Comments on: Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: OL’ing Part 10

By: Juan

Juan — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 07:51:41 +0000

Great article. Took me a while but I read it all. Very in depth and comprehensive, really enjoyed it. I couldn’t agree more. Love OL too, so here’s another one you can add to the books! Haha

By: David

David — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 05:22:56 +0000

How could you not want to do these lifts after seeing the Chinese team though.

By: John

John — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 06:47:41 +0000

My brain hurts…maybe some Klokov Presses to tame the cacophony in my head???

By: Psychotext

Psychotext — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:05:18 +0000

Just finished reading this epic series. I must say that I have very little interest in olympic lifting but even so I thought this was riveting. Highly informative on all sorts of subjects.

Thanks for the effort!

By: Kris

Kris — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 21:08:44 +0000

Shockingly, another female who read the whole thing! (And I used to watch lifting in the Olympics when I was a kid – I have no idea why, but I found it fascinating. Didn’t get into it myself, though, because I was already interested in another niche sport. Which brings me to:)

Okay, I know the horseback riding thing of the horse doing all of the work was probably mostly a joke, but really, doing it Right is hard. It’s actually part of what kept me reading – there’s a lot of back and forth debate in this country about the future of equestrian sports in the Olympics, and particularly the US team, and much of it is for similar reasons – it’s a niche activity that is not terribly accessible to most people (and that’s just learning the basics and working your way up the rankings – actually affording an international level horse is an entirely different problem) that’s often difficult to understand for the average viewer (which limits television coverage and sponsorship money considerably) and we just don’t have a very good support system in place to recognize talented riders and get them on better horses so that they can GET more experience in competition environments.

No one’s come up with a really good solution for that problem yet, either.

(And it’s compounded by the fact that while Americans like to see death and destruction, we prefer it be other PEOPLE who get squished. When the horses are hurt -as has happened in both Cross Country and horse racing fairly visibly in recent years – it gets everyone up in arms about cruelty to animals and so then there’s another issue to solve on top of the others – how to make it safer.) (Which the US folks seem to be going about in truly ridiculous ways – rather than using scientific models and data collection to try to understand what’s actually going wrong to cause the falls that result in injury, the approach seems to generally be ‘let’s randomly change rules that we think MIGHT be causing the problem and see what happens!’ Needless to say, this is not working out particularly well.)

Anyway. Short version: Very interesting read. 🙂

By: DH

DH — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 13:03:08 +0000

lol what a beast of a series. I enjoyed alot of your insights outside the realm of sports science/exercise physiology. also…China rules! Can’t wait to see what they’re gonna pull at London next summer.

By: murffi

murffi — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 05:00:54 +0000

The “Cuban” lifter from part 4. is actualy Cameroonian competing under/for France. Vencelas Dabaya.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vencelas_Dabaya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2elClSpEkp4

Sorry for nitpicking:)

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:11:54 +0000

Lyle, I know you don’t do any of this for “attaboys” and backslaps, but I did really enjoy a number of passages throughout this piece. Thanks.

By: Patrick M. Tracy

Patrick M. Tracy — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:24:53 +0000

Thanks a lot for writing the series. I have enjoyed following it for, lo, these many weeks. I had a great time reading your views on OL’ing and so many other topics.

By: Dave Earle

Dave Earle — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:25:09 +0000

Fantastic series, read all of them.
So in depth, great background, really did the homework.
How could the US win?

– Develop and market girls 58kg and smaller (cuz they’re hot)
– Draft blacks from the big 3 and track early on (fast = good at OLs)
– Develop athletic scholarships to college (already available for at least one college)
– Develop work programs like those available at California Strength
– Develop a drug plan and test less often
– Find a champion who is also a brash asshole
– Develop high level athletes into coaches after career
– Develop a long term tradition of success

seems pretty simple really (sarcasm)