The Sevan Podcast - #525 - Adrian Bozman | CrossFit Games Day 1 Recap

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

A Day 1 Recap of the CrossFit Games with the programmer and Director of Competition, Adrian Bozman. The first day of competition saw many new skills showcased in the setting of the CrossFit Games, as well as schedule changes and more. Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey, I was thinking maybe tomorrow morning we just do a live following show. There's something totally off the beaten path. We don't have to go live for the games until like two let's do it wanna yeah you got you got notes you got yo you got a list of them you're you're stable i'm pumped you're uh what a day you're in madison right now in madison and it's uh 11 36 for you that's right how long you been awake since uh 6 30 this morning are you getting that echo uh that uh how about now hello hello about now okay yeah i just switched on to these this headset i i ran to this store to get um

breakfast for my kids tomorrow. And I've been bugging Adrian all day. Like, hey, can you come on for a minute? Can you come on for a minute? And, you know, he's cool as shit. And then all of a sudden he sends me a text back when I'm coming back from the store with eggs. I'm like, oh, my God. He's like, let's do it.

I got five or ten. I'm like, Adrian. Oh, yes. Yo, I mean, what's the deal? You guys in bed already? Yeah. I'm just getting off of work. I just sleep over there.

Dude, I try to jump on, and you guys are already tucking it in? No, not for you, sir. Not for you. We are always ready. Dude, are you back at the hotel, Adrian? Yeah. I was trying to. I had the shot lined up and everything.

I was outside. The sign was glowing in the background. You could see the Capitol. It was going to be the best, but now you just have to listen to me without any sort of like cool background it's really not that cool because it's just me do you have any weird um do you have any weird ritual like you're doing a three mile walk home from the fucking event front to no you don't got time for that bullshit no like you're like okay i'm racing to bed and close my eyes pretty much i mean yeah take a shower scrape all the sunscreen off of you i used to do that all the time actually in carson

days i would take a hotel credit card or a room card with me into the shower and like literally scrape off all the gunk from the day pretty gross the residue yeah are you still slumming it you still get that dirt on you from carson probably not no but in uh in madison uh i mean sunscreen's disgusting anyway slice it you've graduated yeah you still you still wear it yeah yeah that's too canadian my cardinal rule is no sunburn before game day refuse to get a sunburn before uh comp day starts everybody makes fun of me because i'm like oh you know they're wearing like those sun hoodies and long pants and i'm like yeah but i'm not blasted by wednesday yeah no kidding that sun is beat and it gets

sticky quick new new new new pegboard variation it's's not new, dude. This is the thing about the pegboard. The only way I ever saw people climbing pegboards, like if you wrestle or you did pegboard anything as a kid, it was no legs. The only time I've seen pegboard with legs was when they started happening in the CrossFit Games. I totally agree. I totally agree.

But new for the CrossFit Games athletes. Okay. I guess if that's the only thing that they've dabbled with on the pegboard. Sure. But it shouldn't be new for them. Right. I agree. But in the Games, new jump rope variation. Same spiel for me on that one. But yeah. I understand. I understand. And then a tuck position or any position where you're on top of the parallel bars to a press. Let's call it a baby toe in the water press.

Okay, baby toe in the water press. Baby toe press. Because it's not, you know, like the purists in me is like, well, is it a press to handstand? Sort of. Did you tell Nick Matthew, listen, asshole, if you don't do this, I'll make sure you never come to the games again. No. He just fucking saved the day. I had no contact with him. asshole if you don't do this i'll make sure you never come to the games again and no he just

the world's largest bead of sweat rolled off your brow onto the floor i had no contact with him until after the event i found him back in the warm-up area and i was like dang dude thank you for saving that for me i hope when you hugged him you pressed your hips up against his hips and let him feel your body heat. No, he was riding an echo bike, so I couldn't get that close. But I did say thanks, man.

That was awesome. Just needed one person, one person to finish that, and it was awesome. Dude, and you know what's crazy? Chase Ingram is such a beast. Him and Sean did a great job today, but Chase goes,

oh, shit, chase basically called it before i mean this isn't my state chase basically on the live with hundreds of thousands of people watching like oh shit you know bosman's got to be happy now and the camera passes over to you it's the event's not even over and you're already clapping you're like i didn't know you're like one of those wind- drummer dolls. I didn't know that I was on the live stream. I went back into the room after that heat and Jay back came up to me. He's like, hey, man, that's a good look on the on the broadcast. I was like, what are you talking about? So, yeah. And you live my proud dad moment, right? And then you start walking like you're going somewhere like as the events over, like you're going towards the athletes or you're going to do whatever you have to do next. Your smile looks like like you micro dotted too many mushrooms.

And and and you and you go and your lips say, let's go. Like you're pumped. Like it's like the most natural. Yeah. I was pumped. It was fun to see. I was stoked for you. Did anyone on the team, when you programmed that, was anyone on your team

like, Adrian, maybe we'll just do the pegboard this year, and then the next year we'll do the advanced jump rope, and then the next year we'll do the... No. Dude, I have to say, everybody was really... I actually expected a lot more pushback on that one internally, and particularly from the athletes when we tested it at Rogue. And they all had a lot of fun with it you should ask next time you see dan bailey

ask him about trying to learn that double under cross over he uh he had a rough go with that what what do you mean i'm at rogue it required ointment oh okay that much okay uh so so you you test you went out to rogue headquarters and were testing some of these workouts? Yeah, buddy. Okay. I didn't know that. That's top secret shit. All right.

All right. Well, now we know. You think you know. You think you know it all, Sevan. I know you got fingers out there, but you don't know it all. I don't. I don't. But I have to pretend like I do.

Right, right. That's not me. You got a lot, but not all of them um when when when we're um uh with no criticism uh congratulations that you kept the integrity of the events by not subbing but by saying fuck you to the weather we'll go tomorrow you ain't telling us what to do we're not changing but if you would have changed it i heard it i heard suggestions that it that it might be a uh press and that's what i thought you would have switched to but james townsend and maybe it was a taylor self they said it needed to be a deadlift to replace it because of how much a jerk like that would work the legs well so what do you

I agree that I think that that is closer because it's such a leg drive movement after that sprint but the same time you know deadlift just didn't I don't know it didn't feel right um so strict press was on the on the docket we actually briefed that to the athletes and said hey if there's really bad weather we might end up doing that so strict press looks good that the poet in me wants a strict pass the scientist knows that hey it should be a deadlift but hey we all we we back a house we're talking about a hybrid where we were thinking about we would do a uh well the major concern especially with the slippage was you know overhead position and then big heavy things on the field the uprights are really big and heavy and

hitting those things is they're gonna win we'll put it that way so one of the solutions we were thinking about was using squat racks instead because they're not as big and not as heavy having the athletes on racket and then they could do push press because the feet are more fixed you know so that was on the table as well. There was something I wanted to ask you about. Oh, tomorrow's workout. Has tomorrow's workout been briefed yet? I apologize for the loaded question. I'm leading you down. Well, Thursday. So hold on the ones that were supposed to go today.

Yeah. The one that's supposed to go to the two a and two B has that was briefed this morning yeah okay and what we were trying to get is there a minimum work required oh i'm glad you asked this is something i want to address this is like okay i think it's so goofy when people are like well is there a minimum because that just means athletes can sit out and strategize i'm like no just i am so sick of this idea that because it's not written into a standards document that you get that's 18 pages long and you can read as a law manual, that it's okay for me to do in competition. No, that's ridiculous. The spirit of the CrossFit Games is that you do the events to the best of your ability and you don't sit rounds out.

That's not how it is. So we have a written in, even if there's no minimum, it is always brief to the athletes that you must attempt to continue the workout until time expires. There's no taking rounds off. This is not the minimum games. That's not what you do when you get to the big stage. And that's the sportsmanship element. And I'll tell you, man, this is one of those things, again, like culture, the culture of the sport is so weird in some ways because people say they want, you know, more standards simplest of events, are asking for a 10-page document on exactly what is allowed and exactly what is not when it's really simple. You're going to run down there, you're going to lift, and you're not going to take rounds off. That's it. What is the penalty? Well, there might not be one, but that doesn't mean that it's fair game for you to just not do it. That's not the way that we're operating and we

never have let me give an example of that and then that agrees with what you said then let me push back a second um when when it uh i think i was in a sitting down with you and dave one time and we were at the ranch and we were talking and you guys were saying and maybe i can't remember i think it was dave but basically if rich would have won the games without making a rope climb, you guys weren't going to let him win the games. You were going to be like, fuck you. If you can't do a rope climb, doesn't matter if you have more points. We're not giving you the win. That was like 2010. I was like, damn, these guys are hardcore. But that's the early days when that happened, where we had some athletes that qualified. They were ahead on points enough in some of the qualifying stages, but then they couldn't do something like a muscle up. And we had these dilemmas of like, man, they crushed on points, but that's a fundamental skill. Can you really have somebody progress that, you know, can't do this thing, but is ahead on so much other stuff. And at the time,

because we didn't have that fully thought through, we did let some of those athletes compete, And at the time, because we didn't have that fully thought through, we did let some of those athletes compete. But that's kind of where the birth of the minimum work came from. Now that the field is so deep, like you don't really need that. Well, maybe because you're putting time caps on workouts like the traversing one in order to show people that you don't need to rest as long as you think you do, that it's kind of, no, let me give you the other. No, no, no. Hold on for that one in particular. That is every athlete in that field will look at one 35 and 95 and say, that's light. And I say, great, prove it. Don't put the bar down. If that's light,

then gain time there and do what Pat Vellner did and jam out everything else in like totally dominant fashion. That was so awesome. Wouldn't that be kind of like with the minimum? Did you see his finish? Yeah, it was epic. And you never really see that out of him too. It was cool. It was really cool to see.

What did you think, Adrian? I know you're not a huge fan of showboating, but did you like it coming from Pat and then how he explained at the end? He's practicing? Yeah. Oh, I loved it. It was great. The little nod, that's not showboating. That was like, yeah.

I don't like it that he did it before he crosses the finish line. I don't like it. It was great. Hey, when you had as much time as he did it, it was bad. It was a minute up. Come on, man. It scares me. You could have gone over and high-fived other people in the crowd

and then still crossed the line. Live a little, Sevan. Hey, look what Ricky did to Janikowski in the bike event. Just slipped by him. Now, I know Janikowski wasn't show button, but damn. That was fun. That was a fun event. The women's finish on that was uh that was fun that was a fun event i really the women's finish on that was so

cool because i mean it looked like hayley was going to run away with it and then man tia and emma came in hot on that last lap and it was a i mean it was a mad dash of the finish that was awesome when you tested the workout that's coming tomorrow did anyone not was anyone not able to do the last 804 minutes no no okay dude i could do that hey dude i can only think from my fucking sloppy fucking you can do that you could do you could do at 804 minutes i don't know about with all that other shit well i would have to stand around and look at the uh hey what would the what was the push press going to be the weight of it if you were thinking 225 and 145 uh it'd been good yeah wow wow wow okay so tomorrow that one's going to be just insane dude that's the silver lining i was really you know the rain whatever or not

rain it was lightning the the um weather delay is what it is and And at the time, it's kind of like, ah, it's a bummer. But it allowed us to do a lot of really cool things in retrospect. You know, number one, we get to run that event as it's meant to be run. Number two, it means athletes compete every day, which is kind of fun. They have that three-mile race. They better come out blasting because they're going to be, A, a little bit recovered, and B, not doing anything else that day. So it's going to be a fast race. So that'll be cool too. Do you think that this plays out differently because the order changed? I mean, impossible to say because you'll never know, I guess. We'll never know.

But I don't know if it's that significant. Yeah, tough to say. In the scheme of things, probably not. This is from Crystal Gaskin. This is an interesting comment. Good comment. Boz is the GOAT. Way to own the programming and add your own signature to it.

What does she mean? What do you think people are seeing in you when you say way to, when, uh, she says way to own the programming? I don't know. Um, that's a good question. Have you, you, you, I got to go in like two minutes, by the way, I'm fading here. Okay. Okay. Okay. Last one. You, you, um, this won't be the last time I asked you this question and you'll know why when you, um, okay. This won't be the last time I asked you this question. And you'll know why when you, you said that, um, after seeing this games, that coaches will change. And the word you used was primacy in their coaching.

And I looked that word up and sort of, it means kind of like their preeminent thing that they hold up. I say a lot of things. We all took that as okay. And I think you also said this too, that basically we've closed the gap on track and field. We've closed the gap on weightlifting. We've closed the gap on blah,

blah, blah. Now we need to close the gap on gymnastics. Have we seen what's in the arsenal? Like, is that it? And there's, or is there going to be,

is there something else? Is the iron cross coming in event 10? Iron cross is definitely happening. Thursday after you finish your 800 if you beat the four minute time cap and it's iron cross i knew i wasn't going to get much out of you for that uh wait what was i going to say hold on okay so uh you guys did a pretty jr not you guys jr did a pretty good job of analyzing some of this stuff. But I do think it's funny you guys pick apart so many specific statements. It's like you guys are the ones that want the 20-pound rulebook. Dude, I like the idea for minimum work requirement because I think people are going to have some serious issues with that last uh

800 but but we'll see what are you talking about he's really worried about that dude i only think of one athlete i every i run everything through colton mertens and i'm just i'm like fucking nervous for colton he did great on that that uh p bar workout killed it yeah smashed it smashed it third place uh suza do you have anything for Mr. Bosman? I do. I was just going to say, Hiller and I were watching the pegboard, you know, jump rope event and everything there. And we were just so impressed by just the whole entire day.

I mean, all the, the contingency plan, that storm, like, well, even when I started feeling the rain, I started getting nervous for you because I'm like, how do you shift all this around and still manage it? But the fact that the events today came out with a bang, we saw some really tight races. You were able to deal with some really unpredictable stuff in a way that still made it really fun and fair. And then we also really got to see the athletes be tested.

I personally really liked the fact that when we were waiting to see if somebody was going to make it through that L-sit to handstand, and then we did. And I just think that's awesome because when you see those events, you know, next year, everybody's going to crush that. And it leaves something in the back of their head to where everybody's like frustrated, like, why didn't we train that? And, um, I think we're going to come back and trade it. So just super impressed with, with the programming, your leadership and you're in the team, obviously that was blowing me up now. Everything else. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. In all honesty.

I'll ask the last question then. Wait, no, no, no, no. One more thing. I'll give you guys a little insight here. The importance of doing your homework. And, uh, this is something that, um, we almost didn't do. We can't remember the day now, but we were, um, pretty sure that we had the team event right with the bike and the Bob. And we're like, man, I was talking with Todd, who's running that division.

He's like, I kind of feel like we should do it one more time. We're like, all right, we did it. And it was a pain in the ass because we had to close the campus down again to like run that. You know, it's hard to keep that under wraps with such a big rangy thing that you're testing. But we did change some things and we got it right. And the way that we got that right is that that one all hinged on being able to get the Bob done before the bike. If the people are waiting for bikes, it pushes you to ride hard. If you, if you didn't have that factor, people could basically just take the lap as a cruise and come back and be ready to

go but that wasn't the case and so that was just like how do you do that you make the bike ride longer the bob longer or bike ride shorter or the bob how do you do that what'd you do to make sure that to adjust we just had to adjust we had to get like the right distance on the field to push and the right number of reps so that most of the good teams would be in a position where that work is going to be done and they're waiting on the bike. So the bike has to be done hard. Anyway, side note, tangent, you had a question. How's that? We heard Emily Rolfe was taken to the hospital. Do you have anything you can share with us about that?

I don't. Okay. Okay. Thank you. All right, man. See you tomorrow thanks brother crazy appreciate you coming on yep thank you what was it i was at the store getting like eggs and shit nine o'clock and he texted me he's like i thought you said you wanted me to come on and we had sent him a link he's like i went on and you weren't there. I was like, three minutes. Leave all your shit right in the aisle. Will's TV set up StreamYard.

Susan, meet me on the live channel. Awesome. Accuracy was highlighted in a big way. This must be a true CrossFitter using the word accuracy. Accuracy. Tomorrow's workouts are the blocks taller than Colton. They're tall. They're those big steel ones.

They look tall. are the blocks taller than colton they're tall they're those big steel ones they look they look tall um why do you buy shit at the store to eat about eggs most of it about sparkling water stuff like that yeah and i know uh asian there said i was kind of gassing up a little bit that but everything that i said was actually the truth like hill and i were just sitting there we're just going over all this stuff i mean think about it the first event there is that uh issue with the laps and and every time i saw boss he just seemed calm cool collected it looked like his team all knew what to do um those first couple events i came out with the bang were really exciting. They were fun to watch.

They were new. We didn't know how the athletes were going to handle them. And to package all that up into the day and then add the weather and the rainstorm and moving around that other event and making the decisions on the fly there and still holding to the schedule for the rest of the day, I was just impressed. I mean, that was a big – it's his debut as being the programmer and running the show and to just get all that dumped on you in the same day and to have him handle it the way he did and still make it as cool as he did i think just completely speaks to um his capabilities i agree beast beast mode uh we did not go over the leaderboards tonight like i don't know why it was my fault when i got off uh

jr and taylor let me know that they tried uh i apologize we will go over these tomorrow morning uh in our show um uh we'll go over the men's ricky gerrard in first place justin madaris in second place then yana koski and then we will go over the women of course too Mal O'Brien, Emma Lawson, Ariel Lowen day one really means nothing for all of us who've watched the CrossFit Games for years we know that this shit gets rattled and rattled quick so thanks for coming on again

I thanks Bruce thank you me and Sousa are trying I don't I do I really do want to do a live call-in show tomorrow i'd love to do something to wave to talk about anything besides crossfit i'm afraid if i do it um too many people are going to call in and overrun it oh the people are just going to want to call and talk about crossfit but we may do that tomorrow morning i i think it's there's a good

chance we'll do it uh pretty early um probably 7 a.m pacific standard time uh 9 a.m central time and we'll try to keep it on track to talk about the fun subjects you know the the comedy i like to do around abortion and racism and shit like that so all the easy lighthearted topics yeah divorce pedophilia hey real quick you guys eating disorders go ahead i know i know you touched base on it but i was just i was so pumped to watch ariel alone in that last event like just the smile on her face and like when her and tia were going head to head in that section as they were coming into that second set of the nines or maybe in the third set of the nines it was just it was super cool to watch and i really like her and she was one of the first um people at wadapalooza that i interviewed kind of live that didn't run away from me.

So I'll always be grateful. Appreciate that. Right, right. That is not easy by the way, people. Being media at these events is crazy, crazy intimidating. You look at those people and you're like, Oh, that's just what they do. It's not like that at all. It's I don't think it's, it's, it's, I don't, at least I don't think it's easy for any of them.'t at least i don't think it's easy um for any of them holy shit i can't believe how many people jumped on just the last minute for this show thank you guys and that comment that just came through i believe we were the first ones to

interview her no i'm not going to give her the respect no but i but i was joking remember i disrespected her and then i had her on the show and I had to apologize to her. Oh, did you? Okay. Sorry. Sorry. I just, I, what did I, I said,

uh, I was talking about how she was, uh, living in a fantasy world. I think she was actually gonna make it to the games. We know you went to the semifinals just to get signage. And then I think fucking Taylor gave her a link to the show and she just popped on.

She's like, why'd you say? I was like, fuck. Oh, um, all fuck. Oh, um, all right. Uh,

thanks guys. We will see you tomorrow. Um, bye.