The Sevan Podcast - #38 CrossFit Games - Semi-Finals Week 1

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

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They're another shoe company. That's right. Those are the guys I think I heard they like the name noble but they didn't they didn't have a product but they just wanted to make something did you hear that story no i heard that i heard their their founder story is is that they didn't know what they wanted to make but they thought noble was a great name and then afterwards they came up with the shoe idea i think they're x cross uh x rebox rebox guys someone can fact check that if they'd like um but i'm on the website not my area of expertise but it's interesting

i hope you know a lot and if you do know a lot about the semi-finals um i'm very curious where you're where you got it from because i'm on the website, and it's a very, very narrow portal for information from what I can see about the CrossFit semifinals. When you click on information and you click on any of the cities, you get no information. You just see Adrian Bosman with no shirt on saying no rep. It's like their cute way of doing a 404 page, which I approve of. shirt on saying no rep. It's like their cute way of doing a 404 page, which I approve

of. And then I click on the tickets, which is the only other link that they have. And it's a write-up of the week one, week two, week three, week four. So what

are the semifinals, Brian? Does the winner of this go to the CrossFit Games? It's the last stop for both individuals and team athletes. There's no masters or teenage divisions at these that will qualify to the Games. The competitions can have some, but no game spots. And the number of Games qualifiers varies based on continent. So let me hold you up there a second. So when you say you're saying Masters and Teens could

compete in the semifinals, but it won't take them to the games as Masters or Teens. It's not semifinals for them. All of these competitions are people who've been running events for years. A lot of them have been doing it for eight to 10 years, and they usually have community event for teams, local teams. You froze. You froze. I cannot hear you. I can see you as a screenshot. There you go. You're back. What's the last thing you heard?

Something about these events have been run for eight to 10 years. And I think I was confusing. You were saying teens, and I thought you were saying teams. Yeah, that's always confusing. Yeah, so the teams, like Rich Froning's team, they're competing this upcoming weekend. They have a chance to compete in the Games. Teenagers and Masters, at some of these events, there will be age group divisions, like for example at the Torian Pro, but those are just local competitions. It's not with anything regarding the CrossFit Games season. Okay. So the winners of these events, and some places down, one through five or whatever you're going to tell us, it's shit or get off the pot for the individuals and the teams. This is an important week. Has anyone qualified for the Games yet? Nope. No individuals or teams damn you froze again i i wonder what's going on are you in a bad spot same spot as always.

Yeah, that's really weird. Okay, I'm going to say that it did catch the audio on that. Okay, so no one's qualified for the games. How about teens and masters? Have they qualified for the games already? Yes, the age group online qualifier is finished. And it's my understanding that the finalization of the roster spots will happen next week. Okay, and so when you say age group qualifiers, that includes teens and masters? Correct.

Alrighty. So tell me about this. How come I can't get any information on the website when I click on those events. Is there, do you have any information on these events? I do have some information on these events, but this is, is that, you know,

CrossFit, they may not be behind in terms of planning and organizing, but if you're trying to find out what's happening, because they've been late to the game in terms of communicating certain things relative to what i would expect the organization okay and late based on what criteria why what would make it late you know not giving athletes a realistic time frame to make not just from a training perspective, but also a travel and logistics perspective to get to some of these events.

Same thing. And it's even more teams. There's one gym Kota CrossFit, I think is sending four or five different teams to three or four different sanctioned events. And that's, there's one guy like the owner of the gym who's responsible for all these teams.

And he had two weeks. And there's one guy, the owner of their gym, who's responsible for all these teams, and he had two weeks. He found out where his teams were going to be, and then he had to have them there somehow ready to compete. Are these people frustrated? I think there is a decent amount of frustration for some people with regards to that. And it's at every level. It depends. It's the athletes and it's um it's at every level and it's athletes and it's the organizers um you know i i really potential like this but it needs to be a little bit smoother in the in the way that it's carried out is this because of the shit show that our planet's in right now? The COVID response? Can the games blame it on that?

Definitely can. That may not be the only factor, but it is 100% a factor. It's very difficult to permit in what's not. The Mid-Atlantic CrossFit Challenge is the first North American semifinals going on this year.

And they announced a policy for COVID that was going to be implemented based on there's several layers of decision are you in and what are their regulations what county are you in what are their regulations what's the arena's regulations and then your event directors can have a say on top potentially so they announced one thing and then a few days later the rules changed wherever they're hosting their event, their COVID protocols. And that's probably going to continue to happen for the other North American events. They actually have announced protocols for those because things are changing so quickly right now. Are the athletes going to be wearing masks when they compete?

No. going to be wearing masks when they compete? No, and I think that the mask situation, my understanding is it probably is for a majority of the people there. I can't wait till I see some athletes wearing masks. If any of the athletes are wearing masks to compete. Some of them might wear masks out onto the competition floor potentially, but I think

they're not. Any more surprise than the shit show we're in? Worldwide, you should not be surprised by anything, Mr. Friend. Originally, you had told me that I thought that you had said that there were going to be two virtual events and they were going to both be on the same weekend. Now I'm seeing as I scroll through the calendar here, there are five virtual events on two different weekends. Damn, you froze again. I'm going to blame Riverside FM for this recording. Riverside FM. Five recording. Riverside FM. Five of the ten semifinals are virtual.

And there's a lot of people are talking about with regards to that. It's not optimal, but again, not much CrossFit could do here. They could have potentially chosen to have locations that some of the athletes might have not been able to travel based on whatever their country's restrictions are. So that's hopefully what will happen because I think that it's important to have at least one live competition in the season before the games. It's very different than competing out. But there's another big question that's going on, and I think that this year is actually going to be a good one. Should the semifinals have

uniform programming or not? And lots of people have been talking about this, and the general to be that the semifinals should have uniform programming. And the reason being, and you're probably really familiar with this, is that the season is not just the game it's not another freezing it's not just the open yeah go on sorry so if there's one one entity that's programmed the open and then the quarterfinals and then the semifinals and then the games you can look at the programming from the previous events. And you can say, oh, we've already tested wall walks in the open. So why are we going to program wall walks here in the semifinals now? People have already proven their capacity with that.

Let's up the skill. And we have clear examples of this from years past where Dave has done a handstand walk in the skill. And we have clear examples of this from years past, where Dave has done a handstand walk in the open. In the regionals, there were some steps and ramps to go over. And in the games, they had the combination of all these things plus evolution of the programming for the season as the field narrows down.

This year, I think the virtual events will all half the field will take the same test to get to the games. But the other five competitions are all going to be competition or event directors or their group of people. All of those guys are very qualified to program high-level tests for competitive or elite athletes in our sport.

They've been doing it for years and have good programming. I've seen some of the programming. Some of it's been good. But we're not talking about just making good tests. We're talking about what's the point of this stage and does the programming fit in with the rest of the stages before and after it. I fully get your point. Have they given any explanation why they're allowing the individual events to do their own programming? I don't think so. I think my assumption is in the sanctional season, it was one of the appeals of has to be on, are we getting the athletes that we want to, to the next stage of the competition?

And have they, have they proven a similar capacity along the way i mean it's already there's two events coming up this weekend one of them has six workouts the other has seven workouts you know that's a very obvious again with but we could go into much more detail about the problems here let me let me ask you this. So if they were all the same, and that would mean that weeks two, three, and four would have an advantage in their numbers, what would that mean advantage? Obviously, they would knock the people out from week one to go in because you're only competing against the people in your semi-final region but would it affect the placement in the ranking when they showed up at the games um not necessarily the uh you know the one is often done to address that problem is have like a mass start event as the first event of the weekend so you know run swim the same time after one workout now you have run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run close races, there's definitely a lot of good athletes and capable athletes that just miss

making the games. And if you have them all on one weekend, stories get lost. And that's just more athletes who are working hard all year that don't get the recognition they deserve, which I think is the opposite of what the sport needs. So I think it's okay, but there's definitely some drawbacks. I mean, having the workouts can be advantageous, but everyone in your region in your, you know, region or continent or semifinal has that same advantage. I think that the bigger advantage is the people who go, if I get more time to prep for the games. Uh, the first semifinal, as you mentioned, is this weekend, May 28th to the 30th.

And the last one is June 18th to the 20th. When are the CrossFit games? The week of July 27th or something, whatever the Monday is there. So five weeks after the fourth week is complete. Yes, but two weeks after the fourth week is complete as a last chance qualifier where the final women will have an opportunity to qualify for the games.

So you're telling me, let's talk about that last chance qualifier for a second. How do they get the people for that? Where do those people come from? So, for example, this weekend, there's the Torium CrossFit Challenge. And the Torium Pro, okay, you got to think a little bit here. I got a pen and paper. The Oceanic region or continent qualifies three men and three women straight to the games. The next three places, so four, five, and six, go to the last chance qualifier.

However, on the women's side, they get a fourth spot at the last chance qualifier because there's a woman competing in Oceania who should be competing in Africa, but she can't because of travel restrictions. Awesome. Okay. And when you say Oceania, which one are you talking about, the Mid-Atlantic or the Torian Pro? Oh, Torian Pro. Torian Pro. Okay. Okay.

Now, the same thing is true in the Torian Pro, I mean at the Mid-Atlantic, because Tia Clare-Toon, and actually one other female in the field, I'm on the men's side here, sorry. They're all competing at the Mid-Atlantic. The other woman is Carla Henriette, but they should be competing at other competitions that they qualified for, but they can't travel there. So, you know, it's pretty obvious that Tia is going to take a game spot, So, you know, it's pretty obvious that Tia's going to take a game spot, and then the other women who would have taken the game spot, or two through five will still go. The person who is sixth in that region is really the one who's going to get kind of screwed by the fact that Tia's there because she should not going to affect any of the top 10 spots. So they have the same rule. They'll get an extra person, but it's actually irrelevant because it's not going to affect the top 10 spots.

Brian. Yeah. Sorry for the choppy connection. i don't know what's going on when you say um when you say they can't travel to their region why is that that's a lot of people with that excuse do you know what the parameters were of being able to fall to get that exemption uh had to i think they had to communicate to crossfit hey this is where i live this is where i'm required to compete based these are the travel restrictions that are in place for that region that make it you know either where i'm coming from or where i'm going to that make it very difficult logistically or it may be impossible or i have to quarantine for two weeks when i get there and that's going to be you know two weeks of air that's a that's a ton of money you know it's a limited amount of time to make these arrangements like we talked about earlier to crossfit and then

crossfit said yeah you're right based on the global situation problem so we're going to place you somewhere else so there's not any official guidelines of what could get you that exemption on the website. I can't read about it and say, hey, if your country has more than a 14-day lockdown. I mean, like Australia is basically one giant jail cell right now. I think those people have to, I was reading about tennis pros. I mean, it sounds like a complete nightmare, the quarantine status of coming in and out of some of these countries. Yeah. I mean, I would say that it's one of the countries in terms of government control to begin with prior to all of this. So that's not very surprising. Great. Okay. So, so I know we want

to talk about this, this, this first week, but I want to continue a little bit about the last chance qualifier. So if there's, let's just say for ease of math there's three people from each region um who will be the last chance qualifier at each semi-final so that's one two three four five six seven eight nine ten so it'll be somewhere between 30 and 40 women and 30 and 40 men will compete in the last chance qualifier and what week does that happen? July 4th weekend. July 4th. And is that virtual? It is.

And will CrossFit be streaming that somewhere? Is there anywhere? How do you show a virtual event? Will we be seeing that? Yeah, so I mean, that's a good question for semifinals too that are virtual. My understanding is the three North american semifinals will have games quality or regional quality coverage that granite games and west coast classic also will be true for the torian pro in australia same people that you're used to seeing out there it is in cape town is the other live event and i don't think that they're going to have a live broadcast of that.

No communication from CrossFit about what the coverage for the virtual events will look like, but my assumption is something similar to what we had for stage one of the games, and that that will also be true for last chance qualifier. And what that basically means is the competition will be structured as if it was taking place over three days so they'll have a fixed amount of time to do certain workouts crossfit is gathering their videos and the data as that's coming in when the time is up the lat you know for doing those work leaderboard and they'll kind of um congregate a few of those of the best performances and show like a of the workout with a couple guys you know talking through it as it's happening man crossfit's going to be really overwhelmed

hq is going to be overwhelmed week three and four i mean week three with three virtual events that's a lot of videos coming in For anyone who's listening to this, we keep getting a drop. So if you're hearing some interruptions, it's not us or some weird silences. It's not us. I mean, it is us, but it's not us. We're not weirdos and just not – we don't just stop talking. It's because our feed keeps dropping and we can't see each other or hear each other for a minute. because our feed keeps dropping and we can't see each other or hear each other for a minute.

So if you had to watch just only one of these this weekend, May 28th, North America versus the Mid-Atlantic CrossFit semifinal or the Torian Pro, which one would you watch? It's got to be the Mid-Atlantic. Look, the Pacific regional is always entertaining. He's not there. Jamie Simmons is not there. So the women's field is missing two of the big three.

It's still going to be very super competitive. There's probably eight guys that can, that can realistically take those top three spots. And there may be one or two. I don't even know about, or there's always an up and coming guy, but the mid Atlantic is stacked. Look at the men in the field there. You have the second you got Justin Medeiros, phenom rookie from last year. You got Scott Panchik and Ben Smith, two of the

most legendary Travis Mayer, who just won the quarter finals. Those five guys alone are going to draw a bigger crowd than pretty much any semifinal competition. In the meantime, on the women's side, Tia has been added to the field that already has the most popular American athletes in the world, Haley Adams, Amanda Barnhart, and Brooke Wells.

Wow. This is something that I've been studying. CrossFit, how did they seed these athletes? They said that they went through this process and it was going to be fair and equitable, but I'm looking at that. Take Tia out of the mix. If you have Haley, Adams, Amanda, and then if you go to the next week in the Granite Games, the top three athletes there in terms of notoriety are Christy, Aramofini chung it just doesn't stack up that's

not going to sell as many tickets as hayley adams amanda barn but if you do them you should have moved one you're saying they should have moved one of those moved one of those girls in in the mid-atlantic region to the to the granite games maybe the it's complicated because they said first of all if you place top 10 you want to go so if you you know and um and then if you live in the state that going there so amanda barnett and brooke wells they might they i think they chose that place that they wanted to go there uh yeah amanda was first in the quarterfinals, Brookwells was fifth, Fisagafi was sixth, so those

three women got placed there. Haley Adams lives in Tennessee, the competition's in Tennessee, so she got placed there. They didn't have a chance to go to Granite Games because they either chose or lived in their state, which were the first two criteria CrossFit used.

After that, they had to seed the rest of the athletes. And when you do the math and add up their seedings based on their quarterfinal, it's pretty easy to argue that the quarterfinal seeding is very arbitrary relative to a lot of other metrics that you could have used. There's some places in the mid-40s in the quarterfinals that I've never heard of before. And you know how many of these athletes I'm familiar with. You know, two, three spaces away from them that are three-time games athletes. So are you going to put the three-time games athletes with the...

Never been to the games, never been to a sanction, never been to a semifinal, no one's ever seen her in a live competition and say, yep, because they placed one spot away in the quarterfinals. Five tests over one weekend. Are they using that word equitable or is that your word? Oh, damn, you dropped. I want to hear the answer to this question. Is that your word fair and equitable or is that CrossFit?

Wow. I don't know what to do with that. With that question? Hello? I threw you a curveball? Cops are banging on your door. Hello? Brian?

Are you there? Can you hear me? I can see you. You look good. Hello, Brian? Brian? I have no idea. Can you hear me?

Can you see me? I'm going to call you on my phone. I can hear you. I can see you I'll text him right now I can hear you and see you you can still hear me?

what? I can't see you and it says network air damn I wonder what's going yeah I can see you and hear you. Let's hang up.

Or see you. And log back on. Log back on. Sorry, guys. Brian's checking out for a second, and he will be back. In all fairness, Riverside's been pretty good. This is the first big hiccup I've seen since we started using this. He's asking me, same link or new link I'll click same

see if he comes back copy link and he's not back yet. And he is back. Can you hear me now? Yeah, I switched to a hotspot. So let's see what, if it was me. You mean like using your phone? So, so is, would if it was me um you mean like using your phone um so so um is are those your words fair and equitable or those crossfit's words uh those are their words that's how they have it written in the rule book that's that should just tell you right there that it's gonna be a mess yeah i mean

if it would have been better if it would have been better if they would have put athletes in the in the regions based on Instagram followers than using the word equitable. That doesn't even – I don't even think they know what that word means. I mean, I think it's – I just hope that next year they learn from this year and that they say early in the season, this is how the athletes will be seated so that that's known and accounted for before the Open happens, before the quarter. There's no room for questions. There's no uncertainty. And, you know, I'm going to just chalk this one up as a loss

and get it better next time. Yeah, equitable by definition is fair and impartial. So if it's fair and equitable, it's fair and fair. Or they should have said fair and impartial. So if it's fair and equitable, it's fair and fair. Or they should have said fair and impartial. But we need a metric. We need to know. I mean, if it's a sport, we need to know. Are you putting these people in there by their height,

by their performance, by their, like... We need something a little bit better than that. And I think that's what the fans want. I think that... And that's what draws... What's one of the biggest complaints that people have always had is, I can't tune into this sport if I don't know what's happening.

And that's a problem. If you turn on a golf tournament, within five minutes of watching the tournament, you'll know exactly what the leaderboard is. The leader is contending or whatever. Same thing with a basketball game, hockey game, NASCAR race, you name it. In CrossFit, if you turn it on, it's always been a question. If I haven't seen the first event I'm watching of the weekend,

am I able to turn it on and within a couple minutes understand what's happening here? And it's a shame, too, because it's eminently watchable. I mean, it is... It is... Once you're bought in, you're hooked.

Once you... Yeah. Once you're bought in... you're hooked. Once you, yeah. Yeah, but imagine that person who turns, you see these amazing athletes and incredible bodies doing this stuff that you can't, you don't understand how they're doing it, so you start asking questions. Oh, wow, how'd they get here? What'd they have to do to get here? Oh, they all had to do different things to get here. Well, were they seateded based on that?

It's really unknown. Don't recognize anybody. You never told us. You just... Right. I didn't hear you mention Noah Olsen's name. Oh, did I hear you mention Noah's name? I'm assuming Noah's in the Mid-Atlantic.

Okay, so maybe you did. You said Noah, Justin Medeiros, Ben Smith, Samuel Quant. No, no, no. Noah's not in this one. He will be competing at the West Coast Classic in the last weekend, June 18th. Oh, that doesn't make sense to me. Doesn't he live out there? So he was,

you know, he got to choose where he wanted to go. Chose to go to West Coast. So one of the things is some of these guys trained together. So Travis Mayer and Noah Olsen may have talked to each other and said, hey, we don't want to go to West Coast. So one of the things is some of these guys trained together. So Travis Mayer and Noel Olsen may have talked to each other and said, hey, we don't want to go to the same semifinal. You declare this one. I'm going to go for this one.

But the one I'm putting first last so that we have the best chance of not being in the same region. Like that's what I thought would have happened. But then you go look at the West Coast Classic for the women, and you have Carrie Pierce, Daniel Brandon and Bethany Shadburn who are all competing there. All of whom trained together in Vegas. Well,

I guess that's why they're there because the competition's in Vegas. So they had no choice. Well, they had, it could have been a train. Is Daniel Brandon, the legitimate contender. I mean,

I know her star is rising and I know she's quite popular. Her social media is quite popular, and she's strutting her shit. Is she really that good? Yeah, she actually beat both of those girls in the quarterfinals. She placed eighth. So she's the only one of them who actually could have had her more else because she was in the top 10 so wherever she said she's legit she's not just all show she's show and go she's a ferrari with a good paint job yeah i mean i think um technically she placed 10th in 2019 she didn't make the top 10 but one

of the girls who did popped for drug tests, so she got slotted to 10th. And the question is, can she get back to 10th place in a full games test in the top 10? I think she's got top 10 potential. I would be really surprised if she got into the top five. She was on the demo team last year does that give any one of the athletes you think um insight experience is there any advantage to being on the demo team and then and then going to the games oh i think that it's you definitely get some insights you definitely learn a lot about the way that dave runs things and does things and i suppose that that could potentially be beneficial but i mean

ultimately like you know how it is you you have to be able to perform when it comes down and she can't so so do you um do you have picks for these weekend this week week one may 28th through the 30th do you know what the workouts are already? Yeah, yeah. All the workouts for both competitions have been released, and it's my understanding that all the workouts for all of the competitions will be released at least one week before they happen. So you've looked at the workouts,

and have you had time to look at the workouts and then look at the athletes and figure out who you think is going to be the top, I guess it's eight or nine, because we're not only curious who's going to go directly to the games, but we're interested in who's going to go to the last chance qualifier. But before you say that, why is there a last chance qualifier? Behind the Last Chance Qualifier dates back to the Central East men's field, where there's just occasionally a congregation of athletes, for whatever reason, is very good. We can take the Oceanic women, for example. They only get three spots to the games because of their open participation.

But based on their competitive performance in the last three years, they should earn five spots. The women should earn five spots to the Games. They've done that well. What do you mean based on their competitive performance? So I did a statistical breakdown a couple months ago when the first iteration of the rule how many athletes from each region are going. And I was like, something's not right here because the Europeanan women are way better than european men at the top level of the sport but they're both getting 10 spots and they say they're getting

10 spots because of their participation in the open as a continent and i was saying okay that's fine as a man use but ultimately i want to see the best 40 athletes at the games i don't want to see five people in the first heat that are three, four, five minutes behind on every workout. I want to see the best 40 there. We're trying to find the fittest, test them against the fittest. So I did a metric based on performance. And I found out that in the last three years, there were four, five, and six women who were good enough to be at the games in those seasons in the top 40 um it's a it was a little bit difficult to do and maybe not an exact study because each of the last three game seasons

was different there were only 30 at the games last year for example so there's a little bit of gray but um and if tia and jamie were competing there you'd have tia to claire toomey cara saunders and jamie sinners and they would take the top three spots, and no other women would have a chance. But you have Maddie Sturt, who's been to the Games four straight years before 2020, and she actually placed in the middle of the pack. She's good enough to be at the Games, but she wouldn't have stood a chance against them. Now, she will have a chance this time because Tia and Jamie aren't there. So it's a catch-all. It's basically a confirmation

that, hey, it's difficult to make the format perfect. And so this is sort of like, it makes sense. I like it. I didn't like it. I don't like the thought of it, but then when I heard you explain it i don't like the thought of it but then when i heard

you explain it i do like the thought of it it's you know like you said 30 to 35 women will be competing and only two of them will get to go to the game so you have to be very good to finish in the top two of who've already beaten two-thirds of the field or more at the competition preceding that so so the winners of the winners of all of these will all go to the games no ifs ands or buts unless there's travel problems and then the last chance qualifier how many people did you say two two two women and two men from the last chance qualifier will go yes and that will those would be the 39th and 40th qualifiers yeah okay i think i'm still awake and i think i understand i think i understand the format i did not understand it last year i think i do but i didn't have you explaining it to me

last year and so i think i get it thank you um will you watch both um north america and um and oceana will you watch both torian pro and the mid-atlantic crossfit this year this week And Oceana, will you watch both Torian Pro and the Mid-Atlantic CrossFit this week? Yeah, I might not watch every heat of every workout, but I'll watch what I need to watch to know what's going on. And are you working any of these events? I'm not working either of these. I'm covering the Torian Pro for the morning chalk up. I'm just watching Mid-Atlantic as a fan, basically. What exactly are you covering about the Torium Pro?

Anything specific? Recaps, emerging storylines, just stuff like that. That was the one they assigned to me. So you'd rather watch the Mid-Atlantic, as we discussed earlier, but your project is the Torium Pro, so you'll be glued to that. No, no. I personally would rather watch both of them i'm very interested in the in the especially the men's field in um australia okay so let's get to it who who's going let's start with the mid-atlantic who's going which men are going well who are your picks and if it travis isn't in there, you better put him in there. So in no particular order, like I said, the five favorites for sure there are Ben Smith, Scott Panchik, Justin Madero, Sam Quant, and Travis Mayer.

I mean, these guys are very well established. Justin's obviously younger than these other guys. Quant's younger than the other three guys, but they've been around. Good. If, you know, on paper, those five guys should make it. My prediction is that four of the five guys will make it. And I don't know which one will miss it. I don't know, but I'm just, I know how these competitions go. There's always an upset.

There's always a drama. There's always someone who underperforms. It's one week in a competition, and there are some other good guys there uh some up-and-coming guys some guys that have done well in the past at this kind of format so i you know i'm gonna i'm calling it i'm calling and then you know a guy who's maybe a little bit less well-known to sneak into the fifth spot. You think it's Ben Smith. You think this is it.

This is going to be his last year, don't you? I'm super interested to see how he does. He looks amazing. He looks like he's the strongest he's ever been. He's been doing a pretty intensive strength cycle, and it seems to be working. He's done pretty well so far.

Um, and I don't think he really cares about the quarterfinals though. I think he's, you know, he's 22nd there in North America, but I think he's focused on, uh, on this weekend and making it back to the games.

Uh, I think he'll make it. I think you do. And, and will this be Ben's 11th or 12th games oh well i think uh i could pull it up and check i think that this is if you make it it would be you got that special you got that special invite in 2019 yeah yeah yeah so this will be his 12th 15

yeah that's crazy. They did those special invites. Don't get me started on that. He hasn't performed well enough to qualify the last two years. Obviously, last year it got cut short, so he might have eventually had a sanction, but it didn't get to go down. Okay. And do you have any predictions for the last chance qualifiers in the men, the mid-Atlantic?

Yeah, so the guys that are just outside those five are... Conor Duddy. I mean, he's had three top ten sanctional finishes the last two seasons. Jason Hopper is a young up-and-coming guy I've got my eye on. Travis Williams is returning to individual competition. Definitely a threat to maybe take, if not the fifth or fourth or fifth spot, to get one of those. Josh Woodhull, who's had two second-place finishes

at some of the smaller sanctions in the past. You've got former team sensation Angelo DiCicco coming back to competition. So there's a bunch of guys in the mix here. Adam Klink, Ben Smith's old training partner. Luke Parker, who's currently training with Rich Froning. Mark Juan Jones, who's qualified for the games. Matt, there are a lot of guys here that could make a... How old is Mark Juan?

He's been around for a while, too. I bet he's like 28 to 30. I don't know. Oh, really? I remember a cover. I think he was at the Albany regional many years ago he's 31

and I remember oh okay he's younger than I thought but still um and tell me about Travis Williams you're talking about Travis Williams the misfit guy yeah he's been uh well he's not anymore of a problem there he's been... Well, he's not anymore.

He's got a problem there. He's now with... I think it's called Jumped Ship Programming or something like that. Yeah, I mean, he's been straight years. 2015 to 2017. You're telling me he had a problem with Misfit, but the new guys he's with are called Jumped Ship? That might even be his company. Okay, well, that would be apropos.

That would be awesome. Yeah, maybe he jumped ship. I don't know. Well, I hope he makes it. He's a good guy. Okay. And do you want to say anything else about the men before we jump over to the women? No, I mean, look, the men in North America are good.

All of the semifinals for the men in north america are deep fields and there's definitely some guys that i don't know how good they are that are in these fields you know there's this guy zach watts he was sixth in brazil there's a guy hal fisher he was seventh at the french throwdown seventh at strength top 10 finishes at some at sanction events in the past two years so they can perform um so i think there's gonna you know it's gonna require guys to have you can't you're gonna have to have a really good weekend to make it where are the other panchik brothers oh let me see here saxon is competing at granite Games in week two. And Spencer Panczyk, man, he got the short end of the stick here.

He's in the West Coast Classic in the last weekend. And that men's field is insane. Can you give me one minute, please, or just like 10 seconds? Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Is that a phone call? Did you get a pizza delivered?

Sure. I can talk for 10 seconds. Brian's just got in his chair. He's taking his headset off. He can't hear. Yeah, that's fast. That's fast. What was that?

I have something. I just turned it off. Oh. What are you cooking? It's not good. I didn't cook how I usually cook tonight because it off. Oh. What are you cooking? Snack. I didn't cook how I usually cook tonight because we're doing this. A little frozen pizza. Okay.

I was out of town this weekend and it's bad. So tell me about the women of the Mid-Atlantic. No, sorry. Yeah. Yeah, Mid-Atlantic. No, sorry. Yeah, Mid-Atlantic. Yeah, I mean, Tia's she's done five sanctionals. She's won them all. The best

sanctionals. She's won the games four times in a row. So that's that. Behind her will be, in some order, Hayley Adams and Brooke Wells. I have no reservations. Barring an injury, they'll all make the games. The cool thing is, in the last couple of years, they all competed at Waterpalooza last year. Amanda was fourth.

Haley was fifth. Brooke was sixth. They all competed at Rogue that year. Amanda was seventh. Haley was eighth. Brooke was tenth. They all competed at stage one of the games last year, and they finished within four spots of each other. So these three girls

are totally different athletes with different skill sets and strengths, but somehow in three of the most prestigious competitions last year, they were finishing back to back to back on the leaderboard. So this is a great opportunity to see which one of them is maybe in a good position. So this is a great opportunity to see which one of them is maybe in a good position. And ultimately, all of them are trying to chase down Carrie Pierce and take the title of the fittest woman in the United States. And why didn't Carrie Pierce do better in the quarterfinals? That's her choice? I don't know.

I haven't looked too close. See if there was, you know, one that was a struggle for her. A lot of people struggled on the front squat. Yeah, so she was first, fifth, and eighth in the CrossFit style workouts, and then she had 132nd in the rowing wall ball, which is obviously just a bad combination for her relative to other things, and then 308th in the front squat. So that's her big time. And there's no question about her dedication. I mean, she's in it to win.

I mean, you know, she's for now. Yeah. Like, I think that she's at the point of her career where she's making a decision year by year. But if she's doing it one more year, she's all in. She's moved out to Vegas with her coach. She's training with Bethany and Danielle. They've got a bunch of guys out there. Tolomora Kinyan.

Nicolas Bedarte from Argentina. They've got a good crew there. I think those women will do well at the semifinals. But again, the West Coast Classics is going to be a tough one. So when you said the men, you said of your five picks, you think one of them, the odds are one of them will shit the bed or something will happen or derail them or someone will come up you didn't know. How do you feel about the women? Do you have that same with the women or are you a little more confident with the women? So those four I said I feel very confident will make it.

And then one that I think is up for grabs. However, after I saw the programming, I felt pretty good about Fee Sagafi's chances to get the fifth spot. And who's that? She trains with Scott Panczyk. And she has for... I'm not actually sure how long she's been there. But she's... She competed at the Games in 2019.

She took 25th there. She was second at the Italian Throwdown. She was 13th at Rogue two years ago. Is she Italian? Is she Italian? I mean, she's American. Her citizenship is American, but she's certainly got some. Yeah.

Tell me her name again. Her actual name is Firoza Sagafi. Firoza Sagafi. She sounds like she's married to, like, a mob boss. Racist. Racist. I don't think she's married. Maybe she is.

She's got a boyfriend. Sorry, a daughter. A daughter a daughter daughter of a mob boss oh okay so you're feeling more confident with the women's class well the top four yes but I like because there's a lot of

I think there's just some favorable she's an artist sorry a filmmaker artist oh yeah that's it every time you say her name I think she's something else. Okay, go on, sorry. But there's some women that will be giving her a run for her money for sure. And you know some of these women. Jessica Griffith is competing at this.

At the Mid-Atlantic and Rebecca Voigt. Rebecca is already qualified as a Masters athlete, but she qualified 104th in the quarterfinals. I have her ranked in the top 10 for the semifinals because she's a gamer. And this is the classic example of, we'll see how it plays out this way, but in a live competition setting,

she has so much experience. She knows how to manage and navigate that weekend, the time between events, the pressure, the stress, whatever, all the other factors. There's another girl, one of the teenage sensations. In the U.S., there's four teenagers, three U.S.

girls that are 17 years old that have qualified for semifinals that all have an actual chance to qualify for the games in the elite division this year, which has never been done before. The Mid-Atlantic is one of them. It's Olivia Sulek. I also have her ranked in the top 10.

I think she has a chance to get a last chance qualification. I would be surprised if she could get into the fifth spot. I watched Hayley Adams compete at the Atlantic Regional in 2018, and she did very, very well. Then she finished 11th. It's just tough. It's just tough. So, and then there's a woman, Christine Kolenbrander, who usually competes on a team who's competing there. But look, the women's field, especially in North America, it's not as deep as the men's field.

And so the top women are going to, are going to shine and excel. And there's going to be big gaps like Tio, probably of the top American woman. Those three girls are probably all be within 30 points, 50 point gap to another group of four or five women. And the big gap, like it's going to be spread out on the women's side because the depth just

isn't there. There's levels to this shit abeca voight let's say she does qualify for the last chance qualifier what is she going to do is she going to actually try the last chance qualifier or is she going to rest up and lick her wounds from the semi-finals so that she can be her best for the masters uh i think she probably she'll probably do it i think that's just kind of how she is so that she can be her best for the Masters? I think she'll probably do it. I think that's just kind of how she is.

I don't think she, you know, I think she's been pretty upspoken about the fact that, you know, she trains, not doing like crazy volume of workout and whatever. She's got it dialed in. I mean, she's been 10 times to the game as an individual. She's podium as a master's athlete as well. She's, you know, she knows what she's doing. She knows how to manage everything.

And when it comes, I think she could probably do that, not, and not have it, you know, crusher. Um, but you know,

we'll see. I also think there's a chance she could qualify, you know, straight out of the mid Atlantic. Um, but you know, we'll see. I also think there's a chance she could qualify, you know, straight out of the mid Atlantic. Um, isn't it also interesting that you have someone as young as Haley Adams and that, you know, her, her room to grow just thinking logically is greater than all the other women. And so she, because of her age. And so she may have just made leaps and bounds from last year right i mean the difference between a 19 year old man and a 20 year old man can be huge yeah definitely and 19 to 20 to 21 to 22 so she might she might show up on the scene and just be

on a whole nother level right it's definitely possible i mean she's it's not just another year of training with rich it's another year of being in that environment it's another year of working with chris hinshaw so she's you know she's already sixth and fourth in the last years at the games she's 21 years old and those the here's the interesting 17 year old they're all stronger than Haley. So Haley also still has room to improve in the thing that she's worst at, which is her strength. If you look at any of her,

her competition performances, anytime a strength event shows up, it's a clear outlier relative to her performances in anything else. And last year at Rogue, in one of the most difficult workouts, she beat everyone in the field, including Tia and Cara and Katrin and all of them so she can win workouts against the best

in depth she took 3rd place she was behind Laura Horvath and Gabriela Magala but those 3 women were clearly the best 3 women there she took 5th at Guadalupalooza she was 8th in Rogue she's done 5 sanctionals she's one of the youngest athletes

at every one of them, and her worst finish was eighth at Rogue, which is obviously a very strong field. So her confidence is skyrocketing. So she has a win on Tia. An event win, yeah. Yeah, Fantasy posted something earlier.

And I said, maybe in one event. Yeah, I mean, that is really amazing that she did that. I'm trying to, I mean, that is, that's something else. And she probably hangs her hat on that. I know I would. There are certain, um, there are certain movements that all the people who train at mayhem always excel at GHD sit-ups, uh, walking, and high-volume toes-to-bar are three that come to mind. Also maybe pegboards,

but rarely tested. And that workout had a ton of toes-to-bar in it, which he's really good at. Amazing. So let's talk about the Torian Pro. That's in Oceania. Yeah. What do you got there for the men?

Oh man. It's tough. So I've gotten word that James Newberry is actually healthy and training well and looking good. He had some, uh, he's training for bobsled. He had some off season injuries,

but he, he's a very resilient. He bounces back pretty quick. So I think if he's healthy, he'll take one of the top three spots. Protege, Jay Crouch, is probably the favorite out there. I think he can even beat James Newberry. He has beaten him before at the 2020 Australian CrossFit Championship. And then because of the programming, I have Royce Dunn in the top three i do a little when i see

the programming i look at like the top 10 or 15 guys and i put a little plus or minus based on for him i had out of seven events i had one minus and four pluses which was like the biggest disparity of any of the other guys in the top 10 so i bumped him up from i had him in the fifth spot i moved him up to the two spot. I might still. What about those events? What did you see? Power output. Power output.

So one of the main piece of the event is the echo bike. He's a big dude. The next one is a clean and jerk ladder. He's one of the strongest guys in the field. The next one has some clean and jerk ladder he's one of the strongest guys in the field the next one has some skiing box jump overs but the crux of the workout is a max distance sled pull power and the last workout has

a chest the thruster weight is a little heavier than usual that won't be an issue for him and he's actually for his size pretty good at gymnastics usually in these competitions it's not so much about how you do on day one. It's about how you do on days two and three.

So I think he might be outside the top 10 even after day one. There's a reverse triathlon is the first of that. But he'll make his way back up. And if you can hit a couple home runs, you know, events five, six, and seven, I think he can make it. There's a lot of good guys out there.

Don Porter, I have him in fourth right now. There's a lot of good guys out there. Tom Porter, I have him in fourth right now. Baden Brown, I got him in fifth. Brandon Swan, Zeke Grove, all very good competitors. That would be one of those spots. Reverse triathlon, is that what it

sounds like? It's a concept to triathlon. So they have a, or no, it's not. They have a 5k run, 7k bike, 2k row.

So there's no swimming, but the row, row swimming and the row is the smallest, the shortest time domain. And it's at the end of the workout where usually the shortest time domain of a triathlon is a swim at the start of the event. How long is the row? 2k at the end of that triathlon is a swim at the start of the event. How long is the row? 2K.

At the end of that, it's a 48-minute time. I was very, very good at aerobic stuff. Just tested this out and finished in around 42 minutes. I've charted it out for myself. I think if I was able to do the 48 minutes, I'd be happy with that. Yeah, that is the pain cave right there. That last 2K row is going to be something else. Because intellectually, they can all get their heads wrapped around that.

No problem. But to throw it there at the end. Wow. And then the very next event is... Is the running outside or inside? Is it on one of the machines or is it outside? I think it's on the machines. I'm not certain of that, but I think so.

Okay. The very next event features... It's on the machines. I'm not certain of that, but I think so. Okay. The very next event features, it's a sprint event. It's 21 ring muscles, 21 squat snatches. And your legs are going to be feeling pretty bad after that 2K route at the end of that triathlon. Same day? Same day. Ouch. So that's going to be a good one to watch.

Yep. Okay, so I think we have the first one. You too. What do you mean for me just to sit at home and watch? It'll be evening time when those events are happening for you because it's 17 hours ahead of you. Oh, okay. So you said Thursday evening. What's ahead of you in Australia? Oh, okay.

So you said Thursday, right? Yeah, I think 4 p.m. maybe is the time that the first competition will start for you. 4 p.m. on Thursday. They'll be 9 a.m. on Friday. Well, I think that's good, Brian. And then we'll just circle back on Monday or Tuesday. What about the girls in Australia? Oh oh we didn't talk about them i just see we're at 57 minutes and i'm like all right i gotta go yeah i do care about the women in australia of course the great carl webb is there right carl saunders should be the runaway winner i like madeline sturt as kind of the solid second pick

and then i i think it's very difficult to pick a third woman here. There's a young competitor out there named Ellie Turner. There's two two-times Games champions, Courtney Haley and Justin B. There's Alethea Wait, wait, there's two, there's what? Games champion?

Sorry, Games qualifiers. Not champions. That's pretty good. I was like, whoa, damn. Thank you. Okay, not champions. That's pretty good. I was like, whoa, damn. Thank you. Okay, go on. Yeah, so there's, well, Courtney Haley, Justin Beath, Jessica Coughlin, Alethea Boone, most people will know them. All games veterans. I think that's what I meant to say.

But then there's this woman, Laura Clifton, who's a very strong individual who I thought was going to be able to get a spot for the same reasons as Royce Dunn. But workout number seven, the chest-to-bar pull-ups and thrusters, which is a kryptonite for her. So I had her ranked third until I saw that workout, but I don't think I can put her in the third spot anymore because you know this from regionals. If you don't do it on the last workout and you're right on a bubble spot, you're not going to make it.

You're toast. So this is a big weekend. Yeah, and I will put out my rankings 1 through 20 for the individuals every week for every one of the semifinals on Instagram. And when will that go up? I'll put them out like one or two days before the competition. Okay, cool. I'll put them out like one or two days before the competition. Okay, cool.

And your Instagram is Brian, B-R-I-A-N, CrossFit. No, sorry. Brian Friend CrossFit. Your Instagram is at B-R-I-A-N, F-R-I-E-N-D CrossFit. Brian Friend CrossFit. Mm-hmm. Probably put the top five teams that I think will make it also. There's no last chance qualify for the teams, and it's difficult to know who's on the teams. That's why you're never going to get to 2,000 followers,

because you can do stuff like that, because you're courteous and put out team information. Tell me, am I totally wrong about the teams? Does anyone care about the teams? Besides the people who are on the teams? I mean, it is nice this year. It is nice this year that you have to all belong to the same affiliate. I mean, that is awesome.

I much rather like that format. I think it's better for the team, better for the sport. Yeah, I think it's good. The difficulty with the team stuff is that no one knows how to follow it. Just like how you're struggling to see what's going on with the events, there's limited information. Now they have the six athletes that are competing, up to six athletes, I should say, that are competing listed on their profile page.

But if you go to the game site and insert pro and click on teams, you can't see any athletes. You just see the teams. If you click on each team individually and then wait for it to load, which it takes a second and then scroll down to the bottom, you can see that four or five or six athletes that they've listed, but you don't know which of those four or five or six athletes. If there's only four, you know, who's competing. But if there's six, you don't actually know who they're showing up with the competition for. There's a team from Rob Forte's gym. He's listed on the roster. I don't think he's competing,

but there's no way of confirming the fact that he said he's not competing. But I think the problem is that CrossFit doesn't know either. Up until the day of registration to say these are the four competing and these are the two alternates. But from an analyst's perspective, that makes it pretty impossible. I like the team a lot more than if either of these other guys that I don't know are on the team. So it's difficult, and that's why there's been little team.

Right? So it's difficult, and that's why there's been little teams. But the problem there is that you're not going to generate that much interest because you're not talking about it because there's nothing to talk about because you don't know who's competing. So it puts a little bit of a damper on the what we're going to write about all the time. And we're like, well, teams and we can, but it's limited because we don't have all the information, but CrossFit doesn't have all the information either. I, I, to end on this note, um,

Australia is notorious for being very supportive of one another. The athletes, they got their Aussie, Aussie, Aussie chant, and they don't care who wins because as long as it's an australian and i've actually bought that for a long time but i think it would be very very sweet for cara sanders saunders um to beat tia i'm not saying

that i wanted i want that to happen i'm saying that i think cara like i think she wants to win the games and i think she wants to beat tia i bet you she's tired about hearing that Tia's unbeatable. Yeah, and Kara's, you know, I think she's in a super good place in her life right now, but she's had a bit of an unfortunate career relative to what it could have been. She was the fifth woman on earth in 2014, and a little stinger in her neck prevented her from claiming the title on the last day of competition. A little stinger in her neck prevented her from claiming the title on the last day of competition. 2017, the closest race to more women's side, she's on the wrong side of it by two points.

So she's potentially a two-time fittest woman on earth that has no fittest woman on earth titles. Survival happens to also be from a country that is a very proud country where she's, you know, no matter how good she has been she's just yeah even if it's you know partial shadow or something like that do they have a beef are they friends do they train together uh i don't really train together if they competed on the invitational together or not it's been so many years since politicians have been around, but I think there were some times that there was some animosity between them, or at least that was projected that way

by some of the media coverage. Really? I don't actually know. I've never really... I've actually had very little interaction with either of them personally. There's any friction there. All right, Brian.

Well, thank you. You're welcome.