PyeongChang 2018 Day 10 Review
It was a golden day for Canada and a day for Australia but that doesn't change Ben & Jarrod coming back on air to recap all the exciting action that was day 10 of PyeongChang 2018! Have the guys gotten over the David Morris robbing? How amazing was the Bobsleigh? How much of a let down was the big air? Is the 500m speed skating the most exciting speed skating event? Did the Norwegian party pants make a return today? Is Elizabeth Swaney the new star of the games? And will the fan messages get published today? It's all there to be listened to so click away and get excited!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hello everybody, and welcome back to Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast, as we come to you for Day 10 of the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. One of the smallest and quietest days of the Olympics, but still doesn't mean we don't have stuff to talk about. It's another action-packed day with medals and lots of stuff to go on about. And joining me to go on about this stuff is a man who is still wearing the Norwegian pants because it makes him cool. It is Mr. Jarrod Loobeek. Jarrod, welcome back to the show.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thanks. It's great to be back. Good to keep the streak going.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I'm glad to see the streak going. Which one am I looking at this picture of you? Which one are you wearing today? The polka dot ones, the pink love heart ones? I mean, there's plenty of options there to choose from.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's the polka dots. I think they're definitely my favourite pair.
BEN WATERWORTH: As they should be. They're darn looking good pants. But for Australia, no medals. I don't think we're really expected to medal on day 10. Still reeling a little bit, of course, from David Morris the night before. But I think, are we over it? I still feel that a lot of people are talking about it. But you know, David Morris, as he's a legend, he's already kind of moved on. He tweeted out about it, not believing that everybody was kind of more angry about it than he was. But yeah, I mean, are we over this? Or have we moved on? I'm still a bit angry about this.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's still great on me. And I think it is just still a bit fresh and a bit raw. And the fact that the media has kind of picked it up, and they've gone with it, and I think it was like the leading story pretty much on the news yesterday. They just kept advertising throughout the whole day. So I think in a day or two, it will kind of die down, and we'll maybe make peace with it. I don't know if we'll let it go.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, the tweet that he put out, he said, I'm proud of my 10th at my third Olympics, and I'm genuinely moved that everyone seems more upset about the scores than me, but we must lose as graciously as we win, and I was simply not good enough for the competition. Don't have to like how it's judged, but must always expect it. Now, it's kind of like a very humble, nice tweet that you'd expect from him, but I do kind of like that last little bit at the end there where it's like, don't have to like how it's judged, but you must expect it. So it's kind of like a subtle little, yeah, this often happens where, you know, bullshit like this happens.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think his kind of quote on the night when they're interviewing him about, like, if you can't kind of deal with the judging, then you need to pick a sport that's timed. He's probably just the sentiment of really any sport that's judged by scores. It's always going to be subjective, and you do, I suppose, just have to learn to roll with the punches.
BEN WATERWORTH: And really, the majority of sports, I feel, at the Winter Olympics are judged sports. I mean, we have 15 sports at the Winter Olympics, and if you kind of quickly look at these, I mean, snowboarding for the most part is judged. There are obviously a couple that are not. Ski jumping has a judging element to it. I mean, you can almost technically say short track speed skating's got a large judging element to it, but it's obviously more about the time. Nordic combined has a judging element to it. Freestyle skiing obviously has large portions of judging to it. Figure skating clearly does. Curling doesn't. Cross country skiing doesn't. Well, I guess in the freestyle, you kind of could get away with some judged elements. And I mean, okay, maybe not the majority, at least five sports, but that's a third of the sports. And I would say that at least a third of the sports in the Summer Olympics probably aren't judged sports. And I know my father complains about judged sports, because I mean, you know, we've got to trust the judges, I know. But I mean, there is always, as you kind of mentioned, a bit of a questionability about, you know, judged sports at the end of the day.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, and even though like the fact that I suppose they take away the top and the lowest scores to prevent kind of that bias, it's still the fact that not every single competitor will have a judge from their country on the panel, which really, I mean, if you're trying to make things as fair as possible, there's always going to be a bias when it really comes to athletes from your own country. So it kind of feels like that every country competing in that event should have a judge from their country on the panel, just so that it is as fair as you could possibly make it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, because I guess you can't say not have any judges from the country because you've got such a diverse, you know, group of athletes from a variety of different countries. I mean, unless you kind of all hire, I don't know, Palestinian judges or something like that, I mean, no offence to a Palestinian. This is, I just don't see any Palestinian winter athletes out there, you know, to keep it completely neutral because obviously you have that in soccer, don't you, for the most part. In a referee match, you will not have a referee from one of the two countries playing. But again, it's easier said than done. You've only got two countries to deal with there. But yeah, there's always going to be questions, and that's just the nature of the sport, I guess. I mean, you know, it's not the timed sports and scored sports that are necessarily always clean. I mean, you know, for the most part, still have umpires and referees in these sports. So, you know, there's always going to be questions. But yeah, humble David Morris. Love the fact that he's so humble about it. I mean, he's just such a great human being. And I did have to laugh. A lot of the tweets that came through about his performance, and I actually even noticed David Morris actually even retweeted this one. I don't know if you saw it. Queensland Police tweeted out, if only we had jurisdiction over Pyeongchang because Ariel Skia was robbed. So even David Morris retweeted that one. So yeah, that was funny. And he did, if anybody didn't see the training run he did with his five twists and three flips, Channel 7 obviously gave him the footage of it because they filmed it, and he tweeted it and put it on his Facebook. So great, great work out there for him, at least in that he'll be happy that he landed that one. And I've got a feeling we'll see him again. I mean, he kind of, I liked his interview when he kind of was like joking about it, you know, like, oh, I want to be a coach, or if they have the team event, they'll have to get an extra guy. So I don't know, I've got a bit of a feeling that we might see him again in Beijing.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, fingers crossed. I think going out like that, you've got to kind of want to come back, especially like landing that jump. I know that he's probably just happy that he's landed in practice, but I think the goal was to put that down in a competition, and he hasn't done that yet, so I think there's cause to keep going.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, David. We'll no doubt try and get you on the show again at some point once you all settle down back in Australia, and no doubt we'll help you, jinx you, to not win another medal in Beijing. For our Canadian perspective, we've seen Colin or Mallory on the show again today, but it was a fantastic day for Canada and the fact that they won their sixth gold medal of the Games, and this was in the two-man bobsled. I was watching this one live, and it came down to a tie. Justin Cripps and Alexander Kopacs tied with Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis. It was very exciting, the two-man bobsled, but I don't know if you were watching this at all, Jarrod, but great for Canada to get another gold. This has put them up in the third in the medal tally. Germany also have broken their streak of a few days without a gold, but it was thoroughly entertaining.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, this was such a great finish. I just love how everybody went off, potentially even louder than when the Korean won the skeleton. This was just like a party for everybody.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I mean, it's been a while since I, you know, maybe four years since I've seen bobsled, but you always forget how exciting it is. All these sliding sports are great, you know, and I feel that Australia misses out. Going back to the relay luge, I mean, I think we need to build one of these tracks somewhere in Australia. I don't know. I mean, how's Emu Plains looking? You got some space out there to build one of these sliding tracks?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think the bobsleds in Emu Plains might have to be electric or motor powered, given the state of the elevation here.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, yes. I mean, you sort of live out that direction where, you know, close to Penrith, where what, it hit about 47 degrees about a month ago. So I'm not sure how the ice would last around that direction of the suburbs of Sydney.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, water slide during summer and probably a water slide during winter as well, given the weather out here.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, it was fantastic to watch. I should say, Australians, Lucas Mata and David Mari, they sadly did not make it quite through to the final run. They ended up finishing in 22nd position, but a gallant effort. Did you, I'm not sure if you saw the interview with them afterwards. They seemed like, they seemed very disappointed and it almost seemed like a bit of coldness between the pair there. And I'm not sure if they had something happen or something like that, but I don't know. It really did seem weird to see Australian athletes so disappointed. I mean, you know, that sounds a bit, you know, harsh in some aspects, but generally, you know, 22nd and Olympics, you know, just missing out in the final, they're usually pretty humble and like, oh, well, better luck next time. We've got the four men to go for, but they just seemed actually quite disappointed and like something had happened between the two of them.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I didn't see it, but I do remember kind of seeing the interviews before the third heat and they seemed very set on making it into that top 20 and getting the fourth run. Like that seemed to be their goal and they actually seemed fairly confident that they could pick up a couple of spots. So yeah, I suppose just disappointed that if that was their goal top 20 and they didn't achieve it, it's kind of four years time till they get to go again, at least in the two men. But like the fact that they set, like they did their best run as their last run, surely, like you can't be too disappointed. Obviously, the issues come kind of earlier in the week if you're putting down your best time in that final run.
BEN WATERWORTH: Particularly, given that Monaco were 19th, and when you obviously think of great winter Olympic nations, you think of Monaco. I shouldn't joke about that. We obviously know that Prince Albert or whoever it was used to compete for Monaco in the bobsled, so that's their peak of their winter Olympic powers. Really, as we kind of went over yesterday, and we will say that we are recording this essentially on day 11, so we will be kind of switching between our, you know, past and present tenses and everything along those lines. But we did mention on day nine that there's only going to be three medal events, and we'll quickly go over those now. We obviously just mentioned the bobsled there, the two gold, there was no silver in that one. I'm always intrigued. What happens to that silver medal, Jarrod? We went over this the other day, like, the extra medal. So, you know, does somebody, one of the judges, here you go, mate, have a silver medal?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I'm sure it will turn up on Antiques Roadshow in 50 years' time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, of course it will be two, of course, because it's the two men. Yes, I've got this, you know, Antique Olympic medal. Bronzo went to Latvia. I love seeing Latvia get a medal. I mean, Latvia is just one of these countries that you forget it's a country, but I'm glad it's a country. I'll gladly go to Latvia. Oskar Melbadis and Janis Stranger. And what a pair those two were. They loved it, and as soon as they realised they'd won a medal, they were in tears. And I do love a good emotional pairing when it comes to getting a medal. So great job there for Latvia, their first medal of the Games. And they are a bit slow, though, on the uptake. Sochi, Vancouver, they got a few multiple medals. They actually haven't won a gold in the Winter Olympics ever. So they're still without a gold, but they'll be looking to match what they got in Sochi. Two silvers and two bronzes there. And interesting, I'm just looking here, they've only won three gold medals in the history of both Summer and the Winter Games. They got a gold in London, a gold in Beijing and a gold in Sydney. So Latvia, not the strongest Olympic nation, but good to see them getting a medal. I love seeing countries like this get an Olympic medal. It's always great.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it is fun to see countries that, well, I suppose even in Australia's sense, countries that traditionally kind of struggle and don't have the greatest history in winter sports pull out a medal. It just makes it more exciting than seeing Norway and Germany winning their 10th and 11th gold medals.
BEN WATERWORTH: And for those wondering at home, their gold medals have come in cycling and gymnastics, in the summer games and in the winter games. They've all come in the sliding sports, skeleton illusion bobsleigh, where all their medals have come from. So good to see where Latvia peaks. In the men's large hills ski jumping, well, you're talking about Norway and Germany. Norway took the gold, which means our man, our moustache friend Robert Johansen, finally got a gold to add to his two bronzes. And I do believe, watching the coverage last night, that is the first time that Norway has ever taken the gold in the team event of the ski jumping. So they'll be happy with that. They beat their traditional winter rivals of Germany. They took the silver. And Poland, bronze for them. Great job for the Poles. And the 500m speed skating, talk about entertaining, my goodness. One thing I will say, slight compliment to Channel 7 in many aspects. We'll get to that soon. They actually did manage to show all of these medal events, and I do believe they were all live. So Harvard, Holmenford, Lorenzen took the gold for Norway in the Olympic record. Sadly, beat the hometown favourite of Charmin Kyu, South Korea, very entertaining that was. And Gao Tingyu from China took the bronze. I mean, this is crash and bash 500m. It's one lap of the circuit. And they obviously took away the two runs of this. It was only purely one run. But this had drama, this had excitement. I mean, I've mentioned the other day, I love the speed skating, but this is just so much fun to watch.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it is great just having the short sprint. I always get concerned about the whole false starting at the start. Like I just know that if I tried to do this sport, I would be gone because I would flinch somehow. It seems like such a tough ruling, and sometimes the starters hold them for so long. I'm like, how are you expecting them to stay still? You've made them wait for 10 seconds on the spot. But yeah, definitely exciting to watch, and the pressure of those false starts, and somebody, I think it was a Polish athlete, took a tumble, which not great to see, but for the most part, everybody kind of got out of the blocks okay and got around the track.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, you're not wrong on the false starts, because they were so anal with it. Even if you flinch, I swear, if you just had a twitch, they were like, false start. One of the German ones, basically, he moved his head slightly, and they were like, false start. I was like, wow, they're so quick to get on that. But, yeah, speaking of falling over, the great news is that Daniel Gregg didn't. He ended up 21st. But I really enjoyed watching his interview, because, I mean, it really did seem as though he had struggled kind of since Sochi to put those demons to rest. He was talking about seeing a psychologist and kind of everything else. And this is just so nice to see him in that interview, so satisfied with that. And that's kind of going back to what I was saying about the bobsledders. Generally, you'll see Australian winter athletes being satisfied. But he said he's got, I think, the 1,500 metres, perhaps it was, or the 1,000 to go. And he said that was more of his stronger event. So good to see Daniel Gregg getting through there unscathed. And he'll no doubt be happy with 2021. Do you think? I mean, he's just happy to finish, right?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think so. And the fact that he had kind of the top time for a fair amount of pairs, too. And he talked about the difficulty of going first and how I didn't quite understand how he was like the wind in the stadium picks up as the event goes on or something or other, which I don't know exactly how that works. But yeah, I think going first and having that pressure, I think he'll be happy with 21st.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, and he wasn't last. I mean, there was 36 competitors. So, you know, he nearly was at the halfway bubble basically. And just looking here, you know, he beat some skaters from some esteemed countries. I'm not even trying to take the piss out of that one. There's a Norwegian skater there, China, Italian, you know, actually countries where generally they do well in skating. So he'll be happy with that for Daniel. Also, our other Australians, we mentioned, of course, in the bobsled, we already went over that one, but we had the big air qualifying going on in the snowboarding. Jessica Rich, sadly, wasn't rich for her, although you'll no doubt be talking about this very shortly. 13th, she just missed the final. But I think the Channel 7 commentators were confused slightly a little bit about this, Jarrod.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think if you watch the final, I don't know when it is, Friday maybe, I think you'll find that the Channel 7 commentators will be thinking that Jess is in there, because there's no way that she can miss the final now in her second run. According to them, she'd been in ninth since she went and had lasted the whole, I think, it was like 30, no, not 30, 26 competitors, and apparently she stayed in ninth throughout the whole of the second run, and nobody did better than her. Yeah, just the worst commentary ever, and not only up to the mistake, and just being like, oh, we'll have to get back to you on Jess Rich, and just kind of dodging the issue. I'm like, she hasn't made it. When she was up the top of the hill, she had 13th next to her name. The person who went her before her had a higher score, and it said 12th next to their name. Like, it was just so bad, and they were so convinced like, we're not mathematicians, but we've worked it out, and she's definitely through. She's sitting in night. She's been in night for a long time. I'm like, yeah, your sheet hasn't been updated. What are you talking about?
BEN WATERWORTH: They're just seeing replays of other events. They're getting the Channel 7 feed. That's hilarious. Yeah, sadly, she does miss out. We'll let Channel 7 know. But just quickly while I'm on the page here for Canadians, you got two in the finals. Laurie Blewin and Spencer O'Brien are through. The other Canadian in the field, Brooke Voigt, did not make it through. Anna Gasser was the highest qualifier from Austria, scored a 98.0. What did you think of The Big Air? I mean, it was entertaining, but maybe not as entertaining as I maybe anticipated.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think not having watched it before, and I assumed it was just the one jump, but I wasn't entirely sure what would happen. And then, yeah, viewing it, it wasn't spectacular, really. I think, yeah, it just felt like the one jump was like a bit of a letdown, and potentially that they would be able to land harder tricks. I know the stuff that they were doing was hard, but the fact that you see kind of three of those jumps in like the slope style, or like four of those jumps in the half pipe, like it felt like just the one jump was kind of like, oh, it's over.
BEN WATERWORTH: They really do seem to stretch it sometimes with some of these events. I know it's kind of X game event, and they're obviously trying to get that into the Olympics, but it also adds to the fact that technically these snowboarders and skiers can do multiple events that can do similar to what they do in the summer games. Good news for New Zealand, though, you've got a qualifier in the final, Zoe Sedowsky-Sinott, so we look forward to seeing her no doubt get fourth or something like that in the final on Friday. Such a big gap too between the qualifying and the final. Generally, they do this the next day, but four days' wait there for the big air people. Outside of the medal events, actually, I'll just quickly, before I remember, I should say the medal table, given we've talked about the medal events. So Norway on top, 11 gold, 9 silver, 8 bronze. Obviously, with their 2 gold, they're on 28 total. Germany, 10 gold, 6 silver, 4 bronze. Canada have moved up into third. Great result to see this. 6 gold, 5 silver, 6 bronze, a total of 17. They also would be third if you did reorganize it by the total medal count. The Dutch, speed skating, obviously running out for them. 6 gold, 5 silver, 2 bronze, 13 in total. And the US, 5 gold, 3 silver, 2 bronze, 10 in total. South Korea, 9th host nation, 3 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze. And Australia still sitting down in 21st position, 2 silver and 1 bronze. Other non-medal events, as I just mentioned, and also Canada results. Obviously in the bobsled, Canada had a couple of other teams there. They also finished 7th and 10th in that bobsled, as well as winning the gold in that one. The curling as it stands right now, it seems to be interesting for our Canadian teams, the fact that the women seem to be losing and the men were winning. And now it's the complete opposite. It's actually that the men are starting to lose. They went down to the US. I was actually watching that one. And for you though, the Norwegians, didn't play yesterday, if I'm looking at this correctly. South Korea beat Italy 8-6, 10-3, Switzerland beat Sweden, again confusing for Mallory. And Great Britain, close one there, against the Danes 7-6. Now to clarify my question to Colin yesterday about do the top four make it through to the semis? Yes, they do. I looked this up. So currently the four semifinal teams will be Sweden, Switzerland, Canada and Great Britain. That is in the men's. So they will be looking to maintain that one. In the women's side of things, the Canadian women start to get their role together still. Another win for them. They defeated Japan 8-3. USA beat Denmark 7-6. South Korea are doing very well there. 7-6 over Sweden and Switzerland 11 over OAR 2. And the other games on that day also saw Japan 5-4 over Sweden, USA 10-4 over China, Olympic athletes from Russia 8-7 over Denmark and Britain, 8-7 over Switzerland. Currently the top four, excuse me, in the women's, see South Korea doing very well in curling. I don't really think of South Korea when it comes to great curling nations, but they're on top. Japan 2nd, Sweden 3rd, Britain 4th. Canada are 3-3, so they're gonna have to keep on their winning streak. They're in 6, but it's still very tight at the top there, so we'll see how that plays out. We had the first round of the ice dancing going on, and no surprise for our Canadians out there that Moir and Virtue, they went out and they're on top. And they actually, I'm looking here, set a world record on their technical score there, an 83.67 if you don't mind. Two other Canadian pairs threw as well, Caitlin Weaver and Andrew Poirre, and Piper Gills and Paul Poirre also threw as well. I was watching it closely, and I was enjoying the Israeli pair, but sadly they were dead last. 24th didn't make it. So did you catch much of the ice dancing at all?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I did catch a bit of it. I think the kind of, the letdown in the ice dancing, and really in all the figure skating events, is that now that we've had the team events, it's just routines that you've kind of seen before. And I think that there almost should be a rule that if you enter a routine into the team event, you shouldn't be allowed to repeat that in a single event. Because watching it, I was like, I've seen this before, I remember this music. Like, it's just not as exciting as the first time around.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it's a good point actually, because I mean, it's like that in the areas that you're not allowed to repeat your tricks, aren't you? So, yeah, but I mean, I didn't. Look, my naivety when it comes to the sport of figure skating didn't realise you could set world records in figure skating. Surely, that's a bit of a weird thing to have world records, because surely the judges could be there and be going like, oh, I only want to give them an 8.3, but if I give them an 8.4, they'll break a world record. So I'm like, you know, I don't know how that works. But yeah, VirtuaMoya, the flag bearers, have already gotten one gold at these games. They're currently in the box seat to take home another gold. France are in second in that, and USA are third for those wondering at home. The women's half pipe in the freestyle skiing. I've got something to talk about this a little bit after. But the qualifying for this one went through, and it was Canada again on top. They had the highest qualifier, Cassie Sharp, a 93.40, which she scored on her second run. France in second in that one. Marie Martinaud and Britta Sigourney of the US in third. Another Canadian, Rosaline Groenaud, went through to the finals. Well, sadly for New Zealand, Janina Kuzma did not make it. She was Socksteenth, oh, new bruise, Socksteenth. So she was unable to make it through. I mean, just, I didn't actually see any of this to be completely honest. I mean, there's one bit I saw, which again I'll talk to about after, but it just doesn't have the pizzazz as the snowboard halfpipe, does it?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, I think all kind of the skiing, snowboard, crossover events, the hype definitely goes to the snowboarding. It just is more interesting to watch. Yeah, I don't know, there's something about it on skis. Even if they're doing impressive tricks, they just don't look as good.
BEN WATERWORTH: I really like, I was thinking about this kind of these crossovers. It seems to be the ski sports all of a sudden, you know, having, you know, the halfpipes and the big ears. Now, I want them to do this with the snowboarding. I want to see the snowboard downhill. I know we have the parallel slalom for the snowboarding. I don't know if we still have the parallel giant slalom. I'm not sure how that works. The parallel slalom and just in terms of those sticks that they have with the snowboard and the snowboard super G. Like, I think they could do this, couldn't they?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I'm looking forward to the snowboard cross country because I think it'd be fun to see them popping up the hill with their wheel strapped into a snowboard. Quite a difficult event, I imagine.
BEN WATERWORTH: Add the biathlon in there. Snowboard biathlon. That's funny. Yeah, we'll look forward to that in Beijing. Maybe the Ben Lomond 2026 bit, we can increase that in there. Ice hockey. No surprises at all of the results. Both are actually 5-0 demolitions. Canada over the OAR and USA over Finland. So, surprise, surprise. Canada, USA will face off for the gold. I believe that is on Thursday, and the bronze will be between Finland and the Olympic athletes from Russia. Ski jumping as we went over. It was Norway, Germany, Poland. Canada did not have a team in that one. South Korea brought up the rear 12th position for the South Koreans. The women's team pursuit qualifying in the speed skating was on. And through to the semifinals, the Dutch, no surprise there, an Olympic record and a track record if you don't mind. Japan in second, Canada third, USA fourth. So the semifinals will be between the Dutch and the US will face off in one, and Canada will face off against Japan in the other. So look forward to that. We went over the long track, the 500 metres for Canada. Alex Boissette-Lacroix, he went into this quite favored as well, I believe he was the number one skater in the world or something like that. They were talking him up quite significantly, but he was only in 11th. Two other Canadians, Gilmore Junior and Laurent Dubrell, 17th and 18th for them. So no Canadian luck in that event. And that is basically all that happened. What did you watch yesterday or today, or how will we want to establish this for our listeners, Jarrod?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think I caught bits and pieces of everything, mainly kind of the end of the bobsleigh and the ski jumping, probably more so the start of it. I watched the entirety of The Big Air, which, like we've mentioned, was not as exciting as anticipated, and then watched all of that 500m speed skating and the team pursuit, which I think is just a really fun sport to watch, I suppose, similar to cycling in the sense of the split screen and not knowing really who's going to get across that line first. It's really interesting when they come into the straight and seeing how it's changed throughout the lap.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it is very similar to cycling, and again, this is a similar thing. They could do this in more sports, have the athletics team pursuit, just get rid of the relays, just 400m around a track, that could work, swimming team pursuit, luge team pursuit, we could put two ends of these, build two of them next to each other, that would work, wouldn't it?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Absolutely.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, let's get this rolling. Yeah, I pretty much watched the same one. I only caught a little bit of the big air, to be completely honest with you. I got a lot of the ice hockey, I was watching the US-Finland match, and bits and pieces of the Canada Olympic athletes of Russia. I saw the curling, I saw the USA-Canada match, didn't really see a whole lot of the figure skating, and yeah, the speed skating, the same with you, and the bobsled, of course, extremely, extremely entertaining. Now, athlete of the day, who have you got in mind?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, I'm going to kind of backtrack to a story that has come out recently about a Russian killer, Alexander Krizelnitsky, and normally I don't condone drug taking, but I just think that it's hilarious that a Russian killer has been caught doping. Yeah, and just pretty much all the comments are them interviewing other curlers and being like, why would you bother? It's not going to give you that big of an advantage. The whole thing is a bit of a farce, and I think everyone's kind of like, what do we even do about this? Because yes, he's tested positive, and we have to take another sample, but then on the other hand, it's curling. Is this really helping him that much?
BEN WATERWORTH: This is exactly it. Of all the sports that you can take drugs to help your performance. Curling. Could you take drugs in your chest? Do you get pulled up if you get caught doping in chest? He got caught with the drug meldininium, which I'm just trying to see here if it actually tells like what it does. It may be used to treat coronary artery disease. Maybe she's got a heart problem.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think it's used for like endurance, because it's the same drug that Sharapova got done doping with.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right.
JARROD LOOBEEK: At the Australian Open, but like obviously in tennis, it's like, well, yeah, that's a bit of an issue, but it's just the curling thing. Is the sweeping really taking that much out of you? And if it is, like surely it's time to hang up the boots.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it's like, oh God, I need some more, you know, performance in curling. I need to, I'm going to fall asleep halfway through. I'm just looking here, the list of athletes, there's a long list of athletes who have been caught on this, mainly Russians, no surprise. But yeah, it's crazy to think, and it's like, is it ironic? Is that the right word when it comes down to the fact that it's a Russian athlete who they're basically competing because they got, you know, these are the clean ones that, you know, were allowed into the games. This is why you have to complain under the Olympic flag, and oh no, someone's got caught on drugs. I mean, God, it's just ridiculous if it's, but again, it's curling, like why? I'm just looking at the photo of these two, I mean, you know, very happy Russians as always. But like, I don't even know what to say, but I'm glad you kind of, you know, highlighted him as an athlete of the day, because yeah, I definitely think that a curler who gets caught for doping should definitely be, you know, singled out. I'm going for one that's actually, currently the news.com.au head story, and I was reading about this this morning, and I'm fascinated by this individual. Elizabeth Swaney, a Hungarian skier in the halfpipe. Now, she's actually not Hungarian. She's actually American, but she's gone to compete for Hungary. And she's an every woman. This woman, she's 33 years old. As a 19 year old, she actually ran against Arnold Schwarzenegger to be the governor of California. She always had had a dream of qualifying for the Olympics. So she tried her hardest. She knew that she would not be good enough to make the American team. So she tried to go and represent Venezuela, where her mum's from. That couldn't happen. So then she decided to go to Hungary, where her grandparents are from, because of their very easy and lax qualification rules. And essentially, all she had to do was go to World Cups, finish in the top 30 at a few events, and Hungary would select her. And you think, okay, that still means like she's got to do a bit of work. She deliberately chose World Cup events where the top skiers would not go to because there were more prestigious events. So she went to the ones where limited athletes were going, and for the most part, there would only be 24, 25 or 28 women in these events. So even if she finishes last, she's guaranteed to be in the top 30. And the fact that I'm going with this is, if you can track down her run, it's on news.com.au right now, it is hilarious. She literally is going up, down, up, down on the half-pipe, not even attempting to get air or do any tricks. And then the commentators are basically trying to talk her right out, like, oh, fantastic form there. Oh, great spin. Oh, yes, she's landed that one perfectly. Just completely taking it. I'm watching it now. It's hilarious. She's not doing anything. But I'm giving her props because it's fantastic. We thought people like Eddie the Eagle, you know, Eric Musumbani, all these sort of athletes that, you know, get all the props and hides because, you know, they're kind of like every man and every woman trying to get into the games are gone because of all the professionalism now. But this gives us hope, Jarrod. This gives me hope that I can go and represent Hungary in a sport or something. It's amazing.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think points for ingenuity and kind of loophole in the system, I mean, this is really how Australia gets most of our athletes as well, really, isn't it? Just poaching people from overseas.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's a toss up now between her and Esther as my favourite athlete on the games. Just watching this run, I can't stop laughing at it. Like I shouldn't be. She's still doing better than ever I could on skis, but she always can say that she is an Olympic athlete. She actually only scored, I think it was like a 20 or a 30 when everybody else is getting like 90s and 100s. So good on you. I'm so happy for Elizabeth Swaney. She is my athlete of the day. I didn't really see a whole lot of the Channel 7 side of things so far. I kind of commended them for the fact that they actually, on a day with limited events, did quite well in showing a lot of live sport last night when I was watching the coverage. Did you have anything to say in Channel 7, besides your lovely little remarks on the big air before?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, besides that, I didn't really notice anything major. I think we got lucky that there was just, after that super Saturday, that we've had a mundane Monday with the four medal events, so they could cover everything.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it was actually quite good for props of it. So good on them, Channel 7. Right, so no Colin means we're going to try and find a hello, my name is. Now, he was talking a little bit about his beloved Patrick Chan. Did we do Patrick Chan already? I don't think we did. So let's do Patrick Chan here. Three time world champion, two time Olympic silver medal winning champion of Canada. Hello, my name is Patrick Chan and I am Canadian. Just to remind me to in a minute to go back over yesterday's my name is because we got a reply on our tweet. My favourite Olympic moment is winning the silver medal in the inaugural team event in Sochi. Good for you. I like this guy. My favourite sports team was the Toronto Raptors. Yay, we're finding these people with good taste. So good for them. What else do we have here? If I could be a superhero, I would be Wolverine. Cool. Draw a picture of yourself. He's drawing a circle with a smiley face in it. I mean, he's a happy man, I guess. My favourite music artists are Bon Iver, John Mayer, Coldplay, Oasis, The Beatles. If only I could eat one food for the rest of my life, it would be chips and salsa. My favourite place to compete is Vancouver, Canada. We're getting the boring ones here, aren't we? My favourite cartoon to grow up growing up was The Magic School Bus. Yes, I love that show. Do you watch The Magic School Bus?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, a quality show.
BEN WATERWORTH: Great show. Bring it back. If I had to do karaoke, I would sing Wonderwall, Oasis. If I could be an Olympian in any sport, besides my own, it would be alpine skiing. And just for those at home, Canada Olympics have put a video of Oasis, Wonderwall, in case you don't know what the song is. One thing I've always wanted to do is become a certified scuba diver. Of course, who hasn't? My favourite thing to do in summer is surf or lakesurf on the lake. You can surf on the lake. That's a thing. My favourite movie is not Gladiator, The Gladiator. I'm not familiar with The Gladiator. Was that the prequel to Russell Crowe's movie? Have you seen The Gladiator?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, I think he must have got a previous screening of the sequel.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, The Gladiator. My favourite place to visit is Victoria, BC. That's where Mallory is from. Draw a place from your hometown or province. And he's drawn like a building thing. Is he from Toronto? To me, it looks like the CN Tower there and the Rogers Arena next to him there. And that is it for Patrick Chan. Thank you, Patrick, for having another entertaining one. Not really. Alicia Rissling, we had yesterday a bobsledder. We wrote to her on Twitter basically asking what the drawing was. You know, because we didn't know what it was. She replied saying it was a pineapple. She actually replied with three pineapple emojis and said, I didn't have a yellow pen. So she used the purple one to death. So thank you, Alicia, for replying to us and clarifying that. Now, fan messages. Let's see. Did any of ours make it, Jarrod? I didn't exactly pay attention again yesterday.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I haven't seen any yet. There doesn't seem to be too many in the last 24 hours, but maybe that's just me after the excitement of getting the Segway 1 published.
BEN WATERWORTH: Maybe, maybe. They've gotten the strict admin back on again. Anton Grimas. Beers are on me at Alpine Open Weekend. Good luck, mate. Catch you on the flip side. Sure. OK, good for you. Alex Pullen to Chumpy. Good on you, Chumpy. This one is from Laura A in New South Wales. Hey, Chumpy, congrats of getting into the final for the Snowboard. My friends and I have followed you since the start of Peony Chang. Oh, they're long-term fans. Australia is so proud of you and your achievements. Cool. To Kalani Crane from Milena, New South Wales. Hi, Kalani. My name is Milena. I am 10 years old, and I wish you the best of luck. Cool. This one's a very in-depth one from Jason Conner, New South Wales, to Jessica Rich. Go, Jessica. That's it. Rhianna Black from Victoria to Sammy Kennedy Sim. Hi, I'm Rhianna Black. Congratulations on making the Olympics. Yep. A lot of people see you saying, well done for making... So much so. Charlotte from Victoria sent it in twice, and apparently the Australian Olympic Committee can't publish ours, but they can publish Charlotte's twice to Kalani Crane. Hi, well done for making the Olympics. Max from Victoria to Scotty James. Well done, Scotty, on your medal. Nice job. I want to be just like you, PS. Max. PS. Max. I don't even know what that means. Isabella of Victoria to Lydia Lassler. You are very nice. Good job. Destiny of Victoria to Andy Jung. Hope you win the short track skating race. And can we just point out that Tilly from Victoria has sent the same message. Hope you win the short track skating race to Andy Jung. Must be good friends. Obviously a big fan of Cameron Bolton here. Send Peter of Victoria to Cameron Bolton. Good work. Hope you win. That's not happening. There was a really funny one that I read here, which I don't know. We're back to where we were. We're back to following you, Lucas. I've been following you. Charlie and Victoria of Western Australia to our skeletoner Jacqueline Naracot. Did we read this one already? I don't think we did. Oh, no, we did. Congrats on Dom's Bronze. Sorry, we did that one. I love the fact that it says, Me and my Daughters. Sounds a little bit bogun. Oh, here's one I wanted to read out. Dakota of Victoria to Lydia Lassler. Now, just try and pick up in this one, Jarrod, if Dakota's a bit of a fan of Ariel's and knows the rules. Hi, it's Dakota. You had a good game. I hope you win.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, they're my favourite. I love, there's like two here, which I assume are from the same person being Brooke in Victoria, who's messaged a Katarina, our figure skater, and also Jukara Anthony, our mogul skier, and both of them, she's got the terminology down, both of them say, good luck in your next match.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I think we know how we're going to have to message these ones totally.
JARROD LOOBEEK: All right.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, actually, funnily enough, looking at my alphabetical order list here, our next one is to our lugeist, Alex Falazzo, who's already obviously competed, but I think we know where we're going with this one, don't we? Luge, optional, select athlete. Well, there's only one name, I don't know, Wendy. Just one name's enough for us. Wendy at hotmail.com. She can be from South Australia. Hi, Alex. I'm Wendy. I'm eight. Good luck. Oh, I can't even, oh, it doesn't matter. Good luck in your next match. Hope you score a goal. Love, Wendy.
JARROD LOOBEEK: PS. Wendy.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I put a few good spelling mistakes there. I put, hoep, you score a goal. So I'm sure that that will work. I just love the fact that, you know, they don't publish ours, but I don't know if they're trolling these people. Oh, well, they're ten. They don't know any different. They don't know that they score a goal in luge. So we may as well put them on there. According to my list, the next one is one of our freestylers, Anton Grimas, who I believe the bees are on that guy before. So let's go to Anton. Name Oscar. Oscar at hotmail.com. They can be from Western Australia. What does Oscar want to say to Anton?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, he's probably going to get his terminology a little bit mixed up and offer him some sort of drink. Um, high tea is on me, I think.
BEN WATERWORTH: G'day, Anton. Oscar here from the local. See ya back here. High tea on me. Cobber. I would just like read it. Go, who the fuck's Oscar? I've never been to Western Australia before in my life. He's probably gonna fly to Perth, but like, where is he? I want my high tea. Contacting the AOC. What's the IP address of this Oscar? And finally here, another one of our freestyle skiers, Claudia Gweli. Hello, Claudia. Let's see here. Name, Nikita. Nikita at hotmail.com. You can be from New South Wales. You freestyle well. I like the bit where you won the game against Chinese Taipei. My fav Olympic moment ever. Exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark. Done. Nikita, New South Wales. Good on you for sending our messages in there, everybody. And again, that is pyongchang2018.olympics.com..au, 4-fans, 4-fans messages for those playing at home. All right, day 11 is just about to begin. Well, actually, at the time of recording this, I believe we already would have had some things starting. But what is happening on day 11, I hear everybody ask. Well, we have five medal events today. The biathlon is back, the mixed relay is on, the figure skating, the ice dancing medals will be handed out. The women's half pipe and the freestyle skiing is on. The Nordic combines back, yes, individual large shield, plus the 10 kilometres. And the short track speed skating, the women's 3,000 metre relay is on today. Outside of that, we've got more curling happening, qualifying on the men's half pipe of the freestyle skiing. In the ice hockey, the seventh place game and the fifth place game. Oh, what games we're looking forward to there. Sweden will play Korea for seventh, and Switzerland will play Japan for fifth. And the qualification playoffs in the men's. So this is basically the winners of these will go through into the quarterfinals. So this is kind of where we were saying the other day to Colin about how you basically can lose every game and go through it. So Switzerland will play Germany. The winner of that will play Sweden in the quarterfinals. Finland will play South Korea. The winner of that will play Canada in the quarterfinals. Slovenia and Norway will play each other. The winner plays the Olympic athletes from Russia in the quarterfinals. And the US will play Slovakia for the second time in this tournament. And the winner of that will play the Czech Republic. And the USA, of course, beat Slovakia 2-1. So Americans, hopefully, will make it through the quarter for American fans out there. And as we said in the short track, the 3,000-metre relay, but the qualifying heats of the women's 1,000 will be on today, as will the qualifying in the men's 500 metres. Australians in action today. Deanna Lockett is in the 1,000 metres in the short track, and our man Andy Jung is in the 500 metres, so we'll be keeping an eye on those. Anything in particular you're looking forward to watching on day 11?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I'm keen to get back into the short track, speed skating, keeping my eyes peeled for an Andy Jung belly rub.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, yes, exactly. I kind of feel Andy's only going to do it in the final, because again, I think that they have a little more time there on the start line. But we'll keep an eye on Andy if you're listening. I'm sure you are. I'm sure you've been paying very close attention to us every single day during your training. To everybody listening, thank you for tuning in. You can like us on Facebook, except Off The Podium, Off The Podium Podcast. If you're on Twitter, remember to use the hashtag Off The Podium to join in the conversation with us. And by all means, we appreciate you listening, tuning in wherever you are listening to on this great planet Earth of ours. Jarrod, thank you so much for your company. I look forward to speaking to you again tomorrow.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yep, let's do it.
BEN WATERWORTH: And exactly that. Let's do it. We'll be back tomorrow.
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