The Peter Attia Drive - #29 - Apolo Anton Ohno： 8-time Olympic medalist – extreme training, discipline, pursuing perfection, and responding to adversity

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome to the Peter Atiyah drive. I'm your host, Peter Atiyah. The drive

00:00:10.880 is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking, along

00:00:15.940 with a few other obsessions along the way. I've spent the last several years working

00:00:19.660 with some of the most successful top performing individuals in the world. And this podcast

00:00:23.620 is my attempt to synthesize what I've learned along the way to help you live a higher quality,

00:00:28.360 more fulfilling life. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more information on today's episode

00:00:33.020 and other topics at peteratiyahmd.com.

00:00:41.400 Hey everybody, welcome to this week's episode of the drive. I'm your host, Peter Atiyah. My guest

00:00:46.380 this week is my friend, Apollo Ono. For those of you who might not recognize Apollo, which I would

00:00:52.040 guess is not many of you. Apollo Anton Ono is an eight time medalist in the winter Olympics across

00:00:57.580 three games, 2002, 2006, 2010 in short track speed skating, which is one of the most intense,

00:01:05.600 crazy sports to watch. We're going to have lots of videos of it in the show notes. And if that

00:01:11.180 weren't enough, he also went on to win Dancing with the Stars, which sadly we don't get into in this

00:01:15.680 episode, though I wish we did because we were talking about it over dinner and it's simply another

00:01:21.660 manifestation of the type of drive and determination that he brought to his sport. He brought to that

00:01:28.920 show as well. He has a really unique upbringing. He was raised by a single dad and his father,

00:01:34.200 who was an immigrant, played just an unbelievable role in his life through the good times and the bad,

00:01:39.180 which I know might sound like a bit of a cliche, but the level and the detail at which we go into it in

00:01:43.360 this podcast, I think is quite inspiring. There's no question that, at least in my mind,

00:01:48.460 that had Apollo been raised by somebody other than his father, it's very hard to imagine he would

00:01:52.820 have achieved the success that he has achieved. His father's role in his life has just been

00:01:57.840 unbelievable. And I think that's a common theme we see in the people who are the greatest.

00:02:02.420 One of the things that I didn't really fully appreciate prior to this podcast was how this

00:02:08.260 entire nation of South Korea basically grew to hate him in ways that are almost impossible to

00:02:13.720 describe following a very controversial race in 2002. We go into that in great detail. So I'm not

00:02:19.340 going to go into the whys and the what's now, but the story is incredible, both how he got to that

00:02:24.700 point of being so despised by an entire nation and also how he basically went into the belly of the

00:02:31.560 lion to confront this head on. And ultimately, the finish to that story is as remarkable as how he got

00:02:38.460 there. Apollo has been known even inside the circles of Olympic athletes as having kind of a

00:02:44.020 surreal approach to training. And we're going to link to some videos, including one that is my absolute

00:02:48.960 favorite with some of his training routines, but his discipline, his work ethic are legendary. Once

00:02:54.360 that switch was clicked, he spent the early part of his career basically riding on talent and then

00:03:00.040 just realized, nope, I'm going to go all in on this. I never want to finish a single race and have a

00:03:05.400 single regret is determination character response to adversity. I mean, they really, they're certainly

00:03:11.680 inspirational to me. And frankly, I think this is of all the podcasts I've ever recorded. If I was

00:03:17.880 going to say to my kids, I want you to listen to one, this is the one I want them to hear, at least

00:03:22.020 of all the podcasts I've done so far, because this to me is really about grit. And I feel very strongly

00:03:28.760 that that's arguably one of the, if not the most important, one of the most important things we want to

00:03:33.580 be able to instill in our children is a sense of grit. So hopefully this will serve to give my kids

00:03:39.020 a lesson on that and potentially for yours as well. The parallels between Apollo's life and Rocky Balboa

00:03:45.880 are just amazing to me. And I can't resist making those comparisons a few times and notwithstanding

00:03:52.640 the fact that his name is also Apollo. And of course, Apollo Creed though, spelt with two L's is the

00:03:58.300 fictional character that, uh, is, is one of the most important antagonists of Rocky Balboa that

00:04:03.640 that's not lost on me. But if I were to sum up one Rocky ism that sort of explains Apollo's life,

00:04:10.000 it's the, uh, it's the one where Rocky Balboa in the sixth installment of that movie series is

00:04:15.640 explaining to his son that it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and

00:04:20.660 keep moving forward. And obviously I love that as a, as a metaphor for life, but I think it's

00:04:26.020 illustrated here. Apollo's just a great storyteller and he's, he's a beautiful speaker. And I think

00:04:31.300 that's reflected in the fact that this interview goes on for almost four hours. It would have

00:04:34.980 easily gone on for six or seven had we not already made commitments to do other things

00:04:41.440 that evening. So I hope you find this interview half as interesting as I did. I think the show notes

00:04:46.420 will have some really great stuff in them. And there's going to be links to some really cool

00:04:50.380 videos that we allude to, including not just races, but some of the other stuff that goes

00:04:54.760 above and beyond that. Lastly, just a couple of things on some housekeeping. Every Sunday,

00:04:58.940 I send out a weekly email that has been getting great feedback from the people who subscribe to

00:05:03.220 it. So if you don't subscribe to that, please do. If you end up thinking it sucks, you can always

00:05:07.360 unsubscribe from it. Secondly, we've got a team of both Bob Kaplan and Travis Denson who do an

00:05:14.040 incredible job putting together show notes. Again, the feedback we get is there is no podcast out

00:05:18.920 there that puts together show notes the way we do. It's basically a full-time job for one person,

00:05:24.580 a part-time job for another person. And I believe that that shows in the volume of stuff that we're

00:05:29.700 putting out there. So if you're enjoying the podcast, at least take a look at the show notes

00:05:33.940 because you'll probably find something else that you might've missed or that becomes more clear.

00:05:38.240 Lastly, if you are enjoying this, please head over to Apple Podcast Reviews. Give us a review if

00:05:42.640 it's favorable. Great. If it's not, please at least be constructive in your criticism so that we can

00:05:47.040 figure out how to make this show even better. Without further delay, here is my guest today,

00:05:51.760 Apollo. Hey, Apollo. Thanks for coming down, man. Thanks for having me. Kind of funny that we're

00:05:59.480 doing this now as opposed to the way we were supposed to do it. The original plan, though,

00:06:05.200 as I mentioned, is very memorable. And I'll never forget it. The fact that, you know, we have a nice

00:06:10.240 dinner, we're chatting, we're getting the rhythm. Okay, just follow me. We're going to shoot this place.

00:06:14.500 It's right on the water. We're in Malibu. It's perfect. It's very quiet. Guys, we have a

00:06:20.000 problem. I don't have keys. I locked myself out. Yeah. The only saving grace is it could have been

00:06:27.520 a lot worse if I'd killed myself or broken a bone, hopping that fence to crawl around the back of the

00:06:32.700 house to try to get in. That would have been... No, you seem pretty athletic. So I was like, 0.76

00:06:36.920 oh, he's okay. If you were struggling over the first fence, I was like, okay, maybe I should give him

00:06:40.700 a hand, but I was like, oh, he's got it. He's pretty good. Well, you held the light for me.

00:06:44.140 It was awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Now on lighting and grip. Yeah. I'm the main act here.

00:06:51.300 Yeah. I do the fence hopping. I do this. I do the wall scaling, but yeah, I need to get rid of that

00:06:55.760 guy. His lighting skills are just below average, bottom of the rung. So by the way, like all guests

00:07:02.620 who come to my house, yeah, they have to drink Topo Chico. Is that your first Topo Chico? It was my

00:07:06.560 first. It was nice. I love the glass bottle. I love the fact that you love it and you have so

00:07:11.980 passion. When you give it to me, it's like you're giving me keys to the house for the weekend. It's

00:07:17.100 like, tell me how it is after you're finished. Well, I like the fact that only halfway through

00:07:22.960 the first bottle you asked for a second. So you've got that other one. It's nice. Yeah. It's a

00:07:26.820 strangely addictive quality. Yeah. When I first got into it, it was out of control. I was like,

00:07:32.180 why am I drinking six of these a day? It's become an expensive habit because they're hard to find.

00:07:36.560 Well, man, there is so much I want to talk about and I think we'll hopefully be able to get to much

00:07:40.400 of it, though probably not all of it, just by the nature of the depth we'll probably go into on some

00:07:45.340 stuff. But let's, for lack of a better plan or strategy, let's just go back to the beginning.

00:07:49.580 So you grew up in the Pacific Northwest, yeah? I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. I was a very

00:07:56.080 high energy kid, one who was mischievous because I think just had tons of energy. My father was

00:08:03.220 working most of the time to provide so that we didn't struggle too much more than what we already

00:08:08.940 did, which I didn't know at the time. And your dad grew up in Japan, came to the US. Do you remember

00:08:13.660 how old he was? He said he's about 17 and a half years old when he came from Japan to, I think he

00:08:19.160 landed actually in Oregon originally. And he just started his life. He didn't speak a word of English.

00:08:24.600 He didn't really know anything about the American culture other than what was kind of fed to him when

00:08:28.580 he was in Japan. The only focal point he said that he had was that he just needed to get outside of

00:08:33.940 the protocol-like lifestyle that was existing within the Japanese culture. And I think that to him

00:08:39.900 meant going to the place that was a complete 180, and that was the United States.

00:08:44.480 So he left on his own at 17 and a half?

00:08:46.700 He left on his own against my grandmother and grandfather's wishes, who, which, you know,

00:08:50.780 they wanted him to go to school, study, eventually work for a university, and just kind of follow the

00:08:57.100 same path that most, I think, Japanese follow, right? This is what you're supposed to do. This 1.00

00:09:01.520 is what you will do. And this is what your life is going to be on a day-to-day basis. And something

00:09:06.120 inside my dad just said, I don't want that. I don't want that type of future. And he came and he risked

00:09:12.360 a lot, right? He didn't have any money. He just had, I think he had a camera in which he sold upon

00:09:16.840 his arrival, and that's what he used to begin his life. So, I mean, I can't even imagine how difficult

00:09:21.180 that must have been coming to the U.S., not speaking a word of English in a time where Japanese were 0.99

00:09:27.800 not exactly the most accepted people in our country. And then trying, and he used to tell me that he was

00:09:33.200 like, oh, I was, you know, I was a bartender. I was like, how could you possibly be a bartender if you

00:09:37.780 don't speak English? And my dad's just, like, really short, too. So, I can only imagine what that looks

00:09:42.560 like. And also, the grief that he probably got from all the people who were ordering drinks that he would

00:09:45.820 probably mess up. So, he said that he, like, slammed his head against the, you know, the door, like,

00:09:49.980 many, many, many times. He's trying to figure it out. And he did. Yeah, it's not exactly a forgiving

00:09:54.820 crowd, right? Like, six drinks in, when someone gets their drinks screwed up, they're less likely to be

00:10:00.420 empathetic to the guy struggling. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure it was really challenging. But, and then my dad, like,

00:10:06.520 weirdly, he said that he was studying, I think he was studying accounting, and then someone asked, or he was

00:10:12.760 walking by, like, one of the classes was hosting, like, a haircutting competition. And that's when my

00:10:19.020 dad said, oh, that looks interesting. I could use some extra money. Let me try that. So, he entered

00:10:23.320 the competition, essentially, like, got in, like, third place or something, like, randomly, and then

00:10:28.480 began his career to pursue being a hairstylist, which is really, really, if you knew my dad, it makes

00:10:34.480 sense now. But even when I hear the story, it's just, nothing adds up. And he begins his life, and he

00:10:39.900 actually was, and started a pretty interesting career as a hairstylist, and more than a barber,

00:10:45.360 I guess you could say, and was starting to travel the world, had some success. And he said that

00:10:49.580 everything was changed, obviously, when I was born. And upon my arrival, both my father and my mom,

00:10:58.060 I think they were obviously going through some conflicted times. And so, they divorced. My father

00:11:02.060 took full custody of me, and he didn't know how to raise a child. His only...

00:11:07.900 How old was your dad? Do you remember when you were born?

00:11:11.680 I don't know, because my dad's telling me he's been 35 since I was born.

00:11:14.980 So, yeah, which is kind of funny.

00:11:16.680 That's a great anti-aging strategy.

00:11:18.420 Yeah, yeah. And he looks great, too. He looks not his age at all. So, he, again, you know,

00:11:23.680 my dad, his only context for raising a son was the fact that people would come into a salon,

00:11:28.660 and that was his basis for conversation. Like, as your barber or your hairstylist, like, that's your

00:11:35.080 kind of personal psychologist if you've been seeing this person for, like, 10 plus years.

00:11:38.580 So, as he's going through this process of raising me, he's basically getting all these women who 0.99

00:11:42.660 come into a salon, like, free parental guidance advice on a daily basis. And I think he started

00:11:47.920 taking it.

00:11:48.480 Because that is kind of unusual when a couple splits, that the father would take soul control.

00:11:53.640 Do you know much about that in terms of... Has your dad talked to you about...

00:11:58.420 Yeah.

00:11:58.560 Because I remember, you know, I know you've told me before that you don't really have contact with

00:12:01.940 your mom. I mean, in fact, you've never had contact with your mom since she left, right?

00:12:05.160 Correct. Essentially, what my dad says is he is, I was the better suited to take care of you. And I

00:12:10.940 also felt, even though I knew nothing about raising you, I would do, and I had the ability to do what

00:12:16.380 it takes to raise you properly. At least that's what I thought. At least provide some form of kind

00:12:22.400 of security blanket for my one and only child. And that's exactly what he did. And so, it is

00:12:28.060 interesting. You know, I never met my mom. Even when I have a conversation, like, with my

00:12:31.580 girlfriend, she's like, haven't you ever wanted to just meet her? And it's really strange when I say

00:12:36.900 it, but I never think about it, right? So, I grew up in a single-parent household. Everyone in my

00:12:42.860 neighborhood pretty much was a single-parent household in some capacity, or they were raised

00:12:46.040 by their grandmother or grandfather. I didn't grow up in a bad neighborhood by any means, but that just

00:12:50.480 was very normal where I grew up. And so, to me, I never thought about it, right? And I never

00:12:55.140 understood what that was like having two parents, but I didn't know. And so, my dad did an excellent

00:13:00.800 job, obviously, raising me, but there was never an inclination or a want to actually meet her.

00:13:07.560 And I think as I get older, there is more questions of, I'd like to know from her perspective what

00:13:12.680 happened. And, you know, I think we all have those kind of interesting thoughts and moments where we

00:13:17.260 want to just divulge and just say, like, man, like, I'd like to know my other half, right? My mom was

00:13:23.200 adopted, which I found out much later. So, her background and ethnicity is also somewhat

00:13:28.480 mysterious, which is why my kind of fascination with trying to understand my own genealogy and

00:13:33.180 background and historical context.

00:13:34.940 Have you been able to dig into that through, because the problem was if you're using stuff

00:13:38.800 like Ancestry, you have to sort of have enough information to put in the system.

00:13:42.360 Yep. Yeah, exactly. This was maybe in 2006 or something, I think it was, maybe 2005. NBC was doing a

00:13:50.780 show called Who Do You Think You Are? It might have been 2003, I don't remember. But I remember during

00:13:55.280 that time, essentially, what they would do is they would ask for your permission, they would then find

00:13:59.920 out every single thing there is to know about one side of your family. So, you say, okay, I want to

00:14:03.640 know more about my father or my mom. And so, I was really interested in my Japanese heritage. And so, I

00:14:08.720 had asked them to start really diving deep on my father's side. And then they, you know, they had

00:14:13.460 traveled to Japan, they started talking to people in Japan. And for people who know, Japan is such a

00:14:18.620 small, but highly protective society, especially when it comes to personal records. And they

00:14:25.900 essentially got, they got zero information. And for whatever reason, so they're like, we know that

00:14:30.880 you have probably some like samurai blood from this Yasunaga clan in your grandmother's side of the

00:14:37.120 family. But that's really all we can get out of this thing. Wow. So, I was like, kind of disappointed.

00:14:42.080 But to go back, my relationship with my mom was, there was none. For all you know, you could have half 1.00

00:14:47.500 siblings, of course. Your mom was presumably quite young when your parents split. She could

00:14:50.980 have very easily remarried. Yeah. And she still keeps in contact, I think. It's been many years,

00:14:56.740 but she was, at least until my very first Olympic Games, in contact with my father. And essentially

00:15:01.460 said and called him after she had heard that I had won my first Olympic gold medal. I'm very proud of

00:15:06.640 him. I've been following him. She lives in the Pacific Northwest region. So, she obviously saw my face on

00:15:12.220 newspapers and on television leading up to the Olympic Games. So, I think she felt very proud,

00:15:16.780 but she did mention one thing to her dad. She's like, I feel this point in the life, in both of

00:15:21.540 our lives, I don't want to disrupt his path. And maybe when he's ready, he'll seek me out or

00:15:27.380 something of that nature. And so, that's kind of always been in the back of my head. I also have

00:15:31.760 this like weird protective side of me because I have so much love and respect for my father in

00:15:37.440 everything that he did. I don't want him to feel like he was less than if I go out and reach for my

00:15:42.760 mom, right? And it doesn't make sense. Do you think he would? No, I don't think so. But that

00:15:47.220 was inside me for a long time. And so, when you're raised in a parent household, I think you're skewed

00:15:52.560 in multiple ways. And they create little small micro traumas psychologically that maybe you don't

00:15:57.360 recognize when you're younger, or you're missing some elements which makes you more dependent.

00:16:01.980 Maybe you're more alpha. Maybe you're less. I don't know what that is. But for sure, it definitely,

00:16:06.840 I was not the most equilibrium-based athlete in the world. And I think a lot of athletes are like

00:16:11.980 that, right? I think there's always something that happens early stage. And for me, it was always like

00:16:16.500 my father would always teach me that you can always be better. You can always be better. You can always

00:16:20.060 be better. There's always another level to go to. Perfection is seemingly unattainable, but that's your

00:16:26.780 goal. And you don't stop until you get there. And that was like so drilled into me psychologically

00:16:32.520 from a young age. And it wasn't like super tiger dad, although thinking back, he did push me

00:16:39.840 extensively. I didn't get that feeling when I was a kid, but it definitely taught me a lot about my

00:16:45.840 ultimate goal is to probably make him happy and have respect for what I'm doing. And also, I want

00:16:53.280 to achieve that perfection. And I never did. I have had races where I would call it the perfect race,

00:16:57.820 but now when I look back, I'm like, oh, it was far from it, right? But I think that psychology

00:17:02.440 was, it started from my father and watching him in his work ethic. And, you know, I was always

00:17:09.000 athletic as a kid growing up in Seattle. And I had been, you know, I was a swimmer and I did track

00:17:12.900 and field and I wanted to play football. He said, no, I wanted to box. He said, no, I saw this crazy

00:17:18.760 sport of short track speed skating. And I was actually, at the time I was swimming a lot. And my father

00:17:24.420 wanted me to go to Stanford or Michigan full ride. That was his goal, right? And we were getting

00:17:28.920 these weird, like conversational, actual snail mail letters. I remember back then basically telling my

00:17:34.660 father, if your son continues on this path of excellence in swimming, we would love to have

00:17:38.820 a conversation about having him become accepted into this school. This was from Stanford. I forgot

00:17:43.480 what year it was. What was your stroke? It was breaststroke and backstroke were my two. So I was 50 and

00:17:47.920 100 meter breaststroke. Do you remember what your best hundred year breaststroke was? I don't remember,

00:17:52.260 but I do remember my 50 meter backstroke. I broke like some 20 year state record at one time. And I

00:17:56.920 remember because the guy who record who I broke at the time, he was still like, he was like semi

00:18:02.180 coaching. And my coach at the time, Bill Christensen brought me up there and he's like, oh, you know,

00:18:07.860 this is the kid who broke your 20 year record. And the guy's like, wow, you know, I have no idea.

00:18:12.460 Well, what's interesting is, you know, usually backstrokers don't make good breaststrokers and vice versa

00:18:17.180 because backstroke and freestyle are long axis strokes, breaststroke and fly are short axis

00:18:22.000 strokes. In your case though, I can see there's, there's an interesting thing, which is your legs

00:18:27.000 are so freakishly strong and those are the two leg driven sports. So those are both what we would

00:18:33.360 call rear wheel drive sports versus front wheel drive strokes. So it's interesting to think that

00:18:38.340 you would be perfectly suited to do that, which means you would have been probably a really good

00:18:41.940 I am or as well. Yeah, I was, I was decent. My a hundred meter I am. I don't remember any of my

00:18:46.440 times. Look, we're talking like when I was 12, 13 years old. Right. So a lot can happen between

00:18:51.520 that and college, but still, I mean that there was something there. I want to go back to something

00:18:55.780 you said a moment ago, right. Which was at a very young age, your dad sort of instilled in you this.

00:19:00.360 I don't want to put words in your mouth. I don't think you said it as the need to be perfect,

00:19:03.640 but a, a quest for perfection. You know, I talk about this a lot with my daughter,

00:19:07.480 which is this idea of mastery, which is the, this process of trying to master something that

00:19:11.740 you'll never actually master. Cause that's technically not feasible is the beauty. Like

00:19:16.920 that's the thing. And you know, books that have been written about, it's usually written about

00:19:21.520 athletes, but I think it can apply to musicians or any number of other fields. They talk about the,

00:19:26.220 the common bond that seems inherent to many of these people who have achieved greatness like you

00:19:32.420 have is this love of practice. Did you sense that early on? Did you enjoy the practice or were you

00:19:39.500 more task or goal oriented as far as the outcome? Early in my career, I would say that I wasn't,

00:19:45.740 I didn't enjoy the process as much. It was based on sheer talent. And this is, I'm talking from the

00:19:52.640 age of 14 until I was probably about 17. And you started skating at what, 13?

00:19:58.280 I started skating. I actually started really, really skating at 12. I started really training

00:20:03.040 at the age of 14. So you started swimming what, like as a five, six year old?

00:20:06.440 About eight. Swam locally and, you know, local competitions and state competitions. And then

00:20:11.160 when I saw the sport of short track speed skating in 1992 and again in 1994, that's when I said,

00:20:16.380 wow, this is an amazing sport. I used to inline and quad skate, like on the side at the nearby

00:20:21.560 local skating rink. I feel like I could do that. That seems pretty easy. It also looks ridiculous,

00:20:26.700 right? These guys are wearing these, when you're like 11, 12 years old and you see these guys skate,

00:20:30.680 it looks fake. And then when my father drove me North to Vancouver, BC, I saw it live because

00:20:36.160 the Canadians, they obviously love winter sports. I was like, this is the most incredible sport I've

00:20:40.580 ever seen in my life. It doesn't make sense how these human beings can be leaning over these

00:20:44.380 impossible angles on a blade. That's one millimeter thick. And they're wearing outfits that resemble

00:20:50.140 Superman without the Cape. Like literally that's what they're doing. And they just have helmets on.

00:20:53.680 I was like, this is perfect. Like I have to do this sport, right?

00:20:57.620 Superman without the Cape. Now that I think about it, there's, you know,

00:21:00.300 flying around this. I was going to say like, why don't they just have the capes on? It would be so much

00:21:04.220 cooler. Yeah. That'd be cool actually. Well, I want to come back to the evolution,

00:21:08.480 but let's pause for a moment and have you explain the difference between short track,

00:21:14.220 long track, inline, all of these different types of skating.

00:21:17.040 Sure. So inline skating is predominantly done outdoors and they skate and they have competitions

00:21:24.100 all around the world. Now they have velodrome like competitions, but it's in. So if you've ever seen

00:21:28.940 a velodrome track for track cycling inside of that as a warmup area, that's where inline speed

00:21:35.480 skating competitions are being held in places like Bogota, Colombia, which is by the way,

00:21:41.900 Colombia is huge into inline skating. I don't know why or how, but it's been huge there. And so I

00:21:47.960 being, growing up in the Pacific Northwest and having rain be a very big part of our culture,

00:21:52.020 where I did indoor skating. So think of your imaginary like roller rink and you have four

00:21:57.640 pylons, right? One for each corner and you basically skate around. And you're on like a

00:22:01.940 roller blade, but it's got how many wheels per the blade? I started out in quad skates. So two in the

00:22:06.360 front, two in the back. Okay. Right. And then it's just basically just speed skating. So like,

00:22:10.020 if you've ever been on a roller rink growing up as an American and it says, okay, it's time for

00:22:14.020 speed skating. And everyone goes out there and they play a song and we just skate around really fast and

00:22:17.340 finish. Right. Like that's literally how I learned. And then, and then someone in the local roller

00:22:22.320 rink was like, Hey, you should try out for our club. And I was like, okay, that looks, that seems

00:22:25.420 fun. And my dad at that point was like, anything I can do to create more fatigue in this child,

00:22:30.900 I'm in. I just want to get him exhausted. Cause your dad is working nonstop. He's working all day

00:22:36.920 long. He comes home, he's exhausted. And I'm like this kid who's just completely berserk out of

00:22:41.560 control. Like I just, I never get tired. I could just run and run, run, run, run, run,

00:22:46.020 just insatiable appetite for everything. Were you getting into trouble at all?

00:22:50.640 Absolutely. Absolutely. It was very mischievous and environment has a lot to do with that. But

00:22:55.120 for whatever reason, I was, I excelled pretty early in some gifted programs when I was a child. And

00:23:00.840 my dad was very much a proponent of pushing education and cramming it down my throat and

00:23:07.160 being like, look, take this test until you pass it. Basically. How did your dad have the time to

00:23:11.460 even oversee how you were doing in school and overseeing your, you know, looking over your

00:23:17.700 shoulder while you're trying to get your homework done? Like how, how did, do you ever reflect back

00:23:22.520 on what that even meant? I mean, I don't think he really could, right? I think he did what he,

00:23:27.420 what he could. I mean, I, I, most of my childhood was spent, my father was not there during the day.

00:23:32.460 So I would go to, go to school on my own. I would come back on my own. And then until he came home and I

00:23:36.820 can, you know, come back from school at 3 PM or something like that until 7, 8 PM, sometimes 9,

00:23:41.780 10 PM, he's not there. And I'm alone in the house. I had to cook for myself. And you're

00:23:45.420 eight, nine years old. Yeah. Very, very young. So at a very early age, I was very independent on

00:23:51.340 just relying on myself to kind of succeed. I didn't think anything of it at the time. Like

00:23:56.120 I was a latchkey kid. Right. I had no idea, but dad hates that word saying, I'm like, dad,

00:24:00.320 that's pretty much what it was. You know, there's no way I can remember many, many nights. It's

00:24:03.580 like dark outside. And I'm like, where's my dad? You know, like, this is weird.

00:24:06.480 But that's, that was the reality. And thinking back, like my dad, he put aside every single

00:24:11.940 want he had in his life, everything. And it was all about me. And for that, like, I feel

00:24:18.340 obviously eternally grateful, but also I learned so much from such a selfless man. I get it.

00:24:23.700 Like I'm his son. I'm the only son. I'm everything he has, everything he wants to do. He wants to

00:24:28.280 see me succeed. I didn't recognize it when I was that young. I do now. So every waking moment

00:24:34.500 was like, how do I create more experiences for this child? How do I take, you know, my

00:24:39.960 son to, we don't have a lot of money. So how do I take him to nature and experience things

00:24:44.320 that are free? Right. How do we go out and we can draw, we can create something in the

00:24:48.700 sand. I can go and appreciate the ocean. If that takes us a drive. I mean, we used to drive

00:24:53.620 to all competitions. Like we would drive from Seattle to Prince George, Canada. That's a far

00:24:58.500 drive in the middle of winter to go skate one day competition against Canadian kids who

00:25:03.700 I don't know. I'm the only American there. And my dad is like basically driving for two

00:25:08.740 days straight with no sleep, just so I can have that experience. When you're that young,

00:25:12.640 you don't recognize how much of a sacrifice. It's incredible. Right. And then like, I think

00:25:17.280 about now I can't even do that now. Like, and I'm, I feel like vibrant and peaking at this

00:25:23.080 36 year age. Right. So I just have a tremendous amount of respect for my dad in terms of his

00:25:27.120 dedication, sacrifice just because he's one of the best. And he didn't know like what was

00:25:31.260 good, what was bad. He just tried to do everything. So going back to the skating. So that's what

00:25:35.440 inline is. And then talk about the different disciplines of skating on ice. Yeah. So you've

00:25:40.740 got their short track speed skating, and then there's long track speed skating. Long track

00:25:44.560 is the one that's been around forever. Like that's when we go back and see the Olympics 50

00:25:48.340 years ago. Correct. That was long track. Correct. So long track speed skating is what most

00:25:52.300 people think of as predominantly being on an outdoor ice surface. That's a 400

00:25:56.940 meter oval. So imagine that you just had a track and field track and you basically just,

00:26:02.640 you just, it froze over during the winter and you poured ice and that's your, and you

00:26:05.780 had used a Zamboni. That's your track. Long track speed skating has the 500 meters. It

00:26:10.860 has the 1000 meters, the 1500 meter, the 5,000 and the 10,000. It's sort of parallels

00:26:16.180 running. Yes. In distances. Yes. But you also in long track speed skating, it's all about

00:26:20.720 time. So you've got your own lane. No one interferes with you. You know, you can have

00:26:25.080 some moments where your pair, which you're skating with is, you know, he's in front of

00:26:29.460 you. You can basically get a little bit of draft on the back end of, of a straightaway,

00:26:32.980 but for the most part, it's, it's you against the clock and there's no hiding, right? You

00:26:38.400 can't like, as soon as you stop skating, you kind of immediately start to slow down with

00:26:42.240 the exception of like some gliding, but the most part like time trialing, like just like

00:26:46.200 being on a bike, there's no hiding, there's no cheating. And when I first started, I actually

00:26:50.040 started out how I started out doing long track as a proponent, because that's what everyone

00:26:54.860 does in Calgary and in other parts of Butte, Montana, I would skate. So that's long track

00:27:00.300 speed skating. The skate itself used to be a fixed boot and a fixed blade, meaning there's

00:27:05.820 imagine a shoe and then on your heel. And then again, on your call under the ball, the ball

00:27:13.160 of your foot are these two cups that basically just, they just lock into the bottom of the shoe.

00:27:18.460 And then on the bottom of that is, is the skate.

00:27:20.260 And how long is the blade?

00:27:21.920 The blade's about 17 to 18 inches long. It's again, it's only about a millimeter thick,

00:27:26.320 a little bit thinner than a short track blade. The actual bend and rocker of the skate is different,

00:27:31.480 but it's a relatively flat blade, correct?

00:27:33.460 It's very flat.

00:27:34.480 I used to play hockey growing up, but I was a goalie and goalies have a much longer,

00:27:39.180 flatter skate than the skaters. The skaters have a very rounded blade. And so when you're a goalie,

00:27:44.180 you have all of this equipment on, so you're relatively slow, but in a straightaway, a goalie,

00:27:49.440 even with all his equipment can generally skate pretty fast, even relative to the regular skater,

00:27:53.720 just because you have more blade on the ice. So I'm assuming, I don't know how many inches it is,

00:27:58.860 but it's obviously much shorter than what you're describing. So when you have what, 17,

00:28:03.360 18 inches of surface on that ice, that's a, that's a ton of contact, right?

00:28:07.860 A ton of contact, but it's, it's only in between the two cups at any moment. And even shorter,

00:28:11.940 actually of the time of which your, your blade is touching the ice. We can get into those kind

00:28:16.200 of details indifferently, but that's long track speed skating. They then evolved to a clap skate,

00:28:20.120 which means that the rear heel of the blade was hinged and it detaches so that when you push

00:28:25.440 the blade actually still stays on the ice as the heel comes off. So you get like a five to 15%

00:28:31.200 additional advantage every single time you push. And I was, I watched that phenomenon come on.

00:28:36.760 How much of an impact did that have on times?

00:28:39.420 It changed everything. It changed who was good. It changed who wasn't good. It changed which

00:28:43.980 countries were really strong for a period of time because people couldn't understand how to skate

00:28:48.760 in a clap skate mechanism because the technique is so much different. And it really became a lot to do

00:28:54.860 with the type of equipment that you had and your ability as an athlete to transfer your power through

00:29:00.100 the clap skate mechanism. You could be the world's greatest on a fixed skate mechanism,

00:29:04.260 go to the clap skate and not even make the top 20. So it was a really difficult learning curve for a lot

00:29:09.640 of athletes. And a lot of people started just to just basically give up and they just, they just

00:29:12.840 dropped out. What year did that transition take place? This was 1995 when we really started to see

00:29:20.280 it. 95, 96 and 97 was when that was the peak years of the clap skate. What drove that technological

00:29:26.600 change? Was there some whispering that, oh, this is politically motivated to change the power

00:29:31.080 structure within the sport? And because which countries prior to the nineties were the most

00:29:36.340 dominant in long track? Well, I would say with the exception of the Americans, right? It's always been 0.99

00:29:42.020 the Europeans were always the best. A couple of Japanese, but for the most part, it was always the 1.00

00:29:47.280 Europeans, meaning the Netherlands, some of the Germans and some of the Russians. Though Eric

00:29:51.640 Heiden in 1980, has anyone ever matched that feat? No one has ever matched that feat. I don't think

00:29:57.320 everyone ever will match that feat. And that feat again was he won five golds, didn't he? He won

00:30:02.500 the 500, the thousand. He won all the distances in one Olympic games, which is, it would be like

00:30:08.680 Usain Bolt. No, no, it's, it's, yeah, there's no, there's no way to explain that. I mean, the closest

00:30:12.860 thing to that that I would see in recent times is Katie Ledecky winning the 200, the 400, the 800 in 0.78

00:30:19.740 the Olympics. If there were a 1500, which there is in the worlds, but not in the Olympics, don't get me

00:30:24.500 started on that. She would have won that as well. Right. But you're right. I mean, it's sort of like

00:30:29.240 Prefontaine at one point holding the American record in everything from, I think the, you know,

00:30:35.600 1500 to the 10K. Then of course, to win the gold in all of those is. Eric was a specimen. He was a very

00:30:42.120 special genetic human being and is. Aside from that, his work ethic was astronomically high and he was a

00:30:51.900 complete, this guy was a savage when it came to training. He would bury and still does, by the way,

00:30:58.980 bury most people on a bike and he doesn't train anymore. He's just, his ability to tolerate pain

00:31:04.920 and threshold and lactic acid is like when I, it's like when you watch a racehorse and that racehorse is

00:31:12.140 obviously in pain, but doesn't slow down. It's very similar. And when I was growing up, Eric Hyden was

00:31:18.160 the king. And to be honest with you, he's, to me, he's still the king. And I tell him he's still a

00:31:22.300 king because what he did was so ridiculously difficult. And my sport of short track speed

00:31:27.200 skating, by the way, is very different than long track. Yeah. I want to come to that. But before

00:31:30.760 we leave Eric Hayden, I mean, one, I know we've talked a little bit about some of his training.

00:31:34.780 I want to hear more about that later on. But my, my one connection to him is of course he went to

00:31:38.800 med school at Stanford, which is where I went. And when I was in med school, you know, I used to ride my

00:31:42.560 bike a lot. And there's this very famous hill near Stanford called old La Honda, which is sort

00:31:47.540 of the benchmark hill for cyclists. And anyone listening to this who rides a bicycle in the Bay

00:31:53.080 area knows old La Honda and not only knows it knows their time up it because that is the metric. 0.82

00:31:58.600 That is the equalizer. It's about three and a half, 3.6 miles. It's got a number of switchbacks.

00:32:04.480 It's relatively steep. I feel like it's almost 7% grade on average. And I believe the benchmark time

00:32:10.580 is about 20 minutes. So if you're below 20 minutes, you're allowed to call yourself a cyclist.

00:32:14.920 If you're takes more than 20 minutes, you know, you ride a bike. So it took me a while to break 20

00:32:22.360 minutes. My roommate in medical school, his name is Matt McCormick. He was about 17 minutes, 20 seconds,

00:32:28.360 which was exceptional. He was certainly the fastest of any of the people that I knew on a bike.

00:32:33.660 Eric Hayden apparently was about 14 and a half minutes up old La Honda, which was and remains to my

00:32:40.060 knowledge, the record up that hill. And I used to, I had a model that I built that would calculate how

00:32:45.600 many watts you needed to average to go up that hill. And I forgot, I don't think I've ever plugged

00:32:50.320 Eric's time into it, but it wouldn't surprise me if that were a 600 watt effort given his body weight.

00:32:57.520 He's a big guy. Eric Hayden was a very big and heavy, obviously quad dominant athlete.

00:33:02.680 So, I mean, I should go back and do that. But I think for someone, Eric's weight to have gone up that

00:33:07.800 in 14 and a half minutes, it's hard for me to imagine he could have done that at less than 600

00:33:12.720 watts, which anybody who's ever stepped foot on any sort of ergometer knows that like anybody can hold

00:33:18.740 600 watts for 10 seconds. Most people can't do it for a minute. Very few people can hold 600 watts for

00:33:24.460 a minute to hold it for 14 and a half minutes. That's so much power. And then of course he became

00:33:28.740 a professional cyclist. Right. And I think he rode in a couple of tours. Yeah. Yeah. I think he rode

00:33:33.280 for 7-Eleven and he's, he's an orthopedic surgeon now and I've never met him or know him at all,

00:33:38.340 but it's hard for people who don't follow that sport, myself included, to really reflect on what

00:33:42.480 it would mean to be the best in the world at such a broad range of distances, because those are

00:33:48.420 physiologically completely different events. I mean, the 500 and the 10,000 have nothing in common,

00:33:54.620 really. No. They're completely different energy systems.

00:33:57.800 They're different technique, different energy systems, different training.

00:34:00.560 I didn't even realize that. So of course that makes sense. Different technique, right? It's the

00:34:03.260 difference between someone running 200 meters versus someone running 5K.

00:34:07.640 There's different equipment involved. I mean, it's, there's so many things that are so,

00:34:12.380 and in the eighties, I think sports science was, especially in speed skating, was never a huge part

00:34:17.940 of what we did like track and field and like cycling, which are, in my opinion, at the absolute

00:34:24.040 pinnacle of pushing that, that red line, right? Of utilizing science and what we understand of the

00:34:30.880 sport. Speed skating is a very unconventional, it's a uncomfortable position to be in. It's not

00:34:38.440 natural to speed skate being in that position, especially as a long track speed skater. So,

00:34:43.200 you know, to train for that, what is, and it still is really, really excruciating and there is no

00:34:50.200 balance, right? We only turn left. So, you know, there's lots of imbalances aside from physical

00:34:55.460 being and, but Eric was a huge part of that motivation to train like an animal, as was Lance

00:35:01.700 and a lot of the other guys who at least I looked up to as being superhuman, not only for their

00:35:08.580 accomplishments, but the way that they mentally attacked pain and training, because that's where

00:35:14.600 you win your, your actual wars in the training. Right. When you get to the competition, you can't do

00:35:19.960 anything. So if you didn't show up ready, you can't hide that, you know, in my sport,

00:35:24.460 you can only lose it by showing up with, in the wrong headspace, but the right headspace won't win

00:35:29.520 it. If you haven't done the work, your likelihood of, of doing very well is dramatically much higher

00:35:34.300 if you prepare. And I think that's goes with pretty much anything. So I, I was really interested

00:35:38.600 in that psychology of what makes up someone like that. So I, you know, with Eric Heiden and many

00:35:44.380 other athletes who trained to the same tutelage of his original coaches. And I believe her name

00:35:50.220 was Diana Holum. She was based in Milwaukee, in the Madison region of the Midwest. And her training 0.91

00:35:58.360 methods were very unconventional and they were obscene and they probably would be deemed very,

00:36:03.380 uh, you know, almost punishment.

00:36:04.880 They're on par with waterboarding today. It's like, uh, yeah, like not allowed to do that training.

00:36:10.060 Yeah. Like, Hey Eric, here's what we're going to do since you're, you know, and by the way,

00:36:13.620 like we had a hundred athletes to start only 12 remain. That's our team. Now we start training

00:36:18.920 together. So you can imagine because the other 88 got broken. Yeah. Broken very early or they just

00:36:23.660 didn't have the, you know, the ability to recover based on pure genetics at this time. And that's how

00:36:29.760 we trained back then and watching and hearing these stories about Eric going up the Lake Placid ski

00:36:34.640 hill with a large rope tied around him. And that is tied to a tractor trailer truck tire. Right. And

00:36:43.900 he's just doing hill sprints up and down for like three hours. And he just, he was, he just did crazy

00:36:50.080 stuff like Rocky style training. And that mentality, like, I mean, for me as an athlete, sports science

00:36:56.380 is amazing. And I wish I concentrated more on it, but that psychology was what I was actually really,

00:37:02.360 really interested in. That's what I loved. I love to do stuff that people thought was completely

00:37:06.820 obscene and crazy. And, you know, like for me, like I would say 80% of my career, all my races were

00:37:14.060 won ever before I, I got to the start line. The other competitors were racing for second. And they

00:37:19.100 just, they just knew that I was like just completely off my rocker. I was not in the same headspace as

00:37:24.120 them. I was different. I didn't talk to anybody. I was, and I wanted to create that kind of bubble.

00:37:29.060 Right. And I got that from these kinds of legends who I looked up to.

00:37:32.900 There's a video that we'll definitely make sure we link to this. I have a feeling this podcast

00:37:36.840 will have more links to videos than most of ours, but there's a video that I remember seeing. It was

00:37:41.720 like probably six, seven minutes long. And it had some snippets or highlights of some of your training

00:37:45.940 and actually was discussing it with Lance Armstrong. Once we were having dinner and I was like, dude,

00:37:51.160 you got to see this video of what Apollo was doing. And you were doing, I think single leg

00:37:57.240 lateral jumps up two steps at a time. Yeah. Yeah. Most likely. 0.99

00:38:01.460 I mean, Jesus Christ. I feel like I've done some crazy things in my day. I just don't think I have

00:38:07.760 the explosiveness single leg. That's the thing. Most people don't appreciate how much of a reduction

00:38:12.600 you have in power when you go from two to one leg. Right. It's not half the power. You're losing

00:38:17.260 way more than half when you take that second leg away and then adding to it that you're doing it

00:38:22.380 laterally. Yeah. Like it's, and I remember in the video, it says, yeah, this is basically a 48

00:38:28.000 minute set. Yeah. That was probably following like an eye session. Yes. Like a two and a half hour eye

00:38:32.420 session. That's where you would, we would do those. I mean, how often does someone get injured doing

00:38:36.700 that? Because the thing that struck me is like, look, you can be the best stud in the world. You can

00:38:41.240 have the toughest head in the world, but at some level your ankle's going to catch on that stair and

00:38:44.940 you're going to fall over a ladder. Like you're always just one millimeter away from breaking your ankle.

00:38:49.380 You're looking at me like, no, that would never happen. Yeah. Never thought about that. Never

00:38:53.620 saw it. Never thought about it. Definitely the risk is there. But then, I mean, then again,

00:38:57.580 you know, in short track speed skating, I mean, we skate together every day, sometimes twice a day

00:39:03.280 for four to six hours a day. And we're inches from each other. And that blade is literally this close

00:39:09.340 to my face. Now, if this blade gets this close to my face, it's going to slice my face off. 0.99

00:39:13.560 Just for reference, that's like, like that's 12 inches from your face is where you're putting 0.98

00:39:16.840 that blade. I mean, every day, every crossover, every lap. Is that why you have such a smooth shave?

00:39:24.060 The sport was very dangerous. And I used to do really dumb stuff. Like we would have at one point 0.99

00:39:29.900 in the ISC, the International Skating Union implemented a rule that had to have, you had 0.93

00:39:35.260 to have a neck guard to protect your neck and all major arteries on the body needed to be covered with

00:39:41.960 a cut proof material like Kevlar. And so everyone was wearing these cut proof material inside of

00:39:48.760 the skin suit. So it was basically sewn into the skin suit, the racing suit. And I hated the feeling

00:39:54.120 of the Kevlar because it didn't stretch. I used to cut mine out. So I would raise, it's completely

00:39:59.220 legal, right? But I used to cut mine out and I used to race, we call it racing naked, right? So you'd

00:40:04.080 race naked. So if I fall with another skater, the likelihood of me getting cut is like 80%.

00:40:09.480 And you're done. Like that's one time you're done. But you know, when you're young and you're dumb,

00:40:13.860 I did many, many dumb things like that. But now they actually check before you get on the ice. 0.99

00:40:18.160 You know, they see if you've altered the skin suit.

00:40:21.020 So what year was short track a demonstration sport? Was it 92?

00:40:25.440 88 in Calgary.

00:40:26.700 88. Okay. And so what was the impetus for creating this new sport?

00:40:31.500 You know, I'm not sure because the sport actually has been around for a long time. And people used

00:40:35.180 to do short track speed skating outdoor in New York city, I think in the sixties.

00:40:39.780 I see. So it was just one of those things where the sport had been around forever and it was like,

00:40:43.180 now we're just going to bring it to the Olympic level.

00:40:45.200 Yeah. And it was, you go from long track speed skating, which is all about time.

00:40:49.400 It's imagine like you're watching a track and field race, but no one can ever go outside their lane.

00:40:53.220 You know, we see that in a hundred meters, but imagine like a mile, you can't move.

00:40:56.500 This is the lane you're given. And there's only two people on the track at a time. And everyone

00:41:00.200 does basically just does time trials. So that was like, not that interesting to me.

00:41:04.260 And also I just liked the fact of racing was so much more, it was just more intimate. Right.

00:41:10.200 And it was psychologically a huge part of what I wanted to race against other athletes and

00:41:14.680 outsmart or out strategize them. And I liked that moment of risk. And so short track speed skating is

00:41:19.900 very different than long track speed skating. So you go from a 400 meter oval outdoor to,

00:41:26.020 and long track is also indoor, but to a Olympic size hockey rink. And the track is 111 meters

00:41:33.020 around at the inside at the tightest perimeter, right? That's the actual track size. And you've

00:41:39.040 got, instead of just two people on the track at a time going for against the clock, you've got five

00:41:45.020 to six, sometimes seven to eight skaters on the start line at once, all racing and jockeying for

00:41:50.340 position and drafting each other and passing on the inside and outside and grabbing each other,

00:41:54.400 bumping, making mistakes and, you know, leaning over these angles because it's such a tightly

00:41:59.880 held oval inside. Our skates are set up differently. We don't have a clap skate. It's a fixed skate.

00:42:05.980 We tried using clap skates in 1997 and 1998, but it just, it was, the sport is too dynamic and there's

00:42:12.020 too much weight transfer from the, from the ball of the foot to the heel of the foot where, you know,

00:42:16.540 sometimes I would lean so far forward on the ball of my foot. When I'm coming out of a corner,

00:42:20.520 my heel would lift off using a clap skate. And so it was just very, very dangerous. You couldn't,

00:42:24.920 you couldn't use that now. I mean, short track speed skating is one that the blades are so offset.

00:42:29.960 So imagine this is my, my skate. Instead of having the blade right in the middle, the blade is actually

00:42:35.340 way over here on the, on the left side, on both the left skate. Because you're always going left.

00:42:40.200 Because you're always going left and you're leaning over so much at these angles that you need to have

00:42:45.260 that additional offset to make sure that you can, you know, still have enough pressure on that leg

00:42:50.000 and also be able to maneuver properly. So. Wow. I never even realized that in watching that,

00:42:55.320 that your blades were not symmetric on the bottom of the boot. So. They're not even straight. They're

00:42:59.400 actually even sometimes tilted depending on the, what you like as a skater and your technical.

00:43:03.540 And you as a skater have some say in that degree of tilt. You have all the say. So your control over

00:43:08.900 your equipment is the one thing that is a huge part of short track speed skating that if you don't short

00:43:14.320 track speed skate, which I'm assuming no one on this listening to the podcast does, it's such a

00:43:18.880 huge part of the sport. It would be the difference between me feeling like I could never lose and me

00:43:24.060 feeling like I'm not going to make it into the quarterfinal. Like if my equipment feels that far

00:43:27.920 off, it just feels, you just feel like you lost all your power. Maybe I can use another example.

00:43:32.160 So imagine you're a boxer and you've got boxing gloves that weigh, you know, two pounds each.

00:43:36.440 And then imagine the next time you put the boxing gloves on, then I'll 10 pounds each.

00:43:40.480 That's, that's what it feels like. How much difference it feels like as an athlete,

00:43:44.180 when your equipment isn't, is not dialed in or, and then small things like the ice temperature,

00:43:49.500 the grip of the ice, meaning like your perfect body weight and the amount of power that you

00:43:54.440 typically generate in the corner. And they wet the ice, don't they? To give you guys more grip

00:43:59.440 because the angles you're at are ridiculous. We pour actually hot water in the corners of both

00:44:04.940 sides of the track. And we actually, we're actually skating on top of the water. We're actually not

00:44:08.840 digging in the ice. If you slow it down. So what's giving you the grip if you're not digging into the

00:44:13.040 ice? You technically are, but most of the time you're on top of the water. So the grip is a

00:44:17.300 combination of both the, the way that our blades are set up. There's such a hardcore bend in the

00:44:24.260 blade that when you lean over on that 1.1 millimeter piece of metal, the blade will flex to a certain

00:44:30.460 degree. And some of that bend comes out and what's remaining is still a curve that allows you to hook

00:44:36.640 yourself around that corner. Oh, I see. Wow. So if you laid that blade and it's maximally flexed

00:44:43.880 position on a flat surface from end to end, could you put like a dime underneath it? Does it have

00:44:50.140 that much bend or curvature in it? Not a dime, but you can see it. So like if I had my blade here,

00:44:54.380 I should have brought my skate and I didn't put any pressure on the blade and I just moved it over.

00:44:58.540 The only ends of the blade will be touching the middle part in between the two cups, which I

00:45:03.080 mentioned, which was the ball and the heel, that whole area doesn't touch the ice until I put a

00:45:07.800 lot of pressure. And then the ends no longer touch in the middle touches. So it's a, we bend our own

00:45:13.720 skates. We rocker our own skates. It's very, you know, it's very technical. We use a radius machine,

00:45:19.600 which measures one, one thousandth of a hair in between these two areas, which is about, I think

00:45:25.600 it's about like four and a half inches across the blade and we mark it. And so you're born in what?

00:45:30.900 82. 82. So when you're 10 years old, this is a demonstration sport in the Olympics. So by the

00:45:36.060 time you're 13, it's about ready to become a full-fledged Olympic sport. And it's sort of,

00:45:44.120 it's in the crosshairs now for you, which is, it's a sport that you're passionate about. Your dad's like,

00:45:48.740 fine, let's let him do this because it's better than him getting a concussion every day. When you

00:45:54.360 started, I'm just guessing you were quite naturally talented to begin with because you alluded to it

00:45:58.780 earlier that you didn't really start training until you were 14. So there was this year when

00:46:02.880 you were just getting by on talent. Yeah. Actually further than that. So, you know,

00:46:07.080 from 12 till 14, my father took me around to small local speed skating competitions and I was winning

00:46:13.240 most of them, even the ones internationally, which I say internationally, meaning just going to Canada

00:46:17.620 and I wasn't getting any competition in the States. I was getting all of my challenge from racing

00:46:23.120 against other athletes inside Canada. And I had beaten pretty much anyone west of Toronto.

00:46:29.220 And now it was a time where the only remaining place for me to compete in Canada was Montreal

00:46:35.100 because that's where the real skaters came out of. I see. So it's the, it's, it was Montreal,

00:46:39.920 not Vancouver that had the epicenter of skating. Yes. And like Fredericton and a few other places,

00:46:45.980 Quebec and Quebec city was a big producer of great Canadian short track speed skaters.

00:46:50.840 There's something about Quebec. I, I, growing up, I was really serious in martial arts and

00:46:54.680 boxing and yeah, like the national championships were always in Quebec or Ottawa, like someplace

00:47:00.940 close to Quebec. And the nationals was the only time you would face these guys. And they were like

00:47:06.300 a different breed, man. They're different breed. They were really, really tough dudes. Yeah.

00:47:11.100 They're tough guys. Yeah. And I had a lot of respect for them. The Canadians to me were always

00:47:14.840 very, very strong in the sport and they still are today. You know, short track speed skating is

00:47:20.560 not like cycling where you've, you've got all these different athletes from all these different

00:47:25.200 countries all over the world. At the time, there was only a few really, really strong countries

00:47:29.740 in short track speed skating. The U S was not one of them by the way.

00:47:32.560 So after, so in 92 in the demonstration year, that's sort of the moment when it, I guess,

00:47:40.300 presumably after 92 people say, well, okay, we're going to take this sport seriously. Now the countries

00:47:46.020 are deciding how much do we want to invest in this in terms of our athletic programs,

00:47:49.300 did the United States at that moment, did they do well enough in the demonstration games to decide,

00:47:54.340 let's put some resources into this? We did okay. We weren't definitely weren't dominant and we

00:47:59.020 weren't on the podium. I mean, on the women's side, Kathy Turner had won a gold in 92 and again,

00:48:04.380 in 94. Other than that, there was no real funding mechanism. We were there, but you know, at the time

00:48:09.680 people were training in the UP, they were training in Marquette, Michigan.

00:48:13.020 Now, were you thinking, cause now, by the time you get into the sport, it's 94,

00:48:17.800 which means there was another Olympic year. Cause that was the year, 94 was the year of summer and

00:48:21.480 winter offset. If I recall, right. That was the whole Nancy Kerrigan, Tanya Harding year,

00:48:26.420 wasn't it? If I recall, God, that makes me feel old. Cause I remember that like it was yesterday.

00:48:30.640 Were you thinking I want to go to the Olympics or were you just thinking, no, I just want to keep,

00:48:33.960 you know, sort of beating whoever I'm skating against and I'm going to still be a swimmer.

00:48:37.900 I knew that I didn't want to swim. I see. Okay. Yeah. It was around that,

00:48:40.940 around that time period. So you're kissing Stanford and Michigan goodbye.

00:48:43.680 I knew at that time that those were not in my path. Looking back, very interesting. And I don't,

00:48:50.400 I'm pretty sure I would have not gotten a full ride to Stanford if I had pursued it. Maybe I would

00:48:54.500 have, but I, you know, obviously I didn't. So, you know, at the age of 14, I was winning quite a bit

00:49:00.600 of competitions locally in domestically in the United States. And I was essentially being scouted by

00:49:06.120 a few of these junior development program coaches who at the time, the junior development program

00:49:11.680 was in Lake Placid, New York, the same place where the 1980 Olympic games were, where Hayden won his,

00:49:17.820 you know, amazing five medals and the miracle on ice from the U S beat the Soviets in the

00:49:23.100 semifinal. They went on and won the gold, but that's where I was going to have to move to.

00:49:27.840 And these coaches, Patrick Wendland at the time came to my father and said, we, we actually have a lot

00:49:32.760 of interest in bringing your son early. You have to be 15 years old to be admitted into this program.

00:49:38.000 I was only 14. And was this a summer only program or was this an academy where you'd actually go to

00:49:42.760 school? It's a real academy. Like you, you actually literally move there. You go to school there and

00:49:47.260 you train to be, hopefully the next stage would then go to the national team and train to go be

00:49:51.840 a part of the Olympic program. Okay. I didn't know what any of this stuff meant. Right. So they

00:49:55.780 approached your dad. They approached my father. They approached me. I wouldn't even know what that.

00:49:58.920 I was like, okay, that sounds not fun. You know, on the other side of the country,

00:50:02.500 like, I want to stay in Seattle. We've got, you know, very few sunshine days a year.

00:50:06.660 It's the summertime. Like, I don't want to go there. This was 1997, the summer of 1996.

00:50:13.220 And they essentially said, you know, we, we want Apollo to come. And what do you think? And

00:50:17.500 my father was like, absolutely. I got to get this kid focused on something. You know,

00:50:21.720 I kind of alluded before that I was pretty mischievous as a kid. I had difficulty concentrating

00:50:25.440 and staying on task to one specific thing. And are you one of those kids that today would

00:50:29.900 automatically get this label of attention deficit? For sure. I'm sure I would have been loaded up on

00:50:34.900 Ritalin, Adderall, all kinds of stuff. Right. So, which my dad was always, he wouldn't care if I

00:50:41.280 even got that diagnostic. He would never allow that. For some reason, my dad's been like 20 years ahead

00:50:45.460 of the game in terms of nutrition. I don't know where he learns this stuff, but anyway, different

00:50:49.400 topic. Well, he's got good lineage, right? I mean, if you, you know, just, just follow the Okinawa and

00:50:53.240 you're pretty much going to be okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Centaurians. My father then

00:50:58.040 approached me and I remember this very clearly. He's like, look, you've got this incredible

00:51:01.320 opportunity to train in Lake Placid, New York. You potentially could go on to be a part of the

00:51:07.060 Olympic team, which would mean that you would make the 1998 Olympic team in Nagano in Japan and

00:51:12.860 compete. Your grandfather is still alive. I'm from Japan. This is your heritage. This is, this is an

00:51:18.620 incredible opportunity. Wait, was that a real possibility that it was because you would have

00:51:22.960 only been 16, right? I would have only been 15. 15 in that for those Olympic games. Correct.

00:51:29.960 I mean, for a men's sport to go to the Olympics at 15 is almost unheard of. It's not unheard of for

00:51:36.020 women, but for men, that's really, yeah, that's amazing that they thought that that was a chance,

00:51:41.380 right? Yeah. So that was, that was the end. Like Michael Phelps went to his first Olympics at 15.

00:51:45.860 What most people don't realize is he was fifth in the 200 fly was the only event he went for,

00:51:50.260 which was still unbelievable. It's hard to believe that a 15 year old boy could have gone to the

00:51:55.700 Olympics and placed fifth in the world at arguably the second most grueling race in swimming, if not

00:52:03.240 the most grueling race in swimming. He went on to break his first world record before his 16th

00:52:09.260 birthday, if my memory serves me correctly, making him the youngest male athlete to ever have a world

00:52:15.660 record in a time sport. Yep. Michael's not human. I've known Michael for years. He's not human.

00:52:21.400 Doesn't matter what he says. And he trains like a monster, but he also is just not,

00:52:25.400 he is put on earth to be in that water. I think he told me one time, he said, I'm more comfortable

00:52:29.480 in the water than I am in my bed. It's more comfortable for me to be, I guess there's like

00:52:33.260 a sense of weightlessness, right? Yeah. But that's amazing. Well, actually you and Michael have

00:52:37.080 something in common, which is you are both the most decorated Olympians in the United States in the

00:52:41.840 Summer and Winter Games. Michael, of course, also being the most decorated Olympian ever,

00:52:45.580 but I don't think any U.S. Olympian is more decorated in the Winter Games than you, are they?

00:52:50.040 It's arguable and subjective, right? I had an amazing career and I was very blessed to be,

00:52:55.080 won that many medals, but I also had the opportunity to win a lot of medals too, right? So

00:52:58.740 like I grew up in the Olympic Training Center with these wrestlers. They only have a chance to win

00:53:02.780 one medal. Right, right. Yeah. No, certain sports are amenable to winning more medals.

00:53:05.780 That title has been kind of tasked over and over again. And I smile when I hear it because it's

00:53:11.180 amazing, right? But I still look at Eric Hyde and Bonnie Blair and they're very good friends of mine

00:53:15.380 and I still consider them to be like, you know, really on top of the podium.

00:53:20.200 So, okay. So it's summer of 96, you're basically being brought in 18 months before what could be your

00:53:27.300 first Olympics. Correct. So it is a summer of 96, opportunity to move to be part of the junior

00:53:34.360 development program. My father says, you got to do this. I'm at a mischievous age. I didn't

00:53:41.580 recognize my own talent. He says, yes. I say, no. He says, red. I say, black. Like I'm always the

00:53:47.900 complete opposite of what my father is saying. And so, you know, he essentially packs my bags,

00:53:55.080 tries to explain to me the incredible importance of what I'm about to embark upon, and then drives me

00:54:00.920 to SeaTac airport, drops me off, waves goodbye. And then I wave goodbye. I had a plan in my head

00:54:07.920 already what I was going to do next. And I walked right to the payphone, which we used payphones

00:54:11.900 back then in 96. Put a quarter in it.

00:54:14.540 Yep. Exactly. And I called my friend and I said, I'm supposed to go to New York today, but I'm not.

00:54:18.900 Come pick me up from the airport. And then for the next, like, I would say eight days,

00:54:23.360 I was bouncing around from like, no, like almost like 11 days, actually bouncing around from house to

00:54:28.080 house. All while my father believes that I'm still in Lake Placid, but I'm so angry. I'd never

00:54:34.700 called him. And he hadn't gotten a call from the... What did the coaches do when you didn't show up?

00:54:39.560 So the coaches called him eventually. I think this is probably like on day six or something

00:54:43.260 like that, right? And they're like, hey, Mr. Ono, you know, very curious. The offer is still wide

00:54:47.160 open. We just never heard from you. Or, you know, do you have plans on still attending? And my dad's

00:54:52.500 like, oh my God, you lost my son and, you know, all these things. And he figures out somehow which

00:54:58.960 house I was at, picks me up. He's very angry, obviously, because essentially I was running

00:55:03.260 away as a kid. And, you know, my dad has got this like sense of wisdom and he's noticing these like

00:55:09.400 small little habits that I had been doing as a child that he really, really tried to train out

00:55:14.180 of me. And he thought that by placing me in this kind of single discipline sport of going in circles

00:55:20.480 would do a lot psychologically from a beneficial perspective. I didn't know anything about that

00:55:25.980 time. All I knew is I didn't want to go there. Why do you think you didn't want to go? I mean,

00:55:29.600 you had been successful. Yeah. Do you think on some level you were afraid of going and finding out

00:55:34.740 you might not be as good as you thought you could be? I don't even think it was... I don't even think

00:55:38.620 I got that deep. I think it was just... I just didn't... I literally didn't want to go. I wanted to

00:55:42.500 hang out with my friends in the Seattle area. And it was that simple and also stupid that I was 0.99

00:55:49.040 going to be throwing away potentially because I could have very easily just said, no, I'm not 0.99

00:55:52.940 going to do this thing and done it again. Right. And just never went to New York. And then we would

00:55:56.620 never be sitting here talking about this. So credit again, my father, who the second time he comes and

00:56:02.020 takes me to the airport, gets on the plane. And with the second time, meaning it's still the summer

00:56:05.700 of 96. It's just like a couple of weeks later. Two weeks later. So first of all, I mean, that's pretty

00:56:09.700 interesting that the coaches there didn't say, well, forget this kid. Like he just failed the test,

00:56:14.320 right? Like the test was, do you have the mental fortitude to even show up on day one?

00:56:17.960 The coaches were like, we have to have this kid. He is, this kid is, he is going to make

00:56:23.160 US speeds getting like amazing. Those are not my words. These are things that they're trying to

00:56:27.980 tell my dad, which he tried to kind of tell me to me. But you know, when you're 14 and you don't

00:56:32.760 agree with anything your father says, it doesn't make any sense. And so again, this journey...

00:56:37.720 So this time he accompanies you there.

00:56:39.260 Oh, he makes sure. So he flies to Albany, New York. We take the drive to Lake Placid. He gets out of the car.

00:56:43.880 He shakes Patrick Whetland's hand, says, good luck. And he walked around and goes home,

00:56:47.820 you know? And Patrick Whetland's like, oh shit. Like I got this, this Calvin and Hobbes character 1.00

00:56:52.440 in my life. I don't need this kind of heat. And, but Patrick actually turned out to be an

00:56:58.600 incredible coach and mentor and guy.

00:57:00.960 Do you remember that first night?

00:57:01.920 It was just so awkward and weird. I mean, you're, I mean, I'm a 14 year old kid.

00:57:05.700 I'm living now in a dormitory. I've got roommates from parts of the country. I don't,

00:57:11.480 I've never heard of or recognize.

00:57:13.860 And they're all short track skaters or it's short, long skiers?

00:57:16.660 I mean, there's both, there's both. In the, in the junior Olympic program,

00:57:20.620 in the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center, you've got luge, you've got bobsled,

00:57:23.920 you've got cross country, you've got the ski jumping guys, you've got long and short track

00:57:27.980 speed skating, and you've got all the biathletes and you've got everyone there from the winter

00:57:32.680 regions because Lake Placid is very cold in the winter. And so I, I'm a complete fish

00:57:37.520 out of water. I look different. I talk different. I wear different types of clothes. I listen

00:57:42.120 to different types of music. I can't relate to anybody. And I feel, I hated it there the

00:57:46.940 first seven days. I remember this very viscerally. I really, really every day would call my dad

00:57:52.280 and be like, I hate it. This, this place is not for me. And my dad's like, just, you got

00:57:57.160 to give it 30 days. You have to be there for a month. Just give it time, give it time.

00:58:00.660 And prior to going, had you done much in the way of off ice training? Like, you know, you and I

00:58:07.160 have talked and we're going to talk later today about some of your legendary workouts in the

00:58:11.240 weight room. Had you discovered that yet? Or were you mostly an on ice guy and not doing a lot of

00:58:17.440 dry land? I mean, my dad would take me when I was a quad and inline skater, my dad would wake me up

00:58:22.820 really, really early in the morning before he went to work and he would make me go to the park and

00:58:27.580 skate. So the tiger dad or whatever you want to call it, that was very much, and I hated it by

00:58:32.400 the way. It was horrible. I hated it so much. I told my dad I want to quit one time because he was

00:58:37.280 like, oh, you want to quit? Okay. Tell me that you really, really want to quit. Okay. And for him,

00:58:41.900 it was never about me actually becoming the best. I don't think that actually was ever part of his

00:58:46.960 goal and life plan. His plan was to instill these mental strengths within me that never allowed me to

00:58:54.340 quit what I was doing to develop the capacity to understand what it was like to truly leave no

00:58:59.760 stones unturned during the preparation. And it's a very Japanese in his, in his way, right? Like, 0.97

00:59:04.860 okay, you want to do this one thing, then everything you do is dedicated towards being incredible. And

00:59:09.660 you know, like think about this, the Japanese sushi masters, right? They have seven years before

00:59:15.520 they're ever allowed to touch the fish. They're just making rice every day. Dude, I would blow my brains

00:59:21.220 out month two. Like I could not deal with that, right? You're telling me I'm an amazing sushi.

00:59:26.640 Like what happens if you're just really, really good and you're talented? Nope. There's, you can't

00:59:30.400 break the rules. It's going to take you seven years of touching this rice and making it perfect before

00:59:35.140 you're allowed to touch the fish. So like that kind of mentality of like this ever going method of

00:59:43.160 trying to become perfect. And my dad left Japan, so he didn't want to do that, but I think he,

00:59:47.580 he couldn't help himself. That's just a part of, well, I mean, my guess is he realized that maybe

00:59:52.520 at its most extreme end, it wasn't what was right for him, but I suspect he realized that there were

01:00:00.140 elements of that, that were beautiful, that were important and that he was succeeding as a result of,

01:00:06.200 I suspect he wanted you to have some elements of that discipline. And that again, passion might be

01:00:11.220 overly simplistic, but the ability to stay on that thread and master something,

01:00:16.620 which is interesting, right? Because look, like all parents, he wanted the best for you. He,

01:00:22.020 at this point, you know, you're 14. I, even maybe he couldn't have imagined you'd go on to be what

01:00:26.500 you did, but it was like, look, this kid's going to go to college and whatever he's learning here,

01:00:31.180 this grit will translate over to that next phase of his life.

01:00:34.440 And maybe he didn't really know when had a master plan. I think he did. And I think he'll tell you that

01:00:39.200 he did, but it wasn't exactly graphed out. Like he, you know, this is the recipe for having success and

01:00:44.900 being a successful father, which I consider my father to be, but it was, it was, it was tough,

01:00:49.700 right? I mean, you imagine I'm really, really, really young and I'm being forced at waking up

01:00:53.940 at like six or five in the morning to go skate outside in a park.

01:00:57.580 Oh, that's right. If I'm doing the math right, you're 14. You're a year younger than the normal

01:01:02.380 entry to this program, right?

01:01:03.620 Yep. Yep. That started. And when we, when I arrived in Lake Placid and I was going through the process of

01:01:10.120 understanding, like if I even liked the sport, like I'm probably like in week number two or three,

01:01:16.540 I started to recognize like, wow, this is, I feel a lot of freedom here. Like I don't, my dad's not

01:01:20.480 here. The only kind of authority figure I have is my coach who is really, really easy, but also I

01:01:27.840 respect because he's figured out a way to talk to me in a way that speaks to me.

01:01:31.940 Is he kind of your first real coach?

01:01:34.300 He's my first real coach.

01:01:35.860 So all of the, the previous year and a half or two years, you were,

01:01:39.720 it's my dad who obviously, you know, despite his greatness, doesn't really know much about

01:01:43.620 speed skating.

01:01:44.120 He knows nothing about speed skating.

01:01:45.100 So you're sort of like, you're just going out to the track and just, you don't have a strategy.

01:01:50.340 You're just trying to win.

01:01:51.600 Yeah. I mean, every time I would skate back then, it was sheerly based on talent, nothing more.

01:01:56.520 I didn't train.

01:01:57.580 In other words, off the line, you're going for broke every time you're not trying to be tactical

01:02:01.480 and outsmart somebody necessarily.

01:02:03.560 Yeah. Basically.

01:02:04.140 Yeah. And you know, arguably I was just better than most of those kids. They didn't,

01:02:08.300 in my eyes, they didn't know how to speed skate very well.

01:02:10.060 So now you got this coach and presumably he's looking at you being like, we got to break some

01:02:14.040 habits here.

01:02:15.120 Yeah. So we do the body composition test first and I'm like, obviously the highest,

01:02:19.160 my nickname was chunky as a kid. And you know, I was eating everything in sight. We had a cafeteria.

01:02:24.880 Wait, wait, wait, just, just let's put this in perspective. There is no way you were a chunky kid.

01:02:28.300 I was chunky.

01:02:28.860 Come on. What was your, what was your body fat on that first test?

01:02:31.240 I don't remember the body fat, but it was the highest. And there was some chubby kids in my,

01:02:35.220 in our program. There were some chubby kids. I mean, look, I'm 14 years old though. I don't know

01:02:39.300 how, how lean they were. I wasn't gonna be coming out there looking like, you know, shredded, but I

01:02:44.520 was the highest by far.

01:02:46.260 Did you always kind of have that physique of just having enormous, yeah, enormous quads,

01:02:50.340 enormous glues.

01:02:50.880 Enormous, but I was just a thicker kid. And partially because I just was eating everything

01:02:54.540 and I was going through puberty and everything was tasty and I would just eat it. I had no

01:02:59.080 understanding, any capacity of nutrition and what it meant.

01:03:02.180 Right. Which is so funny knowing you now, right? Like you're, you're so dialed on everything.

01:03:06.640 Yeah. I try to be much more specific in terms of how you live your life. And anyway, but back

01:03:11.020 then, it also didn't really matter thinking back. So I, you know, I get these tests back and

01:03:16.900 I'm deeply embarrassed to be, you know, the most chubby kid out there. And, uh, I, I remember

01:03:22.840 the coach telling me one time, like, what do you want to do? Like, what are your goals for

01:03:27.320 this year? And I was like, goals, what does that even, what do you mean my goals for this

01:03:31.100 year? I couldn't even think about the next six months, let alone the world team trials

01:03:35.520 in eight months from now. Like I had no idea what that meant. And then, so I started to understand

01:03:40.380 that I actually liked speed skating. I liked being out there on the ice. I liked the feeling.

01:03:44.340 And I remember one time I, because I was so embarrassed by that first test.

01:03:47.660 Going back to just one sort of technical issue about the sport short track has how many distances

01:03:51.260 it's the 500, the thousand, 500,000 and 1500 meters, 1500. And then we have a relay and across

01:03:57.660 those three distances, had you exhibited proficiency equally, or were you more geared towards one

01:04:02.500 or the other? At that age, I was stronger in the 1500 meters. Okay. I was more, I would say

01:04:08.500 we would call it an endurance athlete. So two and a half minutes on the ice at a time separated

01:04:12.780 by 20 minute breaks. And then, you know, you race basically every 20 minutes.

01:04:16.420 Jesus, that is Phelpsian. Yeah. It's like, that's, there were races, I think in the Olympics

01:04:21.320 where Michael would have what, 17 minutes between a heat and a final or something, which it just

01:04:26.860 seems impossible to imagine. Yeah. Your recovery has to be very, very high. And that's why most

01:04:31.460 athletes in short track speed skating, even to this day, they train for all the distances. They

01:04:35.600 train for the 500, which is the pure sprint 40 seconds. They train for the 1500 meters,

01:04:39.780 which is two and a half minutes. And they even train for the 3000 meters, which is only held at

01:04:44.920 the world championships, which is like, you know, four and a half minutes. So going back to my story,

01:04:49.960 I was so embarrassed by this body composition test that I sat down with Patrick Wentons and I asked

01:04:56.240 him, is it possible that I can become too good too early? And he's looking at me. I remember looking

01:05:01.440 at me like, what the hell is this kid talking about? No, that's why you're here. Right. And he's like, 0.76

01:05:06.720 no. And I was like, what happens if you burn out? He's like, you only burn out if you don't like the

01:05:10.240 sport anymore, if we train you too hard, like, and it's not going to be the latter. So as long

01:05:15.280 as you continuously like this, you're going to be, you're going to do great. You just, you got to

01:05:18.900 focus. And that began my kind of understanding of if I really concentrate on this and I really care

01:05:26.880 about the outcome, I was able to achieve really, really interesting results. And I went to the junior

01:05:33.640 trials, which means you make the junior world team. And I was supposed to make that team and I

01:05:37.780 didn't, I got third. So it's like swimming where the top two make it. Correct. Okay. And I remember

01:05:43.000 going back home and being so pissed that I didn't make that team that I just started actually really

01:05:47.120 attacking the weight room. Was that kind of your first big loss? Was that the first time you

01:05:51.220 were surprised at an outcome? It was the first time that in short track speed skating that I was

01:05:55.260 supposed to make a team, but I didn't. And I just remember that feeling was just, it was so

01:05:59.920 like itchy. It's like an itch that you can't scratch and it's there every day, every second

01:06:05.680 of the hour. Do you remember that race? What happened? You raced at multiple different distances,

01:06:09.500 but it just, it was a combination of, I wasn't good enough and I wasn't racing properly. I

01:06:14.260 shouldn't have made that team. So you sort of reached your limit of natural talent at that age. Yep.

01:06:19.400 That was the time where if I wanted to make significant changes, I'd have to really concentrate

01:06:24.260 both technically and also on the physiology of training to be a short track athlete.

01:06:28.180 And I started attacking the weight room and that was the only way that I knew how to exert

01:06:32.800 like this, you know, I'm, I'm this, I'm going through puberty as a kid. I've got all this

01:06:37.540 testosterone. I'm, I'm genetically gifted for the sport. I just have to put it to work. And so

01:06:43.100 that was the one major difference is I just remember just basically putting more plates

01:06:46.680 on the squat rack at the age of 14. And it was very easy. And I noticed like, I remember

01:06:51.660 like a week would go by and my like strength would increase by like 30%. Like it was like just

01:06:55.640 compounding boom, boom, boom. Every single week I was just getting stronger and stronger

01:06:58.580 and stronger. And when I arrived in the world team trials in 96 to make the 1997 world team,

01:07:06.040 I ended up actually winning the competition, which in for, you know, the viewers who don't

01:07:11.880 understand that's like a, I was 14 years old racing against guys who were grown men.

01:07:16.780 Yeah. So this isn't junior world. This is to make the team to go to the world to represent

01:07:20.600 the US. This is, I mean, again, for most people who don't follow Olympic sports outside of Olympic

01:07:25.300 years, you know, you sort of have an Olympics three out of four years because you've got

01:07:29.540 Olympics or worlds.

01:07:31.000 You actually compete every single year. Yeah, exactly. So you, you, we've got world cups,

01:07:34.880 we've got world championships and that's what we're doing. You know, every single day,

01:07:38.040 we're not working at like Home Depot and just like having fun.

01:07:40.800 So you made the team for, this is 97 to go to the world. So this is the team. This is now means

01:07:48.560 you're an odds on favorite to go to the Olympics in 98.

01:07:51.580 Absolutely. I mean, I dominated those trials.

01:07:53.700 What did you do at the worlds that year?

01:07:55.100 I think I got 19th in the world, I think. And I remember that I had never skated against the 0.98

01:08:00.300 Chinese or the Korean. I only skated against Canadians and Americans at the time.

01:08:04.140 So you hadn't even skated against Europeans.

01:08:05.920 I skated against no one other than those two countries. And you know, when you talk about

01:08:09.600 Canadians, I probably skated against really only like 10 guys from Canada who were semi, semi

01:08:13.760 competitive with me. So when I went to the world championships, the first thing I noticed was

01:08:18.400 the track pattern in which these athletes were skating were so vastly different. And that's

01:08:23.760 when this light bulb came on my head. And I was like, Oh my God, the U S is so far behind. We are

01:08:28.540 skating the wrong way. Everyone is basically when they exit the corner, they're hugging the, you know,

01:08:34.400 the blocks and they're basically creating the smallest distance possible to protect their inside

01:08:39.060 lane and position. And I was way out by the boards.

01:08:41.820 So you're taking a faster turn, but going a greater distance, right?

01:08:45.640 You're basically creating more pressure on your legs, but you're being more protected. So it's

01:08:49.140 also, I just noticed the strategy was so much more important in international competitions.

01:08:53.420 And I felt like we were skating two different races and, you know, I performed pretty poorly

01:08:58.660 because it's my first world championships, but that's when I saw like, this is the big leagues.

01:09:02.680 These are the guys who are really training to win medals. These are the Koreans. These are the

01:09:07.480 Chinese. These are the Canadians. This is the real national teams. These guys, this is all they care

01:09:12.220 about. This is all they do on a day-to-day basis. And it was a huge difference between racing

01:09:16.720 domestically at the world trials level in the U S versus international.

01:09:20.540 Once you actually go.

01:09:21.680 And that's when I was like, wow, I have to, if I want to remain competitive, like I felt so,

01:09:27.180 I felt so far away at that time.

01:09:29.160 Were you discouraged? I mean, it sounds like a silly question to be 19th, but did you actually

01:09:33.300 expect to go there and win or did you expect to do better than 19th?

01:09:36.660 No, I didn't have any expectations to be honest with you. I didn't know what to expect.

01:09:40.180 What I did understand was, you know, again, this is 97. So this is pre Olympic year, which

01:09:45.340 means we were having the world championships in Nagano, Japan, because they usually want

01:09:49.660 to have a test event to make sure the venue works properly. So you can imagine all of the

01:09:52.960 Japanese that are there, right? My father's there. My, my grandparents are there. I mean,

01:09:58.260 it's a full arena with 20,000 people in that arena. I'm 14 years old. I've never skated in

01:10:03.280 front of more than like a thousand people in my life, let alone this many people. And I just

01:10:07.680 remember the roar was so deafening. And I just was like, man, this is, this is, this feeling

01:10:13.420 is so addictive. And looking at like all the other athletes in there, like colorful skin

01:10:18.140 suits and the Koreans, and they skated so differently than we did. The Chinese had their own style 1.00

01:10:23.380 of skating, the Canadians, the Italians. And I was like, man, this is like, this is crazy. 0.94

01:10:28.520 Like this is, I can't believe that I'm here. And I finished that competition. I very much

01:10:33.600 realized and recognized that the Koreans in my view were significantly better than everyone else.

01:10:38.880 Technically the way they raced, the way that they carried themselves on and off the ice was very,

01:10:43.100 very unique at the time. And, you know, I came home from those world championships with

01:10:48.160 an incredible experience. I mean, mentally and psychologically. And then unfortunately,

01:10:53.120 instead of spending, this is now 97 the summer. So I'm going into

01:10:57.920 quasi trials for the Olympics are going to be in February of 98.

01:11:02.320 The trials are in December. Okay. I come home in March of 97.

01:11:06.080 So you've got basically eight months till the trials.

01:11:08.120 So I've got three and a half to four months until I go back into the national team program.

01:11:12.400 Now, before I was in the junior team program training Lake Placid, we now I would be relocated

01:11:16.440 to Colorado Springs, the official Olympic training center of the United States.

01:11:20.340 And this is where all of the guys who I just beaten, you know, a month before,

01:11:25.200 this is where everyone's going to be housed and trained. 80% of the guys, some guys had their

01:11:29.120 own personal coaches in Saratoga Springs and other areas, but most of the team was training

01:11:33.760 in one location. And, you know, if you have 12 people there, only five are selected to the team.

01:11:39.600 One is an alternate for skate, the relay, the top two from each distance skate individually

01:11:44.320 at the games with an opportunity to win a medal. None of this makes any sense to me still. Okay.

01:11:50.000 Even though I had just won, and even though I had done very, very well, I come back from that

01:11:54.320 competition and I go back to Seattle and instead of training, my food choices were like basically

01:11:59.920 Taco Bell, pizza, and zero, zero athletic activity. I'm talking.

01:12:06.080 Wait, wait, wait. Why?

01:12:07.520 I don't think that I truly understood the importance of the off ice training mechanism

01:12:13.280 and off season training. I thought this was the break that you're supposed to take. And my dad's

01:12:17.200 like, I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be working out. I was like, ah, whatever. I just, you know,

01:12:20.160 tell him I did and I didn't. And I fell back in the same negative habit of hanging out with the

01:12:25.520 same kind of crowd and individuals who, that's what my dad wanted me to get away from.

01:12:31.840 And now what I was doing, I'm getting older. I'm more crafty. I'm, you know, I've got experiences

01:12:35.920 under my belt and I'm just doing it on my own. And finally, when I get back to Colorado Springs,

01:12:41.120 you know, I...

01:12:42.160 And you head back at the end of the summer or the beginning of the summer now?

01:12:44.800 This is the end of the summer.

01:12:46.320 End of the summer of 98. So you're like four months from trials.

01:12:49.200 More, like maybe like five and a half months from trials. And so now I'm in a position where

01:12:54.560 I've gained like all this, I think I gained like 20 pounds or something crazy from when they saw me

01:12:58.720 the last time. You can imagine, right? I'm still going through puberty. I'm still kind of maturing,

01:13:02.960 zero training, eating complete garbage food. And my physique totally changed. Like I just show up

01:13:08.160 with like basically these two spare tires around my body, you know? And I remember hearing when we're

01:13:13.120 doing body composition, we all take our shirts off and do this test. I remember some of the

01:13:17.360 other athletes going, holy shit, like what the hell has that kid been doing? You know? 0.99

01:13:21.120 Because everyone's been busting their ass in the off season because they all recognize 0.98

01:13:25.200 the importance. And I just remember being Colorado Springs and it was a different environment. 0.91

01:13:30.560 I didn't have Patrick Wendland as my head coach. I had a different coach at the time.

01:13:35.360 Because Patrick stayed with the junior team?

01:13:36.880 No, Patrick was the assistant coach now to the national team. He had zero power or say in any

01:13:43.040 of the training, just the way the structure was working at the time. And I wasn't mentally

01:13:47.360 committed to the sport at that time. And that's not a good thing, right? So here I am now training

01:13:52.160 with the national team, huge importance. Everyone's trying hard. Everyone's committing

01:13:55.600 everything they're doing. And I'm just going through the motions during that year.

01:13:58.080 Do you have a sense with the benefit of hindsight as to what, what else might have been going on in

01:14:02.800 your head at that time? Because you've now tasted success, right? And not only have you

01:14:07.120 tasted success, you've tasted success on the back of huge effort, right? You had already discovered

01:14:13.040 the weight room. You had discovered your capacity for work, which like Phelps and like Haydn and like

01:14:20.000 all these other great athletes, it's really the capacity for training that seems to differentiate

01:14:24.800 them. You figured out you had that, you figured out your superpower, and then you decided,

01:14:29.840 yeah, I'm not going to do it. It's like this self-sabotage. I think that early in my career,

01:14:35.360 and I actually, I struggle with this later on in my career too, as an athlete where it's going so

01:14:41.440 well, it's almost too perfect. It's too easy. Let me throw, let me throw a little monkey wrench in

01:14:47.360 here and really let, let's see if I don't train and if I can really make the team again, because

01:14:52.240 let's see if I'm really that good. Yeah. Yeah. I see what you're saying. So psychologically I had a

01:14:57.600 pattern I think of doing that. Yeah. What's the minimum effective dose of training I can get to

01:15:01.920 still, you know? Yeah. Let me basically like screw off and like almost throw this opportunity totally

01:15:06.400 away and see if I can still come back and get it. And remind me, cause I'll come back to that.

01:15:10.000 The way that I raced for many, many years also is exactly like that. Let me wait until the very,

01:15:15.280 very last lap to make a move. I don't have, that's a very dangerous. Like you're talking about,

01:15:19.440 it has to be perfect. You can't. Yeah. The margin's gone. Yeah. So you're playing with fire at that

01:15:24.320 point. Right. And I remember one time skating a race, a great Canadian speed skater, Mark Gagnon,

01:15:30.160 he watched me do this. Like I went to the last half lap that I passed all four skaters on the outside.

01:15:35.280 And he's like, Oh, you're playing with fire, man. You're going to get burned one day. You know,

01:15:39.680 I remember that like in my head because I did and it, and it did burn me. So anyway, so I mean,

01:15:44.720 just to go back to your question. Yeah. That's, that's what happened. I mean, I, I've been blessed enough.

01:15:49.520 I was blessed to have a really unique gift to athletics and specifically in short track speed

01:15:55.840 skating. And I was really squandering. It was so easy. It was too easy. I couldn't recognize that

01:16:01.680 you've got this talent. You really also have to really, really dedicate yourself and don't throw

01:16:06.480 away this incredible opportunity because there's a thousand guys in line who have half the talent,

01:16:10.640 but would do 10 times more work just to be a fraction of what you could possibly become.

01:16:15.680 I didn't recognize it. It was just so stupid. And I'm, I kick myself now thinking about that, 1.00

01:16:20.240 but that's what happened. So the whole year, that year in Colorado Springs, I went there,

01:16:23.760 just going through the motions, very defined against my coach. Didn't really want to be there.

01:16:28.400 So when you entered the trials in December of 98, did you think you were going to make the team?

01:16:32.640 No.

01:16:32.960 Given your lackluster performance?

01:16:34.320 No, I wrote it off. I was like, I don't even want to make the team.

01:16:36.960 So you completely self-sabotaged at this point.

01:16:39.760 I am so far departed. I'm the same,

01:16:42.560 I have the same mentality as I did before I went to Lake Placid.

01:16:46.800 And so when I go to these trials and we do a time trial in the beginning,

01:16:50.560 let's say there's, let's say there's a hundred people show up for the trials.

01:16:53.440 You do a nine lap time trial. And from those results, only 16 are now racing.

01:16:58.880 And that's, that's the bracket. 16 people now is making up your, your

01:17:02.720 preliminary quarter euthamatic final. I finished a year.

01:17:06.080 Don't say 17th.

01:17:07.120 I finished 16th in the trials.

01:17:09.200 So you made it.

01:17:09.520 No, no, no. I didn't make the team. I made the cut.

01:17:11.440 No, you made the cut to go. Yeah.

01:17:12.800 But I got last. So basically I should have got 17. That means we wouldn't have to skate the

01:17:16.480 whole competition.

01:17:17.120 Right, right, right.

01:17:18.080 I ended up skating the whole competition.

01:17:19.440 So you now earn the right to complete the right jump.

01:17:21.200 I earned the right to try to compete. And we still have videotaped to this. Like every race,

01:17:25.760 I'm just crossing the line with like my head facing the ice and looking down and just completely

01:17:30.800 defeated as, you know, a 15 year old. And so my father, this to me is a really

01:17:36.560 important part of my life. My father sees this and he had been spending all his time in Seattle.

01:17:41.120 Right. So my, my father sees this. He then takes me from Boston with the time. So he takes me back

01:17:47.680 to Seattle.

01:17:48.560 After the meet, you've lost, you didn't make the team.

01:17:50.560 I lost. I mean, everyone was just, I hear the quiet conversations. Oh my God,

01:17:54.320 this kid is just, you know, he's another statistic, threw it away. He has so much talent. Oh my God.

01:17:59.600 My dad's embarrassed. Right. He said, oh my God, like this, you know, what the hell happened?

01:18:02.960 Like you were number one less than a year ago. You were supposed to go and be a medalist.

01:18:08.240 My dad already bought tickets for the Olympic games. Like he'd already set aside time to spend

01:18:12.240 there. So now we're in, we're in a spot where my dad is like, look, you have to make a decision.

01:18:18.320 Do you want to continue in this path of Olympic, you know, pursuit, or do you want to do something

01:18:22.720 else? And I was like, I don't, I don't know what I want to do. He goes, well, that's exactly what

01:18:25.440 I'm talking about. You don't know what you want to do. So he takes me to this place where we used

01:18:28.960 to go to and have vacations, which is three and a half hours Southwest of Seattle area called

01:18:34.240 Moclips beach, which is sounds nice, but it's like rains like, you know, 300 days a year.

01:18:39.280 And it's like very dark and it's beautiful now, but he drops me off and he says, you're going to

01:18:44.160 stay here until you figure out what you want to do with your life.

01:18:46.160 What do you mean stay there?

01:18:46.960 You're going to stay here in this cabin because either we rented a cabin and you're going to stay

01:18:52.080 here until you're ready, the real answer with what you're going to do. And I don't care what the

01:18:56.400 answer is, but you have to come to a real decision and commit yourself. And that's what you're going

01:19:01.120 to do. And he leaves.

01:19:02.640 This is like the best parenting story in the history of parenting.

01:19:05.440 I'm a bad kid, right? The only tough love is the only way to do this. And he drops me off and he says,

01:19:11.680 this is what you got to do. And I have food and I didn't have, I mean,

01:19:14.240 there's no video games. Yeah, exactly. You don't have a cell phone and iPad to screw around.

01:19:18.160 There's no, there's nothing. It's just me and nature. And I have like workout gear.

01:19:23.120 I have a stationary bike. Like I have my old bike and I set up a little spinner in the back

01:19:27.200 and that's it. And like a pen and pad to write, to make notes and journal.

01:19:31.040 And every day, I mean, you're 15, 15. And you know, again, if you go back, like I,

01:19:36.880 I grew up kind of taking care of myself, so it's not a big deal to me. But I mean,

01:19:40.960 thinking back, I'm like, oh my God, that's a pretty serious.

01:19:43.200 What do you think? Have you ever talked to your dad about what was going through his mind on the

01:19:46.880 three and a half hour drive back to Seattle when he dropped you off?

01:19:49.440 He was terrified and scared and afraid he's making the wrong decision. Is he a bad parent?

01:19:54.960 Is this too much? Am I going to be able to handle it? And I think my dad is like, this is,

01:20:00.320 nothing else is working. No one can get to this kid. He's got all the green lights in his life

01:20:07.520 and he's throwing him away. Like, this is it. This is the last straw. This is the last effort.

01:20:13.600 Like I didn't have, you know, Jocko Willink down the street to like, basically say, you know,

01:20:18.160 like to really drill home the importance of what it needs to be done.

01:20:21.840 I can call Jocko right now if you want.

01:20:24.080 And I would love it.

01:20:26.080 I would have invited him over for dinner tonight. I never even thought of it.

01:20:29.760 So just thinking back, I was so fractured mentally.

01:20:33.520 Did that first night in that cabin hurt more than that first night your dad yanked you back

01:20:38.640 to Lake Placid? No.

01:20:40.240 Those would be two tough nights, right?

01:20:42.160 It was different because this time when I left the Olympic trials in 98, I actually knew that I

01:20:50.000 could have made the team. And here's the sick part. I think that if I trained just for one month before,

01:20:54.880 I probably would have been top three and I would have made the team. Had I just put like a fraction

01:20:59.200 of effort and I didn't want to do it. I know for sure. I wanted to taste such devastating defeat

01:21:05.120 when I'm supposed to win something. I think I was addicted to that self-sabotage of, okay,

01:21:13.120 I'm at the real bottom now. What do I got to do? And so I spent nine days in this cabin

01:21:18.320 alone, writing down, making a journal. I still have the notes actually. I'm writing down my thoughts and

01:21:23.840 praying and trying to just determine like, why am I here? What am I supposed to do? Give me a sign.

01:21:31.840 I was like mindlessly going out on these runs, 45 minutes, an hour, half an hour. And it's raining

01:21:38.960 every single day, by the way, because this is December and it's cold. And like, there's no,

01:21:43.120 by the way, there's no one there. This is like the place where they send people who are part of

01:21:46.320 like the witness protection programs. Like there's literally, there's like a, there's a Native American

01:21:50.320 reservation 15 miles up the road. And other than that, there's like, there's literally no one else

01:21:53.840 staying at these cabins. So it's you and like someone from the Gambino crime family and witness 1.00

01:21:58.400 protection. As a 15 year old, it's not fun. I mean, now I would like love to spend time there alone.

01:22:03.040 And so I was going to say, give me the address. I need to go. It's incredible. I mean, it's,

01:22:06.800 it's a place where I go when I need to make really, really what I consider to be important

01:22:10.480 decisions where I want to make a shift. You still go. I haven't been in a couple of years,

01:22:13.360 but I'm, I'm planning on taking actually my girlfriend pretty soon. It's a beautiful place is there's

01:22:18.480 nature is, I think really, it's always been a very important part of my life. I think

01:22:22.400 my dad did that when I was very young. Do you know where the exact cabin was?

01:22:24.400 I know the exact cabin. I know the exact place. They rebuilt it, right? So it's, it's much nice.

01:22:27.760 Someone bought the, it was called the Iron Springs Resort at the time. And back then it was,

01:22:33.920 it was. Iron and springs generally don't go side by side, right? Right, right. It wasn't nice.

01:22:39.440 And definitely they should have left off the word resort for sure. At the time, I feel like Iron Springs

01:22:44.400 is jail, you know, penitentiary. Every road is basically like a one way road and you're surrounded

01:22:50.240 by the beautiful trees. But again, I'm just running every day and mindless. I'm just trying

01:22:53.840 to figure it out. 15 years old. I'm at the fork in the road. What do I want to do? Do I want to please

01:22:58.880 my dad? Does my dad want me to speed skate? Does he want me to do this? And then finally I was like,

01:23:03.120 you know what? Like, I think I want to speed skate. I think I want to actually truly dedicate myself

01:23:09.120 to do this. And also I was pretty bitter that I didn't make the team, which doesn't make any sense.

01:23:13.760 Right. Cause I didn't, you threw it away. Yeah. But I was also like, I hated the feeling of that,

01:23:20.640 of like the opportunity was there and I didn't take it. Were you still in touch with your friends

01:23:25.680 that you had grown up with that obviously for the year and a half prior, you'd been somewhat

01:23:29.760 detached from because you're now living this separate life training. But what did your friends

01:23:34.400 think of this opportunity? I mean, did a lot of them, they didn't know, they didn't understand

01:23:38.000 what you were going through. No, I didn't really talk about it. They didn't really understand.

01:23:41.600 And that was very much in my own head. And it was, it was when I made the decision to

01:23:48.720 continue one more time and really, really give short track speeds getting a try

01:23:53.360 is that, that changed my whole life. I mean, what do you think happened in that nine days that made you,

01:24:01.200 cause you had to leave there, go back home, watch the Olympics six weeks later,

01:24:06.640 basically watch three other skaters in your flag and your colors and thought, you know,

01:24:13.200 I really could have been one of those guys and then decide, I mean, not that you would have known

01:24:16.880 it at the time, but this would go on to occupy your life for the next 12 years, right?

01:24:21.440 Yeah. So I remember calling my father and saying, I made a decision. I want to come back to Seattle.

01:24:28.560 And he didn't ask me what the decision was, by the way, he just came and picked me up

01:24:31.200 and drove me back. And during that three and a half hour drive, I explained him what I want

01:24:35.680 to do. And he's, I think I can feel that he's like, okay, let's see. And so I go back to Lake

01:24:41.600 Placid to train under a different coach. You wait till the Olympics are over.

01:24:45.520 No, no, no, no. This is, this is still during the Olympics. I go, I go there right away because

01:24:49.120 after the Olympics, there's a world team trials, which the format's messed up. But so after the

01:24:54.320 Olympics is a world team trials. Now I have the opportunity of, of making the world team,

01:24:58.400 which at this time, you know, after the Olympics, no one's training, no one cares about the world

01:25:02.480 team. And I remember just kind of training really hard and studying. And I get, I get sixth at those

01:25:09.840 world team trials. So I was a double alternate, which means I would skate no distances at all,

01:25:14.160 but I would basically just carry the bags for everybody. And if two guys got hurt, then I had

01:25:17.520 a chance at getting in. So I went to those world championships and I was, I just had a different

01:25:22.240 view. My, something had switched in my mind and I started taking notes and I made promises to myself,

01:25:28.160 like real legitimate promises that I could never get out of. When I get home, I'm not calling

01:25:33.680 anybody. No one's even going to know that I'm back home in Seattle and my off season or the time spent

01:25:39.840 after this, the next four and a half months is going to be completely dedicated towards just,

01:25:43.600 just being a monster. And so I set up that stationary bike in the basement, had a small

01:25:47.760 seven inch or nine inch Sony Trenton TV VCR. And I just watched skating tapes every single day,

01:25:53.360 train twice a day alone until I arrived back in Colorado Springs as a part of the national team

01:25:59.200 program. And I was significantly more fit and stronger than anyone else and developed such a

01:26:03.440 strong aerobic base that I was burying everyone on my team. Even though I was still ranked number six,

01:26:08.800 I was by far number one. And so the next big test for you would have been the 99 worlds.

01:26:14.160 Yep. Which was where that year? Sofia, Bulgaria. The real test was actually that year,

01:26:20.160 98, I won my first world cup medal. I ended up winning a gold in the thousand meters against

01:26:24.960 the reigning thousand meter Olympic champion, Kim Dong Song and Fabio Carta, who was like many

01:26:31.040 times you should have, you should have been world champion. And I won, I came out of nowhere.

01:26:34.960 That became my real first taste of, of winning on the world circuit. And again, this is post Olympic

01:26:41.520 year. So it's not that important. Like people don't really care. No one in the US is even watching

01:26:45.840 this stuff. It really cared to me. Right. It also was a time where I got in,

01:26:50.320 I started to work with a sports psychologist and that was the big, big difference in terms of

01:26:54.560 performance. What did he or she teach you or what were, what was the most important

01:26:58.640 insight that you got early on from that experience? So this, this guy named David Creswell, who was

01:27:03.920 pretty young at the time, I think he was actually still studying and he was going to, how did you meet

01:27:08.240 him? He was brought in as an intern to basically look over a lot of the younger athletes.

01:27:12.480 And he also was doing a sports psychology kind of residency program at the Olympic training

01:27:16.960 center. And so he was so pro about, you know, all these different things. And he started asking me,

01:27:22.640 we would play badminton, like for fun. I would make mistakes like over and over again. And he

01:27:27.200 would notice that I was kind of getting down on myself. And he would ask me these like little

01:27:30.400 questions like, Oh, what happened there with that shot? You know? And I, I, this guy was so young.

01:27:34.880 I was like, I can't respect this guy. And I just, I didn't recognize the time that he was basically

01:27:38.800 trying to figure out how I ticked, like what made me angry and the inconsistencies that would happen

01:27:44.880 on the court were a direct representation of actually what was happening in sport. And so

01:27:50.320 that was my first real foray into understanding. And so we did everything from like, you know,

01:27:55.200 meditation exercises to breathing exercises, to writing down positive self, you know, the basics,

01:27:59.760 right? Positive self-talk manifesting what you want. And then he began my real true process of

01:28:04.960 visualization. And then I ended up winning the 99 junior world at that time in Montreal,

01:28:09.120 which was a huge win. So you were still eligible to compete at junior world.

01:28:13.200 I was still eligible. I was 16 and it was hugely beneficial. The mental component of the sport was

01:28:19.840 always to me the most fascinating and the most underutilized in every aspect. And to my detriment

01:28:25.680 later on in my career too, because we, we did, I did things that completely are very destructive when

01:28:30.720 we look at, think about it in terms of sports science and the training that we did. And,

01:28:34.240 but to me, I didn't care. Like I wanted the edge of being able to say,

01:28:38.800 I'm going to wear this 45 pound weight vest. I'm going to go up this Manitou incline five times

01:28:43.120 back to back and do skating jumps every 25 steps on one leg, and then switch to the left and then

01:28:49.120 do them altering. Boom, boom, boom. And just do that back to back until basically I throw up.

01:28:52.560 Now there's no physiological benefit you're getting after like the first set,

01:28:56.240 right? But the psychological advantage that you would create is just this mental hardness

01:29:00.720 that no one else would do. And I loved it. The harder it snowed outside, the less people

01:29:05.680 that are outside. I want to be out there with the weight vest doing some dumb training. 0.97

01:29:09.680 That to me was the epitome of what was a driving force later on in my career. And I craved it time 0.55

01:29:15.840 and time again. You mentioned it earlier. And I know you've talked about in the past that you always

01:29:19.520 looked at boxers as role models, even though you didn't end up boxing. And it's funny because that's

01:29:25.280 very much a boxer's mentality, right? I mean, I think with every sport, so much of it is going

01:29:30.000 on between the ears, especially a sport when it's against another individual, which is not

01:29:35.280 to take away from a team sport. But when you lose in tennis, there's no subtlety about who won and

01:29:40.400 who lost, right? But this idea of how the training feeds the beast, you know, growing up, I felt it's

01:29:46.560 so funny. I mean, on a much smaller level, I remember I used to run at 430 every morning.

01:29:51.840 So all of high school, I would run at 430 and it had to be somewhere between five and 13 miles

01:29:56.400 was the distance. And growing up in Toronto, it was so cold in the winter that the colder it was

01:30:03.200 and the darker it was, the happier I felt. Because I remember thinking like, the guy I'm going to fight

01:30:07.360 is not up at this moment. There is no way. He is in a warm bed. And just that fact, absent any

01:30:14.240 physiologic benefit, became the thing that you needed to hang on to. And again, I don't know how many

01:30:19.600 skaters thought that way, but you clearly were training like a fighter.

01:30:23.520 And living in the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center, we were all rooming with different

01:30:28.560 short track athletes. And then there was one time in which instead of rooming with a short track

01:30:33.360 athlete, they had asked me if I wanted to room with a wrestler. And everyone at the time was like,

01:30:37.680 no, the wrestlers are dirty. These guys always get staph infections. They're like just nasty. They're

01:30:42.480 crazy. And I was like, sure, I don't mind. Like I'll room with the wrestler. And that was my first 0.96

01:30:47.360 entrance into the mind of a fighter. And I loved it. Because I'm like, look, I wear spandex for

01:30:55.040 living in skating circles. It's not the most manly thing on this planet. But I wanted it to be

01:31:01.280 more than it was.

01:31:01.760 It's not as primal. I mean, you could argue wrestling or boxing are about as primal as any

01:31:06.320 sport gets.

01:31:07.040 Right. You're fighting against another human being, basically. In my own right, I was fighting in my

01:31:11.840 own ways, right? And there's many correlations there. But I love the psychology of those wrestlers

01:31:17.680 that I would see. And I would go in the sauna post weight training workout. And I was the only

01:31:23.840 non-wrestler in the sauna every time they were in there, ever. And I just remember talking to these

01:31:28.880 guys and hearing them talk to each other and watching them cut weight and be like, these guys

01:31:32.080 are not human. They are doing everything against what I was told from a sports science perspective.

01:31:37.760 And they still are winning. Like that mental toughness and fortitude, that's what I craved,

01:31:44.000 was that old school, rocky mentality and that hardness that is created that I loved. And I

01:31:51.040 thought that was the only way that I could beat the Koreans. That was the only, because I didn't 1.00

01:31:54.800 skate as beautiful as they did. And even to this day, I still love it, right? I still like that

01:31:59.280 mentality. And it was a huge part of my career, was developing that mental fortitude and that

01:32:03.840 strength and that consistency of being so obsessive. And I replaced my self-sabotage stuff with

01:32:11.280 the self-sabotage came in the form of like, let's just do some workout that makes no sense.

01:32:15.680 Yeah. You went, the pendulum swung so far. You stopped self-sabotaging and incompetence and

01:32:20.560 in effort and you started to overdo it. And again, even just some of the videos I've watched, I'm like,

01:32:27.120 oh my God. Like I watch it now as an old guy who's only thinking about how to avoid injury. And I'm like, 0.95

01:32:32.240 oh my God, like all the ways you could have just destroyed your body with those things.

01:32:37.360 Yeah. We used to do some really just ridiculous training, but you know, again, you're young, 0.95

01:32:43.440 your body's resilient, you're gifted, you're doing what you love. You're in an arena where

01:32:48.640 that's the only thing that matters. Nothing else exists outside of this realm of short track

01:32:53.680 speed skating. It's the most important thing in the world. Nothing else is here. It was beautiful

01:32:58.560 and I loved it. And so 2002 is the big test. Now you've had four years to get on the horse.

01:33:05.360 You've won some meets, some important meets, but for most Olympic athletes,

01:33:12.000 the world only considers the Olympics. They don't care about winning the worlds,

01:33:15.440 even though the competition is just as stiff at the worlds. So going into the trials in late 01,

01:33:22.400 were you nervous? What was your confidence level going into make the 2002 team?

01:33:28.560 I wasn't nervous at all. I was ready and I skated incredibly fast there. I did a time trial. It was

01:33:34.000 like 123.8 was my time trial time. Wait, wait, that's your 1500 time?

01:33:39.360 That was my thousand meter time trial time. And at the time, no one was skating under 125 in the world.

01:33:44.560 So when the world heard that I had skated this lap time, they knew that I was ready. And you know,

01:33:49.600 the Koreans, the first time they had to worry about an American skater who was in their race,

01:33:54.560 it was the first time a Canadian had to worry about me was, you know, kind of through 1998,

01:33:58.400 99. So it's interesting. The time trial is kind of a nice normalizing metric because it

01:34:03.200 strips out the technique, the strategy, the where this person is. So just because you have the fastest

01:34:07.360 time trial, it doesn't at all mean you could win. You may still get, you may have a dumb race, 1.00

01:34:11.840 you may not be able to maneuver and sort of physically get in and around other skaters, 0.97

01:34:17.040 but it's certainly a beautiful metric. Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of like in cycling,

01:34:21.600 it's your FTP, your functional threshold power. And it shows like, oh, this guy is in incredible

01:34:26.960 shape. By the way, what, what is your lactate at the end of a thousand meter time trial? How

01:34:31.440 high would your lactate get? I don't even remember. My lactate was low.

01:34:34.960 You're like Lance Armstrong in that regard where Lance's lactate after the typical set that they would

01:34:40.720 do, which would be a one kilometer uphill sprint. And they would do lactate checks at the end of

01:34:45.840 these. I mean, his lactate levels were just half of everybody else's.

01:34:48.960 Yeah. I was very, I was low. So like a lot of the sprinters had super high lactate levels,

01:34:52.400 like they were like in the twenties or something crazy. And I was like always like nine or something

01:34:56.400 weird. I forget, I forget the actual numbers, but we would do six by 1000 meters.

01:35:00.720 With what rest?

01:35:01.600 I want to say the rest was two minutes.

01:35:03.680 So it's two minute rest or on an interval that gave you about two minute rest from

01:35:07.680 however you finish.

01:35:08.320 Go do nine laps again fast.

01:35:09.680 Jesus.

01:35:10.240 Yeah. We hated doing lactate testing, but that was, that was.

01:35:13.600 Oh, so they would prick you each time. Each time.

01:35:15.440 Yeah. Yeah. So that generates your lactate performance curve.

01:35:17.760 Yep.

01:35:18.080 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

01:35:18.880 And mine was pretty steady. Like I would maintain like my lap time and also my speed was around

01:35:24.640 the same, even in the set four, five, six. Wow.

01:35:27.360 In speed skating, a lot of it's got to do with technique. So.

01:35:29.920 Yeah. Although it's so funny, like, I don't know what they're doing these days in sports

01:35:33.680 science because I don't really pay much attention, but I wonder if they're doing muscle biopsies

01:35:37.680 on people and looking at lactate clearance and stuff like that because no, no, no one's offering

01:35:43.200 up a little vastus lateralis biopsy. I, and maybe they are in cycling, but I can tell you

01:35:48.000 from just listening to your podcast, 99.999% of all athletes in the U S who are Olympic level have

01:35:55.840 no idea what they're doing when it comes to nutrition, when it comes to training, they're

01:36:00.560 just doing what kind of they're told. And I say that with all due respect, right? But that's just

01:36:04.960 the reality. Well, it's all that much more impressive that they can do so much.

01:36:07.920 And it's changing slowly, but since I retired in 2010 and being so obsessed with like looking

01:36:13.520 back on my career and wanting how different I would have done it now versus then, and just

01:36:18.640 understanding how the human body works and all the different efficiencies that or deficiencies or

01:36:23.680 over-training and recovery. And there was so much, I think specifically for short track speed

01:36:28.800 skating because we were so predominantly dominated by the Korean culture and skating. They never used

01:36:34.880 sports science. They did everything by eye, very old school, right?

01:36:38.800 They were just technically the most proficient to the most beautiful.

01:36:42.480 Biomechanics were, and if you did study their training and you did study the way that they

01:36:48.080 skated, it all made sense. But they, again, they didn't use, they didn't have a sports science

01:36:52.960 team there measuring lactate. When I went to my first Olympic games in 2002, like the rumor to the

01:36:58.960 Korean team was that I had like some unknown military NASA grade technology that I was using

01:37:04.160 because I couldn't figure it out, right? Because I didn't skate that nice.

01:37:06.720 Was it 02 Salt Lake City?

01:37:08.080 Salt Lake City.

01:37:08.560 Okay.

01:37:09.040 Yeah. Post 9-11. It was an incredible experience. It was incredible being 19 years old.

01:37:15.440 Your first medal, was it a gold or a silver?

01:37:17.920 My first medal was a silver.

01:37:19.360 Was it the thousand?

01:37:20.080 It was a thousand meters.

01:37:20.960 Oh my God, which is, that's the funniest race of them all. 0.78

01:37:25.280 I didn't know that was your first medal race.

01:37:26.800 That was my first Olympic final.

01:37:28.640 Can we talk about how funny the race isn't funny, but the video we're going to link to 0.87

01:37:35.680 is exceptional, right?

01:37:37.200 It's perfect. It's actually perfect. I'm so happy that I can laugh about it now.

01:37:41.360 I feel like so honored that I could have shown you that video because you hadn't seen that video

01:37:46.640 until I showed it to you.

01:37:47.200 No, but it's so perfect on so many levels, you know?

01:37:51.600 It's like watching your face, watch it for the first time. I can't believe I couldn't have had

01:37:58.880 that on film. Like there was just genuine like joy. Like you couldn't stop laughing at that,

01:38:04.800 which is, I'm sure that would have not been that funny at the time. So let's tell people

01:38:08.640 about that race, right? So you're pretty favored going into this race. It's you. There's a Chinese 0.99

01:38:13.360 skater.

01:38:13.920 Yeah. To give you context, I was in the cover of Sports Illustrated and I think that the article

01:38:19.120 was about, this was February of the games. It's pretty amazing to put a speed skater

01:38:23.440 on the cover of Sports Illustrated. It was ridiculous. And, you know, I was sponsored by 0.94

01:38:27.760 Nike and I was going to these games and they said like Apollo has the chance to win four medals,

01:38:32.560 four golds going to these games. And everyone in short track speed skating is like, that's not

01:38:37.120 going to happen. No one's that dominant. Our sport's too volatile and variable. It's just,

01:38:40.320 it's impossible. Yeah. Which is true, right? I mean, this is a much hard, not to take anything

01:38:44.720 away from long track, but in long track, you only have to worry about yourself.

01:38:48.640 Right. It's you against a clock. As you said in short track, anything can go wrong.

01:38:53.600 Yeah. Almost without exception seems to go wrong.

01:38:55.680 It always goes wrong. Yeah. Whatever plan you had never goes exactly.

01:38:59.040 My favorite Mike Tyson line, right? I don't know if Tyson actually said it,

01:39:02.800 but it's like everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

01:39:05.280 It's exactly what happens too. Yeah. Everyone's technique is beautiful until you start to get tired.

01:39:10.000 Yeah. Or until some guy jumps right in front of you and like grabs you.

01:39:13.280 Or pushes you or you get bumped or someone time trials it from the start. Now your whole

01:39:18.240 plan from the beginning is completely out the door because you're not prepared for that. So

01:39:22.160 here we are a thousand meters. I'm in the final. I've got one of the best Canadian skaters,

01:39:27.920 Matthew Turcotte. I've got a Chinese legend, Lee Jiajun. I've got this young kid,

01:39:33.280 Ahn Hyun-soo, who's 16 years old. He looks like Harry Potter with glasses. Literally,

01:39:37.040 that's our nickname for him is Harry Potter, who skates so technically beautiful that I'll get back to

01:39:42.160 that later if we're still talking about it. And then we've got Stephen Bradbury,

01:39:46.080 who's in the race, the Australian. And by the way, let's tell us after. So the race begins.

01:39:50.640 I have my strategy. But Bradbury had called you before, right? Didn't Bradbury have some

01:39:54.560 connection to the skate company? Bradbury called me two days before the semifinal.

01:39:58.880 And he says, Hey man, Hey mate, the time Stephen Bradbury was working for the skate manufacturer

01:40:04.000 that made my skates in, I think they were in, in Brisbane. He says like, Hey, I know you're

01:40:08.480 probably going to get on the podium. Would you mind giving a shout out for the boot company,

01:40:12.960 RBC revolutionary boot company? I'm like, Oh, Stephen, no problem, buddy. You know, no problem.

01:40:16.800 Hey, it's good to see you. You know? And he was like, Oh, so he's like the typical Australian. 1.00

01:40:20.560 He's I loved him. I never thought this guy would make it past the preliminary round. I didn't

01:40:24.880 know. Actually, I didn't even think about it. I didn't even know he was skating in the Olympics.

01:40:27.440 Like that's how much non, like he wasn't even there in my mind. He was just another person who 0.99

01:40:33.680 happened to be on the ice. Like he could have been replacing the blocks on the ice, right? He

01:40:37.680 wasn't even a competitor. Yeah. You're thinking, wait, why are you wearing spandex just to replace

01:40:41.840 the blocks? Like you could do that in much looser fitting clothing. Yeah. I mean, I say that like

01:40:46.240 jokingly. And then the day of the races, he like this miraculous thing happens where two people get

01:40:51.680 disqualified and fall down. He makes it into the semifinal and then he makes it into the final.

01:40:55.920 Like he doesn't make it. He makes it because people fall down and get disqualified.

01:40:59.360 And now he is like sitting here in this, in this final with like any, by the way,

01:41:03.840 the Canadian, the Chinese, the Korean, and me, any one of us can win gold. I feel very,

01:41:09.920 very confident in my ability to win gold. And I had a very specific strategy.

01:41:13.920 Two and a half laps to go. I start my, my outside pass. I blast off one lap to go. I noticed that the

01:41:19.680 Chinese skater is starting to set up a pass or at least put himself in position to pass me.

01:41:23.760 And I didn't want that to have happen. So I started skating very defensively and protecting

01:41:27.200 my outside and inside position, thus slowing us down. We fight. The Chinese skater falls down 0.97

01:41:33.120 about a half lap to go. I swing a little bit wide. The Korean skater tries to go on the inside of me. 1.00

01:41:38.640 He falls down into me. I fall down and we all take out the last guy who's Matthew Tercat,

01:41:44.400 who's in third place. The Canadian. The Canadian. The Chinese goes down. The Korean takes me. And then 0.98

01:41:50.560 we all take out the Canadian. So everyone falls down the same corner, which to this day has never

01:41:56.480 happened. Which is the last corner. The last corner. I can see the finish line. I'm in first

01:41:59.920 place, by the way. So I feel like I'm going to win. And I remember thinking in my head, I'm going

01:42:04.080 to win. I remember thinking that. And then literally, as soon as I snap my fingers, it was like the

01:42:08.960 karmic reaction. You're spinning out of, like you're down and spinning. I'm spinning. I hit the wall.

01:42:14.560 I don't even know what happens. I later find out that like my right skate through my back hitting

01:42:19.840 the boards, my right skate comes inward and actually stabs my left leg. And that's where

01:42:24.720 I have a small cut on that left leg. I get up, I throw my skates across the line. And what I didn't

01:42:30.160 know at the time that Steven Bradbury, who was like over a half a lap behind when we all fell down,

01:42:36.960 it only takes about eight seconds to get around the track, comes around and he finishes first.

01:42:42.560 And I ended up finishing second. And the video, which, I mean,

01:42:45.280 we're going to link to the video of the race because I remember the first thing I thought

01:42:48.800 when I saw that was, I was actually impressed that you had the presence of mind to get up and

01:42:54.160 get across the line because it looked, and I'm not a skater, so I can't speak to it, but just as an

01:43:00.240 observer, it looked so disorienting when you went down. It was. That I was like, geez, I wouldn't even

01:43:06.800 think to do anything other than just stand up. Like I wouldn't, and it's not like it wouldn't take me

01:43:11.520 two seconds to realize to get across the line, but you didn't have two seconds.

01:43:14.800 It had to be like a brainstem activity. There could be no cerebral involvement. It had to be

01:43:20.240 pure brainstem of I'm down, I'm spinning, I'm cut, get across the line. And you did what none of the

01:43:26.640 other skaters were able to do. Like you were the first one in that whole melee to get across the

01:43:30.800 line. But of course, Steven got across first, giving you the silver medal.

01:43:36.240 Yeah. And I ended up winning the silver and it was, it was a really good shout out for the boot

01:43:41.200 company because the first and second guy both got, we're wearing the same boot.

01:43:44.960 That's right. That's right. And Steven, I remember, you know, he just kind of goes across

01:43:48.960 the line and raises one arm.

01:43:50.560 He barely, he's standing straight upright across the line.

01:43:53.520 He can't believe it.

01:43:54.320 It's the least like impressive finish.

01:43:57.040 Steven Bradbury cannot believe what just happened. And no Australian was watching the

01:44:01.440 winter Olympics by the way. So all of a sudden they got to probably send someone there from

01:44:05.440 their media team. They're like, Oh my God, you know, you gotta get off the surfing track and get over

01:44:10.080 on the, right.

01:44:11.280 Right, right, right.

01:44:11.840 So he, Steven wins. I ended up actually winning silver, very disoriented, had no idea what just

01:44:17.280 happened and got a cut in the process. And it was the most important race of my entire

01:44:22.800 Olympic career because at the time, look, I very much wanted to win. Not only that, it was so

01:44:28.560 important for me. I felt like I should have won. I think that's natural for me to say that, right?

01:44:34.000 I really felt like I should have won. And I felt like Steven should not have won. I didn't know

01:44:39.040 actually that he won at that time. I couldn't believe what just happened. And I was trying to

01:44:43.840 figure out in my head and process.

01:44:45.280 So meaning after you've crossed the line, it's still not entirely clear that he's won,

01:44:50.480 even though you've seen him also skate across the line, sort of bolt upright, but

01:44:54.080 you haven't figured this out.

01:44:55.440 Yeah. I mean, I knew, I knew that someone crossed the line and it was probably Steven,

01:45:00.720 but more importantly, I was figuring out like what just happened.

01:45:03.200 Right. Is there a rule that says like, you can't come from 200 feet behind when

01:45:08.240 you're like, what's going on?

01:45:10.320 It was more like, I was more thinking like that last half lap, like what happened? And then I noticed

01:45:14.640 that like, I got this itchy feeling on my left leg.

01:45:17.280 Oh, you don't even realize you've cut yourself.

01:45:18.800 I had no idea at the point, at that point, until I went in the locker room and took my

01:45:21.920 skin suit off and had a chance of like, oh my gosh, like that was a crazy, crazy race. 0.98

01:45:27.040 And I remember coming out and someone asking me, Paul, what does it feel like to lose the gold?

01:45:30.800 That was the first question.

01:45:31.760 It was the first question.

01:45:33.360 Mike was like, I didn't, I didn't lose the gold. I won, I won the silver, you know? And

01:45:38.000 that, that answer wasn't entirely me. There was a guy, Brent Hamulo, who was our sports physician

01:45:42.640 at the time came in the locker room. Cause he had to look at my cup before we went back out there to go

01:45:46.960 receive our medals. And he was like, Hey man, I know you wanted to win, but that was incredible.

01:45:52.880 Like you have to be so proud of yourself for having that ability to cross the line. It was so

01:45:59.360 instinctive, right? I would be an idiot to claim that I had that plan and it was all my grandmaster 0.99

01:46:03.840 idea to do that. But it wasn't, I just, I felt like I had to finish the race. 0.98

01:46:08.720 Dude, it's another boxing analogy, right? And we can't get away from the fact that your name is Apollo.

01:46:12.720 Okay. And in the second Rocky, when Rocky and Apollo fight, they both go down. This is a very

01:46:18.080 rare occurrence in boxing that both fighters go down. And if they both can't get up, it's a draw.

01:46:23.760 But if one of them can get up and the other guy can't, he's the winner. And obviously everybody

01:46:27.600 knows how that goes. Rocky amazingly managed to get up while Apollo couldn't. So this time,

01:46:32.240 Apollo actually got up first. Yep. Got up first, but I finished second. And it was my first Olympic

01:46:39.680 games. I felt like I had been through a lot psychologically, even though you have to race 0.99

01:46:43.840 again that night, two days later. Okay. Oh, this is something I should tell you. Before I went out

01:46:48.240 there, I had to get stitched up quickly. Guess who my surgeon was? Eric, Eric Hyden. Come on. Yes.

01:46:54.080 Eric Hyden. So Eric Hyden stitches me up and I was like looking at him. He's like, Hey man,

01:46:57.680 that was amazing. Like that was so incredible. And all I want to tell him was like,

01:47:02.080 Eric, I'm just trying to be like you. I'm just trying to win every distance.

01:47:06.240 Right. Cause like, you know, like I still, even though it was pretty impossible,

01:47:09.040 that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to win all, I wanted to sweep just like Eric Hyden did.

01:47:13.040 And I feel like I had the ability to, if everything went in my direction,

01:47:15.920 and this was the first blemish, but it was pretty cool to be able to be stitched up by kind of like

01:47:20.640 your idol and then have that conversation and then have him say like, Hey, look, your Olympics aren't

01:47:25.760 over yet. Like you're just getting started. So get back into the game, remain your focus and forget about

01:47:31.760 this race as much as you can and prepare for the next one. And I went out there happy as hell.

01:47:36.800 19 year old kid from Seattle could have thrown it all away. And here I was competing in my first

01:47:41.600 Olympic games post nine 11, hearing thousands of Americans screaming USA, chanting my name.

01:47:48.800 I would never replace that with anything ever in my life. It was so, it was just, it was awesome.

01:47:54.800 I mean, every, and I felt so proud to be able to win a medal for the U S and win a medal for my

01:48:02.480 family and for my team and for my country. It was, it was awesome.

01:48:06.000 How long after the race did you get to talk to your dad?

01:48:09.520 Immediately because NBC grabbed him and they wanted him right down by the ice and right away.

01:48:13.600 What was his reaction?

01:48:14.640 He was just proud.

01:48:16.000 Was he worried about your leg? I mean, what else was going on in his mind?

01:48:19.280 He was worried about my leg. He was right by the ringside and he's, my father's looking in.

01:48:24.400 I see my dad right away. He's just, he's just very proud, you know? And that to me,

01:48:28.560 it felt very, very good. And I remember standing on the podium, even though not hearing my,

01:48:32.720 you know, my own national anthem being played, just feeling amazing. And actually thinking back,

01:48:37.760 if there was any person in that race who I would want to win the gold versus me,

01:48:41.440 it would probably would have been Steven Bradbury. And just because that guy, and people don't know this,

01:48:45.680 he had been through hell, like a skate blade had gone through that guy's leg at one point.

01:48:50.400 Like he had almost died many times on the ice, like pools and pools of blood. He had come back

01:48:55.120 from devastating injuries, broke his back, like weird, crazy stuff. And through it all,

01:49:00.240 he stuck with the sport and he was the last man standing. He wasn't the best speed skater.

01:49:06.320 He wasn't the most technically gifted physically. He was a monster, but he wasn't supposed to win that

01:49:11.360 race. But because he didn't give up, he ended up winning that race when everyone else

01:49:15.520 was better than him. Everyone else was there. And, uh, it was, it was pretty remarkable.

01:49:19.760 So Matt target, who's a swimmer, an Australian swimmer. He's been to, I think three Olympics.

01:49:23.520 He's a good friend of mine. And I actually sent him the video that we're going to also link to,

01:49:27.920 because that's the one that we were talking about earlier, which is the, there's a,

01:49:30.560 there's an Australian guy who does a commentary and voiceover dubs the video. And it's really funny.

01:49:35.520 His point being is like, if you just stay out of people's way, you can still win. Right.

01:49:38.880 Right. And he met, I think he said to me that in Australia,

01:49:41.600 there's still an expression around his name. Like you can pull a Bradbury, right?

01:49:45.840 Yeah. You win the lottery. Oh, you just pulled a Bradbury. Oh my God. You know, like you just,

01:49:49.280 you jumped up on a plane, your parachute didn't, didn't open. And then somehow someone else grabbed

01:49:53.360 you, did a Bradbury, like just freak golden horseshoe luck. By the way, Steven Bradbury retired

01:49:58.720 that night after he won the gold. He knew right away.

01:50:01.840 Yeah. He's like, this is the pinnacle.

01:50:03.600 This is the pinnacle. I am now on, and I am, I have an Australian stamp with my face on it.

01:50:08.400 I, this doesn't get better than this for me. Australia's first winter Olympic gold medal.

01:50:12.960 So you had to go on and continue through these games. So how did the rest of those games go?

01:50:16.800 My next race was the 1500 meters in which I was battling against my rival at the time,

01:50:21.760 which was two guys, Mark Gagnon from Canada, and also Kim Dong-sung from South Korea,

01:50:27.200 who was the reigning Olympic champion in that distance. And Kim Dong-sung had this very specific

01:50:32.320 strategy, which he had been testing on me throughout the entire year. And that was,

01:50:37.200 he was going to lead the race with about seven laps to go and just do a negative split. So every

01:50:43.040 lap get a little bit faster, a little bit faster, a little bit faster and skate very defensively.

01:50:46.880 And I, my strategy was known all over the world that I always waded into the last two laps.

01:50:52.320 Because your explosiveness, you just basically based on your lactate tolerance and your

01:50:56.720 explosiveness, you're going to out muscle somebody.

01:50:58.800 I had another gear that other people didn't have. And I think that the training that we did at that time

01:51:03.200 directly just at, you know, is a massive attribute to exploding when there was a lap or two laps to

01:51:10.000 go, as long as I could have that reserve. But you needed the lane. You had to be able to technically,

01:51:14.640 you had to have the ice to do that, right? There's gotta be space. And so in short track

01:51:18.160 speed skating, if I'm passing a skater in front of me and we have some sort of a conflict or collision,

01:51:23.760 I get disqualified. At the time, that's what the rules were. So you had to pass the other skater who

01:51:29.440 was in front of you completely cleanly with no contact. That puts a huge onus on the guy

01:51:34.080 passing because he's got to take a huge distance. Well, they changed the rules after this, after

01:51:39.120 this Olympics, but at the time that's what the rules were. And so it was very important to pass

01:51:44.960 completely cleanly with no contact and any capacity. And I remember everyone knew that my

01:51:50.640 inside passing lane was the best in the world. How many kilometers an hour are you guys going?

01:51:53.920 About 40? We're going like around 35 plus miles an hour. Yeah. Yeah. So you're going about 50

01:51:58.880 kilometers an hour. Yeah. There is, at that speed, aerodynamics is everything. Like there's

01:52:04.160 an enormous draft advantage if you can slingshot around someone, right? Yeah. And I could skate

01:52:09.840 behind someone all day long and break world records because I was so comfortable, right? Anyone could.

01:52:14.320 But I wasn't very good at leading. For whatever reason, my technical ability would change and my

01:52:18.960 track pattern would change. Which is so interesting given that you still broke, you still have that time

01:52:23.360 trial world record, like going under 125 because that's, there's no one blocking the wind for you there.

01:52:27.840 Right. But later on in my career, that became less and less of a big attribute of mine. So I was less

01:52:32.800 and less a good time trial and more and more of a good racer, so to speak. About a lap and a half to

01:52:38.000 go in the 1500 meters. I'm in, I'm actually in fifth place. I pass three skaters on the inside to pass into

01:52:45.600 second place. Now there's a lap remaining. It's me and Kim Dong Song. I know that there's only one,

01:52:51.680 I'm actually doing this probably a lap too late. I probably should have done this earlier, but I didn't.

01:52:56.480 Waited a little bit too long looking back. And I tried one, one last pass on him on the inside.

01:53:02.240 I recognized right away that he had known that I was going to be passing on the inside. And so he

01:53:06.240 had protected that inside lane position. And he really, really came over to protect that position

01:53:11.040 as much as possible. And I wanted to make sure there was no contact in any capacity. So I put my

01:53:15.840 arms up to show the referee who was in the corner, look, there's no contact. I'm not pushing him.

01:53:20.720 There's nothing going on. And I slipped back in a second, finish the race. He ends up getting

01:53:25.440 disqualified, even though he finishes the race and wins. He had been parading around his South

01:53:30.640 Korean flag and celebrating in victory. My coaches knew that there was going to be a call being made.

01:53:35.840 And why was he disqualified?

01:53:37.360 So he, at the time there was something called cross tracking. So even though you're not,

01:53:41.280 you're, you're supposed to, if you come out of the corner, you're supposed to maintain your,

01:53:45.040 maintain your lane effectively, your lane, right? It's very, it's very subjective.

01:53:48.240 If you come out of the corner and there's technically an inside lane,

01:53:50.880 you can't immediately cut it off. Right. It's like blocking. And so he was disqualified. I was

01:53:56.080 awarded the gold and thus began this crazy relationship with the country of South Korea 0.82

01:54:02.480 that I would have never been able to do to explain. And so.

01:54:05.440 So you get a silver when you should have had a gold, you get a gold that you feel,

01:54:09.840 is this really a silver? Yeah. It wasn't a clean win, right? That's very clear,

01:54:13.520 but I was awarded it. And at the end of the day, a win is a win. And so I celebrated it as such.

01:54:19.680 So this time you get to hear your national anthem for the first time.

01:54:22.400 I hear my national anthem for the first time. It's incredible. It's everything you can think

01:54:26.720 it to be. Like we sit there. I remember watching that on TV. I remember where I was watching that

01:54:30.960 on TV and it's like, I don't know you, it's, but it's still emotional for us to watch this.

01:54:37.120 Right. And to sort of, I think we put ourselves in the shoes of like these kids. Right. And we think like,

01:54:42.640 wow, I can't imagine the sacrifice they just went through. The difference between winning

01:54:48.160 and losing seems to be almost random stochastic, if you will. Right. But you did it. Wow. I can't 0.91

01:54:55.360 believe it. You're standing there. And I mean, I think that's why we just love the Olympics,

01:54:59.520 even sports that we don't necessarily pay attention to outside of the Olympics. Right.

01:55:03.920 I think that the fascination is like, we know these athletes aren't doing it for money

01:55:08.000 because there is no money in the Olympic space, you know, with the exception of like the 0.001%.

01:55:13.840 And you know how much they dedicate, you know, that four and eight and 12 years of their life

01:55:17.920 is dedicated towards this one moment. And it's, there's a, there's a sense of purity associated

01:55:21.920 with that, that they really truly do it because they love the sport. They want to go to the Olympic

01:55:26.240 games and they want to be the best against the world's best. And I think we can appreciate that.

01:55:30.480 Now you won two more medals in 0-2, didn't you? No, I won. I just won those two medals.

01:55:35.200 You did. Okay. So you didn't win on the relay that year? No. One of the guys fell on the relay.

01:55:40.000 I feel like we would have won gold actually, had he not fallen. Which has got to be tough. I mean,

01:55:44.880 you always feel bad. I don't, I follow swimming much more closely obviously than any other sport,

01:55:48.720 but it's always just the saddest thing for me when I see a guy on the swim, you know, on the four by

01:55:53.840 whatever this thing is. And when that one person has a bad leg, you just, you feel worse for them

01:55:59.200 than you feel for the other swimmers who, who swam their best. Cause like, it's just hard. And I,

01:56:04.560 and I always sort of think it's beautiful when people console the one guy who has the bad race 1.00

01:56:09.520 or the one girl who has the bad race. Yeah. In, in short track speed skating, 1.00

01:56:12.960 it's such a variable. We grow up with that mentality. We call it that short track.

01:56:17.040 That's your equivalent of shit happens, right? Exactly. 0.99

01:56:19.200 That's short track. That's short track. Like, look, man, like you plan everything. You are the best.

01:56:23.200 You've been undefeated for years. You get to the Olympic games, boom, you fall down.

01:56:28.240 Shit. That's short track. Like that's the sport that you signed up for. And if you can't subscribe 1.00

01:56:32.560 to that mentality, you chose the wrong sport. But short track to me is very much like life,

01:56:37.920 very much like life, right? You can do everything right. And for whatever reason, something out of

01:56:42.720 your control gets thrown in your way and you have to take it as such and learn from it, obviously,

01:56:48.400 and come back stronger and better. But for the most part, I think that's what it is.

01:56:52.160 But you became one of the really few athletes that rose above the sport, at least from a

01:56:59.040 commercial standpoint. I mean, there are obviously a handful of Olympic athletes that we can all name

01:57:03.440 that end up on the, were you on the cover of a Wheaties box?

01:57:05.520 I was on the cover of a Wheaties box.

01:57:06.880 That's, that's like about as, as American as it gets. 0.86

01:57:08.960 It might not be necessarily the most lucrative commercial opportunity,

01:57:11.680 but it is certainly the most distinguished, right? I mean, to be on the Wheaties box is sort

01:57:15.440 of, it's always a dream.

01:57:16.400 Yeah. So I'm not going to ask you to sort of explain why you think you rose to that level.

01:57:22.480 How much of it do you think had to do with just what you did on the ice versus something about you

01:57:28.240 that sort of captivated people's interests that goes beyond just the performance? Like,

01:57:32.320 you know, obviously you're a good looking guy, you're articulate, your story is incredibly

01:57:36.960 interesting as evidenced by the fact that we could sit here and talk about this for like six days.

01:57:41.040 And you also seem very comfortable in that role too. Like it wasn't,

01:57:44.000 you get the sense some athletes are really uncomfortable with that. They're appreciative

01:57:48.320 of it. And it's this great opportunity to sort of remunerate some of their success, but you seemed

01:57:53.600 like totally natural in that role, right? I think, yeah. I mean, I, look, I was extremely blessed to

01:57:59.440 be able to be one of the few athletes that both NBC chose and wanted to feature as a star athlete

01:58:07.120 and my story for whatever reason. And I think, look, immigrant father comes to the US,

01:58:13.200 doesn't have anything, tries to raise this kid. This kid is bad, finds his life through sport,

01:58:18.640 turns it around, understands the power that he has throughout the sport. And then against all odds,

01:58:25.360 I was able to deliver in some capacity and I didn't deliver a gold in that first race. It was a silver.

01:58:31.840 Well, it was a scrappy silver. I mean, I think that's in some ways, I think people much prefer,

01:58:37.280 like if you had gone out, you know, I don't know what the expression is in speed skating,

01:58:40.640 but if you, if you'd gone wire to wire, right. If you'd time trialed that event and won by five

01:58:46.240 lengths or, you know, by five, you know, body lengths or whatever, it's like, okay, wow,

01:58:49.760 he's dominant. But to fall, cut your leg, you know, barely know which way is up and down and

01:58:56.880 manage to really take the group of four that you're racing against and be the first one across the line.

01:59:01.440 That's a, that's a heartfelt silver that I think most people probably find more appealing and,

01:59:06.560 and actually probably creates a better substrate for the way we like to use sport as metaphor for

01:59:11.600 life. I think that's exactly, I couldn't have articulated it better. I mean, I think that we,

01:59:15.840 you know, Americans, look, we love dominance. We love to win, but we also like to see a story that,

01:59:22.960 that somewhat mirrors what we can relate to. And it wasn't perfect in any way, but I think at the end,

01:59:28.800 I was, I also didn't want to cross the line. And even though I was upset, I didn't win gold,

01:59:33.600 I didn't want to show that. I didn't want to be like, Hey, I should have won gold. That guy,

01:59:37.120 that Australian guy shouldn't have been in the final. He's not a good skater that I didn't want 0.99

01:59:41.840 to have, or be near that type of a mentality. Instead, I had an opportunity, I think to be

01:59:46.640 really, really appreciative and have gratitude for the chance to even be there. Number one,

01:59:51.440 even though I was supposed to win the race, but take it from that perspective. And then just

01:59:56.160 like, I won my first Olympic medal, you know, like that, that's look, this is how the race played

02:00:02.000 out. Not to plan, not exactly how I would have written it, but this is how it went. And I've

02:00:08.560 been through a lot personally to get to that point. And I really, really wanted people to see that

02:00:13.840 I was proud to win that silver. I was proud to win a bronze. I was proud to be there and compete.

02:00:19.440 That was really important for me to people to recognize and see that I didn't take it lightly. I didn't

02:00:24.560 take it for granted like I'd done in the past. And it was something that I was humbled by. And I

02:00:31.440 mean, look, I got to the start line in that race and people were chanting my name, like in the arena.

02:00:36.000 I mean, I'm, I'm 19 years old. That, that is not normal of any stretch of the imagination.

02:00:40.960 Yeah. I got to imagine that's different even from the worlds. Like that's a totally different

02:00:45.440 experience, right? It feels so different. There's an hour camera in my face every second, every inch that

02:00:50.400 I move around and there's immense pressure. I hear people in the audience who I don't know,

02:00:55.120 Apollo, bring home the gold, you know, like, and I can feel like the actual genuine authenticity

02:01:02.480 that exists within saying, bring home that like people really, really wanted me to win.

02:01:06.720 Well, yeah. And you've alluded to it already, but this was only what, four months after 9-11.

02:01:11.200 This was still a very unified country in a way that I don't know that we've experienced since.

02:01:16.480 Yeah. I'm walking in the opening ceremonies in Salt Lake City from

02:01:20.400 our staging area to inside of the time it was called the Delta Center. That's where the opening

02:01:25.280 ceremonies were. And I remember seeing on all of the rooftops and in the trees,

02:01:29.920 all of the American servicemen, snipers, they're sitting there. And I remember looking up and seeing

02:01:36.720 them because they know it's us, right? Because they've got their binoculars on and goggles and

02:01:41.120 they wave. And I'm like, this is much bigger than me. My representation of what I do, my silly sport of

02:01:47.600 short track speed skating, my insignificance of going in circles in this world. And I'm 19,

02:01:53.600 so I can't really understand it to that degree. But the feeling is there that what I do here is far

02:02:01.280 more important than the results that I give. Obviously, I want to win. I want to bring home

02:02:06.800 the color gold, because that is what we signify with being successful. But at the end of the day,

02:02:12.240 I wanted the representation of who I was on the ice at that period of time to reflect, I think,

02:02:18.880 what we would be proud of. And that would make my father proud. And I knew if that happened,

02:02:22.720 that I could be proud, that our country would be proud. Aside from all the other conflict and things

02:02:27.360 that we disagree with, that was a really important part, right, of what I was doing.

02:02:31.040 And it's a tremendous amount of pressure, too, that you don't recognize. No one can prepare

02:02:34.960 you for the Olympic Games. I used to do visualization and hear and have previous tapes recorded and then

02:02:40.720 try to visualize and close my eyes and visualize the race that I wanted to have happen while the 1.00

02:02:44.560 crowd is in my ears. But when I went out there for my first race, nothing could prepare me for that.

02:02:49.600 My heart rate jumped from, whatever, being like 50 to 160, literally within seconds.

02:02:54.960 Wow.

02:02:55.520 And I was like, oh my God, I'm starting this nine-lap race now at threshold,

02:02:59.600 versus this is not supposed to work. I'm not prepared for this.

02:03:03.360 Those six by 1,000s are paying off now.

02:03:05.280 Yeah. That's also a very addictive feeling.

02:03:07.120 So what's the letdown like after the two weeks?

02:03:10.160 After the games are over?

02:03:11.440 Yeah.

02:03:11.760 Oh, well, it depends on how you do.

02:03:13.920 So you've done well. You've obviously got a great commercial career ahead of you.

02:03:19.360 Yeah.

02:03:19.600 But you still have four years until you're going to be back on that stage again.

02:03:22.800 You'll go to the Worlds again, you'll do World Cup, but you're not going to feel that

02:03:26.800 electricity for four more years, right?

02:03:28.720 Correct. And nothing replaces the Olympic Games. There's no competition on the planet. So

02:03:32.720 post games, I go on the media whirlwind tour for basically six to eight months.

02:03:37.280 I do every single interview and conversation and sponsorships and commercial advertising stuff,

02:03:42.000 because that's the only way you as an Olympic athlete can generate any source of revenue.

02:03:46.080 You're not really paid to win gold medals. You're not paid to be a part of the team. You're just there.

02:03:49.520 What percentage of United States Olympians can secure enough sponsorship that that can become

02:03:58.080 a sole source of income to sustain them through another Olympic run, i.e. they do not need to go

02:04:04.160 out and get another job?

02:04:05.440 Maybe less than a percent.

02:04:06.800 Wow.

02:04:07.360 For sure, less than a percent. Because even if you win a gold, it doesn't necessarily guarantee you to

02:04:12.080 have a good generating of income. If for whatever reason you weren't featured or NBC didn't see you

02:04:17.600 or sponsorships aren't interested, you're a guy with a gold medal. And I know a few who won gold,

02:04:23.520 who have the most normal jobs that we normally would see like, wow, that guy won gold. And why

02:04:27.920 is he working here doing this day-to-day activity, like this manual labor? But that's just the reality

02:04:33.360 of what happened. So I was blessed. I didn't have to do that. I got great sponsorship opportunities.

02:04:38.240 And I took the sport of short track speed skating, which was relatively completely unknown to most

02:04:42.960 Americans. And the first time they ever saw it was that thousand meters in which I fell down.

02:04:46.640 And people were like, oh my God, this is the craziest sport I've ever seen in my life.

02:04:50.160 And it's like, it's like roller derby.

02:04:52.560 Yeah. That's what people say. NASCAR on ice, we call it, right?

02:04:57.120 And it's crazy. It's fun. It's fast. It's explosive. There's strategy. It's unpredictable.

02:05:01.200 There's crashes. It's aggressive. The only thing, you know, if they just allowed you to punch

02:05:05.840 each other, it would be like the next American like checkbox, you know? 0.90

02:05:10.560 They should be able to carry knives too.

02:05:12.480 You should at least be able to like, you know, clothesline somebody, right?

02:05:15.520 Yeah. That would be, we'd get some different looking athletes on the ice. That's for sure. 1.00

02:05:19.680 There's so many other things I want to talk about. And I realize like

02:05:22.800 we're getting looks out there because they want us to go out for dinner. So let's talk about 06 and 10.

02:05:28.880 So, you know, one of the things you've told me before that I was blown away by was the difference

02:05:34.000 in your body weight between 2002, 2006, and 2010. Most athletes who go from being 19 to 23 to 27

02:05:44.400 are putting on more muscle or getting bigger and bigger. You're maintaining muscle and getting

02:05:49.760 leaner and leaner and leaner. Remind me again, the difference between your fighting weight in those

02:05:55.040 three Olympics. Sure. So in 2002, the training focus was power, ballistic, strength, and speed.

02:06:04.400 Those are the important factors in that time period. Do you remember how many watts you could

02:06:08.160 generate for a minute on a bike, on an ERG? I don't remember. I have to ask Dr. Randy Wilber,

02:06:13.920 who's, I think he's still at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, the head of the sports

02:06:17.360 science. Dude, you gotta like get all that data and send it to me. Like I want so badly to see your

02:06:22.080 LPCs and your wattages and stuff like that. I bet it was just sick. It was good. You know,

02:06:26.560 I don't know if it was like astronomically high. Like I've heard these other stories of other

02:06:30.800 athletes who were short track speed skaters to be just freak in every genetic response. But

02:06:36.560 my ability was to, I recovered really quickly. That was the one component. I remember doing a test in,

02:06:42.240 I remember doing all these different sports science tests. I remember these, these doctors

02:06:45.680 basically saying like, you need to live at altitude. Like your body responds extremely well,

02:06:50.560 the higher you go. For whatever reason, your body just produces a ridiculous amount of red blood

02:06:55.920 cells. You come down and you, you love it. So, and your ability to recover high or low is, is,

02:07:02.240 is different. Yeah. The first time I trained at altitude, I got to go and swim in Colorado. I was

02:07:08.320 like, like, I'm not swimming. I'm not doing the same stroke. Like nothing feels the same up here.

02:07:14.480 Like I couldn't believe it. Yeah. I think Colorado is like 6,400 feet. I think you're

02:07:19.440 at the elevation. Yeah. And back then we just, we lived high and we slept high.

02:07:24.240 Right. Cause I think, I think today isn't the conventional wisdom. You want to live high,

02:07:28.480 train low. Doesn't that produce the best outcome? Yeah. That's correct.

02:07:31.760 So you're better off actually having a tent and training at sea level.

02:07:34.880 Yeah. Yeah. And then like, there's some arguments against the entire tent related,

02:07:38.960 what type of stress that places on the human body. And is that, is it natural form of stress? And do

02:07:43.840 you get the proper response? There's some arguments back and forth that Dr. Randy Wilber was like,

02:07:48.400 no, I think the actual natural environment far exceeds something that you can try to explain to

02:07:54.080 me. Obviously I didn't understand, but. So in 2002, you're weighing what?

02:07:57.600 So 2002, I weighed approximately 164 to 167. So call it 165, right? That was my fighting weight.

02:08:05.120 And I could like press around 1400, 1450, 1500 pounds. I'm just giving you just context.

02:08:12.400 So a small car. Yeah. My back squat was never really that high. I think a lot of it had to do

02:08:17.200 with just the way that I hinged. I was very good hunched over in that position. I could generate a

02:08:21.280 lot of power when my back was rounded. Which you don't want to be squatting in that position.

02:08:24.480 Yeah. It's complete opposite. But you were still probably what? Squatting. I think you said you

02:08:28.080 were probably in the mid 300s for 12 reps. Yeah. About 350, 365, 375 for 10 to 12.

02:08:34.160 That's probably a max of 500 at a body weight at 160 is no slouch.

02:08:38.960 Yeah. I mean, my vertical was really high. Yeah. I was going to say, what was your vertical?

02:08:42.160 Almost like 36. Jesus. Do you know what your single leg vertical was?

02:08:46.480 No, I don't remember that. Again, this is all stuff that I wish that we had docked because we

02:08:51.360 trained so hard. I'm convinced by the way, the single leg vertical is probably the best predictor

02:08:57.360 of speed. Yeah, I think so. And your ability to generate force in the ground. Yeah. I'd like to,

02:09:01.920 I'd like to see the difference between doing like a single jump and doing a series of two or three

02:09:06.960 and seeing that reaction time and generating a power over all these cool tools and ideas that

02:09:12.640 I wish we had implemented. We probably had the ability. We just didn't implement them properly

02:09:16.880 back then. So in 06, what did you weigh? 06, I weighed about 155 pounds, but I could still

02:09:22.000 leg press the same amount of weight. 10 pounds less.

02:09:23.600 So I was significantly leaner in 06, significantly leaner. So long gone is the chubby boy.

02:09:29.280 Yeah. Gone. We have new coaches. I now have a Chinese coach going to those games.

02:09:33.680 These were in Italy this year, wasn't it? Yes. Torino, Italy. And I performed very well

02:09:37.760 in those games. I ended up winning a gold in the 500 meters. I won wire to wire, controlled

02:09:42.320 the race, did very well. Wasn't the best skater out there for sure, but strategically, it was my day.

02:09:46.960 Did you also get a relay medal that year? Yes, we did. We got a bronze.

02:09:49.760 And then what did you weigh in 2010? And then 2010, my goal was to be under 150.

02:09:56.080 And I hadn't been under 150 since I was 14 years old. When I was 14, I was like 135, 137.

02:10:01.680 And then I ballooned back up, obviously. So my goal was to be under 150. I ended up competing

02:10:07.040 at like between 142 and 146. Jesus.

02:10:11.040 So I would say like on average, it's about 143, 145 pounds.

02:10:13.920 And how much strength did you give up to get there?

02:10:16.480 It was weird because I could leg press the same amount of weight. I could leg press nearly 2000 pounds

02:10:21.360 at that weight, like 1900 or something like that, right? The difference was my pure ballistic power

02:10:27.680 was drastically different. I stopped doing all Olympic lifts.

02:10:31.040 So were you doing a lot of plyometrics?

02:10:33.040 A lot of weighted plyometrics. But again, I cut most of that weight that year, like that Olympic

02:10:39.200 season. So you can imagine like the first half of the year was spent just cutting this weight.

02:10:43.280 So essentially living in a catabolic environment all the time to eat excess muscle mass

02:10:48.240 from your upper body, traps, arms. You know, I mean, I had no, I see that picture.

02:10:54.080 My arms were so skinny back then. It was very similar to what you'd see in someone who's climbing

02:10:59.040 in a tour. I remember Lance saying that during the tour years, he wouldn't do one pushup or swim

02:11:05.840 one lap in the spring and going into it because it's like you had to be able to waste as much muscle

02:11:12.880 as possible from the upper body. You want complete atrophy from the hips up.

02:11:16.480 Yeah. And there's a crazy stories that we hear that like these cyclists would like basically

02:11:20.960 put themselves in a sling in the summers during their training, right? Because there's a lose

02:11:25.280 also. And the reason why, and people are like, why the hell would you want that body tape?

02:11:28.800 Those people that ask that question have never ridden a bike up a hill. That's all I'm going to say.

02:11:32.640 Every pound counts, every fraction.

02:11:34.240 It is. I mean, cycling in many ways is such a beautiful sport because there are a few sports

02:11:39.280 that can be reduced to such formulaic outcomes. And when you can take functional threshold

02:11:43.920 power divided by mass in kilos and get a number in watts per kilo that essentially predicts who's

02:11:50.240 going to win the race up a hill, that's pretty amazing. And speed skating, it's harder because

02:11:56.240 one, I don't know what the metric is of power, but two, absolute power to translate to a bike is much

02:12:03.280 easier. Like you're transmitting from the leg to the pedal, to the crank, to the wheel. But in skating,

02:12:09.360 there's more to it, right? It's not entirely clear what the relationship is between the 2,000

02:12:14.320 pounds that you can leg press versus how many of those pounds in watts are hitting the ice, right?

02:12:20.400 There probably is not a correlation.

02:12:21.600 Or it's probably loose correlation.

02:12:23.200 Loose correlation, right?

02:12:24.320 But everyone's different because if you can't put the power.

02:12:26.080 If you don't have the technique, it's irrelevant.

02:12:27.440 Yeah. So like a bike, the technique is pretty simple. You know, it's a push and pull at the basic

02:12:32.640 level, right? But in speed skating, there's seven parts to one push. Literally, there's seven parts to

02:12:37.920 one push that you have to drill in your head to make it automatic and normal. And you're never

02:12:42.720 on just one plane of balance on that piece of blade. Like you're in the heel, now you're in the

02:12:47.760 middle, now you're back towards the heel, and then you finish at the ball or towards the toe. And it's

02:12:52.080 different depending on the speed, what you're doing, the track pattern. There's so many elements that are

02:12:57.200 always changing. For example, the Koreans, they don't lift weights, right? That became my obsession. 1.00

02:13:03.600 This started in 2002. Yeah, because you went to Korea, didn't you?

02:13:06.320 I went to Korea. Before 2010.

02:13:07.920 In 2007, because I was so obsessed and fascinated with how they continuously kept producing incredible

02:13:15.200 athletes that I was competitive against. And they just skated so beautiful.

02:13:18.800 Now, you were at this point pretty much a god to them, and they were gods to you. Did they

02:13:22.720 welcome you with open arms? They did, actually. They invited me, and partially because I think

02:13:27.520 they just wanted to study me. They just wanted to see what made me tick. How strong is my ability to

02:13:32.960 train? Can I handle their type of training atmosphere and environment? And I was fascinated

02:13:37.440 to go into the belly of the beast. I wanted to go into that lion's den and understand what makes

02:13:43.040 them tick. And my dad was completely against it, but I was like, this is something I have to do.

02:13:48.240 And eventually, he was like, this is something you have to do.

02:13:50.240 Why was your dad against it?

02:13:51.360 Yeah. So after the 2002 Olympic Games, there was, after that race where I was awarded the gold and

02:13:57.600 the Korean skater was disqualified, there was 16,000 emails sent in the form of death threats to the

02:14:04.240 United States Olympic Committee because of that race to me. It was pretty crazy. So it was, again,

02:14:09.600 it was a time where my relationship with Korea changed overnight. We ended up not going to Korea

02:14:14.640 for two years for competitions because we were unsure of the environment.

02:14:17.520 When you say we, you mean you and your dad or the U.S. team?

02:14:19.680 No, me and the U.S. team. None of us went. I mean, my face was on a toilet paper inside the

02:14:23.440 country. I was the second most hated person aside from Osama bin Laden inside that country.

02:14:28.800 Literally.

02:14:29.200 Unbelievable.

02:14:29.600 It was unbelievable. We can talk about this other thing for two hours. I have a thousand

02:14:34.560 stories in relation to that. And when I actually decided to go against everyone's wishes,

02:14:39.600 I was like, I can't just keep running from this problem. I got to go. Number one,

02:14:42.400 they haven't heard me tell my story. They hate me for reasons that are unexplainable and also

02:14:47.120 they're not really that fair because they don't know me. I'm not a referee. I didn't make the

02:14:51.840 judging call. I am an athlete. I'm a sportsman. I compete like anyone else does under the same

02:14:57.840 rules and capacities. And I walk away regardless of outcome, right? And it was a changing time. So

02:15:04.080 the Koreans were always number one. I was the only threat at the time to them and their legacy. And it 1.00

02:15:09.760 was a huge, huge part of my fascination with actually saying, you know what? I got to go there.

02:15:15.600 Even though they're going to study me, I have to go and understand. It's like someone going to train

02:15:19.200 with Usain Bolt in Jamaica for like three months and seeing what is he doing? Is he doing some

02:15:24.800 exercise? What are they eating? What is their sleeping habits? What is their recovery? How do

02:15:29.120 they get massaged, right? What kind of all these elements?

02:15:32.240 And you already knew that they weren't doing the type of off-ice work that you were. What surprised

02:15:37.920 you the most about what they did on ice?

02:15:40.320 The two things that I recognized right away was their efficiency in training. There was no talking

02:15:45.440 when you're on the ice. There was all business. When you showed up at the ice rink at four in the

02:15:49.600 morning, 430 in the morning, there was already probably 30 skaters there who were eight to 12 years

02:15:54.000 old who had been practicing technical drills before you even got there. So their commitment to

02:15:59.120 perfection in terms of technique is drilled in at a very young age. So their efficiency ratio,

02:16:05.040 they don't have to be as strong as me in the weight room because they're so much more efficient.

02:16:08.320 That's what it came down to.

02:16:10.080 This, by the way, has another beautiful parallel to swimming, right? I mean, unlike cycling,

02:16:14.960 in swimming, the relationship between the power you can actually generate and how you can transmit

02:16:20.960 it to the water is elusive. And I don't know if the guy who wins the race is necessarily the

02:16:26.720 strongest on land. It really doesn't matter. It's so much more about avoiding drag and efficiently

02:16:32.800 putting your muscle into the go. So in that sense, it's much more like skating where

02:16:37.440 there are certain swimmers who have some of the most unimpressive physiques. I mean,

02:16:40.480 Phelps has such an impressive physique to begin with. It's sort of the best of both worlds, but

02:16:44.880 there are some really ridiculously scrawny looking, pathetic swimmers who like, 0.98

02:16:50.560 like biscuit chested dudes that can't, like literally can't do anything. But when they get in 0.99

02:16:57.280 the water, they sure as hell can do something. Sure. It's very much the same way with speed skating.

02:17:02.080 And I saw that. And the first thing I recognized was their ability to copy each other was unlike

02:17:08.640 anything I've ever seen. When you go watch a US short track speed skating practice,

02:17:12.080 everyone skates entirely different. You can pick out who's who. When you watch a Korean speed skating 1.00

02:17:16.640 practice, they all look the same. You get a couple of guys that stand out, but for the most part,

02:17:22.640 and it's beautiful to watch. They're very quiet. They don't make a lot of noise when they go around

02:17:25.840 the corner. They're extremely efficient. And I remember the first day that I showed up,

02:17:29.280 we broke like five world records in that practice. And two of the girls who were leading, 0.98

02:17:34.160 by the way, in the, in the 3000 meter, we did five times, 3000 meters, five times, 27 laps to the

02:17:39.760 girls. I never ended up seeing for the next couple of years. They never made the team. And they were

02:17:44.240 the ones who were leading this from start till finish, breaking the world records. So they just

02:17:48.000 have a mass talent pool of skaters that they can just pick and choose from. And just like the old

02:17:54.320 school Eric Heiden era of like survival of the fittest, we're going to pick out the

02:17:59.200 pure genetic monsters who not only technically are the most efficient, but also can handle the

02:18:03.440 greatest amount of volume and load and training. They are going to rise to the top. And usually,

02:18:08.800 the South Korean skaters only last one or two Olympics at the absolute most before they're

02:18:13.440 just gone. And they just like literally overnight, they just-

02:18:16.080 They get replaced by the next cog in the machine.

02:18:18.080 They can't even make the team.

02:18:19.440 Wow.

02:18:19.760 Yeah. So my whole goal for showing up in Vancouver was in 2002, I was dominant. 2006,

02:18:26.400 I had won a gold, probably could not have replicated that. And in 2007, I was losing my dominance in

02:18:32.720 the sport significantly. And people were skating so fast and there was-

02:18:36.960 Was that mostly just apparent to you or do you, because usually the athlete's the first to figure that

02:18:41.600 out.

02:18:41.920 Yeah.

02:18:42.320 Or was it also visible to those around you?

02:18:44.240 I think people started to notice that I was no longer this undefeatable, unrecognizable,

02:18:48.960 unknown mystery athlete from the US. Everyone knew my strategy. Everyone knew my natural

02:18:54.320 gait and rhythm of skating. And it was like do or die. I wasn't dominant and I wasn't winning.

02:19:00.240 I was winning, but I wasn't winning with the same fashion I was where people were like,

02:19:03.520 oh my God, that guy just smashed the pack.

02:19:05.520 So was there a period then between 07 and 10 when you were even wondering if you would come back?

02:19:10.000 It was not wondering if I was going to come back because I'd already committed. It was more,

02:19:14.320 how do I actually get to the games and have a chance at meddling? That was the conversation. Like,

02:19:19.200 how can I win against this next generation of South Korean athletes that I've never faced before who 1.00

02:19:23.200 are so fast and so good?

02:19:25.360 How old are they? You're now 25, right? 26.

02:19:28.960 Yeah, they're 18, 19, 20. That was usually the range.

02:19:31.840 Which is interesting because if you really think about it, for a male speed-based sport,

02:19:36.320 you should still be able to peak in your mid-20s.

02:19:38.480 Yeah. For whatever reason, it was always a young man's sport, short track speed skating.

02:19:42.080 I think a lot of it's got to do with flexibility and the way in which you move. And maybe there's

02:19:46.800 no correlation in any capacity, but that's just what it was. In 2002, a lot of the heavier guys

02:19:50.880 had to retire before 2006. They couldn't meet the cut. The sport had changed. From 2006 to 2010,

02:19:56.240 a whole next generation of guys retired because again, they couldn't meet the cut. The way that we

02:20:00.400 trained, the focal points, what was important during training, the elements that made you a fast speed

02:20:05.280 skater are all changed. And we had a big coaching turnover. So we went from a Chinese coach. I had

02:20:10.720 originally had a Canadian coach, American coach, to then a Chinese coach, to then two Korean coaches

02:20:16.160 who threw everything out the window when it came to sports science and said, we are going to take

02:20:20.240 you Apollo and change the way that you technically skate. And physiologically, my goal was to show up

02:20:25.680 as a different type of an athlete that they would never prepare for. So I want to change my natural

02:20:29.760 gait and rhythm. I can't help but bring the Rocky metaphor back. This is when Rocky comes back to

02:20:34.400 fight Clubber Lang because he gets killed by Clubber fighting Rocky style and then Apollo comes back to

02:20:40.480 train him. I'm grinning as I say this because I realize it sounds so stupid, but it's really the 0.97

02:20:44.720 example, right? It's like you can't come back and fight Clubber the same way. You got to lose like 15 0.99

02:20:48.960 pounds and you actually have to box instead of slug. Correct. If I want to be competitive, if I took the

02:20:54.080 same strategy of success from 2006 and 2010, I won't make the semifinal. That's apparent. And so

02:21:00.720 that meant I had to make drastic changes. And you realized this by 07? By 07. So you had three years

02:21:05.600 to change everything. After I had gone to Korea and skated and recognized and knew what I was really

02:21:11.300 up against and saw this next generation of South Korean athletes who were training there that would

02:21:15.360 be the ones that I would compete against. And also recognize also when I stepped on the ice in 2010

02:21:20.080 and look in the coaches box and see that I would have skated against 80% of the coaches because they

02:21:24.960 all had retired and became coaches of those national teams who were then coaching their athletes to beat

02:21:28.480 me. They know me better than anybody. They'd seen me for 15 years at that point, right? Technically. So the

02:21:34.080 goal was to show up as someone who they couldn't prepare for. Different strategy, different mentality,

02:21:38.080 different training. And that meant drastic decisions and changes. And so I hired a strength and conditioning

02:21:43.040 coach who lived with me at my house in Salt Lake City, Utah to watch and monitor every single thing

02:21:48.800 that I ate, every single extra training regimen that we did. And I was the guy that I was never

02:21:53.200 like, you never had to push me to train more. It was like, okay, we need to figure out how to rest.

02:21:57.520 Yeah. Like let's, let's figure out how to do some things a little bit better, better here. And so

02:22:01.360 it became a huge emphasis on recovery, a massive emphasis on nutrition, which is recovery. And just

02:22:08.240 making sure that everything that I was doing was correlating with my end result, which was being,

02:22:13.120 let's be this light, let's maintain this strength. And I know if I can at least do those two things,

02:22:18.400 I've got the unique technical ability to at least get myself to the podium.

02:22:22.800 And it was a struggle because I love to eat. I love food. I'm always hungry. And at 153,

02:22:30.480 there's not a lot of weight to lose. Like my skin was very thin around my legs. Like I had,

02:22:35.440 it was all muscle. So I had to go catabolic. I had to lose excess muscle mass that wasn't being

02:22:41.040 specifically derived from the sport and perhaps was being generated from the weight training that we

02:22:45.920 were doing, whether it was deadlifts, whether it was poles, whether, I mean, there was no more,

02:22:49.840 I mean, in 2000, in 1999, we were still doing bench press, right? That's a part of our weight

02:22:55.760 training program. That's got, that makes no sense in terms of, even those cleans really,

02:23:00.240 I mean, you could argue there was obviously an explosive benefit to the cleans, but

02:23:03.360 two and a half to three pounds there, probably an upper body mass, right? That you just don't

02:23:07.120 necessarily need. Now the benefit from those is incredible. And looking back, I probably should

02:23:12.000 have incorporated some specific type of Olympic or deadlift like activity, but I was so hyper

02:23:17.760 focused and obsessed with losing weight. I remember writing down on these little post-it notes and

02:23:22.800 putting them all throughout my house, the weight, and then like, you know, and then like zero regrets,

02:23:28.880 like make sure you get to the Olympic games with zero regrets, regardless of your outcome there,

02:23:33.680 you have to arrive leaving absolutely no stones unturned in your preparation.

02:23:38.560 You wrote a book by this title years later. Yeah. And that was just because that was,

02:23:42.560 that was your mantra mentality. And, and I was doing like dumb workouts. Like we, 0.96

02:23:46.720 I had two training sessions with the Olympic team, and then we would do an additional one

02:23:51.040 or two on top of that every day of the week, with the exception of Saturday and Sunday,

02:23:55.600 which were pure recovery. Saturday morning, we would skate. Saturday afternoon,

02:23:59.280 it was recovery. Sunday, well, there was recovery. But the rest of the time I was doing these

02:24:02.480 crazy sprints and intervals on a treadmill that my, my strength and conditioning coach could monitor and

02:24:07.920 watch my gate. We would try to change the way that I naturally ran. So we increased the,

02:24:12.960 the cadence and I wanted to be a higher cadence athlete who had very high cadence versus the

02:24:19.360 previous Apollo, which is all power slow. And it was very hard. It's, it's nearly impossible to

02:24:24.880 change, but that was the goal point. And which is interesting. You come back to a cycling analogy

02:24:28.640 here, right? Which is today we see cyclists riding at a much higher cadence and a lower torque to

02:24:34.480 generate comparable power, shifting the load to the cardiovascular system from the muscular system.

02:24:39.440 Yep. And all comes down to efficiency, right? Generate the least amount of lactic acid

02:24:44.240 and increase the amount of speed and repetitions that you are crossing over in the corner without

02:24:48.960 the more static you are on one leg, the more strength and lactic acid you essentially are producing.

02:24:55.040 So if you can decrease the amount of time you are on each leg, the less likelihood you are to get

02:24:59.440 tired as long as you're naturally able to do that. So I mean, it was a real struggle. Like I cracked on

02:25:06.320 that treadmill. I cracked in the weight room all of the time. And I questioned my path on that process.

02:25:13.200 Cause you can imagine, right? I'm a guy here who I have a recipe for success. I know what works.

02:25:17.680 And now you're going to abandon it. Not only do I abandon it, I go the complete opposite direction.

02:25:23.520 And I change everything and everything that I know about what made me, me in hopes that I would

02:25:29.600 do this gamble and show up to the Olympic games and be the best I've ever been and completely

02:25:34.800 unpredictable to the other athletes. And it remarkably worked out, but there was a lot of questioning in

02:25:41.280 my head. And I remember many, many nights I'd lay in bed, starving, so incredibly hungry.

02:25:47.200 Cause I just, I, for sure I wasn't getting enough calories in my body. Absolutely. And just like

02:25:51.920 wondering, like, is this the right path towards success? Is this going to work? Cause the last

02:25:57.520 thing I want to do is get to the games and be like, shit, that was a bad decision. 0.99

02:26:01.840 Right. And that's painful for so many reasons, not the least of which being you have just spent 0.99

02:26:05.680 four years before you got that feedback. Right. It's one thing to say, you know, I'm going to try

02:26:11.200 this new way of washing my car today and see if it produces streaks or no streaks. And then you do

02:26:15.840 it and it produces streaks and you're like, well, okay, that was 30 minutes I wasted. But like,

02:26:19.600 this is four years to figure out that the new washing technique streaks the car.

02:26:24.320 Yeah. And for the first four and a half months, like I, I just wasn't skating very well. I was

02:26:29.680 tired. I was fatigued all the time. Other athletes on my team were better and skating faster than I was.

02:26:36.400 I was doing workouts that I probably shouldn't have been doing at that latent stage.

02:26:39.760 And the chatter is basically, he's sticking around for one too many Olympics.

02:26:43.520 Yeah. And he's like, lost his mind. Like, he's like, what is he doing? Like,

02:26:47.840 look how much weight he's losing on like a monthly basis. But again, goes back to that psychological

02:26:53.280 advantage of this is what it took. And this is the place that I was in. And to me, having that edge

02:26:59.920 of going to a place where no one else went to, and also it's very personal, right? Going to a place

02:27:04.640 where you never knew was possible. It's incredibly powerful. It's, you have a sense of inner strength

02:27:11.280 when you get to those Olympic games. And I hadn't raced a single race, but I was smiling before that

02:27:15.440 even happened. Like I, I felt so like weightless, not only because I'd lost 20 pounds all over my

02:27:20.640 career, but because I just, I really felt prepared. Could I have done it differently? Absolutely. Could

02:27:26.240 I have gone back and implemented sports science and other elements that we now know would have

02:27:31.040 dramatically increased my performance ratio? Yes. But the process of going through that and

02:27:37.600 hardening my mentality and going through those dark times where you're questioning yourself,

02:27:42.240 being in a sauna alone every day, sweating and meditating and visualizing to be your absolute

02:27:49.600 greatest potential, thinking about not an almond more or an almond less that goes into your body like

02:27:55.840 on a daily basis. Like that obsession is fatiguing, but also really beautiful thinking back. And I miss

02:28:02.400 it immensely, but it was a huge burden and, and weightlessness and, and victory, personal victory

02:28:09.440 that took a whole team to get me to that point. When I arrived in Vancouver and I had an incredible

02:28:15.040 Olympic games, didn't actually end up winning a gold in those games, but still feeling like I won

02:28:19.840 and having the most consistent Olympics I've ever had in my life.

02:28:22.240 And that transition from 07, 08, 09, as you're completely changing your style, completely

02:28:28.800 changing your body, changing the way you train, adjusting to a sport that is still basically in

02:28:36.960 probably a profound evolution, more so than a sport that's been around for hundreds of years,

02:28:42.400 or at least been an Olympic sport for a hundred years. It's still in that growth curve of figuring out

02:28:47.760 the balance between technical versus strength versus power. What was it like to go back to Korea

02:28:54.880 in, is it was in 07 you went back?

02:28:57.120 To live in Korea was in 07.

02:28:59.120 Yep.

02:28:59.520 And I know we sort of talked about this before, but you had kind of a, an interesting homecoming

02:29:04.160 back to Korea post 02, right?

02:29:06.480 Right.

02:29:06.800 Which was in 04. We kind of glossed over that a little bit, but for two years you didn't go back, right?

02:29:12.560 Yeah. So after the 2002 Olympic games, when I had won that gold medal in the 1500 meters and the

02:29:18.480 South Korean was disqualified, thus began this like really interesting relationship with the

02:29:24.400 country of South Korea. I mean, I had mentioned that I was the second most hated person in South

02:29:27.760 Korea. First was Osama bin Laden. We received 15,000, 16,000 death threats via email, which crashed

02:29:34.080 the United States Olympic Committee servers during the Olympic games. So instantaneously, we knew that

02:29:38.640 that that country was very unhappy with what had just happened. And it was a subjective call,

02:29:43.280 not made by me, but made by a referee who was the corner judge who decided to think that there

02:29:48.160 was a cross-tracking penalty and I was awarded. Could have went either way if you replayed the race

02:29:54.240 again with different judges. So fast forward to the 2002 World Cup, soccer World Cup, and it was

02:30:01.360 Korea versus United States. A Korean athlete scores the first goal, rips off his jersey,

02:30:06.480 underneath the jersey, painted on his back is my last name, O-H-N-O, Oh No. And they essentially do 0.72

02:30:13.040 a replay of that race on the soccer field and pretend and they throw the arms up and everything,

02:30:19.200 basically showcasing that they think that that was a misstep in the judging call and

02:30:24.400 I should not have been on worth the gold. So they were really infatuated with that result.

02:30:28.880 It was also a time in which I think anti-American sentiment within the country was at its prior peak

02:30:33.360 week. And, you know, a lot of people were kind of pointing fingers about things that were happening

02:30:39.920 inside the country that involved Americans and could have been penalized, should have been penalized 0.66

02:30:47.440 for their actions in the country and they weren't and they were let off. And so they thought that this

02:30:51.280 was not okay. And, you know, outside these decisions in courtroom areas that these things were happening,

02:30:56.880 like people were chanting my name as if I had anything to do with any of those incidents in

02:31:01.680 any capacity. So again, it was a really sensitive time and it escalated even further because these

02:31:08.480 death threats continued on throughout the year, so much so that like my face was on toilet paper

02:31:14.480 inside Korea where they were selling this. And you can imagine like that's a crazy thing to have happen.

02:31:20.240 I had a lot of friends who were in service who were in the country and they were like,

02:31:22.960 dude, you are not liked in this country. Like do not come here. It's not okay. Like people,

02:31:27.280 they don't even watch speed skating. They don't know the sport. They don't know you. They just

02:31:30.560 know they're supposed to hate you. And so this spread, this nationalism inside South Korea was

02:31:36.480 always strong and they're very patriotic people and very passionate. And they just, they got behind

02:31:40.560 this thing that I was not the good guy. And we compete every single year in these World Cups,

02:31:45.360 right? So from 2002 to 2004, we had probably three World Cups that were supposed to be in Seoul.

02:31:51.280 All three, we opted out not to go. Now those are important World Cups. Those give you the world

02:31:55.600 ranking in order to get best seated for your world championship. So it had to be pretty devastating for

02:32:00.400 us to not go. And we just didn't know what the threat was going to be. We didn't know if it was

02:32:04.240 going to be real. We weren't, we weren't certain of all it takes is one crazy person to make a,

02:32:08.480 you know, an action and something could happen. And my father definitely didn't want me to go.

02:32:12.320 I'm the only son. He felt that the threat was real and it just wasn't worth it. It's only sport,

02:32:16.560 right? Why would you put yourself in danger and at risk? And to me, I just, I felt I was really hurt,

02:32:21.280 I think emotionally because I grew up around the Korean culture. Like I was obsessed with

02:32:25.120 the Korean skaters. I had Korean coaches, you know, I looked up to them. I had Korean friends

02:32:29.440 growing up in Federal Way, Washington and Seattle, Washington, and I ate the food. I understood it.

02:32:33.760 And so I just felt like it was very unwarranted because they never heard my side of the story and

02:32:37.840 they didn't know me as a person, but instead I was judged by a preconceived notion or speculation that

02:32:43.120 wasn't accurate. And so getting that across a huge language barrier is impossible. So my only thought

02:32:49.760 was, well, in 2004, I have to go there. And so finally we made the decision as a team to go to

02:32:55.280 Seoul to compete. And upon arrival, you know, we were told that the risk is still there. There's going to

02:33:00.400 be bodyguards, but I had no idea what to expect. I'd never been in this position before. And upon arrival

02:33:06.320 in Incheon International Airport, there was an empty baggage claim, meaning they cleared out the baggage

02:33:12.000 claim, the area that we arrived at. And it was like a hundred to 200, maybe 300 plus security guards

02:33:19.920 and police who were standing shoulder to shoulder to block out the Korean media in which there was

02:33:25.520 like hundreds of people there and fans trying to take pictures and get interviews because it was,

02:33:30.800 you know, it's like my first time coming back. So I'm like the second most hated person in the world.

02:33:34.080 Now I'm back to compete on their home soil in their view to see who the best of the best is.

02:33:40.960 So like, this is their rematch, right? Now it's not the Olympics, but this is their rematch. This is

02:33:45.760 their opportunity to prove for once and for all that it was a complete fluke that I won during those

02:33:50.800 games. And it was the bad call. And the skater that you defeated in 02, was he still skating?

02:33:56.880 He retired. So this wasn't even really about you and him anymore. This is about you in a country.

02:34:01.200 It was about me in a country, about me versus South Korea, which is really insane. Yeah. 0.99

02:34:06.640 For many different levels. But looking back, it made me a lot stronger mentally and it made me

02:34:11.120 train like a complete monster. Every waking moment, I was driven a lot by my pure fear

02:34:20.240 that the guys on the other side of the world were better, more prepared, younger, talented,

02:34:26.320 genetically gifted, bodies suited for the sport of short track speed skating.

02:34:30.320 And how can I beat them? The only way I knew was just to be tougher, right? Mentally

02:34:36.480 be able to withstand pain thresholds that they wouldn't even dare step into. This is my mentality.

02:34:41.280 It's the only way that I could make up for my lack of, you know, whatever God given talents and

02:34:46.240 abilities that I did or didn't have. And so when I arrived in South Korea, and I don't tell this story

02:34:52.400 often because it's never came up, but the week prior, we were actually in China for another World Cup.

02:34:56.640 And usually whenever we go to China for the World Cups, they're held in like Harbin,

02:35:01.200 Changchun, like these northeastern regions of the country that are very cold. Back then,

02:35:07.280 they just were not nice to visit. Skyscrapers are being built everywhere. Like it's just not a

02:35:12.480 pleasant place to be in during that kind of infrastructure booming period. And you usually

02:35:17.120 always got sick at some point. Like the Chinese food was just not clean or we just didn't have the 0.68

02:35:21.920 bacteria to fight. And so, you know, me being a guy who would like eat street food sometimes when

02:35:28.000 I go over there, that was no longer an option. And all of my team got sick during that first week.

02:35:32.880 And so we traveled the next week to South Korea. And typically when you go to a World Cup, you arrive

02:35:38.000 on a Monday, compete on a Friday. So you spend Monday through Thursday, adjusting to the climate,

02:35:43.440 getting used to the ice conditions, understanding the environment, and essentially just preparing

02:35:48.960 yourself for the competition. And so I was the only guy on my team who didn't get sick in China.

02:35:55.440 But upon that plane ride from China to South Korea, my stomach was starting to feel a little funky.

02:36:02.880 Talk about bad timing, right? I'm going to the heart of the lion's den to be at my best. This race

02:36:08.320 and this competition is a World Cup. It means nothing overall that year. It's 2004. People don't care.

02:36:13.520 No one's paying attention. It's so intrinsically important for me to perform well

02:36:18.080 at that competition. Nothing else matters that year because of all of this, all these things

02:36:22.160 that are encompassing. And so I arrive on Monday. On Tuesday, I have like really bad food poisoning

02:36:28.960 from China. And it goes into Wednesday. It goes into Thursday. And at this point, I'm like down 10 pounds.

02:36:34.720 And what's normal for the type of training you would do on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday? I mean,

02:36:40.960 this is like kind of like a dual meet in swimming, right? Where it's like, you're not shaved,

02:36:45.040 you're not tapered. You're just sort of going through the motions. It's like,

02:36:48.720 it's basically a meet that's a practice. Would you guys be treating these meets that way?

02:36:52.880 More than a practice, but for sure, not as important as the world championships and

02:36:56.160 definitely not showing all your cards.

02:36:57.520 You would ideally train pretty hard the Wednesday, Thursday.

02:37:00.160 Yeah. So we arrive on Monday, we'll go for a run with the team, do some skating drills and exercises.

02:37:04.400 Tuesday, we have a harder high intensity. We'll do like five times seven laps intervals,

02:37:10.320 right? With like four to six minutes rest in between pretty high intensity, 80 to 90% threshold.

02:37:15.440 And then in the afternoon, we'll do some form of a plyometric jump training. And all this is by the

02:37:20.800 way, like fractions of what we would normally do in terms of training. So this to us is a complete rest.

02:37:24.960 Right, right. But you're not even able to do this based on the food poisoning,

02:37:28.640 or you are sort of still going through the motions of these practices?

02:37:31.200 I'm kind of going through the motions. And by Thursday, it's pretty apparent that I'm full-blown,

02:37:36.560 like extremely dehydrated and starting to question whether I should even compete in the competition.

02:37:40.800 Right. Which is like an impossible choice to face because no one's going to buy the story that

02:37:46.160 you didn't compete because you lost 10 pounds due to food poisoning.

02:37:48.960 Yeah. The story is going to be, oh, you wimped out. You know that you didn't win effectively.

02:37:52.960 Yeah. You're hosed. Yeah.

02:37:54.240 And then you show up and compete 10 pounds dehydrated.

02:37:56.640 There's no win. It's lose-lose.

02:37:58.320 And my father was actually there too in South Korea because he was really scared of my well-being.

02:38:04.000 And, you know, I was assigned two bodyguards to follow me around the whole competition

02:38:07.600 and the entire time. And I remember walking in on Friday, the first day of competition and getting

02:38:11.680 on the ice and hearing all of the Korean fans literally booing and just being like,

02:38:18.640 you know, I don't know what they're saying in Korean, but I'm sure something like, 1.00

02:38:21.360 like, you know, you're a loser. 0.99

02:38:22.560 It's probably not nice. 1.00

02:38:23.520 It's not nice. You know, definitely take me out of the game. And then, you know,

02:38:28.080 I performed okay actually the first day. I did not bad. And there's something about,

02:38:32.880 and I'd love to really understand the science behind this because I've had this repetition

02:38:36.960 time and time again, whenever I got sick in my sport, I always performed pretty well

02:38:42.080 for whatever reason, even through time trials.

02:38:44.080 Do you think it just has to do with the forced rest that comes before it?

02:38:48.000 Maybe forced rest. Maybe the white blood cell count is a component. I mean,

02:38:51.280 who knows what's really there? Maybe the immune system's working overtime. I don't know. But

02:38:55.040 I mean, I'm exhausted. I physically feel terrible. But for some reason, my output is still very,

02:38:59.840 very, very high. This time was different because I'm pretty lean already. You drop all that water.

02:39:05.200 I was drinking water. It was coming right out 10 minutes later. Like literally, it was just severe,

02:39:10.240 nasty food poisoning that lasted about three and a half days. And so, you know, I get through the first

02:39:15.520 day. I get through Saturday, the 500 meters. I was pretty much useless in the sprints for whatever

02:39:20.720 reason. I just had no strength, you know, in between races on Sunday, which is the 1,000 meters

02:39:25.760 and the 3,000 meters. I'm like lying on the floor, you know, like just trying to rest. And I ended up

02:39:31.040 actually somehow just doing very well at that competition. I ended up winning the 1,000 meter,

02:39:34.960 winning the 3,000 meter.

02:39:36.240 So that meant this is Saturday, Sunday, this is Sunday. So on Sunday is the big day,

02:39:40.160 which means you skate the 1,000 meter and the 3,000 meter super final and then the relay

02:39:44.720 on the same day. That's how the World Cup schedule usually works. It doesn't work that

02:39:47.840 way in the Olympics, but it's very, very different. And so I skated very well and I ended up winning

02:39:52.960 the competition on the home soil. So what, how do the fans react to this?

02:39:57.520 Well, you know, when I first got on on Friday, they were all booing. And by the time I left,

02:40:01.360 I would say 80% of them actually were clapping and they were cheering. And someone had leaked to

02:40:06.640 the media that I was really sick during that time. And I think that had a component of that.

02:40:10.560 People, people understood that I actually was performing at subpar optimal levels and I still

02:40:15.680 was able to somehow pull it off. And it was really mentally excruciating because I very much wanted

02:40:20.880 to win, but not because I wanted to beat them, but because I just, I wanted to prove like to me,

02:40:25.280 it was, it was like, look, I'm legitimate. This wasn't a fluke.

02:40:28.320 Like I am a competitive athlete who on any given Sunday can win, may not win every 10 times,

02:40:34.960 but I'll win at least one of those 10 times. Right. And I wanted to showcase that and just

02:40:40.080 kind of searching and, you know, reaching for respect because I didn't get that when I first

02:40:44.560 arrived. Like it was like, basically, you know, the thought process was you did not deserve to win

02:40:49.760 and you cheated to win. And I didn't feel like I did. And so the only way to re to retract those

02:40:55.200 statements from those people who were making them was to try to go there and win wholeheartedly,

02:41:00.000 openly. And I did in that manner. And so that was, that was the first change in our relationship

02:41:06.480 in terms of being the most hated to having respect for me as an athlete and as a sportsman

02:41:12.240 to actually like going to the airport and then people having like fan club signs.

02:41:16.320 And this happened within the same trip?

02:41:18.160 This happened the same trip.

02:41:19.120 Meaning you described your arrival, but by the time you departed, the same Korean 1.00

02:41:23.840 fans were cheering for you?

02:41:25.040 The same Korean fans were cheering for me in the airport with signs. And I remember the

02:41:29.840 the head of KSU at the time, Mr. Chang came up to me. He's like, I don't know what you did or how

02:41:33.760 you did it, but you are leaving here in a much better place than you did when you arrived.

02:41:38.320 Wow.

02:41:38.640 Which is awesome, you know, because that was the actual goal. My goal was not to defeat

02:41:43.360 really them, but to just show them that I'm real.

02:41:46.160 Just to earn their respect.

02:41:46.960 Yep. That's, that's what it came down to. And I did it in a convincing fashion. So

02:41:51.520 it was, it was awesome.

02:41:52.480 So between 04 and 07, you've obviously gone back to the Olympics. You've demonstrated that

02:41:57.520 this isn't some fluke. You've earned their respect. And now in 07, you're going to actually

02:42:03.760 train with them as you try to come back and make the Olympic team in 2010.

02:42:08.160 Yep. So again, I kind of, I go back into the belly of the beast. I go back to the place where

02:42:13.360 no other-

02:42:14.240 And they're embracing you now in 07?

02:42:15.760 They are. But they're also, at the time, the South Korean short track team was very,

02:42:19.520 very fenced off from the rest of the world in terms of their training methods. That was their secret

02:42:24.880 sauce, right? It was, we don't understand why they're so good. How do they get that technique?

02:42:28.240 How do they, they don't lift weights we hear, but they're so good. We watched them during training

02:42:32.160 and it looks like they're over-training.

02:42:34.160 What do their bodies look like? I mean-

02:42:36.400 Designed for short track.

02:42:37.920 So if you could be God and you could make a perfect short track skater, tell me what their body looks

02:42:43.600 like. So you take your pelvis, tilt it forward. So the complete opposite of what you do in a squat,

02:42:49.200 do the complete opposite. Tilt your pelvis forward. Okay.

02:42:52.240 And so your lower back is now rounded, have a shorter torso, longer legs, thinner in frame

02:42:58.160 naturally, and basically zero upper body weight because then you can strengthen your lower body

02:43:02.720 very easily. That sounds like a cyclist. Yeah.

02:43:04.880 That's the tilt you put into a cyclist's thoracolumbar spine, no upper body, all lower body.

02:43:11.920 That's how you design it. And very, and strength to weight ratio, that's strangely off the charts.

02:43:17.600 Yeah. That's the perfect speed skater. And there's a few that exist. I actually wasn't one of them.

02:43:22.080 My proportions are actually, my legs are a little bit too short. My torso is a little bit too long.

02:43:26.000 And you're pretty muscular all around. Like you don't have sort of that emaciated upper body.

02:43:30.160 No, I didn't naturally. But the South Korean athletes, men and women had this naturally.

02:43:36.560 And so when I watched them skate, I recognized right away, I was like,

02:43:40.000 these guys aren't thinking about their technique when they're going through the corner.

02:43:42.960 It's natural. Like they're just skating. It's like walking. You don't think about left, right,

02:43:47.360 left, right. You just walk. When you go for a jog, the same thing. You're not thinking about which

02:43:51.680 foot is in front of the other. That's what it's like when you don't understand speed skating is you're

02:43:55.440 thinking, let me tilt my left hip in. Let me put my right shoulder down. Maybe make sure that my

02:44:00.080 shoulders and my hips are level with the ice, no matter what angle I'm skating at.

02:44:03.840 Make sure my nose, knees and toes are in in line at all times and all periods. Like

02:44:07.840 I'm thinking about these things every corner because it's not natural.

02:44:11.280 Really? Even, I mean, I remember you once telling me the funniest thing

02:44:14.880 about how you would drive to the rink in that position.

02:44:18.960 Yeah. I was obsessed.

02:44:20.480 I mean, of course we can't do it on the podcast because we don't, we don't have the visual,

02:44:23.520 but like the image of you tilting yourself over the steering wheel, driving that way to mimic

02:44:30.160 the corner. It never became autonomic. You never got to the point where you could make that turn and

02:44:36.560 perfectly line up without a single thought. I trained myself to do it automatically,

02:44:41.600 but I don't think it was a natural feeling for me. It took years and hours and hours of obsessive

02:44:47.520 driving with like all the weight on my right hip with my left hip, you know, like imagine driving

02:44:53.360 and you put all the weight on your right leg and your left leg is not even touching the ground.

02:44:57.920 Okay. And your left hip is actually raised a little bit and your left hand is on the steering wheel

02:45:02.480 and your right shoulder is down. Like that's an uncomfortable position to be in every single day

02:45:06.720 to and from the ice rink. And I did it because I want, I just wanted to feel natural.

02:45:11.520 I wanted to skate as natural as I saw the other skaters skating.

02:45:14.880 I love this kind of stuff. I mean, that's what I sort of enjoy about having a discussion like this is

02:45:19.920 I think so many people, if they're sort of watching you on TV or they're watching Phelps

02:45:24.240 or they're watching Lance Armstrong or they're watching, you know, pick whatever great athlete.

02:45:28.960 I think people just assume like it just came so easy to them. And, but I don't think they realize

02:45:35.920 that the best of the best have this ability to force themselves to do this type of work,

02:45:43.520 which is not to say that there isn't a natural talent. I think the best of the best combined

02:45:47.760 natural talent with sort of, you know, whatever, but you know, you don't even have the same sort of

02:45:53.920 physical dimension advantage that some of your peers would have, but it's this complete obsession.

02:45:58.720 It's this like, who would even think I'm going to use the extra hour a day I'm driving to train

02:46:05.520 speed skating? Yeah. It's all I cared about. It's all I thought was important. It's all that

02:46:10.160 mattered in my life. And when you prioritize that as being the sole significant piece of your life from

02:46:16.480 waking moment till you close your eyes. And hopefully when you're sleeping, you're thinking

02:46:19.840 about it too. It changes your perspective on how you live your life and what actually you do on a

02:46:24.560 daily basis to impact you. I mean, I want to come back to finish your career, but I can't help but

02:46:29.520 at the moment, ask a question that I'm afraid I'll forget to ask if we go back to the Olympics,

02:46:34.560 which is now that you're not a professional athlete, do you still have that level of focus?

02:46:41.440 Or is that something that is very difficult to maintain for, you know, a prolonged period of time?

02:46:47.600 In other words, do you now relish the fact that you didn't have to think about what we had for

02:46:51.600 dinner? Like you could eat as much as you wanted and you can now sit here comfortably and like,

02:46:56.960 you know, you're going to drive home tonight and you're not going to have to contort yourself

02:47:01.680 into some crazy position. I mean, what's the new guidance system you've applied to the missile

02:47:07.040 that is your life? I definitely have the same, I think, quirks that I did from sport that are

02:47:12.880 transferring over to my life. I now recognize them. You know, when I was training as an athlete,

02:47:17.520 I didn't recognize them. I didn't know what they were. I just thought that that's what I did.

02:47:20.800 This is the things that me driving in that way to the ice rink was normal. That's not normal in any,

02:47:26.000 that's not even normal for an athlete. It's really not. But I borderline unhealthy psychologically to

02:47:31.840 be that obsessed at that level all the time. There wasn't one day I went to the ice rink,

02:47:36.400 I didn't wake up and didn't want to be there because I was, it wasn't a choice. There was no,

02:47:40.560 do I want to go? Do I not? That wasn't even a conversation. So now, concentrating the different

02:47:45.520 projects that I have and delving into areas where I don't have the experience. I don't have the time

02:47:53.840 spent and education. It really helps because I completely immerse and I spend hours and hours

02:48:01.120 and hours on certain elements. Is it in the same intensity? Probably not. It's difficult to relate

02:48:06.640 that in the same way. But for sure, the traits and attributes that I developed as a short track athlete,

02:48:11.200 for absolutely sure they are beneficial attributes to apply towards specific parts of life. And also

02:48:17.440 just the fact of feeling like when you look at life, no matter how bad shit gets, you can always 0.98

02:48:24.160 come back. No matter how sick, no matter how tired I am, like I was able to compete, right? I was able 0.86

02:48:29.760 to train. Now, in doing business or relationships, taking the same kind of mentality of saying like,

02:48:36.400 I've done things physiologically I never thought was possible. I broke through barriers mentally that

02:48:41.120 I think were really powerful. And how do you apply those with an open mind and with a way

02:48:46.240 that's a different perspective on life? I'm much softer as a person now than I was back then. I was

02:48:51.360 so rigid in every element you can imagine and tight actually. With my time, with the way that I viewed,

02:48:58.880 I think the world, with the way I viewed my teammates, it made me probably unpleasant to be around on the

02:49:04.240 ice most of the time because I just didn't, I wasn't there to make friends.

02:49:07.600 Did you have significant relationships with, you know, a girlfriend or something during

02:49:11.680 that period of your life?

02:49:12.720 Kind of off and on, but none that really were, no, nothing that I would really say like this was,

02:49:19.440 you know, not like what you, not like what you enjoy today.

02:49:21.920 No, totally different. But my view is different. My life really kind of began after I retired from

02:49:27.040 the sport. I learned so much through it, but I really recognized that my life began when I

02:49:32.640 decided to not come back to the sport. And it was really beautiful to be able to do that.

02:49:36.720 Why is it that many athletes can't articulate what you just said on two levels? The first being,

02:49:43.040 I'm amazed at the number of athletes that I meet who, once they're done with their sport,

02:49:47.600 they can't seem to apply that greatness to the next chapter. In other words, they've clearly worked

02:49:54.000 hard. They've clearly learned to do something well, even when no one's looking, because that's

02:50:00.400 basically what most of practice is. But they really struggle to make that leap.

02:50:04.880 And then secondly, for many athletes, sadly, once the lights are gone, once nobody knows your name,

02:50:12.400 there seems to be this depression that sets in. And maybe depression might be

02:50:16.800 too far on the pendulum, but there's this sense of their purpose is over, right? They don't

02:50:23.040 think about what that next chapter looks like. Did you struggle with any of those things at all?

02:50:26.560 And are we just seeing you now on the other side of that where it looks like everything's worked

02:50:30.480 out? I mean, was there ever a challenge where you thought, oh my God, I don't ever get to

02:50:35.280 carry a flag. I don't ever get to put a medal on my neck. I don't ever get to be on TV for

02:50:39.920 being the best athlete or something. I mean, was that a transition?

02:50:43.120 It was an incredibly difficult transition. And one that I don't talk about that much,

02:50:47.920 but I don't care who you are. And I heard a podcast, I want to say like a couple of years ago,

02:50:53.600 which I really resonated with it. And it was talking about seals coming home from war

02:50:59.680 and feeling so out of place in normal society that they can't wait to go back. Not that they

02:51:04.560 love war. They hate war. They don't like what it is, but-

02:51:08.080 They probably love the purpose, the camaraderie and the purpose, right?

02:51:11.280 And they feel like this is what they're supposed to do. There's a sense of belonging and a sense of

02:51:16.320 purpose. Like you said, in the Olympic space, you have one single focus for a long time,

02:51:23.200 four, eight, 12 years. Nothing in your life matters more than that sport. And everything

02:51:29.920 you do is generated to be important in that sport. And if you win, you're celebrated, which makes it

02:51:34.640 even more dangerous because now there's a level of expectation that you are going to carry this flag

02:51:38.960 further. And like you said, there's a ton of attributes you create as an athlete that are

02:51:44.640 incredible life lessons that you learn through sport. They're amazing. The problem is when you

02:51:49.120 retire from an athlete, you've now dedicated most of your adult life towards this one specific task

02:51:55.280 that has absolutely zero relevancy to life. I went in circles in spandex for most of my adult life.

02:52:02.160 Well, most of my younger adult life, right? And now I retired. I didn't intern. I wasn't working

02:52:06.960 at Goldman Sachs as a finance guy. I don't have experience working as a job. And now I'm thrust in the

02:52:11.920 spotlight to go and basically act and interact in normal society. If you didn't make money or you

02:52:17.840 didn't win medals, then what do you do? Like you basically, you sacrifice like the first 12 years

02:52:22.880 of your life that you normally from the age of 18 to 28, those are so incredibly important to gain

02:52:27.280 expertise and experience and social skills and personal development and try anything that you

02:52:32.640 want and fail at them and it's still okay and get back up. You didn't have that opportunity. You're

02:52:36.400 now starting out as an 18 year old, but you're now 28 years old. And so that's the challenge is

02:52:42.960 from a competitive perspective, when you've got a corporate entity looking at hiring,

02:52:46.800 or perhaps you want to get a new job, like, Hey, that's great. You got you're an Olympic athlete.

02:52:51.120 I know you probably work hard. I know that you probably spent a lot of time doing this, this,

02:52:54.320 and this, but you've got zero work experience. You didn't finish college. You don't have any idea

02:53:00.480 what it takes to be here. Like maybe I'll take a risk on you. Maybe I won't. It's a difficult

02:53:04.320 position to be in. But on top of all of that stuff, you have to look at the actual psychological

02:53:09.280 issues that exist. And that's where it really, really gets dark. I'm not excluded from that.

02:53:14.720 I was so fearful in 2008 that when I retired in 2010, I wouldn't find my place. I wouldn't find

02:53:22.080 my running start. I didn't want to go from 2010, retire 2014 or 2013, say I'm coming out of retirement.

02:53:30.240 I want to go for another games. I never wanted that to be me. I said,

02:53:33.440 as soon as I retired, I really, really want to walk away because I'm doing something else.

02:53:38.720 And I want to win at something else. It's completely unrelated to speed skating. It's

02:53:43.120 unrelated to the Olympic space. So it's almost like a chip on your shoulder. Not everyone is

02:53:47.680 like that, but that was my perspective. And you know, a lot of athletes, when they retire,

02:53:52.080 like literally like at the snap of a finger, when they come home from the Olympic games,

02:53:55.120 there's no coach, there's no training program, there's no cafeteria, there's no more structure

02:54:04.720 and schedule that has been kind of given to you in a way that's pretty easy to follow. You just,

02:54:09.120 you wake up, you go to the ice rink, you train, you come home, you eat, you focus on skating tapes,

02:54:13.760 sharpen your skates, go back to the ice rink, train again, et cetera, et cetera. It's very mundane,

02:54:18.080 but specific, but pretty easy to follow. It's simple. I say not easy. It's simple.

02:54:22.720 That's a great point, right? There's a big differentiation between simple and easy.

02:54:26.000 There's nothing easy about it, but there's a beauty to being able to focus on one thing

02:54:30.320 at the exclusion of pretty much everything else.

02:54:32.960 Yeah. And now you wake up and man, what do I do? How important is money? How important is

02:54:40.560 having a family? How important are relationships? How important is personal self-development? How

02:54:45.520 important is my nutrition? Do I even understand nutrition? My nutritionist gave me the food to eat.

02:54:50.640 Do I go for runs? Do I work out? Like, so I see a lot of athletes.

02:54:54.800 Is there much effort around preparing athletes for that transition and retirement?

02:54:59.040 There used to be, I don't know what it's like now. I think there's probably more of an emphasis now,

02:55:03.760 but they always look, people always tell you, look, your Olympic career will end at some point

02:55:09.360 and you have to be prepared for the transition. We used to do these things called USOC summits in which

02:55:15.360 two years before the Olympics, you would go to a winter destination. For example,

02:55:19.760 we would go to, we would go to Park City and then all the Olympic hopefuls and existing Olympic

02:55:26.560 athletes in the past, two or three generations would come. Eric Hyde would be there. Bonnie Blair

02:55:30.880 would be there. Dan Jansen would be there. Michelle Kwan. These people would be there. And you basically

02:55:36.320 would talk about what it takes to train for the next two years and then what to do before,

02:55:41.200 during and after the Olympics. The issue is no one really takes it seriously because you have

02:55:45.840 this invincibility complex that, you know what? I'm not going to get hurt. Sure. Like I'm just,

02:55:52.080 I'm just going to keep skating until I die. And I was naive enough. Remember I made some bad

02:55:56.160 decisions as an athlete. You know, I told you pretty early, I was asked at the age of 17 at one of these

02:56:00.880 summits, two years before the games, it said like, I'm probably like, what do you want to be remembered

02:56:05.360 for? And I wrote down, like, I want to be the most decorated winter Olympic athlete of all time,

02:56:09.840 the greatest speed skater who have ever lived in short track speed skating. And they put that in

02:56:13.680 the Steiner ice arena in Utah. I forgot about this, but the things that I learned there were

02:56:18.640 so important, but people could tell me all the time. And someone asked me like, what do you want

02:56:21.840 to do when you retire? I was like, what do you mean when I retire? Like I was built for this sport.

02:56:24.800 I'm supposed to be here to motivate other human beings throughout my actions on the ice. It's very

02:56:30.080 naive to say. And I did, I, for some reason I just thought that it was okay to live that life.

02:56:34.640 It was like, I didn't have a parachute. I lived that way in speed skating. On one side,

02:56:38.880 it's beautiful because there is no plan B. And when there's no plan B, you really commit to plan

02:56:44.000 A. You better make sure that plan A is going to be executable.

02:56:47.040 That's the burning of the ships, right? Yeah.

02:56:48.880 Yeah. Yeah. You burn the ships so you can't leave the island. But again, there's still something here.

02:56:53.440 There's a difference, right? Between people who seem to get more out of the sport. It's almost like

02:56:59.600 they're actively versus passively participating in the process, right? The, you can very passively

02:57:05.120 participate. I suspect where you follow the lessons and you go through the motions of doing everything

02:57:12.560 you need to do for the sport versus I think a more active way of doing that. And I say active in an

02:57:17.920 emotional way, not a physical way. Obviously both examples are physically active, but to be emotionally

02:57:23.840 active through that process, I suspect you are whether consciously or subconsciously assimilating

02:57:30.560 the knowledge, the skill, the failure, the discipline into what could be the next chapter.

02:57:37.920 So let's go back and finish. How does the story end? It's 08, it's 09. So 09 is really the last major

02:57:47.520 competition before the Olympics, right? It's the world.

02:57:49.840 It's the world championships. They're being held in Beijing and I'm competing. And there's one other

02:57:58.160 US short track athlete who was my junior. He started speed skating because he watched me in 2002. Now

02:58:03.120 we're competing on the same team. He's from the same area I grew up in. I used to be his idol.

02:58:08.720 And I always, I always used to look at this kid and be like, this kid's a lot better than he actually

02:58:12.080 realizes. Once he realizes how good he is, he's potentially going to be world champion or Olympic gold medalist.

02:58:18.000 And in, and throughout this process at the world championships, I just performed sub optimally.

02:58:26.960 I wasn't a major contender. I wasn't a top tier guy to win. I wasn't on top of the podium. I think I

02:58:33.600 got like fifth at the world at the world in 09. Yep. I got to go back and check, but it was the first time

02:58:39.360 I watched from the, you know, after the competition, we have a banquet and all the athletes are there.

02:58:43.120 Everyone's getting awarded. You go in the podium, getting your checks. And it was the first time in

02:58:47.920 a long time that I wasn't, didn't have the spotlight. I wasn't the guy that people were

02:58:53.680 talking about, man, that race, all that pass. Oh my God. So powerful. Like it was not about me.

02:58:59.200 And I was like, oh man, this is, this is weird. Is this what it's supposed to be like? Do I just

02:59:05.520 start to dissipate and just kind of wither away? And I used to be good and I'm still respected, but

02:59:11.120 just don't have what it takes anymore to be competitive. And I'm kind of losing that edge.

02:59:14.500 And I can't keep up with the evolution of what's happening in short track because the body types 0.97

02:59:18.880 are changing and the training is changing. The athletes are changing. And so I left there

02:59:23.800 really, really, really worried and upset. And also hearing that chatter again about,

02:59:29.440 I don't think that Paulo is going to be actually on the podium in 2010,

02:59:32.720 which is a big different conversation. You know, I've been at that level for

02:59:37.180 10 years now at the top, top, top of my game. In the year 2000, 2001 season, I won every single

02:59:43.520 race that season. And both the Korean athlete who I, you know, had that tussle with and that

02:59:49.060 Mark Gagnon character from Quebec both came up to me during that race and was like, you are the

02:59:53.260 greatest athlete to compete in short track speed game. Like two champions that I look up to and

02:59:56.760 analyze said that to me to now being at a point where no one was talking to me.

03:00:01.040 You're not even on the podium.

03:00:01.920 I'm not even on the podium, but not only that people aren't even taking my lap times during

03:00:05.060 practice anymore. Wow. So like this is psychologically damaging because from a

03:00:10.480 confidence perspective, you race differently. And I started to recognize that other athletes

03:00:13.720 aren't respecting me on the ice the same way they used to. I used to be able to actually

03:00:17.380 have an off day, but if I just kind of attempted a pass at someone, they just let me in because

03:00:22.180 there was so much respect for what I had done in the sport before that no longer existed.

03:00:26.180 People skated as if I was just like a random skater.

03:00:29.440 Yeah. So this huge psychological advantage you brought to the start line was gone.

03:00:33.380 Was gone. And so it really made me dive deep and say, okay, like, look, this is my last

03:00:39.700 chance at really trying to show up differently. And I think that, you know, my Korean coaches

03:00:45.620 that have kind of been telling me, they're like, look, the Korean coaches themselves, they

03:00:50.080 know you so well. They studied you from 2002 until today. You're the only thing that mattered

03:00:57.280 to them. So like they, they watched every single race you've ever skated time and time

03:01:01.600 again. And they have pawns in their skating rinks to basically mimic your skating, just

03:01:07.180 like a boxing, like your sparring partner that they have guys who try to mimic the way

03:01:11.220 that you skate in that style. So they can practice against you every single day. I didn't have,

03:01:15.640 we didn't have that. We didn't think about it like that. They were, they were different

03:01:18.380 level. And so I went back to my house in, in Utah and I said, man, I'm going to go back

03:01:25.360 to kind of where I developed my strength. And I said, I'm going to go spend a summer

03:01:29.840 in Colorado Springs alone. I drove there.

03:01:33.680 Was there some part that thought maybe I should just retire? Cause it's one thing to go through

03:01:38.700 what you went through. It would be entirely another thing to fail on the Olympic stage.

03:01:42.720 Yeah. I didn't want to give up. That's for sure. I still believed.

03:01:45.860 This is interesting. I mean, let's explore that for a moment because I gotta be honest with

03:01:49.800 you, man. I don't know that I would have had the intestinal fortitude to continue. If I,

03:01:53.080 if I really felt like I'm on the decline and every day I'm getting a little less good and

03:01:59.200 everybody around me is getting a little bit better. I don't know. Maybe that's why I'm not

03:02:02.840 Olympic champion. Like, I mean, that's, that's kind of a remarkable inner confidence. And did

03:02:09.060 you explicitly or implicitly tie that back to some of these other difficult things you'd been through,

03:02:14.320 including getting thrown out in the woods when you were in the summer of 98 and things like that?

03:02:19.620 I did. But you know, again, you're, you're like, did you talk about this with your dad?

03:02:23.080 I mean, who would I did? I did extensively. He was my confidant. And there's three people in my

03:02:27.260 life who are my confidant. It was my dad, one of my best friends, Ian Baranski, who was basically

03:02:31.500 living in my house in Utah as like a training partner. And then John Schaefer, the guy who I

03:02:35.600 brought in to live and train me during that period of time. Those are the three people who I really,

03:02:40.060 really had conversations with. John is the most optimistic, positive person on the planet. Like

03:02:44.020 there's nothing he believes that can't be accomplished through strength and focus. And so his thought

03:02:49.240 it was, Oh, it doesn't matter. You're going to come back. You're going to crush everybody. You're going to smash

03:02:52.500 you're going to skate lap times that don't exist. You know, my dad's more realist. Ian is a very,

03:02:57.200 very, very strong, different view. He's much more of a realist. And, you know, he saw me.

03:03:01.820 So what was the view between the three of them?

03:03:03.520 My dad didn't really have an opinion, right? He's more just like, look, I support what you

03:03:06.340 have to do to make sure you, you really go through the drawing board and develop a plan.

03:03:10.360 And I was a different person then. So my dad was, I think he was happy to see me, but he also

03:03:13.580 recognized that it was not going to be easy. John at the time was like, well, you know,

03:03:18.380 I think this is still possible. You can still win every single distance in the world and

03:03:21.640 you won't lose an Olympic year. You know, that's his, his attitude, which I needed to have that

03:03:25.980 around because I'm not naturally that type of a person. And then Ian was-

03:03:29.320 Meaning you naturally don't have that much confidence?

03:03:31.280 I have confidence, but it's different. Like I definitely, it's not like I walk in and say,

03:03:34.660 I can't lose. There was times, right? When my equipment was on point, like earlier in my career,

03:03:38.320 I was like, I could fall down. I can still win this race. Like no one's going to beat me. I'm just that

03:03:41.660 much better than everybody else. But at this point, you know, I was battling some small injuries

03:03:45.060 and some equipment issues and nothing was quite right. So I never felt like I was a hundred

03:03:48.880 percent, like maybe 80% of the time. So the one person I felt like really knew me was my friend,

03:03:53.540 Ian Baranski. Now to give you kind of some backstory, like as a short track Olympic athlete,

03:03:57.620 you never show your cards, even to your teammates, because eventually you race against them in the

03:04:01.880 Olympic trials. So you kind of show, like you always hold something back. And so I was really,

03:04:06.940 really good at that. So people didn't really know like what was going on internally. They just

03:04:11.520 saw that I was like this stoic, never show pain, incredibly focused, super hungry, quiet,

03:04:18.980 kind of crazy guy who just comes to the rink with an insatiable appetite for pain and training

03:04:23.400 every day, like with like a complete robot. Like that's, that's who Apollo is. And that's what I

03:04:28.860 wanted the people to believe, right? The reality was, and who I would, I needed somebody to kind of

03:04:33.100 confide in, which was Ian, my close friend. And, you know, Ian was my first roommate when I was

03:04:38.280 traveling on all these years, like when I was 12 and 13 years old. So he knew me from

03:04:41.440 when I started till to this point. And he basically was like, look, you are not the same athlete you

03:04:47.420 used to be. Like you're actually, even though you have the same recipe for success, you're just not

03:04:51.800 the same. You're older, man. Like your body's stiffer. You don't skate the same. You don't look the

03:04:55.760 same. Your equipment's a little bit different. The other athletes are changing. The sport is changing

03:05:00.160 and you know, he's keeping it real, right? Someone has to. And so I kind of went back and I'm like,

03:05:07.120 man, like how do I, in my view, like all these years spent training still only matters on this

03:05:13.100 one day in the Olympics. Like none of this stuff matters. My previous wins in my own head,

03:05:17.640 my previous wins don't matter. I keep my medals inside my sock drawer in my house. I never bring

03:05:21.660 them out. I don't want to want to think about that. I want, I want to think about I'm the underdog

03:05:25.000 every day. So I said, I got to make some huge, huge changes. And so I, a week after the world

03:05:30.780 championships, I'm back in Salt Lake city. And normally you take like a decompression period and you

03:05:35.840 really, really think about things. And I was going to stay there for about a month and then

03:05:38.700 potentially go somewhere else to train. I just packed my bags like one day and I just left and

03:05:43.540 I drove all the way to Colorado Springs, checked myself into the Colorado Springs Olympic training

03:05:48.240 center and began training. So the Olympic team moved from Colorado Springs to Salt Lake city in 2007 to

03:05:55.280 train. So the speed skaters were no longer in Colorado Springs Olympic training center. So when I

03:05:59.180 arrived back there in 2009, I was the only guy there. Everyone else was off training in,

03:06:04.000 in Utah or wherever else. And I brought my bike and I basically set up a little training plan.

03:06:09.060 I just trained solo. And this is like February, March of 09. Yeah. This is like February, March,

03:06:14.260 April, May. I think I first saw the team again, like the end of May. And I did, I spent that entire

03:06:20.740 time in like essentially complete solitude, just training by myself. And I just, you know, I, you know,

03:06:26.080 just like anything else, like you analyze the situation, what are the goals? What are you trying to do?

03:06:30.500 What type of training you need? And mine wasn't based solely on sports science because I didn't

03:06:34.820 seek that route. I probably should have, but I didn't seek that route. I just like, okay,

03:06:38.500 got to improve cadence, got to lower the body weight, maintain strength, but really have to

03:06:43.260 just get an incredible aerobic base shape. Like you've never been before. And that's going to

03:06:47.900 carry you throughout the rest of the year so that you won't have issues with burnout or,

03:06:51.100 you know, with any overtraining. And do you develop that aerobic base on the bike

03:06:55.220 or on the track more? Well, we don't skate in the summer that much. We don't skate till the end

03:06:59.120 of May. So that period off. So it's on a bike, it's on a bike, it's on inline skates, it's running,

03:07:05.260 it's with treadmill, it's with Stairmaster, but it's really spent a lot of time. For me,

03:07:10.700 I use the Manitou incline in Colorado Springs, which is like the scar on the road. It's one mile

03:07:15.300 of cog railroad steps that go up. And that was my, that was my sanctuary. Like I lived on that thing

03:07:21.780 so many times a week. I used to go up it with weight vests and jumps and, you know, you can't

03:07:26.660 beat that thing. It's just one of those elements where you just get a little bit faster at it and

03:07:30.000 you get easier to compensate, but you hurt just the same, no matter how fast or slow you go.

03:07:34.360 And so- What's the fastest time you could make it up that?

03:07:36.540 Mine was like 1736 or 1738, which is fast.

03:07:41.560 Oh, and obviously lots of athletes do this, right? It's not just the skaters.

03:07:45.080 Yeah. A lot of athletes. I would say the average time is probably 22, 24 between there.

03:07:49.900 And that 17 and a half minutes was not with the 40 pound weight vest, I assume.

03:07:53.320 No, no, no. It was clean. I needed to go back to that space again of like, this is where I started.

03:07:59.360 How much of that training do you think was for your brain versus your body?

03:08:03.400 90%, 95%. I was probably doing everything wrong, to be completely honest with you.

03:08:08.180 There's no reason why I should be going for a three hour bike ride. My races last no more than

03:08:11.420 two and a half minutes. And of those two and a half minutes, I'm probably only really skating for a

03:08:15.240 minute and a half. Three and a half hour bike rides going up and down like the canyons,

03:08:19.180 they're important. Maybe you go a couple of those rides, but you don't need that.

03:08:22.800 I should be doing specified interval training according to the time that's under duration.

03:08:28.620 And you can extend that, but I shouldn't be spinning my wheels for hours at a time. But

03:08:33.020 what did I gain? A mental perspective and a honed focus and a resiliency. And the feeling that I was

03:08:42.200 reinventing myself was really important to me psychologically. So I would walk on the ice

03:08:46.880 differently. I would walk into the ice rink differently. I would project a different type

03:08:49.800 of energy upon my opponents and other skaters and my confidence level would be higher. So

03:08:54.480 that's what I went after. And it wasn't until I came back to Salt Lake City and invited John

03:08:59.860 Schaefer back into my home until he said, look, no more of these two hour runs. Like, what are you

03:09:05.540 doing? This is like, so 1960, like you're wasting your time and you're actually training the sprint out

03:09:10.780 of your body, which is your biggest strength. And then I kind of explained to him my goals. And we

03:09:15.640 began that journey towards shedding all of that weight and it was excruciating. And so how the

03:09:19.860 story ends is arrive in Vancouver, BC, 2010.

03:09:24.380 And going into the Olympic trials, had you gotten back in enough shape that most people felt like

03:09:30.100 you'd make the team?

03:09:30.900 Yeah. Everyone knew I'd make the team. It wouldn't be as dominant as it normally would be,

03:09:34.020 but for sure I'd make the team.

03:09:35.200 So that's a big improvement over where you were at the Worlds earlier in the year.

03:09:38.600 Yeah, I think so. It definitely came a long way. And technically I'd improved a lot and people had

03:09:43.160 seen some big changes in my body.

03:09:44.800 And going into Vancouver, you've already figured out like this is your last Olympics.

03:09:49.380 Internally. I didn't tell anybody, but internally.

03:09:51.040 I've always wondered what it felt like for multiple Olympians. Like, you know, when Phelps

03:09:56.260 rolled into Rio, how bittersweet it is in a way. Cause they, I don't know, like, do they

03:10:03.100 appreciate it more then or the first time? Cause you'd think, well, the first taste of

03:10:08.580 this is the greatest, but perhaps in some way, like I'll give you another example. It's totally

03:10:12.800 unrelated. Like I have three kids, right? And you've met them all. And I remember when the

03:10:17.580 first one's born, I'm thinking this is the greatest thing in the world. And now our third

03:10:21.020 one, you kind of know it's your last one. In some ways, I think I'm actually enjoying

03:10:25.980 it even more. Like changing the diaper is like, you know what? There's going to be a day

03:10:31.380 when I don't get to do this anymore. And so did you have that sort of feeling when you

03:10:35.440 walked into the opening ceremony? One, you're being probably looked at now as a leader of

03:10:39.980 the team, right? You're certainly one of the leaders of the team, just from a maturity

03:10:44.200 standpoint and experience standpoint. And you also know inside like, Hey, I don't get

03:10:49.380 to put this uniform on and walk into this opening ceremony again. This is really the last hurrah

03:10:54.440 for this chapter of my life.

03:10:55.940 It's an absolute greater sense of appreciation for what you're doing. And also that you know

03:11:01.560 that this is it. And I'm older, more mature. I can appreciate the process that I've been

03:11:08.140 through. I've got scars. I've got wins and losses. Mentally, you've gone through a lot.

03:11:14.340 You spend a lot of time alone. So you've battled your own internal insecurities and demons and

03:11:18.520 self-doubts. And now you're at a place where you feel like you've experienced a lot. So to

03:11:23.700 me, the last games was the best, for sure. The first Olympics was incredible. Never take it

03:11:28.920 away, but I was so young. Difficult to absorb that type of information at that rate of speed,

03:11:33.280 which you've never had access to before. 2006, different environment, different games.

03:11:38.240 Been through it one time. Understand it. I know how to do this. I know how to handle the pressure.

03:11:41.820 I know what the sounds are like. Go through the process. The last one, you go walk into

03:11:47.240 the arena. You hear the sounds and it sounds awesome. You have a greater sense of appreciation.

03:11:53.000 And also, you're just really focused on just trying to be your absolute best. So it's not

03:11:58.700 like you're there to experience the moment because you just don't have time to, right? You're there for

03:12:04.480 a specific task and a goal. And unfortunately, that detracts away from your time to be present

03:12:09.440 and experience the Olympic Games for what we see them as. It's this amazing production of the world

03:12:15.000 coming together to compete. We go there and it's just like, I'm ice rink, Olympic Village. Ice rink,

03:12:19.920 Olympic Village. Ice rink, Olympic Village. Rest, recovery, massage, sharpened skates,

03:12:25.700 game time. That's the recipe right there. Yeah. In many ways, you do as a spectator even

03:12:29.740 feel bad for the favorites because it's a totally different experience. In swimming, for example,

03:12:35.560 like usually the meet kicks off with the 400 IM. And so if you're a favorite to win the 400 IM,

03:12:40.340 I'm not even sure if you're showing up to the opening ceremonies. You're not. You're absolutely not.

03:12:44.400 Yeah. I mean, it's like, whereas if you're not a favorite, if you're like not even going to make

03:12:48.740 it out of the first heat, you're going to go to the opening ceremonies because that is part of like,

03:12:52.180 that is the experience, right? You're probably going to go to the opening ceremonies. You're

03:12:54.720 probably going to have a drink. Yeah. So it's important to keep in mind like the sacrifice

03:12:58.940 that has to be made if you really want to win using that very specific example.

03:13:03.240 It's a moment in time, right? So as much as you want to have fun and go talk to their athletes and

03:13:08.080 mingle with the different cultures and community, you've trained your entire life for these two weeks

03:13:14.040 and you are not going to allow one slip up to detract away from that in these two weeks.

03:13:20.180 And it's funny because when you're four years away from a game, it's like when it's 2006,

03:13:26.560 oh man, I'm four years away. This is going to take forever. You know, like this is,

03:13:30.940 and I know I hear everyone says it's going to be here before I know it. And then two weeks

03:13:34.760 during those games, you're like, man, I wish I had another year of training. You're not saying

03:13:38.640 that in 2006, you know, you're wishing like the games were in a year or two. And so it's a different

03:13:43.180 perspective. But I arrived and I hit my goal set in terms of my weight and my cadence. And the first

03:13:49.180 check mark for me was when I got on the ice in Vancouver and the Chinese coaches are there,

03:13:53.620 the Canadian coaches are there, the Russian coaches are there. All the coaches from the

03:13:56.480 different teams are there and they're videotaping our practice as they are everyone else's practice

03:14:00.320 because the first look at seeing which shape you're in, did you change anything since the last

03:14:04.580 World Cup? Is your body weight different? Are your equipment different? What are you doing

03:14:08.600 differently? And the first thing that we heard via the chatter that was going on was like,

03:14:14.140 we don't even recognize Apollo.

03:14:15.600 This guy we trained to beat. He didn't show up. We got a new guy.

03:14:19.760 A new guy. A new guy with a new cadence, a new rhythm, a new style of training, a new style of

03:14:24.020 racing, a new tech. Everything was different. That's exactly what we wanted to do. And

03:14:28.340 I had an incredible team to help support that. Not only my strength coach, John Schaefer, but the rest of

03:14:33.140 the Olympic team and my teammates too are a huge part of that, right? Because we train every single day

03:14:36.300 together. And it's a really, really powerful feeling to be able to show up. And to me, that was

03:14:43.040 the win, actually. It was before I ever raced. I was like, man, I went through this. I took a huge

03:14:48.920 gamble. I wasn't sure if it was going to work. And I think it did. I feel like it did. Everyone else

03:14:55.180 is saying like it did. My coaches are beyond happy and they can't believe what we just accomplished.

03:14:58.720 And I haven't raced the race yet. That's a very powerful feeling to go into your first race with.

03:15:03.140 And then from there, it's like, look, I've done the work. There's nothing more I could have done.

03:15:07.620 I wouldn't change anything. And it's time to just focus on strategy and compete. And then I ended up

03:15:13.260 winning another three medal at those games and retiring with eight medals.

03:15:18.080 Were you sad or happy at the closing ceremonies? Was that?

03:15:20.700 It was both. I was both sad and happy. I couldn't believe that my life had turned into this direction.

03:15:26.760 I couldn't believe that I'd spent this much time dedicated towards a sport. I couldn't believe

03:15:31.840 the amount of press and interest that we were getting from a crazy sport like short track

03:15:36.960 speed skating and just feeling grateful. And then also kind of promising myself that like,

03:15:41.660 hey, like any opportunity that comes your way, you are going to say yes, no matter what for the next

03:15:47.500 year. And then thus began when I walked off the plane from Vancouver. I like wasn't in one place for

03:15:54.760 more than two or three days, just bouncing around from speaking engagement to appearance,

03:15:59.880 to meeting, to sponsor-related stuff. And it was incredible.

03:16:03.680 Who were your sponsors? By the end of the 2010 Olympics, who were your main sponsors?

03:16:07.640 I had Alaska Airlines. We had Omega.

03:16:10.520 Subway was still?

03:16:11.580 Subway was, yes, that year. Coca-Cola was a sponsor. There's a few others, but those are the major sponsors.

03:16:18.140 And when did you announce your retirement?

03:16:19.580 I announced my retirement in 2012 publicly, but I knew, I mean, I knew in 2009, this was my last

03:16:25.520 games. It was just one of those things where I was happy and I was, I really wanted to complete

03:16:31.440 the game. Like I always talk about that, right? But like, I never wanted to come back. I never

03:16:34.880 wanted to finish my career feeling like I was missing something. Like I want, like I had an itch. I

03:16:39.040 didn't want to be going down the line and working on some new app and be like, man, I think I'm going

03:16:44.560 to come up out of retirement. And I had that feeling watching Phelps in 2012 during the London

03:16:50.020 Olympics.

03:16:50.660 You had that feeling for him or yourself?

03:16:52.580 For myself to wonder like, man, I'm still in great shape. I still feel really healthy. I know

03:16:57.240 a lot more about myself, nutrition, technique, training than I ever did. I'm pretty sure I can

03:17:02.940 make this team and I'm pretty sure I can be competitive in the Sochi Olympics in two years.

03:17:07.820 And then, so instead of that, I had that conversation with myself internally while doing commentary

03:17:11.860 in NBC Olympic games, while interviewing Phelps at his first press conference and talking to him

03:17:17.160 about the pressures of being so successful, how does he maintain, you know, like his sense

03:17:20.520 of-

03:17:20.740 In 2012 was a very difficult Olympics for Michael. I mean, I don't know him of course, but I just,

03:17:25.700 I know enough about swimming to be able to watch and read between the lines, but-

03:17:28.760 He went through, he was going through a lot.

03:17:29.800 There's only two events he entered in the Olympics where he didn't win a medal. The first was that

03:17:34.080 fifth place finish in the 200 fly as a 15 year old boy in 2000 in Sydney. But what a lot of

03:17:40.820 people forget is he finished fourth in the 400 IM, his signature event in London.

03:17:45.160 Yep.

03:17:45.900 And that's a race that if I recall, I mean, at the time Lochte was probably the best 400 IM-er in the

03:17:52.600 world, but Michael had done really well in the trials and basically touched out another swimmer

03:17:58.160 that most people thought was going to get that spot, but then kind of faded at the back of the 400 IM.

03:18:04.840 Didn't look like himself.

03:18:05.680 No, didn't at all. And I've always thought it was sort of inside baseball minutia. If I were to say

03:18:12.440 like as a swim fan, what were the greatest Phelps performances of all time, I'll tell you what is

03:18:18.420 number one, his anchoring the four by 100 relay right after his abysmal performance. And I use

03:18:26.720 abysmal in quotes, but for Phelps, his abysmal performance in the 400 IM. And I remember watching

03:18:32.240 that race thinking, Oh my God, this could shatter his confidence for the rest of the meet.

03:18:37.000 And then he shows up in the next race, the four by 100 free relay and crushes the anchor,

03:18:44.700 crushes the lead off leg. There's a backstory to what happened in the anchor of that. And they didn't

03:18:51.140 end up winning the gold, but that was one of his most remarkable performances. But overall,

03:18:55.480 that Olympics was sort of sad for me to watch Phelps because I felt like, God, like he's not the same

03:18:59.880 swimmer. He was, he got out touched in the 200 fly and all these other things. So what was that

03:19:05.860 like for you, both talking to him about it, but also just now thinking, wait a minute, should I be

03:19:11.960 doing this again? You're going through this process of what you didn't want to do.

03:19:16.280 I didn't want to do that. And I was having that conversation. And you know, I had some friends

03:19:19.940 who like, they always thought that I retired too early. They were like, man, you still got another

03:19:25.540 four years. Cause you were what? 29 at this point? It's 28. Yeah. I was young, by the way,

03:19:31.900 looking at Michael and seeing him, by the way, in that race, directed anger and rage is very 1.00

03:19:39.120 powerful. And Michael swims very well when he's angry, very well. And he needs to have.

03:19:45.460 So you saw that between the 400 IM and the four by one. Cause I was very similar. I needed to have,

03:19:50.640 like if I was winning too often, like I needed to throw in a little self-sabotage little monkey

03:19:55.680 wrench in there to lose a race and then get that feeling, get that feeling of losing. I'm like,

03:20:00.480 Oh, I do. I forgot what that tasted like. I think Michael won so easy for so long.

03:20:06.680 You know, like it's difficult to push yourself when no one else is. It's only you out there and

03:20:11.560 you can win if you're 70%. Right. So, and he's so incredibly talented. It's that, that's what I saw.

03:20:17.200 And maybe that's wrong, but that's my view. And so when I was watching that and I said,

03:20:21.540 you know, I'm not going to make a decision here. So I came back home. I went to that same place,

03:20:25.460 Mo Clips in iron Springs resort. And I said, I'm going to really think about this and make a real

03:20:29.800 decision on whether I want to do. And I said, you know what? I'm not going to go back. I'm going to

03:20:34.280 continue on this path of trying to become an entrepreneur and trying to learn and explore and

03:20:40.900 grow as a human. And that's what I'm going to commit to. And I'm not going to listen to this

03:20:46.760 short-sighted wants of wanting to relive in those Olympic moments again. Because I think a lot of

03:20:52.840 that's what it comes from is like, you know, I'm two years out from the games. Although I'm there,

03:20:56.700 I'm on the other side of the lens for the first time ever. And it's a different feeling. And I want

03:21:01.380 to be the guy on the start line in that fourth and fifth lane, getting ready to go. I want to be

03:21:08.220 one of the favorites to win this race. And I want that pressure. I want that moment of,

03:21:12.820 okay, the curtain's open. It's do or die. Like you either perform or you don't. The paper is never

03:21:17.740 going to lie at the end of the day. And you don't get that anymore. You do if you have a different

03:21:22.240 perspective in terms of business and opportunities, but as an athlete, it feels different. It doesn't

03:21:26.240 matter how, which way you chop it up. So I'm glad I made the right decision. I decided not to go back

03:21:30.680 to the sport and I was going to pursue different opportunities and different, different things in

03:21:34.660 my life. And that was the decision I made. And I'm still happy about doing that.

03:21:39.100 God, it's such an amazing journey because, you know, I've known quite a bit about you before we

03:21:43.760 spoke today, but I didn't realize, I think all of the internal struggle. I think it's just so easy to

03:21:49.860 kind of look at athletes and look at the ones who have done so well and assume that it was always

03:21:55.100 clear in their mind that they were going to win and they just executed. And you don't realize the

03:21:59.200 best athletes are still humans, which means they still come with all the doubts that the rest of

03:22:03.060 us have and the self-loathing and the shame or the, in some ways, perhaps even perverse incentives.

03:22:10.280 You know, I can't help but hear your story and wonder how much of this was sort of you needing

03:22:14.320 to prove yourself to someone, to something. From the moment we talked about, you know, your mom

03:22:19.360 not being there, I've always wondered is like, is there something about you wanting to demonstrate

03:22:25.100 to her like, Hey, I'm worth it. Like I was, you know, I was an amazing kid. And that may be too

03:22:30.440 obvious a statement, right? Maybe that, maybe that never even factored into any of this stuff

03:22:34.120 subconsciously, but you were a very driven kid from the beginning. I described, these are like

03:22:39.700 missiles without guidance systems. Those are still good things to have. Like it's great to be a missile

03:22:44.760 that just needs a guidance system. Right. When you think now, I mean, where do you want to be in 10

03:22:49.160 years? Obviously it's going to be mostly business related. I think it, you know, we were talking about

03:22:54.120 it over dinner. Like it's not like you necessarily want to go back to coaching skating or something,

03:22:58.380 which is unfortunate. Cause I think in many ways you could bring so much to that sport. If

03:23:02.900 unfortunate for the sport, not for you, that you could bring so much knowledge, as you've said,

03:23:07.660 like your knowledge of nutrition and training and specificity today is so much beyond what you had at

03:23:13.260 the time. But let's just pause it for a moment that you're not going to become the head coach of

03:23:18.000 the U S speed skating team. Where do you want to be in 10 years? 10 years. I want to be,

03:23:22.660 I think first and foremost, healthy. I want to have increased my personal relationships with my

03:23:29.840 close family and friends, made new ones along the way, increase the amount of experiences that

03:23:35.920 we've shared together business. I think that I'll always have an urge to be involved in different

03:23:42.640 projects and different ideas and whether they succeed or fail, I want to win, but I don't think

03:23:49.140 it's necessarily, that's the real importance is that I go through those processes and hopefully I

03:23:53.880 learn and apply those lessons at the next business opportunity or the next venture or path that I'm

03:23:58.720 doing. And I think at least my father told me at one point, he's like, you know, Apollo in your mid

03:24:04.860 thirties into your early forties, you will become significantly more self-reflective and inquisitive

03:24:13.360 of many questions. My father's a very curious person as am I. And so like these questions

03:24:19.020 come up in my life that I never asked when I was an athlete, like what is really important?

03:24:23.460 What do I really care about? We were talking about like watches and these, these things that have

03:24:29.100 like limitless acquisition opportunity. Where does some of these things really play a role in my life

03:24:34.960 in the longterm? And what do I really need that really makes me happy? And, you know, I feel really

03:24:40.520 blessed to have had both incredible wins in my life, both on the field of play and off the field of

03:24:46.500 play. And also I'm really blessed and have gratitude for the incredible stupid mistakes that I've made 0.99

03:24:52.700 and losses that I've created both on and off the field of play, either through business and 0.98

03:24:59.120 relationships and the way that I acted or whatever. I am human like anyone else. I've developed

03:25:04.180 superhuman like attributes associated with this sport as with anyone would who dedicated a lifetime

03:25:10.960 of achievement towards something. Maybe they wouldn't be Olympic champion, maybe, but they would be very,

03:25:14.800 very good at that thing. And I think that I've just, I've realized that the things that make me really

03:25:20.380 happy, that's pretty small list. And I feel really, really grateful and happy to have recognized that

03:25:26.280 at the age of 36. And I want to continue that. And I want to continue to explore. I want to continue to

03:25:33.860 learn and hopefully I can give back and teach the next generation of kids and people, whether they want

03:25:40.800 to be an athlete or not, I believe that everyone should be playing sports in some capacity, regardless

03:25:45.220 of your output or your skillset. I think there's amazing life lessons that are learned about how to

03:25:50.240 win, how to lose. And just like I went through about committing and dedicating and sacrificing and

03:25:55.640 going through the physical pains that you have to go through. I think there's really, really powerful

03:25:58.540 things. Even if you just suck and you're the last guy picked, it doesn't really matter. There's things that 0.99

03:26:03.180 you learn through that process. I think they're difficult to teach if you don't have the physical

03:26:07.640 component that's associated. And so I think about that often as I, you know, every year that goes

03:26:12.960 by, I'm eight years retired now from the sport of short track speed skating. I have no desire to go

03:26:18.560 back. I love going to every Olympic games and commentating. I feel out my element. It's a,

03:26:23.260 it's a homecoming and reunion for me to see all my old friends and associates. And I keep tabs in the

03:26:28.300 race. And sometimes I, I watch speed skating tapes until four 30 in the morning and realize like,

03:26:33.660 dude, this doesn't matter anymore. Like put it away, you know? And then also just,

03:26:38.680 just trying to find out and understand more about myself. And I think that's really interesting.

03:26:43.860 And so, you know, I've gained a lot from just spending time and learning from people who,

03:26:49.980 who I don't consider to be, if you asked me younger, when I was younger, experts in their field,

03:26:55.260 but now I've had a much more open mind. I've learned a lot from you. I've learned a lot from a lot of the

03:27:00.300 people that you, you are friends with a lot of these different podcasts and the, you know,

03:27:03.380 the advent of technology and access to information is so incredible. You know, when I went on my first

03:27:08.700 Olympic games, we didn't have Instagram. Like people were barely using their phones in the same

03:27:14.260 degree that we were doing today. So like your access to the internet was just to Google a couple

03:27:18.020 of ideas, but that's pretty the bare, bare minimum. If you're creating content, you are one of the very

03:27:22.320 few. Right. And so I just, I think it's really interesting and I've been traveling around the world.

03:27:27.240 Yeah. Your travel schedule is worse than mine. And I, I tend to lament my travel schedule, but

03:27:32.860 yours is, I mean, you're really never in the same place for more than two or three weeks, right?

03:27:37.160 Yeah. This is probably the longest I've been in one place in the U S in actually in years. So I'm

03:27:43.320 actually really enjoying it. I've been spending a lot of my time, but 80% of my time in Asia and my

03:27:49.000 routine is pretty aggressive. I've always had a fascination with Asia in general, both the food,

03:27:53.740 the culture, the people, the diversity, the growth, the opportunities that exist there.

03:27:57.800 But you still don't speak Japanese fluently.

03:27:59.480 I know. I still don't speak Japanese fluently. I speak more Korean than I do Japanese. And I think

03:28:04.340 this is a by-product of me being.

03:28:05.480 I just have to introduce you to Tim Ferriss because he will be able to teach you Japanese

03:28:09.460 in a shorter period of time than I'm convinced anybody could teach you.

03:28:12.760 That's right. That's right. That's his amazing ability to deconstruct world-class people.

03:28:16.960 Japanese was the first language he learned outside of English because he went and spent a year in 0.81

03:28:20.920 Japan when he was in high school. And I remember one night over dinner, he, he just explained to

03:28:25.820 me how he learned the language. Cause you know, if someone says to me, look, I went to live in France

03:28:30.780 for a year and I learned French. I'm like, okay, well I get that. Like that strikes me as achievable,

03:28:34.700 right? Or, you know, Oh, I got to spend a year in Mexico and I learned Spanish. Okay. I get that.

03:28:39.600 I can relate to that. But you know, you take a white kid out of Long Island and send him to Japan 0.98

03:28:45.360 for a year and he comes back speaking obviously with an accent, but very fluent Japanese.

03:28:50.340 I'm like, that's incredible. And he, you know, he can really articulate that process. So I don't

03:28:56.380 know. We might have to, we would have to make that happen. Yeah. It sure would make your dad

03:29:00.280 pretty happy, right? It would make him very happy. My dad still counts in his head in Japanese.

03:29:03.540 So as much as he wants to be full on American as he is American, but you know, he still can't shake

03:29:10.200 that. Man, I know they're waiting for us inside. So I guess we should continue this discussion off

03:29:16.180 the mic, but I want to thank you so much for everything, for coming down and also just for

03:29:20.200 being so generous with your, with your insights as well. I know we've, I'm guessing that a lot of

03:29:24.920 what we talked about today, you've talked about a thousand times before and it's sort of like,

03:29:28.240 God, do I have to tell that story all over again? But, but I think we've also talked about a

03:29:31.820 bunch of things that certainly I've never heard before. And maybe that means that for others,

03:29:35.320 there's also more of a collection of stuff here. Last question I have for you though, is thinking

03:29:41.000 about your race and career. You, you talked a lot at the outside about your father instilling this

03:29:45.500 belief in you that there should always be this pursuit of perfection, even if you never get there.

03:29:51.160 Is there a race when you look back at your career, that was the narrowest gap between what you

03:29:55.840 perceived to be the perfect race and your actual outcome? Not necessarily the, the place you stood on

03:30:01.540 the podium, but just in terms of your execution. Yeah. There's one race that I publicly talk about

03:30:07.120 as being the quasi perfect race. And it was the 500 meters in Torino, Italy. I was not favored to win

03:30:12.740 that race. I hadn't won that race all year long. I hadn't won a gold yet in those Olympics. It was

03:30:18.340 clear that the South Korean team was just better at those games. And I was in the final and I had

03:30:25.160 incredible athletes to skate against. And I knew my only option was to basically,

03:30:29.700 we call it jamming the pack where you slow down so that people can't get their momentum to pass you.

03:30:36.740 Right? So if you can imagine driving a Honda on a freeway and a Ferrari is behind you, imagine the

03:30:42.280 Honda, wherever the Ferrari goes, the Honda is in that lane. So it doesn't matter how fast the Ferrari is,

03:30:49.360 he can't pass because he's blocked by that car. That was the strategy that I used in that race.

03:30:53.840 I wasn't the fastest. I wasn't the best. I wasn't the most likely to win. And I was able to pull off

03:30:59.860 a wire to wire win. So that was publicly, that was one of the races that I think that was the most

03:31:04.360 perfect for me because everything was on the line. I wanted to win. Everyone had kind of given up on

03:31:08.740 my team. They thought that I wasn't going to win that race. My sports psychologist at the time

03:31:12.160 basically said, Apollo, this is your second Olympic game. It's amazing what you've gone through.

03:31:16.940 Crazy that you came back and you won another couple of medals. You should be really proud of

03:31:19.940 yourself. And I took that as like, are you giving up on me, man? Like there's only one more race 0.75

03:31:23.700 left. And so it was personally very, very powerful and visceral. And then I've had a

03:31:28.060 couple of other races where just execution wise, it was so perfect. Just the pass being 0.93

03:31:34.560 in that flow state, everything felt very automatic and easy. It slowed down the minute and a half

03:31:41.060 long race felt like five minutes. I feel like I produce zero lactic acid in my body. And it felt

03:31:47.420 like I just was simply significantly faster than everybody else. I felt like Neo from the matrix.

03:31:52.100 And I don't say that with any exaggeration. It just felt so incredibly easy to maneuver and

03:31:58.500 dance on my skates and pass that I was like the puppet master. And those are the feelings

03:32:04.700 that I think we, all of us are addicted to, whether you're a writer, whether you're a doctor,

03:32:10.980 whether you are a singer, you have that one glimpse of being in a true state of flow.

03:32:16.880 And it's so difficult to replicate. And you spend years, years searching for that one time

03:32:24.700 and you do everything possible. You go back and eat crap. What did I eat that day? Well, 1.00

03:32:29.600 I had three grapes in the morning. Well, you know what's going to happen for the next two years?

03:32:32.900 I got three grapes and they're all green for the rest of my life, right? You just try to replicate

03:32:37.480 because you don't know what changed. And I'm not sure we can really identify what that is. But those

03:32:44.700 moments are the ones that I crave. And I get into those moments no longer in sports. Sometimes I get

03:32:49.800 it to where I'm in the gym, when I'm alone, that's my sanctuary. But in conversation, like our

03:32:54.020 conversation, three and a half hours went by earlier. And I had no idea because I was so transported

03:33:00.140 into that moment. And to me, that feels perfect because you're present, you're here. The quality of

03:33:06.260 time is being spent. And, you know, hopefully people at home didn't fall asleep listening to

03:33:10.520 my crazy speed skating stories. I'm sure they didn't. I'm going to get you into race car driving

03:33:15.060 because that is another example of where this flow thing happens. So your lap time on the track is

03:33:22.180 like, you'll, you'll focus on that. I mean, in many ways to me, driving a race car is basically just

03:33:25.740 a bunch of time trials. And I know it sounds like a cliche, but my absolute fastest laps in any car on

03:33:32.300 any lap, never feel that fast. Yes. That is the most amazing feeling. Usually when I set a lap record,

03:33:40.620 which is just meaning my lap record, like I'm never going to be the guy that sets the actual lap

03:33:44.400 record, but my lap records are always after the fact, I just noticed it. I'm like, wait, holy,

03:33:50.160 you took like five tenths off your fastest time ever. And that felt effortless. That really is a

03:33:57.840 beautiful feeling, isn't it? It's an amazing. And you're right. It is so addictive. And I think

03:34:02.900 that's part of why competitive sports have been displaced by, you know, things that I do not

03:34:08.200 necessarily competitively, but just competitively myself, like, you know, archery and race car

03:34:12.060 driving and these things. Cause you're waiting for that day when it's like, oh my God, you did 12

03:34:17.040 out of 12 shots. Oh, bullseye. How did that happen? That's why people run. So people do Ironman.

03:34:22.820 And so people do triathlons. It's why people do everything. And I'm convinced that you have to

03:34:29.420 care enough about the outcome for you to get in that state. There has to be some form of consequence,

03:34:34.560 maybe not physical, maybe that danger, but psychologically to impact you to almost force

03:34:40.260 yourself into that realm. That's why I think athletes always time and time getting in that

03:34:43.260 flow state more than anyone else, as with the military and people who are in the service,

03:34:47.020 cause they're in real true flow state cause they will die if they're not. But I think that there's

03:34:51.880 a lot to be said there. And I think that we as human beings take that for granted. I think

03:34:55.780 athletes a lot of times take that for granted and trying to achieve that flow state of maintaining

03:35:00.280 that mental consistency. And that's what I was seeking for all those years. That's why I read

03:35:04.440 all those books about sports psychology and the brain and human behavior and trying to understand

03:35:08.520 myself and others. And it's a beautiful thing. Yeah. So where can people find you on social

03:35:13.480 media? Social, I'm at Apollo Ono on Twitter. My Instagram is, you know, there for pictures,

03:35:18.860 but I'm not as active as I'd like to be. And it's something that I would like to restart.

03:35:22.760 And what's your handle on Instagram? Is it the same?

03:35:24.720 It's the same at Apollo Ono.

03:35:25.880 Any books that you recommend that you've, I know you've written a couple, any of those that you

03:35:30.180 think people ought to follow up on based on what we've talked about today, where, cause yeah,

03:35:33.760 I know you have one called no regrets, which basically describes kind of this,

03:35:36.760 this ethos going into the 2010 games, right?

03:35:39.620 Yeah. I mean, my book of, it was called zero regrets. I wrote that right after the Olympic games.

03:35:44.200 I had an amazing experience, but it's kind of like a snippet into my life. And also you got to

03:35:50.800 remember, I was in that mind frame of really just post Olympic games without all these other

03:35:55.300 experiences involved to be able to really think back objectively and think and remember and really

03:36:00.760 understand what was happening at the time. But that was, you know, one of the books that I had

03:36:05.140 written with a ghostwriter. When I say I had written, I didn't actually write the book.

03:36:08.960 I wish I was a great writer and had that talent. My writing skills are subpar,

03:36:12.660 but I really enjoy reading and I really enjoy learning. And so I've, I mean, like, look,

03:36:17.320 I've invested, I've spent time into businesses and deals and things that would are so far away

03:36:23.900 from sports that would really blow people's minds. And it's because I just fascinated, right? I'm a

03:36:28.400 curious learner. And it's been amazing opening the next chapter of the life and seeing where life

03:36:32.980 takes me. Well, it's amazing to know that, you know, your athletic career spanned what, 12 years,

03:36:38.660 basically your professional career, your career as a father, whatever else you go on to do is going

03:36:44.500 to span multiples of that. So in many ways, the best is yet to come, right? I believe so.

03:36:49.940 I hope that's true for all of us. I think so. All right, man. Thanks again. It's been awesome.

03:36:53.540 Thank you. Thanks, Peter.

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The Peter Attia Drive - November 19, 2018

#29 - Apolo Anton Ohno： 8-time Olympic medalist – extreme training, discipline, pursuing perfection, and responding to adversity

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