into archery, both Olympic and Paralympic overall. I will be calling my new friend, Matt Stutzman, since I asked him a good question in the media day.
Jill: Yeah. Yes. Oh, what was that question?
Alison: That has to do with Rising [00:16:00] Phoenix. And he was so excited when he answered.
Jill: Okay. Nice. Moving to athletics. We will start on the field. Men’s club throw F 51 final. This was a high degree of disability in the legs, trunk and hands and moderate disability in the arms.
Jill: Gold went to Musa Taimazon from RPC with a world record. Silver went to Zelijko Dimitrijevic from Serbia with a personal best. And bronze went to Marian Kureja from Slovakia.
Jill: Then we move on to ShotPut. Women had two competitions today. Men had one. Women started with the F 32, which is a high level of impairment in the legs and high impairment in either the arms or the trunk. Gold went to Anastasiia Moskalenko from Ukraine with a world record. Silver went to Roza Kozakowska from Poland with a personal ,best and bronze went to Evgeniia Galaktionova from RPC.
Jill: In the F 36 class, this is a combination of low and moderate disabilities in the arms, legs, and trunk. Gold went to a Galina Lipatnik ova from RPC with a personal best. Silver went to a Miriam Martinez Rico from Spain, also with a personal best. And bronze went to Wu Qing from China.
Jill: In the men’s ShotPut, we had the F 46 class today. That’s a high degree of impairment in one arm or absence of one arm. Gold went to Greg Stewart from Canada with a Paralympic record. Silver went to Nikita Prokhorov from RPC who got an area record, and bronze went to Joshua Cinnamo from the USA.
Jill: And, you know, again, if you watch the coverage, I’m sure they will show this whole package again, at least once. And if you’re watching Olympic Channel this afternoon, you’ll see it there, but you will see his final- or his one winning throw. I don’t [00:18:00] even know which throw it was, it was a throw. Let’s put it into context., NBC
Jill: In women’s discuss, we had one competition today for the F 41 class, which is short of stature. Gold went to Tunisia’s got a world record. So she also competed in the shot put, I believe. And two events, two goals, two world records.
Alison: That’s how you do it.
Jill: Hmm. Incredible. Silver went to Youssra Karim from Morocco with a personal best, and bronze went to Hayat El Garaa also from Morocco.
Jill: The men’s javelin throw had a competition in the F 34 class. This is a low degree of disability in the trunk and arms, and a high degree of disability in the legs. So they compete while seated. And gold went to Saeid Afrooz. from Iran with a world record. Silver went to Colombia’s Mauricio Valencia, and bronze went to Colombia, Diego Fernando Meneses Medina, who got a personal best.
Jill: In the long jump pit, we had two competitions for the men. First was the T 38 class, which was a low degree of impairment in both legs, one side or the whole body. Gold went toZhu Dening with a world record. He’s from China. Silver went to Zhong Huanghao from China with a personal best, and bronze went to Colombia’s Jose Gregorio Lemos Rivas with an area record.
Jill: In the men’s long jump T 64 class, this one was a bunch of classes combined together, disability of one or both legs below the knee. Gold went to Markus Rehm from Germany. Silver went to Dimitri Pavade from France with a personal best. And bronze went to Trenten Merrill from USA, who got an area record. I’m surprised we haven’t seen him splashed all over.
Alison: Well, it’s just a bronze. You know how the US just cares if it’s a gold.
Jill: [00:20:00] Right. Okay. So now moving over to the track, we had a lot of hundred meter competitions today. So the women had three and the men had two. We’re going to start with the lowest class number and work our way up.
Jill: So first was the T 36 class for women. It was a moderate impairment in both arms and legs or combination of that and, or low and moderate disability in all four limbs and your trunk. Gold went to Shi Yiting from China, who got a world record. Silver went to Elena Ivanova from RPC, and bronze went to Danielle Aitchison from New Zealand.
Jill: In the T 53 class, which is wheelchair athletes who have no arm disabilities. China won the gold. That went to Gao Fang. Silver went to Zhou Hongzhuan from China, and bronze went to Samantha Kinghorn from Great Britain.
Jill: I did see a T class wheelchair 100 meter race. Not sure if it was this one, but you are right. They get those real chairs to go really fast. And I also want to know the, What technique do you do? Because the front wheel will bounce. And I know you don’t want the wheel to bounce off because don’t, you want the wheel to stay on the track to get the…?
Alison: I don’t know. Would bounce help you like a hop at the beginning of a run?
Jill: That’s a good question. Do you want the wheelchair’s front wheel to come off a little bit at the start of the race? Does that make it easier to get up to speed? But then do you want the wheels, the front wheel to main contact remain to stay in contact with the track during the race? Because that might make you faster? I mean, you don’t really, I can’t imagine wanting to wheelie for a hundred meters.
Alison: I would, but I’m not also trying to win a medal.[00:22:00]
Jill: I’m just getting images of you going up and down the street, doing wheelies,
Alison: It’s swinging around on the back, the back wheels. It could get interesting. And you know what the worst part is? If I was helping somebody with a wheelchair, I would totally do that. Spin them around, tip the bags and nobody ever let me drive a wheelchair if you don’t want to drag race.
Jill: Okay, well, more for the list to understand over the next quad.
Jill: Men also did the same class in the 100 meters. Gold went to a Pongasakom Paeyo from Thailand, who got a Paralympic record. Silver went to Brent Lakatos from Canada, who is the current world record holder. So this was kind of a big race. Bronze went to Abdulrrahman Alqurashi from Saudi Arabia, another new country to us too.
Jill: For the women’s version of this race, gold went to Zhou Zhaoqian from China. Silver went to Amanda Kotaja from Finland. Finland! And bronze went to Cheri Madsen from USA.
Alison: Finland has matching silvers now!
Jill: It’s very nice. And then we have the men’s T the men’s 400 meter T 37 class, which is moderate disability on one side. Gold, went to Andrei Vdovin from RPC who got a world record. Silver went to Nick Mayhugh from the USA, who got an American record. And, you know, this was just his first international race in this distance.
Alison: This is like those, when we talk about the stories from like the 1932 Olympics. Oh, I’m here, I’ll just jump in this race. I mean, I know he trained really hard for this, that let’s not dismiss it.
Jill: Right? Yeah. A year and years and years of being an athlete at a high level. But it does have that same feel to it. Oh, well, let’s just try this one. See how I do. And bronze went to [00:24:00] Kobesov Chermen from RPC, who got a Paralympic record. He must be in a different class.
Alison: This was a combo 36/ 37.
Jill: Okay. That makes sense. Okay. Would you like me to repeat those results? Because I know you’d like seeing the race multiple times.
Alison: I saw Nick Mayhugh celebrate the silver medal, and they even played the post race interview every time. I really know about Nick’s training regimen.
Jill: Para badminton started up today. This is one of the sports that has been added to the Paralympic program. Today we had group play in many singles and a doubles class. So much like table tennis and racquet sports in general, we’ll keep an eye on it and let you know how things are progressing, because it’s another sport with a lot of classes and a lot of athletes. But you know, badminton starts on the 1st of September, but in the US it will start on September three.
Alison: Do they think that we don’t understand how time difference works?
Jill: I don’t think so.
Alison: Like they, the NBC thinks that we won’t notice the difference. Oh, it’s just cause you know, Japan is on a different time zone.
Jill: And you throw in the international Dateline.
Alison: Yeah. Not by three days, NBC. We’re not that dumb.
Jill: Moving over to boccia. We had medal rounds for the mixed individual BC through one through BC four classes. So these are all, everyone is in a wheelchair. We’ll start with BC four and work our way down. The BC four class is a combination of disabilities that affect the whole body. It can be moderate in the whole body, high in the legs with additional disabilities in the trunk and arms, or absence of multiple limbs. And these athletes must overcome fatigue. Gold went to Slovakia’s, Samuel Andrejcik, who beat Pornchok Larpyen from Thailand four to zero, and bronze went Leung Yuk Wing [00:26:00] from Hong Kong, who won his match five to four. I think this match is the one listener Patrick from Green Bay posted on Twitter, this shot of the balls, and a Slovakian’s ball had jumped and landed on top of balls and also was touching the Jack. It was like a little pile of balls then.
Alison: How does that happen?
Jill: They can bounce a little bit and sometimes they bounce or they hit another ball, and they bounce over. It was complicated. Then in the BC three class, which is a high degree of impairment in arms and legs, moderate in the trunk. These are the athletes who work with the ramps, and they have an assistant that helps them because a lot of times they’re using a mouth pointer or a head pointer to push the ball down the ramp. Gold went to Adam Peska from Czech Republic who beat Gregorios Polychronidis, three, three. He won the tiebreaker.
Jill: This was the first time that Adam Peska has won gold. Polychronidis has been the bridesmaid several times at the Paralympics, getting the silver again. Bronze went to Daniel, Michel from Australia, who won handily nine to zero in his match.
Jill: I saw these two matches. I think they showed the gold medal match on the broadcast TV, I believe. And then I had the other one on the feed, and it’s dangerous being a sports assistant. I think.
Alison: Do you get hit by things?
Jill: I don’t know, but Gregorios Polychronidis, his wife is his assistant, was all taped up with the KT tape, like her arms, on her shoulders. I don’t know what was going on, but… then you would like the story. His wife had gave birth four months ago to a daughter, and because the two of them are a team, the daughter is with them there in Japan.
Alison: Oh, thank good–. Well, that would explain the reason for all the tape. Being the mother of a newborn, you injure your [00:28:00] arms and shoulders and elbows. So if she’s doing both , that’s why she’s taped up.
Jill: Okay. That makes sense.
Jill: The mixed individual BC two class, which is a combination of disabilities that range from low to high in all four limbs in the trunk. Gold went to Sugimura Hidetaka from Japan. He won five zero over Thailand’s Vongsa Watcharaphon. Bronze went to Maciel Santos from Brazil, who won his match four to three.
Jill: I did see this match it- oh my goodness. You want to see passionate, passionate Brazilians playing boccia. This was good. And it was interesting because sometimes they would throw the Jack close to them and sometimes they would throw it far away. And if they’re throwing it close to them, sometimes the, you know, the Jack moves out of the way, and it was interesting. You saw a little bit of boccia.
Alison: I did see a little bit and it, and it is similar to the lawn game. The process is the same. But yeah, I was having a hard time figuring out the strategy and that’s how I felt when I was first watching curling as well.
Jill: That makes sense.
Alison: So there’s a lot of similarities to the, getting the stone in the house and getting the Jack on the right spot. So if you really enjoy curling, you will definitely enjoy enjoy boccia. Cause it’s that same chess and physical things going on.
Jill: Exactly. . It was pretty mesmerized because of the strategy involved. And there were times where, because of how, because the the athletes are sitting, they can’t necessarily see the Jack sometimes if balls are in the way, so that’s part of the strategy to hide the Jack. So you can’t see it and you don’t necessarily know where to throw, or your opponent doesn’t necessarily know where to throw. That’s what I loved. I think you do have to sit down and spend some time with it, but honestly, It’s a really, really interesting sport.[00:30:00]
Jill: And finally, in the BC one class, which has a high degree of disability in the legs and trunk, moderate degree of impairment in the arms. Gold went to David Smith from Great Britain, who beat Malaysia’s Wei Lun Chew, four to two. And then Jose Carlos Chagas de Oliveira from Brazil won the bronze, who won his match eight to two.
Jill: Over to cycling. In the road event, it was a hand cycling day. So we had all of the hand cycling categories, men combined the H one and two class, which has a high degree of impairment in the legs, trunk and hands and varying disability to the arms. And the, the different classes have different distances that they have to cycle as well. Makes sense. This race is 58.2 kilometers long. Gold went to Florian Joouanny from France. Silver went to Luca Missoni from Italy, and bronze went to Sergio Garrote Munoz from Spain.
Jill: In the H three class, which has a high degree of impairment in the legs, trunk and hands, no impairment to the arms. This race is 79.2 kilometers long. Gold went to Rulan Kuznetsov from RPC. Silver went to Heinz Frei from Switzerland, and bronze went to Walter Ablinger from Austria.
Jill: In the H four class for men, this is moderate to high impairment to both legs, absence of legs above the knee. Also a 79.2 kilometer race. Gold went to Jetze Plat from Netherlands. Silver went to Thonas Fruewirth from Austria, and bronze went to Alexander Gritsch from Austria.
Jill: The women had the H one to four classes all combined, and they did a 26.4 kilometer race. Gold went to Jeanette Jansen from Netherlands. Silver went to Annika Zeyen from Germany, and bronze went to Alicia Dana from USA.
Jill: Then we had the [00:32:00] H five class. This is a low impairment to the whole body. One side, both legs or the absence of legs below the knee. The women have a 66 kilometer race. Gold went to Oksana Masters from the USA. Silver went to Sun Bianbian from China, and bronze went to Katia Aere from Italy.
Jill: For the men, they cycle 79.2 kilometers. Gold went to Mitch Valize from Netherlands. Silver went to Loic Vergnaud from France, and bronze went to Tim de Vries from Netherlands.
Jill: So they finally found Oksana Masters in a race that they could figure out where she was on the track. I got to see a little bit of this. Of course, they showed near the end. So you didn’t see what was happening too much. I got the impression that Masters was leading for a while and Sun Bianbian was drafting off of her.
Jill: But then somewhere along the way, aMasters got in second place and drafted and drafted and drafted and Sun just, you could see her waving Oksana Masters up, like it’s your turn. Or, you know, you can go ahead and take it. And Masters was just like, Nope, not doing that right now.
Alison: And there are drafting rules in the Paralympics where you can only be close to another racer for a certain amount of time. So I don’t know if that varies between classes, but the announcer did mention when we were doing the time trial, that drafting is very limited in the Paralympic
Jill: Well, when Oksana finally passed Sun, her wheel clipped a little bit and she almost tipped over, but managed to stay upright. Eventually she just powered ahead and won. And just, you know, puddle of tears because she just couldn’t believe what she has been able to achieve on the bike.
Jill: When she’s done, they said, she’s going to Germany to train cross country skiing in an underground snow tunnel. [00:34:00]
Alison: I would like to be in the underground snow tunnel.
Jill: I know it’s just, that’s a lot to unpack. And now I have so many things on the list.
Alison: I have never heard of an underground snow tunnel before. In all our watching of biathlon and cross-country, no one has ever mentioned this kind of training facility.
Jill: So now we must find out about it.
Alison: Do you think it’s in an old bomb shelter?.
Jill: Maybe.
Alison: An underground snow tunnel. What is that?!
Jill: Moving over to goalball, we had the quarterfinal competition for the women. Turkey beat Australia ten to six. Japan beat Israel, four to one. Brazil, beat China, one to zero. And USA beat RPC five to three.
Jill: I did get to see some of that match, what they showed on television, which wasn’t all of it as we found out. But thank you very much to Lisa O’Sullivan because now I found out what a long ball is. And apparently, so you know how the court is divided up into sections, the middle two sections, the closest section to the center line for each side? That’s the neutral zone.
Jill: So you can’t have the ball bounce over the neutral zone. It has to land or be rolled through the neutral zone.
Alison: Sounds like an icing call in hockey.
Jill: Yeah. I think it’s something similar to that. I don’t know why it what the benefit of that is, but still at least part of the question is answered.
Alison: Well, I would think if it bounces too far out, away from the players, it would be very difficult to manage because you’re dealing with visually impaired and it could maybe bounce wildly.
Jill: It could, or maybe the bells don’t move enough without that. When, you know, when you’re rolling the ball, the bells will roll. When the ball bounces, you hear that hit it, but if it [00:36:00] takes a while to bounce and if the ball is in the air, do you necessarily hear the bells enough to be able to figure out, to give you a fair chance at defending that? I dunno. Good question.
Jill: RPC was called on a noise penalty.
Alison: They were too loud.
Jill: They were too loud, but it really, so when they did the replay or when I did the, when I did my own personal replay, I think somebody’s shoe squeaked right at the wrong moment.
Alison: And the bells do sound like squeaking shoes sometimes on the, certainly on television that, that sound is very similar.
Jill: Exactly. So that. I understood that. And immediately after that was called, somebody was out there with a broom.
Alison: I was going to say, were they out there with the WD 40? That’s a volunteer job for me! I’ll just run around all the venues with my WD 40. I’m like a suburban dad at heart, apparently.
Jill: Okay. In the semifinals, it will be Brazil versus USA and Turkey versus Japan.
Jill: In shooting, we had a couple of competitions. First was the R three mixed 10 meter air rifle prone, S H one. These are athletes who are highly affected in the legs, but they can hold the rifle unsupported. Gold went to Natascha Hitrop from Germany, who got a Paralympic record. Silver went to Korea’s Park Jinho, and bronze went to Iryna Shchetnik from Ukraine.
Jill: So I did see maybe the last third of the finals of this match. I do like watching shooting. It’s it’s right up there with Zen sports. If you just need to have something on the ,quietness and the calmness of everybody helps calm me down.
Jill: The one thing I noticed: Iryna Shchetnik has these beautiful long braids that I think are as tall as you are. I don’t know how tall she is, but her braids did go down to about her knees.
Alison: And if it’s braided, that means her hair is even longer than that . [00:38:00] That’s impressive. Well, she doesn’t need a weighted hat or anything, cause her braids weigh her down. You know, we talk about shooting with the weighted vest, well she just has her hair. That’s all she needs.
Jill: There you go. And Natascha Hiltrop, I believe- I’m not correcting that- she’s been in the Paralympics before, and I believe this is besting her Paralympic performances. So congratulations to her. She shot really well. It was close and then Park just made one slight mistake and that, as we know, that, that pretty much does it. He just could not catch up in the last couple of rounds.
Jill: In the R5 mixed 10 meter air rifle prone, S H two competition. These athletes require varying levels of support for the rifle, and they shoot from a seated position. Gold went to Dragan Ristic from Serbia. Silver went to Vasyl Kovalchuk from Ukraine, and bronze went to Francek Gorazd Tirsek from Slovenia.
Jill: Our McKenna Geer was in this competition. Not a good day for McKenna. Tough match.
Alison: Yeah. So she posted today on Instagram that nothing went wrong. It was just not her day. So she ended up finishing 34th, but she will be back for small bore. She’s got a day off. She’s going to try and regroup, take a deep breath and come back for the next time.
Jill: In sitting volleyball, women had more preliminary matches. It was a big day because we’re getting close to the end of group play. So we’re kind of like do or die for some of these teams. Brazil beat Italy, 3-1 China beat Rwanda three to zero. Canada, beat Japan, three to zero. And the USA beat RPC three to zero.
Jill: And the USA was one of these teams that they did not win, they were not moving on to the knockout stages. So they did show this game on NBC. So we both got to see some of it, right?
Alison: Yes. So the one thing I wanted to mention was I know Sarah, when she was on the show mentioned [00:40:00] that Laura Webster is pregnant on the US team. Well, this is baby number four, that she’s pregnant with, and this is not her first pregnancy appearance at the Paralympics. Baby number one was baking during London.
Jill: Amazing.
Alison: Yeah. So not only is this woman having multiple children. Oh yes. I can be pregnant and be a Paralympian. No problem.
Jill: Incredible. It was a good game. The USA was behind a little bit in the first game. They managed to catch up. And then after- once they did that, and they got that first game in the bag, they were pretty dominant for the whole match.
Alison: What was interesting to me was that the way RPC played and the way the us played, it made me feel like I was back in the eighties. RPC was very disciplined and strict and felt like almost an old Soviet team. And here come the scrappy Americans kind of scratching out each point. And I love when styles of play are so different between countries, because that makes me feel like it’s an international competition.
Jill: Yes. And you see different ways of getting achieving success. I did learn that the ball can come off of any part of your body because you can kick it over.
Alison: Yes. And someone did an elbow shot in this match.
Jill: Nice! And then our sitting volleyball correspondent listener Brittany wrote in talking a little bit about the classifications, because we we’ve been wondering what constitutes the different classes and what you can have made up on the on the court.
Jill: There are seven eligible impairment types allowed in sitting volleyball. You can have a limb deficiency, an impaired passive range of movement, impaired muscle power, leg length difference, hypertonia, ataxia or athetosis. And the classification book. Man. We’ve talked with athletes about how complicated classification is. This [00:42:00] classification book is 77 pages as long.
Jill: So props to Listener Brittany for going through it and trying to understand this, but it’s really helpful to know what, what all is involved here.
Alison: Right. So in sitting volleyball, you, I expected certainly to see amputees or para or quadriplegics in some fashion. And yet that’s, there are, they are there, but then there’s also all these other disabilities.
Jill: Yes. I agree with you on that.
Alison: And this also exposes my lack of knowledge of all these different disabilities.
Jill: Agreed. Same as here too.
Alison: Yeah. You’re not an amputee. You’re not paralyzed. Well, there’s a lot of other range that would make you appropriate for this sport. But on the flip side, I just sit there and watch the sitting volleyball and I’m so happy. This has now filled my wheelchair rugby hole that I was feeling.
Jill: Good. Good, good. The other thing I want to mention is I’ve noticed that Kari Miller-Ortiz, who we talked about the other day, one of the commentators, she, she is improving greatly. I thought she did a really good job. I think she’s probably got some feedback, took it to heart and it’s nice to see people improve.
Alison: What I saw the biggest difference was in this game, it felt like she was more herself. Like she wants to be a Rowdy Gaines kind of enthusiasm level. And I think at first she was trying to be all professional and serious. And someone said to her, no, no, no, sweetie, we hired you because of your personality.
Alison: And she was getting excited about shots and getting excited for certain players. And that was a big difference that I heard today. So someone gave her some good advice to just, we hired you because of who you are. And let that come out. So that was more fun. Let Tanith be [00:44:00] the serious one.
Jill: The semi-finals it will be Brazil versus USA and China versus Canada. And both of those are going to be good, very exciting.
Jill: In swimming, it was pretty much a breaststroke day. So we have a lot of hundred meter breaststroke races. We’ll start with the SB seven class, which is our favorite hodgepodge of disabilities. Gold went to Carlos Daniel Serrano Zarate from Colombia with a Paralympic record. Silver went to Egor Efrosinin from RPC, and bronze went to Blake Cochrane from Australia. For the women in this class, gold went to Mariia Pavlova from RPC. Silver went to Jessica Long from USA, and bronze went to Tiffany Thomas-Kane.
Jill: Moving up to SB 11, which is a visual impairment class. Gold went to Rogier Dorsman from Netherlands. Silver went to Kimura Keiichi from Japan, and bronze went to Yang Bozun from China. For the women, gold went to Karolna Pelendritou from Cyprus, who got a world record. She like crushed this world record.
Alison: Yes. So this is at least her second medal that we’ve seen.
Jill: Silver went to Ma Jia from China and bronze went to Yana Berezhna from Ukraine.
Alison: In Ukraine she is known as the “princess of the pool.”
Jill: For the SB 12 class, which is a moderate Visual impairment. Gold went to Vail Israfilov from Azerbaijan, who set a Paralympic record. Silver went to Oleksil Fedyna from Ukraine, and bronze went to Artur Saifutdinov from RPC.
Jill: For the women in this class, gold went to Maria Carolina Gomes Santiago from Brazil with the Paralympic record. Silver went to Daria Lukianenko from RPC, and bronze went to Yaryna Matlo from [00:46:00] Ukraine.
Jill: In the SB 13 total visual impairment class, gold went to Engel Taliso from Germany, who set a world record. Silver went to David Henry Abrahams from the USA, and bronze went to Zhumagali Nurdaulet from Kazakhakstan. And you know, they don’t do Nelson Crispin Corzo, but they love that Ihar Boki is called “the beast.” it’s like, The Beast is swimming in this one! Sadly Boki finished sixth.
Alison: The beast has been slayed.
Jill: He won gold in all of his races in Rio and was hoping to repeat in Tokyo, but sadly will not be doing that.
Alison: It’s not like he’s had a bad games though. My goodness.
Jill: He really has just been amazing in the pool.
Jill: In the women’s SB 13 class, gold went to Elena Krawzow from Germany. Silver went to Rebecca Redfern from Great Britain, and Colleen Young from USA won the bronze.
Alison: My friend, Colleen Young from Fairfield U. She is getting appropriate love. The Fairfield alum has been posting her picture and announcing.
Jill: So this is her second medal then?
Alison: This is her second medal.
Jill: Very exciting! Let’s move over to freestyle. So we had several different lengths today. First, we’re going to do the men’s 50 meter S5 class, which is moderate disability to the whole body, a high degree to both legs or the absence of limbs. Gold went to Zheng Tao from China, who set a Paralympic record. Silver went to Yuan Weiyi from China, and bronze went to Wang Lichao from China.
Alison: Another Chinese sweep.
Jill: And I think I recognize these athletes because their kicks are just furiously strong. In the women’s S eight class, in this class [00:48:00] athletes have a low degree of impairment to the whole body, or a moderate degree of impairment to both legs, or a severe impairment to one arm.
Jill: Gold went to Viktoriia Ishchiulova from RPC. Cecilia Kathleen Jeronimo de Araujo from Brazil won the silver, and Xenia Francesca Palazzo from Italy won bronze.
Jill: In the men’s 100 meter freestyle S six class. This is another hodgepodge one, a moderate degree of impairment on one side, severe degree of impairment in both legs, shorter stature missing one arm and one leg on the same side.
Jill: Gold went to Antonio Fantin from Italy with a world record. Silver went to Nelson Crispin Corzo from Colombia.
Alison: Yay!
Jill: And bronze went to Tali
Jill: In the 400 free and in the 400 meter freestyle, both men and women’s S 10 class competed. So this is a low degree of impairment in legs or moderate degree in the hip or feet or an absence of the hands gold for the men.
Jill: Gold went to a Maksym Krypak from Ukraine, who is a repeat gold medalist, but he was a little bit slower than his Rio world record time. Silver went to Bas Takken from Netherlands, and bronze went to Thomas Gallagher from Australia.
Jill: In the women’s side, gold went to Aurelie Rivard from Canada, who just crushed her own world record. She just flew. And she hadn’t been because of the pandemic, she was one of the swimmers who just hadn’t had competition for over a year and didn’t know what was possible. So to dive in the pool and see that this is possible from just heavy duty training was pretty amazing. Silver went to Bianca Pap from Hungary, and [00:50:00] bronze went to Oliwia Jablonska from Poland.
Jill: And then we rounded out the competition with the 200IM SM nine class. This is a moderate disability to all four limbs are a high degree or absence of one leg. For the men, gold went to Andrei Kalina from RPC. Silver went to Timothy Hodge from Australia, and Ugo Didier from France won bronze. For the women, Sophie Pascoe from New Zealand won gold.
Alison: Yay. Silver ferns!
Jill: Exactly. She is the current world record holder, but her time was a little slower than a world record pace, but still gold medal. Zsofia Konkoly from Hungary won silver, and Nuria Marques Soto from Spain won bronze.
Jill: In table tennis, we had team competition. It was a lot of men’s and women’s teams quarter-finals and semi-finals today.
Jill: So for the men, we start with the MT one and two classes combined. This is a locked wheelchair class, but they have moderate disability in the arms or hands. And the semi-finals France beat Slovakia two to zero to go onto the gold medal match where they will face Korea. Korea defeated Poland two to one. Korea and Slovakia win bronzes.
Jill: In the MT three class, which is still a locked wheelchair, but you can use your arms to push on the chair and get a further reach. In the semi-finals Germany beat Czech Republic, two to zero, and China beat Thailand, two to zero. Germany will meet China for the gold, and the other two teams get bronzes. In the MT six to seven class, which is a standing class, you have a low to moderate disability in your legs, arms, or the absence of limbs. In the semis, China beat Germany, two to zero ,and Great Britain beat Spain, two to one. China and Great Britain will face off for the gold. Then the other two teams get bronze.
Jill: [00:52:00] In the MT eight class, which is standing and the low level of disability in the legs, Ukraine beat France to zero, and China beat Great Britain, two to zero. So Ukraine and China will battle for gold. And the others win bronzes.
Jill: In MT nine through 10, which is a standing class, a low level of disability in one arm or one leg, the absence of one arm or one leg below the knee. China beat Ukraine two to zero, and Australia beat Nigeria two to zero. So China and Australia will go for the gold, and Ukraine and Nigeria get bronze. So it’s nice to see Nigeria on the podium in a different sport.
Jill: On the women’s side, we had two team classes compete today. For the women’s four to five class, which is a wheelchair class, they’re a little bit more mobile and they have no arm impairments. In the semi-finals China beat Great Britain, two to zero, and Sweden defeated Serbia two to zero. So China and Sweden will go for gold and the other 2 win bronze.
Jill: And then finally in the women’s nine and 10 combined class, which is a standing class with low level disabilities, Australia, with our Millie Tapper beat Hungary and China in their competitions, both two to zero. So they will advance to the gold medal round against Poland. Poland defeated Brazil in the semi-finals.
Jill: So China and Brazil take bronze in this class, and we will see what happens with the gold medal. So it’s nice. Our TKFLASTANI Millie Tapper walks away with at least a silver.
Alison: Not going to complain about that!
Jill: Nope. In wheelchair basketball, we had the quarterfinals, and then the bottom two teams played off for 11th and 12th place.
Jill: 11th place goes to Colombia, who beat Algeria 70 to 47. In the quarter finals, Spain beat Germany, 71 to 68. Great Britain beat Canada, 66 to [00:54:00] 52. Japan beat Australia, 61 to 55, and USA beat Turkey 52 to 45. And that, that was a lot closer until the end, because Turkey wanted to stop the clock. And so they kept fouling, and the US just kept making the free throws.
Jill: So that’s why that point differential is there, but that was a close game.
Alison: That was a lower scoring game and a closer game than probably a lot of people would have expected it to be. But Turkey is a force in wheelchair basketball.
Jill: So for the semi-finals, it will be Spain versus USA and Japan versus Great Britain.
Jill: In wheelchair tennis, weather is really playing havoc with the tennis competition. Isn’t it?
Alison: It is. So first we had the heat, then we had the rain. So they completed as many matches as possible on center court and court one, but now they can really only use center court. So, depending on how long it takes you to read these other results, I may have the medal results for you for quad, because the last set is five, four right now.
Jill: Oh, my.. Okay.
Alison: So do all the results and then maybe we will have some hot breaking quad doubles medal match news.
Jill: Okay. In the men’s singles quarter finals Japan’s Kunieeda Shingo beat. France’s Stephane Houdet. 7-6, 6-3. Great Britain’s Alfie Hewitt beat France’s, Nicholas Peifer,6-3, 6-4, and Tom Egberink from Netherlands beat Daniel Caverzachi from Spain, 6-4, 6-3.
Jill: In the women’s doubles competition. We had the, we had one semi-final event. So Netherlands team of De Groote and Van Koot beat Japan’s Kamiji and Ohtani, 6-4, 6-2, and then China versus Great Britain has been [00:56:00] rescheduled. In men’s quad doubles, gold has gone to Netherlands’ Schroeder and Vink who beat Australia’s Alcott and Davidson 6-4, 6-3.
Jill: And we are waiting on the bronze medal match, correct?
Alison: Yes we are. So they split the first two sets. We are five, four in the third.
Jill: Who is winning?
Alison: Japan.
Jill: And who are they playing?
Alison: Great Britain.
Jill: That’s tough. The tradition of British tennis in the host city, Japan. Well, we’ll keep an eye on that. Just, just keep hitting refresh.
Alison: That’s what I’m doing!
Jill: While you do that, I’d like to take a minute and thank our Patreon patrons whose ongoing financial contributions greatly help keep this show afloat. There’s a lot of expenses that go on in the background to making the show happen, and thanks to our patrons, they help make it possible.
Jill: And one of the things our patrons have done is because we’ve gotten so many that have come on during the Olympics and Paralympics coverage, we have been able to add transcripts to our episodes, starting with the Paralympics coverage. So we’ll have that going forward. And it’s, it’s very, it’s one of our dreams realized for this show to be able to offer that to our listeners and now our readers.
Jill: So thank you so much. If you would like to become a Patreon patron, check us out at Patreon.com/ flame alive pod.
Jill: What’s up with TKFLASTAN?.
Alison: As we mentioned, Millie Tapper goes for gold medal with team Australia in table tennis classes. Nine through 10.
Jill: No update?
Alison: Oh my God. It’s 40- 30, but the Brits are coming back.
Jill: Oh, so Japan has 40 to 30 in there and they’re five, four?
Alison: No, the, the Brits are [00:58:00] 40, 30, but they’re four or five. Oh, so they could tie up this third set.
Alison: Oh, they just tied. Oh, okay. This is going to be a while.
Jill: Okay. Well, we will let you know tomorrow what happened. Because it’s time to say sayonara for us. As always, you can email us at flame alive pod, gmail.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. Check us out on Twitter, Insta, Facebook. So get at us there. If you’re not in the Keep the Flame Alive pod Facebook group, get on there.
Jill: We’re having a lot of fun and don’t forget our Kickstarter and help us reach the 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.
###
While every attempt has been made to ensure correct grammar and punctuation, this has been machine-generated and could contain errors. Please cross-reference the audio.