The Sevan Podcast - Facundo | Knows All - PFAA
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Okay.
Caleb Beaver, but he's not here.
Bam, we're live.
Facundo, what's up, dude?
I'm good, How are you?
Living the dream, buddy
How many dreams do you have?
one
Which is just breathe just breathe. Okay, just breathe just breathe. I just want I just I'm just glad to be breathing
Yes, nowadays. It's it's really an asset. Yeah. Yeah everything after breathing is a bonus. Like this Fide is a bonus.
Oh, look, there he is.
Hi, Caleb.
Caleb, do you care if I bring you on?
Caleb, meet Facundo.
Facundo, meet Caleb.
You guys have met before, right?
Maybe a long time ago.
Yeah, yeah, we do.
I was waiting for his answer.
He said that he doesn't remember.
I do remember.
How can you forget Facundo?
I couldn't.
Could not.
Facundo.
Facundo, say your last name for me.
Sorry, guys.
Is there an echo?
Oof, it's a collapse.
You have an echo?
He can't hear me.
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
I can hear you.
It just sounds like it might be a delay on as in maybe.
What country are you in Facundo?
I'm in France now.
And do we have a delay?
Let me just close.
Okay, so the audience says they don't have an echo.
Oh, maybe you have a YouTube window open also Facundo that's also, you know what I mean?
Yeah, I'm checking that one second.
Okay, take your time.
Damn, Caleb, you look crisp.
Starlink looks good. Okay, take your time. Damn, Caleb, you look crisp. Starlink looks good.
Yeah, thanks. I think it's because it's the daytime.
Yeah, better. Hey, dude, you know who I had on this morning? I had a Ben, Benjamin Moreau.
He's a coach in France. And I don't know if I've ever done two podcasts in one day with dudes in France.
Oh, where in France was he? You remember?
He told me I don't remember. He, um, the name of the gym was something like
two river. It was Poon.
It was, he, Don't try, don't try, don't try. Don't worry. It's fine.
I just wanted to say Poon.
It's very like this. I haven't seen that, but I try, don't worry, it's fine. I just wanted to say poon. It's very like this.
I haven't seen that, but I saw an amazing one with Angelo and Saxon.
Oh yeah, wow.
You did like that?
I mean, they are my people, so they're my clan,
so yes, I do, but I do like it.
I can be critical, I think it was great.
Three dudes with clear eyeglasses,
only one is out of the closet.
All right.
Go ahead, Caleb, your turn.
Shit.
OK, next.
Yeah, I was saying, I was saying,
I love the podcast.
I mean, my closet is there.
So, you know, open, wide open.
Are you in a hotel room?
I'm in a hotel room?
I'm in a hotel room. Yeah.
Are you back to your day job?
Which is?
I don't know. Oh, yeah, you don't have your day job anymore, huh?
I don't have any day job anymore.
Yeah. How about 24 hour job?
What are you doing in France? Are you visiting athletes or?
No, I am. I am visiting a colleague for something that we are project
that we're working together.
And normally home for you is Belgium.
Is Belgium, yes.
It's a four hour train ride from here.
Lyon is where the semi-finals took place this year.
You know, Southern, meet France and it's a great place.
And it might be the place with the best food in the world, the best restaurants in the world.
So the French school, oh, there, no, that's not Leon.
Oh, this Leon.
No, no, that Leon, yes, L-Y-O-N, Leon, there it is.
Leon. No, no, that Leon. Yes. L-Y-O-N. Leon. There it is. There I am. And many of the greatest restaurants of the French cuisine are here in Leon. So it's a very good place for eating.
Hey, if you go there, what should people order?
People here know a lot about food. So they...
What would I order there if I went there?
Like is their steak good?
Their hamburgers?
No, hamburgers, everything is good.
But for example, we came with Rich here early this year and he ate escargot, which is snails.
And we ate...
Did you get that approved by Rich to let you say that, that he ate snails?
Yeah, because we put it on the video.
In case you haven't seen
it, it's the video of Mayhem in Europe.
So are they big ass snails like this?
No, they are. No, they are tiny. They are tiny. And there's so
much butter and so much garlic that you actually don't taste
the snail. You just taste the butter and the garlic. Me at
least.
Hey, snail aren't snails pretty much just slugs, but with like armor?
I don't know, I don't eat it.
So, I don't know.
But food here is great and the city is amazing.
Hopefully the next semi-finals takes place here.
And that's what I'm doing here, yeah.
But you know what, talking about that,
the other day my daughter asked me,
if you were not a CrossFit coach or a coach,
she believes I'm a superstar.
She's, you know, I'm a bit young to understand.
What would you do?
And I said, I would love to be a food critic.
And actually, yeah, that would be my great excuse
for eating nonstop and, you know, yeah.
Are you close with Daniel Chafee?
Yes.
Yeah, you are, okay.
Is that who you're meeting with?
No, no, he's in Bordeaux,
which is not more like in the North.
And can you tell me what this secret project is
that you're working on, that you're at right now?
Next time you invite me in the podcast,
I'll gladly tell you.
Okay, I like that, okay.
Next time.
Oh, that's a good preview.
Oh, you're-, so you're at the
games this year with you most of the time and and you were there in the capacity as a coach.
Yes. And who are you coaching? Well, I was coaching Roman, Karen, Saxon, three teams, and also being in support for the remaining Mayhem athletes that were competing that weekend.
Karen Freyoba.
Yeah.
And three teams. And were some, were any of those teams from South America?
Yes. Mayhem, RA1 Unity.
So you, and then were any of the teams from the United States?
No.
Okay.
So you had athletes there from the South American continent, uh, the European
continent and the North American continent.
Uh, Asia, Asia, um,
Oh, cause Roman technically is Asia.
Oh no athletes.
Yes.
Athletes. Uh, athletes, yes.
Sorry, yes, from everywhere actually.
I wonder if there's any other coach who does that, who has such a wide breadth of athletes
from so many different regions.
It's pretty crazy.
In any case, this year was easier because we have Dom D'Agostino with us at Mayhem
and he's an amazing coach.
Fuck that guy. because we have Dom D'Agostino with us at Mayhem and he's an amazing coach. And he, I mean, as you can imagine.
Right. Fuck that guy.
He coached Hooter last Saturday, Friday and took $1,500 from us.
Is that, I mean, it's obvious that it was not a great weekend for me.
And I also feel that I, I was not a great asset to my athletes because my head was
somewhere else, but I tried to do my best and I stayed there the whole weekend. And I also feel that I was not a great asset to my athletes because my head was somewhere
else.
But I tried to do my best and I stayed there the whole weekend.
Yeah.
Because you used to be Lazar Djukic's coach.
Yeah.
I worked with Lazar for almost three years.
Yeah.
That's wild.
And so when you got there, you were excited to see him.
Yes.
I mean, I always, not with everybody, but always try to get, to maintain a good relationship
with my former athletes because in my capacity, I always try to develop, you know, a friendship
which works better for me, at least as a coach.
And you know, I, yeah, we talk and I was very happy hugging him and telling him that I thought that was going to be a great game for the workers that we knew so far for him.
And it's funny, it's interesting you said that hug because I think that's a great one word description of Lazard Jukic.
He's huggable. He's just he's a guy that like other men can feel very intimate with right away.
He's like a man's man. He's cool as shit.
There's no you don't feel judgment around him. He's like a man's man. He's cool as shit. There's no, you don't feel judgment around him.
He's just like a cool dude.
Yeah, all of that and much more.
Yeah.
So you're there and all that happens.
And you went through that whole coaches.
We've heard a bunch of renditions now of the,
of how Friday played out with after his death, all the athletes and coaches got together and they all met in that room.
And you were, you were there for all of that.
I was there for all of that.
Yes.
And, um, that sounds like it was a very intense and maybe, do you think that
was beneficial in the, in the processing?
I think that after, I mean, that happened the same day.
Right.
So I'm not sure whether anything that was done that day was the perfect thing or a bad
thing.
We just, most of us were doing the best we could.
It was hard to analyze whether that was something that we wouldn't regret in a week or something
that we wouldn't regret in a week or something that we wouldn't regret in three months or never. So I think that we were doing
our best to, you know, to be there. And how many CrossFit Games have you been to?
Well, the first one was with you actually, 2014. And yeah, we've seen every single one
except 2020. Okay, so 10 or 11. 11. And then even even though you weren't there at 20, it's not because you chose
not to be there was because of the limitations of the crowd size. They only allowed five athletes
and then the people who are running the event. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, crazy. And so so you have
intimate knowledge with all the normal
emotions that go on with being a CrossFit Games athlete through this arduous task of
you know 12 to 14 events and the emotional journey and just the frustrations and the ups and the downs and and
There can only be one winner every single year. You would say you have pretty intimate knowledge with that, from being with champions to people who perform poorly. Yeah, I guess so, yes. I mean, yes.
But never been in an event. Have you ever been at any event where someone died? Any other sporting
events where? No. No. No. So a one-off and a brand new experience for you. It was, it was, yeah, it was a new experience.
And I hope that it doesn't happen again, that I don't have to go through that
again and nobody has to go through that again.
Hey, Facundo, was it ever an option for someone in your position to leave?
Um, no, to be honest, no, because I'm a coach. And if my athletes wanted to compete, even that it was a very hard weekend for me,
like for everybody else, me maybe, because of the nature of the relationship that I had with Lazar, for me at least
particularly hard. But I, I don't think that I could say to my athletes, OK, we work one year together, but today this weekend is not
for me, so I won't be with you.
I won't be supporting you, and I won't be there for you.
And I think that even those who stayed
had a very hard weekend.
It's not like those who stayed were in a great place.
I think that today, I think so many things were said,
and I think that people have maybe
lost a little bit the clear idea of what happened
and how things happen.
I've heard a podcast of some of the athletes from CrossFit
reigniting a thing, and he was very accurate.
It was a very hard time for everybody.
Despite the decision you take take whether continue or leave, it was a very
very very hard moment for everybody there. But for you in particular, you
same with like you know media people or people like who had like just jobs there right like
judges volunteers like for them it it's not even
Like you couldn't even entertain the idea of leaving right?
No, it never crossed my mind to be honest. Yeah, and if it did you would have had to push it away because you had obligations
Just other people not you couldn't like, you couldn't process,
like Facundo doesn't, you don't go to the games
and that's like, there's no Facundo time.
There's no Facundo time.
I mean, Facundo time is the job that I have to do there,
which is support my athletes and you know,
and be there for them if they need it.
And you know, that is the responsibility
for me at the Games.
I'm not a coach who is like the whole time telling people what to do and how to feel
and how to breathe.
No, I'm there for my athletes.
Most of the work is being done beforehand throughout the year.
So there is just the time to perform.
And in that event, the question, you know of all questions is
And I don't even know if I if I have it drilled down to the proper work verbiage
but Lazar was swimming and he drowned and
I think the I haven't heard anyone say that he shouldn't have been saved like there should have been I don't even know
I wish I had a different word than should,
but he was swimming and there were lifeguards,
his duty was to perform and the lifeguard's duty
was to watch the athletes and if they have issues
to recognize the issues and to provide service
to the athlete in the best possible way ever.
And I think we all agree that means don't let them
go under the water and be lost.
Yeah, that's exactly what should have happened. Yeah. Right.
And it wasn't an intention for everybody. No one. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah.
And I'm not suggesting by any means that the lifeguard let him drown on purpose.
I'm not suggesting that the lifeguard wasn't distracted. I'm not. And I use the word lifeguard
loosely. I don't even know what that word means. I apologize. But whoever was there was there was clearly a belief that we all have that we
probably never even thought of because we put it on CrossFit. But that there would be someone there
watching athletes. So if there was an injury, whether it be on land or in the water or under
the snatch, like we saw Brooke Wells, or we saw Dr. Rocket save Emily Rolf's life with his quick
decisions about her clotting in her arm. We have become accustomed to people there to save athletes
who are in danger. We all agree on that. Yeah, I mean, I've been there for many years. I mean,
last year, Roman got injured. Of course, it's a completely different nature of, you yes, that happened the way it did. I mean, I don't know what to tell you.
I think it's a big tragedy and I hope that we find in time soon the answers that many
people are still waiting for.
And let's use Roman's injury. Roman's injury was, if I remember,
he was throwing items over a barrier,
and then he had to jump over the barrier.
And because those items where they were thrown,
he landed on one and it caused him to break his ankle.
When he jumped above the wooden structure,
he put his foot on one of the sandbags and
twisted his foot and broke his foot.
And so we didn't hear a lot of discussion at that point of blaming CrossFit for having
the event set up poorly.
And I'm not suggesting they did set it up poorly.
I'm just saying it would have been someone could we could have had 10 shows of the PFA
coming out and saying, hey, there should have been a better way of doing this.
This is what we would have recommended.
And he wouldn't have broke his ankle.
But now we're having all of these discussions, not how to fix the situation, by the way,
I want to be very clear and we'll get to this.
But basically, because Lazar died, it's made the discussion more louder, more passionate, more vehement about safety.
Yeah, I mean, I went to many athletes who have injuries at the games and, you know,
and I've seen other athletes being held by the medical service at the games, at least at the Coliseum or in Carson. And I think that I know Dr. Rocket very well.
He's one of the most committed, motivated,
generous and caring people that I met at the graphic games.
I have the chance always when I am there to talk with him
because I admire him, his work very, very much.
And when Roman had his accident, he took great care of him.
And yeah, it's,
that's what happened at least in Roman's case.
And I spoke to someone who is in charge of,
I think medical and safety protocols.
I want to say it's from 2015 to 2022.
And obviously, Dave's no expert in safety,
so they bring in the experts.
We all know that they're crazy world-class people.
Caleb's been on the team.
Caleb was telling me, like, hey, dude, they're all either
from the New York City Fire Department,
or they have some crazy
military background. But these aren't your just pool lifeguards
working these events. These are like people who actually have
thousands of hours of practical experience working in places
where life or death is like, always on their mind.
Yeah, I mean, yet again, I really cannot talk very much. I wasn't there when what
happened actually happened. I came a bit later. So I cannot tell you, I don't feel that I'm
entitled to talk very much about those details in Lassos case, because I wasn't there. I can tell you
the experience that I have with my athletes having having gone through different kind of little accidents,
and they were very, very proficient in the way
they took care of them.
Especially Roman, I mean, with Roman was,
the medical service of the CrossFit Games
really recommended Roman not to go back to the next
event, to the famous event in which he was doing the double unders. He telling you, we cannot,
you know, we don't want and we are not going to be able to endorse your participation in the next
event. Roman really wanted to go for it. He took the measures that he thought back then were
correct for him and we made it happen. But yet again, there are different cases.
But if you ask me about my experience with the medical team of the CrossFit
Games, in the situations where I was present, I always felt that they were up
to a very high standard. Or even when Brooke Wells broke her arm,
they were out there like in a second.
It was funny because funny,
that games when Brooke had her accident,
I got kind of beaten by a poison ivy.
It's the name of the, you know,
and I have both my legs were full with pus coming out,
like this white thing.
And I have been dealing with that for two or three days
until the moment of the snatches.
And I said, oh, I really need to go to the medical service
because it looks really, really bad.
And when they were taking care of me,
then Brooke appears with her arm hanging.
So I'm like, bro, you need to move.
We have an emergency here.
And I was like, but yeah. So I was really there when that happened, at, you need to move. We have an emergency here. And I was like, yeah.
So I was really there when that happened, at least in the medical service.
So her broken arm took precedent over your poison oak.
I know. Yeah. Yeah. And I still remember because I have scars on my, on my, on my,
on my, on my feet, on my legs, on those. And this guy who was in charge of medical told me
that there's the thing that stood out the most way told me is is there was never once in his
Experience at the CrossFit working with CrossFit where there were the medical team made a request where Dave said no
Regardless of cost so anything that they ever wanted he always said yes
Yes, do you remember any times? I'm thinking did you do you do you remember any times athletes were like hey?
There's um these workouts are too hard, this is over-programmed?
No, there were moments where I was worried
about certain workouts.
I didn't like the sandbag clean back in the day.
I thought that it was too risky
for people who don't have a proper technique
to put that kind of weight on the shoulders.
And I actually said it, but nobody of the athletes the shoulders. And, you know, and I actually said it,
but nobody of the athletes that I saw there,
maybe then at least made a remark on,
I don't wanna do this workout, it's hard for me.
I've never lived at 320 pound sandbag
from the floor like that.
Yeah.
I didn't like that one either, especially in the beginning.
And it did make me nervous too.
You have Guy and Justin and Ricky Gerard doing just crazy shit.
I don't remember if it was Emma McQuade, but one of the little girls,
littler girls lifted some crazy weight.
And I'm like, can you imagine having 300 pounds on your shoulder with your neck
there and it's all cockeyed and their spines all crooked?
Um, that being said, it was an amazing event. pounds on your shoulder with your neck there and it's all cockeyed and their spines all crooked.
That being said, it was an amazing event, one of the highlights of CrossFit Games history. And if we're going to test the fittest, there should be some flirting where us mortals are like,
holy shit. Like I was surprised when Angelo and Saxon said they've never thought the games was
over-programmed.
I was thinking, well shit, maybe Dave's not programming them hard enough.
I don't know. I mean, one of the things that CrossFit athletes have is the capacity to
adapt fast to whatever is thrown at them, right? This is something that is unique on
the CrossFit world with benefits and with, you know, cons. Very often they don't perform with a proper technique
because they are so concentrated to get something done.
They just go for it.
But very often crossfit athletes are really good
in adapting.
So something that for me might be very complicated
to foresee how to perform.
A proficient crossfit athlete might do, very, you know, very fast.
No, that's not a problem.
I actually remember when certain workouts came out
and seen people doing it like after three minutes
of trying them and never tried them before.
So I think that that's something
that defines CrossFit Athletics.
So I, yeah, so far, I always enjoy very much
a programming at the game.
There are events that I didn't like
and those that I didn't like were not for its danger,
but because maybe the implementation
was not what I expected.
I remember one of the workers with the eco bike
and the wall fencing has some pushups
with a little thing where they have to go and it's on the judges, you know, vision to see whether that was a rip or not. But at the end of the day, yeah.
And also, I remember that one, that was like they had to determine whether your chest was going to go to the eye level and so on. And, but you know, one of the things that I also think, Saban, it's like, I am
a coach and I need to prepare my athletes to go to wherever they want to go at the CrossFit
Games, whether to win or to make a podium or to be top 10 or whatever. I am not sure
that it's very clever for me to spend too much time thinking,
okay, that I like this workout,
do I don't like this workout?
It will have to be done.
So I will be spending time thinking
whether I think there is a great test or not.
I'm not talking about safety,
I'm just talking about the workout itself.
Sevan's all about safety, he still uses condoms.
I do, that's correct.
Okay, my wife makes me though. It used to be me, but now it's her
You are you do you have a relationship with this this PFAA thing this professional fitness athlete association Do you have a relationship with them? They're going for me today. Yeah, you're the rest of the questions
I mean, you have one hour and you have nicely now I'm going in for the kill. No, I was present in two meetings,
one after the games last year in Madison
and in a call that took place,
you know, one or two weeks ago,
the call in which they read a statement
of the demands they were putting forward.
So you've been in two meetings with them, one in Madison and then one in this call.
They had a call recently where before they made those demands that included
getting Dave fired, you were on that call.
I was on that call, yeah.
I mean, there were 55 people were present.
I don't know how many were invited.
Do you get a text or an email that says, hey, Facundo, do you want to come on the call?
I think it was an email. That's an invite to, yeah.
And did you know beforehand what the nature of the call was going to be about?
I don't remember if it was written in the email, but given what we were going through,
I felt that it was very important that I was there at least for me.
Does the PFAA have an email list where you get like monthly emails or newsletters from
them or anything that you know?
I don't get monthly emails from them, no.
Do you know what the PFAA is? If someone were to ask you what is the PFAA, would you be able to tell me?
Vaguely.
No, I don't know what it is either. It's not a got you question. So if you ask me what the PFAA means, I think that I know.
I don't want to make a mistake, so I prefer not to say it.
I think it's the Professional Fitness Athletes Association.
Do you know what their charter is or what their goal is?
Or what?
I think that their goal is to promote
fairness of play and safety and different standards for athletes to have.
Well, besides, as we said before,
well, I'm not going to make myself a fool
and then you put it there.
And I'm saying the thing.
But yeah, this is who we are.
But maybe if you go to what we do,
I'm guessing that it's going to be there.
I wonder what this means.
We're a diverse group of athletes.
I wonder what that means.
What do you mean diverse?
Like there's some race car drivers in there?
Some badminton players?
I mean, I really don't, I mean,
even though if I was there a couple of times,
I don't know who everybody, who they are actually.
I was in this meeting some the other day I don't know who everybody, who they are actually.
I was in these two meetings and the other day where I was present, it was mostly cross-legged athletes.
So I'm not sure there is somebody outside of there.
How many games athletes does Mayhem have?
With the masters and the teams.
Adaptive, all that.
We have 15 individual athletes competing.
We have 10 teams, 10 out of the 30 teams.
We have, I don't want to say the number, maybe I think that 80 people competing in Masters and Teens.
And we have maybe a little bit less people competing in adaptive.
So how many in adaptive.
How many in adaptive? Less than 10. I think it's 8.
Okay. I had one on yesterday.
Or yesterday.
Yeah, she was amazing.
So where I'm going with these loaded questions is
you work at Mayhem.
I don't know what the
numbers are at the camps but no one would be surprised if it's the biggest
camp in CrossFit if someone said that. So but I don't know what people's names
are. I do know that CrossFit Mayhem was the number one spot for level ones to be
sold worldwide for years and it probably still would be if they did them there. So
I know that it's a massive destination spot for not only the athletes,
but the community.
I know that Rich owns the gym obviously, and it's grown and grown.
I know it's becoming more and more as Rich drifts further and further from his
heyday.
It's becoming the balance between it being a place where people cure themselves of chronic disease and people become world-class athletes is becoming more and more blended.
How is it, and I know that you're at the epicenter of what goes on at Mayhem, you, Jake Foster,
Rich Froning, how is it, Rory McKernan, how is it that you wouldn't have an intimate knowledge
How is it that you wouldn't have an intimate knowledge about what the PFAA is? Like it doesn't, like I'm trying to connect the dots of how, are you like, are you on their board?
No, I was never invited to be on the board.
I know that, I just, I just see now that fellow colleagues of mine were on the advisory council,
but I was never invited to anything else on the meetings that I went.
Is there anyone from Mayhem on the board? Victoria Campos? Is she Mayhem?
She's a Mayhem athlete. She's on the board, yeah.
OK, but she doesn't work for me.
And Royce.
When Saxon and Angelo were on here, they were saying that they felt like there
was an agenda that they had.
Who and when?
Saxon?
Yeah, who had an agenda?
Oh, sorry, that the PFAA and Brent have an agenda, that it feels like that there's an
agenda that's different than the agenda that, well, I can't even figure out exactly what you mean.
You wanna ask me something
and you are making circus on it.
No, no.
Just go for it.
Okay.
Do you like the PFAA?
I don't have enough experience with them
as to say that I like them.
Do you give them any credence in their voice in the sport?
I don't have enough experience to validate what they, I don't know very well what they're asking for except the meeting that I went.
So I cannot say, yes, I'm agreeing 100% to what their demands are and not.
For example, and I'll be honest on something, when I was in the meeting with them, I don't
feel that I was the part
of the athletes being there that were demanding the resignation of Dave Castro.
Oh, so that demand in specific, you don't agree with?
I don't agree with.
You don't? Interesting. Do you think it's preposterous?
No, I don't think that it's very early to... I mean, if the reason why the demands of Dave Castro's resignment is the
tragedy that happened at the games, I think that we need to let the answers from the law for
whomever is the proper authority to come and then we decide which actions should be made. But I
think it's too early to, you too early to take such a decision.
Do you have any thoughts on why they're asking for his resignation?
As I said before, I don't know very well how they work and what they work in.
Maybe it's valid.
I just don't know it.
I cannot validate something that I really don't know.
In that meeting, for example, I can say that I completely validate the request for more safety and a proper team
to investigate the tragedy that happened,
and that I completely agree with them.
I don't think that, in my perspective,
I don't think that that should be mixed with, OK,
and we also wanted Castro gone.
I think that there are two valid points that are
things that are urgent
and they need to happen. I don't think that, I don't have the feeling that at this stage
all the responsibility needs to fall on Dave. I think that if a judge or the law or whoever
is responsible to give such an answer puts that on Dave, then probably that's the right thing to do.
Until that moment, we need to wait and see
what those answers are.
The part I'm frustrated with obviously
is them asking for Dave to step down,
but I can't figure out what they're asking
because there's no details in it, right?
Like if I told you, hey, I want you to change your look for kundo, you'd be like, Okay. And then like, it would
be nice if I said take off your glasses and shave a mohawk, right? I'm getting I'm getting
nothing from that. I feel like all of the things that they're saying are inflammatory
without substance. Okay. And I'm wondering if you know anything more than that. Like you're saying that you think that there there does need to be some change or the first two actions, we demand an appropriate level of transparency between CrossFit and PFAA. Like, like, do they want a ring phone in Dave's bathroom at his house or a ring camera at Dave's house. Like this has, we want to create an independent
safety council.
You know CrossFit does have a safety council.
And then on top of that, I don't know who,
I don't know what these guys are.
When I talk to someone like you, I don't,
if they haven't able to get your support
or someone like you in the community doesn't
already know what's going on. That makes me feel like who's at your foundation?
What's your what's your what's your what validity should I give anything that you
say other than you have this really cool name PFAA?
really cool name PFAA. Look, I will repeat the same. I'm not aware of maybe because I
wasn't invited to or maybe because things didn't work out like that. I don't know very much on their work besides the meetings that I was and the last meeting was mostly about that.
guides the meetings that I was, and the last meeting was mostly about that.
It's just that, I mean, I think that whether it's the BFAA
or whoever, I think that many of these demands
should have been done beforehand if everybody was so aware
before of, you know, everybody's talking about nobody cares for the athletes,
nobody, everything was always been so unsafe. Why were not measures taken before? You know, and I'm not blaming anybody at all.
I come from a place where you need to be fully responsible of your actions.
And yet again, I'm not bringing anybody into this mix,
but there were many people who were at the podium
of the CrossFit Games happy with their checks
and were celebrating their victory.
And I've never heard anybody of those athletes saying,
yes, I'm using the spot where I'm now
to criticize that I wasn't,
I didn't feel safe this year at the games. Everybody seems to be very, in a very celebratory
mood in that moment. So for me, that puts a little bit of question in short, okay, well,
now that things didn't go as they should have gone,
all the criticism gone, but beforehand,
everybody was happy with their check
and their volume position.
They claim it's because they're scared of Dave.
But I'm talking about the people,
I'm talking in general, whether it's the people,
you know.
But they would say the same thing, Facundo,
they would say, hey, the reason why athletes don't speak up is because they're
afraid of Dave that they keep leaning on that.
Or they would say, Dave won't listen to us.
Okay.
So there's, there are two things.
I mean, everybody might fear afraid of Dave because he's, he's, he's
has a strong personality.
Yeah.
But then if fear is your limiting factor, don't blame it on Dave.
And if fear is your limiting factor, don't blame it on Dave.
Blame it on your capacity of overcome the fear and make your words being expressed.
I mean, I cannot get upset with somebody else
because I'm unable to do something myself
because I'm scared of that person, right?
Sorry, I mean, I'm not scared of Dave.
I'm more scared of David the Nicole Carroll, for example.
Nicole Carroll scares me.
You know?
Because she's sharp.
She's like, are you scared by Nicole Carroll, Sevan?
I used to be very intimidated by her.
Not so much anymore now that I not work there,
but yeah, definitely.
But so, you know, I think that we need to take responsibility.
So if I cannot fully validate a claim
that didn't have a history beforehand.
I mean, everybody's into the games many, many times.
Why didn't this issue happen before?
This request, this like, you know, if it's because-
They would tell you it has. They would say say we've been trying for the last four years.
Maybe.
And they got no response and that they're now using this event to use their voice to get the change that they want.
Yeah.
I'm not buying it. Let me ask you this something even wilder. I'm starting to feel like that there is a coalition of people who have financial interests, training camps, and I don't know if mayhem, I would lump mayhem in the bunch.
and agents and managers and coaches who are basically using this as an attempt to make a coup. And it feels more and more that they want to sink their teeth into CrossFit and they want the
athletes to be doing the programming and that basically they want in because they want to steer
the ship strictly for my financial gains. Look, I want to tell you something that for me was,
of course, after the tragedy that happened, the the saddest moment that I had to go through the games,
the saddest moment that I had to live through the games this
year is I saw a lot of people that
didn't agree with the games moving forward
through the weekend on the warm-up area, even on Sunday, making feel the athletes that wanted to stay
guilty because of their decision.
There are many people, you know, I'll tell you something.
I remember Laura Hobart, for example, which I might not agree on many things with Laura, but she spoke
her mind the first day, she kept her words, and she behaved accordingly.
She went out of the games, never came back.
I don't agree with this.
This is not in line with how I think things should be.
I admire that.
She was not influenced by anybody. She didn't have any other gain except for her own decision.
And I really, really admired that.
I didn't agree with her decision,
but I admired her of all the people.
Maybe not.
So for many of the people that were competing
at the graphic games, maybe Lazar's best friend
was Karin Frey.
Karin Freyoba.
They were very good friends.
I mean, I live very beautiful things with them together
as a team.
And the day that happened,
Karin sent me a text and said, is it true?
And I said, yes. I was, I was, I was in the, at the lake until, you know,
the last minute when, when I left with, with,
with Lassau's family.
And a couple of hours later, she called me back and said,
coach, I always do whatever you ask me to do,
but please don't ask me to compete
because I will not be competing.
That was before any meeting, before anything took place.
That was a decision that came out from himself, that
didn't have any kind of influence from anybody else.
And I told her, Karen, maybe you want to think about it.
Yeah, if you ask me to think about it, I'll think about it.
But I'll tell you it's going to be a no.
My head, my heart, my body, I'm unable to compete.
So many of these people took the decision.
And I respect that enormously,
especially those who took it ethically correct.
I've seen some people who decided
that they didn't want to compete,
but instead of going home,
they spend most of the time on the athletes warm-up area and I've heard one
comment saying, oh, it must be really hard to compete. You didn't know Lassow, right?
Because it must be really hard to compete if you would have met him.
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Tell them SEVvan sent ya. And that was very sad for me because that was a division.
It was a lack of respect to whatever you were deciding.
It's not like, okay, you decide and I respect you,
I'll decide, respect me.
It was kind of, I'll decide and I'm going to be the judge
of a moral order in which I'll tell you
whether what you're doing is right or wrong.
Right.
And I think that that gap is still popular today. I think that we still see, well, why you compete?
We didn't have to, you know, very unnecessary. I think that that gave birth to a very hurtful,
you know, tone that we are all going through at the moment.
There was one other time in my life, Facundo, where I was somewhere where
I was next to where five people were killed, right? I witnessed five people getting killed.
And the only thing I wanted to do was like go home and be with family or crawl under the sheets and
When I realized that Lazar was dead
All I wanted to do was call my wife ask her to book me a flight home and go be with my kids
I totally understand that like
The flight flight mode, right? I think we all like I'm sure you were like fuck. I need to hug my daughter, right? Yeah
Right. You're looking for like some sort of like whatever that is. Um
so so I so
That's it's that I guess
that automatic response coupled with the fact that you also have a task at hand and
and some people were able to, you know, what's that called,
reconcile those two, and maybe some people weren't. But I did see that also, what you're saying,
people were, I didn't see it in person, but I did see people posting, like somehow they had a better
conscience, and because they had a higher level of conscience and moral aptitude
that they left. And I thought that that was pretty aggressive to the people who stayed.
Like somehow that person has the moral authority of what's right and someone else doesn't.
And that I agree that that was pretty harsh.
I think that everybody was it was fine that everybody had the right to decide what everyone
wanted to do. What I found unfortunate was like, well, I don't agree on what you're doing.
Nobody needed to hear that weekend, especially with that.
Everybody was doing their best to be there.
And what is forgotten now or is being put into controversy, is that most of the athletes
wanted to keep going.
It was not a one-person decision.
I'm not saying that was the correct thing to do.
That was what happened then.
Big groups have made lots of bad decisions.
Yeah.
I mean, and it's acceptable.
Everybody was mourning.
Everybody was in a state of shock.
A shock, so, you know, it's not in those moments
where you take the clearest decisions, right?
You do whatever you can.
Have you spoken with Don since the incident?
Have you had a meeting with Don?
Don Foll?
Yes.
No. Okay, because it sounds like Saxon
called him and said, Hey, I don't agree with Dave. This these demands and like and I didn't get to
vote on any of this. And when they talk about the PFAA, that's not me. I want you to know. And I've
owned a fuck I've been doing CrossFit since 2008. I've owned an affiliate, my brothers owned an
affiliate, my other brothers owned an affiliate, I worked out with my family and affiliate. I've
trained 1000s of people and that is not my
fuck, those are not my words and I was not part of that, which I thought was pretty fucking badass.
Yeah, yeah, we, Saxon was also in the meeting and we actually talked to each other immediately
after the meeting was over and I mean, yeah, I mean me and I think that, and I don't think
some other people didn't do, but I guess
that some people did agree on that decision, and it's fair.
If they think that that's the case, I don't agree with it.
I'm not going to tell them that that's the wrong thing to do, and they shouldn't think
like that.
I cannot say, okay, you should not tell people not to compete, but I will tell people not
to think like that.
Everybody has the right to have their own decision.
I just, it's not mine.
And I think, I don't think for what you're telling me, Saxon's too.
I mean, and Saxon is a very clever person.
I guess yesterday many people get a bit of a glimpse
of what a clever person he is.
Yeah, I was surprised.
Yeah, he's a guy that's been around
and then he comes from this very old school
where community goes first,
you know, where you can compete with somebody but then you can be best friends too, you know,
and you high five with an honest heart and you celebrate the sport moving forward and that's
something that is very valuable to him, you know, and sorry he celebrates sport moving forward. And that's something that is very valuable to him, you know, and sorry, he celebrates sport moving forward and keep growing.
Caroline M. It's convenient. Hi, Caroline. It's convenient emotionally charged outlet
to get out years of frustration that not every athlete has towards CrossFit and Dave, particularly
Brett and Pat types. Would you say that they have been sort of in a haters camp for a long time?
No, I don't know. I don't know whether I really don't want to talk about Brent or Pat. I mean,
because I really don't know very much about what the work they're doing. I just think that, yes,
but maybe it was not the right time then, there, or maybe they should have come naturally
because there was a need, not because something happened and used that as a scapulatory goal
of like, now because this happened, I'm going to do this.
I'm not talking about Brent or Pat, I'm talking about the people that claim that are scared
of Dave.
Do you have any thoughts on the direction that the games will go?
I don't.
I don't.
I hope that, I mean, the games has been always a great event, at least for me.
I'm not an athlete, so I might see things differently.
I hope that, you know, that they move forward for the great event they are for me in my
eyes. I mean, that also creates the financial network for many people to live.
I mean, I have a lot of actors that are depending on competing and going to the
Grand Street Games and camps that do that, you know, prepare people to do that, not just but also. So I hope that the games move
forward doing these great events. They have always been done. Maybe last year, this year,
it's a different story, but the past has shown differently, at least for me as a non-athlete.
Facundo, when I see these athletes who
have these big followings and I see what they post,
I sometimes think that there's a burden on them
to make posts that they really don't want
to stir the hornet's nest, right?
Even if it means showing their true selves.
And so I'll use Noah as an example. He seems to be very preoccupied with
not wanting to offend people and he presents very kindly and all my interactions with Noah have been fucking absolutely amazing.
I know some people,
he's got a group of haters that think he's fake. I've never gotten any of that from him.
I wouldn't characterize him as fake, but I would characterize him as someone who's really
Concerned that he might offend someone or hurt someone's feelings and he's almost I would say he's almost crippled by it
And that this burden of maintain posting things that don't offend anyone like he always gives a preface
I hope I don't trigger anyone. I hope this I hope that and then on the other hand you have an older athlete
like Rich Froning who
Shot the bear last year
And and brought it home and ate it and then this time
In that at least he had some time to think about before he posts. He's not stupid
He knew it was obviously like I mean he's showing his lifestyle
He's speaking to his audience
But there's some people who think that you shouldn't eat animals, right or they they eat animals and for some reason they just don't accept killing them. I don't
know what their problem is.
Which is worse.
Which is worse.
Just eating them alive. Just taking a bite out of a duck at the pond. But, and, anyway,
different topic. But now you have him, this event goes down,
these demands, and right away Rich makes a post.
Does he consult anyone about that first
or is he just like, fuck you?
I think that Rich is a very independent, clever man,
very, very clever, and he knows very well
always what he's doing.
But I tell you something,
when what happened happened,
I was sitting next to Anya, Raza's girlfriend,
when all of that unraveled and, you know, it was,
and the only person that I called was Rich.
And not only he's one of my best friends,
maybe my best friend, but I was so lost that I just,
you know, we were waiting
and everything seems like falling apart.
And then, and I call him and said,
this is what happening and you know,
and so I respect him so much and I know how clever he is.
So I think that whatever he does, and he's been around, I mean,
Sevan, you know it very well.
He had to start it and that was the day before his race, right?
That was, that wasn't no, that was two days before.
That was on Thursday.
His race was on Saturday, but he, he, he, he came on Sunday
and actually he didn't do anything.
Just stay with us.
I was, I was, you know, not doing very well. And he, he didn't do anything, just stay with us. I was not doing very well.
And he came, we spent the whole time sitting together,
and then, yeah, we left.
But the question about it is whether Noah and Rich,
I didn't keep what you were going to ask me.
Do you think, like, he posts that support like...
And this is for all of you who say I'm biased, this is my bias how I'm gonna word this.
I'm really much more honest than any of you fucktards, but this is my bias.
When the mob was incited to come after Dave,
Rich is like, uh-uh.
And he just fucking, and he made two posts back to back.
He doubled down.
Yeah, yeah.
I know.
That, that, I think a lot of people who probably even had, who, who don't agree with the PFAA,
which I think is the vast, vast majority.
I think it's a hollow organization.
I know it is just because from interviewing people, obviously, my words, not yours, but
if you have fucking one third of the teams at the CrossFit Games or mayhem teams and
you don't fucking know jack shit about the PFA or you haven't asked to be on the board
and you have 15 individual athletes, I mean, something's fucking wrong.
One on the other hand, they're posting, we speak for the athletes.
I mean, it's just chaos.
I could go on and on about the mistakes and the
misrepresentation of who they say they are. But I don't think a lot of athletes would have done
what we've seen Saxon and Rich do. And Rich has a lot to lose. I mean, theoretically, you would
think, I mean, you and I know that the Mayhem family is strong as fuck, but a lot of people might think,
even if they don't, they might be scared to do what he did.
Well, I'll tell you something,
Rich is not somebody who's going to do something
or not do something because of the fear
of that not falling well into the community.
Therefore, they're hunting and so on, right?
But it is what you mentioned before.
I mean, and I'm not mentioning anybody in particular,
but people complain about being scared of Dave. And then you see somebody like Rich doing that.
I think that the problem nowadays seems to be like I'm unable to do something,
or because Rich does something he believes is correct, he's rewarded, you know, which is fine,
he's rewarded, which is fine because, but what I'm trying to say very freely is I think that Rich
is honest in whatever he says. He posts on social media always. In the past, I think that he has also posted about disagreement he has with Dave. I mean, he was wearing the David Sabrik t-shirt for
four years. I mean,shirt for four years anymore, right
And he if he doesn't like something about the programming whether it's Dave or both with us. He said oh, I find it
Yeah, like this, but I think that I think he's been around for a long time and he's
You know his words for me are of great value
Why do you think that they want Dave to go?
Do you think that it's because Lazer died or do you think it's for some other
reason? Do you have any idea why they would want him to go?
I don't have any proper, I don't have any factual idea.
I have my feelings, you know, whatever I...
Suspicions? Do you have your suspicions?
I don't say suspicion. My hypothesis or my, hypothesis or my I'm guessing or I'm feeling that.
Do you think that there are people driving Brent?
Do you think that there's people driving Brent in the shadows behind the scenes?
You think he has cultivated support from agents and managers and things like that?
I don't know. I think that what happened is very terrible.
We lost a friend. We lost an actor.
We lost a very, very valuable member of our community,
a source of inspiration for many athletes and someone
who raised the game.
And that's something terrible that happened.
And we need to find the answers that we need to have for everybody
to start making, accepting what happened. Now, I'm not sure whether everybody is, I
do have a feeling that there is some people have a personal agenda on this. And I find it extremely sad and I find it extremely irresponsible, extremely, you know,
basic as a human being to bring your own personal agenda in this terrible thing that happened.
You know, I think it's very low from someone to do that. I have a feeling, I've received a lot of messages in the last month.
Now it's going to be on Sunday, one month, 8th of August.
And I think that, you know, I hear a bit of everything.
And I've heard comments that upset me enormously.
You know things you can't share with us because they're not necessary.
It's not about sharing, it's just like about,
I find it very small to be talking about these little things
where we should be concentrating
on something much more important
and respecting something much more important,
which is Lazo's memory and his brother and Ania and the mom and so on. And everybody's now kind of
turned the page on that and talking about certain other stuff. And that upsets me. I don't think
that that's fair. I don't think that that's the way things should be. I had in my ear, and something
that I can tell you, when we were discussing about moving forward or not,
and we were in this meeting with Dave
and the representative of the coaches, the teams,
the male and the female athletes.
And when, I mean, this is going to be very unpopular,
but I'm going to say it anyways.
When we were talking about whether moving the competition
as it was planned or moving into an exhibit
in which the money would be shared equally
by all the competitors and there wouldn't be a prize money
and there wouldn't be a leaderboard,
some of the athletes, one of the athletes
that was endorsing this idea of sharing the money said,
OK, OK, yes, but careful. The individual price money is shared only with individuals. The teams have a much lower
price per se and they should have their own division.
Wow. You know, and that really hurt me so hard because it was the same day.
Right.
When that happened, or somebody who was present in the meeting said, okay, well, if we decide
to move on this format of competing, can we erase the event number one out of the leaderboard.
And one of the people that was next to me who was an athlete who did very well said,
no, why would you do that?
Well-
Yeah, why would you do that?
I don't even, I can't even make the leap of kind of-
I don't know, the only thing that I will tell you
is that one of the athletes in question
did really bad in the first event.
So when I hear all of these things,
I know, I'm sorry, when I hear all of these things,
it invalidates many of the things
that I hear today on social media.
Because I was there listening to that.
I said, how can you now claim this?
Well, you said that you wanted to split the money,
but not everybody else, the same story.
The price money for the individuals, for them,
and the teams, they should have much less
because the price per se for the teams
is lower than individuals.
Basically, what I'm hearing you say is that,
hey guys, we need to get healed through this Lazar thing,
and we need to get through through this Lazar thing and we need to get like through this.
But there are these distractions
that are coming from people who are conflating the morning of Lazar with their self-interests.
And it's making it difficult to get to the other side when there when your self-interests are coming into play
Is that basically what i'm saying because I know a lot of times you want to keep steering this conversation back to just like man what a great guy Lazar is how much it sucks this happened but
then other but then but but obviously I'm curious what's going on because I I do not like the idea
of Dave stepping down as head of the CrossFit Games. And so I'm hyper focused on like,
hey, now that you're saying that shit, like, fuck you.
You know what I mean?
Yeah. I mean, that's what I feel.
That's what I, you know,
that's what I am unable to validate any requests
from anybody.
And I'm not, from everybody who tells me something.
So I was there listening to that.
So whoever that person tells me from now on, sorry,
it doesn't have value for me.
You lost my respect and lost any kind of credibility for me.
And for the record,
I was not the only person who heard that.
There were many people in the room.
We were at least 30 people in the room.
It's the same thing with the whole print when,
when Brent went on the coffee pods and wads podcast, basically he's he that he said, why,
I think Pedro, I'm paraphrasing, but Pedro said, Hey, why are you coming forward with this? And he
says, because CrossFit won't meet with us. You know, it's just all emails and zoom calls. And
within 24 hours, we find out that they had two meetings during the game season in person
with Don fall one with Dave. And it's like, hey, dude, why would you even like that? That's a
pretty huge misrepresentation of what you're doing. Right. And so now like, I'm wondering, what else
does it invalidate? I have two more questions. Good. You want to say something?
No, I'm just saying that, yeah, I mean, I don't, yet again, I don't follow the case
of what happened with Brent and very much, and part of the day, so I'm unable to give
you a proper answer.
What I'm talking is about my personal feelings about that day and how, for me, Facundo, many
people nowadays are, no, I wouldn't say counsel, but I don't respect them anymore.
I just, you know. Yeah I don't respect them anymore.
I just, you know.
Yeah, there's an ink in it.
What I'm saying is just there's an inconsistency.
You can't tell me on one hand one thing
and then over here your actions are showing the opposite
and you're like, hey, you canceled out.
Any shit you say now doesn't mean shit to me.
I have to take a quick P break
and then I have two. I have the two best questions of the day for you.
There's no magic here to getting you out of that mindset of focusing on how you look,
but an affiliate is in my opinion by far the best place to help you with that shift.
Before starting at the gym, I was somebody who just always wanted to be smaller and I
always wanted to like look a certain way and I was never, never satisfied with my body.
All my goals were focused around all of my exercise was like how do I get as small as
possible and so I was like super unhealthy like I wasn't eating and all sorts of stuff
Unfortunately, like when I had gotten really bad. I had Megan had me join here. So it was very quickly that I was like, okay
well if I want to like
lift with all of these other girls and if I want to like keep up with them and
if I want to be strong and all those things like I like that this has this
has to switch. It was like within six months I like realized that switch where
it was like all the sudden on my Instagram feed instead of like tiny
little people I had like these strong beautiful capable women that could lift
hundreds of pounds. So this for me has
been a whole mindset shift of like, I now appreciate my body for what it can do, not
what it looks like in here. We don't care what you look like as long as you're hitting
what you what you want to achieve.
Facundo.
That was a nice ad though. Thank you.
We're doing a video contest.
I do it all.
I've killed Taylor, the competition.
I have the affiliate promotion.
I have the beautiful Facundo from France.
From Argentina, right?
Oh, from Argentina.
In France. Argentina.
Okay.
I heard that after the, well, on Friday or Thursday, whatever the days after the incident,
that Roman was like, Dave, don't ask anybody what to do.
Just tell us what to do.
We go out and do it.
Is that a question or you are just paraphrasing him?
I'm paraphrasing him. Did he say that? Was he just like,
Hey man, I just want to put my fucking head down and work. Like he was just
running with it.
Yes and no. The truth is that when we were all called, I mean all the
athletes, coaches, teams, everybody, athletes from team, everybody,
there was an agreement. We were just divided into groups.
We tried to find an agreement on what was the best thing
to do and there was no agreement.
So we could have spent there, you know, 48 more hours
trying to decipher, okay, what are we going to do?
It comes to a point where everyone says,
guys, we are not getting anywhere.
So why don't you just let Dave decide?
This is your competition. Since we are not agreeing
on anything, you decide what we should do. And the decision was to name representatives,
which we have a little meeting with, that have elected us.
And, you know, that was what happened.
So that's what Roman came and said,
we don't get to an agreement.
Why, Dave, you have to decide what we should do.
But it was no decision.
I mean, everybody was free to do it or not.
One of the things that I proposed back then is like,
if you didn't want to compete this year
that you should get maybe a wild card for next year
because you deserve to be there, right?
You got a spot from a semi-final
and this terrible circumstance
make you not want to compete,
which is completely understandable.
Then maybe why don't just make these people invite the next year? Because, you know,
it's not that they are not competing because something non-important happened. They were
unable to compete and I respect that. Yeah. So, sorry, you might not like this next part. Sorry,
bear with me here. I have to talk to someone in the comments
Uh roman is all about the money. Listen, you fuck not. You don't know other people's circumstances
What if he had to fucking win the money to buy a visa to keep his kids or his kid had a fucking heart valve
That was broken or he had his fucking family's trying to get out of fucking russia because they're fucking in danger or some shit
What I mean is all about the fucking money. Go fuck yourself.
Okay.
I would like to.
Oh, please go ahead.
I don't know the person who is.
I'm sorry, but you are Mr.
Weed. Mr.
Weed, you are very, very mistaken.
I would like to know where do you take this idea from?
Because that's not true.
He take it out of his fucking ass.
Okay. Here we go.
Um, two very touchy subjects here. More than this? Oh yeah, that was just fun.
David's just fun. Okay, I paid David to say crazy shit so I can have outbursts.
He's on my payroll. Okay. Just part of the show, part of the gimmick The story is and it's a little bit of a long story so bear with me here the story is is that
Dave asked Luca hey
We're gonna do a memorial do you want the event to go forward or backward?
Or do you want the event to go forward or do you not want the event to happen? The story is is that Luca said
Something in between I don't care and of course do it that it's somewhere in that realm
Andrew Hiller explained to me. I think it was Andrew. No
Who was it?
Taylor self explained to me because his dad died when he was in high school
He's like hey, dude
When something like that happens like you don't give a fuck about anything The only thing going on in Lucas mind was I want my brother back like he like it's not school and he's like, hey dude, when something like that happens, like you don't give a fuck about anything.
The only thing going on in Luca's mind
was I want my brother back.
Like it's not even like, he's not worried about eating
or breathing or not, he doesn't care.
Like he'll just walk out into the middle of the street.
Like it's like, he just lost his fucking brother.
He doesn't care, okay?
And so it doesn't matter if it goes forward or backward.
It's not even a question you can process,
which I really like that perspective.
So I can relate to it.
It seems very reasonable.
So then they went forward with the games.
And then the story is that the athletes were really upset because they felt like they were
duped into doing the games because he didn't really give his blessing.
He said he just didn't care.
That's the first part.
The other part is that Luca did come to the memorial. I didn't really give his blessing. He said he just didn't care. That's the first part The other part is is that Luca did come to the memorial?
I didn't see this I was on the floor watching the memorial
But I guess he said I don't want to be used in any media, but the word didn't get to the
Media guys or the camera guys and they actually had his face up on the screen during the memorial crying
I didn't see it, but that's what I heard and so he was upset about that. Well, then recently I was listening to Brian Friend and Patrick Clark speak
on a podcast and I heard them say that they actually ran the plan of the memorial by Luca.
Like he actually knew what it was going to be. It was going to be one minute of this, one minute
of this, one minute of this, and then it was going to be over. And that Luca said, okay, that's fine. And we all know,
I guess Luca was there for the memorial. I didn't see him, but could you confirm that he was there?
He was there in the memorial. He was there. Yeah. He was there. I know this is just fucking so petty,
like whether the memorial, to me, whether the memorial was long enough or whether he gave it
the blessing or not. But do you have any insights into that?
I think that first of all, we need to respect Luca and Anya and the people who were there so much
that I don't think that there's much space for, you know, making comments about them from that day.
They, and at all at the moment, they are mourning enormously the loss of a brother and a boyfriend.
And I don't know.
But I understand.
And I did talk to Anya.
And as you said, their head was somewhere else.
They just really, the games happening or not,
I guess that was not, I'm guessing, I'm sorry,
but I also don't want to over speak.
I find it very plausible that their head was somewhere else.
You know, it's just-
Yeah, I agree.
I agree with you completely irrelevant.
It's like being hit by a car
and then someone asking you
what you want to watch on TV tonight.
It's like, what?
Yeah, it's, you know, I'm wondering why people would like
not to make the story about it.
No, it's just, I will respect.
And of course, everything that they decide that day,
if they feel like this, they feel like that,
they want the games to move forward.
They are, they are, you know, they had the biggest.
They're the surviving victims of Lazar's death.
Yeah, and you know, I want to say this.
I mean, it's a different tone.
It's a beautiful tone, but Lazar,
you cannot imagine how much he loved his brother
and his girlfriend.
His mom and his dad and the people that were close to him,
he was a very, very good brother and boyfriend and friend.
You know, he was all about his family for him. I don't know. I find it very respectful to
talk about it, to be honest, to talk about these ideas or hypotheses, whether or not
they should have done these. They were, it's, um, yeah.
I'm really not going to like this next question. Okay. This one's fucking, what happened to
Lazar at Burj Khalifa and did he have any health issues? I wasn't there. I, I, you were
his coach. Do you know what happened to him? I know that he felt very, very sick. He very
sick and then, uh, he, he, uh, couldn he couldn't, you know, he actually, I think
that he did an event after that, but he did well. But overall, he felt very bad and he
was unable to continue the way he wants to continue.
Did he ever get a diagnosis for what happened?
Not that I know. Not that I know.
Was his health good?
I mean, he competed.
I mean, he was in the middle of COVID time, huh?
And in Europe, we have the flu A too, Europe and the Middle East.
So there was a time where many people were getting a lot of things.
I really don't know.
I mean, like many other people competing, he didn't feel well.
He got something.
He was extremely hot in Dubai.
Uh, but yet again, I wasn't there.
Um, I, I, I don't know.
I think that many people leave competition because they don't feel well.
I don't think that there's space for creating a story about it.
No, I mean, regarding his overall health. space for creating a story about it.
I mean-
Regarding his overall health.
He was a very healthy man.
I mean, he trained of the people that I know
that I programmed for.
I think that Haley Adam Samhiem did the most volume.
They were hardworking people.
And except for that experience there,
Lazar was never sick.
He was always in very good health.
Yeah, he never left a competition.
He never said, except for that one, he said,
oh, well, I mean, I think that, yeah.
He started training very soon.
He was invited to the Open. A couple of months later,
he won the workout. Then he won his region.
Three times, right? Three times?
Three times, yeah. Three times. Three times. I want to tell you something that was a beautiful thing. I remember when we started working together,
he was not the king of Europe, right?
Two things.
And so he said, OK, well, we're going
to measure if our work is on the right track.
If I win, it was a lowlands in Amsterdam.
And he won. But Luca didn't win, didn't make a lowlands in Amsterdam. And he won.
But Luca didn't win, didn't make a spot for the games.
And I remember that I was waiting him on the warm-up area.
There was a big curtain.
And when he went through the little curtain,
I was going to hug him.
And he just fell on the floor crying
because he could not celebrate as Luka didn't qualify.
That was the devotion and the love he had for his brother.
He was really heartbroken.
I was like trying to, hey, but you are the new king of Europe.
You just, no, it didn't matter.
It didn't matter to him.
It just, he wanted his brother to be with him. He would have much prefer to take third as long as Luca would take four or fifth or three or thick, but yeah
So
Yeah
When I yeah, yeah, okay
Thank you You're cutting me off now. Yeah, okay. Thank you.
You're cutting me off now?
Yeah, you're cut off.
I was warming up.
Man, it's a lot.
No, I want to, you know, I think that I, the only thing that I would like, you know, one
of the many things that I would like is that the focus is not switching,
to move somewhere else.
And we can always keep Lazar in our hearts and our minds.
And I hope that the CrossFit Games does something
to honor him in the next editions.
So yeah.
So, yeah. I think that will be something very beautiful to do, that we don't forget what extraordinary
person he was.
Awesome.
Thank you.
I'm sorry for your loss, by the way.
The little interactions I had with him on the show in person, fucking awesome.
And him and Luca, they felt like family to me.
So just like they felt like they were uncle and aunt.
They felt like they were Armenians to me.
They felt like Armenians.
They were, yes.
I remember when you first invited them.
He was so happy.
He told me, you know what?
Finally, I'm going, I think that I'm going to make it because I'm going to be in Sevan
podcast. Oh, man. You know, that was so happy. He told me, you know what? Finally, I'm going, I think that I'm going to make it because I'm going to be in Sevan podcast.
Oh, man.
You know, that was, yeah.
Yeah.
Caleb, thank you for looking like a picture the whole time.
Your color is amazing.
Facundo, thank you.
Everyone love you guys.
See you guys 11 a.m. Oh, no, sorry, 12, 12 p.m. and 40 minutes. Matt Suza will be on. Love you guys. 11 a.m. Oh, no, sorry 12 p.m. And 40 minutes a Matt Susan will be on I love you guys
Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye