Gold Coast 2018 Days 4-11 Review & Closing Ceremony Review + Gold Coast Wrap
We are ALL back to talk about the final days of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. Ben gives us more first hand experiences from his work at the Boxing events, while Jarrod tells us all about the extensive 2 hours of coverage he managed to see over the course of 11 days. Meanwhile Colin has mostly positive things to say about Canada's exclusive coverage from the DAZN (Da-Zone) app, including the CBC network deciding to throw a few time slots in there. Why are Australians so down on the Closing Ceremonies? What does Ben have to say about being one of approximately 13 people to attend the Closing Ceremonies in person (not including a slew of Australian Idol and X-Factor contestants). Why do Australians get so defensive over trash talking the Campbell Sisters? Why do Canadians love Taylor Ruck and Erica Wiebe so much? Why should nobody touch Callum Hawkins when he goes down in the Marathon? Why should you never change the channel to Badminton at the 2:03:00 mark of a Marathon? And why how close (or far) did we all come in our medal tally predictions? It's a jam packed wrap up of the Commonwealth Games that will make all of the Commonwealth tweet out #TheseAreOurOlympics
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast, asterix this time around. It's the Commonwealth Games. As we come back to wrap up the 21st Commonwealth Games that we have covered intensely over the last two or so weeks, our third episode on them, oh, it's been a stretch. It's been incredibly busy and hectic here at the Off The Podium offices as we bring you all the coverage that you wanna know about these games. It's been fun, it's been exciting. I think we've all had different experiences of these games and very much looking forward to hearing our thoughts and everything, we've got our predictions to go over. We've got lots and everything to cover and talk about and bag out and commend and everything along those lines. And for the first time since the preview episode, it was too busy watching the Lawn Bowls over the last 12, 13 days to even join us on the show. From Emu Plains, it's Mr. Jarrod Loobeek. Jarrod, welcome back to Off The Podium.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thank you, it's good to be back. I'm hoping that I can provide plenty of insight from the couple of hours of the Commonwealth Games that I watched.
BEN WATERWORTH: And speaking of a couple of hours of the Commonwealth Games that he watched, tuning into the CBC two-hour highlights twice during the Commonwealth Games, as well as DAZN. It is Colin Hilding from the beautiful city of Winnipeg in Canada. I just had to remember which Winnipeg we were talking to. Hello, Colin, welcome back.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, this is gonna be weird because we went into this talking about how this is not a big deal in Canada. And I think I have legitimately watched about more than Ben and Jarrod combined to the Commonwealth Games somehow. And I did it all on an app called DAZN.
BEN WATERWORTH: DAZN, which is just hilarious that I met someone from DAZN and we joked about how they pronounce it and he works with DAZN. So yeah, the Commonwealth Games, they're over. Jarrod, okay, the two hours that you watched, what did you watch? Are you sad? Are you excited? Did you like the Commonwealth Games? Do you not give a shit about the Commonwealth Games? Are you looking forward to Birmingham? Do you want to complain about how badly Scotland did at these games? I don't know, the floor is yours, the Commonwealth Games.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, I saw a lot of swimming because that was the only thing on at night when I got a chance to watch stuff. So, and then when that finished, there was nothing on at night and I was busy. And then I think I caught kind of the last weekend, which was actually a pretty terrible weekend for Australia because I just watched us lose in all these team sports to everybody. But I think overall they were good. I'm definitely looking forward to Birmingham after their amazing preview from the closing ceremony, which I'm sure we'll get to. What a place, what beautiful blue skies in all their images, which went really well with their song choice. But yeah, I thought the bits of the games I saw were great, even though it was Australia losing matches that we were meant to win hands down.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think in a minute we'll talk about the closing ceremony in depth. But I mean, Colin, obviously we did the halfway point with you and I, but I mean, what do you kind of have to come out from this? Because I mean, you've obviously watched a lot, but I would like to know how Canada are reacting, because you actually finished fourth, you dropped back a spot, you actually won, I think, less than half the gold you won in Glasgow, even though you actually won the same amount of medals. But silver is the new bronze for Canada when it comes to summer sports. 40 silver medals, my goodness, you silver hoarders. I mean, are Canada happy with that? Is Canada not giving a shit about that? I mean, how's Canada reacting to fourth place at the Commonwealth Games?
COLIN HILDING: You know, considering there was no TV coverage when the opening ceremonies happened, it was just DAZN app coverage, and we talked about how three or four days in, CBC decided to carry two hours. Last weekend, they ended up carrying two and a half hours on Saturday, and then Sunday had not only the closing ceremonies live on CBC, but even re-aired it in prime time with the last 15 minutes of a rather embarrassing basketball final. So Canada's paying attention. I think the swimming had a lot to do with it. It's the same thing with Rio. We didn't really expect to do much in swimming, and it was sort of all Penny Alexiak in Rio, and this time it's all Taylor Ruck and everybody but Penny Alexiak. So I honestly believe the swimming got a lot of people's attention here, and that's kind of what all the talk has been about. You know, there's some other medals that I guess are big deals if you're following the sport and everything, but even if you weren't watching the Commonwealth Games, there was a little bit of coverage, especially with Taylor Ruck and like eight medals in swimming.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I think she had the record, didn't she, for most of the entire game, I believe. So that was pretty crazy. And I don't know why she didn't get that award at the closing ceremony. It was some Kiwi weightlifter guy who I don't even know what the hell he did, but good for him. I think we should just quickly talk about the closing ceremony, because look, I don't know, Colin, if you've heard any of what's happening here in this side of the world about, we're what, four days now after the closing ceremony, and it's still basically headlined news about how crap it was and the problems it had, and just basically the issues and everything around it. I just wanna start off by saying, I was lucky enough to score a ticket to the closing ceremony, which in hindsight really wasn't that hard, considering half the stadium was empty. Jarrod, you probably could have gotten one and walked there and still made it in time. Colin, you could probably still get there and still see it. I mean, it was an amazing thing to see live, to be at a closing ceremony of that scale. Colin, you obviously went to the Canada Games one, you know what I'm talking about. When you get to go to an event like that, it's pretty crazy. But just some of the things around it. The fact that at the end of the day, even Channel 7 come at the end of their broadcast and go, this was crap, we're sorry. You know there's a problem. Jarrod, I'll start with you. Again, I don't know if you've watched it, but surely you've heard this news about it. I mean, this closing ceremony, a fairly successful Commonwealth game. This is just an embarrassment, this is how it's ended.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It was so bad. And the fact that the Channel 7 commentators bagging out was the best part of it, just tells you how bad it was. I think Joanna Griggs has made, got so many new fans from her just tearing shreds into what happened. It was such a joke. Even the ceremony itself was very high school production value that it really bugged me that nobody could sing their own song. Everybody was just singing covers. And then you had moments where somebody would sing a cover and then the next artist would come out and sing that person's song who had just sung before.
COLIN HILDING: Yes.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It just didn't make any sense. Just get them to sing their own song. There were no middle range names, but there was no big standout performer moment there. Yeah, the only thing that made it better was the rant at the end and the fact that Birmingham's little promo was even worse than our close to the ceremony. It just made everything better.
BEN WATERWORTH: I just love the fact that, yeah, because we were in this area watching it with a bunch of other workers who had gotten free tickets. And particularly at the end, when you've got this high school musical concert with the C-list celebrities from Australian singing, we're singing A-list celebrity songs because they couldn't get the real A-listers. And the fact that you even have people singing Kate Sobrano covers and then they introduce Kate Sobrano. It's like, she's just there. Get her to sing her own songs. Like, what's wrong with her? And it was just awkward. And that went on forever. And the fact everyone's calling it the Australian Idol Reunion Tour. Fair enough, Guy Sebastian was there. I'm sure Colin, you're happy about that. Why didn't Guy Sebastian close it? Like he's the guy, everybody around me went nuts and Guy Sebastian came out. He's the one that should have been closing it off. I mean, I kind of weirdly like the same bolt DJing with Borobie. There was something weird about that that I actually liked. But other than that, like, cause we got into the stadium and we were sort of waiting around and all of a sudden we hear this cheer and we look through and we can see the flags and we're like, oh, this can't be the athletes. They're still like half an hour to go before the damn ceremony. And it was the athletes. And then all of a sudden right in front of us, there's Taylor Ruck with the Canadian flag. We're trying to find Kurt Fearnley like with the Australian flag. We're going, oh, this is a bit weird. Maybe they're doing like a preview before the actual thing. But this is the main bit that's getting the criticism is the fact that they let the athletes in beforehand and didn't broadcast anything. And this is where Channel 7 are going off about it, which I think fair enough. And I think also like where I was sitting directly opposite me in one of the stands, it was absolutely empty, absolutely empty. And you two won't get this joke. It was just like being at a Gold Coast Suns game where the stadium is generally empty during the AFL season anyway. So that was a bit that was to me, it was like weird that this is a closing ceremony and it was absolutely empty. And yeah, that Birmingham thing was just like, what the hell are we, where are we going in four years? Like I realised Durban lost the games. I mean, this is kind of a last minute feeling, but a lot of the British people that I was working with were like, why the hell has Birmingham got the games? There's nothing there, it's a dump. And I think this video sells that as come to Birmingham, we've got buildings and roads and we've got a fairly fancy camera work where we can do one shot of people badly lip-syncing to Mr. Blue Sky. So, Colin, the closing ceremony.
COLIN HILDING: Well, it's funny because, I mean, A, I thought it was better than Pyeongchang, I thought it was better than Rio. And our commentators here were obviously a lot more polite about it. Like they were, there were several parts where they were talking like, oh, this is a really spectacular presentation and everything. There was a lot of talk about, you know, Australia is known for their big elaborate ceremonies they do for these types of games. And my complaint was just, I'm like, I don't know why we needed an hour and a half of concerts. Like there's lots of things you could have done. It was just a lot of singing from a lot of people I didn't know other than Guy Sebastian. And I will be honest, when Guy Sebastian came out, Jamie was like, this guy sounds terrible. Like he's usually much better than this. And the one song he has, which is very, not very well known, but fairly well known here, Battle Stars. I had to play her that on YouTube in the middle of the opening, closing ceremonies to prove to her, it's like, he doesn't normally sound like maybe it's just a live crowd thing. It usually sounds much better than this. But I thought overall it was a decent show. It didn't look completely empty, like you said. The Canada Games closing ceremonies, like that was weird because A, the Canada Games is usually held in smaller cities than Winnipeg and we were by far the largest city that ever hosted it. And they decided they wanted to put the closing ceremonies in our football stadium, which can seat about 40,000 people. They sold maybe a quarter of those seats. It was maybe 10,000 seats, but the way that they sold, the way we got seats, because they were selling for like $40. And then it must have been like a last minute thing where it's like, oh, we gotta get, I'm guessing the same way you got your tickets. We gotta get more people in here. This is gonna be on TV. So they started offering like discount seats for $15, which we got. The problem is, is that the way that they sold all the seats was the side opposite from the cameras was full and the side that we were on, which was on camera had almost nobody on it because those were the last minute seats. So on TV, we had it backwards. Yours at least looked like there were people there. Here on TV, it looked like, wow, they got maybe 2,500 people there. One was actually about 10,000. But I mean, overall, I thought that it was okay. It wasn't like, you know, I'm not gonna be watching these opening ceremonies again one night when I go through my, you know, Olympic or Commonwealth Games or Pan Am Games ceremony binges late at night. I especially loved the, I had to ask you who it was, the zombie man who-
BEN WATERWORTH: Ahachi Rhodes.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and I had no idea who this was, but you're watching it live, so you probably just be like on TV. The deep breaths he was taking in between every single word he spoke or sang, like I told Jamie, I'm like, I think this guy's dying of cardiac arrest in the middle of this song. How is this man walking anymore? He seemed like something, I mentioned the Living Dead trilogy that we covered, but overall, I thought it was okay. The Birmingham thing, I didn't know what it was first because I was tuning in and out at that point. I didn't realise that's what their presentation was. I'm like, oh, this is a cool little video montage they put together, and then when I realised that was it, I'm like, was this a deleted scene from an episode of Glee, and they just tacked it on to Commonwealth Games? I don't understand the relevance, but as you say, a last minute thing, I mean, what are they gonna do? They have to pull something together.
BEN WATERWORTH: Look, I was very well done with the camera work, the way they kind of just look like one continuous shot of this big dance off, but yeah, it was just, you know, and I think the thing, too, that, I mean, I looked at tickets in the closing ceremony before. I was offered the day before at work, basically, but before that, I looked, and they were still going on for $250 for tickets, and apparently, like, my housemate sort of was working there at the closing ceremony, too, and there was just, yeah, this one major section that was just so empty. So apparently, their kind of last-minute call was, and they should have done this so many hours beforehand. It was kind of poorly organised. It was sending out buses to, like, all the other venues had finished that day, and just grabbing volunteers, just like, hey, do you want to come to the closing ceremony? We need people to fill these seats. It's gonna be empty. So that's kind of what they were trying to do last minute, but then they just didn't get there in time. I mean, they were talking about how people, like the athletes, were leaving halfway through the stadium. I couldn't really see, you know, they'd beat it up a little bit, saying that, like, thousands left. And you could sort of see the entry and exit points where the athletes would go on the stadium. There were people leaving, but I don't think it was as many as people said there was. A lot of people were still in the middle, sort of partying along with this, you know, B-list concert thing. But anyway, that's the closing ceremony.
COLIN HILDING: One question I had, did they announce the performers for the closing ceremony at all?
BEN WATERWORTH: Like pre-closing ceremony? Yeah, they did a few days, and the thing was kind of like, it was rumoured about Guy Sebastian and all that, but then all of a sudden they're like, no, it's just gonna be females. But then all of a sudden, Guy Sebastian, I think was on the announcement, because Mallory was working at the stadium, and she's messaged me a couple hours beforehand, going, oh, he's out on stage right now doing a warmup, so Guy Sebastian's here. And then on the night, you could buy the closing ceremony program, and in that, they have a bunch of the photos of the people. So I sort of knew, but it was meant to be a celebration of female Australian artists being sung by the female Australian artists who've never made it famous outside of the Gold Coast RSL club, basically. So yeah, I mean, it was just odd. It was just odd having, Kate Cibrano, don't know who Kate Cibrano is, she had two songs in the 90s, Jarrod, sort of his semi-household name here, but has never really made it overseas. To have her there, but not singing her own songs and having like Amy Shark, who I don't even know who the hell that is, singing her songs, it was just odd. It was really odd. And the Veronica's absolutely butchered the Kylie Minogue classics. It gets stuff, the Veronica's. But, and I also, because I was right near the little podium where the speeches were, except for Prince Edward, he was up in the part where he didn't want to associate with us plebs, but the guy who's like the head of the Commonwealth Games for Australia, the podium was bigger than him. Like he's a midget. That to me was the funniest bit, just there, this little guy trying to get over the podium. The speeches went on for way too long. That was one thing that was just like, why do we need the Premier of Queensland, Peter Beattie, Birmingham mayor and weird outfit. Like, I mean, it's just weird. And according to Wikipedia, which is just bullshit, I don't believe this. I reckon Thomas Bach was there. I didn't hear a bass or Batman signals or anything there. So I think that's bullshit Wikipedia. But anyway, I mean, really, we can go through the middle table and the predictions and everything. But I think for Australia, obviously we were very proudly on top, 80 gold, 59 silver, 59 bronze, 190 in total, only too shy of 200, which for those at home wondering, I think it's our third best games ever in terms of gold, our fourth best in terms of gold, third best in terms of overall. Sadly, I predicted we'd beat our Melbourne total. We'll get to that in a minute, but we didn't quite make it as much as Melbourne. Obviously dominated a lot more than we did in Glasgow, but our peaks were still Victoria back in 1994\. We won 87 gold there. And in Manchester, we also won 82 gold at those games. Jarrod, I always find it interesting with Commonwealth Games that, you know, we've talked about this plenty of times. We love it because we've won so many medals. We feel like America do at the Olympics. It's just like, great, oh, only 13 gold today, slow day. But the thing that I always find fascinating about these is that in two years' time in Tokyo, they'll start be like, oh, we won 25 of 40 gold medals in the swimming. We're the best. It's like, no, we beat Scotland and Jersey. We didn't beat America and Russia and all these other good nations. Is it, do you think we did better than many people expecting where we were? I mean, I know we're gonna go over this in predictions, but our overall medal count, do you think it's where we're at or a little bit too nice on us when it go into the major sporting events in a few years' time?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think it was a little bit better than predicted. I think it was a little bit of redemption from Glasgow. And I think there's a couple of areas where we've struggled, where we've kind of picked the ball back up again. I think swimming, we are kind of coming back because there's been a bit of like a metal drought there. Seems like we're finally kind of getting our act together, albeit without America. So it is a bit hard to judge. But I think other areas through like cycling, there was kind of, I think in the Commonwealth Games, you still really have like the main cycling nations, albeit like Great Britain's not together. But like, I mean, you've got kind of all the athletes from there under their individual countries in New Zealand as well. So I think that's an area where we went away a little bit and we're coming back. So I think there has been a lot of improvement. I think it's probably good signs heading forward.
BEN WATERWORTH: We did medal in 17 of the 18 sports. I believe wrestling was the only one we didn't end up ultimately medalling in. That's a pretty good track record. And I think too that you mentioned the team sports. That was our sort of Achilles heel in Rio, wasn't it? We just kept choking in the team sports. And we kind of did that here again, didn't we? I mean, our netball was basically with New Zealand choking so hard. It's like, well, that's it. We've easily got this. Nope, absolutely choked to England in the end. Our rugby seven girls, they choked and lost to New Zealand. Our men's hockey team remained undefeated, but our women's hockey team lost basketball. The only time it's ever in the Commonwealth Games is when it's in Australia because we know we're going to win the gold medals. So that's about it. But yeah, it really was kind of interesting how all that played out. And from my perspective, seeing the boxing, we obviously got three gold in the boxing. One, which I'm just going to say now, I don't think we deserved. I know the Skye Nicholson story was fantastic, and that was kind of the one story in boxing that anyone gave a shit about, because I'll just say this now too, Australia, for shame that your media did not cover the boxing, because there were better stories in the boxing than Skye Nicholson, but hey, cool. I don't think she deserved that gold medal. I think that her Northern Irish competitor beat her. And given that I'm now an expert, having watched 201 bouts of boxing over 11 days, I can clearly tell that she didn't deserve it, but it was still good. And also Tasmania apparently had a record Commonwealth Games in terms of number of Tasmanians who went on to win medals. I'm not there, but I've seen some of the headlines back home. You know, Arianne Titmuss, obviously Tasmanian, Amy Cure, some of the Lawn Bowl girls were from Tasmania. My friend, Katie Fasina, she won a silver medal in the weightlifting, so I'm very happy that she did that. Colin, Canada, I think you won medals in 13 sports. You were in 17 of them. Obviously, Netball is the only one not there. I mean, I sort of asked this question before, but 15 gold. Look, you won 30 odd in Glasgow. Got a lot of silvers. I mean, you still were third overall with if we did it by overall medals and not gold. So, I mean, you round about where you usually are in the Commonwealth Games. You just won more silvers this time around than gold.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and it's funny you said you didn't win anything in, you didn't win anything in wrestling?
BEN WATERWORTH: Australia didn't, but you did.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I think we won everything in wrestling because I was like, every time I looked on my app, it's like Canada wins another medal in wrestling, Canada wins another medal. And Erica Wiebe was of course the big one. She was one of our big stars that decided to go to the Commonwealth Games. Thank you very much, Andre Degrasse, but like she's all over the media here, like 365 days a year. So she probably got the majority of TV and interview time on like CBC and everything like that. But wrestling was big and obviously swimming. If you add up, I think we got two golds in wrestling. How many in swimming? Two, three?
BEN WATERWORTH: You got three in swimming, yes.
COLIN HILDING: So yeah, I mean, the majority of our medals or at least the largest chunk comes from two sports and-
BEN WATERWORTH: And gymnastics.
COLIN HILDING: And gymnastics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Four in gymnastics, gold.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, so I mean, we obviously have our dominant sports as well. I thought that the beach volleyball was the most exciting because I didn't really know who was going to the finals or anything. And then when I woke up and I saw both the gold medal games, I didn't even click to see who was in it. And I'm like, Canada, Australia. I'm like, oh, in Canada, Australia. And of course, one we won and one you won. So that's the success of Off The Podium, honestly, building that sport. That's what my guess is gonna be. Commonwealth Games debut and Off The Podiums to thank for that. But the netball is so disappointing for me because I really want to see this sport. And we talked a couple of days in about how it was just all cycling and swimming and everything on DAZN. And then they started airing like around the clock lawn bowl. And I watched some of it and I enjoyed some of it, but I kept waiting for netball. I'm like, I don't care if there's no Canadians, but apparently they only wanted to show things with Canadians. So I didn't get to see any of that, but I don't know. We'll probably talk on the end is about the real drama, which really had nothing to do with Canada in the marathon. I don't know if either of you watched that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, I mean, I didn't watch it, but I know, yeah, the Scottish guy, the big news over here, obviously, with the helping. Talk about that a minute. I just want to mention about the netball, because on, so boxing finished on Saturday night, so Sunday was kind of like my day off before the closing ceremony. So Mallor and I went down into service paradise because they have little designated bars and restaurants which turn themselves into, you know, like Jamaica House, England House. We went to the Canada House one and they had the best poutine outside of Canada I've ever had. It was amazing. It was great. We had, what was that? Mallory is in the background here, but what was that weird dessert we had from Nanaimo Barge?
COLIN HILDING: Oh, have you never had those?
BEN WATERWORTH: No, I'd never heard of them until Colin knows them. Yep. Colin's having a few moments to himself here. But they had on the TV, so obviously the basketball was on the men's final and then they cut to the netball. So Mallory's like, I'm gonna position over here so I can watch this and you're gonna tell me how to explain this sport. And I get netball to basics. Jarrod, you would have been a lot better at explaining because you obviously have played it before. But you just didn't get it still, did you? Or no, yes, you still didn't understand it. But at the end of the day, Australia losing netball is a bloody big deal. I mean, New Zealand lost to Malawi. That's Canada getting beaten by Australia in the Winter Olympics in ice hockey. That was huge, huge upset. But I think also just quickly on that basketball, that was pretty epic that you guys did knock out New Zealand on the buzzer. I mean, that made some big news over here because it wasn't the Canadian basketball team just like 12 year olds or something like that. They were nobody basically.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, it was no shock when we lost in the gold medal game, obviously.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I mean, can we just point out that our basketball team was filled up with our domestic players. None of our NBA stars had bothered to come to the Commonwealth games. But I just looked at the wrestling quickly and in the women's wrestling, you meddled in every event. And in the men's, you meddled in every but two of the events. And I was actually very disappointed because on my Thursday day off, I got tickets to the hockey and the badminton. And when I initially bought tickets to the badminton, I could have bought tickets to the wrestling because it's literally right next door to the badminton. And I'm like, no, wrestling, what a shit sport. Like, I don't get it. They just like rub each other's faces in their bums and all this sort of stuff. It's weird. But then if I had have gone to that night, I would have seen Canada win two gold medals. I didn't get to see any Canadian gold medals because the one time at the boxing that I thought I would finally get to see it, I'm like, yes, here we go. Gold for Canada. They didn't win it. They got the silver. And that was from the great boxer of Thomas Blumenfeld, which I will say though, for Canadian boxers, you had seven competitors, six of them won medals. Five of them were bronze, one was a silver. And I managed to get a photo of all of them coming through, holding their medals up. And then I had three of them message me on Instagram, asking for me to send them the photo so they could share it too. So, well, we probably could, because seriously, they were all very polite. I mean, they're Canadian, of course, but yeah, they were all very easy to deal with. The Canadians are always the one. And everyone in my little work area knew that I was the one going for the Canadians. And like every time I see something Canada, Ben, I think of you. And I'm like, yeah, well, I'll take that as a...
COLIN HILDING: Blumenfeld, that was the... I was watching the finals because I woke up like at 2.30, 3 o'clock in the morning and couldn't figure out what else to do. So I'm like, maybe I'll see Ben in the background. Blumenfeld's fight was the one that I actually got a chance to watch, which was sad, but still it was good to see somebody in the finals. But I got to see a lot of Canadians in the medal ceremonies, standing side by side by others.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, well, he lost to Jonas Jonas, who has the best name out of everyone. There was another Namibian boxer whose first name was Try Again, and he lost sadly. But everyone knew Jonas Jonas was gonna win just because he was a really good boxer. My favourite out of the Canadians, I really liked Eric Bazran, who to me sort of resembled Drake, kind of. But he was the one who you were talking about a week ago that made like those noises every time he came in and punched. And he sort of had a pretty bad semi, so he lost in his semi, but I actually saw him walking around a shopping centre on Sunday. There you go. Just randomly seeing Canadian boxers. They shop too.
COLIN HILDING: They're people, just like us.
BEN WATERWORTH: They're people, just like us. They shop around the place. But yeah, the medal ceremonies, that was like one of my weird, enjoyable things to see, because you know, the boxing, you didn't have any medal ceremonies until the final day. So to finally kind of see all that. But yeah, great experiences with it all. And can I just say, I'm officially a Commonwealth Games bronze medallist, because one of our little end of games gifts we got was a bronze medal, not with like the ribbon, it's in a little box, but I have a Commonwealth Games bronze medal for working at the game. So there you go. That's how easy to hand them out now. The marathon, yeah, did you want to talk about that just quickly? Because obviously we had the Scottish guy who was leading and kind of fell over, and there's a lot of sort of controversy around that about why no one helped him and the lack of medical assistance. I mean, it's another thing though, if you get touched, you're basically a disqualified if you're getting outside assistance. And that's what he was like saying, like, don't touch me, don't touch me. I don't know how it works. Colin, you run marathons and shit. You know these things.
COLIN HILDING: Well, that was the reason why I spent 45 minutes at least watching it, because I've got one coming up in like three weeks. And I find it just strangely fascinating to watch it, even though you never see somebody pass somebody else. But I was, it's terrible timing. I watched this thing for probably 45 minutes, leading up to the two hour and three minute mark. And I was giving Casper a bath at the time. And I'm like, oh, let me switch over to badminton and see what's going on there. And then I came back and went, like before I switched over, they were saying Callum Hawkins, who was the Scottish runner who was in the lead, they were saying, you know, at this point, unless something really disastrous happens, there is no way he's losing this. So like, he has such a huge lead, he would have to like basically die to lose this race. And this is two hours and three minutes. And I turned to badminton and I come back about 10 minutes later, I'm like, where did Hawkins go? Like, who's this other, the Australian guy, I don't even remember his name. He won the gold in Glasgow too, I guess. So he was like a back to back winner by default this time. I was wondering what happened. They kept saying, we hope that Hawkins is all right. I had to wait 24 hours before anybody even had this up on YouTube to see what happened. But as soon as I did see it, like, you know, he was running and they started to pick up. It's like, he's starting to veer off course a little bit. Like they still weren't really concerned and they just had to know where he collapses. But like you said, nobody touches them. And they're saying, well, why didn't any, you know, why didn't the medical personnel come quicker? Because the guy got up again and kept running, you know, and he went another, I don't know, 10, 20 feet or something like that before collapsing again. And all I could think in my head is like, cause I had heard about the controversy before I watched this clip, I'm like, there is no way that if you were in any other sport, they would say this, like, if Penny Alexiak suddenly starts, I don't know, slowing down the water and drifting into another lane, you're not gonna have a lifeguard jump in and interrupt the race to pull her out and give her mouth to mouth. I mean, unless his name was Ben Waterworth, but.
BEN WATERWORTH: She's 18 now, isn't she?
COLIN HILDING: Almost. But it wouldn't even have to be in a marathon. I think in any sport, you don't touch the runners. So the guy kept insisting he could get up and go, and I guess he was just discharged, like 24 hours ago or something. So he spent like two days in hospital.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, and I think a lot of people, yeah, were criticising the lack of help, and one of the organisers sort of came out and said, well, we can't have medical personnel on every single corner of the course. We have them at positions, and this just happened to be like in the middle of the two positions. And yeah, I think kind of the people who were on the fence were like going to assist him, and I think the marathon guy was just like, don't touch me, you touch me, I'll be disqualified. And I think kind of the thing that kind of made me most angry at this whole situation, there was an article, I think it was from the BBC, maybe it wasn't the BBC, there was some British article, where basically they're ripping shit into Australia for being a bunch of cocky, arrogant shitheads because we won so many gold medals, and they're basically like, calm down Australia, it's not the Olympics, and to me it's like, we'll get over it Britain, just because you lost.
JARROD LOOBEEK: That's very cocky of you to get a new pen.
BEN WATERWORTH: Thank you, it is, this is our time to like gloat, all right, because we suck in the Olympics now, so this is our time, all right, these are our Olympics Britain, but in this article they basically said, it showed nothing more than cockiness because it was Michael Shelley, who didn't stop to help the Scottish guy, they reckoned that that just showed how arrogant we are. If you actually see the footage, Michael Shelley, like, he's extremely concerned for this guy when he's walking, running past him, and again, like, yeah, it would have been an epic moment of sportsmanship had he had stopped to get him, but at the same time, like, this is for the lead, I guess, I mean, it's kind of, it's one of those weird things that, yeah, you wanna see this level of sportsmanship, but you can also understand it, because he's about to win a marathon, and there was only like, what, a kilometre to go at this point or something, too, wasn't there? It wasn't like it was, yeah. Yeah, Jarrod, did you see any of this? Was this part of the two hours you watched?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I didn't, but I do think it's interesting. I think, like, if you collapse, like, on your own, like, that's your own, like, lack of conditioning or whatever, I think it's different situations. There was that marathon at the Olympics where somebody got attacked by somebody in the crowd or whatever, and I think, like, in that situation. Yeah, if you help somebody, then, like, it's a bit different, because it's not their own fault that they've lost the race in that situation. So they're kind of, it does come into it, this sportsmanship of will, they've been attacked by a spectator or something, so I should help them. But in this case, it's like, yes, he collapsed, and it's terrible, but, like, that's his own, like, doing, by he went out too hard, or he didn't train hard enough, or whatever, his preparation wasn't perfect. So I think in that situation, it is kind of, it sucks, but, I mean, bad luck, you weren't fit enough to kind of finish you. I'm not going to, like, give up the gold medal just to, like, help you up, and then for somebody else to go past me.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's, and it's part of the sport. It's one of these things that people know it's part of the sport, too. You know, it's obviously difficult for us to watch on TV, but I mean, it's no different to if somebody in Formula One crashes and is injured, all the cars aren't going to pull over and help them out. I'm sure you've seen the movie Driven, that doesn't fucking happen. So, like, it's part of the sport. And again, at the end of the day, ultimately he's fine. It's terrible to watch on TV, and obviously his family and everything are watching this, but, you know, I'm sure that if you're in a Commonwealth Games marathon, Colin, and you collapse like that, and Jamie's watching at home, she knows that this is kind of part of it. You weren't, like, you know, bolting and your eyeballs are hanging out or anything like that, so, you know, I mean, I don't know how to put that any nicer or anything like that. Just want to point out, just on the medal tally, you only beat New Zealand, Colin, by the matter of the fact that you won more silver medals. New Zealand won 15 gold medals, what's going on? I should commend India, though. Like, as much as we sort of talking about the fact that you guys finished fourth, you usually finished third, but India had a very successful games in terms of gold. A lot of them came in wrestling and boxing. So, 26 gold for them. But some other notable ones I feel that we should mention in terms of countries that won their very first medals, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, the British Virgin Islands and Dominica all won their very first Commonwealth Games medals. So, I always like it when we see, yeah. Yeah, exactly, always like it when we see countries like that winning them along the way. Samoa, I saw them win a silver in the boxing. Samoans were great to deal with. Fiji, they won a bronze in the boxing. It was the first time they had won boxing match in 36 years. And Sri Lanka, it was the first time in 80 years that they had won medals in boxing and they ended up winning two bronze medals. So, there's a lot of big deals around that. I guess really kind of, until we get to our predictions, I mean, Jarrod, you watched like an hour of the Commonwealth Games, but do you have any highlights at least from what you did see or anything at least from the Commonwealth Games?
JARROD LOOBEEK: For the swimming, I love that Bronte beat Kate. I just, out of the two sisters who I can't stand in the chokers, she's the one I hate the least. Apart from that, I did enjoy, did you guys see the Nigerian wrestler with her over the top celebration?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Canadian just standing there staring at her.
JARROD LOOBEEK: She's just rolling on the mat, carrying on for like five, 10 minutes, like they were waiting to like probably like finish the match and like, it's hilarious. It's such a good reaction to winning. So I think that's kind of up there as one of my major highlights.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I just want to say with the Campbell sisters, it's not a very popular opinion to dislike the Campbell sisters. We were back in the media centre when that race was on and I'm like, oh, I don't like the Campbell sisters. And about five people, why? Why don't you like the Campbell sisters? What's wrong with you? They're amazing. And I'm like, holy shit, I just will keep my opinions to myself. Wow, don't hate the Campbell sisters in public, everyone. Colin, what were your DAZN highlights?
COLIN HILDING: Well, I mean, the swimming. I'm looking right now on the app and they're showing all the highlights. And the very first thing is a Taylor Ruck profile, which they've had a new Taylor Ruck profile every single day since this thing launched. And obviously that's a big one, but also Kylie Mass in the swimming as well with the two backstrokes, because obviously, you know, Penny Alexiak hasn't really lived up to the real hype since then, but Kylie Mass has gone from the World Championships now to Commonwealth Games and, you know, beaten stiff competition in both. So we're thinking like, yeah, we have a real swimming star on our hands now. No knock against Penny, but somebody who may actually stand the test of time here. And then, you know, also the wrestling, there was a lot of good stuff there, especially Erica Wiebe, just because she's become such a huge star here. But the real one, thank you for bringing up New Zealand, Ben. I don't know if you noticed that Canadian Alicia Newman beat your precious Eliza McCartney from New Zealand, the one New Zealander you like.
BEN WATERWORTH: I did, because Mallory happened to constantly send me images from the stadium. I was like, Canada won a gold, Canada won a gold. And when she said pole vault, I went, oh, where'd Eliza finish? And she got second.
COLIN HILDING: Tell that Canadian to get out of the way. She was happy.
BEN WATERWORTH: She's happy with her silver medal. She's not upset and sulking, like the Campbell sisters do, everybody.
COLIN HILDING: No, I mean, that was, I guess, one of the big ones. Like she's one of the athletes that there was not a lot to talk about, but talk about going into this, but to have her finish gold. And I think she even set a games record with that. I mean, that was huge too. Just outside of the Canadian ones, I gotta say, lawn bowling, that's a real quality sport. I love to see, you know, a 55 year old man wearing size 55 pants that can win a gold medal in anything. It was an experience.
BEN WATERWORTH: Did you see our colleague on Off The Podium, on the Oz Network, Nick Chester's post about his disdain for athletes who are, you know, certain size.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: He doesn't like people like the lawn bowlers and the shooters. He said they shouldn't be elite athletes, but he has hope for people like us, I feel. I just, just one thing quickly before I say my, I just, looking at the wrestling results, there was a bit of controversy in the boxing because Taylor Robertson, this Australian, basically there's only seven boxers in her category. So one boxer was automatically gonna get a buy into the semi-finals based on the draw. And of course, if you make the semi-finals in boxing, you win a medal, because you lose the semi-final and you get a bronze medal. So Taylor Robertson from Australia, basically won Australia's first medal at the Commonwealth Games before they'd even started, because she got the buy, was straight into the semi-finals. She ultimately lost that semi-final, so it took her a week and a half to box and she lost, but she got a bronze medal. But in the wrestling, can we just point out, in the women's 50 kilogram category, the gold went to Vinesh Fogart of India, who defeated Jessica McDonald of Canada. Bronze, not awarded, as there were only four competitors. So the two losing semi-finalists, who don't even get medals, like that's a bit cruel. Why don't they get medals? Just because there's only four people in the category. I think they should automatically get them no matter what. But wow, the depths of the Commonwealth Games.
COLIN HILDING: You're fighting for third place or second last, so I can kind of see your point.
BEN WATERWORTH: Look, I think Malawi beating New Zealand, and I'm not just saying that, anti-New Zealand. I mean, that is a pretty big deal in the world of sport that that happened. I mean, New Zealand really not that good in netball at the moment, having a really poor form. But that is a huge, huge upset for that to happen. So I think that was kind of a very big issue that that happened. I mean, a lot of mine, just watching the boxing, just everything about that was incredible. The whole experience for me was amazing. And I had the super heavyweights were the guys that were just, that is just epic to watch. And we had the semi-final between the English guy. I can't remember his name. He went on to win the gold. He beat my favourite New Zealand guy, Patrick Malabu, I think his name was. And it was just such an entertaining fight. Everyone literally gave him a standing ovation at the end of it, because it was just that entertaining the way they were getting stuck into each other. I just seeing so much of that emotion around it. Like I had people collapsing in my area, just bawling their eyes out because they lost. We had people storming through, chucking tantrums because they lost. I need to come out five minutes later. I mean, it's just fascinating to sort of see all that. I got to see Squash live. Table tennis is amazing. Badminton live is amazing. I saw our guy from the Rio Games compete live. Sarah Singhe, that was great. I saw hockey live, which was great. I mean, just even the vibe. And we've kind of noticed in the coming, the days after the games have finished that it does feel different. Like kind of it goes back to normal. You get waited at a train station and everyone's back into their phones or their headphones on, you know, their business suits, no one's talking to anyone. But like a day beforehand, everyone's in their uniforms, just having a conversation. You just speak to everyone. And it's just such a different vibe around the place. But it's just such a great experience to have it all here and everything and just being able to experience it all.
COLIN HILDING: Half the singers from the closing ceremonies are busking on the street corner.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, they're back to a Kate Soprano, back to busking in the Queen Street Mall, just, you know, trying to get a dime. Remember me? I had that song in the 90s. So, yeah. But I mean, it's just such a great experience. That, yeah, I definitely, I stole some signage from the boxing. So, hello, Commonwealth Games Federation. They have like the signage that says Gold Coast 2018 over our little rails to block the athletes in. But we sold a, you know, it's quite large too. It can make a good bed doona cover. So there was that, so I scored a heap of pins on my lanyard, which is great. Very fun times, loved it. So yeah, Commonwealth Games, they're done. But we wanna look at our predictions. I've already gone over these and I've given us points to who got the closest in each category. So why are you laughing?
COLIN HILDING: I'm just thinking now that I do all the math that your predictions for Canada and Australia combined had no other countries in the world winning medals.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, you may laugh, Colin Hilding, but I actually won the predictions. I got four points, all right? I got closest with Australia gold. I predicted we'd win 76 gold, we won 80. I got closest with Australian silver. I predicted we'd win 53, we won 59. And I got closest on Australia's total. I said we'd win 213, we won 198. And my Canadian predictions were absolutely outlandish. But can I just point out, I'm closest on the silver medal count. I said Canada would win 31 silver, you won 40.
COLIN HILDING: The one that mattered.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, exactly. Colin, you got one point, because you were closest on Canada's overall total. You said you would win 84, you won 82. So you got pretty close.
COLIN HILDING: Hey, that's gotta be the closest all around then, isn't it?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, I think it might be, actually. Jarrod, you got three points. You got closest on the Canada gold, 29 gold. Obviously, that only won 15. So none of us thought you would win that little. You got closest on Australia bronze. You said Australia would win 49, Australia won 59. You also got closest on Canada bronze. You're a bronze fiend. Fiend, fiend, I don't know what I'm saying right now. 27 bronze, and Canada actually won 27 bronze. No, Jarrod actually gets it dead on. In your face, Hilding. Eat it, Olympic. So, there you go. Anyone want to make any predictions now for Birmingham four years in advance? I actually want to make predictions for Edmonton 2026. That's where I'm going for it. Big year for Canada in 2026, Colin. I think you're bidding for both the Edmonton Commonwealth Games and the Calgary Winter Olympics. Can you have both? Who knows?
COLIN HILDING: I know which one we want.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, clearly, the Commonwealth Games. So, Justin Trudeau is on board with it. It's been fun. Obviously, we had limited coverage of this, but we all had different experiences of the Commonwealth Games. Jarrod, anything else to add before we close out the Off The Podium busyness of 2018 and don't come back for another two years?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I don't know. I think just the world of netball doesn't know what's happening. Is this a sport? Is this not a sport? Are Australia rethinking whether we should compete in it or not anymore? So yeah, looking forward to Birmingham and the netball provided they have a venue.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hashtag brum.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, brum the car.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, like everybody is sitting around me. Everyone sitting around me was like, oh, where the hell's the yellow car? Like what the hell is this hashtag brum? Come on. Colin, anything else to add? DAZN, are you gonna pay your monthly fees now for DAZN or are you done with DAZN?
COLIN HILDING: You know, if it was another time of year, I might pick it up. But like right now, the one cool thing they have on here is the Russian Hockey League there, Stanley Cup is going on right now, but it's pretty much over. And I got the real Stanley Cup playoffs going on right now. I might pick it up again.
BEN WATERWORTH: They're doing well, aren't they?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, well, so far, so good. They're not out yet. Local teams won game away from advancing, but I don't know. It's a good app. And there's some interesting stuff on there. I don't know if it'll pay $20 a month, but I may pick it up in the fall or whatever. But I just want to say how great it is that by the end of this episode, we will have covered more of the Commonwealth Games than Jarrod watched in two weeks.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, and more as much as CBC shows over two weeks as well. But thank you, everybody, for tuning in to these three episodes. I guess from here, I mean, we can look at some interviews. Why not? That's really all we're going to have to do between now and Tokyo, right? I mean, the Youth Olympics are on this year. Do we give a shit about them? You know, I kind of do, but I don't know. Thank you, too. So bring on Tokyo for the Youth 20. But guys, thank you for joining us. Everybody listening. And to both Jarrod and Colin. And we will speak to you next time, wherever we speak to you from here on Off The Podium.
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