Tokyo 2020 Day 13 Review
Another incredible day of Olympic action is behind us and there are gold medals coming from everywhere for both Canada & Australia, so it's time to recap everything that happened on day 13 to bring you up to speed! How shocked is Australia at winning two gold medals that perhaps we didn't expect? Has Canada calmed down after Andre de Grasse's run yesterday and their gold medal decathlon success today? Are these the greatest Olympics ever? Is Canada now a powerhouse in both canoe and cycling? How does our commentary sound over artistic swimming? And how will we celebrate New Zealand's greatest ever Olympian being crowned today? So much to get through, so get to listening!
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 day 13 of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. You thought Sunday was busy, folks. Today might even top that. We have had an epic, epic, epic day for not only Australia, but for Canada. And not only an epic day, we've got to recap something that happened after we stopped recording last night. So there's a lot to talk about today. A huge, huge day for both nations. We love the Olympics. Can we just say that? The Olympics are great. My name is Ben. We thought we'd equal it up today. We got rid of that other Australian. He deserves a day off. He's been here every single day. But we should get the crybaby back on. Canada's back on. But screw the baby, bugger the baby. He's nothing to cry about right now. Because Canada, what a 24 hours you've had. Colin, welcome back.
COLIN HILDING: I'm very curious. So the event that happened after you went off the air, please tell me it was the golden moment for Andre de Grasse.
BEN WATERWORTH: It was the golden moment for Mr. de Grasse, the man who has got all Canada on their ass for celebrating, basically. No, we basically cut off about 20 minutes before that, and we got to witness that afterwards. So I'm glad that we didn't talk about it last night because we've got you on here to celebrate what is technically double gold then for Canada.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. And you know what? It's fun because I there was no way I could have avoided missing yesterday's episode. I had to work and basically the hour leading up to de Grasse's race, I was busy loading a bunch of equipment up, getting ready to go out work. But I'm like, I'm not leaving this house until this race is over. And honestly, I'm not going to say I was doubting he could have won the gold. I think that he had a real shot, but I was realistic enough to think, you know, this might be a silver bronze. He will medal though. Jamie told me afterwards that there were a lot of screams from the basement as I was watching this, which is that it progressively got louder. All she was hearing was go, go, go, go, go, gold, gold, go. I think we all have those moments that you remember watching it, just the excitement where you cannot control yourself. And for me, this was, it really is the equivalent of Donovan Bailey in the 96 Olympics, which, you know, this is the first time Canada's won a gold in sprinting since then. You know, obviously, that was 100m. This is 200m. But it's the exact same thing. Like, I watched it, and then I watched it again, and I watched it again, and I watched it again. And I, in the evening, I showed it to my kids, and I'm trying to get their attention, and I'm showing Casper, Casper, look, there's a race, there's a race going, there's a race. And he's looking, he goes, wow, that's really fast. And then he goes back to playing Minecraft before it's over. But like, I can't stop watching it. And this is the one time where I'm thrilled that CBC is airing this over and over and over again.
BEN WATERWORTH: I will be completely honest with you, I was absolutely delighted. I was doing the same. I was cheering everything. And the first thing I wanted to do was chime in on the message and say, like, yes. But then I thought to myself, well, no, because you're generally a couple of minutes delayed or something like that. And I'm like, no, I don't want to ruin this for Colin. And I'm assuming if I had done that, I would have. So I'm surprised Jarrod didn't do it either. But yeah, I mean, epic, epic result. It was I was so happy to see him win that. And I've been seeing a lot of the social media today and everything related around him. I saw that today or yesterday is officially Andre de Grasse day. Is that in Canada or is that just in Toronto? I saw that he had a name day, a day named after him officially. So, I mean, God, the Canada, the Canada, that's the country. Is the Canada still celebrating? Because, I mean, we're going to get to your other gold soon that you got today, because this is obviously technically yesterday. But, I mean, how is Canada still reacting to your new king of sprint?
COLIN HILDING: I think one of the reasons people are still watching us over and over again is because we've barely heard from Andre. You know, him and Penny, I mentioned, were very similar in the lead up to these games for very different reasons. Penny was very quiet as far as the media goes, because she wasn't sure how things were going for her, and she wasn't sure if she'd be able to perform. And then as soon as she started winning, she just exploded. Andre, it's all about being in the game. You know, he does interviews when he has to. But even after the semis yesterday, they actually were following him, you know, as they go towards the press area. And he detoured, and they're like, oh, he's actually saying he's not doing any interviews because he has to focus on the finals. I mean, he still has 12 hours to go. Everybody else is doing interviews. It's just he's so in game mode. And even after it was over, like they just showed him for like 20 minutes straight walking up and down the track, not wanting to leave. And then when he goes up to the press area, great moment as well, Aaron Brown, who came in, I think, was sixth place. Just him making the finals fantastic. And I've seen Aaron Brown, as I mentioned two days ago, when I did the interview with him, he was sort of loosely mentioning, yeah, I might have spread myself too thin in Rio by doing multiple events. And he's receiving all this criticism now for doing two events, but he made the finals. He made 15th in Rio. He made the finals here. He made a really good show in the semis. But great thing for Aaron Brown, he sat on the side, the stairs that lead up to that whole press paddock or whatever. He sat on the stairs and he said, no, Andre gets...
BEN WATERWORTH: It's called the mix zone.
COLIN HILDING: The mix zone. He sat there and he said, no, Andre, you go first. He waited 20 minutes. So Andre de Grasse went first. As soon as Andre went up the stairs, he followed right behind him. We got Aaron Brown interviews before Andre de Grasse. And that's the crazy thing, because you will talk to your home countries first, typically. It was, I think, 8 a.m. when the race finished. By the time I got home and scanned through the recording, I was waiting and waiting and waiting. It was two hours before they had the interview with Andre de Grasse. And it wasn't something where it's like, oh, we're going to hold off. They were waiting for it. They're like, hopefully soon we're going to have words with Andre de Grasse. I can't imagine how crazy it is for him. And then he comes out and does the four by 100 metre and blows everybody away again. I mean, the guy's a machine, but I have to say a lot of it is the fact that he just stays in game mode. And he's like, I'll talk to the press. I'm going to be very respectful. I'm always going to be cheerful. I'm always going to be a nice guy to interview. But if I say I need to focus on an event, I need to focus on an event, leave me alone.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which, as Canadians do, you do leave them alone. Let's not talk about how they do in Australia. I did actually notice, though, that our reporter got him and interviewed him as well. So it's sort of the Australians kind of will grab a few of them. We interviewed the Young American the other day that I brought up. Rip David Bowie. Yeah, I remember like back in the day, they'd get the same bolt. And of course, that famous one, I think we talked about in Rio when Michael Phelps was basically hurrying the person up to interview him. But no, Andre de Grasse was very generous to the Aussie and kind of talked it up and was really, really good there. And that's now five Olympic medals, I believe, Colin. So only two behind Penny.
COLIN HILDING: Well, I'm going to say this is the crazy thing. This isn't taking anything away from Penny and Alexiak. But Andre de Grasse, I don't think has been talked up enough for his accomplishments. He has competed now in five events in two Olympics, and he has medaled in all five of those events. Right now, it's looking very strong for them to medal in the four by 100. If he does that, he will go six for six in two Olympics, which I don't I guarantee that's never happened before in Canadian sports. To make it even crazier, he's had two World Championship podiums in the middle of there too. So right now, I think he is sitting at seven for seven in World Championships and Olympics. And if you add the Pan Am Games that he did the year before Rio on top of that, he's probably over 10 for 10. This is what's so great about Andre Grasse, and this is what Donovan Bailey spent so much time talking up yesterday when they were in the studio going over the event, Andre picks his battles. He's like, if I'm on the Diamond League circuit, I may go all out one week, but I may take a rest the next week. And I'm not going to push. If I'm in fourth place, I'm not going to push myself. He knows which events matter. And he just he knows how to pull out the win when it actually counts. It is insane that he is now five for five and probably going to go six for six.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just want to put some esteemed company now to his five medal wins. Two Off The Podium guests, he joins now in the five club, Tessa Virtue and Charles Hamlin. So I know he's not quite been on the show, Andre, but seemed Off The Podium company there, of course. Neither of them, of course, Charles got us our one medal in Pyeongchang. Thanks, Charles should have been gold, but hey, whatever. But yeah, I mean, it's also crazy looking at this list now of the multi medallists for Canada, that you do look at everyone on this list who has won five or more. They have all been to three or more Olympics, with the exception of Penny and Andre. So I mean, realistically, they can add this to those tallies, because as we keep getting reminded 100 times every day, Paris is only three years away.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. And again, this is summer. We shouldn't be doing this well in the summer Olympics period, let alone with what's going to go on to become two of the greatest athletes of all time. I do want to read you a little bit of an excerpt here, because I picked up Andre de Grasse's autobiography, and I think it's right up your alley here. So, this is called Race With Me by Andre de Grasse with illustrations by Joseph Bonsu. So, Andre de Grasse's autobiography. This is finally a book that Ben can read here. When I run, I feel free. My name is Andre, and just like you, I love to run. Running fast is the most fun thing to do. I am so excited. Today is the day of a big race. I can feel the energy in the air. When I arrive at the stadium, it's very busy. There are thousands of people here and around the world getting ready to watch me run. Obviously written before Tokyo. This one's for you, Ben. When I was your age, my heroes were sports stars. I loved sports. Soccer and basketball were my favourites. I went to sleep dreaming that I was a famous athlete playing my best game in a packed stadium.
BEN WATERWORTH: He's got he's got Raptor stuff on the wall there, he is me.
COLIN HILDING: Illustrations. I mean, only about 30 pages. This is this is your book.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm really worried that he's never going to come on the show now that you just called that his autobiography. You just made it sound really dumb. I'm Andre.
COLIN HILDING: I'm making Ben sound dumb. I think this is great. Actually, this I found out about this book about two weeks ago. Well, I guess about three weeks ago, within the weekly, it came out a week before the Olympics started. And originally, they were selling it for $100, but you could get an autographed copy and all the proceeds were going to charity. It's still going to charity, but you can buy it in stores now for $17. So big plug for Andre de Grasse's children's book. I got this with the intention of I can read this to the kids. But like Remy, one of our twins is the great book destroyer. So I don't want them to touch this. I've now bought a children's book that my children aren't going to be allowed to read.
BEN WATERWORTH: But you read it to me. So you read it to one of your children. So that worked out well. Just quickly on Aaron Brown, though, of course, made a bit of news, given that he ran with a picture of his family behind his race bib. So that was really sweet.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, did you see that too? Yeah. Yeah. And Jamie was like, oh, he can't get the thing undone. Like, she was like criticising him. I mean, she was just distracted by the bulge, I guess. She's criticising him. It's like, oh, he can't get it undone. But I'm like, this is incredible. I mean, it's not often you have athletes. I'm sure a lot of athletes do that. But it's not often that they're actually going to go out of their way to show that. And you know, it's cool. When I interviewed Aaron Brown, I'm fairly positive. I saw his wife sort of walk in in the background in the middle of the interview, but he didn't have to. I asked him at the time because in the middle of the interview, Casper stormed into the room and interrupted and grabbed the laptop, closed it. And I'm like, Casper, come here and say hello to a very, very fast man. And Casper said hello. And I asked him, like, do you have kids? And he's like, no. But at that point, you know, his wife was probably a month away from being pregnant. So we could say I inspired Aaron Brown to have his kid.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. It was kind of like, hey, honey, just say that kid. I want one of them. Now get naked. Listening to Off The Podium might not win you a medal, but it gets you pregnant. Hey, I'll take it if the ladies like my voice. They went on that episode. But anyway, I did like bronze medallist Noah Lyles, his tweet today. Not going to lie, getting an Olympic medal feels like catching a legendary Pokemon. That might be the tweet of the Olympics.
COLIN HILDING: I have to say, if there's obviously even going back to Rio, very critical of the American sprinters, because they do have, I even mentioned this a couple days ago, like Donovan Bailey was talking about how you have to have a swagger to be a successful sprinter. It's not being arrogant. You have to have that confidence. And even with Aaron Brown, I saw a huge difference between last year and this year, just in the way that he walks on the track, the way that he'll look at the camera before he starts, and just that confidence. I really took to Noah Lyles even in the last year or two, and he's probably the first American sprinter I've really, really appreciated. The guy's got so much personality. I don't know if you saw his walk up where he's sticking his tongue out and all that. The guy's got so much personality. He's just fun, and it's not arrogant. I think that's the other fun thing. If you had had this type of personality, and he came out complaining or something like that, it'd be totally different. He was considered probably the front runner to win this thing, and he did struggle, kind of like Trayvon did in the 100-metre, but he made it through to the finals. That's the big difference. I guarantee that a lot of people were probably saying huge disappointment that Noel Iles didn't win the gold here, but he doesn't care. He's a great guy. I love Noel Iles. Let's get him on the show.
BEN WATERWORTH: Absolutely. I keep thinking you're saying Noel Wiley. I'm like, absolutely. I want to talk about AR. I didn't realise he was that good at sprinting. One person I wanted to mention, and we'll talk a little bit about him on this episode a little bit later when we talk about some of the other results, is obviously, it's kind of you and I were against each other with these sprinters. You had Aaron. He did well because you interviewed him. I had Brendan. Didn't do well because I interviewed him. He posted on Instagram, and I'm going to read his post out here. He said, We can make excuses. We can talk about injuries and our struggles, but the truth is, when we step on the line, no one cares. So to me, I just wasn't good enough on the day. I'm happy for all my competitors, and I will be cheering on my teammates. Won't give tell a stop story, but it's Off The Podium's fault. Oh, oh, shit. Didn't read that bit before. Oh, should have fact checked that one beforehand. So, sorry. Sorry, Brendan. Yeah, that's our first public battering, essentially. I can't even speak with that. But to today's results, I mean, let's go over the highlights here for both countries, because this is ridiculous. We thought, as I said, Sunday was busy. But I mean, for both nations, this is a big day. Let's start with Canada. Gold in the decathlon, you called this before. Your first ever Olympic champion in the decathlon, your third medal overall, Damian Warner, took it in an Olympic record, if you don't mind. And added to that, not only did you get the gold, you got the complete set today. You got the silver. And I'm going to butcher these names. So as a Canadian, you can go off at me. In the canoeing women's C1 200 metres, I believe this is the first time you've ever medaled in this event. Lawrence Vincent Lapointe. Is that how I am I saying that correctly? Good. Okay. And then in the cycling, I didn't even realise this had happened until like an hour later. Laurieanne Jeunesse took the bronze in the women's Ciaran. Did get beaten by a Kiwi, but still it's a bronze. I mean, you know, that's Canada's gold. So the whole set today, basically. So a big day for Canada.
COLIN HILDING: Both of them were talked up enough that I think we had a shot. We figured we had a shot. I think the cyclist is a little bit more surprising because there were two in the finals there. The other one, Kelsey Mitchell, is the one who's been all over the TV. I mean, it's great to have anybody win. But what's actually really exciting about that, this is, I think, the big shift in Canadian sports all around. Typically, in the past, we'd have the ones we were really successful at, rowing, wrestling, where a lot of effort we put into it in the Summer Olympics, but a lot of the sports, you just don't care. Unless you fluke into the success, you're not going to get a lot of effort put in behind it and a lot of attention. But one thing that happened right before the Rio Games is one of the biggest banks here in Canada, RBC, had always been like a big sponsor of Olympians, but they started something called RBC Training Ground, which I'm sure other countries do stuff like this, but it's become so big here because the idea behind it is any young athlete across the country can submit an application for this because they're not looking for who are the top performers, which is the way it's always done in the past. So we just want to see athletes and see what you're made of. When you go there, you get the tryouts. They'll just put you through random tests. It's not, OK, you're a soccer player, show me how you play soccer. OK, jump on a treadmill. All right, jump on this rowing machine. And they just sort of test you in whatever they can just athletically. And then based on those results, they'll tell you, listen, I think you actually might have a future in this other sport. Have you ever tried rowing before? Have you ever tried cycling? And with both of the two who were in that cycling final, they were five years ago in completely different sports, you know, teenagers or whatever, and did this RBC training ground and somebody identified them and said, listen, I think you'd actually make a good track cyclist. And, you know, five years later now from Rio when this really started, they're both in the finals and we're walking home with a medal.
BEN WATERWORTH: So it works basically, go through this program.
COLIN HILDING: It does. And I think when we go through the interviews, we've had so many guests on here. One of the things we always ask is, you know, how did this happen? How did you become an Olympian? Did you always want to be Olympian? And most of the time they're like, no, I just fell into the sport. I think the only person who ever answered, I wanted to be an Olympic gold medallist, was John Montgomery. We're getting a lot more of these people who are like, I just want to be in the Olympics. How can you make that happen? OK, you try this sport.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's fascinating to think, though, that things like that can happen, because, I mean, we've obviously got lots of programs. A lot of our winter sport programs come from that. It's sort of the AIS will send out a recruitment drive or they'll go to a certain sport, and you'll hear some of those through interviews we may have after these games. It's fascinating, but I kind of like it when they sort of... It's kind of like a reality TV show without cameras there, isn't it? It's like, hey, you could be good at this. Come and try out for something, and maybe has a bit more weight on it than a reality TV show does.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Also, just quickly mentioning for LaPointe, I think she still has a dual event coming up as well with the other one who was in the finals.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, there's more tomorrow, more heats tomorrow, and then obviously finals. I love the C events because they're the ones where they're literally on their knees. To me, that reminds me of seeing those stereotypical Canadians, a Mountie on his rib, Dudley Do-Ride. How is it taking you so long to meddle in this event? You should be good at this all the time, right?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, only the cartoon characters are good at it. We're not good in real life. We talk about the Dudley Do-Ride stereotypes. But to me, this falls in with rowing, and we've always been good in rowing before. Guaranteed, we're going to walk away from the Olympics with one or multiple medals in rowing. Canoe is a little bit different, but it's basically, I mean, it's at the same venue they do it and all that. So it's really weird to me as well that we've never actually meddled in this.
BEN WATERWORTH: The one thing I want to talk about quickly though, too, I mentioned it I think briefly on the show yesterday, was getting over this four hump, the gold of four that I like to sort of call it. You kind of had a three hump going on there for quite some time at Summer Olympics where you'd only managed three gold. You did it between Atlanta and Beijing, got two in London, then four in Rio. And kind of going back over your history, you got four in Amsterdam in 28. You got four in St. Louis in 1904. The only other time you went better than four, of course, was in LA when half the countries weren't there, so fair enough. And then Barcelona, you got seven. So in terms of gold medals now, you've got five. So this is now Canada's third most successful Olympics in terms of gold medals. I mean, is that something that's being talked about at the moment?
COLIN HILDING: You saying it right now is actually the first that I even heard about that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Canada, you're welcome. Free statistics from Off The Podium. Take it.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, you've cursed us now that you mentioned it. So thanks for that. But I mean, I remember Barcelona, because that was sort of the first Olympics I really watched more attentively, even though I was too young to understand it. And I think I kind of had this because I got into it with Barcelona and with all the success we had, I sort of had this disappointment Olympics after Olympics until I got older and realised, no, that was unusual because we went into Atlanta, when we went into Sydney, we went into Athens, especially. I'm like, why can't we? We were good in Barcelona. What's wrong with us? Didn't realise that was just the unusual one. I mean, looking ahead, though, I don't know how many more we're going to get. I mean, obviously, we got a shot at soccer that's coming up. But I think at this point, if we do get any other gold, it's going to be big surprises. And that's when the statistics are going to start coming out. Hey, we just cracked the four. Nobody wants to mention it until we actually beat it.
BEN WATERWORTH: To put it into context, five gold. That's more gold than you won at the 1994 Winter Olympics. That's crazy to think that you can top a winter games. I mean, I'm not even going to bring up Calgary and Montreal because you guys can't win medals in your home Olympics. But I should never mention Montreal. That was, I think, Australia's only Olympics. We never won a gold medal at two, so we can't talk. But yeah, I mean, that's crazy to think that. But I mean, this is a record-breaking game. We'll get to Australia very, very shortly about in terms of where we're at, but even in terms of the total medals now won by Canada. So you're up to, in total, 18. You got 22 in Rio. You've got one more guaranteed, of course, to come in the soccer. So do you think this is something realistically that, I mean, you know, sort of talking about there about maybe not many golds, but is there any sort of sneaky ones in the canoe, any more cycling ones, perhaps a sneaky karate medal or a wrestling medal that hasn't been talked about?
COLIN HILDING: I think our best chance at wrestling is out, which is disappointing because we're usually a lot better than that. Boxing, I think we're already out. Yeah, I was running through this with Jamie yesterday because I know that the projections for Canada were always somewhere around 20 to 21, and I predicted in our previous episode, 23, that included beach volleyball, which is not happening now. Although I will say, you know, because I don't know if we were on that episode. I think we were, yeah, it was right at the end of the episode. I famously have said before, you know, if I get beaten, if my team gets beaten, I'm rooting for whoever beat them because I want to be beaten by the best. So go Australia when we get to that. But yeah, I mean, we know we have one more for soccer. I think we've got one more in the canoe. You never know what could happen for other medals. It is going to be those sneaky ones where nobody really sees it coming though at this point.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I'm just going to say, I actually haven't gone over our predictions since the beginning of the Olympics. So Colin, I need you to say this right now. You want Canada to lose soccer because your predictions were five gold, six silver, twelve bronze. You're currently on five gold, five silver, eight bronze. So if you lose a soccer, you're at five gold, six silver. So come on, Sweden!
COLIN HILDING: I mean, if you're rooting for them, I know that you just jinxed it and it will happen. So this is where I'm torn. Is the rest of the country going to kill me if I do that?
BEN WATERWORTH: No one wants Sweden to win at soccer? Come on, who wants Sweden to win at soccer?
COLIN HILDING: My family came from Sweden. So did mine.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm Scottish quarter-Swedish. We're probably related. We probably used to be in ABBA together.
COLIN HILDING: We're a disgrace to our families.
BEN WATERWORTH: You're a man bagger. I actually, seriously, I quite like Sweden. It's one of these countries I'd love to go to. And not just because of my family. Scandinavia fascinates me in general. Australia, though. Yes, welcome back to Australia Off The Podium. Colin's going to have a cry. Colin, Jarrod and I often talk about how there's always a gold medal that comes out of nowhere. Chloe, Queen Chloe, did it in Rio, of course. I'm going to say today, we had two that came out of nowhere. In the space of ten minutes, if you don't mind. It started off in the canoeing. We had Jean-Van de Wessouzen, and Thomas Green, or they kept calling him Tom Green. I'm like, well, he's gone a long way since Freddie got fingered. He's now an Olympic gold medallist. They kind of talked them up because they did a very fast semifinal, and they were like, oh, they're losing the chance of a medal. And they sort of led for the majority of this, but then the Germans were coming off there. Hoff and Scoff, can we just call that right now? Hoff and Scoff were on our boffs. And out of nowhere, they pulled it up, got the gold. This was incredible. Now, I also love the story of Thomas Green. The fact that he apparently, we talked about him the other day. He basically is a surf lifesaver on the Gold Coast, and was told, oh, to help your professional surf life-saving skills to paddle, you should take up canoe and practice at the Olympics. Okay, goes and wins a gold medal, if you don't mind. So that was a bit of a shock. Out of freaking nowhere, I'm messaging our group today going, are we about to win a gold medal in skateboarding? And we won a gold medal in skateboarding. Now, you brought up a book before, Colin, and I've brought a book for show and tell today. I've got Olympic Gold. Now, this is our greatest individual Olympian since 1896. Now, I just want to go through some of these names here. These are some of the greats of the greats in Australian sporting history. Of course, we've got Edwin Flack, our very first Olympic gold medallist. Also, won gold on the track and a bronze in tennis at the same Olympics. Now, you tell me somebody else who can ever do that. No one. Fanny Jurak, our very first ever female gold medallist. Legend in this country. Dawn Fraser, Shane Gould, Murray Rose, Betty Cuspert, Ian Thorpe, Susie O'Neill, Simon Fairweather. I'm going to put him in there. Grant Hacker, Cathy Freeman, Dale Begg-Smith, Stephen Bradbury. Esteemed names in Australian Olympic history that have been joined by Keegan Palmer. Don't know how I'm feeling about having 18-year-old, not actually an Aussie, Keegan Palmer winning a gold for us. We'll maybe talk about him shortly because, yeah, it's interesting. But I'll take a gold medal. I'm not going to say no. Yes, go Keegan. I thought that was that website where you bought really cheap appliances. Oh, that's Kogan's. Never mind. Silver. Now, I want to talk about the team sport separately because while it's been a pretty decent day for Australia, it's been heartbreak for all our team sports today. The curse is well and truly out of the purse deal for the Kookaburras. They lost in heartbreaking fashion to Belgium in a penalty shootout. We're still feeling it here. And two bronzers, though, for Australia, quite good ones as well. Melissa Wu, in the 10-metre platform, won a silverback in Beijing as part of the Synchro Platform, has gone through a great deal in the last few years, basically gave up on diving only to come back, and has won her first ever individual Olympic medal. And the one that, Jesus Christ, we're talking about here, it's up there with Damian's victory, which I feel we need to talk a little bit more about. But Ashley Maloney, in the decathlon, if you don't mind, Australia's first ever medal in decathlon ever, at the Olympics. Crazy, 21 years old, amazing. And look, you always talk up the decathlon. I've never really watched the decathlon. I love the decathlon. That 1500 metres was epic. It was so epic at the end. And the reactions, I'll talk about them all later from Ash, just absolutely incredible. But I'm sorry that we denied Canada another medal in that one, because I think, did the other Canadian get fourth in this?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I think it was fourth. I think it was fifth, actually. But yeah, it was those top three for almost all the events up until the end.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, Damien got bronze. I'll just go back to Damien. He got bronze in Rio, so that's golden bronze. And I mean, how's his victory? I don't feel we really talked about that. How's his victory being talked up sort of compared to Andre's and other victories?
COLIN HILDING: It just sort of happened, so I haven't been able to follow a lot of it. But I mean, it is the top story I'm looking at everywhere right now. And this was one that I think we knew we had a shot. But I think there's something else that's exciting about the Decathlon, and this is why I love it, is that it goes on for two days. So, you know, you know you always have a shot at it. Even though, oh, we had a bad result here, we had a bad result here. But the more the time goes on, you're like, oh, we just moved up. Oh, we had a good showing in that one. You know, Damien had a couple of events where he wasn't so hot, but I don't think he ever lost that lead. So for two days straight, it's been, let's cut back to the Decathlon, you know, and watch. I actually kind of wish I could watch more than this. I wanted to see more of the pole vault when it was going on. But the feed that they had on CBC had no commentary, and try watching pole vault with no commentary. It's not good.
BEN WATERWORTH: We could have commentated on it.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, we should have. But yeah, it's so fascinating to watch a sport where you can see the lead growing and growing, and this isn't like, you know, even in a marathon, you've got, what, two hours to kind of follow, oh, here's our progress, but you know, we're out of it at this point. Any event can turn it around. That's what's so great about the Decathlon. I know for Damien Warner, you know, winning the bronze last time, that was great to come in, consider the favour in this one, and basically never lose the lead. That was fantastic. I will say with Ashley too, before I get to Ashley, let me just clear something up for our 9% of Australian listeners that Ben and Jarrod seem to want to convince that I hate them. I brought up a point on the beginning of the last episode, which I prefaced by saying, Jarrod said, I think we should spread out, not have so many swimmers. We said, okay, take it under advisement. Ben said, I think we should spread out, not have so many gold medallists. Okay, I'll take it under advisement. Colin said, I think we should spread out, not have so many Australians. What are you talking about? Come on! Little bit extreme reaction there on me giving the same reaction you guys gave in other areas, but I will legitimately say I'm excited for Australia and both of those medals. With Ashley Maloney, he was not considered in the mix, and maybe he was considered a top five finisher, but in the end, the French guy who beat him, everybody was expecting it to be him and Damien Warner battling it up for the top. And when we sort of saw Pierce in the third spot, we were like, great. So this Australian guy sneaking in there, he probably got almost as much TV coverage, not as much as Damien was, but Pierce, when they were cutting back to those events, they were making sure to show Ashley every single time. So incredible that he ends up in the silver medal spot, something that nobody saw coming. I guarantee Australia didn't see it, because I asked you, I asked you guys yesterday, I'm like, is Ashley Maloney being talked up at all? And you're like, no, I think it was briefly mentioned that it was unexpected. But over here, we were loving it. Canada is all over Ashley Maloney.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's, yeah, I mean, I would almost go out on a limb and say that, yeah, those two gold today were unexpected, but this is probably our most unexpected medal of the Olympics. Because, yeah, like they were showing initial events yesterday, it kind of cut back and forth. And they were like, oh, yeah, no, he started off well. Like, he's done this, he's done well. And then I think when he basically got the top score on both the high jump and the 400, they were like, oh, OK, something's going on here. It was kind of like with Chloe back in Rio, where they're like, oh, OK, we might need to follow this. And then tonight, it was, I mean, so many things were being absolutely pumped up today, so much on Australia. We had such a big day on so many different events. And this almost all of a sudden started getting blanket coverage, even sort of during the hockey gold medal match, which is the biggest event today. They were even kept putting subtitles, you know, like Ashley to run, you know, 10 or whatever it is, PM tonight, blah, blah, blah. And I watched it. And like they were basically going through the math, saying that he had to like finish within eight seconds of Garrett or Pierce or something. They were doing the sums. And the image that is getting the news here, which is fantastic. And I'll talk about the interview between the pair of them later, because we had some gold Australian interviews today. Cedric Dubler, who finished last basically overall, the other Aussie, there's this image of Ashley kind of running behind him. And they were obviously kind of like, you know, working off each other to try and work it. And you could tell that Ashley was struggling. And Cedric basically is like screaming at him. He's basically going like, move your fucking ass. You've got to be within this time. He's screaming at him and he's basically urging him on. And then Cedric's basically working out. He's like, he's looking around going, OK, I need to be within a certain amount of time of this guy and this guy and this guy. So my teammate can win a bronze medal. Incredible team. And this is just for a frickin bronze. And this is the Summer Olympics, where Australia generally frowns upon bronzes. But I mean, this could be the best medal we have won. Up there with Jess Fox, I would say, is maybe our best medal in terms of the meaning behind it of these Olympics.
COLIN HILDING: I think the other thing that I love about the decathlon, and what you were mentioning there is it was very similar with Damian Warner. I think we knew Damian Warner had this lock as a gold. But in the final event, in the 1500 metre, he was like, I think, fifth place. So you can be watching an event, and you are in a losing spot. And meanwhile, the commentator is saying, as long as he's under however many minutes and 30 seconds, it's like, oh, we're at 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. He's got it. He's got the gold. Meanwhile, we're in fifth place, and it's cheering just because he got under a time. I mean, that's something you can never work out. That's why the commentary is so important, because it doesn't matter whether you're coming in first in the pole vault or first in the 1500 metre. How many points are you going to get from this? I will say my disappointment of the heptathlon running it at the same time. I just find it too hard to follow what's basically 16 events between the two of them at the exact same time. I really wish that they would do it staggered more, where let's finish the heptathlon and then move on to the decathlon. Let's do the decathlon, move on to the heptathlon, because the Canadian wasn't really even a front runner or whatever. They'd cut back just for that, but I'm like, I can't follow this many events at the same time. So spread it out in the future. But yeah, incredible just to watch these wins come through from even losses in events.
BEN WATERWORTH: The complete opposite in Australia. Our coverage was celebrating the fact that they were both on the same days. They were like, I love it. I love that they're on the same day and all this sort of stuff. So they were going gaga for that. I really want to just quickly mention, it's fascinating because we talk all about the swimming for Australia the first week, and then we're like, yeah, where are the medals going to come from in the second week? And we're seeing a lot of surprises, particularly with skateboarding and things like that. But I mean, our athletics team has been performing so well. And this is the thing that I will praise Channel 7 for. And I'm saying this comes from Bruce because Bruce is the man. But Bruce, Dave and Tamsin have been really championing this team. Because if you look at it on paper, this is our first medal in athletics. We've won a bronze. And realistically, we may get something in Javelin possibly. Our high jumper was the number one qualifier, so there's a chance there. But we weren't really expected to get many medals. Stuart McSwain may win a medal in the 1500, who knows. But I mean, in Rio, we got a silver and a bronze. Obviously, we got a couple of gold back in London with Sally and Jarrod. But our athletics is not what it used to be. I mean, if you look at the all time medals won by Australia, athletics is actually second behind swimming, which is weird to me, because growing up in Australia, we've won a gold maybe every second or third Olympics, you know, cycling sort of that second one, but we're sucking in cycling at the moment. But I just love the way they've been championing these performances. Peter Boll finishing fourth in the 800 was celebrated like he won a freaking gold medal. You know, the performances have three javelin women in the final celebrated. You know, even athletes making a final is being celebrated. And I want to praise the media for doing that, because I think that is important. Athletics, not a huge deal in Australia anymore. But the fact that you can literally championing these moments is great, which is the complete opposite of swimming, that if we walked away with these games with three gold, one silver and a bronze, you'd be saying that was a failure. So go Australian media for once. Positive words for Australian media.
COLIN HILDING: The skateboarding just quickly touching on that. I was rooting for you, Australia. I had no idea. I saw what was going on, but I'm like, I don't have any need to watch more skateboarding. I'm done. Enough of this. The park is definitely a better event. But again, watching a bunch of 12 year old kids, not great. I have so many issues with this sport, one of which is maybe it's because these athletes are all stoned out of their mind. Maybe it's just because they fried a lot of brain cells. But I'm so tired of seeing people, oh, well, I failed and I'm no longer in a shot for a medal. Oh, c'est la vie. Just dance around. It's obnoxious to watch these people just like almost not caring. And I don't know if it's because of the age you have. I thought in the woman's event, there was the one Japanese girl who was like 13 years old, and she broke down crying when she'd win. I'm like, that's what I need to see. I need to see these athletes invested. Maybe it's because you have young people, it doesn't work. Maybe it's because they're skateboarders and they fried their brain cells. It doesn't work. I don't know. Sorry for all the skateboarders out there who are now going to say Colin hates skateboarding. Let's just be honest. We all hate skateboarding in these Olympics. But you guys had, I even mentioned this in the chat. You guys had an adult. You know, it was like watching a real athlete in comparison. In comparison, it was like watching a real athlete, you know?
BEN WATERWORTH: Like, thank you on behalf of Australia. But I don't want to take, like, again, an Olympic gold medal is an Olympic gold medal. I'm sure in Nagano, people were looking at the snowboarders going, what the fuck is this? This is not the Olympics. I mean, I'm sure in, by Brisbane, skateboarding can probably be a prominent sport, and we can enjoy it for what it is. I still would not believe that because I still feel skateboarders take this a little bit, snowboarders, sorry, take it a little bit more with prestige like you should at the Olympics, as I'm with you. These kids just look like, ha, fuck, I'm just gonna go smoke a joint, I crashed at the Olympics.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, exactly.
BEN WATERWORTH: The problem I had with sort of Keegan is that just the way he was interviewed, like, I know I'm jumping in here to this point, but like, literally, you got the Channel 7 reporter like, oh, Keegan, fantastic, you know, result, Australia's going crazy. You are an Olympic gold medallist for Australia. Now, this kid, I think he's more American than Australian. I think he's just representing Australia because his mum or something is Australian. You know, and there's nothing wrong with that, but he literally is all like, oh, yeah, yeah, Australia. You know, that's pretty cool, isn't it? And like, it's just like, you just fucking want to, he's got to be on a stamp in this country. He gets a stamp because he won a gold medal. He will be in the updated version of that freaking book I've got as an Olympic gold medallist. Now, people bag out Dale Begg Smith, but fuck you, Dale Begg Smith's a legend. All right, he can buy his island and show up when he wants and win a gold and bugger off. That's all right for Dale, because he doesn't come on camera and just go, oh yeah, Australia. Like, oh, I don't know why I'm angry at this, Colin. We won a gold from him.
COLIN HILDING: Again, though, I didn't see any interviews. I mean, I tuned in when you said, hey, is Australia actually going to win a golden skateboard? I'm like, this sounds interesting. Let me watch. I didn't stick around for any interviews, but what I'm saying is I like the way that he competed like an athlete. I even commented on the Brazilians. I'm like, I can't deal with these guys. One of them was dancing before he started, and then he wipes out immediately, which I'm like, of course he wiped out. You just focused on your break dancing trial for Paris, as opposed to getting ready for your event, and then he dances on the way out. There was an American who I think wiped out immediately, said, I'm going to finish my routine, and basically sits there showboating, and everybody's like, oh, yeah, good for you. I'm like, let's get on with this event. At least you had an athlete who went out there and competed like an athlete, and maybe if you cut out the interview, you have somebody who's worthy of a medal.
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, I did. The one thing I'll say is, like, he did amazing, Keegan. Like, I mean, that second run when he got, like, 96 was pretty bloody incredible, and then that's what I was expecting from skateboarding. Like, I can deal with that. But I did. You talk about the Brazilian. The guy got sealed with Pedro Barros. I did, like, his final run when he kind of landed on his, and he thought he got it. He thought he won. So he gets his helmet. He kicks it into the crowd. He's like, oh, yeah. And then the Aussie guy jumps up and jumps. But I just thought that was funny. That kind of like he's keying and running in, like, just with his bro. Like, he could have gotten beaten, and he's still hugging him. Like, oh, yeah, bro, sick moves.
COLIN HILDING: Well, the commentators here were definitely talking up, oh, this is a very tight crew among all the nations for this. The kicking the helmet, though, like, I'm not saying, oh, this is a disrespectful thing or anything like that. But that probably was going to hit somebody, you know? And if I hadn't already sat through these obnoxious Brazilians for 10 or 15 minutes prior to that, maybe I would have accepted it more. And this is no knock against Brazil again. Brazilians are going to say Colin hates Brazilians now. Ben and Jarrod are going to say Colin hates Brazilians. I'm rooting for Brazilians in most things, but no, not in skateboarding. Come on.
BEN WATERWORTH: The one thing I'll add, I'm jumping ahead here, Kieran Woolley, who actually got 50, was only two points off getting the bronze, but he's making a lot of headlines here because he took out a cameraman. I don't know if you saw that, but he basically wiped out a cameraman on one of his moves. So that was kind of funny. I just want to quickly, I'll just on the canoeers for Australia, because they're literally showing a replay of it now. I actually genuinely feel sorry for them, because they're like the forgotten gold medallists of today. There's been so many stories from Australia today with medals, that these are the ones that are being forgotten about, because I swear they've showed the skateboard kid like 50 times. They're talking about the kookaburras, you know, they're talking about Ash, they're talking about Melissa, they're talking about our beach volleyball girls, they're talking about all of these things. Yet the poor guys who literally won our first gold for the day are barely being spoken about, and their replay is being shown right now at quarter past one in the morning. So it's like, thanks Channel 7, they're going to be in a stamp too, like they should get some air time with that. I just want to quickly mention, 17 gold now Australia have. This is equal to our best ever Olympics back in Athens. 41 in total, I doubt we're going to get the 17 to take us over Sydney. But I mean, that's in itself is incredible. We've obviously got probably one more shot at a gold with the volleyball girls. Sadly, we couldn't get that 18th tonight. Oh God, the kookaburras.
COLIN HILDING: I need you to explain something, because I've been very confused these whole games when you guys refer to your team sports by animals and stuff like that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Did you not remember this from Rio, that we talked about all our teams had names and we couldn't come up with the Canadian ones?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I feel like we've had this conversation before, but I don't... Where does it come from?
BEN WATERWORTH: It's a very Australian thing. Pretty much all of our national sporting teams have a mascot, like you call them something. I believe our men's cricket team are the only ones who don't. They are literally just called the Australian men's cricket team, because it's prestigious, it's different. I believe our women's cricket team are called the Diamonds. So yeah, pretty much all of our swimming team is called the Dolphins. I'm sure the athletics team has a name. The basketball, the men's are boomers, the women's are the opals. The hockey, yeah, the kookaburras are the men, the hockey roos are the women. The stingers are the women's water polo team. The sharks are the men's water polo team. Whole bunch. It's a thing. It's an Australian thing we do. Actually, no, the Diamonds are the netball team. Anyway, correction there. We get it told off in this country that everyone's getting angry that the hockey roos have been called the kookaburras and the kookaburras have been called the hockey roos. So don't want to offend the Australians. We've got nine percent of them listening to that.
COLIN HILDING: I'm actually I'm curious because I've gotten really into this. They started up this ISL, which is a swimming league that is being presented like a professional sport. Did you watch a lot of that or have you seen bits and pieces of it?
BEN WATERWORTH: I've seen sort of here and then they kind of publicised a little bit here. You know, when our big names swimmers get signed up to like Las Vegas and things like that.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I mean, it's gotten quite big here. You know, they'll show it every single weekend. You know, we got the Toronto Titans, so we actually have a Canadian team. But I mean, why does Australia not have a team? I mean, I want a proper team name, not just, oh, we assign this based on masking. You can have a real swimming team and we got to come up with a good swimming name for them.
BEN WATERWORTH: But the Dolphins, what's wrong with the Dolphins?
COLIN HILDING: No, no, no, no, that's what like that's not going to be an ISL team. I mean, you've got like teams names like the Titans and the Rampage. You need like, like, oh, what's an aggressive name?
BEN WATERWORTH: The the Gobbly Gooks, because that's everyone.
COLIN HILDING: The Gobbly Gooks, there we go. The Brisbane Gobbly Gooks coming soon to the ISL.
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, just I mean, it's it's a big deal there. They are talking it up a lot here about the 17 gold. And I mean, I'd like to think we could get 18. That would be huge. But I mean, considering the shit that Australia apparently have gotten in the last decade, we're only winning eight gold at the last two Olympics. And this is this is pretty exciting. And I will say, fuck you, New Zealand, because you are the ones who are saying to us about how, oh, if you take away their medals in swimming, then they've only won it in like, you know, where New Zealand have won more gold medals.
COLIN HILDING: Just to clarify that. Lisa Carrington.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I was going to say that. Thank you, Colin. Nine gold we won in swimming. Eight gold we have won in sports outside of swimming. So basically 50-50 now. Whereas if you take away Lisa Carrington's three gold in New Zealand, you've only got four. And Canada are beating you.
COLIN HILDING: We're just angering all of our listeners now. Let's start checking the boxes.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's New Zealand.
COLIN HILDING: We've got the Americans, the Brazilians, the Australians, New Zealand.
BEN WATERWORTH: I've barely bagged out the Brits. And I said I was going to. I mean, the French have been redeemed, but I mean, that's fine. All seriousness, we should mention quickly Lisa Carrington. Third gold medal of these games. He's now New Zealand's most decorated athlete at the Olympics. So we've had Canada, Australia and New Zealand now have their most decorated athletes at Olympic Games celebrated. Lisa, of course, did win the women's K-1 500. And in all seriousness, I ripped shit into New Zealand. Seven gold medals for them. It's their best return ever since Los Angeles. Again, doesn't count. No one was there. They got eight in LA, and they've got every chance. Lisa's still in another event to go. So they could equal. I mean, that is a big deal. All jokes aside about there not being many nations in LA. Some people do put a bit of an asterisk over Moscow and LA because the fact that there were so many people missing. But I mean, we joked on that Grasse note thing that New Zealand could win eight or nine. I mean, they've lived up to this seven fucking gold for New Zealand for a country of four million people, Colin. This is incredible for them.
COLIN HILDING: To show you what a big deal it is, CBC, I had a bit of a disappointment in the first week of the Olympics here, because I felt like all that CBC was covering was just events that Canadians were involved in. And one of the things I always liked about, particularly the Summer Olympics, is that they'd spread out. They're like, this is just an interesting event. Give it a watch. But now, realising, as we enter the second week, that there are, what, like eight different cable channels that are also carrying events. And the fact that Canada now has improved so much in summer sports, this is probably the way it's going to be. So it's actually become more unusual now that if CBC, like our national network, is carrying an event that a Canadian is not in the mix. When Lisa Carrington competes, they air it live. It's not even like, oh, let's cut to a replay from this, or this is a big story. This has become a live event. So I would say she's probably one of the non-Canadian stars of the Olympic coverage in Canada.
BEN WATERWORTH: And she's a big deal in New Zealand. Like, when I lived in New Zealand, you knew that name. And this was before these Olympics. And she's basically doubled her medal tally in one Olympics. Also to put that into context, not only have they won seven gold, they've now won 19 medals in total. That is their most successful Olympics ever in terms of medals won. So I may rip shit into New Zealand as much as I am Australian. It is my job to do that. But I mean, I remember growing up, the two countries I loved outside of Australia were Canada and New Zealand. The love for New Zealand waned when I realised I wasn't meant to. What has changed? But I mean, I lived in New Zealand. Outside of Australia, I've lived in New Zealand longer. I lived in New Zealand longer than Canada. So yeah, congratulations, New Zealand. It was great performances from there to have that there. I mean, God, this show is very busy today. We've barely scratched the surface. I'm going to go over the medal winners today that we haven't talked about here just quickly. Athletics, we had gold to the Bahamas. Their first ever male individual Olympic gold medallist, Stephen Gardner. In an event that's so showboat-y, everyone's coming out and they're all posing and flexing and dabbing. He just comes out and just gives a gentle wave. They're like, hello, I'm Stephen Gardner. And then he just walked out and won a gold medal. Good on you, Stephen. Silver to Columbia, bronzer Granada. The 110 hurdles Jamaica finally got. They've done so badly without Bolt. Finally got themselves a goal. I guess they won the women's.
COLIN HILDING: I had a sweep there.
BEN WATERWORTH: Sorry, Jamaica. Hanzel Parchment won the gold ahead of USA, and Jamaica got the bronze in that 20K walk. Went to Italy, Massimo Stano, Koki Adida for Japan Silver and Japan Bronze. Is there something you say on that?
COLIN HILDING: Pause on that for a second. I was excited to see that. I don't know anything about that one athlete, but a weird thing happened a couple years ago where over the course of about two or three weeks, I started getting people on Instagram following me, that I'm like, who is this person? I look it up and they're all members of the Italian racewalking team. Who knows why? They all decided to follow Colin Hilding out of nowhere. But I had like five or six Italian racewalkers start following me. So I sort of followed them back, and I'm like kind of into the Italian racewalking team. Now, this guy didn't follow me though. So come on, where's my follow?
BEN WATERWORTH: Jesus, Massimo. Well, Italy's got the fastest man in the world and the fastest walker in the world. So, like, Jesus, Italy. I will say quickly, well, before I forget, Dave Colbert, and I should mention this is the commentary ones, but they were showing on our great little entertainment show at night, Shinya, Dave Colbert went out and did a sort of a mock call of the 20 kilometres like it was a 100 metre sprint. So he's like, and they're off at the 20 kilometres! Oh, and look at them go! They're off the blocks! They've only got 19.5 kilometres to go! It's amazing! It's Italy in front!
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's China in second!
BEN WATERWORTH: We've still got two hours to go! It was so funny! Anyway, let's see if I can track that down. The men's triple jump. Portugal, Pedro Pichardo. Portugal's first gold at the Olympics since Beijing. Congratulations to them. China Silver. And congratulations to a country that I randomly love because it's when I think of a random country outside of Romania. This is the country I go for. Burkina Faso, their first ever Olympic medal to Hughes Fabrice Zango. He should get an extra medal for an amazing name. Congratulations, Burkina Faso. Men's shotput, our cowboy hat wearing American Ryan Krauser in an Olympic rego. Fuck, I love the shotput. Got some great commentary for that. USA Silver, New Zealand bronze. We know they're decathlon. Did we mention Kevin Mayer got bronze, silver for France? The Women's pole vault went to America. Katie Naguette, Russia silver, bronze for Britain. Heptathlon went to Belgium. They've had a great day, Belgium. Fuck them for hockey, but otherwise. Nafisito Tim, gold ahead of the Dutch, silver and bronze to the Dutch there. Boxing, gold to rock. Albert Batagreve in the men's featherweight, ahead of the USA Ghana and Cuba bronze. Canoeing in the men's K100, K1200, sorry. It was Sandor Totka of Hungary ahead of Italy and Britain. The K2, 1000, Australia, yep. Germany got the silver, bronze to Czech. As we mentioned, Lisa Carrington got the K1500 ahead of Hungary and Denmark. And as we mentioned, the C1200, Canada got silver. America, Nevin Harrison got the gold, and Ukraine got the bronze. Cycling, the men's Omnium went to Matthew Walls of Britain, silver to New Zealand and bronze to Italy. The women's Ciaran, bronze to Canada, silver to New Zealand, and gold to Shania Braspenichic of Netherlands. Diving, now they wanted to remind us a lot in Melissa Wu's bronze medal winning performance there. Hong-Chen Kwan, gold and Yuxi Chen, silver. Combined age of 29 years old for gold and silver. If you want to see, like I know we had like 13-year-olds in skateboarding. If you want to see an actual child, look up Hong-Chen Kwan. Literally looks like she's about four. We may mention her later on in this episode. Field hockey, oh geez, I'm still burnt over. Belgium wins their first ever Olympic gold in field hockey, but they've been good for a while. And I'd rather lose to Belgium than the Dutch or Britain. So it's not bad to lose to Belgium. Karate, our first medals awarded in karate today. The men's 67 kilos, Stephen DaCosta from France, beat Turkey's Ara Samdan, Kazakhstan and Jordan with the bronze, the women's 55 kilo, Bulgaria, Avet Garanova, head of Ukraine, Austria, and Chinese Taipei, and the women's Kata Kata, Sandra Sanchez for Spain, head of Japan and Italy, Hong Kong. Spain's had a good day today. Skateboarding, as we know, Keegan Palmer gold, Brazil silver, America bronze. As I said, Spain, good day. The men's combined sports climbing, Alberto Gines Lopez took the very first Olympic gold medal in sports climbing, head of the US and Austria. Swimming, the men's marathon, 10K Germany, Florian Welbrock, head of Hungary and Italy, table tennis, women's team, China, surprise, head of Japan and Hong Kong. And in the wrestling, we had Gold to Rock, Zoroor Ugev, in the men's freestyle, 57K, head of India, Kazakhstan and the US, men's freestyle, 86K, America, David Taylor, that's the most American name you can ever get, head of Iran and Rock, and Sam Marino, Sam freaking Marino won another medal! I didn't even know this! That's his third! Holy crap! Didn't even see that till now! I'm losing it! Bloody hell, Sam Marino, the star of the Olympics! Women's freestyle, 57 kilos, Rosaco, Kawhi, Japan, and a Belarus USA. Bugger everyone else! Sam Marino are on fire! This is the greatest Olympics ever! All the countries that we've... I mean, God, this is a big boy song crack! I mean, this is the best Olympics ever. Come on, seriously. No, you don't need crowds for the Olympics, you just need medals, medals, medals. I'm so happy with that. That's amazing. Sam Marino, that's so good. Quick look at the medal table, though. China still on top. 34 gold, 24 silver, 16 bronze, 74 in total. The US will maybe be the first to get to 100 on total, because they're still leading comfortably on the total medal tally. 29 gold, 35 silver, 27 bronze, 91 in total. Japan, 22 gold, 10 silver, 14 bronze, 46 in total. Australia, we dropped to fifth last night, and we thought, shit, Britain have got us, Russia have got us. With two gold, we sneakily move back up into fourth. 17 gold, five silver, 19. Those silvers are letting us down. 41 in total. But again, Russia and Britain breathing down our throats. Next, whatever. ROCK on 16 gold, 22 silver, 20 bronze, 58. Britain also 16 gold, 18 silver, 17 bronze. Canada, you're in 14th now, 5 gold, 5 silver, 8 bronze, 18 in total. New Zealand, just outside the top 10. 7 gold, 6 silver, 6 bronze, 19. And Ben's random country of the day is going to be Ghana, who currently sit in equal 81st place on one bronze. That is Ben's random country of the day, coming to you once again tomorrow on Off The Podium. Catch your breath, Colin. Any other Canadian notables you want to mention in terms of results today?
COLIN HILDING: Let's see. So outside of the ones we've already talked about, which was a lot, Georgina Ellenwood, 20th place in the Heptathlon. I didn't get to see much of that, as I mentioned. The 4x100 relays, obviously Aaron Brown, Andre de Grasse, Jerome Blake, Brendan Rodney. They are advanced to the final with an insane time. Andre de Grasse just chasing down to the end. That was just beautiful to watch.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ben's on for a medal. Ben's on for his first medal. Come on.
COLIN HILDING: Well, hold on. Hold on. Charles Hamlin won in a relay, and we didn't count that. That was part of the curse.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, we sort of counted it. We got one medal, but you know.
COLIN HILDING: Well, yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: Give it to me, Colin. I haven't won a medal yet.
COLIN HILDING: You're the only reason this curse has been perpetuated. We said the curse is over. Kylie has won, and you're like, well, but is it over yet?
BEN WATERWORTH: So it's your own fault. The Ben curse exists?
COLIN HILDING: Come on. You want to play up on that? I'm going to perpetuate this. The Ben curse continues because relays don't count. That's what I'm saying. Also, in the women's 4x100 relay, we finished fifth in our heat. We did not advance. Oh, no, we did advance. We advanced on time. Yeah, I remember that was a... They were sort of going back and forth with all the interviews, like, oh, are they still going to get on time? We just sort of barely scraped it on time, which was nice. Annika Newell, she got a lot of coverage here just based on her personality. But, you know, she didn't make the finals in pole vault, unfortunately. We already mentioned the canoe. We had a couple of people in there. I don't want to take too long in this track cycling. We already mentioned. Oh, here's one. This one's... OK, sad. First, I'll tell you what. Andy Anderson did only place in 16th overall in skateboarding. So we'll get that one out of the way. Ammar Desi lost in the opening round in wrestling. So again, wrestling not good for Canada. We ended up in 9th place overall in the 10K Swim. Hao Li Fan, Brooke Henderson and Elena Sharp, our big two golfers, are very far back and barely even worth talking about. Water polo, I didn't know this is the first time I've seen it. I meant to watch this, but 14 to 12 to Australia. Much closer than our last matchup, though. I mean, that's got to be something, right?
BEN WATERWORTH: You've improved. What was that, for fifth, wasn't it? Or sixth or seventh or eighth or something?
COLIN HILDING: So we're going to play China for seventh now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, OK.
COLIN HILDING: We're in line for seventh place. Yeah. Last thing to talk about here. Megan Benfetto has never not medaled in what, three Olympics that she's been in right now. She was in the 10-metre platform. You mentioned I actually didn't know the results. You broke the results to me because all I saw was a semifinals, her not advancing and having a really bad day. And our commentators continuing over and over again to bring up what a bad year she's having because her condo burnt down. She lost all three of her previous Olympic medals in the fire. The Olympic medals were replaced. She had an ankle injury, which cost her in the pairs event that already came up. Every single time they talk about this woman, they're just like, what a bad year she's had. And let's just cap it off by announcing that she's not going to the finals for the first time in her Olympic career. And this is after the sticktogether.ca campaign did not work. Which one of us sent a message to Megan? I need to know, because it didn't work. Jarrod. Jarrod. This is why you're not here, Jarrod. The first time, this is now the first time she's ever going to walk away from the Olympics without a medal. The first time she's going to walk away without ever going to the finals, thanks to Jarrod. So we got a new curse here. Don't let Jarrod send messages to Canadian athletes. This is what happens, Jarrod.
BEN WATERWORTH: It doesn't matter if she won a medal, it just would have burned anyway. So, I mean, you know, how do you get them replaced? You just ring up, hi, IOC, hi, my medal's burnt. Now, can you send me a couple of London medals?
COLIN HILDING: Apparently, she didn't request it. It was like a month and a half later, they just sort of said, listen, we heard the story, we heard about this fire. Like, she lost everything, like her car, like the entire condo burned to the ground. And all her medals were there. And they just sort of said, you know, we heard about this, we're going to be three medals. They had like a little ceremony. They kind of showed a recap of that today. But I mean, look, if she has another condo fire, and loses anything, if she loses these replacement medals, it's on you, Jarrod.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm just, I'm wearing this fake one. Can I just like burn this and then ring up the IOC and go, yeah, hi, that gold I won in podcasting.
COLIN HILDING: Terrible condo fire, and I had an injured ankle, and I lost my partner, and I didn't advance to the finals.
BEN WATERWORTH: I really had to see the Korean coverage of diving them when they put images up on the screen of what's happened to her and her life. Like, Jesus Christ, burnt bodies on the ground, broken bones.
COLIN HILDING: Like I got ordered an Ant Beru.
BEN WATERWORTH: Dog dead. Boyfriend left. Parents got cancer. I mean, Jesus, like, just kick her while she's down. Before I get to the Australian ones, one thing I actually did not mention, I should mention this, because this is a great story. In the hockey, India got bronze, their first bronze medal in 41 years. I think they won about five gold. I mean, this is to me is almost like when Canada broke through for winning gold in Salt Lake. It was like, what, 50 years since you had won a gold. You should see how India is going off for winning a fucking bronze. Like the Prime Minister, who has 70 million followers on Twitter, has like launched this massive sort of thing. I'm like, oh, I'm so proud today to be an Indian. My Twitter feed was just filled with Indians celebrating winning bronze in hockey.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, I mean, I actually have something else. Well, we'll get to that a little bit later on, but I'll have another. I've got something to bring up for India when we get to Athlete of the Day.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, Jesus. There's some days where I've struggled to come up with something. Yesterday was one of those days. Today, I've got like pages filled with them, all right? And there's only about four Australians. So, you know, go figure. So I guess kind of the big ones today that we, for Australia outside of the medals, the big, big one for us in beach volleyball, we're guaranteed our first medal in beach volleyball since Sydney, since we won gold. Atacho del Soler and Clancy knocked off Latvia 2-0. We'll play America for gold. Rematch, I think, basically, of Sydney, because I'm pretty sure we beat America from memory back in Sydney. And Kerry Pothouse was one of those gold medallists from Sydney's on the commentary. Wasn't she going off? She was loving life today in the beach volleyball. And this is great. I mean, beach volleyball is one of these sports I feel Australia should be good at. I think of beaches. I think of Australia. So why aren't we all that good at it? But I mean, you're happy this. You said you're going for us for this one. So yeah, I mean, this is exciting. It's on tomorrow as well. No mucking around with this one.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I mean, I had plans to go see Suicide Squad tonight, and I may have to put that on hold just to watch this.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well, there you go. So you should. The team ones, though, were outside of all the individual greatness today. I guess it's a team one, technically, in beach volleyball. But the Boomers were being talked up as big as the Kookaburras today against America, of course. You talk about the Kookaburras curse, barely winning gold. We won one gold in all of our Olympics. We won about six silver now. The Boomers have made it to the bronze medal game five times and have lost every single one of them. And we remember the heartbreak from Rio when we were robbed of that medal in the end with that stupid foul call by Spain. We were in this game. We were 15 points up against the US late in the second quarter. I went on to news websites in Australia and literally breaking news on every website, headline stories. Australia thrashing the US in basketball. I'm like, oh, it was on. We end up getting beaten by 19 fucking points. So classic Australia. So we will now play bronze against Slovenia. And Luka Donkic, I can never say his name, is going absolutely crazy. So I'm expecting us to finish fourth again at these Olympics. So I'm not confident about us getting this bronze. And if the Boomers win bronze, that will be up there with Ash winning the bronze. Like, seriously, it would be a massive deal for us to get a medal in men's basketball. And the other one, the Matildas, unfortunately, did not walk away with the medal. They lost 4-3 to the US. And as I've always said, that's a great result for them. It's their best performance ever at a major tournament like this. Three years, two years out from the World Cup being held in Australia. So that is a massive result for Australian soccer, and I'm sure they will take that after the disappointment. You mentioned Water Polo, Australia walked away with a big win over their arch rivals Canada. So I believe now we're fifth, or do we have to play for fifth? I don't know how that works. I think we play Netherlands now for fifth. So fifth, please bring it on. In canoe outside of our gold, in Lisa Carrington's race, Lisa Wood finished last. It's always good to finish last when a New Zealander wins a gold. Great. In the Ciaran, we didn't quite make it to the final A. Unlike two Canadians, we made it to final B. And Carly McCulloch got third, and that's how she finished ninth overall. That's where we want our bronze medal, in the B final. In the Men's Omnium, Sam Wellsford finished 11th. In the Athletics, great news for our high jump team. Nicola McDermott, I mentioned before, was the number one qualifier for that one, so she goes through, as does Eleanor Patterson. So we have two women in the high jump final and three in the javelin final. So our field teams are going off. The 4x400 relay Australia finished last in our heat and will not be going through to the final, but I didn't even realise we had a relay team in athletics this year, so that's a positive there. In the 20-kilometre walk, Declan Tinge finished 17th in that one and Kyle Swan finished 36th. In the... No, we didn't have a 100-metre relay. We didn't need to worry about that. Ah, the 1500 metres. Now, I need to mention on the medal tally, Tasmania now is two gold, two silver and a bronze, because of course Eddie... Actually, no, that's wrong. Well, I guess you get a silver for the team. There's two Tasmanians on the team, of course, with belts. But Eddie Ockenden, silver medal for him. And again, the Ben Waterworth curse. I played against this guy growing up, like the closest I've ever been. What has he won now? A silver and two bronze.
COLIN HILDING: Sorry, Eddie.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's my fault, apparently. But our other great Tasmanian hope, Stewie McSwain is through to the 1500-metre final, as is Ollie Hoare.
COLIN HILDING: Stewie McSwain, that's amazing.
BEN WATERWORTH: You're laughing at Stewie McSwain and not Ollie Hoare? Like, what's going on there? What's wrong with McSwain?
COLIN HILDING: It's not childish. It sounds like a cool name, Stewie McSwain. It's such a made-up name that I love it, you know? What's your name, Stewie McSwain? Yeah, Jax Mwiggins.
BEN WATERWORTH: We mentioned Cedric Dubler finished second last in that. The golf, you mentioned the golf. Hannah Green's made a move today. She's now into eighth, only seven shots off the lead. Wow, Nellie Corder of the US is shitting it in in that one. But pretty good result there for Hannah and our other Australian, Minji Lee, is in a tie for 24th. As I said in skateboarding, our other competitor, Kieran Woolley, got fifth outside of that. And in the modern pentathlon, are you excited? It started today, the fencing rounds are on, Colin. I didn't actually catch any of it. I was watching the karate. We'll talk about that after. In the men's, Edward Fernand is ranked 35 out of 36. But our defence, no Chloe, but that's falling on the shoulders of Marina Carrier. She's carrying the nation's hopes. And I'm wearing the modern pentathlon T-shirt again today. 17th out of 36. She's in the top half. So we'll take that. I'm sure Chloe. Chloe liked my tweet today. She tweeted out saying she's watching modern pentathlon. She's like, she said, I'm sad I'm not there. And I replied with a, Paris is calling with a little telephone gif. She liked our tweet. So there you go. And as did Tom Green, not the actor, the gold medallist, the more important Tom Green, also liked our Instagram post. But we also got a message from Mr. Gobbledygook himself, Zach Gobbledygook, who I feel is replying to everybody who wished him thanks during the Olympics, as I tagged him for winning the gold. And he replied with, thanks for your support. So I'm like, oh, we're going Gobbledygook for you.
COLIN HILDING: How many days later? How long did it take?
BEN WATERWORTH: He was in quarantine now. He's bored. Give him a moment.
COLIN HILDING: You know what it is? It's the Simpsons episode where Marge was painting, and she sent that painting to Ringo Starr, like 20 years earlier. And it's like, no, no, I will not stop until I reply to all my fans.
BEN WATERWORTH: I remember that one. Kai Edwards in the men's marathon swimming. He finished 12th. So there you go. What did you watch today, Colin?
COLIN HILDING: Well, obviously, pretty much everything, athletics, the Cathlon, the four by 100 metre heats, the four by 400 metre women's heats as well, a little bit of skateboarding like you did, what I could handle of the disappointing diving. I watched karate just like you did, too. I actually really like it. I'm so bummed already that this is not going to be in Paris, because we have, I understand we have a lot of these combat sports. And I have a history in taekwondo, so I like to watch taekwondo. Taekwondo to me is more of a sport. It is structured like a sport, so I understand why it's in the Olympics. Karate is an all out fight. I mean, I like karate for the same reason that I like the boxing. Let me just take up my point. Let me just be brutal with them. And it's so fast, and it's a lot more as judo and wrestling and taekwondo. It's a lot of like back and forth, okay, hit, hit, hit, hit. This is like so much biting your time. It's like snakes in the grass. And it's like watching the Cobra Kai. So it's even better.
BEN WATERWORTH: Look, it was interesting because I was expecting a lot more kicking. And I didn't realise they were like the little glove things. So to me, it was just kind of like taekwondo with gloves. Because it seemed very similar to taekwondo to me without a helmet as well. But from what I saw, it was pretty good. Like I enjoyed it. There was a lot of the sort of the dancing, like boxing kind of dancing around each other. But it reminded me so much of taekwondo. That was my biggest thing with it. If you had showed them side by side, I would have gone, well, taekwondo, they wear helmets, and karate, they wear gloves.
COLIN HILDING: Well, again, I think the difference is, and maybe it's because I was in taekwondo, the big difference is taekwondo, it is a lot more fast paced. It's, you know, punch, punch, kick, kick, punch, punch, kick, kick. Whereas karate, okay, I'm going to wait, I'm going to wait, I'm going to wait. Okay, there's a punch, you know, okay, I'm going to wait, I'm going to wait. There's a kick. So it's, in my opinion, it is a faster paced sport for being slower paced, if that makes any sense.
BEN WATERWORTH: I did karate for about six months, and then clearly I'm not at the Olympics, so I didn't do very well at it. But yeah, you're like, I have to probably feel more sorry for karate over baseball and softball, because it's like, you know, baseball and softball have had plenty of chances. I keep getting duped and they'll be back. They will be back for LA. Whereas karate, like, I mean, I don't know what the struggle has been for karate to get into the Olympics, but they're here and it's just kind of like it's gone. Like we talked about this yesterday. We'll do a sports episode at some point talking about this. But, you know, I'm sort of 50-50 on how the IOC does this with the sports. But I mean, God, like these guys and girls have like gone so much effort. They've made an Olympics. They've got to this. Imagine if you finish fourth or like, I don't know if they get the two bronzes, or you go out in the quarters, you can't even say, I'm going to be back in three years. You can't. You don't know when you're going to be back. Like at least a baseball or a softball can probably go, well, yeah, I'll be back in seven years. But yeah, I mean, you've got to feel for these people, don't you?
COLIN HILDING: Unless they transition into breakdancing, and then they will be back in three years. Very true, very true.
BEN WATERWORTH: Actually, just on the baseball and softball, I should mention, we updated a lot of our, both our listeners on the, all the different team sports yesterday. The US, the three to the gold medal game. They will play Japan now for gold. They beat Korea in the semifinals. So there you go. Probably the gold medal match we had all been wanting for. And I will just also quickly add in the volleyball, Brazil went down to rock in the men's semifinals, and France beat Argentina, so it will be a France rock. Oh, I couldn't get Argentina and Brazil. That would have been epic. And in the handball, I believe Egypt went down, which is sad. I was rooting for Egypt. They did. They went down to France, and Denmark will play France for gold in the men's handball there. Yeah, I watched pretty much everything I think we've talked about skateboarding, unfortunately. Again, it's just the commentators. We'll get to that. A lot of athletics today, karate, obviously the hockey. I caught a bit of the Matildas in the soccer. I caught a bit of the basketball, the boomers. I watched the boomers, of course, but then I caught a bit of Slovenia and France. Diving. I watched a lot. I was busy apparently today. Now, I'm going to say about later the day to last, because it's a busy one today. But commentary fails and comments I feel is also going to be a bit of a busy one today, because I got some gold and I'm going to include some interviews here. But Colin, what have you got for me today?
COLIN HILDING: Really, there's only two. One is more just, you know, Canadians, take it easy. We're having one good year on the track, and you just want to knock the Americans. When the 4x100 relays were running for the men's, obviously, you know, America has not struggled to win medals in this Olympics, but a lot of their front runners on the track have not delivered the way they're expected. And as soon as the results came in, and it wasn't so hot for America, the Americans botched it up again. That's way too harsh. I mean, if this were Australia, you'd expect comments like that. But I mean, this is Canada. We're better than that. I feel like the Canadians being way too harsh on a lot of these American track stars, considering they're still winning a bunch of medals. You know, they're just not winning gold or winning the ones they're expecting. And the ones that are winning gold, I think, are impressive stories, too. My favourite one, though, was the comment alone, I think, is just sort of bad. But you add to that the fact that it makes no sense in context. It was one of the earlier events in the Decathlon. I don't even know which one it was. And Damien Warner had finished first, and all of a sudden the camera goes past him. And he very, very audibly says, Hi, Dad, Hi, Mum, and keeps walking. The commentators wait about 10 seconds. And then he says, You know, I'm not a lip reader, but I think I saw Hi, Mum. When you're saying hi to your mum, you're having a good day. The comment itself is just awful. But you need to read lips to hear them audibly say Hi, Dad, Hi, Mum. There's a lip reading coming in.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, I really am sad that I'm not there in Canada to see the great CBC stuff. This just sounds like you guys are having a great time. You know, in our intro, how you've got the Nadia Cominich, and it's like Nadia Cominich, you're perfect. And you've got that letter that goes, That is the first time I have seen something like that. That to me is just Canadian commentary. Oh, and Andre de Grasse there crosses the line to win the 200 metres. What a charming effort from that young man. Yes, although I did see Donovan Bailey's post where he was obviously filming the reaction in the Oh, where he had Andy Petrillo in him on camera. Yeah, that was pretty cool. Oh, God, I'm going to say this, Andy.
COLIN HILDING: I'm going to pause for a second. Andy Petrillo is my hero. I mean, a based on the fact that she is a stunning woman, which is the lesser of the impressive things about her. She is such a good anchor. I wish that you could see like a she is like the coolest woman you'll ever see. She's so natural on camera. But she's watching these events, and you get a lot of these anchors are like, oh, here's another event. All right, let me take my notes. She's sitting down watching this with Donovan Bailey and getting up and screaming and just getting so into it. I love that woman. Jamie, if you die, Andy, give me a call.
BEN WATERWORTH: She's big listener to the show. They've been doing a lot of that showing our comments, particularly Andrew Gaze, our great basketball. They were showing a lot of his reactions while watching the boomers and that. So it's quite funny. All right. I'm going to do one from yesterday because this happened last night during the Andre de Grasse once. We had Tamsen and Bruce. They were talking up Andre. They were just giving him the, you know, absolutely stoked about Andre's win. Tamsen goes, oh, well, they named a street after him in Canada. What will they do now? To which Bruce replies, yes, it is a big city. So Canada is a city to Bruce McEvaney. Yes, it is a big city, Canada. And the answer is Tamsen, they named a day after him because I saw that today.
COLIN HILDING: I was going to say they're like, you know, they have a franchise of TV shows named after him. The great De Grasse High, Kids of De Grasse Street, De Grasse The Next Generation.
BEN WATERWORTH: Dave Colbert, our field commentator, he's fucking brilliant. Between complaining about the sand, because it's coarse and rough and irritating and gets everywhere, one of the high jumps, I don't know if it was in Decathlon, it was just high jump in general. The absolute commentator's curse. Oh, yes, this one's quite easy, because then they shouldn't have too many problems with this one at all. Literally went under the bar and took the whole thing out, went face planted, which is like, that's what you call the commentator's curse. The beach volleyball, I believe this was from Kerry. She said, her partner calls her nastier. And I have to say, that was nasty by Anastasia. I don't really get how that, why did I write that down? That's absolutely not that good. But we had our, no idea, there's better ones. Don't worry, that was a fail. That was a Ben Waterworth commentary fail on Off The Podium. We had the viral moment from your Canadian pairing the other day when they were like, oh, fuck it, I'm going to do this. They, a bit of an Australian moment today when they zoomed in on their faces when they sat down between points, to which one of them applies as, that was such a fucking good hit. And then they're like, apologies for the language there. Um, I did love Dave Colbert commentating the shot put, talking about silver medallist Joe Kovacs. He's a big man with a big singlet and big shorts, and he needs a big throw. And then he did a big throw and he's like, oh, yeah. Oh, and he's got some big lungs. There's nothing not big about Big Joe. It's like, okay, pretty good ride there. Let's bring up the stupid skateboarders today. Why not? Dickface at one point. I don't even know their names. I don't want to know their names. One point says, I don't want to say anything. I just want to let the skateboard do the talking. To which when we win gold, of course, obnoxious skateboard commentators react how obnoxious skateboard commentators probably should react. We got the great line, for Australia to win gold at the Olympics, had us put the seal of approval on this sport as an Olympic sport. So clearly the ISE was sitting around going, oh, God, no, we don't like this sport. Australia win gold. Oh, well, there it is. Paris got to be...
COLIN HILDING: Well, Australia won it. It's coming back.
BEN WATERWORTH: To which then knob face number two kept saying, can we repeat Australia has won gold? This wouldn't shut up. I did love the commentator of the canoe. When we crossed the line for gold, the line was, it's green and gold, gold, gold for Australia. Great line. We had, what else did we have here? Oh, Channel 7 trying to claim things were live again. Yes, and we're about to cross live to the medal ceremony for the men's skateboard. Literally watched it on 7Mate like 20 minutes prior to that. We had, what was, oh, the cocky commentators during the basketball when we're 15 points up. Like, holy crap, Andrew Gaze and Andrew Bogut could not shut up about it. And then by the end of it, they were basically blaming the referees, blaming everything else, blaming everyone else for happening. Same with the hockey tonight. It was poor effort there by the referees. I think a few calls went around the long way, all that kind of stuff. The interviews, actually, no, before I get to the interviews, some more Bruce love. Bruce commentating one of the 1500m semis tonight. He's talking about the Luxembourg competitor. Twitchy goes, oh, Luxembourg have a great history in the 1500m. Who could forget Josie Bartel, the 1952 champ? Yes, there is. That's him. Well, that's not him on screen right now. That's not Josie. He's probably long retired by now. As he's going on there. The diving commentary, Alastair Nicholson went from diving to hockey. Very busy man, great Tasmanian. When we're talking about Hongcheng Kwan, the young 14 year old child, basically said, yes, 14 year olds are meant to go to clinics, not put on a clinic.
COLIN HILDING: I see why you're struggling watching the skateboarding over there.
BEN WATERWORTH: I did also love the basketball commentators tonight, commentating France and Slovenia. They kept calling Slovenia Slovakia. Because I mean, why wouldn't you? And there, what was another one? Oh, Alison Nixon during the diving, I think it was one of the Chinese, I can't remember which one of the two, got like all tens except for one person gave her a 9.5. Who gave it a 9.5? You're kidding, terrible form there by the judge. I mean, admittedly, it wasn't for an Australian, so I guess we can kind of give that. But the stars of today were our athletes being interviewed. So we had the solemn basketball. I didn't know which player it was, but basically, you know, it's like, oh, you know, you must be disappointed. Yeah, yeah, no, we're pretty shattered. You know, we really do this. Twitch, our courtside reporter goes, well, I mean, the good news is you've just signed for blah, blah, blah in the NBA, and you're going to be coached under the US coach Greg Popovich. So you must be pretty buoyed about that. Honestly, I don't really give a shit about that. I'm just pretty bummed about this result right now. And we'll back it up. You tell him, he was just so pissed off at that question. He's just like, I don't give a shit about that. We just fucking lost an Olympic semifinal.
COLIN HILDING: You know, just remind me when you're done. I have to add something on diving and something on wrestling to this.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay, good. I'm looking forward to it. Ash Maloney, when he's getting interviewed there, what is the line he said when our trackside guy was basically asking him, like, you know, what was he yelling in your ears? He's coming around the thing. And he was like, he went to say it. I probably can't say that on air. Let's just say there was a voice bouncing him a cranium, and it hurt a lot. I'm just so laid back, and then they were basically, Cedric and him were just laughing it up. And Cedric was like, oh, give the gram, mate, give the gram. Oh, yeah, if you want to follow me, it's Ashley underscore Maloney. Yeah, I post like once a month, but yeah, give us a follow. It's like so Australian. A sad one, though, with Eddie Ockenden was like, oh, God, it was heartbreaking. I'm not just saying this because he's a Tasmanian. I mean, he's our most decorated Australian men's hockey player in the history of the sport. They're talking to him, and you can tell he's just shattered, like, you know, probably going to be his last Olympics and, you know, just talking about it. And then the trackside guy goes, oh, you know, so you've got a couple of kids at home. Like, yeah, I've got four. It's like, oh, yeah, your wife, yeah. And then he just he literally starts like just breaking, just balling his eyes out. Like, I haven't seen him. Oh, it was heartbreaking. And then they cut back to the studio and George Park is everyone's crying. I was crying. It was sad. But my star. Sorry, I'm going on a lot here. But the best one today, I'm given this in terms of interviews was to our one of our relay runners, 18 year old Ellie Beer. And not just for those reasons, those reasons are very prominent. But this whole women's relay team, I want them on our show all the time. They are hilarious. Just the way they were joking off each other. And they cut to Ellie Beer, who's just like so stoked. She's like, oh, yeah, I was told to just like take a mental picture. I'm at the Olympics, and I just I did, I took a mental picture and and here I am and oh, I love Tokyo. I love it. You should see the dining hall. It's bloody insane. They've got like dead last in their thing, but they don't give a shit. Ellie Beer was just incredible. I loved it so good. We had so many great interview moments today. Sorry, I went on for about 3,000 hours there, Colin, but we had a lot of highlights.
COLIN HILDING: The one I want to add to wrestling is a commentary, then the other thing you just reminded me of something that's an annoying story here. So in one of the wrestling, it was either a bronze or gold medal match. The commentator at the very end was saying it's like, you know, they've won two world championships and now they get to go home as an Olympic gold medal.
BEN WATERWORTH: Gold medal. That works.
COLIN HILDING: You screw up a line, I think you just stick with it. Just own it. Don't make it more awkward by adding the IST to the end.
BEN WATERWORTH: We just screwed up there with that awkward pause. So like we could add the IST. Every time we have an awkward pause, we're just going to add IST to the end of it. Now, at the end of the day. Oh, one more, sorry, sorry, Colin. Yes, IST, IST, IST.
COLIN HILDING: So Jeff. Jennifer Abel was being interviewed, reminded me of this when you're like, oh, think about all the good stuff you have coming up at home. She also had lost and they had like a face to face interview. Obviously, you've seen that they have those athlete boards where after you finish an event, they've got the zoom call with the family like in the arena. That's really cool. But this was like on CBC. The interviewer was interviewing Jennifer Abel, you know, hey, aren't you excited, you know, you want a medal? Are you excited that you're on the box of Cheerios? Here, let's bring your boyfriend in to congratulate you and he's, oh, yeah, it's great. And they're asking him some type of question is like, oh, you know, are you excited for to bring home a gold medal? It's like, well, I think she's gonna be even more excited for something else when she gets home, which is a little bit awkward. But like, you can basically apply everybody's like, oh, and then all of a sudden, this big story breaks shocking thing at the airport is her boyfriend greets her and gets on one knee and proposes to her, it's like, no, you gave that away on air, but by allowing people to think it was either sex or proposal. So, you know, everybody's like, oh, it's a great moment, you know, but maybe don't give it away on air.
BEN WATERWORTH: A massive dong, basically.
COLIN HILDING: People are dirty enough to think it's about his dong. Yeah, maybe.
BEN WATERWORTH: Actually, before Athlete of the Day, let's play our commentary. We should remember to play this. Jarrod and I, you and Jarrod had a fight all of a sudden? Like, all of a sudden, you're just not in the same room. Clearly, the other day was a lot more, you know, ground-breakingly angry than I realised. Jarrod and I headed out to the Aquatic Centre because Jarrod was keen to see the artistic swimming, not the synchronous swimming, the artistic swimming. So we checked this out, and here is our commentary of artistic swimming. Yes, welcome to the Tokyo Aquatic Centre for the event that you've all been waiting for. That is right. Artistic swimming is here. Bugger the normal swimming, bugger the athletics, bugger the dressage, because this is what you've all come to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics for. As you can see here, our swimmers are feverishly warming up in the warm up area. It's the place to be in Tokyo. Everybody is dreaming of being in this room right now. But luckily, the people watching, we are in this room, and we involve myself and the Emu Plains reigning synchronised swimming champion, Mr. Jarrod Loobeek. Jarrod, it's a pleasure to be in your company here this evening for an event that will just speak to the masses.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's true. The much loved artistic swimming, as we're calling it now. Yeah, the masses love this. It's everybody's favourite. It's never been questioned in the Olympic sport lineup. It's just a staple that everybody is happy is there and considers the epitome of sport.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, let's take a look at the list here. We've got Austria, USA, Canada, Spain, Colombia, Liechtenstein, Japan, Mexico, all the big nations that you think, of course, are involved in artistic swimming, as you said. Sorry, Jarrod, I called it synchronised before. It's a mistake everyone makes. Italy, South Africa, Greece, Egypt, Rock, Israel, Kazakhstan, Netherlands. Look out for them. They're very good at the swimming of artistic nature. The Brits, Belarus, China, Ukraine, Australia, and of course, France. Now, Jarrod, what brought about the change from calling it from synchronised to artistic swimming?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think it was to do with the fact that everybody was getting sick of the pairs doing exactly the same move. Sometimes you want just like a little solo segment from the more skilled of the duo. And obviously, that goes went against the rules of synchronised swimming because they weren't in time. So now, there's more room to freestyle to make the routines a lot more dynamic and exciting to watch.
BEN WATERWORTH: Fantastic insight from a fantastic man. That's why we've got him in the commentary box. And we're looking at the judges here. Now, by the looks of things, we've got more judges here than most countries at the Olympics have athletes. Jarrod, why so many judges? Does it take this many people to judge every single move that we will be seeing this evening?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think it's just the standard of trying to rule out bias. But we all know how that goes. It's normally a little bit of money's exchanged under the table and lots of controversy in the previous winners of the formerly known synchronised swimming, now the artistic.
BEN WATERWORTH: If we were to bribe any of the judges, which country would we go to first so Australia can do well here tonight?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think Lichkenstein, because I feel like there wouldn't be much of an integrity unit for that country. You'd probably be able to fly under the radar there, I think.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right, well, listen to the crowd cheer right now as we have the Australian pairing coming out now. And isn't Australia going off? The whole country has stopped to witness our girls, Emily Rogers and Amy Thompson. And look at the crowd there, just waving the fans and everything. They've got the nose plugs. And I'm liking these outfits, Sharad. Now these outfits obviously mean a great deal to them, because I believe tonight they are going to be performing the bid for the Brisbane 2032 Olympics. This is exactly how they got it. Now, tell me, how do these uniforms signify the city of Brisbane?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, well, how don't they? Obviously the sparkling lights, advanced, the lines, the colours. Obviously the Brisbane River running through that. A little bit of the Brisbane traffic represented in the swirls.
BEN WATERWORTH: Amazing to see. Now, of course, they do the little jiggly dance and jump straight into the pool now. What a splash that was by the Australian girls and great choice of music here. When I think of this type of music, I think of Brisbane. Now all the little scissor kick outside of the water there to kind of signify the story bridge, as you said, the Brisbane River on their uniform. And as they flip backwards there, I believe that might be, as you mentioned, that traffic jam, which is constant if you're driving from the Gold Coast, of course, to Brisbane.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, and here they're just showing the, representing the driver frustration, kicking the legs in anguish. And this is when they've had to pull up really harshly at a stop sign. They're just representing that with the back and forth leg kicks.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's amazing how they can represent that stop sign, which is for the simple kick of a leg. I mean, it really is amazing how much they've trained to this. Now, I love this kind of waving of the arms notion here. Of course, this signifies the towers on the Gold Coast and saying, this is not part of Brisbane. This is a separate city. The Commonwealth Games are good, but move up a little bit north and you will get to our Olympic city, which, of course, they're still very happy about in Brisbane. They have not stopped partying, I believe, for the last two weeks.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, that's right. And they're really crawling on that move of the skyscrapers. So probably pulling us off from the judges if they keep going back to that time and time again.
BEN WATERWORTH: This, I believe, is the building of the Gabba, increasing the capacity. And there it is. There's the big move of the arms, just saying we're going to fit more seats into the stadium. And it's a long time overdue, Jarrod. The Gabba needs those seats. And now as they spin those legs, that is the construction of the seats, putting them into concrete and then putting them back into the stadium. It's so unique how they're able to signify the building of a stadium, really captivating the whole country behind seats being inside of the stadium.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, and this is really special, this bit, that was mimicking the drilling of the seats into place as they spiraled down in the water. There they go again, that's another set of seats in place.
BEN WATERWORTH: That is crazy. I remember back in Atlanta, the signifying of the Sydney Olympics was very similar, but, jeez, the technology has advanced all these years later. Now, I believe this, of course, is the area where they're saying, this is the athletes' village, people will sleep in this, we will not have cardboard beds, you can do all the sex you want in Brisbane because we are a sex-friendly city. It's so kind of them to actually signify this for the world in 2032.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, a very positive message. And as you can just see with their facial expressions, they're very excited about that.
BEN WATERWORTH: And as they should be. Now, I love this camera work, you know, that we've got, Jarrod, this sort of half-camera under the water, half above the water, really shows us just how much they are into us having sex beds at the Brisbane Olympics.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's true. And before that technology, athletes could really get away with not putting in the effort under the water, but a lot of it now, it's taking into all scopes. There is just a judge whose sole purpose is to look at the underwater footage.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, this, I believe, is a section which is a bit of a nod to Australian head of the AOC, John Coats, of course, Vice President of the IOC. This is a subtle message, I believe, to Mr. Thomas Barke of, hey, the time has come for you to leave and go back to your dungeon, it's Australia's time to be the President of the IOC, which I think is a nice little message as well as signifying Brisbane's message to the world for their Olympics.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, and as you just see there with the hand movement, ushering somebody over, that was just a subtle nod to John Coats making sure that Anastasia Pavlicek went to the opening ceremony.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, and look at that. They've finished with the bang there too, and I believe that might get some extra votes for John Coats as that. And just take a look at the slo-mo here. Not even a major wedgie that you do often see here in artistic swimming, but there, of course, is the building of the Gabba. Fantastic. And oh, look at the slow motion here, the arms. This is how a chair gets put into the Gabba. We're going to put it down. And here's the extra vote. If you vote for him, you get a finger like that. Boom. IOC. And oh, here's the screw legs that you were talking about before, Jarrod.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, just a wonderful routine that I hazard a guess that we may see something similar to this at the Brisbane Games opening ceremony.
BEN WATERWORTH: Of course, the Australian record for this stage of the Olympics, of course, is a 75.12. So we're looking for higher than that to see a new Australian record. The crowd here is very tense. The Australians in attendance are on the edges of their seats. John Coates is watching, hoping that they will get him some extra votes here. Do you think they can get above the 75.1 here, Jarrod?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Look, it's possible, although the routine, well, great. Maybe the judges didn't pick up on all those subtle references. It wasn't very in your face and clear at all times what they were swimming about.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, they got it. Wow. An Australian record, 76.3667. Oh, an Australian zillion party. What does that mean for the sport of artistic swimming in Australia, Jarrod?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, it's huge. It means that maybe one other person may take this up.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Potentially two. And if it was two, that's great, because then they could form a team. But, you know, fingers crossed that we do get some solo artistic swimming, which is a possibility now, because obviously solo synchronised swimming didn't work. But now artistic swimming, all possibilities are available.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, look at that. They're so happy right now. Party mode. Of course, that puts them into 20th place. And, of course, that is second last, which is also a record for Australia. That's fantastic. But get on board the hype train right now, Jarrod, because here comes France. We've got the tremble twins. And isn't everybody trembling in their wake right now as they come out with this stoic look on their faces? Check out those faces there, Jarrod. They've come to artistic swim.
JARROD LOOBEEK: They have. And just look how tight that nose plug is. There's no chance of any water going up that nostril.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, this, I believe, is a message to the world ahead of the Paris Olympic Games that France are no longer scared. We are not running away. We are running towards. And you can see there the bowing arrows right now. This is... I'm looking forward to this, Jarrod. France finally has an opportunity to say, we're no longer chicken.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's true. And there's a little nice little reference to Australia. They're in the green and gold outfits.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, good splash there. I think that will get some points from the judges. Now, of course, the Tremble Sisters, one of the favourites here, they are looking to do a very good routine. And what a flip there. Wow, that's the Eiffel Tower. If I've never seen one before in my life, Jarrod. Wow.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, definitely. And they go straight from the Eiffel Tower into the Chandelier, say.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, absolutely incredible. Now, that's the Tour de France, as they flip around now into the Cannes Film Festival. And this is the part where they say, okay, we usually run right now, but now we're France, we're spreading ourselves to you to ensure that you will be afraid of us. Now, look at the butt movement. The butt wiggle under the water there. I have not seen butt movement like that since the Italians earlier on tonight, Jarrod. That is incredible butt work.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it takes a lot of effort and practice. They'll be very proud of that. And the underwater judge will definitely score that high.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, this is, of course, is the Notre Dame section of their routine, which I believe is where the judo will be held once they do rebuild it after all the fire damage, which was of course very sad. But interesting here now that they do go for the sort of the Ichimata move now for the judo in the Notre Dame before switching over to the Louvre, which I believe is where the skateboarding will take place, Jarrod, which is a unique touch for Paris 2024.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's going to be great to see the street being held on the roof of the Louvre, obviously the iconic glass pyramid. That's going to be a great ramp where the skateboarders can get some serious air.
BEN WATERWORTH: This of course is generally the part where France starts running away, but again, they're going straight towards everything now. And this of course is the introduction of break dancing, one of the big sports that we will see in Paris 2024, which I do believe will take part on top of the Eiffel Tower, which is what this move right there, there it is, signifies, Jarrod.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's really impressive that they've managed to include all these subtle references to the new sports coming into the game. Now they've kind of gone into a cuisine section. You can see the frog legs there, obviously a traditional French dish. And now we've gone into the Escargot.
BEN WATERWORTH: I just love the way they signify the Escargot with kind of the head wobble there, into the shell. And then they easily transfer this, and I believe this is the start to France, of course that is the main stadium in Paris, the home of the 1990 World Cup, where France famously won. And there's their tribute to Zinedine Zidane, the head butt. I do love that, that works very, very well. And there's a transition now back into the spinny spin, which as we saw the Australians pull off before, but a little bit more flair there when the French do it.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, just some extra rotation, then they're a little bit more speed, and that's what this pair is known for.
BEN WATERWORTH: Of course, this now will be the part where they also try to suck up to Thomas Bach to put a French person in control. But the spin there, not quite as good as the extra votes there for John Coates. I feel they didn't quite execute the bribery there as well as the Australians did.
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, and then clearly they're aiming for the wrong judges there. Down the end, that's Patti. She'll pick that up, and she won't be impressed.
BEN WATERWORTH: Patti's never impressed. It's a very good observation there, Jarrod. Now, they go into the lying backwards dead float, which of course, again, the traditional French move, but they turn that into the, hey, we're coming at you now. Get out of the way, Italy. Get out of the way, the Netherlands. We're Europe's powerhouse. And here's their subtle little finger to their neighbours to the north, the Brits, by saying, hey, if you win more gold than us in these Olympics, we're going to close the tunnel. And they don't want the tunnel closed, Britain. They don't want the tunnel closed. Wow.
JARROD LOOBEEK: And wow, what a rich, a little bit of a lacklustre finish there. I would have liked to see them strike a bit of a pose.
BEN WATERWORTH: But the French love it, though.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's sloppy, but the audience is happy.
BEN WATERWORTH: Aren't these pair happy? The twins are very close there. I'm not too sure about the making out afterwards there, but maybe it's a French thing. They're very friendly. But look at that flip there to signify the beginning of the Paris Olympics. Just absolutely incredible. Lots of water there. And the nose plugs, just gone for the peak nose there, Jarrod, which is a bit unusual for the French.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It is. I'm just getting back to the flip. I do like that subtle nod to the way Off The Podium has flipped the attitude towards French athletes. It's always lovely to get a reference.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, that's how I believe why they did include the subtle finger to the Brit, saying that we're now on board the Off The Podium train. And this little move here, actually, we didn't mention before, but that's a subtle little mention to say, you put as many Australian athletes as you want in Athlete Of The Day. Don't listen to the Canadians. They're big listeners to the show, of course, the Tremble Twins. What are you expecting here, Jarrod? I'm thinking that's maybe high 80s, potentially about an 86, 87.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think that's going to vault them up the leaderboard. Look at that, 88.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, eighth place, 26.6 difficulty there, 35.4 for artistic impression. And that puts them into eighth place. They don't look too happy there, the Trembles, though. I don't know maybe if that kiss at the end kind of... Oh, no, they're happy now. They're happy. They've waved. It's a very French face, I would say, that one, Jarrod.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, you can see that just with their execution score that it was Patty who really marked them down. She's a real stickler for being above the board. She's not from Lichtenstein, so she hasn't had any bribery lately.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, this, of course, is the Tremble's mother, Janet. Very close family, the Tremble's, and they're doing a bit of a French dance there, which is always nice to see. We'll get the final standings here in just a moment for this qualification and check out the volunteers here. Haven't the volunteers just been so friendly here in Tokyo, Jarrod?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, they've really made it. And I'm excited to see, I believe, after the athletes finish, there is just like a volunteer round. So looking forward to that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Of course, the Russians are leading ahead of China, Ukraine, Japan, Canada doing very well in fifth, Italy, Austria, the tremble twins of France in eighth place. They're not quite cracking the 90, but they've got a 90 in them. I can see that. Just wait till you see what they get to the road cycling for the rest of that Paris 2024. Spain, Greece, Netherlands, Belarus, Mexico, USA, Britain, Israel. Outstanding performance by the Israelis earlier. We didn't get a chance to talk about it, but look at them in 16th place. Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, underperforming, disappointment for them. Colombia, Egypt, Australia, and South Africa bringing up the rear. Jarrod, it's always exciting to talk artistic swimming with you. I appreciate you joining me, and I say let's bring on the rest of the competition. Thank you for your time today.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Oh, absolutely. This is just a sport that's going from strength to strength. And yeah, can't wait for the finals.
BEN WATERWORTH: We can't wait to bring you those finals. In the meantime, we're going to cross back to the Off The Podium studios for more exciting action from another day of Olympic recount. Colin, you missed out. What can I say? What can I say?
COLIN HILDING: I do want to add this. I was asked, oh, are you going to be disappointed if we do this without you, Colin? And I'm like, go right ahead. Artistic swimming just happened. I was recording all the stuff after Andre de Grasse won, and I left it recording and I come downstairs and I'm like, oh, I'm recording artistic swimming. What's wrong with me? I started watching it and it's not the event. The event is impressive. They're athletically impressive. But the facial expressions to me are so golden that I'm saying this right now for Paris 2024, I am going to start an Instagram page all dedicated to the most ridiculous faces you can get out of artistic swimming.
BEN WATERWORTH: Do it.
COLIN HILDING: Do it.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's kind of like the diving ones where it's like they look like they're taking a shit, basically.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, exactly.
BEN WATERWORTH: But I mean, I agree with you. They are very impressive athletes. But at the same time, I'm with you, it's funny. And it's like I do like that new camera angle that they've got where it's kind of like the water's like halfway on the camera lens, you can actually kind of see that's really clever. But that is legitimately a sport I would go and watch. Like, I remember the joke in our family was when Sydney got the Olympics and was all like, Oh, we're going to go to the Olympics. Oh, we'll probably only get tickets to the synchronised swimming. Oh, I would have totally fucking gone to see the synchronised swimming. A, I'd like people to look at swimming. B, it's an Olympic event. And C, synchronised swimming. What's wrong with it? Our commentary was pretty good.
COLIN HILDING: I couldn't stop. Like, it's weird because I've sort of mocked this for the whole Olympics. And I've seen it before, right? But there was something about it this time where it just clicked with me. I was telling Jamie, I'm like, I don't know what it is, but I can't stop watching this. It's mesmerizingly bad, but it's good too. It's so bad, it's good.
BEN WATERWORTH: I need to go on back to the AOC website. I've got my modern pentathlon shirt. Maybe I need to get myself an artistic swimming t-shirt.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, please do.
BEN WATERWORTH: Or a rhythmic gymnastics, which is another one we will be doing, of course. That starts tomorrow. We'll get to that. All right, Athlete of the Day. Holy fuck balls.
COLIN HILDING: I'm letting you go first here.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, God, really? Jarrod sent in his nominee. He said the entire Indian team, which I sort of mentioned, you know, history breaking moment. And I don't know if we can really put up a team, but I've gone that sort of length for one of my nominees. Manpreet Singh is the captain of the Indian men's hockey team. Forty-one years of age, I believe, and has been to multiple Olympics, and he's finally got himself a medal. So, yeah, I think that deserves some sort of a note there for him. God, other ones here. I have put Hongcheng Kwan, 14 years old, winning the gold, and apparently this is her first ever international competition. And she goes out and wins a fucking gold medal. And I'm not even joking when I say this girl looks like she's about four years old. Like, seriously, she is an absolute child. Lisa Carrington, I think, has to be one up there. I mean, huge achievement, three gold in the Olympics for New Zealand is like an American winning 50 gold in the Olympics based on everything, how it goes there. I've also put, get the Australian potentials out of the way because you'll yell at me. Melissa Wu, I mean, again, great story for her to win an individual medal at an Olympics. She's obviously got a previous silver, but it was a great story for her to come back that one. Obviously, I'm going to mention Ash, history making moment for Australia to win. I mean, we've got a storied history in athletics back in the day, and I thought to Kathleen would have been one of these ones that we would, you know, potentially won something in there. Also, Tom Green in the canoe, just because I said, he's basically told, hey, you should practice by going to the Olympics. And I'm going to mention just Eddie Ockenden just because he made me cry.
COLIN HILDING: Every athlete from Australia competed yesterday.
BEN WATERWORTH: Honourable mentions, I guess, basically. But my serious ones here that I've got now, I think his name is Mikkel Rosnis. He lost a shoe in one of the 1500 metres semi-finals. Finished last, but he kept running with one shoe, if you don't mind, in the middle of a fucking 1500 metre. And that deserves some credit, if you ask me. Also, we're talking about the skateboarding, Dallas Olberholzer, who basically, I thought my dad was at the Olympics. He's 46, he's from South Africa, and he's skateboarding. Look this guy up. Like, he looks older than Andrew Hoy, who's like about 16 years older than him. I'm telling you now, Tony Hawk should have been at these Olympics competing for the US. If fucking Dallas Olberholzer can. Seriously, this guy is old. He should be in a nursing home. I don't know what is in the water in South Africa, why a 46 year old looks older than Colin. But I mean, this guy was like love and life. Like, I know we can make fun of the skateboarders as much as you want, but I give this guy fucking credit. Like, he is absolutely credible to go out there on that skateboard and do what he did. But I'm thinking my number one pick today, I'm going to give it to Hughes Fabrice Zango. Bronze in the men's triple jump. Burkina Faso is going off tonight. In all seriousness, first Olympic medal of any country I love. I've got a soft spot for my Burkina Faso people. And a name like Hughes Fabrice Zango deserves it. He's my nod for today. There you go.
COLIN HILDING: I've got one. Jesus, David, we had it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Shut up, Ben.
COLIN HILDING: But it's one that I don't think has been brought up. I don't know if you've caught on to this story at all. I'm also going to India, but in a different sport, in wrestling. The silver medallist in the 57 kilogram.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, is this about how he got bitten?
COLIN HILDING: Yes.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, I saw that tonight, like last minute. I saw that they showed it very late, but I saw him get bitten.
COLIN HILDING: Yes, semifinals put aside the fact that he's bitten by his opponent, which was an accident. I almost want to put that person up against your bikini fossil. So you know what it feels like accident. Sorry, he gave me like an accident, like an accidental headbutt in the boxing that's better than our greatest Olympian of all time in Canada. I'm like, I'm not putting up the guy who's biting, but he gets bitten in his semifinal match when he was he was down nine to two as well. He stages one of the greatest comebacks I've ever seen in wrestling. Wins in the last seconds, goes on to the finals, now loses in the final match. But this is the second, I guess, it's tied now for two silvers that India has ever won in wrestling. Wrestling is one of the sports that they frequently medal bronze in. So it's kind of up there with field hockey is one of the only sports. I've been very fascinated getting seeing a bunch of these stories recently. I don't know why my phone is blowing up with stories from India over the last few days, but a lot is about the Olympics and the fact that cricket is so big in India that no other sports even get attention. And it's ridiculous for populations. I don't know if we can find you talk about San Marino or New Zealand. I don't know if you can find another country with a population, the size of India that produces so few Olympians. So I think today a silver medal for a man who was bitten and goes on to lose, I think is as good as a gold medal for them. I also just read the search, just Googling them again, the last guy to actually win a silver for the only other person ever win a silver in wrestling. Sushil Kumar recently commented on this in the last couple of hours from Delhi Tihar Jail where he's facing murder charges. He said he was emotional while watching the boat and was disappointed that Ravi lost.
BEN WATERWORTH: So disappointed he killed someone.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, he got bit. I'm going to kill his opponent.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, I like it. I think that's a great story. It's an interesting point you make about India because we talk about New Zealand who can win all these medals for a country of four million people. India is a country of one and a half billion people. They're very close to overtaking China. In the history of the Olympics, they have won nine gold, nine silver and fifth. We need to work out a medal per population, per capita sort of thing. To put it into context, India has never won more than one gold medal in a single Olympic Games. They haven't won a gold since Beijing. And before that, you would go back to Moscow. Take that away as an Olympics. It doesn't count. You're gonna go all the way back to Tokyo. So in the space of the last 50, 60 years, they've won two Olympic gold medals for a country of that many people. So you can see why bronze medal in hockey means a lot to them. And obviously, murderers in jail are loving this.
COLIN HILDING: I will say, I would be for the captain field hockey team, but I do find it's hard with these team sports where you want to give it to them. But singling out one player also seems weird. I love the idea of giving it to India today. Because I think today is probably the most exciting day in the history of the Olympics for India.
BEN WATERWORTH: I would agree. I mean, two medals in a day is great job. But the one thing I'll say about the hockey team, like just all the stuff and sharing there and there was a story I saw about the Indian guy getting a call from the prime minister. I'm just like, I know there was, I saw a bit of headlines, I think, with some of your athletes obviously get a phone call from Justin, you know, as a congratulations. We don't do it in Australia. Scott's a busy man. He doesn't have time to make 17 phone calls, come on. But he's too busy on vacation. But yeah, so I mean, I just I love stories like that, too. But like, seriously, fucking San Marino, Jesus Christ, I didn't even see that. That was a live on air reaction. Again, these Olympics are fantastic. Like the amount of countries that are winning them is San Marino, Burkina Faso, Bermuda. Who else had won their first medal?
COLIN HILDING: Qatar, Tunisia.
BEN WATERWORTH: Tunisia. God, amazing. Just so amazing. I mean, look, look at Australia. First ever golden skateboarding. I mean, it was a long time coming.
COLIN HILDING: And America. Good on you for getting on the board, guys.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, good on you. Is there actually a sport that America has never won a medal in? Like, legitimate question.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, well, we talked about the diving, was it? Where they medaled. And I was saying to myself, I'm like, oh, they've never won a medal. Listen, they just won good for them. And then I'm like, wait, but what else have they not won in? Like, it does get frustrating at the time.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm going to just, I mean, well, I will. Jarrod and I are talking about this future episode, a sport one. Maybe we need to do sort of like a medal, tell you one or something. So OK, here we go. Based on their all time medal table, I don't know what they haven't won in, but field hockey, they've actually won two bronze. Really? America's won bronze in field hockey. They do everything, lacrosse, silver, modern pentathlon, they've only won six, or only won six silver and three bronzes. Triathlon is pretty lean for them. Even like their lean sports, they win. Like it's just, there's got to be, there's got to be, we'll look into this. This is a, this is another episode. I'm sure there's at least one or two sports that they've never medaled in. I mean, handball, I'm going to say right now, USA have never medaled in handball, surely. If I see handball on this, I'm going to shoot someone. I don't see handball. I'm going to say handball. There you go. We'll get an American handball on the show. They suck at handball. There we go. America are weak at something. Feed, we don't have time. We're going too long. We don't, we don't need to feed the drink today, do we? Do we need to go through that? Nah.
COLIN HILDING: They've eat well enough.
BEN WATERWORTH: They've had enough. And plus Canada's messages are boring. You guys are just too nice. I'm sorry, but you're too nice. 23 medals tomorrow. Rhythmic Gymnastics starts tomorrow. That's why Jarrod's not here. Actually, one thing I've written down here, too. Did you see the replays of the fish in the marathon swimming, jumping up and down and hitting the competitors at all? They showed a nice slow-mo replay of that. Our Aussie got a bronze yesterday, got smacked in the face by a fish jumping into her. So, while we were joking about crabs...
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, rowers hitting crabs, swimmers hitting fish.
BEN WATERWORTH: Fish are real. So, look that up if you see it. But I guess tomorrow Australia are going for gold in the beach volleyball, so that will be on the agenda for us. Is there anything for Canada that is coming? Oh, of course. And they've moved to the middle match, haven't they? They've a lot of talk going there. So, that's a nighttime match for you, I believe, is it not? For you, like personally, your time in Canada. Well, it's morning in time for me. Yeah, no, I think you're wrong. Hang on. We're so good here on Off The Podium.
COLIN HILDING: They moved it to the evening in Tokyo, so that the heat would go down.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, hang on. Well, according to the official start time tomorrow, it still says 11 a.m. Tokyo time, unless they just haven't updated that.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that they've moved it to evening Tokyo. It might be going on when we record tomorrow, for all we know.
BEN WATERWORTH: There we go. We'll keep an eye on it. And the other one is just over Australia too. Harry Garcide, of course, can't forget him in the boxing in the semi-final against Andy Cruz, the number one in the world. It's funny, they're talking at the beach volleyball now, and they've had a bit of package on TV for Harry earlier. But I think everyone's just expecting he'll lose. And we're fine with that. We're fine that he'll get a bronze medal, because it's a bit of a drought-breaking medal for Australia. There's canoes going on tomorrow, which I'm sure will happen.
COLIN HILDING: Racewalk?
BEN WATERWORTH: Of course. Well, thank you for that, Colin. Of course, Evan.
COLIN HILDING: We've got to mention Evan.
BEN WATERWORTH: How are you feeling about Evan?
COLIN HILDING: It's so hard to tell with the Racewalk. I know that he's still considered one of the best in the world, but he seems to be spending most of his time just talking about the disappointment that this event is going to be out in Paris. I feel like that's sort of the bigger story. So that might be motivation. He might be one of these guys. If I can go out as the final gold medallist in the history of this event, maybe he can pull off a huge upset or something.
BEN WATERWORTH: It still baffles me that that's been discontinued. I had no clue. I swear we'll bring it back. As an Australian, we will bring it back in Brisbane for you, Evan. I know it's a living in the way. But actually, it starts at 5:30 a.m.
COLIN HILDING: I'm excited about that. Because that's 3.30 in the afternoon for me. And every single day for the last two weeks I've been on vacation, I've been complaining to Jamie. I'm like, I am so bored in the afternoon. I've watched all the Olympic stuff from yesterday. The kids are monopolising the TV. I've got nothing to watch. A live event starting in the middle of the afternoon for me is amazing.
BEN WATERWORTH: Actually, we should mention it is a big medal chance day for Off The Podium because probably our last chance. We're not taking away from Abdi. I'm sure Abdi will do well. But I mean, if Evan does well, then we've obviously got the four by one. So Ben Waterworth's last chance of a medal. Come on, come on, come on. But I love athletics relays. I love athletics relays more than swimming relays. I'll be honest. And the four by ones are great to watch. So both the men's and women's are on with that one. And I guess we should really mention it. Possibility in the javelin for women, for men. For women, for men, what? For Australia, if I remember who they are, we've got three in there, so that's good. And I'm also seeing here for karate. Karate. We have an Aussie competing tomorrow. Two Aussies competing. No, it's the same person. They're in pools. I didn't realise that. They have three bouts tomorrow. So Suneri Yahiro is our Aussie competitor. Do you have any Canadians in it tomorrow? No, you do not. So there you go. History-making moment for Karate. Karate. You've got a wrestler tomorrow, Jordan Steen, in the freestyle 97 kilos, and I believe it was an Aussie in the diving tomorrow. They showed the Aussie in the diving tomorrow as apparently some TikTok star. So great. TikTok stars are now at the Olympics. Fantastic. What are you most looking forward to the walking tomorrow, I'm guessing?
COLIN HILDING: Oh, yeah, definitely. I'd love to see the soccer, but I don't think I'm going in with expectations. We're going to win. If I'm not going to set my alarm for that, if I wake up in the morning and it shows that it's close, I'll definitely be saying, hey, can we record a little bit later, guys? But yeah, the race walking is going to be an exciting one.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, it has been an exciting day today. We've actually done this a lot quicker than I thought we would, to be honest. But I will say it's quarter past two in the morning for me right now. It's been a busy day, but day 13 is done. We've got three more days to go, Colin, but it's only 183 more days to Beijing. So silver linings, right?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, yeah, we got 183 days to figure out some great commentary that we're going to come up with for Beijing to match the artistic swimming and everything else we've done fucking combined. Bring it on.
BEN WATERWORTH: Actually, and that's the one thing I was going to add to. They started showing ads on channel seven Beijing. They got this cool little pump up montage showing channel seven. We've got all the sports. So they're showing like AFL finals around the corner. The cricket's about to start. The Paralympics, you know, the Melbourne Cup, all these great races. You see a little bit for Beijing. Great. But tonight was the first time I actually saw them. They had Laura Peel on, our reigning world champion in the aerials. And they had an interview with her. They were talking up at chances and all this kind of stuff. And then they come back in from the break, and you've got Andy Ma and Andrew Gaze on Xinyi. Andy Ma, very Aussie bloke. If you watched him, you'd think, oh, he's got the stereotypical Australian. It's like, oh, yeah, how great. How great is it the Beijing Olympics are just around the corner? Only nine months away. I'm like thinking, Andy, do your math there, my friend. I believe it's about five or six months away. So you can watch the Winter Olympics in, like, April. But the rest of us will watch them in February, I think. So there you go. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, all the regular channels. If you like us on Instagram, you're following on the likes of Mr. Tom Green, Penny Alexiak, Zach Stubbledy Cook, Max von Haster. All the greats of Off The Podium like us. So get on board. You can be like Olympic gold medallist Penny Alexiak and Zach Stubbledy Cook. They like Off The Podium.
COLIN HILDING: Well, or Olympic commentators Ben Waterworth, Jarrod Loobeek and Colin Hilding.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. Be an esteemed company and subscribe. We obviously love you guys listening. We wouldn't be doing this if you didn't listen. We probably would anyway. Let's be honest. We just like talking about the Olympics. So, you know, we just pretend that we're friends and then off air. It's like Jarrod and Colin are talking. Anyway, Colin, it's a great day for Canada. Celebrations on the streets of Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, and maybe you can go and be the one person on the streets of Winnipeg and go, oh, hey, we've got a couple of gold, yeah?
COLIN HILDING: Oh, forget that, I'm going straight to the streets of Canada, the city, so I can see what the fuss is all about.
BEN WATERWORTH: Bruce McAvaney's favourite city in the world. We will be back tomorrow Off The Podium. Thanks for joining us, and we'll speak to you then. Good night.
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