The Sevan Podcast - #480 - 2022 CrossFit Games Already Happened | The Men

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. So I did a workout tonight. Damn, we're live. Go ahead, Jeff.

Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. No, not important. Who did you do today? No, I was just saying me and Jason hit a workout today. Oh, what did you guys do? I had bar muscle-ups, parallette handstand push-ups and squat cleans wow i'm surprised you can talk about that i thought for sure i was gonna get like i

can't tell you how about the reps will you tell us the reps no time domain no who won you or jason jason wow good answer good answer if you would have won you would have said i can't tell you right no i'd have told you if i don't want oh right uh tomorrow morning at 7 a.m i had scheduled uh one of my um new favorite athletes in the crossfit ecosystem nicholas joy al joy al from uh uh eastern eastern eastern can i think he's from the greater montreal area eastern eastern canada where uh vaccines are enforced injections are enforced on all ages from the living to the dead uh i think you need three booster shots now there to be considered anyway anyway uh but nicholas also took part took probably in some other uh substances and it's kind of in and you know and i thought maybe he wouldn't come on tomorrow and

and he's being cool as shit and he is's still coming on, and I'm really stoked. And it will be a good day to ban any douchebags in the comments. By the way, I am totally okay with douchebags in the comments. My tolerance for douchebaggery in the comments wanes if you have an account that doesn't have a name attached to it. So if your name is like, like Dick butter, like that guy, Dick butter, I have a tolerance for his douchebaggery and his jokes because they're always jokes. He's not like, yo, your mom's fucking ugly. It's more like your mom's so ugly. When I fuck her, I put a bag over my face in case the bag over her head face breaks. You know what I mean? There's like a joke in there. It can't just be just name calling.

So I'm, I'm up for like, you you know if you're practicing your you guys get it you guys get it uh anyway so so nicholas joyale tested positive for something i don't know what he made a comment uh first he he he was nice enough to reach out to us and was like hey guys i don't know if you still want me on i'm not going to the crossfit games uh what's up and he said i popped for something we said okay and we said we'd love to have you on uh it's going to be great for our youtube station i mean we're compassionate people and And so he's coming on tomorrow morning. And then I also reached out to Mr. Vellner and invited him on the show this evening. And we'll start with the toughest question first. What is harder, Patrick?

Beating athletes on PEDs or swim events? I don't know. I don't know. I guess beating athletes with PEDs since they seem to not do it very often. I was so high on this guy, Mr. Joyal. And JR's like easy there, simmer down, settle down. I was like, he's guy, Mr. Joyal. And JR's like, easy there. Simmer down. Settle down.

Like, I was like, he's going to win the games. I was like, all in. I was all in. He means on Friday of semifinals. Yeah, on Friday of semifinals. And these guys are telling me to settle down. And then he kind of got beat up a little bit the next couple days. But I was still excited about him.

Yeah, you lead with the heart so you're gonna you tend to get it broken regularly i think as a result but that is true um we we what what's the math look like are you now the atlas games uh champion i don't think so i think i i think all that happens is jeff and i both get eight more points if they were to rerun the points oh both if you get eight more points not just you i think nick only beat me in two workouts both the first day and he beat jeff and i both in both of those workouts and those are the only events that he beat either of us in i think so i think it basically i bump from second to first in event one, and Jeff bumps from third to second. And then event two, I go from third to second,

and Jeff goes from fourth to third. So in the end, we end up with like, we have a level tie break. The points don't change, and we have the same tie break. We have two firsts, two seconds, and a third. And then I have a sixth on the complex, and he has a fourth. So I think we still end up eight points spread between us yeah that's right a lot a bunch of people were messaging me this afternoon telling me that velner was the atlas games champion i was like oh damn so i

started looking at the numbers real quick and then i was like ah i'm not sure about that so i like spent a decent amount of time writing it down and i also wanted to check on the bubble in case they do a backfill to make sure that like everything would still be good there, which it also is. Does CrossFit let you know, Patrick? Like about the drug testing? Yeah.

Like does, does, does everyone at who competed at the Atlas games or all the finishers get some sort of like, Hey, just so you know, someone tested positive, we're just giving you a heads up or anything like that.

Any comms or. No, I think, well, I mean, likely they'll release a statement probably, you know, in a matter of a couple of days that has all of the week four, maybe even, I don't know if they've done week three yet even, but we've seen like drug testing results trickle out. There's a few positive tests in the teams, I think, but generally they'll do it in like blocks. So maybe weeks three and four is one big block that they were holding and they'll release all at once what all the results were from there um so probably it'll come out at some point in the next bit and if there were any other positive tests they'll be released at the same time there from i think it was us strength and depth and copa sewer that happened at the same

time so i'd assume all three of those will have their information released all at once um but i think nick just kind of came out and got ahead of it and said uh he was going to be not competing at the games and you know took some ownership over that so power to him i i guess we find out tomorrow but so we think the timeline on this is he got a note from crossfit saying you popped they gave him the option of doing a test b or a beat a test of his b sample or or whatever when you when you push back on a drug test and he said fuck that and he just went straight to the internet and said he came out he came out with his hands up yeah i mean i think i don't know i don't i don't like to see anybody cheating but you know i think there's

something a little bit refreshing about seeing somebody uh admit their fault and be like hey yeah i did that sorry and not and not try to say it was like tainted whatever and uh this that excuse like we've kind of seen the same two or three excuses roll around every single time and i don't know and what are those excuses i ingested semen what were the other two besides i ingested semen that's the only one that really sticks in my head i think that just falls under the contaminated supplement category kissing kissing dudes kissing dudes is one oh yeah contaminated supplements right right yeah i can tell you. Tainted meat is one. Oh yes. Yes.

I don't know. There's a few that I just like. I don't know. People ask about this all the time. Do you think that there's, you know, steroids and CrossFit and I've, I've always kind of contended three things. One, I'm not a hundred percent sure. Two, I don't think that the athletes at the top, that it's worth it for them to risk it. But three, the athletes that have been close year after year,

that feel like they're just so, you know, so close and keep falling short. That's where the temptation sets in. And basically that's what it sounds like Nick said, is that he felt like he was really close. He did this, you know, he finally decided to do this thing this year, took that chance, knew that knew what the risks were. And when he got caught, he owned he owned it and i'm like that's not that surprising of a scenario for yeah i think that scenario is where you're probably likely to see it like i don't know i don't know if you looked at like the people who are trying to break through to make it to

the games or the people who are trying to break through to like be a top 10 athlete or try just not quite there to make it on the podium. Like I think those transition zones are probably where it's most likely. And you see stories like that. I don't know though. I think that, yeah. And I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of refreshing for just for Nick to tell his story and say that because otherwise it like a lot of it is just so shrouded, right. It's always like, you know,

there's some excuses that come out and nobody ever was ever really sure. There's a lot of half truths or this and that and i think it's you know sports is a difficult world and it's it's very unforgiving and there's very like it can be very all or nothing so of course there's people who are willing to do whatever they can and i think it's naive to think there isn't that out there but um you know i don't think it's as rampant as some claim it is uh but yeah i mean it's i don't know i it's like i like i don't like that i always seems to be around me i don't know what it is what it is about me i just love it i you might not like it but i love it i hope i hope someone pops at the games i hope you take second place at the games and god forbid it's not Justin Medeiros. Whoever took first pops.

That would be great. I just want consistency in your life. Continuity. Yeah, right? Let's say there's a scenario where there was a middling or something, and him testing positive would have changed the leaderboard to, be me beating jeff or whatever it might be now what happens like so jeff won and he's got his award and now are they gonna rerun the system like i think in in 2017 which is like my best reference to this type of scenario when ricky tested positive they didn't rerun the scoring system, I don't think. They just eliminated him from the leaderboard

and then shuffled everybody up. So in that scenario... That's batshit crazy. Where I would have said... Can we confirm what he just said? Is that true, what Vellner just said? I think so. I'm pretty sure it is.

I have a memory of them discussing it and saying, you can't pretend that this so-and-so athlete didn't have an effect on the competition, despite them, um, you know, being on whatever substances because they're physically there and they draw people out and they have an effect on the athletes around them. You can't just like erase their effect. Um, so by rerunning the point system, you kind of confirmed for that. So anyway, that's the precedent that we have. So in a situation, I'm glad it's not the case

because if it were the case and it had ended up in a scenario where I somehow land higher than Jeff, my gut instinct is that they wouldn't reshuffle it. It would just be like, now all of a sudden there's more noise on the internet saying, oh, Valner should have won and this and that and blah, blah, blah, and do this.

And it just, it creates, the one thing i really hate the most about these types of situations with athletes testing positive is it creates so much noise for the other athletes like you know i am inevitably going to get a bunch of dms from people about this whether they're condemning nick or telling me that i'm on drugs too or this and that it's just like it's so goddamn annoying like i've just got better shit to do than like feel this all day long and it and so you know like i was someone will do that to you someone you're gonna get a dm that says hey don't act like you're not on it too without a doubt there's so much god i'd like to run that person's house over with the fucking god you have got to know that there's so much malevolence out there people who just want bad things to happen to you just because um and it's like it's yeah so it just

it sort of again puts everybody under the gun it says it gives people ammunition to say ha told you so everybody's on drugs though this guy's a you know he was just the sacrificial lamb this year like they're protecting their big butt and it just like it fucking goes on forever so every time there's one it's like it's sad like it frankly just makes me sad for the body of athletes who work really hard and like i've been competing as a clean athlete which should go without saying for years and it's just harder than you just constantly like have this gun to your head and everyone's like well like you're clean or and whether or not you can you produce a negative test and they say oh i didn't see it it's like like you just like you're clean or and whether or not you can you produce a negative test and they say oh i didn't see it it's like like you just you you're guilty until proven innocent and that just

gets so old so um it always just gets worse it goes in waves and then people kind of calm down and forget about it and then every time there's a case like this it just sort of like builds up momentum again and it's just you know like we have enough stress two three weeks away from the games trying to like flog ourselves and get ready that like nobody wants this extra noise in your ear so it's funny these people also like you can just zoom out and you can say just on the men's side alone there's 40 games qualifiers and every semi-final they also tested the next three people which are the last chance qualifier and uh that's 70 athletes that were tested and one guy popped and on the team side you know we've had four four drug pops this

year but every team has four teammates on it and there's testing uh teams like we saw with blue city athletics that didn't even make the game so if you extrapolate the numbers it's like a tenth of a percent of the people and that shouldn't be the statistic that you're writing on when you're starting to make these accusations yeah i mean i like what you said about the honesty i think all we can i think the highest level we can expect from our fellow man and we should expect from our fellow man and we should set them up for his honesty and the fact that he came out honest and people's responses well would he have come out and said um he was taking if he wouldn't have been caught i don't even understand how you go

there like i i don't i that's not what happened he was caught and he just admitted to it well i just want to reward him you know what by reward him i mean by reward him i mean just support him. I don't want to attack him. I don't want to beat him down anymore. I had a neighbor who robbed me one year in college, took all my shit and all my roommate shit, all of it. A week later, he comes over. He goes, hey, I robbed you.

I'm like, fuck, where's the shit? He goes, it's at my parents' house. Went over to his parents' house, loaded my pickup truck with all the stuff, and I'm like, hey, thanks for giving it back. And he said, yeah, I thought you knew knew that's why i turned myself in i thought you were about to turn me in on the cops i'm like no i had no idea my roommates wanted us to call me to call the cops on the fucking guy i couldn't do it he gave the shit back i mean yeah and it's it's a difficult conversation because it's like you know he put himself in that situation right right right i do you know i don't hate nick joel right like i don't i think he made a bad

decision and that's it is what it is but can he come can he come west and train with you he probably won't have any reason to now i mean in four years yeah we'll see what i'm doing in four years but he'll probably have better people to train with at that point um yeah i just it's it's tough like i think yeah you're right on the one hand you do kind of want to say hey kudos to you for like being a grown-up about the whole thing but you know like you did a bad thing and uh any shit on your party any shit on your party well and shit on your party. Well, and like,

it's not me. I don't, it's not about me. Like, I think, you know, look at someone like Austin Spencer who finished six behind him. So Austin Spencer,

his partner, Caroline Connor is qualified from Atlas games. They would have both qualified from the same competition. Had Nick either not been there or who knows if Nick had just been there and not taken anything maybe he still would have qualified or maybe he wouldn't have I don't know but given the what we're looking at now like if Austin gets extended a backfill like which I hope he does that'll be really cool for them as a couple and but it could have been even cooler had they been able to share that moment at the competition and those are like it's lame and cheesy kind of to say like you know it's about those moments and stuff but it kind of

is it is like that's what you work for like so like if he could have been there and they could have both been there had their photo had their qualification gave each other a big hug like that would have been awesome it would have been a cool storyline those are memories that you make and last forever to get the phone call even if he gets the back row, that's like, hey, Austin, lace up your shoes. You're going to Madison. It's like, oh, and that'll be still cool, and they'll have some time at the games. But it's like it just kind of – it's missing something, right?

So those are the things that suck, right? Those are the unintended consequences, and those are the people that lose out. So it's not me. I didn't lose anything. That's the reality of it i lost very little i would have won i would have won the first event which would have been like yay and the second event but no i would have came second in the second one uh alex caron also beat me well i you could also argue that it would have changed your mindset because instead of like this nobody from fucking comes out of nowhere and fucking beats you and you're like scratching your head for like how the fuck did that wasn't a nobody i'm just i i'm not i'm not doing it to be derogatory to nicholas

nicholas but but he had no place beating the great pat velner i mean who knows could could be like could be that you have an effect on the psyche of the athletes that you're competing against like again this is what's kind of crossfit's point in 2017 is you cannot pretend that these athletes didn't have an impact on the competition outside of their placing but it's just like you know again like i just i wasn't i'm not a big loser in this situation like it's it's not me it's not about me like i'm gonna be fine um so part of you even kind of happy or like i knew it i was unbeatable unless you're juicing no it makes me sad we had five canadians qualified from the men's side and now we don't four um yeah so it just counts as two dudes we'll still give you five well from atlas we had all five qualifications from atlas go to canadians which was cool for the men's side um i was like hey full canadian sweep

that's what we want to see and then now we don't have that i mean and good for austin not like nothing against him but i was like rooting for the canadians obviously and when we we got it and it was cool i was rooting for nick um so it's just yeah i don't know it's it's like have you talked to him at all after the event did you have any exchanges with him after the event up until today like after alice yeah like after alice did you have you dm with them or text with him or anything oh we spoke a bit at the competition and like as things wrapped up and kind of said congrats i know he was because he's in montreal he was like talking about maybe coming to do a little bit of work with michelle since that she's local there um which i don't

know if we did much of that but it's just like yeah we're like cordial right i've talked to him i'm not like i have no you know i don't i don't lose sleep over a guy beating me over in a couple events. Like that's not, I'm not like, I don't have ill will towards him. I think it was great. I thought he had a great competition. It makes me excited to see people finally break through or do well and, you know, surpass their expectations. That's what competing, that's what makes it fun. Is to like, even from personally,

for me, like some of the things I do in competition, I'm like, well, didn't think I had that in me. Um, and that's, what's cool about it. So even when I see that for other people, like, of course I want to beat them and it's easy to say it when it's all done to be like, oh yeah, you know, I, uh, I beat all you guys. So I'm happy for your success because it wasn't quite enough to beat me. It makes it really easy. But regardless, like it's cool to see people do awesome stuff and meet their goals. Right. So I don't know.

That's just the thing. Like it sort of puts a damper on the whole thing. And now it's like, this is also then becomes like the last set of news that you get post semifinals pregames where it's like, everybody's riding a high. There's lots of buzz after the semis. And then it like want want and then everybody's gotta we'll make something up about you okay i'll try to come up with some sort of story about you that's louder than this one

i have a few ideas okay i'm in uh patrick i think you're in a marvelous headspace uh it's so awesome your attitude i appreciate you coming on. Do you guys have anything else for Patrick? It's cool to see him just so pumped. You look great, and it's just great that you're just rolling with it. You got shit to do. You're going to the games. Yeah, man, yeah.

I got some color back in my face after a hard session at the track, so I feel like I'm looking good now. What's your mile time, Patrick? What's your mile time? That's a good question. We don't use those weird units in this country. Understood. Understood.

You're not under the rule of the king. JR, do you have anything for Mr. Vellner or Brian? JR's been quiet. I want to hear something from him. No, I'm just looking forward to seeing him in a few weeks. You mean at the CrossFit Games? Yes. Yeah, awesome.

Brian, do you have anything for Mr. Vellner? What are your plans between now and the Games? How long will you stay up in Canada? When will you head down here? I think I get there on the 28th or 29th, end of July. It's my birthday next weekend, so I'm going to stick around. Turning 33? Yeah, 32. 32. weekend so i'm gonna stick around turning 33 yeah 32 32 so i gotta i got actually gotta go to a

funeral this weekend and then i gotta my wife's going to a wedding the weekend after that so i got the home to myself i might get a couple people emily rolf might come by and train for a few days do some stuff and then i don't know we're just gonna kind of kick it more the same probably two more hard weeks of kicking my own ass and then maybe a week of tapering and then uh i don't know hope it's all good enough who died uh my grandpa oh wow in like november yeah yeah uh but yeah so we just are doing like an internment and stuff this weekend oh does that um and is that fuel for uh the games in life no no that's just a fact of life right right he was like 90 something it wasn't like tragic sudden death it was wow it's the way it works you live and then then you die. That means you're going to be alive for a long time.

Yeah. Yeah, I was kind of curious if you would have any other games, athletes, male or female, that you train with between now and then. I mean, it's like, I think, you know, you see these camps that are developing and then suddenly athletes from the same training programs are making the games and you see they have these pre-games camps and it's like, I'm sure it's a good environment. But also, to me, it's kind of strange. It's like, yeah, we're going to train and have this great time together.

But two weeks from now, like I want to beat your ass every time we take the floor. We've done it in the past. I used to go in Montreal for about a month pre-games, you know, 2018, 2019, we did it. But 2019, I was there with like Sam Cornway and James Newbery. And it's hard to like have people in your division that you're training with every day. Cause those losses sting. You know, I don't want to train. And I find, I think that's hard for training. Cause some days it's not about going a hundred percent effort.

It's like, we're working on aerobic stuff and you got to be holding like 70%. But if I go 70 and James goes 75 and Sam goes 80, like we're at a hundred percent real quick. And it's like, cause you don't want those training losses. So that's why I think those, those training camps, when you have like one strong male and female training together, it can work very well. Cause there's no direct competition. It's hard when you start to compete with people. So like Emily Rolfe lives in Vancouver, Freya Mooseburger's there.

I think Freya is going to Montreal soon to train with Michelle, but you know, we'll get together occasionally to do some stuff. I don't really have anybody, uh, um, around here, you know, I've done it with a few people, but it's lately my, my thing I'm trying to do is get people from my gym to just come and like do some stuff with me when I have like hard track stuff or whatever. Cause some people are just like can run or can do, can swim or can do whatever. So if you just get people out with you, it's better than doing it by yourself some days. So I'm trying to sucker some people into doing that.

Yeah. I can't advertise the Pat Vellner card. Cause all I have is the Colton Merton card. Oh, where do you go to get the Pat Vellner card? Where do you go? Wadzombie.com. Oh, there we go.

Look at that. Look at that. Look at that. Now everyone wants a hug from Pat. I know. Squeeze the life out of you. That's a picture of Pat carrying his sheets from his wedding night. Pat, that was a great joke, by the way.

We have a long show ahead of us, Ross. I'd keep you on all night. We're going to announce the woman's winner for the CrossFit Games tonight. Okay. Well, if you're on the topic of talking about camps while I exit here, you should talk about how some of the training camps are currently exploding. And there's some major drama drama and they're unraveling. And perhaps the training camp scene is not where you want to be.

Are you referring to what's happening over at the underdogs athletics? Yes, of course. Anywhere else? Are you referring about Harry and being up from comp train up to the. HWPO? Yeah. I don't HWPO. Yeah. I don't know, man.

Yeah. It's dramatic. It's been a big day. Oh, it's been a big day. Wow. Wow. Stick around for a few minutes,

Pat. Stick around. No, I got to go have dinner. I'm already late. Pat, you know, man,

thank you so much for coming on and flashing your smile. My pleasure guys. I'll catch you later. Okay. Hey man. Bye. What is Pat talking about? Susan,

good to have you back. Hi, buddy. Hi buddy. Hey, what's up guys? What's up? Uh,

what is, what is, uh, what, what's he, I mean, I know there was some, there was some,

I, I mean mean basically i heard today that daniel brandon has is like officially moved to um florida but but anything else you mean regarding daniel brandon or in general that he just in general with camps okay that was so unlike pat that was so uncharacteristic of him. Yeah, it was like a little teaser, then he just disappeared. Right, but he's not much of a drama queen, and he stuck his toe in the water. I think he likes other people's drama, like everyone does. Just not his own? Yeah, just stay off of his island.

Oh, where's my Colton Merton's card? Did I already lose it? I already set it back there. I mean, you were just showing it like 30 seconds ago. I know. I set it back over there. I need – what other cards are there? Are there other cards?

That's it so far. There are more coming, but those are the only two you can get so far, Mertens. I don't even know if he's selling any more Mertens. And then Vellner's, I think, available right now. Send me my Vellner one, damn it. How much are those? How much are those, Sousa? $20?

$30? $30? how much is a car he's going back to the website we have 10 workouts that brian friend has uh used resources from the great mike helpingpin. He's Halpin Help. Help. Halped. Halpin Helps. What's the phrase? Halpin. Oh, only $10?

Oh, my gosh. Buy two. One for yourself. Give one as a gift. I know. The plastic holder that it comes in is worth $10. That's crazy. Okay.

So we have these 10 workouts. We have three from the open. We have five from the quarterfinals. and we have two from the semifinals and all of the athletes who've made it to the CrossFit games have done all of these workouts because no one made it from the last chance, right? Because no one made it to the games through the last chance qualifier who missed the semifinals. Correct. Okay. So if you take these 10 workouts and organize them like they're one event.

One competition. Yeah. So like I'll tell you a story that's not a stretch of the imagination. Next week, monkey pox takes over the planet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I need to give people like a narrative. We didn't have a new one from last night though. Okay. A new venereal disease spreads over the planet and we're all forced to stay home and crossfit decides hey we're just going to take these 10 workouts and we're going to choose the

winners and so we have the winners for you for the uh 2022 crossfit games based on those 10 workouts it's it is it is a remarkable piece piece of data junk food for games junkies. I'd like to just start by telling you who is at the top. No surprise. It's not a surprise that she's at the top, but considering everything about the season up to this point, which is… It's Shane Orr's wife, right? Yeah.

Okay. Shane Orr's wife. And considering what she did in the off season which her focus was not primarily on crossfit but we're doing doing some other stuff and then she comes and she does the open and like we talked about yesterday most of the athletes that are you know perennially at the top of the sport and there's none currently competing that are more perennially at the top than she is they're not they're not thinking too much about the open in terms of you know i have to prep my whole week to dominate this workout they're just doing the workout on

the day that they do it and then moving out with their training and basically she's having the same approach in quarterfinals and of course she was excited for the semifinals to be back in australia and you know but and she was incredibly impressive and dominant there and the country came out like crazy to support her the torian pro was nuts was that the most popular do we have numbers on that was that the most in attendance of any semi-final maybe that or brazil oh yeah to say how i don't know how many seats everyone necessarily held but my general impression was that the international ones outside of north america were selling out or filling up the stands at least. And that in North America wasn't even close.

Torian looked like it was three tiers, three decks. Yeah. I mean, they sold out that it's a Patrick Rafter Center tennis stadium or something like that. It's supposed to be a really cool venue. They sold it out and they did a big show and they had the fireworks and everything. I mean, the fans in Australia are really good CrossFit fans. Some people I know who went for sanctionals there to do some competitions were like, man, it was a great energy.

And the fans really turned out in Australia. So that's a big deal for her. She hadn't been there in several years. She goes there and competes. But the point is that there's like six, I think it's 16 rookies in this field. And there's a lot of sophomore athletes in the field. Also, this is their second year back. there's a lot of sophomore athletes in the field also this is their second year back athletes who are not the established tia clartumies that are coming like into the season knowing i'm

going to make the games and it's just a matter of how good will i be when the games come around and we even saw this year that there were some athletes who probably people assumed that of that didn't end up making it and despite all of that of a thousand available points tia took 961 and out of 390 attempts that the other 39 women had in this field already this year to beat her on a workout they beat her collectively 13 times well i'm not where do you get that number 390 there were only 39 women besides her okay okay okay okay okay yeah it's up there. Yeah. When you start to think how many events will Tia win at the games? Like what's a good over under, like, is it nine? Is it 10 of events you'll actually win and you start looking, okay, well,

for her not to win, someone's got to beat her. How many specialists or how many athletes are there that can perform better than her at any one given test, be it like a single modality handstand walk workout which traditionally are some of her lower finishes if they have another one of those or maybe like a long grinder endurance style event like a laura horvat type event but you start to look at the leaderboard and there's so few there are so few that have even won events at the games much less ones that have won multiple ones like car saunders or you know someone like that the the pat rafter arena holds 5500 and you're saying it was sold

out that's pretty damn good yeah i mean they the thing is they announced that it was sold out like two weeks early and i think that in um even in europe and north america that half of their ticket sales were in like the days of the event and maybe a day or two prior combined. Even with this show spreading false news about, they were only filling up half the seats. Where? Twice.

I reported that. I reported that they were only filling up half the arena because of unvaccinated athletes. It appears that it wasn't true. More false news from the Sevan podcast. I apologize. Going back to what JR was saying, you had some remarkable numbers that we saw last night after the show was over regarding the number of event wins she's had compared to other people, right? 33. 33. Did you just say that? Sorry. No, but I think the next closest is seven or eight, and that's Carl Saunders that's in this field and and and brian you were telling me last night what second is even from

people not in this field the second best ever what was it was it oh yeah so tia has 33 event wins in her career a majority of those have come in the last two seasons she had nine last year she had nine in 2020 stage two and four additional in 2020 stage one so that's 13 the 22 over 33 have come in the last two years second place all-time for women is annie thor's daughter with 14 katrin davis daughter's third with 13 wow good on good on those guys that's impressive and and together oh and and who's third who's third katrin 13 i'm sorry who's third who's fourth then sorry sam briggs 11 11 okay so okay so tia after this year if she has another great year which we have to presume she will she will have more wins than the next three people combined yeah and those next three people combined

will have uh five total crossfit games championships and if tia wins this one she'll also have more than them combined. Ooh. Okay. JR, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I got to put this on you. Here we are again. Yesterday, your theory, we were talking about why Fikowski's at 38, and it makes no sense that he's going to be anywhere near there at the end of the Games, 2022 CrossFit Games.

He's actually, we all agree that he's probably going to be on the podium he's going to move up the furthest from basically these mock games we put together theoretical games and the premise of your argument was that he's a veteran and he's gaming it he's doing what he needs to do to preserve and build himself up to be the best at the games. Well, I think that can speak for the first three workouts of the 10. Okay. For the quarterfinals, there's other factors like doing workouts alone,

not doing them in a competitive field, having some people maybe have a pacer next to them going and him just saying, Hey, I'm just going to go and see what happens at semifinals, having live competition, but not having all of them in the same live competition. And then the absence of things that we know are going to be at the games. And it's probably the biggest point of argument for him on objects,

machines, adaptability, unknown and unknowable that kind of stuff how does fair and thank you for adding that to it's significant how does tia fit into this theory we have someone who i would argue is as seasoned as fikowski um it's not madaris who's just you know-year-old boy who's just as good at everything and not gaming anything. But we have Tia, who you could argue has more years behind her than ahead of her. And now does it apply? That line that I screwed up yesterday that you had to repeat for me? You should do everything the way you do everything. What the hell was that? How you do anything is how you do everything.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes. How you pee is how you should poop. I think in Tia's case, it's it's it's a margins thing. She's so far ahead of everyone that she can take three months off and then she can get back into it right around the open. And her 90% could be most people's 100%. So her base is so big that she doesn't have to go back to square one every year and try to build back up to try to get a little bit fitter. She probably will, but everyone else is still chasing.

So as long as she moves just a tiny bit or stays the same the gap probably still can't close okay uh mal o'brien will take a pass on her and throw her in the justin madaris camp um we should not take a pass on mal o'brien uh but just just for a second though just for this argument i just want to bring up one more vision how how about christy arama o'connell i mean we'll spend a lot of time on mal o'b, but she also falls in the same camp. Does she also have that base? I'm just struggling with the fact that the open really doesn't matter. I guess I'm in denial.

Because here we have two girls that I think did make it matter. First of all, no matter whatever, what happens if the, if the open doesn't matter in anyone's mind, it's always going to bother you. Right. Right. We just have to accept that.

Okay. We'll work on that. Maybe we'll work through that on the off season. I'll close my eyes and you can like say stuff to me. Uh, Jeremy, no, um,

seven, Brian has me on retainer and not, and not like a lawyer, like a hooker. Can you have a hooker on retainer and not, and not like a lawyer, like a hooker. Can you have a hooker on retainer? Anyway, uh, to your question, Savan, which I'm not, I'm not even sure what the question is necessarily, but I just not accepting the fact I'm just not accepting the fact that, um, I, I, I want to, I'm not accepting the fact that Tia, she's like, I just love the fact

that everything she does is great. And that's what you have to do to be a champion. And that's what Medeiros did. And that's why Fikowski is never going to be at the top. He's just not, he doesn't fit into the books I'm reading. The books I'm reading, if you want to be a champion is how you do anything is how you do everything. And it's like, okay.

And, and I, and you know, and you have to live at home with your parents like Justin and you have to be singularly focused. Like, you know what I mean? And somehow Fikowski is not fitting that mold by being in this model. And yet. Yeah. Every time that he's qualified for the games outside of 2019 and 2020,

how's his finishes been? He's fucking amazing. I know. I know you told one, two, one, two, two, three, one, two, two, two, two, two, one. He figured out how to maximize his potential in a live competition, in the hardest live competitions. Because even when he shows up at the sanctionals,

even when he travels to Dubai to compete, it's not just the execution workout to workout. It's everything from the build-up to that competition, the week leading into it, every night, every day, between events, everything that he does is, you know, all designed for him to maximize his potential at that competition in the series of events that are given to him. JR is right. He does excel in things that can't be tested inside the gym. higher variability between his performance in an open style workout where we have limited equipment space and opportunity to something where you can broaden the horizon and you can bring in a bunch of stuff that people haven't seen before and that we don't often or always

get an opportunity to do in competitions. There is a bigger gap there than usual, but this, he has, and that's the reason why, you know, he has this professor project that he's been working on and that people are subscribing to that because he has figured out all these little tricks and secrets to make sure that he can always show up to the competitions at his best and inside of workouts, apply all the things that he's practiced and bring with him to do the same. And if you, you know, if you haven't, if you're relatively new to watching this,

like you should go back and watch some Brent Fikowski's regional performances from 2016, 17 and 18. It's incredible to see how he manages those weekends, how he manages those workouts. And then in the games, you know, depending on the event, it can be harder to maybe follow the storyline of every athlete in the field. But there's a, you know, he's up there in terms of all-time wins at the games as well. And he's still going. Asuza, can you bring up his page? at the games as well and he's still going asuza can you bring up his page um it's called uh it's called train heroic but you can also just put the professor the professor project it's a nice it's

a nice website i didn't even know he was selling training so i think that a few years yeah you think that affects does he have someone helping him do that you think that affects his uh ability to train for the game considering everything i that i just said do that? You think that affects his ability to train for the games? Considering everything that I just said about him, I would think that before launching this, he put a lot of thought into it. And I would assume that, yes, he has some people that are helping him. But he also seems like the type of guy, I mean, you have to remember that early on in his career, he was working full-time and straining for the games and had several near misses before finally making it.

And then he was slowly able to transition away from that working. So he's not unused to doing things that are productive in addition to training to be a full-time athlete. And he's the kind of guy that's going to, if he sees an opportunity to learn something, he might have picked up ability to manage a website or to take in and manipulate pictures to fit the mold that he wants. But I'm sure he does have someone that's helping him with this too uh jr outside of injury or some act of god

is there any chance that tia clare to me can take any place besides first any any kind of weird programming um i guess the only two factors would be something in the programming or someone's better than her no i think she's too good at too many different things to lose enough points over the course of 13 to 15 events to lose uh brian same question you outside of an act of god or someone being better than her like those are the only two things i can think of uh can anyone can anyone and by an act of god you know what i mean like she gets in a car accident or outside of someone being better than her you can't see a way she'll lose right i mean and something or she'll break in a leg or something

you know what i mean yeah right i mean everyone knows it's a it is sports you can get sick you can get injured things can happen that are you know freak whatever but as we've seen over the last five six years you know she's nearly unbeatable in a live competition um and in the last couple years she's proven to be nearly unbeatable in majority of events at live competitions it is going beyond the level of dominance that that uh froning or even fr showed over the, over these last couple of seasons. And this study that we're talking about tonight is like, it's only like a cherry on top in terms of this, like,

you know, it's incredible. She's 200 points ahead of Mal O'Brien in this model. And Mal's a hundred points ahead of third place, Christy Aramola O'Connell. So you take Mal out of the equation. She's 30% clearer of the field on a series of tests that she's not that invested in that, you know, really don't matter to her. Like I mentioned earlier, half the women on this field, they do matter to them in a very different way than it means to Tia because, you know, even you look at someone like Alexis Raptus, who's incredibly good and people are super excited about this year, but, you know, she had last year in her mind all season and she wasn't about to miss out again this year. So she's thinking about that when she's doing open workouts, she's thinking about that for quarterfinals workout. She's carrying that desire and that heartbreak with her into

trying to qualify this year. And so she's, she's done really well in the qualifying stages. Tia's not got, she had no worries about that stuff. She's just showing up and doing these workouts and moving on and it's complete and utter domination three first three seconds two thirds and two fourths let's um let's assume so let's assume just now t is going to win win the crossfit games just for a second here well or until she does win them the next place is we we we've assumed laura horvat is uh second place but is this when is the year going to happen that mal o''Brien is going to take that spot from Laura Horvath? So what I'm going to propose is that we don't look at the first three workouts,

which were the open, because as Sarah Sigmund's daughter told us, they don't matter. And we look at just the remaining seven. If those, if we only had those seven workouts, who would Mal still be ahead of Laura Horvvath because laura horvath is number seven on this list right now i want to see something here do you see what i'm asking jr here yeah i can see what you're asking okay i wish i knew how to read this chart better all i see all i really understand is is the rankings in the order when i see right next to laura horvath 22.1 did she

take 33rd out of all the people on this list she took 33rd in that workout so if you can scroll to the right a little bit i'll just highlight the cells he's talking about well that's not gonna work oh you can do that from your google doc too yeah Yeah. So here we see Mal was sixth to Laura's 39th. Mal was seventh to Laura's 19th. Mal was 13th to her 16th. But then Mal's 16th to her third. Mal's 13th to her third. Mal's ninth to her fifth.

Mal's 20th to her fifth. So Laura takes her four to three on that workout's head-to-head there. But this 39th and quarterfinal event one, that's the shoulder endurance with the handstand pushups and the stuff. There we go. And so if it ends up being something that's a pretty close race between Mal and Laura at the games and Mal has, in fact, closed that gap quite a bit. And there's a workout that shows up when the full field is still in play. That's something that Laura is particularly bad at. And there is a chance that there's one workout that she does finish in the bottom five and at the games.

And if that's the case and Mal is a good finish in it, and Mal doesn't have an equally bad finished off set that then maybe there is a scenario where she can challenge her for that two spot. Is there any hole anywhere in Mal's game? To be determined last year, we did see a couple over the course of the season. However, we saw that one of

them was not just eradicated but completely obliterated in the case of the uh echo bike which she demonstrated at the atlas games and um you know there's these kind of whispers going around that what we saw of mal at the atlas games is or the granite games excuse me is still not the best version of her and that we should be looking to see even a more impressive performance on some of the things that she was maybe not as good at last year if they happen to show up at the games this year jr let your imagination run wild give me is there is there is there a workout it seems like brian said it seems like brian i'm putting words in brian's mouth right now that he could quickly come up with a workout that would put la Horvat in the bottom five in this list.

Can you quickly think of a workout in your head that would put Mal O'Brien at the bottom five in this class with these people? Well, in this list, we can look at one in particular, quarterfinals workout five, which is a really, really high power output workout. high power output workout. It's not really dependent upon top end, not under fatigue, lifting like absolute strength, but comparatively to the field, I'm pretty sure she's 13th on that. Correct. Right. Yep. That's what I'm looking at too. So if I look at a workout like that, and I say you put a workout like that at the games, she finish 13th or better does she finished 15th to 20th it's you know it's hard to say but why did you choose that instead of a event four where she took 16th well because we know there's about who knows how many i don't know i don't even want to go there with that workout okay okay shut her on the workout that's good no that was workout three

this is the other total okay other. Other total. Yeah. So, I mean, the easy thing to say would just be one rep max lift because we know she's probably not one of the strongest, but I look at that as being maybe one test and possibly a test when the field has been narrowed, when cuts have already been made. That's been the trend here lately, right? In 2019, when there was a very small field, they did the snatch after they had already done cuts. So at that point, it doesn't hurt you as much to take a lower place finish when you're talking about an event compared to 40 others. So if I look like a high power output workout, like that 30, 20, 10 workout, which there'll probably be something like that at the

games. I would love to see something like that come out with a moderately heavy barbell load or even an odd object load to see how she handles it because we know she's an absolute monster on all the machines at this point. So I'm going to interpret what you're saying. You're saying, no, there isn't a workout that comes off the top of your head. That's realistic that she would be in the bottom five of these 40, but you could see if there was a cut down to 10 a workout coming up where she's on the bottom she takes last there that that's a a more likely scenario yeah maybe and if that's the case then she's got a

great chance of finishing second wow okay uh brian did you did you like the way we talked through that do you have any thoughts on that it seems to to me just from this little talk that we've seen Laura's last time at second place. She's now – I don't think that's necessarily the case at all. I mean, you got to think back to last year. Obviously, Tia was running away with it. But I think by the end of the weekend, there was an 80-point gap between Laura and third place. And Mel was all the way down to seventh place last year, over 200 points behind.

So she's obviously improved in some domains. And I think that she will give – that's a good shot there from probably Chase. She's improved in some domains. But to make up 200 points at the games is still not an easy thing to do. There are some competitors in this field last year that weren't there uh this year they weren't there last year that i think will factor in in some of these conversations the thing that i like that jr points out is more so than in the men's field in the women's field i think you have some pretty distinct tiers in terms of capacity and capability at the games

and that the bottom, you know, 10 women are not going to factor. And even if we look at this list, you'll see they have between like the bottom 10 of them, they'll have like maybe five to eight total workouts that they pop up and have a pretty good performance on. But overall, most of those women aren't really factoring into very many workouts. And so you're going to just see the top 20 athletes exchanging points within the top 20 or the top 10 within the top 10 and the next 10 within the next 10 or whatever these kind of breakdowns of tears end up being. If there is a cuts and you end up eliminating some of those athletes,

that's where you'll start to see, you know, someone maybe get exposed against the top half of the field that now you're talking about a very, like even the worst athlete in the field is still extremely competitive. Oh, let's, so let's, let's look, uh, can you scroll down? Let's look at who these people are. Maybe they're not all down. Oh, okay. I think they are all down here. So this, this is more indicative than the men. There's no one down here at the bottom. I think we had three people down here at the bottom. We had, uh, Cole Sager, maybe Yana Koski and Fikowski were down here at the bottom i think we had three people down here at the bottom we had uh cole sager maybe yannikovsky and fukowski were down here at the bottom it was uh in the bottom 10 athletes that you thought maybe would do a lot better at the games alexander caron travis

mater cole sager brent fukowski okay well even half a line and we think we'll probably do a lot better so but but we don't really see that here right these people this is more accurate for the women i've never even heard of these people well yeah there are a few names here mixed in that i think are not placed where they'll end up finishing but for the most part this list looks a lot more like i would predict the games than the men by far um where is carolyn prevo finished at the games in her career yeah uh well i think um i'm trying to remember what happened to her in that cuts year i think she did really well in the cuts here i think she was like 12th or something when they finally made the cuts

and then she was close to 30th last year is the cuts year 2000 is the cuts year 2019 that's the weird year yeah and she did finish 12th that year after Anna Fragkow was removed from the leaderboard. So she missed out on the cuts along with Daniel Brandon, Annie Thorzada, Pacelli, Horvath, Wells,

Briggs. I mean, it was a good group that got cut right there and she was in it. And then she did. Yeah. She was 27th last year. And those are the only two years she's been. And is this,

is this the toughest women's field we've ever seen? I don't think so. I mean, in fact, I think, I think it could have been, uh, but for, you know, one reason or another, we don't have Carrie Pierce, Kristen Holt, the Annie Thor's daughter, Sarah Sigmund's daughter, Bethany Shadburn, um, Katrin David's daughter, Sam Briggs, Annika Greer. Like it's, it's a really big list. I'm sure I'm forgetting some others that deserve to be mentioned on that list, but you know, list, but there's reasons that they aren't all there. But we know that there are these 10 to 12 female athletes out there in the world that if you entered them into this games field would hands down every time beat the bottom 10 and probably the bottom 20 athletes that

are in the games this year. What was the story? That was an incredible list, by the way, you just read it off. What was the story again with Alyssa Fulano? She's the one who has like arthritis and a full-time job. Is that her? Yeah, Alyssa Fulano from Italy. She actually, I got in touch with the country director, Matteo, over there in Italy, and he was able to give me some information on her. She doesn't even really consider herself an athlete.

She's a digital designer. She works usually till about 6 p.m. every day. And then she goes and trains in basically a little box in the corner that they set aside for her, you know, for up to 90 minutes in the evenings. And, you know, she was hoping to do really well at the semifinals. Obviously, she, you know, showed up there hoping to make the games. But unlike a lot of the athletes in this field and a lot of the athletes who didn't make the games it's not her sole focus and priority in her life she's kind of like this year's uh ariel lowen right from last year it's not a bad comparison and uh and then seher kaya uh victoria compost page powers page power who is page powers competing

she was competing that's a Mayhem athlete, right? Correct. And she was competing next to who? There were a lot of eyes on the girl she was competing next to, I think. That was competing against Emma Lawson, Freya Mooseburger, Carolyn Connors, Carolyn Preva. Does she belong down here, Paige? I'm not going to – I mean, Paige Powers impressed me at semifinals.

But at the games, I think I would be surprised if she finished better than 25th. And let me guess this, who you're not, who you guys don't think – how about – let's do this like we did with the men. Who's going to be in 40th? Is Michelle Moran in the right spot? If you scroll over to the points on this list, she only 134 the next woman above that has 255 i mean that's a pretty big gap um and obviously these tests are different than the games but yeah if i had to say oh yeah i probably would pick her right now to be the bottom and where is she from africa okay where she did

great by the way in her semi-finalinal. I think most everyone was expecting Michelle Baznet to qualify again. So this is a tremendous accomplishment for her. I mean, she's well-known in South Africa. She's a very good athlete there. They only get one spot, so there's not a lot of room for error. She had, like I said, a really good run at semifinals. They had some tough workouts there that she did pretty well on. But when you look here, these are the workouts she's done that the rest of these women have done. And there's not a single one where she's in the

top half and there's only one where she's not in the bottom 10. That's not a really good sign when you're heading into the games, even though these aren't necessarily the same kind of tests we'd see. We know it's hard for rookies there. We know there's a lot of them to manage. She's also going to have a really long travel to get there. So it's a great accomplishment. But I think that as with most people coming to the games from far away for the first time, it's really competitive and it's really tough. And Sun Young Choi was at the games last year, correct? Yeah, she was. And I think that people loved having her there. And I think that she'll get a very warm reception again this year.

And did she take last place out of people who didn't pull out or who were injured at the games last year? Yes. Okay. So this year she has competition for that spot. The bottom, there were, you know, Laurie Kuna bethlyn shatford uh the woman from russia carrie pierce carisano's danny spiegel all did not finish the game so the bottom placement was 34th that was sunyan choi caroline connors was above that she's in this field michelle

basnet from africa was the next one um so really quick do we know if they're gonna backfill um really quick do we know if they're going to backfill um joy al's uh nicholas uh joy al's spot has crossfit hasn't commented on that yet crossfit hasn't made any comment regarding this at all nicholas chose to get out ahead of that um in the past there's been uh a little bit of inconsistency on the surface level of whether they backfill or not for things like this. But if you look at it a little bit more detailed, it usually is just a timing thing. So, for example, last year, Larry Kuna popped really late to really close to the start of the games, and there was no chance for them to backfill for that spot. It wasn't realistic or practical.

However, if you go back to the 2018 European semifinals, Andre Gagnon popped in that one, and they did backfill, which I think went to Frederica Gideas. And that was because there was enough time for them to communicate that to him and then send out an invite, and he could arrange to come over there. So I would expect that Austin Spencer should be in line to get the backfill invite here. And what about this? What, what Branstetter is saying? They backfilled all the team stops. Have they done that already with this year with that shoe fly situation?

Yeah. They announced three, three team backfills a couple of days ago. Okay, cool. All right. Fantastic. Let's,

so we have Michelle Moran. We have Tia to me at the top and dead center. We have page Semenza sitting in Jasonper's spot uh what do we know about page do you like where she's at she are i'd say she probably finishes a little bit lower top 25 okay and you thought hopper would you thought hopper would finish higher correct okay uh what do you what are you laughing at? Because you know I don't. Anyway, go ahead. Brian, what do you think?

Do you like where Paige is at? You know. Because this model makes sense to me. A first is first and 40th is 40th and 20th is correct. If those three are correct, I'm liking this game. If they're not, I'm starting to get weird about it. Well, no one would be surprised about that. Right. But I think, yeah, I was talking about get weird about it. Well, no one would be surprised about that. Right.

But I think, yeah, I was talking about this the other day. You know, Ariel Lowen qualifying out of the last chance qualifier, she did so in a pretty impressive manner. And when we look at the women that beat her at her semifinal, we were talking about it was actually a pretty good women's field. Haley Adams, Alexis Raptus. Paige Semenza was third there, beating Christy Aramo and beating Christine

Kohlenbrander, and then obviously Ariel Loewen. It was a really impressive performance. She had a very consistent across the board, three eighths, a fourth, a fifth, and a second in a pretty good field, so she was pretty consistent at the top, and I've heard a lot of people that are saying that she is a kind of a dark horse to really exceed expectations at the games this year, because I think I'm kind of with JR on this. I think 20 to 25 is a pretty good a dark horse to really exceed expectations at the games this year. Cause I think I'm kind of with Jr on this. I think 20 to 25 is a pretty good range for her, but I do know there are people out there that she thinks she can do quite better,

much better than that. And she's surrounded in that, in that pile right there. There's some people that are the real deal. Danny Spiegel, Emma Lawson, Sydney, Mick Elishan,

Lucy Campbell, Ariel Lowen, Jacqueline Dahlstrom, Bailey rail, Freya Mooseberger, Emily Rolfe. I mean, Solveig Sigurd Dardotor. Sigurd Dardotor, yeah. Yeah, I mean, this middle area is all, you know, there's a clot here of talent.

Well, you know, in that middle area, too, you want to be able to predict some of those finishes because of these performances. But then in the case of a Danny Spiegel, you have someone who's made the games three straight years. She's completed 13 workouts or events, whichever one you want to call them over those three years. And seven of them were online. So do we know that she's going to finish the weekend? Do we know that she's going to be healthy?

Do we know that she's going to be there to showcase what she can do for all the tests you know what i also heard i heard she's working a booth at the games is that common for athletes to do that to split their time no that is not common yeah i wonder if i wonder if that's true yeah i mean that that's impressive down there what she's got danny those three first with firsts yeah, this is her finishes in this model, and she does have these three firsts right here. Two of them come on strength test. This is the other total. This is that barbell snatch rowing workout, the burpee box jump over, and then this is the barbell complex. So we're talking about power output and strength where she's excelling and we know that and the thing is if you're a danny spiegel fan

or if you're just a fan of seeing great performances we want her to let to last the weekend at the games because we know there's going to be a couple highlights and home runs from her and people like her and you know when she finishes and wins workouts and has done really well in off-season events or semi-final events there's a big celebration about around her athletic potential. We also know that there's this 40th place is 34, 32nd. And this is just the trend of, of her, you know, career. And when there's more events like there are at the games, you're also going to see some lows to go along with these awesome performances. So my hope as far as Danny Spiegel is that she does find a way to make it through the games because we'll definitely get some awesome moments out of her. If she does. What did she take 40th in?

What workout is that? Quarterfinal event two. That's the three rounds with the GHDs, pistols, and ring muscle-ups. Man. And the 34th is in the legless rope climb event. And the 32nd is in a workout. That's a shuttle run, which we know running is a weakness of hers and also has rope climbs in it. So the patterns are very obvious for Danny Spiegel. Long running is not going to be good.

High volume upper body pulling is not going to be good. Short power output strength, you know, specific tests, she's going to do great. Yeah. And the only way I would push back a little bit, maybe give her a little bit more of the benefit of the doubt about working on her running is that with the flip sled push workout at granite games that had two 1 000 meter runs um with the echo bike sandwich in between she she held her own and did really good there and i know that's not a games field but you had emily rolf who's really good endurance athlete mal who destroyed that workout and danny was was was right there like really yeah no it was super impressive especially if if you happen to also watch her do the ruck run the previous year which was you know just

kind of painful to watch uh her running did look better this year i know she's had some problems with her feet in the past but you know it was uh that that's a good point jr she did look better in that workout and it would be great if she's kind of figured out a way to manage the longer runs. It is – just to show how lopsided those performances are, you look at the two male athletes who have three first places. It's Saxon Panchik, who took second, and we know she's no Saxon Panchik, right? And if you were to do an Apple – try to do an Apple-to-Apple comparison. apple to apple comparison and then and then uh the other one is gi maheros who took fourth and she took 18th in our version of the 2022 uh crossfit games so so she has massive holes just massive and and we may see them exposed multiple times um over 15 events yeah and she could still have a good performance you know she could still have a good performance.

She could still finish in the 10-20 range even with some bad workouts because she has the capacity to offset those with great finishes. Right, but it's more like these are more this is going to be too harsh to say this, but these are more like parlor tricks, circus tricks.

These aren't good enough to stay competitive in the top 10. Do you think Danny's going gonna finish in the top 20 of the games i don't think so i don't think you can have i don't think you can take i mean she has a 40th well that's not the reason that she won't finish in if she's able to finish the games weekend i think there's a good chance she's in the top 20. Do you think she's injury prone? I mean, it's hard to say. The online version of the CrossFit Games she finished, it was seven workouts at home.

We've seen her finish competitions that have that many tests many times, the regionals and sanctionals and stuff like that. The other two years she made the games was the cuts year, so she only got to do five workouts before being cut. Maybe she was primed and ready to do that whole weekend, And we just didn't get to see it because of the format. And then last year she got injured after the first event. So it's not the best sample size for us to say, but the, the trend is not, uh, you know, is not great. Uh, final question on Danny Spiegel, Jr. Who finishes higher Danny Spiegel or Colton Mertens?

Do they both get to do the whole test? Yes, they both get to do the whole test. I push that. That means he thinks Danny. I'm not afraid of the comments. He felt his system was being corrupt by emotion, and he pushed. Okay. As we go down this list, we got Tia Clartumi, Mallory O'Brien, Christy Orama.

Go ahead. Were you going to say something, JR? No. There's a fly in here. Okay. Christy Orama, O'Connell, Alexis Raptus, Carr Sanders, Gabriella Magawa, Laura Horvath, 9th, Daniel Brandon, 10th, Haley Adams, 11th, Emma Raptus, Carr Sanders, Gabriela Magawa, Laura Horvath, 9th, Daniel Brandon, 10th, Haley Adams,

11th, Emma McCoy, 12th, and then Ellie Turner, 13th. I'm going to go all the way down to 15th and then ask the question. 14th is Amanda Barnhart, 15th is Brooke Wells. Is there anyone in this top 15 that you would like to tell me does not belong here, will not be here?

No chance. Those are the columns, not the rankings. So Brookwell's is actually 13th. There's a column to the left of that. Okay, let's stop at 13 then. I want to stop there at 13. Does anyone not belong in those 13? I think that there's potentially two athletes in this group

that will not finish inside the top 13. And who are they? Uh, actually maybe three. I'm, um, the biggest unknown of, I would say is Brooke Wells because just don't know how good she'll be able to be. Brian, weren't you high on her for semifinals though? Didn't you, you, you would, you chose her to go to the games. Yeah.

But if Brooke Wells had finished the games last year, she'd be coming off her best ever performance at the, you know, injury free. She'd be coming up for our best ever performance at the games. And we'd be projecting her to potentially be threatening for the podium this year. Right. But she had the devastating injury. She had surgery. She had a setback. She's shown incredible resiliency and work ethic to get back to the point she's at, but she barely got in, in the semifinal. I mean, it was one point here, one point there. And so it's very difficult to say that she's got top five potential, especially, you know, as good as the top five women are likely going to be. How much down the list does she slide is a huge unknown. Like, you know, I think that 10 is like a pretty good projecting for her.

But I understand that that could be a few spots higher or quite a bit lower. And who are the other two? Ellie Turner and Alexis Raptus. Yeah. You know, rookie, Ellie Turner's coming back after for her second year and Alexis Raptus is in her first year. But I think that both are just really young athletes in the sport that have to kind of prove that they earn, you know, a, a, a ranking like this. It's really like we saw some people do it last year with Guy and Lazar and Mal, but it's not that common to be able to come in your first year and have a top

10 finish. So I would be, I think Alexis Rapids can have a great games, but top 10 is a big accomplishment in your rookie season. Ellie Turner, you know, I think she'll improve from last year, but I still think it's a really tough top 10 to crack. Ellie Turner beat Tia Toomey in quarterfinals event five. What was that event? That was the sprint 30-20-10. I thought for a second you just pulled out that set of semifinals,

and I was like, how do you know that? I'm sneaky uh do what type of what type of you aren't sneaky though no not sneaky what type of gonna be using your data what type of quarterfinals event five yeah i thought you were gonna say semifinals and i was like raising an eyebrow oh uh what what kind of cred does she get for that does she get any do we give her like okay she beat the champ i think she gets cred just going to touring and finishing third and i mean everyone's really high on her as they should be she finished 21st last year in her first crossfit games so just to make it like to me into the top 15 would be, like, a really good improvement. Getting into the top 10 would be, like, wow. You beat someone on a barbell workout or on a swim or, you know, you can kind of wave it off.

And I know this is a little bit of a specialty event, but I feel like it gives her a lot of street cred. Look at the other women here that are highlighted. She tied first on this workout with Danny Spiegel. And we just talked about what Danny Spiegel's specialties are. And this is a suggestion that Ellie Turner is probably similarly a powerful athlete. Who, when you put a machine with a moderate heavy barbell load is going to probably do a pretty well on that event. And then she's, you know, coming in right behind them is out of the two fittest women from last year and Tia and Laura, who we know are also, you know, Tia is good at pretty much everything. And Laura is also very

good in these power output events. So Ellie, what we're seeing here is that she's asserting herself as one of the power output athletes in the field that are going to show up and do well on certain events. The question for Ellie is, will she round out the other areas of her game relative to last year so that she's able to move up the leaderboard? Will you scroll down for a second? I want to see who took second in this list in the barbell complex. Well, there were three people tied for first, and then I highlighted fourth in orange

uh and and okay and who is that so tied for first carl saunders okay yeah that that is my argument by the way of why carl saunders is the biggest threat to tia Toomey. And it's going back to what we were saying yesterday about Matt Fraser, Ben Smith, and Rich Froning. They're strong. They're strong as shit. You have to be strong as shit and be able to do all the other shit. And she's

sitting in sixth place, and there's no one above her that's stronger than her, and no one below her for uh 12 12 places who's as strong as her and yet she's hanging in the top five thoughts go go ahead jr my thought about carl saunders is something she more unknown than danny sorry go ahead jr this is my thing with with carl saunders yeah yeah car and knows what it feels like to beat tia before tia was the best so i you know people can tell me that doesn't matter it was years ago

she was still on the come up she didn't have confidence like she has now. She wasn't nearly as fit. You know, she finished two, you know, finished second two years in a row. But I think that that that savage that is inside Cara, that same thing we talked about during semifinals when Tia went up to her, that mutual respect, that fist bump of let's go like, you know, give me a race like i want to be pushed a little bit i think cara knows that she can beat tia in certain workouts and i think just that mental confidence goes a long way a lot longer you know i don't know a lot longer way than people think when it comes to the games and people walk out there and they're like they look to their left they see tia and they're like oh my god i, I'm not beating her. I'm putting Cara on the podium with what JR just told me and the fact that it's going to be another mommy year.

We're going to have that moment. We had Annie Thor's daughter last year, and this year it's going to be Cara Saunders. She can tell the world, fuck you, I can have a baby and eat my cake too. I'm putting her up there. That means she's either going to have to knock Mal off or Laura Horvath off. I mean, unlike the rest of the athletes on this list, Cara's done 14 of the same workouts as Tia this year, and she's only beaten her on one, and it was the other total.

So she did the bench press, deadlift, overhead squat, and clean. So while JR is right that she has that experience of getting the best of Tia in some cases in the past, I don't think that's happening this year very often, if at all. I do think that Cara is kind of the wild card in the top 10, where if she can get back to the form that she was in for several years running, really, from 2014 through 2018, that she's a really scary competitor and threat for the podium. Since those years, she took a year off to have pregnancy. She missed the cuts barely in 2020.

2021, she had to withdraw. So we're still looking to see if she can actually show up in Madison and string together a full week of competition that's reminiscent of the Cara that we're used to seeing in the teen, 20 teens. And if that's the case, then some of these young athletes like Mel O'Brien, Haley Adams, Gabby McGowan, Laura Horvath, then they're in a wherewithal to be able to weather the storm that we know car asanas can be on Saturday and Sunday is going to be put to the test. Let's talk about two athletes that I think it's very uncomfortable to talk about.

Right up your alley. Uh, let's start with, um, hayley adams then we'll move over to danielle brandon who is hayley adams what what is going what is going on we know she's at the mayhem camp we know she's with you know the greatest crossfitters in the world are coming in and out of that place. Like it's a, it's like their, their home. She's proven herself. She, she, she's kind of, she was, she was kind of the great hope. What's, what's going on with her career? Is she still getting better? What can we expect from her? And I say it's uncomfortable because I think so many people fucking love her, but she's got the, she's got a hole that we just

can't stop looking at. Well, I think she's still trending up. You know, strength does take time. It takes years and whether or not you think she should be competing as much as she does in the off season, she's still working on that. She's lifting all the time. She's getting stronger. She made a comment, um, after the barbell complex at the MAC that like that weight that she hit, you know, not too long ago was her one rep max clean jerk. So we know that there's confidence building there. And we also know how fit she is on everything else. We think there may be one to two really, really heavy events. And then there'll probably be another event like a yoke where sometimes it can trip her up but to say Haley's not a top five favorite I think is crazy wow wow I love to hear that wow Brian Brian do you feel that I'm not sure you know one of the things that's that's really

impressive about Haley Adams is that the three years she's qualified for the games as an individual, she's finished sixth, fourth, and fifth in that order in 2019, 20, and 21. And she's done that in three very different formats. And I talk about this often with Amanda Barnhart also is being able to navigate the 2020 structure, which was you had to make it through an online competition. Being able to manage the 2019 structure where you have to make it through all these series of cuts with, you know, variable scoring systems and whatever else. And then also being able to demonstrate the top five capacity against, you know, and look at the athlete she lost to is a Kristen Holt, Annie Thorsard, Laura Horvath, Tia Clartumi. Like there's no shame in losing to any of those women. They're legends in the sport. That's a really really that's the year that to me is really impressive that she was able to finish fifth in a year where

all of you know at least 20 of the athletes were able to finish the whole test everyone had to do all the workouts and it was a pretty brutal finish to the weekend for her in terms of some of her worst you know her biggest weakness is being exposed on the hardest tests for her on the last day with the heavy yoke heavy deadlift and, and then just a heavy bar to finish out those lunges at the end. There's three heavy things for her relative to the other women she was competing with for those top spots on the last day. But when you look at her sanctional performances over the years, it's not stellar performances. She has an eighth here, a fifth there, a third here. She took a second, I think think in Reykjavik. Um, but like the women that are beating her in those competitions

are not all still competing, but you know, Amanda Barnhart beat her in, in rogue one year. Um, and it just like, I could see a potential where she finishes six through 10 in this women's field as well. Um, who beat what, what place did she take last year? You said fifth? Yeah. And who beat her last year? Obviously it was the three on the podium. Who took fourth?

Holta. And she's gone. Holta's gone and Annie's gone. But the women right behind her, Gabby, Mal, Christy Aramo, Amanda Barnhart are all right there. And, you know, we know like a lot, almost everyone's expecting Mal to be Haley at the games this year. Oh, there are tons of people that are super, super high on

Gabby McGowan. And I think for good reason, I think that there's kind of a, uh, Amanda Barnhart's an interesting one, but her, you know, to me, her most impressive finish to the games is 2019 because physically she was a massive outlier from a height and weight perspective relative to the games is 2019 because physically she was a massive outlier from a height and weight perspective relative to the other nine women that made the top 10 that year. And she's still managed to do that. And she's also had three consecutive top 10 finishes. And I think that she's rounding out some parts of her game that she's potentially looking at maybe her best finish at the games this year. So the people right behind her are the ones that I'm curious if they can overtake her this year in addition to Tia and Mel.

And that's where you could see her not necessarily be less fit, but maybe have a worse finish. Fair. Daniel Brandon has – I know we were talking about this. I think we were talking about this i think we were talking about this offline you and i were talking about it or it was in a text that we're in has anyone ever do we know of any stories like this where someone switched camps it is official right there was there was some release was it on morning chalk up something there was some release that she went to um yeah florida oh well i'm going to talk up both justin kotler who was her coach and cooper marsh who is her agent her manager made comments that were very much in

alignment with each other about the parting of the ways between underdogs athletic and daniel brandon i don't know if it's anywhere in um print or not but it seemed it sounds to me like she it does have intention of heading to Florida to at least train with the Brute camp down there leading into the game. So that's Dallin, Pepper, Phil Toon, and Matt Torres will be coaching them down there.

I know this isn't the point of this show, but fuck it. Neither are vaccines. JR puts you on the spot. Why does this have to be announced? why do we have to know is it appropriate to um and i'll tie this to the bigger picture like of what's best for danielle and i guess what's best for justin and in the other under well and the other underdog athletics underdogs athletics athletes is this important does this need to be talked about? Not, not by us.

Of course it does for us. It drives our numbers up, but I mean, for them. Well, my gut gut reaction is no. But then when I stopped to think about it for a second, I think how awkward, how much more awkward would it be for all those involved? If at the CrossFit games, you see Kotler and you see Daniel Brandon, they're not speaking or you see Daniel Brandon and she doesn't have a coach with her and then people are really looking around like what's going on here what's going on here and then it becomes an even bigger issue

so I think just getting out in front of it and getting it out there in a week or two it'll have quieted down there'll probably be other stories to talk about at that point okay I think that actually didn't that actually happen with Katrin and Ben Bergeron at Rogue last year like there wasn't that they weren't like he wasn't in her corner like she usually is and people like what's going on here and it was kind of weird but you can just put in the context of other people if uh

you know all of a sudden tomorrow it's like oh shit maderos and neifert split ways and we didn't talk about it like that would be strange or Or if, you know, for whatever reason, all of a sudden we see that Haley Adams is training with Tia, we're going to talk about it. So other athletes, if you just put it in the context of other athletes that are in the caliber of popularity and notoriety of a Danielle Brandon, and if she's moving across the country three weeks before the games, when it seemed like she was probably in a good spot with the guy who's

invested a lot in her. Yeah, that is a big, a big deal because a lot of people think Danielle has podium potential this year. If not, you know, maybe, maybe top five is a little bit more realistic, but either way, you know, that's a very significant contender at the games. Who's making a big change to her team and her preparation pretty close to game time. I'm kind of thinking of the illustration or the metaphor of basically you start a fire and burn the grass so that when the big fire gets to it, it burns out. Basically, you're saying get ahead of it, announce that we've parted ways so that there's not a shitload

of noise and questions about it. Done. Wrap it up. So the goal is just to make it as seamless as possible for the camp and the athletes. But you kind of have to build a little fire and do some burning in order to quiet it down. The question is, can it be seamless if we don't know the reason? So if they're coming out and getting ahead of it by saying we decided to mutually part ways, wish you the best of luck, does it then create an even bigger buzz with people saying why what was the reason what was the reason they gave us for when katrin i guess she moved home so that was kind of the and and we know that her and her and um annie were best friends and that they were they were rekindling that that friendship by being close to each other, the book, the headphones, the business. Does Danielle have any dear friends at, in Florida, in Naples? Is there anyone over there that she's? I don't, I don't think there's a, you know, a huge parallel between these situations,

but I also think that it's, you know, people can make all the assumptions they want and be as, you know, nosy or whatever. But for me, it's like, they've chosen to say what they've chosen to say. You know, Kotler's got other athletes under him, it's like they've chosen to say what they've chosen to say. You know, Kotler's got other athletes under him that he needs to focus on and take care of. And Danielle's got to, you know, figure out what she's going to do for the next three weeks to get ready for the games where like, let's not beat around the bush.

She does, does have a chance to do really well at the games this year. And I think that, you know, for her. I'm so curious how that happens. So, so does she know know her i guess she knows her programming well enough she meets with the coach there and i mean do you think this is going to affect her in a bad way let me let's just go straight there you think this affects her in a bad way could this affect her in a good way i mean from a training standpoint and peaking for the games we're about three weeks out so typically what I would understand is this week is probably like the biggest week for training volume for the athletes.

Next week, they start to taper back a little bit, but not all the way. And then, you know, a week before they're doing two or three really hard, intense workout game style events a day before they travel the next week and do, you know, their couple day taper. So I don't think this happening now is really going to affect her fitness where I would think it would affect her is after day one, if she's in 25th and she's used to having that voice there telling her she's fine and that everything's going to be good. And she believes that voice. Who's that voice now? What about Jare? What aboutare what about the um you know if she has a camp and she has a support team people doing uh airplane reservations hotel reservations driving you to and from the events kind of like a babysitter a nanny someone packing your food for you

just basically treating so all you have to be is the machine that competes i mean that i'm guessing that whole support that she was expecting there yeah i would think her representation like her you know cooper is probably still handling all that stuff for and maybe even wearing more hats now right okay uh brian brian do you have do you have thoughts on that that was a pretty uh insightful thing we know that uh know that Justin and Danielle were close. We've seen the videos where he's chirping in her ear, telling her how great she is, pumping her up, yelling from the fans. JR brings up a very serious situation.

What if she finishes a fifth and a 25th on the first day? Yeah, I mean, it's extremely important to have someone there that can tell you what you need to hear when you need to hear it and leave you alone when they need to leave you alone and um i'm hopeful that she'll be able to find someone who can maybe not to the same capacity as uh as kotler but um that can fill that hole and be a supportive role for her when she needs it when things don't you know because for almost every single athlete the games there's ups and downs and that's why it's important to have that person nearby there so you don't ride the highest too high or the lowest too low as you just get you know focused on things you need to do to get ready for the next one

have you talked to her brian since that show very briefly uh anything to report no just uh told her that I wished her well and I just wanted to see if she was alright. She said she was moving forward and trying to focus on the games. Have we ever seen this before? I don't think so. I can't think of one.

I mean, you mentioned Rogue as an example. Oh, in this case I was thinking about I don't think so. I can't think of one. I mean, you met, you mentioned rogue as, as, as an example. Oh, well, in this case, I was thinking about like someone with top 10 potential at the games,

making a dramatic change in coaching or training camp, you know, less than a month before it off the top of my head. No, but there's maybe there's something I can't remember. Uh, to this list that we have here is is there is there any who who well let's let yeah let's just go here instead of going

through every single person like we did with the men so we don't not here for another hour who is going to do the big who is placed the lowest who's going to jump the most jr do you have someone in mind? I do. Yeah. Maybe this is just kind of getting to know her, interviewing her and stuff, but I think Alex Kazan has the potential to make a huge splash this year. Just talking to Justin Kotler, seeing how she performed on certain events, knowing what other strengths she has relative to females usually puts her at a really big advantage, upper body pushing and pulling strength.

So I would say either – I would probably say either Gazan or Dahlstrom. So you think Gazan can move up 10 spots? Like we could see her – in this ranking we have her as 27th in our 2022 CrossFit Games. Do you think we could see her as high as 17th? Yeah, I could see her being a rookie in the top 20 for sure. Wow. Brian? I'm looking even lower than that.

I see Turi Helgadah down there in 29th place, knowing that she finished 13th at the Games last year and coming off what I consider to be a very impressive performance at semifinals where she was more or less holding her own with Emma McQuaid and Jacqueline Dahlstrom. All three of those women who finished in a very impressive performance at semifinals where she was, you know, more or less holding her own with Emma McQuaid and Jacqueline Dahlstrom. All three of those women who finished in a very similar spot. I think maybe even McQuaid and Helga Dauter were back-to-back spots, 12 and 13 last year at the games right behind Danielle Brandon. So I think Turi is a very, very veteran athlete that people don't realize because she's not that old. I think she's 29, but her and Kara Saunders both competed at the games in 2012. And there's no men that have done that. Mayer was 2013. So she's been around for a long time. And we talked about it with some

of the veterans in the men's side yesterday, that at this point in their careers, it's all about managing the season to make sure that you're set up for the games. And I think that very underrated how much experience Turi has and that she'll come into the games. And I think that, um, very underrated how much experience Turi has and that she'll come into the games with a very solid plan of how to execute that weekend and maximize her potential. I think that she can improve by up to 15 spots here. Are there any women from the 2013 games like Travis? Uh, yes. Um, I think so. That's interesting. So they are the two most senior games athletes,

three Helga daughter and Kara Saunders. Yep. On the women's and men's sides combined, either side. Yeah, and actually there might not be anyone that was a 2000. No, I don't think there's anyone that was 2013 rookie in this field for the. OK, so then it goes, Travis Mayer. Mm hmm. Amazing.

Since we haven't heard from CrossFit yet that Nicholas Joyal. Popped and Nicholas told us that could mean that other men and women have popped and we haven't been told yet. Am I thinking correctly on that? I would say, yeah. And how long would that take to play out? When would we know? Don't know. I can't remember if it was Pat or JR that was talking about it,

but we haven't actually gotten any announcement from CrossFit about any athletes popping from weeks three or four yet, I think. That's right. So, you know, and it's getting into that time domain now. We're like, if that's going to happen, it needs to happen soon. Because especially in the case of a team, if you're planning, you know, they've already set the precedent that they will backfill if there's, if there's a failed drug test in the case of a team, if you're planning, you know, they've already set the precedent that they will backfill if there's a failed drug test in the team division. And if that takes another week to 10 days, and then you're inviting a team, and especially

if you can, maybe it's a team from South America, and suddenly they have to answer that, they have to make a decision. How are we going to get plane tickets, lodging, food? Who's coming with us? Can we get time off of work or whatever? And they have to, you know, there's a lot of factors that go into that. So, I'm hopeful that that process will be wrapped up sooner rather than later, because it can create kind of a nightmare situation for individuals, but also, but primarily teams if they have to make a last-minute plan like that.

Hey, another strong point, piggybacking off of what velner was saying about it refreshing that he came clean it basically what that does let's say he would have pushed back let's say they let's say he would have pushed back and we don't find out for another week at least now crossfit can take action and get this guy what's his name austin spencer good job yes suited up and in the game i i really really um i really i i'm just i'm just a huge fan of honesty i'm just a huge fucking fan of honesty and you could say with seven he didn't he didn't uh he wasn't going to come clean if he didn't get caught hey that's not the way it played out though he did get caught he told us the next guy hopefully now has a chance to fill the spot. If you want to be mad at him for cheating and this or that or this,

but I'm impressed. I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it. Let's see what Liz R says. Joyal's improvement in hindsight is so obvious for someone dope. Tell you what, I saw Nikos Joyal at Guadalupalooza a couple of years ago and he finished in the top 10 there. And, you know, it doesn't seem like he was doing. It doesn't seem like he was, you know, juicing back then and he was beating some pretty impressive athletes.

So he's had the potential. But, you know, like I said, like he said, he's been close for a long time and he was seeking that little edge. And even though you might not like it or you think it's a bad thing to do, it's understandable that someone in that situation would make that decision and take that risk. Someone was saying in the comments I saw that he had some titties. Gyno, gyno, gyno. Yeah, one of those words Hillary uses. I thought he looked great. I guess I like a dude with titties gyno gyno gyno some one of the yeah one of those words hillary uses i thought it looked great i guess i like a dude with titties uh what a great list is there anyone else on here i mean i know there's a ton of great people we did not talk about we didn't talk about lucy campbell cindy mccullish and emma lawson uh there's a uh bailey rail emily rolf is there

anyone on here though, that you think that we has to be touched on before we sign off here for tonight? Oh yeah. Yeah. Sorry. One more. Who is going to drop the most, which, which may be in a way of saying is they killed the open and the games are a different beast. And, and they competed in Canada or Africa. Yeah.

I mean, the safe call here is to say someone like a Dani Spiegel in the case that she can't finish the games, but I think that we shouldn't consider that really when doing this. Outside of that, you know, there are a couple of women here that show up pretty high on this ranking. Matilda Garns coming in at 15th, Emma Lawson coming in at 17th, Lucy Campbell at 19th. They're all games rookies. And I think that you could make a case for each one of them having a finish this high. But there are quite a few veterans below them on this list

that they have to beat in order to do that. So I would probably think those are some good names to look at that may finish, you know, eight to 12 spots lower than they show up on this list. How many rookies do we have? 16 on the women's side, 40% of the field. Wow. Oh, wow. Okay. So there's two things when brian says that that are consistent with things he said earlier today he started the show by saying basically there's levels to this shit that this more than the men there's distinct categories of athletes the second thing that brian just rattled off off the top of his head were like 12 athletes who are um common household names amongst this crossfit group amongst all of us who aren't here

this year like people like holy shit i can't believe where's sam briggs where's sarah sigmunds are where's katrin david's daughter where's annie thor's like the all there's just a ton names kristin holt that the list goes on and on and so now we see that wow okay so we could see some we could see tia like we could see some really fucked up weird shit this year. I don't mean fucked up in a bad way, but we're going to see some. No, I think this is what you're going to see. And I think it's actually going to create for a lot of drama and excitement at certain parts of the leaderboard. We're going to see Tia dominate.

I think we'll probably see Laura do very well and Mal do very well. And then after that, there's going to be a group of three or four women that are going to be really tight for like the four five six seven spot another group behind that of five or six that are really tight for those rankings and then you're going to see a group of like 15 women that's like that's like kind of the meat of the field where and those are the like that's the range that we're basically talking about right now if you're looking on this from like um maybe where brooke is down to where you know alex kaz Gazan, Terry Helgadotter are like, you could see that totally inverted, or it could play out very similar to this or any combination. And then you'll see that bottom group of 15 athletes that's, you know, are either rookies or, you know, they're very good in this,

in some of the formats that are relative that you need to be in to qualify, but get exposed more in the game style programming. Yeah. And because there's so many rookies, we won't be looking for the rookie in one heat and then the rookie in the next heat. So what you'll inevitably see is some athletes perform and think to yourself over the weekend, they were a rookie because it's always compared to those that really might go

out and the lights may be a little bit too big for them so it'll be cool to see who is who who do you think will drop the most uh jr who do you who do you think just rank way too high in our games um i mean my eyes actually went right to emma lawson as impressive as she was at the atlas games i'm just not sure i'm not sure she won't end up finishing 25th and And who took second there? Atlas games. Was that, uh,

what's his page powers? Okay. Yeah. I, um, it was a, the thing about the thing about the Atlas games for the women's field is, you know,

it was a JV event. Just say it, Brian. Yeah. But I throw out these numbers. Like if you were able to get 550 points at your semifinal, that is usually a good indication that you're going to do well at the Games. Both of those women got above 550 points at that semifinal. But there's got to be some exceptions. Also, Sung Young Choi got well above 550 points in her semifinal.

But in some of these cases, it is worth looking at who you're competing against. Because we already talked about the syndicate women, where the winner of that event is Hayley Adams, and she only had 502 points. And the reason being, that was a deeper field. So it was more difficult to have consistent finishes up at the top, because there were 10 or 12 athletes that had the potential to steal those points event after event. And obviously, I think there would be very few people that are going to project Emma Lawson, Sung Young Choi and Paige Powers to beat Haley Adams at the game. So that comment is relative in some cases, but also needs to be taken in context in others. Is this the last year that Shane's wife is competing? We'll find out. I mean,

I think that some people thought that might be the case last year. And immediately after winning, she said that she will absolutely be back. So, um, I'm led to, you know, I don't really know how we can take anything other than what they've always said is as long as we're having fun doing it,

we'll keep doing it. Tia, Laura, Cara, Gabrielle, uh, you guys, you,

everyone should be thanking me, uh, Jr. And Brian, the last thing they wanted to do is make this a game's prediction event. They fought tooth and nail yesterday to drag it there. And today you see I won. I picked their brains.

I got them to spill the beans on all sorts of shit. Give myself a win for tonight. Anything else? Anyone else you want to talk about? Anything else? A rookie of the year, maybe? If you're looking for a rookie on the men's, on the women's side that I think will do well, it's Alexis Raptus.

And for the men, I think I saw someone mention in the comments, I think both Jay and I are on the same page with Dallin Pepper. So I think early favorites to be contenders for rookie of the games would be Alexis and Dallin. How many rookies over in the men's side? I think 13 or 14. Okay. Is that the most rookies ever this year?

No, it's too many variable formats to really have a meaningful conversation about that. I think there were 115 rookies in 2019. Help and help, help and help. 2019. Help and help. Help and help. How many is this? Is this the biggest rookie year ever? You know, outside of the first or second or third CrossFit games and the weird.

Yeah, we'll look at we can go. I can go back and check. We'll look at 2010 through 18 and last year and we'll try to find out. Great show, guys. Anything else you'd like to add scrap that 2011 through 2018 and last year tomorrow morning

7 a.m. Pacific Standard Time Nicholas Joyal is kind enough to come on it's going to be a cool show he was supposed to come on anyway tomorrow it'll be fun to get to know him to hang with him I think he's going to be a cool show. He was supposed to come on anyway. Tomorrow. It'll be fun to get to know him, to hang with him. I think he's going to spill the beans on everything. We'll find out what he's taking.

We'll find out if I can buy it and get on it. That's a good question. Does Ricky Gerard count as a rookie? Oh, why would he? I don't know. What's his pedigree at the games? He's got,

I gave an eye roll. Oh, his pedigree is just a line through all of his scores? Yeah, I mean, it's basically like it never happened. He counts as a felon. Oh, man. Nicholas, you will not be treated like that tomorrow, and I apologize to Mr. Gerrard. I think to close out the show,

Sevan needs to tell the world his 2k road time 749 impressive 749 thank you very good i'm still injured i'm still i'm still injured oh yeah wow yeah john young just texted me just and he gave me a clap on my 2k they uh my friend who came over so my friend came over i don't know if you Just gave me a clap on my 2K. My friend who came over. So my friend came over. I don't know if you caught the gist of it, but my friend, I was really tired and maybe even hung over a little bit or not feeling well or something. And my friend came over and he's like, hey, are you going to work out?

I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to do a salt bike ride. He's like, hey, I think you should do a 2K row because people don't think you do it. I'm like, I can't do it. I haven't rode 2K in fucking 10 years. So I rode the assault bike and then I got off and he's got the camera. I'm like, fuck. And do it. I haven't rode 2K in fucking 10 years. So I rode the assault bike, and then I got off, and he's got the camera. And I'm like, fuck. And I just went to war with it. Hated it.

It was a well-made video there. You could just feel the passion and the pain. Man, oh, man. My beard was glistening. I'm impressed. If it was over eight minutes, I don't know if I would have showed up tonight. You or me? Me.

Thank you, JR. It means a lot. That CrossFit shit works, man, as long as you stay moving. As long as you stay moving, you can get in there and do the mix. So we'll have Nicholas on tomorrow. We will get to know him. We'll learn about his background, his youth. Hopefully we'll find out what he took took how scary it was to take it um you know if he knew he was going to be caught can you even enjoy participating in events when you know you're that you're going

to be tested afterwards um you know we had a guest on the other day he said he robbed a house and there was like 600 guns in the basement when he got home it was the worst feeling of his life like what the fuck am i doing with 600 guns and that's what i kind of imagine what it's like when you do steroids or whatever peds he did and then knowing you're going to be tested it must have fucked up his whole weekend so it'll be cool just for him to come clean and be honest and then hopefully people can learn from this in the future on whether they want to do it or not and then we will also give him his invite to the cal hormone games. You'll be our first invite. But a boom,

but a bang and a Friday, I have a, we have a programming show. We are going to have a Taylor self and a Jera Howell on. And I think the title of the show is the best CrossFit. Is it the best CrossFit games? Events of all time yeah it's gonna be a great show that's friday evening at 5 p.m and do i have anyone on what

let me say one more thing here oh and on friday we have a sunny webster on sunny webster went to the 2016 olympics uh for the United Kingdom. Someone told me that I should have him on the show. I started looking into him. He looks like he's a fun guy, a wild guy. He knows his shit about Olympic lifting. I watched like 20 videos on him today, and he has no dick in him, which is interesting because there's so many dicks in the space. So I'm excited to have him on Friday. And then Saturday, we're going to have a live call-in show, and I think that one's gonna be wild okay thanks guys Brian friend Jair Howell Julian Garcia Alyssa Carr Redito Jeremy Garcia Kenneth the

lap god there's a lot of Mexicans in the chat tonight shit