Doping Scandals & Olympics Corruption - Zack Telander

Zack Telander is a weightlifter, coach & YouTuber. ZT joins me to discuss my recent trip to Nashville to see Mikhaila & Jordan Peterson, why I think Canada has committed an act of international sabotage by poisoning me, the International Olympic Committee's newest bombshell threat to the entire weightlifting world, why corruption is so rampant in weightlifting, what Zack thinks can be done about drugs in sports and much more... Sponsors: Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Reclaim your fitness and book a Free Consultation Call with ActiveLifeRX at http://bit.ly/rxwisdom Get 20% discount on all pillows at https://thehybridpillow.com (use code: MW20) Get 20% discount on the highest quality CBD Products from Pure Sport at https://bit.ly/cbdwisdom (use code: MW20) Extra Stuff: Subscribe to Zack's YouTube Channel -https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC94_fvLx7abZgs9LIkM7jxw Get Zack's Program for $1 - https://www.patreon.com/zacktelander Follow Zack on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/coach_zt Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #weightlifting #doping #corruption - 00:00 Intro 00:53 Chris’ Texas Trip 09:24 Corruption in the Olympics 27:24 How the IOC Threatens Weightlifting 34:55 The Processes of Doping in Sports 46:51 Would the Olympics Ever be Disbanded? 54:20 How to Clean up Weightlifting 1:01:12 Where to Find Zack - Join the Modern Wisdom Community on Locals - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Listen to all episodes on audio: Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Zack Telander?

  There were 10 people that were found to have had PEDs and either suspended or retroactively suspended, thus giving the 11th place finisher the gold medal.

• 0:11Chris Williamson?

  You're kidding me.

• 0:11Zack Telander?

  So when you say, I'm not kidding you, 11th place to gold medal.

• 0:18Chris Williamson?

  Zach Telander, welcome to the show.

• 0:20Zack Telander?

  Thanks for having me back, Chris.

• 0:22Chris Williamson?

  What's happening, man? You look serious. You're a serious human today.

• 0:26Zack Telander?

  No, I'm, uh, you know, normal stuff in, in my neck of the woods. Weightlifting is going through. It's potential death penalty. But beyond that, it's a pretty great day.

• 0:38Chris Williamson?

  Well, we're in the same city and we've decided to do this over the internet.

• 0:41Zack Telander?

  I know.

• 0:42Chris Williamson?

  I could shout it out of the window. We could just do it that way.

• 0:45Zack Telander?

  Yeah, I'll see you tonight, man.

• 0:47Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, catch you later on. Let's do this. Let's do this unrecorded later. But I have had 48 hours from hell with this. Jordan Peterson fucking infected me. Gave me a stomach. He poisoned me. That man.

• 1:01Zack Telander?

  Was it Jordan Peterson or was it a Chicago style hot dog from the Chicago airport?

• 1:05Chris Williamson?

  I'm blaming it on Jordan Peterson. I'm thinking that Canadian, this is an act of war from the Canadians against Britain. These fucking polite motherfuckers. I don't know. So I thought that I'd eaten a dodgy hot dog. And that was what had caused me to wake up at three in the morning on Monday after I'd spent the weekend in Nashville with Jordan and Michaela. With just vomiting, sat on the toilet for like 12 hours. I hadn't been that bad in. Dude, I threw everything I had at that illness. I was doing breath work. I was doing mindfulness practices against it. I'm pretty sure that I prayed at one point. Like I'm like just putting on my knees to a higher power. I've got the cushion on the floor.

• 1:50Zack Telander?

  You were praying to the porcelain god, that's for sure.

• 1:53Chris Williamson?

  Correct. Correct. I just wanted it to end. So I thought it was this dodgy. The hot dog that I'd had at Chicago Airport and then Michaela messages me on Tuesday morning, "Oh my God, Chris, what have you done to us? Everyone in the house is really, really sick." So the only person suspiciously, the only person out of the entire group that was out over the weekend that isn't ill is Jordan. So I am classifying that as an act of war.

• 2:24Zack Telander?

  Can I be honest with you? I'm actually really relieved it wasn't the Chicago style hot dog.

• 2:29Chris Williamson?

  Because that's your hometown, right?

• 2:31Zack Telander?

  Yeah, well, because like if you and I ever go to Chicago and you're like, "Nope, no, no hot dogs for me," I will be heartbroken.

• 2:38Chris Williamson?

  Is that your national food? Is that the food of your people?

• 2:41Zack Telander?

  I would say so. I mean, people, we like deep dish, Italian beef is another one, but Chicago style hot dog, man, that's like, it's the greatest food on earth. So.

• 2:51Chris Williamson?

  It came up in tiny increments surrounded by whatever else I'd had. Dude, it was so rough, so rough, but uh, kind of, was it worth? It was probably worth it. It was probably worth it for a pretty fun weekend. I had a pretty fun weekend in Nashville. Tell you what, Nashville, sorry to all the people from Tennessee, well, Tennessee and Nashville aren't the same thing. But anyway, Nashville's much tackier than I remember and I, I can't tell if that's just because I was exclusively on Broadway, which is kind of like the main party street there. But even having seen Sixth Street in Austin, which is, that's where the hen parties from Nashville come to. But when you go to Nashville, you're like, "Oh my God, this is the pro leagues."

• 3:35Zack Telander?

  Yeah, well, I think Nashville style country, like there's a, there is for, for country listeners, there is a distinct difference from like Nashville country, which is essentially the Hollywood of country. And I think that's where the tackiness really comes through, right? It's just that, that full blown bachelorette party, like fake southern tackiness. And, and which is interesting, you brought up Sixth Street, which is also an incredibly tacky area, also slightly sketchy.

• 4:08Zack Telander?

  You and I saw Rogan, uh, pretty recently on Six Street and like leaving there is pretty sketchy.

• 4:14Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 4:15Zack Telander?

  But you, you almost felt at home though. You were like, this is what Newcastle.

• 4:18Chris Williamson?

  These are my people. Yeah. But no, dude, I mean, fucking going to Broadway in Nashville was that turned up to 11. My God. Yeah. Like the, the, um, cowboy hats, the pink sparkly cowboy hats that all of them are wearing. Um, yeah, that was, that was an experience. I think the biggest change is because I've come from Austin, especially spending time in whatever, like South Austin, where it, whatever, you're on Congress and everyone's out in jeans and trainers and you're watching live music, like just chill at some Italian bar or whatever, right? Eating Tex Mex to go to full on like Kid Rock's Finger Blast Club or whatever it's called, which is on like five floors.

• 5:02Chris Williamson?

  Come and get finger blasted by Kid Rock on five floors and a rooftop. Um, it was just, it was such a, such a change of pace. But I got to meet, I got to meet one of the guys that's a head producer with the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro Show, Colton. He's like just such a bro, like really cool. Spent a ton of time with Jordan, got to see him record his new course. That was pretty fun. Uh, and got some stuff sorted for next year as well, which I'll be able to release some details about probably within the next few weeks, which is like fucking dope.

• 5:34Zack Telander?

  It's cool, man, but I, I keep forgetting you're not officially an Austinite. You are going to have to go back to your cold, dark, ominous country.

• 5:45Chris Williamson?

  Dead behind the eyes. Well, I mean, I just found out today. Here's a headline for you, man. So, um, where is it? Covid UK reports highest daily cases since the pandemic began. That was today, the 15th of December. The UK has reported the record number of daily Covid 19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, with 78,610 new cases on Wednesday. Previous highest number was 68,000 on the 8th of January, earlier this year. Follows the introduction of mandatory face masks in most indoor settings. Covid passes for large events in England. Boris Johnson is due to hold a press conference. Lots of people are ill. Lots of people are getting booster shots.

• 6:27Chris Williamson?

  Uh, don't come back to this country. That's basically what that news story says to me.

• 6:31Zack Telander?

  Super.

• 6:33Chris Williamson?

  Fucking great. Fucking come back, Chris. Get yourself back here, man. Happy Christmas. Yeah, I know. It's a weird one. It's a weird one, bro. But yeah, back, back for Christmas on Sunday. And then we will see what the plan is for now. But it's been, this trip's been dope. This trip's been so much fun, spending time with you, doing adventures, seeing Rogan, training, hot and cold stuff. I learned how to wakesurf. It's been, it's been a good trip, man.

• 7:00Zack Telander?

  You know, it's, it's like a holiday, but it's so much more than that for you. It feels much, like, it's got to feel much more, like, much less temporary.

• 7:09Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 7:09Zack Telander?

  Right? It's not just an escape where you're in a nice place. You're actually kind of living here. You know, it's almost like a semester abroad type of deal. So it's, I imagine it's different vibes.

• 7:20Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Well, I think if you take satisfaction from working and from progressing and from doing stuff and contributing to whatever you think your message is to the world or your mission or whatever, one of the things that you have to deal with, if you go on holiday, holiday, is, well, I kind of have to sacrifice my mission in order to enjoy this trip abroad. Whereas when you go away and you kind of keep on, or maybe even increase the pace at which you do stuff, you know, I've met more people since I've been here that are in my industry than I have done in the previous year leading up to this. So I'm like, oh, actually, I get the satisfaction of contributing to the thing that I really care about whilst also being

• 8:03Chris Williamson?

  away somewhere different. My buddy George Mack is in Dubai and I messaged him at the start of this year, asking, what does it feel like being out there for, I think he'd been there for about three months. And he said, it feels like I'm on summer holiday from school and someone's going to come and tell me that it's over soon, but I know that it's not over. It's just, it's never over until I say that I need to go home. And that's kind of, that's kind of what it feels like. That it's just this endless, endless enjoyable trip.

• 8:31Zack Telander?

  I think that's, that's got to stem from you actually enjoying your work.

• 8:35Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 8:37Zack Telander?

  You know, you you work really hard. I I've noticed, you know, you work, um, you you do a lot behind the scenes. You're like constantly getting new guests, you're constantly editing, fixing things up, you know, curating stuff for different social media, but I think that that doesn't really stress you out. It it can, it can, it can get to you, what I've noticed at least, but you you enjoy it. So, you know, it doesn't really matter where you are. I think that that the UK thing started to wear on you, especially with the pandemic. You you literally did not change at all. So, so, yeah, man.

• 9:15Chris Williamson?

  What you need.

• 9:15Zack Telander?

  I'm bummed you have to go.

• 9:17Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I know.

• 9:18Zack Telander?

  Turn around and come right back.

• 9:19Chris Williamson?

  I fucking, I know, man, I know, man. Give me, give me a bit of time. Uh, so you rang me this morning in a state of frenzy. Life has never been heard before, the wrath of a a tall human shouting about some shit. What's what's occurring?

• 9:42Zack Telander?

  So, uh, essentially, the sport of weightlifting, the the sport that I'm that I'm a professional in, it it's under the gun again. So I don't know, do you know that meme of James Franco and he's about to be hanged?

• 9:57Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 9:57Zack Telander?

  Where, um, I forget what the, it's a, it's a Coen Brothers movie, but he's hanged once and it and it's unsuccessful. And then he gets hanged again. And then he looks over at the guy on the second time and he looks over and he says, first time? It's a, it's a, it's a famous meme, but basically, everyone's freaking out because, uh, weightlifting is quote unquote out of the 2028 Games. The the IOC had like, I guess it was their commissioner or or someone spoke about this. But the verbiage did not exclusively, or sorry, explicitly state that it was out. It's essentially another warning to the IWF, which is the governing body of weightlifting.

• 10:42Zack Telander?

  Hey, you need to clean your shit up because like for real, we are going to kick you out. We had this issue leading up to 2020, which ended up being the 2021 Games. It was up on the chopping block for Paris, which is 2024, which we eventually found out they were going to include it. And now they're they're basically saying.

• 11:04Zack Telander?

  See, it's weird verbiage here. They're not saying, "Hey, you're out. You have to work to get back in." They're just kind of saying like, "You're up again to be out," but this time it seems a little bit more serious.

• 11:17Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so can you explain the different parties that are at play here? What does the IWF do and how do the IOC relate to that as a body?

• 11:26Zack Telander?

  So the IWF is required to do certain things to establish a relationship with the IOC, which is the International Olympic Committee, just like any other governing body has to establish that with the IOC. They have to establish some sort of relationship where they follow the guidelines to be in the Olympics. So in the past, the IWF has been one of the most... Actually, you know what? I can just outright say, "The most corrupt Olympic sport." I have a little quote here. It's very interesting, from somebody who did a... Let's see here. So this guy named Mark Peeth, Peeth or Pyth, I'm not entirely sure.

• 12:10Zack Telander?

  He was an anti-corruption expert and he actually worked on FIFA. And he and his team did a legal study after weeks of reviewing the IWF documents, which is the International Weightlifting Federation documents. "What I saw here seems very, very brazen to me, more brazen than what I saw at FIFA." And if we're talking about corruption being more so than at FIFA, that can give you guys the level here.

• 12:37Chris Williamson?

  What's he referring to?

• 12:39Zack Telander?

  So what he's referring to, man, it's just, there's so much. And this is why I said my head was spinning when I was trying to come up with like a finite amount. Basically, to put it simply, there's two branches, okay? It's corruption amongst the suits. So the corruption amongst the boomers in suits, as I like to call them, and then the corruption amongst doping. So simply put, doping, since 2000, there have been 700 cases international of doping suspensions.

• 13:14Chris Williamson?

  Within the sport of Olympic weightlifting?

• 13:16Zack Telander?

  Yes, within the sport of Olympic weightlifting. That is an astounding number. That's crazy, okay? So this is where... So the other branch of it...

• 13:26Chris Williamson?

  How the fuck is there anyone left to do weightlifting?

• 13:29Zack Telander?

  Well, so here's the thing, in the London Olympic Games in 2012, there was 10 people. There, sorry, there were 10 people that were found to have had PEDs and either suspended or retroactively suspended, thus giving the 11th place finisher the gold medal.

• 13:51Chris Williamson?

  You're kidding me.

• 13:52Zack Telander?

  I'm not kidding you, 11th place to gold medal. So, you know, a great example of this is like, you look at Lance Armstrong, there was a, there was some guy, whether it was in his documentary or in Icarus, and he said, "I tested, personally tested Lance Armstrong 50 times and he passed every single one of them." Now, I believe that he passed those tests because they said it pretty explicitly in that documentary, it was either Icarus or it was, I think it's the Lance Armstrong documentary, a great documentary by the way, where he was like a prized possession to the Cycling Federation.

• 14:34Zack Telander?

  So, you know, Americans more or less did not care about cycling before Lance Armstrong. And while he was hot, the last thing they'd want to do is pop this guy and get him in trouble. And it took a long time for the people outside of that federation to expose Lance Armstrong, but that's actually what happened. And, you know, what you were saying about weightlifting, how is there anyone left to do weightlifting? When things like 2012 happens, you're absolutely right. But the main thing, I think that the doping issues are secondary to the corruption, which is, some of this stuff is very interesting. If these guys, the heads of the IWF were outside of sport, they would be behind bars.

• 15:18Zack Telander?

  There is no question about that. And there are so many other sports like this. They talk about this in this article that very rarely do these cases of corruption within sport get pursued in trial, in actual criminal trial.

• 15:33Chris Williamson?

  I was gonna say, is it a criminal offense to cheat at sport?

• 15:39Zack Telander?

  You know, this sort of stuff here, I'll list off some of the stuff. Over the period of 17 years since 1992, more than $23 million went into Swiss IMF bank accounts, which however, were not listed in the IWF's balance sheets. When these accounts were discovered in 2009, Ayan alone was authorized to sign. So he was the only one who was able to look in. Ayan, sorry, I didn't explain who that is. He is our overlord, well, at least was. For the past three decades, he was the president of the IWF. And this man is like a mafioso don, so the head of a mafia.

• 16:20Zack Telander?

  There is no other way I can describe the IWF other than a crime syndicate. Because that's really, really what we're looking at. And according to the research, Ayan could not explain the whereabouts of at least $5.5 million. This man had been, you know, siphoning money, or he had, you know, he bribed people to basically pass tests. So certain countries would pay fines to pass tests. They were always in cash and they were always delivered directly to Thomas Ayan.

• 16:56Chris Williamson?

  And so that's the money that's in cash, plus all of these transactions that have gone into this dodgy Swiss bank account as well. So that's just the stuff that was banked?

• 17:06Zack Telander?

  Yes. And their theory is that there's $5.5 million missing that's unaccounted for. There are also 300 tests that are unaccounted for, so 300 tests that just kind of slipped under the rug. There were multiple times where people were tested and then their positive tests were shown years later so that they could continue to compete.

• 17:27Chris Williamson?

  So is it the IWF's job to enact their own testing though? Or do they not outsource it to Rusada or Usada or someone else?

• 17:38Zack Telander?

  Right. So this is what's interesting and I'll tie it back to Lance Armstrong. Because I think a lot of people can resonate with that. We were all well aware of that scandal. So. Internationally, we use WADA, World Anti-Doping Agency. And so that's going to be for world, those are for international events. But outside of that, each country is required to have national testing. And this is where you get the corruption to start, right? This, this, the, the, the fact, and I love, love bringing this up, that America has USADA, and they don't really give a shit about any weightlifter.

• 18:19Zack Telander?

  They're not going to protect a weightlifter in the same way that the Cycling Federation may protect Lance Armstrong. In the same breath, though, we will have a, a USADA-tested weightlifter compete against a North Korean. Okay, so anything that North Korea does, as far as national testing, like, there's absolutely no way that we can reasonably say that there is something fair going on there, especially when they end up going into Worlds, World Championships, Asian Championships, and, and winning a lot of medals.

• 18:51Chris Williamson?

  But surely, as soon as the North Korean athlete gets to a World Championship level, it goes away from being tested by North Korea and goes into being tested by?

• 19:01Zack Telander?

  Yes.

• 19:01Chris Williamson?

  WADA.

• 19:02Zack Telander?

  Right, and there's a science behind that. You, you learn how to cycle off of the steroids and the PEDs. You learn how to cycle off. You make sure that the window for catching these metabolites is closed, and then you go and compete, which surely offers an advantage.

• 19:16Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so, so what you're saying is that WADA is there to test athletes during their competition phase at the absolute peak, but because your, your national testing isn't up to scratch, athletes are able to do more metabolic fuckery during their prep phase, and then with the right amount of cycling off, they can get themselves stronger outside of international testing with only national testing, and then beat the international testing when the time comes?

• 19:47Zack Telander?

  Yeah, so, so this is a great point. There are three avenues for passing tests. The first avenue is knowing when the test is coming. The second is knowing what the test is exactly. And the third is having a drug that won't get tested. So knowing when the test is coming is like the greatest advantage, in my opinion, because it's the least risk, right? You can plan out your taking of whatever pharmacological substance you need. You can plan that out to make sure that you pass the test. Knowing what the test is would require you to have that testing facility yourself. So Gregory Rodchank of Icarus, he was the leader of Rusada.

• 20:31Zack Telander?

  So he had the literal, exact testing that was used from Wada. So his athletes, he would just make sure they were clear with his own testing. And then, you know, they would show up and pass tests. The third would be some sort of designer drug. And I don't know the reality of that one actually existing, but it's not outside the scope of something that can happen.

• 20:56Chris Williamson?

  Presumably, there's a fourth route here that you could just pay someone off to swap samples out.

• 21:01Zack Telander?

  Yeah, and that's, the funny thing is, that's exactly what happened. That is exactly what happened in weightlifting. There was a German documentary called, I don't know the German term, but it was just called The Lord of Lifters. And it was about Thomas Iain, the lord, he's the overlord, he's the Sith Lord, an actual evil, evil man. And in this documentary, there was a Moldovan team doctor who said, "We would just have random people show up for the testing, show the idea of the person, piss in a cup, and it would piss clean. Sometimes the tester would show up and we'd offer them the proper amount of money, and they wouldn't even collect a sample, or they would collect, you know, a clean sample from someone else."

• 21:43Zack Telander?

  This was the sort of stuff that was happening en masse, and we were able to catch it.

• 21:47Chris Williamson?

  So is it the IWF's job to deploy testing?

• 21:53Zack Telander?

  Yes, well, it is.

• 21:57Zack Telander?

  It is because they utilize WADA and there's a requirement within IWF to have out of competition testing that is nationally driven. So that's not even really the issue. The main issue is what I believe is the corruption at the absolute top, the skimming of money. You know, there was a story, this is a great story. Shaheen Nasriniya was a middleweight weightlifter who was notoriously in the top three in his weight class. Pyros Dimas was his main competitor. Pyros Dimas was like the most decorated weightlifter of all time, one of the most, easily the most decorated Greek Olympian

• 22:41Zack Telander?

  of all time. And another one, Georgi Adzanitza, who is the coach of Lasha Talchadze, who Lasha is the greatest weightlifter right now. So those three guys were in a very competitive stage. And in 2000 in Sydney, Shaheen was approached by his coach and basically said, "Look, you cannot compete. And if you do compete and if you put up winning numbers, the rest of our team will be popped for steroid use." And essentially, the reason for that was because they did not pay Ayane

• 23:25Zack Telander?

  or whoever at the top to pass those tests. Okay, so what Shaheen did, you can see in the snatch session, as he's warming up to go snatch, he's wiggling his elbow around while he's snatching. He looks fine. He's in totally, he's in unbelievable shape. He even said this. He's like, "I was in the best shape I have ever been in." And he starts playing with his elbow in the warm-up room and he's making sure the camera's looking at him too. He goes up for his first snatch and he fakes an elbow injury. Walks off, Pyros Dimas is the winner. I believe Georgi Adzanitza is the second place and then someone else is third place.

• 24:02Chris Williamson?

  So he doesn't even podium?

• 24:04Zack Telander?

  No, because if he did, the rest of the Iranian team would feel the wrath of the IWF. This is the level of corruption that was happening.

• 24:13Chris Williamson?

  So just to recap that, a guy that was potentially going to win was told that he couldn't win. Why? What's the reason that he couldn't come first?

• 24:24Zack Telander?

  You know, I'm not entirely sure what the exact specifics are.

• 24:30Chris Williamson?

  Is it sports betting? Have they got some deal behind the table?

• 24:32Zack Telander?

  No, it's not sports betting. It is so, so it, you have to pay, it's racketeering, Chris, at its highest. This is crime syndicate shit. Basically, the IWF says, you must pay us this money so that we can either, you know, push your tests under the rug and not pop you, right? It's almost like you're paying for your medal.

• 24:53Chris Williamson?

  But are you saying that-

• 24:55Zack Telander?

  If you get tested, if you get tested, you're going to piss hot. Okay, you're going to get popped because it is a, it's a known fact that that group, all of those men are on drugs.

• 25:06Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so all of the Iranians are using-

• 25:09Zack Telander?

  Yes.

• 25:09Chris Williamson?

  Right, okay.

• 25:10Zack Telander?

  All of the Iranians, all of the Georgians, all of the Russians-

• 25:13Chris Williamson?

  Including the guy that decided that he was gonna fake the elbow injury?

• 25:15Zack Telander?

  Yes.

• 25:16Chris Williamson?

  Right, so I mean, it was there, like, it was right for them to get popped then. I, I struggle to feel sympathy for the guy that pretended that he wasn't going to win because he was on drugs and everyone else was and maybe we were gonna get found out.

• 25:29Zack Telander?

  Of course, but the problem is though, Chris, is that the people who are supposed to be catching these people know this, right? They're essentially, hey, you could give us a little bit of money and we'll be fine, right? So, do you get mad at the cop who takes the bribe? Of course you fucking get mad at the cop for taking the bribe. Maybe you'll feel a little, you know, less, uh, you know, you won't feel as bad for the person breaking the law, or, or you will, yeah, you won't feel bad for them breaking the law, but you also have to get mad at the, the cop for taking the bribe. How are we supposed to get anything done when this level of corruption exists?

• 26:07Chris Williamson?

  All right, so, talk to me about the flow of money then. Who is, i- i- is the IOC taking any money or do you think that they're relatively clean?

• 26:15Zack Telander?

  No, no, the IOC is anything but clean. So the IOC is kind of a bully as well, right? They can make sure certain things happen, and again, this is all theoretical. Um, the IOC is like incredibly powerful, incredibly. And when things come out, they act like they're on top, right? They act like they are not guilty for any of this stuff. And they go, hey, Federation, get your shit together. It's like, it's like the CEO who breaks the rule and blaming the people who work for the CEO. So, you know, i- it's pretty well known that the IOC is not the most, um- You know, that they're pretty dubious. If anything can expose this, it's Icarus,

• 26:57Zack Telander?

  where Russia was blatantly breaking the rules as far as doping and systematic doping and getting away with it because they had such high standing in the IOC. Right? It took until a literal documentary and the public discourse to be around Russia and they're cheating for them to be banned from the Olympics.

• 27:20Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so what was the press conference that was given today? Was this the IOC warning the IWF, get your act together by 2023?

• 27:33Zack Telander?

  Yes.

• 27:33Chris Williamson?

  Or else you don't get to be in the Olympics in 2028?

• 27:36Zack Telander?

  Yes, or else skateboarding, rock climbing, and something else will be in place. So weightlifting and boxing are going to get kicked out for skateboarding and rock climbing.

• 27:47Chris Williamson?

  That seems like a fair trade to me.

• 27:51Chris Williamson?

  Cooks for cooks, right?

• 27:54Zack Telander?

  So, so, yeah, I mean, it's, the verbiage is clear, like, kick everyone out of the IWF or else we're gonna lose this sport as we know it.

• 28:04Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so talk to me, IOC said, and to be fair, I mean, are you surprised?

• 28:10Zack Telander?

  No, no, I'm not.

• 28:11Chris Williamson?

  The IOC said, your sport is a fucking shambles?

• 28:15Zack Telander?

  No, because I, I'm telling you right now, Chris, I have been covering this shit, this shitstorm for two and a half years. And I even have videos saying, like, literally, the death of our sport is nigh, let's fix it. You know, years ago, I was saying that shit. And here we are now.

• 28:34Chris Williamson?

  It's finally come to a head.

• 28:36Zack Telander?

  Yeah, absolutely. It's been coming to a head. The main issue here, Chris, is that...

• 28:44Zack Telander?

  There is a light at the end of the tunnel that I can see. And this is the worst part. It's like, right as we see the light, they're just gonna close the door to the sport. The light is, we just had a American world champion, Meredith Allman, just won a world medal. Last world championships, we had a world champion and a silver medalist in Kate Nye and Matty Rogers. Matty Rogers just got a third place medal. We had a, an Olympic silver medalist. These are all things that America did not have. And we're starting to have, and our youth is starting to get better and better because the sport is growing here. And because people care of this sport outside of the monetary interest.

• 29:25Zack Telander?

  If you were to compare weightlifting to football, there will never be a chance for weightlifting to do what football does. But it's something different. We are hobbyists. We are people who are good in the weight room. When you're a child, if you're good and you learn the skill of snatching and cleaner jerking, and you pursue that. You're not pursuing it to have this dream of a life where you can be a professional football player, where you can get a scholarship to play football at a major university. That's not the case, but there are so many of those people. And not just 30-year-olds like myself, right? There are little, there are 15-year-old kids who are incredible at this sport.

• 30:06Zack Telander?

  Who now, when they get of age, in 2028, that will be taken away from them. That is what I have a massive issue with. That is not okay. And it's only because of fucking boomers in suits. For real. If Thomas, if, if, look, if the doping problem was the only problem, I don't think we would have this discussion. But it's shitheads like Thomas Iyan and the rest of his cronies that have this iron grip on this sport that have done that. Is he still in his position? No, he was forced to resign. And with zero criminal, I honestly think he still has his money.

• 30:47Chris Williamson?

  How long has he been?

• 30:47Zack Telander?

  It's insane.

• 30:48Chris Williamson?

  So who's in charge now? Why hasn't he fixed it?

• 30:50Zack Telander?

  This is interesting. One of the guys who's an old board member, who was part of the the old guard was hired. He's actually a British guy. His name is Mike Irani. And the, what's interesting is the UK Federation didn't even like the fact that he was selected. So that goes to show that we took out, you know, Thomas Ayon and put basically a disciple in his place.

• 31:14Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, version 2.0.

• 31:15Zack Telander?

  Yes. Yep. If you were to think about, you know, UK is another country that like leads the way in change. They're very, very harsh on doping, arguably harsher than the US.

• 31:28Chris Williamson?

  Do you know our, have we got like Eucaida or something?

• 31:31Zack Telander?

  Yes, yes.

• 31:32Chris Williamson?

  Is that what it is?

• 31:33Zack Telander?

  Yes.

• 31:34Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 31:34Zack Telander?

  And they're very, like, they're very tough.

• 31:37Chris Williamson?

  They fucking got Sonny Webster, didn't they?

• 31:39Zack Telander?

  Oh, yeah. And they will continue to get him. They pursued a rule in getting Sonny Webster that the US would never pursue.

• 31:49Chris Williamson?

  How would you, how would you explain the series of events that Sonny went through where he got his ban and then he got his subsequent extension?

• 31:56Zack Telander?

  So he got his ban because he tested positive for a SARM. And I'm not sure how long the ban was. I think it might have been four years. He was then warned.

• 32:06Chris Williamson?

  Which is the max?

• 32:08Zack Telander?

  Yes, it is. For first, for, for, for your first offence, it's the max ban.

• 32:14Chris Williamson?

  But he could have had that reduced if he'd accepted, like if he'd pled guilty to it. But he spent a shit ton of money trying to find out what he thought was a tainted supplement that had had that particular, was it not AstraZeneca?

• 32:28Zack Telander?

  Oh, Osterine.

• 32:29Chris Williamson?

  Osterine, that was it.

• 32:31Zack Telander?

  And, yeah. So, so, um,

• 32:36Zack Telander?

  then, this rule is very interesting. You are not allowed to coach and/or train with people who have been caught.

• 32:45Zack Telander?

  So, and if you're, if they're able to find that, they can ban the person who was coaching. They can ban even the person who was training with that person. I'm not sure if the second version has happened, but Sonny was doing seminars. He continued to do seminars. He even did them in New Zealand, Australia. And then the New Zealand Federation and the Australian Federation started complaining. And then Sonny, you know, he tacked on another three years onto his ban, I think.

• 33:13Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 33:14Zack Telander?

  So essentially a lifetime ban, but that's all right. He's never coming back. But that is something that they would never pursue here.

• 33:20Chris Williamson?

  Fucking flying off into the sunset with a huge online following, having tons of fun with his model girlfriend, living the life that he wants in Australia.

• 33:28Zack Telander?

  Exactly.

• 33:29Chris Williamson?

  That's, that's one of the things, you know, to speak to, watching Sonny from, I was, I was just starting to speak to him for the show as his first ban became public. And I think we touched on it and then James Smith's first podcast, I want to say his first or second podcast episode is about Sonny's ban. It's like, it's him opening the doors completely about what happens. So I've kind of seen this full trajectory, including the fact that he, the sport that he did where you can see photos of him walking next to Andy Murray, waving his little flag at Rio and then thinking, okay, um, my goal,

• 34:15Chris Williamson?

  after I get through this four-year ban is to come back and do the Commonwealth Games in 2022. And that, you know, that, that's at least part of it. But I mean, by the time that his ban's over, he's going to have gone from being, what, like a 23-year-old kid to being a 31-year-old guy or a 30-year-old guy. And, um, yeah, you're right. That's, they've basically taken the prime of his career away from him. And he's just decided to be the most anti-fragile motherfucker on the planet and just have an awesome time building his platform and doing what he wants to do outside of the institutions.

• 34:54Zack Telander?

  Well, I, I would like to talk about doping in sport, you know, just generally.

• 35:00Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 35:02Zack Telander?

  How it works and why it will continue happening, but I think from what I've gathered, when I continually cover doping in sports and corruption in weightlifting, there's this defeatist attitude from the commenter, basically being like, "I don't care, let them all dope, screw the IOC, screw sports, just make it fun, make it fun for me." And I have a major issue with that, right? It's very simple minded and it's almost defeated in nature, that it's absolutely impossible to have some sort of policy in place where, you know, for the most part, we can have clean athletes. And if that isn't possible,

• 35:44Zack Telander?

  it's possible to have, to have the playing field be somewhat more level. The biggest issue that I found with doping, and in my experience in weightlifting, but this can carry over to many other sports, is the protection of doping athletes who dope. That's the biggest issue that I have. So if you want to roll the dice and take drugs and try to pass tests, go ahead. You can do that in any other place, in any other endeavor in your life. You can cheat. If you don't get caught, what are we gonna do about it? You know? But that is not what ends up happening. There are people who get unfair advantages

• 36:29Zack Telander?

  so that they can cheat, or at least cheat more than others.

• 36:34Chris Williamson?

  So you have-

• 36:35Zack Telander?

  Right, so that-

• 36:38Zack Telander?

  Go ahead.

• 36:39Chris Williamson?

  You have certain athletes that are able to utilize performance enhancers whilst other athletes don't. Has your camera just died again?

• 36:50Zack Telander?

  Yes.

• 36:50Chris Williamson?

  You are, do you have another battery?

• 36:53Zack Telander?

  No.

• 36:54Chris Williamson?

  I hate you. I hate you. I fucking said, before we started-

• 37:00Zack Telander?

  I charged it, bro. I was charging it for a half hour.

• 37:02Chris Williamson?

  You're a fuck. You're a fuck.

• 37:06Chris Williamson?

  All right, right, we're switching to your fucking special needs camera.

• 37:10Zack Telander?

  By the way, though, this camera is much better.

• 37:12Chris Williamson?

  It's not much better, shut up, right?

• 37:14Zack Telander?

  No, no, no, it's much better than the last camera when it, when it switched over.

• 37:18Chris Williamson?

  Oh, because you got your new fancy?

• 37:19Zack Telander?

  Yes.

• 37:19Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, laptop, okay.

• 37:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, the problem is that some people get popped, some people don't get popped, that's the issue.

• 37:27Zack Telander?

  Yeah, and, and more than that, the problem can stem even to an even worse place. Egypt was, I think, provisionally suspended from competing just internationally completely because they were found doping up 12-year-olds. So, so they were giving, they were giving PED, PEDs to 12-year-old girls and boys. Okay, I don't care what anyone's stance on, give them all dope, like, let them perform. That is immoral, that is wrong, 100 times out of 100. Giving children drugs is, is so wrong.

• 38:09Zack Telander?

  Like, we, we know the science behind what anabolic do to a grown man or a grown woman. But what it does to someone going through puberty, or someone who isn't fully developed, developed, that is extremely problematic. But then if you think, okay, this is kind of something with, you know, Jordan Peterson would bring up, like, okay, then what's the line? Then what are we okay with, 17 years old, 18 years old, 19, 20, 21, 22? A lot of the people who say, let them all use drugs, they don't know what that means.

• 38:42Chris Williamson?

  Well, let me ask you why it's the case that somebody could take puberty blockers to reassign their gender direction as they go through puberty, but we feel uncomfortable about somebody enhancing their performance by using testosterone? And many people would say, in sport, that's unfair, and that's potentially dangerous. It seems like, I don't know, the, the, there are two different sets of standards that are being used here for people.

• 39:10Zack Telander?

  Yeah, and I would say most endocrinologists who are worth their fucking salt would say, taking puberty blockers before you're fully developed, or something like that, is probably not a good idea. Given, you know, the countless hours of studies of human biology, it's not suggested to do something like that, especially.

• 39:31Chris Williamson?

  As a person who as yet isn't legally allowed to vote, drive or drink alcohol in the US.

• 39:37Zack Telander?

  Yep.

• 39:38Chris Williamson?

  Maybe you shouldn't be making life-changing decisions when you're basically still a child.

• 39:42Zack Telander?

  That can never go back.

• 39:43Chris Williamson?

  Yes, irreversible.

• 39:44Zack Telander?

  Yeah, yeah. So again, the same could be said about antibiotics. What line then? Person who's out there, and trust me, it seems like I'm just arguing against someone who doesn't exist, but I promise you, there will be comments in your comment section. There will be comments endlessly in my section, just saying, whatever. It's all entertainment for me and they don't have any skin in the game.

• 40:08Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 40:08Zack Telander?

  This is my livelihood. I want to open a gym when I, when I grow up.

• 40:15Chris Williamson?

  Finally.

• 40:17Zack Telander?

  When I finally grow up. No, I would like to open a gym in the future and have youth lifters lift there with the dream of going to the Olympics. I would like it to happen. I would like weightlifting to still be in the Olympics and to have it taken away from a bunch of boomers in suits is a, is an issue. And furthermore, to have it taken away from other countries who decide to dope up children? That's bullshit. That's where I'm ultimately, if it, if it takes us saying, hey, here's a hard stance against steroid use.

• 40:49Chris Williamson?

  What do you mean a hard stance? Are you trying to say that there isn't a hard stance already?

• 40:53Zack Telander?

  Not really.

• 40:54Chris Williamson?

  What, in the US?

• 40:56Zack Telander?

  Anywhere, actually. I mean, if, if, if this,

• 41:02Zack Telander?

  if it were just testing and people getting caught, if there was no other bureaucracy surrounding it.

• 41:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Zack Telander?

  I guess I could say, well, that's all we got. You know, but that's the problem is once it's too,

• 41:21Zack Telander?

  what's the word I'm looking for? It's too.

• 41:23Chris Williamson?

  Multifaceted.

• 41:24Zack Telander?

  No, when, when, it's too enticing. It's too enticing for leaders to utilize doping and anti-doping as a weapon.

• 41:39Zack Telander?

  They use it as a weapon to manipulate medals to gain money to to, you know, favor one country, one lifter, one athlete over another.

• 41:53Chris Williamson?

  What is it about, what is it about, um, weightlifting that's attracted particularly so much corruption and doping? Is it because the sport is benefited massively by the use of drugs over probably most others? Was that the genesis of it, do you think?

• 42:11Zack Telander?

  I think that's the genesis of it, but we're finding that, you know, anabolic's help. I don't, I think they would help equally in many other sports.

• 42:20Chris Williamson?

  But they're not going to help as much in, let's say, soccer, you know, a big team sport where your performance on your own doesn't matter as much, where raw output, athletic output is mitigated a lot more by tactics and skill.

• 42:32Zack Telander?

  Yeah. And I think, you know, so that's, that's why cycling, it helps so much.

• 42:36Chris Williamson?

  It's just output.

• 42:38Zack Telander?

  Yeah, it's just output and it's just raw individual output. And the difference between a doped up athlete and a non-doped up athlete is massive. I agree with you. I think that it is, you know, you're, you're going to see the same level of doping in cycling that you are in Olympic weightlifting. What you're not going to see is cycling get taken out of the fucking Olympics.

• 42:59Chris Williamson?

  Why is it then that weightlifting is on the chopping block? Is it, is there something against the sport generally?

• 43:07Zack Telander?

  I like to use this, uh, example. Do you remember in Step Brothers when they're in the interview and they're wearing the tuxedos?

• 43:14Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 43:15Zack Telander?

  With, with Seth Rogen?

• 43:16Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 43:16Zack Telander?

  And, and he, he, when they initially sit down, he goes, hey, I thought this tuxedos were kind of weird, but I guess I kind of like it. I think it's great. And then Dale farts really loud, really hard. And then he goes, you know what? On second thought, those tuxedos are a little fucked up. And it's kind of the same thing with weightlifting, where the guy is wearing the tuxedos. And when we keep getting in trouble like this, it's like we're Dale farting. Oh yeah, weightlifting is kind of a fucked up sport. I think we can take it out of these Olympics. Right? It's like we are, if we play by the rules, they're okay with us. But if we don't, we look a lot more fucked up than a major sport not playing by the rules.

• 44:00Zack Telander?

  Because we're just not prevalent. I mean, we're in, at least in America, we're just not, it's not an important sport, but that's a theory that may not be true.

• 44:12Chris Williamson?

  I understand, I understand what you mean.

• 44:14Zack Telander?

  It's more of a theory, right? Like we're, we're a downtrodden sport that's not as famous as, as other sports. And, you know, to, to another country, that might not be the case, but I think,

• 44:29Zack Telander?

  I, I just, I guess I can only compare it to cycling. Especially in America, the way that we look at cycling, it's like, you know, we have a ton of hobbyists. We have a ton of decent pros and decent amateurs, but we'll never look at it like we do track and field. Uh, you know, uh, gymnastics or swimming. For some reason, we just won't.

• 44:51Chris Williamson?

  I don't know, man. It's, it's a, I, I understand how it's a shitty situation, especially for you as someone who has dedicated a lot of time to this. Who has got athletes who are potentially looking at, you know, verging on potentially qualifying toward that 2028 Olympics. That's, I, I understand why it would be uncomfortable, but I don't see, the, the corruption is, is twofold, right? So you've got the guys at the top that are ruining it. And then you have the doping that's coming from the bottom, which is kind of destroying the sport. And the problem is that you could get away with just the doping if you were, if you had verifiable information, that you could trust the people that were supposed to be the ones that were checking on that.

• 45:33Zack Telander?

  Yes. And the doping would not be as prevalent. I think it would be some sort of a trickle down effect. It would have to be, right? But again, like I said before, it is too enticing to take advantage of doping and anti-doping. It is too enticing to take control in that way. At least that's what I've seen.

• 45:52Chris Williamson?

  Wasn't Russia, weren't they just kicked out of some Olympics recently?

• 45:58Zack Telander?

  Yes, but they were allowed to compete as like the US or the, sorry, the Russian Federation or some.

• 46:05Chris Williamson?

  What, do you know what the story was there?

• 46:12Zack Telander?

  Not entirely, no. I mean, I know, I know that they were kicked out, like officially kicked out.

• 46:17Chris Williamson?

  But then they had athletes basically just competing under a different name? Like, how the fuck does that work?

• 46:23Zack Telander?

  It's like, yeah, I don't know. It's, it's a very interesting thing. There's, it's, it's this thing where you can compete not under your country, but in almost like an athletic federation or something like that.

• 46:35Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so all of the people, tons of the people that wouldn't have been allowed to go under Russia went under the fucking USSR or some shit.

• 46:43Zack Telander?

  Yeah, but, but they felt the heat from that regardless. Like, yeah, they, they skirted around a little bit, but they felt the heat from literally not being allowed.

• 46:50Chris Williamson?

  Could you see a world within the next 50 years where the Olympics just gets disbanded for widespread drug use overall?

• 46:59Zack Telander?

  Like the Olympics gets cut off?

• 47:00Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 47:01Zack Telander?

  No, I don't think so.

• 47:03Chris Williamson?

  It's too big of a beast?

• 47:04Zack Telander?

  Yeah, it's, dude, it's a political tool. It's, it always has been a political tool. The Olympics have always been something where a country can flex. I mean, this is, this is really why I think the corruption in weightlifting is so, so prevalent is because

• 47:23Zack Telander?

  these countries that don't have much power in any other sport, they found that they were doing pretty well. Countries like Armenia, Ukraine.

• 47:30Chris Williamson?

  Iran.

• 47:32Zack Telander?

  Iran, you know, these countries found a way in to get gold medals. A gold medal for these countries is a massive deal. Any medal is a massive deal. It's a great

• 47:42Chris Williamson?

  National pride.

• 47:43Zack Telander?

  Tool for propaganda, for national pride. It is a way to say fuck you to the other countries, to say that we're better. It is absolutely a competition between countries. And so now, when we see.

• 47:56Zack Telander?

  You know, these countries do well that don't do well in any other sport. They're going to clamor to the way things are.

• 48:02Chris Williamson?

  It legitimates that countries sort of sporting national presence. Yeah, okay.

• 48:07Zack Telander?

  Yes, right. Does that make a little bit more sense? Why it's so difficult to break down this corruption? Because, because they don't want it to go. Because it's successful for other sports.

• 48:19Chris Williamson?

  Why is it that weightlifting has permitted Iran? Why can't Iran just dope the shit out of some cyclists and crush cycling? Or some other sport, boxing or something? I think they are all right at boxing, actually, but yeah.

• 48:31Zack Telander?

  I hadn't thought about that, actually.

• 48:35Zack Telander?

  I hadn't thought about that. I think there's like some sort of history there. I think you see Eastern Bloc countries, uh, because they were, you know, part of the USSR and the, and, and, and historically, the USSR has been incredibly successful in weightlifting. So then those countries break off and now it's a great opportunity to, you know, flex against the old Russia. The old USSR. I'm not entirely sure about Iran. What you've actually, what we see in a lot of other countries is some of these guys from these Eastern Bloc teams, they end up going to, um, to these other countries and they end up being their head coach.

• 49:14Chris Williamson?

  Oh.

• 49:14Zack Telander?

  Yeah, so you'll see a Bulgarian head coach of, uh, the Australian team or something like that.

• 49:20Chris Williamson?

  Fuck.

• 49:21Zack Telander?

  And that's where things get very interesting as well.

• 49:23Chris Williamson?

  What do you think? How much, how widespread do you think drug use is generally in sports? So if you were to pick, I don't know, like American football, right? Or basketball and stuff like that.

• 49:32Zack Telander?

  Massive.

• 49:33Chris Williamson?

  You reckon?

• 49:34Zack Telander?

  Yes, massive, massive. The, it's, it's not so that you can grow and get bigger muscles. Yes, you can retain. The greatest thing is you just retain your muscle so much easier. Uh, the second greatest thing is you're, you can just do more work. Because every powerful movement, uh, you're able to have just a faster acting metabolism, a faster acting mode of recovery towards whatever movement that is. I think that basketball might be.

• 50:07Zack Telander?

  Like, it would be the most advantageous place to use dope.

• 50:11Chris Williamson?

  Why?

• 50:11Zack Telander?

  Because it is so, it is so intense, what like a big player goes through. You know, 40 minutes of just back and forth and jumping and cutting. Like, it just would destroy your knees, the forces which they're constantly using. And they play so many games. If you think about football, there's really not as much play. The average play is six seconds long. Right? Basketball is non-stop. It's on hardwood. You're not just cutting, you're jumping. If you were to compare that to soccer, the time that one player, if you actually look at the amount of time a player sprints and cuts in soccer, it's not even close to a basketball player.

• 50:52Chris Williamson?

  That would be fucking, I would, I would love for someone to do an analysis that understands the way that different doping substances impact physiology and performance. And to just say, look, here are some of the relative outputs that you could expect if you were to take a moderate sort of sub-detectable dose where you were cycling on and off. So here's a typical cycle that somebody that was playing basketball would be able to use. And here's one that somebody in cycling could use, and here's one that somebody in soccer and weightlifting and powerlifting and whatever. And to just have a look at the differences, the expected differences in performance. One of the problems that you're going to get, I mean, let's say, obviously you had this in baseball, right?

• 51:33Chris Williamson?

  You had Barry Bonds and that entire period where baseball lost its entire fanbase because there was a huge doping scandal. Now, the problem that you have with any sport like baseball or basketball is the season is so long.

• 51:47Zack Telander?

  Yes.

• 51:48Chris Williamson?

  It's huge, which means that if you have no time off, the sort of compounds that you can use, the complexity of how you're going to cycle in and cycle out of using different protocols, all of that's going to be turned up to 11.

• 52:04Zack Telander?

  Yeah, and I also think, you know, it doesn't take much. You just go through the majority of your career as a natural athlete. You make it to the NBA as a natural athlete. You establish yourself as a natural athlete. And then, when you want to hang on and potentially improve, because remember, it's all about improvement in any sport. You want to get better, but it's very difficult to get better when you're already some of the best. So, you know, that's where PED use, all it would take is just like a, you know, like a TRT dose of testosterone and then maybe some GHD, or some GHD, human growth hormone, HGH. So like GH as well would help a ton, but just, just basically a TRT dose

• 52:49Zack Telander?

  for a natural athlete that's been natural their entire life, something like that would increase performance like mind-blowingly.

• 52:57Chris Williamson?

  Need Derek, need Derek for more plates, more dates on, he could tell us this shit.

• 53:02Zack Telander?

  Look, the way that I see it is like this. Any sport where your fitness is tested, but the power output needs to be high. Okay, because if the power output needs to be high, that means you have to have a musculature that can support that. However, when you use a lot of power and you use a lot of muscle for something, you end up expending a ton of energy, which in turn is hard on your fitness. So if you constantly have to train these opposing things, right? Like cardiovascular fitness is going to always oppose for, it's always going to be on the opposite side of having a lot of muscle and a lot of power. So what if you were able to take a compound that was, that would allow you to retain muscle

• 53:43Zack Telander?

  with less effort while you can focus on fitness? Right, that's essentially what every single athlete's goal is. Increase fitness, increase capacity, increase the amount of work you can do without losing the things that make you the athlete you are.

• 54:04Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, well, I mean, that's exactly what they measure in cycling, right? They measure power to weight. That's what they look at.

• 54:11Zack Telander?

  How do you get that ratio? Power to weight? I mean, it's

• 54:13Chris Williamson?

  Well, they want to be as small as possible, but they also want to be able to deliver the maximum amount of wattage down. Okay, so roll the clock forward for me. What would you do? Let's say that you're in charge of the IWF now, or you're the IOC giving instructions to the IWF. What would your mandate be?

• 54:31Zack Telander?

  I would, I would clear, clean house. Every single person that was there during Aeon is gone. There's no question. They're gone. I don't care how good of a person they were. They're gone. Secondly, I would look over the doping protocol and I would find a way to verify the national testing. I think that there is some level of innovation that can happen where we can verify national testing. Then I would have athletes required to take a certain number of international tests per year. So if you're in that testing pool,

• 55:13Zack Telander?

  in that elite testing pool, you can just show up to a meet, sign up, weigh in, test, and leave.

• 55:21Chris Williamson?

  But then you're going to know when the test's going to be.

• 55:24Zack Telander?

  Right, but knowing when the tests are coming and there's one every two months, it is possible, but it's less likely to take the enormous amount of compounds as well as on top of tightening up national testing. Of course, look, Chris, you can always cheat. You can always break the law. You can always break the rule, but we have to make it harder and we have to be more diligent with that. Like, I can sit here and give you solution after solution and you can say, well, you know, they could skirt around us. Of course they can. It's never going to change, but there are massive holes. I mean, if we looked at this from like an analytics perspective, we just said, we just had a bunch of economists

• 56:06Zack Telander?

  come in, a bunch of, and I actually just listened to your podcast, nerds or geeks?

• 56:10Chris Williamson?

  Nerds, geeks, and dorks, yeah.

• 56:13Zack Telander?

  Geeks? Geeks.

• 56:14Chris Williamson?

  Geeks.

• 56:15Zack Telander?

  Because they have utility, right? So we have a bunch of geeks come in and they'd say, Jesus, this doping protocol or anti-doping protocol, like it has massive issues here, here, and here. Fix them. That's gotta be possible, right? From my perspective, it has to be possible. So something like that would have to change.

• 56:37Chris Williamson?

  I don't know, man. I don't know. I, it blows my mind that the Olympics has a very widespread drug problem. And it kind of makes sense, right? Because you appreciate that people will do whatever they need to do in order to win. And the, how do you say? The desire of the individual is going to outweigh, or the temptation of success is going to outweigh the temptation of virtue or integrity. Like, obviously, you know, getting to the number one spot on the podium, whether you're clean or not, is so tempting to so many people.

• 57:18Chris Williamson?

  And if you're convinced enough that the other people in your sport and in your category are also using, and you know that you're not going to be competitive without it, then it becomes a race to the bottom. You say, well, look, I can't not take this. It's better for me to be caught and kicked out because the alternative is coming 19th.

• 57:38Zack Telander?

  So here's the problem. In weightlifting in America, we don't even have the opportunity to race to the bottom. Or sorry, we don't even have the opportunity to even play because USADA is so stringent comparatively to other national testing.

• 57:51Chris Williamson?

  How long has it been since an American athlete got popped at the international level?

• 57:57Zack Telander?

  As far as I'm concerned, there was one minor incident, like

• 58:01Chris Williamson?

  What's a minor incident?

• 58:02Zack Telander?

  10 years ago, I think, I don't know exactly what had to happen, but it was Sarah Robles. I'll have to do more research on that, but I think before that, you know, 20, 30 years.

• 58:13Chris Williamson?

  So you're saying that very few people are sneaking through the national level testing from USADA to get to WADA and then be tested at the international level and get popped?

• 58:24Zack Telander?

  Yes.

• 58:24Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 58:24Zack Telander?

  The number is minuscule.

• 58:26Chris Williamson?

  Why not just do it that way? Why not just do it that way? Say that, look, if you get popped at the international level.

• 58:34Chris Williamson?

  And your country overall is disproportionately represented, then there's going to be some sort of sanction?

• 58:41Zack Telander?

  There is.

• 58:43Chris Williamson?

  Oh.

• 58:43Zack Telander?

  There is.

• 58:44Chris Williamson?

  Oh.

• 58:44Zack Telander?

  So, so, yeah. So, no, no, that, that's good that you pointed out. That's exactly what happens. Thailand was, I mean, so many countries, holy shit. Thailand, Ukraine, Romania, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, the, the list is insane. They were not allowed to bring a certain number of people to the Olympics. Their Olympic spots were closed. So, America was actually able to bring eight lifters to the Olympics, whereas Romania was able to bring one. Okay. And, and then in the Thailand, this is hilarious, in the Thailand World Championships, Thailand was not even allowed to have a team compete.

• 59:28Zack Telander?

  The host country was not allowed to have a team compete.

• 59:30Chris Williamson?

  No fucking way.

• 59:31Zack Telander?

  Swear to God. And Uzbekistan, before that was, it was in, I don't know where in Uzbekistan. It's actually there again right now. The World Championships are going on right now. But they, actually might have been Turkmenistan, one of the Stans, God, there's so many, I don't know. But they begged to allow their competitors to compete at their home competition. And they were actually able to get around that. That's another point of corruption there. Athletes that should have been suspended and actually an entire team should have been suspended, but they weren't because it was their home meet.

• 1:00:08Zack Telander?

  Thailand could not pull that off.

• 1:00:11Chris Williamson?

  Fuck. Well, dude, I, uh, I don't know. It's, it's a, it's a shit show. What do you reckon? What's the, if you were gonna give me odds, what, what do you reckon to the percentage chance?

• 1:00:22Zack Telander?

  Oh, God.

• 1:00:23Chris Williamson?

  Weightlifting is in the 2028 Olympics?

• 1:00:26Zack Telander?

  I'm going 50/50.

• 1:00:29Zack Telander?

  50/50. It is, it seems low and that is low, but I'm going 50/50. I actually said, when we were on the chopping block for 2024, I had said, uh, I think it was like,

• 1:00:42Zack Telander?

  60-40?

• 1:00:44Chris Williamson?

  Got worse.

• 1:00:45Zack Telander?

  Oh, yeah. You know why? Because we're farther away.

• 1:00:47Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48Zack Telander?

  That's why it's scary.

• 1:00:48Chris Williamson?

  You've got more work to do to get to the place that you need to be. And you've got, what? Did they say when? In 2023?

• 1:00:56Zack Telander?

  No, I'm not. It's probably right around now, December of 2023.

• 1:00:59Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so you've got two years to try and clean up an entire sport and the governing body that does it, plus all of the athletes globally that compete in it.

• 1:01:09Zack Telander?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:10Chris Williamson?

  Zach Teller, good luck, my friend. Where should people go? They want to check out your stuff? If they haven't already done it.

• 1:01:14Zack Telander?

  Check out my YouTube channel, YouTube channel. Just search my name, Z A C K T E L A N D E R. If you want to start weightlifting, go to patreon.com/zachtellander. And Instagram as well, coach underscore Z T. That's where you find me.

• 1:01:29Chris Williamson?

  See you soon for brisket, man. Bye.

• 1:01:30Zack Telander?

  See you.