PyeongChang 2018 Opening Ceremony Review
THE GAMES ARE HERE! It's time to get excited as the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics have started and your favourite Olympics podcast is here to give you it's take on the opening ceremony! Just how bad were Channel 7 in covering the event? What was with all the outfits? Did the cauldron look like a giant space penis? How good was the traditional Korean song of 'Imagine' performed by out of tune buskers? Why was everything pre-recorded? Why did we have to add another Canadian to the episode to balance it out? Have we found our winter Ryan Lochte already? Why do Canadian skiers poo themselves? And can any of our fan messages actually get published on the AOC website? It's all here and more in our epic recap of the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics!
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 the very first episode of the actual Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games. That is right, the games have begun, the opening ceremony has happened, we've witnessed everything from lights to drones to traditional Korean stuff, oiled Tongan men, future Olympic athletes, as well as still waiting for Thomas Bach to finish his speech, because I believe he's about to. He's about a quarter of the way through, and hopefully he might get some exciting stuff throughout this episode. But we're here to talk about the opening ceremony. Day one has actually started at the time of recording, so we can look ahead to what we're looking forward to watching on air, as well as what's happening. And we also even have an extra person joining us today to even out the ledger between Australia and Canada. But I'm going to start off by introducing everybody's favourite promising skeleton athlete, it is of course Colin Hilding. Colin, welcome back to Off The Podium.
COLIN HILDING: Thank you. And I'm just going to get it out of the way before either the Australians can do it. The New Zealand flag bear entered with a bearskin rug on his back. There, it's done.
BEN WATERWORTH: I didn't even pay attention to New Zealand walking in the stadium, let's be honest. No Australians did. Also joining us on the line, all the way from the plains of Emu, it is the long lost member of Just Jerk, it is Jarrod Loobeek. Jarrod, welcome back to Off The Podium.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thank you, it's great to see the amazing K-pop talent getting their dues. Well overdue.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well overdue, well overdue. And also joining us for the very first time on this show to make sure that we have an equal number of Canadians and Australians as written in the charter by the Off The Podium Charter of 2018. She is joining us all the way from the exotic Canadian city of Adelaide. It is, of course, the one, the only. Is she Swiss? Is she Swedish? I don't know. They're probably the same place. It's Mallory Foster. Mallory, welcome to Off The Podium.
MALLORY FOSTER: I thought I was mentally prepared to be bullied, but I was not mentally prepared enough.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's exciting to have you on because believe me, I was just going to have fun today reading out the text messages that you were sending me last night, but I think it's going to be even more fun knowing that you're actually on the episode today. Can you just quickly inform our listeners? Well, to defend yourself, yeah. Well, you can start off by saying, can you tell me, is there a difference between Sweden and Switzerland, or are they the same country?
MALLORY FOSTER: Yes, they are different countries.
BEN WATERWORTH: Are you sure?
MALLORY FOSTER: They are.
BEN WATERWORTH: You're Googling it to double check that you're...
MALLORY FOSTER: No, I know that they're different countries.
BEN WATERWORTH: Abba and Roger Federer.
COLIN HILDING: Really?
BEN WATERWORTH: By Mallory? Is that it?
COLIN HILDING: That's what people said.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm trying to find the text message you sent me last night where you legitimately said, why are they coming out differently? They're the same place.
MALLORY FOSTER: I said, are those the Swedes? Wait, no, those are the Swedes.
BEN WATERWORTH: We'll get to that, but let's start off with just, I guess, initial impressions of the opening ceremony, because this is the part where we can poke fun at Korean culture a little bit, maybe. The only time we can probably do this and not get into trouble. Let's start with you, Colin. I mean, you're obviously very excited for a certain man in sunglasses and a microphone, but I mean, I don't know if that means you enjoyed it or you think it was the worst thing you've ever seen in your life. What did you think of the opening ceremony?
COLIN HILDING: Oh, I mean, let's start off with the good. The venue looks fantastic. The ceremonies don't exactly showcase much, though, and I think there are a lot of problems. The biggest problem being, I can't tell because of the weird lighting in this place or because it was the deadest crowd in the history if one person showed up to these opening ceremonies. Like, it seemed like it was an empty building, and that's simply because you can't see the seats. The show itself, it was fine. It doesn't really compare to past ones we had. I think I probably preferred Rio a little bit over this just because I thought it was more creative. Well, look, we at least saw people over the age of nine in the opening ceremonies. I mean, this was like the kids' Olympic ceremony, like Nickelodeon does Pyeongchang Olympics. These are drones! It also had a lot of effects that seemed to be put on just in TV and probably one of the reasons the audience didn't respond at all because it's like we're watching these incredible light shows going on and then in the stadium, it's like there's people looking and pointing and then the effects are added later on. It was just a bizarre opening ceremony. And I don't know, also the parade, well, we'll get to the Parade of Nations later on, but yeah, it was okay. It wasn't the worst, but it wasn't the best.
BEN WATERWORTH: I just want to say quickly, all Rio had was like some built up buildings in Gisele Boudreau, whatever name is. That's about it. I had people cheering. Well, that's because Brazil were like, yay, finally all the money that you made is bankrupt is here to do something with it. Jarrod, you're obviously our go-to opening ceremony expert here. I mean, what did you think of the opening ceremony?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I thought it was decent, but it wasn't really what I was expecting. I suppose the last five minutes was what I was expecting for most of the whole thing, and I was like, where was this throughout the entirety of it? I just think it was a bit of a letdown. I think on the positive side, all the Olympic rings will lit up. So, I mean, that's a step up from our last opening ceremony at the Winter Olympics. But yeah, I just thought, well, there wasn't enough K-pop. It just wasn't what I was expecting.
BEN WATERWORTH: Not enough K-pop. Alright, so we've got Colin, not as good as Rio, Jarrod, not enough K-pop. Mallory, now, again, as our esteemed second opening ceremony athlete, you lived near Vancouver when the 2010 opening ceremony... Well, you are, because you're on Off The Podium, and everyone's entitled to their own opinions. Just quickly, I did find the text message, just to say you said, wait, the Switzerland people are Swedish, right? That is what you said to me.
MALLORY FOSTER: And then I immediately after, what did I know? Read the next text that I send, or maybe like three texts later that I send after that.
BEN WATERWORTH: The next text you said was, Orcs, they're Swiss, followed by Oops, followed by Shh, followed by they're all the same.
MALLORY FOSTER: Correct. Yep, that's what I said.
BEN WATERWORTH: Anyway, actually, just after that, I'll quickly say that you said, Oh my god, the Slovenians, they're from Monsters Inc. What did you think?
MALLORY FOSTER: Oh, so are the Irish, so are the Irish.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, everyone knows the Irish, they're just called Mike Wazowski. What did you think of the opening ceremony?
MALLORY FOSTER: Colin said that we're not allowed to talk about the parade yet, but that's like the main part of the opening ceremony. Second, talk about the cauldron. We need to read that text message about witches and wizards.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, we'll get to that. We do do this in slight order. I just want your overall vibe of the opening ceremony, not specific moments, just yet. I didn't tell you this beforehand. My bad.
MALLORY FOSTER: Third. Is it my turn yet?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes.
MALLORY FOSTER: Bronze. Oh, perfect. 2010 was better. I think that these are the only two opening ceremonies I've ever watched. 2010 was better.
BEN WATERWORTH: You haven't really missed much since 2010, except for London. London was good. But yeah, I think it was slightly better than Rio, slightly, just because things looked cooler when they did it, even though, yeah, I have to agree with you, Colin, that pretty much all the cool stuff was pre-recorded. I mean, like that drone thing in the snowboarders was actually live. But I don't know, there's just something about opening ceremonies that have lost their magic. I just, I mean, I get the effects. It's modern technology. A lot of that can look good. But, I mean, Jarrod, you and I, we're both obviously Australian. We all remember the iconic Nikki Webster from 2000. And ever since, you know, Nikki Webster walked out into Stadium Australia, and we saw the story of her going through the history of Australia. Every single opening ceremony has one rule. That is, get some kiddies and get them to walk through the history of whatever city we're in. And let's be honest, I mean, I was enthralled by the history of Canada in 2010. I was enthralled by the history of China in 2008, of the UK in London 2012. But I mean, I didn't learn anything about the history of Brazil two years ago. And Korea, all I think from Korea is that little kids grow up to be neurosurgeons and K-pop singers. They have drones that can form the opening rings. They have a K-pop band called Just Jerk, and they can play Psy on a CD and not have the guy perform live. Jarrod, why does everyone need to copy Sydney after 18 years ago?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, this was no strawberry kisses.
BEN WATERWORTH: Nothing ever is.
JARROD LOOBEEK: My issue with the kids was they grew up, and then they came back and they were young again. I'm like, hang on, what happened here? When did time travel become part of this opening ceremony? Because I was like, good, they've grown up, they're gone. They're not coming back, they're gone, that's it. And then five minutes later, they're back. And I'm like, I don't understand.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's too rushed, too quick. I mean, if this is lost in this time travel or something like that, fair enough. But I want to see them grow up in the closing ceremony. Give them two weeks. Let them get an education and shit. I'm sure it works quickly in Korea. But I just love the way that they're there. And they're like, oh, and he's Johnny. He became a neurosurgeon, and he's Jenny. Of course she became a K-pop artist. And then you're right, they're back later on, dancing with Just Jerk. And this is the Olympics.
COLIN HILDING: Why didn't none of them become speed skaters?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, all the young kids that were carrying the flag. Can we just talk about that flag where they're all like, oh, here's the great Korean looged person, and here's Jenny, a promising figure skater. What does that even mean? What did the Canadian commentators say about that column when they're coming out carrying that flag?
COLIN HILDING: Which flag?
BEN WATERWORTH: The Olympic flag. You know the games that we're watching right now? They've got rings on them.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, yeah, they weren't really saying much at that point. I think they kind of run out of material. They had some good stuff during the parade of athletes, but yeah, it'll calm down by then. They kind of give it the respect of not saying anything at all, so that the silence of the crowd can just be deafening.
BEN WATERWORTH: Meanwhile, Mallory and I are texting each other going, this is boring. But I liked it when they carry the Korean flag in, and they're all again showcasing. This is where you showcase your great athletes of the past.
MALLORY FOSTER: There were two freaking winter athletes out of all eight of them.
BEN WATERWORTH: They had the coach of the golf team from Rio. It's like they've sat down in a board meeting, okay, what's some great Korean athletes that can carry the flag? Okay, we've got our speed skater. Yep. We've got our ski jumper. Yep. Oh, what about the coach of the golf team in Rio? Yep. That's a mark on there. And even when they had the torch in, my prediction of the torch lighter of Chun Li Kuang was sort of correct. She carried the torch into the stadium. But then she like handed it off to the golf gold medallist from Rio, followed by a World Cup soccer player. I mean, seriously, I was on for Psy lighting the cauldron at that point because they just were getting random Koreans. It wasn't even Olympians. I mean, Mallory, I texted you and saying that, oh, this is my prediction to light the torch. And you're like, you cheated, you cheated. And I'm like, well, if you had listened to our show last week.
MALLORY FOSTER: Yeah, I did. I figured he looked it up. Um, the part of the lighting, though, that I liked was the two hockey girls.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes.
MALLORY FOSTER: Well, that was smarter.
BEN WATERWORTH: What we're going to do, I think we just lump so much of these things in random because I think we're going to talk about the Parade of Nations completely separately. And I know I've got plenty of notes. I've got plenty of notes here on the coverage, at least on Channel 7. And I'd love to hear some of the CBC stuff. I'm sure Jarrod is waiting to just get ripped into Channel 7 as well. But just, I mean, we'll jump to the torch lighting. Now, Mallory, inform our listeners and Colin and Jarrod of your description of how this torch got, the cauldron got lit. Nothing?
MALLORY FOSTER: Was that a question for someone?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I think you're...
COLIN HILDING: Well, the one whose name is Mallory only.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, all right, we'll try that again. Can you inform our listeners, Jarrod and Colin, and anyone else who can hear my name, my voice right now, that what you thought, how you described the cauldron being lit?
MALLORY FOSTER: I can't have described that with appropriate words.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, you can because you're off the podium and there's no such thing as inappropriate words.
MALLORY FOSTER: What if my mother decides to listen to this?
BEN WATERWORTH: Your mother won't listen to this.
MALLORY FOSTER: Okay, it looks like...
COLIN HILDING: Well...
MALLORY FOSTER: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Do you want to tie...
COLIN HILDING: Let's just play 20 questions here.
BEN WATERWORTH: Is it phallic of nature? Um...
MALLORY FOSTER: But...
BEN WATERWORTH: But?
MALLORY FOSTER: Okay, no, I have no plan. I can't...
BEN WATERWORTH: It doesn't look like a butt.
MALLORY FOSTER: No, no, no, there's no way to save them. They did a really terrible job. Whoever designed it... I just watched the episode of How I Met Your Mother, where Ted's boss designs a building that looks like a dick, and everyone is too afraid to tell them. This is the same situation.
BEN WATERWORTH: So, in other words, it looks like a dick. That's just basically what you're saying. I want to read out... Your other text message is here, Mellody, that you'll send me.
MALLORY FOSTER: Cauldron.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's cool that it's two of the ice hockey players. Also, that would be terrible. All those stares. Ha ha ha. What is it? A cauldron. Are Koreans or witches and wizards? The red outfits remind me of Barney's silk suit jammers. Care to explain? Yes, you really have been. But you also said that this is your excitement, that you've written here, can we limit that it took two hours to get to skaters? Talk about our... What was it? What's the name? I can't remember a name. Yoonji Kim. Yoonji Kim. Somebody Kim. Did you like skating before she lit the cauldron, Mallory? No? Okay.
COLIN HILDING: She's just ignoring you now.
MALLORY FOSTER: It's the Winter Olympics. You shouldn't be walking around in the shoes the entire time.
BEN WATERWORTH: What else would you walk in in the winter? I think I'd walk in shoes because I'd burn my feet and be cold.
COLIN HILDING: Apparently shorts if you're from Bermuda.
BEN WATERWORTH: Or just shirtless if you're from Tonga.
MALLORY FOSTER: And a skirt.
BEN WATERWORTH: And a skirt. Can we also just put Mallory's disrespect of island culture in the Pacific? He's wearing a skirt! I really liked the fact that with... Am I saying your name correctly? Unikim? Jarrod, you're a Figure Skater fan. Am I saying that correctly?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Sure.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, cool. I just like the fact that when they got to the top of the stairs, because obviously the elevator was broken, but they... Unikim! Not Yunji Kim. What have I written? Unikim here. Unikim. That she's actually at the top there, and she's skating, like she's showing off what she does. Like, Jarrod, why couldn't have Kathy Freeman in Sydney just done a lap of Stadium Australia? Run the 400 metres, then lit the cauldron. Why couldn't Wayne Gretzky in Vancouver, I don't know, like just cross-checked a few people and shot a goal and then lit the torch? I think that people who are lighting the torch should have to do what Unikim did here and show off what they do. I mean, Colin, would that have worked for Vancouver?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, Canadians, they're not going to body check anybody because that's just rude, you know? Leave that to those in Salt Lake City. I mean, the Canadians would just apologise to every single person on their way up to the cauldron.
BEN WATERWORTH: Sorry, Ace, sorry. Jarrod, do you think Kathy Freeman could have just done a quick 400 metre, like that was her practice run before she lit the cauldron in Sydney?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, well, I think the cauldron lighting should, like it needs to be tailored to a specific sport. Like I'm all for like the shooting, like the flaming arrow at the cauldron to light it. So I'm thinking winter Olympics here, she could have had her skates on fire. I would have loved to see like a flaming like curling stone and then like brushing it towards the cauldron and it sets it on fire.
COLIN HILDING: Wait, so climbing icy stairs is not an Olympic sport anymore? When did this change?
BEN WATERWORTH: That's in Beijing 2022, you know, after competitive climbing in Tokyo. That's a good point though, Jarrod. I could see like, you know, a flaming hockey puck lights it. I think that Unikim should have had to land like a triple axle or, you know, somebody comes along with like a metal pole and breaks a knee just as the torch gets lit up or something like that.
MALLORY FOSTER: Did you see how small that little tiny ice rink was? She couldn't have landed a triple axle on that descent.
BEN WATERWORTH: Mallory, she's Unikim. She can do anything. All right, did you not see how crazy the Koreans went when she like did this stuff?
COLIN HILDING: I heard like 16 people applauding. That's how crazy they went.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. Everyone was crazy.
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, 16 sound effects of people applauding.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's right. They were pre-recorded with drones. I just, I love the fact here, I'm just seeing a headline from The Sun, which says, maybe this is Mallory, what you're referring to, Winter Olympic Flame lighting ceremony mocked as robot fire penis. So that's nice. But it was kind of cool. But yeah, that giant extendable alien dick that like went to the cauldron. And it looks like, is it War of the Worlds, where like those big things shoot those big beams down with Tom Cruise in it? It kind of looks like one of those spaceships. So, you know, it's Korea, like their future. Imagine what Tokyo is going to look like in two years' time. Jesus. This is... And just also...
COLIN HILDING: Full-fledged Transformers landing in the crowd.
BEN WATERWORTH: If Super Mario does not light it with Pikachu, then I'm not there. But I'm just looking here that apparently, actually, in Vancouver, they light their cauldron from the 2010 Games as like a respect to the Winter Olympics they're on. So, Mallory, Colin, did you get invited to do this? I mean, there's four of them, so you could have each joined in.
COLIN HILDING: Well, I mean, only one of us is in Canada to do this.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, so Mallory wasn't available.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and they skipped past me because Justin Trudeau needed to do it himself, along with Justin Bieber. It was the Justin parade.
BEN WATERWORTH: The Canadian Justins, followed by the Canadian Ryans. Two Justins on one side, Ryan Reynolds and Ryan Gosling.
COLIN HILDING: Only Ryans and Justins are allowed to do anything in this country.
BEN WATERWORTH: And Mallory, you would have been there for that, surely?
MALLORY FOSTER: Yeah, I would have flown in just for that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, yes. Just a few other things. There's really not a whole lot to talk about before the parade of athletes. The thing is, there's just not much goes on. They come out, they show a couple of projections on the thing. There's kids, there's athletes come in, there's pre-recorded drones. The what?
MALLORY FOSTER: John Lee Lennon.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, the traditional Korean classic of Imagine by John Lee Lennon.
COLIN HILDING: Were they all saying it in English too?
BEN WATERWORTH: Can I just point out, I think they ran out of budget on the drones. They were like, oh shit, we need them to sing and put the dove and stuff. So let's just get some buskers and have an inflatable balloon dove. That was the cheapest looking dove I've ever seen in my life. Even you, Melody, were like, what's with the dove? It was so bad. Jarrod, like, I mean, look, the song Imagine is classic. We were told that by Channel 7 about 30 times. And what did Hamish McLaughlin say? Words, it still means so much to this day. Thanks, Hamish McLaughlin. I mean, okay, Jarrod, I imagine you've got a checklist. As I said, you're an opening ceremony expert. You've written down all the things that you need to see in an opening ceremony, you know, the speeches, the lighting of the cauldron, kiddies growing up and shit. Did you have on your checklist Imagine by John Lennon played by Korean buskers?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, that's on the Do Not Attempt Under No Circumstances. I cannot stand that song. Thank you. Cliche piece of crap that you could put in there. Like, oh. And the fact that they were all singing in different keys, the buskers probably weren't even playing that song by the sounds of things. It was just like this cacophony of noise with nobody knew what they were doing. The guy on the end was singing way too loud, and the lady next to him was giving him side eye. It was terrible and just a different song.
BEN WATERWORTH: Maybe like another.
COLIN HILDING: But change the lyrics so it's in Korean or something.
BEN WATERWORTH: This is a country. Can I just point out that it's all well and good that you get all Korea to march in together. All unity. There's Kim Jong Un's sister chilling next to the Korean president. Great. But as soon as these games are over, they're both basically going to raise their missiles again. You shoot first. You shoot first. What are they all of a sudden? Do we get these buskers on the demilitarised zone in Korea? Imagine there's no war or whatever the hell the lyrics are. Gustav Graz would just blow that up with a laser in the sky, let's be honest.
COLIN HILDING: Look, I'm going to go through a whole list of things that I thought were both great and horrible about this performance. So, great. They finally introduced somebody into these opening ceremonies over the age of nine, and he's approximately 90 years over the age of nine. Second, this group was just a happy accident because I'm convinced that all the three others were background singers. And when the first guy, the old guy's heart stopped after the first verse, they'll just improvise to take over. Like, I swear, he just stopped moving, breathing. Like, I'm like, you know, there's a man down on stage here. Like, somebody do something. Who knows CPR up there? I mean, I was starting to think that, like, Thomas Bach had bit him and turned into the undead in the middle of the ceremony.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, my God.
COLIN HILDING: It was, like, horribly bad. And then, as I said, the fact that this is, like, the Korean showcase, so let's sing, you know, a British song sung in English.
BEN WATERWORTH: I want them to go back to London 2012 and sing a Korean song now that they're doing this.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, just do some K-pop in London.
BEN WATERWORTH: What the Gangnam Style, boon. Can we just say, just so I don't interrupt you here, Colin, just while I remember, that got literally the biggest cheer of the entire opening ceremony, when whoever was in control of the CD player at the opening ceremony put on Gangnam Style.
COLIN HILDING: Sorry, continue. Well, can we go a little bit into the parade of Nathan's Bound?
BEN WATERWORTH: I want to do that completely separately, because I...
COLIN HILDING: Okay, okay, we'll do it separately.
BEN WATERWORTH: There's so much on that.
MALLORY FOSTER: Okay, wait, can I have defence for their terrible performance?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, Colin, I don't think Colin's finished, but...
COLIN HILDING: No, no, go ahead. I need something to argue with here. I need something to argue with here, go ahead.
MALLORY FOSTER: There were three good things about the performance. One, was the cool, like the actual cool people doves with the candles. Those were really cool. I enjoyed that. Two, was making fun of that girl's yellow toque with the fake pearls. Come on, did you see it? It was terrible. Anyway.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's beanie for non-Canadians.
MALLORY FOSTER: We got to make fun of three. So I watched the opening ceremonies. I somehow slightly created a bit of a family event and got the kids to watch the opening ceremonies, like the kids that I'm living with right now, to watch the opening ceremonies with me. And as soon as they started, and we had finished complaining about how terrible it was, the youngest one, he's 10, looks up and goes, if you just switch the colours between his scarf and his jacket, he would be the Korean Obi-Wan Kenobi. But that was a really good moment for me, because I thought it was funny.
COLIN HILDING: I was looking at the one guy thinking, it looks like David Tennant from Doctor Who. Like, none of this looks Korean. It all belongs in London, apparently.
BEN WATERWORTH: I literally would have preferred to see floating Mary Poppins' lair flying into the stadium going, help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.
COLIN HILDING: Can I also talk about the great symbolic opening of Yin and Yang that was done in blue and red that basically just looked like a giant Pepsi logo in the middle of the stadium?
BEN WATERWORTH: I thought Coke was the official sponsor of the Olympics. That was all Super Bowl the other day, wasn't it? Yeah, I mean, the projections were like, and can we also point out that I reckon whoever choreographed the entire opening ceremony of this just put on the Beijing 2008 one, because of that drumming situation, again, looked cool, but was that just not Beijing 2008? Like, come on.
COLIN HILDING: Yes. It's all repeats, it's all redo. There was nothing really. And even with, like, Mallory was mentioning about the dove or whatever. I'm like, OK, there were a couple of cool moments with doves. If we didn't have 65 million of them over the course of two hours, like, there were more doves in this than nine-year-old kids.
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, I've missed the days of opening ceremonies being more about the nation. And, like, I guess this whole message of peace, and, like, we saw it in Rio, was like, oh, you know, you're killing the world, so, you know, let's all be carbon neutral and shit. Like, OK, you've got the world looking at you, so you're going to send a message. But at the end of the day, I would rather see a celebration. I mean, that's what I enjoyed about Vancouver. I enjoyed seeing all that stuff about Canada. And then the closing ceremony is kind of like the fun one, where you can have a bit more of a poke of funning at your culture. London, I think, I don't get why people talk down London's opening ceremony. That, to me, was my favourite one I've seen. I like that even more than I like Sydney's opening ceremony. And just the way they kind of did it, even thinking back to Athens, which we never talk about, because the Greeks don't talk about it, so we don't talk about it, because they've bankrupted their country since they've had those games. But, I mean, I enjoyed some of the elements of the Athens ceremony, except that big lake in the middle of the thing, so that was really, really cool. But, like, it's just not a case of, okay, you've got the world looking at it, oh, look, we've got doves and shit, and oh, imagine that there's peace between the Koreas, and great, but, like, oh, I just, I wanna see more, like, more K, I'm with Jarrod, more K-pop, I mean, we'll see that in the closing ceremony, I reckon that's where they will do it. Um, but, uh, like, you think of Korea, I think of K-pop, I think of Psy, I think of Daniel Dae Kim, where was Daniel Dae Kim? I'm disappointed. Hello to all our lost fans out there. Um, just one thing, can we all agree, though, and I think, I know, Mallory, you and I were saying that this was the cool bit, even though it was pre-recorded, the drones bit with the snowboarders. That was cool. Jarrod, did you like that bit at least?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, that was solid. Would have been better to see it live, but I was kind of hoping that we would see some crashes between them because that amount of snowboarders on a hill at the same time seems a little bit ridiculous. But, you know, that was definitely one of the highlights of the ceremony.
BEN WATERWORTH: Colin, were you an advocate for the drone boarders?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, like, again, everything in here was kind of cool, but none of it really didn't mesh well together. And so much of it did just seem like a production. Like, when I'm watching an open ceremony, I really want to feel like I am, you know, there in a stadium. And when I'm looking back on the Canada Games closing ceremonies that I went to in August, which is not even like small. I mean, there's Olympics, there's Commonwealth Games, there's Pan Am Games, then there's Canada Games, you know? And that felt like more spectacular and more like a show for the people. Like, it's just, none of it really felt like an opening ceremony. It just felt like I was watching, you know, just various clips on YouTube and none of it mixed well together.
BEN WATERWORTH: Before I get to you, Mallard, just quickly about that, I'll just say I ran with the Queen's Baton yesterday for the Commonwealth Games. There was only a few people in my little area that I was doing it, like my family, a couple of people come and said, hello, I got my photo taken with this woman, she wanted to touch the baton. It was great. It's not often a woman says, can I touch your baton and I can get away with it. But I thought there were more people on that street than there were in this opening ceremony, cheering. So that's where I'm going with that. Mallory, you love... Go, yes, go, Colin.
COLIN HILDING: Well, I was just going to say it's that weird light thing that seems to be in front of every single seat, which basically, even if this thing was sold out, it's obscuring your view of every person in the crowd. The venue itself, the stadium looks fantastic, but there's something with the staging where they wanted lights everywhere, where it looks like there's a bunch of robots watching you. You can't tell if there's a living soul there.
BEN WATERWORTH: There probably were. They probably didn't sell enough tickets. Like, shit, get some of those robots.
COLIN HILDING: And it's a smaller venue, too, like, what, 30,000? That doesn't seem like that much to sell out for an Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: The thing that I think we established, didn't we, last week when we did the preview, is that obviously the main stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies is unique in the Winter Games, because you don't have any sports, because you don't have athletics or whatever you have in the Summer Games. So this is kind of only there for these ceremonies. So, I mean, that's the difference. Obviously Vancouver famously had it indoors, didn't they? And that was kind of the only one that they ever had indoors. And I was always questioning that. You mentioned sort of the order of big sporting events, and obviously with the Commonwealth Games coming up, the main stadium for that in the Gold Coast is a... Whoa, this guy on Slopes Island just had a massive crash. Sorry, it's in Metricon Stadium, Carrara Stadium. You saw that too. It's only about 30,000 people on the Gold Coast, and I'm kind of like, well, that's a small stadium to have an opening ceremony. But after last night... Go, Mallory. Is he what?
MALLORY FOSTER: The one who crashed is Swedish.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's, you know, the same thing, aren't they?
COLIN HILDING: Wait, this guy that just crashed is Swedish, or are we back on the Swiss?
MALLORY FOSTER: No, the guy who just crashed, I'm wondering which he is.
BEN WATERWORTH: He's European.
COLIN HILDING: Well, he looks both Swiss and Swedish to me, and I can't tell the difference.
BEN WATERWORTH: Look at their eyes, Mallory, they look very similar.
COLIN HILDING: His board says Rome, he's Italian.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, he's probably French.
MALLORY FOSTER: I'd like to kick you off my own show. Can I just take over?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, if you're going to record it, yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Edit it. You wouldn't be the first person to leave one of our podcasts and start their own show, so by all means, if you want to, go ahead.
COLIN HILDING: She was Swedish.
BEN WATERWORTH: She's Swedish, alright. I thought he looked like Bjorn. Mallory, you like the drones and the snowboard. I mean, this snowboard is not as good as the ones last night, clearly.
MALLORY FOSTER: Oh, is this what we're talking about right now? Sorry, I was really distracted by his rough. So, yes, I enjoyed it. My first thought when the snowboard started is, wow, that's a busy hill. Someone is going to die. No one died, or else we could see it when they crashed. What a letdown. I did really like the representation of it. I think I say something in capital letters in a text to you about fire. I was pretty excited there was fire.
BEN WATERWORTH: You just said fire in capital letters. That's what you said.
MALLORY FOSTER: I said this is Nicole though. There's some borders with fire in capital letters. I was very excited about fire. Okay, what I didn't like is that the first set actually had fire. And in the second set, we're all just like lit up with lights on their bodies. Did you see that? Did anybody else notice that?
BEN WATERWORTH: No, I saw that.
MALLORY FOSTER: But at the end, when they like actually formed the rings, they all got fire.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, it was kind of... Well, it was like, you know, how the kids grew up. It was like, you know, back in Korea, one person would get fire, and then ultimately that all get fire, and then they would all cook like baked beans and sing, imagine, the traditional Korean favourite. That's how they went. Before we get to the prognosis, two other things I want to quickly say. The beginning when we had the giant Barobi, or no, Barobi is the Commonwealth Games. I was like, God, I'm getting confused here. Sooyoung and Boorang, or the giant tiger, whatever it was. And can we just, we've got to mention Thomas Bach. I mean, I love the Korean president, the head of the International. He's awesome. Like, he was great. I don't understand a word of what he's saying, even though Hamish McLaughlin was telling me every word, but we'll get to him. But like, he was just the way he was. It was exciting, and I didn't understand the guy. Thomas Bach just gets up, Hello, everybody.
COLIN HILDING: Ah, ah, ah.
BEN WATERWORTH: We are here to open the games.
MALLORY FOSTER: Ah, ah, ah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Don't cheat. Ah, ah, ah. He just, he's such a weedy little shithead. Like, even Mallory, you say this guy was boring, right? This is the president, the guy with the glasses, who was, you know, the ISE president of how boring he was. And just quickly, in the slot stock, can I just point out this guy is like, oh, I thought they were making out. Sorry, there was these two guys at the top of the course having a big hug. Sorry, Mallory.
MALLORY FOSTER: He's a Russian. He needs a hug because he's not allowed to compete for his own country.
BEN WATERWORTH: His drugs haven't kicked in yet.
MALLORY FOSTER: Back to this boring speech. So, it started in French when he said something in French. I don't even remember what he said.
BEN WATERWORTH: Bonjour.
MALLORY FOSTER: But my host dad sitting here trying to translate but not doing a very good job, it got to the part where he talked about 1966, and Phil looks up and goes, that's 28, right? And I was like, no, not even close. I'm sorry. And then he starts speaking English, and we're like, he kind of has a French accent, but it's not a real French accent.
BEN WATERWORTH: He's German.
MALLORY FOSTER: So literally, throughout basically his entire speech, we were just talking about where we thought he was from, which is Germany. We've Googled it. And then, oh shoot, I just really lost my train of thought. Something else funny happened during this time. Oh, I found out that French is an official language of the Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes. That's all. Unfortunately, that is true.
MALLORY FOSTER: Hey, well, no, I was really confused.
COLIN HILDING: You know, you can tell that because when they announce every single country, you basically hear Madagascar, Madagascar, Madagascar.
BEN WATERWORTH: And then the person who says Madagascar runs away.
MALLORY FOSTER: Colin, being from Canada, though, I just like, and also not being old, like the rest of you. No offence, Jarrod, I don't know how old you are.
COLIN HILDING: Well, she said the rest of us.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, I thought you were talking about me.
MALLORY FOSTER: Okay, so my thoughts on this. Being from Canada, hey, Canada came third in the first week. Being from Canada, everything is in French and English. So the fact that I never noticed that the Olympics were in French and English is like not that surprising just because we're used to it. Like we always get everything in both languages.
COLIN HILDING: New Zealand is second?
MALLORY FOSTER: Hey, sorry.
BEN WATERWORTH: Pause your thoughts for a second. New Zealand is second in winter sports?
MALLORY FOSTER: This is ridiculous. Three of the languages in my population are Chinese, Spanish and then English. It makes sense that it's in Korean because it's in Korea. It kind of makes sense that it's in English because it's English. But why is it in French? Anyway, so that's why I learned that French is the official language of the Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Can I answer that question for you? Because it was the original, I know it's Greek, but I believe the original president or kind of where it was all based is in France. And a lot of the...
MALLORY FOSTER: France and England were like the superpowers of the world, that it started.
BEN WATERWORTH: Sorry, hearing the words France and superpower in the same sentence is funny. I just cannot believe that I just saw the words New Zealand second in the Winter Olympics. I know it's eight. That's just not funny. That's not on.
MALLORY FOSTER: Jarrod, where are we? What's happened to Australia?
BEN WATERWORTH: We snowboard. We won gold in snowboarding. What's New Zealand doing there?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I'm terribly confused. That was actually my highlight from the Parade of Nations as a whole. They've only won one medal at the Winter Olympics. And I was like, yep, let's keep it that way. No more medals, please. And this is just devastating.
BEN WATERWORTH: Perfect segue, Jarrod Lubick. Thank you very much. All right, here we go. Now, I want to tie this in with a little bit of Channel 7 stuff here for Jarrod and I, for our Australian audience. I mean, Nellery, you also were watching the Australian coverage.
MALLORY FOSTER: I was not listening to what the Australians were saying, just to clarify.
BEN WATERWORTH: You did not miss a single thing. Because, A, we were missing Bruce and no opening ceremony. I didn't even hear what you just said there. You sounded like a robot, one of the ones that were, like, droning. I did not like seeing an opening ceremony without Bruce. Jarrod, where was Bruce? Do you know where Bruce was? Bruce wasn't there, and I'm not happy about this.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think Bruce has to be at home for the Summer of Horse Racing, which they're trying to promote. And I'm like, the Winter Olympics they're on? Or do I watch horse racing? Like, it's not even an option there. But yeah, like, where is he? Get him over there, get him, just get him on Skype. He doesn't need to be there. He can commentate both at once. He's Bruce, he can do anything. Get him on the commentary team, please.
BEN WATERWORTH: And this is the thing, like, Bruce is every man. And Mallory was like, who's Bruce? And I'm like, you'll be in Australia. You'll know who Bruce is soon. We didn't get any, ooh, I want to take yous or anything like that. But we got plenty of these as I'm going to go along here. And just quickly, I swear Channel 7 have sent their B team. I've never heard of half these people. Whoever that woman is. Who is that woman with Hamish McLaughlin? She's terrible. Who is she?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I don't know. What was with her whole name dropping every two seconds? Oh, yes, I've met this person. I've met that person. This person gave me their number.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, no, no, no.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I don't care.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's Jackie Cooper. We'll get to her. I'm talking about the other one who was in the other bit. What I was going to say with this Parade of Nations, the segue into this, is that they swapped over to who I think is the future Bruce. I'm a Basil Zemplas defender, Jarrod. I think he's got a bit of Bruce McVaney about him. But the other woman with him was Jackie Cooper. She was a former aerial skier who would always choke in the Olympics. She never won a medal, but she would always crash out and choke. But I actually enjoyed some of her funny things because I wanted to do some of these one... I've written down so many of these quotes. But, all right, I'm going to start with you, Mallory. You've been begging for this. Um, Parade of Nations, give us your highlights because you were commenting on all the outfits. You enjoyed this.
MALLORY FOSTER: Okay. My first low life since you asked about those as well. Is there stupid alphabet? Can we just talk about how geometry is? So, we get to U-section in their alphabet, which is the 72nd country. Oh, wait, no, that's a lie. The 66th country in their alphabet is the first C, which is the Czech Republic. That's C freakin Z. Yeah, in English. Wait.
BEN WATERWORTH: Mallory, China was before Czech Republic. That's CH.
MALLORY FOSTER: This is very important to the parade. Pauline, you better freakin appreciate this. The first is the Czech Republic. The second is Chile. And the third is Cac- Cac- Oh, I was so upset. Canada is the 69th freakin country, because the stupid alphabet is not in the English freakin language. I was, yeah, anyway. Hi, everyone. before Canada that starts with a K, and then we're already C country?
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm guessing it goes by the C sound.
COLIN HILDING: Like, let's take the country of Spain. They should be in the S's, but Spain don't call themselves Spain.
BEN WATERWORTH: Espanol. Espanol.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, Espanol. So, I mean, and it's funny because I read an article today that was talking about the big fails of the opening ceremonies. I mentioned the same thing, this weird messed up alphabet they have. Well, it was the same thing in Rio. The fact is, you go by whatever is local, and just because we call it Kazakhstan, that doesn't mean they don't call it A Kazakhstan or Buk Kazakhstan, and then it ends up bumping itself up in the alphabet.
MALLORY FOSTER: But Canada is more important than Kazakhstan to me.
BEN WATERWORTH: Mallory, when you join us on the board of the Ben Lomond 2026 Olympics, we can create our own alphabet to make sure that every single country is Canada, and the rest just all come out together as one country. Here's Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada, and the rest of the world.
COLIN HILDING: Can somebody explain to me why Greece is always first in the alphabet? How does that work out?
BEN WATERWORTH: There's a trivia for you, Mallory. Do you know why Greece was first? Here we go.
MALLORY FOSTER: My honest assumption was that Greece is first because it was where the first Olympics was hosted. Because last, they're hosting the Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's the tradition. So every Olympics, you will always have Greece comes out first and the host nation comes out last. However, in Athens in 2004, they had a solitary Greek flag to signify the tradition at the beginning, and then Greece came out last.
MALLORY FOSTER: Good to know. Boring facts that Mal does not know about. This is the most exciting part of the Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Of the whole Olympics? Not even the sport? Who cares about Canada winning 10 gold? We saw them walk out in their lovely outfits.
MALLORY FOSTER: We haven't gotten to sport yet. I will say this again and again throughout the Olympics, especially when we're talking about figure skating. Now, this is the most exciting part of the Olympics because of their outfits, as Ben now knows. The other thing is, there are so many countries that shouldn't freaking be in the Winter Olympics. Ghana was the second freaking country to come out. Like, excuse me?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, we should strike Jamaica from the record, because they're irrelevant in the Winter Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: That is Australia.
MALLORY FOSTER: But like, Ecuador, yeah, that makes sense.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, Ghana and Ecuador are traditional winter rivals. You be careful with those two.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, if that logic is to be applied, then Canada should never compete in the Summer Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: I said that to her last night!
MALLORY FOSTER: How many medals do you win in the Summer Olympics?
COLIN HILDING: What is Australia doing in a Winter Olympics? Come on!
MALLORY FOSTER: No, I try not to make fun of Australia because my boyfriend is Australian, but then you hear him talk and it's like...
BEN WATERWORTH: Who is he? Hang on, who is this guy?
MALLORY FOSTER: Anyway, so the outfit. Now, I need to refer to my list of text messages that I sent to Ben throughout the night. Also, fun fact about Ben, he doesn't know how to spell assassin, and it's kind of funny.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, you think Sweden and Switzerland are the same place? That outrules my dumbness! Assassin's a big word!
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, you're rude.
MALLORY FOSTER: Anyway, okay, so I basically just talk about the outfits a lot. I wish that Canada had nicer outfits, to be completely honest.
COLIN HILDING: It could be worse, we could be Australia dressed as like valets for the 8th Olympics in a row.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, we were valets, we were giant silver puffy cone things.
MALLORY FOSTER: If you put Australian's pants with the white jackets from one of the first countries, which I can't remember, possibly the Netherlands, they had white jackets, they were really nice white jackets with Australia's like green pants. Oh, so nice. I would wear that on a mountain. The tuques are the best part of the entire ceremonies. Like I will seriously buy every tuque unless it has USA printed on the top, basically. Actually I didn't like the, oh, what country was that, Israel's tuques?
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, the famous Israel tuques.
MALLORY FOSTER: But apart from that, all the tuques are perfect. Oh, Hungary. Okay, let's just talk about Hungary for a second. They wore puke-free green. Who decided that? That was a really dumb decision.
BEN WATERWORTH: Because as we have discovered, Mallory, you need to go back and listen to our Rio coverage, but the Hungarians, they're funny people. So they just, they wanted to go out there with their puke green and be like, hello everybody, we're back, we're hilarious.
MALLORY FOSTER: Madagascar is making their debut in this Olympics, or maybe their second. That's stupid. Madagascar is a tiny island of very nicely- . people. And it's warm there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes.
MALLORY FOSTER: There was also a part where somebody was walking through and they talked about how they trained on like, roller skates or something like that, I don't know, I wasn't paying that much attention. But it was like, oh, they're at Summer Olympics country, but when they train for the Winter Olympics, this is how they train. It's like, this is stupid, get them out. Um, Monaco's flag bearer was really attractive, that was exciting. For me, the Olympics, that is not exciting.
BEN WATERWORTH: Can, can, Mallory, Mallory, can I interrupt you here? You're a female, you like men, I hope you do. Uh, what, the Tongan-
COLIN HILDING: Wait, she's with you, she can't like them that much.
BEN WATERWORTH: Tongan, Tongan flag bearer is the talk of the world again. It's always rude to me, Mallory, it's not rude to you, don't worry. Everyone talks of the Tongan flag bearer. I want to hear Colin's view take with Jamie soon, but you know, you mentioned something about less oil and he'd be attractive.
MALLORY FOSTER: Okay, so take off the skirt, first of all. Third, the Moroccan, I think was not Morocco. Sorry, the Monokan. What do you call people from Monaco?
BEN WATERWORTH: Rich.
COLIN HILDING: I call them Swedish.
BEN WATERWORTH: The Monokan and Moroccan, they're the same thing, just like the Swedish and the Swiss.
MALLORY FOSTER: The Tongan guy is famous for being shirtless and like he is attractive, don't get me wrong.
BEN WATERWORTH: Sean White is an old man now, he's 31.
MALLORY FOSTER: When they announced that your Australian snowboarder who was carrying your flag was going to be competing against Sean White and that Sean White was there again, I was like, holy, Sean White has been competing forever. So I Googled him and I was like, oh, he's way younger than I thought he was going to be. Yeah. Speaking of young and old, Canada, I represent, has the oldest Olympian this year. She's 52. She is somebody who sits on the bench, and if somebody gets hurt, she gets to play. What is that called?
BEN WATERWORTH: A curler.
MALLORY FOSTER: A preserve?
BEN WATERWORTH: A French person.
MALLORY FOSTER: You're rude. San Marino has a team. Who knows what they do?
BEN WATERWORTH: They've got more snow than Australia does.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Weren't you expecting Valentina to walk out for San Marino?
BEN WATERWORTH: Not make the finals? There's a reference to all our Euros vision listeners out there.
MALLORY FOSTER: Oh yeah, I forgot about that. That was exciting.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, that was a different one, but thanks for pretending you knew what we were talking about. Because Ireland, I'm going to get to these. Don't ruin my quotes from the commentators. All right. That's an Irish Eurovision quote. Is that it? We're not the people to talk email.
MALLORY FOSTER: Have we already talked about that?
BEN WATERWORTH: What have we talked about? What Monsters Inc. Well, you said it.
MALLORY FOSTER: Look them up. Okay, wait, this is an important political, possibly not political, point that I need to make. Okay, it's not political. No, I got really excited. The one time, apart from talking about toques and stupid countries that shouldn't be in the Winter Olympics, that I got really excited was when the Etrian team came out, because my grandparents sponsored, however you pronounce it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Eritrea and Etria in the same country.
MALLORY FOSTER: Because war and stuff. And yeah, that was pretty exciting.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm not laughing at the war, and they not be in the Winter Olympics.
MALLORY FOSTER: Yeah, we don't need to talk about that. Oh, the Indian guy that looked really happy, but it's really funny because they only have two athletes, and they're the second biggest populated country in the world.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: You did mention about, I think, was it the Colombians where you said, oh, they're wearing ponchos.
MALLORY FOSTER: No, I haven't gotten that far, I don't think.
BEN WATERWORTH: All right, well, thank you, Mallory. Now that we've started our Tokyo 2020 coverage, it's over to Colin.
COLIN HILDING: Okay, I can't believe in all that. You missed the New Zealand flag bear wearing a freaking bearskin rug on his back.
MALLORY FOSTER: Okay, the thing about New Zealand is that I got really confused. I was like, they're wearing black. That's so boring. And then my host mum was like, yeah, they're all black.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's a traditional colour.
MALLORY FOSTER: I just said something really stupid. Okay, wait, I'm actually not done yet, and I didn't realise that I wasn't done yet.
BEN WATERWORTH: Whose idea was it to bring the other Canadian on?
COLIN HILDING: I think the closing ceremonies are starting now. Can we segue?
BEN WATERWORTH: QuickSci is about to perform.
MALLORY FOSTER: No, this is where we talk about how Taiwan has to compete as Chinese Taipei. Which, because they're now owned by China or whatever, I don't actually know anything about anything. So they have to compete as Chinese Taipei, but Hong Kong gets to compete as their own country. And that's just rude.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now that China will listen to this, they'll be like, oh, she's right. We should listen to her. We'll fix that up.
MALLORY FOSTER: Yes. I said that France is classy. I don't remember what they were wearing, but apparently they looked nice. And they haven't... No, they have an Australian on their team, according to the people who talked. Commentaries. I hated Finland's outfits.
BEN WATERWORTH: Mallory, Mallory, I'm going to interrupt here. Love you. But other people need to talk, so we can go through every nation if we want. You and I can talk about this over coffee this afternoon. Give me two more countries! Two more countries!
MALLORY FOSTER: No, I'm actually at the end of it. This is where I tell you that you spelled Assassin wrong.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, well, I'm just going to go make sure I talk to this Swedish... I mean, sorry, Swiss person in Colony building.
COLIN HILDING: Colin!
BEN WATERWORTH: I think you've only got Luxembourg and Romania to talk about now. Mallory covered everyone else.
COLIN HILDING: You could have given her three, because there's only three left. Let's talk quickly about a few of the countries that gave a little bit of personality, like Ghana coming out dancing was pretty good. The better one was the Czech Republic when they came out, and it looked like they were either all trying to dance briefly or just take a knee, but it looked incredibly awkward because they were so out of sync. It looked like they all just tripped at the exact same time and then slowly got to their feet. It was very awkward. Oh, I'm going to save this one for last because I've got our Ryan Lochte douche of the year here. And guess what? They're American. So 34 athletes from Netherlands, and they show on the screen here that 23 medals last time were won in speed skating. So basically all 34 athletes are going to walk away with a speed skating medal this time. We already know that. I'm going to get to some of the commentary here, but there's a few things that they did. One, just a brief thing on commentary here. The Ireland one that came out. Now, I don't know if something funny happened on screen because I wasn't paying that close attention.
MALLORY FOSTER: We look like freaking monsters in characters.
COLIN HILDING: Well, maybe that's what it was, because the commentators here all of a sudden started laughing, and they introduced the flag bearer, Seamus O'Connor, and the main commentary for CBC goes, Seamus O'Connor, I guess he could be classified as a pretty good Irishman.
MALLORY FOSTER: Were they all drunk? There was a team who came out, and I swear they were all drunk.
COLIN HILDING: They tripped. Somebody gave them a breathalyser when they were in there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Australia, Australia.
COLIN HILDING: What are the ones do I have here? Oh, yeah, so when Gangnam Style is playing, the one commentator asks the other one, you know, is this classified as K-pop? And he goes, the same guy was like, pretty good Irishman. He's like, no, I believe this would be too mainstream to be K-pop, as if K-pop is like some underground indie music in Korea.
BEN WATERWORTH: K-pop is like mainstream.
COLIN HILDING: I do want to talk about the Bermuda's guy in the shorts, which a lot of people are like, this is great, Bermuda came out in shorts, but did you look at his nose? It looked like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and you could visibly see him sniffling. This guy had the worst cold ever, and they put him out there in shorts, and you can actually hear him sniffing, and his nose is beet red the whole time he's out there. So let's get to... One of the things they did is they would cut backstage, I guess, talking to some of the Canadian athletes as other nations are coming out. Well, you'd see it in the corner of the screen. So when those ones that didn't deserve to be there... But they did mention that one of our bobsledders, apparently they interviewed him, and he was saying, my family at home in Australia, and I guess he says he has dual citizenship. So if we win gold in bobsledding, you got a gold medallist on your hands.
BEN WATERWORTH: He's a Dale Bigg Smith 2.9.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, Dale Bigg Smith. All right, so here's our Douche of the Year. And I don't know what anybody's feelings are, but I'm sure everybody's familiar with Lindsay Vaughan, right?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, I am.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, you have to be familiar with Lindsay Vaughan. All right, so they cut to her. Now, they're mostly doing Canadian interviews, but they cut backstage to her. And CBC's interviewer, one of the most talked about American athletes in her final Olympics where we're going on and on, so they interview her. And she's as intelligent as Ryan Lochte. You can tell within a second. When they ask the question, which of these other countries are you most excited about seeing? She goes, I want to see China. They have really nice long jackets. And then there's just this awkward pause. I'm like, alright, thank you.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, we've found it.
COLIN HILDING: We've found it already.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's taken us one day. Lindsay Vaughan, thank you.
COLIN HILDING: Just to further prove it, I'm going to read some of Lindsay Vaughan's tweets on her way to Yangcheng. So, hopefully we get to Korea. Apparently, we don't have the right documents to fly. About two hours on this plane so far, and just sitting at the gate. Some Germans and Italians on the plane too. Hashtag, can we fly now, please? She's like, some Germans and Italians. It almost sounds mildly racist. If this is like 1950s, there's a black guy in the front, a Jewish guy in the rear.
BEN WATERWORTH: And also, NBC seemed to be getting on board with this too, Colin, because I'm just reading here a headline from NBC Olympics. Entering her final Olympics, Lindsey Vonn is taking no chances with germs. NBC, always breaking the big news stories.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, I got to fight these other ones here. Where is it? Oh, right here on her Twitter. Okay. Okay, so this is weird. The poor guy next to me wasn't feeling well, so he deplained. Was it something I said? But I didn't say a peep. Hashtag feel better, dude. I don't understand this woman. I'm single because I only have eyes for the Olympics. Also, where's my pep talk coach?
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm a word in the morning and a woman in the night.
COLIN HILDING: Um, yeah, and a lot of pictures of our dogs.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, God.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, Lindsey Vonn, I'm putting out, we're gonna have to find Lindsey Vonn's dumb tweet of the day or something.
BEN WATERWORTH: And coming soon, what would Lindsey Vonn do to NBC, featuring Ryan Lochte.
COLIN HILDING: Ethnically profiling Germans and Italians.
BEN WATERWORTH: Why are, like, overly attractive American Olympic athletes so dumb? Like, Ryan Lochte, hot. Lindsey Vonn, hot. They're just dumb. Can these two just marry each other? They're probably the smartest babies.
COLIN HILDING: Don't let them procreate. That's not right for the human race.
BEN WATERWORTH: They'll probably produce a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Why did you become so smart? Because my parents are so dumb. Is that all you have to say about the opening ceremony?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I mean, how can you top Lindsey Vonn racially profiling people on a plane?
BEN WATERWORTH: I do like Valerie's change of profile picture, too. Rudolph the red-nosed Bermuda man. He really does have a bloody bright red nose.
COLIN HILDING: I know. I felt so bad for the guy.
BEN WATERWORTH: He's crying. Let me go home. I'm going to go back to Bermuda. Jarrod, what do you have to say about the Parade of Nations?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, we had Channel 7 excellent coverage, which immediately, straight off, just started breaking. The golden rule of the Parade of Nations is say who the flag bearer is just for every country. And I think they did it for the first two, and then they missed about 10 in a row. And I'm just screaming at the TV, just tell me who the flag bearer is. Just put a little caption on the screen who it is. I don't need to know that the Norwegian team made a mistake with Google Translate and bought 15,000 eggs instead of 1,500.
COLIN HILDING: Tell me who the flag bearer is.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It was just ridiculous. Luckily, it got better. But I was like, that's the golden rule of commentating that is, you say the flag bearer, then say whatever else you want to say about the country. Oh, and just, they were typical with the, wasn't as good as Rio, but the lines like when Madagascar walks in, like Madagascar, the name of a great kids series. Tell me the flag bearer.
BEN WATERWORTH: Um, go, sorry, go Jarrod. No, no, you go. I was going to say, we should have mentioned, we didn't have it on our last episode with Scotty James, obviously Australia's flag bearer. And I'm saying Britt Cox has robbed. I'm sorry. She was robbed. She should have carried the flag.
COLIN HILDING: But they're probably assuming she's going to win so they could save her for the closing ceremonies.
BEN WATERWORTH: Possibly. Jarrod, I'm glad you mentioned that. I've written down some of these other great one-liners here by the way.
MALLORY FOSTER: Before you go, before you go, before you go, it's my turn, it's my turn, it's my turn, it's my turn. It's exciting when it's my turn. The only time that I actually realised that I was in Australia, apart from the stupid accent, was when the Australian team came out, they followed them for like the next like 20 countries.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah.
COLIN HILDING: They did it in Canada, too.
MALLORY FOSTER: Yeah, and they just talked about Australia, and I was like, I don't care about Australia, like I want to see the outfits of the other countries anyway. Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: I was going to say, thank you. I, they, glad you pointed that out Mallory, because I was going to mention that, but I did some of the other one-liners here from Basil and Jackie. So we had Ghana, home of Coffee and Anne, the former UN General, before they decided to talk about the athletes. For Queenslanders, Ghana, formerly known as the Gold Coast, to which Jackie Cooper quickly goes, oh, and of course the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games are coming up on Channel 7.
MALLORY FOSTER: Like, that's... Um.
BEN WATERWORTH: We also had Norway, to which Basil Zempelis stuttered a little bit. Another powerhouse, the most sex, a successful nation. And I was like, oh, obviously Norway are pretty heavy people.
MALLORY FOSTER: Guys, guys, guys, watch the Slopestyle right now, right now, right now, right now, right now. There's a really great crash coming up. Watch out, watch out, watch out, watch out.
BEN WATERWORTH: Is he Swiss or Swedish? Where's he from?
COLIN HILDING: It's Finland.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, typical, he'll be laughing all the way to the bottom of the hill.
MALLORY FOSTER: Wait, where'd the crash go?
BEN WATERWORTH: They took it away, they erased it.
COLIN HILDING: There's a Swiss guy who replaced him.
MALLORY FOSTER: No, this is the Finnish guy with the cool gloves.
BEN WATERWORTH: We also had Denmark, home of Lego, and Tasmania's Princess Mary, to which Jackie Cooper replied, I'm sure our Mary will be cheering on the Aussies.
MALLORY FOSTER: Oh, right here, right here, look, he's on his face. Well, he's on his bum, and now he's on his face, now he's on his face. Oh, they skipped it. Sorry, it was really exciting.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm glad you're excited for it. Also, what was with the Korean kids? What were they carrying next to the people with the sign? Was it like a little flag or a lantern or something like that? I didn't understand it.
COLIN HILDING: It looked like a mini version of the torch penis that we'll see later on.
BEN WATERWORTH: Of course, yes, the torch penis. We also had, Lebanon came out. A big audience in Lebanon today. It's a public holiday. Okay, cool. Romania has a new prime minister. I learnt that from Basil. Jackie Cooper said she'd been to Liechtenstein. I'm glad for her. We also have, for Sweden, it was, that's also called Switzerland, Mallory. Home of Abba, Alfred Nobel, and Boris Becker. No, he's German, Bjorn Borg. I've written that wrong. And if you love Maccas and skiing, they opened a McSki in 1996. What else do they have there? Oh, Jackie Cooper is a very intelligent lady. She's maybe Australia's Lindsey Vonn. So, Iceland come out, they're all like, oh, he's Iceland, never won any blah, blah, blah. So it's Jackie Cooper goes, no medals, they're so close to the North Pole.
COLIN HILDING: What's that about?
BEN WATERWORTH: The Eurovision quote was when Ireland came out and Basil Zyplus is like, oh, they do excel in another format. Eurovision, they've won seven titles. And then, I don't know if this was like a dick moment by Jackie Cooper. And Dora comes out and Basil Zyplus is all like, oh, the poorest nation in Europe. And to which Jackie Cooper goes, oh, yep, they can still afford to send athletes to the Olympics, how great. And then they have the Russian, the independent Olympic athletes of Russia. They have a volunteer carrying the flag. That's a big honour for them. And then Mallory mentions how they have the split screen. So you've got the country's coming out, and they're following the Australian athletes around. And Jackie Cooper just randomly interrupts Basil Zemlis at one point and goes, there's Chumby Pullen, good on him.
JARROD LOOBEEK: We had to have a stupid Chumby Pullen moment when he's not even anywhere. Chumby Pullen Cam is on the scene trying to find him the whole time. Can't wait till the guy retires.
BEN WATERWORTH: I do also like the fact that, for Kazakhstan, home of Borat. And I love the, this is just, I just like the Jamaican guys coming out when they're doing that little dance when they're sort of going out there. I would've, if anyone has got nothing else to say about the Obesity Report, I would've talked a little bit about the coverage. I'd love to hear the CBC stuff here, Colin, but Jarrod, I wanna start a campaign, and I think we could actually do this, because I got a couple people liking my tweet. I think we should start a crowdfunding campaign to raise the relevant funds it costs to buy the rights to the Olympics, and just host it ourselves. Because, like, can we just go back to Channel 10 and Channel 9 hosting it? Because Channel 7, really, not only do they send their B team, we get Hamish McLaughlin and some other woman hosting it who's terrible. They're so, like, we know this is the Australian coverage. I understand that they're gonna be focusing and talking up all our, you know, Australian athletes, but, like, they legitimately did a montage pre-opening ceremony where they say, let's take a look at some great moments from past Olympics, to which they show a five-minute montage of winter movies. They show Cool Runnings, they show I, Tonya, they show Miracle, they show The Mighty Ducks, they show Eddie the Eagle, to which they then show Blades of Glory, and then all of a sudden Hamish McLaughlin comes back on and goes, Chad Michael Michaels, may be the greatest figure skater I've ever seen. This is Australian Winter Olympics coverage for you. It's so ridiculous. Now also, can I point out, they've sent out people like Rachel Finch, who's what, a former Miss Australia winner. She's not even a journalist, and all the coverage they show is just of her taking Instagram selfies and pictures and nothing to do with the actual games. They follow this up with that random woman interviewing Scotty James outside the stadium before she goes in to say, oh, I saw Sean White. I think you could take him. Oh, what do you think? Like, she's just so dumb. And can I just say, this is a controversial opinion because I know she's one of Australia's most respected journalists. Mel McLaughlin, she's actually a terrible interviewer. She can't ask interview questions for shit just because she looks pretty and she got picked up on by Chris Gayle once. She's famous. She's a terrible interviewer. Jarrod, I'm saying it right now. Can we start a crowdfunding campaign to get these Olympic coverage off? Because I'm sick of Channel 7. It's only been 24 hours.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, and in typical Channel 7 fashion, it's just repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. What was weird? Why did they even start? They started the coverage at 8.30 and then the opening summary didn't even start till like 10.30. And it's just, the amount of times I have seen our mogulskiers go down, like it's the only thing they show. I'm like, there are other events on, this was yesterday, and everybody in the nation now knows that they're through to the final. Yep. Like that's all that they show over and over and over. I'm like, hey, the curling's live. We could put that on. No, I'm not showing it. Not giving us a bar of it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Let's show the interview with Lydia Lassler for the 18th time to remind everyone that she's been to five Olympics, and this is her last. I mean, I love Lydia Lassler, don't get me wrong, but I don't want to see that interview anymore times because I'm sick of it. I hate news.com.au, but they had the greatest headline ever last night post-opening ceremonies. Their headline, Please Shut Up, Channel 7 Slammed for Incessant Chatter. And I also was lucky enough to have one of my tweets featured in that article with me bagging out Channel 7. So thank you, news.com.au. Mallory, this is your first time ever experiencing an Australian coverage. You said you weren't paying much attention to it, but did you pick up anything at all? I mean, were you just too busy looking at the tooks?
MALLORY FOSTER: Yeah, the tooks were more important. They have accents. They talk about boring things that I don't care about. I'm really, honestly, I am really not excited to turn on the TV and watch the Australian coverage just because I'd rather listen to someone with the same accent as me and actually understand what they're saying.
COLIN HILDING: I'll just commentate the Olympics. I'll watch the Australian coverage and read up on it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just ring up Mallory every day. Okay, Mallory, this is me commentating the moguls.
MALLORY FOSTER: No, it's just like, I don't know. It's easier to pay attention to my own accent than your accent because sometimes I have to concentrate to understand what you people say. So I care more about the Canadian team than your Australian team.
BEN WATERWORTH: Thank you. It's weird, I kind of almost care more about the Canadian team than the Australian team at the Winter Olympics, but that's another story. Colin, do we have any highlights from the CBC coverage? I don't know, did you watch CBC, NBC, both of them?
COLIN HILDING: No, just CBC, and outside of the really great Irishmen, there really wasn't too much stuff. It's tough because when I was watching it, it started at like 5 in the morning here, and I tried to sleep in a little bit, then Casper started screaming around 5.30 in the morning, so I figured he was panicking because he was missing the opening ceremony. So I didn't really get to see any of the pre-show stuff or anything like that. It was just the commentators. But I'm just excited that we have a regular, good broadcasting team here that covers all the Olympics or all sports stuff on CBC. But what I'm really excited about is a lot of the experts and former athletes that are involved in commentating. The main one being, this is huge, because he's signed to a contract on the number one network in Canada, John Montgomery, skeleton gold medallist and host of the Amazing Race Canada is going to be on For The Skeleton doing commentary, which is like the most exciting thing ever. And Jarrod has actually seen the Amazing Race Canada, so he knows how great this is going to be.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, John Montgomery is a legend.
BEN WATERWORTH: Mallory, are you a John Montgomery fan? Do you know who he is?
MALLORY FOSTER: Uh-huh.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yep, cool.
COLIN HILDING: How do you live in this country and not watch the Amazing Race Canada?
MALLORY FOSTER: I watch, yeah, no.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, look, the Swiss flag. Oh, wait, it's the Swedish flag. Um, sorry, I'm just watching. Your snowboarding slope. You know who my favourite Swedish tennis player is? Roger Federer. He's great. Um, just wanted to share that.
JARROD LOOBEEK: And didn't Channel 7 want to let us know that?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes.
JARROD LOOBEEK: The great summer of tennis we've had on Channel 7.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm surprised we didn't get, like, AFL references.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Get ready for my kitchen rules.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes. Oh, and here comes Ghana. Wasn't that just to remind you of that great Ghanan dish cooked on my kitchen rules this Monday night on Channel 7? I guess just quickly, just before we get to sort of looking at day one, we've obviously got a bit of qualification news and that from the moguls, and I know Colin are excited to speak about that. I thought when you were talking about Lindsey Vonn, I didn't know if you were going to bring up, speaking of the US, the whole controversy with Shani Davis. Were you familiar with kind of what happened there with the whole coin toss of the flag? Did you hear about that?
COLIN HILDING: No. I mean, again, Shani Davis, I usually try to zone out when... There's a lot of American athletes that, you know, I try not to pay attention to.
BEN WATERWORTH: So basically, they had, I think, to carry the US flag into the Olympic ceremony, they had a final list of eight candidates to carry the flag. And basically, they got all these people to vote for who they think should carry it. And it basically came down to a tie between Shani Davis and Luge athletes, the esteemed Aaron Hamlin. And basically, it was decided by a coin toss to which Aaron Hamlin won. Now, Shani Davis did not take this well and basically claimed this was racial prejudice against him and tweeted out something about Black Lives Matter Month 2018 or something like that. So it's caused a bit of controversy that he's trying to play the race card with this, that a coin toss basically is racist. So Colin...
COLIN HILDING: He's just lucky he's not German and Italian, okay?
BEN WATERWORTH: Matt, Mallory, do you have any comment on the differences between Americans and the Swiss? I don't know where I'm going with this.
MALLORY FOSTER: I have no idea. I'm just thinking about how Finland can't land any of their jumps, honestly. No, seriously, watching the slope style, every single time someone finished, goes through the course, they crash on the exact same jump every single time. It doesn't matter who it is.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I was watching this. Yeah. Racism against finish. Just before we move on to, I'll also quickly say here, just to steal your thunder here, Colin, I've got a Lindsey Vonn tweet here. This is from February the 7th. David Collins at David4242 tweeted to Lindsey Vonn saying, Lindsey Vonn posted on Instagram that she was at the dentist. Priorities before the Olympics. Lindsey Vonn replied, Yeah, I chipped my front tooth. You learn so much from celebrities on Twitter. Before we look into day one, because day one is on right now, we are watching the qualification heats for snowboard slope style. This is great sport. God damn it, New Zealand in a second. What the hell is going on? But the moguls, we've had a few events. We've had curling happening, we've had ski jumping happening. We've had some moguls qualifying. Jarrod, for you and I, the big news is Brit Cox, our robbed flag bearer, she's officially through to the final on Sunday. I believe that's tomorrow. And our male, what do you call him? Mogulist. Yes. Was that Graham did you say?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, Matt Graham.
BEN WATERWORTH: Thank you. He is also through to the final. Just quickly before we get Canada's perspective with this, Jarrod, exciting. We've got two Aussies already into a final, two medal hopes for us.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's good. It's good that the Jinxes haven't started yet. Although I have a theory that if you're on a Swiss ad for multi vitamins, then you're bound to lose.
COLIN HILDING: I saw that. I saw that online today.
BEN WATERWORTH: And Colin, your take obviously in the men's, your man Kingsbury is dominantly through, and you've also got one of the Deferla Point sisters is through, as well as our Andy Norty is through to the final as well.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and it's crazy because...
MALLORY FOSTER: Guys, the Russian just did really well. Sorry to interrupt.
COLIN HILDING: Shut up, we're talking about the mobiles.
MALLORY FOSTER: I got double the score as anyone else had so far. I got a 64.
COLIN HILDING: It's Olympic athlete of Russia too. He's not allowed to be called Olympic.
BEN WATERWORTH: I thought I recognised him. 11, that was pretty shit.
COLIN HILDING: I know I've mentioned this other times, but if you watch American coverage, they basically will identify that Americans are the frontrunners for everything. It's some huge upset if they ever lose. But it's always great when you tune in to American coverage. The first thing to talk about is, Canadian Mikel Kingsbury, the most accomplished athlete in the history of the sport, is expected to win the gold medal. And obviously he did, he's dominated everything he does. The men's races pretty much decided, it's between him and this Japanese skier who basically will flop 90% of the time, and then the other 10% of the time miraculously beats Kingsbury. But the really exciting thing for Canada is that three of our four female skiers automatically went into the finals, like you said, including Andy Notti and Justine de Filippoine. And Chloe is, she still has another shot, but this has kind of been her off season as well. But yeah, it's big for Australia and Canada. I mean, we're making up like a huge majority of moguls on both men's and women's side.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, just quickly, so the 10 finals, so basically from what I was listening to the coverage, so you've had 10 women, 10 men through to the final, and then the remaining athletes, they have, what, two more chances to make the finals. Did 12 people make the final? Am I correct there, or is there more than that?
COLIN HILDING: I don't, I believe it's 12. That's what I was thinking last night, but I can't remember 100%.
BEN WATERWORTH: So basically you've got about 20 athletes still in two more runs to make two spots in the final, so a lot to go there. So the 10 women who are through Lafont from France, Andy Norty, Morgan Chart of the US, Justine Defer-LaPoint from Canada, we just said, Cal from the US, Brittany Cox is in sixth for Australia, Boratsky, Kazakhstan, Julia Galashieva, I love saying these names, Keaton Macargo from the USA, great, what a legend she is, Arisa Murata from Japan, and Audrey Robichaud, am I saying that correctly? Robichaud from Canada, through the other, you just said Chloe Defer-LaPoint, she was in 13th. The other Australians in the female, Jakara Anthony was 14th, Maddie Himbrey was 15th, and Claudia Gwelley was 17th. So they're just on the cusp there. And in the men, as you said, Mikhail Kingsbury, followed by Alexandra Shmishalev from the Olympic Athlete from Russia, Dmitry Ranad from Kazakhstan, Troy Murphy, USA, Kama Horishima, Japan, Daichi Hara, Japan, Pavel Kolomov, Kazakhstan, Felipe Marquise from Canada, Matt Graham was 9th for Australia, and Sacha Therrocharis from France. The other Canadians, Mark Antoine Gagnon was just missed out. So the only other Canadian there. And the Aussies in the men's. So Rohan Chapman Davies was 17th. James Matheson, he's given up in his Australian Idol hosting duties there. Jarrod, he decided to take on moguls. When did this happen? Didn't he run for the federal election last year? He was 17th. Australians, non-Australians do not care what we're talking about. He's a former host of Australian Idol called James Matheson and apparently he's gone to moguls. And sadly, Brody Summers did not start in moguls. I don't know what happened there. So, I'm excited. And Colin, can we just point out two of our athletes that we've had on this show, with 12 in the lead up to these games, but already two of them are through to the final, and they're both in the same final. So, we've got a big success rate so far for athletes who have appeared on this show.
COLIN HILDING: That's right, I mean, that's all the other athletes that's out there, you know. If you want to win, you got to come on Off The Podium.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm saying gold for Brittany Cox, silver for Andy Norty, and get one of the deferral of points sisters up there so I can have a look at her properly, and we'll have a successful moguls. Now, also, the curling, Canada did pretty all right in the curling so far, Colin. I wasn't really paying too much attention to it, but they did all right, didn't they?
COLIN HILDING: They lost their first one, but then they won the last two, I think, after that. Well, I mean, I think everybody's kind of lost at least one at this point.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, and they've got mixed curling now, don't we?
COLIN HILDING: That's what's on so far, the mixed doubles.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right, okay. Just other ones that happened. So we had the ski jumping, the normal hill. Define normal, I like to say. The qualification happened to that. So we had 50 ski jumpers have gone through to the final, which I believe is tonight, the time of recording is Saturday evening. Now my man, I love Simone Amann. Now I don't know, Colin, if you're familiar with him. Obviously, too gold in Salt Lake and too gold in Vancouver. They refer to him here in Australia as the Harry Potter on skis. Jarrod, I'm sure you remember that. Are you a Simone Amann fan? And he's from Sweden, sorry, Switzerland. Are you a fan, Colin? Do you know who I'm talking about? One of the men.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I'm a huge fan of Jarrod, yes.
BEN WATERWORTH: Mallory, have you become a fan of Jarrod yet? Alright, that's a bit sad for you, Jarrod.
MALLORY FOSTER: Sorry.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know where it's going. Anyway, the highest qualifier in that was the esteemed Andreas Vellinger from Germany, who just finished ahead of Kamil Stocz of Poland and David Kubacz of Poland. Now, the Japanese ski jumper, he's in his eighth Olympics. Did anyone note his name down? I'm going to find him here eventually. There's a few Japanese ski jumpers in this final. But Jarrod, they talked him up a lot last night in Channel 7, didn't they?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, well, I think fair enough. I even wrote in my notes just Japan flag bearer, eight-time Olympian. 32 years, going to the Winter Olympics, it's just, I mean, it's kind of ridiculous. You think of that, I suppose, more so in the Summer Olympics, and in terms of sports, you're probably thinking equestrian, because it's just the same people for 100 years. But to do a physically demanding sport for 32 years, I think it's pretty insane.
BEN WATERWORTH: Noriaki Kasai is his name. He is 45. And he's already won three Olympic medals. He was a silver medallist in Lillehammer in the team, Large Hill, a silver medallist in Sochi in the individual Large Hill, and a bronze in Sochi in the team, Large Hill. So gold is due for Noriaki Kasai. And that's actually on really late here tonight, Australian time, because we're obviously East Coast here, we're two hours ahead of Korea. But I like the ski jumping. I've always enjoyed it. It's a great sport to watch. But also in terms of what else is going on, there was a lot of alpine skiing qualification times in terms of practice runs, which got some coverage. We won't go through all of them. Day one. So we'll look ahead to day one before we get to some of these segments at the end. Obviously, day one right now is actually on. We've been watching it. Mallory, you're still enjoyed, you're here by the slope style. This is basically all we've got right now. Is there any other Finnish people crashed recently that we haven't paid attention to?
MALLORY FOSTER: No, it's in the slope style over now, and it's on to Alcoine skiing training. Very exciting. I'm watching how I match the subtitles on while I ignore you guys talking.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm glad that you're enjoying being on Off The Podium. You've already gone straight to... yeah, that's awkward. We also... so today on day one, the sports we have, we've got biathlon, the women's sprints on today. We've got cross-country skiing, the women's skiathlon, which I do believe is the first medal event, if I'm not mistaken. Curling continues. We've got ice hockey starts today, first day of matches, group stages. Women's is on today, so we're looking for that. We've got two runs in the men's singles luge. Sadly, it's not the doubles, but we'll be keeping an eye out for that. One of our good friends on the show, Andy Jung, competes in his first events tonight in the men's 1500m short track speed skating, so we'll be cheering on Andy. The qualifying heats are the women's 500m, also in the short track, and the qualifying heats are the women's 3000m relay. As I mentioned, the men's normal hill individual ski jumping happen. We've got the qualifying rounds, which are happening right now. We'll just finish, actually, the men's slope style. And speed skating, full track speed skating, we have 3000m. So in order today, we actually have five medals will be decided today. That is, as I said, biathlon, women's sprint, cross country skiing, skiathlon, the men's 1500m short track, ski jumping, the normal hill, and speed skating, women's 3000m. Colin, I don't know if you have knowledge there of many Canadian chances in any of those at all. I mean, short track speed skating, you guys are always pretty good in those.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, because I did see on TV that the 1500m I think are today and Charles Hamlin's in that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes.
COLIN HILDING: So another friend of the show starting out his final Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, there you go. He'll be competing against Andy Jung because he's also in that one today. So there you go. So the Aussies in action today, only three of them in action. So Andy Jung, as I've mentioned, and we have two women. Here we go. This is exciting, Jarrod. In the skiathlon, the esteemed Barbara Jez-er-sec, excuse me, and Jessica Yeaton, traditional rivals, I believe, there, Jarrod. Are you a Team Jessica or Team Barbara?
JARROD LOOBEEK: It really just depends who's winning at the time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, that is a good... That is a very standard answer. I like that. I think... Yes, very good. I think maybe we'll have to choose those three athletes as our three we send messages to today. We'll get to those in a second. But, so that's what's on today. And this is a good thing about the Winter Olympics. I feel we can devote more time to talking about these events separately because there's only, you know, not as many on each day as we do have for the Summer Games. Mallory, I don't know if you're paying attention to me right now, but what are you looking forward to today most? The biathlon, cross-country skiing, short tracks, speed skating, speed skating or ski jumping?
MALLORY FOSTER: Wasn't there hockey on the list originally?
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm talking medal events, medal events, not just qualifying events, medal events today.
MALLORY FOSTER: Can you repeat the list? Not speed skating. I hate speed skating.
BEN WATERWORTH: You hate speed? What's wrong with you? What about short track speed skating?
MALLORY FOSTER: That's boring.
BEN WATERWORTH: Short track speed skating is not boring.
MALLORY FOSTER: It's boring.
BEN WATERWORTH: Why am I with you? We've got the skiathlon, the women's sprint in the biathlon, or the ski jumping then?
MALLORY FOSTER: The ski jumping.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good.
MALLORY FOSTER: I won't watch anything else.
BEN WATERWORTH: I refuse to watch anything else. All right. Let's go.
MALLORY FOSTER: But it will be in the background.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay. Colin, do you have an athlete profile for us today from Canada?
COLIN HILDING: I do. And I was going to pick one of the deferral points because we've only got so many days until the moguls is over, but it actually wasn't that exciting of a bio. I picked one here. This is an athlete I haven't even heard of. Hi, my name is Chris Del Bosco, and I ski. So, again, people can find these if they go to Olympics.ca and just search, Hi, my name is. You can find a whole handful of athletes who have done this, and it's all filled out in their own handwriting with pictures and all that. Yeah, I'll send the link for everybody here. Clearly, you've listened to this show before.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm a huge fan of everything I've ever done in my life.
COLIN HILDING: So, hello, my name is Chris Del Bosco, and I am Canadian. My favourite Olympic moment is representing Canada at, in quotes, home games in 2010. I don't know why home is in quotes. If I could have any superpower, it would be teleportation. My favourite sports movie is Rad, which I had no idea what that was, and I looked it up, it's a 1986 BMX movie. From the director of Smokey and the Bandit, and Smokey and the Bandit Part 2. I don't know how old this guy is. Draw a picture of yourself. So, would you draw a stick figure with one hand, and a bubble coming out that says, wow, I'm an artist.
BEN WATERWORTH: I saw that at the opening ceremony last night when that thing was in the middle of the ground, that stick figure thing.
COLIN HILDING: Here's a really good one. My funniest childhood memory is, one time I pooped in my ski pants when I was little because I didn't want to stop and go inside. My dad had to hose out my ski boots.
BEN WATERWORTH: Who is this guy?
JARROD LOOBEEK: He's a skier, Chris Del Bosco.
COLIN HILDING: My dad had to hose out my ski boots. My favourite pump up song is Echo by Bad Meets Evil. The most recent TV show I binge watched is Better Call Saul. Draw a picture of one of your teammates. So he drew somebody with long hair that's saying, I like big hair and what happened to my nose?
BEN WATERWORTH: He pulled it off.
COLIN HILDING: If I could be an Olympian in any sport other than my own, it would be BMX, just like the main character in Rad apparently. My favourite song lyrics are, you can't hide from the truth because the truth is all there is. My guilty pleasure is nacho cheese Doritos. My favourite food are, my favourite foods are chicken. Should be pluralised, I guess. If I weren't an athlete, then I would be an orthopedic surgeon.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh yeah, right.
COLIN HILDING: Not with incontinence issues, come on. My favourite vacation spot is and because, so it's a beach because I spend my whole year in the cold. People usually describe me as quiet, and if I were an animal, which would you be? It looks like he drew some really flat boobs here with an arrow pointing to this as bird in brackets eagle.
BEN WATERWORTH: Can I just point out, he's actually American born, so this probably explains a lot.
COLIN HILDING: That's why he pooped in his ski pants.
BEN WATERWORTH: He's from Colorado Springs. I'm just looking up here. This is a Canadian Ryan Lochte or Lindsay Vaughan, I feel. What was that quote you said about the truth or something? That sounded like a Ryan Lochte quote. The truth is the truth because the truth is the truth truth. Oh, you can't hide from the truth because the truth is all there is. Mallory, I texted you. Did you know there's figure skating on right now?
MALLORY FOSTER: I'm trying to find it. I'm in shock. How does this freaking website work?
BEN WATERWORTH: It's Channel 7, so you probably need a degree to work it out. I don't know. Now, a couple of ones here for our fan message. Jarrod, I don't know if you've got any up to read here too, but let me know if you do. But got a few here. So here's one to Harry Laidlaw. And if I look at my list, he is a alpine skier. Try your very best at the Winter Olympics. Good luck. You are my favourite from Brody in Victoria. Cool. Here's one to the esteemed Kent Callister, a snowboarder. This is from Rahim in Victoria. I hope you try your very best. Good luck at the Winter Olympics. I'll be cheering for you. Here's one from Eastern Oberholtzer, an overseas fan, to the entire Australian Olympic team. Hello Australia. I would just like to say good luck to you guys just as much as I would for Canada. We I am cheering you on from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, as we were chosen to be Australia for our school Olympics. Thank you.
COLIN HILDING: We or... Is that we or we I were chosen?
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm reading this word for word. There are no full stops in this. So I'm actually going to start this again and just not take a breath. You ready for this? Hello Australia. I would just like to say good luck to you guys just as much as I would for Canada. We are cheering you on from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, as we were chosen to be Australia for our school Olympics. Thank you, your fan, Easton. Good, good luck. Yep.
COLIN HILDING: Thank you, Easton. You made Canada proud.
BEN WATERWORTH: You have. Let's see here. We've got one here from George's in Victoria, who is sending a message to Rohan Chapman Davies, who is a freestyle skier. Good luck in the Olympics. I have been watching, and you are impressive and amazing. I wish you all the best. One here from Gavin Lee. Queensland. This is to Alexander Filazzo, who I believe is one of our... No, he's not a bobsledder. He's a lusher. Oh, there we go. The esteemed Australian lusher. Rock that sleigh. Wishing safe speed. Oh, here we go. This is a good one here. To our flag bearer, one of our gold medal hopes, Scotty James. This is from Nick in Victoria. Yo, Scotty. I'm up here in the Swiss Alps in Decentus with your pipe homie, Sergio Berger. Just want to wish you all the best, man.
JARROD LOOBEEK: His pipe homie?
COLIN HILDING: His pipe homie.
BEN WATERWORTH: Peace from a fellow South Woodian. Jarrod, are you on this, Jarrod?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Are you reading any of these?
COLIN HILDING: Jarrod left us.
BEN WATERWORTH: He's gone. There's two here on the page, two Oz Olympic team, 11 hours ago. There's no text or nobody from anything.
COLIN HILDING: And none of our messages made it through during Rio, and they'll put that on the site?
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. All right. So let's get these off. So I believe we have to send ours to... So we've got to do three a day. So let's start off with Barbara Jezusek. She's one of our cross-country skiers today in the skiathlon. So if I just click here, this is all live on air, so you can click on send message. You can do this on the website this time around, not just on the app, so we can go sport. All right. So let's go cross-country skiing. Optional, select athlete. Oh, we don't have to select. You just do it anyway. All right. So where's Barbara? There she is. Name. Are we just calling these Off The Podium? Oh, I want to take you. Off...
COLIN HILDING: Mallory. Email.
BEN WATERWORTH: OffThePodium. At mallory.com. State. Well, let's be in South Australia today. Message. What do we want to say to Barbara in the skiathlon? Anybody? Messages of a skiathlone?
COLIN HILDING: Don't you hate the Germans and Italians?
BEN WATERWORTH: Beat at least one of them and Australia will be proud.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thanks for defecting.
BEN WATERWORTH: Australia will be proud. Thanks for defecting. Love ya. X, X, X, X. Do we want to sign up for exclusive e-newsletters? Why not? Send message. Under moderation. Remember that time when the Australian Olympic Committee banned us from posting on their wall in Rio? I have a feeling that's going to happen again. Alright, so there's one. Alright, so we're going to do this quickly, because we're going to be here all day. Alright, thank you very much. Post another message. So this is going to go to the other skiathlon eat. Is that a word? Alright, so this is to the esteemed Jessica Yeaton. Alright, name Off The Podium. We'll just keep that consistent. Email, keep that consistent. OffThePodium at mallory.com. Let's go from the ACT this time around. Anyone, what are we going to say to Jessica? Hope you skiathlon the shit out of everyone.
MALLORY FOSTER: Shit out of everyone.
BEN WATERWORTH: Beat Barbara. And the Swiss. Alright, I'm also going to screenshot each one of these so we can share this on our Facebook page so people can see what we're writing and wonder why exactly Mallory said it. No wonder. Alright, I feel like we need to be nicer next time because we've actually had him on the show. It's Andy Jung, and he said that he on that starting line, and everybody needs to pay attention to this, if on the starting line he rubs his stomach before he competes, that is a message to us. He said he would do that as a signal to us. Alright, so Andy Jung, name, Off The Podium, Mallory Swiss, state, well we haven't been from New South Wales yet, rub, what can we say here, to Andy?
COLIN HILDING: Rub that belly like a shirtless tongan.
BEN WATERWORTH: Rub that belly like a shirtless tongan.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Bradbury's got nothing on you.
BEN WATERWORTH: Bradbury has got nothing on you from your favourite podcast and Mallory. Darn, look at that, we've ticked 3 off the list. We've only got 48 to go. I reckon we can do this, folks. This is our own Olympics here. We're going to message every single Australian athlete across these games, and they're all going to win medals, at least hopefully do an interview with us. Can I also just point out what made my day? I like to share stuff on social media. Mallory goes off on me for that, but hey, whatever. I actually had Alyssa Camplin, Australia's second ever gold medallist in the Winter Olympics in women's aerials in Salt Lake 2002. She backed it up with the bronze in Torino with those ugly donut medals that they had in 2006, where she liked my photo on Instagram, and then she followed it up by liking a tweet of mine. I'm saying it now, Alyssa Camplin and I are besties. So we haven't had her on the show yet. What happened with you, Colin?
COLIN HILDING: I had the official Twitter account of the Deferla Point sisters, all three of them, like a tweet. Having said that, I also know that all of them on their individual accounts said that they're not posting any social media for the next two weeks, so obviously it was a publicist. But still, it says the Deferla Point sisters like me.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, after they like you, can you pass on my details so they can like me too? Just don't tell Mallory. I don't know if she's going to hear this or not. All righty. So, we've gone over this well. We're back for day two. We'll be covering day one in our next episode and then looking ahead to day two, of course, so we'll be going over everything. There will be no medals for Australia. I can guarantee you that on day one. Actually, I shouldn't guarantee that. Poor old Andy Jung and our old ski athletes. Don't ever listen to this episode, Andy. I have faith in you.
COLIN HILDING: He's not rubbing his belly now, thanks.
BEN WATERWORTH: His speciality is the longer event that he's in, which I think is the 3,000 metres from memory when we had him on the show. I listen to what people say in the interviews here. So anyway, Mallory, I'm going to start with you. Thank you for joining us. This has been a lot of fun. You're probably never going to come back on again after this experience today, but we appreciate your input today.
MALLORY FOSTER: Thank you for having me. Yeah, I probably will never come back because you guys are just so rude to me.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's fine.
COLIN HILDING: We're lucky she didn't hear the stuff that we said when she wasn't paying attention.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just wait till we start talking about the helmet in your mother games. Jarrod, I appreciate your company, too. Thank you.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thank you. It's been fun.
BEN WATERWORTH: And Colin, as always, thank you very much. You want to end it with a traditional Korean classic of Imagine at all?
COLIN HILDING: No, I mean, I got bigger things to take care of. Casper had an accident, so I got to hose out some ski boots.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's a typical Canadian problem. As I said, we'll be back. In the meantime, like us on Facebook. I think we might be starting a Twitter page up, yay. We'll also start up a crowdfunding campaign, perhaps to see if we can raise, I don't know, it's probably only like 20 million or something like that. I'm sure we can get that, and I'll host it. Colin can commentate the moguls. Jarrod can do the ice dancing. Mallory can do the opening ceremony.
MALLORY FOSTER: Don't forget to commentate who the flag bearers are.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, exactly. And don't make Jarrod angry. I've never seen Jarrod so angry before. I loved it. Hashtag Off The Podium in the meantime until we get our Twitter up and running. And any comments, questions, feedback, let us know on Facebook. Hashtag us on Twitter. Or on iTunes. You can leave us some feedback and some ratings on there. We'd appreciate that. We look forward to covering the first full day of Pyeongchang 2018. The Olympics are here. Get excited as we head out with that classic K-pop band that is Psy. Good night, and we'll speak to you tomorrow here in sort of Pyeongchang.
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