I got to know Noah when he was a teenager, and he joined the Stratton Mountain School team (Amy was a coach of the team at that point) for a competition trip to Canadian National Championships in Mont Ste Anne. For some reason he ended up borrowing skis from me for the races (maybe his bag got lost or something), and we had some good conversations. We kept in touch, and a couple of years later I started working with Noah as part of his coaching team.
The whole time I worked with Noah, he struggled with the sense that he should be doing big, meaningful things. He has always had an acute awareness of social justice issues, and was really excited to get an education that would give him the tools to make a difference in the world. The whole time, he struggled to rationalize the significance of his focus on sport in a world with big justice and equality issues. Since retiring from skiing, Noah has been attending Brown University, and I have no doubt that he will end up doing big things on a global scale. And he hasn’t waited to earn his degree to get started on policy and advocacy work. He has gotten himself involved in international sport politics through work with USADA as an anti-doping advocate, and with Global Athlete, an advocacy organization for athletes’ rights in the Olympic movement.
Several weeks ago Noah and I recorded a “quick chat” about what he’s been working on. It’s really interesting to hear some thoughtful comments on everything from doping to IOC policy from a guy who is closely involved with a lot of what is happening in global sports governance. I’ll link the video below. But first, I asked Noah to forward me details on how to contribute to his lobbying efforts on behalf of the Rodchenkov act, a bill that would empower US federal law enforcement to fight international state-sponsored doping. Here is the information from Noah on how you can learn more, and help support the Rodchenkov act.
Zach, people can support the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act by calling their Senators. They can find contact info here. People should share a personal story on why clean sport is important, and relay that we need federal law enforcement’s involvement in the fight against institutional state-sponsored doping.
The opinion piece that Jessie and I published together is here. The piece that I published in the Salt Lake Tribune is here. This article and this 17 minute podcast, both about the Rodchenkov Act, link state-sponsored doping to other foreign state actions that undermine democratic institutions and the rule of law.
OK – enough preamble. This video runs really long, and probably should have been presented as a podcast instead of a video. You might want to just listen to the audio. I was going to edit it down a bunch, and decided not to. It’s not really marketing, it’s a conversation that will be interesting to people who care about anti-doping, athlete rights, and sport governance. The full conversation is here for those of you who care to hear it all!