One of Australia’s most prominent sports reporters has apologized after slurring her way through a live Olympic broadcast.
Danika Mason was doing a cross to the studio on Channel Nine’s Today breakfast show on Wednesday morning—Tuesday evening in Milan—when her speech became noticeably hard to decipher. Standing in the snow in northern Italy, where she is covering the Winter Olympics, she rambled about the price of coffee. She also responded to a studio colleague who likened her to a frozen iguana.
“The price of coffee over here is actually fine… it’s actually the price of coffee in the U.S. we have to get used to… I’m not sure about the iguanas? Where are we going with that one? Anyway, let’s get into today’s sport because there’s plenty happening back home…” she said, with glazed eyes.
In her coverage of the day’s sports, she mixed up the U.K. and U.S. while studio host Karl Stefanovic could be heard laughing in the background.
“Look the cold weather is a thing, right,” Stevanovic said. “You can’t actually move your lips.”
Mason, best known for her National Rugby League coverage, appeared again on the Today show on Thursday morning and apologized.
After her regular report, she said she wanted to “take a moment, if that’s OK, just to apologise” for her previous live appearance. “I’m OK, probably just a little embarrassed,” she said, then admitted to drinking alcohol.
“Look, I totally misjudged the situation, I shouldn’t have had a drink, especially in these conditions, it’s cold, we’ve got altitude, and not having had dinner probably didn’t help as well. But I want to take full responsibility; it’s not the standard I set myself.
“So in saying that, I’m genuinely really sorry and I’m thanking everyone for those messages I’ve received as well.”
The Today show host, Jayne Azzopardi, responded by saying “we know how hard you work, Danika,” while Stefanovic called her a “legend.”
Before her apology, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had also weighed in, saying he was “pro-Danika.” He said that there was “nothing to see here,” and suggested the presenter had merely been affected by jet lag.
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