Do Go On - 534 - Spain's 2000 Paralympics Scandal

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

At the Sydney 2000 Paralympics, Intellectually Disabled Basketball was included for the first time. Spain easily won the gold medal, but not all was what it seemed... This is the story of a scandal so big it changed the Paralympics forever. This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 05:43 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).For all our important links: https://linktr.ee/dogoonpod Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/Jess Writes A Rom-Com: https://shows.acast.com/jess-writes-a-rom-comOur awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present. REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:Stolen Gold, ESPN 2024https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33762827/https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2004/sep/16/gilestremlett.features11https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-27/sydney-2000-paralympics-spanish-basketball-cheating-scandal/12749156 https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-58598677https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Y5F_ha7d-PIhttps://www.britannica.com/sports/Paralympic-Gameshttps://www.paralympic.org.au/classification/intellectual-impairment-classification/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. And welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Devornikey and as always I'm here with Jess Perkins.

Hello. And this week we are also joined this week. I said this week twice. Uh-huh. There's the third time. Yep. And a fourth this week it's Marcel Blanche de Wilt. Yeah, baby.

It's a thrill to be back. A thrill to be in the studio. A thrill to be the B team. Uh-huh. The B is for Blanche de Wilt, my surname. I think, and I say this with practice. I think you would be part of the B team. Great.

You know, we frequently go to you and we need a guest. I'm thrilled to be called upon. Yeah. Who, if all of you were struck down, God forbid, of course, who would be in the whole B team? Have we ever done an episode where there's only one of the originals? I think we've called it, we've got to have at least two. Yeah. I think we've just started that before.

Yeah, which I think is correct. Otherwise, last thing you want is the audience going, oh, you know what? Oh, there's a B team. This is great. This is better. If we get a second team going, we can have two pods a week. Yeah, franchise it. Oh, shit.

Or just do every second week, us and then have the others. You know, we've got Marcel's here. Yep. Sarens here. Kirstie's here. Fantastic. Yeah, we get the vibe. That's a good group.

Mesa's in their two. Oh, we get a third group going. Cass page. And you can under pay us as well. So like you're making a fat profit. They want to get paid. We're doing it for exposure. Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah. Right. Quickly mention your comedy group. Quick. No, you can. I don't like when you say edit point either side of my plugs. No, it's great to have you here at the time of recording. It's just pre-Christmas, but this is coming out in early January.

So you doing anything fun over the summer? Oh, I do love this time of the year. But as a freelancer, I probably will be getting back to work pretty quickly. But I'll be doing it in a chance. chilled fashion. That's not a margarita in my hand or something. But it's that time of you where you don't feel as guilty as a freelancer to be just a little bit gentler on yourself.

Maybe I'll play a video game. Maybe I'll watch a film during the daytime hours. That sort of thing. That's lovely. That's beautiful. But yeah, I'm going, hey, I'm self-employed. I've got to be making sure I got wheelers and dealers happening. I'm wheeling and dealing.

Yeah. I got to make sure. there's some wheels in my future. And deals. And deals, yeah. That's right. So great to have you in Marcel. Jess,

do you want to explain to Marcel and anyone who may not have heard the show before, what it is we are doing here? I've done this podcast many times before, but I did hit my head on the way here and I've forgotten everything. That must happen to you a lot because you're gigantic. But we could hit your head on the way out and you do that cartoonish thing where you're, that's how you remember.

That's true. Or the Clark Kent kiss, where Clark Kent has that ability to erase Lois Lane's memory. With a kiss? Every time they kiss? Yeah. That is annoying. Well, not every time, but I think he can turn it on if he wants to.

Oh, Clark. Which is pretty disturbing. Yeah, why does he have... That is quite disturbing. Why does he need that? Yeah. I don't like that. I don't like that.

I don't like that at all. There should be other sequences where he's kissing people on the street who are like, saw him go into a phone, but he's like, uh-oh. Come back, come back! I've got to smooch that, go. He's chasing a guy down the street to smooch him. Oh, Superman's gone to prison. Well, Marcel.

and our B-Team, C-team, D-Team, and the listeners. How this show works is one of the three of us, research as a topic often suggested to us by our fantastic listeners. They go away, they read all about it, they write a report. It's around a year 9, 10, yeah, 10. This January. Yeah. Yeah.

Happy with that. And they bring it back to the others and tell us all about it. And we have no idea what the topic is. So we always get on to the topic with a question. It is Dave's turn to do a report, which is always everyone's favourite. And Dave, do you have a question for us? We start with a question.

Well, I'll ask you the question then. What's the report? Well, the answer actually isn't the exact topic of the report. So you tried to get me there, but I have... How many times do you think we have tried to get each other, especially live shows? What's the topic to that? Yeah.

So if you're all, like, putting the finishing touches on the document before, you know, half an hour before we go on, to just say, oh, what's the topic today? And you go, no! But also scary for a live show. because is that live show worthy, really? We're going to talk about ants for 90 minutes? Oh, yeah, if you like to say the title, and they go,

huh? And that's going to be enough, is it? Yeah, we just blindly trust each other. And that's never let us astray. Sometimes we do say, have a bit of fun with this one. It's a dry topic. Come on. Come on.

I need you tonight. We need to bring your B-Team game tonight. Okay, so the question is, since the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games, What other major international sports competition Has followed the Summer Olympics Using the same facilities? Beep I'm buzzing in

I don't really get the question But I'm going to say The Commonwealth Games No, it's more like Usually there's a couple of weeks of the Olympics And since 1988 they've had Paralympics The Paralympics is correct

Yes We said it at the same time Yeah you both get a point there Excellent Though Jesse you didn't beep Oh, beep Paralympics Perfect

Today we are talking about a particular event of the Sydney 2000. Oh, let's go back in time. I felt like I hadn't done a sports topic for quite a long time looking back through. So I found six in our suggestion hat. Anyone can suggest a topic at any time via our website do go on pod.com. I put them up for the vote on Patreon and this one easily won. The topic itself has been suggested by a few people. Thank you to Georgia Cobb from Swindon, Ben from Calgary in Canada,

Tom W. Hill from Rotherham in the UK and Ellie Collingwood from right here in Melbourne. Collingwood? God, I hope she'll... Oh, I don't know. It could be. Whoa. Whoa. Or do you think if your name's Collingwood,

you're like, I can't live there, even though I'd love to, but I can't. And also the postman would be confused as well. I reckon it'd be worse if you were like one suburb of Ever in Fitzroy, but it says, so it says Collingwood here, but then underneath it says Fitzroy. Which one is it? Confusing.

The postman would be having a bloody field day with that. Ellie, we need you to tell us where you live. or I reckon you'd have to leave the city just to be safe Yeah So do you remember the Sydney 2000 We've talked about the opening ceremony before It was a big event in Jess Perkins

In my life Yes that's right You sang strawberry kisses at the ceremony You were the backup kid Is that true? Yeah If Nikki Webster fell through They were going to get you on that water

I was ready I had my little pink dress on And you were trying to organise someone To break her kneecaps beforehand I tried She was too quick Yeah, love the Sydney Olympics It's probably, I mean, because I was 10,

so it's probably the first time that you're really properly aware of what the Olympics are and like you kind of get excited about it. And it was beautifully hyped. There was a time where they were indoctrinating kids beautifully. They were making sure that nothing was more important than the Sydney Olympics.

And looking back, you go, oh, it's just an Olympics. But at the time, this is going to change everything. Oh, we were excited. Every thing. My grade four classroom, we were making posters, projects, all sorts of things. I was collecting, like, these little collectible coins in the Herald Sun. You got this, this is a newspaper for other listeners. You got like this little booklet, and each week or, you know, day there'd be, you would collect.

As people won a gold medal, you'd get a little token. And we're thinking this is going to be really valuable one day. I found it recently. This is my retirement fund right here. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, any day now. Yeah, I loved it. had the Sid, Olly and Millie toys, little plush toys. They were the mascot.

Sid short for Sydney, Ollie, short for Olympics. What was the other one? Millie, Millennium. Oh, God, they were obsessed with the Millennium, weren't we? Yeah. And you went to the games, is that correct? No. I was...

Did you think your family went? Yeah, but I did not. They left you, Kevin McAllis, sister? No, we were all supposed to go, road trip up to Sydney and go to the games, and I got chicken pox. Oh, no. So, Mom and I stayed home, and my brother and dad went, had a fantastic time.

Dad was in the Brazilian cheer squad at the volleyball at one point. The more we learn about your dad. I know. They just handed in this t-shirt. It was like a bright yellow t-shirt. It had Brazil on it. He wore that to mow the lawn for about 15 years afterwards. That is so great, John.

And also, let's look at the irony of mowing the lawn with a Brazilian t-shirt. Perhaps waxing the lawn would be more accurate. God, he's good. Get rid of most of it. Most of it has to go. There was a landing strip in the middle. But it meant that my brother who was like, he was about 16, 17, he and his best friend got to go with dad and they were both learners. So they just drove the, they drove up to Sydney.

Oh, they've got a lot of practice. Yeah, they had a fantastic time and poor mum had to stay back with me. If they still made Australian movies, oh man, they would be frothing at the bit for this property. They'd love to make a road trip movie about this. After the Olympics, they went. Yeah. Had a great time. So, no, I didn't go and it's a real sore point for me

because I got fucking chicken pox for the second time too. Would you call this a sliding doors moment? Who do you think you would have been in your life if you had made it to the Olympics? I reckon I probably would have met my husband much earlier because he was in Sydney. Yeah, right? I'm sure I would have met him. Wow. And we could have been married at 10 instead.

He was 8. We could have been married so much sooner. So, because we are talking about the Paralympics, just as a bit of a background, The Paralympics developed after neurologist Ludwig Goodman organized a sports competition for British World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries way back in England in 1948 and it was originally called the Stoke-Manderville Games. A follow-up competition took place in 1952

with athletes from the Netherlands joining the British competitor so it got slightly... Dutch, is that where... That's where DeVilter's from. Ah, fantastic. I don't think I knew that. And the Blanche? Blanche is just like one of those.

sort of probably Anglo-English, I don't know. One of those filler words. Yeah. I'll put out in the middle. Blanche is my dad's side, don't care about it. DeVilt is my mum side. More interesting. Yeah, more history.

Yeah. And then I put that little hyphen in between. Do I regret it? Maybe. In 1960, the first are quadrenial, meaning held every four years. I see. I looked that up. Olympic-style games for athletes with disabilities.

were held in Rome. The quadrennial winter games were added in 1976 in Sweden. And like I said in the question, since the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games and the 92 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, the Paralympics have been held at the Olympic venues and have used the same facilities. So it used to be more separate,

but now one rolls into the other. And not to make this episode all about me, but 1988, the year I was born. Okay. So there you go. You changed the game, the Olympic Games. And Paralympic Games. Today we are talking about an event at the 2000 Summer Paralympic Games or the 11th Summer Paralympics which were held in Sydney.

In Sydney, a then record 3,801 athletes from 123 National Paralympic Committees participated in 551 events in 18 sports and all kicked off with the opening ceremony, emceived by one of Australia's great actors Brian Brown. Oh, they got Brian Brown? B, B on the mic. B. B on the mic. I'd be there going. There's a lot of comedians with him, like, has this guy even done em seen before? Like, could they have not got someone who's, you know,

done a bit of road shows? Yeah, this guy even do any life stuff? Come on. Can we get like an audience warm-up guy at least? They've got charisma. They had like, rove or something coming out and start that. And we're like, okay. Thank you, yes.

Now Brian Brown on the mug. Other performers included Yothu Yindi, Kirste, Christine Arno. Yes. Billy Thorpe. Yes. Taxi ride. Oh.

Venison. Everybody. Marana! Run away to me. Is it a no one? Oh my gosh. There's... There's meet you and then nowhere you're right.

We were just at different parts of the song. You know your taxi ride. Also Vanessa Amorossey. And in my mind, she also did the opening the Summer Olympics, right? Did she absolutely everybody? Possibly. I feel like I'd associate that song with the games. But maybe I've seen her do that in the Paralympics.

Who knows? Also, Kylie Minogue was there. She's saying an a cappella version of waltzing Matilda. You'd be like, okay, what else you got? Tell you what, though. One time I was traveling over, probably the first time I went traveling overseas, and I'd been away for a while, and I felt a bit homesick, and I watched Bachelor Girl sing Walsing Matilda at a footy grandfinal.

Watched a little YouTube of that and got a little misty eye. So don't underestimate the power of Walsing Matilda. Right, because I'm sitting there thinking, you're like, you're seeing one of Australia's greatest ever pop stars. Yeah. And she's going, once a jolly swine. Flagman. It's like, okay.

But like you're in the stands crying. You're bowling your eyes back. This is how you get back to full power. Not unlike my friend Clark Kent, who I referred to before, who needs to be exposed to the yellow sun to get back to full power. You need to, like you're crawling over to your laptop to click on, to type in walking Matilda. Worsing Matilda.

And then the evil villain that's about to destroy you. You type it in and he's like, one last blow it and you turn around it. And you're back to full power and you take him down. Kick him out of window. That's right. No, the thing that actually makes me a full power is watching Coldplay perform at the music festival in 2009, sound relief, and they play a version of You're the Voice,

and they bring John Farnham out to sing it. Gets me every time. Yeah, right. Powerful stuff, powerful stuff. It was amazing. So she then did her rendition of Cool and the Gangs Celebration. Sure. Everyone around the world.

Come on. Then her current hit spinning around, so she did do one of her. Okay, she started a little medley. Which is pretty great. Sure. Then Australian wheelchair race nine-time Paralympic gold medalist. Louise Savage lit the Paralympic cauldron and the games were off. Huge.

And like the Olympics before them, they were huge. I've even written here. The Sydney 2000 Paralympics sold a record-breaking almost 1.2 million tickets. Wow. People really got behind the games, great attendance across the board, and it was big. Now, just a bit more of a background. Every participant at the Summer Paralympics has their disability grouped into one of ten disability categories, which I wasn't fully across all the categories.

So in case you're like me, the Paralympic Australia website writes, the aim of classification is to group together athletes whose impairments affect them in similar ways in their sport. Without classification, there is no parisport. It is crucial to the integrity and fairness of parisport. competition. And the 10 categories include impaired muscle power, impaired passive range of movement, limb deficiency, leg length difference, short stature, hypotonia, which is increased muscle tension or stiffness and reduced ability to stretch, a taxia, which is a classification for athletes with uncoordinated movements caused by damage to the central nervous system, athotosis,

which is continuous low involuntary movements, vision impairment, and intellectual impairment. And the last category had debuted at the previous 1996 games and had an expanded list for sports in Sydney, including for the first time, basketball ID or basketball intellectual disability. Oh, cool. As far as comedy podcasts go, we're looking for some hot riff opportunities and just politely listening to a list of disabilities there. Very good. Very good. I didn't know that.

I didn't know the full classification. Obviously, to keep it fair for everyone. Yeah. You are competing against people. with similar disabilities, but I didn't know the exact 10. Yeah, that's interesting. Makes sense. So, that's all the background.

To get to the story today, one of the athletes who made their Paralympic debut at the Sydney 2000 Paralympics was Ramon Torres. ESPN made a ducco about this story in 2024 for their 30 for 30 series directed by Sumet Orum and interviewed almost 25 years after the Paralympics. Ramon Torres is still a big guy. He's covered in tattoos. Same.

Do you also have dead and life on your knuckles? Yep. Pretty badass? Yep. He's got a bunch of skulls. An owl on his throat that he says protects him from his enemies. Oh, I like that. He looks badass.

Cool. An owl tattoo on his throat. No, an owl. A tiny little owl. And his enemies come close and it flips him off. Get back. He said, fuck off. Get it.

That would work. That would work. Oh, yeah, I'd be scared by that. Somebody had an owl like taped to their neck. I'd give them a wide berth. That's true. That's way more scary than a tattoo. I'd be like, all right, man.

I'm sorry, is that our taped? I'd be worried about the well-being of the hour. I'd for sure. That's the 11th category as well as people with birds taped to them. Yeah, that's right. That is terrifying. Scary stuff. Scary.

Got a little tawny frog mouth stuck here. So, Ramon Torres was born into a Spanish family, but in the seaside town of Weymouth in England. So his first language is English. And he felt like a real outsider growing up. and was horribly bullied inside and outside of the classroom. Inside, he couldn't understand. The reading was often made to sit with a duncer's cap facing the wall. Awful stuff.

Oh, they had dantsas caps? Yeah. What a wonderful way to motivate children. Obviously, he's going to get the curriculum with this motivation. Yes, now he'll be able to read. He's missed the whole lesson by staring at the wall, wearing a thing that makes him feel horrific. Perfect.

And then outside the classroom, vicious bullies would say horrible things and beat him up. He had a bad time. He was scared of his dad also at home who seemed to disown him. And honestly, just a bad time across the board. He was later diagnosed a few years later, when he was about 12, as being intellectually disabled. The way Ramon himself describes it is,

he says, I do everything slowly. And he comes across in the docker as a real deep thinker who has internalized a lot of the hurt he felt, and it's emotional hearing about how people made him feel growing up. But he was close with his sister, Rosie, who taught him that he needed to stand up for himself

and fight back rather than silently take the beatings and inspired by watching Rocky. She recalls that in the movie, Rocky drinks cups of eggs, raw eggs for breakfast. So she said, Ramon, or Ray, she calls him, you've got to drink eight eggs. And he did it, and he just spewed everywhere. Of course he did.

And he's like, like, 35 years later, he's like, I still have the taste in my mouth. Yeah, I've tried it in my time. Have you tried? I've never done it. Yeah, because like those are those moments, you watch a movie like Rocky and you go, all right, that's how to do it.

I'm going to get fit and buff this week. And yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't take. I think the music, the montage music really goes a long way. You have to have the music underscore. You can keep it down if you have the music playing. And the appeal of the eggs, I don't need eggs, is the protein. Because they make really fun flavored protein powders now.

Yeah. You don't have to just skull raw eggs. We're past the cups of eggs, surely. Or at least you're mixing some chocolate powder in those. The eggs for fuck sake. But it's easier to get him down. I reckon, Dwayne the Rock Johnson's, he's drinking eggs, surely. He's probably doing like 36 a day.

Jess is feeling unwell. Yeah, that actually makes it feel a bit nauseous. Yeah, it's yucky. So they did the egg thing, but they also trained a lot. They went on runs, and she sort of tried to get him to fight back. One day a bully punched him as he always did, but this time every time. He didn't fight back, but he just got back up every single time. And this happened several times until the bully just stopped, because I guess he's like,

this guy just won't go down. Which the Chumbawamba defense. That's right. Exactly. That did take you a second. I watched the conch turning in your brain. Get knocked down. Yes.

Get back up again. Never going to keep him down. Not the whiskey drink part. It's still a young person. Just the egg nog drink. Everything's egg flip. The big end flavor. Too many eggs.

What flavor is egg flip? I think it's very similar sort of world to an egg dog. I think it's eggnogish. Yeah. My dad loves them because growing up it was like a, I think it's the 60-70s flavor. Right. And then every now and then Big Em, the milk brand brings him back.

And he's like, back to childhood. And I'm like, I can't get behind it. No. So things got harder for Ramon. I'm sorry to say, when at 12, his parents split up and he moved with his father to Valencia back in Spain, which separated him from his sister, Rosie, who was his big ally and protector. And he had no contact with him for over two years. And this was particularly difficult for Ramon, for Ramon, is he did not speak Spanish.

That's going to be challenging. That's challenging. Yes. Again, he was bullied. I don't understand separating the kids. No. And it's just going to lead to a parent trap situation as well. Yeah.

Alone to pass the time. He threw rocks at the metal number on the front of his house and sick of the annoying sound it made. His dad came out and said, here, play with this instead, and it was a spalling basketball. Oh, this is proper movie, like sports movie type stuff happening right here. Absolutely, yep.

And if it wasn't a basketball, it would have been a guitar it would have changed the whole course of his life. Whatever he got at that moment. It was going to be big. Yeah. And I appreciate that we even know the brand of basketball. Thank you. So I can visualise it probably.

We're not talking about a Wilson here, okay? No, thank you. This is a Spalding. Is there a third brand I could think of? Probably. Spalding was the name of the dentist in Castaway. And he used that as a fun little bit of chit-chat with Wilson the volleyball. And then it turned out because that was the only other character that existed in the thing,

that that was who Helen Hunter shacked up with when we got back to Dryland, which is crazy that she hooked up with the dentist. He hooked up with a one character. What are the chances? What are the chances? So it's been given the sporting basketball.

He was 16 years old, and Ramon became obsessed. Playing and bouncing the ball all day long. He said that, like, I'm sure my dad regretted giving it to me because I was now bouncing a basketball in the house all day long. He slept holding the ball, he showered with it, It became a lifeline for this troubled team. Oh, not unlike Castaway. Yeah.

Yeah. And he is castaway in a way. And he became skilled with the ball as well. Of course, being a team game, basketball has played with other people, Ramon was nervous about this. Yeah, fair. But he was encouraged to play with Spain's National Association of Special Sports, referred to as Andy, A&D, back from the acronym for the Spanish name for it,

founded by Fernando Martin Vicent. a connected businessman and former Madrid City Councillor, who was also the father of a disabled child, and he set up this organisation in the 70s. He was also the head of one of the six international federations of disabled athletes that make up the Paralympic family, the INASFID, or INESFIT, also the international sports organisation for persons with an intellectual disability,

and he was also a member of the International Paralympic Committees, or the IPC, ruling executive and vice president of Spain's Paralympic Committee. So if you're going to get anywhere in Paralympic sports and you're in Spain, this is a great guy to know, because he's at the head of everything, basically. Wow. It's all about who you know. Nepotism. Tell me about it. So Andy was a great way for kids with intellectual disabilities to play different sports.

And here, Ramon thrived. Basketball made him feel alive and like he could fly. This is all just beautifully wholesome. This is so nice. Like he could fly, not unlike. Oh, damn it. the R. Kelly song, I believe, I can fly from Space Jam. Yeah.

What about just like Michael Jordan? Yeah, that's true. But like, yeah, it's hard. He really wanted to bring up R. Kelly. You're like, this episode's too wholesome so far. Yeah. Let's bring up R Kelly. Bring up a bad person.

Well, the episode's so wholesome and sweet that I have to look for like other avenues to go down and go, oh, what's this? Oh, it's Raleigh. Oh, no. Yeah. Another dead end. So he was also very good at the sport. And people would tell him, you're good at this, and he recalled the feeling, I'm good at something? Oh.

That's a change. Did you guys have that growing up? Because I think that's such a big thing for a kid, for a young person, be told you're good at something. Because I feel like I didn't get that very much. I got it for writing. I wrote like a big old story across a bunch of different exercise books. And people were like, wow, this is like, actually, it was more about the quantity. Because I don't think anyone really read it because it's so long.

This is huge. Because it was more about, it was more about that. Like, oh, you've filled a bunch of exercise books with this story. Well done. But then it's not really much you can do with that. It's like, oh, cool, you're going to read it? No. Oh, you're going to, what do I do with this now?

Like, it's huge to be told that. Like, were you encouraged as a child, yes? No. And that's why I do this. No, I was, yeah. And it was, yeah, I was encouraged for humor. Really? Yeah, yeah.

That's a rare thing. Like my parents would point it out, which... They go, you're a funny girl. Yeah, yeah, stuff like that. She's funny. She's got a good sense of humor. And so then you just sort of, you believe that about yourself. It's really nice.

That's rare. But, yeah, no, I was actually good at heaps of things, so it was probably hard for them to choose. Yeah, I love them just praising you all the time. Yeah. Who's got the time for that? No, no, no. So they went the other way and just sort of beat me down a lot. My one was, in early prime school was maths.

We got at maths. We got it, maths, went to the couple of the... What are they called? Gateways Yes. For a quite gifted children. We had a tournament of minds. We probably did have two words,

but I didn't hear about it because I was on the lower end of maths. I hit all my activity sheets in grade three in a drawer because I was in that range that if you were really good, you would get the teachers' attention because you go, oh, give me another activity sheet, miss, I'm crushing it. Or if you're really bad, they can see that you are struggling. But if you're just quiet in the middle, you can, you can, you can, you can, sneak every blank activity sheet that you never really did into that tray and at the end of the school year sneak it into a bin and not do any maths for a really important part of your life.

Yeah, really formative time. I want to praise you for that, we're being like, this deception is quite advanced. Yeah. You should go to the gateways for lying. And then, like, yeah, in high school, it was like dramay sort of stuff. Yes, yeah, yeah, performing. That all makes sense now. Doesn't it?

Here we all are. Look at what we do. So back to Vermont. It is beautiful. It's so hostile at this stage. He played with the team and he won championships and then he joined Spain's national team playing in Greece and Brazil. So he also gets to travel. Is he quite tall? Yeah, he's a big guy. Yeah, right. Tall guy. Yep. That's what tall people get asked. Do you play basketball? Did you get that a lot growing up? Yeah, I got that a lot. And also when I went to a service station at ages 19 to 20 or so, a lot of people coming in. And also, then I got, do you play football as well? And then just every time I'd have to go. I'm tall, but I have no talent. That's the real important part. And they found that as well when they put me in the special sports team in year nine. Henley High School had a special sports division, people who were the elite squad.

And they only, they cast me on height. I think that casting is what they call it in the sports board. Yes, you audition for the basketball team. Yeah, walk across the pitch. Yep. They quickly realized that height was not going to be enough. Yeah, you have to grab the ball. But just plant you under the ring and just, like, fob it into you.

I was so uncoordinated. And I learned later as well that if you are tall and rapidly growing at, you know, in those early ages, your body's coordination isn't keeping up with it as well, which I didn't learn until later. And a lot of kids who grow very quickly into big heights like you did will have, like, they have issues with their ligaments and muscles. And one of my cousins had to, like, take a year. off sport because he's probably your height as well. I dare say actually taller.

Is that possible? He's a freak. Can you be tall in six, five? Oh, no, he might be your height. Because his legs couldn't carry. He was a great cricketer, but he was too injury. He kept getting injured because his body just hadn't caught up with how quickly he'd grown. Wow.

Pretty crazy. Crazy. That's why you just want to be average height. Tall for a girl, so I played a forward or a center at basketball. But a deeply average. That's why you want to be a small man Because no one will even ask you if you want to play So you don't have to show everyone that you are also uncoordinated

The worst of all worlds What about Mugsy Bowes? He was a short play I'm tall than Mugsy Berg's. Oh really? Yeah, right. Yeah. I believe that.

Wow. I don't know. You're too busy doing your maths homework at the side of the court. They're not asking you. You're pushing your glasses up your nose. It's true. Dave's like, you know what needs a gateway? Let me know.

So, everyone, he's doing great. He then became the captain. He's kicking goals, or should I say shooting goals? You should say that, and you wrote it ahead of time. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. In 1999, he was invited to meet the King and Queen of Spain in Madrid. Wow.

After his team won the Baron de Gael Cup at the National Sports Awards, Ramon was nervous, but was accompanied by Fernando Martine Vicente, the head of the Andy organisation. And his father framed a photo of Ramon meeting the king and left it in his son's room. and Ramon felt like it was his dad finally telling him he was proud of something he did. Oh, you could just tell him. Well, he didn't say it.

No, no, no, no, dads don't say that. Come on, come on, dads of the world. But he did say, he left the photo and later said, that's a nice photo. I'm assuming my estranged dad is listening to this very episode, considering whether he's going to put up a framed photo of me and meeting the king and queen of Spain. Oh, the king and queen of podcasting, David and I.

We're not giving a photo. We will not be taking a photo. Why don't dads just say they're proud? Just say it. Just say it for fuck sake. Yeah. Do you know how often now I go to anybody else? You're proud of me?

You know, I really ask for it now. Sad. I like to tell my friends I'm proud of them. It's nice. I tell my friends I love them. Yep. We've got to be better. We've got to be better.

Yeah, I tell my two-year-old, I'm proud all the time. It means nothing. She doesn't give a shit. I'm just saying it. Yeah. I'm like, you put away your books. I'm proud of you. And is your two-year-old ever saying it back?

Never. Hang on. She'd never said. and proud of you. Wow. I'll have a word. Thank you. Please.

Don't get proud of him. He put away the books for months before you could. So then in 2000, this summer Paralympics came to Sydney. And like I said, intellectually disabled basketball was making its big debut. And Ramon, he got the call up for the National Squad. Yes. He received a letter, but it was too nervous to open it, so his sister had to look at it first. Oh, they're reunited?

Yeah, because this is a few years later, yeah. Is he back in, so he's going to be playing for Spain? He's playing for Spain, yeah. Wow, huge. And not only was he selected, he was named as the captain. Oh, what an honour. Or as the Spanish say, Capitano. He was El Capitano.

Oh, my gosh. Is that what that means? Yeah, I'm pretty worldly. That's crazy. He's Dutch. This is why you get the B team in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Matt would never know that.

Yeah, God, he struggles with one language. Matt's fine, by the way. He's fine. He's fine. Yeah. So he's the captain. He literally cried with the joy when he got the letter. Oh, it's so nice.

So he goes all the way to Australia, goes to the opening ceremony. I assume he rocked out to Taxi Ride and Kylie. Of course. And I assume Taxi Ride is like one of your biggest bands of all times. And will be forever. A big export, yeah. Australia says, yep. Because we should say to international listeners, like Taxi Ride was big at the time.

No one thinks about taxi ride at all. No. All we think of is get said, everybody. I think that's got Stain Power because it's on like a Mazdaad or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's not even them seeing it. It's like, you know, when they get like session musicians to make it even more watered down. Yeah, yeah.

So, but I hope they got paid really well for it. I'm going to see what sort of monthly streams taxi rides getting. It's exciting to cry over a letter. It's rare to get letters in the mail these days. Yeah. I mean, I've got a couple of bills that I've cried over for sure. Oh, this guy. Is that the price on my phone number?

Have you ever said that before? No, but I should. Taxi rides still rocking 132,000 monthly lessons. That's great. And isn't Get Set everybody? Are they still together? No, Getset is their second biggest song. What's number one?

Number one is creeping up slowly. Oh, that's right. How's that one go? Yeah, and creeping up slowly. It's taking me over. She's turning me on. That's great. Yeah, that has 18 million listens.

I believe they're called ride share. Fuck me. Fuck you Nah, fuck you Get out You know Like Jefferson The Starship

Was Jefferson Airplane They've had to They gotta update themselves From a star We don't have starships Anymore We're all an aeroplanes You know how Snoop Lion was

Snoop Dog And Bow Wow Was Little Bow Wow Is he big bow wow now He's just bow wow Yeah Like there's a time And you look yourself

In the room You know I'm not Lil A little You ever think about rebranding? Yeah. Well, I already have.

I was Lil Dave Warnocky. Lil? And then I was master Dave Warnocky. Yes. Which according to my debit car, I still am. Are you, when, at what point will you change to David? I mean, I've got all the handles on and the website. I got Dave Warnocky.com.

Sure. I don't think I, is there a David Warniky.com? No one take it if it isn't. It'd be some IT guy or something like that. There's Dave Warnkey.com who is an artist who does great work. David Warnocker.com is available. At time of recording, I'm going to get it. Otherwise, someone's going to steal it for you.

Someone's going to do it 100%. And they'll try and sell it to you for millions of dollars. I'll just be happy to be Dave Warnocky forever. Do you think, I think we've talked about... What about socially? Like, at what age will you start to introduce yourself as David? I think Dave's okay. Davey?

Davey's not okay. For a 35 plus minute. Okay. Only if you become a pirate. You're back. I think it's when maybe you're like a grandparent. Yeah. Grandpa Dave.

Grandpa Dave's fun though, especially if you have a skateboard. I will. I'll be back in. I'll be back in. That's Grandpa Dave on the skateboard and his weird friend Jess. She's at the full body cast. She always here. She had to go on the skateboard.

They're always talking into those microphones that aren't plugged in to do anything. But it makes them happy. It's like when they give old people like little baby dolls to look after, they'll just give us microphones. Grandpa Dave's always doing the same report, but Jess can't remember it. Oh, this is sad now. No, but we're happy. We're having a good time.

But it made me sad about aging. Dave, could we go to the same nursing home? I'd love that. That'd be nice. That'd be really nice. Let's look into that. Side by side rooms. Back to the report.

The Matt Stewart nursing home. He's long dead, but he's got like a marble statue at the front. We go visit his statue every morning. Kiss his feet. It's weird. You know, just like we did every day when we get here. Yeah, that's right. He makes us kiss it.

It's beautiful to have a week off kissing. But here's the thing because like this is one of those flash forwards where we've gone into the future to see how your life turned out. And you guys are both old talking into these unplugged microphones. We cut to Matt Stewart's marble statue and I guess Matt finally did pass away even though he was as old as the wind. There was a time where he finally died and you go out there and kiss his feet and then he steps out from behind the statue and goes, yeah, they got my likeness down pretty well.

And he still looks like his current self, but Dave and I are very old. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be good. And then he says, hey, I think it's time for another episode. and then you all go into the studio and then we fade to black. Oh, that's nice. I hope I'm wearing a cardigan. And then you just like turn the oxygen supply after the studio.

And we all slowly pass. We don't know. Dave, let's die together. In this movie, that's the mid-credit sequence. Nick Fury comes into the room to recruit you guys for the Avengers of podcasting, but you are both deaths. I'm too late. Oh, well. Matt's nowhere to be seen.

But wake up. So he's made the Paralympics. It's literally not even a dream come true because for most of his life, he couldn't have even dreamt that this was possible. So nice. So big. And he looked around the team. He previously only played on the national team with a few players in 98-99.

Everyone else was new and came from all over Spain, but they were really good. The youngest player was 17 years old, Adolfo Pervida. Wow. In the competition, there were two groups of four teams where they all played each other, the other team in their group once, and the top two went through to the semifinals. In Spain's Group A, there was also Japan, Portugal and Brazil. The first game was against Japan. Spain absolutely smashed them, 87 to 20 points.

Oh, sorry, Japan. And Ramon, actually, he felt bad about seeing the other team lose. And he later said, something just felt wrong. But anyway. I get that. I was in the bad team in school. There was the two teams. There was the Lockley's North sharks and the Lockley's North lasers.

The lasers were the good team and the sharks were the bad. team. We were in the Sharks. And you just get smashed a bit. And we get smashed. Because like the lasers, they got cast from all the best players in the primary school. And then the sharks were the leftovers. So we were the underdogs.

And when we'd play a little scratch match of like, all right, our two teams are going to play each other for practice. Oh, okay. They would obliterate us. And what's for was this? Basketball. Basketball. So I get that thing of going, oh, that wasn't really a competition.

Well, you don't see it because he, he, is. has, Ramon's team has smashed them, he's won, and then looked at the losing team and gone, oh, that's sad. And you've never experienced that. That's true. The lasers, and also the lasers as well never had that feeling. They were like, yeah, we're just great. The coach never said like, hey, maybe to take it easy for five minutes.

They just kept dunking on you, kept dunking. It was that sort of feeling. Have mercy. Please, come on. I have had that thought when I've been losing a game really badly, and they're still going, like, giving a hundred and episode. I'm like, all right. When you're playing Mario Kart and you're,

lapping your friends. You're like, okay, we get it. You play a lot of this. Yeah, this is sad. Yeah, this is actually sad for you that you play myro cart this much alone. Oh, smash you. Yeah, cool, man. But Ramon, he was starting to be at the Paralympics,

so he was very excited to see other sports and watch the other athletes do what they are best at. He asked his teammates if they wanted to go out, but only one player was interested, a guy he had played with before from Barcelona called Juan Pereira, and he didn't understand why the others didn't want to go and soak up the atmosphere and just see the other sports. In fact, Ramon had a weird feeling about the team in general.

He phoned and told his sister, the team was odd. And she asked what he meant. And he said, they're odd because they don't seem odd. And she didn't understand what he meant. Can we pause here? Because this is the thing we do go on episodes is that there is like a twist. Like sometimes you don't know if you're in like a terrorist episode, but you don't know you're in a crime sting episode.

True. And like, have we gotten to the USP of this episode yet? Is there a twist coming? Or is this just a lovely story about? this goes back. When you say USP? The unique selling point. Like,

what have we gotten to us? What are you in marketing? I know. Fuck it out. Once again, get out. We'll just do the other two people. The unique selling point.

Have we got to the USP? Shut up. How are we using that term in your life? I'm sorry, if we hit our KPI for today. Have we? Is it all right? I'm trying to think of one,

but I don't even know any of that language. But what I'm saying is, what's the ETA for you to fuck off? We're through the one episode. There is a certain dread that comes into it of like, oh, is there going to be a bad thing that happens? Yeah. Or is this a lovely story? Well, he can't tell us, can he?

Because then that ruins the twist if it's coming. That's true. Do we want to put any guesses? Yeah, how are you feeling at this? Is this time for a patented Jess guess? Well, I've, I was, here's the crazy thing. I was listening to Dave. Uh-huh.

And so I think I'm getting the gist. But I reckon in the next couple of sentences, he might tell us. Okay. Yeah. No, it's a little bit longer before the USP comes up. May you be that correctly? I don't know. I can't answer your question.

I'm going out with friends. Because I'm also pacing myself with that idea of like, are we in the heart of it yet? Have we gotten to the inciting incident? Yeah, yeah. Or are we still in Act 1? I guess if I can change my parlance to film parts. Now I'm with you.

Okay, no, we are beyond Act 1. Okay, great. Okay. That was getting to the Olympics, I suppose. Just to put it into a parlance, I understand, in terms of rom-coms, is there going to be a third act of breakup? Yes. But now that he's also suspicious of his teammates, I'm going, are they all spies? And is this some sort of spy thing situation?

I do find it interesting that, like, you know, they're playing for their country, but most of them haven't played together. I always find that very interesting with that kind of, like Olympics or like when the wallabies or like any kind of a, you know, national team. The dream team. Yeah, and like you haven't actually, you don't all play together all year. But obviously they're like, they're so elite. They're incredible at what they do. But there is a nice thing of when you're playing with people that you've played with for

a while and you know how each other work and you work really well together. I find it really interesting. This is the reason why the B team will never work. Is that what you're saying? That's what I'm getting at. That's what I'm getting at. I'm saying that Dave and I, there's an unspoken, we're doing a dance at all times. You know?

We get each other, you know. But we don't know the choreography, but we still, it's still beautiful. It's in our bones. But you know, you're absolutely right, because I remember when I did the two dream teams episode, about the 92 basketball at the men's basketball at the Olympics, and they had, you know, the Michael Jordans and the Larry Birds and Magic Johns and everyone together. But the first time they played together, they were beaten by a college team because they had never played before and also they couldn't get over their own egos.

Totally, yeah. And the coach had to be like, see? this is what happens when you don't actually play properly together. Yeah. You've got to get over yourselves. So it is a bit weird when you come together and... Yeah, it must be. You're not always automatically going to be the best.

Totally. And you're like... At first, so you're train and get into it. You're doing passes to somebody as you would with your teammate at home, but they're not expecting it or... What the hell's that play? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is interesting.

So anyway, he went out, he saw other sports. Ramon loved it and the wheelchair basketball, especially blew him away with their power. Yeah, amazing. But then they kept playing. The next game was against Brazil. a tougher team they played before. Ramon got called off the bench and nailed a three-pointer.

He played really well and the team won, again, easily, 97 to 48. And that was despite Jess's dad in the audience cheering on Brazil? Was he still there? He's having such a great time. He's like, hey, I can't foster you. I'm going to stay. Jess is calling dad and be like, I'm really sick. Can you come home?

Mom's like, I'm home with a sick kid and you're in the Brazilian cheer squad. She's going to do, Olae, ole. It's having so much fun. I think they had a great time. But my parents, I mean, it wasn't, like, no one's fault. I got sick, whatever. But so when the Commonwealth Games were in Melbourne many six years later or something, I went to the opening ceremony.

We went to basketball. We went to athletics. We went to a lot of things. This is how I'm taking Bart to the itchy and scratchy movie like decades of the future. Yes, yes, yes. They were like, she didn't get to go to the Olympics. Me and Dad refused to go because Brazil are not in the Commonwealth. What am I going to do?

What am I going to do with this T-shirt? Yeah. I look weird. I can't stand out Myel long t-shay. What if he still has it? I'd love to see it. I'll ask.

If there's any old photos, please. I'd love to see it. It's got it. It's got to be somewhere. The Brazil cheers got it's so fun. Yeah. So they then beat Portugal, 73, 58 to easily top their group undefeated.

So they're three at the semifinals. Two Portuguese-speaking teams in a row. Smashed them both. In the semis, they... Portugal, really? The Brazilian speak Portuguese. No. Oh, I see.

Jess is having me on. and I fell right into her trap. I'm tricky like that. So in the semis, they swept Poland, 97 to 67. Three Portuguese speaking teams. To set up the stage for the gold medal match against Russia. Oh, yeah, you want Russia to be the ones in the end. You know, your sort of cool running situation or your rocky threes.

A miracle on ice. Is Russia the assholes in? I think it's Switzerland. Yeah, that's true. Which is crazy. But they have a Russian vibe in cool runnings. Agreed. Because it was that time in movies where Russia was just the baddies in everything.

Yeah. Poor Russia. Yeah, poor Russia. If only they could... They just got such a hard time. Yeah. I wonder why. The Russians were easily the best team Spain faced and played a much more physical game.

If you watch the highlights, that people are getting knocked over, left right and center. But the buzzer... Oh, but who knows how to get back up after being knocked down. That's right. And he's trained for this. He's eaten eggs for this exact situation. And here's what my older brother taught me, because I played basketball because he played basketball

and I just wanted to be like him. Yeah, me too. Little Jess, he never called me that. He called me dopey. I haven't heard that before. Okay. Oh, we're getting new canon. Yeah, new family canon.

Called me dopey. It hurts. Anyway, he was like... He's so bashful. It took you this many years into Dugel and to finally open up. Yeah. He was like, basketball is a non-contact sport. if you don't know what you're doing.

Oh, that's good. There's subtle ways. This is the voice in your head as you're on the court as well. We're hearing this as Jess is going into like fire up mode. Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't happen often because I'm not very competitive. But if somebody ruffs me around, unfortunately they are going to hit the ground. Wow, Jason Satham style, you dedicate the rest of your life.

Okay. To killing them. So unfortunately, I was a fast runner so I could catch them. And I'm much more solid than most women my age. So I could take, I could hit it down. Lower center of gravity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you weren't afraid of being fouled off or going to jail.

I don't know. I'll kill you on the court. But as sports movies go, Ramon is on the ground right now and his sister's voices in his head just saying, get up, beat the egg. Get back up. Get back up. Oh, I'm British. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Get up, Ray. Get up, right. You got to get up. He's hearing the Beatles. The ring goes just going around his head. I think I've had a concussion.

I'm hearing wringo in my head. But he did get back up, and the buzzer went. Ramon looked at the board and his face dropped. They'd won 87 to 63 and were Paralympic champion. Wow. And the Russians would have been so disappointed. Yes, sorry, Russia. Hugs and celebrations all round.

They're going to put us in the gulag in St. Petersburg. Is that where St. Petersburg? That's where the Guleks are. Oh, yeah, they're always very close to the, uh, the Mucats. main cities. Yes, it is, yes. And that was a very good Russian accent. Thank you so much. You know, I'm jumping between accents over here. And I'm filling in for the man of a thousand sound effects or something. Yeah, yeah. Fernando Martine from Andy, who had taken room under his wing years earlier, was there to present him and the others with their gold medals.

Oh, and he probably has grey hair now. He's a little bit aged, but still handsome, you know. Yeah. Yeah, that's nice. I'm picturing a real Mr. Sheffield. Yeah, like a father figure He's clapping, because you want to look up to the bleachers and see your father figure, you know, in the thing clapping you on. I'm sorry to be crying on the bug. It's okay. It's okay. Do imagine Fernando Martin, he is, what I would say is imagine a Spanish businessman. He looks exactly like that.

Imagine a pinstripe suit. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes he's wearing a turtleneck. Love it, yes. Very jet black hair, probably. Maybe Pedro Pascal can play him in the movie. Yeah, definitely I could see that. And also, like, we zoom in as well on Pedro Pascal in the bleachers clapping.

And, like, also, Ramon didn't even know he was going to make it. But then even bigger than that, he, it pans over. The king and queen of Spain are also there. And also in full royal guard. Yes, but then they open their robes and they're wearing t-shirts with his face on it. Oh, yeah, that's fun. Yeah. That is so lovely.

And then pan over again, and there's a reserve sign for, like, his dad. on an empty chair. And then pan over again, and it's my dad in the cheer squad. This is writing itself. And he goes, this is in Brazil? And then pan over again. Pan over again, and it's his sister there because we remember that our siblings,

they parent us as well. Your siblings, they form a very strong role. And we need to remember that sometimes we can ignore the father and look to who was actually there. Oh, stop crying. Sorry. The mic is getting wet. You can call your older brothers

when we leave the studio, okay? And tell them you love them. All right. I shan't be following suit. Ramon said of the middle, it was like it went through my body, like it was part of me. This gold medal filled my dream.

Oh, it's so nice. Beautiful. And I truly wish I could tell you that the story stops here in triumph, but sadly it doesn't because here is the USP. Oh my God, the USP! Fucking hell I've been talking a lot about the behind the scenes

on the comedy writers group podcast which I host and a lot of it is about how you sell yourself as a comedian how you brand yourself SYS, sorry so so good because Spain winning the gold medal and made the papers back home with a photo of the team proudly standing

on the podium including on the front page of the popular Madrid sports daily Masa one man was particularly keen to see who'd made that team. And that was Javier Vega. He coached one of the best teams that played ID basketball in Spain. And he talks about, Ramon was on a different team.

And he was like, he was a real pain in the ass whenever we went up against him because he was so good, formidable. That's great. And Javier Vega's team had recently won the Spanish championship. And none of his players had been called up for the national squad. To his huge surprise. He's like, not one made it?

The phone never rang. So he got out his magnifying glass to have a look at the squad in detail, and he could not believe his eyes. He recognised some of the players. And he says, he thought, fuck, that's Fernando. That's Angell. That's Benito. And the reason he was shocked was he knew these players.

Very good players from the Veterans League, who he was certain were not disabled. Oh, twist. Is this the USB? He then realized that there were two more plays in the photo that he knew and were not disabled. And he wasn't the only one having this realisation, the Guardian rights of people commenting on early internet forums as rumours began to spread. Impostas.

Antonio Garcia, who was a press officer at a local club and a journalist working for the weekly basketball magazine, Gigantes del basket, or the giants of basketball. He was alerted to the story and started investigating with Kiki Panado. Another player was identified as Juan Luis, a player from Estudiantes, one of Spain's, top four teams. A two meter ten professional

who was very recognisable. What? Two meter ten? Yeah, like a seven foot dude. Whoa. And very, yeah, very, very, very, very, very, recognized. It's hard to hide this guy. They also identified Kiki Castro,

the coach of one of Estudianza's youth teams. All up, they identified nine of 12 players as not having a disability. How were they, they were, had they changed their names or whatever? How did they, try and get away with this. Didn't change their names.

Oh. They just thought, well, this probably doesn't get as much press, so nobody will know. Yeah, no, we'll see this. We'll just win the gold medal. So they identified everyone except for Ramon and Juan Pereira, who both played together and were both intellectually disabled, and one other guy they didn't recognize in the squad. Okay. They ran the story in their magazine, shitting themselves a bit because of what if somehow they're

wrong, and you're saying, that person's not disabled, and then they are. Like, it's not... Yeah, yeah, yeah. They felt it was a bit of a risk to accuse people of being impostors when they're not. But they were pretty confident because people were like, no one know that guy. Yeah. So they published the article saying who the team were, saying that they're mostly fakes, just six days after the photo had gone out.

But the team was still in Sydney, Australia. Wow. So I think they're all going to fly home, a lot of the Spanish athletes together on a chartered plane. So the magazine interviewed Fernando Martine, the head of Andy, over the phone and asked if the players had a disability. And he said, yes, I've got certificate. proving they all do. So the article was published under the headline, The Great Deception.

And people who read it were like, wow, that's terrible. But it wasn't received like the bombshell they expected. They were joking about winning a Pulitzer Prize, thinking that this is like the basketball scoop of the century. This is such an outrageous story. But because it's like a trade magazine that people who love basketball are into, didn't really get out to the wider press. Still the players were flying back home as it was being published, and they had no

idea the story was breaking just before they landed. But like I said, it wasn't huge news, and no one asked the players about it at the airport. There's a lot of journalists there to celebrate all the Spanish Paralympian athletes returning, but no one said, hey, you guys faked it or anything like that. They didn't get off the plane, a bunch of people booing them and stuff. No, in fact, it was completely opposite. When Ramon landed, his family was waiting, and he got huge cheers from a large crowd that gathered, he'd worn his gold medal the whole flight home. It was like another huge moment of trial. And also great to go to an airport and me passing through security

and the metal thing beats and you go, that's just my gold medal. Sorry, did I forget to take my gold medal off? I didn't think I had to take this off. Sorry about that. Can I put that on a tray on its own? I'm going to watch that one go through because I'm making sure that comes out the other end.

Thanks very much. It's off. The people who blew the whole thing wide open and exposed the story to the world were actually from Capital Magazine. Because it turns out the player that the others couldn't name of the photo on the podium wearing a gold medal was Carlos Ribagoda.

I should have known. An undercover journalist. What? Now, this is the movie. Is this another USB? What? Yeah, this was exciting. Yeah.

Who could play basketball? He could play basketball, yeah. Wow. But it was also undercover. So you're a journalist and good at sport. Is that possible? And also it had never been kissed. Wow.

Yeah, I was hoping to smooch one of the basketball players for an article. Didn't happen. Wow, okay, what the fuck? Yeah, Carlos Ribagoda had played basketball at a semi-pro level in some of the lower leagues until he went to university to study journalism, and then he stopped playing basketball. You can still play socially. Yeah, that's true. He said I had to focus on one.

I guess properly. Like, you know, he was playing semi-professionally. Didn't quite make it. You hang up your basketball shoes. You pick up your journalism shoes. Yeah, that's why I had to stop Taekwondo. Yeah, exactly. And also because you're a deadly weapon as well.

Yeah, too powerful. Yeah, if you get into a fight, you have to declare. Yeah. I have to say, okay, but I'll run out and ask kick your head off. What belt we talk you? Red. That's pretty good, isn't it? I only got up to yellow.

I fired it on someone at Taekwondo. Does that make... I mean, surely you get the brown belt for that. So, we're going to need to hear that. I was probably about 11, and they were getting us to do team stretches. And one of these team stretches was you to put your feet together, like you're sort of making a diamond in the middle with your feet, and like then you'll reach out to each other's hands.

And like, and you would sort of back and forth stretch each other. So you sort of crotch is pointed at the person opposite. it and I happened to be paired up with like the one like attractive young woman who was also a similar age to me in this taekwondo class and just farted in her general direction and and you were like I can't come back or they said you can't come back yeah yeah and that was the that was the second of two farts that are can of events actually in at the taekwondo they also lined us up doing roundhouse kicks with the coach holding the pads yeah and when it was my turn to kick. I kicked and farted at the same time. And he said, oh, maybe don't eat.

And he was like a German sort of guy. So I'll just do like a vague European accent. He's like, oh, maybe don't eat beans before class. And I'm like, oh. I've never had beans in my life. But also, like, it's at that crappy age as well where you just don't know what you're eating and like what it's doing to your body. So like, I'm at the mercy of just like whatever your body decides to do. Yeah, yeah. And it just, oh, man, turning beet red. In Taekwondo class. Yeah. I could have been somebody.

But they're so casually bringing it up today. Yeah, I find out someone on time. And like, almost as if we would not ask follow-up questions. But, you know, this wholesome report, the B team, I've got to do whatever I can do in this report. The B team, more like. Still got it. And I'm crying again. Oh, my God.

So there's an undercover journalist on the team. Yeah. And in March 1999, this is Carlos Rupertogati. he was fresh out of uni and a friend called him and said he was onto something big. His real name is just like Tony Smith or whatever, but he's put on a big Spanish moustache. Carlos, I remember I got it. A friend called him and said, I'm onto something big. He was certain that players on the ID National Basketball team were in fact not intellectually disabled.

So he decided to go undercover and try and get onto the team. And because the guy who alerted to him had a connection to the team was sort of outraged what was going on. But he said, I can get you onto the team because you're really good at basketball. Wow. And with his basketball skills, he was. gladly accepted being invited invited to train in Madrid. They knew he was a journalist. Isn't there a Johnny Knoxville movie that's like a similar plot where he like sneaks into like a

disability sort of team or whatever because he's like, I could win in the Paralympics or something. I think it's, yeah, that's the special Olympics because I was telling Sammy Peterson about this story the other day. He goes, is that what the Johnny Knoxville movie is inspired by? We looked at the Ringer. The Ringer. Which, um, it didn't mention that it was inspired by this, but it really, it really could have been. Yeah. I think the Johnny Knoxville movie is a bit more off-color,

but then also tries to be a little wholesome at the same time. Like, it is just like, oh, wouldn't that be funny? It's like, oh, yeah. Apparently the film was endorsed by Real Life Special Olympics. Oh, that's nice. They got signed off on the script. And it's a stacker's, Brian Cox is in it, Catherine Heigel as well. Well, there you go.

There you go. Brian Brown. Let me check out, BB. Should have been. Should have been him. So, he gets onto the team he's invited to train in Madrid. He later told The Guardian, there were five months of training with not a single disabled person inside. So at this point, I don't think they're even training with people like Ramon.

Interesting. What? It's just like doing their own inside thing. Carlos Rubigoda himself went to Portugal with the team, and some of his new teammates had already been to a world championship in Brazil. And he heard from other players that the team that won the ID-1998 World Cup in Brazil had at least four players on the team without any disability. So it'd been gone for quite a while. Come on, Spain.

Oh, my God. That's horrific. It's unbelievable. It's vile. But also, like, what... Inescusable shit. For what gain? Just like national pride or something?

It's not like there's a huge cash prize or something. Yeah. So, Carlos said he felt the big prize for men he was getting to go on a trip all the way to Sydney, telling the Guardian, I think people saw it as a free trip to Australia. There was even some pride at wearing the Spanish team strip. Right. Wow. So they were like, I guess doing it for the country, but also they get to go on this trip.

Do you know what I did always get into when the Olympics came around was, what's their uniform going to be this year? Show me their outfits. And they'd always do like a photo shoot. It was always like a business suit type. They're always like, whoa. You know what you'd be good at is the commentary when they're doing the opening ceremony, that you could do those, that you'd be a very good person going, oh, yeah, they're looking

good. All the team from Portugal is coming through. And oh, look at who's waving the flag this time around. I think you'd be good at that. Yeah, I think you'd say like, oh, here are other people from Japan. Of course, this is a nod to one of the imperial dynasties or something like that on their, there's a little quest there, you know, a little bit of history. I am incredible at geography and history.

I'm sure they give you an iPad with that written in front of it. You just make it sound natural. I don't know, you got it. Just as like, turn off the iPad. I got this. I got this. I'm off book. All right, the English people, what's that? They're wearing brown, brown sauce.

I love brown sauce. What else we got here? Sorry, that's just the janitorial stuff. I'm sorry. Oh, that person's just had an accent. Probably too much brown salt. So it's worth noting that the players didn't get paid to go. You're absolutely right.

There is no big cash prize. They just had the trip paid for, and they had a $150 Australian dollar stipend. That's it. Total. That's not a peddium? No, no pet. I think because you're at the Olympic Village, all your meals are covered. Yeah.

So it's just souvenirs. Your condoms are covered? Kind of not covered. What about beers? I reckon you get a couple? Surely. Because otherwise, 150 bucks across a couple of weeks.

That's just stupid. It's just magnets. Yeah, exactly. And especially, you don't want to be that person that you get your pocket money from your parents, or parent in my case,

famously. Which one? You don't want to be the one who spends their money straight away. That was actually supposed to be for the whole time. Oh, shit, I've spent it all on that.

Oh, no, I'm the kid. They spent all the money straight away, and they went, fuck. And then they left you like, you have to keep asking your siblings for a chip or whatever. Just one chip. Just one. Just give me cheaper. It's just one.

Meika. I'll pay back later. Dopey. I'll tell mama. So Carlos Rubbergo to the journalist was invited to join the Paralympic team, getting an official letter like Ramon had received, except he had not undergone any of the required strict testing to make sure he qualified to compete to someone with an intellectual disability.

Usually you were required to, undergo a series of strict tests and have an IQ under 75 and have limitations in two or more adapted skill areas and to have had the intellectual disability since before the age of 18. Like I was at the start, to keep it fair for everyone, there's a strict set of criteria. Instead, Carlos had done some push-ups and met a doctor when he was signed on. He never did any form of IQ test. The push-ups were optional. He just did that.

He's just showing off. And he also didn't need to take his shirt off. It was a hot doctor and he was like, I'm just going to be. I'm going to do a few of these. They farted on the doctor. It's embarrassing. So it turns out that 10 of the 12-man squad were also competing under similar false pretenses.

Oh my God. Isn't that crazy? According to the journalist Carlos, in their match against Japan, the team played too well, the first match. When more than 30 points ahead at halftime, they were ordered by their coach to slow down their scoring and let the other team shoot more. Because otherwise people are going to get suspicious that you'll You're too good at this.

They're going, this is a lasers versus shark situation. You need to let the sharks just get a few. That sucks. After they won the gold medal, before they landed back in Madrid, the team manager told the not disabled players to grow a beard, wear a hat or sunglasses to avoid being recognized around Spain. Because now the photo has been published. It's on the front page of quite a few sports newspaper.

It's so hard to grow a beard when you're told to grow a beard. Come on. I know. Dave's been trying for years. I know. I'm like, all right, six years later, I'm kind of ready to go undercover. They're like, no one cares anymore. And also for the journalists greeting people at the airport going,

hey, that's Carlos. He's on the basketball tissue. Had Carlos remembered to, like, turn the press, like his press hat around? Like, he's got that hat with it with a little piece of paper. Yeah, of course. No one recognized him at all. There's footage of him being interviewed at the airport, and he's still having to remain undercover, being like,

oh, it's a great honor to. have played for my country. They're probably thinking like, oh my God, I'm about to expose all these guys. So he published his Gonzo-style article in Capital Magazine a few weeks later. And when you say Gonzo, you mean like the Muppet? Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. Sort of endearing, talking to the camera. We love him.

No, a large spread with the headline, fraud at the Paralympics. And this is when the story hit national and international headlines. So it really exploded from here. The Paralympic Committee launched an investigation. The Federation and Fernando Martin in Spain denied the scandal saying it was all a lie. But the investigation proved otherwise. I'm so disappointed in Fernando. I know.

Yeah, I had a letter, you know, Abba wrote a whole song about this guy. Yes. You hear the drums, Fernando. That was really good. In case people didn't know what song I was talking about. But I still don't think they do, because I'm not sure that was it. There was something in me yet. Fernando. So the certificates showing the men's disabilities had all been forged. For example,

the 17-year-old Adolfo said he had meningitis as a child that had caused a long-term disability. But that was not true. So they came up with medical backstories and everything. I wanted to make sure that I was getting the vision of Spanish newspapers in my head, because it's always fun to hear the Spanish translation. And I looked at what fraud was in Spanish on Google. and I just got El fraud. I wanted to have a good vision of the newspaper headlines. So now you have it. Yeah.

So L means fraud? Okay. Interesting. I guess fraud is Sydney or something? Fraud, Sydney. Okay. When the truth came out about the big lie, the team was disqualified in order to give their goldbells back.

No. Including our main guy, Hremon, who was devastated. Do you post it back? Does someone come pick it up? Yeah, well, he hadn't done anything wrong, and he'd been duped like everyone and felt like it was completely unfair. And at the time, he's interviewed at his house. It's a big story. A reporter's went around, and they said, we've got to give the middle back.

And he said, I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not giving it back. They've got to come and take it. But his sister told him that as unfair as it seemed, he had to return it because the others cheated. Yeah, it's true unfair. Oh, that sucks. He told reporters at the time in the same interview, right now, I've thought about leaving basketball, completely because I don't know if I trust basketball or if I trust people.

He loves basketball so much. Oh, that's awful. And it's all within like a few weeks of like the biggest triumph of his entire life. I felt like his whole life is building to this thing. There's a life-defining moment. And then he's got to give the medal back. And his basketball from childhood is still in his room. He's like, this is all your fault.

And he throws the basketball against the wall. And then he's like, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Hugging the ball with an egg. Let's go have a shower. The undercover. Journalist Carlos Rubigoda claims that the team and others tried to prove, or sorry, tried to spread the rumor that he hadn't been undercover and that he wrote the

article only because he'd also been caught. Some of the teams still doubt him. Wow. He'd been like, the story started coming out and he was like, well, if I do a tell-all, I can get away from this. But then in the doco, they interview his editor at the magazine who says that I was receiving email. Like, I approved the whole thing. Like, we were in constant contact.

So it's pretty certain that he was just under-covered. Everyone can't go, yeah, I was also undercover looking to expose this thing. So, yeah, I was not, I'm an undercover teacher. I'm an undercover plumber. And I, yeah. Yeah, the facilities were awful. The toilet, so we're not good. If you ever caught in like a criminal suit of situation, you go, yeah, I'm also, I was also just trying to.

Yeah, yeah, I'm under cover. I want to cover. Thanks for blowing that cover. Yeah, great, thanks. Yeah, great. I'm so deep undercover that I'm not even recruited by the police to be here. That's how deep undercover I am. Okay.

There's no paper trail of me. I've been a criminal all my life to expose this. I should get an Academy Award for this. The journalist Carlos also copped Flack from Ramon, the actually disabled player, caught up in the mess, who asked why if Carlos knew what the team were doing, did he not report on it before the Paralympics? Yes, it's a good point.

But Ribogoda and the editor of Capital argued that staying undercover and letting the team go as far as it did was a bigger story and then would have more repercussions. Like they argued that if we'd reported on it, their lie in the lower leagues, who's going to care about that really? And it's not going to be this big thing, but really now we've, like, you know, this, this won't happen again. But I don't expect you to go back and edit the episode with this, but I'm realizing with the

Spanish flavor of this that you've been saying capital, but I'm assuming that they would say El Capital. Oh, or Capitolio. Oh, maybe that. And I only know that. Maybe from now on. And if AJ wants to, he could go back and paste that. AJ will not be doing that.

Let's go English to Spanish. I'm pretty, because I know that... You know, like, you know, there's Dust Capital, of course. One of my favorite books. It is Capitolio. Mm-hmm. I know that because when I was in Havana and Cuba, they've got the Capitolio building, which looks almost exactly like the capital building in Washington.

Oh, interesting. They call it El Capitolo. Why were you in Havana? Were you running away from the law or something? Yeah, and it didn't go well. I'm back. No, it's just there for a holiday a few years ago. That's nice.

Beautiful, beautiful part of the world. So once the door came out, Fernando Martine quit all the posts that he was part of. Remember he's part of several organizations to do with intellectually disabled sports and the Paralympics. But he continued to deny any responsibility. Now, I'm sure you're all wondering, why would someone do this? Yep. Deceive incredibly vulnerable people and block people who deserve their place at the Paralympics from ever getting a spot. A thing that is made for them to celebrate and raise them up.

Yep. Yeah. Why would you take that away? Exactly. This would be like learning that none of the bobsledders and cool running is with Jamaican. You're like, hey, like that was the whole. What the hell? That was the whole USP of the movie.

That was the whole point. Now, like someone, when I was speaking about the Paralympic Games were like, it's unlike any other sporting competition in the world where there's so much goodwill. Yeah. Like there is obviously people competing against each other, but people are just so happy to be a part of it. The Olympics and the Paralympics are this weird and amazing thing. Like sometimes, because humans do vile things, right?

Like, humans are just fucking terrible sometimes, and you watch the news. Let's list some of them. He watched the news and you're like, what is wrong with us? But then every now and then we do something quite cute and wholesome, and you go, ah, humans are all right. I think the Olympics and Paralympics are like one of those things where it's like this beautiful sense of a global community. Yeah.

Celebrating what we can do, pushing your bodies and limits, you know, seeing people do the best, who are the best of the best. Yeah, what if we just had one nice thing? Yeah. And then they fucking ruin it. I know, there's cheating at the parallel books. But at least we still have, you know, FIFA, you know. True.

People just getting together for soccer. Uncorruptible. No corrupt. What's that I stand for integrity in people? I believe so. They recently gave the FIFA World Peace Award as well. We love that. We love to see those sorts of things.

Yeah. Yes. So why would anyone do it? Well, it turns out, as is often the case, the answer was, money. Oh, you don't say. Or as Abba once said. Fernando. Chickatia tie, you and I cry.

Is that what you mean? That is what Abbas said one time. It seems that Fernando, Martin, had accumulated quite a lot of it very quickly. According to The Guardian, every year his organisation, the National Association of Special Sports or Andy, annually reportedly received huge sums of state cash. While Andy grew, Vicente's personal wealth also increased. El Mundo newspaper tried but felt to prove that there was a connection claiming his wealth had reached five million pounds. Martin, it said, owned a yacht, eight cars, including a portion of Mercedes, five houses including one with its own bullfighting ring. What?

And half a dozen large pieces. of land. Goodness gracious. Looking into the paperwork, it was discovered that grants were being given to the disabled players, but often the player didn't receive any money. Oh, you fuck. And the Federation, and allegedly Fernando Martine got very rich. Ramon Torres was asked to come to Madrid to talk to a judge, and he was worried that he

was also in trouble. So what have I done? But they asked him to look at some documents that supposedly bore his signature. He confirmed that he had never signed them, and his signature had been forged. The documents were about receiving money for a grant that he didn't even know existed. So the money was just being pocketed from the players. That is horrific. But Pedro Pascal is going to play this beautifully.

Like to have a turn? Yeah, two thirds of it. Yes, he's charming and lovely and he's like a great father figure type thing. And a man doing a beautiful thing for vulnerable people. And then the turn. Because Pedro can play heroes and villains. Oh, yes. Also, Fernando Martine, okay, Pedro Pascal, would receive

larger grants, the more medals the athletes won. So by winning a gold in the ID basketball, his organisation, and by extension of himself, would receive more funding. So it would be a real win. And in earlier tournaments, he'd been stacking it up with maybe three or four non-disabled players, but to guarantee a win at the Paralympics,

he obviously went overboard, and 10 of the 12 spots were taken up by people without any intellectual disability. Oh, you can almost hear the villain speech of him, like, announcing what he was going to do. Yeah. In the Sydney Olympics, I will rule. It's just despicable.

So the organisation appeared altruistic and appeared to be doing such good work, and no one would dare question it. No. Why would you? And he's been doing it for decades now. He's been the face of this organisation that's helped hundreds, if not thousands, of people. It'd be like finding out that Dave Warnocky has taken the line share of the do-go-on-profits, or that the B-team don't get paid for being guests on the podcast.

Yeah, yeah. Imagine it would be like, finding that out. Quickly mention your comedy workshop. Come on. Hey, you're lucky to be here. So a criminal investigation was also launched and took years to go to trial. Finally, in 2013.

Remember, this is the year 2000. This happened. Fernando Martin Vicente, as well as nine of the ten athletes, excluding 17-year-old Adolfo, who had deep regret and maintains he was told he was going as a support player and only found out about the fraud when he got on the plane to travel to Sydney. Oh, shit. Who knows?

Yeah, who knows? But he was 17 years old. And apparently he cooperated with the investigation from the start more than anyone else. And so they went, you're off the hook. But that does mean also that the journalist was drunk. Oh, shit. Because he was part of the fraud. As well as eight other support staff because there were doctors part of this.

There were coaches. There were other people that knew completely about the scam. So they were put on trial as well. Yeah, if you're an undercover journalist, I'm just thinking back to my media law and ethics classes. If you're an undercover journalist and you do something illegal, yeah, that's, yeah, that doesn't, It's not like you're an undercover cop where there you go I suppose I've been given permission

to do it. And even then, I'm sure they're a pretty string of rules. You can't do drugs and you can't you can't kill people. You can't commit fraud probably. Like someone gives you a line of coke. You're like, yeah, thanks.

I'll do this later. I swear. I'll take my line of coke to go. Yeah, I've got to go. Put it back in a little baggy for me. Hey, that guy, I'll kill him later. I do do that sometimes like if someone's like cake at a birthday.

I'll actually, I like to have a treat like with 10. before bed, that would be nice. I'd give you the little serviette. Yeah. The cake on a serviette. Yeah. I'll get Coke on a serviette.

Yeah. I'll have this before bed. Driving home, trying to keep it in a line. Oh. Driving one hand. Taking corners really slowly. Easy, easy, easy. Just a tremendous act out.

It's a privilege that the listeners can watch the video back these days, you know, just for that little moment. I had that the end of the day. I, yesterday was walking in the morning with a friend. We walk our dogs together, and I went and grabbed coffees, and I didn't have enough cup holders. So I put hers in the cup holder, and then I just put mine between my legs.

And then I went over many, and hers is an iced coffee. Mine was hot. Good. You made the match choice. And I've got over many speed bumps. I was like, I literally had the thought of, what am I doing? You don't want a burnt crotch. No, I should have put hers there.

I could have an ice cool crotch. Or cool crotch. And then she would have said, has this been in your crotch? I said, yes, it has. Enjoy your coffee. So according to the BBC, Fernando Martin was found to have, quote, devised and executed the plot to recruit talented young non-disabled basketball players. He accepted responsibility for the fraud and the charges against the other defendants were all dropped.

Okay. And Fernando Martinez punishment, he was fined a whopping $5,400. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, the big dogs, they never get got. He also had to return $142,000 of public grants received, which seemed like a drop in the ocean because I think they were getting potentially millions of... Did his bulls get repossessed? I don't know.

But see, like, okay, let's say he returns that money that was supposed to go to players. Then give that money to the players then? Yeah, exactly. That they were owed all those years ago. Yeah, pay them back. Yes. That's right. With interest.

I agree. And it's interesting that the players that are all part of it, you know, they are aware of the huge lie that they've... Yeah. They didn't get any punishment. Wow. Yeah, that's not cool. It's just like, you know, at the end of Space Jam, when the monsters are defeated,

and the monsters have to give the magic back to the original players that they absorbed from them, it's like they turn into little monsters now. Like, they go back to their, like, little, like, forms. And none of them really get punished for it, because now they're now pathetic losers. But it's like, hey, they still were evil creatures. Yes, you knew what you were doing.

And they still, like, tortured all the loony tunes. They're, like, pretty much murdered some of them as well. I think the Monstars ought to be on trial as well. Yep, I agree. Are you trying to get this back to Ark Kelly? And Arkelli should be on trial. And I believe I can't fight. As far as the things that I'm upset most about, yeah, the Monstars first and R. Kelly a close second.

So despite these findings, in 2021, the BBC reporter that Fernando Martin described the accusations against him as absurd and unfounded. Fuck you. So he's now being like, I didn't do it. But it's like, well, you admit it in court that you did it. Yeah. But now he's like, no, no, no, that wasn't me. Oh, fuck you. So still living a huge lie.

Ramon himself was very annoyed by this denial telling the BBC. Fernando Martinez says now he doesn't know anything about it. He can't do that. Of course he knew all about it. I thought he was a bigger man. Oh, that's good. That's a good thing to like, you want to call it out. Yeah.

To be one of those other players, how do you look at yourself in the mirror? You must live with shame for the rest of your life. You should. Because that's ethically, moral. You're just a fucking asshole. But also, like, I just want to poke at Jess's claim just a little bit. You may be just a little bit more bitter about it because they got to go to Sydney and you didn't.

Is that maybe the baggage that you have here, that you're just a little bit biased here? That might be a factor. Yes. And I... You're not a reliable witness. And I had to take one of those medicated baths that smelt really bad. Oh, yeah.

Stop the itching. Yeah. Jess is one of the talking heads in this ESPN documentary about the whole thing. I'm like, I'm sick of them. I don't want to hear about these guys going to Sydney when I didn't get to... A lot of people missed out because of them.

I go to Sydney all the time now. I'm there a few times a year easily. You're out at Homebush, knocking on the door of the stadium. Let me in. Kathy Freeman! I could have seen it. I could have seen it. Get sad, everybody.

So there wasn't much in the way of punishment for the perpetrators of the fraud, but some innocent people were penalised. The scandal was so big that in 2001, it led to a total ban on all athletes with an intellectual disability from the 2004 and 2008 Paralympics. What? Yeah. So they just wiped out? They said people with ID can't compete at the next two Olympics.

Destroying the careers of thousands of sports people around the world, people who had been training for years were denied their chance to compete. What? The ABC writes, administrators believed it was it was harsh, but a necessary move to tighten regulations, while others claimed it was an overreaction that the sport was still recovering from. So some fucking non-disabled people ruined out of greed and just being completely morally bankrupt assholes, ruined the careers and the passion of thousands of people who otherwise have no fucking platform to do

what they do. Yeah. Like... Oh, fuck. Because they've gone like, well, I guess if these people can pull, like, pull off this scam, we have to make sure that that doesn't happen again. So they, and one of the head coach of the Australian Paralympic team was like, I don't get it. It's like someone doping in athletics and then being like, you know what, next Olympics, no one gets to compete. Exactly right. Rules it for everyone.

Yes, absolutely. You know what, there is no athletics now. Yeah. It's like, okay. Yeah. In fact, no one can cheat. No sports at the Olympics. Yeah.

That's eliminated all cheats. That's wild. He's a big overreaction. Huge. ID sports were finally reinstated at the 2012 Paralympics, albeit in less sports than before, and so far ID basketball has not been reinstated. So was that that won games and it hasn't come back.

Oh, that's not fair. No, because of these guys. It's awful. And as for Ramon, he really struggled after the scandal, particularly after the trial ended with such a lack of accountability. No one really got punished or in any way. And a small fine to this incredibly wealthy, man like it's yeah exactly it's like pocket change for him ridiculous so remon he joined gangs he abused

drugs and alcohol what oh no yeah really shattered his life he said that one of the reasons he has so many tattoos is like he like the tattoos he felt pain from them and he's like I had to feel something awful that's why I have so many tattoos you had to feel something it's just a tiny little harder when your basketball career didn't work yet yep and when he didn't get to go to Sydney yeah I said fine I've got to feel something. I'm going to get a second set of piercings in my ear. That'll show them. His sister Rosie spent five years trying to get a state guardianship for Amon,

and he moved into a state run house in Spain with social workers. And I'm pleased to say that at least in the ESPN documentary, which I can now reveal is called Stolen Gold. I can see. Why, you held that back again. That's smart. And it's fantastic. If you have access to ESPN for the 30 for 30 series,

they're always good, but this is really good. But why would I watch it when I've just had this beautiful experience, it's expertly been told to me by Dave Warner. Thank you. But it's even more, it's emotional because they do reenactments of Ramon being bullied and beaten up as a kid. I will say, shed it to you.

It's very sad stuff. I love to be it. Fucking weak. We'd love to be in a reenactment. Yeah. But he now, and he's such a, he's such a great documentary character

because he really describes he's hurt so well. You really feel so much for this guy. But fortunately, at the end of the documentary is revealed, he's living in this state runhouse with social workers. He appears to be doing a lot better. Okay. And it ends with him playing a bit of pickup ball with Juan,

the other disabled man that was on the team. And they haven't seen each other for over 20 years. Oh, we love being reunited. And also it ends with, he says that Ramon, he loves Motown music. And when he used to get nervous playing on the court, he'd just think of songs in his head and bounce along to the beat. And so the doco finishes with the two of them playing pickup with Motown. playing.

Nice. It's beautiful. They couldn't get the rights for the Motown song so it was just taxi ride. Much cheaper. But that's my report on the 2000 Paralympic scandal.

I know it's honestly a tragic story. It is. But I think me and Jess deserve some praise for finding some lightness along the way. Thank you. Yeah, thank you

because I'm sure you knew that there was going to be some sort of twist. We are the real stars of this show. Yes, right. Yeah. Gold medal for each of you. Thank you so much.

Yeah, that is an amazing story. devastating. I never heard of that. I love a sports movie. I love a sports story. And I was wondering why I didn't really, I was like, oh, I don't remember there being an ID league of basketball. That's interesting. It's because there isn't. There isn't. No, they never brought it back. Yeah. I don't remember any scandals from those times. Yeah. So one of the docker says they're like, it's been 23 years or 24 years and no one's, no one's talked about it really since. And give him his gold medal back. Oh, I mean, yeah. I know. You really feel for him. Big deal.

Those things aren't even gold. They're gold painted. Just give them, like, it's a symbol. Just give them his gold medal. I thought they were solid. No. They're worth millions of dollars. Damn.

That's so, yeah, Fernando Martinez just there melting down all the scenes called. Yeah, probably is. That was his whole scheme. A piece of shit. And then he gets him and goes, huh. Oh, the gold plated. That's a shame. Yeah, an amazing, a great, well, you know, an amazing story, but.

Sad. So, so unfair. infuriating. And the third lately, I guess this is my trip ditch of scams and scandals, because I did the British Postaliver scandal. I did the eBay stalking scandal. And now this one over the last few months. And each time you go, how did people think they could keep the balls up in the air forever? They could get away with it. Yeah. And every time I obviously couldn't. Yeah. And especially if you have all these balls in the air, they're not going through any hoops. So like, you're not scoring any points.

So what's the point? And how do you win? Yeah, and I'm all about winning. True. But yeah. Humans are fascinating and awful at times. Yes. Like, you go, that can't be real. Yeah. Well, like a couple of dozen people were all in on it. Yeah.

And agreed, this is the right thing to do. Yeah, this is the correct thing to do. This is what we're going to do with our time. And because we're moving into a new avenue with do go on in the new year, we do have Fernando on a Zoom call right now. He's going to say his side of the story. We're giving the subjects of these reports. They're right of reply.

The villains, yes. That's right. They did ask you to interview him for ESPN, and he apparently said, I don't want to talk to you. Interesting. But he will talk to us. Those documentaries where it fades to black and tells you, like, who refused to be part of it.

You're like, nah, okay. Yeah, you're like, I'm not surprised by that. Or you go, oh, they're still alive. They just didn't want to be in it. Yeah. Those are those ones where you watch, like, a true crime one, and someone's just not there. And you go, oh, do they not make it?

Yeah. But sometimes in the true crime ones, they're like, you don't hear from a certain person. and then you're kind of like, oh, okay, yeah, they're dead. And then they sit down into the train. Oh, when they walk into shot and you're like, what? Yeah, that's cool. That's cool.

Had that watching the Denise Huskins one, the real-life gone girl report that I did. And she's not gone. She's not gone. She walked in. That'll be when Matt Stewart returns to the podcast. People are like, oh, okay. He is alive. He walks in as we're kissing the statue.

I want to see what he looks like. What's his name? What's his surname? Matt Stewart. Who? Ramon? Oh, Ramon Torres. Torres, thank you.

Torres meaning bull in Spanish. You might have to type in Stolen Gold as well. Because it does come up with it. Because there's quite a few. It comes up with a singer. Stolen gold, okay. Oh, yeah. You're seeing photos of him now?

He's now got a big grey beard. Oh, yep. I hope he's moved into coaching or something. That's what you want from someone who's had a tough life. you move into... Yeah, and to stay with the thing that you love, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's not a great photo, but you can see the sleeve tattoo.

He's cool-looking guy. He's older than I expected him to be. Me too. Yeah, right. Goodness gracious. Stolen gold. Like, because it's 25, he'd be approaching 50, maybe even 50. Oh, right. Yeah, okay.

Wow. What a story. Well done, D-Dub. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Thanks to the people that suggested it. I just went through because you can mark what kind of category the story is when you suggest a topic and I just sort of it with all the sports ones and I looked them all up and went, this can't be what?

That's amazing. So yeah, thanks for the Patreon for voting on it. And thank you, Marcel, for joining us. My absolute pleasure. I'd love to be here to make as many space jam references as possible. Thank you. It's the only sports thing you've ever known. Yeah.

So the thing is understood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. But apart from, you know, maybe trying to recruit you for our own basketball team, If we wanted to hear more of you or possibly be inspired to write comedy, how would we do that? Well, you can find me. Yeah, that was pretty good. I'm Marcel the comedian on Instagram.

You can track me down. I'm a stand-up comedian, director, coach, consultant. I wear many hats. And I run the comedy writers group, which is a podcast, but also a community for comedians to connect up online, get expert feedback from expert comedians. like your Jen Frickers, your Beck Melroses, your Stephanie Broadbridges, your Cameron Jameses. You can connect with these professionals live and get feedback on your material,

whether you're a sketchwriter, stand-up comedian, somewhere in between. And we even have a writer's retreat coming up at the end of January. So if any of this sounds of interest to you, whether you're a comedy nerd or wanting to make comedy, come and check out the comedy writers group. People often ask you, how do you get into comedy? It seems like such a big mystery.

but that's a great way to start by listening to your podcast. Yeah. So you can understand some of these mysteries. It's a mysterious and scary world out there to be brave enough to start doing anything creative. And we try to make it as welcoming as possible. Nice. Absolutely love that.

Thank you so much for joining us, Marcel. My absolute pleasure. And as we say goodbye to Marcel, we say hello to you, the listener who's been here the whole time. That's right. We haven't acknowledged you yet. No. Sorry, that was rude.

We've been edging. Is that a thing? Anyway, because this is the most special and sacred part of the show. That's right. Most people's favourite section of the show. Honestly, if the second part, which is this, didn't exist, the first half couldn't. Does that make sense? Because this is the part of the show where we think our patrons are borders.

People that make the show possible with their contributions, monetary and spiritually. Yes. And in exchange, they get rewards. You get a Patreon.com slash jingo on pod. And Jess, what are some of the rewards people can get? Four bonus episodes a month. Whoa.

There's nearly 300 in the back catalogue as well. Yes. At a certain level, you can get videos of the full episodes in video form. That's right. They're all seen that Jess and I have had some outfit changes. I'm wearing purple now. A little wave. Jess is doing a lot of posing.

I don't think the camera's picking it up, though. Yeah, but I know. Yeah. I know that I was posing And I know you'll never see it I saw it It was awesome Worth paying for on Patreon

Also that's the ad free As well Level so you also get the audio But ad free You can vote on topics Like this topic was voted on You get a Christmas card each year There's a whole bunch of different perks

As well as the Facebook group Which is the friendliest corner of the internet So nice and lovely And they even organise their own swaps in there now It's very wholesome in there It's a nice community We like it a lot of good perks if you want to check it out. Head to patreon.com slash do go on pod.

And the first thing we like to do is a section dedicated to the people who support us on the Sydney Shineberg or Deluxe level. That's right. And it is the fact quote or question. It has a little jingle I think goes something like this. Fact quote or question. I thought, I was like, do I have to sing? I know.

I saw you take a breath. But did you think that I was going to sing? Did you think that was my chance? Only because I was looking at you and I watched the panic. I watched the sharp intake of breath and then more panic and you looked at me and I started singing. I wasn't going to make you. Okay, because you don't know this.

Probably because you don't listen back. But when you're not here, I have to do it. Why? Matt won't do it. I mean, he tries. No, and we can't let him do it. We missed a most important part. Oh, he always remembers the ding.

Oh, she always remembers the sing. That's right. And this is a section of the show where some of our. supporters get to ask a question, give a fact, a brag, a suggestion, a recipe, a joke, it can be anything, and they also get to give themselves a title. So the first one this week is from Jordan Nassi, N-A-W-S-E. Oh, no, I like, I like both. Me too. And Jordan's given themselves the title of Jim Boat Sling. Okay. And Jordan's asking you a question, which is, what is the most expensive item of clothing you own.

Oh. And I love that, you know, when people ask a question, we love to let them, or we encourage them to answer the question as well. Yeah. Jordan has says, mine is my dry suit for work. Cost me about $3,000. Whoa. For one single clothing.

Second place is my fancy suit. That was about 1,500 altogether. I guess that's not a single item of clothing, but I'm a rule breaker and can't remember the actual price of it. Deal with it. Have a lovely rest of the day. I feel like you can count a suit as one thing because you typically need to wear it all together. Okay, okay.

I'm looking up dry suits. A waterproof, sealed garment that keeps to wear a completely dry and warm and cold or contaminated water. A Jordan now resident diver. Wow. $3,000. That's obviously a very good one, dare I say. Most expensive item of clothing. I'm thinking mine would probably be just like a pair of, I've got a pair of R.O. Williams boots.

True. You know, I think I'm onto my third pair. Oh, right, okay. Which, because I've had, this is so dull now. Now I've brought it up. You're a dull man. I'm into my second pair of black ones because I got my first pair for my 18th birthday for my parents. And they are, it's like a legendary Australian brand.

Yep. But started out being a bit of a rugged thing, but now, you know, stockbrokers wear them. Yes. But they're a very nice dependable boot. And, you know, they cost like 600 bucks or something. But they last a long time. So my last pair lasted nearly 15 years. And there was a period there I wore them every day for about five years.

Yeah. So anyway. Boots, yeah. Probably boots. Wedding suit? If you are counting that as one piece like you were saying, I think my suit was close to a thousand bucks maybe. Yeah. I had like a... And you've worn it since, which is great.

Yeah, I'm so happy that I get. So I've got like a white lineny suit. And at the time I was like, can I ever wear this again? Because it's the kind of thing where, like, you know, you wear it when it's, you know, It's your wedding. Yeah. You're the focus. I don't think I'd wear it to another person's wedding because it would be like,

hey, everyone, look at me, not them. My husband has worn his wedding shirt to other weddings because he wore like a floral. Yeah, I'll remember the shirt from the show. It's beautiful. And he won that again and I'm like, you're stealing the show. But I have been able to wear it to fun events like the Golden Chinese Gallery Awards, our Patreon awards that we hosted live a few years ago. And I could wear it with a floral shirt and it made me look like a Miami drug dealer.

And I loved that. It was a good look. Yeah. I think people would probably be assuming my wedding dress would be the answer, but the bow I wore on my hair at my wedding was more expensive than the dress. Really? An $8,000 bow. $8,000 boat?

No, I wore it very cheap. And it was on sale when I bought it as well. It was a very cheap dress. It's probably shoes for me then, I guess. Probably wedding shoes. Yeah, okay, yes. I went for some good quality. Some lubotons.

Some lubitons. Some Jimmy Chews. I went for Baird footwear, a Melbourne brand. I thought you were joking. I thought you were just going to say, like, I don't know, like I went for with cumps. Yeah, I went for some sketches. So if it's a Melbourne brand, I actually say it again, so people might. It's bad, B-A-R-E-D.

Oh, nice one. And they're expensive, but they're good quality shoes. So I guess it's probably shoes. Clothing-wise, like, yeah, nothing crazy expensive. Yeah, I don't have like, you know, like. Crazy leather jacket or anything like that. Or a dress I had to wear to somebody else's wedding as a bridesmaid, which I recently donated.

Because she did that classic thing of you could wear this somewhere else and you can't. Like I'm never wearing that again. Yeah, why would you? So it's probably shoes, which is interesting. So both of ours are shoes. Yeah. There you go. Should we start buying fancier clothes?

I think we should. Well, we're just trying to sound down to earth. I've obviously got a Louis Vuitton full wardrobe. I just don't want to talk about it. Yeah. No, of course. That's secret. Actually, yeah, it's going to be shoes because even like Birkenstocks are expensive.

Birkenstocks are surprisingly expensive. But they last a long time. They last long time and I live in them in summer. As soon as the sun starts to come out, I go, oh, it's Burke season, baby. So, yeah, I guess it's shoes. And then I bought another pair of bad footwear shoes, like a gold pair for another wet. Yeah, it's shoes. That one's doing all right in the shoe department.

It's a great question, though. I like that, Jordan. Thank you for that. I'm going to keep thinking about it. And the bow I wore until my wedding was like $100 something dollars. And my dress was less than that. That's awesome. That is so good.

Anyway, the next one comes from Chloe Morris. Chloe's title is, previous submitter of potentially crook tongue twisters. Can't wait to see what this is going to be. Chloe's giving us a fact. It says, hey, mates, maybe controversially, I have a fact, fib and a question. Ooh, I like this.

What, FFF? FF. FQ? FFF. FFF. FFF. FF. Hang on a second. A fact, a fib, and a question.

Backstory. When I was 12, a friend of mine told me that they had had their appendix removed, that when they had their appendix removed, the doctors told them that astronauts had to have their appendix out before going into space. I thought this was such a nifty bit of info that I spent the next 10 years earnestly believing this and dropping this fun fact into conversation when relevant. I reckon I've heard people say that before too. It wasn't until I reached my first big girl job when some of my colleagues kindly pointed out

that this wasn't true. Naturally, my foundation for all that is good and true was shaken at the time. It really would. But now I look back with some amusement. If only I'd had the pod and Jess to assess this fun fact and perhaps discover earlier that it was in fact a fun fib. It could have prevented my heinous spreading of misinformation.

Therefore, my question to you guys is, have you ever gone around telling everybody something you thought was a fact but later turned out not to be true? Well, I've got one from that straight away. Hopefully I'm not the sole silly sausage caught out. by info simply too good to be true. What's Matt's one? He thought Lord Byron's first name was Lord.

And he told his dad, he says like, that's not true. Isn't it interesting that his first name is Lord? No, it's not interesting because it's not true. I'm sure that there's things like this. 100%. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but that is... And yeah, the fact that we both were like, yeah, I think that makes sense that they'd have to have their appendix at. Yeah, I've heard that because it's like, I think the whole logic is that if you get an infection up there,

no one can help you. Yeah. So have it out now on the off chance that you get. But you can get an infection elsewhere. True, but I think like say you have to have your appendix out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's any infection is obviously bad.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Like,itis is just inflammation of. Well, I mean, let's just say, I've also heard that you have to have every organ out just in case that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you'll take both lungs. Yeah. Both kidneys. And they take out all your sperm.

Just in case. Just in case we can't have any whoopsies up there. There's no midwifery wing up there. They just drain it out. Oh. Sorry. Dave looks disgusting. Oh.

Depending on how. Depending on how they do it. That is a great one. I like that. I mean, yeah, I would believe that if somebody told me that now. And there's often, I know Chloe that this happens a lot for me because so often I'll start to say something and then I'll say out loud to whoever I'm talking to, I'll go, I haven't checked that this is, if this is true.

Yeah, yeah. I haven't checked this. You know, and that's how I know, maybe this isn't correct. There's actually a wiki page called List of Common Misconception. Oh, I love that. And it actually breaks it down into there's so many of, about arts and culture, about history. This could be a future bonus episode, I think. But let me just go about history and see if I can pick one at random.

God, he's good. This is one. Julius Caesar was not born via Cesar. section. What? Such a procedure would have been fatal to the mother at the time, and Caesar's mother was still alive when he was 45 years old. Okay.

There you go. I just assumed the salad was named after him. That's true. An influential man. How about this one, whether, this is my last one, I swear, because I'll be here all day, because this is a great list. Whether chastity belts, devices designed to prevent women and men from having sexual intercourse, were invented in medieval times is disputed by modern

historians. Aw. Most existing chastity belts are now thought to be deliberate fakes from the 19th century. Oh. I mean, there's a chance that some of these are wrong as well. But it's an interesting thing to think about it. Because I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I will be driving my car home today.

And I go, oh, I used to tell people this. Yeah. And that's obviously not correct. Absolutely. Yeah. That's a great one though, Chloe. And thank you for coming forward with that fib. It's good.

You can look back and laugh now. Yes. And I hope that you feel lighter now. You haven't gotten that off your chest. Good one. Finally, for fact quote a question this week, it's James Edwards. James's title is Cool Gay Uncle of the Pod and then in brackets, cocktails this weekend. Yes, please, Guncle.

Yes, please. How do we feel like Guncle? Is that good? I like Guncle. I like it. Thank you. James is giving us a brag. Bragg away. We love it. Saying, hey, lovely people, hope you're well and enjoying life.

I have a brag and a cheeky question for you. I meant to send this ages ago but kept forgetting. but after 30-something years I've finally quit smoking. Nice one. After 30, that's really hard to do, I am actually. Really tough. My fab husband Bob has had some serious health issues recently, which spurred us both onto being a little healthier.

Not too much, mind you. Yeah, a reasonable amount. I've been smoke-free for 12 weeks. I had quit when we saw Matt's awesome show in London. Question, have you ever had, or do you currently have a habit you would like to quit? Or maybe a habit you would like to take up? Habits can be good and bad. Oh, okay, yeah.

I was just thinking about something. You're like, oh, I'd love to get into that. Yeah, I'd love to get in. Oh, I'd love a vice. I'd like to just have something. Oh, I'd love to be addicted to crack. Yeah, I just want to try it every day. And James signs off by saying, love you all, hope to see you soon, eat your veggies.

And then in brackets or don't. And that's good to have options. A habit you'd like to quit or a habit you'd like to, maybe a positive habit you'd like to, to take up. To take a... I'd like to quit. I think being on social media as much. Yeah.

I think a lot of people in this day and age feel that way. Yeah. Yeah, I don't have any bad habits. No. Borderline perfect. Yeah. Let me think. Let me think. Let me think. I'm too thoughtful.

Yeah. Habitually thoughtful. Thinking about others as much? Yeah. I'd like to give out charity work. I'd love to give it up. I'd love to give up charity work. I think the orphans are doing fine without me.

No, habits I'd like to take up would probably be. The one that I think of every January 1st is I'd like to run like consistently. Oh, I think mine is just regular, like gym or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Find something that you enjoy and do it weekly and do it regularly. That's right. Or, you know, a couple times a week is what I'd love to do that. That feels more like habit rather than hobby, if that makes sense.

It's like I'd also like to learn a musical instrument or do something like that, but that feels like a hobby rather than a habit. A few years ago, I took up the, I think this is a habit of flossing my teeth. Yep. Which previously I'd never done. It freaked me out. I tried a couple times when this feels weird. Now it feels weird to go to bed without doing it.

Yeah, nice. So I do it every single day. Good. So I guess that's a good habit. That's a good habit. I've taken up in the last couple of years. And you ditched the habit of not flossing. Exactly.

That's great. And then about 10 years ago, I took up the habit of stretching. my legs before bed because I woke up stiff without it. I never wake up stiff. That could just be old age. Well, that's the thing too. Yeah, we are aging and it's a bit of a stereotype that people in their mid-thirties take up running. And I'm thinking about it.

Or grow on a lawn, you know, being obsessed with a bit of lawn. Yeah, we were in, when we were in Perth, I don't think you'll wind me. saying this. We were in an Uber, we're driving along, and we realized what sort of life stages we're at. You looked out at the park we were driving past and went, oh, that's a good playground. Oh, that's a great playground. And I'm looking at the other window, going, look at all these jaccaranders. I'm really into jacaranders now. Because I'm taking note of like, I'm going to bring my kid here. And it's like, when are you going to bring it to Perth? Yeah. You're not to go to Perth? Just to go to that playground? That's crazy. That slide. She loved that.

If we were in Melbourne and you saw that playground, you go, well, I know where we're going next week. I do actually put them on the list. Yes. Which is so funny because previously there's parks in my area I'd never even noticed before because why would I need them before? Now I'm like, ha, that was here the whole time. Yeah, good playground. And I'm saying to other people, can you believe it?

They're like, yeah, I guess. Yeah. Who cares? Yeah. I'm like, well, this is, this is going to be great for about half an hour of exercise and distraction. We're all going to love this. Exactly.

I see a park now that's like, has a decent fence and it's contained. And I get, ooh, bring the dog there. The dog would like that one. Bring the dog and a ball there. Oh, we'd have a good time. Oh, walking distance. Oh, coffee over there. Thank you.

Perfect weekend. Oh, Jacaranders. Don't mind if I do. I'm commenting on Jacaranders and Crape Myrtle's and I'm like, wow, what's happened to me? When I was a teenager, my mum and dad would be like, could you help us in the garden? I would just, I was a helpful kid. I would help with anything. Yeah.

But if it was gardening, I'd go absolutely. Sorry, I've got homework. I, you know, Mom, I'm not even going to lie to you. I just don't care about this fucking garden. and now I wander around their guard and go, oh, these are looking good. This is not. Oh, this will come in nicely? Can I help you prune this?

Yeah. Could I take a clipping of that time? Oh, I'd love to propagate that one. Disgusting. What's happened? Thank you, James. Thank you, Chloe. Thank you, Jordan, some fantastic brags, facts and questions there.

The next thing we need to do is shout out to some people who support us on the shout-out level or above. Now, we usually make a bit of a game of this one. Dave, you had an idea for a game. Oh, yes. I was thinking because we were shouting out to your. to your dad on this episode and learning a new fact about him,

at least for me, that during the Sydney, 2000 Olympics, he joined the Brazilian cheer squad. Yeah. So I was thinking, because we were talking about the Paralympics,

and we're trying to learn a bit more about some of the different sports that they do at the Paralympics, maybe if you want to read out the names and where they're from, I'll give them a sport that they're cheering on at the Paralympics, both summer and winter.

I've got a list here. Great. And I'll also give them a country that they've been recruited in the Cheers Corps. I love it. Just like your dad for You're just in the Brazilian cheer school, having a great time. I will try to find, I wonder if there's a picture of him wearing a t-shirt.

I'll have a bit of a look through. At least I'd like to see it. Yeah, exactly. I'll see if it exists because that t-shirt lasted for a long time. All right. Okay, you're ready? You've got your list there. You've got a list here.

Here we go. First up from Kenosha in Washington in the US, it's Heather Spencer. Heather Spencer is... Wisconsin. It's Wisconsin, sorry. What did you say? Washington, I think. Oh, okay.

Well, Wisconsin. Love that. And Heather is cheering on blind football. Love it. And she is in the Argentinian cheer squad. Woo-hoo. Often, you know, at the tennis and stuff, they can be very passionate. And soccer, of course, too.

Yeah, yeah. This is, of course, blind. And their uniforms often that beautiful blue and white. That's actually a great t-shirt. You know why I've said that? Because I'm on the Paralympics Australia website, and there's a little photo of all the sports. And I think that looks like Australia playing.

Argentina in that little. A beautiful blue. Such a nice blue. It's a gorgeous blue. What do you call it? Cornflower maybe? Gorgeous. See, this is the life stage.

Yeah, that's right. It's disgusting. Next up from Orange, New South Wales. It's Jared M. Jared M. Jared M is cheering on Parabadminton. Nice. And they are on the cheer squad for Tunisia.

Ooh, very nice. That's a good one. Enjoy. Cheer loud. Next up from Stoneville. in Western Australia, it's Jasmine Webster. Jasmine Webster. Yeah.

He's cheering on sitting volleyball. Oh, yep. And they are cheering on, let me think here, Hungary. Hungry, nice. I loved a bit of volleyball in primary school. In primary school, we played it a bit too. Yeah, played a bit of like inter-school volleyball. Loved it.

Great. We often played it like when I was doing the, in the choir. Yes. That was like the, sometimes they do this choir intensive camps. It wasn't really a camp. It was like summer. school but for a week you know learn the new songs or whatever but then the lunchtime activity it was so fun it was so fun and then school on the holidays to sing yeah because they do stuff like uh in the

afternoon like the activity was we all played volleyball or there was always a day on the over where everyone brought in water pistols and water bombs and went while in front of the sprinklers yeah in their bathers is super fun is this a millennial experience that on a like 40 plus degree day did your school turn their sprinklers on on the oval. You better believe it. And they just let the kids, like, I remember being in like grade one and it was insanely hot. Yeah.

And they just turned the sprinklers on on the oval and each class would get to go out and just run on the sprinklers for a bit. Have a go. That's crazy. Yeah. And we do stuff like at lunchtime, you know, because it was like no hat, no play. You had to have a bucket hat. Kids would just fill their buckets hats with water.

Yes. And then you go back into the classroom, soaking wet and sit in the air conditioning. And be like, miss, I'm cold. If there's any teachers listening, particularly in Australia, tell us if they still do that. I feel like maybe they don't do that anymore. You still have a run in front of the sprinklers? Well, they probably have air conditioning in the classrooms now. I think that could have been part of the problem is that we had a fan and that was it and it was

42 degrees and we were six years old. Yeah, for us it was like some of the main part of the school, that's air conditioned, but those portables. Yeah, they've just added, they've dumped on the back of a truck. They just have a fan. And they're supposed to be temporary, but they're there for 20 years. That's right. Yeah, they're rusting flow.

And I reckon like for us kids it was like, this is so fun. But for the teachers, it's like, this is a genuine health hazard that these kids are going to start dropping if we don't cool them down. Love it. But it was fun. There was a kid at my high school in my sister's year, just so a couple of years before I got there, who was born with the condition. I think he didn't have sweat glands. Wow. And because of that, so he couldn't sweat.

Part dog. He's panting. No, he couldn't sweat so stuff like fans like that wouldn't cool him down. So I think the government got involved, got a grant for the school and put air conditioning in a lot of the place. Wow. Because of this one kid, what a hero. Yeah, that's so easy. He got me air conditioning.

The fan is, it relies on you sweating in a way. Yeah, because it's just air moving past. Yeah. It's not cooling down. Not actually cooling the room down. Honestly, I prefer a fan. I love to sleep under a fan. I love a ceiling fan.

I had ceiling fans when I was a kid and now I'm a renta so I don't have ceiling fans and I miss them. Because the aircon's too cold. Yeah. It gets really good. There's nothing nicer than actually being like, oh, I'm cold now. Duna on. That's luxury. That's luxury.

Oh, a bit chilly in here on a 40 degree day. That's right. All right. Next up from Lebanon in Tennessee, Noah Cartwright. Noah Cartwright. We're going to the Winter Olympics here for wheelchair curling. Ooh, good one. Noah Cartwright is cheering for, where are we going here?

We're going to go here. We are going for Japan. Yes, that's a good one. I feel like that'd be good at wheelchair curling. I think so too. From Hamilton in Victoria, it's Zoe. Zoe. Zoe is cheering on the para powerlifting.

Oh, that's sick. Powerlifting is so impressive. Yeah. So cool. Yeah, I love watching when people can do stuff that I'm like, I could never do that. Yeah, I'm like, how did you teach your body to do that? Yeah, that's really impressive. Incredible.

And they are cheering on France. Nice. Bonjour. Bonjour. Next up. Oh, this one's in the ACT, and I don't know how to say that, and I'm wondering if you do know how to say it. ACT?

Yes. We've done well to not say act. Nana wall? It's an NG. Sorry, you don't have it open. Oh, I think it might be, yes, because that is, I believe an indigenous word, because when we did the Canberra episode recently,

there's a couple of different, different mob that call, because camera's quite a big area into the ACT. I think the NunnerWall is one of the groups. Gotcha. Okay. So NunaWall in the ACT. It is Ian. Ian.

Sorry, I was waiting for a surname there. Just Ian. Love that, Ian. Ian's going for paracliming. Ooh. Which, from the image here, yeah, it looks like rock climbing. Sick. Which is awesome.

From the Summer Olympics. and who's going to be good at that one? I think we're cheering on Kenya. Kenya, that's a good one. Yeah, cheering on Kenya at the paracliming, which is very exciting. A few more to go from Norlane in Victoria. It is Hype in stall. Hype install.

Wow, when you need your hype installed, we know where to go. Nor Lane, hype is cheering on the goal ball. Gold ball. Which I did come across when I was looking up this topic because I was trying to see different sports that I hadn't come across. Goal ball is open to athletes with a vision impairment And it's kind of like you try and get a ball And sort of like a soccer-sized goal

Yep, yep, yep, yep. I think we maybe saw a quick clip of that After we recorded this episode Oh, yeah, that's right. We were looking at the Paralympics TikTok. TikTok, which has been going off lately, you said. Yeah, it's huge. The object of the game is to roll the ball into the opponent's goal

while the opposing players try to block the ball. There's bells inside the ball that helps orientate the players by indicating the direction of the oncoming ball. So you see them dive and grab the ball. And yeah, that's awesome. So cool. Goal ball and they are cheering on. Who are cheering on here?

We are cheering on. Cue weight. Ooh. Kewate and the goal ball. Nice. Next up from Eastbourne in Essex in Great Britain. It's Kai. Kai.

Kai. Kai, Kai's cheering on the para ice hockey. Oh, that's fun. And if the images from the Paralympics website is to be believed, it looks everything as biffo as the ice hockey at the Winter Olympics. I would love to see. I've seen ice hockey here in Melbourne, but I'd love to see some, like, Canadian or US ice hockey. Oh man, they're so good at it.

I think it'd be so fun. Para ice hockey, I mean, who else would you cheer on Canada? Yeah. I've read a couple of books recently that are set in Canada and four. I already wanted to go to Canada. Now I really... You really want to go? Yeah, yeah.

Well, maybe this is the year. We'll see. And finally, from Address Unknown, so we can only assume deep within the fortress of the miles, it is Brett Garrett. Brett Garrett is there cheering on, I think you'd be getting into this one, wheelchair rugby. Yes. She's been getting into you rugby lately. Love rugby. and they are cheering on Costa Rica

or a new entrant to the sport Love it But that may all may not be true I'm just making stuff up But you'd love to cheer on Costa Rica The Worldchair Rugby That'd be fun Absolutely, that is sick

Thank you so much to Brett, Kai, hype Ian, Zoe, Noah, Jasmine, Jared and Heather And the final thing we need to do, D-Dub is to welcome some people into the Triptitch Club Now the Triptitch Club is a place where people who have supported us for three consecutive years are welcomed into this exclusive club.

Now, once you're in you can't leave, but why would you want to? It's got everything you'd possibly need. We've got a bar. We've got a dance floor. We've got a stage. We've got toilets. They all work now. Really?

Yes. For four now. At the time of recording now, all functional. But you are looking... I've had a lot of dairy. You need to get in. I've had a lot of dairy. Sometimes I...

regret many things. That's one of them. I regret destroying those toilets. They'll be back. We've got a plumber on retainer. And normally Matt is, he's sort of, he's got the clipboard, he's lifting the velvet rope, he's welcoming you into the club. Dave, you book a band, I'm behind the bar. Who have you booked? You never going to believe it's. I've been trying to track this band down for the last couple of years. Who you got? Finally said, all right, we'll drop by. And they just happen to come up earlier in the episode. It's Taxi ride.

Yeah! Taxi ride. So get set, everybody. Oh my God. We're on our way. Get set. Everybody. I still have taxi ride open on my Spotify.

I'm going to play Get Set and Creepen up slowly. Creeping up slowly is bigger than Get Set. I can't believe that. Yeah. But good on. I might listen to taxi ride on the drive home. You'd be mad not too. I'd be crazy not to.

I have got an Olympic themed menu. So I basically have a cocktail in every color of the Olympic rings. Oh, that's great. Yeah, and you can order, you order the rings combo, and I make all of them for you, and it's like a paddle. Oh, that's good. Yeah.

But you can't, like, just go, I feel like, oh, the green one was my favorite. You have to have all five of them. You have to go again. And they are all very strong. Yeah, okay. So no one's coming back for a second. Well, just be very, just be careful. Yeah.

Just be careful when you are consuming the Olympic rings. Yeah, fair enough. But they're delicious. Don't worry about that. So, okay, I'm going to welcome some people in. I'll read out their names. Dave, you'll hype them up. I'll hype you up.

We don't have Matt here to shit all over our joy. So hopefully this should actually be a bit of fun. This will be great fun. Are you ready? Absolutely. Okay. You didn't sound that ready. Sorry, I was just breathing.

Do you need longer? Give me a second? And I'm good. Okay. First up from Beckenham in Western Australia, it's Jackie Parsons. Jackie ain't no tacky Parsons. From address unknown, we can only assume deep within the fortress of the moles. It's Pheline O'Banion.

Molyne, my companion. From Amsterdam, it is Hayden Straz. Hayden Stras, rocking the strat. Woo! Rocking the strats. Guitar. I get it. From North Melbourne here in Victoria, it's Adam Hamato.

More like Adam Ha. I thought you can say Haymato. Hey Marto. More like Adam, hey, come on in, Mado. Mayto, come on in. Go again, go again, go, go, go, go. It's Adam Hamato. More like Adam, hey, come in, Mato.

Jesus Christ. And from... Don't be, Matt. And from Dublin, it's Eleanor Seeker. She was the Seeker girl. I won't say see you Laker girl. She's a good enough. Perfect.

Thank you so much. And welcome in Eleanor, Adam, Hayden, Failene, and Jackie. Good stuff there, Dave. Some of your best work. Thank you so much. It's so sad that it is. Welcome you guys in. Please help yourself to five cocktails and then maybe have a lie down.

Visit one of the bathrooms. Enjoy it up. That's right. Fresh and up. Anything else we need to tell people, Dave? No, just that we'll be back next week with another episode. And in the meantime, they can get in contact with us at any time or look up all over all other podcasts.

Find links to our Patreon. merchandise, all that kind of stuff, at do-goonpod.com. Yep. And that's it. That's it. That's it. Thanks for listening. I zoned out when you were talking, came back in and thought,

what just I seamlessly rejoined? And that's it. And say no more. It's good that it actually made sense. It wasn't like, and Jess, what are our social media handles? And that's it. At do go on pod or at do-go-on podcast on TikTok. watch videos of our faces.

But we will be back next week with another fantastic episode for you. And I guess... Until then. I don't feel right. Until then, that's it. Goodbye. Bye!

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