Bloom Joins Roy & H.G.
Irreverent TV Aussies grill skier

By Matt Farrell // usolympicteam.com Feb. 14, 2002

SALT LAKE CITY When U.S. athlete Jeremy Bloom received a call to appear on The Ice Dream with Roy and H.G., his first reaction was, Who's that?

Teammates, his agent and Australian athletes immediately prodded him and said, You have to do the show. What Bloom quickly learned is that Roy and H.G. are the hosts of one of the hottest late-night TV shows on Australia's Channel 7. They are quickly becoming a cult hit in the United States after getting off to a wild start at the Games in Sydney in 2000. Athletes and delegation members from Sydney have been sharing tapes of the show to keep up with two of the more irreverent characters on TV.

It is best compared to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, but these two gentlemen, who show staffers just call 'The Boys,' take full advantage of looser Australian TV regulations in terms of raunchiness. As for questions for guests, about anything goes.

These are the interviews that I like to do, Bloom said the morning after. Normal interviewers just always ask the same thing, so it is fun to do something silly, not think about it and just have fun.

Bloom managed to cram a bit before the show, when he got his hands on a tape of one of the Sydney shows. Bloom, who will play football at the University of Colorado next year, expected questions chiding him about why American football players wear all those pads. Instead what he got was questions about sex, modeling in his underwear and the future of moguls skiing.

I had no idea what to expect, Bloom said, unknowing that they were showing images of him modeling underwear on the monitor behind him. I couldn't see the monitor, so I don't know where they got that from.

Some highlights from the show:

On moguls
H.G.: "Were you slightly disappointed with your effort yesterday?"

Jeremy: "Absolutely."

H.G.: "What did you think of the rest of the competition? Did you think you were judged fairly in those areas that are subjective in the moguls?"

Jeremy: "I don't think so. With all the controversy going along, I don't think I was part of that, but as long as they're talking about it, sure, I got ripped off."

H.G.: "It seemed to me that a number of people attempted things yesterday which got very low marks. I refer, of course, to Jonny Moseley's turdo-Chicko-roll maneuver. Now I understand that the skis can't go above the head."

Jeremy: "Correct."

H.G.: "Do you think people have almost exhausted the possibilities of what they can do once they hit the kicker."

Jeremy: "Yes. He's the only guy that tried the inverted trick and he prides himself on being an innovator of the sport and the rest of the pack didn't do that."

Roy: "Jeremy, I'd like to suggest, and this is something I have been working on at home, that once you hit the kicker, you remove the skis. They go off on their own accord. You would spin, then, in all manner and arrive back on your skis. It would be within the rules. That's the only way to go, isn't it, to make the sport more interesting, because the sport is going to die on the vine?"

Jeremy: "Okay, if you say so, absolutely."

On sex
Roy: "I believe the moguls tour is just rooting all the time."

Jeremy: "It's what?"

Roy: "Sex, having sex all the time. Is that what it's about? You wake up, it's sex . . . Is that how it is?"

Jeremy: "Yes."

Bloom, the first athlete to appear on 'The Ice Dream' for these Games, was asked to return to the Channel 7 this week to tape another show called SLX, dedicated to extreme sports. Find out more about Roy & H.G. and 'The Ice Dream' at their web site -- http://www.theicedream.i7.com.au.


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