The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 5: Michael Johnson: Politics, protest, and sport

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Do athletes now have a responsibility to use their platform to promote political change? Four-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson sits down with Alastair to discuss the future of athletics, drugs in sport, political polarisation, and recovering from a stroke that doctors feared could stop him from ever walking again. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive a weekly newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up. Email: [e-mail] Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's therestispolics.com. Welcome to another episode of the Restis Politics leading. And I am absolutely thrilled with the guest in front of me right here

in his rather splendid studio in London. Rory is not with us. but then again, given the person that I have in the studio with me, I don't know if Rory would even know who you were. He's fair to say he's not the biggest sports fight in the world, okay? So I've given you two clues people. He's a sports guy and his name's Michael, and I'll fill in the gaps. He shares a name, if I may just very briefly stay on politics.

He shares a surname with the worst prime minister that this country has ever had. Welcome. Michael Johnson. Good to be here. Good to be here. Good to see you. And as Rory would say,

for those who haven't been following the Michael Johnson story as closely as Alistair has, Michael is without doubt one of the greatest athletes ever, held the 200 metre and 400 metre records for a very, very, very long time. But I want to start off, Michael, by talking about something that you've

kind of explored a lot and that is the role of sport in political, social change. One of the kind of key figures in the company that does this podcast is Gary Linneker, former footballer, who's got quite a political voice. He's always been told, stick to sport, stick to football. How do you feel when people say to athletes, stick to running, stick to golf, stick to whatever it might be? Yeah, it's interesting. What I say and how I feel is it'll be really.

very, very convenient, you know, if we all could just stick to sport. I'd love to just stick to sport, but I can't. And most of us as athletes, we can't because the issues are too important. And we have a platform that is too valuable to not be used for these issues. I mean, certainly in America, for sure, maybe in other places as well. It's a war. It's like a cold war that we're in right now, where we've made significant progress, no doubt about that, in terms of equality. But I think a lot of us have sort of woken up to, you know, the fact that we haven't made as much progress as we thought we had. And that has become very real and very clear to us.

And it's become clear to everyone. And it's become clear to the other side that we are now aware that we aren't as equal as we thought we were. Who do you see as the other side? The other side are conservatives in America who truly do want to stop the progress. They don't want to see the progress. They're not comfortable with progress. They don't want you to be equal with them.

Right. They don't want to, well, there's a political power part of this where they just don't want to give up their power. And then there's a social component of it just so the normal rank and file people who are not the politicians who don't want to give up their privilege. And look, at the end of the day, you probably are going to have to give up some privilege in order for everyone to be equal. I don't think there's another solution. So people are fighting to keep their privilege on the one side, and people on the other side were fighting for equality.

If you were still an athlete now, and you was, let's say, won a gold medal at the Olympics, as you've done several times before, would you take the knee at a medal ceremony? Would you raise your fist in the way that Smith and Carlos did in Mexico City? Yeah, it's a good question. I would today, but in the 90s when I was competing, and look, we still had issues then. I mean, Smith and Carlos raised their fist in 68. By the 90s, you know, progress is made. Progress, a tremendous amount of progress is made, but we still had issues, and we knew we still had issues.

I don't know that I would have done it. I mean, it's a huge risk. And the environment at that time, you know, from a sponsorship standpoint, was not very tolerant. of that sort of thing. So, you know, and it's easy for me. I just say that because I'm conscious of the fact that I'm retired. It's easy for me to say, absolutely, hell yeah, I'd take the knee and I'd raise my fist, you know, but these athletes today that are out there competing, they get death threats.

I've gotten death threats, you know, just for supporting some of these athletes, you know, so they get death threats. I think that now it's easier now because there's strength in numbers. And when you have people like LeBron James, I mean, globally you have Lewis Hamilton, you have people like that who are using their platform fighting for equality. And it makes it easier for others, you know, to jump on. I mean, John Carlos, his brothers got discharged from Vietnam because of what he did. Yeah. Tommy Smith's brothers got kicked off their teams back home because of what he did.

Carlos' wife later killed herself. Yep. and, you know, all sorts of factors, no doubt, but I wonder whether that might have played into that as well. So you can see why people would be worried. And those are the sorts of things that I think a lot of, you know, a lot of people who would wish that, you know, every athlete use their platform.

Don't understand that the decision to use that platform is not one to be taken lightly. So I applaud all of the athletes who are because it's a very difficult decision. And there's a lot of uncertainty. And what about the athletes you don't? Do you feel athletes have a responsibility, or is that asking too much? My position has changed on that.

Had you asked me that before 2021, you know, 2020, George Floyd, this whole period that we're in now, I would decide. And I always did say, look, that's up to each athlete, you know, to make that decision for themselves. And I will respect whatever their decision is. But once you're in a war, and we are now, and I think most of the athletes know it, it's very evident to everyone, it's very clear to everyone. And you have some of the biggest names in sport going out there using their platform. You have large corporations getting behind them and supporting them and using their platform for good. And some of the athletes decide, well, I just don't want to take the risk or I just don't want to take. any risk at all. Yeah, I have a problem with that. But you're talking about a war. You're calling it a war.

I mean, people get killed in wars. Yeah. Is there not a danger that the rhetoric surrounding this kind of leads to that? And a lot of people, you're talking about young men and women who will be scared. And they hear somebody like you that they're no doubt, look up to, respect, see as a sort of great figure in athletics history. And they think, well, he's talking about war. Why, I'm not a soldier. I'm a runner. Yeah, well, sometimes you need to be a soldier. I mean, this is serious. I mean, we talk about, we talk about culture war, you know, we talk about, you know, social war. Look, this is what it is. It's a battle. You can call it a war. You can call it a battle. We hear that all at a time. It's a battle for the soul of the country. It is. It is that serious. It absolutely is that serious. And how important is it that the white athletes get engaged and get involved as well? Can't just be left to the black guys, can it? Yeah, it is important and they are.

I mean, because this is not just about black people. This is about women. This is about the LGBTQ community. It's about, you know, brown people, immigrants. It's about all of these marginalized groups. That's what it's about. And so, and I was, after George Floyd, I was blown away. seeing the variety of different people out there every day, mostly young people, but older people as well.

But I was blown away by the variety of different people, white people, black people, immigrants, you name it, out there marching because they knew and they could see it. This is not right. This is not right. And all they're wanting everyone wants is for in America, just do what you say. You say we're all equal? Put it all on paper. You know, do what you put on paper. You said that we're all equal.

Do it. Act on it. And everyone realizes that, you know, it's, we see the hypocrisy. And people want fairness. They want equality. So they're out there marching. So you're here in London. You've just been in Dublin.

You're heading back to the States. When you say it's a war, what does that feel like for you as a pretty well-known black? guy. How does that affect you when you're there? It feels like it's very frustrating because I think we get, even myself, we start to get desensitized to it sometimes when another black person is killed by the police. You know, you just kind of, you know, I find myself some days, you know, just scrolling on social media or just watching the news and, you know, damn, you know, oh well. Or, hey, we have an issue with, you know, guns and mass murders. It's not a black issue. It's just just a people issue, that lives are being lost because, again, we're in this situation where

one side sees a benefit to allowing people to have as many guns as they want. And the other side, you know, we all see that. That's a problem. Lives are being lost and for no good reason. So we get desensitized to it. And that's, it's, you get really sometimes a bit down about it, you know, but then you have to just kind of, you know, keep, keep rolling. and keep going. How big a problem has the polarization in politics itself been, particularly with the

arrival of Trump on the scene? It's unbelievable. There is not a single issue or thing. Something just benign becomes a political polarizing issue. Anything. I mean, that's where we are. There's no trust. There's no dialogue between the two sides. It looks like, and this is the shame of it, it looks like and it feels like a sporting event. I have my team, you have your team. And everybody's waking up every day, hoping to see that their team scored some points today on the other side and didn't get any points scored on us today.

That's it. You take this issue with these classified documents. So the whole Trump classified documents issue was one in which he had a bunch of documents that he said, these are mine, you know, they're not yours, and I don't belong to the government. First, he said didn't have him. So they raid his house and they get the documents.

Then Biden finds some documents at his house and says, hey, I found some documents in my house, coming clean, here they are. At that point, we should have all been asking the question. The question I was asking, who the hell is responsible for these documents that doesn't even know where they are if they're so important to national security? Who's responsible for this? That's not the topic. The topic is all about, even from the left.

It's, there's bad as each other. Yeah. It's like, okay, you know, we got to defend our guy. You know, this isn't the same situation as Trump's situation. And then the Trump people are saying, or the right wing people are saying, see, your guy's got some documents too. And it's like, that's what we're talking about. And then Pence comes up.

I got some documents. What does Fox News say? Mike Pence found some documents at his house as opposed to when it was Biden. Documents found at Biden's house. You know, it's just, come on. You know? So we're not in this issue. You could say, the real problem.

then that we have with regards to these classified documents is there's obviously no system to safeguard them. That's the problem, but nobody's talking about that because we're so focused on scoring points on each other. And this is this podcast called Leading, it's about leadership. What's your analysis of the way Biden's trying to lead through this quagmire of polarization and populism? Yeah. I don't know. You know, some days I think, yeah, it's working. I see what you're doing, you know, because there's some really important issues that need to be, you know, governed and taken care of that are, you know, imminent, that are, you know, immediate right now as opposed to, you know, some of these social issues and polarization, that's going to take some time to unravel that. And so, so I get it. I think a lot of people on the left kind of want him to do more. I think a lot of them, you know, don't want him to continue the, I reach across the aisle, you know, rhetoric. I don't know. This is where it gets, you know, above my level of expertise. We'll see.

It'll be interesting to see if he decides to run again. I was talking to a mutual friend of ours yesterday, Sebco, who, of course, post-sport did go into politics and now is kind of in sports politics. Have you never thought yourself about a political career? No. I was talking. I was in South Africa once speaking with your former boss. We were having dinner, Tony. And I said, I just don't see how anybody could do.

do that. He says, because he said the same thing, you should go into politics. I was like, I don't see how anybody could do that. I couldn't. And he explained, you know, sort of, hey, you know, here's how it works. And, you know, yeah, you got to give up some things to get some things and you might have to, you know, and that's just kind of the way it works. And I was like, yeah, that doesn't sound like me. You know, you got to go straight. I've always been intrigued with business. And so when I always knew when I finished my athletic career, I would be an entrepreneur, I would build companies and it's very straightforward, you know. It's very straightforward and that's what I like, you know.

I know what the challenge is and I know what's required of me to actually, I don't care how big it is, but I know kind of it's pretty straightforward. Right, but the challenge at the moment for everybody, as you were saying, is your country and these are forces that are happening right around the democratic world, is being torn apart. Yeah. So that's the challenge. Right.

So what's your role within that? So the thing is with business, I can figure out. out, given the challenge, what's required to overcome the challenge. In politics, yeah, I would have no clue. I would have no clue as to, you know, what the, and it changes. And it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's very challenging. I, I applaud the people who take it on with an earnest intention to make change. I applaud them. You did a podcast series called Defiance, which was really about the history of protest in sport. And you had in the trailer, you had this great quote, history almost always proves that the defiant ones are right. Do you think we've got enough defiance

at the moment? I hate to keep, you know, sort of going on the, you know, sides thing because it is polarizing in itself. But there's no other way to put this. I think we do on our side. Because what we're trying to do is fight for, look, change happens. Change happens. And on their side, they're tolerating it and encouraging it and enabling it. Yeah, there's defiance on that side as well, but it is, it's different. It's, how would I put it? That's a tough one. That's a tough one.

As you're sitting there thinking, are you thinking that whatever you say is just going out to the polarization? No, no, I'm just thinking, you know, I never thought about it that way. You know, defiance can be, you know, for good or it can be, you know, for bad. Right. So, yeah, so the bad guys can be different. You're finally racist. Yeah.

They can be homophobic. Exactly. And I think that, yeah, and they're being brazen now in it because of Trump. You know, if you can get all the way up to the presidency, you know, the most powerful man in the world being openly racist and abrasive and denigrating people. And, you know, then, hell, I should be able to do it too, you know. Can you respect, we have this motto on the podcast disagree agreeably. can you respect somebody who votes for somebody like Trump the second time? I would like to see a scenario where, because I wouldn't disrespect that person just on the surface, you know, sort of premise that, well, you voted for Trump and I don't like him.

Because I think that's a part of the problem. You know, I wouldn't be able to respect that person because of their reasons in most cases. So I would like to hear a reason. someone votes for Trump, well, we just disagree. I still respect you, but we just disagree. I'm sure there probably is one. Well, it might just be the hate the other guy, more. That's a lot of it, I think.

But then my question would be, but which one is more dangerous to society? Which one is more dangerous to our country? And, you know, because there are those people who don't vote. Too many of them. Yeah, too many of them that don't vote. But some actively don't vote. Some people, it's, you know, access to voting. It's, you know, it's difficult.

Some people are registered, you know, you'll have people, I'm a registered Republican. But Donald Trump, I just can't see myself voting for him. He's distasteful. I think he's dangerous. But I'm not going to vote for Biden. I mean, I spoke at universities trying to help Hillary Clinton get elected back in 2016. And, you know, young people were saying, you know, I don't like you the candidate. And they thought that they should be able to have the perfect candidate.

in order to vote. And I was trying to explain then. And I saw it happening then that this generation, they believe that they are deserving of the perfect candidate. And not realizing that, you know, if you don't vote, that could be a vote for the worst candidate. You just get to pick the best of the worst, if that's the way you look at it, but you've got to pick. Now, what about the, one of the most polarizing issues, certainly here, and I'm guessing it's the same in the U.S. at the moment is the, is the, whole issue of gender, transgender. And of course, I think it's particularly difficult in sport. So first on that specifically, but then maybe more generally, what do you see is the kind of really

key issues for your sport at the moment? Because it's going through a pretty rough time, I'd say. It is going through a rough time. Here's my position on that. We live in a time where most people look at things very binary. This is right, this is wrong. And if this is right, that means the other side has to be wrong. And people want things very quickly. I want solutions quickly. I want everything really fast. And I expect everything to be able to be distilled down into a very simple narrative. And boom, it's all I got time for. Just give me the headline. So they also expect that there aren't any really complex problems. All of the problems are very simple. That's not true. This is an extremely complex problem. And there's no easy solution. Whatever the solution is at the

end of the day, whatever it's going to be, it's not going to satisfy everybody. There is no solution that's going to make everybody happy. This is extremely complex. I don't have the answer. I'm extremely pleased that I'm not the one that has to try to come up with the answer because it is a very difficult situation. And yeah, there is no simple answer. I mean, the answer that I think the authorities and people like Seb are promoting is this idea that it's so-called DSD, the kind of Hidden testes, people like Castasomenia, or it's transgender, that it's all about keeping the testosterone levels below, I think it's 2.5. Does that feel to you like the kind of right approach, or do you not even want to have a view on that because you think it's so complicated?

It's not that I don't want to have a view. I would love to have a view, but I don't because I just don't think that there's an easy solution, you know, just saying, hey, you know what, we're going to cap it here. You know, it's based on what? You know, I mean, we're at a point where the change is happening so quickly. And two things can be right at the same time. And that's a problem that most people don't believe that anymore, but don't have that perspective.

But two things can be right at the same time. You know, everyone deserves access to sport. Yeah. And also at the same time, you got to try to make sure that it's fair because sport is based on fairness. how you do that is going to be extremely complex. And, you know, and right now you have the situation with regard to, you know, these different levels where a lot of the complexity comes out when you look at some of the court cases, the Castro Seminary court case. World Athletics did a lot of work that the court for arbitration of sport asked them to do if they were going to actually set these standards.

And when the scientific studies come back, you look at the court case and you see that, you know, know, there's a lot of holes that can be poked even into the science. And where it keeps coming back to is interpretation of the science. And, well, are you sure? Are you sure? Oh, no. Who's going to be able to be sure? Can't be sure.

And that's a problem because you can't really be sure. So ultimately, someone is going to have to make a decision, whether it's the sports bodies themselves, or whether it's the courts, if it gets that far again, but somebody's going to have to make a decision and nobody wants to make a decision because they know that the decision is not going to satisfy everyone and there are loud voices on both sides

that will they'll come after you well let's take a little break and then we'll come back to the far easier subject of drugs sounds good hi everybody it's Dominic Samerik here from The Rest is History.

Now, some of you may have heard me on your show, The Rest is Politics, when Rory was away and I was filling in and enjoying Alistair Campbell's tremendous banter. And I'm back to tell you about our new series on The Rest Is History, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, a period with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now we're living through a moment when oil shocks generated by war in the Middle East are rippling through the world economy. when Britain feels like it's sunk in a bit of a malaise, people are arguing about Europe, the government has got a few issues with the trade unions, and we have a kind of, I suppose

you'd say governing elite, a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with all of these issues, and people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels between that Britain that I'm describing, which is our Britain and the Britain of the mid-1970s. So in this series that's coming out on the rest is history, we'll be looking at these and other issues. We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher, obviously a colossal figure in our political life even now, whether you love her or loathe her. We'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alistaira will have strong opinions about. We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

And we'll be talking about one of the grimest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment in 19. 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said at the time, to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, for a then record bailout. Now, if that sounds good to you, how could it not sound good to you? Of course it sounds good to you. We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode. And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is History wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to this episode of leading with Michael Johnson. How many goals? Olympic for World's 8?

Yeah, 12. 12 goals. Pretty good. Pretty good. But if you'd been a swimmer. Yeah, then I could do all of my events like backwards, forwards. I could do it freestyle and get a whole bunch more medals. Same event.

Just do it a different way. Not that you're pissed off with that. Hey, man, you know. Now, let's just talk about drugs. It's hard for every athlete, isn't it? The clean athletes is hard. It wasn't hard for me because I was always winning, so I didn't have to worry about the drug athletes.

You were winning, and then every time you won, there's a little crowd over there going, you can't run that fast with that drugs. It's impossible. I mean, look, I never let that bother me. I mean, literally, if your criteria or your judgment for who's on drugs and who's not is based on who's running fast, I mean, come on, the objective of our sport is to run fast.

That's not going to work. You're running too fast. Come on. But you gave, was it the relay, you gave your medal back? Yeah. Because Antonio Petigrew had admitted cheating later. Yeah, he admitted cheating later. He killed himself.

And he later committed suicide. And there you go. This is not, again, this is another, not easy choice. I don't like the idea that people fling around these, you know, accusations that all of the athletes are cheating. Most of them are cheating. I don't think when an athlete makes the decision to cheat that it's that easy. I think it's very difficult because look, I remember the moment that I, you know, got my medals and my family's all there. My mother, my father, my brother, my sister, they're so proud.

If I knew that something that they didn't know, knew that this isn't really real, I'm really not this good, that would be difficult. And I think that, you know, like Antonio Pettigrew, sad story, and I was very angry with him after that because I was at that point, I think eight years into my retirement. And so I was a 13-time Olympic and world champion. Do you have no sense of him cheating when you were athletes together? Yeah, look, so, you know, that's a good question because a lot of people, I think it's another misconception is that people believe that if you're in the sport, You're going to know. It's kind of like saying, you know, we're all in society, so we know who the criminals are. People don't do crimes in the day, you know, in the light. They don't go and they certainly don't tell other people. And in this case, even more so, I'm his competitor. I'm one of his main rivals. He's certainly not going to tell me, Michael, you remember that one time I beat you? He did beat me one time. Remember that one time I beat you? Well, I was really on drugs, so that's the only reason. He's not going to tell me that. You're not going to know. That was amazing about your sport and putting the relays, your competitor and teammate.

Yeah, I mean, we were competitors like three days. It's always like, you know, by the time we get to the relay, three days earlier, we were bitter rivals, you know, but we miraculously come together for the relay. But yeah, Antonio Pedigris' situation, he had a young son. And I think that, you know, his situation was such that he was, he had retired as well. It was well into his retirement. But everyone would remember the Balco drug scandal. He had to testify in a grand jury. jury. And at that point, he had to tell the truth. And he admitted that he had doped. And I think it was

too much for him to now, you know, have his family know that, you know, all of these things that they were so proud of him for that, that he had been cheating. And I think it was just too much for him. And he sent the metal back. And I sent the metal back. I just didn't know. I, I have always been, I've always been against drugs. I trained, I had training partners. I saw how hard they worked. They weren't at my level, but they were professionals as well. And I mean, one point, you know, we sat around and we counted up all of the U.S. teams those guys would have been on. If all of the people who we know, because they tested positive, had not been in the sport, those athletes, these are my training partners, they would have been on World Championship, Olympic teams. They got cheated out of that.

That's a shame. I don't know how it feels personally, but I know how it feels, these are some of my best friends. And you is hardline as Seb is in terms of keeping the Russians out of the sport because they've got this massive industrial doping program. Look, absolutely. And Seb and I disagree on a lot of things. Well, we're going to come to that. But that's the one area. It's at least one area where I think that he has led on it. Lots of other sports federations. I've been disappointed in the IOC and how they treat it, you know, that situation. And I think that Seb has been right on the money on that one. And I think it's been brave.

And I think he's done a fantastic job with it. So where did you disagree? We disagree. I love that sport. You know, this is, this is my sport. I love it. And I would love to see it. The athletes, you know, are, the athletes struggle as, as professionals.

And I would love to see the sport in a much better position than it is. And I don't think that Seb has been, I don't think he's been very good in that particular area. And I don't think that he's been quite as straightforward that, hey, here's, you know, what we really need to do. I think he's spent a lot of time making sure that he looks good. Again, he's deep in the politics the whole time, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, you have to be. You know, I mean, people will say, you know, so it's too political.

Well, you've got to be political to be in that job, you know, so I get that. But at the same time, some of the rhetoric, you know, gets a little bit too, let's not just pat ourselves on the back for what we've done, you know, kind of thing, you know, get it done. Get it done. Do you think the sports in a almost like not exist? But I mean, it's not in the place that it should be.

And are you, would you be happier if it was just track and you could kind of dispense with some of the field stuff? That's a funny way. So, you know, going back to the first point you made, the only reason it's not existential is because it's still the number one Olympics for it. If there was no Olympics, there would be no track and field anymore. For years, it kept finding a new bottom. You thought, okay, we've hit rock bottom. No, we can go a little bit further down because, but it's never going to go away because of the Olympics. Every four years, people love it.

Look, Olympic track and field, world championship. Championship track and field is amazing. We just had world championships in America last summer. Amazing. Championship track and field is great. Doesn't really need any changes. It's great at the college level, greater high school level, school level. In America, biggest participatory sport in America for kids.

It's track and field. Yeah, it's track and field. But at the professional level, nobody knows who any of the professional athletes are. The professional level of track and field is dismal. It's just the athlete's struggle to make a living. People don't know who they are. And the sport hasn't, and this is one of the things I have a problem with what was said, is that not being innovative with the sport when it comes to the professional side of it.

The sport hasn't changed them forever. It's not fit for these times where, you know, when you look at what people are interested in, You're just not going to find, you're going to struggle to find a person who you can convert in. Not a diehard fan. Diehard fans are fine watching people run the 10,000 meters in 26 minutes. Equally watching sprinters run the 100 meters and, you know, 107 for the women, you know. And equally shop putters and discos stores and javelin and jumpers and all of those different things. All arguably different sports because I'm an icon in the sport, okay?

as a sprinter. If all of us went out to say throw javelins, I probably wouldn't win. You probably would. No, I wouldn't be, Michael. I don't know that I would. I mean, we could just pick anyone in this building. They might be a better javelin throw than me, but that's my sport, right? There's so many different sports than one. So it's very difficult to market it. It's very difficult to bring new fans into it. If you were to just create a sport from scratch today, you wouldn't do it the way this sport has been built. Right. So what would give me three innovations that you think Seb should be doing for the sport? I'm going to give you one concept that he should absolutely be looking at. And that is World Athletics is a federation. Federations, their job is to govern. Governance, rules,

supporting the member foundations. That's what they're good at. They are not good at marketing and commercialization. Go find a commercial partner. Give them the rights to the diamond. League, let them then and give them the remit, here's what you need to do. And it's got to be a commercial for-profit organization. Like the FIA doesn't run Formula One. Liberty has to deliver a profit eventually. They have to. What I would have loved to have seen him do, and would love to see him do, is don't score any own goals with the sport, first of all, by doing silly things that make it look even worse and less professional and less of an attractive asset for anyone to come in and sort of take over. Don't do that first. And then, yeah, go out and try to find that partner

that can come in and actually commercialize the sport and create a true professional track and field circuit. So once you're below the kind of Usain Bolt, Shelly Ann Fraser Price kind of level, athletes, you say are financially, most of them are struggling. Yes. Most of them are struggling. They're They still have to pay their expenses, travel around the world. Yeah. So the sport limits the number of sponsors you can have on your uniform when you're competing. And the athletes themselves, because the sport television-wise isn't very attractive. So it's not in a consistent time frame and schedule where people can find it.

So it's hard to grow a fan base for it. So the television isn't very attractive and doesn't get a lot of viewership. So there's really not much for a sponsor. So the only sponsor options for the athletes is shoe companies. And there's only so much that they have in their budgets because this isn't a recreational sport with a lot of equipment like a tennis or golf where you can monetize. Unless you're a hammer thrower or javelin.

Javelin's three. Sponsored javelins. You call me the sport. I'm really happy that you think I would beat you at athletic sport. I'm really, really, really chapped about that. I said it was a possibility. Possibility. Yeah, yeah.

Now listen, you had a brush with your own mortality. Was it a full-on stroke? Yeah. Yeah. So what was, just talking through that, when you're used to being so fit and so healthy and then suddenly you're kind of thinking you might die. Yeah, it was a crazy situation. Four years ago, I just finished a training session in my gym at home and started experiencing

this tingling in my left arm. and I started having a real problem with coordination on my left leg and my left leg. So I almost fell down, hobbled over to a weight bench, sat down, and it's like, this is very strange. Long story short, out of an abundance of caution, we decided my wife and I decided I would just go to the emergency room and just see what it is because probably nothing. Because, yeah, I mean, I've always been healthy and taking good care of myself. You didn't feel your life was in danger at that time. No, I felt like, I mean, and this is the thing, and I do a lot of work now, you know, with the UK Stroke Association, as well as the American Heart and Stroke Association and try to help people understand, you know, and be aware of the signs. And it's very dangerous because if you had to ask me before I had a stroke, Michael, if you were having a stroke, do you think you'd know?

I would say, absolutely, I would know from having a stroke. I felt no discomfort. I felt no pain. I just felt this weird sensation where I was having trouble. coordinating and I didn't have slurred speech, didn't have face drooping, none of those things. So I could have very easily just decided, I'll sleep it off off for better tomorrow, which would have been catastrophic. We went to the emergency room. By the time we got there, it gotten worse. Now I couldn't, I was barely able to walk. My left side had gotten much worse. So ultimately,

they diagnosed that seems like maybe you had a stroke based on what I was telling them and what they saw in the CT scan, which didn't show any blockage. And so they, They said, we're going to do an MRI, took me for an MRI, and the MRI showed that I had had a stroke. And by that time, couldn't walk, couldn't stand anymore. And doctor said, let you suffered a stroke. And it was devastating because at that point I'm laying there, I can't walk, I can't stand. And so the first question I asked, of course, was, you know, what's my prognosis?

How am I going to be able to walk again? And there's a team of doctors there. And they said, look, you know, that's the right question. As far as answers, it all depends on time. You just never know. Some people make a full recovery. Some people don't. Some people make a partial recovery.

Some people it takes longer. You have a better chance than anyone else. They were very encouraging. But we're very honest that, you know, only time will tell. So how long to get from that position to where you kind of like... Record time, of course. 19. You know, a month later, I was back to being able to walk.

I mean, one of the things that helped me most, is keeping myself in very good shape. So I'm really strong on my right side, even though my left side then at that point, you know, I don't have much use of it. But being able to rely on my right side, you know, helped me a lot. So a month later, I was able to walk fairly decent, you know, six weeks later with the naked eye, you wouldn't be able to tell. But I was still, you know, not quite back and not right.

My balance and coordination was still not there. So I continued to rehab. and I was back running about two months later, running very poorly, but able to run. I'd say back to exactly where I was before, as much as I could possibly be six months later. Okay, pretty good. How fast could you do 400 today? Well, the way that I look at it is it would be how much slower would I be today than I was, and I don't really want to know that.

No. I have no interest in knowing how much slower I am now than I was when I was at my fastest. I mean, could I beat you in the 400? It's possible. It's possible. I mean, in terms of crossing the finish line, yeah, you would because I have no interest in actually going that far, so I wouldn't get there. And listen, how hard was it to leave the sport to stop being? I know you're still in the sport, but how hard was it to stop?

I was very fortunate. It was easy for me because I was ready. I was ready to move on to the next phase of my life. I was really fortunate that I did all of the things that I wanted to do. this sport. So when I left, I was still ranked number one in the world. Could have kept going, kept winning. But I was ready to move on. And I wanted to finish on top. I made that commitment to myself when I first started in the sport. As a 200-400-meter sprinter, I ended up in a 100-meter race in Stockholm one year. And this was at the beginning of my career. And Calvin Smith, who had been

the world record holding 100 meters at one point, American, he was my idol. I loved Calvin Smith. Hated Carl Lewis, loved Calvin. So I was always a Calvin Smith. fan. Just on that, why did you hate Carl Lewis? It's a long story. It was something about him that I never liked. And then once I started competing against him, and I was sort of the next, you know, after him, he never wanted to give up the reins.

You know, he wanted to continue to be the king. So he tried a lot of stuff to try to just kind of, you know, destroy me. Isn't that okay? Isn't that normal in sport? No, you know, you don't try to destroy someone else. Just go out there and compete, you know. That's why I retired when I did. I didn't want to be running against people that I felt like, you know, hey, you know what?

I think I'm past my prime and I don't want those people beating me. So on this Calvin Smith thing, that's what happened. It's like, I'm in a race with Calvin Smith, my idol, and I beat him. I was like, I have no business even being in a race with this guy. And it's not even my race, 100 meters. He's past his prime. And I was like, and I was like, yeah, that's not going to happen to me. So I retired after Sydney and felt like there's nothing else for me to do.

I broke all the world records, won the gold medals. And I was always motivated by my goals. and I felt like I don't have any more goals, and now it's going to start to go downhill. And how did you feel when the records went? Bolt took the 200. Yeah. So Wade Vanney, Kirk, yeah, took my 400.

So most people would think that you'd be disappointed, and I wasn't. I was eight years into retirement when Bolt broke my 200-meter world record. I had moved on, proud of the things that I was doing then, and still proud of the fact that I broke the wall record. And that wasn't what I was always proud of,

the fact that I had broken the world records and all of the work that it took, I chased both records for, years. So I was proud of that. Not that I just was able to hold on to it. So that eight years, you know, between the time that I retired and both broke my world record, not one time did I ever introduced myself to anyone as the world record holder? That was not my identity. I have some friends who are world record holders and that's their identity. And if their records are ever broken, it's going to be a problem for them. Right. And that wasn't me. So and when Wade broke it,

same thing, you know. And I guess probably part of it too is I like both of those guys. You know, if it was somebody I didn't like that broke my record, may not be, yeah. And how much do you enjoy the broadcast stuff you do? I love it. I love it. It's, you know, I've been with BBC now for 20 years. And I love it. I love the sport.

I love trying to help viewers understand what they're seeing, try to explain things that, you know, they may not otherwise have thought about as they sort of watch the race and help them to enjoy the experience better. Now, one of our most regular listeners is Brendan Foster. sends me messages every week. It gives me his little analysis of what he thinks of the podcast. So how much do you miss Brendan now that he's retired?

Yeah, I miss him. So when I first started, Brendan was there. And we were always, we're pretty tight. And he gave me a lot of advice when I first started and was always very, very supportive. And he's been supportive and helped me a lot with my business as well. So Brendan is great. He's phenomenal. Well, Michael, it's been fantastic talking to you.

Thoroughly enjoyed it. You're going to find me a tree of the day? Yeah, yep. Yeah, I will. I will. I will. Not today, any day. No, I'm heading back, back home tomorrow.

We got some good trees in Malibu. And when you say you're heading back, given you've talked about the kind of political and social environment at the moment, does that fill you a dread? No, you know, I mean. Still hopeful. Still hopeful. And look, I have to say that, you know, there's a lot of good things happening too. Well, it's pretty bad. And sometimes you have to go through a lot of bad.

But I'm thankful that we're going through what we are now because I think it's necessary. And knowing once you see it, you can't unsee it. And what we know now, yeah, we were not in as good a place as we thought we were. And we're working to get there now. And eventually we will get there. And so it's just going to take a little pain. So you didn't the right side will win the war? Yeah.

I mean, look, the numbers are on our side. Most Americans, and I think most people around the world are on the side of fairness and equality. And that's what they want. Thank you very much. Absolutely.