Is the Winter Olympics better than the Summer Olympics?

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0:32This is a Global Player original podcast. We're no longer a nation of fourth place finishes three goals for Team GB at the Winter Olympics, a new record. And the man who won two of them, Matt Weston, joins us on the show today. So that's not bad for a country that doesn't even have an ice skeleton track. The concrete one in Bath obviously works. How are Team GB punching above their weight? are the Winter Olympics giving the Summer Olympics a run for their money. Blades on their feet, throwing themselves down a mountain. It's all in a day's work, really. Welcome to The Sports Agents.

1:14The Sports Agents. With Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman. Hello, Chapters. Hi, Gabby. How's Lisbon? It's been excellent. And I think about 12 hours in, I've probably got enough anecdotes to do the whole podcast. today actually. Shall I put my feet up and just listen? It's interesting the dynamic I'm here with Amazon Prime obviously covering Benfica against Real Madrid and you remember the last match of the league phase was this exact fixture and there was Trubin the goalkeeper scored an incredible header to put Benfica through to knock Marseille out. Real Madrid went from third to then dropping out of the automatic places so you know it was a fixture that was a gift actually and will be very lucky to replicate today.

1:59So it was a natural one for us to choose when there wasn't an English team involved tonight. But there's a different dynamic when you have a match. I don't know if you find this, that doesn't have an English team. There's a bit more looseness around it and it's time to be a little bit creative. So I'm looking forward to doing an opener later with the club mascot on my arm, a bald eagle by the name of Victoria. Things like that, you know, it's all happening. We're in the same hotel as Real Madrid. So fight with Mbappe for the last pancake at breakfast this morning. I've opened my curtains and I've got a view of Christ the King and the famous Bridge of Lisbon.

2:33You don't get views like that when you're on a BBC trip. No, you most definitely don't. Which actually was why I thought right at the very top, you said, I'm here with Amazon Prime, just to make it clear that the BBC hadn't put you in, if anybody's watching this, in what looks like an incredible hotel. Yeah, it's really quite gorgeous. I'm weak, to be fair. We don't normally stay in the team. Something's happened on this trip. But we're not questioning it. Just put it this way. If I wanted to, I could have eaten seven pastilla donadas when I arrived last night because they were all over the place.

3:05And I was offered port when I arrived in reception at 10 o 'clock. Oh, my God. It's that kind of hotel. Did you accept the port? No, I didn't. I didn't. I've been good at it. Yeah, I had a really bad cold last week and I'm trying to... Oh, God, don't I know. Sorry. I was busy texting on the Tuesday night. Can you fill in for me tomorrow on Match of the Day? but anyway we've um we'll we'll we'll get back onto this fixture i'm sure over the days ahead please tell me that in the race for the last pancake kylian mbappe won that because i would be very worried about real madrid's chance of course he didn't have breakfast in the same room as me he eats macrobiotic stuff somewhere else but i have told the logan family whatsapp that story and they've all believed me now i find that bizarre because they all know i'd never have a pancake for breakfast but they obviously feel that you know when in Rome and all that on the Logan family um we had Kenny obviously on the podcast last week we did talking about the Calcutta Cup and I got a lovely message from Gregor Townsend after Scotland had beaten England I have to say saying he really enjoyed the episode and that we should have Kenny on more often I mean it links into your point about what you're saying about covering a game that had doesn't have English or British involvement you do have a sense of freedom where you just throw caution to the wind it's what we used to do when we did the NFL you kind of think well the Baltimore Ravens are never going to see this or if I dress up as Andy Reid which I once did the Kansas City Chiefs are never going to see this it's absolutely fine whereas you know if you dressed up as as Pep Guardiola ahead of a city game you would get absolutely battered wouldn't you it's so true it's a psychology when we used to go on to the red button quite a lot which um now is called iPlayer.

4:45Everybody used to say, oh, it feels so much more relaxed on there. And I don't know what it was because we were still broadcasting, but suddenly it became more like a podcast, actually, which is what this is right now. And yet we're in vision, we're chatting to each other. So there's a formality perhaps that just gets loosened. Whether Gregor was listening to this one or not, I was going to say this anyhow, that was one of my favourite men's Six Nations weekends that I can remember in a very long time I just thought every game had something really Italy pushed Ireland so close and there was the disallowed try for the forward pass which some people have disputed but that would that game was on a knife edge and then Scotland some of the stuff that Scotland played and also the fact that they thought you know we're going to play our game and if we win then that's brilliant and if on our own five meter line we're going to throw it and try and run the length of the field that is what we're going to do and it was just it was brilliant to watch and then the game you were at on sunday which was obviously incredibly one-sided but at times it i said this to my dad it was it was like watching the harlem globe trotters yeah exactly that wasn't it i don't know if anybody i mean they've gone back to their dna france in many ways we discussed this post-match the pack is nowhere near as heavy because antonio um weenie had to retire because of his his heart um his cardiac arrest and that's one of the reasons why you know they haven't got the weight in the pack but they're not bothering about their scrum is not their strength anymore or it's not their one of their major kind of go-tos and they're just playing this brilliant loose game as well when the ball goes loose but then apparently that's not a coincidence because a lot of the clubs in france train that where they train with the loose ball they don't it's not all structure it's you know it's a lot of play what's in front of you and it's so exciting to watch even the welsh and you know there weren't as many as there should have been in that crowd the other day because on sunday because they're the lowest ever for a six nations game but even the welsh you could see just applauding at some of the antics and some of the moves they were pulling off the french it was it was glorious and we should mention as well holly davidson the first woman to referee a six nations match did uh did the ireland game and and and did a good job.

7:03And Michele Lamarro, the Italy captain, unprompted came out in his press conference and talked about how important she is for the game. And I thought it was a really classy move of his to do that. Obviously, we had today one big thing for me that I always will emphasize. Obviously, the referee, Oli Davidson, has been outstanding. It's the first time for her as a... It's the first time ever as a women referee in the Sixth Nation and I just want to congratulate her it's never enough how much she's been doing for the whole world rugby and for our game so I think that's a very important thing to say and I appreciated the work we've done together today on the pitch I think whatever decision was was packing her and making sure that everything was going the right way.

8:01So I want to just congratulate her and say thanks for the effort on the field. One of the referees, I think, will be in contention for a World Cup final in the next World Cup. So well done. Another win for Scotland there with Holly. Everything about that weekend was just such a great weekend. And then the only other thing that I was going to mention, because with all due respect to Mansfield, and that was a great win for them at Burnley, and they've got Arsenal in the next round, and that's great. but the FA Cup didn't really provide many thrilling moments really whereas the title race in Scotland is just incredible and Sunday afternoon with Celtic coming from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at Kilmarnock and then Rangers Hearts which I listened to a lot of on the radio Ian Dennis was at iBrox with Pat Nevin the noise was just crackling through the radio I wouldn't like to call who's going to win this You know, it is a proper three-way title race.

8:59Which didn't look like a three-way race, did it? A couple of months ago. And it's just so brilliant that somehow Rangers have managed to get themselves back in it. And obviously Celtic have tried very hard and conspired to not be in it at times. But they've got themselves in it. And then what Tony Bloom has done in terms of the investment, the whole strategy that he employs in football generally, and obviously and at hearts in particular in this case it's fantastic so exciting sunday was one of my favorite sporting days i like i had daughters netball matches to watch i had two netball matches to watch which was great but in between i had your six nations match kilmana celtic hearts rangers india pakistan in the men's t20 which turned out to be a bit of a damp squib and india demolished them on top of the winter olympics super sunday and the snowboard cross first of all which was just brilliant on sunday lunchtime and and how they won that and then into the into the skeleton in the evening it was just sunday was just the best the best day to have off and just sit and watch sport it was brilliant of course um we are going to speak to matt weston on the podcast as well.

10:17But it's interesting, a lot, a lot's been made about how much money has been put into this Winter Olympic team when, especially when there were no medals on the table at the beginning of last week. And it's about 25 million, which I discovered is less than we put into the Summer Olympic swimming programme. And it is twice as much as we put into canoeing. So that doesn't feel like bad value for me to get three gold out of that and the entertainment that we've had out of that. I think these figures have been kind of put out there as if it's a lot. And actually, I think the Olympics and Winter Olympics in particular, it's often, as we know, the storytelling, it's about more than just the gold medals, isn't it?

10:56And I think it's been super coverage, wall-to-wall coverage, obviously, across the BBC. But I think it's been really inspiring and entertaining. And I've just deep dived into it this time for some reason. It's an interesting debate, isn't it? Because the amount of funding is linked to medals and performance so funding goes up and down up or down depending on the performance of the elite athletes at olympics in the various games but then at the same time you kind of want the funding and hope that it trickles down to grassroots and i'm not saying there's going to be grassroots skeleton okay but if it trickles down to get people interested in just being or kids being active and the power of sport funding shouldn't be criticized should it or used as a stick with which to beat certain sports and people may go well you know i don't know skiing is elite or whatever and and i suppose it is if you are you know if you're going to val d 'essire for a week or whatever but if you're going to the trafford center which isn't far away from where this sports agent studio is and are five years old and able to go on the ski slope at the Trafford Centre because you've seen what I don't know the Snowboard Cross team had done that's a good thing isn't it yeah and Kirsty Muir did most of her early training on the kind of carpet indoor carpet like that we talked to her about and I know she's ended up with two fourths and we'll be disappointed with that but you know she's been a really inspiring character and Matt Weston himself was a really good taekwondo player, a good little rugby player as a kid as well until he was 16, 17.

12:39He was a sportsman, you know, and I think, as you say, it's about getting into sport and being active, isn't it? And then these talent ID programmes seem to be pretty accurate, don't they, in terms of where they place their young athletes who are willing and want to do it. So it's been a joyous weekend of sport, as you articulated there. Well, let's hear from him then. Matt Weston, double gold medalist in the skeleton. We'll join us next. The Sports Agents. That sound could mean a lot of things. And when something's going wrong at home, the hardest part can be figuring out what the problem actually is.

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14:26the sports agents with gabby logan and mark chapman thank you very much for joining us are you are you in full-on party mode at the moment a little bit yeah i mean definitely enjoying myself and uh and having some fun last night wasn't wasn't as crazy as the night when i won the medal i think i was trying to do media the next day with like less than a handful of hours of sleep so that was quite fun it's been a joy watching you and watching you and Tabby as well. And actually that's the whole of Sunday was, Chappas and I were just saying, it was an incredible sporting weekend. And what a time for winter sport, the Winter Olympics to decide to have its moment for Great Britain actually.

15:07Always do it on the weekend when you've got bigger audiences. Yeah, yeah. Was it feeling in the buildup to your first goal, there was a bit of pressure building within the team? A little bit. I mean, to be honest, I felt quite a lot of pressure coming into the games anyway. I was obviously coming in as world number one and world champion. So there's definitely that pressure that I had to go there and perform and come home with some sort of medal around my neck. But I wouldn't say I felt pressure. I just felt like I wanted to go out there for GB and get our first medal across the line. We've had some amazing performances, but unfortunately, a couple of them were fourth places.

15:42So it's very, very close to the medals. We hadn't quite got across the line, but I'm glad that, well, now we've done it twice. It feels pretty amazing. You talk about the pressure you put on yourself. How hard is it when you switch to a team event and you are responsible for each other as well? It's definitely a different dynamic, to be honest. I love it. I love the team event. It's a great addition, especially with the reaction start on it as well. It kind of adds a little bit more jeopardy, a little bit more excitement to the sport. So I love that kind of side of it. But for me personally, I kind of treat it as like a fifth race run.

16:21I just kept myself in the zone. I almost was saying to myself, be boring, go down the track, don't do anything silly. Just tick the boxes, get the job done going down there. And hopefully we'd done enough because I had no idea what Tabby had done before me because I literally didn't want to look at any times, didn't want to let anything get into my head as well. So that was your strategy to just try and go into it blind, so to speak. yeah yeah i kind of i kind of use the expression put blinkers on i kind of uh let the completely switch off from everything else i at the top of the track i put my helmet just low enough before i put it on that i can't see any of the times in front of me i can't see anything like that just because one it doesn't affect what i'm going to do i'm trying to go down there as fast as possible whether tabby's been in first or last or anything like that it doesn't really matter or and it affects what i do so i'm kind of switch off from all the noise try and keep myself in as much of a zone as possible and, yeah, go down there as fast as I can.

17:20And therefore, this may be a stupid question, so I apologise. If you had known, let's say, for example, I don't know, she was three-tenths ahead of the field after her run, giving you that leeway, could you then alter how you do your leg? how much leeway do you have between you know going flat out there's no easy route down a track if you're asking if i was going to take the safe route no there's no easy like yeah the safest route is often the fastest route because you're often doing if you're online and you're absolutely flying down the track you're in the correct parts of the track you're getting the pressure in the corners at the right time you're you're coming off the corners at the right time and the fastest way is often the safest way so there's no taking your foot off the gas you're going you you try and go as fast as you can every time you you go down the track and and let's talk about what that feels like when you're on the track and you're hitting the line that you have imagined that you will you get those moments where it within commentary oh that wasn't quite what he intended there and why what happened do you feel that do you know instinctively and immediately i'm i'm off here yeah i'm i'm very much a like a feel based slider so some people use like a lot of um visual cues when they're going down to know where they are and make sure they're on the right track but i use a lot of like feel like where i'm feeling the pressures where i'm where i'm positioned on the track really so i'll know instantly whether like i've messed up in this corner which means the exit bit of it is going to be bad or something like that and then i have to kind of adjust and um yeah change change what i'm doing from there kind of almost instantly really where do you feel the most pressure on your body on my body in my neck and we don't have like the rest of my body is almost like supported with the sled a little bit in the hamstrings but we train them quite a lot to be nice and strong for the start but the yeah in the neck we hit like g-forces of five or six g's going around some of the corners and you literally some you would have heard it in a few of the athletes like the scraping noise that's the front of the helmet hitting the ice so you actually can't hold it up enough to not hit the ice so here's not too bad actually but a lot of the there's a lot of other tracks where you literally your head is buried in the ice really so you do a lot of training for your for your neck strengths do you specific training yeah definitely you look like a right idiot in the gym sometimes some of the exercises we have to do to like hanging weights off it and uh and things like that but yeah it's uh we have to do a lot of that yes talk to us for people that don't know your story about when you switched to this sport and what was it about this sport that captured you because you you were you were a good sportsman as a as a kid and as a teenager so so what what captured you with this well I just wanted to do anything but a day job really I just uh no is it so actually it's funny you say that because skeleton almost kind of chose me I kind of went along to a talent id process it was run by uk sport and um it was called discover your gold at the time which is quite fitting now yeah and uh you kind of go you go along and you do lots of physical tests mine was more based around power so um how fast you can run how high you can jump and lots of things like that and they send your results off to loads of different sports like they had sprint cycling they had sprint canoeing um for women they had sevens rugby lots of like high powerful sports and things like that and skeleton looked at my results and went yep he's definitely got a couple of screws loose let's get him uh going head first down an ice track i think you'll be good at it and uh that was nine years ago now so you were you played rugby you did taekwondo to quite high level as well didn't you yeah so you had you had aptitude in in other sports and when they perhaps looked like i know you've got an injury didn't you in taekwondo when they didn't look like they were going to be the one you must have felt somewhere yeah i've got something you knew you were competitive you knew you had a fearlessness you know i think you were 19 were you when you first got into the round yeah 18 19 when i started yeah how do you how does one go along to those those tryout days how does that happen uh well so like i said i did mine it was run by uk sport they tend to run these talent id processes after every olympic so probably every two years but uh if anyone's super inspired with skeleton and kind of wants to think so yeah no that could be me at the next olympics uh british bob says skeleton are doing their own uh recruitment at the moment so you can apply directly with them I think we've had a massive influx of people applying and putting their name forward to try and be like the next hopefully Olympic gold medalist so that's really really exciting for me and kind of makes me feel a bit proud that I've inspired a few people to go on and give it a go because I had no idea where this was going to take me like you said I did rugby and taekwondo before and those sports kind of didn't really like they weren't really for me they just kind of didn't really click or I didn't see a future with it let's say that but the um yes one skeleton came along I kind of gave it everything took it super super serious and then yeah nine years later I'm a double olympic champion which is absolutely mental to say how how would you you're at team gb house at the moment how would you describe the the morale amongst the team the feeling amongst team gb at these winter olympics I think right now for my team a lot of the feeling is probably hung over um it's that we're in a no it's in a great head space i think the fact that um obviously skeleton has had some amazing successes i'm so i'm so so proud of all my teammates and what we've been able to achieve but the fact that we've got another gold medal in the the snowball cross as well it's kind of like i think that it's definitely uplifted the team and first ever on snow yeah exactly yeah it's crazy i'm so like it's it's amazing to be part of that history as well like to have like our names next to the fact that we've like been first time we've done a lot of first times this games and I think uh I'm hoping that we can continue that trend going and like last night I was out watching the curlers giving them some encouragement and I can't wait to go and shout at some more be it be the classic two loud Brits in the in the um in the audience shouting at my teammates going come on let's get some more medals and when you say if anybody is inspired to do it what they've got to realize is they will be doing it largely on concrete for most of their training yeah when you see or when one sees that the videos of how you train i mean that looks even more dangerous than doing it on ice yeah so so i think what you're you're you're talking about there is the push track we have in bath so that's the only place in the country where we can practice the start um or practice anything sort of somewhat similar to skeleton it's it's quite a skill being able to run bent over one-handed pushing something is uh definitely takes some getting used to i know it didn't definitely took me a while to get used to that but um so that's what we can train in the summer um and so we maximize that by we we train as a full-time athlete we do a lot of work in the gym a lot of sprinting a lot of pushing on that um push track and bath but the to actually go and do the sport we have to travel and uh spend a lot of time away um living out a suitcase it's not as glamorous as people think living out suitcase going hotel to hotel we're not in um uh five-star hotels like f1 stars and things like that it's it's very different but uh yeah no that's we don't have any ice so to come away with two gold medals as a team is pretty great well you say like f1 stars get gabby's currently in a five-star hotel in lisbon it's rare and lewis hamilton how the other half live hey and so if i tell you if i tell you my hotel mates are the real madrid football team you'll you'll realize that there's you know it's a different level here but this is not normal yeah yeah yeah what um what does your like diet like how does your season work now because let's be honest the most of us come to the skeleton once every once every four years yeah and watch it and love it and then kind of park it because that that's the nature of the sporting world i suppose at the moment yeah how does how does this work for you now going forward well it's kind of a bit weird for us because we put as much effort into the olympics as we do every world championships every year we have our seasons work as a like we have a world cup circuit so we have eight races a year that we race on and that's all around the world like so in asia north america europe they're all in the northern hemisphere but they're um yeah so we're constantly racing we've got yeah eight races a year plus a world championship so we're we're very very busy and some of the races are absolutely brilliant to be a part of as well it's so i find it well i'm slightly biased but i find it super exciting to watch and yeah obviously we absolutely love all support and how much the nation's got behind us and and giving us that little little bit of a boost over the past few days we absolutely love it but uh it's a bit weird going back to competing normally week in week out without the all this olympic chaos around i've got to ask chappers and i've had chats on the podcast over the last week or so about some of them the the brilliant stories that have come out of this winter olympics from the injecting of penises in the ski jumping yeah and and over the weekend there was another one they've run out of condoms in the olympic village i'm not sure if you saw this chapter i did see this i'm i'm more in i'm more intrigued where this question's going for matt yeah i'm a bit on edge now who's engaged to be married you started to move back from the camera there Matt I don't yeah I'm getting scared then yeah good this will be interesting in all in all seriousness it it does it seems the Winter Olympic provide a lot of fun I mean there's you know people just look like they're having a really great time and they obviously are yeah yeah yeah I think as as well with the um sorry I need to compose myself a little bit now I think the reason why is a lot of the, if you look at the winter sports, especially compared to the Summer Olympics, we do some pretty extreme stuff.

27:21Like most of the sports you have to wear a helmet for. We go ridiculous miles an hour on snow and ice and it's like, it's pretty crazy. So, and that can be quite like, it gets your adrenaline up. It gets like you nervous. It like, you have to have that relief. so I think having it afterwards, having after like an event or something like that, you have to go out and enjoy yourself and have some fun. Beautifully answered. Yeah. Yeah, I had to dodge that one, I think. Yeah, that was scarier than going headfirst down the track, to be honest.

27:57I'm thinking, should we say that was a great interview, Matt? And just for fear of what might come next from Gabby, I'm wondering whether we go, do you know, that was brilliant. Thank you very much. You're going to enjoy the rest of your time in Milan. I mean, I got asked the other day on an interview if I've ever heard little Matt jumping onto the sled. So to be honest, the questions are kind of like going crazy at the moment and they're definitely not ones that I'd expect. So yeah, nothing surprising me at the moment. That is the difference between the winter and the summer Olympics because I do athletics where a lot of people also wear lycra.

28:31I've never asked any of them any questions about their little friends so there's a looseness to the Winter Olympics Well I'm glad we were able to inspire you there and cheer Matt seriously though thank you very much for coming on and congratulations what an amazing amazing achievement Thank you so much and huge congratulations I'm fairly sure we'll be seeing you at the end of the year for Sports Personality of the Year That would be awesome. Hopefully I'm not in Lycra for that one. If I was you, Matt, I'd ask to be interviewed by Claire for that one, if you're a sports personality. Okay, fine.

29:08Best of luck with the wedding before then as well. Thank you so much. Thank you.

29:17That sound could mean a lot of things. And when something's going wrong at home, the hardest part can be figuring out what the problem actually is. at thumbtack you can upload a voice message or a photo and our ai powered search will help diagnose your project plus the pros we know have over 14 million five-star reviews so you can hire with confidence thumbtack we know homes hire the right pro today the sports agents with gabby logan and mark chapman thanks for listening if you've got any thoughts on today's show you can get in touch with us via the email the sportsagentsatglobal.com or messages on social media or via the link in the show notes all our past episodes are on youtube global player or wherever you get your podcasts and please subscribe or follow and leave a review we'll see you on thursday the sports agents with gabby logan and mark chapman

30:17this has been a global player original production thumbtack presents uncertainty strikes i was surrounded. The aisle and the options were closing in. There were paint rollers, satin and matte finish, angle brushes, and natural bristles. There were too many choices. What if I never got my living room painted? What if I couldn't figure out what type of paint to use? What if I just used Thumbtack? I can hire a top-rated pro that knows everything about interior paint, easily compare prices, and read reviews. Thumbtack knows homes. Download the app today.