The Sevan Podcast - #376 - CrossFit Does What With Semifinals???

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

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We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event skip to the good bit using the card member entrance let's go seize the night that's the powerful backing of american express visit amex.ca slash y amex benefits vary by card other conditions apply bam we're live hey brian caleb thanks caleb for jumping on running the back end this uh this for this late emergency show breaking news breaking breaking so guys we covered got this new shirt on over here it's very nice who me are you oh you got your shirts that's awesome this is the company that originally made the shirts that just vanished. I don't even think we got our money from these guys.

And now we have this ASRX. They seem to have some high-quality stuff. Yeah, yeah. They got their shit together. That's awesome. I'm glad you got your shirts. They deliver slower than Good Dude's coffee. So that's why you should switch to Paper Street Coffee.

Who I also get some stuff from oh that's awesome yeah gabe's a great dude great coffee strong as shit strong as shit if you're strong for me i'm kind of weak but i'm i'll try to adapt yeah did you water it down a little bit uh no i have uh just been i just i don drink – I actually don't drink like hot coffee that often. I have cold coffee more regularly. So I've only had it one time so far. I went through a cold coffee phase. I just do the strong coffee with whole milk.

Yes. Oh, why not heavy cream? I don't know. I just like the whole milk. I think it's because you're cheap. I mean frugal. No, it's – I don't – that mean frugal no it's i don't i don't that's just what i like i don't know pat mcafee who the hell is that and you should not miss any show that i'm doing

guys good morning kath kath katherine cory r r arjun martins uh michael birchfield good morning guys i want to tell you we did this show the last the last show I did with Brian regarding the semifinals. I got off and I felt, dirty's too strong, but I felt like we were nitpicking and I felt like we were, not Brian, but show. And someone even said that in the comments that, hey, this is just a fucking bitch session. And I actually agreed with that. But as time passes, I realize that there are so many moving pieces that I don't realize and people who are being affected that I think actually I was wrong. It's nitpicking from – thank you. Yes, I'll look at this picture you drew me. Now leave before I have to spank you. I love you. Bye.

Thank you, Ari. What a fantastic picture. A message from one of the producers of the show. Oh, those X's and circles on there, are those your eyes? That's people who won't be going to the Atlas to the Atlas regionals. We crossed off Mal O'Brien and one other person. OK, so the thing is this.

If you I look at the game strictly from a fan perspective, like, yeah, I don't give a fuck. Just tell me where this person is. This going, this going. But these events, I don't know if they cost $50,000 or a million dollars. These Atlas games, these Granite games, these Mac. And how many hundreds, thousands of people are involved in running these events, participating in these events. By the way, there was also something else on a side note,

and I'd like to talk to Brian about this. I'll make a note right here. A bunch of you keep sending me a post that was on Reddit about how people shouldn't volunteer for the games and that you should expect to be paid because it's run by venture capitalists i don't fucking agree with that at all i think you should fully volunteer for the games and i think that fucking mindset is weak and we can get into that if we have time later on today have you seen post, Brian, people are passing it around like crazy. I have not. But in, in, in that general regard, what I've seen over time is that, uh, you know, myself and many others have gotten into this space in a voluntary role. And as you volunteer over

time, you pay your own way over time. It's for some people, opportunities are then provided to have, uh, people pay your way to get to those events. And then from there, they'll pay you to not only to come, but a salary on top of that. And actually, and that's, that can be CrossFit. It can be a, just an off-season competition. It can be a semi-final style of event, or it can be in a different capacity of media that's kind of outside of any individual competition. You know, photographers and videographers often volunteer their time and their work over time. And then a sponsor will pick them up and say, hey, we're this, we're Pixel, and we want

you to work three events for us this year, and we can pay you to do that, whatever. So a lot of people put in their own money and their own time early on in this sport. And some of those end up getting jobs as a result of that. And some of them just love doing it, and they're not even looking for a job out of it. And so if you don't want to volunteer, if you're the kind of person that you have to do everything for money, fine. That's the kind of person you are. But I do not think those are – this podcast would not be where it's at if I had to pay everyone to be on it. No fucking way.

And I don't think you can find better people than the people I get to come on this podcast. And I think you should volunteer wherever you want. You want to volunteer at the fucking White House and wipe Joe Biden's ass? Do it. Even though someone in there might be making a billion

dollars a year, you should do what you want to do. And those of you who are trying to discourage people from volunteering at something that's as cool as the crossfit games or as cool as the crossfit community or something that helps people i think you're a jackass people are loving your hair today really are people commenting on it i put a ton of goo in it i was actually going to make it like sonic the hedgehog and put it straight up hair looks better today i know i didn't put any goo in it yesterday or maybe i put too much hey what do you mean looks better today fuck you okay so um so basically what happened last week and brian will correct me here and then we'll try to go through this really slowly so we

can understand what's happening because i think it is really important because there's so many people's lives being affected by it including including volunteers. What happened is we had a quarterfinals and from that quarterfinals, people went to now go to the semifinals, the good dudes and good girls. Just prior to them, the CrossFit HQ taking the people and spreading them out throughout all of these semifinals, they sent out a questionnaire, a survey to the athletes. And they said, hey, do you have any issues with travel that we should know about? And people either responded or didn't respond to the survey. And then HQ then filled up all the semifinals. And so we've watched that sort of happen over this past two weeks.

Yeah. And for the most part, everything seems to be happening the way you would think it would happen in terms of just people getting spread out. But there are some really big questions and some people who've been put in places where we're pretty sure they didn't want to go. telling me just prior to this call that there's even some people who are being backfilled, at least one person or two people being backfilled simultaneously while the people who actually qualified went in also. Is that correct, Brian? Yeah, I mean, yes. Okay. So we're trying to piece this thing together. While we're kind of in the dark, we're trying to figure out CrossFit HQ's logic for these things. And one of the big things that stands out, I don't know where you want to start, Brian, but one of the big things that stands out is what's going on over at the Atlas Games just because of the travel restrictions for people to go to Canada.

And that's where the Atlas Games take place. And the big story there, obviously, is probably the future of CrossFit Mallory O'Brien, how she was placed up there. Let me ask you this, Brian, just in the most practical reason, why would she, she, she won the quarterfinals, right? She was first place in North America for quarterfinals for women. Yes. Okay. So theoretically you think they would put her in the best spot, which would mean the earliest one. We haven't seen her survey, so maybe she asked to go to Canada. But theoretically, we would think that they would put her in the first one, right?

And one closest to her home. She deserves it. She earned it. Well, the first one would be Syndicate, which is in Tennessee. And the one closest to her home would be Atlas Games, which is about a two hour drive from Vermont. Okay. Okay. So those two things, you know, so you saying that they would do both of those would not be possible. Okay. So fair enough. We could argue that HQ put her at Atlas because it's just a two hour jump from her house. It's for sure. Okay. And her house being, uh, Matt Fraser's house where she trains. Yeah. Or somewhere near there in Vermont.

Matt Fraser's house where she trains. Yeah, or somewhere near there in Vermont. Okay. So what happened there? We know this morning she got moved, right? She got taken out of there. Has anyone talked to her? Have we talked to her?

Has she made a post about it? Do we know anything? No communication from her. What we know as far as Mallory O'Brien is concerned is that she was originally seated into the Atlas Games. is that she was originally seeded into the Atlas Games, and that last night, over the course of the night, she was moved officially on CrossFit Games leaderboards from the Atlas Games to the Granite Games. That's the extent of what we can definitely say regarding Mallory O'Brien. And the Atlas Games had promoted the fact that Mallory O'Brien was coming there.

And this is the stuff, this is where my eyes kind of popped open. Like, wait a second. Yeah, so with all of the things that are problematic surrounding this circumstance, I think that the biggest one is how really just unfortunate and unfair, and I don't like using that word unfair, that this appears to be for the Atlas Games. and I don't like using that word unfair,

that this appears to be for the Atlas Games. And you can't help but just feel additionally bad for them in this regard because of the things that have happened to them in each of the last two years leading into this. And this is not a third blow for them. What happened in the last two years? What happened? Let's start with 2020. March of 2020, Atlas Games as a sanctional is set to go off. They're in the process of

setting up the floor. All the athletes were there. All the media were there. All the vendors were there. And Trudeau's wife got COVID that morning and the country shut down in five hours. Wow. The competition was not allowed to happen and they lost a lot of money as a result of it. So that was 2020. They were the first one to be canceled. They had the least amount of time between their event and the cancellation, which was less than 24 hours. And therefore, they were probably hit hardest from a financial perspective of any of the semifinals, the sanctionals, of which there were many that were canceled. When you say they, who do you mean? Is this, does one person take this like on the chin, their own personal bank account,

or is it a business or is it HQ? Who takes it? I mean, you know, the director of the Atlas Games is Alexi LeBlanc-Bezinet, you know, Camille's brother. And he's an incredible guy, great athlete, great businessman, a huge ambassador for CrossFit. And I don't know what the setup is. I don't know if it's his investment or if it's a business that he owns or if there's a team of people. But the Atlas Games as a company took a huge financial blow that year.

And a lot of the sanctionals did, but many of them had or all of them that got canceled had more foresight than they did because it was so soon relative to when they were supposed to start so it's not hq who takes the hit it's this guy and just just i mean these numbers are not accurate but i'm just i just want to try to understand what's happening so you're saying that he rented out this venue let's say for um a hundred thousand dollars and he was supposed to get a hundred thousand dollars back in ticket sales and he had to give the ticket sales back to the people because they didn't get to go but then he still had probably had to pay something to the venue and there's probably 10 things like that security guards outhouses just all the shit that it takes lighting whatever it takes to set up this event he paid for and then what he was going to use to pay that back

through revenue which would be athletes um vendor etc., he didn't get to collect on. More or less, yes. It's something like that. Okay. And do we know if HQ reimburses them for that or do we know anything like that, how that plays out? I don't know for sure. Okay. Either way, it's a bad situation.

No one's having fun. Yeah. So that was unfortunate circumstance number one for Atlas Games, 2020. Trudeau, we'll blame that on Putin. 2021, they were selected as one of the four North American semifinals. And of the four North American semifinals, they were the only one that had to run a virtual event. Okay.

Obviously, the potential. Once again, because of Trudeau, the rules in Canada. Because, yeah, because of the rules regarding travel into and out of Canada. Yes. And as a result, that's not that bad.

That's bad for the athletes. That's not bad for Alexia, right? I don't know. Alexia, I would, I would say that there's a lost revenue opportunity there as well, because you're not able to sell tickets as the other three are.

You're not able to have vendors as the other three are. You're not able to, there's a bunch of stuff. Like, yes, you don't have the cost of the facility to rent out, but I would think that financially is going to be more appealing to have a live competition than online. Okay. Fair enough. Okay. So we roll into 2022. Not to mention that, you know, the opportunity to build up relationships with vendors and, you know, promoters and partners in the event, like, you know, yes, you can have a partner for an online competition, but the partner is not going to get as much exposure as they would with a live competition. Right. And I like what you said about relationships. He's lost two years of relationships. So the coffee company that he would have charged $500 to come there and sell coffee

in 2020 and seven 50 for 2021 and a thousand for 2022. Now he's back to 500 again, like, Hey, shit, we don't even know if this is going to happen. There's crazy, crazy instability, crazy instability, you know, plus the opportunity to, to show the world what you can do in terms of putting on an event. I think that they were poised. I mean, the floor looked amazing. The workouts were great. He's a really organized guy. I think he's had a great team supporting him there. It was going to be a phenomenal competition. No one got to see it. And then no one got to see it the next year either. Um, how, how, um, how many followers does a Mal O'Brien have? Uh, Kayla, How many followers does Mal O'Brien have, Caleb?

Do you know? Brian, we know places like the Torium Pro are just huge. The fans come out just massive. How is it generally at the Atlas Games? Do they have a big fan base there? Do they get a lot of people to show up? There's a huge CrossFitting community in eastern Canada, in the Montreal area, and I would expect that they would have, uh, yeah, very good turnout for, for their events.

Um, but you know, that you could say the same thing for, uh, an event like strength and depth in London. And I can just tell you from being there in both of the sanctional years, like it was great environment, but having Sarah Sigmundsdottir there year one totally changed the, like the entire competition in a positive way. And having Matt Fraser there in 2020, same thing. Just the feel in the arena, having an athlete of that caliber sets it apart from what it would be otherwise. And it's not to say it wouldn't be great otherwise, but when you have a huge name in the sport like that, there's nothing but good things that come with it. And Mallory O'Brien is becoming that for women in North America right now.

So can you pull up Matt Fraser's Instagram also? So very good point here. What year did Sarah Sigmund's daughter compete there? 2019, you said? 2019 strength and depth, yeah. Oh. I'm comparing it to strength and depth because it's similar. They're both a semifinal now.

They were both a sanctional then. And strength and depth wasn't – was there an Atlas Games in 2019? I don't think so. Okay. And then where did Matt go in 2020? At least I don't think it was a sanctioned event. And where did Matt go in 2020? Let me check this.

He also did go to the uh strength and depth okay so i misunderstood but here's the thing if mal o'brien goes to the atlas games guess who's going with her this dude this is the most popular person in the entire crossfit ecosystem this is the only guy that's been on Joe Rogan. This guy is like this. This guy wouldn't tag his own mom in a post, and he tags Mal O'Brien. This guy, Matt Fraser, wouldn't tag his mom unless she paid him money to be in a post,

and he tags Mal O'Brien. And this guy is going to go up to the Atlas Games with his coach, with his student, I'm assuming, Mal O'Brien, who you can tell he's extremely dedicated to and now they're not going yeah interesting and and and that rocks the boat right well it's all it's all comes back to what what you originally said is atlas games so far has had promoted two athletes pat velnerellner, who's, you know, pretty much unanimously considered the second fittest guy on earth right now. And Mal O'Brien, who has so far been the most, the fittest woman in North America through two stages of competition this year. And it's coming

off a rookie of the year performance at the games and a top 10 finish at the games last year. And Pat's probably one of the best personalities in the sport right now also, in terms of he speaks well, he's likable and he's great. I mean, he's got, he's got all the, he's the full package. But think about the timeline of these events. So yesterday, Atlas games puts that post up. And within a couple hours of that CrossFit reaches out to a host of athletes, including Mallory O'Brien and says, this is the updated situation regarding your seating. Um, some of those situation regarding your seating. Some of those athletes were reseated. Some of them were told you have to make it work. We can talk about that in a little while. But in the meantime, I'm just wondering why CrossFit wouldn't reach out to the

competition that they're partnering with and say, hey, we know you guys are promoting big athletes in your space. Hold off on saying anything about Mal if you were planning to, because some things still might change. Do we know, do we know if Mal O'Brien, what she wrote on her survey? If she said, hey, I can't go to Canada? I do not know anything about her survey or her interactions with CrossFit. What do you personally speculate or think happened if she was assigned, if one of the biggest athletes in the sport

was assigned to a semifinal and and then moved what do you think happened well speculate happened well i have had opportunity to talk to oh and just one more thing before you answer that logan collins is going to come on the show in 15 minutes he was put in the same position that mal o'brien is was in he was put over at the atlas games and and uh we don't know if mal requested to be moved but we i think we do know that logan collins requested to be moved and he is not definitely we can definitely assume that she requested to be moved like okay we can't assume the assumption okay and so we don't we we know logan collins requested to be moved and that he has not been moved yet and so he will be coming on to kind of update us on that and then

we can really dig in and find out the details of what it's like interacting with HQ on this subject. And we should have him on in the next 10 or 15 minutes. Okay, Brian, go ahead. So what can we assume? What can we speculate? Not assume. What can we speculate on that happened with Mal O'Brien? I did invite her on the show, by the way.

So in terms of speculating for Mal, we can really just take the information we have from other athletes. So people actually probably are not aware of the situation surrounding Logan, and it'll be nice to be able to hear from him about that. But there are a number of athletes who were seated in the Atlas Games despite not having either a vaccination or a passport or in some cases both. despite not having either a vaccination or a passport, or in some cases, both. You would assume that if you are in that situation and CrossFit asks you, do you have any travel limitations that you would respond accordingly and say, yes, I do have travel limitations. I either don't have this or I don't have that, or I don't have both. And therefore traveling to Canada will be a problematic for me.

Please see me somewhere in the United States. traveling to Canada will be problematic for me. Please seed me somewhere in the United States. From the athletes I've talked to, there's kind of a variety of things that happened. Some of them communicated that, were seeded in the Atlas Games anyways, and reached out and said, hey, what happened here? And then their request was changed and they were moved. Some of them forgot to fill out the survey, saw they were seeded in the Atlas Games, reached out to CrossFit and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I might have forgot to put that there, but I can't get the Atlas Games.

I don't have this or I don't have that. And the request was granted. Some of them, from what I can tell, communicated there would be a problem traveling there, were seated there anyway, followed that up and said, hey, what happened here? And are still being told that they have to compete there. So I don't, I'm trying to investigate further to find out what's happening in each of these cases, because there's not congruency. It doesn't seem to matter whether you filled out the survey first or you forgot to and later informed them. It doesn't seem to matter what, like, I can't, I can't find, I haven't been able to find a solid pattern yet that could say, oh, this is why these people are not being allowed to move and these people are, but I'm trying. I really want

to blame the athletes here. I want to say, hey, I bet you they fucked up and didn't fill out the survey. But we already know of a case of someone who did not fill out the survey, reached out to CrossFit, told them, hey, I forgot to fill out my survey, but I can't get there. And they did grant that request to change. Okay, so that's a good thing. That's nice. But then it doesn't make any sense in the case of a Logan Collins, which we got to find out from him where he hasn't been moved despite communicating. What if both of them fucked up and didn't respond to the survey adequately, but this person's better than Logan Collins.

And that's why they were moved. I did a, I don't know what you mean by better, but I did finish, but finish better base. Well, because they gave us a criteria of how they were going to place people. And so this person,

I just mean fulfilled that criteria better than the other person. Logan's Collins placed 40th in the quarterfinals. The three men that have been moved out of the Atlas games placed 43rd, 88th, and 92nd in quarterfinals. Hey, CrossFit, how the fuck am I supposed to defend you if Brian's got an answer for every fucking question? How am I supposed to defend you? Because I'm asking the same questions, and I don't know that until I go and check.

And I'm going to check because I'm trying to find any logical reason that can illuminate why this is happening for some and not for others. And absent of CrossFit telling us what's going on, which they're choosing not to do, and they've honestly have chosen not to do that throughout the entire seating process, we just have to try to dig up as many clues as we can and make sense of it. What do you think about this comment from Will Roy roy fukowski was one of the early persons that was switched i caught base i think i'm reading this right i caught him on the atlas games

leaderboard early on prior to his granite games announcement the first time i saw fukowski on the leaderboards for semifinals was that atlas game it was at granite games i never saw him on the atlas games roster so if if will did see that then you know unless he has a screenshot that he can send me with the time stamp to show it i don't i don't agree with that you can't just text fukowski right now or on there and be like hey i talked to fukowski personally about his uh assignment for semifinals and it sounded like he was going to be granite games the whole time and did he have any complaints no he's happy to be competing there oh hey that's a great wow that's on the granite games instagram that's cool earned he's he's competed there before earn meaning that's like uh he earned

to go to the spot right this is just their uh like earns not given i think is one of their um just their sayings up at the granite games yeah it's their hashtag earned not given are there any athletes i'm gonna go i'm gonna go back a second i switch gears here a little bit sorry i'm gonna conflate some issues here are there any athletes originally when you and hillar were digging into this um there were athletes that didn't make the top 120 that should have made the 120 i believe based on workout number three did all of that get resolved and everyone who deserves to go to the semifinals, going to the semifinals, and everyone who doesn't deserve not going?

No. CrossFit made a statement publicly about this that said they were not going to go and change the erroneous scores because per their evaluation, it wouldn't have had any effect on the semifinal leaderboards. You know, an athlete who should be going to the semifinals, who's not. Based on research that someone in Europe and someone and Andrew Hiller did, it seems very obvious that there would be up to four men in both Europe and North America that if the leaderboards

were correctly reflective of athletes performances and work at three would be in the top 60 in Europe at the expense of four that would be out and four in the United States that would be in the top 120 at the expense of four who would be out. But CrossFit says that that's false. Yeah. Oh, sorry. What CrossFit does acknowledge and what everyone knows is that there are inaccurate scores still on the leaderboard for workout three.

And CrossFit's admitted that and said, that's just how it's going to stay. Yeah, that's insane. Let me come back to that one second. So this is very interesting. I'm not sure what Matt Reynolds is saying. If Matt travels with her and seven speculated,

Matt won't back. So here's the thing. I'm, I don't know this for certain, but I would say I would, if I had to bet two inches of Brian's dick, I would do it and say Matt Fraser is not vaccinated. That would be my 100 percent guess. And I would also guess that he would not get vaccinated to go to Canada or to go anywhere.

He don't give a fuck. He's happy. He's paid his dues. He's got a beautiful girlfriend, a beautiful house in Vermont, and he's not going to do anything he doesn't want to do. And so that may be something, pure speculation that happened. For all we know, maybe Mal O'Brien is vaxxed. She got the survey. She had no issues traveling anywhere. She didn't fill it out. And then her coach, when she got assigned to the Atlas Games,

her coach said, fuck that, I'm not going up there. And she's like, okay, let's switch. That's possible too. And I don't know about the current, who the fuck knows who's in charge there, but Rosa would fly a private jet to grab Matt and put him wherever he wanted. Rosa loves Matt Fraser and loves Katrin David's daughter.

Like they basically were running the company for the two years that he was fucking in office or a year or whatever when Rosa was there. So that's it. I would be willing to speculate that. I'm very comfortable saying that it could be regarding her coach. And maybe Fraser should be treated like that. I would, I would be willing to speculate that I'm very comfortable saying that it could be regarding her coach and, and, and, you know, maybe Frazier should be treated like that. I mean, look at him, look at him.

He's the man. Okay. But, but I'm not sure exactly what Matt Reynolds is saying, but that could be it. Did you follow that, Brian? What I'm saying that basically maybe she didn't fill anything out, but Matt's not willing to go up there. Yeah. Well, yeah, i follow what you're saying uh i don't think that that's jesus christ so does that hurt um atlas games um financially are there people who now are not going to go because mal o'brien's not going to be there like did they lose uh 400 500 ticket sales yeah probably

i mean i think for sure there's people that would be, there's people that will go no matter what. And they make them look foolish. And they make them look a little bit foolish, right? Yeah. Mr. Collins, hi. How we doing? What's up, Logan? Thanks for jumping on.

Yeah, sorry about that. Ran a little late today. Sorry about that. Are you kidding me? You don't owe anyone an apology i can't believe you came on yeah appreciate hey did you fix your instagram account i noticed there was something wrong with it uh i don't think anything was wrong with it yeah yeah because when i went there it didn't say uh it didn't say follow back it just said follow you didn't say you followed me i got you man i do watch i do

watch your show a lot you like that caleb just fucking attack the guest right off the bat thank you thank you caleb thank you um so i really appreciate you coming on i don't want to i know that um so just a little backstory you finished uh where did he finish in the quarterfinals, Brian? 40th. In North America? Yeah. And the top 120 males go? Correct.

So Mr. Collins is good? Yep, top third. Decent. And has Mr. Collins ever been to the game before, Brian? Oh, yeah. Can you tell us a little bit? Can you fluff him a little bit? Yeah, hit me up, Brian.

Come on. Not only has he been to the games before, but he went in four consecutive years. In three of those years, he finished 15th or better with a clear best finish of 11th. Yep, 11th and 17th. And do you know by any chance who finished uh 10th and 12th i just would like to know always what kind of company you're not gonna like this

jason smith 12th travis mayor oh oh my goodness you asshole that's good that's good company that's. Okay, and where is home for you? Where do you live? I live in Wiley, Texas, about maybe 10 miles, 15 miles northeast of Dallas. Wow. Just for the record, for everyone who doesn't understand world geography, you cannot send a Texan to Canada. You cannot. 1,700 miles away.

a Texan to Canada. You cannot. 1,700 miles away. Unless they're going up there to work on some pump jacks. That's the only thing Canada and Texas have in common is oil in the ground. Holy cow. You qualify

for semifinals. Are you excited? How are you doing this year? Are you pumped? Yeah, good. A couple of years back, my wife and i had a daughter in 2020 and uh her had our daughter and so it kind of put a little bit of a halt on things on 2020 and even 2021 it was pretty rough and so just finally got to a good schedule um you know started working with proven the proven team um just a couple congratulations

that's yeah and so um because i haven't had a coach since about 2016 and uh it was it's been just kind of something i've enjoyed doing by myself but the way the sport is now it's it's almost a little bit irresponsible not to have somebody there for you. So, um, took that leap, especially with how busy I am work-wise. So, um, to be able to kind of optimize my time, stuff like that. So this year was the first year I, you know, in a while that I feel like things have been going pretty solid for me. Um, so I was, I am very excited, still am kind of optimistic on a semifinal. That means I have to figure something out with Atlas, so be it. But because it means a lot to me.

How old are you? I'm about to be 31 in July. Okay. You could argue that this is your most serious year yet. One, you could be peaking as an athlete, and you're with Proven. Correct. Okay. And you've been to the games four times, which is insane, by the way.

I mean, nuts. Yeah, thank you. And the fact that you beat Travis Mayer, I mean, nothing else needs to be said. Even though I'm joking, it's actually not a joke. Two years later, 2019 was Logan's last year there, and Travis got him by two spots. Good job, Travis.

I mean, oh, that's too bad. But they all got cut at the same time. Yeah. Same time. So you finished this. Can you walk us through what happens? You finish the quarterfinals, and you know that even if they adjust the scores,

you have a wiggle room of 60 spots below you. So even if you got penalized for something, you're in a good spot, right? And so you know you're going to go. And when's the next time you hear from HQ? What's the next comms you have? So filled out the form of the questionnaire that asked, do you have a passport? Can you travel? All those things, which I was still under the impression of we had the same rules as last year.

As far as we were going to be able to if you were within the top 60, I felt like you would get your pick of which semifinal you went to, because the chances of the top 30 men picking the same semifinal would be very slim. And so the next 30 in line, you have a good idea of the, maybe your top two choices, you'd be able to, to, to grab one of those. And so didn't, didn't see any communication between, um, anybody that told me otherwise, which I don't follow it a ton anymore, um, which I probably should do a better job of, but I was still under the impression that we would be able to pick. And so that was the issue of whenever I filled out that form, being under that impression,

nothing really popped out to me as Canada would be an option for me. It was, hey, which ones are the closest? Okay, it's the two in Tennessee. It's a six-hour drive for me, or it's an hour and a half flight. That's easy. I have a motorhome. Wife and the kid can take, we can take it up there and, and, you know, throw down. But so whenever I filled that out,

I haven't had a passport probably since I was 15, 14 or 15 years old. I don't know when, but I put no on the passport on the travel restrictions. I put no, just cause I was thinking under the impression again, that Canada wasn't an option. I, uh, it would be, yeah, there's four in your, there's four in your, there's three in your home country, right? Yeah. And I don't have travel restrictions within my, you know, the United States obviously, but I wasn't even thinking vaccine, you know, whatever that means. Um, that there was no question on that said, are you vaccinated or are you unvaccinated?

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So that was my first communication with him. The second, sorry, let me plug my phone in real quick. Let me throw this in here real quick. I want to hear what Brian thinks about this. Brian, one of the things that HQ has been saying for the last year is, hey, we're going to really try not to make a lot of changes. We're going to try to buckle down and focus on our core competency across all the departments, but especially we're not going to make a lot of changes. We're going to keep things really, really stable and stop

rocking the boat. Do you think that this is a pretty big boat rock to not let to go from letting them choose to not letting them choose? I think that's a pretty big change. I think it is. They did not let them choose exclusively. They just asked for a ranking preference last year. Right, right. And this year they didn't ask at all. They didn't ask at all. But, you know, to me, the bigger picture problem is there was no communication from CrossFit to the athletes about what the seating process would be. So athletes like Logan and others were left to speculate based on, you know,

whatever assumptions they wanted to make, which, uh, Oh, so he couldn't have even looked it up, even if he wanted to, when he's saying he neglected it, you're saying it, what the rules weren't written anywhere. There were, there were worlds written. We've talked about it. It's section 4.03 in the, in the rule book. And it says that, uh, there will, they will, uh, seed athletes based on performance and geography in a fair and equitable way. I'm just summarizing. And so we know Mal O'Brien was moved, and she's 200 miles away, but Logan hasn't been moved yet, and he's 1,700 miles away. She did perform better than him.

Yes. Okay. When you say you put no on there, you said no, you don on there, you said, no, you don't have a passport. So they know you don't have a passport. They do now. They, they put on there that when I was talking to, um, who I was speaking with on the CrossFit side, I said, Hey, this must be some kind of mistake. This was the second correspondence I had with them. Um, whenever they sent me the Atlas invitation, I said, Hey, is there a reason why Atlas is the only option for me? And, um, I think I said,

cause I don't have a passport. I'm not, I'm not able to go and travel to Canada. Um, and if you guys have been to the, I looked up a, uh, trying to schedule an appointment to get a passport. It was like the next one was like three an appointment to get a passport. It was like, the next one was like three weeks out to get a passport and then to get it expedited to myself would be five to seven weeks. Um, so. And it costs quite a bit. And it, yeah. And it adds on to the $700 flight that would cost to go to, uh, Montreal. flight that would cost to go to Montreal. And are you vaccinated?

No. So you'd have to get that also. Yeah. Does that freak your wife out at all? Yeah. So that's not an option. Understood. That's not an option for me.

So, wow. So this is heavier than I thought. Yeah, I think just, you know, and I spoke with somebody today for, for, from, from CrossFit as well. And they said that, you know, you, you had, you didn't state your vaccination status and, and like, we're on the form that it say, you know, it say to state my vaccination status? I didn't think about that when I thought about travel restrictions, which I guess in today's norm or whatever. I don't think legally they can ask you that anyway. I don't think they can ask you that anyway. Yeah, but at the same time, it's a semifinal across the board or across the border. And they have restrictions that not a lot of people know about. Like I don't follow, you know, the Canadian restrictions on travel. It's not something that's on, you know, my top

things to think about. So I just, I didn't think about it. So I didn't put it on there thinking that it was travel within the U S even though it did read U S to Canada, again, my fault for not reading directions very well. But let me just, I said, I just want to take a chance to say this now. I mean, you'll remember when they first announced the semifinal locations that I said, having a semifinal in Canada is 100% something that CrossFit should do because Canada has, has earned it based on their performance and participation in the sport.

However, choosing to do it this year is going to be problematic. The day that it came out, I told you this. And here we are four or five months later, and it's becoming a problem. Now, if you wanted to have that semifinal there on your CrossFit, you should have been able to have the foresight to say, I know that there's going to be people that are not going to want to travel to Canada. Let's get ahead of this now. And they could have put out there and communicated to athletes and said,

look, if you're in North America and you're planning to make a run at the semifinals, there is a chance that you'll have to go to the Atlas Games to compete. It's one of our semifinals that we've chosen. We want to have them as a part of the season. So you guys need to take whatever preparations that is now to make sure that this doesn't become a problem for you. need to take whatever preparations that is now to make sure that this doesn't become a problem for you. And if CrossFit does that in the, you know, up front, then athletes like Logan have that information available to them and they can make a decision

with their family about if they want to have vaccines, if they want to apply for a passport, or if they want to say, you know what, I'll just take a risk and hope I get placed in the other 75% of the options available to me. But CrossFit didn't do any of those communications up front and they're, you know, and therefore they're just leaving it on athletes to interpret this landscape for whatever they, they perceive it to potentially be. And Logan's interpreted,

I mean, he's got a lot of other stuff going on in his life. His perception was, I don't see any way I'm going to end up in Canada. And, you know, it's because there's, there's places that are right here, close to home. Well, and you know, and you know,

last year, whenever we, we did send my finals, they send out that same form, but it had those four choices that you put on there. Well, last year, since we had our daughter, I didn't want to travel. I said, Hey, if there's an online competition, then this is the best case for me to be able to stay home, help out and do what I need to do. And so I picked the best case for me to be able to stay home help out and do what i need to do and so i picked the atlas games for my number one pick last year got oh wow because i was 30th i was 30th and so um again that that just being what i was under you know travis won last year right you know travis won the quarterfinals last year the quarterfinals you took 30 travis yeah yeah just no hey not quarterfinals he didn't yeah it was quarterfinals i year the quarterfinals you took 30 travis yeah yeah just no hey not quarterfinals

he didn't yeah it was quarterfinal i just wanted to throw that out no problem 30s great 30s great and 30s great just wanted to yeah he did good he did good all right uh so basically it wouldn't be far-fetched at all and a matter of fact it would probably would have been great if they would have said on every single one of these surveys can you travel to canada that means one you need to have a passport to you have to be vaccinated. And three, you have to be willing to grab your ankles if you would like to make it into the great country of Canada. Like they should have had that on there. They could have. They could have. I mean, it makes it makes total sense.

It makes total sense to do that because of those restrictions. I'm just tripping that they chose a guy from Texas. Matt O'Brien, like, okay. I'm just tripping for so many reasons it does not make sense to pick a guy from Texas at all. And you're right. And if we want to look at what CrossFit did communicate, they said that you would be seated

based on performance and geography. Logan's performance was in the top third of men who qualified and his geography clearly places him much closer to two of the events that are, you know, like you said, within a six hour drive. So it feels like if those were the criteria,

he probably should have been seated at one of those anyway. Yeah. I mean, I think I thought, what do you think has crossfit responded to you like has anyone given you a definitive before because i don't want to feel bad when i get off this podcast and be like i was an asshole again have they told you that they're not going to move you it seems like it's something you said makes me think that they're being really

petty like what what did they they said to you um you didn't say you weren't vaccinated like that's a moot point. We're past that. Why are they fighting with you about that? Let's try to resolve this. And that's kind of what I was talking to Brian about yesterday or two days ago. I'm like, you put the passport, you put the vaccination, all that stuff to the side.

How does it make sense to send me 1,700 And that's, that's what it boils down to. It's not a passport issue. It's not a, I mean, it is both of those issues, but, you know, this is supposed to be, you know, for the athletes in a sense to make it most convenient. I mean, you think I'm going to drag a two-year-old and my wife up to Canada to see, or to support, or even any family member, you're out of your mind. Like that's just not going to happen. And so dear CrossFit, please don't send anyone with a Southern accent to any semifinal in, uh, in, uh, Canada. It does not work. Thank you. So I don't necessarily agree with that either. I think as long as CrossFit communicates up front what the process is, that they give the athletes a chance to respond to it.

But the fact that they didn't communicate anything meaningful and they left arbitrary sentences buried spot in the rule book. Now you're setting yourself up for problems like this. If they just said, I don't care what the process is, this is the process for seating for semifinals, then Logan and everyone else has the opportunity to see that and respond accordingly. This is just a mysterious situation that we don't have enough information about, and you're just creating the possibility for a ton of people

to be dissatisfied with your service. Yeah. So have they told you no? No. Okay. So it's still open. Yeah, I would say it's still open. Okay, good, good.

That makes me happy. Yeah, we have some people kind of working with them, but again, I haven't had the greatest luck in that sense with any kind of communication. I will tell you this seven communication last night, there were still open spots in United States semifinals for men after the changes that they've made this morning, which they've moved three men from the Atlas games field into different semifinal fields in the United States. Currently all three,

the syndicate crown, the Mac and the granite games are full with 30 men registered for those competitions. Did those guys finish better than Logan in the quarterfinal? No. How many of them finished better than Logan? None of those three. We already mentioned that. They were 43rd, 88th, and 92nd.

He was 40th. Wow. And can you tell me where they live? I don't know where they live. Do they live closer? Where are the Atlas Games? Montreal? Yeah. Are they closer to montreal than logan because if they are then the two criteria that they told us that they were going to use geography and performance

are completely out the door correct and i have to help where do you live in Texas? I mean, it's north Texas, basically. Northeast. Man, this is getting weird. Hey, it's almost like they don't even have a process there. Like they're doing this just like shooting marbles. Like they don't have a spreadsheet that they're going off of. I mean, you could even have a very simple spreadsheet that they're going off of i mean you could even have it you could have a very simple spreadsheet that shows how far each there could be a column that shows how many

miles each person is away from the four semifinals seven there's a ton of different potential solutions to this they didn't i don't know i don't have to solve it now they didn't they there's if there is a a process that they went through to see these athletes no one knows what it is that's the problem yeah well and and we didn't um caleb did we see in that thing that it would be fair and equitable and that was one of the things that brian and i focused on we're like hey what's going on what does that even mean fair and equitable what was that in there do you know in that fort it wasn't in there i feel like it was what you feel like it was in in 4.03 somewhere it says it says it did okay okay caleb's pulling it up now let's see what he finds um

let's see uh for north america and european continents crossfit will seed and place the athletes in a semifinal event before invitations. I think before invitations are – you can make it smaller again. I can read it. I'll lean in close. Our sent CrossFit will make every effort to ensure the seating process will be fair and equitable. More details regarding the North American and European seating invitation process will be released, which we haven't had't had right we don't have more information on the seating process what version of the rule book is this and uh and we'll be communicating there are at least well there are at least 13 different

versions uh version 13 is the most recent one of the rule book and goodness oh my goodness and i'm not in a i'm not sure which one he was pulling from right there okay all right fair and we don't really pay caleb enough to get um get the uh versions right he just he's he's able to uh let's see what colin lawrence says real quick for some comedic relief crossfit is an alcoholic some some moments of sobriety combined with a shit show the other half the time unable to even define their own purpose unable to follow their own rules stumbling through life all right that's not nice at all okay so so logan we don't know you're still in communications with them we'll keep our fingers crossed um let's ignore what brian said about all the semi-finals being full and that three people from the atlas games who finished worse than you and who live

for uh probably live uh closer to atlas games have been moved yeah thanks for that information just hearing it for the first time there brian and uh um you know let's um let's keep our fingers crossed do you know when your next communication with them will be in? Uh, I have, I have a couple of like my coach and a couple of people from the proven team kind of working through, through,

through some of that stuff for me. Um, I will keep everybody updated as soon as I hear something back. All right. Um, well, thank you for coming on. Is there anything else,

uh, you think that's relevant to this story or, no i want to add before i kick you off no i think we'll just wait to hear back from them and be able to have some form of you know clarity with it okay i think i think it'll turn out positive i think you're going to end up going to a semi-final near you i think that the people there really do want the best people to go and i just think it's probably just needs to make its way up the ladder of chain of command and once it gets high enough someone'll be like of course throw logan in here seven can we can we do show one other thing before logan leaves if kaylee can pull up the article that i wrote this morning

which talks about mallory o'brien being reseated uh we were actually able to get a quote from crossfit about this. So if we scroll down, here's the quote in the what's happening here. So this is what CrossFit has to say. While we cannot accommodate requests. Standby. Standby. You were in the right spot, Mr. Beaver, C. c beaver i can read it from here while we cannot accommodate

requests based on personal preference for a particular semi-final our goal is to allow as many qualifying athletes as possible to compete at each stage of the season so we are trying to make accommodations for qualifying athletes who face visa issues based on vaccination status or other factors to help them move to another semifinal on the same continent, if available, or the last chance qualifier in some cases, if not. Oh, shit. So there's this, this is like a little clue into maybe something that they're thinking about that also has not been communicated or advertised of this like weird outside chance

that in someone potentially like Logan's case, they might say, hey, we don't have any more spaces in North America or in the United States. So you have the choice to get to the Atlas Games. If that is actually an impossibility, then we'll just move you to the last chance qualifier. That's how I read that. Logan, what do you think of that? I don't know how to think of that.

I mean, that's still online. This is, yeah, this is the article I wrote this morning. It's up there. No, the last chance qualifier. That's still online. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. It is, yeah. What does that mean?

Is it still online? I don't understand that question. It's like online virtual competition. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, that would be – I mean, I know I – again, I picked last year to go to an online qualifier, but that wasn't – we're in a completely different part of our lives now to where I'm, I was itching to kind of get back to that in person. So, but if that's, I'm, you know, I'm a realist and if that's the case, then that's a good

point you have with, uh, with that being potentially the option based on what you just told me with all of the semifinals being filled up already. Did you say you're a realist? Is that what you just told me with all of the semifinals being filled up already did you say you're a realist is that what you said yeah like as far as that's probably the reality of the situation is if it wouldn't be happen in north america then the united last chance qualifier united states yeah what about this solution i'm calling lawrence is coming up with um you change your gender and go into the women's competition and if there's a vacancy in the united states would you be willing to do that would you be willing to um i mean you don't i think you only have to declare it it would just require just like an eraser erase a check in the mailbox and throw it in the female box hey i got worked pretty good

by the females in the marathon row and the rough run so uh hey this isn't swimming where the men where the men easily beat the women this is fucking crossfit yeah yeah so all right so you don't want to go over you don't think you have a better chance with the women i and that's fair i think especially with tia yeah yeah seriously yeah all right brother i'd love to have you back on and uh and and ask you the real questions of uh why you're not vaccinated do you believe in god and how hot's your wife but um this show is about uh stirring up shit so we'll circle back around and um and talk to you some other time and i appreciate you coming on yeah appreciate it thanks thanks logan bye do you think it hurts his chances coming on the show or helps his chances

uh neither neither okay good good that makes me feel better okay good what i will say about i don't i don't want to hurt anyone's chances by coming on show i want the show to be entertaining and fun i don't want to offend uh um i don't want i don't want like my shit to like offend like justin or adrian or whoever's making the decisions over there to the point where they're like, fuck that guy. Well, those, I mean, look, those guys know that, you know, people just want better lines of communication. And as long as they continue to cloud those lines of communication, it leaves it up to the rest of us to try to uncover what's happening

because people want to know. I do know that there's obviously a leadership problem over there, but there's also a resource problem over there too. I don't know if it's a problem, but people, it is, CrossFit Games isn't just overflowing with resources. I mean,

when I was there, it's a really tightly run ship. I don't know if they're purposely, there has to also be the point. And there's a point where like, hey, you have to stay within this bandwidth of what your problems that will address

right so they might be able to address vaccine status and um not having a passport but let's say someone's mom dies or dad dies or dog dies or their kid gets rushed to the emergency room and they have to switch someone like how many problems is hq willing to deal with and they have to put a wall up at some point, right? They have to have some sort of, I think what happened here is that they're, they're opening the door for this kind of situation by, by sending out that survey, by not having a clearly established process to begin with.

So if those things were, you know, if they didn't send out this survey, then there would be no room for the athletes to say, well, what happened here? I told you I have a travel restriction and you seated me in a place where it's hard for me to travel to. But they did send out that survey. So you would assume that they would take those responses into account. I went through and I looked for the men. There's only 14 Canadian men who qualified for semifinals. They can't fill the roster of 30 with 14.

Last year, they also forced all the Mexican men to compete in the Atlas Games. Even if they wanted to do that this year, there are three. That still leaves 13 spots for men from the United States who are going to have to travel to Canada. My bet is that there were at least 13 men of the remaining 100 or so qualifiers that have a vaccine that could have been placed there, and probably way more than that. And they're probably distributed throughout the leaderboard. So if you're going to send out the survey and ask for these things, and I should say, it's not just the vaccine they have to have. They also obviously have to have a passport. Then I would have been, if I was seeding these semifinals, whatever the criteria were, I would have been looking, how can we fill Atlas games? Let's make sure that we get

people there who can actually get there because these other ones aren't going to be a problem but instead what we have is the opposite where everything else is full and now the atlas games they're scrambling to try to find people who can go there i guarantee there's people that are in the bottom half of the qualifiers that are seated into the united states that could travel to canada if they'd been placed there but if you move them there now they're not going to be very happy about it because they're already making plans to compete on the weekend in the location that you communicated to them. Not only are they making plans, but anywhere is better than Canada. The only reason I've heard anyone say, and I don't mean that to be offensive, it's just a subjective fact. I know that's an

oxymoron, but bear with me. The only justification I've heard anyone wanting, the only justification I can think of for going to Canada is one, if you live by there and you're near there. But the other thing is, and maybe Alexia runs an amazing event and you know that and you want to go there, whatever those reasons are. But the other reason is, is I met an athlete the other day who is going to the Atlas Games because they are injured and they want to give and that is during the last week of semi-finals and they're trying to let their body heal so that um so that they can get their best performance at semi-finals other than that from everything that i've heard from brian and the athletes we've spoken to everyone wants to either go in the united states or go in the

first week and so brian makes a great point not i mean brian was i think being pretty nice about it when he said um it's going to be hard to move people out of the United States because they've already started making plans. But I think it's like, no, fuck you. I'm not crossing the border. I'm cool. I'm good. I'll just go to Knoxville. No. Yeah. Party with rich, go to rich's house after the semifinal. Right. Pretty much any athlete who's who lives in the United States is going to consider the Atlas games as the last place they want to go because it's the last weekend and it's the

hardest one to get to from a logistical perspective based on the state of travel across the border relative to within the boundaries of the United States. So trying to move someone, which they did this, by the way, they moved this woman, Addison Destrosier out of a United States semifinal into the Atlas games

last night. Really? Yeah. She's a, I don't know what's going on with her last night. Really? Yeah. She's a, I don't know what's going on with her at all. She's ranked. She's, she was ranked 122nd in quarterfinals.

She's the only athlete men or women outside of the top one 20, who currently has a spot in the semifinals for North America. She seemed to have got an invite somehow. Uh, well, no other person outside the top one 20 did. And she was seated at, I believe the gran Granite Games.

While they made these moves last night, they also moved her into the Atlas Games field. So I have no idea about how that happened to begin with with her or with what happened with her last night. What's her last name? Caleb, can you listen carefully to this and see if you can pull up her IG? D-E-S-R-O-S-I-E-R-S. That's Rosier. So this athlete was sent an invitation prior to the backfill athletes. It was with the original group.

She would be a backfilled athlete. I have her listed on my spreadsheet as a backfilled athlete. But she's the only one in North America that shows up that's a backfield, male or female, and she's been there since the beginning. Who is 121 if she was 122? Can you see that? Yeah. I don't have it pulled up right now. Do we know if that lady went to the semifinals also?

She hasn't been. Wow, what a trip. No one else outside the top 120 has. Was this one of the workouts that was contested. How was her workout? Number three, just at a quick glance, Elena Savage is one 21. Um, we're cut number three. Well, this brings up another, uh, kind of an interesting point. Let me see her last post real quick.

I want to see if she said anything. Let me see her last post. If you can make that bigger for me for a second. I'm excited to announce I will be heading to the Atlas Games this year. This was five hours ago. Okay, so she's accepting it. So she, I know I was originally seeded to attend the Granite Games, but I've been reseeded to Atlas Games in Montreal.

I'm really excited now to be able to attend the same semifinal as my friends and be able to experience. So for all we know, she requested it. Sure. I mean, we could definitely could reach out to her and see what's going on. She's now an outlier in two regards. She's the only person so far who's been seated at a semifinal that's outside the top 120 in North America. And she's the only athlete who's been moved from a semifinal in the United States to the semifinal in Canada. So there have been no backfills in the United States, North America? Outside of her, no. But in the other countries there have? Not in Europe, but everywhere else, yes.

Okay. Why is that? Why not do all of those simultaneously? In the case of the United States, I think it's because they've been trying to figure out this Atlas Games problem. In the case of Europe, I don't know. Okay, so just a resource, just things are taking a priority. Sure, yeah, but this should be a priority because athletes are trying to plan training perspective and logistical plans for the semifinals, obviously. And so the longer that it goes without trying to fill those in,

the less time you give for those athletes to make the necessary arrangements. Yeah. Now, I do want to talk about the potential of these backfill athletes with regard to workout number three scoring problems, if you don't mind. Do you mind? No, no, no. Say that one more time. I was reading Patrick Clark's comment and I was just thinking if I should go nuclear

or not. I was getting the keys ready to turn, but I was going to have to turn both at the same time. I don't know if I can reach both. Say what you just said one more time about backfill. I apologize. I think it's a fair assumption that CrossFit's going to try to backfill athletes until they can fill 30 spots at all the semifinals.

They've already been doing it internationally. They did it last year. Okay. And if they're doing it in certain continents, I don't see why they want to do it in other continents. Yeah, we like that, right? That's cool. Yeah, you want to have a full field for sure. And the majority of the athletes who are declining their invite is because they're competing in a different part of the season. They're either competing as a master's, teenager, or on a team.

Okay. So, you know, that's fine. And they should be backfilling those, in my opinion. However, in the case of the men in North America, as we talked about with Logan, there are currently no spots available in the United States. The only option for backfills is in the Atlas games. And we already know that the guys that are just outside the cut line, 121 through 135 maybe, could have had pretty significant shifts in their placements relative to the guys that were just inside the cut line, maybe 105 to 120. So that range of 30 men could have looked differently if CrossFit had pursued trying to correct the incorrect scores for work.

There are some guys that are just outside the cut line that are in the same situation as Logan, where they don't have a vaccine and or they don't have a passport. And now they're sitting here and they're going, oh, fuck. When I get my invite, it's going to be to the Atlas Games and I'm not going to be able to go there. And to the people who want to say, well, if you wanted to have your pick, you should have done better. Their response is going to be, I think I did do better. CrossFit chose not to correct this workout. So my score is inaccurate. I might have actually been in the top 120 and then I wouldn't have had to deal with this situation at all. Let me see if I understand this. Originally, when you and I had talked about this, our concern or our focus had been looking at,

and Andrew Hiller's focus had been looking, Hey, are the top 120 that real people who qualified for the semifinals? And we were really looking at that. And we said, no, are the top 120 real people who qualified for the semifinals? And we were really looking at that. And we said, no, there are some changes that need to be made. And as we talked about in the beginning of the show, they weren't made. Now the implications of backfill, that becomes even more precarious or more legitimate and possibly more of a problem in illegitimizing the competition. I don't know if that's a word, in, in, in illegitimizing the competition. I don't know if that's a word, delegitimizing, illegitimizing, because it dips into the backfill where there could arguably be even more of those people. And we're specifically talking about the

screw ups on workout number three, but it could be any of them. But that's why it's, that's why it's so important to have that list accurate down to 200. Yeah. In this case, for sure, because if you're one 20, what a mess you get the survey and you have the opportunity to say, yes,

I have some travel limitations. If you're one 21, you don't get that up that survey because it's irrelevant at this point. If you're a male in the U S there's only one option. It's Atlas games. What a mess. I wonder wonder man this is a problem that just keeps giving well i felt i actually kind of felt bad about saying it the way i did on the morning chalk up uh i said something like if you get caught with your pants down don't lie again to try to cover

it up it's only going to get worse for you Right now we're sitting here and we're seeing that exact situation play up. You made a mistake early on. You chose not, you chose to ignore it with another communication that I don't think was accurate. And as a result of that, you're creating situations for people that shouldn't exist. I don't think they're going to ever go back and deal with that problem,

by the way. Maybe, hopefully they learn from it next year. I don't think they're going to ever go back and deal with that problem, by the way. Hopefully they learn from it next year. I don't think they're going to ever address that. I agree. And I think at this point that they probably should not address it. But you have to, you know, I think what you need to do at some point is come out and say, yeah, we messed this up and own that.

Like, that's what a mature person does. They own it when they make the mistakes, even if it hurts to do it. I was actually thinking about at the end of the year doing just a show of just – but it's crazy how many hiccups there are. I mean just do like a massive timeline of all the hiccups. And just every time there's a hiccup, Brian and I have to drink like an ounce of beer and we just go through the show and there's like 200 oh my god dude i we'd get hammered i never drink beer we just we just fall out of our seat by the end i don't know if i'd be comfortable with that i might say something i regret brian let's not drinking what what about what about this uh solution why why um because of because of what's going on here on the on the

planet and and people thinking it's okay to enforce injections on people um by the way i just want to say this really quick uh uh matt souza was here in los angeles with me and he flew home yesterday and on his flight the captain announced announced that masks were no longer required, which is funny because it's not that they were no longer required. They were never required. The judge basically ruled it was illegal for the last two years to force people to wear masks. Anyway, and he said he took off his mask,

but no one else on the plane took off their mask. He said the people cheered like, yeah, we're free, and then left their masks on was he a fucking bizarre yeah man it's uh kind of it's the same thing happens in schools the kids don't have to wear their mask but most of them still do fucking weirdos you guys i'm just so you know i'm a walking proof that it's okay two years the other day by the way and i want to come up with this i have this solution for you but the other day, by the way, and I want to come up with this. I have this solution for you. But the other day we were at the beach and my kid drug their hand along the

railing of like, I don't know, 600 houses along the beachfront for like two miles. And then we went into a hamburger place and they pulled the hamburger out of their bun because they're well trained and they ate their hamburgers like this. Dirty hands. Bomb proof people. proof okay brian why not do a why not do just automatically have a virtual semi-final for everyone in the world who has these issues so it might not be ideal but just have a hey these are all the semi-finals and then there's a virtual one that we will let people do case by case. Well, that's basically what they're calling the last chance qualifier. I think that in that quote that CrossFit provided for the article this morning, that's what they're alluding to, is that in this situation where we can't resolve this, we will provide you one last out, which would be to compete in the last chance qualifier.

which would be to compete in the last chance qualifier in lieu of a semifinal, which technically the last chance qualifier is still considered part of the semifinal portion of the season, even though it happens several weeks after the last semifinal. But, but, but, but there, it's a different, it's a, the workouts aren't the same, right? I'm sorry. I'm doing. No, no, no. Anecdotal, not necessarily true or reliable because based on personal accounts rather than facts of research. Right. I totally agree with you. I totally agree with you.

Your entire country is anecdotal and crazy. Okay. Go on. Sorry. Sorry. Your country shut down when your leader's wife got COVID. Okay, sorry. Patrick, be nice. Come on. Be a good dude. Be a good dude. Okay.

Okay, but it's different. The last chance qualifier is, I did. I did just look it up. Thank you. And I just read you the definition. I had to look it up. I thought it was a compliment. definition i had to look it up i thought it was a compliment um you're suggesting a virtual semi-final for people who can't travel to wherever they're supposed to travel that's what you know

this problem is going to be here for a while why not just automatically have it and the workout's different than the the workout's different than the the last chance qualifier is a different beast isn't it and it's in it's in in every way. It's virtual instead of live. There's less workouts. If it's going to be the same as last year, there are less workouts. And it's a very difficult field with less amount of spots available. Right. So it's not a good option.

If Logan gets seated there, he could have a positive attitude and say, well, it's better than nothing. than nothing but you know the realist and i was also going to say damn two spots with all against all the guys that just barely missed out is harder than competing for five spots against whatever field the 30 guys in north america because now you're competing against the six best european guys that didn't make it the three best guys from australia or new zealand that didn't make it a couple guys that missed out in in south africa not to mention the other 12 guys that barely missed the cut in North America. So you don't like the idea to have a catch-all virtual? Well, we have to look.

Obviously, you know that I think- What if they let you program it? Then would you like it if they let you program it? Irrelevant. Okay. Obviously, we know that, you know that I think

there are things they could have done previously to prevent this from ever being a situation that they were in to begin with. But since they're in the situation now and looking at the layout of something, providing that as an option to someone like Logan, and I do think there are a couple other athletes that are in a similar situation to him still, is better than nothing. So I would give him credit for that. All right. I want to hear your answer on this, Brian. Serious question. Do you think HQ actually cares about these issues? They only affect the lower seat athletes. The top 20 athletes for both sexes will still be there anyway. I think they really do care, and not only do I think they really do care, I think it's

causing problems internally, meaning some people care more than other people. So let's say Brian and I both worked at HQ and Brian's like, hey, we have to push forward. And I might be like, no, we have to go back and fix that problem. We have integrity. And I think that there's a problem there. I think there's this I think this thing is probably I think there's degrees of caring, but I do think everyone cares from the very top to the bottom. And I just think that I think I think it's because they're not going to fix it

it's going to they're going to have internal uh they need to they need to like do a ayahuasca trip in a tent after this or some shit or go to one of those camps where you climb up on poles and you have to do trust like the person drops and you catch them because this shit is going to fuck them up because there's people there with all different levels of integrity who are who have different levels of tolerance for for this type of chaos and imagine the games athletes who are who are working behind the scenes like retired games athletes like they're not going to like this shit at all no and i think you know asking if they care ryan do you think they care well they should care because the top of the sport is buoyed up by all the tiers below it.

And it's like that in every sport, right? If you don't have a feeding system, which is the D league for the NBA, then there's no opportunity for athletes to, who are like close, but not making it to have that opportunity to continue to compete and train and push forward. Like that's what the semifinals are. That's what the quarterfinals are. That's what the open are. They're all just these layers of competition that provide the foundation that you need to support the top of the sport. And I know from talking to athletes

at the top of the sport who weren't always at the top of the sport, that it's important to them that athletes that are younger than them or newer than them have the similar opportunities to earn their way to compete in stages of competition like the semifinals, because there's a lot of value of experience of doing that. You might not make it your first year, second year, third year, fourth year, but you learn lessons every one of those years that leads to the eventual breakthrough in year five. I feel like you avoided the question. So do they care or don't they care? I'm saying they should care. And I do think that they care. They have to care. I'm saying they should care. And I do think that I do think that they care. They have to care. I think they care a lot too, just to degrees. Uh, is this true? Is this a real person? Yes.

Jordy Grimelian. This is gnarly. I am in North America at 121. That means he's a hundred. That means he's one out. And by the way, his workout number three was 420 plus spots worse than his workouts one, two, four, and five. So probably is inflated unjustly based on the plethora of inaccurate scores for that workout. And he may actually have been inside the top 120 at CrossFit Pursuit trying to correct those scores. Wow. And you're saying that with a lack of certainty, but I feel like you think you are certain that this guy should be in. I haven't gone back. I mean, a lot has happened this morning, so I haven't gone back to look specifically at the data that Hiller put together

surrounding the men in North America of which four guys would have been in and which four out, but he's only four points points out of uh of a qualifying spot anyway and with a score that's you know over 400 spots worse than his next worst score uh actually it's only 200 hey do you think this do you think this dude jordy has actually done the math himself do you think like like if you took 121st wouldn't you be like scrolling up and checking every motherfucker's event number three i would i mean this guy wants to go to the games right this guy's not just a good crossfitter right if you're 121 you you're going to the games yeah like you want to go to the games right well i can't accidentally get 121 right no no i don't know i think that there's a lot of people

in this part of the leaderboard that realize that the games is unlikely, but the semifinals becomes the games for them. There were a ton of people that you knew and I knew in the 2015, 16, 17, 18, and they said, my goal is regionals. If I make it to regionals, that is the pinnacle for me because it's a huge jump to just barely make it in there and then to actually be competitive for a top five spot there. So probably this is a pursuit that he's been pursuing of the semifinals, knowing it's unlikely to make the games. And so, but that's still pretty painful for him. One of the guys that's four spots ahead of him finished 300 spots better than him on workout number three. So all it would take is five erroneous scores in that range of 300 beneficial to him and move up. Now, of course, there's a lot of other people that could be factored in moving around if you start doing that, but either way, it's a, it's going to leave a sour taste in this guy's mouth for sure. Knowing that whether I would have made it in or not, this is not an actual actual accurate reflection of my performance because there's a bunch of inaccurate scores here god i hope you're fucking canadian no american deserves this to

happen to him man oh man he's american jordy i'm sorry wow and so and by by so so i think you you said no he didn't think he would go to the games But what I mean is he's on track to go to the games. Not this year, but you don't take 120th unless your goal is at some point to get to the games. You can't just be a fucking the fittest dude at your gym and land where he lands. No, he's definitely an absolute. This guy needs to be tested. If you're in the top 120, you need to be tested. No, he's obviously a beast.

He's very, very good. My guess is if you asked him that he would say no my goal is to make it to semifinals i don't know i don't think i have a chance to make the games but uh that's my guess okay can you pull it he's 31 years old he's completed this guy's ig let's let's critique his physique let's look at his pecs and see what the fuck i don't know if you'll find his ig it's uh doesn't have his name in it damn you're good you're good brian um this season has been tough he had he had uh actually his foot amputated uh two weeks into the open so all right brian is there anything else um it's it It's fascinating that we have a guy from 121 in the comments. It's heartbreaking. It makes it more real.

It makes it more real. It's not just shit to talk about. Yeah, well, and that's the point. This is not him. His Instagram is like a Metcon underscore athletics or something. Anything else we want to leave with? When will we be circling back? What are we looking at?

When do we get to actually just be like, okay, we've landed on the semifinals. This is who we think is going to the games. When do we get to do that show? That show sounds fun. That show sounds a lot of fun. Those are the shows I want to be doing, not these ones. The back foot process, right now,

my understanding is that the athletes have been basically given an extension in North America until Wednesday, April 20th, sometime in the evening, where they have to decide if they want to go to the new semifinal they've been seeded at. Or in the case of Logan, if he wants to make it work to get to the Atlas Games somehow. And that after that, they'll probably start doing the back fills in North America. I would assume also in Europe. And then continue to round them out in the rest of the world. And so we should hopefully, I mean, my hope is that we'll have a full semifinal roster sometime next week.

Caleb. Thank you, Brian friend. Thank you for the seven podcast. Mr. Anadol is out out thanks everyone for checking in Brian thanks for doing this last minute podcast you do man

yep