May 15, 2020
It's week 2 of canoe! On this episode, 4x Olympian Andras Törő tells us details about the Canoe Sprint discipline that will help us watch it better at the Olympics.
Andras is pretty amazing. Competing for Hungary, Andras won a silver medal in the Men's 1000m C2 event (that's doubles) at the Rome 1960 Olympics. [check out this video of his event - his boat's in the middle. Was Hungary robbed?]He competed at Tokyo 1964 in singles, and came in 4th. That's when he decided to defect to the US.
He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees, then made the US Olympic team and competed at the Munich 1972 and Montreal 1976 Olympics.
Once he retired, he stayed involved with the sport on many levels, from coaching to being involved in the international federation. He also was a member of the US Olympic Committee's Athletes' Advisory Council, then became the secretary for the USOC for a four-year term.
Now he's written a memoir about his life called Chronicles of an Olympic Defector. You can find it at Mascot Books or wherever you buy books. We're having Andras back on in June to talk about his Olympic experiences and his defection, so you've got time to read the book before you get more of the back story!
Also on the show, we've got the word from the International Olympic Committee's first virtual Executive Board meeting. We read between the lines of TBach's report of the day to figure out just what's in store for Tokyo 2020 and the Olympic Movement.
Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Insta - and join our Facebook Group to talk with fellow Olympic lovers!
We'd like to send our eternal flame of gratitude to our Patreon patrons, whose contributions help make this show possible. Please consider contributing at http://www.patreon.com/flamealivepod.
Thanks for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!