The Sports Episode
It's time to take a brief break from our interviews as we bring back the gang to talk about the Olympic sports and discuss everything about them in a long overdue episode! We go over what sports currently work and what sports currently don't work at both the Summer & Winter Olympics, and try to make sense about how some of them are held during the Olympics. We also go over the sports that could be included at the Olympics and discuss which are the ones we'd love to see in place of some of the current ones on the schedule. Added to this we talk about whether or not demonstration sports should return as well as the return of artistic events in the future. It's one great episode that you won't want to miss!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast. Taking a break from interviews as we bring the squad back together to talk about something we've been wanting to talk about for a long time. It's the sports of the Olympics. It's our sports episode. I think throughout all our coverage of Tokyo and many other episodes, we've always said we should do an episode talking about the sports of the Olympics. What works? What doesn't? What doesn't? Rapper Chargers and shit. Me here to do it today because we are a show of our word, mostly. Well, we'll see how that goes. My name is Ben, and as always, when I say bring the squad back together, I've got my two esteemed professional co-hosts with me, including a man from Emu Plains who knows more about the sports of the Olympics than anybody else in Emu Plains, unless there's real Olympic historians. I don't know the population quite. Anyway, Jarrod Loobeek here. Hello, Jarrod. Welcome back. It's a pleasure to have you back on the show.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thank you. It's good to be back.
BEN WATERWORTH: And joining us all the way from the True North, Strong and Free, from Winterpeg, from that place that looks the same and knows all about the sports. It's Colin Hilding. Colin, welcome back.
COLIN HILDING: Thank you. And you shouldn't have said professional co-hosts, because now I feel like we have to leave.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I should have to leave. You two can stay, maybe, potentially. But no, we've always mentioned that this is an episode we should do. Just really a general open discussion about the sports on both the winter and summer program. What works? What doesn't? Looking at some of the sports that have been in the Olympics and what we could bring back, what we can get rid of and the IOC recognised sports that maybe we could bring back. Talk about things like demonstration sports that used to be a thing and maybe maybe aren't just kind of really an open discussion. We don't really have a structure to this or any sort of planned things. We're not going to come up with an official designated Off The Podium list of sports. We're just going to talk about them and everything and shit. Colin, I'm going to start with you. Just a general question right now about where we're at with both the summer and winter Olympics. How do you think we are right now with the sports? 34 for the summer if we're removing a couple. We're going on the Paris program right now, by the way, just to say where I am. What was it? 35 at Tokyo. And for the winter, what are we at about like 14, 15, I believe. So yeah, I mean, just general thoughts initially as we get into this in-depth discussion on Off The Podium.
COLIN HILDING: I think we made it pretty clear during Tokyo. I mean, there's definitely a frustration with the summer sports and the flip-flopping, you know, we're going to bring it back for one time and then get rid of it. I don't understand, sure, it's great that you have the home countries that can kind of pick their sports, but it should probably be a little bit more structured because, I mean, you get people into something, and then you're like, well, it's gone next time because we're bringing in 16 new sports, and half of those probably aren't going to last the next one. I do like the fact that we have more team sports being introduced in the summer games. It would be interesting. I don't know where you would find them, but it would be interesting to see more team sports in the Winter Olympics. I have to do some research to figure out what winter team sports are not included in there. But there's tons of things you can do. You can do a polar bear relay or something like a polar bear swim relay, not real polar bears. That works. But it's weird when you have the same amount of days for both the summer and winter Olympics, and you have twice as many sports in summer, and it feels like in the summer, it's the same sport over and over and over again. So, you know, the issue may be more too many variations of the same sport, as opposed to, you know, just let's have different type of sports included all around.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod, initial thoughts as we get into this very professional conversation on this very professional podcast?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I feel like there's not enough sports, and I'm always going to advocate for just like more. I hate this, like add something, remove something. I think just keep adding as far as I'm concerned. And if they're concerned about it's too long or it doesn't work for TV's or this that whatever else, there's plenty of, I think, like Colin said, like events that could be shortened down or culled. I'm sure we'll get into rapid charges and semi-finals and quarterfinals and whatever else. But yeah, I'm all for just adding sports. I think the Olympics should be the pinnacle of every kind of like sport that exists pretty much.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, that's one thing that I definitely agree with, is that any sport at the Olympics, that should be the pinnacle of that sport. And we should be seeing the best athletes in the world. It's, you know, obviously the Olympics were built on the level of amateur sport, and that was held a long time, and we still have that with some sports. I mean, wrestling technically, we're not having, you know, Hulk Hogan and all that, and the professional wrestling, right? I mean, boxing is very distinct between professional and amateur boxing, but I mean, to me, the Olympics is the peak of sport. It should be the best of the best there. And where you have sports which people question, people question golf, tennis, soccer, these sort of sports, you know, basketball even, like, it should be a level where there can be something worked around that, where they are purely the best, so that they are there to kind of be there with that. But yeah, it's sort of just interesting how it does work. Jarrod, you touched there on the whole notion of, let's bring in sports, which means we have to remove sports, or let's be more inclusive with the events, but then that means we've got to remove events. And one thing that has been really fascinating learning through all the interviews that we've been doing and some that are still to air, is that you learn so much about how, you know, you can be a world champion in one event in a sport and be the best in the world in that for a decade, but it's not at the Olympics because it got removed because they needed to include a mixed relay, or, you know, something like that. And it's fascinating that these things kind of work. So, yeah, I'm kind of with you there, Jarrod, that it would be great to have, like, more, but it comes down from a fact of, how do you do that? Like, do you increase it to three weeks? Let's have a three-week Olympic for the Summer Olympics, particularly, you know, and let's have more. I would assume that that would be something that TV stations would be frothing at the bit for, but then do you kind of make it too much? You know, we talked recently about how the Summer and the Winter, sorry, the Winter Olympics kind of went from, what, like a 14-day to a 16-day to match with the Summers, and kind of, you know, is that appropriate? I mean, one thing that could be a potential that doesn't work, I know the time of recording this, FIFA are really talking about making the Men's World Cup a two-year event, which I adamantly am opposed to. That's stupid. That takes away from the prestige of what that event is. So does making it a three-week event make it worse because then you kind of, you know, just overexposing it? So, yeah, it's kind of balancing that really isn't there because there are so many other sports, which I think we all agree should be at the Olympics. Jarrod, I know you're a big advocate for squash. I think I've really joined you on the squash page there. I think that's definitely a sport that should be at the Olympics. I personally am a cricket person that I think cricket, if handball and rugby are at the Olympics, which is sports that are very niche to certain parts of the world, I would argue cricket is exactly the same category and is growing. Maybe on that sort of transition, we could maybe talk about just sports right now that you can think of that you would like to see at the Olympics. Jarrod, I'll start with you. I mean, there is a list. We've got this Wikipedia page in front of us of IOC recognised sports. But I mean, even kind of go outside of that, if there are sports that aren't on this IOC list that perhaps you think maybe could be recognised potentially moving forward.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think I'm with you on the whole cricket thing. To me, that makes sense. Like if a sport has a World Cup and it has a fair amount of countries in it, then I just think why not be an Olympic sport? And the other one, I suppose, that stands out to me is probably netball. And I do hope that the two of those, like I feel like there's potential there for Brisbane, given Australia's track record in those sports, that we might be able to get those over the line. But yeah, those two, I just think why not? And like you say, other sports are region-specific. Netball, I suppose, kind of is, I suppose, more of like a Commonwealth sport. But if countries know that this new sport is entering the Olympics, and depending on what the qualification system is and how they're going to work that out, then there's incentive there to train up in that sport and introduce it and get good at it. And something like, I feel like netball, like it's something they could take off. Like, it's not hugely different. Like, it's got similarities to basketball, obviously. Yeah, so I suppose cricket and netball, like the two that I see as being probably the most realistic and obviously always advocating to get our squash into the Olympics as well.
BEN WATERWORTH: There used to be sort of a real thing around, yeah, the participation and everything along those lines. And I mean, the ISC has often been criticised that a lot of these sports are still very European centric. You know, they're very European based. And look, I'm not against handball. I fucking love handball. I'm not going to sit here and say, get rid of handball from the Olympics. But I mean, realistically, who plays handball? It is Europe and some Northern African countries. I mean, that's it. You know, it is one of these very selective sports to me, which is very niche to that. And you could then argue, well, so are winter sports, Ben, but, you know, there's a reason why you've got a winter and a summer Olympics. You can't have cross-country skiing at the Rio Olympics. It's not going to work. But then you add rugby, which a lot of people are like, oh, rugby's not played. But rugby is booming around the world, particularly with rugby sevens. I mean, Colin, you would know that in Canada, like a non-traditional rugby country. But it is very big there in Canada. We're seeing the US and I mean, Japan, it has gone through the roof. They held the last men's World Cup in 2019. And cricket is doing similar things, particularly with the form of 2020, which has really been able to make it more accessible to a lot of countries around the world. So and I think that's how you kind of can grow these sports, is adding them to the Olympics and kind of doing things along those lines. Colin, I mean, sort of we're going on tenets as we do on Off The Podium. But I mean, the question was sports that you would like to see included, that maybe aren't included?
COLIN HILDING: You know, I think one of the things that's great about having the Pan Am Games, at least having more coverage here in the Pan American countries, which I would assume there'd be more coverage here in the Pan American countries, is that you get these sports that are kind of trial bear and maybe they'll be included in the Olympics in the future. So I know the squash is a Pan Am Games sport here, which, you know, I hadn't even thought about that because it's not like it gets huge TV coverage here. But that would be a good one to include. One that I would love to see in the Olympics would be water skiing. And I don't understand how water skiing hasn't become an Olympic sport. You know, it has everything that you would want. It's got excitement. It's it's it's cool. It's it's got tricks. It's it's not too long. You know, you have a limited amount of time that each competitor gets. That would probably be top of my list. I have some imaginary sports that I love to maybe include those later. But like a dressage, like dressage, yeah, that's not a real thing. But, you know, I completely agree. I think I actually it sounds really weird. But during the Commonwealth Games, you guys have to explain to me what lawn bowling was that I'm like, this does not sell on grass. But then I watched it. I'm like, you know, I don't think I'd be opposed to this being in the Olympics. I mean, it's not going to be top of my list. But it's nice to have things that are, you know, that are new, that are fresh, that aren't necessarily we invented a sport. I think that's kind of the problem I have. And it's probably different living, you know, your side of the world where it's a bigger thing. But part of the problem I have with like surfing is that it almost feels like, OK, well, this is a recreational sport that they decided. Here are some rules around that we can make it competitive. So it's almost as if they invented a sport to be in the Olympics. And maybe it is super competitive. Some parts of the world is definitely not here. But there are things out there like water skiing that is a competitive sport, that is flashy, it is interesting and different, and for whatever reason, it's just not included.
BEN WATERWORTH: There are a few. I want to go through a list here. I found of sort of the most popular sports in the world, according to a couple of sources, and we can look at some of these other sports. We'll start with obviously summer. We'll talk about winter in a moment in terms of that are recognised by the IOC. But yeah, like I definitely agree. I mean, water sports would be a great one. I think that would be fantastic. I think the issue, though, with any sort of water-based sport like that is, you know, it may restrict some countries from being able to bid for an Olympics, although I guess we're going to see the surfing in Tahiti for Paris, so it's kind of literally on the other side of the world, so you can work around that. But there's sort of a push forward to what needs to be that we will have eventually on this show. We spoke to our first speed skater, Daniel Gregg, from Australia, and he was sort of talking about his background of roller sports and how sort of roller sports were basically invented for ice sports to do something in the summer. And he was sort of talking about how speed roller skating has been on the cusp of the IRC for so long, it just always keeps getting bumped, you know, when baseball and that got brought back, when rugby and golf was nearly there. And it sounded so exciting, like, and to see that and, you know, that to me is how they've added skateboarding to kind of be like, oh, it's the summer snowboarding and everyone loves snowboarding, but it didn't really work. I feel that's different with speed roller skating. Like, that would be fun. I don't see how that would be, because I love speed skating. Speed skating is a great sport, so do it on land. Like, why not? And even kind of have like roller derby, like, watch that, that sport's epic. Like, you know, so kind of there's plenty of roller sports to me that I think would be fantastic. I'm a massive Formula One fan, but I obviously realise that you can't have motor racing at the Olympics because you're not allowed to have any form of motorized sort of apparatus. Push cart? Push cart. There's obviously that risk of it not being fair, and you could not have Formula One at the Olympics because there's a reason why Mercedes wins and Williams don't. Like, there's a discrepancy there, and there's not equal equipment. So, I'm looking here quickly, though, at the Recognised International Federations, and some of the ones here that I think would be fantastic. You know what I'm going to say? Cheerleading, which is a rumoured possible thing for LA. And if you actually watch competitive cheerleading, it's pretty fucking epic. Like, I'm sorry to break dancers who are listening. I've never seen it, and I'm skeptical. And this could be that, like, we said this about sport climbing during Rio, and we loved it. We could love break dancing in a couple of years' time, who knows? But I don't know, but competitive cheerleading is fun. And it's not just for reasons that you're thinking. Like, that's a good part. I like watching it because of that. For the men as well, not just the women. But, I mean, it's very big in your part of the world, Colin.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and in all fairness, I mean, it sounds ridiculous to say, oh, well, cheerleading. I mean, change the name. Don't call it cheerleading. What's different between that and artistic swimming, you know? Exactly. It's just water. And you can have more people involved. You know, there's the gymnastics aspect to it. So cheerleading to me makes total sense. But I do think they need to not call it cheerleading because cheering implies that you are assisting somebody else that's no longer there. Come up with a different name for it. I think more people probably wouldn't laugh at it.
BEN WATERWORTH: And Jarrod, I know you're a huge fan of both artistic swimming and rhythmic gymnastics. So I'm sure you'd be very big on the cheerleading, adding some pom poms, and we've got ribbons and batons over in the rhythmic. I mean, God, just all these apparatus are just growing.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, why not? I think, yeah, like you say, it includes so many elements of other sports that I just I don't see why not put it in there. I want to see people doing backflips and tumbling and breaking chins and whatnot.
BEN WATERWORTH: The other ones here that I kind of like here. So flying disc, like, you know, what's that? Frisbee, Ultimate Frisbee. Disc golf is actually fun. If you've ever played disc golf, that's actually really, really fun. I mean, you've got a lot of combat sports here. You know, things like kickboxing and wushu and all those kind of ones as well. Ski, mountaineering. I don't know why that's under the summer sort of section here that I'm looking. Polo, lacrosse, obviously Canada's national sport for summer, which has been in the Olympics before. The ones here that I'm questioning, though, I don't know how I'd feel watching chess at the Olympics. I mean, I know it's a big thing, but a bridge. Yeah, maybe not like billiards. You know, it's kind of fun to play. Darts would be fun just because if you've ever actually watched professional darts, you think darts would be boring. But like we had a world championship, I think, in Australia, and it was like at one of our biggest sporting stadiums. They got like 50,000 people to fucking dance. This is darts. Did you see that, Jarrod, when that went to Docklands in Melbourne about that sort of the thing? Have you ever seen it, though? Like it's epic.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I just imagine they must have advertised it as something else to get that many people there. But I'll take your word for it.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's Melbourne. You know, you could put off the podium at Docklands and we'd get 50,000 people. Colin, have you ever seen professional darts on TV? It's brilliant.
COLIN HILDING: No, have I ever told the darts story that I have?
BEN WATERWORTH: No, but now you can't leave without not tell it, Colin.
COLIN HILDING: I was like 10 years old, and my friend had this outdoor dart board. It was kind of like a big one that you hung on your fence, and then you threw larger darts. So we're talking maybe a foot long. And he was going to retrieve his darts. And I'm like, oh, you know, he's standing to the side because he had some that was off the board. I'm like, I'm just going to throw mine while I'm there. So I throw my dart, and the next day I see it's sticking right out of his back. He's like, oh, he just got shot in the back by a sniper.
BEN WATERWORTH: So don't play darts around.
COLIN HILDING: No, and it runs in the family because at one point, my sister and I, we were at a neighbour's house, and they had a dart board in their basement, and my sister was throwing the dart. And the next thing I know, the cat that's in the corner of the basement, my sister nailed the cat with the dart. If we found a sport that the Hilding family will not be competing in, it's definitely darts. But I mean, it's, you know, I kind of took some shots at archery. I did watch some archery. It's not too bad. But if you have something like archery, darts is, you got shooting, you have archery, you have darts. I think between those three, I could probably see darts being the most exciting to watch.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think just any of these target sports, often when we've talked a lot during Tokyo, I mean, I love watching archery. I love watching shooting. They just become so much more exciting than you actually think they are. Just quickly on sort of the summer aspect here, I've found, according to sportytel.com, what a website, the top 10 most popular sports in the world. And I think they're basing this based on fans. And of all of these, all of these are Olympic sports, except for two of them. I mean, one sort of maybe just got removed from the Olympics, so you could sort of visit Technicality. Let's play this game, all right? Let's go from number one down. So I'm sure you can both guess what the most popular sport in the world is.
COLIN HILDING: Football slash soccer.
BEN WATERWORTH: Correct. According to this, four billion fans around the world. Now, what is the second most? I thought I knew the answer, and it is what I thought, but this may surprise... Jarrod, I don't know if you might get this one, but think about this one, and particularly think about one country in the world that really loves this sport, and it might make sense. There's silence. There's thinking.
COLIN HILDING: I was waiting for Jarrod to go.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right. Jarrod takes longer to think. I'll just give him the answer. Just pretend I didn't give you the answer, Jarrod.
COLIN HILDING: Cricket.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I feel like the hints threw me off.
BEN WATERWORTH: But yeah, cricket.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Let's go like American football.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, cricket. 2.5 billion fans, according to this list, and I'm guessing 1.25 of those are Indian. But I mean, there you go. There's proof in the pudding right now, according to this. The second most popular sport in the world apparently is not an Olympic sport. So there you go.
COLIN HILDING: And what would that do for India's Olympic performance, which is a big talking point we had during JLTO?
BEN WATERWORTH: Massive, massive. And just, I mean, they're in talks right now. The big whisper is that they're in with a good shot for the 2036 Olympics. They've put their hand up sort of as a full country bit almost, and sort of the IOC are kind of listening. So, I mean, sort of talking about this almost like floating schedule with the sports where it's almost a Commonwealth Games-esque thing where you've got your core sports and you kind of fluctuate with some of them. I mean, if cricket doesn't get included in LA, if cricket doesn't get included in Brisbane, if we've got an Indian Olympics in 2036, I cannot imagine that that wouldn't be the first sport that they put forward there. So, absolutely. So, we won't play this game. We're here all day. But according to... I don't believe this. Number three, field hockey. Two billion. Like, I get India's on there. But I mean, field hockey? I thought basketball would be more popular than that.
COLIN HILDING: Field hockey? Really? I don't know.
BEN WATERWORTH: I played it, but I didn't think it was that. Only girls play that, Colin, right?
COLIN HILDING: It's still not real hockey.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well, according to this... Number four, tennis. There you go, Jarrod. Number four, billion fans, according to this. Volleyball. Number five, interesting. 900 million fans. Table tennis. I guess you've got some very populous countries in the world who enjoy it. Number six, basketball. Only number seven. I always thought that was like in the top few, but obviously not. Baseball. Number eight. Obviously now not an Olympic sport. Rugby. Number nine. And number ten, golf. So there you go.
COLIN HILDING: So some of those make sense to me. I'm really surprised hockey's not in there, because it's not like it's just a North American thing. I mean, when they've had strikes here, when the NHL's had strikes, there are players who will just go and they can play in the European leagues. I mean, European leagues is huge. And it's similar to volleyball. I would think hearing volleyball being that high was unusual. But then I think about the fact that almost all of Team Canada or American teams or whatever, they make their living by playing professionally in Europe. So hockey and volleyball, Europe alone, I thought, would have bumped those ones up a little bit.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, and look, this is one of those things where you'd probably find ice hockey on another list. It's obviously not perfect. It's not something that you can completely rank. But I've seen lists where ice hockey is in very high up there. I've seen that as number two, number three, because it's a similar thing with Europe and North America. I mean, basketball in Europe is huge, massive. A lot of the players who don't make the NBA will go to Europe. And it's growing a lot more in this part of the world, too. I mean, volleyball, for example, is just not played here in Australia, really. It's sort of not something there. I mean, according to the rest of this, so you've got 11 to 25. Ice hockey is not even in the top 25, according to this. I mean, they've got Formula One at 11. But I mean, how do you classify that, though? I would more say motorsport. No, because skiing is on this list at number 24. But they've got MMA, for example, badminton, shooting at number 20. I mean, shooting more popular than skiing. I wouldn't believe that.
COLIN HILDING: Lawn bowling, 26.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I don't know how that plays. And just quickly, while we're on the summer one, so it's interesting looking at this list of discontinued sports. There's literally only one discontinued winter Olympic sport, and there's got to be at least 20 summer. But I mean, that includes figure skating and ice hockey, which obviously switched over to winter Olympics. But one of the ones here, tug of war, which I say bring back tug of war, come on.
COLIN HILDING: Isn't that that new show Squid Game? Is that a tug of war show or something? Because I keep seeing all those tug of war memes and that Squid Game show.
BEN WATERWORTH: Can somebody explain Squid Game to me? Because I feel like I just woke up yesterday and this has just hit the world. Jarrod, have you seen? What is Squid Game? What is it?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I have. I feel like it's like, I don't know, The Hunger Games crossed with just all those types of shows, like, I don't know, just a competition show where people die.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, where people die. Right.
COLIN HILDING: They die doing the tug of war?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yes. Yeah. Pull over the edge.
BEN WATERWORTH: See, I thought this was like that Tiger King show where it was just kind of like, you know, people doing that. But I'm saying Croquet was discontinued from the Olympics. I'd be down for some Croquet polo. I think I mentioned that before. Water motorsports. So it has been their field handball. Interesting. And equestrian vaulting. What's that? Is that like gymnastics with a horse?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's amazing. They just do like gymnastics and dance routines like on the back of the horse. I don't know why they got rid of it.
COLIN HILDING: I was imagining like the gymnastics vault where the horse is running and that it's springboards up here.
BEN WATERWORTH: The pommel horse is literally a horse. Seriously, I need to see this. That sounds epic, better than dressage. Like, come on. And that doesn't include damage. So these are actual like medal sports. And also the one thing too, which I think everybody needs to, I'd love to do an episode on this, but during some of the older Olympics between 1912 and 1948, they actually gave out medals for art competitions. This is absolutely legit. So there were things like poetry and like painting and all of these kind of things back in the day. You had architecture was an Olympic event. Literature. I mean, if this was modern day, they would have podcasts. This is legitimately a thing. So, for example, in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics in mixed music, Riccardo Bartholomew of Italy won the gold medal for his triumphal march. There was no silver or bronze award. So, clearly, he was that good that they were just like, you have all the medals, mate. Amsterdam, we had drawings and watercolors to which Jean Jacoby of Luxembourg won a gold medal, ahead of Alex Viro of France and Lodzlo Kolakus of Poland. So, look this up. This is legit. We could do a whole episode on this. They actually had artistic competitions that were awarded medals back in the day of the Olympics. So, there you go. And demonstration, can I just quickly say, before we get to the winter, I say bring back demonstration sports, because I was too young to ever appreciate demonstration sports because they got rid of them around Barcelona, Alba Ville time. But I mean, Australian football famously was a demonstration sport back in Melbourne. Canada, I think, were you the first to have curling in Calgary, I believe? Or you brought it back or something, maybe? But I like this idea of having a demonstration sport, because this way you can kind of have these extra things. So, for example, if you can't have cheerleading, and that's a big sport in, say, LA, have it just as a side kind of thing. You're bringing extra revenue. You can sell tickets, television coverage, all that sort of stuff. You'd have AFL. So come Brisbane, rather than interrupting the middle of the Australian football season, have it during the Olympics. Like have all the teams converge on Brisbane, sell tickets, revenue, boom, grow the sport around the world. Like, I mean, Colin, do you remember demonstration sports? You're obviously a bit older than us. So I don't know if you remember kind of that being a real thing.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, at the point I was watching, you know, Barcelona-Alberville was probably the first time I was watching Olympics. And I wasn't aware of it. But I do remember, I think I told this on a past episode, when I was a kid, I was in Taekwondo. And the Seoul Olympics had, Taekwondo was the demonstration sport. And it was sort of like our academy, it was a nationwide academy, but that was the one who was going to be representing Canada, as opposed to like, we're going to send a national team, we're sending an academy. And it was basically open to anybody that they could have gone, and you would have been able to, you know, be out on the field, kind of, these are our people who represent the demonstration sport. And, you know, my parents wouldn't allow us to go. And I was a little bit too young. I don't think I was in full school days yet, so they weren't going to let me go myself. But demonstration sports, the unfortunate thing is, I feel like this is what it has become now with the host nation. So now baseball and the one Olympics we're going to have, we had it back in Tokyo, was treated like a demonstration sport, but it's like, we're just going to give you a medal. If you make it a demonstration sport, karate, yeah. It's the exact same thing now. It's almost more of a tease because it's like, instead of this being a trial to see where this could go, we're going to give you a medal and say, this is the real Olympics and then we're going to cut it next time. But why shouldn't demonstration sports be a thing? And then you make the decision after that. It's almost become a thing now where they look to things like the Commonwealth Games or the Pan Am Games to try out new sports. And they're like, well, we'll see how it goes there. But it's a little bit different if you have the Olympics, you're giving a sport the biggest stage can. And I think what you said about AFL, if you had that, something that people aren't really familiar with outside of Australia, minimal familiarity, it's not even just about whether or not you could have this as a sport. It's about can you build the profile of this enough that other countries are willing to jump on board and say, you know what, not for the next Olympics, but 10 years from now, maybe we'll actually put something together and we can be competitive.
BEN WATERWORTH: And that's the thing, like we saw that with Australian football during the pandemic, when Australia was basically one of the only countries in the world that was having a pro sports league playing while, you know, the NHL, the NFL, all those sort of things shut down. It got a huge spike in North America, and there was a really prominent US, I don't know if he was sort of a TV host or a podcast host, he was watching it and he's like, holy fuck, this sport is amazing. And then it went through the roof, like all of a sudden North America, like I did stories when I was in Canada about the sport in Canada, and they were sort of talking about how the numbers just like their website basically blew up because people were watching it on TSN at 2 in the morning and kind of all this sort of stuff. And what is this sport? So yeah, it can definitely work that. Jarrod, I mean, demonstration sports, where do you stand on that side of things?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I agree with Colin. I think it should be, it almost should just be the test run for the next time the Olympics roll around. A chance to kind of iron out the kinks, I think. It just feels weird adding stuff straight into the Olympics without testing it first. I feel like skateboarding, although they've got the X Games and other things, it might have been better to have that as a demonstration sport and then see how annoying it was with all the kids. But yeah, I'm all for it. I think, I just think it's starting to test what the public are going to watch, what you get viewers to at the, if people can buy tickets, what people are more interested in. And then scheduling wise and qualification wise, it gives you more time to sort of work that out, whether it's going to be worthwhile or not.
BEN WATERWORTH: Because it's interesting looking, I mean, a lot of demonstration sports have obviously famously gone on to be, I mean, taekwondo, Colin, you bring that up, is obviously now a full sport. But just looking here at some of the demonstration sports in the summer that we've had, I mean, American football, Australian football, ten pin bowling, I remember that was at the Commonwealth Games in 1998, absolutely fucking loving watching that, thinking like, wow, this is a Commonwealth Games sport and they've never brought it back since. Gaelic football, that's a great sport if anyone's ever watched that. Hurling, that is an amazing sport. Seriously, and that's not vomiting before you. It's not that. It's kind of like Irish, Ireland's version of lacrosse. It's amazing. Seriously, it's violent. It's brilliant. It's Irish. It's amazing. Watch hurling. Roller hockey, weight training with dumbbells and water skiing. And also, I love this. So at the 1990 Paris Olympics, because a lot of it was conducted alongside the 1900 Olympics, the 1900 World's Fair. So a lot of sports that were sort of demonstrated at the World's Fair were then technically classified as Olympic sports. So you had angling. You could have watched fishing live at the Olympics right back in 1900. Ballooning. Fantastic. Cannon shooting. Fire fighting. Kite flying. Come on. Surf life saving. Motor racing. Motorcycle racing. Water motorsport. And my favourite, pigeon racing, was at the Olympics in 1900. Come on. Bring back pigeon racing. I want to talk about the winters because, I mean, the greatest ever demonstration sport happened at the Winter Olympics. Can we just take a moment to talk about ski ballet? This sport is amazing. And apparently still is a very big thing. We have a guest coming up who basically talked about she competed in all forms of freestyle skiing growing up, which included ski ballet. So, I mean, Colin, is this a thing that actually like, have you ever seen ski ballet like in Canada as a thing, or is this just one of those ones that does randomly pop up in your Twitter feed? Remember this was at the 92 Olympics or 94 Olympics?
COLIN HILDING: No, I've never seen it. I don't know of any leagues here or national championships, but it definitely sounds fascinating enough that I'd like to check it out. If there is a league out there, then I'm going to Google it and I'm going to follow it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, actually, it was at 92 and 1988, so it was Calgary that brought it into the world, Colin. So, Jarrod, I'm sure you've seen the fame. I think the IOC literally did something on their Twitter page recently where they were like, check out these five discontinued demonstration sports. I mean, I'm sure you've seen that clip. This is amazing ski ballet, Jarrod.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Look, it looks like they were gearing up for it. 88 and then 92. Like, why is it?
COLIN HILDING: What happened? What went wrong?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Surely, they ran it twice. It was bound to happen.
COLIN HILDING: I also bleed Tonya Harding.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, of course. Who doesn't? But the other discontinued, so the demonstration sports have had a bandy, which actually is kind of, it's like an ice hockey, isn't it? But it's with a ball, right? Is that what bandy is, Colin? I thought you said Bambi, and I was thinking... I think it's like a Scandinavian version of ice hockey, which is played with a ball rather than a puck. They actually had disabled skiing as a demonstration sport. Obviously, they put that across to the Paralympics. Ice stock sport, don't know what that is. Ski joring sounds fun.
COLIN HILDING: That one, yeah, did you read up on what ski joring?
BEN WATERWORTH: No, I don't know, but I need to know. What is it?
COLIN HILDING: They're never going to do it. You know they're never going to do it again, but it's basically dog sled.
BEN WATERWORTH: That would be the best way of comparing it. Well, they've got sled dog racing underneath it. So is that kind of like a...
COLIN HILDING: Well, the ski joring, it says, could be done with horses as well.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, wow.
COLIN HILDING: I think it sounds like... I would love to watch that, but obviously there's reasons why they wouldn't include that now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Speed skiing, which I think sells itself. That sounds amazing. And winter pentathlon. I mean, come on. You know, I'm on board with that. And also, during the Youth Olympics back in 2014, they had ice climbing. And it was also... No, so that was showcased during the Sochi Winter Olympics, and then it was also on the non-competition program at the 2016 Youth Winter Olympics. So fascinating. But I mean, when it comes to winter sports, the only sport that has ever been discontinued was biathlon military patrol from the 1928, 48, and 52. Bring back biathlon military patrol. That sounds epic.
COLIN HILDING: But so wartime.
BEN WATERWORTH: I guess, I mean, this kind of, you know, I feel, I just, you're the winter guy, Colin. Obviously, you're more of a winter country. Are there glaring winter sports that really, outside of any of those demonstrations, sports could be a thing? Like, I mean, is there one that people are always like, you know, the winter version of squash, like everybody, it should be at the winter Olympics. Why isn't it at the winter Olympics?
COLIN HILDING: There's really no sports that I know are competitive here that aren't included, this should be. But there's activities that are just a regular thing here I was thinking of, or where you could easily make into a sport. Like, you have cross-country skiing, and I told this before on here, you know, there were winter things you would do in school as part of gym class. Curling was one of them that we did as part of gym class. Another one was snowshoeing. And cross-country skiing was the other. So I thought to myself, I'm like, curling is an Olympic sport, cross-country skiing is an Olympic sport. Why is snowshoeing not an Olympic sport? I mean, you can make a race out of it. There's things you could do. The one that is more, it would be difficult because, again, you'd have to look at climates and stuff like that. But how would you even define it? River skating, basically what it is, especially in a place like Winnipeg, where you know the river is going to freeze over enough that it's safe. Every single year, they develop our river into a skating path that runs for several kilometres. And I thought we have things like marathons or race walking in the Summer Olympics. You could do that with river skating or something like that, like a long stretch a couple kilometres long down a river. And it's just a race, and you're doing however many laps back and forth and make an endurance race in the Winter Olympics. The trouble being that most of the countries you're going to go to, most of the climates because of things like skiing, you're not going to be able to have it be cold enough where the whole river is going to be frozen over. But I'm sure you could even make a long one kilometre track, a manmade track or something like that, and make some type of marathon event out of skating.
BEN WATERWORTH: Isn't it Ottawa? Doesn't it have the longest one or something along those lines? I've seen footage of the one in Ottawa being really long, so...
COLIN HILDING: Maybe. I haven't been to Ottawa. You've been to more Canadian cities than I have.
BEN WATERWORTH: I say to boggling, you know, just down a snow. Why not? That could work. I mean, Jarrod, I don't know if there's any winter sports that you know. I mean, in the wintery slopes of Emu Plains, I mean, are you constantly out there thinking of these winter sports that you could do one day at the Olympics?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Surely, there's got to be something there about like a massive snowball fight.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Either that or like a competitive man building, I don't know.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes. Hey, that could work.
COLIN HILDING: We did mention on an interview that people haven't heard yet. Jamie had a tobogganing story. So we'll tell people. Stay tuned for our interviews. I don't even remember which one that was we did.
BEN WATERWORTH: Did you tell it? I don't think you told it.
COLIN HILDING: No.
BEN WATERWORTH: Because I was going to ask you and you didn't. We need to learn that. So are you going to tell it now?
COLIN HILDING: I'll tell it now. Yeah. So it'll be an interview. It'll be a moguls interview we're going to have coming up.
BEN WATERWORTH: You're not hearing that too like before Beijing. This is like how all over the place we have these interviews. Like, Jesus. But hell, you hear this now months ahead of the interview.
COLIN HILDING: This is our preview for the interview we're going to have coming up in several months.
BEN WATERWORTH: It makes sense in February, all right, people?
COLIN HILDING: So, Jamie refuses to toboggan. She says she doesn't even want our kids to toboggan or anything like that, which that's an activity you have to do in Canada. There's nobody who doesn't do it. It is law. Adults do it. We went tobogganing. One of the things we would always do is on New Year's Day, because everybody's off. It's just a thing where you always go tobogganing. And Jamie and I went. This was like, I think before we were married and my nephew's there. And the first time there's a big tobogganing hill you have here, which is it's, you know, manmade, I guess you could say. The hill itself isn't manmade, but they'll pack it down and make it safe and build little jumps and everything. So we're there with our nephews. And then we look at them like, oh, there's like this really steep slope, which is basically in the woods. It's like a cliff and the woods and it's extremely steep. And so a couple of us, you know, older people were like, OK, well, let's try this one. It says, you know, hands off or whatever or trespassing. Beware. The signs don't go here. This is dangerous. So we start going down and it's fast. It's steep. And Jamie had not gone down. I was like, no, I don't want it to bog in. She's like, well, this actually looks kind of fun. So I'm going to try. So she hops on and she goes down and almost immediately rolls off of her to bog in, starts tumbling down the hill, slams into a rock. And I'm videotaping this. And I go, Jamie, that was so epic. That was amazing. She's on really here. She banged up her thigh like she had a bruise this size on her thigh and said, I am never to bogging again. The first time I go down, I wipe out. I'm never to bogging again. The next year, we again go and my nephews are there. And I'm at the bottom of the hill with one of my nephews. And I look up and I'm like, oh, Jamie decided to go because I see her on a sled. After staying the whole time. No, I got hurt last year. I'm not going to go like, oh, she's she's going down with one of my nephews on her lap. And why she headed for the ramp? And I see her go off the ramp and land and she breaks her tailbone. The second time she ever to boggles shatters her tailbone. No, that ended up being an afternoon in the emergency room. And there's nothing they could do for a broken tailbone either. So, yeah, she was like, I remember the first couple of days, she would call me and her brother over. And she's like, I need two people to hold me up so I could brush my teeth. One of us bracing her arm as she's like. But it was epic. It was great. I got all the videos.
BEN WATERWORTH: Do you still have the video of this? Can this be something we share on our social media?
COLIN HILDING: I'd have to dig it up, but I would have the first. I didn't have a camera on me for the second one where she broke her tailbone. But the first one, I probably do have it somewhere. Maybe we'll share by the time the next Olympics comes up. Maybe I'll be able to share it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod, have you ever been tobogganing before?
COLIN HILDING: What are you saying, Jamie?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I'm missing out.
BEN WATERWORTH: Have you seen snowing before, Jarrod?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I feel like that's like an Australian thing. Maybe not in Tasmania, but in New South Wales, everybody goes on ski camp in like year six.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right, because I remember I had family. My family lives in sort of out your way in Penrith. And I remember my aunts and family coming down once during winter. And we took them up the mountain because it snows on our mountain. And you know, very rarely at snow level, but it does. And they had never seen snow. So like this was a thing where like, you know, you took them up there and like, oh my god, snow. And they brought like an ice cream container to take some with them. And then they put it in the fridge and you know, it's just going to be a block of ice in like an hour. Oh no, it's white and fluffy. And now I was like, yeah, I told you it's just a block of ice. It doesn't work that way. You can't keep snow. It's not a pet. But I need to see this video. I mean, the one time I went to boggling this video footage of it, it's when the Lea shoved me down a hill in Salt Lake City, right? And I fell off. And then she turns to these kids and is like, all right, he's from Australia. And then kind of, you know, my tobogganing story. I want to talk about sort of structure of events, because this is one thing I know that Jarrod, we've talked a lot about things like repper charges and semis and quarters. And then let's have fifth to eighth place playoffs and all this sort of stuff. I mean, I think this kind of goes back to your point, Jarrod, where you're like, let's have more sport. And it's all well and good to kind of pad the schedule out by, sure, like if you get eliminated, you want to play for 12th place, whoop-dee-fucking-doo. And I know we've got some of these athletes on the show who will say like, yeah, I want to do this and all that sort of stuff. And I've maybe come around a bit on repper charge, the idea of it, because when somebody explains to you, like as an athlete, like you can be eliminated in five minutes and like you've worked four years and you're at five minutes, I'd like a second chance, like, okay. But at the same time, if you go to Wimbledon and you're out in round one, because you've played, you know, Rafael Nadal, you don't just get to go back and have a second chance to go back in the game, do you? So, I mean, this is just a broad question, because we can talk about this itself for like an hour. But Jarrod, like, are there certain things that any sports come to mind when it comes to this as well, that like, do we need a better structure, like get rid of repper charges, get rid of fifth to eighth place playoffs, and, you know, you can clear up a whole section on the Olympic Sports Calendar to include squash, because you don't have all these wasted playoffs and repper charges and things like that.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, preaching to the choir here. I think I just don't, the playoffs, I can almost understand more in the repper charges. The repper charges just bug me so much because it's rowing, right? And it takes forever to begin with. I don't get this whole like you've been training for four years and your Olympics is over in five minutes. If you're in the hundred metres, you've been training for four years in the Olympics over in ten seconds.
BEN WATERWORTH: So good point.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I just think in a sport where surely in rowing, to me, it doesn't seem like a sport where there'd be massive variance in if you ran the same race like ten times, majority of the time, you're going to get the same result. Whereas if it is something like the hundred metres and you run it ten times, I feel like you're going to get a lot more variance in like where people finish. So if you're going to have rapid charges, put it in the sport where there are these minimal differences between placings, not in this these sports that take forever to start off with. And then also it's not really going to change much.
BEN WATERWORTH: The one thing that I get confused with rapid charges are in I think it's like taekwondo does it, judo does it, where it becomes more of like a medal where like if you lose a quarter, let's go into a rapid charge system to then make like, no, like to me, if you've got a knockout system, if you're in a quarterfinal, if you win, you throw to the semis, you lose, you're out. There's no second chance in a quarterfinal. And I think to make it easier, like, well, actually, no, not make it easy because you're then going to have the increase in the medals. Boxing is obviously unique. You make the semis, you lose, you just win. There are two bronze medallists, right? I can see that, but I also kind of like the idea of a bronze medal match, because as we have heard from a lot of athletes on this show, you kind of put more on the line in a bronze medal match, don't you? Because if you make the gold medal match, of course you want a gold medal. But you know if you lose, you've got a silver medal. You're still an Olympic medallist no matter what. A bronze medal match, like, on the line, you don't want to finish fourth. Like, fuck fourth. Canada does that enough. Like, they don't care for it more. So, I don't get these repertoire systems in these combat sports where it just becomes complicated. It's like, you lose a quarterfinal, so you go on pot B and pot C. And then if you draw the red donkey, then you'll match the blue donkey. And then if you win that match, you've got a 71% chance of winning a medal. So let's draw a number, read the alphabet, learn Finnish, and boom, you're a bronze medallist. Like, it's just, it gets confusing for the people watching at home. Don't get me started on the Omnium in cycling. Like, I don't need a physics degree. I don't need a physics degree to understand how you win a fucking Olympic medal. All right? Like, it's just, just stop it. Like, 100 metres. You're either fast or you're not.
COLIN HILDING: You're Italian or you're not.
BEN WATERWORTH: Simple. Colin, I mean, same question to you, but I want to throw the prospect of mixed events for you, Colin, because we know you love your mixed relays.
COLIN HILDING: Look, first of all, let's talk about the mixed relays. I mean, this kind of falls in what we were saying about let's eliminate some of these redundant, oh, here's a bonus sport for a sport we've already seen. But it is messy to watch it. I think the difference we have in opinions is that you guys like the messiness and the unpredictability, whereas I don't like the fact that it's like, well, what's the point of watching it when you can't really call anything? And it's all about strategy, and the strategies don't really make any sense because none of these countries are competing. It's something that a couple of Olympics down the road, maybe they can wrap their heads around, but I know I'm not alone in this because I've read a lot of commentary of people saying like, yeah, I even remember when they aired, the comment is like, that was interesting, but that's something you can easily eliminate and free up room for sports. The same thing with rapid charges. I actually completely agree with Jarrod with what you were saying about comparison, because I was going to say the exact same thing. The 100 metre, the 200 metres, why aren't they using it there? There's a good reason why. Obviously, I think the thinking is in rowing is that there is some variance, right? Maybe the water is not quite as still, but it's no different in sprinting. The wind, the wind can change. When you have a system that works in sprinting, why not keep that? Why isn't it the fastest time? Is there that much of a difference from one race to the next on what the time can be, where you can't just say, all right, well, the top two qualified from this race, and then the third place will have to see if their time holds up once we're done all these heats. And Canada loves rowing, but I'm getting tired of watching three hours of coverage of repitages. Well, there's other sports that could be getting TV coverage just because, oh, well, it's one of our sports, so we have to watch all this. Boxing, the same thing you said, this I don't understand all because there you have no difference. There's no variance of what could be contributing. The environment doesn't change. Nothing changes from one fight to the next. So to have it in judo doesn't make sense to not have in boxing, and you're 100% right. We already have a gold medal that's won by a winner, and we have a silver medal that's won by a loser. Now we're going to have two bronzes that are won by losers. And I'm not calling them losers in a derogatory way, but now only one out of four medallists won their medal. Let the bronze be something you fight for.
BEN WATERWORTH: If you think about it, if you win a quarterfinal, you know you've won a medal. So then if you come up against the number one boxer in the world, who you've got a 20-0 record against, you've lost 20 times against him or her, of course you're going to give it your all. I'm not going to say you're going to walk into that ring and go, but if that's me, and my entire life goal has been to win an Olympic medal, I've somehow snuck into the semifinals of a boxing bout, I'm going to be just at the end of the day, like, well, I lose who cares because I've won a medal. It kind of is an argument where you're almost rewarding losing, because a repacharge is almost that you are rewarding losing. And it's kind of, you know, slight tangent, but it's still in the sporting realm. It's kind of like when you say, you talk to somebody who's, say, a fan of European football, where you win the championship by being number one at the end of the season on the ladder. So you have to be consistent all season. They have sort of cups and knockout versions to add some entertainment of it. But that would be like Colin in the NHL, that if Toronto win the president's trophy, they are the Stanley Cup champions, because they are the best team at the end of the season. That's how they decide it. So that can add some entertainment. It can also add some, you can have very boring seasons. One team can just win everything, and you know who's won by, you know, February. But then you've had, was it when Manchester City won about a decade ago, you literally had side by side scores going on, because like they had to score two goals by the 90th minute. Like it can get very exciting. And then you have people who look at, say, the North American model of sports and the Australian models of sports where, if, again, Toronto get the president's trophy, but then they go out in the first round of the playoffs. Well, it's kind of like, well, is that fair? They were the best side all year, but then, you know, any team can beat them on the day. I prefer that model because I think at the end of the day, if you are the best team, you should be. I mean, we saw it with Tampa Bay. Was it the other year when Columbus swept them, right? Like, they set the season record, and they were out, you know, donut, four donut, done. And now they've kind of grouped together. They've won the last two Stanley Cups. So, like, there's a level there, and I think the Olympics are kind of that way as well. And any of the world's...
COLIN HILDING: It's unpredictability.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, and that's the beauty of it. I mean, like, Stephen Bradbury is a classic case of that. Stephen Bradbury was a brilliant skater. He had won world championships. He was one of the best in the world, but just always had issues at the Olympics. He couldn't quite get there. And then when he's gold, he wins it. People always just think it was a fluke. Oh, everyone fell over. But they don't know the whole story. That sells it. I mean, what was the... I can never say his name. Was he the Ethiopian, the Moroccan runner? He finally got gold in Athens, but every time he got to an Olympics, he would choke. He could never win that gold. He dominated the entire world. Jess Fox dominated everything and then finally broke through for a gold at the Olympics. So it's just... It's fascinating. You've got to bring it. And that's what the beauty of the Olympics is. It's four years. You've got to peak yourself, and you can have a shit day and fuck it. Guess I've got to come back in four more years to kind of do it. I want to sort of quickly talk about, I guess when it comes to what we would get rid of. Now, we are the IOC. We've all been elected as co-presidents. We are the new Thomas Barks. We've got a bit more personality. What are we getting rid of? Let's start with the summer. A bit easier. I'll start with you, Colin. I mean, are there sports? We talk about it a lot, and it can be events as well. But what sports do you use straight away? You're like, fuck fencing. I hate it. I've never said it before. Finally, I'm saying it. Please don't say fencing. Fencing is a great sport. But again, also, let's not just keep it to a full sport. I mean, if there is the mixed relay, I hate it so much, or the Pobble Horse. Get rid of it. You can be specific, too, for certain sports and events as such.
COLIN HILDING: To me, the mixed relay is an example of what should be just a demonstration sport. It doesn't need to be six different medals that they're handing out in one night. The other thing is, and I know you're going to hate me for this, but to me, handball, water polo, I mean, one is obviously the lesser version of the exact same sport. We have been advocating, you have speed skating, you should have roller skating as well. But when you have them both in the exact same Olympics, I kind of look at one and the other, and I'm like, well, I definitely want to watch the one in the water. There's no difference otherwise. That's a personal preference. So I always feel bad too in saying this, because as you said, we have had people, especially one great interview this week coming up on Race Walking, about the elimination of just a certain distances. But there are sports where we have 16 distances of the exact same sport, and maybe you could eliminate a couple of them. When it's something where you have, like race walking, you have those who will compete in one distance and those who will compete in another. That's completely different for me than something where in swimming, the same person competes in four or five different events. And sure, there have been great Olympic moments of this person is one, Michael Phelps is one, however many medals. But when you have the exact same people competing in the exact same event, and all it is, is it's another 60 seconds longer, then to me, that's something that you could easily eliminate. And I'm sure there's a lot of athletes who will ask what I specialize in. And I would feel bad for those people. But we got through watching six straight days of swimming and saying, I think I'm done with swimming now. So I'm not saying eliminate strokes, but you don't have to have 16 distances for the exact same stroke when you already have 16 different strokes to actually watch.
BEN WATERWORTH: And the one thing that I'll just quickly add to what I wanted to bring up, and this kind of goes back to that point where it's like you're adding events to remove events. I'm all for having everything equal. I think that it's great that we're kind of getting to a point now where there are equal events for men and women. But I don't like this notion of, let's add women's canoeing, but we've got to remove some of the men's events to make room for it. Why can't you just print a few more medals? Just include it. We're seeing that with the mixed event for the racewalking, which Evan obviously is the interviewer referring to. Why do we need to scrap one event just to bring in another? Why can't you just add it? And I get it. It's a stacked program. I understand the issue there. And that's where the Winter Olympics has a lot more freedom because they don't have as many events. But that's what frustrates me. I'm all for new events. I'm all for like, let's have women's canoeing. It should be there already, absolutely. But don't remove events. And that's not even me just saying like, the men shouldn't suffer. I mean, we had that in the other form too. Like, let's add a men's event. Like, let's say softball returns. Let's add men's softball at the expense of baseball. No, let's have men's softball and women's softball, men's baseball and women's baseball. To me, it's that simple. And it should be, if you're talking about things being equal, have things there. And this may sound like a joke, but I'm not joking because in interviews that you will hear, these are legitimate events. We heard it with the rhythmic gymnastics girls, and we'll hear it with an artistic swimwear coming up. Have male artistic swimming. Have male rhythmic gymnastics. They exist. Why can't we see them? So that to me is where that's my issue with removing and adding things.
COLIN HILDING: And obviously, we're talking about sports where one gender, it's obviously a much bigger deal than the other gender.
BEN WATERWORTH: Netball would be an example of that. If you brought netball in, it's a 99% female-based sport, basically.
COLIN HILDING: And then you could say, I'm not going to say it's 100% the same way here, but you could say the same thing with hockey. We interviewed Sammy Jo Small last year, and she was talking about, we're talking only within the last 25 years. She didn't have a female league to play in, so she was one of the only, the only girl playing in a male league. And now you flash forward, and there's a lot that's gone on for the sport. But still, when you watch the Olympics, there's only a few countries that are really competitive in women's hockey. You're not going to say, let's eliminate women's hockey because it's not as competitive. For the same reason, should we say that there's not male artistic gymnastics just because it's not as competitive? Let's have an equal amount of sports on both sides. And there's sometimes with taking women's hockey as an example, sometimes I actually like the fact that there's only three or four teams maximum who are competitive, because when you get a big upset like we had in the last Olympics, it's that much bigger of a deal. And you're not going to have the same standings every single Olympics. And that you're going to get in that way, you're also getting something different out of male hockey from what you're getting from female hockey. It doesn't feel like you're watching the same sport. I mean, it's the same, you know, logistics of the sport. But the results we're getting are different enough that it's exciting the same way that watching amateur sports sometimes is more exciting than watching professional sports.
BEN WATERWORTH: And you've got to grow the sport with genders by giving people chances. And as silly as it sounds that, you know, this is a dumb thing that people probably rip into me for saying. But like I mentioned things like artistic swimming and rhythmic gymnastics, where men can compete in them. You can like, and like even legitimately look at soccer, like in Canada, how big the gold medal is for the women's team. And I'm watching a lot of coverage right now of the men's team during World Cup qualifying. The time of recording this, they're undefeated, and they are on a very, very good chance of qualifying for next year's World Cup for the first time since 1986. And what that would do for the men's game, you've got Alfonso Davies, one of the best players in the world right now. You probably don't even know who the fuck that is, Colin. But that is a big fucking deal for you to have a very prominent soccer player in the biggest sport in the world in Canada, a country, which you are set in less than five years' time to co-host the biggest sporting event in the world. But I'm not even joking when I say that that win for the women will grow the men's game as well. And that's weird to say that when obviously the women are still fighting for a professional league in your country, but that is still going to help on the men's side of things as well.
COLIN HILDING: And we mentioned it during Tokyo, what a big deal it was for the men's relay in, I can't remember which event it was, in swimming.
BEN WATERWORTH: The 4x1, wasn't it?
COLIN HILDING: The 4x100, yeah, when they came in fourth place. And hopefully one of these days we'll get one of those guys on there, waiting for a while. But that was like a huge deal here, because swimming for men in Canada has not been nearly as successful. And they looked at that and they're like, listen, this fourth place win is like a gold medal for us, because we weren't expected to even make the finals, and we want to prove that men are just as competitive as women in the sport.
BEN WATERWORTH: And that is, and like, look, this is a whole other episode, I'm not in my way trying to say that like, oh, men are oppressed. And like, no, like we, I obviously sit here knowing that there is so much more that needs to be done for women's sport, the exposure, and everything in all forms of sport. Of course there is, there is so much more. And it's getting to that point where it really is. Australia alone, with the Women's Australian Football League, it is going gangbusters. They've just increased it basically in the next two years. They will align with every one of the 18 teams in the men's competition. They will now have a female equivalent. So it's great. And Rugby as well is doing the same thing with the Women's NRL. Just sort of adding that sort of thing. Jarrod, for you, the power, you are Thomas Bach. I'm guessing Dressage is gone. What else is gone for you?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Skateboarding is out. It's a revolving door treatment for skateboarding. Or at least if it's staying, it's not having two events. I'm sorry, street and park. They were the same thing. What a joke. It's gone. Sailing, we're cutting down the program for that. If they want to keep all their different classes of laser and whatever, then they're not having five races of each or whatever. They can have two, three races of each. I feel like they're the two in my mind. The other thing, and this isn't a removing thing, but this I have an issue with is from the kayaking. Sorry, the slalom. You cannot have this stupid rule that you're allowed to have one person represent your country in this sport. That was to me was the biggest issue with the Olympics this year, that you could have the top two athletes in the world, and then because of this rule, only the top athlete in the world goes. And the second best athlete isn't allowed to go from this stupid rule. It's the same in gymnastics for the final, that they have a quota of you can only have two athletes from the same country qualify into that final, even if you had the four best athletes in the qualifying rounds. I just have an issue with these. I'm all for having quota spots to start with for the event, but they need to be fair so that realistically, the top three athletes in the world, even if they're from the same country, all end up on the podium.
BEN WATERWORTH: 100%. Colin, you know that well and truly when you talked to Andy Norty, didn't you? That kind of like what Canada has like the 10 best mogul skiers in the world, but you can only send three, right? Yeah, I completely agree with that as well. Yeah, my biggest thing is not maybe getting, I mean, yeah, I just don't get dressage, but I mean, it's popular, right? I think to me, it's more of a case of going back to my point about making it so that the best athletes and this is the pinnacle. So like, I mean, look, you're never going to get rid of soccer at the Olympics because it is the biggest sport in the world. It deserves its spot at the Olympics. But my biggest thing around that, though, is that the World Cup is the one sporting event that technically eclipses the Olympics in terms of size, revenue, everything, popularity. So that is where I have an issue where like, I generally don't care about the men's soccer at the Olympics because it's the under 23s with two or three senior players. Yeah, if you then start saying like, you know, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi can come and play in the Olympics, it's a full squad, then it's like, well, what's the point of the World Cup? Maybe come up with some sort of agreement with FIFA, where like, you just, you take soccer out of the Olympics, but then somehow like can add it as like the World Cup doubles as the Olympic. I don't know, that probably sounds dumb, but like have something where it kind of works that way to make it there. And I think like people complain about golf, people complain about tennis. I think have it so that you come to agreements with both federations where this is a thing where you are guaranteed to have the best athletes in the world. Have it be at equal ranking points to a major, equal, I don't know how you could do that. I mean, a weird example of that is the, the major domestic motor racing competition in Australia is called the Supercars. And obviously we have the Australian Grand Prix for Formula One, and for a very large portion of time, they would bring the Supercars to the Grand Prix because all the Bogan rev heads want to go watch Supercars. I don't give a shit about these hoity-toity Formula One people. But for the most part, it was just a, a non-championship event. So these drivers would go along like, oh, I don't really care. They finally made it a full event for, for points and everything. So people took it more seriously. So that is where somehow do that in Olympics. So we're getting Tiger Woods. You know, we're getting these big names going to golf. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal aren't going, oh, maybe I'll skip the Olympics because the US opens in two weeks. Do it so that you're getting the best. I don't want LeBron James going, yeah, but it's the off season and I don't want to hurt myself. No, like LeBron James, you've got a chance to represent your country at the Olympics. You're going to say yes no matter what. I want to see the best of the best to somehow work that out with these federations. Baseball, if you're bringing baseball, why is that one of these weird sports where you have restrictions? You should have the best MLB players going to play in an Olympics. We're seeing that with hockey returning the NHL players hopefully for Beijing. That to me is what I want to see. So yeah, I don't know. That would be my only thing. I don't know if that sort of counts in removing sports. There's not a glaring sport to me which you should be getting rid of.
COLIN HILDING: Just with the length. Yes, skateboarding, yes.
BEN WATERWORTH: Sorry, skateboarding. Breakdancing.
COLIN HILDING: But I think there is also a difference when we're talking about hockey and basketball where you might have a world championship, but it's not like it's an every week thing. And then tennis and golf where the professional league is these same people competing every single week. And I think that's where the stakes really get lost in golf and in tennis is that there's really no difference between Wimbledon and the US Open and the Olympics, very few differences. Whereas with something like hockey and with something like basketball, it's not every day you get to see, you know, the team Canada play team Czechoslovakia or something along those lines.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's a good point. Yeah. And like, I mean, Jarrod, you're a massive tennis fan. I mean, do you have an opinion on tennis at the Olympics? Is this something that you actually like?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think if you ask me like, I don't know, 10 years ago, I would say, get rid of it. But I feel like tennis is one of these sports that the Olympics has come around a lot in terms of prestige. And it's probably, I feel like it's just because of the stories that we've had. So you've got the big three, and then Raph is the only one of those three who's won a gold medal in singles. And then he's got a gold medal in doubles as well. And then this year, obviously, had the big lead up story with Djokovic going for like the golden grand slam. So I think it should stay, but I'm wary that it could go back to kind of how it was around Sydney, Athens, even like earlier, in that it didn't have as much prestige and you had kind of all these random people winning. But I think it's your point that they need to bring in, which they did, they brought in ranking points for the Olympics. But as far as I'm aware, they've got rid of them again. But I feel like they need to come back. So there needs to be incentive to go on play.
BEN WATERWORTH: And obviously, it's a tricky thing with these sporting federations and calendars. And I mean, we obviously saw that a lot with Tokyo and a lot of the issue around the NHL players. You know, you're making a shit ton of money. There's insurance problems. I mean, things like that. They're going to literally take a couple of week break in the middle of an NHL season. Doesn't generally affect, say, the NBA, because often the Olympics are in the off season. But, yeah, like, I mean, you think about, like, the dream team back in Barcelona when that was a thing, like how, I mean, still to this day, they're revered as one of the greatest sporting teams of all time, that you've got a level of talent like that. Like, you know, I mean, imagine, I can't imagine, Colin, if NHL players were allowed in the Olympics in, like, the 80s and the 90s, when the types of players you would have been having, Gretzky obviously stuck around a little bit, so he just played an Olympics in 98. But we all know the shambles that happened there. But, I mean, God, I mean, I can't imagine what you would have, the stacks of talent you would have had in the 80s and 90s if you were allowed to send your NHL players.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and even if you go back to, like, the 70s and 80s, you would have the Summit Series, you know, Canada versus Russia for seven games, and that was such a big deal. The ratings would have been through the roof of the Olympics if you had done it back then. I feel like it's almost just lost now because it's become such a normal thing that these world stages, all these sports, that you talked about the Dream Team. Who really cares now if you have NBA players in the Olympics because we've seen it a million times. Yeah, exactly. And it's almost the same with hockey. And again, I love being able to have the Olympics for hockey. We have, I guess, more competitive nations than maybe something like basketball does when we're looking at professional players in there. But the longer it goes on, there is a lot of the prestige that is lost. So what Jarrod's saying, tennis where you have kind of the nobodies back in Sydney are mostly nobodies.
BEN WATERWORTH: Poor Evgeny Kafelnikov. He's a bit of a somebody, isn't he, Jarrod? Come on.
COLIN HILDING: But obviously, that's something that's grown. So maybe it is more exciting to watch it now, as opposed to something like basketball or hockey, where it's just become, oh, yeah, we're used to seeing these people.
BEN WATERWORTH: And just quickly, I mean, I feel like we're talking a lot. I mean, I feel when I say we're talking a lot about the summer, like I always have said on this show that the Winter Olympics are the real Olympics because there's no done sports. And I stand by that fact because I look at the Winter Olympics right now and there's nothing I would change. I say bring in more. I want ski ballet. I want speed skiing. I want more curling. I want just all groups of curling. I want doubles luge for women. I've said this before. I mean, like we get it for the men and I get entertained by it. But where's the women? I want double skeleton. I want we're going to have mono bob for the women. So where's mono bob for men? I want the octo bob. I want eight people in a bob. Shove them all down there. You know, bring it all on. Colin, I'll start with anything. You're Canadian. I mean, I can't think of any winter sport that you would not like.
COLIN HILDING: Ringette. Seriously, why is ringette? I mean, you're not going to have the male team in ringette, probably. But, you know, we've got handball and water polo. Let's just bring in ringette and hockey.
BEN WATERWORTH: Fresh Out Memory ringette is particularly what is that?
COLIN HILDING: It's hockey, except you don't have a blade on your stick and you're playing with a little hoop.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right.
COLIN HILDING: The exact same thing.
BEN WATERWORTH: What's that? Is it quidditch? Is that what you're trying to say this is? Is there a golden snitch? Jarrod, I mean, like, again, I don't think I've ever heard you say a bad word about any Winter Olympics sport, or is there anything here that you aren't a particular fan of?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, I think they're all good. I think the Winter Olympics needs to go further down that summer mindset of adding in mixed events. I want to see the mixed Bob relay.
BEN WATERWORTH: We had the mixed luge, didn't we? Yeah, we had the mixed luge. I forgot how good that was. This is where I guess we can kind of, as we close this out, we'll talk about sort of what we're coming up. But as we get closer and closer to Beijing, this just gets me excited, right? Because this is what's so great about the Winter Olympics. There's literally not a shit sport at the Winter Olympics. I mean, Jarrod, I remember you and I during Pyeongchang having long conversations about like, fuck, I was up to 2 o'clock last night watching the ski jumping. This is brilliant. And this is where I don't know, Colin, if this always is just different for Jarrod and I, because we don't know anything about ski jumping in this country. We never see it. We never see curling. You've got the curling channel showing back-to-back coverage of, this is my broom, this is my rock. Whereas us, it's like, this is the most foreign thing we could ever see. So, I mean, I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm just getting excited for Beijing. Colin, I mean, how are you feeling right now? We did the Beijing episode last, but Beijing's coming, people, get excited.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I mean, all these sports are on network TV every single weekend. So, it's cool that I get to follow them leading up to the Olympics and kind of see where those world standings are because there's enough interest in here. But you're 100% right, there's nothing that I don't like watching for the Winter Olympics. You know, there's a few that might be a chore. I'll go out of my way if there's nothing else on, you know, handball. Field hockey, the consolation prizes of better sports. But with the Winter Olympics, the only time I don't want to watch something is if I might go through a year, like an Olympic year, where I'm just done with it. Alpine skiing, I was really into it at one point, and then I think it was during the last Olympics. I'm like, I just don't want to watch Alpine skiing. I'm going to skip it this time. So I might have every once in a while something come up, say, yeah, I'm kind of over that this year. But by the next Olympics, I'm going to be back into it again.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I mean, God, no. Just give me it all right now. Load my plate up, Jarrod. Come on. And this is the thing, I'll just go back to ski jumping, is that I could be wrong here. I'm assuming there are other winter sports that Australia's never had an athlete, but I know Australia's never ever had a ski jumper. So we could be on with a chance here, Jarrod. If we just somehow do something well enough in this country, there could be a quota. Literally, the IOC every year could just be like, why does this Australian quota for the winter Olympics ski jumping never get filled? It literally could be there. We just might have to jump like 10 metres and we're in. So we need to look into this, don't we?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think so. It's just ski jumping is just such an odd sport. I don't get it, and that's why it's so fun to watch. I'm like, what is the skill going into this? You can't tell if they're going to jump far or not. I feel like the commentary doesn't really cover the technique heaps, and you're just like, oh, that looks like it's going to be a good jump. Oh, it's terrible. Oh well. Next person up the ramp.
BEN WATERWORTH: And that's the beauty of it too, because on paper, it should just literally be like, who can go the furthest? But then you've got to get judged in the air, which I always find fascinating. That's why I'm so in love with it, because it's just like, literally should be, who goes the furthest? It's javelin. You just, who can throw the furthest? Like, boom, your skis landed there further than the other guys. You're the gold medallist. But no, you could like go a kilometre further than the Swiss ski jumper. But because you moved your arm in flight, you get a deduction. Colin, do you know anything about ski? Do we need to research this more? Do we need to, Jarrod and I, we need to do a commentary of this during Beijing, folks. I'm locking it in.
COLIN HILDING: It's also one of the ones I love to watch the most. But Canada, as we've discovered on here, also doesn't have a great presence for ski jumping. So this is what we're going to be rooting for. We're rooting for anybody Canadian or anybody Australian, if we even have them in there. But yeah, I don't understand the rules of it either. To me, I'm looking at it like, whoa! The worst person, I'm like, they flew like Superman. Give them a gold medal. I remember seeing this comedian years ago, and he was kind of mocking how during the Olympics, everybody becomes an expert, you know? You don't know anything about it. You're watching diving, he's like, oh, I saw a splash there. There's no way that you got a gold medal. You don't have that with ski jumping. Like, nobody can make sense out of it. It's like he went 180 feet, and yet somehow, oh, no, he's going to have to go back and work on his technique. I'm like, what? He just flew 180 feet.
BEN WATERWORTH: And this is why Nordic Combined is so fucking great, because not only do you have ski jumping, you have cross-country, but I will say, and we'll talk about this during the Olympics, just like modern pentathlon is amazing, and they should combine the modern pentathlon, combine the Nordic Combined. So when you ski jump, you have to land and straight away go for your 15-kilometre ski. Yeah.
COLIN HILDING: Like, that's part of it. It's all one continuous event.
BEN WATERWORTH: Or the opposite. You've got your 15k ski, and then as you enter the stadium, you've got a ski jump into the stadium. Imagine the crowd going off. There's Sven. He's been skiing for 15k. He's like, ah, glory! But then he gets on the ski jump, and here comes Inge behind him, jumps over the top, crosses the finish line, Sweden meets Finland again. Perfect!
COLIN HILDING: Inge and Sven, we've now added the mixed Nordic combined event.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's a very gender neutral sport, Nordic combined. You don't know that? How do you not know that? It's the most gender fluid sport in the world. Nordic combined has been crossing barriers for centuries, Colin. Check your facts! Why are you not doing this?
COLIN HILDING: Canada would have to have a Nordic combined athlete in order for me to understand.
BEN WATERWORTH: I just want to point out as teasers for future guests on the show, we're doing a lot, we're doing very good segues here on Off The Podium today, that I have basically put my hand up to be both Channel 7 and CBC's Nordic combined correspondent. And both have given me the green light according to two commentators for both. So I don't know how much sway they have in both CBC and Channel 7, but I could be a busy man. I might not be available during Beijing. I'm getting the phone call. Ben, Nordic combined expert, we need you. All right, I'm on the plane. Guys, this has been fun. I'm glad we could do this. Obviously, there's so much more we could talk about, but we were doing this episode at one point, and we're here, Don. Any final tidbits or things that you haven't mentioned, Jarrod, at all? Sports, speak now. Forever hold your peace.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Now, add more sports. No cap.
BEN WATERWORTH: No cap.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Done.
BEN WATERWORTH: Actually, I finished rewatching the games. We've talked a little bit about that on here, sort of the parody show they did in the lead up to the Sydney Olympics. And there's this scene where John, the main guy, he's like, oh, I've got a meeting with the head of the AFL. They're going to give me advice. And so this head of the AFL is there and is like, right, I've had a look at your schedule for Sydney. You got some problems. What's this two week business? He's like, what do you mean? It's like, it's too short. You need to have it over a year, mate. It's all about the events. Bugger two weeks. Hold it from January through to December. It's all about the TV revenue. So there you go. They were talking about it then. Colin, anything you want to add?
COLIN HILDING: No, just the only thing I missed out on is we're talking about events that we could potentially be competitive in. I mean, anybody from Winnipeg, snow shoveling is an Olympic sport. Winnipeg dominates.
BEN WATERWORTH: There you go. Jarrod, what's Emu Plains event? Writing emus?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, probably that or either making a nomo bars.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, all right. And as soon as I introduce incest into the Olympics, I'm in.
COLIN HILDING: Tasmania's specialty.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, Tasmania's specialty. Oh, wood chopping. I should have gone with that one, Ben. That's all good. Went with incest. OK, stereotypes, we have a whole bunch of interviews. Obviously, we've gone to an episode every two days, basically, and that will continue from now until Beijing. And I'm telling you now, when we get to, I think the week before the opening ceremony, we will have an episode every day, essentially, until we get to Beijing. So we've got a lot of great interviews that we have recorded, and they are ready to go. But we will be getting them closer and closer. But the next one that all of us will be joining, will be the last one that all three of us will do, essentially, until we get to our Beijing preview one, ever, ever. Jarrod's had enough. He's still just not over the whole chair throwing thing. He's get over it. We're going to do, and this is, I'm so excited for this episode, because I think on all our podcasts at some point, we've done some form of rankings episodes. Jarrod, even on Euros Vision, we technically ranked things and kind of predicted everything on those lines. So we're going to do our first ever Off The Podium ranking episode. And we're going to rank the Olympic medals, all of them, from Athens. No, we're going to start with Lillehammer in 1994 through right to Tokyo. I mean, if Beijing releases their medals between now and when we do that episode, maybe we will include Beijing. But we'll see how we go. Now, we haven't come up with a format. I don't know if we're going to sit here and do vetoes, because that would be too long. So maybe we'll just kind of do a quick fire, like my 18 to 13 is this, and we'll kind of do it from five. But I'm excited for this. Colin, I don't know if you've ever been one to kind of look at medals and go, oh, that's pretty. Or you just go, oh, well, I'm never going to win one. I don't give a shit. But I mean, any any thoughts on ranking the Olympic medals from 1994 onwards?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I think we've occasionally gone over every time you get a new medal in the mail. It's like, oh, yeah, I kind of like that one. Oh, you know what you should get next? You should get Athens and so on. I do think your format works. So let's just settle on that now. No vetoes. This is my list.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm not doing 34 hours of this.
COLIN HILDING: What's our average? And somehow Antwerp still found its way in there. I don't know how that happened. But yeah, it'll be it'll be interesting because I think in my mind right now, I can picture half of the medals in the other half. I have no memory of whatsoever. So there'll be some refreshers going on.
BEN WATERWORTH: So right now, if you had to guess your favourite or your least favourite, do you want to give us any spoilers? Like, should we look out for a sneaky Torino high up? And, oh, I really don't like the London medal. It's shit.
COLIN HILDING: No, I already mentioned one of my favourite picks in the previous speech that I just had. So that'll give a spoiler away if anybody was paying attention, which they probably weren't.
BEN WATERWORTH: Never do to you. Jarrod, are you excited? I don't think you've really been on a proper ranking episode with us outside of our Eurosvision ones.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I'm excited to tear some medals to shred that deserve it. There's some bad designs out there. Imagine all that hard work and effort, and then your gold medal is crap. Really, is it even a gold medal if it looks bad? But there's some good ones out there as well. I feel like my opinions have changed on some medals over time. Things that I originally thought, oh, that's ugly and unusual. Now I'm kind of like, oh, but it's unique, so it'll be a good one.
BEN WATERWORTH: If we ever run out of ideas and we do the Commonwealth Games medals, that in itself is some shit paws. Look up Glasgow and Melbourne for some shit Commonwealth Games medals, people. I will say I own every single replica medal now from 94 onward, so I can have visual aids to help you guys during this. So you're welcome, but that is coming soon. You want to say something?
COLIN HILDING: I have to add, I can't wait to hear the noise level of Ben wearing every single one of those medals.
BEN WATERWORTH: All right, well, as we go with every single medal, I will put it around my neck. I'll be like having neck issues. I'll be like, guys, I can't step through the microphone! Now Michael Phelps feels basically from that point. I actually wonder if I've got more gold than Michael Phelps now. Probably do. In your face, Phelps, you had to like swim for like 20 years and train and shit. I just bought them off Wish!
COLIN HILDING: Wish too!
BEN WATERWORTH: I think it was Wish.
COLIN HILDING: These are the highest quality medals.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, it was eBay and not with DH Gate. DH Gate. That's better than Wish. And eBay. So there you go. That's how I got them. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Off The Podium. So up to date, we've got some amazing, amazing interviews coming up. And of course, also subscribe on all the good podcast channels out there. Search for Off The Podium. And that is how you can stay up to date with us. Jarratt, always a pleasure. Thank you very much for your insight. I'm glad you could finally talk about how much hate Reaper charges.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I'm sure I'll bring it up again in the future.
BEN WATERWORTH: And Colin's about to answer a phone call, so quickly do it and bye, Colin. And my name is Ben. This is Off The Podium. We'll speak to you next time. Good night.
Comments