Stay ConnectedThe Clean Sport Collective is a community of powerful voices comprised of athletes, brands, events, clubs, fans and the public to support the pursuit of clean sport and athletics through the absence of performance enhancing drugs.
With this podcast, we will celebrate clean athletes, educate you on issues in the world of clean sport, and bring hope that we can all believe in the power of fair play across all sports.
Copyright: © Clean Sport Collective 2019
It's rare for a track & field athlete to appear on Time's List of the 100 Most Influential People of the year, but there is no one more deserving than Allyson Felix for everything she represents both on and off the track. To celebrate Allyson this week for receiving this great honor, we are replaying our prior interview with her (recorded in September 2019).
In this conversation with Chris and Kara, we begin with a quick introduction on her background in sport and then dive into two topics on which Allyson's voice is so important: maternity rights and clean sport.
She discusses how being a mom has motivated her to speak out on topics such as these. She provides her thoughts on what more can be done to protect female athletes during and after their pregnancies. In addition, we talk about the culture within sprinting regarding the use of performance-enhancing drugs and what more can be done to create a level playing field. She also gives her perspective on Christian Coleman's whereabouts violations and why missing a drug test is such a big deal, including a story about her one and only missed test while taking an exam at USC.
At the end, we discuss Allyson's sponsorship deal with Athleta and what she is doing to try to make another Olympic team in Toyko.
Allyson is the most decorated track and field athlete of all-time with 27 global championship medals, but her impact off the track is perhaps even more important. Thank you to Time for recognizing that and congratulations again to Allyson for making the list. You deserve it.
One of the best ways to support #cleansport is to buy products from companies that have signed the Clean Sport pledge. Altra Running is one of those companies.
In this episode, Shanna and Kara interview Altra co-founder Brian Beckstead. Brian shares the story of how Altra was born from his entry into the sport by following the footsteps of his older sisters to meeting his co-founder Golden Harper on the first day of high school cross-country. He and Golden went on to work together in a specialty running store where they began to modify shoes at home to balance the cushioning and provide more room for the toes to splay in the forefoot. They then tried to give their ideas away for free to established shoe companies at the time, who wouldn't listen or who ridiculed their ideas in some cases.
With no one responding, they decided to just build the shoes themselves and Altra Running was born. Brian gives several of the behind-the-scenes stories in the roller coaster journey that led Altra to be the success story it is today, including the spiritual moment near the end of a 100-mile race when he realized that the company was going to make it.
Finally, Brian talks about what companies like Altra can do to support clean sport including the creative ways they are choosing to sponsor clean athletes and build the running community in grassroots ways. The fight for clean sport needs more companies like Altra to step up and set the tone with a zero tolerance policy for doping. Thank you to Brian and the full team at Altra for doing their part.
Did you know that women weren't allowed to compete in the 1500m in the Olympics until 1972 in Munich or in the 10,000m until 1988 in Seoul? As a pioneer for women in track and field, Francie Larrieu Smith competed in both of those events. All-in-all, she made 5 Olympic teams in three different distances including the marathon in 1992.
In this conversation with Kara and Shanna (and a special guest co-host), Francie talks about growing up as one of nine children where she aspired to be an Olympian from a very early age in spite of not having access to sports as a young girl in school. She made her first Olympic team at the age of 19, and she shares how she struggled at those games due to the emotions from the terrorist attack at the Olympic village in Munich. Francie discusses racing in the first Olympic 10,000m in 1988, and she gets emotional talking about what it was like to carry the flag at the opening ceremony for the US at the 1992 games in Barcelona.
Francie also provides us with insight into the early days of drug testing and how she approached competing against dirty athletes during her 20+ year career. As an athlete and later as a coach, Francie has dedicated her life to the sport of track and field. She's a role model for any athlete to emulate, male or female, and it's a great honor to have her on the podcast.
She won 6 Paralympic medals including 5 golds. She competed in two Olympics in the 1500m and 5000m. She won 3 national titles in both the 1500m and 5000m on the track. She won US road championships at 4 different distances from the 5K up to the marathon. She finished 4th at the NYC Marathon, and she did it all as a legally blind athlete who never viewed her condition as a limitation or excuse.
In this fascinating conversation, Kara and Chris talk to Marla Runyan about her journey in sport from playing soccer as a kid to learning to high jump in her backyard after watching the 1984 Olympics to turning to the heptathlon in college and eventually to becoming one of the greatest distance runners in US history. Marla shares the heartbreaking story of losing her central vision at the age of 9, but she also talks about why and how it never held her back on her way to becoming a four-time Olympian and Paralympian and many-time national champion.
Through many injuries and setbacks, Marla never let anything get in the way of her dreams and seemed only to rise higher after every bump in the road. In addition, Marla shares what it was like to compete against several US and international athletes that would later be convicted of doping, including what it was like to beat one of them to win the US 5000m title in 2001.
Marla provides great perspective on what is needed to promote a culture of clean and safe sport in track and field. Marla Runyan is a living inspiration, and we are so excited and honored to share her story with you.
You've heard the story of Frank Shorter and how he was robbed of a second gold medal in the 1976 Olympic Marathon (discussed in episode 15). But, have you heard the story of the fourth place finisher that day - American Don Kardong. He finished just 3 seconds out of bronze on that day and should be the rightful holder of that medal after the winner Waldemar Cierpinski was later implicated in a state-sponsored doping program in East Germany.
Even though the International Olympic Committee has acknowledged that cheating occurred, they have yet to correct the record because the statute of limitations has expired. Now 71 years old, Don still waits for his rightly-deserved medal. In this episode, Chris and Kara catch up with Don to hear his side of the story.
We discuss his beginnings in the sport when he joined cross country to stay fit for the basketball team. We hear about his decorated career at Stanford racing rival Steve Prefontaine from Oregon. Post-collegiately, Don shares how he continued to train to make the Olympic team, running two-a-days while working full-time as a 6th grade teacher in Spokane. He talks about making the 1976 Olympic team with Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers but how no one expected him to perform well at the Games. He then gives all of the details of that bittersweet day in 1976 in Montreal including what he felt like during, immediately after, and of course nearly 2 decades later when he learned the news of Cierpinski's cheating.
Even though he was robbed on that day, Don has gone on to play so many important roles in our sport as a writer for Runner's World, President of the Road Runners Club of America, and founder and race director of the Lilac Bloomsday Run, one of the largest road races in the country. He also continues to give back to clean sport by helping race directors initiate drug testing programs through the Professional Road Running Organization (PRRO).
Because it is never too late to do the right thing, we want to see Don awarded his medal. He deserved it then, and he definitely deserves it now. Thank you to Don for sharing his story with us.
"I really need athletes and coaches and executives within national governing bodies to understand... there is no gray area." - Summer Sanders.
We agree. There is no gray area when it comes to clean sport. There is also no gray area when it comes to how much we loved this conversation with Summer Sanders. She is exactly the person you hope she would be - real, funny, relatable, and an absolute inspiration in sport and in life. She also happens to be a 4-time Olympic medalist (including 2 golds) and has an equally impressive career in sports commentating.
Kara and Shanna lead this conversation and cover many aspect's of Summer's story from her childhood growing up in California, splitting time between divorced parents who both shaped her as a person, to her meteoric rise to multiple Olympic gold medals by the age of 19 and to her extensive resume in sports broadcasting.
Summer shares so many great stories in this episode. She talks about how barely missing an Olympic team at the age of 15 was exactly the failure she needed at the time. She describes every detail of her final gold-medal winning race in Barcelona and what it was like standing on the podium while the Star Spangled Banner played.
She discusses her life-long dream of being on TV and how that led to her career in broadcasting after the 1992 Olympics. Summer gets emotional talking about her experiences as a runner including her first marathon in NYC and running Boston in 2013, where she left the finish line just 15 minutes before the first bomb went off on Boylston.
Of course, we also ask her about the clean sport culture in swimming, when she became aware of doping herself, and how she dealt with it during her career. Then, we close with her hopes for the future of sport which are as black and white as they can be when it comes to this very important topic.
Summer is a hero to many in the pool and in front of the camera. We were absolutely honored to have her join us.
Those are the words of author, performance coach, and Clean Sport Collective contributor Brad Stulberg. Brad is co-author of Peak Performance and The Passion Paradox with episode #26 guest Steve Magness.
Through his writing and his one-on-one performance coaching practice, he has made it his life's work to help people become better versions of themselves - the clean way. In addition to his books, you can also learn more about his principles for clean performance enhancement on his podcast with Steve Magness called The Growth Equation.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Shanna and Chris talk to Brad about his journey to helping people in this way and how it exposed him to the dark sides of enhancing performance, particularly in environments outside of sport such as the workplace. Brad provides great perspective on big clean-sport questions from the seemingly obvious - "Why is doping wrong?" - to the more complex - "Why not just make doping legal for all to level the playing field?"
Brad talks about his conversations with elite athletes like Shalane Flanagan on how they might deal with their thoughts and frustrations on doping in sport, and he gives us some outside-the-box, yet practical, solutions to the problem. As a bonus, we get some really helpful tips from Brad on dealing with the stress and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We appreciate Brad's perspective because he has a magical way of bringing simplicity to complex topics. This is a fascinating and provocative discussion that we think you will enjoy. Thank you to Brad for joining us!
Jon Rankin is a self-described dreamer, and his story is one that is packed with equal doses of heartbreak and inspiration. In this conversation with Kara and Chris, you will hear about how he fell in love with the sport at the age of 14 watching Michael Johnson earn double golds in the 200 and 400 in Atlanta in 1996 and promptly announced to his parents that he would be an Olympian some day.
You will hear about his up-and-down high school career where he overcame a performance plateau his senior year to receive just enough attention from UCLA to make the team as a walk-on.
You will hear about his breakthrough performance to win the US Junior Championship in the 1500m his freshman year only to suffer 7 stress fractures over the next 2 years pushing him to nearly quit the team. You will hear about him learning to fall in love with the sport again and how that led him to break 4 minutes in the mile and run 17 straight PRs in his final outdoor track season at UCLA, which earned him a contract to continue his dream as a professional.
You will hear about him finishing 6th at the Olympic Trials in 2008 only to find out shortly thereafter that he had a terminal kidney disease and might only have months to live. You will hear the gut-wrenching emotion in his voice as he talks about how that news ended his career, contrasted with the joy he experienced when an experimental stem cell treatment miraculously cured the disease.
And of course, you will hear about his perspective on clean sport and why he has become an advocate for it since his time on the track including why he believes that the culture must be changed by the athletes from within.
Jon is now the founder of the apparel company Go Be More, and he's made it his mission to inspire others to pursue their dreams just like he did. We appreciate him sharing his story with us.
Liz McColgan is a legend and pioneer in the sport of track and field. She won the first-ever women's 10K at the Commonwealth Games in 1986. She competed in the first-ever Olympic 10,000 meter event for women in Seoul in 1988 (and earned a silver). She became a World Champion in 1991 just 9 months after giving birth to her daughter. She won the first-ever World Half Marathon Championship for women in 1992, and she won 3 World Marathon Majors (before they were called that) with victories in NYC, London, and Tokyo.
She was also a pioneer in less fortunate ways as an athlete who lost gold medals to dopers and who lost her sponsorship with Nike due to pregnancy. Both experiences almost ended her career prematurely. Through it all, she remained the same hard-working, fiercely-competitive athlete with integrity who believed in doing things the right way.
In this episode with Kara and Chris, Liz holds nothing back as we discuss it all from being bullied growing up in Scotland to competing in those pioneering days for women's athletics and now to coaching kids and elite athletes (including her daughter Eilish and US marathoner Allie Kieffer) in a sport at risk due to doping, shoe technology and the power dynamics within governing bodies.
Liz provides great perspective on competing herself in an era dominated by steroids and EPO as well as what she believes should be done to level the playing field and clean up the sport today (hint: lifetime bans for athletes AND coaches plus standardized shoe specs). What you see (and hear) is what you get with Liz McColgan, and we are proud to amplify her voice.
"We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort." - Jesse Owens.
Tianna Bartoletta is no stranger to determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort. She won 9 high school state titles to match her idol from the same state of Ohio - Jesse Owens. She went to the University of Tennessee on a full academic scholarship. She became a world champion in the long jump at the age of 19. Over the next 12 years, she won 8 other global championship medals including 5 more golds. She is the reigning Olympic champion and hopes to defend that title in Tokyo next summer.
Her journey, however, has been far from easy. From facing failure in high school to the ups and downs of a pro career where she questioned whether or not she would ever return to the top of her event, Chris and Shanna discuss it all with her in this episode.
In particular, we dig into her perspective on clean sport as someone who was robbed of a gold medal (which has since been upgraded) from the 2006 World Indoor Championship. She talks about how that "disappointing" silver medal would lead her to make changes in her career that almost ended it. She also discusses how sponsors and the structure of contracts encourage doping in sport as well as the responsibility of athletes to comply with the whereabouts filing system.
Beyond athletics, Tianna's voice is perhaps even more important as she stands up for what's right through her blog. This includes defying her sponsor to speak up for Mary Cain and the abuse she suffered as a member of the Nike Oregon Project.
Tianna's energy in this discussion is infectious. Her advocacy for doing what's right - for clean sport and beyond - is strong and powerful. Her dreams extend well beyond the track, and we know that her idol Jesse Owens would be so proud of her.
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