The Sevan Podcast - #45 CrossFit Games - Semifinals Week 3

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

The Sevan Podcast EP 45 CrossFit Games Semifinals 3 @BRIANFRIENDCROSSFIT @JAMESHOBART @SEVANMATOSSIAN The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Notice how Brian just stayed silent the whole time. He's like, yeah, he looks like a tomato. I just don't want to tell him, you know, who else had looked like a tomato this weekend. A little bit was a Dan Bailey.

Yeah. You got to see him. Yeah. I went to God's country coffee stand and paid a visit to Dan. I said, uh, someone told me there was an average fitnesser selling exceptional coffee over here. Maybe that's probably not from the sun, though, or skin.

That's probably from all the HGH. Oh, man. I actually went and worked out with him on last week sometime. Who won? I did. that with him um on last week sometime middle one i did it wasn't really a win work it was like a you go i go thing because i think we were afraid to be in competition with each other but you could you could just tell you were doing your your rounds faster than him i just felt like what i was doing was better yeah and that's why james hobart's a guest on the show this week because we needed another perspective we didn't need it we we were so good together anyway shows

how show has rave reviews but i just thought shit let's make it better and just throw hobart in the mix it's like a blender it's like a smoothie and you just add a little more banana i hope that that's because that always makes one of these better so i hope that is what i bring to this i hope i'm a little extra banana in this already delicious peanut butter chocolate shake james um i know this isn't going to make you very comfortable but you got to do it for me what are your games and maybe brian can do it off top of his head too but what are your games credentials regionals and games credentials? So regionals, I don't remember all of them, but I competed games individual 2009, 2010, 2014. This year I'm going to compete as a master's in the 35-39. Congratulations.

Thank you. I'm very excited. And then 2011, 12, no, excuse me, 20, yeah, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, competed team, won three times, twice with Mayhem, once with New England. That about wraps it up. And then your role on the CrossFit training department is? I'm a flow master. So course overseers are, I think, the government term. But I've been working with seminar staff now for 10 years, over 10 years.

So head trainer and then help oversee courses. So you know the foundation, the roots of CrossFit, what CrossFit really is. And then you also know about what's happened as more and more people have gotten excited about Greg Glassman's idea of adding a stopwatch to workouts yes you know both sides yes I don't think a lot of people know that they just think it's a sport but really Greg just said hey let's start timing some workouts so people work out harder and I remember too the first time I did a CrossFit workout that, you know, I can't say I really, I did it, you know, I was like, I did Helen, which is three rounds, four meter run, 21 kettlebell swings, 12 pull-ups. And I didn't, I thought when, as it says, you know, it says three rounds, four time.

And in my head, that just meant just write down whenever you finish. It doesn't matter. I didn't know that. Like what time of day it is. Okay. Yeah. Like, yeah, just like, Oh, I did it at three o'clock and took me about 45. I just, you know, it took me about 45 minutes and I didn't understand that four time meant like try to achieve a time where you're finishing as quickly as possible. But, um, I learned. It was like that for me too. And actually I'm embarrassed to say, it was like that for like six months. So, you know, it was do Fran,

but it was 11 thrusters, go to the drinking fountain, talk to some friends, come back, do my 10 just, but I still was getting a great stimulus. Yeah, no, that's exactly. I remember I'll never forget. Like I would do some dips or, you know, I would during a workout or some kettlebell swings or some pull-ups, go get a towel, go get water, get, tell the barista to get the protein shake ready. You know, exactly. Yeah, I was out of control. So, Brian, next week's semifinals, German throwdown, Brazil something or another, and Lowland something or another. And I went through the list of all the athletes, and I only recognize one name, Frederick Agidius.

That's not true. AKA the guy who makes babies with Annie. Oh, really? Do I? Definitely. Okay. Well, good. I'm glad.

I was feeling a little bit like a fish out of water. You might not know many names in Brazil, but you'll definitely know a lot of Europeans. Okay. Yeah. I mean, there's Munweiler is going to be up there and uh that'll be a good one oh yes munweiler no idea who that is he's an animal you should go back if anyone wants to go back and watch the 2019 squat clean event out at madison he was just like uh i remember because he bought he borrowed my belt i was doing demo team he borrowed my belt and he just doing demo team and he borrowed my belt. And he just has like a,

he just has this wild man aura. He's like the kind of guy you'd be like, yeah, you're cool to work out and stuff, but man, it'd be fun to like go out and have 80 beers and just see what happens.

He's a rare athlete also at the games because he doesn't, he usually doesn't bring a coach with him, which I don't advise, by the way. I like that.

Why don't you advise that? Because even when I compete in just you know pathetic little competitions that i do i like to bring someone there just so i can go have them give me some water or some food or something when i'm trying to recover between events just someone to talk to and keep me company i mean it's if it works for him it's great but i like having someone there sounds like a coach can't right can't they also stop you from making errors like ridiculous errors like

we've seen people make I'll never forget like Sarah I don't know if it was her first year or second year made some mistakes with the sandbags at Carson I mean wouldn't it be nice to have a coach just while you're in the heat of it or someone else last week I think Jason Hopper was saying he lost count of rounds and if he had a coach who could yell

at you hey this is the fifth round or, I mean, you see boxers go into their corner and they don't even know what round it is in the fight. You don't, you don't like having a coach with you, James. No,

I think there's a lot. I was just curious to hear his thought. I think there's a lot of benefit to having a, having a coach with you for all of those reasons. And even just giving you a heads up as far as like, Hey, you're two points away from, from squeezing into fifth place. Like this is the workout where you should, you know, put it to the, you're two points away from, from squeezing into fifth

place. Like this is the workout where you should, you know, put it to the, put it to the floor and just go for it. I do think there's a ton of value in having a coach. Yeah. You tricked me. I read into what you were saying. I don't like that. I don't like that. I read into it, but I also think it's possible to do it without one, you know, and I think it's cool. And you know, I forget where Munweiler finished that year, but maybe you talk to him and he'd be like i wish i had a coach i just can't find anyone i really like so um let's start with reviewing what happened this weekend at the granite games did you find out why they call it the granite games brian oh it was your only it was your only assignment, buddy. That was my assignment? I mean, more or less, anything I want to know.

I view you as like my iPhone. I just say stuff to it, and you're supposed to come back with answers. I don't know why they call it the Granite Games, but it used to be called the Cloudy Town Throwdown. I did find that out. That's a good name. I asked Dave why they called it Granite granite games too and he didn't know either but i didn't expect him to know he's not as smart as you there's like uh is it just to be like a

hard name or just like it's in minnesota right minneapolis yeah do they export like a ton of granite like a bunch of granite quarries up there is it just supposed to be like you know like hard i was thinking that it was in reference to bodies like bodies that were could be double meaning. We still don't know. No one made a comment in the YouTube comments either. And Brian didn't find out. So on to the next thing.

So what did you find out, Brian? Let's talk about the women's competition. We'll just go big. Is the winner of the CrossFit Games, is she – let's start with the women. Because I think the women's competition was fascinating there. Is she in that group? No. By winner, I mean

anyone outside of Tia. Not only that, I don't think there was any top 10 women at the games here unless the two teenagers could sneak in there. Did both teenagers qualify? Yeah, second and third.

Holy cow. 17 years old. Really consistent performances. And Mallory O'Brien, I know everybody's been talking about her, just like she showed some pretty dominant skills and pretty solid poise for a – what was I doing at 17? Crazy poise for a – what was I doing at 17? Crazy poise. Her interview with Derek, the sideline commentator, was awesome.

Short but sweet, but she just sounded like, hey, I just go. Yeah, and then she gave a little headline-y, like, age is just a number, and then walked off. It was badass. Did you get a chance to talk to her, Brian? What do you think? It was badass. Did you get a chance to talk to her, Brian? What do you think?

No, I really try not to talk to the athletes during the competition unless I have a previous relationship with them and they make eye contact with me as they're leaving the competition floor or something. I did talk to her coach very briefly, but for the most part, she was getting a lot of attention and I didn't want to bother them any more than needed to be done. So it's like accessing my Gmail account on my iPhone. It's two-step authentication security. Not only do you have to know them, but they have to make eye contact with you. People, athletes, if any of you athletes are listening to this, please make eye contact with Brian. And come over and we have Facebook. Yeah. And that way it can be like, Hey Brian,

that athlete texts me and said they made eye contact with you. So tell us, Brian, tell us about the women's competition. We got, uh, I don't, I don't even recognize this, this woman's name who won Ariel Lowen.

Strong final day. She closed hard. Yeah. Uh, first, first, fourth on the last day, Ariel Lowen used to be Ariel Armstrong.

She used to compete in the South or Southwest Regional, trained in Texas and CrossFit Midland, then at Roy Gamboa's gym in Abilene, Texas. She made regionals several times, didn't compete much the last couple of years. She's a mother now, and she actually didn't really have, I mean, she wasn't even sure if she was going to do semifinals. She said in one of her interviews she only did it to get the little name placard

to decorate either her new house or her new gym. So this was just as much a surprise for her as it was for all of us. And she kicked ass. I'm looking for sure. She did great. It was actually the second event on Saturday where I started messaging the guys from Morning Chalk when I said, hey, someone needs to

write a story about this girl because she's actually got a chance to make it. And obviously she did a lot more than that. And she's a mom. Yeah. How new of a mom? Not sure. Great question.

And you must be ecstatic, Brian, because you're a Roy Gamboa fan and you said you used to train with her. Yeah, and so that's an example of an athlete who I did talk to during the competition this weekend because Roy and I have had some conversations in the past. We both played college sports in the same conference. He did really well on this handstand push-up workout, and I just happened to kind of cross paths with him afterwards. I said, I didn't know you were going to crush that workout.

He goes, neither did I. Okay. And he made it. He qualified, right? Yeah, he finished fourth. I think I actually projected him fourth, and he finished fourth. So he's making me look good and himself good. Well done.

Do you think Alessandro Pacelli will beat Mallory O'Brien at the games? No. What is Mallory O'Brien's weakness? In experience, I think that there was one event in the weekend in particular here that I thought was really good for her, which was the one she took 12th in. She got a bunch of no reps on the wall ball. It was a heavy wall ball to a tall target, 20 pounds to 10 feet. You rarely see that in the female division.

I actually like that the Granite Games had the 10-foot target for the girls. This was just an added challenge. But she was getting a bunch of no reps. And at the Games, the judging standard is high. There was some conversations about the judging at the Granite Games this weekend being a little lenient. And so I think that that's a good learning experience for her. Emma Carey had some similar stuff like that. Not everything is always going to go your way.

When you're that good, that young, you're always winning. But as any professional athlete in any sport knows, at some point, you're going to run up against other people who always win, and then someone's got to lose. So hopefully they can both walk away learning from some of those frustrations because it's bound to happen at the games again at some point. So Emma Carey finished with 560 points in third place, and Mallory O'Brien with 604. It was a lot closer than that, actually, between the two of them, though. On the last event, Emma Carey was in the lead going into the dumbbell lunges, and she took a risk.

I mean, they'd already both basically clinched a game spot at that point, so she took a risk and went for the event win, ended up finishing 17th, by far her worst finish there. She could have played that safe, finished like 5th or 6th sixth and she would have been right up there around the 600 point mark also okay and i did see that i did see i actually saw that she went for two 10 yard lunges without taking a break and she failed that second section a couple times she dropped a dumbbell on her head she ended up not even finishing the workout where like i said she could have easily have easily had, you know, she probably, she still would have been third, but she would have been very, very close to the top two.

And when you talked to her, what did she say, Brian, when you went up to her afterwards to talk to her about what'd she say? I did not talk to her. Good thing you went to the granite game. Hobart, when you text her afterwards, what did she say? She said, could Savan snatch 200 pounds when he was 17? That's what she asked. No, I had a dream once where I snatched 165. I had a dream. Dude, that was incredible to watch.

The strength numbers are devastating to your ego. If you started CrossFit like 10 years ago and you were in your 20s and you were a male who had an ego that was probably too inflated and then you watch a 17-year-old snatch a weight that you couldn't hit for years into your CrossFit career. It's absolutely crippling but amazing too. Do we know the backstory on these girls? How are they so good? Are their parents affiliate owners? Like what's going on here? I don't know. I don't know, but they are, they are that good. And that's why I'm really happy that I went this weekend because you can see the leaderboards, you can see the performances,

but until you see them do it and you see their facial expressions, you see their bodies, you see the way they move and the way they handle adversity and challenges. It's a totally different thing. So they're the real deal, but I don't know how. Christy Aramo is, I'm looking here, she's 5'2", 132 pounds. Check Carolyn Connors' stats. Carolyn Connors? She got fifth.

Okay. Carolyn Connors, oh, 5'1", 133. And then you look at Mallory O'Brien, and she's just an inch taller than Christy, and she's 145 pounds. And she looked like, I mean, she still looked lean, but she looks like she's carrying 10 more pounds of muscle on her, 10 more pounds of horsepower. A lot of people were saying that Christy got short end of the stick on programming here

and there's not great programming because of maybe her size. I don't think it has anything to do with size. I do think that if you're just looking with no other information, there is an absence of a long test in this competition. And obviously we know that Christy, that's the workout that she's probably going to do best on. And she didn't have that. If there was a long test here, she would probably make the games.

But the programming actually ended up, I think, being okay because it was brutally hot there. And if there was a 25-minute workout, that would have been pretty rough. There were already enough athletes suffering on the floor. Two things, James, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. I don't think they should ever stop an event because of heat. I could give a rat's ass, make them go. That's just part of it.

Constantly vary functional movements, execute a high intensity, and the modalities and terrains and temperatures should all be varied and you should you should the you know like it was freezing one time and in madison do you remember that i mean it was freezing that was the obstacle course right yeah freezing i mean i was shaking out there holding the camera and i had like three jackets on. And then the other thing is, James, I'd like your thought on, I'm hearing that the Granite Games programming was bad, that it just wasn't good. And Brian didn't say it was bad, but he was questioning it last week. I don't, it wasn't bad. Um, I don't think it was complete there. I mean, every test was under 10 minutes. You got a lot of movement, but you got a fair amount of movement variety in it. And I was actually doing a lot of thinking about this before I jumped on. Cause one of the things I was thinking about is like, well, do you still get the fittest person throughout the weekend? And I still think you do. I still think like the fittest athletes through the weekend. What I'm

really curious to see is like, how do these, these you know and maybe what they're doing in training like what is the lesson they learned in training and what do they bring to the games because even if you already look at obviously i'm biased but if you looked at um the online semi-final workouts that crossfit just released just the variety of rep scheme and the the disparity between times in some of those workouts like they did Friendly Fran, they're doing the workout Gretel, which are going to be sub 10 minute workouts. And there's a workout on there has a 2k row and a 1k row. And there's a workout on there 60 muscle ups, like just the amount of volume that changes, I think, you know, those represent a much more complete

test. So I don't want to knock the granite games just because putting an event like that together is a pain i'm sure especially after this year but i i did look at it and i was like oh it's interesting that you know every event except for one is under 10 minutes brian did say it was notorious for having a being a strength um even before it was a semi-final it was notorious for being a strength and maybe they were just trying to a strength competition by with a strength bias so maybe they're just trying to stay true to themselves and i kind of respect that well i'm really glad that james brought up the the virtual programming here since we're doing we're talking we're going to talk about the

virtual competitions coming up anyway the disparity between the granite games programming and the virtual competitions to me is alarming, and it's alarming in this sense. Every Granite Games workout aside from the one rep max lift was between the 5 and 12 or 13 minute time domain. And the online programming for CrossFit has six events, and there's only one workout in that time domain. Two workouts will be sub-5 minutes, and three workouts will be over 20 minutes. There's a 25, 25, and 30 minute time domain. Two workouts will be sub-5 minutes, and three workouts will be over 20 minutes. There's a 25, 25, and 30-minute time cap. Last year at Stage 1 of the CrossFit Games, when they programmed seven workouts,

they also only had one workout in the 5- to 17-minute time domain. And I don't know why CrossFit is only programming one workout of either competitions in the sweet spot for time domain. So while I think at the same time the Granite Games missed on variety, I'm very confused. I do like the programming at both competitions, but I would agree with James that both are incomplete in that regard. Wait, so I missed why is the online? What concerns you about the online? Because there's nothing in the middle there? There's one thing in the middle, but it's just it's a snatch letter. That's a 10 minute AMRAP.

Well, I was actually talking to malia awesome malia earlier and he did that dumbbell one and he said he finished that in 15 minutes and thinks he thinks pete the fastest will be in the 13s why is there a 25 minute time cap then i don't know well that's interesting you gave everybody a shot even that 13 minute workout someone told me today i haven't verified, that the slowest time was seven minutes. Which one? At the Granite Games? Yeah, the 13-minute one. No, no. I think at the 13-minute workout, no one was under 10 minutes.

And I will say the guys who programmed the events there told me that the long test, quote-unquote long test that they were programming was the back-to-back workout where the athletes were on the floor for 21 minutes. And that did take a big toll on the athletes. Doing that workout that took 10 to 13 minutes, some of them got time kept, two minute turnaround, and then doing another six minute workout was, I mean. Yeah. Why isn't that? So it's a little unfair that we're saying there was only a 13 minute workout. Why can't we call that a 19-minute workout with a two-minute rest? I think it felt that way for the athletes. It looked that way to me. It looked like it was the most beat-down workout

of the weekend or workouts of the weekend. I think it's because you're still scoring that event separately. If you didn't score it, I think because that second event is still a sub-five-minute workout. Yeah, and I wonder if there were people there who were gaming that or if everyone games that sort of the way we saw pat barber do with the games that one year yeah i remember that

well it's actually incredible uh the the programmer there he told me he said i don't i don't want anyone winning both of these workouts ariel lohan won both the workouts tim paulson got third and first on those two workouts and basically basically right there, they both secured games tickets. Wow. Tim Paulson had that comeback. Tim Paulson. I was so impressed with Tim Paulson this weekend because on the workout that had the ring muscle-ups, it was very windy on the competition floor.

And the torque tank was, you couldn't really separate anything on the torque tank. So it was about how fast you could get there. And on the second round of muscle-ups, he got a no rep on his last muscle-up. And it was an iffy call. I didn't have a problem with the call. The problem was after he got off the rings, he couldn't get him to stop swinging. He jumped up three times and missed before he finally got up there. That instance, whatever happened in that scenario, ended up costing him about 40 points in the competition. So he would have been right up there threatening Saxon for the win of the competition. And he had to deal with that mentally because he knew it.

I actually talked to him later that night and he was like, don't get me started. And he was going on and on. And I'm like, you're a veteran. You've been around. You know that stuff can happen to everyone. And he came back and had an excellent last day. So he got over it, moved on, and did what he needed to do. So they changed the timing of the event or you're worried about the athletes because of heat, because of, I guess, their health.

But wind, since it doesn't affect their health, it can affect the competition when you have rings dangling, and it's a go, no matter how windy it is. The 40 points he lost in that event had nothing to do with his fitness capacity. He could have jumped up and done 10 more muscle-ups. He was totally fine. It was just an unfortunate circumstance. And the no rep wasn't – I didn't have a problem with the no rep call. Sometimes you get a no rep. But just the way that that unfolded, it cost him a lot.

Let's go back to the heat, Hobart. What do you think about that? Are you concerned about – as a spectator, can you take off your CrossFit training hat and your CrossFit Games athlete hat? Or no? What do they do in other sports? What other sports do they worry about the heat take heat breaks the recently started rain breaks they recently started doing in professional soccer they used to be uh you know 45 minutes any way you look at it but in the last couple years they've started implementing a water break even at the top level as professional olympics i mean a world cup

um where they just take a break like halfway through each half and let the athletes get some water and shade or whatever. Now, is there rationale because they want to have like a trickle down to, you know, lower, less responsible leagues or younger athletes? Or is it like, is that what their rationale is for it? I just think overall, you know, like David Eberhardt says, the security junkie syndrome is taking over and people are getting more and more concerned about more and more things. I mean, you can no longer have two-a-day football practices in California. And a lot of other states are doing that too. Wow. And you know water has no effect on heat stroke. That is a complete, that's been proven wrong a thousand times. That's completely misguided. Do you think maybe if people had better diets, they'd be more prepared to train in the heat?

I don't know. These guys all have pretty good diets, right? Yeah, and also I think it's like at some point you're going to have somebody out there who's going to literally crush themselves to win. A competitor is going to make the choice to roll that dice. Maybe that's their safety

concern. There was one girl that I think passed out three times this weekend, but she still kept competing. She ended up finishing 10th. Oh, who's that? Madison McElhaney. She wrote about it on Instagram. Did she roll across the finish line one time? A lot of people rolled across the finish line.

I don't know. I saw someone actually do a somersault. the finish line. I don't know. I saw someone actually do a somersault and the last time I'd seen a somersault at the CrossFit Games was when Valerie Vobril that was like in 2009 she basically passed out and fell forward and then

caught herself and do a somersault and rolled across the finish line. And then they had to carry her off the field. That was the end of the games for her. I remember that. I mean she looked like death. I walked up to her and I was like oh my god this girl looks in bad shape do you remember that year also that you had to run in into that sort of that stadium they had made and there was a little opening and the rudders had to run into it down onto the court and down from the hill it was and and one girl ran underneath the bleachers and ran

and just hit her head on a bar like she she missed the opening, even though it was like a 20-foot wide opening. That's how tired they were. That's terrible. That's terrible. So what do you think? I think I like the idea of having athletes manage the heat until someone gets really hurt by it. Then I'd be like, ah, you're right. That was a bad idea.

Or you have – it happens multiple times. That's honest. No one had to withdraw this weekend due to the heat. There were a lot of people that had to be either helped off the floor or were unable to finish a rep scheme or something because of it, but there was no withdrawals due to heat. And I will say— They did make a last-minute decision to move the Saturday competition back five hours so

that they'd be competing into the night where it'd be cooler. And it seemed like it still went off pretty well. That's a significant change, and it seemed like it switched without too much fuss. Well, since they didn't have any community divisions, they had a lot of freedom to do that. Gotcha. Do you remember, Hobart, also in Madison, there would be times when the field would be— I think it was Madison. I don't remember if it was Madison or Carson, but the field would be so hot,

but there would be sections of it where there was shade because the sun was going down and it was like a 20 degree difference. So the athletes who were in those lanes were just like, it was a totally different experience. Well, yeah. Yeah. And I remember too, when we, we demoed in 2019, I worked on a demo team and they were rogue. I think Katie Henninger was out there testing the temperature of the field. And it was like clearly different in different spots. And then same thing in 2014 when we did the regionals outside at Reebok and everyone was burning their hands on the handstand walk. I don't know. Part of me think that that is just stuff you have to be able to manage as an athlete and then still be able to win if you want to get there.

But I don't know. I don't want to get like click baited and people like James Hobart, no one will care, but doesn't care about athletes health. That's not the case. No, we have a guy who makes sub clips for us. That's exactly what he would do. Perfect. I mean, you can train for it After the first year at Madison when people realized, oh, it can be hot in Wisconsin in August, then the athletes started coming earlier and acclimating to the weather or whatever it was that year. And Mallory O'Brien said in one of her interviews, she never trains in air conditioning. No matter what, she always trains in either the doors closed or doors open the hottest so that she's ready for something like that. That's savage and and i don't know much about him but someone was telling show sent me this article about wim hof the the breathing ice guy and he basically says he's adapted to cold and

that you can adapt to cold just like you could fat adapt to if you only eat protein and fats and you could adapt you know your muscles adapt if you keep lifting heavy stuff. So you would think that that would just be part of it. But I think there's also a top line strategy piece of it where it's like, whoa, it's, it's a hundred degrees out. And I know that I, I'm, you know, I wouldn't win this workout in perfect weather. So why would I go out and destroy myself for this when there's seven other events left? You know? And it's, I remember when, again,

when Austin did, they did a Murph at their games that year, he gave himself like destroyed his arms. He couldn't straighten out his arms the rest of the weekend, you know, destroyed his arms to take fourth in that event. And it's like, he couldn't climb the pegboard at the end of the weekend or he could, but it was just really hard for him. So I think that's part of it too,

but I don't want a new one to get hurt. That's my little like sitting on the fence. No, but, but the veteran, they should have to manage it. The veterans managed it really well. I watched Alessandra Pacelli in the running workout.

She was, must've been running a 10 or 11 minute mile pace, but she passed and she was in last place after round one, but she passed almost everyone by the last round. And Tim Paulson did the same thing on a couple of workouts. Yes. That, that was the thruster one yeah yeah there were a lot of

athletes that came out blazing fast and couldn't hold on well the contrary to that is uh is taylor self taylor self came out really hot in that workout he died faded and ended up that that result cost him a spot to the games he would have made the games if he'd just just gone 80 throughout that entire workout that's all he needed to do he'd be at the games. He would have made the games if he had just gone 80% throughout that entire workout. That's all he needed to do to be at the games instead of Colton Burns. That's Jason Hopper's weekly or once every two weeks training buddy, right? I'm looking here. He took 19th

in that event. He took 7th place overall. Yeah, he did great. Oh, wow. Yeah. He was six points away from 5th place. He actually admitted that he mentally never recovered from that because he knew he screwed that event up so bad. What is

last place? There's 30 people. Okay, so he took 19th. Yeah, that's pretty bad. Does 19th place even get any points? It gets points. The thing is, you can take a 19th place and still make the games. Colt Mertens took 18th and 20th on two workouts, but he actually won two workouts to offset those. Taylor didn't have a home run top three finish to offset that poor performance.

Well, he did have top three. He was third in the last workout, actually. Let's talk about Colton Mertens. I actually thought it was quite enjoyable. They really drug out the announcement this year. Like he said, the fifth place person going to the CrossFit Games, and then the guy just started talking silly for like a minute, which was kind of cool.

Not everyone liked that. I thought it was great. I thought it was great. I probably liked it because other people didn't like it. Who is better? Is Colton Mertens better? Better than who? Just you being there this week? nick matthew the guy he beat by three points clearly beat him he's clearly he's better man that's he won that he's better

a competitor's uh perspective and now how about an analyst perspective it's better well it's you know when you when it depends what you want to see at the games. Do you want a guy at the games who's going to get 15th to 30th in every workout or do you want a guy who's got top 5 potential in some workouts and bottom 10 potential in other workouts? And that's Colton? Yeah, but generally speaking, the guy who gets top 5

in a couple workouts and bottom 10 in other workouts is going to have a better finish come the end of the weekend. And you're saying Colton is the guy who can do that? Oh, 100%. Yeah, he can win events at the game. He's got a very specific skill set. He's amazing at. Do you think he's going to have strength? I mean, that was the other thing. There was no workout at the grand, correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, it was the 185 hang squat clean, which is should have been 225. Which is heavy. Yeah the 185 hang squat clean, which is heavy. Tim Paulson would have loved that. That's the thing.

He's got that game's heavy barbell capacity. Because that thruster run workout, he smashed the pants off of that thing. He called the shot. He said, I won't do well on the snatch, but just wait for that thrust to work. I'm going to burn it down. And he did. Oh my God.

He's five, four. That's generous. One hundred and eighty-five pounds. Wasn't like, isn't Frazier, Frazier's like five foot four, five foot three,

but he's like, I think it was on your podcast. I think it was on your podcast. I think it was on your podcast. He said he walked around at 200 pounds for the games. Like that's insane. I think he claims he's 5'7". I think he claims 5'7". There's no way he's 5'7".

I've met him at least once. He told me 5'6". I believe 5'6". All right. Let's split the difference. Call it 5'5". Wow. five six all right let's let's split the difference call it five five wow and colton looked i mean he looked thick as shit and the way he had those long shorts on i mean he didn't even look like he had legs you know that look like short people shouldn't be wearing

short people should be wearing no shorts shouldn't go past your knees if you want to look like a normal person you need to be six foot to wear shorts that go past your knees. But ultimately, I'm with James here. I mean, the competition directors asked me at the end of the week, did the right guys make the games? And I said, I think at least nine of the ten individual athletes that made the games are the right ones. And I don't have a problem with any of the ten that made it. I'm really happy for all of them. I kind of know the stories behind each one of them.

I think that they all are worthy to be at the games. I don't think that any of them are going to embarrass themselves or the Granite Games programming by what they're able to do there. Well said. Any of these athletes' top five games material? No.

Not even Saxon? Possibly Chandler Smith. He didn't look like he was in top form this weekend. So I think he recognizes that he's got to clean some stuff up to have that chance. Saxon Pancic. Okay, the women, no. I think Mal, Rhea O'Brien, and Emma Carey can threaten top 10. And I think Chandler Smith and Saxon Pancic can threaten top 5.

I want to talk to you about Chandler Smith for a second. I was watching his – one of those workouts, dumbbells were going overhead. And his movement pattern was so sloppy. And I also know something about Mallory's. Hers wasn't – by sloppy, I mean the barbells weren't going up in a straight – the dumbbells were not going up in a straight line. I thought, wow, he's really using a lot of extra energy by not choosing a straight path. And then with Mallory O'Brien, I noticed she was pushing out into a V instead of directly overhead. I mean it didn't seem to bother her, but I was thinking, wow, neither of them look like they're doing that efficiently.

James, I'm curious what you think about this, because he's talking about the dumbbell thruster workout for Chandler, where it did look a little bit uncomfortable, but then the last workout of the weekend with the double dumbbell overhead walking lunge, he looked like the best position in the entire field. Yeah. You know, what was the standard what did they brief for the standard on the dumbbell workout the thruster they brief it had to be oh yeah yes

the thruster workout they brief it had to be like hand over body or was just arm locked out must i mean i wasn't at the briefing for that but it must have been arm locked out because hand over body was was not being executed by all the athletes. And I mean, not for nothing, like regardless of, you know, this is a shorter range of motion. If you go out to the side.

Yeah. That's why they have the harder, right? Theoretically harder. Yes. And no, I mean, I think for the speed at which they're doing the reps and given like the,

you know, the close margins of performance in the field. And because it was a low, ultimately, I mean, it's a lower rep workout. I don't necessarily think it was harder because I think it allows them to cycle and finish reps faster. Whereas if they're taking that extra second to bring that arm all the way overhead, yeah, you get the support of the arm, but there's just extra range of motion that you don't want to, you know, if you could go four inches out to the side, that's extra range of motion. You don't want to have to deal with. So it could even be strategic on Mallory's part.

She could be smart, smarter than the rest. Yeah. Or a better coach. She ripped those thrusters. Yeah. I mean, that's the kind of stuff you can start to play around with. You know, you can, you want to, you know, no one wants to talk about this probably, but you want to ride that, that line of standard as close to it as possible because the margin of difference between some of these points is like five seconds is five places. So why not?

Is Saxon still getting better? Will he ever be Scott? I mean, I know the competition is getting better, but Scott is so damn impressive. I was impressed with Saxon overall on the weekend. He didn't get a lot of attention because he wasn't winning any workouts. But then when I started thinking about it, I was like, well, he didn't win any workouts. And so then I was like, you know, he's very consistent. But if you're talking about you want to beat Scott Panchik at the games or you want to finish on the podium,

which is usually what you have to do to beat Scott Panchik at the games or you want to finish on the podium, which is usually what you have to do to beat Scott Panchik at the games, you have to be able to win some workouts. And this was against a relatively weak field compared to what the games field is going to be. His finishes are impressive. 3rd, 5th, 7th, 6th, 7th, 4th. Consistent. Has anyone ever won the games without winning an event?

No, no. I think we went over this before. Fraser was the closest to not doing it when he only won one event in 2016. But he did have seven second place finishes. Yeah, those top two spots are just like point windfalls. You know, I don't want to knock Chandler Smith because he could lift heavier weight poorly than I could perfectly on my best day. But, you know, and I think he's a really fantastic guy.

Actually, when I first time I met him, I was going through security in an airport and he somehow saw me and he ran up and called my name out through security, introduced himself. So it's like, um, that was the best I've ever seen him lift though. That three Oh five, like his movement is getting better. And I think he's somebody where it's like the more his movement improves, I think he's going to be so good. Cause there are sometimes he'll lift and I'm like,

you just squat clean 315 pounds and you only stood on one leg, man. He's just, sometimes his movement is not great, but that was the best I've ever seen him lift in that snatch. And I think that was a PR he hit that week, right? I think so too. I was impressed with his movement quality on the snatch. I think he's been working on it since Rogue last year. Yeah. I don't know. I want to say he gets in the top five at the games. I keep wanting to go to next week's events, but I want to share one more thing that I want to hear about from you guys.

So Colton Merton took fifth place. He's 23 years old. Fourth place was Gamboa. He's 34 years old. Tim Paulson took third place. He's 31 years old. Chandler Smith is 28. He took second place. He's 31 years old. Chandler Smith is 28. He took second place. And Saxon is 25. When I see an athlete at 28, I just think, oh, it's time to shit or get off the pot. Like, your window is really closing.

Like, when you hit 30, I'm thinking. You just listed two guys that are 31 and 34 who made it i know i know but how was how old's matt is he 31 30 i think he's i think he's 31 he's what five foot two 35 years old he's 31 yeah i don't know i feel like at 28 you got a little you have a couple more years how come there's no 18 yearyear-old men, 17-year-old men? And then on the women's side, it's like… The last week of competition, at the West Coast Classic, you'll have Dallin Pepper, James Sprague, and Tudor Magda, who are all between 18 and 20. And then Cole Gray-Shaber will be competing at the Atlas Games, who's also around 20. So these are some of the young guys that might be able to answer that question.

But it's a valid question because none of them are as good as Mallory, Emma, or Haley Adams at that age relative to the women's field. Oh, so Dallin pepper is 19 years old and he's six foot and he's 212 pounds. Yeah. And Cole gray shapers just as big. That must be so nice. I was talking to those guys at Atlas games last year and I was like, I can't believe how big you guys both like in my mind, I'm like, you guys are fricking massive.

It's crazy. When I was 19, I still wore a small t-shirt, I think. That's awesome. So Brian, I think you answered this question. I was going to say, can you say it's because the men's competition is more developed? But I think you already refuted that by saying, no, there just aren't men who are at the skill level and strength of Mallory and Emma. Just biology, though.

Men in general don't develop in a lot of ways as early as women do, and it's a potential explanation. Garrett Clark took 29th. He was the youngest guy at the Granite games at 22 years old he took 29th place it doesn't even look like he competed in he had a little problem with the final event he had a little problem with the heat in the last event okay um which is the the interesting thing is is then the next youngest is colton merton took fifth. And everyone else is older than them. Is he a farmer?

I heard that. Colton? Yeah. I'm not sure. Tell me about that. I think that might be right. I think someone said he's like a pig farmer or rancher or something like that. He's very soft-spoken, huh?

You know, in some ways, like that sort of like, you ways, when he made that comment about not laying on his back, sometimes I hear those interviews and it rubs me the wrong way. But I also kind of like how he just has that one track, like, I'm here to do one job. So I have a lot of respect for that, too. And he did it, too. He called his shot, which was really cool. I don't remember him being saying that but yeah because you know what i the reason why i don't like it is i feel like it's just like stealing off of miko yeah but i think he said he got it from his affiliate coach which i really i love i love when athletes uh reference a coach at an affiliate

level you know but why do you have to call it stealing off of mika why can't you say borrowing from a legend right i agree i agree i know it's it's just me you're totally right it's just me just being like so protective of the old guys that's it okay enough of last week you don't care about the africa competition oh yes sorry of course i. I was going to save that for last, the best for last. Let's talk about Africa. That's a continent, right? That's a continent, yes. There's not that much to say about it. The team there won every single competition, every single workout. And that wasn't that surprising because they basically did the same thing in the quarterfinals. And I'll be interested to see how they do at the games because they didn't have any real competition in their continent. Jason Smith made it again. He's 37 years old now, I think. He'll probably be the oldest man at the games. Last time he was at the games, he did pretty well.

See, if he can finish in the top half of the games for this year, I think that's incredibly impressive at 37 years old. Crazy impressive, especially when people like Hobart are already ducking out for masters, ducking out for mass immediately. You know, when I, when I got that email, I was like, all right, see you later. Give me my Metamucil. And then the girl that made it is Michelle Bazney or Baznet. I'm not a hundred percent on the pronunciation. She's 24. She had a pretty impressive weekend. She trains a lot in the U.S. I spoke to a couple people this weekend who trained with her

and competed against her at some off-season competitions, and they think she's got a lot of potential. So I think that the Africa representatives are pretty respectable, but they're not overall representative. The quality of the rest of the field is not up to par yet. Jason Smith dominated just like you said he would. Way better time domain spread too. You mean of the workouts?

Yeah. Yeah, 19. Where are you pulling that up so fast? I'm just looking at the leaderboard. Oh. The leaderboard actually is a better place to look than the time caps because like James said, you can have a 25-minute time cap and everyone's finishing in 13 to 18 minutes,

and then it can be pretty misleading. You just kind of look at the top half. It's like 20 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes. That's really cool. Yeah, I wonder what the time cap was for that first one, 3, 2, 1, go. Man, those are some really close scores for a long workout. You see that? You would think they'd be spread out way more than that.

From 25th place to first place is less than three minutes. to first place is less than three minutes. And the workout is, it's 19.38 for first place, and last place is 22.35. I wonder what that workout was. Can you see what that workout is, Matt, Brian? Which workout was it? The first 3-2-1 go from Pittison Cape Town.

It's because there was a 3,000-meter biker, 2,000-meter row, 1,000-meter ski, and all that was in between those were burpee box jump overs. So it's a long time on the ergs, and generally you're not going to get a ton of separation just on the machines. I like that workout. That's a great aerobic workout. I might program that at the gym.

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or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. This episode is brought to you by PC Optimum. If you like a curated playlist, why not try a curated grocery list? With Swap and Save, the new feature in the PC Optimum app, you'll get PC Optimum's best price for your grocery items. Simply add products to your shopping list in the

app and it'll show you similar items at a lower cost. Add coffee to your list, then swap it for one that's cheaper. Craving chips? The app will suggest some on sale. To get started, just open the app. It's as easy as that. See the PC Optimum app for details. God, you hate your clients. But if it's too hot, will you push all the classes to nighttime? Aerobic workouts, I put six up on the board every month and then they choose to do them when they want. Not everyone does them, but a lot of

people do them on the weekend or if they don't feel like getting under heavy barbell one day, they'll just go on the side and do them. And that event was indoors. It was in a warehouse. It actually looked pretty cool to me. Yeah, I watched some of that video.

It looked like it was indoors. And did Tian run that? I think Chris and Tian are the event organizers, yeah. Good job. That's awesome that there's a CrossFit sem-final in Africa even though it's poking fun at it it's really cool I mean I like it the community

there gets excited about it the athletes were posting on Instagram they were excited about it so you know there are people showing up and I think it's good to have the representation what was the attendance, the spectator attendance? I think it was relatively low just because of COVID regulations still. Brian, I'm seeing something weird here.

Did the men and women in Africa do different workouts? Not that I know of. No. The first workout I see, oh, it's of. No. The first workout I see... Oh, that's weird. Okay. The first workout I see on the... Men is 3-2-1-go,

and the first workout I see on women is Friday Night Lights. I don't see 3-2-1-go. You just got to scroll over on the waiter board. Right. Just getting schooled by the way you're allowed to text or take calls or whatever you want on this show someone recently made a comment on the matt josh and savon podcast that hey it'd be cool if you guys didn't text what in the middle of show i'm like fuck you this is our show text whatever the fuck we want do our instagram just having fun just sharing okay let's do it let's three next week are they all in person anything virtual they're all virtual they're all virtual next week

and therefore they all have the same program and and and did crossfit come up with that program? They did for both the individuals and the teams. And why did they do that? If it was virtual, why would CrossFit do it as opposed to these ones that are live and they let the host decide the programming? I think it's so that because,

you know, CrossFit is going to be the one that is going to, they're going to implement their review process for approving the workouts and the movement standards. And they have already built out a system that they know how to do that well. I think it would be more complicated for the event directors who don't necessarily have access to the plethora of judges who have experience reviewing open workouts, online qualifier workouts, etc. So it's probably the right choice. Do you know the workouts already? They were released on Friday.

Can you go through them? How many are there? Six. I'll let James know. He's got them there. I do have them up. The first workout is the Friendly Fran Repeat. Which is what? Three rounds for time, 21 thrusters,

115 pounds, 85 pounds for ladies, and then 21 chest-to-bar pull-ups. That was the first half of the games last year, right? First workout at the stage one of the games last year, yep. Stage one, yeah. So it's a repeat. So it's Fran with chest-to-bar pull-ups and a little heavier bar. Much heavier bar.

But the times are still really fast. What was the fastest time last year in that four minutes well fraser was like 40 seconds faster than the next person i don't have it right in front of you but it was incredible how fast he was and then uh everyone else was piling up around the four minute mark i think okay and the second workout oh man this one so this is one that awesome was told me he did today he said he finished this in 15 minutes. But I don't trust all of his single arm overhead squats. It's also the.com workout tomorrow, by the way.

Oh nice, so I will get a lot of data. Four time, 50 dumbbell shoulder to overheads. Two dumbbells, 50 pounds, 35 pounds. 50 dumbbell deadlifts. 50 GHD sit-ups. And then this one 100 single arm dumbbell overhead squats 50 GHD sit-ups

that's brutal which arm? is it 50 on each arm? I think you can switch however you want you can do them all in one arm wow and that's with the 50 pound also I would have to do them all in one arm James

I can do a 60 pound single arm overhead squat on my right arm and I can only do 25 pounds on my left. This is something I've actually, whenever this has showed up in competition, it's always annoyed me. I think they should have to do both arms. Why? Just test some more complete athlete. I guess in some sense it's like just get the work done, but I don't know. I think it's cool. I think it's cool that they do one arm.

You know why? Because they never do. Yeah. There's people like you, James, who are normally running the show who are so rigid and dogmatic in their programming. Like why test both of their arms? And now a guy with one arm can still compete. Well, how's he going to do the dumbbell shoulder overheads with two doubles right you're right not inclusive hashtag not inclusive okay workout number three all right this is the long one too brian has to

go through the next one all right this is actually one of my favorites 30 muscle-ups for time or excuse me four time 30 muscle-ups 30 meter dumbbell front rack lunge 300 double unders 20 muscle-ups 20 200 10 muscle-ups 10 meter dumbbell front rack lunge 100 double unders 50 pound dumbbell 25 minute time cap how long is that going to take, Brian? I don't know. I think it's going to take a lot longer for the women just because of the muscle-up volume. 60 muscle-ups is a lot of work. Do you think we're going to see a lot of people get capped on that? Look, the thing about the semifinal fields is the same as about the regional fields. And if you watch this week, if you watch all the events, there's a big difference, especially in the women's competition from Heat 1 to Heat 2 to Heat 3. But even on the men's side, it's very different. So a lot, no, but there definitely will be a third of the – 10% to 30% of the men's field and 30% to 50% of the women's field get capped.

Majority of the bottom half of the athletes get capped on that. Yeah. I, I think I even, I text you Brian and I said, I was looking at one of the heats. I don't remember if it was men or women and I'm like, man,

these, these don't look like games athletes. And you quickly corrected, corrected me. And you're like, they're not games athletes. I was like, Oh yeah.

And that's, and that's good that we need to have tests in the semifinals that are going to identify the games athletes. Right. Workout four, I think Hobart tapped. I bet somebody does that workout in under 15 minutes. Event three? Number three? Yeah.

I could see it. There's some freakishly good gymnastics athletes Bridges told me once he did 60 muscle ups for time in like I think 5 minutes or under 6 minutes confirm that for me

if you can do that in 6 minutes and you can do the double unders it's 600 total double unders so that's also probably about six minutes. So you're looking at the best people could do those two parts of the workout in 12 minutes. Then you've got a total of 60 meters of lunging. The 50s and 35s won't be so problematic for that. So it's going to be close.

All right. That was better math than what I did in my head. Let's say under 18 minutes I think is fair. Yeah. I was actually just talking with Josh today about muscle-ups because I was telling him, I was like, I can't believe hot. He was just basically saying he would never train to go back to the games because the volume and just the amount of work you have to put in, he thinks might kill him. But – I guess the man takes discounts now.

But, um, I guess, I guess the man takes discounts now. And then he also, I was telling him that Jason Hopper, I was like, I can't believe, I know the volume's crazy. Jason Hopper told us he does 80 muscle ups and some workouts when he works out. And he, and he says it usually is over an hour worth of training. Josh said, Oh, I used to do a hundred sometimes and I didn't spread them out over an hour i was like holy shit yeah we i remember some 100 muscle-up workouts 75 muscle-up workouts yeah that's a lot yeah i think my shoulder would just pull break out of the socket now i've seen you do your little strict muscle-ups i think you'd be all right yeah i'm a that's i'm just good for one or two i'm a two pump chump over you just loop the clip over and over again yes did some muscle-ups tonight in the living room

i mean i can't even do i can't i can't even do kipping muscle-ups i feel like something would i feel like my arm would come off i just stick to the strict probably better but we know when i look at workouts when i look at workouts like this it makes me think like so i look at this spread of workouts and because i always feel like there's kind of a story that gets told through the open and then through regionals and the games you don't really see like a you obviously have the snatch test but you don't see a heavy barbell net con so it's like i kind of look at this and i'm like wonder what you're going to see at the games i mean there's no no running you know in this a lot of time on the rower but it just really makes me curious to be like what

weirdness are you going to see at the games and we had those two what do you mean what do you mean what weirdness the programming or the athletes no no no i think the athletes i think the athletes would be great um the programming you know like you don't see anything where it's like a heavy barbell plus other movements you know you don see, you do have a little bit of sprint in there, but like Brian said, you have a lot of longer workouts. We're not running. You're spending a lot of time on the rower. So you're using your sniffer to say, I'm looking at this programming, knowing that Dave will make different programming or complementary programming at the games. Yeah, or sometimes, you know, it's like if you pay really close attention,

he'll sort of like evolve workouts as they move through like open to quarterfinals to semifinals. Like they'll just start off something really accessible and it'll become like just a more aggressive version of itself as it gets closer to the games. So I always look at i always look at these and i think huh i wonder what we'll see well that's that's in here this year we had wall walks then we had handstand push-ups strict and kipping and now we have handstand walking a total of 120 meters of handstand walking is quite a bit it's not as much as the teams have though and uh but that's one of the kind of interesting conversations about letting the semifinals program their own events because then sometimes you lose that evolution um but in this

case since they're programming this the weird thing is that crossfit's also programming the last chance qualifier and i don't know how how that's going to fit into the overall mix of the evolution of the of the season i wonder if they'll pull little pieces from all over the place. It'd be something totally new. So let's go, let's finish these last three workouts event four and, and, and the teams go virtually to Jesus.

What is she? Team workouts are basically just hard on HQ. The team workouts are, are just variations of these workouts. So I guess basically they're going to have to review the videos of top five from all of these events because I guess you don't have to report someone who has the sixth slowest time. You don't have to review their video, right?

The teams? I mean, I don't know. It's going to be a lot of work for CrossFit and the judging and review team in the upcoming week. They'll probably do the top ten. For the teams? For the teams, they'll only take five to advance, but they'll probably review a little bit beyond that. Then for the individuals, they still have to factor in the last chance qualifier. they're going to take they still have to factor in the last chance qualifier and some of the competitions are taking down to ninth because they have people who are unable to travel to their

intended semi-final and so they allowed it for an extra person so they have to review down to nine or ten or so for the individuals okay let's see workout number four what's workout number four complete as many reps as possible in 10 minutes of 10 snatches, one 35, 85, and you rest a minute, 10 more snatches, one 25,

one 85, rest a minute, 10 snatches, one 45 to 25, rest a minute, max rep snatches in remaining time, one 65 to 45. I can't wait to see the strongest athletes do this workout. I know. I'd actually like to see that in person that's actually pretty cool you know i can't wait to see like a

i don't know ronislaw lankovich paul trump that's the guy whoever that is is he gonna power snatch all these touch and go he can do three touch and go at 315 i think oh it's gonna be such a treat to watch him do these so he's ecstatic when he sees this oh oh yeah the programming is actually pretty good for him overall because he'll smash gretel he'll smash this those and he's actually not that bad going long if you don't have to run what rank what what region is he he's in the lowlands, along with Björgvin Karl Gudmundsson. I think you know who that is. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. Frederik Agidius and Adrian Mundviller, who apparently you don't know who that is. Who was the first fellow that you mentioned? Olenko? Oh, Olenko. The guy who's going to smash it. He was at the Games in 2019. Ronislaw Olenkovic. Sorry, Brian. going to smash it. He was at the Games in 2019. Ronislav Olenkovic.

Sorry, Brian. I cut you off. Say that again. He was at the Games in 2019. He placed 42nd. He's incredible with a heavy barbell and very, very good on power output workouts. He's also really good at legless rope climbs, apparently. I was informed of this.

And there's a workout that has 12 of those in it. And he's 32. I like his chances to make the games. Why don't I see anyone from Russia in here? Because they're in Asia. Ah, okay. Yeah, BKG is going to do great. Okay, workout number five?

Workout five. This is the one with the this is a long one yeah so four time this is a 30 minute time gap though i don't think it'll take that long 2 000 meter row 60 meter handstand walk five legless rope climbs thousand meter row 40 meter handstand walk four legless rope climbs and then 500 meter row 20 meterstand walk, four legless rope climbs, and then 500-meter row, 20-meter handstand walk, three legless rope climbs. So you need a cameraman to walk with – this isn't just like put your iPhone up against a book and film it. There's a lot of logistical stuff. They'll set it up in a 10-meter increment. You also need to have a

15 foot ceiling. True too. And you have to be able to see the monitor on the rower. That's a tricky one to film. Okay, final workout? It's a recent CrossFit benchmark. This is Gretelretel right that's the clean and jerk

yep 10 rounds for time three clean and jerks 135 95 three bar facing burpees seven minute time gap and they did this at granite games no they did at the mid-atlantic seven this is the one that jason hopper took eighth on and was telling us about oh yeah yeah yeah what did he tripped over the bar or something yeah lost count of his rounds you and then got all confused he was facing the wrong direction so it's just three three three three it doesn't it doesn't get it doesn't go up it doesn't go three six nine okay there's 10 rounds of three and three it's one of the recent new CrossFit benchmark workouts. No, they'll finish this in three minutes.

Oh, I thought you said it was 10 minutes as many as you can do. Okay. No, 10 rounds. 10 rounds. Okay. Though I like the idea of doing this as an AMRAP 10. That would be punishment. So severe.

Totally different approach. So we're going to know who the best person is at these three regionals when it's over this week whereas we don't know if uh if you know jason hopper is better than jason smith or if he's better than saxon and chick because they all did different workouts but at the end of these at the come monday morning we're going to know who the best person is coming out of these three um semiinals, the German throwdown, Brazil, and the lowlands. Yeah, yeah.

So we could theoretically do a cross-semifinal comparison for these three competitions and then also two competitions from the following weekend. And who is the best out of these three? Who do you think we're going to see? Is it BKG? Yeah. I think BKG is hands down the best male athlete competing this weekend. I don't think it's as obvious on the women's side.

So let's go to the women then. Oh, wow, and you got Annie in here. You're looking at the low-land throwdown right now, and I'll tell you guys this. For the women in the low-land throwdown, there are six women that deserve to be at the games 100% and only five of them can make it. Why do you say deserve to be at the games? I don't want, you know, if they deserve it, they don't make it. They obviously have to earn it. What I mean by that is that if those six women were just given invitations to the games, they would all finish inside the top 20 at the games.

They'd all finish in the top half of the field. Who's the sixth? And who are they? Who's the five that you see? He's going to try to show you up, Hobart. I know he's going to. I don't know. Laura Horvath, Emma McQuaid, Thuridor, Helga Dotter.

I mean, Annie. Who else on there? Did you say Solveig? Solveig? Has she competed as an individual at the games? No, I have her ranked eighth in this region. The other two are Gabriela Magala

and Karen Frejova. Okay. I don't know Gabriela. But there's a last chance qualifier. There's a last chance qualifier, and if they are as good as I think they are, then the one who misses out should be able to perform a last chance qualifier and get in. Does Gabriela train with the other guy you mentioned, the Polish guy?

No. Gabriella Magala is dating Laura Horvath's brother, Christoph Horvath, and they train with the program in Mallorca, Spain, along with Jacqueline Dahlstrom. Jacqueline's competing in the German competition, and she definitely also has potential to make the games. What did you call it? What are they doing?

They're doing the, what the training program they called is called the program. Whose is that? It's John Singleton or John Singleton. I think is a, that's the film director, single Terry, John Singleton.

I apologize if he's listening to this. He's a good guy. He's been programming for a long time. He's got a lot of athletes there. There are other athletes that are also competing in the semifinals that are down there. Adrian Munville has been down there training with them a bit, I think. And they'll have a competition environment even though it's virtual. That's cool.

Is that an unfair advantage, do you think? They won't be the only ones who are doing that um i'm sure that bkg annie and frederick will get together and maybe even have there's another young icelandic guy that's competing you know uh if crossfit doesn't prohibit it then i don't i don't know i don't know you know at the at the stage one of the, they said you could be in the same location, but you can't do it at the same time. So maybe they'll implement that same rule. I like that. Oh, shit.

That's tough. Oh, I recognize this dude. This dude is a good dude. This guy's been around forever. Yeah, he was with this guy from the program, this head coach he was remember the guy who used to be sarah sigman's daughter he was like a drill sergeant he was crazy remember that guy yeah and i think he i think maybe even got banned from the games did he get banned from the games i don't i don't know i don't know if he got there i just remember in that video he was being um

let's call it pretty strict. And this guy used to roll with him. But this guy was a totally different personality. Brian's like a real serious commentator. I'm more like TMZ. So when I bring this shit up, Brian gets all fucking sweaty-palmed and shit. I identify with it, though. With getting all sweaty-palmed? No.

Yeah. Yeah, this guy's good and and he was god i wish i could remember his name too but you gotta you just gotta realize the women in europe are very good because we were only talking about one side and on the other side you still have kristin holta katrin david's daughter camilla solomons and hellman sam briggs jack and dalstrom who i mentioned and then some up-and-coming athletes that are very good, and Emma Tall, Matilda Garns, Sona Keterskova, Amelia Lundberg, Hannah Carlson, Amelia Lepinen, most of whom have some game experience from 2019, and a lot of whom have competed at a lot of sanctional events and done top 10 performances or done pretty well.

And they're all like 22 to 28 years old with a lot of training under their belt in some good training environments. European women are no joke, man. They're very, very good. It's going to be pretty tight, I think. If this was a live event, would this be the best women's division to see? Well, there would be two and they would be extremely entertaining, both of them, yes. No, but i mean the lowlands throwdown oh i mean well those top six are very good behind them there's taylor howe who had a really good quarterfinals performance so she was up towards the top five but there's a little bit of a drop off after that um that girl solvid sigurd daughter who you said sigurd daughter uh she's a couple people have

reached out to me and said the programming is very good for her and looked for her to finish inside the top 10 last chance qualifier. But I do think that one's a little bit top heavy. Those six girls are very, very good. So you think Annie's going to make it? That would be really impressive. Well, I mean, I have a friend who's very good friends with him and he said you know she's by quarterfinal she was way ahead of where they

thought she could be and would be and she yeah i think she's gonna make it so josh just texts me back you'll never believe his 50 muscle up time four minutes lower no way did somebody how many 16 two minutes and 16 seconds what year okay ask him what year that was why that's crazy should i say show me the footage what year josh i put it on the same text thread that Matt's on too, hoping that Matt would get all puffy chested and be like, I did in 205 or some shit. That's crazy. So, yeah.

So is this Annie's first big – this is Annie's first time back to the show after having a kid, right? Yep. She wasn't in the games last year no he did i said what year and josh just put it ha ha ha i don't even know why that's funny see but that's that's like you just you forget that like just how some of the things that these top athletes can do are just like outside of your realm of understanding. Like 50 muscle-ups in under three minutes is obnoxious.

Oh, he's fucking with me. He just said, I have no idea what 50 muscle-up time is. Oh, Jesus. But he says, but it isn't close to 216. God, I'm a sucker. Sorry, guys, for all you people listening. Damn it. Hobart, you knew, huh?

I think he said around four minutes because we were doing a workout once. And I think we did. We tested 50 muscles for time. And I think his was like around four or five minutes. It was still a time that was like astronomically insanely fast. Okay. Anything else you want to say about the the this competition ryan anything that's going to be like is is bullets is the winner gonna is is the second place finisher the crossfit game is going to be one of these women potentially i think caris anders is the second uh is like the

next one to beat after tio right now but but I wouldn't be surprised if five to seven top ten finishers at the Games are Europeans. I mean, there's some good American women's too. It's going to be a tough competition for both men and women at the Games this year. Outside of Tia, it's going to be a pretty good battle. Laura Horvath's been impressive so far this year. I mean, from what I can see, she's really only got one weakness. Kristen's been really good.

Kristen Holt has been very good. What's her weakness? What's Laura's weakness? Deficit, strict handstand push-ups, or parallel handstand push-ups. Do you think she's fixed those since last year? I'm assuming you saw something last year. No, it's been a problem for a long time. There's no handstand push-ups in this test here,

and the ones that were in the quarterfinals were low enough volume and just regular on the floor that it didn't matter. She crushed that workout. But at the games, even if you have that, it's only one workout. I think she's got a chance to make a big comeback this year and finish top five again. What's going on with travel? Someone sent me some link to some government, U.S. government site.

I don't know if it was CDC or not. Basically, it looks like no one from Australia can even come over or Europe. Parts of South America, South Africa. Yeah. There's a lot of travel restrictions into the U S right now. And I didn't see a date when they were lifting those travel restrictions. I'll tell you something interesting from this past weekend though. When we,

when we first got up there, everyone at the hotel was wearing masks. And then by the time we left, no one was wearing masks and it was only like four days. Things are changing quickly. That is, that's good to hear that makes me happy i know that would be devastating if some of these athletes could make it over i mean it seems like every year someone can't come right well but because it was roman karenikov in the last couple years, right? Yeah, but that's totally different circumstances.

Right. And this would be basically half the field, quarter of the field. And a critical component of the field. By that you mean... Podium contenders, top contenders, event winners. And have you heard, is there a game plan? Rosa seems confident that he'll be able to get the athletes here. Huh. Even if the restrictions are in place?

I don't know enough about it to say anything else. You don't know enough or you're not going to say anything else? I haven't pursued anything else because, I mean, I'm not going to be able to make it. Are you withholding information? No. Okay. Obar, do you know anything? No, I don't know anything.

Do you work for CrossFit, Brian? They contract me for the games, yeah. Okay. Did you see my two posts about you today? I did. Really nice of me, right? That was very nice of you, yes. Or it might be bad for you.

You don't want to ask about the South American? We were saving that for last also. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's definitely talk about that. Where do we go here? What's that one called the brazil yeah the brazil crossfit championship yes brian let's hear about it brazil only gets two spots at the games uh and basically you're gonna have and when you say brazil you mean south you mean south america yeah the brazil crossfit championships which is representing the south american continent gets two game spots for men, women, and teams.

And on both the men's and the women's side, I think that the only people who have a chance to make it are Brazilians and Argentinians. And they have obviously a tremendous rivalry in football or soccer. And I think that one's developing in the CrossFit space as well. So there's two Argentinian girls, Melina Rodriguez and Sasha Nieves. And then probably Larissa Cunha is the best chance from Brazil, but there's also a couple others,

Victoria Campos, Gabriela Moratti, Thais Nunez. And only two of them can go. I think it's going to be... Again, I really, really wish we could see them compete in person because I think it'd be a lot of fun to see some of those athletes there. But whichever ones come to the games will be good representatives from South America.

They're all good athletes. And the men's side has something really similar. The Argentinian guys are Agustin Raquelme and Nicolas Bedarte. Those are probably the top two. And the top Brazilians are Guillermo Mejeros, who's another pretty young guy. He was a teenage athlete at the Games. I think he snatched like 285 or 295 as teenage athlete at the Games. He's very strong.

He's so strong. And Aaron Primo and Guillermo Dominguez. So the top five are probably Brazilian and Argentinian on both sides. But I kind of hope that like one Argentinian male and one Argentinian female and one Brazilian of each also gets in so that we get a little bit of mixed representation. Where are the... Sorry, James, go ahead.

Do you think it hurts them that they're doing virtual competitions and then have to go perform at the games in person? No, all of these athletes that i've mentioned have gone to live competitions like wadapalooza or the brazil crossfit sanctional events or the one that was you know so they've done some some competitions in like live settings against international fields of athletes um i think it's just you know it is what it is this year hopefully it doesn't happen again next year because it's it's just more fun to see them compete live against each other.

I think it's more fun for them too. Same question to you, James. What do you think? What do you think, James? For a lot of these athletes, I don't think it really matters. For a lot of the returning athletes. I think if anybody who's new and didn't, anybody who's making it to the game for the first time and didn't compete in a live event by getting there, I think it'll be harder for them.

There's a good example in Europe. There's a couple of guys. One of them did compete at the games in 2019. He was Sweden's national champion, but the top two quarter finalists out of the European regional are Reggie Fossa from the United Kingdom and Simon Mantilla from Sweden. Reggie Fossa has never competed at the Games before. He's done strength and depth and stuff like that. But if those guys make it through, that could be an athlete that's kind of of the ilk that James is talking about. I just think it's hard.

I think the Games is such a different beast, and I just think managing all of the Games is more than just like go workout, do well in a workout. It's just managing all of the elements that go into just getting through that weekend. The timing, not being on your own schedule, the weird eating, time change, weather, other people who are, you know, you're actually finally competing side by side with people who are in some cases much better than you. I think it's really hard. Sleeping in a different place. Judging. Yeah, having the highest caliber of judging.

All of those things. You're giving all the reasons why it might be harder. Let's talk about the athletes who have been to the games who have issues with the fact that there's online qualifiers, that they're like, hey, man, we need a live event. Does that really matter, or are those just professional complainers? I think they're just professional complainers. Honestly, I think if you're an athlete, part of being an athlete is you want to –

everyone always says, I do it for myself. And it's true, I think, to some extent. But you want to perform and compete in front of other people, and I think it's definitely like a – it's, it's a bummer to miss that. And there is something a little bit extra electric. There is an energy in a stadium or a crowd that, that you don't quite get in that, you know, that's almost like a, not esoteric, but it's like a sterile environment of just like a judge and you and a camera.

It's just not, it's not the same it definitely is more fun more energizing pumps you up more to have that crowd look for the most part and i don't knock the athletes for that either i think that if you train so hard during the year i think you should have a healthy healthy desire to show what you did i mean mean, like you practiced all year. Fuck yeah, I'd let a crowd see it. I think that's a good mentality. You should want to go show off. That's healthy. Sorry, Brian. Go ahead. Historically,

the athletes that do well at the games also do well online. And there's a rare exception of someone like Brent Fikowski who does much better historically just look at his results in live competition compared to online competition. But, you know, he's not competing this weekend. It's the next weekend.

But it would be, you know, a better games field if he's at it. But at the same time, it's like these workouts are not unfair workouts. You should be able to perform these workouts at a top five level and advance. And I think he'll be able to do it, and I think that all of the athletes who advance via the virtual programming will be, even if they don't have the games experience, that they'll be good enough to compete at the games.

And it's a shame for the fans, too, because actually Fikowski is really fun to watch to compete. He's got one of those bodies that you're like, oh, my God, this is a great body. I mean, he's long, he's tall, he's ripped, he moves incredibly well. He's, I mean, and he does well. I mean, it's obvious why he's a fan favorite. Well, the other thing you have to remember about the online programming is that the usual format we see in online programming

is not the same scoring system that we're going to have for this programming. This is a reward-based programming system. We talked about it earlier. If you have first, second, third place finishes, you get rewarded differently than if you do in the open where you can be penalized by having one bad workout and 500, 800 people beat you in it. So I think that he'll be fine here. I still think there's some workouts here that he can have some really, really high finishes, maybe even event wins in. Um, and that's good. He's, you know, are you talking about, are you talking about the cows? Yeah. But basically I'm saying that I think the programming for the virtual competition is good enough that we'll get the

best athletes of the games. And it's going to be the same programming ever. So you're not just saying that it's the same programming this for these three, you're the same programming. So you're not just saying that it's the same programming for these three. You're saying next week. So you're saying all of these athletes are going to get to see this all being done already. So let me start that over, that jumbled up thought. Basically, next week, the people who do virtual online competitions will have already seen people do them. Correct.

Well, that's interesting. That's cool. That's cool for them. I guess it will do them. Correct. Well, that's interesting. That's cool. That's cool for them. I guess it'll give them some insight. That's a huge advantage for teams too, I think. Any teams that get to watch other teams, it's huge. Because of all the moving pieces and they can see the fails? All of the logistics.

Yeah, the fails, all the logistics. Just maybe realizing like, hey, it is better to move really slow on synchro movements than crush speeds. I think it's a huge advantage for the teams. I mean, the one drawback of the online competition for teams is that you can't program the worm because not all the teams and gyms will have access to one. But I think that they've addressed just about every other element of team programming in the way that they've formulated the workouts.

And all the teams competing the second week will have that same opportunity to watch those other teams do it. Well, because the team workouts too are so synchro heavy, like, you know, and that's like, I think that gets over that hump of like having to deal with the, or throwing in the worm as an,

as an obstacle, like tons of synchro stuff. Why do they do that? Why is synchro stuff important to testing fitness? Is that just to keep everything organized so you can keep rep count? I never understood the synchro stuff. Well, I think it tests the team aspect of it. And honestly, if you are fit or you're able, you know,

hard part about synchro in a team environment is if you have someone who is not as fast as you or as strong as you and you have to move at their pace, like there is a huge fitness element to make up for that to be successful at it meaning if someone does butterfly pull-ups slower than you and then all of a sudden you have to slow down it it hurts you because that it's longer longer contraction it hurts you it's harder and you have to and you have the fitness and like the coordination to adjust to it so you like the synchro stuff. I like it a lot. Yeah.

And I, I like it a lot too. Cause I think one of the important things in the team environment is it, it teaches you, or you have to be a good teammate to be successful at it. Not just someone who's physically fit. And that's why you see teams like some teams who have really fit athletes and they just explode.

And that's just cause they have no idea how to apply their fitness correctly damn damn how how is rich's team gonna win this year yeah uh i want to i'll tell you what depends depends how heavy the games is chase yeah chase has that one one glaring weakness of his upper limit of strength what I'm looking for is really to answer that question you have to say well if they're not going to win who's going to beat them and last weekend at the Granite Games there were some pretty good teams there and that Omnia

team they won by like 90 points or something like that and the second place team was Christian Harris' Move Fast Lift Heavy team which is a very good team I think a top five candidate for a games team. I'm pretty fascinated by this Omnia team. Maybe they don't challenge Rich's team, but I think they're a podium threat for sure. The girls look strong on that team. Both girls on that team and one of the guys did well enough on quarterfinals to earn individual invitations to semifinals, and they all turned it down to go team. Mary Kay Dreisilker was one of them,

and she competed at regionals multiple times. Yeah, that team was very good. They didn't seem to have many or any weaknesses this past weekend. James, did you ever qualify for the games and then go team? Yeah. Is that hard? No, as an individual, no, I never did that. When I decided to go team, I went team.

Okay. I wonder if that's a hard decision for those people. I'll tell you what. The top-ranked team coming out of quarterfinals in Europe is a Spanish team, and one of the men and one of the women on that team are both competing as individuals this upcoming weekend. But if they don't make it, which I don't think either of them will make it as individuals, and their team happens to get in, they both have the option to then compete on the team, or the team has an option to put them up, because they're on the roster still.

I always thought CrossFit tried to protect against that, but that's pretty cool. This year, that's in place. I came out a month ago and just kind of posted a question on Instagram about it. Should athletes have to declare a path at some point in the season, whether it's after the Open or after quarterfinals? Should you have to say, I'm going age group, I'm going team, I'm going individual, or should you have the freedom to try as many options as you want and make

the decision after qualifying in as many realms as you qualify for I like the latter most everyone has said they like the latter yeah I think they should be allowed to compete in the men's and women's competition both you could just I think you you should be allowed to compete in the men's and women's competition both. I think you should be able to identify with whatever you want.

I've actually wanted to see Tia compete against other games-level men athletes and see how she'd stack up. I feel like she'd smash a lot of them around. Someone DM'd me this weekend and said, would Tia have qualified for the games in the men's competition at Granite Games? I didn't respond. Okay, well, perfect. I'll ask you. Would Tia have qualified in the men's competition at the Granite Games?

There wasn't anything that was crazy heavy. I don't know how she can manage the 70-pound dumbbells overhead. She'd manage them fine, man. Let's see. I want to see it. I want to see the 70-pound overhead lunge with the double dumbbells from Tia. I wonder if it's hard for her. Meaning,

I wonder if there's an unknown component that we can't imagine when you're that good that you go there and that all of a sudden the stress level is so fucking high that the advantage is then mitigated. Do you know what I mean? Is there any, or no, she doesn't even think of it like that. She's not thinking she's that much better than everyone. She's just thinking she has to win everything. Yeah. I mean, I had something like that. I would imagine like, I don't, you know, I think part of it is probably she has an expectation

of what she maybe believes she can do. I don't know. And just, I was always chasing that. It's funny. I was listening to, uh, I watched a lot of formula one racing and then there's a lot of discussion about, is it the car or the driver? But, you know, listening to Lewis Hamilton, who's won six, seven championships, but he's always talking about post-race, like what he could do better, what he could do better next week. You know, even though he's dominating or was dominating races last year, this year,

he's having a harder year of it, but he won like six years in a row and all he all you see him talk about is like what he could have done better and um so i guess it's that standard they set for themselves and i'm sure they're very aware of their abilities like i don't think he walks out there and she's like man i suck i hope i squeak this one out. You know, from, from a fan's perspective, it was, we didn't know it at the time, but we were getting quite the treat the year that Matt and rich competed

against each other. But the real treat from the fan's perspective would have been for rich to stick around for one more year and to see it right. To see. And now it's going to be interesting to see what happens with Tia because she's going to be reaching at some point here. I'm guessing I'm guessing in the next year or two where she's like okay i've had enough like i did it but but are we going to get to see are we going to get to see anyone tester like mallory

or emma or or or hayley adams can they get good enough in the next two years Because I'm guessing the rest of the girls are just dropping off, right? I'm assuming that the Catrons and the Annies and the Saras, I mean, that they're basically done. They're the Scott Pan chicks of the… Hey, man, I think Scott's got the chance this year to make the podium. That is horrible to say. Not horrible, but. Not horrible. It's rough.

I don't know. I would like to see it. How much can Mallory improve in one year, James? At 17. What did she snatch, Brian? She snatched 185, but she received 200 in the bottom position. I think she could have stood it up. I think she actually thought she was going to, and she got a little bit overconfident and then just kind of lost it for a moment.

So I think she can snatch 200 pounds already. And I'm sure she's, I don't have any data on her super high rep stuff, you know, and it's like, like I said, I think the Granite Games, obviously, I think regardless of the programming, the same, but for the most part, a lot of the same people still end up there. As long as the loading and the movement variant sticks. I still think Mallory makes it, but I think she could get a lot better in a year. It'll be interesting to see. She just signed with Noble.

Savan, you'll like this. I was told today that her instagram followers went from 11 000 to 106 000 in four days so she's going to get a lot of attention a lot of opportunity sponsorships and she might choose to compete or be able to or invited to compete at some off-season competitions i think that's what she needs she needs some competition experience against the best women in the world and that's where has a, like a really big opportunity to grow and improve. And you know how she's really smart. I think, uh, Matt, the producer of the podcast tried to want it to DM her for, to see if we can get her on the show and she doesn't accept DMS. And that is brilliant. If she can keep that, that's another thing I always wonder about.

How do these people avoid that distraction from their social media? There you go. Pardon me? She was also picking the brain of Matt Fraser this weekend on the sideline. They were talking for a little while. So maybe she's also trying to learn from people who have come before her, which is obviously a good decision. What's her coach's name?

Townsend? Yeah, James Townsend. Do you know him, Hobart? Have you ever worked out with him? I don't. Well, I know him just from my CrossFit days. He was a CrossFit affiliate. I don't know if he still is, but he also has these two daughters.

Have you ever seen his daughters on Instagram? Oh, yeah. I would say they're like three and eight or four and eight or four and seven. They are amazing. They are amazing. And I always show my boys videos of those girls doing stuff to get them all fired up. So he's making superhumans over there. Oh, yeah.

I have seen his Instagram. And he's really strong, too. Crazy. I wonder how long Mallory's been training with him. Do you know, Brian. I have seen his Instagram, and he's really strong too. Crazy. I wonder how long Mallory's been training with him. Do you know, Brian? I do not. I feel like he's been her coach since the beginning, but I don't know when the beginning was for her.

Yeah, I'm wondering if it's going to be one of those stories where her parents were just members at the gym, and she's been there since she's seven and now she's just a complete savage yeah when did she start doing crossfit brian i'm not sure i don't know i you know i don't know that much about her her competitive background um, but she's not like, this isn't coming out of nowhere. There was an article on morning chalk up over a year ago that that was written and said, this girl's the real deal. And you should,

you guys should know who she is. I'm going to text Matt right now and see how close we are to get Mallory in the show. All right. Well, thank you. Is there anything else you guys want to throw out there? I like something that's clickbait. I got nothing. Don't don't heat, heat, heat training. It's just a three second clip. Hobart on heat training. It's just a three-second clip. Hobart on heat training.

Just do it. Brian, where are you going to be next week? Right here, watching the action. And will there be any – can the rest of us watch it? Will any of that stuff be live, any of that virtual stuff? My understanding is that – because there's competition windows where you have to submit two workouts within a 24-hour time period, and I believe that CrossFit Home Office

will be broadcasting leaderboard updates and hopefully some of those, all those text messages coming in are from you, by the way, Savan. They're now interrupting our podcast. Okay. They can pull some of the footage of athletes competing and show like four or five of the best performers at the same time.

So I hope that that'll be going on. And if it is going on, the nice thing about that is it'll be a predictable time. So you can know exactly when to tune in to sketch up on all three of the competitions. So we'll probably see the leaderboard and then get to go back and review the submitted footage. Watch this submitted footage.

Yeah, they're due at noon Eastern on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So presumably the coverage will be within two hours of that. Oh, wow. Not Eastern, Pacific time. They're due at noon Pacific time, sorry. God, I wonder if we're going to see some angry people too because this is one of those things where HQ is going to be seeing – they're going to think they got good times or good workouts and then HQ is then going to review the reps. This could be devastating for some people. Well, it could have a very different feel than the live competitions. At the live competitions, there's the opportunity for appeals of course, but basically you know the results immediately and then two days later, nothing changes. Two hours later, nothing changes.

Well, and they say no rep, and you get to keep going. If they say no rep here, your whole workout's toast. Yeah, I got dinged on. I had some reps revoked, and they just send you an email, and it's like, oh, hey, this has changed. Cool. This is your new time. But what was the time frame from when you finished that workout to when you received that notification? was the time frame from when when you finish that workout to when you receive that notification oh i think it'll be faster here for the uh for the age group qualifiers it was i don't quite remember

yeah so i mean hopefully hopefully it's fast and hopefully it's not something that where come sunday afternoon someone thinks they made the games and then a week later they're like oh sorry we finally got around to reviewing all the videos, and you missed it by a point. You didn't even turn your video on. See you next year. So, James, that's actually good to know. I'm glad that they do that. You're saying that if you do Fran and you turn in a five-minute time

and then they review your video and they see that three of your pull-ups, your chin didn't go over or you didn't fully extend your arms, you're saying that they will then take away some seconds. They won't just fucking knock you to last place. It depends. I think that's all laid out in the rule book. It depends how many reps you miss. I think if there's a threshold where if you miss more than a certain amount of reps, it's an invalid workout, I think, or it's such a penalty that you can't come back for it.

But if it's one or two, they make some sort of rep time adjustment and that's only fair during these times where everyone where people are forced to do virtual shit i think that's pretty fair yeah and it seems consistent with the live competition yeah and because they're not i mean if they were it would be very different if like they were having everybody do all the same workouts, even at live competitions. And they were saying like, then we're going to stack rank you.

And then we're going to take the top 20. I think then it wouldn't be as fair. Like the parody is reduced, but in this way, I think it is still, you know, as fair as you could be given the circumstance. All right.

Thanks guys. Brian? I'm happy James was here. This is a good addition. It's fun to have the other perspective, like you said. I'm just always blown away by how much you know. If I wouldn't have said your name, were you still going to say something? No.

I was just going to let you end the recording. I wouldn't have said your name. Were you still going to say something? I was just going to let you end the recording. Thanks, James.