Logan Sankey Interview
It's a return to ski jumping today as we sit down and chat with upcoming American ski jumper Logan Sankey about the incredible sport and learn more about her chances to compete in Beijing! We find out just why she switched from Alpine Skiing to Ski Jumping and how a crossover between the two sports helped her along the way. We also learn more about the fear aspect of the sport and how that is able to be used to her advantage. Added to this we find out just what path she will need to take to get her to Beijing and just how good she is at naming capital cities. It's a fun chat that you will love, so get to listening!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast, coming to you once again for an athlete interview as we inch closer and closer and closer to the Beijing Olympics, less than a week to go. Are you excited? I'm excited. We all should be excited. And it's happening so, so soon. And we are speaking today to another athlete who could be there. I'm saying could, because obviously at the time you're listening to this, we will know if she is there or not. By the time we're recording this, we don't know. It's this weird little purgatory we like to give to you, our Off The Podium listeners. Logan Sankey, an American ski jumper, who gives a great chat here. Another honest, open, raw chat about her time in the sport, how she got into it, her experiences at the Youth Olympics in 2016, how close she came to making the Pyeongchang team in 2018, and just what making an Olympic Games would mean to her, as somebody who's committed so much to this sport. And it's a fascinating chat here with Logan to learn more about everything that I've just mentioned and more. And stay tuned for a fascinating new little trivia segment. And when I say new, it's only new for Logan because this is a very specialised quiz that I had to give her, and she does not disappoint. Just put it that way. It's exciting, it's fascinating, you're gonna love it. Here is our chat with US ski jumper, Logan Sankey.
BEN WATERWORTH: Beijing is getting closer and closer, as we all know, and we are continuing to speak to athletes involved in winter sports, who may or may not be in Beijing, on the road there, and everything else in between. And we're returning to the great sport of ski jumping today to talk to a member of Team USA, and talk about her career in the sport, hopes for Beijing and beyond, and everything else in between. It is a pleasure to welcome to Off The Podium, Logan Sankey. Logan, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for joining me today.
LOGAN SANKEY: It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. As of we're recording this, it's a hundred days out from Beijing today.
BEN WATERWORTH: So exciting stuff. It's getting excited. When you see the flame being lit, and then they've unveiled the medals as well, basically kind of the design. So it's really those moments where it's starting to amp up right. And that excitement levels, I'm sure, as an athlete just builds up even more as well.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, definitely. I mean, especially with the short gap this year between the summer and the winter Olympics. When I was watching the summer Olympics, I knew that the winter Olympics were just right around the corner, less than a year away. So I've been amped for a while now, and just anything to keep the motivation high and keep the passion flowing is important.
BEN WATERWORTH: As we like to say here on Off The Podium, the real Olympics, the winter Olympics, of course. So we're getting excited for that because it's that unique thing where it's sort of, you know, back in the day, the winter and summer Olympics were in the same year. So you would have the winter Olympics, of course, and then five, six months later, the summer games are on. I mean, I'm at an age where I was alive during that period, but I don't remember 92 when that last happened, whereas obviously you sort of haven't been in that period. So it's kind of unique that I'm sure that sort of our a lot of our older listeners are going like, why is this a thing? We always had a couple of months between Olympics. Now it's like, wow, this is the best thing ever. Two Olympics in like six months, like bring it on.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, I was not alive back in that era. But you know, you always have, you can measure time by Olympics, like every four years, every two years, but you gotta go back. You say, oh, okay, wait, no, but this is when they switched it. This is when these changed. And the same type of thing I think is gonna happen with these past years is, oh, wait, no, but those Olympics got switched to 21. So when you're doing math, when you're telling time based on the passing of Olympics, you gotta do some quick maths in your head.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's gonna be something that in decades to come, when we're trying to explain to our kids and our grandkids that why the Tokyo 2020 Olympics happened in 2021. People are gonna be like, that makes no sense though. They happened in 2021, why are they still called Tokyo 2020? It's like, well, this little thing called COVID exists. So it's gonna be sort of interesting to explain that. Growing up, did you have sort of a passion for the Olympics? Was this something that growing up, you always watched and sort of looked at as something that maybe this is something you would like to pursue in your life?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, so I grew up in Denver, Colorado. So not in a ski town, but in the Western Rocky Mountain area. And so I didn't grow up as a little kid doing any winter Olympic sports. I skied recreationally for fun with my family, but I remember watching the 2006 Torino Games on TV at our little house in Denver and thinking it looked so cool. And then when we ended up moving to Steamboat, Colorado, which is a mountain town, I knew I wanted to start doing some of those winter sports that I had seen on TV. So it wasn't until I was a little bit older that I actually had the dream of going to the Olympics, but watching the Olympics on TV is what kind of pushed me into those sports.
BEN WATERWORTH: Were there other sports that you were sort of taking part in, you know, outside of some of the winter sports as well growing up?
LOGAN SANKEY: Oh yeah, I was a soccer player. I dabbled in lacrosse for a while. I'm a huge proponent of the multi-sport athlete. And so even once I did start doing winter sports, I originally started ski racing, and then I moved into ski jumping a little bit later. But throughout the whole time, there was a point in my life in high school where I was ski racing, ski jumping, and playing for my high school soccer team all at the same time. And that balance was really important to me. So yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: What brought about the move to Steamboat? Because as we're discovering on this show, Steamboat is just seemingly the capital of winter sports in all of the US. Like, I mean, everybody who's there just seems to happen to turn into an Olympian. I mean, was it that case of, hey, mum, I've watched the Olympic, let's move to Steamboat. This will help me moving forward.
LOGAN SANKEY: We actually did it because of my parents' job. So I lived in Denver growing up, and then we moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin for a little bit. And then my parents both ended up getting jobs in Steamboat, and it's a place my dad had grown up skiing. And I was just super lucky to be pulled along for the ride. And so I'm definitely really grateful for that. A lot of privilege and the opportunity that I know a lot of people don't have just based on my parents' jobs.
BEN WATERWORTH: Got to quickly ask a question then. Denver, Green Bay, do you go for the Broncos or the Packers? I mean, where does the allegiances lie there?
LOGAN SANKEY: I'm a huge Bronco fan. The Packers had my love for a little bit, but can't be the Broncos.
BEN WATERWORTH: Although this year, they got a lot of work to do. I can imagine living in a city like Denver where you've got teams in all the leagues. I mean, is it just allegiances lie? So you're just going for the avalanche, you're going for the nuggets, and kind of moving forward without the Rockies? That's where the allegiance lies in everything?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, I'm a location-based sports fan. I will say I follow football and hockey the most. Some huge Avs fan. And then a big Bronco fan. I cheer for the Rockies and the Nuggets, but I don't follow their seasons nearly as closely.
BEN WATERWORTH: When I went to Denver, my friend, we went to an Avs game, and it was the best one I've probably ever been to, because I think it was the last game of the season, probably like 20, it was just before the Avs got good again. So they hadn't made the playoffs, and we were able to get basically, I think like three or four rows back from the boards, and the closest I've ever been, it was amazing. And I was just more excited, because I go for two teams, I'm a Ducks and a Flames fan, and obviously Jerome McGinley, one of my idols. And I was like, oh, he's playing for the, I get to see Jerome play, there he is. But you know, it was this Australian guy, basically not really getting to see this type of athlete. So yeah, I think it was called the Pepsi Center then. It's not called the Pepsi Center anymore, is it?
LOGAN SANKEY: No, it's Ball Arena now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, okay, nice arena. I really enjoyed it. It's kind of good there. And that's the one thing, we're on a tangent here, but this is Off The Podium, it always happens. But I love that about the cities in the US, where all of your stadiums are kind of next to each other. You kind of see the football, there's the baseball stadium, and it's not something we really have in Australia. It's kind of, it's a unique thing. And downtown as well, like it's great. So Denver's a great city. Love Denver.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, it is. And to your point, actually, the Nuggets and the Avs play in the same stadium. So like one night, it's basketball, one night it's hockey. And I did joke with my parents recently that my new motivation to go to the Olympics is so that hopefully Nathan McKinnon's playing on Team USA, we can...
BEN WATERWORTH: You'll be teammates. Yeah, that's cool. That's a good way. Because yeah, obviously the NHL guys are going to be at Beijing now after not being there in Pyeongchang. So that's pretty exciting. In terms of sort of you mentioning the winter sports and doing ski racing and then ski jumping, kind of what was it about ski jumping that took you over the edge, that this is what you wanted to pursue instead of ski racing or another winter based sport?
LOGAN SANKEY: Sorry, I just was blanking on your question because Nathan McKinnon is a Canadian, but we won't be on the same...
BEN WATERWORTH: It's okay, he'll still be at the Olympics.
LOGAN SANKEY: He'll be at the Olympics, but we'll be competitive. So while I root for the Avs, I'll have to cheer against...
BEN WATERWORTH: North American teammates, right? You're all on the same continent, that's why.
LOGAN SANKEY: Sorry, can you repeat your question? I completely...
BEN WATERWORTH: You're fitting so well to this show. This is what happens all the time. It's like you were meant to be on this show. The question was, what drew you to ski jumping over ski racing? So, what was it that that was a sport that you chose rather than say pursuing the ski racing?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, so I actually, I was a ski racer for a long time and wasn't a ski jumper. And just growing up in Steamboat, we happened to have those ski jumps there. And I'm sure as you've seen in downhill ski racing, there are those big downhill jumps. And the athletes in that sport try to absorb that, so because it's faster to be on the ground than in the air. So as a ski team, we would go up on the ski jumps, actually, and practise going as short as possible on the ski jumps as kind of training for downhill jumping. But I had this really awesome coach, and he, just because it was super fun, would let us try to go as far as possible on our last two jumps of those training sessions. And I thought that was so much fun. So because of that experience training for Alpine, I got to experience the ski jumps and decided to try that out one day a week on top of my other training, and just really enjoyed it, and eventually decided to make the switch full time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, wow. Is that a common thing that happens at going from like a downhill to a ski jumping when you're doing that? Or is that kind of frowned upon? Like, do the Alpine skiers now look at you and go, oh, she's switched over to Nordic, oh, we don't want to talk about her anymore?
LOGAN SANKEY: I still have a lot of friends in Alpine racing. I really love that community as well. I don't think it's super common. I ended up switching to ski jumping when I was 15 or 16, which is pretty late. Like I know some of my teammates on both the men's and women's side have been ski jumping since they were seven earlier, even sometimes. And so I don't think it's necessarily common to switch that late, but I do think that all little kids ripping around the ski, the ski mountain, enjoy going off those little jumps on the side of the hill. So it's not like you're just doing it in a more controlled environment and slightly bigger. So it's not any crazy leaps.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I've loved learning about the progression that you have when you start into ski jumping about, I'm sure like myself, many Australians probably just think like, oh, how are these young kids just jumping off a 90-metre jump straight away? Obviously, you have the progression kind of moving up, but do you remember your very first jump getting onto the 90 or the 120 and what that was like?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, so I actually jumped the 120 metre on alpine skis first as part of that training for ski racing. But I do remember my first, which it was scary to say the least, even on alpine skis, but I do remember my first jump on ski jumping skis where the heel lifts up and you can actually get a little bit more movement and they don't have edges. So that was my big issue for my first ever jump on jump skis. I did the jump, was fine, made it down, and then I was trying to stop and I didn't have any edges on my skis and just slid straight to my butt.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, kind of worked that way. But you landed though, that's the main thing though, besides that bit at the end.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, yeah, I landed, I made it down. It was just the stopping that I didn't know how to do.
BEN WATERWORTH: And was it a level kind of, I mean, downhill, very adrenaline-based speed, you know, you're going incredibly fast, similar with the ski jump. I mean, is that just something that has always been something you've enjoyed, that adrenaline, the speed, kind of that aspect of sports like that?
LOGAN SANKEY: Honestly, if this was two years ago, I might have told you yes, and kind of fibbed a little bit, because I think that as winter athletes, which are a lot more kind of like extreme sports type things, we're supposed to be fearless and supposed to have this adrenaline kick. And I would say I probably have it more so than maybe a general person, but I definitely get very scared a lot of times. And I have learned the first step to overcoming that is admitting it. And so I think that anyone who says they never get scared is probably lying to you a little bit, depending on the conditions and whatnot. But no, I don't know if I really have like the search for adrenaline, but I still really enjoy ski jumping.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's very interesting to hear that because you're right. It's not something you often hear athletes saying that I get scared or something like that. Which it's interesting you say that to admit that it kind of, I guess helps or kind of has that. I mean, is that something then that if you're working with your coach or your sports psychiatrist, that they're helping with that aspect by talking about it, if that makes sense, and kind of you can use that to help you jump, compete better?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, I think there are pros and cons because I think, like for a while I was struggling because I didn't know why I couldn't kind of break through that level. And admitting that I was a little bit nervous in certain conditions, I think was a good breakthrough for me. But on the flip side, like you don't want to be at the top thinking to yourself, oh, I'm scared right now. Like you need to put that aside and focus on the technique you need to do and things like that. So I think in a lot of ways, I'm definitely glad that I have come to realise that and because now I can work on it. But it's kind of like, if you say it, then it conjures it. It's like, you don't think about a pink elephant, oh, now you're exactly gonna think about a pink elephant. Like I don't want to think about the conditions and how I'm nervous, but I do need to recognise that that's an aspect of training that I need to work on.
BEN WATERWORTH: There's this thing I love learning about ski jumping by speaking to yourself and many different ski jumpers, is that mental aspect. It's been likened a lot to golf through many of our interviews and that preparation, which it makes so much sense in a sport like that to have that mental readiness. Was that when you made the switch from alpine to ski jumping? Were you aware of that real mental aspect that ski jumping has, or was that one of the things that you found interesting, challenging by the time you switched to ski jumping full-time?
LOGAN SANKEY: Well, I will say that I think every single sport has a huge mental aspect. So, it's not like ski jumping is unique in the fact that you need to be really mentally tougher or have mental training. I think every single athlete, and no matter the sport, can benefit from mental training. But what's unique about ski jumping is it's not the person who's the strongest or the person who can run the fastest or have the most endurance that's going to be good at ski jumping. In fact, the harder you try, a lot of times the worse you do. So I think that's something that's different from it with ski jumping versus some other sports where definitely mental strength is important, but mental strength is the most important thing. You don't have to be really strong or really flexible or whatever. Those things definitely help you as a ski jumper, but you can be a really great ski jumper if you have great technique and great discipline in that technique, even if you're not the strongest person or any other multitude of things.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's so fascinating too, because I'm sure a lot of people still think that ski jumping is just all about the distance, right? And obviously there's a key judging element to the sport, whereas if we were talking to a long jumper or a high jumper, they've got that barrier. They've got to jump into that sandpit and reach it. They know they can go further. They know they can jump high. Whereas as you're saying there, it's sort of you could go the furthest, but if your technique's crap, then you've got to balance that out there, which I mean, it really is one of the most unique sports that exists really, isn't it?
LOGAN SANKEY: It's definitely a strange one. It does take a certain type of person, I think, to be a ski jumper and to keep with it for sure.
BEN WATERWORTH: How would you describe them? What's the type of person, if you were to describe a ski jumper to somebody who had no idea what the sport was, what are the key words that you would use to describe yourself?
LOGAN SANKEY: Actually, that's so hard because we are so different as individuals. But I guess you do have to be a little bit crazy in not flinging yourself off a high ski jump sense, which is definitely true, but in terms of you do the same thing over and over and over again, just the same ski jump, trying to do the same technique, but perfect little tiny pieces of it. And that level of detail is really tough. So I guess maybe my biggest attribute of a ski jumper would be detail-oriented because a tiny change in the direction of your hands or the angle of your feet can make a huge difference, and it's all about making those little tiny, tiny changes.
BEN WATERWORTH: What are some things that you use on the psychological things to help you out? We spoke with Paige Jones. She talked about poetry was something that she liked to recite to herself, listening to music, things like that. Do you have little things that you like to do, be it in training or a competition, that kind of help you gain yourself a mental advantage?
LOGAN SANKEY: So I would say before competition, so outside of the arena, like the competition arena, I'm a big knitter. And so that's like if I'm getting stressed, if you have a wind delay or something, I'll pull out my knitting project and just kind of use that to relax and not look at the clock or do whatever, just be relaxed and ready to go. So that's what I do outside of training. And then in competition and on the hill, I like to focus really in tune to a piece of my body. So I'm not someone who really improves by thinking about abstract concepts. I like to think about exactly what I'm going to do with my body. So whether it's a little piece of my core engaging or flexing my heels or something like that, I have a physical cue that I can feel in my body that keeps me present in that moment and that I can make sure that I'm performing on the jump.
BEN WATERWORTH: Fascinating. And do you alternate that? Today it's my core, today it's my leg. You try and sort of spice it up a little bit by working on something different each time.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, it definitely depends on what is lacking in my ski jump, what helps. And I have a very thorough training log and competition journal that I take notes in so I can say, oh, okay, last time I was having this issue on the ski jump, thinking about this thing helped me. Let's go back to that and try that again because there's only, especially in a ski jump, it's so short, there's only so many things you can think of at once. You can't have five things that you're working on during a single ski jump. It's really important to focus on one, maybe two things. Sometimes when you switch to a new thing, what you were working on before might get lost. I think it's important to keep notes and have something like a journal so that you can refer back to and remember what helped you in the past when you were working on similar issues.
BEN WATERWORTH: We saw that with an Australian high jumper in Tokyo, silver medallist Nicola McDermott. After every jump, she would sit down and write in a journal. That got a lot of media attention here because it was strange to see someone do that in the middle of an Olympic final, sit down and write in a dear diary. Obviously, that was something that she was doing. She was writing heights down. She's a very spiritual person, so she's writing things down to keep her motivated. It's fascinating to watch athletes have these little things that they're able to do to help them, particularly in a day and age now where the mental aspect, as you were saying, in any sport is big, but we're really focusing on that, aren't we? We just saw that with Simone Biles and that becoming a real aspect of the sport. The mental health aspect of the sport is not only helping you as athletes improve, but also outside of the sport, it has that flow-on effect, right?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, I would say there's, at least in my mind, there's a distinct difference between mental health and mental performance. So you have a sports psychologist, and their job is different than, say, your therapist. And I think both are really important for your health as a human being and for an athlete. And I think mental health is something that's really important for everyone, borderline, but also, or baseline, I should say, but also for athletes. And I think that's kind of like, if you're looking at a hierarchy of needs for an athlete, you need that to be able to build upon. That's your strong foundation. So your health as a human being, physically, mentally, emotionally, is what you can build upon as an athlete. So you can't have performance, a performance coach or performance mentality with your mentality before you have that baseline. Or you can have it, but it's not going to be as strong. You're not going to have as much to build on.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which obviously, as we said, it's leaps and bounds in terms of where we're at now to say even 10 years ago, we can obviously look back sort of in time. But that also, I guess, too, just on that topic of leaps and bounds, the progression of women's ski jumping, of course, this is going to be the third Olympics, which it's been included in, and gaining through, hopefully, we're going to see both a large and normal hill one day in an Olympics and kind of have those equal programs. But how have you seen since you got started as well? Because I believe you attended a fly girls camp in 2014, which was sort of just starting back then and kind of progression where we are now. Have you, as you've gone up through the ranks, seen more and more females wanting to be involved in the sport? Or is there more that can be done maybe to get more girls involved in ski jumping?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, definitely. So that fly girls camp was actually before I fully committed to switching to ski jumping. And that was kind of the impetus for me being there, being with other female ski jumpers, seeing the opportunities that were available to me in the sport. That camp was really what solidified my decision to switch from ski racing to ski jumping. And so obviously I owe a huge thanks to that camp, but I think it's a great example to all of the young women out there who are joining the sport, who are trying to get further in the sport, that these are opportunities that are afforded to you that maybe weren't in the past. So before a young girl who's maybe in high school trying to think about, oh, I like ski jumping, I like cross-country skiing, I like alpine skiing, whatever. But there's no path to the Olympics for me in ski jumping, so I'm going to go do cross-country skiing or I'm going to go be an alpine skier. I think there was a huge generation of women that were lost because there was no path to the Olympics, and so those women went to pursue a different sport where that was an opportunity. And so I think now with the inclusion of the Olympics, we're starting to see kind of that base rise a little bit more as those people get older. And so I'm kind of at the top of that, the tail end of the generation that didn't have Olympics and now kind of the front end of the generation that does have the Olympics to look towards. And it's really great to see all of those people behind me who are really pushing the level, but always there can be more women. There can be more women involved in everything all the time, no matter what it is.
BEN WATERWORTH: 100%. But it is that weird level of exposure that an Olympics brings, though, isn't it? Because it's not like women's ski jumping didn't exist, but when it gets to the Olympics, then it's got that exposure. For example, as an Australian, we're never seeing ski jumping until we're watching the Winter Olympics. It's just not a sport that we ever see. So we're exposed to it then. And that's when you might have a young girl watching the Olympics in 2014 going, oh, I've always liked this sport, but I've wanted to be an Olympian. Now it's at the Olympics. Hey, I'm going to pursue this further. So it is kind of interesting. You're saying you're sort of at that generation now where you kind of... We've basically got people growing up, girls growing up now, where this is just a standardised thing. I can be an Olympian in ski jumping, whereas when you first started or kind of were on that precipice of joining the sport, it was literally just being introduced.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, exactly. And I will say, not only has the fact that it's been the Olympics brought more people in, but also renovation of different venues all over the country has been important as well, because unfortunately, ski jumping is... Same with a lot of winter sports, but ski jumping is something that you can't really pursue unless you live or move near a training centre or a place that has a ski jump. And so I think that's one of the big barriers to entry in ski jumping, is there's not a facility near you. You might see it on the Olympics and be like, okay, but I live in Texas. Where am I going to go ski jump? So it's tough to make that decision to move to a place that has a ski jump. And so I think as a sport, we need to try to figure out a way that we can bring more people into the sport from more different backgrounds. And I think that is something that will push the sport forward a lot, because right now it's just limited based on where you live, based on where you grew up, based on where your parents decided to move, like with me. So that's another big barrier.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I'm saying right now, if you ever want to help break those barriers, Australia has never had an Olympic ski jumper. So send a crack crew out to Australia to recruit, get some people on board. We may not have any jumps here, but we can work around it. So just break the glass ceiling of Australian Olympic ski jumpers. It can happen one day, Logan. You could be part of history.
LOGAN SANKEY: There's no ski jumps in the Southern Hemisphere. I mean, in the summer, we have to jump on plastic, but we got to build a jump where we got the seasons reversed, so we can go down and train on snow in the summer.
BEN WATERWORTH: When we talk to our alpine skiers or our snowboarders, they can come to some of our resorts here, Thread Bow or Mount Buller and places like that, because that's why we're good at freestyle skiing and snowboarding, and it's come leaps and bounds in this country. We have bobsledders and lose riders and skeleton racers who we don't have a track, but they make do, so come on, we can do it for ski jumping.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, just put me in touch. Where are the young women in Australia that want to be ski jumpers? If you're listening to this, hit me up.
BEN WATERWORTH: Come on, be part of history. Like literally, you, like there is a young girl listening to this today who will become Australia's first ever, not just female ski jumper, but first ever ski jumper. Like that's history. I'm from the state of Tasmania, proud Tasmanian, and Tasmania has never produced a Winter Olympian. So I've got many goals in life to become an Olympian. I'm still 34, plenty of time. Not only can I break that barrier of me going to the Olympics for a personal achievement, but to be the first Tasmanian. That would be amazing, the first Tasmanian Winter Olympian. So, you know, let's get on board. Let's create history out there. Listeners, come on. Yes. Let's do it. Let's do it. Speaking of Olympics in general, you went to the Youth Olympics in 2016. It's one of my favourite topics. I love talking to our guests who have been to the Youth Olympics. What was that experience like, to be able to go to an event like that? And was it a case of like waiting your appetite to push towards the senior? I don't want to say normal Olympics. I guess the full Olympics, the non-Youth Olympics.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, for sure. It was actually one of my first international events. And so I was definitely a little bit naive going into it and got kind of caught up in the spectacle of everything. And to see the level of all the athletes there was a little bit jarring to start, and then definitely turned into inspiration, for sure. And I don't know. I think two things. One, it definitely should I go to the full Olympics, the non-Youth Olympics. I think that experience will definitely help me. Now I know this is what an event like this is like. You have to go through security. You have different things to get to the hill and things like that. So that won't be as much of a shock in the future. And then also, I think it definitely was a spark, for sure, for me to say, okay, this is what the best people my age in the world can compete. And now I have to get on my horse and go try to reach that level myself. So I think those two things were the biggest things I gained from the Youth Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: And it's also a case too, because as we're finding out a lot with winter sports, is that you don't really have these multi-sport events that a lot of the summer athletes have outside of an Olympic Games, right? You don't have a Pan Ams or a Commonwealth Games or something like that. So is it also a case too of you can not only just go off and enjoy maybe watching the snowboarding, the figure skating, things like that, but it's also a case of you can shoot the shit with some of these guys and girls and basically be like, hey, so you're in skeleton. Tell me the aspect of that. I want to learn more and kind of learn from other athletes as well.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, definitely. My roommates at Youth Olympics were a cross-country skier, a skeleton and a luge athlete. So a bunch of different people, two sliding sports, two skiing sports. But the types of training and the type of athletes that they were was much different from what I was. And so it was definitely cool to see that. And then unfortunately, I think maybe it won't quite be like that in Beijing, but getting to interact with people from different countries, people from the US and from different countries in all different sorts of sports and getting to watch those events was really cool. I wish that could be the case for the Beijing Olympics as well. I don't think we get to stay to watch all the other events this year, but it was still very cool when I had the opportunity to do it.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm a massive Olympic geek, clearly, because I'm hosting an Olympics podcast, but do you get caught up in things like pin trading? Like I want to trade a uniform, like, oh, I really like the Liechtenstein uniform, have a Team USA shirt, give me yours. You kind of get in the hype of all of that sort of thing.
LOGAN SANKEY: I wasn't the biggest trader on my team, but I do actually have an Australian Youth Olympics kind of like quarter zip thing that I traded one of our Team USA quarter zips for. I got a couple of different things. I have a fair number of pins and a couple of traded articles of clothing, but I was by no means the biggest trader doing multi-stage trades on the team, which I definitely saw going on, which was pretty fun.
BEN WATERWORTH: How did that work with the Australian one? Did you approach them? Did they approach you? How did that work?
LOGAN SANKEY: I don't remember exactly. I think we were on a bus together, and they had just finished. They were getting ready to pack up or something, and they were like, hey, I got this. You got anything we can trade for? And I was like, yeah, sure.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's exciting that way, which is also one thing too, which is unique, is the age range that you have at a Youth Olympics. And I can imagine that when you're out at a World Cup, a World Championship, places like that, obviously there's a bigger discrepancy when it comes to the ages. So is it also that element that you are really putting yourself up against athletes who are your age or this up and coming crop? We obviously just seen Emma win a World Championship, and she won the gold back in 2016. So you've got that element where people are progressing at the same time. So you can really see where you're at almost at that point in your career?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, I think I can't speak for other sports because they don't know them as intimately. But for ski jumping, like some of those women or young women that were winning gold and silver at Youth Olympics were actually pretty competitive on the World Cup level. Ski jumping is a sport that you can definitely excel at at a pretty young age, even internationally competing against everyone, not just in your age range. And so I definitely, like some of those people who were there, I knew from watching World Cups, which isn't something I had ever done, but I had watched them on TV, watched results, and to see those names that were already on results sheets of the World Cup and then be like, okay, hey, I'm competing against these right now, and this is the gap between me and them, and they're at already that highest level, was definitely kind of crazy. I don't know if that's the same necessarily in all of the sports that are represented at the Youth Olympics, but at least for me, that was my experience.
BEN WATERWORTH: In terms of post-2016, was there any hopes or aspirations that you could make the Pyeongchang team? I mean, kind of was there that possibility that could have happened? And if so, how close did you get to 2018?
LOGAN SANKEY: So I think technically, I missed it by one spot last go-around. It was a little bit... Oh, there go the dogs.
BEN WATERWORTH: The dogs are ready.
LOGAN SANKEY: So I missed... Technically, I missed it by one spot last time. But I won't say I was really expecting to go because the women that were ahead of me were women who were older than me. They had been in the sport for a long time. They had kind of pushed... They were the people that pushed to get it into the Olympics, and I really do think that they deserved to be going because of some of the different, like, qualification rules and the points you have to get. Like, it ended up being a little bit close for a little bit. Kind of waiting to see the last results come in. But I wouldn't say, like, I was expecting to go, but it was not completely out of the realm of possibility.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which that, of course, is disappointing, then, if you miss out by one spot. But on a weird level, if you're not really expecting, well, that's maybe not your target. Like, it's got to be a bit of a boost in the confidence, though, to think to yourself, like, holy crap, like, I was maybe thinking 2022 was my realistic chance, but I was, like, this close to making a team, you know, four years in advance. Like, does that help you, I guess, kind of moving forward into your comedy? And particularly as you sort of move more into the senior circuit kind of from that point?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, I guess. I would say that, like, being prideful has never worked for me. Like, I don't think that, you know, saying, oh, I was this close one time, so that therefore means that I can do it in a future time. I don't think that's the way that my brain works. I think if anything, maybe I was like, oh, shoot, I was that close. Like, I better work my butt off so that next time around, I don't have any regrets and I don't say, wow, I was that close one more time. And so I think it definitely was a motivator for me, but not necessarily in a like, hey, look, it's right there. I can get it more of like, okay, you were that close that time, but we're not going to, that's not going to happen a second time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which now brings us into sort of the lead up to Beijing. So sort of from that period to now, how are you tracking and kind of like, what is the process now to get you that debut Olympic spot in Beijing?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, so unfortunately for women, there's still, while this is our third time in the games, there's still only a limited number of women that are allowed to go, which is significantly less than the number of men that are allowed to go. And they cap that at 40. So essentially, there's a little bit of a weird thing, but you essentially have to be ranked in the top 40 women in the world, and then your country gets spots allocated based on that, and then your country can decide who fills those spots. So there's a couple of little tiers and weird things, but right now, our team as a whole focused, we need to work as a group rather than individuals so that we can actually earn one of, at least one, ideally three or four of those 40 spots that, since women, they're only allowed to be 40 women at the Olympics. So as a whole Team USA, we need to work together to earn those spots first before we can decide which of us on Team USA gets that spot. And so that's kind of what we need to do first. So at this point, like, you can't even think about where your standing is on the team, on just the American team, because if we don't have spots, if we don't have any of those 40 spots to go to the Olympics, it doesn't matter if you're the best American. So that's kind of where we're at right now.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's such a fascinating aspect of it, because as you're saying, you've got to work together to get the spots. But at the same time, I can't imagine that the coaches and the selectors are not going, okay, well, you know, Logan's jumping better, so we're going to keep an eye on her. Because I mean, like, you talk about that, man, but there's got to be some part of your mind thinking, well, okay, got these spots, but I've still got to show that I'm the person that if we get one spot, they're going to choose me.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, I mean, for sure. Like, you want to be the person that gets the spot. Like, if you're the person that earns the spot for the team, then you got to be feeling like, okay, like, I'm, I want to be, I was the person that earned that spot. I think I deserve to go. There is an element of that, but at the same time, like, by no means can you root for your teammates to do poorly, which is bad sportsmanship to begin with. You should not, that's not in the Olympic spirit. But you can't be saying, oh, okay, like, I didn't score points or I didn't do very well, but at least none of my teammates did well either, because that's not helping us as a team. That's not going to help you get a spot to go to the Olympics. So it definitely is, I think it's a dynamic that is a little bit strange, but at least for our team, I think, is a little bit of a plus. Like, ideally, we would have just four spots on lock guaranteed, and then we'd just be fighting it out between our team. But I think that can create kind of a toxic environment. So the fact that we have to work together as a team and any teammate doing well is good for the team itself, I think is a real positive as far as the team environment goes.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which is another thing too, which is always so fascinating to me about winter sports is that pretty much the majority of all winter sports qualification is right up until like a week or two, sometimes even before the Olympics. Whereas we've had a lot of summer guests on the show who, you know, six months out from Tokyo, they knew they were going. Like they were in a lock. So it's just, it's so fascinating. And also too, like you're in the midst of a season generally, aren't you? So like generally the Olympics is just stop four on your World Cup tour or something along those as well, which again doesn't really happen in the summer sports. So it's just, it's just, this is why it goes back to my point. Like when I said, these are the real Olympics, the winter Olympics are the real Olympics, right?
LOGAN SANKEY: Well, I see what you're saying, but I will counter you and say that the summer Olympics are much more accessible and much more available to a way bigger share of the population. And there's a lot of privilege that comes with being able to participate in a winter sport. And so I do love the winter Olympics. I do love the athleticism and the adrenaline of all of the sports and watching them. But I don't know if you can say it's the real Olympics if a huge segment of the population is excluded from participating in it.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's a very good counter. I like that. I'll counter back by saying as an Australian, I think we see like two of these sports. So like I'm just so fascinated by the fact that I can watch swimming. I can watch people run all the time. That's just an Australian thing. But I'm never going to watch ski jumping nor did combined. What the hell is that? Like curling? Like what are these things going on? So it's just that fascination, I think, of kind of just like, hey, these are pretty cool. And also, I think the ratio of sports at a winter Olympics, because there's 10, 12 sports. It comes from a fact where there's not really a dud sport at the winter Olympics. They're all entertaining. Again, I'm not trying to bag out the summer games. I love the summer Olympics. But I mean, I'm not going to sit down for four days straight and watch golf. Like I like golf, but I'm not going to watch golf for four days. Or I'll watch curling for a couple of hours and be enthralled.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, I definitely agree with you there. I will watch probably any winter Olympic sport for hours, but I don't know if I have hours of all of the summer sports in me. But, you know, a couple games or two, a badminton, yeah, sign me right up.
BEN WATERWORTH: Badminton is one of those ones for sure. And like, it's weird actually, just you're in Tokyo. It's an Olympic thing when you all of a sudden go like, oh, I'm going to watch the archery or I'm going to watch shooting on paper. Doesn't sound exciting. But when you start watching, like, holy shit, this is like riveting. Like they've got to hit the next target or they're eliminated. I'm on board. Like, I just want to keep watching it. Some of those sports, which all of a sudden you discover, are weirdly entertaining when you think they're not.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, and I will say from the athlete perspective, to my experience giving context to all those other athletes that I see on TV, is like ski jumping is a super niche sport. Like you said, you only watch it once a year or once every four years. But I spend my entire life pursuing it. So for me to turn on archery or to turn on ping pong or something that maybe is an obscure sport, to me, I at least from the athlete perspective, like to look at those athletes and say, like they are dedicating their whole lives to this. And as a fellow athlete, like I can respect that and think about all of these people, all these people and all these different sports that I'm going to watch for 10 minutes, but they've dedicated their entire lives to, I think is important context as well.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which on that page, I mean, this might be a difficult question to answer because at the same time, you're in that process, you don't know if you're going to the Olympics. But let's play that card that you are going to Beijing, you are going to go to your first Olympics, knowing that, as you said, you have to put your entire life into this sport. This has been a dream of yours since you were a young girl. Like, what would that mean to you to be able to line up in Beijing, to say that you are an Olympian, that you have achieved everything that you set out to achieve?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely like the feather in the cap, right? It's like the thing that you, as a little kid, is your goal that you work towards, that you've always dreamed of, and that would mean a ton for me, and I would be so incredibly proud of myself. And then on the other hand, I think it's really important to recognise that, like, being an Olympian is in some senses just a title, and it means so much to you as an individual, and it means, it carries a lot of weight, but your Olympic experience is maybe two weeks of your life. If you go to more, maybe it's eight weeks of your entire collective experience, and those two weeks doesn't really define who I am as a person. So while I would be incredibly proud of myself to achieve that goal, it's not the end all be all of who I am as a person. I have career aspirations outside of sport. I have an entire life to live. I'm only 23, and so I don't want, I want the Olympics to be something that I really enjoy and something I'm really proud of myself for accomplishing, but I don't want it to be the highlight of my life, the pinnacle of everything that I achieve.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, outside of sports, I believe you're studying engineering. Is that correct?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yes, I am a prospective mechanical engineer.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right, so I was going to ask, where is that leading to, and what was it that kind of drew you to that career path, essentially?
LOGAN SANKEY: So I've always loved math and science, and I think that ski jumping and engineering ended up complementing each other in this really surprising way for me, and diving more into my engineering studies has definitely helped me in ski jumping, because not only school is really hard mentally, but in a very different way than ski jumping, and those complement each other in a way that's really important for me and my training to kind of get that mental break. And also using different language and understanding, like the dynamics of flight and different fluids, relationships and forces and angles that I talk about in my engineering classes has really helped me when I apply that to my ski jumping and say, OK, I know based on all of this school that I've done that if I can get my body at a lower angle and have a smaller angle of attack, I will fly further. And so for my brain, the way I work, that is something that helps me think about the connection between the engineering concepts and the ski jumping concepts. And pursuing both has made me better at each individually. And so, yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Kind of balances out well. Does it help in the knitting? Because I like this. I was going to bring up knitting as one of the questions, because I've looked at your Instagram. I've read some interviews and that you mentioned this. But like, I mean, how does that help with that side of things?
LOGAN SANKEY: Knitting is just kind of, at least for me, it's like a creative mindlessness a little bit. Like I can look at different patterns, make up my own patterns and do it. But then it's kind of a way that I can, I don't like to sit still. I don't like to do nothing, but sometimes you, like as an athlete, you need to recover. Like you need to have time where you're sitting doing nothing, watching TV, doing whatever. And so if I'm just completely sitting still, I can't sit and watch Netflix for three hours without doing anything. So knitting allows me to like recover while still at least like being a little bit engaged with my body.
BEN WATERWORTH: And is it also something that you still play the guitar or to read here, play the guitar poorly? Is that something that you still do?
LOGAN SANKEY: So that's something my mum really wishes I did. And she's the one who has my guitar dreams. I did get a guitar for like my 16th or 17th birthday to try to compliment stuff. But I don't know if you've ever tried to travel around the world with a guitar, but I am not a committed enough guitar player to travel with that at all. And so my, I definitely, if I tried to play the guitar today, it would be very, very poorly.
BEN WATERWORTH: So it's, I mean, skis are hard. Like you don't want skis and a guitar basically going through customs, you know.
LOGAN SANKEY: No, but they're going to be like, come on, come on woman, what are you doing?
BEN WATERWORTH: One big thing, one big thing is enough basically. Another fun fact that you apparently know every single capital in the world. You're very good at world capitals.
LOGAN SANKEY: And you know, I stump people with Australia. I'll be like, oh, you think you know capitals? What's the capital of Australia? And they're like, Sydney? And I'm like, no, you don't know.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's a tough one.
LOGAN SANKEY: People don't know it.
BEN WATERWORTH: I lived in Canada for a bit. And even people are like, Canada, Toronto. No, no, it's not. I want to like, I love this little interview that you did on US Nordic basically, you know, prior to, I think, I don't know if that was going to the Olympics or just for the site, but it literally says here, Logan knows all the capitals of the countries in the world. Test her sometime. So I'm always one for a challenge. We do usually close off our interviews as sort of a get to know you style quiz, but I've gone, stuff it. No, I'm going to test this to see how good that Logan is at world capitals. So I've Googled hardest world capitals quiz. Now, I will say that BuzzFeed comes up with one, and it can't be that hard if even I know some of the answers to this. So I'm not going to go for the BuzzFeed one. I'm going to go for the britannica.com capitals. So we'll see how many we can get through. Let's start off with, what is the capital of Nicaragua?
LOGAN SANKEY: Manamas. Managua.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, there it is. Thank you. Good job. That's one point on the board. The capital of Grenada.
LOGAN SANKEY: Oh, you've picked in really hard ones. St. George.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is correct. Yes. Look at that. Two from two. Okay. Peru.
LOGAN SANKEY: Oh, that one's easy. Lima.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes. I think even I probably would have gotten that one. Just to put that. Oh, I know this one, but this is a geography based one for me. Indonesia.
LOGAN SANKEY: Jakarta.
BEN WATERWORTH: Correct, yes.
LOGAN SANKEY: I have like mnemonic devices, so it takes me a second, you know.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, right, I like that kind of thinking. The Bahamas.
LOGAN SANKEY: Nassau.
BEN WATERWORTH: Correct, yes, as a James Bond fan, very familiar with that location. A lot of the movies feel there. Okay, these ones are getting easier. Portugal. I do love the multiple choices here that they literally have Caracas, Buenos Aires, Ottawa, or Lisbon.
LOGAN SANKEY: Oh, you get multiple choices, and you're just making me laugh about my head?
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm making you work for it, yes, exactly. I don't know the answers to half of these, Logan. I need some sort of assistance. All right, Spain, we're getting easy now. Okay, let's come on. Come on, Encyclopedia Britannica. I expect more of you. Okay, Haiti.
LOGAN SANKEY: Port-au-Prince.
BEN WATERWORTH: Correct, yes, wow. We're not gonna go through all 195. But I just, look, okay. I'm gonna go to the hard ones. Germany, I'm sure we know Germany. Germany's pretty easy. What's the capital of France? Yep, we'll move on from that one. Oh, Uzbekistan.
LOGAN SANKEY: Ooh, the stands I always get tripped up, Tashkent.
BEN WATERWORTH: Correct, wow. This is epic. Can we make like naming capitals in Olympic sport? There you go. Costa Rica. This is great. I'll tell you one thing, how are you at flags? World flags.
LOGAN SANKEY: Oh, I'm not as good at world flags, but world flags, those are images. You can't do a podcast about it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I know. That's where it's tricky, because I like to show off my flag skills. Like I think I could challenge you at a flag competition, but not really on that. All right, Kenya.
LOGAN SANKEY: Nairobi.
BEN WATERWORTH: Correct, all right, let's do a couple more of these. Libya.
LOGAN SANKEY: Sorry, did you say Libya?
BEN WATERWORTH: Libya, yes.
LOGAN SANKEY: Tripoli.
BEN WATERWORTH: Correct, okay, let's do, I'll do two more, and then we will ask you to get to know your questions. I feel like we need to, now, I always mispronounce this country correctly.
LOGAN SANKEY: Capital of Djibouti is Djibouti.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is, there you go, thank you. And our last one.
LOGAN SANKEY: There was like a Dr. Pepper commercial or something with that back in the day.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. Okay, right, there you go. Ghana.
LOGAN SANKEY: Accra.
BEN WATERWORTH: Look at that, that is just perfect. But hey, look, the next one I click on, Australia. The options they give, Canberra, Guatemala City, Praia or Majuru, like wow.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, it doesn't even give you a hard one. I will as a disclaimer, I don't say, I don't guarantee that I pronounce everything correctly. I'm not a pronunciation specialist.
BEN WATERWORTH: Say the capital of Australia for me. Let's see if you get that right.
LOGAN SANKEY: Canberra.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ooh, close, Canberra. Well, sort of more, you could do it, it's kind of, it's funny because like it's sort of, you know, like Melbourne, a lot of Americans say Melbourne, and it's like, oh, Brisbane.
LOGAN SANKEY: So I gotta like shorten it a little bit.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. It's the Australian way. We just shorten it. We're lazy, you know, like, you know, if you got...
LOGAN SANKEY: What is it, Canberra?
BEN WATERWORTH: Canberra, yeah. Basically like can and bra, basically it's probably the easiest way to do it.
LOGAN SANKEY: So I just pretend like I got a Southern accent, like, hey. Over down there to Canberra.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. Don't look at every single letter and think you've got to pronounce every word. That's too much work, right? It's like, if you say Toronto in Kenya, Toronto, like you get rid of the T, you know, it just kind of goes that way. What could you do with Denver? Like dinner? No, that doesn't work. Nah, you can't really shorten Denver. Doesn't really work. So, all right, these questions, we'll get to the real ones now. So Team Canada gave these to their athletes, head of Rio and Pyeongchang, just sort of a get to know you style question. As I often say, there is a drawing element if you want some homework, Logan, like there's usually like draw a picture of yourself or a teammate or something like that. So optional extras if you want to add that to it. But I'll start off with your favourite ever Olympic moment is?
LOGAN SANKEY: Well, I wasn't alive for it, but I grew up, you can't escape childhood without watching Miracle. And I think like both the movie version, but also watching the clips of it. I think that just like brings up so much emotion you can tell on the announcers and the fans and the players. Like that's probably one of my favourite Olympic moments.
BEN WATERWORTH: We use that in our intro for our winter athletes with our sort of commentary snippet. We have the, do you believe in miracles? Yes, like you got to have that involved there. Like epic, epic moment. If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
LOGAN SANKEY: See, I can't, you've interviewed all these ski jumpers, everyone's gonna say flying.
BEN WATERWORTH: So it's surprising. Some people don't, because they would say, well, I already fly. I don't need to fly. So.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah. I won't say flying. I'll say that I wish I could teleport.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, that works a treat. That would just be so handy. Imagine just sitting around your house, like, oh, I'm gonna go to Haiti today. I'm bored. Why not?
LOGAN SANKEY: Travel to different countries, but also, you know, as an athlete travelling, like you get homesick, you miss your family. It'd be nice to just be able to go home for a second.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, night before the Olympics, I might just pop in and say, mum, how you doing? I'm doing well, Olympic smart, sweet. You might have already answered this. I don't know if it'll be a different answer, but your favourite sports movie is?
LOGAN SANKEY: Remember The Titans.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ah, good one. Yes, Denzel. We love a bit of that. Good movie. Your funniest childhood memory is?
LOGAN SANKEY: Should I give you the really embarrassing one?
BEN WATERWORTH: Now that you say that, you have to.
LOGAN SANKEY: Well, I'll be honest. You know, everyone does it. Oh, man, we were watching a movie in class and, you know, sometimes you just really have to let a little toot go, you know? And I didn't want to let a toot go in my middle of my second grade class. And so, we were watching for the movie, I was trying to hold it in, and then a really funny part happened in the movie. And everyone laughed really hard, and it just was too much. I let it go, and it wasn't one of those you could blame on someone else, the entire class looked straight at me. And that's probably one of those vivid childhood memory, because the embarrassment in front of me was too strong.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, I mean, I've got to ask a follow up, because children are cruel. I hope there wasn't like a nickname that stuck from that moment on.
LOGAN SANKEY: No, I didn't get any nicknames, at least not to my face, so that's good.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, geez, it's kind of like that awkward thing. Would you rather a silent but deadly or a loud and just nothing comes from it?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, well, I mean, at least a silent and deadly, you can try to blame it on some-
BEN WATERWORTH: True, it was a dog.
LOGAN SANKEY: Growing boy in your class.
BEN WATERWORTH: It was Jenny.
LOGAN SANKEY: Nope, it was Logan.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, yeah, I don't know about her. She would never do that, she's a good girl. Your favourite pump up song is?
LOGAN SANKEY: Hmm. Do you mean a song that I listen to before competition?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, get you in the zone.
LOGAN SANKEY: I don't like to listen to historical, to classical pump up songs before competition. My favourite right now is an artist called Noah Kahn. They're a little more sad, chill songs, but they really get me in the mood for some ski jumping. You can't be too amped for ski jumping, you gotta be in the zone.
BEN WATERWORTH: Could you contact Noah and be like, hey, this really helps me, you should write more music for ski jumpers.
LOGAN SANKEY: No, I don't want to influence him. He needs to write his normal music and it's just gonna work for me. You don't want him to have the ski jumper thing in his head.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, having said that though, should you win gold in Beijing, you gotta be like, oh, thank you Noah, your music can help me, then boom, Spotify up the charts. Come on.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, all right. If I win gold in Beijing, we'll set that up.
BEN WATERWORTH: Done. All right, that works. The most recent TV show, I mean, you said you don't really like watching Netflix, so I don't know if this works, but if there was one, the most recent TV show that you binge watched is?
LOGAN SANKEY: I recently, I think it's a nice contrast. I knit sweaters while watching Dexter.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ah, nice.
LOGAN SANKEY: You feel like an old grandma knitting sweaters, but like you're watching Dexter, so it's not as...
BEN WATERWORTH: You're watching someone kill people. So like, oh, this is... And is that anticipation for the reboot? Is that kind of getting yourself in the zone for the...
LOGAN SANKEY: You know, I didn't know about it until just recently, but I am now excited about it, yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, kind of works. I was planning on doing a rewatch before the reboot, because it's been a while since I've watched it.
LOGAN SANKEY: A lot of seasons, though.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, this is like eight or seven or something like that. Have you watched it before, though? Like, is this something you've seen through before? Yeah.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah. Well, I've been dropped off once.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right. I was going to say, you know how it ends, and I don't know, because everyone gets ramped up over the ending. I'll be honest with you. I wasn't fully satisfied with the ending, but it's also one of these shows, which I'm like, it's not as bad as people. Like, the ending of How I Met Your Mother is shit. Like, screw the ending of that show. Whereas Dexter, I'm like, I mean, they could have done better, but it wasn't the worst. I've seen worse.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Lumberjack Dexter, spoiler. What's something that people usually describe you as?
LOGAN SANKEY: Outgoing.
BEN WATERWORTH: Outgoing, yep. Okay, that's handy.
LOGAN SANKEY: Definitely an extrovert, I guess.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, that works. I like it. Last one, actually not last one, I've skipped a whole section here. What am I doing, Ben? Your favourite vacation spot is?
LOGAN SANKEY: Does it have to be somewhere I've gone on vacation?
BEN WATERWORTH: You can give me one where you've gone and one where maybe you wanna go.
LOGAN SANKEY: Oh, I mean, I think my hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colorado is a beautiful vacation spot. I will say it's not really a vacation spot for me. I get to go home and see my family and my dogs and cats. But I do think, like in general, I love that area. But I don't know. We've gone to some really cool places in Switzerland with like high alpine lakes and beautiful mountains that are also really good vacation spots, I think.
BEN WATERWORTH: Beautiful, beautiful. I've actually looked up a lot obviously since doing these of Steamboat and it does look beautiful. I mean, I've been to, I think, one ski resort in my life. I've never been to a ski like town, but I mean, it's something that's always fascinated me, right? Like, oh, golden beaches, surf, great, fantastic. But I'm more like, snow, give me snow, I want to see this.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: It looks exciting. If you weren't an athlete, I mean, again, kind of already answered this, what would you be?
LOGAN SANKEY: Yeah, I guess my answer to that is an engineer. I hope to kind of apply what I've learned in ski jumping to a future career. So whether it's in like aerodynamics or flight systems or something like that, I think it's a cool compliment. But yeah, I really like engineering and I want to do that when I am finished ski jumping.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm a big Formula One fan and they always need good aerodynamicists. So, you know, if you want to stay in the sporting world, that could be a cool little thing to pursue. Two food-based ones to close it out. This is going to make me hungry. First of all, your least favourite foods are?
LOGAN SANKEY: Well, I'm a vegetarian. So I guess any meat would be my least favourite food, yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, is there is a least favourite vegetable? Like kind of that you just something you won't touch?
LOGAN SANKEY: I don't really like Swiss chard.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, interesting. Very unique though.
LOGAN SANKEY: Like I like Brussels sprouts, I like broccoli, I like all the classic bad vegetables, but for some reason Swiss chard, I can't do it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Doesn't float the boat. Okay, the last one, your favourite chip flavour is?
LOGAN SANKEY: Chip. Barbecue. Wait, but don't, you're not one of those countries that says chips is fries, are you?
BEN WATERWORTH: We are, but I am referring to what most normal countries would refer to as a chip, not us, we're Australians.
LOGAN SANKEY: Okay, well, fries, I like fries, normal fries. Chips, I like barbecue chips.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good answer, good answer, I like it, I like it. Yeah, it is a strange thing coming to Australia and going like, let's go get some chips, and you're thinking you're gonna be, and all of a sudden we're bringing like a bag of fries, and like, what the hell is going on there? Like kind of, you know, generally it's hot chips. It's kind of very British, like we're gonna get some hot chips.
LOGAN SANKEY: Oh, how posh.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know, right, exactly. Logan, before we let you go, if people wanna sort of follow your journey to Beijing and beyond social media, where can people sort of check you out?
LOGAN SANKEY: I'm most active on Instagram, and I'm just there at logan.sankey.
BEN WATERWORTH: Perfect. TikTok a thing? Like I always like to ask people about TikTok, because I don't even know what the hell TikTok is, but it seems to be perfect.
LOGAN SANKEY: You know, my TikTok is very eclectic right now. I am LogSync on TikTok, but I don't, it's kind of niche. It's like some engineering, some ski jumping, some lots of dogs. I don't know. I don't know if my TikTok is universally appealing.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think you should start doing this capital, like dropping some capitals, like, you know, like that would got to go viral somewhere. There's some capital geeks out there going like, wow, she knows her stuff.
LOGAN SANKEY: Well, if they're really capital geeks, they already know.
BEN WATERWORTH: They don't need TikTok.
LOGAN SANKEY: You need something more impressive than that to really get them going.
BEN WATERWORTH: Logan, it has been a pleasure to learn more about your career and everything moving forward. We've got all our fingers and toes crossed for Beijing and to see you there to get that gold medal, to get some music sponsorship going out there as well. And we look forward to also having you come to Australia and start recruiting some of these long overdue Australian ski jumpers because it's got to happen eventually.
LOGAN SANKEY: Yes, of course. Thanks for having me.
BEN WATERWORTH: And a massive thanks to Logan. Such a great chat, and I feel ashamed that I should know more world capitals, because sure, I can get some of those, but yeah, I couldn't tell you half of those ones. So well done there, Logan. Again, make it an Olympic sport, naming capitals of the world, naming flags of the world an Olympic sport. I might be in with a chance to be an Olympian. Brisbane 2032, make it happen. But thanks again to Logan for joining us here on the show. More great content coming your way. As I said at the top, less than a week to go to Beijing. Episodes every single day to keep you entertained. You're just frothing it a bit for Olympics. And episodes every single day between now and the closing ceremony. What more could you want as an Olympic fan? Best way to never miss one of these episodes, of course, is search Off The Podium on your podcast platform of choice. While you're there, leave us some feedback. We'd love to get a review from you. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. And jump on social media as well. Search Off The Podium, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Leave us some feedback there. Send us a message. Say how much you miss Jarrod. Jarrod's voice hasn't been heard for a while, so let's hear that again, and you will be hearing it soon. So get on board all of those. And also YouTube. This interview is available as a video episode. You can find that on YouTube as well. Search Off The Podium there. Big thanks again to Logan. Shout out to Jason Momoa. My name is Ben. This is Off The Podium. And as always, go left.
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