NO HOLDS BARRED

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman once again spoke with Rob Koehler, director general of Global Athlete.

We spoke with him by phone Thursday.

With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic upending sports, the massive Black Lives Matter anti-racist protests since the murder of George Floyd, the uncertainty surrounding the postponed Tokyo Olympics, and a host of other relevant issues and factors, the result in recent months has been a marked increase in activism by athletes around the world. And that, said Rob Koehler, is a good thing.

"I think we're seeing some really good stuff coming from athletes," he said. "More than ever I've seen athletes speaking up on issues. They are not taking the status quo anymore. They are standing up on issues."

More and more, athletes are forming their own independent organizations.

"We're going to see it more. And the more athletes speak up, I think the more athletes will come forward, because power in numbers makes a huge difference," he said.

"Everyone wants to see sports succeed," he noted, while pointing out what else needs to be done.

"It's time to change. We're at a real crossroads here, in terms of do we make sports look different? Do we make sports stronger? And how do we do that?" Key to that is "engaging athletes, empowering athletes to have independent collective voices."

For the future, Global Athlete has some ambitious plans.

"We're going to continue advocating and continue to work with the various athlete groups across the world that are standing up on issues," he said. "We really want to see more organizations and want to help support and assist development of more organizations like the Athletics Association, where they are operating independently. We are working with three other sports right now, athletes in three other sports, to move forward and establish a similar structure.

"So I think for us, that's the way we'd like to see things move forward, where athletes get together, they develop their own structure, and they make it a global representation on an international level. That's the way I see the future going to the mid- to short-term."

We also discussed the growing athlete opposition to the International Olympic Committee's Rule 50 which bars podium protests; why athletes are humans first and athletes second; ensuring that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is implemented and enforced in world sport; why countries with a bad human rights record should not be permitted to host international sporting events; the upcoming case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport about Russia's state-sponsored doping program and its being banned from the Olympics; how in light of the ongoing pandemic there must be a realistic roadmap for the return to training and competition in preparation for the Summer Olympics; how a cancellation of the Summer Olympics will have an adverse effect on athletes; and much, much more.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link does not work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is available at Google Podcasts.

Also, No Holds Barred is available at Apple Podcasts.

No Holds Barred is also available on Spotify.

You can also listen to No Holds Barred via Stitcher through iOS or Android devices or on the web here.

The PodOmatic Podcast Player app is available for free, both for Android at Google Play, and for iOS on the App Store.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is sponsored by:

LenneHardt.com, the home of Lenne Hardt, the legendary MMA and sports announcer, voice actor, singer, actress, and comedienne. Lenne is also known for her jazz vocals with her Lenne Hardt Jazz Cabaret Band. For more information, to book her, or to order a custom message from her, go to LenneHardt.com.

Skullz Combat Sports Equipment, creator of the patented Skullz Double-End Bag, is the perfect punching bag for your combat sports training. Skullz Double-End Bags provide a realistic striking target, and help improve speed, distance, and timing skills. Hang it and hit it right out of the box! No pump required. Skullz Combat Sports Equipment - Advancing combat sports equipment for the next generation of fighters. For more information, go to https://instagram.com/skullzcombatsports and https://facebook.com/skullzcombatsports.

Adolphina Studios. Original art prints and handcrafted fine jewelry. For more information, go to https://www.etsy.com/shop/AdolphinaStudios.

Labels: athletes' rights, Eddie Goldman, Global Athlete, human rights, International Olympic Committee, IOC, No Holds Barred, Rob Koehler, Rule 50, Tokyo Olympics

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman once again spoke with Rob Koehler, director general of Global Athlete.

We spoke with him by phone Thursday.

For weeks the International Olympic Committee and its president, Thomas Bach, insisted that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics would go on as scheduled starting in July, and even after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on March 11. That only changed on March 24, when the IOC and the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee did an abrupt about-face and announced that the Olympics would be postponed. Later on March 30, they announced that the new dates would be July 23 to August 8, 2021, for the Olympics and August 24 to September 5, 2021, for the Paralympics. But these changes were only made after many athletes and sports organizations were vociferously protesting, demanding a postponement, and saying they would not participate on the originally planned dates to protect their health.

"The International Olympic Committee and Thomas Bach, I think, really didn't manage this in a way that had the athletes' rights respected in the manner that they should have been," said Rob Koehler.

A pandemic was declared, Olympic qualifying events were being cancelled, many professional sports organizations postponed or cancelled events, training facilities and gyms were being closed, borders were being closed, people were self-isolating, positive tests and deaths from the coronavirus were mounting, and some countries instituted lockdowns. But the IOC was "telling athletes to continue to train, continue to go forward with their preparations for the Olympic Games, which for us and the athlete groups we spoke to was an out-of-touch message" that ignored the "number one thing," public health, he said.

"We rallied the troops. We worked with different sports, athletics, the different countries to look at the message we wanted to send to the International Olympic Committee. And we called very openly and very vocally for the IOC to make an announcement that they're postponing the Games. They owed the duty of care to athletes. They were acting very irresponsibly. And I think the athletes' voice, the way they spoke up, forced the IOC to make a decision that they should have made a week before, and that was to postpone the Games," he said.

"We understand it's a very difficult situation, there's a lot of moving parts, it's not an easy decision, but all athletes needed to hear was, 'it's being postponed and we'll figure things out and we'll let you know once we figure things out.'

"And the athletes forced that card on them, and I was proud of every athlete that stood up."

We also discussed how many athletes competing in professional leagues have representation while many Olympic athletes do not; various models for independent athletes' associations; the need to support athletes' mental health with the postponement of the Olympics; how it is not yet known if athletes will be able to train in time to prepare for an Olympics starting in July 2021; the fiasco of the IOC-run Olympic boxing qualifier in London which was only cancelled midway after it had started and saw several boxers and coaches test positive for coronavirus afterwards; alternatives to the Olympic movement; and much, much more.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link does not work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is available at Google Play Music.

Also, No Holds Barred is available at Apple Podcasts.

No Holds Barred is also available on Spotify.

You can also listen to No Holds Barred via Stitcher through iOS or Android devices or on the web here.

The PodOmatic Podcast Player app is available for free, both for Android at Google Play, and for iOS on the App Store.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is sponsored by:

LenneHardt.com, the home of Lenne Hardt, the legendary MMA and sports announcer, voice actor, singer, actress, and comedienne. Lenne is also known for her jazz vocals with her Lenne Hardt Jazz Cabaret Band. For more information, to book her, or to order a custom message from her, go to LenneHardt.com.

Skullz Combat Sports Equipment, creator of the patented Skullz Double-End Bag, is the perfect punching bag for your combat sports training. Skullz Double-End Bags provide a realistic striking target, and help improve speed, distance, and timing skills. Hang it and hit it right out of the box! No pump required. Skullz Combat Sports Equipment - Advancing combat sports equipment for the next generation of fighters. For more information, go to https://instagram.com/skullzcombatsports and https://facebook.com/skullzcombatsports.

Adolphina Studios. Original art prints and handcrafted fine jewelry. For more information, go to https://www.etsy.com/shop/AdolphinaStudios.

Labels: athletes' rights, coronavirus, COVID-19, Eddie Goldman, Global Athlete, International Olympic Committee, IOC, No Holds Barred, Rob Koehler, Tokyo Olympics

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman spoke with Rob Koehler, director general of Global Athlete.

A former World Anti-Doping Agency deputy director general, Rob Koehler is leading this "international athlete-led movement that will inspire and lead positive change in world sport, and collectively address the balance of power between athletes and administrators," according to its web site.

We spoke with him by phone Monday.

While he agreed that Global Athlete is an advocacy organization, he noted that it is developing into much more than that in collectively dealing with athletes' problems and fighting for their rights.

"When they have problems, when they have issues, we either help them from behind, or we join together in terms of making statements and pushing things. We've provided legal support. We've provided assistance in so many different areas, that right now it's advocacy. But we see in the future that being a collective group to stand together on issues collectively that are one hundred percent athlete-supported and athlete-driven, we'll start to make change," he said.

Yet there still is enormous resistance from the powers-that-be in world sport to these efforts.

"One of the things that, it's mind-boggling to me, and I still cannot understand," he continued, "why sport governance and sporting organizations do not see the benefit in bringing athletes along with them and together as a collective to try to make sport stronger, safer. And when you have collective athlete engagement and collective bargaining, you end up with growing the sport, not limiting it."

Most of the focus of Global Athlete now is on the rights of athletes in the Olympic movement. But there are also major popular movements and mass sentiment in many places around the world against those areas hosting the Olympics and other mega-events. One way of addressing that, he said, is to guarantee that the athletes are part of the process that goes into deciding just what the Olympics and these major events do.

"If athletes were a part of the decision-making and were a part of shaping what the Olympics should look like in the future, or in a World Cup, you all of a sudden have brand recognition, so you've attached your own brand to that brand when you become part of it. And when you become part of something and you want to see it in a better spot, you're going to be held accountable for it," he said.

"Money has overshadowed what the Olympic brand used to be," he said. What is needed is "a new type of approach and a new type of Olympics that meets all those, that addresses the criticisms that are out there."

The latest chapter in the Russian state-sponsored doping scandal involves Russian authorities providing doctored and fabricated data and evidence about the findings of the Moscow laboratory's doping test results to the World Anti-Doping Agency.

He said he and Global Athlete would support a "ban of Russia at the Olympics, to try to bring about some institutional change in the country. Because if the leaders of the sports can continue to manipulate and manage things and not have any dire consequences when they go to the Games, when are we going to see change inside?"

We also discussed how the funding they receive from the FairSport foundation is not attached to Global Athlete's decision-making, how Global Athlete has helped athletes in sports including karate and weightlifting, the development of alternative organizations outside the Olympic movement such as the International Swimming League, the plans of Global Athlete for the future, and much, much more.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link does not work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is available at Google Play Music.

Also, No Holds Barred is available at Apple Podcasts.

You can also listen to No Holds Barred via Stitcher through iOS or Android devices or on the web here.

The PodOmatic Podcast Player app is available for free, both for Android at Google Play, and for iOS on the App Store.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is sponsored by:

The Catch Wrestling Alliance, resurrecting and promoting the sport of authentic catch-as-catch-can wrestling. The Catch Wrestling Alliance provides tournaments, seminars, and training as well as education about catch wrestling. Join the movement and keep real wrestling alive. For more information, go to CatchWrestlingAlliance.com.

Skullz Double-End Bags, the perfect bag for your combat sports training. Skullz Double-End Bags provide a realistic striking target, and help improve timing, distance, and hand and eye coordination. Hang it and hit it right out of the box! No pump required. For more information, go to SkullzDeBags.com.

Labels: athletes' rights, Eddie Goldman, Global Athlete, IOC, No Holds Barred, Olympics, Rob Koehler, Russian doping scandal, WADA