Beijing 2022 Day 11 Review
It's a golden day to be alive as we bring you another Beijing 2022 daily recap by celebrating Canada's return to gold on day 11 of the Winter Olympics! Just how is Canada celebrating FINALLY winning their second gold medal of the Olympics? Are they also celebrating their record breaking bronze haul? How are they feeling about the ice hockey and curling as the medals get closer? How are Australia feeling about Tess Coady once again bring in the yeeeeeeewwwwwwwwws? How proud are we still of queen Ester and her unique new tricks in the women's downhill? What does our new resident winter expert Marnie Vinall have to say about the last week of Olympics action? Why is Ben getting phone calls now in the middle of this episode? And why will there be no cups of sugar exchanged between neighbours moving forward? Get your golden feelings back on for another pumped up episode that you won't want to miss!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast coming to you once again for another Beijing Daily Recap. Day 11 of Beijing 2022. Just in case you thought you were tuning in to our Day 11 Recap of Beijing 2008 that is available on Off The Podium Archives coming soon to a server near you. And it's a massive day. Only if you pay us. Or vote for us in the Sports Podcast Awards at sportpodcastawards.com. Massive, massive day, particularly for Canada. It's happened, everybody. It has finally happened. The day of celebration that Canada have been waiting all Olympics for. Finally, finally, they've broken the drought. 11 bronze medals at an Olympics. It's finally been achieved. Canada have finally cracked.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, that's where we were going with it.
BEN WATERWORTH: The massive double digit, the great record that they've been striving for for so long after all these nearly 100 years of Winter Olympic history. They've finally won 11 bronze medals at an Olympic Games. Oh, and that's won another gold today, which is nice. That was good for them. Good for Canada. But a great day for Canada, a great day for the world, and a great day for Colin Hilding. Colin, welcome back. How's the golden bronze day for Canada? You did it. You won a gold medal again. Finally, you're ahead of Australia again. Congratulations.
COLIN HILDING: We didn't. Don't we feel bad for Max Perot that he was the lone gold medallist for 10 days and now he's always going to be remembered as the guy who broke the bronze record. Forget that he's our gold medallist for 11 days standing. But exciting. I'm actually watching for the third time now already. The gold medal win. It only happened a couple of hours ago. So it's crazy how much TV coverage they're giving us.
BEN WATERWORTH: This, of course, came in the women's team pursuit in speed skating. And it was an interesting one because they're up against Japan in the final. The reigning champions. Japan looked like they were going to win. Canada were coming back, coming back, coming back. And Japan fell over and crashed. And Canada won. So Canada won in the most Canadian way possible by somebody else crashing out. Yes, they did a bravery.
COLIN HILDING: The two most beautiful words in English language.
BEN WATERWORTH: Default. Default.
COLIN HILDING: And also a fairly average Canadian band.
BEN WATERWORTH: There's a Canadian band called Default.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, you don't know Default? They were quite big. They piggybacked off a Nickelback success and were quite huge, at least in Canada and America, for one whole album. And then they kind of faded into obscurity.
BEN WATERWORTH: And they literally called themselves Default.
COLIN HILDING: Yes.
BEN WATERWORTH: They, sitting around all this time going, well, what are we going to call our band? What's some Default name? Oh, let's just call ourselves Default. E-O-R-A-G-E. And wow. Give us a name of a song by Default. Is it called like Mediocre or something like that?
COLIN HILDING: Wasting My Time actually was their big one.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow. Huge. Massive. Which part of the country were they from? Saskatchewan or something like that?
COLIN HILDING: Oh, no.
BEN WATERWORTH: So typical.
COLIN HILDING: You can understand.
BEN WATERWORTH: One of them. Don't I know about all those BC people, you know? Don't get me started on that. But so Avani Blowed In. Valerie. Thank you. That one. Valerie Maltais. Maltais. Maltais. That one. And Isabel Wiedemann, who gets her third medal of the games. So they took the gold ahead of Japan. And we should mention also ahead of the Netherlands, Irene Voest, the goat. Are we allowed to say that? Yes, we are for Irene. She gets her second medal of the games. But yeah, I mean, was this one that was expected for Canada to meddle in? Or is this a surprise?
COLIN HILDING: Medal, I think the gold was definitely a bit of a surprise. But I think the more interesting thing about it is this team, the three women, they all kind of set their own individual records here. I mean, Avani has competed. This is her third Olympics, and it's the first medal she's ever won despite being one of the best we have. Valerie is actually one of the only Canadians to ever now meddle in both short and long track speed skating. She switched over for these Olympics. And of course, Isabel now joins the three-peat club, along with people like Kim and Cindy Clausen and Charles Amelin. So a lot of records being broken by this team. And I have to say, in a way, I'm a little bit disappointed that it had to be by Japan wiping out. I mean, it was very exciting watching. One of the best things about team pursuit is, you don't have that chaos of, oh, they're just passing each other on the track and this person's falling because they got too close. There's more than enough room, so really every team runs their own race. If Japan falls, it's obviously Japan's fault. Nobody could have bumped them. But you get to watch the time get closer and closer. So when they went from I think with like two laps to go eight tenths of a second down to three tenths of a second with like, you know, one lap to go, I'm like, oh, this might be possible, unlikely, but might be possible. And then to have it be because Japan wiped out, a little bit disappointing, but still it's a gold medal. We'll take it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I think both Scott McGrory and Stephen Bradbury were saying in our commentary that they were like, look, we think that Canada were going to catch them anyway. Yes, they were pretty confident it was going to happen, but it does remind me a lot of the cycling team pursuit in the Summer Olympics. It's kind of very similar to that. But great result for Canada to get that. And in all seriousness, I don't have a stat in front of me, but it would be interesting to see kind of what the biggest drought is for Canada in between gold medals at an Olympics like this. So what you got gold with NACs on day three, was it not? So eight days basically took you. How many days did it take? It didn't take about a week in Vancouver to finally get one. I think it was a while, wasn't it?
COLIN HILDING: I think it was a week. So this probably has broken that now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which, I mean, is again, I know I keep asking this every single day and you're just very Canadian like, no, we don't care. But like I said, now something where Canada's like, hey, we finally won this second gold. So, you know, is it something that you're a little bit happier with?
COLIN HILDING: I haven't been able to see the reactions yet. So this is the downside about living in North America and watching Olympics from Asia, is that I can watch however long I can stay awake for, which last night was not very long. I was pretty tired. And then when we're recording this at six o'clock in the morning, it just comes down to, I had a coughing fit at 430 in the morning and I had time to catch up on the downhill and the big air. And the big air was the one I would have skipped, easily skipped the big air, because I have more complaints about that. But that was the one I thought we had the best chance in. So when we were getting ready to record, it was literally down to, I have just enough time to see whether we win the gold here and then immediately shut it off, run downstairs. So I haven't seen any reactions yet. But going into this, still not a lot of talk about, oh, we have to win another gold. There's really been no mention of it all. But you put it in my mind. So I was thinking about this. So when Max ended up in the silver position, when he had his second jump, and I'm like, oh, he's in the silver position. I'm like, Ben, you did it again. If you just keep your mouth shut, Canada and the world would be in a much better position.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's actually really interesting because I brought it up today at work. I said it once. This is before the women have won the gold. I said, like, yeah, Canada has only won the one gold. And everyone's like, really? Canada has only won one gold? Like that doesn't seem right. Like everybody was actually kind of, everyone was like, oh, Australia has won as many gold as Canada. Well, cool. Jesus, aren't we glad that they only got a silver today? But actually, it's looking at your golds at recent Olympics. So the last time you didn't win double digit gold was Turin when you won seven. I know we don't talk about Turin, but you got to go back to Lillehammer was the last time you got below five. You got three in Lillehammer, two in Alba Ville, none in Calvary, two in Sarajevo, none in Lake Placid, one in Innsbruck. So you actually go back sort of pre-Nagano. You only average about one or two. And obviously a lot more events have been added to the Winter Olympics, of course, post-1964.
COLIN HILDING: It's freestyle skiing. That's what's giving Canada the golds.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, but it is interesting to look at kind of, again, we talked about this the other day. It's always that post-success you have after hosting an Olympics. But I mean, again, as you've talked about before, if you look at total medals, I mean, every year since Lillehammer, you've double-digited. So you've already won more medals than Lillehammer and Nagano. You won as many as you had in Salt Lake City, which is the last time you won below 20. You've got a guaranteed medal coming in women's ice hockey. So you're going to be on at least 18. So you'd expect to get to 20, which is on track to what you've had really every single Olympics since Turin. It's just, unfortunately, this time around, you keep winning bloody bronzes. So no mean feat in winning bronzes. We always say in the Summer Olympics, that's Canadian Canada gold. So, you know, it's just you're better in summer sports now, Colin. This is literally looking like you're going to win more gold in Tokyo. Which it's crazy to think that, isn't it? The fact that you got seven gold in Tokyo. Yeah, I don't think you get the seven gold in Beijing. Is this going to be the first time? No, it won't be the first time you've won more gold in the summer than in the winter. We just established you used to only win like zero gold back in the day. But I mean, I guess in modern times, like that's that's a pretty big deal. So well done, Canada. Good job there. One thing I wanted to mention, though, just with Irene Wust, with her 13th medal overall at the Olympics today, she now is equal with the great Olli Einer Bjorn Dahlund of Norway, the biathlete, on 13 medals. She's got one more event to go, Irene. She's got the 10,000 metres. She wins that. She will become the second most decorated winter olympian. I mean, she already is equal, second most decorated winter olympian of all time. She will go out on top with 14, only one below Marit Bjørgen, the Norwegian cross-country skier. So, iconic for Irene to go with that one. I mean, we've talked a lot about overusing the word goat, but I'm pretty sure we can say that about Irene.
COLIN HILDING: And we haven't given her the Daily Daily yet, right?
BEN WATERWORTH: No, we haven't. We haven't.
COLIN HILDING: Do we want to hold out?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I don't know, because today I'm pretty strong for one today. But I mean, we should also mention just on records, big sucker for records. Today also we had another record in terms of multiple medals won, and that came with our beloved French biathlete, who we spoke about the other day when we gave him the Daily Dale. And now, of course, he got his fifth medal today, Quentin Fillon Mallet. France got silver in the relay today. So he's now won five medals at these Olympics, which means he has joined a very elite club of Winter Olympians to win five medals at the One Olympics. He's the first biathlete to ever win five medals at a single Olympics. So congratulations to Quentin Fillon Mallet. Thank you, Ben. The first French Winter Olympian to win five medals at a single Olympics. I mean, there's a lot of magic.
COLIN HILDING: The first French Winter Olympian for Ben to speak positively on too.
BEN WATERWORTH: First French person in general for Ben to speak positively on. Let's be honest. Um, Jim and Jarrah Depardieu. What a man. Um, Eric, Eric Haydn, looking at some of the names here. Mareep Björgen, we mentioned Irene Wust, all of won five. Cindy Klassen, five at an Olympics. So there are some of the great names that he has joined there. So potential for our athlete of the games there. Somebody, again, I don't know if he's making any news in Canada. Not really making a lot of news here, but, um, again, it's just like we don't really talk much about these European athletes who are doing these sports that none of us really give a shit about. But congratulations.
COLIN HILDING: But we do. Because he was the athlete of the day for us.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. Exactly. The other medal we should mention, Mr Parrot got another medal today. He got bronze in the big air. How's Canada reacting to Max getting his second medal today?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, probably not as strongly as they are for the women's team pursuit team. But still, it's exciting. What I think is better than this medal itself is how much Canada just seems to love Max Parrot. Like, absolutely love. Like, I would be at this point shocked if he wasn't our closing ceremony flag bearer. And I think this country would revolt if he wasn't our closing ceremony flag bearer. Like, Roosevelt? Yeah. Well, they're going to... I mean, they could do too, right? But I think Max is the guy that everybody's gotten behind. There's already... I saw it because the Deferla Point sisters shared it, but there's already this award being given out for most inspirational moment of the games. And Justine Deferla Point is up for it, for finishing... It's too hard to resist. Exactly. For the greatest hug in the history of the Olympics. But Max Perot is, like, going to walk away with that. I mean, Canada is in love with this man. And so good in the interviews too. I mean, I think a lot of the Canadians that are getting the most attention are the ones who actually, like Justine de Frilipoint, or like Lawrence de Brehu, who we mentioned the other day, who are coming up just short and really just being classy with how they're handling it. But Max Perot, being a guy who's not coming up short and being just as classy handling, I mean, this country is in love with that man.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, speaking of being in love, probably the opposite end of it. Mark McMorris was 10. Darcy Sharp was 12. How are people reacting to dear old triple bronze medallist, Mark McMorris? You think that's how he gets introduced at parties? Ladies and gentlemen, triple bronze medallist, Mark McMorris.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, he's the funny thing is he's the old guy. They mentioned that last night. It's funny, ever since you had brought up, they always bring up the male athletes age, I'm like, yeah, they kind of do, because he was identified as the oldest guy there, 28 years old. I mean, there's three Olympics. I think Canada has already gotten over his bit of a crybaby fit he had about the judging. Again, he's handled himself a lot better. He's putting more of the emphasis on his self for not performing. Really, this is not that different from how he did in Big Air last time, but I think there were higher expectations coming to this one. He's taking it like a champ. And I mean, Canada is over, Mark. I'm sorry to say it, Mark. You're a legend still. You're on the lucky charms box or whatever. But Max Perot is the new guy in town.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good to see you. It only takes winning three bronze medals to make a cereal box in Canada. You must have a lot of athletes in cereal boxes. Also in that event, Darcy Sharp 12th. And the gold went to Su Yiming of China and Mons Roseland of the Norway. The Norway got the silver. Good for the Norway. Thoroughly deserving in that one. For Australia today, for our great bronze medal, Tess Coady, in the big air. She put it out in the line. She did a great first jump and was in third, second, I believe, after the first jump. And everyone's getting excited like, oh, come on, Tess. Doesn't look like you could win for a surprise one here, but she didn't quite land an X2 and ultimately finish in ninth. But as she ever is in an interview, she's fantastic afterwards. And she's just basically like, look, I'm thrilled with that. She said, I don't do this event. So this is not something that I usually care about. So the fact that she came out and got ninth in the Olympics, pretty decent for her. For the other Australian in the field, Zoe Sadowsky-Sinott, silver medal, congratulations. Obviously, the first time a New Zealander has ever won two medals in the Olympics, she's done something Australians have never done, won two medals in the single Olympics. So congratulations to Zoe. Did what? What?
COLIN HILDING: Did Lisa not win two medals during Tokyo?
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, well, I mean Winter Olympics.
COLIN HILDING: Let's be specific, Ben.
BEN WATERWORTH: Sorry, Colin, you're right. I'm thinking Lisa, who are you talking about? Like that great Winter Olympian, Lisa Carrington. That's right. The ice canoe.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, you know she's going to switch over in the next Olympics, just to prove she's the best.
BEN WATERWORTH: She could do anything. She could absolutely do anything. Speaking of the best, Bruce McVaney is on my TV screen. Everybody shut up and pay attention. All our listeners can also follow. Shut up, Bruce is on TV. Shut up, stop it.
COLIN HILDING: I made everybody shut up for Ewan McGregor's commercial yesterday, so go right ahead, Ben.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, when there are men on TV, like Ewan McGregor and Bruce McVaney, you just stop. The world stops. It's just literally in the middle of everything. Zoe could be mid-jump and she would freeze. Like, bro, Bruce is on TV. And then she would just stop. You would have heard from her dad at the beginning of the episode. He swore again on New Zealand TV. Hilarious. Good old Mr. Sadowski Snot. That's a very long name to get through. Like, if you're introduced like, and I want to say it in Kiwi. Oh, bro, Zoe Sadowski Snot. Like, it sounds a bit Kiwi. Sure.
COLIN HILDING: You can't even abbreviate it because, I mean, ZSS. Like, that's just, it doesn't roll off the tongue. Sounds like you're having a stroke.
BEN WATERWORTH: It does. I wonder if dad swears a lot. So, beautiful part of New Zealand, Wanaka, by the way. That's where they're from. Highly recommend people going to Wanaka. Gold went to Anagasa, back-to-back gold. For Anna and Kokomo Merezi. Bronze for Japan. Canada had Jasmine Baird. She was seventh. And Laurie Bluin, Blond. Is she related to the speed skater? Is it the same name?
COLIN HILDING: Yes, Bluin and Blondin are very much related.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just like the Ivory Coast and the Virgin Islands.
COLIN HILDING: Exactly. They are the Ivory Coast and Virgin Islands of Canadian snowboarding and speed skating.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm sure they're both from Quebec. I'm sure they've both eaten poutine together.
COLIN HILDING: They're both women.
BEN WATERWORTH: They're both in winter sports. Caucasian. Snowports. Both are from Canada.
COLIN HILDING: Both wear lululemon.
BEN WATERWORTH: I was commenting a lot today on the Canadian athletes in this. They don't want to go big and hard because they don't want to ruin the lululemon. It's expensive. They don't want to land in there and tear it. What's going on? So seventh and eighth in that event. Both beat America's Haley Langland. So that's some good news for Canada really there. The ice hockey is on tonight. So Canada are playing Germany. And obviously they win that they go against Sweden. But I just want to quickly talk. I just mentioned this on YouTube off air just before we came on. I'm calling three upsets today in the men's ice hockey qualification playoff rounds. So the Darsley Germans, the big killers from Pyeongchang, they're out. Slovakia have gotten their number. So bye bye Germany. The Germans are no longer coming. So back to where they belong in men's ice hockey. Denmark on debut, if you don't mind, knocked out Latvia. Ice hockey is their national sport in Latvia. Well, they're going to be having a national day of mourning tomorrow. So go home and go back to your skeleton Latvia. Three two, Denmark through to the quarterfinals. Switzerland beat Czech Republic. They've had a pretty shocking Olympics of Czech Republic in ice hockey. Four two, they're out. And Canada, China. So we've got to assume status quo will come back in Canada versus China. I mean, God, I think I said this last night, if China beat Canada in ice hockey, oh my God, this will be the most embarrassing day for Canada in sporting history.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, you know, I would not have normally bothered to watch Canada and China, but your track record has me worried now. So I'll probably be tuning in and then cursing your name if it happens.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, Jesus Christ, I'll be hearing my name in shadow from Winnipeg. So the way the quarterfinals are standing at the moment, USA will play Slovakia, Finland will play Switzerland, Rock will play Denmark. So right now, pencil in the USA, Finland and Rock for semi-final spots. Having said that, I would love to see Denmark knock off Rock. Who wouldn't?
COLIN HILDING: Cinderella story of the Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: But Canada will, if they beat China, will play Sweden. So the toughest semi-final will be Sweden-Canada. And so as we said last night, the winner of USA Slovakia will play the winner of Sweden vs Canada. So we can have a USA-Canada semi, just like we had back in Sochi, and then Finland, Switzerland, Rock and Denmark. So very interesting there. In the curling, just while we're going over the team sports, I was watching, finally got a chance to watch some of the curling today, Colin, and it was a good game. Canada ended up coming over China 10-8 in the men's. So they're doing very well. And right now the men are playing again against Rock. And breaking news in the curling, Canada 1, Rock 0. So Canada looking good right now for a spot in the semi. So you're third right now in the men's. Our sexy Swedes are undefeated. Oscar Erickson going for two medals at these Olympics. They're through to the semi finals. They can't be unseated there. And Duck Dynasty themselves, the USA are fourth. And Scotland are in second. So I'll be honest, four nations that I'm pretty satisfied making the semis. Surely, I think if you beat ROC tonight, you're through. Because I think the semis start tomorrow, if I'm not mistaken. Are they on tomorrow?
COLIN HILDING: I don't know. Are they?
BEN WATERWORTH: I think they are.
COLIN HILDING: You're my calendar. All right, then they are. Okay, then I confirm. I'm excited because we've really turned this around.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, they're not.
COLIN HILDING: Okay, then I'm wrong. Okay, I will take the...
BEN WATERWORTH: Blame Colin, not the researcher.
COLIN HILDING: But yeah, I mean, Canada and both the men and women really turned it around quickly. I was watching, I think, when we were off the air yesterday, Canada and Great Britain. I was saying, if Canada was going to lose and officially be out, I was glad it was going to be Eve Merehead in Britain. But we didn't, we pulled it off. And somehow Canada has gone from being one and three in both men's and women's to being, what, three and three now in the women's.
BEN WATERWORTH: Three and three, yeah.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and four and three for the men's, so.
BEN WATERWORTH: Five and two for the men's.
COLIN HILDING: Five and two. Okay, there we go. Oh, they just cut off Ewan McGregor's commercial.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, come on, put on Bruce then. That's the only way you can save it. But it's interesting kind of watching the standings and kind of being able to see this. And it was actually, I kind of felt odd watching teams curling today. Oh, there's too many people. There's too many stones. What's going on? Bring back the twos going on there. But we will update.
COLIN HILDING: You know what this really reminds me of? It reminds me of Salt Lake City for the hockey. In Salt Lake City, there was a lot of struggles early on with Canada. Even when we won, it was like, Oh, they really should have done it. And there was so much criticism being thrown at them. You know, Canadian criticism. Let's just say that. Canadian criticism.
BEN WATERWORTH: What is Canadian criticism?
COLIN HILDING: You suck, sorry. I've got some in our commentary tonight.
BEN WATERWORTH: Canadian criticism. The new podcast from Colony will be coming soon.
COLIN HILDING: But it basically felt like the same thing. It felt like it was looking very bad, maybe because there was such high expectations for both Brad Gushu and Jennifer Jones, just like there was with the hockey in Salt Lake City. And then things slowly started to turn around. And we know what happened with Canada and Salt Lake City. So I'm hopeful that we're going to have both men and women in the playoffs and maybe contending for medals. Because if Canada walks away without any medals in curling, I mean, that would be the end of this country. We officially would just say, yes, we would officially say America, just absolve us. We don't need our own country anymore. We're not deserving.
BEN WATERWORTH: It'd be like CBC did where we have breaking news on CBC. Justin Trudeau is speaking from Ottawa. Justin, what's happening? My fellow Canadians, due to the tragedy of not winning any medals at the Olympics in curling, Canada is ending. That is right. We are no longer a country. We are now the 51st state of the United States of America. Now over to our new leader, Joe Biden. Joe, hi, my fellow Canadians. Welcome to the United States of what country are we? Afghanistan, what's America? Thanks, Joe.
COLIN HILDING: But if you follow Canadian news, Justin Trudeau now has emergency powers. He's pulled a Chancellor Palpatine.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, has he sent the military? Has he done it?
COLIN HILDING: Well, he's basically said we now have the ability to if we want, which has never happened in the history of this country for some people honking the horns in Ottawa. So Chancellor Palpatine Trudeau has taken us one step closer to fucking Jar Jar has done it again. Yeah. Canada will be no more if curling doesn't turn around. This is the ultimatum.
BEN WATERWORTH: I really wish I was there right now, because you expect it from America. I mean, I'm sure there's even the National Guard that L.A.'s riding because of the Rams. I can't imagine Canada. How does that work? I can't imagine Canadians sitting around a war room going, like, oh, hey, we got to send the military in, eh? Oh, we can't do that. That's very impolite. Just ask them not to riot. Okay, please don't riot. Okay, we won't. Okay, thank you. Like, what is the Canadian military doing? Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh. Where is the military of Canada? Excuse me, protesters? Yes, military? Can you not riot, please? Okay. Thank you. Have a nice day. Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh. Wow.
COLIN HILDING: This is Justin Trudeau, my first act with his new authority.
BEN WATERWORTH: They're literally sitting around the table going like, Justin, we're going to send in the military. Not from a prime minister. Oh my God. Jesus, I'm not living there right now in the wrong time. I need to be there. But breaking news in Canada, it has gone to shit.
COLIN HILDING: And it's all because of the curling. Turn it around, Jennifer and Brad.
BEN WATERWORTH: I just don't imagine Justin Trudeau is the type of prime minister who's like, grrr, I'm angry. He's sent in the military. He's bummed too sexy to do that.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, he's also the only man who's caught COVID, I think about 15 times during this pandemic. It comes up every time there's a crisis, Trudeau is all of a sudden isolating.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm not saying Prince Charles' wife Camilla is a man, but I mean, I swear every single time I turn on the news, she's got COVID. So like, they're just trying to set a record. You know, Justin Trudeau. I mean, maybe we need to look into this. Justin Trudeau and Camilla Parker Bowles are like, hmm, hmm, hmm. Like, if they keep catching COVID off each other, you know, just saying. I mean, I know Prince Charles and Justin Trudeau, who would you choose between? Who would you kick out of bed in the morning? Very tricky decision, that one.
COLIN HILDING: I know I'd kick out Justin.
BEN WATERWORTH: Poor Justin. I should be wearing my Justin Trudeau socks.
COLIN HILDING: Did we talk about the fact that like Justin Trudeau in Canada had lower approval rating than Donald Trump did in America?
BEN WATERWORTH: Look, I lived there, Colin. I know that I never mentioned his name without getting shut down. I'm back in a country now where I can say I like Justin Trudeau and everyone's like, oh yeah, me too. That's why I got kicked out. There's the truth. What did you say about Justin Trudeau?
COLIN HILDING: You like him, get out.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, don't get me started on Scott Morrison in this country. My goodness. If I meet one more person on one of these apps who asked me the deal breaker question about what I think of Scott Morrison, I'm done. I'm out. I'm sorry, but like, you know, we'd like to go out for a drink. What do you think of Scott Morrison? Okay, fuck it. Just have a drink yourself. I don't care. I don't care. I do not care enough about our Prime Minister to have that as a deal breaker question, okay? Just stop it. All right. Put Bruce on. Can we talk about Bruce? Other news in terms of Australian athletes today, because we'll go through the Canadian athletes in just a moment. Not good news for Kalani Crane in the figure skating Off The Podium's Kalani Crane as well. Currently 18 competitors have gone through and she's sitting in 17th place. So not looking likely for Kalani to qualify for the free skate. Bit disappointing. I saw the end of it. I didn't quite see the whole routine and I saw enough of her reaction to see that she wasn't too happy with her performance. So sad news there for Kalani Crane, who of course is a real great personality. And we do it definitely. I enjoy talking to Kalani back before.
COLIN HILDING: Me too.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, I bet you did. And Greta, another Off The Podium guest today. So two of the three Australians today, Off The Podium guest, 26 in the downhill for Greta. So I think it was a little bit disappointed with that effort. She was, there was a, I think, a French skier who basically, I mean, I shouldn't really joke. I actually don't know if they're okay or not. I watched enough to think that they had died. Poor Greta was stuck on the top of the hill for about 10, 15 minutes waiting to go down. But then she eventually went down and yeah, she finished in 26th place. But I mean, Greta will always be able to look at timing sheets and see that she beat Ester Ledeca at the Olympics. Now, did you see, did you see Ester at all, Colin? Because it was like, got to say, obviously, sadly for Ester, she didn't quite do that well in the fact that she crashed. But did she? She was kicking fucking arse. She was about a second and a half up. She was going absolutely gangbusters, completely shanked the gate, didn't make a shit for her. But the difference is she got up and kept fucking going. She didn't sit by the course.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, like within a second. It was brilliant. You expect when somebody crashes or wipes out that it's going to be a good five or 10 seconds do they gain their composure? Because most people know it's over at this point and they don't care, right? They're like, oh, all right. Well, let me just finish this. She's like, I know I'm out of this, but I'm getting up within 1.2 seconds.
BEN WATERWORTH: She basically, I said she was trying out for the freestyle skiing. She kind of, she clipped the gate. She like spun around. I swear to God she was doing like the slopestyle or something along those lines and trying to essentially land, do an extra trip and get some style points. But no, she kept going. And I've seen a few headlines from Europe basically just applauding saying like, wow, this is incredible. This is a snowboarder who basically somehow tricked out, spun around and then managed to keep going. So Ester, unfortunately, 27th in the downhill out of our 31 competitors who finished. But she still beat two of her teammates. So not bad. Greta, as I said, 26th place for her. Alice Robinson from New Zealand was 25th. And a couple of Canadians in this one who did okay. Ronnie Remy of Canada was in 24th. Marie-Michelle Gagnon was 8th. So a top 8 there for Canada in the downhill. And Gold went to Corinne Suter of Switzerland, who have had a very good alpine skiing meet in the Olympics.
COLIN HILDING: Who would have thought Switzerland had alpine skiing?
BEN WATERWORTH: I know, right? Sophia Goguea. We tried to get her name pronounced correctly on air today. Joe did a much better job than I did. And Nadia DeLago is Italy 2 and 3.
COLIN HILDING: Now, did you see which one was the silver medallist? I mean, there were so many Italians at the top there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Goguea, Goguea, Goguea, Sophia Goguea.
COLIN HILDING: I think it was Goguea. Did you see after she crossed the finish line, she not only kissed the camera, like there was tongue involved.
BEN WATERWORTH: That camera is going to have COVID.
COLIN HILDING: Oh yeah, go back and watch it. She was very, very enamoured with the camera.
BEN WATERWORTH: If I'm completely honest, I kind of stormed off after Ester. So I'll be completely honest.
COLIN HILDING: I'm like, damn it. I mean, you should watch, because like the Italians, I mentioned this to you in the moguls, the way the Japanese team is. Usually you have like, you're very courteous to the others. With the Japanese team in moguls, they're just like, yeah, it's us versus the world. That's kind of the way the Italians were here. When the first, whoever was in fourth, Kourtoni.
BEN WATERWORTH: Who was fourth? Kira Vidal?
COLIN HILDING: Or whoever was the lowest.
BEN WATERWORTH: Kourtoni was fifth.
COLIN HILDING: So when she was knocked off by the other Italian, she did like a double take to the camera. What? They're all very, and then Delago. I'm actually watching the highlights right now. Delago, when she came to the bottom, she was very aggressive and very animated. And you could see the disappointment when the Swiss skier, I'm already forgetting names, there's too many names here.
BEN WATERWORTH: Suda, Corinne Suda.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, Suda, when she officially knocked off what could have been the perfect Italy sweep, all three of them were like, it wasn't throwing snowboards down like you were mentioning the other day, but it was a lot of like, rolling eyes. I love this Italian to you.
BEN WATERWORTH: Three out of five, the top five of the Italians, the good for them, but Ester is, what a queen. She's still going. She's doing the combined in two days time. I think she wasn't even written down for that. So now she's just going to have, fuck it, I'm going to do the combined. I also believe she's doing the four man bobsleigh on the weekend as well. So this woman can do everything. And I know the Czechs just got eliminated in the men's ice hockey, but somehow she's back and they're playing in the quarterfinals.
COLIN HILDING: And we also want to thank her for covering for Ben Waterworth, doing research for channel seven during the last week while he's been in isolation.
BEN WATERWORTH: Absolutely. Thanks to Ester for wishing me a Happy Valentine's Day as well, wearing the same t-shirt. So I was very chuffed by Ester.
COLIN HILDING: I saw you when you sent us pictures. By the way, we've done this on the Oz Network. Let's do it now and off the podium. Can we get one person to support Ben wearing a fedora? Because I'm the only person in the world who is for Ben wearing a fedora. We have pulled people off the air and on the air. And it is always like, that is a hard pass. No, and I'm like, you could pull it off. Go for it. Ben took some pictures in fedora today. I thought that at least one of them looked pretty decent. And I thought, hey, he's wearing his Ester Ledeca shirt. Good job. But yes, somebody support Ben in a fedora.
BEN WATERWORTH: If Ester Ledeca says I'm fedorable, then life is made. I mean, come on now.
COLIN HILDING: Can you just tweet her right now, send the picture and say, Ester, yes or no?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I tweeted that anyway without the fedora, but that's for an interview on and off the podium, by the way, just get your mind out of the gutter, listen her out there. But no, thank you, Colin. It makes my day when you support my fedora wearing habits. Screw you, Noah Groves, writing just no.
COLIN HILDING: And Jamie Hilding and Jarrod Lubick, Kristen Gennar.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, again, they don't count. We need to get like a real former Ozlet like Cable or something like that.
COLIN HILDING: You know Cable's probably got a whole closet full of fedoras himself.
BEN WATERWORTH: He'd take like five weeks to reply and probably be like, what? What's going on? No, screw you, Noah Groves. You know what? I know he doesn't listen to this show, so I don't give two shits, but like I had my iTunes on shuffle again tonight when I was doing some work and again fucking Thaddi Ester comes on, I'm like, what is this shit? I'm sorry, Noah Groves. You can't comment on taste when me and a fedora, when you were Thaddi Ester.
COLIN HILDING: I love all of our Off The Podium listeners who have no idea who Noah Groves is right now. They're Googling it.
BEN WATERWORTH: You know, Thaddi Ester, I was like, Noah Groves, who is this? Get a date, Noah. Then you can comment on me wearing a fedora, okay? At least my dates happen once every six months. Done like yours, it happened every 25 years. How old you are? Jesus Christ. Anyway, other medal events today in the biathlon. Norway, the gold, as we said, France, the silver, rock, the bronze. We've got the Bobsleigh Two Man, which will probably be decided by the time we are off air. In the freestyle skiing, in the women's slopes, great news, Eileen Gu, silver, suck it, Eileen. Mathilde Grimaud. I'm such a bastard. Mathilde Grimaud won the gold for Switzerland. Eileen Gu, well done, Eileen, silver. And Kelly Sidaru, who I'm just saying, is the Oscar Erickson of women's freestyle skiing. She got the bronze. Did you happen to catch Kelly Sidaru? I have to say, I really want to start skiing in Estonia.
COLIN HILDING: I was supposed to say I was a step away from putting up our first Estonian Daily Dail.
BEN WATERWORTH: Like, I just, I'm just this real urge. I'm like, wow, why do I want to go skiing in Estonia? All of a sudden, like I just, I never thought about it until today.
COLIN HILDING: But you know, like we're still trying to catch up here. Like this is the Olympics of equal opportunity. We have put up the sexy Swedish man just for that reason. We unfortunately didn't put up the sexy Italian Bob's letter. Yeah, so I mean, we're due at some point to put up a woman for reasons of objectification, a woman.
BEN WATERWORTH: Again, we are equal opportunity pervs on Off The Podium and we have already objectified enough men on this show. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the men objectification on this show. We must objectify women. All right, women will be objectified on this show.
COLIN HILDING: This is very off topic. I was so glad yesterday to see a meme, which was basically saying, women, you know, colon, were tired of women being objectified and sexualised in film. And then it shows men and shows pictures of every DC film with rippling muscles and shirtless men.
BEN WATERWORTH: And Jamie sent that to you.
COLIN HILDING: I showed it to Jamie and Jamie approved.
BEN WATERWORTH: And you haven't heard from Jamie for the last 17 minutes.
COLIN HILDING: That was my happy Valentine's Day, Jamie.
BEN WATERWORTH: And breaking news, in the colon house, Colin is pregnant again.
COLIN HILDING: I'm pregnant. That's how it works in our house.
BEN WATERWORTH: We know you're the one who gives birth. Come on. Jamie's the man in that relationship. She wouldn't bail out of the Slope Style if there was a blizzard. One thing I will say about our beloved Eileen Goo is that she was genuinely happy that she won a silver medal. She didn't sulk that she didn't get the gold. So she genuinely was happy. So props to you, Eileen Goo. The new podcast coming soon by Noah Gross.
COLIN HILDING: Breaking news, Jamie overheard my side of our conversation and texted me only this, never again, no more kids.
BEN WATERWORTH: I just love the ability that Jamie keeps saying that. I swear to God I'm going to get a message from you one day, oh, we're having another baby. And my first reaction was like, oh my God, Colleen, it's sex again. What was the third timeline? You must be pumped three times in 10 years of marriage. Congratulations, Colleen, well done. Nordic Combined, still got one more event to go on, the best event of the Winter Olympics, but Jorgen Grabak of Norway took the gold ahead of Jens Laurasse of Tebro, and bronze went to Akito, Watabe of Japan, snowboarding, as we already said, Su Yiming of China in the men's big air gold, and Agassar Austria in the gold for the women. A woman, and we went through the other ones as well. And speed skating, as we said, Canada gold in the women's team, men's team, Norway gold ahead of rock, and the USA got the bronze. The Netherlands did not medal in a speed skating event. Breaking news in the speed skating.
COLIN HILDING: And that was kind of expected to be Netherlands and US in the gold medal match.
BEN WATERWORTH: And that was a bronze match too, wasn't it? So, yeah, anyway, well, someone's got to lose every now and then. The Canadian results, I will say in the biathlon, not a really good day for a couple of our Off The Podium guests, but for Scott, sixth place for Canada in the relay today, four by seven, which is the best ever result for Team Canada in an Olympics. I sent Scott a message. I said, congratulations, Scott. Scott replied, thanks. So you're welcome, Scott.
COLIN HILDING: Let's just say right now, there's a couple of athletes who have very much embraced our social media and not just the posts that they're tagged on.
BEN WATERWORTH: Scott Brie and Britt.
COLIN HILDING: Well, let's add Ali to that. I was going to say Ali and Britt Cox as well. So yeah, those are our favourite athletes. And I'm glad that people who actually gave decent interviews too. If you were to ask me what were some of the best interviews, I would have said Britt and Ali and Scott. And they're the ones who support our show. And we hope Britt Cox, Scott Gow, Ali Lutut and what was the fourth one?
BEN WATERWORTH: Brie Walker.
COLIN HILDING: Brie Walker. We hope you voted in Sports Podcast Awards, which you could go to. Where, Ben?
BEN WATERWORTH: At sportspodcastawards.com. By registering today and clicking on the best Olympics and Paralympics podcast, you can help support your favourite podcast, Off The Podium. We're currently still in number one. But you know, great, great job there for Canada. They're very impressed with that. And the best news is they beat America. America left 13th. Suck it, America. Like again, how are you not good at biathlon? Seriously, America. Like guns, you have guns for breakfast. There's guns in it. Like exactly. Currently, the Bobsleigh, the two men, they're in Heat 3 right now. Canada in 8th and 9th place at the moment. And they've still got another sled to go.
COLIN HILDING: That's our trader.
BEN WATERWORTH: Who do you think is winning? Who do you think is winning?
COLIN HILDING: It might be Germany.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, who do you think is coming second in the Bobsleigh?
COLIN HILDING: It might be Germany.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, and who do you think is coming third in the Bobsleigh?
COLIN HILDING: I'm thinking there's a good shot at Germany.
BEN WATERWORTH: They're pissed about the mono Bob. They're like, Do you, mono Bob, will you get all the medals in all the rest of the Bobsleigh? We forced them in the Bobsleigh. Shit. We will do better. Because there's a lot of... Don't do German, Ben. We know that.
COLIN HILDING: I wonder why you have a cough still.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. Actually, it's been alright so far. We thought we were going to have a bad episode tonight. Madeleine Shazass in the women's figure skating currently the ninth at the moment. Isn't that your secret intelligence agency in Canada?
COLIN HILDING: That's CSIS. CSIS is an STD here in Canada.
BEN WATERWORTH: Glad you know what an STD is, Colin. Maybe you've had sex more than twice. Maybe I'm underestimating you. Maybe I need to talk to Jamie. Jamie, do you have CSIS? Ask Colin's wife if she has a sexually transmitted disease, Ben. That's not appropriate.
COLIN HILDING: To me, actually, now that we say CSIS out loud, it actually sounds more like a terrorist organisation.
BEN WATERWORTH: Don't say that again. We know that TRO's got unlimited power. Careful what you say, Ryan.
COLIN HILDING: Wasn't I saying a couple of days ago that poor Maddie CSIS is like the new favourite figure skater of Canada? And here we are berating her for her name. No, great name.
BEN WATERWORTH: I just don't remember. Who are you again, Colin? Is that who you are? Aren't you the secretary of defence for George Bush at some point?
COLIN HILDING: In the...
BEN WATERWORTH: This is why I hate the fact they had the slopes on the big air on at the same time. Literally, I had both on in front of me today at work. And I'm like, which one's which? Exactly the same bloody thing. Snowboard skis. The men's slope style in the freestyle skim, those lazy people, they had their qualifying for the final tomorrow and Canada has Max Moffat through to the finals. Edouard Serot was 13th, did not make it. New Zealand, Ben Barclay, he'd be happy with that. He's through. Get on board the Ben train. And the number one skier in the Ben train. That was a failed side project I had. It never worked out.
COLIN HILDING: There's another podcast, the Ben train. It's going to be you interviewing bobsleds.
BEN WATERWORTH: That was actually my OnlyFans account, but we don't talk about that. Andre Ragatelli from Switzerland. She's a Swiss. We're worried about the Norwegians. Stop the Swiss. Calm down, Switzerland. Just stop it. Stop winning. All right. The aerials have come and gone and not good for Canada. They have got nobody through to the big final. Your best place skier was Mia Fontaine, seventh.
COLIN HILDING: Just imagine if we had actually made the big final yesterday like we should have.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, suck it up. When I say seventh, I mean thirteenth, because that was in the second qualifying there. And we got through. We got China, China, Switzerland. For fuck's sake, Switzerland. You meant to be neutral. Stop winning. You went to finish fourth all the time. So Belarusians, Russians, Chinese, Ukrainians, the usual in the aerials. In the Nordic Combined, obviously no Canadians, but Taylor Fletcher, 35th. Good job there from Taylor. He fucking loves Nordic Combined, remember? I'm still waiting for my T-shirt, Taylor, but good to see him there. He'll be back in the team's event in a couple of days' time. So there you go. And we were going over the speed skating. The men, the men, they finished fifth, it looks like, here in the men's team pursuit speed skating. So is that a good or a bad result, or is just a, meh, it's a Canadian fifth? How do we feel about the men just choking on their women counterparts?
COLIN HILDING: Oh, as long as we got somebody winning, we don't care.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly, exactly. So, men, pick your game. Ugh, men. And we got to our Off The Podium results. What did we watch tonight, Colin? What did you watch?
COLIN HILDING: So, I attempted to watch both the Slope's Isle and the Big Air. And it's funny because I had mentioned a couple of days ago, one of my problems, particularly with Big Air, was what's really different from the scenarios? It's a different location. They do it during daylight as opposed to nighttime finals, like not much. But my worry was that Big Air would really dilute the aerials. And what I found was kind of the opposite. I mean, Big Air, I didn't mind it the first time around. Then we saw the aerials and I was minded how much of a better event that is, only to come back to Big Air and be even more disappointed this time around. Like, I really struggle to sit through the entire thing. I even tried to just go to the, just to the final jump. And I'm like, even still, I find myself fast forwarding every once in a while. I like, I don't want to watch. So it's just, there's too many events that are too similar and similar to my complaint last day, last day, which is another way of saying yesterday. We're seeing too many of these same people over again. And I can't really keep track of, oh, so which event was it they were good in? Which event were they better? Okay, so Eileen and Goose did a medal in both grades. It's just, I'm really losing my excitement on both Slope Style and Big Air now. But yet, my worry was, well, Aerials is going to become a thing in the past. And I think Aerials holds up better now that we've seen the junior versions of it not succeed.
BEN WATERWORTH: Aerials is still amazing. I will always love Aerials. I think any Australian will love Aerials no matter what. But yeah, I'm with you. And it's again when you have them on at the same time. I don't think they did that in Pyeongchang. I feel there was much more of a separation between them. Because then you've still got the half pipe still to come in skiing. You've got the ski cross. I mean, I get it how they can have a snowboarding and a skiing event that are basically the same. I understand it. But I feel like first week should be snowboarding and the second week should be the freestyle. Don't have them... Because it just was confusing today. I had multiple screens open in front of me. And it's just like, which one am I watching right now? Definitely I was watching The Curling. I could tell the difference between The Curling and the Slope style, thankfully. Dean and Tali were brilliant, by the way, in the Slope style. It surprised me how good they transitioned from The Curling across. But yeah, it's... But it brings the kids in. The kids love it.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, do they?
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, the kids are there at the Olympics. We did this in skateboarding last year. They're not watching. They're competing.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, obviously it's more successful than the kid events we're seeing in Tokyo. But I think one of the other problems I have is that we keep just doubling up on all these aerial trick-related events, whereas let's get some more downhill stuff for the snowboard. I mean, we got a lot of downhill skiing. And I think downhill skiing, even though nobody could really tell the difference between super G, super slalom, big slalom, little slalom, medium slalom, all these things, nobody could really tell the difference. Hard slalom, heavyweight slalom, super heavyweight slalom, cafe grande style slalom, venti double choke locus slalom, with no pickles, please. Also the names of several tricks in the big air that we just saw, by the way. But it's just I like the downhill events. It's more intense. You know, part of the problem we were saying, and it's infinitely better than skateboarding, part of the problem we were saying yesterday with both slope style and big air is just that's very relaxed, you know, it's chill. And I don't want a chill event. I want an event where somebody somebody's going to lose a head.
BEN WATERWORTH: You want Italians making out with the camera, not like every single competitor jumping on jumping on a competitor because they crashed.
COLIN HILDING: But really, like that that kind of sums up the Olympics too. Like when you get an event where you have to go zero to 100, you're going to get those big reactions like that's, you know, in the most one of the most famous reactions of all time here in Canada. John Montgomery in the skeleton because he's literally going 200 kilometres an hour. Probably the second most famous reaction of all time. Justine DeFurla point in the moguls because she's going 150 kilometres an hour hugging. But I mean, going all the way back where she's just like freaking out and jumping on people. That's what I want on my athletes. And you can't get that in slope style and you can't get that in big air.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know 100 percent. I feel like we're the two old men in the corner bagging out these kids who are like, you know, do it like and like it's made great headlines like there was the Japanese snowboarder today who attempted that first triple cork chicken McNugget or whatever it was. And she crashed the Sleeman Semen or whatever it was. And like she crashed. But then like literally every single competitor in that final like jumped on her and hugged her. And like it's nice to see. I get where like there is that all like, oh, like look at the camaraderie. It's great. But like at the same time, I'm with you. Like this is the Olympics. Like imagine back in Salt Lake when Stephen Bradbury wins the gold, Apollo Antono and like every other competitor jumped on. You got a gold, Chep. No, it's the Olympics. Like give him a round of applause. Slap him on the button. Let him go crowd his beer.
COLIN HILDING: And here's the other thing. I feel like we were more positive on these at the beginning of the Olympics. And part of it is that just we're seeing the exact same events done over and over again. It's already too tough when Slopestyle and Big Air are very similar. And then you add aerials in the middle there. But then when you get it for both skiing and snowboarding, it's just too much. Make them exclusive.
BEN WATERWORTH: Like when we're going to have these situations where you're getting a biathlete winning five gold medals, like you're not all the biathletes are jumping on top of the French going, oh, look at you, look at the guns. Like they're smart. They're like, no, we're not doing that. It's only good these 12 year olds winning the snowboard. I want to see fucking figure skating. I want to see Camilla, drugs or not in the system, like getting jumped on by all the other 15 year old skaters going, yippee, you're not a drug cheat. You're what? No. Fucking Americans are about ready to walk out of fucking Beijing. They're that shitty right now. They're not going to hug her. I don't think Tara Lipinski and Nancy Kerrigan in Lillard are like, oh, well, you broke my knee. Come here, champ, you got the bronze.
COLIN HILDING: You mean Tonya Harding got Tara Lipinski. Now we've labelled Tara Lipinski a criminal.
BEN WATERWORTH: They're all the same. All those American skaters in the 90s, Tara's and Nancy's and Tonya's and Brian Botano's and Torval and Dean's, they're all the same. They're all related to Canadian skaters. Didn't we work that out before? Yeah, I want to see Jamie Sarley and David Peltier going up to the Russians. Oh, you beat us, you little buggers. Oh, come here, give us a hug. It doesn't work that way.
COLIN HILDING: I'll slip you a 20 to let me wear your gold.
BEN WATERWORTH: I want to go back to the freaking slalom. Michaela Shipren's on the side of the course and fucking every single competitor is like, oh, there's Michaela, jump on board. You tried, oh, you little scallywag. Oh, well. We fucking Lindsay Vonn, famously a bjong check, I got beaten by a fucking snowboarder. No one was jumping on Ester at the end. Selfish Lindsay. Come on. Look what your snowboarders are doing. Jesus Christ. Speaking of which, do we want to just mention, oh, so, yes, hello.
COLIN HILDING: I was going to say, I also watch the speed skating.
BEN WATERWORTH: All right. Sorry, I didn't finish.
COLIN HILDING: And the downhill.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good. I'm glad we can establish that. I was just going to ask, do we want to quickly mention about our Russian Kamila Vileva, this whole situation, which it makes no sense. Basically, if people aren't really caught up, essentially, she's the 15 year old Russian skater who has been found with drugs in the system. It's this like heart drug that Sunnye and Marisha Rapova both got caught with. It's illegal. It helps pump your blood or something in your system. And basically, they still haven't even presented the medals in the team figure skating because they're like, we don't know if this is legal or not. So they've basically said the IRC are like, well, yeah, we still haven't presented those medals. We don't know if it's legal, but she can skate. It's all good. You go ahead and skate, Camilla. It's all good. But if you get a medal, you won't get it. Like if you're missing the top three, you won't get it until we decide whether you're legal or not. Can't you just be like Camilla? No, go. Like get out.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Piss off.
COLIN HILDING: Like in one sense, I understand that, okay, she's 15 years old. What are the odds that this was some master plan of hers where she's sneaking by somebody's backs or whatever, or can she make an informed decision? And also is it, you know, is it legal? Is it illegal? Who knows? But to me, it just sort of feels like at this point, they're like, well, we can't officially give out a punishment. So we're just going to say, if you win, we're not going to give you your medal until we decide. It feels like that is the punishment, which really is only the punishment to the other people winning a medal. I mean, I feel for the other countries have not been allowed. Yeah, exactly. And Canada and the team event is sitting there patiently waiting. And it sounded like we're not going to get a decision on this for a long time. Just award the medals. I mean, do you really feel like if you determine later on that she should be stripped of that, it's not going to be enough of a punishment to say, give us back the medal? There was a Canadian weightlifter, I believe, who was awarded in 2018, was awarded a gold medal for somebody's doping results coming back or being investigated six years later from London. And we want a gold medal for that. She was very happy. She wrote a book on it. Nobody's going to be disappointed if you change the results later on, but give the people who have won, including Camilla, the medal ceremony now, because they're never going to get this opportunity again. If you determine later on, no, you know, it's fair. You should still win the medal, then she missed that opportunity. If you determine later on, no, you shouldn't have won the medal. You've robbed the other athletes of it.
BEN WATERWORTH: And it is one of those things that you've got a lot in the Olympics where, you know, retrospectively, you're given a medal. Jared Talent, Australian race walker, got given the gold in London after he got silver, obviously, on track, but then the gold medallist got qualified. He got like a, you know, six, seven years later, the whole ceremony. He's a gold. And he's just like, look, it's an honour, but it's not the same. You know, it's the same having just watched meddling, you know, both Jamie Salah and David Peltier were saying, like, when we had this sort of sham ceremony, like a week later, like, it was weird. We felt very awkward. Like, we were honoured, but it's not the same. You know, that moment's gone now. But this is the thing. You can fix this now with her. And, like, you've got to feel sorry for this Camilla, because, like, you know, she's 15. Like, I know those Russians are... I don't know. Can't say things too loud. I'll probably be dead by tomorrow. But, like, it's... You can't imagine that a 15-year-old figure skater is going to be like, yes, I want to take these drugs to win the gold in the Olympics. She's Thomas Bach now, apparently. Sorry, Thomas Bach, Olympic gold medallist fencing. It's a legal requirement. By the way, I always say we have to say it that way. But, yeah, I just... But she's probably, like... How is she feeling? She just wants to go out and do her best in this event. And she's got all this cloud around her. And it's just... And then Americans are kicking up a stink. And I don't know. Canadians are probably just like, oh, hey, we're just going to go to Ottawa. Please, can you move? We'll send the military, please. Don't make me get the camel, guys. What do your military do half the time? I just don't imagine the Canadian military. There was a military base in Victoria that I used to drive past, and I'm just like, there's never any body there. It's just a decoration. Like, oh, America, move to the border. We've got military. And Americans are going, oh, shut up, Canada. No, you don't. Look, we've got a tank. It doesn't work. It's painted car.
COLIN HILDING: You can't even pluralise it.
BEN WATERWORTH: We've got a tankie. Shut up, America. Anyway, so it's going to be interesting to see Camilla watch his, how it's all going to play out with that. What did I watch? So I watched curling. I watched the freestyle, big air, whatever it was. The downhill into Leicester did a thing. Pretty sad after that. Bit of the figure skating tonight. And bit of the speed skating. So there you go. And I would like to stay up and watch a bit of the ice hockey tonight, which I believe has just started. And breaking news in the ice hockey. Canada, zero. China, zero.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, I'm nervous there for a second.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, you're teetering. Breaking news in the curling. Russia, three. Canada, one. Can't wait to Russia in curling.
COLIN HILDING: Is this men's or women's? This was men's, right?
BEN WATERWORTH: This is men's.
COLIN HILDING: We've got a little bit more wiggle room there, but no, I don't think we do.
BEN WATERWORTH: You were losing about two or so against China earlier, and you came back with that one. Fail. Now, what was this polite Canadian, whatever you were talking about before?
COLIN HILDING: It's actually the opposite. It wasn't really polite, and that's the strange thing. Let me see what else I have here, because I got several. All right. So the first thing I want to talk about was in the bigger, bigger Slope South. Who knows what those events. Yeah. Let's add on to the bad dad jokes for this. At one point, we also got a nice reaction, just like in the monobob.
BEN WATERWORTH: We got a, what happened?
COLIN HILDING: And I don't even remember who it was. It was then followed up with, she needs to tune those things up. Like somebody basically fell or missed a trick. What happened? She needs to tune those things up. And then the other guy goes, she might lose her rental deposit. And then right as they were heading into the last commercial break, we got, I got a fever, and the only cure is more women's slope style.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jesus Christ.
COLIN HILDING: Somebody wrote that line. His name was Ben Waterford.
BEN WATERWORTH: They've been sitting on that for 11 days. Also, we're going to use it, Steve, or we're going to use it today, Frank.
COLIN HILDING: One thing I wanted to complain about, and I don't know if it's the same over there, because this just seems to be a trend among snowboarding commentators. Whenever somebody does a trick, they basically have this surprise with announcing what the trick is. They're like a backwards 1080, like as if you've never seen this before, but it's a switch 1080, a double flip 1260, a screaming seam and double ventail.
BEN WATERWORTH: Chicken McNugget.
COLIN HILDING: And they always have that same question mark, like, did I just see that? But it's like it's the same trick that you questioned the last three ones going for. So I'm kind of over the snowboarding commentating now, as fun as it's been with some of the bad jokes and stuff.
BEN WATERWORTH: Did I do that in the curling? Did I just see that? A third stone in the house?
COLIN HILDING: You know what's great in the curling is that you always get the expert commentators, the athletes who will try to call what's going to happen. And what they're going to do is Mike Harris is never wrong. Like, I want to see that man compete again because he has the best instincts. And that's just the running thing with him is that he says, yeah, what they're going to do is they're going to aim about two centimetres off the T section here and the button and I'm like, how does he nail it every single time? It's incredible. Are your commentators that good?
BEN WATERWORTH: Of course, Colin, the channel seven commentators, they're fucking fantastic. What I was going to say about that is like no disrespect to Andy Ma and to Steve Hewitt. But like it was fascinating when you would watch the OBS and I would hear Mike is that it was like they would literally the way they would be doing that was pinpointing this is what they're going to do. And at one point, I think it was Tali said like, oh, Dean, I think we should do this. And then he's just come in. I agree with Tali. I like but like on the flip side of that, it's not disrespecting what Andy and Steve were doing, because what I appreciated about how that commentary worked is that Andy Ma was literally Australia, the whole country who has basically never watched curling in our lives. He was the voice for Australia asking the dad of an Olympian who competed himself in a demonstration Olympics, like, what are they doing trying to do here, Steve? What are they doing this? And he would just answer. And it literally was just like Australia having a Q&A with a curling expert. And it actually really helped. So that was a difference. Like, I can't imagine if your watch now, any Canadian is watching our coverage, going, what the fuck? He's like, you're not commentating, you're doing this, but like on the flip side, I can guarantee you that if I came to Canada and watch maybe Canadians commentate cricket or Australian football, it would be a very similar thing. It's not even when I was commentating ice hockey in Canada. What the fuck's this Australian boy doing?
COLIN HILDING: You would just fit in, like, I love, you used to share it with me every week. You would just fit in, like, Mighty Ducks references, Britney Spears references. I love the one time I gave you the tip that one of your players was named after a former famous premier of Manitoba, and you mentioned that on air.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think my favourite one was, there was a player for one of the teams called Esposito. And I was doing some bit of commentary, you know, blah, great pass here, blah, blah, blah. And just a fun fact, Esposito, my favourite Justin Bieber song. And this is like, this just awkward pause from the play by play guy. Was that a Desposito reference? And I'm like, yes, it was. And he's like, moving on.
COLIN HILDING: Just promise me, if you ever get a hockey commentary job again, you will fit in a looks like somebody you see in a Walmart. Oh, I will.
BEN WATERWORTH: I will. Can I just. Add? So, I mean, no, no, absolutely spot on.
COLIN HILDING: Perfect.
BEN WATERWORTH: She may as well be. I think someone needs to get a restraining order for her with Scotty James. She's a little bit obsessed. Every time Scotty James posts something, she's always commenting, Love you, Scotty. Oh, love heart, love heart, love heart. It's a little bit too much, Catherine. What's Michael thinking? I mean, come on. I know Scotty's a bit younger than you usually go for, but still, he's getting married to Canadian royalty. All right, Catherine. Although having said that, though, if I'm Scotty James and I've got Catherine Zeta-Jones or Chloe Stroll, that's, I don't know, which side of the bed are you getting on at night? That's a tough one.
COLIN HILDING: Which one did the laser run in Entrapment? So I think that's the right answer.
BEN WATERWORTH: If I saw Chloe Stroll?
COLIN HILDING: Which one has been a love interest of Sean Connery? I think that is the instant answer.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, but which one's brother is Lance Stroll?
COLIN HILDING: Sean Connery? You killed Sean Connery. I'm not forgiving you for that.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's called Entrapment. I just remember they used to show that movie all the fucking time on TV. They would play the same ad. I'm sure they did that in Canada. You just had the go-to commercial for the one movie they always showed. And they would always show Entrapment. Actually, that's called Entrapment. I just love that line all the time. Coming soon to 007. But the other one I saw, Kirstie Alley. Now, I love Kirstie Alley. I'm a weird, Veronica's Closet, great show.
COLIN HILDING: You're a Veronica's Closet fan. Exactly.
BEN WATERWORTH: She tweeted the other day something along the lines of like, sorry to say, but I find curling really boring or something like that. To which the Duck Dynasty guy from Team USA basically replied something like, have to say, Kirstie, your last five movies weren't exactly great. So it kind of went viral.
COLIN HILDING: I was going to say, I mean, as a huge Cheers fan, I'm very disappointed in her knocking our winter sport here.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know, it's sad when you see somebody you like kind of put a dick comment. I mean, I like myself, and I get dick comments all the time. Bless you. Colin, I love your comment.
COLIN HILDING: I've got my rude Canadian here, whoever the guy was commentating the downhill. Now, the Canadian who came in, what was it? Eighth place, ninth place? Yeah, sure. So they actually cut to, we have, you know, the same as you have there, the on-site reporter, televisions, yes, electricity.
BEN WATERWORTH: You've got the box too? Is it in colour?
COLIN HILDING: But the on-site reporter, which is Kelly Vanderbeek, who's a famous Canadian downhill skier herself, she's doing the interviews and everything afterwards. They were cutting to her at the beginning of the Canadian's run. And she's basically giving the bio in the bottom corner of the screen. You know, oh, and she's really excited. She thinks that she's she's has a real shot at winning a medal here. And then they cut back to the commentators in the middle of the run. And this is exactly what the Canadian commentators not going to contend for a medal. She keeps skiing like that. That is the rudest thing I've ever heard a Canadian see. And then he continues on being a dick by mumbling something under his breath, which I remember wound three times. It was basically like, oh, and then at one point she's scratching there. These are scratching like nails on a chalkboard. And then at the very bottom of the run, the Canadian woman was basically turned to the camera, said made a little mistake there. And he goes, made a few mistakes is more like, whoa, this they must have had like this commentators on American. Well, I'm thinking that maybe this is like some bitter exes or something. Like maybe they had a fling back in the day. A one night stand that didn't go too well. And he's holding a grudge like this is not a Canadian commentary. But yet I loved it. Like I want to see some critique. Maybe, you know, don't don't be that aggressive. Yeah, I don't want it to always be like, oh, definitely not the best they could have done. But we're proud of them anyway. No, let's get some more. Not going to win a medal. Skew them like that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Be like Chris Tucker in the Bloopers. I was like, well, damn, you're not going to be in Rush Hour 3.
COLIN HILDING: I want more. Not going to be Rush Hour 3s in my commentary in Canada.
BEN WATERWORTH: Use that in your commentaries moving forward. There was a really like, he says, working on this shift with Joanna Griggs. But Joanna Griggs cut to a rip show today in Beijing. They're having a great little back and forth. And then, oh, I'll get a phone call, apparently.
COLIN HILDING: You're about to say something negative about Channel 7.
BEN WATERWORTH: They're calling off. Oh, Jesus, I'm getting like, you know, reported here. Basically, stop calling me.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, they are not giving up. Ben, do not tell that story. It's Joanna right now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ben, Ben, don't say it. I'm just, I'm just, I'm just not saying it right now. We're going to stop.
COLIN HILDING: This is a sign.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm about to get fired. All right. Let's say it. Let's answer this. Hello. Hello. Hello. Channel 7 doesn't even want to talk to me apparently.
COLIN HILDING: It was just heavy breathing.
BEN WATERWORTH: Stop saying the thing. Stop saying the thing. I've lost my train of thought apparently. So anyway, Richo.
COLIN HILDING: So what would Joanna say that was so terrible?
BEN WATERWORTH: Nothing. It was completely perfect. Everything was good. Richo basically was saying like, oh, and I'm going in the mixed zone. And, you know, if Eileen Goo, I'm going to try and get an Eileen Goo interview. But if Eileen Goo doesn't say yes to me, I'm going to go, oh, come on, Eileen. And then kind of moved on with the taking a bit to get to the, yep, no, Dexie Midnight Runners, big band of 80s music. Yes.
COLIN HILDING: You were, you were slowing down. Like it was basically like winding down Ben. And then he said, come on, darling. But instead of like that, I can understand why.
BEN WATERWORTH: 2001 Space Odyssey, how they're like basically with the computer going on. But there was actually a really nice moment. So I think we were talking last night during the aerials when they were doing the interviews. And I was sort of mentioning about how like Lydia was obviously quite emotional and everything all in those lines. But the great interview that was going around today was that Lydia actually interviewed the winner, Zhu Mengtao. And so they competed against each other. And back in Vancouver, when Lydia won the gold, Zhu crashed out. And so it was just this really sweet moment where Lydia was basically going like, oh, you know, you and I shared all these great memories on tour. And I don't know if Zhu speaks a lot of English, but just the way she was reacting to it. And we obviously gave her the Daily Dow yesterday because of how great she was. And just in breaking news in the bobsled, someone's died, it looks like. I don't know if it's a Korean. Oh, it's Britain. They've crashed. All right. Well, they're in the third or the fourth heat. This would be the third, I think, still. Would it not be? No, they're out there.
COLIN HILDING: Well, they can turn it around still.
BEN WATERWORTH: They're hugging. Come on, I've seen cool running. Pick your sled up. Walk across the line. Come on. Anyway, it was a great interview between the pair. So and then we actually had Alyssa Camplin. I've stopped talking about Channel 7. Hello. That's okay.
COLIN HILDING: Your services are no longer required when we wish you well in your future endeavours.
BEN WATERWORTH: I will try my best. I'm just in the middle of recording an episode, so I can try and hone down the volume just slightly, for sure. Yes, cool. All right, thank you. So I will be whispering to the rest of this episode.
COLIN HILDING: This is like your dad's there with you. Keep the noise level down.
BEN WATERWORTH: Keep the noise level down, son. Our neighbours apparently do not like Off The Podium. They keep the flame alive. Fans, so anyway.
COLIN HILDING: They're not folding the sports podcast awards.
BEN WATERWORTH: Let's try and keep the volume down to this level now for the rest of the episode. But yeah, it was a great interview between the pair. So anyway, amazing. I sound like we're commenting golf all of a sudden right now.
COLIN HILDING: We're curling.
BEN WATERWORTH: Colin, curling. Yes, a great pass there by Dean going across the line there. Other than that, Channel 7, spot on. Absolutely perfect. Can't complain at all. Do we have, actually, I'm gonna play a clip right now before we get to our Daily Dale and our Athlete Celebration of the Day, because I've got some exciting breaking news. What is really weird is I sound really creepy, really creepy right now. I just want to clarify for people listening, thinking like how the hell do these guys get nominated in the Podcast Awards when they're leaving phone calls in their conversation and getting told off of being too loud? It is 12.30 in the morning, just while I'm recording this. And it's taken 11 days for somebody to put in a complaint. So I'm pretty impressed with that.
COLIN HILDING: It's not even your treadmill.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know, God, I'm not allowed to run. I'm not allowed to podcast. I'm just gonna lock myself in the room and get COVID, apparently. I spoke again today with fellow Channel 7 researcher, Marnie Vinall. Now we had her on about a week or so ago. Obviously have only returned to work today, being allowed out of the house, which apparently that's the only thing I'm allowed to do. And this is the chat we had with Marnie. Another fun and entertaining chat. Let's hear what Marnie has to say about the Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: We are very excited to welcome back to Off The Podium for the first time in a week, because let's be honest, she was that terrible that I had to get COVID to avoid having her come on the show essentially. That's the only reason why we haven't had her back on. One of the fellow researchers at Channel 7 during the Olympics coverage right now, it's a pleasure to welcome Marnie Vinall back. Marnie, welcome back to the show.
MARNIE VINALL: Thank you so much. And to start, knock knock.
BEN WATERWORTH: Who's there?
MARNIE VINALL: Noah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Noah who?
MARNIE VINALL: Noah Goodwinter Olympics joke.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, that's, yep. That's about a three out of 10.
MARNIE VINALL: Yeah, yeah, I will cop that. That is a, that's fair play.
BEN WATERWORTH: I wanted some sound effects there, like a mwah mwah.
MARNIE VINALL: Mwah mwah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Mwah mwah. So it's been a week. How have you found the last week without me working here?
MARNIE VINALL: Oh, brilliant. It has been just like a breath of fresh air. Yeah, just like the whole, you know, atmosphere is different. You've been sorely missed. Your energy and enthusiasm has been sorely missed. Talking to you about winter sports has been sorely missed. I feel like my knowledge has just gone down the drain since you left, you know? There's no one to be like, hey, what Canadian athlete do I look out for today?
BEN WATERWORTH: And the answer for that is probably not many, because yeah, I literally just got referred to by Scott McGrory as COVID Ben. So an Olympic gold medallist knows who I am as COVID Ben. So we talked last week about how sort of you didn't know a whole lot about the Winter Olympics coming in now. I mean, we're basically three quarters of the way through. Has there been one event, we talked curling, but since last time with the curling, has been another one that you've gotten on board with that you've either found it very exciting or it surprised you that it's maybe a little bit more entertaining than you initially thought?
MARNIE VINALL: Skeleton. So I love an underdog story. I don't think many people that love sports don't love an underdog story. And Jacqueline Naracot coming into the Olympics, she just wanted to get 10th to land on the podium to get the silver medal. She did the World Cup circuit for 10 years and never saw a podium. She did a Deer Valley World Cup. She got it in January in the lead up to Beijing, but I do not think that she was expecting to land on the podium. And what's even better about her story is that I think a lot of the European athletes weren't expecting to see an Australian on the podium. And we love upsetting, upsetting the European athletes.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, all those Norwegians and what's the Germans in the sliding sports? Of course, isn't it? The Norwegians are nowhere. I mean, it really like we've talked a lot about it. You know, you keep hearing the cool running story of Australia, you know, Dean and Tali, you know, Brie, but I mean, it's crazy to think that an athlete from the Southern hemisphere, where there is literally not even remotely a sliding track anywhere, can go ahead and win a medal in a sliding sport. It really is crazy. And as you say, like, she, I mean, months ago, two months ago, never even medaled, and here she is coming into it. I mean, that confidence must have just helped her out so much, but incredible. Did you think she was gonna get the gold? I mean, was it part of you that was slightly disappointed that it was a silver, or is it still such a great story that who cares what colour it is?
MARNIE VINALL: I feel like sometimes there are silvers that feel like gold, and that is exactly what we have on our hands at this particular case. And what I love as well about what you were just saying is that Jacqueline, you know, Jackie, when she got it, and she was like, I hope this inspires girls and kids to pick up some of the sliding sports. And I was like, I can't imagine anyone watching skeleton and going, you know what, that's for me. Like, that is bananas.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is exactly a sport where, yeah, it's not like I'm gonna go in my backyard and pick up a soccer ball or do this sort of stuff. Like, yeah, maybe a couple of D-level kids are gonna go down the hill. But I mean, it's, and of all three of them, out of bobsled, skeleton and illusion, which that's the one where you think they'll leave like, head first.
MARNIE VINALL: Head first.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hell no, hell no. But I mean, so you're not gonna be trying to compete in my line in that at all?
MARNIE VINALL: You know what? I'll leave it to her. You know what? I think she's got it covered.
BEN WATERWORTH: She's safe. She's safe. Her spot on the team is safe. But I mean, the fact of the matter is too that I think a lot of us went into these Olympics thinking, if we're gonna get a medal in a sliding sport, it's gonna be from Bree. And she got fifth. So I mean, it's still a great story to have that. And I look at Alex getting 16th in the luge. I mean, fantastic for that. Obviously Nick, you know, only 25th in the skeleton, but still, you know, did well to be there. So it really is, I'm sure you found inspiring, seeing what so many of these Australian athletes have to go through to just even get a spot at the Olympics, let alone win a damn medal.
MARNIE VINALL: Oh, definitely. And I think that what's really good about the Winter Olympics in Australia is we have less athletes. So we have more time to kind of show their complete stories and talk about their complete stories and give more of a narrative of how they got to these games and the training that they've had to put in, the injuries that they've had to overcome. Because I think in every single one of their bios under injuries, there's at least three or four, sometimes five or six listed. I mean, these athletes aren't just coming in there, fresh as daisies, never had a broken bone, unlike myself. Oh, this is a story.
BEN WATERWORTH: Do I need to, you've never had one?
MARNIE VINALL: No, I've never had a broken bone.
BEN WATERWORTH: Welcome to the club. So have you gotten close at all to like breaking a bone?
MARNIE VINALL: I grew up a ballet dancer. The worst injury I had other than like a few sprains was I got swollen knees once just from overuse. And I just came in once being like, can I take a week off? I just had these like very large knees, but that's like the worst injury from sport that I've ever had.
BEN WATERWORTH: So when you say you like, you just woke up one day and your knees are just like, what, four times as big or something like that? I mean, oh, my knees are a bit big today. Coach might not be able to do some ballet.
MARNIE VINALL: For the sake of story, I want to say yes. They were probably like, you know, less than half of, less than half a double the size. But if it's like a story, yeah, they were about like 10 times I just woke up, they were the size of my head. Couldn't get out of bed.
BEN WATERWORTH: Do you use that as a measurement? Is that an exact measurement? Like put your head down next to your knee?
MARNIE VINALL: Exactly, that's exactly what happened. What happened is exactly how it went.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I guess as a ballet dancer, right? Your legs are probably going up that direction. So you're probably easy to measure, right? Like if you're doing, I don't know what a movie is in ballet when you're lifting your leg up, but I mean, it's easy to measure probably.
MARNIE VINALL: Sure.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's my expertise in ballet. I watched, you know, Black Swan. That's about all I can tell you. Worst injury I got, I tore my groin muscle. I was a field hockey goalie, did the splits accidentally and kind of had to get carried off by my coach, who was my dad. They scored a goal, like I failed to stop a goal. So my teammates were pissed off at me. So none of them helped me. Took them about 10 minutes to realise that I was laying on the ground like, oh, like, yeah, it was fun.
MARNIE VINALL: That is so brutal. Groin injuries are so bad too, because it's so hard to like, you know, ice and.
BEN WATERWORTH: You can't really do much with it. Like it's kind of it. And yeah, it's when you're limping and it's not fun. So don't do that if you want to injure, not that you want to injure yourself, but if you do, don't do the groin. That's anyway, I don't know where I'm going with that. Have you watched much of the ice hockey? I know we talked a little bit last week about that. You're a bit of an NHL fan, Canucks fan. Okay, sure. But have you managed to watch much of the ice hockey at all?
MARNIE VINALL: I saw Canada lose to.
BEN WATERWORTH: We don't talk about that one. Let's talk about the women's. The women's are doing much better. So have you watched much of the women's ice hockey?
MARNIE VINALL: Unfortunately, I haven't because I'm in the big research and commentators. So what, like lounge or whatever they have on, I just have to watch. Yesterday they had the Super Bowl on. I was like, let's get back to the winter.
BEN WATERWORTH: Did you watch the halftime show at least?
MARNIE VINALL: Yeah, of course. It was amazing.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I mean, okay, it was decent, but like, I love how everyone's like straight up, this is the best one ever. It's like, did you watch Prince? Did you watch Shakira and Jennifer Lopez the other year? Madonna, I'm biased on that one, but come on.
MARNIE VINALL: Exactly.
BEN WATERWORTH: Beyonce.
MARNIE VINALL: But my favourite things about these halftime shows is just the memes that come out of them. It's by far the best, like literally you just jump on social media straight, like straight away and people-
BEN WATERWORTH: No Left Shark. We haven't had since Left Shark, right? So you say you weren't too thrilled at the Rams one or you didn't give a shit?
MARNIE VINALL: Um, I don't want to, you know, turn people off me by saying that I don't care for-
BEN WATERWORTH: It's all right. I'm a Buffalo fan.
MARNIE VINALL: So the only time that I watch the NFL is Buffalo Bills because one of my best mates goes for them. Smart mate. Yeah, she's Canadian.
BEN WATERWORTH: Smart person.
MARNIE VINALL: Yeah, and so when she needs moral support living in Australia for the footy, I will be there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Do we ask this before, like, where is she from in Canada?
MARNIE VINALL: I want to say Toronto, but I don't want to get it wrong.
BEN WATERWORTH: She's from some part of the entire country.
MARNIE VINALL: No, I'm like, well, I know that she's from a small town that I cannot remember the name.
BEN WATERWORTH: Probably not Toronto, then.
MARNIE VINALL: But she went to uni, I want to say Toronto, because I learnt to say Toronto and not Toronto.
BEN WATERWORTH: I say the T is Toronto, it's just that way.
MARNIE VINALL: And she'll listen to this and be like, text me, be like, I'm actually from Vancouver.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I'm actually American. Did you know that the whole time? She's saying that. Got a couple of days left, obviously, to go. It doesn't sadly look like for Australia, look like there's, you know, I mean, I know it's probably not realistic, but look out for Sammy. Like anything can happen in the ski cross, you know, not out of the realms of possibility, but outside of Sammy, probably not. But anything that you're looking forward to, I mean, in all seriousness, back on the ice hockey, women's gold tomorrow, Canada, USA, it looks like seven are gonna be showing it, which is fantastic. I mean, one of the best rivalries in sport is America versus Canada in women's ice hockey. But anything that you've seen coming up that you're keen to check out?
MARNIE VINALL: Well, in the words of our bobsled Bree Walker, never discount an Aussie. So any event that they are in, I will have my eyes and my heart attuned to that race, ready to go. Yeah, ice hockey finals will be amazing. Cause they're gonna be exciting games no matter who's in them. And when you've got two big teams, two big countries, all them also. Let's hope for no broken teeth, but a few, but lots of passion. You know what I mean?
BEN WATERWORTH: That's the greatest summary ever for it. You should like do a nice hockey show. Let's hope for no broken teeth, but lots of passion. Don't know how that would fly in some parts of the world. But anyway, any more jokes at all?
MARNIE VINALL: Well, the one that's turned out is like the Winter Olympics as a book written by Bob Sled, which is not good. I haven't found many good, you know, they just come to me as like puns and stuff the other day. Maybe I should write you a list as they come.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think I need to write down some of Joel's, like when I'm in studio looking at him. I had a good one today that made some people laugh. So they got the desk in ready for Joe. And I'm like, is that Ester La Deska? La Deska? Like, no, yeah, that was more laughter in studio. So we can mwah, mwah. Mwah, mwah, on that note, Marnie, thank you for joining us once again. And I'm sure we'll get you on another day this week before we are not working together anymore.
MARNIE VINALL: Cool, sounds good.
BEN WATERWORTH: See, that's what you can do and you can talk at normal volume, apparently. So yes. Yes. Celebration athlete of the day, Colin Hilding, who is it for Canada?
COLIN HILDING: Who is it for Canada? Who was it yesterday?
BEN WATERWORTH: The figure skater lady.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, that's right. So we're continuing figure skating. So Canada's original figure skating star, Barbara Ann Scott, who won gold in 1948 in the Olympics, which I believe she was actually the first North American to win a European championship. She had won world championships and then also won the Olympic gold, but yet this was her only Olympics. But Barbara Ann Scott became such a huge deal after these Olympics. So still to this day, 2022, her name will be brought up when you talk about great figure skaters. And my parents weren't even close to being alive when she competed. She gave me COVID.
BEN WATERWORTH: She makes men cough.
COLIN HILDING: Yes. That's a woman right there. She as a Canadian made the cover of Time magazine. And she's probably most famous now for being the figure skater that inspired a doll, the Barbara and Scott doll that was sold every single year. What they would do is they would release a new one every single year with a different outfit with her little figure skates and all that. And this was Canada's most famous doll until Tessa Virtue, who was our athlete yesterday, one of our athletes yesterday, was given her own Barbie doll. So, the second in our series of Canadian figure skaters making great dolls, Baran Scott.
BEN WATERWORTH: I just think you've got like this habit now, Colin, of you just want to give your daily celebration to somebody who has dolls.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, yeah. We got one more.
BEN WATERWORTH: Seriously? There's like more?
COLIN HILDING: Well, I think there's another doll. I don't know if I've picked them yet, but maybe I'll have to research.
BEN WATERWORTH: Is this a doll that like if you buy, is this on the black market or something like that? Like a really expensive doll now that it's like...
COLIN HILDING: Oh, they are collector's items. I think you were at or maybe you weren't. When you were in Calgary, did you go to the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame?
BEN WATERWORTH: No, I didn't. I unfortunately didn't make it up there that day.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, they have them like behind the glass doors. Like that's one of the items they have for Barband's thought there is one of her. I think the original doll that was released for her.
BEN WATERWORTH: That was my day I slept in because I was meant to go to the Olympic Park. And I mean, I could have made it, but I was going to a Flames game that night. So that's more important.
COLIN HILDING: Well, you could have seen Barband Scott's doll. So you made the wrong choice.
BEN WATERWORTH: I will never leave that down. I'm sure it will still be there. Hopefully when I eventually get back there. Ticking off the figure skaters. Do we have any more to go for the figure skaters or?
COLIN HILDING: You know, I'm trying to limit how many there's certain sports where we're going to see multiples of because that's just what Canada is famous for. I've got I have at least two more that I am firmly decided on for the rest of the Olympics. And the other is I'm debating between. So we might see one more figure skater. We are definitely going to see another speed skater. More on that tomorrow, I guess.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I am actually very disappointed right now that I have to speak in a volume that doesn't contain my excitement for who I get to talk about today because it's taken 11 days to get to the one day we all wanted to be here. And finally, we are at Dale Beg Smith Day. I don't care, we're being a hypocrite by saying this, the goat, all this sort of stuff. He's the goat. He's the equal greatest Australian Winter Olympic of all time, a gold and a silver, won the moguls, former Canadian, all that kind of stuff. But just the enigma that is Dale Beg Smith, the one gold medallist in Australian Olympic history that probably people will never remember his name. But of course, gold in the moguls in Turin, silver in Turin, silver in Turin, silver in Vancouver, which it's actually funny doing a bit of Googling. I've got some breaking news on Dale, because again, we haven't heard from him since like Sochi. He competed in Sochi, didn't unfortunately win a medal in Sochi. But to send a bit of digging around, there was a thing where I read saying that he was robbed of winning gold in Vancouver, saying that it was deliberately given to your hometown. Is that a common opinion that Dale should have won the gold in Vancouver?
COLIN HILDING: No, but I'm familiar with his opinion on that. Really, his argument would make sense if Canada hadn't struggled to get a gold medal for most of the Olympics. Like if this was across the world, Canada's winning all the golds in the first week. But now this was like our first gold. And it's Alexander Bilodeau. I mean, as great as Michael Kingsbury is, I still don't know if he can hold a candle to Alexander Bilodeau. So, sorry, Dale, but I side with Alex on this.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, neither can hold a candle to Dale Begg-Smith. But also in my Googling, so I found two things here that I want to talk about. The website Sport Bible have published their article of the top 10 greatest Australian winter Olympic moments of all time. I'm going to go through these. And let's be honest, I could have easily predicted this top 10, because, you know, generally we haven't got many medallists, so therefore it's pretty easy. Number 10. Gerard Hughes and Scotty James shine in snowboarding in Pyeongchang. Good for them. Number 9. Nat Graham becomes lucky number 13, winning silver in the mobiles in Pyeongchang. Number 8. David Morris winning silver in Sochi. Great moment, yes. Number 7. Dale Begg Smith wins gold in Turin. Come on, it's a bit low. Number 6. Zali winning bronze in Nagano. Yep, I'm there. Number 5. Australia winning its first winter Olympics medal in 1994. Yep. Number 4. Lydia Lassler winning gold in Vancouver. Yep, fair enough.
COLIN HILDING: 3.
BEN WATERWORTH: Alyssa Campland winning gold in Salt Lake City. Yep. Now, two and one. Give us your take on what number one would be. Colin.
COLIN HILDING: I was only paying attention to half of those there because I had a coughing fit. So I'm going to guess Stephen Bradbury is one of them.
BEN WATERWORTH: He's number one. And number two is Torah Bright winning.
COLIN HILDING: Of course. That would have been my other guess anyways.
BEN WATERWORTH: Not to take away from Torah, but like I would put us winning a medal in Lillehammer ahead of Torah winning gold. That was pretty good. That should be number two. I'd even put Zali at like number three because I mean, if you were to look at all the winter Olympic sports, the only one we've actually ever won a medal in of the traditional winter Olympic sports, not these new ones that they've introduced in the last 20 years, is Zali. So you might say our traditional winter medallist.
COLIN HILDING: See, I would make the argument again from a non-Australian perspective. Of all the people you mentioned there, Torah Bright is the one that has the name value even outside of Australia. Like you mentioned Torah Bright, you're going to know who she is, whether you are Canadian, American, Lithuanian, Denmarkian. Not Estonian. Not Estonian. They've got more important things going on there. So I could understand that, but that's again from a Canadian's perspective and not from an Australian.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I mean, Stephen Fabric was going to be up. They've also done an article here, top 10 best Winter Olympic moments of all time. So not even just Australia. So Brian Boitono wins Battle of the Brines at number 10 in Calgary, Canada, wins gold in 2010 at the ice hockey, miracle and ice. Also the forgotten miracle and ice, the Squaw Valley 1960 gold medal. Eddie the Eagle, number 7. Dan Jensen finishes Olympic CA, okay, in Lilahama. Eric Haydn, five of five. Sean White seemed to perform perfect in 2010. The maker debuted in 2003, the miracle on ice, and they've given Stephen Bradbury number one again. Of course I have. Anyway, all that aside, breaking news with Dale Berg Smith. Again, literally this man has not been heard from, I think since 2014. I think Britt mentioned that they had like something to him, like a training or something like in the last few years.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, he showed up. He made his appearance.
BEN WATERWORTH: But like literally, if you Google him, like the last news article comes from 2014, there's nothing, not a trace of him until now. So our great new hope in the men's moguls, Cooper Woods finished sixth, of course, in Beijing. He got a text message from Dale Berg Smith in the last week. This is fresh off the breaking news. Okay, so apparently he had no idea how he got his number. And apparently Cooper said that he didn't even know that Dale Berg Smith watched moguls still. So he said that he sent me a message, and this is literally what Dale Berg Smith texted him. I thought you deserve third place. You went really well. You went really well. All the best, Dale.
COLIN HILDING: But still, he's like, I thought you deserve, you're not just lying to say I thought you deserve gold. You're clearly not better than Walberg or Kingsbury, but you definitely deserve third place.
BEN WATERWORTH: I love the fact that Cooper Woods basically says, it was just a small message, but it was from the top dog. He is one of the greatest in the sport. For him to watch and say I did well, it was a massive compliment. So it then goes to say in this article that they have the same coach, Steve Desevich. He used to coach Dale Begg Smith back in the day. So just, I mean, that makes me happy that A, Dale Begg Smith is alive and B, that he clearly still watches moguls. So there you go. Passing on the flame. So that is literally in the last week. And somebody apparently died.
COLIN HILDING: Somebody bombed me.
BEN WATERWORTH: Congratulations. But yeah, Dale Begg-Smith Day, congratulations to Dale for being Dale. Breaking news in the curling. Russia, three. Canada, two. Breaking news in the ice hockey. Canada, two. China, one. China scored against Canada in ice hockey.
COLIN HILDING: I've been saying it since the beginning. I'm like, China's the one to watch in this tournament. Men's and women's.
BEN WATERWORTH: The military going. Yeah, the military going. Daily Dale and Metal Tally. I've literally only got one person for the Daily Dale. I don't know how many you've got. I'll listen to yours first.
COLIN HILDING: I don't have anybody firm. As I said at this point, do we want to give it to Irene? Do we want to give it to Ester just so we get out of the way? As far as I'm concerned, when Ester competes in the combined, she's my choice no matter what, whether she wins or loses, because the amount of events that that woman has competed in in two separate sports is incredible. So I'm okay holding off on Ester.
BEN WATERWORTH: Look, I've put Ester up because I think that she, to keep going the way she did, was pretty epic. And she was leading, she was shitting it in that downhill. So she was doing very well. And the only thing I'd say that holding up against for the combined is because while she says she's doing it, she could always pull out. It was never an event she was meant to do. So even though she said...
COLIN HILDING: Well then we give it to her just for pulling out.
BEN WATERWORTH: But then Irene is coming back definitely for the 10,000. That will be her last race. So I would argue Ester today Irene for the 10,000. That would be my argument. Solid as it is.
COLIN HILDING: Now, how are Irene's results today versus Ester's?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, Irene got a bronze, but isn't a reline.
COLIN HILDING: But I would argue that Irene... See here, this is my logic. Irene is already solidified herself or tied a record today, which is historic in and of itself. She may not get for that. Even if she does, great. I mean, we've had people we've given the Daily Dale to and then they've gone on to do even better things. But she's won a medal today. We know that she's broken through. She's broken records. She's had her day. And Ester, unless she completely pulls out, which what are the odds for somebody who gets up seconds after falling, what are the odds she's going to pull out? I think the best story would be Ester has competed in this many events in two Olympics in two separate sports. So I would go Irene today, Ester tomorrow.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think you've sold me. Good job, Colin. Even though is she our third speed skater now? Who cares? We've long gone past that. Let's give it to everyone from every sport. Poor Nordic combined.
COLIN HILDING: We're running out of sports. We don't want to do big air and slope style.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I think it's more, when I say sports, it's more snowboarding as a whole, speed skating as a whole, like not every single individual event as such. So anyway, Irene. Irene, congratulations Irene. You get another award. Everyone gets one. It's Oprah. Whoo, go for it. Medal table. So with only Germany to win three more medals tonight. It won't change anything. They will still be in second. Norway have just shot it up to the top. 12 gold, 7 silver, 7 bronze. Well out on top now. Germany, 8 gold, 5 silver, 2 bronze. USA, 7 gold, 6 silver, 4 bronze. Austria, 6 gold, 6 silver, 4 bronze. And Netherlands, 6 gold, 4. So how is Switzerland only in 8th? I feel like they should be 2nd. I swear I'm reading their name all the time. 5 gold, 5 bronze, no silver. Come on Switzerland, pick your silver game up. Even with their finally breaking through for the 2nd gold, Canada already moved up into 13th place. 2 gold, 4 silver, 11 bronze.
COLIN HILDING: But where are we for overall? See, here's my question, because you've said, and again, I point the finger, I see it on camera, it's very aggressive. You have said that you believe that overall medals is a way to count, but yet for our show, we officially count just the gold. So is there a reason why we picked that?
BEN WATERWORTH: Because that's what the IOC does. Do you think from Paris onwards, we should do it the Off The Podium way and do it by total?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I would say. We do it our way. I mean, to be honest, like NBC and CBC, they're covering overall medals here. So the only time I really get the update on what's the overall gold. And here's what's funny. I think it was probably post Vancouver. Vancouver was the last time that here in Canada, the gold, this is the medal tally, because I think that was when Canada was leading it or whatever.
BEN WATERWORTH: You won in Vancouver.
COLIN HILDING: Exactly. I would say Sochi and Rio both were sort of mentioned, but I almost feel like maybe I've just missed the coverage, but I almost feel like in Beijing here, it's just completely been forgotten gold, and it is just all overall medals.
BEN WATERWORTH: I actually want to say that I think in Australia, I've seen the medal tally like three times. I've barely, like Channel 7 is not showing the medal tally. The phone is going to ring again, isn't it? The medal tally is barely being shown. But no, like, okay, off the podium decision from Paris onwards, we will do it by total medals. And realistically, we probably like when I used to, when I was a kid, and I used to actually put together notebooks of medal tallies. Yeah, that's why I'm still single, folks.
COLIN HILDING: Can you believe this man's not taken?
BEN WATERWORTH: That's right, ladies. I made notebooks on Olympic medal tallies. Calm down, calm down. I'm single. Take a number. It's all good. I used to do it by total medals always. So I'm going against my own beliefs here. But anyway, Canada, a third, equal third right now by total. You are beating Switzerland. That's all that matters. And Australia, 16th in either total or overall. New Zealand, gold and silver. So yippee, go New Zealand. I've still got a couple more to go. So look out. They might overtake Australia at this rate. So tomorrow, it's Charles Hamlin Day. 5,000 metres. The last chance for a gold for Off The Podium. No disrespect to the other Off The Podium athletes who still compete in other events. The last... I shouldn't say really sick. We didn't think Ali and Abi were going to win a medal. Go for gold, Brian Kiara on the weekend. How are you feeling about Charles tomorrow on the 5,000?
COLIN HILDING: I'm feeling fantastic. I think this is going to break it. I honestly, I don't know whether they're going to get the gold. I think that they'll get a medal. I'm thinking they'll get a medal. I am not predicting. I am not guaranteeing. I'm doing nothing. I'm thinking they'll get a medal. It would be incredible if they got a gold though. But one way or the other, if Charles Hamlin gets a medal, he has tied Cindy Clausen as the most decorated speed skater and Winter Olympian of all time. Yeah, from Canada at least. And what's incredible is just to see how quickly that falls because a couple of days ago we had Cindy Clausen day and there was once upon a time six medals for a speed skater was the most anybody had ever won. And now we're into double digits, which is crazy. But I almost feel like Charles will be back. I've said it many times. He's going to be back until he's won every record that he can break. This will be the only 69 year old man who's still on skates.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I mean, Stephen Bradbury just announced his comeback today. So, you know, he's getting ready to go. Other Off The Podium athlete tomorrow, we've got Casey Wright in the women's team sprint. So we'll keep an eye out for that. Also tomorrow we'll have the ice hockey quarters. Hopefully Canada will be there. They're only one goal up against China right now. And the women's bronze medal game is happening tomorrow. Finland, Switzerland, who do you pick? Finland or Switzerland for bronze?
COLIN HILDING: I'm going to go with Finland. I'm also hoping that I'm breaking news. Well, not breaking news yet. Well, let's hope that breaking news much more. I was technically supposed to be on vacation for these entire Olympics and something has gone wrong. Something got terribly wrong. And I've been working this entire time, but I'm really holding out hope that I can at least get the day off on Wednesday because I want to stay up to watch the women's hockey.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's in a really weird time for you, isn't it? It's like 11 o'clock at night. We were talking about this today saying that's really bad scheduling for the prime time in North America because that's not good for you guys.
COLIN HILDING: It's just evidence that either Canada does not have the sway that America has when it comes to deciding the schedules, but more likely than not, Beijing or China just doesn't care what we think. But there will be a lot of Canadians calling in to work sick the next day or sleepy the next day if we're going to be watching it. We are going to be watching it. So yeah, expect the Canadian women's hockey flu the next day.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's actually pretty much scheduled, I think, to be shown on Channel 7 Live. I know we were already talking about showing like a package, talking about the rivalry between USA and Canada and women's hockey. So yeah, it's going to get some coverage here as well, which I'm pretty excited for. So that's good. Also tomorrow, we've got medals, the Alpine Skiing Men's Slalom, the Women's Relay in the Biathlon, the Men's and Women's Team Sprint in the Cross Country, the Men's Era. Actually, it's decided tomorrow. The medals are not being decided tonight. The Men's Slope Style, as I said, the 5,000 Relay in the Short Track, and the Women's 1500m in the Short Track as well. So, that will be tomorrow's final update for you. Curling Rock for Canada 2, and in the Ice Hockey, it is still Canada 2, China 1. That's nerve-wracking, Colin. That's not good. Oh, don't you... Yeah, just like Britt Cox is definitely going to win the gold in Pyeongchang. Don't say things like that, Colin. If you like the show, please like us on social media, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. We're all on there. YouTube as well, even though none of these episodes are currently on YouTube, but we've got some great interviews on there, and we've got some great ones coming up after the Olympics. And remember to vote for a sportspodcastsawards.com. We're still on top. We're still winning. We're doing it. We're doing it for OTP. I think there's only about two or so weeks left in the voting and that, so get pumped, get excited. And we will be back tomorrow at the same time, same place to my neighbour. Get fucked. And Colin, it's been a nice time to have you on the show tonight. Thank you very much. My calm indoor voice.
COLIN HILDING: You're welcome. And I want you to teach my children that calm indoor voice, because I will be phoning in complaints for them every single day until the end of these weeks. Where is Jarrod? Did he tell us where he was?
BEN WATERWORTH: He's gone away with some family member's birthday, I think.
COLIN HILDING: He probably is the guy next door.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hashtag bring back Jarrod. That's all I can say. Thanks for tuning in. As always, special shout out to Jason Momoa.
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