The Sevan Podcast - #353 - Anikha Greer CrossFit Quarterfinals Submission Fiasco

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

Talking with Anikha Greer about her current situation with a submission error during the CrossFit Quarterfinals that took her qualifying to the CrossFit Semifinals to out of the season. Anikha is a phenom 18-year-old CrossFit athlete out of Prince Edwards Island in Canada. In 2020, she was slated to compete in the teens division at the Games. That qualification was nullified due to COVID-19 frenzy. In 2021, she missed out on qualifying to the CrossFit Games as an individual by one placement at the Atlas Games semi-final. She broke out into the mainstream CrossFit scene after an event win at Wodaplooza this year catapulted her following literally overnight. She is now out of a qualifying spot for the 2022 CrossFit Semi Finals due to a submission error on the last workout of Quarterfinals. She would've have been in 17th in North America had her scores been submitted and received. ----------------------- Partners: https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://www.barbelljobs.com/ - WORLD'S #1 JOB BOARD FOR THE CROSSFIT COMMUNITY https://thesevanpodcast.com/ - OUR WEB 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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exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Bam, we're live. Annika, you look like you're 12. How old are you?

I'm 18. Let me see some ID. They're getting younger on the show here. 16, 18. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me on. Are you tripping?

Are you stable? I mean, I'm as stable as I'm going to be. You worked your ass off for – when did you find CrossFit? When I was 13, just turned 13. And you just turned 19? No, I'm not 19 till June. Oh, wow. Yeah.

I think it says in your profile, you're 19. Yeah. It's, uh, I have one of those, those weird birthdays where it's between, at least when I was a teenager, I missed the, like, I only got three years instead of four because my birthday is between the Open and the Games. So it's like your birthday as of that competition year. So technically, like, as of 2022, I'm 19, but not till June. Another error by CrossFit. No, I'm just joking.

That's what I'm walking into here. Keep walking the worst, Brian. brian friend annika greer i just asked to see her id she is um 18 years old um i was just saying that on the uh on the website it says that she's 19 which website on the crossfit games website i think i think it usually reflects the age the athlete will be at the games if they make the games. Gotcha. And I think she was just explaining that to me. Okay. Stealing my thunder.

Look how many books she's read. Very well read. Is that your house or are you in a bookstore? My house basically is a bookstore, but I'm at my dad at uh at the university because my wi-fi is terrible at home so common theme here what what state are you in uh i'm in canada so i'm in prince edward island that's the country like that's above us right i'm in i'm in the united states you're up there yeah the great white north yeah why did you do your um open in vegas or sorry your quarterfinals in vegas why did you come down from canada um because i'm all alone here truthfully and i met a lot of the underdogs

at waterpalooza and we really connected and i mean one of our goals for this season was to find somewhere for me to to like spend a longer period of of time and train just because i'm waterpalooza really showed how uh used to being alone i was and not having that push from other people so it was just like we knew we wanted to go to vegas at some point um and with there being no west coast semi it was like now it's probably the best time let's go get you uncomfortable during quarters and throw down there so yeah and so you just hit up justin kotler He's the, he's the, um, the man in charge over at underdogs. And you said, Hey, can I come on down for quarterfinals? And he's, he opened up his

arms and you came down. It was, so we had met at Waterpalooza and Justin, like we were instantly kind of big fans of each other. Um, I have a pretty good, like vibe detector and I really liked him. And so did my coach Brett coach Brett and anyways it was Cooper who kind of set that up because Cooper is like my agent and Danielle's agent and he's very close with the underdogs so he uh he kind of set that up I mentioned it to Coop and Cooper's like boom done I heard Danielle got rid of Cooper as an as uh her agent because um he brought you down is that true yeah maybe I heard a rumor. To get one thing clear, Danielle was the one who invited me to stay with her.

I had prior arrangements, and she overrode that and was like, no, no, no, Monica's going to stay with me. So that was Danielle's call, not mine. She wanted to spike your drink or something. She wanted to give you a roofie or some X-lax or something. Fuck up your game. Keep a close eye. Keep a close eye. So you come down there.

And when you came down there, did you come down with anyone? You said we. No, by yourself. Just myself. Brett, my coach, came for actual quarters. But I went down like a full training week early to get like kind of the feel of how i would feel if i wanted to be there longer term um and get some like good training and get used to the the dry air i still don't really have a voice um because oh that okay

okay so this isn't your voice no i don't sound like a chain smoker i promise uh but yeah i went down a bit early got used to everything and stuff before for some okay so that's interesting because i was guessing that maybe that was from crying um just okay well just to vouch for you every time i go to las vegas within a few hours of being there i get a bloody nose and not like a bad one but you know like when i'm when i pick a booger they're red and so that is the i mean that is vegas yeah and i have i have asthma too so it was just like double whammy i was i was wheezing for a bit but i liked it i like the heat tell me your coach's name brett who roberts he owns my

he coached my very first crossfit teens class ever i'm trying to find him on, you know what his Instagram account is. I'm trying to find him. He's private, but he's seven, eight, two coach Brett. Ah, okay. Okay. And he's been your coach since you've been 13 since when you started. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. Um, so you were, so you're, so the scene is, is that you're up in Canada, you're training. And have you ever gone to the CrossFit Games before in the teens division? Missed it by one point. Injured myself, then qualified in second to Emma Carey, and it got canceled because of COVID.

So never as a teen, no. Okay. And tell them about last year. And then last year, 17, and I missed the CrossFit Games by one point again. Wow. But this time as an individual. So it's been a good uh four years and

now five it's good you know whose story that sounds familiar to brent fukowski yeah there you go susan i was thinking about that too right when she said that i like him so i'm not mad about that comparison me too i love him he's dope i think he's cool yeah me too um like I've told my kids that Brent Fikowski is really Santa Claus. That's how much I like him. He's a tooth fairy. No, no, no. Pat Vellner is a tooth fairy. It's all Canadian. So one year you missed it by one point. Another year you made it but COVID. And so you missed it by one point, teens, then made teens, but there was no teens because of COVID. And then you missed going as an individual last year by one point.

A couple of points, but yeah, like three seconds. I also did an extra clean and jerk on Gretel. Um, and they didn't get in crossword games. Didn't give that back to me. So it was like an extra clean and jerk one more snatch.

It was like a, one of those one second margin types things, but it was like maybe three points or something, but yeah, sixth. Okay. What is this? Sorry to interrupt your story. What is this?

This old man cracks me up. Who's that? It's definitely about me. Definitely. What the fuck is this guy talking about? Shave this shit off and look younger than your mama. Okay. So you come down there and you're really

pumped and is there, do you have the whole thing laid out on how you're going to, what days you're going to do the workout? Have you and, um, Brett, um, not Brent Fikowski, Brett, have you and Brett, your coach laid it out? Okay. These are the days you're going to do the workouts. This is, this is how you're going to submit them. Here's the computer are you like okay i'm just going to figure out what kotler and gang are doing and do it that way exactly one of one of my best qualities i guess is i'm like pretty adaptable so we were just kind of like like i honestly didn't really talk to brett until he got down there and even then even like the underdogs hadn't really laid much out until we knew what the workouts were because it's kind of hard to plan like time to maintain all that and what we're

going to be doing first, like, unless you know them. So no, I just rolled with it. And once they got announced, that's when we kind of laid everything out and I just did what, just did what they told me. Okay. And can you give me an example of what that looks like? The first workout was announced Friday, right? Is that how it worked, Brian? Thursday. Thursday. So the first workout was announced Friday, right? Is that how it worked, Brian? Thursday. Thursday. So the first workout was announced Thursday. So, and then you had to do two workouts by noon on

Friday and then two workouts by noon on Saturday and two workouts by noon on Sunday. One for Sunday. One. Okay. For a total of five. And then when does it close on Sunday? The last video submission has to be up. 12 for us, 12 p.m. 12 p.m. Central Standard Time. Pacific, Pacific. Pacific, yeah. 12 p.m. Vegas time, whenever that is. Okay. Oh, and they're on the same time as California now because of the daylight savings?

Does anyone know? Always. I think always. Always? Okay. Yeah. All right. So are you in conjunction with anyone else when you do this

do you have a buddy who's like okay we're gonna do me um me and uh danielle are gonna do these two workouts on uh thursday then we're gonna do these two on friday and the and this one on saturday and we're gonna be done like did you have a buddy that you were gonna do it with everybody did the same we all did the same workouts. Like at the same time, we just ran heats. Like nobody did a different order of workouts. Every single person at underdogs did the same order. Okay.

How many, how many total athletes, 20, 30. So there was, um, myself, Christine best came Danielle,

Kyra, Sabrina, Mitch, Matt, Raph, Alison, um, Dakota, Nicole, danielle kyra sabrina mitch matt raff allison um dakota nicole let's say there is a dozen or so yeah a dozen or so and where was and most of these athletes are either made the semi-finals or were very close or maybe even all of them made it i'm not sure yeah there was maybe just a couple that were outside yeah and what does the facility look like it's just for it's one giant um room like like the barn at

mayhem it's basically one giant room it's just a giant gym yeah it's a crossfit gym it's a big old big old crossfit gym and so you walk in you put your shit down and someone says okay we're gonna be starting to work out in 30 minutes and everyone starts doing their shit warming up getting their bars making sure they have their judges, all that stuff. Yeah, basically. And Justin and Kiefer and Jared and even Brett, like they're all, they're getting the heat sorted out. They're kind of lining the floors and stuff like they're, yeah, normal kind of. I'm just waiting until I get told what heat I'm going to go in.

Danielle a couple of times told me when I was going, like just made the executive decision for me. And I was like, great. And I just go and do the workout. And we'd always have someone we were doing it with, like nobody was ever alone. And it was typically someone that you get a good, a good push off of and a good matchup with, but. And who said who's responsible for your camera? Brett.

Brett. Okay. Typically. Well, it's funny. We actually kind of made this joke uh at the start typically it's my mom and because she's done that since i was 14 because i've competed online although it may seem like i'm a fucking newbie when it comes to cameras and score submissions um i've been doing online competitions since i was 14. And so my mom's always been the one who set up the video and made sure everything's perfect. So we were kind of looking at each other. I was like, don't make me do the video. He was like, it's all right. I got it.

Cause I I'm not used to doing that. But yeah, Brett, Brett was in charge of my video and video. We had no, no issues with it. That's gotta be so stressful. If I was setting up video for athletes to submit scores i would my ocd would fire up so hard i'd be like going over is the red light on is the red light on what's the battery doing i'm freaking out we spend so if you anybody who knows me knows that after any time i do a video i'm like going through and i'm like oh my god like right here i did this rep too fast and you can't see my elbows lock out all the way like are they gonna penal going to penalize me? And Brett's like, Anika, you're one of the best

movers I've ever seen. Like I've never gotten a penalty also in the four or five years I've done online competitions. I've never gotten a penalty, knock on wood. But so it's like, I'm always so stressed about my videos and Brett's always like Anika, it's done, move past it. It's fine. And Brett's always like, Anika, it's done. Move past it. It's fine. So all of this is very, very ironic to me. So Thursday, is that when you do the first two workouts?

Yeah. Okay. And you do the workouts. And then who uploads them? Does someone hand you? Do they hand you a GoPro or they hand you your cell phone back to you and then you upload them? Yeah. Brett uploaded all of them immediately after. There's like a Wadproof has it.

It's really simple. You just upload it to YouTube straight from Wadproof. And so as soon as we were done, we would start uploading the videos. Okay. So there's an app called Wadproof that uses the phone and that uses the camera inside of the Apple iPhone. You open up the app, you record it. And then straight from there, there's a button and it goes up and it goes up to your youtube account goes up to brett's my coaches i don't have a youtube account okay and then from there let's talk about that later and then from there

um you put a uh from there you submit a link tell me then what happens from there so then you upload your first two workouts and then what happens um and then and then I go onto the app, realize I can't do anything through the app, then go to the, the website and I go to my dashboard and copy and paste the link in, like submit everything and click submit. Okay. 99% of the time I then go back, like reload the page, go back into my dashboard, click score submission history, select the workout and, go back into my dashboard, click score submission history, select the workout and take a screenshot of my score saying either like pending or whatever it

says before, um, the leaderboard goes up. And I do that 99.99999% of the time. Okay. Let, let me just make sure I understand this. So you do the workout, okay let me just make sure i understand this so you do the workout the whole crew does the workout you use the wad proof app you upload it to brett's youtube then you find a computer is that computer in the venue is it in the building i use my phone okay so it's okay so you try to use an app on the phone the app doesn't work so you use the browser on your phone and you copy the links from Brett's. You submit, you go to the crossfitgames.com website. You submit your scores, which is a number. It's a time, right? For the first two workouts.

And you also copy and paste a link from Brett's YouTube page. Yeah. And then you went back and you checked it and took a picture? Yep. Day one in the books Exactly Day two Same thing Everyone's there

Everyone's cool Danielle's done pouting that you're there She's ready to fucking kick some ass Yeah No one's like waiting at the door being like Sorry Annika, you can't come in. Danielle brought bouncers and you can't come close.

Close that. Not yet. Okay. So you do the two workouts. Um, who sets up your camera again? Same dude. Yeah.

Brett. Brett. Um, is it hard to talk about this? No, I mean, it's hard to talk period. I want to talk about it.

I want to talk about it. I mean, obviously we're definitely going to get to a point where it's not fun to talk about, but I definitely need to. Okay, so day two happens just like day one, including that thing that you mentioned at the end, where you go back, you refresh it, and you take a picture of it that you've submitted it. Okay, and why do you do that? that you've submitted it. Okay. And why do you do that? Um, because I know technology fails sometimes. And I know a couple athletes last year had issues where they submitted a score. Um, and luckily because they took a screenshot, they were able to be okay and have proof that it went through. Um, so it's just a, it's a backup plan. We always have, we actually almost always have two cameras going during my workouts. We just didn't this. And this was another thing that I was like, holy crap, we only got one camera going. Like that was a big stress to me. Um, so it's like, we are notorious for hitting every single possible air covering all of our bases.

possible air covering all of our bases. Okay. Um, do, do they, do they require they, so when you take that screenshot, you can see the date and the time. Yeah. And, and on the wad proof video, there is a timestamp. Um, and you can also look back on the date at which the YouTube video was posted and see when it was posted there's yeah there's lots of yeah yeah okay uh let's take a quick break to see what the what this person uh chris forgot says danielle you were a bitch to annika too that that's two o's means also right like all like like referencing she's a bitch to we we actually made over at uh the sebon podcast where we made a few graphics yesterday it's a silhouette of danielle and then and then the slogan below it says does not play nice with others we're trying to we're we haven't shown anyone yet but we're we're planning a full

attack on uh miss danielle brand working around copyright uh yeah yeah does not play nice with others okay so the last day goes and, um, and this is, um, you're not, you're not even planning on working out on Sunday, right? This is Saturday. Okay. And, um, you do the workout and what was that last workout? It was, uh, 30 Cal row, 20 burpee box from overs 10 power snatch at one 35. Cool. And do you like that workout? Um, so I was really excited for that workout because last year my worst quarters event was the burpee box jump over power snatch. Um, and rowing burpees, uh, are two of my history. If you followed my season last year,

I think Brian knows this are two of my worst historic movements ever. Um, and power snatch, like power output, I'm much better at squat snatching. So it was something that last year would have killed me. Um, but I also knew how much I'd been like working on it. So I was actually really excited because I really wanted to see how far, how far it improved. And I was really, really happy with the workout. I was really happy. You mean with your performance, you're not, you were, you were excited to showcase your talents, but you're really happy with the workout I was really happy you mean with your performance you're not you were you were excited to showcase your talents but you're also happy with your performance I was so happy with my performance because it was it's one of those workouts where like I get more stressed for workouts I know I can do well and because

there's more pressure and I would like I put a lot of pressure on myself so I was I was terrified and it went so well for me so The workout itself and my performance was great. Brian, did she do good? I would say it was like a 315 or 350. Yeah, 350. I was like, I wish it was 350. I can't remember which one. It's still lots of room for me to improve.

Last year, it would have been over 430 probably. Yeah, I saw that that I didn't know your time until earlier when your post went up and I was uh yeah it's pretty good time you wouldn't would you hey what place were you in after day one uh fourth you were fourth in the worldwide quarterfinals in the quarterfinal I'm sorry just North America I don't know about okay North America okay thank you so you're the worldwide is fun to look sorry? Just North America. I don't know about Worldwide. Okay, North America. Okay, thank you. The Worldwide is fun to look at, but the Continental one is the only one that really matters. Okay, and you

needed to be in the top 120. Okay, how about after day two? What place were you in? Day two, I got a little hurt because I can't bench and the wall balls hurt me, so I think I was 15th. 15th or 16th still amazing good you got 105 places to play with yeah okay and and with this score of 350 do we know uh where

Annika uh Annika or Annika she she knows yeah Annika do you know what place you'd be Annika or Annika? She knows, yeah. Annika. Do you know what place you'd be, Annika, with the 350? Yeah, I'd be like 15th or 16th. Wow. Did I mention I'm 50 years old? No way. Yeah, I know. It's hard. It's fucking hard to believe. I know.

People in the comments have a hard time believing it, too. Okay, so you do that workout. And when you finish it, do you remember the exact first thing you did um like immediately did you lie on the ground did you go hug brett no i think i think i went and hug brett i think cooper gave me a big old slap um and i think i went and hug brett and then i went and gave her i went and found kyra how like a couple of the other girls who were there and went and gave them a hug because it was like, oh, my God, we're done. And you knew and you felt like you did well.

Yeah, I knew I wasn't going to redo. I knew I had it's like one of those things where the whole weekend it was like, oh, if I redid, maybe I could get a second or two. But it's like for me, it was all about effort and execution. And those two things, I think I did better than I almost ever have. Uh, so I, I knew I wasn't redoing. I knew I was done. And this is Saturday. I just want to be super duper clear. This is Saturday, um, March 26th. Yes. Okay. And so the workout wasn't due until Sunday, March 27th at noon. Yeah. And do you know what time you finished the workout?

I can tell you right now. Okay. Yeah. Let's see. Um, if I go back. Are you looking at a screenshot right now? The screenshot you took? I didn't take a screenshot. Uh, I, Ooh. tech i didn't take a screenshot uh i oh what time did you know what time it's saturday at like it was in the afternoon let's say 4 p.m because i i was looking at the pictures i had saved from it but i downloaded those after but

let's say it was like saturday 4 p.m okay And how many people were in the room with you when you did it? Everyone, literally every single person there. So 20 people. Yeah. Plus cameramen. Plus I'm like, we have so much footage of me doing it on time. Also in the back of my video is Christine best doing it at the same time as me. And in the back of Christine Best's submitted video is me doing the workout at the same time as her. Okay. So you finish, let's say it's approximately 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 26th.

You have ample time to upload it. Do you do your normal routine? Do you go over and check the video? Did you go over and check WODproof, the app? Yeah. And you liked what you saw? Yeah, video was fine brett immediately looks at me and brett's like i'm gonna go upload this and i said sounds good and he went and sat

in the corner like he normally did and uploaded it and then he texted me the link um and i copy and pasted the link wow wow okay he so he it did make it to YouTube 100%. He got the link. Yep. Okay. Video, all good. Everything up Saturday. Is it up right now? Is it up right now? Yeah. Can you go to his YouTube page, Sousa, and let's just take a look at it? Because that will have a stamp and a date on it too, the date it went up, right? What's his YouTube page?

So the only thing is I'm not sure if it's restricted. However, I can go get you this link right now. Oh, okay, cool. And I can email it to you guys because – You should in the email. Because when you upload it too, it gives you a time stamp of once you uploaded it. Yep. So you'll have it all in there.

100%. Okay. Okay. So then he sends – and he does that and he sends the link. He sends you the link. He texts it to you? Yes. This Brent character?

Okay. I just found it right now. And then you know that the app doesn't work, so you go through Safari again to go to CrossFitGames.com, and you submit your score. Yes, there we go. I just emailed you the link. Um, yeah, yeah. So I opened up Safari and I remember vividly because I remember vividly filling everything out because I remember copying and pasting the link, putting it in. I remember going back to the link, making sure that it fully opened. Cause I was like, Oh shoot. I don't want them to have an issue where like they can't actually get into it because, you know, if it's like restricted and blah, blah, blah, whatever.

Right. So I recopy and pasted it and put it back. I remember changing because the default affiliate thing always says CrossFit 782 for me. And I was like, oh, I'm not a CrossFit 782. So I remember changing that. I remember switching the judge to Cooper Marsh I remember filling out everything clicking submit and going goodbye like closing the phone closing it down and being like I'm done um because it was oh do you think that's what did it that you closed your turned your phone

off before it was done I mean I know that people were having internet issues with uploading it at the gym like that was a big conversation this weekend was that I think some people had to submit a score without the video and then send the video in later. And so like the internet also wasn't great there. I was having to use my data a lot of the time. I might have been on the internet. It very well could have been that I closed it too soon. Like there could have been so many little tech things

but i like i know i filled everything out it's just what happened between filling it out and the crossfit games receiving that information i it's a mystery were you guys using wi-fi in the gym or cellular do you know depends depends on if it was loading or not there'd be some days i'd be like on instagram and nothing would load so i'd be like fuck this and i'd turn off the wi-fi and use my data so i actually i don't know if i was on data or if i was on wi-fi uh during that god you're a keeper i'm gonna say something really sexist here a girl that knows the difference between cellular and wi-fi that's amazing awesome uh yeah make a note of that any dudes are watching, she can run faster and lift more than you and she's technically smarter than you.

Is she though? Did you send it to the Savan email or to Savan himself? I don't know. I sent it to whoever sent me, I think the Savan podcast. Yeah, that was it. I don't have it yet. Okay, so it's up and then Sunday then so sunday comes around and

you're checking the leaderboard and you don't see your name tell me how it unfolds from there yeah so exactly so here and why didn't you take a picture that time do you have a strong do you have a strong like ocd like do you check to see if your front door's locked five or six times you do wear that weird shit that i do no you don you don't do that. Sometimes I'm too laid back. Okay. Typically not on things I care about and things that my entire life revolves around. Yeah. And I mean, I have, this question has been haunting my brain for the past four days of why didn't I double check?

And I mean, it's a million dollar question. But yeah, like I put it in and because I vividly remember and it's Cooper and Brett, I remember asked me multiple times, you put your scoring, right? And I'm like, yes, because I have that image in my brain of me filling everything out. I was like, yeah, it's in. At this point, it almost doesn't even matter, right? If you did, or if you didn't i'm like i'm in like i knew i had a good score and i think for me is like i wasn't even i wasn't even checking i honestly wasn't even on my phone that much it has been a very very long weekend um just very out of my own element around people who are very different than the people i'm normally around

a totally different environment also i'm also at an air an Airbnb now because Brett came, so me and Brett stayed together. This Airbnb does not have Wi-Fi. It doesn't have windows. The oven light's on fire. We're in literally the most unfathomable environment ever, completely a fire-covered zone. I lit the oven on fire. There's just so many little things.

We do it different here in america is that the same place ricky stayed when he went there maybe there's like chickens outside i was like no um ricky stayed in one of those hotels where they charge by the hour like you just go in and fucking leave it sounds like she got basically i'm like what did they do in this there was no racks in the oven i was, what are they using this oven for? Wow. So anyway, so it's like, we're just all over the place too. Cause I was jumping between going back to Danielle's to do recovery stuff,

going to Kyra's like all over the place. Like just cause I can't really do much in my own Airbnb. So it was kind of, we're just all over the place a little bit. But when I think about like why I didn't, it had been such a long two weeks with so many things throwing and i think when you sorry to interrupt you when you went to danielle's house did you see that couch that um she walked on barefoot and made that instagram video couch yeah oh yeah we love that couch that's like that's an expensive ass couch god can you imagine she can make i was just tripping on that. She's so amazing that she can make an Instagram post of her just walking around her house,

opening and closing blinds. Fuck. You should have made a, you should have put on those exact same clothes and done that video and posted. She made that video while I was sleeping. I was sleeping in the other room. That's how you know you're on another level. This world is not fair. You got 10,000 followers off that video my goodness goodness okay so then you you said

you submit this thing um you turn it off and then i want to know when you've realized that something's not right yeah so the next morning there was this is sunday march uh 27th okay 27th okay so we're going to the gym we had so the night before we had gone because we were done and like we were all hanging out having fun um so the next morning we were like let's go in and watch the couple people that are going to redo like support you know like now we were in the like kind of much more chill phase all of the tensions had kind of dropped a little bit um so anyways we were uh we were like yeah let's go watch cheer everyone on who's gonna redo and like if you know me you know I'm like a very like I love lifting people up and I love cheering part of the reason

I don't have a voice I will scream until I pass out for you like I was so excited to go cheer these people on so anyways like Raf's redoing. Raf redid the workout twice back to back. Cause he finished, he's like, oh, I can do better and did it again. We were just like all kind of going nuts. Um, and then everybody finishes and we're like, oh, let's go get breakfast. So like, we're just kind of, I'm, my mind is no longer thinking about competing. I have, it's just done and dusted. Um, what are you wearing that day?

I'm just picturing out when you said you're done. I'm like, I don't believe her. She probably like had some gear on, like she's ready to jump in. I'm trying to think of something clever to say right now. Did you have high heels on? Yeah, definitely. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling,

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Collect more moments with more ways to earn. Air Mile. No, I didn't have socks on. I remember that. I had my rad shoes on with no socks. And I remember joking to a couple people because I was getting so fired up for everyone redoing. I was like, man, now I want to repeat.

But I was like, nah, just kidding. No, I don't. Anyway, so everybody finishes and we're all like, let's go get like a good breakfast. Like let's go get brunch, get something. So we were like all going as a group, um, not even thinking about competing anymore. Uh, I think I was also, obviously I'm so mentally exhausted and that, that one wall ball workout, it like, it was one of those workouts where it just kind of like, fucks you. And I like, it really hurt me even just like, I didn't feel in control of my body whatsoever. And so I think I was a little bummed because I knew I wasn't going to finish exactly where I wanted to because of this one workout. So I think for me, I was just like leaderboards done. Now it's time to move on to semis. Like this doesn't matter anymore. now it's time to move on to semis like this doesn't matter anymore um so my brain wasn't even on competing anymore it was just on like you leave in a couple days let's like have fun with the people here while you can so we go get breakfast um I'm sitting down eating and all of a

sudden it's like 12 20 and I remember being like oh like let's see if the leaderboard's up I wonder if it'll go faster because it's the last one kind of thing. And I open up my Safari and this is the first time I've opened Safari since yesterday. Oh, this is a good story. Yeah. So if you've been following my Instagram throughout the weekend, I basically was posting like an asshole. I was posting every two seconds, like one after every workout, like keeping everyone

updated. And I hadn't even posted anything for this workout. Cause again, I was just like off the phone, off the Instagram, just, it can wait. And I opened up Safari for the first time and my dashboard is open and I'm like weird. And then I'm looking and I'm like, why is that empty? Oh, you mean like where you filled out the numbers was empty no no no no it was just like my if you go on dashboard it says like workout submission history okay okay and so i'm like seeing five and it's empty like there's nothing there and i'm like checking one two three

four and they're all there and i'm like and so then i look at cooper i'm like cooper where the fuck is my score he's like oh is the leaderboard up I'm like no like it's not up but I can't find it on my dashboard he's like I watched you submit it I was like I know like everybody watched me submit it I did it in the gym like and at this point like nobody else is even really listening to me they're all just kind of like whatever like nobody was like oh my god like we're all just kind of like oh interesting um and my immediate reaction obviously is i'm flipping my shit because i'm like yeah i can't find my score like like when you say flipping your shit you're starting to get nauseous yes it's that blood pressure drop where you just

go i fucked up i fucked up something got fucked up um and i initially don't know what's wrong because i remember submitting it that's what what I remember. And I go, and I go back in my camera roll expecting to see a screenshot. And that's when I went, you fucking idiot, you didn't screenshot it. And I'm just like, Oh my God, Cooper, what do I do? And he's like, Anika, let me eat my bacon. Relax. Um, it's like, let me eat my pancakes. Like you're going to be okay. Like send them an email. It's only 15, like it was 12, 15, 12, 20.

He's like, it's 15 minutes past it was 12 15 12 20 he's like it's 15 minutes past the deadline you still have almost an hour until the leaderboard goes up like explain to them send them the link like you have it time stamped you're good and so i was like okay okay like we'll be fine do you think was he faking his calmness or he really he really was that calm i think i mean he wasn't calm like i don't care but it was more of like all right that's unusual but it'll get sorted kind of calm. Yeah, like I'd be faking it, but I'd be freaking out if I wasn't managing. I think the main problem was that no one likes to be interrupted when they're eating pancakes.

Did he start doing the thing that Marston and Heber did? Did he start standovers pancakes? Yeah, Marston started to play while he was eating. No, wrong vibes. But yeah, he was no wrong vibes but yeah he was i don't think he wasn't nonchalant and calm and he did look me he's like make sure you don't fucking make this mistake again whatever mistake happened and this was after like we maybe realized there was something wrong with my internet at first we were like oh like the crossfit games app is weird like they leaked their workouts early something probably got fucked up you know um yeah they understand fuck ups yeah right like not unusual listen you got to do what they do

get shit out early not get shit in late i know and i'm like i did i did it the day before oh but um anyway so i email crossfit game support um and uh yeah so i email CrossFit Games support. And yeah, so I email support. And I think I said basically like, hey, I'm so sorry for this inconvenience. I finished the workout yesterday, submitted my score with the video. I just went on my dashboard. And honestly, if I had sent this email 15 minutes earlier, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Because in the rule books, like if you have an issue with your score, as long as you email them

before the deadline, it's fine. And it was about 15 minutes, 20 minutes past the deadline. So anyways, I emailed them. I'm like, I'm so sorry. Like on me, I don't know what happened. I submitted my score and it's not there anymore. Here is time here is the link to my video you can check the time stamp it says posted a whole day ago like here is all of the evidence i have i'm sorry and they basically said um we're not taking any more times that are scores of this time like that sucks um sorry wait a second wait a second so cooper tells you to send an email you an email, you lay out your case, you show the stuff that you showed the, basically the information that they need to know that you finished it in time and you receive, is it like an auto response?

You receive an auto response that says no. No. Angel, I think is her name. Okay. Yeah. Angel, Angel Forbes, probably. Um, yeah. So she emailed, emailed me back.

And so I actually sent two emails. The first one was explaining what happened, explaining that my score should be in there. I don't know what happened. I submitted it. Where is it? And she emailed me back and said, hi, Anika, we don't have any record of your score

and we're not accepting new scores at this time. And I was like, okay, that's weird. Maybe it was my internet. Right now I'm trying to like, I'm like, let me give them, let me make it my fault. Cause I really don't know what's going on. So I was like, all right, like maybe it was my internet. I know we've been having some internet issues, but like, I remember submitting it. Here's my video. Here's proof. I did it on time. And that's when she was

like, really sorry. No, no more conversation basically. And that's when I sent a screenshot. no more conversation basically. And that's when I sent a screenshot. Also in this moment, let me just paint a picture. I have just Ubered back to my Airbnb, but there's only one set of keys and Brett still has them. So I get back to my Airbnb 20, 25 minutes away from Danielle's where everyone else is and where I'm supposed to be going back, but I have to get clothes first and shower and whatever. And the oven's on fire.

My oven's on fire. No, I don't have keys. And so I had already had to break into my Airbnb once for the same reason, because there was so much going on. Brett still had the keys. You had to like slide the window out and all this. And I can't break into my Airbnb for some reason.

I think the window got locked from the inside. So I'm like trying to shake this window, trying to get in. I'm getting covered in dirt. I'm like pretty sure I've started to cry at this point because I'm so, I just opened the email. I'm like, they're not taking my score. I can't get my stuff. So I'm like calling Cooper out of breath because I'm trying to break into this Airbnb. Anika, how many back and forths did you have with them, with HQ? I only had two myself personally I only spoke to Angel that's the only person I talked to personally and did you actually

ever talk to her talk to her so you said hey here's my here's the evidence I have they said we're not taking scores then you wrote back again and said but please do take my scores because look at I said here's more evidence and they still didn't change their answer it's just so they got back to you again yeah so they answered twice and i i never wrote anything else because i figured i've just given them all the information i can and they're it's really easy to say no over an email to some random person you don't know um and and they know who you are how how how many um how did anyone on your team speak to anyone on the hq team did anyone speak to angel or lucas or um or justin berger oh yeah those guys we have who's the other guy there's a eubanks guy over there adrian bosman anyone speak to those guys oh yeah there's there's

many more conversations to be had um i'm just not part of them anymore because it's kind of gone above me. And that's when I called Cooper and I was like, Coop, they just answered really poorly to my emails. And he's like, all right, I'll make some phone calls. Don't worry. So Coop's now getting on calls with people. And I don't know who he called first. I really don't know. I wasn't part of these steps.

Him, Brett and Kiefer kind of were uh I know he called uh somebody a friend he has at HQ um yeah I know he called a bunch of people I really don't know who and in what order truthfully um that yeah I wasn't part of that conversation but I do know eventually he hit enough dead ends that day or Danielle texted Dave Castro um and Danielle was like Dave what the heck do we do right now and Dave was like I would fix this we were like but you can't so please help and he gave us Adrian Bosman's number um I, I was really appreciative, honestly, of Dave trying to help them. That meant a lot to me because I still don't think I'm, I'm kind of a nobody still. So I was honestly, anybody who tried to help me, it made, it meant a lot, but

he gave us Adrian Bosman's number. Um, and this is, I think when we kind of started to go, Oh, um, so Cooper called Adrian and Adrian basically gave him just a flat no. Like, not a chance, no discussion, no. And that was when we first started going, like, uh-oh. Because we expected it to be a bit of a non-issue. It was kind of like, ah, crap, something got messed up. It should be really easy to fix, especially because the leaderboard hadn't even been updated yet. Nobody will notice. You have all the proof in the world you did not cheat you did not forget you did not try to skirt around the rules um is there any reason why they would be

afraid of a lawsuit if you if they did accept your score like what does that open up if they do accept your score here's what i my immediate thought is this the goal is is to make this good for all the not for all the athletes it's it's good it's supposed to be good for the community and that that there are levels to the game and we all i think should accept them and that and that we are not all created equally and we are not all equal and so if you're if i feel like that there should be maybe more leeway for people going into day three that that get a um you know the top 100 in every in every region should get some leeway or have a different protocol like if you're fighting over 32nd thousandth place and 32nd thousand in first place kind of go eat a dick but but but if not say that again is there an official rule on this brian do you have

do you know what the official rule is like is there something written about i think they followed the official rule the official rule is what they're what what annika got yes yeah so basically the from my perspective the communication from crossfit was very clear consistent and available on multiple platforms for athletes and annikaika knows that. And all the athletes know this. And it was if you submit a score after the deadline, that we're not going to accept it. And if you are concerned about having a problem submitting a score before the deadline, there's a protocol to go through, which is the one that Annika and her team followed, only they had done it 15 minutes too late. The thing is, she's not the only one who's had this problem. And there were several athletes that are very relevant in the European region that had some time change

problems. I think there's specifically in Belgium, the group of athletes that had this problem. It's Manu Nangonis, Yellow Host, Martin Solheim had this problem. And I'm sure there were some other ones as well. When you say this problem though, not the specific problem, hers was an uploading error. Theirs was a time submission error. When I say this problem, though, not the specific problem. Hers was an uploading error. Theirs was a time submission error. When I say this problem, what I'm referring to is that for whatever reason, their video is not submitted on time. Okay. What do they have in common with her besides that?

Are they all top 100 in their quarterfinal? All three of those athletes, if they had been able to participate in the quarters fully, would have qualified for semifinals and have top 10 potential in the European region at a semifinal. Fair. Okay. Sorry to interrupt. Go on. It's not interrupt. It's clarification. It's important. So from, you know, so CrossFit's had a clear communication. This is the policy and this is what we're going to stick to. All the athletes knew that several athletes for whatever reason, didn't submit their videos on time. And have since then tried to appeal that process.

So I'm surmising that CrossFit had some kind of meeting and said, okay, we have all these athletes that are coming here with these issues. What are we going to do? And there's two things that I would really like to point out here. One is they have potentially 15,000 people doing this competition. They have potentially 600 athletes. Well, there are 600 athletes advancing to the next stage of competition. And each of those athletes have to submit five videos. So that's 3000 videos to review.

And that's a lot of things to take in mind. And I think that's why they were so specific to say, this is on each of you. You are one athlete. Make sure you get your stuff in on time. We have to deal with 15,000 people in this competition and we want to have a quick turnaround and be able to do our job. So take that responsibility and do that. So obviously that makes sense that they would want to put it on the athletes or their teams or whomever. On the, uh, what about this, Brian? Can I say, what if they had something that said hey for 250 bucks we'll review your shit for you well i have a yeah they're all about that

cheddar now well i i don't blame them for that i don't blame someone's gotta get someone's gotta get paid to fix this issue say sorry explain what you mean by that so the anika writes the email and says hey my shit's fucked up i look i turned it in in time here's all my pictures i just forgot to take a picture on this day here's the other 15 camera angles of the other 15 people you can see me in the background and they said sorry you know the rules and she's like okay i'd like to go through one final appeals process and they go okay we'll give you a special appeals like where the where at this point the consideration is whether she's telling the truth beyond all doubt but it costs 250 i don't give a fuck make it a thousand bucks

yeah i don't care how much you charge i mean there's something where she has to put her ass on the line and then then they can be like hey there is a question here we notice your iphone is an iphone 11 and they've been known to have the date wrong, and here's the thing. But if they can't do that, then she pays $1,000, and she moves on. But she owns it. I mean it just seems crazy to me that there's such – I'm totally for the rules guy, but there's such compelling evidence. Yeah, that's what I think. And she's an elite athlete.

It's not like she's not um there is definitely that i'm just saying there are other side there are other perspectives that are worth considering and one of those perspectives one of those perspectives is with you know a good comparison i think here is what happened with tia and several other athletes last year who were unable to have a realistic way to travel and compete at their semifinals. He is obviously extremely well known. Most of the other athletes who had the situation are far less known, but CrossFit made a policy in the middle of the season and said, if you have this circumstance, send it our way and we will, you know, evaluate on a case by case basis. And they basically granted everyone who had a, you know, semblance of a case that it's really difficult

for me to travel to where I'm supposed to do the semifinal, that they would let them compete in a semifinal that was actually something they could get to. So this was, they made an exception for a rule for one. And so they applied it to everyone. And I'm guessing that that's what the conversation was like here is like, if we're going to make an exception for Anika, we also have to do it for these athletes in Europe. And we also have to do it for whoever other athletes had this problem. But what comes into play there is that there's going to be some athlete. If Annika gets in, and obviously based on our capacity, she should be in,

then that means someone is out. And that someone that's out is going to be sitting there and say, I know she's better than me, but she didn't follow the rules and I did. Why am I being forced out because of this? And so CrossFit's got a lot of perspectives to consider. And like, I think some of the people in the comments have been saying, this is just in general, a really unfortunate situation. I think there are solutions that we could potentially have in the future that could prevent this from happening. And some of those have been mentioned in the comments as well. But in this case, as this was unfolding this week,

I basically had this like, and I even talked to Anik and I said, you know, be prepared for either decision and really whichever way they go on this. Um, I'm, I'm going to probably be supportive of them. She, she's a page one girl. Yeah. She's a fucking page one girl. She's, she's in there. The, the, the immediate name that she would be adjacent to is fisa goffy she's not she's not on page 10 i hear you you're bringing up two crazy good points

the points are is that what do you do with what if 10 000 of these come in and crossfit's overwhelmed because if you do for one you have to do for all and the other one is it's unfair to the other person but you know what i don't care about that that that other one like i don't care about that other person i care like i care about the truth and just getting down to getting the best people in there, especially at this level. It's so easy. The body of evidence she has, though. That's the crazy thing. There's so much.

Tia could have gone back to Australia. These people, I realize it was a worldwide pandemic, but these people could have gone back. Her situation is black and white, Anika's. She's either going or she's not, but these people could have gone back. Her situation is black and white, Annika's. She's either going or she's not, and these people have all the power. There are things that she hasn't even brought up that I could make a case for her. The reason why I asked her how many athletes did those workouts, let's say there's a dozen athletes that were doing the workouts there at Underdogs. Each one of them submitted five videos, and 10 of the 12 athletes made it to the semifinals. That's 50 successful video submissions.

And the 51st didn't happen for whatever reason. And there's, you know, like, sure, there's certainly a really strong case here. What I'm saying is if the people that want to be super critical of CrossFit, like take a step back and think about how difficult of a decision that is for them. And don't forget that they communicate it on multiple platforms ahead of time and they have that to fall back on. Do we all agree? Annika, do you agree this is your fault?

Yeah, 100%. I agree the root cause of this issue is my fault. I am absolving myself of nothing by saying that I think the punishment doesn't fit the crime. That's not at all what I'm trying to do. But I think that there's and i and i agree with the european i actually had no idea about this issue happening with the european athletes and the time change um but i also think what we were trying to do um i appreciate this beck but um anyways i can't believe i want to talk about this when you're done by the way i

can't believe that there isn't a confirmation email. Sorry, go ahead. But I feel like what we were trying to prove was that my situation was very different. I know there was someone earlier in the season who forgot to submit a score, who was very fit, and that really hurt their season. They were done because they forgot. I did not forget. I literally did it a day early. I also didn't try to wait until the last minute. And then the time changed, like it was an hour too late. All of a sudden, like I did it a day early. I just made the mistake of being done with it too soon. And whether that means I mentally

checked out too soon, um, or what, like, obviously we're going to do some, cause it did. And I am very aware of the fact that this happened to like, I am the, I am the only person that's happened to not the only one, but like the one who like didn't check, like there's a reason I did not check. Um, and whether that be a mental fatigue thing, like there's obviously something that I'm going to do in the future to make sure that never happens again. Um, but that lesson has already been learned clearly um and i don't think the punishment of ending my entire season fits the crime of something happened with my phone or my internet and i did not see it until too late um and there and 90 percent of like the root cause of all of this is my fault i absolved myself of nothing um but but yeah the response is what's

unfathomable to me so i'm keep or matt can you pull up that comment from a courtney girthy guthrie um look man last year uh bailey rail got in on a backfield to semifinals and finishing the top 20 of the crossfit games there's a reason why the semifinals is a separate stage of competition from the quarterfinals and just really that might be an out There's a reason why the semifinals is a separate stage of competition from the quarterfinals. And really, that might be an outlier of a statistic, but nevertheless, put yourself in that athlete's shoes. If you're the person that's 121 or 120, and this happens, and they grant you the reason in it,

and you don't end up getting to compete there, how are you going to feel? You feel like you should have had a chance. Meaning, yeah. Meaning, yeah. feel you feel like you should have had a chance meaning yeah meaning yeah it's it's a brutal situation there's not a good brutal not a good way out here i want to see i want to see this leak the workouts but don't send confirmations do that you didn't receive any confirmations after day one two or two that they received your i mean i got my videos accepted as in they reviewed my videos but that's well after that's well after the fact but there should be an auto response when your shit gets there you know you send the those you were complaining about my swearing this is not

the show for you i'm telling you like i want to be andrew dice clay so bad and i'm just doing this crossfit shit because i got nothing else going on with my pathetic fucking life switch the fuck off okay so so basically um you send that you submit your score and there should be just an auto reply uh miss miss annika greer we received your blah blah blah we'll be responding to you shortly about after we review your video yeah that'd be great but nobody else has those either how many do we know how many people are in annika situation like are they do they have a thousand of these no huh i don't know but i'm aware of yeah i'm aware of including annika and the three european athletes i mentioned four athletes who i think would have a legitimate chance to at the very least make the last chance

qualifier if they were granted this leniency by crossfit that will be missing from the semi-final stage of competition well i wonder what dave would do i heard before it even became a thing he probably wouldn't even have known that it would have been someone on the team would have taken care of it i don't know i don't know dave personally um, I heard that when you guys first tried to get in touch with, um, Justin, that he was out of town, that he, that he was, he was on vacation. Is that true? He was in the mountains and his service was bad. So him and Cooper were texting and then they got on a call. I think they did. So you're talking about this whole appeal process,

like paying to have an appeal process. I think Justin did um like have a meeting with crossfit hq about i don't know if it was solely about me or if it was about this whole situation with the european athletes involved um so like they did talk about it um he's not answering to anyone he's at the top this is his decision. I'm 99% sure that this is 100% his decision. There's not – the team is thin. It's either his decision or Adrian's decision. There's only – yeah. It's interesting. Part of me, like I get them.

I'm not like, hey, you did something wrong or immoral. It just seems that – Let's get the CEO involved. It just seems like more corporate um like bullshit to me are we a community do we want the best do we see each other as brethren is this the is this okay i mean it doesn't seem like it's a stretch does it does it does it damage the integrity of the sport i don't think so i think the only person that cares the only person that might be a whiny little bitch about it is oh sorry i'm so sorry this is not your fault is um uh taylor sykes she's 120th sorry taylor you

don't you don't deserve to be trying to do this the thing about that argument too although i completely understand because they're following within the rules. So like, you know, take it for what you will, but Anika was fitter than them. It wasn't like, I didn't, I didn't break it. Yeah. Like I followed them. It just something got fucked up and yes, that's my fault, but I did not like, I know the rules and I played within them. Like my piece just broke. Like, yeah. And I mean, and I also think and their argument was that like rules

are rules right like there there's rules for a reason but i think if rules if i if you're gonna throw the book at someone or at anyone if you only have rules just to use them to throw them at people um i think there is like case by case the inability to view cases differently, um, and take into consideration their differences. Like, I think that's, that might be, I'm totally in favor of the rules. I think we need to have clear, like things need to be like jumping over the bar that we need clear rules, like jumping over the bar. Sure. Anything we need to have set standards and clear rules. Sure, anything. We need to have set standards and clear rules. Let me say something. This is – to let her in now is less wiggle room than jumping over the bar because we know she turned it in in time. Right. There's a body of evidence.

This bar thing had more wiggle room than what we're asking for Annika. He – and like if it was me and Adrian in the room and he was like, hey, dumb fuck, like you know what I mean by jump over the bar, I'd be like, you're right. I'll stop being an idiot. But when you're talking to 250,000 people or 300,000 people, we already know that this country – You should just assume that most of them are idiots. Yeah, this planet, 80% of you guys are morons. So I'm trying to stay on subject here. It's always hard when I'm about to berate my fellow man.

But this is like – this is no wiggle room at all. This is just a technological minuscule error. It's so easy to fix. By the way, Anika, I have a big favor to ask of you. My boys are watching, Ari, Avi, and Joseph. Could you say hi to them? Hi, Ari and Joseph. What say hi to them hi Ari and Joseph wait what was the second Avi Avi I was like oh crap what was the second one's name uh the boys are saying

that this is from my wife the boys are saying uh Annika is a hot chick they're good they're good boys Ari's Ari's five Ari Ari said to the tv what's up hot chick Ari said shoot the TV, what's up, hot chick? Ari said, shoot, I'm too young for her to marry me. And then Joseph said, oh, my other five-year-old is awesome at math. Joseph said, when she's 25, I'll be 12. They're five. This is outrageous. They got mad game.

They got mad game. I don't know if I want to game. They got mad game. Wow. I don't know if I want to know him when he's 12. Okay. And then Avi said he'll be 14. Don't worry, guys. There's so many. By then, there's going to be a million CrossFit girls for you to talk to.

My goodness. What's up, boys? Do you have an opinion, Brian, that you want to weigh in on what you think here at CrossFit Inc. should do, by any chance? If you were in charge, Brian. Yeah, if you were. Well, I mean, the unfortunate reality is I don't have all the information at my disposal that they have to make this decision. I would assume, you know, I think that it would probably be a committee that would meet and talk about this. That's how I would set it up. Like the DEI council and she'd be too white they'd be like no she's too white no sorry I'm just not sorry oh just you just think one guy should make the

decision no I agree if I was the guy who was in charge of making a decision I would have a team of people that I trust I would say look this is the evidence before us what do you guys think about it I would consider all their opinions and I would either have something set up in place before where there's five of us and we're going to make a vote and it's going to go either way, or I'll consider everything that you said. And then I'll make the decision because that's my responsibility in this role. And then just stick to it.

I, like I said earlier, I would have been okay with CrossFit and specifically in the case of Anika, I would have been okay with them either way that they went here, because I do think they were very clear in their communication. And I don't think there was any gray area in what they put out there. So if they want to hold the line firm, they can hold the line firm. I also think that Anika has a very compelling and obvious case that she did everything that she was supposed to do.

She obviously did the workout ahead of time with a bunch of other high-level athletes. She clearly is physically fit enough and should be at the semifinals, will probably be relevant into the games conversation. And I would, you know, I'm always a proponent of having the best people at every stage of competition that we can have. That's why I ask these questions and I'm critical of the programming, the workouts, the whole season, et cetera.

It's not because I want to be mad at anyone. I want to get the best people to the next stage. I think Annika deserves to be there. And if they decided to take her case and make that decision as an exception to their own rule, I would have been okay with that too in this case. Yeah, and I think one of our biggest arguments was that we're not even asking for an exception. We're asking for a glitch to be fixed. That was one of our biggest arguments is that it's not an exception would be if I emailed them and I said hey guys something really like fucked up happened in my life and I can't do the workout in the time you gave me

like that's an exception um I played by the rules I just there's just something that there was just a glitch there was something that got missed and yes it is my fault that I didn't catch it first but that's why I think my case is so different is because it's like there's no exception it's just it's just like it's so easy to fix like I did follow the rules and you could have every single person at underdogs vouch for me and email in and say I watched her put this score in yes we all acknowledge that she should have double checked before 12 but it's like it's also my job to compete and I was done competing and it's my job to like and I felt like I handled that weekend mentally so well and I was so proud of myself because I used to be really soft and I would

have let all of these external things affect how I competed and so I was just like done right and whether I checked out too early whatever it may be like that sucks but it's just it to us it seems so simple to fix to have like my entire season and I mean you also have to I mean none of these things are good arguments if you're trying to be objective but looking at my past four or five years now like I have been so close and had my heart broken so many times it was just kind of like unfathomable for us to like watch this unfold again over probably the stupidest thing yet. Um, so that was just kind of where we were at was just like, this is so easy to fix. And we're just watching door after door get shut

in my face over something like so small. Is it done? Is it a hundred percent? I mean, we've tried everything. Our last hope was was to get Brent from the PFAA to talk to Justin. But Justin won't talk to him until Friday. And the leaderboard is finalized by then. Speaking of councils, speaking of councils. Well, first of all, it's not necessarily finalized by then. They've been known to push deadlines back before. And I do think I do think that the topic of

the PFFA is a good one to bring up here because my understanding would be this is the exact type of situation that you would want to have an athlete's committee for, and you would want to have a working understanding of what the role is for both CrossFit and the PFFAA in terms of addressing, handling, and coming to a decision about situations like this. Someone mentioned in the comments earlier, you know, what if the athletes just said, this is ridiculous and you need to let her in and none of us are competing unless you do that. That's not, yeah, I know they tried to do that with the games that one year, but really that's why you have an athlete committee is so that athletes don't have to make that decision on their own. And there's someone,

you know, the athletes that are on that committee are representatives for the entire community of CrossFit athletes, and they have the responsibility to have those interactions in a predetermined way so that situations like this can be resolved responsibly and not necessarily so publicly because I don't think it really needs to. But I'm not sure that that protocol is there yet. I bet you if you had a penis, you could compete. Oh, my God. I think the best thing in the woman's class in the woman's class no one be saying shit to you i think the best thing to think about here is you're right it's not an exception you're not asking for an exception there was just some sort of glitch that happened we have a mountain of evidence that supports everything that you're saying all the

way across with a jury full of people that would vouch for you in every which way and so i think that they should be looking at this as what it is, which is some sort of glitch that happened there. And it's not like you're asking for some sort of favor. It's Coca-Cola. I feel like we're dealing with Coca-Cola. Like, this is CrossFit. This is like, this is supposed to be the community that's lifeboats, that has lifeboats and life

rafts all around the world to help people and save people from dying of chronic disease and they're supposed to be a party every year where we crown the fittest human being and we come together and celebrate it's kind of a double-edged sword the athletes created this fucking mess and and and but but we don't have to go that way we can still be a community that supports our own that just does the right thing for the right reasons for the right people and someone in the comments i can't remember said who would no one would be talking about 121 if uh if there hadn't been that technological glitch she would she knows it's her fault people that's not the point here it's like what's the right thing to do if you were 121 and you knew she beat you would you want to go you would i wouldn't yeah yeah and yeah, can you go on a team now?

No, that was one of my first. Well, here's, here's the other thing. Part of the, part of the other problem is. Why can't you go on a team now? Sorry. Yeah, that's fine. What was Brian's name? No.

One of the other things I was going to say is for those athletes that are close to the cut line, they don't actually know what's going to happen to them either because the rule book isn't clear. It doesn't say if the, if backspots become a backfill spots become available that will invite backfills it just as with most things in the rule book leaves it open to uh crossfit's you know sole discretion is usually the determination the terminology that they use so those athletes are like really nervous already they don't necessarily know what's going to happen there's no promise of backfills to semifinals

that would make sense i would assume that they would do it yeah i've been 21st like when i was a teenager i have flipped between 20th and 21st nine times in 15 minutes sitting in my ninth grade math class like i know what it feels like to be on that edge and it is you're not sitting there going who like i did it like you're sitting there going i'm definitely going to fall out and in addition to that I already know four girls who are going to go team there's definitely going to be some people who decline 121 is probably going to be fine if we're really concerned about about how they're feeling that kind of thing but yeah um is there is there anything that you'd like to say before we get off and thank you for sharing your story um I didn't I didn't think it was going gonna get me wound up i was like oh this should be fun to hear but man i it's now that i

just see you i mean obviously it makes it more uh touch home more like yeah emotionally involved now yeah i think i think they should i think they should just let you in i think it's cut and clear to me look how soft seven gets from his girl his boys have a crush on someone. Sickest boys on CrossFit. They'll convince them. They punch hard. Yeah. I mean, no, I'm not an angry person.

And so I remember somebody texted me before they got on and they were like, don't say anything you regret because you're angry. And I'm like, I'm not angry. I don't, I don't, I like like I'm not an angry person at all if I'm gonna get angry it's I'm gonna get mad at myself before I get mad at anybody else I'm disappointed and I'm I'm hurt and I'm like heartbroken obviously um but I also have been through this so many times that I I'm not gonna go anywhere here I'm not going anywhere we're already thinking about like can west games and other comps I can do so that I'm not going anywhere we're already thinking about like Canwest games and other comps I can do so that I'm not disappearing I'm not just gonna fade into the background and I like I'm not like a religious person but I'm like maybe the universe is preventing me from being mediocre so maybe you know what I know I'm like fully confident in the fact I would

have gone to the games this year um but I think I would have been like top 30, top 20, maybe at best. So you know what? Maybe the universe is keeping me from going to the games until I can podium. Like that's like, if I'm going to call my shot, I'm going to go next year and I'm going to like fuck some shit up. So that's, I think that's kind of how I have to look at it. And I'm not going to be angry at CrossFit. They've given me a life that like I could only have ever dreamed of. it, and I'm not going to be angry at CrossFit. They've given me a life that I could only have ever dreamed of.

So I'm not going to be angry. I'm just sad, but ultimately, I didn't double-check. What do you think about this, Brian, that she's losing out on the experience, that the three things you need to win the CrossFit Games are the skills, the engine, and the experience. And now she's losing a year of experience. I think it's a big deal. I said this to someone earlier

about this. I said, well, the good news is that she's 18. She's not 28. So you agree with me? You still agree with me. And this is an experience. It's not the experience that she wants, but it's an experience. You're wise. And I've been super impressed with you, Annika, and keeping in mind that you are only 18 years old and remembering what I was like at 18 years old.

I don't think I would have been this level-headed about a situation like this. You were in rehab. Okay. Okay. While we have you here, let's switch gears a little bit. Did Danielle mad dog you when you showed up to Underdogs Athletics? No. Danielle is the one who picked me up from the damn airport.

Okay. So she was just starting rumors when she came on the podcast. I mean, there was definitely some moments. Like, she is a very competitive person and we compete differently um so there was definitely some moments where justin and coop had to be like girl stop like you were raw rawing her and she didn't want to be raw rod no i didn't oh i knew better than that i knew better i knew better than to not cheer on but just even like i was standing in front of her eyesight during the ring muscle up workout and she was going before me and like, she like screamed at me. I was like,

I felt bad for being in her line of sight, just like that. Small things like that. But like when she's trying to beat me, like obviously that's going to piss her off 20 times more than if it's just some random. And I mean, and I like, after the fact, she obviously we talked about it and I, and if you look at my Instagram with those posts of me smiling like during that workout that was about five minutes after that so it was like there was definitely our moments but like I am never gonna ask her

to change who she is because that's part of why she's such a good competitor and like we recognize that in each other and I'm never gonna stop being like a positive like uplifting like you know what I mean so it's we, we, we both recognize we're not going to change. And I think we're at, we're at a very good, we're at a good place now, but at the start, there were some moments. Awesome. I love it. Well, thank you for coming on. Thank you for telling your story. Uh, we look forward to seeing you compete. Um, uh, I hope that there is a, um, a swift change and if not, um, we'll be rooting for you at the next competition. Thank you.

Thank you for having me on. You have a great mindset and a really good attitude. Yeah, you do. You do. Absolutely. It's going to make one hell of a story when you stand on that podium at the games. Yeah, that's the plan. That's the new plan.

Sousa, thank you. Brian, thank you. People listening, those of you who like me, thank you. Those of you who don't.