Nigel Avery: Team New Zealand chef de mission says he's got full confidence in safety preparations for Olympic opening ceremony

Team New Zealand is preparing for tomorrow's unique Olympic opening ceremony.  

Instead of the usual walk round the track the Paris games will buck the trend by having athletes boating down the Seine. 

Lady Gaga and Celine Dion are set to perform a duet at the opening ceremony.  

New Zealand Team Chef de Mission Nigel Avery told Heather du Plessis-Allan despite the change in tradition, they're not worried about safety. 

“The French are just going out of their way to make sure that the athletes are safe in all respects, and I’ve got confidence in that.” 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, the Olympics proper are about to kick off. The
opening ceremony is just slightly more than twelve hours away now,
and these guys are going to go large, right, instead
of the traditional parade around the stadium track, they're going
to have more than eight thousand athletes from around the
world boating down the river sin. There will be floating pianos,
there will be helicopters, there may even be some submarines.

(00:20):
The Olympic in z Shift mission. Nigel Avery is with
me right now. Hey, Nigel, hey's I'm very well, thank you.
Are you fizzling for this?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Here we are? It's it's just going to be so
unique the first time either and I think Cermany has
been held outside of stadium, so it's going to be
very interesting to see what happens.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
I mean, there's obviously a little bit more risk involved
being on a boaterre you slightly concerned about your athletes.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Here, Look, I don't think so. You know, the freet
are just going out of their way to make sure
that the efflets are safe in all respects, and you know,
I've got confidence in that. We've we're on the one
of the tributes of the scene here or are on
the scene at the village and you know there's police
boats cruising up and down all the time. And you know,
we had a briefing yesterday about the opening ceremony what

(01:06):
that would look like, Not the content, I guess, but
more about the you know, the guts of it. And
you know, there's definitely there's there's there's medical, there's the security,
there's all sorts of stuff floating around. Literally, I wasn't
worried about security.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
I was worried about falling off the boat.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Nigel, Well, look at the dry Games, you know, so
there's at least that, and there's no Tom foolery. Look, no,
I think there's life Jake servery person So they're taking
it pretty seriously.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Hey, do you know yet? I mean, we have been
having these reports and rumors for days now that Celendon
and Lady Gaga in town and might be performing. Do
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
We have I haven't heard those rumors, so I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, we're looking for all right, what are we going
to do about the Canadians? Are they going to dock
them the points from winning the game this morning?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Look, I don't know, So we have or football MW
Zealanders later conplacate with FIFA, and so they're going through
the process. The Canadians are investigating. There's a process there,
and they've also asked the IOC for, you know, to
see what they're going to do. We've also mentioned it
to the Ethics Committee, and so we're just waiting for
all those those bodies to follow the process. And at

(02:19):
the moment, we kind of all we can do is
just ask for hey, how's it going, you know, because
a status on on things, there's not really much more
we can do.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, how long do we have to wait? Though? I mean,
because we can tell me, Nigel, if these guys I
mean they won last time, right because gold medal last time.
We can't seriously end up in a situation with them
standing on the podium when they have been busted cheating,
can we.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, I don't know. It's a bit of a complex
situation right that, because we're really at the wrim of
FIFA and the IOC. So as I said, all we
can really do now is to keep on asking for hey,
what is happening and hope that they come to some
sort of result, whatever that may be. You Prior to
pool play, finishing.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, and it's not sufficient what they've done with bad
priestsman sending a home that's not sufficient, right, you need
the points stopped.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well, it's not really up up to me. It's it's
up to you know what that what the FIFA and
what the IC you have, because I guess the the
issue is that it's not a it's not a fee
for tournament. It wasn't in the field of play, and
so there's the EVER is trying to figure out, you
know what your jurisdiction this falls under. So there's a
I guess there's a bit going on behind the scenes

(03:31):
and we just have to wait and see how that
plays out.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Fair Enough, now, what happened with the sevens team? Is
this bad juju for the games?

Speaker 2 (03:40):
No, it's not bad ju do for the games at all.
I mean, obviously we're extremely disappointed, you know, for the guys.
It's certainly not the result they wanted or we did either.
And you know, sometimes in sport, little moments if they
don't go your way, or if an error is made
or either, it can have a quite a significant impact
on the result. And it seems like that's what's happened,

(04:00):
you know, last idea out of time.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, fair enough, Nigel. Listen, go well and I hope
you guys are all in a huge number of medals.
Thank you for your time. That's Nigel Avery Shift a
Mission Olympics New Zealand. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news Talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.