Kazakhstan in the house! So many Amazing people I am going to implode, from the shear awesomeness of this

A picture is a Thousand words.  You and I know it.  I am sitting in a room surrounded by the great, modern day luminaries of weightlifting. I am surrounded by some of the pound for pound strongest men on earth.

Seriously, Am I DREAMING?  I watched the 2012 Olympics in awe of the Kazakstan lifters- Svetlana Podobedova, Ilya Ilyin, Maiya Maneza, and Zufilya Chinshanlo. I admired Diego Salazar being the only lifter from the America's winning a medal in 2008, and in awe of Carlos Andica out clean and jerking every 85kg man at the 2011 Pan Am Games.  And, look who I am surrounded by:

On the far left is Viktor Ni: he is the personal coach of Maiya Maneza, Zufilya Chinshanlo, and Svetlana Podobedova all Gold Medal winners at the London Olympics. 

Next to him is Dr Herrera- I wrote about him a lot. While he was coach of Cuba, they won HUNDREDS of medals, he got Colombia their first World Championship medal, and his protege became Olympic Champion. 

Then there's Ivan, myself.

Next to me is Mendikhan Tapsir, Secretary General of the Kazakhstan weightlifting federation, then LG. Next to LG is Diego Salazar- Olympic Silver medalist, 6% bodyfat, 100% awesome personality.  

Next, Pan Am record holder in 85kg class clean and jerk, Carlos Andica, and friend

Mr "Kazakhstan Number 1", himself, in the flesh - Aleksey Ni.  You probably remember him for his incredible enthusiasm every time a Kazakhstan lifter wins gold or breaks a world record. He's always there- when Ilyin went double gold at the Olympics, or Chinshanlo or Maneza, or Podobedova.

Just imagine, the shear brain and muscle power sitting around a table in Maine.

It all happened when Risto Sports announced it would hold an international conference on Olympic weightlifting. We received recognition from the Pan American Weightlifting Federation and IWF from our efforts.  The venerable Dr Herrera would be presenting new research on how training design influences natural hormonal responses and technique.  

No surprise the biggest interests came from International weightlifting federations and CrossFit boxes.

So, why do you care?  Well, one can only learn so much from watching these guys on youtube.

In person, they are all serious but awesome people (no tackling athletes in jubilation occurred). Serious, in that they all came to Risto Sports with a purpose- to learn something new - and to  teach.


For the record, people from Kazakhstan are NOTHING like Borat.