Beijing 2022 Day 14 Review
As we get closer to the end of the 2022 Winter Olympics, we're back to bring you another medal winning day and another day where things get entertaining for you on many different levels! Why is Canada just so nice when things don't go their way? Are Canada excited for more medals, even if they aren't gold? What do we have to talk about when it comes to Australia? Why is today the episode not to listen to if you're a Mikaela Shiffrin or Eileen Gu fan? Why is today the episode to listen to if you're a Finland fan? Why does Colin want to bring in darts to the Winter Olympics? And why do we miss classic Curling when the curlers were curlers? There's a lot to get to so click and listen away to bring yourself into the Olympic zone!
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 today for Day 14 of the Beijing 2022 Olympics. And I am able to use my normal voice. Yay! Well, when I say normal, the loud side of it, normal, I still have COVID, so I sound like some sort of mixture between Patty and Selma and Macy Gray. I have no idea, but we're here to talk about the Olympics, not the Simpsons and Ben's voice, cause it's been a silver, silver, bronze, bronze day for Canada and it's been a 15th in the bobsled so far day for Australia. What an exciting day to be an Olympic fan, particularly Norway, because Norway have done well today and we'll get to that very shortly. And speaking of Norway, it's a man who worked for the amazing race Norway. I think it's the right country. It's Jarrod Loobeek. Jarrod, welcome back. Are you proud of your country that you once did stuff for?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, super proud. Worked for them, went and visited on holidays, you know, so many Norwegian connections. So super proud for them.
BEN WATERWORTH: Super proud, 15 gold medals. What a day to be a Norwegian. And speaking of what a day, it's always what a day when you're Colin Hilding because he's the most interesting man that I know that lives in Winnipeg. And he's with us now. Hello, Colin, welcome back.
COLIN HILDING: Thank you. And I, as somebody who's proud of Canada today, I worked for Canada and I also visited Canada frequently, much like Jarrod did in Norway.
BEN WATERWORTH: Nice, nice. I'm glad that you just jump up to Canada every now and then. Just a casual day.
COLIN HILDING: When I have time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, yes, you know, cool. Cool, yeah, I'm the opposite. I got kicked out. So, you know.
COLIN HILDING: You literally got kicked out. You got shoved in a cab and sent on a plane because your coughing was too obnoxious.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well, among many things, but a lot to talk about and kind of, not only Colin, do you have to talk about two zilvers and two bronzes, but you got to talk about gold and other shit from yesterday, because I can believe you weren't on the episode yesterday. Such is life. So, Colin, Canada. Yay, you're doing well at the Olympics. What's that like?
COLIN HILDING: Week two is always the better week for Canada. And I kind of had a suspicion going into yesterday that it was going to be a big, or at least a very important day to watch. So I booked the day off work. I booked the day off recording. I stayed up until three o'clock in the morning, caught about two and a half hours sleep, and then set my alarm for 5.36 o'clock in the morning to continue watching stuff. And I wasn't let down. I mean, the gold medal for the women's hockey, that's just a lease of it, just to quickly touch on that. One thing that I don't think you guys mentioned it yesterday, I know you mentioned Marie-Philippe Poullain getting a goal in all four gold medal games, but the bigger talk right now, and the one who's getting all the publicity is Sarah Nurse here. Based on the fact that I guess Marie-Philippe Poullain actually tied Hayley Wickenhouser's record for most points in Olympic tournaments, but Sarah Nurse beat that record. So she is now the all-time point getter, scorer, whatever you want to call it. And to cap it off too, I mean, obviously, it's gonna be different in different countries, but at least here in North America, race or black players in hockey been a big talking point, and she is now the first woman, the first black woman to ever win a gold medal. I mean, she is all over the TV here. So I mean, huge for her, especially not only to be a black woman winning the gold medal in hockey, but to be the number one player of the Olympics and be a black woman, that's crazy too. That was just the start of it. I mean, the ski cross was the second part, which is obviously a huge event for Canada. And we had two that looked like they were going to be potential to win a medal, Brittany Phelan and Mariel Thompson. And I know you mentioned both of them yesterday. Both of them were like barely back from injury, barely back from surgery, like had had one or two World Cups after a year off. In Mariel Thompson's case, it was literally a year since she injured herself. And I don't think I've ever been on the edge of my seat more than watching 50% of the Canadians make the semifinals in ski cross and have the only one that made the finals trailing far behind and then all of a sudden pulled like the comeback of the century. It's just out of nowhere.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know if we talked that up enough last night. You're right. Her getting that silver was not. Yeah, I agree. That was pretty spectacular. She was plump last in that final.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. And then, I don't know, 30 minutes of them being stuck there waiting for the official results that everybody already knew. And I'm waiting. I'm like, okay. So I don't know what this they're talking about. Is Mariel gonna be disqualified? And then it ends up being whoever is in the bronze position disqualified while the person who won the bronze medal by default, Canada's second favourite Nickelback ripoff basically protested saying, I don't wanna win like this. That was crazy. But the curling was a big thing. And I mean, we could do a whole episode on curling, but I'm just gonna kind of sum it up like this. I don't think I've ever in watching Olympics, literally my entire life experienced the drama of when Jennifer Jones won, decisively won. And then CDC spent 30 minutes covering, running through the convoluted mathematics of what it would take for her to actually make the playoff. They're literally saying, okay, so we're watching the camera pan from Jennifer Jones all the way across the ranks. They're like, here is Rock, here is Switzerland, here is Japan. They're like, if Japan wins, then Jennifer Jones' team is in. And then all of a sudden they're like, all right, it's not looking like Japan's gonna win, let's now go to Rock. So if Rock loses or wins, and I'm like, how does this work? And they're like, if Korea wins or loses, and all of a sudden gathering, okay, one of them wins, one of them loses, then we make it. That drama went on forever, and they just will continue to cut the shots of Jennifer Jones sitting on the sidelines, her entire team just watching this. To me, that was the biggest drama I think I've ever experienced in Olympics. And it was basically just for a spot in the playoffs. And it's just crazy to me.
BEN WATERWORTH: Can I interrupt you, Colin? Like the biggest drama ever in the Olympics. Like what Olympics are you watching that literally it came down to the distance of a curling stone to decide Canada's place in the semifinal. That's better than, I don't know, Bradbury winning after everybody collapsing, the miracle on ice, Canada breaking 50 years of a drought, and ice hockey, same bolt, winning everything, Michael Phelps, that's more dramatic than all of that?
COLIN HILDING: Yes, I'll explain why. You kind of have to be Canadian to get this right now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, well, that's why.
COLIN HILDING: No, no, no, there's more to that. What you're describing is exciting moments. They're like, oh, where did that come from? We're talking about drama where it's like, this would not end. Like, oh, okay, we're there. Now we've got to wait another 10 minutes. Oh, it looks like we're there. And the fact that all of these other games were coming down to the wire, and you have the number one team, Canada's, really, the representatives of Canada, and just sort of gathering more since this has ended, seeing how much other countries are shocked by this and how much other countries are on the edge of their feet. Devin Haruhuru you interviewed, he had his curling show, his daily curling show on YouTube, and Jennifer Jones basically texted him, and he kind of immediately sent out a tweet saying, she just texted me and saying she wants to come on the show because she wants Canada to hear from her. I mean, this is, I sort of said it a couple days ago that these Olympics, curling is bigger than hockey in Canada. And I don't even, obviously, Salt Lake City, Vancouver, the gold medal hockey games were massive stories and big moments. But as far as waiting on pins and needles, is this going to happen and how long was drawn out? This was something you couldn't script. And the way that Canada's responded to this, it's not the way you think, where it's like, we're so let down. It's more than anything, people basically saying, you are the greatest of all time because how you accepted defeat, as opposed to having won this. Yeah, I know you're kind of laughing because it's an infernal point sister thing, but let's look at-
BEN WATERWORTH: No, I'm laughing because I love your country so much. Like you've basically described two things to me, that Canadian drama is not that dramatic. I lived there and I didn't really see many dramatic Canadian dramas, that explains things. And secondly, this is just a difference between, say Australia and Canada and how great you are. But the fact is that you basically got eliminated down to the fact that a rock wasn't closest to the other something or other. And yet, rather than complain about it, you're like, oh yeah, you're the greatest ever. Come on the show, oh, you're so good. Come back, we'll throw you a parade, Jennifer. Oh yeah, this is in Australia. We'd be fucking burning down buildings. We would be complaining. We would be, I don't know, murdering innocent children. We would be beating seals. You do that anyway. I don't know what we would be doing, but we would be just going off like you're so Canadian. Like, oh, hey, we tried.
COLIN HILDING: But here's the second part of it too, is that at the same time we're experiencing Brad Gushu being Canada's last hope. And here's a man who is very composed and he's breaking down in tears after their loss. And then we'll get to a big win today and we broke down cheers again. But you really can't even be, it's kind of like we were describing with like no other combined in cross-country skiing in some of these other countries. The way that Canada treats curling, especially in these Olympics coming off of Pyeongchang. Like it is ridiculous how much this country has had invested in this sport for these Olympics. And, you know, kind of like what the, when we get to Brad Gush, it'll be a completely different story. But with this loss, I mean, what's so dramatic about this is it has more to do with the fact of how Canada's selecting its teams. And that was a big discussion they had on Devin Brewer's show. They had the entire CBC commentating panel on there, including Mike Harris, who we interviewed on here. And they were all sort of in agreement saying it's like, the problem here is not the teams and their performance. The problem is that Canada, because we're so competitive, we force our selection down to the last minute and we give our athletes weeks to prepare for the Olympics as opposed to months or even a year like other countries.
BEN WATERWORTH: Two things just honestly, legitimately so fascinating to hear this, because it is so freaking Canadian. Like it really is. And like Jarrod would know exactly what I'm saying about that this is just not what would happen in Australia. I'm thinking of London 2012 with our swimming team, when we won, what, like one gold medal, and there were inquiries galore, they were blaming the culture, like there was that Equinox drug thing, and just like, just everything went to absolute shit because we won one gold medal, and it was like, oh my God, this is like the biggest crisis in Australian Olympic history. You guys barely get a bronze in curling to me seemed like you were robbed in the women's, but again, I'm saying that from an Australian perspective. And again, literally, you're just like, oh, that's how it happens. Like it's just, it's like so fucking Canadian. But on that, on that, go ahead, you go, because my next bit will go on a bit of a tangent. So by all means, go in.
COLIN HILDING: I was just gonna say that at the same time, it's not like Canadians are saying, oh, it's too bad. Like we're actually saying, listen, there are problems here. There's problems that a lot of the debate is, you know, one of the first things I was thinking is, do we need as long of a round robin as we have and as short of a playoff? Can we not have a shorter round robin involve more teams in a playoff and not just, you know, semifinals and a finals? And then you don't have so many of these bizarre rules as to how do we get in coming off of a 10 to four victory? And then you have Canadian athletes who are just waiting on the sidelines, waiting to see other people lose or win. And people who lose get through and people window, it's so out there. But the fact is most of the country seems to be now of the opinion that we're selecting a team, we're forgiving the men's hockey team instantly because we're like, they put this team together on three weeks. But then the conversation is coming up. Why are our curlers being given only a few more weeks than that? And we have it on fair. It wasn't like there was a last minute NHL cancellation or last minute curling league cancellation. It's so fascinating to watch right now how much people are really putting the blame on the curling federations right now for not giving proper time to prepare.
BEN WATERWORTH: Even when you blame people, it's nice. Like, it's just so nice. Like, it's so Canadian. Like, I mean, an example I'm thinking of recently in Australian sport is Socceroos, our men's soccer team, who basically were about two minutes away from beating, I think it was Oman, got a late penalty against them, and drew, our World Cup qualifying is kind of fucked right now. And we're bagging out how shit they were for letting in a late penalty, and all of a sudden bitching and moaning about the referees and complaining, this sort of stuff. Again, we don't have anything to distract us. Even when we go and win a gold at the Winter Olympics, we still complain about it. And I'm doing it right now. I'm Australian. I'm complaining about it. I'm dirty about it. But I don't know. Like, it's just the beauty of your country. But the thing I was gonna say is, Mikaela Shiffrin, take a page from Canada and accept that you suck and you lose and don't go on social media and make it all about me, me. Okay? So Mikaela, go out north and learn something from your neighbours to the north.
COLIN HILDING: Really quickly, I wanna give Jarrod time to talk here too. But on that note, I've mentioned you guys. Jarrod's already asleep. But I've mentioned you guys that I flipped to NBC to see if they had an interview of Mikaela Shiffrin, and they did. And in a weird way, she kind of did, at least in this initial interview, really accepted. But it was, I don't think I've ever heard somebody more scattered in their thoughts. It was a hot mess of an interview. But some really good takeaways that they had there, or at least that she had, through all her ramblings and ranting, she basically said, and I don't think anybody has ever had more chances and failed so many times in the Olympics as I have, and I completely own that, but it makes me sick, and it's a complete joke. And it's funny that a lot of the things that she's coming under fire for right now, she was initially saying those same thoughts. So it's weird that she's now taking, and I can understand people taking a stance. You know, I can criticise myself. You have to criticise me as aggressively the same way. But she really did own it in the interview I saw. But it was bizarre to listen to her. It sounded like somebody was completely out of their mind.
BEN WATERWORTH: Look, I don't want to give Mikaela Shiffrin any more airtime, because my rant here is basically going to be about this. And then we'll go back to talking about Canada and Jarrod can talk. My issue with what's come about in the last 24 hours of this is that, again, I was a dick yesterday. I ripped into it. She deserved it. She's open to criticism, all right? But the way it is painted, it's that she fucked up. She got some abuse, which you shouldn't get abuse online, like do it on a podcast. No one listens, so it's fine. It's-
COLIN HILDING: You can find our show online at-
BEN WATERWORTH: sportspodcastawards.com. Remember to vote for us. But like, there's a difference between like copping it on the chin and getting some criticism, but then making it into such a sideshow where everybody basically makes it all about you. And like, I want to say this right now, a reminder to people, Mikaela Shiffrin did not win yesterday. Michelle Geisen, I can't even say her name properly, but I want to give her credit. She won the women's combined. Wendy Holdner got second. Federica Brignoni got third. Estela Decker got fourth. It should be about them. We should be celebrating them and not complaining about some woman who can't even fucking finish a ski race and then makes it all about her. She's great. Mikaela Shiffrin is very good at what she does. She had a shit Olympics. It happens. 99% of what we produce is shit. Every now and then we do okay. But on the flip side of that, if you do shit and you're in the public spotlight, I can call you out for being shit. People can call you out for being shit. It's okay. Don't call her names. Don't tell her to kill herself. Don't bully her. Right? But she's shit. At these Olympics, she was shit. Simple. Celebrate the winners. Mikaela, hope you get better. Come back to Milan and show us what you're capable of. That's all I'll say. That's enough.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. And that's a media thing, too. Like, celebrate the winners. And another thing that's great, I mean, Jennifer Jones, after we already talked about when they lost to Japan early on, which is basically one of the reasons why they're out, she kind of walked past the Japanese skip as she was doing an interview and overheard her say, Jennifer Jones is my hero. She's the reason I'm in the sport. And she went up and hugged her in the middle of the interview. After they lost, Japan's in now, Jennifer Jones went up and she hugged them all again. And it was crazy watching Devon Grew's show yesterday and seeing the live chat, how many Japanese people worship this woman. And they worship her even more now because of how she accepted defeat and how she's putting the spotlight back on the team that's now technically beaten them into the playoffs. So I completely agree with you. It needs to be about, let's address maybe fair criticism and stuff like that, or surprises. I can't believe this person didn't win. But then let's make sure we're putting more attention, if not at least an equal amount on the winners.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing. It's a big story. I get it. It was no different to Simone Biles in Tokyo. These things happen. They're big names. You're gonna talk about it. But at the end of the day, if I'm Michelle and I'm an Olympic gold medallist, I'm gonna get a bit shitty like, hey, I just won a fucking Olympic gold medal. I didn't win because that woman crashed out for the third time at these Olympics. Like, you know, if anyone should be making it about them, it should be Michelle. Jarrod, you haven't talked in about 30 hours. Do you have any thoughts on what has been said so far?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I feel like I don't have much to add. I just agree. I think it's a similar situation in the women's figure skating with the 15 year old Russian athlete, and then her being allowed to compete. And then just like, that was just like the entire story. She doesn't end up on the podium. Like there's just no media attention given to the people who finished, who wound up on the podium. The story is still just about her like crashing out. And like, it's just, it's mad like the whole event and still like the team's event with that all being like up in the air and them not getting medals yet. Like it's just, I don't know. I think it's what you say. We need to be celebrating the winners and like it's fine to talk about kind of these dramatic moments and let downs and setbacks, but like it shouldn't dominate the conversation and we should be able to move on quickly from that to talk about the actual events and who's put in an amazing effort at the Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: And speaking of which. Well, we'll get to that. Speaking of which, let's move on. I'll be a hypocrite soon. Don't worry Colin, it's all good. Let's talk more about Canada's success. Anything from yesterday, Colin, you wanted to add or just go into the silver and bronze day for Canada because you did all right. Two silvers, two bronzes. That's pretty good.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I mean, just, I guess, continue on the curling first with Brad Gushu. I mean, what's crazy with him is that the last time he was in the Olympics, he was 25 years old. He's in his 40s now. I mean, that's a huge gap. And the game has changed a lot. And like Jennifer Jones, I mean, he and his team have not had the amount of time to prepare to know that they're representing Canada in the Olympics. And again, another thing that you really have to be Canadian to understand is how wide open the field is here. I mean, most of the other countries that are competing, or at least a lot of the top ones, there is one clear choice. So even if you don't have an official selection until, I don't know, eight to 12 weeks before the Olympics, it's a given, you know, who's gonna go. I mean, it's a crapshoot every time. That's how Rachel Holman kind of got in last time instead of Jennifer Jones. But he has taken these Olympics so seriously. And drawing another comparison to Simone Biles, really the drama of Simone Biles was that this was a woman who the weight of an entire country was on her shoulders. And we can kind of understand that. She was the sport, she was America's hopes for the Olympics. She was the face of the Olympics for them. And here in Canada, I mean, it's basically hockey and curling and, you know, hockey we kind of wrote off early because the men's team wasn't gonna happen. The women's team, we know we're going to the gold medal anyways, it's a lot more pressure on our curlers this time around. And again, it's just kind of the way that he handled it. It was crazy seeing after they lost yesterday, it wasn't like a boo-hoo, it was like an emotional breakdown of a man. And they had footage where they have the athlete's wall when he's talking to his family. And he's actually on his hands and knees weeping. And when they did the interviews with him afterwards, like you could tell he was trying to hide it, but like his eyes were red and he was wiping tears still. But he was very composed in the interview. Really just watching him, you could see this is a guy where the weight of a country was on his shoulders. And yet the country would have been okay if he lost, I think. But he took this seriously. He really was like, this is the last chance. I have to make this happen for Canada. And I mean, they came out. He actually said after it ended, and they have faced John Schuster, the American mullet men before, they'd beaten them. But he said that this was the toughest curling match he's ever had in his life, was against the American. And again, it just goes to show like how much he, him and his entire team were putting into this and felt like they needed to pull out a bronze.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which prevented you from not winning a medal, from not not winning a medal for the first time ever, since 1924.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we're looking at decades without ever having not won a medal, and this was our last shot.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I mean, you didn't win in 1924, but I mean, again, three nations were in that and Canada wasn't one of them. So they all got a medal. Got something to talk about that. I've got a fun stat about that one.
COLIN HILDING: Everybody wins.
BEN WATERWORTH: Everybody wins. Literally every year since 19... Well, I'm gonna say every Olympic year. From 1998 on, would you have won at least one medal? So you've luckily kept that alive. But with just with the silver and the other bronze. So obviously silver and bronze in the half pipe, the women's half pipe, Cassie Sharp, reigning gold medallist from Pyeongchang got the silver, and Rachel Khakha got the bronze in the half pipe. And Laurent, is it Dubrell got the silver? Dubrell, thank you. Men's 1000 metres, were these expected? I mean, is it kind of disappointing with Cassie that she didn't go back to back, or being Canadian, like I mean, it doesn't matter. You lost to the GOAT, Eileen, like, I mean, you know, so if you're gonna lose to someone, lose to Eileen.
COLIN HILDING: I'll have an Eileen rant in a minute. I've been a little less irritated by her than you have, but we expected at least one in the half pipe. And it was kind of up in the air. Carcass, she actually has been the top performer this season, but part of that reason is because Cassie Sharp was dealt with an injury for so long. Now there's just a trend. If you really wanna win in the Olympics, and you're Canadian, at least you're a Canadian woman, get an injury a year before, come back barely in time for the Olympics, and you'll win. That's what happens. But with Cassie Sharp, she is probably a couple of years removed from being the top skier. And having this injury, she had all the media hype behind her because she was the reigning gold medallist, but I don't think realistically she was expected to be the one to be in the position. It's the fact that we got both that's the biggest surprise. I think we expected one or the other. And I don't know whether we should have won a gold or not. I mean, I watched all the runs. I don't know how to judge the sport. I think one of the frustrating things about half pipe is that you don't have to nail every trick. It's like, you've got to nail at least, it's a rough idea to like at least five-ish. And I know that Eileen's best run, she had two pretty lazy efforts in there. I kind of feel like I want to see this sport get to the point where you have a set number of tricks and you have to nail it. So your timing has to be right. Your angles have to be right. Like, let's make it a little bit harder. We're just big fans of less relaxed sports. I think that's the thing. Now, as far as Debray, that was a big surprise. And CBC definitely had coverage of it, partly because there was nothing else on, but as much hype and publicity as he had before the 500-metre event, there was none of that. To the point where I was starting to wonder, like, isn't he supposed to be in the 1,000-metre? Like, why am I not hearing about him going into this? And I don't think that he has ever been nearly as good in the 1,000-metre as he is 500. He's basically been unbeaten for the last season. And he didn't even get in the medal position for that. For him to win a silver, like, as I was watching it, I'm thinking, oh, this is not gonna happen. And then I keep watching him ahead of the line, ahead of the line, ahead of the line. And in the end, when you see it turn to red, where it's like 0.4 seconds, like, wait, were they counting 0.4 seconds behind the bronze? And they all of a sudden get excited about, no, that's the goal, all right, we got a silver, yay! So that's a big surprise and also good, because he is one of the athletes that I think Canada really got behind before these Olympics started, where this was one of the favourite to win a medal. And he pulled that out at the last minute.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, good thinking, good on you, Laurent. Laurent, Laurent, Laurent. Going to call him Larry. Well done, Larry, good job. That attaboy, Larry.
COLIN HILDING: Attaboy, Larry.
BEN WATERWORTH: Talk about the half pipe quickly. Jarrod, let's throw to Jarrod, crossing live to the goat. Jarrod, you watched a half pipe today. I mean, again, wasn't much on. That was my shift. That was all that was on. So I didn't really have much of a choice, but what's your thoughts on the half pipe before we maybe get into all things goo?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I feel like I said it yesterday. I just, it's the whole like three event thing of like the slope style, big air and half pipe. And I kind of feel like one of them needs to go. And I feel like in snowboard, the half pipe is fine, but in the ski half pipe, I'm just not on board. I just feel like they don't like, even like the better runs, like they don't get like that much amplitude. They're doing like, I mean, they'll do like some good, like tricks, some like 1080s or whatever. But then like, they're just putting in like a 360 in like the middle of them, like, okay. Like maybe I could even do that after like a couple of months of training, like it just, just, yeah. When they're like not even getting over like the lip of the half pipe, it just feels weird. And I'm like, this is like the top 12 athletes in the world. And it's just not, I find it's interesting to watch. I agree with Colin that like the judging is like a little bit subjective and it's hard to know what it's based on with just giving like these like flat scores, like out of like a hundred. It's just, it's an odd one. And to me, like I could take it or leave it. I'd be fine with it being out of the Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: What I don't get a lot with it is that there were so many of these jumps, tricks, routines that were getting in the nineties, particularly in the qualifying yesterday. And again, I'm no judge, but like I watched the snowball one and some of them looked so spectacular and awesome, but they're only getting like seventies. This one, like basically someone rocks up, stands on one leg, farts and eats a Danish, and they get like 91. And I'm like, okay, sure. And I'm with you, like it just, it doesn't go as, because like once they lose speed, they really lose speed. And then there's no going back. Like they've got poles, fucking push yourself off there and get faster. Like somehow the snowboarders can maintain the speed. But yeah, and like one thing I'll say about Eileen, it was clear she was the best. Like if you watched her versus everything else, she did stand out as the best. So to me, deserve the gold, absolutely. But, but, here's the but. Everybody in that event, even Eileen, kind of looked bored. There was no pomp and flair and anything about it. It's almost like they were consigned that, oh, Eileen showed up, she's eaten the Danish, she's flashed the pearly whites, she's gonna win the gold. And then what annoyed me the most about it is that gets down to her third run, she's already won the gold, I get it. She doesn't need to do anything, but she just does this like weird back and forth, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then she does, oh my God, I won gold! Like you've known you've won gold for about four hours. Okay, don't act shocked. You haven't just crossed the line 0.1 of a second ahead of Irene Wurst. You've known you've won the fucking gold already. And then it just comes across as like, I don't want to say obnoxious, but like, I get it. You don't have to do anything, but put on a show, like do something, like celebrate, pull up. Didn't Sean White do that at the last Olympics, I feel, or one Olympics where he'd already won the gold, but he still went out and was just like, fuck, I'm gonna try and do anything now, because it doesn't matter, I've won the gold. Like, there's just something about it that annoys me. And she seems like a nice girl, but this is just the weird looking Australian guy on the other side of the planet with no athletic talent. And I've got nothing going in life. She's attractive, she's good at sport, she can play the piano, she's friends with Australians. Like she's got everything going for her.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Like what's she bad at?
BEN WATERWORTH: That's what I wanna know, all right? Stop being good, Eileen. That's my rant. Anyway, good for her, congratulations. She's now officially the most decorated freestyle skier in the history of the Olympics, and she's only competed in three events.
COLIN HILDING: Yes, she is. That's my complaint. No, she's tied in a four-way tie right now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, in terms of gold and silver, like if you did it based on the metal taler, she is the number one in terms of-
COLIN HILDING: But here's my complaint. I'm hearing, and again, this is nothing against Eileen Gu. I actually feel like I haven't quite understood to the same level yours and Jarrod's frustration with just being over her. We don't have come on Eileen montages here or anything.
BEN WATERWORTH: She's getting more attention in this country than most of the Australian athletes. That's the thing.
COLIN HILDING: And here, the only time she really gets mentioned is when she's on screen. It's not like even before the event, they have a video package of her or anything like that. But my frustration is just sort of buying into this hype of she's the greatest freestyle skier of all time. First of all, she is the only freestyle skier to ever have the opportunity to beat in three events in one Olympics. You can't claim this to be some record when it's never been possible before. And two of the people who have or share that record of most freestyle and freestyle skiing medals of all time are mogul skiers that have to do it over the course of 12 years. Now, when Eileen Gu is 30 years old and is still winning gold medals, I'll be just as impressed. This is nothing against her. It's against the fact that, and I think we've gone over this before. Part of it is just a lot of the new sports. It's like we're just creating records to try to turn people into the gold, and they're not. I mean, she's got two gold, she's got one silver or whatever, bronze. I can't even remember what she won the other one in.
BEN WATERWORTH: Two gold and a silver.
COLIN HILDING: But yeah, but it's like it's her first Olympics, and it's the first time. And you could honestly even say they created a third event for her to win a record. You wouldn't be lying, because you have the same people competing in all the events, you know? It's not even competitive yet.
BEN WATERWORTH: I, and this is the thing, Colin. I 100% agree with everything you're saying. By me saying she's the most successful freestyle skier of all time, that's not me saying like, oh, she's the goat. You know, that's me just putting out a stat. I 100% agree with everything you just said, because you're right. Like, how is it fair that we can call her the goat based on statistics when, what, Mikhail Kingsbury, you know, he's won three over, what, two, three Olympics. You know, I mean, the great Dale Bigg Smith. You know, he won two over three Olympics, you know, whereas if they had the dual moguls and the slope style moguls and the half pipe moguls, you know, they can probably walk away. Like, it's no disrespect to Michael Phelps. He's won the most Olympic gold medals, but I mean, he's had many more opportunities to do it. Whereas, you know, give me an athlete off the top of your head that can only win one, and I don't know, like Eddie Ockenden can only win one per Olympics, you know, in hockey. And anyway, point is, I agree with you Colin. Anyway, that's just dropping stats, all right? Anyway, come on Eileen, fuck off. I just wanted to say one point when I was actually just, we were having that conversation. Don't know if you're watching channel seven, Jarrod, but what was on? Eileen Gu. So yeah, I'm not employed by channel seven anymore. So. Um. But what a great network. What a great network. Other medals, all the medals that were decided, and actually a couple last night, well, a couple last night I say we had the women's figure skating was decided last night. So Anna Sherbakova of Rock of the Gold, Alexandra Trusova of Rock of the Silver, and Kaori Sakamoto, the Bronze. And yes, as Jarrod mentioned, the big talking point was our beloved little pill popper, Kamila Valjeva, fourth. How did she get fourth? She fell over more times than Noah does on a Friday night, and somehow she still gets fourth. This was my rant the other night about figure skating. Like, Jarrod, did you see it? Like she fell over when she walked down onto the ice. She still got fourth. She thought it was actual ice. She was probably sniffing it off the ground.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I was listening to this like, it wasn't this particular run, but it was another athlete who fell like a similar amount of times, and like the commentators going through it like, oh well, she'll lose a 0.5 deduction for the first fall, and she'll lose a 0.5 deduction for the second fall. And then as soon as you fall like three or four times, you just automatically lose like, I don't know, three points or something or other. It's just so weird. It's like we said, it's so different to other sports. Like in the half pipe, they like stumble, put their hand down like, okay, that's a dead run. Like there's no point me continuing. Whereas this, it's like, okay, I fell four times, but somehow I can still only like drop like three places on like the leaderboard. It's just, it's just weird. And it feels like there should be like more consequence. Cause it's like we said, it's like the short program basically just decides the event. What's the point of having like the long skate after it?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. And like one thing I will appreciate is I liked Belinda Noonan last night explaining exactly what you were saying. So she was saying, this is where she's got, like she made it clearer as to how you can still get points. And because she did have such a high short program, you know, I get it, it works that way. Still doesn't make it any more fucking complicated for just you, me and Colin, the armchair critics who are going to sit here and talk about it and go, well, how the fuck does she still get fourth? Like Kalani Crane didn't have the best skate the other night, but what she did the other night, thousand times better than what I saw. And I saw Kalani finish 29th, not fourth. So poor Kalani, hashtag justice for Kalani. Give Kalani a couple of heart medications. See how she performs. All right, I'm sure she can do a quadruple, triple screaming semen. Anyway, but good for Rock for getting those medals. Maybe, asterisks. The ISA is still deciding whether or not they'll get them or not. But today, we had the biathlon. Sadly, Mr. French Man did not get his sixth medal of the Olympics. But the good news is for Norway, Johanna Singers-Bow got the 15th gold for Norway. We have history, ladies and gentlemen. Norway have become the first winter Olympic nation to ever get 15 gold medals. Congratulations, Norway. I don't know where we all predicted. I think we all predicted about 80. So they're having a pretty crap Olympics, let's be honest. This is in the men's mass start, by the way, in the biathlon. Martin Ponsaluma of Sweden got the silver, and Velt Stjardt Kristansen of Norway the bronze. In the women's mass start, it was Justine Abreuze-Boucher of France, ahead of Turil Ekhoff of Norway, and Amate Olspu Roseland of Norway the bronze. In the ski cross, the men's, I didn't get to see any of this today, and I was talking to Jarrod off air about how this was, compared to the women's yesterday. We can talk about that maybe in a second, I don't know if you saw it as well, Colin Ryan Rages of Switzerland, the gold. Alex Fieber, he's got some fever. I don't know where that came from.
JARROD LOOBEEK: All right, that was Channel 7's complete coverage today.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, really was it? They were just playing Fever. Oh God, was it Fever by Kylie? Or was it like Saturday Night Fever?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I don't know if they didn't play any music, but just the whole talking point of this entire competition was just his surname. It's like, oh, everyone down here has got Friday Fever, this, that, whatever.
BEN WATERWORTH: If only I could share some of the comments that got made by the producers a lot of the time when we're off here about some of the names. And there's some fun in that. And Sergei Rydzik of ROK, the bronze. Women's half-pipe, we went over that. And the men's 1000 metres outside of Mr. Dubre. Colin, did I get that right that time? Mm-hmm. Yes, we're gonna be learning. Thomas Kroll of the Netherlands took the gold. And Havad Holmjaford-Lorenzen of, how's my Norwegian there, Jarek?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Spot on.
BEN WATERWORTH: Cool, awesome. He got the bronze. Very bloody good day for Norway. What'd they get, a gold, a silver, and three bronze? If you don't mind. Okay, party in Oslo tonight, everybody. Get on board. Just quickly, Jarrod, the Ski Cross, I know you talked about this off air, but we're on air now. Give us a bit of a rundown on what you thought of the Ski Cross. I mean, did you get the fever watching the Ski Cross?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I didn't. And I don't know if the other countries around the Australian team found it as funny as they were making out, but we'll never know. I'm sure Alex Fever gets that joke every night of the week. But no, the Ski Cross was good. I feel like there was a lot of mix ups in terms of the, in the women's, it was very much kind of like the top athletes making it deep, but in this one, it was kind of all across the board. So that was fun. And some really tight corners and some good overtaking throughout. I loved too in the small final how the start gate malfunctioned and they're like waiting to like go and then just like, just sitting there like waiting, waiting, and then it doesn't drop. And then when it eventually did drop, it was really great. The Canadian athlete pretending to go and like, and then the other competitors like, what? Oh, we meant to be going. Like it was really funny. But yeah, it was a fun event. Ski cross is great. This is one of the skiing sports that should definitely stay in the Olympics. I'm disappointed though. Where's the mixed relay in the ski cross let down? Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's discriminatory against the skiers. Why do the snowboarders get all the fun? That's a good point. Didn't think about that. Colin, did you watch the ski cross today, the men's?
COLIN HILDING: No, I'm literally just starting it right now. I had had it spoiled already for me when I woke up in the middle of the night and tuned in to curling and I saw the results. But I haven't had a chance to see any of it yet. Did we have any wipeouts as opposed to the women's ones?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I feel like there weren't many.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, because I would have thought, especially with the weather conditions, the way they've been today, it would have been a lot more brutal as far as people wiping out, crashing on the course. Which this is one of the few sports you kind of want to see that in.
BEN WATERWORTH: I might end up watching on a replay because I'm with Jarrod. I do definitely enjoy the cross races. Makes me angry.
JARROD LOOBEEK: We need to go back to six competitors per run so that we get more wipeouts.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. Did they have the weird thing like in the women's where the one eighth finals were like three races? Like it's kind of, we didn't really talk about that in the women's yesterday about how it's kind of like, before they got to the quarter, they were just three in a race. So like, where's the fun in that? So did they do that at the men's?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think so.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. Come on ISE. You can put a couple more extra in there, like fix that up there going with it. Just want to quickly touch on that. We should really maybe emphasise a little bit more. It is a pretty historical day for Norway to get 15 gold. This is a pretty big deal. I mean, obviously yes, kind of Colin, what you were talking about before, the argument is, well, there are more events to win. So of course they're going to win more gold. Like Norway weren't winning 15 gold in St. Moritz, were they? Like there's more events to win. There's more opportunities to do it. So it makes more sense. But I mean, this is pretty groundbreaking. It was obviously groundbreaking when Canada did it back in Vancouver to get to 14 for the first time. But now it's obviously up to 15 for the first time. I mean, Jarrod is a proud Norwegian man. I mean, how do you think you should be celebrating Norway? And what do you think of Norway cracking the magical 15 gold medals for the first time at a Winter Olympics?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think kind of we knew that it was going to happen at some point with sports. And it's the fact that it's not just the gold medals, like they're just doing well across the board. And yes, cross country is their main sport, but they're picking up medals elsewhere as well. So I think very impressive.
BEN WATERWORTH: Colin, thoughts on Norway getting to 15?
COLIN HILDING: Good old Norway. I mean, how many of the new sports have they meddled in in these Olympics? I don't even know if we have a number on that.
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, they have done better in things like freestyle skiing and snowboard, I think, than most people probably assume. Like, you know, you think of Norway as a traditional nation is like, yeah, Jaroslav saying like cross country.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, like literally the new sports word added just for this Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Keep talking and I will tell you.
COLIN HILDING: All right, well, because I kind of agree with Jarrod. I think that you can't take away from the overall medals they're winning. And they're winning in a lot more than traditional ones. And also overall medals of all time. I mean, that all happened before these Olympics too. So, I mean, they are the goat of countries. So good for you, Norwegian. And also, was it JT Bowe, was he the one who pushed them to 15, you said?
BEN WATERWORTH: That pushed the 15? That won the 15? Like, what was the question?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, was he number 15?
BEN WATERWORTH: Was he number 15?
COLIN HILDING: In the math start?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yes.
BEN WATERWORTH: Like, was he the number on his bib? He won the 15th. All right, that's the question. I'm thinking like, did he have the bib number 15? Like, how good do you think I am at my job? Like, I'm not that good. Like, was he 15 once? Yes, I'm sure he turned 15 once. Does he like the number? Sure, I'll get him on the line.
COLIN HILDING: On that note, is this not his fourth gold medal of these Olympics for one man?
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know if it's his fourth gold, but it might be his fourth medal. It is his fourth. Holy crap, you should get a job as a researcher, Colin. Yeah, it is, yes, well done.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, almost a third of the medals that they've won has been from one man. What a man. I'm saying right now, this is my Daily Dale of the Day. I don't know, we were starting to run out of options at this point, but if he's not Daily Dale, I'm putting him up for Athlete of the Games. I mean, four gold medals, and he wins the magical number 15. That's a man right there.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think there's another biathlete who I would get mine on for Athlete of the Games, but I mean, I've literally put him down as my Daily Dale as A, I didn't get to watch much today, so I don't really have much of a choice, and B, I put him up because of the 15th gold thing. So I mean, sure, we'll go with that. Just on a quick little skim through the new events, I believe the mixed relay in the biathlon was it the first time that had been held at these Olympics? No, it isn't. Okay, nevermind. I was gonna say they won that one, but I don't know where else they would have come through on that. I mean, newish events, mixed curling, newish, silver and that.
COLIN HILDING: But at least we can't, so this isn't like an Eileen Gu where it's like, the first one never went free, freestyle. Like this is, it's irrelevant that the newer events or brand new events are a factor into this because that's not where the 15 come from.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, true. I mean, they're very like, I don't know if you were on the episode the other day when I was talking about this, but it kind of like, Australia at the Winter Olympics, for example, like if you are to remove our medals from the sports that have been introduced since 1994, we have only ever won one Winter Olympic medal in a traditional original sport.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, that's similar to Canada because even in Winter Olympics, outside of something like hockey, we were nowhere on the map until freestyle skiing was introduced. And since freestyle skiing is introduced, I think Canada still, I don't know, we'll have to see at the end of these Olympics, but Canada was like number one on the all time freestyle medals, freestyle skiing medals for the last 28 years. But without that, Canada would be nowhere.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, you wouldn't be anyway, because let's be honest, we put Canada on the map here on Off The Podium before we came about. No one gave a shit about Canada. They were like, oh, that's just that other place near America. But now, here we are.
COLIN HILDING: Can we go back a few days and just say how glad I am that of all people was Charles Hamlin who got us a gold medal? Because I don't think I've seen any other athletes who have been this much fun to watch winning the gold. Like if you saw their podium pose, with like him jumping up in the air and the other guy's on point. I want that mounted on my wall. And then the video that they released, it's like everybody's wondering what would have happened if we hadn't won this. Now you'll never know when they turn back and everybody's just cheering and screaming. Wow, they know how to work the camera.
BEN WATERWORTH: You know why they did it though. It's because it was nothing to do with Charles Hamlin. It's the fact that they won off the podium's first gold medal. That's what it was. That's all right. I kind of say that now that I am in a normal environment that I can yell and scream, that Charles Hamlin won off the podium's first gold medal. In the words of Tess Cody, yeah!
COLIN HILDING: We kept saying, is he gonna be done now? Basically, he has officially announced his retirement now, and it has nothing to do with tying Cindy Closs's record, being in that six-medal club, one behind Penny Alexiak. It is just off the bone. He won us a medal, and now he feels free to retire.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. That was the one thing off his bucket list. He was literally like, Oh, I've won so many medals, but it's off the podium. I've got to win them a gold. And he did. Eric's not going to do it in the pairs. So Charles came along and did it as a service. Thank you, Charles. Now, Colin, get him back on the show so I can interview him as well. I haven't talked to him before.
COLIN HILDING: Watch Eric Radford and Vanessa James are going to win gold, and Charles Hamlin is going to retract his retirement and announce he's coming back to Milan.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly.
COLIN HILDING: I need to be the first back to back off the podium gold winner.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. Now that we have ticked it off the list, we've got to put more pressure on them. Jarrod, as a can't carrying Team Slovakia fan, how are you feeling today? We really should have checked in with you first to see how you're doing. Have you gotten a lot of online bullying? Do you need to put something on Instagram to make it all about you?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, no, I've cancelled all my social media accounts because of all the bullying and hate. Tough one. The highs of the win against the US.
BEN WATERWORTH: You face a real hockey nation, like Finland.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It started my love of the Slovakian team, and now I'm off the bandwagon. Annie in that fan card, my house is stupid, stupid sport, stupid team, never liked them anyway.
BEN WATERWORTH: Burning jerseys in the street, sending anthrax to Bratislava. Fuck you, Slovakia.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I still hopeful that they can come home with a bronze, but I'm not feeling it so much anymore. But if they pull off the bronze medal win, I'll be back on the bandwagon.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I can say that breaking news in the ice hockey as to who you will play in the bronze medal match at the end of the first period, it is Rock, Neil, Sweden, Neil. So, I'm cheering for team Sweden to play team Finland in the gold medal match. And I am then cheering for Slovakia to beat Rock in the bronze medal match. Colin, what is Canada's reaction to Finland beating Slovakia?
COLIN HILDING: There's no reaction yet because we won a whole bunch of medals after that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, fuck Finland, fuck Slovakia.
COLIN HILDING: I woke up in the middle of the night. Thank you again, Casper, for that. Sleep deprived because of one child and it's not even the babies. But when I woke up in the middle of the night, the curling was going on at that point and the score came up and I immediately looked at it, I'm like, oh, well, that's too bad. But this is complete side note and I know it's not what you're meaning by that, but I almost feel bad at this point that all the Russian athletes are getting grouped in because of the whole Camilla drama. There are so many clean athletes that are competing in these games who just nobody's rooting for now. And this kind of going along with the figure skating, where people saying, oh, none of these Russian skaters should be allowed to compete. I'm like, well, is that fair to say? I mean, if they work hard to get there, this would be like after Seoul Korea, if they cancelled the entire Canadian track and field team because of Ben Johnson or...
BEN WATERWORTH: Is it though? I can see what... But like I see what you're saying. I agree with you on the one games thing. Like don't lump an entire nation down based on one athlete at a game. My issue though is that when your entire country got into trouble for having systematic doping and kind of destroying the entire image of your nation over the last decade, that you literally are competing under whatever country the IRC decides to call you at these Olympics, that maybe there's always gonna be question marks on your athletes no matter what. That's my issue with Russian athletes.
COLIN HILDING: I 100% agree, there should be question marks, you know? But the decisions of an Olympic committee and athletes who have already been banned, I don't think should immediately affect everybody else. Who is there clean? All these people have been tested immediately after the games, and one athlete has tested positive or something. It's unfortunate, it's a 15-year-old girl, so a lot of these rules don't apply. But there's a lot of other athletes that, you know, I would still be pulling, I'm not saying that I would hate it if Sweden won. It would be incredible if Russia, the number one team, ends up not making the gold medal match, then we really have something up in the air for hockey. But I mean, if Russia goes all the way and wins gold again, I'll still be rooting for them.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's, look, I do honestly feel bad for the majority of the Russian athletes who are clean. Of course I do. But it's just like, it's just this whole situation with Camilla. It comes down to the fact of like, it's not like they've discovered that she took some new drug that Russia have snuck under the rug and it's only just been discovered. It's like, when you were taking the same drugs, when you were not learning from your mistakes and you were getting caught, like that's where I'm like, come on Russia. Like just come on. Just, there are different drugs to fix your heart problems. Like come on. Like Ukraine doesn't need to be invaded. Like just stop it, okay Russia? Just take a step back and look at yourselves. Like you were doing so well in the world. People were starting to like you. Now you just, you've ruined it. Please don't nuke me. I do actually really like Russia. Yeah, poor 15 year old girl. But like I love the fact that Sweden have never lost a semi-final in men's ice hockey. So there's that little stat for you there. But I'm all on board Team Finland. I've said that from the get go. If Canada doesn't win, I'm on the Finnish train. If there's one, even Colin, you as a hockey fan, I've got to say, if there's one nation that deserves a gold medal in men's ice hockey, it is Finland.
COLIN HILDING: Yes. I would say Canada, but if you're talking about-
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I feel like your country's never won one, Colin. Canada have a few of those already. Oh, Canada, they're just such a thunk. They haven't won since 2014. They have never won since 2014. The poor Finns are sitting there in Helsinki going, when are we going to win our gold medal? We are very upset.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Listen to how upset they are.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's how they sound, all right? We are going to riot in the streets of Helsinki if we don't win the gold medal. Like, that's how they speak.
COLIN HILDING: If Timoselani was there, I would 100% be behind Finland, even over Canada. I'll say that. He's not there, but I like Finland. Nothing against them. I'll be very happy if they can finally win.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know Jarrod's Norwegian.
COLIN HILDING: It is a hockey nation, right?
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, absolutely it is. I know Jarrod's Norwegian hates the Finns. Norway didn't exactly qualify for these Olympics, so therefore you can't really... But the thing is, I'm like quarter Swedish, so I love the Swedes as well. Sweden are always amazing, I'm gonna root for. So go for them. And Slovakia, the Finns. And I legitimately do not dislike Russia. I don't. If Hvitschkin was playing, I'd probably be rooting for them more. I love Hvitschkin. Who doesn't love Hvitschkin? Probably the only clean Russian in the world. I don't know. But, well, I mean, he's a bit of a drunk, but hey, as he should be, he plays Washington. But the point is, I actually don't dislike any of the four countries left. It's not like Britain made it. But can we just take a moment in time to once again say that Britain have not won any medals at these Olympics. What a day to be alive. And when Scotland win them their first medal tomorrow, be it a silver or a gold in the curling, we will celebrate Scotland winning their first medal of these Olympics. So in your face, Britain, can't win a medal. New Zealand are beating you. In the Winter Olympics, Britain, probably actually makes sense. Again, I think New Zealand has more snow. But anyway, whatever, we're here. We're doing this. Where were we?
COLIN HILDING: Can I quickly, I'm going to quickly interrupt because I remembered something I don't want to forget. We were talking about the biathlon. So when I fell back asleep last night, it was in the middle of the biathlon, which by the way, very briefly, Scott and Christian Gao, number one and number two, it sort of fell apart after that.
BEN WATERWORTH: It was mostly a beautiful thing. I hope you realise that's not how it ended.
COLIN HILDING: Well, I'm sorry. The other day, you kind of gave the Daily Gale to a guy who was briefly in the lead for Ireland. So I thought we could acknowledge the lead briefly as the best.
BEN WATERWORTH: The Irish skier, Colin, for God's sake, that's like saying a Canadian got a wicket in cricket. Like for fuck's sake, we're celebrating that.
COLIN HILDING: If we had number one and number two, that's the best result Canada's ever had in bathroom. But anyways, to decide the points.
BEN WATERWORTH: If you played Australia in cricket, and you were winning for one over, I would give you like the world award for everything. All right, that's the legitimacy of that. So come on. Anyway, if we would beat you in hockey for five seconds, give us a medal.
COLIN HILDING: Ben's really embracing being able to yell again.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's great, I can yell.
COLIN HILDING: He's not even upset. He's just very happy to be raising his voice.
BEN WATERWORTH: Fucking Karen.
COLIN HILDING: So I fell asleep once I realised Scott and Christian were probably going to be out of it. And I had a dream that I was competing in the biathlon, and it was just a local thing or whatever. But I was ahead and I remember like partway through and for whatever reason, I was on the phone to Jamie. I'm like, Jamie, I'm winning the biathlon right now. And it wasn't even winter in my dream. It was summer and my skis were like on pavement. I'm thinking like, is this going to survive it? And I called her up and like, they're telling me that I'm actually, I'm on Olympic times right now. And guess what happened? A bunch of people came out. I'm like, I don't know where I'm going. They're like, it's this way, it's this way. And they led me upstairs into the attic of their house. And I'm like, oh no, this is really suspicious here. And I'm like, I'm off course and I was completely out of it. I failed, but yeah, that was my, I almost became the greatest Canadian biathlete of all time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I think the message in there Colin, is don't make a phone call in the middle of an Olympic biathlon race. Like I don't, I don't see the Beau brothers going, oh yeah, I'm winning the biathlon Sven. Tune in now to Channel 7 Norway. Like, that's why you ended up in an attic.
COLIN HILDING: You know, the other problem is that they didn't give us a gun. I was throwing darts in it. Like that was the really problem.
JARROD LOOBEEK: You can tell this is a real local version of the biathlon.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, well you see, this is what, that's why Canada doesn't do as well, because we're not a gun nation. You give us darts and Canada's gonna be dominating in the biathlon.
BEN WATERWORTH: Canadian biathlon. It's always through the darts of the bullseye. You know what, probably more exciting than the women's half-pipe in skiing today. So, but Eileen Gu couldn't do the dart biathlon. She can do that though. Bit more respect for her, you know? You know who couldn't do it? Mikaela Shiffrin. She can't do anything. We really are never getting her on the show. I wouldn't want her on the show. I want someone good on the show, all right? Is it enough time to keep bagging around, or am I getting into bullying territory? She gonna post more of my comments.
JARROD LOOBEEK: You may as well get on the show because the curse isn't gonna do anything.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, we'll probably get on the show as you win. Let's start getting the shit athletes on the show, and then actually start winning. Let's get that Irish cross-country skier on. But he's not shit, he finished, he finished. He did what Mikaela Shiffrin couldn't do. He finished the skiing race. All right, Irish cross-country skier, better than Mikaela Shiffrin. Simple.
COLIN HILDING: She finished a percentage of the time, give her a percentage of the time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Two of them doesn't count. More than 50% she crashed. I lasted longer on skis than she did in Beijing. Come on.
COLIN HILDING: I feel even worse for her now because of Ben being able to yell at me.
BEN WATERWORTH: She'll make a post about it. Don't worry. Come on. Who else are we meant to rip shit into? Lindsay's retired. Fucking Ryan Lochte's, I don't know, kidnapped again. Tell me who else I'm meant to bag out. Oh, Lochte, what a man. He, and he knows it too. How do you think he would go in the dart biathlon? Well, man, so I was skiing around and all of a sudden there was this dart. It came right at me. It's like kidnapping me or something, man. Like, whoa, I'm Ryan Lochte. I miss him. I miss his beautiful grey hair. Probably actually literally grey right now. So yes, Canadian and we don't really have many Australian results. Literally Bree and Kiara, Off The Podium's Bree and Kiara are in the bobsled right now. And they are currently sitting in fifth, but there's still like five competitors to go. So they'll be in, oh, they've improved though. They've gone up a few spots, Jarrod. They were 15th. So it looks like they'll be in about 11th or 12th right now. That's good for Bree and Kiara, right?
JARROD LOOBEEK: That is good. They're already ahead of three teams that went down after them. So yeah, looking promising.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's what Bree does, right? She just, she starts off slow and then builds her way up.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, we all know that she's the only person in the, in the bob because she was the only person who was getting coverage. Tonight it's bobsled Bree and someone else.
BEN WATERWORTH: That random woman who is from the desert, who only saw snow like three months ago. I believe she was on Off The Podium.
JARROD LOOBEEK: She couldn't get further away from the snow if she tried.
BEN WATERWORTH: Nine hours from Perth. Well, she probably could get further away if she tried. Like, she's just in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I think that's probably further away than if she was in Perth. Yeah. Come on, Channel 7, pick your game up. I know I've left, but I mean, come on, you can do better than that. Jesus, if you've got some other good researchers still there, just because you got rid of the shit one, you should be doing better. Anyway, so that's the Australian result. Canadians in action today that didn't win medals, not many, but you didn't have any in the women's biathlon. So there was no Christine Gow, unfortunately. But Christian Gow was 13th in the 15K mass start. Jules Bernot was 18th, and Scotty Gow off the podiums, Scott Gow was 25th. So you're trying.
COLIN HILDING: But he was briefly first. Let's just remind people of that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Briefly first, the new podcast coming soon by Colin Hilding. Breaking news.
COLIN HILDING: I think Christian was in the mix. I just wanna say Christian was in the mix all the way up until the last shooting station. So there was a chance for him the whole way. So let's not knock them. Well, again, sure it's not Stephen Bradbury, but I mean, it's still the greatest result in the history of biathlon for Canada from two brothers who continue to deliver day after day after day, kilometre after kilometre after kilometre.
BEN WATERWORTH: I completely agree with you. And I don't wanna put shit on Scott and Christian. They're great guys. And I legitimately mean that. I wanna tell a really quick Stephen Bradbury story based on what my interaction happened with yesterday. So I met Stephen Bradbury for the first time about two days ago. Very briefly, sort of he was leaving as I was leaving. You know, how you doing, Ben? You know, great, awesome. Great little conversation. Two days later, he comes in, you know, walks in. First thing he always does is he's got his own beer. Like last man standing beer, now available. Puts it in the fridge. And then he sort of walks in, says hello to everyone, sees me, comes up. Hey, I'm Steve. Who are you? Doesn't remember who I am. He met me two days beforehand. I'm like, fuck, there it is. I'm like, Steve, you met me two days ago.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Remember, COVID Ben?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I was gonna say, if you just said, hi, I'm COVID Ben, he would have remembered.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, but after that, we hit it off, Steve and I, buddies.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Me and drinks are missing when he came in in the morning.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I finished his-
COLIN HILDING: He was loaded, that's why he didn't recognise you.
BEN WATERWORTH: When I say I finished the six pack that he gave me, he actually only gave me four, because apparently he had already drunk two of them.
COLIN HILDING: Wait, was one of them open? Is that the type of guy he is? Oh, you know what, so after this one, let's give it to COVID, Ben. Make him feel better.
BEN WATERWORTH: The best bit about any of my Stephen Bradbury stories over the last 24 hours is I got my photo with Stephen, sent it to my dad, just like sent him a picture of me and Stephen Bradbury. My dad literally replies with, who's that? Like, wow, dad, wow, good job. I think Colin would have recognised who that was. So there you go. But the good news is, talk to Steve about our show. And he said he would come on if he can talk about his beer. So 90% of the chat will be about his beer. I might get a question or two in about winning gold medal at the Olympics. Maybe, don't know. We'll see how we go.
COLIN HILDING: We asked Apollo Ono enough about Stephen Bradbury winning gold. I also want to picture Stephen Bradbury just like, oh, you know what? I'm feeling bad that I forgot COVID Ben today. Give him the other half of my tuna sandwich. Oh, I've licked half of this popsicle. There's still some left on the stick. Give it to COVID Ben.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just COVID Ben, I'm Channel 7's former number three employee, basically, so.
COLIN HILDING: You got half eaten leftovers? Give it to COVID Ben.
BEN WATERWORTH: Can't taste them, so what does it matter? Breaking news in the curling, the women's semifinals are on right now. After seven ends, Sweden seven, Britain seven, and after seven ends, Japan six, Switzerland five. So, ooh, also going on there. So come on, Sweden. And can we also just point out our beloved Osk Ericsson, by making the final, will win his fourth medal in curling, which I believe is a record. And his skip, I can't remember his name, let's just call him Sven Abba. He's going for his third medal as well. So good job. And Joe, I believe you learned about that watching Channel 7 today. I wonder how you learned about those facts. Who do you think told Joanna Griggs those facts to read on air today?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I don't know, couldn't be you, could it? You were fired by that time.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, they don't remember who I am. Good call, Jarrod, well done. Jarrod wins the episode today. Great, great job. In the figure skating, two Canadian pairs, Off The Podium's Eric Radford and Vanessa James are in 12th after the short program and Michael Maranaro and Kirsten Moore Towers are 13th. This is a very odd situation in this, the fact that they still have qualifying, but only two pairs don't make it or three don't because one withdrew. So what is the deal? What is the point of having qualifying? You may as well just shove them all in. I feel bad here for the Czech pair of Martin Bada and Jela Zatava-Zukova and the Austrian pair of Severin Kiefer. Oh, come on, Jack Bauer was skating out there today and Miriam Zeigler, they don't get to fucking go into the final. Poor, poor Kiefer Sutherland. But Kong Han and Wei Jingxiu of China are leading that one at the moment.
COLIN HILDING: I wanted to quickly say what's great about Eric Radford skating. Like first of all, this was a pair that was put together. I mean, it was less than a year ago that they were put together. So nobody had high expectations for them, but CBC has decided they really want to, especially on the figure skating side, they're really putting all the stars out there in the individual events. We had Tessa and Scott during the ice dancing. We had Caitlin Osbyn, who's a two-time medallist for us in the women's. And they've decided they want to put Eric Radford's former partner, Megan DeHamel on commentary for Eric Radford skating, which is great because, I mean, if you remember the interview with him, the research we had off there, she was very angry about this. And he even addressed some of her frustrations with him on the air. She was pretty nice from what I've seen just in the intro, but I've yet to watch the entire program to see if the claws are gonna be out.
BEN WATERWORTH: Until the audio goes off and then everything gets thrown and lost there. In the half part, there was another Canadian, Amy Fraser was eighth in that one. The Ski Cross, so basically all the Canadians made it through to the quarters, but then basically all of them, except for Brady Layman got eliminated in the quarters. Reese Howden eliminated in the quarterfinals. Jared Schmid, Old Schmitty, he went out in the quarters. And Kevin Drury, he had a Drury day, went back to Drury Lane and hung out with the fever guy. He was out. And in the semis, Brady Layman was a bit lay, lame, man. Just don't, Ben.
COLIN HILDING: That's a reigning medallist for Canada, you leave Brady alone.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, Mikaela Shiffrin, these Olympics, isn't he? Cause he only got six overall, second in the big final. So put a post on Instagram about a Brady, make it about you. So anyway, he tried his best. Good on you, champ, well done. In the 1,000 metres outside of Laurent, Laurent, Laurent, Connor Howe, well, how did he do? 12. And Antoine Gelinas, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh. 22nd, this is why I don't present on channel seven. Mentioned. Today, headline news, Antoine Gelinas, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, for Canada, finishes 22nd in the speed skating. Apparently, I was so enamoured by the half-pipe, I've got the results up twice. So good job for me there. And in the bobsleigh, currently Christine De Bruyne is sitting in second. Well, her and her partner, which of course is the great Kristen Bushnowski, they are currently sitting in second place. Canada's traitor, Kayleigh Humphries, is sled is in third presently. And Cynthia, Cynthia, Cynthia, Cynthia, she's a really cool dancer, sorry. Cynthia Pia and Dawn Richardson-Wilson are in sixth. And your other Canadian pair is being beaten by Australia. Pick it up, Canada. Melissa Lotholes and Sarah Villani are in 14th place. But the good news is Britain are 17th out of 18. So there you go.
COLIN HILDING: What's their excuse going to be for that?
BEN WATERWORTH: What's their excuse or what's my excuse?
COLIN HILDING: Well, what's their excuse going to be?
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, I don't know. They're English. Yeah, they're exactly. They winch more than we do. You know, that's saying something. Australians winch too much. That's where we get it from, from our parents over there in the UK. What did we watch today, gentlemen? Let's start with you, Colin.
COLIN HILDING: Everything we've talked about. I mean, I've watched almost everything today. The biathlon, the men's bronze medal curling. I finally finished the ski cross. That was pretty good. Worth the wait. And the half pipe, sadly. Although it was, I mean, successful for Canada. So I was happy to watch that. But I still have yet to watch the Slovakia and Finland. So I don't know if it was close at all. Did either of you actually get to see that?
BEN WATERWORTH: I saw the first goal.
COLIN HILDING: Like, I don't know if that was like, you know, why nothing at the end of the game?
BEN WATERWORTH: I look, I'll jump in. So Jarrod can answer that probably because I'm sure, I don't know if he watched more of it than I probably did. I literally got on in a taxi to the airport at the end of the first period, and Finland were pretty much in control of the whole first period from what I saw. So I don't know if that changed much after that, Jarrod, or not, or if you did watch the final two periods.
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, it felt to me like pretty similar, that Finland were just in the driver's seat the whole way through, like Savahia just couldn't. They didn't have that many shots, and then the shots they did weren't that great.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's what I like to hear.
JARROD LOOBEEK: My great hockey knowledge, you know.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, and actually breaking news, breaking news in the ice hockey. Rock one, Sweden, nil.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, rock it up, Rock. Those doping jerks.
BEN WATERWORTH: Stop using your heart pills, Rock. This is where we need Mack Horton to come in and protest.
COLIN HILDING: I can just see Camilla there in the locker room in between periods, sticking needles in their arms.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, come here, fellow players. Let's stick you in the needle. Is a 15 year old allowed to say that to grown men? That's Russia. They can get away with a lot more. That's why I'm moving it.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, Ben's allowed to say that to 15 year olds, so why not?
BEN WATERWORTH: In Russia, I can, absolutely. It's, you know, 15 year olds in Russia. Jesus Christ, that's grandma territory. Come on. Jarrod, what did you watch today?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think I also caught a little bit of everything. I didn't watch a whole heap of the bath bomb, but I did see a bit of it. Caught the curling, caught the half pipe multiple times, the ski cross, the ice hockey, and the thousand metres in the speed skating as well.
BEN WATERWORTH: I saw the half pipe, because that's all that was on in my last shift. I saw a bit of the ice hockey. I'm seeing the bobsled right now. That's about all I've seen today. Can I just say, Melbourne Airport doesn't show any Winter Olympics. So going off in Australia, and Tess Cody arrived back today. I saw that if I had been at the airport a couple of hours previously. This is the Ben Waterworth winch once again. If I was able to work tonight at Channel 7, I could have hung out with Dean and Jackie. They were both in studio tonight on the Summer Chill. And if I had got to go to the airport, if they had sent me home a couple of hours earlier, I would have got to see Tess Cody. So, you know, put me in the middle. Thanks. Thanks, Channel 7. Actually legitimately, thank you, Channel 7. I had a great time. That's what I watched and I'm watching myself winch right now. Thales, today. Jarrod, anything?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I had the great moment tonight from the Summer Chill, where Jackie Cooper accused Dean Hewitt of killing his mother when she asked him. When she asked him, she was talking about how he obviously switched partners and he used to be in a mixed team with his mum. And she was like, so Dean, how did you off your mum?
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, Jackie, good job.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Which was a great moment. So she's obviously looking for tips to go on a murder spree. I don't know if this was a fail, but it's back on the Eileen Gu train. And it just, the piano segment, I just, I'm sorry, this is like a pet peeve that every time there's like a professional athlete, there's this amazement that they're talented in like other areas of life. It's like, they're a professional athlete. Obviously they're super focused and committed to something. Does it not make sense that that would also carry over into other aspects of their life? And just in the interview moment of like, we saw a snippet earlier of you playing piano. Is there anything that you can't do? I'm like, please, like it's not groundbreaking that she can be good at like multiple things in life. It just really bugs me.
BEN WATERWORTH: You're feeling my frustration at the Eileen then again, like I legitimately would love it. If a network could be like, here's Michael Phelps, you know, look at him, look at him go. So Michael just got some footage to show. Remember that time you smoked a bong and then just like showed him like doing shit stuff or like, hey, I don't know, Bo brother, you're pretty good for gold medals at these Olympics, you're doing well. But here's some dick pics you used to send to small children. What's with that? Like, why can't we show them? I'm not saying he does. But I mean, that was the first words. Shit, I've just lost the Bo brother interview, haven't I? I'm just accusing him of sending dick pics to kids. He doesn't.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: He doesn't do it.
BEN WATERWORTH: He doesn't do it.
COLIN HILDING: This is Larry the Cable Guy all over again, and everybody's looking to the off now.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, Norwegians are too perfect. All right, we've gone over this. They're good at the summer. They're good at winter. They're just, they're the best in the world, Norway. They probably play the piano. He doesn't send dick pics to kids. All right, he doesn't do it. No.
COLIN HILDING: Does anybody think Eileen Gu is gonna be competing for Norway in the next Olympics?
BEN WATERWORTH: Who knows what she's gonna wake up tomorrow. She's probably gonna be competing for Tonga or something. I don't know. I honestly think she's competing for the US in the next Olympics. Like it'll be this big shock, breaking news, Eileen to compete for the USA. And it's like, yeah, I wonder why are you gonna do that, love? Like, you know, come on. Like, you watch NBC sometimes, Colin, like, I mean, have you seen anything enough to even remotely see if America gives a shit about Eileen? Or like, is it legitimately only Australia that gives a shit about Eileen Gu?
COLIN HILDING: No, she's getting more coverage on NBC than she is CBC. But what you guys are describing, I thought you were joking a lot of the time, but it sounds like you're 100% real that she is your biggest star. I don't know if China is getting as much coverage on Eileen Gu as you are.
BEN WATERWORTH: But this is the thing which, like, I find fascinating about it, is because, like, there are, this sounds, how I'm gonna put this, when I say there are legitimate Chinese athletes who have done really well at these Olympics, who we are not focusing on, and yet Eileen Gu, who, like, I'm not saying she's not legitimately Chinese, I get it, she's got, you know, Chinese heritage, she's got Chinese parents, she lives in China, I get it, I'm not saying she's not Chinese. But, like, she's more, I think, Americanised than the average Chinese athlete.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: So therefore, it makes it easier. Because she would have, Yeah.
COLIN HILDING: She would have, by default, been competing for America, but she was invited. I think that's the difference, whereas we have our aerial gear.
BEN WATERWORTH: Colin, Colin. Invited.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. And when we start to see the car she's driving and the houses she's living in in the next six months, we're going to realise how invited she was.
BEN WATERWORTH: Because I don't know about you, but all of those famous Chinese teen bikini models that you see, all the, like, I mean, myriad of them everywhere you see, like, right? Just, it's a common thing that China loves seeing their, you know, teenage girls on the cover of Vogue and bikinis. Commonplace in China.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's free and open country. They love it. Yeah, so 100 percent. She is as Chinese as Jackie Chan. Like, just like, just absolutely all about her beloved People's Republic of China. She loves them to bits. She's like, oh, my God, I'm so pleased to have won these gold medals for China. I love China. It's my favourite country.
COLIN HILDING: That is exactly how she sounds too, that's incredible.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, everyone.
COLIN HILDING: I'm happy to be Chinese.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm Eileen Gu speaking in my traditional Chinese accent. This is the only time I'm ever allowed to impersonate a Chinese person on this show and get away with it because I legitimately am doing the traditional Eileen Gu Chinese. Hey, everyone, come down to the People's Republic of China. We can go to Beijing. We can go to the Great Wall of China. Let's go see those terracotta statues and our great traditional Chinese culture of Mulan. What a great movie that is, the animated one. The real one was kind of shit, but look how great I am in China.
COLIN HILDING: I'm Norweigas biggest star, Eileen Gu. Listen to my Norweigan accent from the country of Norweigia.
BEN WATERWORTH: And now in 2030, I'm competing for Uzbekistan. Look at all that great Uzbek.
COLIN HILDING: Vancouver 2030, Jamaica's got a bobsled team and it's led by Eileen Gu.
BEN WATERWORTH: She's literally, and then all of a sudden in like 2034, when she retires having competed for, I don't know, Egypt, they're gonna be like, oh, the GOAT of the Olympics, she's won 20 gold medals for eight different countries. No one can ever top that. Well, yes, they can. Michael Phelps could come out of retirement when he's eight gold in every single race. Like in the 50 metres, I'm gonna swim for America. In the 100 metres, Butterfly, I'm swimming for Japan. In the 200 backstroke, fucking, I'm swimming for Laos. Just fucking switch it all. I legitimately love that with What's-A-Face Humphreys, the whole like, oh, she's created history by becoming the first ever female winter. It's not a hard record to break. You've got four years to move to another country and get a different citizenship. Not that hard, Dale McShiff did it, and so he should. What a man. Don't bag out the Dale men. I'm losing track of where we're up to in this show. Fails, anything on CBC, Colin?
COLIN HILDING: There's one which was a terrible joke during the, this was yesterday, the Women's Ski Cross, and always great, again, to have the legends on there. Kelsey Sirwa, who was the silver in ski cross in Sochi, and then the gold in Pyeongchang. So she was the defending gold medallist who didn't show up. But she was in commentary and had, everybody's probably heard at some point or another in every country, a Wu Tang joke during these Olympics. Hers was like particularly bad. It's like, why is the start line loved by all the kids? And initially, because Wu Tang for the children, I'm like, oh, that is the most overdone joke of these entire Olympics. Is Wu Tang Clan not a thing there? Have you not heard this?
BEN WATERWORTH: I know who the Wu Tang Clan is, but I can't say that Channel 7's coverage has been filled with a Wu Tang. I mean, too much Eileen Gu, I think.
COLIN HILDING: Not the coverage, but like all over the internet, this is all you see, there's merchandise that's been made with Wu Tang for the children, stuff for the games. It's kind of on hold, but her delivery of it was so bad that it was basically her like, and then the other guy, aha, okay. But the one that I particularly liked, and this kind of reminded me of an Australian commentary joke, the way that you describe it.
BEN WATERWORTH: What's this got? What's that meant to me, Colin?
COLIN HILDING: Well, you'll get who I want to take you. It's very well, I want to take you. So when Cassie Sharp finished, I think it was her second run or her third run, our commentator here went, that's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, we like it, Cassie Sharp. Whoo, that is very who I want to take you. So very cringe-worthy, not necessarily funny today. Just like, come on, just stop already.
BEN WATERWORTH: I hear that a lot, actually. I mean, again, even not as an employee, can I just say Channel 7 knocked it out of the park. Absolutely brilliant, so good, just amazing. I'm saying this until I get my last pay. So like, I do want to get that money for actually working over the last couple of weeks. But I have a fun Channel 7 story to tell you, which I'm apparently allowed to tell you. So I have been told that there is-
COLIN HILDING: You have to get cleared to get permission for this?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, okay, so I will say, I was told this story, and then I legitimately asked the question, like, can I tell that on the podcast? I'm like, yeah, I think it's pretty much public knowledge. So it was not public knowledge, and this is some Channel 7 secret that I'm about to break, then I'm not employed by them anymore, so it was a fun time. Basically, apparently it was greed upon, some point in the 90s, there was like an in-joke, where I don't know who it was, but they created a fake name that had to be included in every single, like, Olympics coverage, and every sporting coverage that they could do it. So if I'm not mistaken, the name was Helmut Schmeller, like a German sounding name, and that somehow they have to work it into every single Olympics coverage. So apparently, I think it was Dave Colbert in the ski cross yesterday, dropped it by saying something like, and of course, this course is monitored by the German doctor, Helmut Schmeller. And apparently it's a thing. Apparently it's been, like, successfully dropped into at least every Olympics since Atlanta. And I don't know if it's just purely Olympics thing or just other sporting things too, but if you are watching Channel 7's coverage and you ever hear anybody reference somebody called Helmut Schmeller, that is a fake name that is dropped into every Olympics coverage. It's kind of like a challenge for the commentators to do every single Olympics. So there's your fun fact that Pem Waterworth learnt.
COLIN HILDING: We want to thank Off The Podium head researcher Jack Smiggins for that fact too.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. What a man Jack Smiggins is. He just works his ass off. Just dear old Jack. How's his Twitter feed going, by the way, Colin?
COLIN HILDING: I tried to check it the other day and it logged me out and I couldn't remember the password.
BEN WATERWORTH: You know who would? Jack Smiggins would remember his own password. Jack Smiggins. Yeah, exactly. Breaking news in the bobsleigh. So the second round is over. Germany one, Germany two, Helmut Schmeller number one, Helmut Schmeller number two. America are third, but not that traitorous bastard, Kayleigh Humphreys, Alayna Mose-Taylor is third, Canada fourth, Christine De Bruyne, and Australia, Brie Walker, again, as we said, she's done a Brie Walker. She's moved up three spots. So she'll be ninth by the end of the third run. So 12th there, and Australia's highest ever finishing that is 14th. So there's a fun fact that I remembered from my actual work during these Olympics. I feel bad for Ash. I really do feel bad for her. I can't imagine what it must be like for her watching this right now. Shout out to Ash, if you're listening. That's a woman. She can push a lot of things. Eight, seven, Sweden are beating Britain right now in the curling at the end of the eighth end. And Japan, seven, Switzerland, five. So Japan never made the final before. I think only South Korea, the only Asian nation to make a curling final. They did that back in Pyeongchang, did they not? So there's a bit of a boil. Is curling, as the curling expert on the show, Colin, is curling actually played much in Asian countries? Do you know? I mean, obviously they do all right in Japan and Korea if they can make Olympic semi-finals. But I mean, is this a thing?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I honestly don't know. I don't see them often. I mean, I think there probably was a lot of attention. They came off. But here's the thing, I was gonna say a lot of attention came on it because of Pyeongchang, but then now as Canada's learning, Jennifer Jones is like the hero of sports in Japan, and they wouldn't have even seen her in the Olympics since 2014. So it could be a widely watched sport. I don't think we've really seen a lot of teams compete though at this level outside of Korea and now Japan.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wait till you see the Oceania contingent. It's held up. You know, Dean and Tari.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, it's gonna explode. I mean, we're gonna have Lisa Carrington and Zoi as the new mixed doubles, same gender mixed doubles.
BEN WATERWORTH: Russell Crowe, Sam Neill. Lord.
COLIN HILDING: We can get behind that, right?
BEN WATERWORTH: What, get behind Lord?
COLIN HILDING: Well, let's also acknowledge the fact that like Korea, Korea actually did decent and they came back for these Olympics. It wasn't just a host nation thing. So if curling is picking up in Asian countries, countries that's sticking around is there for good.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good for them. I've got a fun curling stat for you today. So Great Britain and Sweden.
COLIN HILDING: Eileen Gu has tried out for the Chinese team already.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, actually she's competing for Burkina Faso in curling. She's not Esther Ladeca. She can't change sports. She can change countries. Come on, Colin.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Ski curling, clearly.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ski curling. The half curl. How would that, there's a challenge with the half pipe. Let's put them down the half pipe, and halfway through they're gonna catch a fucking curling stone. All right. See, Eileen Gu do that. She does that. I'm on board the Gu train.
COLIN HILDING: I know how to make, I know how to make slope style and half pipe more exciting. Let's bring back ski ballet and combine it with those. Like I want to see more half pipe.
BEN WATERWORTH: I said that last night.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, did you? Oh, I must have missed that part.
BEN WATERWORTH: I said, I said why do they have the poles? I said like they should be at the top of the thing. They should stick the pole in the top of the pipe and do a like fricking ballet trick halfway through. That's like, that's the only reason I see why they got the poles. Yeah, absolutely.
COLIN HILDING: I saw a video somebody posted yesterday of ski ballet again, and it just reminded me how great that sport is.
BEN WATERWORTH: It really is like.
COLIN HILDING: Even just on an exhibition level, give it an exhibition in the land.
BEN WATERWORTH: The fact that Deidre Dionne said that she used to do ski ballet, like, and she said this footage somewhere like I, but this is a thing, like you think about when freestyle skiing got first into the Olympics, like it was obviously just like what moguls and aerials, but like ski ballet, that is the most robbed discipline. You're putting in mix this, you're putting in slope, so putting half a, poor ski ballet, just sitting around going, guys, what about like, this is like, if break dancing is an Olympic sport, ski ballet shits all over break dancing, come on.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's a sport.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, you gotta do that on skis.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. You're only a real man or a woman if you're doing on skis.
COLIN HILDING: Well, that's the problem is that they're freestyle skiers. They can't handle some ballet on the skis. You know what to do, get some of those, well, we get some of those alpine skiers to do ski ballet, imagine it'll be done. That's the man's sport.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ester Ledecka would own the shit out of that. She would just get out there. You know who wouldn't? Mikaela Shiffrin, she'd fall over. Fun fact about the curling for you. So Britain and Sweden playing for the very first time in a gold medal match at the Olympics in men's curling. Now, you might contest that little fact. If you look at the 1924 curling, you would see that Britain won the gold, Sweden won the silver, France won the bronze. You'd think, well, Ben, you're wrong. Britain beat Sweden in the gold medal match. And I'd say, well, you're wrong, because there was no gold medal match. Back in the day, back in 1924, it was just a simple round robin. You know, everyone plays each other once. Whoever's on top wins the gold. So Britain won that. Now, I would like to read out the scoreline of the curling from 1924. Colin, right now, as a curling aficionado, what is a thrashing in curling? Like, Dean and Tarly got being like, what, 7-1, I think? So that's a pretty big scoreline in curling. But like, is it rare to get it, like, could I beat you 12-1? Is that common in curling or is that very rare?
COLIN HILDING: I don't know if I've seen it that high. I mean, usually when you get about six, seven ahead, that's when they call it. And the other thing with curling is that it's one of these rare sports where it's a gentleman and a lady sport. It's very, it's very fair with the athletes just to concede, oh, I concede your rocks closer. Oh, I will give you this match. That was Jennifer Jones' win that was crazy is that they were up 10-3, and they went the extra end. I can't even remember who they're playing now, but basically they got one extra point. They're like, yeah, we just wanted to go out with one extra one. We didn't want to lose 10-3, we will lose 10-4, we concede.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, all right, well good to know because with that in mind, I'm gonna read you the score line from the three here that at least I've got in front of me. So Sweden against France. France scored 10, pretty high scoring effort by the French, good job France. Sweden 18, 18-10, pretty big win, right? You think, okay, good result there for Sweden. That was the closest game at the curling in 1924. Great Britain played Sweden. What you think would be the gold medal match, but no, of course, no gold medal match. Sweden seven, good effort by the Swedes. They've done well. They've dropped a few from their first match, but Great Britain 38, 38 to seven, all right? And I'll tell you now, not the biggest thrashing at the 1924 Olympics in the sport of curling. Game three, France, four. Again, a little bit worse than what they did against the Swedes. They lost six points. Great Britain, 46. What is going on, Great Britain at the 1924 Olympics? That is brilliant.
COLIN HILDING: There were no gentlemen in that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, the Brits were bastards in 1924. Fuck you all. We're going to trash your little Frenchy asses. Now bend the fuck over and get beaten 46 to four. Actually I will rephrase that. It was Scotland. I was like, ah, we're going to fucking beat the Shire. We're Scotland. You may take our country, but you'll never take our curling.
COLIN HILDING: I want to see Bruce Malwit and Eden Yearhead do it this time. I was like, no, no, no, we're not stopping. We're going to keep going.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't care if you're conceiving victory. I want a score of 59. That's a real curler right there. None of these Canadian, ah, we're going to let, gentlemen's agreement, ah, six to shake hands. We'll go home and have a beer. No, I want my curlers at the end of round five, like the French are, please Scotland, we are losing, we're doing 20 to 1, you're like, fuck you all, we're Scotland, we're going to beat you 46 to 4. When curlers were real men.
COLIN HILDING: We have men and women and tears on the ice.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh God, wouldn't it be, imagine doing Off The Podium in 1924, like, hello, welcome to Off The Podium. Oh, what a jolly good day to be alive. We haven't got the plague. The plague is not that old. Spanish flu 1924. It's a 1624 Olympics, but that's a whole other kettle of fish. 46 to 4 in curling.
COLIN HILDING: Holy crap.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's a bit of a close one. Anyway, athlete celebration today, Colin, who's your interesting Brian? Tell us about Brian. What's about Brian?
COLIN HILDING: Interesting Brian. So people are probably familiar with the Battle of the Brian's or have heard about the Battle of the Brian's before.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, I do.
COLIN HILDING: Good.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know the other Brian more because of South Park, but anyway.
COLIN HILDING: Exactly. I was going to say people will know Brian Boitano more, not for being the one who won the Battle of the Brian's, but for being the guy that South Park wrote a song about. But Brian Orser had actually already won silver, losing to another American in the 1984 Olympics. And he came back and that was a big battle. Brian Boitano, Brian Orser, it was the Battle of the Brian's. It was such a huge thing. I don't even know if I remember watching this. I remember my parents talking about Brian Orser and Brian Boitano. So that was my earliest memory. But you know, you look back now, this is one of those big things. It's like Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. It's just two names that were tied together so much. So much so that years later, Brian Williams and what's the name of the other guy? The two Brian's, the CBC and the NBC Brian, decided they wanted to do a parody video that was aired in both countries on the Battle of the Brian commentators as well. So he's most well known as the Battle of the Brian's, but really was the face of figure skating in Canada throughout the 80s. And then even still to this day, a crazy fact, that I didn't even realise is that he in the last three Olympics has coached gold medallists for other countries, for Korea and Japan in 2010, 2014 and 2018.
BEN WATERWORTH: But did he do it 48 to 4, 46 to 4? No?
COLIN HILDING: Well, he's going to come out of retirement just so he can now.
BEN WATERWORTH: He should pick your game up, Brian. Got to say, I did love his outfit in the photo that you posted. It's pretty sexy.
COLIN HILDING: I have to find the best one where his name could be right underneath his crotch in that photo.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's how you put up a photo. That's a real thing. And I'm just quickly breaking news in Channel 7 Interviews Australian Athletes. Bobsled Bree, the only athlete in this two-woman bobsled, of course, is having an interview right now with Chiara Radinguis. It's Radinguis, apparently, not Radinguis. Chiara's having a bit of a cry. I don't know why, but it's a bit sad. Anyway, two former Off The Podium guests on TV right now. Great. Today for Australia, Alyssa Campland Day. On this day, 20 years ago, Alyssa Campland won gold for Australia. Our first ever female Olympic gold medallist in aerials, of course, went on to win a bronze in Turin as well. If you haven't seen any of Australia's coverage, you might have seen Alyssa a few times on our TV screens. She's pretty much at every single event as the deputy chef de mission. Who is our actual chef? Is it Ian Chesterman? Is it still him? You would know.
JARROD LOOBEEK: You don't see him. You're never there. I'm not there, Ian.
BEN WATERWORTH: Bloody hell, Ian, if it is you, Ian, pick your game up. Alyssa's there. She can shout to events and hug everyone. You just direct the bloody village eating McDonald's. But Alyssa, absolute legend of the sport, of course, in Australia. I remember watching it live. I remember getting up, I think, at like four in the morning to watch her in Turin as well. And I remember getting really grumpy that she only won the bronze. But Dale won the gold in those Olympics, a little happy anyway. But she only competed in two Olympics. I thought she competed in more, but not only the two and gold and bronze. Not bad. One of the six medallists, of course, in Australia, who have won Winter Olympic medallists, who have won more than one. But, Jarrod, do you remember? Did you watch Alyssa? Do you remember 2002 enough to remember when she won the gold?
JARROD LOOBEEK: It was just such a great moment. And I suppose the fact that like it came like after Bradbury, like was just made it like even more like unexpected. And I think then the excitement was just was just so much higher because of that. But then for her to then come back and medal again was great. And she's missing that silver, though. She's got to come back, right? I'm out of retirement. We'll see her in four years. She's going to pick up that silver.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, she looks great still. She she has not aged a day, I think. So she she could definitely come back. Jeff Lipschut is our chef de mission, the esteemed Jeff. We're all familiar with him. I should probably look him up. He's probably some legend of something.
JARROD LOOBEEK: But name gets Lipschut because we haven't heard anything from him.
BEN WATERWORTH: He is the chief executive officer of the Australian Winter Institute. So the OWI, who we actually really do appreciate here on the show. So, um, gee, they haven't searched the web too far there. I mean, you're you're freaking chef de mission, the legend of Canadian sport. Like, why is Lipschut only the deputy chef de mission? Jeff, just because you're the CEO. Like, I mean, come on. Like, I'm CEO off of Off The Podium. I think I disappointed myself that. But like, I mean, I'm not going to be the chef de mission of team OTP. Charles Hamlin's our permanent chef de mission coming future Olympics. He gets the goth, he gets the gig. We haven't told him yet, but come Paris. Charles, you are team OTP's chef de mission. Off you pop.
COLIN HILDING: Please start picking the people we interview. The ones that are like, there's no way you're cursing them. They're guaranteed to win. And I know because I'm Charles Hamlin, I guarantee myself I would win.
BEN WATERWORTH: We've got an exclusive interview with Eileen Gu. Oh yeah, interview her. We wanted to suck moving forward. So it's all right. We're gonna interview with Mikaela Shiffrin. Well, she can't do any worse. Well, she could. She could crash out of four out of the five events. Which let's put predictions in right now from the LAN. So yeah, happy Alyssa Camplin. Daily Dale, are we giving it to Mr. Bo who does not send dick pics to children?
COLIN HILDING: Well, you said you had another one. I was curious who it was. I was gonna say JT Bo just because.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, I didn't say I had another one. He was the only one I written down. So it wasn't me.
COLIN HILDING: So we're in agreement. Jarrod, do you have anybody else?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, honourable mention to the Dutch guy in the speed skating, Kai Verbege, who was racing in the same race as the Canadian Laurent. And then just gave up partway through. Apparently good sportsmanship because they were gonna collide on the corner and something to do with who has right of way. But let's be honest, you just gave up world champions, just gave up finished thirties.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's a death penalty offence in the Netherlands, right? If you suck at speed skating, you're shot in the streets of Amsterdam. Like you should get shot. I can't do a Dutch accent. I don't know how they say it. I'm from the Netherlands. You get a shot in the street. There you go, that's not bad. That kind of saved myself.
COLIN HILDING: In a few years, they're all gonna sound like Eileen Gu anyways. Hey there, I'm from Amsterdam.
BEN WATERWORTH: Amsterdam, I love being Dutch. Yeah, okay, so Johannes Tingers Bow. That is a name. That is, you wanna talk about a name to name your like fourth kid? Colin, I'm just waiting for Jamie to yell at me. I want you to call him Johannes Tingers Bow Hilding.
COLIN HILDING: I just want you to have all the accent marks on our graphics for this. Now you have a tap net and you're unemployed again.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't do that. I, like if I have a child, which is never gonna happen, cause you know, this world is fucked up enough as it is. I want to like name my kid like Frank, but like I want to put like an omulet above every single initial to see what it says. I don't know what they mean. I'm terrible at languages. I'm gonna put like one above the F, one above the R, the little smiley face above the A. So like I'm calling him Frank. He probably goes to Norway and he's like, why is your name Flumrigeenglefunk? Like, that's one thing I will appreciate. Like I don't often want to say that I appreciate the English language. It's the only language I know and I barely know it. So I'm kind of biased. I think all other languages are much cooler because I look at how they spell words and speak. They sound so much better than our crappy things. But I want to say that as somebody who speaks English, I never have to see like the letter O with five different symbols about it and to pronounce it five different ways. So that's one thing I'm thankful for in the English language.
COLIN HILDING: It's just legally change your name to do that?
BEN WATERWORTH: Colin Holden, you might, you might.
COLIN HILDING: Tell me you're trying to do a racist Chinese accent again.
BEN WATERWORTH: When Jamie leaves you, you might be able to pick up at least one woman with that name. Hello, I'm Colin Holden. Oh, come to my bedroom, Colin Holden. I'd sleep with you with that name. Oh, shit, Mikaela Shiffrin would. Oh, no, she wouldn't. She'd crash out halfway through. She'd take her pants off. She'd fall down and then, oh, Mikaela, you've failed again. Off you pop. She would just sit there for the next two hours. Put something on Instagram.
COLIN HILDING: Don't bully me.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm a human being too.
COLIN HILDING: That was totally disappointing. I am a total joke.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, yes, that I agree with, Mikaela. You are a total joke. Don't put a story on Instagram about it. All right, just calm down. Sit in your heel.
COLIN HILDING: He's just excited because he can yell again, okay? He doesn't mean it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Sit in your little snow mound and think about your life. She's the Destix woman. She's from Star Wars, you know? She literally hits his slalom ski. She can bang, damn it. I want to go sit over here and rethink my life. Oh my God, it's only taken us like 230 odd episodes before we finally reference Destix guy on Off The Podium. We are having a nice, fun episode, but I'm going to play a clip right now because I spoke to Joh again today, not Bo, Joh, about her experiences with the Olympics and working with me, that's the main thing. So Ben Waterworth gets vain again. My chat with Joh, which neither of these two have heard. So let's see their reactions immediately after this, to what they think about my chat with Joanna Griggs.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, it is my final day at Channel 7 Ever. They've listened to the show.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Not ever, you're gonna be here for life, buddy.
BEN WATERWORTH: They've listened to all the previous shows and gone, we fucked up in hiring you, whoops. But I'm gonna get our beloved Johanna Griggs on one more time for our last little chat about the Olympics, Joh, first of all, welcome back.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Thank you very much. Can I just say I have had the best time working with you, I have loved every second of it, and feeling very grateful that you had me as a guest on your podcast, and soon as I realised how much you were a freakoid about Olympics and Winter Olympics, we knew that this was gonna be a match made in heaven, so it's been so much fun.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I will give you the extra money for you saying that to me on air, thank you very much. I'm actually really terrible at my job, so I just do this to make me sound.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: You are so not terrible at your job. Now the funny thing is, anything going forward, there's gonna be fights for who gets to have you as a researcher, so I'm like, I'm just like six foot tall and really, really scary.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I've already said that I get first dibs on Joe, but when Channel 9 poached me, of course, you know.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Like a stratospheric wage and all the rest of it.
BEN WATERWORTH: For both their sports that they do. They don't do anything really anyway, so anyway. How have, I know I asked you this the other day, but now that your time has come up, I mean, is this comparable to any of the other, the winters that you've done, obviously the first that you've not been there, but just in terms of, I guess, witnessing the Australians' performances, witnessing some of the other performances that you've seen over the last couple of weeks?
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Yeah, like, I mean, obviously, I just, I get blown away by our Australian team that they just bat so far above the average, but I think particularly these games, because the same as, you know, it's peppered in our conversation nonstop for the last two and a bit years is COVID, and all of the extra challenges of travel and having to adapt their programs to dry land training, and you're not seeing loved ones for the ones that decided to base themselves overseas. And I think they're such extraordinary athletes that it kills me sometimes that we only hear really their stories every four years. I'm pleased that they got the most successful games like Dun and Dusted so that then when a couple of the, you know, results that I guess people probably would have had down as potential medal chances didn't happen, you know, it didn't put any extra pressure on the team. And I think the thing for me always is for people to remember, it's such rare air to be an Olympian. Like I couldn't be an Olympian. I tried for years and I never made it, was never successful enough. And I know how much effort that I put in. And so I think David Morris put up a really fabulous thing early on. He said, you know, people don't, they haven't lost the gold medal. They've won the silver. They haven't lost being on the podium. They're top five in the world. And I always try and keep that in the back of my mind because I just am so in awe about athletes at the end of the day.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which also, I think, going back to Salt Lake, when you're obviously the first female to ever host Australian winter coverage, back then we'd never won a gold. And obviously that's success. I mean, could you have imagined that day one of Salt Lake when we're dreaming of a gold with only one or two bronzes in our history, that here we are 20 years later walking away with four medals and it's kind of almost expected that we're going to do that now.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Well, the funny thing is, I don't even reckon... I reckon they were banking on possibly an aerials medal. I don't even reckon that they were dreaming big for a gold. I mean, obviously we talk it up like that. But for Stephen Bradbury to get his gold and then to follow it up with Elisa with her gold, it just... Don't get me wrong, that was epic. To have them come into the studios and all the celebrations afterwards, because they were equally in shock at what they had achieved. But since then, the programs that we've got in place, they're working and they're working across a number of sports. And it was really great. These games around here, Michael Kennedy talk about the airbag, the big airbag they've got down at Gindabine. And we know there's now a jumping centre as opposed to our athletes jumping in a little dam effectively full of leeches just outside of Lilydale. I mean, we're becoming more and more professional. And I hope that that actually translates to other sports and other things, because even our curlers with what they achieved this time around, it just means that people don't have to put a limit on themselves if they decide that they want to chase a dream. And I think that's been the message of a lot of the athletes. Certainly, Greta Small was really big on that when she was talking about Popanka and the school that she grew up with. If she can be there at third Olympics and finishing 13th and the combined and 26th and the downhill, well, why can't little kids dream about winter sports in the same way they dream about summer sports?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, absolutely. What was your highlight of the two weeks?
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Working with you.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's the correct answer. That's exactly what I paid her to do it.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: We had a gun team behind the scenes. So we just had a lot of fun. To me, it's always about the people that you work with. As far as the performances that I watched, my gosh. I thought Scotty James was classy. That whole half part was classy, particularly because we had Valentino as such a young talent who you just know we're going to be talking about for years to come, if he can stay injury free. Comes from such a lovely ground of family. You have Scotty, who's a superstar, but Gigi was a lesson in class, which always goes a long way in my book. So I often have said it's not how somebody wins, it's how somebody maybe doesn't get the result that they're after, that tells more about their character. And that will translate through every team member and every little kid that's watching that thinks that that could be them. So I thought he was classy. And then those great moments like with Sean White, the greatest of all time, and the respect and those two grown men talking out loud about how much they respected each other, that was special. To be honest, Eileen Gu did amaze me because she handled so much pressure with so much aplomb, so with her two golds and silvers for China, when she had controversy swirling around her and media trying to get her to say something controversial at every step of the way. I gotta know, Jackie Naracott, for us to win a medal in a sliding event is just beyond extraordinary. And I think we were talking the other day where we were saying when you watched her in the lead up, up until that last World Cup event, she was getting so frustrated. And then hearing Michelle still say, she'd watch her come down, she'd be smashing her sled with frustration and hitting a helmet with her hand. And you think, yeah, but she didn't give up. She just kept going back. And she was leading after the first two runs. So she can do anything going forward. And now she believes it. So I think it's also watching that confidence shift in athletes that might have had a dream, but now they believe what they're capable of.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is crazy. That's still one of the stories I think is definitely us getting a medal in a sport where we're not even remotely close to a facility you can train properly in. You know, it is crazy. Will you be back for Milan? Do you think you got another winter's in you?
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Oh, I'd hope so, but I don't know. I've got a contract for three years that'll get me to Paris.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's all we care about, Paris, right?
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Paris is, I mean, three years is, these days, that's a long contract. I guess it'll be up to the powers that be whether or not they want me after that. If not, I'll just set up a little studio at home and just... I'll literally be joining you guys and be talking every night.
BEN WATERWORTH: Off The Podium commentary with Joanna Griggs.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: You should try your hand at actual commentary.
BEN WATERWORTH: Have you ever done actual commentary before?
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Do you know, I think I get asked this a lot. And the funny thing is I, when I started out in sport almost 30 years ago next March, they weren't female hosts. So females were given roles where they could do a weather update or they could do an injury update. And they weren't, there was no actual hosts. Yeah, there were occasionally some that popped up, but they were generally co-hosts. And so my goal was I wanted to be a host. I wanted to host the sport in the same way that the men hosted. And we're given the same amount of, you know, latitude with what you could do with that role. And that was my goal the whole way through. So at different stages, I was asked about doing other things along the way, and I just stayed true to going, no. And so I'm really proud of what I've achieved with that. And I don't even know what sport I would be able to do.
BEN WATERWORTH: Nod it combined.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: You possibly nod it combined. But then I look at people like Dave Colbert, I look at people like Alison Nicholson or Matt Hill, who I'm just in awe of with their ability to, and Brenton Speed as well, who's done past games with us, and they can just jump from one thing to the other. And then you look at all the expert commentators that we've had here, and they've all been just a revelation. And I'm not sure I'd be able to do that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, I think you could.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: I think, I don't know, I think sometimes if you find what you're good at, or you hope, I hope I am okay at, that you stick with that and you let other people play to their strengths.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, we're gonna look forward to seeing you for the Paralympics, of course, which are coming up, of course.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Yeah, March 4, and the 26th of February, we got a preview show, and then it will all be on 7 Plus.
BEN WATERWORTH: And Better Homes and Gardens, when is it on, Jo Winkl?
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Can people watch Better Homes and Gardens? Oh, you can start your weekend with a bit of Friday fun. I think the promo, I think they've got currently since Friday about 480,000 times. Literally all of us in the office are like, ah, I think we might need to kill that promo now. But yeah, but if you don't know, it's on Fridays.
BEN WATERWORTH: And there's also a dedicated 24-hour Better Homes and Gardens channel on 7 Plus, is there not?
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Do you know how random this is? So we received notice at the end of last year. So they just put a whole channel devoted to Better Homes and Gardens, and it's their best performing channel on 7 Plus, which I think is mind-blowing. But it kind of shows you where that holds a place in people's routines and their hearts. And it's not because of me, it's not because of the presenters. It goes way back, they go back through all the old episodes as well. I think it's just comfort. I think people know that that's a show that's just positive, and they can find something that they like very quickly in a very short space of time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I'll just end it on this. I never thought I'd say this because you guys used to be in the Logie every single bloody year. Now it's all down to the damn living room. So like, I mean, how many years has it been? It's got to get Better Homes and Gardens back on the Logie stage. Come on.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: What? Yeah, I'm not sure that our audience is really okay with voting for Logies. We always say we're massive in the under 60s and over 60s. Oh, Hamish love that.
BEN WATERWORTH: He really wants Better Homes and Gardens with his Logie. Come on, get on board Hamish Team Logies with Better Homes and Gardens.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: He's gonna run my campaign. It's gonna be amazing.
BEN WATERWORTH: He's calling TV Week right now.
COLIN HILDING: I haven't got it.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: TV Week's gone.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, well, I'm sorry.
BEN WATERWORTH: Sorry. Whoever's got the Logies now. Anyway, Joh, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. And I'm sure we'll hopefully work again and get you on the show in some capacity as well, again in the future.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Thank you very much. It'll be really embarrassed when I'm just like out the front of your house, just tapping on the window on the door going, Ben, I'm still here.
BEN WATERWORTH: If that's New York, then you know, you'll definitely be there even double time.
JOHANNA GRIGGS: Definitely be there in New York.
COLIN HILDING: It was so nice of you though to cut out that last remark where she said, get in the cab and lose my phone number.
BEN WATERWORTH: How did you know that? You're listening, are you? I caught a cab with Helmut Schmeller. What a guy, what a man. Helmut Schmeller. Breaking news in the curling. Fuck me. Scotland have just shattered it in the ninth end. They've gotten four. It's 11-8. Come on, come on Sweden. I want you men and you women in the final. Keep Oscarics in company, female Swedes. I know they're Scotland, not Britain, but I mean, whatever. And in the women's, well, this is the women's, the other women's match. The men are, what the fuck?
COLIN HILDING: Well, the men are men and women are women.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is 13-2. I can yell again. Jarrod, poor Jarrod, he's like falling asleep. And I'm-
COLIN HILDING: Jarrod fell asleep half an hour ago.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm joking, it's in here. God, such a pleasure to have Joel in the show. Japan 8, Switzerland 6. Japan are into the gold medal match of the Women's Curve.
COLIN HILDING: Wow.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, indeed. And breaking news in the ice hockey, Roccas, you're winning 1-0. Come on, Sweden. You're not having a good night tonight in your semi-finals, Sweden. Pick your game up.
COLIN HILDING: Get Oscar Ericsson out there, he'll pull it off.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, now that's a man. Four times. Can we just say, side tangent, because I want to wrap this episode up. Eileen Gu, okay, three medals. She's young, she's attractive, she's Chinese. She can play the piano. Good for her, all right? Why are we not giving the same attention to Oscar Ericsson? That is a man. He is beautiful, he is gorgeous, he's Swedish, and he's won one more medal than Eileen Gu, all right? Now, he doesn't demand attention because he's smoulderingly sexy, and he can sweep shit. Now, I don't see Eileen Gu sweeping shit, which probably does, because she's good at everything. But the point is, Oscar Ericsson's a man. Now-
COLIN HILDING: And he's not even the skip, this is their second best guy.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly, all right? Who's that other Chinese skier in the hard part? None of us can name her, but we can name Oscar Ericsson, he's the second one.
COLIN HILDING: All right?
BEN WATERWORTH: Jesus, can you just imagine, right now, now this might blow both your minds, if Oscar Ericsson and Estelle Ledeca ended up together in a couple, oof. Oh! My God, cancel Earth, right there, Earth is over.
COLIN HILDING: The human race is over, we're starting new, it will never get better from here.
BEN WATERWORTH: You know, Max Zorin, not Max Zorin, Hugo Drax, wrong Bond villain, when he wanted to create his perfect race in space, don't have to get all those weird people from Brazil, basically just get Esther and, not that Brazilians are weird, I'm just offending everyone, hang on a minute, where's the list, Brazil. Um, oh God, tomorrow there are nine medals being decided, they're all good. The mixed teams back in the Alpine scheme, I enjoyed that in Pyeongchang, I liked that one. Are you okay with the mixed team Alpine scheme? Colin, you got a problem with that one?
COLIN HILDING: I don't remember it at all. As long as they're not going down at the same time and looking really chaotic, then I'm sure I'll be okay with it.
BEN WATERWORTH: The two-woman bobsleigh medals are decided tomorrow. The marathon of the Olympics is on tomorrow. The men's 50 kilometres cross-country skiing. See, can I just say this once again, no disrespect to our marathon runners, but you guys run eight kilometres shorter than they do in the cross-country skiing. Cross-country skiers, real athletes. There you go. Don't say anything, Colin. Shut up, let me have my moment. The men's gold medal in the curling decided tomorrow. Come on, Sweden. Give Oscar his gold. He hasn't gotten a gold before Oscar, so he's gotta get those shimmering cheeks and the hair on his head smiling with a gold medal around his neck. The pair skating and the figure skating will be decided tomorrow. Oh goody, the half-pops back and the freestyle skiing. It's men time. And the speed skating, we've got the men's and the women's mass start, which I actually remember from Pyeongchang, very entertaining. The men's and women's mass start. Jarrod, highlight, what are you looking forward to tomorrow?
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's gotta be that ice cream bronze medal match.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, of course, that tomorrow as well. Sorry, Jarrod, to take away from you. It looks like you're playing Sweden at this moment. So be gentle on the Swedes. Be sweet on them. Sweden, no, I've lost it. Colin, what are you looking forward to tomorrow? That's a good answer. Oh, I'm looking forward to the curling.
COLIN HILDING: I'm looking forward to remembering to hit my mute button. People who listen to me cough throw this up. People who just listen to me cough throw this up so I don't forget to hit mute and they're missing all the great, brilliant things I'm saying when I am muted. The 50K will be exciting, although I don't know if I'll be able to, I could pull it off. May I watch the marathon? Did you joke that?
BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod's so glad that he's saying it's two o'clock with two old men coughing with COVID. It's great. Highlight of Jarrod's life.
COLIN HILDING: And he's still COVID free. That is why Jarrod is a goat.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, just easy Oscar Erickson off the podium. I'm looking forward to sleeping tomorrow. Can I just say that? I get to sleep in tomorrow. So I'm looking forward to that. And I'm going to say The mass start. I enjoyed The mass start. And actually The Mixed Team Alpine. That is an enjoyable event. So bring it on, bring it on. It's our second last day. Bring it on. That's a movie. Our second last day tomorrow.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, are you going to go 24 on that?
BEN WATERWORTH: You have 24 on that, what?
COLIN HILDING: I thought you were going to be going 24 on that quote.
BEN WATERWORTH: I was going to go 24 on that quote. Oh, bring it on Kim Bauer. I think cheerleaders before I think about Kim Bauer. Sorry.
COLIN HILDING: Well, don't we all?
BEN WATERWORTH: Kim Bauer as a cheerleader. Now there's a different story. She'd be a cheerleader for the Cougars. Oh God, my jokes are terrible tonight. Jarrod, give me a one out of 10. Oh, a three, generous. I'll take it. Cool. All right. Jarrod, go to bed. You look like you're about to fall asleep, but thank you for joining us, Jarrod. And sorry about Slovakia. So hopefully tomorrow will be better for you.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think I'm gonna bring home the chocolate medal tomorrow.
BEN WATERWORTH: The chocolate medal, right? They'll equal their best. And Colin, glad that we've been able to catch you up. Oh, breaking news in the women's curling. Hang on a minute. Hang on a minute. Extra end. Sweden just got three. It's 11 all. Come on, Sweden. You can also do it in the men's eye so I can get the equaliser. You're just, you're just a point away. They're going all the way to 48. They're getting there. They're a quarter of the way there, basically. sportspodcastawards.com. Thoroughly deserved episode to vote for us today, I think. Top points, gentlemen, from the Mikaela Shiffrin battering. Good job. That's our best one yet. And all the social medias, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, hit us up on those as always. A special shout out to Jason Momoa. Put a sock in it, Mountain. And I can say it properly tonight, Jarrod. Oh, Colin, we need to find this ad and send it to you. This bloody ad that's on every single time in years. And I break, put a sock in it, Mountain. Yes, that's the new podcast coming soon by Jarrod Loobeek. Thanks for tuning in to Off The Podium. And until next week again, remember, go left.
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