Keep The Flame Alive Co-Hosts Report Back from Milan-Cortina

0:00And that's the end of the first half, as the team said to the locker room, the Spartans lead the Bulldogs by a score. You guys stink. Jeez, Coach, we're only down a couple of points. No, I mean, you guys really smell. You need to hit the showers. And here, I got every one of you new bars of soap from the Sterling soap company. Each bar is artisan crafted using natural ingredients and essential oils. They also have shaved soaps, cologne, beard, balm, and a whole lot more. Now get in there. But Coach, we have another half to play. I don't care. I can't stand to be around you a few minutes later. All right, bring it in tight. You guys are still playing terrible, but you're smelling great out there. Now listen, you're going to need to stock up for the rest of the season. We got a lot of tough games left. So go to sterlingsoap.com after the game. That's STIRL-I-N-G-Sope.com. You got that? Yes, Coach? Great. SterlingSope.com on three. One, two, three. SterlingSope.com. Well, hello, everybody.

1:03This is Doug Levy bringing you episode number four of my podcast under the radar, Olympic Athletes You Got A Meat, based in part on my book Hero Redefined, which chronicles the unsung heroism of Olympic athletes beyond the medal stand. I need to give a shout out to the fine folks at the sports history network. They're the ones who host this podcast. And speaking of things I need to do, I have to fess up. Right away that I'm going to cheat a bit today. Yeah, I know this podcast is designed to have me interview under the radar, Olympic Athletes. But today I'm asking for a slight haul pass to interview two ladies who were there up close for the just completed winter games in Milan, Cortina, and can bring us there in person perspective on the games, the crazy logistics, the rings, the mascots, the dogs, the food, and yes, the athletes, too. These two ladies are affectionately known as the Olympic aunties and they've been doing they're always interesting and often a reverent podcast, keep the flame alive on a weekly

2:07basis since 2017. During that time, they've been nominated for numerous sports podcasting awards. They've interviewed 31 of the athletes who competed in Milan, Cortina and they've been accredited media watchers of the Winter Olympics in 2022 and 2026 and the summer games in Paris in 2024. And if you pick up the February 9th issue Forbes magazine and read the article about how podcasts became an important player in Olympics fan engagement, you'll see a lot of space and pub devoted to the co-hosts of Keep the Flame Alive, Jill Jaros and Alison Brown. So we get the treat of talking to two talented podcasters who saw all of these incredible Olympic athletes from a vantage point most of us can only dream about. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Jill and Alison. Ladies, welcome to the show. Thanks a lot for having us. Thank you. Doug, it's Jill and I would say I don't know where that far of a veer off because we're

3:09like an under the radar podcast. You are. You are. So let's dive in here because I have so many things to ask you to. First of all, what is your for the history books take away from these 2026 winter games? And since our show is devoted to under the radar athletes, who were some of your under the radar favorites from these games? Oh, under the radar is hard because my favorite was Lissaloo, who was definitely not under the radar. But her way to go over the radar. Yeah, exactly. There was no radar big enough for her. She was just such an electric presence, but I'm actually going to go with the bronze medalist then of Ami Nakai because I think we're going to see her next time around. And in the next couple world championships, she's only 17. She's incredibly talented. She is in now this long tradition of Japanese women, just dominating figure skating.

4:12And with such beauty and grace and power and style that she has, I think she's only going to get less under the radar over the next quad and it's going to be fun watching her grow up. That's great. Jill, do you have any? I have a couple. I will go with cross country skiing. I got out to Tesserro, which was a haul. Let me tell you that. And got to meet one of the athletes we interviewed who was Bruno Mora and she's from Brazil. She has an incredible story where she had qualified for Beijing 2022 was on the way to the airport to go to China. Driver got in a car accident that killed the driver and almost killed her. And she spent years coming back from that and qualified for Milano and got to be there. And it was pretty amazing. She got to walk in the opening ceremonies in Milano because they had opening ceremonies

5:14in different places for the athletes. But the Brazil Olympic Committee said, we're bringing you to Milan. And as the athletes are parading in during their walk, the flag bearer for Brazil handed the flag over to her so that she could also wave it. And that is pretty unprecedented during a parade of nations. So that was pretty incredible to see her. And she finished way, way on the bottom of the standings. You're not going to hear it, but she's got a great story. And it's one of those types of stories where, you know, Olympians come from all walks of life in all countries and everyone who gets their has their own story and their own journey. And it can be pretty amazing. Also saw Jesse Diggins racing that and she was a name that became kind of an underdog and an under the radar because she got injured in one of her first races. And that affected her the entire Olympics. And this was a race where she eaked out the bronze and was so thrilled that she made it

6:15to the podium and talked about how hard it was to get to this one. And she just like you saw the pain cave kick in when she was finishing and I had not seen cross country in person and did not realize how fast she could go. Just flew by me on the way to the finish line and collapsed at the end and was just in massive amounts of pain from the bruised ribs. She had suffered from her fall earlier in the games. And just the joy when she could breathe again in that victory of sorts, even though, you know, we might look at it as a bronze medal. And you know, for Jesse Diggins last Olympics on paper, you could go big failure. But where she started and had this injury and where she came back to was pretty incredible for what she could muster for these games. And she was even saying, you know, it wasn't supposed to be like this.

7:17So how mentally do you deal with that? Everyone I'll throw out to you is a figure skater from Mexico named Donovan Carrillo, who is a favorite among figure skating fans, a powerhouse to watch. He's so much fun, barely made it into the qualifications for the men's free skate, but was just a joy and a delight and gave it his all. It was he was just so much fun to watch and we've had listeners talk about how much they love his skating. And they're so true. And he comes on some play, you know, Mexico doesn't have a ton of resources for figure skaters. And the way he's made it to multiple Olympics now is a true testament to the drive and the fire within. Well, I love the way you two brought out a few names who weren't in the glare of the spotlight. And boy, I think a Jesse Diggins, I think that's the Webster's definition of grit and determination at young ladies really something.

8:17I was just for you two, I was equally impressed by her fifth place to end her career Olympics as I was by her third place. So a good segue into this question because for those of us who are watching the Olympics from afar on our TV sets, we get fed a pretty constant diet of events and games and competitors and sometimes they'll do background pieces on those they expect to be in the thick of things for medals. And I feel like you two made a very conscious decision to cover these Olympics in a different way. And I wonder if you could tell our listeners about that and your thought process on what you wanted your keep the flame alive listeners to hear and learn. Well, some of it is born of necessity. We're a very small operation. You know, we don't have loads and loads of staff and logistics people. So some of it is just giving the listeners a peek into what is involved in getting around

9:21and getting through every day of the Olympics because that's what we're experiencing. And something that we definitely do on the show is there's not a lot of a near. It's definitely very straightforward and honest and saying, this is the kind of day that we've had. And I think that's interesting for the listeners because they don't get that on NBC. NBC has the staff of thousands. And well, what happens for just the ordinary reporter who's going from venue to venue? And what does that really mean? And what is that like when you're on the ground? And so born of necessity, but became kind of the highlight of the show to say, what do we do every day? What does it mean to cover the Olympics? Yeah. Right. And we want to give the fans the idea of what it's like to be there from a fans perspective. As well. So not only do you get the behind the scenes of all the the janky staircases that we have to climb and the rando entrances that we have to find, but it's also the joy of seeing

10:23the competitions. And what is it like? And we try to go in with no agenda except for like looking to talk to the people that we've interviewed before, we're we're also there for them. And that's means like we don't necessarily want to deal with or to deal with. That's a great way to say it, but we don't necessarily want to talk to or try to get interviews with the top names because they don't always have interesting things to say. We do like the people who don't get the spotlight all the time. And this is, you know, the moment they've worked so hard for. And it, you know, it's there's a lot of people who can't afford to go to the games. So we want to be their eyes and ears and have them experience the games as much as possible. Even though they're doing it through their ears. That's great. And I love the way you two, as one example, talked about figure skating and how you were going to try and bring it to people in a different way than just, you know, the automatic

11:26go to the cameras way that NBC wants you to see it. So that was great. I mentioned the 31 Milan Cortina athletes, you two have interviewed. And you came up with a creative and and pithy way to name them. I can't even pronounce it. So I'm going to ask you guys to share with us the name you came up with. And of those 31 maybe tell us in particular who stood out. There were some pretty brilliant performances among those you interviewed. So our it's it's pronounced Schuchflaston because when we came up with the name of the show, it was keep the flame alive. And then we came up with team keep the flame alive. And that as we often say does not acronym well. But when you take the letters and you put ston on it, it really made us jokingly say like it looked like a former Soviet republic. And then we sort of leaned into that with let's just make all our listeners and former

12:27guests citizens of our own little made up country. So that's how Schuchflaston was born. And so much with the show just came from as it rolled along and things listeners suggested. And yeah, let's have a country with all our citizens in it. Chick Flastonies. I love it. Exactly. Do anything you want to add? No. No, that was that on. But you had 31 athletes. You listed a man. Oh, 31 athletes. I'm sorry. You're your listeners and some pretty amazing, some pretty amazing climbs by a few of those folks. I don't want to do a spoiler alert, but any any that you want to conjure up for this morning? Yeah. You know, it's because it's recent that it will stick in my head. But Karin Stoddard, short track speed skater, is one of the ones who had such a down games and then a nice ending note. She came in expecting to get several medals in her races and lots of falls.

13:34I think she got a penalty and it was raised after raise and having to endure just flinging people flinging horrific things to her, trolling her and just blasting her online. And it was even somebody in our Facebook group said, oh, I think she should go home. She doesn't deserve to be there. And it's just like you don't understand the pressure these athletes face and that's something I'd like to explore because we understand the pressure. But to see several people have issues with the Olympic pressure and talk about how it's different. And I'd like to be able to try to put that into words on how that pressure magnifies and what that feels like. But back to Karin, her last race, I think, was the 1500. And she looked so good in the heats and then in the semi-finals and the quarter finals.

14:36And then we get to the finals. And as she said in the mix-zone later, nobody was going to lead the race. So she finally said, fine, I will lead. And she led the race and two Korean skaters drafted off of her. And near the end, they pulled the head. But she managed to keep enough in the tank to get the bronze. And so she ended her gains with the medal. She was thrilled. She proved herself that, yes, she still deserves to be there and still a good skater and wants to continue on. But she faced a lot of hatred for a long time. That was heartbreaking. Yeah, quick note, I'm from Seattle area and of course, from our neck of the woods. So we're glad to see her and on such a high note. But I had another question in mind. But I want to stay on this theme that you just tackled Jill.

15:36And that's that I want to talk about the national media and the spotlight which gets placed on these athletes. And it's a pretty bright and daunting spotlight, especially if you're an American athlete. So I have my own thoughts here that I want to express, but I want to give you to first up about your candid thoughts about the national media, what they did, how they did. It's hard to answer that in terms of what they did during the game simply because we were so detached. We were in Italy. We weren't seeing a lot of what was happening, American news wise during the actual games. But certainly in the lead up to the games, there's always we pick a couple of favorites that we're going to build up. And if they don't win a gold medal, we're going to tear them down. I mean, this is decades of doing this. And you know, Ilya Malinan being the classic example this time around where this poor

16:38kid who is one of the most talented figure skaters we've ever seen, you know, certainly of a generation kind of talent and could not handle the pressure. And I don't say that as a failing to him, I don't think many people could have handled the kind of pressure that he was put under. And that's our fault. You know, as I put myself in the whole genre of all of the media is responsible for building people up to tear them down. And we as a society do that. And it's not just the national media, the national media feeds what we are looking for. We're looking for heroes to a point, you know. So that's always the risk of yes, we want to have these heroes. We want to have these people who are once in a lifetime talents. And yet don't we love to see them fail sometimes. But where does that, what does that say about us as a society?

17:39Great. Yeah. And I can't help but put my two cents in. I'm so glad Alison that you brought up Ilya Malinan because I've tried to give people some context and perspective here on this young man. First of all, he finished eighth with a couple falls. I think if you went up to most of us across other sectors and other professions in society and told us we were on our worst day at the office, eighth in the world, we'd be doing a happy dance. So that's one thing. And then the other thing when we talk about performance and how he handled himself, I'm never going to forget that that kid had a microphone stuck in his face seconds after he got off the ice on what was, you know, a real downer of our performance for him. The way he handled himself, the grace he showed, honesty about I blew it, I'm going to learn from it, I'm going to try and do better and just keeping his composure.

18:39And then the way he went and hug the metal winner from Kazakhstan, who I think, if you talk to the guy from Kazakhstan next week and said who's the best skater in the world, he'd say Ilya Malinan, but not on that day, right? So I have two young boys and I can't imagine as much as I love them that they would have shown that much grace, composure and sportsmanship at age 21. And so we forget that these are human beings and I'm so I'm glad you two put in on that. I think it's a lesson we can all learn from this stuff when we have a narrative about athletes and, you know, some are going to crash out, some are going to unexpectedly perform and it happens all the time and we constantly forget it. I have a couple of thoughts, Doug, so one thought is that when we talk about the media, I kept getting emails from NBC. Oh, Aaron Jackson goes to repeat for golden an hour or so and so is going for golden a

19:42half an hour and just the hype that that did and I'm sure the athletes don't even see these emails, but in a way that puts extra, you know, pressure, energy out into the world. And somewhere along the way and maybe it's just because what it's what we do, we don't put a lot of emphasis on results. I mean, we report the results as they happen, but we don't, we like to tell the people we interviewed have fun and do your best were rooting for you no matter what. And even if they don't live up to their standards or expectations, you know, that's not going to change that we appreciate that they talk to us for a while. And one of the things I saw at this game that felt very different from previous Olympics was the sportsmanship and how much the athletes appreciate each other, like each other,

20:44congratulate each other. And even if they were down about what they did, it was not because of somebody else. It was because they made a mistake or the, you know, the course, you know, a lot of the stuff we were finding out is not person against person. Some sports still are, but it's like athlete against mountain, athlete against sliding track, athlete against, you know, the ice. And when we reframe it that way, we start to shift on your beating this person and losing those manufactured rivalries that the media likes to create. And I think that's a healthier way to do it. And then you see like so many people, especially in like figure skating, would get like seasons best or personal best times and personal best points. And that was something to celebrate and see people very excited about that.

21:46Yeah, maybe I finished 15th, but I got my best performance ever on Olympic ice. You know, what can be, what can be better than that? Absolutely. I'm going to segue a little bit here because you, you two referenced it a bit earlier. And I, I blogged about it, but, you know, it's something you made light of in your newsletter. There's a serious undertone here. And it's the, you know, it's just the logistics involved in these winter games. And I blogged about it. I called it a winter games of spread out sprawl. And I noticed that the two of you said maybe the tagline for these 26 games should be games far away. So again, we're making light here, but I think there's serious questions about, you know, how future Olympics are going to be staged that you two weighed in on. And I wonder if you could talk, just educate our listeners on the logistics of Milan Cortina. And what you think could should happen in the future.

22:47Because not like on your TV screen, where you just immediately jump from Milan to Cortina and the doll of lights and back, you two experienced it. So if you could talk about that spread out sprawl and maybe give your thoughts for 20, 30 and, and upcoming games. Well, Jill did the trip. She actually ventured out into the mountains. So I'll, I'll let her go first on this one. Yeah. I mean, the one thing, it's, it's so interesting. Because of course, at the end of the games when Kirstie Coventry, the IOC president is talking about how great the games were, because of course she's going to, because they were good games and talking about how, oh, you know, Milan Cortina, you've introduced a new way of doing things and blah, blah, blah, and was very excited sounding about that. Will that excitement continue?

23:48I worry about that because, you know, Milan or Cortina did what they did because the, the mandate has shifted from an era of build, build, build to an era of reuse. Don't build anything if you don't have to. And if you have to, please make a temporary. So that's what Milan or Cortina did for the most part. We've got a new hockey venue or a new arena that will host multiple types of events. But they reused venues across Northern Italy that are world class. They hold world cups all the time. And in a way that's good, but being here was really tough in reporting it. And even if it was cheaper for Milan or Cortina to do it that way, that meant somebody else had to shoulder costs, which then fell to national Olympic committees and then fell to press.

24:52And I realized that they don't really care about the press all that much and what we have to do. It's true. We just, they, they don't, they, please report on us nicely and, you know, we'll put up with you. That's kind of what I feel like. But the national Olympic committees got really, really stretched out, especially if, you know, and no national Olympic committee is completely rich, even if they're big, they're not. They don't have a ton of money. Let's, let's be honest. So to say, oh, team USA, for example, will have athletes in every single location. So that's Milano, Bormio, Livigno, Tecero, Predazzo, Antoltz and Cortina, seven different areas that you had to have some kind of support built out or a plan for and how much planning did that take on their end and how much resources did these national Olympic committees have

25:54to deal with and how stretched out were they over the course of the, the games. For us, it meant coverage wise, because there are just two of us and we don't have a ton of money to be able to, like, don't even consider renting a car or renting a taxi. To get out to, to see cross country, I was there two, three hours and it was, I don't know, five hours there, five hours back, maybe four or five, Bormio, I went up to Bormio to see some men's alpine stuff and that I was there for about three hours, I would say, but it was three hours each way. So when you, and then if I wanted to go to Slovenia, which I really did, add another hour onto your Bormio trip, but we kept getting notifications of delays because of snow, just snowed and snowed there. So we couldn't go. There was snow. There was avalanche warnings and all of these things that was just like, well, don't go because if you can't get back, what are you going to do?

26:58And I hadn't heard no, yeah, it wasn't even an option because it was at least six hours to get to Cortina from Milan and that was, I mean, just 12 hours of travel in a day. You can't do it. There aren't enough hours and there weren't enough trains running late enough. Yeah. And then I think was the other thing that people didn't realize that the way the bus and train schedule was set, did not always drive with competition schedules. So you could get to Cortina in a very long day and you'd be there for all of three or four hours and then you would have to go back because that was the last bus to get there. And when I went to cross country, my bus arrived in Tecero at 120. The competition had started at one o'clock. And that was it. That was the only possible way to do it. They didn't and they were just like tough luck. So you framed it well, Jill, in terms of the, the economics beginning to dictate this

28:05reuse of facilities versus building new and yet I think we found out a new how that can really be a frustrating endeavor for those who want to be in-person spectators of these games, which is a phenomenal opportunity. So what do we do with this? I think it's fair to say that Salt Lake City and surrounding parts of Utah getting the winter games in 2034 after they already had it in 2002 is no accident. All indications are that the French will take spectators and media all over the Alps in 2030. What do we do with this because it seems like the convenience and the ease of attendance is being compromised for people in favor of the economics of putting on an Olympics. And you two sounded some warning flares, I wonder what you think should be done if you

29:08could be Zarena's for the day, if you will. Well, I think transportation needs to be more of a focus. If you want to not build venues, maybe spend some of that money on improving your transportation access. And even if that's temporary shuttle buses, even if it's something really simple as make sure that your schedule is working with the competition schedule, make sure that your schedule is easily read. I mean, one of the problems that we had was just getting a train timetable. It was really difficult to figure out how to do things transportation wise. So I think there needs to be more money, more time spent on improving transportation. And not just for us, I mean for fans, because we heard from many people who were visiting and wanted to see more than just what was in Milan struggling to figure out how to get to these mountain venues. And they didn't necessarily have the same inside resources that we did.

30:10And even we who had inside resources were struggling to figure it out. I mean, Jill would spend hours with just paper and apps and her computer up trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B. So that's a place where I think, especially French Alps, because we know Salt Lake City or rather Utah 2034 is much closer, things are much closer together. And they've done this before. So I'm pretty confident. I say that with a grain of salt. I am pretty confident that they're going to look at that more closely. But French Alps definitely think about where are we putting things? Are we going to have shuttle buses? Do we have to worry about this road being closed for an avalanche, which actually happened during Milan, Cortina, that one of the roads to the mountain was closed for an avalanche risk? Well, you're a mountain road. It's going to happen. But it was the only road in and out. So now nobody can get to that venue. So they just got to think it through more of, OK, how are people going to get around?

31:17Excellent. It is hard when you're dealing in a different language with a different country that you don't know. I think for some people, if you're from around the area and by around the area, I mean, neighboring countries who may be traveling in Italy a lot, you know how to get there, but and how to get around a little bit and understand the different cultural aspects of it. Dealing with that was difficult and also, I mean, I can tell you, I never, ever think I'm going to deal with logistics as much as I do. And the easiest way to tell you how frustrating it was was we did have an app. And if you wanted to know how to get to Venice, let's just say that because that's that was be your way stop on the way to Cortina. Well, you'd put in a really early time so that you finally get a full timetable of all the trains that we're going.

32:17And it would, the list would tell you when every train arrived, but in order to find out when the train left, you had to click on every individual trip. That's the kind of logistical nightmare we're talking about and how what just eats up hours of your day. And it gets really frustrating that way. I mean, it's, it's difficult and it's hard to know what to say because I don't really want cities to build facilities that they may not need. Maybe they do need some and it would be a way to build up the sport. But yeah, there's got to be a way to, it would have been nice to have said, hey, maybe, maybe Italy needs a second by app on range. They could support that. Or maybe we go look at fixing the sliding track around, around Torino and using some stuff that was in that neck of the woods instead of sprawling out as far as they did.

33:21Yeah, good points about transportation and maybe there's a hybrid there. So I want to segue, we can't talk about an Olympics in Italy and not go all Stanley Tucci on, on listeners, right? We have to talk about the food in Italy and for those who haven't been, I have to tell you it is phenomenal. But I want to get your commentary on the food because the two of you spent a good amount of time on the food scene and some of your favorites and surprises and drinks and choices. So, you know, let's get to the good stuff. Give us your, your high points of food in Milan and surrounding areas and drink and the like. Well, it's very funny is most of our food for the trip came from the supermarket down the street from our apartment because our time was always of the essence. So we would get home from the day of competition, sometimes midnight or later. So it was, oh, thank goodness I brought this, this pre-made spinach lasagna from Esolongo.

34:23And it tasted like the best thing I'd ever eaten in my life because I hadn't eaten anything for eight hours. But I did get the opportunity to go up to Valtellina in the mountains and get a special lunch and wine tasting that was all the local cuisine. And one of the big highlights was a pasta made with buckwheat. So it had a real hearty kind of, I thought of it as mountain food, you know, people who worked hard and lived in a very cold climate would enjoy this. And they also had a potato stew that they made little buckwheat pancakes that you would dip in and use like you would use pita and hummus. It was the same idea, but it was these buckwheat pancakes with all the special wine that was made from grapes that all grow above 15,000 feet, which I didn't even know was possible. But it was this amazing red wine that was smoother than anything I've ever tasted. And I'm not a big wine drinker, nor am I a red wine drinker.

35:26So this was a real treat. So these were not Milan specific, but up in the mountains, which was so different than what I expected, which was exciting. Great, Joe. I will vote on the Milan 2026 Perseco, which we had heard about was happening way before the games. It was good to cost a fortune, and it was just under 10 euros a bottle. And it was so delicious. I mean, I cannot go back to the Kirkland Perseco, because I realized how much better the D.O.C. version of Perseco is, it's so good. I did enjoy a little risotto Milanese, which has some saffron in it. That was delicious, had a very tasty lasagna that was super light, and that was really good. We also found like, if you ordered meat platter, you got like hunks, I got a meat platter

36:31one day, and it was like big hunks of sausages that were cut open and had been like broiled that way. And oh my gosh, the amount of salt in there was unbelievable. There was some stuff that was just like really super salty to me, and I was really surprised. But yeah, we could probably rate our favorite grocery store food. Really, that would be what we're really good at now. And gelato. We both did get to enjoy some gelato, both grocery store and not grocery store gelato. Of course, as always, I'm an ice cream lover to begin with. So this was, honestly, even the grocery store gelato was super good. So we enjoyed that a lot at two o'clock in the morning when we would finish recording. I love it. Yeah, my parting line for listeners is not only is the gelato fantastic everywhere you go in that country, but I once had someone recommend to me, and this goes to Alison's

37:35point, don't worry about what kind of wine you're ordering in Italy. Just get the table wine. It'll be the best thing you ever had, and it's so true of that country, they're really terrific at it. Well, now comes, you know, you've had the high of covering these winter games. Now you come back down to earth and back home, and it's only a little less than two years that we get, you know, the games, the summer games back on US soil and any Olympics back on US soil for the first time in two and a half decades. So now what's the game plan for keep the flame alive as you get your thoughts organized and you start prepping around LA 28 and, you know, all of your podcasts down the line leading up to that. What's next for you to? Well, we're actually not done with Milano Cortina because we still have the Paralympics to do. Yes. So we're getting excited about that because that's coming up next week, it'll start.

38:36And then LA is going to be interesting because LA will be the biggest games ever, which is a little daunting because Paris was pretty darn big. And so when you add like five forts, that's going to make it even bigger. But I think it's going to be helpful to us to be on home soil where we understand like how to get around how the government works. That kind of just some basic stuff that we can navigate a little quicker and be a little more efficient about what we do just because it's, you know, the language is not a problem. And we just have an innate sense of how things work. So that will be fun. Yeah, we won't have to go to the grocery store with our Google translate and try and figure it out. You know, simple things like that take. So grocery shopping took twice as long because you were trying to figure out we had a really funny moment where I was getting some milk. And I was just trying to figure out what was the skin milk.

39:37And I just guess that it had to have the light blue cap. And I'm just because I couldn't figure it out based on the words. So it's simple things like that that you don't even think about taking time and being in the U.S. you don't think about translating the money in your head. You don't think about all those small details that just take more time and more brainpower when you're in a foreign country. That's just how it works. Thank you guys. I have, we're winding down here, but I would like to ask a final question that may be tough. Each of you has honed in on a couple of moments. Jill, you mentioned the Mexican skater and the cross-country skier from Brazil and, um, and Alison, you talked about a list of Lou and just the, you know, the magic performance in Olympics that she had. But if you could zero in a little bit, tough question, but saddest and happiest moment

40:39from these Olympic games, what will, what will you all take forward with you in your mind's eye as you, as you leave these games, including, and as you said, Jill, that's there's still a pair of Olympic games to come. Well for me, saddest was definitely Ilya Malinan. That was, that was really hard to watch. I, um, I wasn't there in the stadium that night, but when I was watching it on the television, I just gasped at the first mistake. And sometimes when you watch a figure skating performance, you can tell literally from that first jump if things are good and things are bad. And with Alissa from the first jump, it was, she's going to be clean. I have nothing to worry about. And from that first jump with Ilya, you knew things were, things were rough. So that was probably in terms of just feeling sad, just, oh, we didn't get to see him at his peak in this, in this big moment.

41:40On the happier side, I was really excited about women's double loose, uh, premiering. We had interviewed, uh, Shavon Forgen and Sophia Kirkby, who were the American pair in that race. And it's nice to see equity and equality happening right before your eyes, you know, seeing that race happen and knowing that women now have the same number of sliding events as men do. That felt nice. You know, that just felt like, yeah, that's how it should be. We shouldn't have this split of a different number of events. So and that'll come, that'll continue forward. That's the legacy of these games that that was a new event and that'll keep going. Great. Joe. Wow. Saddest and happiest. This is, that's hard. Um, I think I'm very sad that I did not get out to Biathlon because that was just, don't even think about it because it's too far away. Um, also said that, uh, Italian biathlete, Dirty Avera, who was at her last games and retired

42:44immediately, that she, she got a relay medal, but she didn't get an individual medal and I was really hoping she would. It was, it probably got to be very tough with the conditions here and there. So and I'm sad that the Americans didn't do as well as hoped. I think there were just a lot of really tough days that you could see going down and again, the pressure of, will this be the first time that America could medal and in, in the Olympics in that sport? And, um, I don't know if pressure took its toll, but it was, that was really rough. Um, another sad moment, well, I was sad that, uh, Frank Del Ducca and Josh Williamson placed fourth in Bob's lead. They tried really, they tried really hard and yet Germany just has something on the rest of the world when it comes to Bob's lead driving and, uh, you know, it's, it's tough to break through that. But I think the way they responded was really admirable and that also works.

43:47Another sad moment that turned happy was when Aaron Jackson did not defend her gold medal in the, the 500 long track speed skating. And it was really rough because she started out so quick and it looked so good. And then you saw something happen on the back straight or at least when I was there, it was hard to see, but something happened and you knew and she just stumbled a little bit and that was it. The race was over for her and she was off the metal stand, but when you talk to her in the mix zone, she was like, Hey, no big deal. And I made mistakes and the way she responded to the pressure because she thrives under it and she's just a different breed, uh, thrives under that pressure and how she responded to that and, uh, said, look, uh, Femkecock who won the gold medal. She's been the one to chase all year long. She raised a phenomenal race deserves it.

44:49And I made a mistake and that's, I'm going to have to work on it and go to keep going. And that was just so reassuring that this was not the end all be all and what a good lesson to learn and what a good role model she is for a lot of people in that. Classic. Yeah. Yeah. She just really is. And, and for our listeners, 500s of a second off the metal stand, that's, um, a couple of, uh, a couple of blinks for all of us. Um, oh, I would also say good, happy is, uh, Ashley Farquherson in lose winning bronze that it, cause US has doesn't win medals and lose very often. Yes. And to interview her. Yeah. We did. We did. It was delightful. She was. And it was, it was so nice to see her, uh, you know, realizing potential. Yeah. Well, we're going to have to leave it there. I feel like I have two friends with me in the living room.

45:51We could convince for another few hours, but I am so appreciative that the two of you came on. I want to put in a plug, keep the flame alive, a wonderful podcast and you can go to keep the flame alive pod calm, leave or, uh, Apple and Spotify and all those other podcasters, um, and easily find, keep the flame alive, um, where flame alive pod dot com flame alive pod dot com. Thank you for that correction. So to both of you, thanks so very much to our listeners. That's going to be a wrap on episode four and please, um, tune in again or computer in again next month as we go to episode five. Thanks very much for listening. Hey, there's sports history fan. This is Arnie Chapman, a, a, a, the flip model history dude. And I hope that you enjoyed this recent episode presented by the sports history network. And we're able to learn some good old fashioned sports history knowledge nuggets.

46:52I started the sports history network back in 2020 with the mission to help podcasters find a community of like minded sports history nerds as well as helping aspiring podcasters to start their own shows. We have a little bit over 30 shows on the network right now covering all sorts of sports history. But as far as I'm concerned, we're just at the toothpick in the ocean moment. You know that can't even figure it out because there's so much more coming. We wanted to create the ultimate headquarters for sports gesture year starting with podcast network in our website, but we're going to continue to move into other mediums as well. And here's the cool part because we want you to be part of our team. So if you're interested in starting your own podcast or maybe being a guest on one of our shows or who knows, maybe even write an article for us over on the website. Seriously, all you got to do is reach out to us on the contact page of red sports history network.com. You can be as technologically savvy as a Neanderthal tapping on a stone trying to figure out this whole hieroglyphics thing back in the day. Again, it doesn't matter because even if you don't understand the whole podcast base,

47:54we have a production team that can pretty much help you out with doing everything. All you got to do head over to sports history nerd.com head to the contact page, fill it out. That message goes right to me and I'll reach out to you as soon as I can. But for now, dude, I have to refure it through.