Rio 2016 Day 15 Review

A fairly uneventful day for both Australia and Canada means we can talk more about the great Australian/Canadian moguls skier in Dale Begg-Smith and look ahead to the closing ceremony and what giant inflatable items Tokyo will have on display ahead of the 2020 games.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.

BEN WATERWORTH: Good morning, good evening, and good night from Off The Podium, an Olympic podcast as we continue our coverage of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Day 15, episode 17, the penultimate day of competition. And it's very sad to have to say that, but it does mean that we can still talk a lot about the Olympics and still remember the greatness that was Chloe Esposito, because her brother competed today, and perhaps we'll talk a little bit about him. But outside of that, there's not a whole lot to talk about on Australia's perspective, because to day 15, nothing happened. But in Canada's perspective, they got another bronze, which to them is still celebrating a lot. And to speak about the epic bronze that was bronze for Canada, it is welcome back time to Colin Hilding. Colin, welcome back to Off The Podium.

COLIN HILDING: Thank you. And that one bronze puts us up to 21, I believe, which is one away from the Atlanta proper record of 22. I'm not entirely sure if we're going to hit the 22, but it's still all around today's kind of, if it's the last day, it's capping off a great Olympics for Canada, one that may even be more memorable than Atlanta, despite coming up one medal shorter.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I have to say, Colin, actually, that bronze took you to 22. So, you have equalled Atlanta.

COLIN HILDING: See, again, there's better coverage in Australia than Canada, because nobody here is watching Olympics.

BEN WATERWORTH: It'll be a day later again. CBC will update it. I think you're about to get the opening ceremony tomorrow, from what I've heard. Just a rumour. But yeah, no, I'm looking here. You have four gold, three silver, a lazy 15 bronze, 22 in total. Atlanta, you had three gold, 11 silver, eight bronze. You spread them out a little bit more in Atlanta, but yeah, now you just need one more to top Atlanta.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah. And it's funny because the first thing that I saw when I woke up this morning was a story saying, was Canada's goal of 19 medals too low? And I thought, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Like, let's aim for something higher so we could be disappointed when we don't hit it. Like, we aim for 19 medals, and now we're at 22. Oh, well, maybe we should have aimed higher. It's like, no, we're tied for the greatest Olympics in history, and you're already saying, oh, we disappointed ourselves. Shame on you, Canada.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, it's pretty much the opposite here in Australia right now, because, you know, the fact that we aim for top five. We basically said at the beginning of this podcast, we're not going to finish in the top five. I mean, we're in ninth at the moment, and already the articles are coming out going, oh, is it a waste of money to send our Olympians across? You know, it's costing us millions of dollars per gold medal, and we're only getting eight. Like, this is a shame. We should review our system from the athletes. It's a typical thing in Australia. It's, you know, like, we honestly peaked in the 2000s. We would always, always go to the Olympics, average around about the between six and nine gold medals. That was all we would ever get. Sydney, we get 15. It's like, hooray, great, home Olympics. We're fantastic. 16, actually, I will correct myself. Athens, we got 17 gold medals. Somehow, we improved on Sydney. Beijing, I think we got about 13 or 14, and then since then, like, we've sucked, which is fine. Other countries get good. I mean, Britain have gotten very good from London, and they've continued that on, and it's just how it works. So I honestly think that the fact that we're going to be in the top 10 still, eight gold medals is pretty decent. I mean, Canada would dream of eight gold medals in the summer Olympics, so you're halfway there. Yeah.

COLIN HILDING: We still claim success for Los Angeles when we were one of two countries there, I think.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, exactly. So this is why sometimes I really do enjoy the winter Olympics, because the events we never get in Australia, we legitimately go in there hoping to win a bronze, and we'll always come home. Although I do remember in Sochi, there was talk we could win four gold, and we won two silver and a bronze. So I think that was the very first time I've ever seen a winter Olympics where we were, quote, disappointed with our medals.

COLIN HILDING: What was the reaction? I think it was in 2006 in Torino when you won gold in the moguls, which is hands down even over hockey, my all-time favourite sport. I live and breathe the moguls, and you took it from us.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, we were talking about this the other day in one of the episodes you were there. I don't know if you know too much about our moguls athlete, Dale Begg-Smith, a Canadian who basically had to come to Australia because he is an internet mogul, pardon the pun, who basically is a millionaire because he created a system that sends spam out to email addresses, and he makes money off it. So he's like a multimillionaire. The Canadian Olympic Committee apparently said to him, like, no, you can't continue your business if you want to compete in the Olympics. So Dale Begg-Smith was like, fuck you, Canada, I'm going to go find someone else, came to Australia, won us a gold, won us a silver in Vancouver, and he is the most elusive athlete. He doesn't do interviews. He refuses to talk to anyone. No one knows anything about him. He just comes out for the Olympics, wins a medal, and buggers off to, like, the Bahamas. He's like the perfect Olympian for those who don't give a shit about him. So yeah, when he won gold, we were like, yay, Dale Begg-Smith! We have no idea who he is, what the hell are the moguls? But whatever, we got a gold!

COLIN HILDING: You know, that's funny because here in Canada, I mentioned that we usually try to find some connection. Like when Missy Franklin was winning back in London, it was like, well, she's actually dual citizenship and everything. And that was never really mentioned on Canadian TV here. Probably he was banned permanently for spamming essentially, I guess. It does make me feel better that one of the few years we didn't win in the moguls, that it did technically go to a Canadian refugee in Australia.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, it's funny, actually, because I remember during the Vancouver Olympics because he won a silver, I think behind a Canadian from memory. I think was that your first ever on-soil home gold medal, I believe?

COLIN HILDING: Alexander Bilodeau.

BEN WATERWORTH: And I actually did get an interview with him, and I can see why he doesn't do interviews. He's actually a very boring person. But like, he's kind of like, he's just such a recluse. I think he needs to have more of a cult status in Australia for what he does. he actually, at that point, was our most successful Winter Olympian. Because I think we've had four off the top of my head that have won multiple medals. So at that stage, we'd had Alissa Campland and Stephen Bradbury both won a gold and a bronze. He, at that point, won our very first Winter Olympics silver medal, was a gold and silver medallist. I think Tora Bright and Lydia Lassler won a bronze. So Tora Bright's equaled that since because she's won a gold and a silver.

COLIN HILDING: And a slightly better interview too.

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh yeah, and slightly better to look at. I'm nothing against Dale Begg-Smith. He's an attractive man. Anyway, I can't wait until we do the Winter Olympics in a couple of years because I have more fun with them. Because it's just great to talk about our athletes that no one in Australia... You think people have never heard of Chloe Esposito. Like, you know, she's at least still being talked about and this sort of stuff. And perhaps in four years' time, all the pressure Channel 7 will lump on her for the Tokyo Games and she'll choke. But that's great. Whereas at the Winter Olympics, people don't even know who they are during the Winter Olympics. It's great.

COLIN HILDING: So what's all this cocaine doing scattered all over the hill?

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes. What's going on? What are these rocks on ice? Like, what are these drunk Canadians and Norwegians? Put some pants on or something. Anyway, I don't know where the hell that came from. But yes, back to the Summer Olympics. See, we're already ahead of ourselves. It's Day 15. The only medal that we can talk about today for either of us. Australia didn't win any, but Canada, bronze in the women's cross country, otherwise known as the mountain bike. Catherine Penderel, bronze. Now, you told us yesterday that everybody was too busy watching the tragically hip to give a shit about the Olympics today. Is anybody caring about mountain bunking? Biking in Canada? Was this a medal prospect or again, out of the blue?

COLIN HILDING: I didn't hear a lot about it. The other rider who actually came in fourth, Emily Batty, she was the one who got a little bit more publicity going into this. She was, I guess, the younger one. And Penderel had kind of slipped from Beijing to London. I think she finished fourth in one of them, and then maybe just inside the top ten in the other. So there wasn't really a lot of anticipation for this event. But it was aired live, in its entirety basically, and aired live on CBC today. Yeah, exactly. I was checking it out, and really didn't hear a lot about whether Canada had any hope in it. And then all of a sudden, the Canadians are currently sitting in third and fourth, and it got really exciting. I think what made this even more exciting is that in the end, once it was clear we weren't catching the top two, it's like we know we're getting a medal. If Penderel gets overtaken, we're still getting a medal. And it ended up being a race to the finish from the two of the Canadians for the third place, and that made it quite... Because when you get these long-distance race things, whether it be foot race or cycling race, it's fun to watch because it's something different, but after a while, it's so clear who's going to win, and you can really only film one person at a time, going on a bike over hills and rocks and through trees. But when you have two people really tight there at the end, it makes for an exciting race. It was actually probably the most entertaining thing I watched all day, even though it wasn't just because it was a medal, just because it was an entertaining finish to the race.

BEN WATERWORTH: She's the reigning Commonwealth Games gold medallist, something that even Usain Bolt can't claim to be, so Catherine Pendrill doing better than Usain Bolt. I actually liked the medal. I didn't see any of it, sadly, but it's one of my... I do have memories of watching Barcelona as a five-year-old, but obviously I have very strong memories of Atlanta, but I remember watching... Because I think it made its debut in Atlanta, did it not, from memory, mountain biking? And I remember watching it and being intrigued by it. I don't know, I remember when BMX came in, I think they came in Beijing, I'm like, hang on a minute, don't they already have that? I thought BMX and mountain biking were the same thing. Claire just clearly knows I know a lot about bikes. But I don't know, it's a fun sport to watch. And we actually in Hobart have some pretty good mountain biking tracks. So Hobart 2032 now, we're going to go to 2028 because of Flynn-Flon. But at least we've got a good mountain track and stuff. Well, you won a medal. I think you've won, have you not won a medal on every day? One or two days you have not won medals. I think you've won medals on more days than we have.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, there was one day where we didn't win from what I can remember.

BEN WATERWORTH: I'm just looking here. Yeah, that's incredible. Like again, better than Australia, essentially. So I think we've gone about four days now without winning a medal. So, you know, you've beaten Australia. That's what you can say.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, we're about half as many medals as you have, but we still won the second half.

BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. Yeah, from an Australian perspective, we've got nothing to talk about. But in terms of the AOC review of the day, it starts off with, oh, so close in like how many different sports. It's just the motto for Australia, this entire Olympics. So golf, yeah, Minji, Lee, and Su Oh were eighth in the final round, and then they didn't do much better. And New Zealand have got a medal in that one, so we don't want to talk about it. You had a Canadian golfer. How did she end up going? Did she finish top five or something or don't know?

COLIN HILDING: No, she must have had a bad last day, because I think it was on day two, she was in third place, and she ended up in seventh overall. But again, for an 18-year-old, that's still pretty impressive.

BEN WATERWORTH: That's more than I can do at 18. In the K4 1000 canoe sprint, our defending champions were fourth, didn't medal, sadly. In the K1 200 metres, Steven Bird was last. 10-metre platform, our man Dominic Bedgood made the final and finished 12th, which is an encouraging result for the 21-year-old from the Gold Coast, considering he only took up diving six years ago, according to this review. Although it also says here, he did break his back in a gymnastics accident. So it's pretty...

COLIN HILDING: Excuses, excuses.

BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. Did you shit yourself, Dominic? You only broke your back? Did you finish eighth? The queen of Australia's brother, Max Esposito, I love how it says here, Australia's Max Esposito had the hardest act to follow the day after his sister won the women's gold medal. He actually did pretty good. He finished seventh. I mean, that's decent. I mean, if anyone had said at the beginning of these games, Australia will get first and seventh in modern pentathlon, would take it. And well, Chloe Esposito finished seventh in London, went on to win the gold four years later. So, you know, he's just making the most of it. Our mountain bikers, Rebecca Henderson, pulled out after only four laps, sadly. Triathlon, we, for the first time in Olympic history, did not medal in the triathlon. Emma Moffat, our bronze medallist from Beijing, she was sixth. And Erin Dencham was twelfth. Ashley Gentil was twenty-six. She wasn't gentle enough, apparently. In the athletics, our man Grego, Ryan Gregson, first man in the 1500 metres, final in like a thousand fifty million years. It doesn't say where he finished, but he was in the final. Good update here. We obviously didn't win a medal. Four by four hundred women were also in the final, and I'm guessing they didn't win a medal either, because there's nothing on here. So that's about as much updates as I can tell you for that. And apparently that's all we did on this day, but apparently I think there were more. Anyway, thanks AOC Official App. What else happened to Canada? Or is it all just about the Tragically Hit? We don't actually know how Canada went.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, well, I guess it's funny, because when you look at the results, I keep talking about how this was a disappointing day in the track, especially. I think that most of the athletes were just waiting to take off so they could watch the Tragically Hit concert just before the show started airing. They showed in the Olympic Village a group of probably 20 athletes, some of our biggest names. They're all crowding around being interviewed, getting ready to watch the Tragically Hit concert. So there was no support for our track athletes today, and it'll show when I read these. But as I said, Brooke Henderson finished seventh in the golf. We missed a medal there. As I found out live on the air yesterday, probably about 10 minutes after the race took place, Mark De Jong came in seventh in the 200-metre kayak. There's a disappointment. And rounding out a very disappointing games for us in anything to do with a boat and a paddle in the women's K-4 500-metre Canada finished eighth. We at least made the finals in that one. I think this... I want to do the research to find out, but as far as anything rowing or canoe or kayak goes, this might be the only Olympics, at least in my lifetime I could remember, where we have won only a single medal. Because it's usually two, three, four, five medals in these events. And I think we've won one so far. So, yeah, everybody decided to get out of boats and start swimming with teenage girls. That's the way it's going in Canada right now.

BEN WATERWORTH: Moving to Canada.

COLIN HILDING: I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to say this, but it's like Ben's dream. That's why Ben's not in a boat. This is what I spent the majority of my day watching. It was maybe a pipe dream, but men's 125-kilogram wrestling. We did have Orie Jarvis in there, and he made it through the first repachage, made it into the second, got destroyed by the Georgian athlete. His name was Gino Petriishvili, who I will root for just because my family on my mum's side came from Georgia. So that's kind of one of my second, call it second, third, fourth nation, whatever. But then the Georgian went on to win the bronze medal, which was exciting, and he won the bronze medal in 31 seconds, so I don't feel so bad that the Canadian lost.

BEN WATERWORTH: Wait, was it an Uchi Mata? Like, can you get that in wrestling?

COLIN HILDING: Well, I think we established yesterday it was something like a crotch grab, butt slump or something like that.

BEN WATERWORTH: Are you sure you're watching wrestling, or again, are you and Jamie watching those movies you watch at nighttime?

COLIN HILDING: Well, you're the one who said, I think I'll quote you on day one, that wrestling is an Olympic version of porn or something like that. You mentioned the Triathlon Canada. We came in 34th. You disappointed yourself, Australia. In the men's 10 metre platform, again, a huge disappointment, not nearly as disappointing as Tom Daly. I don't know where he came in, like seventh or something like that. But I think he's also only 18, 19 years old, Vincent Rindo. He came in 14th. He didn't qualify for the finals. Australia, Canada, and Great Britain all have something in common. We disappoint on the platform.

BEN WATERWORTH: Not just in the Olympics.

COLIN HILDING: Your event, the women's high jump, which I haven't finished watching yet. I think I did have it spoiled. Who did medal in there? If I'm not, I'll have it spoiled in about five minutes when you talk about it. But Alexandria Treasurer came in 17th place. I don't know if they showed her there. Here's where the disappointment kicks in on the track. So the men's 1500 metre, Nathan Brennan finishes in 10th place. The women's 800 metre, Melissa Bishop finishes in 4th place. The women's 4x400 relay, Canada finishes in 4th place. And men's 5000 metre, Oh, oh, oh, Momad. Try that again. Oh, Momad came in 4th. Of course, the event was stolen by Mo Farah, maybe the greatest distance of all time now.

BEN WATERWORTH: Did he stay on his feet the entire time this race?

COLIN HILDING: He did. And somehow it actually was more of a struggle for him, it seemed, this time.

BEN WATERWORTH: So is Canada just waiting for all those fourth places for third to get disqualified again? Is that what their strategy is in these games at the moment?

COLIN HILDING: They did mention that in... I can't remember which one of the events... I think it was in the 4x400 relay. They're like, we'll wait to see... And I don't think that there was anything questionable in the race, but they said, we'll wait to see if there are any disqualifications, because we're just so used to that now in these relays. That's going to happen. But yeah, that's it for Canada. It was a lot of fourth place finishes today and disappointments, but Catherine Penderel, bronze medal, cross-country mountain bike, that's the big news of the day, I guess, outside of the Tragically Hip.

BEN WATERWORTH: What a hero she is, too. She's up there for closing ceremony, flag bearer, fighting it out, Penny and Andre.

COLIN HILDING: On that topic, I know we said we were going to discuss it a little bit today, but CBC put their poll up, and they interviewed Mark Tewkesbury, who's up until Penny Alexiak, our most famous swimmer of all time, and he was the chef de mission last time in London, and he was saying the deciding factor doesn't have a lot to do with social media, but it does show you where the country is thinking. And right now on CBC's poll, Penny Alexiak has something like 68% of the vote to be the flag bearer. The next closest is Andre Degrasse was 13. And I didn't see Penderel on there. I did see our Power Walker. I'm sorry, I've already forgotten his name.

BEN WATERWORTH: As in everyone else.

COLIN HILDING: I did see a funny tweet, though, that they put on air where somebody suggested that our Power Walker should ride in on Fine Lady No. 5 and be the first country to have a horse as a flag bearer. So maybe Fine Lady 5 will actually pull ahead in these polls by the end.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, you know, be different, Canada. Like, put a horse out. Why not? You know, that's like whatever. That works well, I think, so do it. Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about Australia, because I've been, I don't have Jared here, but we can discuss it between ourselves. But I'm just looking here at the 1500 metres. So I was a bit mean there to Ryan Greggs, and I could have easily looked it up, and I did. He finished ninth, so he beat Nathan Brennan in the 1500 metres. But for shame that a New Zealander somehow won a medal on the track. Like, I mean, they can throw shit like shot puts and stuff. That's fine, because what else is there to do in New Zealand but throw rocks? But like, I mean, running? New Zealanders can't run? Like, what are they running from? Like sheep?

COLIN HILDING: We know that they can pull vaults.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, they can jump high, and they can throw shit, but they can't run? Like, this is disgusting Australia and Canada. We can't let a New Zealander win a bronze medal in the running race. Like, goodness me. I mean, he beat a Kenyan. Like, who beats Kenyans in distance running from New Zealand? It's not good enough.

COLIN HILDING: It's a very fair complaint. I will agree with that.

BEN WATERWORTH: You know, I mean, if he got beaten by two Kenyans, fair enough. Like, best of the rest. But to beat Kenyans? No. No, no, no. What else happened today in terms of non-Australia, Canada? Well, I mean, it's the most medals in a day, but I think the big one, I'm a bit sad that Germany lost the soccer, Brazil, in a penalty shootout, I believe. I mean, good on them. That's kind of like back in 2010 when it was all the only gold medal I think Canada cared about was the hockey on the final day.

COLIN HILDING: Well, and I know I mentioned this one of the more recent episodes, that one of the things I like the best is to see the home countries win in an event that really matters to them, and that's why I loved watching Mo Farah win in London and Jessica Ennis Hill. And that's what I remember from Vancouver. That is really, I think, what made today so exciting was watching how the crowd reacted, and how the guy who kicked the final goal in the shootout, he basically got down his knees and balled like a baby. It is great to see a country who cares about a sport so much finally win in that.

BEN WATERWORTH: That's true. I'll give it to them. I mean, that was obviously like for us in Sydney. It was all about Cathy Freeman taking the gold there. She did it. Athens, I think they only won like two gold medals, didn't they? I can't even remember. China, it doesn't count in Beijing because they win everything. Like everything matters to them. But that's a good point. We'll give that to them. Why not? But outside of that, really, yeah, I mean, Mo Farah, I guess, would be the big one, as you said. 5,000 minutes. Is that his fourth gold? He's won both the five and ten back to back now from London.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, the interview they had with him on NBC, which I'm forced to watch because CBC is only showing the Tragic clip tonight. NBC interviewed him, and he said that his goal was he wanted to have one gold medal for each of his kids. So I'm guessing he has four kids. I also noticed that you should maybe check out his wife, if you're looking for a future wife of Mo when his wife ever split up. She might be up your alley.

BEN WATERWORTH: I feel a bit dirty that way. You should check out his wife, just in case they get a divorce, in case like all 20 of your future wives from the Olympics don't work out.

COLIN HILDING: He's got four kids. You could be inheriting all four of his kids with the gold medals.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, exactly. You know, and then we what? Pump out a few more. And then my excuse is, yeah, I'm winning as many gold medals as for my kids, all 18 of them. What do I Google? Mo Farah's wife?

COLIN HILDING: I guess.

BEN WATERWORTH: Mrs. Farah? This sounds really like...

COLIN HILDING: I hope it was his wife. Otherwise, it's really awkward. He was making out with some woman in the crowd.

BEN WATERWORTH: The mum of his fourth kid. I've just Googled Mo Farah's wife. My internet sucks. Anyway, I'll try and go over this as quickly as I can. There's 30 gold. Let's go through this really quickly. The 1500 metres was won by an American, Matthew Sentrowitz Gold, Mo Farah. The 5000 metres, the men's 4x4 was won by the US. The javelin won by Thomas Roller of Germany. That's the men's javelin. The women's 800 metres. Well, this is a big one. Castor Semenya. Obviously, a lot of talk around her coming into it. She got the gold. And there you go. Yeah, she's not too bad there, Colin. Good job. She sent me a picture of her. The 4x4. Women's USA won that. And the high jump. The women's high jump. Cover your ears now, Colin, if you don't want to be spoiled. Ruth Bieter of Spain. Am I Italian? That sounds so wrong. My Italian. She was fifth. Alicia Trust. So, good job on you, Alicia.

COLIN HILDING: You know, the reason I haven't seen the high jump, partly because CBC doesn't have it on tonight, but I was forced to watch the NBC coverage, and I stopped watching because it was just annoying me that they would cut back to the high jump, maybe every 10 minutes, and what they would do was they would show one athlete, maybe from a random country, and then they'd show all of the Americans, and then they'd cut away. And then they'd show all of the Americans, and then they'd cut away. And then they'd show all of the Americans, and then they'd cut away. And then they'd show all of the Americans, and then they'd cut away. I don't know how you even follow sports with NBC coverage.

BEN WATERWORTH: Pretty much how it runs here in Australia, too, with Channel 7. And legitimately, they have the live of the canoeing, and then you flick over to 7Mate, and they're all like, let's watch a replay of the canoeing that just happened. Okay, let's flick over to 7, too. Let's watch a replay of the canoeing that just happened. It's like, we've seen this on three channels, Channel 7! Like, show something different. They actually showed boxing, I will say. The first time I've seen them show boxing, and no Australians are in it. So, good on you, Channel 7. Badminton, men's singles, Chen Long from China won the gold there. Basketball, well, there's no point even saying who won it. We know America won the gold there. Boxing, that was in the women's, by the way. Speaking of boxing, so, the men's bantamweight, Robesy Ramirez from Cuba, that was the one that they were showing on Channel 7. He took the gold. Men's middleweight, Aren Lopez from Cuba also gold there. And Nicola Adams from Great Britain won the women's flyweight. The canoeing, Germany have been shitting it all over in this one, and not like the French walker. Men's C2, 1,000 metres, gold, Germany, Sebastian Brindle and Jan Vendry. The men's K1, 200 metres, Liam Heath from Britain gold. Men's K4, 1,000 metres, Germany won that one. And the women's K4, 500 metres, Hungary, they're still not smiling. Cycling, mountain bike, cross country, whatever you want to call it. Jenny Rizvedz of Sweden took the gold there. Diving, China, you know they won it. 10 metre platform, Chen Aizen. Football, as we said, Brazil took the gold there. Their very first ever Olympic gold medal in that sport, considering that they're the greatest country in the World Cup, so good for them. Golf, women's, in the park from South Korea. She led the whole thing, I think, basically. Took that gold. The women's rhythmic individual all round, so the ribbon throwers. Margarita Mamouni.

COLIN HILDING: That's why Jared's not here. He's still watching it.

BEN WATERWORTH: Still watching it, trying to analyse every single toss of the ribbon. Russia took that one, yeah, and they won the women's handball. I didn't know Russia was good in handball. Good for them.

COLIN HILDING: Oh, that was good. I watched it, too.

BEN WATERWORTH: Good sport. Love handball. It's amazing. Russia had a good day today. Obviously, the drugs are really kicking in right at the end of the Olympics. They won the men's modern pentathlon. Alexander Lazun. Gold there. Azerbaijan. Radik Aziyev. The men's 80kg. And China in the women's 67kg. Zheng Xun. The triathlon went to an American, Gwen Jorgensen. Good for her. The volleyball, which I believe is on right now. I can tell the US won bronze. I don't know who's winning the gold medal match at the time of recording this. Water polo. Serbia took the gold. And in the wrestling, we had another gold to Russia. Men's freestyle 86kg. Abdurashid Sadulev. And the men's freestyle 125kg. The big boys. Taha Agul of Turkey. He took that one out. Good for him. So the medal tally after 15 days. Well, this is obviously waiting on the water polo. But sorry, the volleyball. USA, well, they're still on top. They've won at 43 gold, 37 silver, 35 bronze, 115 in total. Britain still hanging on. This is what I'm cheering for. I want Britain to finish second. For some reason. Like, I mean, we're meant to hate Britain, but I kind of don't because they're not New Zealand. I don't know. I feel sorry for the Brits. There's something about Britain that we've got such a rivalry with. I'm kind of similar to New Zealand, but I can't not like the Brits. Whereas New Zealand, it's easy to not like them.

COLIN HILDING: Are they the ones that imprisoned you all those years ago?

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, you know, without them sending off their prisoners to us, we wouldn't exist. So it's like, thanks everyone in Britain for stealing loaves of bread like 500 years ago. So they're 27 gold, 22 silver, 17 bronze. China. Well, this is, I mean, third. The fact that you think if China finished third, it would be behind like the US and Russia, not Britain. 25 gold, 18 silver, 24 bronze, 67. Russia in fourth. They've climbed up a little bit. They said the drugs are peaking. So 17, 17, 18, 52. Germany having a very good games. Had they won that gold in the football, they would be fourth. But they're on 17 gold, 10 silver, 14 bronze. And in fifth, no, that's fifth. Sorry, that's the top five. So Australia dropped to ninth because South Korea took another gold. So therefore, they're ahead of us. But still, we're just fending off the Italians, the Dutch, and the Hungarians. So if we...

COLIN HILDING: What about the French?

BEN WATERWORTH: The French are in seventh. Who cares about them? Brazil, 14th now, 6 gold, 6 silver, 6 bronze. They're the devil nation, 666. They're 18. New Zealand, 4 gold, 9 silver, 5 bronze. And Canada, 4, 3, 15. 15 bronze. Where does that put you? If we rank it by bronze, you are now officially in sixth place. Yeah!

COLIN HILDING: And that's a Canadian gold. We're almost in the top five.

BEN WATERWORTH: That's amazing. I love it when you actually rank it by the bronze. So they still keep their actual rank in the left-hand column. So USA says one, China three, Japan six, Russia four, Britain two, Canada twenty. So it's funny. You were talking about before about the fact that you're like, oh, we're by like half the medals of Australia. That's actually not true. You're only in terms of total medals, seven behind Australia. Oh, no! So you're actually doing fairly decently. If we actually rank it by total medals, you're ahead of South Korea, you're ahead of New Zealand, and yeah, you're ranking...

COLIN HILDING: We finally beat New Zealand!

BEN WATERWORTH: That's what you want. Seven, eight, nine, ten. You're 11th if you do it by total, and we're still 9th if you do it by total. So there you go. Canada will take that. Interesting, interesting. News outside of the medals. I don't know. Did anything happen to Ryan Lochte today?

COLIN HILDING: Well, he was interviewed, and it got more air time than the woman's high jump. That's all I know.

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, shame. I will say we were talking about the accreditation, the 10 athletes, making a bit of fun of them. It's actually turned out that the AOC has come out and apologised because apparently it was basically their bad. Like the accreditation was like tampered with or something. It wasn't the athletes' fault. They actually rocked up to the basketball thinking that they had proper accreditation. And yeah, apparently it just was not proper, and they got into trouble for no fault of their own. So that's basically what happened there. So just an update with that. Because I know everyone was keen to find out outside of Australia. Before we get to what to watch, I know we've already covered it, but just quickly the closing ceremony flag. So I'm trying to find out a little bit here in terms of who's favourite and all this sort of stuff. There's an article here calling for Jared Talent to carry it. I mean, I guess that would be a good thing. I mean, he's our most successful athlete in men's track and field ever. I think holding him off may carry the flag in Tokyo. He wants to go again. But I found some betting odds here. sportsbet.com.au for the Aussie flag bearer. Apparently our favourite right now is Kim Brennan, our gold medallist in the rowing, who's, again, I'm claiming half Tasmanian. She lives here. She's married to a Tasmanian. I mean, she's a good choice. I wouldn't be opposed to that. But Chloe Esposito is in second. She's $4 odds right now to carry it. Other favourites, Kyle Chalmers. I mean, he's 18. He won a gold. He's got plenty of years to carry a flag yet. Tom Burton, eh, you know, sailing. We don't really give a shit about sailing. Birdo. Anna Mears. Well, she carried the flag in the opening ceremony. I love the fact here that Brit Elmsley is, like, the sixth favourite at $16 to one, all purely off the basis of us here on Off The Podium. And for some reason...

COLIN HILDING: Wait a second. Where's Michelle? Where's Michelle Jennecke?

BEN WATERWORTH: Jiggling somewhere. She's not even on this list. Oh, actually, no, she is. Hang on. She's third last. That's about where she finished in the hurdles.

COLIN HILDING: Second last is last.

BEN WATERWORTH: Kate Campbell's on this list. Did people not watch the Olympics? Jess Fox is equal, like, third last favourite with Kate Campbell and Michelle Jennecke. Now, out of all of those, I know Kate Campbell won a gold in the relay, but who won a gold in the individual and the individual was happy about it and didn't sulk? You know, come on. Yeah, I think Kim Brennan's got it, by the looks of things here. There's a few articles, and she's odds on fire, but I still say give it to Chloe Esposito. Come on, Kim Brennan, rowing me with medals in all the time. Chloe Esposito. God, modern pentathlon's never gonna happen again. What else did we watch? Well, I think we've covered that, really, haven't we? You're still watching the Tragically Hit. That's all you've been watching today.

COLIN HILDING: I was watching volleyball a couple of minutes ago, so I don't know why they cut away from that, I guess, Tragically Hit were doing their encore or something. But yeah, actually, boxing, I did watch some of that today, the flyweight finals where Mandy Bujold did not come in, which it's only come out recently that apparently she was in the hospital the day of her fight with an IV in her arm. And she left the hospital and then got destroyed in her quarterfinal fight or whatever it was. Watched lots of wrestling today. I did watch at least the shootout for the soccer finals. Watched the gold medal game for handball, which as I said was really intense, a lot more intense than I thought it would be. Way better than water polo, basically the same sport, but way better than water polo as far as I'm concerned. 10 metre, the platform finals, those were good. I actually fell asleep watching those. I wanted to bring this up. And I could still hear the commentary in the background while I was sleeping. And at some point in my dream, I was watching, I don't know how this happened. It started as diving, and then it evolved into that I was watching motel room cleaning as an Olympic sport. And I was thinking to myself, are we going to discuss on the air whether this should be a sport or not? I don't know why I started to dream of a motel in my, maybe I was staying in a motel watching the Olympics, and then motel room cleaning was an Olympic sport apparently, and I was hearing the commentators in the background. And when I woke up, I heard the voice. I'm like, those are the same voice in my dream, so I don't know how that happened. So I guess I'll just add to that, along with the 1500 metre, the 5K, the high jump, the taekwondo. I also watched Hotel Room Cleaning, Olympic's debut this time.

BEN WATERWORTH: Who won that one?

COLIN HILDING: I can't wait to see it again.

BEN WATERWORTH: Can I get fourth in that one as well? Yeah, it's Flynn Flaude.

COLIN HILDING: When the DQs start coming in, we might be bumped up to a bronze.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I saw that technique from the New Zealander vacuum cleaner. Like, that was disgusting. Should be disqualified for sure. What did I watch? Yeah, I caught a bit of the boxing, a bit of the football. Didn't actually really see much athletics today. I saw triathlon. We talked a little bit about that the other day. And the canoeing. Again, just the worst commentator in the world. Come on, come on, boys. You can do it. That's it. Paddle faster. Yep, you're doing well. Just terrible.

COLIN HILDING: Is that Ryan Lochte as the coach there?

BEN WATERWORTH: Australia's Ryan Lochte in the commentary box. But yeah, I don't really have much to add that. Athlete of the Day, I don't really have one. I haven't really paid attention. I mean, God, do we give it to Mo again? I mean, we haven't given it to Mo yet. Castor, Semenya. You've got one.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I thought Mo's definitely one that deserves it. The guy who kicked the shootout goal for Brazil, that's a good one. Actually, one I wanted to bring up was going all the way back to the Mr. Greased Up Chest's loincloth from Tonga in the opening ceremonies. He made his Olympic debut today in Taekwondo. And I don't know if you saw it, I did catch it. And he was down in only the second round, nine points to nothing. He didn't get one point. And he got one kick in, I believe it was, and got a single point. And the crowd exploded. They were chanting Tonga the whole time. And when he got one single point, the crowd exploded and he exploded as if he'd won a gold medal. And ten seconds later, the match was over and his Olympic debut was done. And it was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen to see a crowd that worked up for a guy who basically flopped in his Olympic debut. And he himself was just so happy to be there. I actually do really like that guy. It's nice to see an athlete who kind of enjoys being there, even though he pretty much sucks in his sport. But I think you did discuss he's originally from Australia and he chose to compete for Tonga instead.

BEN WATERWORTH: That's his mistake right there.

COLIN HILDING: Maybe because it's a guarantee they have no other athletes to put up. So he just did this so he could be the flag bearer, I guess.

BEN WATERWORTH: I love when you Google it and just every single picture comes up with him walking out with a flag. And then there's a news article that says, Tonga flag bearer finally competes in a shirt. But yeah, apparently I actually saw this headline a couple of days ago, and I forgot to bring it up. Apparently the fact that he's so popular and everything, his name is Peter Taffel, Taffa Taffufu. I should just say that. Apparently it sparked a tourism boom for Tonga. This is like everybody's...

COLIN HILDING: Seriously?

BEN WATERWORTH: Everyone's wanting to go and find themselves a topless taekwondo athlete in Tonga.

COLIN HILDING: They think that's what they're all going to look like there?

BEN WATERWORTH: Pardon?

COLIN HILDING: They think that's what they're all going to look like there?

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, of course. I mean, everyone believes everything that they see on TV. It's so different to like, I know that if I go to a local high jump meet, they're all going to look like that. Probably get chased away with a broom. Get away from our children. I sounded a bit wrong, didn't it? Anyway, but good on him for getting a point in Tae Kwon Do. Pita, Pita Taffa Taffa Tahu. The guy from Tonga did very well.

COLIN HILDING: Mystery Greece chat.

BEN WATERWORTH: I'm glad he didn't compete for Australia, because there would have been all this pressure on him. Like, oh, he got so popular and blah, blah, blah, blah. Wife of the Day. Oh, God. Yeah, I didn't really see anyone new today. You sent me somebody. That sounds wrong. You sent me somebody. Who was that?

COLIN HILDING: I don't even remember. Let me see if I could find the message. It reminded me of the videos that you mentioned with Jenike. I can't even remember what race it was in. It might have been the 800 metre or something like that. Here's her name. Joanna Zawswyk from Poland. She blew a very seductive kiss at the camera as it was passing by her. And then if you Google her, the majority of her pictures are her blowing that same kiss. So I think she's maybe part sprinter, part porn star. So it just sort of struck me. This might be your wife of the day. Either that or, you know, Mo Farah's wife.

BEN WATERWORTH: Or Mo Farah.

COLIN HILDING: If she converts to Mormonism or something like that.

BEN WATERWORTH: Why not? The man's, you know, just going for his kids. You know, I'm all for seductive sprinters crossed with porn stars. It seems like a perfect combination. Why not? So, yeah, I'm down with that. Why not? Channel 7, I've already mentioned our canoeing, kayaking guy. Terrible commentary. And just Channel 7 in general for let's replay this event. Let's replay this event. Although one thing I do love, I don't know if they do this on CBC and NBC, like post-closing ceremony, they always do like a 10-minute montage of like all the great moments of the Olympics set to some epic song. I always love it. I always end up just keeping that as a separate little thing. I've still got all these montages from the last, you know, however many Olympics. And they're slowly starting to put together nice little montages of all the events of the Olympics and showing them in sort of going into ads and coming out of ads. And there's some good ones that Channel 7 are showing. So that's a slightly positive thing for Channel 7. I mean, you've been watching NBC.

COLIN HILDING: Well, surprisingly or not surprisingly, those montages are appearing. I've seen several of them, all two Tragically Hip songs right now on CBC, which even if you're not a fan of the Tragically Hip, has to be an improvement. When CTV, one of the other main networks here in Canada, had the Vancouver Olympics, they had this song that sounded like a really bad 90s Celine Dion song, and they had a 15-year-old girl singing it. And that was the only song they played the entire Olympics. I swear the entire country never wants to hear that again after the Olympics was over.

BEN WATERWORTH: It's the only song they could afford to get the rights to after paying all the money for the Olympics. It's like, we've got the Olympics, but for the music we can only afford this one song from a 15-year-old.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah.

BEN WATERWORTH: But yeah, I don't know if CBC or NBC have any moments today between showing the Tragically Hip?

COLIN HILDING: There was one moment I saw on NBC and now for the life of me, I can't remember. Oh, again, it's not really like a complete fail, but as the high jump was starting, they were mentioning one of their high jumpers. Her name was Cunningham. I don't know if they showed her on Australia, but she was one of only three athletes shown on American television tonight. And they basically were introducing, they mentioned her name. It's like, if that name sounds familiar, it's because, you guessed it, she is the daughter of, and then they mentioned some obscure NFL player.

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, yeah, the 18-year-old.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, whose name was Cunningham, who played from 1985 to 1987. It's like, yeah, I'm sure everybody at home was sitting there thinking, Cunningham, now I know I've heard that name only one place ever before. It was that famous football player from 1985 to 1987. I'm pretty sure that it's not the only place they've ever heard it.

BEN WATERWORTH: They did show actually the other day when I was watching it, and the Australian commentators were talking that up, like, oh, her father was a great player in the NFL or something like that. She actually is quite wife material. I forgot about her. But I mean, that was everybody in the women's high jumps. I mean, she's 18, by the way, before you start Googling it. I didn't remember that.

COLIN HILDING: Get away from our children.

BEN WATERWORTH: Get away from our children. Get the pitchforks out.

COLIN HILDING: Bashti Cunningham, that was her name.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, so she didn't win a medal, so she fails at life. Canadian Athlete of the Day, do we have one for your great cross-country mountain biker, or is Catherine not worthy of that?

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, no, she didn't do one of these surveys, but today being, I guess, the last official day, I do have one main one that I want to do, that, you know what, I might as well group a bunch of these in today, because I don't think we'll get another chance to do this. I don't know if we will on the final episode or not. There's a couple that have maybe just a few funny ones, so I'll go through the greatest hits here of some of the ones we haven't covered. Cameron Smedley.

BEN WATERWORTH: I think we did Smedley. Was that one of the ones I might have done on one of the days? Possibly. Go through it anyway. We like to relive it.

COLIN HILDING: There was only one thing I wanted to mention here. If I could have any superpower, it would be to kill a yak from 100 yards with my mine bullet.

BEN WATERWORTH: Absolutely. We've all thought of that about one a couple of times.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah. Pamela Ware, who was in our 10-metre platform, no, she was the 3-metre platform, synchronised, just missed out on meddling, just missed out on meddling in the individual event.

BEN WATERWORTH: Failure.

COLIN HILDING: What do we have here? Favourite sandwich was ham with brie. I don't know why you take the lowest quality meat with the most expensive cheese. It's like bologna with brie or something like that.

BEN WATERWORTH: She's a complicated woman. She likes to mix it up. I like to live on the streets in a mansion. Something like that.

COLIN HILDING: All we really have to mention here is she drew a picture of a Canadian animal. For some reason, she drew a St. Bernard. I didn't know that was Canadian.

BEN WATERWORTH: So Canadian.

COLIN HILDING: And her favourite joke to tell is knock, knock, who's there? I don't know. That's our joke from the other day that we were trying to relieve.

BEN WATERWORTH: It was like literally a two-second pause where Jared and I were like, what? And then we just break out and laugh.

COLIN HILDING: I don't have a joke. There we go. That was it. Fencer, Joseph Polisific... Polisific...

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, can't pronounce an A in trick. Colin's not that hard.

COLIN HILDING: Joseph P. Famous fencer for Canada. Everybody knows him. Draw a picture of a Canadian animal. He drew what looks like a dog with lightning bolts coming out of his head. And it is saying the word moose. So I assume it's supposed to be the worst drawn moose ever.

BEN WATERWORTH: I remember that one.

COLIN HILDING: Okay. See, I'm doing the greatest hits of all the ones...

BEN WATERWORTH: Colin, big listener to Off The Podium on the days he's not on the show.

COLIN HILDING: The weirdest instruction a coach ever gave me was slice him in half. But that's a good one. Kimberly Hyacinth. She was one of our runners. Draw a picture of yourself. She drew herself with a cape on for some reason. What did we have here? The best candy in the world is Swedish fish. I don't even know what that is. This is what I really liked. Draw a picture of a Canadian animal. It says that's a beaver, but I swear she drew a turtle with a beaver's tail on it. It is the worst beaver I have ever seen.

BEN WATERWORTH: Just saying a few babies in your time, Colin.

COLIN HILDING: When I was little, I always thought that Jafar was the meanest, quote-unquote, person ever.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well, he is. He's a Boston.

COLIN HILDING: Jafar, is this a racial thing? He's not a real person. But when she was little, she thought he was the meanest person ever. And now that she's old, she realises that Arabs aren't real people, apparently. I don't know. Kamika Bingham, another one of our great runners, who did not meddle. She drew a picture of a beaver, which I swear is a teddy bear with a beaver's tail. Like, nobody in this country knows what a beaver looks like, apparently. It's like the national animal, and we don't know what it is. Her favourite sports movie is Like Mike, which I believe starred Little Bow Wow back in 2002. I don't know why that's her favourite movie.

BEN WATERWORTH: What a classic sports movie Like Mike was. Robbed on the Academy Award that year.

COLIN HILDING: It won the Academy Award for Children, Basketball, in 2002.

BEN WATERWORTH: Heads down, not a question.

COLIN HILDING: I can't remember if we did this one or not. Beach volleyball star Heather Bansley. If we did, I just have to mention it again. Draw a picture of a Canadian animal. She drew a polar bear in a snowstorm, but I swear this just has saggy breasts. I don't know how this is a polar bear.

BEN WATERWORTH: I somehow remember saggy breasts.

COLIN HILDING: Well, I think that was when you mentioned Princess Leia's saggy breasts. That was a different one. Listen to the best of Off The Podium coming soon. And this, I guess, will do. This is our final athlete today. I'll breeze through this a little bit. But Danielle LePage, who's a wrestler, who I think that she made the quarterfinals or something like that. If I could be a superhero, I would be super in brackets whoa man with a giant exclamation mark. What would the coolest Olympic medal look like? She put a medal and it said, with this medal, one will receive a lifetime of free McDonald's, is written on the Olympic medal.

BEN WATERWORTH: I'm down for that.

COLIN HILDING: McDonald's was once the official sponsor of the Olympics. I don't know if they are anywhere else in the world still.

BEN WATERWORTH: I think they still are, aren't they? Like they're one of the global sponsors. I mean, it's such a weird combination.

COLIN HILDING: I know. I used to like when you could go and get like the Olympic glasses from there.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I had to go. Noah and I went to a pub the other day to buy a $10 jug of Coke just so I could get a Rio 2016 glass. I didn't do it at McDonald's. Now they do it at pubs.

COLIN HILDING: They had to force you to dowel that, didn't they?

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, exactly. But I got a Rio 2016 glass, so in your face McDonald's.

COLIN HILDING: I think you'll go get merchandise for the Olympics. The best nickname I've ever been called is Danimal or Dan the Man. She made a point to say that she would be Super Woman, but people call her Dan the Man.

BEN WATERWORTH: She's trying to make sure people know she's a woman. Super Woman!

COLIN HILDING: In a movie about my life, I would be played by Jennifer Lawrence. Please, she's saying please, I want to see this movie. If I weren't an athlete, I would be a police officer. My guilty pleasure snack is movie theater popcorn with butter. Faux show! With an exclamation mark.

BEN WATERWORTH: That's how she orders it. She goes to the movies. Can I have some popcorn with butter? Faux show!

COLIN HILDING: Also, the way that Jennifer Lawrence orders popcorn at her movies. And I think the faux show is also the tagline of 2002's Like Mike.

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, absolutely. It was what? One in the Oscar. You brought him over the line. Oh, you wouldn't have won it if you didn't put, Faux show!

COLIN HILDING: Anything else worth noting here? Favourite video game is Mario Party on N64. Retro there. My biggest fear in life is failure. That's painfully unfunny from a very funny woman here. Draw a picture of yourself. She drew a very scary looking picture of her with the craziest googly eyes I've ever seen. Either kneeling or she currently has no legs. I guess she's going to the Paralympics for wrestling next year. And draw a picture of a Canadian animal. She drew a pretty good looking moose here with a word bubble coming out of it saying, I'm a moose! With an exclamation mark, of course.

BEN WATERWORTH: I love how they have to actually put on their animals what they are. Like, I mean, I think this is Australia. Like, I think everyone knows what a kangaroo looks like. But, I mean, in Canada, oh, this is what a moose looks like just in case you didn't know.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and I guess thus ends our Canadian athletes of the day. Maybe I can come up with something for tomorrow.

BEN WATERWORTH: Please, please bring it back for 2018 in Pyeongchang in Korea for the Winter Olympics.

COLIN HILDING: I can't wait. The greatest Olympians in this country, the DeFurla Point sisters, three sisters who all compete in the moguls. If you don't know them, you'd better find out. I cannot wait to see what they would put for a survey like this.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, aren't we all keen to find out what Sydney Crosby will put as well?

COLIN HILDING: No.

BEN WATERWORTH: I love how pretty much one of the main athletes, Australians, know from Canada, and Canada doesn't, I think, give a shit about him, do they? Sydney Crosby. All right. Well, I don't really have any updated on the fan messages, sadly. I mean, it's been basically 12 hours since we recorded our last episode, and that's too quick of a time for the AOC to update their app. So let's find a couple of random ones here that we didn't get to. Jenny from Queensland to David Anderson. I think he's a basketballer. Keep your spirits up, guys. Good luck with the bronze medal playoff. She sent exactly the same message to Cameron Besto. Good job there, Jenny.

COLIN HILDING: Whatever we said today, we have to copy and paste into about a half dozen other athletes.

BEN WATERWORTH: Jake Taylor from Queensland to Con Folly. It sounds like a, I don't know, it doesn't sound like a person. Nice game, you and your teammates played against France on the 11th of August. I'm glad that you've like backdated that to tell them the date. Just Jenny Warman is literally sending the same message to like ten different athletes. Like, seriously.

COLIN HILDING: There's no sports left to get excited about for Australia, so you have one person just spamming the site now.

BEN WATERWORTH: Jenny from Queensland has sent the same message to David Anderson, Cameron Besto. To Cameron Besto again. To David Martin twice. To Joe Ingalls. Like every single member of the basketball team. To Matthew Delavadova. There we go. Oh, God. To Ryan Brock. Jenny, calm down. There's a few of them we know.

COLIN HILDING: Can we just find Jenny and send her a message?

BEN WATERWORTH: Jenny, good work on messaging. Good luck in the bronze medal match. Jeannette from Queensland. To Jared Talent. Dear Jared, I sat on the edge of my seat watching your 50 kilometre race with baited breath. What a race! What a champion you are! Well done! You are a true inspiration and a fantastic role model. So, so proud. Drink lots of H2O! Lol! Cheese, Jeanette. Oh, God, Australians are stupid.

COLIN HILDING: They're really no better than Canadians from what we've found.

BEN WATERWORTH: I still love this one from yesterday, that we said, D Morgan, if you see this, I think you're awesome. If you don't, you suck. Goodness. Paulina Murray from Victoria to Daniel McConnell. Good luck from Barnsdale. Patrick Barrett, this is why Max Exposito finished seventh because of this message. Patrick Barrett, New South Wales. Good luck, mate. You can send a fan message. You can send a little bit better than good luck, mate.

COLIN HILDING: You know, I know how we can finally get through on here on the final day. Just post one message and copy paste it to every athlete. And all the message will say is, hey.

BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, hey. That probably... This one, I'll end this one. To Brooke Stratton, Trinity. She was our high jumper. I like Brooke, even though she was a bit sulky, but that doesn't matter. Typical Australia, we're so over the Olympics, we're already looking forward to an event where we can top the medal tally in the Commonwealth Games. Well done, Brooke. We are so proud of you back home. Can't wait to see how you go two years' time in the Commonwealth Games. So it's like, hint, hint, we suck at the Olympics, go to an event where you might actually win a medal. Even though the last Commonwealth Games, we got beaten by England, but whatever, we still were second. We were the Britain of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

COLIN HILDING: They could have been nice and posted like, go back to the World Junior.

BEN WATERWORTH: Go back to little athletics in your suburbs. Yeah, what I'll do is I'll send every single athlete later on, hey, I'm not going to waste time on the podcast right now because we'll be here for a while. Well, that basically brings us now into the final day. We've got to look ahead. So the final day, that's sad, only 12 gold. This is the equal least amount back from day one. So basically everything wraps up funnily enough on the final day. So we'll have medals in wrestling, in indoor volleyball, according to this list, handball, the fake gymnastics, mountain biking, cross country, whatever you want to call it, boxing, basketball, and athletics, which I believe is just the marathon on the final day. So it's always sad the last day, Colin, but there's still a few to look forward to, I guess.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I kind of wish that the Summer Olympics would have something big like the Winter Olympics have. You know, the Winter Olympics reserve, one of their biggest events for the final day. And the Summer, I mean, we kind of peak on Friday. We have a bit of a letdown on Saturday, and then Sundays, the leftovers in a way. But I mean, I'll still be watching pretty much everything that's on tomorrow. And I don't think there's any hope for Canada winning another medal. Who knows? We may surprise. But it's all about the closing ceremonies. I don't even think I got yours or Jared's opinions, but as far as my opinion is, I always actually prefer the closing ceremonies over the opening ceremonies. It seems a little bit more fun. You know, the athletes are there. They're riding each other's shoulders and having chicken fights or whatever. And you get a little bit more entertainment, a little bit less of Thomas Bach, I guess.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes.

COLIN HILDING: Opening the closing ceremonies will far surpass the dull opening ceremonies we had. I guarantee it.

BEN WATERWORTH: I agree. I mean, this the closing ceremonies, it's always a sad time, I think. But yeah, they're a lot of fun. Like I remember the Vancouver one was great. There was all the Canadian humour that they were doing. We had like the giant beavers and the ice hockey people and all that sort of stuff, wasn't it? That was great. And William Shatner was in that too, wasn't he, from memory?

COLIN HILDING: I remember.

BEN WATERWORTH: Anything with William Shatner and it's great. I mean, even like, you know, the Russians in Sochi, like this is a country which they're so serious and everything, they can make fun of themselves for stuffing up the Olympic ring in the opening ceremony. And I remember Sydney 2000, they did that as well. I think they, like, made a joke of the fact that the cauldron, like, stuffed up when Cathy Freeman lit it. So it's just it's almost such a cultural fun aspect. The closing ceremony in London, of course, you had the Spice Girls come out. I mean, who are the Brazilian Spice Girls? Is Giselle going to come back out again?

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, Giselle is one of them, right?

BEN WATERWORTH: But I remember Toreno, you randomly had Ricky Martin. I mean, he's about as Italian as I am, isn't he? Like, we don't have any famous Italian pop stars. Let's get Ricky Martin. So by all means, Justin Bieber is going to be in the closing ceremony tomorrow. I always also look forward to the little display, like the Tokyo display. So, you know, are we going to get like sumo wrestlers and robots? And I mean, what do we have to look forward to from Tokyo, do you think, in terms of a little display?

COLIN HILDING: Maybe a lot of iPads.

BEN WATERWORTH: I remember the Vancouver one had Avril Lavigne singing. So that was Canadian. And I remember for Sydney, they had very infamously here in Australia, we mocked it for many years. They had kangaroos, inflatable kangaroos on bicycles riding around the Atlanta Stadium. So they actually made fun of that in the Sydney closing ceremony, to take the piss out of the Americans.

COLIN HILDING: And I think knowing the British sense of humour, it was actually a joke when they put inflatable Roger Daltrey out there with the Who to perform at the closing ceremony. A little bit of just a half foot from Australia there.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes. They have David Beckham on a double-decker bus in Beijing or something like that, like come to London, David Beckham kicking a ball into the crowd. So as you do, why not? But I like the closing ceremony. We're going to talk about that tomorrow. So I mean, I guess our final episode tomorrow, at least for these Olympics, will just be recapping over the medal events that none of us won anything in. I mean, all Channel 7 does or any network here in Australia does, it's just the final day they use it to recap how many medals we won. So it's just like a slow motion montage of each of our gold medals. And they'll literally show about five minutes of actual sport on the final day.

COLIN HILDING: Here's just going to be let's pat ourselves on the back for the first seven days.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, exactly. The last seven days, nothing really happened except for Chloe Esposito. So, yeah, but I will look forward to it. As always, you can tune in, well, the way you're listening right now basically, but Facebook, email, iTunes, YouTube, all the usual goodness. And yes, sad to come to a close tomorrow, but all good things must come to an end. It just brings us closer and closer to the Winter Olympics. And I'm going to completely butcher the fact that it's what, Pyeongchang? I can't even say it. I'd say the Korean Winter Olympics.

COLIN HILDING: So, you know, I want to say at my work back during the Sochi Olympics, they had like an office trivia thing where you could win a medal on the Olympics. And I aced every single question on there. It wasn't even like struggle. I just sat there and wrote it all out. I'm done. They're like, well, you're done already? And I ended up with the bronze because I didn't have it in me to spell Pyeongchang and somebody else googled it.

BEN WATERWORTH: Disgusting.

COLIN HILDING: So because of that, I'll probably be ashamed. I won a Canadian gold because I couldn't spell it.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, look, again, you'll take what you can get. So, yes.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, as we learnt from the power walking, Canadians just take what they can get. We don't fight for anything in life.

BEN WATERWORTH: And don't shit themselves as they go along with it. But for people listening, please also send us in your favourite moments of the games. We'll probably talk about that tomorrow. What was your favourite bronze medal that Canada won? And what was your favourite moment that Australia pulled a candle, perhaps? And maybe your favourite...

COLIN HILDING: What is your favourite moment from Off The Podium?

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well, exactly.

COLIN HILDING: Let us know that.

BEN WATERWORTH: Let us know that. We know five of you have listened to at least half of the episodes out there, so surely there's at least one memory you can remember. So, yes, but Colin, as always, thank you. It's sad, but it's good in a way. Yeah, we'll be back tomorrow for our last episode.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and hopefully we can bring Jared back, and let's hope that they put more than $14 into the ceremonies.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, exactly. The budget, they've made a bit of profit from selling half the seats. So until then, thank you to your company here on Off The Podium, and enjoy the last day.