The following is a conversation with Travis Stevens, 2016 Olympic Silver Medalist in Judo

and one of the greatest American Jidoka ever. But his story is inspiring not because of that

Olympic medal, but because of the decades of injury, hardship, incredible battles against the

best in the world, wrapping up in close heartbreaking losses at the 2008 and 2012 games, all of which

eventually led to that very silver medal in 2016. As we talk about in the podcast, Travis is also

someone who is largely responsible for me getting it to Judo, for which I will forever be grateful.

He also happens to be now my Judo coach and mentor. I'll release a video of Travis and I doing

some Judo in a few days. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.

As a side note, let me say a few words that I've written down about the Olympic Games and the

International Olympics Committee. Visiting family has the t-shirt, but I had to pull away to

write and to say these words because this very video was taken down by YouTube as per the

request of the IOC. You know it's serious when a Russian takes time away from family, food, and drink.

I am heartbroken to see continued incompetence, greed, and corruption on the part of the IOC

in failing to do as the Olympic Charter states to quote,

"...insure the fullest coverage and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games."

End quote. I want to give you two facts. First, they do not make most of the videos of the games

available for replay anywhere that is accessible, searchable, and discoverable while they're funded

by ads or by subscriptions. For example, on YouTube or their own service, it is not available anywhere.

Second, in the most absurd violation of the Olympic Charter, they've uploaded all of the videos

of the 2012-2016 and the 2020-21 Olympics to YouTube, and they set all of these videos to private.

This results in a situation like my four-hour conversation that you're watching now with Travis

Stevens being taken down due to us including a few seconds of a small video overlay of Travis's

...