The Chaser Report - The Best Olympic Mistakes | Andrew Hansen

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Andrew Hansen joins Dom Knight for a look back at some of the bets minor mishaps to occur in Olympic Games history. Admittedly, some of them are a bit less minor than others. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to the Chaser Report with Dom and Andrew Hanson once again. The least informed coverage of the Olympics and Andrew for today's effort. We're not even going to talk about the vague understanding of the events of Paris 20204 that have filtered into our feeds as we did yesterday. We're going to talk about Olympics gone by. Well, we are, and specifically, you know, Olympic mishaps and stuff-ups, because, you know, if you caught yesterday's episode,

we're talking about the fresh stuff-ups from this Olympics, you know, there were some food shortages, the South Korean athletes were introduced as being North Korea, their lifelong enemies. So I'm going to test your knowledge today about mishaps and blunders from Olympics past. We're going to dive into that. and how do you can you give us a very exciting and dramatic introduction please to this quiz so this is a quiz that i like to call olympic games minor mishaps and the synthetic crowd goes wild yes some of them are actually slightly bigger than minor but they're mostly fairly minor but

let's see i think it's the mishaps and the controversies that um you know make the games more memorable. I mean, one gold medal is very much like another after a while. Australia winning a swimming relay medal got monotonous now for the women. Yeah, you don't want it to go too smoothly, do you? No. You don't really want it to go too well. Absolutely not. Now, this one, I'd like to ask you about, Domi, a lovely story from the 1960 Olympic Games, which were held in Rome.

And Surinam, the country was very excited because it was the first time that Surinam had ever competed. Oh, how exciting. And so, you know, it was pretty big, big deal for them, really. So there's this guy called Wemisagas, and he was all set to compete from Surinam. It was very exciting. They hadn't been in the Olympics before. Why did the Surinam runner Wemisages not compete in the race?

A, he was run over in the hectic Roman traffic. B, he was asleep. C, he lost both legs to an orca attack that morning. Orcas, somehow, going up the magnificent. It was a Tiber River. Was there a Shark Nato in Rome that day? Could well have been. You never know, Domney.

You never know. It could be. All right. Well, I mean, given my experience of Paris, 24, not due to any great disloyalty, just due to, you know, having kids and being busy. I've slept through the whole this Olympics so far. So I'm going to guess that that's exactly what happened here. Dominic, night, you are correct. Yes.

Poor old Wim Asagis was asleep. and he just missed his race because he had a nap. I mean, it appears... Fair enough. Fair enough. Exactly. If you had to compete in the Olympic, or if I did,

I'd prefer to have a Kip as well. I wouldn't want to go out there in a stadium and run in front of thousands of... I mean, of course you'd have a nap. But also, I mean, he spent his entire life with Suriname not being in the Olympics. And then this one time, they changed the rules and go,

okay, Suriname, you can have a go. He could be forgiven for just assuming... You know, when you wake up and you don't know where you are or what you're doing. Probably just woke up it, No idea what was going on. I thought, well, Suriname is not the Olympics. The one thing I won't be doing here in Rome is competing,

and he went back to sleep. And he just went back to sleep. I mean, look, and also, he had an extra excuse, which was that he wasn't really his decision. He was actually given the wrong starting time. Somebody told him that the race was going to start at a particular time, and they were wrong. Oh, that's awful.

It wasn't his fault. He just had a nap and then woke up. And then woke up and then it's like, you know how I said that the race was starting with 2030? You've actually missed it. It's on TV though. We haven't invented video cassette recorders yet, so you can't watch it.

But it did happen. Wow. It didn't even watch the catch-up. Can you imagine? Sleeping through. Can you imagine? I mean, my only hope in this story, Andrew, is that he wasn't very good. Because, I mean, Suriname hadn't been competing.

He may have just been a random guy from Suriname. who happened to be working in Rome or something. Rather than if he'd spent his entire life training to be a runner, and maybe he'd been the one pushing for Suriname to be admitted to the games, just to finally get his shot in the spotlight, only to sleep through it. Oh my goodness, that's very, very sad. That's all in.

They were only there because of him. Oh, dear. Are they competing this time around? Did you see them floating down the... Whoa, if they haven't been given the wrong time of day to show up, then I suppose they might be. You know, if we're going to shake a leg and get out of bed for it, I don't know.

Oh dear, poor things. Anyway, so there you go. All right, next question. Well, next Olympic mishab for you, Dominic Knight, and for you listening to, see if you know this one. Why did Thomas Hamilton Brown of South Africa get knocked out of the series of lightweight boxing matches in Berlin in 1936?

Oh, your choices are A, he put too much weight on overnight, B, he misplaced his gloves, or C, he kept pulling out a gun during the boxing fights. Well, I'm assuming, given this is 1936, this is the Nazi games, I assume pulling out a gun, bringing a, you know, you don't bring a knife to a gun fight. It's the same sort of thing. I don't think they would have minded if he'd had a gun. I don't think there'd be any situation in Hitler's Germany who are bringing a gun out would have been frowned on. So I don't think it's, I don't think it's that the weight gain overnight, because I having been to, to Germany, just for very briefly myself.

The amount of sort of rusty and schnitzel and stuff, you know, beer I managed to consume within 24 hours, I think I would have put on weight, several kilos. So I think I think he put on weight overnight, yeah. You're going to go, you went for weight overnight. Dominic Knight, you are again correct. Fantastic. Yes, indeed, yes. I think even in the Nazi games, you know, bringing a gun to a lightweight boxing match

might have been a bridge too far. Yeah, presumably that'll be part of the Los Angeles. Angeles games, though, in 28. I think that'll be... Oh, I mean, compulsory. They'll hand you one halfway through. Presidential order. You'll be disqualified but not carrying a game.

NRA will insist. No, what happened to this guy? He was from South Africa. He actually lost his opening round match first, right, but just normally. And he was so disappointed by that that he went and stuffed his face.

He did some, you know, what do they call it? Sort of comfort eating or eating therapy. Oh, yes. You know, you stuff your face to feel better. I do. I know that feeling daily. Well, you should become an Olympic boxer then because that's what they do.

Then, though, somebody came over it to him and said, oh, look, actually, there have been a huge mistake. You didn't lose that round at all. You'd actually won. There was an error in the scoring. Oh, my goodness. And he went, oh, God, but by that time, he'd already put away, you know, 68 Kranskis.

Sure. You know, basically, he had a Lervenbroy B-hall or a Munich, what, You can carbloat. It's not hard to carbloid in Germany. In Germany. Strudel. He was so full of, yes, sauerkraut.

He was full of it and the next day he was weighed so much more that he wasn't allowed to compete in the lightweight boxing anyway and he was disqualified. That's, again, very sad. Very, very sad story that you've managed to dredge up. But also the notion that the notion that spending the previous day absolutely. Gorgeing yourself on German food Would make you better Rather than worse at boxing He would have gotten the crap betting out of him

If he was full of schnitzel And Brad Verst and whatever That's right Turning up after a big meal of the schnitz Probably did him a favour Yeah Yeah, all you can eat a day It's schnitz, that's right

It's not, you don't feel like competing in an athletic event After a schnitzel I mean eating Is an athletic event At some point with German food Well, they should be They should add competitive eating

To the Olympics I'm sure again, L.A. 2028, that's kind of... Oh, L.A., yes. Which I just feel like, if Donald Trump wins this election, he's going to open, presumably. He'll preside over that games. Oh, he'll be competing in the eating Olympics. I think so. Sponsored by McDonald's. Oh, it would be fantastic.

I can't wait. Can't wait. I think he'd be very good at it. All right, now let's fast forward a little bit to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and South Korea Dom Knight. See if you can dig into your memory here. There was a bit of a blunder A bit of a blunder During the opening ceremony A certain irony occurred

With the release of the peace dove Oh no What happened to them What happened to them Oh the release of the peace doves Look did they miss time it So that they lit the torch Before they released the doves

Were there's their flombayed dove Indeed you are correct Yes They were barbecued Accidentally by the Olympic Cauldron So Not the not the the best symbolism, really.

I mean, particularly given that very fraught circumstances of the North Korea, South Korea tensions to barbecue the dubs that must have boded very badly. Although that said, Korean barbecue is delicious. I've got a good dipping sauce there and some kimchi on the side. I think...

Bit of kimchi. Fantastic. A nice little, nice little soup. The Chaser Report. News you can't trust. One last one for you. And this is from the same Olympics 1988 in South Korea Domney can you tell us

why were the judges suspended after the gold medal boxing round? Now here are your choices why were the judges suspended after the gold medal boxing round after the decision they made A they were asleep

B they gave the gold medal to the loser or C the judges started to box each other I want all of them to be true I well look it's very easy to give an award to the wrong person I mean, we all night happened at the Olympics. It didn't happen at the Logies at one point as well. I'm not sure.

I like to think it's because they were asleep, Andrew, and that they'd been out to have a beautiful meal of barbecued Korean dove the night before, wash it down with some beautiful sojus, and that was easy. They perhaps went out to some karaoke or something, and just had a good old time in Korea, and so slept through the match. And frankly, as someone who doesn't enjoy boxing very much, I think sleeping through boxing. is just fine.

So you reckon they pulled, they did a bit of a Suriname. Maybe there were Suriname judges. That could have been. Yeah. Domi, you are incorrect on that particular one. The only one that you didn't get right,

they actually gave, they gave the gold medal to the person who lost the match instead of the person. Oh my goodness. It was a big blunder and quite, quite a controversy because this was an American boxer and he was fighting a South Korean boxer.

Oh. And everybody there just figured that, well, the American guy won because he beat the absolute hell out of the Korean guy. He landed 86 punches. Right. Whereas the Korean guy only landed 32. And even the Korean guy, whose name was Park Si Hun, even he, when the match was over, just assumed he'd lost and looked really disappointed.

But then the judges thought otherwise, and they handed the gold medal to the South Korean guy, and later they were suspended. And that's just, was it, did the decision stand? Did you get to keep the medal? Hey, this is, look, my research doesn't explain that. Wow, because that's, oh, we don't know, don't ask you deep knowledge. I don't know.

I mean, you're a performing stand-up comedian. You know you've got to do a bit of local. Every gig, you've got to get up and, you know, give the crowd a little something, don't you? And you've got to share that you hate the same people that they hate. If you're in, if you're in Geelong, you've got to make fun of Melbourne, or if you're in anywhere, you've got to make fun of Adelaide. that kind of thing that's right that's right

so you reckon they were just doing a bit of that yeah just just pleasing the locals we'll give it to the South Korean go who got the crap beaten out of him give him the gold medal

I don't like that idea I mean I would have won a lot more fights in the playground as a child if that was the scoring system I think I would have done well this is again this is when I was living in the UK

no one ever beat me up in Australia we're not that kind of country but in the UK I was regularly beaten up for being Australian And it was a strange, strange business. Oh, well, you would have been. Yeah, of course. Absolutely, because you were a convict.

Yeah, they never tired of reminding me. That and the fact that I lived upside down somehow. They didn't understand the way gravity operates over there. No, they wouldn't like that. No, no. They did, I know. I've got British relatives. And, you know, when they were younger, one of the kids said to me,

so do you like, do you have Christmas in June? They really thought we did. Like, they genuinely, that was a genuinely, held belief. Yeah, no, I can't tell you how many times people said, what's it like living upside down? It's like, oh, right. How did your country, how did your pissy little country have an empire that span time zones and hemispheres, and yet none of you can understand the notion that gravity operates consistently everywhere. Donnie, you haven't gotten over these. No, no, there's. Wounds, have you?

No, and they're exactly the sort of wounds that were just, if I were a boxing judge, and I were from, if I was from Korea, maybe the judges were low. and, you know, the career it was occupied by the US for quite some time. Maybe I'm a little fuck you to Uncle Sam. You would. You'd go here. Have the goal. Have the goal.

Have the goal. I think we all know who won today. Yeah. Absolutely. Very good. Well, thank you for doing all that extensive research. I can only... I'm exhausted.

I can only hope that more mishaps of this sort of part of the lasting legacy of Paris 224 and indeed that the alarms have been set. Perhaps people go out and if you listen, When you're in Paris, go and cancel a few athletes' alarms. And your deeds will live long in history. Oh, yes, yes. And yes, that's right. And keep your earmuffs on as well, just in case Celine Dion reappears.

They won't be able to stop it now, will they? Oh, no, no, she's back. She's back, Domi. Terrifying, terrifying. And perhaps this will be in the 2008 mishaps quiz, allowing Celine Dion to perform yet again. Yeah, we'll be, yeah, Dominic, yes. Yeah, that's right.

Which performer who everybody had hoped Their career had ended Accidentally performed in the 24 Olympics? I mean, it sounds like a horrible disease We discussed this yesterday as well I wouldn't wish stiff person syndrome On anybody, but by the same token I would not wish I know that my heart will go on

On anybody Well, you're a good man, I'm a thoughtful fellow I am, I am Thank you, Andrew, we'll catch you next time Bye bye Our Gehr is from Road We're part of our Conoclass Network We'll return to your feed

With some form with the Chase Report or other Tomorrow. Catch you then.