Brisbane Olympics Reaction Episode
THE GAMES ARE COMING BACK TO AUSTRALIA! Yes, that's right, the Olympics will officially be hosted in Australia for the third time, with Brisbane being awarded the right to host the 2032 Olympics! We break down the news and talk about just what it means to Australia to have the Olympics back and how these games will be different compared to others. We also talk about just how the announcement went down, whether or not waiting for 11 years instead of 7 years is a good or bad thing and try and work out some long term predictions for the ceremonies, sports and even the person who will light the cauldron. Added to this we discuss some early Olympic results and give our final thoughts ahead of the Opening Ceremony in just two days time. It's one big 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 very, very exciting episode, particularly if you are Australian, like we are all today. We've kicked the Canadian off. We don't care about him today because it's all about us. It's all about Australia. We come from a land down under, and we come from a land that's about to host our third Olympic Games in a third different city. It's history-making day today in the history of Australia and the Olympics. Brisbane have officially been awarded the 2032 Olympics. Everyone knew it was going to happen. We sort of planned this emergency episode to happen, but who cares? It's official. Thomas Buck said it, so therefore it's official, and we're excited. My name is Ben, and I'm very excited to welcome a guy back to the show who lives in the last city that hosted an Olympics in Australia, Mr. Jarrod Loobeek. Jarrod, welcome, and a momentous day for Australian Olympic fans.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It is. I feel like it's appropriate as Sydney that we kind of pass the torch on to Brisbane. Love the fact that they're going to host the games in winter, which may be the closest we ever get to a winter Olympics. But yeah, it's definitely so exciting. I feel like it was a foregone conclusion, but I mean, just to have it confirmed is great.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, and I also will add, as somebody in Hobart right now, the city that should be hosting the Olympics right now, I feel like it's appropriate that I'm also on this episode as well. But yes, what a day, as you said, foregone conclusion. This was all but essentially confirmed earlier this year when the IOC were like, they're our preferred host. And you kind of hope you're gonna get it when there's no other candidates against you. It would be a bit embarrassing if all of a sudden they voted no. Brisbane, you can't have the Olympics. But it was officially confirmed earlier this evening, the IOC 108th session in Tokyo. Basically, I sat down and watched most of this. I think you did as well. Lovely little presentation from the crew, the squad that flew over to Brisbane. We had Scomo chilling in his office, jumping up and down, giving the thumbs up. Ah, celebrations galore. And essentially the vote came down to out of 80 people, I believe. 72 said yes, five said no. And I think three basically didn't vote. So, don't know why. But I want to find out who these five people are that said no, but a unanimous decision. Again, not unexpected. But I mean, it feels nice to have it confirmed, though, because it's kind of, I do love the good old news services in this country. I'm reading a headline literally right here saying that the Brisbane Olympic bid is not a done deal, according to the IOC. So, ooh, bit of late drama, apparently, according to the ABC. But here we are. But I mean, Jarrod, you're obviously a bit younger than me. I don't know how old you would have been back when Sydney got, I mean, do you have any memory of 1993 of Sydney getting the Olympics? Or are you a little bit too young for that?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Slightly too young for that one.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I mean, I remember it. I was six. And I think I remember before going to school, seeing it all on TV, because I think it was announced very, very early in the morning in the course. His Excellency won Antonio Samarach famously, basically said the winner is City, which was obviously there. But I mean, we got the sort of iconic voice of Thomas Bach we heard at the beginning of this episode, the games of Brisbane. I don't know how I felt though about this kind of front row seat of Anastasia and the gang basically just jumping up with this awkward silence for everyone else in the room. It was like, oh, yes, we're just good job. And then Scomo doing the thumbs up. I mean, we're testing times, but what did you think of the reaction from our squad of people that were very excited for this?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I mean, it wasn't great, but I do have to say it was a lot better than when they panned to Brisbane to show the crowd's reaction in Brisbane. And I was like, is this a celebration about getting the Olympics or a funeral? Because it was a bit hard to tell with their reaction. Like, there was nothing. Zero reaction, maybe like two people stood up and clapped. No, like cheering. Maybe, I suppose, for them, because it felt like it was such a done deal, there wasn't that anticipation and excitement. But honestly, just get some paid actors in there and amongst the crowd, get a good band on stage, fire them up somehow. Yeah. Yeah, so in comparison, the celebration by Anastasia and Scomo was excellent.
BEN WATERWORTH: I wonder how awkward Scomo is in his little office there. I mean, they cross live to him. He does his speech. He's got the Akubra sort of hat in the background. All the books look very smart, but I just kind of love how they cut to him. He's jumping up there and he's kind of going, yeah, he's giving the thumbs up to the camera. He's a passionate man, Scomo. But I wonder if he rehearsed that. I wonder if, you know, they basically go, okay, Scomo, when you get the official confirmation, you've got to be excited. Okay, you're the Prime Minister of Australia. How many takes do you think he stood in front of the mirror practicing that?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think at least 10, and probably some good advice from Jenny there on how to react properly to that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good to see Jenny always there. But I have to say that the presentation was not overly enthralling. I kind of sat there for a good hour and essentially watched it. We had random IOC zebra-suited lady going on about the process, which was somewhat informative. Had Scomo going on about everything. Then Anastasia came on and basically jerked off to Brisbane for about the next 20 minutes about how amazing Brisbane, and also she was. She sent a little hint about how she'd been elected three times and had introduced all this. Good on you, Anastasia. I'm sure that all Queenslanders love you for that. With the mayor of Brisbane, I'm sure he's very popular there, celebrating how great Brisbane is. I was kind of, not as boring as the Thomas Barks speech, but I mean, I for one, don't think I'm going to be attending any Queensland politics meetings anytime soon. Anything stand out for you? The one thing actually I will say that stood out is Anastasia calling a certain great Olympian by the name of Karen Perkins, rather than Kieran Perkins. I thought that was quite interesting. But yeah, anything stand out from these speeches that we had to endure?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Not particularly. I did love how they kept using the phrase, like, I suppose it's the COVID world that we live in, but safe and secure, as why we should be chosen. I'm like, I'm hoping by like 2032, COVID may be something of a thing of the past. You gotta hope that with like 11 years later, we've managed to control the spread to some point.
BEN WATERWORTH: Possibly, maybe. I mean, we've been saying that for a couple of years. Who knows? I have to say, I like the videos though, that they showed. There was the one that they kind of show the hubs and everything, which I think was just an extended version of one that they'd already launched out there. But the one that they sort of started off with, you had a series of, you know, famous Australian Olympians kind of saying why we should host the games. They got Jess Fox on there to speak French. Obviously, we know her French roots. So good on there to kind of appease the IOC. Like, look here in Australia, we're multicultural. We can speak French. At least one of our athletes can. But the highlight, the Indigenous version of You're The Voice. I want this. I want this song. It was fantastic. It gave me chills. I sort of started hearing it. I'm like, oh yeah, I know this song. And then you realise, this is like You're The Voice in an Indigenous language. It was epic. I mean, I want to see that video again. Hopefully, they'll share that online. What did you think of the little video presentations?
JARROD LOOBEEK: That was very impressive. And I'm with you on that version of You're The Voice. I think that has to be cued up for sure for the opening ceremony. It'll age well.
BEN WATERWORTH: It will. Definitely. I mean, John Farman probably would have retired about 28 times between now and 2032. I mean, I don't want to say this out loud, but he might not be around in 2032, Jarrod. So they've got to have a backup. I'll say that, I mean, that is the one song that every Australian can sing word for word. I remember being at the closing ceremony of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and basically in the lead up to it, they're playing all these Australian songs over the speakers, and as soon as they start playing Your Voice, everyone around us just started singing it word for word. Horses, great song, but you only know the chorus. You don't know the verses. Your The Voice, you know every single lyric. So great choice there. I did have to question, though, that while they did show some iconic Australian Olympic moments, they showed Chloe. I'm glad they showed Chloe. You know, they showed Thorpey and Cathy, and they showed Stephen Hooker. Like, they showed all the greats. Wasn't aware that Rafa, I wasn't aware that Novak, I wasn't aware that Assane, great Australian Olympians. Michael Phelps as well. Icons of Australian sport, apparently, Jarrod. So glad to see we're adopting them as Australians too.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, you do know that Australia loves to claim athletes from other countries. And tennis is one where I feel like we've done it particularly well with the whole Ozzie Kim, Ozzie Anna. You just put Ozzie in front of any tennis player's name and then all of a sudden we've claimed them.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's true. That is very true as well. But you sort of alluded to at the beginning of this episode, you mentioned about the dates of this and it hadn't sort of ever been, I guess, confirmed what the dates would be. And I think a lot of people may be anticipated, might be like Sydney kind of sort of more of a spring games, September to October, maybe a little bit later. But it was confirmed by Mr. Coates, our fearless leader, VP of the IOC as well, that they will in fact be held on between the 23rd of July and the 8th of August, exactly the same dates as Tokyo, the Paralympics from the 24th of August to the 5th of September, which officially means that Australia will host our very first Winter Olympics, Jarrod. This is kind of exciting. I'm glad that Australia can be a Winter Olympic host nation as well.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's very exciting. It does feel really like an odd time of year to choose, but I think just for that fact alone, it's worth it to have some semblance of a Winter Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I've got to say, I would assume this would be the very first time that an Olympic Games has been held in the opposite season, as in a Summer Olympics has been held in the winter. I would assume the closest that they've ever been would have been Melbourne and Sydney, no doubt, in that sort of late of year. But I think it was the mayor basically mentioned about how the climate is perfect. I mean, I lived in Brisbane during the winter, and again, it is quite warm. It still doesn't really drop below the 20 degree mark. But the interesting thing will be the daylight section of it, the fact that you will be losing daylight around about five, six o'clock. I mean, Brisbane doesn't really have a sunset. It kind of just goes, or twilight, I should say, it just kind of goes day, night pretty quickly. But that's going to be unique, a kind of a Summer Olympics, where you're not going to have a lot of sunlight, even though the mayor was saying that, oh, there's lots of sunlight. Well, you know, daylight savings and things like that aren't going to change that much, is it?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, you've got to consider, I suppose, the outdoor events. And the fact that, like, is it going to be a Wimbledon, where you've got to like a light rule, it's too dark, and we've got to cancel the event and come back tomorrow?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, yeah, which is kind of crazy to think that. But we haven't really had a chance to talk much about sort of the bid and kind of how it's all going to be coming about. But I mean, obviously, a lot of what they're selling the bid on and what, I guess, helped them win the bid is 84% of the venues either existing or temporary. And of course, it's going to be spread right across up to the Sunshine Coast and down to the Gold Coast. A lot of facilities built for the Commonwealth Games will be put in place. I mean, it's quite a substantial bid. Sort of Brisbane will officially get the moniker of the host of the Olympics, but it's more of a Southeast Queensland bid, of course. I don't know how much time you've spent sort of in Brisbane and sort of Southeast Queensland, and maybe you visited some of the venues there, everything along those lines. But I mean, kind of stretching it out that much, what's your take on kind of really kind of making it a real regional bid for the whole Southeast of Queensland?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think it's a good idea. I feel like that's almost what we're going to see more and more of in terms of the games of the future. Entire regions spread across kind of countries, even I suppose we'll get dual bids at some point. So I feel like it's, to me, it's like it's a logical thing to do. Instead of if you've got existing venues within a certain radius, then to spread the games out makes a lot more sense rather than building new stuff that it's potentially not going to get used afterwards and footing this massive bill ahead of the Olympics when you can cut costs and share costs. I think that's obviously the way to go.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I mean, we're kind of seeing that a little bit with the 2026 Winter Olympics, of course, being Milan-Cortina sort of really considered the first dual sort of bit. I mean, certain winter areas have been argued before. You know, I mean, Vancouver and Whistler are kind of quite separate. You know, Sochi obviously had a few, a lot of the stuff in Beijing is going to be quite separate from Beijing as well. And it's obviously not the first time that things have been spread out. I mean, Sydney obviously had football preliminaries right across the country. I think they even had them as far away as Adelaide and Perth from memory. And Tokyo were doing the same too. They're using a lot of their old World Cup venues from the 2002 World Cup sub-proliminaries of the football as we speak, as we were recording. So yeah, and as kind of you said, it's sort of the way things moving forward in terms of how Olympics will be hosted. Obviously, they're very expensive. A lot of white elephants. I've been reading a lot of articles recently about Rio and the white elephants from that. I watched a very interesting video about Athens recently and kind of whether or not it was the cause of the Greek financial crisis. It was very interesting. So obviously, you want to avoid that. But I think the thing with what's really interesting about Brisbane, I mean, having lived there, they're very separate from the Gold Coast and the fact that they don't like admitting that the Gold Coast essentially is the same place. If you say in Brisbane, oh yeah, the Gold Coast is the same place, they get very offended. Having lived essentially in Logan, halfway between the two, it kind of felt like the same place, particularly when the first half of the time I lived there, I was travelling to the Gold Coast a lot, second half to Brisbane, it was basically the same. It was on the same train line. It was everything along those lines, but it is such a nice place. I really enjoyed my time living there, and it's so exciting to see them win it because Melbourne and Sydney are the obvious choices, but to kind of go to a, I guess as I kept calling it, a medium sized city, like I don't know, like I would have always thought if we got an Olympics for the third time, it would go back to Melbourne, because I mean, Melbourne was loosely a chance to take the 2016 Olympics if Rio really couldn't do it, because Melbourne could host an Olympics tomorrow with the amount of venues they have got. Sydney could obviously host an Olympics tomorrow with the venues they have got. But I like this idea of kind of a mid-sized city like Brisbane hosting it. So yeah, I'm hoping that this will open the door up for some other cities in the future like Brisbane in different parts of the world.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I feel like it wouldn't have been at the time they put the bid in, but I feel they almost deserve it too, given how much support in Australia has relied on Queensland and Brisbane this year to get games done. So I think it's almost like a reward, the fact that they've done such a good job in continuing all the national leagues and all the bubble areas in Queensland that it just feels right that they're getting the opportunity to host the games.
BEN WATERWORTH: The one little stat that I really like about it too is that Australia now officially becomes only the second country behind the US to host Olympics in three different cities. And in terms of that, that's obviously just for the summer games. I mean, technically Canada have hosted Olympics in three different cities, but two of them were winter and one of them was summer. But yeah, I think that's a very sort of unique little stat to have. And also the comparisons they were kept making to Barcelona. Of course, Brisbane bid for the 92 Olympics, didn't win it, and Barcelona did. And it's interesting to kind of hear the comparisons about how Barcelona was considered a mid-sized city. And obviously if you read into the history of how the Olympics helped develop Barcelona into the city it is today, for us, we assume Barcelona is this globally leading city, but back then, it wasn't. So, I mean, Brisbane's just gone through growth. I mean, Anastasia mentioned the World Expo 1988. Obviously the Commonwealth Games in 82 was a big boom, and the Commonwealth Games obviously not quite in Brisbane, but the Gold Coast. So, I mean, you're from Sydney. I like kind of your positive nature here on Brisbane. You're meant to not like those guys to the north. I thought you'd be a little bit more miffed that they're getting all this love and recognition all of a sudden.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I feel like we're just still... New South Wales and Sydney is still riding high on the state of origin win that we're willing to toss them a bone at this point.
BEN WATERWORTH: There it is. You need to kind of put that in there quickly. Queensland won the third game. Come on.
JARROD LOOBEEK: That's true, but that doesn't really matter.
BEN WATERWORTH: So, when you watched the coverage, I mean, Trey, were you watching sort of like live breaking news on like Channel 9 or Channel 7? Were you tuned into the YouTube channel? Like, I'd love to hear kind of what you were watching, what you thought of the coverage.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I was watching on Channel 9, and they kept, I suppose, crossing between just the domestic regular news and then crossing over to, they're going to announce any time now, and then probably crossing a little bit too early on Thomas Bach's speech and him just standing at the podium, not saying anything. And then no commentary until the news reader had to kind of like quickly jump in and just give us all these facts. But they did, similar to how you mentioned earlier on the news sites online, there was the whole, they kept playing the whole, whoever from the IOC last night who spoke, who was like, it's not a done deal, it's not a certainty, like it's important that we follow the process. It could still be decided that we go back to like the bidding process, and it starts kind of all over again. So they were definitely playing up that angle of, this isn't locked in, it kind of could go either way. We really thought it was for certain, but now the Premier and everybody's been put back on their toes, and they've had to do this bit and really talk it back up again, because as of last night, it could have gone either way. But yeah, so it was interesting in that fact, because it really did feel like they were hyping it up more than I suppose they should have been. But then yeah, crossing way too early, which is just typical news, and them having to kind of fill in the time. And then after it was over, very quickly, like just crossing, I suppose, to the fireworks in Brisbane, and then getting straight out of there and back to just whatever they had else on the agenda for the night.
BEN WATERWORTH: See, I was watching the YouTube IOC channel, so I sort of had tuned in late afternoon, kind of watching it all through there. But I sort of, I flicked it over to both Channel 9, ABC, and Channel 7 to see what was happening. Now, when I flicked to the ABC and Channel 9, they kind of had the screen on the table, like the voting process, like, oh, it's moments away. Channel 7, our host broadcaster of the Olympic Games, our beloved friends, decided to go to a commercial break, to which their newsreader was like, yep, we'll be back, and they're expected to announce this as soon as we get back from the commercial break. They get back from the commercial break, and literally that's when Thomas Barker walked into the podium, like, oh, great timing, Channel 7, you've done it. They played about four news stories. The announcement had already happened before the guy basically comes in. Oh, and in breaking news, this has just been announced. They cross it, they show it, they show a couple of celebrations, and then that's pretty exciting news, isn't it? In other news, Harvey Weinstein has been extremely, like, I'm thinking the host broadcaster could not give a shit. Admittedly, I'm watching the Melbourne Channel 7 feed, so I'm sure if this is the Brisbane one, it's probably a little bit more excitement-filled. But, yeah, Channel 7, not off to a good start with their Olympic coverage, if that's their excitement of getting the bloody Olympics.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it gives you high hopes that maybe during the swimming, they may cut to a commercial break between the laps, and then we might get to see the finish of the race.
BEN WATERWORTH: I have to say, I did like the little section there when they go up to the table to sign the official documents, and they had this shot of Anastasia and Thomas having a bit of a mild flirt. I like seeing Anastasia and Tommy having a bit of a chat there. I mean, let's be honest, in 11 years' time, these two are probably not going to be in control of their respective state and organisation. Maybe Mr. Coates will be the ISE president by then. Maybe I'll be the premier of Queensland. I don't know, but it's interesting. I appreciate the excitement. You see someone like Anastasia and the mayor. It's a pretty cool moment for them, no matter what people think of that. If I was a mayor, if I was a premier, and I could say, my term, I got an Olympics, yeah, I'd be pretty chuffed with that.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think fair enough. And given the criticisms she faced before about flying over, I think it's just good for her to kind of have a moment.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm telling you now, like, I've never been a big John Howard fan. But the one thing I appreciated about Johnny H during Sydney is he had a habit of being at every single event that we won a gold medal. They kind of, I don't know if you remember that. He sort of was like the lucky charm. It was like, if John Howard's showing up to an event, we're winning a gold medal. So I really do hope that in 11 years time, whoever our Prime Minister is, I don't know, Hugh Jackman, let's say by then, that he's got that good luck charm. Because let's be honest, if you and I and Colin go, we're going to be the opposite. We're going to be reporting from the Olympics, and you know, oh, he's our absolute 100% gold medal chance. It's the Campbell Sisters in their seventh Olympics. They're finally going to win a gold medal. And we're there and they choke. So yeah, I mean, good luck charms, I think, for whoever the Prime Minister will be in 11 years time.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, definitely. You have to make sure that we're attending the same events.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. It's intriguing, actually, to think, obviously, a lot of the venues have been announced, and I look forward to everything else that they're putting out there. I mean, the Gabba is going to be refurbished a little bit to have all the ceremonies. Sun Corp, obviously, as well. You've got Metricon, all these great stadiums already in place. A lot of venues, as I've already mentioned, that have already been in place. But the one I'm excited for, they're talking about building this new venue downtown, basically, in the middle of Brisbane for swimming. And I love their ambition. The way they're like, if we get the Olympics or not, these are happening. It's kind of like, you don't give us the Olympics, we're building it anyway, so you can give it to us in 20 cities. It's just like, I don't know. Having not lived in Brisbane for a couple of years, I just wonder what the viewpoint is. They're very stubborn, Brisbane. Like, fuck you, we're going to build this anyway. But maybe give us the Olympics and we have a reason for it. So is that how you should get Olympics now? Just threaten that we're going to build them, whether you give it to us or not?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Um, I mean, it's one tactic. I don't know if I'd take it, but I suppose when you're in government, I mean, it depends how long you want to be in there for.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, true.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Build it and get out of there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly, exactly. A lot of other things they're mentioning too, sort of the sustainable nature of the Olympics. And I love the questions. I don't know if you got to see the IOC people ask the questions, but there was one guy there. He loved his climate change and his, you know, sustainability. He's like, I'm very excited that you're going to make this a sustainable event. It gets me very, very excited. Just some of the questions there. I just, I want to go to more IOC sessions, because there was like a prince there. Like there was some guy they cut to, and he was like, prince something rather, because I think it was the mayor basically. He was like, you know, your president, your honour, your royal highnesses. I'm thinking, who's in the room? Some IOC members like a prince. So these IOC meetings must be the place to be, Jarred. We need to get an invite.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, maybe you'll have to ask Anastasia, because I think that was her chatting with Thomas, the little flirt on the side, it's probably her angling for her future job.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, that's it. That's the thing. And also, I love the fact too, that when Scomo was introducing himself, he had to put in the little, yeah, I'm the chair of the Brisbane Olympic. Like, I mean, the fucking prime minister of Australia, mate, do you really need to throw in an extra line of, hey, you think I'm this good? I'm also the chair of the Brisbane Organising Committee. I mean, yeah, I don't know how I felt about that.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I feel like the federal government, they really stepped in, like, last minute in terms of, like, their commitment to the Games and pledging their $10 million or whatever, and now they're just gonna take all that credit.
BEN WATERWORTH: $4 billion is the projected budget. We know it's not gonna be that. It'll be, like, $20 billion. I mean, no Olympics has ever stayed under that. You know, I'm sure we're gonna see plenty of articles and people complaining in the coming weeks and years and all this kind of stuff about is this worth it and everything along those lines. As someone who lives in Sydney, as someone who grew up in Sydney through an Olympics, 21 years removed, I mean, do you see the benefits from that, like, growing up and kind of seeing what an Olympics brings to a place where you grew up? I mean, I don't know if that's a question you can really answer, but I mean, it would be interesting to hear that from somebody who was there as a kid and still lives in a city that had an Olympics 20 years ago.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I'd say, unlike The Balance, it was definitely a positive thing, just in terms of, I feel like, just the excitement of the people living here, getting to host such a prestigious event, and in my experience, all, like, well, pretty much all the stadiums have been used and continue to be used moving forward. Even in Penrith, they've got the Whitewater Stadium. That's constantly used. The Regatta Centre for the Rowing is such a hub for families and, like, recreation and picnics on weekend. So I think, yeah, I think in terms of that, the fact that all the venues have been put to good use, we use that infrastructure for sport, for concerts. So I think it's probably more than paid back water cost.
BEN WATERWORTH: The one thing actually you mentioned, the Whitewater Place here at Penrith, I don't know if they're still going to go ahead with it or not, but I think initially they were talking about potentially with this bid that they might actually send the canoeing down to Penrith because they're like, oh, it's already there. We don't really need to build another place, which would have been sort of very unique with that. But I mean, look, I know when I've been to Sydney, I've been out to Homebush, and I've been to Stadium Australia, and sort of, you know, as an Olympic fan, I like the monuments and things like that. But yeah, I've been to some of those facilities there, and it's great, obviously. You're using them quite a big deal. But I guess the uniqueness here with Brisbane is that, yeah, as I said, 83% of these things are basically already in place, will be very temporary. And sort of having been there during the Commonwealth Games, I remember thinking, you know, when they said that Metricom was going to be sort of the home to the ceremonies and the stadium that only holds like 30, 40,000. It's like, oh, is this really, you know, like, don't you need more people? But again, Commonwealth Games a little bit different to an Olympics. But the Gabber, I think, is about a 40,000 seat stadium. So even if you sort of increase that by about 10, 20,000, not a huge amount of people, but I mean, again, it's a mid-sized sort of Olympic bid. So it's kind of the uniqueness of that there. I don't think, I think we're a long time away from sports and everything along those lines. Obviously, they've kind of changed it up a little bit, where the host city can kind of have a bit more of a say. It's kind of like the Commonwealth Games model, where you've got your core sports, and you can kind of have your other ones sort of along the way there. Anything right now, 11 years out, let's be the first show to predict things here. Like, are there anything that you would like to say? I know you're a real squash fan, so I'm feeling like you're going to vote for squash. But anything that you feel an Australian Olympics can bring back to the fray that maybe we haven't seen in quite some time, or have never seen?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, I mean, I would love to see squash back. But I think it's got to be... We're definitely going to angle for sports that we're good at. And I suppose it's hard to predict in 11 years' time where we'll be as a sporting nation. But I think some of those Commonwealth Games sports, if they could somehow sneak them into the Olympics, I think netball is a very obvious one in terms of medal prospects for Australia. Olympics is definitely missing lawn bowls on the excitement point of view. But yeah, it's got to be one of those sports, I think, that we've got a very high medal chance in. Maybe something that's played a bit more internationally than netball, a bit more worldwide. But I feel like that's the route you've got to go.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm looking here at the recognised international federations that aren't yet Olympic sports. Cheerleading, which I think has been talked up for LA, if I'm not mistaken. I know breakdancing is going to be in Paris, but I did see a story recently where I think cheerleading literally is on the cusp of being included in LA. The obvious one that I really would like to see, I think cricket. 2020 has expanded enough that you do have a lot of these sort of non-cricketing nations playing. We've got a lot more sort of nations coming into the fray with cricket in the test circle as well. And if you got rugby sevens, which is a very fringe sport when it comes to the countries that play it, you've got sports like handball, which is a very fringe sport for the countries that play it and are good. I mean, cricket, I think in terms of participation in the world, is in the top two or three. I think it might only be behind basketball and soccer, and that's obviously a lot to do with India being sort of the leading nation in the world. But I mean, that makes sense. A 2020 cricket sort of coming in into the Olympics. And I mean, the beauty about these Olympics is, it's an 11-year period between when they've announced it there. It's not an usual seven-year cycle. So you've got a chance for, say, if all of a sudden tomorrow, the Brisbane Organising Committee like, hey, we're going to include cricket. You could have these countries like the US and, you know, all these other countries that aren't generally known as cricketing countries really put a lot into it. So that'd be my one there. I mean, I'm looking here, life-saving, very Queensland. You could, you know, get Guy Leach out of retirement, do that. Tiger Wall could come back. That'd always be good. Chess, chess would be entertaining. I don't know about you.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, very good for the, for the rock nation.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. Samba, Sambo, what is Sambo? Oh, it's kind of like a, like a wrestling kind of style thing. So there you go. But yeah, I'm always intrigued to see what they would do, because it's kind of, obviously with Tokyo, we've got 33 sports. I think Paris is only having about 28 or 29, so they're cutting a few. So yeah, I mean, God, put it up to 40. Let's, let's put podcasting in the Olympics. Jarrod, we want to have a shot. What do you think?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I mean, I've said it before. I'm all for adding as many sports as possible. I think podcasting wise, Off The Podium, it's probably a bad omen to finish in about fourth place. But yeah, I just think go wild. I feel like the Olympics should almost be the pinnacle of every sport.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. Well, there's a big talk about putting e-gaming in the Olympics, which I mean, if you got e-gaming, you got to have podcasting. Let's be honest. But other ones here that I'm looking at, Wushu, water skiing, Ultimate Frisbee, that's apparently officially recognised by the IOC, Sumo, squashies on there, ski mountaineering. I mean, we are a winter Olympics, so we could do that. Power boating, roller sports, racquetball, polo, orienteering. I mean, talk about a television spectacular. Dance sports on there. Is it bulls? Bullies? How do you say that? Bulls. I can never pronounce that sport. Billion sport. We got a pool. Like, that's an Australian tradition. Come on. Auto racing. There you go. We could see some Formula One going on there. On the whole 11 year cycle, what's your thoughts on that? Because I think there was one of the guys who voted did question that. Sort of mentioned about like, is this too far out to be hosting an Olympics? Basically, political, you know, things change. Like today's government is not going to be in control in five years time. What if they all of a sudden are like, no, we don't want to support the Olympics? Like, it's a very valid point. But I mean, what's your viewpoint on awarding an Olympics? More than a decade. If I'm not mistaken, this is the furthest an Olympics has ever been awarded out from the day it was announced.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's an interesting one. I think it could definitely be problematic. I don't see it being problematic in Australia's case, but you never know in terms of the economy and whatnot. It's going to happen in 11 years time. But I suppose that probably, I feel, helped the bid. The fact that it was so far out to pick, I suppose, a country with a track record who you would assume wouldn't have any major kind of political upheaval. The economy, I mean, who knows what could happen, but in terms of political upheaval or like civil war or anything like that, you would assume that Australia's fairly far removed from that being a possibility. So I think in this instance, it worked. But yeah, I do think it's potentially problematic moving forward. But I suppose on the plus side, there's so much planning time that you would hope you'd be able to meet the time frames and it'd be less of issues that we've had in the past with concerns that is the country going to be ready to host the Olympics?
BEN WATERWORTH: They did actually mention sort of the Alzebra Striped Lady at the beginning was sort of talking about the other cities that had expressed interest about how they're engaging in dialogue already for the 2036 and 2040 Olympics, which I mean, that's very interesting. But I mean, obviously such a unique time for the Olympics, given how they did Paris and LA, and then this now 11 years out. But it's a great point you make sort of, you know, touch wood that all of a sudden Tasmania doesn't finally revolt against our fearless mainland leaders, and there is a massive war in Australia in the next 11 years. But I'm just looking here actually at kind of when Olympics have been announced in the past. This is definitely the furthest that has ever been announced here. But going back, let's go back to 1894, Jarrod. Two years before the Athens Olympics, they were awarded. Three years before St. Louis, initially given to Chicago, but then they moved it to St. Louis in 1904. So back in the day, only two or three years notice was given. It was like, boom, you're hosting the Olympics. Get on with it. But then all of a sudden, they moved it to sort of a seven-year swing. The only thing I say about them, like awarding it so far out, I kind of always like the fact that in a non-Olympic year, you had the host being announced for the summer or the winter. So kind of you had, obviously, in a summer Olympic year, the year after, you knew you were going to get the host for the one in seven years' time. Then you have the winter. I kind of like that little cycle. That's the only thing that I'll say I'm a bit disappointed. We've got no excitement now basically until what, like 2029? Until finding out if they go back to the seven-year cycle. I mean, I've got our winter once to go for, obviously. We, I guess, technically, in about 18 months' time, we'll probably be talking about who's going to be hosting the 2031s. Hashtag go Vancouver. But yeah, I don't know. I always like that build up to having like five cities battle each other off against each other.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think that was the real thing that was lacking is that it was so straightforward, that the host was like endorsed, obviously, by the IOC. Just not having that, it coming, I mean, a yes or no vote, whatever. But the fact I vote between countries is so much more interesting than just, I mean, I couldn't really, I mean, five people did, but I couldn't imagine people voting no because they just have to go through that whole process again. Like it almost wouldn't be worth like their time to do that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, yeah, it's very interesting. I mean, I'm looking here for the winter ones of 2030. We do have four cities that are kind of in the running right now. Vancouver, Sapporo, and Japan. Barcelona, I didn't realise how much of a winter city, but there you go. And Salt Lake. So I'm very much Team Vancouver and Team Salt Lake. Actually, having visited Salt Lake City, that is one of those cities where you go to, and you're like, how did they host an Olympics? Like, it's a great city. Like, I absolutely love Salt Lake City, but it was just such a uniquely small-feeling city where you're like, wow, they hosted an Olympic game to literally go to their main stadium, which is a university stadium. And obviously in the States, they've got very big university stadiums. But I mean, I don't know about your university, Jarrod, but I definitely would never have imagined any Olympic opening ceremony being held at the University of Tasmania. So it was kind of unique for an Australian to see that. Yeah, so we'll see how that plays out. Obviously, outside of this great news that we are going to be having another Olympics in Australia, we've had some other news to kind of go on. We've had some events happening today, which we'll touch on, and some other news to go on there as well. But I did ask you this the other day. I'll ask it to you again, because you gave the great answer about how you'll be a little bit older in 2032, so maybe appreciate a little bit more. But will this be something that you will really be sort of going up there and maybe trying to plan a couple of weeks there, or kind of something that you'll really look towards going to visit and go and see?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I feel like I have to. I think it's kind of disappointing looking back and missing out on Sydney and being kind of that bit young to go to anything yourself or plan anything. But yeah, definitely, I mean, as we said, it's so far away, it's hard to predict. But like at the moment, it's definitely on my radar of going there and seeing as many events as I possibly can.
BEN WATERWORTH: The thing that I'm sure you remember as well, and I've talked a lot about here, is it is just that vibe that we had in Australia at that point. You know, it was so unique. And obviously, yeah, we mentioned the other day about how pretty much all the schools around the country made their spring break, essentially, in that two-week period during Sydney. But I mean, I remember like when the Olympic torch came to Hobart and just getting caught up in all of that, you know, the pins they had in the newspaper that you collected, all the kids' activities books. I mean, in one way where it's like, yeah, absolutely, we're going to be a lot older in 2032 to appreciate it. I'm also somewhat glad that I was a kid during the Olympics when you really appreciate kind of the kid-centric things they do. I've literally, pointing behind me through that door, I've got boxes filled with Sydney 2000, just everything. I've got books, I've got merchandise, I've got newspapers, I kept every newspaper basically from back in the day with all the results and everything in it. DVDs, books, you name it, I've got them. So I really kind of appreciated to be involved in that. But yeah, it's kind of, it's more of a different aspect now to appreciate it. I mean, I'll be 45, which is incredibly scary to say that out loud when Brisbane's coming on there. I don't know if you want to meet your age, Jarrod, but who knows, we could go for positions on the, on Bocog. I don't know if they're already starting to take, you know, candidates for there. I mean, you know, any desire to work for Bocog, we could be the new Michael Knight. We could be the head of Bocog.
JARROD LOOBEEK: You know, it's anything's possible.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. I mean, we're in the top four Olympic podcasts in the world, you know, so that means something, surely, with that. Anything else you want to talk about with the Olympics coming to Brisbane before we sort of talk on some other things and wrap this up? I mean, I don't know if there's anything glaring that I've missed, but, you know, it's a momentous day. We obviously wanted to have an episode to kind of talk about the Brisbane Olympic bit eventually, but to be able to come on here, only hours removed from it being announced. I mean, it is very exciting to be an Olympic fan in Australia right now.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It is, and as much as we've talked about how kind of it was a foregone conclusion and the reaction, I suppose, in Brisbane itself wasn't that exciting. It is, it's just exciting to have something to look forward to that's so far in advance.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, which actually, the one thing I will mention, let's just, some predictions. We talked about the sports. I want to talk about the ceremony quickly here. You know, obviously, we're probably going to have the standard, like, you know, history through to the modern day. I mean, I'm thinking kind of what they did in Gold Coast, you know, the surf lifesaving, all that kind of stuff, the giant whale. Great, fantastic. But, like, let's think to the future. You know, who's the Cathy of who's lighting the cauldron? Who's going the big sort of UFO dish going up? And who are the bands? Like, I'm calling this right now. Savage Garden, The Reunion, 2032. They're going to finally sort out their differences, and they're going to come back together. Global megastars, Savage Garden. Fuck Powderfinger. I don't want Powderfinger touching the Olympics. Savage Garden. Get Nikki Webster. I know she's not a Queenslander, but she's got to come back. You owe it to Nikki. And then, I don't know, for The Torch, I mean, I don't know. I'm looking here. Sammy Stowes is a Queenslander. You know, there's one there. George Miller, director, of course, of the Mad Max films, is a possible one there as well. Wally Lewis, you know, great Queenslanders up there. I don't know. I mean, what are some other, who are some other great Queenslanders that I'm forgetting about here who were in with a shot of lighting that cauldron?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think just to stick on, like, the tennis track, you've got, what, you got Pat Rafter, you've got Ash Barty. I just feel like there's so many options. And in terms of bands, 11 years' time, Five Seconds of Summer will have broken up by then, and there will be a Five Seconds of Summer reunion.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod, you're on the ball. Come on here. Eurovision Flavour, Kate Miller-Heidke, could be pumping out there as well. Why not? Regurgitator, I'm seeing here, a Brisbane band. Bring back Regurgitator. The Bee Gees, apparently. Well, I mean, sure. The Veronica's. I mean, come on. Why not? Jeff Horn, proud Brisbaneite. Lots of famous ones here. Sigrid Thornton could be involved there in the acting side of things as well. Geoffrey Rush, Academy Award winner. I mean, come on. Like, you've got a lot going on here for Queensland. So only 11 years to plan it. No pressure. This is a thing. If they fuck up the opening ceremony, they've got no excuse. They've had 11 years to get this right. So like, I hope literally someone right now is sitting in a boardroom somewhere, got ideas for the opening ceremony.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, they should definitely be sending out the save the dates to all these important people, at least by the end of next week.
BEN WATERWORTH: Lock these people up in hyperbaric chambers so they don't die between now and then, essentially. I want them to... You've got 11 years to get Savage Garden into counselling, everyone. 11 years, all right? Darren Hayes, fix it up with him, okay? I don't know if he left or you left. I don't know the truth behind Savage Garden, but I want it fixed. I want To The Moon And Back played in that opening ceremony. But yeah, obviously, let the discussions begin. Hopefully, Roy and HG can last 11 years, so we can bring back the dream. Sadly, obviously, we won't be able to have our games, the games back with the passing of Mr. Clark. But yeah, maybe we can sort of have a new version of it coming along those lines as well. Outside of Brisbane announcement, obviously, since our last episode and before we get into our next episode, which will be our opening ceremony review, a couple of things have obviously happened. Competition began today, Jarrod. We've had softball and soccer both start today. And Australia hit the field today in softball. We're officially, I think, kicked off the games. We were first out there. And yeah, not the best start. Your prediction of a silver medal for our softball girls might not be looking good. A bit of a bit of a cathuffle against the, as they keep telling us, the reigning gold medallist from 13 years ago.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it must be very exciting for them to be defending champion and have nobody from that gold medal win stealing your team. Yeah, not the best start. It was looking good there at 1-0. But then after that, not so much.
BEN WATERWORTH: Loaded bases, I believe, as well, at one point there when we were leading, didn't quite get there. Having said that with the no, it was 8-1, we should mention that, it was 8-1 and we lost in the mercy rule. Essentially, if you're losing by more than five, I think at the end of a certain inning, just bye-bye, that's it, good night. I did catch a bit of the USA-Italy game, and it's interesting you say about having no one from their team from Beijing. There was at least one of the players on the US team was a gold medallist from Athens and a silver medallist from Beijing. So a bit of longevity there going on for some of the American team. But the US beat Italy 2-0. And celebrations for Colin Canada's off to a great start. A 4-0 walloping of traditional rivals in softball Mexico. So am I on this off, Jarrah? I think I said bronze for Australia. So yeah, not looking good against the US and Japan, but I'm pretty sure we should beat the Italians and the Mexicans pretty good. But the Canadians, that's where our medal could be decided there. It's our game against Canada. What do you think?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think that would be a good one to pencil in for commentary if that ends up being the bronze medal match.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, hey, I know a lot about that sport. So absolutely. On the football side of things, we are recording this about an hour removed from the Matildas hitting the pitch against New Zealand. So by the time most people probably listen to this, obviously, that result would already be up. But we've had three games already finished in the football. Great Britain, one of the rare times that they do compete all together in soccer, obviously, generally compete separately. I know there was a big deal around that back in London, sort of merging England, Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland together. And I realise there's been a bit of a similar thing with the women qualifying this time around. But they got off to a great start, 2-0 against Chile. So a good start there for the Brits. I shouldn't be celebrating that. We're meant to be anti-Britain this Olympics, but hey, sure. Brazil, 5-0 over China. Big win there for the Brazilians. But a bit of a boil over going on here, literally just finished. I've just watched it in the background and it's just finished now. The reigning World Cup champions, the USA, the dominant side, usually when it comes to women's football, 3-0 losing to the Swedes. Good on Sweden for pipping up there and knocking them out. And big result there. I was talking to you off air about, I'm not too sure about their uniforms, very fluoro yellow. Look like they should be going to a road work site, not an Olympics. But yeah, is that our first boil over of the games that the US women's soccer team lost 3-0 to Sweden?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think it's got to be. It's going to be a really interesting because we're in that pool as well with those teams. So yeah, not the way you would have expected to go. And I don't know if that's good or bad for Australia's chances of moving into the knockout rounds.
BEN WATERWORTH: The group of death, as they're already saying it. Good news, though, for Colin as well as we are recording this. Canada are playing Japan as we speak. Canada are leading already right now. Six minutes in. They are 1-0 up with a goal to Christine Sinclair. So good start there for the Canadians. Hopefully, they will maintain that and continue that moving forward. Outside of those results, other big news going on is that Australia have our first drug cheat of the Olympics. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Equestrian rider Jamie Kermond has been provisionally suspended by Equestrian Australia for a positive A sample of cocaine. I didn't realise the Equestrian riders were a bit of a party group there. Jarrod, so no longer allowed to compete in the Olympics. Yeah, a bit of a bit of a big breaking news story here. Our question, right, is a sniffing some coke.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it is an interesting one. I mean, you've just got to feel sorry for the horse. All that effort he's put in training, getting ready for the games, and then your rider snorts some cocaine and you're out.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's a very valid point, actually. That poor horse. I did see a tweet today that the horses had arrived in Tokyo. So good to see that they're not just going to be walking around the dressage field, you know, picking their feet up and pretending to be that. But I mean, look, I always question certain drugs that are on the ban list. Like we obviously had the US sprinter was sort of banned for marijuana. And we all know the story back in Nagano with Mr. I can never pronounce his last name, Ross Regliardi. I think that was his name. The Canadian snowboarder got stripped and then returned. But yeah, I mean, cocaine is a performance enhancing. It's kind of one of these drugs that I feel that if you can perform on that drug, you probably should give them an extra gold medal. I don't know.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think bump them up the podium. You're right.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. Like, I mean, God, if you're stoned and can run 100 metres under 10 seconds, bloody oath, like extra gold medal, I say. You're kind of doing that a little bit differently there. But I hope that Mr. Hoy isn't on the coke. Like I hope that, you know, he's an eight time Olympian. He's a long, long lasting man. But, you know, I don't want there to be an undercover secret here that the equestrian team are just, you know, peddling coke around the village. I mean, bat horse. I mean, Jesus, he's got to stay awake sometime, doesn't he?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, I think if Mr. Hoy hasn't been caught out in his previous seven times, if he is taking coke, he's doing a good job of concealing it.
BEN WATERWORTH: He's a very smart man, Mr. Andrew Hoy. Let's not say that. Other ones just to touch on as well, we talked briefly in our preview episode that we were a little bit early when it came to the flag bearers of Canada being announced, and they have been announced in the last couple of days. And I do not believe either of these two were anyone that Colin mentioned. We have a basketballer Miranda Ayim and Nathan Hirama, a rugby sevens player. I am honestly going to say I have never heard of either of them. So I don't know how much of a fan you are of Canadian basketball and rugby sevens, Jarrod, but don't know. Did you predict these two at all?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I did not. It's a bit of kind of I feel like an odd choice. Either of those teams expected to medal.
BEN WATERWORTH: The rugby sevens, generally pretty high up. Canada is actually doing quite well recently rugby, but basketball, not too sure on that one. But yeah, I'm sure there's a story behind that. Sadly, Botswana have not announced their flag bearers yet, so we can't do that. But New Zealand, our friends across the dotchev, Sarah Harini, a rugby sevens player sticking on that theme, and Hamish Bond, a rower. Now, again, not sure if you're overly, overly, overly, I learned to speak properly, familiar with any of them. I mean, Sarah is a silver medal winning rugby sevens player from Rio, while Mr Bond, James Bond, two time gold medallist in the Coxless Pairs. So, I mean, look, that's New Zealand doesn't have much to choose from. So I guess it's probably if you want to be a flag bearer for any country, probably go represent New Zealand. You got a good chance.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I feel like it's a bit predictable from New Zealand picking a rugby sevens player in a row. More predictable, I suppose, would have been a cyclist. So they've surprised us a little bit there. But yeah, a lot more generic than Canada's choices.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm a bit disappointed Eliza didn't get the gig. You know, I mean, a New Zealand bronze is almost as good as a gold. So, you know, come on, Eliza. That's not not great. I've enjoyed the social media, sort of follow us on social media Off The Podium. We're following a lot of the athletes and the different sporting federations. But I do enjoy watching some of these athletes going around the village. There was a couple there. They met Ash Barty. So they get the selfie with Ash Barty. But the thing I'll say about the selfie in 2021, with the masks, is it the same? Like, you're going to be showing that to the grandkids in 30. Oh, look, it's me and Ash Barty. Is it? Like, I can't tell. Like, I could put a mask on and somebody could be next to me. Like, I'm with Tom Cruise. And they could claim I'm Tom Cruise. I mean, is a selfie, mask selfie in 2021 the same as a mask, a non-mask selfie in 2019?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Depends on the style of the mask. And I feel like all of them over there are just the boring, plain, disposable ones. So really, yeah, nothing special to show to anybody else.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well, maybe they can change a little bit. The one thing, too, I want to mention, we talked up in our preview episode, the hope for the fan messages for the Australian Olympic team, as well as the My Name Is on the Team Canada website. Now, neither have materialised yet, but Australia have launched a fan hub, Jarrod, on the olympics.com.au website. If you go to teamoz.olympics.com.au, you can go and look at great things, such as a countdown to the Tokyo Olympics, which is always exciting. You can enter a competition to win either a $500 or five $100 vouchers for ASICS. If you guess how many medals Australia will win at Tokyo 2020, you can get your official green and gold Team Oz filter for Instagram right there, and you can play the trivia game here. We may have a bit of a crack here at this, Jarrod. Olympic facts, how many can you guess correct? So let's give this a go right now. The high jump Olympic record is held by Charles Austin of the USA at 2.38 metres. Is this A, the height of an average ceiling in your house, B, the height of a bus, or C, the height of a car? I would say the height of a bus. That would be my answer.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's definitely not a car. Depends if you've got high ceilings or not.
BEN WATERWORTH: Let's go for the bus. Let's see what we got here. Oh, we were wrong. It was the house one. Okay, fair enough. Australian race walker Jarrod Talent holds the Olympic record in the 50K race walk. Three hours, 36 minutes, 53 seconds. How long would it that average? How long would it that the average walker? I think they've mistyped that there. Good start, AOC. To do the same distance. Five hours, 10 hours, or 24 hours? Can't be 24. You're a bloody slow walker if it's 24. I think 10. Yeah, that's a pretty long distance, 50K. Yes, correct. Look at us go. A shuttlecock is in badminton. It can reach speeds of up to 320 km per hour. This is A, the same speed as a car drives on the road. Well, it depends on what suburb you live in. B, the same speed as a train in Australia. C, three times faster as the fastest animal, the cheetah. I'm going to say a cheetah.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I've never been on a train that's gone that fast.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, we don't have the bullet trains in Australia. Let's do one more here. What are the five sports to continually feature the Olympics since Athens 1896? A, athletics, swimming, cycling, fencing, and gymnastics. B, athletics, swimming, archery, rowing, and fencing. Or C, athletics, swimming, badminton, football, and golf. Well, I can tell you it's not C. Um, that's a good question. Because I would personally think archery is one of these ones that's probably been around a lot longer, but would rowing have been in every Olympics? And I feel gymnastics surely would have been in every Olympics. I'm going to say A. I would say A.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I would second that.
BEN WATERWORTH: You go, you second that? Yeah, correct. Look at that. There you go. All right. Well, if you want to keep playing this game, folks, go to teamos.olympics.com.au. But the thing that I've mentioned to Jarrod, now, I don't know if this is going to be the case for all of the fan messages. If you want to send a fan message to your Australian Olympic athletes, you've got to pay $10 this time around. I'm saying here, you click on Team Oz Virtual Stand, and for $10, what you get is the ability to send an athlete a message, you get a personalised graphic for social media, you do also get an invitation to join a call with an Aussie Olympian, that's not bad, and a $10 voucher for the Australian Olympic Team Shop. Now, I've seen the prices. I bought something from the Australian Olympic Team Shop. $10 not going to get you much. I'm a bit disappointed here, Jarrah. I really hope this is just something that they're fixing before the opening ceremony, because as you said, Off Air, if this is their way of whittling down the crap messages, then just hire a moderator, right?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I suppose it's one way to get an interview with an athlete.
BEN WATERWORTH: True, we could get the Campbell's on. You know, why not? Kate Brunsey, welcome, you suck. Welcome to Off The Podium.
JARROD LOOBEEK: 50% off price for that one, I'd hope.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think we need to chip in. If this is the only way we can set $3.33 each during these games, we could do that a couple of days, couldn't we?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think we've got to keep the tradition going somehow. I mean, we had such success at the Winter Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Still have that message to Cam about the segue in Latvia.
BEN WATERWORTH: Absolutely. And yeah, every single one was... I think we ended up sending one to every single athlete, because there's only a team of like 40 or 50, so it's pretty... I don't think we're going to do it to 480-odd athletes this time around. But hey, I'm always up for a challenge. But yeah, I'm hoping that this team of fan... I mean, it's a nice little idea, obviously, you know, obviously, given that it's a little bit tricky now. Not a lot of fans can... Well, no fans can go over to the Olympics, of course. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see. But also here, they've got the Tokyo podcast you can listen to. It'll be nice if the AOC were listening. You can sort of link us on there. That would be pretty good as well. Links to the social media there as well. They've got a nice little video there from Andrew Hoy waving to everyone there on the website, which is great. So yeah. And also if you go to the Australian Olympic website, they've got a list of all the live sites that you can actually go and watch. I was very tempted to go into Hobart tonight and go to the... There's a live site in Hobart. But I kind of thought, would there be anyone there in Hobart looking at Brisbane doing it? But for Sydney, not proceeding. So you can't go to one. I just love you. They've got all these live sites, you know, everywhere, like Brisbane, Queensland, Northern Territory, Hobart, far north Queensland, Sydney, not proceeding. So you screw, Jarrod, start your own, maybe.
JARROD LOOBEEK: A little bit of payback for the origin loss, that feels like.
BEN WATERWORTH: But yeah, obviously, I do like kind of the engagement there. They're at least trying to do there. Did you watch any of the events today, Jarrod, and kind of if you did, what was your take on anything you did see today? And also the lack of crowds as well. It's sort of interesting already to see it.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it is a bit weird. I did catch a little bit of the soccer between Great Britain and Chile. I mean, it was interesting. Near the team, I suppose I was kind of, I mean, cheering on Chile by default. So not the result I wanted, but just exciting that sports has already kicked off in its life. But it is definitely a little bit weird without the crowds there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, and it kind of goes back to what we were saying about do we want the dubbed sound or not. I'm still one for no. It's kind of, it's unique. Like I would love to, you know, when we were at the Brisbane Olympics and they're showing highlights from Tokyo 2020, like that's the games with no fans. Like, I mean, you know, we had that in Athens, but you could hear like two of the people in the crowd. But yeah, it's kind of very unique and kind of, you'll always be able to pinpoint that a little bit more when it comes to those games. I've got the Canada-Japan game on right now, 20 minutes into the first half, and Canada's still leading, 1-0. So let's go, Team Canada. Jarrod, this will be the last time, this is officially the last time we will be speaking until the opening ceremony. And 9pm for Australia Eastern Standard Time, if you're wondering what time it does start. If you're listening in Collins Time Zone in Canada, that will be a nice 6am start for you in Central Time there in Canada, 8pm local time in Tokyo. I've read that it's a 3-hour extravaganza, so you and I will be jumping online at about midnight to talk about this. But any last-minute thoughts? I know we gave our predictions the other night, but it's exciting. I mean, let's be honest, we're basically 48 hours away from an Olympic game starting. It's such a great and exciting feeling. And yeah, I'm extremely pumped.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I feel like it's got a lot of hype to live up to, which is just, I suppose, the nature of it being delayed a year. But I think they can do it. And for all the stupid news outlets trying to give us an exclusive sneak peek of the opening ceremony, who wants that?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I don't get these. Like, I don't get the exclusive sneak peek and like people saying, like even the Olympic app, the official Tokyo app, are like, oh, inside the opening ceremony. And it's just, it's nothing. There was nothing of note there, but even if they right now are like leaked the entire, I wouldn't want to watch it. It takes away from the fun of it, doesn't it? Which I look, I was lucky enough to go to one of the dress rehearsals for the Gold Coast opening ceremony. And, you know, they're there and they're like, oh, hush, hush, like, don't say anything. And, you know, I assume most people didn't, but it was a unique thing being there and seeing it beforehand. I still watched it on TV and kind of not quite the same, obviously, as it would be being there in the actual opening ceremony itself. But yeah, I mean, look, I would not want to be spoiled for it. I'm trying to see if there's any predictions, any bets on who will like the cauldron right now. But basically, the answers here, so I'm on japantoday.com, and it's got voices in Japan. Have your say. Who do you think will like the Olympic cauldron at Friday night's Tokyo opening ceremony? The comments include, couldn't say, we're in a pandemic and haven't been following it. Don't care. Get the cursed thing over with. Somebody's got a former prime minister, Shinzo Abe. And a Japanese prime minister wearing a Luigi costume. In all honesty, though, I'd rather have someone wearing a Pikachu costume to run and light the torch than to see anyone not meaningful enough. There you go. I was actually going to mention this. As a tennis fan, and somebody says pretty good. What about Naomi Osaka? You think she's in the shot? Bit of a national icon there and kind of somebody who obviously would love to take away a home gold medal.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I don't think so. That would be a weird one, given the year that she's had. Yeah, I feel like it almost be hypocritical for her to step up onto that stage to be in such a prominent position. So I think, no, I feel like she'll just be focusing on the tennis, and you probably won't hear much about her or of her until that event.
BEN WATERWORTH: There is that judo, athlete, I don't know if you say judo player, judo fighter, I believe. Has they not won like about three or four in a row or something like that? I can't remember if it's male or female. I feel very embarrassed right now, but I know there is a Japanese judo, judo-er, who's won multiple in a row. So there's a possibility, and I feel like a terrible Olympic fan to not be able to remember who they are. But look, I don't know my Japanese athletes that well. I mean, if you were to choose a sport, like baseball's huge there. They've got a huge baseball play with baseball returning back to the Olympics. Maybe they could be like Barcelona. Instead of the arrow, they could like pitch a baseball into the cauldron, and there it goes. Or if it is Naomi Osaka, like a serve, like an ace straight into the cauldron. Like I'm trying to pitch her now, because as I've said the other day, as you said, as Colin said, can we have a good opening ceremony? That's all I want. I want to sit here in a couple of days' time with you and Colin, with a smile on my face and go, fuck, that was great. That was a great opening ceremony. Like, come on, that's all we want. That's all we want.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it needs to feel like it's flown by instead of feeling like it is three hours long.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, with no crowd, no engagement like that, there's got to be something a little bit special. But we will have all that for you directly after the opening ceremony. It will be a late night for Jarrod and I, but it's worth it when there's an Olympics coming on there. So in the meantime, if you've enjoyed our episode tonight and you want to send us any questions or any comments, your guesses for any of the opening ceremony, anything along those lines, we're on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, hashtag OTP on Twitter and Instagram. And you can, of course, send us a message or comment to us on Facebook as well. And we read everything that we get, and we will go to all of those along the way as well. But we are so excited. Big day for Australia, 2032. We are officially hosting our third Olympic Games. Great day to be an Olympic fan. And less than 48 hours now to go until the opening ceremony kicks off. Go Matildas tonight. As I said, by the time this is released, no doubt the Matildas game would have been done and won. Hopefully, if we lose to New Zealand, I don't know how I'm going to be. The opening ceremony could be the greatest thing in the world, but that might take a while to recover. Jarrod, always a pleasure, mate. Thank you so much. And yes, bring on 2032.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, bring on 2032. Bring on the opening ceremony. Bring on the games.
BEN WATERWORTH: Bring on the games indeed. Thanks very much for joining us for Off The Podium. We will speak to you next time. Good night.
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