PyeongChang 2018 Preview Episode
It's time to strap your skates on, wax your snowboard and adjust your luge as Ben, Colin & Jarrod are back to bring you their full preview of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang Korea! Just how excited are they for the games? Can Jarrod contain his love of the ice dancing? How about Colin and his curling love? And Ben and his fascination for doubles luge? What is the deal with nordic combined and it being so awesome? Will Australia choke under all the expectations? Can Canada peak over 33 medals? Why is Tasmania looking at bidding for the 2026 Winter Olympics? And at what point will Psy show up during the opening ceremony? It's all here and more as we get you prepped, excited and snowed in for the greatest event on the planet in 2018!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hello, everybody, and welcome to Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast, as we come to you today for our official Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics preview episode. The time has come to get excited, to get covered in snow, to get covered in ice, and get covered in medals, if you're from Canada and a couple, if you're from Australia, because it is the Winter Olympics. So exciting, and it just feels like yesterday we were talking about Rio. It's about 18 months ago now, but we're here for the Rio Olympics now. The ones that everybody actually cares about. Well, one third of our listeners do, if they're from Canada. So excited to be here. My name is Ben, and this is just exciting. I'm so excited. Have I said that I'm excited? I'm excited. And I know that this man's excited. He's from the very wintery destination where there are emus, there are planes, and sometimes they are called pilots. I don't know where that joke was going. It's Jarrod Loobeek. Jarrod, welcome back to Off The Podium.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thank you. Yeah, the emus are in full force out on the ice rinks at the moment. So it's a great time to be alive.
BEN WATERWORTH: They're practising their double axel and their triple axel, and they're getting pieces of metal ready to take out their competitors' knees. They're that excited and-
JARROD LOOBEEK: Exactly.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ready to go. And speaking of taking out their competitors with sticks and shit, this man's never done it because he's from Canada, and they would be too nice to do something like that. It's Colin Hilding. Colin, welcome back. You're so- You're even more excited than I am. It's the Winter Games.
COLIN HILDING: I am. And just in honour of these Olympic Games, for the next three weeks, my name will officially change to Cochrane, in honour of Sochrane and Brchrane.
BEN WATERWORTH: My name's officially gonna be Bumpy in honour of Chumpy Pullen. So that's what I'm doing. Oh, I'm excited. I love the Winter Olympics. I listened to our very first episode yesterday from our Rio coverage, and how excited we were for that. But I mentioned in that I like the Winter Olympics more. I'm sticking to that. This is just an exciting time to be an Olympic fan. We are now, at the time of recording this, less than a week away. It's hard to believe that it has come around this quickly. I'm gonna start with you, Colin. Just, what's the vibe in Canada right now? I mean, it's gotta be different to what it's like in the lead up to Rio, because you guys actually give a shit about these Olympics.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I mean, we go into these games, not just knowing we're gonna win a lot of medals, but we pretty much already know half of the medals we're going to win. And we've got, like, weekly TV specials on CBC where they're profiling different athletes. We got, you know, six or seven athletes on cereal boxes. It's actually exciting here. I mean, like, the summer games where we would win stuff and we'd be like, where did that come from, you know? Who's Andre DeGrasse and how did he actually run fast? You know, he's Canadian. Is trampoline still a sport? You know, those are the things we're asking during the summer. And now we just get to be like, well, of course we won three medals in curling, and of course we won both the golds in hockey.
BEN WATERWORTH: Whereas, Jarrod, for us, it's like kind of how Colin was feeling in the lead up, you know, whilst we're going, yes, you know, come on BMXers and Sally Pearson and the Campbell Sisters. We're not really... This time around, we're like, what the hell's a luge? And why is there a horror movie called The Skeleton in the Olympics? And what the hell is a Chumpy Pullen? We're still sort of excited, right, Jarrod? I mean, this is the one time every four years that Australia realises we have athletes who go in the snow.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, exactly. We have started the traditional buildup of jinxing athletes. So every night on TV, I see them like talk about our metal hoax, and I am getting just flashbacks to the Campbell Sisters. And even just to soot you with Chumpy Pullen on every single ad possible. So yeah, we've started the lead up to jinxing all our athletes, and that's typical Australian spirit.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I'm kind of nervous to talk about Brit Cox in this episode, because if there's ever been somebody who, to me, is a short of a medal in an Australian Olympic campaign, it's gotta be Brit Cox. But I guess that was the same as Chumpy Pullen four years ago, wasn't it, Jarrod? So we'll be careful in how we talk about her in this episode. But yeah, I've been seeing, they've got the news reports of Australian athletes have arrived in Pyeongchang, and through a lot of the people I follow on social media who have had on the show, it's exciting seeing these behind the scenes things. And I think they're all on, I don't know how it works in Canada, Colin, but I'm pretty sure a lot of our athletes are now on social media blackout. It's very restricted now, I think, in what they can and can't do. But less than a week away, we should mention just quickly for our Australian listeners that it's great for Australia in terms of the time zone of where we are in comparison to Pyeongchang. Because I think for most of us, Jarrod and I on the East Coast, I think we're only about two, three hours ahead of Pyeongchang, whereas if you are, believe listening in Perth, you are legitimately in the same time zone. So, and that's gonna be the case for the next three Olympics, of course, Tokyo and Beijing, the next couple all being in this region. So for us, Jarrod, it's great. I mean, this is the first time since Nagano that we've really kind of had such a close time zone to a Winter Olympics.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's about time they cater for us. I always think of the comedy series, The Games, and how they talk about running all the events at night to cater to the American viewers. But yeah, it's nice to have an event in our time zone, so we're not staying up like with London till six in the morning to see a final.
BEN WATERWORTH: With Colin, with you, it's obviously kind of a little bit different, but I think mainly for you, what I guess would be most exciting is the fact that the Olympics are returning to Korea, where you very much nearly competed, what, 30 years ago. So this is almost like a homecoming for your nearly Olympic ambitions.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, well, I mean, I've competed, maybe stretching a little bit, being able to attend and maybe walk on the field would have been the closest. I mean, I'm sure, you know, I'm sure that we'll get to that at some point. But no, it's kind of weird for me because all the last Olympics we've had, I mean, even London, it was, I think, still close enough where I could watch it day of. And we're right around the time right now where I think it's going to be starting every single day. So this is during Rio as it was winding down. And when I'm waking up in the morning, like 5.36 in the morning, that's when the Olympics are going to be winding down for the night. The hardest thing for me is going to be be able to like, I'll have to go on social media blackout myself because during Rio, there are a lot of times where I knew an event was going on during the day. And like, well, I'm at work. It's not hard. I'm not going to have this spoiled for me. But it's going to be completely different when I wake up in the morning and I can't look at my phone. And then I go through all day at work and I can't look at anything. And then eventually I get home and 12 hours later, you guys are already slept on it. And I'm seeing, you know, pretty cocks win for the first time or lose for the first time, depending on how good your luck is.
BEN WATERWORTH: You're just going to be ignoring us like, Colin, when are we recording? Like, shut up, I'm on social media. Leave me alone. I'll be messaging Jamie. Jamie, message Colin. When is he recording? Yeah, it's interesting because I guess kind of transitioning into, you know, similar thing what we did in our Rio ones, just a little bit of history here in terms of our history with the winter games and I guess our best moments, because we sort of did that with the summer ones. But, I mean, my first full Olympics that I remember kind of really paying close attention to was Nagano. And I remember that being great in terms of our time zone and watching that. I briefly do remember some of Lilahama. I think I remember us winning the medal because it was our first ever winter medal in 94. So I remember kind of a bit of the coverage around that. I think, yes, we talked in our Itonuan and Off The Podium, now available via iTunes, Spotify and Stitcher, that I think I remember some of that around that. And I also remember kind of, it was a thing that leading into like 94, because that's when I believe aerials was just first introduced as a medal sport. And Australia has always done well in women's aerials. And we had like, was it like, not Kirstie Johnson, what was the name? Kirstie who? Kirstie Marshall. There we go, thank you. No, I was about to say Kirstie Ali, but I'm like, no, that was the wrong one. I was like a world champion in the aerials, and she always choked in the Olympics. And it was kind of a thing that we would always go into the aerials in the 90s and just never live up to what we were good at in the world championships. But yeah, I remember Naga Naga. I mean, Salt Lake was probably the one which I just followed it religiously. And I mean, you know, I've told the story plenty of times before about how I was allowed to stay home to watch Canada win the gold medal for the ice hockey in 2002. And, you know, I remember Bradbury and Kaplan. And I guess my favourite memory, I guess, of the Winter Olympics, obviously Bradbury, I think that's everyone, every Australian's obvious one. But I actually, I've talked up a lot, and we had her on the show, Zali Steggles Bronze in 98 was, I loved watching that. I was watching that live. I've still got the VHS of that recording that. So that's like the oldest Olympic footage live off TV I have to this day, and to have her on the show was a massive fanboy moment for me. She just won a bronze. Like that was Australia's interest in the winter Olympics. We got so excited over someone winning a bronze. But yeah, I loved Vancouver, watching Lydia Lassler win the gold, Tora Bright win the gold. Of course, our hero, Dale Begg Smith, winning gold in Turin. And yeah, even David Morris winning that silver four years ago in Sochi was a lot of fun, because we very much underperformed. We'll probably talk about that in Sochi. We didn't win a gold four years ago. So Australia's coming into these games, not having won a gold medal in eight years, but anyway. Jarrod, what are your first memories of the winter games as an Australian? And what are your standout memories of the winter games watching them over the years?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think I first kind of started being really interested in watching probably around Vancouver. Was the first time that I'd actually seen Australia win a gold medal live. So, yeah, I definitely fondly remember kind of that Tora Bright final and how kind of she stuffed up her first run in typical Australian fashion and had to leave it till the last second to kind of snatch the gold. Yeah, and I just, all the medals from Vancouver for Australia were the three, and then Sochi, I just remember kind of the constant letdowns, but then similar to you, the David Morris, Ariel's silver medal was a real highlight for me, just because he was so excited. And just watching Ariel's, it's so competitive, and the fact that it is kind of knockout every single round, you're losing people, I think it's just one of the most interesting sports to watch at the Winter Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: And the thing that I'll say too, like we obviously got so excited over Chloe Esposito in Rio in kind of this unexpected gold, which again, we take credit for, the modern men, Tasman and Love. But I mean, there is always that part of it, I feel, in Olympics where all your key medal hopes have competed, you've kind of only got a couple of days to go, you're not really expected to win any medals, but you'll always get that one surprise one that no one expects. And that was David Morris in 2014. No one had heard of him, unless you were in kind of the aerials community. So like everyone kind of like seeing this Australian guy winning a silver and just, the guy seriously celebrated, like he'd just won 30 gold medals, it was amazing. And I've interviewed him twice, he was on the show a couple of months ago, he's gonna come back, he's just the nicest guy. He's just so nice and just will follow him on social media, he's just brilliant, and we'll talk about him in our medal chances when we have to that. Colin, I mean, God, this is gonna be a lot longer for you, this is kind of like us for the Rio ones. I'll add one of, you know, two of my other sort of favourite non-Australian moments, in all seriousness, was watching Canada win that gold in 2002, because that was your first in 50 years. And also, obviously, and I'm assuming this is most Canadian's answer, Sidney Crosby, overtime goal, Vancouver, I was watching that live, that was amazing. Anyway, so give us your millions here. Colin, this is your time to shine as a Canadian.
COLIN HILDING: Well, it's funny, because even though these winter sports are all Canadian, and that we usually excel at the winter games more than the summer games, I think I got into the winter games later, and it could just be because it's going on during school, so you're not staying up late, and you don't know what the time differences are. I mean, I was very young when it was in Calgary, and I think I kind of knew it was going on, but it's not like I really was watching it or anything. I may have seen one or two moments from the opening ceremonies or some events just when it was on TV. And I think it was probably the same as you, Ben. Lillehammer was the first time I really watched it. That was coming off of Barcelona, which was the first games where I just sat there, and I spent two weeks during the summer just watching it, every second it was on. And with Lillehammer, I think most of it, again, it was the media attention with the Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan thing. I remember watching that very vividly, but what got me was seeing the moguls for the first time, which I've mentioned many times on here. It was like my favourite sport in the world. And it was Jean-Luc Brossard who won the gold for Canada in Lillehammer for that. And that was the first time I really saw that sport. I think Nagano was the first games where I really just watched it the same way as I did Barcelona, just nonstop. And I think most of my memories of Olympics will all go back to Nagano. The most famous one that I think Canada's known for was that was the year that they introduced snowboarding. And during the snowboarding event, there was a Canadian Ross Revelliati who won gold, and then he tested positive for marijuana like a few days after that. And they actually were saying, well, we're stripping him. There was like all these back and forth things where the Olympic committee was like, we're stripping him of his gold. And then they're saying, well, we're not stripping him. We're just investigating him. He ended up appearing on The Tonight Show, even though it was like this was a new sport. He was Canadian. It was like big attention in America. Ended up, I think they said, it's the equivalent of he walked by somebody who was smoking dope, and he just happened to be in the room or something. But just watching that, when we get into snowboarding during the games, I'll just talk about how great that event was, not just for him, but another Canadian. And then, of course, from there, like Salt Lake City, obviously my big memory is the gold medal for the men's hockey team, which is probably still one of the most exciting Olympic moments ever. And I thought Torino was probably the most fun games I saw, even though it wasn't the best for Canada in comparison. But of course, Vancouver, just being on home soil, I tried so hard to be able to go to anything for the Vancouver Olympics. So I thought I'd probably never again in my lifetime, or maybe never again in my lifetime, be able to see especially winter Olympics here in Canada. And I made plans where I was going to, even if I had to fly out for the day, watch one event, just to say I did, and then fly back at night. And unfortunately, I took what was a voluntary layoff from work during that time, just because work was slow. So I mean, my finances are down, I couldn't do it. But yeah, you mentioned the gold medal and that. I mean, even though I feel like Sidney Crosby, probably get most Canadians will feel Sidney Crosby gets too much credit for doing nothing during the Olympics and scoring one goal, but still just winning that, I could just remember the gold medal game party we had, which it was the same thing in Sochi that we had as well. And again, going back to moguls in Sochi, my favourite moment was in the men's and the women's, winning both the gold and the silver. Alexander Bilodeau won the gold, and McKell Kingsbury won the silver in the men's. And in the women's, we had two sisters, Justine and Chloe DeFerla Point winning, who I'm probably gonna spend the majority of the Olympics talking about here and begging them to be on the show. Watching, yes, as well as their other sister who competed in those games came in seventh, and she won't be in this one. But we got like, I think it's crazy. We have a certain amount of freestyle skiers we're allowed to send from Canada, and moguls is so competitive that we have like the maximum amount like four men and four women. I think there's only 21 that you can send across all sports, and we wasted eight of them just on moguls. And even Andy Naughty, who we interviewed, was one of my favourite interviews that we've done on here. When I was talking to her about how she missed out in Sochi to qualify for the Olympics, and she said she was ranked ninth in the world, but because she wasn't in the top four in Canada, she missed out on the Olympics. And it's just crazy to me to think that there's a sport that we are that good at where you are fifth place in the country, but still ninth in the world and not good enough to make the Olympics. So that's where all my attention is gonna be this time.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's crazy, it really is. And I mean, a lot of what we're gonna do in this episode is obviously look at some of the sports that we've done, Metal Chances. Talk up the athletes that we've had on the show. And we're gonna have some fun moments, of course we're gonna be bringing you daily recaps like we did during Rio, but we have to keep an eye out, of course, for our winter version of Ryan Lochte, of course. We're gonna be really making sure that we do that. Also, I feel this one's probably gonna be easier for us, Jarrod, our winter version of the Campbell Sisters, because we're Australian, pretty much every single one of our athletes will end up being a Campbell Sister and choking. But yeah, it's fascinating. I'm just looking here at the respective histories of our countries at the Winter Olympics. Now, coming into this, Australia, in our history, have won a total of 12 medals. That is five gold, three silver, four bronze, all of which have been achieved in the last 24 years. So, pre-Lilahama, never won any medals, and we've won medals at every Olympics since Lilahama. We've won gold at every Olympics since 2002, with the exception of Sochi. So, that's pretty exciting. And this is gonna be a record for Australia in the fact that we are sending 51 athletes to these games, which is up. No, sorry, I apologise. That's down from Sochi. We had 60 in Sochi, but still, this is gonna be our second biggest team ever. Whereas for Canada, you sent 220 to Sochi. Do you have an exact number yet, Colin? I can't see this here yet for Canada, but I'm assuming you're gonna be sending more to Pekong Cheng.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I don't have the exact number, but I do have, when you were mentioning how many medals you'd won, and you said 12, I said, oh, so you've won almost as many medals as we won golds in Vancouver. Which, that was the other big bragging point, when the Vancouver Olympics, where we went an entire week without winning a gold medal. And then within the last week, set the all time record with 14. I mean, we're at like 170 medals, period, for Canada, and 62 of those golds, so there's a big difference.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which is, I remember during Vancouver, because I think a big thing, wasn't it, for you guys, was you were the only country in the history of the Olympics never to win gold during your home Olympics. Not once, but twice. Montreal and Calgary both failed to win gold medals. But that was kind of like, you were fearing that was gonna happen, wasn't it? Because I remember kind of the nervousness of Canada, that was all in our media too, like Canadians are starting to get worried, they still haven't won a gold yet on their home soil. And all of a sudden, it was just like boom, everything exploded.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and we always knew we'd get at least one gold in the hockey and at least one gold out of curling. But those first seven days, like everybody in the country was sweating because they had built this up for so many years. And they even developed this program, which was called Own The Podium, which is almost like off the podium. Maybe we can sue them or something. They came first, they're going to sue us, oh no. But there was so much built up that, you know, we spent years just getting ready so that we could make a huge impact in Vancouver. And seven days in, and we hadn't won a single gold medal. I mean, yeah, that was really nerve-wracking, but to see what came after that was like, I don't think we'll ever experience anything as crazy as that as far as like Canada and any Olympics ever again.
BEN WATERWORTH: What's fascinating, there are 15 sports in these winter games. We'll go through them in a minute. Canada have won out of their 170 medals in the history of the Olympics, you've won it in 12 different sports. Your most successful clearly is ice hockey. That is in terms of gold medal. If you go over total medals, that is speed skating. Your least successful, into which you've still won three medals, two of them gold, biathlon, as well as cross-country skiing. Australia have actually only ever won medals in four sports. Those being freestyle skiing, our clearly our most dominant, because we've done that in aerials and moguls. Then short track speed skating and snowboarding are tied. And our solitary medal in alpine skiing are bronze. So, Jarrod, what do we need to pick up our game here? I'm looking at the luge. I feel that Australia needs to pick our game up on these sliding sports. And also, I'm an advocate for biathlon, and I know we've got at least one biathlete in these Olympics. So, you know, I feel that this is where we've really got to up our game, isn't it?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I'd like to see us crack into the figure skating arena too. I think, I mean, it is the gymnastics of the winter Olympics. It's basically a floor routine on ice. So I think we've had some success in gymnastics. So I think we can bring that onto the rink.
BEN WATERWORTH: We have, you know, two of our, I think both our figure skater competitors have been on the show. So if we've brought them luck, we're gonna find out. But yeah, we'll go over some of these sports. I think this is like personal preference time. I mean, there's 15 sports, as I said, there's obviously, you know, what pretty much half the sports you have in the summer games. But the reason why I love the winter Olympics more is because for Australians, we never see these sports. These are just not sports that we are familiar with. And to me, whereas like, as I said, I listened to our Rio coverage, our first one, and you know, Jarrod having the great old fun with, you know, rhythmic gymnastics and we're talking about wrestling and sailing. There's a bunch of boring sports at the summer Olympics. Let's be honest. There's really no boring sport at the winter Olympics. Even curling is fantastic. Like the cross-country skiing is fantastic. Biathlon, that is the modern pentathlon to me of the winter games. It is just, when you mix sports together, that is just amazing. I love the biathlon. But the sports like alpine skiing, that is amazing. That is the athletics of the winter games. Downhill, what a great sport. Slalom, the super G. Like what a sport called the super G. Biathlon, great. Bobsleigh, well, hello, it's cool running. It's brilliant. Cross-country skiing, the marathon of the winter Olympics. It's great. Curling, fantastic. Figure skating, Jarrod just said it. Gymnastics of the winter games. Freestyle skiing, you've got moguls, you've got aerials, you've got ski cross. Fantastic. Ice hockey, the best sport of the games. Luge, can we just talk about Luge? Luge is amazing. Can we? Don't get me started on doubles Luge. We'll get to that. Naughty. Yeah. Naughty combined. No, that's the modern pentathlon of the winter games, Ben, but biathlon's nearly there. But Naughty combined, amazing. Short track speed skating, amazing. Skeleton, it's Luge but backwards. Ski jumping, incredible. Snowboarding, incredible. There's no boring sports. Jarrod, why don't we watch these? I'm so excited my voice has raised up so high. These sports are amazing.
JARROD LOOBEEK: They are incredible, and there needs to be, I want more coverage year round.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I want them to send the athletes down to Thread Bow and let's put on our own games.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think we, like, I've been watching the Royal NHG, the Salt Lake Ice Tree when they had the Smygans Holes 2010 bid, you know, hilarious. I think it's our goal, these games, like we started the Flynn Flon bid. Sadly, that's not really been that successful. I think we need to start like Thread Bow 2026 or something like that, don't we, Jarrod? I mean, is that, or Mount Hotham 2026? Where do you think we should go? I think Thread Bow is the place to be.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think it's got a good ring to it, and I mean, great facilities there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Or actually, if I'm being Tasmanian here, it should be Ben Lomond 2026, our ski resort town in Tasmania. What do you think about that? That would work.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, let's get Tasmania on the map.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, there we go. We've got the winter bid back.
COLIN HILDING: What, Ben Waterworth doesn't put them on the map?
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm about to leave, Colin, shut up. Ben Lomond, 2026. We'll get that going up. Colin, I mean, those sports to you would, I mean, you've got a channel for those in every single one of your cable networks, right? Like you just would tune out of the Nordic combined, 24 seven channel, didn't you?
COLIN HILDING: It's funny you say that because our network TV has coverage of pretty much all these things. I don't know what it was like for you during Rio, if Seven Mate was, you know, the months prior, showing rhythmic gymnastics or equestrian, but leading up to this, every single Saturday and every single Sunday, it's showing some combination of these sports, usually be two or three of them throughout the course of the afternoon. So everyone you mentioned, I have seen at some point in the last couple weeks on network television.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's crazy. I mean, I've got cable television and they've got all the sports ones and I've been paying attention. We actually had the Snowboard Cross World Champions on there recently, and I was watching Chumpy go out in the semi-finals. I was like, oh, this is a good preview for the games probably. And there was a Moguls on, and I think it might have been, I was watching it, Colin, thinking, oh, is this the Calgary ones which you didn't get to go to? But I've never seen Nordic Combined on Australian television. I don't even think, Jarrod, do you have any memory of Channel 7, Channel 10, Channel 9, showing Nordic Combined on Australian television ever?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Never, I've never even heard of it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, look, this is it. We're selling it right now. Biathlon is second. Nordic Combined is our selling point right now. So we're gonna have a Chloe Esposito moment at some point during these games. This is a combination of cross-country skiing and ski jumping, all right? This is like if Eddie the Eagle got off his skis and then decided to ski for another 100 kilometres. Like, the only thing that I think they need to improve with this sport is because it's separate, right, Colin? Like, they'll ski jump one day, then they'll do a cross-country ski the next day. To combine it, like, start at the top of the jump, right? Ski down, jump up, land, and then keep going. And then, like, that's skill.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, but, I mean, to have the full effect of it being one sport, you would need them to cross-country ski so fast that they can create the speed to get at least three feet in the air off a jump. And then it makes sense.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's good. I like it, I like it. I mean, we talked about that during the modern pentathlon about, like, do they fence the horse and chop it up and then, like, swim with the body parts in the water or something like that? Like, you know, they gotta think about this.
COLIN HILDING: Can we theorize, let's say there's not a single bad sport here, can we theorize what sport would be, like, our growner during the Winter Olympics? I don't know if either of you guys have one, but, like, is there a possibility of, like, equestrian, you know, dressage for ice horse skating? Like, we could have bat horse versus Mr. Brain's horse or something like that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod, I was gonna ask you, you've gotta keep an eye out for the bat horse of these games.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, we will find it, trust me.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know, that's a good question, because, like, legitimately, there's not a sporty, like, most people in Australia would probably say curling, but, like, curling's amazing. I love curling. Jarrod, what would you?
COLIN HILDING: Dude, you've never touched your peelers.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think certain types of figure skating, the ones where they don't do as many jumps, and it's more just flinging the hands out and going through the motions, yeah, they tend to grade a little.
COLIN HILDING: Ice dancing?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I was gonna say ice dancing. Like, I'm sorry, Torval and Dean fans, but, I mean, that's just lazy. Like, that's just, you know, like, that's not, that's just appealing to the kids.
COLIN HILDING: That's lazy as if you have, like, the figure skating coaches out there, and then they're like, you know what? These three kids are kind of lazy, but I bet they'll be great in the skate dance.
BEN WATERWORTH: But, like, to me, figure skating is graceful. It's like it's skill. You've got to do these axles and lutzs and all these sort of things. Like, it's got some skill to it. Ice dancing is just like, you know, dancing with the stars with skates on your feet. Like, I mean, we had that, didn't we, Jarrod? Like, three versions of skating on ice with, like, Reggie and Carl Stefanowicz in the mid-2000s, do you remember? Those reality shows.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Bring those back to, on the lead up to the 2026 Games, please.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think, Jarrod, Jarrod, you want them to add ribbons and balls to ice dancing, right? Like, imagine Torval and Dean swirling around with a ribbon.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Aw, I couldn't imagine anything worse.
COLIN HILDING: Do you know that our flag bearers for these games are an ice dancing pair?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, congratulations. I, yeah, like, I still could watch it, though. Like, this is the thing, when I could not sit down and watch a sailing, like, oh, there we go, boat number 12 off in the distance, the crowd's going crazy. Yeah, it's crazy to think that they're really, I'm an advocate, well, actually, for your flag bearer now, Colin, that you sent me that picture. Um, but I am such an advocate for doubles luge, because, like, can we just go over, like, the weirdness of some of these sports, right? Luge in itself is a wacky sport. Let's, like, stand, sit at the top of a hill, move our hands really quickly on the ice, and just lay down, like, lay down Sally from those Athens games would be good at luge, and just, like, basically lay down and hope that you reach the bottom, right? Well, you talked about bobsled in our Cool Runnings recap on the Oz Network, Colin, about how is this really a sport? Like, outside of the running, could this be a sport? Like, luge is kind of the lazy bobsled. But, like, doubles luge, like, this is, and it's like, it's only the men, the women don't compete in doubles luge. It's two, like, grown muscular men in skin-tight clothing laying on top of each other going fast out of pipe. Like, who comes up with this sport?
COLIN HILDING: You know, you have to always look into the future to see where this could go terribly wrong. I mean, not to, you know, be inconsiderate to the female lugeists out there, if that's a word. But if you let, let's just play devil's advocate. If you let women into the luge, eventually we're going to have mixed doubles luge. And that's just a recipe for sexual harassment and sexual assault. So let's just not go there.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm calling for double skeleton. And I think that we should have mixed double skeleton. And we would probably have the very first baby conceived during an Olympic event at some point in the future, if you have double skeleton. So, more doubles.
COLIN HILDING: Some sports need to remain segregated between men and women.
BEN WATERWORTH: Seriously, we are gonna keep a very close eye on doubles luge during the Olympics, when everybody did his watch. It is the most weirdest sport to ever watch. And when they win gold, like, you know, it's usually what the Italians or the Germans, you know, they're the good ones at luge. But the way they're just celebrating, and they're so muscular. Why are they so muscular? Like, I could do luge. Probably. But in all seriousness, I actually do enjoy the skeleton. Cause like that's, like we're talking about guilty pleasure sports, just like curling, but like skeleton is just fascinating because as fascinating as luge is, like some point in history, someone's gone, I like this sport, but let's go down face first. Jarrod, would you rather luge or skeleton? As an Australian, we don't have any opportunity to do this in our country properly. I'm not talking about these fake tracks. I'm talking about the real ones. Would you, I mean, these have got to be terrifying though as an Australian. Do you like, I'm asking you 30 questions here, Jarrod. Skeleton, what's your thoughts on it?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think skeleton is just a little bit unnatural, isn't it? I think, I mean, luge is just, just kind of like a water slide, but on a mat. And I imagine that's how the Australians train, given our lack of ice. But yeah, you've got to be crazy to go down that thing head first. Yeah, I don't understand seeing, you wouldn't even see anything. I don't get it. I would like to, I know, I want to see a camera from their perspective. Get the GoPro in, we need that shot this year.
BEN WATERWORTH: There's just so many of these sports, which are just like, how did they come up with this? Like, let's analyze everyone, ski jumping. Like, oh, let's just attach some pieces of wood to our feet, jump up high, but you've got to do it precisionally and land, like, this is the uniqueness about the Winter Olympics that I love too, is that so many of these sports on paper are just kind of standard, but they've all got judging elements to it. Like, you love the moguls, Colin. And like, I enjoy the moguls, Dale Begg Smith, great Australian Olympian, we love the moguls. But like, who comes up with this idea to ski down giant bumps in the snow? And if that's not bad enough, let's make you do a flip half-eye throw and we'll judge you for it. Like, what is this sport?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, several mini jumps, and again, I just want to add these things to different things. What if ice dancing had to be done downhill on like an ice slide, and they had jumps to go off while dancing, like dirty dancing style? You know, what does that move they do at the end? The big dirty dancing move?
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know, something about a baby in the corner and she's not even in a bloody corner. Ben Lohman 2026 will have bumps in the ice, so all the competitors, like the Russians, will be back in the games by then. I reckon all the drugs have cleared out of their system in like eight years, but they'll have to do like the Lutz over a ramp. But then you're going to have just like your Aussie Ben Lohman judges in the crowd going, that was fucking brilliant, like three out of 10, like fucking you could have done better than that. Oh, I'm so excited. What's your guilty pleasure sport, Jarrod? I mean, well, actually, what's your favourite sport as well? I should kind of ask you that at the same time.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think favourite would have to be the aerial skiing. I just think it's insane, and it is just hot in your mouth the whole time it's going on. Guilty pleasure, I mean, it's got to be the curling. I think it's the skill, but it's also it is that kind of Olympic sport for the non-Olympians.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Just the everyday folk getting out there, brushing some ice.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's the general sport.
JARROD LOOBEEK: And the Norwegians doing it in their loud pants. It's a sight to behold.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm so sad we're not seeing the Russian curlers. Colin pointed me out to them recently. They're quite attractive. Yeah, when we-
COLIN HILDING: Are they not there this year?
BEN WATERWORTH: Are they competing under that weird thing that they're competing under? Maybe.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Who I want to take you?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. I will get to who I want to take you. They're coming up soon. But when we eventually get to the Commonwealth Games after the Winter Games, we talk about lawn bowls. I mean, lawn bowls is great. Yeah, but if I want to see Doris and Phil, like the country club, I can just go down the street now. I can't go watch curling at all in Australia. There's like 30 curlers in this entire country. And I will still stand by the fact that one day I will be an Olympian in curling. Jarrod, you're gonna be on the team with me. This is, as you said, the every man sport, every person sport. It's gender neutral. Canada's changed their national anthem because of that. Colin, I know what your favourite sport is. Do you have a guilty pleasure?
COLIN HILDING: Ice dancing. We have some great pairs in ice dancing. I don't know. There's something kind of fun about it. And I like, I mean, I should say, because of the success that our flag bearers, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir have had, they've had their own reality show on TV. They're not even a couple, and they just get a reality show just because people love them that much here. We had another pair, and I can't remember their names, but I know that they're competing in this one, where the girl was, no joke, like four foot 10, and the guy must have been six five, and they are ice dancing together, which is like the most hilarious sight you've ever seen. I mean, anytime you can pair two people up who just do not belong in a room together, let alone on skates together, let alone throwing each other in the world with baby in the corner together. I mean, that's a great sport. There's something kind of fun about it.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know. Look, I mean, we had to choose that as a sport because you put us on the spot there, Colin. I really don't dislike ice dancing, but we had to choose one. Yeah, so just go over, just on the flag bearer. So you'll say their names again for us non-educated Australians.
COLIN HILDING: Esther Virtue and Scott Moir.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, so I'm just looking here for Australia. The news has actually just come out that Livia Lassler has turned down the opportunity to be our, and she's a five-time Olympian. Easily out there in our top, most decorated Olympians, I think alongside Tora Bright and Dale Begg Smith as our most successful Winter Olympians ever. Being on this show, she's a legend, and she's just qualified. She's come back into the sport. She had a baby, and she's just a legend. But Jarrod, I don't know if you saw this news, but she's turned it down to focus. She doesn't want to be distracted, and no distractions. So she's basically said, no, I don't want to carry a flag into an opening ceremony, because that's going to distract me too much.
COLIN HILDING: What, no distractions from having a baby?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, and the Olympics, I guess. But I mean, surely Jarrod and Colin, you were on this because you actually did the interview with her, but it's got to be Brit Cox, doesn't it, Jarrod? I mean, who else is it going to be? Scotty James, maybe, but I reckon it's going to be Brit Cox.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, hit the pressure on, I say.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, Colin, you'd obviously like to see our Brit, Aussie Brit, carrying the flag.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, it was so weird because I'll watch the moguls every time it's on TV. So even just watching the World Cup, not the one that was in Calgary, but the other Canadian one they had, and they kind of show highlights of the qualification, highlights of, you know, the semi-finals or whatever. And then it's only at the end when I'm like, oh, we got one or two skiers left to go. And I'm like, wait a second, she's not even in here, like what went wrong? And I was thinking to myself like, is she sick? Was she injured? Did somebody kill her? Like, how is it possible she's not in the finals here? So, I don't know, as long as she's alive and well, I mean, she's pretty much your best bet for any medal, you know, a gold's pretty much a lock at this point for her.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, like, we're gonna get to that in a second. I'm just looking here, so a lot of other countries have named their flag bearers. I'm so happy to say that the Danish flag bearers, who I predicted, it's Elena Moller-Rigas, a speed skater. That's an honour that he or she deserves. I'm gonna say it's a she. It's a she, it's a she, yes. And good news for you, Jarrod, I know you were hoping for this, that Croatia's flag bearer will be Natiko Zurnik-Dim, so you got your wish.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I'm very excited about that. But not as excited as Tonga's flag bearer, which is Tonga's flag bearer from the Summer Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, he's back, what?
JARROD LOOBEEK: He's back.
BEN WATERWORTH: Is he competing?
COLIN HILDING: He's a loincloth on the ace.
BEN WATERWORTH: Who knows? Is he competing, or are they just like, oh, we're not actually here, we thought we'd send him again?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, he's competing. Evidently, it's very easy to pick up cross-country skiing if it's within two years.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, this is why the Winter Olympics are amazing. Tonga are just sitting around going, oh, let's go to the Winter Olympics. Oh, the guy, let's send him. That's awesome. Wow, that's incredible. Just the nations, actually, it's interesting, because we joke about Russia. They're not gonna be there, well, sort of are. They're represented under, what are they, independent athletes from Russia, or Olympic athletes from Russia. But there are actually six countries set to make their debut at the Winter Olympics. We have the great nations of Ecuador, Eritrea, Kosovo, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Singapore. There's gonna be strong rivalry between all six of these. I'm gonna say it right now, I'm predicting Kosovo will come out on top with zero medals. Jarrod, have you got a prediction out of those six?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think Malaysian will finish a strong force in every event that there is.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, big call, big call. Colin, do you have any idea what we just talked about?
COLIN HILDING: You know, I feel like Eritrea is due after all these years of being snubbed, but it's just not their time. I mean, I don't see it going well for them.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, so who is competing? The great alpine skier from Eritrea, Shannon Abeda. Oh, the esteemed Shannon Abeda.
COLIN HILDING: From Fort McMurray, Alberta, representing Eritrea. Like she had a better... This is just pure greed. There is no way I can make the alpine skiing team in Canada. I want to be for Eritrea as its lone athlete.
BEN WATERWORTH: She is the Dale Begg Smith of Eritrea, turning their back on Canada to represent it. I'm actually intrigued, you know, we talked about this during Rio, Australia versus New Zealand. The difference is coming into the Winter Olympics. New Zealand just suck even more than we do at the Winter Olympics. Having said that, they did actually win a Winter Olympic medal before we did in 1992, but they haven't won one since. And I'm looking forward to talking to Nick about this during the week to see if New Zealand actually realise the Winter Olympics are on. But they're sending 21 athletes in alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, skeleton, skeleton, yes bro, we're selling someone in the skeleton, snowboarding and speed skating. So we'll keep an eye on New Zealand finishing last in all those events. And just quickly too, on the sports, there are, how many new sports are there? Here are a few. So we have big air snowboarding, mixed doubles curling, mass start speed skating and mixed team alpine skiing. Big air snowboarding. Now that kind of sounds fun. Do you know anything about this Colin, or are you just learning about this today?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, I've seen it in like the X Games and everything. I mean, the X Games is basically your trial for everything that will eventually be in the Olympics. So snowboarding just seems to be getting bigger and bigger. I remember when it was like one event, or I don't even know if they had anything other than just like a slalom in Nagano. So I mean, the more they add, the better. I just hope that they can keep the events individual from the skiing events. So it's not just doubled up, but we're on one board as opposed to two.
BEN WATERWORTH: Doubles snowboarding, like just two men at a time. That'd be fun. We should also mention the other big sort of thing coming into this is of course the fact that for the first time, what, since 1994, we'll have no, I wouldn't say professional hockey players, I would say NHL hockey players playing in the ice hockey, which, how is Canada feeling about that, Colin? I mean, is this affecting the ice hockey and the people paying less attention to it, more attention to it? How do you feel that the ice hockey's gonna be these games?
COLIN HILDING: We talked about this a little bit on our recap of Miracle, and I think the men's ice hockey, it's just, nobody really knows what to think. They're kind of just looking at the team saying, oh yeah, I remember this guy played briefly in the NHL five years ago, but it's put so much more attention on the women's hockey, which, I mean, four years ago, and eight years ago, whatever, it's more or less just, yeah, we know it's gonna be us in the United States in the finals, and there's not a lot of excitement behind it, but there's been so much more excitement with the women's hockey leading into this. Like, I was at one of the five exhibition games they had between Team USA and Team Canada, and they had it in Winnipeg, and I took my four nieces there, and it was crazy. It was like 10,000 screaming young girls. So I think, obviously, it's getting a lot of girls interested in the sport, because suddenly the attention is on these players, and these players who up until now have been amateurs, and only really you see them in the Olympics every once in a while, and it's the same players every time. Now they're the celebrities, and one of our cereal box campaigns, as I said, they have like six or seven of our biggest athletes. They put one of the women's hockey players on a cereal box, and that's one of our big athletes we're representing here. So even for me, I don't really know if I'm gonna pay as much attention to, I'll definitely pay more attention to the men's, because it's more of an open field, but the women's, that's what I'm more excited about. I want to see what we can do. You're familiar with the players. They're kind of the famous ones now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I will always pay very much, generally my favourite sport. And I really hope that the coverage, and we'll talk about our broadcasters sort of towards the end of this, but it was always a thing here in Australia that they would only ever show like a few bits of highlights of ice hockey, and then generally they'd show like the gold medal game. It was very rarely shown here. But the last, I mean, Channel 10 did a very good job, I think the last Olympics was showing a lot of it. And now that we've kind of got these apps and, you know, multi screens and multi channels and all this sort of stuff. So we'll talk about that soon. But I guess kind of our medal chances here, I mean, Colin's gonna be here for a while. So I think we'll start with the Australians. I think I found a few websites here actually have predicted medal tallies, and they're kind of all over the shop really in terms of that they're not all consistent. I mean, some here have got like Canada, for example, in like second and third, others have Canada in 10th. So like the one here I found it was the only one with Australia because they're showing the top 20. This is a CNN predicted Winter Olympics medal tally. They have Australia winning two gold and two silver, which would make it our most successful ever. They have Canada winning seven gold, 12 silver, 14 bronze to put them in fifth. The one consistency here is a lot of them pretty much have Germany finishing on top. But I guess for us, Jarrod, let's put the Mickey on it. Let's put the, you know, the Jinx on it right now. Brickcocks. I mean, this is a lock, is this not? I mean, I know Colin, I'll get to it. You can talk about it too, because you know more about moguls than we do. But I think what, this is the chumpy pull in effect. This is the one that everybody is saying, Jarrod, that she's all but assured of a gold medal, because she's dominated this sport so, so much. So I'm really hoping she's not going to pull a Campbell, because I would love to see her live up to all this hype that is around her coming into these games.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, exactly. She deserves it too, I think. I think the Olympics coming around every four years, obviously it is a bit of a crapshoot to get that gold medal, but she's won so many events in the lead up, like you said, just has completely dominated the sports. And yeah, she just deserves nothing less than a gold medal here. I would kind of even be a disappointment if she wins silver or bronze, just because she has been so on top of the sport for quite a while now.
BEN WATERWORTH: And it's the third Olympics too, so it's not like this is new to her. I mean, Colin, you did the interview. We'll talk about kind of the ones that we're going to be obviously keeping a closer eye on, because they've been on the show. I mean, we've had in the lead up to this 11 athletes interviewed, 12 if I count Holly Crawford, who I interviewed on the Brinks several years ago, which we put in one of our rewind interviews. She's competing again. But I mean, you spoke to Britt Cox. You're a big fan of hers. You're a fan of the Cox, Colin. Couldn't resist. Give us your view take on Brittney. Is she guaranteed a medal here or gold for Australia?
COLIN HILDING: Well, it's tough to say. If this were 12 months ago, I'd say guaranteed a gold. But this season has been a lot more up and down, it seems, for pretty much everybody. I think she's the odds on favourite. It's not as much of a lock as like the men's. It's a lock for Canada, for McKell Kingsbury. For the women's, the Deferlipoint sisters are kind of odd, and they just sort of flip-flop all over the place. Like in Sochi, I don't think that Justine Deferlipoint was the front runner, and she ended up winning gold, and then she kind of dominated the next year. And then her sister Chloe kind of dominated, and Justine took a backseat. And even this season, it's like Justine is working from the bottom up. But in the last few events, she was getting better and better. And I think the final one before the Olympics, she was on the top spot. So I don't know. It all depends on... I haven't really seen anybody repeat as far as like the Deferla Point sisters. I haven't seen anybody repeat in the Olympics. But the competition is still a little bit open with the women. I mean, you have one French skier, you have the two Deferla Point sisters, and then Andy Noddy for Canada, and then you have Brittany Cox. So I mean, those five, I think, without a doubt, those are going to be the top five there. I think it's completely up in the air still. I think you may be disappointed. I won't be disappointed just because, I mean, I think, you know, for her to come out as quickly as she did last year was fantastic. But if she loses to a Canadian, I'll be happy. If a Canadian loses to her, I'll still be happy.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, good. But it's probably typical Australian media then to oversell her as much as they did with like Chumpy going into Sochi.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, there's no doubt, she's definitely performed the best of the last few years, but I think this season is a little bit more shaky, I think, for everybody. I mean, it's also midway into the season. You don't really know where somebody's at until it gets closer to the end of the year.
BEN WATERWORTH: You meant to be giving us more confidence here. Come on, Colin, we're Australians. We're not used to winning medals. Thank you.
COLIN HILDING: She's going to win the gold medal for Ultimate Olympian of all time and greatest Off The Podium guest we've ever had.
BEN WATERWORTH: She's going to be like Yul Brynner when I win the Olympics and become famous.
COLIN HILDING: Same bull, same backseat. Brittany Cox is here.
BEN WATERWORTH: And that is how Colin Hilding got a job for Channel 7. The other medal chance, I think, for us, I mean, as I said, the predictor is winning four there, but I think kind of our big ones outside of Brit, Scotty James in snowboarding. This is also his third Olympics, similar to Brit Cox, debuted as a 15-year-old back in Vancouver. World champion, just an absolute legend in the sport of snowboarding now. He's really had a good run since the last Olympics. So, you know, he's a real, real big shot of a medal for us, and probably out there with Brit Cox as one that kind of people are expecting him to come away with a medal. Chumpy's on the list again, Jarrod. I mean, Chumpy's consistent. He's a consistent performer, couple of world championships, you know, constant world cup performer. He's always up there, appeared on the show, great guy. He's a good looking rooster, as I'm stealing that saying from somebody recently. So he's got everything about him. And if he gets a gold medal, an overdue gold medal, according to our Channel 10 counterpart from four years ago, I mean, this guy's got potential to become a... I mean, look what happened to Tora Bright right after she won that gold. He's gonna be a big star in this country should he win a gold, right, Jarrod?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, he'll be on the side of cereal boxes over here as well, if he can pull off that feat. And if he does, then there's a chance that Colin might get his name right too. He might hear them a bit more.
BEN WATERWORTH: Have you practised his name, Colin? Chumpy Pullen.
COLIN HILDING: No, I've been brushing up on my Australian Sirius though. I mean, I love echidna flakes. Those are my favourite.
BEN WATERWORTH: They're prickly, but healthy. Others, obviously, I mean, we spoke about David Morriss and Lydia Laszlo, our aerials. I mean, we've always got a strong aerials contingent. You know, David Morriss has been consistent. You know, he's placed quite frequently on the podium on the World Cup, so he's kind of doing well. Lydia Laszlo kind of coming out of her sort of, I guess, motherhood retirement. You know, she's still got the ability to go well there, but it's not just kind of with her. We've got a very strong aerials team that has been doing very well on the World Cup, but we've only got, as I said, 51 athletes, so it's kind of easier for us to keep an eye on them. But just in terms of who have appeared on this show, and I'll kind of lump this in here now before, obviously, Colin, I'll get to you and your 38,000 medal chances you have for Colin. That's just, you're the country now. But obviously, you know, we're going to be keeping a very much close eye on Lydia Lassler. She appeared on the show, of course, Brittany Cox. We had Bel Brockhoff, who is... She's a consistent performer. She can, on a day, do well. Sammy Kennedy Sim, who was great in the interview with us, David Morris, of course, our figure skaters in Brendan Carey and Kalani Crane, who have both appeared on the show, of course, Chumpy Pullen and Andy Jung, who we just had on very recently in the short track speed skating, who is in the top ten in the world. So we obviously, as Australians, know how fickle that sport can be. And Holly Crawford in the snowboarding as well, who appeared on the show back in the day. Joni Badenhurst, who is our power skier, who... Snowboarder, sorry. We'll talk about her Paralympics towards the end. Colin, all right, hit us with it. You're Canada. You're predicted to win, like, 38 million of these. What is your lock? Like, what is the one? You've mentioned, I think, your mogul's men, but is that, like, the one which everybody's like, Canada is winning this. If we don't, this will be a national tragedy?
COLIN HILDING: Well, I mean, just to put it in perspective, Mikel Kingsbury, he won the silver last time in the men's moguls. I think he's won seven out of the last eight world championships. He has... He set the all-time record for men's World Cup wins somewhere around, like, 32, and he's currently at 48. He just surpassed, like, the all-time of all athletes and moguls, and I think he's 24 years old, 25. So, I mean, this is like the Michael Phelps of freestyle skiing, and that's not even exaggerating in any way. So, if he doesn't win, I mean, I will be completely shocked. Women's hockey, I think we're also pretty much a lock for... I mean, gold or silver, that's an easy one to say. Maybe there will be a weird upset, but I think, you know, especially after the exhibition games that Canada and US had, we're hopeful for that. Nobody really knows about the men's hockey, but I think, again, we're hopeful that we're gonna get a medal. Bobsledding is one of the... The two-woman bobsled is one of the ones that's getting the most attention here, and they just had, like, a TV special on. Our bobsled... Kaylee Humphreys is her name, and she's kind of slowly risen every single Olympics in every single year, and I think she was number one in the world last year. Charles Hamlin's a big one, because he could go on to become the most accomplished Canadian athlete of all time, and I think this will be like four straight Olympics that he would have medaled in, and he's about to go for... I can't remember. I interviewed him, and they even had a special on last night where they interviewed him as well, and they mentioned how many medals he won, but it's like maybe five or six medals he's won in short track speed skating, and only one of them hasn't been a gold ever, and I think that was like his first medal ever. And that'll be fun if he wins, too, because I was able to interview with him last summer, and there was kind of talk about, oh, this is giving me our final Olympics, and he said, not saying that we broke it first, but hey, maybe we broke it first year.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just say it, just say it, we did.
COLIN HILDING: We broke it first year. He said it was his final Olympics, and he is definitely guaranteeing that now. So this is like a huge deal who's been competing for years, and for him to say, this is my last time, this is like Cindy Clausen for men. I don't know. Was Cindy Clausen really talked about there, or is that just a Canadian thing?
BEN WATERWORTH: No, she's the one who won medals in cycling and speed skating, right? Did you see that one?
COLIN HILDING: Well, that was Clara Hughes. But yeah, they were both speed skaters.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I've heard of the name. I've heard of her name before. Shut up and give that to me at least.
COLIN HILDING: Charles Hamlin, big deal like Cindy Clausen here. Curling, I think, is the one where it's like, it doesn't really matter who we send at this point, because I think it was up in the air, and we're sending a different women's team than we sent last time. And no matter who we send or who qualifies, it's sort of like, yeah, we know we're going to win gold in both of those. The mixed doubles is the one where it's going to be a little bit more interesting, because it is a new event, and I know that we qualified a team, one of them is from here in Winnipeg, which was kind of fun, but we're not really sure where we're going to medal in that. But I mean, Canada, it's like our, maybe even just as much as hockey, that is like the Canadian sport. I think they're predicting 33 medals overall. I don't know how many. I would guess we might see seven or eight gold out of that, maybe more, who knows. Obviously, ice dancing, there's a lot of hope on like Virtue and Moir, and also Patrick Chan, who's like, just for individual men's figure skating, he's like a big deal here as well. And I think he won, did he win silver in Sochi? Yeah, he won two silvers in Sochi. So I think those are our main sports. Those are the cereal box competitors right now. And then of course, the Deferlipoint sisters, maybe they'll pull off an upset or something like that. But I mean, there's so many athletes going on here, and it's hard to keep track. You get the ones where you're like, they're going in the heavy favourites, and then it ends up being a complete upset. So you really never know.
BEN WATERWORTH: What's fascinating here, just looking at it, you're sending athletes in 14 of the 15 sports. The only sport you are not competing in is Nordic combined. I know, right? This is a travesty, Canada! What are you doing? And according to this list here, we're sending 10 different sports. So we've got alpine skiing, bobsleigh, cross-country skiing, figure skating, freestyle skiing, loose, short track, skeleton, snowboarding, and full track speed skating. I think that's wrong, because I did see that we have a biathlete competing in these games. So I'm going to say we have 11 sports competing, because we do know, apparently we don't. I swear that biathlete did make the games. Maybe I am, she has a late inclusion, and they just haven't updated the website. But anyway, I'm intrigued about this full speed skating for Australia, because we don't have a full size rink in this country for full track speed skating. So, the athlete there to look out for is Daniel Gregg. Oh, Gregg.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, the guy who fell over.
BEN WATERWORTH: Is that him?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Right? The dude who slipped in Sochi.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, I don't remember that.
JARROD LOOBEEK: In typical Australian fashion, the guy who fell over in Sochi.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, he actually won a bronze medal in the 2014 World Championships in the sprint.
COLIN HILDING: Can I ask a question?
BEN WATERWORTH: No.
COLIN HILDING: Please.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, you said please, so sure.
COLIN HILDING: Well, it's just there's another name that, like you mentioned all these athletes so far. There's another name out there that, especially watching moguls, I don't know if he's a lock for a medal, but I mean, I could see him definitely place in top five, and that's, what's his name? Matt Graham for the men's moguls. And he kind of, it was the same thing as Brittany Cox last year, is he really just sort of came out of nowhere and then started appearing on the podium throughout the World Cup. Does he not get a lot of attention there?
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, there's a couple of these lists where it's giving our medal chances, and I just realised he was on one of these other lists that I didn't go over. Yeah, this is the thing, as we keep saying with Australian and winter sports. Most of these people only get mentioned every four years, only if they've won world championships or stuff like that, and then they will mention them on the day of the competition. So it could be all like, blah, blah, blah, blah, Brittany Cox, blah, blah, blah. Oh, and by the way, here's Matt Graham. He finished fifth once. He could possibly do well. And then he'll like be in second after the first round. Oh, what an amazing effort. Oh, he's got to win a medal. Oh, this is absolutely outstanding. And then he'll like crash and then everyone will not give a shit about him anymore. So, or he'll do a David Morris and win the gold. And, oh, we predicted this. We saw this coming.
COLIN HILDING: Well, I predicted it. So when it happens, the Canadian claims credit for it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, we'll get to our predictions in two. I want to do this. I want to actually have us come at the end and say like, oh, this is how many we each said for our countries. But just a few things. Do we want to talk about Surang and Bandburang, whatever their names are again? I don't know. What can we talk about? Jarrod, any other opinions on these mascots? This is a dumb question.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, great. Good mascots, great, great names.
BEN WATERWORTH: Surang and Burang. Colin, Surang and Burang.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, did we put that on our Best Of show, didn't we?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, we did.
COLIN HILDING: I sure hope so. People go back and listen to our Best Of show just to hear where the mascots were unveiled of Surang and Burang. Otherwise known as Ben, Dabby. The funny thing is, I think the name has just taken over so much about Burang that when I was looking for a picture from my Skype profile picture here, I was wondering why I couldn't find anything on Google images when I kept searching Burang 2018 Olympics, because it doesn't exist. But it's just such a better name than Ben, Dabby.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, you're welcome, Korea. Did we mention it all in our last episode about this, that the logo for Pyeongchang is one of the worst logos in the history of the Olympics? That is such an ugly logo. They're drawing that on MS Paint. I'm sorry if that's like this great, you know, symbolic thing of South Korea, but that's horrible. I'm still on board. I can't wait for our Commonwealth Games coverage. I'm Team Barobi, the koala thing, because I have one, and that's the only reason why. CBC covering the Games again in Canada. Colin, anything exciting to talk about your national broadcast? Do you get NBC as well, as usual?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I mean, I watch the American coverage less and less every single Olympics. I think part of that is just that we get so much more of the Canadian coverage. I was just flipping through the channels yesterday or the day before, seeing how much coverage we had, and it's basically about eight hours during the daytime, and then about, you know, five hours at night, and then maybe two hours during, like, the midnight shift or whatever. I'm sure that some of that's gonna be, right now those are just sort of placeholders, but that's probably, like, 17 out of 24 hours a day is straight Olympic coverage on our national network. And then on top of that, we have TSN, which are, like, our version of ESPN. There's five separate TSN networks, so you're gonna see it on probably two or three of those at any given time. We have Sportsnet channels, where you're gonna see it on two or three of those at any given time. There's the French channel that'll be airing at 24 hours a day. I mean, it's nonstop. I can just flip back and forth between channels and see pretty much every event. Plus, I'm still waiting, though, about the app, because we had a really great app last time where you could just choose any sport, and we kind of made fun of it on the show that some of the coverage was like one camera that was filming an event, and the camera had moved, and it was like off-centre, and all it was catching was just the corner of somebody's head and a flag waving, and it took them like 20 minutes to catch on to that. But we still could see any sport we wanted 24 hours a day. I'm really hoping for something like that again.
BEN WATERWORTH: We had that during Rio, and I'm pretty sure, because I think Channel 10, when they had the games four years ago, were the first to kind of do that for a winter games here. I've read that Channel 7 are going to be doing that again, but no details have been released of that yet, and whether or not they're going to be assholes and charge you for it again, like they did four years ago for the premium one. But we're back to Channel 7 here. Jarrod, this is the first winter Olympics Channel 7 have had since Turin. Of course, 2010 was Channel 9, 2014 was Channel 10. I really enjoyed the Channel 10 coverage four years ago, and I also really enjoyed the Channel 9 coverage. And I think you and I both talked up of our love-hate relationship with Channel 7 a lot during the last ones. But I've noticed that Channel 7 are more focused on promoting the Commonwealth Games than the Winter Games. So I'm not sure how that is going to go in terms of their coverage for these winter Olympics. So Channel 7, any thoughts heading into these winter games at all?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No really strong thoughts. I'm just wondering what they're going to do without being able to do a hair montage coupled with a horse's tail flicking in the wind, given that they're not in the winter Olympics. But I'm sure we'll just see plenty of close-ups of snow and the cliché shot of the ice as the figure skaters stop really slow-mo and close-up. So I'm looking forward to lots of that.
BEN WATERWORTH: And Seven Mate, we're doing the graceful figure skating here. And Seven Mate is figure skating. Yeah, I'm looking forward to looking out for good old Bruce Cometary moments at the opening ceremony. Oh, I want to take you. Sadly, Andrew Gaze won't be there, probably. But I'm sure they'll send Stephen Bradbury and Lydia Lass... Oh, she's competing. Alyssa Campland is the one I'm thinking of. If they get Dale Begg Smith to commentate the moguls, I'm happy, but he's in his island somewhere in the Caribbean. But yeah, we'll keep an eye on all of that. The one thing, too, that we're going to keep an eye on, like we did in Rio, because I believe they're both doing it again, Canada's doing the My Name Is, and I'm glad to see Australia's doing the Fan Messages. I'm looking at some now. Right now, I can see here, to Claudia Guielli, who is an Australian freestyle skier in the sport of what? Freestyle ski? Oh, mogul. She's a mogul skier. There you go. She's your favourite. You should know who I'm talking about. Peter Bartolo from New South Wales says, Good luck on your first games. Cheers. AU. That's the little flag, I'm guessing. He's one to Kalani Crane, Peter on our show about a week or so ago, figure skater. From Wayne Robbs in New South Wales, from a fellow Nova Scotian, you go get him, girl. Cool. To Snowboarder Holly Crawford from Keith and Lynn Chapel of New South Wales, wishing you a successful Olympics, Holly. We'll be watching with great interest. Love, Lynn and Keith. X, X. And he's one to Kent Callister, who is our esteemed snowboarder. This is from Kellan McNeil, an overseas fan. Simply says, get the gold. One more, one more. To Brendan Carey, our figure skater. This is from Tim Nash, overseas fan. Best to you. If USA does not win, we really wish you and your team the very best at the Olympics. I might even purchase a shirt of your team. Blessings.
COLIN HILDING: Can I give a tease here too?
BEN WATERWORTH: Please do. I want to hear some Canadian ones here.
COLIN HILDING: I'm just going to give a very brief tease here, because we're going to have so many good ones here. We have about 25 of them that have been put up. There's probably adding them once a day. The really exciting thing is that we were able to do the interviews with both Charles Hamlin and Andy Noddy, who are going to be competing in this Olympics, but they didn't do this. They only started this in Rio. So when they appeared on the show, I explained to them, I'm like, hey, do you know that Team Canada, the Olympic website, they let people fill out the questionnaire and their handwriting and everything? So we gave them some of the questions. I'd be interested to go back and compare to see how many we got. But we can claim that. It's like, we got Andy Doddy and Charles Hamlin's I Am Canadian Things First. But this one, I'll just give you one simple one here just because this shows how great this thing is and how actually real this is with real handwriting and all that. Scott Gow says, hi, my name is Scott Gow, and I'm a biathlete. And the only one I want to read here is the question, if I could have any superpower, it would be, he started writing in viability and then crossed it out realising he spelt it wrong and wrote invincibility.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, that's brilliant. I want to add a quick one here, because this is just how this worked during Rio, when people, again, don't realise it. This is my message to Australians, sending fan messages to our Winter Olympians. Great idea. We're going to keep doing it throughout the games. I reckon, Jarrod, we can actually send a message to every single one of our athletes. There's only 51 of them. There's 16 days. That's, you know, three a day. We can do it. That's our Olympic goal. I'll come up with a checklist, and every day we'll make sure we tick off three. But to our snowboarder, Adam Lambert, not the American Idol runner-up, but the snowboarder, Adam Lambert. This is from Auntie Beck in New South Wales. Can you get Uncle Aaron a shirt? Good luck, mate. This is, wow. So much looking forward to reading these. If you want to send in these messages, head to the Pyeongchang Olympic site for Australia, what the Canada Olympic Committee site has my name is. And do you have an app? Does the Canadian Olympic Committee have an app? Because I know the Australian Olympic Committee does. Do you know that?
COLIN HILDING: Oh, I'm sure they do. I don't have it in front of me. I mean, the website is Olympic.ca, but if they have an app, I'll find it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ours is pyeongchang2018.olympics.com.au. Do not type in Pyeongyang2018. That is a different website altogether. That's in North Korea. And props, can we just say, opening ceremony, quick before we get to our medal preview, because our next episode will be our opening ceremony review. We'll talk about what we're going to be doing a little bit in a sec. Predictions of the opening ceremony, I'm calling it right now. Psy will be in the opening or the closing. I'm probably going to say closing, because it will be, you know, get everybody excited. But if Psy does not perform Gangnam Style during one of these opening ceremonies or closing ceremonies, Korea has failed at the Olympics. Any predictions, Jarrod, for the opening ceremony?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, I'm with you on Psy, and I think, yeah, prepared to be bombarded with K-pop, I would say.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes. Colin, for yourself, obviously, you nearly were in a Korean opening ceremony at one point in your life as the one person with experience in nearly being in one. Predictions, who's going to light the torch? Come on, Colin, give us a prediction.
COLIN HILDING: Google it quickly. There's one sport that I know because it would always be the rivalry, Canadians and Koreans in speed skating. So whoever it is, I know they're going to be a speed skater. Either that or they're going to be one of the very famous South Korean comedians that I'm currently Googling, like Kang Ho Dong, who probably also competed in Laugh Olympics or something like that.
BEN WATERWORTH: The hungry? I'm going to say it's going to be a short track skater because that's generally where they do their damage to the Koreans, isn't it? So I'm just quickly trying to see here who's the most successful. Okay, I'm going to say right now it's going to be... Oh, no, that's shooting. Oh, shit. Oh, here we go, short track speed skating. Their most successful ever Olympian is Chun Li Kuang, who is a four-time gold medallist, won a bronze medal as well, five Olympic medals between 1992 and 1998. So there you go. I'm predicting right now Chun Li Kuang will light the cauldron during these Olympics. No. King Ho Dong. But I'm looking forward to the opening ceremony because I think a lot of Asian countries generally do the opening ceremonies the best. I mean, we saw it in Beijing. That was one of the, you know, I personally preferred London, but a lot of people talk about Beijing's opening ceremony. And, you know, we saw the Tokyo display at the end of Rio. That was better than both ceremonies combined in Rio. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to it, and I'm looking forward to Psy. And also BTS. That's the other K-pop band that I'm familiar with. But anyway. Alright, metal predictions. Let's put this on the history books right now. I mean, do we just want to do it for our respective countries, or do we both want to try and predict? Ah, stuff it. Let's do it for both our countries. Ah, fuck it. Let's do it for every single country in the Olympics. Alright, let's start with Andorra. Alright, Jarrod, give me your prediction.
COLIN HILDING: Eritrea.
BEN WATERWORTH: Bermuda. What's your predictions for Canada and for Australia? Let's start with Jarrod.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Canada. Are we doing individual medals or...
BEN WATERWORTH: Nah, let's be really specific here. We'll go gold, silver, bronze, total.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Canada are going to get ten gold.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yep.
JARROD LOOBEEK: And they're going to follow that up with ten silver. And then, just to keep things fair in traditional Canadian fashion, they're going to get ten bronze.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, you've just drawn the line there for a total of thirty medals. Alright, that's a good one. What about Australia?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Australia are going to get one gold, zero silvers, four bronze medals.
COLIN HILDING: Four bronze!
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow! I like that! Alright, good predictions. Colin, I'm going to go to you next.
COLIN HILDING: Um, Jarrod's more hopeful of my nation than I am. I'm going to go nine gold, nine silver, and thirteen bronze for thirty one total. And for Australia, I'm going to say one gold, one silver, one bronze. It's going to be the grand slam.
BEN WATERWORTH: For three, okay. You know, we've never ever, in a winter games, come home with a colour from each of the medals. We've only ever done like gold and bronze, gold and silver, silver and bronze, bronze.
COLIN HILDING: When it happens again, I can say I told you so.
BEN WATERWORTH: Alright, I'm going to go with Canada. Alright, I'm going to say you're going to win eleven gold. I'm going to take the number above ten. Alright, I'm going to say you're going to win eight silver. And I'm going to go with the very Canadian fourteen bronze. So that is going to give me the thirty-three that Canada are targeting. And for Australia, I'm going to say three gold, one silver, one bronze. I'm going to be hopeful too in that we're going to win five. So, but I'm going to go for the three gold. This will be our most successful ever games. I'm going to put that on paper right now. So there we go. We've got some good predictions. I'm liking this. This is a good idea. Alright, so that means that we are going to be leaving you now, people. We are going to be coming back in only a few days time. Our opening ceremony review. Now, we're going to be doing this daily like we did in Rio. We're not 100% in terms of the scheduling and the fact that we didn't really have a set time we released episodes. There will be days where it will just be me and Jarrod, me and Colin, all three of us, maybe none of us. Mallory said to me yesterday, hey, I want to come on an episode. And I'm like, cool. Jamie can come on an episode too, if you want.
COLIN HILDING: Jarrod. Casper.
BEN WATERWORTH: Casper. Jarrod, bring in all of EMU planes. Fuck it, we'll make it a thing. You know, just everybody out there, keep an eye out for your Lockdee moments, your Campbell moments. Thomas back in Barque impersonations. We want the Dracula moments, because he's going to be there. He's going to be giving the boring speech on Friday. I'm like, yes, I'm here to open the games. Ah, ah, ah. So, looking forward to that. But yes, follow us on Facebook, Off The Podium. It's the best way. We're going to use the hashtag Off The Podium. We don't have a Twitter account, but you know, Jarrod, Colin and I all have our personal ones, which we will tag each other and tweet during it. And send us in your thoughts, your funny moments, messages on Facebook. We'll keep an eye on things and be bringing you daily updates. We'll tell you what sports we're watching. Funny moments from our commentary teams. And we will talk about how many Australians are choking during these games as well. So, looking forward to it. Looking forward to covering these games. I'm so excited. Bring on the Nordic Combine. Bring on the ice dancing. Bring on the doubles luge. So much excitement. Jarrod, thank you for joining us today. I'm pumped. Let's do this.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I'm so excited. Special shout out to the Olympians who have to compete before the opening ceremony and the games are already over by the time they actually officially open.
BEN WATERWORTH: Very good call. We have, of course, some curling and some ski jumping happening on the day before the opening ceremony. On the day of the opening ceremony, we've also got some figure skating and some freestyle skiing. So you're on the money there, Jarrod. Good point. Colin as well. Canada's time to shine. It's time for you to own the Off The Podium.
COLIN HILDING: Own the Off The Podium would be a lot better. Owning Off The Podium is kind of Australia's territory.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's a good call. But yeah, we're excited for this. Thank you, everybody, for listening, and bring on Pyeongchang 2018. We will see you with BuRang and SuRang in only a few days' time. Good night.
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