QUOTE OF THE DAY "You are Russian, right?"

You are Russian, right?
Coach Abadzhiev, ex-Bulgarian Olympic weightlifting coach talking with a reporter

It is a shame that this is even being considered. The schools in California need the bucks. We don't need to be spending money in other areas like drug testing. I'm talking about steroid testing. I don't even talk about these things, but with the topic being discussed, I thought that we may want to examine testing in this area. Hey, why not start at the top, like the Olympics! Here is a part of the article.

"The Dark Side of the Olympics"

I knew about the Soviet lifters' training, -says Abadzhiev. I knew that they were not as well prepared as we were. Of course, your experts knew what was going on in our team. With all these said, the IWF was helping the Russians. No one helped us. But even I couldn't understand why your officials predicted five gold medals for the Russian team.
For the whole world, the Olympics in Seoul were associated with the weightlifting scandal. Bulgarian lifters were disqualified and the whole team left for Bulgaria before the end of the competitions.
It was a very strange story. In Bulgaria as well as in the USSR, we had local doping control tests before competitions. We made over 50 tests. And despite this, they began to catch our lifters with the furocemide. It belongs to the diuretics. At that time we studied how it worked. We did research how it shows in test results by hours. It was practically impossible to detect it 72 hours after you took it. However, according to the Seoul tests we had a monster load detected via those tests. Needless to say that positive tests were shown in the weight classes where we were competing against the Soviet athletes. For example, Mitko Grablev was disqualified and Oxen Mirzoyan got the gold medal. After Angel Genchev tested positive, Israel Militosyan got the first place. And their lifters were weaker. And in the classes where the Soviet lifters didn't compete, Bulgarian tests were clean.
When the scandal just started to take place, we decided to set up a meeting with the Soviet delegation. We met in the park-we were afraid of microphones and that someone will tape the conversation. Bulgarian chairman asked Marat Gramov to help and to do the tests of Bulgarians in the Russian lab. They lied to us. They said there was no Soviet lab there. It was there. It was on the boat. I knew it for sure."
If you would like to read the article in its entirety, it is at http://www.chidlovski.net/liftup/a_interview_Abadzhiev_111999.asp
I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. Yes, I do like Ghiradelli's chocolate. So I am no angel. Education starts at home. As a coach, and or parent you need to lead by example. Players, with a good coach (like me), good diet, and nutritional supplementation you can become an excellent athlete. Hopefully I won't have to write to many articles like this. If you have any questions, e-mail me at acudave@yahoo.com