The Sport Social

We’re back for 2023, baby! Holidays have been ace, as have all the sporting things.  First off, we chat about sometimes tennis player Nick Kyrios (Nick, give Libby a call), and Libby explains a bit more about the United Cup. Australia appears to be dominating Test Cricket at the moment, winning 2 test series against the West Indies and South Africa. There was a bit of cricket over the summer, but...

We’re still away but before we pulled up stumps for the year we snuck in a chat with one of life’s absolute gems: 5 time Olympian and Gold Medalist, Natalie Cook.  With Nat a board member of the Brisbane Organising Committee for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we were busting to talk to her about everything Olympics. And yes it’s 10 years away, but with 33(ish) sports running their biggest...

We know we said we were on holidays, but we have a few little surprise gifts for you all over the next couple of weeks. We know, we shouldn’t have (thank us by leaving a review?😆) As we look at what 2023 has in store, we couldn’t look past the FIFA Women’s World Cup (soccer), coming to Australia and New Zealand in July. Don’t underestimate how big this event will be - tickets sales are already ou...

Schools finished in Queensland and while we’re thrilled (because Term 4 was like a marathon) we’re also aware that it could all be going pear shaped in 3 weeks. Can’t wait!  Look, there’s lots of World Cup (the soccer kind) action to cover off but we know that you’re all smart enough to google who’s playing in the semi finals this week. So we focused on the big issues. Namely, Ronaldo’s Jamie Tart...

There’s a baby on the way! Over the weekend, Libby; announced that she and Luke are expecting their 4th bub, did a Ted talk all about body image and athleticism, and didn’t vomit on herself while on stage. Little miracles on so many levels.  After a very excellent effort, the Socceroos are out of the FIFA World Cup. Libby recaps the game in 140 character sound bites and we cover some of the cool l...

Georgie hit the dance floor over the weekend for an incredibly fun women’s only disco and it’s got us talking about everything dance. It’s certainly a theme for this week.  But before we get to that, we have all the ball sports to round out - the WBBL final in North Sydney was won by the Adelaide Strikers and the Socceroos beat Tunisia (some people slept through half of it). Producer Jase got up c...

There were all kinds of amazing sports feats this week, but the things that caught our attention the most were typically ‘off field’.   Isaac Humphries had us glued to our screens when he publicly announced that he was gay and used it as an opportunity to inspire others. What a delight it was to see not only his team but the broader basketball league and other notable Australian athletes throw the...

Georgie bumped into the delightful Kobi Walker while out running, who happens to be a top 4 national runner in cross country and track. She can barely breathe but her stats have never looked so good (we can’t say the same for poor Kobi!).  There’s a lot of World Cup action to cover: New Zealand beat England to win the Women’s Rugby World Cup, Pakistan lost to England in the Men’s T20 World Cup fin...

We are a hot mess today, with Libby’s children essentially producing the show and spiders roaming the studio.  We chat with an amazing force in the sport of scooter riding (that’s what it’s called, we checked). Taj Shambrook is a 14 year old from Melbourne who is taking on the world in his sport and being generous enough to take us all with him. Having just come back from Junior Worlds after placi...

We need to talk about all the black pants in the Australian Men’s T20 World Cup cricket kit. And also about the most incredible match between India and Pakistan, witnessed by over 90,000 people at the MCG and viewed around the world by millions. Matt Hayden wasn’t wrong when he said it would be the penultimate of any cricketing tournament. The final round of AFLW happened over the weekend and to m...

Producer Jase is away on his honeymoon, and while he said we could try and record our normal weekly episode ourselves, we all agreed that the likelihood of of us mucking something up was HIGH.  So that we could keep delivering some relevant sports chat, we’ve called up two exceptional athletes, Lauren Jackson and Cody Simpson, to talk to them about their respective comebacks to basketball and swim...

Nedd Brockmann has just run from Perth to Sydney, leaving us lost for words. The 22 year old has run over 100kms for 40 days, and in doing so, raised nearly $1.5M for homelessness charity, We are Mobilise.  It leads us down a very windy path that covers our own running pursuits, mullets and extreme sporting achievements.  We give a wrap up of world sport tournaments and question whether anyone’s r...

The Bathurst 1000 happened over the weekend and we’re pretty impressed that we’ve discovered another type of car racing.  The T20 World Cup starts this Sunday so we chatted to former Australian Batsman and general legend Matthew Hayden about the upcoming tournament, the importance of cricket for countries such as India and Pakistan and drop in pitches (listen and learn friends - we didn’t know wha...

The NRL had a big weekend with the men’s and women’s finals playing as a double header. The women’s game saw 2 new teams, the Newcastle Knights and the Parramatta Eels go head to head and the score really didn’t reflect the top quality of the game. We loved a bit of Barnesy (cue Libby singing) but were a bit underwhelmed by the western Sydney darby between the Penrith Panthers and the Parramatta E...

How does it happen that every team you support loses in one weekend? Such was the case for Georgie this weekend.  The North Queensland Cowboys lost to Parramatta Eels, the Sydney Swans lost to the Geelong Cats, the Wallabies lost to the All Blacks (again) at Eden Park, and the South Sydney Rabbitohs lost to the Penrith Panthers. Thank goodness for Robbie Williams. He really saved it for us. We now...

[Sidebar: We’re dealing with sick kids, bad internet connections and average audio. It must be school holidays. Please bear with us and apologies to Producer Jase! We’ll be back to normal next week.]  Australia’s former ironwoman Bonnie Hancok just circumnavigated Australia in a 10kg surf ski. Just let that sink in for a minute. She paddled over 10,000kms in 8 months and 10 days, and in doing so h...

Libby’s gone all spiritual and given the full moon has been charging her crystals (whyyyyyyyyyy?). And because she has been on yoga training, she hasn’t watched a shred of sport over the weekend 🤯. In a shock to no-one, Georgie has.  The AFL is down to the final 4, and this week also signed the biggest sporting deal in Australian history. Australian One Day International captain Aaron Finch has r...

There’s a lot to discuss after last weekend’s sporting schedule and the US Open Tennis is no exception. Serena Williams bowed out in the 3rd round to Australian Ajla Tomljanović, and Nick Kyrgios might be growing up (but we feel conflicted).  In the men’s AFL, 4 epic games were played to the delight of fans, and in the men’s NRL we now have a top 8 which doesn’t include the Broncos (Libby has thou...

The AFLW Season 7 kicked off over the weekend, with a historical 18 teams now competing in the women’s draw. We spoke to Brisbane Lion’s Vice Captain, Nat Grider, about the growth of the competition since 2017, ACL injuries, and whether AFL has found its place in Australia’s sporting calendar.   The Belgium Grand Prix happened early Monday morning (Australian time), and Libby now thinks she could...

Some people think that female athletes can’t have muscles and we’re over it.  We get straight to work and chat with 3 time premiership winning NRWL player, Julia Robinson, about her standing up to the body shaming bullies.  Libby’s been reliving 2007 with the Duel in the Pool in Sydney. Australia narrowly lost to the US, but the event saw multi ability athletes compete in the same events, as well...

There is a new 6 time cross fit world champ in town and some of Libby’s experiences and opinions on the sport leave Georgie lost for words.  Serena Williams is evolving away from tennis and some of Australia’s sporting captains have decided to take a break. Is sport getting better at supporting athletes during their careers? Having now watched 3 seasons of F1: Drive to Survive, we consider ourselv...

After one podcast episode, Georgie has decided to take a holiday. What a monster. She comes to us live from Falls Creek.  We catch Matt Denny in the middle of the night in Birmingham and chat to him about his amazing gold medal winning performance at the Commonwealth Games. He gives us the why behind his bromance with Brandon Starc and his unofficial role as Team Spirit Captain.  In our second wee...

Nothing like the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games to kick things off! We talk about Australia’s gold medal haul, and the moments that didn't involve silverware but had us glued to the screen.  With all the excitement on the pool deck, we call good mate and fellow Olympian Leisel Jones to talk about the Australian team’s performance, and get her take on Emma McKeon and Kyle Chalmers.  Last week a...

Welcome to The Sport Social, a weekly debrief on the last week in sport, without an endless parade of stats and figures. Join Olympic gold medalist Libby Trickett and her sister-in-law, Georgie, as they discuss the human stories behind the headlines, and give you enough information to feel included in the world of sport.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/list...