PyeongChang 2018 Day 5 Review
It's a bronzed day here on Off The Podium as we get excited for another medal for Australia and a day we can officially say we beat Canada in! So disappointed are Canada with their lack of medals that they apparently didn't want to be represented on this episode which means more love for Australia! It also means more hate for Channel 7 and how bad their coverage is, more love for doubles luge, more love for Nordic combined and more love for what could quite possibly be 'Chumpy day' when we next do this episode. So get listening and get on top of your best friend and sled your way through a bronzed episode!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Off The Podium as we come to you for a loved up Day 5 of Pyeongchang 2018. It's a Bronze Day for Australia. It's Zali Steggall Day in recognition of the great Zali Steggall 20 years ago, who won our Solar Tree Medal at the Nagano 1998 Winter Olympics. We've done it again, except we've also already won a Silver previously to this, but we've got a Bronze again. Scotty James has lived up to all the expectations labelled upon him, and not won the Golden, actually gotten a Bronze. He's done one better than the Campbell Sisters, so therefore, he's better than the Campbell Sisters. But our show is going to be better than the Campbell Sisters, because it's not about the Campbell Sisters, it's about Scotty James and the Winter Olympics. My name is Ben, and it's exciting to be back, and it's a smaller show today. Obviously, the Canadians are so distraught with the fact that they could not meddle in the snowboarding half-pipe, they've decided to boycott the show today. So stuff them, it's all about the Australians, because it's Bronze, Bronze, Bronze, Bronze, Bronze. It is also a time to introduce Jarrod Loobeek from Emu Plains. Happy bronzed up Valentine's Day, loved up day, day five of Pyeongchang 2018.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Indeed, yeah, great to get another medal on the board. Perhaps a little disappointing that it couldn't be a different colour, but I mean, we'll take third over fourth place any day.
BEN WATERWORTH: This is again just how Canada feels at the Summer Olympics. We're excited for any colour medal, and this is what I love about the Winter Olympics, is that, yeah, you know, had this been Rio, and it had been, you know, the Campbell sisters to actually have won a medal, you know, you would have been disappointed. And it's like, oh, you know, they probably could have gotten the gold. But this is the beauty about the Winter Olympics, Jarrod. We will take any colour medal given to us, and we will take it as a win.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Exactly. Yeah. The more medals, the better at this point. We don't care what colour. Just give us a couple more.
BEN WATERWORTH: Give us the medals. That's all I say. And of course, the exciting news is, by winning this bronze, we've finally moved ahead of our great winter rivals Slovakia on the medal tally. So that's all that I care about right now. And of course, moved even further ahead of New Zealand on that medal tally. But the thing that I found a little bit strange about the Half Pipe, and I'm guessing it's probably done in a way that it was tailored to US audiences with a time difference for America, but did not feel a little bit weird for you. This is kind of in the middle of the day. I mean, the Half Pipe is a pretty popular event. This is a night time, prime time spot. So I'm guessing time difference, this is done simply for the US audiences, and I guess it worked because the legend that is Sean White walked away with the gold again.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, typical. We get kind of hours that suit us for the prime time events, and they change them anyway. But yeah, I was lucky enough to catch it anyway in the middle of the day.
BEN WATERWORTH: Al, did you agree? Like, this is one of those sports where, you know, judging is entirely the purpose of trying to win this, you know, a medal. It's all about the judging. And I mean, Scotty went out right away, straight away with the big guns, set his score early, and then sadly couldn't land the next couple of jumps. But do you feel as though that he was right? I thought his jump deserved a little bit more than 92. Jarrod, I'm a big expert on the scoring of snowboarding, and I thought at least a couple of points higher than a 92.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it did seem that the scoring was kind of fairly down based on qualification. They'd kind of, I suppose, changed the scores that they were going to give out and how easy they were going to be on judging. But I thought it deserved the place that it was. I think, like you, it could have been a couple more points, but I thought that the other two runs that finished above it were definitely of a higher standard.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I thought that Storm White's first run was better than his third run. I mean, his third run was amazing. Don't get me wrong. But I don't know, that first run, I was just in absolute awe. This was very exciting, obviously, the entire final, just given that, you know, Sean White and Scotty James are the last two to go. Ayumo Hirano, who obviously ended up with the silver, he did not look happy. Can we just point out, even I don't know if he caught the medal ceremony last night, but I've never seen someone so upset at winning an Olympic medal before. Like, you know, that was... I want to give him a hug. I feel like, I know he won the silver back in Sochi, so maybe he's just disappointed with that, as well as that he had the gold right up until Shaun White. Or maybe these people just don't like Shaun White. I don't know, maybe they're just like, ah, God, not Shaun White again.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think he was looking to complete the set, and double silver, not what he wanted, so we can probably expect that to be up on eBay in a couple of days.
BEN WATERWORTH: We obviously, you know, in all seriousness, have to congratulate Scotty again. Just the level of expectations that are put on any Australian athlete in the Winter Olympics. I kind of feel in some aspects, it must be harder than the summer athletes, because, you know, at least on the summer Olympics, we've got a team of 400 athletes. You know, genuinely, we have at least 20, 30, 40, you know, genuine medal contenders. So therefore, once the attention is kind of gone, you know, like the swimming's over, day one, Matt Horton, you know, oh, well, let's move on. You know, it's just a shame we have to focus on the fucking Campbell sisters for the entire time. But, you know, like half of these athletes in summer games, because there's so many other people to focus on, they're not getting that amount of pressure, I would think, outside of swimming. Whereas, you know, you look here at the winter games, we've only got 51 athletes. Scotty James, our flag bearer. We know Channel 7 like to talk to death. I think he handled it very, very well for an Australian athlete. And the positive, too, is that he really genuinely looked happy to have won a medal. I mean, I think there was a bit of disappointment on his face. You could tell he wasn't entirely happy. I think Matt Graham was a little bit happy with his silver. But I still think Scotty James handled all this very, very well, considering that the level of expectations the entire nation put on him. So, yeah, how did you see him handling this bronze victory for himself?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, to me, he did look a little disappointed, but obviously very proud at the same time. And I think a difference, too, at the Winter Olympics is with really most of the events, they are just kind of single events. I feel like in the Summer Olympics, there's lots of people with the swimming, people who usually have multiple events. With the athletics, some people on the track have multiple events, cycling, multiple events. Yeah, so for lots of these sports, it is just kind of the one and done thing. So I think just to get anything under those circumstances is perhaps a bigger achievement, and there's a lot more emotion riding on it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, that is actually a very good point because it is very few and far between with athletes in the Winter Games to ever see them doing multiple events. You know, alpine skiing generally is one where you'll see them do a bunch of them, obviously, you know, ski jumping, cross-country biathlon. A few of them will do that sort of along the way. And I do believe back in Sochi, if I'm not mistaken, Tora Bright, did she do two events, I think, at least? She might have done three, actually. So, you know, I think that was a first, at least, for an Australian athlete. And it actually fascinates me in the snowboard that not many people do more multiple events in it because, you know, I mean, no offence to snowboarders, you know, they kind of just have to do a few tricks here and there. You know, someone like Chumpy, who's got to race a little bit faster, whereas, you know, at the end of the day, Scotty James, I'm sure, takes a lot of fitness. I mean, he takes his Swiss multivitamins, so that's obviously what he needs them for. He's a lot fitter than I am. You know, he could do a few more of these come Beijing in a few more years' time, couldn't he?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, you'd think, especially, like, given his tricks and stuff that he would be doing, something like Slopestyle or even just like Big Air, because I assume that's just kind of the one or like two tricks. So yeah, I think they should be doubling up for a couple more events if they're given the opportunity.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, we should really mention Sean White. You know, I was a bit mean to him yesterday, but I mean, the guy has become the first ever Olympic snowboarder to win three gold medals. I mean, he is just a god amongst men, if you believe every single piece of words that are said about him on the coverage and on Twitter and everything along those lines. I also, my profile picture, I do love the fact that just before every single event in these games, you have like a photo of the athlete above their name just as they're about to begin. All of them are looking happy, smiling, looking to the camera. For some reason, Shaun White decides to look off into the distance. I'd love to know, hashtag, what's Shaun looking at? He's the only athlete in any sport I've seen not staring in the camera. Does it make you want to go back in time and pull out the old Shaun White snowboarding PlayStation game at all? I mean, what can we say about Shaun White?
JARROD LOOBEEK: What can you say? Yeah, just really impressive, especially I suppose after the disappointment of Sochi. And he just looked the whole time really sort of composed. And as soon as a run that was kind of thrown down that was better than him, then he just went straight out there and beat it.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't, like, as he said, is this his last games? I mean, he's only 31. I said he was old, but he's my age basically. I mean, he could go again, couldn't he? I mean, again, snowboarding not the most physically demanding of sports. I don't see why he couldn't go on to Beijing in four years' time.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, the age range seems to be pretty wide, so yeah, I would expect to see him there.
BEN WATERWORTH: And look, this is the age-old question now. Who's the biggest star? Shaun White or Chloe Kim? Because I felt that the expert commentator in the snowboarding for Australia was a bit of a dick to Chloe Kim. He basically... I didn't write it down word for word, but after the win, he's like, Oh, and Chloe Kim, big name, but nothing on Shaun White or something like that. I felt like, wow, poor old Chloe Kim here. You know, she's come out and become the darling of these games, and Shaun White just shat all over her. I mean, I'm going to say that Chloe Kim's got more of a future ahead of her now, because Shaun White is a bit old, but I don't know. I'm hashtag team Chloe here.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, and I mean, she was too young to be sent to Sochi by the US team rules, but she qualified, so for all they know, she could by this time have been a double gold medallist. She might have won the event at the age of 13.
BEN WATERWORTH: And she's two years younger than Shaun White was in Turin, so, you know, let's revisit this, I feel, in 2030 to see if she's won four in a row and not choked in the third game. Hello, Shaun White. But interesting, we shouldn't say, Shaun White's gold was the 100th gold medal in the history of the Winter Olympics of the United States. So congratulations to them. And all their gold medals so far in these games of the US have come in snowboarding. So they're kind of the Dutch of these games in one sport only. They seem to be doing well. We'll get to the Dutch soon, speed skating-wise. But on the commentators, we'll get to the Channel 7 section, but I just love the fact that they get there and they're all like, oh, the greatest half-pipe final in the history of the Olympics. Sorry to kind of burst your bubble there, Channel 7, but I think this is what, the sixth final in the history of the Olympics? Snowboarding only debuted 20 years ago. So I mean, I'm not trying to take away from it. It was a very entertaining final. But I mean, it's not like, you know, oh, the men's downhill in the, you know, close to 100 years of the Winter Olympics. We've never seen something that's been 20 years, guys. We'll get to them very, very soon with it. But can I just also point out, I was a bit worried for one of the Japanese half-pipers, the one who basically hit his head coming down, and then they kind of cut away from him. Do we actually find out what happened to him? Because Channel 7 didn't give a fuck. They were quick to go back to the Kenno and Robbo, whoever those two douchebags are at the bottom of the hill, to make a few jokes about this guy. Did he die?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No idea. Channel 7 promised that they'd keep us updated, but they never talked about it again.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yoto Totsuka was the one. It was a pretty nasty fall too. But Yoto, I know you're a big listener of Off The Podium, so I hope that you've obviously recovered. And yeah, we'll talk a little bit more when it comes to the ridiculousness of Channel 7 coverage yesterday. Australian results outside of Scotty James. We did have, of course, Ken Callister in that final as well. He ended up finishing in ninth place, tenth place, sorry. His top score of 62.0. What did you make of Kent? I mean, I don't know. There was just something about Kent there. I don't know if he's not quite as skilled as the top snowboarders there. But I have to say, it didn't look like he deserved to be there. And I'm not trying to be mean to Kent. He's probably a nice guy. But out of all the 12 people in this final, he seemed to be the least skilled out of it. I don't know if I'm trying to be mean here, but I don't know. He just seemed out of place compared to the other 12 people in this final.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, a bit of a Emily Arthur situation, really. Like it was the same thing with the commentators. We're just like, he's trying to land kind of this jump that he's never landed before. And even then, it was like three kind of steps down from what the others were trying and landing, and he wasn't landing it. So yeah, just seemed a little bit out of his depth in the final.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well, I mean, it's obviously great for him to be able to walk away and say he's an Olympic finalist. So he'll build better up and ready to go for Beijing in four years' time. The only other Australian that actually competed on day five, because we'll get to the alpine skiing with Greta Small a little bit shortly, actually. Obviously, we had the pairs figure skating begin on day five, and our pair of Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya and Harley Windsor, they were, I think, second out on the ice. They finished the day in 18th place with a score of 61.55. Now, did you catch much of this at all, Jarrod? I mean, I'm not quite into this as the ice dancing, I feel. I feel like the ice dancing has taken over now. I mean, I almost found this a bit boring compared to the ice dancing, but what did you think of the Aussies in the figure skating?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I thought they did well, and I think the main thing in my judging criteria was there was a significant... Well, there wasn't really any spaghetti arms in their performance, so I mean, that's what you're looking for, and I thought that probably deserved a little bit of a higher grade. But the thing that was... The thing that annoyed me about this was they finished, well, 18th to the top 16 teams qualified. I think like 6 teams missed out on the final. What's the point of eliminating 6 teams? Just put them into the final. That's not going to be that much extra time. If you're really trying to cut it down, surely it should be like the top 10 teams for the final or something like that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it's an interesting methodology for it because, you know, sadly that didn't mean they're eliminated, not through to the free skate. But yeah, it does seem a bit weird. You got 22 pairs and then you eliminate 6. I mean, it's not like the moguls, where they're going to eliminate like the next 6 out of that. But they only did narrowly miss out as well. They were less than a point and a half basically from going through. 63.04 was the lowest score that made it to the next round by the German pair. But the good news is that we did beat our great figure skating rivals of Israel. So I was very pleased with that. That's a map for Australia though, surely, Joe. We're excited for that one.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I mean, you've just got to take your wins as you get them and beating the Israelis. I mean, I think that was our goal going into the Olympics in the figure skating.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, absolutely. So they'll tick that one off the box. We'll go over some more of the results of that in a second. For Canadian perspective, I'll help out Colin and Mallory here. No medals for Canada on day five, sadly. But we can officially say we've beaten Canada on a day of the Winter Olympics. Jarrod, rejoice.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, they're never going to get that in the summer games, so yeah, we'll take it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. So a few results for them, and we'll also double this up with the results for the other ones. Actually, I'll go through these quickly. So medal-wise on day five, we actually ended up having four medal events because the Alpine skiing and the biathlon have both been delayed due to weather conditions. So it really did. When we get to the Channel 7 coverage, it really was struggling for events. Even on the app to watch, there was a lot of curling replays going on during the day. Our beloved Luge Doubles. Wow, what an event. Germany took that one out with a pair of Tobias Wendel and Tobias Alt. The Tobias twins. Boy, they're close, aren't they? They took the gold ahead of Austria's Peter Penns and George Fischler. And for Germany, they also got the bronze, Tony Eggert and Sascha Benneken. Great job there. We'll get to that in a minute with some other results. Nordic combined, what an event it is. Another gold for Germany in that one. Erich Frenzel. This is in the individual normal hill, slash 10 kilometres. Akito Watabe for Japan. Silver medal. And the bronze went to the great Lucas Klapfer on Austria. What a Nordic combiner he is. Just joy to see him in full flight yesterday. We already went over to snowboarding. Sean White Gold, Akumohirana, silver, and Scotty James bronze. That's in the men's halfpipe. And in the speed skating, the 1000 metres. What a surprise. The Dutch won the gold. Jorien Teumoz. She did that in an Olympic record time. Nao Kodarara for Japan. And Miho Takagi. Japan bronze. A good day for Japan on day four. A total of four medals for them. Germany got three medals on the day, so good job for them. Just quickly running through the Canadian results then here in the doubles luge. Tristan Walker and Justin Snythe. Fifth place for them. So they'll be satisfied. Probably want to get a little bit closer next time around when it comes to that one. In the Nordic combined, as we mentioned, there were no Canadians in the Nordic combined, so nothing to report there. In the snowboard halfpipe, no Canadians made the final, so that was even more sweeter for us. The fact that we can walk away with the bronze medal and beat Canada even more so in that. In the 1,000 metres, there were two Canadians. Cailin Irvine was 23rd and Heather McLean 25th. I know in speaking to Heather a couple of days ago, she was looking for a top 25, so she'll be satisfied with that, I'm sure. The curling, the men's curling began, and the women's curling began yesterday. Canada in action in two games. They won both of them. They beat Great Britain 6-4, and they beat Italy 5-3, so they'll be very satisfied with the beginning of their tournament, as will the women, because they actually did not play a game yesterday, so they'll be satisfied with their rest. Also, figure skating. The Canadians have three pairs through to the next phase. In third place currently is Megan Duhamel and Eric Radford. They are in third position. Julianne Seguin and Charlie Bilodeau, followed by Kristen Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro. I was either concerned that was Boston Rob Longworth's brother or a type of passer source there. They are in 13th. Currently leading the figure skating after the short program is Su Wenjing and Han Kong of China, and Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov of the Olympic Athletes of Russia. No Canadian teams played yesterday. However, the men's tournament did start, and what a boil over we had in this. Wow. I don't know if you caught this, Jarrod. Stayed up and watched it. We had Slovakia up against the Olympic Athletes of Russia and the US against Slovenia. Now on paper, you'd mark this down as a win for the US and the Olympic Athletes of Russia. Rip that paper up, my friend, because Slovakia knocked over the Olympic Athletes of Russia 3-2, and Slovenia knocked off the US 3-2 in overtime. They're going to make a movie about this on Slovenia. Their own miracle on ice. Did you see any of this last night?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I caught bits and pieces, but I did just turn it off because I thought, I think the US was up about 2-0 when I finished watching. I was like, oh, well, this is done and dusted. There's really no point staying up to watch this, but obviously, made the wrong decision there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I was the same. I mean, this ran to, what, I think, like 1.32 in the morning, I want to say. And I was exactly the same as you. US were 2 up after 2 periods. I'm like, well, this is a win to the US. There's no point watching this. And somehow the Slovenians scored 2 third period goals and won nothing in OT. So, wow, this is what Colin was saying to us yesterday about this kind of an unknown factor with this men's ice hockey tournament. No NHL players. We don't know what's going to happen. And Slovenia have beaten the US. I mean, this is a big deal. So, let's see how that bodes for Canada when they're up against Switzerland. This could be another boil over. Who knows? In the women's tournament yesterday, Japan overcame a spirited Korea. That was actually quite an entertaining game. Japan won at 4-1, but Korea scored, I believe, their first goal of the tournament in this game. And the crowd, did they not go off? They were actually only one goal behind Japan in that second period, but Japan ended up taking that one in the end. And a closer game. Mallory would have been confused watching this one. It was Switzerland vs Sweden. She didn't know who was who. But it was 2-1 for Switzerland leading that one. So I can tell you in that currently that Sweden and Switzerland are short of positions because all Group B matches have been completed. So Switzerland and Sweden are both through to the quarterfinals. Switzerland will play a team, and so will Sweden. I can't tell you who they are. But that actually is a Group A. Canada and the US are guaranteed to go through into the semifinals automatically, just as a matter of who will be in which slot, if you look at the bracket. And that means that Finland and the Olympic athletes from Russia, as the highest third and fourth qualifiers, will go through. So basically, the quarterfinals will be Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and the Olympic athletes from Russia. The winners of those two quarterfinals will go on to play in Canada and the US. So no surprises there at all. It was always going to be that way. But the big testing point, I feel, today technically recording this, tomorrow, whichever way you listen to this, the US and Canada will play each other because they're in the same group. So that will be a gold medal preview coming up there. Now, again, not a whole lot to go over. So the Alpine skiing was rescheduled, the biathlon rescheduled. Jarrod, what did you watch on day five? Because I feel like we often say we kind of caught a bit of everything. I feel this was the easiest day to catch a bit of everything because there really was nothing on to watch.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, and I feel like I actually probably watched less and caught less of the events today, which is the opposite, to be sure. But I watched all of the snowboarding, and then I just caught the tail end of a lot of things. I saw the tail end of the speed skating. I saw in the Nordic Combined the tail end of the ski jumping. Didn't see any in the cross country in that. And then saw the end of the luge.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I was a bit the same, really. For a day that kind of, you know, you saw pretty much everything you would think that you would be able to, you know, with so many little things. But yeah, all of the snowboarding, you know, most, I actually did watch most of the Nordic Combined. I was hanging out for the women's slalom, but sadly that didn't happen. There was, yeah, the app was kind of just slow in points because you just really had to. I watched a lot of the medal ceremonies. Have you seen the medal ceremonies yet to work out what those little things are that they get given on the podium at all?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I have, and yeah, I suppose I don't really have a clear idea. My guess is that it's the A mountain of Pyeongchang or the mountain, but I don't know if that's right or not.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I have no idea. I have no idea. Scotty James, if you're listening, Matt Graham, just tweet us, send us a message, be like, oh, this is what it is, send us a photo perhaps. Sean White, if you're listening, just anybody. I just want to see a close-up picture because I'm sure if we Googled it and actually paid attention, we could probably find out, but we haven't really gone out of our way to do that. But yeah, the app definitely was a friend, because one thing I noticed, and again, we'll get to this with Channel 7, is just their even more pathetic cover. They were loving this, the fact that they had hardly any events to show, because they could get away with the 400,000 replays of Scotty James. Now, Athlete Of The Day, obviously, I feel Scotty James is the obvious candidate, but I've got somebody else I feel I can nominate. Do you have anyone else on Athlete Of The Day?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I have two from the Doubles Luge, and they're the third place getters, Tony Eggert and Sasha Benakin, solely because apparently their team name is Eggs Benedict, which I just thought was really clever and funny, and then it just made me think of trying to name the other teams. I feel like it has to be a thing that in the Doubles Luge, you have a team name that's some kind of pun or combination of your surnames.
BEN WATERWORTH: Eggs Benedict, that's clever. I like that. Yeah, absolutely. I think we could definitely have that. So, I'm just looking at some of the other names here. The last team was a Ukrainian pair of Alexander Obolonchik and Roman Zakhariev. The Under Ukrainians. I don't know, that was a pretty bad effort, Ben. Yeah, there's, Jesus, there's some lots of consonants in some of these names, aren't there? That's a challenge for our listeners. Eggs Benedict, I love that. And let's be honest, these two are so close, that they get up in the morning and cook each other Eggs Benedict. I just, it's such a fascinating sport to watch, and the fact that, like, do they realise what they're doing? Like, I mean, I mentioned, joked about the camel toe in the Women's Luge. Like, I don't know what the male version of a camel toe is, like a camel foot or something like that, but like, they're not flattering outfits in the Solo Luge enough. But these guys are literally laying on, you've got to be very close with your teammate. Let's just put it that way, like, I don't know if you've got a good relationship with a friend enough this way, Jarrod, that you could say like, mate, like, yeah, like, let's do the doubles luge. Like, I mean, this is a very close sport between these two men.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's definitely interesting. I would love to see an interview with, I suppose, one of the pairs who is willing to kind of joke about it and answer those important questions about the doubles luge.
BEN WATERWORTH: There was, I did re-watch Leading Up Into This, all the old dreams by Roy and HG, and during Ice Stream on Salt Lake City, they did get a doubles luge pair on, but they didn't really sign it. They didn't show the full interview, because, like, the questions that I need to ask, like a pairing, if there's any double luges ever listen to the show, like, we will track someone to come on the show to talk about this, like, who's on top? Who's on bottom? Like, is it a simple case of the heaviest is on the bottom? Like, and when they practice, like, because, you know, we realise that these sliding courses aren't the most prominent. We talked about this in our preview episode. Like, you know, there's maybe 10, 12 of these in the entire world. Do they have to, like, kind of, you know, in cool runnings, when they're all in the bath practising the turns, like, do they both get in the bath together and, like, lay on each other and, you know, be like, yeah, come on, come on, Tony, get on top of me. Like, let's, you know, let's practice to, like, their respective partners come home early and catch them in the bath laying on top of each other and go, what's going on here, guys? It's like, no, no, that's all right, we're just competing in the doubles luge. Um, it's... And, like, why, why isn't there, like, I think you said this yesterday, where's the triples luge? Where's the quad, where's the four-man luge? Like, this has got to be a thing, right?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, you think if you're going to have more than one person on the sled, you've got to go all out. I just want to know what, who's, like, the person, like, what does the person on the bottom actually do? They can't see anything, so surely they're not steering. I mean, they're pretty much a sled to just the person on top, and that's it.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think Colin mentioned a bit about this when we talked about cool ridings on the Oz Network when we recapped it. It's like, a lot of these sliding sports, at the end of the day, all you need to do is push off fast and just hold on. Like, I mean, there's not a lot of skill. I'm not trying to take away from luge athletes, because, again, you guys are doing something that I could not do, so props to you, and I feel bad for bagging the shit out of you. But at the end of the day, like, you're kind of right. Like, that bottom guy does nothing. He's like the second person in a bobsled. Like, they're just there for ballast. They're just there for a free ride. They're just on a ticket to the Olympics. Like, this is, I mean, as much as I love the Winter Olympics, there are a lot of these sports where it's kind of like, you need to be skilled for about two seconds. The rest, you just let gravity do the work.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, exactly. And I do love the whole contraption of the string attached to their partner's outfit that they use at the start to try to help them get a good start. And it looks like they pretty much just punched holes in the outfit of the person in front of them and then got some old shoelaces to tie them together.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I think it was the Austrian pair that got the silver, Peter Penns and George Fischler, that when they crossed the line, they went off. They were hugging, they were kissing, like 38 members from the Austrian support team jumping stacks on the mill. Like, doubles luge is such a passionate sport. Like, this is the passionate sport of the Olympics, isn't it?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, exactly. I think the team members for Austria were just trying to get the triple and quadruple luge movement going at that point.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm still holding out for the doubles women's luge. I mean, that's where it's at for us. Come on, let's be honest. My athlete of the day, outside of Scotty, I was quite partial to the Japanese Nordic combined athlete by the name of Go Yamamoto. It just sounds like it should be like a Pokemon or something like that. His first name is Go, and it just sells itself. Like, Go Yamamoto! He ended up finishing in 33rd, but I mean, when you've got a name, it's like Bart's Wings, Go Yamamoto. Like, it's just a selling point. Like, this guy wins gold. That's just, there's headlines everywhere with that one in Japan.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, easy day for the article writers that day.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, Channel 7. Now, honestly, I only kind of saw with the sound up on the snowboarding, probably the same, and what I did see with the sound up outside of the snowboarding was on the app, and generally we get the good commentators. I really do, as much as I'm bagging out Channel 7, I really wish I had his name, but whoever the Australian commentator is on the long track speed skating, props to him, he's actually very good. Very, very good at calling it. He's very good at kind of... I feel, and this is my dad's complaint a lot about the commentary on the Winter Olympics, is that a lot of the sports, when you're watching them, you have that expert commentator who likes to obviously assume that every Australian watching it knows what the fuck we're watching, and can we just establish we're Australians? We know shit all about winter sports, so we need to kind of be spoken to like we're three-year-olds here and explain it to us slowly, whereas this guy who does the speed skating, he actually does that very well. He's very good at explaining the sport and the rules and everything like that, whereas this expert snowboard guy, you know, he expects us to all know what a quad twist 1080 flat land whatever is. But we've got to be the best bit of this entire commentary though, and again, we really are at the point where we should be experts at these names of these idiots, but it took us like four days to learn that one of them, Edwina Bartholomew's name was. In the third run, when Scotty James crashed and face planted, there was dead silence on the commentary team before we heard, bugger. Can she get any more Australian than a piece of commentary that's dead silence followed by bugger?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, what a wonder.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's just hilarious. And I mean, this expert commentator guy, he was such a dick to the main guy, because he was like just before the Japanese guy came down, he was here and was like, oh, you know, and he comes down the Japanese border here, Yuma Hirano, chance to get gold here. Japan has not won a gold yet so far at these games. They've gotten some bronze and silvers in the speed skating. To which this guy interrupts him, oh, but we don't care about the speed skating at all. Who cares about the speed skating? We're here for snowboarding. This guy's trying to talk this up, and you're just like ramming it down his throat. And can we just point out, who are these two guys who stand at the bottom of the hill that they always cross to in between things like Keno and some other guy? Like, why are they there, Jarrod? Like, who are these two people? I don't care about Keno and Breno and whoever the fuck these two are. They give me the shit.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, they're pretty much glorified weathermen, aren't they? That's all that they seem to do is they cross to them, and they're like, how's the weather out there on the slopes? And then they have their spiel, and they cross to them so frequently. These two guys must just stand on the side of a mountain for the entire day, looking at the weather, and oh, there's some wind that's picked up on the mountainside. What direction is it coming from? Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it's so pointless. And the fact that, I mean, it's just typical Channel 7 to add in another pointless element that is not showing live sport.
BEN WATERWORTH: And the thing that was like the worst bit of it was that, you know, I was mentioning about the Japanese guy when he was injured and kind of crashed out. Like, you know, they're all like concerned, and they're all like, oh, you know, we hope he's okay. We'll update you, which of course, as you mentioned, Jarrod, they never did. But then, like, any opportunity for Channel 7, oh, no, we hope he's okay, is okay. Let's go to an ad. Oh, man, then they come back, and then they're all like, oh, well, we're just waiting here. Yodo, Tsutsuka, we don't know if he's okay or not. Let's go to Keno and Brito. How are you guys going? They're like, yeah, guys, yeah, it's really solemn down here at the bottom of the hill. But God, what a funner we're having here right now, aren't we? Just like telling jokes and laughing at each other. These guys' heads basically rolling down the half-pipe, and everybody in the crowd is like, you know, gasping at what's happening. Is this guy alive? These two Australian guys, they're back in Brito. Yeah, the weather is great. I didn't really see a lot of the coverage last night when it went prime time, because can we also establish that Channel 7 still like to show My Kitchen Rules for about eight hours every night? So the prime time of the Olympics doesn't start till about 9.45. And I kind of, you know, record it to keep. Hello, IOC. I know you warned me not to at the beginning of every broadcast, without the express written permission of the IOC or Channel 7. But they come out of My Kitchen Rules, to which they then promptly show the final. Of course they do, again, to which they then show, oh, let's interview Scotty James, his family, his dog, his cat, his, you know, childhood teddy bear. They show the medal ceremony. They interview him again, the cat, the dog, the teddy bear. I didn't see Hamish McLaughlin's reaction watching at this time, so there was a slight win for that one. But the thing is this, that we joke about the amount of time they show the replay. When my dad got home about 6 o'clock and he was flicked over to 7Mate whilst the news was on, what are they showing? The full replay, again. Now again, we know there was hardly any sport on yesterday, but still, Australians would like to see it. And when I was flicking through things last night, they showed the snowboarding. They then showed the replay of the figure skating. Took them to about 11.30 at night before they realised, oh, let's show some actual live sport, to which they actually finally showed some ice hockey. They showed a bit of the luge. I didn't show any curling. It really is getting worse, this coverage. People probably think we're just making a big deal out of it. This coverage is rubbish.
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, yeah, it absolutely is. The replays, yeah, who would have thought that they could put in more replays than they have already? Yeah, I thought the same thing. And it's not like they just do a little cutaway shot of him winning the bronze, or after he's got his medal, show him there on the podium. It's, let's replay the whole event each and every time. It's just stupid. It's like they want to make sure that every single person knows that the halfpipe was on and we won a bronze medal, which they could do a lot easier with just having a stupid little, like, ticker tape down the bottom of the screen that just says, Scotty James, bronze in the halfpipe, and just leave it on there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, we get it. It's great Australia. We talked about it at the top of the show. It's like it's a big deal when we win a medal because it's not like something that, you know, it happens that often. But, like, let's be honest. Any actual fan of the Winter Olympics would be fully aware with it. We live in a day and age where, you know, there's YouTube, they're tweeting this out, they're showing, like, they literally show the final event on their social media pages on every single... Follow 7 Olympics on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook. You see this on your social media page. So even if people have been at work all day and they haven't seen this live, they would have seen it already. They would have come home, they would have seen it, they would have watched it. But Channel 7 seemed to be living in this age where it's 2002, where there's no social media, and nobody could have seen it. I remember Salt Lake City when they had the coverage of the games. They did not have Stephen Bradbury's event live because they just didn't have the coverage during the day that they do now. And the thing that they did differently is that they milked that. I think everybody tuned in to Channel 7 at, like, 9 o'clock at night or wherever it was, and knew that Bradbury had won the gold, so everyone was like, fuck, I want to see this. But they were like, oh, we're going to show the cross-country skiing. Oh, we're going to show the figure skating. Oh, and we'll see how Stephen Bradbury went a little bit later. Like, they milked this out to make you watch it as long as you can. And at the time, that was frustrating, but now I wish that happened again. Like, that was clever, Channel 7. Now this is just ridiculous. And what makes it worse is that they've set, like, B and C lists. I don't give a fuck, Channel 7, what Rachel Finch is doing in the stands. Rachel Finch has no business at the Winter Olympics. Tom Williams has no business at any Olympics. Like, just, I'm surprised Menou's not there, interviewing people in the crowd. Oh, hello, everybody. This snowboard is so good. It's so tasty. Watch my kitchen rules. Like, where's Al Stewart in the crowd? They've got more business being there than Rachel Finch and Tom Williams.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's... Oh, it's such a shambles. And the thing that annoys me too is if we want to get better at these sports and have more representatives and continue to medal and stuff, you have to show the events. And I mean, kids growing up and people wanting to get into sports, they're never going to consider these things because they don't see them. Australia is never going to get a double luge pair because the country doesn't know that it even exists. We might have 500 snowboarders and mogul skiers by the time the next Olympics comes around, but it's just underrepresentation of these sports, and it is just impacting the country's future prospects at the Winter Olympic Games.
BEN WATERWORTH: And you can tell that the athletes kind of get frustrated a little bit because I think whenever we have them on the show, I mention a lot to them, like, you know, how is it doing this sport in this country? Because, you know, generally Australians only pay attention to you guys every four years, and, you know, they talk about how it can also sometimes help them because I think really at the end of the day, too, you know, there's no pressure on these athletes for the other four years between Olympics because even, you know, most communities around the world aren't looking at Australia as a great winter nation's country. So I think that a lot of the time, the reason why we thrive so well in World Cups and World Championships is because no one in Australia, there's no pressure on them. There's no pressure on them at all. Whereas all of a sudden, they've found all this pressure on them because whichever, it's not just Channel 7, Channel 10 did it four years ago, Channel 9 did it in 2010. They lump all this pressure on them. And they're just not used to it. And again, we get it. They've got to do that. There's a national broadcast, so they've got to put it from a perspective of that country. I'm sure if we went to Switzerland, it's going to be all about Swiss athletes. We went to Eritrea. It's all about the Eritrean athlete. So it's kind of how it works. But speaking to our good friend Nick Chester in New Zealand on the brink this week, I'm like, does New Zealand give a shit about the Winter Olympics? And Nick's like, no, I didn't even realise we got forced in the speed skating. Good for him. So, like, I mean, there's no pressure on the New Zealanders. I just, yeah, it's just frustrating. It's just so frustrating. And, you know, I miss Bruce. Hashtag, where's Bruce? You know, why isn't Stephen Bradbury there calling? He's always there calling it. Like, he was there during Channel 10. Maybe Stephen Bradbury just doesn't like Channel 7, because he was there during the Channel 9 coverage of Vancouver and also then Channel 10 in Sochi. I know Alyssa Campland's over there, so I expect to see her during the aerials. Where's Dale Begg-Smith? Their expert commentators are just non-existent. I used to hate Joanna Griggs doing it, but she's just a genius compared to Mel McLaughlin and Edwina Bartholomew, who just looks like the grumpiest person in the world. Can that woman smile? Can we just start a campaign? Hashtag make Edwina smile?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I just don't. I don't understand how it can be so bad and how it can be getting worse. You'd think, like, given how annoyed people are, that they would kind of try and change things up and at least make them slightly better. But it's like they've purposely seen that people are annoyed and like, okay, we'll give them something to really be annoyed about. We'll just make it worse day by day.
BEN WATERWORTH: And again, it's the day of social media. They've got to be reading the comments. There's like one out of a hundred comments of positive for them on Twitter and Facebook. It's ridiculous how much negativity they get. I mean, it is kind of a national sport, though. Let's bag out the national broadcasts. I mean, Channel 10 and Channel 9 did not escape criticism when they had the Olympics. I remember when Channel 9 had them in Vancouver and London. Everyone was like, this is worse than Channel 7, worse than Channel 7. And I disagree. I thought Channel 9 did a decent job. I think Channel 10 probably did the best job out of all three of the networks. I think their such a coverage was amazing. But yeah, I mean, God, can we just give it to the ABC or SBS for the next Olympics? I mean, we can't get our crowdfunding campaign started. They didn't let us do it. But I wouldn't mind seeing, you know, Li Li Qin hosting the moguls come Beijing. That would work.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, well, I mean, let's be honest. We've probably seen a greater variety of sports in just like news coverage of the Olympics from SBS and ABC. I mean, pound for pound, they probably have shown more Winter Olympics sports than the channel that is actually hosting the Winter Olympic Games.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, no, I completely agree. All right. So thank you, Champ 7. I've got nothing for Canada. Colin didn't send me anything. I'm sure they did better than us. Now, again, no Canadians today on the show, but I've got a My Name Is Here. I thought we'd go with a double lujest because, you know, we're just we're very close. We're very in love with this sport. So we're going for Tristan Walker today. He's a good-looking rooster. He's a good-looking guy, so I'm sure he gets all the ladies like when he goes to a bar in like Toronto or something, all that and say, hey, I'm a double lujest. Oh, come over here. Buy me a drink. So I'm just reading here that in December last year, Tristan Walker and his teammate Justin Snythe earned their first ever World Cup podium finish of the season in Lake Placid. And they helped Canada win relay bronzes. There's relays in luj? How does that work? What, do they stop halfway down and pass a baton on?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, you just got to jump on to the moving sled as it comes past.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, it's a very fast-paced sport. All right, so hello, my name is Tristan Walker and I am Canadian. My favourite Olympic moment is Donovan Bailey's 100-metre gold. He doesn't even like any of his winter athletes. It's all about the summer athletes. If I could have a superpower, it would be ability to fly. Okay, cool. My favourite sports movie is Cool Runnings, as it should be. My favourite pump-up song is Back For More, Five Finger Death Punch. Is that on your playlist, Jarrod?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, it's narrowly missed.
BEN WATERWORTH: Narrowly, yes. Just off there, off the podium. The most recent TV show I've been to, and I'm glad he knows what this show is called, Game Of Thrones. That's right. Game, not Games Of Thrones. My least favourite foods are, I like everything. If I weren't an athlete, I would be fighter pilot. He likes to go fast and fly, obviously. My favourite vacation spot is Thailand. So many activities. People usually describe me as fast. I hope that's just like, you're not his girlfriend or anything like that. That would be a bit awkward. I like how underneath they've got an Instagram picture of him looking all tough and, you know, pouty with his rooster hairstyle and staring into the camera. I've got 655 likes on Instagram, so we've got a lot of followers there, it seems. If I could be an Olympian in any other sport, it would be hockey. Did he not say that he wanted to do something? I'll fly, okay, never mind. My favourite song lyrics are True North Strong and Free, and he's drawn a picture of the maple leaf. Well, an attempted maple leaf. I don't know what that actually is. I think it's meant to be a maple leaf. My guilty pleasure is DQ Blizzard. I'm guessing that's Dairy Queen Blizzard. He loves a good Baylor Wilson song. Draw a picture of one of your teammates and of yourself. I don't know if you're looking at this. He's drawn like a luge with stick figures on the luge, and he's got an arrow pointing to me, and then he's drawn an arrow to the blank box underneath, and just written, teammate, and pointed to the person underneath him. So, we officially know that Tristan Walker is a top. Oh, goodness. We know that Justin Snise is the bottom here, so good to know there, Justin. There's another Instagram photo of him taking a photo. And again, we chose the boring ones here. Well, maybe as Colin said yesterday, they're just not as exciting as the real ones. Thank you, Tristan. Hopefully Colin can save our blushes tomorrow. All right, that means that we're at to everybody's favourite section of the show. That, of course, is our fan messages. I don't think we made any yesterday again, did we, Jarrod? I didn't really pay attention. I think you're the one who kind of goes on to more on that, but I don't think we made the page.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, not that I noticed.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, sadly. Dylan Rickaby, overseas fan, to Scotty James. All right. Dear Scotty, my name is Dylan, and I am writing to you because I'm a big fan. So I am contacting you to ask a few questions. One, what inspired you to train for the Olympics? Two, what is your favourite part of being in the Olympics? Three, when did you start to snowboard? Hope you have time to answer from Dylan Riccobie in Canada. Like, do people not... Like, why do they publish these? Well, I was dumb, but at least they kind of support people.
JARROD LOOBEEK: At least we know that they're not going to message us back.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. My goodness, some people. All right, here's one to one of our Bob's letters. Hayden Smith from Mark Dede in New South Wales. Coffee and a good book in the Royal? Good one, Hayden. Can't wait for 24, 25, 2, 18, mate. What? Oh, my goodness. Oh, here's one from an actual Olympian. John Cockbill of Victoria to Brittany Cox. Congratulations, Brit, on your great effort and result. Australia is so proud of you. John, in brackets, Olympian 56. What sport? Let's look him up. Do we feel like this guy is actually legitimately an Olympian? I'm looking here. It looks like he's a rower. There's a rower from 1956 called this. John Cockbill. I just like his name, John Cockbill. No medals previously, but yeah, he did. This is a legitimate athlete, Jarrett. So we've got our 1956 team finally getting on the internet. Good job for them.
JARROD LOOBEEK: But is it really him, though?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, that's giving us some ideas, isn't it? Hey, Scotty, good job. Love you from Dawn Fraser. Can I actually just say, in all truthfulness, during our esteemed bid for the 2020 Olympics, we got a lot of people contacting us, a lot of messages and letters and everything. I actually received a letter, and I've got it somewhere. I cannot remember the person's name, but they were an Olympian who won a bronze in, I want to say, cycling in the 56 Olympics or something like that. This thoroughly detailed letter, just basically saying, this is a great idea, but I suggest Hobart go for the Commonwealth Games. It was very nice, but it was just random to actually get a letter from an actual Olympian from the past. There you go. Good on you, John Cockbill, if that really is you. Are you reading any of this at all, Jarrod? Do you have any at all for us while I scroll through some of these?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, not really seeing anything to the standard of asking for schnitzels and calling people the wrong name.
BEN WATERWORTH: Got Liz O'Neill here from New South Wales, Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya. I'm going to get that name right eventually. I'm a friend of Harley's mum. She told me how she loves you as a daughter. Thank you for coming to Australia to represent us. So proud of you. Please enjoy your time at Pyeongchang. You deserve to have fun. Love, Liz O'Neill, xxx. Can I just point out, we haven't really talked too much about Ekaterina. I saw an interview with her, because all the folks have been on Harley, you know, first Indigenous athlete at the Winter Olympics. Great achievement there by Harley. But I love the fact that she's Ekaterina. She speaks like four words of English. Have you seen any of these interviews with her? Because she just seems like she's like, I try learn English better for next time.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's interesting that she's allowed to compete, considering, yeah, her English is extremely limited. And I wonder how quickly they kind of fast-tracked her citizenship through to make sure that she would make the team. Yeah, I just think that as a team, it must be so difficult for them to like communicate with one another. In this segment, it was saying just how when she first came over, they used the coaches to communicate. But I still think that even now, it must be really difficult. And surely as they can kind of communicate better with one another, you would think their skating would become better.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, that's a very good point, actually. This one here from Liz O'Neill in New South Wales to Harley Windsor, Ekaterina's partner, of course. Harley, I'm so proud of you that I cried when I saw you and Katie. I'm so happy for you as an Australian and a Koori. Give your mum a big cuddle for me. By the way, it was 40 degrees here in Penrith today. I hope you enjoy your time in Pyeongchang and have a heap of fun. Love, Liz. XXX. Love heart, love heart, love heart, love heart. I think this is good weather updates for people because they might not have the internet over there for that. Oh, Kay Min in Victoria. He's one to test Cody. I just met you at the business lounge. Hope to see you in better shape in the future. Safe travel back home. Good. Good to know. Daniel Gregg. That's James Bond's long-lost brother, sort of. Different way around that. One of our short track speed skaters. No, he's actually our speed skater, isn't he? Great to see you up and skating. All the best, mate. We'll be cheering for you. From Jarrod James in South Australia. They're not up to the standards of the schnitzel, are they? It's not so good, really. Oh, Rosemary from Queensland. Scotty James. Thanks for adding a medal to the Aussie tally. You have a great style in spectacular event. They can't even spell. We enjoyed watching you compete. Loved seeing your family sharing in your success, too. Good on ya. Victoria Perra-Petua, overseas fan. Here to Jessica Yeaton, of course, one of our cross-country skaters. Jessica, I had no idea you were so talented. I'm routing for you. Um, yeah, okay. Let's end it there. Um, all right, so we can look at it. I mean, it's Chumpy Day. So, I mean, it's got to be a chumpy message, right? Like...
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, the chumpy messages have been lacking.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know. Like, what... It's because he's so 2014, let's be honest. Like, I mean, you know, just remember how much he was being talked up in 2014 by Channel 10. This time around, you know, who cares? Who cares at all about Chumpy?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No Swiss ad for Chumpy.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know. What's going on? Swiss has dropped him. Um, it's not so good. Um, all right. So, on national... Well, tomorrow will be National Chumpy Day. I'm calling it. I've got a good feeling about Chumpy this year, Jarrod. We'll talk about this in our preview. So, let's find Alex Pullen. All right. I'm going to say, on the notion of former athletes, let's go with here Malcolm Milne, who is a former World Cup Alpine ski racer here. Jarrod, I'm sure you're very familiar with him. Represented Australia at the 1972 Olympics. Was going to, actually. Suffered a cartilage injury. Actually, no. I will repeat. I'm just reading here quickly. Just refreshing my memory, because I'm a big fan, of course, of Malcolm's household name here in Australia. He actually suffered cartilage injury to his knee, threatened to cause a withdrawal. He didn't withdraw, recovered superbly, and called it the worst race of his life. So he did go to Sapporo 1972, the day that all Australians remember, of course. But he actually did win a bronze in the World Championships in 1970. Long story short, this message is coming from Malcolm Milne. Of course, his email would be malcolmmilne at gmail.com. Everyone send him a fan message. He's originally from Victoria, so that goes well. I feel like we can get this actually published here, Jarred. What are we going to say to Chumpy?
JARROD LOOBEEK: So many things to say to Chumpy.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, we've had him on this show.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Probably should start with a question so you can reply to us. Like, how did you get the nickname Chumpy?
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, Chumpy. Shit, I can't even spell. Best of luck today from one Olympian to another. I'll put in brackets, 1972 Sapporo. So bad. Question, how did you get the nickname Chumpy? Hope to hear from you and hear the gold too. Malcolm. You can imagine Malcolm. He's currently, you know, he's, what, born in 1948, so that makes him 70. You can imagine him signing out on Malcolm. I think this is going to get published. I'm calling this right now. That is going to get published. If that doesn't get published, we know that the AOC really does hate us, because there's no reason that should not get published. That is the most basic message we have ever sent on this show. So, alright, there we go. Thanks, Chumpy. You're sent, alright. Good on you, chumps. Who else is competing too? I feel like we need to backtrack a little bit here. Actually, we've got Ariel's Girls going for qualifying today too, don't we? Should we send one to Lydia? What do you reckon? Lids?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Definitely, yeah. Definitely.
BEN WATERWORTH: Couple of guests on our show, of course, alright. So, we'll just click on the freestyle. Where are your lids? There you are. Who's this one from? Kirsty Marshall. Don't crash like I did. Well, the difference is that Kirsty Marshall never won a medal. Lydia's already won two.
JARROD LOOBEEK: We could send her a message from that time travelling man who's making headlines.
BEN WATERWORTH: The time travelling man who's making headlines? Have I missed something here?
JARROD LOOBEEK: You haven't seen that somebody's come back from 2030?
BEN WATERWORTH: No. No, what's going on?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, somebody called Noah has come back from 2030 and passed a lie detector test.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, okay. Oh, I've just Googled it here. Noah from 2030. Okay. Well, name Noah. Email Noah2030 at gmail.com. Overseas fan, so happy you won the gold. I won't tell anyone else you come back in 2022 and 2026 to win two more gold. Just don't walk in front of that street car in 2025.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Keep an eye out for Quadlouge.
BEN WATERWORTH: For Quadlouge.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's going to take off.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's going to take off. I have not read about this 2030 guy. Wow, I need to do some research after we've recorded you. All right, Lyds, there you go. We're going to get to this preview in a second, but it's actually such a big day for our big-name athletes. Channel 7 won't know what to do. Oh, Jesus Christ. You think that they've been bad so far. Wait till we get to our next day, clearly, with this. Thanks, Lydia, obviously another guest on this show. All right, shall we go for another one of our athletes competing, or shall we just go? Because in alphabetical order, looking at my list here, poor old Jakara Anthony, who, of course, fourth place, sorry, in moguls, shall we just send her a message saying, mogul, mogul, mogul, mogul, or best of luck in your next event or something like that?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, that sounds good to me. I think we should wish her luck in the ski slope style.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yep, all right. So name, let's, oh, God, let's go with Rob Mariano. Email BostonRob at, hopefully the AAC aren't Survivor fans. State overseas fan, best of luck in your next event. You mogul well. Connect the thing. You mogul well. Cool. All right. We're doing so well. We're one from like 16 at this point, people. So I've got a feeling we can make it two. I think Rob Mariano and our Olympic friend at the beginning are both in with the shot at getting this, Jarrod. I feel good about today.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think today is going to be a good day. With Noah coming back from the future, I think there's good things in store for Australia.
BEN WATERWORTH: And speaking of good things in store for Australia, on day six, what a day it is for Australia, because we have a couple of our very, very big names competing today. And I'm talking, of course, about the cross-country skiing. The ladies 10km frees on today. Barbara Jezasek, Jessica Yeaton, Amy Watson, and Casey Ryder, all back on the course. This is what we've been waiting for, Jarrod. It's cross-country 10km free day.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, what an event, sitting down, watching them for hours on end.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, just line it up, get excited. We are so thrilled. But in all seriousness, the eyes of Australia will be on the snowboarding and the freestyle skiing in the aerials, because we're looking at some real actual medal chances when it comes to both of these events. Lydia is everybody's favourite. Nobody in this country dislikes Lydia. If you do, you're an Australian. Piss off to New Zealand. Lydia is an Australian icon. She is, of course, in her fifth Olympic Games, and she is gunning for her third medal. If she gets a medal, she will become automatically the most successful Australian Winter Olympian in the history of the Winter Olympics. So we'll fingers cross for her. She had a bit of a crash in her practice yesterday, but she's OK. She's going to go out there and try her very best. But also, Danielle Scott is a legitimate medal chance as well. So if Lydia... We could sweep the podium here. There's four very talented women in this event. Laura Peele and Samantha Wells, of course, also out there. But it will be qualifying number one going out there for it. But I mean, I love the aerials. I mean, this is one that, you know, we've always been good at. I mean, this was first, I think, introduced as a medal sport in 1994. You know, we joke about Kirstie Marshall and then Jackie Cooper, who sadly never lived up to expectations. But from Alyssa Campland, I mean, this is a sport that we have never not medalled in this millennium. You know, we obviously had Alyssa medal in both Turin and Salt Lake, Gold and Salt Lake. Lydia got the gold in Vancouver and then the bronze, of course, in Sochi, and David Morris, of course, the silver in Sochi. So you've got to go back 20 years since Australia last did not medal in the aerials. But are you excited for this? Because this is generally the one I'm always most excited for from an Australian perspective.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think this is the event, Not To Jinx It, where I would say out of all the events, it's probably the most likely that we do wind up with some sort of medal here. Yeah. So yeah, it'll be good.
BEN WATERWORTH: Do you think Lydia can do it or are you looking at Danielle or can Laura or Samantha book? I just think Lydia can do it. I don't know if she'll get the gold, but we saw her in, of course, in Sochi. I can't remember the name of the trick. It's on the tip of my tongue, but she was the first woman to ever attempt it. She nearly landed. She had landed. That was golden in an instant, but it was so good and so difficult, she crashed it and still won the bronze. But do you feel that Lydia can do this? She can win another one?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I do. I'm a bit concerned for Danielle Scott just because she is a Swiss ambassador, and doing my research, they haven't done too well in the past, mainly really pulling out of events and finishing fourth. But Scotty James with the third, maybe it's a different thing at the Winter Olympics, where if you are a Swiss ambassador, you do guarantee a medal.
BEN WATERWORTH: Speaking of not doing well in the past, Chumpy Pullens up again today, of course, as well. But Snowboard Cross is on today. I love the Snowboard Cross. This is entertaining as hell. This is one of the best sports to watch in any Olympics. Chumpy is up there. Jarrod Hughes is up there too. Adam Lambert is crossed over from American Idol and has put on the green and gold. Good to see. And Cam Bolton, of course, out there too. I don't know what it is, Jarrod. Maybe this is just me putting the mickey on him. Maybe I'm jinxing him. I don't know. But I just feel that... I've just got a feeling about Chumpy these games. I'm not saying it will be a gold, but I feel that Chumpy is going to walk away with a medal around his neck. In 24 hours, we're going to be declaring it International Chumpy and Lydia Day, the darlings of the Winter Olympics. But I don't know, can you sniff something here for Chumpy? Can you smell it? Can you break this Off The Podium duck and Lydia do it too? Because both of them on this show in the lead up to the games. But I don't know, I'm feeling good for Chumpy.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think there is a bit of something in the air. I think it's the new look, it's the long hair, it's his whole Zen training regime. He's worked on his mental prowess rather than his physical prowess. Yeah, there's something about this year for Chumpy. I don't know what it is, but yeah, I've got good feelings as well.
BEN WATERWORTH: He's actually maybe the only athlete I've legitimately seen in the lead up. I can say that without even trying to be, you know, just funny. Because a few times I've been flicking through Foxtel, and they've had like a World Cup, Snowboard Cross event on, and at least twice I've watched that he was eliminated in the semis, but he was in the semis. I mean, I just feel no one's talking him up. Like they've given him a bit of like, oh, you know, he's a former world champion. But this isn't the Scotty James effect. It's not the Brit Cox event. Like there's no one's talking him up as much as they fucking did in Sochi, when they're like, oh, he's a guaranteed medal. And plus the thing with Snowboard Cross, it's just such a fickle event. Like, I mean, we obviously spoke to him on the show about it. We spoke to a couple of others about this event and the fact that it just, anything can literally happen in Snowboard Cross, you know. It really, as much as you've got to be good and talented in this one, even more so than short track speed skating, like literally anything can happen. So I've got a feeling about Chumpy. We'll see how he goes. And outside of our main shot ones there, of course, I should mention the Skeleton. The first official heat today is on John Farrow in what's going to be the Battle of the Trans-Tasman Rivalry, Australia and New Zealand in the Skeleton. So we'll keep an eye out for that. But the medal events today, well tomorrow we're recording this today, you know what I'm talking about. There's actually a lot of medal events today after basically being none yesterday. There's nine medal events that will happen on Day 6. The Men's Super G has been postponed. That has been delayed a day. But we will finally see the Men's Downhill being delayed from Sunday. Finally we get to see that. And the Women's Giant Slalom. So there'll be two Alpine skiing events on Day 6. Get excited. There'll be two Biathlon events in the Men's Individual and the Women's Individual. Get excited. As we mentioned, the Women's 10km freestyle cross-country skiing will be decided on Day 6. The figure skating, the pairs. We will see more spaghetti arms, hopefully, and spaghetti legs and everything else going on there. The team relay in Luge is back. Oh, get excited. Snowboard, as we said, the Men's Snowboard Cross. And the speed skating, the Men's 10,000m. Jarrod, are you going to watch every single lap of the 10,000m? Because what an event that is.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, for sure. Look out for the Dutch in that one.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, there is legitimately only 12 competitors in this event. I'm just looking here. We have, I think, if I'm looking here, it's only Italy. No, Germany and Italy, and the Dutch. Okay, never mind. I'm trying to say that there's not that many people here from the same country. We have Bart Swings is back. Yes, come on, Bart. Representing Belgium, we've got the great Canadian, Tedjan Blomen. Yep, that's his name. Two Germans, two Italians, a Japanese skater, two Dutchers, a Norwegian, a South Korean, and an American. So this is an event that takes about 12.5 minutes to do. The world record, at least, actually is by Tedjan Blomen from Canada. So fingers crossed. And actually, you've also got the Olympic record holder as well in this event. So both Jorrit Bergsma, the Dutch Olympic record holder, and Tedjan Blomen, who is the world record holder. So get excited for the men's 10,000 metres happening. Jarrod, always a pleasure to have you here on the show. It's going to be a big day for Australia on day six. And between the aerials and between the Snowboard Cross, I don't know where to watch. But thank you very much for being on the show today, and we look forward to talking to you again tomorrow.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thank you. Fingers crossed we do get to see some of the events today.
BEN WATERWORTH: And for everybody out there, if you're not seeing any of the events, you can listen to our show. Like us on Facebook, and also follow us. Not on Twitter, because we're not on there, but you can use hashtag Off The Podium, and you can probably find one of us on there. In the meantime, to all our Canadian listeners, sorry that you weren't on the show today, but you'll hopefully be back tomorrow. And we hope for another exciting day at Pyeongchang. Thank you for your company, and good night.
Comments