The Sevan Podcast - #103 - Lazar Dukic

Episode Date: August 13, 2021

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Corey Pulido. Hi, Corey. Hi, Corey. So do you guys want to hear the shit show that is the Sevan podcast? I just want to hear a little story. Where's Lazar Jukic? Well, that's a good question. So Lazar told us five minutes ago that he could only come on using Zoom.

And I don't know what I'm doing, so I don't know how to make Zoom go to YouTube through the live feed because I'm not a Zoomist. I'm a Riversidist. I guess it's time to broaden my skill set. So Brian is on Instagram with Lazar right now, helping him get his shit together. And it looks like Lazar. Hey, guys. Oh, shit. I made it.

This fucking Serbian tried to strong arm us and get us on Zoom. How dare he? Holy cow. Holy cow. Okay, I'm going to stop recording and turn on your... I hope this is on the live stream. Does the live stream still look like it's going on YouTube? It looks like it, yeah.

God, thank you, Corey, Brandon, Dora, Krasnaric. What are you, Serbian? Brandon, is that a Serbian name, Lazar? Which one? K-R-Z-N-A-R-I-C, Krasnaric? No. Oh.

How do we know if someone has a Serbian, is Serbian or not? I can't see the comments, so I can't tell you. Okay. If you're Armenian and your name ends in I-A-N, we know you're Armenian. How do we know if someone's Serbian is Serbian or not like if you can see the comments so I can tell you okay if you're Armenian and your name ends in IAN we know you're Armenian how do we know if someone's Serbian what's the tell sign man I think Serbians are better looking all right we going to start like that, huh? We're going to start like that, huh? For those of you who don't know, Lazar Djokic is one of two of the Djokic brothers

who made it to the CrossFit Games. I can't think of any other brothers that both competed individually side-by-side except for the Panchiks and the Andersons and the smiths that's true oh yeah smiths which is really remarkable right that there would be 40 of the fittest guys on the planet with um arguably the broadest there would be 40 of the fittest guys on the planet with um arguably the broadest uh net in in all of sports and by that, I mean it's the most egalitarian, I don't know, broad cast of a net to try to find the top, you know.

There's arguably someone better in football, soccer. There's a better, you know, javelinist somewhere in the world because the net isn't that broad, and there's so many politics. But this guy, Lazar jukic and his brother luca they ponied up 20 each and jumped in the same pond as um anyone in the world is that how much the open still is it's 20 yeah i think which is like which is like you could buy two houses in serbia for that much so you know his commitment that's's for the making fun of my looks comment. And he showed up, and he took...

Hold on, let me put the rankings here. What place did he take, Brian? Really, Sevan? You still don't know? I could guess. I would say seventh. Oh, no, I was wrong. Close, close, nice. We had the opportunity to meet Lazar and Luca. They gave us their time during the games,

which Brian and I didn't expect any athletes to do that. And there were a handful of you that did that, including Travis Mayer, Daniel Brandon, Colton Mertens, yourself, Luca. And I'm sorry if I forgot anyone but that was Scott Panchik and even Travis Mayer even did it from the venue which was just crazy and he goes to this

competition, it was the second time he had qualified but only the first time he accepted and he finished 9th are you 22 years old? no, you're 25 I'm 25 yeah luca is 22 okay um if you want to hear sort of his origins into crossfit go back and listen to the last podcast it's it's actually really cool and uh here we are how many how many days has it been

since the crossfit games do you know a week and a half it's uh 10 days and do you know? A week and a half. It's 10 days. And do you know how many days from now when the next CrossFit Games will be? 350, 346. I like it. I was hoping that you were going to say something like you have every single workout scheduled for the next 346 days meticulously planned. no not even close um uh am i saying it right lazar or lazar it's uh lazar lazar

lazar um are you are you going to try to go to the games next year of course yeah okay then we'll continue this podcast because if because we're investing our time into you and we need to make sure you're going again. I hope. Will Luca try to go again also? For sure. Yeah. We want to make it a tradition.

10 years. That's awesome. 10 years. 10 years, a 10-year tradition? 10-year tradition. For me, Luca has some more time. I think it will be 13 for him. Perfect. Before we – we wanted to walk through the workouts with you.

Are you okay with that? Sure. But before we go there, can you tell us about what you did? So the games finish and you leave the venue can you tell us like how the the 10 days between you leaving the venue in here like and no detail is too small you went to your hotel room you went to an after party you guys got on a flight i'm just curious like how how you've un kind of decompressed over the last 10 days what was it like well yeah i went to after party but i stayed for like 30 minutes because i couldn't sit or stand because my back was destroyed

yeah not not too much of a party for me but yeah after that we went to chicago drove to Chicago and then Flew from Chicago to New York Slept one night in New York went back home direct flight to Serbia. Why did you stay the night in New York? Why did you stay there? because it was just a layover we we went to a hotel and just slept and Home I slept and home. I was home for one day and then I traveled to France to see my girlfriend because she's living here in Strasbourg.

So now I'm at her place in Strasbourg, France. So wait a second. When you fly back to Serbia, you don't have to stay locked down in a hotel and pay $3,000 for two weeks? No, no.

I'm thankful for that, i love serbia we we got vaccinated and uh i think that opens many doors if you weren't vaccinated would you have had to quarantine yeah we we wouldn't be able to enter us we would be able to enter us but we would need 14 days uh quarantine in us and that just wasn't an option for us so immediately after semifinals we decided to do it so and then and then and then is that how you got into france too you're vaccinated so it was no problem there also yes yes how do they know you're vaccinated well you just get some certificate and that's it could i just show it you show it can you just yeah like could you take could you send a screenshot of yours to me and then i'll just make one for myself we can try is it weird that my balls always itch?

Brian gives me a little smile. Brian, give me a little smile when you read this. Did someone write that? Yeah. Oh, God. Oh, jeez. Hey, you know, I was thinking eventually I'd love to get Ricky Gerard on here. Is it Gerard or Gerard? I. Is it Gerard or Gerard?

I think it's Gerard. Gerard. And I was thinking this morning, we're in the courtship process of getting him on here and I would love to just ask him a million questions. But usually in the comment section, I don't give a shit what you guys write. Have at it. As long as you're not being

just a complete scumbag, have at it. Say what you want. not being a, just a complete scumbag, um, have at it, say what you want. But if we have Ricky Gerard on here and anyone starts fucking with the guest, you guys are toast. It'd be cool. It'd be cool. But if you want to beat up on Lazar,

go ahead, go ahead, go ahead guys. Yeah, go ahead. Um, so, uh,

so, so you, so you go to Serbia for one day, and is your brother still there? No, my brother went to Greece with his girlfriend for some holidays. Easy life. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what 22- and 25-year-old men want to do. They want to work out and then go be with their girlfriends. This is completely normal.

Did your girlfriend watch the games from france on on video yeah yeah she she's she's my biggest fan i i i can bet and she was at the airport when you got there uh where to france france yeah yeah yeah she was she was waiting me. And is she Serbian? Yes. And what is she doing in France? She's studying for her PhD in mathematics. Oh, geez. You got a smart one, huh? I'm fit. She's smart.

Kids will be genetic goldmine. Yeah, that's awesome. The people who get their PhDs in math, the stats on their success versus all other PhDs, it's fascinating. Thomas Sowell, the economist, has written quite a bit about it. And yeah, it's fascinating. It's a good step. Is she in Paris? No, she's in Strasbourg.

Oh, yeah, that's right. You said that. And I don't know where that is. That sounds like it's in Germany, but you're saying it's... Yeah, it's really close to Germany. Okay. Historically, that city's sometimes changed back and forth between France and Germany. Yeah. And everyone who... Germany, then France, then Germany. They learn both languages there. Wait, how do you know stuff like that, Brian?

When I was in high school, I did a foreign exchange trip to and stayed with a family that lived in Strasbourg. Yeah, because it sounds like a German beer. That's how I knew it was German. Doesn't it sound like a German beer? Strasbourg. We'll take three Strasbourgs. Did you drink it all at the after party no no do you drink at all anyway uh rarely just some special occasions but not too much just maybe a beer on or i i wouldn't say a wine but something like that are you a lightweight since you don't drink very much? Like if you take a sip, do you just start to feel it? Man, if I drink one beer, I will start to… You and me are in the same. Yeah, a lot of the athletes are like that.

I don't know where this lady is from. Her name is Camila… She actually tells us where she's from. Oh, I haven't got there yet. Camila Jaskowska. Oh, she's Poland. Thanks for the great podcast. I was listening to you for five hours straight during my drive back home today.

Greetings from Poland. Oh, greetings, Camila. And she donated 25 PLN. God, I hope that's like $3 million. So this is the last podcast we do. And those of you who donate money, that's exceedingly generous of you. Thank you. So you're in France.

And how much did you weigh when you were at the Games? 200 pounds. And how much do you weigh when you were at the games? 200 pounds. And how much do you weigh now? No idea. But I didn't get fat. No. Have you worked out since you've been in France? Yeah. We are

kind of preparing for a small team competition. Yeah, in Colmar. It's close to us. So, so yeah we wanted to do that since before the games so it will be fun she's also doing crossfit so oh it's you you're doing with your girlfriend yeah yeah wow awesome yeah that is awesome wow so she's like bringing in this heavy hitter her boyfriend it's like when you bring your dad to school to beat someone up for you. Holy shit.

Yeah. Guys, I'm going to join the team competition with my boyfriend. You guys may have heard of him, Lazar Jukic. It's exactly what happened. So we got a wild card without doing qualifying. That's awesome. Where's the competition? It's in France? It's Colmar, France. That's awesome. Where's the competition? It's in France?

It's Colmar, France, yes. Okay. And where are you working out? Are you working out at a local CrossFit gym there? Yes, I work out now in CrossFit Nero Strasbourg. And are they receptive to you? Do they know that you were just in Madison and you were at the Games?

They know, they know, yeah. And do they let you do your own thing or do you have to jump in in the classes no it's it's huge gym so even if if there's a class you can do whatever there's everything you can imagine of equipment so great great great cross-agent what languages do you speak lazar i speak serbian and english yeah but as a serbian guy you can understand a bunch of other languages you can understand croatian montenegro bosnian you can understand the macedonian a little bit Bosnian, you can understand Macedonian a little bit. You can...

I can understand some Russian because I studied it back at the school, so yeah, that's about it. I can't really speak. Montenegro is a country? Yeah, it was Serbia and

Montenegro until I would say 2003 and then we got split I'm gonna have to look on a map like I just always thought of that as like a fictitional place like where like gangster movies or something I had no idea that

was a real place I thought that was just like in video games Montenegro okay well learned something new on this podcast already we are just warming up Montenegro. Okay. Well, learn something new on this podcast already. We're just warming up, Salam. We are just warming up. Just warming up. There is still a place over there called Bosnia and Herzegovina, though, right? Yeah. Yes.

That's the famous spot. I feel like pulling up a window and looking at a map. I would have done that before, but I was on a phone call until right when this podcast started. Like, jackass. I was in sheer panic mode when I got on. Man, when you sent me this app that I need to download, I'm like, I'll be late. I'll be late.

Just download it. Cole Seacrest says, I want to know his issue with his judge on the pegboard workout. We will get to that. I promise you. I promise you. Someone got excited because you said Croatia. Oh, here. That explains everything.

Amar Beer Dylan said, it's too cold for the SARS virus to survive in Serbia. I love it. Okay. It's actually not not call everybody thinks it's called we explained it in the last podcast it's not siberia it's serbia oh and so i don't know if it was matt suzer or not but someone someone on our team said you were from siberia and i was like oh that's weird and they go why i'm like because i always thought he was from serbia and they're like oh shit you're right so it's just these Americans they think Montenegro is a made-up place they don't know the difference between Serbia and Siberia um so uh one final question about what you're doing in France how long are you going to be there and like part of me is like nervous like you should already be back at home like like like taking ice baths and

heating up and preparing for the games next year like how long can you be fooling around how long can you be fooling around and with your with your french girlfriend well i'll stay here for one month but uh i have here everything that i need to to start my training she's really supportive she makes all the meals she She drives me to the gym, everything. So, yeah, she's great. Yeah, that's a good life. Hey, how nice is that that you have someone who's so passionate about what she's doing? Obviously, her degree is consuming a ton of her time, right?

And you have something that's consuming a lot of your time. And so both of you, I'm assuming there's a mutual respect like, hey, yeah, you do you. I'll do me. And when we get a chance, we'll come together. Yeah, for sure. I think we both inspire each other. So it's great. Yeah, that's a great word.

People who inspire each other. Yeah, I told someone one time, I think the meanest thing I ever said to someone once, and I regret saying it, is I told someone very close to think the meanest thing I ever said to someone once and I regret saying it is I told someone very close to me that they don't inspire me and that wasn't fucking cool to me at all next time I won't I won't ever say that to someone again it ended up

being one of the most inspirational people in my life I should have been she should have punched me in the face for saying it yeah but me and Rania we made it through a lot of stuff we i was working when we started dating i was uh just moving to kuwait and she was just going to france and we're like will it will we work it out and uh now we are three years together three three plus years and yeah it's it's great yeah that's awesome how did you

guys meet did he freeze mm-hmm he did freeze how did you guys meet Lazar I was actually her coach and I had a girlfriend so yeah and a year after i i met her we were we were like really good friends and then from friendship we we got together um did your gym have rules not to uh hook up with the clients no okay yeah all right well that good. You didn't break any rules. Arsh Patel donated 80, and it's like some squiggly line. That's really cool. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Patel. So should we just dig in with workout number one, Lazar? No. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead, Brian.

Well, the last time we spoke to him was after day one of the competition. So I think we want... Maybe you could just summarize day one and set the stage for day two. Thank you. Good job, Brian. That's smart. I can't remember his name and you remember the whole podcast. Good thing you're on the show, Brian.

You remembered my name i i heard you you said to dave castro he he should give me rookie of the year yeah rookie and then yesterday man you're you're my man and also when i was running uh with those cleans Lazar, you're leading, you're leading. I was so embarrassed I lost the lead. Man, if I knew you cheered, I would stay in front. Oh, thank you. So at the end of day one, how are you feeling? Are you beat up? Yeah, it was the hardest day of the games for me.

I think it was both the stress and it was so much stuff to do that day. It was a long, long first event. Then second event was heavy with lots of gymnastics. Third event was sprint. And fourth event, the fourth thing that we needed to do is a country parade.

So that took some time and energy and then uh fifth event was in coliseum with a lot of humidity where everybody was wall walking and other people's pawns of sweat so yeah after that i was i was pretty crushed when we were talking i'm like i feel great i feel great i didn't want anybody to know I was destroyed. Are all the guys, is everyone posturing like that? I'm 100% sure. On that day, you guys were feeling good. We did some moving this morning.

We're ready to go. Now he's sitting here telling us, oh no, man, we were... Do you get concerned when you're that after day one? You're like, holy shit, maybe we didn't do enough volume? I was so happy that we got that rest day. Oh, right. It was nice.

After that rest day, I was feeling good. Actually good. Going back to what you said about the party, you said you didn't stick around at the party because your back was on fire. Are you all healed up now? Are you 100% now? Yeah, I had some small injuries even before the games,

but it's okay. I'm trying to heal now. Are you really trying to heal, or are you preparing for this team competition? No, it's a I'm trying to heal now are you really trying to heal or are you preparing for this team competition no it's small competition with no prizes just have fun sometimes I like to do stuff

that I really enjoy even if it's CrossFit that now I'm trying to make a living out of it. But if you just try to do business and not enjoy it, I think you will lose it really fast. Are you tempted? Have you been tempted in the last year to be like,

okay, this is too much, I'm done? Oh, in my games prep, I was like, why am I doing this to myself? all in my games prep i was like why am i doing this to myself i i i can for sure say that i got some nervous breakdowns during my prep so yeah i wonder how common that is i bet you that's really common and people just don't talk about it yeah i i can i watched before the comp train made a video like how legends are made or something like this. And I have it in my memory pretty clear when Catherine and Brooke were crying after the rowing intervals. Yeah, I think that's pretty often. If you want to make it in CrossFit, you need to push yourself more than you know. So you need to go to that

that point and when that happens you just know it's like just a bad weather pattern it's just a storm it's going to be gone in an hour and you'll get back at it it's like okay have this pity party it's done okay back to work the storm is gone exactly yeah um Brian, what event did we start with in day two? Was that event four or five? Event five. It was the one with a ski and then a Husafel bag. Yeah. And you, Lazar, you took, oh. Oh, no, you took 12th place in that.

You did good in that. I did okay. I actually thought i'm going to win this one to be honest how many events did you think you were going to win at the games i was i was if i if i needed to place a bet i would say i would win this one with roe kleinsenski And why didn't you win it? I just made a stupid mistake of going too hard on the ski. And I think it was a little, you know, I don't know if

like Vellner and Fikowski and Royce Dunn, there was like some drop. So I look at the leaderboard here, and I wanted to ask you about this. There were four guys within 13 seconds right in. And then within 13 seconds behind you, there was no one.

And sometimes I look at stuff like that when I think about the further you go down the leaderboard, and obviously you weren't that far down. Very good. But there's small margins for error like that add up over the weekend. I don't know. It was ninth overall at the end of the week. Oh, sorry.

Okay. But 12th on this workout, and you're 13 seconds ahead of the next pack. But the pack that you're in, you're last in that pack, basically. I'm curious in the context of that workout if you're aware of, like, man, couple guys right in front of me and there's no one right behind me i i just knew who's in front of me i was listening to the uh the guy who was talking on the mic so yeah i just knew who's in front and i tried to catch them and yeah i just couldn't my my hands were dead from from all the pulling and yeah on on my second to last rope climb I I was thinking I'm going to fall from the top because I just couldn't hold the rope anymore I just burned no I didn't fall, but it was at some point I needed to like hit the hit the thing with my hand and my other hand slipped.

And I just took it with my right arm and then dropped down. It was it was really close. Wow. Did you talk? Is that common? Do you think a bunch of guys like are all the guys pushing that hard out there? There's no padding, there's no wiggle room, there's no margin for error? I think if you're pacing it correctly, you will not go to that place. How tall was that rope climb?

How tall was that rope climb? Oh, I think it was taller than the regular one. I think it was around 5.5, maybe, maybe less. I'm not sure. I know when I climbed the regular one for the semifinals, the open, like whatever, I need one climb plus half. And for this one, I needed two whole climbs and a little bit more. Was it 20 feet, Brian? They advertise it as 20 feet. From the crash pad to the beam, I heard some people speculate.

I'd say it's somewhere between 18 and 20 feet, yeah. So you're saying if it was one foot taller, we may have seen a different outcome, Lazar? We may have seen you fall. We may have seen an epic highlight reel. Probably. Wow, that's awesome. And how do you know that you went too hard on the ski erg? How and when?

When do you realize it and how do you know? I realized it in the second round. Actually, after the first round of ski. And I just didn't stop there. I continued pushing ski. I just didn't know what I'm doing. I just went for a push on a ski. And then I just couldn't climb a rope each round.

I climbed it, but I could have been faster. I did the 1.45 pace or even faster on the ski. And if somebody goes 1.55, that's 10 seconds on the 500 meters. And you can lose those seconds in a Hasselfeld bag or on the road climbs easily. So that was't really smart move from me so yeah so you know you're pulling too hard but it's kind of like you're watching a movie you don't stop you're like hey dude you're going too fast you're going too hot and and then but you're just still doing it yes and i think that that that's what happened in each first workout of the day for me.

Every day the first workout. Except for the toast to bar run that I won. Oh, okay. Wow, that's really cool. I could see that. That's really an honest and really cool perspective. Even though you know

you're attacking it wrong, you're still just watching yourself do it. I just couldn't pull any slower on the ski. Maybe it was a gentleman. I was just pulling and I'm like, slow down, and I couldn't slow down.

That's awesome. For anyone who does CrossFit in general, though, at the highest level and all the way down to someone just learning at the affiliates, on the machines, when you're pairing it with anything else, going a couple seconds faster is usually not worth the tradeoff of how it's going to affect whatever comes next or came before. I would agree. Did you drop the bag at all, the Husafel bag?

No. No, the bag was really not important in that one. How much of your childhood sports that we talked about, you were a water polo player, how much, if you hadn't have done that, could you be where you are today? Meaning specifically around your engine. Is your whole, or like,

if you want to be a good crossfitter should you be like yeah you better have started when you were three working on that engine really i can't tell but i'm sure it helped a lot but my brother was a soccer player and he has crazy engine also so yeah maybe it's because of the sports we played maybe we are just genetically like that like we are both we both have great engines but we are not that strong so maybe it's genetics maybe it's uh the sports we played i really can't tell have you seen your engine get that much better um since you've started crossfit or is it just the same engine but stronger i i got much much stronger engine since i started

crossfit because that's the part of crossfit that i enjoy the most i really don't like lifting weights if there's if there's something i can throw out of crossfit it would be weight lifting but yeah it's fun for everybody and i need to work on it so you can't go around um why don't you like the weightlifting that's interesting I've heard that before um and I've told this story before but Chris Spieler one of the things he he liked about CrossFit as opposed to wrestling was is that in CrossFit there's no one stopping you from doing what you want to do but then I think he had taken it even further and he preferred the events without the weights too because then it's just your body you don't have anything trying to stop you and you can just go it's all just you

is that is that the reason why or is there something about weightlifting you don't like it for me it's too hard on the body if you want to get stronger it needs to hurt you need to do it every day and it's it's just it's not easy you need to learn technique you need to be sharp with your technique you need to do it often you need to do it maybe a couple times a day to get stronger so it's maybe i just have a bad bad experience but yeah you just need to to suffer with lifting to get stronger that that's how i i jumped like a lot of that's how i made myself stronger i would say do you like bench press yeah i do everything yeah right that's not even weight lifting for a crossfitter that's just resting isn't that funny um uh are you should we move on to the next event event number six

yeah or do you just want to skip over this because you got capped which one is that we definitely should not skip this one um oh yeah those are the cleans the running with the cleans and we kind of already know some people have been other athletes have talked about it. We talked about it on here is they set the first workout as six-minute time cap, and very few men were able to beat the cap. Will you tell us what the workout is? Sorry, Brian.

Will you tell us what the workout is, event six? It was a 200-meter run and then an increasing weight clean ladder. It was one clean, and then you go for another rear bar, one clean, go back for the run five times. And then event seven was supposed to be the same format. And in the first heat of the men do this workout, this time cap is very aggressive.

Not very many people are going to be able to finish. The end of all the men going is that there were 15 guys in the exact same situation coming back from the run and they were looking at the barbell for the last and the time cap hit.

Team guys who got the exact same score, they weren't all awarded the same number of points. Tiebreak built in, and I actually don't know what it was. It was never advertised by CrossFit, and I was wanting to ask Lazar what that tiebreak was. 14th out of 15th of those guys that all had... So wait a second, just to be clear. In the standings, it says he took 22nd, but what you're

saying is it was a multiple way tie for 15th place and somehow he got 22nd and you're trying to figure out why. No, it was tie for 9th place and somehow he got 22nd and you're trying to figure out why no it was tied for ninth sorry ninth and now we're trying to figure out why did you get 22nd okay okay am i understanding that right brian we're trying to figure out how you finish ninth and you get 22nd okay sorry lazar go ahead the main reason why i wanted to explain this is because a 38 points relative to the guy who finished ninthth and did the same amount of work as him and those 38 points would have been enough to

move him up one spot by the end of the weekend. Rookie of the year. Rookie of the year. How close? No, Mel O'Brien got 7th. Mel O'Brien got 7th. So, still wouldn't be rookie of the year. I'll keep a tally. That's 38 bullshit points. It's $3,000 more for one spot up. Cha-ching. That's 38 bullshit points. It's $3,000 more for one spot up.

Cha-ching. That's more food for your wife's refrigerator or your girlfriend's refrigerator to cook for you. Exactly. So, yeah, that event, everybody had different information of what the tie break was. information of what the time time uh tie break was so uh what i understood was uh tie break is the time that you that you touch the last bar or if you don't lift it it's the time that you touch the last bar and later it was announced that the tie break was time when you lifted the second to last bar so how i did the workout is i knew i will not lift the last bar but i know i will lift everything until that point because it was pretty easy but and i would have been able to lift the

the last one but it was just not enough time so how i did it i tried to keep my runs fast and clean first three bars not even setting up i just cleaned it and for the fourth bar i just didn't want to miss that one so i took a little bit of time and that was a mistake. Because when I went inside my lane, I took a chalk, put on a belt, get ready not to miss the lift. And it was not a lift that I usually miss. It was just regular lift. I wouldn't have been able to lift it even even faster but i just wanted to make it good lift and then sprint to the last bar because i knew i had about 55 seconds to run

to run the 200 meters and touch this last bar and i know i'm able to do this so uh yeah i last bar and I know I'm able to do this so uh yeah I lifted the bar dropped my belt and sprinted as fast as I could and then touched the last bar actually uh guy some guys knew they will not lift the last bar so they just ran easily And I took most of them while I was running. And I touched the last bar before them. But then they came and touched it almost at the last second. So even if I touched the bar first, I got lower place because they lifted the fourth bar faster. And then they ran easier and I sprinted. So it wasn't really, I don't know how to, I don't know.

So you didn't know where the finish line is. So basically you went into that race not knowing where the finish line is. Exactly. If I knew, I would. So basically some guys didn't know also. So they lifted the fourth bar and just walked the rest of the way or jogged really easily. And if you touch, so the bar and the finish line are two. No, it's one point.

So if you finish the bar, you get cap. But if you don't finish it, you get cap plus one. So some guys didn't even try to touch or lift the last bar because they were thinking everybody will get the same amount of points. So it was pretty confusing for everybody what was the point system and

where everybody will place. And then I see myself on ninth place and I'm like, top ten for lifting event? I will take it any day. And after maybe ten minutes i i see 20 seconds and i went to file an appeal for this one they're like no no it's it's just the tie break got changed brian so i have a quick question brian before you say something maybe maybe i

confused you a little bit but but I'm sure Brian understands. So it looks like it's a 14-way tie. It looks like there's 14 people who got capped one. What you're saying is that you got to the fourth bar, and you thought it was touching the fifth bar that was going to end the race for you, and so you were just chilling. So you kind of got the worst possible on one hand you can say well it was the same for everybody so everyone like got screwed the same way but um but for you it's really bad because you took it's the worst possible outcome for you

you're the lowest there's tim paulson's the only one who did worse than you in placement who got a cap plus one. Yes. Do you think you would have beat all those guys? No, I wouldn't beat all of them, but I think I would place at least 15th if I knew what was happening.

Damn. Did anyone know or was everyone confused? I think everybody was Damn. Well, but the... Did anyone know? Or was everyone confused? I think everybody was confused. I'm not sure. Maybe it was just me, but I know Luka had the same problem, so...

Yeah. And we actually didn't have the same coach, which means that our coach, like, one coach didn't get confused. So it was… Right.

Right. It sounds like they changed the rules once they saw. Brian, is that what we're hearing, that they basically changed the rules? Can we speculate that they changed the finish line after the event was over? Well, I mean, look, this honestly has been an issue all season in different events at different stages of the season is where there's a briefing of, of some kind of a rule for an event. And then in the middle of the event, it seems like, or event organizers realize, oh no, there's something that I didn't think was going to happen. And then they make a

decision to address that afterwards. And I don't think that should ever be able to happen. You have to brief what you brief. And regardless of what happens on the competition floor, you have to stick to what you briefed. Now, in the case of the CrossFit Games, and Seban and I have talked about this a couple of times during the game, because Dave tests these events so late and he makes all these tweaks up to the last minute, a lot of times there's details about the events that the viewing audience doesn't know. And so we are only left at the mercy of asking the athletes, what were you guys briefed on this?

What was the standard for that? What was the tiebreak that you were told? Something like this from the athletes, this is what concerns me, is if you don't want to tell everyone else, fine. But whatever you tell the athletes, better be really clear and well understood so that they can execute 30 seconds before they can take that information and execute based on relevant information. And if half the people that are doing it think one thing

and half think the other thing, then we don't have the opportunity to use the combination of the and their strategy to execute the best given the rules that are in play. Let me be even more specific. Who cares what they think if they're being told different things? Like if the athletes are confused, fuck them. But if they're confused because they were told two different things, like if half the heat thinks it's touched the fifth bar and half the heat

is told touch the fifth bar and half the heat is told it's the fourth bar, we got a problem. So there were two times, actually. The time you touched the last bar and the time you lifted the previous bar. So those are two different times. I beat BKG and Yone touching the last bar, but they beat me on lifting the fourth bar. So it was... So the good thing is that they had actually given a variety of different checkpoints to the workout.

So after you lifted bar four, you have a split time. And then after you get back and touch a fifth bar, you have a separate split time. But if, if some group of athletes was told that the, in that case, the split time is touching bar five, as opposed to cleaning bar four, that's where the, because otherwise Lazar would have approached bar four completely differently. He would have said, you know what, even if, even if I miss it miss it once i'll just then i'll belt up and chalk up and make sure i hit it but because this might be the difference that's on a leaderboard i'm gonna go for this one lazar i i know you're not putting blame on anyone and you're not making excuses so i feel bad asking this question but were you briefed inappropriate were you briefed wrongly is it is it is it because you weren't listening or did they did something happen to be honest to be honest i really don't know i really don't i really don't remember it was ever ever like the whole games for

me now are just a blur and i i just remember some stuff that stayed in my mind. So you remember the podcast you did with Brian and I? Sure. How can I forget that? Um, there's, I wish I could pronounce her name, right? Iona Holloway or Lona Holloway.

She has beautiful hair. She looks like her profile picture looks like she's on ecstasy. Thank you both for being so good at what you do. And she gave a hundred dollars. Thank you. That is awesome. And I apologize for not knowing if that's an l or an i i think it's an i um so it's iona iona yeah brian sounds like he's in a

parking garage elevator he is in a parking garage elevator seven you've outed me. It's not the first time. It's not the first time. Shall we move on to the second event? Yeah. Sorry. The seventh event. So event seven. And we know that between when the men finished and started event seven, they changed that event.

So they run and extended the time cap hoping that more people would be able to and it turns out that you were actually able surprising for you actually it was uh at the warm-up i felt really weak and the first bar was 325 and I warmed up until 325. I didn't want to go for more and I cleaned it like maybe three to five times in the warm-up and I missed it once.

I think I missed it last attempt. So it wasn't really a great boost before coming to the floor. And also, I'm not really good with lifting while I'm cold. I like to lift while I'm under fatigue, while I'm doing something else. So, yeah, when you get to corrales, you have like 10 minutes to wait and then you need to go.

They need to call out your name to go on the floor. Like you have 15 minutes of not doing anything. So, yeah, I was like, if I clean the first bar, I'm golden. So, yeah, my focus was just on the first one. How crazy is that? I've never even deadlifted 325. It's heavy. I know.

I deadlifted 315, I think, when I was in my 30s for like a set of 15 once. But for some reason, I could never deadlift more than that. And don't get me wrong. I tried. That's crazy that you have to come out there and clean 325, and that's the light bar. That is insane. And then start sprinting. What was even more surprising for me, when I finished it, I'm like, this is great.

I will have a great position here. It's 350. It's 160 kilos. And you get 26th for lifting 160 kilos I mean come on so that's what the bars went to it went from

325 to 350 so it was basically 147 kilos to 160 so yeah jump every every, three kilos or five pounds. You know what's funny is there's athletes who've been around for 10 years who lift in kilos and they've been games athletes for 10 years and they still don't know the conversion. And then there's people like me who've been talking about it for 15 years

and don't know the conversion. But you're killing it. You know both. You speak both languages. Well, I was working in Kuwait. And there's only rogue equipment. So I was lifting only in pounds. Gotcha.

So it's kind of bittersweet. You finish the event, but you're not happy with your placement. You're like, holy shit, I finished. I was so happy with that event because 160 is my clean PR. So I basically lifted my PR at the competition floor after so many events. And I was last guy on the floor. But that's my number one moment from the games for sure because i i was alone at the floor and everybody was watching me and the guys that i compete against were at the finish line and they're like come on i know it's they they cheer

for you when you're behind them but still it was nice and I was like firing up the crowd and everybody was cheering and I I I was just trying to get that rush from the crowd and lift the last bar and when I pulled it I'm like, if that was 170 kilos, I would lift it because it felt so easy. Really? Did it feel easier than the first bar? Did 350 feel easier than 325? And he's frozen. Say that one more time. Sorry, Lazar. You froze. I froze? No, you froze. I froze? No, you froze.

Lazar, was the 350 easier than the 325? Yes, yes, it was easier than, like, 325, you're cold and you're lost in your heat. So there's not much energy. Like, there's not adrenaline for that one. I pray to lift it. I have a question for Brian. Go ahead, Brian. Those moments are, you can't plan for those moments.

And we know from watching the games that something like that happens for some athlete, and it's like the crowd lifts the weight for them somehow that they wouldn't have done it in any other scenario. It's pretty cool that, one, that you got to be there at the Games, and two, that you also, despite it wasn't one of your worst event finishes, but it still went. That's really cool to hear. Yes.

You can't imagine. First time when I went to the Coliseum with the wall walks and thrusters uh crowd was roaring so hard that i felt like floor at the coliseum was was shaking and that that was so scary i don't think people have any idea how loud it gets in the coliseum i've been to a bunch of really loud places, and man, is it loud in there. It's deafening. I have a question for you, Brian, and then a question for Lazar. Are you surprised that Cole Sager didn't finish that?

Here he is, a crazy, I mean, such a high-respected veteran, and he finished. He didn't make the cap. Are you shocked? Is he injured? Well. Surprised that he didn't finish the ladder. Yeah. The end. That's the end.

Well you know. What's going on. There's all kinds of little things. About the week. You know. Vellner said that he was. In a previous event. So it was very difficult for him to commit to a squat clean then he wouldn't use the bathroom he did a lot better in the next event so never and on weekend we had some performances that seemed really out of

characteristic on the bad end but then he'd come back and do you might have expected him to do well on so i haven't spoken to him so i'm not too sure but in general i would have expected him to do well on. So I haven't spoken to him, so I'm not too sure. But in general, I would have expected him to clean the lab. Did you drop a deuce between event six and seven, Lazar? Probably. That's awesome. I didn't know Vellner did that. I didn't know he dropped a deuce.

I knew that he was, like, concerned he might shit himself out there, which would have been amazing. did that i didn't know he dropped the dude i knew that he was like concerned he might shit himself out there which would have been amazing um but but the thing is is we would have never known at home because the broadcast cameras would have been too scared to capture the greatest moment in crossfit games history but um that's cool that he was able to vacate um my question for you lazar is when you see how your brother did in that workout is that that hard for you? I know you love your brother to death, and I know you guys are crazy close. Is that hard on the weekend for you? Does that fuck with you?

Because you guys are both trying. You're there for him, too, emotionally? Yeah, it was hard for me whenever he struggled in the workout. Especially, I was next to him in the workout that especially i i was next to him in workout that i won and i i knew he's better runner than me and he he just could couldn't perform to his best abilities due to uh spasming his lower back that he got in event uh i don't know day. I think this is the last event of the day. The snatches and eco bike, he did something to his back and yeah, he wasn't able to run.

But when you see it, you can't help him. You can't help yourself, just stay focused. At that time, of course, it's hard, but I have to do my stuff. He's doing his stuff the best he can. So, yeah, and it wasn't that he wasn't able to lift it. He lifted more than that often. And yeah, he struggled through the season

with his meniscus. And he torn his meniscus and still qualified for the games. So yeah, it wasn't really, as I said, you go cold to this bar and he just wasn't sure something will not pop, you know. So it was, he wanted to make sure he will if he lifts it he will lift it as as good as he can not to do anything to his knee or to hurt himself so it i think it was he tried a couple of times but he he didn't make it so So, yeah, it was okay. I knew it wasn't his greatest event, but yeah. Because I watch my three boys, and if one of them gets hurt,

like the other day, one of them fell into like a 12-foot pool at a skate park. And my oldest son just stopped everything he was doing and jumped down in there and slid into the pool. It was crazy. And if another boy at the park one time took um my older boy's bike and the little one just went over there and grabbed the bike while the boy was on it and pulled him off and i'm just like and like i don't see these behaviors from them normally they're so calm and sweet and like gentle and like you know they're

all just like little babies to me but i see that when one of them is struggling the other two will come to the rescue and or if i yell at one is struggling, the other two will come to the rescue. Or if I yell at one of the boys, the other two will come and be like, why are you yelling at him? Like start questioning me, interrogating me. And so when I saw that, I was like, oh man, I wonder if Lazar wants to go in there and just punch someone out

or pull the weights off for his brother or something. Like it's just hard watching someone you love so much struggle. Of course, it's hard, watching someone you love so much struggle. Of course, it's hard, yeah. I remember at some competition that he was doing in Austria, he was first, the competition was three days, and he was first for two days. It was a big competition with some games athletes back then, and he was doing really good he was

he was first for the whole two days and then on the third day final semi-finals of the competition he just lost it he he couldn't do handsome push-up or something and i just started crying for him that's awesome. Yeah, you guys, you brothers, man, you guys are crazy. Especially if you do the same thing and you know how hard he works. And, yeah, it hits differently. I thought you were going to say something, Brian, are you? Before I switch to the next workout? No.

Okay. Stretch it out good because I'm going to take a pee break. We're in event number eight. Yeah. Yeah. Individual event eight was the handstand walk course. And they'd shown on Instagram one traverse of the floor, parallettes, ramp, stairs, everything that was involved.

I had a suspicion that wasn't the entire workout. Prepared for the down and back or did that catch you off guard? No, no, no. When boss briefed it, he said, so you guys need to walk one direction and then come back the other direction to the finish line. And I understand. Okay. other direction to the finish line and i understand okay so we we started the finish line we run to the end and we walk on our hands back so it's one one time and briefing briefing is done i'm like boss are we are we doing it two times or we need to run and do it just once? No, no, your guys are doing it two times.

So, yeah, it was. Yeah, and how close to when the event started did he tell you guys that information? Five minutes. Five minutes, yeah. Well, I had a suspicion that that might happen. But it gives you very little time to prepare. You're prepared for one thing in your mind. You have five minutes before you need to compete or get ready to compete.

Mentally deal with a situation like that. For everybody, it was the same. So I didn't really think too much of it. I just tried to warm up as good as i can and make my shoulders and i had the problems problem with my right wrist and i i was struggling on the wall walks and on the handstand push-up free hand freestanding handstand push-ups and also the handstand walk. So I taped it really, really hard just to, like, I know the obstacles were soft. And if you go through them, your wrist will, like, take some hit

because it's, like, it's soft and you drop inside that mat or whatever it is. So, yeah, I taped as hard as I could. I warmed up properly. But I didn't know there were obstacles in the warm-up area, actually. I made plates and I was just walking over the plates. And then Travis Mayer was hit before me. And he went to the cross and he's like, man, do you know there's obstacles there?

Like, just sprinted to the obstacles. And because I'm so out of breath when I went to the obstacles, I missed every attempt. Every attempt I tried, I missed. And I was sure I'm not going to pass the first pilots because pilots were first obstacle and it is the hardest. If you make that one, you'll make all the rest of the obstacles. So, yeah, they were just, Lazard, you need to go.

I was in third heat back then because I dropped significantly after the cleans. That was the only event I did not in the last heat. That's right. And we're going to talk about that later on, actually. I'd also like to mention Travis Mayer was the star of that story. Yeah, Travis. Travis is a good guy.

And, yeah, when I went to the floor, something just clicked. And from my first attempt, I went over all the obstacles. And just at the last part, I missed it once or twice. And then I went over it. I missed it just because my shoulders were tired and not because I had a problem with my handslock or because that was a hard obstacle. I just went because I would have fallen on my nose if I didn't stop.

So, yeah, it was. But it was okay. If you see the footage, I'm so happy after that one. So, yeah, good finish for me. When you stopped, you freak out. No. You don't start looking around going, oh, shit, I can't believe. No.

Yeah. I actually thought Noah's judge did something wrong because he went over the obstacle. Because I was racing Noah the whole time and he dropped after the obstacle and went back and just finished the ramp and went over. I'm like, he's not supposed to do the ramp only.

And I'm telling this to my judge. I didn't know he went over the line and i i got my breath while i was watching no i just finished i didn't realize there's a yellow line after immediately after the ramp so you can't place your hands anywhere other than the ramp. So if you stop after the ramp, you will need to go and do the ramp only and then finish the course. Yari Karnan, that's a name.

I'm going to need help with that. Gave us five of something. My tiny donation to the podcast with great by great vibe five something five euros here here's an interesting one for you lazar one thing i noticed is that the european athletes versus the american ones there's less griping about the events um what that means uh basically and i wouldn't say the american ones i would say the north north american ones basically that the north americans whine about the events more and that the europeans are more like um introspective and trying to figure out what

they can do so that they're they're focused on their weaknesses and that the north america the event not being good they're're blaming Dave instead of themselves. I mean, there's such a big difference between American athletes and European athletes. Like, with my next season, I want to become more of a stronger athlete and i think i will need to rethink of how i'm approaching my my training because north americans are much stronger than the europeans and europeans are much better conditioned and they have better aerobic base so yeah, yeah, I would want to go to that other side a little bit to maybe take some notes, or we'll see. Is that a fair generalization, Brian,

that the Europeans metabolically seem to have generally more conditioning and that the North Americans are stronger? I mean, just, I have, just thinking about the guys that are in the field from Europe this year. Like we know that BKG is one Murph at the games. You want to go as well on the longer swimming and running events. Lazar won a running event this year. His brother is obviously a good runner.

And he's not. Oh, look, he was. Yeah, he's South American. And he and he won the lifting event yeah um so that guy's strong yeah i was i was uh competing uh against him at um 2018 or it was egypt competition in egypt he snatched 150. Egypt. Competition in Egypt.

He snatched 150. Wow. Wow. Oh, I wasn't competing against him. He was in team. Sorry. He was in team. But you saw him.

I saw him. Like, everybody was, come here, guys. This guy will snatch a lot. And I'm like, sure. Let's see. And he snatched 100. this guy will snatch a lot. Let's see.

And he snatched 100. And his form was so different than everyone else's. I mean, his technique was like, he didn't even look like everyone else. He looked totally different. It didn't even look like you guys. Do you know how much is 150 kilos? 325 pounds.

It's 147, 330 is. Oh. Yeah, but you're close, but you're close. I thought you don't know. Oh, thank you. 25 pounds? It's 147, 330. Yeah, but you're close. But you're close. I thought you don't know. Oh, thank you. Thanks for trying to call me out on my own podcast. I appreciate it. I should have gone with it and been like

135 pounds. It's 2.2, right? 2.2 kilos? Yeah, 2.2. My dad's frombanon so he made me learn all that stuff my i'm first generation on my dad's side so i know some of that kilo stuff um should we move on to event number nine yes event nine is was the 21-15-9 echo bike calories and power snatch 115. And in my opinion, not knowing really what it's like to be a CrossFit Games athlete, this looks like the most painful workout to me of the weekend

because it's basically how bad do you want to hurt. There's nothing. It was. Just how hard do you want to push on the bike? And are you going to just suffer? And when I look at your placement in this particular card, it's kind of fascinating to me. There's seven guys within 10 seconds ahead of you and eight guys within 10 seconds behind you. So you're basically like right in the middle there. But take us through like what's the mindset preparing, I mean, of that group, of that group of guys, right?

I think there's Baden-Brown just a second behind me. Yeah, I mean, it was really tight. There were a few guys within a few seconds of you, ahead of you, and a few guys within a few seconds behind you. But what's the mindset like going into a workout like that when you know it's just going to be, how bad do I want to hurt? It was exactly like that. You're asking yourself that same question. How bad do i want to hurt it was exactly like that you're asking yourself that same question how bad do you want this and uh yeah i look i was going before me and to be honest i

was i was scared to death like nobody wants to like hurt that much but you need to you need to push as as hard as you can. And Luka is going off the competition floor and I'm like, how was the workout? And what can he tell me? He just told me, you don't feel it. You don't feel it. Push as hard as you can.

I'm like, you sure you don't feel it? Yeah, yeah. And he's like, I should have gone faster on the 21. Okay. yeah yeah he's like i should have gone faster on the 21 oh man and yeah i sent it really bad uh in the 21 and i did everything i'm working full workout and i i i just couldn't paste it better i did everything to the best of my abilities it was the place where i belonged in this one so yeah after after the event yeah it was hurting so bad like the round of 15 you feel it believe it it's i think it's the same amount almost the same amount of time for 21 calorie and 15 calories because 21 calorie you're fresh you

will start really fast and then 15 you will you will like i need to go 15 9 and 9 again to finish so i'm just at the half of the workout so yeah it was um 15 you feel it really bad, but after the 15 snatches, you're just like, I'm done, and you're just full send. Do you take even a one-second break? Like, as you get on the bike, do you feel your body dilly-dallying a little bit and fooling around

to try to get a breath or two, or is it you can't even do that? No, I was breathing really good in this one. It was just my legs and shoulders after the 21 bike. I got the jelly legs. So, yeah, I did everything with my back. Damn.

This is one of those workouts where I always feel I, I always, athletes after the workout, some of them look terrible. Like it's really, really painful. You were laying on your back, but two seconds of finishing the workout, you were smiling for this. I,

I remember that I did that with thrusters and wall walks, but for the, for the for the this one I really don't remember but I knew I was in the race with Baden-Brown and I beat him by a second or two and yeah I just wanted to he knew he's in race with me and I knew I was in race with him. So I just wanted to like give him hands. So yeah, good job. Like you,

he made me push harder because no, I went, no, I went faster than me. He was left to me. Uh, and Baden was right. So yeah,

I was, I was just trying to keep up with him and he was maybe two. I wouldn't say two, but one rep in front of me on, on the last snatches and I just muscled it all the way and I beat him to the line so yeah I just I remember I stand up just to congratulate and say like good job did you get any no reps on that workout no because and I guess the the the problem would with no

reps the most common place would be that you lower the bar before your hip and your knees are straight before your hips open and your knees are open no I was okay with that even though I was penalized in the open for the same thing

open 19.1 I think it was snatches and burpees 10 rounds 8 burpees 12 snatches and burpees, 10 rounds. Eight burpees, 12 snatches or something like this. And I got penalized for this one. It was my lowest open finish that year, even though I was the fittest at that point of my life.

So, yeah. I didn't get any no reps. If you would have been just no rep, one one rep you may have lost to Baden Brown yes yeah amazing it's kind of weird I know we need judges but it's also kind of scary to think that like hey one no rep would have changed

and it changed a lot in event number 11 ah we'll get to there you're chomping at the bit Lazar's chomping at the bit number 11. Ah, we'll get to there. Your chompy's chomping at the bit. Lazar's chomping at the bit. Well, let's celebrate a little bit before we get to event number 11 and talk about event

number 10. Hold on, hold on. So, event 9 and they're going to make the first round of cuts. At what point do you finally like find out for sure that both that you obviously you knew you had made the cut and then what was that like for you guys was that a good yeah luca is strange with some stuff he's he sometimes knows just knows stuff like when he lifted 11 snatches at semi-finals for this snatch workout uh he went to the camera and it was not even the final event

of the competition he went to the camera and said see you in medicine oh wow just crazy oh wow just crazy yeah and uh after this one i i he went before me as i said and i asked him did you do enough he said i did enough so yeah i just i was sure for him that he made it at this point so then you guys have that night and you you know you have for the last round of cuts and it's a workout that his uh physical his both of you guys think you can do pretty well on this one coming into yeah yeah i found beth velner and asked him for shoes give me some revox bro did you ask him personally or you text him or what happened?

You asked him? No, I found him after the event. I'm like, I'm going to win the event tomorrow. Hook me up with some shoes. Is that really

how you phrased it? Yeah. And what did he say? He said, no way Chandler Smith is going to beat you. Really? What was the event? No, that's not Chandler Smith's going to beat you. Really? What was the event?

No, that's not Chandler Smith's event. What was the event? Was he joking? I don't know. He said Chandler Smith is going to beat you. But he was nice about it. He said, sure, I'm going to hook you up with shoes. But he said Chandler is going to beat you.

And what Reeboks did you get? Was it Nanos? got two two pairs i got nanos and uh forever runner or floor float runner not sure and uh and which one did you use that those are the shoes that i that i got the phone that was the first time i was wearing them. Were they comfortable? Yeah, they were actually pretty comfortable. And what's the deal with that? Is it okay to wear new shoes, break-in shoes for the first time for an event?

It's not smart to wear running shoes for the event first time. Because they're too narrow? You can get blisters from them if they're new shoes and your foot is not used to them. Did you get a hot spot?

No, I was perfectly fine. That's awesome. That's incredible. And when you won that event, you were... Hold on. I think it was more than just an event win. You weren't leading for the majority of the event, and you only overtook Baden-Brown at the very end.

So going into the last round or when you're coming back to do the last set of toes, what's your mindset there? I just paced that event perfectly because some guys went too hot. And I think some of the guys, even though they're veterans, they start too hot, just as I did for my ski. You just can't run slower.

It's carrying you. You're running, and it feels good. But at some point, it's a 25-minute event. It's a and it feels good, but at some, some point it's 25 minutes event. It's 20, two, three minutes event. I'm not sure. And at some point you,

you, you lose that adrenaline rush and you, you're hit with reality. Oh, I have 15 minutes left. So it's, you, you just need to pace it right.

I, I was carrying my watch all the time and I knew what, what pace I need to hit to do good in this one. So, yeah, I was trying to keep that pace. It didn't even look like you really had. I mean, Baden-Brown was so far out ahead, right? I know you said that you told Pat Vellner you were going to win the race, but was there any time during the race where you're like, oh, I guess I'm not winning this?

First round, everybody was so much in front. And yeah, but I knew I was at good position in the North Park. So when we are running, there's 30 lines. And I was, let's line number lane number five and uh baden brown i knew he was at the end i would say he he's laying 30 and not 30 maybe 22 23 so i know he has like 60 50 meter more to run so i know it's it's not that big of a difference if he's 60-70 meters in front.

It's maybe 10 seconds. Not 10 seconds, 5 seconds. I just knew he would have longer to run and I would catch him to the bar and it would just be who does these toes-to-bars unbroken. Did you know you were going to do the last set of does these toes to bars unbroken so yeah did you know you were

going to do the last set of toes to bar unbroken for sure yeah if it was if it was 40 reps i would still do all three yeah and so you never felt like you were going to come off the bar you didn't have to push to the red line on the toes to bar noes to bar were just a breather for me. I was doing them and I was trying to get my breath and continue running. Do you think that for that level of athlete at the Games, the cycle rate of toes to bar matters? Like, can you cycle them faster if you need to? Depending.

Yeah, you can cycle them pretty fast. Like, my cycle rate is um i would say it's a little bit slower than the average because i'm a bigger guy but if it was 10 rounds of five reps you can pull your legs under you faster and then make it faster i think that's how pikowski does it i think sam briggs does that better than anyone I mean she is so

fast on toast bars even in big sets it's really impressive yeah yeah

but yeah toast bars are my my best movement also I I won

event 10 also at Dubai that they gave 10 10 thousand dollars

prize for the event 60 60 calories eco bike and 60 toes to bar. So, yeah, I won that one. And I know toes to bars are good for me, but this was not about toes to bars. It was at the end, but it was mostly running. Did you do those 60 toes to bar on Broken in Dubai?

No, I did 48 and then dropped, did one more set, and then I finished at 59, and I dropped from the bar at 59 and just do one more, do one more, and I jumped and do one more, and we did it. Wow. That actually wasn't the end. It was the end of one workout, but then there was more work to do i remember watching and you and we were like oh and they're going to win the toes to bar and and they said if you don't finish the second like the workout after this one

you don't get those 10,000 so like just go and finish the next um did you get those 10,000. So like, just go and finish the next one. Did you get the $10,000 from Reebok yet? No, they contacted me, but I still didn't get them like on my account. Do you think you're going to get it? Yeah, for sure.

What if they ship you, what if they do something crazy, like instead give you 100 free pairs of shoes? You sell 100 pairs of shoes for for 105 dollars so you have a little bit more how we do in serbia i open shoe store i open yeah i love it uh this guy just said something ridiculous luki this is why the echo bikes are superior to the assault bikes. He must be talking about the last, there was,

what are you talking about? The echo bikes are not as good as the assault bikes. The assault bike feels way more like a bicycle than the echo bike. The echo bike is a, is a bastardization of, of the bicycle. Always get the, I actually like echo bike.

Oh damn. Better. If, if, if I would choose one, I would choose echo. it's just uh more comfortable to sit on it's uh and it's uh like there's not a chain there so you you don't need to like make anything with you it just just self uh it keeps itself good i think or yeah it's sturdier if you do sprint you can't move the bike if it's a salt you just wiggle well maybe i don't pedal it hard enough to make it wiggle but that's why i like the salt bike i prefer the chain because

it feels more like a bicycle and maybe i just like having my ass punished and that's why i like the Assault Bike. I prefer the chain because it feels more like a bicycle. And maybe I just like having my ass punished, and that's why I like the rougher seat on the Assault Bike. That's a whole different podcast. I like how Brian reacted to that one. Wow. I would say, I think if you're buying a bike for your own home, or any of them really, but if you want to get something used by a lot of people over a long period of time, I would probably go with the EcoBike

just because it's more sturdy. And the Saltbike's easier to move around, isn't it? I remember moving EcoBikes around the gym and they're a little more work. Maybe not for a strong man like yourself, Lazar, but for a little weakling old man like me, a little Armenian man. Come on. You can do jujitsu and

some other stuff. Echo is always better than a salt bike. A salt bike is for scrawny crossfitters. Well, well, well, Yandy. A salt bike also makes an a salt bike pro which I think is just as robust as the Echo bike. That's my podcast so I will get the last word.

Congratulations on winning that event. Are you excited? Do you feel proud of yourself? Is there anything that you carry over from winning an event at the CrossFit Games? Is that an important achievement to have under your belt? Or is it like, fuck it, I just want to get on the podium? Well, everybody needs to to win the whole thing but for me this year it just wasn't realistic and uh yeah i was i was really proud of myself especially that i didn't that i did good in this one that i won this one uh so

running was actually one of my bigger weaknesses starting because I was swimming all the time. I never ran in my life. So it was pretty good that it became a strength. Really? Who are you talking to, Brian? I heard you just say really. Do you know that we're on a podcast and the whole world just heard you say that out loud?

Is Lazar here? I'm here. Lazar? Yeah, Lazar's here. on a podcast and the whole world just heard you say that out loud is lazar lazar yeah lazar's here he's just here um right he's wearing a yellow shirt he's got a nice smile well i just lost the ability to hear you guys for like 30 seconds and had a message pop up on the screen that i've never seen oh like a warning like dipshit, when are you getting your new computer? Did it say that? Yeah, that's what it said. Brian, when do you get your new... Or hear Lazar. Oh, shit. When do you get your new computer, Brian? Lazar's kind of like fading in and out a little bit, but I can hear him great.

Can you hear me? Can you see me? I'm not. You can't see him or hear him great can you hear me can you see me not you can't see him or him no okay come on brian i'm here um event but you can hear me and i can hear lazar yeah but i think i'm going to try something here that i might have to leave and come back okay holy and you did great on event number 11 too, but this is the one... Oh, this is the one everybody talks about. It's not the one that I won. They talk

about number 11. So it's bittersweet for you, right? You took second place amongst the 45th men in the world. You got 271 reps. You beat the guy in third place by 10 reps who was Björgvin Karl Gudmundsson.

But you were beat by Cole Sager. Yesterday, he called me Luca on the podcast. He wanted to say my name, but he said my brother's name. So, yeah, come on, BK. Really? Maybe you should start calling him Annieie thor's daughter instead of uh get them confused with another icelander so so what so that workout tell me about that workout it was the um pegboard what were the movements a pegboard uh overhead squat with single arm

overhead squat with dumbbell and heavy double unders. It was an 11-minute summer up, one peg, seven dumbbell overhead squats, change hand each time, change arm each time, and 15 heavy double unders, heavy rope. And what does that mean, a heavy rope? It's rope, Zeus rope I think it's called. And it's much heavier than the regular one. If you hit yourself with that one, there's a sting, like it leaves a mark. So it's not just the handles that you hold on to that are heavy. Those are heavy, but also the rope is heavier.

Those are heavy, but also the rope is heavier? Also the rope is heavier. What is the rope made of? I think it's some kind of... Is it a steel cable? It's a steel cable, and there's a plastic around it. So you could wrap that around someone's neck and easily kill them? Easily. Easily.

You can kill somebody with the handle. I love it. I love it. Good. I'm glad I brought that up as an explanation to describe the rope. It is a weapon. So did you plan on winning this workout? No.

I knew I'm going to do good in this one because I do a lot of peg and my mobility is good for the overhead squat with dumbbell so yeah I knew I'm going to do good and my my lungs are good for this 11 minutes I knew I will not slow down so yeah I knew it's a good one for me and you didn't just get no rep but there was a discussion you were having with your judge. Yeah. You, you can see on the whole broadcast while I was in,

in the shot, I was arguing with the judge the whole time. I was talking to the judge full 11 minutes and also talking to my coach at the stand. So yeah. Could you see that Ryan when you were there no this was laid out they didn't ever the athletes never progressed on the floor and they were just pinned into that one corner and not just a really

good seat in general it was bad for that for his lane because he was in the lane closest to me or one of the two lanes that I met at the event and he goes, man, Lazar just got... His judge was making him do extra double honors every time. He was... No reps and he was trying to fix it.

And Lazar told me that he was going to appeal the workup, but I don't think that anything ever happened. How do you make friends, Brian? You said you made a friend at the games? You don't even hardly talk. He watches this show, so that's how he knew me. And so he just comes up to you and he's like,

hey, you want to be friends, like the way a three-year-old does to my son at the park? Okay, fine, I'll tell you i guess uh he um he had said hi to me and asked to take a picture or something and then he messaged me on instagram later that day and i realized that this guy had about the show in the weeks leading up to the games and i'm like why didn't tell me who you were and then he i didn't think you'd care and i said well i do care and then how about tomorrow i said uh i'm gonna be over here at the finish line watching this uh event if you want to come say hi and he did and then um for me every other event so that we could do the podcast and I wouldn't lose a spot where I could actually see the field.

So you were using him for Intel? Yeah. Because I understand how Lazar makes friends. I understand how the Jukic brothers make friends. They're outgoing, but I just don't see you as the guy who makes new friends. Alright, well that's cool. You're helping me

break out of my shell. Thank you, Sal. Well, that's cool. You're helping me break out of my shell. Thank you, Sal. Yeah, that's awesome. Actually, he came to me in Dubai in 2019. And he's like, Lazar, Lazar, can we talk? Sure. I didn't know who's Brian back then. And he's like, I'm a journal from Morning Truck Cup.

Do you want to talk something about this event? Say something about this event? I'm like, sure. And then that's how I met him. Well, I don't have you figured out at all, Brian. Jesus, this is going to be a long relationship we have. I will say this. I have a lot to learn about you.

I have you in a cage, and it's totally unfair. I need to let you out. When it comes to the athlete, I'm much more likely to approach an athlete who not enough people know about them yet. Someone who's got some potential

that hasn't been made yet. That's how I felt about you a couple years ago. I don't specifically remember this story, but it doesn't surprise me to hear that because I would be much less likely that everyone right now is doing a competition. Right. Smart.

That's good for a fledgling podcast like ours. Start cultivating some of the newer talent and investment into our future. Lazer, can you hear us? Because we can't see you. I can see him. I can see you both. I can't see you, Savannah.

Okay, that's fine. There's nothing worth looking at. Okay, so tell us about this discussion you had with the judge. What happened? Why were you talking to him? So first round round i did 16 double unders and i'm like okay maybe it's a mistake maybe i i did something wrong maybe he

gave me no rep or something i have no idea and then second round i did 16 oh 16. Lazer? Check, check, one, two. Lazer? Savon and Brian to Lazer. Here he comes. Lazer? Maybe his phone died. You see his button his recording light on his on his phone

vanished i do ladies and gentlemen when you are invited to be on this podcast we urge you to please use a computer and use the chrome browser and to have a good internet connection lazar is on his girlfriend's phone because he's an Android user. God knows why. Watch the comments fill up with the Androids better than the iPhone. I have an unrelated question. Does Lazar know of any water polo

players that won a gold at the Olympics? Oh, that's a really broad question. Brian Friend is a friend to everyone. Man, Lazar's a really broad question. Brian Friend is a friend to everyone. Man, Lazar's gone. Okay, well, I need to work out now. Anyway, it's 1 p.m. And we made it to event 11, which was going to be the most exciting event that Lazar talked about because it's one where he claims he was talking back and forth with the judge and his coach the entire time.

And he took second place in it. He probably could have gotten first. It sounds like there were some shenanigans going on. Most of the time I don't believe the athletes when they tell me that it was the judge's fault. But this time, for some reason, I do believe Lazar. Thank you, Yandy. I hope so. Thank you, Yandy. I had seen. He actually DMed me and I said, no, I heard about it.

I didn't see it. And he said, yeah, you definitely should, but don't expect anything. They're usually going to uphold the judging decision on the field, unless there's something that's blatant or egregious. Yeah, I don't even know how you would protest that. I can't even imagine how that would work. Get Lazar back on. It's so weird.

This interface shows that he's still on, but clearly he's not still on. Guys, I'm so sorry. Iona, what's her name? The generous lady who gave $100. Maybe we should send her money back do we know how to send money back i don't think we can refund you damn iana holloway um if you if you live in chicago you can come over to brian's house and i'll make you dinner so you can get your money's worth and he'll leave the house so you don't have to talk to him shit right now let okay i bet

you i bet you his he said let in let in tell him to click the link again tell him to click the link again matt souza says can't wait for brian's new computer so we can hear him. Shit. I'm telling you guys, every day we are getting better and we are working on making this better and better. Brian ordered his computer a couple weeks ago. He got a fully loaded Mac laptop, so hopefully it'll have the processing power to deal with this buffer issue. Those athletes have great internet connections. Oh, okay. there he is there and we're back holy shit i was just about to hang up and go play with my kids man i i was i was here when brian said let in i'm still here guys let in. I love it. Let me see.

Are we still live? Because I can't see the... I think so, because people just... Yeah, my mom just sent me. They're waiting for you. Come on. I love it. I'm going to give my mom your phone number so she can yell at you, too.

Okay. Okay. So tell us about it. Let's get back to the judge so so the first round um you kind of give him a pass because you kind of say well maybe i counted wrong and then what happened the second round yeah second round against 16 reps and then my coach stands from the stands and stands and he's like you're doing 16 reps and he's showing me 16 reps and uh yeah then i realized yeah i'm actually doing 16 reps this is third round and uh yeah yeah i just i'm like man you're killing me like i'm doing 16 reps

he's like okay next round do 15 can you hear me yeah can hear you. I'm tripping that he would say that. Of course you're going to do 15 next round. That's how many you're supposed to do. Yeah. And next round, I do 15. And that's the one time that he brought me back. It was minute number five. And if you go to the broadcast, it's exactly minute number five,

and you can count my double unders from the start. I do 15 reps, and I stop, and I go to the peg. And he's like, no, come back, come back. You need to do one more. And you can see me screaming or something. I did 15 reps. And I jump one more and come come back and then until the end i did 16 reps because that guy couldn't count so every round hey that guy lost you that event yeah were you

wearing rebox yeah you know i got so i so when you're at home and and you know i've never talked to other people about this but when you're at home and you see an athlete get called back, it's worse than getting just called back. I imagine it's like if you're running and someone stops you and then you have to start running again. It's not that you just had to stop. You had to slow down, stop, and then you have to start going fast again. So there's a whole section in there that just gets completely ruined. By the way, I wanted to say effed up, people, but I'm trying to reduce the number of F-bombs I dropped. Did you see that?

See that? I said messed up. Right? I mean, it's so painful to watch you guys get called back. And then to hear you get called back for something that wasn't your fault. I mean, and I'm taking your word on it. Have you gone back and counted his reps, Brian? Yeah.

You can count. I have not, but I have no reason not to believe him. Oh, you should have. Never believe the athletes. Never believe the athletes. I counted in slow motion just to be sure. So, yeah, 15 and then four seconds to the peg, four seconds back, eight seconds plus one additional rep so in those eight seconds

i could have done five double unders yeah that's how how much call was in front i do i do remember that when i saw you get called back i go oh shit he just lost he did he's not going to win the event because of that i remember thinking that that holy shit what what a disaster hey brian you can never trust the athletes half these guys guys, especially your boy Patrick Vellner, could be the poster child for Kleenex. Sorry, Pat. But, like, come on, man. I know you love the Ducic brothers, but come on, man.

Come on, you know how to say it. You know how to say it. Ducic, Ducic brothers. No. You were saying it correctly. Ducic, Ducic, Ducic. Djukic. Djukic, God. Oh Okay. You were saying it correctly. Dujic. Dujic. Dujic.

Djukic. Djukic. God. Oh, I almost swore again. Djukic. Djukic. I'm doing too many things. I'm crunching ice and I'm reading comments and I'm trying to make fun of Pat Vellner.

Catherine Schreier. He did 16 every round. Hey, Catherine. Catherine? Catherine. You can call her Kat. Kat. Kat, if you would call it an exclamation cat cat if you would have put an exclamation point there like you meant it and like you were slapping me around i would have believed you but since you didn't use an exclamation point i don't believe you either

but it's worth it's worth checking on people go back and watch the video because i guarantee you if lazar is accurate and he can count to 16 that is what cost him the event and that is a shame that a judge cost you the event that is a shame yeah i i after it i did an appeal but uh yeah boss was he was really nice about it but he really didn't do anything. He just was nice and said, I can't play what-ifs. What if you trip in those eight seconds? What if you got tired and just stopped? Actually, at first, they messed up my score even more because they put me they gave me four

less double unders than it was written on my scorecard so that was the only appeal they they made so they gave me four extra double unders that i that i actually did so yeah yeah that's a shit show i wonder what they do i wonder if they talk to that judge i wonder if adrian let's get adrian on here and ask him what happens like after something like that happens i mean it's not it's not a simple it's it's a pretty big mistake wouldn't you say brian yeah i mean it's a it's a few points it's also a big amount of money. A huge amount of money. And did you wear the same Reeboks that you wore in the running event or did you switch them to the

other ones? I got Nanos, so I was wearing Nanos for this one. Oh, good job. And has Reebok, are they going to send you more shoes with that $10,000? I mean, you repped them good. And the story has a lot of miles on it. It's great for you and Patrick.

At least a shoe deal. Yeah, yeah. You don't have a shoe deal? No. I'm surprised someone hasn't signed you up. We are working on it. Lazar Jukic, event number 13. The older brother of Luka Jukic, who's 22 years old.

He hails from the great country of Serbia although he's in France doing what young men do we skipped to 12 but it's ok just a snatch something I'm not great at well let's go back to event 12

the snatch it was just a lifting event. I was praying not to be last on this one. Just hit the first weight, please. I hit the first weight and then I hit the weight after it. It was, again, like there was a bar for us to warm up this time. So you could lift before and between your lift so it was it was good good from them to to set up that warm-up warm-up bar so

yeah what is your job to cross it what is your max snatch 275. wow okay max snatch? 275. Wow. Okay. How many guys missed the first bar? Yes. But also

very happy, huh? Every, like, I don't want to be an asshole, but every guy that missed, I'm like, well, yeah.

You don't want to see, you don't want to see people fail, but that's more points for me. Like you said, you were praying not to. So every guy out is, wow, I'm moving up one spot here. Yes. You took 15th in the event, and you lost the tiebreaker to Jason Hopper.

Jason Hopper, yeah. When you're going to the tiebreaker, what's the thought there? How important is it for you to try to win it? For me, it's just whatever. I think it's five points at that point. Every point matters, but at that point, I'm like,

I will do the best I can. I'll do the fastest I can, but if he goes faster there's nothing i can do about it so yeah i did all three touch and go the fastest i i could and he still beat me so i was not upset about it i i gave my gave my best what are you pouting at the finish line was that was jason pouting at the finish line? Was that? Was Jason pouting at the finish line? Was he angry? Yeah, he was angry. He was angry. Yeah, he didn't fist bump. He didn't shake hands.

He just laughed. Is that the event where he gave the notorious stink eye to Dave? It is. Oh, that's awesome. I don't know that story. I'll need to watch the podcast with Jason. Eddie Davey says, sorry, Brian, I know you have something to say. Eddie Davey says, 100%, he did 16 every round.

I was watching it live. I told my girlfriend at the time he was doing 16. I'm so OCD, I have to count reps. Bilal Ahmed Khan, what a champ. Didn't let the incorrect scoring derail his weekend. Fran Silvano, I love your podcast. Brian, your fucking audio is atrocious. Please fix it.

I love you guys. I paraphrase that one. I paraphrase that one. What's one of the main things he would change about the games from an athlete's perspective? Nope, sorry. Elise, great question, but we're going to move on to the next one because this is the one that caught my eye. I guess Serbia won the water polo, won the gold in water polo in the Olympics. Yes.

So I didn't understand her question the first time she asked it. Do you know any of those guys who won? No. I think I played with Mandic, Stefan Mandic, against him in in junior categories but I don't really know them personally. Oh good, I'm glad you don't because then we can move on to the next question. Go ahead Brian, about the snatch and about the tiebreaker, what were you going to say?

Oh, so I would assume in that three rep max snatch sometimes you start going and immediately you realize I'm not beating this guy yeah I really realized in the second rep when it threw me off I did the second rep and I stumbled a little bit did a step back and he didn't so I knew I lost at that point but I still try maybe he will

miss his third rep so I just did third touch and go and he didn't so yeah because I saw in there were a lot of tiebreakers which was you know creates trauma but I saw that there were some times where people just realized I'm losing this time yes yes yes some some of the guys didn't lift the the last bar but if I saw it I wouldn't lift it also it's just you you did so much up until that point that if there's something that you cannot do, I would not do the last snatch. Makes sense. C.V. DiGiano. That's how you say my last name g7 cv on c sorry sorry fran i tried jeez man cv jano i think so why has he got to put that dga in there. That's not even like a word. CV. CV.

John. No. CV. John. Franz. CV. John. Hey,

it's not my fault. You got a hard name to say. Uh, event number 13. Yeah. I'm going to the pool today. I'm taking my kids to Jiu Jitsu in the pool today and I cannot go to the pool and feel comfortable taking my shirt off unless i do a workout first so we gotta fucking like move guys i gotta just do 50 push-ups and you're you're awesome oh yeah that's how i do it oh good take the shirt off hey there are some incredible shots of your body, by the way.

Have you seen some of those, especially in those running events? I don't know which running event it is. There's a slow-mo of you running, and it's a profile. And, man, you look crazy. Yeah, thanks to Josie from Life of Josie. He did this edit. It was really good. Armenian, Armenian, Armenian man.

Yeah, I mean, you look like something special. I mean, he really killed it. Anyway, okay, event number 13. Oh, one more thing, one more thing. Sorry, one more thing. And that video that they played, it's now on the homepage of the CrossFit Games site. It has some really unique music,

and they played it for the broadcast while we waited for them to set up the awards ceremony. That video is crazy. Did that guy do that too the josie guy i i'm not sure i i don't think so but i i my my lift from the second ladder was in there so yeah so he's a good dude do you know what was that guy's name i think i sent him a dm telling him, and I had to go out of my way to do that, but I was so touched by that video. What's that guy's name, Brian? Is it just the highlight video from the week? Yeah.

With the little clips all strung together. It's got some trippy music to it. It's so beautiful. I think that was a team of a couple people that have been a part of that team, actually. Lilian Fuentes? I'm a part of that team, actually. Lilian Fuentes? I'm not certain of that, but possible. Let's just say she was. I love her.

Okay, event number 13. Yeah, that was my biggest mistake of the weekend. That was the event that I wasn't really focused on. I was on a high from yesterday. And just a rookie mistake of being overconfident. And I will crush those guys. Those guys are tired today. And yeah, I just went too fast on GHDs

and tried my core for the yoke and just couldn't carry a yoke and second to last out of 20 guys ryan will you tell us what the event is it was the two two two three in out this year it had every round was a buy-in of 20 and then i think either seven or eight burpees plus throw the sandbag over the hay bale. With the remaining time, carry a 600 and a half the length of the North Park soccer field. Look back at your entire competition. This stood out to me.

I hadn't spoken to you about it, but it stood out to me as something that I was like, I know that his lifting isn't the strongest. I think he's got a pretty strong midline, and I was wondering why you were struggling so much with this yoke. Yeah, I just made a mistake. My strategy was completely off for this one. I was thinking I would have some benefit from doing GHDs full sprint.

And that was just a stupid mistake I did. GHDs full sprint and that was just a stupid mistake I did like if you go 20 GHDs full sprint you will get five seconds on on total time and you will fry your core and after the those 20 GHDs I just went to the yoke like I did burpees and went to the yoke and when I picked it up, my core just, like, it just, my back dropped and I couldn't really carry the first one. Maybe in the first one I moved it five meters. And then in the second one, I think I progressed as the event was going. So, yeah, I think I moved the most at the third interval. So when you picked up the yolk, you knew right away.

Was that the first time you were aware your core was fried? Were you like, uh-oh, something's not right? Yeah, that was the first time I realized something's not good. Because in the warm-up, we had yolk to warm up and i was soup i was feeling great with that yolk and it was just the surface was different we were warming up on the concrete and i didn't do any ghds to warm up for the ghds, I just did some hip openings and I did some V-ups and something. But I usually never warm up for GSD. I just start doing that.

Did you finish? Was it the last round? If you wouldn't have finished, would you have had one more round or that was the last round? No, that was the last round. I finished a minute left until the end. But yeah, it was the last round no that was the last round i finished a minute left until the end but uh yeah it was the last interval of three minutes and you took 18th out of 20th one guy was capped will morad was capped um do you know that it does that hurt like when you're out there and you know everyone else is done does that start creeping into your brain like oh fuck yes especially that some of the guys finished it in

the almost first interval like adler and bk finished it almost in the first interval so yeah they finished it in the second one and did the burp he did 40 gsds and the 16 burpees, and I did 80 GHDs and 32 burpees. Yeah, yeah. Björgvin, 441, and your time was 1134. That's a huge difference in terms of how much work you did. That's just insane. Too much. Wow.

And when you cross the finish line, are you pretty beat up after that one? Yeah. That was the angriest I was the whole weekend. I didn't let my bad events go inside my head, but this one was. I was so pissed. I, Luca was cheering me from the stands and it was North park. So he can, he could see me at the, over the pants.

He's like, calm down. It's okay. I just started swearing. I, I needed like to, to read, read,

get rid of that feeling. So, so that was the most stressed. I was emotionally and physically a beat down. Yeah. I'll make sure I let Dave know that. I told him I was doing a podcast with you today. He pretended not to know who you are.

He goes, what about lasers? I don't think so. You're making making that up no i'm not really come on we sit next to each other lazar would you would you take fraser as a coach sevan would you get commission of fraser with coach lazar uh thanks sevan for entertaining shit out of us entertaining shit out of us for the past few weeks. For example, we watched the entire JMS podcast production in one week. Love it. Big time. Fran.

Oh, no. Dude. Fran Seviano said, you're becoming one of my favorite interviewers ever. You're amazing. Love what you're doing with your kids. Sorry. I didn't realize that was going to be just a jerk-off session on myself as I read those. So that was the first event for the final day.

Did you have plans going into that final day? Like, hey, I'm going to move up five spaces today. Hey, I'm going to kick ass. Okay. So it's actually even worse than we thought it was not only a shitty event for you but it kind of dashed your dreams from the night before when you were in bed being like okay i'm really gonna come out hard tomorrow yeah and like i i took some time to to get frustrated and to get angry like i i was 20 minutes i was angry and then i went inside the cold cold tub and like

it's just over you need to move on if you continue doing this you will get even worse on the next one so just move on it's done you can do nothing about it just forget it and let's go um you described your approach to that event as being a little bit i think you used the word arrogant um because no i didn't but i was on a high and i was yeah i'm going to do great in this one so yeah so so it's a quadruple whammy physically emotionally um dashing kind of your hopes from the night before but also um not living up to your expectations at all yeah especially with this one that's nothing i i can't do like it's all good movements for me like yoke yoke was not that heavy that i was supposed to struggle that much so do you have access to a yoke at home in Serbia?

I don't have it near me, but if I need it, I will go somewhere and do it. There are gyms that have the yoke. Like a real yoke, or is it like some Serbian one that's welded together by the local guy? A real yoke, really. And do you believe him brian i'm picturing like this contraption that's made out of like recycled metals i thought he might just two fridges on the side and yeah yeah two fridges on the side i'm telling you how did he come up with that so quick i'm telling you that's what they use and to increase weight they put beer inside and they have a bungee cord that holds the door shut i was thinking

go ahead for his neighbor and unhitch the ox the plow on your shoulders and get to work norm normally when he no it's the actual ox when he lifts up normally when he practices the o, he has cock and balls resting on his neck. Those are Greeks. That's Greek story. No one's safe. No one's safe. And I picture it like having a rusty pipe.

And Lazarus has to get a tetanus shot like every six months because the fucking yolk is oh man okay, enough making fun of Serbians and Greeks and Armenians event number 14 hold on, hold on it's a good time to ask this, I wanted to ask it actually

a couple of events go by as the weekend wears on and you've now made it past the final round of cuts and you get you've now made it past the final round of cuts and you're looking at the leaderboard it's like okay well these three or four guys they're probably five or six guys they're probably maybe these eight guys they're too far behind me to catch me and guys and saying like these are the four guys i really need to pay attention to yes yes vino

vino saxon uh also maybe gee gee gee gee uh i don't know how his last name and then maybe like scott panchik was right around there no he was he was uh just once in front of me after the clint's and then i took him over so yeah uh saxon gee uh vigno and yeah that's that's it i'm gonna regret saying this next thing who's vigno alex vigno come oh right right from canada shit okay i had him confused with thomas vigno wasn't there thomas vigno from finland sorry sorry i knew it yeah vianna sorry i got my shit i got my wires all crossed up sorry sorry alex sorry i knew i was gonna hate i knew i was gonna regret i'm like i don't see Thomas Vigneault I'm looking through the list here in front of me I knew I shouldn't have opened my mouth

I should have texted you that damn it we talked to BKG and he brought up Thomas Vigneault it was probably in his mind anyway so you are focusing on a couple of these guys and after you have to put

the team behind you, and you still don't know what the last two events are. Right? So then you go to the briefing. After the yoke, we then got told what are the next two events. We actually got to know what's final first, and then after we got to know what's final first and then after we we got to know what what was event number 14 how did they get the yolks on and off the field actually this is amazing volunteers are just like

huge huge huge applause for them like great guys and they put two uh plates on one side they made it like this and then just roll it to the floor until the end oh are there's are there wheels on one side of it so you can do that they they make wheels out of uh plate oh out of the plates oh wow okay It was pretty cool. I was, I was, because when I, I wasn't sure of the exact distance to travel, or it said it, it said like 136 feet, but I didn't know if that was going to be a down and back. Because something I always think about when you have a worm or a yoke and you're running a competition with multiple heats is you need the equipment to like,

and if you can design the workout so that it ends where it starts then you don't have to do the work in between the heats and because it was the two two two three interval and i assumed that dave wanted it to take at least two three maybe four intervals for most of the guys which it did but when people were finishing in one almost finishing in one to go down and back and then after they drop it off the last time, they'll run to a dramatic finish. But that wasn't the case. And I was like, wow, I can get these yokes back down there. And then I saw what they were doing, exactly what they were doing.

Plates off one side, tip it up, and roll it all the way down the field. It was pretty cool. I don't remember what year it was, if it was like 2010. But I'll never forget when the volunteers and the people who set up the equipment if you've never been to the games it's really remarkable because how they do it is is it's kind of like a military parade they all march in single file line and it's like organized it's almost like um synchronized swimming the way they all come on there in a line and then they spread out and then they do their stuff and then they leave in a synchronized line they're only allowed to travel certain routes and they have to stay in order

it's really neat it's fun to watch it's just super impressive like yeah nobody would say those those guys are not working together whole year for this right right they're so good that it's impressive it's like a marching band but but instead of instruments, they're just taking equipment on and off. It's cool. It is cool. I used to love watching that. Okay, so event number 14, you go into it and you don't know what it is. I still don't know what it is. What was it? Restanding handstand push-ups and deadlifts. Oh, that's right. He announces these two workouts back-to- in a positive mindset okay these are things i can do are you a little bit like oh man these are not good for me again what i think first thought that comes to mind barbell again in both workouts so both workouts it was i, I said to Luca after the games,

we had belt on more times than we didn't. Okay. And were the deadlifts, were the deadlifts were 405? 405 short bar. So it's like 435 at least. And what is your max deadlift uh i'm not sure in pounds but it's 230 something kilos uh not sure nothing impressive maybe maybe 545 45 something like that i'm not sure it's 500 someone will do do say it tell us in the comments in a second um okay so and and so it's heavy so 405 is heavy for you especially at the end of the week

yeah really heavy uh the fun thing about this workout is uh that uh i it took me two minutes jeffrey jeffrey told me this on on the dinner it took me two minutes to finish the last deadlifts and it took him 14 seconds and i still yeah what he i'm working bam bam bam 14 reps of deadlifts and i i did six sets at least. I did singles at the end, so seven sets, eight sets. I'm not even sure. And why would you do singles? Aren't you hoping to get at least doubles so you can get a bounce?

No, I just couldn't hold the bar and you can't get a bounce from the short bar. It's really hard to get bounce from the short bar. There's a funny story from Dubai how Wellner and Fikowski told me about the short bar because we didn't have it on the warm-up area.

And they saw me. We had some DT or some cycling with Hank Parkins. And in the warm-up, I was doing it, bouncing it out of my legs. And Werner comes to me and says, you're going to do them like this?

Like, yeah, why not? It's a short bar. I will do it like this anyway. He's like, okay. And we got lined up. And I went, I sprinted to do just one, to see what he's talking about. I did hang power clean, dropped it on on my leg and it didn't bounce up i just hurt my quads really bad you will not do this ever again with the short bar

wow um does rogue make a short bar that people can order and practice with yeah they do okay and why do they own one Why do they use the short bars? Do you know? Because of the lengths. If there's a longer bar, the guys will crash into each other. Yeah, I think it's so you can get more. I've always heard that it's so they can get more people per event. Space.

Yeah. But it does, I mean, it does, in certain instances, it really does affect the weight or the way that it works. For sure. Like clean was much, much heavier because of the short bar. And the snatch event was a short bar too? No, it was a regular bar. It was a regular bar. No shortage of space there

i thought for the no no no no no sorry not for the max snatch i mean for the snatch echo bike yes short bar short bar also okay because i remember when they said that i was like oh i wonder if the short bar is so short that it's gonna um change uh like fukowski's grips or the taller guy's grips. Yes, because he got stoned during the whole weekend because of his build and his height. Like he was hitting the grass with each swing on the muscle-ups. And for chest-to-bar, even if they took off for the final event, even if they took off for the final event, even if they took off the mat underneath him, he was still hitting the concrete with his feet.

So, and also the short bar for him, like he's, when he's doing snatch, he's going much wider, I think so. Yeah. Wow.

That could be a whole nother show talking about whether that's fair or not. Well, maybe we'll be able to. Or fair is even the right question. I think it's time to talk to him because I'm sure that he's got a, you know, the best perspective on it. Being the one who's,

he's really busy, Brian. He's really busy. He's really busy. I don't know if we're going to get him on. He's really busy, buddy. Lazar before, he's really busy. He's really busy. I don't know if we're going to get him on. He's really busy, buddy. Lazar, before...

He's really busy. Go ahead. How often do you practice freestanding handstand push-ups? Once a month. And if I practice it, I don't practice it with this standard. I had said on one of the podcasts was I didn't necessarily have a problem with the freestanding handstand pushup. It is some precedent. And some people have sent me on Instagram, crossfit.com, main site workouts that had freestanding handstand pushup.

But I've never seen the freestanding handstand pushup walk back down, demonstrate control, and that that counts as a rep. And I thought that it might have been nice if you're gonna have them the first year to do them in place you know so it's like you need to do six in a row in once whatever and maybe this standard could have been something that do you think that it made a difference at all no like I think nobody practiced it really like that so it was just how quick can you adapt? And I was pretty good adapting to that one. So I was pretty good at that one.

You got eighth place. Only two people didn't get capped, Patrick Vellner and Justin Medeiros. Oh, no. That's not true. For the men. Oh, it is true? Okay. Wow.

And did you have a tie with someone in that event no you're plus 11 you're all by yourself but it was i mean that was at the end of that workout you can you know there you go there's another year there's another european who's not bitching no No griping from Lazar. Lazar Djokic from Serbia. Even Brian tries to bait him. Brian tries to bait him. Brian hands him some Kleenex, and Lazar says, shove that right up your ass, Brian. Shove that right up your ass. At the end of this workout, you're fatigued, right?

The deadlifts you've done, handstand push-up demands a lot of focus just to be able to get one of the 14 reps in the final round and then you really have no like it's not a it's not a workout like the echo bike snap you can really race someone your focus has to be just on you right yes i was i was talking to the judge the whole time while i was doing handstands just make like be sure to tell me when it's a good rep and stuff like like tell me how many reps i did because it was so confusing because of the lines like you can't really count the lines when you're doing the workout so i don't know where i am at the moment like i don't know if i did three or two or four like like just tell me where I am.

So yeah, I had great, great judge that, that event. So, Hey, I'm speaking of great judges, that judge you got that was making you do 16 reps on the double unders.

Um, uh, I have a couple of questions about that one. Did you ever see him or her again? Was it a man or a woman? It was a man. I saw him at the, uh,

dinner after like, it was dinner before the party, so I saw him there. I didn't say anything. But you never had him again? No. I didn't have the same judge, like, all the 15 events. I had different judges. I think they make a point I think they make a point to make sure that you know judge twice and when you were doing

the double under sorry guys to go back to this when you're doing the double unders didn't you know that it was wrong like you did the I'm guessing that he wasn't counting the first one was that the issue i made that i think i think what was the issue was he was counting when i step after the double under so i do double under and step he counts one i do a double under and step he counts two i and and in my head it's one while i'm jumping two while I'm jumping. Two, while I'm jumping. Three, while I'm jumping. And I think it was misunderstanding. We misunderstood. So he had the wrong finish point as the… Yeah, for me.

Yeah, interesting. I wonder, and there were other heats in that event, and I'm assuming he judged women. I wonder if he did that to anyone else. That would be fascinating to find out. Yeah, I really wanted to know that. That would be fascinating i really want to find out that would be fascinating to find out okay so um and this judge you were talking to um with the handstand push-ups and everything went great you give that judge good great reviews okay yeah uh shall we move to event

number 15 brian yep yeah again barbell that's every time i oh i get barbell again and they and they told you both event number 14 and 15 at the same time so yes okay yeah you win finals if you ask me great finals just great for the spectators like racing to the finish and everything. So, yeah. And I remember this one was 600-meter row, 90 chest-to-bar, and it was the lunges. You're impressed, right, Brian? I'm impressed, too. And the lunges that were the back lunge, front rack lunge, and overhead lunge.

Yes. Woo! Boss, Boss. He will not need you soon, Brian. Oh, you are a smart man. Brian thinks, everyone thinks Brian's a co-host. Really, I'm just in an internship. I'm just in an internship.

For you, chestnut pull-ups you just see the barbell no I was thinking the guys will struggle at the chestnut bar and I was so stupid to think that it's 20 fittest people on earth like everybody can do chestnut bar

oh what do you mean you thought they would struggle you thought like at 45 people would burn out I thought I would beat Alex I thought I would beat? You thought at 45 people would burn out and then we'd see onesies? I thought I would beat Alex Vigneault because he's a bigger guy. I'm pretty good with chest to bars. Also, I thought I'm going to beat Guy. At the end, it was about barbell. I finished some time before him chest to bars,

but he just crushed the barbell. I think he did back and front unbroken and just dropped it and finished it with the overhead. And I needed to drop each time, and my back was broken after the yoke and deadlift, so my front rack position was really bad. It was harder than the overhead position for me. I was praying to finish the front rack unbroken so I can go to overhead. Overhead was fine. I did it

close grip because my wrist was killing me and I did it close grip so it was fine. Just front rack was really, really bad. Why do you have such good shoulder mobility that one time you referenced you had good mobility and when you were talking about the dumbbell overhead snatch and now you're telling us you had the option to do close grip i mean i'm guessing swimming 10 years swimming 10 years i would say and that gives you good mobility in your shoulders for sure yeah i didn't know that like the only good thing

that I had coming into CrossFit was because of swimming was shoulder mobility and aerobic base I didn't know you were a swimmer oh yeah I swam when I was young as well and so and Lazar you never went to failure

did you go to failure on any of the lunging? Did you ever get called back and put the bar down? No, I was so careful about that because if you get called back, you will not be called back. Like drop the bar and pick it up and go again. You need to drop the bar, push it back, and then start again from the back. So I was really careful not to step on the lines and do something stupid.

Okay. And then when you finish the last of your first games, cross the line, get on the finish line, what's the emotion? I don't know. It was relief, happiness, maybe some sadness because I didn't do even better. It's everything at the same time. I would say relief, relief. And when you're there, standing there with the other nine men who were in the final heat of the workout is there's like some kind of unspoken bond between you guys stronger at that point

i think that yes yes like everybody like we sat sat next to each other because there's only one guy that gets called to be fitness tomer so he he goes and nine of us are sitting wishing to so yeah at the dinner do you guys do you not let the guys who um the guys who didn't make the cut do you guys make them sit at a separate table uh no i needed to sit next to my brother uh luca sorry you're gonna have to fly home on a different flight. Yeah, that's what my father would say.

We did one competition in Athens when we were younger, like two years ago, and I took second and Luca got seventh. And my father's like, okay, guys, you're walking home. Was that the same competition where he was sleeping in the car uh no it was year after but yeah he slept in the car in 2008 the 17 17 he slept in the car in 2019 i took second and luca sixth and you know luca uh

lazar um you say that joking but that's a consistent theme amongst great athletes. You'll hear their parents, like I use the example of Khabib, the great UFC fighter a few days ago. He would win a fight, and he would call his dad back home in Russia, and his dad would tell him everything he did wrong. Exactly. That's my father. him everything he did wrong and then he would say that's my that's my father and there is sort of that um there is there is that theme amongst champions i mean they have it's um you don't get there's no easy road to the top there's no there's just no easy road to the top like there's just no easy road to the top. Like there's no pity party. There's no, it's a, what could you, what could have you done better?

Right. Soon after the competition ends, are you already thinking that next year? After I was like that night, I was, I was thinking what I will do to get myself better it's like everybody when Fraser said this quote, when will you start

preparing for the next games he said tomorrow you start preparing mentally, you start thinking what you will do better next season where you will improve but it's just so stupid not to take rest and heal and mentally get more hungry for the next season so yeah it's you start preparing mentally but physically you definitely need some need some time off that's interesting even when i

interviewed dave after the games were over i said what are you doing he says i know the right thing to do is just to stop thinking about the games for a week but i'm not going to i'm going to go lock myself in an office for the next two days and write down all my ideas to make the games even better the next year and like yeah i mean it's it's an obsession right there's a lot on the line a lot of responsibility so many people putting in effort lazar there's something that um the tv does not translate at all that none of us can know and it's the emotional journey that a human being goes through when you break them down physically the way you were broken down in those five days is there are you aware of that as that's happening like holy shit I'm something like I'm getting exposed

emotionally like as my body as my physical body is yes for sure like i i was always close to to luca and uh anja during the whole whole week but i i got a lot more into myself during the week as we progressed i i like second day i i talked to you guys and then i remember getting an email for the last day, do you want to be in the... I saw it just after the day, after the games, but I was not even checking mail. I was not doing anything. The only thing why I was checking mail was to see if I get lost in games. So, yeah, even my coach was with me.

I was barely lost the games. So, yeah, even my coach was with me. I was barely talking to him. It was just what I need to eat, when I need to warm up and stuff. So there's not much talking. I think you stop sparing energy on everything else except execution and you just close in and think what can you do better and how can you improve for the next one. But yeah, it's a mental roller coaster from highs to lows. And you need to be present in all of it

and just let it, let it sink in and focus on the next one. So yeah, high, low, continue. Whatever happens, you need to continue.

Do you, do you have a good cry after the games? No, no, there's no, like that night you go to your room, turn on the shower and just weep. No.

All right. So much for that question. No, no, I had a question. Yeah, for me, there wasn't so much crying. Like I did okay, I did what I expected. And if I won, I would cry. But I think I expected what I did. So, for example, I remember sem semifinals i expected to qualify for

the games but luca didn't and after the the games we weren't after the semis we weren't together so i i saw the leaderboard first and i knew he qualified and i called him i told him you qualify and he just started crying like he he said you're lying i know you qualify. And he just started crying. He said, you're lying. I know you qualify. And he just started crying, like really crying like a baby. Like you hadn't heard him since you've been a little boy? Like to remind you of that? Exactly, yes.

Oh, I love it. God, I love it. What a, what life is so great. Amazing. Is the, how hard are you being on yourself for next year? Is the plan just to get to the games again, or is the plan to do better than ninth? Or is there like,

do you even think like that? No, no. For me, it's, there's only one goal and that's to win it. It's, it's not, goal and that's to win it. I need to go seventh or fifth or whatever.

For me, it's only one goal in mind and I want to win it. And I think I worked as much as any other guy, if not more. So, yeah, for me, it's only one goal in mind. And, yeah, I started planning and started thinking what I will do better and how I will change my training to benefit my overall fitness. So, yeah. And I think, of course, you first need to qualify. But I think I will not – like This year I trained for the Open. Then I trained for the quarterfinals.

Then I trained for the semifinals. And then I started preparing for the games. This year I think I will start preparing for the games as soon as I start training. Wow. Does that sound right to you, Brian? I think so. I think both this year was necessary because he hadn't done that yet. And now, you know, but he also knows that he's, even though it's his first,

and he has a big training base when it comes to executing metabolic conditioning workouts in the open and quarterfinals and doing what he needs to to get there. But the things that happened to him at the games, he learned a lot from them. Obviously, we know that. And he's very aware of the places he can go. And some of those places are not things that you can improve in a six-week training cycle right before the games. You need to take a few training cycles, so the year planned carefully with some deloads and rests in there to be able to build up the strength that he wants to build up

so that he can have the best chance possible to meet and reach his goal. There's that word again, deload. Well, whatever. You can't go heavy every day. I know, but it's just that word d load just i just just don't think it has anything to do with weight lifting um someone said get brian a fucking cable just so you know so guys it's not his cable we're pretty sure it's his computer because he's he has a old ass computer and we had think it has something to do with uh the buffer his internet speed's good everything's good so he has ordered a new computer and i'm actually on a land and

cable network or whatever plug into so right right lazar will we see you in the some off-season competitions have you made any plans for that yet are you oh i'm i'm in a big dilemma there's a there's a bunch of great competitions and uh some of them are paid really well and uh something like it's it's great to to do all the competitions and earn some money but if you if you just continue competing you will come back the same next year. So that's not my goal. My goal is to play smart and maybe I will sacrifice something,

but I will invest in the future like I did in 2019 when I didn't show up and it paid off. I got an invite for Rogue two days ago. I will probably go to Rogue and then from there I will see.

There is also this Mayhem competition and then Dubai, but it's all so close together that I need to see what I will do. I need to check with my coach and with everybody else. I need to see what I will do. Yeah, we did talk to Vellner about that a little bit too.

It's not an easy decision for the athletes. One way or the other, you have to give something up. Either the opportunity to really take the off-season to improve the things you want to improve. really take the off season to improve the things you want to improve yeah it's um but it's it's really like it's it's really funny that they gave at the rogues so much money like it's almost like the games so like how can you miss this competition like it's uh it's uh it's an invitation like you don't have to do a qualifier to get there you've yes yeah like somebody asked me will you do rogue and it was five days ago before i got an invite and before i knew what what were the prizes and what were the like you get your trip paid you get

your hotel booked you don't have to think about anything all those stuff but then i got an email and like you don't think you don't have to think about anything those guys made everything for you you just need to show up so it's like no wonder you think the echo bike is better i think the echo bike is better? I think the Echo bike is better too. Shit, I'm going to get an invite. I'm going to get an invite. God bless the Echo bike. Lazer, thank you. Thank you guys for it. I saw you make that post saying that you were going to do a review.

Lazer made a post saying he was going to do a review of the CrossFit Games. I asked him, hey, will you please do that on our podcast? He said, okay, sure. And you you did it and i really appreciate it uh that was a really long i think that's one of the longest podcasts we've ever done two and a half hours two and a half hours yeah really like we need to go for three just to break all the records uh i would i would encourage you to buy an iPhone or take your girlfriend's. Yeah, I'm actually using hers at the moment. Yeah, that's awesome.

All right, brother. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, guys. It was a pleasure. Thank you, Elizabeth. And I'm going to end the stream. Bam.