The Sevan Podcast - #52 CrossFit Games - Semifinals Week 4

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

The Sevan Podcast EP 52 CrossFit Games Semifinals Week 4 @BRIANFRIENDCROSSFIT @SEVANMATOSSIAN The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. What color is that shirt you're wearing? Party. Party color?

Yeah. Nice. I'm typing into my Instagram. I just unfollowed every single person on my Instagram. That took me like an hour, but I'm DMing Carolyn right now.

Soon? Yeah. Yeah. Do you see what happened? I do not remember. Oh, yeah, yeah. I see what place she's in. I didn't watch any of the performances from any of the virtual stuff. Can you even do that?

I don't know. But she was in first when leaderboards first populated, and then there was some kind of adjustment, and she ended up in first. Yeah, she's a savage. Look at how incredible her score is. Carolyn Prevost from Canada, first place in the atlas games how did she do and how would she have ranked in the other competitions oh i haven't done that enough man i've been swamped west coast um what was the other virtual event

asia asia okay so i'll just go over there and take a peek real quick and see what the fastest woman's time is. The fastest woman's time in Asia was 3.08, and Carolyn's was 2.32. And that's making quite a statement. Why are the men doing it so much faster than the women? Because of that? Yeah, just workout six six is that because of the muscle-ups workout six doesn't have any muscle-ups oh wasn't that the oh i'm confused then which one was that clean and jerk burpees and i don't know oh that's right sorry i'm conflating that with the uh live event sorry yeah no i thought that the women would be just as fast on gretel as the men um Sorry, I'm conflating that with the live event. Sorry. Yeah. No, I thought that the women would be just as fast on Gretel as the men.

I'm not really sure. You know, there was a time in HQ when I was there, and Brooke Entz was doing a workout, and I think it was with Tia, and they were doing a workout. And it had burpees in it. I think it was very similar to this workout. And the one thing I noticed is that, um, although Brooke moved really, really well and she did the workout fast, there was a flow to Tia. Tia moved like water and Brooke was definitely more, and this is unfair to say, but just for lack of robotic and how she moved. And so it's kind of like when someone drives, you know, there's people who flow and then there's other people like, okay, I'm driving straight. And they have both hands on the wheel, like a weirdo.

And then they're like, okay, I'm going to make a turn. And they put their blinker on and they get all like, they do everything in steps. You know what I mean? It's kind of like, you'll see men hold babies like that sometimes. Like, dude, just flow. It's just a baby. Just roll with it. And when I see Carolyn Prevost work out, she flows.

She flows. I can't wait to watch that workout because she probably just rolls over the bar like water. Yeah, she's a phenomenal mover. And I hope we get to see it because it would probably be a fun one to watch her do. So you're at the West Coast Classic and it just finished. You want to talk about the men? Boy, Cole Sager looked big, by the way. He looked yoked.

I had a chance to talk to both Cole and Noah after the event. Both guys seemed pretty happy with their performance, happy to get back in a live competition for, I think, especially Noah said he was kind of just nervous and taking off the competition jitters early in the weekend. By the end, he was back in the flow. So they're excited with how they did and looking forward to the games. But for Cole, man, this is his first time ever winning across the competition.

He never had a final. He never had a sanctional. Wins the semifinal. Obviously, he's never won the game. So this is like his, his biggest win ever. Was he nervous, and why did he take 20th?

Oh, I guess it's because it was that close, right? I mean, I'm looking at all the numbers, the difference between 20th and, and first is only 16 seconds. Yeah,

and he was the only athlete that didn't have to race that event, all he had to do was finish the event, so he could kind of just be calm, be cool, be collected, make sure he finished, doesn't miss any lifts, wins the competition, goes to the games. He didn't have any. Everyone else had something to race for. He didn't.

Okay. He knew that going into it. Yeah. He'd already done the work. Even to take first, or he knew he just needed to do that just to make it to the CrossFit Games? He was pretty far ahead. I think he'd already won first.

It was interesting watching the video and watching the way Noah Olsen acted after that event. It gave me this sort of Rich Froning-esque feel. Like he belonged. He congratulated all the people. He had a smile. It was almost like everyone was working out in his gym. He had a really good air about him. Did you feel that from him being on the floor with him? Yeah, I think he just was getting more and more comfortable over the course of the weekend. I mean, look, man, it's, I think this is his eighth CrossFit games in a row. He's very consistent for straight top six finishes at the games coming

into this year. He's very open about it. top six finishes at the games coming into this year. He's very open about it. His goal has been to stand on top of the podium. He knows he's never had a better chance than this year. He just wanted to make it this weekend. He did so really without too much stress. He's established and he knows it. And there were a lot of young guys here who did really well and guys trying to break through. And he was celebrating them and recognizing that they are at different stages in their career that he's been at before. Yeah, he looked great. He looked like a veteran.

He looked like the most mature guy out there. Tell me about Will Morad. I remember covering him many years ago. I watched him, and when I covered him many years ago, he looked like a soccer player. I think he was a soccer player, and he looked like a soccer player competing at the CrossFit regionals. And he did very well, but he looked like a soccer player and he looked like a soccer player competing at the crossfit um regionals and he did very well but he looked like a soccer player he looked like you and uh and and this year when i looked at him i almost don't even recognize him he's got his hair shorter you know he's definitely put on a few pounds of muscle um what's his deal how long

has it been since he's competed at this level and how excited was he? Did you get to talk to him? I didn't talk to him, but I did talk to a street corner who trained with him. And the rumors were true. He was not 100 percent coming into this weekend. He's been having some back issues, even some nerve stuff in the back. Had to have some kind of like weird spinal fusion, something in the like right before the quarterfinals, like not 100 percent. And that's kind of the story of his career i really think if this guy were like an optimal condition not injured in any way that he's potentially like a top five guy at the games this could be that good a year that he made the top 10 we get to really do half it's because he pulled his train he's oh got this little he looked great

this weekend he won event six today the first event of the day and and because so many other people did it's like kind of a specialty event a grip and handstand push-up event bumped down some other guys going into the final he was in a similar position to cole where he just needed to finish and he was gonna make it he got 18th on the last workout, but he still was like clearly in fourth place. So I'm really happy that he's made it to the games. It's one of those guys where I almost hope that he like backs off his training instead of rammed up his training, because for him, he doesn't need to get any fitter. He just needs to get more healthy.

Yeah, I thought when he first showed up on the scene he was next miko salo the guy who comes from soccer has the super engine and uh uses that how old is will 32 um yeah so he's getting up there is he doing this i wonder if he's doing this to prove something to himself i want you know uh no man i think he loves it i mean and even though he's got these little injuries he's in a good uh training tournament with notia and brooke and alex smith and street owner and not all of them made the games but they're gonna still train hard and fight and um i'm excited for him i'm happy he made the games he seemed really happy i mean i think he knew like it was it was a risk the back he didn't know if he'd make it through the weekend, but he did.

He was phenomenal. I think the games field is better for him. Why am I a little bit emotional about Dallin Pepper and Spencer Panchik not making it? What am I feeling here? No, you're feeling it's hard to justify. If we could have gone just a little bit different, not just for Dallin and Spencer, but also for Cedric LaPointe, all three of those guys could have made the games,

and all three of those guys would also do just fine at the games. But five games, veterans took the five spots, and sometimes it's just not your time yet. And so for all those guys, I think they had lessons to learn this weekend. They should all be contenders when the last chance qualifier comes around. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them gets one of those two spots eventually. But I think those guys have a lot of positives to take away from this weekend. The world now knows, down to Pepper, who he is, that he's legit,

that he can compete with the veterans of the sport. That handstand push-up workout was going to be a challenge for him, he couldn't overcome it this time but he's he's going to be back 212 pounds six feet tall 19 years old and he's already married i mean that's a guy not only he's carrying a lot of weight physically but that's just a lot of weight of life stuff to carry yeah no i was impressed with him this weekend he's's, he's a big dude, but he moves really well. He's got an engine. Um, and, and like I said, I talked to a James Sprague, one of his, uh, you know, the young guys that are, they're all buddies. And he said that they're all just learning so much this weekend. They all have a really good attitude.

I mean, within moments of finding out he didn't make it, he was congratulating the guy who did. And at 19 years old, that's a pretty impressive level of maturity. Yeah, that's crazy. And, and I think as I hear you talk, the reason why it's a little emotional because they did get a lot of camera time. We do obviously know who Spencer is. He comes from an amazing lineage and we know the hard work they've put in. And it's like you said, we know they'd, there's gotta be a better word than deserve because the five guys who are going deserve, but we know they're capable. Yeah. They're fully capable. And they put in the work. It's like watching a guy like, Hey, put in all, you know, dig a hole looking for the prize. You know, the prize is down there, but then someone beat him to it. You know what I mean? He gets

down to the, to the bottom where the treasure is and it's gone. Someone robbed him of it. Even though we saw Spencer and Dallin put in all the work and dig the big hole, but when they got there, shit, someone had already taken the treasure. Yeah, and, you know, it's nice. That's the nature of the sport right now. There are guys that can be competitive at the game. There are games, and that's what we want to be. We want it to be we we want it to

be hard to make it and we want guys that are to be you know worthy of the test and if you know that's that we had in the west coast classic i don't know if we had that to this depth or caliber at some of the other regions but there's a lot of people that are working hard every day to make this dream a reality and they're not all going to make it when when uh when it comes to show is cole sager a crossfit games 2021 champion i think he's put himself back in the conversation for top five um i i need i need to take a little bit of time to look at the field look at how it shakes out out. But I think he did better this weekend than most people expected. And, you know,

Noah is very poor, under control. Appreciated what the weekend was. I think both guys will be big-time threats in Madison. Why do you say that better than people expected? Really, I think it's lifestyle stuff. The trauma that he went through having that premature

baby, 12 weeks having his kid in the ICU, going through that with his not sure, you know, that's a big stress. And again, he's been training at home in Washington, pretty isolated. So there's just a question mark of if he still had the desire and how much that would uh that would affect him or weigh on him so hats off to him man he's been in the work it's pretty clear and uh it's a good guy so i'm pretty happy with the result does this sport allow athletes to have momentum what do you mean he's like well that well is this first important to cole like in terms of how he's going to perform at the crossfit games as opposed to if he would have taken fifth

or the fact or i mean it's clear or or could it work against him you know what i mean like he's like okay i'm at the top of this heap you know i mean it's a concern i have for um when we talk to jason hopper you know like is his first place finish going to make him complacent? Your moment question is perhaps even more relevant because guys have had such a long time since the live competition. So this will be a boost of confidence. I still got it type thing. And we've talked about it before.

Majority, like strong majority of the game's podium athletes are guys who finish one, two, three, primarily first in their qualifying event to get there. So he's, you know, I think he's in a great spot. What do you think about Sean Sweeney? Is it any surprise there? I'm not that surprised by him. You know, he doesn't, he's he doesn't not okay he's very

fun he wears his hat he makes jokes the crowd even have fun of events like you know do a little pump up with his arm he's approaching a heavy lift but he's still focused and he executes you know he's his fourth um no he's not the biggest the biggest uh shock in it but he's just regularly over to the weekend he'll be a middle guy at the game but again it's a guy that i think the games feel is better with because of the the entertainment value and the fact that he can hold his own he's a very respectable well-rounded athlete there there was a guy there at the game at the uh event this weekend the west coast classic at the semi-final i think his name was sir sirin sadin suvanasi am i saying that right yeah sarin suvanasa yeah and um you know if you

sum up in one word he's a dork and uh he i saw um and i mean that in the kindest way possible i saw um sweeney at one time when they crossed the finish line uh suvinasi was bent over you know how they bent when they're exhausted and they finish the finish line and they're standing and they bend over like the the crowd barrier and uh Sweeney was paddling his ass, like playing the drums on his butt. And Suvinasi was so tired he couldn't even turn around. Tell me about this guy. It's fascinating. He's only 22?

Sorry? Yeah. Did you talk to him? Is he a computer? He's a computer engineer. I mean, what's going on with this guy? By the way, he doesn't look like he's 22. He looked like he could be in the masters. He looks like a mature man.

Um, uh, uh, Mike Coslett knows him from the, his trains in a similar area and told him he told me he's pretty good. Another dork, another dork. That's perfect. Yeah, I get it. I got it. You know, he told me he thought he'd do better this weekend than he did, but, um, yeah, I mean, it mean, that's just what I'm talking about. He's another young guy. He's pretty unassuming in his stature and looks very capable. He had some good performances.

He struggled with a couple of the, I think, heavier barbells. Might have held him back a little bit in some of the high school stuff. But there's a lot of guys in that 22, 23, 24 age range that are going to, over the next two to three years, going to get better and better. I think he could be one of those guys. I'd love to get him on the podcast. I've got to get into that peanut of his, that giant brain of his. When we reviewed this group of people in the beginning, when we looked at the leaderboard a few days ago,

Tyler Toussaint was at the very looked at the leaderboard a few days ago tyler uh tusanian was uh at the very top of the leaderboard and now now today that the workouts are complete my boy's all the way in 30th what happened to tyler nothing he was at the top because he was the last one to register and he was the last one to register because he earned a backfill invitation okay be able to compete here he's he's at the tail end of his career. Even making the semifinals is a good accomplishment for him at this point. But just to call it like it is, it's probably the last time we'll see him at a semifinal,

which is totally fine. Like I said, the sport's getting younger and better and deeper. So he did everything he could. He's just not where he was relative to the field a few years ago and look how consistent his workouts are 29th 25th 21st 29th 24th 21st and they're all in the 20th i mean hats off to him for that is let's see oh man if he would have if he would have just done two places better in that final workout he could at least say beat cole sager i think you froze on me and uh j was jake berman the the young man that you were like hey this is this could be the dark horse in the group yeah i thought this was going to be a breakout competition

for him um he you know basically told me he was going toe to toe with Noah in a lot of these workouts the heavy barbell and the squat clean and the heavy snatches at the start of the weekend the workouts that I thought might be tough for him but everything else I thought he'd be better on than he was he still had a great

I don't know if it was the second place in the first event today third was um he still had a great i think i don't know if it was the second place in the first event today um so third you know third yes uh he won his heat third in the event he's i still think he's got a ton of potential he's in a great training environment i think he's on he's still on the ascendancy maybe he just needs another year there were like he was the last one off the echo bike in that workout which is like a little bit of a concern for me when i did the echo bike against map for there's a similar side like the power significantly different so stuff you can definitely work on um i don't think this is a total loss of a week for him but yeah he wasn't as good as i thought he was and he's and he's only 25 um just so you guys know um brian

just finished at the west coast classic um being on the floor there and covering for the news outlets that he works for. And I was out running the mile with my kid. And so I start harassing him. Are we going to do a podcast? And he has no idea what I'm going to ask. And this is basically like trivial pursuit for Brian. And we don't talk ahead of the podcast. And I just have the list of people in front of me.

So I just bomb him with questions. So what you're seeing is sort of a remarkable encyclopedia that is a Brian friend at Brian friend CrossFit. Please follow him and get him past the 13 followers mark. Um, so Cole Sager, Noah Olson, sean sweeney will morad brandon luckett brandon luckett looked very emotional when they called his fifth place yeah uh you know because he had a pretty nasty elbow injury in the first workout of the weekend on the heavy snatch he said that he never like his elbow never felt comfortable in the workout the rest of the weekend. He was almost overwhelmed. He said the only feeling I could feel at the end was gratitude that I was able to make it through this weekend and make it back to the CrossFit Games despite that injury.

Similarly to Will, his priority in the next five, six weeks needs to be on getting as healthy as possible. He's an extremely good, capable athlete, and healthy, and obviously games will be a lot more enjoyable for him. When you say hurt his elbow, are there medical staff on the premises at the West Coast Classic? Do they look at his elbow? How does that work? Does he have to get signed off once he shows that he has the injury, or is it all up to him, the athlete? No, there's definitely a conversation.

He knew immediately. He bailed on the barbell, grabbed his elbow. He didn't attempt any more snatches. took him off the floor evaluating him sure he talked to him and his coach and the medical staff he was clear to participate you know it's definitely a risk but sometimes in in sports you have to take that risk and obviously he was healthy enough to see the weekend through and i think it's you know it was a good a really good fight back from that um i think it's a big testament to him to confidence and ability to be able to overcome a challenge like that and qualify like i said it was a good field the guys behind him are pretty good and really wanted that spot but he was able to do enough in the second to last event the push pull 2.0 is is that the event with the sled with the wheels

yeah yeah the torso okay so there's i have two questions for you one we'll stick with um brandon luckett uh no sorry sorry we'll get to that event in a second i want what was regional final number 17 2017 because in that event he beat second. What was regional final number 17, 2017? Because in that event, he beat Cole Sager. We're talking about Brandon Luckett. And I have to imagine that that at least also would be something that he can kind of get his head wrapped around and have some momentum. Be like, oh, shit, if I can beat this guy in one event, he's human. It was the last event, that seven.

I know it's called regional final 17. It was about five. So it was the last one on Saturday. Okay. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. He was in, he was in the second heat at that point. So it's one of those situations where like he wants to make the final heat for the last day. So he just kind of sent it. The D-ball was the last movement there, and he just held on to it the whole time. I don't think the wrist or elbow was too much of a factor because he was in that bent position, not necessarily extension. And I held up in the final heat and ultimately propelled him into the final heat

where he was able to then compete against the guys he knew he needed to beat to get that game spot. Do you remember what the movements were in that one? I heard you say D-ball. Go ahead. 30-calorie bike, 20-burpee box jump over, 10 D-ball cleans with 150-pound D-ball. Okay. And that is something that Cole would be good at, and he did take second place,

only three or four seconds behind him. The final question before we move to the women, unless you have anything to say, and this kind of covers men and women. When I watch that push pool event with whatever you call that thing, that sled, I have some serious concerns that the more energy and maybe I, and I hope, I hope you're going to tell me how wrong I am that the more energy you put into that thing, the heavier it gets. And so that there's a sweet spot on it. So you're not rewarded for pushing harder. And that would really bum me out if that's the truth. Yeah, this is a, you know, there's different competitions now. There's definitely a pro and a con here. So the

reason that they're trying it out, I think, is because of the, you know, this is in the past, or supposed controversies in the past with variations in the sled on different surfaces. This is meant, you know, the experiment is, is this a more uniform method of testing the ability to basically move an, an object that's touching the ground over a distance. And I think it was basically a fail because yes yes you like if you're better pushing a sled you can like make up ground on people that are better that are not as good at pushing a sled but with this one like you said you know your observation is right exerting more force doesn't gain you an

advantage of that if you watch it's really marginal the amount of ground you can make up or lose on that part of any of those work. And so the other movements are basically where the workouts. Yeah, I have to think that someone's going to come on here and unfuck us and tell us that we're wrong. Because if that is the case, I don't even know how you let an apparatus like that into the games where they are not rewarded for putting in more effort. This is – it defeats the whole purpose of finding the fittest person. I mean I don't see any upside of it more uniformly than just have them do 100 jumping jacks then. them do 100 jumping jacks then i mean it's it's um i i know you want that push pull stimulus but it should always be rewarded for the hardest worker this isn't the the it shouldn't be that

much of an iq test or a gaming piece that you have to try to find the sweet spot on that and know that no matter how much harder you push it's not giving you the reward for it yeah uh reminds me of the slot the snail it was called from the climbing snail events that were the 2016 games where they it was like that big circular thing and you just kind of have to figure out on the fly where to push it and you push too high or too low or too hard or too soft and it was like rolling backwards and not getting momentum did it have water in it is that why i'm not sure what it but we haven't implemented since and i think that's probably for the same reason is wasn't ultimately the test of fitness that we want it was more of the test of can you navigate this kind of

weird object better yeah they should just i would rather see a shopping cart filled with uh 40 bottles of jack daniels and six boxes of condoms and just make it uniform across the across the the board you know what i mean it's uh i can't get my head wrapped around this one is there anything else you want to say about the um men before we move on to the women here i think we've covered it pretty well uh bethany shadburn uh i would see her at the games when i used to cover the games i'm crazy impressed should i be crazy impressed definitely um almost everyone was picking carrie pierce to win this if anyone was willing to pick anyone else they would probably have taken daniel brandon that's nothing against bethany shaburn it's just it seemed like those two girls were better um it was only a small margin in the end between carrie and bethany but

overall i was most impressed with her her movement quality the poise also like attacking workouts a little differently uh it looked like she was going for it on some workouts she managed the ruck run better than anyone else she she also said that she overcame some challenges. Like she said, GHD sit-ups have always been a sticking point for her in a workout before, and she did better on that set of 80 GHD sit-ups in the triple G than she's ever done. I think Bethany Shadburn's the best version of her she's ever been. I was talking to her boyfriend at the end of the competition. He said she's prioritized everything outside of the gym more this year than she ever has, sleep and nutrition. They're in a really good place together.

And you know, as well as anyone that when you have a really solid support system at home, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, whatever it is, that goes a long way. And I think that for her, all those external factors have, you know, in addition to obviously just being super fit, have kind of come all together at the right time. So I think she's a top 10 threat at the games and, you know, in the conversation for fittest American woman at the games. I'm pretty excited after this weekend to see how good she can be. Where does she train, Brian? She trains here in Las Vegas with Carrie Pierce and Daniel Brandon. Justin Kotler's coaching all of them. It's called CrossFit Culmination. she trains here in las vegas with um with carrie pierce and daniel brandon uh justin

kotler's coaching all of them it's called crossfit culmination they're they're like training methodology is known as underdog athletics they also have two of the guys who are in the competition here tola moraquino and uh matt delugos neither of them made the games or last chance qualifier their tola was one spot out and it's a good training environment. Um, I don't know that that team collaborative training environment's right for every athlete, but for those three girls, I feel like they're all getting better by training together, at least for now. Um, what about, uh, Danny Spiegel? Is she part of that group? No, Danny Spiegel moved out to Invictus CrossFit this year. And it feels like it's a good, that's the San Diego. That's the San Diego?

Yeah. Okay. CJ Martin, Tina Martinez, and that crew. Seems like a really good fit. She had a, you know, she's always got a couple, kind of like Will Morad. Her shoulder, she had a pretty bad shoulder injury that'll probably never be 100% again.

She has some problems with her feet that sometimes bother her, but she's phenomenal as an athlete. I mean, she's, she's, she's always been very strong. She's figured out the gymnastics and it's just like that long monostructural cardio is still a hole for her. But as we saw with the ruck run, like she took a basically last place finish there and still finished fourth on the weekend so she's a type of girl in madison that will have a couple bad events but she'll she always has a potential to win a workout too if it's the right combination of stuff when is when have you seen you saw her in person does she look big in person

are you like wow that that's a solid woman? Yeah, yeah. She's, you know, relative to the other girls on the field. Like her legs are just big and strong. But, you know, like I said, she was pretty good on the strict deficit handstand push-ups. She's phenomenal at handstand walking. She was able to do the muscle-ups just as well as the other girls. So for a girl of her size, she is very good at the body weight. So she, it says she's listed here at 168 pounds. You can't really tell because she's so shredded when you watch her on

TV, but is that the, will she be the biggest girl in the field, the heaviest girl in the field at the CrossFit games and the individual competition? Uh, she might be, she, you know, she'll be up there for sure. I'm trying to think. Um, I Horvath, but maybe a little bit lighter than her. Daniel Brandon, probably like 10 pounds lighter. Yeah, almost 20 pounds lighter. 150. Yeah, 150. Yeah, so she probably is.

I'm just trying to think through the field. I mean, Cara's got some big legs, but she's a lot shorter. So it's probably, yeah, she probably will be. I think, um, the heaviest girl I ever heard competing at the CrossFit games, and I'm sure there's been heavier was, uh, Emily Abbott. And I think she was 165. Yeah. When, I mean, when you're talking about that, the average woman at the games is usually about 145 and you're over 20 pounds heavier than that it's obviously a huge outlier and that's yeah you're probably right about that should most likely be the heaviest girl there but um you know weight to skill ratio and body weight

stuff that means she might be one of the best how do how do these veterans bethany shadburn carrie peace pierce um and and i don't know if I would call Danielle Brandon a veteran. Would you call her a veteran? She's made the – this is her third time making the games. But two years ago, she actually finished 11th after the cut. So she didn't get to do the last half of the competition because – Okay. So she's been as an individual. It's not as a team. Uh-huh

this year she'll get all of the and then kind of our first real glimpse you can look at with a little test okay i apologize for not calling her a veteran um all right what's what's the what's the mood like with these three on camera they appear to all be close but we obviously know that to win the games you have to be a fierce competitor and there has to be a component of selfishness or did you see anything that that showed that there's tension between these three no no i don't think so it's a kind of a unique situation when they're on the competition floor i mean there were a couple events where one of them or two of them were going at it and they clearly wanted to beat the other girl but as soon as the competition was over they were they were

happy for each other um you know if it comes down to that at the games and it's for a podium spot or a little bit more money is on the line, we'll see. But at least for this weekend, their goal was to sweep the podium, and they did that, and I kind of felt like they were doing it together. So they were competing, but they were also supporting each other. When you see their ages, you have Bethany Shadburn at 27, Carrie Pierce at 32, and Daniel Brandon, age 25. Did you notice any recovery issues?

And then the second part to the question is, is that age going to play a role at the games where there might be 13 or 14 events? I don't think so. I think that they can all handle the volume of the games. And then let's go down to fifth place. You got a visitor to your room? Take five, everyone. Listen, just chill. Brian's doing his thing. Without Brian, there's no show, and he's apparently talking to someone right now.

I think they're ordering room service. What did you order? Did you order a hamburger? Yeah, hamburger and a beer. It's been a long weekend. Reagan Huckabee, 34 years old. How many times has she been to the games? She looked amazing, like physically amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tell me about her. Fourth time as an individual to the game. She's also been part of Invictus' team two years ago. And, you know, it's one of these situations. Like so many people in the sport now, this is all they're focusing on. She's got a lot of other distractions. She's got two young kids at home. And, you know, you know how big of a responsibility and how much time that can take.

But she's making it work. She, like, you are exactly right. She looked just as good in person as it sounds But she's making it work. You are exactly right. She looked just as good in person as it sounds like she looked from your perspective. It wasn't easy for her. She got the last spot. She needed to perform on the last workout really well. And honestly, if Alexis Raptus had hit the last barbell, she would have made it instead of Reagan. But that's one of those situations where in a race like that,

boys pays off. She hit the bar. The 23-year-old would-be games rookie did not, and so she's going. So, yeah, I see Alexis Raptus. She's probably had a birthday since this. They got her at 22 here. So what you're saying to me is she approached that last bar, she went for it,

and she failed the lift. How many seconds do you think she lost? So she's one of the training think tank crew. I talked to Max Elhaj about it. He said 30 seconds. But he also said that in the long run for her career, he actually thinks that was better for her. We all know know all the greats have had their setbacks at one point or another and this is one of those moments where she'll you know she was still in good spirits she this was a good weekend for her um it's always gonna be a little bittersweet because she could have made it but she'll learn from that uh she was incredible on the push pull event as far as i saw she was the only girl to do all four sets of the strict

deficit handstand push-ups unbroken. And that gave her the points she needed to have that opportunity in the last event. And sometimes that's the margins in this sport. One lift, one risk, and you miss it and you're out. So Brian just said that Alexis Raptus, who took sixth place, who will be going to the last chance qualifier, did amazing in the push-pull event. That was the second-to-last event, and he's not joking. She got 9.22. And to give you an idea of how dominant of a performance that is, Bethany Shadburn got 9.40. Carrie Pierce got 10.10.

Daniel Brandon got 10.29. Danny Spiegel got 11.27. Why didn't Danny Spiegel got 1127. Why didn't Dani Spiegel do better at that? I think she did great. That was the workout with over 40 strict deficit handstand pushups. Okay. 90 toes to bar.

We've already talked about she's the heaviest girl on the field. So to take, what is it, fifth place or sixth place in that workout at that weight is actually maybe the most impressive performance of the group. And I don't want to beat a dead horse, but maybe she could have done even better if she was rewarded. She should have been rewarded when doing the pushing and pulling for her size that she had to deal with while doing toes-to-bar and deficit handstand push-ups. And so that could have been a great workout, but we'll still wait for people. That is a valid point. We've talked about it before with guys like Fikowski.

Remember in that workout in 2016, they did all that monostructural work. They got to the sled pull. It was a rope chipper on Sunday, and he was able to pull that sled better than anyone else and win the workout. Dallin Pepper told me the same thing. I need to make up some time on the torque tank, but you couldn to make up some time on the torque tank. But you couldn't make up any time on the torque tank. Yeah, that's so – a simpleton like me can't see that and figure that out and be right. Someone's going to have to come in the comments on YouTube and explain to us that we're wrong, that that machine actually actually there is a way to make it seem fair

uh the the veteran and big name maybe the most followers in the bunch on instagram is uh lauren fisher taking 13th place uh how is she after was she emotional was she happy that at least she just showed up what's the deal here i think that she a pretty, I'm not sure how serious it was, but every event her elbow was wrapped tighter and tighter, more and more bandaging on it. So she might have just been injured. She seemed to be in great spirits after the competition. She was there taking pictures with people from Training Think Tank

who she's been training with. She still actually has a good relationship with the people at Invictus. I wasn't sure if that was ended on a bad note or not. So there were a lot of people here this weekend that are friends of hers and old training partners because both Invictus. I wasn't sure if that was like ended on a bad note or not. So there were a lot of people that here this weekend that are friends of hers and old training partners because both Invictus teams qualified first and second. Danny Spiegel and Reagan Huckabee have ties with Invictus. So she was celebrating with all the people that she knows and has known and has been training with. She's been training with Noah a little bit. So she was in good spirits. I think she had maybe a little bit of an injury,

knew she wasn't going to be able to qualify with that, but still gave it everything she had, was happy to be competing. And she definitely wasn't in a bad mood at the end of the weekend. Was her amazing boyfriend there? Rasmus Anderson was here. He had a really impressive beard and, uh,

and he was just walking around, hanging out. Such a cool dude. Such a cool dude such a cool dude i've enjoyed every interaction with him um i i see this name on here maybe a lot of people don't know took ninth place i think maybe um her name's allison scuds i know her because i would used to see her years ago at the ranch and other places testing games workouts for uh the dave castro are you and i think she's been on the demo team before but i never pictured her for some reason doing this well are you surprised ninth place i mean she's amazing don't get me wrong no no she's she's very

good at the things she's very good at which but this week this week what she showed me especially in that last workout it was really close So you can tell me what place she finished in it. She was able to move a heavy barbell, that heavy barbell for the squat cleans better than I've ever seen her do before. Um, and she did really well on the workout this morning also, which I thought she'd do well on that one with the body weight stuff. Um, ninth place was better than I thought she'd do. I think I had her projected around 15th. She finished strong on the weekend, whereas in other competitions in the past, she's had, she's kind of tailed off towards the end of weekends. So I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of curious now. I mean, I didn't really think she ever had a chance to make the gains,

but if she's getting stronger and better with a heavy barbell uh maybe maybe she can do it in a year or two this last year on her instagram i noticed she's putting a ton of time and maybe she's always done it and just showing it to us for the first time but it looks like she's putting a ton of time into her mental game and her recovery game you're seeing her do more like yoga type stuff and meditation and basically you you know, getting, getting the other stuff besides the physical in line. I wonder how much that played a role. Yeah. And this seems to be a pattern, you know, a lot, a lot of the athletes that are investing more in the off season, the art, I should say out of the gym stuff is, uh, is starting to pay off. And I, you know, one of the lines that always sticks out to me when I first talked to Josh Bridges with you at 2018 Regionals,

he said, I've spent more time and more money on body work, on the stuff outside of the gym, than anything else in my career. He was ahead of the game on that, and maybe that's why he was an outlier at the games for so many years, a guy his size doing that well. But if more athletes are figuring that out, and people are talking about it and advertising it and then having performances like bethany shadburns like allison scuds who are you know maybe outperforming what people would expect from them you have to assume that more and more people

are going to start doing that and that just means that they're going to have people are going to have to start looking for the edge in different places yet again. Carrie Pierce, second place, the smallest woman in the top five, top six, top seven, top eight, top nine. She's got to be similar to Allison Scudds. Yeah, Scudds is 153, 140 and carrie's listed here at five three one thirty nine so you're right um is is and and she looked like a ferrari i mean her she her physique the way she moves i mean her finishes first fourth second fifth third seventh i mean that that's a that's a first place winning performance right like if i didn't tell you that if i didn't

show you bethany shatt if i would have told you before this event started, hey, Carrie Pierce is going to get first, fourth, second, fifth, third, seventh, you'd be like, yep, she's probably going to win it, right? 100%, yeah. That will win a semifinal more often than not. So is her size becoming a factor? Like a disadvantage? Yeah.

I don't think so. I don't think so. don't think so you said she was 5 3 140 basically yeah 5 3 139 she's lifted here listed i think that that's pretty close to what tia claire toomey is okay and um did you have her i thought when we first started talking about this woman's event you didn't you actually didn't have her picked for first place. How can that be? No, I did. I had Carrie Daniel Bethany as a top three. Okay. Okay. So Carrie's still a serious podium threat at the Games. Yeah.

I mean, look, we're talking about Bethany's potential, but the thing is Carrie's, you know, I think four straight finishes inside the top ten at the Games. She was on the podium last year she's been uh fittest in in the u.s several years um she it's very hard to make a case against her as the fittest american ever so you know what we have to see bethany and danielle and hayley adams and brooke wells and amanda barnhart all these other american women beat her at the games and until they do she's she's kind of still the woman to beat, even though she didn't win this

weekend. What an amazing accolade. And I think you're right. The fittest American woman ever. I mean, it depends how much you value winning versus longevity, because Chris Clever has been on the podium twice. She's won the games in 2010 she had i think four straight or four out of five top five finishes in her five year career but it's really rare to find someone who's had five straight top tens i think there's only like five women in the history of the sport who've done that and carrie's one of them so you know she's very consistent she's very good i think she's getting close to the end of her career but she's obviously still competitive. And it'll be fun to see if she can, you know, continue that streak of top 10 finishes of being the best American woman. My kind of gut feeling is that she'll rescind that title this

year. But I don't actually know to who because there's a lot of girls that are going to be coming for it. Danielle Brandon, of all the women you've seen in the United States, who's most likely, do you think? And is it Daniel Brandon who will eventually take the throne from Tia? Is there anyone in this? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, let's just go big. 2024.

Well, the only way to answer this is, is Tia going to still be competing in three years? You know, Fraser was, he was tired of competing after last year. And then his team kind of said, come on, man, go for one more.

And he did, but he's so happy in retirement. Now, you know, Tia and Matt are still close and she sees how, how much he's enjoying time away. It seems like Shane and Tia are still enjoying competing. And as long as they're still enjoying competing, she's only, what, 26, 27?

Wow. I don't know that anyone will be able to beat her even by 2024. But if you're forcing me to pick someone, I think that Hayley Adams, Danielle Brandon, and Mallory O'Brien are possibly the three best candidates. What do you see in Danielle Brandon that makes you put her with that group? Hmm. Um, I still, I just still kind of feel like her skills are raw and her mental approach to live competition is not fully developed the way that some of the other girls

are. So you, so she, her glass ceiling is higher away. It's not, it's not only how good she is now, but you see, you're like, wow, there's a lot of areas you can improve. Holy cow, you're going to be amazing. Yeah, we've mentioned how significant the mental aspect of high-level competition can be in this sport. She did the Mayhem Classic, but it was not a super deep field. She finished third behind Katia Clartumi and Christy Aramo. She competed the last two years at the Games, but she only got to do half of the test, really.

So she hasn't had a lot of live competition experience at the highest level. So this was a great weekend for her to learn some of those lessons. This Games will be a great opportunity for her to improve upon those skills, maybe learn a couple other things. And if you're looking at two or three years down the road, if she's motivated, has all this incredible physical potential. I mean, she was head and shoulders ahead of the field in that last event. There was only a two-minute event.

She was the only one who could calmly look around, compose herself, lift the bar, and walk across the finish line with a commanding event win. She also had two second-place finishes, two fourth-place finishes. That's pretty good against this field. So I think you said it well she's got a higher ceiling than than some of the other ladies what an incredible sport to follow i mean i'm just to see bethany shadburn carrie pierce danielle brandon danny spiegel reagan huckabee all lined up these just thoroughbreds of the highest caliber. Like you see all the years of work that they've put in and then they lift the gate up and go, tell me about the energy in this venue.

Because I know the Granite Games were a little thin in the crowd. Although the viewership numbers I think were record setting in terms of the internet. What was it like being there? Did the crowd really, I mean, was it back to like, holy shit, these are the record setting, uh, in terms of the internet. Um, what was it like being there? Did the crowd really, I mean, was it back to like, holy shit, these are the five, you know, five of the top hundred fittest women in the world. And we're in a room with them. Like, did you feel that like everyone knew and the place was exploding? Uh, I don't think we're back to this, the crowd capacity and noise and energy that we had in like the last years of, um, of regionals and in the sanctionals when they were still able to happen. But I think that that part of that is

still just people being a little bit apprehensive coming out of this last year of uncertainty. And, uh, but this venue has a lot of potential. I don't know if we'll ever use it again, but I hope we do because if that, those seats were full this would be a really really energized uh environment to have a semi-final i'm not going to get into too much of the um politics how is the i'm not going to get into it at all how was the event run who was there um did you see dave did you see uh rosa did you talk to matt or keep any of that stuff we'll circle back on that talk about how the commentating was i can chime in about what it looked like from watching from home um so i guess maybe tomorrow we can do a show on that maybe we can get josh

bridges on uh to chime in with us uh how about we just cruise over if that's okay with you over to the atlas games i would love that okay let's do it let's do you want to start with men or women man i can't i just i can't wait okay let's do the men you got patrick velner this is a virtual competition which makes me even weird to call it the atlas games anything that's virtual just it seems pointless to even have a title it should be like virtual one or virtual five but patrick velner jeffrey adler samuel corn or corn why corn why corn why in third place alex vignal in third place and brett fikowski in fifth place and those are the those are the guys who are going to the crossfit games unless this leaderboard changes do we know and it still could change is that true

it could change there was a change on the women's leaderboard after the original publication but it didn't affect any games positions it just had a slight change in the order um i've been whoa what's that mean didn't change positions but change in order what does that mean change the qualifiers the top okay pump someone out of the top five. People within the top five shuffled around a little bit. But on the men's side, that was the original five that were posted in that order with the same points they currently have. And nothing's changed yet. And I am praying that it doesn't change for multiple reasons. Obviously, we don't want to have the same problem as last week.

this is a really good group of five very very capable canadian men that are gonna be serious serious contenders at the games all five of them i mean you you have patrick velner is winning the games don't you i think he's the guy to beat this year i do okay and we'll let you change that brian i know i know you when you're very serious about your um picks but as of right now, if I put a gun to your head or I told you you had to pick right now, would Vellner be at the top? Yeah, unless he is publicly attending the games injured, I'm probably not going to change that. Okay, and then let's just skip right down to Brent Fikowski. Okay. And then let's just skip right down to Brent Fikowski. He, um, 19th in the first event, 12th in the second event, 10th in the third workout. At that point, are you thinking,. So, yeah, I didn't think he'd make it. I said that earlier, and despite having said that, I think I said I hoped he would make it,

and I am absolutely ecstatic that he did. I don't feel bad at all predicting that he wouldn't, given the last two events. He put it on his Instagram. He said, I went for it in the last event. 225 on Gretel for a guy that size. That is incredible. He earned that spot.

He deserves that spot. I feel comfortable saying that. And the games is, I've said about some other guys, but more so than any other athlete who had to go through this season to get there the way he did. The games is going to be so much better with him as a part of it. He is an enormous man at 6'2", 217 pounds, and that's like with no body fat on the guy. But isn't this indicative of the Brent Fikowski we know to really do well at the end of an event? He got a first, a first, and a fourth. Haven't we seen him do that before?

Of all the athletes who have gamesmanship, doesn't he seem to be at the top of the heap when it comes to events? Yeah, and he is extremely methodical in every aspect of his life. He's made it very public. I gave up my other job. I gave up a lot of things. I am singularly focused on making the games and winning the games. He knew that this would be a challenge for him. I talked to him on the phone and he said, man,

on the virtual competition against these guys, he knows how good these guys are. Even the guys that are just on the outside are very good. He knew that he had the potential to do it, but he'd have to execute well. I talked to Vellner today also. The two of them apparently had a conversation last night. Vellner gave him a little pep talk. I don't know if it had any influence on Brett's performance today or not but he he did exactly what he needed at the end of the weekend he's done it before the last time there was a west coast regional he beat cole

sager by two points having a similar excellent performance in the tail end of the competition um i feel relieved that he made it i can't imagine how he feels and uh i i think we should try to talk to him i really do because i think it's going to be i think he's based on what he texted me i think he's got a the story of this weekend for him could be pretty cool to hear about okay i'm going to text the uh matt susan now the producer can you reach out to Fikowski. Ski. What a great name. I feel like talking to Brent would be,

I can't even remember ever talking to him at the games, to be honest. Maybe like just a few words here and there. I feel like we would be an odd mix in a room. Like if me and him had to like sail around the world together in a boat, it would be really a trip. Um, so he makes the games. Um, and I, I know he, I suspect he believes he can always win the games because that's his goal of all the people of anyone who's probably ever taken fifth place. He probably still has his eye on the prize.

Would you say that's true? He's not, he's not like, I want to get on the podium. He's like, I want to win the games, dude. He is the only person in the field at the games who's beaten Pat Velner in a

live competition in the last five years. Wow. Okay. And he knows that he knows all that shit. Yeah. Yeah. I told him. Let's let, Okay. And he knows that. He knows all that shit. Yeah, yeah. I told him. Tell me how great Patrick Vellner is.

You were saying some stuff to me the other day that was kind of blowing my brain. Yeah. I mean, well, that's it right there. I mean, we all know that Fraser is basically unstoppable. He hasn't lost a live competition since the 2015 games. And outside of Fraser, Belner has beaten every other competitor in every other live competition other than, I should say, the caveat is the 2019 CrossFit Games. I don't want to talk about that and why I don't.

Well, that statistic alone just proves my point that is an outlier relative to his performance over a five-year period of time um pat's got it all what you're saying what you're saying is is the not necessarily the programming but the structure of the games didn't bring although you would agree at crown the fittest it didn't it didn't sift out the best guys all like you would expect. Like the first used a cauldron that has big holes and then a little smaller holes. And you're saying that it wasn't done properly and that's why Patrick didn't go up, but he should have gone up. The total test, the total 12 tests that they did to make up the CrossFit Games were a good, well-programmed, balanced test.

Not all the athletes got to take the test. The scoring wasn't the same on every event. And those things prevented the leaderboard from representing the totality of this is the first, second, third, fourth, eighth, twelfth, tenth, fifteenth fittest guy. He still got the fittest because Fraser was the fittest and he did win. But yeah, I think if there were 40 athletes in the field that year, they'd all been able to do all 12 tests, Vellner would have been on the podium. Okay, and you're not making excuses for Patrick,

but in the end what you're saying is that he's always been, as long as Matt's been there, Patrick Vellner has clearly always been the second best dude. Yeah, that's what the numbers say. You sound like a news reporter at CNN. No, no, they don't do numbers. Sorry, they don't do numbers. You would have said, that's what my heart feels like.

Jeffrey Adler, he was in the games last year, correct? Yeah, yeah, he was fifth. Made the top five. I think he snuck into the fifth year, correct? Yeah, he was fifth. Made the top five. I think he snuck into the fifth spot, just edging out Chandler Smith, Yonikoski, BKG, and Pat Bellman. So the only two people, and when I say the games, I'm talking about what happened at the ranch.

Right. So the only two people going back to the games this year are Noah and Jeffrey Adler. Oh, no. Was Cole there? Oh, Medeiros oh maderos okay okay so that's good that's the five the other one retired and the other one had an illness right okay i'm digging it i'm digging it that the other one was sam quant the one that retired was um matthew yeah mateo fraser and then tell me about Samuel. I can't say his last name, Samuel.

Do I know him? Samuel Cornway. I don't know if you'll know him or not. I think he was 10th last year at the Games in the first stage. He's been training with Rich this past month or so. He's been following Rich's programming for longer than that. He's very strong, very good at gymnastics. He's developing his engine.

I think that once we get closer to the games and have a chance to evaluate the games field, that he's one of those guys that you could call a dark horse to potentially make some big moves at the games. Last year, he was 12th overall in the world in 2019 he was 9th and in 2018 he was 168 so in his 2018 to 19 season he made an enormous jump um oh those that was in the open oh was that in the open i think so because i'm just looking at overall i'm just looking at whatever they have here in the stats overall rank worldwide. Oh, you're right. He's only been to the game.

I apologize. You're right. Although those are still impressive. He's only been to the games in 2019. Was he 10th? 35th. Wait, wait. No, he was there last year.

He was? The game site isn't up to date on it. Oh, I love it. I'm telling you, Brian will big dick anyone, even if it's on accident. He doesn't even mean to big dick the game's website, and he's big dicking it. Will he be at that training camp that Jason Hopper is hoping slash will happen at Rich's Empire, at the Mayhem Empire prior to the games, the weeks before the games? I think that he'll be there training from now until the games the weeks before the games i i think that he'll be there training from now until the games because it doesn't make any sense to go back to

canada okay i mean unless yeah i guess i was gonna say unless you have a wife and kids and oh right be forced to quarantine in a hotel that you can't choose a location over two weeks okay and i i remember alex popping up onto the scene i want to say it was in albany one year alex vignal yeah and he was i think supposed to win it and something happened i want to say maybe he got injured so so this was in 2000 it was either well he he was i think he placed in the top 10 of the games in 2016 okay and then And then the next two years, he had a couple setbacks. Remember, he was sick in 2018 with that stomach thing. He went and talked to him.

He was throwing up in the garden. Oh, that's right. That's the guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was at the regional. He was barfing. Yeah. He was wrecked.

And some of the other people were coming around him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was tragic. Yeah. And then he's a police officer. He has a, he had a kid in the, within the past 12 or 15 months, he's been training at home and like, he often posts little videos where he's training and his like kid and wife are there in the garage watching him train.

And, um, I wasn't sure if he would have, I think I projected him to be in the last chance qualifier position, but I knew that he would have a potential if he's healthy. If he's healthy, he's competitive. I mean, he's got a big, well-rounded capacity. I would say of the five guys who made it from Canada, I'll probably end up ranking him the lowest at the Games, but this is one of those semifinals where all five guys could be in the top half of the Games field.

Wow. Is there anyone in this list? I see Paul Tremblay, been around forever, great guy. Tell me who the guys six through nine are. I see Pete Shaw. Oh, they will go to the last chance qualifier, six through nine? Yeah. Okay.

Is that normal? Usually you get three spots. They had, if you go all the way to the bottom, there's a guy with drew and then there's a guy from a different country other than Canada that has a name that you probably can't say. And so yeah, there's two guys, there's two guys with some flags that I don't recognize. One is a shit. I lost it. Well, these guys are basically what I call displaced athletes who could not travel

to their semifinal. Okay. They were able to compete. They were like placed in a virtual semifinal and, uh, there was like closer to where they live and they were able to compete in that. But because of that, it opened up an extra last chance qualifier spot. Okay. Yeah. Because there's 31 guys here. There's a guy named, uh, Tafad, Tafad, Tafad, the Wabu Shandu from Zimbabwe.

Dude, I said that perfect. What are you laughing at? And Richard Wolbolt from South Africa. So two African guys. Yeah. Okay. And he's working. The South African guy is doing his programming.

Looks like CrossFit Invictus Back Bay. No need. They're lucky we talked about them. Back up to 6-9 like you asked. Tyler Christofal, Cole Grishaver, Alexander Caron, Phil Toon. God, I love that name, Phil Toon. And number 10, Logan Collins. So Logan Collins won't advance to the last chance qualifier.

But the guys who did. So Alexander Caron, i actually got four of the five in the exact position correct in this one i had velner adler cornway caron fikowski it was ended up being vigno fikowski i had a big penalty on workout number two i haven't done the calculations but that might have single-handedly kept him out so he's a guy like some of the guys from west coast classic that will have a good chance in the him out. So he's a guy, like some of the guys from West Coast Classic, that will have a good chance in the online qualifier because he's had some really... If you pull up his games profile and see his open finishes,

they won't have the quarterfinal finish on there. But he's very good in the online competition, and he's just very good in general. Oh, yeah. He's probably one of my top picks to make the last chance qualifier, to advance from it. And the other guy that I really like there is Cole Greyshaber. He's actually really good friends with Dallin Pepper,

and he's just about the same size as him. I think he's a little older, maybe 20 or 21. But he's probably, I bet his games profile says he's 6'1", 210. And he's a beast too. Yeah, 6'2", 206. You know, you said, I want to go back to Carone. This, when you see his numbers it's just crazy this guy took sixth in the worldwide open in 2018 i mean at that moment he's basically the sixth fittest man in the world and it's um i know you don't like that probably a lot of people don't

but i i i put a lot of weight on the open. I think the open is amazing. And the open is a pretty, in general, it's a pretty good predictor for the rest of the season. Like there's some guys that are outliers that will have a great open and then disappear. But a lot of the guys,

when you look at top 10 at the games and you look back, they did very well in the open too. And he's been, he's been hitting the open now for seven years. Okay. So, and, and to kind of prove your point a little bit more here, um, They did very well in the Open, too. And he's been hitting the Open now for seven years. Okay, so, and to kind of prove your point a little bit more here about Caron and his, what did he get the penalty for? Failure to extend his arms and the shoulder to overhead. He actually posted a couple screenshots of it on his Instagram.

It's a gray area. It's a tough standard. It's one of those standards that I wish, think it would be better a better test in live competition because it's hard to know if you're going to get the no reps or not and you feel like you're locked out when you go to these live competitions the judges at the briefings will say if you have a movement limitation let us know and we'll work with you to figure out what's what's going to be okay and what's not you can the online setting you can't really do that so he thinks he was moving as well as he can move in that workout. If you look at the screenshots, I cannot fault CrossFit for giving him a penalty. He's just barely missing that lockout. But it's just kind of the harsh reality of the virtual competition, and he was on the

wrong side of it this time. Do you know how many seconds his penalty was? Over two minutes. Oh, wow. He had posted the fastest time in Canada on that workout. Yes, that probably. And what's the difference in points between first place and eighth place? Like 35 or 40. Okay, so let's say it's 40. Let's make it exciting.

That would have given him 425 points, and that would have put him in sixth place. So he still would have given him 425 points and that would have put him in sixth place so so he still would have missed it yeah uh but that doesn't but then he also would have got some points if he knocked some of those other people down yeah yeah so he maybe steals four or five points from fukowski which is the guy he had to chase which still wouldn't have been enough right right um so this is these you're saying these guys are this is a great group. This would have been a great live event. It'll be a great live event next year. And these are all guys to watch at the games. The cool thing about next year is this Canadians won't all be in one semifinal. They'll be dispersed throughout North America. So they'll have the opportunity to send more than five guys to the games next year. And I'm willing to bet that they do. Say that again. I wasn't listening. Sorry. sorry i switched to the women say that one more time

this year because of the covid restrictions in canada right all of the canadians had to compete there now we know there was one kind of guy who snuck under the radar but next year the canadians will be dispersed through the four north american semifinals so they'll have an opportunity for more than five of them to make the games. And I think more than five Canadian men will make the games next year. So theoretically, if they're spread out over four regionals and there's five at each one, it could be 20 Canadian men. I mean, theoretically, theoretically,

let's go to the women. Probably. I'm so excited. Carolyn Prevost made the games. Yeah. So she was, I'm so excited, Carolyn Prevost made the games. Yeah, so she was, I think, in third, and then there was a slight scoring adjustment, bumped her into first, so she's the champion of that. Wow. Okay. Okay.

Let me pull it up. You can ask a question while I'm doing that if you want. Yeah, yeah. She was in second. Three points behind Bailey. We need to talk about, by the way. Okay, let's talk about it. And McKenzie Riley was in third.

They shuffled something around. And then Kater Fivo is in first. I think McKenzie Riley is in tiebreaker. And Rayl is in third. So they were still the top three, just in order. Okay, let's talk about Bailey Rayl. We're still the top three, just in order. Okay, let's talk about Bailey Rail.

Bailey Rail is a very significant athlete for us to talk about. Can you do me a favor? And I don't know if you know how to do this. Probably not. I want to look at the quarterfinal results from this year. No idea how to do that, but I can look at everything else. This is important. I can look at it while you're doing it. It says semifinal on the top left in

one of those scroll down menus change the individual quarter final so go to workouts and go to you i can do it i can do it but what i and i'll talk about it while i'm looking it up please so bailey rail was a backfield athlete meaning she did not finish inside the top 120 at the quarterfinals so the only way that she was able to be even in this final was because some number of athletes declined their invite for whatever reason so she was actually it was 123rd and that 123rd placement missed the cutoff by three spots now this is what i want to see. And it's exactly what I thought.

These were her placements in the online quarterfinal. She was 22nd, 37th, 222nd, 105th, 908th. Who was she 908th in? She was 908th in the four rep max front squat. This is an athlete who, because of a five-test competition with one test that was very specific in a big field, she did 207 pounds for four reps. That's pretty good. But there's so many girls that excel at that one thing

that it basically kept her out of the 120. Clearly, from a capacity standpoint, she's well inside the top 120 um you're also you're also describing describing carolyn prevost three years ago sure she had she had everything to go to the games except the strength yeah so in this situation there was some backfill so she gets an opportunity to get in she gets an opportunity to get in and she she basically wins i mean she she, she was three points, two points, one, I think one point away. One point, one point. Yes. So if you're looking at the season as a filtering process and you need to go from open and get a group of people

to the quarterfinals and quarterfinals and get the people from the semifinals and semifinals and get them to the games. And this girl wasn't good enough to make the semifinals, but then she got a backfill and get in and she basically won her semifinal. To me, there's a problem with the programming. There's something off. Oh. See what I'm saying? I see what you're saying.

And then getting in, she can win. I see what you're saying. A little caveat on that. Most of the other athletes, and not all of the other athletes and not all of the other athletes who got backfields didn't really come close to even a qualification spot she's kind of an exception to the rule but I think that if you're looking at the the totality of the season you need to look at her as a case study and ask yourself is the four rep max front squat type workout appropriately placed there if there's only

five tests? Because you know how... So you were saying a four of the... Talk to me about the four rep front squat. You were going to say something about it being an outlier when I so rudely interrupted you and stopped the recording. Yeah. And I just want to be clear. I'm not saying definitively that that was a bad placement for that test. I'm saying Bailey Rayl's performance on that workout and then also her performance on the semifinal, I think if you're just trying to look back on the season and say, did we have – it's a new format. Did we get it right? Her example is going to force a question of should a test like that be placed in a competition that's only five tests. Let me pay devil's advocate.

What would be another – give me another movement sorry for the loaded question give me another movement that would fall in that category that might need questioning so i think that it's critical to test strength but uh bill griller and chase ingram often talk about this which is also usually a five test workout so they're not fans of the one rep max test as part of the open. They prefer to see strength tested in a format where you have to earn a heavy barbell. So if you look at a workout that has rounds of toes to bar and double increasing block cleans, you can say in this, where there's a sample size, that that's a test strength. You can compare this to the equal.

Just like a four rep front squat is a bit of an outlier of a test strength. You can compare this to the eagle. Just like a four-way front squat is a bit of an outlier of a test, so is a ruck run. She got last place basically on the ruck run, and she was able to make up for it by doing well on all the other tests. That's because the size of the field was smaller, so she's penalized less. Also, the scoring system is different. In the quarterfinal, 908th scores is 908 points. That's a ton of points.

It's more than double all of the rest of the points that she accumulated combined. In this case for Dani, it's almost no workout, but it's not as severe of a penalty relative to the rest of the field because the scoring system is different and the number of competitors she's going against is different. I know we haven't tested everyone, but you did say this was the only person who made it in the last chance qualifier who did this well. And I know that's a small sample, but do you think it's good? Isn't that the reason why we have things like the last chance qualifier? Don't you think

that maybe this is an argument for how good the programming is because it is just one as opposed to maybe it could be better for just for something makes me think that like, Hey, at what point are you going to say in the, at what point are you going to say like in the open, the only thing telling you you'll never be make it to the games. I mean, this is a little bit of a stretch is all the other people beating you, right? There's no event in in there that's going to kill you although there is events that will kill me but but you know i mean and then slowly you ratchet that up right so so in the events in the open you might not have you wouldn't have a 500 pound deadlift right uh uh no no and then you but then in the quarterfinals you ratchet but you have seen a

one rep max test so you could you could have okay success where your 250 pound deadlift just gets absolutely massacred and it gives you no chance to advance right i guess i'm saying this is at what point do you think do you think it's okay like do you think it's okay to put that movement in the semi-finals because it's a smaller – this workout that you're questioning, not criticizing, but we're just talking about that's in the quarterfinals of the four – what was it? Four rep clean and jerk? Max clean and jerk with four rep? In this case. Yeah, okay, front squat.

Do you think that that would be more appropriate in the semifinals? Yeah, for the same reason that I think the ruck run is more appropriately placed in a semifinal than a quarterfinal. Okay. I guess I could see that. And the main thing I want to say is I'm not saying that it was definitely a bad test or a bad place to put the test. My hope is that the people who are evaluating the season as a whole will recognize that what happened with baby here and is that something we need to consider when we're a season next year right right I like it are you glad she made it I'm glad she made it um she's I actually don't know what kind of butter I I think she's also the mayhem programming she might even be down there training with

those people and doing that kind of camp and competing against Samuel Cornway. Tyler Christopher was there that weekend who got sixth or seventh for the Atlas Games for the men. Can you please use the vernacular Mayhem Empire? Mayhem Empire. Just hyphenate that Mayhem Empire. Go on. What makes you think she's down there just from your memory from just all the data you hold in that brain yeah i mean honestly she's a little bit

off off my radar she did i don't have any record of her doing any sanctionals as a team last year or as a individual in any of those so she's you know a person that i'm intending to go out over the next weeks hey that outfit you're wearing right now wouldn't that be amazing if that was really a turtleneck and you were your chest was hairless but that was just the way it was like you know what i mean like that was just a design but like you could pull that off and like you would just be a hairless dude so like right now you look like people it's just their face the face and the beard on the yeah pull it down and beard yeah that would be amazing that but but that's not a turtleneck right that's a low-cut shirt with like a bush hanging out of the top yeah all right all right who gave you that

tank top you're not oh i love it buttery rose i should have known god that is an atrocious color that was the worst part about working with reebok they made shit like that sorry heber sorry mars or but that is disgusting um but good job repping repping the two hardest working guys in the biz um they were here this weekend i gotta catch up with them a little bit they're uh you know they are working very very hard they're having a pool party right now that i'm skipped to do this with you oh thank you oh yeah yeah i heard about it i heard about it um i'm sure heber's just getting so drunk there right now he's not heber yeah he does not drink um But he will be swimming nude, skinny dipping. I mean, the party is called the shirts are dumb after party.

Oh, I like it. Do you want to talk about any of these other people? Sydney McHale, McHale, as a last minute save. I almost said Mickelson, McHale and Emily Rolfe, Mackenzie Riley, anything nice you want to say about Carolyn Prevost, please say, because I would love to court her and get her on the show. We've already talked about Carolyn. Look, Mackenzie Riley is another one of these moms.

She had a kid recently. She came back to compete. I need to talk to her. I know her and her husband a little bit. I don't know if she thought she could do this or not uh but she was right up there at the top after all three days i think this is a tremendous win for her and uh you know i i'm gonna reach out to them but um emily rolf was doing these workouts with pat velner they've trained together in the past a couple times. She's a games-caliber athlete without a doubt.

And Sydney McAlishan is... I featured her in a preview piece a few months ago as someone to keep an eye on this season. She had a tough last day. What were her places on events five and six? Do you see them there? Those are the... five was first place and were there seven events oh no five and six sorry 13th and fifth okay so it wasn't as bad

as i thought she dropped down a little bit on the last day she was in the top three um but she's she hung on to a spot and i think uh i think she's you know worthy to be at the games she hasn't had a really a chance to do a live competition against games caliber athletes yet so this is going to be i think she'll be a steep learning curve for her there but she'll hold her own she's pretty capable she's 21 so she's a little older than the emma mccary's and mal o'brien's but she's just as inexperienced when it comes to competing against the girls we're used to seeing in the top 10. And she took a first place.

She took a first place in workout for that's the barbell workout. Workout for, um, snatches. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She,

uh, she's, she, how much did she get? 46 or something? No, 52, 52. Oh, that's's just that's one more than uh that's one more than katrin got so she might have the record on that event

you know 54 54 i apologize 54 damn that's that's and so and to give you an idea so for carolyn prevost got 43 second place uh mackenzie Riley got 46, third place Bailey Rayle got 39, Emily Rolfe got 43, and then Sydney got 54. I mean, that's eight more than the second place finisher and 11 more than the first place finisher. Yeah, she crushed it. And so she would have beaten all the European girls on that workout also. And so we know who those people are. Catherine Davidson, Annie Horvath, Laura Horvath, Kristen Holta. She won that workout not just in Canada, but actually across all five virtual semifinals.

And, I mean, snatching, I think it's 165 was their last barbell, 24 times after already doing 30 snatches to buy in. And only a window with two force rest that and she's 21 years old she's only so uh do we want to go over to the asia side we can talk about okay in fact i would love about the men because i put out projections for the men in asia and i took a lot of heat for placing roman krennikoff third what place did he finish third so i didn't have the second place finisher right i had a guy in second i had first guy in first i had in fourth but roman is i i will stand by he's gonna always do a little better in a live competition than virtual. I think he did phenomenal, but, you know,

those other two guys have been better than him at virtual competitions recently. That guy, Stas Soledov, is a Masters athlete, so now we have male Masters athletes, him and Jason Smith, who have qualified for the Games. It's far more rare to see a male over 35 make the games than a female uh i don't know if he'll i you know i don't know how good he'll do in live competition because basically we've only seen him in virtual competition who did the loud and live trot off season we're pretty good so i'm excited that the russians will

be able hopefully to come and compete they've had kind of a bad track Roman made it a couple times but couldn't get Andre Gagnon qualified one year but failed the drug test so hopefully these guys can come and represent their country well and it's cool that another Masters male has made it

Will those two guys who qualified for Masters and the Games, will they both go to the Open competition to any age? I have to believe it. I mean, if you're training hard enough this good to make it and you get that chance, I can't imagine turning it down. The guys who finished in the top five at this CrossFit Asia Invitational, only two of them and only one event each had placements out of the top 10.

Mortez Sedegat got 14th place in workout two, and Alexander Illin got 15th place in workout three. Man, Alexander Illin, he could have changed the whole game if he would have just taken like fifth place sixth place seventh place in that event yeah so you know this is just there's just not as much depth in that region so you know even if you have a bad workout it's not going to be a 15th 28th 27th place and you know west coast for example there were some really good guys that had decent workouts. Like you said, it's like, oh, they were only 10, 20 seconds away, but they finished 16th because there's a lot more depth. So there's some good guys at the top in Asia. There's just not 10 to 20 guys that are at that level yet. I'm trying to think.

Yeah, you look down. It's really interesting how close all these guys are. I mean, they all have amazing finishes. Let's go over to the women by the way just getting someone switched around from first to second or third to fourth i still give you a win for that brian i'm easy i'm easy um what about these women is this is this what you thought would happen god and they all did great too i took a little gamble here the girl who who ended up winning is the girl I projected. Most people have the girl who finished sixth as a projected winner based on her quarterfinals results. But I just had a feeling about this Kubishina, Svetlana Kubishina, and it ended up being a good feeling.

So she ended up winning. And I want to just say, because I talked about it this morning, I use the word orient to describe people from Eastern Asia. Orient means it. Occident. I know that we can interpret it in a different way. Did you get any shit for that? Did you get any shit for that? I asked a couple people here, and all of them said you can't say that.

Awesome. Awesome. And that's why you can say it on the sebon podcast you say whatever the fuck you want on here fuck you i'm trying not fuck you but to you but to everyone describing a location that people will will understand and so we can just say eastern asia and what i'm basically saying is not russia and all the countries that used to be part of russia but you know that other part of asia and so we had i thought yukosuke sakyama from japan had the best chance of sung young choi actually did it she got in and i'm super excited now the kind of thing is this

competition was supposed to take place in south korea so you can only imagine how excited the south koreans would have been if one of their women had made the game at a competition they were hosting it would have been the first time hosting live cross-discalibur. Oh, sorry. I had to search something real quick when you said her name. Say her name again. Sung Young Choi? That's what I would say.

Yeah, that's interesting. Because last night I watched a fight. It was one of my favorite fighters. They call him the Korean zombie, but his name is Chan Sung Jung. And what's interesting is every time the commentators would say his name is chan sung jung and what's interesting is every time the commentators would say his name it's a ufc fight i feel like they're showing off you know what i mean like are there names that you say where you're like oh yeah yeah watch me

just fucking just svetlana kubashinkanini and you're just like yes try to say that shit hey there's how to say it then you realize plus it's a plus. Oh, just say it with confidence. It makes you sound so smart when you do that. Brian, people are always going to say something about the words you use because you're at the top of your game. So they're just like, you know what I mean? Like he said the word orient. Sorry, he's canceled.

There's two Svetlanas. That's kind of cool. That's a beautiful name svetlana uh have you ever seen two two this is getting to some obscure and secure obscure details of the car have you ever seen two people with the same first name um in the semi-finals this year qualify in the same region in the same region yeah i think i don't think so and they didn't do it here either because only two girls advanced from asia oh shit okay well my you should of course my question has no no value but what that means is bowman did not qualify either

until the controversy and question of will you be able to get to the United States isn't relevant this year. Well, unless they start backfilling, unless one of these guys, Stoss or Alexander, says, hey, I can't make it, then they'll ask Roman, right? Probably, yes. But also he did qualify for the last chance qualifier. So he still is technically in a position to maybe earn a spot through that does he do the last chance qualifier knowing that he can't come to the crossfit games i mean we don't know for sure he knows he can't come but do you think he he still does the last chance qualifier yeah i think he's one of those guys that just loves to compete and even if he can't make it want to prove that he could have made it that he was good enough to qualify so i think 100

okay i want to do one final thing i know you want to go party with the buttery bros by the way have you ever looked up buttery bro buttery butter do you know what buttery butter is no yeah you should google it it's it's the tub of of lube for anal anal sex i i mean i guess it's for it's for man loving and that's how it's marketed so when they chose buttery bros i was like wow that's i mean that's cool that they came out like that um uh i want to go to the women's event uh west Coast Classic. The fantastic event that Matt O'Keefe and Dylan put on. Do you know Dylan's last name? Malitzky.

Malitzky. Dylan Malitzky. Look at Danny Spiegel's ruck run. Yeah. 27th place and a cap. Just ask me because a lot of people have asked me to sign instagram too does this well i thought that this is the harshest thing you can say should that like just take her out of the running of going to the games right there like hey you just you can't swim or you know whatever whatever it is she couldn't do but But not only that, that's a little harsh.

I don't think that that's fair. But I would think that when you get capped, and it's for reasons that have to do with performance and not injury or not weather or whatever, that you just automatically know you can do. You have no chance in hell of winning the CrossFit Games. Yes. Well, that's a different a different question so you know winning the crossfit games compared to should you be allowed to go to the crossfit game is based on her

performance in this event so this is my i i didn't see what was going on with her specifically in that workout i've talked to several people who were out in the course and were kind of at the transition area and what i've been told is at the end of the third lap when she was coming into the arena she was like kind of stumbling up against the barrier and losing control of her body so she'd already completed 75 of the work and she's obviously very strong and she was incapable of taking the 40 pound sandbag off the ground and putting it on her shoulders and so the medical team said you need to stop right now it's not safe for you to continue this workout so she stopped workout oh shit i'm glad i circled back on this i had no idea so despite that she's doesn't last place in the field there were women struggling even more than um but so you're telling me this woman who's arguably one

of the strongest women in the world in the crossfit community for sure was working so tell me what the event was the ruck run tell me like what they did so the women had a 10-pound ruck that was on their body the entire time they ran 1500 meters with it they came back into the arena and they picked up a 20-pound sandbag there was an external object put it on their back and another 1500 meters they chopped that they picked up a 30-pound sandbag there was an external object put it on their back and another 1500 meters they chopped that they picked up a 30 pound sandbag put it on her back ran another 1500 meters and at that point it was the position going into a slap which we're supposed to pick up three pound sandbag one more 1500 loop and the medical team saw the condition she was in and her inability to do that and

stumbling into some barriers. Then I haven't gone back to watch to see if you can see it. And they said, you need to stop doing this workout right now. So she was in bad shape at that point. They looked at her, evaluated her similarly to Brandon Luckett or this girl on a team who had a similar experience in that workout. So it was a safety thing at that point i she was trying to continue and do as work as she could despite knowing she was going to have a bad finish you know at some point you have to prioritize the health and i think that based on what i've heard the medical team did the correct thing uh and so she was 4500 meters into the race when she picked up the the 40 pound bag when she was attempting to yes okay that's 2.8 miles and was the run outside yeah not eight percent of the run side you only

came into the arena to drop off your bed pick up a new bag so when she was picking up the bed and was there water on the course there was and were there misters or any other types of things not that i give a shit i'm just trying to paint the picture for myself i'm not being critical i don't think there were any misters no and how hot was it outside uh i would guess it was not oh they said it was like between 90 and 90 degrees throughout front at 7 45 in the morning. Ooh, that's brutal. And they were running in the sun. It wasn't like they were running in the shade?

Wide open parking lot. Okay. And do you know what place she was in when she came through there? Probably pretty close to where she finished, bottom five. Okay. And, okay, so, okay. So I was told she was hanging tough middle of the pack until that third lap and on the back end of third lap things started getting very difficult for her so she's

wearing a 10 pound weight vest and she has to pick up a 40 pound bag is that correct yeah okay so she so that that's amazing to me i would that that would be so fun to talk to her about about what was going through mine. Did she show, where were you? Why didn't you see this? Let's ridicule you for a second. Shouldn't you have been, isn't that the spot to be? Um, it was, it was kind of a strange. Were you at the venue or were you at some buffet in Vegas?

I was at the venue, but if you went, like you could go out on the course, but once you went out on the course, you couldn't really move because you weren't allowed to cross the lines and get in the athlete in the like the field of play so i chose instead to sit in the stands and watch the broadcast and listen to it figuring that would be my best opportunity to take in the most information and so there and so there must have been cameras there they got it since it was at this transition point uh yeah but all i could see that this the and had fin one of my responsibilities at the competition when the event finishes is to get the top three times and the menu

and immediately and send them to the publishing team for the loud and loud so i was with the scoring team making sure i had the top and Loud. So I was with the scoring team, making sure I had the top three finishes, trying to get the caption to summarize the event. So I wasn't so focused on the bottom five finishers in the event at that point. Oh man, you just saved yourself. I was just about to pick up my phone and text Tommy

and ask him if he wants to step in for you on the Sevan podcast. That is all so valid at Brian Friend CrossFit. That is some valid shit. Okay. And by the way, no one can tell you not to cross the course. You do you. Okay. So, so what you're saying is, is that both of my, both, but let's say that she, um, let's say that it's fine. If you get capped, you still get to go to the games. And this is one of those examples why I don't think that's a good rule. I don't think that someone who can't finish an event should be automatically DQ'd.

Because of the weather, and that was one of the things I said actually in the beginning, this could not be, she can get her head psychologically wrapped around this, that this wasn't her fault, and that she can still podium or win the games. It wasn't like fault and that she can still podium or win the games it wasn't like she just didn't but to me the punishment was she only earned you know how many points you're into that event like 6 to 12 or something like you're taking a pretty significant hit on the leaderboard relative to your competitors and you have to then fight back from that but look at her other event finishes second sixth fifth first sixth third You're telling me you don't

want to see this competitor at the games? And, yeah, what's it say about her mental strength? So minus that event, her event finishes are just as good as Carrie Pierce's, who we already said could have won the competition. And a ruck run like this, at the Granite Games,

there wasn't a ruck run. There wasn't a long event. They only had six tests. So imagine you don't have the ruck run and she has everything inside the top six we might be talking about the winner of the competition yeah I totally agree yep she maybe move up a place or two because Bethany Shadburn did beat her by 90 points

we might right right right okay brian that's a pretty good uh except for your shirt i think that was near perfect yeah i think i'm happy we did this tonight while this was fresh in my mind