Topic: Bud Charniga's Beijing Olympics Part 2

[Shaun Le Conte]

Bud's article can be found at http://www.sportivnypress.com/English/frames.html
competition review section - Report of the 2008 Olympics Part II

I really like what he wrote about the volume of officials at major competitions. Is there any rational explanation for the number of referees and jury? also I pointed this out earlier as well on the phoenix weightlifting club site.

[Paul LaDuke]

Thanks for the link Shaun

I really liked this quote by Bud:

"The road to success in this sport has never been about some special exercise, training program, or super restoratives. It is now and always has been about hard work and ability."

This single quote sums up the problem with American athletes today.  Many of the athletes that I work with (over 400 hs athletes) are looking for that perfect workout.  Their parents spend a lot of money on personal trainers who are nothing more than good salesmen selling a gimmick!  What all athletes need to succeed is nothing more than good old-fashioned hard work, consistently done over a period of years.  It isn't rocket science!  If these athletes would spend as much effort on learning to squat correctly instead of trying to find the magic workout, they would be so much better off.


Lots of other stuff to mention, but I got to get to the varsity football game!  Go Falcons!

[ryankyle]

Another good point he makes is to think progressively in weightlifting as far as workouts go.  To paraphrase:  recycling the old programs are like taking two steps backwards.

Ryan

[Matt Erdman]

Good stuff. Million dollar incentive would very well make a difference. Too bad adidas doesn't sell that many shoes.

[Dave Almeida]

I had read somewhere else, I think on a kazakh site, that the reward for Ilya was only close to 200,000$US so I'm not sure where he got that number of ~1.6 million. I think ~200k was the standard gold medal award for any kazakh athlete that won one. Silver medalists and bronze medalist also received a healthy sum of money. then again, 200,000$US is not bad for a 20 year old kid that lifts weights.

1.6 million seems quite exaggerated to me

his other points are quite good. the Russians can never be allowed use doping as an excuse for losing as long as weightlifting is a sport simply because of their history with ridiculous amounts of drug use.

[Dave Chiu]

Perhaps they have a rapacious tax rate in KAZ like they do here in USA...

... unless there's some special IRS rule about the result of a decade's grinding hard work not counting as a "windfall".

That probably makes too much sense to be true.

[Dave Chiu]

Bud is a top thinker in our sport.

He is right about the over abundance of officials...

... funny how w/ so many, they had to rely on Super Mario running around to tell lifters they'd been robbed...

... and how they only had Geezer docs for tending to athletes when you need the coaches allowed to see to their athletes, and a few loaders assigned/trained to assist/lift injured lifters, along w/ a stretcher as readily available as the privacy shields.

What they had on hand made it lucky that there were not more 10 min. delays to the competition.

[Dave Chiu]

AND interesting to note the tell-tale bruises on Liu's shldrs.

Those are from a technique in traditional Chinese medicine (usually applied to the back) where inverted glass cups have the air inside heated w/ a medicinal incense stick...

... after application to the site of concern, the air inside the cup cools and creates a vacuum pressure that is supposed to have a healing effect (perhaps by allowing the medicine to have such a targeted application, but maybe I'm just blowing smoke).

It must work for folks to be willing to have those unsightly ring-bruises, and for top athletes to use...