Scenes from the Front Lines (Essay) (Report‪)‬

For several intertwined reasons, our lives have spread across the sport of powerlifting--a type of competitive weightlifting that includes the squat, the bench press, and the dead lift--for the past half century. One of us, Terry, won the superheavyweight class in the first national championships. The other one, Jan, set a national record at the first women's championships and went on to set world records over five bodyweight divisions. Both of us have coached national and world record holders, coached national teams in world championships, written many dozens of articles on the sport for the popular press, done color commentary for national television networks, and been elected to halls of fame in the sport. During our time in powerlifting we've seen the coming of anabolic steroids and related substances, the entry of women into the sport, its gradual outward movement into countries around the world, and its unprecedented fractionalization into a Babel of federations riven by rancor regarding standards of performance, costumes, and--above all else--drugs. Our unique vantage point, located sometimes inside and sometimes just outside the belly of the beast, has allowed us to be there, like Forrest Gump, when things happened that were wonderful, horrible, or both at the same time. Below, each in his or her own voice, we've tried to share a bit of what we've seen.