Anyways… fortunately it wasn’t hard to find the Dinamo sports complex. It’s such a significant part of the city that it was even marked out on the tourist map provided by our hotel, which also featured the locations of various museums, city parks, and ads for about 42 different “erotic massage services”. (Possible Romanian recovery secret?)

No, finding Dinamo wasn’t hard. Finding where to go once inside the enormous, sprawling complex that is Dinamo was the hard part. The parking attendant was an affable fellow, although he spoke not a word of English, and the only thing either of us had mastered in Romanian by that point was asking whether the person spoke English. (Vorbiţi engleză? No? Well shit…)

helluva facade, but behind this was little more than a construction site…

As best I can gather, the Dinamo club in Bucharest has historical links to the Dynamo Sports Club created in 1923 in the Soviet Union. Whether the Bucharest club is that old is unclear to me, although a stroll around the grounds—which we did for about 30 minutes while trying to find the weightlifting gym—certainly gives the impression of the old Eastern Bloc stereotypes. The vast sports complex is presently a mix of old and new: stadia, piles of dirt and rubble, structures long abandoned and falling into decay, and new construction sites. Interspersed among this are occasional signs of—to my Western eyes, at least—Soviet iconography, like the triumphant bronzes of men forever frozen in acts of athleticism. Classicism through the lens of Communism, like some modern Discobolus.

not pictured: packs of stray dogs that roamed among the complex (as in the city itself)

In all it feels very much like a microcosm of the city itself.

Eventually, through some combination of itinerant wandering, helpful strangers, and luck, we drifted near our goal. I will let a brief photo-essay, without much commentary, provide some sense of the final leg of our pilgrimage to the Dinamo weightlifting gym.

to be safe, cerbus wore nike sneakers in “homing beacon” yellow…

getting closer… at this point cerbus heard a barbell drop and began running excitedly.

no cause to be alarmed here. i wander through former communist buildings all the time…

the room *next* to the weight room

how about behind this door?

great success!

This was the real deal, I thought, as we settled into the place. Legitimate Eastern Bloc feel. Some barbells, stacks of plates, a Slavic-influenced language, chipped paint, and not a single goddamn machine in sight. A gym whose purpose is so clearly and singularly weightlifting. Sure, it’s not the prettiest gym in the world, and the platforms are a bit uneven, and the showers look like something out of a horror film, but c’mon! You’re not here to look pretty and smell good. You’re here to lift weights!

i’m pretty sure this was a set on the film “jacob’s ladder”

At least that’s what the others were there for. The atmosphere in the gym was excellent: serious but congenial, with periods of talking interspersed with absolute respect and silence for heavy lifts. All the athletes were friendly, and despite the language barrier they made every effort to speak with us as best they could. For our part, Mike Cerbus served as the cultural ambassador and handed out USA-themed t-shirts.

I threw a few token snatches around and then cornered Mr Calancea into talking to me and discussing training programs. When I asked him about the training they used he actually offered to write out a strength/power program, all in English. Naturally I said yes.

But when he got about halfway down the sheet of paper—still only on day one of the program—he began to shoot me concerned looks. He would write one of the lifts down along with percentages and reps, and then he would stare at me, assessing, thinking. I soon grasped his concern.

“Valeriu, listen,” I said, “this isn’t for me. I’m certainly not doing this crazy shit! I just want to know.”

He smiled. “Ah, okay.” He nodded, as if confirming that yes, this was not for me. This seemed to put him at ease, now that he knew I wouldn’t be giving the program some sort of suicidal effort.

another view of the training area. note the non-adjustable squat racks.

A little background on Calancea: he started lifting at age 11, in his home city of Chișinău, the capital of Moldova. After graduating high school in 1999, he moved to Romania at the encouragement of weightlifting legend Nicu Vlad (of Romanian Deadlift fame, allegedly). In Romania Calancea trained with Vlad at the latter’s home gym (in Galaţi, I believe). In 2003 Calancea, still under the tutelage of Vlad, won the World Championships in the 85-kilo class with lifts of 167.5 and 215 for a 382.5 total. Other major accomplishments include Silver and Gold at the European Championships (2005 and 2007, respectively) and Bronze at the 2010 Worlds in Antalya. His best training lifts: Snatch – 180; Clean and jerk – 230; back squat – 280; front squat – 250; clean – 240; power snatch – 150; power clean – 200. Note the ratio of squat numbers to classic lifts. I know that people are often obsessed with pumping up squat numbers, but—as others have pointed out in various places on the interwebz (also this article, by the same author)—there is little evidence to suggest a monster squat is needed for big lifts in the biathlon.

[Onica Nicolae training. check out the gym's stereo system: a clock radio from c. 1983, which Calancea took out of a locked closet for each training session. note also Calancea's careful modulation of volume for the heavy lifting.]

The program Calancea wrote out, in its basics, is built around nine training sessions per week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday have morning and night sessions; Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday have only one session. Every single session—all nine—has a squat component, front or back, although never more than 5 reps or 3 sets. Morning sessions are only two exercises. The second session on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is composed of four exercises, largely devoted to the classic lifts or variants. Throughout the week are lots of deadlifts, of both the clean and snatch variety. In short: lots of heavy lifting.*

Monday AM: Front Squat, Clean deadlift / PM: Snatch, Clean and jerk, Clean pull, Squat

Tuesday: Front squat, Clean, Snatch deadlift

Wednesday AM: Front Squat, Clean deadlift / PM: Snatch, Clean, Jerks, Squat

Thursday: Drop snatch, Squat

Friday AM: Front squat, Clean deadlift / PM: Snatch, Clean and jerk, Clean pull, Squat

Saturday: Squat, Snatch from knee, Power clean and jerk

Not so bad, right? Right. Now I see why they need all those erotic massages for recovery…

Keep in mind this is their strength/power program. I also took a look at their technique program, but after Calancea so generously spent the better part of his evening writing down the power routine I felt I’d  be overstepping my welcome to ask for him to write anything else. Plus I’m pretty sure I’d already committed some major faux pas earlier, when I started asking about what his stipend had been and how often he actually went to school while training (once a month, apparently). Thus I had to make do with taking a picture of the sheet of paper on which the technique program was written. As soon as my Romanian improves I’ll get this out to the world.

anybody out there with good knowledge of romanian weightlifting shorthand?

So far I’ve translated the days of the week and all the numbers. It’s slow going, but hopes remain high. I also translated “Sauna”, and I’m confident that’s at least one portion of the program that I can follow.

Still to come: something else…

* Anybody interested in seeing the program in its entirety is welcome to contact me for details. All credit—and many, many thanks—go to Valeriu Calancea.

shouldn’t that be the ATM’s job?

Come again? “Illegal devices to copy your card”? Is this common knowledge in Romania? Before heading to Bucharest, accompanied by USAW celebrity and 77-kilo athlete Mike Cerbus, I looked into (and promptly forgot) the usual travel information: entry requirements, helpful phrases in Romanian, driving conventions, sodomy laws, and so on. At no point in my research did I come across a section on ATM-card-copiers. To be fair, most of my research consisted of multiple re-watchings of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, so perhaps I’m at fault.

keanu! why didn’t you warn me?!

With no clue what to be on the lookout for, I quickly scanned the area and the ATM for something that might be used for such devious purposes: a miniature Xerox machine, perhaps, or a mimeograph, or a gnome that steals ATM cards and makes duplicates in some terrible underground card-copying gnome base (a far more direct route to profit than stealing underpants). Perhaps ATM vigilance is a skill that every good Romanian boy and girl learns in school, like the Pledge of Allegiance or Duck and Cover in American schools (they still teach that, right?). Anyways, I didn’t see any gnomes in sight, so I went ahead and attempted to proceed with my transaction.

Less than ten seconds later the ordeal ended when my bank refused it and shut my account down. Apparently, Romania is still working out some kinks in its trustworthiness in the eyes of the financial world. Mr Cerbus’s bank acted even more aggressively. While I was eventually able to get my bank to reactivate my account, his bank simply said Romania was on their “no way” list. It was one of only three or so countries where the bank refused to even consider letting customers use their accounts (the other two being Mypos and Stankonia).

Fortunately you can use other major currencies—euros, dollars, gold nuggets, maybe Denver Nuggets—and so it wasn’t long before we had secured a rental car to get from the airport to our fabulous hotel in downtown Bucharest. After Avis quoted us a price somewhere between “ludicrously expensive” and “criminally expensive” for a Volkswagen Polo, we decided to go with the much more modestly priced offerings from a local, Romanian rental agency. I was hoping we’d get some Soviet-era classic—a Trabant, maybe, or a Dacia 1300—but instead we were given a rather vanilla Renault Symbol. True, the Renault offered certain conveniences not often found in Soviet-era automobiles: air conditioning, power-steering, anti-lock brakes, all four wheels. But what’s the fun of tooling around in a former communist country in something that doesn’t convey the proper feel of that bygone era?*

this is more what i had been hoping for. i even grew my hair and cuffed my jeans in anticipation. (photo credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Orlovic)

Of course, it was a base model Renault, which meant it had certain quirks that made it closer to any commie car than most offerings in the States. The gearbox, for example, was apparently constructed with mechanical tolerances that could be measured in yards. Fourth gear seemed to exist in some primordial cosmic void between the two front seats. Every attempt I made at a 5–4 downshift resulted in frantic hunting for somewhere—anywhere—to put the goddamn gear stick.  

our capitalist pig of a rental car.

But I digress. We weren’t in Romania to test cars out, after all. In fact, we weren’t in Romania to do much of anything, aside from check out the Dinamo Bucharest Sports Club, where Valeriu Calancea (Gold at the 2003 Worlds, bronze in 2010) currently hangs out as one of the club’s two coaches.

[Calancea's gold-medal clean and jerk performance at the 2003 Worlds; video credit, as usual, goes to Frank Rothwell]

Initially, there had been far grander plans for the Romania visit, which formed part of Mr Cerbus’s ten-day Italian/Romanian Tour (not to be confused with Mike Graber’s four-day World Tour), but various logistical hiccups—such as discovering that a cousin of Mr Cerbus whom we had planned on visiting was located not near Bucharest, but instead near Budapest—required we scale back our plans. Thus we spent our days checking out the city, picking things up and putting them down at Dinamo Sports Club, and then heading into Transylvania on the trail of Gary Oldman Dracula.

But enough of this drivel for now. Consider this “Part I” of “I don’t know how many.” In future installments we’ll go deep into the beating heart of Club Dinamo, its athletes and training facilities, its SECRET Romanian training program (although consider my disclaimer on past secret programs I’ve exposed), an interview with Valeriu Calancea, and, quite possibly, a trip that resulted in us taking the Renault up into the Carpathian Mountains on a road that probably hadn’t been tended to since Vlad Țepeș began raiding Transylvania in 1459. 

not sure if this was covered in the rental agreement…

Stay tuned…

* As it turns out, Dacia and Renault have more links that I was aware of. The Dacia 1300 was, initially, little more than a Renault 12 copied by Dacia. (Really it was less than a Renault 12, since later improvements to the French model never appeared in the Romanian company’s edition.) In 1999 the French automaker purchased Dacia. So in a way we got our Dacia.

(original video credit goes, I believe, to Dr. Randall J. Strossen, who has been filming world events for decades. his DVDs of events and training halls can be purchased here.)

Anyways, the Uzbeki program is also interesting because the country made quite a leap in international standing in a relatively short period of time. In 2008, Uzbekistan sent just two male athletes to the Olympics for weightlifting. Four years later, they qualified six athletes: five men (one short of a full team) and one woman.

The secret Uzbeki training that was (at least partially) responsible for this improvement? Behold…

Monday:

Session 1 (morning): Front squat (~100%), Snatch, Clean and Jerk

Session 2 (evening): Snatch, Clean and Jerk, Squat (classic lifts up to about 100%)

Tuesday:

Snatch, Clean and Jerk, Squat. Classic lifts up to about 80-85%

Wednesday:

Session 1: Front squat (90-95%), Snatch, Clean and Jerk

Session 2: Snatch, Clean and Jerk, Front Squat. Classic lifts up to 80-85%

(Wait just a minute. I think I’m starting to see the pattern…)

Thursday:

Snatch, Clean and Jerk, Squat. Classic lifts up to about 80-85%

Friday:

Session 1:  Snatch, Clean and Jerk, Front Squat. 60% training, very brief (~25 minutes) session

Session 2:  Snatch, Clean and Jerk, Squat. Classic lifts up to around 100%.

Saturday:

Snatch, Clean and Jerk, Squat. Classic lifts up to about 80-85%, with heavier squats sometimes

In sum, snatch, clean and jerk, squat. Generally two sessions a day. On Mondays athletes would typically squat first for their morning session, assuming they were not in a pre-competition phase. This was the program under Turkish coach Djefer Topchu, who worked in Uzbekistan from 2007 to 2012. In case you haven’t heard of Mr Topchu, perhaps you know one of his protégés:

(Hat tip to Frank Rothwell, of course. As an aside, has there ever been a lifter who looked so happy to be doing what he’s doing? Mutlu looks like a kid eating a bucket of ice cream on his first visit to see Santa Claus.]

Note that this is not necessarily an endorsement of the so-called “Bulgarian” style of training as opposed to what is often termed the “Russian” style, which employs greater variety of lifts (among other principles). Both programs work, and lots of successful countries subscribe to one or the other variant. Rather, my point is to illustrate that (1) at least far as training goes, there are no secrets, and (2) top-level weightlifters do a lot of weightlifting.

Shocking, no?! 

Of course, taken out of the context of a place like China or some former Soviet stronghold this sort of dedication and lifestyle is not always practical or applicable. The cultural gulf between most lifting powerhouses and our own country isn’t something we can lightly step over. Consider, for example, the following: at one point during our drive, one of us ’Mericans in the car made a joke about dialup internet. Mr Mangiaracina, assuming Mr Begaliev was too young to get the joke (ah, the innocence of youth…), began to explain the reference, but was cut off when our comrade informed us that dialup internet was de rigueur in Uzbekistan up to around 2007. Allow that to sink in as you open up 50 separate browser tabs with cat websites and shirtless pictures of Klokov.

or i could just save you the trouble of switching tabs… (bonus: shirtless chigishev, who is either squinting from the glowing towel or pooping his swim trunks )

Where was I? Oh yes: dialup internet in 2007. Do you know what that means? It means that when people in the US were lining up to buy the first generation iPhone, people in Uzbekistan were searching for a local phone number to dial to connect to the interwebz. Probably with Prodigy or CompuServe or one of the five trillion free AOL CD’s still floating around. With internet that slow you may as well spend an hour or two training while you wait for 600-kilobyte text-based web pages to load.

the gif that prompted the discussion of dialup during hour 542 of our drive (reload it for the full effect). at the very least, something good came out of the shitfest that was “the dark knight rises.”

It’s worth taking a look at a similar case study, part of an epic series titled “Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting,” regarding Kenyan runners. The author of this interesting, long-winded, and, in my view, generally accurate take on Olympic Weightlifting notes the following about Kenyan runners:

“There are few distractions for runners, no TV, no Internet, no Facebook.  Many run first thing in the morning and then take a nap before run number 2 a few hours later; they go to bed when the sun goes down.  This ensures plenty of sleep, a key for recovery.  That’s in addition to naps that are often taken between runs.  They train, rest, eat, repeat.”  (source)

Seem familiar? It’s basically the lifestyle outlined by Mr Begaliev [regarding his extensive sleeping, he noted "Organism must rest!"]. And by every other international level weightlifter I’ve ever spoken to or read about. And when your best internet option is a 2400-baud modem it’s probably easier to snatch 150 than look at porn weightlifting videos on the interwebz. If you need any more convincing, take a peek at the interview on All Things Gym with Czech lifter Jirka Orsag, the U23 European champion. His days consist of training, eating, and sleeping (with naps). He even has a “second dinner” before bed, like the mirror image of a hobbit’s second breakfast.

The secret: Train, mostly by doing the lifts. During rare moments when you aren’t training, eat and/or sleep. If you have access to some recovery aids—massage, sauna, some, uh, “restoratives”, or (apparently) wearing cold gloves—great.* (Begaliev said they used the sauna several times a week.) But never lose sight of the core: Train. Eat. Sleep. Repeat for roughly ten years. There is nothing even remotely facetious about any of this. It is, quite literally, the common thread for all top-level weightlifters (and likely for all top-level athletes in most Olympic sports).

And diet? Here is where the diet secrets of Lu Xiaojun are relevant. Every so often, when I look to see what searches are bringing people to this little corner of the interwebz, the phrase “lu xiaojun diet” is at or near the top, right around searches for things like “klokov” and “klokov handsome” and “is klokov god?” There are also a lot of searches for “best steroids for arm wrestling”, which is interesting, but not really relevant at the moment. No, today we’re here to consider the dietary habits of Mr Lu Xiaojun, which are presumably of interest to people because of pictures like the following:

(i believe this cover image from MILO is by rob macklem, whose outstanding work can be seen at: http://www.robmacklem.com/)

(photo credit: © Kari Kinnunen, wonderlifter.com 2011, http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlifter/7657240944/)

I mean, look at that guy’s intercostals. They appear to have been chiseled in dragon bone, for shit’s sake. Apparently lots of people (or just one person doing thousands of searches, I suppose) think that Lu Xiaojun has some special diet that granted him this physique.

For reals, Nacho? Do you think Lu Xiaojun is doing Atkins? The Zone Diet? Paleo? Attending nutrition seminars by Greg Glassman? Let’s look at a picture…

OMFG!!!1!! chopsticks aren’t paleo!!

He’s eating food! And an entire Chinese village’s worth of it! Okay, making assumptions about Lu Xiaojun’s dietary habits based on a single photograph is wildly irresponsible, but I’m nothing if not wildly irresponsible—and even downright reckless—when it comes to making assumptions. Yet I think it’s safe to say that most high-level athletes in the rest of the world (based on what I’ve seen, read, and heard) are not subscribing to the fad diets so popular in the Western World, and specifically in the US, where the diet industry is worth anywhere from $20 to $40 billion a year (or more, depending on sources). The important point is that world class athletes eat food, typically their national food, and lots of it. Mr Begaliev was no exception: when I asked about the diets of Uzbeki weightlifters, he said they ate lots of palov, a traditional, nutrient-dense Uzbek dish with rice and meat.

National cuisines aside, in what universe do the dietary needs of Lu Xiaojun—OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL WEIGHTLIFTER—align with those of Joey Biceps, an office worker who does abs and arms six times a week at LA Fitness? (The answer is “no universe”, in case this isn’t clear.)  Lu Xiaojun is a machine. He and his lifestyle are about as similar to the rest of humanity as the Millennium Falcon is to a 1983 Honda CRX with one blown tire. Shoving Han Solo and a Wookie into your CRX is not going to make it capable of jumps to hyperspace any more than eating tables full of Chinese food is going to give the average person razor sharp intercostals and a 175-kilo snatch. If that were all it took, lonely C++ programmers everywhere would be winning World and Olympic medals. But they’re not. (Are they? If so my claims don’t hold up…)

“She’ll make point five past lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid.” (photo credit: wikimedia commons)

Perhaps the only secret to all of this, or the commonality between lifters in China or Uzbekistan or anywhere, is that for many (perhaps most) of these athletes weightlifting and the weightlifting lifestyle is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. It is a way to improve one’s quality of life and maybe even get yourself a broadband modem or some DSL. These are very different motivators from the ones in the US. Despite the current economic shitstorm in the good ol’ US of A and the very real sinking of our working and lower-class families, poverty in a place like China or Eastern Europe (or even Western Europe) is a very different beast. And Begaliev noted that athletes in his home country who had some other way of improving their situation—e.g., school—often went that route, as it was easier and likely offered a more secure reward. This is not to shortchange the sacrifices of American lifters; it is merely to point out the vast cultural and socioeconomic divide that plays at least some role in this or any sport. The supposed secrets of other countries—which for the most part are available for anyone who cares to look—simply are not an option for us. Weightlifting in the US, far from bringing you out of poverty, may very well lead you straight into it. (CrossFit and companies like MuscleDriver USA are slowly changing this, but that’s another topic.)

Of course, that’s just one facet of a complicated issue. If you want details—and I mean exhaustive, extensive, occasionally soul-killing minutiae and verbiage—check out the article cited above on why the US lags way behind in Olympic Weightlifting. In the meantime, enjoy the fact that this web page probably loaded on your computer in under ten seconds, while there are people in rural China and Uzbekistan still waiting for their kid sister to free up the phone line so they can log in to CompuServe. Never mind that their nine-year-old brother is capable of out-snatching you…

* Assuming the Stanford research pans out (a very big assumption, but see supra for my disclaimer on that), will anti-doping crusaders call for a ban on cold gloves? Will they also require athletes only wash their hands in lukewarm water, to avoid unintentional “cold hand” doping? And speaking of gloves and cold, remember these? Man I miss the 80s…

freezy freakies, lenient anti-doping, and huge lifts. was there anything not to like about the 1980s? (aside from reaganomics, of course…)

so many people just waiting to throw their money away on anything to get bigger/leaner/faster/stronger/more orange

Yes, whenever I feel that my normal day to day activities are growing a bit dull and grey, when the people around me lack the fluorescent glow that signifies a lifetime of tanning beds, when I feel the need to ingest hundreds of free samples of supplements of dubious origins, quality, and legality, I find it high time to get myself to that jewel of Ohio, lovely Columbus, for The Arnold. It is a way of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation, as they say. (And should you subscribe to such nineteenth-century notions of health and fitness there is no doubt someone at the Arnold willing to sell you a pill, drink, or bar of something that will fit within your peculiar scientific worldview.)

From an Olympic Weightlifting perspective, is there anywhere in this country better than the Arnold to see truly world-class athletes and competitions? Consider the luminaries who’ve been to past Arnolds: Shi Zhiyong. Zhang Guozheng. Giorgi Asanidze. Oleg Kechko. Diego Salazar. Carlos Andica. Mike Graber.

Am I forgetting anyone? I seem to recall someone, a towering, larger than life personality who is an extraordinary athlete, devilishly handsome, and a goddamn fantastic ballroom dancer…

he could wear this to a funeral and still no one would say anything.

Oh yes: Dmitry “wearing a fanny pack without irony” Klokov. [Also consider for a moment that this outfit, in the context of The Arnold, was no more out of place than khaki shorts, popped collars, and a bottle of rufies would be at your average frat party. If anything, this outfit was understated.]

Klokov was not in attendance at this year’s Arnold. After the back injury that forced him to withdraw from the overhyped, underwhelming, and whored out (even by Olympic standards) London Games I’ve heard very little of him. [Klokov: call me...] But why not take a moment now to recall those better days, and revisit some Arnold history, with a little video of Klokov training in Columbus before his 400 total there.

Right. Now that we’ve watched that we can all put our pants back on and return to the present. Fortunately, Mike Graber was in attendance this year, and what he may lack in size and lifting ability compared to Klokov he makes up for in terms of sheer, unadulterated insanity enthusiasm. I had the distinct pleasure of driving out to Columbus with current BOD member and general Man-About-Town Mr Graber, along with Mr Mangiaracina and our secret Uzbek weapon, 85-kilo lifter Muhammad Begaliev. Graber—whose excitement for USAW knows no bounds—had been in a frenzy over the Arnold since January. Of last year. He was so overstimulated that for the first half of the drive he simply ran alongside our car, and only somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania was he tuckered out enough to sit comfortably inside without running the risk of breaking any windows or chewing through the car’s upholstery.

On Saturday, when we had a chance to make a few laps around the convention center, the Human Circus that is the Expo floor did not disappoint. If anything, it seemed more crowded than in previous years (possibly because they squeezed in an extra aisle of snake oil salesmen). But the animals on display at The Arnold have been covered elsewhere.

yes, this is an actual table at this year’s expo. and yes, the title is “tapped out by jesus”. unless “jesus” is the name of his mexican trainer i’m not sure this accurately reflects the teachings of the historical figure…

The real highlight of the weekend was (of course) the Olympic Weightlifting. Simply put, the Arnold offers the best Olympic Weightlifting meet in the country. In a sport like ours, where so many things are done wrong, or poorly, or simply not done at all, consider how many things the Arnold and its organizers do right: an excellent and well organized warmup area; ditto for the training area; on-site sauna availability; check scale availability; a raised stage; proper lighting; an audience hall that was packed full for most sessions; free coffee in the warmup room.

And, of course, there is the actual lifting. Saturday offered two outstanding sessions: the men’s Pan-Am Trials and the men’s open session, where  athletes threw heavy things around in an effort to win some money.

The Pan-Am Trials was a damn fine session. Several athletes, perhaps inspired by the magnificence that is The Arnold, or maybe just catching a quick high off the waves of artificial testosterone that are no doubt wafting through the entire expo center, put up impressive numbers. A few of the many good performances that stood out to me: Kevin Cornell, I believe going 6 for 6, with lifts of 155 and 195 in the 105-kilo class; Travis Cooper’s (85) outstanding 190 clean and jerk; James Tatum (77) going 3 for 3 in the snatch to finish with 141; and a 170 snatch by 105+ lifter Cameron Swart that caught me completely off guard (I thought, at best, he was going to deadlift it; my only guess is he made a deal with the Devil in the back room, since this was by far his best and easiest-looking lift of the three snatches he made).

the only thing more impressive than james tatum’s lifting was his beard, which appears to be as luxurious and dense as the hair on a wooly mammoth’s back… (photo credit: nat “i don’t sleep at competitions” arem, http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

Saturday night was the main event, when we were ready to unleash our Uzbeki charge into the fray. Mike Graber, sporting a blazer festooned with various pins and a hookgrip.com sticker, handled head coaching duties and the counting of attempts. I was given the far easier jobs of loading weights, slapping Begaliev on the back, and taking the occasional hit of ammonia. One cannot underestimate the importance of staying sharp and keeping the sinuses clear during a competition, even if you’re not doing any actual lifting.

The warmup area for this session was a study in concentration and intensity. Several of these lifters—Begaliev among them—are true professionals. To watch Begaliev was to see an athlete in his element, doing what he has been training to do for the majority of his life. Amidst all the chaos, the falling weights and scrambling coaches and loading and unloading of barbells and the calls of the announcer and Graber running around like a rabid wolverine on cocaine, Begaliev maintained a composure that would be the envy of Buddhist monks.* When he began to take the bar—first empty, then 60, 90, 110, etc.—every attempt was nearly identical: smooth and efficient, with a fluency that no doubt comes from having started lifting at age 9.

The session did not disappoint. As expected, top lifts went to the supers, with Fernando Reis (Brazil) duking it out against Canada’s George Kobaladze. Reis—whose extensive tattooing across his enormous frame must have been done by the same team that carved Mt Rushmore—managed a solid 407 total (182 and 225). For a guy who is roughly the size of a deepwater drilling rig he is fast. His final clean and jerk—the heaviest ever lifted in competition at the Arnold—was good enough for first place in the overall ranking. Kobaladze was close behind with a 397 total, down in the snatch but equalling the clean and jerk. Something to keep in mind: Kobaladze is 37 years old and he’s clean and jerking 225.

fernando reis on his way to making history at the arnold (photo credit: if you don’t know by now i can’t help you)

Third place overall went to Begaliev, who went 5 for 6 with lifts of 150 and 185. In doing so he edged out Travis Cooper (in fourth) and Carlos Andica (fifth) by virtue of lighter bodyweight (they all totaled 335).

Yes, The Arnold did not disappoint. But there was more to my weekend than just the spectacle of the Expo, the nearly continuous days and nights of Olympic Lifting, and the hope that Klokov was waiting somewhere in the wings to stage a triumphant comeback. In addition to all the usual madness, I had the pleasure of picking Mr Begaliev’s brain on Uzbeki training methodology for much of the 17+ hours I spent in the car with him.

But that’s still to come, in Part Deux! In which I reveal the secrets of Uzbeki training…

* Not to say he was the only lifter so composed, but he was the one I was most focused on and therefore the one whose habits I took note of.

“please don’t make me watch that video again!!!” (nat arem, http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

I had originally planned on relating some recent experiences with USAW celebrity and new BOD member Mike Graber, who visited me during the Italian leg of his 2012 European tour, which included something like forty cities in the span of 72 hours. Unfortunately, instead of hearing about our failed attempt to rent a car in Venice and drive to Croatia or Graber’s unsuccessful efforts to pay for everything using a Diner’s Club card (legitimate currency in precisely no part of the known universe), we are, for the moment, stuck contemplating the misguided and misinformed shitstorm currently surrounding the publication of this document.

mr graber in the midst of composing one of the 400 postcards he sent during his european tour

To (briefly) summarize the document, this is a reference guide for the strategic selection of athletes for various international competitions. It is, admittedly, a bit dry and technical. What it does is lay out a plan for picking team members based primarily on what can be considered objective criteria. I say “primarily” because it gives the option—the option—to use what might be termed more subjective measures in certain circumstances. This is not an Eastern European takeover of our selection process (not to say that would be inherently a bad thing). For the most part this is common sense stuff designed to prevent and avoid past errors and abuses: e.g., making sure athletes are in the shape they claim to be in, or sending our best athletes to the most important competitions so that their efforts are not under-utilized at less important competitions. Basically, this subjective element is stuff that’s been around for years. Athlete selection is still based on performance at trials.

But to judge from the clamor on Glenn Pendlay’s Facebook wall and the recent emails I’ve received, this is nothing more than Soviet-style subjective team selection, which will result in our best athletes being displaced by lesser athletes simply because the whim of shadowy USAW figures deem it to be so.

photo of a typical BOD meeting: “gentleman, how can we most piss off people?” (photo credit: wikimedia commons)

There’s a lot to address here and people are rather fired up over this (despite the fact that roughly 97% of USAW members will not be affected by these, or any, proposed changes to how we select international teams). Admittedly, the stakes here are small, which is perhaps why the fighting is so fierce (and so fiercely stupid, often), to paraphrase a quote often given to Henry Kissinger.** From a variety of corners there is an unquestioning, unwavering support for Glenn Pendlay (who is, by any measure, one of our best coaches) as well as a violent opposition to even a whiff of something that might be perceived as subjectivity or unfairness to the “best” athletes. As is often the case, there is not some objectively “right” answer, regardless of how many CrossFitters are googily-eyed over Coach Pendlay and his athletes.

Still awake? I’m going to try to break this down into a few main points that people raise.

1) “We need to send the best athletes! Weightlifting is objective so it’s as simple as who lifts more weight!” (Or some such drivel…)

This is about as low-level of a response as can be given. As for sending the best, how do you define “best”? Sinclair? Proximity to medal? Weight lifted regardless of weight class or formula? People looking at this sport retroactively cannot agree on who was the “best” lifter of all time, despite years of very clear data: Naim Suleymanoglu? Yurik Vardanyan? Vasily Alekseyev? Tommy Kono? If a standard of best cannot be reached in retrospect, how in shit’s sake do people think they can offer contemporary (or predictive) answers to who the best lifter is? Consider that just last year Amanda Sandoval was not selected for the Olympic Team, despite being our “best” athlete according to one widely accepted standard (Sinclair). Simply put, there are many ways to define best.

As for the alleged objectivity of weightlifting, this is indefensible from any number of angles. For one, there is judging, which, as we all know, can be extraordinarily subjective. There are also elements like strategy, head games, coaching tactics, weight class changes, faked injuries (yes, it has happened), and on and on. The numbers are objective in that an athlete in a given class who totals 340 places higher than another athlete in the same class who totals 339, but how those numbers are arrived at involves a very human, and therefore subjective, element.

2) “This is unfair to athletes who work/go to school/can’t afford it!”

An interesting point that many have raised. Essentially, the claim is that you cannot expect certain things from athletes who must lead otherwise normal lives (going to school, paying bills, taking care of families, etc.).

First, I sympathize with these athletes. Our athletes are not, by and large, professionals. That immediately puts many of them at a disadvantage compared to their international peers (to say nothing of the PED disparity). Furthermore, I think it’s absolutely extraordinary that our athletes do what they do despite having to hold down jobs, go to school, and live generally full lives (at least compared to their Chinese or Eastern European counterparts, let’s say).

“i lead a very full life, thank you!!!” (photo credit: http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

But the issue is that sport, and especially elite, world class sport, is often not about fairness. At least according to the rules as determined by the rest of the world. Essentially what this amounts to, in theory, is the seeking of a sort of welfare that most people complaining would never support in the real world.*** By this logic, should people with jobs be given a 10-kilo head start? After all, it’s not fair to ask someone with a job to compete against someone who can train full time. And what about resources and money? Should poor athletes start with a 20-kilo advantage, since they didn’t have access to the best shoes, bars, or coaches? Or should athletes with small hands be allowed to use straps? (If only…)

The fact is that competitive sports are, in many ways, inherently discriminatory. People born with more slow twitch muscle fibers are at a disadvantage against those with more fast twitch. People born in cities with a great Olympic lifting coach have a geographic advantage. How is that fair compared to someone born in, say, the middle of South Dakota, which has no gyms, let alone coaches?

It is unfortunate, but certain policies in high level athletics are going to discriminate based on things that seem “unfair”. It is unfair that our athletes, many of whom work, must compete against state-sponsored athletes who do nothing but train, eat, and sleep (and take the occasional drug cocktail). But, apart from the PED issue, that’s the way the game is played and that’s all within the rules. (Interestingly, one could argue that PEDs can serve to minimize various inequalities and level the playing field in some ways, but that’s another issue…)

In short, it sucks if an athlete loses her spot on the team because she was unable to defend it because of work or family commitments (which, keep in mind, will not be the norm—locked team members cannot be bumped). But if another athlete is willing to make extra sacrifices, or is simply more fortunate to have better or more resources, then why wouldn’t you send the athlete who ends up doing better in the end? For a points-scoring international meet, why not send the athlete who, in the qualification period, does the total that puts her closest to the medal podium?

3) “This isn’t Eastern Europe! Our athletes aren’t Pros so you can’t expect them to follow that model!”

The first part of this objection, that we are not some Eastern European socialist state, is true (despite what misinformed Fox News viewers think about Obama’s policies). Again, the document does not turn our selection process into an arbitrary picking of athletes by some head coach mastermind. Those who think that clearly have not read the document, although perhaps USAW is at fault here, since one could easily argue that USAW has a poor track record of communicating with members. Very, very poor.

“what we’ve got here is failure to communicate. and a really, really shitty website.” (photo credit: http://www.samefacts.com/2013/01/popular-culture/film-popular-culture/special-guest-star-weekend-film-recommendation-cool-hand-luke/)

But even if we did follow a more “professional” model, there is an argument which would support doing that. As much as I loath trite business maxims, this one is useful here: “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” In short, if we want to be serious contenders on the world stage then we should start acting like it, rather than waiting for it to happen so that then we can start acting like professionals.

Yes, much of this boils down to money (or the lack of it). Our athletes need money to be able to devote their lives to training and recovering. CrossFit and some other business endeavors (like MuscleDriver USA) are starting to fill this void. My hope is that they will continue to provide help for our athletes and that USAW will eventually be in a position to provide top-tier athletes with the funds to live as full-time weightlifters. But in the meantime it doesn’t hurt to prepare for the day when we do have professional weightlifters. The days of a “weekend warrior” winning World or Olympic medals through grit and determination while holding down a full-time job and a family are long over. We are, for better or worse, in an era of professional weightlifters. Until we start acting like professionals and accepting that we can learn some things from the countries that do it best we’re doomed to stay in the same position we’ve been in for years now.

does she look like she works at home depot part time? (photo credit: http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom

And finally, as I meander to my point…

Are we all still here? And awake? I hope so. As a sort of summing up, I think a main issue to consider with regard to this rather reasonable document—as well as future changes to our sport—is what our goals as an organization are. If our goal is to win medals at the world stage then we need to make use of every tool at our disposal, which will occasionally mean the strategic deployment of athletes, which may mean treating athletes “unfairly” depending on how you define fairness. If our goal is to be as fair as possible then this will result in a different strategy, one that is likely to get us worse results on the world stage (which is fine, since world-class performance won’t be our main goal).

These two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive but they are often at odds with each other. Consider the 2011 Pan Ams and World Championships situation: Our top athletes were qualified for both events. The events were very close together and thus our current HPD, Pete Roselli, suggested we consider sending a B squad to the Pan Ams with the intent of saving our top performers for the more important job of scoring points at the Worlds. This tactic would also give much-needed international experience to upcoming lifters. I supported the suggestion of deploying our top points scorers to only the Worlds but the rest of the BOD was against it. The claim was that it was “unfair to the athletes.” The result was a disaster, with several of our top performers getting sick at the Pan Ams and turning in subpar performances at the Worlds. It is impossible to say how we would have fared had we gone with the option of saving our best lifters, but if we follow the example of history (and what else do we have?) we can say that it generally makes sense for drug-free lifters to avoid international competitions spaced too close together.

Anyways, this has gone on long enough for the time being. There is more to say, of course, and there are various objections that can be raised to these points, and those can be countered with other claims, and so on. But I think the heart of the issue is a question of whether we want to be a world class weightlifting competitor first and an athlete-centered organization second or the other way around. Unfortunately, the evidence from history and other countries suggests that playing sport at a very high level sometimes involves putting the needs of large groups of athletes behind the needs of the country or organization. This is a normal part of most endeavors that take place on the world stage. If you don’t like it then don’t play.

“it’s not even that radical of a document, for god’s sake!!! do you people even read?!” (nat arem, http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

* In all fairness, I’ve never actually watched this video. But I do have it on good account (from several people) that it is the audio-visual equivalent of taking a rhinoceros tranquilizer right to the cerebral cortex. A friend’s father swears by it as a treatment for insomnia and is currently in FDA trials to market it as a prescription drug for just that purpose. In several states it is illegal to drive or operate heavy machinery if you have watched the video in the last three hours.

** ”Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” This is often credited to former Harvard professor Henry Kissinger, although it seems the origin is a bit more complex. See the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre’s_law. Whatever the origins, the sentiment remains generally true.

*** It’s interesting to hear so many admitted conservatives demanding “fair” treatment that asks for an unlevel playing field to be leveled out via rules and regulations. Apparently regulation is bad when it means preserving the environment or funding after school programs but it’s good when it keeps their athletes on international teams.

First, the Outlaw Open: as noted above, this was not an official CrossFit competition. Maybe most of these things are unofficial; I have no idea. Official/unofficial status aside, it was of course a “CrossFit” style meet. I spent a fair portion of the morning/early afternoon watching. Of the many things I noted, one was that these athletes love—deeply, passionately, romantically—love kinesio tape (kinesiology tape). I saw more colors, styles, applications, and configurations of kinesio tape than I ever thought possible. The only thing more prevalent than kinesio tape were tribal tattoos. I’ve used kinesio tape before but I know nothing regarding the science behind it (i.e., whether there is evidence to support any of the claims made for it). All I recall is that the chiropractor who applied the tape looked like he was defusing a bomb while he stared at my knee, tape in hand, reaching out to apply it and then withdrawing, thinking, as though the entire office would explode if he didn’t apply the tape at exactly the precise angle necessary.

who would have thought watching people exercise would be so popular?

One of the really critical things I took away from watching their competition—aside from the tape thing—was how essentially unexciting it was. Which is not to say it wasn’t fun to watch; it was. And clearly the sport is popular—new gyms are popping up, it’s featured on ESPN, Reebok is a major sponsor. They’re doing far better than USAW in this country. But, so far as I can tell, it’s not because of anything more inherently extreme or exciting than Olympic Weightlifting. In essence, all you’re doing is watching people exercise. To people involved in the sport, or to general fitness enthusiasts, that can be exciting but it’s not something you would expect large segments of the American public to be interested in. (And in my own, humble view, Olympic Weightlifting—that is, really good, high level Weightlifting—is about as edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting exciting as it can get, what with weight changes, jockeying for position, mental games, etc. But I may be biased…)

(i mean, does it get any more exciting than suleymanoglu vs leonidis at the 1996 olympic games in atlanta? )

What the CrossFit people do have is a supreme ability to market, package, produce, and disseminate their product. The CrossFit Games are made exciting because they invest the time, money, and energy in making them look exciting. In this front we could learn a lot from these people.

After watching the Outlaw Open for a bit I had the chance to speak with Mr Frasca. Prior to our meeting he had emailed me and mentioned he had read last year’s American Open writeup (presumably this) and expressing interest in whether I was writing something this year. I had thus hoped for someone far more unscrupulous—or downright corrupt—than the man I met. I had imagined an offer of gifts or money in return for a highly favorable review of the American Open, an offer I would then refuse out of my high sense of journalistic integrity. Or, if the price were high enough—fistfuls of money, the chance for an hour of cuddling with Klokov, even a comped meal or two—I could toss my morals aside and write whatever was asked of me.

how i thought the meeting might play out…

Unfortunately for my bank account (but fortunately for my principles), Mr Frasca had no such intentions. I spoke with him for about twenty-odd minutes on Sunday, as he was rushing in between the American Open and the Outlaw Open. Like many CrossFitters he’s an extraordinarily fit individual. He is also passionately interested in the success of USAW—also like many CrossFitters. What I took away from the conversation was that he really just wants to use his knowledge and resources—in the CrossFit community and the sponsorship world—to contribute to the bigger effort of getting Americans on the medal podium in 2020. To that end he’s working to find and recruit talented kids (via CrossFit Kids, for example) to get them started training at the right age. That alone would be a worthwhile effort, and more than what most in USAW (yrstrly included) do at the practical, grassroots, everyday level for our sport. He’s also working to find sponsors and promote the sport, and he worked damn hard putting on a fantastic American Open.

Not to harp on the CrossFit thing too much, but at this point the arguments against them, or against working with them, are looking increasingly ridiculous. No, they are not the Soviet or Chinese style system that some would like. But that option—sending government workers into the fields to find little boys and girls endowed with thick wrists and mustaches—is not an option here. What is an option is a working relationship with a major fitness company that has done more to promote awareness of the classic Olympic lifts in the past few years than anybody else since the days of Bob Hoffman.

what would mr hoffman make of crossfit? (photo credit: http://www.weightlifting.org/honorees/AOBSHOF.htm)

It’s worth recalling that many of the same people today disparaging CrossFit are the same people who for years, decades even, thought that another sport outside of Olympic Weightlifting would be our savior: football. But consider that football is perhaps the worst option for talent recruitment: football offers athletes the dream, however illusory, of earning millions of dollars or, at the very least, a free ride to college; football coaches, by all reports, are often resistant to the Olympic Lifts (but are happy to have kids blow shoulders doing bench presses); football coaches, when they do teach the Olympic lifts, often do so with technique that makes your average CrossFit athlete look like Kakhiashvili by comparison; and by many accounts (and some experience) football coaches at all levels are under the assumption that they know best in all things, Olympic Weightlifting included. Why did anyone ever think football, of all things, was a serious outlet for the dissemination of Weightlifting and the discovery of young talent?

did people think they were going to get lattimer from “the program”? did they actually want him? (http://www.pitofhorror.com/ab/pages/program_gallery.htm)

CrossFit, by comparison offers a ready-made network with millions of passionate and dedicated followers; a program that is already reaching out to kids (CrossFit Kids, which seems to be an excellent endeavor); and, most importantly, A LARGE GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO WANT TO LEARN. This final point cannot be overstated: they are interested in learning the Olympic Lifts, in learning from USAW coaches and athletes, and they are willing to pay us for our knowledge and services. In short, they are giving us the opportunity—if we are smart enough to take it—to become professionals. I spoke with several people over the AO weekend, former athletes and coaches, who told me that never in their dreams would they have imagined getting paid to do what they love, which is to train and coach people.

With CrossFit they have the opportunity to do just that. By turning this sport from a hobby to a professional activity CrossFit is providing us the chance to replicate, in our own, American way, the system that works best in the rest of the world: paid coaches and paid athletes, both of whom devote the majority of their time to this sport. We don’t need to do this as a hobby anymore. With more time to spend on training, coaches and athletes will have the chance to move beyond what is possible for an amateur. There can be more hands-on time, more time with athletes, more time with other coaches, time to research, time for seminars, time to keep learning and improving, etc., etc. Not every coach will take these chances, and not all people can (or are willing) to give up their jobs for this life. But the important thing is the opportunity is there.

“why is this even still up for discussion?!?!”
(nat arem, http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

In short, we’ve got a good chance to make some serious changes for the improvement of our sport. CrossFit is providing us with exposure and resources at an undreamed-of level (consider how easy it is these days to find a place with an Olympic Bar almost anywhere in the US and, increasingly, across the globe).* Furthermore, the evidence is mounting (finally) that not only is strength training not bad for kids but that it’s actually good for them, which is news to exactly no one in the Olympic Weightlifting community. ( See, e.g., this and this. That the myth of weight training’s danger to kids survived for so long is one of the great public health debacles of the twentieth century; what a terrible irony that parents were told not to let their kids lift weights while for years little to nothing was said or done about the dangers of consuming enormous quantities of fast food. I’m willing to bet there are still more parents out there who would let their kids eat a BigMac everyday than lift weights.)

Admittedly, getting everyone in USAW on board with an outside organization is not easy. As our new CEO, Michael Massik, pointed out to me (and many others) over the weekend, we in USAW are addicted to name-calling and insulting others’ intelligence. “Stupid” and “idiot” are words thrown around our community like rice after a wedding. Some of you reading this now are probably thinking about how stupid I am. Some of you may be right. But enough of that.

The issue with this in our sport—one of many issues, more accurately—is we’re often our own worst enemy. We’re so focused on talking about who is wrong and just how idiotic they are for being wrong that we fail to consider anything of true value to moving the sport forward. Which is not to say we don’t need healthy debate over issues of technique, training, talent recruitment, etc. etc. But name calling is far from productive. And if we get so lost and focused on our own tiny little world, we’re going to completely lose sight of the fact that the rest of the world is passing us by for other options—football, wrestling, soccer, CrossFit, whatever. Yes, lots of those sports, indeed all sports, feature name calling and insults. But most of them can afford a little bad publicity or even a lot of bad publicity; they already have the benefit of a whole set of institutions—grade schools, high schools, colleges, social factors, publicity—working in their favor. We, it ought to be noted, do not.

As a final thought, to remind everybody that this sport is about and for athletes (contrary to what the national refs would have us think), consider what was, to my mind, the most impressive lift of the competition: Jenny Arthur’s phenomenal 127kg clean and jerk. The lift set a new American Junior AND Senior record,  breaking Danica Rue’s 126 from 2005. A junior American girl doing 127 kilos (and doing it well, I might add) is damn impressive. Jenny only managed her opener in the snatch (90) but took shots at 94 and 97, no doubt within her capabilities. (To put this in a World context, consider that a few years ago I met a Kazak girl who was doing comparable weights of 100 and 130; she also had a voice like Thulsa Doom and a handlebar mustache. Now, these aren’t World Record levels, but these are good lifts by any standard, national or international.) There were lots of other good lifts over the weekend—Jon North’s attempt at the 94 class snatch record (166) for one—but few can compare with the magnitude of Ms Arthur’s lift.

jenny arthur jerking 127kg for a new junior and senior record in the 69-kilo class. (photo credit: nat arem, http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

Anyways, this has gone on long enough. The CrossFit topic has been beaten to death and anyone still unable to see the potential merits of the organization is unlikely to change now. CrossFit and its followers (like our own organization) are neither inherently good nor bad. CrossFit a tool and it is a body of knowledge and it can be used well if we so choose. Disparaging the organization because a few YouTube videos showed people doing shitty clean and jerks is like saying indoor plumbing is bad because your toilet backs up once a year. It’s a narrow-minded view and is entirely beside the point. Let’s instead focus on the ways the organizations can help each other, both in the small world of Olympic Weightlifting, where medals are the goal, and in the broader public sphere, where public health (and, of course, money) is the goal. With a little work we might have a better showing in 2020 than we did in 2012. Eight years is a long time if you’re doing the right things; it’s no time at all if you’re doing the wrong things.

* Whether CrossFit has its own Olympic Games ambitions is unknown, but it is something we—as the current barbell sport of the Games—should keep in mind. There probably isn’t room for another strength sport. A CrossFit event is a long ways off but it’s not an impossibility (if that’s their goal). But that’s another topic.

A little background: about a week or so before the AO, the event’s organizer, Nick Frasca, contacted me. There were a handful of very cordial, very polite emails that, among other things, noted the potentially redemptive power of corporations in the context of American weightlifting. I like free-market capitalism as much as the next socialist libertarian and I recognize that corporate America is good at lots of things—making boatloads of money for small numbers of people, for example, or buying elections—but so far they have yet to produce a weightlifting medal. At least to my knowledge. In this instance it seems the Russians (and the Chinese, and the Bulgarians, and the Turks, and the Greeks, and the Columbians, etc. etc.) know a thing or two more than corporate America. Therefore you can understand if I was a bit skeptical of the whole thing.

“BUT I JUST WANT TO BUY BLUE JEANS AND NIKES!!!”
(photo credit for what is a totally irrelevant image of akkaev: nat arem, http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

But wait: let’s try to keep an open mind about this whole thing. I was already booked to go to the American Open so there was no sense in forming judgments before I had even set foot on the ground and checked out the scene. There would be plenty of time to complain about how essentially wrong things had gone after the competition (not a rare thing in this organization).

Then I arrived in Palm Springs and was so overtaken by the area’s absurd beauty that I wondered if I was suddenly faced with the opposite problem: that I was so smitten by the martian desert landscape that any hope of being critical and objective was lost. There was certainly a lot in the desert community’s favor on my arrival. Due to USAW’s stinginess in covering my flight expenses some last-minute booking of my flight I had to fly into Orange County airport, nearly two hours west of Palm Springs. Fortunately my standard automobile reservation was upgraded to a snow white BMW 328i, an appropriate vehicle for the car culture of California. There was no way to pull up to the competition in anything less, I felt. As an official representative of USAW it’s only appropriate that my image matches up to the organization’s level of quality.

The drive was stunning, at least once I made my way out of the concrete and asphalt web that is Orange County. I passed by signs for strange places I’d heard of only in books or movies—“Bakersfield,” “Barstow,” “San Diego” (a “whale’s vagina,” I believe). Who knew these places actually existed? Not me, certainly. By the time you’ve been heading east for forty five minutes or so the development thins out considerably and pretty soon you’re driving through a rocky desert landscape where the hills and mountains butt up against and in some cases nearly spill out onto the road. It all looked like some sort of Cormac McCarthy-esque vision, sans the caballeros and people riding around scalping each other.

this what happens when i—rather than mr arem—try to take pictures. just try to imagine a stunning drive…

In the middle of this desert moonscape sits Palm Springs, a little patch of verdancy, as though the mountains themselves shat out some sort of suburban emerald. Palm trees, perfectly clipped lawns, and a grid of streets that would make a city planner from ancient Rome proud. There’s a bit of the feel of an affluent resort or retirement community, and though this might normally be off-putting it somehow works here, perhaps thanks to the retro-cool architecture that is referred to as “Mid-Century Modern.” There is an almost time-capsule sense, as though the dry desert air has preserved a slice of 1950s and 1960s Americana. You’re tempted to buy an enormous white Cadillac and a pair of wraparound sunglasses and cruise the strip making shady movie deals that involve lots of work on the “casting couch”.

It’s a sentiment that’s aided by a 26-foot-tall statue of Marilyn Monroe in her famous pose from The Seven Year Itch. (Interestingly, the steel and aluminum statue was built in New Jersey and spent time in Chicago before landing in its current location in Palm Springs, right across from a decidedly un-1950s/60s Starbucks.)

rumor has it that marilyn was told to “think of klokov” in order to get the right emotion for this pose…

If I seem a bit effusive with my praise it might help to bear in mind that when I eventually pulled in to Palm Springs I may have been slightly out of my mind. In what was probably a bad idea I decided that for my California drive I must listen to only California-themed songs for the duration of the journey, in order to get myself into the appropriate mood. Unfortunately the only relevant song on my iPod is The Magnetic Fields’ “California Girls”, which, after nearly two hours, had driven me to the very edges of sanity.

Aside from the landscape and the city of Palm Springs itself, there was a lot to like at this year’s American Open. By the end of the weekend I was singing the meet’s praises to anyone foolish enough to get within earshot of me. By Sunday I had also spoken with Mr Frasca and heard more about his ideas, which turned out to be far more in line with my own (and probably with those of many in USAW) than I would have imagined. But more on that later…

The hotel—the Renaissance—offered very fine accommodations at a reasonable rate, although charging for wifi is just thievery at this point. My only real issue was with an absurdly priced breakfast buffet: six dollar orange juices and a buffet that cost something like $130 for flaccid, pre-made waffles, Jimmy Dean sausages, and a handful of other items. The ridiculous wifi fees suddenly seem like a bargain when you consider you just paid $50 for a snack box of Raisin Bran. The hotel’s other meals were slightly better in price and quality, although no one’s going to say “If you go to Palm Springs you simply must eat at the Renaissance Hotel” anytime soon. Not unless everything else in town burns down, at least.

the fabulous renaissance hotel

The venue was a short, five-minute walk (through the hotel’s pool, if you so desired—not actually through it, but around it) to an adjacent convention center. In addition to USAW’s American Open it was also hosting the Outlaw Open, an associated event for CrossFit types. Like so many other competitions of this sort it follows in the grand tradition of picking names that could easily be Steven Seagal movies. “Outlaw Open.” “Firebreather Challenge.” “Hard to Kill Invitational.” “Under Siege Open.”

(photo credit: http://www.screeninsults.com/hard-to-kill.php)

But I digress. Clearly the CrossFit people (although I should stress this was not an official CrossFit meet) have a better handle on what gets the general public’s attention. Given their meteoric rise to success it’s perhaps good to remember the wise words of H.L. Mencken regarding taste and the American public. USAW could learn from these people (but more on that later).

The setup for the weekend was unconventional: all the B session lifters went on Friday and there were two platforms running at the same time. The two-platform setup apparently caused some problems (and was occasionally distracting for athletes), but the lifting setup for the main stage (and the A sessions) looked to be top notch. I heard no complaints all weekend from officials or athletes about the main platform or the stage. [NB - I have since heard complaints, but this is USAW. It will be a cold day in hell when somebody isn’t annoyed with something.] It was elevated, allowing for visibility for everyone, and if the enormous room itself was a bit dark at least the stage area was well lit. A big screen showed information and replays.

the venue. it might have been a little dark…

The warmup area was similarly well-prepared. After an early screwup—apparently there was a lack of squat racks and sauna information—things were set right. Plenty of good platforms, bars, and plates. Even during the mens 85 A session—with around 600 lifters—there were enough platforms to avoid unnecessary waiting or confusion. In the 94 A session, with only four (yes 4, IV, δ, ٤, 四, or, for those of you reading in binary, 100), lifters, this very nearly meant each athlete could snatch, clean, and jerk on a separate platform. (It also meant that Jon North and his ego were able to warm up on separate platforms.)

So in the end you had a large space with a raised platform, a (mostly) functioning computer and display setup with replays, adequate warmup facilities, a convenient location both in terms of the venue and the city itself (no worries about snowstorm delays, e.g.), and—for several sessions—the announcing skills of Canadian radio and television journalist Richard Mason, a man who’s superb announcing skills make you wonder why anyone lets Denis Reno take hold of a microphone (will all due respect to the knowledgeable Mr Reno).

Surely there must be something to complain about, overpriced breakfasts aside?

there was the issue of hotel tap water that looked like this…

Of course there was, and it’s the same gripe that we’ve been hearing about in USAW national meet circles for years now: the judging. I don’t know what our problem is, but refs in this country appear to have some sort of cruel vendetta against athletes. It wasn’t quite as bad as this year’s Nationals (where, in a weird trick of mathematics that is still being worked out, there were more overturned lifts than actual lifts in the whole competition), but it was bad. So far as I am aware we’re the only country whose refs keep their fingers on the red-light button. Any claim that we need to get our athletes ready for world-level judging is bullshit. Lifts that are regularly turned down in this country—good lifts, by any reasonable standard—routinely pass at Worlds and the Olympics. (Watch Ilin’s expertly-timed oscillation of the bar just before he jerks if you have any doubt about what’s okay internationally.)

Beyond harsh calls, there’s also the issue of consistency, or inconsistency. Good lifts getting turned down, bad lifts getting passed, and identical lifts getting different calls based on what must be nothing more than judges’ personal whims. The irony is that some of these judges are from an era when athletes held weight overheard with arms bent into double-biceps poses.

is that supposed to be a lockout, mr plukfelder? (photo credit: http://paulsfitnessblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/wanted-to-try-new-style-of-snatch-today.html)

When did we get to be such dicks? From what I gather there’s some hesitance to take any real steps to change things, either for fear of repercussions or offending people, but to deny that this is what people are talking about and that this is something in need of change is not doing anybody any favors. Part of the problem may be the testing of National refs that goes on at these meets. Years ago I heard one ref, who was then undergoing testing to become a National ref, tell me that they will never question a red light, whereas you might be expected to justify a white light. I raised the reffing problem after the 2012 Nationals but it went nowhere.

“don’t even think about red lighting me!”
(what are you doing here, akkaev?: nat arem, http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

Bottom line: this needs to change. The sport is, first and foremost, for athletes—something our nationals refs seem to have forgotten. It is made up of athletes. If there is ever any doubt w/r/t/ a lift then it ought to be in favor of the athlete.

More to come…

Then came Anger, which is perhaps best exemplified by the following image.

“what do you mean i’m not lifting?!?!”
(photo credit: jean-nàt st.-arèm, http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

This was followed by the Bargaining stage, during which time I made repeated phone calls to the IOC, the IWF, and Mike Graber, in the hopes of a “do over” for the entire London Games, thus giving Klokov and Akkaev a chance to compete. So far only Graber has responded to my calls, but his enthusiastic support for the idea gives me some hope.

In the meantime, as we all wade through the Depression phase, let us sit back and watch the following video and think of happier times, when we were all anticipating what might have been the most extraordinary contest in modern weightlifting history. Sigh…

The final women’s session was arguably the best of the Games so far. It was also the session with USA’s two female lifters—Sarah Robles and Holley Mangold. Mangold finished tenth with lifts of 105 and 135, well below her capabilities but impressive for someone coping with a host of injuries, including a torn tendon in her right hand. Robles managed 120 (a PR for her, I believe) and 145, which gave her a 265 total for seventh place.

mangold, with coach mark cannella looking on. (photo credit: nat arem, http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

Entry to the podium required a bit more than that. Third place was hotly contested by Korea’s Jang Mi-Ran and Armenia’s Hripsime Khurshudyan. This was Jang Mi-Ran’s third Olympics. In Athens in 2004 she took silver with a 302.5 total and in Beijing in 2008 she won gold with 326. Her 289 total in London was far short of those marks, leaving the bronze to Khurshudyan’s 294 total. (And this is only eight months after Khurshudyan dislocated her elbow with a 130 snatch attempt at the 2011 Worlds.)

But the real battle was between China’s Zhou Lulu and Russia’s Tatiana Kashirina. These two previously went head-to-head at the 2011 Worlds in Paris, where Zhou’s 328 took gold to Kashirina’s 322. Both women bested their efforts in that competition, setting a host of new World and Olympics Records in the process. When the weights had settled and the dust cleared China’s Zhou was once again the gold medallist, finishing the day with a 333 total, one kilo ahead of the Russian. These are impressive totals in their own right for any athlete, but the details give an even more impressive story. Consider that Kashirina snatched a World Record 151, which is absolutely monstrous, or that Zhou clean and jerked an Olympic Record 187 and then made a serious attempt at 190. Also bear in mind that Kashirina weighed in at a comparatively svelt 102, some 30 kilos lighter than Zhou. In this mold she seems built like that other Russian superheavy, Evgeny Chigishev, who was consistently among the lightest in his class (though at the top, in terms of performance).

kashirina with an absolutely huge 151-kilo snatch overhead (photo credit: nat arem, http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

Overall it was an outstanding session, and even NBC’s shitty job streaming it could not dim my enjoyment of it (too much). Supposedly it was even broadcast on TV, which means that the network was forced to report on something other than Michael Phelps. Perhaps they had him narrate the lifting with Bob Costas, or maybe they just showed footage of Phelps eating a Subway sandwich in between every lift. Whatever the case, it’s good to see that weightlifting is not alone when it comes to NBC’s inability to provide decent coverage of Olympic sports.

So as it turns out, there is life after Klokov and Akkaev—

But wait! STOP THE PRESSES!

themint400′s printing press in a moment of repose. this was purchased by the state of maine in 2011 as part of their “new technology initiative”. (photo credit: wikimedia commons)

There are now rumors floating around that Akkaev will lift after all. Apparently he had back surgery on Thursday and was told by doctors to take six weeks off. Here is what Akkaev had to say about that:

“HOW ABOUT SIX HOURS??”
(photo credit: jean-nàt st.-arèm, http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

I don’t want to be the doctor in the way of Akkaev getting onto the platform. In a few short hours we’ll know whether this is indeed the case. Could this mean Klokov’s return as well?? Be still my heart…

The totals of the men who did place were solid but nowhere near the possible 400 mark that I secretly hoped might be attained. Poland’s Adrian Zielinski took the gold with a 385 total, edging out Russia’s Apti Aukhadov by virtue of lighter bodyweight. Bronze went to Iran’s Kianoush Rostami, who, even if he did not win gold in weightlifting, should win gold for his athlete photo.

“well hello, ladies…” (photo credit: http://www.london2012.com)

It is hard to overstate the awesomeness of this picture. Eschewing the more traditional aspects of a modern ID photo, such as facing the camera with your body or not sporting a mullet, Rostami has instead opted for a look that suggests he wandered into London from the set of The Lost Boys. Vampires are known for their superhuman strength, so this could explain his prowess in weightlifting…

the lost boys, c. 1987 (not pictured: kianoush rostami) (photo credit: http://dailygrindhouse.com/trailertrash/the-lost-boys-1987/)

Mullets and bedroom eyes aside, the session was underwhelming. All the same, it’s good to see Adrian Zieliński, a solid athlete who won the World Championships in 2010, at the top of the medal podium. His 385 total is his best yet on the international stage and at 23 he still has plenty of time and room for improvement. I was fortunate enough to see Zieliński in the 2011 Worlds training hall. As the below video should indicate, he is damn fast (skip to about 30 seconds in if you want to just see Zieliński).

[NB: Zieliński is the first Polish weightlifter to win gold at the Olympics since Zygmunt Smalcerz—current head coach for USAW—won the men's 56kg class at the 1972 Munich Games.]

The women’s 75-kilo class was a better scene, with a fantastic battle between Russia’s Natalya Zabolotnaya and Kazakhstan’s Svetlana Podobedova. Between them they made 11 out of 12 attempts, resulting in three new Olympics Records: snatch (131, Zabolotnaya), clean and jerk (161, Podobedova), and total (291, Zabolotnaya). Both athletes finished with 291 totals, but Podobedova’s lighter bodyweight gave her the gold. That sort of back and forth, in which athletes fight for every kilo of every lift, makes for the best competition, and not even NBC’s shitty stream on my ancient Android phone connected to Maine’s telegraph internet service could ruin it.

podobedova jerking 161 for gold, which i saw on a scratched mobile phone, unlike the lucky bastard who took this photo. (photo credit: nat arem, http://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom)

The men’s 94 class was another great show. There was some excellent jockeying for second and third place, which in the end went to Russia’s Alexandr Ivanov (409) and Moldova’s Anatoli Ciricu (407). But the real star of the show was Kazakhstan’s Ilya Ilyin, who made all six attempts and secured himself a new World Record clean and jerk (233) and total (418). Those records are twelve and thirteen years old, respectively (the former belonged to Poland’s Szymon Kolecki, the latter to Greece’s Akakios Kakiasvilis).

As if the gold medal and records were not impressive enough, in turns out Ilyin is also a champion dancer in his native Kazakhstan, as this training video makes abundantly clear (go to around 2:20 for a prime example of what it means to “bust a move”, Kazak style.)

Unfortunately, what I had imagined would be the highlight of these Games—and what I started this series with—seems to have turned into an absolute disaster. From what I have been hearing and reading, Russia’s two 105-kilo lifters, Dmitriy Klokov and Khadzhimurat Akkaev, are both out of the Games, Klokov for undisclosed medical reasons and Akkaev for back problems. I’m not sure how I’m going to get out of bed Monday without Klokov to look forward to. A world without Klokov is not a world I like to imagine. Perhaps I’ll just spend Monday watching footage of the 2011 Worlds and will tell myself it’s the Olympics…