Anthony Robles’ Unstoppable Quest for Pullup Glory

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The pullup has humbled all of us – from our middle school gym classes to any attempt to get into shape. Doing one, for many, is considered a victory, but then there’s Anthony Robles. The NCAA wrestling champion, who was born with one leg, brings his unbreakable will to take on not just the pullup bar, but one of Guinness’s most-hallowed records. So today, Ryan Hockensmith brings us to Arizona and tells the story of one man’s final pursuit of athletic immortality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ryan Hock is a myth. We like to start this podcast in dramatic places, in places where
0:06.4	something of great import is happening. And I didn't realize that desert financial credit union
0:14.5	in Phoenix would qualify as one of these places. Oh, it absolutely qualifies. Absolutely. I was there
0:22.8	to see Anthony Robles, who was the 2011 NCAA wrestling champion.
0:28.0	Tonight it is about perspiration, motivation, and more importantly, inspiration. A young man from
0:34.1	Arizona born without the use or any right leg. And Anthony Robles is now seven minutes away from
0:40.9	a national championship. Who had been born with one leg and accomplished something that
0:46.5	Phil Knight, the Nike chairman later told him is the greatest athletic accomplishment he had ever seen.
1:00.0	And I was there that day in May, because I wanted to see him do what might be more impressive,
1:05.1	which is he was there in the lobby of a credit union in Phoenix to tempt the world record for
1:12.4	most pull ups in 24 hours. And every time I saw the number and what he was going to try to do,
1:18.4	I thought there has to be a typo because the current record, the one that he was chasing that day,
1:24.5	7,716 pull ups in 24 hours. I mean, Ryan, everything about this record is ridiculous to me.
1:33.8	The number 7,715, the current record is ridiculous. The fact that he has to do it in a single day,
1:42.9	which involves a sleep strategy. An endurance strategy is ridiculous. So what motivates a person
1:50.9	to even try this? I mean, the short answer is I don't know.
1:57.8	I mean, this is I got so fast in by this story because you know, some of these endurance things,
2:03.6	that athletes do. I mean, most of the sports we love are 10 second bursts. They're incredible
2:08.9	dunks or a home run or they're great, they're great tiktoks or gifts. Yes, yes, they're these
2:15.3	explosive incredible things that we can't believe. But when you ask someone to do that for a day
2:22.3	straight, it is it defies logic. I'll never forget I decided to look up before I started doing
2:28.1	this story. I wonder what the military branch is test for. I mean, what what our pull ups apart of
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from ESPN, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of ESPN and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.