Keep the Flame Alive
Love the Olympics and Paralympics? We are here for you! Welcome to TKFLASTAN (pronounced SHOOK-flah-stahn), the country of Olympics and Paralympics fans, and Keep the Flame Alive, the most fun podcast made for people like us. You're one of the proud fans who keeps the spirit of the Games alive every day — and we celebrate that spirit with our show. Keep the Flame Alive is a weekly audio experience. Each episode, hosts Jill Jaracz and Alison Brown explore the stories of the Olympics and Paralympics through sports, athletes, officials, organizers, host cities, fans and more. New episodes come out every Thursday. Join us for all the fun and grandness of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Episodes
It's 100 days to go until the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics! We have all the latest on these Games from the Team USA Media Summit in New York City (aka our test event) including podiums, more torchbearers, and a new Team USA plane. We also talked with Peacock reps to find out what the viewing experience will be like this time around--will the feed beef cease to exist in 2026?
We are excited to talk with Doug Levy, author of the book Hero Redefined: Profiles of Olympic Athletes Under the Radar. The book contains amazing stories you may not have known – or athletes who for some reason or another, made our collective conscious for a Games and then fell off the radar. We talk with Doug about some of those stories.
Learn more about Doug and the book at his website, and follow him on:
- Insta: @doug.levy...
It's the latest installment of our retrospective on the 25th anniversary of the Sydney 2000 Olympics and Paralympics! Jill looks at the Paralympic Football 7-a-Side competition, while Alison explores the Olympic television advertising campaigns in the U.S.
Playlist of ads referenced in this episode:
Olympic figure skater Nicole Bobek has long been on our list of athletes to interview, and we're thrilled she's able to come on the show! In 1995, Nicole dazzled at the US Championships, winning gold and then taking bronze at the Figure Skating World Championships later that year.
Her career on and off the ice has had a lot of highs and lows, from her beautiful performances to dealing with injuries and the sudden death of her coac...
You know how Olympic and Paralympic athletes go around and speak at schools and do other types of education-relat...
All year long we're celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Sydney 2000 Games, and this month is the actual month of the Games' anniversary! The Sydney 2000 Olympics opened on September 15, 2000, and over the next 17 days, won over the world with its competitions and amazing hospitality.
On this episode, we look at new sports and events on the Olympic program: Triathlon (new sport), women's pole vault (new event) and women's modern...
It's back-to-school time, so we wanted to hear what it's like for an elite athlete to go back to college. Olympic luger Ashley Farquharson explains how she's taking advantage of the Guild/Team USA partnership and getting her bachelor's degree at Purdue Global.
It's the final week of the World Games - Chengdu 2025! We're joined by John Moorhead, 2017 World Games athlete and current USA Fistball secretary, to get some insight as to how the athletes in Chengdu have enjoyed their time at the World Games.
Jill and Alison also recap their week 2 watching, with thoughts on:
- Boules
- Breakdancing
- Cheerleading
- Gymnastics
- Drone Racing
- Flag Football
- Inline Skating
- Motosurf
- Billiards
- Racquetball ...
The 12th edition of the World Games, Chengdu 2025 is underway! We discuss what sports and events we and other listeners have been bingeing on our feeds.
We start with the excellent Opening Ceremonies, which took a cue from Paris 2024.
Sports we discuss include:
- Canoe Polo
- DanceSport
- Dragon Boat racing
- Finswimming (we have a lot of thoughts about freediving)
- Floorball
- Gymnastics (including thoughts on the new format)
- Orienteer...
It's our monthly look back at the Sydney 2000 Olympics and Paralympics! This time, Jill looks at the Olympic equestrian eventing competition, including venue construction, difficult quarantine processes, and a vastly different competition format than you see in today's Olympic eventing.
Check out the cross-country course and its amazing fences: Read more
Book Club Claire is back for our summer reading selection: Above & Beyond: Tim Mack, the Pole Vault and the Quest for Olympic Gold by Bill Livingston. Tim Mack won the gold medal at the Athens 2004 Olympics (perhaps a surprise winner), and this book details his very long journey to the top of the podium and the unique training methods he developed that helped him achieve his goal.
What did we think of the book? Listen to the show ...
Today we are talking with 2x Paralympian Noelle Lambert who competes in the 100m and long ju...
This week, Keep the Flame Alive is celebrating a big milestone: Our 400th regular episode! This episode is an online party with many citizens of TKFLASTAN (Team Keep the Flame Alive, which are our guests and listeners of the show), and we're thrilled to be joined by:
- Past guests Sean Colahan, Harry Blutstein, Rich Perelman, Roy Tomizawa and John Moorhead
- Listeners Ean, David, Mark, Patrick from Chicagoland, Meredith, Sarah and...
We travel back to 2000 for another look back at the Sydney 2000 Olympics and Paralympics. This month Alison explores what's considered to be the biggest Paralympic scandal of all time, Spain's cheating in the Basketball ID tournament. Then Jill looks at the Olympic Road Cycling events, which feature inspirational legends, amazing comebacks, and Lance Armstrong.
If you want a thoroughly depressing look at doping in cycling during ...
It's been nearly a year since we said, "Bonjour!" to the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics, so what's been happening in Paris since the cauldron went out? Let's take a look at the initial legacy of these Games!
We look at the money, initial economic impact, audience figures, building legacies, and elements of the Games that are still impacting Paris. If you're interested in training in the sport climbing warm-up gym, check out Le...
We're delving into the sport of wheelchair tennis with American Charlie Cooper, who's currently ranked #2 in the world for junior wheelchair singles. He talks with Alison about the sport and his plans to qualify for LA 2028.
Plus, we also talk with Dr. Thomas Rietveld, a researcher at the Peter Harrison Centre for Disability Sport at Loughborough University in the UK. Dr. Rietveld's PhD thesis examined wheelchair tennis chairs, so ...
We're talking technology at the Olympics with Pascal Wattiaux, IT Consultant and former Director of Technology at...
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