The Sevan Podcast - 2023 CrossFit Games QF Women's Power Rankings w/ Brian Friend #903

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

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Did you see the story I put up on my personal Instagram this morning? Bam, we're live. No. I tagged you in it. I don't do that heart thing. You know what I mean where you have to see who tagged you? I need to start doing that more. I always forget to do that.

Your Brian friend. CrossFit, yeah. CrossFit. I just wanted to let you know I was getting ready for you today. God, this would be awesome if it's you in the shower. Not that.

It's the last one. These are just from yesterday. A little love from Mr. Spin, announcing the launch of your website uh something actually i mentioned i mentioned this on our podcast yesterday m2 performance put up a post i thought was very good if you haven't checked that out and then this is just a reminder because some media outlets and athletes have been announcing that they've qualified for the crossfit games as a result of the online qualifier for semifinals, and that is not the case. Those results are pending, pending video review. CrossFit has told us that by May 10th, we will know those results.

But even then, we have seen this year already that CrossFit has announced results as final, and then gone back and made changes to those results that have affected the cut line for certain athletes. So never, you know, just, you know, it is exciting to athletes that are in positions to qualify, but they have not qualified yet. Sorry, I was fiddling around with this. Did I hear that right? You're telling me, I just heard that in glancing. You're telling me that Justin Medeiros has already announced that he qualified for semifinals, but he can't be sure he did. No.

Because CrossFit has not made any official announcements yet. No, this is for the age group semifinal athletes who competed this past weekend. No one's in for sure. They haven't sent out a single confirmation. Correct. For all we know, Rich Froning is going to be punished for something he didn't do, like some rule he broke and not get in, get a DQ. Why are they doing that?

Why are the athletes confused? Because they looked at a leaderboard? It's not just the athletes. I mean, the Morning Chalka published this morning an article highlighting athletes who are games legends that are going to Madison based on their performances this last weekend. And while that is likely the case for some of them, for a lot of them, the cut line is very tight. There's a few points separating a few people on the cut line. Oh, this is the one there at the end.

That's how I got ready for you today. Oh, a little CBD cream. Two shows. How to prepare for two shows with Sevan Rinsta today. Oh, my God, dude, I'm so ready. Listen, I beg of you, give us one more chance with the Frisbee show. This Fr God, dude. I'm so ready. Listen, I beg of you, give us one more chance with the Frisbee show. This Frisbee show is going to be dope.

It's tight. It's concise. It's the two best players in the world. It's tonight at 6.30 p.m. I might get pushed to 6.45. Okay, so you rub CBD stuff all over you. Neck and shoulders. That's how I can deal with you for two shows in a day.

Do you put it on yourself this morning i did um you know what's funny is you know what i did uh this morning is i just i i have um i have um i have a manscape and i only use it on my face and i didn't use it on my face this morning and it's great for your face by the way but this morning i just grabbed a handful of pubes and just took some scissors and chopped them off and put them in. And you were ready to go? I was ready to go. There's something almost… Cathartic? No.

Well, that too. But there's almost something, an oxymoron about this thing, manscape. I just don't… It's like trans men or manscape. I just don't i did it's like it's like a trans man or manscape i just don't see um it's not it doesn't just doesn't seem like real real man stuff just just i don't know but but thank you for the sponsorship manscape i appreciate it and i like using it on my face they sponsor you they do oh that's excellent yeah it is cool maybe not after i just said that but i do use it on my face regularly it's great hey um someone someone in the uh crossfit space who um i would argue is

the the most influential person in the entire crossfit space uh powerful uh text me the other day does this person does not text me very often i get like two texts a year from this person and they just me very often i get like two texts a year from this person and they just said it looks like you have a mullet it sucks because like i'm pretty happy to get the text but i'm not i'm not so happy about the message do you text yourself no i should have texted but i should have checked myself no you don't have a mullet oh but i appreciate that. I caught that.

Oh, that was nice of you, Brian. Thank you. Okay, even Jesus had a teacher, right? Is that true? I would say it is true. Ladies and gentlemen, today, yesterday, we appreciated. And if you don't know the definition of appreciate, I will look it up here for you. Today, yesterday, we appreciated. And if you don't know the definition of appreciate, I will look it up here for you.

Appreciate. Spelled it wrong. The definition of appreciate is to recognize the full worth. And then the second definition is understanding the situation fully, recognizing full implications of today we will appreciate i i first went with the word ogle but ogle means it's like lecherous behavior which kind of sucks i was going to say we were going to yesterday we ogle the men and today we ogle the women but you can't use that word so um so appreciate is more because it's a bad word it's just not as accurate yeah not exactly well it is kind of a bad word i looked it up yeah it has the uh implications of being lecherous like over sexualizing and and there will be no sexualizing i don't i don't

sexualize the athletes at all no matter how much anyone claims oh no we're gonna have a problem then but we are going to appreciate uh the athletes like we did yesterday uh like that guy brian huh he's my new favorite guy and uh and man what what a list what a crazy situation we have here uh this is going to be an amazing year uh to watch the semifinals and crossfit games uh in the women's division for crossfit brian has um updated his 100 um he calls it the power rankings i call it the 100 uh best crossfit women in order and if you want to follow along you can go to this um article that is up on the new website.

Just go to BeFriendlyFitness.com, and it'll take you to its homepage, and then there'll be a picture of Mal O'Brien, who is no doubt, I'm guessing, at the top of this list. I actually have not even glanced at the list. You know, most of these pictures are Patrick's. Oh, Patrick Clark. Yeah. Almost a majority of the pictures we'll use are his. But anytime we use a picture, we do want to give credit to the photographers. And we will be using some other ones as well.

Oh, fantastic. Okay. That's nice of you. Jody Lynn, you'll have to suppress your misogyny today. Absolutely. I'll push it way down. And Pool Boy will also be making a guest appearance in today's show brian is unaware of that but i uh guarantee it uh yes and um and mr cuck uh who who barely made the uh list uh brian's list yesterday

at 100 um we did appreciate him yesterday what is the protocol anyone on this flag i'm having creases in it is that is i mean is that cool i think that someone in the stands had you know folded it up to bring it into the stadium maybe in a bag or a backpack or something like that and then at the time of the award ceremony took it out unfolded and gave it to no shit you don't think she planned that someone get that was spontaneous if that was spontaneous mal's a beast i think that in certain even if it wasn't spontaneous she's a beast sorry in in i think in years past there have been some spontaneous occurrences none none more spontaneous than lucas hogeberg in 2018 do you remember that what happened? You need to find a picture of the men's podium

from the CrossFit Games in 2018. And keep in mind, Lucas Hogeberg was, are you looking for that? Yeah. You know, Lucas Hogeberg was a massive underdog in terms of a podium contender that year. You know, if someone told me he made the top 10 that year, I'd be like, man, that'd be a great year for Lucas Hogeberg. Well, he had a phenomenal year. It came right down to the wire. He actually ended up tied on points with Brent Fikowski. Oh, yeah, I see.

He won the tiebreaker because of winning an event that morning, the two-stroke pull on Sunday morning. And then he was looking for a flag for the podium to represent his country of Sweden. And he found one. And he found one. And he found one. And Lucas is such a, I mean, if you follow him on Instagram, you know that he's got a great personality,

and he obviously was a very fit competitor, but also gregarious. And he totally embraced that and made the most of it. But I think now the athletes who feel that they have a chance to make the podium do have some sort of a plan so they can represent their country if they do. Jessica Valenzuela, his tiny flag. So she knew. Yeah, if you were watching then you'll remember that. I think I was watching.

Oh, no, I wasn't watching. I think I was somewhere pouting that year. I think you were standing in the way of the clock, so the athletes couldn't see it as they were trying to get their pace in. Was 2018 the last year? JR will get that. I wonder. I get that.

God, was 2018 that year? Was 2018 the year I stood in front of the clock? So that was the last year I did the behind the scenes. No, it was 2017, I think. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. 2018 was just miserable for me. You did nothing.

Yeah, nothing. You said hi to me on day one during the crit race. I saw you at one of the corners there. And I'm like, you know, you made sure I was good to go with Tyson and his team. And you're like, I'm going to just be with Greg at the health summit. I flew out an entire team to do the behind the scenes that year. And we didn't do shit. Yeah, and we were going to do the podcast.

It was going to be fun. Oh, I feel my back getting tight just thinking about getting angry. Need some CBD cream? Look, already J.R. Howell texted me. He knew exactly who I was talking about that said I had a mullet. He knew exactly. He knows exactly who the most influential person in CrossFit is. That's awesome.

Maybe in the fitness world, be honest okay uh here we go um the incredible list Brian anything anything so if you want to know more about the list um go to the beginning of yesterday's show we may skip over some of this but let me let me ask this and maybe we'll get a lot of answers. Question. Is this list – the way you make the women's list, those are the people – those you don't know. Those are people with vaginas. And the men's list, people with penises, the scrotum dangling below. Any difference in the way you make them? Any like, hey, for women, the shot put's really important. For men, it's – water the shot put's really important for men it's water palooza

is really important is there anything that skews them that changes your thinking changes your methodology for uh ranking them can you pull up that clip from yesterday oh yes yes yes absolutely i think i think i know what you're um referencing let me see i think going rogue already uh posted it right any what what a great thing this is uh trina by the way for those of you who don't know trina does this i don't know if i'm supposed to say that but she she takes these clips okay here we go this is from yesterday's show are there any things that you take into account uh sexual orientation skin color anything that that affects the ranking no is it strictly performance god so shallow i cannot believe how shallow this list is okay are there any that that's accurate with this clip also with this list well another shallow list just

just based on performance well now i'm now i'm in a tough spot well why is that because i i i listened to that back yesterday when i saw it posted and i realized that uh maybe i should consider some other things so i redid the entire list based on anything other than performance wow and what was the criteria this time many of the things that you listed there okay so this list is finally this is the woke 100 the crossfit woke 100 uh that would be a great i might put that list together i think that i think that andrew already did that you may remember he made his predictions based on followers yeah i actually that was good. Hey, that was effective, too, right?

It actually was a pretty there was. I mean, you know, there are reasons that those athletes have a lot of followers. And if you've made it to the CrossFit Games, obviously you're fit enough, at least against your region of the world to get there. And the ones that have the most followers are probably the ones that have the most marketability and they have the most marketability because they're have done really well, have good sponsors. And just by the kind of the nature of the sport, most of the women, especially that are doing well in this sport, other men too are attractive. And the combination of those things will obviously increase followers. Yeah. Fair enough. Makes sense. Trust Instagram. I do. I did want to, obviously I'm joking about that. I didn't revamp the list. This is a very

much based on performance and expectation. We will get to some specific cases where there are other things that I kind of factor into that age, competitive age, injury, maybe experience or lack of experience. And there's some sections of this list that I thought were very, very challenging to do, including in the top 25. I did want to acknowledge – More challenging than the men? Less challenging? I think more challenging for the men than the men for us in a specific range for some specific reasons, basically, because over the last couple of years, there are certain athletes who are online performance in the opening quarterfinals can sometimes be a misrepresentation of what to expect at semifinals in the games. Okay. So for example, Emma Carey and Sarah Sigmundsdottir are good, good conversation

pieces here. You know, Emma Carey has a history of being incredible in online competition. In 2021, she was top four or three in the world in the open and quarterfinals. She also did good in semifinals, and then she didn't do as well at the games. Sarah Sigma Sutter has had an up and down career when it comes to online competition. There was a period of time where she was great, and it correlated to greatness in live competition as well. More recently, she hasn't been as good an online competition and she's had ups and downs and live competition so we're you know she's a big question mark this season but there are a lot of those on the women's field uh i'm glad you brought up sarah and emma are they both in the

top 25 can you give me a little sneak peek yeah okay you you're we're already off to a good start. Can I address a big picture issue? Yeah. I'm kind of interested in your perspective on this too. Oh, I've never heard you say that before. What do you do when you make a mistake? Simultaneously fix it and attend to the people who are affected by the mistake. And that happens with my kids all the time.

Make mistakes and I attend to the issue. I attend to them if they're the recipients or they're the benefactors of the mistake. If they're wounded by the mistake and then i try to remedy the situation yeah i mean it's a i think it's a obviously this lesson applies to life in general but you know did i answer that right that's what you're supposed to do right i mean i think that that is a an ideal situation if you have the opportunity to do that you don't you know depending on the situation you may not always have the opportunity to atone for the mistake in the ways that might might be most preferred but you hit someone's car you're driving down the street you hit someone's car and

there's traffic building up behind you you don't have time to wait for him you write a note and you leave it on the person's under the person's windshield say hey hit your car and here's my phone number call me yeah simple and then and then you keep driving so the people behind you aren't um i'll give you another great one sorry uh another great one is you're in the uh you're you want to be in the left-hand turning lane but you're not and the light turns green and you have to go straight don't be one of those assholes that's made a mistake and then and then just waits till the arrow turns but everyone behind you misses their light because you fucked up.

No, go straight. Go down the street. Make a U-turn. Come back. Just be cool. Right? Take responsibility for your error. Yeah.

Anyway, there were some mistakes on our website yesterday. On the Brian Friend website? Mm-hmm. Okay. And some of them were very minor. Some of them were kind of technical. Some of them were on me. But there were some and some of them were very minor. Some of them were kind of technical. Some of them were on me and, but there were some people in the community who reached out and, uh, not, not in an offensive way, but just in a, Hey, just so you know, and let us know. And I really

appreciated that. So I wanted to acknowledge those people and thank them. Yeah. Uh, Brian, huh? Uh, reached out to me also and said that, hey, don't listen to Brian. You're saying my name perfect. And he was a little angry at you. I'll make sure to acknowledge him when I see him in person. Did you fix the problems? Most of the problems I have fixed. I'm having an internal debate about if I should fix. So I made my best effort to make these lists as accurate as possible of the

athletes who are still competing in the 2023 CrossFit game season as an individual. But I had two errors on the men's side where I included athletes that will actually be competing as part of a team at semifinals. So they're still showing on the leaderboard. I'm not sure if I should change them or not. But are they in the top 25? No, they're in the bottom 15.

It does not matter. To me, it does. Oh, okay. There's degrees of mistakes also. That's a beautiful cut. Thank you. Okay, so you started making this list in 2014 as a hobby the same way a lot of great things started. It was to help you with a fantasy CrossFit league, and it has grown into something everyone in the community appreciates. It's the only thing.

Is there anything comparable to this? And there hasn't been, you could, I mean, you could say that the worldwide rankings are a list that has a way of categorizing athletes based on performance over the last two years. But I think that there are things that are missing in that that i can account for a little bit differently here as we can see if you look online on the instagram you won't be able to see it we have a team preview coming out later this week scott and yes it is very very challenging to follow but on the on the website we did put the worldwide rankings there so that you can see what their system accounts for that, uh, or doesn't account for that. Ours can, uh, Clydesdale media, Scott Switzer team is

impossible to follow. What's he talking about? And then he says, he follows it up with CrossFit needs to post who has declared. And does that affect your list of the, uh, well, it makes it, you know, the reason why I have, I still have athletes on that list that are also on the teams is because it's not clear. And I, like I tried my, I that list that are also on the teams is because it's not clear. And I, like I tried my, I did do my best to vet the lists against the registrations. But when you're talking about, you know, there's a hundred athletes on the list, there's 25 more that I included that are not on the list. And then there's, you know, another 175 athletes competing at semifinals as individual. And I'm looking at all of those names and seeing, you know, should any of these be on this 25 or this 100? It's a lot of people.

And, you know, sometimes it falls through the cracks. I have been for several years suggestive of the possibility of declaring your intent in terms of competition for the season at the start of the season. When you register for the Open, you register as a Masters athlete, you register as an individual, or you register as a member of a team, and that's your path for the season. Not everyone agrees with that. CrossFit has not chosen to do that. We still see that there are athletes right now competing in multiple parts of the season, either as an age group athlete and an individual, or at this point, they do have to decide whether they're going team

or individual. But in the previous two stages they did not. Mike Halpin, it's a mess, Mr. Schweitzer. I have reached out to multiple athletes where I ended up asking an alternate. Basically, so Mike and I, on my my behalf mike has reached out to all of the athletes individual and team who have made it to semifinals and given them an opportunity to give us some insight into their preparation this year something that we should know about them um some you know kind of basic facts that we can help the broadcast communicate to the fans and audience at home. Well, also on site, hopefully,

because we'll work with MCs a little bit. But in some cases, he has reached out to athletes who he thought were part of the team. They're actually the alternate on the team. Mike, the pool boy, I just realized I'm a habitual listener. I just realized I am a habitual listener of the show, and I have not yet subscribed. My apologies to Sevan, whom this mistake has affected. I shall correct my mistake by now subscribing.

A very honest and open of you. You are forgiven, my son. Don't forget to click that little bell and hit the notifications too. I did that yesterday. I don't know if you guys know, but Rich Froning looks like he's starting up a podcast. You can go over. Just type in Rich Froning Podcast or something in Instagram and then you can go over there. Then I click

that little notification thing and it's like if they go live, anything they post, I just make it so it automatically jumps up to the front. You can know exactly what kind of underwear Rich wears every day. This show is brought to you by Paper Street Coffee, and the list is brought to you by Paper Street Coffee.

Use the code word SEVON. I think you get 20% off. If you don't get the 20% off when you put in the code word, that means you're at the wrong Paper Street Coffee website. It's PaperSTCoffee.com. Do not spell out street. I don't know if they still have it, but I prefer the 50-50 blend. Jake Chapman, get rich or die trying.

I think he's coming on the show very soon. And I just in real time just now I got confirmation that Sarah's coming back on here in a minute. So that's kind of fun. That'll be fun. Okay, here we go. The top 25 female athletes. The fittest top 25 fittest women in the world here it is how cool now your website is now the home of this list you are the caretaker the um the the what's that called the epicenter

the epicenter i like that of this list it's really cool congratulations this is awesome this is a long time coming i didn't realize the significance of this yesterday when i said it when we when we did the show but this is huge this is the i remember when i first started getting into arm wrestling i don't know in 2002 or three it was like that's what you wanted to do you wanted to look around and find the best arm wrestlers in the world. And here's your list. Hey, as this list gets bigger, it'll be cool.

If these are like hot links or as time goes on, right. And you click on it and it's a picture of Mal, you know, being like hoisted up onto Richie's shoulder or, uh, what's the other guy's name? Matt shoulders. The other guy.

Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I mean, that would obviously be amazing if we could, you know, link to, uh, a page that has some be amazing if we could you know link to a

a page that has some information about her so you say well why is she number one yeah this is awesome okay um at the very top of the list mal o'brien uh brian why is not tia to me the five-time champ easy okay yeah not competing this year dude she's pregnant and she's i think due rather soon and the last time you made the list you uh you also know knew that because she wasn't on the list last time and so she hasn't changed positions look at this one two three four five the top five people have not changed position since you updated the list in January. Yeah. Mal O'Brien, Laura Horvath, Annie Thor's daughter, Daniel Brandon, Emma Lawson.

Is it difficult dealing with Laura Horvath in a list like this, knowing that she is probably maybe even fitter than Mal, but has a hole so massive compared to all the other athletes, even in the top 10? I mean, it should be acknowledged that this is not a prediction for how the season will unfold. Wait a second. Why not? Because there's still variables that we might not know.

Well, yeah, okay. But I'm saying if the games happen tomorrow morning, this is a prediction. Not necessarily. If the yeah, okay. But I'm saying if the games happen tomorrow morning, this is a prediction. Not necessarily. If the games are happening tomorrow morning and we knew nothing about it, I'm not saying that I would definitely pick Mal to win. I do think that she's the most complete

and well-rounded in the world right now. But Laura's Horvath skill set does give her a legitimate and serious opportunity to beat everyone at the CrossFit Games. Because of the nature of the CrossFit Games, she will have many opportunities to do very, very well on specific events and could have one opportunity to get a last place or near last place finish. But that hasn't happened every year. You don't get a strict deficit handstand push-up every year at the CrossFit games. In fact, you don't often get them two years in a row.

And last year we had the most difficult version of it that we've ever seen. So if you were hedging your bets on that and expecting there to be some kind of handstand push-up test, but not the one that is crippling for her, then I would probably advise picking her to win because outside of that singular event last year, she would have won relative to math. Uh,

chicken nugget. Did Sevan not know T was pregnant? I'm going to share with you something, uh, absolutely mind boggling to most people. And if you are an interviewer a journalist take note of this this will this is the only thing that can make you even close to my level you never you never uh if i if i if i went based on what i know i wouldn't even have a podcast because i know fucking everything there's i don't need to ever ask another question. I know. The thing is, is that

all the best answers in my entire career come from me asking questions that I presuppose that I knew the answer to. And then, and then something else comes. So I would ask Brian that, and he would say, actually, did you know? And then he would tell me something about Tia. And so, uh, it, my questions aren't predicated on the fact of whether I know the answers or not. And second of all, I really don't know anything. But the whole point of asking questions is to contextualize and paint a mosaic so that everyone, including myself, has an understanding of what's going on. I hope that helps. It's not insincere, the questioning. Some people like to take it there, too. It's not it's absolutely not that either. Yeah, DeSavon is better than Diane Sawyer. It would have been

nice if you pick someone else, but I'll take it. I don't know if you answered the question, Brian. Is she is she the most difficult to deal with? Out of Mal O'Brien, Laura Horvath, Annie Thor's daughter, Danielle Brandon, Emma Lawson, Brookwells, Gabriela Magawa, Alexis Raptus, and Amanda Barnhart, is she always the most difficult to deal with? And inside between your ears when you place her. No. Third place, second place place 2020 was whatever 2021 or 2019 whatever prior to that second place

the three times that she showed up to the games and been able to take the entire test she's been on the podium okay let me let me rephrase the question fair uh point uh mr friend there's this thing that athletes have been saying since the big dawn of time uh anyone can win it's it's really up to the programming and i've always thought up loser like you like you don't hear rich or matt say that shit right you don't hear tia say that shit you're not hearing justin madera say that shit it's always like dudes who like are dying to get on the podium it's like a fourth place person. But with Laura, that's true, right? That is actually true.

She makes that statement true. Yeah, I mean. Right or no? Yeah, so in my opinion, there are only two women that can win the CrossFit Games this year. Okay, ooh, I like this. And it's between Mal and Laura. Okay.

I suppose it's possible because of her age and her skill set already that Emma Lawson could ascend in a way that Mal O'Brien did last year. She went from seventh to second, and she could make a similar jump that could put her in the equation. the upper echelon or the ceiling of the rest of the athletes to say that it's extremely unlikely that they would contend for the win against the caliber of Mal O'Brien and Laura Horvath that we saw last year and that we've seen throughout their respective careers, even though there are varying lengths. Well, we, I still think it's possible that Mal makes another jump this year that does

make her untouchable, but I'm not. The men's division wins the men's division too. Well, I mean, obviously she has a room division wins the men's division too. Well, I mean, obviously she has a room for improvement because she was only second last year, but the woman who beat her is not there,

but I don't think that she's taking for granted that she beat Laura last year. So she's going to beat her this year. And I think she's preparing with the same intensity that she did last year when she was intent. She, I mean, her purpose last year was to beat Tia and win.

And this year, her purpose is to beat, you know, Laura and make sure that she solidifies the fact that last year was to beat Tia and win. And this year, her purpose is to beat Laura and make sure that she solidifies the fact that last year wasn't a mistake and to beat Annie and make sure that she knows that. And for those who are wondering, well, how can Annie Thorzada be third on this list? In the last two competitions she's competed in as an individual, she was second place at Rogue Invitational

and third place at the CrossFit Games in 2021. She's still got it. Her team performance last year was not necessarily reflective of her own fitness. I have a lot of confidence in Annie to be threatening for the podium again this season.

I'm going to see how you react to this. Then I have something to share with the audience here. Jonathan Lane, Lawson is a sleeper for podium. I mean I feel like I just said that. The thing is she's not a sleeper, and what you heard Brian say about Emma Lawson who's ranked number five saying that she could possibly get up there to number two or number one is crazy brian does not say these things loosely at all and all the shows i've never done with him that's the one of the craziest things i've ever heard him say and i like it but that shows his confidence

in emma lawson i've never heard you say that you're usually so sober and realistic about choices. And now you have this person in fifth who's basically a child and you're saying, hey, man, we have a serious unknown here. Yeah, because I watched her. She obviously got off to a great start at the CrossFit Games last year, and she did much better than I thought. I thought her upper end potential last year was like 10th, and I thought she could finish as low as 30th. And we didn't know.

But she was better than that. But there were still things watching her throughout the course of the weekend. Not so much on day one because I wasn't aware that she was going to be threatening for those top positions, wearing leaders jerseys, et cetera. But then I started focusing in on her a little bit more. And, you know, there were just some things that I saw in her that I've seen in other athletes, including Mal O'Brien in her first year, Emma Carey in her first year, Jason Hopper in his first year. Even Justin Medeiros, if you go back and watch the 2020 ranch, you can see some of these elements of just rookie patterns. It's the way that they move. It's the way they approach workouts. It's looking around instead of staying focused on what should be going on. It's, you know, there's a lot of intangible things other than just how well you cycle the barbell or the gymnastics reps or handle the calories on the

machine that can affect, especially those small changes at the top of the leaderboard. And I think that Emma's in a really good environment for training. She's already established the basics. She's excellent and elite at the basics. And if she can refine some of those things going forward, I do think that she has a chance to pass by athletes who've already had that opportunity to do it, learn from it, and then establish themselves. Daniel Brandon was fourth last year.

But she's had several years of experience to get to that fourth place level. And Emma wasn't too far behind her with a lot less experience. Blade Walker, how are you a sleeper when you're top five? One of my favorite guests we've ever had on the show. I mean that. Top ten for sure. And I can't wait to have him on again. Blade, I think the reason why that you can be a sleeper and be fifth is because uh i'm trying to remember who sings the

song but there's levels to this shit and and the levels are fucking real man the levels are are uh i don't know josh everett used to call them gears um there's there's crazy levels to this shit like there's no fucking way brooke wells uh makes it uh wins the games it's just it's just but that being said camille won and and i wouldn't say she was ever on on you know um i would never say she was on on that on that top level but maybe maybe she was it just didn't look that way well you know camille is actually a great example because Camille was lurking in the top 10 for years, 2010, 11, 12. She was inside the top 10. She had a regression in 2013, dropped out of the top 10, 16, and then she ends up winning it in 2014 and she never finished in the top 10 again.

But 2014 was kind of a unique year. The previous champion, Samantha Briggs, was prevented an opportunity to compete at the Games because of her handstand walking ability that was limiting its semifinals. Cara Webb was arguably the fittest woman on earth that year. She was contending with Camille. It was very close. It was unclear if who was going to win. A lot of people think Cara would have won, but she had a neck impingement and on the midline madness workout, I think it was called midline March, midline madness, whatever it was that morning,

she was unable to complete it and had to withdraw from the competition. It was the overhead carry. It was the, the previous night had been push pull, you know, the hand strict handstand pushups anyway. So two of her cried like a baby people. She cried like a baby in the back.

It really sucked with her coach to witness that a car had to pull out because of a neck injury. handstand push-ups anyway so two of her cried like a baby people she cried like a baby in the back it really sucked with her coach to witness that a car had to pull out because of a neck injury so two of the biggest challengers or threats to potentially win the games that year were removed at various points of the competition and you know what it's like camille didn't remove them from the competition all camille did was show up and compete. And she beat some serious women that year. Annie Thorzada was second. Julie Foucher was third. Michelle LaTondra, Val Vobrel were in the top five.

Like, you know, so credit to Camille. But this is like sometimes opportunity arises and the athletes that remain in the field, all they can do is seize the moment. And with Tia out this year, there's obviously opportunity. And I think that that is motivating for a lot of the women in the field. You know, especially Laura Horvath even though laura would tell you i want to beat tia i want to win when i know the best is there every every athlete will probably say that but i think she'd take the win either way hey you think if laura wins there's like uh

if mal wins it's like yep she deserved to win if laura horvath wins it's like, yep, she deserved to win. If Laura Horvath wins, it's like, yeah, something was up with the programming. You think there'll be that chatter? We'll go there? I don't think so because, you know, we have seen – I mean, even last year with, you know, the biggest obstacle that Laura could ask for, she still managed to get on the podium. Like she is a perennial podium athlete in the CrossFit Games. Who?

Laura or Annie? Laura. Fair. Draw your dagger. Great question. perennial podium athlete in the crossfit games uh who who uh laura or annie laura laura uh fair uh draw your dagger uh great question uh who is the lowest ranked person that you think has a prayer at the um podium um i would probably say brook wells so no oh at the podium okay yeah i could see i could see that also. I would say there's a – not a massive drop, but I would draw a line after the top two, and then I would draw another line after the top six. I'm going to say that the biggest dark horse in this group right here, there's two. The two biggest dark horses

here of people who could absolutely just fucking make it to the podium that just would be just incredible but no one would be surprised are Emma Carey and Paige Powers those are my I assumed those were the

two you were gonna say did you really you think it's proximity bias i think i just just because you think no because think i mean think about emma carrie's career as an individual athlete she basically was blow for blow with mal O'Brien in 2021 for the first three stages of the season court open quarter semifinals. She, I don't think she was competing a hundred percent at the games. She did get exposed a little bit on some things at the games that year. She still managed to make the top 20 and had a very respectable, you know, top finish that, that year 14th, I believe she was maybe 14th or 16th.

Let's check. And, and then, you know, since then 16th and since then she's had, um, you know, some back injuries that she's had to deal with. I think that she's made the intelligent decisions with regards to that. I have spoken with Matt Torres, who's worked closely with her about their, you know, the work that they've done since she chose to withdraw from the Open in week two of the 2022 season. So that's been a full year plus since then. They were already obviously doing rehab work prior to that in the season.

So it's been about 18 months getting ready for this semifinal that's coming up. I think we're going to see a very competitive version of Emma Carey at the semifinal. She's a great mover. She's very strong, especially relative to her size. She can compete, you know, compete and contend in strength events, whether it's even one rep maxes, she'll have a, not the win, she won't win, but she'll be up there top 10 and, um, barbell cycling should be great. Gymnastics. Great. She's, she's been working on her aerobic. She's got all the components. It's kind of that same element of

Emma Lawson. How much did she learn in 2021? And without the opportunity to practice or, you know, put into practice some of those things last year, how much of an improvement can she make in her execution inside and outside of competition at this year's games? Let me ask you something crazy. Okay. What do you think is going on there with you got the fucking great Danielle

Brandon there and Emma Carey sharing a coach? I have no insight into this. I got to have Danielle on and ask. It's kind of one of those things I don't even want to ask. But do you think that there's any – do you think that that's affected – there's been any negative effect um on that for emma carry i mean i would i would imagine that in general when you are positive or positive i don't mean to be such a a pooper i think in general when you are a coach of multiple elite level athletes especially if they're competing in the same division so in this case there's the potential that matt torres will

have three female athletes at the games if Fisa Gaffi, Emma Carey, and Daniel Brandon make it, and two male athletes at the games in Dallin Pepper and James Sprague if they both make it. He does have a supporting coaching staff, but I don't think there are five of them. So how do you divide up the responsibilities and attention that each of those athletes gets at the CrossFit Games? and attention that each of those athletes gets at the CrossFit Games. And I'm making this up, but I'm guessing Danielle needs a lot of – I don't want to say support because this fucking girl has proven

that she can do everything on her own. I think she got to where she is in life because she is a fucking cat. She's independent. But Mike, Poolboy Oliveras, God, danielle is so attractive that's an amazing emoji yeah i just i i get concerned uh there's no no everyone knows i love danielle brandon but i get concerned for uh emma carrie because there's crazy potential there right now they do have a practice run they have the semifinals so So, you know, I'm sure that Matt has a plan in place for how he's planning to manage the semifinals. And just knowing him

in general, he'll probably evaluate how that went at semifinals and decide if that was appropriate and they want to try to repeat it at the games or if maybe they want to try a different approach, depending on how it goes. So I'm sure he's already thinking about that, but yes, it's definitely a factor and will be a factor for not just them, but for, you know, there's other camps also that have multiple athletes who could be competing in the same divisions. You don't think she's unique in that way in terms of, um, the friction around her that like maybe, uh, other athletes might be more like a smooth plant, and Daniel Brandon is like a cactus, a little more like a cactus, a little prickly.

I mean, I haven't spent a lot of time in that environment, but from everything I see that they post on Instagram there, it seems like they have found a way to make it work. One love. Steve Flores attacking the coach, totally inappropriate uh matt torres has tiny calves just to just to finish up on emma carrie i think that a top 10 finish is very realistic for her this season i don't know but i don't think a podium finishes um is is daniel brandon the uh before we go also talk about page powers is daniel brandon uh kind of falling into the scott panchuk of um or is that too complimentary to her she's

not quite there a couple more years hanging around the fourth place and she can be scott panchuk um is daniel brandon on the list of all-time greatest crossfitters we haven't done that in a long time well uh we'll update that list later this year after the games i think because is daniel brandon if she's injury free is she does she go podium she's been you know fairly consistent at the games and obviously had an uptick last year to finishing fourth laura tia's not in the equation so that would bump her up to third annie is coming back yeah for sure she's a threat for the podium she's inside that top six that i said on i think that that means she has a chance and how about this this young lady page powers by the way all these women when i've interviewed them seem like they have crazy heads on their shoulders. Like, just fucking steel traps.

Emma Carey, Paige Powers. I mean, they seem solid. Yeah. And it's extremely impressive, especially considering how old or young that they are. Paige Powers has had a tremendous offseason. I mean, obviously, winning Guadalupalooza, phenomenal. She's been great in the opening, the quarterfinals. I expect that she'll be very good at the semifinals.

In fact, there are some athletes on this list that are competing in North America East that I wouldn't be surprised if she beats at semifinals. She has proven to be exceptional in a 6-10 event competition. She has yet to show me that same level of excellence at a 10-15 event competition, which is what we're going to get at the CrossFit Games. So I'm still holding out a little bit of what's the top potential for her until I see an improvement in that environment relative to what she did last year. Last year, she was 25th. So I'm, you know, obviously there's some women that aren't on the list anymore, but moving her up to 15th, 16th, wherever she is right now, 16th is me acknowledging that I do think she's gotten better from the version we saw her at the games last year. I'm just not ready to make the claim that she's a top 10 athlete on the

women's field yet. Dude, that looks like that could be on the podium. Yeah. I mean, incredible physique, incredible work ethic, great training environment.

You know, she great off season confidence should be high there's a lot of a lot of positive things if you're a page powers fan 100 you should be excited to watch her in orlando and in madison this year yeah and a fucking like amazing training partner right her fucking her her uh partner in crime is bailey rail and then they hang out with daily Guy and Froning and Luke and Angelo. I mean, it's nuts. What? Sorry, Tyler. And her husband.

Yeah, Tyler. Crazy, crazy. Paige got it going on, man. She is. So she's. And look, she's smiling in every picture. And if you didn't see the interview I did with her, you should see it. She's cool as shit. Like, she's you know and and look she's smiling in every picture and if you didn't see the interview i did with her you should see it she's cool as shit like she's she's she's game she's real if there were opportunities to place early bets on things like most improved athlete

page might be a good bet for that this season what did she finish last year 25th oh so so meaning uh we see her take ninth and it's like, holy shit. Yeah. I mean, we talked about this after the games last season that when selecting the most improved athlete, the criteria is not clearly established. Is an athlete who moved from 30th to 10th a more improved athlete than someone that moved from 15th to 4th? That's only an 11 spot improvement instead of a 20 spot improvement. But like you said, there's levels. And how much harder is it to move from 15th to 4th than to move from 30th to fourth. That's only 11 spot improvement instead of a 20 spot improvement. But like you said, there's levels and how much harder is it to move from 15th to fourth and to move from 30th to

10th? Right, right, right. But if you're someone who's moving from 20 from fifth to second is harder is hard as shit, right? I mean, that that's even harder than moving from 40th to 20th. But it's also extremely unlikely that you're going to win most improved athlete only jumping three spots regardless of what they are. So I'll tell you, Emma, Emma, Emma Lawson goes, gets on the podium. I think she deserves most improved athlete. You're right. I hear what you're saying. Well, I mean, that would be, that would be a,

that would be the case in point. Let's say Emma Lawson takes second this year. She's improved four spots. Let's say that Paige powers takes ninth. She's improved 16 spots. Yeah. I give it to Emma. I would, but I would be But I would expect the games. Whoever makes that decision would not.

Right, right. You think it strictly goes by places? No, it's not strictly by places. I think there are not. People not as smart as me working there? I think there are other factors that are involved in the decision-making process that are not data-driven. Like, Oh, like the time Dan Bailey won spirit of the games like that. Well, spirit of the games is, is not, I mean, it's, it's a lot different even in most improved, like when most improved, even less data-driven. Yeah, but for sure you're looking, you know,

now you're just having one or two, maybe three people that are just kind of observing the athletes over the course of either their career or that week. And they're probably focusing on very specific things that this athlete has done and interactions with athletes, judges, whatever that stand out to them. And they're saying, yeah, this person has a history of being a great role model in terms of sportsmanship. And they're on our radar. And then one or two years later, they're given that award. Eaton Beaver. Sevan, stay in your lane. Brian is the stat guy.

By the way, Caleb, if you get a chance to see the show, but I'll remind you tonight, my wife came up with a name for your soon-to-be child, Seymour Beaver. That was one we didn't get the other night. We got Eaton Beaver and a bunch of other good ones. But my wife came up with Seymour Beaver, and Seymour is a beautiful name. How do you know? I love people who type like this.

What about Edgar Beaver? What about Edgar Beaver? If you read quickly, it looks like Eager Beaver. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's good. Eager Beaver. That's good.

It's a little more subtle, a little classier. I expect a little more class from you, Brian, than what I do. That's good. Sebon, stay in your lane. Brian is the stat guy. And then you even put that little percentage symbol in there. And I just love that. It's so thoughtful in the – whenever people use emojis like that,

I'm just like – or what are those called? That's not an emoji, but that's just a – I don't know what that's called, what category it's in. It's because I'm not racist, I don't know what that's called, what category it's in. It's because I'm not racist. I don't know stuff like that, how to classify, but Audrey, Brian is a classy man.

That's not what you wrote. Brian, Brian, oh, Brian is my classy man. Well, thank you, Brian,

for the clarification. Oh, Andrew Hiller, massive beaver. Wow. Oh, look at Johnny, Shav. let's save these for tonight when uh caleb's here we'll help him with uh baby names um okay uh we're never gonna get off page one i'm just i'm so fucking excited by page one okay. Okay, let's play around. Everyone here deserves some time.

Let's talk about Katrin's David's daughter. It seems like that is inappropriate. 25th, the two-time champ. Definitely got to be top five all-time best CrossFitters who ever lived. Guys, an incredible comeback story. Didn't make it to the games one year and then came back and won the games you have her dropping down six places she switched to uh be mal o'brien's uh training partner this seems uh crazy to me i mean let me let me tell you some of the people you have ahead of her danny spiegel emma tall uh karenyova, Matilda Garns.

These people, there's no way in fucking hell those people are better than Katrin David's daughter. And – go on. Go ahead. Where would you rank her? I would rank her right around Brooke Wells. She can either be before or after Brooke Wells. Based on what? I don't know. Based on her performances from 2015 to 2020?

Yes, yes. No, to the present. And with who she's trained with. Two years ago, and she didn't make the games last year. She didn't make the games last year. She didn't make the games last year. She missed by six points in strength and depth. What was wrong with her? Was she injured?

How does she not make the games? She did not make the games this year? And of the women in the top ten, or the women that are ahead of her here, there's only two, three, excuse excuse me three that beat her in that semi-final two of the women that beat her didn't uh are not ranked ahead of her on this list um oh is she not going to make the games this year that'll be the last week of uh semi-finals i do think that she has a good chance to make the games this year but i don't think that it's a guarantee wow actually forgive me she's not at the games this year, but I don't think that it's a guarantee.

Wow. Actually, forgive me. She's not at the European semifinal. I keep thinking that she is because she probably should be. She's in North America West, so it'll be week two. Same thing holds true, but I think better for her that she's in North America West than Europe. When's the last time we – did she compete at Waterpalooza? No.

When's the last time we've seen her compete? Strength and Depth last year. And how did she do? Sixth. And anyone like Ridiculous beat her? Jacqueline Dahlstrom. I guess that's not Ridiculous. Emma McQuaid.

Nope. Keep up, Sevan. Christine Young. Alyssa. She just sucks, Sevan. No, her reps were shit ass killer uh she wasn't fit enough that's what was wrong uh mr uh blade um so here we go uh thank you fuck this is just sweating here get brian kicking my ass uh melissa with so are you saying catcher is not improved under uh hwPO or are you saying it's too soon to tell?

I think that following last year's semifinal, Katrin had to make a decision. Do I want to continue to try to be competitive in this sport or not? And she does not have to. She's done well enough for herself. She has a great life outside of competing in the sport of CrossFit. She's very much seems to be in love with Brooks. They has a great life outside of competing in the sport of CrossFit. She's very much seems to be in love with Brooks. They have a nice place in Idaho. They're set. They're good. She's competing because she loves it. She's competing because she wants to, and she's competing because she wants to get back to the CrossFit Games and experience that. I don't think

that she believes she can win the CrossFit Games again. She might not even believe that she can finish in the top 10. But we do know from history that once she gets to the Games, she's pretty lethal. She has one of the best CrossFit Games resumes of all time, like Savant said. But the time expires for every athlete at some point. And it's not based

on age, necessarily. We've seen Annie Thor's daughter, who's older than her, continue to be elite in this sport. Katrin might be drawing inspiration from that still, as she did early in her career. And she might believe if Annie can do it, I can do it. She's seen Sam Briggs continue to be competitive late into her thirties in this sport against the top women in the world. Now the landscape is changing and we have younger, younger,

younger and younger athletes, especially on the women's side who are extremely relevant. And a lot of those women that are ranked ahead of her are of that ilk. But there's also some veterans ahead of her, like you mentioned, Danny Spiegel, Emily Rolfe, Terry Helga daughter, Sarah Sigmund's daughter, who I just think, based on what I've seen, are still a little bit fitter than her. You think Sarah Sigmund's daughter is fitter than Katrin? Yeah. uh you think sarah sigman's daughter is fitter than katrin yeah uh jessica valenzuela as sevan would say katrin is toast uh how we do it uh there is no way katrin david's daughter can win

her head to ass ratio is too high only which doctor can help her um why why does he have a at symbol for the letter A in ass? That's how he'd do it. Okay. She was on a team. Yeah, that was good. It reminded me of some Belle Bib Devoe. She was in a team at Wadapalooza.

Sorry. She's looking fit in those hwpo uh vlogs yeah you know what she she looks like her body composition is is back to like her she looks like she's at her fighting weight you know like when you can see the ribs on a dog like a dog runs down your street and you're like yep that's a feral dog and it's like you see his ribs she's kind of got that going again you know what i'm saying she's like lean as shit truly i don't think so i think that i think those guys got to be go out there hungry uh katrin likes her life how it is she's waiting on brooks to pop the question she enjoys competing no longer a top 10 athlete uh i will say this we did do a piece i tried not to say this we did do a piece on uh brooks and his former wife for crossfit and

when i saw the piece it portrayed them as the perfect happy couple and i remember watching it in my luxurious office at crossfit hq when i was the greatest media marketing guy who ever lived on planet earth my feet up on the desk and i turned to my wife and i said this shit's gonna crumble this is bullshit like i saw right through their shit. And, uh, that shit came out as being a lesbian, his first wife. Um, so I, I hope, uh, he's straightened that out. I hope it's as good as you guys say for them. Um, well, look in both cases, that case, and also the person who's saying she looks great

in the vlogs. Yeah. You know, you have a Catherine in this case or hwpo have they have the control of what we see yeah and so they're going to present something that makes them more more often than not look the way that we that they want us to to believe that they're going and none of those people over there will come on this podcast well maybe o'keefe would i haven't asked o'keefe in a while but none of those people on there will come on this podcast just so you know not not a one not a not a not a while, but none of those people on there will come on this podcast, just so you know. Not a one. Not a one.

Anyway, I think that we'll see a better version of Katrin at the semifinals this year than last year. I think she has rededicated herself to being competitive in this sport, and I would expect that if she does make the games and once semifinals conclude that she'll

be a threat to finish inside the top 20 at the CrossFit games. And I don't, I don't think that no matter what happens in semifinals that I'll be comfortable saying much more than that in terms of her potential this year, not because of her, because the field is really good. I think she's either going to do fantastic or shit the bed. I don't think there'll be a middle ground. Well, I mean, for her.

Well, but I don't know how you can say that necessarily. Like, think about someone like Noah Olsen. You know, he's had also a fairly similar trajectory to her. He had a lot of top, you know, he had 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, all top 10 finishes, 12th last year. I mean, he's still doing well, but if he finishes 16th this year, it's like, that's not crazy. I mean, it's his 10th year.

Finishing 16th at the Games in her 10th year is pretty damn good. Katrin's been competing just as long, if not longer, than him. If she can finish 16th at the Games in her 12th year competing in CrossFit, that's not that bad. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Good. All right. I like that. That's a good take on it. Johnny, the gay strongman from HWPO is definitely not coming on the podcast. Let me tell you something. This is home of the gays.

I bet you per capita we have the largest amount of gays listening to this show. But that being said, you're right right he's definitely not coming on alex kazan uh uh man uh in a uh 10 years ago she's crossed the games champ right 10 years ago 2013 sam briggs won the games i don't think so no you don't think his hand's not that good sam briggs that year year was – I mean, if you took her as – Sam, if you took Alex Kazan exactly how she is now and put her in the 2013 CrossFit Games, I'd probably pick her second. I still think Sam would have won that year. Fair enough.

She's here to stay. She's going to the Games. She's the real deal. She's only getting better. Like, look out. I think so yeah she's she's would you throw her in that category um uh alex kazan uh uh uh ellie turner um uh who else were we just talking about um emma carrie just girls that we don't even like they're just rocket ships taking off yeah i mean basically I feel really good about the top 10 women, 11 through 25, I think is, is in, in, in many ways you could throw them up in the air and however they, they land, they land. Like there's, I could make an argument for every woman, 11

through 25 to be five to 10 spots higher or lower than they are. Um, these are my best, uh, assessment of where they're at right now. But this is a group of athletes that I will be extremely focused on during semifinals, because in every one of those cases, I won't get to see Ellie Turner compete live or Jamie Simmons, but the rest of them, I'll be able to watch them live compete. A lot of them I was able to watch compete live last year. And there's specific things for each athlete that I'm looking to see if they've made an improvement on, because at this level, if you just have this one thing, that's uncomfortable for you, that's a roadblock for you, no matter what it shows up in, in comparison with, or you

can't, it's, it's the way they carry themselves or it's the way they approach something. So for Alex Kazan specifically, I think that physically she's better than 20th in the world. But mentally, confidence-wise, how she approaches things, how she reacts to things that don't go her way, those are things that she's still working on. I think that she's in a great environment with Justin Kotler to improve in those domains. But there's still going to be a time where it comes up and we'll get a chance to see whether she does or not. And if that happens at semifinals, I think that's good for her. I would want her to see some adversity at semifinals. I want to see how she responds to that. And then hopefully in a positive way builds on that. And it transitions into even an increased success of the game. She was 24th last year.

I have her 20th on this list. I would say that 15th is within the realm of possibility for her. Sarah Sigmund's daughter at 23. That's an interesting comparison, Gazan. Because Sarah came on the scene strong and powerful. And obviously, she was ranked higher. But I do see the comparison comparison and I like it. Do you like it?

Gazan versus Sarah Sigmund's daughter coming on the scene. Yeah. This is the first year Alex Gazan is going to take it seriously. Right. We can also say that all in. I think she also is, is more, more committed to all of the components that are required to be elite in

this sport than she was last season. I do think that last season was a big confidence boost for her, doing well enough at semifinals to make it to the games, having a respectable performance at the games, making it through the cuts, and getting all the way to the last event, finishing 24th. It's respectable.

Paige Powers was 25th. Those are respectable in your first appearance at the CrossFit Games. Sway Fit, I want a CEO hat. Where do I get this? Do you know what I'd like? I'd like a CEO visor, speaking of gay. Who is gay at Hiller Fit?

What do you mean? Hiller's gay as fuck. Okay. Anyone else on here that we want to? I feel like we should uh there's tons of people who deserve to be get a little love uh ellie turner uh 14th ellie's got some massive holes in her game right but she's training with the champ uh you know capable of winning an event at the games not as an outlier as much of colton but but but definitely some holes right

i mean ellie's i think ell Ellie is on an upward trajectory still. For sure. Obviously, she's not thrilled about having to compete in Australia for semifinals, but she's going to do it. She's qualified against tougher fields in the semifinals. She should be the favorite to win there. She should come into the games feeling good. I think that she's got all the things in her life

are good there's not a lot of stress outside of training for her and that goes a long way uh ever you see her when you say she has a lot of room to grow i think like someday she could be like we haven't seen any slowing down of her growth right she could right now it looks like i mean there's 20 girls on this uh there's some girls who will never make the podium on this list, no matter how good they get. Right. Well, here's the problem.

If you're Ellie Turner and you want to make the podium, just look at the women ahead of her. Right. Mellow. What I'm saying is that I see growth. I see like, I have this tree in my yard and I'm looking at it and it's 20 feet tall and it still looks like a baby tree.

Like I can tell, Oh shit, you it's a pistachio tree. And I'm like, this fucking thing is going to be huge someday. What have I gotten myself into? I feel like we haven't seen, like we've seen Katrin hit her ceiling.

We've seen Annie hit her ceiling. We've seen Laura hit her ceiling, right? We've seen Brooke Wells hit her ceiling. We've seen Amanda Barnhart hit her ceiling. We don't even know where Emma Carey's fucking ceiling is, right? We don't,

we don't see it anywhere around. No. And we don't know for Ellie Turner either. And that's the freak show that Ariel Lohan, that's what i'm saying ellie turner but that's what i'm saying about ariel lowen like we see her age but all of a sudden she's like pushed her ceiling away from her so we're tripping on her right alexis raptus we don't see her ceiling we're tripping on right and so if i'm ellie turner or if i'm if i'm an ellie turner fan and i say i i think ellie turner can podium one day at the CrossFit Games yeah you can look at the list ahead of her and you can say okay well

Annie Thorzard is not going to be a threat to prevent her from podium for too much longer Ellie's got 10 years left competing if she wants it and if she can stay mentally in the game you could go down and you can remove Laura Horvath Annie Thorzard Emma loss no not Brooke Wells Gabby McGowan Amanda Barnhart Ariel Lowen Matilda Garns, Karen Freyover. You could remove all of them just based on their age and say five years from now, they're not going to be stopping Ellie from getting on the podium. But that leaves Mal O'Brien, Emma Lawson, Alexis Raptus, and Emma Carey that I currently have ranked ahead of Ellie as athletes that will still be in the way five years from now. ranked ahead of Ellie as athletes that will still be in the way five years from now. So she'll have to overcome two of those, assuming that they all continue to compete and hold off anyone else who's coming up. If she ever wants to get on the podium, that's not to say that she won't get better every

single year for the next five years. But even if she does that, she might not ever podium because there are other women that are her age or younger that are already better than her that might also still be improving. I love it. Well said. Uh, Franco Dubac has this podcast hit its ceiling. Uh, Andrew Hiller, short shorts are underrated. How about ones that are so tight? I can see the veins on your penis, Andrew. How we do it. I heard Daniel Brandon give Spiegel a gift card to crumbleumble Cookie Savage. If she did that, that's awesome. If she did that, that's really awesome.

David Weed smoking crack. Brooke Wells is getting better and better. Don't sleep on her. He's kind of right. She is getting better. How the fuck is she doing that? He's right, right? Yeah, so Brooke Wells, I mean, she's, she's putting together the type of career that

it's, it's, it's missing the big win. It's missing the, the elite performance. It's missing a podium outside of that. She's phenomenal, but she has this kind of bouncing around trajectory. I can't remember the exact placements off the top of my head, but it's 16th. Then she goes to six. She goes to 14th. She goes to's 16th then she goes to sixth she goes to 14th she goes to 8th 15th and she goes to 5th 20th that year she had the injury elbow injury so you know she would have been a lot better than 20th and then 5th but regardless of the injury she's had this in the top 10 out of top 10 in the top 10 out of top top 10 however absent the elbow injury the last three years she's been top five athlete at the

games is is this a gross exaggeration or is it true she's getting better is she getting better what she accomplished between the 2021 injury and the snatch event and finishing fifth place at the 2022 crossfit games you know she wrote a book that will that will document that process in a more detailed way than probably anyone really knows if there's no sex or god in that book that will document that process in a more detailed way than probably anyone really knows. If there's no sex or God in that book, that book is going to be horrible, by the way. It better be like she found God, like a UFO picked her up and took her to Jesus or Jesus came to her. Or it better be she just sat around and fucked the whole time and it's a picture book. Because other than that, that book absolutely bores me.

I apologize. Go ahead, Brian. I'm not saying – I know you weren were commenting on the quality of the book that's what i'm here to do i just what i'm what i want to say is the process that you have to go through i apologize for that noise if you can hear it in the background but the process that she has to go through to be able to do that in 2022 is grueling it's it's impressive and it's probably underappreciated by almost everyone. I agree. I agree with you. It's going to be tough to make it into a book. I agree with you.

This season, she has the entire year to compete, train, and prepare healthy. And then there's this really weird wildcard situation. She's been training with Tia Claire Toomey. If you train with the best, if you have the capacity to do the volume that's required to train with the best, you're probably going to get better in that environment. Logan Ewing and Roman Krennikoff.

We'll see how good Logan's gotten, but I know he's improved because he's had the chance to train with that guy every day for several months. This year, Brooke has not had the chance to go toe to toe with Tia and workouts every day because Tia's training and life looks different this year. Is that to her disadvantage or to her advantage? Because Tia and Brooke are close friends and now Tia sitting on the sidelines,

she's not competing. She's probably saying, well, I can't win it this year. Someone's going to win it. And I would rather have no one else win it than Brooke. Yes. Is it possible that Tia is offering some different kind of encouragement, advice, support, whatever, or maybe even Brooke feels a greater obligation and inspiration. Yeah. That might actually elevate Brooke even beyond what we saw from her last year. We don't know, but so it's kind of a unique scenario where her training partner is taken away from her in terms of training, but she's still there to support and could her support actually be better in this regard than it was as a training partner we got that i would love it at brook one wouldn't that be awesome i mean it would be it would i mean it'd be fun to talk about yeah it's fucking great but but i want to

i want to tell you something i have these scissors right here i don't know if you guys have ever seen these they sell these scissors in the i have like four pairs of these they sell them in the home depot section where the tools are like the screwdrivers and wrenches and shit i go down there every once in a while to get my testosterone count up and these scissors can cut through anything like i could probably fucking cut a chunk off the side of my iphone they're crazy they're're crazy scissors. And these are the same scissors, not this exact pair. I have a different pair in my bathroom that I grab a handful of pubes and bring these scissors over and cut the pubes with. And I'm telling you, if I made that into a 30 second reel, there would be more tension seeing these crazy scissors near my cock and

balls in that book, Brooke Wells will write. The tension. There's no one in the room. It's just me and these scissors and a handful of pubes, and when I cut it, I mean, even I'm panicking, even though there's no chance of it happening, right? And that's, I just, like, the thought of reading a book about her comeback from an elbow injury, I just don't understand.

Something crazy better happen in there. brian when create it better be or pictures crazy pictures um brian when uh creating your rankings do you uh work top down or bottom up uh how do you start and work your way down the list top down and usually i i will kind of establish a tier of athletes. So I kind of said, you know, I think there are two women that can win the games this year. So then I'll evaluate those two women. I think there are four other women that can podium this year.

I'll evaluate those four women. I think there are 15 women that could finish in the top 10. I'll try to evaluate and assess those women against each other, et cetera, et cetera. I like that. Brooke is like Ben Smith. I appreciate the attempt. I don't think she is.

Ben Smith has several podium finishes to his name over the history of his career, including a championship. Brooke is completely missing that. Well said. If it weren't for Bergeron, Brooke Wells has games, wins, a games win, and three podiums. If it weren't for Bergeron, Brooke Wells has games, wins, a games win and three podiums. If it weren't for Ben, wow. I don't think that's fair to say at all.

Me neither. I would want to know what years you think you're talking about because all of the years that she's competed at the games, the champions were either Katrin Davidsdottir or Tia Claire Toomey. Yeah, I don't understand. I don't understand how he did that. Barry McCockner, also known as, I think he has another account called My Pussy, which he uses to watch Ackerman's account, My Pussy.

Which athlete, Brian, for $1.99, finally some money, thank you. Which athlete do you think will get popped for steroids? Come on. Brian for $1.99 finally some money thank you which athlete do you think will get popped for steroids come on yeah come on Barry why don't you like that question because you think it's throwing dirt it's speculate unnecessary speculation that hurts people look at

Mike the pool boy I'm sweating right now just thinking about it yeah he's he's referencing referencing the uh pubic hair uh story um okay yes omar uh kaneho yeah my pussy yeah that's his other his alter ego i'm i'm a fan of ben bergeron. I think his record speaks for itself. I don't know why there's so much hate. Ariel Lowen, Alexis Raptus, Gabriela Magawa. God, Emma McQuaid. Hey, let me show you this right here down here.

Do you think it's an interesting grouping that you have these ladies down at the bottom? Thurie Helga's daughter, Sarah Sigmund's daughter,ie simmons catcher's david's daughter these are all like senior these are these are uh these are all names that have been around forever right yeah you know but if you think about the specifically those names this is the range tree helya Helgadal often finishes in. She was 22nd last year. And, you know, I, I still think she's got enough to make it to the games. I don't think she has enough to be much better than this, but I haven't seen any reason regression from her. Emma Tall is kind of an up and down athlete in her career. She's been close to, you know, she was 20th at the games a couple of years ago. I think she's a bit underrated or underappreciated for what she can do when she's competing in her optimal fitness level um but uh you know i moved her up a little bit uh as the season's gone on because i think she's she is in that stage

and then as far as you know sarah and jamie and katrin go i don't know. Who knows? You know, I think we'll learn a lot about them at semifinals. There's no guarantee any of them makes the games. I think all three of them will make the games. But like I said, all of these women, 11 through 25, if you told me Sarah, Jamie and Katrin finished 11, 12, 13 at the games, I wouldn't be surprised if they finished 23, four or five at the games. I wouldn't be surprised. Like I still need to learn more about them. They're athletes. I'll be watching. I think that there's different things that each of them needs to show me to,

to, that will impact how I assess them going into the games. But for now, this is just a range that I feel comfortable putting them. And it's basically saying they're still relevant competitors in the field. How good they are remains or can be remains to be seen. Key names that are off the list this year. Haley Adams, Carr Saunders, Christy Arama, O'Connell, Lucy Campbell.

What happened to Lucy Campbell? That was the girl who won the swim event. Oh, that sucks. She won the swim event and the Jackie Pro. And she's the English lady. Yeah. Awesome person. Have you ever had her on your man?

No, I want to. I love her. I love listening to her talk. I'm a big accent guy. lady yeah awesome person have we have you ever had her on here no i want to i love her i love listening to her talk i'm a big accent guy i'm starting to realize you should reach out to her maybe i'll ask her if she wants to come on during the european semi-final she could give some insight talk about some of the athletes tell her you know what's it like to compete in the semi-final that's a good idea and she'll make the show seem smart because she has an english accent yeah exactly uh as we go down to uh 26 through 50

let me ask you this real quick is there anyone here in this top 25 who doesn't make it to the games um i think you know jamie simmons is a is, is a big question mark to me in Oceania. I believe there are only four women that can qualify and she's one of them, but one of them will get left out. So based, based on that, I would say she's probably the, like the most, um, the biggest question mark there. Uh, I think everyone else will make the games that's on the top 25. Um, I don't know what this is in reference to, but I like the question. I wish I would have asked it. Brian, what do you mean by particular things? What were you referencing when you said that? For example, in Sarah Sigmund's daughter's attempt to come back from injuries that she's had,

I think she has made mistakes in competition that are unnecessary, specifically at Guadalupalooza two years ago and at semifinals last year in strength events where it's a competitive nature of athletes. So I totally understand this, but I think that you have to have the wherewithal, especially when you're coming back from injury, especially later in your career to evaluate the big picture. Is it really worth it for me to attempt this weight on this barbell right now? What do I have to gain compared to what do I have to lose? And I think in both of those situations that she made a miscalculation that set her back and that ultimately prevented her from making the games last year. So I think that if a strength event shows up at semifinals this year, and it can show up in multiple events, it can show up in a variety of different ways. It could be a one rep max. It could be a complex. It could be a progressing

weight barbell. It could be just cycling, you know, as cleans at 165 for a volume of reps. Her approach to those specific workouts will tell us a lot about where her body is at, first of all, but second, where her mind is at in terms of, okay, what do I actually need to do here compared to what I can do in order to achieve the goal? And the goal for her should be to get back to the CrossFit Games. Nothing more, nothing less. For Sarah Sigmund's daughter. Yeah, so that's an example of a particular thing for her. I like that.

She make it to the Games? I think she will. Should we make it to the games? I think she will. As we go down through 26 through 50, let's start at number 49, who's dropped 22 places. Bethany Shadburn. Yeah, I mean, if you're a Bethany Shadburnburn fan this is a games athlete you're talking about

yeah it's been a tough couple of years because two years ago this is an athlete that people thought could have made the podium at some point am i right just top five for sure right not top five for sure but yes people thought she could make the podium that's what i was about to say okay two years ago this guy's respecting her here at 49. Jesus. Stop interrupting Brian. No, I can't help it. I'm just evaluating what I've seen. Okay.

So two years ago, the, the sky seemed to be the limit for Bethany Shadberg. She had an amazing semifinal at the West coast classic looked phenomenal, competed very well, seemed to be having fun. And then she had kind of the worst case scenario at the game. She tests positive for COVID. She actually got really, really sick, just unable to compete. very well, seemed to be having fun. And then she had kind of the worst case scenario at the games.

She tests positive for COVID. She actually got really, really sick, just unable to compete. And so for me as a fan, I feel like I was deprived of seeing the best version of her. And in some ways it's like a microcosm of Cara Webb. I feel like all of the times that we've been so close to seeing the full potential for her, something's happened that's kind of prevented it or kind of shrouded the true achievement and athletic potential that she had. So Bethany's best performance at the games was in 2019. It's a bit of a controversial year, different than most of the years that we've seen. In the

two years that she competed in the normal version of the CrossFit games, 2017 and 18, she was 22nd and 16th. So we haven't actually got to see her as a top 10 athlete at the games yet. Is it out of the realm of possibility? I hate to say it, but at this point, I think, yeah, it's, it's, it's extremely unlikely to improbable that we'll see her in as a top 10 games athlete. Could she make the games? I don't want to say no, but based on the fact that she's competing in North America West,

the number of spots that they have available to them, which is 10 and the caliber of athletes that are competing there, she's going to have to be better at the semifinals than she was at the opening quarterfinals. I think it's possible, but I haven't seen what I've wanted to yet to, to have a lot of confidence in that. She's been around a long time.

Yeah, she's and I mean, here's the thing about her. Like she is extremely disciplined. She's extremely detail oriented in all aspects of her life. And but what comes with that is is two things. When things are going well they go really well and when things go off the rails a little bit or not what you expected and you maybe lose some of that structure how you respond to that can be you know more even more important than what your athletic potential is on the field of play. So she has to have a severe, did she have a severe injury?

She's kind of got a little bit of that Lucas Parker thing going on, right? Like she does tons of warmup and tons of prep and tons of cool down. Right. I mean, she's kind of known for that. Yeah. And this is this element of like, what does it really mean to be fit? Does it mean that you're fit? If you can line everything up perfectly, how you need it to be fit? Does it mean that you're fit if you can line everything up

perfectly how you need it to be, get into the optimal environment, the optimal warmup, the optimal nutrition, sleep, everything that you want, and then have a world-class performance? Or does it mean to be fit that you could say, oh, holy shit, there's an emergency and I have to be on my game right now and go. Three, two, one, go. I'm ready. No matter what I'm ready at all, at all times. If you're a, if you're in the line of service work, you have to be that kind of fit. If you're training as a CrossFit games athlete, I still think there's an element of that, that you want to have. And I think that someone that's as disciplined and structured as she is, we'll run into scenarios. Well, that will be to her detriment. is will run into scenarios. Well, that will be to her detriment.

All right. Uh, so, uh, you think she's making it, do you think she's going to the games? I think there's a less than 50% chance that she qualifies. And where do you think her weaknesses are? You think, what do you think is eroded in her, her strength, her, her, her endurance, or what do you think's eroded her gymnastics uh not no i think just overall she hasn't necessarily been able to get her body back to where it wants to to be to fire on all cylinders and because of this just just this way that she is she sometimes is hesitant to take risks when she's not 100 confident in her body so i don't you know i think she'll compete at semifinals i think it should compete well I think she'll have a couple of good events, but you know, I think that we'll see some,

some instances where she's not willing to necessarily go for it the way that she needs to. And, um, you know, to, to break through against, it's not the strongest semifinal field, but there's still enough highly competitive athletes there that it's, you know, it's not going to be, it's not going to be easy for her to make it. Oh, what about, uh, Caitlin Van Ziel? Am I pronouncing her name right? I'm trying to get her on the podcast. I think, um, and I'm excited to talk to her. What's the deal with her? She's in a tough region, right? She's one of the four that you think can make it. Yeah. I would say Ellie Turner is like, I would say she's a lock in Oceania to make it.

And then between Jamie Simmons, Maddie certain Catlin Van Zyl. And I know that there are a lot of other women in Oceania that people are watching. Younger woman, Emma Hawk, Brioni Chalice, Gracie Walt. That's a girl's name. Emma Hawk. H-A-U-C-K. I'm not sure exactly. Great.

Emily DeRoy. There are women in Oceania, Laura Clifton, that can certainly challenge those top four, and I don't want to negate them or not give them the love that they deserve. Many of them are on this list, but I think those are the top four, and I think that three of those four will make it to the Games. Madeline Sturt. Yeah, she's one of those four. Where is she in her career?

I mean, I think that, honestly, she has the possibility to be in the prime of her career. And I think that if she makes the games, we could end up seeing her best-ever games performance. Four-times games athlete, two bottom-10 finishes, two middle-of-the-pack finishes, but the last one was in 2019. So she hasn't made it for the last three years. But she's not very old.

She's in her mid-20s. She's training training with Jay Crouch Rob Forte is there coaching them she's still motivated to compete you know some people will look at some off-season competitions she did this year and say she was beat by some athletes and she's rescinding into the you know twilights of her career she doesn't have what she used to anymore it's like she was like one or two points away from making it to the games last year and i think that when semifinals come around you're going to see the version of maddie sturt that we've always seen at semifinals which is basically outperforming most people's expectations of her she's a four times games athlete four time consecutive 2016 to 19. is she in the um uh your top 100 of all time i don't in your top 100 of all time?

I don't have a top 100 of all time. You don't? I thought we did a show. We've done that show a couple times. I think it's top 40. Oh. It was the farthest down the list I was willing to go at that. Just off the top of your head.

I'm not asking you to commit. I'm not asking you to marry the answer to this question. Just in a really rough would you think she's top 100 of all time probably probably yeah four consecutive games finishes or games appearances i don't i don't know that there are 100 women that have done that and and what about this guy uh in the back here in that is that a net positive having a a guy who's going to go to he's going right the perception of the oceanic landscape for men is that it's jay crouch and everyone else so he's the top dog in the favorite god i love that that's my boy jay but that's because there's

no ricky there's no royce there's no con there's no bait and oh stop it oh stop it it's true oh stop it listen i'm attracted to these guys who are like the worst fucking interviews in the world i just realized that what the fuck is wrong with me but i love jay crouch god he's fucking awesome it looks like abraham lincoln back there did he just go back there and just pose well i'm gonna get in this video yeah he's flexing yeah what a stud all right good that makes me glad i'm excited i mean that's i'm i'm the only reason why i'm watching um oceana probably is for those those three three reasons jay crouch maddie sturt and uh well now now caitlin van ziel and then of course ellie turner

i'm a big ellie turner fan you're not a fan of jamie jamie no i mean i just don't know her i'm not i'm not a hater that's for sure you should invite her on she's fun too have her in elliott come on i know what it's it's weird when i think of people that i just have never had on like when i had newberry on i was like punching myself in the face like why have i waited so long to have um to have uh him on okay so so good chance uh maddie starts, and she's on your list here. God, this is – what about this lady here? I ran into this lady the other day, and she kind of takes my breath away. Kelly Clark, number 47.

I ran into her at a coffee shop. I realize it's proximity bias. I feel her body heat coming off of her. She's like – Kelly Clark is like such a special human being. Has she ever made it to the games? No. Last year she was devastatingly close. Are we going to – is she going to?

I don't know. Last year was supposed to be her last year to go for it. She's no spring chicken either. Man, she's impressive to stand next to. She's 34 now. Is she going? Look, there I am hugging her. Did you see that?

Really? Yeah, that was me. I ran into her at the coffee shop. It was crazy. I was so excited to see her in person. I see sightings of her around town. It's like seeing Greg Amundsen when you see him around town but better or she's at crossfit i want to watch i want to see her i want to see the hug i must have missed it it's coming up here it is okay there oh i

thought it was the one before that it looked like i just got out of prison uh if she makes it will she be the um will she be the oldest woman to make it to the games kind of in modern times we'll see i mean she's 35 or 36 i think she's either 34 or 35 i mean sam briggs made it two years ago um i don't have all the ages of the competitors here but i think that you know there are there are a few women that have qualified in that age range. But it's getting less and less common. And look, if she's going to make the games, we'll talk about this in depth when we get to North America West in a couple of weeks. But it's going to be hard.

I think it's going to be just as hard, if not harder, as it was last year i don't want to counter out at all but there are i would say there's six or seven women that will miss the games in north america west that there's a big group of people who believe they will make the games that's pool boy in the back right there by the way did you know that the guy from the comments right here oh look at he even says ah there there's me in the background. Jeremy Eat World local homeless man attacks Kelly Clark. That is probably what it looked like in front of the – I didn't even want to hug her. I felt like I was getting her dirty. I'm telling you, her presence is crazy.

Clydesdale Media, Kelly is 36. She is something fucking else to be in person with. What a fucking powerhouse. You feel her. It's crazy. I with. What a fucking powerhouse. You feel her. It's crazy. I've been around a lot of athletes. This is – it's like – you know that some of those athletes that are just like just well-rounded too, you even wonder if she picked the right sport.

Anyway, so is she going to be on the bubble or you think she – last year was her bubble and this year she just shits the bed? I think she's still good enough to be on the bubble, or do you think last year was her bubble and this year she just shits the bed? I think she's still good enough to be on the bubble. But, you know, she could be the last one or two in. She could be as many as six spots up. Oh, I don't like it. All right. Well, I'm getting on that. You might not like it because you like her,

and the odds are probably more high that she'll miss it than make it. But there is a chance that she makes it. And in general, what hopefully people are excited about is the fact that it's not clear-cut. There's going to be 15, 16 women in the North America West that are fighting for 10 spots at the Games. Sydney McElishan, you have her ranked here as 28th Canadian woman. Last year was her rookie year.

She was 31st. Had some impressive – did she have one or two impressive events and then a lot of like after 30th place events last year at the Games? Yeah, I wouldn't – I'm not even – I mean, nothing really was like super standout. And again, it's her first year making it. She's relatively young, but I would even say that relative to a few of the other women that we've talked about, like Paige Powers and Alex Kazan, that she's a step behind. We'll see.

She's got another year of living and training, a comp train in New England there. She seems to be their marquee athlete right now. How much progress and growth can she make there in a year? We'll, you know, we're going to find out. She's like pretty good at semis, underwhelming at the games. There's just some athletes that that's, that's all they ever become in the sport is that they're good semifinal athlete and underwhelming at the games. I hope that's not the case for her. I mean,

I saw a ton of potential in her years ago and she was winning the RX division at Wadapalooza with some really impressive performances, even compared to the elite women that were competing that year. But that's exactly right. If running is a problem for you at the CrossFit Games, there's only so well you can do. The best version of someone who struggles with running at the CrossFit Games is Gui Mayeros.

Really well said. Yeah, Jeremy, has Sydney learned how to run yet? If so, watch out. Yeah, something is definitely wrong with her running. You know, the thing is she's like a statue. She was on the show. Her mindset is fucking top tier. Her conviction and her commitment second to none um her uh

pure athleticism fucking amazing comes from i think uh a collegiate swimming right but but something about her when she runs she runs like a fucking statue but annie ran like a statue and he runs like a statue and she still does good and uh but i do get some how does amanda barnhart run does she run good oh man i saw her i just immediately thought of her rolling her ankle during the uh the ruck run in 2019 when you said that amanda barnhart but um because i do get i would say this cindy mcclellan and amanda barnhart they're they're just they have these like statuesque presence you know their their their physiques You don't have to look great to run well enough in a competition. There's some people that are good runners and you look at them and

you're like, that doesn't look good, but they're running fast. Yeah. Dave Castro runs like a duck and fucking kills it. Sure. So, so, you know, it doesn't have to look pretty. There have been times where Brent Fikowski has been running and doing quite well, but it kind of looks like not the best. I mean, and then there's obviously other people that run and they look just incredibly graceful, but it's not necessarily that good. Andre Houdet is like that. When you watch him run, he looks amazing, but he doesn't have great performances in running events relative to his competitors.

All right. Don't judge a book by its cover. Brian friend. That's an original quote. Jenny Vaccaro, a four 99. Thank you. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. As these people just fucking taking, uh, okay. Um, I can't wait to do a, uh, a prediction show.

Rebecca Fusli, Caitlin VanZeele, Annika Greer, Natalie Sturt, Bailey Rail, Paige Zamenza. We go down to 51 to 75. Is there anyone on this 51 to 75 list that is going to make it to the games, Brian? Yes. Okay. list that is going to make it to the games, Brian? Yes. Number 60, Saharkaya is the favorite to win

the Asian semifinal. Number 61, Victoria Campos. She's Turkish girl, Saharkaya? Yeah, she lives and trains in Norway, but she's from Turkey and competes in Asia. The girl immediately below her, Victoria Campos, is the likely candidate to win in South

America. There's Emma Hawk right below her that we were talking about earlier from Oceania. Outside chance to make it in Oceania. The other South American women's down there in spots 66 through 68 are the three other ones that I think are going to be in contention for the final game spot so those are Luisa Marquez, Julia Cato, and Sasha Nieves so likely both of your qualifiers from South America are in this range and outside of that you know you'd have to be looking at someone who would outperform anything that I've seen them do to make it to the games with two exceptions Lauren Fisher who's in 73rd and camilla camilla solomons and hellman in 74th who have both proven in the past that they could qualify as an individual

but have not attempted to for several years lauren was competing on a team camilla was giving birth you do you think lauren do you think lauren i want to ask you a question about lauren fisher i just want to tell this to pool boy first pool boy. If you don't know who this is, does this, does this girl have a boyfriend? I don't know, but there's, Oh yeah. There's a pool boy.

This is, this is breeding stock here, dude. This, if you and this girl made a baby, it would be fucking nuts, dude. It would,

you would have the most beautiful daughter or son that ever walked planet earth. Look at this fucking girl. What a fucking specimen. What a fucking attractive human being. Damn. Very fit. Oh, yeah.

I forgot this is a fitness show. Man, look at her. She is special. Look at this shit, dude. Pool boy, whatever country she's in, you can fit in. You guys would have like Ricky Martin would be your kid. This is fucking nuts. Yeah, that's – what country is she?

Brazil. That's not a picture from Brazil, but she is Brazilian. Yeah, Brazil doesn't fuck up when it comes to making people, right? God, they make so many good-looking people. Okay, so that's my dating advice for Pool Boy. And good to keep the perspective here. I mentioned this in the article, but the women that are going to be qualifying from Asia and South America will obviously place much better than this at the games.

There's only 40 women that make the games. But what I'm saying here is I think that there are women from North America and Europe that won't make the games because of the number of spots they get, that if they were all able to compete in the games would outperform the best or the fittest from those parts of the world still. Christina Young, false.

I know attractive couples that have produced not cute children. All right. And the opposite. Yeah, and the opposite yeah and the opposite right right right um you think uh you think uh lauren fisher is a yeah i i this is gonna be i think she's a hobbyist i think she's um uh i don't know who to compare to you think she's really making a run at going to the CrossFit Games? I think she's a hobbyist, meaning she's testing herself. She's making sure that she stays present for her Instagram. It's all she knows. I just can't see her as actually thinking she's going to make the CrossFit Games.

I mean, she's qualified for the Games four times in her career. All four of those times. Back in 1852, 1853. 18, 2018 was the last time. You're right about that. Oh, okay. Okay. And she did it through the regional format.

So she's proven that she can do that. She was ninth place in the quarterfinals against the North American West women this year. I have her ranked North American. Oh, God. Okay. place in the quarterfinals against the north american west women this year i ever ranked north america oh god okay what's wrong what's wrong i'll come over to your house what do you need what do you need i'll send over my assistant what do you label down there it says she's in the east she should be in the west anyway she's uh ladies and gentlemen brian apologizes and owns his mistake and he's sorry that at the be friendly fitness website that's new that there was an error made in where lauren fisher is attending her semi-finals and he's as frustrated

as you are and he will attend to fixing it he apologizes if it caused any confusion or forced and someone bought a ticket specifically for that semi-final to visit lauren fisher and he redirected you wrong he will give you a half a percent back of your uh of cost of that trip okay good and look there's no there's no excuse i should get it right but it is oh please when these people like bailey rail lives in cookville tennessee competes trains in cookville tennessee but she's using an address from missouri to compete in the west coast it's like you know i already mentioned about catch and i just like she's european like she should be competing in europe it feels that way at least, but she's not. Same thing with Laura Fisher.

I don't even know where she's living these days. She seems to be at Training Think Tank competing. She seems to be over in Victus competing. I don't even know what address. I think she has the same coach as Sarah Sigmund's daughter, right? Which would be at Training Think Tank. That Asian girl. She's competing in the West Coast. It's still on me. I should be able to check

the leaderboards and make sure to get all that right. And I want to do that, but there, I have obviously have frustrations about the fact that athletes can live somewhere only in the United States. Can they live somewhere and then compete somewhere else? Anyway, I bet you that's a La Jolla right there. Oh, ninth place in the quarterfinals. It's only the quarterfinals, but I do think she's in that group of people, along with Kelly, Kelly Clark, who we talked about, that does have a chance to finish in one of those last couple of qualifying spots.

But more likely will be in one of those, you know, six spots that just end up missing out. Do you think that she expects to go? I think that she's she's preparing with the intent of, of qualifying for the games. Yeah, man. She's trained with some amazing people. She said,

she has amazing people. This is an insane photo by the way. And even though we haven't seen her qualify for the games as an individual since 2018, it's not like she hasn't been training. Like she's been competing at an elite level in team competitions for the last four years. So she's still in the gym regularly.

She's still training regularly. She still has strength, has capacity, and she'll be relevant at that semifinal. This is the photographer who took the picture in the spa. Good picture. She will be relevant? She's great.

That was a great fucking picture. It was ballsy to frame it like that. You do think, I don't think she's even in contention. I mean, I haven't looked at the list, but. Well, we will see. I think that she's, like I said, 8th to 15th is a realistic range for her. That's semifinal and the top 10 make it. Allison Scudds, is she making a serious attack?

She's also in that same semifinal. She's probably going to be in a similar range. Miss Kringle? I don't think any of these women at this point on the list in Europe have a realistic chance to make it to the Games. I think the top is too strong. Oh, yeah, there she is. You're right. Gemma Hawk. the top is too strong. Oh yeah, there she is.

You're right. Gemma Hawk. I think Gemma was the mom's name in Sons of Anarchy. Meredith Swindle, tough name. Damn. Why does this girl get three names? Camila Solomon-Soon-Helman. Just how she's always competed.

All right. She is the first person on your list who was previously unranked. She comes in at 74th. What did she do to get your eye? Read the next sentence. She is a three-time individual games athlete out of Europe who had taken time away to have a child and is now back in the fray. No shit, she's been to the games three times?

I've never even heard of her. Well, that's why you don't make the list. Right. Crazy. 18, 19, and 20. Best finish was 23rd, and that was in the online format. She was 24th in the 2018 games. Do you know who I'm most impressed by that

we've seen so far um i'm just not going to take that picture of lauren i do like that oh i recognize this girl no uh i really like um i i keep tripping on page powers i think she's i i just think that it's gonna be fun we're so lucky we have people like her and Emma Lawson and Emma Carey. It's going to make the games. Okay, I recognize her. So this chick had a baby and is coming back. Crazy. I'm getting like a mix of Bailey Rail and Sam Briggs had a kid.

What's this girl good at? I don't think she's necessarily amazing at anything she's just fairly consistent i you know in competing in europe and this year i don't think you'll see any top five finishes from her i don't think you'll see any bottom half finishes from her i think she'll just basically be you know 10th to 30th on pretty much anything and uh and how do you know how old the baby is? I think less than two. First time ever nailing a wall-supported press to handstand. All right. This is one day ago.

Hey, if there's no other impact that Adrian Bosman has had on the community and the sport, it's the fact that people are working on their gymnastics. That's for sure uh and and i and i and i don't think he will well it's going to be interesting it's going to be interesting did you do it's going to be interesting to see what happens with the programming uh this year you see that there's some changes uh over at hq uh in regards to what it looks like is going to be programming? I'm not sure what you're talking about, no. Okay, make sure I'll tell you as soon as we get off the air.

It's going to be very – games programming this year has a huge, a huge minor adjustment that was revealed yesterday. I can't believe no one's talking about it. Do you not know what it is, truly, Brian? You and I haven't talked about it yet? I have an idea, but I can't say with certainty. And I love the description of a huge miner. I'm sending it to you in the private chat, so none of the 468 people listening live can see. Great.

Let's see if you knew this. It wasn't obvious, but I assumed that's what you meant okay uh scott uh balfonce dave is back to leading training yes that is uh that is a a rumor that i also heard yes there's a little bit more keep digging people keep digging keep digging there's something a little bit more. Keep digging, people. Keep digging. Keep digging. There's something a little more. Okay. 76 through 100. At the top of 76 is Katrin David's daughter's former training partner,

Tori Dyson. The original muscle hamster was her nickname. I think she's still over there with Mr. Bergeron. That name looks familiar is that a teen athlete down there at 93 trista smith yeah also lucy mcgonigal at 87 trista smith outperformed lucy at the um age group semifinals this past weekend this how old are those how old are those 17 okay this list was made before that i, I think based on Trista's performance, it would be fair to say why isn't she ahead of Lucy, but we'll see.

We'll see how they do in their respective semifinals. I think that they both are going to have some success there, but no real chance to make it to the games, and so we'll end up seeing them compete in the teenage division this year. Okay, so Lucy, Trista still can compete. And I saw someone else. Olivia Kerstetter. Yeah, number 45, Olivia Kerstetter.

Crazy. I believe that the current semifinal placings, and by the way, there are currently changes going on of the age group semifinal leaderboard. And even a change that was made today negates a claim that Morning Chalkup made this morning. So I just would caution everyone, as I did on my Instagram, don't assume anything about those results until CrossFit says that they are finalized. Okay, fair enough.

Hey, look at this. You have Kelly Baker above Olivia Kerstetter and Kelly Clark. Yeah, I'm really high on Kelly Baker. And Bethany Shadburn. You think Kelly Baker is that good? I mean, I like her. Don't get me wrong. I think she's awesome.

But I don't think of her as a world-class CrossFitter. Everything I've seen from her this year is trending in the right direction, from her live performance at the Fittest Experience to her online performances in the Open and the semifinals. Also, I'm a huge, huge advocate of when there's – and I'm not saying that these other women don't have that, but when there is stability in your life outside the gym and not a lot of stress there,

and there's a lot of support for what you're doing, trying to do, that goes a long way. I think that Kelly is in a, as sweet a spot as she could be in her career this season. And I'm extremely excited to watch her compete, um, in the West semi-final,

uh, Barry McCockner, uh, sweating Kelly Baker. Yeah. Uh, for sure. When Barryockner sweating Kelly Baker. Yeah. For sure. When Barry sweats, he owes us $199. Where is Olivia?

He has Olivia. I apologize. He has Olivia at 45. Thank you for asking, Renata. Olivia is at 45. Kelly Baker is savage and will make the games. Scott Schweitzer. wow, bold claim I mean, I think that a lot of people who have been paying attention to her this offseason

and through the early parts of this season would agree with that Will Branstetter, from what Dave said, it's not that he's doing the programming himself but he's leading the charge to unify the programming across all parts of the company. There you go, Will Branstetter. Barry McCockner, $1.99 for Brian. I'll make sure he gets it. No problem. I'll make sure.

All parts of the company. If you haven't been before, make sure you're paying attention to the.com programming. Make sure you're paying attention to the CrossFit affiliate programming because it's likely that there are elements of that that will be reflected in

games programming if not this season and future seasons if Dave is making that claim oh I see what happened there I see what they did I see I see what happened there. I see what they did. I see. I see what happened. I see.

I see. I see what they did. Okay. I see. I see what they did. Look it. Look it. They said a fucking premiere at the same time. My podcast is going.

These sons of bitches. Yeah. So, you know, having the military. These sons of bitches. I take take to take Rich off the top 100, please. All right. I just got a text from him. He wants me to come and join his podcast.

Oh, it's coming oh my god uh clock uh dang rich's podcast isn't even live it's a premiere stepping oh they don't have the balls to go live going live is a whole different thing it's a different it's a different creature this fucking rich froning guy i'm I'm putting him as my favorite human being down to my third favorite now. I lowered him two spots after my mom and dad now. Son of a bitch. He used to be ahead of those?

Yeah, he used to be at the very top. Do they know that? He used to be at the very top. Oh, you know what I'm going to do? Fuck this guy. You know what I'm going to do? Fuck this guy. You know what I'm going to do? Watch this. Watch this fucking move.

I'm going to go. How do I do it? Rich. What do I do? I type in Mayhem YouTube CrossFit. I go to here. Okay, I'm going to go to their premiere show. Watch this.

Motherfuckers. I'll just show them. An aerobic at the end of the other day. There's just other stuff you can see. What's normally on there. My podcast is live now. Watch

Rich's shit later. You're not typing what you're saying. That's why you're here. I'm here to talk about the win. Oh, yes. I'll do it back to that. Watch Rich's shit later.

I see it through a little different lens because everyone – Teach them a lesson. Okay. Someone go over there and put the link in there, please. Oh my god. Okay. What are we doing? Oh, women. women, yes. We are making our way through the current rankings of CrossFit women from the BeFriendlyFitness.com website. We have Brian Friend in the house with us, and we are now at the last group of women.

Oh, we're done. We're pretty much done. Oh, Roran Scott. You can always got to mention her, right? 83. Roran Scott's the one who had the video go viral uh she was unranked uh and now she's up here roren's the one i hope that some of these women like tori dyson and ro scott do something that catches your eye so you don't always say the exact same thing about them oh well i mean who i mean it was the most viral thing ever

right a crossfit video of all time. It was everywhere. If you didn't see it, if Caleb was here, he'd pull that shit up. Maybe we'll pull it up tonight on the – oh, Jessica Kaligan. We have an Armenian at 88. Team member for CrossFit Mayhem last season, competing as an individual this year. I've heard from some people that she's going to surprise or overperform what you might expect at the semifinals.

So we'll see. Okay. Allison Weiss. That's Brittany Weiss's sister. So there was some confusion here. People thought that she was on a team and she bailed on her team, but that's not true, right? They said that because they confused her with her sister? No.

There are three Invictus teams, at least three Invictus teams, that are competing at semifinals this year. We'll talk about a couple of them on Thursday when we do the team power rankings. But it was unclear what the rosters were going to be, what the composition of those rosters were going to be. There were some athletes who've been there for a while. There were some new athletes that entered the equation. There were some athletes that have been traveling in to compete. And this is what Scott was talking about. athletes who've been there for a while. There were some new athletes that entered the equation. There were some athletes that have been traveling in to compete. And at the end,

you know, this is what Scott was talking about. It's like, it's very difficult to track exactly what's going on in the team competition, but whatever happened there, Alison Weiss is competing as an individual this year and not on any of the Invictus teams.

What, what did you say? She was originally competing on the team. One of the teams. It was a possibility that she would be. Did she hurt anyone's feelings by dropping out do you know it seems it seems inappropriate it would seem inappropriate if someone dropped out at the last minute out of their team right i don't think that's what happened okay good um uh i don't think they're blocking comments over there by the way i don't think they they don't care they They do not give a shit. I attacked them on their CrossFit, their new Instagram account yesterday, the Rich's podcast.

Rich knows that all publicity is good publicity. I'm a full supporter of Rich. I'm happy he's doing it. I'm just joking just so everyone knows in case anyone gets all crazy and goes over there and is like, Rich, Stefan was talking shit. Well, Rich won't believe it anyway. He knows. The lowest person on here – watch me impress Brian. He doesn't think I listen to him.

The lowest person on the top 100 best living female CrossFitters right now, the lowest person on the list who will be going to the CrossFit Games is number 97, DeJuan Young. True or false i think that she is the favorite to take the second spot behind sahar kaya at the asian semi-final and i would say that that is therefore an accurate statement and i learned that yesterday watching the um uh men's show hey um is who will will she be the in this isn't to dig at. Trust me. I know that all these girls could fucking run circles around me, fucking throw me in the garbage and I get taken away. But is she the worst? Well, if she makes it to the games, will she be the worst CrossFitter there? Not necessarily.

I mean, both, you know, neither of the women from Asia were even close, the worst last year. Sung Young Choi was 26. Sahar Kaya was 29. And then obviously there were people down to 40. Well, Emily Rolfe withdrew. So last year, the lowest placing athletes was the woman from Africa, a woman from Europe who qualified through the online qualifier, the second place qualifier from South America,

and then a fifth place finisher from a North American semifinal. So you can have the bottom part of the game's field be from a variety of different places in terms of geography. I like the way you say that, the bottom. It would be kind of cool to get behind someone who just sucks, but they're not going to get DQ'd. They're going to stay in the games. Do you like it at the games when they have what are they called? Cuts? Do you like cuts? No, not a fan of the cuts at all.

Not at all. Not even for the final event. No, this is my opinion about the competition. You've had all these, especially the games, but any competition really. You have all these ways to get there. Qualification process. Whether it's an invite, whether it's a online qualifier, whether it's a live qualifier, whatever it is. And once you have a field of athletes there, they're there for a reason. And in my opinion, they're there to compete against other

athletes that have qualified for the test. And I want to see them all take the entire test with the same scoring system against each other. And that's how I'll know at the end of it, where they all fall relative to each other. If you give half the test to people and then you eliminate half the field, then you're just running the risk. Exactly what happened with Laura Horvath last year, that the first half of the test is much less favorable than her than the last half of the test. And you're waiting it a lot more heavily. We saw this in abundance at the 2019 CrossFit Games. I've written articles about it. I've talked on podcasts about it. Events four, five, and six were much more significant than one, two, and three because of the scoring systems.

I don't think that the games team had any idea what they were doing in terms of that at that point in the year, but now they should because it's very well documented by people like me and others in the space, the impact that having cuts and variable scoring systems can have on competitions. And I don't want to see it, especially at the CrossFit games. Um, uh,

uh, hounds of justice. They are not deleting comments. Yeah. I know they wouldn't do that unless it was something crazy. Uh, Brian. So if there is a cut,

you'd like to see it. Theoretically, if there is a cut, you'd like to see it pushed all the way down to the end. So if there's 15 events, you want to see the cut after the 14th event. Why? Why would you even bother to make a cut at that point? Right. Okay. I hear you. I hear you. I hear you. Okay. You're telling me by doing that that there's a different level of significance

to some events compared to other events. Okay. Yep, yep. It's funny. Everything you're i i like cuts but everything you're saying makes a hundred percent uh makes sense in this assessment what i would say is that you better be sure that at every stage that you're making a cut that you've tested that the test up to that point has been well balanced and well thought out and well executed enough to say i've tested all elements of fitness and now I'm making a cut. And still, if you're not going to reset the scores at that point,

that the totality of the test also does that. And so in the case of the 2019 CrossFit Games, you would be telling me that after the first cut, you were confident that you tested a broad test of fitness, and you're confident to cut half the field because of it. And that after the second test of fitness fitness that you've done the same thing. And that after the third test and fourth and fifth and sixth, that each independently subset leading to a cut is a well-balanced and well

thought out test. And I don't think that that's always the case. I think this is a compliment, a cornholio, a Brian calling the sky blue. David weed, Brian spitting facts. Compliment. Cornholio. Brian calling the sky blue. David Weed. Brian spitting facts. Yeah, I think I'm just from a – mine is completely a practical perspective. But you're right. What is this? Someone just sent me.

And we don't actually know if there are going to be cuts at semifinals. You got 60 men, 60 women and 40 teams competing at these semifinals. That's a lot to get through however many tests they want to do in that in that time period. And I do think that it's possible that we see some cuts at semifinals. But I would be quite disappointed if that ends up being the case. And this is why someone asked earlier in the show about Laura Horvath. And is there a possibility that if the worst case scenario comes out for her at semifinals, which is a strict deficit handstand pushup on the parallettes or on a blocks like they use at the

games last year, something of the similar variety that it could affect their chances to make the games. Well, now think about how detrimental that workout would be for her. If it was one of the first three workouts, but there's 60 people in the field compared to if it was one of the last three workouts where maybe there's only 30 people in the field. Uh, cuts in an unbalanced competition is how Lucas Hoberg made it to the podium. There's no question about the fact that cuts historically at the CrossFit games have had an impact on the distribution of athletes up and down the leaderboard. I think that it very rarely affects the top position. And I think that CrossFit has clung to that claim that they still find the

fittest no matter what for far too long, and that they need to amend their point of view to say, you know what, all of these athletes are incredibly fit. All of these athletes deserve a chance to take this test. And we can actually say at the end of it that we know who not just the fittest is, but who's the second fittest, the third, the 10th, the 20th, and the least fit of the people who took the test. Dylan Dykes. I think Brian is the best analyst in CrossFit. I resent that.

Like, tell me who's second. Who the fuck is second? You think. You think, you think. Hate it when you fuck up a compliment, Dylan, but I love your name. It's a beautiful,

it's a, I forgive you. Do you like his picture? Do you like his physique? Yeah, I'd love all that. Love that dude. I just can't believe he did you like that.

You think, tell me who's second. Tell me who the fuck is second. Oh, okay. I did. Well, I did.

Thank you. I love you. You're great. Well, brilliant. I didn't even, I wasn't even going there, but now that you mentioned it, that's fantastic. think tell me who's second tell me who the fuck is second oh okay i did well i did thank you i love you you're great what brilliant i didn't even i wasn't even going there but now that you mentioned it that's fantastic um uh there was another great comedy to dylan i love you thank you i can't wait to uh hang out with mr dykes uh cory leonard uh uh brian gonna make a great dad one day quote i'm not mad i'm just uh disappointed no no i i wasn't suggesting that i'm that i'm the best by the way but i appreciate that that's funny that you went there i just meant that like there is no um i just think it's just like obvious like he's he it's he's in a whole

nother he's in a whole nother world the thing is i'll tell you why i probably should save this for wednesday's show i shouldn't say it's with brian here the reason why i get brian and no one else does is because the the the the the media universe is not set up to get the best out of brian so the way the media universe is set up the kinds of platforms the tiny little tidbits the uh the uh political correctness all that shit isn't set up to elicit the best from him so he's fucking stuck over here where it seems like that there's enough uh there's enough uh space for brian to get the best out of brian so in its crazies and the other people aren't willing to figure that out to get the best out of him um and that's why brian has to tolerate shit like this that i'm about to do

this looks like it was posted uh two hours ago this should be fascinating uh matt fraser and katrin david's daughter past present future future uh katrin david's daughter and matt fraser um what do you think about the body language of those two there um could i click somewhere else and get a second opinion sure i like it i like it i like how close they are i like everything about it i'm overwhelmed by how beautiful everything is how how maybe stylized what do you think about their body language i mean it's it appears to be the start of the podcast and Katrin seems to be rather excited and I think Fraser's not sure if he loves the idea yet based on how he's sitting there

oh let's see I don't want to change so I think that's what I would have done wow I might still do it not god she's fucking people. She is a fucking electric human being. Have you talked to her, Brian? We did, yeah. We did a podcast with her in 2018. It was the first time I met her. And I have spoken to her on, you know, half a dozen occasions on Senate competitions.

Are you impressed with her? I have been at times. Yeah. God, she's fucking electric. The impression she made on me in 2018 was pretty profound, and it wasn't necessarily expected. Yeah, she's a fucking special electric human being. I wish she would get around the right people to unfuck her,

the virus she has in her fucking brain. Okay. uh, her, her, the virus she has in her fucking brain. Uh, okay. Uh, you skip, you skip, you skip past the part where Matt asks her about her menses during her training. Oh,

well, sorry. Uh, this is a, this list deserves, I'm excited to talk about the, when, when do we talk about the women next?

Cause we're, we're, I think we're, we've exhausted this, but we really haven't. There's so much more to look here. What can we do to go further into this? Are we going to be doing a semifinal show similar to this, kind of redundant?

I mean there's so many people in here who deserve – or who the fuck deserve who I want to hear more from you about. deserve who I want to hear more from you about. Yeah. So, you know, the part, the, really the, the intention with this particular list at this time of year is so that people can go here and have some idea of the athletes who are likely to be competitive at each, um, semi-final going into the games. And, you know, competitive can mean different things. You can, you know, you could just count down the list. Okay. It's likely that these are the top 10 here, the top nine here, the top three here, whatever, however many spots they get, but at least you have some exposure to those names. And then obviously it's going to go beyond that. So you can have some touch point with athletes who may surprise us. You know, there's every year, there are a couple of athletes around the world who do things that were not expected.

You know, last year we saw people like Elisa Fuliano and Enrico Zanoni come out of nowhere and make and qualify for game spots in Europe. And it has the potential to happen anywhere and at different times of people's careers and different places in the world. So this is just a touch point. Going into each semifinal week, I'll have specific evaluations relative to every semifinal. So on Monday prior to North America East and Africa, which are the first two semifinals, you'll see my predictions for men, women, and teams for each of those competitive regions.

Fair enough. But, uh, we need to have you on for, uh, we, we need to do some semifinals breakdown shows. Well, that's what we do. We'll do those on the back end of my predictions being released. I may need two shows for those. I'm really excited. I can't believe how excited

this show just got me. I'm more excited about the women than the men. But I couldn't tell you why. You're probably equally excited. I mean, I think I was talking with a friend the other day. I think that of all the sports I've ever been exposed to, that this is the sport that is most compelling on the women's side and the men's side.

There's an equal level of excitement, drama, competitiveness. That was me. That was me you were talking to. Okay. You referred to me as your friend. That's cool. This hot button, does this take you to your OnlyFans? Let's find out. Oh, yes, it does. All right.

Tonight we are going to have a – the Frisbee golf show tonight is going to be fantastic. I think we're going to call it Only Friends, though, not Only Fans. Oh, that's good. I like that. God, your name lends to a lot of fun shit. Do individuals competing in semis go after the North America East semi, have some sort of advantage?

If you're doing a cross semifinal comparison, you could make that argument. And you could say that because athletes in North America West have had an extra week to prepare for those events or their competition and have had the chance to watch some of the best athletes in the world in North America East do those events that they could have an edge in terms of understanding where to push, what times to beat are. You know, what kind of an execution is going to excel in this workout or that workout? But they do not have an advantage against the field of competitors that they're competing against. They have the same amount of time and opportunity to study those events. I guess that you could make the argument of this. Well, let's say that Pat Vellner and Jeff Adler are best friends and Pat Vellner can call Jeff Adler and personally talk to him and get an insight and a full debrief from North America East

semifinal prior to North America West. And not every athlete that Pat competes against has that same chance then it would be you could say that Pat has an advantage against his competitors because he spoke to the guy who won the North America East but outside of that I don't think there's much of an advantage relative to the field that you're competing against if you don't take advantage of your last name because like you're afraid of societal pressures, you're a fucking idiot. If Caleb doesn't name – It's up to me or Caleb, yeah. Both, both of you.

It's just don't be a pussy. That's a great idea from the Armenian Jay Hartle. Happy friend. I mean just name your kid happy. Hey, one of my kids' name is Joseph Matosian. Joseph Matosian. And just out of the blue, I said, hey, we're going to make his middle name Strong. I don't even know why. I just like the way it sounds, Joseph Strong Matosian. Joseph Matosian. And just out of the blue, I said, hey, we're going to make his middle name Strong. I don't even know why.

I just like the way it sounds. Joseph Strong Matosian. And guess what? That's his middle fucking name. There was no – and the same with Avi. Avi's middle name is Marvel. And I don't even know why. But they just popped my – yeah, Happy is what a fucking great name to name your kid.

First name or middle name? First. What would be the middle name? Happy – Don't even need one? to name your kid first name or middle name head first what would be the middle name uh happy uh happy go lucky friend go lucky you spell it a little funky though you ga you figure you figure that you x you you look in the urban dictionary you look in the urban dictionary you have something i going to say something crazy. Listen, tomorrow morning, there's a good chance that Greg Glassman, one of his kids name is Riley Coyote. Play on the word Wiley Coyote.

Riley Coyote. It's fucking brilliant. Isn't that good? People thought he was joking. He's like, no, I knew he wasn't joking. Of course he's going to do that. It's fucking. How cool would it be to say your name is Riley Coyote Glassman? Tomorrow, speaking of Greg Glassman, there's a very good chance he's coming on tomorrow again, uh tomorrow he's gonna be uh he got this insane porsche that i think he's bringing from scottsdale to here he's gonna drive it across

uh the western states and come visit but he will be in his phone on his porsche we can talk to him tomorrow uh tonight we have the frisbee show then on thursday uh we have the team's power rankings i don't ever remember doing that before. Is this new? Not sure. Okay. Do you know when you first made the list? This is going to be a hard list to maintain. This sounds squirrely.

You may have bitten off more than you can chew. No, no. I mean, the team division obviously doesn't have CrossFit Mayhem Freedom this year. It still has a ton of competitive teams. I think there's actually a decent amount of depth to the team division. There are some athletes that would be in this top 100, a lot of them that are competing in the team competition this year.

There's some new teams. There's some teams that have been around forever, like the CrossFit Invictus, et cetera, type teams. And yeah, I think we'll have a fun conversation. And for the people that like the team division, there's some people that the team division is more compelling for them. So we'll get a chance to kind of first look at what the team competition looks like for the 2023 season uh and then 6 p.m uh thursday

night semi-finals uh programming predictions i don't know who's on that show is that uh oh taylor and uh jr howell and brian oh that's gonna be a fun show uh and uh then on friday morning a live colin show and then uh in the evening oh that's gonna be an interesting show on friday it's always great having mike halpin on you never know what he's gonna say that's gonna be good okay thanks brian that was good if part of me feels like um there's so much more to talk about but it's kind of good it's better to uh leave early with more things to talk about than over talk it early two hours and 12 minutes all right uh please check out brian's new website, BeFriendlyFitness.com.

It's all the things that you wished everyone else was. I don't want to pick on anyone, but the world, the landscape of CrossFit Media has changed quite a bit in the last two years. And this is a beautiful evolution to have a resource like this. BeFriendlyFitness.com is just the letter B. And then make sure you go over to Instagram and subscribe to be friendly fitness and then turn on all the notifications and you'll be on top of your CrossFit game.

All right. Bye.