This one's a gold from the archives.
Former professional tennis player and renowned sports anchor Mary Carillo is well known for her forthright opinions, laced with biting wit. Sometimes, her candour gets her into trouble. Andre Agassi and Serena Williams haven't spoken to her for years.
At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Carillo was responsible for the badminton coverage. She began by taking about badminton equipment and how the racquets and shuttlecocks professionals use differ from the ones people have at home. So far so good. What followed was a pitch-perfect rant, completely ad-libbed, about how a simple game of backyard badminton turns into a mayhem-filled and riotous endeavour.
"You’ve got Colleen Clark up in the tree, trying to get down a Sponge Bob Square Pants beach ball with a hockey stick. There’s pool sticks flying through the air like javelins and you hear yourself saying, ‘someone’s gonna poke an eye out'."
But apparently, it's rants like these that keep Carillo employed. In an interview to Deadspin, the former tennis player said, "That sort of nonsense got me a hosting gig on Torino's Olympic Ice show, which is still one of my all-time favourite scams. Don't know if it's still kicking around, but maybe my salute to Guido The Zamboni Guy is still out there from that wackadoodle show..."
The segment on the Zamboni Guy is indeed still out there. In a hilarious interview, Carillo asks the Zamboni guy – the person in charge of running the Zamboni machine that smoothens the ice on skating rinks – "Guido, do you ever feel you are just going in circles?"
Now, the question to ask is how Carillo will top these two segments at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
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