Podcast
Extreme
Hosted by BBC · EN
Peak Danger is Season 2 of Extreme, the BBC podcast about those who chase the impossible... who strive for superhuman status and refuse to accept that life has any limits. Every season tells an unforgettable, action-packed story about people who've pushed their minds and bodies to the very edge - but at what cost?
A mountain of trouble...
In August 2008, around 30 climbers took on K2. Over 2 disastrous days, 11 of those people would lose their lives. This is the story of what really happened.
Sitting on the border between China and Pakistan, K2 is a perfect pyramid that pierces through the clouds. It looks like a kid's drawing of a mountain...but this terrifying peak is anything but child's play.
Newlyweds Cecilie Skog and her husband Rolf Bae loved climbing mountains almost as much as they loved one another. In the summer of 2008, they embarked on a honeymoon like no other, when they decided to climb K2. What happened next would change their lives and the lives of everyone around them...forever.
A devastating avalanche scatters high altitude climbers across K2's steep slopes. Life and death rescue missions quickly get underway. Who can be saved... before time runs out?
Historian and podcaster Natalia Mehlman Petrzela returns with a sky-high story of human vs nature, and of survival against all the odds.
What does it really take to push yourself to the brink of human possibility? How does it feel to stand with the whole world at your feet? And is it ever worth risking death... in order to feel alive?
15episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Muscle Men: 7. French Fries or Bust
Sep 9, 202400:28:36Summary readyWhen bodybuilder William Dillon moved to LA, he dreamed of getting rich quick by selling the promise of big muscles in a bottle. But in the spring of 1987, that dream has come crashing down around him. With the authorities closing in on the steroid dealing ring, and fearing for his life, it’s time for Dillon and the steroid dealing ring to face the music.In the fallout from the investigators’ operation, things get ugly. Loyalties are tested, and Dillon’s life could be on the line. News of what was then the biggest steroid bust in American history travels across the US and beyond, and host Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explores how it lay the groundwork for an anti-steroid movement that’s about to transform the way these drugs are policed and regulated. Featuring William Dillon, Mike Zumpano, and Professor Daniel Rosenke, Professor of Sports Studies and Stirling College-Chengdu UniversityPresenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela Producer: Caroline Thornham Assistant Producer: Mohamed Ahmed Editor: Katherine Godfrey Production Manager: Cheree Houston Sound Design and Mix by Daniel Kempson Original Music by SilverHawk, aka Cyrille Poirier Executive Producer: Max O’Brien Commissioning Editor: Dan ClarkeA Novel production for BBC Radio 4Featuring clips from: Interview with Philip Halpern - Professor Daniel Rosenke CBS Evening News, 1987 - CBS Panorama: Dying to Win: Drugs in Sport - BBC1 Senate hearing into steroid use by professional athletes - Senator Joe Biden, US Pool, Associated Press ArchiveEpisodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO
SummaryMuscle Men: 6. One Last Hit
Sep 2, 202400:28:26Summary readyIn the summer of 1986, bodybuilder William Dillon moves to San Diego to leave his steroid dealing days behind him, and live a quiet life of working out and running a gym. Or at least - that’s the plan. When Dillon’s old life comes calling, with the promise of easy money, it’s hard to resist.Dillon returns to the steroid dealing ring he set up with a crew of gym rats and former athletes. But this time, they’re going to do things differently. Keep it professional and stay off the radar of the authorities. But as host Natalia Mehlman Petrzela reveals, for Dillon, keeping control of the steroid empire he’s built is going to be easier said than done. And when events begin to spiral, things get violent.Dillon pins his hopes on one last deal - his exit strategy, so he can cash out and move back home to Illinois. But he’ll have to move quickly. Because federal investigators are planning an ambitious undercover operation that could take down the steroid ring once and for all.Featuring William Dillon, Mike Zumpano, and Stephen Gelman.Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela Producer: Caroline Thornham Assistant Producer: Mohamed Ahmed Editor: Katherine Godfrey Production Manager: Cheree Houston Sound Design and Mix by Daniel Kempson Original Music by SilverHawk, aka Cyrille Poirier Executive Producer: Max O’Brien Commissioning Editor: Dan ClarkeA Novel production for BBC Radio 4Featuring clips from: Sportsworld - NBC Interview with Dan Duchaine - Bill Philips’ Muscle Media 2000 magazineEpisodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO
SummaryMuscle Men: 5. The A Team
Aug 26, 202400:29:01Summary readyNobody gets arrested for dealing anabolic steroids. That’s the assumption bodybuilder Dan Duchaine, William Dillon and their fellow ring-members are relying upon, as they build the biggest steroid trafficking operation in America. But that’s all about to change. As President Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs rages in the mid 1980s, the ring find themselves in the crosshairs of a team of dogged investigators leading the fight against steroids. Host Natalia Mehlman Petrzela reveals how a newly formed National Steroid Taskforce put steroids enforcement, once seen as a fringe issue by the authorities, on the map. That’s bad news for Dillon and his fellow steroid dealers. But catching them won’t be easy…Featuring William Dillon; Daniel Supnick, a former special agent with the US Customs Service, and former special agent in the Criminal Investigations Division of the IRS, Stephen Gelman. Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela Producer: Caroline Thornham Assistant Producer: Mohamed Ahmed Editor: Katherine Godfrey Production Manager: Cheree Houston Sound Design and Mix by Daniel Kempson Original Music by SilverHawk, aka Cyrille Poirier Executive Producer: Max O’Brien Commissioning Editor: Dan ClarkeA Novel production for BBC Radio 4Featuring clips from: Interview with Philip Halpern - Professor Daniel Rosenke Panorama: Dying to Win: Drugs in Sport - BBC1 Ronald Reagan speech, 1986 - The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library ‘Say No To Drugs’ Public Service Announcement - Mike TysonEpisodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO
SummaryMuscle Men: 4. Perfect Square Pecs
Aug 19, 202400:28:39Summary readyIn the lobby of Caesar’s Palace Hotel in Las Vegas there’s a modern-day shrine to a 2000 year old adonis - complete with perfectly square pecs. Michelangelo’s David. 17 feet of white marble beefcake. This is an ideal that bodybuilders can only aspire to. And in the 80s bodybuilding scene, a particular image of perfection emerges and begins to transform what American culture thinks of as a desirable man - one that’s bulked up and defined. But in the 1980s, the supersized muscular body isn’t approved of for everyone. Host, historian and fitness expert Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explores how strong, muscular women’s bodies were policed, while gay men were excluded from mainstream gym culture, instead forging a strong and vital subculture. In this atmosphere, for many, steroids seem to offer the perfect quick fix route to “perfection”. And there’s money to be made - the steroid ring built by Dillon, Duchaine and Jenkins is making money hand over fist. But can this Supersized American Dream last forever? Someone is watching them…Featuring former owner of Gold’s Gym Ed Connors, former bodybuilders William Dillon, Joe Troccoli and Sandra Blackie, personal trainer and author of Muscle Boys: Gay Gym Culture Erick Alvarez, and Dr Harrison Pope, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela Producer: Caroline Thornham Assistant Producer: Mohamed Ahmed Editor: Katherine Godfrey Production Manager: Cheree Houston Sound Design and Mix by Daniel Kempson Original Music by SilverHawk, aka Cyrille Poirier Executive Producer: Max O’Brien Commissioning Editor: Dan ClarkeA Novel production for BBC Radio 4Featuring clips from: It Happened One Night - Frank Capra, Columbia Pictures Remarks on Physical Fitness, 30 March 1962 - President John J Kennedy, White House Audio Collection Bob Paris interview - The Oprah Winfrey Show, Harpo StudiosEpisodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO
SummaryMuscle Men: 3. Get Ripped. Quick
Aug 12, 202400:29:31Summary readyPrior to the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas Venezuela, the issue of sports doping was largely flying under the American public’s radar. But when 19 athletes are found positive for using banned substances at the games, steroids are thrust into focus. And a stigma starts to grow. At the same time, authorities are cracking down on the manufacture of one of the most popular anabolics in the bodybuilding community - dianabol. It’s the perfect setting for a black market boom.Enter William Dillon, Dan Duchaine and an entrepreneurial British ex Olympic track champion named David Jenkins who turn the steroid drought into an opportunity. Together, they supercharge their steroid operation.In Episode 3 of Muscle Men, historian, podcaster and fitness expert Natalia Mehlman Petrzela looks at the evolution of the use of steroids in sports, from its early days in the Soviet Union’s sports programme, to its rise to the highest levels of international sport.Featuring former bodybuilder William Dillon; Professor of Sports Studies at Stirling College-Chengdu University, Daniel Rosenke; and former Olympic weightlifter and weightlifting coach Michael Cohen.Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela Producer: Caroline Thornham Assistant Producer: Mohamed Ahmed Editor: Katherine Godfrey Production Manager: Cheree Houston Sound Design and Mix by Daniel Kempson Original Music by SilverHawk, aka Cyrille Poirier Executive Producer: Max O’Brien Commissioning Editor: Dan ClarkeA Novel production for BBC Radio 4Featuring clips from: Britain’s Hopes for Munich - Associated Press Archive, AP Television CBS Evening News report on the Pan American Games - CBS NewsEpisodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO
Summary