The Sevan Podcast - #796 - Brian Friend 's Top 100 CrossFit Games Athletes (Men)

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

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I actually did a draft yesterday with my brother and his friends for the entire season, so we're ready to go. Bam, we're live. When you do that draft for the Frisbee golf season, I guess that is also a tool to help you stay involved. It's research. It's tax-deductible for your business. Yeah. Sports commentator. Analyst. Sports analyst. Yeah, for future shows. Love it.

I should be involved in that draft. Uh, well, it's all my free time. Who's going to win? Is there a guy that's the guy that you already know is going to win the Frisbee, the whole Frisbee golf shebang this year? No,

uh, there are, I would say at least three and up to five or six guys that could possibly win. Like the season long points, but more than likely it'll be one of two guys. Would you say it's more, would you feel more comfortable picking the CrossFit Games winner for 2023 or the Frisbee Golf Champ? Frisbee Golf Champ, I oh wow okay i think yeah i mean i i well because i think it's a sure i think it's a thing who's gonna win the crossfit games it's just madaris and mal o'brien right and so it depends if you're asking about men or women in this in frisbee golf for

women i think there's only one woman she's like seems to be unbeatable um she's like a tia jumi yeah there's something called a they have a statistic called a confidence index it's like the likelihood that you'll beat the next guy head to head or whatever the highest male is like 64 on their scale highest and there's a guy like 61 57 50 it goes down pretty steeply but then on the women's side the highest girl is 54 other than that girl i was talking about who's 128 what's the highest you can go i don't know but that's more than double the next woman so yeah that's crazy she was i don't think she i think she's from finland and i think every tournament she played last year in the u.s she finished finished in the top three, including winning a majority of them.

What do you think about – first of all, I'm embarrassed to say that I did probably watch half of the Super Bowl yesterday. Hey, nice cup. Oh, how did you get that? I got a coffee pods and wads one. What do you mean, how did I get that? I need one of those. You sent it to me since I'm a – Oh, yeah, that's right. I sent it to you. Yeah, that's that's right i sent it to you yeah that's or maybe i got it from gabe because that's right

that's right definitely gabe he's so thoughtful uh nate dog brian motherfucking friend um i i find it um amazing that anyone in the world could have anything to say about this show being uncouth when um uh yesterday i was watching the super bowl the halftime show which i thought was the best halftime i've never seen a good super bowl halftime show that was the best halftime show ever um but but it's not it wasn't a sports show that girl took her fingers and rubbed her vagina like the way a girl masturbates her vagina. It wasn't even like a casual – you know what I mean? She did the thing – you know what I'm talking about, right, Brian? That thing girls do.

Dance moves going around right now? She even held her fingers in the way that I have witnessed girls masturbate and then smelt her fingers. And I knew it wasn't appropriate because there were like eight other people in the room. And even I wasn't comfortable being like, hey, did you guys just see her finger do the gesture for finger banging her vagina and then smelt her finger? And it's so crazy that that's where we're at with – what's crazy also is that those people care about social justice or anything like that. Do they know my kids were in the room?

I was at a party with like 30 kids. It was – I don't know. Do you think I'm approved for that? Do you think I'm approved for that? I mean I was excited because it's something to talk about on the show. Do you foresee that happening at the CrossFit Games? Like a T2Me winning the

event, running up there, rubbing her... None of the players were doing that. Yeah, okay. All right. Maybe we'll bring in someone. What about Adrian Bosley might do it? I don't think it was roger goodell maybe we'll bring in someone a celebrity maybe you i i just be like this

i just couldn't believe i don't want to be approved i want to have fun i just i was i was just tripping uh yeah i'm okay flipping the crowd off yeah that was that was, I was just tripping. Yeah, I'm okay. Flipping the crowd off. Yeah, that was, that was wild. That was, I feel like there was some context to that, but, but yeah, that was, my kids learned this week what this means, by the way. They're so excited. Oh man.

They're so excited. They had no idea. It they had no exciting month for you yeah they learned that the middle finger means um the fuck so and they got the sloppy old school one like this we used to do it like this in the 80s like we thought we were like a jet that's that sounds more old school to me yeah the floating platforms were cool i thought i thought that was amazing hey i thought for sure one of them was gonna fall i thought for sure they didn't even test them out before they didn't of course they tested oh good one brian and you're funny uh the official ranking for who are the i'm gonna screw this up brian will fix it uh who are the hundred best crossfitters in the world is now out on brian friend's instagram it is not on bar bend it is not on morning chaka

It is not a morning chalk up. Correct? Correct. It is only in one place. Well, now about to be two places. Is it on the barbell spin? I don't think so. But he could steal it and post it if he wanted.

I tagged him on it. That's like an open when you tag someone that's like, hey, feel free to steal this. I've been impressed with some of the stuff he's been doing recently. I had some good conversations with him. So you like him? He's a good dude? He's a good dude, hard worker. Yeah, definitely a hard worker. I like that. And so, not yet, I shared his top... um okay here we go uh not yet wait where is it

sorry this keeps coming up not yet i not yet i shared his top uh 100 last time i still can't get over hiller's 500 burpees too you think 500 burpees at 38 14 is good? Didn't see that. Yes. Yeah, that's amazing, right? Yeah. Most people would struggle to do that in an hour. Right. And he's huge, dude. He's over 200 pounds, Brian.

How'd that happen? California hormones and a variety of CrossFit mixed together okay we can start the show Scott Schweitzer's in the house good morning let's do it the top 100 best CrossFitters in the world who are they

there's only one guy who does it there's only one guy we care his opinion he is sitting over he's sitting up do it like this oh he's sitting over like that but no no do the old school do the 80s not everyone knows hold on smells like the grenade soap i use that i got from doc spartan um and good morning fergie good morning i don't want to be a prude fergie i need your and jeffrey birchfield's uh guidance elderly guidance i don't want to be approved i want i

want i want them to have fun but they're such scumbags at the nfl anyway they're such racist fucking grooming fucks anyway but but and i like rihanna it's one of my favorite but really the finger like the nickname everyone calls her riri i think that's i don't i don't really like that no i didn't know that what i think of reread that i think of i used to work with the disabled adults mentally disabled adults and they would call each other rereads that's like means you're retarded like you really but they spell it r-i-r-i so it's okay I don't fart on my hand and smell my fingers but in public I have done

one of these where you fart in your cup your hand and then like not in public in private and like dish it off to like someone like one of my friends if I was drunk you know like give them the old dish smell you don't even have to be drunk that's true and I dutched oven my kid the other day

but that's a different story um okay that's the opposite of grooming by the way when you dutch oven a kid okay um the top 100 is that right these are the best crossfitters in the world in order the number one guy at the top of that list is the man and the number 100 should just be thankful that we said his name kind of i mean there are men that are not on this list that would be on this list if they were competing in the individual field so these are the top 100 that i as of i think wednesday of last week was able to track down and determine that they're, well, as best I could, determine that they're going to make an effort to compete

as an individual this season, this CrossFit game season. Okay, so we just heard one of the criteria. To the best of Brian's knowledge, they're going to make an effort to compete individual. Yeah, so for example, Zach George is on this list. Since I sent this to my graphics guy to make the graphics for Instagram, I found out that he's not competing as an individual this year. So I would remove him from the list. But that guy lives in South Africa and he doesn't have electricity 24-7. So sometimes you just have to have a cutoff. They don't roll with electricity all the time in South Africa? I think they have rolling

four hour blackouts where he lives. We're so privileged in this country and I'm perfectly okay with it. I want more privilege. Okay. Um, the, I think the first thing we're going to do is we want to do a quick run through of those who've gone to the wayside so we're going to pull up a list of those who did not make it um get out the ones that uh do you want to start the ones that are removed from the list from august yeah yeah let's start there sorry yeah that's what i meant the ones who right let me take two we're going to start with the list that was formally on the list but is no longer on list. And it looks like we were just starting with, oh no, those were boys and girls? No, no. Those are all the guys.

Oh, guys. Okay. And so get out your box of Kleenex. This is going to hurt. No, there's hardly anything that's hurting here. I mean, every person on the list minus the bottom two is not competing as an individual this year or at least they've told me how do you find that stuff out how do you find out like that um andre who day is going team instagram friends that i have uh contacts or whatever ask or asking them you ask them okay some cases so like for example i had heard that roy stun might be going on a team i heard that uh baden brown might be going on a team or might not be competing this year baden brown's not on this list he's still on the top 100 list i reached out to both of them roy said yep i'm gonna do a team uh mayhem team that's representing uh

oceana he sent me the team. I removed them from the list. I haven't heard back from Baden Brown, so I don't know what his plans are for this year, but I'm keeping him on the list because I don't know. And he's good enough to be on the list. I'd like to see a standing ovation when Royce Dunn enters the stadium this year.

Yeah. I'm not joking. He's our, he's our Novak Djokovic. I'm not joking. He he's our, he's our Novak Djokovic. He's the man. Okay. Well, people have different opinions about Novak Djokovic,

but I'm he, Royce Dunn was invited to come to, uh, be on the demo team this year. He didn't meet the forced drug requirements to come into the United States of America. And so he didn't come. Yeah. And now those requirements have been lifted.

And Mr. Dunn, the door is wide open. By the way, Royce, if for some reason you can't come in at any time because of mandates using one of our international airports, the southern border is wide open and you may cross at your leisure okay uh so uh can we start at the bottom with these guys uh matt mccloyd and travis meet are you just saying that they're not good enough they got bumped off by two other dudes yeah travis mead was kind of uh you know he's, he never has done the quarterfinals. He did place third in the Open a few years ago. He's the guy that did like, I don't know, 100 hero wads in 100 days. I think he's doing like a hero wad a day. I don't know.

He's doing these crazy challenges. He's very fit, but he's not really making an effort to compete in the competitive CrossFit game season. I put him as 100 in August just as like an honorary mention type. And yeah, Matt McLeod, I mean, obviously it was very close to the bottom of the list anyway. And this is a good talking point, just kind of setting the stage. You know, there are a lot of athletes obviously to consider. Many of them have done some things in the off season. Some of them have done nothing in the off season at all. That's one of those guys. I'm not entirely sure where he's at. He hasn't been that competitive in terms of challenging for a game spot recently.

Recognizable name. Has had some success in the past. If he gave it another run, I do think he could be top 10 in Oceania, but I don't think he can make the game. So I bumped him off the list. God, there are some big names on here. Okay. Jake Marconi. We'll go through these kind of fast. Jake marconi is not competing this year focusing on coaching fair enough uh who is he

coaching it should be po the top athletes over there i think and he's like the direct contact for like someone like hopper like if like hopper didn't get called directly to fraser he has to call marconi first right he's he's, he's no Mal O'Brien. Maybe. I'm not sure they're dynamic right now. Okay. You don't know their flow chart? No. Their org chart. Jorge Fernandez. Why did you even have him as individual? Isn't he like last year?

Isn't he a known teams guy? Yeah. So, but I, I, at the, after the games I put, I make everyone eligible. So after the games, I like, is that a cutoff and then going forward, I after the games, I make everyone eligible. So after the games, I like to cut off, and then going forward, I'll just say if any of these people, so after the games next year, obviously there'll be a big change again because I'll reinsert most of these guys to the list in case they go individual. Oh, okay. Okay, gotcha.

Jorge Fernandez. Sam Stewart from Australia, been on the show great guy uh he's from ireland oh right um i get my islands confused don't laugh kayla please um what's the deal here with sammy he's he's going for team this year and any note worthy people on his team any big names um where is his team is he the only name out of Ireland? Is he the only guy that anyone – No, there's actually some guys from Ireland that are on the list, on the top 100 list.

Joshua Wischthroop from Germany who competed and took second place in the RUC in 2019 is on his team. That guy's not Irish, by the way. That sounds like someone who escaped from Kosovo or something. German, which is what I said. Mia Hesketh and Antoine Fult Katalinski, so two Swedish women. He's in team for sure. Antoine has been on CrossFit Nordic's team before.

She won the RX Division of Water Palooza two years ago. And Mia Hesketh, you probably know. No, I don't. Does Ireland have any other good athletes besides Sam Stewart? Do they have a girl? Yeah, Emma McQuaid. Oh, she's Irish. Okay.

I get those Irish and English people all confused. Alex Smith. Yeah, he and Ben are making a team this year. Oh, interesting. So they kind of shit the bed by missing the chance to do that at Wadapalooza. If they're going to do games, that could have been a good trial run for them. They just start, but then I think they withdrew because alex hip was bothering him at least that's what i've been told not by them uh elliot uh simmons yeah he had surgery about a month ago so he'll be out this season on what i think his shoulders

something up her body uh going a team with Fernandez, we have Joshua Alchama. Is that correct? Yeah. Ben Smith, former games champ. Who's going to be the third guy on that team? There are two women on that team. It's two men, two women format. Right.

You don't think they're going to switch to the way Wadapalooza did it because it was so successful? Not this year. Tola Morakino. Mm-hmm. Which team? I believe they announced their team this morning. I think it's Proven's team.

Wow. So he's kind of like a team guy for hire. He's like a hit man for hire. Yeah. So he's in East Nashville now. They got the girls from Mayhem from last year. And then another guy who's further up on this list that a lot of people were asking about and said that I'd omitted from yesterday's Instagram posts, but he was not omitted because of anything other than the fact that he's going team this year, and that's Tim Paulson. Holy, it's Tim Paulson, Tola, Taylor, and Andrea? Andrea? Yeah, and I think that they are immediately one of the three favorites to win our podium, along with the two returning teams from the podium last year,

CrossFit Oslo and CrossFit Invictus. Who will be the leader of that team? They, I believe, have designated Andrea Nistler as the captain. How often does that happen that there's a female captain? Is this like something that should be on the cover of the games page? Look, a woman captain. CrossFit Omnia, CrossFit Francoos this year, across Invictus. It'll be a few.

They all got chips. We don't know all of them. I just have a list with some friends that we are trying to congregate all of the competitive teams. And if we happen to know who's the captain, then we'll designate that too. I wonder if Andrea and Taylor had any options with Luke and DeChico. Like, did they have any mayhem options? Not sure. I mean, Luke's going individual this year,

so he was not an option. Angela does have a team, but with different women. I don't... Well, we'll see. I don't think that they win win I don't think they win it I'm just gonna say it right now well like I said yeah I think they're in the in the conversation I do think Oslo and Victus are gonna be tough to beat and they definitely you know they're

bringing back but both teams are bringing back the exact same group of people third time in a row that Oslo's doing that obviously they've lost to mayhem the last two years and we'll be, you know, very eager at the opportunity to maybe climb that final spot to the top of the podium. But Invictus is calling this, the season of gold or something like that. So you can read the story behind the team forming on my site,

the barbell spin a C hill. Haley should have left mayhem to, You can read the story behind the team forming on my site, The Barbell Spin. C. Hill, Haley should have left Mayhem too. Oy, oy, not Miss Hill. How dare you? How dare you? Where are we? Logan Collins. Logan Collins, that was an interesting character last year too.

He probably deserves a standing ovation also. Wasn't he the one that was supposed to go up to? Yeah, to the Atlas Games and was eventually reseated to the MAAC. Yeah, what a good dude. Father. And what team is he going on? They're going to be called CrossFit Francos. It's Brandon Luckett and Logan Collins, Alexis Johnson and Shailen Lari. They should be a pretty good team. And Brandon Luckett, Logan Collins, Alexis Johnson and Shailen Lohr or Lorry.

They should be a pretty good team. Brandon Luckett, I think we had on the show too, right? That guy was some sort of rocket scientist or he took over his dad's engineering firm or some weird shit. I thought he retired. He's a good dude. As far as I know, he retired from individual competition. I was surprised last year to see him at the MAC, but he showed up there

coaching. I had Bill Leahy, who will be on the top 100 list. So I guess he's doing team this year. He's got some team experience, Logan and all these, this is a very experienced team coming together. I think that they're not as flashy as some of the others in terms of star power necessarily, but I think they could be a top three, uh, the North America semifinal. Who are the ladies on that team? Alexis Johnson,

who was on Angela to cheat goes team last year. They got fifth place at the games and independence. And then Shailen lower. I'm not sure I pronounce her name. L a U R E. And she was also on a team last year. Hey, was lucky at the guy that had surgery too.

Who's the guy that he surgery too who is the guy that he did have elbow surgery i believe that's right and he still performed pretty well with the fucked up uh elbow wherever he was the mac or the granite games or whatever right he did that crazy snatch i think it was west coast classic two years ago i kind of know stuff people i kind of know stuff i kind of belong on this show anyway shaylin was on the shoe flight team last year that um was unable to compete at the games because one of her teammates failed the drug test so i hate it when that happens lori jr jr thank you lori are we doing a show tonight yeah with helping you guys guys, today I'm bringing a box of rocks, and we are going to – a bag of rocks.

And we are going to discuss the strength quotient and the power. I thought it was a pillowcase of soap. Of soap, yeah. There's some weirdness going on over at CrossFit that we're going to try to untangle for you we're going to try to make sense of this worldwide ranking strength quotient what's that thing called strength determiner strength of field strength of field uh yeah we're gonna make sense of that tonight mike halpin's gonna be there let's go okay so these are the people off the list here we go.

Most of them because they are- Wait, let me finish. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. Oh, okay. Okay. Angelo DiCicco's going team. Does he have anyone good on his team? Yeah.

He brought down two people from Michigan. Sam Demeester, who was a semifinalist last year. Very, very strong young guy. I actually played disc golf with him when I was in Mayhem. And Zoe Jones, Sam's girlfriend. Zoe Jones was on the 10th place team at the games last year. Very, very strong young guy. I actually played disc golf with him when I was in Mayhem. And Zoe Jones, Sam's girlfriend. Zoe Jones was on the 10th place team at the games last year, 8th day black. And then Kyra Milligan from

CrossFit Underdogs is joining with them. So this team is just riding off of Mayhem's fame. There's no... And we like it just because Angela's been on the show, but this team... I think they have top 10 games potential. Oh, come on. Not even close. I've never even heard of those people.

Taylor Self. One of them was in the top 10 last year on a team that was a lot less well-known than that. Okay. I figured I'd be wrong. And Angelo, he's a gamer, man. He's a guy who's better on game day. That's all you need to know about Angelo. Okay.

He's a grower, not a shower, as they say in the biz. Yeah, he's like 23 or 24, but he carries himself like he's 30. He's been competing a long time, I think. He's the type of guy I would go to – I would like to have on my team. I would go to battle with him for sure. I feel like I can say anything after last night's halftime show a taylor self why don't we just say call like a spade a spade or whatever that that phrase is we have no idea what's going on with this guy he has he's tripled and quadrupled down on the smtp uh training he's basically riding off into the sunset as a coach he's changed his hat

i saw him recently on um on his instagram account he looks like he's put on 30 pounds of uh of weight the guy is he's a coach now he's more he's more max el haj than he is uh uh you know rich froney well it's funny that those are the people you bring up. Thank you. I don't think that Max Elhaj would be doing 30 muscle or a hundred ring muscles for time in a comparable time to Froning. Taylor's face looks like he got stung by a bee. Let's face it.

But he can't, he hasn't been able to, to do a lot of lower body stuff. He had two reconstructive knee surgeries, and he's working his way back from that. He was tempted to compete this year or try to, and he is coaching Michelle Basnet. And he's taking this season off. He was tempted to do the Open and the quarterfinals just to help his worldwide ranking for future seasons. I told him I would not do that if I was him.

I don't think it's worth it. Plus, it just leaves yourself open to temptation. Oh, okay. just to help his worldwide ranking for future seasons. I told him I would not do that if I was him. I don't think it's worth it. Plus, it just leaves yourself open to temptation. But if he comes back in the following season, I still think he has a chance to do something pretty impressive as an athlete. But in the meantime, yeah, he's definitely enjoying coaching. And like you said, doubling down on that because I think he's having some success. Yeah, he's definitely having some success. I think Taylor is coaching Michelle Bassinet.

Hey, so you told him not to do the Open this year. I wanted him to do it just because I wanted him, like when they make the announcement, to do the workout right away. And then we could come on the show and talk about it. I was going to have him and Hiller do that. I mean, he's been intentional about his entire rehab process and doing the things that are appropriate and going to set him up for success in the long run. And something might come up in the open that's maybe not optimal for him. And he could do it. And then if he does it, it might set him back.

And with what his goals and aspirations are, I don't think it's worth the risk. Plus, if he goes well and then he does quarterfinals and that goes well and he goes to semifinals and he's not ready for whatever comes at semifinals, you know, physically, if the knee is not ready for it, you may end up in a situation where, uh, what we saw Sarah Sigma's daughter last time at water Palooza. We're saying, why is she out there doing that? Just give yourself the time that you need to heal and come back when you're ready. And I don't want them to be continuously tempted throughout the year by something like that. Honest talk with Brian friend. Oh no, you didn't.

SMTP is the best. I'll ride with Taylor any day. I'd ride with Taylor any day to you. Luke de young, de, de Jong, de Jong. He's been on the show.

Young kid, but that's the big, right? Just can't get healthy. Huge, right? He's a big man over six foot. Yeah. Someone was giving me a hard time with that hair. Yep. Someone was giving me a hard time that about the, that I wasn't, I had forgotten him and up and comers or something like that. No, I have not forgotten this guy. He's just, um, he told me that he was not going to compete

this year. He just put up a post recently that made it look like it was 50, 50, but, uh, either way until he does compete. Uh, and I would probably say the same to him as I would to Taylor is if you're not,

you know, he's had so many injuries, like focus on getting, getting those things under control before you go and compete again. Um, we talked about Tim Paulson, Andre who day and Royce done, um any any uh you know tim paulson's going on that pretty that team's going to be interesting to watch uh who day who day going

with anyone notable um probably not people you know julian krag mashwitz you don't know him no don't thanks for testing me though julie Julie Huguard, fittest in Denmark in a couple of seasons. No. Nanka van Overveld, who was on the CrossFit training culture team last year out of Spain. She's not Spain. She's from the Netherlands.

Decent team. I would think they'd make the games out of Europe. Doesn't Houdet have a wife or a girlfriend who's good? I'm not sure about that. And Royce Dunn out of Australia. They'll have a good team. Because of the changing landscape of

Australian teams this year, they may win the Torian Pro and be the top seeded team out of Australia coming in. Royce Dunn, Brandon Swan, Christy Hollard, and Marnie Sykes. I do want to say this, Muscle and fitness girl, she didn't grab her crotch. She used that. She did that thing, you know, that girls do when they rub the root with their middle finger. That's what it was like when they're masturbating. And then she smelled her hand. It was, it was, it was a lot. It was a lot. It was, it was weird. Call me a prude. It was a lot. It was weird. Call me a prude.

It was a little much for me. Just because. Just because. Like when you get out of the shower and you're naked, you don't think, hey, I'm naked. But if you looked up and there was a stadium watching you, all of a sudden you'd feel uncomfortable. It was like that. I was in a room full of people. And I'm a pretty open guy.

Although I didn't drink much last night. I didn't have a single drink like during the game or after the game, but still, it was like, I don't know. There were like 30 kids around. Julian Iford, good info, Brian, as usual. Can you briefly explain the Katrin Ellie situation you spoke about on IG? Is that tonight's show? Probably more relevant for tonight's show or tomorrow morning

show that's about either those sorts of things or the women's field um would definitely happy to talk about i just don't think this is the right time uh and will you tell us briefly just what the subject is and kind of tease what he's asking why i was – I was just pointing out that he's talking about the athlete exemptions for this year. So he's asking about why – maybe why Katrin was given an exemption to compete in North America West and Allie Turner was not, or he's specifically asking about why I'm frustrated by it. Yeah, I'm frustrated by it too. I can't wait to talk about it. Yeah. I'd like to see. i'd like to i i wonder what there's a lot to unpack there and i don't want to do it a disservice by just you know glancing over it right now when it's not really the focus of this show

let me just ask you this just to see what side of the fence phone i i'm more on the uh almost like let people just compete where they want to compete and let the cards fall. Oh, yeah, that's what I said. Is that where you fall? That's the side of the fence I fall on. Yeah, especially if you have a worldwide ranking system. Let them compete where they live.

The intent of the worldwide ranking system is that if there's five people from Europe that are living in North America West and competing there and they're five of the best 100 in the world, that that will be reflected in the number of spots that they get but the system that's in place right now doesn't necessarily account for that in that way we're not talking about i'll talk about that more another time but i'm with you you should be able to compete where you live if you want to i've been i've been at the dog park or i've been somewhere with my dog on a leash

and the dogs like start sniffing each other's crotches and and and the person like it was just a stranger but I've seen them sniff the crotch or do they like rub it with their paw first and then sniff the paw I've never seen them do that but I'm open to either one if if I miss that I'm just wondering if maybe they might do it differently after watching halftime last night right they sniff each other's butts they sniff each other's crotches. And the thing is, is that's never bothered me. I just assume that's just what dogs do. But I've been around dozens, maybe hundreds of people because I was I used to walk my dog every single day, 10 times a day for 15 years, 20 years.

And I would see many times people become uncomfortable with it. Like, right. So it'd be like me and Brian walk by each other and our dogs sniff each other and brian be like oh my god don't do that and i used to think that was weird so i'm open-minded to dogs smelling each other's crotches i want you to know that and i'm open to smelling your own crotch i've given my crotch a sniff being like oh i need a shower what's that smell but never never uh with the masturbation innuendo in front of kids. It's a lot for me. I'm a prude.

I'm a prude. I'm weird. Just getting old or something is happening to me. It's a slippery slope. So now, so those are the people we have out. I think that's cool. Oh, the,

the only, probably two people that are a little bit saddened by that are, uh, uh, McLeod and, um, and, and,

uh, Travis Meade. Uh, so now we'll do the same thing for the women. No, only to focus on the men's name. Oh, perfect.

Whoa. It's stressing out. Cause we only have an hour left. Okay. Now what we're going to look at is we're going to look at the 42 men who did not make the list and are just dangling. Right? Just picture, like, guys falling off a cliff. These are the 42 that, like, Brian could have given a helping hand and pulled them up onto the platform with Rihanna,

but did not. And they, they, they, they slipped off by the fingertips. I will, I, this looks, oh, I will read through these and feel free, Brian, to stop me at any time. I'll start with an alphabetical order in reverse. Oh, Zach Watts didn't like being, so we'll start with Zach Watts. He didn't like being booted off the list, I don't think so much, Brian. He made a comment on your Instagram post. Correct. Well, he wasn't booted off the list. He wasn't on it in August

and he's still not on it, but he feels that he should be and he's going to, I think, make an effort to prove me wrong, which I think all these guys should try to do. He's one of the bigger names who has not made it on the list. Like we all know who Zach Watts is. So I'm one of the things that we'll talk about tonight and that will, is that,

you know, this flash in the pan that Dave Eubanks and Adrian Bosman have been talking about. Zach Watts had what I would call a flash in the pan year. He made fifth place at one of the semifinals two years ago, got to the games. He got cut as half the field did eventually.

We haven't really seen much from him since. Because of that, I haven't moved him back up inside the list. Maybe he could do it again, but so far he's not been able to. Will Kearney, Victor, what do the colors mean, Brian? Continent, not competitive region.

So I'm putting all of North America in pink. Yellow is Europe. Orange is Asia. Green is Oceania. And purple is South America. There's no gray on this list, but it would be Africa. And maybe I should have one or two people in gray on this list. I'm not sure what Jason Smith is doing anymore.

And I think that the next best guy over there, Ruan Duvenage, is going on a team this year. You put Luke Parker on and team this year. You put Luke Parker on and left Zach off. You jackass, Brian. That part I just added. I think that's what August J is saying. Mike Halpin, I joined Go ahead.

I'm not actually sure if Zach Watts is North America, East or West, but maybe they'll compete against each other and we'll find out. This guy is eluding to the fact that Luke Parker is better. Good morning, Haley. Good morning. If you want, you can make me a second cup of coffee. No need. Mike Halpert, I joined a class at Zach Watts Affiliates a couple weeks ago.

He remembered, Sevan told him he was too nice for the sport of CrossFit. God, and there's a lot of nice people in CrossFit. So if you're too nice for CrossFit, that means you're just way too nice. Let's not spend too much time on this list. Zoom back out. I just want to call attention to a couple of guys. How about Street Horners? He on drugs or what?

How does he have such a nice body? Andrew Hiller says he's not on steroids. Just a genetically gifted individual. Nate Ackerman. Let me pick some, Brian. Don't, don't, don't. Nate Ackerman training really hard down in Naples. I think that after last year,

his goal this year should be to make the semifinals. I think if he's able to make semifinals this year, that'll be the natural progression for him in a really good season, but not top 100 in the world yet. Still going through puberty. Yeah. It's 19 uh luke fowler luke fowler i believe he's being coached by justin cotler now either him or ben fowler maybe both of them is but they're uh training down in australia last year they were on the team this year i think they're gonna go individual ben's on the list of top 100 luke is not i think he's a younger brother um so we'll see but you know top 15 top 10 potential at uh taurine pro for sure uh the the russians training partner

roman krennikoff why can't he get his shit together this logan uh ewing guy i mean come on logan either train and train with Roman and get to the games or move over and let someone else do it, train with him. Jesus, what are you doing? We'll see how good he can be. He's obviously got a great training environment. He's working very hard. I was impressed with him when I trained with him down in Mayhem.

Should he be in the top 100? I'm not sure, but I think we'll find out a lot more about just how good he is this season. A great attitude, like a great attitude for a human being, right? Yeah. Super nice dude. Injured. Recovering.

Yeah, maybe. Haley, I have a cup here if you need one to fill up. Let me go. James Newberry. Why is he even still on the list isn't he an underwear model or something why are we even talking about this guy i i mean he went to uh semi-finals last year and did all right there's you know and like we always talk about when james comes up this guy is just a specimen he's special and he can do amazing things even when you don't necessarily

think that he should be able to so he still has top 10 potential in Oceania, even though I don't think he's pursuing excellence in CrossFit anymore the way some of these guys are. Is James sort of like our 2023 Ronnie Teasdale or Emily Abbott in terms of just, is he going into the spiritual world? Is he? I don't know. You only do rankings.

You don't do character assessment? Religious assessment? I think it's better that way, yeah. Okay, fine. I don't, but I'm fine. People like you because you stay, because you're focused. Cam Crockett.

Let's just talk about him. Cause he has a great name. Uh, I mean, he's a couple, a couple of guys on this list that did do some off season competitions. And I just think that they're like, he's a guy, I guess he could have been one of the last 10 in, um, just need some more data on him. Okay. Okay. So, wow. Look at that. Taking responsibility. It, look at that, taking responsibility.

It's not your fault, Cam, necessarily. It's inconclusive data. That gives you hope. A guy that I only know because of Brian, Alexander Lin. Illin. Illin, yes. Oh, he's made the games before. How is he not on there?

Did he get fat or something? He was competing at a competition in the middle east and halfway through the competition he was in the podium position and he had to withdraw from the competition so a little bit of uh maybe injury concern close to the start of this year um and just in general you know outside of uh roman the guys from asia who have had a chance to compete at the highest level have not been able to really make much of an impact yet. He's one of those guys. So it could be in maybe the bottom 10 or 20.

Otherwise, just outside this list. But he hasn't shown to me that he's a top 50 guy in the world or anything like that. Illin would not pass a drug test. Patrick Clark. There was some rumors that at that competition it became known that there was going to be drug testing

for the podium and suddenly half of the people that were in podium contention withdrew within a 24-hour period. Disgusting speculation. How dare you guys. Alexander, speedy recovery. get that system cleaned up. I would like to just mention the guys that bracket him here, Anthony Yim and Adam Clink. Yeah. I wanted to talk about Adam Clink too. Can I just say his name? Yeah. Adam Clink, Brian, Adam Clink, uh, should have been on the show five times already. I don't

know what I'm doing. He's one of those people. Every time I hear his name, I'm like, God damn it. Why haven't I had him? Yeah. Great, great amount of experience. Obviously trained with Ben for a long time. Very well spoken. And also has done some cool stuff personally in terms of his career with BPN now. And also in terms of athletic pursuit with a hundred miler he tried to do.

So definitely oversight on your part, not having him on yet. And he messaged me yesterday and said he's, he wants to prove that he belongs back in the top 100. So I'm pretty excited for him to actually compete again this year. Does that dude have games aspirations? I don't know if he has games aspirations. I mean, he's got a family. He's got business responsibilities and some other stuff. But I think he does still intend to compete and compete hard at semis this year.

Yeah, he's dope. For those of you who don't know, Adam was the guy that did the – I think it was the sub-six minute, sub-five minute? 500-pound backspot sub-five-minute mile, yeah. That's nuts. He threw in 50 unbroken pull-ups just to round it out nicely. And, hey, that was like – it's not like he spaced that out over a day. He just did that shit.

No, I think it was within an hour. Thank you. Is this a full coffee? Damn. Dear Pedro at Coffee Pods and Wads, I would like a 16-ounce version of this cup. A pint, if you will. I guess I can't talk. The CEO, Savant Cups, just looks like a regular coffee mug.

Hey, I heard that Laura Horvat has multiple boyfriends. Is that true? I haven't heard that. You haven't heard that, that she's dating multiple guys? No. Okay, that's not – I didn't – I mean that. I'm not just saying that to be a smart ass i'm answering genuinely i have not heard that okay i appreciate anyone else you want to mention on

this yeah anthony yim i actually don't know a ton about him but he did the norcal qualifier i think he finished second or third and a few people sent me his stuff his instagram is extremely impressive young guy up and coming very driven uh that by far the most unknown name on this list to me but um i'm watching him this year and then jean-simon wallamer who has had multiple top five finishes in the open in the past but has had some nasty injuries the past couple seasons generally does a lot better online than in live competition but i think he's also going to be throwing his name back in the mix this year. So a couple of guys to watch there, Gary Jones, he competed at the master's fitness collective in the 30 to 34 division,

but he's going to make a run at the individual. This year is obviously still within the age division. That 30 to 34 division only exists at the master's fitness collective. And Jacob Marlowe, two-time winner of the fittest experience, young kid training with Kelly kelly baker these days and hopeful that he can make a semi this year as well but this anthony yim guy how come there's not more asians um in in the crossfit games uh i don't know

I don't know. You got a G-Wagon in the garage. This dude's got a nice setup. Where's he live? Do you know where he lives? No. Do you know if he's in the United States? Yeah.

Yeah, he looks wealthy. He looks like he trains in a nice neighborhood. Do you know how old he is? I know. He's got a sand dune stepper, too. I'm looking at his Instagram. All right. He's somewhere in the U.S., though.

Do I still have Hiller on? Like, what, on what? On my favorites? in my phone? I mean, do I halfway into the show? Are you ready to get to the list? Let's do it. Let's do it.

Top 100. Currently as of February, 2023, we're going to start at the bottom and we are going to tell you the 100 best male CrossFitters in the world. I'm going to bring it up on my phone, on my screen here. Brian Friend CrossFit, B-R-I-A-N-F-R-I-E-N-D CrossFit is the Instagram account that we are going to. This is where you will find the list. Brian, what's up? Anything you want to announce about what's going on in your life?

Just this. So there's four. For every athlete on this list, there's four. I take that as a no. Four things. Their rank on my list. The arrows will indicate a change, whether they've moved up or down from where I had them in August. If there's nothing there, that means they weren't on the list in August.

Their name. And then on the far right, it has their worldwide rank based on CrossFit's formula for determining that. So let's give an example. So you have Peter Mason. He's 100 on the Brian Friend official list. That's up six places from last year. And then we have his name, and then you have 68th is what the CrossFit Games ranks him? Correct.

And the smaller those numbers are, the better. Yeah. Like the CrossFit World Wide Ranking. Yeah. So like Peter Mason would have an impact on the strength of field with a World Wide Ranking of 68. Kevin Jers at 108 would not. You already lost me. I guess we'll figure – you'll explain that that to us tonight I have no idea what that meant

by the time when they come to do the strength of field they're only going to factor in the top 100 so you need to get within the top 100 if you want to have an impact on your competitive region and as you'll see as we go through this there are a lot of people that I have inside the top 100 on my ranking that

are not inside the top 100 on CrossFit's ranking. Don't blame me. You open this door. How many regional athletes are there? What do you mean? How many athletes will go to the regionals this year? Semifinals. Semifinals. Yes. How many athletes? Same to the regionals this year? Semifinals. Semifinals, yes. How many athletes will go to semifinals? Same as last year, 300.

So how could only the top 100 affect the… Yes, we'll talk about that tonight. All right, fine. Fine. Dave Eubanks talks about that extensively on the CrossFit Games podcast about the strength of field. I know Eubanks is into skin color too. Does the color of your skin affect your ranking?

I don't know what you're talking about. Okay. Good answer. Okay. So number 100, Peter Mason, how can he climb up six if you only rank to 100?

You're telling me there's a secret list? No, that's probably an error by the graphics guy, but like I said, see, I'm not the only one. Was penis size or vaccination status considered during this ranking? These are all fair questions. No,

I didn't factor those two things in. I think he meant for the games, but I appreciate you answering anyway. Okay. Peter Mason. Peter Mason was at the, I'll be showing off and telling you what I know too throughout this. I apologize for that. Peter Mason was the speedy guy at the Zellos games this year.

And we have our first error that we've seen on the board. Brian, anyone you want to tell us who's been left off that should have been on that you know right away? Any mistakes like, oh, fuck, I forgot Justin Medeiros? Do not forget him. No, I don't think so. Not right away. Kevin Jurst, down 10. Feel free to interrupt

anywhere you want. Victor Hoffer, sounds like a mobster, down... No. He wasn't on the top 100 last year. He was not on the rank. He wasn't on the top 100 last year. He did team last season. That's why his worldwide ranking is so low.

He's definitely one of the top guys. At worst, he's the top 30 guy in Europe. At worst, probably would be in the top 100 if he did compete last year as an individual but he didn't so we'll see how much his ranking goes up when after quarterfinals happens this year but i think he's uh he's really young he's like 19 or 20 uh but he's got mad mad potential i think uh seven keeps poking the friendly bear i think that's you brian that could be a good shirt brian friendly bear uh how this 593 this number this worldwide ranking number sorry i can't stop scratching this itch um did you come up with that or is that written so you can go to a website and find that number yeah that's the on the crossfit worldwide rankings currently he's ranked 593rd in the world.

How deep do those rankings go? Thousands. It ranks everyone who participated in quarterfinals last year. Wow, okay. Nikita Yundov, you noticed that I'm just starting to figure out how this chart works. He was not on the list last year because you don't see whether he moved up or down correct how could how could he have not been on your list last year and he's 81 in the worldwide rankings because the worldwide rankings are uh that of crossfit are not representative of the current competitive landscape they're representative of a past competitive landscape,

meaning that they only factor in the registrants from quarterfinals last season. And because they don't, because they're weighted evenly across two seasons, people like Nikita Yundov who competed in 2021 and 2022 and made semifinals both years are going to be inflated relative to anyone who only did that one of two years and had a similar performance. Additionally, well, there's a lot.

Anyway, so he's had a pretty consistent last two seasons, and that's what CrossFit's rewarding. Okay. And then i'm gonna have a similar question uh question when we get to uh arthur uh seminoff uh tiago uh lose uh down 35 and then we get to arthur uh um arturo artur arthur seminoff down eight from last year how could a guy i did i see this Oscar Mora and Arthur Semenov. I mean, they're ranked in the thousands according to CrossFit.

Yeah, right. How is he your number 95 and he's theirs 1206? Well, the reason that he's my number 95 is because I think he, one of the best hundred guys in the world. And the reason that he's 1206 on their list is because he hasn't accumulated a lot of points over the past two seasons. I haven't looked specifically. You know, you could ask, we could make notes and ask Halpin specifically to break down where all these points are coming from for each guy, but he didn't get a lot of points.

He probably got very little to no points in 2021. but he didn't get a lot of points. He probably got very little to no points in 2021. And in 2022, although he made the games, he earned next to no points at the games. And at his semifinal, there's a dramatic drop-off after the first place position. So he didn't get a lot of points there either.

And so even though he made the games last year, he hasn't earned very many points in their worldwide ranking system. So theirs is wrong and yours is right. I would say that my, that my list is probably more indicative of what you'll see this year in terms of the top competitors. Yours would be more useful in picking people to go to battle with. If I had to pick people to be on the CrossFit Games team with, I'd use your list, not theirs. Yes. There are 7,274 men and 5,279 women on the worldwide ranking from CrossFit,

which opens up another question. If it's all the people from the quarterfinals... I'm not going to even go there. This is tonight's show. I apologize, Brian. Travis Benton, new to the list 136 uh christophe horvat uh any uh at 93 on brian's list a down eight any home cooking there brian i know he's a friend of yours you probably have him in your speed dial no i mean he's taken out a bit of

responsibility this year is coaching uh his girlfriend gabby mag, he's taken out a bit of responsibility this year. He's coaching his girlfriend, Gabby Magawa. He's still training very hard. They moved to Poland, I believe. And we'll see. He's her coach? Yeah, I've known that for a while, but I didn't want to answer your question because it wasn't public, but it is now public. Morning Chaka released an article about it this morning. I think they misrepresented a couple things there, but that's okay. article about it this morning. I think they misrepresented a couple things there, but that's okay. There you heard it, ladies and gentlemen. The Sevan podcast takes its cues and follows the reports from the morning chalk up. That is our Lord and Savior where we take all of our cues before we report. Thank you, Brian. Wow, we could do a whole show on that. Can you get him on the show? Can we get him on the show? talk about that call him up text him you got his number uh yuri uh marincinco yeah you're in chinko uh mar marcinico marcinco oh marincinco italian guy yeah uh up up

four places uh felipe muscarella i've heard that name before nick thomas at uh 90 luis oscar mora uh any chance uh 1567 um definitely kind of exploded onto the scene last year had that open with that crazy snatch has that crazy body any chance we'll see him go to the games i don't think the games but i do think he can be you know make make some noise in a couple events at semis again he has to be gee is that how he gets there he's no he's in north america mexican so he has to he has to you know kill uh probably be in north america west and it'd be almost impossible for him to make the games in north america west can't we just can't we just make all of, um, uh, Central America a part of South

America? Can we do that? Do we know anyone over across it who can just South of San Diego, you go down there? Um, I mean, it's called a competitive region, so they could shift the lines any way that they want to, I suppose. And I think, you know, they're guaranteeing two spots down there, um, that would increase the depth of the field and probably increase the likelihood of getting some athletes. I put something up about this yesterday, and it's worth mentioning that some of the athletes in these examples have had very unfavorable circumstances leading into the games. For example, Agustin Raquelme last year, I think, found out he was competing a week before the CrossFit game start, which is absolutely should never happen. That's, you know, I have a lot of thoughts about that, but, um, in regardless, we're using results for the worldwide

ranking system and for the strength of field and the results of all of the men who've made the games from Asia and South America, other than Roman and Guy have been essentially last place finishes. And yet we're still guaranteeing multiple spots there. So what I'm saying is I don't think that there should be guaranteed multiple spots to continents that haven't proven that they can actually impact that competition. And on the same, you know, in the same breath, I think you do have to acknowledge what I said, which is that in some of these cases,

they've been given circumstances that would make it hard for anyone to do well but in their formulas there's there isn't any subjectivity it's just how do you do um uh daniel garrity morning chalk up confirmed that brian got Rihanna pregnant again. Scott Tetlow up five places. Tetlow had that pretty cool, actually super cool event versus Colton Mertens on

WAD Zombies. What was that thing called? Fit Wars 1. Do we have Fit Wars 2 announced? Man, we've been trying really hard. It's been difficult. been nick's been trying hard but it's unfortunately not yet wasn't the first one successful is all get out seemed that way we had to get you know i think that there's some hesitancy from athletes to participate in that because they don't want to be i don't know exposed or something but our intent is to try to get a pair of athletes that are fairly well balanced in

terms of fitness and program something that's, I mean, we know these athletes well. We're not going to invite someone into a setting like that and program the thing that they're worst at or the thing that the other one's best at as a dominating element of a workout. We're going to try to create something that's going to be fun. And we don't necessarily know who's going to win. Maybe I'm misremembering this, but I thought Tetlo was retiring. I thought he was kind of that last year was his last year.

I didn't know that if that's the case. Wasn't he like didn't make some deal with his wife, like one more run and that's it? Or maybe that's this year we'll see uh okay uh fit wars 2 sevan versus donna aramo god i hope she has like one leg she's a master's athlete 50 probably 55 to 59 now if she does it blindfold if she if she does it blindfolded wearing toe spacers, I'll go against her. Jacob Pfaff. Dude, imagine if that's your name. P-F-A-F-F.

Okay. Let's do it. Let's move on, Mr. Beaver. Denise, no, Sam Dancer. What is this? Just with an NRO, not rated. You got Sam at your number 86. He still wants to try to compete in the individual field. He was excellent last year when he was healthy. Obviously, he's coming back from a surgery in the offseason, but he did compete at Guadalupalooza and looked all right there.

So if he decides to try to compete in the individual field, I think there's a chance he makes the semifinals and maybe has like a 20th to 30th place finish in one of the two North American semis. Dennis Samsonoff, who also is at the Zealous Games. Yeah, I'm excited to see him compete this year. He did get an exemption to compete, and so we will actually see him compete live in semifinals this year. Last year, he was unable to do that

because he could not travel to South Korea and back on the visa that he has to be in the U.S. I think he's been seeded to the North America East semifinal. It would be very competitive and deep, but at least we'll get to see him in that setting. And he has no chance there to make the games. No, but you know,

I think you can finish in the top half of the field. What was there? There were there. I know that there, we will get into this probably tonight, but there was some criteria for exemptions. There were four criteria. Which one did he get?

They have not told us which one, but we can assume in his case that it was the fourth one, the visa. So if you just had visa issues. Everyone has visa issues. What do you need to prove? I mean I know Ellie Turner had visa issues. It says restrictions from attending their expected semifinal due to immigration or visa status. So there's obviously a ton of variables involved there. And just to be clear, I'm not expecting CrossFit to release any personal information about any of the athletes.

I just think that a note on the side, a column on the side that says this athlete was approved for exemption because of visa reasons, this one for residency reasons, this one for political reasons, and this one for financial reasons, just to see a tally. And then we could assess that and say, oh, well, no one got an exemption for financial reasons in 2023. I don't know why that's even on the list. We could say, wow, of 20 people that were exempt, 18 of them were for visa issues. Okay. That's clearly something that's critical and a good thing we have that in place. You know, I'm just making up things, but that's all I wanted was just to know what are they getting exemptions for? And also I'd like to know how many people applied that did not get

exemptions. And lastly is what, you know, it says in there that one of the criteria for applying in general is that they believe the athlete believes that may advance to the in-person semifinal stage. And if you look at the list of athletes that have already been granted that exemption, you personally will probably only recognize three or four of the 15 or 16 names on there. And some of them are not really even close to making semifinals. So I don't know how they determined that. I wonder if they sent anything back. Like you have no chance. Don't worry about it.

Douche. Well, but I mean, yeah, they could based on the way that they've written this. Caleb, I'm not going to go there. Do you know what a douchebag is, Brian? I don't mean in the Urban Dictionary sense, but are you familiar with, like, have you ever seen one? Are you about to pull one up? I don't know. I just was talking with someone the other day about whether people actually know what that is.

And I was just realizing that, like, probably a lot of people don't even know. Like most people. Probably a lot of people don't even know. Like most people. Kaike Cerveni, one of the funnest names to say in all of CrossFit. New to the list. Welcome, Kaike. Great to have you here.

Worldwide ranking 154. Antonio Dumont. Antoine Dumein. Antoine Dumein. A black guy? I don't think so. French guy. Both.

You could be both. Black guys and red. Ben Fowler, Luke Fowler's brother, not related, though, to the brute strength guy, correct? Correct. Reese, Michelle. Michelle. Nice. Con Porter.

What's going on here? What's this NR? He has no worldwide ranking because he's competed in teams the last two years. So he's a good example. You know, the Oceania region, a lot of people are talking about that. They deserve an extra spot. That's dependent year to year. Some years they certainly have deserved one or two more spots in either the men's and or women's fields. This year, I'm not so sure.

And Khan's an example of someone who, honestly, we don't really know how fit he is. He was looking pretty good in Dubai, but he only competed a couple events before hurting himself. Competed at Guadalupe. He's traveling around the world. He's had some injuries here and there. Not really sure. So tough guy to rank, definitely. In CrossFit's ranking.

He's not even going to show up on the leaderboards, but it's not impossible that he actually makes the games out of Oceania this year. And that's just one of the, you know, questions that would be outstanding is how can you have a guy who's good enough to make the games out of his competitive region, but isn't showing up on a leaderboard in any capacity when you're assessing the strength of the field. Their ranking is so stupid. I'm already just going to weigh in.

It's so stupid. Here's the thing. It's so not functional. I mean, it's so just, it's a step back for, or maybe it's purely functional. I don't know how to phrase it exactly, but it's a step back for the promotion of the sport. I'll tell you that. There's nothing fun about it. I'm not having fun with it.

Well, look, I mean having a ranking system is fun, but you want the ranking system to accurately reflect the competitive field. Yeah, I want it to be fun, and this is not a fun ranking system. Hey, what's um just really quick this is way off subject but what's annie doing is she going individual that's tomorrow's show and can you just tell me like you think she is i think she is okay and and so so and con porter of the of the of the um guys who are who are kind of like scraping for that four fifth six seventhth, 6th, 7th, are there five people from the – oh, I'm going to ask a fucked up question. I know there's no answer.

How many people from the Oceania semifinal are there? Three or four. Definitely a minimum three, possibly four. So who are the – he has to go against Jay Crouch. Royce Dunn's out. He has to go against Baden Brown. Royce Dunn's out. He has to go against Bayden Brown. Ricky Garrard? Oh, shit.

If those three guys compete, and I'm not sure if Bayden Brown is competing this year, but he is on this list. We haven't been able to confirm that. But if those three guys compete, those will most likely be the three guys that go. And then who does Khan have to fight with down there? Some other guys on this list here um peter ellis in 78 is an up-and-comer out there luke fiso's from new zealand has been around for a while and is usually right about five six seven in oceana and then there's some younger guys jake douglas and bailey martin who we'll get to later on in this list, that are going to be in those conversations as well.

Completely. Spiegel just throwing rocks at us. This feels like the emoji draft. God, you're an asshole. Tola does have a new team. We discussed that at length. Petey Savage. He's from Ireland, by the way, since you were asking about Irish guys.

Yeah, great name. We're now at 79, moving to 78. Peter Ellis, who you just mentioned. Okay, so you're saying that this guy has a chance. He's an up-and-comer coming out of Oceania, but they have him ranked at 1983. Podiumed at Down Under CrossFit Championship, but the CrossFit Championship.

But the CrossFit ranking takes into account zero off-season competitions, which is fine. But obviously, I am factoring those things in. So there'll be some people that show up on this list that may have done some good stuff in the off-season. But we haven't seen it in the competitive season. And therefore, there's no way to account for that in the worldwide rankings. I think this is the closest we've seen Brian's rankings with the worldwide worldwide rankings we're at keelan henry brian has them at 77 and the worldwide rankings has them at 47 brian has moved them up previously they have them at 85

oh oh shit okay what's that 47 oh no that is right you're sorry i apologize yeah okay so 47 uh those like that's really good and b Brian has moved him up 21 spots. Did the worldwide rankings affect your opinion in any of these? Did you even look at them? No. Okay. Mostly those 21 spots are just all the guys that were removed from the list. So he's moved up.

So I've got to see him compete a little bit this offseason. I still think we haven't necessarily seen Keelan at his best in a competition outside of the semifinals last year, which was very difficult to impossible to watch. So I'm hopeful that if he makes the games again this year, which I think he's a favorite to do out of Africa, that he can come in healthy and we can actually get an idea of how good this guy is or isn't. He's tiny, right? He's like he's a square pants, sponge bob square pants, like Tetlo and Colton Mertens.

He's just a block, right? Chiseled. Yeah, chiseled. That's what I meant. He's a specimen. Yeah, I like the way you word stuff. Whenever I say stuff, it comes out kind of negative. It sucks.

I need to go to the school of Brian Friend friend do you do a seminar how to how to spin stuff more positive luke fizo 76 75 hamza tarif is that the guy that with the giant beard out of that we saw him no no that's naster hamza was like dennis samsonoff was unable to compete at the asian semi-final last year due to some issues, but so far has not showed up on the travel exemption list this year. So I'm waiting to see if that happens for him. Otherwise, maybe his visa status has changed and he can travel there or not, but he would technically qualify to compete in Asia. But don't necessarily know where we're going to see him yet this year. I want to see what this guy looks like. And so I've just exposed myself as being a full-blown racist

and profiler. When I see the name Hamza, I just see a giant black beard on a guy, and I confuse him with Nazar. And yes, I'm guilty. All right. This guy looks good. Yeah, he had good performances last year in the opening quarterfinals, and then he competed in the last chance qualifier because he couldn't get to his in-person semifinal.

And they did give him the opportunity to at least do that. He didn't do well enough there, and so we haven't – but again, we just don't really know how good he's going to be. What country is he? I'm getting a – what country is he? Turkey. Yeah, I'm getting this like Arab version of like a Miko Salo or some shit. I'm getting this like total pro-athlete, handsome

Kelly Slater, Miko Salo vibe from this dude. Alright, cool. What happened to Nasser? Is he still competing? did he pop that guy's from palestine palestinian territory yeah no shit wow fittest fittest there each of the last four years

wow that's awesome dude holy shit that's got to be a fucking tough place to train right well he doesn't live there oh i just don't think he lives there looks like he's in rome georgia he's trying to think think guy oh so he's in the u.s brian i'm sorry i know you said something about did he get an exemption i know you mentioned he hasn't yet last year he was unable to travel to south korea he and dennis samsonoff were not able to travel there roman was able to travel there and back. He and Denis Samsonov were not able to travel there. Roman was able to travel there and back last year. And then there was a girl from Israel who was also unable

to do it. The three of them got an exemption to skip their semifinal and go straight to the last chance qualifier. There should be a list of countries where you don't even have to say what your reason is for wanting your exemption. Like Palestinian territory. Check. Wave him through. He's good. North Korea. You're good. You're good. Come on in. Anywhere you want. Like Palestinian territory. Check. Wave him through. He's good.

North Korea. You're good. You're good. Come on in. Anywhere you want. Compete wherever you want. North Korea. Yeah, anywhere.

Anywhere. I said it. You're good. Just pick one. You're in. Right? I mean, like, save on man hours. What other countries?

What country would you throw in there, Brian? I'm going to give you one. I got North Korea, Palestinian territory. Which one do you want to just give automatic exemption to? Nepal. Nepal. I agree. Throw that on there. You have any problem with that, Beaver? Good to go. Sounds good. Yep. Good to go. Okay, where are we on this? Hamza, sorry for the racist view on your hairiness. I just see that name and I think you're hairy. Hamza, sorry for the racist view on your hairiness.

I just see that name and I think you're hairy. Matt Poulin, down six. Brian, when I see someone like that, it's a name I've heard mentioned and thrown around for years and I see him down six. Does that mean his career is waning? That means he's... Two years ago, Wadapalooza looked great. Unfortunately, got injured.

I had written about it on the back end because I thought that it was going to be a performance that was kind of forgotten um but he hasn't been as good since then i thought he was going to have a rebound this year at guadalupalooza but he did um pretty poorly actually bottom 10 finish there and uh still the guy's like he's got some freakish talent he's very you know he can't he seems like he should be good, but this is kind of my last chance for him. He's got to show me at semifinals that he's as good as I thought he could be. Otherwise, he probably won't ever be on this list again. Oh, Matt, sorry.

Well, at least we talked about you some. 73, Michael Smith. Another guy from Ireland. Oh, that's nice. 72, Zach George. He'll be going on a team with the team training program this year, Ireland. Oh, that's nice. Uh, 72, uh, Zach George, who will, he'll be going on a team with the team training program this year. So I'll take him off this list. Once this show is over.

Uh, uh, Zach George is out of the UK buff dude. He was on the show. Handsome. Looks like the model. You got him on the show, but yeah.

Model. Yeah. I, uh, cause I get him and Willie Georgeges. Willie Georges is the French guy, also yoked out of his mind. He's great at Wadapalooza on the team. Yeah, Roman.

Oh yeah, went with Roman and who else? Jay Crouch. Oh yeah, what a great team. What did they place at Wadapalooza? Second. Pretty good. God, I really like Jay Crouch. I hope Jay Crouch makes podium soon. Oh, yeah.

I had this guy in the show. This guy's amazing. He's on Men's Health Magazine. Yeah, he's a supermodel. He's a beautiful human. He used to be a fat boy. You know what? Did you know that?

He's a weight loss story. Is that how you guys bonded? I can't remember. But I thoroughly enjoyed having him on. Okay. Back to this list. Wow, we got to move, dude. We gots to move.

Enough of this. Too much time with these nobodies. Speaking of nobodies, Luke Parker. 71. 71. So, Brian, any chance in hellke makes it to the games this year he didn't do very well at the fittest experience and that was uh i was watching obviously watching to see how he did there and that's this is the thing like like i said some people do the off

season competitions and it really bodes well for them some people do and it has leaves a kind of a negative impression i don't think that how you're doing off season is necessarily going to reflect how you do in the competitive season i've mentioned before that there are frequently guys who will do really well or poorly at wadapalooza and then bounce back and have kind of an inverse performance at the semi-final so luke's obviously gonna be hoping for something like that i still think it's gonna be very very difficult for him to make the games this year. I think if he was able to finish even in the top 20 at the North American East Semi-Final, it would be a good season.

Do you think that – I have to assume there's someone there being honest with him. Like, hey, Luke, you could be on a team that makes it on the podium. There's a lot of situations like this and i've always say the same thing it's like don't don't compete on a team unless you want to compete on a team and and personally i wouldn't want someone on my team if i knew that they weren't all in for the team especially if you're trying to be a very competitive team and so if he wants to see how where he stands in the individual uh i would say if i was as close to advisors then say like all

right then let's go for it and let's recommit to that and not try to dissuade them of it. Go get some, Luke. I hope you make it, buddy. I like him. OK, next page, number 70. John Wood. Oh, now they each get their own page. This is kind of cool. John Wood, Simon Paquette, Bronislaw. Yeah, so six guys in a row here that all of them were not on the list last year. Simon, Paquette, Bronislaw. Bronislaw. Yeah, so six guys in a row here that all of them were not on the list last year. You see there's a huge variable of their worldwide ranking.

Some of them have none. Some of them have a decent one. I think these are all pretty fascinating guys, actually, for different reasons. But likely the three that people are most interested in is Bronislaw because big name big potential on weightlifting he's training with Kotler now and he looks incredibly focused and disciplined in his training more so than I've seen in the past uh we have seen him have some good performances in competitions as a whole never really at a semi-final though so um it looks like he's kind of redefining himself as an athlete. And I would say of people on this list,

he's probably one of the top 10 I'm most excited to see this year. What country? He's from Poland. Is he training in Vegas now? No, he's over there in Europe. And Dre Strom, is that the camera guy for Mayhem? He used to be on the media team for ma'am i think he's elevated into a different position now he just won a competition in cincinnati i think or somewhere in the midwest over there and um a small a small competition and he will be making a run at individual again this

year has he ever gone individual yeah i think he's been as good as 10th at regionals or something like that. No, but has he ever been to the games? No, not to the games. Crazy. I wonder if anyone from the media team in modern times on any media teams like that has ever been to the games. Oh, yeah, let me see this guy.

Oh, he's got a great Dane. I like this guy all right he's got the pray shirt on oh he's half look at he's half asian his mom's asian all right i take that back when i said that where how come there's no asians there's one slipping under the radar. Dre Strom. Of course, Patrick Clark with the great contribution. Ben Davidson did for CrossFit Justice.

Oh, yeah, that team, right? Right, I remember that. Dre used to be teams with Rich back in the day, I thought. I won a gold as a team athlete. Anthony Davis. Oh, but he hasn't done anything in the off season. So we'll see.

I mean, he was 10th place at a semi last year, obviously, you know, similar to Bronis. He's got some home run potential. He seems to be attempting to dial everything else in and get as good as he can. So see if I look at this worldwide ranking 53 for Anthony Davis and

Brian has him at 64. The thing that's in, he's up 18. Anthony Davis is a really, really trippy cat because he might be the strongest guy in the CrossFit world. Just straight up. Who's legitimately a CrossFitter.

And yet he sort of has this a Blas I fair, like, Hey, I'm just there to just work out attitude yeah and i think that braun has a lot of time oh thank you who was going to create me lase fair um yeah and i think braun has had that in some capacities also but i feel like both of these guys are realizing i have a skill set that most people would love to have. I just need to channel my life and energy and focus into this other area for a period of time and see how good I can actually get.

I feel like in some regards, this is a make or break season for both of those guys in terms of answering the question of if they can ever make the CrossFit Games. they can ever make the crossfit games uh i don't know uh this guy anthony davis by the way is maybe one of the most um humble people i know you know he should go he would fit in perfectly at mayhem maybe uh lugvig hansson uh reggie fossa is reggie fossa guy out of the uk i can always hear his name too you got him up 24 so he reggie foss is kind of the opposite of Matt Poulin. We hear his name a lot, but you're believing him. Wow. He just got a worldwide ranking, 65. You got him at 62.

Now we're in business? I mean, he just hasn't done anything that has wanted me to move him back at all on the ranking. And 10 to 15 guys that were ahead of him have been pulled off the list. So moves up a bit. Who jumped the most, Brian? I don't know. Jake Douglas, 27 points.

Yeah, that's one of the young guys from Oceania that I was talking about. Second place to Jake Crouch at the Down Under CrossFit Championships. And has, you know, I think he, like I said, is one of the five or six guys that can make the games out of Oceania this year. Brian, we're at 61. God, we're so far behind time-wise.

Have you seen anyone yet where you could be like, yes, Sevan, that guy is going to the games? Keelan Henry from Africa. Okay. Okay, let's move on to the next page. Benoit. Benoit. Boulangerie.

That's actually kind of funny. Thank you. Cedric Lapointe, Jack Farlow, Jeremy Vigneault. Let's see. Anyone else on here? Let's go back down to these guys yeah so cedric lapointe is kind of cursed right he's the guy that like you always think he's gonna make it and then something happens he trips over his shoelace or something yeah i don't really think i don't think he's gonna to make it anymore. No. Okay. And Jack Farlow, he's sort of like an accessory to the great Emma Lawson. He's sort of the Kristoff to Gabby Magawa. Yeah.

I don't know how good he'll end up being. He's obviously very young, 20, 21 years old, incredibly strong. That was Cedric, yeah. That's pretty funny. Didn't he get arrested for working out? Who didn't? Who didn't? So, yeah, Farlow, Vigneault, Lapointe, Boulanger.

Benoit Boulanger is being coached by Caroline Lambrecht. She's like her next project after Jeff Adler and I think can maybe make a move up this year. Didn't do his off-season competitions that he did last year. So kind of waiting to see how much better he's gotten. I think the Farlow story is going to be an interesting story. You know that there's a lot of potential for weird shit, right? A lot of potential. You get a couple new on the scene.'s an exploding name he's got some special

skills there's a lot of boys and girls around this one's going to be fun to watch everyone stay tuned for this one uh brian doesn't rank 58 i really hope he goes to the games we this is good narrative this is going to be good fodder for uh people like me who uh who scrape nickels together trying to run a youtube show jack farlow and emma lawson that's that's fun why why are we how come we can't get emma lawson on the show i'm telling you guys are making a mistake by not coming on yep i know it sounds cocky but it's the facts uh the guy with the hardest name to say for some reason leonel franco leonel leon just call him leo you probably could do that leo leo now up 10 up 10 uh i'm seeing his name a lot oh augustine raquel may up 48 that's a new record here yeah uh probably just my fault for just you know having him ranked lower

than he should have been on the back of a game's performance that i just said was not really his own fault but hardly any time noticed to prepare for that um saw him i trained with him in mayhem and was uh very impressed with a couple things he was able to do that you might not think he would do as well given his size and a known skill set he's world class on but you know bodyweight gymnastics burpees barbell cycling type stuff um working on his strength and his endurance and most likely will take the second spot out of South America this year and hopefully have a fair amount of time to prepare for the game. So similar to Keelan, we can see how good he actually can end up doing. Thank you.

I'm taking my kids to a new – I apologize for this interruption, for this emergency. My kids are going to a new jiu-jitsu class today. They're visiting Arizona, and the teacher is concerned with whether they'll fit in with the class i said my kids are such amazing training partners the instructor will be blown away my kids will behave accordingly and if they don't i will pull them the fuck out. Peace and love. No one should ever be worried. They can fit in anywhere.

They can even... I don't need to say anything else. Okay. Jack Farlow, Jeremy... uh okay so we went through this uh any of these guys wait how about augustine rachel may you think can you tell me yes he's going to the game so on i just said that i think he's the most likely guy to take the second the second qualifying spot the second guaranteed qualifying spot out of south america okay i don't know if you're joking or not,

Clock Cutter. That surely convinced them. Okay. Oh, Griffin Raleigh from the demo team last year, Austin Spencer. Oh, I'm getting the impression Austin Spencer, I'm surprised you haven't ranked so high, isn't competing this year for some reason.

I can't remember, but in my foggy brain, I thought that maybe because he pulled off a team at Wadapalooza. Is that what I'm thinking? I don't know what you're thinking. Austin Spencer is the guy that made it in because of a Nicholas Joyel popped, right? He,

uh, yeah. Uh, Stefan, you should get bill Leahy on the show. Super young, been doing CrossFit all of 2.5 years. Does his own programming pretty high on this list.

Good dude. Humble trains with Brandon Luckett. Do I know Billy? Yeah, we already brought him up when we trains with Brandon Luckett. Do I know Billy? Yeah, we already brought him up when we talked about Brandon Luckett and he'll be on the next page. He was also was on Adrian Bosman's radar last year. He had him test several of the games workouts.

Oh, that's always interesting. Okay. Griffin Raleigh, a demo team still has games aspirations, right? You talked to him. I think so. I did not you talk to him? I think so. I did not talk to him, but I think so.

I guess you could throw him in the pile also with I would be curious what Patrick Clark thinks of this. You could throw him in the pile with Guy, Anthony Davis, Bronislawski, and you could throw Griffin in there too, right? Is one of the freaks. Yep. Someone mentioned that a few minutes ago oh all right uh james braig down 11

uh let's let's let's park our cars here for a little bit uh he's young and up and coming how can he be dropping he should always be going the other way um i just wanted to piss him off you think he's injured no i think he'll be herpes flare-up herpes flare-up i think it'd be right in the mix it's you know it's getting very competitive in this region um there i think maybe i over overestimated him a couple guys i wanted to bump up based on some stuff this off season. And yeah, he'll be in the mix for a game spot.

I think it'd be tough, but he has a chance to take one of the last ones out of the East. Wow. Has he talked to you since he saw that? No. You think there's anything wrong with his training? Is there anything that you see? Alpen's comment is great.

No, no, no, no, nothing at all. Similar to a swim in a water palooza, this isn't the right direction for James. Did he shit the bed in the water at water palooza? Yeah, he just turned in a little bit early. Wow. He did. No, no, that's an old girlfriend. That Wow. He did. No, no. That's an old girlfriend.

That girl's been around. Yeah. True. Okay. Colton Merton's up six. Is Colton healthy? He did. You know, he pulled out a lot of Palooza because of that autoimmune situation.

But he did do a competition a few weeks after that, a local, much smaller competition, and he seems to be back in training. I wasn't really entirely sure what to do with him, but until we see otherwise, yeah, he still deserves to be right in the mix here for one of the game spots out of North America. Has Jake Berman been on the podcast, Caleb? Technically, no. We had Noah on, and he was in the driver's seat of the car they were in. Right. For some reason, I like that guy. That sucks that he's down seven.

Can that guy make it to the games? Wasn't he close? Wasn't he like six or something? Yeah, extremely close. This is like right here in this region 40 to 50 i think i think all of these guys are either except for bailey martin they're all from north america or europe and these are the guys that are going to be right on the bubble right on the cut line these are the guys for whom the strength of field matters the most that you need to you know

every extra spot is an extra opportunity and this this is the region of the rankings that we're looking at where one guy can be in or one guy can be out based on the system that's now in place. Sorry, I know I asked, is Colton healthy? Do we know if Colton's healthy? It looks like he is. This is Jake Berman. He has done nothing this off season to help us understand where he's at. I think that last picture showed where he's at. Two pictures back. One more back. That one shows where he's at in the off season.

Seems very happy. Yeah. Yeah. Very happy. So we don't, you know, all we have is the last semifinal. I have heard that he will be, you know know focusing on trying to improve on that last year and get to the games this season um he has business endeavors he has a social life like we talk about this all the time with crossfit where the people who are the best of the best strip all that stuff

away and make their their life singular and focused on one things that doesn't work for everyone i don't think that jake's necessarily capable of that. He likes other things in his life too much, but he's also freak freakishly talented and obviously was incredibly close last year. So I think even with six months of preparation and dedication, instead of a full 12, that that might be a good recipe for him to be right in the mix again for, you know,

a game spot. Brian, do you want to answer this? I give you 15 seconds for this. From Johnny, why does it seem the women come from the teen division and make more of an impact than the men's teens when they switch to individual? Two things. Just women develop younger than men, and secondly, depth of field.

I think there's more depth in the men's field and it's harder to do it. I think that plays a really insignificant role. You think the first one is the prime? I do, yeah. But I'm totally willing for you to tell me shut the fuck up, though. No, no.

That's why I listed them in that order. Okay. Okay. Back at it, Mr. Beaver. I think we're about to break into the top 50, top 40. We were in the 40s. Okay. Oh, man, this show's never going to end.

Michael Stevenson, Bailey Martin, James Sprague. We talked about him. Fabio Benito had the great showing in Dubai. Alex Catullo. Matt matt delugos up uh one uh you think delugos well i guess it's a little it's gonna be tight the north here's the thing the north america west men's field is very top heavy i think that they're probably going to end up with eight to ten qualifying spots. And I think there are basically eight guaranteed spots that like those eight guys are not going to be moved. So they need,

they need a couple extra spots for guys like to Lugos to have a, a really good chance. I don't know why this comment kind of aroused me. I love when Brian tells me to shut the fuck up. That's what you wanted it to do. That needs to be a whole nother show okay let's go but let's go let's go sorry delugos where i would love to spend more time on you uh but yeah you will be a name we will talk about um as the year goes on enrico zanoni may be one of the nicest bodies

that should be an underwear model in this men's division doesn't have a chance in hell going to the games. Gergos Karev, yes. Will Morad probably should have retired by now. Uldis Upanikis, I don't feel like the boys have had a lot of faith in you. Bill Leahy, Baden Brown, Tyler Christofal at 34 at a mayhem. Moritz Fiebig, 33. Alexander Caron, 32. Adrian Mundweiler, 31. Hold on, we're going to let Brian talk about some of these.

Now the worldwide ranking and Brian's numbers are really starting to line up a lot more. Yeah, we're getting into the realm now. These are the guys that are consistently good, and we know them. And the interesting part about this list is, you know, Muenweiler, Fiebeck, Christoffel, Leahy did not make the games last year. So four of these ten did not make the games last year. The other ones did. And so we're right on the – these are, like I said, right on the borderline. These are some of the best guys in the world,

but they won't all make the games because of the way that the spots are distributed, which is okay. So, but this is the group of guys, 31 through 50, especially as the range where the number of qualifying spots is critical to their chances this year, not just to make the games, but then also to accumulate points that can help their ranking that can then lead to more spots in future seasons. How old is Will Morad? Could he go Masters? I don't think yet. I think he's like 32 or 33.

God, I feel like he has been around forever. He started competing pretty young, but yeah, he made the games in 2014 out of the Central East when it was extremely difficult to do so. And he did pretty well at the games that year, too. I think he was 13th. And do you know who the oldest person is on your top 100, Brian? Probably Sam Dancer. Oh, shit.

Do you know who the second oldest is? No. All right. When is the show about Brian? Soon. Keep reminding me. Keep reminding me. Tyler Christofal.

Have we seen the best of him? I don't think so. I saw him train down in mayhem man he was very impressive i think this guy is definitely good enough to be at the games and make an impact on the leaderboard there um but it's just a matter of getting there you know this sport guarantees nothing and just because you have all the skills doesn't mean that you can put it all together when it matters and in this season format that we have, you got one weekend to do that. He was a few reps away from doing it last year.

He's, I think is in a good place, mentally good place in his life. Good, great relationship with Bailey rail, great training partner. He's training with rich a lot still. So I think he's got as good a chance as he did last year,

if not better to make it, but he still has to prove that he can do it. Craig Paisley, he's strong enough with gymnastics skills to boot. All right. I mean, look, it might come down to programming. In some cases, it does. He's shown consistently that his overhead strength is sometimes lacking, and that can be a limiter for him relative. I mean, the margins are really small but if he gets a you know favorable programming draw that doesn't have

too much overhead stuff this year then i think his chances go up if you were in a if you were in a frisbee golf tournament with these 100 guys would you finish on top probably yeah i don't know i probably played more than all these jumps you beat all these dudes probably though yeah but if you get these guys are such good athletes if you gave them like a month of practice then no frisbee requires something that these guys don't have i bet you have these guys are bad in bed you heard it you know i've i know that both uh chase ingram and tommy marquez don't play very much disc golf and when i play with them i'm pretty impressed with how good they can get so quickly yeah that's fair that's fair and i respect both those guys

athletic prowess okay uh let's go to number uh 30 oh here we go is go. Is Scott in this? Oh, there is a Scott Pan chick here. Holy shit. Why does Scott get to be on this list? Because he's still one of the best in the world. And he's competing? He's probably the second oldest guy on the list. There you go.

I don't know if he's competing or not. Wow. Brian always finishes on top. My God. I think I might have blushed a little bit. Holy shit. What is going on with me today? This is better than the halftime show.

But what do you know about Scott that makes you think he's competing? He told me last year that he was going to compete and that three Panchuk brothers were making the games in 2023. God, I love Scott. So we'll see. Standing ovation for Scott too,

but add him to the list, Caleb for standing ovation. People Roy, Roy, Roy stunts, Scott Panchuk and Logan Collins. Logan Collins. Yes.

Thank you. Appreciate you. Right. Tattooing that on your hand. Luka Jukic, the younger brother. Does he make it to the games? Brian is here.

I think he will. Okay. I think that I'm, I'm a little conflicted because he's done so much competing and he's lifting heavy so often that I'm concerned about his body holding up. But if it does hold up, I think he, he has,

uh, made more of an effort to focus his life. We, like we talked about to eliminate distractions and his training specifically to the things that have been holding him back than most of the other guys on this list. So I think he has a really good chances here to make the games hey i would love to see it by the way i think he is uh i would love to see him i would love to see

him be just a podium threat at all times i really like the jukic brothers um you know what's trippy about heidi this is so off subject you know how fucking cool she is, but the world probably just doesn't accept her. You know how much funny shit she's probably thinking nonstop. Like, just imagine, like, walking down the street with her and the funny shit that she's thinking. And then you get a coffee with her, and then you go eat at a restaurant with her, and then you work out with her. And she's probably just the funniest shit. But it's probably just never safe in this fucked up world for her just to spout off her comedy. But she's probably thinking of the funniest shit. She's probably one of the funniest shit. But it's probably just never safe in this fucked up world for her just to spout off her comedy. But she's probably thinking of the funniest shit.

She's probably one of the funniest humans alive. But we're never going to know. Sucks. Set Heidi free. Guillaume Briant, the swimmer out of France, called Greyshaber. I'm crazy impressed by him. I'm crazy impressed. I thought I was getting this impression that he was kind of sloppy,

but whatever that, what was that last tournament he did? He's not sloppy at all. Yeah. He's a beast. What are we only getting better, right? Look at him.

You got him coming up 20, a tutor Magda. I got a lot of questions. Want to see him do well, but I'm tripping. I feel like that. We can't get any consistency out of the kid. Scott Pan chick,

Alex Vigneault, Jay Crouch. Thank you for raising him seven, Brian. I would love to see him and, and Luka Jukic be the kind of guys that are always fighting for the podium. Henrik Hapalapinen, Samuel Kornvalle,

and Spencer Pancheck. What's up with, how can Spencer be higher than Scott? Younger, healthier on the, you know, on the ascendancy. He's the weaker of the three Panczyk brothers.

Listen, Scott's the best. Then Saxon, then Spencer. Let's just say it. That's, that's how they are. That's just,

everyone knows that. In terms of the, what they've done in their career. Yeah. That's how I would rank them in terms of what's coming up this upcoming season, I don't see it that way. Okay, I didn't mean to project on Heidi. She is free. She's scratched.

She is free. I apologize. I was projecting. She is free. Strike that whole last monologue. I don't know. I don't think anyone can agree with you. I think you're on an island by yourself.

Patrick Clark, help me out here. helping uh oh shit this isn't what i want to see spencer's due for a big year training with nick fallon i mean i'm open for spencer being the best in the world i'm open for any of the panchik brothers knocking off madaris even but scott is the best period. Hands down. Any of these other guys you want to talk about? Just one way. Sam. Well, Sam,

well, it's not, Sam has a lot to prove this year. He does. And I think it was pretty like the off season was extremely unfortunate for him. He did well enough to qualify for road, but he forgot to weigh his plates. So he didn't get to compete. He qualified for Dubai. He said it was too expensive to travel there. I think he would have won if he'd gone, but he forgot to weigh his plates, so he didn't get to compete. He qualified for Dubai. He said it was too

expensive to travel there. I think he would have won if he'd gone, but he didn't go, so we didn't get to see him compete. He petitioned to compete at Guadalupalooza as an individual. That petition was denied. He did compete there as a team. What does that mean? What does that mean? They have rules that you have. There's ways that you qualify. If you don't meet any of those,

then you have to do the online qualifier. He didn't do the online qualifier because he chose to do the rogue online qualifier, but that didn't go well. So then he had to ask for a special exemption. They didn't give him one, which they were pretty firm in their rules. There are a lot of ways to qualify for that. And if you don't meet any of them, I think they should have let him compete. He was first place at the games on a team last year, and he was on the podium as an individual the previous year at their own competition. I feel like if you podium at the competition one year and you have all these different ways to qualify, that should be good enough to qualify. Maybe they'll take a

look at that for future years, but either way they upheld their rules, which I commend them for doing that. And he was not able to compete individually. He did go and compete on the team with Rich and Tyler, but he had a bicep injury and they had to withdraw on day one so it was pretty much the worst possible offseason for him in terms of trying to assess where he's at relative to the rest of the field and the only time we saw him he didn't finish because of an injury so you know and this is basically where he finished at the games when he competed two years ago is right just outside the top 20 so i think yeah i think he has top 10 potential as his ceiling this year um but we you know we still need to see him get back in individual field and and show his stuff uh i i i want to say that thing we said about wadapalooza i totally agree

with like what a fuck like give him a fucking exemption jackasses but i also commend you on on standing by your guns good job that's weird but yeah they should have let him go but also good job keeping holding down the rules it's like a girl who won't sleep with you on the first date it's like well that sucks but like hey good good i mean i ain't hating right i think that's a good analogy just great thank you you don't like it but you understand it yeah you understand yeah you respect it yeah it's just yeah it's sweet thank you i like caleb smile i love when caleb smiles his teeth fall out of his mustache uh tutor magda uh let's just give it to him like come on dude you're the fucking next big hope

james sprague's out of your way brian has washed james sprague's to the side come on tutor get up there right you want more from this guy what he's gonna try to this year all right we'll see i mean there's you's double down on the brain or whatever you do. I know you got your double down. I do think it's a, it's a big year for Cole grease, saber, Tudor Magda,

Dallin pepper to see like, if they were able to make that next step, they were good last year. They made the games last year. They've had decent off season, but I'm looking for all of those guys to make a step forward again this year. Okay.

Oh, we're breaking into the top 20 holy cow we're doing it i feel totally like like every few seconds i every like 10 minutes i feel rushed and then i forget how much fun i'm having travis mayor all one of my all-time favorite crossfit athletes uh willie georges out of france That was fun watching him in Waterpalooza. Cole Sager still hanging around. Bravo to you, Cole. Noah Olsen, Chandler Smith.

Okay, let's just stop here. This is not as big of a problem as having Saxon and Spencer higher than Scott, but this is weird. Can you explain how Chand Chandler shit the bed? Chandler is higher than Noah and Cole Sager. You can even call him no show Chandler. No show Smith. He's second at Rogue.

Okay, fine. I take it back. Sometimes show. Sometimes show. I've removed Chandler's semifinal performance from last year from my mind. You know, he was clearly not competing. I've never seen him look like that competing. And I know that he sometimes has not showed up in the way that we've hoped he has in the past.

But that was not a good reflection of his fitness. So I'm, you know, removing that when I'm considering this. And I'm looking at what we've seen him do recently. He seems to be having a ton of fun. I think that being married to Jesse, their lifestyle right now is something that he likes. I don't know. I feel like he's in a really good place and we're going to see the best

CrossFit game season we've ever seen from Chandler Smith this year. That's awesome. That's awesome. By the way that you're saying that I love it. And I appreciate your, I appreciate your transparency and just saying, yeah, Hey,

look at, I'm not, I'm ignoring that. I'm taking that out. That, that performance is not indicative. I'm giving them a pass. No Olsen, Cole Sager, Travis Mayer, you know, they're in this 10 to 20 range again this year. Can they be 11, 12, 13? Yeah, for sure. Can they be 16, 17, 18? Yeah, I think so. Um, they're, you know, continuing to push, uh, the, 18? Yeah, I think so. They're continuing to push the boundaries here in terms of being competitive for a long time. Now they're in the echelons of

the Scott Panchicks, Ben Smiths of staying up near the top for a decade. Both Cole and Noah, along with BKG, are going to have a chance to qualify for 10 consecutive CrossFit games this season. No one's done that before in the men's division. I don't think anyone's done that.

I don't think anyone's qualified for 10 in a row in any division before. So all three of those guys can do it. And that's an incredible testament to their career. A couple of quick questions. Is Chandler still with comp train? I'm not really sure about that. He seems to be in Invictus training over there, but I don't know who's doing this programming. I don't know that he's made any public announcements about that.

So I'm not 100% sure. There's a time in your life when you check the mailbox and you see your parents start getting like that AARP or AARP magazine. It's like a magazine for old people. And you're like, oh, oh shit my parents are senior citizens or like the first time you see your mom like get like the 65 and did your kids find that the other day in the mailbox you're 65 and you see your mom at disneyland get the 65 and older discount uh are we seeing let's be really frank about noah cole and travis physically uh for sure uh noah and travis look fucking amazing specimens sure cole too i just haven't been watching cole close

enough over the years but is is something waning in these guys mentally physically is are they is their recovery not as good are they exhausted have they become complacent is there some old age uh setting in like if we check these guys mailbox are they getting the uh oh look at aarp sends me mailers yeah it has a denny's coupon this yeah yeah are we like if we walk by denny's are we gonna to see Cole and and Travis and Noah like splitting going Dutch on a fucking Denny's ticket they reach that age

no I think they're so competitive as one of the 20 best guys in the world I'm not saying that I'm just saying like time catches up with everyone yeah I think that this as you as you get into that 30 to 35, uh, age range, which they all are that you need to adjust the way that you train and prepare. If you want

to continue to be, you know, at the top of the sport. Um, so they don't seem as impressed. Like something's not as like with Scott, I have a little more faith in their age. I actually have a lot of faith in Travis's age too, but do you think like Bill Grunler needs to call any of these dudes? Would you like to see any of these guys step down? Like, Hey, let's just remember you as the best. No, I think as long as they, like, you know, you alluded to their mental fortitude, like as long as they're still have what it takes mentally to show up and train every day and do the body work, get the recovery, still take care of other things in their lives. And they're motivated by that. No, I love that.

They're still doing it. It must trip them out because, you know, no one thinks they're old. Like, I don't even think I'm old, but it must trip them out. Like when people refer to them as old, because they must be relative, you know, we, you know, we just came off of a page that has 20 and nine and 21 year old, you know, kids on it that are, that are coming and they're 10 years, 10, 12 years younger. And there are, you know, certain advantages that with age, and there's also certain disadvantages. This is great. Patrick knows how to speak to my heart.

Those guys have become the Cowboy Cerrone and Dos Años of CrossFit. Mike Halpin, Brian's stat on most to qualify is the greatest stat as the qualifier started in 2009, and Ben Smith was awarded a spot in 2019 it will be interesting who runs it back in 2024 to take sole ownership of 11 let's bring that up again tonight nice thanks helping good job good job right okay uh gee malharos way too high. Are you smoking crack? What do you mean way too high? 11? 11? I mean, come on.

I mean, really? Really? Did he make podium at Waterpalooza? He's been 7th and 10th at the games the last two years. All right. I mean, I think that more people would be surprised he's not in the top 10 than he is uh nick matthews he's the real deal i just i just keep thinking last year was flashing the pan but it's not huh he keeps impressing me uh as you can see i've moved him

up more than anyone else in this section i think that that was more of a not believing in him as thinking more along the lines of what you said after the games last year that everything just went his way but in off season he's continued to be very impressive um yeah i agree you know and he's got he's very strong you know this might sound silly to say because you know all these guys but his core his core strength is so impressive to me and the way that he and like it's never compromised in gymnastics uh monostructural or weightlifting movements. And I think that that principle of core to extremity, of having mastery of the core and being able to maintain that at the extremes of weightlifting and gymnastics, running, etc. Is something that not everyone, even the best in the world, don't all do. But Nick does that exceptionally well.

I think that relative to a lot of these other athletes, there's, you know, in region region of the rankings that there are things that can show up that is tough for them i think that there's very little of that for nick like he's pretty well equipped and adept to just about anything that's going to be thrown their way uh geez louise um uh seven you're always hating on gee uh jonathan ortega best profile picture in the game gee's performance at the games trump's wadapalooza performance i will i will say this okay fine you guys want me to say some amazing shit about gee gee's turnaround on day two at wadapalooza insane i mean really shit the bed on day one i mean there was more medical staff around him than there were fucking around someone who got the uh the yeah but you know the the other thing about gee we'll see this year you know he

it seems like he's taking some time off of training in the fall which is fine i think for him that's totally fine obviously he's still very strong and when i was in cookville you know i talked to him and he said i'm motivated to improve on the things that I haven't been great at the things that I don't like the most. It was, uh, who's, Oh, isn't the Matt Fraser interview with Zach Thielander where he said, I used to train something until it got to the point where when I showed up at the gym and saw it on the whiteboard, I was, I was happy that it was there because I knew that I was ready for it. And I think he's doing that with some of the longer stuff this season. And, uh, if that's the case and he can turn those 25th to 35th place finishes on long running events,

et cetera, into like 15th that he will be in the top 10 once again. All right. How was that interview with Fraser and Zach T lander? I tried to invite that guy into the podcast. That's the guy that made, I wanted to, I wanted to talk to him about his charlatan thing. don't think he knows what that word means how was that interview with

uh matt pretty good i i thought they did a pretty good job i wrote it wrote about it and i thought um where is it where did you publish that i'm powerbend oh a couple weeks ago just a little synopsis of what the what the i mean it's an hour and 13 minute interview. I think it's a good list. And I think it gives a good insight into how Matt, Matt's life impacted his career as a CrossFitter. And I think there in some ways is a little more depth of some of the practices that he did to become as good as he was that, you know, athletes who want to try to pursue a similar path can consider because it's

a big, you know, it's a big commitment. Not everyone can do it. Would you recommend I watch it? If you're going to have Zach T lander and or Matt Fraser on the show, I think so. Okay.

No. Okay. Well, I might have Zach T lander on. I don I think so. Okay, no. Okay. Well, I might have Zach T. Lander on. I don't think, I don't expect Fraser. Zach T. Lander and I started training at the same gym here 10 years ago. Oh, send him a text. Tell him he should come on my show.

I'd love to have him. I could. Thank you. Number 10. God, we're doing it. Here we go, people. I'm going to tell... I apologize.

My kids will adjust to the caliber of the other students. Okay. Oh, and, and, sorry. And you should bring Robbie. They are great with little kids. Thank you. Peace and love. Here we are. Just Medeiros, number one. are great with little kids.

Thank you. Peace and love. Here we are. Justin Medeiros, number one. Is there one and one. Brian Friend and the CrossFit Games agree. Clip this. 156, 56. On Justin Medeiros being the number one ranked CrossFitter in the world.

I also agree. Caleb, do you agree? I agree. Okay. There we gofitter in the world i also agree caleb do you agree i agree okay there we go anyone in the comments disagree feel free to put it in there and i will talk shit to you uh but let's go back down to number 10 crazy the great brent fikowski at number 10 fucking blasphemy hey i like lazar jukic but you're crazy what lazar will never beat brent fikowski in a competition ever has he ever he did last year at the games brent was 16th lazar was eighth oh my god brent really took 16th at the games last year yeah how does he come back from that well you know, he made, he just last year injured or something.

What happened? Why don't I remember that? That sucks. Fuck. No, the, you know, he just,

um, I think that Brent became a, a master of studying the season. And he knew as well as anyone, what it, what it took to do it took to check all the boxes to get to the games and then excel at the games when Dave was programming them. I think last year, there were a few elements that Adrian introduced that he wasn't as necessarily prepared for,

and the field got better. And even for a guy like Brent Fikowski, sometimes there can be just this compounding effect at the games where things aren't going your way. And it's, it's hard to rally around that and just like wipe the slate, the slate clean and show up the next day and do it again. And I just felt like almost everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong for him at the games last year, still had a decent finish. It was his worst finish at the games in a real games that he's competed at. But I think he can do a little better than that next year, but I don't know if he can do

much better than 10th. The field has just gotten very, very good. And similar to those other guys, no one Cole and Travis he's in his thirties. Um, and it's going to be harder and harder every year. Last year, he took the whole season off and focused on trying to have one more run at the championship. It didn't go well this year. He's competed several times took the whole season off and focused on trying to have one more run at the championship. It didn't go well. This year, he's competed several times in the offseason. He seems to be having fun. And I think that that might be a better recipe for him this time around. Lazar Jukic, number nine.

Samuel Quant, number eight. There's no fucking way Jason Hopper beats Samuel Quant. There is no way. So i know you guys love brian i know it's a great list i know it's hard to make but when you see things like this you have to wonder floor is yours mr friend how the fuck there's no way Hopper beats Samuel Kwan. Is that our bet for the season? Sure. There's just no way. Kwan is the most underrated, legitimately best CrossFitters in the world ever. We don't even talk about him on this show.

It's like we're not allowed to. I mean, it's crazy. He's way better. I think he's not just better than Hopper. He's way better than Hopper. Okay. Well, um,

you know, he has had ups and downs in his career. He has, but you got to wash away all his down. I think he's got legit excuses for his downs and he's really shown up in the last couple of years. The last year, last year,

2020, it was second 2021. He was unable to compete in semifinals basically. I mean, he competed, but he was kind of like Chandler in 2022. I'm not putting any stock into his performance there. It was obviously affected by something that was outside of his fitness, 2022, uh, fourth at the games. And we'll see. I think that this is one of those cases where, you know, he's likely to finish in the top 10 again this year, but I don't know that he'll do as well as he did last year overall in the rankings,

obviously reflected by how I have him here. Could I be wrong? Definitely. On the flip side of that, we have Jason Hopper, who I don't think we've seen even close to the best version of Jason Hopper yet. You know, I think that Fraser and O'Keefe and those guys saw someone with a lot of potential and they had a year to work with him. And we saw a completely different version at the games last year than the

previous year. I think we're going to see even a more refined, well-tuned dialed in and an extremely dangerous version of Jason Hopper this season. Jason Hopper. This is going to, this is going to piss some people off. Jason Hopper, they were wooed by his football highlight reel. He's a fucking fantastic athlete. He's not a podium CrossFitter by any chance.

He's missing the mental fortitude and all the skills to be on the podium. He's not. There's no fucking way. I disagree with that. I think he has a chance to podium in his career. Right now, this year, I don't because I think the top three is too good. But within the next five years, if he stays committed and disciplined, I think we can see Jasonason opera on the podium i think the only hope is is that something happens to those guys up top

yeah right they get hit by it like they get hit by a train yeah roman and ricky are 27 and 8 or 28 and 9 you know and jason's 24 i think so that's what I'm saying. In the next five years, as those guys become 32, 33, 34, and he's coming into the prime of his career, 27, 8, 9, I think that's the time that he can catch him on the podium. Sevan has turned on Jason Hopper. That is absolutely correct. I have.

That's correct. Train accidents happen all the time. That's all. Everything's correct. Bjorkman, Carl Goodmanson, I'd throw him in the pile with Cole, Travis Mayer, Noah Olsen. Unfortunately, those days are over. Jason Hopper, Jeffrey Adler, the great white hope out of Canada, I think. Here's the thing with Jeffff adler and sam quant i'm not a i'm not a believer in this statement well anyone can win if the games are programmed

it all depends on how they're programmed i hate it when people say that that being said man i'm telling you adler and quant they're they're they're two of the most underrated guys out there they are fucking amazing i mean and that's weird saying when they're in the top 10 but man they're two of the most underrated guys out there. They are fucking amazing. I mean, and that's weird saying when they're in the top 10, but man, they're good. I mean,

they're like way better than the rest of the field by, by that. I mean, the people like in the, in the bottom 50, I guess you could say that about a lot of these guys. Yeah. We're,

I mean, I think, obviously I think these are the top 10 guys in the world. The only person outside the top 10 that I considered putting in the top 10 was Guy. I have him 11th. And I think it's about as strong as the top 10 that we've ever had. And that's, you know, last year after the games, I spoke with BKG on the floor, and he's like, my God, man, I finished ninth,

and I feel like I'm as fit as I've ever been. And in my mind, I'm like, yep, this is as fit as a top 10 field as we've ever had. What is fun? I think Travis Mayer said something similar to, right. He felt like he, he feels like he's an insane shape. Yeah.

His self-belief is skyrocketing. Yeah. I saw someone put up a, I think it was a meme or a joke or something the other day that, uh, you know, in 10 years, the top snatch at the games has only gone up like 10 pounds or something like that.

But the overall fitness of these guys is that it's still elevating. And by the overall fitness, I mean the amount of guys that are pushing into that realm of incredibly fit across the board is growing. And these are the guys. And so you can't have holes in your game anymore. You have to be good at everything in every spot on this board top 10 is difficult to move up within uh one of the things i thought was kind of interesting yesterday is that um you know there are quite a few people who messaged me i don't know if they were in the comments or the dms about adler versus velner and the fact that adler has beaten velner at three straight competitions last year. No shit. Which competitions?

Semifinals games and Rogue. Wow. But, you know, the semifinals was extremely fine margins. Vellner made several mistakes in that competition. Adler did not. He got the win. Rogue was extremely fine margins, as we've talked about. Vellner was two reps away from winning.

Adler was potentially one extra opportunity or fair opportunity away from winning that competition. So it's really, really fine between those two guys right now. And yes, Adler has gotten him each of the last three years. I don't know, one spot away from each other here. But on the flip side of that,

Lazar Djokic also beat BKG at both parts of the game season last year. And no one seemed to take exception of me moving BK ahead of Lazar. Oh, okay. Fair. I also want to point out, and I'm sure you're going to correct me here, but there's only the two youngest guys on here, I think, are Justin Medeiros and Jason Hopper. Then I'm guessing maybe Samuel Quant is younger than we think he is. I don't know how old Jeffrey Adler is. Quant's been around forever. I'm guessing he's the youngest guy with the most experience.

Well, I mean, he was 20 years old in 2016 as a rookie at the Games when he won. in 2016 as a rookie at the games when he won uh i do i do think that those things that you're saying about jason hopper not being the best best we've ever seen i think you could say all that stuff about justin too by the way i think outside of the fact that and i'm projecting outside the fact that justin's got a girlfriend he's training with which is just adding such an unknown element to the to the mix i think justin's glass ceiling is like pretty far away for a champion i don't think we've seen a champion who can get i don't think rich or matt won the games ah maybe maybe rich but i don't i don't justin has a lot of fucking room to get better which which is fucking mind boggling. And it's gotta be terrifying for the guys below.

And his, I, when I, when I think of Roman and Ricky, the way, I don't know why, but I just feel like that they, the way they burn the candle,

that they don't have much life left in them. So you think Hopper has a chance to podium in a couple of years? No, no, no, no. Hopper's empty. He's Hopper.

Well, Hopper's mental status is so fucked up that anyone can he sits a scrambled eggs up there in his brain he's not he's not free he's not free ricky's been through hell and back justin gives gives two fucks he's singularly focused i mean these guys are free guys yeah i think you're grossly misrepresenting Jason Hopper, but that's okay. Okay, fair enough. As far as the top three guys go...

Look at how. How? Didn't Medeiros have... Yeah, that's the honeymoon phase. Honeymoon phase. Didn't Medeiros have a girlfriend last year too? Honeymoon phase. Relationships are challenging.

Look, I think all three of those guys have the opportunity to improve from what we saw last year to honeymoon face relationships are challenging look i think all three of those guys have the opportunity to improve from what we saw last year justin madaris in two years that he's won the games has only won one single individual event at the crossfit games out of 30 chances or whatever it was so if you're trying you know his his consistency is remarkable i wrote about it in the fall that this guy is winning by being consistently better and by pacing events, individual events better than his closest competitors, where he doesn't give stuff away as the events go on. Roman had two, I think, glaring weaknesses at the games last year that prevented him from winning, which was ring muscle ups, which have cost him three competitions this season, and pacing, where there were a couple workouts where he just went out too hot. I actually thought that he managed the games as a whole.

We talk about this all the time, where there's the events, the actual workouts, and then there's the in-between and the longevity of the week. I thought Roman did very well at that for his first time at the live CrossFit Games. He didn't look like he was fading as the weekend went on. I did see a comment a few minutes ago in here that said Ricky can't last four days. I don't look like he was fading as the weekend went on. I did see a comment a few minutes ago in here that said Ricky can't last four days. I don't know if that guy's joking or not, but it wasn't, I don't think it was the totality of the days of competition for Ricky. It was just that the programming, the order of programming was very skewed where there was a lot of skill and finesse stuff early and a lot of heavy stuff late. And so in general, I think Ricky's not going to do as well against the best in the world on the heavy stuff as he is on the skill and finesse stuff early and a lot of heavy stuff late. And so in general, I think Ricky's not

going to do as well against the best in the world on the heavy stuff as he is on the skill and the long stuff. So that looked like he faded at the end of the weekend, but I'm not convinced it was that he couldn't last four days. I just think his worst events happened to end up closer to the end of the weekend. Uh, I was not joking. Interesting. Uh, I just, yeah. Okay just yeah okay uh the great this is a great list though these these are these are all uh great guys uh it is it is pretty amazing how quickly hopper has jumped the ranks i don't think uh just to be clear you haven't misplaced at all i think this uh justin on top roman ricky i could i could i i see it uh patrick velner um do you think that patrick velner is this his last year we keep asking that uh i thought that last year that last year 2022 was the last chance for velner

and fukowski to possibly win the CrossFit games. I do think that Vellner has an outside chance to podium this year. I still think he's almost a sure thing for the top 10 and probably the top 6. So I would say that the most likely range of finishes for him is 3rd to 7th. And if he finishes in that range again and he wants to run it back one more year, I think he could uh this thing that jeremy is saying um a couple events trip ricky up if he fixes those things look out the thing is what i agree with you but the thing is is you could say that about justin

and roman too like there was justin hardly anything trips him up no but what i mean is justin could have made some tweaks that would have even given him more points. Right. Yeah, I guess. But he just makes less. He makes less mistakes. I agree. Anyone else.

And so that's the thing that separates him where we can say Justin's room to improve is that instead of taking six finishes of second through fourth, he could convert three of those into a first. That's hard. I mean, that's hard to do. But he's young. He's very young. That's hard. I mean, that's hard to do. But he's young. He's very young. He's very young. Yeah, but the field is very good. It's hard to get those event wins.

The fact that he's consistently finishing third through sixth on events is why he's winning the games. Roman and Ricky, it's a lot easier to point at specific things from last year's CrossFit Games and say there's room for improvement right there. When you look at the margins separating them from winning and you look at those errors or miscalculations, that's why at the start of the show when you asked if it was easier to pick the disc golf champion or the CrossFit Games champion,

I chose the disc golf champion because I think there are three guys that can legitimately win the CrossFit Games this year, and I'm not sure which one of those guys is the best. I'm just going to stick with Medeiros until someone actually beats him. Jeremy, world for sure, if Justin gets better at anything, it won't matter how good Ricky or Roman get. Justin will continue to win. Bastion, a very weird take from Sevan,

giving Krennikov would have won the Games if they had been on Z-scored. Great point. Great point. I'll take it. Tonight on the show, tonight's show is going to be fun. It's going to be interesting. It's going to be weird to see me try to keep up with Halpin and Brian. That part's going to be fun. But we are going to try to understand and make sense of uh this uh worldwide rankings and this don't tell me strength the field can you screenshot

this right now with that plant growing out of his head i love that yeah uh this um this uh strength of uh this strength of uh field we're going to try to make sense of it there. I mean, we're, we're like, I think all three of us are disgruntled. The show is going to be very biased. We're all three of us are disgruntled and maybe it's,

we're just old and don't like change, but we're trying to figure out what the fuck's going on here. And I think Brian and Mike have given it a ton of thought and we're going to get to the bottom of that. Anything else you want to add to that right no i'm gonna i'm not uh yeah i mean we're gonna have opinions for sure we're gonna try to show those uh that those opinions are backed up by facts that we've actually looked at numbers we've looked at research we've looked backwards and forwards we've looked at what's

actually happening versus what could potentially happen and we think that there are ways to have a system that better accomplishes some of the goals that CrossFit has. And but at the same time, like I'm very aware of the people that say like, hey, this is what it is and we should try to make the most of it. So we're going to talk about it. We're not going to try to belittle it. We're just going to try to say that there, I think there are some questions or stones that were unturned and that there's an opportunity to hopefully make some corrections in that regard going forward so that

we get the best possible picture of what the landscape actually looks like this year, instead of some of the other representations that we have or are lacking really based on decisions that were made by athletes, not knowing what the system was going to be. I will not be that friendly. Facts hurt my feelings. I only want hot takes. You get a little bit of both.

Okay. Great show. For anyone who wants to take a look at that list more closely, or even if you don't want to take a look at that list, head over to Brian Friend CrossFit. That making that list is, I don't want to say tedious because that has negative connotation, but it takes a lot of work. And thank you.

And tomorrow at the same time, we will be doing, we have a lot of shows coming up tomorrow at the same time we will be doing we have a lot of shows coming up tomorrow at the same time so tonight we have a show to look at the worldwide rankings and the strength of field numbers thank you all done and tomorrow morning we will be doing the women's top 100 is there someone standing off camera that's holding a sign that says strength of field and then and then tomorrow night we're going to start our series trolling the leader bar

leader trolling the leaderboard J.R. Howell will also be here so you have three or three shows coming up I don't know exactly what time Shana I'm hoping 8 p.m. Central okay so 6 p.m. Pacific Standard Time that will be tonight

and in this we'll be getting into a lot of things. We'll also be talking about these posts that got a lot of attention that Mike Halpin and Brian made regarding exemptions. We will get into that. I think we'll spend actually a lot of time on that. We'll open up the phone line. You can chime in, and'll talk about what's going on here. Who gets an exemption and why and is it fair and should there even be exemptions? Should we just make it lower the barrier to entry to get the best people to compete at the games, etc. Caleb, thank you. Brian, thank you. Justin Medeiros, thanks for holding down the fort and making the number one spot easy to talk about. Anything else? Anyone?

Well, I have a little bit more to talk about the number one spot tomorrow. Okay. Oh, yeah. With the women. Oh, very interesting. We have a new woman. We have a new woman at number one. Yep.

Tia will not be on the list. I'll put up the rankings later this afternoon. And as always, please help Savan out. Tell him who I screwed up with and who you'd like to see on the list or who you think shouldn't be on there. Okay. And for all of you who forgot to donate money today, which was all of you ding-dongs, make sure you donate $2. No, that one person did, and we will address his question about Katrin and Allie tonight. Oh, thank you, yes. Bye-bye.