Beijing 2022 Day 4 & 5 Review
Well after a bit of a stutter with no episode yesterday (damn COVID) it's time bring you an episode worth of a double dose of action as we recap two action packed days of Beijing 2022 and be sure to crown a queen and everything else in between! Why are we just not worthy of Ester Ledecka and her amazingness? Why is it only going to get better for her and our love for her? Who else over the last two days has gotten our love worthy of queen status? Are we sick of hearing the word GOAT? What new nickname have we developed for Mikaela Shiffrin? How sorry for the US do we feel that they had to suffer such a gold medal drought? What the hell is a screaming seaman? And do we all survive this episode with or without COVID? Strap yourself in and cough away for another entertaining episode you can't miss!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast coming to you today for a belated episode as we go over episode, well, days four and five of Beijing 2022. We didn't do an episode yesterday. There's a reason behind that. There's a reason why I sound like I'm being choked to death right now. I think there's some little thing happening around the world right now. I don't know if anyone's heard of it. It's called Covid or something like that. I don't know. Maybe we can discuss that in just a moment. But joining me as they do all the time, two gentlemen who love the Olympics, I think. One man has Covid as well. The other doesn't. And he's the coolest one of us all, because he sounds normal. Jarrod Loobeek from Emu Plains Jarrod. Welcome back to Off The Podium.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thank you. It's good to be back.
BEN WATERWORTH: And it's good for you to be healthy. How does it feel to be healthy, Jarrod? Is that a nice feeling?
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's just such a privilege, living my life, you know?
BEN WATERWORTH: Cool. All right. Good to know. Also joining us, Colin, I just wanted to be cool like you, apparently. Colin Hilding from Winnipeg. Hello, Colin. Welcome back. You can be such a strong influence on your life. Sorry.
COLIN HILDING: Yes.
BEN WATERWORTH: You were in, you're out, you're back again. Try that again.
JARROD LOOBEEK: That care package you sent came so fast.
COLIN HILDING: I was just saying, I was glad I could be such a strong influence on your life.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, hey, someone's got to be, apparently. But yeah, it's been an interesting 24 or so hours. Colin had Covid the other day, still has it. I got Covid, and as you can tell, I sound absolutely fantastic. So excuse me if I start choking and coughing and all that kind of fun stuff. Yeah, it's not fun, Colin. It's not a fun thing to have.
COLIN HILDING: But I thought I sold it so well to you. You seemed surprised. I was telling you how much of a blast I was having.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, you did. Absolutely. And I believe everything you always say. So that's generally why I believed it. I mean, why wouldn't you want to just be short of breath, feel like absolutely shit, have a weird cough and just feel like you can't move at all? I mean, seriously, just what we all look like. Jarrod's just sitting there going like, man, I really am jealous of all of this, right? Jarrod's just like, come on, someone kiss me. Give me the Covid.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Really, really missing out.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's a weird thing, though, too, that I don't know if Colin, we were talking about this off air, but like, do people literally say to you like, how did you get it? How do you think you got it? Like, I mean, is that something that even crosses your mind?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. Well, the thing is, is we actually kind of know how we got it, well, we can theorise, because we had received an email over the weekend, not this past weekend, the one before that, before we got sick, that was saying, oh, your child was in a classroom with somebody who tested positive. There's no need to concern at this point. Now, the day before that, Casper had had like a really bad stomach flu, we thought, and then he was fine the next day, so we didn't think that was symptoms or anything. So then a couple of days later, when we realised we had Covid, we're like, oh, this might be Covid that he had because then our twins started getting weird stomach flu and we're testing positive. But I just feel jealous that the kids, for whatever reason, only had one day of puking and then they're completely fine. Like that doesn't seem fair. Why am I the one suffering? I'm not the one who was in a classroom with a kid who had Covid. I'm not the one who put us all at risk, Casper.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, because your kids suck. That's basically it. I mean, I didn't have any vomiting. Did you have vomiting? That's something that I think I've avoided. I'm glad about that.
COLIN HILDING: Vomiting, but diarrhoea. Yeah, the other one. But I had a weird thing where I would eat and then I would immediately feel terrible. Like I would feel nauseous for about three or four hours afterwards. And then the second that passed, you would feel intensely hungry.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm so glad we're here to talk about our bodily movements. Jarrod's going like, wow, I'm so glad.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's becoming more appealing by the minute, you know.
COLIN HILDING: Enjoy those chicken nuggets now, Jarrod.
BEN WATERWORTH: Everybody who loves this show helps us get nominated for awards. Wow, Off The Podium has really changed since they got Covid, hasn't it? It used to be a fun show. Now let's talk about diarrhoea. Brilliant. But yeah, day four, day five, we've got plenty to cover. Obviously, there's still stuff going on for day five, but we'll cover the last two days. And no gold, silver medals. There's a bronze medal we can talk about for Canada. But I don't care about any of that, because can we just please talk about the queen, the queen herself, Ester Ledecka, Ledecha, whatever you want to call it. I've heard 50 different pronunciations of her name. I'm sticking to Ester Ledecka, because that's the easiest thing for me to say. Just, just shout it in. Win a third gold in the parallel giant slalom, in the snowboarding. I mean, just what else can we say about this woman? Just give her, give her the crown of the world. She's, as much as I hate hearing the word goat, and I want to talk about that at one point, she's the goat. She's so amazing. So amazing that I passed out watching her event and didn't even get to see it live. Jarrod, Ester, oh, Ester, can we just keep saying that name over and over again?
JARROD LOOBEEK: She's just such a legend. And it's like what you brought up. I am also well and truly sick of the term goat. It's lost all meaning because every time there's a sport, we always have to talk about how somebody in it is the goat. And I feel like the story of this Olympics is kind of, I feel like in almost half of those situations, like the supposed goat is like, I don't know, crashing out or not meddling or getting a minor medal. But this, it was just never in doubt. I don't know if it was three or four of her runs where the person she was against fell over because like they were just so far behind and they had to take these insane lines. Because yeah, a quarter way down the course, she was already like a second ahead of them. I've never seen somebody just lead by so much and be so confident throughout the entire event.
BEN WATERWORTH: It was worrying in a weird way because, you know, she didn't come into this in super hot form. And this is the one that, you know, back in Pyeongchang, everyone expected her to win. And so coming to this one, this is one again, I was like, okay, well, this one is the one that she should win. But yeah, it was just, it was ridiculous how easy it looked for her. And I mean, of course, she's added a third event. These are the Olympics. She's gonna be doing the downhill alongside the Super G. So it's just, it's crazy. And I mean, three gold medals for her now. Just insane. You know, two more to go. And I think like, again, possibility that she could walk away with a total of five gold medals. I don't think she's expected to do that in the downhill. But again, she wasn't expected to do that in the Super G back in Pyeongchang. Look what happened. So Colin, does it make much news over there in Canada about Ester and what she's done so far?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. And I'll go on a bit of a rant here about the sport itself in a second. But I was glad that we didn't record yesterday because I was actually able to watch some events. Typically, we record the second I wake up, and maybe I caught a few things before I went to bed. But they carried this live, and they did that without having any real Canadian shot, which is impressive because it's the Winter Olympics. If it was the Summer Olympics, I'd say that's no big deal. The other thing is, this is sort of the forgotten snowboarding event. Now, we had the Canadian athlete we're going to get to later on, which I picked for this day, who had some history with the sport. But were either of you watching for Noggino when snowboarding debuted? That was the first Olympics I remember really being addicted to.
BEN WATERWORTH: I remember it, and it's interesting you say about this kind of being the forgotten snowboard event, because, yeah, I feel the same way, but I've always enjoyed this, and I remember that coming from Noggino, and also I remember it from the video game, Noggino 98 into N64, being a large reason why I like this event.
COLIN HILDING: Well, in Noggino, it wasn't parallel, it was just slalom, which in a way, I feel like I prefer that. I'm all for put them on the course at the same time. I would love it if they introduced dual moguls as a secondary sport, but not as a main one. It really feels like even though they, because of the two events they introduced, the Noggino, the half pipe, and then the slalom, I guess in most parts of the world, not here in Canada, it was the half pipe that got all the attention. They just added the parallel to this, and it's the one you always forget that exists. But now that there is Ester, and we're at the point now where this is being carried live, considering this is like the first time we haven't really had a Canadian in the mix. Obviously, it just shows what a huge deal she is and how much attention she's bringing to the forgotten snowboarding sport.
BEN WATERWORTH: Can I just want to add, this is a weird little, not a rant as such, but I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about this way, I'm about to talk about it, but I'm going to say it anyway. What's kind of a bit frustrating around some of the coverage that I'm seeing around these Winter Olympics outside of the Australians is the attention that gets given to some of these huge names of winter sports. But for the most part, when I say most part, for the entire part, these big names of winter sport are all Americans. We're getting Chloe Kim. We're getting Sean White. I know Eileen Gu is representing China, but come on, she's American. Still American. It's all of this massive, massive attention that we're getting. And yes, there are sort of, you know, certain attentions being made on the likes of an Ira Inverst and, you know, Macau Kingsbury, those sort of things. But it's not to the extent that we're getting with the likes of, you know, a Chloe Kim. And like, OK, Sean White, I can understand. Sean White is a pretty big deal. I mean, the guy has been around for a long time, and fair enough. But like, no disrespect to Chloe Kim. She went to one Olympics and won one event. Yipty fucking do, Basil. Like, whatever. If we're going to give her that amount of attention because she's American, why aren't we putting attention on some of these, you know, Norwegian cross-country skiers who are winning like eight gold medals at every single fucking Olympics and are probably the biggest thing in Norway? These Dutch speed skaters like Irene or Sven or other people like that, who will probably walk down the street in Amsterdam and, you know, mob, like they're the most famous person in the world. Why aren't we seeing like massive packages on Ester Ledecka who created like this groundbreaking history in Pyeongchang doing two gold medals in two different sports? Just absolutely insane. And now she's come back and backed that up by winning a third gold medal. I am saying this out just because I'm completely biased because I love this woman to death. But Ester Ledecka shits all over Chloe Kim and Eileen Gu every single fucking day of the week. You know, I would love to see Eileen Gu or Chloe Kim do a sport that doesn't take, you know, more than 30 seconds of a couple of trips every now and then in this land. Woohoo, I'm famous. Like seriously, there's no, I mean, there's skill involved. But like you're done in 30 seconds and you pull a couple of quad twisty screaming seamens or whatever the fuck they were and all this kind of stuff. So anyway, that's my rant. Ester is the queen. Yeah, I don't know what else to add. Jarrod, did you, I know you talked about Ester, but anything to add on what Colin and I are ranting about right now?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I agree. And I feel like it's especially frustrating when these packages are being put together for these athletes. And then we play them like time and time again. And like this person is not Australian, there's so many other people that you could like do this same thing for who have more impressive records. And like the biggest crime is that it's eating into time when there's live sport on. And it's just so frustrating. Like, I don't want to see a package about this American who, like, I don't know anything about or I don't care about or is one landowner, one gold medal. Just get back to the sport that's on at the moment so we can watch something live instead of now we're crossing to the figure skating from four hours ago that we already know the results of. And now we're showing this event for the fifth time while there's a live sport on. It's just really... I feel like it's just getting worse as the week goes on and it's becoming really frustrating.
BEN WATERWORTH: As somebody who wishes I could say certain things right now, I probably shouldn't say certain things right now. But anyway, it is fascinating though that this is the one event that I was building up yesterday. I've got my Ester T-shirt on, all that kind of stuff. And then literally, yeah, I pass out when this is on. I was watching the USA Canada hockey match and then flick over to it, had my laptop in my bed, was starting to watch it, and then I ended up flicking back and watching through it there as well. So Ester won the gold. This is Paolo Gjansal. I'm ahead of Daniela Ulbing of Austria and Glorija Kotnik of Slovenia, who are having a pretty good Olympics, Slovenia. And we'll go over these results, obviously, throughout from yesterday and today, because obviously yesterday was most golds that we'll have decided throughout the Olympics. The only medal we've really got to discuss for Canada and Australia, Marietta O'Dean in the snowboarding cross for Canada, bronze. Sadly, for Australia, we got fourth, off the podiums, Belle Brockhoff, fourth. We'll talk about her in just a moment. But for Marietta, Colin, tell us a little bit, was this expected? Is this a surprise? I mean, how's Canada celebrating bronze in the snowboard cross?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, between the two ski cross, snowboard cross, there's probably more attention on the ski cross here in Canada than snowboard. But snowboard cross is almost like the parallel slalom for snowboarding. It just feels like it's the forgotten sport here in Canada, because we actually have a lot of success. I mean, I would say close to 50% of the time, we'll put up a medallist in the Olympics. So this kind of came out of nowhere. I knew this snowboard cross was on last night because I've been watching the TV coverage. I didn't even know who we had in the snowboard cross. So I kind of learnt about her this morning, as soon as I saw the headline.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which it's interesting you say it's sort of the forgotten one. It's kind of the opposite here for Australia. I think outside of the halfpipe is probably the one we get the most attention to. I mean, jumping all the way back to the late Great Chumby pull. And obviously it was all about Sochi for him. And then had a bit more of that going into Pyeongchang. And obviously Jared Hughes got the silver, Chumpee made the final. And Bell has been a world champion before and there and thereabouts. And Jarrod, it was heartbreaking in a way, but also satisfying. It was one of those weird 50-50 things, wasn't it? Because she shouldn't have made the final. That quarterfinal, she was done. She was out. And somehow she snuck through, ended up making the final, got a pretty bad start for her, unfortunately. Was never able to recover. So, fourth for her. But I think this is one of those ones that ultimately she seems like she's disappointed. But at the end of the day, she still got fourth in the Olympics, which is no mean feat.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, you're right. By any right, she didn't deserve to be in the final, based on how that quarterfinal was going. I was watching and I'm like, she's out. There's no way. She's like, I don't know, three, four boards behind. She's not going to make up that amount of room on this course. And then just all of a sudden, it was like the best race to watch. It was so exciting. I just had a feeling as soon as she got through the finals, like she's going to finish fourth. Yeah, me too. It's kind of, I love this sport, but I kind of miss that we don't, we no longer have six people in each race. There was still some, like some crashes, but with six people on the course, a little bit more crazy. And then, then the finals not so, I just felt bad for her being like the only person in that final to not like make the podium. And she's just standing there awkwardly, and I'm like, let the poor girl like leave. She just, she's like the only one out of these four people who doesn't have a medal, and you're just making it like stand around there for like the TV coverage. But exciting for her to have made like the small final twice and finally make it through to the big final. It's a massive achievement.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think it was a bit Chumpy-esque, I think that she'd done so much outside of the Olympics, and the Olympics never really seemed to come together. And just like Chumpy in 2018, finally made that final and ultimately wasn't able to do it. I should mention Josie Baff, a huge achievement for her to even make the Olympics, the reigning Youth Olympics gold medallist. She was out in the one eighth finals, but yeah, good effort from her to get where she did. She actually was faster qualifier than Bell was. So plenty, I think, to come there. But I think Bell will no doubt be the female choice for the team event. And apparently not as simple as just using Jared Hughes for that, the reigning world champions in that, because it ultimately comes down to whoever performs best. So Jared could crash out tomorrow and you might get Cam Bolton with Bell or something like that, or Adam Lambert, or one of those sort of people. So Colin, you look like you're desperate to say something here.
COLIN HILDING: Jarrod actually just brought up something that I hadn't thought about before, but I completely agree with. Because I actually would have said I preferred for a person until Jarrod just said that now, where I'm like, well, then we only have one person who doesn't get a medal. Like that's just, it's devastating. So yeah, you swayed me, Jarrod. There's the victory of the day.
BEN WATERWORTH: Let's get to working, Jarrod. Get to working on the mixed team.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, right.
BEN WATERWORTH: Maybe. Yeah. And on the Jarrod joke though. One thing that I wanted to add with this though, that if, if Bell wasn't going to win or Moreta wasn't going to win, I'm so glad that Lindsay Jacobellos won. Now I don't know how to, how familiar you two are of her story, but she was the one, of course, back in Torino, people don't realise, set to win the gold. She was, she was cruising her way to victory, decided to be a bit of a show pony at the end to do a trick on the final jump, crashed and then ultimately gave up the gold and won the silver. It got so much airtime all the way back in the day. And since then just hasn't done well in the Olympics. She's done a lot in World Cups and everything along those lines, but for her to come through and win this gold medal like that's, that's a story in itself. And I think for her to do that again, Colin, for you, does that make much news there over in Canada about her? And also we should point out USA's first gold of these games. They've had a bit of a drought now until day five. They finally cracked through for their first gold.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, I'll spoil it now. As soon as I saw that this morning, I'm like, that's, that's my Daily Dale pick, Lindsay Jacob Ellis. And I'm actually, when I saw that Canada had the bronze or whatever, my first thought was, does Lindsay Jacob Ellis finally win a gold medal? Cause I mean, she hasn't even medalled since Turin. And, and this is one of these situations, when you were mentioning the thing about the goat earlier, the first thought in my head was, it's like, oh, we're going to be talking about another one coming up, but, but this one is fair. Like it is very fair to call her the greatest of all time. She hasn't won the medal. So this is, I guess comparable to the way you guys talked about Jess Fox during the last, the summer games. Like there's, and, and, but you got to look at, this is a stretch of 16 years. And to finally get the gold, very similar to another athlete I'll be talking about a little bit later on, it's a huge accomplishment. And I am more than okay with Canada not winning a gold if Lindsay Jacob-Bellis can finally get her gold.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrah, were you familiar much with her story going into this event today?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I was, but I'm the opposite. I was strongly like rooting against her. I preferred, I preferred this and this, that's really mean, but I preferred this story of like, that was like her one shot and like, she showed off and she blew it and she just had to live with that regret for the rest of her life. But you know, good, good for her for getting it. I was hoping that she should have pulled the trigger again, right? That would have been the better ending to the story. If she'd pulled the same like trick and had made it, then that, then she would have been, sorry, then she would have cemented her status as the goat. But good for her going the safe route this time, but should have taken the risk.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think she was a little bit too close this time around. She had a bit more of a lead back in Turin, I believe. Chloe Trespeau of France took the silver in that one. I think she was a bronze medallist in Pyeongchang, so she'll no doubt win the gold come Milan, judging on that pattern there as well. Can we just quickly, like, just on the whole goat thing, like, it's just like, since when did this become just such a common terminology in modern day sport? It's like, everyone seems to always want to one up another person, like, oh, there they go, there they go, there they go. And like, I get it, like, if you're talking about like Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, like, yes, yes, okay, they are. And Sean White arguably, yeah, probably is the goat of men's half-pipe snowboarding. But like, don't just throw it out willy-nilly for every other person if they've won a couple of gold medals. Like, I know it's probably gonna be hypocritical what I just said about freaking Ester Ledecka, but like, you know, there's just a level of it when it comes to it where it's like, we've always got to call him the goat, we've always got to call him the goat. And like, it's this weird thing that as survivor fans, the terminology goat has never been a good thing. And now all of a sudden it becomes a good thing when it comes to sport. Like, it's just, it's weird.
COLIN HILDING: Do you know why I think we're hearing it more so in these Olympics is because so many of the events, especially the ones we're seeing in week one, are some of the newer events. And the goats are still alive, whereas with older sports, you may have to go back 30, 40 years and we're not necessarily gonna be talking about those people. Now, having said that, I guarantee that that word is especially in these Olympics. I would say it was there in Tokyo, but not to this extent, but this week of a lot of the newer sports where they're still competing obviously plays a part. But now that we have spent a week hearing that and everybody spent a week saying it, you know for a fact that in week two, they're gonna be talking about random curling guy and random curling girl as the GOAT. And this random guy on the defence line of team USA is the GOAT defenceman of all time.
BEN WATERWORTH: I get it, I do. But like, it's also just that argument where I don't think just cause you've won a certain amount of things at ornament, like you were talking about Macau Kingsbury the other day about maybe being the most decorated winter athletes in terms of World Cups. Or like, you know, if you looked on him on paper, that he's what, won a, what, a gold and two silvers at the Olympics versus all the other achievements that he's got in the World Cup. Like, people automatically just take a level and go, oh, this is how many they've won at the Olympics, that makes them this. There are so many athletes who have done so many great things outside of the Olympics and have never been able to achieve what they have at the Olympics or vice versa. Somebody might get a couple of gold, but then they suck outside of the Olympics. So I think you're quick to jump down something when you say, oh, the goat, because they've won this amount at the Olympics. Well, no, like, yeah. So many athletes you can think of that never were able to achieve what they did. Or also, you know, we talk about skateboarding at the Olympics. Like, think about someone like Tony Hawk, who was never able to go to an Olympics. You know, of all the achievements he had in skateboarding, think of all these other sports that they've had where they just haven't been able to. I mean, Wayne Gretzky, he was only able to go to one Olympics, basically, you know, the twilight of his career, things like that. So yeah, anyway, Jarrod Goats, are we sick of this?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I'm just over it. I just hate how every event, I have to wait for it to happen. And I'm like, just like, let me make my own mind up, whether they're like good or not. I don't need you to use that term. Just like, tell me, like, this is the reigning like world champion. This person's won like this amount of world cups, this, that, whatever else. Like, it's just such like a subjective term, and I just really don't like it.
COLIN HILDING: And that is why Jarrod is the goat of Off The Podium.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, Jarrod really is the goat.
COLIN HILDING: Can I get a six or seven on that Jarrod?
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm giving that a nine. I don't even know how my fingers are holding up. I mean, you want to know how much of the goat Jarrod is. He doesn't get Covid.
COLIN HILDING: Exactly. He doesn't jinx athletes. He raises solid points. He makes me change my tune on snowboard cross.
BEN WATERWORTH: He gets given gifts. He gets gifts. Just, I mean, what can't this guy do? You know, like, God, he just do the dude, the Eileen Goo.
COLIN HILDING: Can I take a complete random pause here for the moment? If anybody else is watching the speed skating or has been watching the speed skating, the one judge guy they cut to with the clipboard, is that not Boris Johnson?
BEN WATERWORTH: I haven't quite seen Boris Johnson, but I'll keep an eye out. Are we on this second semi-final right now? We're about to see Charles up in the next one.
COLIN HILDING: Exactly, that's what I'm waiting on. But I've been watching since yesterday. They keep cutting to this one single judge guy. He's in the corner of the screen right now. And I swear it is Boris Johnson.
BEN WATERWORTH: And can I actually just point out one little thing? Why are there like six quarterfinals? Isn't a quarterfinal a quarter of something? Should there only be four? I'm not quite a man, but I think that's wrong. Just, I think they need to work out a way of renaming these finals. We'll go over the medal results, and then we'll go over some Australia, Canada results from the last two days. So a few obviously to get through here, because we weren't here yesterday. So there were 10 medals decided yesterday. The Super G, Matthias Meyer, the great Austrian won the Super G ahead of Ryan Cochrane Seigel from the United States, and Alexander Armit killed of Norway in the biathlon. Quentin Philon-Mallet of France beat Anton Smolski from Belarus and Johannes Thomas-Beau of Norway for the bronze in cross-country skiing. Johannes Hossel-Clabo, I'm getting there. Norway, gold in the men's sprint over Federico Pellegrino of Italy and Alexander Tarantef of ROC in the women's sprint. Jona Sundling of Sweden beat Maja Dukvist of Sweden and Jesse Diggins from the USA. And I believe that is America's first ever solo cross-country skiing medal, possibly just female only, but I know they're screaming pretty heavily about that one. They're happy about that one. In the curling, our beloved Italians went undefeated and won the fricking gold medal, a team that's ranked one spot ahead of Australia. They didn't lose a damn match. So congratulations Italy, Norway got the silver and our sexy Swedes got the bronze. Our beloved British world champions didn't get it. So Off The Podium's Daily Dale winner, Oscar Erickson is now a bronze medallist, Colin.
COLIN HILDING: Things, at least here in Canada, we had had the only undefeated curling team in history. In Sochi, we had Jill Officer on, talking about that maybe a little about a year ago, maybe over a year ago. The second thing is that nobody has ever won three medals period in curling. We've only had two time medallists. On top of that, Oscar is now three back to back medals. Canada has a shot at at least tying both those records again, because Caitlin Laws, of course, is gonna be in the team event, and she will be going for her third straight medal, and has another shot at being undefeated. But that's sort of what's up for grabs for Canada here, is that our two greatest accomplishments with the three medals and the undefeated streak, somebody's tied us, and it was both Italy and Sweden that we're starting to lose it to.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, Oscar could get a fourth, because he's in the team. He's part of the Swedish team.
COLIN HILDING: He could get four.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. A beautiful, beautiful- Jarrod, did you see any of this? I mean, God, we're all hooked on this curling now, of course, but Italy, my goodness, none of us predicted this, did we?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, they romped it in. I'm kind of annoyed that we already put curlers up for our athlete of the day, because the Italians.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. And they'd never even medalled in curling ever at the Olympics, so what a way to do it.
COLIN HILDING: And Cassie, the only thing that disappointed me about the gold medal match is that compared to a lot of the ones we've been coming off over the last couple days, it was relatively uneventful. And I almost wish that we had like a little bit of a tight race, but again, all the more credit to Italy that they can just pull off a decisive victory, kind of with ease, even though we've had some of those more exciting ones in the lead up.
BEN WATERWORTH: I wonder if they're just peaking too early ahead of Milan in four years time, you know, all these expectations that will go on to them now. In the freestyle skiing, in case you missed it, Eileen Gou won the gold medal, just to, I didn't hear anything about that at all. Tesla Doe from Francis Silva and Mathilde Grimaud of Switzerland in the bronze. In the luge, now, okay, we want to talk about goats. We want to have packages on our TV to discuss great athletes, legends of sport. Where is our package on Natalie, is it Geisenberger? I can't even say her name properly. I mean, this woman is just absolutely insane. And with the team event happening tomorrow, she could become the most decorated luge of all time. So again, I want to see my package on Natalie on TV, not on freaking Chloe Kim. She won the gold in the women's singles, Anna Bereta in Germany, the silver, and Tatiana Ivanova of Iraq, the bronze. Snowboarding in the giant slalom, we've already gone over the women's, the queen, Esther Whitting in the men's, Benjamin Carl of Austria, the gold, silver to Tim Masnach of Slovenia, and Vic Wild, very Russian sounding name, he got the bronze. And in the speed skating, Kjell Nyut, I know that's an insane name, but clearly I'm getting better at these, not really of the Netherlands. In the 1500 metres, got the gold, ahead of Thomas Kroll of the Netherlands in silver, and Kim Min-Suk of South Korea, the bronze in that one. And so far today, we've got six medals being decided today, and four of them have been decided in the alpine skiing, which I'm sure we'll probably need to mention something about that very shortly. Petra Vinova of Slovakia, won their very first ever alpine skiing medal, I believe. And it was a gold, or maybe it was just a gold from Slovakia. Great job there. Katarina Leinsberger of Austria, the silver, and Wendy Holdner of Switzerland, the bronze. In the men's big air today, Berke Rood of Norway, the gold, Colby Stevenson of the United States, the silver, and Henrik Haulot of Sweden, the bronze. Sweden have been very good games. We should talk about that. The Nordic combined, my favourite. I was watching some of this today. Vincent Greiger of Germany took the gold in the individual Nürnmuhil, ahead of Jorgen Graback of Norway, and Lucas Gridera of Austria, the bronze. And in the snowboard cross, as we have mentioned, Lindsay Jacobellis, the gold, the USA, Chloe Trespeaux of France, silver, and Marietta O'Dine of Canada. The bronze, we still have the men's 1500 metres in the short track to go, which we should probably talk about somebody in that. And the lose, the doubles. We'll miss you out on the doubles, the lose, one of our favourite events. Charles Hamlin, I think he's about to come up next, isn't he, Colin, in the next semifinal? He looked pretty good in the quarter final. How are you feeling about our man, Charles? Is he the guy to break the Off The Podium curse? Is he going to get our first gold?
COLIN HILDING: I really have a suspicion, like having talked to him before Pyeongchang kind of got his mindset. Berris Johnson's on TV again here in Canada. But let's give Boris Johnson the daily. But I really feel like he wants that. I don't know whether he wants a gold. I think he just wants that last individual medal. So I'm not going to say gold for him. But he apparently only has this one individual event, which I was surprised about because I knew that he was coming back. I thought, well, he's going to stretch himself out. He's going to make sure that he has multiple chances. But I think what has come down to is he said, I want one medal and 1500 metres where I have the best shot. So I can't give any prediction. I won't name any names. I'm just saying this is the best shot that Charles Hamlin might have for a medal.
BEN WATERWORTH: I wanted to talk quickly about Mikaela Shiffrin because-
COLIN HILDING: Very briefly. Let's see if we can do this in under the amount of time she spent going downhill.
BEN WATERWORTH: I was going to say she's lasted about seven seconds in both of our events so far. Now we're meant to talk about the goat. What's going on here? Seriously, what is going on here, Colin? I mean, you live a bit north of where she's from, but I mean, this is big news in Australia. And yet 95% of Australians don't even know who this woman is. What's it like over there in North America, where I'm sure she's probably a bit more of a household name than she is in this part of the world?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, you know, I was shocked because I heard you mention what happened in her first round there. And I was watching live last night, and I couldn't believe how quickly she was out. What kind of makes this, I guess, devastating is this is a very long drought for the US without a goal. And oh, oh, oh, oh, sorry. There is apparently a review going on right now. Something happened with Charles. I wish I had audio right now.
BEN WATERWORTH: We'll have to see. We haven't seen it yet. Jesus.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, yeah, there's I will. I will. I will let you catch up with me. Anyways. Breaking breaking news, there is officially a review going on for Charles Hamlin semi-final right now, and we are not sure. I know what happened.
BEN WATERWORTH: You're not sure you know what happens?
COLIN HILDING: No, I know what happened.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, the event is about to start on TV right now.
COLIN HILDING: Two penalties for Canada and China.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm looking at the results now. Yeah, so I can see that he's gone. But the race is starting on TV for us now. So yeah, wow.
COLIN HILDING: Breaking news.
BEN WATERWORTH: No drought broken. Goddamn, the Off The Podium curse continues again.
COLIN HILDING: That means Charles Hammond will be back in La Cirtuna in 2026. But anyways, Mikaela Shiffrin, she was sort of that hope that this is going to get them their first gold. Almost an assumption, I think, it was going to get her her first gold. What was more amazing to me was just seeing how much the pressure hit her. If you saw, I mean, I was watching live and you could see like she was visibly upset, but she basically went off on the side of the course and just sat there with her arms crossed. It almost looked like the way that my children look when they're throwing a tantrum. I'm not saying she was throwing a tantrum. This is no not the case.
BEN WATERWORTH: It was the way you look whenever your athlete of the day doesn't get put up either.
COLIN HILDING: But it was like visibly almost pouting, but in an understandable way. And other skiers were going down and they just kept cutting back to Mikaela there, still with her arms crossed, not getting off the course. I mean, I almost want to put her up. It almost looked like a protest. So I would like to save that in case you have the greatest Australian of all time. Maybe I'll put Mikaela's protest up. But yeah, it's shocking to see what happened. It's how quickly she's going out too. There's gotta be something, this can't just be bad luck. There's gotta be something maybe mentally going on with her where she's overthinking it, she's under thinking it, she's incapable of thinking, who knows.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod, what's your take? You're a big sports psychologist guy. What's going through the mind of Mikaela?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Not much, in seven seconds on the course, I don't think. You know what, Channel 7, great pivot. You can guarantee they had a big package ready to go for this, for this victory that was so set in stone. And the way they pivoted to talking about the loss, it was really impressive, and it still took time away from other live sports.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is interesting, actually, because I wasn't, like, it wasn't live on TV, obviously, and I think Colin had messaged us saying that she joked again, and it didn't actually take them long for them to sort of cut to it and show it, did they? But I liked it on social media, how they've got all the pictures of her, like, sitting at the course, and people are like, please tell me someone's made this a meme already. Just her sitting there having a little bit of a sulk. But then I saw some people saying like, oh, she's been so selfish, like costing other people time by wasting time with the course. People are still going down. It's not like you've got the Austrian at the top of the hill going like, oh no, we can't wait till Mikaela's out a little bit of a sook, right? Like, I mean, you know, they just, they keep going down the hill. So yeah, wow. I've literally written on my note, Mikaela Shiffrin sucks. So, but I mean, she seems more, she seems more personable than Lindsey Vonn, right? Like, I mean, is that something more endearing?
COLIN HILDING: I was going to say, I mean, I don't want to put her in the Lindsey Vonn territory here. Like I have nothing against her. And even though I'm using words to describe it, like pouting and tantrum and stuff like that, that's visually what it looked like. But I know that's not what she was doing. I could just imagine the frustration of being at her level. I mean, let's equate it to some of those. Let's equate it to Chloe Kim falling on her first jump or Mikael Kingsbury taking a face plant on his first mogul. That's what we're seeing right now. And I can't think of any other time in Olympic history where we've had somebody at that level multiple times, like consistently just have such bad luck or bad performance.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think she's still got three events to go. So, you know.
COLIN HILDING: Well, we know what's gonna happen now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, yeah, exactly. Well, the first one was 10 seconds, the next was seven seconds, so it'll be five seconds, three seconds. The one thing that kind of like, I don't want to say it annoys me, but people are like, oh, this is such like Simone Biles. I'm like, well, is it? I mean, Simone Biles at least went out there and competed, was like, no, this is too much. I'm gonna have a break. And then she came back and did it. I think both times Mikaela Shiffrin's just gone, fuck, and just fucked up twice. And then, you know, I don't think there's anything to do with Simone Biles, but usually you.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I feel like the sporting equivalent is Ian Thorpe in the Olympic trials when he fell off the blocks into the pool. This is the same scene.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly, and are they literally gonna like force all the competitors in the final to step down so she can win a medal? No, all 52 of you before her must step down, so Mikaela can win a medal with that one. Actually, before I get to the Canada Australia results, one thing I mentioned this before, I just had to write this down because I had no idea what the fuck this was. In the big air, in the women's yesterday, the screaming semen, now, is this legitimately a name of a trick?
COLIN HILDING: I thought you made a joke about that earlier.
BEN WATERWORTH: I just, I'm not Jarrod, like I don't know if you watched it, and just Miff yesterday in the commentary, just was talking about the screaming semen, like this was as common thing as picking up a carton of milk. In this day and age of political correctness, how is this allowed to be a thing, the screaming semen?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No idea. I mean, I caught the end of the big S, so I didn't hear all the technical terms for the jumps and stuff, but it's an interesting one.
BEN WATERWORTH: Colin, were you aware of the screaming semen at all?
COLIN HILDING: Not in the least. I 100% believe when you said that earlier, that you had just made a really funny joke, and I was going to give you a solid eight on it. But now you stole, but to me, this is the tricky thing, is that when you get all these terms, like I was mentioning the commentators, why is so much of that food? Why chicken sandwich is a real thing? You really have to question. I mean, and I believe that commentators could, if they wanted to, come up with their own fake names and nobody would know. I mean, we do that when we do the commentary, but like we should just start convincing people. But we should start convincing people these things are real, like the snug sandwich shooter or something like that. Like these are terms that really exist and nobody will know for at least two decades.
BEN WATERWORTH: The Emu Plains egg roll.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, we've made people believe that we're a decent podcast long enough that we get nominated for awards now. So anything's possible, really, yeah, I've seen Charles' little move there. Looked a bit dodged there, Colin, come on. Like you can't do that. I've been watching this sport long enough to know that that's illegal. I watch it every four years. So there you go. Breaking news in the double luge. After one run, Germany are one and two ahead of Austria, Canada, sitting in seventh place right now in the doubles luge. Is this a sport that stops the nation, Colin? Because this should be a sport that stops the nation. Doubles luge is amazing.
COLIN HILDING: A little bit of interest. I actually was hoping that Charles would be out in time for me to be able to watch it. So now that that's happened, maybe I'll switch over to luge, but I'm kind of invested now in seeing who's going to who's going to beat Charles.
BEN WATERWORTH: I do live just quickly here on Channel 7 right now. They're showing Mikaela Shiffrin crashing out and the headline underneath is Mikaela Shiffrin bombs out of the women's slalom. So just no way to hold back there. Results from Australia and Canada's perspective outside of what we've talked about. Colin, do you have your Canadian ones up or do you need me to do the legwork for you again right now?
COLIN HILDING: You're going to be doing the legwork. I know about Scott because I actually watched that. That was exciting.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, we'll get to Scott because that's from an Off The Podium perspective is great. In the super GES today, I can see here that James Crawford did all right again. He got six. Good for him. Trevor Phillip. Philp, I should say, got tenths. Good for him. Excuse me. And Broderick Thompson and Brody Segear pulled a Mikaela and did not finish. So can we coin that as a new term, pulled a Mikaela? It's just like doing a Bradbury, just pulling a Mikaela. Sounds a bit wrong actually, doesn't it? But I like it. Yeah, the biathlon yesterday, 20-kilometre individual, fantastic result for Scott Gow, Off The Podium, Scott Gow, fifth position for him. Now, Colin, tell us a little bit about this because I didn't see any of it. I saw his post where he basically said that he missed a shot by millimetres and had he got that shot, he would have won a medal. So what happened? I mean, sort of how close was he to picking up, which I believe would have been a very first for a male biathlete at the Olympics for Canada medal.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, it was and I was watching fairly late, but all of a sudden I come in and they're talking about both him and his brother, Christian, that they are both very close to medal contention. I don't know if it's called a shooting station. What do they call those? Range. So let's call it the station, the last shooting station that they were at.
BEN WATERWORTH: Make it up, Colin. We'll believe you.
COLIN HILDING: It's the Winnipeg Wonder station. Yeah, they were they all of a sudden were. Now they were downplaying it. You could tell that they're like, oh, we got a real shot there. But they're like, it's basically anybody's game at this point. And Scott has a real shot here. And I'm just watching one after the other like boom, boom, boom, boom. He's hitting the targets. And the last one, I'm assuming just because of how much easier is that he's got the last one. And the last one, I'm looking at my computer screen. I'm like squinting my eyes. I'm like, did he get that one or not? No, no, he didn't. But they still were talking up like it was a shot. I think at one point they said, you know, he only has to make up this many seconds or whatever. And he can still be in contention for a medal. But yeah, fifth place, though, because I think was ninth the best candidate ever had maybe. But yeah, but like fifth is incredible. And this is one of these situations where other countries in the world, they'd be like, oh, so what you finish fifth. I mean, like this is a significant improvement over the best Canadian results ever. And had us so close to a medal. Like I was I don't think I've ever actually really cared about the biathlon until I watched it yesterday. And that having said that, I mean, I think one of the great things that let me applaud Ben for a second here. One of the great things that Ben's done is in really trying to get some of these less popular sports, get athletes on. I mean, I could not have cared less about ski jumping until you got a bunch of ski jumpers on the show. I couldn't have cared less about biathlon until you had Scott on the show. So good attention is going to be now on the biathlon here in Canada as much as on ski jumping, which, by the way, ski jumping taken over this country. Like I'm still seeing daily stories about this. Even Team Canada is posting, you know, the ski jumping history that we made and everything. It's incredible. I mean, this will be the sport of the future here.
BEN WATERWORTH: Had a bit of a chat with Ali, congratulating her and Abby the other day. And she's very keen to come back on the show. And maybe we'll try and get her and Abby on together to celebrate this.
COLIN HILDING: But let's bring Mackenzie and the other guy in too.
BEN WATERWORTH: Absolutely.
COLIN HILDING: We will. Sorry, other guy, I just don't remember your name.
BEN WATERWORTH: Welcome to Off The Podium.
COLIN HILDING: And not to go even further back, because we're covering two days here. But I had even sent you the screenshot that it was within like two hours. They had them in the studio, virtually in the studio. But still, whenever you have even like a medallist, maybe even potentially a gold medallist, they're not going to get them in for a proper interview until the next day. And it was so rushed that the first question, I think they asked Mackenzie or Allie, or they asked them both. Mackenzie's answer was basically, they're like, you know, how does it feel to win this medal? And he's like, I can't tell you, I'm just really tired right now. And they even said, you guys are like ready to go to bed. So it was such a big deal. I think that's the quickest I've ever seen an official interview done, which really just shows you like how much they wanted to capitalise on this.
BEN WATERWORTH: Other guy, of course, is Matthew Sukup, the esteemed. So Jarrod knew that, right? Jarrod, you're just sitting there waiting to say.
COLIN HILDING: You made that up. That's like to scream and semen. If nobody's going to know if that's the right answer or not, until it comes to the show.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jack Smiggins, basically. But if you're not following them on social media, do so because they're hilarious. And a lot of the stuff that they're posting, like Abby posted a video of her, like I think it was just before the fire. She's like laying on the floor asleep. It's just so funny. One of the facts that I saw about this still was that I think Canada now joined the US as the only country to have won medals in 14 out of the 15 Olympic sports now. So not even Norway and these other countries. I don't know what the sport is that USA haven't won a medal in there.
COLIN HILDING: I think it was this actually, because I believe I heard at least in one spot saying that they were the first North American medallists ever.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, that's not true. USA won a ski jumping medal in the very first Olympics. I remember when we had the American ski jumpers on, we talked about they haven't won a medal in ski jumping since the very first Olympics.
COLIN HILDING: We're going to have to find out and we're going to have to get an American on there, because apparently we can break curses in droughts as far as sports go.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I'm going to go because we did this in the summer Olympics, didn't we? And we found out it was like table tennis and that sort of stuff. But yeah, I need to find this out. Olympic sports, USA haven't won a medal in this. Surely shouldn't be a hard thing to find. Because, yeah, this is this is one that I really am intrigued. Jarrod again, you know this, don't you? You just don't want to spoil it.
JARROD LOOBEEK: And hate to spoil the listeners ahead of time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. This is all the ones here that are just summer events. This is great podcasting. This is why people missed us for a whole 24 hours. Luge. There you go. That was quick. Really? That's not right, is it? Oh, this is gold medals. Hang on. What? 12 events the United States has not won. Oh, this is events they haven't won a gold in. Yeah, that's winning. I was going to say Luge. All right. Well, this must be an old article because they've won a gold in curling. So we know that for a second. Biathlon, maybe? It is. It's biathlon. A long way from gold, especially the only winter Olympic event in the US. How is America not meddled in biathlon? There's a gun involved. Like, I mean, if this is a sport. I think Nick talked about this the other day. But like, seriously, how is America not meddled in biathlon? Jesus Christ, I'd say if there was like a, you know, eating the most hamburger competition at the Olympics in America. How is that possible? Seriously.
COLIN HILDING: They should have the goat in the biathlon.
JARROD LOOBEEK: There's not enough shooting stations in biathlon.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's all that skiing in the middle. Americans are just like, oh, no, we can't do that. That's too hard. Seriously, like for fuck's sake. Biathlon. The one, oh, my God. That's fascinating. That's actually really interesting. So, Jarrod, let's see if you may be paying attention to our show Off The Podium. What's the one sport that Canada has not meddled in at the Olympics?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, you know that sport that they're not really good at.
COLIN HILDING: It's Ben's sport.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's my sport. Really? I thought your sport was curling. I'm so confused.
BEN WATERWORTH: Nordic combined. Jarrod, Nordic combined. Oh, gosh. Wow. Anyway, also in that event in the biathlon, you mentioned Christian Gouw. He came in in 24th place. Adam Reynolds in 33rd, and Jules Bernat in 36th place. New Zealand's Campbell Wright, 32nd. Oh, Brew, we got 32nd in the Olympics in the biathlon. I wonder if they're celebrating that as much as Zoe, essentially. I have, I don't know. Cross-country skiing yesterday. Obviously a couple of Aussies in that one. Jess Yeaton, 52nd. And Off The Podium's Casey Wright in 65th. I should mention this is in the women's sprint. Both did not go through to the next phase of that. In the men's side of things, Phil Bellingham was 50th. Lars Young, Vic, was 55th. And Hugo Hinckvist was 61st. And Sevi Di Campo was 63rd. None of them qualifying through to the next phase of that. For Canada, Graham Ritchie was 34th. Oliver Lavelle was 54th. And Antoine Sear was 56th. They also did not qualify through to the next phase. We'll keep that in there. Let's remember the time when Ben had Covid so we can choke on air. And the women's for Canada, Daria Beattie was 28th. She went through to the next phase. I'll tell you how she went in the second. Sandrine Brown was 35th. Did not make it through. Olivia Buffard Nesbitt was 40th. Did not make it through. Laura Leclerc 58th did not make it through. So what you're dying to know then is how she went in the quarterfinals. Our esteemed Canadian. And the answer to that is that Daria Beattie was fifth in her first quarterfinal and did not make it through. So there you go. Sad, sad news for her. In the figure skating, now this is an interesting one yesterday for a couple of reasons. For Australia, Brendan Carey, 17th. He is through to the free program, Off The Podium's Brendan Carey. Off The Podium's Jason Brown is also through to the free section. He was in sixth, so he'll be very happy with that one as well. And Canada also qualified a skater through to the final. Keegan Messing, Deborah's brother probably, ninth. So through in the top 10. The GOAT, Nathan Chen, in first place there. Roman Sadowski, another Canadian, did not make it through for him there. So did you watch this, Jarrod? Did you watch Brendan yesterday? Got a bit of coverage yesterday. It was pretty good.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I did catch Brendan. It was a great routine. Apart from like his first jump, he kind of bungled a bit, but after that, solid. So room to improve in the final.
BEN WATERWORTH: Colin, were you much into figure skating yesterday watching Keegan? Did you see Jason's routine as well?
COLIN HILDING: No, I didn't get to see it yesterday, which I'm disappointed because I was going to use that to help Casper go to bed again to calm down. But there's still plenty more to come.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, plenty. Trust me. In the big air finals, Megan Oldham, fourth for Canada, didn't quite get a medal in Olivia Asselin, eighth in that one. In the ice hockey yesterday, four-two Canada over the US. I mean, if you want to talk about a spanking in women's ice hockey when it comes between Canada and USA, it's more than one goal. That's a spanking. Did you watch it, Colin? I was a bit worried there when you went two-one down. I'm thinking, shit, but you got the goal back straight away and ended up winning four-two. It was good.
COLIN HILDING: You know, my only disappointment is that you had sent a message saying that you had Sammy Joe Smalls on Off The Podiums, Sammy Joe Smalls on commentary, which it wasn't the CBC coverage because she wasn't commentating here. I thought if I go back and just because typically they'll use those on the app or whatever for the replays. I'm like, I'll go back because I want to hear her commentary. And they still didn't have it here. So, I mean, you got an exclusive. You got to hear Sammy Joe on commentary and I didn't.
BEN WATERWORTH: We tweeted out to her and she sort of replied saying like, oh, it's great that you guys get the OBS. Mike Harris is on the curling as well. So, I mean, we've got two Off The Podium guests doing commentary. So, yeah, it's pretty good there. In the luge, when it came to Canada, you had three competitors in the women's luge. Trinity Ellis was 14th, Natalie Corliss was 16th, and Mikaela Hodgson was 17th in that one. And in the parallel, so you had some in the parallel, Giant Slalom, did you, Colin, or did you not?
COLIN HILDING: Quarter, semi, and finals, and we didn't have any in there, but I believe that there was somebody prior to that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I'm sure there was. I can't be wrong. We went through all of them. No disrespect. I'm sure you did well. And it's 1500m speed skating. Connor Howe was 5th in that one. Tyson Langlaire was 22nd, and Twav Kalini is below. Talk about him. 23rd. And there's a New Zealander in that one, too. Peter Michael was 26th, apparently, in that one. Give me one second while I cough. Colin, say something for me entertainingly right now to distract this.
COLIN HILDING: Screamin seaman. Are you done?
BEN WATERWORTH: Could have kept going a bit longer there. That was a bit awkward. Yep, cool. The relays on in the semifinals in Canada got a false start a couple of seconds ago, so that was awkward for them. All right, what else is going on today? Alpine skiing. I know we had Katie, Caitlin, the Aussie was in it today. Catherine got there eventually. Catherine Parker, who I believe basically was only told that she was competing at 5am this morning because she had tested positive for Covid. The negative was very Tali-esque, but she ended up sadly pulling a Mikaela and not finishing in that one. But for Canada's perspective, you had Aaron Milsinski was 16th, Lawrence Saint-Germain was 17th, and Ali Nulmeyer was 21st, Amelia Smart was 27th. I love the slalom. Just reminds me of Zali back in the day. Good old slalom going on there. In the curling, breaking news in the curling, the men's session is on right now. Canada in a battle with Denmark. It's for all right now. What's the talk now up basically, Colin, of the rest of the curling with the men and the women going on? Is there much hope for a medal here?
COLIN HILDING: I think our attention is probably a little bit more on the women's just because Jennifer Jones and her crew, they had that undefeated gold from Sochi. And then when Rachel Homan had beaten them out for Pyeongchang, there was a lot of like, oh, I don't know if we have as much of a shot with Rachel. That's one of those weird things with curling qualification. But with the men's, I think what's the interesting story is that Brad Gushu, him and his team, this is 12 years removed from their last gold medal. So it's kind of like Cinderella story, making a comeback for Brad Gushu. I think I don't know whether he's going to win or not, but it's kind of just exciting that we've had a return to the Olympics after that long.
BEN WATERWORTH: Evan McCochran in the big air final for Canada.
COLIN HILDING: McCeachran, McCeachran.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, shut up. Names and me don't go very well. You know, whatever. In the luge, breaking news in the luge, Run 2 is about to happen shortly. So there's no new update in that one. In the Nordic combined, obviously, Canada didn't have any representation, but Off The Podium had a representation. Taylor Fletcher was 24th in the normal hill. So good for Taylor. I'm sure he'll be. I mean, probably would be happy with 24th, but I'm sure he's glad that he's there. Charles Hamlin not doing well enough to make the finals.
COLIN HILDING: You know, what's weird though, like a guy who has two times in a row said, this is my last Olympics, you think that he's going to be a Mikaela Shiffrin. He's taken this so seriously. I have to meddle. They just cut to him and he's sitting there laughing. He's like, and I actually see him go like this. Sorry.
BEN WATERWORTH: What a man.
COLIN HILDING: I want somebody who's fun to follow on social media. Charles Hamlin.
BEN WATERWORTH: In the women's 1000 metres, Kim Butin, Bhutan. How do you say her name?
COLIN HILDING: Butin. Butin.
BEN WATERWORTH: She's gone. She crashed out, didn't she? So she's done. But Courtney Searalt is through to the next round, as is Alison Charles. So good for them. And in the 3000 metres semis, I don't know. I'm looking at them on screen right now. They look pretty happy. Looks like they've made it through to the final Canada. So good for them. Chin up, champs. You'll be doing well. And what else we have today going on? The Snowboard Cross. You got a bronze in that. Good job for you. Oh, the Half Pipe. Any Canadians go through in that? I don't know if I was paying much attention to the Canadians. Should mention the Australian perspective of all that. Yeah, you do. You've got two in the women. Brooke Dont and Elizabeth Hosking are through. Sadly, for Australia, Emily Arthur, 14th, did not quite make it through to her second final. In the men's side of things, Canada, Liam Gill was 23rd, did not make it. But we've got two Aussies through, the great Scotty James, who you can claim is half Canadian. He's getting married to a Canadian, so joining the Stroll Empire. He qualified in second. And Valentino Gaselli, fifth. Was it Valentino Airlines or something? Jarrod or whatever it is they keep trying to say or whatever. And The Goat. Sean White in fourth. Ayumu Hirano, the fastest. The fastest, the highest score there. I mean Jarrod, I was going to say, did you watch this? Let's be honest, you couldn't have missed this today. What did you think of the half pipe? Scotty, are we feeling it for Scotty?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I'm feeling a medal, I'm not feeling cold. I feel like he might do a Jess Fox repeat bronze. But Valentino was impressive.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, Valentino pulled it out when he needed to. Yeah, I kind of think, I think silver maybe for Scotty, but yeah, I'm with you, I'm not feeling the gold. I know I didn't put him in my predictions, but I don't know, there's just something about him. Although I've got to say, if there's anyone in this final I want to win the gold just because of his name, Taylor Gold from the USA. I mean, come on, like this guy's got to win a gold medal. Like that's just, that's just poignant. Colin, do you watch any of the Halfpipe?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I watched the first run of the qualifications, which Jamie actually was watching with me. She, I think she likes it, but she didn't love it. I think one of the things in the qualification run is that everybody is so cautious that you don't really get any excitement until you get to the finals, which I didn't catch. Or in the later rounds. So, yeah, I don't know if I'll be going to my way to watch qualifications again in a half-pipe.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it's like that with the big air, I think Jarrah was talking about the other day as well, and these sort of ones. It's always the finals that end up being exciting. It's like if you're watching the seeding runs for the Snowboard Cross, it's not really that entertaining watching somebody go down the freaking course by themselves, right? You know, that defeats the purpose of what you're watching it for. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see, of course, the women's finals on tomorrow and the men's is on Friday. What did we watch, gentlemen? Obviously a lot in two days. Jarrod, anything that we haven't discussed that you've watched in the last two days?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I caught a little bit of everything. The Giant Slalom, the Snowboard Cross, the Big Air, which I have to do a complete 180, and it's an amazing event. The final was so good of the women and the men. This is better than Big Air, Snowboard. I'm calling it now. Yeah, that's one of the favourite things I've watched so far at these Winter Olympics. It was really cool.
BEN WATERWORTH: Big call. Wow, I like it. Colin, what about you?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, as far as day four goes, I've pretty much caught up on everything now. The only things I've been able to watch, watch obviously the speed skating right now for day five, the qualification from the Halfpipe, the Mikaela Shiffrin's endless sulking.
BEN WATERWORTH: Can we just call her Mikaela Shiffrin?
COLIN HILDING: I don't want people to think we're just criticising her.
BEN WATERWORTH: Come on, the woman can't last 10 seconds. If a man does that, then the man can't last 10 seconds. He's automatically get some pills. There's something wrong with him. She does it all. She's still amazing. Sorry, Mikaela Shiffrin. Simple.
COLIN HILDING: But as far as the big air, I don't know if I'm a complete turnaround on it. It's one of these things where I feel more suited for X Games. And there's a lot of, I guess, two issues I have. One, just the endless crossovers with the exact same sport for both ski and snowboard that I think I would rather a little bit more separation on. So we're not just watching, oh, now we got to watch the ski version of this, and now we got to watch the snowboard version of this. And to me, it's like big air, a little bit too close to aerials. So I wonder if this is going to decrease the excitement for aerials when it comes up, because it's just a more free version of aerials. I don't know, but I mean, I definitely was a little bit more invested in it than I have in the last couple of days. I actually am really now loving the location. As I mentioned, the Tony Hawk Pro Skater location, the nuclear power plant. I love that. I think more than anything, I'm just going to remember the visual of how great it looks on TV.
BEN WATERWORTH: I say there needs to be more of these crossovers. I want snowboard moguls. I want snowboard downhill. I want snowboard aerials. You talk about taking away from the aerials. Aerials are still one of the best. I want snowboard aerials. Sure, they can do that. I want snowboard jumping, like ski jumping, but on the snowboard.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I want this to be like the new Nordic combined. They go down to big air on their skis, back up to the top of the hills, strap into the snowboard. They do big air on the snowboard.
COLIN HILDING: You know what? Let's combine because it's the same athletes. Just combine big air and slope style. Like, why not?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. And I want snowboard biathlon. Like I just want them like snowboarding for like 20 kilometres and then shooting the Americans and probably finally win a medal in that way.
COLIN HILDING: You realise though, in order for them to do any of these things, they got to cut sports in order to combine the first one they're cutting.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, if they cut Nordic combined, I'm done with the Olympics. I'm just right now, by the way, doubles loosers on TV. Oh, this sport is amazing. I mean, like, at what point in life does somebody go, hey, let's do doubles loosers together. Like if I said to you, Jarrod, Jarrod, let's get to know each other a little bit better. Let's get in some tight Lycra and rub each other on a sled and go down the... Where's double skeleton?
COLIN HILDING: That's the one we want.
BEN WATERWORTH: Like, you know, man on top, man on bottom, we're the other way around, you know? Downward dog or down to shoes.
COLIN HILDING: We're not far away from mixed double luge. We're getting to know the amount of mixed events coming now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Where's the doubles luge in women? Now that sport would go off. Now come on, gender equality and all that kind of... Just watching them go down and patting their hands. Oh my god, you'd have to get to know each other quite well in that sport. Breaking news in the ice hockey, the men's competition started today. The Czech Republic and Denmark, it's nil all. ROC defeated Switzerland today. That was pretty entertaining. And breaking news in the curling, Canada 5, Denmark 4. Canada leading, Denmark. Are we excited? Are we excited? Yes, we are. I watched a lot of shit. As I said, I watch the ice hockey. I'm watching lose right now. Well, I do, but I can't go anywhere right now. Snowboard. Yeah, lots of things going on there. Fails. Colin, CBC, how are they doing?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, I haven't been able to catch a lot of their commentary, but I did mark one down last night, which of course it's going to be in a snowboarding event. This one isn't Craig McMorris though. They got a different one. So this was what's the event? Okay, I just wrote this guy's name, Colby Stevenson. We mentioned that name earlier.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, the Big Air, the mid Big Air.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, so this is also just sort of continuing a trend, A, of snowboarders giving the best bag commentary. And also a lot of Canadians like to talk about death. When Colby Stevenson's, I think it was his final run coming up, the guy who was commenting, Colby Stevenson, somebody I have super close to my heart, saved me from an avalanche incident in Utah. So I owe him dinner for life. That's, I guess, the go-to payment for if you save somebody from an avalanche, all right, you get dinner for life.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's all you deserve basically. Dinner for life. Wow. Jarrod, anything from you?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I don't have anything again. It's just the Olympics is always on in the background.
COLIN HILDING: He's gotten to you too.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I've signed a non-disclosure agreement. No, but I tell you what, they should really bring back. I want to bring them to bring back the falls montage. Can you pass that on?
BEN WATERWORTH: I will do my best. I can, I get knocked down.
JARROD LOOBEEK: We're going to have endless replays. That on endless replay. I don't mind so much.
BEN WATERWORTH: I did enjoy the fact that Hamish McLaughlin was obsessed with showing the fights in the ice hockey tonight. So that was a special props to Matt Shervington dressing up in a lab coat, showing off figure skating moves, which is always fun. And also a bit of an awkward banter between him and Em today, trying to discuss the doubles lose. And you can tell they totally wanted to say so much more, but they were live on TV and therefore probably couldn't say much. One thing I wanted to add in terms of Ben getting annoyed at things again, I can repeat to news.com.au because they're not my employee. I did appreciate them having like a headline. It was like the dark secret behind Beijing's popular mascot. It's like, oh, not being Duan Duan. What's going on here? It was basically some bullshit story about how these Twitter handles making it so that it gets more popular because they're like Twitter is available in China. So how could it be trending in it around the world? It's like because there are fake counts spreading the word. And I'm thinking, yeah, that's just what Twitter does. And Big Duan Duan is fucking awesome, so it doesn't need fake counts. We just want to be Duan Duan selling out all around the world. You cannot buy a Big Duan Duan. Is that popular?
COLIN HILDING: I'm just so disappointed with the dark truth. I was hoping you were going to send us like that with Big Duan Duan squeezing through the door that you have a picture of Big Duan Duan in an alley somewhere, shooting up with a needle in his arm. That would have been a story.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's where Jarrod's going. Well, that would make me like Big Duan Duan more.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I can't get the needle through the ice suit.
BEN WATERWORTH: So Big Duan Duan is awesome. I want a Big Duan Duan.
COLIN HILDING: You're really turned around on Big Duan Duan because you weren't high on him.
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, he's no Shoei Ron Ron.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, I'm with you. No Shoei Ron Ron. But like, come on, Big Duan Duan.
COLIN HILDING: We're the real ones. Tom and Tom and something.
BEN WATERWORTH: For what? Tom and Jerry? Real.
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, not real.
BEN WATERWORTH: I have no idea. I can't remember. I barely remember what I did five minutes ago. Do we want to do what day? Let's do the day orders, and then we'll get into the daily dial because that will take up. We'll get a couple of them to discuss. Colin, before I get to yours, we're also going to get through two. So yesterday, it was Zali Stegel Day. Now, the esteem, the great, the legendary Zali Stegel, when people don't know who Zali Stegel is, and go get an education, because Zali Stegel is a queen of alpine skiing in Australia, four-time Olympian, bronze medallist in Naganoa, the women's slalom, our first ever individual Olympic Winter Games medallist, first ever female medallist, world champion in 1999 as well, guest on this show, one of my favourite interviews when I was able to track down Zali. It was great chat. And now a member of parliament in Australia, of course. I think most people know her now as a politician, Jarrod, right?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, the Tony Abbott slayer, Zali Steggalls.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's right. She beat Tony Abbott, former prime minister. She kicked him out basically. And she seems to be somewhat popular still. So yeah, I mean, were you overly familiar with, I mean, obviously as a medallist, Jarrod, but I don't know how much you paid attention to the Winter Olympics back in the day. But were you a bit of a Zali fan or were you not overly familiar with Zali until she got into politics?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, big Zali fan and then even bigger after the election results.
BEN WATERWORTH: And of course, her brother, Zeke, was Australia's first ever competitor in snowboard as well. So there's another little fun fact. And the other one for today, given that Nordic Combined started today, well, we had to honour Australia's only ever Nordic Combined athlete, the esteemed Hau Nidal competed in 1960 and was 31st in the Normal Heel Competition back then. Still with us is Hau, he's in his 90s and tried to get him on the show, but yeah, it might be a little bit tricky. He's apparently not too good on the hearing and doesn't speak a lot of English. But hey, I would do very well on this show. But I've spoken to his daughter and they're obviously very proud of Hau's achievement of being Australia's only ever Nordic combined athlete. So congratulations. Celebrate Hau Nidal Day and yesterday, of course, Zali Stegel Day, two greats of Australia Winter Olympians. Colin, who are we celebrating yesterday and today? And I promise they will be posted on social media soon.
COLIN HILDING: Before the Italy 2026. So actually, I'm very excited. This is for day four. This is one of my all time favourite Olympians. It's JCJ. Anderson Day. Now, first of all, is there anybody with a better name than JCJ. Anderson?
BEN WATERWORTH: Literally the man's name.
COLIN HILDING: Close. Yeah, I guess JCJ is a potential name for mascot in the future. But JCJ actually has the record of the most Olympic appearances, six Winter Olympics he competed in for Canada. He was there back in Nagano. I was talking about the fond memories when it was just the slalom before the parallel slalom. My biggest memory was JCJ. Anderson being the guy to beat, being the one to lead and pulling a Mikaela on his second run. And it ended up being Canada's Ross Rebelliati, the one instead. But JCJ continued to compete in the Olympics, continued to not medal, not end up showing when it got close to the finals. And then out of nowhere in his fourth Olympics in Vancouver, went on to win the gold in the parallel slalom. Still competed. This is actually the first time they have ever done snowboarding in the Olympics without JCJ. Anderson. So let's add him in there. Anderson Day. And then Day 5 is Nancy Green Day. Now, Nancy Green, I guess her greatest accomplishment in the Olympics was in 1968, she actually won both gold and silver in the Giant Slalom and the Slalom. But it's appropriate we have a member of parliament there because she served on the Canadian Senate for years. And many other distinctions, the Order of Canada and the biggest one, she was actually named at the end of the 20th century as Canada's female athlete of the 20th century, number one, she actually got in there. So amazing. Nancy Green Day, Day 5.
BEN WATERWORTH: Congratulations, that's more of an honour to be named Canada's athlete of the century, getting Day 5, Day of, essentially. Good job for that. Breaking news in the ice hockey, Denmark won, Czech Republic, nil. That's a bit of a boil over. Denmark's first ever Olympics and they're beating the Czechs. Former gold medallist. Colin, you wouldn't predicted that, would you?
COLIN HILDING: Sure I would have.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, Jarrod did. Jarrod doesn't mean that. Jarrod's like, Ben, you knew that was my prediction pre-tournament. End of five ends in the curl in Canada. Still five-four up over Denmark. The doubles lose second run is about to start. Now, Daily Dale, we've got two to cover here. So let's start with day four. I'm just going to say that I have, I mean, I'm obviously going to nominate Ester, but again, we've technically already done our snowboarder. And she's got more to come. And Colin's rolling his eyes already. He doesn't want to do Ester, apparently.
COLIN HILDING: No, no, no, opposite. I'm for Ester.
BEN WATERWORTH: You're for Ester.
COLIN HILDING: What if Ester, what if Ester Mikaela's next time? Like, do we want to not have Ester?
JARROD LOOBEEK: We just pick her anyway.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. Because even in failure, Ester is brilliant. All right. You would literally be like, oh, look at that woman. She's so good at crashing. Give her the Daily Dale. I'm also putting up Scott yesterday, who, I mean, realistically, probably is my actual... What now?
COLIN HILDING: What have I done? I just feel like now it doesn't matter. If Ben did an interview with them, they're going to be up for the Daily Dale.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's got nothing to do with that. A fifth in biathlon is pretty good, and we haven't put a biathlete up yet. And the other one I was going to mention to Jesse Diggins, the American cross-country skier getting their first ever individual cross-country skiing medal, I think is a pretty big deal for America, like cross-country skiing. You don't think about that. So I honestly would have Scott as my number one there, but hey, Colin, what's going on here?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I mean, I actually had an American originally, as I said, for yesterday, but now with Jacob Ellis kind of being my pick for day five, I was going to go with Ryan Cochran Siegel for day four, not just because I guess it was a big silver medal win for him. But did you guys get the story about his family that his mother had won gold almost 50 years ago? So this 50 year gap between mother and son meddling in the Olympics?
BEN WATERWORTH: No, I did not.
COLIN HILDING: That would have been my choice for day four. That was really the only one I had. I would also say, I mean, I know our goal is to be able to spread among different sports and everything. I think Esther is a good choice. Come on, like how many variations of sports are there? We could go with the variation. But also, I was going to say the Italian curling team. Day one, does it really count for a Daily Dale? I mean, yes, it is. Day zero, there you go. So if we're going to give it to anybody in the curling, I mean, I think the Italians would be a good choice as well. But I think everybody is sort of open to be swayed today.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just quickly before I get to Jarrod, I'll correct myself. Jesse was not the first solo US Cross country, first solo female. Bill Cock won back in 1976. Won a silver medal in the 30 kilometres. Jarrod, yesterday's Daily Dale. Anyone else that we haven't mentioned or who are you swayed on?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, it's tough because, you know, I've interviewed so many athletes. But I'm going with Queen of the Luge, Natalie Geisenberger. I just think three golds back to back on top of all the other achievements outside the Olympics. She's still got chances to win more gold in other events at this Olympics. So yeah, that's my nomination.
BEN WATERWORTH: You know, yeah, I feel bad that I didn't even put it down, but you're right. She can win gold in the team, which would give her her fifth gold, I believe, which is a record. So yeah, I mean, I'm OK with that. I like, you know, I want to give it to Ester, but like, like, just just she wins one of those ones in Alpine. I think that's that's where you fully. Yeah, I'm I'm with Natalie hashtag. I'm with Natalie because I can. It's one of those weird things where, like, the attention that gets given on so many of these other goats that she's barely mentioned. And I mean, you look at that, what she's achieved. So yeah, no, I'm I'm hashtag. I'm with Natalie. We're all good with that for day four. OK, yeah, yeah. Cool. All right. Day five. Let's start with you, Jarrod. You can go first this time around. Who have you put up for today?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, I was hoping to piggyback off one of you. Tempted to nominate that as the referee from the men's ice hockey match. But you know, maybe, yeah, maybe. And I can't you know, I can't stand her and was hoping she didn't win. But maybe it's maybe it's Lindsay in the in the Snowboard Cross.
BEN WATERWORTH: The only thing is, I'll say about Lindsay that we've had a snowboarder. But again, I also I hear what Colin's saying about, you know, differently. I mean, yeah, I've put down Lindsay, but I've also put up Petra Valhova. Valhova of Slovakia won the gold in the slalom Slovakia's first ever. I don't know if this is first ever medallist in alpine skiing or just first ever gold medallist in alpine skiing. But always, always won for a first. And she looked pretty happy when she got that one there. All right, maybe we just put up Mikaela Shiffrin for just being shit and give her an award like a participation medal. Are you well done, Mikaela? You got through two gates this time instead of one. Have a Daily Dale. Yeah. Colin, have you got anyone else different or what are we thinking?
COLIN HILDING: No, I mean, I'm like, I'm very hard on. Lizzie Jacobella is very hard on her. That's not what I meant. I am pushing for her. We're looking at how many Olympics before she got this gold. And you add to that the American drought, which she broke. I mean, it's not the longest they've ever had, but modern Olympics, five days without a gold. I think that it's huge for America to finally get their gold.
BEN WATERWORTH: Poor America. You've taken five. Oh, let's all feel bad for our American Olympians. They've had such a drought five days without a gold. Oh, those poor things.
JARROD LOOBEEK: The inquiries they had lined up, ready to go.
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, God, this is just, it's the worst case for America. Whatever, whatever shall they do? Can't win a gold. Poor America.
COLIN HILDING: But even removing that from the equation, I mean, this story is huge for any athlete to be as good as somebody is. And then it's not even just, oh, well, she's gotten silver. She's gotten more, she got one silver and it was 16 years ago. And she's consistently been this good. So, I mean, I'm all for giving it to Lindsay Jacob Ellis. Hard, not hard on.
BEN WATERWORTH: We have Colin a moment there to relieve himself. But like, yeah, I look, I think also that like, well, Jarrod, I see your point. Like she should always be known as this sort of thing. But like, it's kind of like it's a nice redemption story. You know, the always known as the woman who did this. And she's come back 16 years later and won the gold. So, yeah, yeah, I'm with Lindsay. Hashtag, I'm with Lindsay. So we've got Natalie and Lindsay. So there you go. Oh, come on, we need more men. This is very sexist against men. Too many women.
COLIN HILDING: You have the spread here on men versus women that we've had so far.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think we've definitely had more women.
COLIN HILDING: I'm going to drop a little bit of a thing from Tokyo. If I was more animated on some non outside of penny choices, it was because after a while, I started to notice there were a lot of white athletes being put up. So I started intentionally pushing for non white athletes after like day six. I never said anything. Well, harder in the winter.
BEN WATERWORTH: The only men that have had this Oscar on day zero and 50% of Canada's mixed team ski jumping.
COLIN HILDING: We need some men in there. Come on. This is the gender equality Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. Exactly. Come on now. So I guess looking ahead to tomorrow, let's give a mental tally update first of all, before I get to that, though, with what we've only got one more event to be decided today, because has the 1500 metres in the men's been decided yet? Two more to go today. Well, I should say I'll double check that in a second. So the mental tally Norway have jumped to the top. Four gold, two silver, four bronze, 10 in total. Germany, four gold, two silver, zero bronze, zero in second. Sweden doing very well, though. Four gold, one silver, two bronze, zero in seventh. The Netherlands in fourth. Three gold, three silver, one bronze. And China, three gold, two silver, zero bronze. Canada have dropped to twelfth. One gold, two silver, five bronze, and eight. In total, Australia in fifteenth. One gold, one silver. And of course, Saudi Arabia sitting in 24th place. Zero gold, zero silver, zero bronze. About where you'd expect them to be. I think just probably on the grace note predictions side of things there. So tomorrow, skeleton begins. And luge ends. Actually, seriously, the most entertaining thing outside of the doubles luge is the team relay. Fucking the team relay is brilliant. We love the team relay and the luge. The men's skeleton starts tomorrow, so we get to see Nick Timmings in action for Off The Podium. It's pretty exciting. And also tomorrow for Off The Podium, we have Brendan Carey back on the ice and Jason Brown back on the ice. And Casey Wright also will be in the cross country tomorrow as well. We have also medal events being decided in Alpine skiing. We will have the men's combined. The women's 10K classical is what Casey is in in the cross country. As I said, the men's single and figure skating. We've got the mixed team aerials in freestyle skiing, which is exciting, Jarrod, but obviously no Australia because we don't have any male athletes in this. So no David Morris. He actually did retire this time around, unfortunately. So none for us. But just saying, Jarrod, we love the aerials, don't we, as Australians?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I feel like it's like the Aussie go-to event. But apparently athletes haven't arrived during the mixed team event yet. There's all this drama on that. So it'll be interesting to see who shows up.
BEN WATERWORTH: We might get a call up. We might all of a sudden get a call up. Exactly. As I said, team relay, in the luge, the snowboarding. We've got the women's halfpipe and the men's snowboard cross. So we've got four Aussies in that tomorrow. So we'll be watching that one. And in the speed skating, the women's 5000 metres. Colin, what are you pumped for tomorrow when it comes to metal events out of those ones?
COLIN HILDING: Skeleton, 100% skeleton. If I had to pick between all those down track, downhill track, how would you say it? Bobsled, illusion, skeleton. Skeleton is my number one.
BEN WATERWORTH: Sliding events.
COLIN HILDING: Sliding events, yeah. You can't see it right now, but of course you've all seen my giant John Montgomery autograph painting. And skeleton basically breeds Amazing Race Canada talent as well. This is like you guys with Australian Survivor because John Montgomery hosts it. We had another skeleton medallist, Melissa Hollingsworth, who competed on it. So I'm excited for the skeleton to see who I'm going to see on Amazing Race Canada next season.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, also get pumped Colin for the ice hockey tomorrow because Team Canada hit the ice and the men's for the first time tomorrow. It's sweet, sweet revenge time because you get to go up against Germany tomorrow. Four years of pain and torture and embarrassment after getting bundled out of the semis by Germany in ice hockey. And you get some revenge tomorrow night. Is this being talked up at all kind of revenge of Pyeongchang?
COLIN HILDING: No, I think Canada likes to forget that that happened because it really hasn't been mentioned at all. I mean, I hear it mentioned from you all the time. So thank you for that. Maybe once it starts, they'll sell that as a story.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, it's actually intriguing with the game tomorrow because you've got Sweden up against Latvia, Finland against Slovakia. And then I guess we're really going to see how shit Team China are because USA play China tomorrow night at the same time as Canada versus Germany. A lot of people are saying that Olympic records could get broken tomorrow and all this sort of stuff to see how bad China is. But I guess we'll see how that goes. Jarrod, you're like me. You're excited to plan to see Canada get revenge on Germany after four years, aren't you?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Absolutely. And aside from that, I'm just looking forward to the Snowboard Cross. I need some more silver medals to get my prediction back on track.
BEN WATERWORTH: What are you feeling? One of the Adams, Cam? Because we've got two Adams, we've got Cam, and then we've got Jarrod. So are you rooting for your namesake?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I feel like Jarrod's surely back to back.
BEN WATERWORTH: Back to back silvers for Jarrod? Okay, all right, you're calling it. I'm going to keep an eye on Cam. He had like 50 broken bones last time around. So see how it goes with that. Breaking news in the ice hockey. Denmark 2, Czech Republic nil, bit of a boil over going on there. And meanwhile, Canada in the curling, 7-4 up over Denmark. So Canada maybe getting some sweet, sweet revenge in the curling there going on. We'll be back tomorrow, unless we all get Covid again. Jarrod, you're going to get Covid now? You just got to join the crew?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I mean, I'm feeling a little bit left out, so I'll think about it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, cool. All right. Remember to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to get all of these episodes directly to you straight away. And also we're on YouTube, and none of these episodes are on YouTube. You can see some of our interviews with former guests. If you want to see our interviews with Olympic medallists, Ali Luteet and Abby Strait, you can do so on YouTube, as well as some of the other winter Olympians that we have discussed. Josie Baff on there, Taylor Fletcher, Casey Larson, they're all on there for you to check out. Casey Wright as well. And remember to vote for us in the Sports Podcast Awards. We're still leading. Go ask, go team, OTP, sportspodcastawards.com. Sign up, click on the Olympics Paralympics category and vote for us. Jarrod, have you done many of them today?
JARROD LOOBEEK: You know it, all day, every day.
BEN WATERWORTH: I do. That's what I like to hear. And we appreciate your support and listening. And yes, we apologise for yesterday's absence. You can blame the Covid. That's all I can say on that. Colin, thank you for joining us.
COLIN HILDING: Thank you for having me. And thank you for making me feel better about still having Covid, because I bet I feel better than you right now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, and hang on. Can we just say, before we go, breaking news in the short track speed skating in the final, gold to Dae-Hon Hwang of Korea, silver to Stephen Dubois of Canada, and bronze to Seaman Elistrov of Ross.
COLIN HILDING: Screaming Seaman.
BEN WATERWORTH: Screaming Seaman got the bronze. Shang Liu, the esteemed Hungarian, only fourth. So why are there 10 people in that final? That was a big final. How do they fit 10 people in a final of a short track speed? That can't be right.
COLIN HILDING: Better than 10 semi-finals.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, Jesus. All right, well, Screaming Seaman, the bronze. But Canada, was this an expected one, Colin? Was he Charles Hamlin's successor or is this a bit of a surprise?
COLIN HILDING: I think Charles Hamlin's got a lot more media attention. As soon as I saw, though, that we had Stephen in the finals, I was fairly confident we had a good shot at something.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, there you go. Congratulations, your second silver medal of the Olympics. So the only one to be decided, we'll update you on that, is the Doubles Luge. So stay up for the Doubles Luge. Jarrod, thank you as well. Always a pleasure having one healthy person on this episode. It's been good. We'll be back at the same time, same place tomorrow. And until then, special shout out to Jason Momoa. And remember, always go our lands.
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