Tokyo 2020 Paralympics Recap
It's time to recap an epic Paralympics and go over our thoughts on all the incredible moments and achievements that we just witnessed over 13 massive days of competition. We go over all the highlights from both a Canadian and Australian perspective, as well as going over some other memorable moments that stood out amongst the rest. We also talk about how the Paralympics are possibly more entertaining than the Olympics, and why we'd like to see more coverage of them moving forward. It's an epic episode that we know you won't want to miss!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast coming to you today for our first ever Paralympics episode. In that, we are not talking to a Paralympian, we're just talking about the Paralympics in general. Very excited for this one. Obviously, the Paralympics ended only a couple of days ago, and we're here to give our general take on the Paralympics, our thoughts and everything else, because we do love the Paralympics, yet we didn't do a daily coverage of the Paralympics, so maybe there's something going on with us not doing that. I don't know. My name is Ben, and it's a pleasure to be joined by two very esteemed gentlemen looking at me in the face right now, including Emu Plain's number one Paralympic expert, Jarrod Loobeek. Jarrod, welcome back to the show. It's a pleasure to see you again.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Thank you. It's good to be back.
BEN WATERWORTH: And Canada's number one Paralympic expert, Colin Hilding. Colin, welcome back to the show. It's also a pleasure to see your face again.
COLIN HILDING: I'm sure it is, but just a correction. Jarrod and I try to avoid looking at your face. We usually aim for the wall behind you or your microphone.
BEN WATERWORTH: What are you looking at? My eyes are up here, gentlemen. Jesus, you pervs. Just because I got my cleavage out. It's good to have you two back on an episode again. I still see this is kind of genuinely coming together again, that you two are slowly starting to work this hatred out, maybe.
COLIN HILDING: Jarrod, has your cereal arrived yet?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Still waiting on the Penny Oleksiak.
COLIN HILDING: It's on the way. Ben's isn't yet, though, because I keep forgetting to ship it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. You know, my mind is...
COLIN HILDING: It's in the box, right over my shoulder. You can see it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Literally sitting there waiting to be posted. And here I am while he's getting his Penny Alexiax cereal. But the Paralympics, I mean, this is basically now the end of the Tokyo Olympiad, both the Summer Paralympics and Olympics are over now, which is always a bit of a sad thing, because at least when the Olympics are over, you're like, well, the Paralympics are still to go. So it gets excited. And obviously, 13 days have added competition. I'm going to start with you, Colin, for this one, because I'm intrigued to hear, A, what you thought of the Paralympics, and B, how are even the Paralympics covered in Canada? Because I don't really know a whole lot if the Paralympics are covered extensively, or do you get just like a highlights package? How's it all covered?
COLIN HILDING: I would say we have pretty decent TV coverage of it. The regular Olympics, or let's just call it Olympics, they pretty much receive around the clock coverage on CBC. So network coverage, let's say 23 and a half out of 24 hours a day. Paralympics, I think they break it up into about, I don't know, five to seven hours, depending on what day it is. So you'll get like two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, an hour in the evening, two hours overnight. I think the issue with it is that a lot of the coverage was just let's replay what we played on the last two shows. So maybe we got two to two and a half hours of coverage per day. But in what I saw, I enjoyed. I was glad for the first time I've ever been able to watch sitting volleyball, which is actually really fascinating to watch. I barely watched the first week because every minute was dedicated to, here's another random wheelchair basketball game. And I think you can only watch so much wheelchair basketball before you're waiting for another sport. But just flipping through to see what coverage NBC had. I'm glad we had CBC because we had TV coverage. I don't think NBC covered anything until the last day.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I saw a lot on social media about how poor the NBC coverage was and that they were barely showing anything, which is surprising because I generally thought NBC did okay with their coverage. But yeah, interesting to hear that. Jarrod, I mean, we actually got Spored For Choice in Australia. I think this was the most extensive I've ever seen a Paralympics cover. I mean, I remember generally ABC had the coverage. They would maybe show what, like a couple of hours of highlight tonight, maybe the opening and closing ceremony live. I think this is the second summer Paralympics that Channel 7 have had. I'm pretty sure they had them back in Rio. But this was almost, what, a good 12 hours a day live, at least on 7 May or 7-2. So very well covered. But yeah, I mean, this was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sort of what your initial thoughts on kind of the Channel 7 coverage, I guess, while we're on the topic, and just the Paralympics in general.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I thought the coverage was exceptional. I think, I mean, we complain about stuff with the Olympics, but this, like, it was almost, there were moments, but it was so, like, few and far between things to complain about. The fact it was on, like you say, almost like 12 hours a day. The fact they were showing, like, different events. It felt like the replays were less extensive than usual. The, just everything was better. The interviews with the athletes were better than usual. The commentators were better than usual. The choice of hosts was better than usual. Yeah, I feel like they fell at the perfect time. It's kind of one of the blessings, I suppose, of COVID and whether, like, you're in lockdown or not is the fact that this was on, you could watch it. I just think a lot more people got behind it, and it was obviously televised a lot more as well, which really helped.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to say right now, and this is not me just saying this because she may be appearing on this show in a few weeks' time, but Joanna Griggs and Kurt Fearnley, fantastic hosts. I just love watching their, sort of, their chemistry they had every night, just sort of the way they were. They just genuinely seemed to be having fun. And, I mean, props to Channel 7, too, for actually, I mean, the majority of, I guess, their hosts and people out there, too, were former Paralympians or, you know, kind of people in that area, which was, like, really well done. And it feels weird to praise Channel 7, Jarrod. But, I mean, I really didn't see them doing much wrong with the Paralympics coverage. So really, really good. I mean, I kind of wish that Joanna and Kurt had worn the wigs, the mullet wigs, every single night. I don't know if you... So even Colin saw the photo of the mullet wigs. But I don't know. Was that the highlight of it all, Jarrod, seeing them with the mullet wigs?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, it's true. That and just the whole easy fan club stick was great, that they kept coming back to that. I just thought, like you said, they did such a good job. It was so nice to see the diversity within the team. And Joanna and Kurt just have such great chemistry together. One of the athletes said, get Kurt to replace Koshi on the morning show, and I'm all for it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Anyone to replace Koshi. Hashtag replace Koshi. That should be a thing anyway. Colin, did they do that with CBC? Did they get Paralympians to join the coverage and spread it out a little bit on that side of things?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. Pretty much the same thing they did for the Olympics where Brittany McLean was the swimming expert and all that. They had different athletes for different sports. And what was really great was the athletes they got, you get the same as I'm guessing you have. A lot of the bios before an event comes up, here's like a three or four minute segment telling this person's story. And a lot of times those people would be saying, oh yeah, the reason I wanted to become a Paralympian was because of this person. And then they'd cut to that person and they'd go, oh, that was so nice. So sweet for them to say. So there was a lot of good crossover with the TV coverage as well. One thing that was a little bit unusual is that everybody was called back. I don't know if it was in studio from Australia or if they kept any correspondents in Tokyo for years. But for us, everybody was flown back to Toronto, and one person remained behind in Tokyo. We talked about them, Devon Haro, their 7-Eleven correspondent. He stayed there up until the last minute, but everybody else was called back to Canada. So I'm glad they at least kept some presence there.
BEN WATERWORTH: They had some, didn't they, Jarrod? There was a fair few wasn't there, I think the athletics guy stayed there. There was the pool deck swimming commentators. There was a few there. So I don't know how many there were, but they definitely kept a few there.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, a couple. I feel like at least three or four.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, which was interesting. Obviously, in terms of both Canada and Australia results overall, when it came particularly to the medal tally, Australia finished eighth, 21 gold, 29 silver, 30 bronze, a total of 80 medals, which I believe is a little bit down on Rio, but still a very solid result. And for Canada, 23rd place, 5 gold, 10 silver, 6 bronze, 21 in total, which are also a little bit down on Rio. Collin, has it talked much about sort of how Canada are generally expected to go at a Paralympics? Like, I mean, is this kind of something that... I mean, I know it's obviously very different, like an Olympics and a Paralympics. I don't really feel even in Australia, we get a, oh, we're expecting to get like 20 gold. Like kind of we just go into it and expect to win a shit ton, because we generally do better at the Paralympics than we do at the non-Paralympics. So I mean, is it a thing they talk about there at all in Canada with the Paralympics?
COLIN HILDING: There's really no projections going in, but throughout it, they're like, okay, we're on level with where we were at Rio. And I think that if anything, that was the benchmark. Let's win as many as we want to Rio. And I think we were like one down from what Rio was.
BEN WATERWORTH: In turn, no, you were a bit more than that. So in terms of gold, you went three less and eight less in total. You won overall.
COLIN HILDING: Eight less, wow, okay. Well, we're on level with what we won for Olympics, Olympics in Rio. So there we go, that's something. But I think the bigger story here was the two main athletes who won pretty much everything. I'm trying to come up with a count right now, but we have one swimmer, Aurelie Rivard, who was like our big star in Rio, and then one wheelchair racer, Brent Lakatos. And I think between the two of them, they won eight medals. So this is almost like Penny at one point in Rio where it's like, oh, the majority of the medals have been won by one person. We had like two real stars. And if our TV coverage was anything, it was just them. That's why we weren't counting the medals. Let's just see how many more they can get. Can they get half a dozen?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I see Rivard got two gold and, is it two silver? Two gold, a silver, and a bronze. And Brent got four silver. So yeah, the five gold, so they came in all in athletics and in swimming. So you got three gold in swimming and two in athletics. Other sports that Canada medaled in included cycling, judo, paratriathlon, and that looks it. Now, is it Kate O'Brien was the one who, she had an injury or something in between Rio and Tokyo. So she was at the non-paralympics, the regular Olympics, like it's just the Olympics in 2016. And also was she not a bobsledder as well at a winter Olympics? And then she had, what happened to her? Do you know what happened to her sort of between Rio and that further than go on to the Paralympics?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, she was a bobsledder. I can't remember the exact story, but it's exactly what you said. She was a bobsledder in the Olympics. She was a cyclist, I believe, in Rio. Was it cycling? It might have been. Yes, yes. Yeah, so yeah, she got injured and should have just ended her career, but she was like one of these immediate turnarounds. She's like, okay, well, I'm going to compete in the Paralympics in, what, three years. And somehow managed to not only compete in the Paralympics, went on to win gold. So you could actually say that her greatest success has come after her injury and after becoming a Paralympian. That was, I think, our first medal and our first gold of the game. So that was like a huge story here. And probably outside of... Oh, silver? Yeah, I think it was our first medal.
BEN WATERWORTH: Five-time trial, yeah.
COLIN HILDING: But yeah, outside of Brenton O'Reilly, I mean, that was our other big talking point throughout the entire games is we had this athlete who, you know, is now a three-time Olympian and both an Olympian and Paralympian and had greatest success as a Paralympian now. To me, I think it's always incredible when you watch the Paralympics, because when we did an interview with a Paralympian recently, we were just saying, like, there's something more to be said about the Paralympians, because all these people, it's not just, oh, I've trained for this sport. I've dealt with this incredible tragedy and come back to train, you know, to be one of the best in the sport. And here you have somebody who was trained as one of the greatest in the world and then got an injury and this tragedy and came back and was even better for it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, yeah. I've seen here she had a training injury in 2017, severe head injury that left her unable to walk, talk or breathe unassisted. And she was told by doctors that she would never be able to participate in sports again. Wow. What an amazing story. Yeah, 2014 Olympics as a brakeman in bobsled. Oh, she was misqualifying for that. So she was on track for that. And yeah, cycling in Rio. And she got a silver at the Paralympics. Amazing story. I think I've probably talked about in the show before. One of my favourite Paralympic athletes is a guy by the name of Alex Zanatti. He is a former IndyCar racer. He won a couple of IndyCar championships and then went on to race in Formula One. Didn't do very well in Formula One, but went back to IndyCar, lost both of his legs in a crash, and essentially went on to dominate para-cycling road races. He won heaps of medals in Tokyo, sorry, in Rio and London. And would have been in Tokyo, I believe, but he had a pretty horrific accident about a year ago. He was doing a road cycling thing, and he got run over by a truck, and I think he's still in a coma or something. It's a terrible story. He's not had very good luck, but an amazing athlete to kind of go from Formula One to basically go into that. So incredible. Jarrod, on the Australian perspective, obviously I'm not going to go through all of the 21 gold medallists, but obviously for the most part, swimming, as you would expect, cycling, athletics, table tennis. We do well at table tennis at the Paralympics. Got a couple of gold there, which is always good. Paracanoeing. And then, of course, the great Dylan Olcott. Is that about his third in a row now when it comes to quad tennis? Just an incredible athlete. And outside of that, sort of looking through the other medals, some rowing medals going on there as well, more wheelchair tennis happening. Is it boc-boca? Bochie? It's bochie, isn't it? That's easy. Thank you. Interesting that the wheelchair basketball and rugby didn't go. They're the sort of ones I always generally think we do very well in. But I guess, Jarrod, were there any highlights for you sort of through what you saw and of those medal performances that we did have?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think kind of all of them were in their own way. The ones that stand out to me is we had the athlete in the paratriathlon, Lauren Parker, getting beaten on the finishing line, which was obviously devastating, but I just find it so fascinating when those long-distance races come down to the last couple of metres, the fact you've had all this time to kind of break away and separate from one another, and it still comes down to a sprint finish. And then the other one is, I suppose, kind of a similar thing is the wheelchair marathon with Madison DeRozario getting the gold there, which is just super impressive.
COLIN HILDING: I have a question for, oh, continue.
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, you go.
COLIN HILDING: I was just going to say, I had a question. If either you watch the marathon, this is something I'd like to see the Olympics do as well, running the men's and women's almost at the same time, or I guess the starting time slightly off, because it is hard, like, let's be honest, it is hard to watch a two to three, four hour event in its entirety, but being able to cut back and forth between the two, I thought that was great, just as far as TV coverage goes, and be able to keep up on both of them without having to commit half a day or more to it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Do they do the Commonwealth Games as well for memory, or is that maybe the race walk?
COLIN HILDING: I don't think they did. It wasn't for the marathon.
BEN WATERWORTH: Right. Yeah, I'm with you. I think it's interesting. It's kind of a unique way of doing it. Jarrod, what do you think?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think so. They feel like they did this for not even just a marathon, like other sports as well, like the road race, they would have different categories, like going at the same time. I think like it, it just makes good sense.
BEN WATERWORTH: The one that I wanted to point out, Ellie Cole, of course, she got two medals. She got a silver and a bronze in swimming. And with those, became Australia's most decorated female Paralympian of all time now. 17 medals, lazy 17 medals. She is now one over three Paralympics, four Paralympics. Sorry, she went back to Beijing. So pretty, pretty incredible achievement there. And yeah, Dylan, Dylan Alcott, I mean, just an absolute legend when it comes to Paralympics, of course, started off as a wheelchair basketball player, one gold in Beijing and then a silver in London. Then basically, you know, you talk about someone like Novak Djokovic dominating tennis, you know, in the last year or so. Dylan Alcott's done it for the last, even probably more so than Roger Federer, you would say. I don't think he's lost an Australian Open the last 10 years, has he? I don't think he's lost a French Open or a Wimbledon since they started having wheelchair tennis at them. Won his second consecutive singles, quad singles gold medal. Didn't quite get the doubles back to back, but still got a silver in that, so that what brings his total to about six Paralympic medals across two different sports, if you don't mind. And he's just such a, isn't he like a radio host as well, like a Triple J radio? Like this guy is like a big celebrity in this country. He's on the ad for whatever car ad that was during the Olympics when he's doing that. So I mean, I love I love me Dylan Allcott. He's great. And also, yeah, Ellie Cole too. Two great standouts there, Jarrod.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, absolutely. I think yeah, Dylan's just like a great character and just has so much personality that I think he's just such like an important person in the Paralympic movement and yeah, just seems a cool guy.
BEN WATERWORTH: You mentioned about sort of like interviews and that there are a couple that really stood out and I don't know, Colin, if there's any sort of Canadian ones that you can share with us here too, but there was a few like I shared a couple on our Twitter, just the emotions that came from some of these athletes. There was particularly in the swimming, Katrina Webb, who I believe is a vision impaired athlete. She wasn't even aware what she had finished. So when she was on the pool deck and basically the Channel 7 reporter is like, you won a bronze medal. She just like broke down in tears and just like absolutely lost it when she was told that she won a medal. And the other one was Cole Pierce, who basically had been swimming in a muddy pond on his farm because of COVID and couldn't do anything and basically just like he couldn't stop crying. He's like 18 years old or something like that. And then at the end of it, he's all like, oh, and to my mates, if they're watching, please don't make me a meme just because I'm crying. Like, you're not allowed to make me a meme. But just things like that. And the best one of all, Tasmania's own, Todd Hodgetts, who cruelly didn't he got like disqualified, didn't he, in his event. What is he? Was he a shot putter, isn't he? basically couldn't complete it. But then, so he's getting interviewed by Channel Seven. And his interview goes viral because he just basically starts going on about the fact that, oh, Australia, best country in the world, so great. Scott Morrison, Scott Morrison, shout out to you. And he just rips his shirt off, and he's like No! Just like, on that. So literally, the next day, Prime Minister Scott Morrison contacts him, and then we have these awkward phone conversation recorded for TV cameras of our Prime Minister basically having a chat with him. And then Scott Morrison's done a bit of his research about the pubs in Launceston. He's like, oh yeah, and I'll meet you for a parmi at the whatever pub in Lonnie. So Australian. But yeah, I mean, God, they're the best things out there, Jarrod. When you kind of say this and kind of gets gets added attention to these athletes that don't really get attention at all.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I think that's the thing is that I feel like the interviewers in the Olympics, you get all these weird questions and these these facts and information that's irrelevant. It's almost like they weirdly delve into the athletes personal stories. But here it makes a lot more sense. It's about celebrating like what they've been able to achieve after that adversity of coming back. So it's just yeah, there's just a lot less filler and fluff and the interview is a lot more emotional and raw. It just yeah, it just works a lot better.
BEN WATERWORTH: And yeah, I will say Todd Hodges, the shot put F20 category there. Colin, do you have any like Canadian ones? Were there any sort of Canadian interviews that went viral or anything along those lines?
COLIN HILDING: No, not really. I think most of the interviews were more subdued, ripping their shirts off. There was one guy, Nate Reich, that just ended up being played over and over and over again. He's actually from Victoria, so I don't know if you had heard of him when you were there or potentially interviewed him, but he was in the 1500 metre.
BEN WATERWORTH: Nate Reich. Okay, there was one athlete that I did interview for my story, but I don't know if it was Nate. Keep talking. I'll find out. I can't remember.
COLIN HILDING: I think he was the world record holder coming into this, and then he, I believe, broke his world record and won the gold. Because we had fewer golds, and maybe because I think one of the big differences when you get some of our other ones like Brent and O'Reilly, who had a half a dozen events to compete in, they medal. You're not going to get that emotion. And with Nate, I think it was just more of one of those emotional interviews. I would have loved to have seen him on the verge of tears and then ripping off his shirt and woo! Or something like that. But Canadians, I guess, are a little bit more subdued than Australians.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, it was Nate Wright that I interviewed. Really? You can see that I remember who I interview, apparently.
COLIN HILDING: Was he a good guy?
BEN WATERWORTH: The curse is, it's not me! What a great medal!
COLIN HILDING: Wait! The curse ended and Ben didn't even know it!
BEN WATERWORTH: It goes to show how much I paid attention. So this was the article that I wrote for when I was working for the Capitol in Victoria. And I talked about how I interviewed George Assimileng and that other guy. And it was Nate! Look at me go!
COLIN HILDING: So the curse now is just you, we're narrowing it down, it's just you on this show.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it must be. Oh, I'm trying to... Where is it here that I... Because I'm reading this out. I know my own work, clearly. I clearly know who I chat to and everything along those lines, basically. Here we go, Victoria Bass runner, Nathan Reich scored a win at the... Disappointment... Boring. And he said, I think more than able-bodied athletes, Paralympic athletes are good at adapting to the circumstances they're thrown their way. I've just come with the mentality that there's going to be a Paralympics at some point, until I'm told otherwise, and I'm just going to prepare the best I can. So, um, see, there you go! Look at that! You're welcome! Gold! I'm so glad.
COLIN HILDING: From Glenwater Worth, you're welcome, everybody.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm so glad that I can pay attention to these things. You know, I'm very proud of my written work, apparently, outside of all that kind of other crap that people are listening to right now. Stop listening to this. Go read my written stuff. Apparently, it brings on more success. What were some of the sports, like, obviously, outside of, I guess, the sports that we see at the Olympics, outside of, you know, obviously a little bit adapted, depending on, you know, different persons' disability and things along those lines, but were there any sort of particular uniquely Paralympic sports that, you know, you sort of got into? Colin, are there ones that you sort of enjoy? You mentioned sitting volleyball. You've sort of never really got a chance to see that before, so were there any ones outside of that that you enjoyed and got to see more of this time around?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I mean, I'm going to be honest, a lot of the coverage that we had for rowing, you know, I'm still kind of all rowed out from Tokyo, the Olympics Tokyo, so I skipped that, but it was nice to one day, as you mentioned, bocce when they had that on. I'm like, oh, I wish that we could just have this. Our app was different, like for the Olympic Games, it was basically, they rebranded their entire CBC Sports app just for the Olympics. And I think my biggest disappointment is that for the Paralympics, they didn't even keep that. You basically have to go on to the CBC Gem app, which is shared with all their TV shows and search for it. So I wasn't really able to watch a lot of live events that they were covering. I had to rely just on the TV coverage. The one day that they showed bocce, I'm like, this is great. Like, show more of this. Let's skip some of the wheelchair basketball for, I don't know, the next nine days. Let's throw a day or two in their bocce.
BEN WATERWORTH: With the thing I will say about quickly about wheelchair basketball, I always get confused wheelchair rugby. Like, I realise they're different, but it's just kind of the way you kind of watch it. Sometimes you're like, oh, there's no hoop. This must be the rugby one. And then all of a sudden, oh, no, this is the basketball one. So they kind of they get a little bit confusing. Jarrod, we had the app, didn't we? It was kind of kept the same, wasn't it? Very similar, they still had about a bunch of sort of live sports there. But were there any ones in particular that you sort of watch this time around that you got a bit into?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I'm definitely on board the bocce train as well. Like this sport, it could be so boring. Like I'm like it's like Paralympic equivalent to lawn bowls at the Commonwealth Games. But it's so like, it's like so strategic. It's so fascinating. Like, I just love that the guides like can't look at the playing field and they're just setting up based on what the athlete's telling them to do. And then depending on the athlete's impairment, like they're using a stick in their mouth to push the ball like down the shoe. It's just, it was really interesting to watch. And the other one that I loved watching was goalball. Yes, it was just, it's amazing that these athletes just throw themselves like around all the different like throwing techniques. You have like the Brazilian team that's using like the tunnel ball through the legs throwing technique. And then they're like fake outs as well. The player who doesn't have the ball will run forward. So they hear them running and think the ball's coming from over there, but then they throw it from the other side. Like it was just, it was really fascinating to watch.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I love the goalball because it's just, it's so interesting just to kind of watch how they have to do it and how strategic it can be. And it's just, it's fascinating. Like I absolutely loved, I've seen it before, but it's just fun. And like even sort of like on that note, like the football five, so I love sort of the vision impaired ones where it's just, it just blows my mind how they can play these sports. Like it's just, it's so incredible. And I just, I had the highest admiration for these athletes the way they're able to do it because, and not to say I don't for the non visually impaired ones, sort of all the athletes are there. I mean, I was watching table tennis with a guy with one arm kicking a guy's ass with two arms. And I'm like, like what is going on here? This is amazing. Like he was serving it basically in his mouth on the table, the way he would do it with this other guy with two arms. It was like, it was just, I was like, wow, blown away. And then cycling when you're watching sort of somebody who's maybe got two artificial legs up against somebody with just one leg. And then the person with one leg is kicking the guy's ass with the two artificial, like insane. Like absolutely insane to watch it. But yeah, I say put goal ball on like all the time. I want that prime time coverage.
COLIN HILDING: I have no idea what the sport is. You're going to have to send a link in our chat or something.
BEN WATERWORTH: How would you describe it? It's kind of almost like laying down soccer slash dodge ball, but with a net like, yeah, how would you describe it?
COLIN HILDING: Well, now I can picture it. Thanks.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's a weird one. I'm like, what other sport? Yeah, it's kind of like, I don't know, arm soccer. Yeah, like blindfolded arm soccer.
BEN WATERWORTH: Blindfolded arm soccer. Okay, so according to Wikipedia, a team sport designed specifically for athletes with a vision impairment. Participants compete in teams of three and try to throw a ball that has bells embedded in it into the opponent's goal. The ball is thrown by hand and never kicked. Using ear-hand coordination, originating as a rehabilitation exercise, the sport has no able-bodied equivalent. Able-bodied athletes are also blindfolded when playing the sport. So you can play it if you're able-bodied, but you've got to be blindfolded. So, you know.
COLIN HILDING: I'm still going to need to see this.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's fascinating. It's one of these ones when you're flicking channels, and it's like, okay, what's on at the Paralympics? And if you don't know what this is, you're like, what is this sport? This is amazing. But yeah, it's so good. I also really like the... I didn't see much, but when I saw it, wheelchair fencing. That's fun. Regular fencing is fun, but wheelchair fencing is extra fun, because you're in a wheelchair, you've got to control it more so than you do if you're in the standing fencing. Just absolutely incredible. And I also say wheelchair tennis is always one that I always forget how much I like watching, because it's crazy watching them, just the way they've got to go around the court and get in there. Tennis in general is a pretty physical sport, but add the element of a wheelchair to it, my goodness. So good.
COLIN HILDING: I think you just nailed what is really fascinating about the Paralympics, because there's some sports like swimming. I'm interested to see, well, is my country going to win? But when they're underwater, you don't see that extra challenge that they have. You understand, OK, well, they may have an impairment below the knee or something like that. But when they have to compete, it's the same thing with sledge hockey. When they have to compete in something where you're like, this just adds one extra level of a challenge to it. And the interview we have coming up is going to be really fascinating just to talk about, well, these are the things that you don't think would be hard. But imagine trying to coordinate this and this and this, and imagine having to fence while also coordinating a wheelchair. You know, it's easy for us to say, like, I take one step back. Well, how many different things you have to go through to take one step equivalent of a step back in fencing in a wheelchair?
BEN WATERWORTH: One sport, Jarrod, I didn't get to see, was the dressage, the equestrian, the Paralympic dressage. Did you see any Paralympic dressage? Yeah, see, that's disappointing. You know, do the horses also have to be like, you know, like, you know, like, Paralympians? Are they Paralympic horses? Like, three legged horses or a visually impaired horse? Like, I don't know.
COLIN HILDING: Like, put the blades on the back hooves.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, like, I mean, it could be an interesting element. Like, you have to have a disabled horse. I don't know.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think it's upsetting that the guides get a medal in sports, but the horses don't get a medal. Like, what's the deal with that?
BEN WATERWORTH: That's a very good point, because I was going to say, I do like the sports of the Paralympics where the guide get a medal, right? But like, why don't the... This is like Chewbacca not getting a medal at the end of an event.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I was going to say, where's Chewy's medal? Come on, give bad horse the medal.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, like, I think, don't they get like a sash or something like that? Like, does a horse really want a medal, though?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yes.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, they do?
JARROD LOOBEEK: 100%.
BEN WATERWORTH: They put in all that work to, like, who is the most successful horse in the history of both the Olympics and Paralympics? Is there like a, you know, a horse that goes in both the Paralympics and the Olympics and is like a ten-time gold medallist? Like, bad horse, you know?
COLIN HILDING: Hey, you know what? That's an interesting point.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah.
COLIN HILDING: Those horses can compete in both.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's the thing. That's what I'm saying. Like, can you have a disabled horse?
COLIN HILDING: An all-time decorated Olympian may very well not be Michael Phelps. It may be a horse.
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, horses live to like 30 or 40, don't they? Like, I mean, they've got a good run. Like, I'm sure a horse at 30 is probably doing well.
COLIN HILDING: Well, I'm sure a horse at four or five is eligible to compete in the Olympics, too.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. It's not very much an age discrimination.
COLIN HILDING: The Americans, that Chinese horse there is way too young for this horse. I want an inquiry.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know if there's any other sort of events or things that I haven't touched on sort of outside of Australia and Canada. The one that I love watching was in the F40 shot put, where basically the Russian, I'm going to butcher his name, I think it's Denis Nezdelov. He won and set a world record, but this came, a centimetre he won it after an Iraqi competitor by the name of Garry Nassar, again, butchering his name. He basically came out through this amazing throw, pumped up, he thought he had it. He thought he had the gold. He just set a world record, grabbed the Iraqi flag. He was going off. And while he was going off, in comes Denis, does it, and beats him by a centimetre. He goes off even more. I wish there was a crowd at these events. Just absolutely incredible. It was so amazing to watch that. I think the previous world record holder, a Portuguese athlete by the name of Miguel Monteiro, I think he got bronze. Absolutely amazing to watch. That was one that really stood out for me. But again, I don't know if either of you have any that you watched, any athletes of that. Jarrod, if you've got any outside of Australia and Canada that tickled your fancy.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I suppose a couple of things that stuck out was the relays in swimming. Amazing. I'm sure Colin hates them because they're similar to the mixed relays in that people are at all different levels and it's hard to tell who's winning and it's not fair. But it's just so interesting with the point classification and that you have four athletes and all together, they've got to be like 35 points or less. So it's all different disciplines swimming in it together. It's just such a fun event to watch because it's the same as to realise you don't know who's going to win until it gets down to the last swimmer. And some countries have their worst swimmer last and other countries have their best swimmer last. So I thought that was great. The other things were the conditions, like the rain. Oh, yeah. In the rain, it was like so ridiculous. And I think I was watching the long jump at the time. And like, yeah, we have these athletes trying to do long jump with their prosthetics in the rain or like stepping onto that board, trying to like get some traction. It was just crazy. And then the other thing is the wheelchair rugby is just such a good sport. Murderball. So good. And I never realised before I said it, that it's a mixed sport as well. And all of a sudden, I'm like, where's like, there's just this female competitor on the field. I'm like, this is the like biggest contact sport and just, I mean, props to all of them for competing in it. It's insane.
BEN WATERWORTH: I didn't know that. Yeah.
COLIN HILDING: I think I asked you this before, Ben. I don't know if I remember your answer or if you've ever seen it. Did either of you ever see the movie Murderball, like the documentary that came out years ago?
BEN WATERWORTH: I saw bits of it. I've never watched the whole thing, but I remember when it came out, and it was a really big deal. Yeah.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. One of the best documentaries I've ever seen. I just want to add that, again, with the sitting volleyball, Canada made it to the bronze medal match. So outside of Canada, I think the one I was rooting for the most was Brazil, because Brazil kind of had a nice comeback in that as well. And again, it's so fascinating to watch. If you're in volleyball, it's the same thing. We know how to take one step back. How are you going to reach that ball when, even if you do have two legs that you are perfectly capable of standing on, you just sort of have to shuffle on the floor. I can't imagine like the chafing and the bruising from doing that. I sit in a chair at an office for eight hours a day, and I come home and I want to stand for dinner. Like, it's just so awful. So it's incredible they're able to do that. And then US women, I think, went on to win that one too, which I think they always win in that. But the team sports, I feel like, are more fun in the Paralympics than in the regular Olympics, because a lot of these regular Olympic sports, we're used to seeing, you know, the World Cup of soccer. We're used to seeing rugby on every Saturday afternoon, hockey, whatever. But then you throw that extra obstacle in there, it makes it feel like a fresh sport. So even though you might be tired of watching basketball after an entire NBA season and the Olympics, wheelchair basketball just adds a completely different dimension to it.
BEN WATERWORTH: And this is a thing which is great about the Paralympics too, is that, yeah, like as you were saying, a lot of these Olympic sports have an equivalent or maybe even bigger. You know, like, I mean, you mentioned basketball, like LeBron James can literally be, oh, I'm not going to the Olympics. I need to train for the end. Like, I mean, he's literally saying no to the Olympics because the NBA is more important to him. And obviously, you know, a sport like soccer, golf, you know, that's coming soon in our sports episode. We'll talk about that. But I mean, this is the peak of the peak for every single one of these sports. Like, yes, they have their world championships. Yes, they sort of have a Commonwealth Games element to and that sort of stuff. But there's no questioning that the Paralympics is the ultimate peak for these athletes. And it's also, I think, kind of... We see it often sort of in the... I don't know if regular Olympics is politically correct. The Olympics, that you will sort of have maybe some transition where you'll have some winter to summer athletes. But the Paralympics has so much more. You will see a large... Well, not a large majority, but a fair chunk of these athletes competing in a few months' time probably in Beijing. There's a lot more of a transfer over between winter and summer Paralympics, which is what I really like. I kind of respect these athletes who can do that. But yeah, it's great. And they get the airtime and everything, too.
COLIN HILDING: And then the interview. Well, to plug again, the interview that we're going to have coming up, we're going to get to touch on both of those subjects you just talked about. One, the fact that even when you do get the world championships in a Paralympic sport, if they get 300 people, they're happy, versus getting 3,000 people. I mean, obviously in Tokyo, you didn't quite have those crowds, but to be able to have TV coverage and all that, that's a big deal. And then the crossover with the different sports, too. Again, the interview, you'll eventually hear on here with the Paralympian. It's not even a big deal. It's like, oh, I'm training for this summer sport, but I was thinking about doing this one instead. You have your pick, and you figure out how to make it work.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which also to the big talking point here in Australia was, I think the gold medallists from the Olympics got, say, $20,000 or something along those lines, and it was revealed that the Paralympians didn't get anything. So they've essentially now just announced Scott Morrison, I think, in the last few days, basically. It's like, hey, the Paralympians are going to get the same. They're going to get the same amount of money. And then the one thing that I really liked that Channel 7 were doing, we joked back during our Tokyo coverage when I bought that seat, that $10 seat, send a message. And I will say, I did get an invite to an athlete forum. It was in a time I couldn't do it. And it was with Melissa Wu and Matt Denny. And part of the reason why I didn't really go is, spoiler alert, Matt Denny is going to be on this show in about a week's time. So I already spoke to Matt Denny. So I was kind of like, well, Melissa Wu, yes, sure, great. But half of it already. But what they did with the Paralympics, like they promoted the shit out of this. And they basically were like, donate 10 bucks. We're going to fill a stadium. All this money goes to Paralympic sport. And I don't know how many they got through, Jarrod. Last time I saw, they got about two and a half stadiums full. Like, you know, they had about 80 or 1000 sort of people. Do you know, do you see sort of how many they ended up getting?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I think around like 95,000 seats. So it was like, wow, yeah, two and a half million dollars almost.
BEN WATERWORTH: Crazy. Fantastic to see that. And the thing, too, that also they're done here, Colin, I'll be interested to know. Obviously, I know you sort of had a few kind of welcome home events, and I'm kind of intrigued to find out if you went to that Winnipeg one. I know you were going, but I'd like to hear your story with that. But here, obviously, they haven't really been able to do anything here because Sydney and Melbourne are locked down. I believe they're doing one in Brisbane in October, and they had a premieres dinner for the Brisbane athletes recently. I don't know what they're doing in Tasmania or if they can do anything in New South Wales with Jarrod. But what they did do the other night is they projected every single Olympian and Paralympian onto the Sydney Opera House. I saw that. Yeah, so that was pretty cool. And if you follow any Olympians, they're all sharing the pictures on their social media, which is really, really cool. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's obviously a bit sad, isn't it, Jarrod, that we're not really going to be able to have welcome home parades like usual, it seems.
JARROD LOOBEEK: And the fact that, I suppose, there's the option to like postpone and hold it later, it just doesn't have like the same feeling.
COLIN HILDING: But I will say, on like the Olympics. We'll save the 2020 welcome home parade in 2022.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just before, Jarrod, you say that. Here's an idea. Why not save it until after Beijing and then just incorporate summer and winter together? There's an idea.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's true. Yeah, I think like on a related note, what was great about the Paralympics and the coverage is that there wasn't the hype of like every athlete. And it was so refreshing to watch, even when somebody like a Dylan Alcott is the big favourite to win. There was none of that, like the lead up, the interviews beforehand, all the buzz, which I suppose on the flip side is kind of a sad thing because there is less of the coverage and the hype and the sponsorship. But it was so refreshing to watch them be like honest, be proud of like whatever they achieved, going into events, not getting a false, like hyping up, being like, she's made the final, that's a great achievement. Looking at like her PB, she'd have to like run five seconds faster. She probably won't medal here, but she'll be looking to finish around like this seventh or eighth or whatever. It was just so nice to have that in a sport and them not have all this pressure hyping up the athletes, and I didn't have to buy into that hype and be upset at any of the results.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I'm just saying, I know they're already starting to do a lot of the recordings for Beijing, because this week we obviously had Tarla Gill and Dean Hewitt on the show. Listen to the interview if you haven't heard, it's a great interview. And I noticed that Channel 7 obviously did a bit of a recording with them. They've just jumped on their plane basically this week to go off to their final qualification tournament to try and get into Beijing. And I saw all the social media that Channel 7 have started to pre-record some packages. So I said to Colin off air that if they don't make it, if they don't qualify, you can't just blame us. All right, Channel 7 are also doing their worst as well. And can I just say quickly, Colin, before I want to hear this story about why you didn't get to go to the Winnipeg one. But I also saw on social media tonight Mel McLaughlin talking about the Sydney Opera House. She's like, oh, this is such a great thing for the Olympians and Olympics. I can't wait to see it again in three years time. I'm like, well, can't we see it in six months time? Are we not going to celebrate our winter Olympians and Paralympians as well? Like, I mean, surely if you're going to do it for, you know, 600 odd summer Paralympians and Olympians, do it for the winter. There's less, so it will take less time. And they're Olympians as well. So I hope that this is reciprocated, and our winter Olympians get this honour as well come February slash March. Colin, what happened? Why didn't you get to go and hang out with these? What did Jamie do?
COLIN HILDING: Well, Jamie didn't do anything. Let's chalk it up to two things. One, mispromotion, because they heavily promoted this, like, welcome our Olympians, and they're mentioning a lot of the big names. And I'm like, well, maybe because Manitoba doesn't have the restrictions that Ontario has or BC has, then they're sending them here instead. They kept promoting, oh, you can stream this live online. You can watch the video. I'm like, OK, well, that's for the places that aren't going to get it. Really, what it came down to was that these athletes were going to be wherever their home was. They were going to make an appearance somewhere, and they were just going to kind of broadcast this across the country. We had one athlete here, which was Skyler Park, who's from Winnipeg. But the rest, they were just going to the big venue they had, our big mall here. They were going to have a big screen, and they were going to show, hey, here's Pavan and Paredes from their home in Scarborough, Ontario, wherever it is. Meanwhile, I could sit at home and watch the exact same thing. So I decided not to go to that, to drag the entire family across the city to see that. But then I ended up forgetting it was on. I didn't even get to watch it at home. So had I made the plan, OK, I'm going to go down to a mall, there would have been reminders. OK, we're going to leave in the house, Colin. And I ended up missing it entirely.
BEN WATERWORTH: Any final thoughts on the Paralympics, guys? I mean, obviously.
COLIN HILDING: Opening and closing ceremonies.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I was going to ask that actually, because I'll be completely honest with you. I didn't see any of them. So I don't really have anything to comment on neither the opening or closing ceremonies. But, I mean, Colin, I'll start with you. You watched them. Were they better than the non Paralympic opening and closing ceremonies?
COLIN HILDING: Infinitely better. Still, when you get the Paralympic ceremonies, it is always a slightly smaller scale than we get with the Olympics, you know, budget reasons or maybe just a short turnaround between the two where they don't have as much time for the setup. But a lot of the stuff that we are missing, a lot of the cultural element to it, the fun that was there for both the opening and closing ceremonies, there was a bit of a spectacle to it. I honestly, other than the treadmill, the things that we kind of mocked, I'm struggling to remember anything about the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympics. The Paralympics had a lot of stuff going on. It was shorter, you know, because you had less athletes. But one thing that was weird was, I don't know the reasoning behind it. It wasn't a thing of, okay, countries are limited with how many athletes you could send in there, because you see United States come out, you see China come out, and they've got dozens of athletes. Canada, I think, had only four athletes at the opening ceremonies, and they even made a point in the commentary to say that was by choice, that the athletes wanted to focus on their events. So it looked like we were, I don't know, Tonga or something, with the amount of people on the field for Canada. But still, overall, the opening closing ceremonies, so much better for both of these over the regular Olympic ones.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod, did you see much of them?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I caught the ending of the closing ceremony. So I caught the Paris handover, and it was so good. They had this hand choreography, Mexican wave style thing, and it was the best thing. It was like, I suppose, the Paralympic equivalent of the synchronised drumming in Beijing, almost. But it was just, I don't know, words can't describe it. It was so good. I hope they bring it back for the actual opening ceremony in France, because it just looks so good. I think that's like the key takeaway, is if you do something for your opening or closing ceremony, just do a massive amount of people doing something synchronised, and it will look great.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I'm going to look it up. I feel bad that I didn't catch any of it. I'm sorry. Sorry, people. That goes to show the... Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Download 007. Great show. But I think I enjoyed sort of like doing, you know, we're always going to come together and sort of do just like a brief kind of wrap. It was never going to be super extensive. I think we'll do the same for Beijing kind of, because I love, like I like, the Winter Olympics probably more than Summer Olympics. I like the Winter Paralympics probably more, because I mean, you talk about unique sports and unique things, like it's even more unique, sort of, you know, seeing that. And Australia generally wins a couple of gold in the Winter Paralympics. We haven't won a gold in the non-paralympics since 2010. So, you know, it's time. It's good to see us get gold in snow and all that kind of stuff too. But speaking of that, our sort of, obviously, we've got a crap ton of interviews coming your way. Sort of, we were always planning to at least have one a week between Tokyo and Beijing. Kind of gone a little bit gangbusters in the fact that, as you would have seen, we're having three episodes a week right now. We've got that many interviews. There might even be a chance of more than three a week at this rate. We'll have to keep on seeing that. But obviously, earlier this week, we had Scott Gow, a Canadian biathlete, great chat with him there. And I'll say that this Friday, we're keeping up the Canadian athletes. We're going to be speaking with Alana Goldie, who is a fencer, competed in Tokyo in fencing. Great chat there. And then just a bit of a teaser ahead of next week, we're going to be ticking off three new sports. We've never spoken to athletes before on this show. We're talking to somebody from the sport of beach volleyball. We're talking to somebody from the sport, well, two people, I will say, from the sport of canoe kayak. And we're also speaking to our very first gymnast. And I want to say that it's teasing for a big month or so of gymnastics coming away, because we're ticking off all the gymnastics. We're doing trampoline, we're doing artistic, and Jarrod, we're doing rhythmic. And I messaged you after that interview, and I said, we've got to lay off the rhythmic gymnast, because it's a great chat. So I'm just saying, my mind's being turned. But we've got a lot of great athletes coming up in the coming weeks and months, which I really don't want to go into spoiler mode, but just stay tuned to our social media page as well. And we're also, between now and the end of the year, we're going to come, all three of us are going to come together at least once a month to do sort of an episode. So next month, we're going to be doing a Looking Ahead to Beijing 2022. We did that back in, was it 2017? We did a Looking Ahead to Pyeongchang. That was a whole BuRang and SuRang episode, if you all remember that. So get ready to butcher the Beijing mascot's names, people. It's exciting, which sort of, yeah, just a real kind of a Look Ahead in a couple months in advance. Not our full preview. We'll obviously do a full preview the week before Beijing. But also, we're looking at doing the long-awaited sports episode. Jarrod, I know you're excited for that one. We'll just kind of go over what we think works and doesn't work for Olympic sports and everything. And the one I'm looking forward to the most at the end of this year, we're going to rank the Olympic medals. Now, we're not going to go all the way back to Athens 1896. We'll be here for a while. We're going to basically go from, I think, Lilahama onwards, sort of when they started doing the kind of designs where the ribbons sort of came into play. You know, they started to kind of have fancy artwork on the ribbons. So we're going to include winter and summer. We haven't really worked out a format. This is just a loose idea that we thought, hey, this would be cool.
COLIN HILDING: And do we get medals?
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know, maybe we should. I don't know. I don't want to be here for like five hours, like on a double or seven. It would be nice to just do a 90 minute episode where we rank it. But I don't know, Colin, I mean, right now, if you had to list your favourite and least favourite Olympic medal, give us a teaser.
COLIN HILDING: Ah, I love Turin. Rio was OK.
BEN WATERWORTH: Cool. Jarrod, what do you think?
COLIN HILDING: Athens. Athens is a good one.
BEN WATERWORTH: Athens is a nice medal.
JARROD LOOBEEK: I can't put me on the spot like that. I agree with Athens. I think that's up there. Tokyo, not so great. I like the idea behind Tokyo. I don't know if I like the medal itself.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. Look, I got to say the winters are more interesting because the winters go for something a little bit more unique. Colin, I'm telling you now, I'm completely the opposite for Turin. I hate that medal. I really hate the donut medal. So that will be one we'll disagree on. But I'm partial to the Vancouver. I like the story behind the Vancouver medal. I think it's a unique design. And I've come around and Sochi. I kind of like this glass element to the Sochi medal, which was a bit unique. But some as yet, Athens is a good one. And I'm very partial to the Atlanta medal. I've always liked the design of the Atlanta medal. So look at us. This is, wow, the epitome of Olympic geekdom that we're going to be ranking medals, you know. And if it becomes popular, we will go all the way back to Athens and go Antwerp. 1920. That's the one we're looking forward to. But plenty still to come. If you want to stay up to date with everything, of course, social media, search for Off The Podium. All the good and bad podcast platforms. Search for Off The Podium. That's the bad ones. They spell it platforms. And you won't miss a single interview that are coming up because we've got some great ones on the way. Jarrod, good to have you back and front. That was a bad joke. But I look forward to talking to you next month and getting your thoughts on the Beijing mascots. Are you looking forward to the new Boorang?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I'm looking forward to tearing apart the new Boorang.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, indeed. And Colin, thank you as well. And yeah, you're ticking down the days until you're real Olympics when Canada does better. And NHL players are back. We'll talk about that next month, but it's been confirmed. We're going to have proper hockey at the Olympics next year. So yes.
COLIN HILDING: I barely contained myself on this episode to not get into it. So next month will be exciting.
BEN WATERWORTH: We will be into that next month. But until then, until this coming Friday for our next interview, this has been Off The Podium. And I can't use my closing, because the new closing that I've got doesn't make sense until a certain interview. So wait until a better closing. Good night.
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