Interviews

First Pull Interviews Olympian Norik Vardanian

Norik at the 2012 Olympic Games. Credit to hookgrip.

Son of one of the greatest weightlifter of all time (Yurik Vardanian), Norik was kind enough to answer my questions for your reading pleasure. Norik has trained in the USA as well as in Armenia. He mostly trained at the OTC when he was living in North America. In 2012, he represented Armenia at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, where he placed 11th in the 94kg category. He just won the 2013 Armenian nationals. He also has a page on facebook and a youtube channel. He regularly post pretty nice photographs and videos over there.

Without further ado… Here is the interview with Norik Vardanian who has a lot to say on many topics.

Interview with Christine Girard, bronze medalist in London 2012

Christine snatching 105kg at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, credit @ VancouverSun

It goes without saying that I am very excited to publish today’s interview. I had the chance to interview a very talented Canadian women weightlifter who happens to have nice perspectives to offer on many weightlifting-related topics.

Christine Girard is the first Canadian woman weightlifter to receive an Olympic Medal (3^rd place in London in the 63kg category, 4^th in Beijing). She has also won many medals in competitions like the Commonwealth games and Pan American championship. Above anything, Christine is a very nice and humble person who was kind enough to answers my questions.

Before proceeding to the interview, I would like to point out that Christine’s club is on facebook [link] and that she has a website [link]. She is now offering services such as seminars, personal coaching and public speaking which the reader can find information about on her website.

With no further ado… here is the interview.

Interview with Greg Everett

It is now time for a third interview. Greg Everett is the owner of Catalyst Athletics. which was founded in 2006. He is a weightlifting coach, an author (he has written 2 books and writes the Performance Menu journal) and, as of lately, he is also a (weightlifting) documentary maker. Indeed Greg will be releasing his new documentary called ”American Weightlifting” very soon and I had the chance to see it. I will publish my review of the documentary tomorrow, so make sure to check it out.

Without further ado… Here is the interview with Greg Everett

Interview with Coach Stephen Powell

Coach Stephen Powell

Now is the time for First Pull’s second interview with Stephen Powell. Stephen has been involved in coaching many high level weightlifters as well as other athletes (MMA fighters, Boxers, etc.). He has studied under many renowned coaches, such as Coach Shin-Ho Kang (former head coach of South Korea). He is a very opinionated man and was kind enough to answer my many questions. The following is the result of a 2+ hours interview over Skype. It was a very interesting talk. I hope you will enjoy it too and feel free to ask your own questions in the comment section (or share the interview).

Without further ado… Here is the interview.

Interview with the man behind LiftHard

Kirksman, the man behind LiftHard

First Pull was created as effort to promote weightlifting, especially in Canada. It is also an effort to gather knowledge in one place and make it available to everybody. Many perspectives of the same topics are always interesting and necessary to the advancement of athletics. Since the weightlifting world doesn’t have a real good magazine to do that, I would like First Pull to serve that purpose. Consequently, one of the best ways to get many perspectives on the same topics is to interview coaches and athletes. I would like to do that monthly.

So today is interview one, la première, numero uno! I’m pretty excited about that. The interviewee is Kirksman from lifthard.com. Kirksman writes thought provoking article on his website and engage in many discussions on his facebook (Link). He publishes a lot of content that is related to the Chinese weightlifting methodology since he has witnessed a lot of it. Indeed, being from Malaysia, he trained under Coach Wu (Among other coaches), a former Chinese National winner. He regularly travels abroad to coach and hold seminar. He does have some pretty interesting things to say.