Nicola 'Ziggy' Cotterill Interview
A great interview to come your way this week as we chat with Australian water polo player Nicola 'Ziggy' Cotterill about her amazing career! We learn just how she got into the sport, what it meant for her to make the Olympics and just what she does with her bronze medal she won at the 2012 London Olympics! We also find out what she has been up to since and whether or not she misses the sport! It's a fun interview that will sure to entertain you!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: Welcome back to Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast, as we continue on our interview series with a bunch of Olympic athletes talking about their time at the Olympics. Future Olympians, you name it, we're covering it as we fill the void that is missing from our lives right now when we should be watching and observing the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Got a great chat with you. Well, not with you, for you today, I should say, on the program. We have an Olympic bronze medallist by the name of Ziggy. We're just going to simply refer to her as Ziggy today, because a lot of people listening to this would know her from that name. That is her nickname that has kind of followed her around. People who maybe listen to our other shows who follow what we do out there would obviously know her a lot from Australian Survivor. But of course, before Survivor, she was an Olympian, competed at the London 2012 Olympics, the Rio 2016 Olympics, and our first water polo player on the show too. And this is a great chat learning everything about how she got into the sport, some of the unique tactics that are involved in water polo, and also the whole Olympic experience. He really gives a great insight into what it's like being an Olympic athlete and experiencing that lifestyle of the Olympic Village and bumping into some of these global stars of sport and everything else in between. So fun chat. I know you're going to enjoy it. Sit back and relax and listen to our Olympian athlete with the one, the only Ziggy.
BEN WATERWORTH: Continuing on our interview series here on Off The Podium, and I'm very excited for today's interview because I don't think I've ever come into an interview on this show where I can say I've already interviewed a guest, but on a different show about a different subject. Generally, if I've got a person returning to this show, I've talked to them about the Olympics before, I've talked to them about their amazing Olympic career, and I like them so much clearly that I want to talk to them again. This is the same case with our guest today, but the other time I spoke to them, it was about being on the TV show Survivor. We're not here to talk about that crap today. Who cares about Survivor? No one watches that show. We want to learn about the Olympics. And our guest today is a two-time Olympian, Olympic bronze medallist from London in 2012 in water polo, and our very first water polo player we've ever had on this show. And so important and special and amazing is she. She's like Madonna. She's like Cher. She just has one name. Her name is simply Ziggy, and she's with us on the show today. Ziggy, welcome to Off The Podium.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Oh, wow. Thank you. That was a good introduction.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I try and work out these my best, the way I can do it. But, you know, that's my Olympic achievements. I'm trying to, you know, talk up the Olympians. And one day they can, you know, put introductions in the Olympics. And maybe I'll be in with a shot one day. But I was just I was just talking to you off air, interestingly enough, about when you search for you, when you kind of look now about who you are and kind of your achievements, it does kind of come up now a lot with Survivor and sort of not as much about your your water polo career. I mean, fantastic, of course, to see that you're out there. But does that kind of surprise you? I mean, I don't know if you Google yourself much, but that you kind of see now that it's all about Survivor now and not about your water polo career.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I mean, it kind of does surprise me. I think maybe maybe just the name Ziggy, I think, is well known in the media to do with Survivor, whereas with water polo, obviously, it's like a team sport. So maybe unless you put water polo next to it or Ozzy Stinger's Olympic water polo, Ziggy, maybe, I would come up. But yeah, I've noticed that Survivor definitely takes control of the first few pages in Google at the moment.
BEN WATERWORTH: And is it something that, I mean, do you now, if you say did a talking circuit or something like at a school or kind of something like that, like are people focused more on your time on Survivor or water polo? Or do you try and balance both so that you kind of, you obviously got stories from both that you can share with people.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I always definitely start with my Olympic water polo career, especially when talking at schools and everything. And to younger kids, I always start with that. And then I kind of end with how that water polo career has like taken me and given me opportunities in other areas and then kind of use Survivor as a bit of an example. But I actually always find that, you know, I'll ask, does anyone have any questions? And I'll get like one water polo question, and I'll get like 45 like Survivor questions. So, yeah, I always focus on the Olympic water polo aspect, but it always ends up taking a turn.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, this is why we're glad to have you here today to talk about the Olympic side of things. I just want to get over and done with, I think. I know we discussed this on the other podcast about Survivor, but I'm sure a lot of people right now are probably trying to, you know, why are you called Ziggy? You know, where's that nickname come from? I feel like that's on the tip of my tongue right now. I'm going to forget to ask it later. So let's get over and done with Ziggy. Why are you? Where does Ziggy come from?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, so my name, my maiden name is Zigami. So Nicola Zigami was my name growing up. And actually, Ziggy started in the water polo circles when I joined the Cronulla Sharks. It was one of the guys in the boys team who just started calling me Ziggy, and it's kind of stuck ever since. Yeah, so originally, it was the water polo circles who knew me as Ziggy, and all my school friends and school teachers still called me Nicola. But then it kind of transitioned from my water polo world kind of into my other world more. So Ziggy is definitely a water polo name. That's where it started.
BEN WATERWORTH: What do you prefer? Like, is it something like your husband, does he refer to you as Ziggy? Is it Nicola? Like your parents? What happens there? It's weird.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: My husband calls me Ziggy because he's also a water polo guy, and he knew me as Ziggy from the very beginning. So it's weird when he calls me Nicola, like just when I'm in trouble. My parents call me Nicola. My close family call me Nicola, except I do have a few cousins who also played water polo or just have transitioned into Ziggy. A few of my school teachers called me Ziggy, mostly like the PE department. So it just varies, but definitely certain people call me Ziggy, certain people call me Nicola, and if they deter from that, it gets really weird.
BEN WATERWORTH: I can imagine, definitely. Yeah. How did you get into water polo, Ziggy? Where did this all begin?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: So growing up, I was into surf life saving massively. I was right into nippers, competed at all the national champs and stuff. So I initially wanted to be in the New Terrain Iron Woman Series. That was my ultimate goal when I was younger. And I transitioned into water polo. Just one of my really good friends in primary school, her family was involved, and she asked me if I wanted to join her water polo team. And because I was a pretty good swimmer already, I joined her team and I loved it from the beginning, just because I was faster than everyone else. So for a while, I was doing both surf club and water polo. Surf carnivals would be on the same weekend as our water polo games and tournaments and whatnot. So eventually, I had to decide what I wanted to focus on. So probably when I was 16, 17, I made a conscious decision that I would choose water polo, pretty much because I wanted to go to the Olympics over being in the Newt Turan series.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I was going to ask, how much was that a deciding factor because 1617, that's just around Beijing, and obviously, Women's Water Polo made its debut in Sydney. So do you remember as a 10-year-old watching the Sydney Olympics and Australia getting the gold in Sydney?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Honestly, I don't think I watched it. I do remember, I feel like I remember them getting gold, but at that stage, I don't think I was playing water polo. I think I first started when I was 11, so just after that. Yeah, so 2000, I wasn't really involved, but definitely the 2008 Olympics, I was following water polo for sure. I was playing pretty high-level club water polo at that stage, and I knew a few of the local girls in the team. So definitely 2008, I was hooked the whole time.
BEN WATERWORTH: I can imagine surf life saving into water polo, I mean, obviously the swimming aspect is very similar, but outside of that, I mean, I don't know how many similarities there are between the two. Is there many that kind of help?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, getting dumped in huge surf and having a wrestle with an opponent, I think is quite similar. You get water up your nose and in your eyes, you might lose an arm of a cozy or something like that, but there were a few, I have a few teammates who kind of overlapped as well. I think just being confident in the water and getting dunked under and all of that transitions well into water polo.
BEN WATERWORTH: Was that something that just was always from being young that you just took to the water? The water was something that you just absolutely loved being in?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, growing up, I was constantly in the water. I've got an older brother as well, so we would go out back in massive surf and just be catching waves the whole time. My mum would be like begging us to come in. Yeah, so I've always been a water baby.
BEN WATERWORTH: And this was all, was this all in Cronulla, Sutherland sort of area of Sydney?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, that's right.
BEN WATERWORTH: Beautiful part, like absolutely beautiful part. I've been there a couple of times. I mean, I'm a mad shark supporter, so kind of, you know, always had that little bit connection as well. And my mum grew up actually part of her life in Cronulla as well. So it's a stunning part. I mean, Sydney has so many stunning parts of it. But I mean, you know, when that's right at your back door, like, of course, you're going to be in the water all the time, aren't you?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, no, that's right.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's a beautiful, beautiful part, as I said. And when you start playing water polo and kind of, you know, finding this is fun, what is the scene like at that point as a junior in water polo in Sydney? I mean, was there a lot of added competitors after the gold in Sydney? Like do you know sort of how those were compared to maybe where it was just before you started in water polo?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I definitely think in women's water polo, maybe there was a rise in people sticking with the sport because you could actually make it to the Olympics. Like, I think just the Sydney 2000 Olympics when women's water polo was included, I think it was just a real motivator for women and young girls in sport, knowing that there was a really good opportunity in that sport. Maybe as well, like you said before, the Southland Shire and the Cronulla area is very water focused, so water polo in that area growing up was quite popular already. Yeah, and there was a few girls in that team from the area. There was a few girls in the 2004 Olympic team and 2008 Olympic team who grew up, went to my high school and everything as well. So definitely in the circles that I was involved with, the inclusion of water polo in the Olympics definitely would have contributed to girls joining the sport for sure. No doubt. I don't know if it would be the same in other areas, but definitely in the area I grew up in.
BEN WATERWORTH: What's the balance like when you, the swimming aspect in water polo is obviously very important, but you've also got that small little aspect of getting a ball and putting it in the back of a net to score. I mean, when it comes to training, you focus on swimming, do you focus on ball skills? Is there a mixture kind of what, what is the balance there?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, so like not many people know, but in water polo, the pool is really deep. So you often play in the diving pool, which is like five metres deep. So at no point can you stand up. So legwork is, and like leg strength is really important. Like a lot of what you see is above the water, but 80% of what you're doing and the energy that you release is from your legs and the lower half. So we did a lot of legwork, building leg strength and like leg endurance, I suppose. And your hips and everything are always in quite an awkward position. So building up strength in that area is always like a big focus in water polo. All of our fitness work was done with swim sets. So not many of us went for runs or anything to get our cardiovascular fitness. So that was all done in swim sets. We also had a really big gym focus. So lifting weights, both absolute strength and power and speed is a massive focus in water polo as well. And then all ball skills and tactics and that kind of thing. So it's got a lot of variety to training as well, which is always good. So generally, we do like maybe three or four, three to four k swim sets a week, and then three gym sessions a week, and then anywhere from like, or maybe six or seven other pool sessions where you're focusing more on shooting, catching, legwork, team tactics and that kind of thing.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I can imagine the ball handling that doing it outside of a pool is kind of useless. You're always wanting to do that in the pool because I mean, it's no well and good you sitting on a netball court or something and throwing a ball back and forth when that's not going to help you when you're in a swimming pool.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, at junior levels, they kind of teach the right technique and everything on land. But as soon as you, yeah, I don't know, 16 or maybe 15 or older, yeah, all of your ball skills are done in the pool. However, my Olympic coach for both of my Olympic cycles, Dumpler, he was really big on us having like fine motor skills with the ball as well. So we when we're on tour and during camps, we always had to carry a water polo ball around with us at all at all times. So even when we were going to like the dining hall or, you know, when we were walking to the gym, we always had to have a water polo ball in our hand, just so we'd be playing around with it. Just mucking around, just so we could get those fine motor skills. I think he just thought every second counts.
BEN WATERWORTH: Was it was that fun? Was that fun explaining going out to dinner and why have you got a ball? Oh, you know, because coach said so.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, yeah, it was like annoying sometimes. There were times there were times where we'd be like, I don't know, waiting for a train or something in Japan and we'd all have our balls and then someone would get hit and like the ball would go across the train tracks. And it's like, oh, it's like such a nightmare. And all the other teams used to look at us weirdly, like we have to bring our balls to the dining hall and stuff. And he also encouraged us to use kind of old balls that didn't have good grip on them. So we could like just improve our motor skills even more. So a lot of the balls were looking a bit scummy and we'd be like taking them to dinner and stuff. It was quite funny.
BEN WATERWORTH: Is a water polo ball in terms of dimensions? I mean, how does that compare to, say, a netball? Like, I mean, is it bigger, smaller? And you sort of talking about the grip there. So it's obviously a different, more durable material. So it can be used in the water.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, it's so I think the men's size water polo ball would be similar to the netball size. And then the women's water polo ball would be slightly smaller. Material wise, it would be the same like it's quite pumped up. So it would be the same pressure, I suppose, as a netball. But definitely the texture on the outside is a bit different. Oh, it's really I don't know, I can't really describe it. But you can get like when you go to Rebel Sport and stuff, sometimes they sell water polo balls, but they're not like the legit water polo balls. Those ones are a bit plasticky. The ones that you play with in real competitions, yeah, have a kind of different texture.
BEN WATERWORTH: They still hurt no doubt if you get smacked in the face with one of them though, right, Ziggy?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So many times. I was probably the culprit of hitting a few of my teammates in the face, actually. Holly, if you're all watching, sorry.
BEN WATERWORTH: Accidentally, of course, I hope.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: No, it definitely was. But she, her head would always seem to find where I was bouncing the ball. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, is that is that Holly Lincoln Smith? Is that? Yes, it is. I know the name because I've interviewed her sister Emma when she was after, I think it was Vancouver when she was in skeleton. And I remember discussing that her sister was an Olympic bronze medallist. So obviously, yeah, I mean, skeleton fascinate the hell out of me. So I was like, skeleton, this is crazy, crazy sport.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Head first down like the loose track. Yeah, you got to be crazy.
BEN WATERWORTH: Insane, insane. What is the progression when you start in water polo and kind of making your way up? So is it school, then club, then kind of state, then nationals? I mean, how does it work? How did you build up to eventually making the national team?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: So I started playing just club water polo, so for the Cronulla Sharks. And then gradually, you make your way through the age groups until you're playing the National League level, so like first grade for your club. So within those age groups, like you compete at like national championships. So you might play for Cronulla in like the under 16s national champs. And then from that tournament, there'd be like an under 16s state and or national team selected. So you might have the opportunity to represent your state or your country at a different tournament within your age group. And then kind of as soon as you've made first grade in your club, the national coach goes around and watches all the first grade nationally competitions. And from that club comp, he selects like a big squad of potentials for the national team who kind of the squad begins at the start of the four year cycle. So at the beginning, so in the lead up to London, in 2009, he would have selected maybe a squad of 55, 60 girls who were like potential candidates for the next Olympics. And then you kind of go to camps and you get selected for different tournaments over those four years. And gradually the squad just gets reduced and cut as you get closer to major tournaments or as you get closer to the Olympics, the next Olympics. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I mean, now there's definitely more of a focus on school water polo compared to when I was at school, but the national coaches don't really watch the school competitions. The school is kind of like a bit of an extracurricular training and competition. Most of the national program is run through the clubs.
BEN WATERWORTH: Is it a sport where sort of the age range you're talking about a lot more focus on school based water polo now, but is there kind of a general peak age range as a water polo athlete where say you don't maybe have many people in their thirties or kind of you do like, I mean, kind of what's sort of the peak age range for a water polo player?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Okay, for women to make like the national team, I'd say the peak age would probably be from like 23 until maybe 28. That's probably where most of the girls are involved. Well, for men, it might be slightly later, so the men might be from like 25 to 32, that would be the peak age. That's in Australia. But definitely in Europe, the range is a lot greater, like they get paid, it's a professional sport in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe, like Croatia and Hungary and Montenegro and things like that. So definitely in those countries, the players stay around for a lot longer. It's rare in Australia that you have someone over the age of like, maybe 32 in the women's team. It does happen, but it's not common. But definitely, yeah, in teams like Italy, they've got girls playing until they're like 35. And it's just not that unusual. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, you're still very young, Ziggy. You're only 30, right? So I mean, you-
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, well, not even. I'm 29.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well, 29. So about to turn 30\. I've already retired. Retired, exactly. So after Rio, so 26 at your retire. So I mean, we'll talk about that a little bit later, obviously, once we get there. But I mean, realistically, you could technically still be playing right now.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I've got a lot of teammates who are my age or a bit older who are still in the national team. But I mean, I made the national team for the first time when I was 18 as well. So I competed at my first Olympics when I was 21. So I was like training at a high level for like many years as well. I was just lucky that I kind of got into the like the exciting part at a young age. So yeah, going to my first Olympics at 21 was pretty young compared to a lot of people as well.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which does that make it tricky sort of doing the regular teenage things, going to high school, having friends, you know, doing that kind of stuff when you're in the process of, you know, trying to make an Olympic team? I mean, does that make it tricky or kind of how's that balance when you were doing all that?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, like, I think it worked well for my personality. I don't know, I wasn't ever into going out and, you know, staying out till 3am or anything like that. And I kind of like used water polo as a bit of an excuse, like, oh, sorry, I've got to go. I've got training in the morning. But like, I wanted to say that, you know, because I would just get tired. I don't know, I think my focus from a young age to make the Olympic team and be, you know, the best player I could be was so strong that I didn't really mind missing out on things. But definitely, I know other teammates or girls I grew up with playing water polo who end up choosing life over sport, because they do really miss out on, you know, going to 18ths and stuff like that. Also because we go away on tour for long durations of time as well. So you actually you miss out on a lot of important events. But yet, like I said, I didn't really think I was missing out. And every time my alarm went off at like quarter past four in the morning, I'd just get straight up and I'd go like I wouldn't ever feel sorry for myself or anything. Also my school and uni were really supported. So when I was away on tours during exam periods or whatever, I was really like proactive in changing my exam times. And I always had quite a lot of support. So I didn't really have to choose between, you know, pursuing uni or like school or anything either.
BEN WATERWORTH: With the swimming aspect, you mentioned about getting up at quarter past four. Is that basically where you kind of join those swimmer schedules where you're up at five just doing constant laps in a swimming pool for a couple of days a week? Yeah.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Well, I was always swimming early anyway when I was doing surf club. So the early mornings like I've been doing since I was probably like 12, my parents were like so stoked when I got my licence finally because then they didn't have to drive me. Yeah, but I lived in Cronulla like we've already established. And our training of a morning was at Sydney Olympic Park, which was a good like 45 minute drive. So I would, you know, training would start at 5am. So I would have to set my alarm at like 10 past 4. I'd give myself like seven minutes before I had to be in the car. And then I'd be driving on the same road in the dark every morning.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, well, you beat the Sydney traffic. There's some positive, right?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: That's true. Until you have to come home in like school zones.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, yeah. Which I mean, are your parents basically forcing you at 16, like, Ziggy, you're 16, get your L's.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: No. Oh, yeah. To get my L's. Yeah. But my parents, they never like forced me to go to training as a kid. I would always have to set my own alarm and they'd be up and they'd be ready to take me to like to swimming if I wanted to go. But not once did they force me out of bed or anything. If I didn't set my own alarm, they wouldn't wake me up. It was always up to me. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm on that drive because I mean, when you do have that goal, and I can imagine, you know, an Olympics is an amazing goal to kind of have to sort of get yourself to that point. And I think anyone who's had any form of goal like that in life would know what it's like. But I mean, it's especially at that age because, you know, you kind of are at that point in life where sleeping is such a wonderful thing, but it's sort of, you know, Olympics, sleep. Yeah, I can sleep after the Olympics, right?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah. Even now, I can't sleep in past like 6.30. My husband goes crazy. I'm like, I'm up. It's daylight. I want to get out. I want to do something.
BEN WATERWORTH: Come on. Come on. Relax. The national competition in Australia, you know, playing for Cronulla, what is the national competition like? Is it is it super competitive kind of how would you describe the national water polo competition in Australia?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah. So the Australian Water Polo League, yeah, it's pretty competitive compared with other countries. I will probably get hated for saying this, but I think the standard might be just a bit lower only because like there's girls in the national league, first grade competition who only play during the season and then in the off season, they're not really playing water polo. So the fact that they can still play first grade when they're only playing like a few months a year means that some teams have like, I don't know, there's quite a variety in teams. So generally in the league, there's maybe seven really strong teams who are all fighting for the finals top six spot. And then there's always kind of like one or two teams who like are quite weak. But the Australian Water Polo League as well has like a pretty good reputation internationally. So often we'll get some like world class players who come out from America or from Spain or from overseas to play in the Australian Water Polo League. I think the lifestyle, you know, living here, the league goes through summer. So we do get like really world class players coming to join us in the league, which definitely lifts the level a bit too.
BEN WATERWORTH: And is that on the flip side, is there opportunities for you to go and play in some of these European leagues in the other seasons?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: No, there is. I actually never played overseas, which is kind of like, honestly, probably like my biggest regret in life. I, yeah, I never played overseas, but yeah, it's really popular, actually, either going to like an American college to join one of the college teams there, or yeah, going over to Europe and playing in Hungary or Italy or, yeah, Spain or anything, yeah, it's really popular. My husband played three seasons in Greece and, no, three seasons in Spain and two seasons in Greece when he was younger. So especially for the men, it's really popular.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I can imagine, is that probably like a prime time televised sport in some of those countries I can imagine?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, yeah. So Jono showed me videos of like their games, just regular club games in Spain and Greece and everything. And there's those, like there's people in the crowd with flares. Like it throws off. He played for Chios, a small island in Greece. And he was like famous on the island because their, like their island sport was water polo. And he was this blonde guy from Australia. He said he would just have like, he just walked down the street and he'd have people coming out to him and wanting to get photos and stuff. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's crazy. Yeah. I mean, it's so fascinating with water polo kind of with any sport really, that there are some countries that obviously take to it so much and kind of, you know, it's an obsession and things like that. And you have other countries where kind of, you know, they're just sort of there to compete. And it's interesting, particularly with the women's because you're talking about the states because the US women's team are, you know, obviously very good, very strong rivals with Australia, of course, and it's sort of it's interesting how, you know, it also differs in the men and women's competition, like Australia in the men's is, you know, obviously not as successful in the Olympics as it has been for the women as well. So it's kind of interesting how that all works as well.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, yeah. USA in the women are definitely our arch rivals and they've been pretty much unstoppable for the past eight years, the USA women.
BEN WATERWORTH: With playing for the Cronulla Sharks, I mean, is there an affiliation with the NRL side?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: No, not really.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just haven't had the same name.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: That's right. Yeah. I mean, all the Cronulla teams generally are named the Sharks. Yeah, like I know that we're like trying to build some pool that's on land that's owned by the NRL team and all this stuff. But no, there's really no strong affiliation with them.
BEN WATERWORTH: But I guess you can't help living there, Cronulla. Please tell me, Ziggy, you are an actual shark supporter though, right? In the NRL.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Oh, I am. But I actually don't live in Cronulla anymore. I live in the eastern suburbs now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: But yeah, I still am a shark supporter.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Good.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's what I like to hear. That's fantastic. You know, we all live on 2016, but who cares? That was only four years ago. Come on. We're still allowed to bask in that success and that glory days. You made the junior team, I believe, at 16, was your first time playing for the junior team. I mean, getting that call up, getting that, you know, call or whatever it was when you were eventually told that you get to pull on the green and gold, I mean, that must be a pretty special feeling.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, no, I do remember when I went on my first national tour to Canada. And yeah, I was so excited, but even more crazy. So that year, I didn't make the state team. So I drafted and played for ACT in the ACT team. And then from the competition, when I was playing for like ACT, I got selected in the national squad and then I ended up being selected for the national team. So it's just like, it was crazy that the very same year I didn't make the New South Wales team, I was playing for Australia in the age group. Yeah, but I do remember being so excited and yeah, went across to Canada, played with the girls there. It was good.
BEN WATERWORTH: Whereabouts in Canada was that held?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: We went to British Columbia, to that state.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's where I am right now.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: So I just thought I would, yeah, yeah, we played at the University of British Columbia actually.
BEN WATERWORTH: So was that, is that, do you remember if that's in Victoria or Vancouver at all? Do you remember? Because I'm in Victoria, so I mean, I know there's a bit of a UVic presence over here.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: But I do know the Canadian national team train out of Montreal. So I've been to Montreal a few times. They always had like tournaments just before Christmas. So you'd be in Montreal and it'd be snowing and you have to get the train to the pool and they'd be walking across the snow. And then you'd get inside the pool and it'd be so hot inside and you'd have all your gear. Yeah, so I know that's where the national team's based in Canada at the moment.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's a unique country kind of how they go about their training and everything along those lines. Fascinating about how you had to go to the ACT to kind of make the national team. I mean, were there then people on the team that maybe were people that you were playing with in New South Wales? And they're all thinking, hey, how did you make it? You didn't make this? Like, how does that work?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, no, seriously. So after the tournament, I was named in the Aussie squad and a few of the New South Wales girls weren't named in the Aussie squad. And it was like real awkward because they were like, you didn't even make our team. Like, you know, I was like, sorry, sorry, not sorry. Yeah. And then I ended up beating again more of those girls to make the final team in the end.
BEN WATERWORTH: Does the New South Wales team then kind of come begging back for you after you've represented Australia? Oh, Ziggy, we made a mistake. Please join our team.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, they did. But it was too late by that stage. The tournament was already done.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right. And do you, but then do you all of a sudden go, well, you know, screw you guys. I'm going to compete for the ACT for the remainder of my state career.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: No, because it was only like on an individual tournament basis. So I just got put into the draft for that tournament. So no, after that, I continued my New South Wales legacy. But it was fun. Yeah, playing for a different state.
BEN WATERWORTH: So when you eventually then make the senior side, the Sting Rays, now that was 2009. Stingers, Stingers. Sorry, Stingers is the men's team, of course. Was that round two?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: No, that was the start.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, I do my research very well on this show.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: We're just Stingers.
BEN WATERWORTH: If I was a professional podcast host, I would edit that out, but clearly I didn't. 2009, I believe, was when you first made the Stingers. And again, you've obviously already represented Australia, so you've kind of had that taste of doing that. But that is the goal, of course, is to make the senior side, because that is one step closer to the Olympics. When you got that call, you made it there. Was that kind of just a feeling of, wow, this is happening? This is something now that I'm this much closer to making an Olympic team.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, so I was added to the Olympic squad after a lot of girls retired after the 2008 Olympics. And then so it was like going to training camps and everything. But yeah, definitely when I got the call to make, it was the World League rounds, was the first national team that I was named in. It was played in Adelaide. Yeah, I was so excited. And my mum and dad came with me to the airport and getting the uniform and everything. Yeah, it was pretty cool. But I was also super scared and nervous. The girls who had watched the year before at the Olympics, I was now a teammate of theirs. And I hadn't really had much exposure to that level at all. I wasn't involved in the 2008 cycle really at all. So all of a sudden, I was like teammates with all these girls I'd been watching on TV. So it was scary, but I was super excited.
BEN WATERWORTH: And how then do they treat the new kids on the team? Is it kind of a bit of an initiation process? They kind of test you out to see how you are? Are they super accommodating? I mean, how is it when you first kind of get in a pool with them?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: No, the girls were actually so good. We had like a leadership team in the squad full of the most experienced, like three of the most experienced girls and the captain. So they were really good in like bringing you in and making you feel included and all of that. Yeah, no, there was no real initiation. I think the older girls were really accommodating. There was like a leadership team who made everyone feel pretty comfortable. Yeah, no, it was like everyone was really nice. I think most like a lot of the scariness and pressure and anxiety was just in my head. It wasn't definitely wasn't from the girls around me.
BEN WATERWORTH: With what, Apollo, tell me about the positions like and how does that work? And you obviously then do you have a specialised position? Are you versatile kind of like what was your role on the team when you got selected for it?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, so position wise, growing up, I was always a counter attacker. So, you know, my swimming speed was my strength. So I was always getting like swimway breaks and everything. That was definitely definitely what I was known for when I joined the national team. But when I joined the national team, there was an opening as a centre back. So a few of the centre backs from the Beijing Olympics had retired. So I joined the national team and then the coach was like, all right, Ziggy, you're not just a counter attacker anymore. You are going to be a centre back. And I'd never played centre back before. Normally, I was focused in scoring goals, but now my role was to like control the defence. So I was not specialised in that position at all. So I had to learn a lot. The centre back marks the opposition's biggest player, the centre forward, and you're marking them closest to the goal. And the centre forward is often the most dangerous player in the pool. So your role is to call the defence if you need a zone or if you want to press, and it's pretty much just to wrestle the biggest, strongest player in the other team the whole time and then sprint them out the other end of the pool when you're attacking. So yeah, I all of a sudden found myself in like a controlling, really important role in the national team. So to begin with, I struggled a fair bit. But yeah, generally, it was nice learning a new position. And just gradually over time, you know, I learnt my confidence. I learnt that I, even though I was like the youngest person in the team, I could make big calls and I could run the defence and things like that. So and plus, I still had like the counter attacking. It's like an attacking skill at my slave too.
BEN WATERWORTH: But that's where the fun part of water polo comes into it, doesn't it, Ziggy? Because we all see during competitions that it's all well and good on top of the water with, you know, the fun swimming and the shooting and the goals and that. But it's always those underwater cameras that are seeing that you're punching and kicking and you're pulling each other's costumes aside and you just, you're going to town. So I mean, that I can imagine in that position is where you get to do all that fun stuff. So you've got to relish that opportunity to be a little bit aggressive.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, oh my gosh, seriously, in centre back, you spend like 50% of the time under the water just wrestling. Like I said, the centre forward is normally the biggest, strongest person in the team, and your role is to like not let them score. So you pretty much do whatever it takes. And yeah, that is where a lot of the fun is, like a fun of it is. Gosh, it was, it's like so hectic. Centre back is like the hardest position, I'm telling you.
BEN WATERWORTH: Would you have to with that with your training cycle, then do you kind of have to add a couple of things in the gym, like maybe do a bit of boxing or something like that and kind of, you know, get yourself into a more physical mindset?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, no, seriously. We like your gym program is like also very catered to what position you are. So a lot of the like smaller perimeter players do more kind of power agility kind of gym work. Whereas the centre forwards and centre backs do more like absolute strength. Like it's very advantageous to be bigger and heavier and stronger. You know, so we would just do more really heavy weights and a lot more like full on wrestling in the pool as well during training.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it's kind of almost like an enforcer in ice hockey where kind of your role is, I guess, to be, you know, a little bit more physical, as you said, to kind of prevent someone from scoring. And I can imagine that when you're competing, you know, for Australia, you're going around to these different competitions, you get to know the players from some of these countries and that. Who were the ones that were the toughest when you were in that position to really kind of give it to?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: OK, so you, anyone who's listening, you need to get on Google right now and look up Casanova, Italy, water polo.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm going to Google this while you're talking, Ziggy.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: OK, so Casanova, she was the Italian centre forward and she is huge. And not only is she massive, like I'm saying, like 120 kilos, but she's also amputextuous. So she's primarily left handed, but she's really good at also shooting with her right hand. So as a centre forward as well, that's really hard to mark as a centre back. It's really hard to mark because they can literally like they can step out or they can shoot with either hand. So I'd heard and I'd seen her play for many years and then all of a sudden I had to mark her. So that was really tough. And she's like a really good swimmer too. Anyway, so she's probably she was probably my number one when I first started. The person who I was scared of the most.
BEN WATERWORTH: She looks I'm just looking at a picture here. She's yeah.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: She broke her nose multiple times. So she often more like a nose guard. So in a lot of the photos that you see online, she's in a nose guard and it made her look even scarier. Also, the American Centre for who I played against a lot. Her name is Cami Craig. Skill wise and fitness wise, I'd say she's the person who really pushed me the most. I hated marking her, but at the same time, I loved marking her because she like, I feel like she brought out the best in me. She's so skillful and I really had to bring my A game when I was marking her. No doubt. And because our rivalry between the USA was so strong as well, often we'd either win by one goal or we'd lose by one goal. And I'd be marking her the whole game. So I really, yeah, I kind of have a really good respect for Cammie Craig. Yeah. So they're probably two.
BEN WATERWORTH: Were there any ones that you ever got up against and you were just like, easy, come on, you know? And why was it New Zealand?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: New Zealand, oh, nah. Like, look, New Zealand were rough, but we would always beat them, like, convincingly. There was a girl called Ologbo who is Canadian, actually. And, you know, she split my eye open once, and we used to always get really, she was, like, just really dirty. It was just, like, unnecessary. So I, yeah, so her and I would wrestle a lot. Another girl, DiMario, was her name from Italy. She was the captain of Italy. She was actually really small, but she would, again, she was just super dirty, like, she'd bite you and stuff. And I used to mark her a fair bit as well. She was a really fast swimmer, too. So her and I would just be, like, sprinting up and down the pool constantly. I also kind of, like, am a bit known for getting people excluded. So I'd get in front of them and duck and dive, but she would do the same thing to me. So DiMario is another one of those players who I would definitely, yeah, wrestle with a lot. And then there was also this Chinese girl. I can't say her name, but she was cat number five. She's left-handed, and she was also a really fast swimmer. So her and I would just, like, kill each other going, like sprinting up and down the pool. But I'd say, yeah, I'd say Kenny Craig from America was the player who I hated but loved marking the most. Yeah, just because, like I said, she would definitely bring out the best in me, for sure.
BEN WATERWORTH: When you've got players literally biting you, what is the line? Like, what can and can't you do?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Look, you're not allowed to bite people, but, like...
BEN WATERWORTH: People do it.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I wore a mouth guard. But yeah, but it does happen, surprisingly. So it would just be like a low of lows. But if the referee can't see it, like, you can pretty much do what you want, you know?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, that's what you see so much, particularly with the men's. Like, I know, like, Roy and HG had a big thing where they would kind of show the underwater cameras. And you've got guys like going in for the nut grab and kind of things like that. And as you said, I guess if the referee can't see it, it's just up to the cameras to kind of replay it later on and go, holy crap, look what they're doing down there.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, so there's lots of things that are against the rules and it's frowned upon. But yeah, there are still players that do get dirty when it's unnecessary as well.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I guess you get to know them, so you would, I guess, be prepared, like, oh, this person is clearly going to do that. So I've just got to be prepared to be ready for that.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, that's right. Like this number five in Japan. Oh my god, not Japan, China. Number five from China. She broke my thumb when I was playing her once. We were actually in Brazil. They had a tournament in the lead up to the Olympics, like a good maybe eight months out of the Olympics. And I was holding a Cozzi, and I was defending, holding her, holding her, holding her, and she was pulling my thumb back. But at this stage, I think we were only like one goal up, and it was like really like I wasn't going to let her go, you know? And so she just kept pulling my thumb back and just she just pulled it right back and she broke my thumb. So, you know, it was my own fault. I was holding her and as she was doing it, I was like, I'm not letting go. So she was like, OK, I'm just going to pull your thumb harder. So, like, wow, you know, I didn't like her for it, but it was my own fault, you know.
BEN WATERWORTH: So what's the scope with the refereeing? I mean, how difficult would it be to be a referee in water polo? Then if a lot of the fouls clearly go unseen and you just kind of just have to go for what you do see.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I think the refs have a hard role. A lot of the time, I feel like they call what they think is happening, but it's not necessarily happening. Growing up playing water polo with international referees just teaches you what they look for and what they don't. I often would use that to my advantage, I suppose. I would pretend that someone's holding me, but it was really like I would have my legs wrapped around them so that they're on my back. But it would be me getting them in a position that looked like they were on top of me. But again, everyone at the international level knows what things look like on the outside. So it's just, yeah, everyone kind of learns what works.
BEN WATERWORTH: So it's kind of like how soccer players are known for diving, where it looks quite terrible because clearly they're faking it. In water polo, you may be faking it, but you at least make it look realistic enough where you're not on the ground. I'm so injured because you've got water underneath you to kind of help you out with your acting.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, definitely. So I would like be swimming and then I cut in front of someone. And then I'd be like shuffling around a little bit. Meanwhile, they're still swimming and they end up kind of on your back. And then it looks like they're really pulling me, but I'm just pretending that they're pulling me. And then next minute I get them kicked out. But you know, so they might not be pulling me. But if that's what it looks like to the ref, then that's what it looks like to the ref, you know?
BEN WATERWORTH: And is it a sport where you get to know certain referees and go, oh, shit, they're refereeing me today. We're not in with a chance and things like that?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: In like the Australian League, I know there was refs who I preferred, who would give me the result that I was after, and others who would just ignore it or they'd call a turnover against me or something. Internationally, not so much. However, this might be controversial as well. But FINA is run by the Italian water polo way kind of thing. So I always feel like versing Italy was hard, no matter what referee you had, just because the head referee was Italian. Yeah, so it wasn't really referees in particular. It was just always versing Italy. You'd always get the short straw, I feel.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's why Italians, you know, the whole diving thing and everything, like I'm still not over the 2006 World Cup, Ziggy, so to me, Italy diving water, it just all fits.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, because it's FINA, I'm telling you.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. It all fits. When 2012 comes, you get that confirmation that you were going to the Olympics. Tell me how that felt.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I remember. So I was at the gym at Sydney Olympic Park, and we knew that that day we were going to get a call at some stage to tell us whether we were in or we were out. So I was at the gym in the morning, and I didn't expect the call to come at like 6.30 in the morning. But anyway, I finished my gym set and I had a missed call from the head coach. And so I had to call him back, but it was really weird as well. So I called him back, but I was at the end of my gym session, I was like kind of standing by myself, and he told me that I made the team. And then I kind of was like, no one was around. So I was like so excited, but I was standing by myself and it was like, oh, like, thanks, you know, he was like, congratulations. And then I kind of ended the phone call and I was like, like, I don't know, like, this is weird, I'm like by myself. And then I like call my mum and I'm like, oh, mum. Anyway, so it was all a bit weird, but I do remember seeing his call and being like, oh my God. And like as I was calling the coach back, I knew that like within one minute, I'd know like my fate. But it was incredible. And, you know, a lot of people after that call, they were like, surely you would have known, you know. And I definitely hoped and I'd been playing really well. And I was, you know, I played in every major tournament and every tournament in the lead up. But it wasn't until the actual team was announced that I kind of was actually thinking I was going to make it, you know. But then even still, you've got six weeks before the game starts. So I was super scared that I was going to get injured in that six weeks as well. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I can imagine everything in between that period because, you know, you've received a uniform before that says Australia on it. You know, you've represented your country, but all of a sudden you get this beautifully crafted suit with the Olympic rings on it. You know, a ticket. I'm sure you're probably in business class on Qantas on the way to London. Like just all these little perks you get. You weren't. Oh, come on Qantas.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: So we were in Europe for like a training camp and like some few little tournaments in the lead up. So I think we went from Italy to London, but no, we definitely did not fly first class. Definitely. Oh, my gosh. In the lead up to the Rio Olympics, our flight got cancelled. We were flying from Europe to Rio via, I don't even know, some other country. And our flight got cancelled. And so we missed. So then we missed the connecting flight and then we were in a hotel for like three hours overnight. And then we had to go back to the airport. Like it was just a disaster getting to the Olympics. So no, on the way home, we get a chartered flight.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I was going to say, surely as a medallist, on the way back, you get a special flight.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, on the way back, we were on the chartered flight because we got a bronze medal. We were in premium economy.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, what do you get if you get a gold medal?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: You're in first class.
BEN WATERWORTH: Of course.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: And then Silvo is in business class and then bronze is in premium economy. And then everyone else is in just the normal economy seats. Yeah, so my boyfriend at the time, husband now, was like sitting back in economy in like the second last row and he's like six foot five. And I'm like stretched out in premium economy. It was great.
BEN WATERWORTH: I love this tiered system on the way back. It's kind of like, gold medallists get up the very pointy end, silver there, bronze there. The rest of you get up the back. You suck. You're a shame in Australia.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, but the premium economy was like the best place to be because all of like the chef de mission and, you know, all the really important people were also in first class and business class. So all of those athletes, they like really had to behave themselves. But those in premium economy, it was like us. It was the the basketballers. I think maybe the men's hockey team was there. I don't know. It was like all the team sports and there was no like really important people in our area. So that's where all the fun was.
BEN WATERWORTH: Fantastic. I'm disappointed. Not on the way over there. But I mean, that's kind of a fun little thing there. But I mean, I'm someone who likes to keep every single keepsake I have when I do something that I feel is important to that. Are you keeping everything? Like if you've got an envelope with the Olympic logo on it, like your ticket, like, do you keep all of that?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah. So I gave a few. So uniform wise, you get like a few multiples of T-shirts and stuff. But you get a lot of stuff, like a lot, a lot of stuff. So a few of those things I would give to my cousin or, you know, I would sign stuff or like take one to a school and give it to the primary school or something like that. Or to like one of my junior coaches, I gave him one of my hats and things like that. But it still leaves a lot of gear. And yeah, I've got it all just like stored away in bags and stuff. But I definitely am not going to throw it out. For sure. But then with two Olympics for myself and two Olympics for my husband, like we don't have enough room to like store it all. So we've like practically left a few at our parents' houses, a few bags of gear. But literally every time I go home, they're like, we don't want it here, I'll take it. I'm like, we don't have room in our apartment for like all this stuff. Like it's incredible how much gear you get. And then also like, I mean, bits and pieces of it I wear. But a lot of it is like bright yellow with Australian Olympic team, like all over it, that you don't really like wear it. So it kind of just sits there. It's a bit of a waste.
BEN WATERWORTH: It was good that you can kind of like, as you said, give it to sort of like a junior coach, like go back to your school and give it to things like that. Because I mean, that's where like, if anybody who obviously everyone's go to school, but like if you've ever been at school where say you've had someone go on to the Olympics, like it's a big deal, your school's very proud that you've had a student go on to the Olympics. So I can imagine that, yeah, your school's that you've attended, you know, here's a framed shirt from Ziggy, she's off to the London Olympics.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, and we got, we'd get like my teammates to all sign it as well. But I tell you what the best thing that I did was. So there's, I've got an Australian flag similar to the one behind you, a huge one. And on the flight on the way back from the Rio Olympics, I sent it around to all of the seats in the plane. So this was a chartered flight full of Australian Olympians. So pretty much everyone in the Australian Olympic team has signed one of those big flags, which I have.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, that's incredible.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I remembered signing one and thinking it was a really good idea on the way back from the London Olympics. So I packed one ready and did the same thing. And then I had a little note. Please return to seat, you know, 14B or whatever. So I got everyone signatures, which is cool.
BEN WATERWORTH: And let's be honest, the Campbell sisters tried to sign it, but they failed.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I wonder.
BEN WATERWORTH: Bit of a fun joke we love on this show. Hello to the Campbell sisters. I'm sure you're listening. With the whole experience, like the Olympics, like your water polo started, I believe, a couple of days after the opening ceremony. So and I know sort of like some of the swimmers and some of the people who compete the next day don't go because they're all in training mode. What is what about the water polo players? Do you go to the opening ceremony?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, so both Olympics we went to the opening ceremony. The men's tournament started the day after, and the women's tournament we started. We had our first round game two days after the opening ceremony. And so both Olympics we walked, we walked around, but for all athletes, there's the option of leaving like halfway through. So it wouldn't be a really late night. We'd do our big walk. We'd get to like kind of hang out in the middle for, I don't know, an hour. And then we'd kind of sneak out a side door, and we didn't have to stay for the whole duration. So we did that both times, which I think was incredible, like having that moment to walk out with your teammates and look at the crowd and like, you know, in the Olympics leading up when I was younger, I would go to sleep, and then mum would wake me when like the opening ceremony was on TV, and I'd watch it all live. So for me, walking out in the opening ceremony was like incredible.
BEN WATERWORTH: Because to me, like making the Olympics, and it's sadly something I'm never going to get to do, but like, you know, inbuilt dream of mine that I can internalise, you know, mentally. But like to me, the whole part of that experience would be the opening ceremony. And I hear these stories of the swimmers who are, you know, doing the heats next morning, and I just feel so like that's such an experience to miss out on. Is it a case of, do you know if these guys are sort of forced, like they can't, like if one of them says, bugger it, I don't care if I'm getting up the next morning at whatever time, I am walking out in that stadium. Or are they kind of forced not to because of that fact?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I think it's a decision which is made by your team. Like, I don't think there'd be a swimmer who would go against the decision of like the Australian swim team and would go and do it anyway. Before you leave for the opening ceremony, outside of your Australian residence within the village, even if people aren't going to the opening ceremony, those athletes still get dressed in their opening ceremony outfit. The Australian Olympic team meets together before we get on the buses and head to the stadium. And we have our own little celebration out the front of the Australian residence. And then I know that when we all went to the opening ceremony, those who stayed behind still did something special. I mean, of course, it wouldn't be to the level of excitement of actually walking out into the stadium, but it's even getting in your uniform and the nice jacket and everything and being with everyone else in the team before they left. I think that's really nice.
BEN WATERWORTH: Your boyfriend at the time, now husband, obviously competed with you at London. Is it more of a case of you want to hang out with him to share that with him? Are you more with your teammates? Is it a bit of both? How does all that work?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Just the opening ceremony or the whole?
BEN WATERWORTH: Let's go with both. Let's go with opening and the whole games.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: So the men's and women's water polo tournament competition is played over the full two weeks of the Olympics. The men play on alternate days for the women. So we didn't really hang out much, because the days that I would have a game, he would be training, and then the day that he had a game, I'd be training and whatnot. So I would see him at the dining hall, maybe. But I never went to watch one of his games in real life or anything like that. For the opening ceremony, a lot of teammates in the men and women grew up together and stuff as well. And we were the Australian Water Polo team. So I walked out with my girls' teammates, but the guys were all around. And so they were definitely parts of the walk and part of the opening ceremony experience that I had with him. But once the Olympics starts, I didn't really see him much, actually. Yeah, you're just with your team the whole time. Even in your day off, you're training, you've got video sessions, you've got physio, recovery, all of this. So it's a busy time for a full two weeks.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I think, particularly for, as you're saying, Water Polo goes for the entire two weeks of the Games. It's obviously a very busy time. Can you, with that time though, fully experience life as an Olympic athlete in an Olympic village? I mean, obviously, you're kind of in this facility with the greatest athletes in the world. I mean, you bump, rub shoulders, same bolts there. These big name athletes are there. Michael Phelps, these sort of people. I mean, is it a case of, do you spend some days just walking around with your teammates, star spotting? Like, oh my god, there's the same bolt or things like that. Like, is that part of that whole experience?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: It is, yeah. So like, just when you go to the dining hall, it's like an adventure just going to get food. Like, firstly, the Olympic Village is massive. So walking to the dining hall and walking back from the dining hall, like if you're doing that three times a day or more to get snacks, like you end up walking like a lot of steps. So in Rio, there was actually like a little shuttle bus that you could get on and it would take you to the dining hall. But yeah, it's so fun and exciting just, yeah, seeing like Venus and Serena Williams and, you know, Usain Bolt and things like that. So yeah, I mean, we, I never really approached them, but definitely I'd see them around and it would get really exciting.
BEN WATERWORTH: You said never really, Ziggy, come on, there must have been one there that you sort of did. I feel like there's someone you did.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: So yeah, I mean, there was one time where two of my teammates were talking to like Venus and Serena Williams, and then I kind of like went over and, you know, tried to be a part of it. But generally, like, we were quite conscious that they are busy and they're there to compete as well. So yeah, you don't really, but I definitely would admire from afar a lot. I think the Brazilian building must have been close to our building at the London, at one of the Olympics, because one of them, I saw Usain Bolt around a lot, because I think their residence is like just across the road from us. So that was fun. But it's cool going to the dining hall, because you see athletes that are like four foot five, and you're like, oh, a diver or a gymnast. And then you see athletes that are like so tall, and you're like, oh my god, basketball or volleyball. And then there's so many different body shapes, and it's just incredible that you're just admiring people the whole time. Yeah, it's pretty incredible.
BEN WATERWORTH: I swear the two things everybody only ever asks about when they talk to an Olympic athlete about their experience is free McDonald's and the amount of condoms. And I mean, that doesn't fascinate me at all. All I care about is all the other free stuff you get. I mean, who gives a shit about... Condoms are free anyway, and McDonald's, everyone eats it.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: But the Macca's line was funny. At the beginning of the Olympics, there's no one in the Macca's line. There's the coach, the odd coach who's in the Macca's line. But then at the end of the Olympics, the Macca's line is 20 metres long, five tellers going. It's so funny to see the Macca's area just get busier and busier as people stop competing.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I mean, all the other services. One thing that was the only time I've ever actually had the chance to experience anything like that. I worked at the Commonwealth Games two years ago, and I got a tour of the Athletes Village. And it was fascinating. I didn't realise things like there's there's hairdressers there, and there's a phone shop to help out the athletes who want to get SIM cards and things like that. So I mean, all that kind of stuff that's there. I mean, is that all free for you guys? Are you able to just walk in and get whatever you want at any time?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, so pretty much everything's free. I think only like the Olympic memorabilia store, you'd have to buy something. Yeah, so you just go to the dining hall, you just grab whatever you want out of the fridge. You have to like scan a little barcode thing. Yeah, it's all free, which is just crazy. And even there was like a games room at both Olympics where you could go and they have like kind of like a time zone-ish area. So I was like so excited to hear from my teammates about the Tokyo Olympics. I can only imagine what kind of stuff they have in their village. Yeah, because it's like there's a lot going on. It's pretty cool. It's a really cool place.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's, I mean, a question that's kind of probably a deep question. You don't have to go into super detail with it because obviously we know big difference, I guess, between London and Rio in terms of so many things, in terms of how the games are put on. But was there, when you got to Rio after your experience in London, just in that games village aspect, you know, was it a bit of a shock? Was there a huge difference? Kind of how could you compare those two experiences at both those villages?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Um, like, I mean, Rio was still incredible. Um, just like, just the size of the Rio village and everything was just mind blowing. Um, but you did, like, I don't know if it was because the media made you aware of it more, that you were looking out for it, but you did notice that things weren't done. Like even, you know, like the toilet seat wasn't fixed to the toilet. So you'd sit on the toilet seat and would like fall off the toilet. Or like when we got in there, like there was no shower curtain, but like the rest of the apartment was great. But like just things like that just weren't finished. And also, yeah, but like saying that was still incredible. Yeah, maybe because it was my second Olympics as well. Maybe the whole new overwhelming, like feeling wasn't there for the second games, I suppose entering the village, like I kind of knew what to expect. But definitely the London Olympic Village walking in, like it was way bigger than what I ever thought it would be. It was just really different to what I imagined. And it's really hard to describe to people who haven't been there themselves. Like think of like these new suburbs that you see, like there's one at Zetland and like mascot around the areas from here, like just buildings and buildings of brand new areas with brand new grass and footpaths and everything. It's like that but like on steroids. It's crazy.
BEN WATERWORTH: With the competition side of things, what's the expectation like going into London? Because Australia had made the semi-finals at every single Olympics. You obviously had two medals, a gold in Sydney and a bronze in Beijing. So clearly, I can imagine high expectations for you to at least make the final four. Was that the goal? Was that purely the goal? Make the final four and then get whatever? Or was gold the absolute sight that you had in London?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Definitely gold. Gold was on all of our minds in both Olympics. Yeah, so Australia, we like being in the semifinal at every major tournament in the lead up. Most tournaments, it was USA and us in the final. And yeah, consistently, we were top three for sure. But I think in the lead up to London, like USA would only beat us like 65% of the time. And then, you know, like 35 or 40% of the time, we'd be beating them. So we knew, we kind of thought, and I think a lot of the other countries kind of thought as well, it would be us and USA in the final. But it just so happened that Spain drew with USA in the rounds. And so we ended up having to play them in the semi as opposed to in the final and then lost to them in extra extra time. So yeah, it was always gold, both Olympics. You're not hoping for a bronze or a medal or to make the quarterfinals or anything. It's like, you want to win a gold medal, yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which all came down to that draw. It's so fascinating, because obviously you guys went undefeated in the group stage, you know, until you got to that semi. But unfortunately, you know, as you said, the draw kind of put USA in that semi. What is it like backing up such a disappointment of losing a semifinal, knowing that you can't, you're not guaranteed a medal. You know, you've then got to back it up and come out and play that bronze. What is that period like from losing to then having to go up against Hungary and try and fight for a bronze?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, that was a really tricky time. Like, your dream is just taken away from you, but you still have a job to do. Yeah, we were like devastated, especially because we came so close. And to finish fourth would be like the absolute worst. So luckily, I suppose for me, but a lot of the girls in the team from the Beijing Olympics had also lost in their semifinal and they went on to win the bronze. So they were experienced in that area as well. And, you know, we kind of our coaches and our teammates and everyone kind of let us dwell in it for like maybe two hours. Then we had our team meeting and then it was just done. And after that team meeting, like the next goal was on and we had to win the next game. Like we weren't coming home with nothing, you know. But yeah, it's a really weird time when you've just when you're so devastated, but you still have a bronze medal that you've got to go and win. So I think the team that bounces back after that loss, no matter on your skills, the team that bounces back and is focused for the next game first, I think are going to be the ultimate bronze winners. I think on the podium, the bronze medal winners are like the happiest out of everyone because you like come away with the medal. Whereas if you're in the final, you like guarantee the medal already, you know?
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I mean, that's what I've always thought would be an interesting thing in these sports in the Olympics, where you have the semis and a final because yeah, like as you said, you want a gold medal. Of course you want a gold medal, but you win a semifinal, no matter what, you're going to be an Olympic medallist, which would be a very special feeling in itself. But that bronze final, like as you said, you don't want to finish fourth. You don't want to walk away with nothing. So I feel like you would have extra motivation going into a bronze medal final than you would for a gold medal final.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, seriously, like going into that bronze medal game. And we actually won the bronze medal in, was it penalties? Oh my God. I like, oh, far out. We won it in penalties. But even our quarter final, we won in penalties against China as well. So you can win all three of your round games and then go into the quarterfinal. And if you lose your quarterfinal, you're playing from bottom six, like playing from six to 12, you know? So the quarterfinals really nerve wracking as well. Oh gosh, all these emotions are coming back to me.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, let's just quickly on. This is, it's, I don't know if this is-
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: No, we didn't win in penalties yet. We won in overtime.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right. It's fascinating in sports where you have these fifth and sixth playoffs and seventh and eighth playoffs. Like, at that point, do you even give a shit? Like, I mean, oh God, we're going to finish seventh, not eighth. Like who cares?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: No, you do. You do. Like we came sixth in Rio. We lost that quarterfinal in a penalty shootout, far out. And then we had to play for fifth and sixth and we lost that last game. And it's like, you do really care. It's almost like you go into the game just wanting to prove it to yourself and prove it. Like your parents have come and like your fans have come from like across the other side of the world to watch you, that it's like, you just want to prove it to everyone that it was worthwhile and that the four years like, yeah, you definitely still want to finish on a win.
BEN WATERWORTH: When you got that bronze medal around your neck though, what is that moment like?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, crazy. I've never been so proud of my life and just standing on the podium, holding my teammates hands looking into the stand and seeing my family and like two of my best friends and oh, yeah, it was incredible.
BEN WATERWORTH: And is it then the games are over, you not only can you let your hair down, you can let your hair down with the bronze medal around your neck. I mean, what are the remainder of the games like and do you just, do you never take that off around your neck?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, well, we did wear it out that night. We all had like a big dinner and then we went out and it's actually really heavy. So like, and also with the swimmers as well, we all had like a fair bit of chafe around our neck where the swimmers would sit and then the really heavy like metal. So we wore it around and it was like weighing us down. But no, you don't take it off. And it's not even weird not to take it off. Like after people win their medals, you see medals around the village, like, okay, it's not that common because it's rare to win a medal. But you see like, I remember the first time I saw someone wearing their gold medal around, like it's like it's not frowned upon at all to wear your medal around the village. So we just wore it nonstop. Like you wear it with such pride.
BEN WATERWORTH: Michael Phelps must walk around with a bloody sore neck.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, seriously, we saw some people with like multiple medals. That's incredible. This would be in the dining hall and you'd like want to go up and just look.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, it reminds me of like, we all remember in our school carnivals when you would have the ribbons, right? And for about two or three days, you'd be wearing like all your ribbons on your shirt.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, no, and I've got my medal, it's in my other room.
BEN WATERWORTH: I remember during our Survivor interview, I asked you about that. I mean, you're welcome to go and get it now if you want to. I can take a screenshot this time, because that didn't work last time when I got the screenshot. So maybe we can do that in just a second. But two things I always love to actually ask about medallists when we get on this show. The first one, I mean, is where you keep your medal. So you kind of have it on display. Is that kind of what you have it on at your house or?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: It's not on display, but it's not packed away either. Just in one of the drawers, in its little case, easily accessible, but it's not on display, I wouldn't say.
BEN WATERWORTH: The other thing is, Ziggy, and be honest with me, I want you to be completely honest with me with this question. Did you ever try and get free shit with it when you're either in London or Australia? Do you kind of sneakily go to your local restaurant and be like, hey, I'm an Olympic medallist, give me a free fucking drink or something like that?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: No, I never did. I feel like I should have used that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Definitely, you need more people. Olympians, listen to this show. Get free stuff. You're a medallist. You deserve free stuff.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Maybe I should bring it out over the weekend.
BEN WATERWORTH: You should have brought it as a survivor. They wouldn't have voted you out then. That's an idol that they wouldn't get you to play. I want to see the medal. I want to get a screenshot. Can you? I'm excited for this because I have seen it before. I know this on the Oz Network that you did get it out when I asked for it. But I think in the midst of taking a screenshot, something happened with my computer. So I ultimately never got that. And anyone listening to this show knows that I have this weird obsession with seeing the medals, because I, for one, would never take the bloody thing off. So that's how I would go. All right. Oh, here we go. OK, now hold that up for me. I'm going to do this screenshot again. This is great for the podcast. All right. And beautiful. Let's see if that worked. The thing I actually really like about the... Oh, beautiful. That worked a treat. I love the London medal. I think the London medal is one of the better looking medals we've had in the last few Olympics. The purple ribbon and kind of the shape of it and all that sort of stuff.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I think it's very nice.
BEN WATERWORTH: Did you... Once you wore that, you're sort of saying you're wearing it back and wearing in the village and all that sort of stuff. How\... Did you ever just want to not take it off?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I don't feel like, even if it's not on my neck, it has no value, you know? So, I mean, I like love it, but it doesn't have to always necessarily be on me, you know? Like, I definitely, like, like I said, a lot of my uniform is, like, stored in my parents' house or whatever, but, like, this will never just be left at their house. Like, I always want this to be around, but it doesn't have to be on me.
BEN WATERWORTH: What about your, well, again, now husband, then boyfriend at the time? I mean, obviously, he'd be very proud of you, of course, for having a medal, but is there sometimes, like, you know, if maybe you have a disagreement or something like that, that you can just whip out the medal and be like, hey, hey, shut up, I've got one of these, you don't, you know, you clean the dishes tonight.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I should, I should use it more. But no, I've never used it against him, but it does come up in conversations a lot, actually. Yeah, he brings it up more than what I do.
BEN WATERWORTH: Really?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, he doesn't have one.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which, I mean, I guess it doesn't change you as a person, but I mean, from that point on, you were forever known as an Olympic bronze medallist. I mean, what does that mean to you? If you go to one of these schools and, you know, you're doing a talk to the students or something like that, you are introduced as Ziggy, Olympic bronze medallist. I mean, you were forever changed in that point, that your name slightly has a bit of an addition to it from that point.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, no, I feel proud. And even only like two years ago, it became official that you could have OLY after your name in the title as well. So it's like an official title these days to be an Olympian, let alone an Olympic medallist. So no, I feel proud.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's awesome. I mean, you sort of a couple of years after that, you know, World Championships, of course, you got a medal there. Fortunately, it wasn't gold, but it was a different colour. It was still silver. I mean, it's still better than bronze, right? I mean, that does that rank sort of up there with coming away with Olympic medals that you've got a World Championship silver?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, the World Champ Silver was actually really cool because that was played at Barcelona World Champs in 2013, and we played Spain in the final. So the vibe, like I've never played in a game so loud, like the Spanish crowd are already such water polo fanatics. So to be playing Spain in the final at the World Champs in Spain was just crazy. Our game was at like 11 p.m. at night firstly, which was a tactic. But the stadium was kind of built on like a temporary stand, like grandstand. So like all of the crowd, like all of the Spanish crowd were like stomping on the stadium. They all had whistles. It was just crazy. Like you couldn't hear yourself think. You couldn't like communicate to your teammates in that final because the crowd, like when we were, when we wanted to communicate, you couldn't. When Spain had the ball, they were like dead silent sick. But that was just a really cool experience to play Spain in Spain in the World Champs. It was, yeah, it was cool.
BEN WATERWORTH: Because is it a sport with the crowd that, you know, it kind of, it helped or it hinders, you're talking about the communication there. But I mean, I mean, how does the crowd play a factor in a game of water polo?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, like communicating in water polo is really important. And it's already hard because like you spend half the time, like under the water when you're wrestling. So communication is already something that everyone, all teams need to work on. But then when you're trying to communicate and the crowd's being really loud, like it's actually so hard, like it's almost impossible. So in that game, we were like splashing each other, trying to get each other's attention. We really had to like think outside the square. And like we were pointing a lot more. But then if someone isn't looking at you, then you can't, like they could literally couldn't hear you. So it was really hard. Yeah, but it was like I said, it was like really cool experience.
BEN WATERWORTH: With Rio, you know, you touched on it before, unfortunately eliminated at the quarterfinals. You guys lost a game in the group stage to Italy, which kind of puts you, I guess, on a bit more of a difficult path in those quarterfinals. It seemed to be a bit of a trend, though, in Rio, that so many of our team sports kind of just had this trend of quarterfinal defeats. I remember when we were covering the games, it was like, ah, another quarterfinal loss for Australia. I mean, that obvious answer is it was disappointing. But I mean, do you take anything out of that experience from Rio that you can take as a positive at all?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, it was really, it was actually so disappointing. Like, we had such high hopes to medal again. Again, we had our eyes set on gold for the Rio Olympics. And leading into that tournament, you know, we've done a lot of work on bonding together as a team. I felt like we did everything right. And like, you know, you're brought up being told that if you train hard and you like, if you do all the right things, you'll get the result that you want. But we didn't get the result that we wanted. But I actually can't like think of anything where we made shortcuts or, like, you know, it was just unbelievable. Like, when we didn't make it, it was kind of like, this isn't supposed to happen. Like, we've done everything that we like, that we could. So initially, it was really shocking. But I think the fact that I'm so confident and like satisfied that we did, but like, I did everything that I could has kind of made it easier, I suppose. Yeah, like, there's no real positive I can take out of it, I'm not gonna lie. But it's like, it hasn't, like, devastated me, because I knew that we did everything that we could. It just kind of ripped that fairy tale idea out of my head.
BEN WATERWORTH: Did you go into Rio knowing that that would be it, that you were planning to retire afterwards, or did that decision come after the games?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I went in not knowing. Going into the London Olympics, I knew for sure that I was gonna go again, you know? I went into Rio, I didn't really have any plans afterwards. I was kind of just focused on Rio and that was it. It wasn't kind of until afterwards where you have a bit of a break after the games, where the break went really fast and all of a sudden it was time to go back to training, and I wasn't ready to go back to training yet. And then, yeah, I didn't know. I didn't know leading into Rio that it would be my last. So I kind of just decided afterwards, I suppose. Yeah, so definitely when I was playing my last game at the Olympics, I wasn't thinking, oh, this is my last game with the national team. Like no way that definitely wasn't on my mind at the time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I can imagine must make this period right now very interesting. More so obviously now that we've got a delay for the Olympics. But I mean, how when when an Olympics gets closer and you realise that, hey, this is when I would be feeling like this or kind of getting prepared and that sort of stuff. Does it do you have moments where you kind of rethink like, oh, you know, what, what if? Like, what if I had continued on for another cycle or are you completely just cool? That was a great part of my life. Now let's move on to the next chapter.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I mean, every four years is a long time and being like a female as well, like I'm pregnant right now and I always wanted to have kids relatively young, you know. So I think after an Olympics, when you're deciding if you like want to go on or not, like you definitely take things like career or family life into consideration because, yeah, four years is a long time. And then those now who those four years are turning into five years, and even that isn't a certainty, I definitely, yeah, I think it would be hard. Yeah, I definitely think that if you're going to commit to one or two extra years, you might as well go to the extra four, you know, like not many people just commit to the world champs that you're after and then retire after that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Have there been any Australian three-time Olympic water polo female players?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, so my teammate, Bronwyn Knox, she has been to three already, and she's currently in the national team again. So she's looking to go to her fourth.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, that's incredible, which, I mean, goes back to that sort of thing we're talking about, the age thing before that, I mean, any, no matter what sport, if you can go to four Olympics, that's that's an absolutely incredible achievement. Going to one Olympics is an incredible achievement, but, you know, four is, I mean, that just is an incredible for a sport like water polo.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, and then there was a few of my teammates in Rio as well, who were three time Olympians. But Bronnie is the first female in Australia to go for her fourth. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: And are you sort of still in touch? Do you kind of, you know, follow, follow the team closely still and kind of watching their form and everything heading into Tokyo?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I love watching the girls. I'm still really good friends with each of the girls in the team. Yeah, but even though I've retired from the sport and I am not currently playing even club water polo, I still love following it, so whenever they're playing major tournaments or even if they're just playing an international game that's being live streamed, I'm like on Twitter or I'm watching the live stream. Yeah, I love watching them and supporting the girls.
BEN WATERWORTH: And how is the state of the sport in Australia? Like, I mean, I guess every sport you could say, you know, more funding would be fantastic, more competitors, all that kind of stuff. But I mean, where Australia is now compared to 20 years ago when we were just about to win an Olympic gold medal in the sport, I mean, how would you consider the state of water polo right now in Australia?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I definitely know that the funding isn't where it used to be with water polo. So, I don't know, back years ago, we have a lot of residential camps where the team was together for long durations of time, mostly in Canberra, at the AIS there. These days, the training is kind of just based out of your own state. The girls have had a lot of, like, a few stints together, but definitely not, they're like not living together, which used to kind of happen more due to funding. Yeah, I don't know, it's tricky. Like, especially team sports, you get more funding when you get the results. And then if you're not getting the results and you don't get more funding, so it's hard. It's kind of like a lose-lose or a win-win kind of situation. Yeah, so I don't think it's projecting up, if anything. I think the state of water polo is, like, just levelled, maybe slightly going down in terms of funding. But hopefully if the girls and the boys get a good result, then hopefully it'll start rising again.
BEN WATERWORTH: The positive, though, Ziggy, that I will say in terms of that potential projected uprise is, of course, Australia bidding for the 2032 Games. Now, if Australia hosts the Olympics, obviously the funding kind of goes up a little bit because we want to have a good showing at the home game. So, you know, fingers crossed that Southeast Queensland bid 2032, the money will come flowing in.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Oh, yeah, I'm hoping for that. Yeah, no, I kind of feel a bit responsible for the funding going down. Like the fact that we got six in Rio meant that the next cycle weren't given the opportunity that I got, you know, like I joined the team coming off of bronze. So I feel a bit responsible for it. But yeah, I'm hoping that come the next Olympics that we, you know, all that money gets put in and we get the good results. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, we're going to get to some fun little questions. Close this off in just a second. But just before we do, I mean, since retirement, it's not like you haven't been busy, Ziggy. I mean, obviously, you know, you mentioned you're pregnant. Congratulations. You got married. You're on a little show called Survivor. So clearly you've been keeping yourself busy. Outside of those sort of big moments in your life, kind of what's post-retirement brought to you? What have you been up to outside of those things we've already mentioned?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I started running a fair bit straight away after water polo. And so I joined a netball team, which I'd never played in before. So that was good. Even just going away for weekend, long weekend trips with my girlfriends or with my husband. Just kind of having the freedom to book holidays and stuff that I'd never even considered because I'd be away and miss training. So that's been nice. But I think the nicest thing since my retirement is, I don't know, I was so hard on myself for so many years, almost a bit OCD. And it's just been nice not to put pressure on myself. Like I was constantly doing extra simsets or just, you know, if they can do it, I can do it twice, you know? Whereas now if it's raining, I'm not going to go for a run. Like I'm happy to sleep in, which is nice not to put all that pressure on myself.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which is well too. I mean, we mentioned before your age, you're only 29, Ziggy. I mean, you're still, you're very young. You've got a whole career ahead of you in kind of, you know, no matter what you want to do. Motherhood, you know, family life, all that sort of stuff too. So while I'm sure it's a bit of a interesting transition coming out of being a professional athlete, you know, an Olympian, all that kind of stuff. I mean, it's sort of, you just get back into that life and focus on that non-sporting side of things and form a completely different path from now on.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, no, it has been very, my life now is very different, but it's been really nice.
BEN WATERWORTH: And boy, girl, no matter what you have, is it something that, I don't want to say push on them, but I mean, what would you say if all of a sudden, you know, mum's a water polo player, dad's a water polo player, pull on the little helmet and get the ball up and running, would you encourage them into the pool to play water polo?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I mean, I love the sport, so if they want to play water polo, go for it. I'll definitely get them into nippers, because yeah, I loved that when I was growing up. But I mean, I'm thinking that I should like push them into tennis or lacrosse sport where they actually make money. So, yeah, so I mean, I'm going to put a tennis racket in their hand young, and hopefully they enjoy that. But definitely if, yeah, if they want to play polo, go for it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, if they're tall, basketball, you know, if they're good with their feet, football, soccer, you know. Yeah, the money making sports. I mean, look, I'm a big Formula One fan, and Formula One is, you know, a very high paid sport. People forget about that. So they've got good eye coordination and they're good behind a wheel. Formula One is an option.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, no, growing up, I like played every sport. I played the violin. I like just did, I loved art. Like I just did everything I could. So I just want to give my kids the same opportunities, and then they can just find their own parts from there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly, exactly. And if all else fails, they can go on Survivor. Now we'll close this off. Everyone loves this segment. It's kind of our My Name is segment to refresh people. This was sort of a fun little online segment that they did on their Team Canada website and lead up to Rio. They got an athlete, they asked them some fun questions. So I will go through these with you, Ziggy, and I'm looking forward to these answers. First question here for you today. Who to you is the greatest Olympian of all time?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Um, I'm gonna say Ian Thorpe.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ian Thorpe, good answer. Thorpey, yes, Australia's greatest Olympian. How do you think Ian Thorpe would go on Survivor? I mean, there is a bit of a trend, I think, with some of these Olympic athletes that we've seen recently on Champions and Contenders, Shane Gould, Stephen Bradbury. Ian Thorpe would be an interesting one out there.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, honestly, I can't really see him battling it in the rain and the cold and the hunger.
BEN WATERWORTH: The social game, I think you'd have down pat, though.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I think he'd be good at the social game, but I just can't see him out there. Like, it's so hard. Just the elements. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Is that that question that you got asked the most outside of survival? Like, what's harder, the Olympics or survivors? Is that kind of the question you always got asked?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I did get asked that a lot. And like, definitely the Olympics is harder. It's like 12 years every day, every night. Whereas survivors, like, it was really hard, but I like chose to be there. And it was almost laughable because it was like so outrageous, you know?
BEN WATERWORTH: And I'm sure that when channel 10, when you're on a channel 10 program, though, you would answer survivor, of course, so wouldn't you, Ziggy, to help them with their ratings?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: They'd always like try and like get me to say like that this was harder. I don't know, they'd always like try and change it a little bit. And I'd like say a little bit of what they wanted, but I wouldn't give them the full lot.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, no, that's understandable. They got a show to promote. What were the first Olympics that you remember watching?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, the Sydney 2000, for sure.
BEN WATERWORTH: Did you go to any events?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I mean, I live in Sydney. So we went to the mountain biking. We watched the triathlon and like the marathon and stuff, like a lot of the free events. We went to the cycling in the velodrome, which is cool. We went to swimming one day. I think that's it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. Wow, that would have been great. Did you see any of the medal wins for Australia at the swimming or do you remember that?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I think we just went to like a hate's day.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which still in itself. I mean, gosh.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I did see a cycling medal. I saw the Madison, that the guys win that. That was really cool.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which, I mean, look, yeah, any Australian doesn't matter. I mean, obviously, Sydney would have been an even, you know, greater experience of living in the city where the Olympics are. But I mean, as a 13 year old and Hobart, I remember kind of just, you know, the whole country just swept up in that. It was just an incredible time. So fingers crossed for 2032, because it would be fantastic to get the Games back in Australia. If you could be any superhero, who would you be?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Any superhero? I would be Spiderman.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ah, yes. I like it. Yeah, Spiderman, great. And Spiderman in a pool, there would, I don't know, like, I don't know how he really does in water. But you know, the webs could come in handy with the ball, you could catch it and throw it in the net. So that would work. I like it. What is your favourite ice cream flavour?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Oh, I love coffee flavoured ice cream. However, at the moment, I think my favourite is a, I think it's a salted caramel and macadamia, the connoisseur one.
BEN WATERWORTH: Champagne taste. I like it, Ziggy. That's the ice cream of Olympic medallists. Good job. If you were a baseball player, what would your walk up music be?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: A baseball player?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. So they have that sort of, when they go to the pitch and they've got their music to get them pumped up. I mean, swimmers kind of have it now. I guess we could kind of change this to, you know, swimmers are walking up, they've got their thing, right?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Maybe just the eye of the tiger or Eminem. You've only got one shot.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, yeah, bit of eight mile. I like it. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I like it. Is that, I mean, going into the pool, the water polo and that sort of stuff, can you kind of go out there with the headphones on to kind of get you pumped up? Or is it more of the team mindset kind of, you know, you want to be team, not individuals there?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, no, you walk out straight into a lineup when you sing the anthem. So no one ever has headphones on or anything like that. There was like a few random tournaments where you walk out one by one and they introduce you, and there's like cool music playing before the lineup. But yeah, generally walk out as a team straight into the national anthem. So no, there's no headphones. But like during warm up time, I used to put my headphones in and listen to some music, although it wouldn't really be pump up, it would be like, just cool, like, illy and I don't know, like acoustic music and stuff.
BEN WATERWORTH: I thought you were about to tell me something there and you kind of stopped yourself like, oh, yeah, just a bit of Justin Bieber, a bit of Nikki Webster.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I just listen to songs that I like, a bit of Jason Mraz, you know.
BEN WATERWORTH: No shame, Ziggy, no shame. This is a thing, like you listen to whatever you want, and if you've heard my music taste, you'd probably hang up on me right now. The best, I mean, this, I mean, your name is Ziggy, this is a nickname, but outside of that, the best nickname that you've ever been called?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Um, oh God, I would just get Ziggy, or the Zig, the Zig. Yeah. Lots of people call me Nicole, which is like not a nickname, because my name is Nicola, but that gets really annoying. The big ZIG, the big ZIG, I had that a few times. Yeah, I don't know, Ziggy is cool in itself. I'm happy that I've got a nickname.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think I might have told you when we did the interview on The Old Network, my cat is called Stiggy.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: So it's kind of, you know, we call him like Stigmeister, Stigasaurus Rex, you know, we kind of have things like that. So you know, if I think of some fun ones.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yes, I got Zigmeister a lot.
BEN WATERWORTH: Zigmeister?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, Zigmeister is one that I've gotten a lot, actually.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I like the big ZIG though. That's, you know, if you ever decide to pursue a rap career, that's where it's at. Absolutely. Okay. If there was a movie made about your life, who would play you?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Oh, what's her name? I really like her. She's on the notebook.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, Rachel McAdams.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Rachel McAdams. I want Rachel McAdams. I see it.
BEN WATERWORTH: I can see it.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: You know what though? It would, like, if you would ask my family, they'd say Sandra Bullock. My family dead set think I'm miscongeniality.
BEN WATERWORTH: Really?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: They would choose her for sure.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. Sandra Bullock's not a bad choice. But I have to say in terms of personality and, you know, resemblance more towards the Rachel McAdams angle. I see it.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I would choose her. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Have you seen the new Eurovision movie on Netflix with her in it, with her and Will Ferrell? It's hilarious. I highly recommend it. Even if you're not a Eurovision fan, it's very much worth it, unless we're all Eurovision fans. Come on. If you weren't an athlete, what would you be?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Honestly, I reckon I would either be like a mad hippie, like I'd be living in Byron Bay, I wouldn't wear shoes, I'd be like fully living the hippie life, or I would have been like in jail. I reckon like growing up, I seriously have like an addictive personality. So if I wasn't in sport, I'd either go like super, yeah, I reckon I would have gone like super rebellious or like super laid back and like hippie life.
BEN WATERWORTH: I appreciate the honesty. I don't think I've ever heard the answer of I would be in jail, but I like it.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: You know, I reckon I would have just got obsessed with something else and it either would have been like really bad or like...
BEN WATERWORTH: I was gonna ask you what you would be in jail for, but we can leave that for another episode. This one, this one's such a tricky question, because I feel this is one that you need to think about more than the question gives you, you know, credit for. What is your favourite song lyric? I feel like it should be, what is your favourite song? That's an easier question than song lyric.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I think I might only just because be because I had this song in my head just before, but I really do love the 8 Mile song. Like, you only got one shot, do not miss a chance to blow this opportunity comes. I'm saying a lifetime. I honestly really love that.
BEN WATERWORTH: What is it? My favourite line in that song is, what is it? Vomit on your sweater, mum's spaghetti or whatever it is.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Mum's spaghetti.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Nervous, but I'm sure she was calm and ready.
BEN WATERWORTH: Mum's spaghetti. Yeah. I love those sort of lines there.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I reckon that one.
BEN WATERWORTH: There's actually a really weird line in that song. I was a big fan of the TV show ER, and I remember that Mackay Fyfe, who's in 8 Mile, was in ER. So Eminem raps in that song about Mackay Fyfe. There's no Mackay Fyfe. This ain't no movie. There's no Mackay Fyfe. And I remember like, hey, that's a dude from ER. Random, random line in song. Yeah. What is your guilty pleasure snack? Oh, good one. Yes.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Ferrero? Ferrero's are really great.
BEN WATERWORTH: And are these cravings that you have on, you know, when pregnant? Or can you say, oh, yeah, I totally crave chocolate covered strawberries, go get a bunch of them for me.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: No, no, I like, I pretty much eat everything and I, you know, I love gherkins and I just eat everything really. So I was really expecting for some crazy combos to, you know, be craved. And I'm actually disappointed that I haven't really experienced.
BEN WATERWORTH: You've got time, right? You never know when it will strike, like, boom, there it is. What is the most recent TV show that you binge watched?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Oh, so I've been writing to like the crime scene Netflix documentaries at the moment. So I watched that Henry Epstein one, and then I watched Abducted in Plain Sight. And then I watched Ivan the Terrible. So pretty much like crime, like real life documentaries, I've been right into at the moment.
BEN WATERWORTH: So remember when you just said that you might have been in jail? Kind of making sense now. Just, you know, coming together there. You kind of answered, maybe you answered this one before when you're talking about competing in Spain for the World Championships. But your favourite place in the world to compete in, where was that?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah, I think I'm going to say Barcelona. That was pretty incredible.
BEN WATERWORTH: Fantastic. I don't know if you're much of a video gamer, but if you are, what is your favourite video game?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Crash Team Racing. When lockdown first started over the Easter weekend, we bought off Gumtree a PS2 and Crash Team Racing was one that I was like that I always played growing up. And so, yeah, I've just recently got back on that bandwagon.
BEN WATERWORTH: Great. I love that commitment to buying a PS2. Like that's not a console. What other games do you get on the PS2?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: We've got like a tennis one, which I'm pretty hopeless. We've got some snowboarding one. We've got a like soccer one. But mostly I just I just play the CTR the whole time.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's the way to go. Yes, that's.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: We didn't have to play for so long. So it was just annoying. Like you didn't want to change between games. You wanted to stay on the same game so that you could advance. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: There you go. And it's and it's not like, you know, you actually that's when you had split screen. You don't have to rely on internet now to play against your friends, right? Like you can just say against your husband and just play with the two controllers.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah. So good.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. The good the good old days. What is your biggest fear in life?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: I'm a bit scared of dying. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Solid answer.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: Yeah. That's pretty much it. I'm not like really scared of animals or snakes or anything like that. So yeah, just dying like it's actually like legit going to happen and it's scary. Yeah, I'm pretty fine with spiders. I mean, I wouldn't want a whole bunch of them on me, but like, yeah, like I would.
BEN WATERWORTH: Turn around. No arms. The final one here. What is the one thing you can't live without?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: All right. So I would have always said my toothbrush, but after Survivor and not brushing my teeth for 47 days, I can no longer say that answer. But it still is the first thing that comes to my mind.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: And yeah, I like love brushing my teeth. So I'm just going to stick with it, even though I know that I can live with that.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's fine. That's all good. I'm going to remember. I'm going to book note that in my brain, Ziggy, so that when we get you on Australian Survivor Archive in a couple of years to talk about your time on Survivor, that the first question I got to ask you is how the hell did you survive without a toothbrush when that's the one thing you can't live without?
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: You know what? Every time I saw myself on TV, I was constantly like going like this, and I was like, stop. Like, oh my God, like how did like a producer or like another like contestant not tell me? Like I was doing that the whole time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Crazy, crazy, Ziggy, it has been so much fun chatting with you about your time at the Olympics. It still baffles me back to the very beginning of this interview when I said that kind of, you know, you search your name and of course, survivor, you know, large fan base, you know, lots of things out there for you. But it does baffle me that there isn't a lot more out there and a lot of people talking about your amazing athletic career because, you know, to walk away as an Olympian and Olympic medallist, a world championship medallist, you know, great achievements and obviously something to be very proud of. But really appreciate hearing all your stories today on the show and we definitely appreciate your time on Off The Podium today.
NICOLA 'ZIGGY' COTTERILL: No, thanks so much.
BEN WATERWORTH: And a big thanks to Ziggy there. I feel weird just simply saying, Ziggy, Ziggy, like, kind of like Madonna. Ziggy Zagame is probably where you maybe best know her name now. She is, of course, a married different name and all that kind of stuff as well. But I completely butchered her last name on the show last week when I teased this, as I do often. I'm a terrible human being who needs to do a lot more research when it comes to pronouncing names correctly. I'll get it right one day, and we'll see how that goes. But, Ziggy, pleasure to have her on the show today and learn so much more about her time at the Olympics. We've got plenty of these Olympic athletes to come for you. And next week, I am beyond excited to tell you who we have on the show. Now, we've sort of alternated a little bit between Australian and Canadian athletes, kind of kept that trend going. And we're doing that as well. Next week, we'll have a Canadian athlete, a Canadian gold medallist, a Canadian figure skating gold medallist. Her name is Jamie Saleh. And I, as a 15-year-old at the Salt Lake Winter Olympics watching it, remember vividly the entire controversy around Jamie Saleh and her partner David Peltier, and of course, the outcry of anger that came from the world about them not winning a gold. Of course, the Russian pair won it. They were dubbed to have won the silver. And of course, it was later revealed that there was a judging scandal. The French were involved. Of course, they were. There was so much stuff going on. And ultimately, they were awarded a gold medal as well. And they sort of got equal gold with the Russian pair. So anyone who remembers the Salt Lake Winter Olympics will remember this. It was arguably the biggest story of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics. And I just was absolutely obsessed with Jamie Soleil and David Peltier and just kind of this whole story. I wrote off to them and I got their signed photo, which was on my wall for a very long time. So the fact you can tell right now that I'm giving all this extra detail, which you'll hear me repeat in that episode, you can tell how excited I am to be able to bring Jamie to this show and have a chat about her career and kind of Salt Lake and just everything else in between. Easily one of the biggest names we've ever had on the show. So whether you're a Canadian, Australian, no matter who you are, you are going to enjoy that interview. So please check that out next week. It is going to be a lot of fun. And we're definitely going to learn a lot from Jamie Soleil next week. In the meantime, if you've enjoyed this interview, enjoyed any of our other interviews, mash that like button on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, stay up to date with what we've got out there. And yeah, we're very, very excited to be able to bring you this content because we kind of were away for a little bit there. After the Commonwealth Games in 2018, we sort of just disappeared for a while. We came back earlier this year for one brief episode, and here we are now bringing you a bunch of interviews. So, you know, we took a bit of time off and we thought it was about time we actually brought you some content when we really should have been bringing you some Olympic content. But in terms of not bringing you daily content like we do generally during the Olympics, we're here to bring you some fun stuff and kind of during this downtime, I'm glad we've got this opportunity to bring you some great interviews along the way. Thanks again to Ziggy for her time and for you for listening at home. My name is Ben, and we'll speak to you next time on Off The Podium. Good night.
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