Episode 17: Olympic Recap

Every team, every topic, everywhere. This is believed. Hello and welcome to Unlaced with Chocolate Bates. I'm Madison Chock. And I'm Evan Bates and we're Olympic Ice Dancers for Team USA. If you're into sports betting, bet online is the fastest and easiest way to bet all your favorite sports. Head to their new updated desktop or mobile website to sign up today and receive your 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. Just use our promo code, Believe50, to receive your bonus. Well, hello everyone. It's been a little while since you've heard from us, but we've got some catching up to do. Hi everyone. Hi Evan. We've missed this. We wanted to do some episodes while we were at the Olympics, but. It wasn't exactly allowed. We tried, right? We brought our mics. We asked if it would be okay and. It was not. It was not okay. So we took a break. But it ended up being nice because we didn't have anything to do other than obviously competing at the Olympics. But it was nice to just focus on that and then enjoy and soak in the rest of the experience. Not have to put out a podcast episode every week. It was nice to take a little bit of a break and just be able to focus on our skating. But we certainly missed putting out episodes for you all. Anyways, we got home about three weeks ago. We really needed some time to recover mentally and physically. So we're all rested and ready to get back into our podcasting game. We've got a lot to cover from the games, the good, the bad and the ugly. Lol. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. And a good way to recap. So what was good? Was there anything? There was a lot of good. For sure, there was a ton of good. But what was some of it? I think the most good, the goodest part was winning a silver medal in the team event. What? Kind of like accomplishing a lifelong dream. Was your medal? Well, we'll get to that. That's in the ugly section. Yeah, just kidding. Thanks for rubbing it in. Yeah, we'll get to that later. More on that later. What else was good? What do you think was good? One of my favorite parts, if not my favorite part, was getting our scores in the Kissing Cry with our whole team during the team event. That was a true highlight and something that's just like on a little replay clip in my head whenever I feel the need to reach for it. It's just so joyful and makes my heart feel happy. I agree. That was the best. That was amazing. What else? What a great team. What else? I love pin trading, obviously. I am a huge pinhead for those of you who know. I love trading pins at the Olympics. I've been on a roll since Sochi. You have been. You even delved into the. What were those that you bought at the souvenir shop? I went in hard. I got the collector edition Heritage Pinset at the Games. Which is every single official Winter Olympic pin since the start of the making of Winter Olympic pins. That was very cool. I was really happy to see you buy that. When I looked at the actual set though, I was perplexed because it didn't include the Beijing pin. I thought that I had that thought myself. I thought that was like every pin except the current Olympics where you are purchasing this Heritage set. You don't get that pin but you get every pin up until 2018. I thought that was odd. I checked and we actually did get that pin. Every single athlete receives that pin upon arrival. It was in their room waiting for them. What if the volunteer went and bought the Heritage Pinset? They would not get the Beijing pin. Right. Anyways. I don't know. Great investment by you. Yes. Looks great on the bookshelf. Love it on the bookshelf. Next to Bing Dwen Dwen and other Bing Dwen Dwen. Fabulous. What else was good? There must have been other good things, right? Yes. There were a lot of good things. Our team was really good. Our team was the best. We bonded. Hard. I love our team. Our team was fantastic. Yeah. I mean, like such a great group of people. Yeah. Team players in every sense of meaning. It was fun. It was so fun. Everyone just had a really good vibe, really supportive, great energy between our teammates. Yeah. Okay. What was bad? Not receiving our first ever Olympic medal. Okay. That's going to go in ugly, though. Oh, that's an ugly. I should be in bad. You know what I'm saying? Bad and ugly. You know what else was good was actually the closing ceremony was really good. Yeah. That was fun. And I'd say the bad part was that we had to leave like an hour after the closing ceremonies. We literally had one hour to pack. I mean, we packed before, but we had one hour to like zip up and be outside ready to go to the airport, left for the airport at like two in the morning, and then traveled for 30 plus hours. That was bad. Can I just also say packing was packing was so hard to leave. We had so much stuff. More stuff than when we arrived. Granted, it was great stuff. Happy to leave with it, but just so difficult to pack everything. Just didn't have enough space in all my five logages. It was unbelievable that I didn't have space in five logages. My five logages. My five logages were stuff to the brim with obviously the good was that we were on a charter flight home with all of Team USA, so there was no weight limit on the bags. That was good. Five free chick bags. What else was bad? I hate to harp on the bad stuff, but just balance. Yeah, that's true. It was everything. It was everything. All the emotions, all the experiences. But not walking in the opening ceremonies, I would have to say, was a hard thing. Yeah, that was hard. I love walking in the opening ceremonies. We decided not to walk because we competed like two days after. But I think that was like a wise, mature decision on our part. I think it was. I think it was too. But man, opening ceremonies is fun. It looked really cool on TV. But we got to do the closing, so at least there was that. It's got a similar vibe. Lots of pin trading, excitement, meet lots of people. Yeah. I would say also finishing in fourth was it's kind of bad. It's obviously not bad. It's obviously great. The Olympics is not bad. But it's also. But finishing so close to the podium and not meddling is a little bit bad. And then compounded by not getting the medal in the team event. It's bad. It's bad. Yeah, but we can't really complain too much. Yeah, let's just move on to the ugly. I think it was still all very good. You're right. It was. But what was ugly? The doping scandal that we were caught up in the middle of. Yeah. During the team event, like not us personally, but we were personally affected by it. Right. So that was hard to witness just for everyone involved. It really was. It was like, obviously this is a minor, which adds this layer of culpability for the team around her. And obviously it affected us by not getting our medals. And I don't know what else to say there. I mean, we'll see what happens. But that was really difficult. That was really tough. Just like kind of reflecting on it and coping with it and trying to move past it and get to the individual event and shift our focus. It was kind of hard to close off the team event while all of that was still going on. But again, I'm glad we had such an amazing team and we were able to support each other and just like help each other continue on forward. And that was really valuable. And you know what? At least we got the boxes, right? They gave us the medal boxes. And you know what was in the box? A pin. One more for the collection. At least we know that when we get a medal, it will have a safe storage place. Yes. We'll have a nice box to put it in, which we already have with us. I'm taking great care of my box. So you know, that's a really quick recap of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Yeah. In a nutshell. It was an incredible experience. It was completely a huge highlight of our career. It was completely worth all of the work and preparation that we put into it. And we're really proud of the performances that we put out. Yeah. So honestly, like we gave it our all. We did our best that we could in those moments and can leave feeling satisfied with the work that we put out. So lots of pins and an empty metal box. But lots of pins. Let's read it like that. And good. I'll tell you the one that I am super excited that I got just to harp on my pinning a little bit more. Harp. Harp away. Harp away. Okay. Thank you. I got. a pin from Ireland. - Is that good? - It's amazing because if many of you probably don't know this or wouldn't guess it, but I am one eighth Irish. - I did know that. - Believe it. - So. - So it was your own Heritage Pinset. - I was looking for my own Heritage Pinset, yes. And yeah, so very happy to have traded for that pin. - And you traded for a Norway pin for me, which is-- - Yeah, I made sure I got it. - And our region, so I appreciated that. We really went after some-- - Some hair, personal Heritage Pins. - Some hair, personal Heritage Pins. - So that was great. - Yeah. - And we've got a lot to look forward to. I mean, we've got a lot going on in the next weeks, months, next week we'll be in France for the World Championships. And straight from France, we're going to Tokyo for Stars on Ice in Japan, which is our first time ever doing shows in Japan and we're super excited. - Yes. Then from there, we had straight to Florida where we will begin rehearsals for the US Stars on Ice Tour and we'll be doing 24 shows in various cities around the US. - Amazing. - So basically, we will be on the road, bopping around for the next three months. - Pretty much. - Yeah. - It seems like a lot, but I'm so excited to be back on tour to travel again and to perform again in front of audiences. - Oh, yeah, so very excited. - We'll be doing our free dance in the show, which I think will be really cool. Like can you imagine what the lights and everything they can do to make it look like we're literally on a planet in outer space? - Smell cool. - Strobe lights. - I hope they don't do strobe lights. - Yeah. - Like that would be extremely distracting, but. - If you're prone to seizures or epilepsy or maybe pregnant, strobe lights are not good. Or so I've heard. - We'll also be using our Gala program to I hear Symphony by Cody Fry. - Amazing music. - We're just really excited for Stars on Ice Tour. You can get tickets at starsonice.com. And it would be awesome to hear from people who are gonna be at the show. And we really just wanna connect with fans and people who we haven't seen in a long time and just looking forward to the exciting stuff. - Yeah. - Come in our way. - Let us know if you're coming to watch the show. We can't wait to see you there. It's gonna be a great time. And we're really, really looking forward to it. - Yeah, and thank you so much for listening. This has been an episode of Unlaced with Chalkin Bates presented by Bet Online. - Make sure you subscribe for more episodes. You can follow us on social media at Chalk Bates. We'll talk to you soon. - Bye. (upbeat music) (whooshing)