Episode 167: Highlights from the Beijing Winter Olympics with special guest, Michael Papale

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Paige: You're listening to “Coffee with Gringos.” I’m Paige Sutherland.  

Ian: I'm Ian Kennedy.

Paige: And today we have a special guest who's been on the pod before. He is back—Michael Papale—one of my really good college friends from the U. Michael, thanks for joining us again.

Michael: Thanks for having me.

Paige: So, Michael is probably one of the most obsessed people I know with the Olympics. So, when we wanted to do an episode on the Olympics, I couldn't think of anyone better to join us for this conversation. So, first question, Michael—how many hours have you put into watching the Olympics in Beijing right now?

Michael: Wow, that is a good question. So, let's see. We're now like a week and a half into it. And so that's about ten days and then there's primetime coverage for four hours every night so at least forty hours but I've also been watching all of the replays during the day on daytime television while I'm working from home. I don't tell my boss that so I'm working the replays on NBC and USA also playing so I would say I've probably watched easily fifty hours in the last week and a half.

Ian: That that qualifies for fanatic status.

Paige: That is some work Michael, damn.

Michael: Yeah, staying up late, waking up early. I have been a little bit of a walking zombie the last week and a half but it's an opportunity that comes around only once every two years.

Paige: Unless it's a pandemic and it's quicker. So, just for our listeners, we are, as Michael said, we're in the middle as of this recording. So, the Olympics is still going on, but might be over when this is published. So just to clarify that. But so, Michael, this is the Winter Olympics, what events? It sounds like you watch all of them. What are your favorite events that you really like to watch each winter Olympics?

Michael: Yeah, so some of the favorite ones that I love, I love watching the downhill skiing. I think that is like absolutely incredible. These people are flying down the mountain, it literally eighty miles an hour and all they're wearing is a helmet and they're not wearing like any pads or anything. So, when you watch them wipe out, they literally are just wearing a spandex skin suit and that's it. So, when they go flying down the mountain to the netting, they don't have any other protection. The halfpipe snowboarding is pretty wild, the tricks that they do. Figure skating is also a classic Winter Olympic sport. The speed skating also, the short track is wild and there's just five of them flying around, the ice and a tight little pack that I feel like it's an easy way to get a finger chopped off or a good gash to the calf. And then I also do love watching the bobsled and luge and the skeleton because that also is absolutely wild. So, I think compared to the Summer Olympics, the Winter Olympics are probably a little bit more dangerous if you will outside of gymnastics. Gymnastics is obviously if you mess up gymnastics, you can break your neck, but I think that's also the case with a lot of the winter sports.

Paige: What about what about you, Ian? What are your favorite winter sports?

Ian: I have to admit I haven't really been watching the Olympics much this year but, of course, there are some sports that really stick out to me. I love snowboarding, in general, it's just one of my favorite sports so it's amazing to see the halfpipe all the other events. Of course, like you said, the very dangerous ones like bobsledding, the skeleton, you have a lot of injuries and sometimes even deaths when these happen. So, these are really high stakes events and then you have other ones that are a bit more chill, like curling, which is one of my absolute favorites as well. It's like there's almost something like cathartic or therapeutic about just watching the little rock glide along the ice. So, I think that one's one of my favorite ones that not a lot of people know about.

Michael: ingredient and I feel like the rules for curling are a little bit difficult to follow. Sometimes you have to read a few articles and watch it a decent amount to figure out the rules and the scoring and how the sweeping actually helps the rock go. You know, there's this big technique that I don't really understand.

Ian: One of the funniest things about it as well is you see all these elite athletes with their perfect physical form and all this aerobic activity and then most of the curling guys look like your drunk uncle who just threw on a shirt and decided like, “Hey, let's have some beers and like play this game.” And then they just got really good at it and made it to the Olympics. So, it's like any man's game.

Paige: Exactly. And you actually went curling recently didn't you, Michael? Tell us how hard was it?

Michael: It was difficult. So, I visited some friends that live in Minnesota so, we went curling outside. I feel like that's a true Minnesota activity in January. The curling rink that we did was in the parking lot of a brewery so it wasn't a full curling experience but they had like the actual forty-pound stones and the targets shown on the ice and it is not as easy as it looks on the Olympics. They're just like sliding very easily and getting the stone to the perfect distance and we were either very short, very wide, or very long. We very few actual times.

Paige: No, I can't imagine I mean the Olympics make everything look easy and I think what's crazy too is like you said, it's so dangerous when they do all these backflips and twists and they often fall and somehow, they just get up like. I'm like how are you able? Have I had that kind of fall on my snowboard, I would just be down. They do a triple, eight flip twists and then they fall on their back, and then they're like, “Oh, I got minus points for that.” And I'm like, how are you alive?

Michael: I know, exactly. They like to stand up, shrug it off and then continue going down and I'm like, I'd be there for four days at least.

Paige: It's crazy. My heart always stops alright, when I see them up that high. So, we have to talk about this particular Olympics, there is—every Olympics—there's always the key stories that happen—the people that make the headlines. What is one that stuck out to you so far, Michael?   

Michael: One of the top stories coming out of Beijing is the Russian figure skater and her doping scandal, which is really a big bummer for the whole Olympics. So yeah, it came out that on Christmas day she failed a drug test that I think she took at the Russian team qualification event that she failed the drug test. While she was in Beijing, the results were published that she had a banned substance in her urine. So, she's now been flagged for using the banned substance and now there's all this controversy and fallout from it, which is a real bummer for a lot of reasons. I mean, first of all, she's fifteen years old, so actually, the day that we're recording it today, a news article came out that the drug that she was taking is a heart medication, but it can be used to help endurance and the oxygen capacity for your heart. Which is a non-science person, I'm just going to assume that you're in better shape and better. Your heart rate is better and everything so that she was taking one banned substance and then she also noted that she was taking two other substances as heart medications and the additional two are legal but then there are now all these stories that this cocktail of the three drugs is really enhancing her performance in a way that essentially confirms the doping. And she's not an innocent bystander because she's probably ingesting it but she probably was given it by trusted adults in her circle, which was a bummer.

Paige: But what is the ruling exactly? Because she's still competing, right?

Michael: They're letting her compete, but then they're going to continue researching it and determining if she should be disqualified. So, in skating, there are two portions and after the first portion, she's in first right now and in good standing to win. So, if she wins, it could be in six months, they decide that she should be stripped of the title. And then, everyone lives up to, which just puts a big cloud on the event so she can participate. But it's basically like with a big asterisk that in a few months, they will basically verify or nullify the results is what I'm interpreting it as.

Ian: It's a really complicated situation. And, also with all the controversy from the last Olympics that Russia has been involved in with anti-doping. So, it's a shame because, like you said, you're fifteen, you're just following probably what your coaches are telling you and it's just unfortunate that those adults probably thought they can get away with it or maybe they won't notice or who knows what they were thinking. But Russia's track record does not help with this at all.

Michael: Yeah, really. That also because she is from Russia, and, technically, they're not competing for Russia and they're just individual athletes from Russia and these Olympic Games that also brings into a lot of other questions about that.

Paige: And yeah, it definitely was not surprising when you saw an athlete from Russia, involving doping, but it is sad like you said, she's fifteen and, like you said, it just jeopardizes all the other athletes. If I win silver, I don't get that gold medal at the Olympics if she gets disqualified a month later, so I never get to have that moment of being a gold medal winner. So, it does impact everyone.

Michael: Yeah, if she wins, which at this point, it sounds like she will, that they won't have the medal ceremony because they don't want to. So, the other medalists in the event won't get their medals at the Olympics. So, get the medal shipped to them in four to six months once all of the deliberations are complete, which is a huge bummer. And then there have been other studies in the past that, it's not just the placement but if you medal at the Olympics, you can get all of these endorsement deals and if the person is in fourth place, then eventually gets up to third a year from now, no one's going to care about them. So, you have to strike while the iron is hot in the six weeks after the Olympics and get those endorsements and other people are missing out. I know that was one thing that a lot of track athletes have said in the past they get a lot of their livelihood from endorsement deals after the Olympics and when you miss out on the podium because of doping affects the medals and also your wallet. And the money is good.

Paige: Hey, Ian. Did you know besides the podcast, Dynamic English offers one-on-one classes with native teachers from all over the world?

Ian: Really? But isn't it just a bunch of grammar lessons?

Paige: Nope, it's completely discussion-based and focuses on topics the student is interested in.

Ian: That's amazing. But what if I'm not living in Chile?

Paige: No problem. Dynamic does online classes. You can be living anywhere.

Ian: Great, but I'm a little intimidated to take the class alone. Can I join with a friend?

Paige: Of course. Dynamic offers group classes of up to four. Plus, for the next month, Coffee with Gringos listeners get 10% off individual or group classes. So go online to www.dynamicenglish.cl and mention that you are a listener and get your discount.

Ian: Well, I'm sold. Sign me up.

Paige: Moving on to the next big news of this Olympics. That was my goal. There was a big-time skier, I think she's a two-time gold medalist in skiing and she's having not the Olympics that she was expected to have. Talk a little bit about that.

Michael: Yeah. So, Mikaela Shiffrin, who's an American skier was one of the marquee athletes in all of the advertising leading up to the Olympics, at least in America. They have on the TV stations that run all the Olympics, there are like five athletes that they really promote the heck out of and she was one of them. And in her first two events, she failed to finish the races, she skied out of course, and then in the other two events that she's had so far, she hasn't placed in the top three. So, it's been a big disappointment for her to start out and it goes back to the Summer Olympics where Simone Biles also had some issues and Mikaela Shiffrin has had some personal issues in the last few years. Her father died, I think, very recently and if you watch all the profiles in prime time, they really harp on that and all of the interviews they asked her about her recently deceased father which probably doesn't help with the mindset you want going into a competition. But yes, it seems like she's off to a rough start, but hopefully, she'll end strong.

Paige: Did you see that interview of her after? I don't know if it was the first race that she stumbled and I hate that they do this in all sports. That's why I would never want to be a sports reporter but they just asked you to be interviewed right after your competition where your headspace is so bad if you had a big loss, and so they grabbed her over and put her right on TV like interphase and it's like, how do you feel? And she was just still processing it. It was so raw that she literally was having this external-internal conversation of “I'm so disappointed in myself. I don't know why I still do this.” It was like she was questioning why she even skied in the first place.

Michael: It was it was so hard to watch because, obviously, these athletes do it, they love the sport but they want to do well and she's one of the favorites. So then for her to not do well, then the media really harps on that. And then yeah, she said in the interview that she's questioning the last fifteen years of her life, which is tough to hear. She’s only twenty-six or twenty-seven so it's like half her life she's questioning the purpose which is a bummer. I mean, I do that as well but I just spent the last twenty years on the couch eating ice cream sundaes and it's much different.

Ian: Right there with you.

Paige: It was really just so sad, but another TV moment that was more uplifting was Shaun White, who's probably one of the best half-pipe snowboarders for our generation. He's won a ton of gold medals in this event, but he's getting old like all of us and he is officially retiring from the Olympics. Did you guys catch his interview?

Ian: I did not.

Michael: It's funny because from his first interview and his first Olympics in 2006 to now, he’s much more mature and well-spoken if you will. So, I think he was sixteen years old for his first Olympics and he's thirty-six now and his vocabulary and the way that he speaks to the press is much better. I don't know if you guys have seen it, but there's one interview I think in 2006 when he was talking about flying home from Torino and with his gold medal and he just was able to get all the Mountain Dew he wanted from the flight attendants and he was like, “Yeah, anytime I wanted a Mountain Dew, they just gave it to me because I had my gold medal.” And now in 2022, he is much more well-spoken and refined. He probably has a PR person that has helped in the last twenty years and a stylist. He looks good now. He aged well. Yeah, and he's dating that actress from the Netflix Christmas movie, because of what I know.

Paige: I know her from Vampire Diaries, so that's worse.

Michael: Yeah, he's definitely upped his game. Yeah, she's a model.

Paige: Yeah, I just found the interview very humbling and he was just very emotional about how much the sport is meant to him. And it was just like, he placed fourth, which he didn't medal, but fourth in the world, I'll take that as your fifth Olympics. He's been around the block quite a few times. And he was so yeah, and he was also nice too. He was just passing the torch to these young guys who are crushing it, they're doing so good. “I'm just honored to be in the same competition as them, they're going to pay it forward.” And it wasn't some guy who could be being a three-time gold medalist to be very braggy but he was very humbling and crying, which just seeing in a good way, it was just seeing him remembering all his good times. But yeah, but also hard to watch, but in a better way. He wasn't questioning the last fifteen years. He was more reflecting.

Ian: Yeah, not having an existential crisis on TV. Just reflecting on a great career and making sure he's not turning into the washed-up, old athlete. So, I think it was, from what it sounds like, it was like a really gracious, nice, dignified way of going out and saying goodbye to the sport in the event. So that's great.

Paige: So those are just some key highlights. Like we said, the Olympics is still going as we recorded this, so they'll probably be more to come that we'll miss. We just wanted it's such a big-time when the Olympics seeing the best athletes in the world compete, so had to have expert Michael on who's put in fifty hours of watching it. So, thanks, Michael, as always for joining us.

Michael: Thanks for having me. Big fan over here, the Olympics rule.

Paige: So as always, listeners if you get lost check out that audio guide and transcript at www.dynamicenglish.cl. Thanks for listening.

Ian: We'll see you next time.

Paige: Coffee with gringos was brought to you by dynamic English, where you can learn English simply by using it. If you're interested in taking classes or just want to learn more, go to our website at Dynamic english.cl Thanks for listening.

Key Vocabulary, Phrases & Slang:

 1.     to wipe out (phrasal verb): to fall; to crash.

a.     The skier wiped out hard on the course.

2.     gash (noun): a deep cut or wound.

a.     The athlete received a gash on his leg from the crash.

3.     to stick out (phrasal verb): to be noticeable.

a.     Which event sticks out most to you?

4.     high stakes (adjective): very risky; involving serious risk if not successful.  

a.     The events in the Olympics are very high stakes.

5.     to shrug off (something) (phrasal verb): to minimize a problem or mistake and recover.  

a.     She shrugged off the fall and returned successfully in the next event.

6.     bummer (noun): something disappointing or unfortunate.

a.     It is a bummer whenever athletes don’t perform to their best ability.

7.     fallout (noun): the adverse side effects or results of a situation.  

a.     The fallout from the doping scandal has been big.

8.     to be stripped of (something) (phrasal verb): to have something taken away or removed from someone.

a.     It will be interesting to see if she will be stripped of her medal.

9.     to jeopardize (verb): to put someone or something into a situation in which there is a danger of loss, harm, or failure.

a.     Just one bad score can jeopardize the entire performance of the athlete.

10.  to strike while the iron is hot (idiom): to make use of an opportunity immediately.

a.     For money deals, it’s important to strike while the iron is hot.

11.  marquee (adjective): leading, preeminent.

a.     She has been a marquee athlete in all the country’s advertising.

12.  to harp on (something) (phrasal verb): to focus and repeat a certain something.

a.       The media continues to harp on the doping scandal.

13.  uplifting (adjective): inspiring happiness, optimism, or hope.

a.     His story was so uplifting and gracious.

14.  PR (acronym, noun): Public Relations.

a.     Shaun White must have a good PR person to help with his image.

15.  to up one’s game (idiom): to improve or better an aspect of someone’s life.

a.     He has definitely upped his game since his first Olympics in 2006.

16.  to pass the torch (idiom): to give the responsibility of something to someone else.

a.     He is ready to pass the torch to the younger athletes.

17.  to crush (verb): to do something very successfully.

a.     The young snowboarders are absolutely crushing it in the Olympic events.  

18.  braggy (adjective): to be boastful about oneself.

a.     It’s so nice to see a humble athlete who isn’t acting braggy about themselves.

19.  washed-up (adjective): no longer effective or successful.

a.     No one wants to see a washed-up athlete trying to hang on to their past.