“If I was an athlete in these leagues, I would say, ‘Get out of here! Wild responds harshly to the AMA

I believe that the AMA wants to grow and enter the American market. This promises more income.

I am against athletes who use drugs to gain a competitive advantage, especially physical. But WADA is a strange organization, because in the case of doping, there are so many things that we can challenge.

WADA does not have a very scientific, rather humanitarian approach. Marijuana, mushrooms, LSD – all this applies to doping, alcohol – no. There’s a line of reasoning like, “OK, alcohol should technically be equated with doping, but since society accepts it, we won’t consider it doping. But marijuana, which is against the norm accepted in many societies, we will consider it evil. And as soon as something becomes habitual in society, the AMA begins to change its beliefs, to go beyond it. I don’t really understand their objective, what do they want- they achieve?Alcohol is by far the most widely abused drug in the world.

I can drink six or even fifteen beers before a race and go racing the next day. But if I have, say, a mental disorder and I take a pill, I can be banned for four years or for life. I think it’s very dangerous.

One athlete can take a pill and get a lifetime ban, while another can take any amount and nothing will happen to them because they have a therapeutic exception. It’s not correct.

The AMA wants to get into the NFL, MLB, NBA. If I was an athlete in these leagues, I would say, “Get out of here!” Let me live my life.’ These guys are making hundreds of millions of dollars. They don’t want to deal with the AMA. They’re here to make money, to put on a show. there a place for the AMA in the NCWA (National Collegiate Wrestling Association), where you deal with young athletes. This story is more about fair play than money. No one wants to see young people at college or in Olympic sports taking steroids.

The multi-billion dollar industry doesn’t need it. For example, the NFL is interested in people between 130 and 150 kg who run like superheroes. They want the biggest show. Steroids, let’s be honest, allow you to exceed the limits of your genetic potential. In any sport, you can go beyond the limits with the help of drugs to make it more spectacular and interesting.

The NFL and MLB will never allow the AMA into their sport. It’s impossible. By the way, I don’t know if NBA players take steroids. I think restorative drugs or party drugs like marijuana will be the most important. That could be a problem for the guys in the NBA.

I’m more interested if they really started extensively testing American football players or baseball players. Have you seen these guys? Can you imagine a 140 kg guy who can run 40 meters in 4.7 seconds? And the guy who weighs a hundred kilograms and jumps from a place more than 80 centimeters? You sit down and think, “How is that? I look like a good athlete, but I’m jumping 70 centimeters. How is that possible?” If these guys weren’t doing drugs, it would be a completely different sport.

Why does everyone care so much about what people do with their bodies? Who should care is the athletes themselves. All these organizations in the world are looking at you like the police. Although nobody needs them, nobody asks them to come. No one in my sport says, “Oh, we need WADA to do the testing. If one of my opponents wants to take steroids, then I’ll say, “Good luck, mate!” If you want to take steroids, I don’t care.” So many people stick their noses into things that are none of their business. Seems to me the AMA shouldn’t. They don’t really care about life people.

I had a blood test during the Olympic Games in China. I laughed, “What do you need? My blood? What do you think I was doing and how might that change my result? Steroids wouldn’t have helped me get on the pedestal.

Some are banned for taking something stupid like meldonium. Is there an effect of meldonium, thanks to which a person will earn gold or just a medal? Of course not. There is no effect. In my sport, 99% of wins and losses are in the brain. I win or I don’t lose because I took 5 milligrams of something or I can run a hundred meters faster in three seconds. It all depends on the decisions in my head.

I think there are more important things we need to focus on. I am very tired of the past seven years, during which we are constantly being told about doping. Let’s talk about how to make the Olympics more watchable. Let’s talk about Russian athletes. so that they can compete in the next Games. So far everything seems to indicate that we will stay at home and race in the Russian Cup. It seems to me that doping is now at the bottom of the list of problems.

Damn AMA! I should have been the first to know if my samples were contaminated or not. But those assholes announced the result a week before the Olympics in Korea. Only seven days before departure, I knew if I was going to the Games. Maybe I would now be a quadruple Olympic medalist, not a triple. If the AMA had done its job, it would have checked my samples in 2016, not January 2018. I don’t care about that organization anymore. These people are like flies in my room. “You guys are so funny. What are you doing here? Do the real work.”

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recorded by Mikhail Kuznetsov