Paige Jones Interview
Another great interview coming through your speakers today as we chat with American ski jumper Paige Jones about her time in the sport and her Olympic hopes for the upcoming Beijing Olympics! We find out how being born in an Olympic city in an Olympic year helped her on her journey in the sport and just what it was about ski jumping that took her preference over some other winter sports. We also find out her progression through the ranks and how much her experiences at the 2020 Youth Olympics helped her towards that progression. Added to this we find out about her time living in living in Australia and just why Star Wars influenced her career choice outside of sport. It's a fascinating chat that you'll want to jump right into!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is Off The Podium, an Olympics podcast coming to you once again for an athlete interview episode in the lead up to Beijing. We are ski jumping once more with American ski jumper, Paige Jones. A great chat today as we learn about how being born in an Olympic city in an Olympic year can actually basically breed you into becoming a future Olympian. This is a fascinating story about being born within the vicinity of Salt Lake City and sort of in the Park City area in Utah in 2002. And trying out a whole bunch of other different winter sports, selecting ski jumping and why that sport is the one that stuck. Also another summer sport that she could have maybe pursued an Olympic career in as well and how that helped her when it came to ski jumping. And just a lot of other great stuff here, experiences at the 2020 Youth Olympics, being named as the American Ski Jumper of the Year. And also a pretty significant injury that happened in 2021 and just how, at the time of recording this, that was affecting her chances of qualifying for the Beijing Olympics. So great chat here. You're gonna learn a lot from Paige, and you're gonna learn a lot from her right now, because here is our chat with US ski jumper Paige Jones.
BEN WATERWORTH: Another exciting interview to bring you today on Off The Podium as we get so close to the Beijing Olympics, we can sniff it, and we are continuing chatting to people from the great sport of ski jumping, and we are speaking to an American athlete who competed at the Youth Olympics in 2020, is on the cusp of making her senior Olympic debut in Beijing. It's a pleasure to welcome to the show Paige Jones. Paige, first of all, welcome to Off The Podium. It's a pleasure to speak with you today.
PAIGE JONES: Thank you.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm very excited to learn about your journey and everything that's happening, because we always learn about why people get involved in their respective sports, what took you on that journey. But for you, you basically, I feel, were born in the right place at the right time for your sport. You were born basically in an Olympic city, in an Olympic year, right? Salt Lake City, 2002. I mean, you can't write this, right? Everyone who was born in Salt Lake in 2002 had to become an Winter Olympian, surely?
PAIGE JONES: Right. It's like some people believe in astrology. If you're born in Utah in 2002, it just makes sense, right?
BEN WATERWORTH: It works that way. So is that kind of what led you growing up in Salt Lake? It was there, the city was obviously, no doubt, booming still after hosting an Olympic Games. And is that kind of what drew you to winter sports and ski jumping?
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, so I actually even live in Park City and not Salt Lake City. So Park City is where the ski jumps are, where the bobsled track is, and where they hosted all the, I think, ski racing and freestyle stuff. So I mean, Park City is pretty much as much of a mountain town as you can get. So I've been skiing since I was three, and there's a lot of programs within the elementary schools to get kids involved in winter sports. So I did this one called Get Out and Play, and you sign up and you do it for a certain amount of Fridays in the winter. And I did the program up at the UOP, which is the Utah Olympic Park, where you just try out all the sports they have up there. So I did ski racing, cross country, ski jumping, and freestyle. And so I did that for one year. I wasn't a super huge fan of ski racing and didn't like freestyle because I kept on falling on rails and stuff. So the next year, I signed up for ski jumping with my sister. And you get pretty addicted to the sport pretty fast. There's like little achievements enough. Like when you're younger, you move up from the five-metre jump to the 10-metre jump to the 20-metre jump, and it kind of gets you really hooked that way.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's kind of that progression kind of as you go further and further. And as I'm learning a lot through a lot of our ski jumping guests on the show, it is a sport where I think you start younger than I ever imagined you would, kind of going over those jumps and progressing. So is that sort of when you're going up the distances that as you're sort of getting older that you're going, OK, I'm so close to that 90 metres, I'm so close. And then when you get to the top of that, and that first time you're about to jump on the 90 metres, it's a mixture of, shit, this is a lot bigger than I thought it was versus, OK, I'm finally here.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I mean, definitely. I feel like we all talk about which jump up is the biggest. I think the jump from the 40 metre up to the 60 metre is the biggest.
BEN WATERWORTH: I guess.
PAIGE JONES: So moving from the 60, the 90 didn't feel like that much, but it's definitely exciting. Like you're finally on an Olympic sized hill. And let's see, I think I jumped the 90 for the first time at 12, or maybe I was barely 13 and I started jumping at nine.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, that's crazy. And then ultimately, then do you jump on the 120 at one point? And then is that sort of the progression? Or do you, because you're at the 90, it's like, okay, well, I'm at the 90, now I can already get to the 120, or is there still a moment where you've got to progress to go to the 120?
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I mean, I think I jumped that like about a year later, but it's not as much as a progression between the 90 and the 120 than I feel like other hills are.
BEN WATERWORTH: In terms of sort of other sports, I mean, you mentioned obviously those winter based sports that you gave a try, but were there other sports that you were trying sort of growing up that maybe you were looking at pursuing and eventually ski jumping was the one that kind of took over as the one you focused on?
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I actually did gymnastics for a while and ended up quitting gymnastics to do ski jumping.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow. Okay. Which is interesting, actually, because we get a lot of when we talk to our freestyle skiers and sort of our aerials. I mean, a big thing in Australia is, you know, they still all the gymnasts make them good aerial skiers. That's why I always feel sorry for the gymnast because I'm like, we never have success in gymnastics because you steal all our bloody good gymnasts and put them into freestyle skiing. But does that gymnastics background help in ski jumping? Obviously, you're not doing tricks like you do in aerials, but I guess kind of the flexibility and kind of, I guess, kind of some of the techniques I can imagine you somewhat use in gymnastics.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I feel like the flexibility, yeah, but like, I mean, I quit gymnastics at nine, so I don't think much flexibility was happening. Like, I was already flexible because I was nine. But the one thing I think gymnastics helped with was body awareness, because with ski jumping, like, tiny little movements make a big deal, and you spend half the time in the air. So like, just knowing where your body is can help a lot, and I think gymnastics did help me with that.
BEN WATERWORTH: In terms of Olympic aspirations, were you looking at these different winter sports as a potential goal to becoming an Olympian? And obviously, again, sort of being born in an Olympic city, kind of probably, you're a lot more aware of it. But I mean, was gymnastics something that you were thinking at some point, like how I could go to the Olympics in gymnastics, maybe?
PAIGE JONES: Not really. I think Olympics didn't really become like a goal of mine until probably high school, because up until then, sports for me was just for fun, not really for... Yeah, more just for fun than more like competition. So I think definitely not at nine, and probably not until I was 14, was I really looking at the Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, does that sort of come about when you mentioned that competition side of things, that when you are getting to an age where you are becoming more competitive, or maybe you're realising that, hey, I'm doing okay at this ski jumping thing, this could be something that I could achieve?
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I feel like it became a really concrete goal after competing in Olympic... Well, I didn't actually compete in Olympic trials last time. But for jumping for Olympic trials in 2018, that's kind of when I made the goal, next four years, I'm training, and I'm training for the Olympics. That was 15 at the time.
BEN WATERWORTH: I was going to say, being in that environment, though, where you're kind of around those people who are progressing, does that help you in terms of being around those athletes who are pushing towards an Olympic centre there to kind of add to that aspiration that you're just mentioning that, but also learning from these athletes who are going to be competing at the Olympics?
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I mean, definitely, like, I grew up in Park City, and I don't know how much you know about the kind of women's ski jumping, but there was a real drive for women's ski jumping to be added to the Olympics. And the women's team from the US kind of drove that. And so a lot of that team was made up from athletes from Park City that I interacted with quite a lot. So I think growing up and watching them, one fight for that to be included in the Olympics, and then to watch them attend the Olympics was really great.
BEN WATERWORTH: Because that's a unique thing about women's ski jumping at the Olympics. It's still so new, which is such a weird thing to talk about, isn't it? That coming into Beijing, it's only the third time it's ever been held at the Olympics, where we talk so much about bringing those equal playing fields for both genders at the Olympics in sport, and some has obviously done a great deal of that. But we talked about recently how some of the winter sports seem to be falling behind a little bit with that, but they're catching there. But yeah, the inclusion of women's ski jumping in Sochi in 2014 obviously was a massive boost for female ski jumping, wasn't it?
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, it definitely was. And I feel like it got us more visibility as a sport. And I feel like obviously we were included in the Olympics in 2014, but there's still a lot of inequality even within the sport outside of the Olympics as well. But I feel like getting added to the Olympics was a huge step.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I have to ask, I think we've talked a little bit about this before, but I look at the men's competition, you've got your normal and you've got your large heel. I know at the World Cups, you're competing in the normal and the large heel. We're about to see the mixed event in Beijing. Why the bloody hell are we not having a large and a normal heel for the women or a women's team event? Like, what's going on there, IOC? Like, surely if you want to spread it out equally, we should be doing this.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I mean, the large heel event actually just got added to world championships. So I was the first woman to jump a large heel in world championship events last winter. So it just got added to that. And I feel like now that it's been added to world championships, we will be able to see it in probably 2026. But like, it's definitely you can still see the inequality even within the Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: So what's that like having that sort of history making moment that you are the first ever female ski jumper to compete in a large hill event in a world championships? I mean, that's something that nobody can ever take away from you.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I mean, it was pretty great. It was also my first world championship. So like overall, I was just kind of super pumped to be there. But yeah, I remember I like barely qualified for that event. And since I was so early in the qualifying round, I ended up being assigned BIM number one for the actual competition. And my coach comes in, he's like, Paige, you're number one. You're the first one to go. I was like, yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Fantastic. Which and also like in terms of the differences between going down a 90 and 120, I mean, is it something to the speeds greater? Like the adrenaline kicks in a little bit more too. Like, is it kind of a different feeling that you would get by being on the normal?
PAIGE JONES: I don't think there's a difference in adrenaline, really. I think once you do it enough times, it just like kind of feels like, you know, but it is faster and there's a lot more force going into it. So you go into the curve of the in run, and you can feel it compress you more. And then in the air, your skis are going to hit you harder, and there's going to be more force against you in the air.
BEN WATERWORTH: I love learning so much from some of the guests we've had on recently about the real mental aspect of ski jumping. I think we had it explained that it's pretty much 80% mental, 20% physical, which to me is an incredible sort of discrepancy when it comes to that. But when it comes to your mental preparation for an event, sort of, do you have anything that you do yourself that maybe other ski jumpers don't? Or is it kind of a case, is there a go-to mental preparation method, which generally works for most ski jumpers?
PAIGE JONES: So what I've been doing is I listen to music at competitions, but only with one earbud in, because I like to hear the announcements. So that kind of helps. And then while I'm actually getting ready to jump and stuff, if I have any time where I'm just sitting there, so instead of being anxious, I recite written poetry in my head. Which, yeah, I've tried singing in my head, but it didn't take my focus off of being anxious enough, so now I recite poetry in my head.
BEN WATERWORTH: So is this poetry that you've written yourself or do you have like a favourite poet that you kind of go to?
PAIGE JONES: No, I kind of, I have one really long one memorised and so I just kind of pick up pieces from that one I need to like just focus and stuff. It's Jellyfish by Sarah K.
BEN WATERWORTH: Can you give us a taste? Am I putting you on the spot if I ask you for a bit of Jellyfish? You know, I don't, I can't say I've ever heard of it before.
PAIGE JONES: Yes. I also haven't competed in a while, so I'm going to have to remember it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay.
PAIGE JONES: It was somewhere between the first day of school and the last, somewhere between morning and nightfall, somewhere between New York City and the very tip of Long Island. There was a nine-year-old girl standing somewhere between the shoreline and the sand dunes, scanning the horizon like a hawk, like an Amazon warrior, like Charlemagne the morning before he took on his last enemy, Jellyfish. There were Jellyfish on my beach and in my ocean, and that silhouette of a soldier, that was me. I was the nine-year-old protector. I was the Amazon warrior. I was the conqueror of the venomous. I was the, no, sorry, I was the vanquisher of the venomous. I was the conqueror of the Jellyfish, and I was armed with my bucket and my legs, which were strong enough to hold against the pole of the sinking tide and wait for one of those red and purple, translucent, throbbing bubbles of death to float unexpectedly and to cause my plastic trap, and then to dart onto the shore, to toss my captives mercilessly into the sandpit I dug, never stopping for breath, except for a juice box under the shade of a green and white umbrella. That's kind of all I can remember off the podium.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, I've got to give you a clap for that. That's brilliant. That's insane. And the focus that you have just to remember that, I mean, I could see it in your face there kind of doing that, but that's got to help a big time kind of in a sport like ski jump, which I really like, you're so focused.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, because what I found is like, with ski jumping under competition environment, if you're thinking a lot about your ski jumping, you're likely to overanalyse things and mess stuff up. So if I can take my focus completely off of the competition until I'm actually putting my skis on to go, I find that helps.
BEN WATERWORTH: So have you actually then considered a career post ski jumping in slam poetry? Because I can kind of see that there might be something going on there. That should be an Olympic sport. We're actually breakdancing in Paris. Where's slam poetry? Come on.
PAIGE JONES: Wait a long enough, it might be added.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. You never know that. But it's fascinating that real mental aspect of the sport, because I sort of love watching you when you're at the top of the run. And it's kind of that you can just see it in a competitor's eyes and just everything that's going through that mind. And is that a case of you've done all that prep, you're at the top, you're about to go, you're waiting for the coach to give you the signal, that that's everything then, that it's the opposite. You kind of got to calm everything down to a point where you clear your head. I mean, sort of what's going through that mind at the top of the run while you're about to go down to jump?
PAIGE JONES: Well, at least for me, like by the time you get to competition, you're not fixing anything, you just need to do kind of what you've been practising. And so at that point, you know what you need to do, and it's mostly muscle memory. And with the added adrenaline and pressure of competition, I find that just having a clear head, you do what you need to do.
BEN WATERWORTH: Do you, sort of being born in an Olympic year, do you go back and watch some of the tapes of Salt Lake? I mean, I remember, was it Simone Amann doing so well at those Olympics? We got a lot of coverage here in Australia of him. A sport that gets no coverage in Australia, ski jumping, but I think they touted him as Swiss's Flying Harry Potter. Or it was something very weird that they kind of marked around him. But do you kind of like to go back and look at those things that this is a year you were born sort of, you know, within the vicinity of everything along those lines?
PAIGE JONES: I don't think I've actually watched any competition footage from 2002, other than Alan Alborne. He's the jumper from the US who jumped that year. I've watched his jumps. But, I mean, other than that, not really.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'll age myself here too, Paige, by saying that I remember having the video game, I think it was on PS2 back then, and ski jumping was always one of the ones that I loved. I remember I had the Nagano 98 one on Nintendo 64. I'm really showing my age. But like the ski jumping events on those games were always ones that I loved. And it's just, it's fascinating coming from a country where we've never had an Olympic skier and ski jumper. No one knows it outside of the Olympics already, the Eagle. So it's just, it's fun to kind of be exposed to it in weird ways like that.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, it's really funny. So I have a TikTok account and I've had some ski jumping videos kind of like get a lot of traction. And a lot of the times what people will comment is, I haven't thought about this sport since I played it on the Wii. So like, it's definitely like, it's either, if they don't know ski jumping right off the bat, it's either Eddie the Eagle or that one game from Wii Sports that kind of like gets it to click.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I think I need to start advertising myself as like a multiple Olympic gold medallist. Because I don't know how many golds I won on the PlayStation. I've probably won like 30 gold medals, you know? So I mean, I should put that on my Instagram bio, like 80 time Olympic gold medallist on Salt Lake 2002 on PS2.
PAIGE JONES: Yes.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just dig it out. Kind of, you know, add that to some profiles of that. You went to the Youth Olympics, as I mentioned in the intro in 2020. What was that experience like? Because I always love hearing about the Youth Olympics. I'm a fan. I think these are a great event to really give young athletes a taste of multi-sport events and also an Olympic experience. But I mean, how did you find sort of 2020?
PAIGE JONES: I mean, I think it's probably one of the coolest competitions I've been to. Like the athlete housing they had a stay in was super cool. It was like this one big circle. And I mean, like getting to meet a bunch of athletes from different sports, from different countries was super cool. Like I still keep in contact with a lot of them. I ended up making friends with a lot of curlers, which is actually pretty funny because I mean, like the actual competition part of it. At that point, I was still relatively new to international competitions. And that kind of flow of things. So it was definitely good to get over there and to be under like that sort of pressure of a competition and just kind of feel it out and see where all these kids who are my age are at. Because the unique thing about the Youth Olympics that I feel like we don't see a lot more in other ski jumping competitions is that we were all really close in age. Because like, look at the World Cup, like our oldest person I think is over 30, and the youngest is probably like 17 or 18. So like just being able to go there and compete against people who are under 18, and most of them I think were older than 15, was really cool. Just to see kind of where exactly I ranked against the people who are my age.
BEN WATERWORTH: I love that you're saying you made friends with the curlers. They're good people to make friends with. But it's also that unique environment. We talked to a lot of our summer athletes, and if you're in track and field, if you're a swimmer, you're going to a Pan Ams, a Commonwealth Games, multi-sport events constantly where you're bumping shoulders with these people and getting that taste for it. But winter sports is obviously a little bit different. You don't really have a lot of these massive multi-sport events, right? So while you're probably bumping shoulders a lot with Nordic combined athletes, kind of in that aspect, it's sort of... You're never going to see a curler kind of at the World Ski Jumping Championships, are you?
PAIGE JONES: No, it's pretty funny, actually. So I have friends who do both Luge and Thobbsled, and in the US, there's only two tracks, right? And I live in the city at one of them, and I still haven't met either one of them in person. Because every time they're in Park City, I'm in Europe, or every time I'm in Lake Placid, they're not there. And it's just so funny how we haven't managed to overlap.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's so interesting, kind of, with that. I love that.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, so that was super cool.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I love that kind of aspect with so many of the winter sports. Again, it's unique facilities. Like you mentioned, only two tracks. I think a few of our bobsledders on, they've mentioned that there's like 17 tracks in the world or something like that. It's very sort of unique. But even with ski jumping, you don't obviously go to every single suburb of every single city, and there's a ski jumping ramp. You've only got a limited amount there in the US as well. So it's kind of, again, those unique aspects of being able to do your sport, which you don't just go down to your local park on a Saturday and do.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I will say there's probably more jumps in the US or just around in general than you're thinking of. But because there's a lot of random ones that popped up over on the Midwest and East Coast. But we only have obviously two Olympic facilities and I think only three big hills.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which Casey Larson told us a little bit about that. But I learnt that Anchorage has one as well, which I mean, I've been to Anchorage. I love Anchorage. I love Alaska. So I mean, any excuse to be able to go to Alaska, right? That must be a unique experience to go up there to jump.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I went there for Junior Nationals. I can't remember what year. I remember I got second and then I caught the flu and pneumonia at the same time and felt like I was dying.
BEN WATERWORTH: So not the greatest memories of Anchorage then, maybe.
PAIGE JONES: I don't remember much after competing, actually, because I had to start getting on some pretty heavy drugs.
BEN WATERWORTH: Is that during, I mean, this probably sounds like a dumb question, but bear with me. Is that during winter or summer? Because I was there in summer when there's no such thing as darkness, whereas obviously for the winter, it's basically the opposite, right? So I mean, are you there in constant daylight or constant darkness?
PAIGE JONES: So we were there in the winter, but you can actually jump there in the summer as well.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right, of course. Yeah, yeah. Because I'm learning this. I love this aspect of the summer ski jumping thing, which is something that I didn't even realise until recently. Do you have a preference? I mean, we're going to talk about you lived in Australia, so I don't know if you're more of a fan of the sun. So let's do the summer stuff or get rid of all that snow.
PAIGE JONES: I mean, I like both for different parts. I think summer is more consistent, like conditions-wise, because in the summer, the track is made out of porcelain. It's not changing, and a lot of the times, it's like the same temperature. There's barely any wind. Where in winter you see, especially like here, you see more storms, you see more wind, and you have to think about ice conditions and stuff like that. So I like the summer more for that, but I think overall the winter is more fun. Obviously ski jumping initially is a winter sport. The air is thicker, which is nice, and the tracks are faster, and we compete a lot more in the winter.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I'm just seeing this as an addition, potentially, 2032 in Brisbane. Now, we're technically a winter Olympics because we're holding the Olympics in July. That's winter in Australia. But given that we can compete in summer, this could be an excuse to finally build a ski jumping facility in Australia. So we could bring in the summer ski jump to the summer Olympics and have it sort of on both sides of things. We could work on that over the next decade or so.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I mean, if you can find a hill and then you dig under the hill and then you build the inrun up on scaffolding, you could totally do it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Do it, yeah. There's a few hills in, I'm thinking Tambourine Mountain out somewhere in Queensland. There's a few. I'm from Tasmania. We're a very hilly state. So hey, bugger the mainland. Let's bring it here. Let's bring ski jumping to Tasmania. There you go.
PAIGE JONES: There you go.
BEN WATERWORTH: It works. It works perfectly.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, well, I mean, you guys managed to have winter athletes to every Olympics. There's no reason you can't.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. We just got to crack the glass ceiling of ski jumping in this country. We've had a Nordic combined athlete. Why not a ski jumper? We're doing double the work for Nordic combined. We're going to have to produce half of that to get a ski jumper. Come on, Australia. Exactly. Or like, again, you could always come back to Australia, change allegiances, and you could be the first Australian ski jumper.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, perfect. I mean, my aunt is a citizen there. I could probably get citizenship.
BEN WATERWORTH: That works. We've done it before. Dale Begg Smith, our greatest male mogul ski, is a Canadian. He won us a gold and a silver, so I mean, you know, it works for us that way, so we're not opposed to taking some North Americans and making them change allegiances. Why not? Works perfectly, which just in terms of your progression right now, where you're at sort of in the lead-up to Beijing now, you were just named the US. Ski Jump Athlete of the Year. Congratulations for that, but sort of mixed with that, I believe you had a bit of an injury earlier on in the year. So where are you at right now in terms of progressing to a potential spot at the Beijing Olympics?
PAIGE JONES: So I have been cleared to jump for about a month now. I track it. I've been taking, I've taken 83 jumps post surgery. And so there's definitely been challenges. I had my ankle basically surgically fixated for about four months. So there's a lot of mobility issues with that. And flexibility is very important in ski jumping, especially ankle flexibility. So working through that has been a bit rough. And then just kind of trying to figure out how much I can train, because I definitely got cleared for sport, tried to train as hard as I did before, and ended up having to take like a week off because I irritated the hardware that's still on my ankle and stuff like that. So, I mean, it's definitely hard to come out of a really good winter season, where I definitely felt like I was gonna have a shot at the Olympics and then trying to come back from underneath, taking six months off of ski jumping and stuff like that. But I'm still like, I'm not counting myself out quite yet, but I'm definitely like trying to focus more on more short-term things, like getting 100 jumps under my belt and stuff like that.
BEN WATERWORTH: So tell us what happened in terms of how you got injured, because from what I could see, it sounded like a pretty nasty crash.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, so I crashed at Junior Nationals, actually. We went just because we were home for long enough between World Championships and Bluebird Tournament, which is in Russia. So we went to Junior Nationals, which was in Colorado. And I took one jump of training. It's a bit rough. I went going from a big hill, which is what I went from in World Championships to a 60 metre, so half the size is always a bit rough. So I took one training jump. I was like, oh, and then my trial jump for the comp. No, was it my trial jump? I don't remember. I think maybe it was first competition round or trial. I can't remember. But anyways, so I went up, jumped, full gassed it. So basically, in the air, I was too aggressive. So instead of being having enough air under me, I didn't have quite enough. Fell forward after landing, I think at 73 metres, which I think is two metres short of hill size. So that's pretty far. So I fell forward, caught my knee under me. And since my ski didn't pop off, it just kind of snapped my ankle. So I had a spiral fibula fracture. I tore my deltoid ligament, and then I also disrupted my syndesmosis joint.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow. Ouch. That's crazy. I mean, and do you know sort of in flight that something is going array here, or is it until you actually land that you go, shit, this isn't gonna be good?
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I mean, I was more just like, I knew I was gonna go far, and I was kind of excited about it, it was like, oh yeah, I'm going far, which is kind of why I gassed in, was too far forward on my skis. But definitely like, as soon as I went down, like, you don't crash very often in ski jumping, but like usually it's pretty okay, you know, you're fine. But when I went down, I could tell it was weird. And then I slid out kind of in the splits, and I was just laying there, and I just couldn't get up, and I was like, something is really wrong. I thought I just sprained my ankle actually, until they took my boot off, and I could see my like fibula kind of poking out. It wasn't like through the skin or anything, but like I could see that it was wrong.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, yeah, that shouldn't be there, right? That's not looking normal on that kind of thing. So on that, you mentioned the 83 jumps. What's that first jump like when you are able to get up there? Because I can imagine back to the mental aspect, there's got to be a part of you that's going, okay, the last time I did this didn't go too well. How is this going to go this time around?
PAIGE JONES: I've actually been pretty lucky so far with like the mental part of coming back from injury. I'm not like scared, which is good. Nice. Like I've also, I mean, I've been taking pretty low speed and just kind of putting a lot of trust in my coaches that they'll make sure I'm not putting myself in a situation where I'm going really far. I hurt myself, but that first jump was really weird. My balance point is completely different now because of just ankle mobility reasons. So that was weird. And then my coach wanted me to jump without jets in my boots. So we have these things called jets and they're basically like wedges that we put in the back of our boots. And so they wanted me to jump without those. And I've been using jets for like probably two and a half years. So I think that was honestly the weirdest part of it. But it was super great just kind of to get back on the hill. And I was definitely more excited than scared at that point.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I can imagine during that recovery, is there sort of a drive mentally, sort of through all the physical pain and sort of the therapy that you're going with that. But that goal, that Olympic goal, is that kind of what pushes you through there? That even if it's maybe not gonna be for Beijing, that it still can be something and really push you towards getting recovered and back up there on the hill.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I think definitely like feeling pressed for time definitely pushed me during more of the later parts of physical therapy, just to kind of push as hard as I could because I wanted to get back on the hill. My goal was to get back on the hill by August 30th, and I got back on the hill September 3rd. So it's definitely part of the drive is that Olympic deadline? I don't know if that's right.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's a deadline? I mean, you know, it happens that way. So how does that work then? So I believe there's a lot of quota-based sort of aspects there. So in order for the US to qualify a jumper or two, there've got to be certain qualification standards met. And then does that then work on US Nautical choose you basically on how you're performing or kind of like, how does that whole selection process work?
PAIGE JONES: So we'll hold Olympic trials on Christmas day and whoever wins Olympic trials is guaranteed a spot if we have a spot. And then after that, I think it's coach's discretion.
BEN WATERWORTH: And then does that then also work for the mixed team that say, for example, Team US qualifies two and you've got two men, there's a quota available or is that a different aspect how the team one works?
PAIGE JONES: I'm gonna be completely honest. I don't know how the mixed team is working for Beijing.
BEN WATERWORTH: Doesn't, yeah.
PAIGE JONES: For like, for how it worked with world champs, the mixed team isn't decided before you go. It's once you're there based on training. But I mean, I've never been to an Olympics. I don't know if that's how it works, but yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Do you enjoy the sort of the team aspect of it too? Because like, I mean, in such a sport where it's kind of very individual, like to have a team element to it must be sort of a new exciting thing that you can kind of experience.
PAIGE JONES: I mean, I personally, I like, I love my team. I think there's like eight of us. We're all really close. I think even though we compete against each other, most of the time we get along, we're kind of rooting for each other. Like I'll get done with my jump. Maybe I had not such a good jump, but I'll turn around once my teammates going and watch them to make sure they have a good jump. So I really feel like our team dynamics are great. And I love like, you know, I live with my team for a good portion of the year, and I travel with them and I see them every day, so.
BEN WATERWORTH: And is it a case of you get them into poetry as well, or is that like, no, that's my little thing. You can't have my poetry. That's my mental preparation.
PAIGE JONES: I mean, I don't think anyone on my team knows about that. So like surprise if they're listening to this.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's why she's so good. That's why she's the ski jumper of the year.
PAIGE JONES: But no, I mean, like, I feel like a lot of us, especially with mental stuff, if we do talk to our teammates about it, a lot of us have to, like, we'll say, like, this is what I've tried or this is what I do. But we also have a team, sports psychologist. So like, I think a lot of the same ideas get cycled around.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I can imagine, though, that, like, again, in that mental aspect of the sport, having a sports psychologist is very important in the sport of ski jumping. And I can imagine that they help you a lot.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, our psychologist is named Nicole, and I'm always just like, she's a godsend. She deals with so much of our crap, and she's so great.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, which I'd love to find out sort of how you, like, because obviously you go into psychology for read, but then to kind of specialise in sports psychology, it's kind of that unique aspect of blending two things that maybe sound like they don't work, but clearly they work so well.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely bigger in some sports than others, but like, I cannot imagine like not doing mental training. I feel like it's so important, like even for other sports, like think about like if you're running long distance, there's got to be some mental training in that, right? Like just like pacing yourself and pushing yourself, but yeah, I feel like mental training should be something that everyone does.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'd love to learn if there is a sport that doesn't require mental. And I don't want to single out sport. I can think of a few, but there's got to be mental aspects to it. But I mean, like boxing, like you're punching the shit out of someone, but there's technical sides of it. There's, you know, stuff like this. There's definitely a mental aspect to boxing, but I'm just trying to think what would be a sport that you don't need to get mental preparation. I can't think of one.
PAIGE JONES: It would just have to be like a blind fury sport, but I can't think of what that would be.
BEN WATERWORTH: Even like the 100-metre sprint, which is over and done with in like 10 seconds, like you've got to be mentally prepared on the blocks to get off there in a way to go, right? Like all that kind of stuff. Like, there's a trivia question that we can go forward. What's the one sport that you're just like, none of that mental shit, just go out of it. Go training that way. We wrap up with a set of sort of get to know yourself questions, Paige. I'll get you just shortly. Just a couple of things I want to touch on with you. I read a get to know you questionnaire you did on the US. Nordic website in the lead up to last year's Youth Olympics. And I loved when they asked you, an animal you most relate to, you say probably a squirrel. Now, is this a flying squirrel because of how similar sort of it is, or is there another reason why it's, and it's not just a squirrel, you're probably a squirrel.
PAIGE JONES: I mean, I don't really like the like, what's your spirit animal question. So that's why I put probably, but I put a squirrel kind of just because I'm a little bit like spacey kind of all over the place, but also kind of high energy. And that's what I imagine like, if a squirrel had a personality, that's kind of what it would be like.
BEN WATERWORTH: That works, which I have to ask you, you lived in Australia. Now, I can imagine that when you see a kangaroo for the first time, you get excited. I know when I lived in Canada, I see a squirrel and I'm fascinated. Holy crap, it's a squirrel. Like, oh my God, look, I see a deer. Like, oh my God, it's a deer. And people just look at me going, Ben, it's a squirrel. It's a deer. Who gives a shit? Where it's like, they're ass.
PAIGE JONES: That's a kangaroo. Did you see a moose while you were there?
BEN WATERWORTH: I saw a moose. I actually saw a moose in Alaska. That's where I saw my only wild moose. I didn't see one in Canada. But I have, and we were on a- How was that? It was it, because we were on a city tour and we were somewhere, and all of a sudden the bus driver's just like, oh, and look, there's a moose. And you're like, fuck, that's big. I like, you know, you can get a kangaroo with your car. I'd be dead if I hit one of those mooses in my car, I think, like, Jesus.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I think I've, so I have a family that lives in Australia. My aunt used to live in Manly, now she lives in like a small city outside of Perth. But so I've been visiting her every once in a while since I was, I think I went for the first time at like five. So like, I can't remember the first time I saw a kangaroo, but like every time I see like Australian animals, I love them.
BEN WATERWORTH: My favourite is the echidnas. I love echidnas. Actually, wait, wait, wait.
PAIGE JONES: Let me go grab my echidna.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, she's got props. I like this. This is always exciting right now when people can sort of bring this in. I'm excited to see.
PAIGE JONES: This is Edna, the echidna.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, nice. Perfect.
PAIGE JONES: But yeah, I love echidnas. I think they're super cute.
BEN WATERWORTH: Did you see one in the wild?
PAIGE JONES: I actually got to touch a koala while I was there, and I thought they were gonna be fluffy, and they are not.
BEN WATERWORTH: They're not, no. They're like carpet. And you didn't call it a koala bear. You've learnt. I can tell you've lived in Australia, so that's sort of good. So Abby, what sort of, some of your best experiences, I mean, sort of living in Maling, beautiful beach right there. I mean, do you get on board the Sea Eagles? Do you go to some rugby games and kind of cheer them on?
PAIGE JONES: I did go to quite a few footy games. I didn't go to any like actual rugby games. I think the coolest thing is on Wednesdays, we would go and do like a sport just like for school. So I signed up for surfing. And so every Wednesday, I went surfing for school. And that was great. And I actually ended up getting super into it. I probably went like every day for at least an hour or two while I was there. It's fun. Like, it's not like high stress or anything. You just kind of like sit out there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yep.
PAIGE JONES: It's great. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which it's, I mean, sort of you going back when you were talking about sort of in schools, we had skiing programs and things like that, like completely foreign to Australians. We, I mean, if you live in Mount Buller or Threadboe maybe, but for Australians, yeah, if you live near a beach, there's probably gonna be a surfing program where I can imagine, you know, Park City sort of, you know, nowhere really near an ocean. You don't exactly have that in part of your schooling system.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Kind of different. Which did you learn now, you and I talked a little bit off air about how much we like to say certain words in Australia, but did you learn any Australian vocabulary that you may be used to this day?
PAIGE JONES: I don't think I did. After I came back from Australia, I did stay rubbish a lot instead of trash. Let's see. I don't think I like, I use any, but I know like Bogan and-
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, you need to know that one.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, let's Servo, Mackers instead of McDonald's. Those are the ones that I could think of off the top of my head. I have to think it's so fun how you guys shorten everything. I actually, I got into an argument with this one person about calling a King Roo a King Roo, because while I was there, they did for call it a Kinga or a Roo. And I'm like, just say the full word. Doesn't have to be shorter.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which it's funny, I worked retail many years ago, as we all do. And I remember serving this customer and he was probably the most Australian person I've ever met. And I sort of like, oh, you know, like, what are you up to on the weekend? And he's like, I'm going Roo shooting. And just like, okay, good on you. Well done. So I was like, yep, that's pretty Australian to hear that sentence said to you. So.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah. I also think it's funny Australia is the only country that like hunts and eats their national animal.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, we're the only country in the world that our animals on our coat of arms, we eat both the emu and the kangaroo. Did you try kangaroo and emu when you were here?
PAIGE JONES: I did. I also tried, it was either crocodile or alligator.
BEN WATERWORTH: Probably would have been crocodile. Yeah, I would say, yeah. And were you a fan? Did you all of a sudden go, oh, I like eating these random animals.
PAIGE JONES: And I didn't, I couldn't really tell the difference between most of them. So I'm like.
BEN WATERWORTH: Sure.
PAIGE JONES: I'm a fan.
BEN WATERWORTH: Kind of works that way.
PAIGE JONES: I was not a fan of Vegemite though.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, look, as an Australian, I'm not a fan of Vegemite. So, you know, I'll get deported for that. One thing too, studying biomedical engineering. And I love reading in an interview that you kind of base this decision on watching Star Wars. Is this true?
PAIGE JONES: Kind of, yeah. I mean, I've really fascinated with the idea of neuroprosthetics, and the first time I saw that was in Star Wars, where Luke gets a fully functional hand, and it looks like a hand, and I thought that was super cool. So yeah, I think that's kind of where my fascination with prosthetics started, and then I learned there's a lot more to biomedical engineering than prosthetics, and I thought it was a really cool path to pursue.
BEN WATERWORTH: So how close are we to having full on Luke Skywalker biomechanical arms like that? Are we nearly there?
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I mean, you should look this up. So the university I attend, the University of Utah, actually had a project called the Luke arm.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, wow.
PAIGE JONES: And so like, I mean, it's not perfect, but we're close.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, okay, I like this.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Far out, geez. So that's super cool. I will look it up. I definitely will look that up. Fantastic, there you go. Do you have a favourite Star Wars film?
PAIGE JONES: I think the OG one, I think, is my favourite, just kind of for nostalgia reasons.
BEN WATERWORTH: Absolutely. Good answer. Any chance to talk about Star Wars on any of these shows, it kind of helps that way. Now, as I said, we like to close out with series of fun, get to know you, solve questions. These are based on a Team Canada questionnaire that they gave their athletes ahead of Pyeongchang and Rio. I mean, to be honest with you, they're similar to kind of some of these ones that you answered, but I'm not going to ask you about a spirit animal. They're kind of like, you know, that's not one of the questions I think they often have the drawing element, so they often ask you to draw an animal, but not on this one. I'm reading off today, a hockey player, Laura Fortino. So, no drawing elements for you today, Paige. Your favourite ever Olympic moment is...
PAIGE JONES: I mean, I think the funniest one is when that Australian speed skater won because everyone in front of him crashed.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, Stephen Bradbury, legend. You know, basically, year you were born, in your own state, I always love telling the story about when I went to Salt Lake City, I went to a jazz game, it was at Vivint Smart Homes or whatever it's called, and I was more excited to be in the building that he won a gold medal in, rather than watching the jazz play. So that's my level of geekdom, that I'm in this history-making building for my country, and people are going like, what are you excited about? This is go jazz. And I'm like, yeah, sure, go jazz, but Bradbury, come on. Exciting moments like that. And actually it makes me happy that I think you might be the first non-Australian to answer that. So well done. You are winning these questions. He actually, in all seriousness, he has an amazing story. If I ever could recommend an autobiography to read of an athlete, he's very, very inspirational. Because obviously he's very well known for winning a gold medal by everyone falling over, but he actually had a pretty incredible career and was a very good speed skater and sort of it all literally fell into place come Salt Lake. So it's a great story. As a kid growing up, who was your favourite sports team?
PAIGE JONES: I mean, I'm going to be honest, I didn't really watch sports as a kid, I don't even now. I don't even watch my own sport for the most part, so I don't really think I can answer that.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's, I actually like hearing that sometimes, because it's kind of like when you do something, people automatically assume, oh yeah, but like sometimes you're just like, look, I enjoy doing it, but I wouldn't watch it.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, like I have a teammate who watches, like basically every single competition knows all the like results and stats, and it's actually kind of a running joke on my team, but I just kind of show up places, and I don't know who's there, what's going on. Like I know nothing about men's ski jumping, and the only reason I know stuff about like the women's World Cup circuit is because I was on it last winter.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well that works, right?
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, it's kind of a running joke that I do this sport, and I know like basically nothing about it.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's it, I like it, I like the honesty. If you could be any superhero, who would you be?
PAIGE JONES: Ooh, that's a good question. No, I've been watching a lot of Marvel recently, so I think I might have to go with Scarlet Witch.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ooh, yes, hey, I like that actually. That's one of those sort of ones that people don't, you know, it's always Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, sort of those sort of things, which they're fine, but no, I like kind of, I'd go Ant-Man just because Ant-Man is awesome and it's Paul Rudd. So, you know, yeah, I knew like his character a lot. Yeah, which again, I remember hearing that, let's cast Paul Rudd as a superhero. Like really, that's not going to work. But then it's like, probably he's my favourite in the MCU. I'm not going to deny it.
PAIGE JONES: Oh, he's great.
BEN WATERWORTH: Your favourite music artists are?
PAIGE JONES: Listen to The Killers a lot.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, good choice.
PAIGE JONES: So I might have to go with them, actually.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good answer. I like that, actually. And I guess, I mean, Park City, Utah, Nevada, Vegas, within the vicinity. So kind of, you know, you're near sort of where they're from, so.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, the lead singer actually lives in Park City.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, really? I did not know that.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, and the album they just released is about growing up in Utah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Great, wow.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, so I think their music is really good.
BEN WATERWORTH: The things I learned. Do they work with like, you know, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to give a real sort of, you know, Utah flavour to it?
PAIGE JONES: Um, no, I think it's actually more of a critique on the Mormon culture in Utah, so probably not.
BEN WATERWORTH: We won't touch that one. That's a different episode. If you could eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? Oh, yes. Best answer. Come on, get onward. Yes, that should be the answer to everything. Cheese just is the best thing. Like, come on. Did you enjoy Australian cheese? I mean, we've got some pretty good cheese here.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah. I did not enjoy your meat flavoured chips though. That's something I could do without. I could go to the store wanting to buy some cheese puffs or something, and it's just like chicken flavoured biscuits. And I'm like, what is this?
BEN WATERWORTH: So, did you try burger rings at all?
PAIGE JONES: It's not a fan.
BEN WATERWORTH: Geez. See, I'm not a big chip person, but I don't mind the burger rings. But I love how you can judge a lot on a country on their chip flavour, right? Like it's kind of a thing that people don't talk about that. Like if you're in Canada, you're going to get your ketchup chips, right? You know, like it's kind of a thing. Like, is there a distinctly American chip that you can think of that only you can get in the States?
PAIGE JONES: Let me go with chips.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yep, just chips.
PAIGE JONES: I think chips in general are just kind of American flavour.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I mean, on that, did you get confused in Australia that we call fries chips? So it was kind of like hot chips and potato chips, right?
PAIGE JONES: I was like, well, what do you call fry? I was like, so if you call fries chips, then what do you call chips? And they're like, chips. I'm like, how do you know if you want fries or chips? And they're like, call it a hot chip. But I'm like, if you're gonna call it a hot chip, why not just call it a fry?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yep, I always blame the British, right? Like, you know, because it's their fault, you know?
PAIGE JONES: You can blame a lot of things on the British.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, God, they sent us their criminals, you know? So I mean, come on, if you want to blame our stupidity in Australia, well, you should have sent your better Brits out to Australia. Maybe we'd be a better country, Britain. Jesus, get on board with it. Your favourite place to compete is?
PAIGE JONES: I'm going to have to go with Oberstdorf. That's where World Championships was, and I really thought it was cool. I mean, even with everything being locked down with COVID, I think like the place itself has really cool atmosphere. The hills are really cool. And I think I wish I could go back there again to compete and stuff, so.
BEN WATERWORTH: Great, great, I like it. Have you had a chance to look at the Beijing facility and kind of, or even do any competitions there at all?
PAIGE JONES: So they haven't held any competitions on their hills there. But I think the test event is in December, but I did look them up and they look kind of wild.
BEN WATERWORTH: Great.
PAIGE JONES: I got this like big oval ring around the top of them. Which, I mean, I feel like when they make new Olympic venues, they always try to pull some like architecture feet because it's like, you know, the ski jumps is kind of where you do that. But a circle is never one that I've seen, so.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, we'll keep an eye out for it. There you go. What is one thing that you have always wanted to do?
PAIGE JONES: Skydive.
BEN WATERWORTH: Skydive, okay.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: I saw on your Instagram, you'd scuba dive with sharks. So that must have been pretty cool.
PAIGE JONES: I'm actually, sharks are my favourite animal. I'm obsessed with them. So that was really cool, being able to do that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jealous. I'm Australian and I'm not even, you know, I'm gonna probably swim at a beach and there's been a shark near me, but you know, never willingly-
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, probably.
BEN WATERWORTH: Gone and done that. Now, I mean, you might have already answered this before talking about surfing, but there could be a different answer. What's your favourite thing to do in the summer?
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I'm probably gonna have to go with surfing. I haven't been able to do that in a while, it feels, cause last summer we were locked down on COVID, and this summer my leg was broken. But generally, we get over to California once a summer, and I can surf.
BEN WATERWORTH: I was gonna say, is it a trip to California? Do you go further south, like Mexico? Kind of like, or even, you know, the bugger, let's go to Hawaii, why not?
PAIGE JONES: No, usually California.
BEN WATERWORTH: Works, it's close enough. You can drive there. I can't drive to California, so you've got to leg up there on that. Your favourite movie is?
PAIGE JONES: The Princess Bride.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ah, nice, good movie. Yes, I've said that a long time, actually.
PAIGE JONES: That's a good one. Or actually, I have two that are tied. I also really like Howl's Moving Castle.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yep, yep. Which, it's that genre, right?
PAIGE JONES: Those two might be tied.
BEN WATERWORTH: There's that whole kind of anime sort of element, like if you like that, you're gonna like a sort of lot of those type of movies, aren't you?
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I mean, it's a Studio Ghibli film, and I feel like all their films are kind of the same vibe, so I like most of their stuff.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's kind of like if you like Tim Burton, you're gonna like any film that Tim Burton puts out, right? Like it's kind of that sort of same element of kind of films on that way. Now, this question on the Team Canada questionnaire is my favourite place to visit in Canada, so let's change that up. Your favourite place to visit in the US is...
PAIGE JONES: I'm gonna have to go with Ventura, California.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, nice part. There you go. I like it. I've seen this summer sort of element kind of creep into things, and too much snow.
PAIGE JONES: Sometimes go warm up my bones, you know?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yep, gotta do that around that aspect of it. Your favourite cartoon to watch growing up was...
PAIGE JONES: Star Wars. I watched a lot of My Little Pony. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which has a really weird, a fan base that isn't necessarily the fan base, I think. Like, I know some adults who are older than me, who are really into it, and like both genders, not judging, but it's just, it's weird that My Little Pony has a very quirky fandom, which is odd.
PAIGE JONES: I haven't run into any adults who are into that, but I think that's kind of funny.
BEN WATERWORTH: They exist. They definitely exist. Yeah. Look it up. It's a fun community. If you had to do karaoke, what song would you sing?
PAIGE JONES: I think anything by Taylor Swift.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay.
PAIGE JONES: Maybe I knew you were trouble.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. I like that. It's funny you mentioned the killers. My go-to is often Mr. Brightside. So that's kind of always a good karaoke jam.
PAIGE JONES: Everyone does it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. Go to that. Or I believe in a thing called love by the darkness, because I can just go really high pitch and pretend that I can, I can't really go that high. What am I talking about? Final question for you today, Paige. If you could choose an Olympic sport other than your own to compete in, what would it be?
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I think about this a lot. Because like, I joke sometimes, I'm like, I've done my ski jumping, I'm switching, but. Can it be winter or summer?
BEN WATERWORTH: It can be any winter, summer, yep.
PAIGE JONES: I think I would have to go back to gymnastics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, I like it, that works. That's, were you artistic, rhythmic, trampoline?
PAIGE JONES: Normal gymnastics?
BEN WATERWORTH: Artistic, yes. You're not throwing a ribbon or jumping on a trampoline, right?
PAIGE JONES: I don't remember which one is which.
BEN WATERWORTH: The bee, the pommel horse.
PAIGE JONES: Every time I watch them, I'm like convinced I can do that stuff. I'm like, yeah, I could totally do that. And then I literally can't even do a back handspring.
BEN WATERWORTH: I was gonna say you've got time to switch, but.
PAIGE JONES: Yeah, I think I would want to try that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah.
PAIGE JONES: Not for gymnastics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I was gonna say, gymnastics, it's kind of one of those weird sports, isn't it, that you're about to turn 20, so you're almost a veteran if you were kind of 20 in gymnastics, which is very unique. Paige, before we let you go.
PAIGE JONES: Before to switch, like right now, I could definitely pick up curling.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, yes, you've got the friends, so you know the sport. I'm sure they can hook you up with some equipment.
PAIGE JONES: Exactly, I got the connections. I think, I mean, the men's team last year, I think was all like 30 plus, so we're good.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, yeah, exactly. I always like to point out that in Tokyo, Australia had a 62-year-old equestrian rider who won two medals. So, you know, I'm 34, I've still got hope that I can make an Olympics one day.
PAIGE JONES: Never too late.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly, exactly. Before we let you go, Paige, if people want to stay up to date with you, sort of follow your journey towards Beijing and beyond social media, and your TikTok too, not just Instagram and that. I want to learn TikTok.
PAIGE JONES: Yes. I think my handles for TikTok and Instagram are the same. I'm going to actually double check that. So that's P-E, I know. Well, I have kind of a generic name, so I had to kind of branch out, but P-E-S-H underscore D-E-L-E-S-H. And then my TikTok one is the same, but with a dot instead of an underscore.
BEN WATERWORTH: All right. Remember that, TikTok uses dot, not underscore. That's the important thing. Paige, it's been a lot of fun learning about you, your career, the sport, everything else. We're looking forward to seeing how things play out for you and crossing those fingers and toes for Beijing. But if it doesn't happen, Milan, anything moving forward. And bugger, at Brisbane 2032 as a gymnast, there you go. You got 11 years to get back into form for that. How does that sound?
PAIGE JONES: Sounds great.
BEN WATERWORTH: We've got a massive thanks to Paige for her time. Great chat. As I should often say, these, and I forget to add, if you want to watch the video of that interview, you can check it out on our YouTube channel, search Off The Podium there as well, to see Paige talk during all those answers. And I should always mention, kind of, I'm sure people obviously know by now, frequently listen to the show, that we obviously record these fairly advanced in time compared to when you're listening to this. So again, to put it into context, we actually recorded that on the 100 days to go for Beijing. So that's sort of how far back we recorded that. So in terms of the prospects and everything along those lines, obviously a lot will change in those 100 days. So I just thought we would put that into context in terms of when we recorded it versus when we're airing this, obviously right now. But fun to learn about everything to do with Paige. And that poetry, that's incredible. One of my favourite things I've ever heard on this show, and the fact that she was so easily able to get into that zone again and read it out off memory. So fantastic there. And I'm now just gonna watch her on top of a ski jump hill, thinking that she's just reciting that deep in thought. So fantastic to hear that from Paige. We've got some great interviews coming your way in the lead up to Beijing, as we keep saying daily episodes from now until the closing ceremony of Beijing. It's a lot of fun, a lot of exciting things happening here on Off The Podium. And you'll never miss an episode if you subscribe to us. Go to your podcasting platform of choice, search Off The Podium, hit subscribe, and leave us some feedback while you're there. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. Ratus, I'm gonna say five out of five today. Great episode. And while you're online, jump onto social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, search Off The Podium, follow us on there. Shoot us a message, let us know what you think of the show, and give us your thoughts ahead of Beijing. How are you feeling right now, getting so close to the games? We'd love to hear your mood. It's an exciting time to be an Olympic fan, so get on board the hype train. Big thanks to Paige, as always, and as always, to a special shout out to Jason Momoa. My name is Ben, this has been Off The Podium, and as always, go left.
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