The Sevan Podcast - #62 - Last Chance Qualifier Day 1, Cedric Lapointe & Brian Friend

Episode Date: July 3, 2021

The Sevan Podcast EP 62 - Last Chance Qualifier Day 1 - Cedric Lapointe & Brian Friend @sevanmatossian @brianfriendcrossfit @CLAPOINTE97 The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. For you guys, that's 7 o'clock. It's 9 o'clock here at 7 o'clock where Savan is. Are you in the early bird, Savan? I am. I am a very early bird.

I am very early bird. Do you like the way he says your name? Do you like the way he says your name? I love it. Savon? There you go. No, you can call me Seven. Seven's good.

Seven's good. People will be like, hey, sorry, I messed up your name. I'll be like, dude, when you have a name like Savon and you're 49 years old and that's still an issue for you, you have serious problems. You have a lot of work to do. Where are you from, Savon? I was born and raised in the Bay Area, which is a part of California, about 300 miles north of Los Angeles. But Matasian doesn't sound like an English name. Oh, I'm Armenian. My parents are...

Oh, okay. Yes, my parents. I'm first generation Armenian in the United States on my dad's side and second generation on my mom's side. States on my dad's side and second generation on my mom's side. Armenia is over there by south of Georgia and north of like Iran. Iran. It's in a tough spot. It's a tough spot. Very small country in a very, very tough spot. It's a good thing you're over here now. Yeah, probably safer. We see for probably it's probably it's safe there unless you drink the water cedric in 2017 you made a post on your instagram showing your first interview ever at the crossfit games and um you mentioned that you didn't really understand what the um announcer was saying to you

or those were the implications of your post so you just took a shot and your English wasn't that good then is your English better now my English is way better that's why I'm on the podcast right now I guess if there's something we say I don't want you to and you don't understand it you just stop us and ask this is the most, this podcast is your podcast. This podcast would not exist if people like you didn't come on. So you just be like, yo, yo, yo, say that again. I appreciate it. No, usually I should be able to understand most of it.

Back then, obviously, I only learned English via school, like in elementary school, so it was really, really basic. And then I did practice a little bit, knowing that I might get an interview over there. So I was kind of ready for it. Actually, I did not understand anything from what the interviewer asked me. And I just answered something randomly. So yeah, people made fun of me for a couple of years after that. So I had to practice it a lot. And now I'm way more comfortable to answer questions in English. Let me ask you this question. Maybe I'm wondering if you understand this.

Do you understand how attractive your girlfriend is? I don't know if that's okay to put down a podcast, but she's going to appreciate you saying that, Savant, for sure. If ever she knows who you guys are. Because she's not into cross. She's not into the she's not into like the cross the gimmick as much as as i am but uh i do appreciate that someone but she's she's pretty she's pretty fit though right she's pretty fit though right yeah she made it to original in 2016 and then she made it to uh she got second place at wooded palooza 2018 i believe and then she

actually tore her labor on wooded palooza last year and believe. And then she actually tore her labrum at Palooza last year. And then since then, and with the whole COVID thing, gyms being closed, she couldn't train for months. So her fitness went from like 100 to zero real quick. But we're just starting to build back up. We started like three or four weeks ago to build back up her fitness. So she wants to compete still next year, probably. But your fitness didn't go to zero when they...

Whatever they did to your country. I have nothing nice to say, so I'll just leave it at that. Your fitness didn't wane. It's okay. It's freedom of speech here, Savan. No, actually, Cedric, it's not freedom of speech in your country, but go on. No, I said here as in the podcast.

Oh, okay. No yeah it's clearly not freedom of speech in my country no no no and it's not freedom of speech in my country either so i so i don't mean it to be just a dig at your country no um i was able to still train because i would sneak in like illegally in the gym um like five times five times a day a week but you so that way i can keep up my fitness do you know what happened to him in January, though? Do you know what happened to him in January, though? He tore his labrum. No, no, no.

That's him. That was January, right, Cedric, where you had that incident? That was January, yeah, but I've been like, they've been bugging me for months, but prior and after that. What happened? Yeah, you tell it, you tell it. Yeah, you tell it. what happened? Yeah, you tell it. Yeah, you tell it.

So basically, gyms were closed to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Right? And it had been closed from the Atlas game, which was like mid-March, all the way until two to three weeks ago. So that's like a full 15 months

that gym has been closed. So anyways, I guess I cannot afford to not train for 15 months and still qualify for the crossfit game that's just not something so i had to move down here but one of the main reason why i moved down here is because even if i would not spread covid19 i would go from my house directly to the gym alone in a 9 000 feet square gym and just come back to my home while seeing nobody, just being alone, the police would just knock on my door of the gym that I manage and just try to bust open to get me out of there. And then one day I was in contact with CrossFit and the governments

and the PFAA. And I had a bunch of proof as It was me being a professional athlete. I needed this for my incomes. And I had a letter from CrossFit HQ. A bunch of proofs. I'm just, all right. Instead of hiding, I just decided to open the door and face the police. And then they pulled me out of the gym. And then I was kept outside. On fire night, it would be like minus 20 fire night for like 45 minutes while being in shorts and a t-shirt.

So this is what happened. And the reason why Brian is bringing this up is because I had an interview with Morning Chalk Up about this earlier this year. Dude, I heard it was the second most read article on Morning Chalk Up this year after the letter that Matt Fraser wrote about why he retired. The comments were nuts, too. this year after the letter that Matt Fraser wrote about why he retired. The comments were nuts too. On Instagram, the amount of comments, it was nuts. What city was this that this happened in? I'm from Gatineau, Quebec.

So basically, you guys have states, we have Provence, and then the Provence are making the rules for the whole Provence. And then the same way I believe each state is different in the United States, each Provence are making the rules for the whole province. And then the same way I believe each state is different in the United States, each province is different. So I'm in Quebec. And what they do, the province government, what they do basically is they look at how many cases they have in one particular city. And then they make specific rule based on, it's like a color coded rules based on how many cases you have.

So like my city for most of the whole pandemic wasn't red, which is like six cases. Complete lockdown. Like a raccoon had COVID, so they shut down your province. Well, the funny thing is that so we're 500,000 people in my city. So it's like, I mean, it's not a ghost town, but it's not Atlanta. It's not a big city, but it's not a small city either. 500,000 is quite a bit of people. That's big, yeah.

And we just turned green three weeks ago, so now we can open gym. Green zone, you can open gym. We turned green three weeks ago because we had five or less cases a day. None of people dying of testing positive. Five cases a day. That people dying of testing positive five cases a day that's nothing that's nobody and people are so freaked out about the whole covid thing for five people a day it's pretty insane i don't know if you guys want to talk about covid or you want to talk about crossfit man that's my favorite conversation it's insane it is absolutely insane um if if at all you feel like i'm being rude to you during the podcast it's because i am because i have a bias for taylor

self i spoke to him last week and fell in love with him so i apologize for any passive aggressiveness or hostility i well i throw you all of your podcasts or a lot of them i realize you're really passive aggressive i think i can deal with that okay good and on behalf of brian i just want to thank you for coming on um imagine he's like a um imagine just a like a little boy who's just really into race cars and then all of a sudden he gets to go into a warehouse with every single one of his favorite race cars that he knows everything about. That's basically what it's like. He's taking you for a test drive right now.

You're like the Ferrari I always wanted to drive that I'll never drive. But Brian knows everything about you probably, and now you're like a real-life character. It's like if comic book characters came to life and Brian could hang out with them. So on behalf of Brian, I just want to say thank you for coming on. The same way you like to pick at your guests, I actually like to pick on Brian for some reason. Every time I see him, I just like joke with this guy and pick on him. So it's all good. Yeah, he's the best.

It's one of the unique things. Like I realized about a year ago or maybe in the middle of sanctional seasons that no one was putting out any projections for the competitions. And I was like, you know, it's great to talk about analysis we can say oh we think this guy's good we think this girl is good but why isn't why in every other sport you'd have odds on a golf tournament or or for race car drivers so i was like you know what i know a lot about these guys i'll just put out some things and like i didn't i don't ever have a big following or anything like that but some of the athletes started to notice it and then some of them would either contact me via Instagram or talk to me at the competitions and most of their reactions were along the lines of what I wanted the reason the reason I do that from the athlete's perspective if any athlete sees it my hope is that

it motivates them either it motivates them to prove me wrong or motivates them to prove me right because they wanted they want to qualify. They want to win. And Cedric's one of those guys that whenever he sees me, he's like, oh, seventh place, huh? Well, we'll see about that. And he's laughing and joking. But I also know he's very serious about it. I also know he's very serious about it.

Yeah. No, I love it. And I was so upset. I didn't know at the time. But then I told you about that in Vegas. But corner where yay came to me is like did you see that Brian Frank I he put us in like six and seven and he's like I was like oh man because me and Sam won the previous year and it was same competitor we were going for first and second and we Adler was there this year so would have

probably shared with him. So I was like, there's no way this is going to happen. I need to meet this Brian guy. But I never had actually this talk with you back then in Atlas because of everything that happened. But, no, it was a funny experience. And since then, I've been following you and looking at your prediction. And I think you're pretty good at it, so keep going at it.

He doesn't have any competition. That's why he's so good at it. Let's wait a couple years. My coach was screaming, he's doing a fantastic job at it. He's downstairs. Cedric, how tall are you? I'm 5'9.7. So if you run it up, it's 5'10.

Okay, we'll give you 5'10. And how much do you weigh? I am one. I was sick all week, so I lost like six pounds, but usually I'm competing at 191. So on February 20, 2015, you posted a picture of yourself on Instagram weighing 165 pounds. I mean, granted, you are extremely shredded. Man, you've been scrolling my profile a ton. Everything.

Well, it's hard to look at you when you have all those pictures of your girlfriend. But in six years, so you've put on 26 pounds. When I started doing CrossFit, I was doing bodybuilding before and i was 177 and i went back the highest i've weighed i think is 195 so i took like 18 pounds since

i've been doing crossfit yeah and and you were super shredded back then at 165 i was trying to do either zone diet or paleolithic diet, which basically I would train for like five, six hours a day and I would eat like not even 2,000 calories. So yes, I was really weak and really shred indeed. And how old are you now? 24. Oh man, you're young. Okay, so you were really young back then. Holy cow. I was 16 on're young. Okay, so you were really young back then. Holy cow.

I was 16 on that photo. Okay. So here we are. Brian, how close did he get to not having to do the last chance qualifier? And was he one of your picks to make it without having to go this route? I think I projected him seventh. He ended up finishing. No, you had me in the last chance, Brian.

Yeah, which is where you are but I think yeah he was eighth and he had to fight for that spot because he basically had a bunch of no reps in a workout on day one that put him in a deficit for the weekend and he was climbing his way back the entire time so the answer to your question is...

And where do you have him? You know, he... I think if not for all those no reps on that first round of thrusters, he might have made it. Like, you know. I only needed to be a top... If you do the math,

I only needed to be a top 15 in the workout where I finished dead last 30th out of 30 men. I only needed a top a top 15 in the workout where I finished dead last 30 out of 30 men. I only needed a top 15, which was 90 seconds slower than what I did in practice. Wow. It's not only the no rep that I got. It's also when I started to get the no rep, it got in my head and I started to panic.

And then my reps were just not cyclical anymore. I would drop my my bar talk to my judge so there's a lot of error on my side as well as what i believe are not justified no reps but that's another topic well this is what was the no reps for what movement there's thrusters right i'm going yeah um the the no rep were on the thrusters, right? Yeah. The no rep one on the thrusters. So we're starting with 27 thrusters. And in practice, I would do this workout with Jake and Noah, right? And Noah was in my eat. We were in the last eat.

And when Noah dropped his bar to get to his rope climb, I was at 12 reps remaining. And the funny thing about this judge is that he was also counting backward. So I would do my first rep and we'd go 27. And I would be like this judge is that he was also counting backward. So I would do my first rep and we'd go 27 and I would be like, wait, what? 27? No, that's, I mean, I have 26 left now. And then I would just be fighting my own demons for the whole workout, trying to figure out, I had no clue at no time how many reps I had in that workout. It was like good rep, no rep, two good reps, two bad reps. It was pretty awful. Is that rap, two good raps, two bad raps. It was pretty awful. Is that normal, Brian, for them to count backwards?

No. They would always count up, and then as you have five left, they would count down, five, four, three, two, one, on their fingers, but they still should be vocalizing the numbers getting closer, I think. But there's two important things to understand here. One is, and it's a conversation that people are having, is that there are no professional judges in CrossFit yet. The closest thing they have to that are level one seminar staff that work at the games, but they're still not being paid to do that salary.

Maybe, I don't know if some of them might be flied out there and put up, but most of them, there's no salary involved. And at the competitions, even the semifinal, which is a qualifying stage to the games, which is obviously critically important for the athletes, these are mostly volunteer judges. And by mostly, I mean, unless maybe the head judge, but they're not actually interacting with athletes in a workout unless there's a controversy. So that's a bigger question for CrossFit going forward. Do they want to have professional judges at the most important competitions? But the second thing is until they do, and even once they do,

this is something that's going to happen to an athlete at some point in their career no matter what. And I've seen it happen to athletes in a variety of different circumstances, and sometimes it doesn't cost them much, and sometimes it costs them a lot. But how you react to it is critical and and in that workout there's a better way to handle it and not and after the workout there's a better way to handle it and not and part of i think the development of athletes in this sport is having those experiences learning from them and figuring out both as a as a competitor on the floor and then as a competitor off the floor after the cup, after that workout ends, what's the right way to handle those?

What I would call is unfortunate circumstances. They should reduce the prize money by 25%. They should reduce the prize money by 25% and give that money to the judges. No, they shouldn't do that. I'm going to tell you what they should do actually step out because thank you thank you game tried that actually the year that i was the last year that it actually happened in 2018 they were paying the judge and that was the first in crossfit so what they did is they actually took judges and threw out i don't know if it was two or three

months but somewhere in that range of time, they would need to go to practice. And then one of the head judges of CrossFit at the CrossFit Games actually was coaching the judge to apply better. And those judges were paid on the day of the competition, not for practice, but on the day of the competition, to judge us to better standard. And that was, I believe, a big step forward throughout making the sport a little bit more professional. And I feel like the sport has been on for 15 years now. I think we're at the point where, just like any other professional sport, judges are paid. I wonder if that's a valid assumption, that if you pay the judges, you'll get better judging. If they get a full-on training prior to the competition, based specifically on the events we're going to be seeing, yes.

At least by better judging, what I want to mean is that you judge from the same way. Sometimes you look at the judge and you know, oh, that's an easy judge. And then you know that's a really tough judge, like my trusty judge. So why isn't that the same for every athlete in every workout that's the big problem well it seems legit there's yeah there's always going to be an element of human error but we're we're zooming out a little bit here and talking about the professional utilization of judges but if we zoom out further than that i think something would have to happen before that and this is a conversation that people are also having now is there needs to be a clear

understanding of the movement standards for this competitive season. So at the start of the year, they need to say, this is the standard for the bar-facing burpee this year. And therefore, they can put their judges through a course so that at every competition that that judge works, they know it's the same standard if bar-facing burpee shows up. And at the same time, the athletes know every time they go to a competition, this is the bar-facing burpee shows up. And at the same time, the athletes know every time they go to a competition, this is the bar-facing burpee standard for this season. So that there's not a change year-to-year event. Or it could be a change year-to-year, but within the year, event-to-event, the movement standard's the same. That makes it easier for the judges and the athletes, less likely to have these points of contention. Cedric, when the cops came to the gym, how many times had they come before you decided to answer the door?

Like, had they come, was that like the 25th day in a row? 20 times, I don't know, like a lot of times. And sometimes they would come and it would be the cleaner, actually. The cleaner was there and you got a fine for just cleaning a gym alone. And this person was just cleaning the gym because for me and the, and the owner, right? So only 2% were allowed to train in the gym. Well, the owner is not even training. So it would just like work in his gym, which he's allowed to because he's the owner of the property. But then because I'm not owner and we look up of like

having me buying 1% of the gym, but then there was lawyers involved and that would cost a lot of money too. And it was just a pain in the butt. Um, so yeah, basically they probably came 20 times and it was not all, all the time me, but they would come knock, wait. And then a lot of people had sighting of them actually coming over. And when they would knock at the door, would you keep working out or you'd have to stop and like be quiet? yeah yeah i would stop and just hide god that sucks and um and when they pulled you outside why did they have to keep you outside for 45 minutes so good question um and if you would have read the morning chalk up article you would know it's because actually as i walk outside okay i didn't i was not expecting

like when i opened the door i was not expecting like when I opened the door I was not expecting I just wanted to talk to them right he could come inside and just talk to me inside I have nothing to hide here and then they were like no no you need to come to the police car I was like all right and I just like I was never had any kind of interaction with police like do I look like a guy having interaction with police no so I just walk outside and then the door closed on itself it was like oh and then i was stuck and then my wallet was inside the gym so they could not confirm my identity they asked me a bunch of questions like when was your last ticket and i

was like i don't know 2016 like speeding tickets it's been a long time and it was like no your last one was in 2017 and it would ask me a question. What's the cell phone number in our system that I had in 2017 when they arrested me? And I was like, I haven't changed my cell phone number since then. So I just gave, no, that's not the cell phone number we have on file. And I was like, the cell phone number you're giving me right now, I've never heard of. I mean, I am Cedric LaPointe. Like, go check my facebook profile instagram whatever like google my name but like so they had to wait for my girlfriend which was

at the grocery store to come on open the gym grab my wallet and then uh give my identity paper to the police and did you get in trouble was Was there any fine? No. Well, that's good. Were they hostile towards you? Were they nice to you? What was the... There were six police, actually. And, um... I know, I'm such a fake guy. How could I run?

No, the head of the police... So how it works is that it's called a COVID squad, but they have in Quebec. So they hired new police, like young. They're like 20 years old. And the only thing you do is you look up like house to house because you're not allowed to go see your mother. You're not allowed to go see your father.

You're not allowed to go to another houses, right? So they go see house to house to make sure there's not like too many cars for the amount of people that is in the car in the house so that you don't have like parties or my my the owner of my gym got fined six thousand dollar because his sister went to his house to do a party birthday party for their daughters of like nine years old um so, so the squad of COVID goes business to business or houses to houses and arrest people or give fine to people. And the guy that came to my gym, the reason why it was so hostile is that he was actually the head

of the squad. Um, and then he had like bunch of 20 years old with him. So he had to like show example, I believe. So he was super rude for me me and i was so nice to him because i was so stressed and scared to be honest you know what i mean how do those people sleep at night how the fuck do those people sleep at night knowing knowing that he did not like help to not spread covet 19 i was alone in my gym i even went inside. I was like, come inside. I'll show you. Like, I don't care if you don't have a mandate to come inside.

I'm just going to show you because I have nothing to hide. So he came inside. I showed him everything. He looked everywhere. There was nobody hiding. And then it was good to go. Do those guys carry guns?

They do. They do. And were they wearing masks i believe they were yes yes and did you were you wearing a mask i was not awesome you're a good dude just just think about what he's saying though so i was alone in my gym why would i wear a mask they're coming into they're coming into a building and they're looking for people that are hiding. Have you heard this story before? Because when you say you're not alone, he's like, are you alone?

Yes. Can I go see? I'm legally allowed to say no. You don't get into the property because they don't have a paper that justifies this. But because I had nothing to hide, I was like, yeah, just don't get into the property because they don't have a paper that justifies this. But because I had nothing to add, I was like, yeah, just come inside. Go look. I don't know how people – I don't know how an elected official would think it's okay ever to treat the citizens like that.

It's so – we could circle – let's have him on that. If he makes the games, then we'll have this conversation. Cedric. Cedric. Go aheadric, there was a... Go ahead, Brian. I'll just throw something on top of that. It's just, it's vomitous. There was a clause when they announced the semifinals that said,

all Canadians and Mexicans will compete in the Atlas Games. And you competed at West Coast Classic. How did you do it? Yes. Okay, you want me to go on that, right? You're not going to attack me right away so so that did a lot of drama i believe here as well um so basically what happened is that this not knowing this got announced after wait wait why is that a big deal because he didn't compete in the atlas games will you explain that a little better? Yeah, so to me, when they were seeding,

there was a big question about how CrossFit was going to seed the semifinals in North America and Europe. Because in all the other continents, there's only one, so there's no controversy. And they had said in the rulebook that they were going to have a fair and equitable way to seed the athletes. Well, we know that that just means fair and fair, and we didn't know what else that meant. There's a lot of gray area open for interpretation. So people are wondering.

Then, and we knew that because of COVID this year, some of the competitions would be virtual, some would be live. In the case of North America, three of them were live and one was virtual. In Europe, they were all virtual. So there wasn't, I didn't see any kind of controversy there. But if you come out and say, one of these is virtual, three are live, and all Canadians must compete in the virtual one, that's a black and white rule. It says all Canadians. So when I started to see a couple Canadian flags popping up on live competitions, I was like, why is Steven Jones at the Atlas Games?

How come Cedric LePoint's at West Coast Classic? Why is all Sandra Pacelli listed as Canadian but competing in a live competition in the U.S.? So there was a conflict there between what the rulebook said, which is a rule that was released in the middle of the season, and what was actually happening. So I kind of tried to find

out what was going on in each case, but I would think we should just ask Cedric what happened in his case. I'll tell you. But I think we should just ask Cedric what happened in his case. So'll tell you. I think we should just ask Cedric what happened in his case. Yeah. So because a lot of people, actually Pat and Brent, reached out to me like, how did you do that?

Because they wanted to compete at live events too. And it's not that I did nothing wrong. They asked me during those times, and then they gave you a time period, which was later on the semifinal time period. They said, where are you going to be? What's going to be your residency, your address? And then I knew I would come here for training camp.

So when they asked me for my residency, I put this address here in Georgia, Atlanta. And so they based your semifinal based on your geolocation, not from where you're from or where you're born, but where you're actually living at the time of the competition you were competing at. So during that time period, I stated that I would live in Georgia, which was 100% true. So this is the reason why I competed at the West Coast Classic.

So they didn't go based on nationality. Seems fair. Makes sense. I like it. Do you like it, Ryan? So here's the kind of the question questionable part because there's another guy who already mentioned on the podcast samuel corn why a who during the semi-final time was doing a training camp at mayhem in tennessee but he was not able to get into a live competition because he i think he put his address as his canadian address instead of putting that tennessee address and so they classified him with the with the Canadians but for me on the outside not knowing the difference I knew that there were other

athletes who'd requested because they also had to rank their semi-finals one two three four by their preference and people who had said I want anything other than the virtual competition Canadian men in particular that I've talked to that were not given it and Cedric was given it and so he just it's like he g gained the system without even trying to gain the system yeah well it sounds fair to me and it sounds like Samuel or whatever you said his name is deserves it for telling Cedric not to talk to you so he karma he got what didn't you say don't talk to brian because of where he put us in the ranking no he said he said don't even look at the ranking oh okay so so i i didn't realize that

so you're in georgia is that is that where the thing are you in some sort of training think tank group right now is that what's going on yeah yeah yeah so i'm in the training thing group that's training on site here in preparation for the semi-inals, we have like 12 or more athletes here preparing for semifinal. Some people were there for like three months. Some people were there for two weeks. But it's a pretty competitive group, and we're having a lot of fun here. It's great. Is Travis there?

Travis is there? Yeah. You need to always say his name during every podcast, right? Travis is there. Noah's there right now. Sandra is there right now. And Alexis is there right now. Are they watching you?

Did they watch you yesterday do the last chance qualifier? Not only watching. There was like probably 30 people screaming at me on the rower yesterday. So it was pretty electric when it comes to the atmosphere it was great so you so you did the first two workouts and how do you think you did did you pr your dead we did the first one i'm actually gonna do the second one in about two hours um the deadlift one which doesn't need a big warm-up anyways. I think I did fairly well. I mean, rowing is not my forte, but this is a short workout,

and I'm a pretty explosive athlete, so I can hold, if it's for a short duration of time, I can hold a pretty fast pace. After the workout, Travis and Noah were like, that was really good. And my cycling on dumbbells was really good because I have a background, like I've done a lot of kettlebell classes, so I know how to cycle kettlebell and dumbbell pretty fast. So I believe that's going to be good for a rowing test, yes. And you don't want to share your score.

No one wants to share their score because then it would let other athletes know that they should redo it right now really quick. Well, I mean, is that live right now? No, but Brian will call his 3,000 athletes he talks to. That is so far from the truth. That is far from the truth. Good question.

I do know what a good score on this workout will end up being, but no, no, I would never be dissed. Based on Matt? Based on Matt, who no, based on mathematics, like what's a good score reps per minute for you. Like he's asking,

is it a good score because someone told you what they got already or because of what you've just figured out? I had an idea of what was possible. And, um, the question was for you, Brian, I had an idea of what was possible. The question was for you, Brian. I had an idea of what was...

I think... Okay, well. What do you think is possible? I thought that it would be possible to flirt with six minutes on this score for the men on this workout. And then I heard from some athletes times. And as always, I underestimate the athletes. There's some beasts out there. I was flirting with six-minute too. Would Noah and Travis tell you the truth?

Like, if you didn't do as well as they thought you should, would they tell you, hey, knucklehead, do it again? Yeah, I don't know if they would. Although they would tell me like, oh, I think this was not fast enough. They would tell me that, but I don't think they would be disrespectful. They would not go like, dude, that was not good. Go again. Like, no, they would not do that. Are you recovered from the workout yesterday?

Do you feel it when you woke up this morning? Yeah. I'm pretty recovered. I don't feel sore at all. I was expecting my leg to be maybe a little heavy. No, I feel pretty good. And when you do the deadlift today, will you go for a PR? I actually did a PR last Monday on my deadlift.

I'm going to go for a PR for three for sure. I'm going to pull with everything I have in me. I'm going to probably broke my back most likely, but I'll just go for it because it's for the CrossFit game and it's kind of what I have to go. I saw on Instagram a couple people. think I mean I would not do that it would be six tests but well that's a good point the four tests versus six tests and the thing that I keep seeing people what people put on Instagram is

that these tests the way that they're kind of designed is really kind of a how bad do you want it you know there's not much in the way for you guys in terms of skill or they're not that long workouts you just got to get after it um savon you you know um you know dave right pretty well uh. The Mexican guy who lives down the street from me? Yeah, this guy. I wonder if this test and maybe Brian, maybe you have some insight or some opinion about it. I wonder if this test is based

and has been written to test who's the fittest or who's going to be the most ready to go at medicine. Because this is not and you can't argue with me on that, this is not a good fitness test at all. But maybe the reason why these tests have been placed there is because they know already the workout that will be at the CrossFit game and based on those workouts, the athletes

that do the best in those four specific tests will be the most ready to go on the big stage. I wonder. That's a fair question. And this is also the most biased test I've ever seen. Like, if you're a tall athlete and you have a long arm, you'll be better at deadlift, you'll be better at rowing, and you'll be better at legless row climb. So, okay, yeah, you'll be a little slower on the burpees but that's one workout. Three out of four are better for athletes that are longer and have

longer limbs and this is super biased and there's no gymnastics which is one of the main modality of CrossFit and there's no real conditioning. There's no workout, what we call delivery workout, where we're mainly working the heart muscle. There's no workout above 20 minutes. It's at home. There's no scheduling. Why we don't have a 30-minute AMRAP this weekend? It would have been 100% possible to make a better fitness test. That's why I believe this test is probably written for people knowing that these people will go to the CrossFit Games.

Maybe we'll have some kind of Rosh Trans, some kind of rolling test at the CrossFit Games or something like this. So just to be super clear, are you saying that it would be bad if it was – are you saying is it good that it's biased? Does it matter that it's biased or is it bad that it's biased? Just to be super clear. biased or is it bad that it's biased just to be super clear if it's biased because it's biased toward the crossfit game that's fine if the goal was to find the fittest athlete it's not a good test so it's not fine depends what's the what's the goal behind the programming so it can't be really good or it can be really bad i don't know because i'm not in the head of the guy who's running the programming right this is i'm not his head either no one can get into that head

it's too dangerous but this is what we were talking about with hobart the other day what did you say brian you cut out this is this is part of the conversation we were having with james hobart the other day is the totality of the season used to be very clear because it was all coming from dave we had open regionals games there was a progression to the season used to be very clear because it was all coming from Dave. We had open regionals games, there was a progression to the season, and it was kind of, once you saw all of it, it was easier to understand. This year, we're still waiting to see the whole picture, and then we can look back and potentially answer some of the questions Cedric is asking

of if these things are related to each other or not, and then we'll see how that evolves in year two and three of this system cedric just to play i don't know devil's advocate's the right word but but it is crossfit and look at what just happened in the united states in the olympic in the olympic trials that girl was 5'2". And she won whatever. She set the world record or she set the U.S. record for the 100 meter sprint. And that was just unheard of. She also tested positive for it yesterday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't smoke

weed. Does the CrossFit Games test for smoking weed? I believe so, yeah. It's water testing. It's drug-free sports, but it's the same lab as water. So it's interesting. I hear you. I'm not pushing back. I'm just throwing in more data points. I don't really have a brain that's capable or has the tools of how to think of that,

but I hear you. But I hear you. Yeah. Yeah, it can be really good or it can't be really bad i don't know what was the purpose behind the programming that's the only thing let me throw this out here and i'm this is just a complete just toss in the dark when i go to my kids jujitsu class there's something that they do called sumo and basically they make a circle a giant circle and then they put two kids in there and then the kids have to push each other out. And it's like the favorite thing for the parents to watch, that and sparring.

So when they do this sumo game, part of me is like, man, do they do this so that we feel like we're getting our money's worth from paying for my kids to go to jiu-jitsu? Because it's not cheap, you know, it's like $400 a month for all my kids to go. So I'm thinking, oh, maybe this is just like a reward for us parents to watch. And so let me tie that to the deadlift. maybe this is just like a reward for us parents to watch. And so let me tie that to the deadlift. This what's cool about this three rep deadlift,

at least for the, for the sport and the fans is it's going to give CrossFit bragging rights. Someone is going to do something absurd, right? We're going to see some number and everyone's going to be like, what? And so, so yeah,

go ahead. There's one guy called Phil tune. He's going to deadlift like 600 pounds for three. Yeah, that's nice. That's a great name. Phil Toon. Never heard of that guy, but I heard at Training Tank that this guy can deadlift like a house. I think 650 or 660 is his max.

And I'm not suggesting Dave works like that. Wow. Wow. I'm not suggesting Dave works like that. Wow. When you look at this group, do you see yourself going to the CrossFit Games, Cedric? When I look at the group or when I look at the test? Both. Do you see yourself going to the CrossFit Games based on all the data points you have? I thought so, but now Brian is telling me some people went like

probably in the mid-fives, so I probably need to redo my workouts today. No, yes, I do so believe I'm going to probably go at the end of the weekend. Those are good tests for me.

The deadlift's going to be damage control, but then overall those are pretty good tests for me. Do you have any concerns about doing an interview or talking to people or letting...

Go ahead, Brian. I think I'm delayed. Do you think my ranking for you is fair this time? I think you're cutting, Brian. Yeah. Can you guys hear me? We are waiting for Brian. Now we can. Go ahead without me if it's cutting out.

Brian, I think when you lean forward into your mic, you block your phone signal. Oh, is it better from back here? Yeah, it is actually. It's hilarious. If you stay back, it's better. Oh, I was just asking Cedric if he thought... I think I ranked him third for this one,

and I thought if he thought that was fair or not. I think that was good. I think that was good. But don't you have to be taught, too? I'm going to be honest. I think those are not the best tests for me because of the deadlifts, most likely, but I also learned something really valuable from West Coast Classic, and this is from not having too much expectation going in a workout prior to it

because my two best workouts at West Coast Classic were supposed to be the handstand push-up and the legless rope climb, and those two happened to be my two worst workouts. So you never know what's going to happen on a competition floor. So I'm keeping my head up and I'm hoping I'm going to be doing the right thing to make it to the end of the weekend. Who else is at the training thing

who's doing the last chance qualifier? Alexis Raptus. She's a fierce competitor. She'd done two workouts already yesterday. Went pretty well for her too. You know what's so crazy? Someone sent me a DM.

You know what's so crazy? Go ahead. She's only one year younger than you, right? I think she's 23 and you're 24. She's only one year younger than me, right? But I think of her as such a young athlete. I thought she was 22, but she's going through to 23 soon. I think of her as a young athlete in the sport.

And I think of you, and I know you're only 24, but I'm like, well, I've known this guy for several years. I've seen how close he's been for a couple years. And so like 24 to me, I think of you as a veteran. 23 of her, I think of her as a newcomer. Yeah, the perspective that you have on people is different from one to the other that's for sure what do you think about Sivan what do I think about who

Sivan what does Brian think about me what's the perception that Brian has on you Sivan I have a very unique perspective on him I view him as a a young man in body with a ton of wisdom and experience. Ah, thank you, Brian.

I felt all... We are. We are definitely a thing. So yesterday someone DMed me and they said, hey, you should have Cedric LaPointe on. He's got a great sense of humor. And I took that as kind of like a challenge. I'm like, great sense of humor. I'll be the judge of that. I'm like, God has appointed

me of deciding whether people have a good sense of humor. How dare you? So I called Brian and Matt and I said, hey, well, I think first I called Brian. I was like, hey, do you know Cedric Lapointe? And he got, you know, just all excited like he does any, like I can say any game's athlete's name.

So don't let it go to your head, Cedric. He gets all excited. Oh, yeah, he's great. I know him. He's fantastic. He would be great. He's great. And I go, should we have him on the show?

He goes, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I said, okay. So we called the producer of the show, Matt Souza, and we're like, hey, Matt, can you get a hold of Cedric Lapointe for 7 a a.m tomorrow and you know this is pretty late in the day yesterday he said sure no i was about to go to bed when you guys called me yesterday oh that's awesome so then right there in real time mac goes oh i see his phone number right here i'll just call him i go fuck it i'll call him and so we were all in a three-way chat and i called and that's why i called you.

And then you answered the phone, and we just scheduled it up. And I appreciate you answering. But my question is this. Two parts. Well, first, your phone number is on your Instagram. I don't know if you want that. Because you asked us, how did you get my phone number? And I said, I got it from your ex-girlfriend.

But that was a lie. I really got it from your Instagram and your profile. When you answer the phone, you answer it in French and in English. Is that normal? I think you said, like, bonjour, hello. I was like, whoa. I mean, that was an unknown number for me. So I just went both languages.

I always do that, though. I've done that for several years now. Usually, if I don't know the number, I don't answer. If I was, like, California, I was like, I might be crossing HQ. I was like, what's in California? I was like, oh, I'm just going to answer. So it was a pretty random lock that I answered that phone, actually. No, after we had that phone.

Oh, that would have been great. What if I would have been like, Cedric, this is the Dave Castro. You tested positive. Sorry, fine, go. No, I had that thought last night. I was like, I bet you he answered because it's in the middle of a competition. Sevens had a California number, and he was like, you never know. Maybe CrossFit is calling me for something.

Sevens had a California number, and he was like, you never know. Maybe CrossFit is calling me. I believe it was CrossFit when I said a number. That's awesome. Brian, it's about time to let Cedric go. Do you have anything pressing any good luck any final words you want to say for him well you know one of the things that was kind of uh i don't want to say disappointing but i've noticed in the past couple years that the men in

canada have gotten really good and there's you know maybe six to twelve guys that i think can really represent the sport in the country well at the crossfit games and so when i saw the all canadians have to compete at the atlas games i was like man the best they could possibly do is get five obviously five guys to qualify through atlas games and then maybe two through the last chance qualifier but i just because curious because i think cedric's pretty plugged in there, and most of those guys are in that Montreal-Quebec area on the eastern coast. Why have the Canadian guys all of a sudden gotten so good? And if there were the opportunity for you guys to be dispersed amongst the North American fields,

all four of the North American fields, what do you think is like, is it possible that next year we'll see 10 guys from Canada make the CrossFit Games, a quarter of the field? I think there's a big gap between the ones that are trying to make it to the CrossFit Games and then the rest of the pack. I think we're not quite 10. I think we're probably like 6 or 7. I mean, yeah, if you had Vigneault this year, that made a really good comeback. Good for him.

I think, I don't want to forget nobody, but if you have like Fikowski, Vellner, Adler, Vigneault, Coran, Corneille, myself, Jean-Simon, I will make a comeback probably next year. That's 8 people. So those are 8 people that can for sure, I believe, make it to the CrossFit Games. And then you have Nicolas Royale, who's pretty good too, who's been pushing pretty hard for a couple of years.

So I think it's 100% possible. Obviously, it won't be possible if they keep the same format, but if we have a little bit more of a fair format, which I believe we will because I believe we'll be able to travel uh next year with no um no problem because of the pandemic i think it's going to be possible to have at least seven or eight people across again yes your country is never going to open you realize that right cedric i'm not even joking you guys have a you guys have a plan implemented with no exit strategy. So does the UK and so does Australia.

You guys have locked the doors. It's completely insane. There's no exit strategy. They're either going to have to lie to you on backpedal or you will never open again. You should never go back to your country. I don't know if it's better in the United States, but I know the police officers here, most of them, at least in my area,

would never enforce some shit like that. They'd be like, fuck you. I think the worst is, for myself personally, is not what the government is doing by itself. Yes, it is bad, but I don't care about it. I don't care about politics. What's the worst is that this government is actually like indirectly brainwashing everybody right now and it's the way

that this and way of thinking affect people like surrounding me my family my friend this is what's bothering me most then like the government can do whatever they want as long as like i don't believe in what they're saying and i don't care about it and it doesn't affect me but then when it starts to affect people in my family and then i cannot see my family not because i don't want to but because they actually scare of seeing other people because they believe covid is spreading like this and they're going to die from it at 25 years old um it this is what makes me sad and upset at the same time yep same here you said it perfectly

say what you want but stop brainwashing people or if you try to brainwash people what's affecting me is that it works yes right this is what affects me the most I'd say it's weird to see it work right it's so weird to see it work like when it's not working on you and it's working on the guy next to you it's like watching a bugs bunny

cartoon you know like when he gets hypnotized and he like floats away you're like whoa whoa usually usually savann i'm i'm from like the political left so usually i would be like for like science for advancing the society for vaccine i would be like for like science, for advancing the society, for vaccine. I would be all for this usually. But I can see everything that's been doing wrong in that particular case is that this is what makes me flip more to the right side. For this particular case when it comes to the pandemic. So it's really it's a scary world we're living in in uh in canada and australia particularly and i'm seeing how everything is open here and it's i mean you're in the u.s

you have no idea how it is in canada people like are actually scared of like being close to each other and i was in vegas everybody was talking to everybody and it was great and uh i was really missing that i've been missing that for months now yeah i'm in the same boat you're in i am a dirt twirling tie-dye wearing hippie in my core but in this particular incident i i did this group has lost has lost their this cohort that i was with has completely lost their fucking mind and they're weird and they're angry and they're violent and they're everything that they've stood for or i've made the assumption that that political parlay has stood for forever has been completely abandoned it's it's um it's it's sad to see this it's sad it's sad

thank you for taking the time to talk to us thank you for having me guys it was a blast one final thought. So we mentioned, so Brian, when you asked that question, is it the same with the women? That's what I wanted to follow up with before we got distracted. Is it the same for the women? Are the women climbing or being as dominant as the men in Canada? I don't think there's as many of them that can have as big an influence

on the leaderboard at the Games. I think there's maybe, well, Caroline Riesentiebo is out this year. I like Caroline Prevost and Emily Rolfe. And then there's some young girls coming up, like Sydney McHalishan, who's made the Games, Annika Greer, who's fighting to make it this year. So I do think there's some younger girls on the Canadian side that are making a push, but I'd say they're like two to three years away from being where the men from canada are right now all right uh cedric will you um squeeze travis when you see him inappropriately long and tell him it's from me i'll do that i go to the gym right away he's

going to be training uh they've been training savage like for hours and hours every day so he'll for sure be there and i would recommend if i were you i'm no doctor but i would get a like a small cup or a test tube and just run it up travis's back while he's working out and get some of that sweat and drink it before your next workout if you i mean before the deadlift i might need that for sure yeah the dad strength if you want to qualify hey i resent the fact i was watching a podcast the other day and someone referred to him as having a dad bod or not a body that looks like it goes he's got an amazing body the fuck are those guys talking about doesn't travis have an amazing body yeah i mean he's

pretty wide and he's he's really strong, but he's not really thick. But he has an attractive body. He doesn't look like that. He has an attractive body. He's all lean. Yeah, he's wide. I mean, he looks good. He looks good in a bathing suit.

He's a man. Like, he's thick. If you look at Fraser, he's thick. If you look at Olsen, he's thick. Me and Travis, we're a bit more flat. You look like flying squirrels. And Travis can bench press. Do you have like flying swirls? Sure, if you want to.

But no, he looks really fit. And he's really fit. And he's really strong. So for his body weight, I think he's probably pound for pound one of the strongest athletes out there. He's putting on some massive numbers. Especially this year, we start to do more having a bit more of a big focus on weightlifting his strength has just been exponently stronger that's good enough that's good enough

since we're judging people's bodies where if if pat velner is a gorilla and you and Travis are swimmers, what's Noah? Noah would be like a baby gorilla. Baby gorilla. All right. We'll go with that. He's thick, but he's smaller, but he's thicker. And his limbs are so short. Like his arms are so short that they look so big.

And his quads are so short that they look so big. I'd say Noah is probably the best shape of CrossFit. I mean, no homo there, but Noah looks really good. You can go homo. We do it all here. We do it all. Yeah. Nothing against that meter.

But, no, I think Noah is really well-built for the sport of CrossFit as well. I love it that you said he has short limbs. That's great. That's got to hurt. That would hurt me if someone said that about me. That's good.