Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - We chat to gold medalist Hamish Kerr as he walks into the closing ceremony!

Episode Date: August 11, 2024

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The Hits, with the Jono and Ben podcast. Cheers to Dilma, making the world a better tea. Hamish, good morning and congratulations. Thank you, thanks for having me on, guys. Oh, it's great to talk to you. You're on your way to the closing ceremony right now, is that right? Yes, yep, yep, doing a little multitask. Yeah, who's surrounded you at the moment?

Who's beside you? Who we got? We got David Liddy. Oh, yeah. We've got a couple of pole vaulters. Yeah. Nice. We've got a few support staff, mostly athletics team. And, yeah, obviously Finn and a couple of sailors as well at the top.

Oh, awesome. So has everyone been here the whole time or people have come and gone? I think they've kind of come and gone. Like, obviously, team sports have come and gone or um i think they kind of come and go on like obviously team sports have kind of left now i think um and then we actually came in quite late uh just as the athletics is in the second week but yeah i think i think the swimmers have kind of stayed on uh looks like they've been having a good time uh but yeah i think i think for the most part everyone sort of stayed around classic swimmers classic swimmers always wanting a good time no comment has it sunk in?

I mean, a gold medal on the world's biggest stage at the Olympics in the high jump. Has it sunk in for you yet? Oh, no. No, it hasn't. I mean, look, I mean, I'm obviously amazingly stoked with how I did, and I'm over the moon with my result last night. But I think it's going to take a few weeks to process what actually truly happened. But, yeah, all I know is that I was just so stoked to be there

and it was just so much fun being out there in the moment. It was epic. And you know, you guys, you could have shared gold. You and the USA competed it, but you guys decided to go for a jump off. That seemed like a bit of a risk at the time. Do you still, I guess you're backing it now. Yeah, yeah, no, it definitely paid off.

I think, no, to be fair, like obviously the boys shared the gold in Tokyo. And that was something that was so amazing. And, you know, it was such an amazing part of Olympic history. But I think at the same time, you know, as we're competitors and as we all want to win, I think that, you know, all the athletes decided that it would be cool if we did get the opportunity to actually see what would happen and play out the jump off.

So, yeah, I had no doubt in my mind when I knew that was going to happen that we'd both agree to it and get on with it. When you have that conversation, are you like, is it a jump off? He's like, yeah, it's a jump off. It's a jump off. It's a greet. It's a jump off. That sounds pretty cool.

Sounds pretty badass, doesn't it? Like a dance off. Yeah, we definitely could have drawn out the suspense a wee bit more. It was pretty much more like me just looking at him going, let's jump. And he was like, yeah, mate, let's get into it. Oh, that's cool. Let's jump. Let's jump.

That's a good catchphrase. There was one moment and you kind of went viral. Let's raise the bar. Raise the bar. Let's raise the bar. Love that, Hamish. There was one moment that you sort of came up and you sort of jumped straight onto the mat under the bar and you kind of went viral as well.

People were saying online it was like you're playing like PlayStation and the controller died or something like that. What actually happened there? Was it just you just didn't feel it and then you decided to bail out? Yeah, yeah. Look, I think I was just pushing a little bit hard in the first couple of steps of my run up. So you usually can kind of tell mid curve whether you're in a good position or not and every so often those kinds of jumps come out but yeah it is quite funny to see that the memes going around with the old failed jump I'm not sure a lot of the people commenting on them as well

realize that I actually got the one so it'd be nice if we could try and sort of push that as well you want us to sway the comment section do you mate not only did his controller die, but it actually turned back on and actually did quite well. Exactly. Well, at least you're not a breakdancer for Australia. I mean, it could be... I like you. It could be worse. Hamish Kerr

with us this morning. What is it like? I mean, you have been training probably longer than four years for this, but let's just take this four year period leading into the Olympics and then you finally stand on that podium, the anthem's playing talk us through that moment yeah i think you know it's just it's just confirmation that all the the sacrifice and hard work suddenly pay off um i think that that's what's what's so cool is you know i've worked so hard for this um i've you know i've i've put some some pretty hard conversations with some some you

know loved ones. I've had to do that. I've had to change around my coaching team. I've had to change some technical stuff and really look at myself and be honest with what I am capable of doing. And so I think that to know that I've done all that hard stuff and then get such an amazing result from it is just a dream come true. Well, because my wife went to a breakfast that you spoke at,

and you did say that you had to change the team around you, like your dietician, your coach. You were even setting up formal meetings, I think, you know, so everyone was held accountable. It was like someone was taking the minutes and things like that. Yeah, yeah. Look, I mean, I think that's just, you know, it's just increased professionalism.

And I think that's the thing is I love the sport, and I definitely see it as something that I love and have a lot of fun doing. But it's also a job and it's also something that I want to make sure I'm doing the best at. So I think that in the last couple of years, I've really had to look at myself and how I've sort of worked and probably been a little bit casual at times. And so it was just around about just being really, really conscious on being as professional as possible and getting the right result from that. Is anyone going to lose their job now you've got the gold? Like, you're like, hey, old dietician, mate, you've been dragging the chain.

Anyone like that? Yeah, we haven't had that conversation yet. That's more of a post-debrief thing. But I think for now, don't tell anyone. I think they're probably pretty safe. Just whether they want to do it again, it's probably more up to them, to be honest. Loop us in on the minutes, mate.

It was incredible. Yeah, so many great moments. I imagine being part of the Olympics would have been incredible. I mean, there was that moment where the French pole vaulter has sort of bits and pieces hit the pole and knocked it off. Were you ever worried about that could be an option for you in the high jump, that your junk could actually knock off the bar? Yeah, we go over backwards, so not be an option for you and the high jump that your your junk could actually knock off the bar yeah we go over backwards so not really an issue for me unless unless i've got you know i'm doing really really well with myself or you have a tail or something

oh hamish and the closing ceremony which you're just walking into now uh what are we looking forward to we had that that uh unusual gentleman painted like a an avatar character with his ghoulies out in the opening ceremony what can we expect yeah well i mean hopefully not too much more religious slander uh but we will see um i think yeah i think i think the big rumor around is who's going to be performing um it's it seems like it's potentially snoop dogg he is in town um but but yeah also maybe taylor swift there's there's just so many people saying so many different things oh wow go out there and actually see who's out there but yeah we'll see so it's a genuine surprise no one knows um yeah i don't know uh to be fair i probably haven't been paying too much attention the last 24 hours yeah no fair

enough yeah we will see pretty sure someone would know someone someone yeah someone needs to know i think the person performing probably knows. Yeah, they have to know. Good hope. Hey, it was so good to chat to you. New Zealand is so proud. It was such an epic moment. It's been such an epic game, so congratulations.

You deserve it. Yeah, thanks heaps. No, it's been awesome to have New Zealand behind us as well. Can I just say too, we've called you on your number here and your profile picture is you playing golf. Do you think you might want to change that? Nah, mate. Got to keep it casual okay maybe you high jumping or something i don't know just part-time high jumper full-time amateur golfer i don't know also if you googled yourself in the last 24 hours but if you google yourself it comes up with a little gold medal

emblem as well and you can click on it yes i actually did um yeah shameless shameless plug i did actually google myself and yeah that's quite cool yeah you better be googling yourself mate what a day to be googling yourself hey hamish congratulations so proud uh you deserve all the success and i hope you enjoy the rest period too mate yeah thanks heaps guys lovely to talk