PyeongChang 2018 Day 8 Review
As we reach the half way point of the 2018 Winter Olympics it's time to go over another day without any medals (at least for Australia) and at least make it super entertaining for you yet again! Why is David Morris just so goddamn awesome? Why does Channel 7 continue to suck so badly? Is Ester Ledecka the star of the games so far? Why are Liechtenstein and Spain the star countries of these games? And seriously, WHY IS DAVID MORRIS SO AWESOME?!?! You'll have to tune in and find out all the news and more with another amazing and OLYMPIC 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 An Olympics Podcast. I did it again. I said, it's meant to be a podcast. But we are back for the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games. Day 8 is behind us. Saturday, Super Saturday, as some people have called it. And another eventful day. Plenty going on. There's still stuff going on, at least at the time we're recording this, but we're going to recap what we know, what we've seen, and some of the stuff that we haven't seen because we watched Channel 7 today. My name is Ben, and it's a pleasure to welcome back the greatest athlete to ever come from Emu Plains. It is Mr. Jarrod Loobeek. Jarrod, welcome back to Off The Podium.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's great to be back at the halfway stage. Looking forward to continuing into the second week.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's sad to think that we're at the halfway point. It's gone by so quickly. And again, you know, all we've seen are just replays of the same events all week. And you'd still think that there's so many things that we're missing, because that's what it feels like. But so far, at least at the time of recording this, no medals for Australia, no medals for Canada, which is obviously a little bit disappointing. But I think the big news for us, literally just about, what, 15, 20 minutes ago at the time of recording this, I know I was pumped up and excited. David Morris, our man, special guest on this show last year. I interviewed him previously before that, back on the brink. He's the nicest man you will ever meet and talk to, and just the most awesomest Australian since Hugh Jackman. I'm calling it right now. He's through to the final of the Men's Aerials. Just what an event, what an outstanding performance. David Morris, make him carry the flag again in the closing ceremony. Just make him carry it all the time. Make him carry everything in the world, because he's just the greatest human being ever to live since ever.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, exactly. Did it the hard way, but I mean, that's the Australian way to do it, isn't it, leaving it till the last second.
BEN WATERWORTH: So, so, so much so. And just, you know, got us a little bit nervous there for a while, but, you know, good for him. And I mean, it's such a fascinating sport. And really, like, compared to the Women's Aerials, like, I'm not trying to be disrespectful to the women's, but the level of skill that these men can do. And it's kind of one of these sports where I don't really see where this skill comes from, because they're both dropping from about the same height. It's not like they have to ski fast or they have to do anything separately. So for the fact that the men, you know, pretty much a score of 112, which was David Morris' first jump, to be too low, it's incredible. I mean, these athletes are just beyond belief sometimes in what the stuff they can do there.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, exactly. Especially the fact that these are just, like, they're qualifying jumps. And it's kind of, in my head watching it, it's like, how can they even get, like, another twist in it? Like, how do they up it from this? Because it does seem to be right on the edge. I think they got a little bit luckier with the conditions tonight, but still, it's just, I mean, it's insane to watch.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely insane. You know, to put it into context, last night, excuse me, in the women's aerial, the gold-winning jump, Hannah Huskova, was a 96.14. That won her the gold medal in basically an event where everybody was crashing left, right and centre. And then we look, obviously, when it comes to the men's aerials tonight, that score would have been good for about 15th place. So it's crazy to think that, and that, you know, nowhere near qualifying for the actual finals. So yeah, absolutely insane skill. And David Morris, the first jump he was at 15, 112.83 was his score. Second jump, he got 124.89. He qualified second in the second qualifying phase. So he's through there. Sadly, for Canada, actually, no, not sadly, Canada, they do have one jumper in the final, sorry, Olivier Rochon. Rochon, Rochon, he got six in that first jump. So there will be a Canadian jumping in that one. Other Canadians that were there, Louis Irving did not make it through. And sad news for Lloyd Wallace, the British, Eddie The Eagle 2.0, didn't quite make it through. But boy, oh boy, was he not excitable. I mean, he got 100.03. They said it was the highest place he's ever finished in international competition. You think the guy won a gold medal with every single one of his jumps? He was going off.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it did look like it. I think part of the strategy of selling it to the judges didn't quite work out for him, but yeah, great to get a PB in the Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I expect to see Eddie the Eagle 2 being made in about 20 years' time about him based on that performance. Now, just a few moments ago, can I just say this? There's some breaking news here, Jarrod Lubick. I did say that Canada had not won a single medal on day 8, but absolute breaking news. This has just happened as we've gone to air. Not only have Canada won one medal, they've won two medals. Not only have they won two medals, they won a bronze, and they've won a gold. This is just coming through in the short track speed skating. The lady's 1,500 metres, Kim Booten, Boutine, whatever you want to call her, she's taken the bronze in the 1,500 metres behind China's Junyi Li. And good news for Korea, the fact that Choi Minjong took gold there. So Korea's third gold of their home Olympics. And in the men's 1,000 metres, the Stephen Bradbury Memorial, Samuel Girard has joined Stephen Bradbury as the only non-born Korean ever to have won this event. Thanks, Basil Zempelis or whoever. No, it wasn't Basil Zempelis. It was the other guy. The guy actually knows what he's talking about half the time who told me that. Samuel Girard, gold for Canada. He'd be to the American John Henry Kruger and bronze went to Seo Yura of Korea. So great news here for Canada, Jarrod. I mean, you know, we don't have Malory or Colin here yet again. I don't know what they're doing over there in Canada or in Adelaide at least, but we can celebrate for them. I mean, this is gold for Australia Junior, isn't it?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, yeah, exactly. I mean, if a medal's not going to us, as long as it goes to the Canadians, it doesn't really matter, does it?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. As long as it's not the French or the Germans struggling again on day eight. So not quite getting up there for them at the moment. So we'll just go over the other medal results today that have already come through. The women's skeleton and the men's large-heeled ski jumping will be decided at some point, hopefully while we're on air, so we'll be able to tell you those. If not, no doubt, check them out online because we probably will forget to update you again tomorrow. Women's Super G, what an event this was. Now, I'm going to talk a little bit about Ester Ledecka shortly. Czech Republic gold medal by 0.01 of a second. She's a snowboarder who, as a former world champion in snowboarding, come across to Alpine skiing and took the gold against the reigning Olympic champion, Austria's Anna Vieth, who took the silver. And it gets even better because in bronze, Tina Wuratha of the great nation of Liechtenstein, their first Winter Olympic medal in 30 years. Absolutely incredible, the Women's Super G. And did the commentators not go off, they were absolutely going crazy. And just to put it into context for Liechtenstein, they have never won a medal at the Summer Games, ever. In the history of their Olympics, their medals have only ever come in the Winter Olympics. There's actually their 10th medal in total when it comes to the Winter Olympics. All of them have been won in the sport of alpine skiing. And you do have to go back to Calgary in 1988 when they did pick up their last medal. That was the great Paul Frommelt in the men's slalom. Did you catch any of this, at least any of the highlights at all? Because this really was the highlight of the day, I think.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I did see bits and pieces kind of all over the shop. I mean, yesterday it was Spain kind of breaking this long drought, and today it's Liechtenstein. As the Australian commentators would like you to know, you can drive through it and not even notice. But no, yeah, great for these countries to break these really long droughts in between winning medals.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's so crazy just looking at this. She's the winner of the gold there, Ester Ledecka. She won two gold and a silver in World Championship in parallel slalom in snowboarding. Even as soon as last year, a gold in the parallel giant slalom World Cup at Sierra Nevada. Absolutely incredible that she did this only a year ago. And yet here she is in alpine skiing, basically just come across and boom, she's taken a gold medal at the Olympics. So absolutely insane. And the news is too that she's actually still competing in snowboarding at these Olympics. She's the first ever athlete to ever do this. She's still going to be competing in the parallel giant slalom. She could be the first athlete to, I mean, I would say this maybe in summer and winter. I don't know. We'd have to fact check this. This would have surely have to be the first time an athlete has ever won two medals, if she does, in two different sports at the same Olympics. Has it ever been done before?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I wouldn't know, but I mean, it seems ridiculous.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's crazy. I mean, they'd be like the same bolt running 100 metres and jumping in the pool and beating Michael Phelps. Like, I mean, it's just, I mean, similar, obviously, sports. These ones, you know, snowboarding skiing, they're just going to change what's on their feet. But yeah, I'm going to be keeping an eye on Ester Ledecka. And I'm telling you right now, she's my athlete of the day. I'm going to jump ahead right now, because Justin is saying, and just the reactions as well, like go and watch the reaction of this event. She's just deadpaned. And the cameraman actually literally is like coming up to him right in the face. She's just not even reacting. The cameraman's like, you won, you won. And she's like, I don't know. No, I did. Like, she just could not believe it. And I think then actually Tom, you know, Tom Williams, great, you know, journalist and esteemed Australian, actually interviewed her afterwards. And apparently Lindsey Vonn was caught walking past, saying, I can't believe I got beaten by a frickin snowboarder. Lindsey Vonn finished fifth, incidentally, for those wondering. So, I mean, this is just absolutely incredible. Maybe the star of the game's already just, you know, I'm jumping on the Channel 7 page here of overselling stuff, but absolutely crazy. And just on Lindsey Vonn, I'm looking at her tweets here. Frustrating to be so close to the podium and have made such a big mistake. But that's ski racing. I'm proud of the way I skied and how I attacked the course. I gave it my all and came out short. That's life. Now it's on to the downhill. And somebody has tweeted at Lindsey Vonn, Julie Fowdy, who I have no idea what she is. She's some athlete or something. She said, I just spent the last 20 minutes reading through tweets directed at Lindsey Vonn, sickened and disgusted once again by the lack of humanity that engulfs our country. She just rakes her damn heart out, and Trump supporters gloat she's celebrate her inability to meddle. Is this what we've become? And then someone, Lindsey Vonn, has replied to this and said, It's okay, Julie. Not everyone has to like me, but my family loves me and I sleep well at night. I work hard and try to be the best person I can be. If they don't like me, their loss, I guess... Thank you for the support. Good on you, Lindsey Vonn, providing some entertainment. You got beaten by a freaking snowboarder, as you said. Now, other mental events. The biathlon, the Women's Mass Start, Slovakia's Anastasia Kuzmina. She took the gold in that one hand of Belarus's Daria Domracheva. Good day for Belarus in the last 24 hours. Gold and silver. And Norway's Turil Ekhoff took the bronze. I'm going over some of the Australian results in a second, because I know, obviously, I avoided Greta Small there and some of the other Canadian stuff going on with those events. Cross-country skiing. It was a women's five-by-five kilometre relay. Norway took the gold ahead of Sweden, followed by the Olympic athletes from Russia in bronze. The figure skating, the men's singles went out today. Yuzuru Hanyu took the gold for Japan ahead of his teammate Shoma Unu for Japan. And you mentioned Spain before, Jarrod. After a drought of 26 years of not winning a medal, they've gotten their second one already. Javier Fernandez, the most Spanish person you will ever hear, as we met over yesterday, took bronze for Spain. So congratulations for Spain. They've gotten two bronze medals, and I'm sure they're going off over there in Spain right now. The women's slope style and the freestyle skiing was on today. It was gold to Switzerland. Sarah Hoffman, she beat a teammate, Mathilde Grimaud. And bronze is a story in itself too. Great Britain, Isabel Atkin, got another medal for the Brits. This is Great Britain's first medal in the history of the Winter Olympics in the sport of skiing. Can you believe that, Jarrod Lubig, that they've never won a medal? Australia and New Zealand have won medals in alpine skiing before, but Great Britain haven't. So there you go. Great Britain, their very first ever winter Olympic medal in the sport of skiing.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, always a little bit behind the times, the Brits.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, bloody hell. The Eagle 3 will be made on Isabel Atkin, clearly. Good on you, Isabel, there. And just in the short track that I did mention, as I said, I went over those medals, of course, before we'll update you on the skeleton and the ski jumping, should it come to hand. The medal tally as of right now, Germany still no medals. They have two days in a row, but they're still well out and top. Nine gold, two silver, four bronze, 15 in total. Norway still second, seven gold, eight silver, six bronze, 21. Netherlands, actually, they've swapped places, haven't they? Six gold, five silver, two bronze, 13. Canada slip up into fourth. Good job, Canada. They've hit America. That's what we want. Five gold, five silver, five bronze, five, five, five. It's the American phone number. They're on 15 medals in total, the Canadians. The US dropped back to fifth. Five gold, two silver, two bronze. That's the top five. The whole South Korea are now on three gold and two silver. They're currently in ninth place. Australia, we are in 18th position with two silver and a bronze. Still ahead of Britain. Good to see Britain on the two bronze there, just there. So other Australian results that we didn't mention outside, of course, of David Morris, who, as I said, is through to the final. The men's area was tomorrow night. Greatest small. 31st time of 1.24.09 in the Super G there. Great to see her reaction. I don't know if you saw her interview afterwards. She was in tears. I mean, she basically hadn't skied in two years. Picked it up again a few months ago. And she, like typical Australian, she was just like, my goal was to be within three seconds of gold, and I achieved that. So that's a positive. And yeah, she was in tears after the race. So I got to meet Greta Small. I enjoyed seeing that. Brendan Carey ended up in 21st place in the figure skating. That was in the free skating section of that, of course. Overall, he ended up finishing in 20th, if my position here is correct in what I am looking at right there. David Morris, as I said, is through to the final. I've said that about 300 times. Deanne Lockett made it through to the semifinals of the 1500 metres. Was in a good position for a large portion of that, but sadly she crashed out in the last lap and did not make it even through to the B final, sadly for her. And currently in the women's skeleton, Jackie Naricot was 17th after her third run. So we'll keep an eye out on where she ends up in that and hopefully for Jackie, she might be able to gain a couple of other places when it comes to that as well. Just I want to go over all the Canadian ones here. Valerie Griner was 23rd in the Super G. Candice Crawford, 29th for her there. The Biathlon, there were no Canadians in that one. The Cross Country Skiing Relay, Canada placed 13th and 2nd last. They will be disappointed with that. In the Figure Skating, Patrick Chan dropped down to 9th. I think I was in about 5th or 4th, wasn't he, yesterday, or 3rd? He was higher than that. And Keegan Messing was 12th in that one as well. In the Men's Errors, I went over the Canadians in that one. Did I not? Yes, I did. In the Ski... No, that was the Women's Errors. I don't know what I'm doing here, Jarrod. You think I would be used to this by now. There were a few other Canadians going on in the short track, including our man Charles Hamlin, who, you know, you'd want a Canadian to win the gold. You'd want one of our Off The Podium guests to do it. Sadly, no, it was the other one. So the Off The Podium curse continues. I think David Morris is basically it, and Andy Jung, if he can do it, in the 500 metres coming up, of course, as well. We went over the short track in that one, and the skeleton, as we said, is basically ongoing. And bad news, one of the ones I did watch today, and we'll get into that now, what we did watch, I watched Canada vs Czech Republic in the Men's Ice Hockey, a tight, tight game. Went into a shootout after it was tied 2-0, and sadly Canada fell to the Czech Republic in the Men's Ice Hockey. So once again, these unknowns of the men's tournament are rearing their heads at the moment. Just nobody is sort of sure how this is going to play out. But shades of 1998 for ice hockey fans, and the Czech Republic beat Canada in the semifinals. Of course, back in Nagano, players like Wayne Gretzky on the team, the first time NHL players were allowed. So in Group A, Canada currently sitting in second place, one point behind the Czech Republic. So they should still make the quarters, direct quarter qualification, of course. We'll see how that plays out there. And there were some other games in that today. Switzerland just beat South Korea 8-0. Bit of a close one, that one. Good to see the Koreans being competitive. Being a bit mean there. The quarterfinals, I will just say, of the women's tournament were on today. Good news, if you're from the Olympic athletes of Russia or Finland, you were both through to the semi-finals. Switzerland went down 2-6 to the Olympic athletes in Russia and Finland, 7-2 over their traditional rivals Sweden. So bad day for Mallory there, as both her Swiss and Sweden fans went out. So the semi-finals are happening in a couple of days. Canada will take on the Olympic athletes of Russia, and the US will take on Finland. So I look forward to watching the bronze medal match between Finland and the Olympic athletes of Russia, and hopefully Canada can repeat their performance when it comes to that match. And some curling results. Jarrod, I know you're keen to know what's happening in the curling. You're just going, Ben, come on, hurry up. I want to know what's happening in the curling. I've been waiting for this all day. I can tell you that once I get to this part, I can tell you that South Korea, this isn't the main, South Korea 11 over Great Britain 5, Switzerland 7 over Norway 5, and the party pants were back. I don't know if you saw them, Jarrod. Sweden 5 over Canada 2. What's going on with Canada curling? They need an inquiry into this. They're starting to choke. They peaked at the mixed doubles. And Japan 6 over Italy 5. So, currently, the standings in the curling, see Sweden on top, they are undefeated. Canada still in second position. Switzerland third, Japan in fourth. And for our Danish listeners, you're currently in seventh place in that one. In the women's curling today, I can tell you that Canada finally broke through for a win. 11-3 over their traditional American rivals. What a steamed history there is in USA vs Canada curling. And I don't have results here. Britain against Korea, Denmark, China, Japan, Olympic athletes from Russia. I think those games are currently on as we speak. Alright, now that that's done with, Jarrod, what did you watch today?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Not a whole lot today. I got a little bit fed up with Channel 7, and it was very kind of disorientating. I didn't know if what I was watching was live, or it already happened. I just assumed that it probably had already happened, being Channel 7. Saw most of the... what do you call that event on the skis, going down the hill, but not the...
BEN WATERWORTH: Slope Super G.
JARROD LOOBEEK: That's the one, the slope one.
BEN WATERWORTH: Slope style, yes.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Slope style, lots of the slope style. Bits and pieces of the figure skating. Of course, saw Brendan Carey a couple of times in that. And then caught the tail end of the aerials.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, yeah, I pretty much watched the same as you. I didn't actually see the slope style. Saw a bit of the figure skating, watched the ice hockey as I mentioned. Saw some of the short track. But yeah, my main focus is the aerials. Really, I mean, I'll get to my frustrations with Channel 7 again, because I had a lot of likes on my tweets tonight. I was quite honoured by that. But I think we should go straight into the athlete that I've already given mind. It's Ester Ledecka. Do you have anyone different? Are you going with Ester? Do you want to go with anyone else?
JARROD LOOBEEK: From this small portion of events that I saw today, I'm going to have to go with the Belarusians in that second qualification of the aerials, just because the first one, Maxim Kostyuk, I don't know if you saw him miss out and then chuck his skis into the fence and kind of walk off. And then we had the other one, Anton, who also missed out, and then they were trying to kind of usher him, the volunteers, and he just wasn't having a bar event. He just walked up off the hill half into the distance.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, just very, very, very Belarusian. They're all the same, aren't they? They all look the same.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Good losers of that group.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I like the... I think it might have been Nikton from the Olympic athletes from Russia. He didn't make it, and he kind of just like took his skis off and sat down on the side in this little like, you know, tuft of snow that was sitting near the fence. It was just like he was just rethinking his life. It was like Sad Keanu Reeves meme. You know, there's going to be sad Stanislav Nitkin memes going crazy. Yeah, Channel 7, look, I don't really have any commentary things for it today, but look, I switched over, I think it was about 7 o'clock or whatever, and they decided to have, let's show the highlights of week one of the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics. Now, Jarrod, I don't think you caught it, but if you are from somebody who's knowledgeable in Channel 7 coverage of the Winter Olympics, what would you assume the highlights would be of Channel 7's first week of the Winter Olympics?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, I mean, it's got to be that Matt Graham, Silver, 100 times, Jarrod Hughes, Silver, the Scotty James Bronze, and then, I mean, what else do they even show apart from that? Is there anything else to highlight? That's all that I saw for the first week.
BEN WATERWORTH: I honestly think that you're correct on all three of those, but I think the other 50% was shown of was just how amazing Sean White is, because Sean White won the gold, Jarrod. He won the gold. He sat down with Hamish. They showed basically the whole interview with him again, and they just happened to subtly mention that he's coming to Sydney and that Channel 7 will be showing that later on, so just subtle references. They had a few nice little montages. None of the hair ones, sadly. We don't have any horses or hairs with me, you know, but we had a nice one of Frank Sinatra with That's Life, everyone crashing and falling. That was kind of entertaining. We had a nice slow-mo one with, you know, emotional moments, which was pretty good. But I also enjoyed the catch-ups with Kenno and Brenno and, you know, talking with them on there about their moments. I enjoyed Ed Weiner's, you know, hilarious comedy with Hamish, which included a nice little cutaway of her standing by the snow and Hamish McLaughlin by a fake little fire. And they had the subtitles underneath the split screen that said, cold, warm. And I was in stitches, Jarrod. It was hilarious.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Do you think they could have worked in a reference to Australian Spartan there with the two of them together?
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, just... can we, like, legitimately, I was reading through the tweets at this point, because let's establish that at the point they're deciding to show this, there is at least, like, six live events happening as we, like, do this. And, you know, I realise there's going to be the people, again, as always, who are going to be like, oh, if you want to watch it, watch the app. OK, fair enough, I understand that. But at the same time, this is a national broadcast, and they're hosting the Olympics. They should be spending $170 million to the right just to make you go download an app. You know, not everybody has an app or a tablet or this or that or everything else. I tweeted out my frustration. Three very angry tweets. I got 13 likes on one. I got nine on one and nine on another. And there were some great other tweets that were happening at the same time. I'm trying to see if I can find some of the more tamer ones that were going on. Simon Haydcock, at 7 Olympics. You're not fooling anyone with your live megawall. Got the speed skating men's final on there, of which I just watched. Actually live, about 15 minutes ago. Continues to be the worst coverage of the Winter Olympics. Ever. Yep, that's a fair enough assessment of that. What else is there going on? Louie, at Louie BB10, at 7 Olympics. Can you stop with the bit where we watch a race, jump, run, then it crosses back to the studio for 36, where the presenter recaps what we literally just watched, and then throw back to the sport. Such an annoying waste of time. Pete.Askian, the problem with looking at Twitter during the Olympics is that you see results of events several days before 7 Olympics broadcasts them on their live and free service. Great comments here about Dave Morris. Yes, we know, he gave a fantastic interview. Squishbits, at Squishalicious. There's one for everybody to follow at home. The snow jumping is long finished. The speed skating final is live. Which is this godforsaken channel showing? Yep, you guessed right. Hashtag 7 Olympics. What else have we got going on here? They're giving Jackie Cooper a bit of a spray there. I like Jackie Cooper. She's one of the few highlights for it there. Actually, here's a bit of a thing for you, Jarrod. I was flicking through some of my old coverages of some of the Olympics and I just happened to have a bit of a check on the Sochi coverage that Channel 10 had. And I don't know if you're familiar with Stephen Lee, who used to do the expert comments back in the day on Channel 7 Winter Olympics coverage, but he was involved in the scheme. God, he sounds amazing. So expert, so good. Obviously, he had Bradbury back doing it. I'm not taking away from Jackie Cooper. I'm enjoying Jackie Cooper, but Alyssa Campland obviously did some coverage. I think she also did back in Channel 9. But I remember back during Vancouver, people complained about Eddie Maguire and James Brayshaw's commentary. I would take them a hundred times over over the crap that we've been getting during Channel 7. Can I just point that out? I mean, oh my god. The one thing that I'm looking forward to about these Olympics being over is that I can actually stop watching Channel 7.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, exactly. I mean, at least people know who Eddie Maguire is.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well, exactly. And like, okay, say what you will about Eddie Maguire, but the man does his research and knows what he's talking about. He comes into like everything with statistics. He's kind of got a Bruce McEvaney about him that he brings you random stats that are actually quite entertaining. I love Basil Zemplas, but, you know, again, it's basically every single reference. Oh, and he's a Swiss skier whose idol is Roger Federer, who of course became number one in the world today. Get over the tennis, Basil! Like, just... I love you, Basil, but get over it!
JARROD LOOBEEK: Australia's Summer of Tennis coming to you in 10 months time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, my God. yeah, this is just... so much to go on here with Channel 7's woeful coverage. Woeful, woeful, woeful. let's see here. Oh, here's another one here, just quickly. Steve at Steve's Out. 7 Olympics. Channel 7, you've said that today's the busiest day of the Winter Olympics. Why are you showing replays of Australian athletes days ago and fluff like the biggest falls? Can't we have some decent live coverage and cut out the crap? Wish we had BBC Olympics in Oz. It's so true. They did advertise that yesterday. Isn't that the busiest day? And yet they've taken half an hour to show... Actually, it was more like an hour, let's be honest. Anyway, I have not even prepared a Canadian My Name Is today. That's how bad I have been. I wonder if... Do we have the gold medallist, Mr. Samuel Girard? Did he do a My Name Is? Let's see here if he did. He did, he's done one. And I don't know if Colin's already done this one, but we're going to do this one. Our newest gold medallist from Canada. He's an outdoor enthusiast who loves camping in the forest. He's also a world-class short track speed skater who will be part of Canada's team at Pyeongchang in 2018. Alright. Hello, my name is Samuel Girard and I am Canadian. My favourite Olympic moment is HEN 5000m relay winning at Vancouver. I'm guessing that's meant to be men, but it looks like HEN. If I could have any superpower, it would be Superman. I feel like we've done this one, haven't we?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, definitely. Look further down the list, there's a great TV show.
BEN WATERWORTH: Alright, okay. This is the one we've done. Games of Thrones. Damn it! See, I listen to Colin when he talks about things on this show. Alright, can I find another My Name is Quickly? I don't know how quickly I'm going to be here. Let's see, the first one on the screen is Emily Clark, and I play hockey. Have we done her before, as in read her things out? Hello, my name is Emily Clark, and I'm Canadian. My favourite Olympic moment is 2014 Olympic Women's Hockey Gold. As a kid, my favourite team was Philadelphia Flyers. If I could be any superhero, I would be Flash, to which they've included a trailer for The Flash on the CW. My favourite music artists are Khalid. If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, it would be steak and potatoes. My favourite place to compete is anywhere in Canada. Sure. One thing I've always wanted to do is go to an Ellen DeGeneres show. Well, you might. Just dance on ice and lift your shirt up like underneath there's an Ellen t-shirt on or something, if you score a goal, she'll invite you on. My favourite thing to do in the summer is go to my cabin with my family. My favourite movie is The Grinch. I never included a trailer for How The Grinch Stole Christmas 1966. Would that not be the Jim Carrey version, perhaps? Canada? I don't know. My favourite place to visit in Canada is Pentacon, BC. Favourite cartoon to watch growing up was Scooby-Doo. If I had to do karaoke, I would sing Fast Car. Tracy Chapman, that's a classic. If you could choose to be an Olympian in any other sport other than your own, which sport would you choose? Half pipe snowboard. Draw a picture of one of your teammates. Please include their name. And she's drawn like a stick bottom half of a person with skates on it and says, Laura Stacy, too tall for her photo. Draw a picture of yourself. She's drawn a very bad stick figure of herself holding a stick. Good for her. I feel like I'm learning so much about our Canadian friends. All right, let's get ourselves prepped here, Jarrod. I don't know, did any of ours make this? I did not look at this all day today.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I don't believe it's been updated.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, don't tell me that. What have they done? Oh, it hasn't been updated. Oh, they're all from yesterday. I think our admin friend's gone on break. He's having the weekend off.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think Gundaguy Public School broke the servers with the amount of messages that they sent.
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, there's legitimately nothing that I can say here. There's one here from yesterday that I don't think we read. Dear Scotty, this is Scotty James, obviously, from Charlie, Victoria. Dear Scotty, good job. I really enjoyed your video, and we watched it and wrote about it from Charlie Yackenenda Primary School. Lily H from Victoria to Scotty James. To Scotty James, good luck from Lily. Yep. Jeff from Queensland yesterday to Bobsleigh. I love Bobsleigh. It's the best sport ever invented. It's a wonderful fast sport, which I love. Teeth emoji, teeth emoji, teeth emoji, teeth emoji, smile. Oh, God, there's so many emojis in that fucking post. Kaden from South Australia to Dominique Densha, one of our alpine skiers. You are awesome. That's it. Valerie Howlrath, New South Wales, to Snowboard, so skilled and brave, best winter Olympic viewing yet, amazing.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Obviously not watching Channel 7.
BEN WATERWORTH: Lisa and Anthony from Victoria to Phillip Bellingham, of course, one of our cross-country skiers. Go Phil and Callum, team. That's the team. Okay, yeah, we're going way back here. So judging on my list here, if I'm looking at my front page of this order, which I think we're still on track to cross everyone off, we've got three people to cross off of my front page. I feel like we should cross all these off. So we've got Snowboarder Kent Callister, we've got freestyle skier Rowan Chapman Davies, and friend of the show's figure skater Kalani Crane. Are you happy with those three today, Jarrod?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, sounds good.
BEN WATERWORTH: Let's see how we have a crack at this. Crack-a-lacka. Alright, let's start off with Kent Callister. I know you're a big Kent fan. You've joined the Callister Army. If I can find him name here. There you are, Kenty Boy. Name, Colin Hilding. Email, colinhildingatcanada.com. Overseas fan, Snowboard, Snowboard, Snowboard, Snowboard? Snowboard tongue face. I cannot think of anything. That's the most basically boring one we have ever done. But why not? Alright, thank you Kent Callister. You are officially off my list. Alright, let's go to Freestyle Skiing. Rohan Chapman Davies. So good, he has three names. Okay, let's do one from Davy Chapman Rohan. Pretty good. DCR at hotmail.com, Slick State, Queensland. What's my ideas for this one?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I mean, we should probably tell him to make the switch to snowboarding. Given the success of Ester the other way around.
BEN WATERWORTH: You should totally skip over to the snowboard moguls. Snowboarding moguls, my man. Think of how good Ester did. How good is she? Ester did. How good is she? I hope she's single, and you can have a crack for me. Oh, God. We are idiots.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's late. It's been a long day.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's been a long day, folks. We've been two days without medals now. We're going to entertain ourselves somehow. Channel 7 haven't been. Alright, I feel like we need to be nice here to Kalani. You know she's not going to win a medal because she's been on the show. Name, Tonya Harding. Tonya at hotmail.com Overseas fan. Want me to whack anyone for you? You tell me who and it's done. But hey, it wasn't me, okay? It was Margot Robbie. Done. I really would like to actually have them accidentally just slip one through. Just like, oh shit, we posted one there. Alrighty, thank you Australian Olympic Committee for having such a fun website for us to make fun of. As always, if you at home want to send a fan message to your favourite Australian Olympian, pyongchang2018.olympics.com.au, I feel like I don't ever tag that, but you can do that and you can be as cool as us. Just quickly before we look ahead to day nine, I just wanted to have a quick little news story here, a little fun one that I saw here, Jarrod, I don't know if you called it, that Finland, in between their events, are knitting little squares to help them cope with stresses of competition. This is an article on olympic.org. 50 members of the Finnish athlete and coaching contingent are using their downtime in between training and competing to make small, knitted squares to help them relax. The snowboard coach Antti Koskanen, who was spotted using his needles at the top of the slope-style course, said, It has become something of a hobby for me. I do it every four years. It's a nice Finnish thing. It means no unnecessary chit-chat is needed. That is very Finnish. They don't like to talk. My goodness. This is a thing. I mean, how are Finland doing on the medal challenge? They've only won a couple of bronzes, haven't they? They've only won three bronzes, to be precise. So, you know, is this something New Zealand need to take up, maybe, and they can, you know, triple their zero count or something like this?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah. New Zealand should work on those Scooby things with the... What are they even made of? Wires or whatever that you kind of twist together.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. All those things. Yes. Yes. It's been a long time since I've seen those. That's a good point, actually. That was a fun little story. I like that there. I'm just looking at the skeleton, which has just finished, and I can tell you the German streak of two days in a row without medals has been beaten, has ended, because they have gotten the bronze medal. Jacqueline Lowling has gotten the bronze. Silver, Canada's Elizabeth Vasje. And it's gold for the Brits! Oh no, they're ahead of us! Lizzie Yarnold took the gold for Britain in the skeleton. My goodness, we know the Brits have lots of skeletons in their closets. Maybe that's why they do well in events like this. But the duck's over, Britain's gotten the gold! Oh shit, no pressure on you tomorrow, David Morris. Good result here for the Brits though, Charrod.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, definitely. And I think Jackie will be a little bit disappointed that she hasn't done quite as well as her partner Dom Parsons. But I'm sure he'll be lauding that over her in the Parsons household.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, absolutely. Agree there. And just on that, Jackie 17th. So she did make... Well, it's a bit hard not to make the top 20s. Only 20 competitors in the field. But Nigeria's Simadela Adagabu was last, and that was Nigeria's first ever appearance in the Winter Olympics. So congratulations there to Simadela for finishing off there. The ski jumping is still ongoing. So we don't have results for you at the time of recording this. I can let you know though right now that it has just started the final round. So no one jumped yet. After the first set of jumps, Poland's Kamit Stoch was beating Michael Heibock of Austria and Andreas Vellinger of Germany. No Canadians. Actually, there is one Canadian, Mackenzie Boyd-Klaus was 23rd after the first jump. And obviously, no Australians in it because Australians have never competed in ski jumping before in their entire lives. So day 9 is upon us. We are into another Sunday. Five, six medal events happening tomorrow. We've got the Men's Giant Slalom and the Alpine Skiing. I'm just going to call it right now that my prediction is nobody because I can't actually see any competitors if I click on that one. That's a bad way of making a joke. The Biathlon Men's Mass Start is on tomorrow. The 4x10 kilometre relay in the cross country is on. The Freestyle Skiing, obviously the Men's Aerials is on and the Men's Slope Style happens tomorrow. And in the Speed Skating, it's the Crash and Bash, the Women's 500 metres. That's always an exciting one to watch. The Koreans will be hoping to have a bit of a crack in that one. In the Giant Slalom, I will mention that two of our men that we've already talked a lot about this week, Dominic Demchar and Harry Laidlaw, finally get their crack in the Alpine skiing. There will also be Heats of the Bobsleigh tomorrow. They were just the middle events that went over. I'll go over the non-middle events in a second. But two Aussies, of course, and the two men, Lucas Madder and David Marey, so always get excited for the bobsled. The Slope Style Qualifications, and all the Slope Styles happening tomorrow, Russ Henshaw in that one, and as we've gone over, David Morris. In the aerials, other events happening tomorrow that don't necessarily have medals at the end of it. As I said, bobsleigh starts tomorrow. Curling continues tomorrow. Ice hockey continues tomorrow with group stages of the men's, and there will be 5th, 8th place semifinals of the women's tournament. And also in the speed skating, this is long track, I should say, not short track, the 500 metres, but the qualification for the men's team pursuit will be happening in the speed skating tomorrow. And I do believe, and yes they are, New Zealand are in that tomorrow, Jarrod. There's actually only 8 teams in the men's team pursuit. It's a knockout format. So Norway will play New Zealand in the first round of the quarterfinals. Good luck, New Zealand! So, what are your chances there for the New Zealand speed skating team to knock off the Norwegians?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Cool, 10 to 1, surely.
BEN WATERWORTH: 10 to 1, yep. Well if they get through, they've only got to face off against the Italians in the South. They've got the easy half of the draw. The Canadians, unfortunately, they've been drawn against Japan. They get through Japan, they will have to play off against probably the Dutch, because the Dutch will be up against Americans. The Dutch hold the world record, and they also hold the Olympic record. So good fucking luck there, USA and Canada, and that side of things. Stranger things have happened, who knows. But we are looking forward to that. Another day happening. Remember to like us on Facebook. You can follow us on Twitter by using the hashtag Off The Podium, and anything else in between that you want to send us. Say g'day, say hello. Do what you like. We like to bag along Channel 7 with you as well. So by all means, get involved. Jarrod, always a pleasure, mate. Thank you for joining us once again.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's been fun. Fingers crossed that Australia can hang on to that top 20 in the metal tally.
BEN WATERWORTH: And we're crossing everything for David Morris to land something good, bring home another medal, get us off the three-medal duck, and get us onto our record fourth medal and make it a gold, David. Make it a gold. No pressure. Break off the podium curse as well. We'll be back tomorrow. Thanks for your company. And we'll speak to you then. Good night.
Comments