Charles Hamelin Interview

We return to Canada today to talk to one of the greatest Canadian athletes from the exciting sport of short track speed skating, Charles Hamelin! A 3 time Olympian, 4 time medalist, including 3 gold medals, Charles takes us through his Olympic journeys from Torino to Vancouver to Sochi, as well as how things are shaping up for next year in Pyeongchang, including whether or not it will be his final Olympic appearance. Charles also tells us the story winning back to back medals within 35 minutes of each other, filming his famous Sport Chek commercial, and where his Olympic medals are kept to this day. Of course as always we go over our famous "I Am Canadian" set of questions.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.

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COLIN HILDING: Yes! We are back with more Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast, and very excited today because we're going to be joined by one of my countrymen, a Canadian. That's right, we're back talking to more Canadians here as we gear up for the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. Winter Olympics is always exciting as it's something that Canadians dominate in. But today we are here to talk to an athlete in one of Canada's greatest sports, and I think most dominant sports, which is speed skating. Today our guest is none other than Charles Hamelin, who is arguably, for those who aren't familiar with him, one of Canada's greatest, not just speed skaters, but arguably one of our greatest competing winter athletes. Charles is a four-time Olympic medallist. Three of those medals he won have been gold medals. And if all goes well in nine months, then we'll be watching Charles make his fourth end as we talk about in this interview, possibly his final Olympic performance in Pyeongchang. This was an exciting interview to do just because of how big Charles Hamelin is here in Canada. And also just be able to talk to somebody in short track speed skating and go into some of the details as to the differences between short track, long track. And the surprising answer we get from him as to why he competes in short track as opposed to long track. It's a lot simpler than you would think, but Charles, of course, grew up in this sport and it was great hearing him talk about his family's involvement. His entire family has been very involved in this sport and obviously his brother Francois is on Team Canada as well and hopefully will be competing this time next year with his brother in the Pyeongchang Games. We do get to go over with Charles all three of his Olympic appearances thus far, from his debut medal-winning performance he had at the age of only 21 in Torino, all the way through the big wins he had here on home soil in Canada. What was it like to actually win a medal here in the 2012 Vancouver Olympics? And of course his huge win in Sochi in 2014, which was in a field that was so competitive. As always, we also give Charles our I Am Canadian questionnaire on the end, which always provides some good entertainment. And on top of that, we even get to ask him about a famous commercial that he filmed a couple of years ago, with, as I liked to deem it, a huge stunt performed, and whether or not that was all done for real. So here in this special episode of Off The Podium, we talk to four-time Olympic medallist, three-time gold winner Charles Hamelin. We are thrilled to be joined here on Off The Podium with another Canadian winter athlete. Canadian winter legend in the making, current legend, whatever you want to call them. All I know is that with the success he's had, which is basically four Olympic medals, three of them being gold, the name of the show here needs to be changed from Off The Podium to On The Podium for at least the next episode here. We're talking to Charles Hamelin, Canadian short track speed skating legend, as I said. Thanks so much for joining us, Charles.

CHARLES HAMELIN: Hey, it's a pleasure to be here.

COLIN HILDING: I just want to start out, as we do with most of the athletes here, just finding out how you got into the sport. I guess when you're a kid or whatever, you learn to skate, it's not like you immediately jump into speed skating. So at what age did you first lace up skates, and then how did that transition into actually getting competitive into speed skating?

CHARLES HAMELIN: Actually, the first time I laced a skate to go on ice, I think it was, I was really young, I think I was around like four or five, but it wasn't into an environment of speed skating. And my brother, my little brother Francois, started the competition, the speed skating, one year before me, so I was able to watch him skate and do practice, and I was able to try a little bit of speed skating during Christmas or Halloween, where there was a family event on the ice. So I really liked the feel of the group and the feel of the Long Blades. So I decided to join him the year after. And when I joined Frank, our younger brother Mathieu started also, our father started to coach, and our mother was the lift to go with the rink and come back home. So everyone was part of the sport, and we fell in love with it. And since then, we've been short trackers all year long.

COLIN HILDING: It's crazy. I think people listening to the show, who maybe aren't from Canada, don't even realise how big your entire family is into the sport, as you mentioned. I can't imagine. Are there competitions during the off season? You and your brother, did you get competitive growing up, pushing each other, or I'm going to beat your time, I'm going to beat you in this event?

CHARLES HAMELIN: Actually, all our summers, when we were young, we were always finding anything to race, anything to try to have competition, because we were really good at sport, any sport, and it always ended up being like, who's the fastest, who's the strongest, who can jump the highest, all those things. And we've always been competitive, even if it's normal things for people in normal lives.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, that's a brother thing. So I can't imagine what it's like if you're not only, you know, brothers in the same sport, but growing up, like you said, he's your younger brother, and you followed him into the sport. What it must have been like growing up. Has any of that carried through now as adults, you know, both competing in Olympic stage?

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yes, of course. Frank and I really skated all our lives together. Maybe there was one or two years that we were apart because I was on the national team, and he was still too young to be there. But we mostly skated all our years together. And I learned a lot from him, and he learned a lot from me. We had some weakness, and we have some strength, and we learned from that from each other. And I think doing it not alone, it's something that really helps us to reach the point that we are at right now. I want to qualify for my fourth Olympic, so it's something really big for me. And without my brother, I would have been here today.

COLIN HILDING: So the other thing that interests me is, when you have speed skating, there's the short track and the long track. When you first get into this, at what point do you decide on that? Was it something that you just, like you said, with your family and everything, you grew up just always wanted to be in the short track? Or is it typical for skaters to kind of go back and forth and then eventually just decide on one?

CHARLES HAMELIN: The thing is in Quebec, there's not a lot of long track. There's only one rink in Quebec City, and it's like three hours from Montreal. So like when you start speed skating in Montreal or around Montreal, the area, or even if you're further north in Quebec, there's not really an easy way to try and skate in long track. So when you start as a kid, you always start in short track. And back in the days, long track for me was not something I find it fun, because I really like the way the short track is. You're on the ice against four, five, six guys around you, and you make your way through the race and finish one or two to pass the next round. It really gets into me. Long track, I never had any thinking about switching to go on long track, or just try on long track. I did maybe one competition when I was younger in long track. I didn't really love it, because it was outside, and it was really, really cold. I put three or four skin suits, one over the other, so it was not a really nice experience.

COLIN HILDING: The other thing that interests me is the distances. I think it's very similar with in the Summer Olympics swimming, where unlike a lot of other sports, where you just enter your sport and you're competitive in that, there's a lot of changes with distances and everything like that, and sometimes with relays, people being subbed in at the last minute. So for you, you've competed in the 3000m, 5000m, 1000m and all this. How do you decide on your distances, or is it something that Team Canada will eventually say, okay, well, you're our strongest one here, so let's put you in the 1500m?

CHARLES HAMELIN: In track, in our selection, that are in August this summer, we qualify per distance. So the winner of each distance, they are already qualified. If you win a distance, you will be in the Olympic team, selected to be part of the Olympic team. And after that, it's overall qualification, and we are doing three times each distance. So we're doing nine distances individually. So it's accumulate points for every distance, and after there's an overall ranking, and we take five guys out of this. And from those five guys, if there's three different winners of the three distances, there's only three spots taking for the Olympics. So there's only two spots that usually are discretionary. So with the result that people had during the competition, the two best from the result, of course, and what the coaches and high-performance committee saw on the ice, they would choose the best to complete the team. And after that, they will choose the best three to go in the fifteen, the best three to go in the thousand, the best three in the five, and of course, the four guys that have the best chemistry to raise a relay against the world.

COLIN HILDING: Do you have a favourite distance, like just as your own preference?

CHARLES HAMELIN: The one I prefer is the thousand metre, because it's a mix of the 500 metre and the 1500, so there's a lot of speed, but with some strategy, and you need to take care of using too much energy too soon in the race, so you need to make sure that you're at your best and you can race up to the end. So it's something that I'm really good at, and it's a distance that I love to race.

COLIN HILDING: Now, going back to, like you said, you're getting ready for your fourth Olympics. Going back to the first one in Torino, what was that like just as an athlete to reach the Olympic level? This is what I always find interesting because I think most people, when they get into a sport, they're not immediately thinking, I'm going to be in the Olympics. Was that a goal maybe you did have, where you're like, one day I'm going to reach the Olympics? Or is this something where you slowly got better and better, developing from juniors on and everything, and then it's like, wow, I'm in my first Olympics. How did that happen?

CHARLES HAMELIN: It happened kind of gradually for me. But there was one season, the season I was 16 years old. Back in the days, my coach was my dad, and I was training in my club in St. Julie. And I did qualify for the first time into the World Junior Championships with all the guys. I think I was 17 years old at that time. And for me, going there was kind of the first glimpse of maybe I could make the Olympics one day. And my dad and I had that dream, to make myself good enough to qualify for the Olympics. And our goal was Vancouver in 2010. But soon enough, we realised that Torino could be achievable for me. So we put all our energy into that. And the dream that I had when I was young, to once maybe be able to make the Olympics, got reality in the summer of 2005 in Chicoutimi in Quebec, when I did qualify myself, finishing fifth overall of the Olympic team, and make my way through the Olympic team with all the boys.

COLIN HILDING: And I know you were in the relay in Torino. How many other events did you compete in for your first Olympics?

CHARLES HAMELIN: I did the 15,000 metre, finishing fourth in the final, just at the base of the podium. It was a really good race. I was the youngest of the team, so I got the experience there, and the relay, we finished second with all the boys.

COLIN HILDING: Do you like doing relays? Because when I watch relays, I just think about how I feel like I'm stressed out watching it, you know? How quickly everything, like the... When you move from the one skater to the next, is it a different pace for something like that? Do you have to be more on your guard?

CHARLES HAMELIN: You always have to be on your guard because there's people everywhere on the track, inside the track, outside the track, so you need to be aware of where everyone is. And usually when you enter a race, there's always a pattern of like all the skaters, where they are going and where to be to protect your skater because you need to watch one when you're inside. If there's a fall, you need to go get the recovery for not losing too much time on the other teams. So there's a lot of specification into the relay, so it's really complicated, but we are doing it so much, then it's kind of a habit for us. We are going on the ice, and we know where to go, where to skate, and where to be at the right place at the right moment.

COLIN HILDING: It just looks like second nature when you guys do it. I can't even fathom training for something like that. I can't even really skate that well, so I guess that's another problem I have. With Torino, though, winning that first medal, was that an event where you thought, going into it, we have a chance at this one, or did that kind of catch you off guard? Did you have more expectations for your individual event?

CHARLES HAMELIN: I think we were kind of... we wanted to have a medal, and we were going for the gold. I think it was achievable for us at that time. I remember the team was really strong, and we could have a shot to win the gold. The race didn't really went as we planned. Getting passed by the Korean, I think they finished first, and we were second. It was a really good race. I think all the boys did a really good job. But for me, it was my first medal, and at that moment, it was the greatest thing in my life that was happening.

COLIN HILDING: Which, by the time you flash forward four years and you get to Vancouver, I can't imagine doing your first Olympics, and then four years later, you're on your home soil. The thing that interests me is how much, when I look back, not just on the Winter Olympics, but even some of the Summer Olympics leading up to Vancouver, there was this very long and steady push that the country had in getting behind it, the whole own the podium thing and everything. What were some of the differences you noticed maybe behind the scenes? Because it seemed like, at least for Canadians, even if you look at the amount of medals we win overall, it seems like a small increase. But to go all the way to 14 gold for the country, just four years later after we had half of that, were there certain things that changed behind the scenes?

CHARLES HAMELIN: I think for all Canadians, I think not only in short track, but in Canadian sport in general, I think all sports wanted to go from Turin to Vancouver with having more chance to win medals and being like the best of the world in every sport, make sure that we have a shot to win medals everywhere. So I think there was a lot of energy and money put into us going through Vancouver, even like just to have more training camps, having more safety when we were training our facility in Montreal. We went from a rink for hockey to a rink for speed skating, so we don't have any hockey boards in our rink. There's only mats all around the rink strapped with straps. So when we fall, there's no impact with the boards, so the mats move with us, so it's way more safer, and we can push ourselves further into the training. So it really helped us to make sure that everything we had to go through to those trainings leading to Vancouver was the perfection in every situation. And for us, it was a big improvement, and I think the sport in general in Canada took a really huge step with the Olympics in Vancouver.

COLIN HILDING: And I know growing up, even during, even long before Vancouver, the 90s, speed skating just seemed to be something that was big for Canada. And it feels to me like every time I watch the Olympics, it's just Canada and Korea over and over again. But then like you said, in Vancouver, it just got so much bigger. I mean, one of the biggest things that happened was with the two medals you won and how close they were together, which it was on the same day, wasn't it?

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, it was on the same day. It was 35 minutes in between the two medals.

COLIN HILDING: How do you even recover within 35 minutes? How do you catch your breath?

CHARLES HAMELIN: Actually, I don't remember catching my breath in between those two medals because the excitement of winning the first was so big. Getting to the room, having all the team in the room cheering for me was so overwhelming. And on my home soil in Vancouver with my family, my friends and the Stents, it was so amazing. Then I think it was just like the... I got lift by the events. I think leading us to the relay, all the four boys, we got in the room together with the coach, refocused again. And I think just by having already a medal around my neck before the relay put my confidence really high. And we had no doubt that there was only one option in that race, and it was to win the gold medal again. And we just did it with a perfect relay.

COLIN HILDING: Now, is that a normal thing to have events that close together? We watch it, we see it sometimes in the Olympics, even with swimmers, but it always seems to be like two hours apart, or maybe that's just the time difference for when CBC is airing it or whatever. But is this something that's normally on a World Cup circuit to just go from one race right into the next?

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, if you take the normal schedule into a World Cup, I would say more World Championships. World Championships is always two distance per day, so we are doing the 15 and the 500 on the same day on the Saturday. So you finish the final of the 15, and you go up right away into the 5. So if you are in the final, you can be in the first race of the 5, maybe like 20 minutes after. So you need to refocus. If you had a good 15, you need to refocus on yourself and make sure that you're ready to race again in the 500 metres. So we are kind of used to it, but being at the. Olympics, it is something that is much more bigger scale and the excitement is bigger.

COLIN HILDING: Did you find that was like an advantage? I mean, I guess you probably had it happen both ways. You know, you won a gold there, and then you go back and you win another gold. Maybe it's the adrenaline that gets you there. Do you have other world championships or something like that where maybe one race you just don't have the success you wanted, and then you go into the next one. Does that affect you negatively, or are you really good at blocking it out?

CHARLES HAMELIN: I think by the years, I found a way to try to take the positive of every situation from a really good result, taking the feeling of what you just did and put it back on a new distance or a new race. I try to do that the most I can. And if there is disappointment of a result in the first race, I just try to take the frustration and try to change it into energy, to going stronger in the next distance, to make sure that I'm achieving the goal that I put in myself into that distance.

COLIN HILDING: How conscious are you of the time when you're going through this? Or is it more about racing against the person next to you?

CHARLES HAMELIN: In short track, the time doesn't really matter. I think the basic of the sport is if you're in a qualification race, it's finishing first or second to move on. And when you get to the final, it's the first, second and third that will have the medal. So if we do our world record into the race, yes, of course, it's giving you pride into what you just did, but it doesn't give you more than having a medal if you won a medal with a time, like 10 seconds slower than the world record. So it's not really a big thing to enter a short track to have the best time.

COLIN HILDING: I know you've set an Olympic record. Which Olympics was it? And which distance where you set an Olympic record?

CHARLES HAMELIN: It was in Vancouver. It was the 500 metre.

COLIN HILDING: Right. So that's just something where it's like, all right, added bonus. You probably don't even realise until afterwards.

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, I didn't know. After the race, I didn't know what was my time. I just knew that I had won the race, and I was moving up to the final. And when I saw the time, I was like, oh, well, it's the Olympic record. So I was kind of happy of that, of course. But I was mostly happy of myself going into the final to have the possibility to win a medal.

COLIN HILDING: What is it like? Like I said earlier, it feels to me, at least as a viewer, that it's Canada and it's Korea. What we saw in Sochi with the long track speed skating, it really turned into the Netherlands. It almost feels like it's more just countries versus countries. Is there a lot of attention spent on the other countries you're competing against and knowing, okay, who's going to go up here? I would think that the eye is always on Korea when it comes to short track speed skating.

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, and the next Olympics are in Korea, so it will be kind of really exciting for that. But the sport is evolving really strong in the last four or five years. I think from one year before the Sochi Olympics, there were some countries that were not contender in two medals for World Cups, World Championships, or Olympics that are coming along with really good results. Talking about Netherlands in short track, Hungary in short track, Russia. Those are the three countries that pop up in my mind right now because they have really good results in every distance. And in the relay, you can count them out of the podium in every distance. So there's a lot more countries that can have a goal of medal, more than the three countries that were there from almost the beginning, the Canada, China and Korea that were racing against all the time. We can have at least six or seven, three or four countries into that ballpark. And it makes a big group of like seven or eight countries that can really battle for a strong result into a competition.

COLIN HILDING: What was it like, you know, when you're in Sochi, if you talk about like home territory, I mean, Victor on obviously, he's not originally from Russia, but competing there against him, like was there a big crowd reaction? Or was that something where you found like, if you're going up against the Russians in Russia, that, you know, it was maybe harder to compete with the crowd so heavily on their side? Is that something where you you look at competing is Russia and Sochi and you think, OK, well, this is maybe what it's going to be like next year in Pyeongchang?

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, because like going into another country, and when you are one of the contender in medals in a distance, of course, like they always have their favourites. Like when we were in Sochi, the Russians were favourites because we were in Russia. And you always be a little bit like the bad guy. If you if you win a medal or if you win a distance, when there was a good chance of the other countries, the home countries to have it. So, but in the same time, trying to make it for us, like I found it more enjoyable for me winning in Russia and hearing the national anthem of Canada in Russia when I won the 1500 metre in Sochi. It was kind of, it was a really, really, really fun feeling and just winning a medal overseas. It was fun to have them in Vancouver, but in Sochi, it was like I beat Russia on home soil because I knew he was a victoran, was a contender of winning the gold because he was really strong on that distance. And I did win that. I was not able to race against him in the final in the next two distance because I had some bad luck falls and after falls, but the 1500 metre was a great one.

COLIN HILDING: So I'm guessing at this point it's safe to say, you are going to be competing in 2018?

CHARLES HAMELIN: We need to qualify in August, so in a few months, we will have the Canadian selection for the Olympics. So I need to pass that selection first to make sure that I'm going to the Olympics. But if you take the training group we are training in right now, and if I'm competing at the level I'm able to do, I should be able to qualify myself for the Olympics in Pyeongchang.

COLIN HILDING: Because I know you finished last season, you finished pretty well. Was the season as a whole what you expected?

CHARLES HAMELIN: The season last season wasn't the best I had in my career. I had some difficulties in the beginning of the season with falls and disqualification. And it wasn't an easy first part of the season, but I really came back in the second half of the season with two gold and one bronze. So it's something that when you are in a good mood, the confidence pops in, and it makes it easier for you to have more good results. But when you are in a rhythm of falls and when it's not going as well as you want, sometimes mentally it's difficult, and sometimes because it's not going as you want, you fall into the trap of falling again, and it's like you have a dark cloud over your head, and you cannot go through. For me, I'm really happy to be able to go through that and come back stronger for the second half of the season. And this summer, I just want to train as long as I can to make my way through the Olympic team with all the boys.

COLIN HILDING: How do you feel the rest of Team Canada is at this point? Like, aside from yourself, I know you said your brother, obviously you're going to be rooting for him, but the rest of the team, do you feel that we have a really strong team going into 2018?

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, the team is getting a lot stronger from year to year, season to season, because after the Vancouver Olympics, the team really changed a lot. A lot of young guys start to come on the national team, and right now, if you take the 15 boys that are training in Montreal, 12 of them are under 25. So it's something kind of special, because in my career, it was always a mix, like half and half, or more than half better, and people that are my age. The young guys, when you get in the sport, mostly during those years, it's really difficult, because there's a lot of countries that are really good. But young guys, the kids are making great progress year after year. Two years ago, it was a little bit more difficult. Last year, there was a lot of good results, a lot of people that are stepping on the podium, and we are just looking to be better this season with all the young guys.

COLIN HILDING: So 2018, do you feel you would want to go to 2022, or are you feeling like I'm going in just one last Olympics just to end on a high note, or are there aspirations past that?

CHARLES HAMELIN: In terms of Olympics, 2018 would be my last one. I don't think I'm going to go for another four years after that. I'm going to leave the team to the young guys and make sure that they are continuing our domination into the World Cup sport. But I will still be there to try to help them and make sure that the Canadian team is a strong one again and have potential to win medals in any level, World Cup, World Championships, Olympics, and make sure that the guys are ready to face the world.

COLIN HILDING: Now, this might seem like a bit of a dumb question, but most of the athletes we've had on the show have won one medal or maybe two medals. Here you are, you have four medals, three of them being gold. I have to ask, where do you keep your medals? Do they get put out on display? Do you keep them underneath your shirt where nobody could see? Because that's what I would be doing if I was an Olympic three-time gold medallist. But do you have a special place for these?

CHARLES HAMELIN: I have my Torino Olympics, the first medal I got hanging on the wall at my place. And the three gold are into a box in my living room, because I have to carry around those medals most of the time when I go for a conference or an event and things like that. So always to have them closed, and I don't want to be having to take them off the wall all the time around my place. So I keep them in the box safely and ready to bring them out.

COLIN HILDING: And I guess kind of a nostalgic thing, the first medal in some ways would always be the most important, or is that not the case? Do you feel like the Vancouver ones mean more to you, or is there kind of a special place for the Torino one?

CHARLES HAMELIN: All medals have a special place in my heart, but I think the one that I am the most proud of is the 1500m in Sochi, the last one I won, because there was a lot of speculation around Canada, like about short track speed skater in Canada, that we were only good for 500m and maybe sometimes 1000m, but we were not 1500m guys, skaters, and I just wanted to train and make all my energy to prove to the world that even Canada can win the gold in the 1500m, and I just did it, so that put a lot of pride into myself and my coach. So we realised a big thing for Canada there.

COLIN HILDING: And not to mention the competition. That's one of those races that will go down in history. Kind of like this past one, you look at the Rio Olympics, you can run the line up of Usain Bolt, Justin Gatlin, Andre Degrasse. That was the all-star line up of the Sochi Olympics, and I think people will look back on this one day, and they're going to see Charles Hamelin's name right up against Victor On, and that's just the legendary matchup of 2014.

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, I think it was a really good race, and I would say all the tough guys were in that final, so for me, just putting a little bit more proud into what I did.

COLIN HILDING: One other kind of silly question, I guess, before we move on to our final set of silly, even sillier questions, we'll say, there's a commercial that must have aired on TV, but I discovered it on YouTube at one point, and it was an Olympic commercial of you skating, dragging parachutes behind you. Now, I'm hoping that that was actually you and not a stunt person, that commercial. Do you know which one I'm talking about?

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, yeah, you've got the Sport Chek commercial.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, now tell me that that was done for real. I need to know that. Not special effects or something.

CHARLES HAMELIN: It was me for real, driving with one, two, and three parachutes.

COLIN HILDING: Oh, and how fast can you actually go? Was it sped up for camera? I'm just hoping you're not shattering my illusions of you being like this superhero on the ice.

CHARLES HAMELIN: Actually, it was just for the TV show, in short track, because the rink is so small, we can't use the parachute. I know that Long Track use them when they skate, when they are doing things at the start. But for me, it was the first time that I was trying to skate with parachute, and it's something really special, because you don't think that you're going to have, that the parachute are going to drag you that much. But when I pop up the third parachute, actually I had someone doing it before me just to set up the camera and see how they will film the shot. And when the guy popped the parachute, he stopped skating and he fell on his ass. So I was like, oh, I must like, I was a little bit scared, but I was like, okay, I must go the fastest I can and just make sure that I don't fall, just don't fall. I put the third parachute, and the bang that it's doing, it's so big, then it's like if someone pushed you from the front when you skate, but I was able to hold on and skate with the parachute open. But I remember it was a really fun feeling, and it was a really great shoot. I have great memories from that.

COLIN HILDING: It's just a Canadian thing. I think it was Catherine Pendrill, she's a cyclist who won bronze back in Rio. We had her on the show, I think we were talking about this campaign where the whole ice in our veins thing they had, where they had her basically in regular cycling, summer clothes, but out in the middle of a freezing winter. I think Canadians, we want to make sure that we're promoting ourselves to be above and beyond. Not only can we survive the winter, it's like we can survive the winter in summer clothes. Not only can we skate, we can skate with a parachute dragged behind us. I'm just excited to see what will be the next campaign. Are they going to be dropping people from airplanes on skates and stuff like they're on skis or something? I love Canadian commercials, I think they're hilarious.

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, they have great ideas, and when they ask us to do it, it's always a pleasure and it makes a great TV.

COLIN HILDING: We'll go into a final set of questions here, and again, just to remind people listening, this all goes back to when we were covering the Rio Olympics. We found that the Team Canada website had questionnaires that they would have the athletes fill out, and it's done in handwriting and everything. So we're going to give you this. I don't think they're going to be doing this for 2018. I think they should. It would be great if they did. But we'll give you, I guess, a sample of what the Rio athletes had here. So it's just going to be random questions here. Just give us quickfire answers. If there's one you can't think of, we'll just move on from there. So first one is asking you to draw a picture. We can't really communicate that on a podcast. Second one, here's a real question. My favourite Olympic moment is?

CHARLES HAMELIN: Is the one when we won the relay all the boys together in 2010 in Vancouver.

COLIN HILDING: Oh yeah, home soil, you can't top that. If I could choose any Olympic host city, it would be, I think I know what your answer is going to be, but let's hear it.

CHARLES HAMELIN: It's Vancouver. I think the Olympic was so great out there. And being part of the kind of the celebration around the city, because the city was just all red from Canada close, so it was amazing. And with family and friends out there, it was the best.

COLIN HILDING: In my spare time, I most like to...

CHARLES HAMELIN: Game?

COLIN HILDING: Game, like do you have a specific game you like?

CHARLES HAMELIN: I like to play World of Warcraft, Diablo 3. I like to play Battlefield 1. Yeah, that's pretty much the games I'm playing right now.

COLIN HILDING: Nice, so you have real hobbies in your spare time, not things that are like, here's a five-minute thing, this is what you spend your entire weekend on World of Warcraft.

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, it can be... I try to not spend all my time because my girlfriend doesn't really like it, but I try to put some time, because I'm just loving it and just past times.

COLIN HILDING: My favourite workout is?

CHARLES HAMELIN: My favourite workout is biking.

COLIN HILDING: Oh, yeah?

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, I really like to go bike. In our off training, we go bike, we go run, we go in the gym, and that's mostly what we do. When we go on bike, it's something that after my career, after Short Track, I want to continue just to bike, just to get in shape because biking is so fun.

COLIN HILDING: And a lot easier to do when there's no ice out, obviously.

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, it's a little bit easier on the legs.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah. If I could have lunch with any one person, it would be?

CHARLES HAMELIN: It would be Roger Federer. He's my idol from all time, and he's the greatest of the greatest, so it would be him.

COLIN HILDING: I love that you mentioned somebody from another sport, too. You're a fan of more than just your own sport.

CHARLES HAMELIN: Oh yeah, I'm a fan of a lot of athletes.

COLIN HILDING: My favourite sandwich is?

CHARLES HAMELIN: My favourite sandwich is... I would say turkey.

COLIN HILDING: If I could have any superpower, it would be...

CHARLES HAMELIN: Like Flash McQueen, to be really quick.

COLIN HILDING: Oh yeah, I think you already have it, even with a parachute behind you. The best candy in the world is? Quebec Nordique. Growing up, I loved the Canadians, but one of the reasons I became such a big avalanche fan was because I'm just holding on to the Nordiques, one of the great teams.

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, I am born in Quebec City, and the cousin of my mother was playing for the Nordiques.

COLIN HILDING: Oh, really?

CHARLES HAMELIN: It was Michel Goulet, so I'm a really big fan of the Nordiques when I was young.

COLIN HILDING: It must have been sad when they left, too. Do you hold like a grudge against Colorado now for that reason?

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, I cheer for Colorado when they move, when the Nordiques move, and they won the Stanley Cup the year after, I was like, they should have stayed one year more.

COLIN HILDING: And Quebec had such a great season the year, like their final year in Quebec City. It was just sad to see what happened the next year. I'm from Winnipeg, and the same thing happened here. Like Winnipeg moved to Phoenix, and everybody cheered for them. And now that we have the Jets back, it's like, all right, forget Phoenix. But Quebec City is next. I mean, you guys are due to get a new team again. As a kid, my favourite sport, or that one was sports team, we already covered that one. My favourite sports movie is sports movie.

CHARLES HAMELIN: I would say I don't remember what the name is. It was the the Bobsled with the team of Jamaica.

COLIN HILDING: Jamaica. Yeah. Cool running.

CHARLES HAMELIN: Cool running. Exactly. Yeah. That was that I had to watch it at least once once a week or once a week. Oh, yeah. It was a great movie.

COLIN HILDING: You should you should go back and listen. I think it was only about a week or two ago. We had an interview with one of the original Jamaican bobsledders from the Jamaican team of 88. Go back and listen to that if you get a chance. Yeah. And finally, last one. If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be.

CHARLES HAMELIN: I have to say Hawaii. I've been there three times already with my girlfriend and once with my dad. And we want to go back next summer with the family. So it's some places like that. It's so peaceful. It's so just great. And I would feel great out there.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah. Be a nice like retirement plan, post three more gold medals or whatever you end up with from 2018 Pyeongchang.

CHARLES HAMELIN: Yeah, it would be a great idea.

COLIN HILDING: Well, seriously, it was great having you on the show today, Charles. I think you are one of the biggest Canadian winter athletes and definitely going to 2018 knowing this is going to be your final games. I think the whole country is just going to be excited to watch every event you're competing in. It was great having you on the show today.

CHARLES HAMELIN: It was a pleasure to be here.

COLIN HILDING: And we cannot thank Charles enough for appearing on the show here today and giving us such a great chat. And if you have been listening to us lately, you realise we've had mostly Australian athletes on, so it was great to get back and have another Canadian interview here, which we hope to have more of in the next few weeks. Ben's going to be taking a little bit of a hiatus, but you can still go back and listen to some of the older interviews. We'll keep you up to date on that, as they've been coming pretty quickly, at least once or twice a week over the last few weeks. We do have another guest lined up later this week. Ben's going to be talking to cross-country skier Callum Watson. That should be up probably within a day or two. As well, go back and listen. As I said, we've had a lot of these interviews coming very quickly. If you heard our 50th episode, the best of Off The Podium episode that we had, you probably heard the clip of us talking about Chumpy Poole and me repeatedly getting his name wrong. So Ben did have a really great interview with him recently, as well as Paralympian Joni Badenhorst was on. And the big one which I mentioned in this interview that we had with Charles was Devin Harris from the 1988 Jamaican Bobsled team. And whether you follow the Olympics or not, you're familiar with Cool Runnings, you're familiar with the Jamaican Bobsled team, and it's a really fascinating interview to hear the real story. As most of the athletes we're talking to are ones who are still actively competing or maybe retired in the last few years. And this is somebody who we're going back 30 years as of next year. The episode is one of the more recent ones in here. You can find it in the archives. Do continue to subscribe to us on iTunes and Stitcher. I believe we're on there. As we're now only nine months away from the 2018 Games, we're going to continue to read more interviews with more athletes that we hope to see this time of the year. And thank you to everybody for listening and subscribing, and stay tuned for more Off The Podium later this week.