SEN Superstar, Gerard Whateley, joined Scott Cummings and Tim Gossage to update us with the latest from the Paris Games where he has boots on the ground.
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SEN WA Breakfast
Gerard Whateley - Paris Games Update (01/08/2024)
Ryan Reynolds here for I guess my hundredth mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. No. No. No. Honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited to premium wireless for $15. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com/save, whenever you're ready. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month, new customers on first three-month plan only, taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabytes of CDTails. This episode is brought to you by Experian. Are you paying for subscriptions you don't use, but can't find the time or energy to cancel them? Experian could cancel unwanted subscriptions for you, saving you an average of $270 per year, and plenty of time. Download the Experian app. Results will vary. Not all subscriptions are eligible. Savings are not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required. Time to head to Paris for the Paris Games Update with the luckiest man in the network, Jared Whiteley. Well, he's lucky to now. Now he's got to know the holidays over. He's now got to get his, he's got to get his oars in the water and start rowing. Breakfast powered by Kubota, take on any job with Kubota's range of tractors, mowers and utility vehicles. Good morning, Jared. How is Paris this morning? Scotty, Goss, it's been a spectacular day of great sport. It began with the Women's Triathlon, which was won by a local French victory, and on the Port Alexander Trebridge, there were thousands of French fans. Delirious with joy really, and it's finished the same way as Leon Marsh on the star of the pool has done an unthinkable double. He won the 200 butterfly and the 200 breaststroke, and I reckon you've got to update your version of the French national anthem, because it's never sounded better than it sounded in the pool about 20 minutes ago. Phenomenal effort. When he said he was doing the 200-metre butterfly, and then backing up for the breaststroke, he said, "Well, it's good for the sex that he killed, because he'll be absolutely stuffed." I'd do 20 minutes of the butterfly, and he resourced it, but it's a huge... He's a bit of an "how" about it. So in the butterfly, he was 0.72 of a second down on the final turn, and he wins by half a second going away. It was absolutely dazzling what he did in the last 50, so he came from behind there, and then he just dominates the breaststroke from the front the whole way and never gave stubbledy cooker look in. So he's the darling of France, and that's going to be one of the deeds of the games. Something that Phelps never attempted. Well, there was a woman in 1956 who attempted butterfly and breaststroke, and she won a bronze medal and came seventh at his home games. Marshaun has done both. But anyway, that's the local story, but the Australian story's Jess Sparks. Yeah, who was she was able to do? She was amazing. You had a good seat. You had a good seat, weren't you? Yeah, you had a good seat. Right alongside the course. So, Torsy's about a hour and a half, three different trains and a walk through a lovely, tree-lined main street all the way down to the river. So, yeah, leafy, eastern suburb, beautiful village, and the rowings down there, and then they've built the Slatlem canoe course. And so, Jess Fox is second fastest in the semi-final, and then the final takes a real twist when the German, Lilick, lays down a run, which is two seconds quicker than anything that's happened across the previous two days, and suddenly it's on. And no one can get close to it until Jess sits at the top of the run and just executes the most perfect paddle. And not only bet it's the time, but bet is it by four and a half seconds. No one else got anywhere near it. So, cold-blooded, and then the brilliant part of it, their self-indulgent part, is one side of the course has got the grandstand, which I reckon is about 12,000 strong, and there are Australians everywhere. The other side of the course is where the media set up and all the teams, and they walk up and down the side. So, Miriam, the coach and mum of Jess, she walks down as Jess goes down past the gates. And then, I'm just in behind her with a clear lane at about 80 metres of it as well. So, walking sort of seven or eight gates as Jess is winning gold. I'm absolutely in awe of what she's done, and maybe just a couple of the historic markers. So, most successful canoe slalom athlete in history, male or female, has eased out of the tie with Shirley Strickland, Shane Gould, Animes, Liesl Jones and Ian Thorpe, stands alone with six individual Olympic medals, has meddled at four consecutive games, and is now in a run of three straight goals. She, in the hot blush of Australia's number one sporting figure, that's what Paris will tell us at the end, and she's an all-time great. She certainly is. Now, Jess, she did carry the flag in the opening ceremony, of course, with Eddie Ockenden. Does she, has anyone, and again, question without notice and you, but you will know what, if anyone does, has anyone carried the flag at the opening and closing? Not that I'm aware of. I'd be so interested to know whether it had been done at all internationally. Yeah, so she could, but that that that honorary stuff. I'm so interested into what she'll do in the future. Her competing days are not done yet, and she will amass more world titles. She's the defining figure of a sport, but more than that is, I sort of think about what Animes is doing, post her athletic career, and cast so super intelligent, deeply engaged with the Australian community now, that love affair will last for as long as she's with us. She'll do great things beyond what she's doing in her career, which is going to be talked about for generations to come. It was interesting, you and Jared mentioned that he had to catch three trains and do the walks. That's why I couldn't go to the Paris Games. It was Hachi said you're going to have to catch public transport, and I just said it ain't happening. It ain't happening on my watch. I want to hear the description of where the kayaking and the rowing course is, because it made me feel like I was there. Exactly right. I want to get you to finish with that again, please. The Matilda's, I can't believe Canada have got through, yet they lost six points, had six points deducted anyway. It's not great for Australia, is it? If you actually run through that scenario, it's very hard not to qualify for the next round, given how many teams they take through. So this is an abject failure, there's no point to dancing around it. It's a bit of disappointment for the team, and really for the status of what they are in Australia, they're placed in the national affection, and what they should be able to achieve at the moment. So completely our class in the first game against Germany played that mad cap game against Zambia, which that's not how good teams play. I feel like we knew that at the time, it was the cheap thrill of winning from behind. And then our class for 90 minutes by the US, and then there was this remarkable seven minutes of additional time where Nina Kennedy scored, and then she's a breath away from scoring a second time. It could have been 2-2, and a different story again, but as it is, it's hard to imagine the coach doesn't get sacks. In the coming days, and maybe that's the recrimination and the change of dynamic that's needed, but this is one that is going to need a decent post-mortem from football Australia to work out. What went wrong? What was foreseeable? And what is the missed opportunity on the back of a World Cup to be out of the Olympics so quickly is really poor. As disappointing, we just finished with Kyle Chama's incredible swim, beaten by the Chinese swimmer who broke the world record. Can you teach me some sort of, I guess, understanding and respect? Because when I look at the Chinese swimmer's now with a tainted record of suspensions or lack of suspensions, I look at this now as if we've been robbed where, again, second in the world is a pretty impressive effort. And am I looking at it the wrong way, Jared? So maybe we'll salute Kyle first, a heroic swim. He comes from 8th at Halfway, so in Rio, when he burst under the scene as a teenager, he came from 7th at Halfway and won the gold. He comes from last on the turn and swims his way into silver. So three consecutive 100-meter finals, the blue-reband event, and he goes gold-silver-silver. Only twice in history have swimmers meddled in three consecutive games in this event. Alexander Popov is an icon of the sport, and then you're going back to the days of Stockholm, Antwerp and Paris, more than a century ago to find the other example. So outstanding, and I'm told, I haven't seen it, but I'm told that in the post-race interview, he might have overturned his decision to retire, and he might go again. And then your reaction, I think, is a fair one, Scotty. This is where the whole system has failed. This is the price that you pay in believability. So China is to blame, and WADA is to blame, and there's swimming officials to blame, and we as a public are to have no faith. We've been given no cause to have any faith. Pan breaks the world record by .4 of a second, first world record of the meet, and he wins by a body length in the 100-meters freestyle, so I've never seen that before. Like, crazy dominant. You'd love to sit here and go. We've seen one of the all-time swims. But I think most people will have the same reaction you have, because we have been so failed in what's happened over the past three years. What have you got on your agenda when you wake up tomorrow, the next few days? Where do we find you? So I'm going to start my pilgrimage to the track tomorrow, so I've got a day of rehearsals, and go and prepare myself and know exactly what's going on. And then Friday morning local is when we get to it, so that'll be, I reckon it's about 3pm Friday, is when you'll start to see the track program come to life. I think you've been pretty solid in the comparison man segment so far, Jared. I think you've been really good at that, and really good at that. What are you most? Andy, he's done a nice job there. Sorry, mate. I thought you had the best gig for the first week of the games, but Andy Lee's got that absolutely covered. What are you most excited about in the next week? Track on Field. I'm excited about the hundreds. How can you not be? So I'm excited for every reason. It's a spectacular event. It's the ultimate challenge to have a dash out in my profession, and it tends to be the defining races of any Olympics. And the new generation are pretty brash. They want to redefine athletics, and they need to do that by putting it on a great show in Paris. So internationally, the 200s, Jakobie Gibson is just a rip of 1500-5000 runners. I can't wait to see him live. And then the whole thing for us we'll build is Jess Hull in the final individual event at the track. So last night, just before the two relays to finish, so that'll be night eight. We'll go all the way through counting down to Jess Hull to see what she might be able to do in the 1500. Jared, have you ever caught an Olympic 100m final in any form? No. I've caught the swimming, but you get a little bit longer in the swimming than you do on the track. What's the art? What do you reckon? I mean, you know, Bruce has been a great caller over a long period of time and plenty of others. Let's pile up pressure on it. But the art is not calling every runner, is that correct? Oh, no, no, you can't get through it. So you've got to feel more comfortable about this talking about it in hindsight, or I'll never want to speak about it. So the way I've got about it, I've developed this tick is I just watch 100m races, any vintage, any age group from anywhere in the world, just to see how quickly you can see the shape of the race. So you have to see the start, who got off, who got left behind, see the middle as it develops, and then try to get into the line in the right order. So you pin yourself to who's where at the start, who's moving in the middle, and who's hitting the line. So I reckon you can get maybe three or four names into the call in nine seconds depending on the shape of it. It's not dissimilar to calling the 278 at Mandra, 278 meters at the Mandra, it was eight dogs. Not easy to know. Well, there's pressure on it. Scotty, what do you reckon, how do you reckon I'd go if they got to the Olympic rings? I don't know, I gave it. Liles, if he pings it wins, he'll get it going. He'll be out of the red box. I'll be tuned in because it is the glasses, the blue ribbon event. No, not quite. It is. Over there, it's the piece de resistance. Hey, Jared, love it. Love it. We have the feedback we get from your reports every morning so far. I've been outstanding. We appreciate it. Lovely. Have a great day. You too. Get a good slide. There he is. Jared Whiteley, the Paris Games Update. Thanks to the team at Kubota. After seven o'clock Mark Harvey, and Harvey Hall is going to join us as in Derrick Hall, so the father of Clay Hall is set to make his AFL debut.