Tokyo 2020 Day 1 Review
The first day of competition at Tokyo 2020 is finally upon us which means we're back to go over all the excitement and action that it brought us! How disappointed are we all that there were no medals for either Canada or Australia on the first day? How can we use our commentary skills to perfection when it comes to the great sport of dressage? Did the road race go on maybe for a bit too long? How do we feel about the two epic Canada v Australia battle royals that happened today? Is Canada finishing 5th in the road race basically a gold medal win for them? Why was the weightlifting and the fencing maybe the best things to watch today? And just what type of kid talk do we need to work on when it comes to describing one of the new Olympic sports? Get yourself clicking and into the know once more as we wrap up day 1 of Tokyo in style!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is Off The Podium, an Olympics podcast coming to you today for our day one recap of Tokyo 2020 asterisks 2021. It has been an epic day of competition. First full day of competition. Plenty to talk about. Plenty to get through. It's exciting. It's amazing. The Olympics are here. And once again, we thank everyone listening to today's show already, because already our listenership base is bigger than any of the events of the attendances in the Olympics so far. We're going to keep promoting that so we can get sponsors. More sponsors than the actual Olympics get, because none of them are on board, because no one's watching them, apparently, at the venues. We're watching them. I don't know where I'm going with this. My name is Ben, and joining me on the line, as they do for each of our day's coverage throughout these Olympics, it's a man who is so distracted right now watching something we're going to be talking about pretty much immediately. It's Jarrod, Bat Horse Loobeek. Jarrod, welcome back to the show.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thank you. It's good to be back. We are officially underway.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's exciting. It's just, it's up. Have you slept at all? Like, I mean, how was your day in terms of falling asleep last night during the opening ceremony to getting up early this morning to watch all the events?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, there wasn't much sleep. But I just figure, just run with lack of sleep for the whole two weeks. Why not?
BEN WATERWORTH: Why not? Well, speaking of no sleep, it's a man who's on a different time frame because he's in a different country. And a country that, let's be honest, he's technically beating Australia right now because they did in one sport, we did in the other, but they finished higher in another sport. So I think technically by averages, Canada are beating Australia, despite the fact that neither of us have won any medals on the first day. Colin Hilding, welcome back to Off The Podium.
COLIN HILDING: Thank you. And as we know, Canada even finishing fourth or fifth counts as a medal here. So we are winning. That's all that matters.
BEN WATERWORTH: Street parades already are going on in Canada for Michael Woods. Congratulations, your fifth place in the men's road race. So we'll be talking about that. But we're basically doing something unique, kind of unique. We want to do a bit more commentary through these games. We did a bit back in Rio. I think we did the rowing. That's all we did. That was fun. And then Jarrod famously put us on the map with his moguls call back in Pyeongchang. Famous call, but Echo is still in the halls of famous podcast Olympic commentary. Still to this day. That's why we are number four Olympic podcast, according to FeedSpot. That's right, number four, the Canadian gold. So tonight, and we maybe do this every day, I don't know, we're gonna do it quite frequently. Probably gonna get sick of it. We're gonna get straight into it, because right now, while we're recording this, Jarrod, what is on right now? What are you staring at getting a little bit too excited on your screens?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I'm staring at the long awaited return of Bat Horse in the dressage.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which. It's just, it's worth getting straight into. We wanna go over the results, we wanna go over everything that's happening, but we wanna commentate dressage, because what other opportunity will we ever get to do this? Colin, we were all talking about it off air, we're thinking maybe taekwondo, maybe some gymnastics, some swimming, but as soon as we saw dressage, I mean, Jarrod, we couldn't not let this opportunity go, because Jarrod's just itching at the bit here right now.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, no, no, absolutely. And I don't think that any of us appreciated this sport as much until Jarrod really got us turned on to it a couple of years ago. I just have to say, I mean, I'm looking right now, and that is a sexy horse.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm telling you now, Jarrod did turn us on to it, because Jarrod gets turned on by it. That's basically what it is. And I think I do too, based on you're saying it is a sexy horse. Listen to the Oz Network for Ben's awkward commentary on horses. So basically how this will work is some of these events we might be able to actually dub in the sound behind it later on, because some of these events we've been watching actually don't have any commentary on the feeds that we're watching. But unfortunately for us, we've got people talking over this horse doing whatever it's doing right now.
COLIN HILDING: How inconsiderate.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know, right? They don't think about us, do they? Shut up! Shut up. We need to spend a couple of billion dollars to get some rights for Off The Podium. We could be the broadcast holders for Paris. Why not? But we're going to, I guess, commentate. Do we want to just wait until this one's over? Jarrod, I feel we wait till the next horse comes on. I don't know how long this horse has got to go. I mean, Jarrod, have you been practicing by watching this to get your terminology down here? Because again, I have no idea what this horse is doing.
JARROD LOOBEEK: You know what? I haven't watched a whole lot of this today. It was just on an awkward time, and I was watching the soccer, which was a complete waste. So yes, definitely be a matter of learning on the fly, I think.
BEN WATERWORTH: But Colin, again, you're here. You've just obviously woken up not long ago. So I'm guessing you didn't watch any of this earlier today. But I mean, did you quickly do a bit of googling of dressage terminology?
COLIN HILDING: I've done zero googling on it. And to be honest, I don't think it matters. I don't, even the average followers of dressage are gonna be correcting us on anything here.
BEN WATERWORTH: All right, well, I think maybe what we can do, we don't wanna take up all episode, is maybe we each do a horse. That sounds a bit wrong, doesn't it? But maybe we each do a, maybe we each commentate on a horse. Maybe I'll say that, making Ben Waterworth fantasies a little bit too much. So are we all fine with that? Maybe we each just, we go for one each, and then kind of go from there. Are we, Jarrod, you look disappointed. Maybe you want more.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I was gonna say they're pretty long. Maybe just do the one horse and split it into three.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I was gonna say, this has been going on for about eight minutes, hasn't it? Yeah, that's a fair point, actually. Do we know where this competitor is right now that we are watching?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Where she's from?
BEN WATERWORTH: Hang on, there it is, thank you. I've got Jeff on the line. Oh, we're live from Tokyo, thank you. Colin, clarifying that. Oh, no, the competitor.
JARROD LOOBEEK: She's from rock.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, she's, oh, the esteemed rock. Oh, great.
COLIN HILDING: It's rocky.
BEN WATERWORTH: Olympic tradition, they have in rocks.
JARROD LOOBEEK: You're testing that horse afterwards.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah.
COLIN HILDING: She is sweaty, too. I'm just gonna say that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I mean, the drugs aren't working, clearly.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, she's going to withdraw.
BEN WATERWORTH: She's one of the ones that hasn't been caught.
COLIN HILDING: It's not quite time for a methadone injection yet.
BEN WATERWORTH: So basically, for those listening who have no idea what is happening, we are watching the end of Rock Lobster here, because that's the song of the game for Australia right now. And whenever our next competitor on, we'll take it through. But I'm going to let Jarrod start when it comes through. I think it looks over right now. She's rubbing the horse. Oh, she's kissing the horse.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, I am not at the same spot.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Are you ahead of me or behind me?
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know. I mean, is she walking off?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Slow-mo trotting.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, this is this is a shame. If I press the live button here, maybe on my channel. Thanks, Seven app. OK, now I'm seeing slow-mo. OK, I think I've caught up. I maybe wasn't live. So we'll bag out channel seven. All right. Well, maybe let's hang on. Shall we try and do this properly right now? Shall we be like Bruce and Basil and that Canadian guy that you're mentioning yesterday? Can I just say, headlines here in Australia today, by the way, Fox Sports are bagging out Canada for calling Paddy Mills a woman. So you've made it. Yes. And we're now going to cross live to the Tokyo Dressage Stadium to commentate on the dressage team and individual qualifier. Here are your commentators, Jarrod Lubick, Colin Hilding and Ben Waterworth. Over to you, Jarrod Lubick.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thanks for that cross. It's not ideal conditions here at the Questron Centre. A little bit of rain. The sand's a little bit soggy. Good for making sand castles. Not so much for dressage, but they continue. There's no stopping this event. Rain, hail or shine, it will go ahead.
BEN WATERWORTH: You're not wrong, Jarrod. It's a beautiful day to dressage, let's be honest. And we are now seeing the French competitor here. And an unusual thing from the French competitor here, actually, going towards something rather than running away. So I'm looking forward to seeing how Alexandre Ayash goes here. Any form here from Alexandre, Jarrod?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, so they've started with the hot sand on the beach. So just running across that softly minimal contact. Don't want to burn the feet. And just moving into more of a gallop here.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's almost like the side step. It's beautiful form here. I mean, I haven't seen a gallop like that since that last time I watched this sport.
COLIN HILDING: About 10 seconds ago.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know. The rock competitor really rocked it out. But what do you call this?
COLIN HILDING: I just have to say that the fans here are going nuts. For this horse, just listen to them scream.
BEN WATERWORTH: Crowd favourite. I actually was looking up this horse before, and I posted a selfie previously with Bat Horse online. So the Bat Horse is in the Olympic Village this time around.
COLIN HILDING: I heard they're attending Coachella together next year.
BEN WATERWORTH: I believe so. Jarrod, what do you call this exact move that Alexandre is making the horse do?
JARROD LOOBEEK: So this is a reverse parallel park. Um, and now we're forward again. Um, and back to the, um, hot sand on the beach.
COLIN HILDING: It is very impressive. They get their directions right, just spot on. Go backwards, backwards. Go forwards, forwards.
BEN WATERWORTH: If I was, if I was marking this as a driver to get their provisional licence, I would honestly say that they did that reverse park quite well, and I would probably tick that little box on their floor.
COLIN HILDING: Absolutely. And right now, it's just the trot and the place, which is one of the harder moves I've heard. Takes a lot of skill to trot in place. I've tried it myself with mixed results, unfortunately.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, most famously used at the opening ceremony on the treadmill. Yes, right.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, we do know Japan has a traditional nation when it comes to dressage. They do love it. Prime time every night on Japan One, it's huge here in Tokyo. Just like this horse, because...
COLIN HILDING: It's sad to say, though, Alexander himself is looking a little bit winded right now. I mean, this is taking its toll on him. The constant lifting of the reins and lowering of the reins and screaming at this horse and just berating it because it's just not going forwards when it's supposed to not going backwards. The directions are all over the place right now, unfortunately.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'd really actually like to know, Jarrod, I'm sure you can answer this, being the expert on this commentary panel today, the decision to go with one leg sort of a white-grey colour and the rest brown. Is this like a protest? Is this a statement standing up for Black Lives Matter or something like that? I mean, what is this? It's got a meaning to it.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I mean, bad breeding, really. That's probably a 0.5 deduction there for that sock. They could have coloured that in. A little bit of brown paint, but it looks like they ran out just short of the hoof there. So that will be a deduction at the end of the round.
COLIN HILDING: I was thinking that they were taking a page out of Milos Ronic's book there with the sleeve, but no, Jarrod, good correction there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Great form here from Alexandre, the way he's capable of getting the horse to lift its legs. I tried to get a horse to lift its legs once, but then I was promptly arrested, but that's another story. But just the way that the legs lift and go down and lift and go down and lift and go down, I mean, as you said, Colin, the crowd is absolutely loud. I've never heard a crowd this loud before at a dressage event, and he's going on here right now.
COLIN HILDING: And you know, Jarrod and I have often tried to get Ben to do the same leg lift, and it has worked, not quite to this Olympic level, but we could potentially have been in the galloping contests regionally in Hobart, possibly by 2028.
BEN WATERWORTH: How many laps are required here, Jarrod, for Alexandre, to really get into the ballpark here on the sand that you're mentioning there? I mean, you know, it looks like a good run here right now, but is this good enough to get him into the part where he needs to go?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think we're about up to the 20th lap. Really up to the rider's discretion how long they want to stay out there, given the conditions. But this lookie is looking to me like a 70% run at the moment. We're just seeing the classic, I don't want to go to school, it's too early move by the horse. So a couple of bonus points for that one.
BEN WATERWORTH: I did hear, though, that Alexander had been practicing the picking up the kids from school move, which I apparently believe is a very tricky one. It's up there with like a, you know, the 1080 or something like that in snowboarding. So he pulls that off, I'm sure, that the whole, I'm actually, I've been passed the note here. Thanks, Jenny. The horse is actually called Zo-Watt. There, Jarrod. So is that a traditional French name for a horse?
JARROD LOOBEEK: It very well could be.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, I'm seeing the one tempe changes. Can you explain that for the average dressage watcher today? What does that mean?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, it's the first of the tempe changes. That's why it's called one. And that was a pirouette to the left, and now a flying change, where we don't want to see any of the hoofs on the ground. Inspired by Pegasus, this move.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, this horse needs to be airborne in the next 10 seconds, or it's gonna have massive deductions and points.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, I didn't like that move there. That hoof just did not sit well on that piece of sand here. Zowat is bucking here. I don't think this looks natural.
COLIN HILDING: I believe right now, going through the horse's mind, is I don't like sand. It's coarse, and it's rough, and it's irritating, and it gets everywhere.
BEN WATERWORTH: I actually believe, too, that he hates them, all of them. And I do also believe that it is Obi-Wan's hoof.
COLIN HILDING: Well, it is a French horse, so we know it hates somebody.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, I like this move here. This is kind of almost like the diagonal move. I like to call this the bishop, based on, of course, there are correlation to chest moves. It's very similar to chest, the dressage. It's slow and boring, and often people don't get it. But when you do get it, like us, the dressage experts, we often really get into it. Oh, whoa, what a hoof with that hoof.
COLIN HILDING: Sorry.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Jeez.
BEN WATERWORTH: You don't get too excited in this sport, but my goodness. Jarrod, you just had to take a sip of beer there. You were that blown away.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Indeed, I nearly fell off the chair. What a move.
BEN WATERWORTH: My goodness. Again.
COLIN HILDING: You will need to excuse me for a few minutes. I might need to change my underwear.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's a common thing in this sport. And I mean, 50 people in the audience just fainted.
COLIN HILDING: Round of applause right now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Always stop here now. What's always, pumping the fist, he's tapping the horse. It's over. It's over.
COLIN HILDING: Wow. Wow, yeah. Quite a showing there.
BEN WATERWORTH: The French contingent loving it. Jarrod, what did you think of that? For Alexandre there, and Zoe, what? I mean, what are you expecting the judges to score that on when it comes to the score?
JARROD LOOBEEK: You know, I think it went quite well. I think better than the previous Rock athlete, who I think was on 63%. So I'm expecting low 70% for this run.
BEN WATERWORTH: Colin, your thoughts? You think that low 70 is a solid score here for Alexandre?
COLIN HILDING: I was thinking more like high 100s, but I also am not quite sure how the scoring works in this. So we'll have to wait and see.
BEN WATERWORTH: Break it down for us, Jarrod. How does scoring work in dressage?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, there's a percentage. It goes up to 100. And the higher the percentage, the better.
BEN WATERWORTH: Look, you think we would all know that? It's a simple explanation from a very intelligent man. Jarrod, we appreciate that. I'm anticipating the score. I mean, France is on tender hooks, the future hosts of the next Olympics. I mean, if Alexandre gets a good score here, you know Paris is just gonna sell out in five minutes when they release the tickets, if we're allowed to go. I mean, look at the crowd there, actually. There is a solid group of media and officials behind the packed house here at the Tokyo Stadium for dressage. And look at the plait style on that horse's mane. I really do think that that deserves a hair montage by Channel 7 eventually.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, this is out on the 70%, 68, very close to a good mark.
BEN WATERWORTH: What do you think of that though, Jarrod? Is that controversial? Do we feel that this could be a protest or something going on with it?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think they might have to go back to the video review, but it's possible that that 2% difference is from that white sock.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and you know what? Zowatt was not happy with that because it is an empty stadium.
BEN WATERWORTH: You can audibly hear him say, Zow suck it, judges. And in the great words of a great woman, Zowatt, he's still a rock star. So we will see how that plays out. I believe that is all we have time for right now. I will cross back to our main studio in Off The Podium, Ville. Jarrod, any final thoughts before we do cross back to those sexy three back in our studio?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Ah, you know what? It's just qualifying. They've gone ahead. They've forged on through the rain. They've got to be proud, but looking forward to the medal contention round. This qualifying is a little bit boring. But yeah, looking forward to handing out that gold medal to a horse that is all one colour.
BEN WATERWORTH: Colin, any final thoughts too, before we leave this very exciting event?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, you know, if anybody out there thought the regular dressage presented the sexiest horses out there, just wait till you see the sexy horses in the rain.
BEN WATERWORTH: Whew! I shouldn't laugh. It's a serious thing. Let's go back to our studio. Thank you for joining us today. Ah, brilliant. Look at that. Ha ha. Jarrod, you just, you've been waiting that moment for your whole life. That was like M&M. You've got one shot, one opportunity to capture it. And you did it. You ate mild it right there.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thank you. Yeah. It's just such a good sport.
BEN WATERWORTH: Munch spaghetti. Yeah, just absolutely. Wow, that just happened. Stay tuned for more great commentary on Off The Podium coming soon. I think we might do. I'm down for swimming finals tomorrow. I think we should all come together and pre-record that for some nice swimming finals.
COLIN HILDING: Fast pace, quick.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just onto it.
COLIN HILDING: Also sexy and wet.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well, today's been a very sexy and wet day. I just want to point that out. Not just because we watched the dress. I mean, again, we're not doing video episodes, but I'll say today, I've decided with no medals, one for either candidate. I'm wearing Beijing gold today, people, because it's been a golden day for the city, the country that Beijing's in. China, currently sitting pretty on top of the medal tally at the time we record this. It's been a very entertaining day, actually, I have to say. My day started off by setting my alarm for nine o'clock, turned on the television, put on the rowing, fell asleep, and woke up a couple of hours later. And the rowing was still on, so there you go. But outside of that, I mean, we'll get to what we watch very shortly. I've been a very busy beaver today watching a lot of things. But let's start with you, Jarrod. I mean, obviously, you've just gotten yourself a bit of Canadian Toronto wood by watching the dressage. But how have you found the first day in general? Have you been excited to kind of get back into couch mode for the next couple of weeks?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's been good. It's been fun kind of figuring out what the best way to go about watching it is. Do I watch the main Channel 7 coverage, or do I flick between different sports? And it very quickly became a matter of flicking between different sports because the main coverage just sat on the road race for the majority of the day. But no, it's been good. I feel like I watched a lot of team sports today, which is always good fun.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, six hours, folks. That's how long a road race goes for, six hours. Hashtag, where's Richie? I still don't know. I don't know if I saw him today. Colin, what about you? How are you obviously a little bit different? Yeah, you didn't go to bed straight away after the opening ceremony last night. I mean, I guess you kind of almost, I guess, watched stuff, went to bed, got up and are watching stuff again. You're kind of in that unique position we were sort of in in Rio five years ago.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, you know, basically, by the time I got home from work and ate dinner, it was almost time for the prime time coverage to start, which I was more excited for the network coverage because, you know, they're going to break it up, do different sports, show highlights and everything. And they immediately go and show a replay of the opening ceremonies. And this is while all the live sports are starting. So I basically spent my evening going back and forth between different sports. And kind of like Jarrod said, you're figuring out, you know, how do I want to watch this? My final way that I decided was that I was going to have my computer screen set up with the softball, have my phone set up with the volleyball, and run on the treadmill reenacting the opening ceremony. So I was triple Olympic privilege this morning, or I guess last night for me. And yeah, that's pretty much I did. I tried to get it casting our TV. You know, we have the Chromecast. So I was trying to do that, you know, after the kids went to bed. And I've discovered that the Chromecast is not like the CBC app. It will crash after every six minutes. So then I just sort of waited for the opening ceremonies to end on the network coverage. And they did have some good volleyball and going back and forth to the road race. I'm curious, when you said six hours of road race, did your network just cover just the road race for six hours straight? See, and this is why I was saying, off air, I'm like, I was disappointed that when I just view the whole event to kind of see what happened, because I went to bed and it was starting, I woke up and it wasn't done yet. The full event is the Australian coverage, but the Canadian Network one was great because they would basically show it for five or 10 minutes, cut away to beach volleyball for an hour, come back for another five or 10 minutes. And I actually really like watching a road race like that.
BEN WATERWORTH: The thing that I found, yeah, like, so we kind of, we have like main network, channel seven, and you kind of have your two digital channels of seven two and the aptly named seven mate. And they would show different ones. I was kind of like Jarrod. I was mainly watching the app events because, you know, I kind of had the road race on my laptop, kind of recording sort of like, yeah, okay, whatever. I didn't really, I watched like the last 10 minutes of it basically, sort of flicked between it because there was so many other sports, and we'll get to that in a moment, sort of what I was watching. But it's interesting you say that about the commentary because I didn't realise that they would have the Australian commentary somewhere else. I know that when I was flicking between the Matilda's match, in that when they were sort of showing that, I think on 7, then it went to 7-2 or whatever it was when the news was on, that was the Australian commentators. And that really, so who is the female colour commentator on that, Jarrod? Is she a former Matilda? Because she's got like the most monotone, boring voice in the world. Like she needs to wake up. Do you know who she is?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No idea.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, she's almost as exciting as the SBS Japanese commentator last night. But when you watch, if you just press on the football on your app, you get the British commentator. So it was kind of like, oh, I can get the, you know, the proper commentator. It was kind of, it was interesting. But yeah, I mean, a lot of the ones on the app I found too don't have commentary, as we mentioned, sort of when it comes out, we go for commentary. But yeah, you mentioned about the Chromecast, the problem's yours. God, I mean, the Channel 7 app, Jarrod, is just ridiculous. Like it just never wants to find my Chromecast. And when it does, you press it, then it starts playing on your phone, you gotta exit it, start it again, then you press a thing, and it takes you to the website, and you can't connect that. Like, oh, goodness me. I just, I mean, are you watching it off your app, Jarrod? You're like getting your computer and putting it to your TV. I mean, how are you doing it?
JARROD LOOBEEK: So I'm mainly watching like the main coverage, I suppose, just on the TV, just on Network 7. And then I'll stream, use the app just like on my phone to have like another sport in the background. But even so, just the setup of the app in terms of finding what sports are on, I think it's just really like clunky. Yeah, I always see like the up next, and you don't know if the event's like still happening. And then by like the end of the stream, they're just like running like highlights of the event. You switch over and it's like, oh, it's actually not on anymore. It's just, it's not a great setup.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, no, it's very awkward. And we like, I was gonna say, was it Pyeongchang or Rio? They like, they literally had a screen where you just press the sport and you went there. And I'll tell you, this one now, it's like, because they've integrated it just with the normal Channel 7 app. So it kind of gets confusing because all of a sudden you press on something and then it will take you to 7-2 and you're watching Bargain Hunters Australia. And I'm like, I want to watch Bargain Hunters Australia. So you click on a thing and then it takes you to a bit. And it's like, there was more stuff this morning that was streams not available. I'm like, okay, yeah, sure. You're going to show all the live sports when you're not showing this again. So I mean, Colin, is yours just like the CBC app that they've integrated into it? Or do you have a separate CBC Olympics app?
COLIN HILDING: Well, CBC has multiple apps already. They have a CBC Sports app, which, you know, year round, you could watch whatever they're covering. But two weeks ago, they basically rebranded that just as the Olympics app. So now it is the CBC Olympics app. And I actually really like the app. If you watch on the phone, it's fine. It's just it won't cast to the TV well. But we can basically separate where you choose live events, and you can see everything that's actually going on right now. If I were to click on a live event, I could choose to watch it from the beginning, or I could just click to view it live. Or you just go to replays, and there they'll show kind of an order of where everything ended, stuff that's over now. So it'll say, you know, three hours ago, three on three basketball, seven hours ago, road race and all that. So if you know when an event was on, and also you can just go to a separate section, which is just the schedule where it'll show everything that's currently running and everything that's coming up. And, you know, if it is something that's on right now, you just again click on live and it takes straight to the video. The app is fantastic. It's just I want an easy way to watch this on my TV so I'm not always holding my phone.
BEN WATERWORTH: I sort of use the app more than TV because I don't, the TV I have doesn't really have the, right now I'm staring at a, it looks fuzzy to me because it's obviously not HD, whereas the app, I can stream it in HD. So I'm one of those people now. It's like, HD, come on, you know. We'll go over the results in terms of the medallists and everything on those lines. And we'll focus on obviously the Australian, Canadian ones. We'll talk about what we watched. And kind of, if you've never listened to our daily coverage before an Olympics, we basically kind of have a bit of a run through certain things and go over bits and just be comedic geniuses. Cause that's what we're known for on all our different shows. I mean, you just heard the dressage commentary. I mean, that was fucking hilarious. Welcome to the episode. But we had 11 events today, 11 medals decided. And a couple of them are still going on as we record. So we might have some results by the end of this episode. But our first event today that delivered us a medal, the women's 10 metre air rifle, it went to Quan Yang of China in an Olympic record. I believe she won on the last shot. Anastasia Galashina of Rock choked. She did a Campbell. She was on board to win and she didn't. I mean, the great nation of Rock doesn't stand up for that sort of stuff. They just, they love their winners. That's why they give them drugs. And the iconic shooting nation of Switzerland won a bronze, Nina Christen. And I might fact check this, because I can't honestly believe that Switzerland win many medals in shooting. So I don't know if this was their very first medal in shooting, or perhaps I'm just underestimating the Swiss. I mean, they're very neutral. Do they have guns in Switzerland? Like, I don't know. Did any of you know the history of shooting in Switzerland?
COLIN HILDING: No.
BEN WATERWORTH: That speaks volumes for what I was asking there.
COLIN HILDING: I'm trying to think of a witty, witty comeback, but I'm like, I don't know. I don't know anything about Switzerland.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I'm actually looking here. They have won plenty. This is their 22nd medal in shooting, Ben. So this is their third best spot in the Summer Olympics. Sorry, Switzerland.
COLIN HILDING: All stars.
BEN WATERWORTH: Six gold.
COLIN HILDING: Please don't come shoot us.
BEN WATERWORTH: Six silver and their 10th bronze ever in shooting. So apologies, Switzerland. Yes, exactly. Geez, calm down. But outside of that, so we had another shooting medal decided today. The men's 10-metre air pistol went to Iran. Javed Faroqi. And again, if anyone's ever listened to this, listen to Ben Waterworth mispronounce everyone's names. No offence intended unless you're British. And also an Olympic record too. Damir Mikhek of Serbia winning the silver and Pang Wei of China the bronze. Archery. I was in tree. I love the archery. We had the very first ever mixed team event today. Went to South Korea. They defeated the Netherlands, who can't quite get on the gold board. Gee, they're living up to expectations. And Mexico, only their second ever archery medal, and their first ever male medal winner in Luis Alvarez, partnering up with Alhundre Valencia. So bronze for them as well. In cycling, we had Richard Carapes in Ecuador, winning Ecuador's first ever medal in cycling, and it was gold. Belgium's Woot van Et, silver, and Tazhej Pogacar of Slovenia took out the bronze. The fencing, the men's sabre is on as we speak. I can tell you that South Korea's Kim Jung Hwan has taken the bronze in that, as expected. Let's be honest, we all expected that he was going to win that in the men's sabre. But the gold medal bout is about to come on. In the women's EPPE, Sun Wen of China, or that should be, sorry, Yuan Sun, the other way around, Ben, took the gold. Romania's the octopussy silver, Anna Maria Popescu, and Estonia bronze, Katerina Liesse. What a way to start the Olympics when both Canada and Australia are being beaten by Estonia. How are we going there, folks? Judo, the men's 60 kilogram, Hoshi Takata of Japan, winning their first home medal, gold medal, defeated Chinese Taipei's Yang Yang Wei, and bronze to France and Kazakhstan. I won't go over it. This is going to be here forever. I do this. Dystria Krasniki of Kosovo, won their second ever. Do you guys want to read this? Give it a crack. She won a gold, defeating Japan's Funa Tonaki, and bronzed Mongolia and Ukraine. I'm not pronouncing that Mongolian athlete's name. Jesus, no way. The Taekwondo are happening as we speak right now, so they will be decided. And the weightlifting, I will get to what we watched. I was hooked to the weightlifting today. Xi Hu Hou, an Olympic record, she killed it. She took the gold. India's Saikom Marabai Chanu took the silver, and bronzed to Windy Kanetika Aiza. How's that pronunciation? Of Indonesia. So as we sit right now, China walloped to the top of the medal tally with three gold and a bronze. And our only other multiple medal winners today, Japan, South Korea, and ROK. Two medals apiece, a gold and a silver, to Japan, a gold and a bronze, to South Korea, and a silver and a bronze to ROK. Bad, bad there. But 23 countries have scored medals today. Let's lead in to what we watched then, and we'll go over some Australia and Canada results soon. Jarrod, did you catch any of these medal events today? Any of these in particular that stood out to you?
JARROD LOOBEEK: You know what? I did see the end of the road race after watching, I don't know, four hours of it continuously. I went away, and then I was like, I'm going to come back when there's 10 kilometres to go, because that seems like it should have been the strategy from the start. So I did see the finish to that, which was exciting, although the downside was, because I came back so late, there was just no mention of Australia. I'm like, are we in a chasing pack? Like, where are we in this?
BEN WATERWORTH: I was like, where's Richie?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Where's Richie all over again? But outside of that, saw a bit of the tennis, Ash Barty and Storm Sanders one-handedly. John Millman got a win, which was good. Sammy Stozer went out. And then saw Australia lose dismally to Canada in the softball.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jesus Christ, this guy isn't celebrating that. We beat you in water polo, so suck it.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Watched the revenge in the water polo. And then watched the hockey roost struggle to win against Japan.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I was wondering what's going on with that one. Colin, before I get to what you watched, I will just say the remaining medal ones right now. So in the taekwondo, the bronze medal bout is happening as we speak. The 49 kilo between a Serbian taekwondo, Tijana Bogdanovic, and Japan's Miyu Yamada. So bronze will go to Serbia, Japan. The bronze in the men's 58 kilo will go to Hungary or Korea, and the gold medal bouts in both of them. So we've got Thailand versus Spain, and traditional rivals in the men's of Tunisia and Italy. So we'll keep an eye on that. And in the fencing, the gold medal men's save about will be between Luigi Semele of Italy, and I've got a bit to say about Luigi. I watched him earlier today. And Hungary's Aaron Cizlagyi, typical unfunny Hungarian name there. So that's the gold medal bout there, which we'll get to hopefully by the end of this episode. Colin, what did you watch today?
COLIN HILDING: I just want to say for the road race again, I've never paid much attention to it. I figured this is more of a Ben thing. It's like the Formula One on a bicycle.
BEN WATERWORTH: Formula One is a thousand times more exciting than the men's road race. Formula One is not allowed to go for six hours. It's got a four-hour cap. And even then, it's because it's raining. Don't get me started. Anyway, sorry, Colin.
COLIN HILDING: Well, the first time I've really ever sat down and paid attention to it, because it was sort of starting as I was getting ready for bed last night. And again, the way the Canadian coverage set it up had me really excited. I think it's partly because I've been doing a lot more cycling lately. Years ago, I used to cycle. Michael was probably about 15 to 20 km to work, and then 15 to 20 km home, which was exhausting. I don't think I ever do that. Lately, it's been more like 11 km to work, 11 km home. So when they say this is 200 and something km, I mean, I was instantly like, this is impossible. How does anybody do this? But just the fact that they were able to sort of come in and out, what really fascinated me about it, and I don't know if either of you had the same reaction, seeing a lot of the other sports that, you know, having no crowds, it's a bit of a downer. The streets are packed, and at least on the Canadian coverage, they kept pointing out, you know, thousands of people are coming out to this, you know, it's got to have an effect on the riders and all that. And just the scenery alone, I mean, you know, going through the streets and in the mountains and all that, I mean, it was beautiful to watch, even if you're not following the action, it was great to watch. Our beach volleyball started last night. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish. Maybe we'll give them a shout out.
BEN WATERWORTH: What were you doing while you were watching the beach volleyball?
COLIN HILDING: Nothing, nothing.
BEN WATERWORTH: You weren't able to finish.
COLIN HILDING: You weren't watching me. Come on, you didn't see anything. You don't know. Jamie wasn't there either. All right, so nobody can claim anything. Anyways.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jamie, should we get Jamie on the line right now? Are you guys expecting another child all of a sudden? Is it the third time you had sex? Good job.
COLIN HILDING: But it was fun to see how they had planned. Kind of like, I guess, we're going to get into swimming, where they get their big walkout, and introducing from, and they come out. You're seeing people who are playing to a crowd that's not there. I saw one guy, I can't remember what country he was from, where he's like, pointing the crowd, and it's like, yeah! There is nobody there. I watched some of the beach volleyball, some of the regular volleyball, the softball, which I wasn't very optimistic in the first inning. I think even though we scored two runs, it was like we had a lot of foul balls for Canada. The next thing you know, I'm like, wow, at what point can I stop watching this? I think Jarrod had even messaged, when does the mercy rule come to play? So that was fun. And then, like you said, you got your revenge on the water polo, which was also fun to watch, obviously. I didn't catch that one from the beginning. It was more halfway through. And I'm like, yeah, I think we're out of this one. I'm going to say my star of the day, though, is 3 on 3.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, you're getting into this already. Oh, the sport. I thought you were talking about your athlete. Yeah, just the sport. Yeah, I completely forgot that was on. But then I watched it. I'm like, this is pretty good.
COLIN HILDING: This is my new favourite sport. I mean, it's quick, it's fast paced. You could sit down for two hours and watch several games. I'm going to be glued to 3 on 3 basketball from this point forward.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, Jarrod, did you catch any of the... Hang on, are we saying it properly? Because the commentators today called it 3x3. Is that the cool, trendy thing the kids are saying on the street? 3x3? Jarrod, did you catch any of the 3x3 today?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I did see a little bit tonight. And yeah, it's great. It's so fast paced. There's plenty of baskets. It's good.
BEN WATERWORTH: I watched traditional arrivals, Netherlands and Serbia, in 3x3. And the Dutch were getting their arses kicked. But then they came right back and had a chance to win it on the buzzer. But sadly, the typical Dutch just didn't do it. They hit a dam. It's not funny. I watched a lot today. Once I fell asleep, I woke up, and I thought, fuck, I've got to catch up for a lot of time. I saw the end of the softball. When I turned it on, I think it was the bottom of the sixth when Canada got one more run. The mercy rule would have been put in place because the commentators were like, oh, they just need one more run here, and it will be over. And there it is. I was still yelling, oh, now we're getting excited. The fact that Canada are about to whoop our ass. So, yeah, I'm not sure how I'm feeling about this bronze thing, Jarrod. Not looking too good there. I was enthralled early by the fencing, particularly because getting Max on a few weeks ago to kind of explain it a little bit was good. But I actually really liked the fact that we didn't, the one I was watching didn't have commentary because it was literally just people running at each other and poking each other with sticks, going, No! Like every five seconds. I had no clue. Like, because it's so fast, and you can't see, like, who's getting hit or anything like that. It's brilliant. And I'm really hoping that we can do commentary on it, and particularly on Max's bout when he fights in a couple of days. Now, I mentioned that the gold medal match is about to happen in the men's sabre, Luigi Semele. I caught the end of his, I'm guessing it was his first round match, and he was pumped, he was excited, you know, national hero in Italy, probably, because I love their fencing. He was so pumped that he rips his hand, he's pumped, and he goes in to, like, shake the hand of his competitor, like, full on, like, yeah, man, fuck, I did this. And you hear his coach, like, oh, no, no! And he sort of looked, he was, like, shocked, and he was, like, oh, COVID. But you just hear this Italian coach, like, no, no! Don't touch him! This guy just looks so shocked. He was like, ah! Like, no, don't let me touch him! But I swear it's only the men, because, like, when they had the women's fencing, they were quiet. They weren't, like, you know, doing it. Shout out to our good friend Nook Chista, our New Zealand correspondent, who sent me a picture of the fencing, and he's like, guess what I'm thinking of right now? To which I reply with a great quote from a certain movie over my shoulder. It's just a bit of sport, Nick! Love the fact that he's got to think of dying another day when he's watching, because what else would you think of? I caught a bit of the handball. I love me some handball. Handball's fantastic to watch. Yeah, the road race. I caught some boxing. When we talk about maybe our commentary fails of the day, it wasn't Channel 7 commentary, but there was a dick commentator in the boxing today, I'll tell you that. I caught a bit of the hockey. Spain-Argentina was a bit of a brawl at the end of that game. Spain and Argentina almost came into fisticuffs, that was pretty exciting. I was absolutely enthralled by the weightlifting. My nominee for Athlete of the Day is coming from weightlifting, but I actually really, really enjoyed watching that. Yeah, I caught a bit of the 3x3, the water polo, the beach volleyball. Can I say, water polo and beach volleyball, I hadn't seen any of them yet, I'm sure it's equally as entertaining. It's very entertaining. Can I just point that out, am I allowed to point that out? It's 2021, I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but I like it.
JARROD LOOBEEK: We all agree it's pretty good.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, you know what? Often the Pan Am Games are used to trial Olympic sports, and when the Pan Am Games were here in Winnipeg in 99, that was when beach volleyball made its debut ahead of going into the Olympics. And I'm telling you, it was sold out every single night. You can guess that there's reasons why it was sold out every night. Nobody was really there for the sport, but I mean, it was like packed, like thousands of people in our stadium to see beach volleyball.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know Gold Coast, yeah, that was one of the really hard tickets to get during the Commonwealth Games, and obviously Sydney famously, there was all the controversy around putting it on Bondi Beach, but everyone was glad that they did. Nick also messaged me because he was saying that his girlfriend wanted to watch The Equestrian, but he was watching the beach volleyball, and he's like, why do they wear so little? And I'm like, so people like us watch it.
COLIN HILDING: Do you remember the Simpsons episode where Homer climbs into bed, and I'm like, Marge, I've been watching women's volleyball.
BEN WATERWORTH: But that's the thing, even like, normal volleyball is quite good, and they wear a lot more. So yeah, Jesus, this has been a tough year for Ben Waterworth. Remember when we were trying to farm your wife five years ago? It's not going that far anymore, but no.
COLIN HILDING: I was going to say, I got into volleyball a couple of years ago, just for the sport. I'm being honest, for the sport itself. And the women's volleyball headquarters is really here in Winnipeg. So they were doing like these charity fundraisers and stuff like this to basically raise enough money to go to the Olympics. And I got the word that it was going to be at the mall or whatever, one of the malls here. And I told Jimmy, we're going down, we're donating money, we're going to meet some volleyball players.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's like when we went to the Blue Bombers Open Day, and you and I were fighting over a cheerleader calendar that your wife bought you.
COLIN HILDING: I've got it, I think it's in here, maybe I'll break it out.
BEN WATERWORTH: I still want that calendar, Colin. I know it's a couple of years old. I got my photos, you wouldn't get your photos taken with them. I was fine getting my photos taken with the cheerleaders. LA 2028, my new favourite sport, will be cheerleading, don't worry. I caught the archery, because I love the archery. And yeah, I watched a bit of the Matildas. And I actually did not watch too much of the swimming. The heats, like, I mean, do we really need to watch the heats?
COLIN HILDING: Well, I'm going to say, I was tuned into it within five minutes before we actually started recording here. And the big shocker I saw was, I think, was the heats for the 400-metre individual medley. And Katinka Hozu was in third, 300 metres in. By 400 metres, she finished in seventh. So something bad happened. I don't know, a cramp or a charley horse or something. But yeah, not a great start for Katinka.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, well, she deserves it, doesn't she?
COLIN HILDING: Am I the only Katinka fan? Even Jamie, I always go on to... Jamie is a very superficial person, and Jamie is like, there's something about this lady's face I don't like. And I'm like, Jamie, that's a horrible thing to say. Yeah, she refuses to watch Katinka.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I mean, I don't know if there's people out there that are that against Katinka. But I mean, when you got a name like Katinka, wasn't that a type of toy in the 80s that was banned or something? I don't know. I don't know where that joke was going. Yeah, it's been an interesting day. It's been a busy day, I think, kind of in sort of trying to catch up. I'm actually right now, the gymnastics is on one screen, and I've turned the dressage off. Jarrod, I think you'll look like you're glued. Are you still watching the dressage? Is it still going?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, I've gone back to the women's soccer.
BEN WATERWORTH: All right, who's playing at the moment? Who's on right now?
JARROD LOOBEEK: It is USA and New Zealand.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, and please tell me New Zealand are winning?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No.
BEN WATERWORTH: How much are New Zealand losing by? That should be the question.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Two nil, so not too badly. It's the second half, so it's quite respectable at the moment.
BEN WATERWORTH: OK, well, we'll go over some results, sort of some other ones, sort of Australia, Canada. Colin, let's go for you. Canada, I mean, I don't know if you've got them in front of you or kind of any notable ones that you want to talk about. I mean, you obviously got a fifth in the men's road race. I don't know if you were watching much of the Australian coverage. You were saying you were a very esteemed commentator, but he was talking up Mr Woods a lot, saying that he was a real smoky for a medal, and he nearly came through with that. I thought he was piping for a silver there on that final sprint, but unfortunately got fifth. But not to steal Canada's thunder, any other notable ones of Canada you want to talk about today, or that are being talked about in Canada right now?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, the softball has become a big story here. We talked about how that's basically for the projected gold medal, or it's not gold medal, definitely not gold medal, the projected bronze medal matchup. But I think Canadians have, at least in the media, talked down Canada to the point where it's like, oh, you know, it's probably Australia, even before the game, game matchup, we never know what to call us. It was a lot of, well, Australia won it here, Australia won this, Australia won this, Australia won this, Canada might have a shot. But now that's kind of where all the tension is, like, hey, we actually, we really won. So if this is the bronze medal match, we've got one in the bag. But road race is kind of the big story here. And also, I would say, during the event, there wasn't a lot of focus on, I don't even know his name. What is it again?
BEN WATERWORTH: The Mr. Woods, the Canadian guy, Michael Woods, yeah.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, Michael Woods. There wasn't even a lot of talk on him during the event here with the coverage. Obviously, closer to the end, there was. And I think the funniest thing for me was, before it started, Scott Russell, who was able to tell that Michael was a man, thankfully, he was on air. And you know it's a scripted line, but it was one of these things that really made me laugh, where they were trying to pump up our chances by saying, Canada has a great history in the road race. We won a medal in 1984 in Los Angeles. Like, a medal in 84 in Los Angeles does not count, and that's our great history.
BEN WATERWORTH: That was the opposite on the Australian coverage. People kept going, Canada's in a bit of a drought. They haven't won a medal since silver in 1984 in the road race. I love how Canada is like, oh, great history.
COLIN HILDING: Great history in the sport.
BEN WATERWORTH: They've got nothing in 37 years.
COLIN HILDING: And let's be honest, Los Angeles doesn't count for anything.
BEN WATERWORTH: Half the countries weren't there. Come on.
COLIN HILDING: But yeah, it's still so early, and because our coverage is all running throughout the night, I don't think we're really going to start hearing a lot about how Canada performed on day one until probably into the prime time tonight.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I'm looking just through some of the other ones here just on the Team Canada website. The lead story is Woods' fifth place. Canada's second best ever in the Men's Olympic Road Race behind only Steve Bauer Silver at LA in 1984. Good on you. Good on you. It's so Canadian. We got fifth. I shouldn't laugh. That's better than anything Australia got today. Remember Jarrod Weaver winning after day one in Rio?
JARROD LOOBEEK: What a time to be alive.
BEN WATERWORTH: They haven't even won a bloody medal yet. I'm seeing here in the Artistic Gymnastics, the lone Canadian, Renee Coynoyer, hoped to earn a spot among the 24 men to compete the individual all around final. He got a score of 77.697, finished 33rd, did not make the final. Sadly, the only Canadian fencer, Shao Gordon in the men's individual Sabre, was defeated sadly by the esteemed Iranian fencer, Mojtaba Abedini. Wow, traditional rivals. Yvette Young in the Taekwondo, she sadly lost in the round of 16 in the women's 49 kill. You know of Yvette, or that was made a bit of news?
COLIN HILDING: That was the only... Well, when we were trying to cast to the TV, that was the only one we were able to watch before it cut out last night.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right, right. Our friends over at the Beach Volleyball that we've sent a cheer for, and I'm taking credit for them winning today, Sarah Pavan and Melissa Jimena Paredes, won today against the Dutch. And there's another pair...
COLIN HILDING: They're a real shot at a medal. Like, I think there's very few\... Even with Andre de Grasse, nobody wants to say whether he'll win a medal. Well, we don't know, you know? Kylie Masse, they're not even saying. With Paredes and Pavan or whatever. It's basically, it's like, yes, they will medal. It's just a question of whether it's going to be gold, silver, or bronze.
BEN WATERWORTH: And there is another pair in action. Are they playing as we speak, or have their game already? We'll find that one, because I know they were playing. Yeah, I'm looking here. It is, oh, it has finished. They lost 2-1 to Chinese.
COLIN HILDING: You know, I don't quite get why the shakeups happen, but in Rio, it was Pavan from the winning team and Bansley from the losing team who are partnered up. So I don't know where the decision is made. I'd love to have somebody from beach volleyball on at some point to figure out how you get paired up. I think we talked to a couple of Tessa Virtue, obviously, and Jamie Saleh, and ultimately those types of pairings kind of last for life and it's coach to put them together. But I almost feel like maybe the Olympic committees in volleyball decide where we're going to put you with you and you with you.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I mean, look, it's definitely on our list of sports skaters. I mean, the ideal ones from an Australian audience would be either Natalie Cook or Kerry Pothouse, of course, gold medallist from Sydney. That would be great. But yeah, sure. We'll ask those questions. I legitimately do want to ask, and this isn't just me being a perv, like, why do the women wear sort of very skimpy outfits? Because I would feel in a modern day when this is kind of something where, you know, cheerleaders are getting banned. Like, this is the thing, because it's derogatory towards women in some people's eyes. Why do they still wear very skimpy outfits at an Olympic game? So legitimate question I'd like to ask. Rowing, you had three of the seven Canadian boats through to the next round without going to wrapper charges. That's good for them. So Kelly Filmer, Hillary Jansons won their heat in the women's pair. Conlon McCabe and Kai Langerfield straight through to the semis in the men's pair. And Jennifer Casson and Jill Moffat were second in their heat of the lightweight double skulls to go to the semis. And you got wrapper charges for a few of your other gentlemen and females there. And in tennis, Leila Fernandez is through to the next round, defeating Ukraine's Diana Yastromeska, traditional rivals Jarrod in tennis, I believe.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Absolutely.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it's a very, very big time. And unfortunately for your doubles pairing of Gabby Dabrowski and Sharon Fitchman, they went down to a pair of Brazil.
COLIN HILDING: They went down.
BEN WATERWORTH: They went down. You had bad minutes. I will read through these properly soon, because it's going to take some time. I can't read. I'm still learning. I will just say, if we go to the Australian results today, because there's obviously some team results that I've kind of gelled over as well. We do have our fencing result that I was mentioning before. Unfortunately, my man Luigi Semele of Italy went down to the Hungarians. Hungary has their first hilarious gold of these games. Aaron Czizlegi has won the Men's Sabre. Bit of a boil over there, I think. I mean, Italy and fencing go together like Canada and Forth. So that's a bit of a shock there, so I don't know how to feel about that. Yeah, all right, let's go through some of the other things first. I'm so prepared. I actually was really prepared today, and I'm coming across like I'm not prepared.
COLIN HILDING: I just want to give an update. Thailand just won the gold in the Women's 49 Kilogram Taekwondo.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, good job, Thailand. Look at us, Australia and Canada losing to places like Thailand and Hungary. I don't know how I feel about that. The V12 of all-hour pairing has not played yet, so I can't give any results for that. I should have mentioned the... Is it right to say normal volleyball? Non-beach volleyball?
COLIN HILDING: I don't know what to call it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Fulfilled volleyball? Canada lost to Italy, but you guys put up a bit of a good showing there, and Italy, pretty good. So I saw a lot of the headlines on Twitter that Canada was very proud of that, Colin. Did you see any of the normal volleyball?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. Well, I was watching that on my phone while I had this fall on my computer. And I think after the first set, it was looking a lot more promising. The thing is with men's volleyball, indoor volleyball, maybe they'll just call that, it's always just a question of, are we even going to make the Olympics? So it's completely right if it's like Canada is very proud of that result still, because I'm not going to say we're a struggling team, we're a team that's building a long-term build.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I'm sure is good for Canada, because I don't think Australia's been in normal volleyball since Sydney when we just automatically got spots because we're the hosts. So come on, Brisbane 2032, bring back. Hey, we'll get to be in handball again, Jarrad. So that's a positive. I do like in the Woolies Australian heroes, the only handballers they've got are from Sydney. But I think we should get those guys on the show. They probably never get interviewed, right?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, they might have started training again for 2032.
BEN WATERWORTH: Maybe.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Out of retirement.
BEN WATERWORTH: So the Aussies are going to flick through what I've got open here, so this isn't in any sort of order, but I've just got certain pages in front of me. So I've got swimming open first. So we have two Aussies through to the final of the 400 metres. Elijah Winnington and Jack McLaughlin were fourth and fifth fastest there. The fastest was a German swimmer by the name of Henning Müll. I'm not going to try that one. Obviously, Mack didn't qualify in the 400. But what are we thinking of Elijah and Jack there, Jarrod? Fourth and fifth. Well ahead of the two Americans, though.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think they've got a chance. Actually, I watched that race. It was a dead heat at the end. So right. Good way to ensure both of them went through.
BEN WATERWORTH: Classic Australian. Just dead heating there. Is that a thing that they do? I don't know. In the men's 100 metre breaststroke. So this hasn't got, we've got Matthew Wilson got the second fastest time. It's looking here behind a Finnish swimmer. Is that a thing? Finland know how to swim? Oh, no, this is the other way around. It's the slowest time, Ben. Let's do it by the fastest time. That might work. It's not golf. They were the slowest. Matthew Wilson was the second slowest. The slowest was a Finnish swimmer. That makes sense. So no Australians have gotten through that. But looks at that there. Zach Stubbsley Cook and Matthew Wilson letting us down. Boo. There you go. No Canadians by the looks of it. Oh, no. Gabe Mastrometti. Yeah. Very prepared here. Colin, I'm blaming you. Come on. This should be you doing it there. The 400 metre individual medley. Brendan Smith, fastest for Australia. And an Olympic and a national record. And an oceanic record. There you go. Jarrod, the esteemed oceanic record. Wasn't expecting that from Maddie. From Brendan, I'm calling him Maddie. Fuck it, his new name's Brendan. Were you expecting that from Maddie?
JARROD LOOBEEK: It was not oceanic records notoriously difficult to topple.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. Well, he beat a Kiwi. Top two fastest swimmers into the final. Lewis Clarebert from New Zealand there. Wow, esteemed swimmers going into that one. The 100-metre butterfly and the women there. You spoke about Dead Heat. Actually, this is one of the ones I watched. Emma McKeon, Dead Heated with China's Yufei Zhang to go through into the semifinals. Brianna Throssel was the slowest, but she does sneak in there. And Canada's Catherine Savard and Maggie McNeil are through to the semifinals in that one as well. Good for them. The 400-metre IM that you mentioned a little bit more before there, Colin. No Australians or Canadians through in that one. But Katinka did make it though. So she is through. So I'm sure you're happy for the hilarious Hungarian, aren't you, Colin?
COLIN HILDING: Yes. Jamie won't be, though. She's like, I've got to look at her face.
BEN WATERWORTH: Got to look at her face. Like, I don't want to do that. If you want to, let's put the mickey on this right now, because I'm going to say this by choking it. If there is a guaranteed gold for Australia at these Olympics, apparently it's the 4x100m women's freestyle. And we're about two seconds faster than any of the nearest. The Dutch were the second fastest into the final. Canada, third fastest. Well done, Canada. Penny Oleksiak, part of that. Taylor Ruck, Kayla Sanchez and Rebecca Smith. So the final, Australia, Netherlands, Canada, Britain, USA, China, Denmark, the esteemed swimming nation, and Sweden. So there you go. A chance for a medal, Colin. Get on to it.
COLIN HILDING: Yes.
BEN WATERWORTH: Come on.
COLIN HILDING: Not a chance.
BEN WATERWORTH: A lock. A lock. A John Lock. Let's say that. 8-5, Australia won in the water polo today, just to remind people against Canada. Suck it, Canada. You suck at water polo. You shouldn't be there. Get better at it. It was entertaining. I enjoyed it. Nothing. The men's water polo did not play today. What am I looking at here? This is Archery. We weren't competing in that. Don't really need to have that open. Badminton. There was some Aussies and Canadians playing today, but I think we all lost. So is our friends? Was it Sara Singh or whatever his name was from Rio? I don't think he's playing.
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, I looked that up straight away and was very disappointed.
COLIN HILDING: Maybe if you guys had written a better message to him last time. I mean, you'd be encouraged to come back.
BEN WATERWORTH: I got to see him play in the Gold Coast, so that was something. I'm seeing here our pair of Simon Leong and Gronyas Somerville went down to a pair from Poland by the looks of things. Oh, Indonesia. Wrong flag, Ben. Yeah, geez. Confused countries. That works out well. So disappointment going on there. I'm not going to throw all the badminton here. There's a lot of badminton going on on my screen here right now. I don't know what I'm looking at. And yeah, softball. I don't know. We already talked about that. I'm just looking here at the standings, though. So good news is, is that Australia is still in the bronze medal match. Because Italy and Mexico suck worse than we do. So I think we obviously have to beat Mexico. And I think we get in. We've obviously beaten Italy. So I still think we're in the bronze medal match, Jarrod. I think we're all but a lock there, aren't we?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think so. Is Canada a chance for the gold medal match there, if they win against whoever's above them?
BEN WATERWORTH: I think they are. I think if they beat Japan, because who won between Japan and the US? Have they played yet? I don't think they've played yet. So yeah, I think the talk is really Japan, USA will be the gold medal match, and then it will be Australia, Canada for the bronze. But never count out the Mexicans in softball. That's a very famous thing that you should never do, because obviously they're very renowned for their comebacks, right?
COLIN HILDING: Disregard Italians every time.
BEN WATERWORTH: They just dive and fall and do stuff. One thing I'll say, the boxing, obviously, I was watching a bit of that, but there was no Australians, Canadians on. But I don't know, Jarrod, if you caught the Channel 7 thing on Sky and Nicholson, who won a gold on the Gold Coast and was one of the big boxing stories in Commonwealth Games there. But they're talking her up as a legitimate medal chants. And I don't know. Like, I mean, I like Sky Nicholson. She's got a great story. She's a nice girl. But like, I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know how much you're following the boxing, but they were really pumping her tires today. Very Channel 7 of them.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I didn't follow it, but it doesn't surprise me given how much they talked us up in the soccer. So, yeah, it's going around. It's already started day one. So much for this, not putting pressure on athletes this year.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly right. That was meant to not happen. The AOC decided not to do that. But yeah, we'll mention the soccer in just a moment. The hockey, field hockey. Colin, don't get excited. We are at the right Olympics. Let's say that. The results are not voting for me. So both the Hokie-roos and the Kookaburras did both win today from, yeah, they both beat Japan. Australia beat Japan 5-3. And did the Hokie-roos play today, or was it just the...
JARROD LOOBEEK: Sorry, just the Kookaburras.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, just the Kookaburras won today. All right, so the Hokie-roos played again today. They didn't. Canada, Colin, you did play today. How do you think you went? Did you see the result? Great summer Hokie field nation of...
COLIN HILDING: In Canada, it just causes so much confusion that the sport even exists here.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I'm offended by your country, because when I used to tell people I played Hokie, they looked at me funny, because apparently you only think it's a women's sport. Literally, people are like, men play field Hokie? Like, that's like... They seriously question me, but they do, because Canada played in men's Hokie today, and you got belted by Germany, 7-1. So, Hokie in Germany, for you guys, is not still going well for you.
COLIN HILDING: I would never associate field Hokie just as a women's sport. Ringette would be the one here. If you said you played ringette, it would be like, all right, Ben.
BEN WATERWORTH: But, Kyle, what is it with you losing to Germany in Hokie at the Olympics? Still too soon after Pyeongchang? But, I mean, Germany admittedly...
COLIN HILDING: Let's go back and do some commentary over the softball.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It was one all at one stage, it was looking good.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I mean, this is the thing. Like, it was a huge upset when Germany beat you guys in ice hockey. It would have been a huge upset if you beat Germany in field hockey, because Germany is one of the best nations in the world in field hockey. So there it is. In the football, Canada got on the winning sheet tonight, 2-1 over Chile. And you're topping the group right now. So good job. Whereas the Matildas, it's actually a very entertaining match. Did you watch much of it, Jarrod?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I was in and out. I was watching it when we were winning, and then I went away, and we started losing. So, yeah, my fault.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, Sweden got an early goal. We equalized, and we got an early goal in the second. Sweden equalized, then they got a third. Then we got a penalty. Sam Kerr for the hat trick, choked. And then before you know it, we lost the match 4-2, but it was actually thoroughly entertaining, and very good to kind of put it up to Sweden. Hopefully, we can give a bit of a show against the US and go through there. I won't go much over the other ones here. I think Rowan, we had a bunch of votes go through. Djokovic went through, did he not? Jarrod, I didn't see that, but I think that would have been breaking news if he didn't. So yeah, a lot of stuff happening. This is a different... The one thing I don't like about the Summer Olympics is there's too many bloody things going on. The Winter Olympics, we can just go over every single event. We're done by now. We're obviously here. It's a little bit different. Let's look at potential Athlete of the Day nominations, because I want to say, one thing I want to clarify about our Athlete of the Day yesterday with Estra Kogale, she is the very first rower in the history of Sudan. I did my research last night after when I posted online, and thought that was something we should have mentioned last night. So congratulations to her. And follow her on social media. She seems like a very nice lady.
COLIN HILDING: I did already. I woke up this morning, and it said view new stories or whatever from Ezra. And I'm like, oh, nice, she's posting.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good on her. I like that. Well, Colin, you're talking right now.
COLIN HILDING: I am.
BEN WATERWORTH: And what we're going to do, I'll say this, we're going to do it differently this year, whereas usually we would go like potential athletes. We'd each give our nominations. We wouldn't really come to a conclusion. This Olympics, we're going to come to a conclusion because we're going to post it each day on our social media as our definitive athlete of the day. So I don't know how we're going to come up with, if we've all got three different ones, but we can sell each other on our ones. Colin, who's your potential nominee today?
COLIN HILDING: I'm finding it's a lot harder with these Olympics because of the time difference in splitting it up, where I'm just sort of rushing to consume everything before I go to bed, and then I forget half the stuff, I wake up. We could say, let's wait and see if Tunisia actually wins a gold medal here in Taekwondo because they're on the verge of doing it with a minute 32 seconds left to go. You know, China, the first medal of the games, that would be a good choice. We could also just throw a nice, fun, honorable mention out there and give it to Zou What, why not?
BEN WATERWORTH: So what, still a rock star. Jarrod, do you have any potentials?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think Richard Carapaz has to be considered the gold medal from the road race. Six hours cycling, third ever Olympic medal for Ecuador. Pretty impressive achievement.
BEN WATERWORTH: The one I like too, is the fact that Mr. Phil Tippett, and this kind of ties slightly into our commentary fails, whatever you want to say it, he was dead set certain that this guy sucked at sprinting. He was basically going, well, he's going on for elite here right now because he knows he would lose in a sprint. And they were basically saying like, all in the pack behind him knows that they will easily out sprint him. So like, here he is just bagging out this poor guy. Yeah, I mean, it was a pretty cool story because he got third in the Tour de France apparently a week ago, and they were saying about how he was disappointed with that. So to get an Olympic gold medal, I mean, I'm no cyclist, but I would maybe rather win an Olympic gold medal than the Tour de France, but I know that's probably unpopular opinion. My potential nominee, I said I paid attention to the weight lifting, and there was an 18-year-old weightlifter. And before you say it, Colin, no, it's not for those reasons.
COLIN HILDING: That's way too old for you.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know, she's a grandma, basically. Nina Sturks, now I'm probably mispronouncing that, 18 years old, she basically was not going to qualify for the Olympics. So she had to drop down, she had to lose a bunch of weight to get into a different category to make the Olympics. And I was watching the qualifying, and she was struggling to lift 81 kilos. I thought she was gone. And she had this look on her face. It just looked like she was being held at gunpoint to compete in the Olympics. She just looked so sad. She looked so depressed. I'm like, this poor girl, what's she doing there? She fucked up her first lift, and you just thought for the life of you, no, she's gonna fail. She ended up lifting 81 eventually and got through into the clean and jerk phase. She ended up getting 99 was what she lifted, and she failed twice at 101. She ended up finishing fifth. But on her final lift, she thought she had got it. But there's obviously a thing where if you gotta keep your elbow straight and if you slightly bend it, like no, it doesn't count, you get the red lights. So she kind of drops the thing, and she like gets to her knees and she starts bawling her eyes out because she thought like, oh my God, I'm like through, like she would have taken the lead and potential for a medal. Didn't get it. They can protest in weight lifting and didn't go through. But she just sat there for a good 10 minutes, crying her eyes out. She just could not stop crying. And I think it came down to a fact that she was just so emotional that she had done as well as she did. And then I followed her on Instagram, and she posted later on basically saying, like, wow, I just finished fifth in the Olympics. Like, and she was so happy that she... And I love that. I love it when you see someone that happy to finish fifth. Like, I love it when you see someone that happy to win a bronze medal, but she finished fifth.
COLIN HILDING: Canada, come on.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. Exactly as Michael Woods' tears have been happy. So she stood out to me. And because they kept talking up this American by the name of Jordan Delacruz, who choked big time. They were like, I am. She's guaranteed to win a medal. She choked big time and didn't even place eventually. So, yeah, that's my nominee. So I guess, Colin, you can be the deciding factor. If you haven't got one, you can choose between our cyclist or our weightlifter.
COLIN HILDING: Ooh, I love Ben's story, but I feel like on day one, it would be appropriate to give it to a medallist. So let's go with the cyclist.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, we will do it.
COLIN HILDING: For no other reason, the amount of hours we dedicated to watching this man already, I mean, we've covered a whole first day. That's 24 hours right there.
BEN WATERWORTH: It took like a quarter of the time of the actual opening ceremony. I mean, my goodness. Yeah, as first ever cycling medal, and as you said, Jarrod, their third ever medal, and I'm looking here, their only other two medals that they have ever won came in the sport of athletics, a gold to Jefferson Perez in Atlanta in the 20-kilometre walk, and a silver to Jefferson Perez in the men's 20-kilometre work in Beijing. Twelve years after he won a gold, he got a silver. So of their three medals, only two of them have been won by two people, basically.
COLIN HILDING: So just to clarify, we're not going with Zoe what?
BEN WATERWORTH: No, sadly.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Zoe wanted to hit 70%, sure, but that 68 was a bit of a letdown.
BEN WATERWORTH: Zoe what? Choked, Colin? This is an esteemed honour.
COLIN HILDING: It's the white leg.
BEN WATERWORTH: Come on, you've got to try harder next time. Cometary fails, channel 7, CBC fails, whatever you want to call it. Colin, Canada, hit us with some Canada stuff. What did you have?
COLIN HILDING: So the only one that really stood out to me, it was more the way of the delivery and all that. During the softball, I don't even think it was a two-person crew. It was like a one commentator thing. And there was just sort of a moment after the first inning or still in the middle of the first inning where you could almost hear the regret in his voice that this was his assignment. I pictured, you know, a couple hours before everybody's getting an assignment. All right, so Steve, you're on the rowing. And Janet, we're going to have you covering the taekwondo. And oh, oh, lucky guy here, Ron. You get the road race. So Bobby, you've got the softball. And you just, his heart sinks. Because in the middle of Canada's at bat in the first inning, he just suddenly chuckles. He's like, it's only in the bottom half of the first inning. And this has been going for half an hour now. A little bit more excitement as I guess the game picked up. But wow, instant regret in his voice. So that was what his commentary was. And then he'd be there all day.
BEN WATERWORTH: I like that. I like that. And as I said to you before, the Canadian faux pas on the opening ceremony made headlines on Fox Sports over here in Australia. Before we get to the Australia, one thing I also want to mention on the results, I should say the 12-year-old ping pong player from Syria, Hen Zaza, she lost. So just made a bit of news today, so sad there. Jarrah, did you pick up on anything today? I mean, the six hours of the road race, surely. I mean, Anna, Phil, you know, they were doing pretty well. I like Anna Mears' on commentary. Good on you, Anna.
JARROD LOOBEEK: You know what? I think they did quite well. Phil had a couple of his usual like little like, I don't know, senior moments, I want to call them. When he talked about Carapaz winning, it means like Columbia winning their third Olympic medal. Like close, but no cigar. But other than that, I think generally it was pretty good today.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. I mean, look, I've got a couple. I agree with you. Like I actually, from the swimming I caught, like it's good to hear Basil back and Liesl. Basil and Liesl, the pair we didn't know we needed. There we go. That was good. Yeah, Phil. Okay. Now, the boxing one, I don't know. Again, this was like, I think the British feet. I guess it's just probably just a generic IOC feed that you kind of get. And obviously, we had a British. I don't know who this guy was. I was watching a bout between a Jordanian and a Colombian. The Jordanian didn't do very well, to which the commentator wished to point out, basically said, oh, yes, and he's definitely feeling sorry for himself, which is very understandable.
COLIN HILDING: As he should.
BEN WATERWORTH: I really liked the, they had a British commentator, a female British commentator in the weightlifting, and she was odd. One of her lines that she was talking up about a Japanese weightlifter, oh, she must be so thrilled to be performing in front of her home journalists.
COLIN HILDING: You know, this is just a complete sidebar. I don't want to forget this, but Taekwondo just ended here. Italy won the gold, Tunisia the silver. But they have something cool here that's making me feel a little bit better about the No Spectators. I don't know if you've seen this in other sports. They have a wall that says Athlete Moment, and whoever wins or whatever, they go up to this wall, and it basically shows them a live video of people at home cheering for them. Like, that's actually pretty cool. I hope that the other venues have this as well. I'm like, I'd like to see that.
BEN WATERWORTH: I know in Formula One last year, they kind of did a thing when the drivers were into, like, the paddock. Like, rather sometimes when you go into certain tracks, you would have the fans waiting there. So they actually kind of had, like, they would stop, and there would be, like, a screen, and they would obviously select, like, a couple of fans and be like, hey, you know, Jarrod and Colin, he's Lewis Hamilton. So they kind of did that. And then, Jarrod, I'm sure you've seen when Channel 7 do uncertain events, I know they did in the AFL last year, they'd have the mega wall of, like, in the AFL, like, if Carlton were playing Carlton Kick a Goal, they would cut to, like, me and the couch in my pyjamas going, yay, go Carlton. So I didn't, that's a good idea, though. I like that. Actually, on that topic, before I go over some of the other ones here, I mean, did the crowds today, was it weird for anyone? Like, I honestly wasn't as bad as I was thinking.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, well, I think, I mean, some, a lot of the events I was watching were ones where you have everybody waiting on there. Like, the three on three basketball especially was great because the games do go so quickly that the stands early on are filled with all the other teams waiting for their matches. So you do kind of have unofficial spectators for those. It was similar in, like, the beach volleyball as well. And then the road race, obviously, having the spectators. So at least from what I'm seeing, if we can have it filled with, you know, the other coaches and the other athletes waiting on their events, it doesn't make it feel as empty. The volleyball, though, the indoor volleyball was a little bit awkward maybe because you're not going to have people waiting in it. Everybody just sort of has their court and you're there. It just amplified the douchiness of every time they spiked the ball, and then all of a sudden, point! Canada! You just got all like six guys like, yeah, alright, whoo! I think having the crowd drowning that out makes it a little less douchey.
BEN WATERWORTH: See, I personally liked it when it came to the beach volleyball and the water polo because it was, I don't know, it just took enough. Jarrod, did you, anything that you had noted with the lack of fans at all?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, not really. I think just echoing Colin's earlier comment that it was really refreshing to see so many fans out and about for the road race.
BEN WATERWORTH: I like, the one thing I liked, I actually only saw of all the medal events, I only saw the medal ceremony for the archery. I appreciate that the Tokyo organizers still hire the stadium announcers, like there's a crowd there, like good on them. Like those stadium announcers got hired probably like 18 months ago, and they've still got their job, so they're still getting paid. And I love, they're still very formal when it comes to the medal ceremonies. Please welcome your medallists. And it's kind of, and I do love the fact that they have to give themselves the medals, like they have to pick it up off the tray and they have to put it on themselves. So Thomas Bach today couldn't put it on anyone, and the archery had to put it on themselves. And they don't get the little, the weird thing they got in Rio, but the mascot's tied to a bunch of sunflowers. So I don't know if you saw that. That was kind of interesting. Also, is the official anthem of this song One More Time by Daft Punk? I swear that gets played a hundred times at every single venue. Maybe we can just hear it more because we don't hear this crowd. Other, other commentary things. So the weightlifter, the British weightlifting commentator, there was the Indian weightlifter who got silver. They did like this slo-mo of a face, and she's got like Olympic ring earrings, but they were gold. So the male commentator's like, oh, yes, and look at that, she's even got the Olympic rings as earrings. And the British commentator's like, well, she might want to change them to silver because she's only got the silver medal. Wow, Jesus. And other things the weightlifter, I love too, the American choker, she had like some weird like massager, like kind of honestly looked like a vibrator, probably was. She was like running it on her bloody thighs in between each bout. And then I like to call them the Olympic vacuumers. They had the dustbusters come out in between the rounds of the weightlifting to dust everything up, which was kind of funny. I love, I didn't see, I don't like them playing national anthems before events, like they do in like, like the World Cup and sort of things like that. Yeah, not the Olympics, like when the soccer's, even the water polo, I think they did it, like they played national anthems. And apparently one of your Canadian water polos with the last name of Christmas was having a bit of a cry, like she got emotional during the Canadian National, I didn't know if you saw that, Colin, but our commentators were mentioning when she scored a goal, like, oh, yes, she was crying before in the national anthem, but she's not anymore because she just scored a goal.
COLIN HILDING: No, I didn't see that, but I noticed the same thing. I feel like the national anthems need to be reserved for a medal ceremony. I mean, that's what it's there for. And to play it beforehand, it just sort of makes it a regular sporting event, not the Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I get it, like, because it's, I mean, you guys in North America do it before every single game. Like, and I love that about you guys. Like, Australia, we only do it sort of in the finals or the grand final. But like, it's a soccer thing. They're doing it now in cricket. Like, a lot of sports are doing it. But it's just, yeah, I don't like it at the Olympics. Speaking of soccer, the one thing I like, Sam Kerr, like, got a charley horse at some point in the game or something. And then the commentators stopped calling the match. They're like, oh, my God, Sam Kerr's injured. Oh, my God, Sam Kerr's injured. It's like, guys, the match is happening. Sam Kerr's injured. What are we going to do? Sam Kerr's injured. And one of the moments, they took a break between the six hours of the road race. I did enjoy the segment of Sam Kerr saying, I like the Olympics. I like Assane Bolt. I like Simone Biles. And then like, I like how they're just normal people. Cut to Simone Biles on Dancing With The Stars. Okay. Great. Thanks, Sam. I'm watching the six hours of the road race.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Everyday person activity, being on Dancing With The Stars.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yep, every day.
COLIN HILDING: Jarrod's on next season.
BEN WATERWORTH: He is. His dressage commentary just got him on to All Stars. And the one that I, like, the archery. I remember watching the archery in Rio, and we talked up, they had the Kiwi commentator. So he's back. I want to know who this guy is. I want to call him Full Smith. Love him. So he was commentating, I think it was on the gold medal match, to which somebody scored 19 out of 20, to which he said, 19 out of 20. Can't do much better than that. Yes, you can by getting 20 out of 20. Now, I don't know if this guy went to school and did math, but 19 out of 20 is not the best you could do.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Good try, Mr. Kiwi.
BEN WATERWORTH: But no, you're wrong.
JARROD LOOBEEK: You're wrong.
BEN WATERWORTH: Very New Zealand. Oh, bro, you can't do much better than 19 out of 20. That's a gold for New Zealand. God damn it. Yeah, fun times in the commentary. I think we'll look ahead to tomorrow. We'll do some of these fan things. I like this Canadian one we've got. I'm not paying $10 again. I'm trying to say, I did use my $10 voucher last night to buy another t-shirt. So thanks, AOC. You tempted me into that one. So that was something going on there. I want to mention some housekeeping things as well. For people who are listening, we're getting great listeners, and we love looking at the numbers because again, we're getting more listeners than we are fans in the stadiums. But a big shout out to our listeners in Spain, Japan, Turkey, Israel, and Paraguay. Charting in all those countries right now. Jarrod, what have you done? I didn't realise you had so many fans in those countries. It's good to have you back.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, a big fan base in Paraguay.
BEN WATERWORTH: Clearly. Colin, your Turkish fans are tuning in in droves.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, just my love from Russia with love has brought them all here.
BEN WATERWORTH: Really, really are. Before we get to the fan things, actually, a couple of the other new things I've paid attention to. Jarrod, I don't know if you saw the Novak Djokovic photo that has gone viral in the last 24 hours by the Belgian gymnasts. Did you see this?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I did not.
BEN WATERWORTH: So the esteemed Belgian gymnast Nina Darwal took a photo of her and a teammate doing the splits, it's a very nice photo, to which Novak Djokovic joined them, and he's doing the splits next to them. So that's gone viral. Everyone's loving Novak doing the splits. Does that help him, Jarrod? Does he need to do more splits out there on the court, do you think?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, he's known for his retrieving game, so it doesn't hurt.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes. What does Jamie rate Novak on the attractiveness scale? Colin, do I need to answer this?
COLIN HILDING: If she brings me lunch before we finish, or breakfast before we finish, I will get her opinion.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, thank you. She's probably more of a raffaman, I would probably say, maybe.
COLIN HILDING: We're all more of a raffaman.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm not. There was a beach volleyball game cancelled because of the COVID test, that we should mention that. Two tennis players from Georgia weren't allowed to play because the Georgia Olympic Committee didn't file the correct paperwork. What? They showed up. Oksana Kalashetkova and Ekaterine Gorgodza were told by the Georgia Olympic Committee that they were in. So they showed up to Tokyo, and the ISE have gone, no, we never got your paperwork. Sorry, you can't play.
COLIN HILDING: If you had just submitted your 1082, then this wouldn't be a problem right now.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know if you saw this one, Jarrod. Our golfer Cameron Smith's mullet and the hairstyle that has gone out there. Have you seen this photo?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I haven't seen this one either.
BEN WATERWORTH: So apparently he's an esteemed golfer who's renowned for his mullet. He has shaved the side of his mullet and written AUS on the side of his head, shaved into his head. So yes, the sport of golf has turned happy Gilmore-esque basically. So yeah, look out. There's an excuse to watch the golf, isn't it, basically, when it comes to that?
JARROD LOOBEEK: They gotta make it interesting somehow.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, pretty much. But yeah, that's about all I think I have for the news. Anything I don't have to do?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, Beach Volleyball, the Czech team, one of the players had tested positive for COVID, which had to be the most heartbreaking thing. I mean, the ones who tested positive before they got there tested positive before the opening ceremonies, but this was like the day of, like, it's day one. And it was such a last-minute thing that when I turned on the Beach Volleyball coverage, it just said Czech versus whatever, game will not proceed. And it was just that. And you just had the screen flashing around the beach for about, I don't know, 20, 30 minutes before another match actually was able to start. They just kept saying will not proceed. And because Beach Volleyball has become such a big thing here, you go on Twitter, and all you're seeing is all these people just with question marks posting pictures of will not proceed. And then it came out later that she tested positive. And the unfortunate thing is that you can't have a substitute player. So if you're on a team, if one person tests positive, the whole team is done. So unfortunately, Czech Republic's out to beach volleyball, which is just a terrible way to go, you know, right before your event.
BEN WATERWORTH: And let's be honest, I believe...
JARROD LOOBEEK: If one equestrian takes cocaine, the whole team's out.
COLIN HILDING: Or the horse, for that matter.
BEN WATERWORTH: I believe the Czech Republic are having a national day of mourning tomorrow because we know how much they do love their beach volleyball over there. And speaking of beach volleyball, Australia is playing right now. I'm seeing its traditional beach volleyball rivals of Norway. All those beaches in Norway just, you know, one of our beach volleyball players looks like he's about 87. I mean, Jesus, the race walker from Ecuador obviously did well. But I do appreciate how they still got the DJ going on there at the beach volleyball. So not only the Tokyo organising committee still paying the ground announcers, fuck it, the DJ that was going to pump the crowd up, you're still doing your DJ work at the beach. Well, go for it. There you go. Why not?
COLIN HILDING: You know, this almost would have been better for the opening ceremonies. But who really wants to talk about more stuff about protesters? But they mentioned on the Canadian commentary for the opening ceremonies that they had had the sound particularly loud in the stadium to drown out because there was no crowd there or anything during speeches and everything like that. You could hear the protesters even though the speakers were on the stadium, so they had to crank the volume. So maybe having the DJs there is blocking out all these protesters.
BEN WATERWORTH: Maybe. Can I say that a couple of the AFL rounds have gone back to no fans because of the outbreaks in certain cities. In one of the games I was watching last weekend, there was a goal scored, and Channel 7 didn't do a very good job of thinking that the players might be excited because all of a sudden they cut to this player celebrating, and you hear this, Suck it! And they're like, shit, sorry about the language. Cut straight to him going that way. Now, with the fan engagement, we're so sad that we don't have the Australian team messages we can do, or we don't have the my name is. But we're going to do this. I love this send your cheers thing. I think we need to do this every day. But the one thing I thought I would look at as a way of working around this is obviously both CBC and Channel 7 have their hashtags that you can use on Twitter, and also so does the Australian Olympic team and the Canadian Olympic team. So for Channel 7, it's hashtag 7 Olympics. So if you want to bag them out or talk about it, that's what you can use. I'm just going to read one here from Bretton Harris. Be ashamed if anyone interrupted all of these adverts with some sport. It's very true. One here from Warren 2020. What the fuck is that up the short angle? Interesting. Hashtag gymnastics. Hashtag 7 Olympics. Yep. And Ben Scottie, relation of mine, I believe, this commentator is absolutely rinsing the gymnastics. Smiley face laughter, smiley face laughter, smiley face laughter. Hashtag 7 Olympics. So, yeah, great. And for CBC Olympics, no one really seems to use it that much, Colin. It's not that popular. And very Canadian, 3x3 basketball on at TSN Sports right now. Never seen this before. My five year old loves it. Hashtag CBC Olympics. Hashtag TSN. I'm so Canadian. Dr. Hannah Elias. This is how dual nationals watch the Olympics at CBC Olympics. On one screen, at BBC Sport. On the other, Canadian flag, British flag. Little fist emoji. Hashtag BBC Olympics. Hashtag. So boring. Oh, have you found something good here, Colin? I don't know. Your Prime Minister is tweeting out right now.
COLIN HILDING: Give it about ten seconds and then refresh and tell me if you see anything.
BEN WATERWORTH: While you're doing that, I'll say that Justin Trudeau tweeted out, To all our Canadian athletes competing in the hashtag Tokyo 2020 Olympics, thank you for being proud ambassadors for our country and our unrivaled. It's an awesome inspiration for us all. Over the next two weeks, we'll be cheering you on. Good luck. Hashtag Team Canada. And then a link to a statement by the Prime Minister. Statement by the Prime Minister. Good luck, Canada.
COLIN HILDING: Go, Colin.
BEN WATERWORTH: Have you found it?
COLIN HILDING: Oh, no. I was just going to say, if you refresh, you might see something new on there that looks pretty good.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, no. You've got it. I'm going to let you talk. I'm talking too much here.
COLIN HILDING: Well, anyways, so let me do some work. Can anybody see here?
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, Colin Hilding. Oh, is anyone else using this hashtag? Hashtag Zowatt, hashtag CBC Olympics. Polkatron. There you go. Jarrod, are you... I don't even... I tagged you today because I got you excited. Are you a tweeter during the Olympics? Is this something you like to do?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I haven't been, but given the quality of the dressage, I might have to rectify that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Tell you what, maybe we'll do some... I'll do some actual research and find good ones tomorrow so we don't have to read these live. I've got nothing on the T-MOS Hub. Again, I'm not paying another $10. Oh, there's a Trivia Leaderboard, though. So if we actually... You can book your place on the Team Aus Trivia Grand Final. The top 100 will find out. So we should have been doing this properly, guys. There's a Leaderboard here. Jake McKellen is winning against Jamie Law and Tim Aiebi. Screw you guys! We should be winning this. Yeah, we've gone too long today. We'll do that tomorrow. I still don't like here on the sticktogether.ca column, you can only send it to the Beach Volleyball players or the entire team. Are they just because they're sponsored by Kraft? Is that the point?
COLIN HILDING: It could be because I saw, well, the other one is the Diver. She's appearing in the commercial, so it could be that these are just the ones that are sponsored by them. But Beach Volleyball is going on right now. I've got one. Anybody else want to record? How are we going to be doing this?
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't think that you guys can record because of the way my setup is, unless you guys have it open in front of you.
COLIN HILDING: We can submit our own, is what I was saying.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good point, Colin. Well done, yes, thank you. I mean, you can if you want to. It's your turn. Yours, Canadian. I can't even play any others. The option to play the other ones have gone.
COLIN HILDING: I really wish that we could play. Well, because they have more on there now. Yesterday, there were like two.
BEN WATERWORTH: OK, I can see these now.
COLIN HILDING: There are more, but maybe you can insert them later if there's a way to do that. But I got one to record here.
BEN WATERWORTH: OK, who are you doing this for?
COLIN HILDING: Melissa and Sarah, because they're playing now. All right, ready?
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm ready.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, stick together once you use your microphone. OK.
BEN WATERWORTH: Technical difficulties, please stand by.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, we're already recording. OK, all right. This is going to be awkward at the beginning. Go Melissa and Sarah. All right. I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating. It gets everywhere. Yes, yes. Great start. Hashtag CBC Olympics, hashtag 7 Olympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hashtag OTP.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, I forgot that. Do it again. Start it again.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Do it again.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm going to play one of these ones. You guys won't be able to hear this, but by all means, listen to this, Kenan, that's the main one here. So for, is it Megan, the diver that you've got?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yep. I'm going to play this one here from Mariah or Maria P. From Montreal. What does she have to say? Let's hear this.
COLIN HILDING: We are so proud of you.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Go Team Canada.
BEN WATERWORTH: Pretty boring. I'm sorry, me and Mariah.
COLIN HILDING: Hey, Meg, it's Jeff Liberty. Just want to wish you the best of luck in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. Can't stop it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jeff L from Calgary is like, hey, girl, kick some butt in the Olympics. So Canadian. Jesus. Jarrod, you're going to sing a one for tomorrow. You're going to be cheering them on.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I'll gear up for it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Gear up. Get excited. Tomorrow, we do have exciting things happening. Our first Off The Podium guest is competing tomorrow, and Jamie's brought breakfast. Jamie, is Novak Djokovic sexy?
COLIN HILDING: Yes. You need to give an opinion on a man here.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, what a man. Does she not know who.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Novak is?
COLIN HILDING: Wow. Hold on. Now, we got to get a comparison. This is whether or not Ben's going to be right or we're right.
BEN WATERWORTH: Is that Steve Carell?
COLIN HILDING: Is that Steve Carell?
BEN WATERWORTH: Famous tennis player Steve Carell. Iconic player. Is this Rafa?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, this is Rafa now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, this is great podcasting.
COLIN HILDING: Come on, the headband's sexy, right?
BEN WATERWORTH: We'd be number three if it wasn't for all these awkward segments. See, Jamie, you're just a man, yes or no? Like, come on.
JARROD LOOBEEK: She kind of looks like a caveman.
COLIN HILDING: A caveman with a headband, though.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Not an attractive caveman, though.
BEN WATERWORTH: So Roger is the sexiest. Clearly Roger is the sexiest.
COLIN HILDING: Here's our new opinion. Jamie ranks the Olympians.
BEN WATERWORTH: So tomorrow, Carly Mass in the pool, in the 100-metre backstroke heats, as is Kayleigh McEwen. We're looking forward to it. That's one we need to commentate, I think, in a couple of days. But will the Off The Podium curse be broken? We've only got one bronze.
COLIN HILDING: I'm saying it. They're calling it. And it's never happened in an individual, a non-team event or a non-relay event. So for real, individual performances, the curse will be broken tomorrow. And if it's not, let me just say, I will give up my pancakes.
BEN WATERWORTH: OK, I was going to say, Jarrod, are you feeling that this is like the Swiss multivitamins, that this is the curse that is just the new thing now that Swiss isn't part of the Olympics?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, it depends how the Yo Pro Mojo goes. But I mean, it's got to be one or the other. It won't be both.
BEN WATERWORTH: How is the Yo Pro Mojo going?
JARROD LOOBEEK: We've only had, I think, Ash compete in the doubles, and she won, but the doubles don't really count.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right.
JARROD LOOBEEK: And I'm expecting, like, I mean, anything less than a medal for Ash will be the curse. So she should be winning these early rounds.
BEN WATERWORTH: Look, I think we're going to really test this Yo Pro Mojo because we have a guest coming on the show after the Olympics, a winter athlete who is a bit of a shot at a medal in Beijing. And she did mention to me off air that she had some Yo Pro for breakfast. And I don't know if that was because it was a sponsor thing. She thought she was on air, so she had to drop it. But if there's somebody during the Beijing Olympics who will be the Yo Pro, I'm guessing it's going to be her. So we could have a double case of the curse happening for Beijing, or maybe it's the double dose of the curse is lifted, combine them, and all of a sudden you'll win a medal. But yeah, we'll see Kylie Mass for the first time tomorrow. So get excited because we've got a lot of days happening throughout these Olympics, we've had guests on the show, so we'll keep an eye on that. 18 medal events are happening tomorrow, which is going to be very exciting. Some of the highlights of that, the women's road race, which I believe only takes four hours, not six, so that's going to be exciting. The women's team in the archery is happening tomorrow. Skateboarding tomorrow, men's street. Colin, you're getting your skateboard out, you're getting excited for that?
COLIN HILDING: Well, I'm more excited just because that's the one that Jamie actually wants to watch. And to get Jamie to willingly sit down and watch Olympics, it's not an easy task, but she's like, oh, I'm actually really curious to watch skateboarding.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, we're going to see how that plays out. Other sports also starting tomorrow. Diving, we'll have a medal event in the diving tomorrow. Full team basketball, 5x5, not 3x3. Canoe starts tomorrow. Jess, were you aware that Jess hits the water? I don't know if Channel 7 advertise that at all tomorrow. Did you see that?
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, I mean, she potentially won some medals before. Is she a medal hope or something?
BEN WATERWORTH: Can't say I've heard of Jess Fox. No, she's definitely not an athlete. Channel 7 mentions every 10 minutes. Get excited, everyone. Sailing starts tomorrow. I think, look forward to our commentating of sailing at some point during these games. And surfing also kicks off tomorrow as well. So I'll be intrigued to see how surfing turns out at the Olympics. Just quickly, those final medals that were just awarded since we started. China still on top of the medal tally, but with four medals, three gold, one bronze, and South Korea now on three medals. I say this every time we talk about the Olympics. I'm an advocate for do it by total medals, not by gold, but we know that's not how they do it. So 28 different countries got medals on day one. Neither of them were Canada or Australia. What is happening, people? What, like, Joe?
COLIN HILDING: Tunisia is there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Where was our judo medal, you know?
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's missing. It's a real letdown considering what powerhouses we are in that sport.
BEN WATERWORTH: I remember Sydney. We got a bronze in day one in judo, and I remember that was a pretty blast. That might have been our very first ever judo medal back in Sydney, and that was a big deal. After McKaylee Jones won silver in the triathlon, we backed it up with a bronze in the judo, and then Thorpey and Crew won all that. What a glorious day one that was in Sydney. We're choking already. What did I say, 54 medals? Come on, Australia, pick up your game. We're not Canada. We're Australia. Come on. Jesus Christ, I'm angry. That's why I'm wearing Beijing medals. I should have worn bloody Rio.
COLIN HILDING: You're wearing a Canada shirt right now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, because you guys did well. I was proud of it. Well done. Fist in the road race. Go Canada. Get on it. Hashtag Team Canada. Do it for your maple leafs, because they suck in real life. How did they go this year, Colin? Thanks, everyone, for joining us. It's always a pleasure. We'll be back tomorrow with day two action. If you want to stay up to date with anything else that we've got going online, find us on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram. Hashtag OTP if you want to join in the conversation. We are posting our Athlete of the Day medal tally, all those kind of fun things as well. Not long after this episode goes up. And yeah, well, hopefully, there's some more commentary tomorrow. I'm thinking we might do some swimming. We might kind of get up and do that, and then include that in our episode tomorrow night. See how we feel. And hopefully tomorrow night, we might be able to talk about some fucking medals being won by these two countries. Jesus Christ. We should just turn into the ROC podcast. We'll be talking about this every day. Actually, can we just, let's take a step back. Let's do a NOAA. All right? I'm here bagging out Australia and Canada for not winning medals. Have we not mentioned a certain country did not win any medals today? A certain country that wins the Olympics every single fucking time? Come on, America, pick your game up. Donald Trump was president. He wouldn't put up with this. He'd be banned from the Olympics. You know, National Enquiry into the American Olympic Team. You weightlifter should have won a medal today. She choked with a vibrator on her legs. Come on, America, pick your game up. Jesus Christ. Getting beaten by Mongolia. Not good enough. Traditional rivals, I know. But anyway, sorry, I'm getting angry. Jarrod, thank you very much for joining us. I really do appreciate your expert dressage commentary. And I look forward to hearing more of it throughout these games. But always a pleasure to hear you on this show.
JARROD LOOBEEK: No problem.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's been fun.
COLIN HILDING: You're welcome.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know what else to add. But anyway, we'll be back tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in to Off The Podium. We'll speak to you tomorrow night.
COLIN HILDING: Good night.
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