The Sevan Podcast - #590 - Top 30 CrossFit Female Athletes of All Time

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

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$49 annual fee applies. See Home Club for details. I think it was the first time I ever did Murph. Damn, we're live. Oh, okay. What about your shirt? I think it was the first time I ever did Murph. I was at a track with a buddy of mine, it was probably 2014,

and it was pretty brutal in the middle of it. And I just had this thought to myself that I was only doing it for myself. I know that the hero would have taken on a different meaning for me since then, but that was the original thought. And a while later, I made these shirts. Very simple logo. I drew it myself and had someone design it, put it on this morning. Audience of one.

I like it. Audience one. How many shirts of those were made? How many, how many of those were made? Maybe a dozen. Later on, I had a, I had a group of friends who were Christian and they liked the concept, but I think more from a Christ-centered perspective. So I made the same logo, but instead of the man's shadow, it was a cross. And I made some of those for them.

I'm not sure if I have one or not of those anymore. We're early. We're early. That's very unusual. Early. We're early. That's very unusual. Since we're early, I would like to share some things.

Someone sent me this this morning. Have you ever seen these? This better not be the humbler again. No, no. That was gross. The humbler was. No, no. That was gross. The humbler was disgusting. Why did you do that to me? Couldn't you just do that on your live call-in show?

These are latex underwear that you can, if you think you're going to get oral, you wear them in advance. So basically the same as the humbler. No, the humbler was some sort ofler was a uh some sort of weird uh games line of thinking though that i think rogue was gonna make uh i i also uh saw this this morning maybe this workout will start with the humbler and end with the tumbler like that kind of thing the tumbler i also saw this this morning no not lauren's but um this uh didn't you did your working title change in the i'm gonna read i'm gonna edit this in real time i apologize for whoever sent this to lauren but i think i'm gonna read what i think you meant to write did your

working title change uh at the morning chalk up and is that a promotion she says yes now i'm working full-time for morning chalk up which started this week so it looks like she they gave her a new shirt and a new title and um it looks like she's stealing the hairstyle of the three playing brothers prior to that i was technically a part-time contractor for morning chalk up and working full-time at my crossfit affiliate but because I have a huge passion not but and because I have a huge passion for what I do I ended up working 65 to 70 hours a week leaving no time to hunt mates now I work at the morning chalk up and I have time to hunt down mates and provide high quality content for the CrossFitFit community. Did you ask her that question?

Because you asked me that question yesterday. Oh, hi, Caleb. What question? Whether she has a boyfriend or she has time to hunt mates? No, about if her position at the morning chock-up had changed. No, I didn't ask her. I'm guessing someone heard that question that I asked you and then posted it to her account.

She says, now I'm full-time and I can really sink my teeth into my craft. I didn't want to give up coaching completely, though, so I still have a class at my affiliate. So she's moonlighting. It's still a lack of – sorry, Caleb. I'm stealing your job. And finally – oh, shit. My shit was live right there. What was I showing? Damn it. And finally, oh, shit. My shit was live right there. What was I showing?

Damn it. I shouldn't be doing this. Finally, Lauren Cleo says, I'm getting out of my at-home studio to go on the road and cover the Madrid Championships. Not bad for a first gig now that I'm a full-time YouTuber. All of this disgusts me. It does? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no. I mean, I'm a full-time YouTuber. All of this disgusts me. It does? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry.

No, no. I mean, I'm happy for the competition. Competition makes everyone grow. This is fantastic. So that's that. Someone in the comments yesterday on the show, we had a caller calling from Canada, and we talked about the injection during the show.

And someone in the comments said, hey, enough of that. Stop doing that. This show is not for you if you want me to stop doing that. I say that with peace and love. If you don't like it, you can just do what I do, which is check your text messages while they're having that conversation and wait to get back to the topic at hand. Although you did stick around for the latex underwear, but the tumbler did not interest you. The humbler tumbler.

The humbler tumbler. Caleb, do you know what this show's about? I didn't send you notes. This is the 30 greatest women of all time. This is the list where Laura Horvath moved five places. What? Huh? Greatest women ever.

The greatest CrossFit women of all time who ever stepped onto the CrossFit games playing field. If you have competed in at least three CrossFit games, you are eligible to be on this list. That's the buy-in. That's why Katie Henniger wasn't even thought about. Nope. And Tanya Wagner, who has a better resume than Katie Henniger,

but Barbell Spin did not feel like mentioning Tanya Wagner in this questioning. That's because Katie makes more money. Oh, so he's trying to appease Katie and he doesn't care about Tanya? So Tanya was only in the 2008 and 2009. They both were there twice. Yes, they both were there twice. I think Katie pulled out of the 2009 games. Well, yeah, that might be.

Tanya had a second and a first, and Katie had, obviously, that win. And then the next year, she's listed as finishing 62nd, but maybe she pulled out at some point. The other criteria for making it onto this list, and by the way, thank you, Brian, for doing this. This is so cool. This list needs to live somewhere i don't know why the crossfit games morning chalk up or the seven podcast has not

made a page where this shit just lives like someone just someone needs to just own this space brian's just putting it out there just steal his shit and put it out there he's not factoring in uh team performances or outside competitions such as rogue water palooza dubai etc primary statistics were podium finishes top 10 finishes number of years qualified average finishes across a career event wins um that you'll see more of that you don't need to memorize that but the last bullet on there is probably the most important one that people are i think neglecting and i knew that this was a risk by putting out so much data because I wanted it to be a little bit more transparent. Last year, we just had a list. And if Camille

LeBlanc-Bazinet showed up 15 on the list, not a lot of people were asking that many questions about it. If Chris Spieler showed up 25th on the list or 24th, wherever he was, not a lot of people were asking that many questions about it because they're like, oh, that kind of makes sense. When you see the numbers alone and you don't think about anything else, there are certain athletes that look out of place high and out of place low because they might have an impressive number of appearances. And there are actually athletes that aren't even on the top 30 list that if you saw those numbers, you also might say, huh, how come that person's not on the list? They have a much better average event finish over their seven appearances than Margo Alvarez, who gets

the last spot on this list, for example. But that's because of the last part, which is that the numbers don't always tell the full story. People who like what I do, they know that I like to use the numbers to drive thought processes and to try to arrive at conclusions. But there are always other things to consider. And, you know, I am sure other people have done this as well. But like, I have gone back and watched every iteration of the CrossFit Games that I can, at least five times. And in watching those things, a lot of times I'm looking at these athletes, and I'm learning about them, and I'm evaluating different things. And like, I think Michael Brink, who does the graphics

for these commented, you know, it's really, it is, it is true that I do factor in when they competed, where they competed, who they competed against when I'm trying to make specific decisions. So in some cases there might be a group of three athletes and I'm like, man, it's really difficult to, to delineate between these three athletes. And I have to go to a different, you know, then that's where I have to bring in my, like what I know about the athletes, what I know about their games career and all of those things start to come into play. So ladies and gentlemen, there is a spirit of the games component to his decision-making. There's just some things that are, you can't quantify with those numbers. there's just some things that are you can't quantify with those numbers oh what would you um did you ever cross cross oh i'm sorry i must take this call

welcome to the seven podcast and let me please introduce to you our best caller of all time. Mr. Who is it? Caleb. Tell me, can you go? Caleb. Oh, I can't hear you. Who is it? Who?

The Mars. Geez. Mars is old. Mars is so 2021. Mr. Jamal Smith. Oh, thank you guys.

Good morning. I haven't even, I haven't even gotten one question out and you already want to hijack the show okay give it to well i i i just wanted to ask brian a quick question about the list uh i know you're doing only the games experience uh experience for these athletes but what do you think the would there be a big difference if you did include some of the out of season events? Oh, that's a good question. You're in a role.

That's three great, great questions in a row from you over a three week period. I appreciate it. Oh, no problem. Yeah. For some people. Sure. You know, like Sarah Sigmundsdottir, for example, has a really good out of, out of CrossFit game season competition resume. And Kristen Clever, for example, has no resume because there weren't any out of season competitions for athletes to compete in when she was competing in the sport. So although Sarah already is ahead of Kristen on the list, if you started to factor those things in, yeah, you could certainly make a case that Sarah could be higher, I guess.

Right, right. Yeah, you could certainly make a case that Sarah could be higher, I guess. Right, right. No, I think the way you do the list is perfect, but I just thought about that because another big athlete that I would say, probably the biggest athlete that would have the most impact is Roman Krennikoff. Yeah, obviously his games experience is limited and then his out of season competition he's got some pretty

impressive results alright you can have your show back cheers thank you I almost forgot about this show eat a dick okay turn on your notifications Michael

Michael is that jeffrey's son he's that kid that kid's too old to be jeffrey's son brian have you ever cross um cross-pollinated the list have you ever looked at and seen uh what would it look like it um graham holmberg's placement versus like camille's placement like do they have the same number of appearances do they have the same number of wins plac Do they have the same number of wins, placements, et cetera? But then notice that Graham is like 25th, but Camille is 15th or some shit like that. I just made all of that up.

I don't know if any of the data I gave you is right, but the spirit of what I'm trying to propose. Have you looked at that yet? I mean, we did an all-time top 10, you and I, and obviously I evaluated more than 10 athletes before making that list. I don't really love doing it, male to female, because I think that the competitions are dramatically different. But I guess probably in the detail you're asking, no. Because it is interesting. In your post on your Instagram account, which I'm sure eventually Caleb will show, there is – oh, there it is. Oh, yeah, you already did show this.

Sorry, Caleb, for that sassy remark. There is Camille at 15th, and in the comments, that is one of the bigger topics talked about. But when I think of Camille, I sort of think of her as a Graham Holmberg. Do you see the comparison? Sure.ham holmberg was 15th on the men's list oh he was yeah well shit then i nailed it i didn't even know that i would have thought he was lower since the men's field is i mean yeah she's got more she's got more of appearances than him obviously the same number of titles. He actually has an additional, they have the same,

the same number of podiums and they have, she has more appearances, more event wins and a slightly better average. But in general, the women on the list have more appearances because there's less depth overall in the field. They're usually going to have longer careers and do better over time. So, for example, on the men's field, there are two people on the list,

and Miko Sale and Justin Medeiros, who only have three qualifications. On the women's field, there's none. Everyone on the list has at least four. In the men's field, there's just a handful that have eight or more. On the women's field, there's quite a few of those, including, I think, I don't know everyone is off the list there's some people with seven that are off the list but yeah so there's just it's it's just generally easier for the women to accumulate more appearances obviously quality appearance of

those appearances still matters what time did you wake up this morning i'm tired today i don't know i i slept a lot but i'm just tired did you have you taught a class yet? No. Did you work out? No, I've been working on preparations for a competition. I'm hosting October 1st. What's the name of the competition? I don't know. PFT throwdown. Two guys and a girl. Oh, I like that. That's a good name. You're hosting it and you barely know the name. It's just an in-house competition.

James, are you near an airport? Well, yes, a small one. Oh, interesting. Because I'm hearing planes take off by Caleb and you. I'm wondering if you guys are in the same building. No, just happenstance, coincidence. Okay. The floor is yours my friend

okay I'm going to make this quick because I called about two weeks ago talking about how I do not like Brian and you told me to rethink it and come up with a more articulate explanation and so I have spent the last two weeks reflecting and I

realized that I do not hate Brian I do not hate Brian. Wow. I do not. Wow. He is in fact a good dude. He's a fag?

What'd you say? He's a what? He's a fag? No. Oh, I thought you just said he is, he's a fag. Sorry. I missed her. Oh no, I said, I said, I said he is in fact a good dude. I had a hard time putting the seal of approval on him,

but after consuming more of his material, I reluctantly say, Brian is a good dude. He is very objective. My only beef is that Chris and Clever would not even get in the top 40 in the CrossFit games right now. But Brian, I'm sorry, man.

You're a champ. You mean, you mean, so you're saying that at her peak, if we threw her in the mix, she couldn't, she couldn't be, um, she couldn't make the games today at her peak. Yes. We need to talk peaks. Okay. We have to talk peaks. All right, James, that that's good.

We'll address that right now. I appreciate you, brother. Thank you for, uh, you're growing spiritually as a human being. I'm trying. I'm trying.

Thanks guys. See you later. Bye. Oh, that's nice. That's nice. People in the comments in the YouTube comments yesterday, we said you were sassy.

Me? Yeah. About what? I have no idea. They just said you were sassy okay uh so so what what about that what about let's talk about that before we dig into some more numbers are do you take the athletes as at their peak and consider um what they would look like the the guys from the stone age to modern times i mean that's tough like i I've tried to do this with basketball in the past.

I know it's not a basketball show, but if you took Dwight Howard's best season in the NBA, you might say he's the best center to ever play the game. He was literally unstoppable. He was 75% from the floor. He was getting 18 rebounds a game. He was blocking six shots a game, but he wasn't able to sustain those numbers over a long period of time.

If you take Michael Jordan's best five years and look at them, all of them are like incredible compared to any other shooting guard that's ever played. It'd be like five of the best 10 years ever. So if you're just talking about peak, you're only looking at one year probably. And then that's a little bit different. And that's where you might, you know, that's what I was talking about a guy like Lucas Hoag yesterday, like he can't, or the last week, like he comes up, he has this amazing year. He was a third best in a pretty competitive field that year. He's not in my top 30. He's not even really close to the top 30 because he wasn't able to stay in that over time. And I think that there's something to be said for that too.

What's, you know, Kristen Clever, four years at the games, fourth, first, second, fourth. And then in her fifth year, she took a 32nd. So her average event, you know, or average placements 8.6 is weighed down heavily by that 32nd. Over four years, she was averaging a second place finish at the games, basically like 2.25 or something like that, which looks very similar to Julie Foucher, four years, 3.8. I don't see anyone saying anything really that negatively about Julie Fouché. And I have Kristen, you know, a few spots ahead of her. I haven't done it one more year. Haven't gotten a win.

Haven't had a better four-year stretch than she had. And yeah, maybe both of them would just get obliterated by the entire field right now. I'm not really sure. I think that they could both hold their own. Maybe not be in the top 10 against the best 10 women ever. field right now. I'm not really sure. I think that they could both hold their own, maybe not be in the top 10, uh, against the best 10 women ever. That's hard to say. It's really hard to say. I think that I saw that Justin Kotler put a little emoji in the, in the comments, probably because he wants Gary Pierce a bit ahead of Kristen Clever is the greatest American women

of all time. I found that post passive aggressive, by the way, Mr. Kotler. the greatest American women of all time. I found that post passive aggressive, by the way, Mr. Kotler. That's what I'm assuming that he's referring to. And yeah, like when you look right there, I think Patrick Clark pointed out like nine through 14 are the first American women that pop up on the list. And there's a string of six of them in a row. And it is, you know, pretty difficult to say for sure if Chris D'Aremo is better than Julie Foucher or Kristen Clever is better than Carrie Pierce. This is an area where if you have that opinion that Carrie is better than Kristen, I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise. This is just how I ended up splitting those hairs. Did you also have a rule i feel like in the men's you were very hesitant or you

maybe even had a firm rule not to move people around who had already placed and hadn't competed i mean carrie pierce is often referred to as the greatest female american to ever uh participate uh at the crossfit games and yet you have her behind Kristen. Yeah, and that's really tough because you look at their resume, obviously Kristen won one, Carrie didn't. Kristen has two podiums. Yeah, you're looking at their. Six event wins.

Yeah, so some of her numbers are better. Carrie has one additional top 10. But like I said, if you take out that one year for Kristen, that event average drops to 2.25 over four years. It's like pretty impressive four-year stretch. It's not very often replicable. And I weighed that pretty heavily. So. Uh, and I weighed that pretty heavily. Um, so, uh, the, the person who moved the most on this list is, is Laura Horvat.

Is that correct? Yeah. Uh, there were hardly, there was very, very little movement on this list. And she comes up five places. Um, is it okay to share some of this stuff that you mentioned to me yesterday offline about Laura Horvat and, and, and about Horvat and about the way the events played out? Yeah, for sure. That article is actually public on Morning Chalk Up now, too. And they put a post up about it this morning that shows the graphical representation of what I was telling you.

Which is? The article is about Mallory O'Brien and Laura Horvat, and it's looking at them as probably the two most likely female athletes to win the games next year if Tia Kortumi retires. Obviously, they finished second and third this year, and their experiences at the games were quite different. Mallory had a sixth in event one. She was in first place after the second event, and she was never in anything other than first or second the rest of the weekend.

That included wearing the leader's jersey for four consecutive events. Laura had a really slow start to the week. She got all the way down to 16th place at one point, and she was able to, you know, have this, what people are calling this, incredible charge on the weekend to ascend back into podium contention and take third place at the CrossFit Games. But if you slide to the next slide over, well, Mike Halpin helped me with this. What we did was we inverted the events. And now you see Laura's in red here. She actually would have been in first place for five consecutive events and added five leader jersey. This is if you start with Jackie Pro and work the events in reverse order. And you would

have had basically the total inverse storyline where Laura would have been never outside of fourth place the entire competition. She would have been in fourth, first, second, third, or the entire time. Still obviously ending up in third. And Mal would have been all the way down in 12th after a few events and then had that steady climb back. Kind of basically we're in an inverse situation for the two athletes. And we would have been talking about Mal's resiliency and her climb back up here to improve upon our placement from last year. And it would have been just another ho-hum pedestrian, you know, podium finish for Laura with no real drama involved. So that's just to highlight that the order of the events really matters.

And also just as a reminder to people when they're watching any competition, not to go too crazy just because someone had a great first event or a great day one, but that, you know, in general, the entire test needs to be considered before, uh, you know, before you want to make a conclusion about how the athletes competition or weekend went. All right. Those of you who are looking at your screen, look closely. Now I'm going to explain this to you and I'm going to make some small edits to these, uh, graphs. Uh uh can you go back a slide here

if if you look at this graph the blue line shows um that uh malo brought this is this is how the event actually played out and you see malo brian basically those are points and because the blue line is on top of the red line you see that she was ahead of laura horvath the entire competition now what what would have been nice is if we knew what next to each of those dots they wrote what place the athletes were in that's in the article you know she's just trying to take the whole article that i wrote and make it into a digestible format for something on instagram hey i don't interrupt you please don't interrupt me and uh that was a joke brian that's a joke it's a joke joke uh and next slide um and this is this is when he told me this yesterday i was tripping this is so good i'm just repeating what brian said this is if you play the events in reverse

laura horvat would have been wearing the first place jersey for five consecutive events at the white one it would have said horvat on it you could buy it like in a store or something now and it's one of those things that you know chad schroeder keeps a record of all of the athletes who have ever wore the leader jersey and the number of time they've worn it and that's something that Sean Woodland will sometimes represent an accolade for an athlete, whatever. But the order of events has such a dramatic impact on that, that I don't really consider it to be that significant of a factor historically. That's why I don't include something like leader jerseys worn at the CrossFit Games when I'm considering this list, because I think

it's basically irrelevant. This is an exact representation of why that's irrelevant because Mal accumulated four of those statistics this year. Laura accumulated zero, but if you flip the events inversely, Laura would have accumulated five and Mal would have got zero. Yeah, it's crazy. But at the end of the day, Mal beat Laura at the competition overall. That's what I'm looking at when i'm assessing them and it would have been a comeback story for mal and not laura yeah yeah and this uh and then you know the rest article goes on to talk about what their competitions looked like this year compared to last year and yeah and then um it also just projects what's most likely for the two of them in terms of their potential to win next season. Jeremy would like us to start the list.

Can we go to number 30? It's Margo Alvarez. Is Brian already leaked out at the beginning of the show? Brian, is there a slide of crumbs? We have a crumbs slide? Not a crumbs slide. There were two athletes that were – are there two? I think there were two athletes that were bumped out here

for the addition of Daniel Brandon and Gary McGow on the list. Those were Tennille Berline or Tennille Reed and Kerry Kepler. Ones that it was hard, like they were close. Notable names eligible next season. Mal O'Brien's not eligible this season? She's only been to the games twice as an individual. Crazy, man. Crazy.

Ariel Lowen, games twice. Ellie Turner, twice from Australia. Eligible names who could jump up next year? Yeah, Emma Quaid already has four appearances, but I didn't think that those four appearances weighed any better than the bottom of this list. Yet, Terry Helgert has seven appearances. Emily Rolfe has three.

Jacqueline Dalston has three. Danny Spiegel has four. Karen Freover has three. And then some of the older school athletes that are not on this list that I considered, Cassidy Lance McWhorter, Anna Tobias, Caroline Risen-Tibau. Interesting, actually, is Bethany Shadburn. Apparently she is making a run back at the games next year she also should could be on added to that list there you have a good source for that

yeah what's her camp who's she training with i don't know any of that but jason cf media borrowed some of our conversation about bethany from the top 100 women of all time and then reached out to her to ask her what her plans were going forward and she said that she's planning to qualify for the games again next year wow emily bridgers danny haran talena fortunato and jennifer ass asshole i think you pronounce it uh are also athletes that died oh bridgers it's amazing that three's not on the list callobhan, how's it going, man? Good. All right, I have a quick question for Brian. Probably not really on par with what you guys are discussing right now, but Taylor obviously made a video about Tia potentially being on performance anti-drug.

I know, Siobhan, you don't like that idea, but let's say a couple months from now, Kia is drug tested and she actually pops. Does that remove her completely from the top 30 list? Or is she still considered the most dominant of all time? I don't really feel like entertaining this question i knew it i thought about saving you and i was like fuck that i want to see how brian swims around with this one hey dude here's the question let me andrew do you mind if i rephrase your question for brian please do brian what if someone what if someone on your list pops what would that do to their um i would probably wait to see how crossfit handles that you know in the case of like i'm thinking

about sean ramirez uh masters athlete i think he wants andrew he's using sean because he's an act it's an actual uh event brian doesn't like the speculation i think that it basically he doesn't want to entertain dragging tia's name the mud at all, which I don't blame him. Masters athlete. I believe he won either three or four years in a row. I think it was four in the masters 40 to 44 division. And then he failed the drug tests in either his fourth or his fifth year competing. Um, I don't think that they, uh, like, I don't think crossfit's position was to go back and say we're stripping him of all these other titles because he passed a drug test in those years to receive his prize and his championship um and i just have a feeling that they would do

the same thing in that regard as they would say like yeah she failed the drug test now but we tested her every year for seven years eight years whatever it was and she passed all those drug tests and we can't like just assume that because she failed this one, that she would have failed, you know, that she was trying to cheat the system in all those years, no matter what the outside people want to say. And in that case, I'd say her resume still holds up. Wow. You did get him to speculate. Good job, Andrew.

Thanks guys. I appreciate it. Okay. I respect that. Not wanting to drag your name through the mud i mean it's tough it's like when you're talking about if we were going to do a list of greatest masters athletes of all time you know sean's not obviously the best one he is you know his resume on its own even taking out the year that he didn't that he failed the drug test, is very, very good. I think he was four for four in wins. So it's like, is that a top 10 Masters athletes of all time? Probably, but it just doesn't feel that good to say that about someone after that happens to him.

Let's say Ricky Garrard goes on to have five great years at the game, starting with this year, and he passes his drug test every year. goes on to have five great years at the game starting with this year and he passes his drug test every year it's you know it for me it doesn't feel as bad because that was five it was five years four years before that he failed the drug test he was punished for it he came back and now he's proven that he can still do it with the ability to pass the drug tests that feels better than the other way around, I think. Tough conversation. Tough question. I'm confused why anyone ever thought Bethany wasn't going to compete next year. She's been saying all along that she was focusing on her health so she can make another run. She can say all she wants.

If you can't see why someone's confused, she hasn't been there in two years. And, you know, when it comes to, you know, there are certain injuries injuries that you just never know back injury is tough like it's it's one of those things i'm you know i have full confidence that uh people can recover from that but emma carrie's in the same situation you know she had this back injury at 17 years old it's not like it's not that encouraging so until either one of them comes back and shows me that they can compete again at the level that they were i'm just a little hesitant to um how far do you think someone how far do you think someone has to get before you say that um they competed in the season yeah like if you let's say you don't make it out of the open you're like i'm gonna compete i'm going i'm competing in the crossfit games this year and you don't make it past the open did you compete in the crossfit games

in the crossfit game season yeah and you didn't make it out of the open yeah sure i mean i would say i signed up for the crossfit game season and and competed until i was eliminated from the competition last year and it was after though yeah i wouldn't if you once you've been to the games, if you don't make it, I don't know, at least to the last chance qualifier, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I give you a you competed. Fucked around. Okay, number 30. Brian, going back to the crumb list i i didn't understand the difference really between

those two lists the top list is people who just aren't eligible yet and the bottom people are people like they are eligible but i didn't think that the current criteria that they have accumulated over their career warranted a top 30 placement but um but these people are so close to going on the list that basically if they just make it to the games one more time, regardless of their positioning, there's a good chance they might pop up. I don't know. Terry Helgadotter is a great example. It's pretty tough.

These are her event finishes at the CrossFit Games. 35th, 28th, 22nd, 19th, 18th, 13th, 9th. For 2022? Those are her finishes in her career in her seven appearances at the game. Sorry, I probably misspoke there. So she's got one top 10 finish. It was ninth place. It was in 2019.

And it was the only person who made the top 10 that she beat was Anna Fragkow, who failed the drug test, which is why she beat her. So she got last place amongst the people who made the top 10 that she beat was Anna Fragkow who failed the drug test, which is why she beat her. So she got last place amongst the people who made the top 10. We've gone over the list from 2019 before of the people who just got cut at the very end. Daniel Brandon, Annie Thor's daughter, Carolyn Prevo,

Alessandra Pacelli, Laura Horvath, Brooke Wells, Caroline Reason T-Bro, Sam Briggs, Emily Rolfe, Sarah Sigma's daughter, and Emma McQuaid.

Those athletes, I think that at least five and possibly eight of them would have beaten her over the course of the weekend if they'd been able to continue in the competition. So that ninth place finish, this is a good example where the stats don't always tell the story. I'm not very impressed by that ninth place finish. I'm far more impressed by Turi's 13th place finish last year at the CrossFit Games and I would consider that to be her best ever CrossFit Games season but if you look on this list at the last you know the last people that are on the list which is obviously who I'm comparing her with and you see people like Margot Alvarez and Stacey Tovar and the resumes are similar uh you know they're similar to that and i'm just uh you know you see like stacy's got

an 11th and a 12th and a 14th those are like three comparable finishes to turi's best finish i could see i could i guess i could see i mean turi's like she is the like probably the one that was the next one on the list so she um 30 is the one that didn't make it on the list. So. She, um, 30 is the one that didn't make it off the row or in the final event this year. Right. One of the two, I believe. Yeah. It's, it's, it's kind of a, she's, she's pretty amazing, right?

She's one of those outliers that just keeps giving. Terry's incredible. And, uh, I think. Underappreciated by, by almost everyone, including her own country. I often remind people that she's got, I mean, look at the other women from Iceland. Obviously, Annie has 11 appearances, Katrin has nine, Sarah has seven, and Turi has seven. So that's pretty good company in terms of terms of appearances but obviously her appearances at the games haven't been at the same caliber as those others and so she doesn't get the same recognition she's been doing it a long time um she does i mean if you ever uh been around her she's

she's pretty tiny and it's impressive how much she can lift uh and how well she can do and continue to compete over a long period of time but But it's a hard list to get on. Stacey Tovar pioneered the booty shorts. I don't think that that's true. Oh, really? That was the only reason I included it on the list, so I'll probably just take her off it now. You know who pioneered those?

Anyone? Want to take a stab at it? Was a young lady who's now a police officer named Libby DiBiase. And if you type in her name, you will see those. I appreciate that. I think Stacey took them maybe to the next level. But I think Libby showed up to the 2008 games wearing those, or 2009 games, and everyone was like, what the fuck?

Sixth place, 2008. she also competed in 2009 i'm not sure which year she wore the booty shorts liby yeah and if you look at the picture we'll just uh they were red ones okay yeah it's that picture with her in the white shirt and yeah there she is and she's a she was uh i want to say she was a track star at like Omaha or Nebraska. She's a cop now. That's a cool lady too. A cop and a mom. Super cool. She has a kid with Joe Westerlin from the L1 seminar team.

Cool couple. I thought it was you, Sevan. No, it was not me. I did wear a lot of sleeveless shirts then, but no booty shorts. Okay. I like that. I like those. I need to see the rest of the list. Let's go. Let's do 37 minutes in.

Enough of this dilly-dallying, Savon. Someone already paid us $5. Jeremy Eatworld paid us $5 to get moving. Okay. One more question before we get to the list number one is tia to me do you think brian you'll in your lifetime you'll see someone um take her off that uh number one spot in my lifetime yeah assuming you're going to live another 50 years. That is such a hard question. It'll be tough. It would be tough. No,

no. Mal O'Brien, Kerstetter. I mean, the thing, the thing is there's obviously some very good women coming right now, but to do it, let's just say Mal's going to do it.

She's going to have to beat Laura continuously. She's going to have to beat Gabby H Haley, Emma Lawson, Emma Carey, Olivia Curser, Haley. There are a lot of challengers that are right there that that's tough, tough to beat. And I think it's going to happen. Here's why they, they had a, we had, we had Froning. Then we had Fraser.

Now we have Madaris. And I think that the women are just a couple champions behind we have to me and uh i think she knows i think that's why she's coming back too i think she knows i gotta i gotta get another one it's gotta make it that much harder yeah uh i mean it's hard it's a it would be it'll be tough her resume is very very impressive um but i don't think it's out i don't think it's impossible like you know i think we learned that after rich or after matt really why why michelle kinney uh least amount appearances but ahead of uh christy phillips elizabeth akhen wally stacy tovar margot alvarez what do you see that uh with Akunwale, Stacey Tovar, and Margot Alvarez,

what do you see that makes Kenny above these other four women? Just pretty consistent during the time that she competed. It's not like a super flashy resume. It's not a name that I think a lot of people often think about, but four-year run, pretty good. And I think that pretty much from like, where are they on this list? Probably from like Michel Letendre and down, so 23 and down, those are just going to disappear from the list over the next three years, probably three to four, three to five years. I think that you have to put so much weight on appearances. Eight appearances is insane. Yeah. All right. Next slide. I think, I think Kenny's in the wrong spot and I don't think you did a good job of defending her position.

I think Kenny is in the wrong spot, and I don't think you did a good job of defending her position. Okay. All right. Number 21, Danielle Brandon. I didn't even know Danielle Brandon was in the 2019 games until just now when you said it. Well, she's technically listed as 10th, but she was 11th. A frag cow was removed from the list after failing a drug test. So pretty unfortunate for Danielle. She missed by one place. And there was obviously an athlete ahead of her who took a spot that was doing it against the rules.

Otherwise, you know, she probably would have gotten some of the fame and notoriety and popularity that she has now a year or two earlier. And she didn't really have any of that popularity in 2019 did she no uh you know for a large part she was a an unknown that year was her first year um is a massive field and basically until you get down to the top 10 uh there wasn't a lot of drama additionally Additionally, the person who was, I think, maybe one point and one place behind her who also got cut was Annie Thor's daughter, and that was a much bigger deal

than an unknown Daniel Brandt. Back in the era when I paid attention to the games, China Cho and LaTondra were the big names. Those were big names. They stepped on Valenzuela too yeah she even has an event win was that a lifting event where are you looking

Lindsay Valenzuela I don't think she has an event win oh no she doesn't sorry I confused it with podium Michelle Latondra two event wins. Are you sure Danielle should be 21 already? Yeah, Michelle LaTondra won one of the most famous events in CrossFit Games history that nobody remembers that she won it because they only remember Rich and Josh

doing a battle on push-pull, but she won that for the women, and she also won the pool event with the swimming in the bar muscle-ups the year before. Am I sure they should be number 21 and 22 on the list? Also is number 20 on the list is Amanda Barnhart. I kind of just grouped Barnhart, Brandon, and Magawa together here. They have very similar resumes. Amanda has one extra year than the other two.

Yeah, I'm okay with him being here. Five, four, and four appearances in this era stacks up, I think, pretty well against six, four, and six from Latondra, Valenzuela, and Cho. They've all been able to get at least a couple finishes inside the top ten already. Yeah, I think it it's okay spot for them to be i think that over the next couple years amanda danielle and gabrielle will separate a little bit they won't stay grouped on this list i think that probably one or two of them will emerge and surpass the other one um and we'll see how high up they can move. Was this, this harder than the men's list? Yep. And how come?

Two, two main reasons. In general, the resumes are better for all of these women than they were like, there were like some kind of considerable cutoffs. I also think, and it was just to the point that one of the comments I think had earlier about Kristen Clever, I feel like it's a little bit harder to assess the change in eras. Like it does feel like the women now are considerably better than the women then, Like, it does feel like the women now are considerably better than the women then. But I'm just not sure because you still have these women, you know, like Terry Helga daughter or Annie Thor's daughter um and then it's not it's not that they couldn't have continued to do what annie and sam

did it's just that they chose to go a different direction with their life so someone like michelle kenny who has a small amount of appearances kristen clever with a small amount of appearances what if they had tried to continue to compete for eight or ten years i think kenny did try i think i think that the field out ran away from her i could be wrong oh let's find so brian is there a delineation is there a strong line if you said i think jamal wrote it in the comments a while back are you are not looking you are not trying to compare the old athletes to the new athletes but what you're doing is comparing the athletes relative to the field when they competed is that fair to say or no uh yes and i don't know

if it's blurry you need to try by the way the last year that she has a regionals appearance was also the last year she made the games and the last year she made the games was not it was a 12th place finish and it wasn't her worst finish so it wasn't like she was tapering off or falling off there um so i don't know why she stopped competing but during what year was that what year was that 2014 okay god i can't believe that's that's eight years ago i mean i mean most people probably never even heard of her, right? Yeah, and the game's website has an incomplete record of her competition history. That's weird.

It happens for a couple different reasons, but she's not the only one. I think they're working on it, but it's taking a long time. I was being facetious. Do we know since I know I asked you this yesterday has anything changed is t competing she'll be competing at the down under crossfit championship that's all we know oh i did hear about that by the way from rob forte who's one of the part owners of that competition now and he says that one of the other owners has a great

relationship and always has with Tia and Shane. And that's why they're going to have their whole, um, contingency of proven athletes at the competition. Oh, so that was nice of Rob. It was nice of Rob.

I'll probably get in trouble for sharing that with you. I don't think so. Okay. Next slide. This is the one with Daniel Brandon. Okay, so at 21 was Daniel Brandon, number 20, Amanda Barnhart, number 19, the amazing Valerie Voboril. For those of you who don't know, she was also one of the athletes in the 2009 games

when Jason Kalipa passed out on the run and got up and finished that event. I think that was event number one. Valerie also passed out as she crossed the finish line. She actually did a somersault as she crossed the finish line. And I think that was the end of her day. She actually, she turned white. It was pretty crazy. And then, and then after that, she came back and she was basically a powerhouse. She was one of those athletes. I think the folklore around her was that she only trained once a day. She had a kid. When you would ask her what music –

She was a teacher? That sounds right. When you would ask her what kind of music she would listen to when she worked out, it would be like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. It would be like kids' music. She's actually a good example of what I was talking about. She competed in uh 2010 she was immediately on the podium that year behind chris clever and annie thorzadter who had

probably the it was probably the best battle between two athletes at the top of the podium ever they were like first and second on nearly every event she wasn't in the field the next year she came back in 2012 and took fifth, 2013 third, 2014 fifth. Then she had two years of not being at the games and came back in 2017. So, you know, it's a seven year stretch from her first to last games appearance. And she was only able to finish 32nd there. So considerably worse than the other four years. And that is a data point that you know uh shows you know possibly the difficulty of continuing to extend a career across into a new era which i would consider 2017 2017 to be a new era for the crossfit games going to madison different calibers of athletes younger fitter

training longer in the sport in the field uh going back um by the way she was kind of like the ariel lowen of her day she was kind of like the first one high profile mom to be like hey uh only better you know four top five finishes over five years pretty pretty impressive yeah she was impressive going back to the update show used to call her a uh what a toyota corolla you don't you don't really think very highly of it but it's just And the guys at the update show used to call her a Toyota Corolla. You don't really think very highly of it, but it's just extremely reliable over time. Damn. And for those of you who are wondering how good Kristen Clever is, I mean, just think about it.

Annie's still in the game kicking ass, and her nemesis back in the day was Clever. And it was close. By the way, I saw Kristen Clever recently at a street parking parking event and she looks fitter now than she did back then now i'm not saying she is fitter i saw her at the granite games yeah she looked she looked it looks great i think yeah she looks amazing uh al uh alessandra pichelli uh eight uh very very um dominant cross female CrossFit athlete. I don't think she ever made it to the podium, did she? Nope.

A lot of high hopes for her. Came out of the Bay Area in California, Diablo CrossFit athlete. Kind of surprised to see her so low on this list. Yeah, well, she had some ups and downs in her career. She had a fourth-place finish. She was really close to making the podium in 2013. That year was Briggs, Valenzuela and Vobrol. But she also had her next best finishes are 9th, 10th, 14th, 14th, and she had some lower ones. So longevity is really playing in her favor here over excellent performances. And that's where it's really tough. You know, you look at the resume of Vobrol and you look at the resume of Pacelli and I could very easily justify flipping them and saying that Val was more impressive

than Alessandra over her career. It's, you know, those are the tough calls and that's what I was pretty much dealing with throughout the entire creation of this list. I think that, uh, you know, Alessandra is kind of for people who were around back then, she's a well-known and remembered for some specific things, including, uh, kind of the creation of that kipping legless rope time technique that a lot of women are still using in competition today. Um, and yeah, she was, uh, you know, a part of that California crew that was, uh was sort of at the foundation of

the top tier of women along with Rebecca Voigt, Val Vobrol and Lindsay Valenzuela at the early onset of the sport for women. In 17th, Jamie Simmons formerly known as Jamie Green. I wonder what you're going to think of this uh brian um she is the uh she's bethany shadburn but the generation before she's chandler smith she's one of these athletes that popped up onto the scene and got a shitload of attention was a powerhouse an insane physique uh

but but but it didn't happen. Jason Hopper might be the next version of that, although I don't think so. It's to put in perspective. Bethany Shadburn, four appearances at the Games, finishes of 22nd, 16th, 8th, and 20th. Jamie Simmons, four appearances at the Games, finishes of 8th, 11th, third and 12th significantly better.

Right. But, but sort of the generation before, right? She's five years. She's like, fuck it came on the scene. What was the Jamie Simmons first games of parents versus Bethany

Shadburns? I'm guessing it's five years. 2000. Oh, Jamie Simmons. Oh, I'm sorry. Cause she has different names,

but you kind of see the comparison I'm drawing here it's not a dig at those people I know I presented it like it's a dig it really isn't I mean it's hard there's there's a lot of great competition but the these are all three people with insane physiques came on and like a lot of wow factor not not not really that different but I think that both of their year uh first years were the same in 2017. Oh, okay. I thought Jamie had been around longer. Both came in 2017. Jamie beat her in 2017. Jamie beat her in 2018.

Jamie beat her in 2019, and she beat her in 2020. So clearly a tier above Bethany Shadburn. Was Jamie Green, Jamie Simmons, a different – was she a professional athlete who pivoted? I'm not sure. The year before she competed at the Games the first time, she won the Open, and they took third place with the team across at Yass in 2016. I don't know what her competition history was before then in CrossFit or otherwise.

All right. I feel like – Oh, here we go. It doesn't really say, Oh, rugby player, gymnast and rugby player, but I don't know at what level.

Right. I have Keelan green coming on today at 10 o'clock. Keelan Henry. What'd I say? Keelan green. Yeah. No, he did not take Jamie's old name.

You're right. Keelan Henry. And I was doing some research on him yesterday. That guy is yoked. Mm-hmm. Incredible. He has an incredible physique. you're right keelan henry and i was doing some research on him yesterday that guy is yoked incredible he has an incredible physique you would really like his his body i think yeah his arms are absolutely nuts who had the other crazy arms at the games triceps uh carone right carone's arms are he's like one of those guys bigger triceps than biceps okay all right okay back to the list here we go

have we seen um have we seen uh oh and bethany shadburn's not on this list no because she just because even though she has the same amount of appearances as jamie simmons she just had she did so for example she has bethany shadburn has the same amount of appearances as Jamie Simmons, she just – For example, Bethany Shepard has the same number of appearances as Michelle Kenny, but her average finish over those years was five places worse. And Bethany did it later on or more recently, which I would say is – it's a little bit – it's better to do it more recently, but I still just don't think that her resume stacks up well enough to get on

the list. Okay. Fair. Rebecca Voigt. 10 appearances. This is the most appearances of anyone in the history of individual competition or no? No.

Tied for third. Ben Smith and Annie Thor's that are, have 11 each. Wow. Tied for third with Ben Smith and Annie Thorzetter have 11 each. Wow. Tied for third with Kara Saunders. Now, Rebecca also has a couple of Masters appearances to her credit, but 10 in the individual women's field. I'd get those couple of Masters appearances. I smell bacon.

Those couple of Masters appearances must be equivalent to one of Ben's because Ben was invited. That one doesn't really count. Who else is it, Ben? So Annie has 11? Yeah. So Annie's the winner. Yeah.

Was Becca Voigt the first person to hit 10? I think so. I give her credit for that. That's pretty cool. I think we were there for that, actually. Her average finish, is that the lowest average finish of anyone on the list? The top 30 list? No.

Yeah, her last one was 2018, and we were there for it when she qualified in Southern California down there. And then a few months later, my career took a fucking dismal turn. The only people with lower average finish on the list are the last two people on the list, Stacey Tovar and Margot Alvarez. Okay. And so number 29 and 30 are the only two people who have a lower average finish than Rebecca Voigt, which is fair. She's been to the games 10 times. Was her career basically just like a – I mean, was it it just a curve just up and then down i mean is it pretty rebecca voight yeah is it pretty obvious as she got to the end that shit was falling apart

uh i mean what place did she get her 10th year 10th 27th okay three years before that she got 31st that was 2015 24th year before that. So from 2013 to 2014, she definitely lost some ground. In the years before that, she was 11th, 10th, 3rd, 7th. She had an off year, 20th in 2019. Her first year in 2008, she took 7th also. So, but I mean, Rebecca Voigt is, uh, I think is an, one is probably if you want to be healthy, uh, over a long period of time, she's a great role model to have healthy and fit over a long period of time. She has found a way. Um, and I think a lot of actually the athletes on this

list, the old school athletes have done this. I think Stacey Tovar has managed to do it. Margot Alvarez to leverage their elite fitness into elite health, where they're still training and able to compete if they want to at a super high level, but that their lifestyle is a reflection of what the CrossFit methodology was intended to be, which in many cases, the elite CrossFit athlete's lifestyle is not necessarily that. How has she done in Masters? Has she won any Masters titles? Yeah. I don't want to get this wrong.

It's okay. No one will know. They will know. Plus, I respect Rebecca a lot and don't want to. This is passion fruit, by the way. I have thousands of these all over my property right now. $3.99 a pop at Whole Foods, and yet I live in the abundance lifestyle. Thousands of them.

She has been third, third, second, and third. So she hasn't won any, but she's been four times on the podium in the masters division in addition to 10 individual crossfit games appearances do you know who's winning that who's fucking who's keeping off the boat who's keeping off first place is it a former game briggs one year uh it's like pretty good let's check this year that's nuts like when the women that are beating her are uh so oh no she didn't compete this year's last year the women that are beating her are, uh, so, Oh no, she didn't compete this year's last year. The women that are beating her are mostly recognizable. Um,

Oh my gosh. I guess it's been a while. Wait, are you telling me Sam Briggs competed masters and then came back to individual 2019 Anna Tobias and Carleen Matthews beat her. Okay. Wow. Carleen Matthews beat her. Okay. Wow. Carleen Matthews.

Wow. And Sam Briggs did compete 2018. She actually lost to Anna Tobias that year as well. That year, Rebecca competed as an individual. 2017, Stephanie Waugh and Joey Kimden beat her. Joey's a dude a girl

she is so impressive if you don't know who she is Joey Kimden yeah she was even in like the sanctional years in her 40s she was competing in some elite open fields

oh because she was in the 40 to 44 this hey are you telling me sam briggs went masters and then came back and competed as an individual yeah so did has anyone else ever done that that's fucking nuts yeah rebecca this year i forgot she aged up wait you're saying rebecca voight also competed as as a Masters and then came back and competed as an individual at the Games? Wow. 2017 to 2018. Are they the only two athletes who've ever done that? Probably, but I think Jason Smith really wants to do it this next year.

He wants to prove me wrong. Kelly Friel and Jen Ryan beat her this year. They are both phenomenal Masters athletes, both Jen and Rebecca. And Kelly, I think actually all qualified for semifinals as individuals in the 40 to 44 division. They still qualified for semifinals. That's why, like, that's a great example of why the women's stats are inflated relative to the men's. There's no men in the 40 to 44 division that have a chance of qualifying for semifinals with how many people are competing. But in the women's field, you can extend that fitness for a long time

and still be competitive. And then last year, she also lost to Kelly Friel. Took second that year. I can't believe Briggs and Becca did that. That's nuts. That was the year. I think Briggs had an injury that year that prevented her from competing in the individual

regionals but she was able to do the master's online qualifier or maybe the other way around she had done the qualifier then she got an injury and she was unable to do the regionals but she had already qualified as a master so she was able to go masters and she was able to recover and get second place in the masters division. And then, you know, it wasn't that she wasn't good enough that year to make it.

She just had got an injury that her friend from two regionals. I'm pretty sure I'm right about that. Uh, don't you remember Joey Heatherton? Savant? I don't, I don't remember who that is. I have no idea.

Uh, rich Froning jr. Will compete next year in masters right i doubt it uh can i see uh number 15 well not exactly how i thought not exactly who i thought but i think he said that because it's another woman named Joe. Oh, oh, gotcha. Uh,

do you think Sam big Briggs repeats in 2014? If not for the handstand walking in it? Well, a hundred percent. Really? No, no questions. Ash.

I mean, she would have won the games again for sure. I think for sure. Uh, that year's the year that Camille won. That would, uh, Kara Saunders was right in the mix with Camille.

It would have been, I, I think that car probably the mix with Camille. It would have been... I think that Kara probably would have beat her, but it would have been close. And I think that Sam would have beat them both if she had been able to be there. Damn. Great question, David. Shit. I give you a question of the show. Wow. Wow. And even though there are some good and recognizable

names on this list, I think it's the weakest games field for the women since moving to Carson, California, the top 10 that year, there was a long, there was for years after that, there were nobody, nobody from this top 10 was able to get back inside the top 10 until Annie Thor's daughter did it. What's the number of the 30 athletes on this list? How many of them are active?

Active right now? Okay, well, I guess we'll count Tia. So one, two, three. I guess anyone who competed last year. Sam Briggs, not active. So five, six. Kerry Pierce is retired. Seven, eight, nine. I don't know if I should count Jamie Simmons or not.

We will. Ten, 11, 12, 13. 13 of the 30. 13 of the 30. Okay. That's pretty good. That's counting Tia and Jamie Simmons. Do you know the average years that these women have competed on this list by any chance?

What do you mean? The average number of times they've qualified for the games? Or the average number of years they've competed over their career? Let's say the first one. How many times they've competed in the games, the average? Six and a half. Okay. And CrossFit's about 16 years old, 17 years old.

Okay. Let's actually do it. Let's find out what that is for the men. For the men in the top 30, it's average of 6.2. It's a little less. So there is a bias for whatever reason. Maybe it's legitimate. Maybe bias isn't the right word, but there is a – if you're active, the people who are competing now are dominating this list. Well, there's less than half of them.

I know, but the sport's been around 16 years with an average years of competing at 6.5 years. So if 13 of the 30 are on there, it's more than a third. I don't know. My quick napkin math. Camille, number 15, that is the lowest. Is that the lowest of anyone's on the list that won the CrossFit Games? That's also competed more than twice, yes. Because the first three champions are not on the list.

Jolie, Katie, and Tanya didn't make the list. Okay. So if anyone who's on the list, that's the lowest placement of a champion. Yeah. And that's actually, you know,

yeah, Jolie did compete three times and she had three top 10 finishes. So it's, you know, I was interested and you didn't bring her up and neither did barbell spin guy and neither did anyone else. You know, someone wanted to ask about Katie Mad that matter, neither who has the worst resume of the three champions from the Carson era.

Wait, what didn't I bring up? We talked about Katie in the beginning, didn't we? Yeah, because barbell spin guy mentioned her in the comments. And I mentioned that Tanya Wagner had a better resume and I was thought that you might ask about Jolie Gentry, but you didn't. Jolie also has a better resume than Katie Mather. Jolie competed in three games, seven, eight, and nine? Mm-hmm. Wow.

Yeah, first, fifth, and seventh. Could make an argument that she could squeak into a bottom spot on this list. And she wasn't even a crumb. Camille, 15. Julie Fouché, 14. Christy Arama O'Connell, 13. Hayley Adams, Brooke Wells. Eight appearances by Brooke Wells.

Wow. I think she's only 27 years old. Brooke? Yeah. And when you think about the fact that athletes like Kristen Holt and Annie Thorzad are still qualifying and doing very well into their 32, 33, 34, 35. Carrie Pierce, same thing. Kara Saunders, same thing.

And if she continues to do that, she could string together, I don't know, 14 or 15 games appearances. It just depends how long these athletes can keep up this level of competitive excellence. That's what someone was saying about Mal O'Brien. When you asked that question earlier, if anyone could ever, you know, match or pass by what Tia can do, like it's a, it's not just making the games. It's not just doing well at the games. Like you also have to figure out a way to keep your body healthy enough, uh, injury free enough and your mind motivated enough to want to to want to commit to doing that year after year after year are um are all of becca voight's 10 appearances consecutive no you should

know that since we already addressed the fact that she went masters and then came back to the individual field are brooke good point or brooke wells is eight consecutive? I think so. Who has the most consecutive? Ah, now you're asking. This is a question that Noah Olson was asking about last week because technically the most consecutive are Ben Smith with 11. However, he didn't qualify for all 11 of those. 2009, you could just show up. 2019, he was invited.

So Ben had nine consecutive qualifications. Also, Noah Olsen, BKG, and Cole Sager currently have nine consecutive qualifications. All three of them could potentially have 10 consecutive qualifications next year, which although it wouldn't match Ben's 11 appearances, would eclipse his nine straight qualifications. On the women's side, there's a lot of athletes that are in this kind of vicinity, Brooke Wells being one of them. She has qualified for eight consecutive games since 2018. Tia Claire Toomey, same thing. And I think some of the – Katrin lost her streak this year. Cara Saunders' streak was interrupted.

Sam Briggs' streak was interrupted. I think Holta had eight in a row, but then she retired. And then Voight's were interrupted. So in terms of consecutive games appearances for the women, or qualifications in this case because none of these women were invited or just could show up and do it. It's Tia and Brooke right now. If Tia retires, Brooke could take the edge in that regard.

Tia is not retiring. Well, there's, you know, it's a, it's an unknown. So we'll just talk about it for what it is. What do you know?

Is there stuff you know that you're not saying? I know that she told everyone she was retiring on the last day of the games, and then she didn't retire. She did not. That is not accurate, Brian. What's not accurate? I don't think she was the one doing the telling right her people her camp was doing the telling

the people who are closest to her communicated to the people that needed to know yes for their calls and their award ceremony presentation the layout of that the format of that that that was her intention and of how she was going to do it and then she didn't do it and i've talked about how this you know how i feel about this so we don't i don't think we need to talk about it again i like talking about it oh look at this look at this jason cleba just text me i don't normally read text but i'm gonna read this one i saw some good feedback on youtube from our podcast with nikki rod oh yes you have to see that interview i did with jacob rodriguez if you're if you if you have if you're

an athlete what a cool kid if you have kids you should make your kids watch the last half an hour of that interview i don't know how much i swear on it but he's never drank he's never smoked weed doesn't do any drugs he comes out and says it's crazy the amount of steroids and jiu jitsu he does not do any drugs he was so cool savannah's poking the beast brian i think you're the beast brian he did you take offense he's referring to you as the beast what a great question steven flores travis mayers how many consecutive um appearances does he have brian thank you steven

uh well he missed a year. Son of a bitch. He was pregnant? Uh, I don't, I, no, no. That was the year he, I think he just missed by one spot at regionals that year. Does demo team count? It does not. Speaking for Brian on that while he looks through stuff. I'll answer any questions for Brian while he's doing the research oh Brad Williams

Travis missed two years no shit he missed oh he oh 2013 and 2015 missed his games profile is also incomplete so you know

but he did miss those two years. I'm very happy. Oh, yeah. In this 2018, that was the bench press year. That's the year I was thinking of. Are you excited?

Did you want, aren't you? You don't want to retire though, right? You know, this is one of those, this is goes back to like the debate that we had with john young about the parody versus the dominance like i am you know i have always been in sports a fan of of records and streaks and you know elite level performance uh and so you know having tia in the

field you're going to just continue to establish that bar for the question that you're asking of what is achievable what is doable what is sustainable in terms of the peak performance and excellence and then that mark will be higher and higher uh you know for history to chase down but it's a little boring having her in the field at this point you know there is the only people who are picking anyone other than tia to win the games are are they're not they don't actually believe that's going to happen they're just doing it to have a conversation. It's kind of a foregone conclusion at this point that if she competes healthy, she's going to win.

And I don't, you know, I don't, that's what we were talking about. Is that a good thing for the sport? Like, does that draw the drama? If you take Tia out of the equation, I think at the very least there's two women that are easily like immediately favorites to win the games. If Annie comes back and competes, well, she does it rogue. She could be in that conversation. But if she leaves, the opportunity to beat her is gone.

I know that that's a big deal for you. And, you know, it's one of those things in sports. Like, do you, you know, sometimes people are like, you know, I'm going to go out out on top and I'm feeling like this is the, you know, I've pushed my body as far as I can and for as long as I want to. And I was able to do that and still win, but you know, I'm done. And I think that to some degree, that's what Rich did with the individual. He didn't know it wasn't his body, but it was more of just the mind and commitment. At least that's what he said. And the same thing for Fraser, where he's like, you know, for those that don't know, I have poured every ounce of my preparation year after year after year into this because I never wanted to have that 2015 feeling again. And that just was, you know, I think for Fraser and the level of commitment and seriousness that he had to that, that was a draining on him. And he didn't, even after 2020, I think he was done wanting to do that. But, some people around him said i think you i think you should go for one more i think you'll feel better about that which he did and then he was finally like i did one more you guys told me too but

i mean i've had enough and that was and that was his best year 2021 whatever his last year was right you could say that it was the best year. Yeah. Okay. Back to the list. Back to the list. Back to the list. You don't want to you to compete is what I heard. That's what I heard how I heard you answer that. I don't mind her in the field. It just, you know, it dramatically changes the conversation, right? Because, uh, if she's in the field and it's like, yep, she's,

she's clearly the person to beat. It's the expectation for someone to do it is extremely low. If she's out of the field, some could make an argument that there's up to six women that have a chance to win and maybe up to 10 women that have a chance to podium. And now that parity in the sport, that could drive a lot of interest as well. A parity spelled with an I, not with an O, as we learned on that show uh top tens what does that mean and they're all tied at four brooke haley christie uh-oh uh-oh top tens you see i see how it says top tens and they're all they're all blue that number four what does that mean what's top

tens thank you oh well he uh michael chose to highlight the best person per page in each category in this case all of those athletes have the exact same number of top 10 finishes at the games over their career which is four so we highlight it all brooke has never had um more than four top 10 finishes in the eight years? Brooks event finishes by year 16th, sixth, 14th, eighth, 16th,

fifth. Oh, Oh, Oh, back and forth. I, Oh, okay.

Okay. Okay. I see what I was thinking of event. I keep confusing that. I was thinking about events that that's at the end of the week. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Uh, next page, please. Mr. Beaver. Number six of all time. Well, let's start at number 10. Number 10 of all time, the greatest American. Is it fair to call her the greatest American who ever competed in the? I mean, Kristen Clever is right there at nine, also American.

I think that these, in my opinion, these are the two best, and you could make an argument either way, and I've chosen to give Kristen the nod here over Carrie, but it's no, in my opinion, it's no slight at Carrie. Sarah Sigmund's daughter, Kristen Holta and Laura Horvat at six. The only

person on this second page that's going towards the left is Laura Horvat at six. The only person on this second page that's going towards the left is Laura Horvat. And the other four are going that way. Well, yeah, you look that just right behind them, you have Brooke Wells,

Haley Adams, Christy Aramo. Christy's probably getting towards the end of her career, but like we said, Brooke could, could potentially have six or seven more years. Haley could potentially have 10 to 12 more years. And obviously, if either one of them does that, they'll move past these people.

What does this mean? I'm leaking. I'm not going to speculate on that. Okay. I know. It would be weird to speculate on it. Mr. Serrano, 2020 was Frazier's last year. What?

I think you're right. Thank you for the correction. Eight appearances by Kristen Holta, not consecutive? Eight appearances by Kristen Holta, I think were consecutive. Okay. They were consecutive, but then she retired. All right.

Uh, top 10 finished. Wow, man. She was good. Is she the least, does she have the least notoriety of any great crossfit athlete who kristin holta you tell me i mean you think she has more notoriety than kerry pierce no chris clever uh

not not relative to the day laura horvath? No, definitely not. I just don't hear Christian Holta's name enough relative to her success. I mean, she's a powerhouse. Yeah. Incredible. She was on the podium in 2019? Second place. To who? Tia.

Shit. Who took third? Jamie Simmons. Crazy. place to who tia shit who took third jamie simmons crazy i don't even remember that year oh it's because i was sitting on a couch crying because i mean this is a pretty i mean i know that it's a pretty impressive her her stretch from 2017 to 2001 to me is very very impressive 2021 to 2001 to me is very very impressive 2021 17th to 21 2017 18 19 20 21 that five-year stretch she in 17 and 18 i consider those to be very strong women's fields historically she finished seventh both years the athletes that beat her tia twice cara twice annie twice Katrin twice Carrie once and to Neil Reed or lion once

yeah that those are good years athletes what happened to her what happened to Neil I think she got married and had a kid and that's what happens to women like we talked about some of them choose to do that athletes that she beat in those years Brooke Wells Jamie

Green or Simmons to Sam Briggs, Christy Aramo, Carrie Pierce, Jamie again, Pacelli, Berline, Cassidy Lansing-Mortar, Camille, Christy Aramo, Brooke Wells, Pacelli, Barnhart, like pretty good athletes that she's beating. So that's why I'm saying, you know, that's a pretty good, those are pretty good years. She was taking seventh. 2019 and 20, everyone knows how i feel about that she got second place in 2019 it's her best finish the um whatever oh look at daniel

saying it's because she went to opex and all her shit got good is that really what happened uh is uh missed the 2020 spot took six that year comes back to the full games field in 2021 and takes fourth and the fact that she was able to come back and in a games field that was now she lost to tia laura and annie that year which is nothing wrong with that she beats hayley gabby mal christie amanda catrin daniel brandon emma, Turia. I mean, it's, this was also obviously a very competitive field and she's able to at the tail end of her career, which ends up being her last year, take fourth anyway. So she, to me, has an incredible resume. Those five years are very impressive. Even in the years before that um she enters into the scene 2014 with the 16th 17th and 13th or 12th place finish excuse me um there's just not a lot there's not a lot not to like about kristen holt this holt this career overall which is why she's

so high on this list from a small country called norway is this true, Caleb? I will never – did Trish introduce the word Badoosie on this show? Is that true? Yeah. I think so. Wow. Trish, wow. It's amazing the history that people remember. Could I see that list again?

And she's toast, right? Is she going teams is holter going teams she retired she like like done not competing anymore instead she's coaching and she's actually the athletes that she's coaching and the krieger training plan that she's built up there in oslo across oslo is incredibly impressive matilda garns who qualified for the games came through here sahar kaya who qualified for the games out of asia but livesar Kaya, who qualified for the games out of Asia but lives in Norway, she came through there. This is, you know, the CrossFit Oslo team, Alina Richter, Ingrid, Ivan, Nicola Bieladel, all these guys.

They're creating kind of what I would consider the version of the Kolesnikov team in Russia or the mayhem in the United States or maybe what Underdogs is hoping to do in the U.S., but for Norway. Where the best collection of athletes are all going there and they have teams that are doing well and young individuals that are doing well. And I think Kristen is in large part responsible for that and at the forefront of that movement. for that and at the forefront of that movement so even though it's not relevant for this list in a lot of the ways that people want to you know credit rich rightfully so for what he's created outside of himself you know in the mayhem empire there i feel like kristin is doing some of that norway for the crossfit for the okay okay okay don't be comparing kristin to rich don't get fucking ahead of yourself yet there have to to be these leaders in their countries that are moving things forward.

That's the argument for CrossFit always reserving a spot for one athlete from Africa, even if they're always last, one athlete from Asia, one athlete from South America, and that over time, because they have that exposure, it'll drive up the level of interest. That's what happened in Iceland with Annie.

She went to the games. Iceland got hold of it back home, started started playing this stuff and it inspired people to start pursuing that as well that's why reykjavik is one of the biggest and most successful gyms in the world captain david's daughter was inspired by annie and started doing that and i think that a lot of the competitive athletes in norway were similarly inspired by kristen holta just a few years after annie and iceland has more boxes per capita than anywhere, any country in the world. It would, you know, it'd be like me saying that, you know, Miko, you know, if you don't want to compare her to Rich Froning in her country, it would be the same thing as not saying that Miko Sela was an inspiration for

the Finnish CrossFit community, which I think, you know, just because he hasn't had the same level of impact globally that Rich has had doesn't mean that his level of impact isn't significant in his part of the world. Damn. You steamrolled me. Just to show off a little bit,

Lena Richter took sixth in the Madrid CrossFit World Championships, blah, blah, blah, whatever that is. I wonder if Kristen Holta was there coaching her. I didn't see Kristen in any of the stuff I was watching or following. I don't know. Oh, okay. Well, then she is no Rich Froning. I rest my case.

Laura Horvat, she will be climbing, right? Outside of being struck by lightning. Or as Brian said, that's what happens to women. Outside of that happening to Laura Horvat, he was referencing getting married and pregnant, having unprotected sex. Outside of that happening, Laura will continue to climb on this list, right?

Yeah, I mean, look, Laura's competed for five years at the Games. Her average event finish is significantly weighed down by the circumstances of 2019 and 2020. In the three years that she's showed up to a live competition and been given an opportunity to do the full test, she's placed second, second, and third. Three of the women that have beaten her out of the four are Tia Claire Toomey. have beaten her out of the four are tia claire to me anybody else on this list everyone else on this list apart from katrin davis daughter has never beaten tia claire to me at the games so it's almost like winning those two years and then she lost to male brian this year we talked a little bit about that this earlier in the show referencing that article in those graphs and then she has a

15th and a 24th those are obviously weighing down her average event finish and her resume overall. That 15th place finish was in 2019. We already mentioned that she was cut one of the final 10 cut before the last 10 went on to the rest of the other half of the competition. And look, look, just look at what happened this year at the games from those graphs that we showed. She would have been cut this year too. But what a travesty that would have been because we wouldn't have got to see the potential of her fitness over the entirety of the test this is a perfect example and if you flip the test god bless adrian bosman if you flip the test then we would then mal o'brien would have been cut and we wouldn't have gotten to see her podium in her second year at the games so that's you know that's

why when we talk about the 2019 games i have a you know it's not the athlete's fault athletes can all they can do is show up and take the test that's given to them the format was so dramatically different than what we've come to understand the sport to be which is the breadth of the test the whole test the ability to do a broad test. Yeah. So it's like, it's one of these things, Jeremy, we don't want to discount it entirely, but we do have to consider when we're looking at those things. Like I talked about with Tariq Helgadotter that a ninth place in 2019 is not as impressive as a 13th in 2021. Logan, geez, I wrote you off in the beginning of the show.

I'm sorry. For $1.99, I'll unwrite you off. You are no Jamal Smith, though. You have been replaced. Brian, going back to that list, if Mal O'Brien, sorry, when Mal O'Brien takes second place in 2023 at the crossfit games where will you drop her on this list if she has finishes of second second and seventh in her first three years all three years competing against a very good field only ever being beaten by annie

thor's daughter and tia claire to me i think she's got a pretty similar resume to Justin Medeiros. She probably would fall in. She'd probably immediately be asserted into the top ten. Wow. How about top five? Not yet. Okay. And the final page with a minute and a half left in the show. Samantha Briggs definitely going that way.l saunders definitely going that way

katrin david's daughter if i speak objectively who knows which way she's going annie thor's daughter with 11 appearances and tia toomey number one best female crossfitter in the history of uh crossfit does anyone look at her how much blue she gets six titles eight podiums eight top tens she's never been out of the top 10 at the crossfit games never been out of the top two where did she come from? To land down under. 35.

Caleb, you should have queued up that sign right there. 35 event wins. So just so you know, if you take second and third place, that's 27 plus 7 is 34. She has more event wins than number two, three, and four combined. Yeah, and this is to your point of when you asked if Matt Fraser's last year was his best year, and I did misspeak there. Yes, 2020 was his last year. Then 2020 also is where Tia accumulates, I think, 14 event wins or something like that,

10 of which or nine of which were at the stage two of the games where she only had to beat four people to do it. You know, I wrote an article before the games this year that talked about, you know, when you choose to have cuts in the field that you're taking out the opportunity for someone to do really well in an event and impact a stat like that. So, you know, it's like event wins at the games, incredibly impressive. It is something that I look at. Obviously, it's on this list. But, you know, in those cases for Tia and Matt,

the event wins are greatly inflated by the fact that, you know, especially when you're comparing them to other greats in the sport, like a Rich Froning or Annie Thor's daughter that weren't there, that didn't ever have an opportunity to do that. And a year that they were competing in one of their peak years because the format was different. So that's probably, it's probably, it's unlikely that anyone will ever catch them in terms of event wins, even if they do catch them in terms of titles or consecutive podiums or

something like that. Man, when you look at these numbers, you see that Tia and Annie are in a league of their own. Tia's in a league of her own, and then Annie's in a league of her own. Average finish 5.3 in her longevity. Is there anyone else from the 2009 CrossFit Games who competes at this level? Men or women? How about 2010? I mean, you know, Becca Voigt was there that year.

Ben Smith was there in 2009. You know, we're going pretty far back, so not a lot. Right. And Annie's like a serious contender. I mean, yeah. People think that she can win the games if Tia retires and she decides to compete individually next year. I don't think so, but there are people that believe that. People you respect?

Mm-hmm. Like Patrick Clark. I haven't asked Patrick about it I don't think so I think he would say that the best she can do is third um Cara Saunders is the only one on the list thank you for all these stats Brian you did such a good job

Cara Saunders is the only one in the top five without a title. She had to withdraw in 2014, despite being locked in a battle for the win with Camille.

And that obviously has a negative impact, not just on her titles, but on basically every stat on the list. And then in 2017, she lost to Tia by two points. That was the beginning of Tia's run and the closest race you've ever had for the top spot on the podium. So as close as you can be twice, basically, but no titles. Of all the wins, every year when you crown the winner, you're like, yep, they got it right.

Like no matter how much shit goes wrong, people riding their bikes the wrong direction on the track, chains coming off, stupid fucking baseball events, whatever you think. At the end, you're always like, yep, they got them. There's two years in the history of the crossfit games for the women where i'm not i'm not sold on that but yep okay and that's where i was headed please tell me let's talk and i never even thought of the fact that you think that sam briggs would have won in 2014 so so in 2014 though you're saying that camille was probably the third fittest person woman on the planet that Sam and Cara were probably fitter than her that was one of the years that was really fucked up I think so I don't want to take that away from Camille because Sam didn't pass the test to get there which is fine and and

and you know Cara had an injury which happens in sports there's a pinched nerve in her neck Camille you know was great that year she She was extremely impressive. She was fun to watch. She had incredibly dominating performances, you know, and she earned the title. But I do think that it's not unfair to say that if Cara had been healthy and if Sam had been able to handstand walk, that she would have placed third that year. Yeah. And what's the other year that you were? That's another one that we've talked about before. It's 2015. Katrin won by, I think it was like 56 points, and she earned 54 points for doing no work and not trying on pedal to the metal one. And that would have given.

Tia the win. Tia the win. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. But it would have been interesting from a psychological perspective to see what would have happened the next year. Because, and I've said this every time I've ever talked about it, Ben Bergeron and Ketchum Davidsdottir did nothing wrong.

They played within the confines of the rules. I think the CrossFit games got that wrong. and it's really established by your little company. But, coming off the conference of winning her T.O.S. was in 2016, having to prove to herself that that woman flew to the national Olympics and is represented in the T.O.S.

That was a great battle to catch in the last day of the Olympics. I'm not sure who was the winner. Catch battle in the last who was the win Caleb can you hear anything he's saying I'm sorry no I can't neither can I okay I'm sorry Brian

you turned into Decepticon oh you turned into your internet connection got so bad that you turned into a robot. Is it still like that? Optimus Brian, yes. It's better now. Yes, it's better now.

We lost you about how you were saying that they did nothing wrong and that it was, it was a kind of CrossFit games for not putting in a minimum work requirement or something along those lines. Yeah. They strayed from a precedent that they'd previously established in 2010. And then, but it did have a big effect on the psychological component for both Catherine and Tia the next year. Oh,

meaning that it probably invigorated Tia. No, I don't know what would have happened if Tia had won in 2015. You know, it's one of these things. It's like if Fraser had just shown up and won in 2014, or even if he'd just beaten Ben Smith in 2015, without the level of focus and preparation that he had going forward from there, would he ever have become that maniacal in his pursuit of perfection in his preparation to try to win and win and win and win?

So it's the story of champions in all sports. There's almost always adversity before the ascension. And so Tia may say that even, yeah, that she probably shouldn't have got those points for doing nothing and not even trying to do anything in that workout. But if I'd won in 2015, I may never have become the dominant athlete that I am now because, you know, I might have taken for granted that I just could show up and win. I'm just speculating. How often will you update this list? What are the events that…

Next year after the games. Okay. So this is it. Yes. This is it. This is it. This list only gets updated once a year. Well,

yeah, it's only considering one competition per year. Right. All right. Uh, thank you. Is there anything else you'd like to, uh,

I just, I appreciate the comments and I appreciate, appreciate the questions and the criticism and critique. It is really tough. One of the reasons I put this shirt on today is just to remind myself that other people have knowledge in this sport. Other people have valuable perspectives. And it is really difficult. So I put myself out

there by doing this, by putting the data out there that I'm looking at. It's very easy for people to pull out the one thing that they want to and say, look at this. How could you ever make this ranking based on this criteria? But there's a lot of things that I try to take into account. And it's very, you know, it's quite difficult to do. I have tremendous respect and appreciation for all the athletes on this list and the ones I consider that didn't make it. And, you know, mostly just want to, like, that's the really, the desire for it is just to recognize the greatness of all of them. And for people that are new to the sport, to inform and educate them about maybe some of the ones from previous eras. And if you want to go back and learn more about those athletes,

there's footage from the CrossFit Games. In all those years, you can go watch them compete and do some incredible stuff. And if you want to get a BeFriendly shirt, go to SherpaSherpaSherpa.com. I wish Sean Woodland would call and weigh in. I wish Sean Woodland would call and weigh in. The one reason I put my bee-friendly shirt on is to remind myself that only Brian's opinion matters. Okay, everyone. Thank you, Caleb Beaver.

Thank you. Guys, listen. In 85 minutes, I will be on here with Keelan Henry. The only hope that Africa has. Yeah. I don't know. I think they got some other good guys out there. No, they don't.