The Sevan Podcast - #29 CrossFit Games - Europe with Brian Friend

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

The Sevan Podcast Episode 29 Games - Europe with Brian Friend @sevanmatossian @brianfriendcrossfit The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Sound effects are cool. Yeah, yeah. So I can put these sound effects in.

I wonder if that's legal. Can I just play that song at the beginning of our podcast? I'm not sure, but do you know there's a guy, a friend of mine, Nico Rono, who's a videographer for CrossFit and has been for about a decade. He's got a podcast, and the opening intro that he plays, it's Dave Castro's voice, and it goes, The clock will save you not. It's from that one open announcement, and that's the intro to his podcast. Oh, I love it. I think Nico is a foreigner.

He's a Euro. Denmark. Denmark, yeah, yeah. I think he invited me to be on his podcast, and I think we scheduled a date. But as soon as I saw it was in May, I was just like, all right, I just ignored it. I guess I'll just wait for May to come. I did some podcasts we recorded some episodes last week he and i oh cool you were a guest yeah they're not out yet though damn he's

scraping the bottom of the barrel you want for us you know you don't yeah you don't even have a thousand followers yeah no but i have more than 32 which you said I had on coffee pods and Watts. Oh, is that what I said? Yeah. You're like, I don't know why I like this guy's only got like 32 followers. Is that why you didn't give me a two thumbs up on that? You said I was, it was, I was scattered. It was scattered. Two thumbs up. Yeah. I asked you about the podcast. You said, Oh, you were all over the place or it was all over the place. Well, I think you're more comfortable asking the questions, so they're not as familiar of a role for you. Good. I like that.

You even have my defense in place for me, too. That's good. You're a good dude. That's why you're a good wingman. My favorite subject of all time, we're not having a guest today, people. We are going to talk about the European athletes who may or may not go to the 2021 CrossFit Games. I'm here with Brian. Brian, how do you know all this stuff? People ask me that a lot, actually.

I don't know. I think there's just everyone has something that that like easily sticks in their mind you know i have friends who can always recall the name of the actor in a movie and all the cast list and i'm terrible at that i mean i know the big names but i don't know necessarily what movies who everyone was in but for some reason when it comes to crossfit i just remember like And I'm constantly adding to the… I think the only studying I do is just the work that I do. So just the writing and the research and prepping for all these different things.

That is… The application of that is the studying. Gotcha. So when you're preparing to do commentary, that's when you get your studying in. Yeah. It's, uh, you know, I've been doing this for myself before anyone ever asked me or wanted me for, you know, to do any of it for them. I just like doing it. Well, that's weird. You're weird. Um, just so you know, if you have any porn windows open, I can see everything that's going on in front of you that's right with your glasses like glasses i wear at night you have that picture behind you of a donkey and

it's funny because i just see a donkey but people dm me and they're like that's why do you have that donkey's ass the donkey's butt behind over his shoulder you're what are you trying to say well it's funny i don't mean i mean i just see it i just see a guy on a donkey with a basket i don't even look at the donkey's butt. I mean, you can kind of, it's a side profile. It's more like hindquarters, hindquarters. Yeah, that was from a memory of mine in the Dominican Republic when I was living there about 10 years ago. And it showed up in the painting.

And you put it, you chose that as your backdrop right like i'm just sitting in a chair at my desk with a computer but you're like hey i want to set my my podcast studio with right over here because i want this donkey in there right that was conscious well or no i didn't necessarily know i was going to do this many podcasts when i set it up i had two choices of pictures that could fit in that space, this one, and then one of the, it's a puzzle of the Lord's Supper that I did several years ago, and I really liked the way it looks. But I felt this would be less controversial to put in the background of all the videos that I was potentially making. Is the Lord's Supper, is that the final supper you mean? The one where Jesus is in the middle and there's all these dudes flanking him

on the right and left? I've never heard it called that, the Lord's Supper. Oh, the Last Supper. It's the Last Supper, right? Oh, the Last Supper. Yeah, yeah, that's it, the Last Supper. Are you a religious dude? I wouldn't say so. Oh.

You just like puzzles. Yeah, I used to be pretty good at puzzles when I was doing them more. This is sort of about the CrossFit Games, and then we'll go straight into the regionals. I just want to give one little small rant here. I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding of what it means to be professional. professional. On the very, very, very tip of the spear of what I think of professional is I think of people whose lives are in the hands of other people who are making decisions. Or other people's lives are in your hands with the decisions you make. That would be the situation that would require someone to be the utmost in professional, whatever that means. I know I haven't even defined

it, but I'm going to sort of try to tell you what I think a professional is. And the reason why this comes up is when I hear people or see people saying negative things about Dave, there's two things that they should really know. One, they have no idea what a professional is. A professional is what Dave did in his previous life. For 12 years, he was a Navy SEAL. Actually, that's not true.

For 12 years, he was in the Navy. I don't know how many years he was a SEAL. But when he finally did become a SEAL, he pursued it to the end game, which was to become a SEAL Team 6 operator, to be dev group. And there is no one more professional that I've ever met than Dave. What does that mean? with the utmost clarity, highest level of communication, highest level of belief, highest level of organization with the singular focus of getting the goal done. And so when people say stuff like, oh, he's doing this on his Instagram or he's not professional

because he behaves like this or he did cornrows or they're nitpicking his behavior, I implore you to look at yourself and your definition of professional because you don't know what professional is. Professional is not the guy who runs major league baseball or the CEO of Coca-Cola. Actually that's sellout, no integrity. That's consensus business. That's like someone who has an agenda other than getting the job done. And so it's not that Dave's not professional. It's that you don't recognize a professional. He was a professional at the highest level. People's lives were in his hands and in his teammates' hands. And he not only was he like that, but he was surrounded by a cadre of other men who also practice at that same level.

So I implore you to look at your own definition of what you think professional is because what it really is is you don't recognize professional. You're ignorant. Second, I'm a huge fan of the UFC, and when I'm watching the weigh-ins, if Dana White is not doing the weigh-ins, I turn my head away. And why is that I don't know I but for some reason Dana White is that part of the UFC if I went to a live UFC fight I would look at the fighters but I would also look for where Dana White is sitting and I would be

excited to see Dana White get up and stand up and walk in the ring and it's whether you like him or you don't like him he is the face of UFC and we've grown accustomed to him and we believe him and trust him and he has integrity around the sport around the way it's presented to the fans and so I I can't imagine anyone else in the CrossFit community that I know of no one else I knew at CFHQ, who was better suited for that than Dave. And he's been in that position, I don't know, for 15 years now running the CrossFit Games.

And when he would walk into the stadium in Carson or in Madison, the entire stadium was looking at him. And why is that? Because he's the guy. And whether you like him or don't like him, you would be so bummed if Merkel walked in, or some doofus walked in in a three-piece suit, or just like some just poser.

It's our guy. That's our SEAL Team 6 operator. That's our guy who worked hard. That's our guy who built it up from the foundation. That's our guy that doesn't mince words. Okay, I'm done. And I don't get paid to say this shit. Everyone knows I got fired from there.

I got no skin in the game, and I'm not like... I like the athletes, but this is... There's an aura of Dave Castro around the games that's vital to the success of the games. Period. Don't be a dipshit. Don't be a hater. Look at yourself a little bit. Okay, sorry, Brian.

Tell me about Europe. I mean, I always just want the Americans to win. Let's be honest. And the only reason why I'm doing this is because I have an itch to create another podcast and because I got a DM. You know, the European regionals are really, or sanctionals or whatever they're called, are really, semifinals? Semifinals. Are very important to talk about. Can you talk about them?

And then I called Brian. I'm like, hey, do you know anything about the European semifinals? He's like, actually, it's my favorite. It's close to my heart. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, oh, great. Here we go. So what's going on?

How many semifinals are there in Europe? How many athletes? Let's just start at the top. Two semifinals in Europe this year. It's going to be the Lowlands Throwdown in the Netherlands and the German Throwdown in Germany. But they're both going to be virtual competitions. Oh, really?

How are the Europeans reacting to that? Are they pissed? Well, I'm sure some of them are because like we talked about last time, there's certain athletes that benefit tremendously from having an online competition. that benefit tremendously from having an online competition. And some of the athletes who we expect to do the best in live competition are going to have to battle in a different way than they were hoping to if they want to make it to the games because it's very competitive. Why would they do that?

Is it for the obvious reason there's the logistics issue because of the whole COVID nightmare, COVID response. It's part of the COVID response, not like CrossFit athletes in the community gather. Does that mean that's what's going on? There's some very strict, you know,

lockdowns and guidelines going on in Europe. I think that when they selected these particular countries, they were under the impression that there was a high likelihood they'd be able to have live competition. That more quickly became obvious that wasn't going to happen in Germany. That was announced as one of the first ones to go virtually. And then a couple weeks later, the lowlands were forced to do the same. Where are the lowlands? What country would that be in if they actually went there?

The Netherlands. And when you say virtual, are all of these virtual events on the same platform? Well, there hasn't been any official announcement about that, but they've reshuffled the scheduling so that the first two weeks each have two live competitions. The third week has three virtual competitions. The final week has three virtual competitions and one live competition. So they've shifted the virtual ones to the back and grouped them all on the same weekends. My expectation is that the virtual competitions will be programmed by CrossFit and will be the same for all the online region, all the regions that have to be online or the competitions that have to be online. And when you say they'll all be on the

same, all the virtual competitions will happen at the same time? Over a two-week period. Over a two-week period. And then some people will get, since there's different time zones, some people will get a heads up ahead of the others. I think that they're going to have to for the virtual ones if they do it that way, which to me, that's the way that makes the most sense for them to do it. There's a big debate in the competitive space anyway about whether the semifinals should all have uniform programming. A lot of the athletes feel like they should. I think they should too and uh you know so this can be a bit of an experiment actually you can spin it to be potentially positive if you say okay well let's see crossfit's going to program something for these six competitions online

and the other five that are going live still they'll have individual programming by whoever the programmer is for each event. And we can actually take a look and see how does CrossFit's programming for a potential uniform semifinal stack up or compare to all these other ones. And I like, you know, Chase Ingram and Bill Grundler will do that. They'll analyze the program for all of the competitions. And they may even ask to have me on their show and take a look at them and break them down and say, which one was the best test. We did that this morning about quarterfinals and stage one of the games, actually. Chase and Bill, that was Brian begging to be on your show. I was just on it this morning.

So could the same region, and you may have already said this, could the same region have different workouts because there would be different events? The same continent. So in North America, there are four semifinals. In Europe, there are two. And yes, the original intent was that each of those competitions would have their own programming. CrossFit was going to send them some kind of template. Dave has talked about it a couple of times saying it might say you have to have this many workouts. You need to have some in this time domain, this time domain, this time domain. You need to have a triplet, two couplets, and whatever, those types of things.

But then they would have freedom within the structure. So, yes, the competitions potentially could have been very different. You could have had one semifinal that had— On the same continent. On the same continent. On the same continent. And you could have had one that potentially had running and biking and swimming and another one that had none of those things. I don't know if I approve.

It's tough. I mean there are – in my opinion, there are certain things that you need to test before you get to the games. And in the online setting, it's very difficult to organize it and test running. But we know that the most frequently seen movement at the games is running. So you have to evaluate that before they get there. They have to prove that they can run. You can't have people showing up to the games. How do they do that?

They did it for stage one of the CrossFit Games. They had them do that N nasty Nancy workout that involved five rounds of running, 400 meter runs. And did you do it on one of those true runners or something? I don't, I don't exactly know. No, no, no. It was on a road. They, oh, so they sent CrossFit, sent judges to those athletes and they marked out a 400 meter course or a 200 down, 200 back course, maybe it was 300 down 300 back whatever it was and at the end of the course they had like collars for the barbell and so every time you had to go pick one up and bring it back so the judge had already approved the distance and they said okay

these collars are the ones they need to bring back and that's how they were you know validating it wow okay and um will any of these virtual competitions actually have places where athletes congregate together and do them like does that mean that like some a gym in the netherlands will be like okay we're doing it on this day come on down i don't know to what degree but i think so i mean i've already heard some rumors of some of the guys in uh south america you know gathering two of some of the guys in South America gathering, two or three of the guys who are sort of at the top, like the favorites, and doing the workouts together.

I mean, there's training camps that are organized just for this type of thing. Now, they might not all get their training partners there, but there's definitely a possibility of that happening. And how do the European athletes look this year? How are the men looking? Do you have a top 20 for that too, the same way you had for North America? Yeah, but they only get 10 spots at the games. Because they only have two semifinals.

Yeah, and the way that that's determined is based on open registration in your continent. So historically, the U.S. represents half of the open registration based on this. That's where they get 20 of the 40 spots. Europe represents a quarter, and the rest of the world is the last quarter. So it's not on affiliate numbers. It's on registration. And it has nothing to do with how well the athletes in those regions do at the games. If it was that way, I did a study on this actually. If they did it based on performance, the European women would be deserving of 13 places instead of 10.

But the European men would only be deserving of 9. Sounds about right. Yeah. That's not surprising. Let me check my numbers. Yep. Sounds all right. Yeah, it's not surprising. Let me check my numbers. Yep, yep, that's exactly what I had. 9.2 and 13.7, is that what you had? And you just rounded down for the women.

Okay. So the cool thing, the reason I wanted to say this right away, but we got sidetracked. The really cool thing that I like about europe as opposed to the u.s is the diversity of the athletes especially from of the countries they're coming from so of the 60 men who are competing they represent by the way i call bullshit on that who gives a shit about diversity but go on no it's looking for there's they come from 19 different countries and they have no no no individual country has more than seven athlete male athletes competing out of the 60 well it's because in the u.s it's boring it's just north

america it's just u.s and canada we're just we just want the fittest who it just it just makes me sick when people you triggered me you triggered me i apologize i do think that is actually really cool to have 19 different countries there if they're deserving oh that's what we're going to find out. All right. But what I, you know, what I like even more is that when I project who's going to,

who's going to qualify, there's still a lot of diversity. It's not like there's 19 countries represented, but eight of the 10 people are coming from one country. You wanted to start with the men, please. Unless you have something about women, you'd like to start with them first. It's better to start with the men? Please. Unless you have something about women, you'd like to start with them first. It's better to start with the men.

The women in Europe are potentially the most interesting, you know, congregation of athletes in the entire world. I get it. The men, there's, in my opinion, there are two guys that are kind of head and shoulders above everyone else, and those are Björn Carl Gumundsson and Jona Koski. two guys that are kind of head and shoulders above everyone else. And those are Bjorgman, Carl Gumanson and Yonikoski.

Um, so I kind of have them as like the one in one a in Europe right now. And really from that point on, you know, there's a lot of parody. There's a lot of, uh, young guys that are like,

I think poised to make a big move. And then there's some older guys that are, you know, looking to prove that they're still relevant. So the next day I have on my list is Frederic Agidius. He's obviously a veteran. After him, I've got four young guys, though. Lazar Dukic, he's from Serbia.

George Oskarovic from Greece. Andre Houdet from Denmark. And Uldis Upenex, who's been like the five or six times in a row fittest guy in Latvia. All these guys are young. They've got a lot of experience, though. They've done well in some major competitions. Lazar Dukic was top five in Dubai.

Georges Kerevis was top five at strength and depth. Andre Houdet has competed at Filthy 150. Uldis Upanex has been to the Games, actually, in 2019 as one of the national champions, and he did okay. I mean, obviously, it was very difficult to make the top ten and get any recognition, but he made it through about 30th place. That means he made it past the first day? He made it past the first day, yeah.

And then I think he got, he was able to do one more event, the ruck, and then he got cut after the, what is it, the sprint couplet. Did he do better than V Valner or Fikowski? One, one cut worse than Fikowski, two cuts worse than Valner, but they all went home on the same day. Gotcha.

Good. Well, actually Valner made it till that, that, that Saturday morning. So was that 10 names you just gave me? Cause like, as soon as you start saying the foreigners names,

I just, I just check out. That was seven. After that, I do have a couple,, Elliot Simmons and Adrian Munviller in eighth and ninth. And then the guy I have in tenth is Joshua Alchama. He's a young guy out of the U.K. He's been around a little bit, but he's out of the U.K. and he's living and training in Dubai right now. Put Elliot Simmons higher up on the ranking.

That's a name I can say. How come I didn't hear any Russian names? Weren't there some crazy threats coming out of Russia? Is Russia part of Europe? No. So Russia has been redistributed into the Asian continent, and that's why a few months ago I wrote an article saying that the road to the games in Asia goes through Russia.

Okay. And just – I know this isn't about the Asian semifinals, but are there any Russians who are going to make it? Well, I mean Roman Krennikoff and Alexander Ilin are probably the two favorites amongst the men there. But Roman most likely won't be able to get to the United States again. I don't know. There's a couple other guys that have done really well. There's this guy, Stas Soledov. He's amazing in online competition.

Asia's already been announced as going virtual, so I would say he stands to benefit greatly from that and could make a push. So, yeah, I'd expect we see at least one Russian male at the Games. And same thing on the female side. I have three of the top four girls being from Russia and Asia. So before we get back up to Europe, one more question on our show. You said Roman probably couldn't come again. You mean he qualified before to come to the United States for the games

and he couldn't make it? What was the hang-up? A visa? No. Can't talk about it. Oh, really? It's not the current situation. It is.

Mafia? What? Criminal activity? Chechna? No, no, no. What? So he most likely won't be able to. He tested positive?

No. He competed last year at the Games because it was virtual. So he was able to compete. But if he had made the top five, he wouldn't have been able to get to California. And yes, the year before he was unable. 2018, he won the European Regional. But he didn't get to go to the Games because of... Just tell me why you can't tell me.

You don't have to tell me why he can't come. Tell me why you can't tell me you don't have to tell me why he can't come tell me why you can't tell me he can't come it's inappropriate I don't know if it's supposed to be known sexist it's racist I mean Jesus all right so you have insider information we'll talk we'll talk up we'll talk off here okay so how do you have any concerns about what's going on in Europe when we see three guys whose names we've seen just forever and ever? Is there not development going on in Europe within CrossFit? How are Goodmanson, Koski, and Koski,

who looks like he's had some serious injuries in the past that made it look like he probably could never make it back to the Games. I mean, a back injury is serious. And then Frederic Gideas, who's like a father. I mean, you have him in the top three, and he's kind of like the stepping stone of CrossFit Games athletes. You know what I mean by that? Like he shows up there just so the good guys have someone to compete against.

How are these guys sticking around so long? He's got a great body. He's got a great body, honestly. Maybe one of the finest in the business. You know, I think about this question all the time, and we are still in the experiment. We still don't know how long an athlete can stay relevant in the sport, and that length of time is never going to –

I think it will never be longer than it is now because of how young the sport is. So these guys just have such a massive base of experience in all the things that are relevant. They've seen it all. They've done it all. They've made the mistakes. They've had the success. They've had the injuries. They've bounced back from it. They've navigated changes in their life. They know what it's like to line up against guys that intimidate them. They know what it's like to guys that are intimidated by them. They've narrowly missed making it at a regionals and felt that heartbreak.

They felt the complete opposite when they do qualify. So they just have so much of that, not to mention just the hours and years and massive amount of training that they've done that you just can't replicate that. Occasionally you get a physical specimen that's such an outlier that can come up at a young age and break in. But it's rare. It usually takes time. And these guys have already established that foundation.

If they're in a good rhythm where they're not injured and they have a good understanding of what kind of training volume they can handle, yeah, they're hard to beat. There's some things now in the CrossFit Games that matter that didn't matter as much before. There's some things now in the CrossFit Games that matter that didn't matter as much before. You have to also be able to do some things that are even some of the greatest athletes in the world can't do, like walking on your hands, the exceptional work with double-unders, GHDs. I mean, there's some things that pop up that are just like these people have really honed the skill of doing these activities. Even a guy who's like a talented athlete, never done double-unders, you him the rope and you might be able to knock off 20 and you're like, damn, but 200 in a row. And now we, now you have to, you have to have trained that. And so I also, I also, I use that as an example to kind of agree with what you're saying. Yeah. There's not only

if, even if you are an amazing specimen at a young age, like if you haven't been training these things, there's guys who are less capable than you who are better than you. True? I mean, it happens at a micro level in affiliates all the time. You know, I'm not very good, but I can do all the skills. And so there's guys that come in with way more physical potential than me. But even after two and three years of training,

you know, they're just keeping up with me. It's just because I've been doing it longer. Do you see any of these three guys as a threat to the podium or first place? Big time. Goodwin, Sinkoski, or Gittes? Oh, you do? Yeah, BKG and Yonikoski I view as legitimate top five threats this year. And why? What have you seen different in them now?

Is that because you looked at their open scores? Or what do you see? No, no. Their open and quarterfinal performances are completely irrelevant, as with all the people who can threaten for the podium. Well, BKG is perennial top five material. I mean, last year he finished eighth in the stage one by like 10 points or something. He missed from being in the top five.

And that was just, I mean, it's incredibly tight on both the men's and women's sides. You know, the next four spaces, five spaces out was within 10 or 15 points of being in. It was, in my opinion, you know, I know that they had to do what they had to do. But like if they had been able to take 10 athletes, I think that it would have worked a lot better. But they could only have five, so that's how it is. Anyway, BKG, yeah, he's always a threat. Why do you think it would have worked better?

You're saying that if you ran the games, you would have led in the top 10? No, not necessarily, because I don't know what restrictions they were having to navigate around. But the competition is so tight, 4 through 10, that you are missing out on a ton of drama and and athletes who, in my opinion, no matter what the format, are deserving to be in that competition on both the men's and women's sides. If you go down to like 20th place, 20th or 30th, even in the teens, there's it was a big drop off after like 9 or 10 on both sides, and there was very, very little margin between 4 and 10.

That's valid, and I like that. You know, off-subject here, I was just picturing in my head, I thought Street Horner was a European athlete. I saw him. He was in Jacob Heppner's – one of his posts, and he made a comment, and I said to him, hey, I'd love to have you on my podcast if you do speak English. But because I really – I thought he was a foreigner. I thought he was a European. And, I mean, he responded nicely, but I was like, wow, I wonder if he thought, like, I was an insult because, like, that was just, like, sarcasm, but it wasn't. But the reason why I thought it was a European – He's a fascinating

case though he's not in in what regard he's not in the top 120 but there's speculation that there's going to be backfilling and he'll probably get in and once he gets in 125 okay they'll be close but if he does get in is there is there going be backfilling? It seems that way. CrossFit published an article last night that said there would be. And give me some circumstances that would—so people who don't understand what we mean by backfilling. We're saying 120 people are going to qualify for the games, and 15 people might not be able to show up. Tell me what reasons why—what are some of the reasons why someone who qualified wouldn't go to the games. I mean, we know Roman, the mysterious reason.

No, not to the games. They won't compete in the semifinals because they're going to compete on a team. Oh, okay. So we won't even see them compete. You have to decide before the semifinals. There's athletes who competed and qualified as an individual and also as a member of a team. There's some that qualified as an individual and also qualified as a master's athlete. So they may be forced to choose one route or the other at this point in the season.

I need to draw a pyramid and look at this. Okay, so what you're saying is a street horner hasn't even qualified for the semifinals yet. But if he gets in, he'll be a threat to go to the games. Right, and he's three weeks away. Three, four weeks away from the first potential one, yeah. And, okay, okay, I feel you. So my point was going to be is that if you look at the, I thought Street Horner was European because he just looks so clean and like fastidious and just like so tight.

Like he just looks like a European. Like a Gideon looks that way too. You know what I mean? Just like everything perfect. And then in the middle of – like their hygiene is impeccable. And then in the middle, you have the Americans and then you have the Canadians and their hygiene is just all whack. Look at Vellner.

So, okay, let's get back on track here. So yeah, good. Matter of fact, there was one year where I thought Goodwin might actually win the games. So I get him. How about Janikowski? Isn't he kind of like, yeah, he can win an event, but he eventually shits the bed. He just doesn't

seem well-rounded as opposed to the other guys. He definitely is more of a peak. He's the opposite of BKG. I mean, BKG is one of these guys that will never have a top five finish, but he'll never have anything outside the top 20 either. He's just 8th, 10th, 9th, 11th, 8th, you know, over and over again. Yonakoski is good for a first, a third and a fifth over the course of the weekend, but he's also good for a 35th, a 37th and a 40th over the course of the

weekend. That's the, that's a problem. I don't think he's going to have that problem this year. I think that he's gotten stronger in the areas he needs to get stronger. And he'd had a knee surgery in 2018 or maybe two knee surgeries, took that year off, and I feel he's been more pragmatic and mature in his approach to training so that he's more prepared for the stress and duration of the competitions when he needs to do them. I endorse both of them. The time I spent with both of them, they're both amazing guys. Gentlemen, be great champions.

Easy to interview. Smiley. Good looking. Okay, and what about Frederick Agidius? Why do you have him on there? Isn't he like way, way past his prime? How old is he, like 42? Frederick Agidius is one of only two men who's placed inside the top 100

every year in the Open since it started. Wow. The other one? Wow, yeah. Tell me, who's the other one? You know. Oh, Froning. Froning.

That's some company to be in right there. Man. Frederick, I take everything back I said. That is freaking crazy. I owe that stat to Nico. You think he knows that? Yeah, probably because Nico knows it. And Nico and him are friends. Man, that is some impressive shit.

I need some sort of stat where me and Froning are alone in it. I'll see what I can do. I'll see if I can dig something up for you you can run an algorithm and okay is there anything else you want to say about the men before we we go over to the most interesting group of crossfit athletes in the world yeah just just to say that there's a lot of other men in europe who can definitely take spots from those guys it's not it's not a sure thing at all. That's just the guys I have in the top 10, but there's another group of 10 to 15 guys behind

that. And if they pop up in the top 10, it won't surprise me. And we won't be disappointed at the games. There's a lot of, of young guys that are starting to be very good in Europe. I think you've, you've, you've, uh, you've convinced me of that and you presented that case. Well, the, the sport is like one by split seconds. That's amazing what you said about six through ten, how close they all are, four through ten. Okay, let's talk about the women. Who is in Europe? What if you moved out of Europe?

Are you still in Europe? Yeah, citizenship's citizenship. How do they decide this? Citizenship. It's citizenship and it's a hard line. And actually, I believe, you know, CrossFit's in the process of validating citizenship. They're taking that very seriously. So yeah, if you're a Catherine David's daughter who lives in Boston, you are still competing in one of the European semifinals. Now, because they're both virtual, she's not going to have the stress of how do I get over there? How do I navigate the quarantining rules and all these other procedures?

So she's got that stress off her back, which is, I would say, a huge plus for her. However- It just caused me to speculate that there's some inside, that there's some home cooking going on for the reason why that the European ones are done virtual. Sam Briggs also is living in the U.S., so she can avoid all those complications. But I would say that in general, both Katrin and Sam would rather compete live, like a landslide would rather compete live than online. Even if they could save the journey over the bond? Yeah.

I mean, when you talk about athletes who thrive in a live competition setting, they're at the top of the list. Okay. So give me these top 10 women. Top 10 women? It sounds like you may even want to go 20 because you're saying it's so damn good. It is. But what you're going to see here is even though the women's field in Europe is very deep and very good, the best girls are still the best girls.

You're going to recognize a lot of these names because they're deserving of this accolade until the young guns can start penetrating this. So I've got Kristen Holt at the top. She's 35 years old. She's Masters eligible this year, but she's the epitome of consistency. I've got Katrin right behind her. Katrin finds a way. She always finds a way to be right up there

at the top of her semifinal, regional, whatever it is, and she's been the most consistent outside of Tia in the top five in the past six years at the Games. You can't take that away from her. Behind them, I have Laura Horvath. most consistent outside of Tia in the top five in the past six years at the games. You're like, we can't take that away from her behind them. I have Laura Horvath, Laura, you know, everyone knows that she's got incredible potential in a majority of things. And historically there's basically been one thing that holds her back. And it's, and that seems like that weakness is kind of narrowing and narrowing. And, uh And she just won the quarterfinals in Europe.

She seems to be happy. I think she's training now in Mallorca with her brother. And actually the girl who's fifth on my list, Gabriela Magala, is training over there too. And in between them, I have Annie Thor's daughter. She's coming back from pregnancy and she's just, I mean, I never thought I would have her this high on the list she's over exceeded from what I know her own expectations in both the open and quarterfinals like she didn't think that she would be this far

along in her training and she's loving it and doing very very well I thought she'd be a bubble athlete for this because of the timing coming out of the pregnancy, but she totally convinced me at this point that she's still a real force in Europe. So those are the top five. You don't have Sam Briggs in there. She's coming up. I need a drink of water. Two questions from what you just said.

What is Laura Horvath's weakness and what country is Kristen Holte from? I thought she was American. I thought she lived in Cookville. Kristen is from Norway, and there are several young Norwegian athletes. Is that close to Cookville? Yeah, it's a short flight. There are several other Norwegian athletes up and coming looking to make a breakthrough as well,

but she's still the top athlete over there for me. I mean, Jackson Dahlstrom is up. She has a size problem, right? Kristen Holte has a size problem? I don't think so. I mean, look at what she's done at the Games. She's top 10, four years running or something like that. By that, I mean if she was 10 pounds,

if she was two inches taller and 10 pounds heavier we might be looking at a CrossFit Games champion potentially I don't have the stats in front of me but I don't think she's that yeah you might be right I mean she seems I don't

I can't think of too many CrossFit Games athletes I've ever said this about besides Josh Bridges she's petite I don't think she's petite. I don't think she's that much smaller than, like, Carrie Pierce. Okay. All right. All right.

Take your word on it. I mean, I've only seen them on – I don't remember what she looked like in person. I mean, the average woman at the Games is, like, 5'4", 5'4 1⁄2". I bet she's 5'2 1⁄2 or 5'3". I mean, you could go back to the first games. I mean, Jolie's petite, a little taller, skinnier. Then Kristen Clever is definitely petite. Yeah, Camila's not very big at all. True, true.

I don't know if I'd give her petite. I didn't say that. Okay, so sorry. So Norway, she comes and she's got a bunch of young guns on her tail. And then what about Laura Horvath? What's her weakness? Well, people always say it's handstand push-ups, but it's not just handstand push-ups. At this point, I think it needs to be a strict deficit handstand push-up on parallettes. That is the only thing that's really going to stop her. you said that like you're talking to someone dave strict handstand push-ups so you're saying that her her handstand push-ups are world class now and she can compete with the best of them no but she they won't prevent her from from earning the spot that she's capable of on the leaderboard anymore okay they're good enough now. That's like,

this is the thing that CrossFit athletes need to, you know, should realize at this point because it's been proven is in certain capacities, you just need to be good enough. And then they probably realize it. I just don't realize it. I hope that they, that they realize it.

Yeah. And tell me about Gabrielle. What was her name, your fifth pick? Gabriella Magala. So she actually podiumed as a teenager at the Games a few years ago. I think it was 2017. She's been competing in some big competitions around the world. She's from Poland, fittest in Poland.

She bowed out in event number one at the CrossFit Games, the first cut, because she also has one big weakness, which is upper body pulling. It's a little broader than Laura's, but she's also a little younger than Laura. And the Legless Rope Climbs just basically took her out. I had her projected top 20 that year. She didn't make it through the first event. Depending on where that event falls, if she was able to do several of the other events, we would have got to see what she could do,

but you know, we didn't get to this year. If you had a week, if you had a weakness, a rope climbs or handstand pushups and you had, and which one would you rather have? Uh, I think that rope climbing is more fun.

I mean, but let me, so I'll tell you, I would rather have rope climbing be my weakness because I think it's easier to do. If handstand pushups are your weakness, I think you have a little more work to do. It's like, it's a, what do you think? They are my weakness. I'm not very good, especially at strict handstand pushups. It's very hard for me.

I have long arms and I'm just don't have the greatest, I don't have, I have terrible upper body pressing strength and I work on it all the time and it's been years and years and I'm still way, way, way below par on that. So yeah. I would think like the vast majority of people could improve more quickly doing legless rope climbs. How are Laura Horvath's legless rope climbs? She's fine. She's fine on the upper body pulling. She's fine. Alright, that shows a wrap. Tell me, what else do you got about the women before I start talking about Dave again? The last five girls I have in the qualifying

spots are... And actually, I'm a little nervous about this one because online has proven to be very difficult for her, but Karen Frejova is a legitimate athlete in our sport she's very very good and i really hope that she makes it through to the games because in the game setting in a season where she gets to actually finish the games i think she's got top 10 potential uh sam briggs i still have up there in seventh emma mcquade from ire, very good in online competition, very fit individual.

She was knocking at the door of the game sixth place in regionals one year, very close. Camilla Solomonson-Hellman, I think she's often forgotten amongst the European women, but she's a mainstay at the games, man. The past several years, she's always been there. She's very good, very consistent. She finishes like 18th to 25th, so you don't recognize it, but she's there every year. And then the last spot I'm given to Turi Helgedotter. She's another super, super consistent athlete. And another one, when she gets to the game, she finishes in the top half of the field.

So she just, you know, it's, it's harder for her to get there out of Europe than it is to beat half the women at the games. I want to go back to another question. I can't remember if you answered or not. I apologize if you did. Just tell me. No, you're not going to answer it again. But when we were talking about reasons to not – so all of these people are going to compete that you said.

All 10 of those people along with 20 more. How many people are – 60. 60 are? 60. 60 total. 60. In each virtual event or both? 30 and 30. Okay.

So those 60 people are going to compete and there's going to be 10 women who go total from that 60. Yep. And so we were talking about reasons why those 10 might not end up going to the games. And we already mentioned Roman. what are some other reasons oh no to the games that i think they you know they would all go uh don't it's i guess if they couldn't get here okay okay and and what reason

why wouldn't they do the semi-finals oh, because if they were going to compete on a team. We talked about that. Okay, yeah. I'm just slow. Bear with me here. And when is the team stuff going down? It already happened. The quarterfinals already happened last weekend.

And the semifinals will happen the same weekend as the individuals. That's why you can't do both. I sense you're getting a little short with me. happen the same weekends as the individuals. That's why you can't do both. Ah. I sense you're getting a little short with me. Like, you're like, dude, you still haven't figured this out? No, no. I realized I should have added that in because it was kind of the final clarification piece.

Okay. And were there any surprises on the teams? Well, the surprise on the teams is that you can't navigate the CrossFit Games site to find out who actually competed on the teams is that you can't navigate the crossfit games site to find out who actually competed on the teams you can't no i made a four minute uh instagram video explaining why this is what you can find out and what you can't find out and why it's a problem for people like me that are trying to tell the stories of the athletes who are competing and doing incredible things. And which is funny about that.

And, you know, this is close to home. There used to be a media team. And one of the reasons why the media team was removed was because the jughead who was in charge at the time thought that it was more that the outside world could could tell our story and that we didn't need to tell our own story anymore. But what you're saying is the data is not even there if you wanted to. There are a lot of people trying to tell the stories of the athletes, of the sport, of the community, of the methodology, of the company. And there's some information that's really easy to get. There's some that's hard to get. And there's some that if CrossFit doesn't make it accessible,

no one will ever have. They have the rights to it. They collect it. They format how it's researchable by someone like me. And in the case of the team competition this past weekend, I cannot click on a team and know who the athletes that competed on that team are with any certainty. And that's like a super,

to me is a super important thing to know. And also a really easy fix in terms of the formatting on the computer. You literally have to add one word, competitors, alternates. That's it. And then everyone can know. And then that would let you also talk about the individuals more also.

It's not only damaging to the conversation around the teams, but as you were stating, it's very relevant to the individual competition. Yeah, I mean, I could go to Instagram and search this team and try to see if they posted a video and see if I can identify who the athletes are. But you know, on the team side, even someone who does have this information locked in their head pretty well, it's very hard to know everyone because there's so many, you know, usually at the games, there's a total of 80 individual athletes, but there's, there's what, 40 teams of four or six. There's like, you know, three to five times as many of them. It's hard to know them all. When you say alternates, what does that mean? Do you take the alternate with you to the games? So in the open, you could list as many people from your affiliate as you want on your team. For the quarterfinals, you had to narrow it down to two men and two women who were your competitors

and one man and one woman if you wanted to. you don't have to have alternates that are listed as your alternates and the alternates are there in case someone gets injured basically but not if they're injured in the competition once you start the competition you have to finish with the four people you have but if in the week leading up to it, you were to get injured, then I could fill in and we could say, yep, Brian's in, Savan's out. So you could put the alternate in for the semifinals, but could you put the alternate in, let's say after the semifinals, someone gets injured, could you put the alternate in for the games? Yeah. So the alternate is always an option throughout the season. And even in, let's say in the case that you were injured,

and I competed and we qualified, and then you got healthy, you could come back in at the games. Wow, they sound very flexible. Wow. I think that it makes sense. I mean, the worst situation is that you have a team who's been training, training, ready to compete, and then two days before the game, someone tweaks something, and then the other three athletes are just stranded. So at least you have a team who's been training, training, ready to compete, and then two days before the game someone tweaks something and then the other three athletes are just stranded.

So at least you have that option. Even if it's not your best person, it's a person that you can feel at the games and still give the other people the opportunity to compete. When you look at these men and women that you said who are going, your picks for the European semifinals, do you see any of these people in your final pick this year? I know it's a little early to commit to anything, but you suspect any of these people will be on the podium at the games,

Goodman, Senn, Koski, Gideas, Holte, David's Doter, or Horvath? Jairus, Holte, David's daughter, or Horvath? I think it's more likely that we'll see, actually, I think, it's a tough question. I like Tia and Cara. I mean, I just think they're kind of, you know, they're the ones to beat right now. So I think that only leaves one podium spot on the women's side. And I think they're, you know, the best European woman probably has like the inside path to that spot. So I think that there's a good chance we'll see a European there. Now, there are some girls in the U.S. that can threaten that spot for sure.

We saw last year, you know, Carrie Pierce. By that spot, you mean third place. Third place, yeah. Carrie, Hayley Adams, Brooke Wells, Amanda Barnhart, Danny Spiegel. Third place, yeah. It's like they're all in that conversation too. So there's a lot of opportunity from Europe on the women's side. You know, it's interesting when you say Haley Adams name. I don't think it would be stupid to say, hey, one year she's going to show up to the games and just fuck shit up. And we're going to be blown away that she's going to smoke to you. Like, holy shit.

I mean, she really looks that good combined with her young age right her inexperience her lack of full development as a human being physically but you're forgetting one thing yes oh her training partner the team she i don't know if i've ever met an athlete who's more mentally tough and mentally fierce than her. And I mean that. She is a different breed mentally. Is she mean? Is she nice? I've never met her.

She's incredibly nice and she's incredibly mean in competition. Interesting. Yeah, I saw something. I don't remember what it was. I mean, everything I saw, she presented very nice, pleasant, young lady. But there was something I saw where I'm like, oh, shit. This chick is cutthroat. She rode a marathon row in Rich's barn with no music and no one else doing it and never got off the rover by herself. And that's when he decided, yes, you can train with me.

She competed at the Games this last year with a badly sprained ankle and never said a word about it to anyone. She's 19 years old. If you're 19 years old'm i'm 33 years old i wanna if i have a rolled ankle and i'm competing against you i'm gonna tell everyone about it you're gonna you're gonna call the your your competitors parents and tell them yeah okay so so yeah i mean she's definitely so so but but i also thought that when when young sarahigmund's daughter came on the scene. I saw her doing stuff at the games and I was like, holy shit, this is the next Rich Froning. Yeah, but remember what Rich said. He said 90% of the games is mental.

Everyone at the games has a physical capacity. Or at least 30 out of the 40 have the physical capacity to win, to do well. But they don't all have the mental. That's why the live competition is mandatory. That's why the virtual competition will never be in my mind on the same level as a live competition and what you can do when the chips are down, there's nowhere else to go. You can't hide from the conditions. You can't pick what time you do the workouts. You have to go against the guy who wants to kill you. And you know it. And there's people who can thrive in that environment and others who, it's not that they don't thrive, they're just not as good. And it's mental. Does Hayley Adams eventually take the throne from Tia?

Well, I think Hayley can win at the games. I don't know if she'll be the first person to win after Tia doesn't win, but she's 20 years old. I think she'll win at least one games of the next before she's 26. Let me say this. Without looking at hardly any of the data except her age and where she trains, you could conceivably say that she has a greater room to improve than her peers. Yeah, especially because… What we see year to year will probably be bigger improvements on her part than her peers. I mean, I just wrote an article for South China Morning Post about her. Her quarterfinal performance was world-class. She had finishing placements in North America of 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 27th,

and then 517th in the front squat. If you take her best four performances, that's only 36 points. And in the workout she was 27th, it was that sprint workout at the end of the competition. It was like a two-and-a-half-minute workout. And you know from regionals, like those workouts, you can be world-class but finish 20th because it's like five seconds. So I'm not even, you know, she smashed all the other workouts and the front squat's the front squat. The thing about the front squat is there's thousands of people competing in

the quarterfinals. So if you're bad in that event, you're really punished for it on the leaderboard. So she's just kind of casually sitting there 33rd in North America. No one's thinking about her and that's how she wants it to be. And when there's more tests, you'll see her right up at the top. How many points did she have with those four workouts? 36 points, not including the front squat? 36. If you look at Amanda Barnhart, who won the Continent for North America quarterfinal,

her total points was 104. Her best four workouts were 62, 26 points worse than Haley. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. And it's Haley Adams petite.

She, she's small. She got it. I mean, she's, she's five, five, I think.

So she's like, I think a really good height for a competitive. That's a grown, that's a grown assass man, 5'5". Well, maybe the guys that you do podcasts with usually. Is there anything you want to say to close with? No, just I agree with a lot of the stuff you said about Dave. Sometimes I'm critical about decisions that the CrossFit Games team makes,

but I'm also always aware that they're forging a sport and they're not intentionally making mistakes. They're trying to figure out what the best solution is and sometimes they have some really difficult decisions to make. I do think that they could be better at listening to some of the outside feedback in terms of getting to a better place sooner at times. But, you know, overall, they're a company that when push comes to shove, they get it done. They make it happen. It's generally been good, and I'm supportive of them.

I know I'm going to get shit on for this, but I disagree about the outside feedback. Outside feedback is horrible. Well, and maybe, and maybe one of the reasons why is because there's so much of it. So you have to sift through it and there becomes a, there becomes a, I'm not saying they should listen to everything that comes from the outside, but I think there are a couple of voices in the space that are regularly contributing positive thoughts and that CrossFit should have their kind of ear to the street, so to speak, and trying to pick out those couple of voices and select them and talk to them.

Even if they don't give a shit about them, just listen and make them feel like they got heard? Yeah, and then six months later, pawn their off ideas your own. You would do great in corporate America. Well, that's what happens all the time because people like ideas to be their own. This happens unintentionally at times. I'll hear you say something. I'll forget that you said it. Six months later, I'll have an idea, and I'll think it's my own idea. But really, you've planted that

seed in me and then I carry forward with it. And there's times that that happens intentionally. I am convinced there's times it happens and the person has no idea they're doing it. Of course. Of course. 90% of what comes out of my mouth was inspired by something my wife told me. But I'm fully aware of it. I stopped. That was good.