Barbell Shrugged - International Weightlifting and the 2021 Olympics w/ Ursula Papandrea, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash Barbell Shrugged #596

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

Ursula is a former two-time national champion, two-time Olympic Festival champion, 5 time world team member and former record holder in both the snatch and the clean and jerk. She was an elite international athlete who distinguished herself as a coach in 2003 by becoming the first and only woman to attain USA Weightlifting’s highest coaching level, Senior International Coach Level 5.    Ursula has extensive national and international experience in competitive weightlifting as an athlete since 1987, and 20+ years of coaching experience at national and international levels. She  received her Bachelor’s Degree in Exercise and Sports Science, and her Masters Degree in Political Science, and has had a career as a Professor at Austin Community College since 1994. She revived her competitive career to become Master’s national champion and best lifter in 2009, national champion again in 2010, and once more breaking national and unofficial world records in 2013.    She became CrossFit Level 1 certified in 2010 and served as part of the CrossFit Olympic Lifting Certification Staff 2009-2015, in addition to teaching the USAW Level 1 and 2 Sports Performance courses.    Ursula has served on the USAW Board of Directors since 2009 and has been held the position of President since 2015. In 2017, Ursula was the first ever female elected as Vice President of the International Weightlifting Federation, a position she currently holds, and is also the IWF Women’s Commission Chair.    In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   History of Texas Barbell Joining the IWF  The rise to interim president of IWF Why the old guard of weightlifting is suppressing the sports growth How to fix weightlifting and why it is at risk for future olympics   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Diesel Dad Mentorship Application: https://bit.ly/DDMentorshipApp   Diesel Dad Training Programs: http://barbellshrugged.com/dieseldad   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   BiOptimizers Probitotics - Save 10% at bioptimizers.com/shrugged   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://prxperformance.com/discount/BBS5OFF Save 5% using the coupon code “BBS5OFF”

Week on Barbell Shrugged, we are hanging out with Ursula Papandrea. Papandrea, still can't say her name, but confidently, even though I got it right. I'm not sure I said it confidently. Yo, check it out. Ursula was the interim president of the IWF, and it was really cool talking to her. If you love some name drops and learning about the early days of USA weightlifting. I highly recommend, or I think you're going to love the beginning of this show because we go into a whole bunch of the teams and things that shaped her career and a lot of the people that were influential in her life.

And then getting in the second half of the show, we get much deeper into a lot of the weightlifting scene heading into the Olympics and the current state of weightlifting. You're going to enjoy the show, but before we get into it, of course, I want to thank our friends over at Bioptimizers. Did you know that over 80% of the population is deficient in magnesium? And that is the number one mineral to fight stress, fatigue, and sleep issues. And if there's one phase of sleep, it's a response for most of our body's daily rejuvenation, repair, controlling hunger and weight loss, hormones, boosting energy, and so much more. I'm talking about deep sleep. And lately, I was feeling that I do not get enough deep sleep myself because I got a brand new baby in the house keeping me up all night long.

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it a try. Today, you can get 10% off with a Barbell Shrug coupon code when you visit magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrug. That's M-A-G-B-R-E-A-K-T-H-R-O-U-G-H dot com forward slash shrugged. Use the coupon code shrugged10 at checkout to save 10%. magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrug let's get into the show welcome to barbell shrug i'm andrews marner doug larson coach travis mash what up so excited to see your face on here and ursula papandrea i didn't say that right papandrea i don't know can you say it for me what is did i don't even feel bad anymore you're the queen of weightlifting you know what's funny i know your name i've never seen you or talked to you before but i've heard your name so many times that i feel like i know you um and then i read your bio and i said yeah

what have you heard and that well i read last week when we, we had the wrong time, we got mixed up. I was reading your bio and I was like, I don't even know what to talk to her about. There's at least a year's worth of questions I have in just weightlifting to talk to you about. Um, is there a little excessive, but I'm gonna, it's, it's quite an extensive um list of accomplishments um where where did can we just get like a brief history of weightlifting with you before we get into some iwf and you're you look extremely happy and delightful which i I'm very happy to see by the way you have big smiles on your face um yeah I mean okay weightlifting weightlifting background let the people know how good you are at this picking things up and put it over your head thing well I'm not so good

anymore um I started oh god here we go I started when I was 18 at the University of Texas. And then by 1992, I made my first world team. I was on the team from 92 to 96. I started coaching in 92, like towards the end of 92, not because I wanted to, because, like, there weren't really weightlifting coaches. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I knew more than the girl I was coaching she ended up making world teams like five world teams too so we overlapped Stacey Ketchum

do you know her? I feel like no she was a Tiffany just a fucking hoss like just like that I mean I don't know what that. I mean, I don't know what Tiffany, I guess Alaska strong. I don't know. Stacey was like that farm girl strong.

Yeah. Like bailing hay and riding animals. Texas. Texas strong, I would say. Yeah. Yeah, but I'm like from the city. I'm, you know, I'm like ghetto strong. How did you actually find weightlifting? Yeah. It's not like from the city. I'm, you know, I'm like ghetto strong. How did you actually find weightlifting?

Yeah. It's not like a huge sport. Well, I was doing weight training since I was 14 because I was my brother's spotter for the bench press. Yeah. I'm a hell of a spotter. Like when I was working at UT as an assistant, a student assistant, I used to spot all the linemen because that was my group. And you can't, I mean,

hey, if I can do anything well, it's spotting on the bench. Like you'll never know if I helped you. Pinkies. No, just like I can keep the momentum without you telling. It's just one of my rare talents um maybe my only rare talent I don't know um you have a lot of talent but I I was a cheerleader in

high school I was a captain of a cheerleading squad like that shocks me a little bit really yeah I don't know how to take that. I mean, you're so tough. Oh, I was the captain. Oh. Yeah. And it was a black high school. Oh. Yeah. It was my minority high school.

She had some rhythm, too. I was like, huh? Do you have rhythm? He said you must have rhythm. There you go. That helps in the static cleaners gotta have it yeah we danced every week we didn't um but yeah i mean i was in the gym and so when i went to ut i was in the gym they asked me if i wanted

to try it try weightlifting it was mostly powerlifting it was the todds you know janet terry todd of course yeah okay anyone that's training knows them yeah yeah um so the todds were there and so i went to the like power lifting weight lifting but there was really no weight lifters it was all power lifters because you know terry and janky man power lifting and um but terry used to come and watch me train like a really really like i realize now like how much more of a big deal that probably was than at the time huge deal yeah so i was just like learning but anyways um then angel spasov came from bulgaria i don't know if you remember him i do he's passed away now but uh and he coached me for a couple of years of the first world team I made. He had coached me before that and then he stopped.

And then I married a Belarusian weightlifter. I don't know how that came into my weightlifting career. It's not really part of it, but kind of, because it took me back and forth to Belarus. So like, you know, I attribute my finally learning how to jerk to Lena Ternenko because he sat there and worked with me after a world championships until I got it. And it was really, like, the timing and rhythm of the jerk that I didn't understand.

And I was weak as shit overhead. So, like, pressing wasn't an option. Um, so you see from, from Terry Todd to Angel, to the Bulgarians, to Tareniko for jerking, you've only learned from the best. Like, that is amazing. Well, I, you know what, I was a reader too. So like all of the Russian training manuals I was digesting. I did my undergraduate in exercise and sports science with a minor in Russian to help with, you know, kind of understanding. The translations. Is that why you did that? Exactly. Well, that and also I was married to a Belarusian weightlifter. Let's just be frank. He was too dumb to learn English. And so he still doesn't speak it, I mean, like he kind of does, he was a fantastic weightlifter.

I mean, he was great. When I first met him, he cleaned a world record and missed the jerk. Um, because of a meniscus tear in his knee. Uh, I mean, he basically had no meniscus. He was tough. Um, he would have to be. He married you. I can't imagine a sissy boy being with you.

Like, you got to be tough. I dated one guy that was pretty sure I could whoop his ass. No, he was like kind of – I don't want to insult anybody, but – I'm sure he's listening. No, God. Obviously not. but I'm sure he's listening. No, God, obviously not, but he's not in this, in this area field. What whatsoever? Like athletics is so foreign to him. Like he's a, he was a, I would say a kind of funny comedian, did improv stuff, which I don't get. so we were like opposite ends of the spectrum but

that was short-lived and it wasn't like a real thing but that's the only guy that wasn't an athlete my first husband was a belarusian weightlifter we were married till i was um 30 and then my next husband y'all don't watch it don't judge me um my my second husband um we got married at i don't remember how old i was 2005 so i was 35 36 um we had a son together, which is the 16-year-old in the other room. And we separated around the world in Houston. So was that 2015? 2015. Yeah. And we just recently finished our divorce.

But he was a soccer player. And he was born in Argentina. So I haven't married an American. And I generally, so I've just got these like foreign athletes and that's what I have again, by the way. But that's a whole other topic. Who are you in now?

Who's the lucky, is it secret? Oh, top secret. That's interesting. Now I'm going to have to find find out so i'll tell you off i'll tell you off the record okay i have a question about but anyways i was coaching so i started coaching in i3 in 2000 2000 god these years um i became a senior 2003 I became a senior international coach which I was like the first and only woman still no women have

achieved that and then what else did I do Travis I was an athlete from like 2000-2008 your team dominated no no no we won nationals let's be real about it. In a time where there was Muscle Driver, I think that's very impressive.

Yeah, we beat Muscle Driver. Yeah. We were not happy. No, and like his fallout was what ruined Muscle Driver. Yelling at you online was like a huge, huge – I don't think – Wait, why would he be upset that you beat him outside of just being – He got beat by a girl.

He hated me. would he be upset that you beat him outside of just being he got beat by a girl um i mean i had a men's team and uh so he had and i love travis but he had travis was at at east coast gold and they had put travis but he wasn't like they couldn't put him on the team roster because he hadn't been signed off of the east coast gold. And like they got him in. And when they added Travis, I was like, fuck it. I added Colin because I was coaching Colin in competition. And I had been coaching Derek since like 2013.

And I basically had these men that were on different teams. And we finally like made our own team. So I was coaching guys on different teams and we finally like made our own team so I was coaching guys on different teams and there were guys that I coached uh in competition primarily um I had a whole team that I programmed for and the whole nine but then I also had other guys that like Caleb Williams Chad Vaughn that I coached in competition and and those guys weren't even on on this team but I had like almost all the guys were like between five and ten I had coach I was coaching Spencer Arnold at the time I mean that's not from an athletic perspective that

was not the easiest guy to coach because you know he he's a twig. But then I had to reteach him how to lift. So that was kind of a pain. I had Dutch Lowy, who had been like a CrossFit games guy. But a little stud. And then of course I had Derek and Colin, but that year Spencer and Dutch both meddled. And so we had a couple and Colin fucking won that's when we like we did some really

kind of calculated strategic jumps and had to sit back and wait and basically I tried to push the other lifters to take kind of uncomfortable weights from what I was seeing in the warm up room and somehow you

know it worked every once in a while he was so mad y'all like he uh this was before i was totally that was where you mash from muscle driver who who was so angry the owner the owner oh the owner it wasn't uh brad brad br who that is. He lost his mind. He got on Facebook, and the way he talked to her on Facebook, it was one of two things. We got more money and more friends. That was the one that got me. And that's why we have that T-shirt that says,

kilos are the currency of weightlifting. Yeah. That was the response by one of my guys, it was a bad mistake on his part. Well, I think, um, I, you know, obviously from the business perspective, I, and that's what took him down. He, um, that was one of the big ones like he was, that was one in being used to like, I mean, I, you can look at it. Like, you know, when I took over as VP for like that month, like I could look it back in the financials.

And there was like when after the months after he did that to you, our gross revenue, I mean, it dropped seriously, like 25%. Wow, I had no idea. At a time where we couldn't afford that. It was bad. It was bad, bad. He was a little nuts. Like he was, he called where we couldn't afford that. It was bad. It was bad, bad news. He was a little nuts. Like, he called me at 2 a.m. When, you know, USAW was like, no, everything was on the up and up.

You know, because they tried to say I wasn't there to turn in the roster, to make any changes or turn in my roster. I was like, I was there, like, right when the verification of entry started changes or turn my roster. It was like, I was there like right when, uh, the verification of entry started, I did my thing. And then I left because I, Derek was making weight and I had to go take care of shit.

So, I mean, while we get hang around verification of entries, you just, um, turn in, you know, make changes and turn it wasn't worth it.

It was silly. Just like, you know, learn from your mistakes and move on. We should have, but it really hurt the company. wasn't worth it. It was silly. Just like, you know, learn from your mistakes and move on. We should have, but it really hurt the company. Her team is bad. It was like, that's when, um, you know, who else we lost, uh, Morgan Morgan, Morgan King bounced from the team because of it. And so we lost an Olympian because of that.

That was bad. How long did it take for your, like the, the rise was very quick to get to IWF? No, because once I put everybody on one team, like by 2013 we were placing, which was the first year we put them together. It was literally like all these guys that I was coaching that were – some of them were here with me, and some of them I completely developed. Like they just came in.

One was like a kicker in college um super fast his name is Tom Field the other one the one that came up with kilos of the currency of weightlifting Kirby White he was uh had gone to the Air Force Academy and was an airman um and then I had Derek and then Colin was kind of you know I just coached him in competition for Bo uh because Bo could never make it to the competition. So I had started, like, years before. When Colin first started, I was coaching Colin in competition, so we had a really good rapport.

Still do. And, you know, I don't even remember all the guys. There's a team back there. Hold on, let me see. Yeah, I mean, obviously Spencer. Spencer, Dutch, Kirby. They didn't know. I don't think that the coaches caught the fact that Colin was on their team. Like, it was just their mistake.

Because I added Colin after they added Travis. I was like, oh, well, they're not fucking going to add Colin. And Colin had called me and said that he wanted to be on the team which was something i discussed with bo because bo had a barbell club but it was defunct so colin was just unattached and he wanted to get out on the action i had this little kid like i had this guy chris This guy, Chris Kalimlum, went to Muscle Driver and tried out. Who? His name is Chris Kalimlum. Exactly.

He also went Air Force after he competed, after he was on the team. He went to Muscle Driver. I was already coaching him. And he told me, like, I'm going to go to Muscle Driver for this thing I had already signed up for. And I said, go. Y'all didn't even look at him. Somebody didn't even look at him somebody didn't even look at him he was a 56 ah that's so stupid that's an automatic that's an automatic 56 go that was not me um and then i had this uh 62 that no, he was a 56 as well. What was the smallest class?

56, right? Back then. Yeah. God damn. I lived through all the weight class changes like in history. What about – let me ask you this. What about the rise of women's weightlifting? I want you to touch on that.

Because you were lifting like pre-Title IX, really coming. I started in 87. What else did I have? Baker was on here, Ricky Reedus, who had been a CrossFitter. I can't see him. She just had a team full of good and then a couple of really good. Yeah, I had good guys and then some really good guys. This is studs. had good guys and then some really good guys, but everybody, and that was back when you had

the team of nine. Is that right? Yeah. And what was really important is that you had, like all of my guys were top 10. And see, here's the thing that what, for the audience listening, here's what makes the weightlifting exciting. What she means is in the 56s, there's always a very few of them. How many 56-kilo men do you know? Like three? So if you have one that just, if he just

qualifies, he's going to score. He's going to score for you, which is huge. He's probably going to be in the top 10 minimum. Probably five there's not going to be 10 guys right um so yeah he was uh same as heavyweight i can't believe i can't believe y'all didn't take him it wasn't me oh i was like he came back and he was like you know nobody had talked to him i was like he came back and he was like nobody had talked to him those did not think strategically

Don and Glenn did not think like I thought I would have seen him and I would have thought numbers and I would have taken him right away well you know what I had another one I keep thinking that there was is there a smaller class I had another one

there was 62 56 62 and that guy was a 56 and i feel like he was even smaller derrick was an automatic win as long as he didn't bomb out or something he was the automatic win i'm just being real yeah no well that's back when he was breaking records under me yeah he snatched double body weight which was pretty several times yeah um but we won't go there yeah how long did it take for like women's weightlifting to was that purely out of crossfit that it started to catch on that women yeah i don't know 2000 that's why i asked the question when we went into the olympic games i started in 87 i competed for the first time in no in 87 but nationals my

first nationals was 88 um and then for like 12 years we were we really thought by 96 we would be in atlanta and then when that didn't happen there were a lot of us that kind of stepped back that had been in for a while and then they announced that weightlifting women's weightlifting would be included so for me it was like starting up an old lawnmower like I was like oh I was already exhausted and hurt and um but I went back in and you know gave it a whirl is it possible to have a weightlifting career without getting just totally wrecked? And it's just that brutal of a sport to have to lift that heavy a weight every single day. Just repetition, man, on your joints.

I mean, I'm kind of big-boned. And I think that helps. Like, I've got joints. Like, my knee is like the size of my head. It's ridiculous. So I feel like i'm and i was called this by an old german man sturdy i'm sturdy i'm like is that a compliment i was working on a ranch with them um but um is it bad for me so that's sexy right a girl working on a ranch who's

a weightlifter that's some sexist i was just helping pull brush and stuff i don't care that's still hot i'm done but i um the only problems i ever had really were wrist and then my back um so and my back was a sprain that i just didn't let heal and it was from bringing a jerk back down. Not even lifting. Oh, yeah. Doing reps. Well, and I was going to put it on the ground. And then I thought, oh, I have to squat. Like, I remember the whole thing.

Like, oh, I have to squat. So I tried to bring it back in. It was 95 kilos. And I'd already done a bunch of doubles with it. And I weighed like 54 kilos. So, I mean, I was, even with being big boned, when you like 54 kilos so i mean i was even with being big boned when you're 54 kilos you kind of yeah i'm skinny and so when did you become president of iwf i was the interim president interim still bad well let's you skipped a. So then I did all the coaching stuff.

That's why I said I could be here for like a year talking to you. I went into the political realm at the behest of, do you know who Artie Dreschler is? I do, of course. Okay. So Artie had kind of prompted me. So after I did my exercise sports science, I went and got a degree, my master's degree in political science and philosophy on the side. I did not know that. That's impressive. And well, it's really not like that. I mean, it's cool though, that goes along with what you've done in your life. Well, it just

so happens like that wasn't the plan. I'm just kind of all over the place. I'm like political science, kinesiology, Russian art history. Like I'm just all over theinesiology russian art history like i'm just all over the place um art history is that another one no i just really really like art history i don't have a degree in it i just took like every class that i could find in art i thought my wife was about to be your best friend yeah well i mean i love people who are historians like i love them because they just know a lot about shit that i'm interested in me too um that's why i love architecture i'm an architecture buff so when i went to when i went to iran i was like this is over the top because there were some like columns and stuff that i'd

never seen before and that we never learned about because who learns about middle eastern um architecture but in any case what was your question oh president yeah so i went from really i was still coaching and then i went um i ran for the executive board in 2009 so in 2008 the u.s olympic committee basically what's happening with the iwf u.s olympic committee came in and said, okay, write a new constitution, change your bylaws, or we're going to decertify weightlifting and not recognize our national governing body. So, you know, USOC implemented the change force. We had some, like Jim Schmitz was on that group, the Nominating Governance Commission. So they wrote a new constitution and bylaws, and then we had to put it into effect. Why did they want those new bylaws?

What did they want in there? Term limits, staggered elections, like normal shit in governance. So I mean, what had been before was kind of like what we have now and had in iwf before ion got booted um was well resigned um was uh booted was the same kind of thing like really long term a lot of conflict of interest so sure um yeah i mean it was just i've heard stories political yeah yeah and so um i guess they just got tired of it this was around the time that they were really cutting slots at the olympic training center and all that kind of stuff too and the olympic training center at that time had a bunch of people that were never

going to make the olympic games like never like number five in a class or some shit like that. I mean, not to be ugly about it, but that's just what it was. It was like had expanded so much and really wasn't what it was intended to be. And what it later became when they, you know, kind of thinned it out. But once they made those changes, one of the things was you couldn't have been on the executive board in that first election. So I ran and of course I got a seat, me and Megan Tornstrom. Tornstrom? She was with, she used to do the Arnold with Canella. Megan Tornstrom, Forney Tornstrom. That's something I'm just getting her last name's confused she was an attorney but she and I were the first women on uh the executive board for um then it was USW uh US

Weightlifting Federation maybe maybe we changed to USAW already I don't remember but um we were the first two on that executive board that were female other than Tara who had served as an athlete throughout but uh we were elected and then I know, we have a two-term limit. But if you've been president, you can get a third term. And that's what happened to me. Like, I was on – so I was on for – I mean, I left after 10 years because when I became – when I was elected – Is it a four-year term?

Yeah, they're four-year terms. So I did almost three terms. But at the beginning, my term would have ended just now and I would have been done. I would have termed out. But when I became acting president, I stepped down so that we could have an actual leader. Because, I mean, I was spread so that we could have an actual leader because, I mean, I was spread so thin at that point. But in January, after the ARD documentary came out, well, in 2017, I was elected as the first female vice president in IWF.

This was huge. Yeah, that was, we'd only had one woman on the executive board before in one slot. It's a good old boy club, by the way, as you can imagine. A lot of those countries still don't recognize females as being human almost. So I think it's impressive. Well, and it was a female slated. It was a female slated slot. Like it had to be.

So, yeah. I mean, it wasn't like they were like oh yeah let's just randomly elect a woman um but then um when i'm getting so pumped i got so many questions we're getting there go ahead when i on oh here it comes when um i on after the meeting was on january 22nd i think the, something like that, of January, the ARD documentary came out. And I remember being in Thailand and all the camera crews being there from ARD

and them telling us, like, don't talk to anybody, blah, blah, blah. But the board met in Doha, and Ion stepped down it was a very interesting meeting because I presided over the meeting I was chosen by the board to preside over the meeting

was that the first time that a female had ever resided over the IWF I'm sure that's cool as shit call it what it is. That's badass. There's only two women. I mean, now there's only one left.

Catalina. Do you know Catalina? I do. She won the Worlds twice. Yeah. And went to the Olympics. She's awesome. She's Finnish but lives in Sweden.

But anyways, I became acting president. And there was, it was crazy. What does it mean by crazy? Like how were they? So I was also the chair of the oversight and integrity commission, which was to look into doing an investigation of ion. And we had to hire investigators and i was able to get richard

mclaren to do the investigation i and then the executive board you know we talked we had different like possibilities and we got mclaren and so and and so the board approved hiring McLaren, and he starts the investigation, and it's Richard McLaren, right? So he's well-respected, and he's a no-bullshit guy. So there was no question that it was going to be a real investigation. And anyways, while it was going on, poor phil was with me uh we it was so like cia kgb ish like some of the things that happened it was surreal let's hear it let's do it yeah so we met with the one one night we met with the investigators because we were planning for the next day. And then on the way back,

like we were at these separate hotels and on the way back, we passed by and I, we'd already been in the offices one day with, or maybe, yeah, one day with Ion. And, and he really didn't step aside. He was still there running the office in his office. And we see him having lunch with the general secretary. And so, like, we moved to the side, and we're like, do you think they saw us? And I was like, fuck it, let's go in. And so we went in, and, you know, I just had lunch with Ion.

Like, it was obvious that he wanted to meet with the general secretary separate from me um what a conflict of interest yeah just to kind of pull things apart and um so i went in there was really awkward and then uh how badass of you to do though that's awesome yeah the next day um the you know the investigators were there in Budapest to go into the offices to image the computers or to image the hard, what are they? Hard drives. Yeah, the CPU things. So they went in to image the hard drives. And I remember like having to figure out where in the office we had, um,

what's it called with the rack? My brother teaches computer science and I don't know. Um, that contains all your shit. Yeah. That's what they were imaging. The servers. Um,

God, I'm stupid. Uh, but then we went to stay in the gym. I'll do the server farm. That's cool. It's so true. I should. But we had met with them to arrange for the next day. And so we went with the investigators and then we, you know, they have this, they know what they're doing. And so we just followed what they said, because according to the terms of reference that was my role just assist the investigators and whatever they need procedurally so that they can get what they need

to do the investigation so I took like two up and the night before like the day before, I was trying to get the key to the elevator, because the fifth floor in the office at the Hungarian Olympic Committee, you can only access it with a key, like there's no button for it. You have to put the key in and turn it and that takes you to the fifth floor automatically. And I didn't have a key like I had had the first time I was there. And so I was like, I need a key.. Then they were like, oh, we'll give it to you tomorrow. I was like, no, I need the key. I want the key. They was real hostile.

I was in the office. This is when he had resigned as IOC honorary member. They were like, we can't bother. We can't bother. I'm like, I need the fucking key. One of the guys went in and got me the key, and then we finally left. So I had the key, went up, and this is obviously why I need the key. I was pretty obvious about it.

I thought for sure they knew what was going on, but apparently they didn't. We went up. I took two up. I introduced them to everybody, then went back down, got another pair. And then somebody had called. Actually, one of them was on the phone with Ayan, and she was smiling at me, but I could hear Ayan yelling. And so I went back. And then he calls on one of the cell phones, and one of the other girls gives me her cell phone.

I put it on speaker and he is yelling at me. You're nobody. You're nothing. You'll never be anybody. You're you're done. And because I take it in the investigators, I mean, you're going to be arrested. You are in another country. You don't know what you're going to be arrested. You are in another country. You don't know what you're doing. Um, you know,

a load of insults and kept threatening to call the police and have me arrested and to have me physically removed for bringing the investigators in. I'm like, I'm just doing my job. Your job. He's like, he's like, this is the best part. When did you realize you were part of like a Netflix documentary of like super intense mafia like i feel like when i watched the fifa documentary about how like corrupt fifa is and how there's like nine people at the top and it's just basically now that the internet exists all this stuff gets out um was there ever a moment on while working at the IWF that you were like,

holy crap, this is crazy. And then realize like this was the future for a long time. Yeah, this, these were the most, this episode was it because he was threatening to have me arrested and I'm in Hungary and he was in the former communist regime from what I know. And I was told his brother was like in state police or something like, I don't know if these are facts or not. I was just in the shit that I've heard over time. Were you scared? I called the U S embassy.

Yeah. He kept threatening to have me arrested. And I, he was like, you're not getting a ride on this and I had been booking my own hotel and then he was like what you know we book it IWF books it and I'm like no no no and my flights because I knew that if he wanted to he could get me like kicked out of my hotel because it would be under IWF not my name. And that's why we were all in different hotels. But I,

I, I, he said, you're not getting a ride. Nothing. Phil was with me. So he's witnessing the whole thing. Apparently he liked Phil. Phil was like, I'm offended that he likes me, but he, you know, he was, I said, he's like, well, you're nobody. I i'm like actually i'm the president i'm the acting president and you're not the president i'm the president i'm like oh my god okay donald trump like it was crazy and um so finally i was like okay we're gonna leave but the investigators were like we'll kind kind of stick around. Like, don't go too far. And it was raining. So here Phil and I are being rained on, walking through Budapest, trying to find some place to just hang out and chill. We end up at a KFC.

I go into the restroom and call the U.S. Embassy. And I'm like, okay, I don't know what to make of this, but I've been threatened to be arrested. It's really like an unknown situation in terms of the possibility. So I got the information from the U.S. Embassy in case anything happened. I gave it to Phil. And so, I mean, that was the moment where I realized like, this is pretty fucked up. Like it's not going the way, you know, it wasn't like just take the investigators in and leave. Um, yeah. So, uh, then later they wanted me to have a meeting. I'm like,

I'm not meeting with anybody, But then I had to like, just live amongst the stress and hostility. That was like the next month and, um, you know, had some meetings that were really important in terms of, uh, what we needed to do to, um, I don't want to say too much, but like the direction that, that would be advisable for me to take, um, for the sport. And so,

you know, I did what I thought was the right thing to do in order to secure the sport. And, um, then he, you know, we finally got a resignation from him and then from matilla after that his son-in-law that was the director general uh and i became interim president and then it was way worse why is it so hard for these people to want to just have basically a drug-free sport why is it so hard to get everybody on the same page? That's not their norm. Yeah.

Don't they see the repercussions of what's coming if they don't change it? It is a different sports culture. Yeah. You have to understand. Why don't we play in their lane then if that's going to be the way it goes? Because you want to be in the IOC.

Yes. You want to be in the Olympic Games? Yeah. But that's going to be the the way it goes you want to be in the ioc yes you want to be in the olympic games but that's that's kind of like the devil's advocate of like do they want to or is there enough money in the sport that they just don't care and they'll just play national championships and no right rush it down to lift in their backyard and we'll go play we'll go no friendly weightlifting like why why is it so hard owned by the doping countries they've been winning everything that and they don't even consider like the impact of that title on clean athletes now they that now they think they're aggrieved because you took it's almost like you took their toys away and they're aggrieved now me just saying

hold on but me just saying this the name of this book, I just finished Steroids as a Sport or Sport as Steroids. I can't remember the exact way it's phrased. I'm sure you've read it or heard about it. Sport as Steroids. Yeah, I have a copy. And there's a piece in there where Pat is talking to international weightlifters and they the way that the book reads i wasn't there for the exact conversations but the way that the book reads is that almost all of the international weightlifters looked at him when they said that he was trying to be drug

free or drug free and they were like why even try i was told i'm not a real weightlifter unless i take drugs by my ex-husband exactly so why even try if it's that deep i'm i'm in a way just playing devil's advocate of like if it's not going away and other countries don't care is the sport just doomed there are no well i would hope not anymore even though even though we seem to be dying. It was such – there was – it was the sports culture in so many countries. Well, Eastern European countries, where you have this government support for it uh as we know from the rusada like what happened with the 2016 team i don't know if you know exactly what happened the documentary the there's a protected athletes list you know about that kind of stuff um and the

weightlifters being associated with this protected athlete. We don't know the exact names. We actually know that it's only a rumor that it exists, but maybe there is. No, it exists. I know. I'm trying to tell her to tell us about it. Well, I mean, it was in the first McLaren report. Not the weightlifting one, but the one on Rusada. So, yeah, I mean, there was a sports culture that had been cultivated

and was, I think, flourished because there was a complicity between the – and actually there's proof, so I don't know why I'm trying to PC it, but that there was complicity on the side of the regime or administration and the member federations so that it – because it was kind of a pay-to-play system. Yeah. So the IWF was being enriched by people taking drugs. So, and then there was, you know, favorites or favors. And we actually have documentation from Azerbaijan and that's out in the public domain about this kind of corroboration between Aion and Azerbaijan to cover, to,an to cover, in this case, it was

withholding. But there are lots of rumors. And the problem with the investigation was nobody wanted to talk because everybody is petrified of Aion because what he can do to you politically. And I remember right before when he

was resigning, I was right there in the hall and he said to me, but you know, your political career is over if you don't do X, Y, and Z. And I said, well, unfortunately for you, I don't really give a shit about a political career. I mean, I mean, that's not, um, well, I mean, what are you going to do? I mean, I can still go back and teach at the college. I can coach. I can do seminars. I can do a bunch of shit. A lot.

I don't do anything right now, but I could. And so it was one of those things where I was able to just stand up because what other people care about losing, I didn't because it wasn't ever what I aspire to. That's what you need in there. Yeah. I mean, now I'm going to run for president. Of IWF. Yeah. Yes.

And I need to because I started a job that I want to finish. Like I got removed because I was doing stuff that other board members that are compromised. Like you've got two that are supposed to be sanctioned that shouldn't even be on the board. You've got a third that has both an investigation and the country should be sanctioned that that all just came out you have one member who is banned by his own country he can't be in there no see or their NGB but somehow he's on the executive who's that he minds who's that his name is Jose can you honest from what what country yeah but he was investigated in his own country,

and then they went to a sports court. And the sanction on him was that he wasn't allowed to be either in their national governing body. He had been president, and he had been president of their National Olympic Committee. So he wasn't, you know, found to be like a criminal or anything. He was just sanctioned from participating in his own country's, the political realm of his own country. But somehow he was still like enrolling executive executive board which apparently he got pushed out or something and then he came over to weightlifting of course he'd been in rowing um but these guys

are politicians basically like they're sports yeah they're a lot of them have been in for so long that they they feel entitled this sounds familiar the the ioc is not totally off the hook on this though right like they're not some rainbows and unicorns organization there's gangsters in the ioc that are protecting and there's payoffs going on even one step above you guys like there probably needs to be reform at the ioc level just as much as the iwf they've done reforms that you have new people in, and they've done reforms. to redirect us and giving us the time and being patient to, for us to get it together so that we can stay in the Olympics. We've lost our status as a core sport and now we keep losing quota. And we took a huge cut this last time.

So we're, I mean, we're just, Phil called it death by a thousand cuts and that's where we're, I mean, we're just, Phil called it death by a thousand cuts. And that's where we're at. The thing is, I went in, I had an agenda. I had actually stated what I thought should happen like on January 22nd before I never stepped aside in an article that I wrote and was published in inside the games. And so they were familiar with like with my agenda and it fit with what

the ioc wanted for us but the ioc lets the the international federations be autonomous right they're supposed to they don't intervene um so i mean if you want to sink your own ship they're going to sit by and say well you, you know, you're sinking your ship, but you can keep sinking your ship. I mean, look at IEBA boxing. They don't control their Olympic games anymore. That's under the auspices of the IOC. Not that that's what they want to do. They just kind of had no choice. So IEBA functions on their own and holds their own world championships, but qualification for the Olympic games and the Olympic games itself is run by the ioc that is a potential route for weightlifting if they wanted to keep us in olympics the one of the problems we have is that because the sport has been so riddled with doping that there's no real incentive to keep even athletes which is unfortunate because there's

a whole you you know, all these clean athletes that have dealt with the first offense at the hand of doping athletes who took their spots on the podium and pushed them down the ranking list and won medals that, that would have gone to clean athletes. Meanwhile, telling the world how much better they are than us. They've been affected again by the cut quota. So they've been hurt twice. So I really tried to plead the case for the clean athletes to the IOC.

But they removed me on October 13th. I'd actually had a meeting slated for October 14th. And Nico Vlad calls a meeting the day before. I don't know who he is to call a meeting but he does and they show up and people show up because they wanted to remove me I mean I they had blocked my an integrity commission that I tried to create and just tried to pawn it off and said oh we we agree to the principle of an integrity commission but they wouldn't they didn't want to really create an integrity commission because the private report would have gone to the integrity commission.

And, you know, that wasn't necessarily a good thing for that in their eyes. After, after seeing and going through all this, why do you want to go back? Because I don't want, I want to go back with a different group.

She's not a quitter. That's fine. Yeah. She's a boss. Well, I mean, they're going to, if I don't win, I don't win, but I'm going to go back with a different group. She's not a quitter. That's fine. She's a boss. Well, I mean, if I don't win, I don't win. But I'm going to go try. And there are, you know, not everybody on the executive board is crappy.

There are some good people there. It's just the politics of it are such that many work for their own survival for a multitude of reasons. One of which is if they're associated with their NOC, they need to try to keep their position in an international federation. Like that's important to them, especially where you have a sports ministry, like it's tied to the government. And so their ability to make money at home in their country is tied to their role in the NOC and the national Olympic committee of their country is tied to their role in the noc in the national olympic committee

of their country and the international federation uh having representation there is really important so they have to survive politically yeah i actually really position that that's super interesting to me it's like you when you look at russia if the of sport, is that what it's called? Minister of sport, I believe. Actually, I went to have a meeting with him, but I ended up with somebody from the NOC. Right. So you've got Putin, minister of sport underneath him, and then you've got the guy that everybody knows from the documentary. You've got some other people in between, but yeah, Maxime.

Who served a two-year sanction himself. It's very obvious where many of the direction is coming from, and these people have to keep their positions. And all of a sudden you're like – I don't know what the equivalent is in the United States, but you're under five people away from Putin calling you on your cell phone and saying, why are we losing? There's a lot of pressure that- Oh, I'm persona non grata, big time. My question though is- I was in Russia before the elections. Russia is just one example of, I'm sure, many people that you're not just going up against somebody and saying, hey, we need to clean the sport up or it's going to go away.

That person is going to go, yeah, I totally agree. But Putin is going to call me and that's going to suck. Like how do you play just – not just the the politics of iwf but you have the politics of these people got to put food on the table and it's not like the guy that's well he was a judo player you know putin was now that you're talking about he was a judo player he looks like he's got a jack still yeah so sports is is really definitely i don't see our president walking around with a shirtless on a horse what do you mean he plays golf all year i don't want our president walking around with a shirtless on a horse. That's badass. What do you mean? He plays golf all year.

I don't want to see Trump with his shirt off. It's gross. He's probably got a long red tie. Only if Arnold becomes president. Only if Arnold becomes president. Long, skinny red tie. You're not hiding anything. I would totally vote for Arnold.

Yeah. Yeah, I would too. Turns out Trump got over COVID better than MASH did, though, so who knows? That's because he had billion-dollar doctors. That was my joke of the day. I didn't have a team of doctors in my house. I feel like I get a gold medal for that joke. He also had access to medication, and I'm sure you did.

I'm sure he did. I'll kick Trump's butt. Trump front squats, zero. Zero. Crushed COVID. Yeah. It took a lot of weight. How do you communicate to people knowing, I mean, I'd love to know the political strategy,

being in that position, knowing that you are working with people whom their direct report is one to two people away from you know from Putin and that's not just Putin it's it's many other people inside their own political regimes that they don't do sports like we do they answer to the president well I right you know I when I went to Russia um before the election in 17, I met with some people that were part of the sports ministry. It wasn't the sports minister himself. And, you know, I was very clear, like we have to the sport has to clean up or we're out. And not only is are we not winning medals? You're not winning medals either at the Olympic games. And it's really like weightlifting has been a cornerstone of a lot of the Eastern

European athletics. Like in Iran, it's like the number two sport next to soccer. So it's, you know, these sports are big in their countries because they don't have basketball the way we do. They don't have football and all of these professional sports, baseball. So they – NASCAR. Okay, I'm going to stop. They really focus on these Olympics sports. If you bring NASCAR to the Olympics. No.

It's not a sport. Okay. So anyway, I mean, that's not true. I've trained a race car driver guy. And I care so much about, I, and he was like really pretty buff. Like just holding that shit is hard.

But anyways, back on, I'm like totally off track while Travis is driving his car there. Left turn. Yeah, I met with, I was very clear about where we needed to go. And even though

Maxime and I have a really rocky relationship, he's the president of the Russian White Losing Federation, I will admit that he has tried at whatever level he can to clean up the sport in Russia, but he's really got his back against the wall. It's just like cleaning up the sport internationally. Yeah.

It's, you know, you need buy-in. And in this case, really, there's a threat, a looming threat. And it appears that some athletes are just willing to take down the whole thing. If, if it's not like, you know, I went or I'm going to, you know, ruin the whole thing. And so you've got like the ties with, you know, a bunch of positives and then, you know, the Egyptians with teenagers and a lot of reasons and excuses and nobody's really guilty and nobody's really taking drugs.

Yes, you are. It's like nobody committed crimes in prison. Yes, you did. You used to have just kind of this blatant admission. Yeah. And now at least people try to deny it. That's actually

a kind of a step in the right direction. You know what I mean? At least it's starting to become a little stigmatized. Pride is such a bitch, man. That's the problem. It wasn't stigmatized. It was perfectly normal part of the sports culture. Well, I think that the athletes are always going to be as selfish as possible nobody cares

who wins the next gold medal as long as they win the one that they're in right now like i don't think the athletes have any incentive to care about the future of the sport when it really comes down to it they don't even care about their own health no athletes worried about walking when they're 75 years old they want to win, and they don't care about the day after the Olympic gold medals given out. Luckily in America, I think that we have athletes who are not like that at all. Harrison Morris,

I can tell you right now, that kid's morals are higher than anyone's I've ever known. He wouldn't take drugs. Even if you said, Harrison, you can take this drug. Guaranteed, you'll never test positive. I can bet my life he would not take it. No. Yeah. And we have a lot of athletes, I think, like that because we are from a culture in which that is not acceptable. I mean, obviously we have a bunch of positives at the lower echelons of the sport, but you don't see

our international team members. And part of that is because we test like hell. And so we have, there's a deterrent. Like you're not going to make it to the international level if you're doping. Like it's really hard. There's only been one who's cracked through. Who? Sarah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. At a Pan Am championships, which cost us a Pan Am slot because we lost those points and we lost Pan Am game slot. What was her last name? Sarah Robles. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But that's like the only positive we've had besides like Norik smoking pot.

I mean, he obviously got sanctioned later for his activities in Armenia. In a different country. Right. He wasn't in the U.S. obviously. You can't.

You will get popped. That's why it's ridiculous when people say that. When they accuse a certain team or a certain coach it's silly. It's like if you know anything about USADA it's impossible. Unless you're a billionaire who has enough money to hire some chemist which we don't have that money in weightlifting.

Well and I'm not even sure that that exists. Well that you're going to stay ahead. For how long you're going to stay ahead. Yeah, eventually it gets you. For how long you're going to stay ahead. Yeah, you might pass now, and then four years later you're going to get caught because they froze your stuff. That's right. Yeah.

Because the technology and testing improves, and then now you have retests. So for the Olympic Games, for sure, there's the possibility that you're going to get stripped later. Do you think that our decentralized system of learning sports is a more optimal way to keep the sport clean than kind of the centralized governments that run many of the sporting, like having a minister of sport? Yeah, having a government support. Because then there's so much like political upside

to having what Russia did in that Olympics, which was, I think they had like 26 medals or something, something crazy. Is that an angle of what you've thought about of like, instead of just going at these people and saying, stop using drugs, like decentralizing sport from and separating it church and state. Now it's sport and state. We have to separate those things. Well, I don't think that's going to happen.

And I haven't really thought about that's our model now. We had a centralized model too. It didn't work for us because of, I think because of our geography really. And people weren't moving to Colorado Springs. Like our best lifters weren't even necessarily there. Olympians weren't there. And that's part of why we, you know, got booted out. There's other reasons too, but we weren't really producing out of the Olympic training center much.

I, I, the geography of a lot of these countries means that you're going to have like one central location that is funded by a government. And I don't think you'll ever see the, the separation of, I mean, they won't have funding if that happens because the government provides the funding.

USA weightlifting is exceptional in that we are financially independent. And when I first got on the executive board, we were not. But USOC pulled all of its funding at that point in time uh between when we were when the usoc stepped in and when we had the elections because it was when the the market bottomed out with um the home loan that wasn't the home loan crisis it was the subprime mortgage uh issue that was in uh oh oh eight and so our investments we lost a bunch of money because apparently they had made a bunch of risky investments in the foundation but we ended up with like 220 000 the foundation that had started in 1984 with a million dollars and that was money set aside that was supposed to keep us afloat if something happened we had no backup and we had it

was it was the restructuring of our coaches courses that created initial income that already actually started and then was restructured again so that and then crossfit came in and that 2010 usaw crossfit event i'll take credit for because i had already started like working some with CrossFit and I told that first board like really early on we should make sure that we capitalize on this and and we did early on then it kind of fell apart but by that time we had already connected ourselves with the CrossFit group. And so we were able to start like the soft poach of people over from CrossFit to weightlifting and a lot of hybrids between the two.

And like I had some guys that were great CrossFitters that were better weightlifters than they were CrossFitters. That was also just a natural thing yeah like there's so many different skills and weightlifting so much fun anybody who's not good at the cardio point and is better at the strength just realizes like why am i you know killing myself and getting beat by the soccer mom on wall balls when i can that's that's actually me by the way and then I like pass them up in the sprint and like out clean them and they're just like they still have a hired you know better time yeah um but we had to learn how to make our own money and become independent

uh and really when when Phil came on he was really able to make some like we had lots of things in the background that we wanted to implement but you need a staff for that and phil was has been tremendous i think yeah yeah at um getting funds donated like this, you know, creating an Olympic fund and then searching for sponsors and taking micro sponsors instead of like putting all your eggs in one big basket and having say, no, if you can't give us a million dollars, we don't want you. We do a lot of smaller sponsorships and it has, you know, this, we were able to make money. I remember when I first got on the board, the first thing was we need to make money. And then once we started making money for the sport USA weightlifting did where we were like, okay,

now we have to figure out how we're going to invest the money and to whom, like the allocation of the resources. And we started putting money into some of the youth programs, junior programs. And now we're seeing the, you know, how the results of those initial investments. And I mean, we still had to put into the seniors to some degree, but there was a focus on, there was also a focus on like a retention through the junior years. And of course we lose a lot still then, but at least retention of those that can be high performance in the senior,

because that transition is really hard from junior to senior and even from youth to junior, which is a really small group. So anyways, we, you know, tried to focus and, you know, policy wise strategically and, you know, it bore fruit. So we did really good, but what we have in terms of our ability to earn money, any other country, when I tell them like the government handouts, like you're so dependent on that, that if you don't do well, you get nothing incentivizes drug use. Yeah. So they, you know,

how do you, how do you undo that? Yeah. Ursula, we're going to have you back on. Because I have a lot more to talk to you about. Seriously. We've got to shut this thing down. Where can people find more about? Doug said nothing.

Zero. Zero. I think I set a record today. I have never had a show where he said zero. But I really did enjoy hearing your perspective on all this and your background and your story. We're too loud. Yeah.

Even I was talking over Travis. Sorry, Travis. That's all right. You're the queen. I'm the queen. This is not my wheelhouse. I stayed in my lane today and just You're the queen. I'm the queen. This is not my wheelhouse. I stayed in my lane today and just was absorbing the information.

I think we're putting you to sleep. So, yeah. Where can people find you? We'll do this again soon. Where can people find you? I'm in Texas. They can't find me. I mean, like... Ask Tiffany Ward how you're doing.

Oh, I have my name. Ursula Garza Papandrea. How can people vote for you to be the president of the IWF? You have to have your own country. That has a member federation. Can we invest in one of those so we can vote? Yeah. Well, you have to become a member.

It's kind of a process. Barbara Shrugland. Yeah, member federations vote. Yeah. So let's just hope that the member of Federation is up for sale. The what? An Island? Yeah.

Epstein's is up for sale. I hear. No, I don't want his. Yeah. No way. That's got bad juju, man.

Way too bad. Bad vibes. Bad vibes. We don't want those. Uh, Travis bash. That's the lead.com. I just want to say what an honor it is as always to have you on our show.

Ursula, thank you so much for being on. Thank you, Travis, for asking me. Doug Larson. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm not like a big podcast person, even though I had my own. Which is even cooler. What's the name of that one?

We'll go back and watch. I'll listen. Weightlifting Life. I named it. I'll listen. Weightlifting Life. I love that. I named it. I'm super simple when I name shit. I was there first. Don't even say that.

What did you say? You said I stole my name from you. You got Barbell Life. I know. I was there before that. Oh, yeah. I don't watch. I mean, I don't watch.

I don't listen to podcasts. I listen to you guys. So Greg is smart. That's too smart. Greg is smart. Yeah. He's a smart ass. He is.

We're both smart asses. We have a very much like brother-sister dynamic. So, I mean, that's how I feel about him. I feel like he's my little brother. I think you'd probably say big brother, but I'm older than him. Yeah, so you win. Oh, Doug Larson.

It's a losing thing. See, this is why we have to have you back on. We have so much to talk about. Okay, yeah, I'll shut up, because Doug has things to do. Doug Larson, tell the people where to find you on the Instagrams. You bet, on my Instagram, Douglacy Larson.

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