The Sevan Podcast - #478 - 2022 CrossFit Games Already Happened | The Men

Episode Date: July 6, 2022

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Ah, much better. I believe, Kenneth DeLapp says, I believe they are ranking athlete performances against each other in the 10 events of the season so far as if those were the game's events. Why do you think that, Kenneth? Sorry. Sorry, Brian. Go ahead. Now read it like you're Martin Luther King Jr.

I wish I could. What a dude. what a dude um brian friend who on my screen is in the upper right hand corner with the jackass behind him hanging on the wall called me a few days ago and i can't i can't present it the way he presented it to me but it was so slick and i think he knew that it would get me so fucking titillated and stimulated and aroused said, Hey, you know that all these men and all these women have already done 10 workouts that are identical. I'm like, what? He's like, yeah,

they did the open and they did the quarterfinals and they did a couple of semifinals workout. I'm like, what are you talking about? And you know, cause I'm thinking about something, thinking about kids and tennis. And he reminds me of how the CrossFit games works, how people to the crossfit games and I'm like holy shit and he goes and I have the data that ranks these people 1 through 40 if those were the games events thanks to my help and I was able to get it pretty quick and I'm like oh my goodness it's junk food for the brain whether you like it or not you think it's a valid 10 tests it is junk food for us it is fodder it is kindling it is the most i think stimulating uh conversation we could possibly have going into the CrossFit Games?

As you can see from JR's excitement, he too. What do you think, JR, about this idea that we're about to present to people on this data? Is it fun? Well, it's fun because it's a point of comparison and this is a sport of comparison. So all we want to do is be able to point and say, look, look, look, see this person beat this person on this workout and this person beat this person on this workout. So that means they're better. So when we take a look at the open quarterfinals, two semifinals workouts, sure, there's 10 points of data that you can point to. But when we start looking a little deeper, we start to see that those workouts were executed under very different circumstances. Brian? Yeah, that's definitely true. And I think as we dive into it a little bit more, you know, what you'll be able to see is that in some cases,

it's probably is in fact fairly reflective of how they do it, the games. And in other cases, it's drastically, it's probably going to be drastically different. Oh, so good to see you, Susie. Susie, Brian gave me a great idea to, but before,

because you weren't going to, you weren't going to be here for another 15 minutes, but you made it on time. I opened three windows. I opened the CrossFit. Do you want me to send you the three windows I had open so you can toggle between them? Yeah,

that'd be great. Okay. It is basically the open scoring. Open workouts. Sorry, the open workouts. I'm going to send it over in private chat, the three windows that I was going to use. Yeah, perfect. I was in a panic, and Brian's talking to me in his calm voice.

Okay, open these windows. You'll be okay, little boy. Don't worry. Don't freak out. There's an image in my mind that has stained my mind. It was a picture from Sarah Sigmund's daughter's Instagram where she said, the open doesn't matter. doesn't matter that and that that really pissed me off not at her not at her she's just delivering the message i'm not hating the messenger the open doesn't matter but with that i want to say people do things the great people do things like they do everything i know i'm screwing that whole line up i know someone says it better like michael jordan you want to say jr what i'm trying to say you want to i think it's handle that i think it's you do one thing the way you do

everything yes and to those people the open matters and i think that it's just an excuse and i think these numbers really do matter i think of this is that the monkey pox scourge attacks the liberal mind and the whole world gets shut down again and all the scaredy cats because i was just at the monterey bay aquarium and half the people there are still wearing masks and are still 150 pounds overweight a piece and still vulnerable to covid i i think that what we're about to look at today is very likely to be the crossfit games because any week now the earth could be shut down again to protect the dying and so so i i i'm i'm gonna ride that statement that jr just said i think that you these should have been done i think what we're going to show you today is

important and is super duper valid and i would say that no matter how many things that brian and jr might bring up today that say hey this is just for fun this really isn't going to be indicative of how the games are going to fall out. I think it's important to see it that way. I really do. I really do. These people are beasts. Okay. Before we start looking at the 10 workouts, JR, do these workouts cover all the time domains and modalities that you would like to see if they were one workout? Let's just call this the 2022 Brian Friend JR Sevan CrossFit Games. Probably get sued for trademark there. And do we like the workouts?

Would we be criticized for this? Does this have enough metabolic testing, enough heavy weights, enough – do we touch on everything? I would say no since the longest workout was also the first workout of the season, and that was a 15-minute AMRAP. Okay. Oh, but isn't the first workout of the game usually also the longest? We're off to a good start. Some continuity. I appreciate you.

Brian's a half-full kind of guy. Okay, so in these 10 workouts, that's our first data point. The longest workout is 15 minutes, and it's an AMRAP. That's not good. What would we want in the games? What would we want? Well, usually we see one that's 45 minutes or longer. Last year, there was one that was over an hour. longer. Last year, there was one that was over an hour, but generally speaking, you'll see anywhere from three to five that are longer than 15 minutes. Okay. I actually checked last year was a little bit of an, I would say an anomaly in this regard.

There were only two workouts at the games last year that were over 15 minutes time domain, at least for the top athletes at the games. And Brian, uh, in terms of heavy, these 10 workouts, and we will go through the workouts pretty quickly here in a minute, guys. So don't worry. We'll, we're going to take you on a tour of these 10 workouts of the workouts. Um,

is there something there to test strength adequately for, for these beasts? Yeah. Two of the 10 are isolated strength tests. And then there's nothing else that's necessarily too heavy for these athletes. Uh, out of these ascent.

What are the strength workouts? Well, the other total is part of the quarterfinals where they had to do a one rep max clean, bench press, and overhead squat. And then the barbell complex from semifinals where they had to do the three cleans, two front squats, one shoulder overhead. Do you agree, JR, that those test strength? Absolutely. Just not the way they're always tested at the games. Okay, but how about adequately? Sure.

Okay, okay. So we're more happy with the strength than we are if this were the games than the metabolic, the test for the long-time domains. Yeah, I mean, relatively speaking, that's that's 20 of the test that's usually about what you get at the games okay do we want to show the people right now today we're just doing the men tomorrow we're doing the women do you guys want to see this this this remarkable chart this google doc can we show them now i think we show them now, there's a lot. It's porn. It's CrossFit porn. It's CrossFit data porn.

Yeah. Well, yeah, Susan can pull it up. That's fine. Just so that, you know, people understand how this was created is we took all the these 10 workouts. We took the results from each of these 40 athletes on those workouts. We ranked them against each other, one through 40 for each workout. And then we assigned points based on the game scoring from last year when there were 40 athletes in the field. So it starts at 100, goes down by four for a while, and then it eventually goes down by three and finally goes

down by two towards the bottom. Then we just took a sum of the 10 scores that they would have gotten if they'd done these workouts at the games. And we find the total points, which is how they score the games. And then I did also add a column that just shows their average finish across the 10 workouts, which is also usually a point of comparison that like Chase and Bill talk about and get with the programming when they're asking if this set of workouts for this year actually did a good job of finding the fittest. And occasionally what you'll see is that there's a deviation where there's someone who actually averaged a better overall finish on the workouts, but finished lower on the,

on the rankings because of the way that the scoring system isn't, or has been in some years. Wow. Has there been everything ever, anything in that that stands out so badly that you're like, Oh, well, if you're anything in that that stands out so badly that you're like, uh-oh? Well, if you're interested in that, you should go back and listen to Jason Bill's podcast where they break down every game here. But yeah, there have been a couple of times where there's some definitely, you know, if you did it based on average finish instead of total points that you would have had some different people on the podium.

Dang. PMI services. Thank you. Crazy, crazy generous. Sousa, can we see that? Can you pull that doc? Did you see the newest one that he sent? He's got it. Yeah. Okay. Well, this is the older one. So this one, it's going to be hard for us to fit everything on the screen, but you can see that for each workout, there's a rank and then the games points and the score, the comma says score is actually the amount of reps or time that they had in that workout. And this is pretty tough to see everything, but you can at least see for the first couple open workouts there kind of what it looks like.

And then there's another doc that Suze also has that just shows the rank by event where I think we could probably fit more on the screen in one shot. Suze, could you okay uh first off for those of you i'm going to read some of the names i'm going to read the top 10 to you here really quick i'm ranked and how and how they finished if you use these 10 workouts if those were the crossfit games and we had to give a champion no shit justin madaris at the top no shit saxon panchik second jeffrey adler gui maheros and fourth alan pepper and fifth phil toon and six noah olsen and seventh

patrick velner and eight that right there i think for me is like where the first problem where you're like okay something's wrong okay but other than that i'm you stopped at eight oh i'm super happy at that point. Sorry, Colton. Sorry. I'm really happy up to that point. Are you guys happy up to that point? They're like, damn, this is good games. Just by looking at the outcome. And anything weird there?

Can you see Guy not taking fourth? I mean, when you start asking that, you have to think about, well, who's missing out? And of the eight that you've gone through so far, you know, we don't see a Brent Fikowski. We don't see a Bjorn Carl Gudmundsson. We don't see a Roman Krennikoff that most people are expecting to have a top 10 style performance and maybe also Ricky Gerrard. So those are the ones that it's like, but a lot of people are super high and down pepper and fill tune and everyone else who's up there. I think if they finish in the top 10 at some point, most people wouldn't, wouldn't be that

surprised by it. JR. Yeah, I agree with Brian. I think Fikowski being where he is jumped out at me and, and Pat being where he is really jumped out at me also. And this is probably a good time to start talking about how these workouts are performed under slightly different circumstances. For a lot of the top level athletes, take someone like Pat, for instance, who's trying to preserve all the years he has left. He's not going to beat

up his body leading up to the open. The open is probably when he's starting to get back to hard training. So for all these guys, the open is not as meaningful as it used to be. And I would venture to say that for all 40 on the male and female side, the open was probably not the second or third piece of the day for most of them, much less the only piece for the day. Did all of these guys ahead of Patrick beat him in the open? Is there any way to know that? Right off the top of your head? Off the top of my head, I can't say for sure. But we could check.

Who won the Open this year? Saxon. Okay. And who took second? Justin. Okay. And could you scroll down, Sousa, and let's look where the great Nicholas Fikowski is. Oh, no, Brent. Brent Fikowski is – I think he's all the way down at the bottom.

I think he's 38th. No, oh, 39th. No, no, that's row 39. He finished 35th on this model. Okay, 35th. Thank you. How did Brent do in the Open? Well, Fikowski was 69th, so there is a decent – I mean, Vellner was 69th, so there's a decent chance that most of those guys beat him. I'm just trying to validate what JR's point here. It's a really good point.

Fikowski was 992nd. Okay, that really valid validate what JR's point here. It's a really good point. Because he was 992nd. Okay, that really validates what JR's saying. So JR, you're saying, hey, he's a guy that's been around a fucking long time. He's a big picture guy. He knows he needs to peek at the games. Why beat himself up in the open? And going back to what Sarah Sigmund's daughter said, the open doesn't matter. He's working smarter, not harder.

the open doesn't matter he's he's working smarter not harder yeah i mean let's not disrespect any of these athletes by saying that they didn't try they all tried to do well on all of these workouts that they did but that doesn't mean that they prioritize them for the week for the day any of that stuff and a lot of them just kind of use the open to ease back into training. What's the point in going a hundred percent, risking a silly injury, like busting your shin open on a box, jump over on the first workout or something like that, just to set your training back a couple of weeks when you're trying to get back into it. We're going to go over the open workouts here in one second. I just want to ask these guys one more question about this list before we go look at the workouts and then we'll come back to the list again.

Let's look at who's in last place, Sousa. So one thing that I want to ask you, do you guys think that that is last place at the CrossFit Games this year? This dude, this cat, Pedro Martins. I think he'll be in the bottom five if everyone finishes you know the weekend healthy obviously if there's withdrawals and injuries then that changes but going into the games yeah i'll probably have him ranked bottom five okay and then scroll up to the top um the kid out of washington uh who trains with adam nafer nafer nefer nafer uh and can Kniefer? Can anyone help me? Which one is it? Adam Kniefer, I think. Kniefer, Kniefer, yeah.

Adam Kniefer. Is that the winner of the CrossFit Games this year, Justin Medeiros? He's definitely the guy to beat. Basically, what I'm trying to say is those two are spot on, right? We have two that are 100% accurate already. We're willing to bet $'re willing to bet a thousand bucks on it justin madaris wins and that dude pedro takes last uh jr mr howell i think it's pretty close to accurate it's interesting that this model nails that right the top guy and the bottom guy well one thing i've

learned in doing you know a lot of studies about scoring in general or in competitions is usually the biggest changes are not at the top or the bottom. They're in the middle of the board. So I would say that you're onto something here for sure. It's like, you know, Justin will be, he is a favorite going into the games.

And if he doesn't win, he'll be right up there near the top. And, you know, Pedro Martin's a rookie at the games out of South America. And I think that, you know – I don't think anyone was – or most people weren't expecting Guy to do as well as he did last year. There's never been a guy from South America that's done that well.

So if a second guy did that, it would be quite surprising. I know we said we were going to look at the workouts, but check this out. Justin Medeiros is a winner. Saxon Panchic trains with Tia Jeffrey Adler's wife will not let him sleep indoors if he doesn't fucking win the games this year Guimarães is the hope of Brazil

Dallin Pepper is a completely focused savage same with Phil Toon I mean there's a reason these guys are at the top there's a reason right i mean this is their character right yeah if you want to and if you want to look at the top even more if you scroll all the way to the right you know it's kind of it's kind of neat to look at the points and of

course on the men's side there's going to be more parity in general than the women's side but if you can see on the points here that not only did maderos win in this model he won by over 100 points again over saxon panchick that's at least you know that's more than 10 of the available points and if and in a similarity even though he's a lot younger than pat and um brent who we've talked about maybe not you know gearing up for this type of uh competition open in the quarterfinals he's probably just cruising through these workouts and still able to put up scores like this. That to me is somewhat surprising and impressive because we saw what he could do at the games last year in terms of consistency and a really hard, you know, the hardest test that there is. And then he backed it up with a solid performance

at Rogue. But to express a hundred pointpoint victory in this hypothetical model that's testing more of the foundation, more of the baseline capacity type stuff, and he's still that far ahead of these guys, if I'm another competitor in this field, that's something that I'm not that happy to see. And here's another thing that's consistent with the games, too. I'm guessing that that person

in Rogue 8 is Guy. And he, look at the broad spectrum between his best and his worst. He has between his, his best and his, in his worst, he has more first place finishes than, um, than Justin, but he's got some pathetic finishes also. Well, it's a great conversation about Guy Mayeros in general. He does in this model have three wins, a fifth and a sixth. He also has a 37th and a 30th and four total finishes outside of the top half. It was 21st or worse. And that's the type of inconsistency that will usually actually net a decent performance

at the games, as long as you can back it up with some wins. But if you're trying to beat the best guys, which I think, you know, Guy's been pretty clear that his ultimate goal is to win the games. He can't afford to have 37th and a 30 place finish anymore at the CrossFit games. Wow. He's got a 37th. Okay. Let's, let's, let's, uh, do you want to say anything quickly about Guy? JR, there'll be other opportunities. I want to look at the workouts, but do you want to throw something in here about Guy? Yeah. I mean, when you look at that, when you look at that 37th, that's on the legless workout. So you start to think about the CrossFit games. You start to think about what's tested there. Could we see a high volume pegboard workout come out? Does that translate over? Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. That workout, and we'll get to this, how this can't

be used as the end all be all is because some people did that workout on the first day. Some people did it on the last day. Some people did it on turf. Some people did it on rubber. Some people did it on the last day. Some people did it on turf. Some people did it on rubber. Some people moved a pile on or some people had a pile on move form. Some people flipped a little score sheet thing. I mean, there were so many nuances to that. Some used a long rope that was hanging on the floor. Some did not. There are a lot of differences just within that workout alone.

So sure, they did the same workout, all these guys, but they didn't do the same workout at the same time. And Guy took second in that in Brazil, right? In that legless rope climb workout? Relative to, I can't remember. But he did really well at it, right? Yeah, I mean, he did well on every workout there relative to the field yeah i wonder if he would and that's another thing to throw on that pile jr his competition wasn't as stiff so maybe he wasn't pushing as hard absolutely i mean that 37th he should have

done much better than that right i mean that that you would think that's in his wheelhouse well you would think if these 40 athletes did that same test you would think he would do better than 37. Right, right. Okay. Man, you're coming up with all sorts of stuff to ruin the show right off the bat. Good job, JR. Can we look at the open workouts?

We're going to presume that they would do them in this order for whatever details that gives to the show. But just so we're thinking about it uh um all the same can we see the open workout susan okay so these are the workouts they would do workout one would be three wall walks 12 dumbbell snatches 15 box jump overs and 50 pound dumbbell to 24 inch box uh second workout or do we want to stay here and talk about this second who won this in in that group saxon saxon maybe okay let's go let's go to justin then down uh and what do you think about this as a games workout look if you're talking about the open workouts in general like yeah there is like there is a possibility of seeing a an open style workout at the games you know you could see maybe a little slight they've he's done we've done it in the past where they've had like a slightly heavier

version of the same open workout or a different open workout from a previous year that's just testing baseline capacity and uh you know you've seen some amrap styles sometimes they're a little higher skill but i would say out of the test at the games you are going to probably get one that has a little bit of an open feel to it like you could see this in the stadium i mean they did something similar to this last year just that the it was scaled up right they had the amrap with the similar structure of wall walk or of pegboard and the double under and overhead squat it was like they were doing a lot of rounds in a in a similar structure of wall walk or of pegboard and the double under and overhead squat it was like they were doing a lot of rounds in a in a similar amount of time domain

uh workout number two wow ascending from one to ten and then back down to one reps for time so one to ten ten to one uh deadlifts bar facing burpees uh time cap 10 minutes wow okay 225 pound barbell and who won this will this open x followed by no olsen and phil toon wow and that makes sense right those are the people who you think would win it? That's a Phil Toon workout? Yeah. I mean, all these guys are just good at burpees and deadlifts, basically. Will DeSupa's next best finish on any of these 10 workouts relative to this field is 15th. But he is the type of guy that in a certain combination can be world class.

And what was Fikowski's ranking on this one? He was 40th on 22.1, 37th on 22.2. Oh, wow. So, so if he finished 900 and something, he must have in one of these workouts coming up, he must have some crazy finish, like 4,000th. He didn't do very well on any of the open workouts, you know, relative to most of these guys, his finishes were 40thth 37th and 35th um i you know i specifically no no no no sorry sorry what did he finish and work at one fikowski in the open oh in the open yeah sorry yeah in the open that's what i'm sorry

sorry 3038th 1390, 259th. Wow. Okay. Okay. What was going on there in the beginning? Did we ever find out what was going on with Fikowski? Was he hurt? Or is it what JR is saying? Like, hey, why?

Why bother? Yeah, I think he posted something about doing the first open workout, like in a gym that he'd never been to. He posted something saying he thanked him for their hospitality to let him drop in and hit the open workout while he was in town, and then that was that. No stress. Yeah, I mean, keep in mind, if you're a male in North America, you only have to finish 7,500th in North American men to advance to the next round.

And as soon as you do that, everything is irrelevant. There's no rollover scores. A lot of people used to have that debate about whether in the Masters qualifier, if your open rank should count as one of the scores for the age group online qualifier when they had that. If you wanted to make the open more significant, then you would count the open as one of the quarterfinal scores once you get to quarterfinals. And not tell them which one? No, you just count their overall open finish.

Oh, oh. So then, you know, if that was the case, Fikowski would not take these workouts for granted and be dropping in a random place. He'd realize that, oh shit, one sixth of my quarterfinal score is going to come down to my open performance. And Fikowski, he has the potential to do okay in the open. He has finishes in the open in his career of 22nd, twice, 24th, 32nd, 38th. He's had some top 40 finishes worldwide in the open. But this year, especially after seeing what the model was last year, and he's not the only one to do this. He just didn't invest anything. That's why you saw what Sarah Sigmundsdottir said.

That's why you see a guy like Travis Mayer who wins the quarterfinals one year and takes 60th in North America the next year, because now that they know the system, they can tailor their season to the point of the season that's most critical for them. And for each athlete, that's going to be a little bit different. If you're Tia, you don't have to prime for any of this. You could just show up to semifinals in pretty much any condition you want, qualify. You're only focused on the games. For a lot of these guys, semifinals is critical because they don't know if they're going to make it or not. And it's

really competitive in their continent. But for almost all of them, both the open and the quarterfinals in terms of what they're focusing on for the season is completely irrelevant. i don't know if that's something that crossfit's considering or not they've since they've done it in the past in the masters divisions it is something that they could potentially do to increase the you know the relative importance of the early stages of the season do you like that um jr that idea that brian just threw out there take take the open scores and uh and use your placement in the open as a score as one of the quarterfinals scores? Yeah, I love that. And then the validity of the scores in the video review process becomes even more important.

Do you like it, Brian? You like the idea? In theory, yes. Do you like it, Brian? You like the idea? In theory, yes. But what JR just mentioned is super relevant because if you're talking about that, you know, the open, your overall open rank suddenly becoming that important, then you really have to make sure that you're assessing their performance relative to the field, which in this case is potentially 100,000 individuals, you know, as reflective of what they actually did, not just what they actually did, but what everyone that's being compared against them actually did. So that would be a slippery slope to go down in that regard.

But if the goal is to make the open more relevant again, then that is one way to do it. God, that's such a slick idea. I love it. Okay. uh workout number three four time 21 pull-ups 42 double unders 21 thrusters 18 chest to bar pull-ups 36 double unders 18 thrusters 15 bar muscle-ups 30 double unders 15 thrusters uh with weights at 95 115 and 135 i'm assuming that's for men does it scroll down just a little bit i want to see the woman's weights but they don't list them here you have to click on the score okay all the other options time cap 12 minutes um not something would we see something like this at the games they'd have to they'd scale it up make everything heavier or like triple the triple the pull-ups to 63 double the chest bars are 36 double the power muscle-ups to 30 something you know something along those 63 48

30 and this and this is the second longest workout in this version of the crossfit games uh there was no time cap say that again jr no not necessarily you just had a 12 minute time cap some of the time caps for the other workouts are a little longer but the like average finishers are finishing in six to eight minutes when the time cap is 15 minutes okay and and brian who do you know i know that you were playing with this idea do you know how long it took total minutes under tension for justin medeiros all these these 10 workouts i didn't do that study no okay but you will probably for another show maybe i'm helping get on it if we have another hour of the show. Well,

it's only about 27 minutes. I can tell you that because he did a 15 minute AM rap. Um, he's talking about all 10 workouts combined. All 10. We still could figure it out relatively easily though. Yeah. Okay.

Uh, and, and, and, and was that it for the open? There were just three workouts this year. Holy shit. I don't like that.

Did I ever mention that? I don't like that. By the mention that i don't like that by the way if you were wondering on that one it was yorgo scaravis colton mertens and noels wow so that's we haven't heard any of those names in the previous two noel olsen was second on the previous one okay and that's the first time we've heard colton's name in terms of a top three finish yes okay uh and let's go over so we have three workoutston's name. In terms of a top three finish, yes. Okay. Let's go over.

So we have three workouts down, seven more to go. Let's go to the quarterfinals. And everyone has done these workouts, all 40 of the men, all 40 of the women. That's right. What's the highest Pedro finished? Pedro Martins. Out of the 40 in any of those workouts. 18th. Wow.

18th in the workout we're about to talk about, perfect oh shit good job pedro uh quarterfinals workout 150 dumbbell walking lunges 30 handstand push-ups 40 rack walking lunges 20 deficit handstand push-ups 30 overhead walking lunges 10 strict handstand push-ups uh with 50 pound dumbbells for the that is but that actually is a cool the cool thing about this model is that, you know, people might not know very much about Pedro Martins. They might not know what to expect from it at games. But if you see that this is the workout that he did, the only workout he finished in the top half of the games field, and you think, okay, well,

what's the limiting factor here or what's the thing that he might excel at in this workout compared to all the others? Now you have an insight into if there's a similar workout or something similar that's tested, you know, specifically shoulder fatigue and their tension here. Maybe that's the workout that we take a look at Pedro and say, huh, he might be a factor in this workout. Well said. And is ours handstand pushups amazing? I mean, you know, there's always stuff like this too. I got, you know, there's some of these guys are going to always have things and not everyone will always

disclose what they're going through. So maybe his open was less than desirable. And by the quarterfinals, he's feeling a little bit better. Yeah. I would assume that he has, you know, above average handstand pushups and shoulder endurance. If he's able to, you know, place top 20 against these 40 guys on this workout. What country is Pedro from Brazil? How does Peter know about his elbow? Peter Yozel, you must,

you're like from Sweden or something. You're, you're in 38 degree cold water right there. What do you know? Pedro has never even been in water under 85 degrees. What do you know, Peter? Tell us,

tell us more, Peter. Look at this guy, RJ Van again, Ben wag. Wow. What a van. degrees what do you know peter tell us tell us more peter look at this guy rj van again van wag wow what van wagonin rj van wagonin or liver king yes liver king would probably win the games um okay uh who who are the top three who are the top three we have in our list top three for this one noah olsen uh, Andre who day sex and panchic. Okay.

Fourth, Spencer panchic. Wow. Spencer, make it to the games this year. Yes. Fairly. Yeah.

He finished 14th in this model, right? I had a BKG and Roman. So sack spent Saxon has a two 15, uh, or quicker Fran. If you were to wake him up in the middle of the night, Spencer does not just for the record, you could wake them up at any time. Could you, could I wake you up Jr at any time in the middle of the night, just knock on your

bedroom door and be like, Hey, come do Fran. You could do a sub four minute Fran. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I got little kids, so for sure. Anytime. Just be like, hey, come on out. Yeah, and this is the perfect example in this workout. 15-minute time cap. Most of the qualifying females were between five and eight minutes, and then most of the males were between six and eight. So that just shows you right there. Okay, so this would be really short time domain games. Yeah. Go ahead. You first, how?

I mean, we've talked about this a lot. You, you, you can't have, you can't have too many workouts that are only separated by seconds. You're going to have, didn't you see the 2008 games?

What are you talking about? You're going to have that at the games. But in a workout like this, compare this workout to workout three from the last chance qualifier. Now, they're completely different tests, right? There's 55 shuttle run reps and 55 clean and jerk reps. There's 120 lunge reps and 60 handstand pushup

reps, but there's not going to be any separation in the first one, two, three. You're going to start seeing some separation between the round of 20 and 30 and just watching high level people do it. The workout started when they got to the overhead walking launch. Some of them, it really caught by surprise. Some of them had a good strategy going into it. And then some people, it came down to the 10 strict handstand pushups, 10. Other than Torian Pro, there were no strict handstand pushups tested in this 10 event scenario that we're going over. So although these 10 were really difficult for people, and I watch people break them up into twos and threes and singles, you're not getting the separation like you would if the workout was 60 overhead walking lunges, 30 strict deficit handstand pushups. Boom. And then you're already starting to see people break from the beginning.

Then you're starting to see people break the 30 into sets of five. You're seeing some people come out and do a big set. You're seeing some people that can't do them at all because of the deficit at the games. So yeah, this is not an appropriate games test. Why is that important to you to separate them? There's something you're taking for granted that I'd understand that I don't. Why is that important? Why can't we have everyone just milliseconds apart? I think it's important to have when you have workouts like the sprint last year, the 550 meter sprint. And when you have workouts like the last workout of quarterfinals, the 30, 20, 10, you need workouts like that. There's always those kinds of workouts at the

games. 40 box jump over 20 D ball clean. That was a night event one year that Fikowski won. You need those fun races, but if you have too many of them like that, then it just comes down to who transitions the fastest and it comes down to nuances other than fitness. So to crown the fittest, you have to have stuff that, that where it starts rewarding outliers, someone who can do 60 handstand pushups. You can say that in the same way that you can say, and it hurts people that don't have the capacity. They can't cover it up. Okay. Okay. They're who aren't prepared. Now I'm, I agree with JR about that, that you do need the diversity of tests at the games and that in general, these tests are going to be, you know, because of the nature of them a little bit

less of that style. However, of the 40 athletes that made the games, the fastest time here was Noah Olson at 6.02, and the slowest time was Nasser Al-Ruwayha at 10.48. So you're talking about almost five minutes spread between first and last in this 40-person field. But that just speaks to what this field is, which is not the 45th people on the planet earth. In just North America alone, the spread from first to 50th was only a minute and 21 seconds. So there are 50 guys within a minute, 20 seconds of Noah in North America on this workout. And then you have guys in the games. And even if you throw out the outlier of NASA on this, there's still a guy who happens to have had a top 10 finish of the game that comes

in at nine 58 on this workout and Alex Vigneault. So there is a little bit of an opportunity for separation in this workout compared to some of the other ones. But overall, which I agree with what you are saying is this would, if this was the section of the test, there's not enough of the really high end skill stuff that separates the way that you want it to at the, of the test, there's not enough of the really high-end skill stuff that separates the way that you want it to at the peak performance. Where did Nassar finish in this list? Can we go back and look at that Google Doc real quick?

Sorry. And we'll come back to workout five. Nassar comes in at 34th. This is the giant guy that looks like he fell out of the movie 300, right? He took second to Roman Krennikoff. 34th. This is a giant guy that looks like he fell out of like the movie 300, right? From, uh, he,

he took second to Roman Krennik off. Yeah. This guy's something else. The cool. I mean, it's kind of, it's, it's an interesting,

he's an interesting case study because he had three dead last finishes, but he also had a third, a seventh and a 13th. So he's kind of like, uh, game I arrows light in that regard, where he's got some pretty respectable finishes, and then he's got some stuff that obviously is a huge hole relative to the field.

The thing about the Far East throwdown was there was a very, very, very low amount of high-skill stuff tested there. It was the shortest time domain test. Power output was a huge factor there. This is a guy that I think will prevent your prediction of Pedroro martin's being the last place finisher at the game all the stuff that um that that it looks like is probably problematic for him is going to be amplified when the game's testing rolls around uh yeah let's look at this guy okay so this is this guy this guy you think kind of screwed it all up uh my study up so you think this guy. Okay, so this guy you think kind of screwed it all up, my study up.

So you think this guy's taken 40th at the games? I think there's a good chance for him to be in the bottom five, but we don't know a ton about this guy. Again, this is, I think, the cool thing about this study. Dude, look at his burpees. I've never even seen burpees that look like that. There's like something. Look at him.

He's like a piston as he comes out of the bottom, like a really slow. Wow, he's a big man. Sorry, Brian. Sorry. Go ahead. We don't know a lot about him. What were you saying? Oh, okay.

But we can learn about him, especially relative to the field he's going to be competing against. That, like I said, the farthest throw down programming was, you know, it was the least high skill of all the programming semifinals. It was the least time required on average for athletes to make it to the games. And some of the top athletes in that continent were unable to travel there and get back home safely. So everything lined up well from the, make the games. And he did amazing at that competition relative to the people who's competing against.

I think you're going to see a variety of workouts at the games that severely expose him. You think they like, like he's going to sink in the water. That guy doesn't float. Right. I mean, even,

I mean, look, even like what we saw happen to Jason Hopper on that one workout last year with the sandbag where he's just like struggling to finish the workout, you know, and, and anyone who knows him knows that that's a workout that he could finish in much more gracious style than he did at the games that year.

That's the type of thing that often happens to rookies, rookies at the games. And because of the way that this, this guy was tested this year and the way that his score stack up on this model against the rest of his competitors, there's some things that I'm concerned about for him. If this guy gets the right PR, I don't know what the right word is for it. He could take 40th at the games and still leave there a superstar. This guy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, he had a third place finish in a workout against this field. So

he had, he definitely has the potential to have a, you know, a standout performance at the games as well. Yeah. He's huge. How, how much does that guy weigh? It's always a, it's always a tricky subject. Uh, is he the heaviest guy in the field? Do we think he's the heaviest guy in the field? Top three. Okay. Oh, where did he finish in the open just out of curiosity who finished the worst in the open out of this list of 40 men do we know i don't have those stats in front of me right now can you can you check real quick uh suza what in a different tab or me or i don't know i don't know when to check it yeah but you know speaking of this guy's body weight, just his physique in general, the average weight of a male qualifier this year was about 199 pounds and taller than 5'10". So that is something to take note of moving forward.

I kind of think it's just a trickle-down effect. As CrossFit becomes more of a professional sport, there were not guys like Durant, LeBron, and the NBA back in the day. there were not guys like Durant and LeBron in the NBA back in the day there were not everyone you see on the court is six five six six or taller and they can all handle the ball that just happened over time and I think that eventually it will start to move in the direction of having bigger stronger faster just in general like it is in other professional sports in CrossFit too so I do think that because the way the athletes train now, they're becoming more dense. They're able to tolerate more volume. They're prioritizing when they get to the game and not to get to the games. I do think you're going to see that

continue to creep up slowly and slowly until you get closer to that average of six foot, you get closer to that average of six foot 210 215 yeah he's 231 that would make him the heaviest guy right that might make him the heaviest guy ever to compete in the crossfit games i mean outside of like a john wellborn no maybe yeah maybe the next yeah the next heaviest guy is listed at 227 but i'm never i'm never too sure what with the athletes weights i mean i've talked to some guys whose games profile said that they're 220 and they tell me they're competing this year at 205 they just haven't had a chance to update it i think and i've said this before i think it would be okay at the games to just have a you know a weigh-in when you get there and you just kind of you know because then we could actually know you know what is obviously

we could their height is much less variable, although it's talking we're talking to Tim and he said he lost two inches since he started competing CrossFit, you know, but they don't have any obligation to update that on their game site. So it's a little bit of a speculation. I think I'm happy to say he's 231. I'm going to go with it. He looks he looks big. He moves different. There's something different to his moving. He moves in I'm going to go with it. He looks big. He moves different. There's something different to his moving. He moves in a way.

You know, like you see those giant people and they walk and they walk like cranes. Like they lift their legs straight up and then take a step and lift their leg up and then take. He moves different. I mean, he doesn't move like that. I'm not saying he's that goofy. But he's fucking. He's lumbering. He's lumbering.

Something's up with him. And I'm excited. I hope he leaves there like just a superstar. I hope he's one of those guys that can. He's lumbering. Something's up with him. And I'm excited. I hope he leaves there like just a superstar. I hope he's one of those guys that can take 40th and still parlay it. Sorry, Pedro, you will not receive any more attention. Well, this is actually a good example, too. Like, hopefully what doesn't happen is that there is an event for him to shine like that, and he gets cut before that event. You mean hopefully not?

Hopefully not, yeah. Right. They're not going to do cuts ever again. like that and he gets cut before that event like you know that you mean hopefully not hopefully not yeah right i they're not going to do cuts ever again that that you have to have like balls of steel to do that you have to be like a navy seal to do that they're never doing cuts again i would be happy with no cuts but uh you know i guess we'll find out yeah uh yes i will um yes i will be giving any athletes to wear ceo shirt to the games i will give their mom a my phone number that is uh 100 i will honor that okay can we see workout number five mr suza um we're working our way through the 10 events that all the games athletes have done and and we have the rankings for them we know who all the games athletes have done. And, and we have the rankings for them. We know who won the games,

but, but one, we're one, we know one spots off for sure. Pedro is not going to take last. It's going to be Nassar. Sorry. That's one,

one mistake we found already. I work out number five, 30 alternating single leg squats. Are those pistols? Yeah. Oh, have they always called them single leg squats? Yes.

Okay. That's weird. I guess I don't know everything about CrossFit. 30 GHD sit-ups, 10 muscle-ups. 30 pistols, 30 GHD sit-ups, 10 muscle-ups, time cap 15 minutes. And this was a qualifier workout they all did. Who took first, second, and third in this amongst the dudes? It's the only workout he won, but this one is Justin Medeiros.

And there was a tie for second between Spencer Panczyk and Jorgas Karvis. Wow. Okay. Spencer. That's now, you know, two of the last three workouts that Jorgas has taken first or second on, but those are by far his best finishes.

His next best finish after those two is a 17th. And, and, and Nisar took 40th in this one. Also, this was the third workout. He took 40th. And this is the second of second one.ar took 40th and this one also this was the third workout he took 40th and this is the second of second one he took 40th he was 40th on the first three quarter final workouts and he was 39th on the first open workout only beating fukowski and so are we did he get capped

uh i don't know yeah we are gonna see we going to see this dude look like a wounded animal in a few of these workouts. I mean, it happens to a lot of people at the games. I just think based on what he's been tested on so far and what these results show, yeah, there's going to be some good and there's going to be a lot of probably tough. What do you think this dude's Murph time is like 68 minutes? Took me 68 minutes one time. Fair, fair, fair. At least he did it.

I can't even say that. Did I tell you that I wrote that I wrote a 2K after you made fun of me saying I couldn't do it in 10 minutes? Took you 959? No, the video is coming out soon. Stand by. Hey, I did. I wrote my first two cane over 10 years in my,

my right arm feels like it's got a cavity in it. Like a toothache. My right. Something's wrong with my right arm. Haven't been doing enough strict ring. What's left recently? It's just, it just,

I shouldn't have taken 10 years off of a two K row. And then I had a friend come over and be like dude you gotta do 2k fuck you okay workout number six uh and this is tall carl by the way i bet he's got a great 2k i bet you he does have a great 2k good memory you remember that dude carl eagleman you know he found a way what he has an instagram account that he now makes enough money to support his family off of whiteboard daily. Yeah. Is that what it is? Whiteboard daily.

Yeah. He killed it. His content's amazing. If you guys haven't, or if you guys, especially if you're coaches and you're looking for simple ways to communicate to your members, like this guy has broken it down. Pictures, simple cues. Um, he's, I think he's invested a lot of time to create the high quality product he has my old training partner i don't i don't think he says any bad words either he's like a really dude good dude classy classy dude uh workout number six the 2022 crossfit games uh eight wall ball

shots oh this is a mess wow okay uh for time eight wall ball shots four shuttle runs one rope climb and then eight wall ball shots are added every time and one rope yeah everyone knows this workout this is the one that oh we're just we're hoping that everyone on this list actually did the correct version of the workout what do you you mean by that? I mean, there's still hundreds of scores on the leaderboard that CrossFit decided to verify. Oh, this is the infamous quarterfinal three workout? Yeah. Wow.

So we're hopeful that all of these athletes actually did this version of the workout, but there's a potential, I guess, that they didn't. I don't know. As the director of the 2022 CrossFit Games, JR, you should have thrown this workout out. We should have just said it's not. We should have got here and be like, we didn't include this one in the data because it's such a shit show.

And who won this? Jeff Adler. Yep. Very good. And the thing is there with Adler, I want to say this. We're not concerned about him. Class act, great coach. He did this perfectly.

Right? Look. Oh, yeah. I'm very confident the top scores here are the good scores. I was kind of saying that in jest. I think that all of these guys because of what they did in terms of advancing to semifinals in their continent must have had to have had a thorough review at least of this workout.

But yeah, Adler was first, Cole Gray-Shaber second, and Ricky Garrard third on this one. Are you surprised to see Ricky at third in this one? You know, it's just kind of cool going through just even just the one, two, three finishes, how many different guys are showing up there. And that, you know, I've been kind of hinting at it throughout the season, but I, I think this is setting up to be one of the best or deepest games fields on

the men's side that we've ever had. I think, I think I agree with you. And, and Justin Medeiros isn't a, in, in this regard, Oh,

breaks my heart to say this. And in this regard, he is no Tia to me. He doesn't come in and take first in every single event. He's not, he's, he's, he's a – he just does what he has to do. I mean, well, basically what we see here is a microcosm of what happened at the games. 15 events, he won one of them.

Here we have 10 events, and even though there's a lot of different variables involved, he wins one of them. However, he didn't have a single finish outside of the top 10. And even if you're looking at a guy like Jeff Adler, who's had actually a super, super consistent year so far this year, he also happened to, he actually won two of these workouts and he had nothing worse than an 18th place finish. That was, he was the, like the next most impressive in terms of consistency across all 10 to, uh, to Medeiros. But still when you have an 18th, a 13th, a 17th and a 16, and Medeiros' worst finish is a 10th, that's a pretty big gap. Is that, those placements, those were the placements in this?

In this scenario, yeah. Adler had four finishes, 13th through 18th, and Medeiros had nothing worse than 10th. And I had two 10ths and two 9ths, but still, if your worst four finishes are averaging nine and a half against 15, you're gaining a significant amount of points over four tests there. What do you think the most impactful argument I've heard is when JR said,

hey, the older guys are basically gaming this, right? They see that there's no need to win the open but that being said what does it say about the guys who did kill the open madaris saxon why didn't they do that why didn't they just not just you know go 90 maybe they did. Wow. Okay. So they went 90% and Fikowski went 80%. Is a possible scenario. Or that in this format of workout,

their 90% is a lot better than Brent's 90%. Right. Okay. Workout number seven. Let me tell you something about Brent Fikowski real quick. Please. Yeah. Okay. Workout number seven. Let me tell you something about Brent Fikowski real quick. Please. Yeah. Yeah. In competitions that Brent Fikowski has competed online, he has a finishes of a range between fifth,

which is in semifinals 2021. After that, he's never been better than 22nd on any online competition. Oh, 15th at the 2020 games out of 30 so have you know middle of the field he's got open finishes of 130th 184th 183rd 992nd quarterfinals 21st and 37th there's nothing really impressive here in live competitions over the history of his career 6th 3rd 7th 1st 1 1st, 1st, 1st, 4th, 2nd, 4th, 23rd, 2019 games, which shouldn't count, 3rd, 1st, 2nd, and 1st. Wow. With this guy in a live competition, you're going to see a beast who will decimate a majority of the field. You put him in an online competition, and it's just a

totally different ballgame. We can talk about it in terms of generalities there's no individual person that better embodies that than fukowski and that's over a nine-year period of time yeah that's crazy when you hear it like that never worse than seventh in a live competition ever and we're talking about that's but those seventh and sixth are at regionals before he ever made the games since making the games in live competitions only 2019 games as the outlier he's never been worse than fourth and both of those were at the crossfit games this guy is an absolute beast in live competition and it's foolish for anyone not to rank him in the top three or four at the games this year either barring an injury he will be up there by online competition for frikowski is an afterthought.

It's a stepping stone. It's get to the next stage of the competition. Have you actually heard him say that, use that term stepping stone? I think he just tapped into my brain for a second. What did I say? He said the competitions are just a stepping stone for him. Yeah. And look, you're limited on what you can test in an online competition. And we got to see very, very clearly at the 2019 Games what happens to someone with his body mechanics in a workout like Mary.

And Mary's a very good example of online competition-style workouts where range of motion matters. workout where range of motion matters when you're doing high volume barbell cycling or gymnastics and there's nothing there to offset it in terms of odd objects heavy implements traversing long distances it's going to be really hard for him to keep to keep up with someone like a noah olson what do you have any pushback jr on fikowskiowski? Or are you like, yep, what Brian said? No, zero. Just more to support his argument. I mean, when you look at what this test doesn't have, and it's not going to have it because the two mandated workouts, even for semifinals, were very simplistic. But you have no odd objects outside of dumbbells. So you have no strongman elements that are always at the games.

outside of dumbbells. So you have no strongman elements that are always at the games. Sandbags, yokes, pigs, sleds, pulling or pushing, farmer's carries, whatever. You have one machine for 30 calories in the whole 10 tests. You can say what you want about machines, but they're always used to the games. And it's a great way to test capacity in different forms other than running. Brent never does poorly at a workout that he can strategize for like a semifinals type workout. You saw him at Granite Games execute as well as anyone. And then I would argue he probably does better with less time to prepare like other people do worse with less time to prepare, which is what you get at the games, his ability to adapt and his ability to see a workout and strategize for it and

be ready to go in 30 minutes. I wouldn't say is comparable to anyone else. Vukowski is a live event monster. Curious how he would have done last year. A hundred percent healthy. Get with the program podcast. When, when you said there out of these 10 events that one of them has a machine with 30 calories, which machine is it?

30-cal row on the last workout of quarterfinals. And what is a normal amount of machines we'll see at the CrossFit Games? If there's 15 workouts, how many of them will we see machines in? Last year, off the top of my head, you had the ski workout with the high rope climbs and the Husafell bag carry. You had the echo bike power snatch workout. You had the row in the finale with the lunge variations and chest to bar. Think that's it. Yeah, it's the way you ask the question is tricky because you could think back to the 2016 games where they had the rope chipper and you saw all the machines in one workout so but in general you

could expect to see a skier a bike and a rower at the games at the very least in terms of machines so you also expect a lot of running not in 25 foot segments oh gotcha and and what you're saying and and and fukowski would do better with a little bit more room for that giraffe to open up as opposed to yeah for sure because in this model he has to bend down and touch the ground every 25 feet yeah okay uh workout number seven uh one clean and one clean one oh. Oh, shit. Sorry. Was that workout six? Go back to that workout.

I'm sorry. I screwed you up. Maybe. Is this workout? It's the seventh. This is seventh right here. Okay. Seventh workout.

One clean, one bench press, one overhead squat in a 30-minute time cap. Who's the dude who won this? Give me a guess, Evan. Colton. Colton. Okay. You always guess Colton. Think about it.

Who's the strongest guy in the field? Give me another hint. No, no, don't tell me. Give me another hint. Maybe someone in the comments will tell me. No, no one in the comments is saying shit. Thanks for your help. Who's the best weightlifter in the field?

Not Houdet, but... Oh, man. I'm fucking up okay hold on no no i'm gonna pull up the list i'm pulling up the list don't tell me don't tell me phil tune phil tune justin madaris no no no no uh gui maheros oh okay yeah oh man these are some strong guys i could have gone with down pepper. This is a cool one though. It's a, thanks. Thanks.

Susa. There's nothing on my, there's nothing on the comment screen except for key. Yeah. So he was first, but kind of, kind of a cool top five. Actually.

The second was Velner. Third was Nasser. Oh, and this is a workout. He did great on fourth was Fikowski and fifth was down pepper. Oh, nice. And this is a workout he did great on. Fourth was Fikowski. And fifth was Dallin Pepper. So you get a pretty good blend there.

A couple of veterans that are still very strong. A couple of young guys in Phil and Guy. And then this kind of wild card guy in Nasser. Did you say Vellner took second in this? Yeah. Are we surprised that Guy's... Oh, shit. I think I'm looking at the wrong one what was geese bench press oh no yeah are we surprised sorry sorry velner was second on the next workout colton was second on this workout okay okay uh sacrilege sacrilege cut this whole fucking part of the show out

i skipped one workout ahead i'm sorry because you're calling them one through ten instead of what they are which is quarterfinal event number four okay sorry uh but is it gee colton nassar and phil still no gee colton phil wow okay so your guesses were good okay good they just weren't key they just weren't gee i had and is do we have adler sitting in fourth there on that workout no he was 16 wow why is that probably adler's a really good like he's he's really really good and really really strong in the clean and jerk and all the other liftings he's gonna probably he's not gonna do as well do you agree with that jr yes why is that why doesn't that translate for him to at least at least an overhead squat if he's got a good jerk look there's nothing wrong with

finishing 16th in this field like in terms of uh strength he's as early very very strong and um yes you know clean and jerk is something that he just is extremely efficient. And I mean, it's amazing to watch him do clean and jerk. He's very strong. And he doesn't rely on hardly anything other than great mechanics to do it. But there's plenty of guys in Olympic lifting that can be really good on one of the lifts and not as good on the other. Address the rumors that Josh has ghosted you and you're growing replica facial hair in protest. There's nothing to address. You it i am josh no he's not ghosting me i tried to do a

fourth of july show with him he's just in love he's just like he's like a butterfly he's just like flown off the planet he's like he's like you know let me let you you guys that cartoon might be too old for some of you he's just like floating around okay uh let's go to workout number eight quarterfinal event five which i already spoiled it i apologize thank you uh 30 calorie row uh well jr also uh ruined it for us um in in his uh professed love for Fikowski. 30-calorie row, 20 burpee box jump overs, 10 snatches, 185 pounds. Why aren't you guys saying this is a strength test also, isn't it? No?

10 snatches, is it? No, it's not. Okay. It's not testing strength in the same way that those other two tests, which are explicit strength tests, are. that those other two tests, which are explicit strength tests are. Okay. But I was just laughing because now we already know that Nassar was the third best on this workout and we saw his, um, you know, piston style, uh, burpees. And apparently that was, you know, those weren't slow enough to negate the fact that he probably

crushed the row and manhandled the snatches here. So if you're looking, if you're a Nassar fan and you want to see a workout, he might do well at the game. Look for moderate weight, moderate to heavy weight, cycling of snatches and high power output on the machines. That's what I really like about this test is that you can, or this model is that you can hone in on some of the lesser known athletes and get a good idea of where they might excel and where they might struggle.

Most of the mail times here were two to three minutes. So JR, tell me, do you, how, this is one of those workouts where we're not going to get a spread, right? This is, this is a, just a classic sprint. No, but it's a, it's a fun workout to watch. And it is separated by those that can go touch and go on the barbell and those who cannot, and there should be separation like that. Who's who's this? What's the fastest time on this in, in our group of 40 men and the slowest time? Fastest time. I was going to say DeLugos won the workout, but he is not in this 40, unfortunately.

Fastest time, 229. Okay. Slowest time, 321. So almost a minute spread. Uh, 321? Yeah. And who was that? Pedro Martins.

Ah, Pedro. Pedro trying was that? Pedro Martins. Ah, Pedro, Pedro trying to get more limelight. He was still coming back from the elbow injury. Oh, you and Peter Yozel. Uh, how,

how, uh, how did our, um, last chance qualifier guys do? What place, who, who,

who came from the last chance qualifier? Yonah Koski and, uh, Tim Paulson. Tim Paulson, Tim Paulson. How did they finish in our 2022 CrossFit games? Yonakoski 21st, Tim Paulson 37th.

Okay. And, and, and we know that, um, Yonakoski is another one that there wasn't swimming in our 2022 CrossFit games. We have to assume there's going to be swimming in Madison and that's right. They're going to give him a first place, correct?

There's no one in the field who can compete with him. Akoski or Paulson? Akoski. Well, I mean, we saw last year what, what, how much he decimated the field by in the, in the swim paddle. Um, there are a couple other really good swimmers in the field, but he's definitely the favorite in a, in a swimming event, especially if swimming is, you know, the limiting factor. He's basically like a fish.

I mean, he's so far ahead. Yeah. And yes. And don't forget that, like, even a workout that has a significant amount of swimming with, like we saw the one year at the games with burpees in the sand and some kettlebell thrusters, he's still going to do well in a workout like that because he's also a super fit guy. He is not the guy that wins a swimming workout and fades out of memory for the rest of the weekend. He still has four top 10 finishes at the games in his career,

which you can't do without also a really high level of fitness. I'm not saying this to argue with you, but he's not just good at swimming. He's efficient at it. He's like really, really, really efficient at it. So if there's longer swimming, not only is he faster than you, but he also probably used less energy. Well, they're probably, I would say we've been teased that there probably is not long swimming this year based on a little video preview that we got, which what looked to be someone testing the swim workout and saying, oh man, at the end of it, hopefully they flipped the script a little bit. And I know

a lot of people are hypothesizing that maybe they'll do something like a hundred meter elimination style in a pool where they'll just do heats of, you know, 10 guys and they'll knock out the bottom five and they'll keep doing it. So you'll actually test speed in a sprint fashion and not in a technique endurance fashion. And that way, I mean, I'm not a swimmer. You ask someone, maybe someone like Chase is the most efficient swimmer, always the best sprinter. Probably not. Uh, that's where, where did you see these clues at? Uh, someone sent me a link from Twitter.

Wow. Look at this. This is, this is not good for the rest of the pack he was a swimmer on their national team i think that means he's really good like he can do the backstroke and shit all right uh why why are there games why are there games clues on Twitter? That's like the thing. Is it on Instagram? I'm sure it's somewhere else too. Someone sent me a Twitter link. All right.

Savan, to satisfy your curiosity from early, Mike helped and did the breakdown for total working time for Justin Medeiros on these 10 workouts. Yeah. And it comes up just short of an hour excluding the two lifting uh tests one of which was a 30 minute time cap and one of which was a that three three attempts they had so it's a little bit harder to quantify those but of the other eight tests it was 59 minutes 42 seconds okay and we've had workouts at the games that are they're that long long single event yeah sure

last year there you know it was like an hour and 15 minutes for the swim paddle. And 2018, they had the marathon row that was probably an average of close to three hours across men and women. Okay.

All righty. Let's look at the first workout. This is the ninth workout, but the first workout that was mandated by CrossFit to be used at the semi-finals this is a barbell complex probably people are more more familiar with this as it's in recent memory uh three cleans two front squats one shoulder overhead top performer again was guillermo tutor mag the second and colton merton's third other people tied for third justin madero's tied

for third travis mayor tied for third got to makeeiros tied for third. Travis Mayer tied for third. Got to make sure to get Travis Mayer mentioned on here. Yes. So when you have the champ, Medeiros taking, what did you say? Fourth? Tied for third. Tied for third with who?

Tied for third with Phil Toon, Colton Mertens, and Travis Mayer. So, I'm going to say something here. Those five names, I think those are the only guys who can win the CrossFit Games.

That fits with everything you've been saying forever. Right, and here's the you've been saying forever in here and here's the right and here's the here's the reason why and I don't mean to because they're all your best friends you have to be strong they are that too you I don't even know Tudor Magdon he's my best friend you have to be

strong you are not winning the games unless you win these strength events you have to be in the top five in these strength events you have to you will not win the games if you're not winning the the crossfit games champ is always strong as shit right and that and that's like we where does where when do we where do we see velner go ahead go ahead jr i wouldn't say that in catrin's in catrin's back-to-back years, she was one of the strongest females, even still. She was or was not?

Was not. Right, right. I think on the men's side, if you're talking about CrossFit Games champion, yes, they've always been amongst the strongest, at least. Ben Rich and Matt, man. I mean, these are horses. Yeah, but you're also talking about a very narrow field of people. You're talking about Froning and Fraser that are outliers in almost every category. Ben Smith, who's a phenomenal lifter who put in years of work to get to that point and is continuing to do so.

Justin Medeiros, who's obviously incredibly strong at a young age. And then you have to go back to the opening four years where I would say it's, you know, very different style of support back then. Pat, Pat, for Pat to be the champion, he either has to fucking win the swim or when the weightlifting and he, and he's not doing either.

I, I think maybe, I think Fikowski has a better chance maybe of winning the games than Vellner, right? Cause he, he can, he can win one of these weird outlier events,

these long endurance events, or these strength events. Yeah, I mean, Fikowski has shown the capacity to win events at the CrossFit Games more frequently than Vellner, yes. Yeah. It's, I mean, the guys you named, I can all see sitting on top of the podium someday. Guy, Tudor Magda, Phil Toon, Justin Medeiros. Did you say Saxon?

Was Saxon in the top five? Nope. Colton Mertens. Colton Mertens. There you go. Travis Mayer. Travis Mayer. There you go.

What is up with Travis? How come he – where is his fucking big hole? Travis actually is very well-rounded. But he's strong as shit. He, I mean, he's a strong guy. One of the strongest, right? Yeah. He's generally fairly consistent at the games.

But he doesn't, he doesn't often have a home run hit. And it's really, really hard to move up from where he's been finishing 10th to 15th range without those big, big points at the top. I mean, look here. Thank you, Susan. Look here. Here in our 2022 CrossFit Games, he's 31st. Yeah, and Travis was, you know, it was pretty obvious this year

what Travis's goal was, which was to cruise through the first two parts of the season, make sure he did the job at semifinals, and we'll see how it pays off at the games. But his target this year was to excel and prime and prepare all year to be perfect as he could be and ready to go for the CrossFit Games. I think that this field is really tough field especially the top 20 25 guys and that even if he is in his in better shape and condition than last year it'll be it'll still be tough for him to improve on his overall rank come the end of the weekend compared to last year hey so not only is

justin madaris in the right place and pedro martins but only is Justin Medeiros in the right place and Pedro Martins, but you know who else is also in the right place? I just see it right now. Dead center, Jason Hopper. Those three are going to be spot on. I'm telling you, those are spot on. Right, JR? Jason will not finish 20th.

What do you think he'll finish?th 18th 21st i'll give you a little wiggle room give me or you'll give me a little wiggle room 19th to 20 better than 20th better than 20th so 19th well we'll get to that in a couple weeks all right all right fine that's too close to home for these guys these guys share share a bed with Hopper on the weekends. They bought Bitcoin. I'll slot them in. I'll reveal my rankings 1 through 40 when the time is right. Workout number 8

is the, sorry, workout number 10. We're on the last one. Workout number 10 and it's the other workout that was mandated by CrossFit Inc. to all of the semifinals and it is the famous workout that i personally love i think a lot of other people didn't like it it's the uh rope climb run we heard jr talk about it that there were uh some discrepancies between uh the semi-finals

on how this event exactly played out uh who took first in the 2022 crossfit games of this uh jeff adler and then there's a tie for second between saxon and roman but i do think that Who took first in the 2022 CrossFit Games at this? Jeff Adler. And then there's a tie for second between Saxon and Roman. But I do think that the distances were a little less. They had a run in Asia. So we'll give it to Saxon in a second. And who took fourth and fifth? Fourth and fifth. Fifth was Ricky.

And fourth was Henrik Kepelainen. was Ricky and fourth was Henrik Kepa-Leinen. And this one is to Patrick Vellner swimming. This is to Colton Merton. This is Colton's kryptonite, right?

Yeah, he was 40th on this. Just narrowly edging out Pedro Martins and Tim Paulson. Oh, he beat Tim Paulson at this? He was edging him out for last oh oh oh how close within seconds let me see hey so why why did tim paulson do so poorly on this he's a big guy isn't this kind of no this is not a good workout for him um tim paulson so his third from last at 331 pedro mart, second to last at 354.

Colton, two seconds behind that, 356. Colton, that's not good, buddy. I don't approve of you falling behind a Brazilian. No, 244 was the winning time, so it was a minute and 12 seconds spread from first to last on this one. We didn't see Colton get stopped, though. Did any of the men get stopped in our top 40 where they had to sit there and look at the rope?

No, there was only one person in all of semifinals that I can think of that even took more than five minutes to finish this workout. And it was an 11 minute time cap. Why don't men get stopped from this and women did? JR? generally speaking a strict upper body pull is going to be something that some women really excel at like alex gazan and other females not excel as much at or maybe just come out a little bit too hot like in the case of like a you know like a brooke wells i mean she's still qualified but she ended up finishing around seven minutes where you still saw most of the qualifying females finish around five.

I'd love to know what the worst bench press, the last place bench press was of all those men. Does anyone know? That's pretty obscure. No, no. We talked about this during the quarterfinals. It was unfortunate that they didn't list the individual lifts so that we couldn't, we don't have that analysis for that breakdown. We can't even Google it. You'd have to get ahold of everyone's everyone on this page and either ask them or try to track down a video of them doing it and watch it for 30 minutes and scroll through to find it. And the woman that we've heard of that had the strongest bench press, is it Alex Kazan at 248? Maybe. I don't know. I mean, to me, that's like, I guess maybe it's just the, you know, the, the data analysts or nerd in me that wants to know, but I'm sure there's a lot of people like it wouldn't have been that hard

to just have a mentor in clean bench press overhead squat weight. And you could show that on their profile, you know, you could just click on it the same way you do anything else and you could see the scores and it would be a fun thing to analyze. Uh, yeah, that john uh 337 for hopper a huge pr by 22 pounds crazy that that wasn't the strongest bench press though was it amongst the men no there was some there was a 400 or something 248 a power lifting arch or a flat back who knows i think she followed the rules she got justin collar there to make sure she follows the rules the lowest man was more than alex i i don't know i don't know alex was definitely stronger than me i'll give

her that definitely stronger than me too yeah but you know just talking about the bench press and why it could be a little bit relative moving forward is this is probably a little bit too much of a deep dive with what we could see programming wise at the games but we know dave had things that he liked we know he had movement combinations that he liked think about how many times we saw snatches and burpees in all the years that he programmed the open and regionals um think about movement combinations you usually saw together uh cleans toes to bar and double unders or cleans bar muscle ups. I mean, there are things that you saw a lot.

And Boz has said on some podcasts previously before he's in the position that he loves some things. His favorite workout is Linda. His favorite rep scheme is 10 down to one. You know, could we see something like a games Linda? We saw a regionals Linda one year, but that's been four or five years ago. So maybe this is just the start of a theme that he has. You know, we, we would have seen shuttle runs at every stage of the games. They were supposed to be in the first workout, but they got switched to box jump overs. So we would have seen them in all three stages of CrossFit mandated workouts,

open quarterfinals semis. So is that going to be progressed as we move forward? Is it going to be handstand walks instead of actually shuttle runs? Is it going to be farmer's carries with peg boards? Is it going to be, are there going to be clear progressions through the season? Like we got so used to seeing and what actually kind of made it fun to predict what we may see at the games every year uh since you bring this up and we are going to fall into the weeds here is there any do you have any

thoughts on what could be be at the games this year that we've never seen before in terms of something that's a progression so you know you know uh we had the handstand um we had the free handstand uh push-ups is there anything that you could see this year that you've thought of they're like oh the next level of this is coming and we saw nasser i know we've seen it at the games before but we saw nasser doing um handstand push-ups on the rings by the way not fun to watch people do that and not to say that that's the reason not to test it but not fun well there's something that's extremely scary to watch right right jr any anything that you thought in your mind oh they're gonna they're gonna do a um uh assault bike uh workout but they're gonna use their hands and not their feet is there anything you've

thought of you know that you're like okay is going to be the next evolution of this, anything that pops in your head? No, not unless I just get really, really like, you could say almost gimmicky with like different types of apparatuses. There are some things that, you know, if you go on like rogue site and you look at different implements that they have, as far as strongman elements, like we've never seen any kind of log clean and press. We've never seen like a duck walk. We've never seen some elements like that. And you know that- I'd love to see them try to judge a duck walk, but go on.

And you know that Bill can make whatever they want. So, you know, that's usually fun every year, seeing something, you know, they've done sandbag carries before, but you know, Husafell Stone is a little different. You have to carry it a little higher on your chest. It's just a little bit different with the stimulus it gives. So other than maybe some different styles of events,

like having a handstand walk, but having it like a sprint, like I said in one of the previous podcasts, it almost seems like the new fad, the new trend is to let speed on your hands be the separator. And are they going to do an event like that where they dial back on the level of skill with all the ramps and the traverses and the pylons and all that. And they just get back to good old fashioned, like race walking on your hands, stuff like that. You know,

in this, I think I had talked to Dave about this before and he just ignored me, but it was something that I always thought would be interesting. And maybe it's too gimmicky, but is a chain with big rings that maybe weighs a thousand pounds. So you can't drag the whole thing, but you can only drag it in segments and you got to pull it a hundred yards. I always thought that was something like that would be cool.

I did think that when they did that obstacle course that year and you had to swing on the rope and land, and if you didn't, it got all screwed up. I thought that was an interesting test. I thought that was, I thought that was interesting. We can say something, Ryan, about that. Oh, no. Oh, okay. So we just looked at the last workout. Okay. About that. Oh, no. anything on here that when you made this, just, just, you thought, Oh, this is this,

this is the most fascinating character to see on here. Holy shit. I'm so, I'm so surprised. And anything from some of the big names, I mean, the cowskies, obviously it's bizarre. And I think Jr has done a good job of covering that.

And, and Brian's done a good job of explaining why Jr's ideas is appropriate. But what about Merton's, Vellner, Guy, Adler, where these guys fall? I think maybe the biggest swing that we'll see with this as a predictor and where they finish could be Roman.

I think if that's what you're looking for, I think you've got to look further down to 28th on this list, which is Lazar Jukic. And I'm not really too sure why he did so poorly on some of the workouts that he did here. But, you know, obviously he was very good at the games last year, finishing ninth. I think a lot of people are expecting something similar from him this year.

He was great at the semifinals, beating BKG in week one of the Lowlands Throwdown. Again, I think that this is a guy that, you know, as his career extends, you'll probably continue to see more impressive performances from him in person than online competitions. So his name definitely jumps off the list. Roman at 16th is, yeah, I think everyone's super excited about him. The ceiling seems to be really high, but if he did finish in the mid-teens in his first year, I also wouldn't be that shocked by it. So, you know, it's just a tough field.

There's a lot of guys there that have a lot of experience, and I know he's done a lot of competitions recently. I'll probably rank him significantly higher than this, but I think that people are going to be surprised how competitive this men's field is overall. And that there's going to be, you know, everyone's going to have their favorites and whatever. And they're going to think that these guys have a chance to finish in the top 10. Like anyone who makes it into the top 10 this year at the games,

it's an impressive performance on a men's field in particular. I almost feel like going through the list and having you guys tell me if these, if the person will just place higher or lower than where they're at. You guys game for that? Sure. And we'll fight it out. Justin Medeiros, higher or lower? Or it could be a perfect placement.

Let's skip one and 40. How about that? Okay. Saxon Pancheck, JR. I'm asking. Brian already used his go first card. Let's skip one and 40. You think he'll finish lower? Brian?

Agree. And is that because of all the Fikowski talk? You guys got a little fucking Fikowski wood? I think Saxon is as good a bet as anyone for a top 10 finish. And I think that, you know, four through eight is a very reasonable range for him. But to get onto the podium, you have to go through Medeiros, Feller, and Fikowski. Okay, okay.

Then tell me, what has he done to not impress you? What makes you – where is he – I'm incredibly impressed by him. Tell me where – what's a workout he tell me some workouts that you that aren't outlier workouts that you think that he's going to lose to uh fukowski and velner give me some give me some oh like predict an actual workout yeah give me some give me some is he going to beat him in the swim one of them oh poor patty uh john young says saxon will be four through seventh um

wow his whole career and carry the panchayat curves damn oh my gosh john's so harsh damn i think i think i think saxon has the potential to podium eventually. I don't know if it's this year. I really do think that, um, like I said earlier, outside of an injury, I think Medeiros, Vellner and Vukowski are the guys to beat in this field. And that if they are healthy throughout the entirety of the weekend, that'll be the top three in some order. Who's stronger Saxon or Vellner or Vukowski? Who are those three? Who's the strongest man depends on

what lift you're talking about if they're going overhead heavy probably saxon if they're snatching probably brent if they're dead lifting definitely pat oh well said jr damn hate having you on the show and we tested all of their lifting uniformly like all of their lifts uniformly, like all of their lifts, I would probably take Pat. I think he's probably the most well-rounded in all the lifts. It's an odd object, too. Pat's super impressive on the yoke, right? Yoke, sandbag, farmer's carry. Him and Fikowski are both going to do really, really well on that.

Right. Yeah. I see when I think of Vellner he he's he's willing to get dirtier than the other two also well we dive more into uh this type of stuff closer to the games when you're giving us a hard time about our predictions i think okay uh jeffrey adler higher lower lower Lower. Are we not alternating? I thought we were all.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. You go. You go. After he talks, then you just jump in. Unless you need more time to think, I don't mean to rush you. Do you have any music you can play, Susan? Lower.

Wow. Okay. Okay. I'm starting to see a trend here. I'm going to start. I'm going to start. So, so, so lower, higher. So lower we.

Okay. Gear, gear, gear gear gee gee malheros lower higher lower uh dallin pepper oh jr jr uh gee lower higher lower uh dallin pepper lower higher lower lower wow phil toon lower higher lower lower no olson lower higher lower i kind of like him where he's at yeah i like him where he's at too but i i would have gone lower on it patrick velner lower higher. Okay. So that's our first guy. That's our first guy who we have higher at eighth place. This is where we started the show. And any reason why for that?

What did you see in these 10 workouts that you didn't like that makes it so that the top, it's biased towards those top seven, top six? Well, it's a lot of the things that we named. towards those top seven, top six? Well, it's a lot of the things that we named. And something we know about Pat is that he excels in really high-level skill movements. We had 10 strict handstand push-ups. We had 10 legless rope climbs.

We had 30 ring muscle-ups in sets of 10. And we didn't see strict deficit. Parallel, we only saw Atlas games, and that was at Pat's semifinal. Freestanding handstand pushups, pegboard. Just any other higher level gymnastic skills he really excels at. Who's worse? Who's worse? Pat Vellner at swimming or laura horvat at um deficits handstand push-ups and i'm taking this isn't just to be mean i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna

benita l says velner is velner swimming because here's the thing also, Laura has to deal with that wherever she goes. Belner only has to deal with it once a year, right? Occasionally he shows up at a Wadapalooza or Dubai, which he's also competed at. And won, and he won Wadapalooza, right? Yeah, and got second to Fikowski in Dubai the last time he was there. I mean, it's not something that can eliminate him from getting a second place in a competition or even winning it in a smaller sample size against a less deep field. But yeah, it's tested less often than the strict deficit handstand pushup probably. David Munch says Pat barely doesn't drown.

Is that a sentence? I mean, I like it. I'm not being critical of it. What? David barely writes sentences. Pat barely doesn't drown. God, that's a great sentence. Read it like it is with S at the end.

Drowns? Pat barely doesn't drowns. Pat, you should sell that shirt, dude. PBDD. Oh, it's PBDD. Yeah. Okay. Colton Mertens, higher or lower? pbd have some oh it's some rubber duckies on his arms yeah okay uh colton merton's higher lower lower lower willie george's really george's higher it's a good range for willie george but i'll say lower

mr howell's thinking i am i am because i know because i know who's coming i'll say lower okay here's don't fuck with this guy the man from australia the super dark horse the kind of cool actually so in this model him and ricky gerard tied on points wow okay jay crouch lower Kind of cool, actually. So in this model, him and Ricky Garrard tied on points. Wow. Okay. Jay Crouch. Lower.

Lower. I don't think so, guys. I don't think so. He's a mythical creature. Put up a poll. Sousa, put up a poll. Who wants to see Sevan's rankings when we do our ranking show? Colton first colton second colton third i thought mayor was third who travis mayor yeah travis mayor could be third of course uh tutor tutor uh tutor magda

higher or lower lower lower and where's his holes and he he has what he has what it takes to be a long-term great athlete, right? But he's just got to do some stuff. So I say lower simply because we don't know that much about him. I haven't gone back and researched his team appearances to see what his strengths and weaknesses are. And I would venture to say they're probably not the same that they are now years later. But for someone to come in and finish 13th or better in their first year i would be extremely impressed with so i say lower just because i don't know that he'll finish higher spencer panchik we skipped over ricky did you skip over ricky on

oh oh no no sorry shit so yeah what about ricky i'm sorry ricky gerard he's probably the only interesting one you've asked us about on the list so far, and you tried to skip him. I did. Sorry. Ricky Garrard. Higher or lower? Higher, but not by much. Thank you, Heidi. That is correct. Sorry. I'll consult you before I... And why not? What did you see that you weren't? Has he been dropping in your, in your, um, in your thoughts in terms of how good he actually is?

No, uh, you know, he's, he has shown that, um, you know, sometimes getting ready, like getting ready for the competitions or the events within competitions is problematic for him from a nervous perspective, from a health perspective, from whatever. So he's had some ups and downs in terms of that. I'm hopeful that he doesn't have that at the games and that he has a clean runner. We can see where his fitness really is. But I'm telling you, to break into the top 10 at the men's field this year is going to be really, really challenging. This is a really good, well-established group of guys at the top. And there are several people coming that are going to challenge that. We're talking about Dallin.

We're talking about Phil. We're talking about Ricky. We're talking about Roman. We're talking about Willie George coming back. There's a lot of people that could factor into the top 10 equation, and they're not all going to be able to do it. I am with JR. I think that Jason Hopper this year is going to be a totally different version

than we saw of him last year at the games, but it is not going to be an easy feat for him to crack into the top 10. There's a ton of good guys. I don't know how good Travis Mayer is going to be. We talked about he's priming his whole season for this. Noel Olsen's a bit of a wild card in terms of top 10 potential right now. Everyone's really high on Jeff Adler, but I've already listed 10 guys and I haven't mentioned Madero, Saxon, Vellner, Brent Fikowski, or BKG, or Yonikoski, who've pretty much been locking down top 10 finishes. Guy Mayeros and Lazar Jukic were both in the top 10 last year. Those aren't going to be easy to push out.

It's really difficult to get into the top 10. No one's even talking about Alex Vigno. He was eighth at the games last year, middling Mayeros and Jukic, and he's got four finishes of 13th or better in the four years he's finished the CrossFit Games. That's how difficult it is. So you can have your favorite. You can say all you want.

There's only 10 spots in the top 10, and 20 guys can't fill. You're basically saying that it could be the first time ever in CrossFit Games history where the second-to-last heat is going to be fun to watch i mean dude i like i mean i don't make that as a dig it's just the way it is those are the time that's when you go to the bathroom and get your hot dog during during those first three heats no you're gonna have i mean of all those people that i mentioned we don't know how good sam kwan can be alex gilrone was second at wadapalooza. Aiden Brown is someone that I'm intrigued by.

He's one of the better guys out of Australia. He's had top 20 last year. Everyone thinks Houdet is getting better. Everyone thinks Hapalainen is getting better. Suddenly, Spencer Panchik's in this field. No one knows how good Tudor Bagda or Cole Gray-Shaber could be. It's going to be awesome.

I'm working right now on a composite power rankings with several other analysts and experts in the space. And the variety of the rankings that are coming in is pretty drastic, like 15 and 20 spots in some cases in the men's field. So there's a ton to fight for and a ton of people who feel that they are gonna you know have their career best and defining performance at this games but not every one of them can't some of them are going to leave there knowing that they executed everything perfectly and they're going to finish 25th from from from the deepest corners of my soul, nothing beats listening to Brian discuss CrossFit right before bed. I'm just saying those are my words.

Thank you for reading my mind, Heidi. Basically you're easy. I mean, we're not even, we're not even halfway through this list and you guys are just flipping it upside down. Spencer Panchick. Her.

Lower. Okay. I agree with Jay. I agree with Brian lower he barely made it to the games what are you thinking JR he doesn't even have a sub 215 frant I'm sure he does have a sub 250 markdown

Spencer Panchik and let's dive into him a little bit more deep in the ranking show prior to the games. Okay, Spencer. He barely made it, right? Yeah, he got in basically because he executed the last workout

at the MAC flawlessly and Tyler Christoffel did the entire opposite of that. Bjorgvin Carl Gudmundsson.sen higher roman krennikoff higher uh what do you think about bkg uh jr higher higher too okay uh andre who day i think this is pretty close to where he'll finish he'll finish. Agreed. Alex Vigneault. Higher, but not by much. Wow. I kind of like where he is, too.

You think his career is waning? No, I think he's still very, very good. I don't think he'll be able to do as well as he did last year, but I think that he can finish inside the top 15. The only female in the men's division, Cole Grieshaber. Lower.

Lower. Jason Hopper. Higher. Higher. Come on, guys. Doesn't it just make sense that it's Justin Medeiros at the top, Jason Hopper right in the middle? I'm no fucking mathematician and that um pedro martins is at the bottom i mean you see how that works right do we skip roman or no no we maybe we skipped you roman higher or lower higher

uh yonikoski higher Higher, higher. Baden Brown. I like this spot for Baden. I say higher. That's another guy. I think that could be a superstar no matter how well he does at the games. He presents well out there. Great energy. Uh,

he just needs to, are you just thinking of the right guy? He's the guy who has kids from Australia, right? Well, I, I think when i think of baden brown i think of uh a guy who just shows up and doesn't work and doesn't really uh there's no there's no like he looks like fred flintstone he looks like fred flintstone can you pull a picture of fred right you know fred flintstone is kind of looks like i i just like i he just caught my eye i think i think i think he's a lovable character he just caught my eye. I think, I think, I think he's a lovable character. He just caught my eye.

Are you a game of Thrones fan, Seva? I am. Well, his nickname in Australia is King of the North. So maybe that's why you like him. Let me see. Yeah.

That's what he looks like to me. Are you thinking of Royce Dunn? No. Royce Dunn also. Royce Dunn also looks like Fred Flintstone. Hey, that's probably, click on that Amazon.

Click on that for $34.99. That, that Fred Flintstone. Hey, that's probably... Click on that Amazon for $34.99. That Fred Flintstone suit. That probably is Royce Dunn selling that. Oh, shit. Talking Fred. That's Royce. Oh, shit. On eBay. Wow.

Can you pull up a picture of Baden Brown? Incredible. Will Morad uh 23rd lower lower uh you just think he got lucky when he made it to the games like he should have retired five years ago he should be on a team or coaching or just running a gym no man will's a. His biggest problem historically has been just injury. There's Fred. Yeah, there he is. Fred Brown. Baden Flintstone.

Samuel Quant. 24th. Honestly, he's one of the most fascinating men in the entire field for me this year. I think he'll do better than this. I have no clue, but I'll say higher. Okay. Who wins out of Samuel Quant and Jay Crouch? Great question.

Thank you. Great question. I will. I'm investigating some things with Quant. I'm going to hold off on that one. Okay. Or get down, ask me in two weeks. Okay. And when you think of Quant, what you want to know is what's going on in his personal life, right? Well, it was recently announced this week that Harry Pally is working with the Hard Work Pays Off camp.

And we know that Sam was coached by Harry at the Granite Games. And, you know, I think that Sam's he's just a he's a mysterious guy in terms of the ups and downs in his career. But his ceiling is super high. And if he is in a good spot, you know, in terms of his health, And if he is in a good spot in terms of his health, he has a coach that he trusts in Harry who's working with a team that seems to be creating some pretty impressive specimens that I think everyone's going to get to see in terms of Mal O'Brienantly surprised with him at the granite games he didn't uh shine in any you know shine out in any ways but he looked solid on pretty much every workout and he did really well on a couple workouts relative to what i thought might happen um he's been at the games before uh you know i know that everyone remembers his you know second place finish in that weird year but he did i thought pretty pretty respectably in his debut in 2016.

And I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't have any standout moments, good or bad, and just comes in around 16, mid-teens in this field. I like how you're getting cooler, Brian. You're just referring to that one year as a weird year. That's good. I like that. That's a more relaxed Brian friend.

JR, I get excited when I say, because I agree with Brian wholeheartedly, that Quant is one of those people that we know has a super high ceiling. I totally agree with that. I think that we have no idea what he's capable of. Yeah, I think so. And just looking at him on a couple of the events at the Granite Games, I was really impressed with the way he looked physically comparatively to last year at the MAC. Just looked healthier. He looked like he had a little bit more energy.

He looked more confident. Yeah, just looked a little bit more sure of himself. I liked what I saw. What do you think about the experience he got the weird year being there with Justin and Matt? Not a lot of people. I mean, that puts him kind of in a unique category too, right? Yeah, I think you can't discount the things he probably learned during that week just being in such close proximity to both of those guys. And Noah.

Who were the guys? It was him. Who competed in the games that year? Which five guys? Those guys and then Adler. Wow. Okay. Yeah. That's a special week. That's a special

experience he got. How did he do that year? Second. Second. He beat my boy? I mean, he beat everyone other. I mean, he beat everyone other than Fraser.

No shit. Yeah. So it's, you know, and then how close was Medeiros that year? I don't remember what the, what the point spreads were. It was,

I think it was pretty tight between almost everyone else. Did Medeiros take third? Yeah. Wow. we'll check here yeah he uh he ended up beating madaris by 45 points who beat olsen by 20 points who beat adler by 35 points fraser won by 500 or 555 points holy cow yeah i remember he said he wanted like first and second on the podium or something well quant prevented him so okay impressive okay what do you think on quant yeah okay wow what a year what a year i'm looking at the total i'm looking at the total that was a tough year too that wasn't easy huh how many events did they do that year seven online and then i think 10 at the

stage two and that was matt's fourth win crazy okay uh um thank you uh suza uh moritz feebig is that guy is that guy really going to the games who's that moritz feebig i think everyone else at feebig he uh yeah he hit a home run won the last workout at the lowlands throwdown edged out luka jukic and adrian one viler for the final game spot from there you know he's actually got some good competition history in Europe. He's had some pretty successful event finishes. I'm pretty curious to see how he'll do at the games.

But like I said, this is a super tough field. I think that this is the best that he'll do is mid-20s. So if I had to say higher or lower, I'd say lower. Oh, you think you'll get any event wins? No. No, I say lower. If you look at, like, just if you look at the sample any event wins? No, no. I say lower. If you look at like, just,

if you look at the, um, just this sample that we're doing here, his best finish was six. He had a 10th and a 13th, you know, those are sorry. Yeah.

And those are, you know, pretty good. But, uh, again, I think, you know,

when you're talking about rookies at the games, there's going to be stuff that's difficult and different to navigate than anywhere else you've ever been. I think that we'll see him struggle on a few workouts, probably in ways that he hasn't ever struggled in workouts at some of the other competitions he's excelled in. But like most of the guys in this field, I think there are one or two workouts where he'll have a notable performance. There's a bunch of guys down here that kind of fit under JR's sort of assessment of how these 10 workouts um play out not in our

imaginary 2022 crossfit games but how they played out in reality with people gaming them and making sure that they attack them appropriately and who fits under that would be travis mayor cole sager and brent fukowski guys who've been around a long time and approached uh maybe also tim paulson tim paulson i i but i don't think he did that no but he's got a similar level of experience just slightly below those guys and okay i'll let you get it get in there on my story and and so the reason why i point that out is i want to compare them to someone like nich Joyal when we get down there who has basically no experience. Right? But put on

a show at his semifinals by winning the first two events. Where Pat Vellner was present. Keelan Henry. I don't know who that is either. I didn't know. Is that the only Irish guy who's ever made it to the games? Is that an Irish guy? He's from South Africa. Oh, alright. who's ever made it to the games? Is that an Irish guy? He's from South Africa.

Oh, all right. He's another contender to upset your Pedro Martins prediction. Oh, wow. Sorry, Keelan. So who wins out of Keelan and Nassar? That's a great question. And what's Keelan's deal? Is he a giant or is he tiny or what's his deal

he's about average size for games competitor okay uh higher thing that i will say about about people like keelan and i know the workouts we're comparing are tough but the that's seven seven kind of like phoebe I think he had a sixth. Those are the really dense shoulder endurance workouts. And then I guess you could say like a midline endurance type workouts. Those are the handstand pushup workouts from quarterfinals and the ring muscle up workout from quarterfinals. And typically, even at the games, when we see those two movements and pretty high volume, there is a pretty big separation and those with holes get exposed.

Gotcha. So you never know. There may be a couple of events there that Keelan can do really well. Has there ever been a games where everyone made it through or does someone always get injured? I've done this study before. I think there has been a year where at least on either the men's or the women's side, everyone's finished the games, but not on both. Right. I think that's okay. Me too. JR, are you okay with that?

Not everyone? I'm okay with that. Like this shit's hard, right? Absolutely. And that's not something that these 10 events as a whole spaced apart by weeks that we can compare to the games because the games is in large part an endurance test and a recoverability test. Five workouts over, what, 72 hours, and then you're doing two of the six workouts that they all did at semifinals. We're not factoring in any of that recovery. And the games are emotionally a completely different beast, too. Yeah, it's completely different. You did the open and quarterfinals in the gyms you wanted to with the barbell you wanted to use on the rig you wanted to use

with the judge you wanted to have, with the music you wanted to have playing. Time of day. All that stuff. You had a pacer going with you to make sure you stayed on pace. I mean, you're not doing any of that at the games. Guillaume Briand. Guillaume Briand. Guillaume Briand.

Holy shit. I just realized something i had a foreign exchange student in uh high school that was named guillaume brion i'm not kidding because you used to be a teacher you were a teacher but it's only no no i was a high school student and i did a foreign exchange with french high school students our classes did whatever they came and stayed with us for a couple weeks he wanted to stay there for a couple weeks and i swear to god the guy's name was guillaume brion any chance did i put that together until just now when you said it that terrible way and i said it the correct way guillaume brion uh any chance it could be him no oh it's probably super common name in fr. Hey, Google that name, Matt, and see how many, Sousa, see how

many, like a thousand, dude. That's like that's like, you know, Ang Lee in China. It's basically like Will Smith. Yeah, Will Smith. Yeah, exactly. Guillaume is William. Higher or lower? Lower. Lower. Lazar Jukic.

How high? Top 10? 20 spots higher. What do you think Lazar's greatest attribute is? That's tough. There's a lot of good things about Lazar, but I think that if I had to pick one thing, it would be that he's not really bad at,

at, uh, at almost anything. I was going to say, I think you said it, the fact that he isn't like really, really, really good at something or really bad at anything is his biggest asset.

Yeah. You know what I've known? And I, I don't know the guy that well, but just from just just watching him here from the internet the guy might have the best best attitude he didn't ask the thing he's best oh you did ask the thing he's best at his attitude there you go his attitude is phenomenal yeah he's a i've never seen him drag ass never seen him like he just he just i've never seen

you be less excited to have someone on the show and then more excited after we had him on the show oh he's great i can't believe we haven't had him on again it's because he uses fucking whatsapp i'm punishing him for no he's gonna be in cookville uh very soon so he'll be close by maybe we could reach out to him yeah let's do it when's he come sometime within the next week. Is he bringing his brother? I don't think so. His brother, I think, is getting ready

for a competition in Sweden. Oh, what is that competition? I'm not sure. Too many details. I just saw him post something about it. What's this competition everyone tells me I should be looking at, which I cannot possibly look at? It's like the Cayenne Games or something can west games yeah that is that worth looking at i know the guy who's putting on the can west games he's he is actually doing a lot of really

good things in the build-up to it the assembly of his team the structure that he wants to create it's strategically placed just like 10 days from now and it's kind of meant for the athletes that barely missed out on the games this year. You'll have a good blend of veterans, athletes, some names that you'll recognize like an Alex Smith or an EZ Muhammad's type, and then you have some up-and-comers in the space. Any games athletes who are going to go to the games this year? No. So the whole point is it's for athletes that wanted to have kind of a climax to their crossfit game season and just came up short and so they'll have the opportunity to do something

i think there's a total of a hundred thousand dollar prize per so it's you know not insubstantial um what year what what well oh sorry sorry not what year. What state? Canada. Oh, fuck. The best part of Canada. I think it's somewhere out in British Columbia. Attendees will experience education opportunities from the world-class subject matter experts like

Tactic Nutrition, HWPO Training, or you can check the latest gear in the Vendor Village from the greatest brands like Gorilla Fitness, Strike Movement. Maybe it's not for a chance to have breakfast with Sammy Monez or get a chance to meet five-time CrossFit Games champion Matt Fraser. There's some people in the comments. I guess you don't need a vaccine

to... There's no fucking way you must not need a vaccine to get into Canada anymore. There's no way, Matt. I cannot think, unless Matt's got some fake documents or something. There's no fucking matt i cannot think unless matt's got some like fake documents or something there's no fucking way he got vaccinated connor greer will be there chandler smith and his new wife jess harper will be there so there'll be some there'll be some notable names for sure jess harper and her new husband um chandler smith will be there

see what i did there i just reversed the order i got it all right I just reversed the order. I got it. Lazar Jukic will be higher. Georgios Karavis? Yeah, him. Georgios Karavis. Higher or lower. We have him at 29th.

Yeah, pretty close to here. He put himself at 29th. Yeah, pretty close to here. Maybe a little lower. Oh, here's another one that maybe I should have put who is playing at smart. Caron, Alexander Caron. Higher. Higher.

Mr. Triceps. Do you think he was playing at smart? Do you think he – would you put him in that argument that JR gave us for Fikowski? Is he playing the open smart like that i don't think calderon like vino you know these guys are following the mayhem athlete program and i think in general you know the higher well-established athletes in the world that are following that we're not too concerned about the opener quarterfinals at all. All right. Travis Mayer, higher or lower?

Higher. Higher. Cole Sager, higher or lower? Higher. Higher. And why? Why Cole Sager? Don't you think, and why Travis Mayer?

Don't you think both of these athletes, their careers are waning? I think experience alone gets them in the top 25. Okay. Well, yes, I do think that their careers are waning in the sense that they're on the back half compared to the front half of their career. But in terms of their capacity and performance, I think they're still relevant in the 10 to 20 conversation. Jay Crouch or Cole Sager? Mark that one down for two weeks from now. Cole Sager, okay, or Travis Mayer?

Who finishes higher? I'd take Cole. I'd take Travis. Me too. Two to one. Uldis Upanix, 33rd. Higher. Higher.

Nassar Alruwaje, 34. Dead on the money, 34. Lower. It's tough. It's tough. Nassar, you got to know we love you buddy we love you we love you uh uh brent fukowski 35th higher higher so that's the biggest jump right there you guys think he'll be on the podium and and but at our crossfit games with our ass programming he's he's 30 he's 35th

their ass programming he's he's 30 he's 35th okay uh i have no idea who this is um enrico zanoni he actually beat moritz fiebig at the lowlands throwdown he was uh i was really impressed with him there i thought that there were two times in that competition that he would be exposed and he would drop out of contention for the games. And both times he answered the toll. The most impressive to me was the unbroken set of 10 overhead squats at 225 with a very high level of composure when the pressure was highest in the final event. I think he'll do slightly higher than this. Talk me into it, Ryan. I want to go back out to Brent Fikowski and I want to show you guys something real quick.

I want to go back to Brent Fikowski and I want to show you guys something real quick I do like JR's argument and it's hard to argue about it so he's got the absolutely worst score in our group for event number 1 40th and then he slowly

gets better 37th and then 35th and then a 17th and a 35th and a 31st and a 19th and then a 17th and a 35th and a 31st and a 19th and then you where it really matters to to to you know get on jr's argument where it really matters he does he he ups his game right he gives us a oh no sorry what workout number is that one two three four five six seven eight okay it doesn't quite matter yet as much, but he gets a fourth. And where it really matters, he gets an 11th and a 28th.

But that's worse than this. Look how good Nassar did too at those two. Al Ruwahi. Yeah, but – He beat him on all three of those, a third, a seventh, and a thirteenth. Those aren't open workouts. These are – we're not comparing apples to oranges. We're comparing apples to apples here.

The quarterfinals really matter for both of them. You guys heard it here first. Nasser over Fikowski at the game. You can't wait for your rankings. And listen, he beat him in live competition with worse competition, with no one pushing him except roman he was running

against cows i rest my case your honor uh corona also has a when you see these big numbers down here at the bottom you see some people with some special skills right like uh georgius car car caravis uh he got a first in a second and he's down here with just the shipbirds my words not not not uh not the real professional uh sports commentators uh timothy paulson um came in through the last chance qualifier 37th. Higher or lower? Higher. Higher. How much higher?

Not that much. Five to ten spots. Okay. You're going to love this. Who wins? Tim Paulson? Who finished wins? Tim Paulson? Who finished better, Tim Paulson or Jason Hopper? Hopper by a significant amount.

JR? And Jason. Man, you're really high on Jason, Brian. What did you see? I just said I thought Tim's best finish was 27th, and we already said that Hopper would be better than 20th. All right. What did you see? I just said I thought Tim's best finish was 27th, and we already said that Hopper would be better than 20th. What did you see, though? What did you see Jason

do that makes you so high on him? Why are you? I think that... HWPO? No. Last year's games was an eye-opener for him he needed that experience i think that he's been you know pretty focused throughout this year on on dialing in the things that he needs to or things that he needs to to make sure that that doesn't happen again

um i thought he had a very mature execution of a semiifinal that he competed at, where we didn't necessarily overdo anything, but he did everything at a very professional and well-executed level. And I think that he probably will have mostly similar performances at the games, where I think that his level of understanding will be drastically improved from last year and that that will be just as important as his improved overall fitness JR when Jason Hopper was on the Eddie If podcast Eddie If asked him why did you only stay at Clemson one year

and you know what it sounded like to me that he just didn't have the fucking balls that he just wasn't man enough to stay on the fucking team that he missed his fucking mommy that it goes too fucking hard and he ran home to fucking be with his fucking wife that's what it sounded like on the podcast and now he got he got he got fucking wounded went to the MAAC and went really high, went to the games, and now all of a sudden you guys got him in the top 20. Am I right on that? He was in the top 20 last year, and he basically messed up half the workouts.

What did he get? When you say messed up, Brian, what I hear is you've let emotion come you're you're standing you're you you're you've let emotion come into your analysis you're defending your friend he messed up that's what i he'd tell you that too he did not execute those work what did you guys are friends i don't know if you ask him uh does does he have the the grit jr you you see him in your gym does he have the grit to to yeah i think he's um a far cry from uh the 18 year old boy he was when he finished that first year and left school i mean that's been six years he's 24 now he's actually being coached now in person at live events you know it just worked out out that Jared had a great opportunity

and qualified for the games on a team. So when he was at the games last year, as far as strategizing events go and stuff, he was kind of on his own doing that. So kind of left to his own devices, left in his own head, you know, crazy things happen. You come out too hot on workouts because you don't have someone talking to you about execution. And that's the farthest thing he has, the furthest thing he has now with Matt and Jake and the HWPO crew. So when there was this guy, I'm switching, I'm switching gears here. There's this guy you guys mentioned named Harry and Harry used to work over with Ben Bergeron. Is that correct? At Comp Train?

Yeah. And you're saying Sam Kawant was at Comp Train. When this guy Harry now, did he jump straight from Comp Train up to HWPO or he had some time off in between? Time off. He was, you know. Okay. Or time away from Comp Train.

Yeah. Well, I don't know. Harry's not a very, you well, I don't know. Harry's not a very public person in general. I think he's extremely smart in this realm as a good programmer and coach and mentor for a lot of athletes and has been. He just kind of made a post last fall, I believe, that he was stepping away from Comtrain and there weren't a lot of details involved in the post.

And I think that's how he likes it and now there was just a recent post about him joining the hwpo and it was very much in the same vein this is what i'm not doing anymore this is what i'm doing now and kind of like a no further comment type of guy when he stepped away from comp train did he take quant with him or any athletes with him? I think that Quant and Harry have had a really good relationship. I don't know this for sure, just based on the fact that he was his guy in Aromas the year that they went to the games. And he was, you know, even though they both kind of changed things up this year in the offseason for themselves personally, he was still his guy this year at the Granite Games. up this year in the off season for themselves personally he was still his guy this year at the granite games so i think that they have a really uh good relationship based on you know

what i the little that i do know about them was he at the granite games coaching quant okay and and and is quant still with comp train he's with harry and harry's with hwpo so i have okay and he's doing that okay and that's what that's kind of where i was going it was kind of like when o'keefe i know it's a different thing a different job but when o'keefe left wadapalooza i was wondering if he was going to still be an agent for people who weren't with hwpo like i think he's brooke wells's agent and i think he still is and so we can there be we might be seeing Sam Quant join the HWPO team moniker seven do you know that on these rankings Colton Merton's

average finish was worse than the four guys who finished below him how can that be because he has so many good ones and so many bad ones because he's an outlier. Okay, before we go up to Colton, let's get to the end here. Henry Hapalapa. A lot higher.

Okay. Henrik Hapalanen. Hapalanen. JR, higher or lower? Higher. And Nicholas Joyal? Higher. Really?

Then 39th? Yeah. Yes. And how much higher? Not more than nine spots. Do you think you'll win an event at the games? No. You weren't impressed by those first two events?

I was very impressed. This is a totally different field. Won an event at the games? No. You weren't impressed by those first two events when he won? I was very impressed. This is a totally different field. Isn't it interesting? So those workouts that he won, are they J and K? Oh, no, they're not on this. They're not even on this list. He won the workout with 45 parallel handstand push-ups, and he won the workout with 96 toes to bar with the sandbag cleans.

And where would those be ranked amongst this group? Oh, those weren't even there. Sorry, because those were at the semifinals. Okay, my bad. Seven, the three guys in this games field with the most games years are Noah Olsen, Travis Mayer, and Cole Sager. Combined, how many workouts do you think they've won at the CrossFit Games? Noah, Cole, and who's the other one?

Travis Mayer. I'm going to say Noah's won. The answer is one, I think. I was going to say four. Two. Wow. Sager won the separatorator and Noah won Mary. Vigneault, zero.

Calderon, zero. It's so hard to win a workout at the CrossFit Games. Because who's winning them? The better guys. I mean, usually different outside of, but there are some guys that, that usually you can pencil in for two to three wins a year. And Guy's going to be one of them.

I was wrong about the Sager, by the way, he's got three events at the games. No shit. I think, I think the person that you guys are most wrong about is Cole. I think he will be, I think I think the person that you guys are most wrong about is Cole I think he will be I think that I don't think we're going to see a

good a good showing from him where do you see so soon as to hand stand hold I forgot about that who's only there's only that doesn't count that was like how many points was that worth that handstand hold was there was something called a handstand hold at the games there was a there was a max l sit yeah i remember that that wasn't a full event either right that was worth 50 points handstand was worth more the in

the history of the cross at game seven there's only 18 men that have ever won more than two workouts at the games wow and that's out of 16 years. Yeah. 15 years. It's just really hard to do it. Like, you know, you saw last year,

you know, Justin Medeiros won the games. He was incredibly impressive. He executed it on every workout the way he needed to. He won one workout. Crazy. And he won the games. And he won the games. Well, there's been, you know, know in the top five every single year that the game that he's been able to finish the games and he has five event wins

which is really good ties them for seventh but is it only five uh overall i think what we've come to the conclusion is that this wasn't a good test still fun to look at I'm not taking away anything fun to look at it's going to be awesome doing the same thing with the women tomorrow night but overall this isn't a good test it's actually flipped upside down I think that there's a huge a huge amount of information that you can take away from this study in some cases it's it you know it is indicative of their overall level of fitness. I don't think it's a mistake that Justin's at the top of the list and that Saxon and Jeff Adler did really well in this format. When you see the disparity of finishes that guys like Guimaiaros and Colton Mertens

have from these really good to these really bads, that will be reflected in their games workouts. They'll have some good workouts. They'll have some bad workouts. Yes, there are some people for whom this is almost an irrelevant study, Fikowski being the obvious example, guys like Cole Sager and Travis Mayer. I'm not concerned at all about them being in the bottom 10 here. But my favorite part about it is that it gives us a good opportunity to hone in on where the Keelan Henrys, the Nassars, some of the guys that we don't know as much about

might have an opportunity to shake things up at the games. Those can be the workouts where we can look for them to, you know, not just maybe win their heat, set some impressive times for the later heats to chase down, but also possibly factor into the overall, you know, results at the end of the weekend by middling some points between the guys who are in contention for the top spots. Of all these guys, I think we've decided that

Brent Fikowski will jump the most. If we scroll up to the top of that list, Mr. Souza, who do you think will fall the most? Who do you think is just totally out of place here in this top 10 who will be in the bottom 10? Mertens. I knew you were going to say that. I knew that. I know that's how you wanted to end the show. On a high note for all of our fans. You said that Colton Mertens, that the people who finished Willie George, Jay Crouch, and Ricky Garrard had a higher average finish than him?

The three people who finished below him? Yeah. finished willie george j crouch and ricky garard had a higher average finish than him the three people who finished below him yeah colton's average finish was 17.4 willie was 16 j 16.4 ricky 16.2 tutor 17.2 and even bkg who was like seven spots below him was an average of 17th better okay do the same for gee Guy's average finish was 14, exactly tied with Dallin Pepper and better than everyone below. Wow. Okay. So can I jump to the conclusion that the Colton Burns is a greater outlier

than, than Guy by significant amount on this study? Yeah. Is he the greatest outlier on this study based on that? If we look at use the average, if you look at where they finished on this compared to where they finished at the games, I think Fikowski will be the biggest mover in any direction.

If it's just a net by Mertens and Lazar. JR, do you think Mertens has it in them to go the 15? What do you think his biggest weakness is outside of just the obvious? Do you think he's got, what advantages do you think he has over these other guys? Do you think he has more endurance, more grit, more anything? From what I know about him, he's got a great mindset.

He's not going to give up on a workout. He's not going to be mentally beaten by a workout before he goes out there. He's going to go out there and always focus on doing his best. It doesn't seem like he really is concerned too much with what others are doing around him, whether he knows he has a good chance of winning the workout or whether he knows he has a good chance of finishing bottom five. When they announced his name at the semifinals, his going to the games,

do you remember the camera being on him? Yeah. He was pretty darn emotional. And I'm not taking a dig on him, but that does show how much he's caring, right? He's caring a lot. It's, it's. Like he's put a lot of pressure on himself. What?

It's everything to him. Yeah. Do you think it's, how many guys do you think it's everything to? Of these 40 the ones that have kids take them off oh like in the like in the in the greater in the in the greater outlook of life you know that's true i had a ufc on the other day. He's like, you have kids. You got soft. You got soft. Wow. Brian, do you have any thoughts on that?

Of these 40, how many it means everything to them? I think, yeah, staging their life is greatly significant. You know, these guys like Tudor Magda and Cole Grayshaber, they're all in on this right now. Because they're trying to get there and make it and establish themselves in athletes that are good enough to do it year after year and make a career out of it with probably very minimal distractions on the personal side. But a lot of these guys are pushing into the late 20s, early 30s. They have wives. They have kids. They have other things to think about. Some of them, like Fikowski and Vellner, are taking a lot of time to make an initiative in terms of the PFAA to create hopefully better situations for athletes moving forward.

And that's an investment as well. So I think that a lot of it's dictated by just where you're at in your life from an age relationship know, point of view. Some of these people still have to work, uh, in a lot of, you know, variety of capacities in order to make this even a possibility. So they can't, they can't be dialed and focused all the way up. But we, you know, Bergeron's talked about this for years. Um, and, and we've talked about it in the context of phrase, Fraser and to me, how things have like, once you establish a certain level of greatness, then a lot of those other things can sift away and you can really, really dial in every aspect of your life. That's what makes it so hard to crack into the guys that have been around and figured out the formula to stay in the top 10 year after year. It must be a trip for Roman also.

He's got a totally unique situation, right? In terms of the emotional baggage he's carrying to be here. Roman's a great example of the guy that probably bucks the trend here. He has a wife and a kid back home, but he has clearly gone all in this year in terms of getting over here when he was able to, you know, taking the risk to travel to South Korea, taking care of business there and coming back here. And I mean, he posted on Instagram today or or yesterday like i'm already

here he's in madison training and preparing and um you know that's the like really the argument for him to potentially uh be the be the guy that upsets everything at the games this year and and that's you know when you're looking at a guy who might be able to do something in his first year of live competition at the games that's top five. A guy who's been in Madison and has very little distract him, including the fact that he doesn't know how to talk to very many people here. It's not his first language. He can be as focused as anyone right now. Yeah. Let me clarify something. When I say take the ones with kids off, you ask the question, who does it mean everything to? Everything almost like the only thing. Yeah.

But, you know, if you ask any of the guys in this list that have kids that are present and you say, hey, your kid's throwing up. Yeah. Growing up all day. Wife's got to go to work. You're going to find a babysitter to sit with him so you can train. You're going to go sit with them. They're going to go sit with them. Right.

Right. That's what I mean. That's what I mean by that. Right. Right. Right. Right. That's what I mean. That's what I mean by that. Right. Right. And but but but but on the other end of the way I took it also is it if you have a kid and you're going to train and your kids like learning how to spell for the first time, the word cat hurts a little piece of your soul to or you may not train quite as hard or you might look over your shoulder and you might lose two minutes if you lose two minutes every day fucking with your kids uh that's uh that's 700 820 minutes a year 830 minutes a year you're losing you know so that's a lot of minutes it's a lot of minutes yeah it gives you good perspective you don't you don't waste time in the gym that's for sure yeah too i mean right i i know i was kind of blown away by that too that's a lot of minutes to lose if it's just two minutes

a day screwing around screwing around with your uh social media uh anything else you guys want to bring up about this uh fascinating list and and when will this be published anywhere are you going to publish this in the morning chocolate or anything yeah i've actually already written the article um it should publish sometime this week. And, you know, I dive into a few case studies, most of which we've elaborated on here, just to give a kind of a perspective of different styles of athletes, different kind of trends across these 10 workouts. And, you know, some of the outliers that we spent some time talking about. But, yeah, it'll be up sometime this week. And the same thing for the women.

JR, anything we want to hit on? I'm open about, but yeah, it'll be up sometime this week. And the same thing for the women. JR, anything, anything we want to hit on? I'm open to talk about anything. No, I don't think so. I think you got a lot of good stuff to talk about tomorrow with the women. Okay. I want to finish on this one. No, a guy we didn't talk about here who was super impressive at the semifinals. We didn't give a lot of attention to here.

We're two people. We can Dallin Pepper and Phil Toon. Anything you want to say about them? Would you be shocked? I'll open it up with something like this. Would you be shocked? They're fifth and sixth here. If either of them were on the podium this year.

I would be surprised if either one of them got to the podium. I would not be surprised if one of them found their way into the top ten. It's that hard. I mean, I know you gave us, you've given us the lecture a few times. Yeah, no, these guys are so good. I have high hopes for both of these guys in terms of their potential and career to even, I mean, I've talked about a few times, even to make the top 10 this year for either one of them, if they finished 10th, it would be a great rookie year. Because we have people on this list who like Bjorkvink, Carl Goodmanson, who are basically a shoot. They're going to scramble anyone in the top.

He's going to be up in the top five. On his bad years, he finishes eighth. Right. JR, what are your thoughts on Dallin Pepper and Phil Toon? I think they're going to make some waves for sure. I think they're going to have events that they really stand out like top three in certain workouts. But like Brian said, the attrition of the week, if they could come out top 10, either one of them or both of them. I mean,

that's, that's crazy impressive to me in their first year. What did he last year was Guy's first year? Yeah, Guy finished seventh last year and Lazar finished ninth. Phil and Allen are the type of guys that might be able to have something similar to that if everything goes well this year. Are they better? Are those two better than Guy and Lazar their first year? Oh, man, dude, that would be a great prop bet.

Guy and Lazar's finishes versus Phil and Dallin, but I think you have to take Guy and Lazar. JR? I'll take the other two in that. Dallin and Phil. Yeah, sure. All righty. Guys, so what we've decided here is that Jay Crouch will be winning

the CrossFit Games this year, which helps sum up the show. And the rest of Savant's predictions will be coming out a couple weeks or not. The poll was 77% in favor of that. Where did you see that? Where can you see that? We put it up at poll on YouTube. Oh, I didn't even see it.

Did we post it here on the screen? Uh, Susan might've dropped the ball on that one. Oh, Susan. Okay. Uh, tomorrow we will have,

uh, a phenomenal show. Also, um, it will be going over the women. Uh, it's going to, it's going to be good.

The woman's list is a super impressive. I, it doesn't sound like we know good the woman's list is super impressive i it doesn't sound like we know when the morning chocolate article is going to be published so keep your eyes open for it keep refreshing go over and check maybe it'll come out uh by tomorrow when we do the woman show it would be nice if you guys had this to look at i apologize that we don't have our shit together and send it to you uh brian gave us if anyone knows how to embed like a link to a google sheet into a live youtube like the, we could embed the sheet that we've been pulling up for tomorrow for the women. Just get in touch with one of us and let us know how to do it. Awesome.

Thanks, Brian, JR, Sousa. Great lunchtime show. Wow, what country are you in? I like how you added me in there when you didn't put me. That's real PC of you there. I'm an editor. I'm an editor, an executive producer and an editor. Peter, thank you for your help today from Brazil.

You're a good dude. And we'll see you guys tomorrow. Peace out.