Rio 2016 Opening Ceremony Review

The games have begun! Ben, Colin and Jarrod sit down and analyse the opening ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympics, bringing you their thoughts on tap dancing 4-year-olds, the message of climate change, the countalicious Thomas Bach and all the information about the amazing country of "Ooiwannatakeya". We also look ahead to what events Canada can make the semi-finals of and what events Australia can win silver in. Get excited!

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

BEN WATERWORTH: Good evening, afternoon, morning, and hello to another episode of Off The Podium, an Olympics podcast as we come to you for episode two, a very exciting episode because this is the episode where we actually get to talk about something that's already happened. We don't sit here and talk about what we think and what we like about the Olympics and get you kind of bored about it. We get to get you bored about the opening ceremony because it has happened, the Olympics have begun, and actually at the time of recording this, they're literally beginning right now because day one of competition is literally getting underway. So we are very excited to be able to come to you for episode two to recap the opening ceremony and look ahead to day one, as well as touch on some other sort of interesting news that has happened in between since when we last recorded. And I shall first of all start by introducing myself. My name is Ben, and just like the head of the Rio organising committee of the Olympic Games, I too believed in the sex of the Rio Games. And joining me on the show from Emu Plains, a man who is so excited to be talking about what is arguably one of the top 31 opening ceremonies in the history of the Summer Olympics. It's Jarrod Loobeek. Jarrod, welcome back to Off The Podium.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Thank you. You're absolutely right. Top 31. Good placing for it. They got to be happy with that. I mean, that's what they're aiming for, and they've achieved that.

BEN WATERWORTH: They have. They really do. And speaking of being excited for his placing, the fact that Canada came out about where they usually do in the Olympics and not in the middle, and NBC didn't try and rig it. It's Colin Hilding. Hello, Colin. Welcome back to Off The Podium.

COLIN HILDING: It came out in the Olympics. We're talking only about the opening ceremonies. It's all alphabetical. I think it's the same spot.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, the Portuguese alphabet, as many people were completely confused, I will admit I had no idea that that was happening. And when South Africa came out about fourth, I'm like going, hang on a minute. Something's a little bit off about this, but we'll get there. I guess we should start off with general thoughts of the opening ceremony. I believe it's just finishing right about now. I think Thomas Bach is still talking about how he believes in Rio. I am, hmm, yeah, I gotta say, not impressed. I thought it was probably the most disappointing opening ceremony I've seen personally in my lifetime. I sadly cannot remember anything prior to 1987 because I wasn't born. But I think it's up there with Sochi. It's one of the worst opening ceremonies I've ever seen. And I don't even know if Sochi was that bad compared to this. Colin, I think I might start with you. What did you think of this very underwhelming opening ceremony?

COLIN HILDING: Well, I mean, I'm gonna agree with you it's underwhelming. It was nothing really that spectacular. It took a while for there to be any moment that I think I'll ever remember. I think that's the biggest issue. I actually like the Sochi opening ceremonies. It wasn't on level with what Vancouver did or Salt Lake City even, or definitely not Torino. But for summer ones, the bar was set so high with Beijing that I think it'll never be topped. And the one thing I'm gonna say in defence is that obviously this is the first time in a while that there hasn't been a massively wealthy country hosting the Olympics. And it's kind of unfair that Rio's gotten criticism for the fact that, well, their facilities aren't up to par with what we've had in the past, and the opening ceremonies weren't up to par. They were never gonna have as much to work with as Beijing was gonna have or London. So in defence, I think they did a pretty good job. Modern Olympic ceremonies are very different from what there was 20, 30 years ago. I remember going back and watching the Calgary and Los Angeles opening ceremonies on YouTube maybe about a year ago, and it's really nothing that would be done today. Overall, I think this was just more or less forgettable. I didn't like the way it was filmed. I think that's the biggest issue. I don't know if every country, I assume every country had the same feed as far as the video goes. And there was just too much of filming like one person on the field when you have a thousand of them. When they're all holding those strings or when those giant spiders are walking, it's like I don't want to see the one guy holding it. You want to see it. This is a show that's meant to be seen from a big stadium. I think they needed to film it in a different way to make it look more impressive. But a few things did stand out. I thought the parkour sequence was fantastic. The four year old tap dancing was pretty funny. Maybe not the greatest entertainment I've ever seen. But then there's some some growners like the 45 minute modelling catwalk was a bit much. And some of the environmental stuff I think was a bit heavy handed. I think there was a subtler way to do that. It's just it's not something that I thought was so boring, but it's something that I definitely will not remember 10 years from now.

BEN WATERWORTH: Before I get Jarrod's thoughts, I have to ask one question. Did it make you want to go outside and pee on a bed of Rio 2016 flowers?

COLIN HILDING: Oh, you know, that's the natural way to watch. That was the whole point of this ceremony is let's get back to nature. Of course, absolutely.

BEN WATERWORTH: You had insider information. That's why you brought that up on the episode the other day about peeing on the Calgary Rosebush. You knew that this was going to be about saving the environment.

COLIN HILDING: Exactly, yeah. I'm in the know.

BEN WATERWORTH: You are, you are. Jarrod, what did you think of it?

JARROD LOOBEEK: I think it was a bit of a letdown. I think for me, the main thing, the pacing of it felt really off. I thought that like the initial kind of performances went really quickly, and then the speeches drag on, which they tend to do, but it just felt like more so than usual, the speeches really dragged on. And then even like the cauldron lighting at the end was a bit underwhelming and just, yeah, there wasn't really many standout moments and the couple of moments that were there were few and far between, which was a bit of a shame.

BEN WATERWORTH: I think I'm one of the very few people on planet Earth who actually really enjoyed London's opening ceremony. I absolutely loved the London opening ceremony, and I liked it more than Beijing. Controversial, huh? But, you know, I just... I really was kind of hoping, you know, Brazil, party, capital, exciting, all this sort of stuff. And, you know, they talked a little bit about obviously, Colin, as you said, you know, it's obviously not as well off, I guess, as the United Kingdom or definitely not China, Brazil. And the budget, I think, was, you know, what, a quarter or an eighth or something ridiculous of what they had in London, which is understandable. And I think kind of what you mentioned, it's, yeah, they did what they could do. But it was the pacing you mentioned there, Jarrod, it was strange because they kept mentioning in our coverage that it was almost like a closing ceremony rather than an opening ceremony. And, you know, generally, you get an opening ceremony tells a great history of the nation that you're watching. You know, obviously, Brazil has never had the Olympics before. Not a lot of people know a whole lot about Brazil. I mean, we got a very brief story of it, but it's just kind of something like the opening part was over before you even thought about it. Here come the countries, and then the speeches, and then we had a random, you know, somber carnival moment, and then the torch was probably the most boring lighting of a torch I think I've ever seen. And, yeah, it was just... It was very much over the shop. And, you know, it's interesting, this message, the whole environmental part, aspect of it, which I'm sure we'll touch on, but, I mean, they always come out, and they always have, oh, this is the theme of it, and I think they were talking about it as being celebrating the future, doing more with less. I think that's just basically what they were given when they first sat down, like, okay, guys, we're doing an opening ceremony for the Olympics. It's like, we've got $100. This is what we can afford. And they spent $99 of that in getting Giselle, who is still walking in the stadium with the speeches. Apparently, her last ever catwalk. Can we point that out? I don't know if that was announced.

COLIN HILDING: They did mention that here, too.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well, she's retiring from catwalk modelling. Oh, what are we ever going to do with ourselves? Well, thank goodness they went out with a bang. I know, right? I really don't know too much about Giselle. Colin, you were Giselle... I can't even say her last name. I'm not even going to attempt to say her last name. Giselle, you a fan of Mrs. Tom Brady?

COLIN HILDING: I know that she's married to Tom Brady. I think most of that knowledge came from watching the commentary of her walking last night.

BEN WATERWORTH: I have to say, I would love that job of being the commentator at an opening ceremony. You obviously get given a stack full of notes. So it's like, okay, this is the part where this happens. And you've got to sound really knowledgeable. And we'll talk about that soon when it comes to the countries coming out because they get very interesting facts. But can you imagine, like, you know, I don't know who is the Canadian host, but I mean, Jarrod with Bruce McEvaney. Actually, it wasn't even Bruce at that point, wasn't it? It was Basil Zemplas and Jeanne Rooney wasn't it at that point or whoever it was. And was it Jeanne Rooney? She wasn't doing the opening ceremony. Who am I thinking of?

JARROD LOOBEEK: I don't know. I think when I was watching, it was just Bruce and Andrew Gaze. But yeah, maybe there was somebody before that in between. I just didn't notice that they'd switched over.

BEN WATERWORTH: Anyway, but I just imagine the notes. Like, Basil, here's your notes you need on Giselle Brady. So, I mean, modelling is... I thought there would be... I mean, there's more famous Brazilians than Giselle, is there not? Like, who's some other famous Brazilians we didn't see there?

COLIN HILDING: Well, the fact you're asking who are some famous Brazilians shows maybe there isn't.

BEN WATERWORTH: I can list a bunch of Formula One drivers, but I mean, that's not going to get as far.

COLIN HILDING: Abby Maria Gomez, people.

BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, well, exactly, exactly. You know, where was Abby? You know, Jenna Maraska, she won in the Amazon, so I'm trying to stretch it here.

COLIN HILDING: People who aren't familiar with other shows are really Googling quick right now.

BEN WATERWORTH: It's interesting, Colin, what you mentioned, sort of watching the old kind of opening ceremonies, because like they were much more prop heavy. I mean, probably Sydney really would have been the last one. It didn't really have to rely on like LCD screens. I remember Athens obviously had the big lake and had a lot of projections on that, but I mean, Sydney didn't really have that. I mean, we had a whole bunch of great props and things like that. I mean, there were props in this to an extent, obviously the buildings, but do you miss the days of props, Colin, or do we like the sort of projections and fancy screen work that we seem to get now in opening ceremonies?

COLIN HILDING: I kind of like a mix of both. I thought like the digital projection here was pretty good. It was nowhere on level with what we've seen in past Olympics. But there is something about like, you know, just a giant crowd of people orchestrating something, you know, good costumes, big props. So having a mix of both. And this one did have a mix of that, I think. But yeah, overall, it was just everything we saw on the field was very one note. It wasn't like... And I hate... I'm the one who's saying it's unfair to compare it to Beijing, but I'll keep bringing it up. But you know, in Beijing, you just had like these massive sequences of like drumming and dancing and stuff like that. And everything just seemed very stiff for most of the ceremony until they got to the parkour stuff, which again was the part that I really liked. I mean, ultimately, the Olympic ceremonies are going to change in another 5 to 10 years anyways. You know, technology is going to get to the point where we're just going to have artificial intelligence robots on the field doing everything.

BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, God knows what we're going to get with Tokyo.

COLIN HILDING: Oh, yeah. I hadn't even thought of that.

BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod, obviously, one thing that I'll note for Australians with the props, I'm sure you noticed the giant goon bags at the start of this opening ceremony that made us feel very proud to be Australians in Brazil.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I'm glad that they can just use anything for anything. I mean, that's a bonus. But yeah, I agree. I think the best ceremonies have been the ones where there have been a mix of both. And this, I don't know, there was just no real standout moment either way. There wasn't kind of a moment where there was a huge kind of massive people working together to kind of pull something off, or like a big projection, or just something that was a kind of real wow moment, and that was just what was missing from the ceremony.

BEN WATERWORTH: We should mention one of the men behind it, Fernando Morellas, Brazilian film director, there's a famous Brazilian.

COLIN HILDING: There's your Brazilian who should have done the catwalk.

BEN WATERWORTH: He's too busy directing it. He was nominated for Academy Award for Best Director for City of God back in 2002. One of your favourite films, of course, Colin, I believe, is it not?

COLIN HILDING: Well, I actually haven't seen it, but it is a very famous movie. It was huge, like about 10, 15 years ago, I guess.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, what's his name? Is it Danny Boyle? He did London.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, Danny Boyle did it.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, yeah, but I mean, some other highlights, I guess, we can sort of loosely go over. You know, obviously, you mentioned the parkour moment there, Colin. We had the whole giant bugs crawling around, the arrival of the Europeans, and the meeting the indigenous people of Brazil. And then we had the... I had no idea that Brazil apparently claimed they invented the plane. There you go. I did learn something today. I couldn't tell you who, but the Brazilian Wright brother flew over Rio. That was good. And we, of course, get the tried and true tradition of having a young child telling the story. Nothing can beat Nikki Webster, of course, Jarrod. We all are still very much fond of dear old Nikki, 16 years after Sydney.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Yep. She's gone a long way from there.

BEN WATERWORTH: Now, Colin, do you... I think there was a little girl from memory in the Vancouver opening ceremony. Did she go on to become a big celebrity in Canada, or do you have no idea who I'm talking about?

COLIN HILDING: I can't even remember. I'm sure, though, that now, six years later, as she's at the age of 11, she's famous worldwide, so somebody's going to correct us on it.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, just for those, Colin and other people who may have no idea about Nikki Webster and the Sydney Olympics, she was what I think 13, perhaps, maybe? You know, the whole story of everything was based around young little Nikki Webster who then came out and released Strawberry Kisses, I think about a month later, didn't she, Jarrod? And it's both on our iPods. We love it. Like, became a pop star for a month, and then she became a national joke. And now she runs a dance studio, I believe, in Sydney. I interviewed her, actually, many years ago. We tracked her down, because we used to just rip shit into her on our radio show. We found her. It wasn't that hard to find her. I basically, you know, she came to me like, Ben, please interview me. But, yeah, that's basically where you get from being a little kid in the opening ceremony. So a little four-year-old tap dancing. He's going on to release another pop song or something. I don't know. I'm kind of losing track here. I'm trying to remember all the other stuff. I'm reading here. This is how much I remember from the opening ceremony. There were large projections of green lights, and there was the whole climate change business.

COLIN HILDING: The way you said there were large projections of green light. I want to see the pitch meeting for this. We're going to have digital projection. What are we going to have? Some incredible design, some 3D. We're going to introduce green, and then maybe some blue.

BEN WATERWORTH: I remember opening ceremonies, how they had the whole big countdown clock before they get to it, and then they kind of have all these little moments. It just seemed like they weren't into it too much at the beginning. It was kind of a very, I don't know, mundane beginning. Maybe they just set the bar for it. Maybe I'm just still complaining about it. It's only been about 12 hours. As I said, it's still going right now. We should mention quickly as well, it was at the Marcarana Stadium. I can never say that stadium. The Marcarana Stadium, and it's unique the fact that they actually won't have athletics. The Macarena Stadium, yes. Los del Rio are still performing there. But this is interesting. Usually, the athletics is performed, well, performed, held. It's all fake, athletics. It's not real, it's performed. It's usually held at the main stadium. Is this something we care about, Colin? Do we give a shit? There's an interesting way of doing it, I guess.

COLIN HILDING: What are we talking about again?

BEN WATERWORTH: That's the motto of the show. The fact that athletics is not being held in the main stadium. So they're only using the main stadium for the football finals, and no athletics. I don't know if you knew that.

COLIN HILDING: I didn't know that. Well, because this morning, I was just watching before we started here, they were breaking down on TV all the different venues and what they'd be hosting, and I actually thought they were saying it was held in the main stadium. I was looking forward to that, because I think it is a fantastic stadium. It would look great with that crowd surrounding it. So, I'll reserve judgment until I see the athletic stadium, I guess.

BEN WATERWORTH: I guess really, Jarrod, for your opinion, it's no different to the Winter Olympics. They don't hold any events in the stadiums where they have the Winter Olympics opening and closing ceremonies. So, taking a leap out of those, Jarrod, do you give a shit that they're not having the athletics there? It's a really weird question that I'm asking on the show today.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Not particularly, but if they want to save a little bit of money for the opening ceremony, that could have been a way to do that, instead of building a different stadium.

BEN WATERWORTH: I could have just had the athletics on at the same time. I would have saved money. Like you're saying, just run between the torches. Quick, hurry up, you'll still win. I guess we could talk about the whole climate change message. It hasn't really been done before the whole, let's have a big important message to the world. And this stage, it was climate change. It's bad, don't do it. You know, stop turning on your lights and using fossil fuels and shit. Jarrod, is this going to pave the way? Do you feel now for opening ceremonies moving forward that nowadays we're going to have a message that has to be shared to the world?

JARROD LOOBEEK: I mean, it could do. I feel like it was kind of a rerun out of things to perform, so somebody think of a theme and we'll run with it. I think in other opening ceremonies, you probably, I feel like just countries just wouldn't want to take the time to that. They'd be kind of busy telling their story about their history and putting the largest amount of time into that rather than going with a theme or a message. And I think here it felt like, it's kind of felt like an afterthought, like, oh, we want to be remembered for something positive. I don't, yeah, I just, it felt, it just felt weird. And I was a fan of the message too, but I just, I don't know. If there's action that follows it, great, but who knows?

BEN WATERWORTH: It's kind of interesting to kind of go back on past Olympics now and think, like, what could have the message been? Like, if it was London, like, now, it would have been, Brexit is good. And like, Vancouver, I don't even know, Colin, what would Vancouver's message be?

COLIN HILDING: Like, oh, we're going to win in hockey again.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, this is why we were winning hockey. Did you like the message, Colin? Is this setting the bar high now for let's, you know, create a message to the world?

COLIN HILDING: Well, I mean, I said earlier, I kind of stand by it. I think that it was heavy handed and there's a subtler way to do it. I think that you need to be subtle when doing something like this because you don't control what countries get the next Olympics. And the Olympics isn't something that's about politics, which is why, you know, they can go to a country like Russia, follow it with Brazil, you know, and we have China in there. None of these countries are really, they're not really similar in any way in their political views or anything like that. In fact, they're very much opposed. But that's not what the Olympics is about. So when you do introduce this, it's not that, you know, I'm being critical of the message because I like, for example, one of the subtler things they did was the cauldron. It was a smaller flame in everything, and they weren't going out of their way to say, we're doing this because people with the big flames are killing the planet. You know, that's a little bit too much. But I like the idea. They said, well, the smaller cauldron, the smaller flame, you know, it's supposed to be just about conserving, you know, just the fuel for this one flame that can make a difference. But when they get so heavy handed, the problem is that you're opening it up for other countries in the future. So I think everybody is familiar with the Germany or the Berlin Olympics during Hitler's time, and there was very heavy handed political messages in there. Now, just because we may agree with what Rio is doing, but not agree with Berlin, that doesn't change the fact that what Rio does is making it possible. So the next time they go back to China, China is going to be having, you know, communist messages in theirs. And the next time we go... Yeah, exactly. So it's very close. And you know right now that China is already thinking, well, well, this is allowed now. What can we do? Next time we go back to Russia, it's gonna be, hey, all the athletes take steroids or something like that. I don't know. But it's just, it opens, it opens the door for any country to put whatever message they want in there. I think that's dangerous. I really do think it should just be about tell the story of your country. And if you're gonna do something like this, make it subtle.

BEN WATERWORTH: See, if Hobart had have been successful in getting the 2020 Olympics, our message would have been simple. It's like, we are part of Australia. Please remember that. And clearly, in Korea, in two years' time for the Winter Olympics, it's gonna be like, we're better than the people above us. Don't nuke us. So hello to all our Korean listeners. Just a couple of things. I want to get on the parade of nations, but just a couple of other things we should quickly mention, because we'll talk about the torch separately. Just a random fact here. I did not know this. Leah T who performed, is the first ever transgender woman to participate at the Olympic Games. Fantastic. Good. There's a bit of history for you there. The speeches is still going. Thomas Bach is still talking. Sorry, I just got a message handed to me. He's still trying to talk about it. I did really like in the speech part the head of the Rio organising committee, Carlos Arthur Neusman, who apparently was a volleyball in 1964 in Tokyo. He said that about a hundred times. He was so nervous. Did you notice how much his hands were shaking throughout? I feel so sorry for him, but I had to laugh when he did say that he always believed in the success of the Rio Olympic Games. I always love excited head of the organising committees.

COLIN HILDING: This guy's been watching beach volleyball all week, just waiting for this.

BEN WATERWORTH: And then we had the whole interesting awarding of, what was it, the scholarship or something along those lines? What actually was that whole bit? Because that went on for about a hundred years, and then the guy who won it sounded like the squeaky, simply voice guy from The Simpsons. He was like, I'm so happy to receive this award. And just quickly, feel free, any of you, to jump in here, thoughts on these separately. But did we notice, we've already mentioned Abby Maria for a reference to Survivor Oz, download via iTunes today. Did we notice that a certain former head of MI6 was reading a poem? Short-haired women, Colin, Judy Dench was involved in this. I had no idea, but I was excited.

COLIN HILDING: Well, if anybody has listened to Double Law 7, download via iTunes, then they know Ben's opinion on short-haired women, British short-haired women, elderly short-haired women. Yeah, put a wig on her, it'll be all right.

BEN WATERWORTH: I was so happy that we had Judy Dench. Two opening ceremonies in a row now, featuring James Bond references. I'm looking forward to Gustav Graves performing fencing in Tokyo. We brought him up the other day from one of Ben Dabler.

COLIN HILDING: And we've got two Die Another Day references.

BEN WATERWORTH: You brought it up the other day. Anything to add on any of those bits before we talk about the Parade of Nations, Colin? I'm just rambling here, just trying to... I mean, seriously, we've literally covered the whole opening ceremony, I feel.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I don't know. I don't think I really have anything to say on the speeches. Does anybody watch the speeches? I think you did cover it all. I think you covered it in the same length that Thomas Bach did.

BEN WATERWORTH: He's a little dweeby man, isn't he, Thomas? I mean, he won gold in fencing. Did he do that by just being so short that he could just duck underneath the sword? Seriously, he's standing there. I thought he was a little hobbit. He's a weird looking thing. I'm allowed to say, he's a man that's not sexist, so it's fine. I'm just covering my bases. Jarrod, Thomas Bach, I mean, bring back Jacques Roy. I liked him. Where's Juan Antonio? His Excellency. He's dead, I know, but Thomas Bach, he's still going, he won't shut up.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, he doesn't have the same... How would you even put it? I don't know, he's just not the same as the others. He doesn't have that commanding authority. It's just everything that he says, you're kind of like, yeah, okay, move on. Get off the stage, next person.

BEN WATERWORTH: He's just standing there with Carlos, he's like going on and on and on. He's just sort of standing there, he's like a little robot munchkin, he's just like, I'm so happy to be here. And then he talks and he's just... I don't know, and the whole speech of his was just like, yes, Rio, believe it would work, please stop complaining, we've got Tokyo in four years, look forward to Dracula here.

COLIN HILDING: I will suck your blood.

BEN WATERWORTH: I am Thomas Bach.

COLIN HILDING: I will say, I think there are people out there who will teach people how to speak in front of a crowd. And I think you need to get these people involved in the ceremonies. Don't worry so much about the digital projection or the costumes or anything like that. Where is the slap chop guy right now? He could be sitting down and teaching all these people how to deliver a speech with a little bit of energy, a little bit of charisma. It's not that unheard of to have a speech coach come in and just say, let's liven it up a bit, because I don't think anybody really wants to watch speeches drawn on like this. You get the slap chop guy in there, and that's going to be fun.

BEN WATERWORTH: I'm just literally looking at his Wikipedia picture. He just looks like a munchkin. He's like munchkin mixed with the count from Sesame Street. One Olympic Games. There we go. Just the whole...

COLIN HILDING: One, two, three.

BEN WATERWORTH: He's just standing there as the country's come out for. Four countries. Ah, ah, ah, ah. Just coming there. I mean, he's the first ever Olympic medalist or gold medalist at least to be a president. And I know our very own John Coates, I believe, is the vice president, Jarrod. So, I mean, we could have an Australian president of the IOC, hopefully soon. At least that would be a bit more exciting, wouldn't it? G'day, mate. Welcome to the bloody Rio Olympics. Let's open these things. Doors opened again.

COLIN HILDING: You wanted your countdown. That would have been the perfect way to come in.

BEN WATERWORTH: Anyway, speaking of the Olympics, the nations. Now, these were done in the order of the Portuguese alphabet, which really wasn't advertised too well. I then later read that there's apparently a rule that the official language of the Olympics is of course the host country's language. So therefore, as they enter the arena, they come out in that alphabet, so the Portuguese alphabet. So that's why South Africa came out after Afghanistan, a third into the stadium. I found it interesting actually that NBC in America basically tried to pay the IOC to make sure America was still at the end, because they were like, oh, people will watch it if America are at the end. No, they probably still wouldn't have watched it. But it's always fascinating the Parade of Nations. I mean, we had a record number, of course, 207, two new countries this year, South Sudan and Kosovo. And of course, we had the Refugee Olympic Team as well. But I mean, you kind of...

COLIN HILDING: It was their first time. Hooray!

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, exactly. Well done. Good on them, three teams. But like, watch the Winter Olympics. There's what, like 80 countries in the Winter Olympics? This is like every country in the world, essentially. So it's kind of like, put your feet up, relax. And my favourite part of this is the commentators trying to, like, stretch. They're like, oh, and here comes Palau. They've got some athletes there, don't they, Andrew? Yes, they do, Bruce. Look at their t-shirts. Oh, here comes Papa New Guinea. I don't know, how's the Canadian representative here? Colin, I mean, do they have to come up with the most random facts for Myanmar or Mongolia as they're coming out into the stadium?

COLIN HILDING: Actually, the Canadian commentators made it a little bit more watchable because they came up with real statistics, and a lot of it was talking about the athlete and the sport they're in, instead of like, oh, well, this is what the country is. They'll talk about that one athlete and say, oh, well, they almost missed out on this Olympics. They also had a lot of interviews backstage, so when some of these countries that had a lot more athletes were going on, instead of having to sit there and talk forever for six minutes as one country is coming out, they'd go back, okay, five minutes ago, we had the flag bearer from this country backstage, and here's a quick interview, and they'll show that on a split screen as the athletes are walking. So that was actually pretty good. I will say that the fact that every single country in the world is pretty much represented. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was sitting there probably at least a dozen times during this. That's not a real country. They're making this one up.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes. Dominica, weren't they just there before the Republic? Dominican Republic? What, they're just making this, they're just eating extra air time.

COLIN HILDING: Every country is going to start splitting into, we're going to, United States of America, Western United States of America.

BEN WATERWORTH: Just like Michael Phelps. He's just his own country at the next Olympics. I should mention that, like, you know, in all mockiness aside, Bruce McEvaney, absolute legend. The guy is just god amongst commentators in Australia. He knows his stuff. He is very intelligent, and yes, he did do exactly kind of what you were mentioning there, Colin. He has random facts, and, you know, I learnt, I think, that 16 of the flag, no, 19 of the flag bearers were judo athletes. I don't know if you knew that, Colin, with your Canadian commentators.

COLIN HILDING: Well, I didn't know that from the commentators, but as a good Olympic viewer, I knew that going into this Olympics.

BEN WATERWORTH: Of course you did. Absolutely. But, Jarrod, I don't know, like, what's your take on particularly, I guess, how Bruce and Andrew Gaze, who, for those who have no idea who Andrew Gaze is, but basically Australia's Michael Jordan is our best ever basketballer ever. And he carried the flag for Australia in the Sydney Olympics back in 2000. So I guess he had a bit of experience, although I did have to cringe every time. He would go, oh, he's not holding the flag, right? You got to put two hands on it and wave it a bit more enthusiastically. Thanks, Andrew. Jarrod, what was your take on their coverage of the great nations of the world?

JARROD LOOBEEK: I thought they did a fairly good job keeping it interesting. I mean, I kind of tune out to the country at that point anyway, because I'm just watching to see what country has the most hideous outfits and hoping that it's not Australia this time around. But yeah, they did a decent job. I do kind of cringe at the points in time where they kind of compare Australia to other countries and rub in a little bit. I think it was with Spain. They rubbed in a little bit that, oh, we've won more gold medals than them and look at their population, blah, blah, blah.

BEN WATERWORTH: They did it with Canada. Did you notice Canada where they came out?

JARROD LOOBEEK: They did it a couple of times. We're doing very well compared to them, blah, blah, blah.

COLIN HILDING: You were bragging about the fact that you're better in the Summer Olympics than Canada, a country that's under ice eight months of the year.

BEN WATERWORTH: Andrew Gaze literally goes, oh, they've only won like 60 gold medals. That surprised me for how good Canada usually are. And it's like, Andrew, you're watching the wrong Olympics. Oh, yeah, no, it's it is kind of funny. Our way of talking about countries and like New Zealand come out and, you know, they've got joint flag bearers. I don't know if that's like a first good on New Zealand. That's like literally how I had to say on New Zealand here. Oh, please do. Please do.

COLIN HILDING: I'm watching this and I had no idea about the rivalry with New Zealand before I started podcasting with you guys. But I'm watching with my wife and as New Zealand comes out, I'm looking at the giant caveman fur coats that these flag bearers are wearing for whatever odd reason. And I'm like, oh, Ben's going to have a field day with this. And my wife's like, why is he from New Zealand? I thought he was Australian. And I'm like, no, he's from Australia. It's like, oh, so this is Australians. I'm like, no, this is New Zealand. And then she's like, wait, so why is he going to field there? Because they look stupid. That's why. She's like, but he's not from New Zealand. It's like, yeah, but they just hate them, OK?

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, they were very fetching fur coats for New Zealanders, I guess.

COLIN HILDING: I want to talk a bit about, just before we move on, I don't know if we're going to cover this at all, but like the wardrobe choices, is it just me or in the winter? Is there a lot more variety? And every country is kind of representing. I swear, 90% of the countries were wearing those ugly, like high school prep school jackets that every country had with like an emblem on it. But then you just have some countries that they had like, you know, something that was a little bit more cultural. And New Zealand is one of the ones who was striking to me because they were wearing just regular outfits and their flag bearers were dressed as like, you know, something out of Quest for Fire. I didn't understand it.

BEN WATERWORTH: They literally spent their budget on trying to win medals. They were like, stuff the outfits, bro, let's win some medals.

COLIN HILDING: We got to represent our culture somehow. They just skinned like an animal on the way into the stadium. It's like, no, we got to do something unique here. But like, I don't understand why every country was wearing the same blazer and then other countries got to do something unique. Is there a reason for that?

BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know. Jarrod, do you have any thoughts perhaps on that? Because, yeah, I think there's so many countries this year. Like, we usually see so many outstanding ones, but I'm struggling to remember the standouts this year.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's kind of... It feels like it's the countries that just can't be bothered. Maybe they make the athletes buy their own clothes. Here are his $10 going by a blazer. Yeah, and just not even interesting blazes. Like, no patterns or anything, just plain colour. Usually clashing with whatever pants they had on. Although they're worse than countries...

COLIN HILDING: Australia's baby blue with the gold ties. I'm looking at it right now.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, very, you know, private school-esque. Not our worst, Colin. Google Athens, and you'll see perhaps the lovely green spray jacket with white lines on it that we decided to wear. 12 years ago. But, yeah, perhaps maybe they were like, oh, we're going to Brazil, your clothes will get stolen anyway, we're not going to spend too much on it. So that's perhaps maybe what they did. Not too sure. The standout, though, I don't know if he's getting much coverage over there in Canada, Colin, but the flag bearer from Tonga, Peter Tufatufa, a taekwondo athlete who walked out in essentially a loin cloth and had oiled himself up. He's getting a lot of coverage here in Australia. Jarrod, what did you think of that? That was, you know, our very near neighbors of Tonga. They certainly stood out.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I mean, if you're going to be the flag bearer, you may as well do something different. Good on him. It was certainly interesting, and the crowd got a kick out of it.

BEN WATERWORTH: I personally love the fact that some of these countries had volunteers as their flag bearers. They obviously have, like, Eritrea. I'm looking here. Their flag bearer was Volunteer.

COLIN HILDING: So they have no athletes that can properly represent them. So they got, like, the bus driver who chaperones them for the day.

BEN WATERWORTH: And I like the fact there was a commentary. I can't remember which nation it was. They had, like, literally one athlete. And then Andrew Gaze is like, oh, they had pretty good odds of being selected as the flag bearer. I don't say. I personally love the little bikes that rode out in front of them with the little signs on it. And I noticed that it was Burundi didn't have a bike. So I don't know why Burundi missed out. They had 206 bikes and they did a strawpile. Oh, sorry, Burundi, you don't get a bike. You just get somebody carrying a sign. And then the little kids with the plants next to them. Wasn't that sweet? So, you know.

COLIN HILDING: Just a little research here. Mr. Greased Up Taekwondo. I think the reason he's getting a lot of press in Australia is because it says he's Australian born.

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, right.

COLIN HILDING: Well, the funny thing is, I'm looking around and you see a lot of American coverage. I guess it was kind of a striking image, but I don't know for whatever reason here in Canada, we just see stuff like this all the time. So, this is when I walk into work, some people are in business, some people are bare chested with loincloths.

BEN WATERWORTH: In Winnipeg, it's just oiled up tongs. They're everywhere. It's just a natural day for me. G'day, Peter. Just oiled up again today. On you go. Jarrod, you sound very...

JARROD LOOBEEK: I'm surprised we haven't started claiming him yet, as Aussie... As Aussie Peter. Yeah, exactly.

BEN WATERWORTH: As soon as he wins the medal. He's Australian. Yep, he's definitely... All the way. We're putting that on the medal tally.

COLIN HILDING: You could have gone into it with your commentary and been like, you know, surprisingly, they don't have more athletes that have won medals here because, of course, the majority of them have won, have been Australian-born.

BEN WATERWORTH: I love the little facts, though, that you learn about these countries. Jamaica, I think they had 69 medals they've won in the Olympics. 68 of them have come in athletics. Now, here's a trivia fact for either of you. I had to Google this because I had no idea. What does Jamaica win medals in? It's not bobsled. Can either of you tell me without Googling it what other sport Jamaica has won a medal in and the history of the Olympics that isn't athletics?

COLIN HILDING: Um, I'm trying to just think about what they could be good at. Uh, basketball?

BEN WATERWORTH: No, not basketball. You have a guess, Jarrod? This is a trivia of the day.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Let's go with shooting.

BEN WATERWORTH: No, cycling. They won a medal in the Moscow Olympics in cycling.

COLIN HILDING: My second guess was rhythmic cycling, so I think I'm close.

BEN WATERWORTH: Where they throw the ribbons in the air, of course. They're very good at that in Jamaica. Just quickly on some of the flag bearers. Several notable flag bearers. Obviously, Michael Phelps, the key one for America. But lots of tennis players. Andy Murray, you would have been happy with this. Jarrod Raffa, he got to carry Spain's. Caroline Wozniacki, the only time she's ever been first in anything, was carrying the flag out for Denmark.

JARROD LOOBEEK: It's funny that you can now, when she's playing so badly. She was not playing in the world for a couple of years, but not just to go now, when she had won in a couple of years.

BEN WATERWORTH: There was, I can't remember which card, I should have written this down, but there was a guy they said was, the second time he'd been flag bearer. Whichever country that was, obviously they've clearly got a lot of athletes to go around. Were you happy with your representative there, from Ms. McLennan there, Colin? Did you think she waved that maple leaf proudly?

COLIN HILDING: Everything Rosie McLennan does, does this country proud. She is pretty much the next Prime Minister, as far as I'm concerned. She's a lock.

BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, gee, you've got a very popular Prime Minister right now, so you must be even more popular.

COLIN HILDING: She's Rosie McLennan, of course.

BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod, were you happy with Anamir's performance out there with the Aussie flag? She seemed to do it well.

JARROD LOOBEEK: It was decent. There's room for improvement in the closing ceremony, so luckily she hasn't set the bar too high for whoever gets that job. But yeah, it was okay. They'd strapped the flag to her feet, probably would have been better, but we'll go with it.

BEN WATERWORTH: My favourite flag bearer was the flag bearer from Bhutan, whose name is Karma. She is an archer, and her name is literally Karma. So clearly what goes around comes around for Karma there.

COLIN HILDING: Anyway, with the Canadian coverage, like I said, they did pretty good with all the countries. When it did get to Jamaica, I don't know if I probably wasn't the only one who's looking for Usain Bolt in the crowd there, but the Canadian commentators, being Canadian, were almost too polite to say they were disappointed he wasn't there or holding the flag. And it's quiet and they're stumbling. They're like, do you see him there? They didn't even want to say the name. Do you see him? I mean, you're referring to Of Course, and he's like, yeah, Usain Bolt. They didn't want to come right out and say it. Oh, we don't want to draw too much attention to the fact that the one guy we wanted to see seems to be absent. So please move quickly, Jamaica.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, we should mention that their actual flag bearer, Shelley Anne Fraser Price, who's got more names than a phone book, she's also going for three gold in 100 metres in a row. Like, she is the female Usain Bolt. And her hair, did you notice that? The green and yellow, that was amazing. And I read that she apparently took three hours to do her hair before she went into the opening ceremony. So great work there. I just wanted to mention, just on the Channel 7 commentary, the fact that it's made a little bit of news. I don't know if you've paid attention to this, Jarrod. When Aruba walked out into the stadium, Bruce McEvaney, the legendary man himself, uttered the following phrase, So Aruba, not only a country, but also the opening word of a Beach Boys song. And you can see why that is making headlines for its cringe-worthy moment, because Andrew Gaze followed that up by singing the opening part of Kokomo.

COLIN HILDING: Can you please just find a clip of that on YouTube to send me? I have to hear that in person.

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, everyone's Googling it right now. I don't know if you've been following that, Jarrod.

COLIN HILDING: Chile, not just a country, but also my favourite spicy food.

BEN WATERWORTH: Hungry, not just a country, but what I'm feeling right now. That's the low point, Jarrod, I believe, in Bruce McEvaney's commentary career.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, he'll be kicking himself for that one.

BEN WATERWORTH: I just love the fact that Andrew Gaze ran with it. You don't just, maybe just ignore that, like, good call, Bruce, but what a team. They're very good athletes there in a room. You don't just start singing Kokomo.

COLIN HILDING: Did, when it got to Bermuda, was he like, next is Bahamas. Come on, pretty mama.

BEN WATERWORTH: I think it would have been funny if, like, the Brazilian organised. That would have been a good in-joke. Oh, the Portuguese alphabet. It's Aruba, Jamaica, who I want to take you home. Oh, the country of, oh, I want to take you home. That's what we're naming the refugees in Brazil.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, we've just officially named, we want to start a petition to officially name the refugee country, who I want to take home.

BEN WATERWORTH: And here comes the athlete from, who I want to take you.

COLIN HILDING: How can we get this much hilarity out of the parade of athletes?

BEN WATERWORTH: I guarantee you that Kokomo will be number one on the ARIA charts here in Australia on Sunday. Bruce McEvaney has that much sleigh for music in Australia.

COLIN HILDING: They made a mistake. It wasn't the first time Kosovo has been in the Olympics, it was the first time Kokomo had been in the Olympics.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah.

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, goodness me. I guess, yeah, at least you guys have had a thing that we've skimmed over here. Did you have something funny to mention about the Canadian Cometary Colony or was that about the same bulk part?

COLIN HILDING: No, just the awkwardness of them not wanting to say they were disappointed he wasn't there. I did want to talk a bit, because you mentioned like how Andy Murray was the flag bearer and everything, Roth and Nadal. Maybe this is just a personal thing. I like tennis in the Olympics and I understand certain sports, they like hockey and basketball, they've made it okay. We'll allow professional athletes in there. But personally, when it comes to flag bearer, I think the Olympics, even though it's great to have tennis, basketball, hockey, things like that in there, when it comes to the Olympics, it's the amateur athletes I think that really should be showcased, like the real amateur athletes. And when you have a flag bearer that's pulling down 70 million a year, I don't feel like it's the same as having somebody out there who is in a loin cloth because they can't afford something better or whatever, I don't know, or Rosie McClendon. And somebody who really is doing this just for the love of the sport, that's just a personal thing on my part. I'm a fan of Rafa Nadal. I think that I'll be rooting for him almost as much as Milo Siranić, but I don't know about that as a choice for a flag bearer, especially when you have such a large country.

BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod, I know you're a huge tennis fan. I know Novak Djokovic carried it out in London. Did Roger Federer not also carry it for Switzerland, I think, at one point, maybe off the top of my head? I mean, what's your take on that?

JARROD LOOBEEK: I've never really thought about it too much, and because I'm such a big Rafa fan, it was exciting, particularly because he was scheduled to carry the flag in London and then miss out on the Olympics. So I was happy that he got the chance to do it. But no, I can see the point. It is a little bit extra special when it is somebody who has had to really, I suppose, fight for their spot in that team, and that's not what they're doing full time, especially if they have a big success story at the Olympics, if it's their fifth Olympics or sixth, or it's their first, and they just made it. It does make it a little bit extra special when it's somebody who has that little bit more of a story behind it.

BEN WATERWORTH: Like Karma from Batan. She is just the epitome of that message. It is interesting.

COLIN HILDING: I mean, I think, I was just gonna say, I think between the two, though, I would rather an opening ceremony flag bearer be this rich athlete, because I think the closing ceremonies is where you're really rewarding who meant the most to the games in that Olympics. So I think it's a little bit more acceptable for the opening ceremonies, because it's just, well, let's put somebody out there that the whole country is going to know and be proud to have representing them.

BEN WATERWORTH: I really hope that whatever that country was, it had the one athlete with Andrew Gaze's, you know, expert commentary that come the closing ceremony. He also says the same thing. Oh, they had a great Olympics, didn't they? They're one athlete. Probably will carry the flag at the closing ceremony, too. Just to guess, so yes. The lighting of the tournament is generally also where it gets extremely exciting. Oh, actually, just actually, before we do that, sorry, one thing we should mention, the symbolism of the whole climate change kerfuffle. They had the whole seed where they planted the seed in those giant silver tower things, which I thought looked like sunglass racks. But I mean, that was kind of cool. They're gonna create a forest of the athletes, 10,000 trees or something along those lines. And they then used it to form the Olympic rings that had big, I mean, that was a nice little image. I think, Colin, we can agree with that. Sure, that was nice.

COLIN HILDING: And all of the Olympic rings were there, which was nice.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, exactly. Yes, they learnt from Sochi when the five volunteers who formed that last ring haven't been seen since. Yes, excited. Jarrod, I mean, that was nice. You liked the whole green rings and stuff.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, that was probably my favourite part, the environmental message. They could have done away with the whole video, even though I did enjoy Judi Dench speaking. This was kind of the highlight of that environmental message that they went with. I thought it was really cool to have all the athletes involved, even though some of them looked a bit confused and were using the, I suppose, seed bank or whatever you want to call it to hang up their flags that they just used in their march in. But apart from that, yeah, it was really good.

BEN WATERWORTH: Nice touch. One thing I'll quickly say, the stadium did look incredibly empty when they, because generally you see all the athletes and they're waiting around and it looks really full. But like, for example, I know Australia only had I think like a quarter of their 400, like only about 100 athletes march. I don't know how many of Canada's march, Colin, but like it seems like less and less athletes are marching. I wouldn't care if I was a swimmer and I was getting up the next morning at six o'clock to swim. I'm marching in the opening ceremony because to me, as much as I've grown up always wanting to be an Olympian, and I still stand by the fact I can make the Australian curling team one day, but I would move hell and high water to be in that opening ceremony. Colin, you nearly made the Seoul Olympics. You would have been in the opening ceremony.

COLIN HILDING: Well, I just want to say I felt especially, it felt like maybe at least a third of the Russian athletes weren't there for some reason. They seem much smaller in comparison, but I wasn't sure what was going on with that. Yeah, I didn't hear anything. I did notice at the end too that I was almost struggling looking around saying, okay, well, where are the athletes? Or where does this end? Because it didn't seem like it was as full, and maybe it's just a bigger stadium. I don't know. Maybe that's one of the reasons why athletics isn't being there. It's just a larger stadium or whatever, but the stage itself could have been smaller too. That would obviously make the rest of the field look bigger. So yeah, I did notice that as well though.

BEN WATERWORTH: They couldn't afford the insurance. They could only pay a certain amount of people to enter the stadium. That's their budget only covered a certain amount. Jarrod, I heard on the Watch The News tonight when they sort of going behind the scenes of the Australian team and all that sort of stuff, and there were calls for them to have the opening ceremony a night earlier so that everybody could march. I don't know if that would change anything.

JARROD LOOBEEK: People still wouldn't go. I mean, that's such a typical Australian thing to do, to be like, I'll change it for us. I mean, that would suit us better. I suppose every country kind of does that, but it's just like, people still wouldn't have done it. It was fine. I'm the same as you. Even if I was competing the next day, I probably would have gone and march anyway. It's the athlete's decision. I mean, if they really want to march, then just go. I mean, people stay up late all the time, deal with it.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, like- People will find out throughout the course of this. I'm not a fan of Michael Phelps personally, but the fact that this is the first time he's ever been at an opening ceremonies, appropriate that he would have to be the flag bearer, even though the guy retires and comes out of retirement more than certain unnamed football players or quarterbacks. But the fact is, there's a guy who's probably the most famous American Olympian of all time now, or at least the most successful, I don't wanna say most famous, but it's the first time in what five Olympics that he's been there for an opening ceremonies.

BEN WATERWORTH: It's fascinating. But yeah, I just, I don't know, to me that would be just such a part of being an Olympian, is walking out into that stadium behind your country's flag and just having that moment. So as Jarrod said, people sat up late all the time, deal with it. Now the lighting of the torch, again, always pretty much the most anticipated part of it. It's always, who's gonna light it? How's it gonna be done? You know, obviously Sydney, you know, it was celebration of women in the Olympics, and it went with Cathy and the big, huge UFO dish up the water that's still apparently trying to rise. In Athens, you had the giant cigarette that sort of rose up. Beijing, you had the guy running on the roof of the stadium with the big paper torch. London, you had those weird little cigarette ashtray things that formed a giant torch. I know I've missed all the Winter Olympics, but we're talking about someones here. This time, we had three people who then lit a witch's brew cauldron that rose up in front of some wind chimes. This was such an anticlimactic end to a torch relay. I mean, this has been run by thousands of people around Brazil. It was lit in Olympia months ago. You know, it's travelled the world. And I was just waiting to see three ladies with crooked noses around it going, toil, toil, toil, trouble, ah, ah, ah, like Thomas Bach was there, like, counting. I have newt. But it was so disappointing. I mean, it was great to see, I'm going to butcher his name, Van de Lai de Lima, who, of course, famously was leading the marathon in Athens 12 years ago, was tackled by that crazed Irish protester guy who also ran onto the track, I remember, at the 2003 British Grand Prix, nearly got killed. If only he had of, then Van de Lai would have won a gold medal. He went on to win the bronze, of course, got the Pierre de Coupertain award. So I think it was kind of fitting that he got to light it. Of course, apparently the big rumour was Pele was meant to light the cauldron, but he felt ill. And also in the stadium, we should mention...

COLIN HILDING: Like, Day of, we should also mention that. Day of, he apparently pulled out.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, which, I mean, that's a big deal. I mean, you know, Brazil doesn't really get to host the Olympics that often. He's like the greatest Brazilian to ever be a Brazilian. And he pulls out.

COLIN HILDING: Next to Giselle, right?

BEN WATERWORTH: Of course, of course. And Hortentia Macari was the second one. And of course, we all saw Guga, Gustavo Curtin, who walked into the stadium bawling his eyes out. I love that. That was such a great image. That was the best image of this whole cauldron, because I found it boring as bat shit. Colin, what did you think of it?

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, well, it's always fun to see, you know, who the athletes are. Even if you aren't familiar with them, and the commentators can kind of give the story, like, oh, this guy was attacked or whatever. That's great. This was kind of ruined again by the Canadian commentators. I think they were... Everybody knew that Pelé wasn't going to be doing it at that point, but they still assumed there was another person to come. So when Vanderlei de Lima or whatever, when he was going up the stairs, one of the commentators actually said, and whoever he hands it off to at the top of the stairs will light the torch. And then he kept going and lit the torch, and there's just this very long silence. And only when the torch is half raised up, they're like, and the cauldron has been lit. Just ignore the fact, build up this anticipation. There's got to be something bigger than him who's going to do this. It's just very awkward.

BEN WATERWORTH: I kind of remember that. I mean, London, obviously, there was a whole big debate, and it had ended up being future athletes. I don't even...

COLIN HILDING: I wasn't at Mr. Bean. Come on, he's the star of that ceremony.

BEN WATERWORTH: I don't even remember who it was in Beijing, but of course, it was the runner guy in Athens, and then of course, Kathy Freeman in Sydney. But yeah, it was kind of... I was a little bit... When they handed it to him and they mentioned... I didn't know him by just looking at him, but as soon as they said who he was, I was like, oh, I remember that guy. But I was kind of... It was so anticlimactic, because when he put something like, oh yeah, there's going to be somebody else that's going to rise up, and Pele's actually there, surprise! But I actually... Can I just point out? I have no disrespect to Pele. He's a legend of the world. He's amazing. He's god to Brazil. But I remember seeing Muhammad Ali standing on that stage in Atlanta. The guy was obviously not entirely healthy, but he stood there and he did it. He did America proud. Why couldn't Pele pull a Muhammad Ali, everybody? Come on! Just want to put it out there and be rude to Pele. Jarrod, what did you think of the whole cauldron lighting?

JARROD LOOBEEK: The best thing about it was the ring up, the backup choice. That was good. I appreciated that it was him. But apart from that, yeah, a bit kind of lackluster. I suppose I get now why they did it from Colin, the whole environmental thing, but I don't know if the Australian commentators really touched on that. I was expecting to see a flaming soccer ball kicked into the torch or whatever, or a flaming volleyball or something. Flaming Giselle. Along those lines that we didn't get.

COLIN HILDING: Giselle rips off her dress.

BEN WATERWORTH: Lines, she flashes, she lifts up her top.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Boom, boom, boom. Yeah, or even something I suppose more environmental, like a tree, but I suppose burning a tree has certain issues. That's probably sending the wrong message. Yeah, it could have been better, but good choice of the marathon runner.

BEN WATERWORTH: I would have liked to see Jaws come up on a cable car, unscaling the roof.

COLIN HILDING: Well, I kept waiting for the great Moonraker reference, the Rio Opening Ceremonies, and we didn't get it.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, exactly. We got the Judy Dench reference. That's enough bond for the Brazil Olympics. But yeah, that was the opening ceremony, and it's interesting, apparently as well, they're kind of taking a leaf out of Vancouver and Sochi and not having the cauldron at the... They're going to have it in the main public area where you can view it. I don't like that. I like the flame over the stadium. That's kind of traditional. It's always good for the television shots when you've got, you know, a Sane Bolt winning with the flame in the background. It's symbolic of the Olympics.

COLIN HILDING: He's not running there. That's the problem.

BEN WATERWORTH: Neymar winning the gold for Brazil in the Macarena, Macarena Stadium. It's the Macarena Stadium. But I mean, does that bother you, Colin, or don't give a shit?

COLIN HILDING: No, I actually just want to say I really like the giant spinning structure they have around the cauldron there. But at the same time, I find that that is kind of distracting because the flame is smaller and everything. And with that giant spinning structure from the wrong angle, you can't tell there's a flame there at all. I think that's the only issue I have.

BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod, anything to add or don't really care?

JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, with the spinning structure, I thought that was cool. It did look weird from the side. They kind of showed the side angle of it to, I suppose, give you some depths of how it looked, but then it just looked weird, and over my head, I'm like, go back to the front. And then, yeah, I agree, it was kind of hard to see the flame, and it felt like it was sitting a little bit too low, and it was bothering me. It should have been a metre or two higher in the centre.

BEN WATERWORTH: Thomas Bach should have gotten his broomstick and just rose it up in the air. Rise the flame! Rise it! Rise! You're going to get sick of that joke in about a week's time, people. So just a few things, though. That's the Olympics, everybody. Really, now, we're going to touch on a little bit, I guess, on day one and a few other things quickly, because, I mean, at the time we're recording this, literally, day one has begun. So we're going to be aiming to do an episode every day, so you're kind of going to get two in a day almost from us today, because we delayed this a little bit. But we'll look ahead to day one. Hopefully, you'll listen to this before you listen to what happened on day one. But just really quickly before we get to day one, I think one key thing of note that we should mention in terms of just the Olympics and news in general is the fact that they had a vote this week for new sports to be included in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in four years' time. Now, generally, you know, they'll add one or two sports. Like this year, obviously, golf and rugby are returning back to the Olympics. We haven't really touched on that, but if you didn't know that, hey, golf and rugby are coming back to the Olympics. So we're back to 28 sports. Come again in four years' time. We've got about 87 sports, because not only have they included baseball and softball returning for the first time since Beijing, of course, we have the debut sports of karate, skateboarding, surfing, and whatever the hell sport climbing is. So we have got six basically new sports coming into the Olympics, although technically two of them are returning. I had no idea that they could include this many. I thought like they were meant to be saving money with the Olympics. I'm kind of glad Hobart's not hosting the Olympics now in four years, because I have no idea, like sport climbing maybe up Mount Wellington. We couldn't have surfing in Tasmania. Like seriously, I'll jump in the ocean and it'll create a wave. That's how you do it. I don't know. But Jarrod, like baseball, softball, yes. OK, great. Karate, yes. OK. It's up there with Taekwondo and judo. Do with it what you want. Skateboarding, yeah, I guess it's no different to snowboarding at the Winter Olympics. It's there for the kids and all that sort of stuff and hip. But sport climbing, what is sport climbing? And surfing, is that an Olympic sport? I don't know.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's questionable. I feel like the Olympics should be the pinnacle of whatever sports are being represented. Is the Olympics the pinnacle of sport climbing? Well, maybe, but nobody knows what it even is.

BEN WATERWORTH: I think they just invented this sport. I think they literally sat down like, let's invent sport climbing.

JARROD LOOBEEK: I mean, squash has been snubbed again, which is a travesty, and that's happening every Olympics. I think they should probably just give up and invent a new type of squash. Call it something else. Leave it squash.

BEN WATERWORTH: Squash climbing.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, squash climbing.

BEN WATERWORTH: Um, yeah, it's like, I have no idea what the hell, like, is this like rock climbing on acid? Like, I don't know.

COLIN HILDING: That's what it looks like.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it's basically rock climbing. So Colin, what's your thoughts on this?

COLIN HILDING: I actually, in a way, have more of an issue with surfing because I just don't understand how logistically this works. Does this mean that they're going to have to build or they're going to do this in some type of manmade, you know, wave pool? Or are we only ever going to be able to have Olympics in places, you know, right by the ocean with a beach? Like, are Summer Olympics going to have to go away from any location that doesn't have great waves? And how do you control that? Because isn't a lot of that to do with the tide and everything? I just don't understand how it's even going to work. I don't know if it will ever happen, but if chess becomes a sport, I'm in. Let's just start taking votes for a sport that should be included. Chess, for one. PlayStation surfing is way easier to control than the tide is. Kelly Slater's pro surfing or whatever it was. I had a question though. Are they eliminating any sports at the same time?

BEN WATERWORTH: Apparently not. No, these are just all being included. So they're all new, and according to what I'm seeing right now, no sports are getting the flick. They're just making a lot more sports to watch.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Apparently wrestling was originally going to be kicked out. Then it got added to the list of sports that could be voted in.

BEN WATERWORTH: That was, I think, a year ago. Yeah, about a year or so ago that happened, because there was a huge big controversy over that, because that was one of the original ancient Olympic sports. We talked about that the other day, but we'll get to that when it starts.

COLIN HILDING: I'm all for adding new sports if they make sense. I think skateboarding makes sense. The X Games really has become so big that, you know, it's influenced the winter Olympics obviously a lot. It's appropriate that it's affecting the summer ones, and it's something you can control, and it's something that is very athletic. It's spectacular to watch. I don't understand surfing. I don't understand how it would be fun to watch, because aren't they usually only up for about 10 seconds or something like that? And you don't control the waves. I want to do more research before commenting, but it just does not make any sense to me.

BEN WATERWORTH: You're just saying that because Canada doesn't know what surfing is. You know that Australia is probably going to win a shitload of gold medals in surfing, because we're up there with America as the best in the world. I think we're right behind Hawaii with it.

COLIN HILDING: We have TSN 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. I'll be doing plenty of surfing this week.

BEN WATERWORTH: 7 mate, yes, exactly. That's the surfing network in Australia.

COLIN HILDING: We'll be surfing between 7 and 7 mate.

BEN WATERWORTH: 7 bro. 7 dude.

COLIN HILDING: 7 bro.

BEN WATERWORTH: But I think we can all also agree, baseball and softball, I don't know why they got rid of it in the first place. I always thought they were legitimate Olympic sports. I mean, obviously Japan. I think they're pretty much, them and Cuba are the baseball kings of the world, even more so than America, and that's technically what their national past is. I mean, Japan is baseball crazy.

COLIN HILDING: I don't think there's any way that you could go back to Tokyo and not have it. So maybe that's the reason why. Maybe they're just going to... This was their way to please the Japanese here. As soon as Tokyo is over, they're like, we're sorry, softball, it's out again.

BEN WATERWORTH: So we've now got 4 years to learn what sport climbing is. So again, they probably just invented it. This could be a sport. All 3 of us could have a crack at actually making the Olympics with because it's new. It's like, you know, baseball, like they just invented it. They were drunk in their driveway one night, they combined like a bunch of sports together. No, thanks, Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

COLIN HILDING: Because when stair climbing becomes a sport, then I'm already at Olympic level.

BEN WATERWORTH: When sleeping becomes an Olympic sport, I'm there. I will be up there with the best in the world. So, yes. Interesting news for the week. So, look forward to those sports coming in Tokyo. But day one is here. Get excited. We don't have to... Thomas Bach is still going. But a lot of sports happening on day one. They're happening right now as we're recording. Now, Colin, I don't know if you can give us maybe a Canadian perspective of what sports you might make the semi-finals in. But we have a few here according to the Australian preview that obviously our big one, Jarrod, today is the 4x100 metres in the swimming, our female swimmers defending our gold medal from London. We're the favourites in that. We've also got Mack Horton. Mack, that's his name, Mack. In the 400-metre freestyle chance for medal there, we've got the men's road race, Tassie's own Richie Port. He's in with a shot of a medal chance there. Could celebrate a Tasmanian medal on day one, not just an Australian one. There's rowing taking place with a couple of Aussies going on in there. And Melissa Tapper, table tennis. We were talking a little bit about this off-air Jarrod. She's becoming the first Australian to take part in an Olympics and a Paralympics. She was born with brachial plexus when she tore the nerves between her neck and right shoulder, competing in the London Paralympics 2012 and obviously has trained long and hard and has qualified for the Olympics as well. So good on you, their young Melissa. I will be looking forward to it. And also quickly, Australian perspective too. Jarrod, the Boomers and the Opals are playing the basketball. Matilda's, we lost to Canada the other day. We can talk about that.

COLIN HILDING: We can talk about that.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, already we're losing to Canada in the Olympics. We played Germany and both the Kookaburras and the Hockey Roos play in the hockey. Jarrod, for Australia, we can win a couple of medals today. We're excited.

JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, don't we know it. I mean, Bruce has already packed up that medal from the 4x100 relay. He's done the classic commentators jinx. So if we lose that, we know who to blame there. Yeah, it's a good opening day for Australia. I think there are some chances. I mean, maybe I don't rate us as high in that relay as Bruce, but it does seem like we are the favourites. So fingers crossed.

BEN WATERWORTH: Colin, do you have any Canadian events to look forward to today?

COLIN HILDING: Well, there's lots of rowing going on right now. I'm talking to you, so I can't watch it. So I don't know how we're doing. So by the time this airs, I may be embarrassed. But I mean, rowing is basically the equivalent of what hockey and speed skating is for us in the Winter Olympics. Rowing, we always dominate. So expecting a lot of that. But you mentioned soccer. We beat Australia playing Zimbabwe today. We won the bronze in London. So the Canadian women's soccer team, big, big hopes here for Canada. Probably one of the biggest stories we've had, and that's what everybody's going to be watching today, I think.

BEN WATERWORTH: We should mention too, Neil, great win. I actually went to bed at about 4 o'clock in the morning and I sort of looked, oh shit, it started, and you guys had scored a goal in 20 seconds. So go back and watch the highlights of that. And the Matildas have been talked up as a potential medal chance, but not when we go down within 20 seconds of the opening game. So Canada already won against Australia, Neil, in these Olympics. We should mention though, there are 12 gold medals actually being decided on day one. So we have the cycling men's road race. The first medal will be decided in the women's 10 metre air rifle. Aren't we all looking forward to that? There's actually an article on our beloved news.com.au. I no longer work for that organisation, so I can rip shit into them again. But they had an article, the easiest sports to win Olympic medals in. That was literally their article. And they claimed that archery and shooting were the easiest sports to win in, because anyone can train and be good enough to win gold in those. So I would love to get a shooter on this show to perhaps find that journalist and see if they agree with that. Other medals being decided today, the men's 10 metre air pistol is going on, the women's 48 kilogram judo, we're looking forward to that one, the men's team archery is being decided today. Actually, I like archery, it's quite fun to watch. More judo, men's 60 kilogram going on today as well. Fencing, the women's individual epai, I wonder how Miranda Frost will go in that one. And there's another time, another day of reference. And the women's 48 kilogram weight lifting, wow, that's right up there. And of course swimming, men's 400 metre individual medley, the men's 400 freestyle, the women's 400 individual medley, and as we mentioned, the 4 by 100 freestyle relay. Do we want to make any predictions for the women's individual epai, anybody? Who's going to win that? I'm going to say France. So, that's about all I can tell you. I'm looking at some athletes currently going on right now. Here's some live updates. Raissa Costa of Brazil is leading Tiffany Gerardot of Switzerland 1513.

COLIN HILDING: Ah, spoilers!

BEN WATERWORTH: Sorry if anybody is listening to this like two hours after we've recorded this episode. So, yeah, exciting times. We're going to come back tomorrow and talk about day one. We'll find out who won the Women's Individual EPE. Will it be Raissa Costa? Watch this space. I really hope she does well. For Brazil, Colin, I guess from hearing what else is going on there, anything that you're looking forward to outside of a Canadian perspective on day one? Or are you just happy that day one is here?

COLIN HILDING: I'm so happy day one is here. I can't wait to start watching it. And yeah, this is going to be my entire weekend and then the rest of the week. I don't know how I'm going to get by having to go to work in the next week because there's just so much to watch.

BEN WATERWORTH: That's work.

COLIN HILDING: Just quit my job.

BEN WATERWORTH: I quit because the Olympics are on. Jarrod, what are you looking forward to outside of Bruce jinxing us into winning the silver in the 4x100m relay?

JARROD LOOBEEK: Probably the archery. I think the road race too. I think that will be fun to see, depending on how it finishes. I'm hoping it will be a bunch sprint at the end is always exciting to watch. So if we get a good finish to that, that will be perfect.

BEN WATERWORTH: I'm definitely looking forward to who will get their gold medal strip from them in eight years for testing positive for drugs. So bring on the men's road race. Now, just before we go, we are on iTunes now. We've already got one rating. So thank you for that one person. We appreciate that. I'll pat myself on the back later for leaving that. So subscribe to us on iTunes.

COLIN HILDING: Check to see what the rating was before you thanked the pen.

BEN WATERWORTH: It was five stars. It was five stars.

COLIN HILDING: It was a positive one. It was like one star. It's like, thank you. We will try harder.

BEN WATERWORTH: It was okay. We have an email address now. offthepodiumathotmail.com. If you wish to give us your thoughts or just say hello or if you're Thomas Bach, tell us how to count on your cauldron. And Facebook, facebook.com.com. I think we're up to about seven likes now. So aiming for double digits by episode three. So yes, thank you. But yeah, we'll be back. Send us in anything and we will recap the results. Look ahead. And Colin, I think you had... I'm putting you on the spot here because I think you were going to prepare something, but I don't know if you did or not. The apps we should quickly mention. There's an Australian team app. You've got a Canadian team app. And on the Canadian team app, you've got little facts about your athletes, which are very fascinating.

COLIN HILDING: Yeah, the official Team Canada app has... They actually had the athletes fill out questionnaires, like kind of like you're in school and you have to write it out by hand, questions and everything. So I don't think I'll cover one today. Maybe we'll see if we can pick certain athletes on certain days they compete. But there's some questions in there about the sport, but then there's some funny questions in there like, you know, what's your favourite guilty pleasure food? If you were a superhero, who would you be? Things like that. So some of these are pretty good. So we'll go over those maybe daily if we can find an athlete each day.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I found an exciting thing here on the Australia one, Jarrod. I know we don't necessarily have one exciting, but we have a section on here called fan messages where you can send messages to your favourite athletes. And they've actually got it public.

COLIN HILDING: Otherwise known as Twitter.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes. Jarrod, do you remember back in the day, what was it, HeroGram? You used to be able to send the athletes in the Sydney Olympics. Do you remember those? Yep, good.

COLIN HILDING: We got the confirmation.

BEN WATERWORTH: But these are literally just scrolling through here. So Riley from WA writes to Patrick Mills, our basketballer, I hope you win. Thought about that one long and hard. Oh, he's a Tasmanian. Isabelle from Tasmania writes to Alana Boyd, I hope you go well in Rio, well, at least she's got the right Olympics. I have been learning about you at school. I will be watching you in the Rio Olympics. Your sport is very cool. Good luck. That's nice. Well, he's one from Matilda in WA, I am six years old. I hope you do good. Good luck. That's to Kate Campbell. To Scott Bowden from Aubrey Miller in Queensland, Good luck. Don't hurt yourself.

COLIN HILDING: Best advice ever.

BEN WATERWORTH: And finally, this is the best one from another Aubrey in Queensland to Bronte Barrett, Good luck. She thought about that one.

COLIN HILDING: There goes our seven likes, all taken back.

BEN WATERWORTH: So download the official Canadian and Australian team apps via the Apple and Android store, and wherever it is.

COLIN HILDING: By the way, if Aubrey, the six year old, wants to write in to Off The Podium, we would like some advice too. We often hurt ourselves on this show. We want to hear good luck. Please, all the six year olds write us.

BEN WATERWORTH: If you have a fan message to send to us, we're competing for the next two weeks. We're not like swimmers. We don't compete for a week and then get a week off. We're here for 16 days on our butts, speaking into a microphone. It is ruling. Coming up with Thomas Bach jokes every day.

JARROD LOOBEEK: If we could have been at the opening ceremony, we would have been there.

BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. Exactly. And if we had money, we would be in Brazil right now, but we don't. So if you have money and want to send us to Brazil, we will happily do it, but we might miss a couple of days on recording. Whatever. If you have any Thomas Bach jokes, please email them through to us. We will appreciate it. Colin, thank you for your time. And go Canada for making goals against Zimbabwe.

COLIN HILDING: Yes. And we're sorry that we haven't won as much as Australia. Our apologies.

BEN WATERWORTH: So you should be. Andrew Gaze is disappointed. Jarrod, thank you for your time. And thank you for reminding us that people should stay up late and should get over it.

JARROD LOOBEEK: No problem. That's going to be a constant theme, this Olympics, if you're living in Australia.

BEN WATERWORTH: And in the meantime, all our best to Aruba, Jamaica, and our favourite country of the Olympics coming up. I want to take you. Good night from Off The Podium.