Kyle Dake is a father, a husband, and an Olympian. He was a bronze medalist at the Olympics in Tokyo and a three-time World Champion for the USA. He won for Cornell University, his alma mater, winning four NCAA Championships in four different weight classes.
00:00:00.000Hey everybody, I'm really excited about my guest today.
00:00:03.000Kyle Dake is a father, a husband, and an Olympian.
00:00:08.000He was a bronze medalist at the Olympics in Tokyo and a three-time world champion for the USA. He won for Cornell University, his alma mater.
00:00:21.000He won four NCAA championships in four different weight classes.
00:00:27.000And I think you're the first person in history to do that.
00:00:32.000Arguably, a lot of my friends, when they heard that you were coming out there, said he is the best wrestler in history.
00:03:37.000The people I know who are in wrestling, I have never seen people get so ecstatic.
00:03:45.000I told them that you were going to be a guest on the show.
00:03:49.000He is right now in a battle with the U.S. Olympic Committee, the NCAA, and the MLB, just to name a few, because his organization, Athletes for Medical Freedom, is struggling with To make sure that athletes take care of their own bodies and make personal choices about their own health.
00:04:11.000I'm going to read the audience a mission statement for athletes for medical freedom.
00:04:16.000We want to advocate to preserve individual rights in medical treatment across all sports and organizations.
00:04:23.000We aim to collaborate with players, player unions, and other organizations to create a plan of action that is inclusive to all people, regardless of accident status.
00:04:34.000So welcome to the podcast, Kyle, and thank you so much for your courage.
00:04:39.000Tell me, you know, how did you get into this very, very dangerous form of advocacy thing?
00:04:48.000So I went to the Olympic Games and we had all sorts of different testing protocols, things they wanted us to do.
00:04:55.000They took us five hours away from Tokyo so that we could train in a small village in the side of a mountain so we wouldn't be exposed to anybody.
00:05:03.000So we didn't get to go to the Olympic Village.
00:05:05.000We didn't get to go to opening ceremonies.
00:05:07.000We didn't get to go to any other events.
00:05:10.000So we were pretty much locked down While we were at the games.
00:05:13.000And, you know, we were just happy to be there.
00:05:16.000They had, there had been talk of potentially canceling the games in early 2020.
00:05:20.000And the fact that they just moved them made everything a bit easier to swallow, but still, you know, wasn't the same experience we were hoping for.
00:05:29.000And once we finally got to the games, everything went off without a hitch.
00:05:34.000All of our Olympians were able to wrestle.
00:05:36.000We had one of the best Olympic performances of all time for our country.
00:05:41.000All five of the men's weights that went earned medals.
00:06:31.000It's got, you know, this, that, and the other thing to make sure that you'll be able to compete.
00:06:35.000So some of our athletes took it and, you know, they ended up performing decently well.
00:06:39.000And then others decided not to get it.
00:06:42.000And we had some pushback, but not too much.
00:06:45.000And then afterwards, there was a seven-week gap between the Olympic Games and the World Championships.
00:06:52.000And right before we left for the World Championships, we got an email from the USOPC. And they said, there will be a vaccine mandate from now on for all sports that are sponsored by USOPC. That's the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
00:07:06.000And if you want to use any of our services, if you want to use any of our facilities, you will have to be vaccinated or get an exemption.
00:07:14.000And if you want to compete in any of our events, so the Olympic team trials or the Olympic Games, you must be vaccinated.
00:07:21.000So as soon as that hit, I saw red, my ears were smoking.
00:07:25.000I was really upset about it because I just came off of I'm an Olympic bronze medalist.
00:07:58.000I ended up writing a pretty lengthy email to the USOPC board and their doctors, and I got a quick response from I'm basically just citing the CDC guidelines and that was it.
00:08:11.000And they told us, well, if you want to join this meeting, we'll answer some of your questions.
00:08:16.000It was like really early in the morning or really late at night for me while I was over in Oslo, Norway.
00:08:21.000And we had a couple of other members join for us and record it and figure out, you know, what are the questions that were asked?
00:08:28.000There was a lot of people who raised concerns and they were just like, oh yeah, we hear you, but this is our decision ultimately.
00:08:36.000So, as soon as that happened, we called our Athlete Advisory Council, who is, there are a bunch of athletes who, from each sport, that attend these meetings.
00:09:04.000We've been cruising along, gathering members every step of the way from a variety of different sports within the USOPC sports and then also outside.
00:09:13.000People from different, athletes from different countries.
00:09:16.000The amount of support from parents and NCAA athletes has been through the roof.
00:09:20.000And just trying to keep up with it all has been a task in its own.
00:09:26.000Are they still requiring you that you get the vaccine?
00:09:30.000Yeah, so the worst part about the vaccine is the fact that they have the exemptions in there.
00:09:36.000So they just hide behind the exemptions.
00:09:38.000And we've had three athletes apply for exemptions and get the exemptions from the USOPC. However, if they want to go compete at the Olympic Games in Beijing, the Winter Olympic Games, they would have to be vaccinated.
00:09:53.000The Beijing Olympic Committee will not accept any religious exemptions.
00:09:57.000And then the medical exemptions that you get from the USOPC has to be reviewed by their Beijing Olympic Committee board.
00:10:04.000So they're just going to decide if you get to compete or not.
00:10:08.000And it's pretty much out of your hands.
00:10:13.000They still are on the CDC guidelines from October.
00:10:16.000So recently there was a camp in Colorado Springs and at the camp, someone tested positive for COVID.
00:10:22.000And then another, so they tested the whole camp and one other person tested positive, but had no symptoms.
00:10:29.000And they wanted to make that person stay at camp, locked down in their own room for 14 days, even though they only live 30 minutes away, go quarantine at their own house.
00:10:38.000And their excuse was, well, we're just doing this for the safety of the athletes.
00:10:42.000And locking somebody up for 14 days when they can just go home doesn't really make that much sense to me.
00:10:48.000But that was just the way they viewed it.
00:10:50.000So this was just after they announced the five day quarantine for asymptomatic people.
00:10:55.000And They haven't changed any of their language.
00:10:59.000They haven't changed any of their policies or procedures as this has evolved.
00:11:02.000And they won't recognize natural immunity or anything like that.
00:11:06.000So we are pretty much stuck in the same place that we are now.
00:11:11.000So we have some meetings lined up with USA Wrestling and a couple of members of the USOPC board here in February.
00:11:19.000And we're just doing our best to advocate for ourselves and advocate for our fellow athletes.
00:11:25.000What are the other sports that are represented in your group?
00:11:29.000We have Paralympic hockey, we have track and field, men's women's wrestling, Greco wrestling, skeleton, and then a variety of athletes from different countries, tennis, baseball, swimming.
00:11:42.000We have another USOPC swimmer that just joined us.
00:11:45.000So there's a handful of us, but we've been...
00:11:50.000We've been shouting it from the rooftops.
00:11:51.000It's just hard to get through all the censorship.
00:11:54.000I went from getting 50,000 views on all my stories to 5,000 within a day.
00:12:17.000To just like try to go through those and see them all is pretty difficult.
00:12:21.000And a lot of times I'll look at them and then just forget to respond because life hits you and you just happen to, you know, you don't get back to it.
00:12:28.000But we haven't had any contact with him.
00:12:31.000We reached out to Aaron Rodgers and Kyrie.
00:12:33.000But You know, it's, they're busy, you know, and it's not always easy to do that.
00:12:37.000And there's political issues with them too, where they, you know, they're struggling for survival and may not want to become the face of a movement.
00:12:48.000How about the, are you keeping track of the collapses on the field at the milecard?
00:12:55.000And this huge list of athletes now that we have tracked You know, something that's pretty much unprecedented and totally uncovered on the news.
00:13:10.000So we lean on you guys a lot for that, just to track all those athletes and go through them.
00:13:15.000We have people on our network who are going through all those names and trying to Just see if any of them, if they haven't died, if they want to speak out.
00:13:23.000And we've reached out to a handful of them and still haven't heard.
00:13:27.000Well, we heard back from two, but again, these people are, they're scared.
00:13:32.000It's hard to come out and say, hey, I got this.
00:13:46.000And we see that, but they just, there's some hesitancy there to come out and speak about it.
00:13:51.000Have any of the Olympians in Tokyo or elsewhere, you know, post-Tokyo or in preparation for Beijing, have any of them had adverse events from the vaccines?
00:14:05.000I've heard of five adverse events, but nothing serious.
00:14:13.000Two of them went to the hospital that I know of, but they ended up coming out fine and they aren't suffering any long-term events of it now.
00:14:21.000Yeah, a lot of them who got it ended up having pretty brutal days, three or four days out, where they couldn't practice, they couldn't do anything, and they Some of them are still feeling the effects mentally more than anything else, and now they don't want to get the booster.
00:14:36.000And the goalposts kind of keep changing with the USOPC. They told us no booster was required.
00:14:42.000Now they're telling us while they're following CDC guidelines, they might need a booster.
00:14:46.000And it's constant blame pushing that we're coming up against most of the time.
00:14:51.000And are you doing any litigation, Kyle?
00:14:54.000So I'm actually speaking with our lawyers today.
00:14:57.000We were talking about arbitration before we went into litigation.
00:15:01.000This could be a little more cost-effective for us.
00:15:04.000And there's eight people right now who would want to go through with that, with the USOPC, and hopefully we can make a good case for it.
00:15:15.000Which essentially allows everybody to compete on a fair level playing field.
00:15:19.000So you pretty much have to let everybody compete regardless of what they believe in, where they're at.
00:15:24.000And we're trying to see if that applies to medical status or not.
00:15:28.000I should have a better answer coming up soon, but it's not always easy to scrape together the money needed to fight these things.
00:15:36.000We're doing our best to do a little fundraising and lean on some people who have those means, but You know, I've seen how much you have to go through and follow litigation and arbitration and things like that.
00:15:49.000So how can people join if there's other athletes?
00:15:54.000How can they get in touch with you and support you?
00:15:57.000So we have our website, athletesformedicalfreedom, all spelled out,.org.
00:16:01.000And then we also have our Instagram page where you can reach out to us, athletes, the number four, medfreedom.
00:16:08.000And then we also have a Twitter page, ATH, the number four, medfreedom.
00:16:15.000So there's a few ways to get in contact.
00:16:19.000My Instagram is KyleDay444 and same across Twitter.
00:16:23.000But we've had, I would say we'd have more young athletes, high school and college athletes reach out because they have almost no voice.
00:16:33.000And they don't have any sponsors that they have to answer to.
00:16:36.000They don't have any college programs that they have to answer to.
00:16:39.000And they're not worried about losing potential wages.
00:16:42.000And everyone that I've talked to that's a professional is like, well, you know, I'm a little worried about losing money.
00:16:49.000And I said, well, you know, that's fine, but what kind of world do you want to live in?
00:16:54.000And we're going to do our best to fight this and hopefully come out of this on the right side of history so that we don't have to worry about your money in the future.
00:17:03.000And we're going to try to replace that the best we can, aligning with certain corporations who value freedom and who value that, have the same value system to believing in bodily autonomy and your right to choose what you and your doctor decide is best for your health.
00:17:20.000And you guys are people who spend a lot of time thinking about your health, right?
00:17:26.000And making your own investments and understanding your body.
00:18:07.000You know, I thought it was, it was normal to be injured throughout a season, knee injuries, ankle injuries, hamstring injuries, pec injuries.
00:19:14.000The way I train is in line with physics, like what are the foundational movements of humans standing, walking, running, and throwing.
00:19:22.000My guys over at Functional Patterns are the ones that have really helped me with that.
00:19:25.000So just everything in my entire life now is centered around health so that I can compete at the highest level I can possibly compete at and not have any excuses.
00:19:35.000So I control as many variables as I can.
00:19:37.000And while doing so, I decide what goes into my body from shampoo and conditioner to food, what I eat, and everything in between.
00:20:10.000He really valued health, and it showed.
00:20:14.000He's been able to compete for a really long time.
00:20:16.000And, you know, I definitely am going to look into those, but he does a very, I've seen a lot of his protocols, and he is also very meticulous about everything that goes in and out of his body as well.
00:20:26.000Yeah, and he attributes, really, evenism.
00:20:32.000Athletes, you know, the assumption is that you need a lot of animal protein.
00:20:36.000But he considers that the reduction in inflammation from eating mainly, you know, from a kind of vegan diet is what he attributes to his longevity.
00:20:49.000So I put a whole roster of athletes in that movie who are like world-class athletes.
00:20:55.000Very, very surprising for people like me who believe that.
00:21:00.000I've always believed that to be a good athlete, you need to eat a lot of animal protein.
00:21:05.000So I played around with veganism diet for a little bit, and I actually felt my performance go down a lot.
00:21:12.000And I think it had to do with the fact that I had already cleaned up my diet so much.
00:21:17.000I was only eating wild game, grass-fed, grass-finished protein.
00:21:22.000And I pretty much stayed away from all processed foods, dyes, artificial flavorings, all of those things.
00:21:28.000So when I tested it out, I just felt low on energy.
00:21:32.000And I think there's a few mechanisms behind it.
00:21:35.000It's a little above my pay grade, but I tend to always advocate for regenerative agriculture, regenerative practices, just because it has such a huge impact on the environment.
00:21:48.000It has a huge impact on carbon recapture.
00:21:50.000It has a huge impact on health and wellness.
00:21:52.000So that's kind of the route I've been taking.
00:21:55.000And it's definitely helped my performance, I think.
00:21:59.000Off the subject, let me ask you something about the future of Olympic wrestling.
00:22:05.000Because I know a couple of years ago, people were talking about actually dropping wrestling from the Olympics, which to me seemed so bizarre because that was the original Olympics sport.
00:22:16.000And it seemed almost synonymous with the Olympics.
00:23:01.000It was either 2020 or 2024 where they were going to revisit where we were at, but we've made a lot of good changes to the sport, made a lot more fan-friendly, and we've taken a lot of steps to improve our product, which is great,
00:23:17.000and it's been Some of the best wrestling that I can recall, I watch a ton of video from the 80s, 90s, early 2000s, and just watch the state of wrestling and how it's evolved and changed and the rule sets that have changed.
00:23:31.000And they made a lot of improvements to the sport, but then also we've had a lot of people Just get behind it because it was the same reaction you had.
00:23:39.000Well, it's one of the original sports.
00:23:42.000Well, our problem was we weren't getting enough viewership and we made a strong, concerted effort to drive viewership and increase those numbers so that we could keep our spot in the Olympic Games.
00:23:54.000What percentage of the athletes, those high-level athletes, will end up in the MMA? I'd love to hear your thoughts about the MMA. MMA is awesome.
00:24:10.000So I really came onto the scene at the Olympic level in 2012.
00:24:14.000So from 2008 to 2012, we actually lost a ton of athletes to MMA, UFC, Bellator, and one-fight championships.
00:24:22.000And our wrestling suffered from it because all of our talent was leaving.
00:24:27.000And we had a coach who ended up employing this new system, and he called it the Regional Training Centers.
00:24:33.000And so essentially what happened is all the NCAA schools were allowed to host and have Senior level athletes.
00:24:41.000So athletes who are actively training for the Olympic games, train at their facilities, and they would get all these protections and whatever.
00:24:48.000So since that was employed in 2013, I believe, all of our wrestling professionals All of our wrestlers started to stay in the sport.
00:24:58.000So all of our highest level athletes were able to make a living because these regional training centers would essentially pay athletes to stick around, train for the Olympic Games, but also help out their college guys.
00:25:11.000So it's kind of a win-win situation for...
00:25:15.000And we have seen a lot of our top-level athletes stay in the sport for much longer.
00:25:22.000So we have guys who won Olympic gold medals in 2012 and won medals in 2012 in that quad who are still competing today and want to continue to compete through 2024.
00:25:33.000And so I've been on national team for nine years now, which is not very typical.
00:25:38.000If you went back, you know, 15 years, he would see most of those guys transition to MMA. And, you know, Daniel Cormier, Henry Cejudo, both superstars, Ben Askren, who have gone on to be champion MMA fighters, and they are doing pretty well for themselves.
00:25:55.000They probably could have wrestled for many more years, at least one more quad, I know in Daniel's case.
00:26:01.000But the money talks and a lot of those guys weren't getting paid.
00:26:05.000They're having to work second jobs to support their family.
00:26:08.000And luckily for me, I have a lot of support with my RTC and also sponsors so that I'm able to continue to fight for this dream.
00:26:17.000Have you ever had anybody hit you right in the face?
00:26:22.000Yes, pretty much every Tuesday that happens.
00:26:26.000Not on purpose, you know, it just happens in practice.
00:26:29.000I got clubbed on the side of the head pretty bad, broken my nose a handful of times.
00:26:33.000I got a dead tooth here from a knee to the face.
00:26:36.000Yeah, so I've been, I've taken a few shots involuntarily, which I don't really want to, I know, I'm not very interested in getting punched in the face on a daily basis, but sometimes it happens.
00:26:48.000Is wrestling the best preparation for MMA? For what I've seen?
00:26:56.000Yeah, so it's kind of gone through this metamorphosis where Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, like if you had no training, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu would kind of win out on a lot of those.
00:27:06.000In the early days of MMA, that was the dominant fighting style.
00:27:11.000And wrestling started to take over because they just started losing weight.
00:27:14.000Learning jujitsu and basic holds and chokes and just the way we've trained from our whole lives and just the nature of wrestling is all about control and controlling someone else's body gives you a pretty big upper hand when it comes to an MMA fight.
00:27:31.000And now most of the best MMA fighters have a background in wrestling or it's their second martial art that they've tried to perfect.
00:27:40.000So you see wrestling pretty much dominate every aspect of the sport.
00:27:44.000And it's just because if you get someone to the ground and they can't get off their back, well, they're in for a world of hurt at that point.
00:28:59.000And I never had guys my size that I could practice with.
00:29:03.000So I was always wrestling bigger guys and just always trying to fight, always trying to fight, fight, fight, fight.
00:29:09.000And I knew that I couldn't just rely on my talent alone.
00:29:12.000I had to put in a lot of extra work because I needed to protect myself when I was out there.
00:29:17.000So when I was in seventh and eighth grade, I was only weighing 80 to 90 pounds and And I was wrestling guys who were cutting weight from like 110 down to my weight class 105.
00:30:00.000I'm still trying to be better than I was yesterday and better than I was last year and constantly improving, trying to leave no stone left unturned and Just be the best version of myself.
00:30:11.000You know, every time I wake up, every time I step on the mat, every time I pick up my little girl, I try to do a little bit better every single time.
00:30:17.000So that's really the motivation factor for me is I want to be better than I was yesterday.