BULGARIA RIDE – ENTERING A NEW REALM AND MY OWN PAST

The archetype of the Bulgarian man — Tsar Samuel, who literally died of a broken heart when he learned that tens of thousands of his soldiers had been blinded by the Ottomans.

Gate 53A at the Zurich airport is not easy to find.  Given that it’s a portal to another world, that’s probably appropriate.  But for me it was even more.  For me, the twisting, obscure route that led me to gate 53A was also a journey to a long-buried memory.

For many years, one of my cousins worked for the international body that organizes IOC-sanctioned weightlifting competitions.  When I was about eleven, one of those competitions was held in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania -- not too far from my home in Maryland.  My family went to observe and my pre-teen body was shaken to its core by its first contact with pure (or perhaps anabolic) testosterone.

Before we had even walked through the arena doors, I could hear primal grunts and yells; feel the ground shake when the massive weights were dropped at the end of a lift.  Inside, the air was both humid with sweat and powdery with the clouds of chalk the men clapped from their massive hands.  Transfixed, I watched them -- these statues come to life — strain, lift, stagger.  It was both mesmerizing and somehow repulsive. Stone made flesh, these men were not like the statues of Greek gods or Roman heroes.  but those modern statutes of workers and horses with matching bulging muscles and furrowed brows leaning into the yoke of hard labor.

Stepping into the waiting area for Gate 53A was like entering that arena once again.  Gone were the willowy, Italian loafer and cashmere-wearing men of Western Europe.  This was a land of oaken men in snug, black track suits and widely laced trainers.

I have since learned that many of the men I saw that long ago day in Gettysburg were likely Bulgarian.  This Balkan nation is world-famous for producing legendary champions and for pioneering the high-frequency, maximal-intensity training method that builds them.  I may have not know all that when I stepped into the waiting area or Zurich Gate 53A, but I did suspect that in Bulgaria, I would likely encounter a new realm, one both familiar and surreal.

Modern day Bulgarians in the ubiquitous black/grey track suits.