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EXCLUSIVE: Dorian Yates on steroid use, drug testing and rivals in bodybuilding
By Gary Chappell
PUBLISHED: 00:10, Wed, Aug 5, 2015
ONE of the most controversial, honest and thought-provoking interviews you will read this year has been published in the Daily Express and today we run the final instalment from former six-time Mr Olympia Dorian Yates. In the wake of this week’s news from the world of athletics, this is one viewpoint you will not want to miss:
DORIAN YATES UNCUT…NO ONE IS THAT NATURALLY GIFTED:
Maybe in bodybuilding because it is such a small sport we can be totally honest and say look it is part of the sport we use steroids, whereas if you are part of athletics or one of these mainstream sports with TV and sponsors you could never say that.
But this is a competitive sport. Do people really think that these competitive highly driven athletes are not going to do absolutely everything, leave no stone unturned in being the best that they can be in their sport? Of course not.
But people do think that and see these guys on TV and it is all squeaky clean and, I’m not naming any individual because I don’t know, but it would be so naive to think that if you could take something that would increase your performance by whatever, two per cent, five per cent, 10 per cent, one ******* per cent, half a per cent, that it is not being used, because it makes a difference. People could not afford not to.
They try to tell you this guy is so talented that he could beat people who are using but I doubt it very much mate because nobody is that far ahead of the competition.
Someone once said with regards to athletics, you can set up your starting block on the same line as everybody else or you can set it up a metre backwards. Nobody is going to set up their blocks a metre back mate.
DORIAN YATES UNCUT…TESTING CREATES UNFAIRNESS:
It would be more honest [if you abolished testing]. With the drug tests throughout the ages you actually create more of an imbalance because the people with the funding and the doctors they can really avoid getting a positive [test] and will be at a bigger advantage than someone from a poor country or less facilities, so does it make it a fairer or even sport?
It is not like you are putting a rocket pack on your back in the 200m, you still have to run it, it is still your body, you’re enhancing an aspect of it. I actually think it will be more honest no to have the drug test.
They guy who used to supply me steroids in the 1980s had customers who were household names and that was back then, 30 years ago, and I’m sure nothing has changed.
DORIAN YATES UNCUT…WRITING ON WALL FOR HANEY:
My first Mr Olympia was 1991 and that was in Florida against the great Lee Haney, who became Mr Olympia in 1984 and I started training properly in 1983.
This was the guy who was Mr Olympia my whole way through – seven times – and I was going to compete against him in my first Mr Olympia contest and I realised at this point that I had a legitimate chance to beat this guy who was actually my hero.
So I had to change my mental outlook from, ‘wow, this is Lee Haney, the icon we are all trying to aspire to’, to, ‘this is the guy I am trying to beat’. I thought, ‘I can’t be in awe of this guy because, if that is your attitude then you’re not going to have much chance of winning’.
By the time I went there I did believe in myself and went there trying to beat him and I actually got a very close second – and that had never happened before that someone beat Haney in one of the rounds. It was the first time someone had given Lee Haney a run for his money and it was my first time [in the Mr Olympia] and I was still improving at a rapid rate.
So the writing was on the wall for him and, after making it a record of eight, he made a decision – which I don’t blame him for – that he was going to retire.
So the title was open in 1992, which was strange because I was almost there as a favourite. I had a mental battle with myself going into this contest thinking, ‘I could win this thing. That means I am going to be the best bodybuilding in the whole world, the whole ******* planet. How can that be? Hold on, but it can be. Let’s be honest, is there anyone else that has given more to this sport than you, or who trains harder or diets better? Not possible. It is not possible to do any more. So there is no one out there doing more than me, so there is nobody out there who deserves it more than me, so why not, why not me?’
So I got over the mental hurdle and by the time I got to the contest I was ready to win it. I am actually going to achieve this thing I have been dreaming about and you almost you get a little doubt. That will mean I am the best in the world at what I am doing – ******* hell that’s huge.
DORIAN YATES UNCUT…WAS THIS GUY FROM ENGLAND A ONE-HIT WONDER?
Winning the Mr Olympia in Helsinki in 1992 was massive mate. Almost a fantasy, not real. But it is real. I made it real.
Because the contest was held in Finland and in the US where it is usually held some of the people who would normally have been there were not there, it was almost like, ‘OK this new guy from England got this one but next year we got Flex Wheeler coming up, there is Kevin Levrone, next year one of our guys [Americans] will get it. There was a little bit of, ‘is this a one-hit wonder?’
I just dug in so much the following year and made so much more progress that, when I won the second one, it [my physique] was almost unobtainable. It was a totally new level of physique development that no one had seen and everyone was shocked. And then they are saying, ‘whoa, this guy is going to be here for ever’. People were then accepting a different viewpoint. I was only 30 years old and the second Mr Olympia was probably the most outright win in the history of the sport. It literally took the judges two minutes to see the winner and then they concentrated on who is coming second.
DORIAN YATES UNCUT…SHAWN RAY IRRITATED ME. I TAKE THE **** OUT OF HIM NOW:
Me and Shawn Ray [fellow Mr Olympia competitor] were never anything like friends. We were polar opposites. If anything Shawn represented the previous face of bodybuilding. He was from California, he was a good looking guy, seemed to have success very early and he was quite vocal and cocky. And I represented the new breed, raw, working class, lifting heavy weights, nothing to do with California and the beach scene. I just wanted to be a monster and break barriers.
Shawn was always protesting about things and how the posing round should be taken more into account. But isn’t this a physique contest? If the posing round was more important well then, theoretically, Michael Jackson could come along and win that round because none of us can compete with Michael Jackson. But he is not a bodybuilder and it is a bodybuilding contest. It’s important to display your physique and the product you have I agree with that, but what you want to say is that you’re smaller and more agile and better poser and you’d like that to be taken more into account.
So there was a bit of needle between us. Now we get along OK but the guy used to irritate me with his constant whining. All that was irrelevant because you just get on stage with the end product at the end of the year and you judge that and you are just wasting energy talking. If there was anything negative said about me I just took that as fuel and used it as energy for my workouts.
Nobody likes someone coming along and taking their cheque or their trophy or what they are trying to achieve. But Kevin Levrone or Flex Wheeler were the other two guys who were very competitive. They were both very respectful and even now they both say they accepted they couldn’t beat me, whereas Shawn still believes he should have beaten me.
I take the **** out of him still a little bit. I tell him he can rent one of the my Sandow trophies sometimes if he wants.
I keep them at home. All the other trophies and plaques are all in the Temple Gym. If you come to my house there are no bodybuilding pictures or anything in my house. I try to keep that separate, just because it is all consuming and I don’t want it around me when I’m at home. I want to keep it in it’s place. That belongs in a gym.
By Gary Chappell
PUBLISHED: 00:10, Wed, Aug 5, 2015
ONE of the most controversial, honest and thought-provoking interviews you will read this year has been published in the Daily Express and today we run the final instalment from former six-time Mr Olympia Dorian Yates. In the wake of this week’s news from the world of athletics, this is one viewpoint you will not want to miss:
DORIAN YATES UNCUT…NO ONE IS THAT NATURALLY GIFTED:
Maybe in bodybuilding because it is such a small sport we can be totally honest and say look it is part of the sport we use steroids, whereas if you are part of athletics or one of these mainstream sports with TV and sponsors you could never say that.
But this is a competitive sport. Do people really think that these competitive highly driven athletes are not going to do absolutely everything, leave no stone unturned in being the best that they can be in their sport? Of course not.
But people do think that and see these guys on TV and it is all squeaky clean and, I’m not naming any individual because I don’t know, but it would be so naive to think that if you could take something that would increase your performance by whatever, two per cent, five per cent, 10 per cent, one ******* per cent, half a per cent, that it is not being used, because it makes a difference. People could not afford not to.
They try to tell you this guy is so talented that he could beat people who are using but I doubt it very much mate because nobody is that far ahead of the competition.
Someone once said with regards to athletics, you can set up your starting block on the same line as everybody else or you can set it up a metre backwards. Nobody is going to set up their blocks a metre back mate.
DORIAN YATES UNCUT…TESTING CREATES UNFAIRNESS:
It would be more honest [if you abolished testing]. With the drug tests throughout the ages you actually create more of an imbalance because the people with the funding and the doctors they can really avoid getting a positive [test] and will be at a bigger advantage than someone from a poor country or less facilities, so does it make it a fairer or even sport?
It is not like you are putting a rocket pack on your back in the 200m, you still have to run it, it is still your body, you’re enhancing an aspect of it. I actually think it will be more honest no to have the drug test.
They guy who used to supply me steroids in the 1980s had customers who were household names and that was back then, 30 years ago, and I’m sure nothing has changed.
DORIAN YATES UNCUT…WRITING ON WALL FOR HANEY:
My first Mr Olympia was 1991 and that was in Florida against the great Lee Haney, who became Mr Olympia in 1984 and I started training properly in 1983.
This was the guy who was Mr Olympia my whole way through – seven times – and I was going to compete against him in my first Mr Olympia contest and I realised at this point that I had a legitimate chance to beat this guy who was actually my hero.
So I had to change my mental outlook from, ‘wow, this is Lee Haney, the icon we are all trying to aspire to’, to, ‘this is the guy I am trying to beat’. I thought, ‘I can’t be in awe of this guy because, if that is your attitude then you’re not going to have much chance of winning’.
By the time I went there I did believe in myself and went there trying to beat him and I actually got a very close second – and that had never happened before that someone beat Haney in one of the rounds. It was the first time someone had given Lee Haney a run for his money and it was my first time [in the Mr Olympia] and I was still improving at a rapid rate.
So the writing was on the wall for him and, after making it a record of eight, he made a decision – which I don’t blame him for – that he was going to retire.
So the title was open in 1992, which was strange because I was almost there as a favourite. I had a mental battle with myself going into this contest thinking, ‘I could win this thing. That means I am going to be the best bodybuilding in the whole world, the whole ******* planet. How can that be? Hold on, but it can be. Let’s be honest, is there anyone else that has given more to this sport than you, or who trains harder or diets better? Not possible. It is not possible to do any more. So there is no one out there doing more than me, so there is nobody out there who deserves it more than me, so why not, why not me?’
So I got over the mental hurdle and by the time I got to the contest I was ready to win it. I am actually going to achieve this thing I have been dreaming about and you almost you get a little doubt. That will mean I am the best in the world at what I am doing – ******* hell that’s huge.
DORIAN YATES UNCUT…WAS THIS GUY FROM ENGLAND A ONE-HIT WONDER?
Winning the Mr Olympia in Helsinki in 1992 was massive mate. Almost a fantasy, not real. But it is real. I made it real.
Because the contest was held in Finland and in the US where it is usually held some of the people who would normally have been there were not there, it was almost like, ‘OK this new guy from England got this one but next year we got Flex Wheeler coming up, there is Kevin Levrone, next year one of our guys [Americans] will get it. There was a little bit of, ‘is this a one-hit wonder?’
I just dug in so much the following year and made so much more progress that, when I won the second one, it [my physique] was almost unobtainable. It was a totally new level of physique development that no one had seen and everyone was shocked. And then they are saying, ‘whoa, this guy is going to be here for ever’. People were then accepting a different viewpoint. I was only 30 years old and the second Mr Olympia was probably the most outright win in the history of the sport. It literally took the judges two minutes to see the winner and then they concentrated on who is coming second.
DORIAN YATES UNCUT…SHAWN RAY IRRITATED ME. I TAKE THE **** OUT OF HIM NOW:
Me and Shawn Ray [fellow Mr Olympia competitor] were never anything like friends. We were polar opposites. If anything Shawn represented the previous face of bodybuilding. He was from California, he was a good looking guy, seemed to have success very early and he was quite vocal and cocky. And I represented the new breed, raw, working class, lifting heavy weights, nothing to do with California and the beach scene. I just wanted to be a monster and break barriers.
Shawn was always protesting about things and how the posing round should be taken more into account. But isn’t this a physique contest? If the posing round was more important well then, theoretically, Michael Jackson could come along and win that round because none of us can compete with Michael Jackson. But he is not a bodybuilder and it is a bodybuilding contest. It’s important to display your physique and the product you have I agree with that, but what you want to say is that you’re smaller and more agile and better poser and you’d like that to be taken more into account.
So there was a bit of needle between us. Now we get along OK but the guy used to irritate me with his constant whining. All that was irrelevant because you just get on stage with the end product at the end of the year and you judge that and you are just wasting energy talking. If there was anything negative said about me I just took that as fuel and used it as energy for my workouts.
Nobody likes someone coming along and taking their cheque or their trophy or what they are trying to achieve. But Kevin Levrone or Flex Wheeler were the other two guys who were very competitive. They were both very respectful and even now they both say they accepted they couldn’t beat me, whereas Shawn still believes he should have beaten me.
I take the **** out of him still a little bit. I tell him he can rent one of the my Sandow trophies sometimes if he wants.
I keep them at home. All the other trophies and plaques are all in the Temple Gym. If you come to my house there are no bodybuilding pictures or anything in my house. I try to keep that separate, just because it is all consuming and I don’t want it around me when I’m at home. I want to keep it in it’s place. That belongs in a gym.
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