The Sevan Podcast - #372 - CrossFit Semifinals: First Takes with Brian Friend, Chase Ingraham, and Luke Parker

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

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Air Mile. Bam, we're live. Just like that. Chaseram caleb beaver bruce wayne nate dog matt reynolds tim brown the eagle has landed dick butter anyone single looking to mingle okay uh tonight we have a show and um i was given homework on what to do to research it and I'm still not sure exactly what the show is about. But two of the articles that I was told to read were in the Morning Chalk Up. Sorry, Caleb, I didn't send you my notes. It was okay.

One of them was – I think one of them was titled like Five Things You Need to Know About Travel Regarding the Semifinals and the Athletes. One of them was, I think one of them was like titled like five things you need to know about travel. Regarding the semifinals and the athletes. Something like that. Yeah. And then, and that one was written by four people. Which is maybe why I didn't like that. No, no, five people. Some guy named Patrick Blenner has set it's like i bet you that dude's mom and dad i bet you couldn't figure out whose last name to use so they smushed them together i bet she's a runner long distance runner uh katie gannon a joe gannett and pillow wall

and uh and patrick mr patrick clark who i sometimes see in the comments um i wonder why an article like this takes four i mean maybe they all took a like a continental region yeah gotcha and then the and then the other article was uh regarding um semifinals and i think how people the athletes were seated in which semifinal they went to and that was written by brian friend and then just to keep things interesting i went over to uh what's the guy's name i always forget his name with all the bats hiller yeah i don't really forget i just pretend to forget and um andrew hill. And I watched his video. Oh, look at this. There's an Andrew Piller.

Oh, shit. Did I not send Brian a fucking link? I was like, you got the wrong guy to talk about this article. Give me a link here. Oh, fuck. No, sorry. Shit. There's so many links to send to people.

Thank you, casual sender. Shit, I sent them Luke Parker's fucking email address. Not that, this. that would this would never happen on the uh get with the programming podcast uh they this would never this type of that is not baggery you should have you should have my last couple episodes what we were talking about on the show it was deplorable oh thank god you're here brian i was freaking out pretending like i knew what to talk about about the games it was deplorable oh thank god you're here brian i was freaking out pretending like i knew what to talk about about the games see i'm no longer the prettiest man on this podcast you can't even see luke parker he looks like it's so blocky it looks like atari

from the 70s maybe that's good for me you can't block out the prettiness how bad is your connection luke it's terrible about as good as that mustache thank you yeah it's hard for me to hear you guys so bear with my connection. Where are you? Why would your connection be so bad? I'm out in the sticks right now. I am visiting home, visiting my brother right now for Easter, just for a few days. Going to see some family.

Okay. Yep. You had to leave the Mayhem Empire because of all the drama? Do you live within 100 miles of the gym, Mr.? Do you live within 100 miles of the gym, Mr. Parker? Do you live within 100 miles of the gym? Yeah, I live like a couple miles. Drop a pin right now on MapQuest. Actually, just sleep

in a tent in the barn. Do you ever run into Fikowski peeing off the deck? Yeah. do you ever run into fikowski peeing off the deck yeah i knew it fikowski's ghost i knew it and you hillar um so so hillar made this hillar made this uh video you know what's interesting about this video all i thought of the whole time that i was watching it is you guys had a guy who was winning the open there and you guys didn't even know who he is so there's a lot of fucking members there like some people were like hey wouldn't rich know if these people train there or not i'm like dude the guy who won the first three two workouts in the open was demolishing he had never even met the guy before so it's like it's deep there it's there's

depth as brian would say there's depth's there's depth is Brian would say there's depth or there's not depth. Absolutely. Yeah. There's tons of people. There is a ton of people that train at mayhem that do the, do open gym and are trying to be competitive. And there's definitely a ton of them that will, you know, catch our eye for sure. There's more depth at mayhem than there is in the women, entire women's division.

Ryan. False. Okay. Savannah. I almost wore that shirt today. Oh, I wanted to, I wanted to wear one of my my shirts but my wife's slipping it's like she wants a divorce i just i can't find it in my closet anymore uh brian uh thank you for pointing me at those articles uh the two articles from the um morning chaga up today one of them was uh published by you um it is behind a firewall could you pull it up anyway caleb just so we can see the the headline of it

do you guys know each other brian have you ever met luke parker i have yeah and do you know chase luke i do i haven't officially met chase in person yet i haven't had the pleasure to shake your hand yet but senior around time for sure the pleasure to shake your hand yet, but senior round of time for sure, obviously. I'll shake your hand at Madison. That sounds great. Hey, thanks for doing this. I know you can only come on for a half hour, but it's fun. It's always fun having, bringing a little star power onto the show. Get the numbers up. Hear from someone who actually works out for a living. Oh, I saw Nick Fowler's name. Yeah, I'm actually wanting to read that article.

I haven't had a chance to yet today. Where is the article, Brian? Can you? It's all the way at the top. Spent, what, two weeks in Ukraine? Is that the one? Yeah. Oh.

Okay. spent what two weeks in ukraine is that the one yeah oh okay so in the previous show we talked about what the seating is going to be like how is the seating going to go and we and we threw out some ideas and it sounds like from reading your article brian that they actually did use that idea for the for the for the first layer they didn't go four or five or six or seven or eight athletes deep but what they did is they separated all the best people and all the different uh semifinals is that correct yeah i mean uh there are many people who have been curious about what is the uh seating process for semifinals and so part of the idea here was to take a look at what we could because they haven't specifically communicated that to us there's a couple sentences in the rule book like we talked about so i just looked at you know after we saw the athletes get distributed if there were any

patterns we could discern and the first obvious one was that they took the first second third and fourth place finisher from quarterfinals and put them each in separate semifinals. There's a quote from the – let's see. That's tough. Listen, this is a quote. I got this quote from the Morning Chaka, but I believe it's from the – I believe they got it from the rule book. And it says, CrossFit will seat and place the athletes in semifinals before invitations are sent.

So that means that the athletes don't have a choice. I guess there was a survey sent beforehand. Yeah. No, all that means is that when they send out the invitations, the invitations will be to a specific semifinal. Okay. But before then, they did send out a survey just in case to help them with this play scene. Well, from my understanding, as Fellner and Fikowski helped us out

the other night, is that the survey only asked about any potential travel. Travel. Okay. Yeah, if you're able to travel. Do you know any individuals who got that, Luke? Yes, everybody at Mayhem. Okay. Okay. okay yeah so if you're able to travel um do you know any individuals who got that luke yes everybody a man okay okay so so they so they send that out to you and then after that you get no more say in it is basically what it says because it's basically cross um crossfit will see them place the athletes in a semi-final before the invitation is sent out so that means

that they already have it on there and when you get the invitation this is your this is going to be your home i can hardly take you serious with that hat on i'm and i'm sweating like a pig i just finished working out a little bit crossfit will make every effort elmer fudd that's what i was thinking i see a web i see a web it um uh CrossFit will make every effort to ensure the seating process will be fair and equitable. So I looked at these words, and they don't mean anything. There's nothing like… Savan, usually I would leave this up to you to say something like this, but that sentence is in there just to check a box for the DEI council, basically.

Yeah, I mean, what does that even mean? There's no depth to that statement. It's just in there to just to check a box for the DEI council, basically. Yeah. I mean, what does that even mean? There's no depth to that statement. It's just in there. I'm not sure what it means. I don't think anyone knows what it means. And that's why everyone's asking what it means. Luke, you're a religious man.

Is there anyone who can be fair and equitable besides God? Is that the job of any human being? That can be what? I couldn't hear you. So you got. Okay. Never mind. I don't even know what I'm would be no i think good okay great so so that sentence is in there we don't know what that means we're looking for something like oh yeah fair fair like they're going to place people fair and equal what does that mean so we don't know then it says quarter

final ranking distribution and geographical location of athletes will be primary determining factor so we don't even know oh and just for north america and europe well yeah because there's only one semi-final on the other four continents okay makes sense okay so so we would have to make the sweats dripping on my glasses we'd have to make the assumption then what they're saying is that they'll place you to the one that's closest to you based on your skill I also want to say this

last year if you won the quarter finals you got to decide where you went now that's gone too yeah well you had like damn Sevan did his homework where you went. Now that's gone too. Yeah. Brian's impressed.

Brian's like, damn, Sevan did his homework. Brian's impressed. That's crazy. Because basically what I've learned from this following the Open and the quarterfinals this year is they don't really mean shit. I mean, like Sarah Sigmundsdottir said in her book, the Open doesn't mean anything. And so at least there was that before if you won you got to choose where you were going to go and compete and now and now

that's gone yeah i mean i think the the overarching you know problem that most people have with the current system is that they don't know what the system is and i don't think people would necessarily care that much i mean whatever they announce if they change the format and they announce it people will have their opinions for a day or two or whatever but then no one's going to care because the system's announced and everyone knows what it is and then they can prepare according but right now a seating system yeah yeah but right now there's like there's just no certainty because there's been no communication outside of what you just read which is not very informative so athletes are competing in the quarterfinals without really knowing if it means anything or not. That's true.

It's tough too, because you got big time athletes who are kind of going through them, not really going through the motions, but give one effort, right? They don't repeat workouts and try to do their very absolute best. So they're kind of just going through the motions for them. You know, you're talking top 10 athletes in the world, right? And the seeding is based on their effort in the quarterfinal. It's tough. Why do we want to know, Brian? Why do we want them to be transparent?

Why would it be nice? For a lot of the things that we're probably going to talk about throughout the show tonight is, um, you know, especially right now with the state of the world, like having the ability to prepare for something, uh, ahead of time is, is extremely valuable. And in the current system, there's a lot of things that make the, that just keep extending the deadline of when certain athletes know when and where they're competing. That is in, or in some cases is going to make it really difficult, either from a financial or logistical perspective for them to actually do that and do it well.

Why not just, why not just make it so it's easiest for everyone? Everyone would have a different opinion about what that is. Well, by that i mean basically let people do something like how you pick your colleges when you apply to colleges in the uc system you put the five places you want to go the most in that order why not just let the athletes do that why do we care if katrin david's daughter goes and competes in australia and tia toomey goes and competes at the Atlas Games like seriously why do we care why isn't the this whole thing this whole shit show ends up in Madison anyway

no no no I don't think you have any sound reasoning here I of course of course not but the world's in complete chaos why even why not just facilitate the easiest way for the athletes so that they can get to where they want to go to compete and i know i know the one thing we do have to be careful of is we don't want the 20 best athletes all in one region so only five of them go but they but they'd have to sift through that as one of the criteria we had the same problem with regionals the only difference was that everyone understood the system if you live in this area you compete in this in this region it's true so then people were moving yeah and athletes can make the decision to do that. That's a huge commitment.

And if you want to do it, great. But right now, there's not any chance to do anything because you don't understand what you're competing for or where you're competing. And if your performance in quarterfinals has any bearing on what happens in semifinals, or even if you do rank things, some people ranked a one through four and got four last year with no explanation as to why, despite doing really well in a quarterfinal. So it's just this huge question mark. Well, at that point you just have to,

you have to, you have to trust them at that point, right? HQ, like at some point, like they have to put something like we want some transparency and then, and then we'll get, and then we'll give some trust.

I think I care – out of the four of us here, I care about the athletes the least. Like, fuck you. You want to do this, do it, get in, go through all the hoops, and get to the place. But in this circumstance, I would do anything I could to get them to help them facilitate to get to the next step. I don't see any reason to complicate shit for them. to get to the next step i don't see any reason to complicate shit for them i don't see why anyone would should have to cross any fucking border unless they unless you just have to because there's not a region for example let me let me go on and read this next thing by the way this is absolutely batshit crazy i think this is morning chocops words while canada and the u.s have some

of the world's friendliest border policies uh excuse me um i've been to a hundred countries i've been to canada five times the only time i didn't go to secondary was when i flew in in a fucking private jet and i didn't even have to have my passport stamp the other times i went to i went to um secondary and um how many years you've been in the syrian army i've not been in the syrian army sir oh we know you've been in the syrian army tell me canada's friendly canada was the hardest country i've ever had to get into canada i'd have a i'd have a letter from crossfit to allow me to get into the country yes yes so did i what so did i yes one time i had to have a letter yeah i had to get it there while i was

in secondary it was it was nuts but they were nice enough to let me do that they made me feel like they were doing me a huge favor there's countries i don't know what country it is i don't know if it's sweden or switzerland or one of those countries i went to once and there's just nothing you just fly there you're like i'm american like cool you brought your visa yeah i don't i i i don't i don't and and i don't by the way i'm not anyone can say hey it's horrible traveling to the united states i'm totally open anyone can say, Hey, it's horrible traveling to the United States. I'm totally open to it.

I almost got a body cavity search one time in, uh, in Miami. I'm like, I get it. Do you guys know the rules right now? Like what do you have to have to travel to Canada? Do you have to be vaccinated? Take the show over Luke, take the show over. Brian needs someone who's asking some questions. You need to be vaccinated.

Yeah. That's crazy yeah i did hear um there's a proven athlete that i heard is trying to get vaccinated like asap because they have to go to the atlas games to me that's don't you need to have two within 30 days like you can't go earlier right the second shot one yeah Or is it 21 days? I can't remember. No, there are certainly a handful of athletes that have been seated to the Atlas Games that are not vaccinated or are really concerned about being able to get there at the very least. Who, in some cases, you know, communicated that to CrossFit for the survey and are, you you know curious about what happened and how they ended up there yeah wow well that wow that's a problem brian do we know if they're going to make any exceptions or changes i do i do not but it's you know honestly it doesn't look it doesn't look that way based on the you know the way that people have signed up for

um the semifinals the way that they've accepted their invitations uh all the athletes that you know there's no athlete that belongs in one continent that is competing in another one okay um to go back to the positive part about this and brian mentions and mentions this in the article at the atlas games we have mallory o'brien she took first at syndicate there's alexis raptus she took second at the mac and you can see all this in the article that brian wrote on morning chalk up daniel brandon uh third is at the mac and granite games amanda barnhart's at the fourth similar it's for the men you have madaris uh split up from noah olsen split up from chandler smith split up from jeffrey adler

split up from Noah Olson, split up from Chandler Smith, split up from Jeffrey Adler. And actually you laid this out here really nice, Brian. Okay, thanks. And then Brian goes on to write, the process seems to have stopped with the top four, and we can discern from that fact that the fifth place male qualifier, Scott Pancheck, and the eighth place

male qualifier, Griffin Raleigh, like the city of North Carolina. Thank you, Raleigh. I knew I was going to say it wrong. Are both at the syndicate semifinal. Is Griffin Raleigh, like the city of North Carolina. Thank you. Raleigh. I knew I was going to say it wrong. Are both at the Syndicate Semifinal. Is Griffin Raleigh Thor? Yes. Yeah, okay.

Yes. Yeah, and he did great in the quarterfinals. Is he stronger than Luke Parker? Has he got a higher total than Luke Parker? That dude's strong. Depends. Depends on the standard. I remember my first year during CrossFit, I saw him hit like a 300-pound snatch.

Jeez. Yeah, the dude can throw some weight around. Yeah. And, Brian, you couldn't make any sense of this when you saw this? You weren't like, oh, this is what they did? No. when you saw this, you weren't like, oh, this is what they did?

No. Aside from the top four, there didn't seem to be too much rhyme and reason, except that every Canadian man other than Brent Fikowski is competing at the Atlas Games. Wow. Has Brent spoken up on that? I think not.

He's been preoccupied having a baby. That's right Congratulations Congrats Brent That is awesome It's kind of wild though that he's been granted Thor is definitely Stronger at bench press with his butt off the bench

Oh did he have his butt off the bench Oh wow Holy cow Say hi to Evelyn so happy to welcome this little girl into the world with my wife claire crazy welcome evelyn look how small a baby is dude babies it's nuts how small babies look at that car i've ever held in my life right you're like but don't want to the neck you know that thing's gonna grow into like a fukowski

uh will evelyn be at the crossfit games oh it's a good question a better question is yeah oh don't i brought his baby games the CrossFit Games early on, right? He brought his baby right away. Last year? Yeah. Brian, when these other continents where they only have one or these other regions, these other areas that only have one semifinal, are there any issues there? In terms of what?

In terms of, of like there's nothing they can do there's nothing really for them to complain about other than the fact well there's nothing really that for them to claim about that's just the way it is it's like it would be like complaining about the event being in madison like sorry just it is yeah that's that's one way to look at it for sure i mean of course there's the fact last year that they did make a caveat for a dozen, half dozen to a dozen athletes who were unable to travel based on the state of travel last year. And, you know, there was always the potential that that could happen this year. There's still some areas that are very difficult to travel to and from, and, you know, it wouldn't have been unprecedented for CrossFit to get grant another exception this year, given, you know,

how difficult it is to travel, but it appears they haven't done that and so that's my point if they if you're saying last year they did it for five people nine i think nine why don't they do it for 30 this year like it doesn't affect the competition once again right you know but but yes it does it does oh explain it to me tell me how dramatically if you stack an entire semi-final with people who are just going there for convenience. Right. Well, and what you're saying is then someone who might be the sixth fittest person in the world gets knocked out because they get stuffed in somewhere. Like the Mac. Yeah.

Just ask, what's her name? Courtney. Christine Kohlenbrenner. Christine, that's it. Christine, thank you. Well, then there's got to be a way to deal with that. There's got to be a way to let them. How packed are these things already, just from what you've seen of them?

How packed? The max. Yeah. The max is loaded. Are there any of them where you're like, man, there's some people here who might go to the games who don't deserve to go to the games? Have you seen that anywhere in any semifinals? Well, relative to some other fields. Oh, Chase, say it, say it.

We thought about that last year at the Granite Games, and that turned out to not be the case. I don't know. I feel like Granite Games was pretty similar to last year, to be honest. Yeah, my Granite Games pumped out some pretty good athletes that performed well at the games, and we thought it was just going to be a joke region, especially on the women's side.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, Ariel was a huge surprise last year yeah yeah she was a huge surprise i think for just about everyone and no one knew how good malin and emma could do so they ended up to be very relevant at the games all finishing in the top 16 and we didn't and and of course christy ended up making it from there as well through the last chance qualifier so they had a quarter of the top 16 come out of that semifinal. So sometimes it's a little deceiving at first, but there are certainly places where you look and you see, you know, that's 2021. Right. OK, Taylor, we got to go to 2022. Right. No, no. That's what Chase is talking about. That's fine. OK. Yeah. Brian, do you have any like real concerns that like stuff that you see right now that you're

like man that this needs to be addressed and needs to be fixed i think that i think or just red flags like roman or or some of the things we see with china no that's a good example for sure it's um it's really you know i don't know what the communications were like this past week i'm aware of several athletes that have been seated in a semifinal that it's going to be difficult or impossible for them to get to, but they accepted their invitation. So when I hear that they can't travel there for whatever the reason is, and I also see that they accepted the invitation, I'm really confused about why they would accept that if they can't travel there. But I don't have, you know, this is just these are things that I'm hearing. But they make sense within the context of travel and visas and other documents that you need for, you know, to come and go from certain countries. So there's nothing that's just sticking out and staring at us right now that we're like, hey, CrossFit fucked up. But we're just looking at just a bunch of red flags.

Now that we're like, Hey, CrossFit fucked up, but we're just looking at just a bunch of red flags. Yeah. I mean, I, like I said, there's people that are not vaccinated, told CrossFit that they're not vaccinated and were seated in the Atlas games. And now they have a tough, tough situation in front of them that I don't know if it's like Chase said, I don't know if you can get the required vaccinations in the amount of time, even if you wanted to, to get in there. And I don't know what the process for potentially applying for a travel exemption or anything is, but from what I've seen on the website, that's not an option. And then there's, you know, I think going to South Korea is going to be an issue for some people. And I think that in particular, in the case of some of the Asian men that are legit games qualifiers, they might not end up being at that competition.

Like who? Like Roman? qualifiers they might they might not end up being at that competition like who like roman the guys that live in the u.s then at least of which i think there are three relevant men well roman doesn't live in the u.s but he's here and uh you know i don't think anyone wants him to leave like it's been five years to get him here like uh i don't know and i agree i agree the sentiment is there if we send him away he may not come back again i i i feel the sentiment yeah and you know and it's uh not not only with the problems that he's had personally getting here but also obviously with what's going on with his country it just seems like incredibly risky and luke have you heard anything does roman plan on going back to asia to kore to do the semifinal? Do you know?

Where did he get selected? To Asia? Yeah. Sorry, I haven't been in the conversation. It's okay. You can ask anything. You're in it more than I am at all times, even with me trying to pay attention. Wing this shit. wing this shit last i've heard from roman man it's actually really cool he actually lived with me for a few weeks but um he is in madison training doing his thing so i don't have no idea i haven't heard from him since did he ever express i know there was a language barrier but did he ever express anything like oh shit like i can't go back or I have to stay here until after the games before I can

go back to Russia or like I have a one stop visa or did he express any concerns? He definitely got an extended visa. Um, but I don't think he expressed any concerns that he can't go travel anywhere, but definitely not back to Russia, at least for right now. So like if he, like if he like if he went there he could get held there and getting out again it's like it's probably a one trip visa well i mean absolutely i mean you can imagine i mean they're in a huge war right now i mean

things are nuts there right now it's crazy all right fair enough are people just like russia still i thought i thought one of these articles it said people are still coming from Russia to the U.S. There aren't any travel restrictions. Well, outside of needing a visa. is actually shipping supplies and stuff to their country. Everyone's just kind of holding off from getting them anything. It's just chaotic there right now. I saw some crazy footage coming out of China today too. People fighting for food. It was nuts. Yeah, that's crazy.

Or at least it was supposed to be China. Fuck, I don't know. Who knows, right? Anymore? Yeah, with the internet for sure what was the other article i have notes here um about about let's talk about this thing about um can you help us with this at all luke let's talk about what happened about who about that third team what what team are you on what team are you on i wish i was on mayhem freedom but i'm not that's the one that has the rich froney guy on it yeah that rich guy man okay i mean everyone wants to be on that guy's team can't blame what a bully yeah i'm i'm doing uh mayhem

independence with angelo your other co-host yes yes yes when he's not here you're feeling informed yeah exactly um and and and that team's solid absolutely yeah we're all i mean i think for me and i'll just jump to the conclusion because i saw i had a few of my friends send me um the videos on the new mayhem justice team yeah andrew hiller claims that he's just there's two things i think he claims i didn't watch it okay there's two things i think he claims one i think he says he scoured your the the not yours but the mayhem empire social media videos looking for this guy evidence that this guy exists there and then two i think that there's tattletales and i'm not sure how i feel about them that in the midst that Mayhem Empire who say this person lives 400 miles away, not within the 100-mile radius.

Yeah, I don't know how all that works. I mean, like you said earlier, like talking about the guy, Charlie, who was like top 15, whatever, 20 in the world. Yeah. I don't like… The guy who works in the gym he doesn't even work out in the barn exactly so i don't spend i don't like the dog that sleeps outside but he hunts the best shit it's like wait what exactly so the whole mayhem justice team like i'm not constantly with them and around them every day um as far as like the times that they train because they have to

work around their own schedules. But the girl that he's trying to talk about in that video, Jess, like I don't know much about Mayhem Justice's situation. I mean, they all live there. I mean, Jess has been in every morning that I'm in Mayhem. Like I just walk by her and say hi. Like they've been working a lot together as a team, doing warm workouts and stuff.

Probably done more warm workouts than our team has, to honest i mean it's pretty cool like mayhem's got like eight different worms not more but i don't like i said i don't know many more details than that so i can't really answer anything else besides that because i don't know much to be honest with you okay so i think something go ahead go ahead there you won't forget because i won't forget. Okay. So there's a girl named Jess that you think is the one that they're implying wasn't there. And what you're saying is, is that when you walk into the barn looking to ride Rich's nuts, you often. Hey, girl, what's up?

Exactly. All right. Shit. I want to get in line. How hard is it to ride Rich's nuts there? I heard it's hard. It's hard. I heard it's hard.

But I see you. I see you there, but I heard it's hard. I heard it's hard. That's why I'm surprised. I was just wondering because some people were saying, why doesn't Rich know? And I'm like, I guarantee you, Rich isn't paying attention to any of that shit.

Exactly. Is there a mama hen who's in charge of all the teams or a daddy hen no and there should be and that's the cool thing about mayhem like you have all these training camps right and a lot of them you have your own individual coach like i came from training think tank i had my own individual coach and paid that individual right and not to mention i had other people overseeing and helping and mayhem like you're kind of put in a position where you're supposed to be a professional and coach yourself and then there's mentors and people to help you and help guide you but there's

no like like you said mother hen or someone who's like overseeing everything and watching and like paying attention to all the little details like if you can't do that for yourself or your team then that sucks and that's just like does your team have a captain yes and and so what i don't know what i don't know oh i don't know i'm looking at me i'm looking at you but i hear brian's audio um and uh and and does that and so you guys some of those things are just a given right like like um like you live within 100 miles you don't do steroids and you'll show up to madison and you'll give your best effort like there's just just like some things that are – so no one's ever followed you home. I'm just trying to figure out the legitimacy of like –

no one's to blame. Everyone's responsible for themselves I guess is what you're saying. There is no – the team captain – your team captain isn't like, hey, Luke, I need to see your electrical bill and make sure your name's on. Yeah, I mean, no. But they see you there every day and it would seem impossible that you'd be driving from 130 miles away. We definitely have conversations with everyone who's, for example, like Rich or Jake Locker, who's the actual programming director. And he definitely oversees a lot and

helps he'll play the mother hen role a ton and he'll make sure like a lot of those rules are in line but there's also like that piece like i said like you know we'll have conversations with each other in-house about kind of like the rules and make sure we're good but there's kind of like you know take it upon yourself take the initiative and make sure you're staying on top of your stuff. As far as the details go for competing and everything else. Is Jake Lockhart non-binary? Is he what? I've been trying to understand what non-binary is. If anyone knows anyone who's non-binary,

I need him as a guest on the show. I need to understand, like, I don't understand these things. Okay, go ahead. Well, when you said he's a mother hen,

I thought maybe that he could be non-binary because it's like that means you could be anyway i'm confused go ahead ryan your turn your turn i think as a man i think one of the things that's uh that people are you know curious about or asking questions about is why seth stovall has registered as an individual for semi-finals but what you have to what has not been clearly communicated to the general public as as far as I know, but was communicated to some athletes this past week when they expressed concern about this is they have to decide at this point in the season, which route they're taking semifinal individual, semifinal team, or semifinal age group. However, the semifinal teams have invites have not been sent out and the quarterfinals age groups haven't even happened yet.

So in the case of an athlete like Seth Stovall, who qualified as an individual, he can register as an individual. And if his team gets an invite and he decides to go on the team, then they will rescind this and apply his money, I guess, to the team thing. And that will open up another spot for a potential backfiller for North American men. And that's the same reason why you saw athletes like Jen Ryan and Rebecca Voigt Miller as some of the last ones to register for the individual semifinals, because they were waiting to hear back from CrossFit about what would happen if they also qualified for the age group semifinals and wanted to then make that decision. But like I said earlier, the problem with that is now you're pushing into early May when those athletes will pretend, will be receiving their invites, have a couple of days to make a decision after they make that decision. If they decide to go age group, then you have to backfill. And now you're potentially less than two weeks out

from the first semifinal and trying to get people to a place that's hard. You know, they have to arrange travel and lodging and everything else in a very short amount of time. In addition to trying to, you know, being in competition shape. Yeah. It's interesting.

Take a moment of silence. Sorry. No, it's fine. It's good. Don't be sorry. This is fucking, it's a lot,

but I think so. We don't know. We're not getting to the bottom of it tonight. We don't be sorry this is fucking it's a lot but i think okay so we don't know we're not getting to the bottom of it tonight we don't know there's a guy there's a guy there that andrew hiller is accused of like living too far away but just because seth registered for the individual semifinals doesn't mean that their team is not going to compete in semifinals we you know we don't know what that situation yeah well said yeah it's just yeah that is interesting are you better than everyone on that team luke are those teams in order yeah are those teams in order there's the team rich is on there's the team luke is on and then there's the are you guys better than that third team the luke and angelo team you just confused me but to answer your question yes i'm confident that yeah for sure

there's some good athletes i mean the guy amazing mayhem justice says snowball he's super young super raw and he's gotten so much better since he's moved here and started mayhem athlete programming and then you have ben who's our mayhem media guy he's been a videographer and it's all it's his job he's just super fit and does man math since he moved here you heard him since he moved here he lives there yeah that was a while back i was way before i was like uh before the games 2021 games yeah yeah take that. Take that, people. Yep.

I think you pretty much summed it up. Well, Savan, I got to get running. I really just got to get to sleep. You stayed eight minutes longer than you said you would. That's true. Thanks for having me. Chase, Brian, it's a pleasure. Yeah, man.

Oh, shit, mute Chase. I didn't know Chase could talk. Oh, you did. I look forward to seeing you guys soon. Yeah, y'all too. Luke, you too, man. Thanks for coming on, brother. Yeah, thank you. Have a good night. Look for new value programs when you shop at Loblaws, like Hit of the Month. So you get the best deals and low prices on amazing products every month.

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Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4 p.m. late checkout? Just need a nice place to settle day how about a 4 p.m late checkout just need a nice place to settle in enjoy your room upgrade wherever you go we'll go together that's the powerful backing of american express visit amex.ca slash ymx benefits vary by card terms apply i i'm i think i think hillar fucking swinging a mess i think we gotta i think hillar has to pull the video down i think he's talking about a girl not seth he covered both bases he said he saw that chick that dude knows girls that dude's like that dude's got like girl radar that dude saw that girl and by the worm when he would walk in in the mornings he'd say hey what's up honey and then this other

dude he said move there before the games that covers both those bases well there's another girl on the team you've you've covered three oh okay all right fine fine no the other woman uh is a coach at mayhem aniston shit okay i see what you're saying i see what you're saying chase all right and hillar didn't out her right he didn't give her name no which i don't know what the point of doing that is like giving her name well if i mean yeah just cut through the bullshit just fucking say who it is and then making making me like, it's not here. She is like, I don't understand what's so hard about this. When you look at that photo,

what do you see? I only see one thing. I see a lot of black shirts. What do you see Brian? Seth Stovall's left quad muscle. Yes. Photoshop hashtag Photoshop. That thing is nuts.

That thing is absolutely nuts um so basically we have nothing we need we need days to pass by and to hear more athletes speak out before we start knowing what's really going on we're going to hear like so so one of the things one of the things that hillar said in the video is that, um, uh, CrossFit said that the leaderboard was final and he showed, Hey, I've seen these three chain changes since they said it was final. And so they lied about that or, or, or a lie might be too strong. My dad didn't like me using that word, but, but he shows the pictures and he's right. What we're going to see now is athletes probably complain and we might see some adjustments. It's a little too soon for us to chime in. Right.

Complain about what? Hey, like I asked, I told you, I can't go to the Atlas games. I'm not vaccinated. Hey, I told you I can't leave the country and go to Canada because I have a

fucking Dewey here in the United States, you know, whatever your reason is. And, and yet they've put those people over there. And, and I'm guessing that that's i'm guessing that's happened in every region or roman krennikoff hey i can't it's

not worth the risk to go to uh where is it south korea yeah yeah it's like roman has a legitimate gripe or at least worry from what i mean from the things i've heard he's not the only one and there are some there are some uh people that have been um you know living in the united states for a long time and have you know very specific rules associated with them being here that if they leave will make it harder and possible for them to come back and i don't you know and i don't know like you know crossfit's put these rules out. And like you said, all the athletes that are participating, like they made a decision to play by the rules. So they shouldn't be surprised that this is what they're being asked to do.

But it is a situation that's, you know, potentially unmanageable for certain cases. Okay. Hiller says it's Jessica. Well then figure it out. Oh, with that, we didn't ask him about it, Jessica, right? No, he just put it's Jessica. Well then, figure it out. Oh, we didn't ask him about a Jessica, right? No, he just put it in the comments. I know, but we let Luke go and I didn't ask him about Jessica.

Well, we didn't know who it was. You guys kept saying it was Seth. Yeah, that was Luke Slick. I'm just saying, if we want to find the answers then you got to ask the questions i know we have no one to ask right now everyone's gone it's just me you and brian i don't mean that i mean i just mean crossfit it's like if there's right it's very simple they have right they do right they're like cross it has a support staff that dedicates time to this you'd like hey i heard jessica whatever is in a part of that, look into it. And

then they should, and then it's over. Well, but you, but we also alerted them and said, you should look at these scores on a leaderboard. And they said they would, and they didn't. And then they said, we're not going to. And the problem, and the, and the thing is they did look at the scores on the leaderboard for workout three. And this is a direct parallel to what's potentially going to happen here. There are a lot of teams around the world who are not, who have one or more athletes that are not training at their facility regularly or do not live within the parameters that they're supposed to live within.

And I've heard about it in dozens of cases, but CrossFit's not monitoring. It's always been the problem and CrossFit's not monitoring those things. And so, because it's impossible to monitor at the global level, but if you're going to be focused on the top of the leaderboard and you're going to be that scrutinizing of one athlete on one team, that's a ninth place worldwide.

When there's 50 other teams in the top 300 that are also violating that protocol, then it's inconsistent. And it's like, why do you have metrics in place rules in place that you can't manage? That's what needs to be. That's the question that needs to be asked and answered. And in Hiller's defense, that's what he was driving in the video no i get that i have no problem with

the video and i'm not yeah i'm not attacking you jason my only problem is just say it and then you look at it and then you find out if she has or hasn't like it's a very easy question to answer well i think his point is is like big like i don't mean him specifically in the video i'm just saying to get the get to the bottom line is just like who is it dear crossfit this is it look into it um i don't i don't know this for a fact but well i do know this for a fact that athletes would report each other for doing um steroids they'd be like hey so and so did sarah so and so did steroids so and so did steroids and i don't remember if crossfit then would act on that

and send people out to drug test them but it would be so easy if there was an accusation for crossfit to say hey they would do that they would do that send someone out and test them okay dave did that shit all the time just send well i knew he sent people out but i didn't know if he did it like if if you reported it was me i didn't know if he would send it just to come get me just because Chase told him I was on it. I've seen him do something that petty. Okay, good. Which was fantastic. Yeah, it was fantastic.

So in that regard, it should be super easy for someone from HQ and for all we know they have to contact this team and be like, send us all your electrical bills with your names on them. Yes. You would hope, right? Yeah. You would hope. Yeah. I mean. Man, if they ask for my electrical bills,

I don't even know. I don't save those. Anything they do. Or whatever. It's really easy to show you've been somewhere. It's really hard to fake it. And Brian's right. You know what they could even do?

They could just make every single person on the semifinals do that. Hey, you have to send these things. I mean, you could just drop it through their website. You have to drop some proof that shows that you live here. You have to do this, this, and this, and then your team can go, and everyone on the team has to do that. It would be really easy. So you have 24 hours from when this email is sent to you. You have 24 hours to prove it.

Or it doesn't have to be that fast. I don't know. It should be that fast. If you ask me where I live, I will tell you. I could give you the proof in 30 minutes. Yeah, but I don't know if some 19-year-old kid who's only been living in mayhem for six months can do that. Well, then you go to Rich. Yeah, right.

It's his gym. But once again, that should be communicated. These are the rules. You have to abide by these things, and in order to advance in the season, you're going to have to prove. You think this is a big problem brian you really think it's as big as like we're giving the show time time for there's a bigger picture problem which is that there's the whole season is appearing to be unmanageable right now and as a result of that inconsistencies in the administration of movement standards uh specific things about how you'd be on a team,

and the judging or review process are being exposed this year more than they ever have before. So I don't want to zoom in on the situation of Jessica from CrossFit Independence. I want to zoom out and say, if there's this potentially happening a lot, then why is it a rule? And if you can't

enforce the rule, then why do you have the rule? So you need to take a, I think you need to take a look and say, we're going to make a new rule or system that we're going to tell people about ahead of time that they know what they're going to have to do with them. Cause then they can prepare for that. Like, like, like Jay said, you know, great. There's a 19 year old kid. You want to be on our team, but we know that we're going to have to have these things in place. So let's get them in order now. And we can have someone like, you know, a team a 19 year old kid you want to be on our team but we know that we're going to have to have these things in place so let's get him in order now and we can have someone like uh you know a team manager or coach or whatever a captain of the team that organizes those things is prepared to send them to crossfit when crossfit asked for him um uh caleb on that note will you

bring up hiller's um uh youtube channel it's interesting you say that have you have you been watching his content ryan some of you have you watched it chase yes will you will you go to um just the videos in general just go to where it says videos and just look at the list there that one right there that invalid quarter finals compilation that has annie and noah there with 37 clips that thing's gnarly yeah and he's very gentle he's not that thing is he could have made that thing clickbaity as fuck that thing is gnarly i how how does how does hq process that when they see that video does someone from there see that and be like oh fuck i have no idea i mean there's major violation there's violations from like fucking the who's who in CrossFit.

Yes. I think the problem is that we have a very high sensitivity to a lot of small, somewhat meaningless issues because of what has been transpiring over the last several months. And I've said this a few times. You mean even the last several years, you think we're just being assholes because like. No, I don't, I'm not going to go that far, but it's like, okay, yes. Two years has led into the last few months and it's been a lot of bad things back to back to back. And, you know, kind of what Brian was saying is like, it all revolves around trust and there's not a lot of it right now. And like any relationship, if there's little trust and no communication, then you're going to have reactions like this and everybody's doing it. And it's because of the things that we've been dealing with

for the last few months but like this this athlete thing from mayhem like that's a big deal if this is true it's a big deal and if it's not then just it's really easy to come out and prove that right and then we move on well like in in crossfit's defense i mean we're jumping all the fuck over it before they've even had a chance to do shit about it right but they also don't do enough up front i think that sometimes they take too long to respond to things to mitigate those issues right yeah right and and a lot of times where it's like like i get it if you don't you don't want to go and like face the loud mob. I understand that. But at the same time as a company or like, that's your job. Like you have to do things like that. You can't have it both ways. It's like a celebrity not wanting to have the paparazzi around. It's like, this is what you fucking wanted. And it comes with the territory. wanted and it comes with the territory what if i i wonder if when they when you sign up for a team athlete what it looks like what if what what are the what are the criteria i think i i know it by heart now it's you have to live within 100 miles you have to um be an affiliate you actually have

to be an affiliate member no i think you just have to train there regularly. Like they even took the 50% rule out of the verbiage. Okay. For some reason, I thought you had to be an affiliate member. But what if when you signed up to be a team, there was even these four boxes? Do you meet these criteria? And you check them and there's like, and hey, if not, if we find out you're lying, we're going to take one of your testicles or one of your ovaries, depending on, you know, whether internal or external, um,

where, what will they take from the non-binary stuff? They're still there. It's just whatever. I need to have, I'm pretty sure I'm non-binary. That's not a bunch of Ken dolls. These are the things that are listed.

It's in section 1.14 of the, uh, rule book version number 13, which is the most up-to-date one. Athlete lives within 100 miles of the affiliate. Athletes are active members of the affiliate. They specify that they've signed waivers, have client management software, whiteboard pictures, social media posts, and that the athletes are regularly training at the affiliate, citing some of those other things again. So you actually have to be a member. Athletes are active members of the affiliate. But I mean, what does that mean?

I think it means you pay dues or you clean the bathroom. I have people that are members that don't pay dues, but they do other shit. Well, then they would have to get that. They're just active. You're active. You're an active member. Well, that's more specific that I would say being an active member,

at least is a little bit more specific than they're going to place people in a fair and equitable manner. I feel like that's one and the same. Okay, fine. I'll give it to you. Fine. Fine. I think it's just as ambiguous. But listen to this, Savant.

Is that a word? That's ambiguous. If that's not, no, I like that, ambiguous. I was thinking ambiguity, and then I panicked halfway through and realized I was going to say it wrong. Read the sentence after the three dots there, Savan. It starts with, if a request is made. If a request is made, CrossFit LLC will provide details as to when the documentation will need to be provided.

If athletes cannot prove they meet the requirements stipulated by CrossFit LLC, the team and the individual athlete may be subject to disqualification. So they might get to stay too. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, this is what it says. Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. And some of the things, driver's license, cable bill, power bill, etc. I wonder if I can prove I live in my house.

I've been here five years. I don't know if anything's in my name. Well, like I didn't have my address updated on my license for like years. Mine still isn't. The address on my license at one time was like San Antonio, Texas, and i live in dallas which is like over 400 miles away so that would be a bad example to give them but that would be a bad example to give them chase yeah there are easier ways to prove that you are a resident there right right right i agree okay uh there was uh going back to what brian was saying about some

of the things and what you were saying chase about the trust we had the problem earlier with um are you supposed to jump over the bar with one foot or two feet and it looks like now this time with semi-finals it's gone back to two feet again there was uh i'm learning all this from andrew hiller's videos there was some confusion with the uh kilograms and pounds they in two different places they had posted different weights that didn't that that didn't coincide with one another um those those types of things are like crucial to to trust and to the competition running successfully people are using different weights it's i mean they're like a pound off but like right the the barbell kilogram stuff that's brought up like that's always been the case

like it's actually always been 20k g and 15 they just write 45 like nobody makes 45 pound barbells they're all is that really true if i go out and weigh my barbell it's 44 pounds yes wow i mean some people do i'm not saying that but like they're all 20k and 15 kg like that's that's just what that's what they are it is chase wants to use some common sense here but i said i think what you're saying is this like small things like this become bigger things when they just get stacked up back to back to back. And the mistakes have piled up this year, and now every single one is becoming a bigger deal than it would be in isolation. But at the same time, the semifinals fields are being set now, and people are going to move forward and get excited about the upcoming five competitions and i just hope that that even though the season continues to move forward that

crossfit will look really carefully at the things that have happened this last month or two and hopefully make some really significant changes about how they manage those parts of the season next year there's this line me too but it was supposed to be more professional without dave uh there's this line i want to read this line to you and ask you guys um i think this is from the morning chocolate article it is at the end of the day it appears there is now an uneven playing field when it comes to competing at the CrossFit Games concerning two major issues. International travel in the pandemic landscape and vaccination status. And I don't understand. I don't understand that sentence.

I don't understand why that makes it in an uneven playing field. Well, I don't know about the words uneven playing field, but it is kind of a notable thing that, you know, that the CrossFit Games are hosted in the United States and that if you want to travel into the United States from another country, you're supposed to be vaccinated. I'm sure that there are some, you know, you're supposed to be vaccinated. I'm sure that there are some, you know, some potential ways to get exemptions for that or whatever.

But for the most part, if you want to be an athlete that doesn't live in the U S and wants to compete in the games, you have to be vaccinated. And if you live in the U S you don't. And so that's the uneven playing field. If you live in the United States, you get to choose whether you want to be vaccinated or not. If you, if you want to play, if you want to play in Madison. Yeah. But I don't know what the words uneven playing field has to do with that, but that's, that is a distinction between United States athletes and international athletes.

Right. Um, there's another one here. Uh, and this is just me being, this is me just, I was going to say being petty or I could say actually caring. It says, but any athlete from outside the U.S. is essentially required to be vaccinated to compete at the CrossFit Games. This is from the Morning Chalkup article. And this is not because of CrossFit's requirements. However, under federal law, any foreigner entering the U.S. must show proof of vaccination. How under federal law, any foreigner entering the U.S. must show proof of vaccination. Kyrie Irving, who plays for Brooklyn Nets and is not vaccinated, has caused a headache for both the NBA and Barclay Arena.

No, Kyrie didn't cause the headache. Kyrie did not cause the headache. That's what you call biased reporting. He did not cause the headache. Without the policy, there would be no headache. The creator of the policy created the headache. There's also something in here about – I think in the context of this article, what he's trying to say is – I know what he's trying to say.

Sorry, go ahead. I'm not mad at you. This isn't an imposed sanction by CrossFit. This is a rule for people traveling to the United States. Once again, I would give every athlete who wanted to to the best of my ability without fucking up the competition the chance to compete wherever they wanted, especially the top guys. Maybe you have some sort of rule. Because we don't want to, but we don't want, like I think Chase was saying it

where we were talking about earlier, we don't want 20 guys who can go to the games all in one semifinal. But outside of that, I really don't care where they compete. Tell me, Chase, tell me. Do you guys realize the regionals which everybody looks back on with the fondness of memories had a worse system of getting

athletes to the cross the games than this tell me no no tell me explain like you were just stuck in your region where you lived that's why the central east was a freaking buzzsaw but my region the south central is the only fucking reason i made the cross the games to begin with because everybody sucked there right but regionals was way worse okay so so are you saying way worse or what yes look another stance and you said who gives a fuck so what if 20 guys if it's a fucking buzzsaw region that's the way it was with the region well that's what we said back in regional days and what i like what brian was saying is because they just said that that's the deal so if you don't like it move right here the problem is we don't know the seating which again the less information we have

you can't move anymore well you can but it doesn't it won't change that's what i actually won't change where you go right unless you're on a team it not potentially won't change if you're if you're if you're if you've if you're from russia you're going to asia no matter what Whereas before, if you were from Russia and you moved to Texas, you could be in the center. I mean more, I guess, the North America and European regions or semifinals. But like regionals back in the day was way worse. You just had to go here. I've tried to address this in the modern system, but it could have also been in regionals, is that there was no reflection of competitive excellence that had anything to do with the qualification process. So in the regional era, it was just geographical. They said you get this many, this many, this many, this many.

And it was just known and it was set and it didn't change year to year. There was a couple of years that they reconfigured regionals or whatever, but it never was, it didn't ever seem to be based on competition. So if the, you know, they did have that rule for the past champions, which opened up some spots in central East and they took it away. I'm glad they took it away. I had that rule.

Hey, but why, but why, but why did you hit the rule? Actually? Oh, you don't deserve to go back just because you won once the one thing. So,

so that's, I can get behind it. It could only last for so long right that rule was like you couldn't do that for more than a decade then the master's a quarter of your field the master's still no it doesn't yeah if you've ever won the masters you can always compete there well is that true yeah like hey um do you really still oh Chase, you know who else does that? I interviewed this morning a guy who went to the Abu Dhabi Combat Championship trial. That's like the biggest world event for Brazilian jiu-jitsu in the world. And they had the trials in Los Angeles.

And there was this kid I had on the show today named Jay Rodriguez. He's Nicky Rodriguez's little brother. And he won seven out of seven matches by submission. But anyways, so I was asking him how many trials there are, and he said like four. And I said, oh, so when you get there, you only go against four guys? And he goes, no, there'll be 16. I go, where do the other 12 guys come from or whatever? And he said, they invite back past champions.

And I know you could use the Dave Castro line. I don't give a fuck what other people do. Yeah, this guy. But it is interesting. Well, the one thing, the thing about. Did you hate it? Sorry, Brian, hold that thought real quick. Did you hate it when Ben Smith and Hunter McIntyre were invited, Chase?

Well, that year was fucked anyway, so. Your Honor, the witness is being hostile and refuses to answer the question. No, I didn't hate the Hunter McIntyre one. I didn't care for the Ben Smith one. Oh, interesting. Okay. Write that down and get more in depth next time I have you on. Sorry, Brian, go ahead.

That's nothing against Ben. And honestly, I would have loved to have seen Hunter be able to take the test and see how he would have done over the course of the minimum of six, but hopefully 10 to 12 workouts because it was an experiment. It was like, why do we even have it if you don't get to see him? I actually love the Hunter McIntyre invite. But I'm with Brian. I wish I could have seen him take the whole test. That would have been great.

I didn't like his invite or Ben's invite. And I like both of them. The one thing I was going to say about the past champion is it was a mechanic in the system that allowed four regions that were very deep to get an extra qualifying spot based on their performance. Or two extra ones. Or two extra ones think that i think that there's a place an opportunity to do something like that in this system too and i've written about it and i'll continue to talk

about it but um well you know we can see if we look at some of these semi-finals that the number of spots available relative to the the abilities of the athletes in that region are disproportionate and yeah no that's a good point but i mean if different people kept winning it'd be a bad rule but since it's only been like one it's pretty easy because again after a decade if they're inviting 40 people of the crossfit games and 10 different athletes just get a free pass i'm not a fan of that you know i don't think that the past championship rule should be there but i do think that uh that there should be an opportunity for let's just say in the case of tia cara and jamie let's say that they make the games this year and they all finish in the top 10 that that's a good enough performance at the games and

there's statistics to back this up that can say they can earn another spot for their continent next year if you want to keep this same format oh because otherwise you just get you just never are allowing for young potential to rise in those regions i completely agree in fact i think the the concept of the open participation dictating spots to the cross at games i think is completely backwards i think it should be performance at the cross at games dictate spots for the next year's CrossFit Games. And that's what I've been advocating for and writing about all the time. And the very basic is

Oceania is never going to have the number of qualifiers as the United States, just from a population perspective. And what are you going to do if a million people from Asia sign up? Right. And that's what I'm saying. Wow. It'll be the chinese games

that would be awesome i would i fucking hope that happens well no they just have a lot of people there they're not getting first well no but it doesn't matter if a million of them sign up then they're going to get 50 of the games field right and i'm with you i don't i don't i think there needs to be having it only to open participation i think is missing a key component of displaying what actually happens at the crossfit games to the exact point that you're making you can certainly tie open participation to something like number of semi-finals hosted you know yeah yes you bring up something really interesting. Let's say a million people signed up for the CrossFit Games for the Open. Double the – almost tripled as many as ever signed up.

I wonder how they would handle that. I mean, it wouldn't change the system. I mean, I think they'd have to let more people – They'd review the first page of the leaderboard, and everyone else can just put in whatever score they want um rob musy the chief operating officer of brute strength i'm reading this from the morning chocob article again um out of florida said this uh this is the world we now live in and people best get accustomed to it. At the end of the day,

we've been dealing with the pandemic long enough to know we need to do our due diligence before traveling. He said, yes, the COVID vaccine comes with a lot of emotion. I never knew it came with emotion, but, but I genuinely don't see it any different than any other mandatory vaccine you would need to enter a country. If you are not comfortable with the entrance requirements, could ask hq about another semi-final but honestly i don't think they are obligated to make the change we are letting our athletes

know of the requirements and doing our best to support them in any way possible oh yeah i mean they're for sure not obligated right what do you want what do you want to talk about here i mean i mean they're private they're privately they're privately owned they're for sure not obligated to make any changes okay oh well yeah they can make their own decisions and this guy's saying that you know you can put in a request basically we have no idea what's going to happen i guess is my point i think what he's saying is if you want if you want to be a competitive athlete in this sport, even if you don't like it, you should probably get the vaccine.

I think that's what he's saying. You do think that's what he's saying? That's what it sounds like. Otherwise, you're going to have a headache and a hard time. So I read it. Wow. Okay. I wasn't reading like that.

That goes along with like where people are living and people complaining about the schedule of the semi-finals and quarterfinals is like if this is your number one priority then make it and you're gonna have to make sacrifices to do that and that includes something like this uh david taylor uh the guy who won the gold in the olympics i had on a couple days ago he went to tokyo he didn't get the vaccine they let him compete in the olympics without the vaccine and i and i know it's not crossfit's fault it's the united states of america but i support any athlete who doesn't want to get the vaccine i support any athlete who doesn't want to do that just to come over here and compete that's fucking nuts especially if

you're a young man i wouldn't fucking do that but is that crossfit i mean no no i have any influence on that no no i'm just i'm just responding to how uh that what what rob might be saying rob moosey the chief operating officer brute strength if he's saying that you have to take a forced injection from fucking who knows where in order to compete here and that you should just if you should do it i i and it i don't think you should i don't think it comes with emotion it comes with injecting something into your body you don't know what it is but you know the one thing i can say here is if uh at least the rules about that are known so athletes make that decision for themselves and if they're not vaccinated and they're choosing to compete in the in this sport then they know

that there there's potential that they won't be able to because of those rules right and once again CrossFit's not requiring it to compete at the games so it's not on them alright I'm curious how this is going to play out I hope that

the best people end up getting to go and that it doesn't cause them a lot of fucking heartache and they don't have to fucking do things to compromise their their values their beliefs i think that's where the emotional part comes in oh right right you mean and how i got a little emotional no i just mean like it's an emotional thing for some people getting forced into it or not like that's an emotional decision uh uh what about this what about this now i love this idea just because i'll do anything to make the open more valuable you just need to cut down the percentage that goes to quarterfinals and you fix all your problems

yeah that's 100 right especially if you look at the signup rate, I want to see the numbers of, of not just how many people signed up, but where they're coming from, from the leaderboard. You know, if you have 7,100 men that qualify North America and 3,500 signed up for semifinals or quarterfinals, I want to know where on the leaderboard those are coming from if I'm CrossFit. And then I can zoom in and see, you know, cause that, cause the reason for keeping it open is that you can have the potential to make more money in the quarterfinals to make it to 10 but realistically it should be less than 10 at least be like three percent yeah somewhere in the three to five i think um actually i was gonna do a show on this brian on which uh lowering the percentage

qualification out of the open for the quarterfinals. I thought you really liked the quarterfinals, Brian, just because it gave it more like people like you. I like the quarterfinals too. To get in. No, yeah. No, it definitely creates an extra element of excitement for a big demographic of people. But if you moved it to 3% or 5%,

like there's just going to be a different group of people that are more concerned with that cut line. And then, you know, people that are in the seven to 10%, they'll say, damn, well, if I want to make it back there again, I got to get better. You know, I should find the average of the last qualifier in every semifinal and see what their open placing was. They're not going to back the last qualifier of every continent semifinal. Yeah. Well, it's, it's an interesting study anyway, because you're going to find out back that, by the way. The last qualifier of every continent? Semifinal, yeah. Well, it's an interesting study anyway, because you're going to find out that the last place male in North America did about 10,000 spots better than the last place guy in Africa. Wow.

Is that roughly accurate? I don't mean worldwide. Just to kind of find a percentage. Do i mean i guess what you're saying so like athlete 120 in the united states placed 1500th in the open in north america in north america gotcha relative so what's the percentage of that relative to the registered male athletes and if it's like two percent you're like okay you want to make the semifinals you got at least be in the top two percent of your open semifinal something like that i'd be curious but i think they should lower it it's not it's still not going to affect

your top athletes like it'll still like not matter but it'll definitely add i don't know it'll be harder to make quarterfinals and make quarterfinals that much more special of which i think there'd be more participation i don't know just think about that today so the fact you guys brought it up listen look at look at aaron throwing a fucking 50 mile an hour just ball just right over the plate just straight in the strike zone oh my goodness aaron patnode what is the root cause of the chaos this season what is the common denominator results are not legit athletes traveling and so on i maybe was an american flag but you're still talking about it mark

um uh savon don't get testy and push uh chase away how's he gonna push me away that's that's fent brokowski uh caleb good job pushing away the camera goes uh we all know what the common denominator is there's been too much change. Over the last four years, I'll even go back to when Greg was here, there's been too much fucking change. And then you beheaded the two most senior positions in the company and you got rid of those two dudes. And it's a complete fucking shit show.

And there's a fucking power vacuum there. And no one knows what anyone else is doing. And the chain of command is all screwed up. There used to be a very strict chain of command. I'm sure Chase can speak to it as well as I can over at HQ, especially in the fucking games department. Organized as a mofo. Yeah. And even the greatest employees there now are struggling because it's a fucking – there's a power vacuum.

It's a fucking mess. You cannot have a company you you you you i'm gonna i'm gonna say this i haven't phrased it like this before if you fire the ceo of a company and you don't have her if you move if you don't fire the ceo of a company let's say they did what you said you moved them out to the board and you don't have a replacement ready. That is a huge problem. That just goes to show you there was something that pushed Mr. Eric Rosa out that had to be done immediately before there was a backup plan to fill it. Same thing with Dave. And there's stuff that we don't know, and it's just a mess. It's just a mess.

And I think Aaron knows that, and that's why he was saying that. We have a real, real problem, leadership problem. Can't just get rid of two top people and not think there's going to be a giant, massive power vacuum. He ran that shit for 15 years. He was pretty fucking hands-on. I mean, you heard Chase refer to him as petty. Yes. I mean that with all due respect.

Yeah, I know. Oh, I know. I take it as respectful. Yeah, this motherfucker was involved. And yeah. Wow. Look at every open announcement. Travel to every single regional for a decade.

Yeah. The guy. Do you guys have an opinion on what the root cause is? the guy um do you guys have an opinion on on on what the root cause is i mean yeah there's there's not enough i mean who's the ceo right now i don't know right there's someone on the board definitely pulling up pushing people around yeah not that not that we know and we know no one no like we don't know the guy's name or her name but someone is pushing people around yeah and maybe there is but like yeah the thing is the

but not on this granular level on this granular level it's a complete shit show even if you don't have the leadership in place it's like we had it in the past the the biggest problem whether it's one person in charge or a board of people in charge is that you have to have open communication with the people that you are in partnership with. It goes with friendships. It goes with my relationship with my wife and it goes with like my members in my gym and the people that I have under me as coaches. It's not about who is in charge, but more about is their communication lines open, whether or not it's from a singular person or a board of directors. But when you don't have that in place,

or you're not getting that, then we fill that empty void with usually negativity or skepticism or assumptions. And it's a simple, I mean, it sounds like some type of like relationship therapy session, but communication is the number. How is it going? How are the sessions going? Chase? I don't know. I try to white knuckle that shit.

Just like your toxic male. Like everybody does like, I don't need fucking therapy, but just like anything, it comes down to communication and the communication has been lacking or at any, at the worst poor. And when that happens, you lose and when that happens you lose trust

and when you lose trust you react very sensitively to little things and so all of these little things that are happening become big things because of the deterioration of the relationship that we've had because of bad communication at least that's how I see it. Yeah. Ryan, do you have two cents? Ten cents? I don't think I need to add anything to what you guys said. I'm pretty much on the same wavelength there. As far as that question that was on the bottom about the backfills,

per what I've already just been tracking, there's two athletes who appear to be in backfill spots from quarterfinals that have already accepted invites to the game, so I'm led to believe that there will be backfills. Oh, that's good. Because it's not usually something CrossFit's done a lot of backfilling, right? Last year, they backfilled until they filled every semi-final to third.

Oh, good. Awesome. Wow. Did Bailey Real get a backfill? Yep. And then made it to the games, and then made it to the top Awesome. Wow. Did Bailey Real get it back, Phil? Yep. And then made it to the games and then made it to the top 20. Wow. Cody Anderson was like the last guy in from the open one year, wasn't he? And he went to the CrossFit Games that year? Maybe. How many times has he been to the games, Cody?

Three? At most, three. Man, he was a crowd favorite, wasn't't he when he would get out there people would come unhinged cut my worst broadcasting call in the history of my career chase is right exactly three yeah what did you say you said he's not gonna make the lift and he left i said there's no way he's cleaning that last bar and that motherfucker did it twice in my face was that in this in the in the tennis stadium no that was the coliseum yeah in um in um in madison it was the burpee muscle up or the the muscle up clean ladder oh okay okay and my co-host was like oh look out for cody anderson i'm like there's no effing way

he's doing that last bar he's like boom boom and the best part was his dad trolled the shit out of me on instagram making a video of that it was so great okay it's such a good lifter had a hater tell me i couldn't hit 345 for me three position clean today so here it is bam when is that is that that's that was nine weeks ago go back to july that's pretty much double body weight 2017 is he still what how is he doing is he still is he's participating in this in sport still? I think he's just lifting weights. No, I think he's actually planning to compete in the Go Ruck games. Really?

I had heard that he was planning to compete in it. He should have just gone to weightlifting, man. That dude's so strong for his body weight. man that dude's so strong for his body weight uh the problem is anybody in his in his weight class in like international competition lift like twice as much as he does no shit i mean not twice as much i'm over exaggerating but a lot his size and weight class like he wouldn't have a chance not an international competition clear is kind unclear is unkind bring it back to simplicity great job guys thanks aaron all right guys um i think we turned over a bunch of stones i think it'll be fun to see how this plays out um any any any last minute words you guys want to add

words you guys want to add? Chase, what are you thinking about? I was trying to think of something. I couldn't think of anything. Look, it's really obvious. Everyone who cares about the CrossFit game season can see that there's been a lot of problems so far this year. And honestly, I really hope that the semifinals are a huge success because if those

go really well and the competition like the fields are competitive and we'll talk about those things in the weeks leading up to them of course but there's a lot of good athletes that have good chances to either make it back to the games after not being there for a while or make it for the first time and some veterans are going to have to

fight to earn their way in and almost every single one of these semifinals is going to be good. And I'm hopeful that that part of the season can kind of be the beginning of good things to come, a good game season, hopefully some changes in the off season that make the early part of the season more organized, well-run and just enjoyable for everyone. And then hopefully that becomes a pattern going forward. Yeah. Sometimes the worst year creates the best one. So I hope this,

and this year's not over. Like it gets like the end of this year. I can't wait for semifinals. I just want to get to semifinals. Please. Brian, if you were to, if you leave us with which,

which semifinal you're concerned with. Concerned with? Meaning you think that there's not enough good guys in it. There's some people should be dragged over to this one. Well, I mean, so you can't really have much influence on the minor continents. We only have one. minor continents we only have one uh i think that i think that maybe the in in europe uh the both the lowlands men's and women's fields are a little stronger than the strength and depth and i would say that in the u.s the men's atlas gaming field is stacked because it's got basically all the

canadians in it of which there are many good ones and uh and the Granite Games field is not super deep, but the top eight guys are really, really tough. When I look at strength and depth here, the name that obviously pops out at me is Janikowski. Yeah, he's like this. And you basically have Janikowski and BK that are like just the perennial guys in Europe and they're in separate semifinals. But beyond that, I think that the field in Lowlands is stronger than in Strength and Depth. I'll be there.

Commentating? Lowlands, yeah. commentating lowlands yeah the best european uh co-host at your side of dude nads is the most intimidating person that i have ever worked with really oh my gosh i loved it when we uh when i got a chance to call with him at filthy 150 i mean the dude speaks like seven different languages yes he knows more about the judges and the like volunteers than the athletes. And he still knows a shitload about the athletes. But the problem was like, he'll speak in like their own dialect when he says their names.

But then he sounds like he's an American when he's doing the actual call. I'm like, who are you? That's the part I always trip on. How is he sound like an american i don't know why do all foreign singers sound like americans when they sing yeah but he's not singing no but he's he's talking loudly i don't know it's amazing he is and it like it was the most intimidating thing because i called the meridian regional one year and i I was like, dude, I cannot keep up with you. He's like,

don't just like, do you like it? If we say your name and you know, our, our accent, I was like, yeah, I love it.

And he goes, yeah. So you have an American accent. Just say it. I'm like, all right. And I still screwed it up. All right,

guys. Thank you very much. Everyone have a good night. Chase. Thanks for coming on, Brian. Thanks for coming on. My pleasure.