The Sevan Podcast - #798 - Women's Top 100 CrossFit Games Athletes w/ Brian Friend

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

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bam we're live oh i guess if it wasn't for california hormones you would be watching this show over at the morning chalk up or talking elite fitness or bar bend or espn or one of the other rags but because of cal hormone sponsorship and us leveraging that force of nature, that is California hormones. We've been able to drag Brian friend onto this show to do the most important show of the year, the power rankings for female CrossFit athletes in 2023.

Is everything I'm saying true? No, not necessarily, but the spirit of what i'm saying is absolutely true just like that's not a douchebag that's on brian's shoulders but it is some sort of bag what happened to the bat wait wait what happened to the bag that was on your shoulders you're making me seem like a liar i I moved it to my back. Just like that? That's the technical move?

Just slide it down? Yeah. Were you in some sort of compromised positions last night that you needed a heating pad for your shoulders and back? No, I think we did all right hey i'd hate to see the other guy you think you think i'm sore i'd hate to see the other guy uh clive mclaughlin hi literally just finished the last show 10 minutes ago a semi marathon for me today. This doesn't happen very often, but I was a little embarrassed at my performance last night because I was so jacked on coffee.

But thank God Halpin and Brian were here. They did a great job. Don't watch last night's show. It wasn't my best, unless you want to see Brian and Mike at their best. I kind of want to go over and look at the numbers from yesterday's show yesterday's show was good i was really impressed with the with the power ranking show yesterday i guess that's balance in the universe great show in the morning i mean i said it was bad don't get me wrong yeah well the subject was tough it's tough to make an hour and a half of. I told Mike afterwards, I'm glad we waited.

You know, the worldwide rankings came out. We did it almost immediately. Strength of field came out. I'm glad we waited a little while because it gave us a better chance to not necessarily just have first instinct responses, but actually like think about if what we were, how we felt about some of those things were, um, were actually true when we, when we applied a little bit of math. Arithmetic, the three R's. Or maybe we should have called it math with Halpin and

friends, friend and Halpin, Halpin and friend. I wonder if your name always goes second just because of the double meaning of the word friend. I guess it depends what meaning you want to imply. Like if we had a TV show, like if we were cops, if we had a cop show, it wouldn't be friend and Matosian. It would be Matosian and friend. Yeah. You could have a bigger gun, though, if you want, since my name goes first. Oh, shit. We're one minute late.

The show started. Great show yesterday. This has become – is this the first, second, third year, second year? How many years – how long has it been? Is this the second year of the power rankings i guess i mean last year i just didn't have as robust of a list i think the preseason it was pretty small like 20 or 30 that's right i forgot about the old days only 20 or 30 we went from 20 to 30 and now we're at 100 yeah we expanded throughout the season last year after the games put out a list of 100 and have obviously refined it um as we talked about yesterday and i

acknowledged in um even the post i put up last night that there are still things changing so i tried to have as good a pulse as i could on who's actually competing this year. But even since putting that post up, there's been some more things that I've learned. So we'll, we'll get to that as we work our way through the list. Do you feel vulnerable when you give these lists out? Like,

like kind of naked, you know what I mean? Like insecure, like, like the whole world's like looking at your shit. Everyone's judging you, by the way way there's no one who's like whether it's good or bad no one's like I look at the power rankings list with zero judgment like it's only to be judged

that's I mean right I mean that you're just it's not like it's just to be judged and everyone has an opinion who sees it it's just we're all a bunch of ass like anyone who gives a fuck about the power rankings, a judgmental douche. That's us.

Oh God. Brian fucked up again. Great job, Brian. Not maybe not. Maybe at least I have a heating pad on. Not quite naked. Okay,

fine. Oh, you slid it down to your back. Jay harder. Wow. No warning this morning. Probably the post I made on Instagram yesterday. My goodness. My goodness. Go look. Probably the post I made on Instagram yesterday. My goodness. My goodness.

Go look at that last one I made. Holy shit. You can't even believe the shit I'm posting is real. I will say this. I feel like people are a little bit more sensitive when it comes to the women and the men. Oh, with the men men it's like ah you fucked up dude that dude's 10 spots better and with the girls it's like hey dude i'm gonna fucking kill you that's my wife or i wish she was my wife right uh where is ariel lowen where

is sarah sigman's daughter does tia toomey get to stay on the list do you really know if she is going to compete or not compete pregnant by the way i love all of her videos i like t it's weird uh i love tia more than ever pregnant women are awesome um and uh yeah what this list is going to be very interesting where's olivia kerstetter what happened happened to Emma? Did Emma Lawson, did she catapult? Does Brian believe Hayley Adams is going to get strong and keep her in the top three? Top three. She's never been in the top three. Top six. How about Danielle Brandon? Fantastic, only getting better. know, fantastic only getting better, but you know. Yeah. And then the women's field right now is,

especially when you're, you know, you're talking about a lot of top 20, top 30, maybe top 10 athletes. There's an opportunity that hasn't been there for a while at the very top. And there's this same thing as on the men's side, there's a bunch of young women. It's a big range. When I say young women, 17 to 25 range that are still getting better and already very good. And then there's this other group of women that's like 28 to 33, and some of them are still extremely relevant. Some of them, we're not so sure if they'll ever be relevant the way they were again. Emma Carey, was Brian impressed with her wazzapaloozas or her rogues or was he disappointed? And complicating things on the women's side last week, or maybe earlier this week, Patrick Clark wrote an article on the bar bend.

Oh my God. On the bar bend. That's hello. Brian friend here. How can I help you? Why is that making a noise? There should never be any noise. Why do you have a guitar as your, that's so fucking 1980s.

There's no way that that's your ringer noise. No, I never have 1980s. There's no way that phone should make any noise. That's your ringer? No, I never have it on. It should never make any noise. I don't know why that happened. Change your ringer anyway. Oh, that means it must be someone important. I have to still call you twice.

Did you ever put me in your favorites? Yeah. It's not working. I still have to call you twice. Okay, sorry. What were we talking about? The article that Patrick wrote earlier this week. And he has dressed, there's like 20-something women that he mentioned

who were not in the individual field last year for one reason or another that are going to be this year. And in some of those cases, we haven't seen them do anything. And in other cases, we have had a chance to see them in the offseason. But nevertheless, sorting them accordingly is quite challenging. and in other cases we have had a chance to see them in the offseason but nevertheless sorting them accordingly is quite challenging and like i said some people have uh are a little bit more sensitive when it comes to the women's field for whatever reason and of course for every single one of those people there's going to be a group of supporters that are you know very excited to

see what's he going to do with amano Nangonis, Annika Greer, Sarah Samizot, or Jamie Simmons that weren't in the game season last year? Bethany Shadburn. Bethany Shadburn, Emma Tall, Emily Rolfe, all these women on here. Maddie Sturt didn't make the games. Michelle

Baznett missed the game. Shelby Neal, Lauren Fisher coming back to individual. Annie Thorzada coming back to individual. Wow, look at the visual caleb just put up that's nice where would you where would you rank let me ask you a really tough question here just where would you rank patrick clark in terms of uh uh games knowledge crossfit knowledge uh you mean like relative to other people or just yeah yeah really like in the let's give him an a through f just in terms of his f being the worst a being he gets to pass to the to the to the next grade level where are you where would you rank yourself uh i'm a i'm a oh then he's a plus yeah i think so too relative to you he's A+. Yeah, I think so too. Relative to you, he's an A+.

I agree. He has the greatest contributions in the comments of any – well, for his category of just CrossFit knowledge, he's the A. There's people who might have better questions. There's people who might be funnier. But in terms of CrossFit knowledge contribution, I wouldn't have given him an A plus on an arbitrary scale. But once you ranked yourself on it, it was the only

option left. Understood. Relativity is the only way things... I mean, I would say yours are the posts that make me have the biggest smile, Christine. Like, you're an A, and when I see you post, you're the shortest person who posts how's that uh wad zombie uh brian people used to get very up in arms about your rankings has that calmed down over the years or are people

still losing it get your athlete cards at what the wad zombie uh website i love my athlete cards i wish i would have brought them with me bring Bring them with you. Set them up in every studio. At least my Alexis wrapped this one. I have two of those. And so I feel comfortable taking one out of the den. You have two? I don't even have one yet. I'm an A.

I'm an A. I wrote all the captions on the back. I don't even have a card. Unbelievable. Oh, man. Anyway, to answer this question i think people who've been around for a while are more uh and they know what to expect and they also know that generally there'll be something like this to follow it up for a little bit more explanation and then maybe people are seeing

it for the first time um can have a little bit more of an emotional reaction so just depends on depends on, not so much on how long I've been doing it, but how long the people interacting with it have been aware of it. I'm assuming you get a lot of people who are personally involved. For instance, Shanna does not like what's happening to Ellie because her son is dating Ellie. So she's pretty active in the comments like, yo, let Ellie, free Ellie. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I don't think that she would take exception to a rankings of Ellie because when it comes to the athletes, I mean, there's only really, first of

all, a lot of the athletes don't care too much about this, you know, cause it doesn't really matter. But let me, let me amend that with an asterisk. They pretend to not care. Go on. They pretend to not care. The ones that do look at it, they will hopefully have one of two reactions. They'll either be like, fuck yeah, that guy believes in me and I want to go and prove him right. Or, fuck that guy. He doesn't think I can do it and I'm going to prove him wrong. And either way, that can be motivating for the athlete. I think if I was an athlete athlete i definitely wouldn't want to be ranked too high it's always if i didn't deserve it it would be weird it would be weird if you

didn't deserve it to be ranked high you feel like a douche yeah and it is always interesting you know there are certain athletes a couple that come to mind are lazar jukic and um jeff adler that throughout the history of their careers that i've been doing these rankings or predictions for they almost always either maybe maybe even always beat my prediction have beaten it but now they're getting so good that i can't sandbag them like you know the worst i'm going to rank jeff adler is fifth this year it's not a lot of room for, for his, you know, continue to beat that. And when it comes to a semifinal, if you pick him first or second,

like if you pick him first, the only thing you can do is match it at this point, if you pick him second, then there's like only one spot that he can do better than that. So the margins get really small for some of those people, but, but we'll get to some examples of what you're talking about, where I think in august i was just a little overzealous with a few and therefore it's going to look like they dropped really far down the rankings but really it's it's on me not on them in those cases and i i also think that there's athletes that if you're ranked higher than them it should make you feel a little uncomfortable like if you're ranked higher than hayley adams on the female side like you should be like do i

really deserve this or like scott panchik like you should be like, do I really deserve this? Or like Scott Panchik, like you had him ranked pretty low, I think yesterday and all those other guys, except for like, except for maybe like Justin Medeiros, everyone else should feel uncomfortable. I don't know.

I mean, I had him ranked 25th and, and I think I might, I mean, there's no way that Jason Hopper is better than Scott Panchik as a CrossFit athlete. I don't think I did. I think you put them 10 event. You pick, we pick 10 events out of the Hopper and Scott beats him every day.

Is Scott healthy enough to do that? That's the question. And that's why you have guys like that. And we'll get to some women like that. Same with Haley. Pick 10 events out of the Hopper. Man, those five people you have ranked ahead of her. I don't know.

I haven't looked at the rankings yet. Whatever you have. Those people I don't think can win. I don't't know if laura horvath can beat hayley adams or mal o'brien can beat hayley adams if you just randomly pick 10 things out of the hopper i know it's not random and if you're talking about just a head-to-head matchup hayley versus laura 10 random events yeah then then i think that's a different conversation because right hayley's not going to be punished for uh not being able to move a barbell with a score of two she's not going to be punished for not being able to move a barbell with a score of two. She's just going to get a one to zero in Laura's favor. And same thing with

the handstand pushups for Laura. Good point. But if you, you know, so it depends what comes out because I'm just pure capacity tests. And this, this is what's going to happen in the open, open announcement, 23.1, which we're going to talk about tonight. There's very specific things that Gabby Magawa has no chance to beat Laura Horvath in. But on a majority of things that we see in the Open, she should beat Laura. Does that mean she's better than Laura? And that's where the conversation gets fun. And this ranking, that's a great question.

So this ranking, oh, you're going to hate this. I'm going to try to do it anyway. This ranking is based on how they would place, I guess, if the CrossFit Games happened today, based on how you think that the CrossFit Games would be programmed. And the most simplest way to think of it, if the CrossFit Games were to happen today, this is how they would place 1 through 100 if all 100 went to the Games,

based on what you know of Adrian's programming and these athletes, how they perform. Yeah, I think that's fair to say. Oh, that's awesome. Okay. I like it. God, it's so simple compared to the strength of quotient worldwide rankings understanding. So simple. Yeah. And, and, and honestly, the, you know, the, one of the things I showed last night, that's kind of cool. And it was actually a good reflection for me also, because I wasn't thinking about this, putting this list together, but because we were ended up doing these so close to when the worldwide rankings and strength of field came out that I did do a little side-by-side comparison. And I wanted to see how I was, you know, cause I've, you know, I've, I've been making a strong case that Europe is not getting the representation they need.

But when I actually put it on paper, I saw that in my own rankings, I was still favoring the North American women over the European. Now there's a huge amount of women in general that are not on this list because they're not competing in the individual field this year. And a bunch of those are also from Europe. So it's a little skewed in that regard, but either way, you know, there are a lot of North American women on, in this top 100 for sure. So let's let the show begin. Well, sort of first we're going to look. I think we did this yesterday too, right?

We're going to look at the women who were on last year but who have not made it this year for one reason or another. And Brian will give us a quick overview of what happened. What are some of the main reasons, Brian, going team? Is that usually the main reason why they're off the list? Yeah, I mean, you'll see here. So it's pregnancy, obviously, a lot of team athletes. Isn't it weird that there's only one pregnant? I mean, that's what girls do.

They get pregnant. And yet, yeah, only one. It's kind of weird. That's just a Caroline Spencer, my fault. But yeah, and then the rest of weird that's just say caroline spencer my fault but um yeah and then the rest of these are basically going team olivia sulex only 20 years old but she's retired for now from competition and then a few masters wait whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa is she going to a different sport no she just like doesn't have the passion for it

wow she put a post up a month or two ago um she was uh up and comer to watch she was training with that brute camp down in naples and uh i think she still actually might be training with him she's just not competing anymore and i commend her for that i mean it's this is what i've you know when it comes to the team conversations that we've been having i've always said uh yeah steven flores yes there's a few others that can be added to this list too so we'll get to those later on but um you know if you don't have the passion to be on the team then i don't want you on the team is what i've been saying and i think that as a coach or a parent or a training partner if she's just not feeling inspired to compete this season then

it's uh it's i would be supportive of her to to step aside for now and maybe she'll have that fire rekindled at some point and maybe not, it's not for everyone, which is fine. Isn't Lucy Campbell, the girl out of the UK who won the swim event? Yeah. So what he's talking about here is that Lucy can't quit.

If you want an event the previous year. Well, she's, she's injured. So she's taking the year off to get healthy. And she said, she's that wrist has been bothering her since before quarterfinals last year.

And finally, she's realizing that she's that wrist has been bothering her since before quarterfinals last year and finally she's realizing that she's not it's not worth it to go through this year with that same injury so she's going to sit this season out she said she intends to come back and then Kara Saunders uh you know I have known that it was possible that she wasn't going to compete this year I decided to keep her on the list because I thought that there was a good chance she was actually going to be motivated by a T and not being there as we've talked about before. But at the end of the day yesterday, she put out a post that's confirmed.

She also will not be participating in this season. So I will remove those athletes and a few others from the list after this show. But as I said in the post and yesterday with the men, at some point I had to send these to the graphics guy. And so, you know, I'm just going with what I had at that time for now. If you're going masters, you can't be on the list? No, you can't be on the list.

I just, I basically, I didn't think that any of them would have a chance this year to actually make it in an individual field. But I didn't. There was not like a specific reason. And I just wanted to acknowledge that they're in the masters category and still might be one of the best 100 or 150 in the world so so is amy morton on your list she's not she was she's not anymore but but the reason when they're not on your list is supposed to be this category over on oh she was 86 last year and emily uh lappin then was 88 is she from the same country that henry happel happened in yeah oh good i'm smart as shit um uh masters but that's not the reason they're off you're just saying they're they're not on the

list because they got pushed out because they weren't good enough yeah and i'm just acknowledging that they're that they're in the masters category okay okay all right. And then another notable person is Chandler Smith's wife. She was right on the cusp and now she's team. I guess there's always going to be those people, right, who are 99 and 100. I guess 100 will always fall off or climb or stay the same. Or stay the same. That was dumb. Only 100. So anyway, that's, you know, some women. Kelly Stone, I saw some people were asking about. Who is that? Do I know who that is? That's not Kelly Baker. Kelly Baker is a different killer. No.

Kelly Baker will be on this list. Kelly Stone. She is on the list. Yeah. I like Kelly Baker. I think Kelly Baker, you know, not necessarily a top 10, 20 games athlete, but can have a resurgence in the individual field this year. And yeah, Kelly stone, she doesn't have a chance in hell.

Who's which Kelly is that? That's Kelly stone. Kelly Baker doesn't have a chance in hell going to the games though. Right. We'll see. Wow. That would be awesome. If she went, yeah, look at this girl.

I don't know if that's her. I can't recognize her. That was Kelly Baker, the second one. The first one was Kelly Stone. She's on a team with CrossFit Omnia this year, and their team actually I think is going to be very, very good. Does Kelly Baker have kids? She's married.

I don't think she has kids yet, but I'm not 100% sure. You know she's a school teacher, right? Mm-hmm. That's not her. Wait, let me see. Pull up a picture of her. That's her on the right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember God in such... I remember when I interviewed her. I probably shouldn't say this out loud. But I think she was a school teacher for like second and third graders. And I just imagine like going to parent teacher conference and that's the teacher. Just keeping, trying to keep your shit together.

First thing you do at the start of the years. When's the parent teacher conference? Get that on the calendar. Not missing that one. She has crazy presence too. Anyway, we used to do a whole show on how beautiful she is. Probably not. Probably get

canceled again. Triple, quadruple. Let's go to the next subset of lists. Thank you, Brian. Don't ever mention Kelly's name again. What number is she? Can we skip that? 69. Great. There's no coincidences.

Okay. these are people who are the oh these are people who were very close to making it on the list but did not make it on the list yeah so you know there's four or five that we're going to talk about who are on the list who need to be removed from it and some of these will slide into those spots. And one of these people had the most viral video for 2022 in the CrossFit space. Do you know who that is, Caleb? It involved a barber. Yes.

Roe Scott. Roe Scott. That was CrossFit's claim to fame. Yeah, that was wild to watch. That was actually terrifying. I thought she died. I was on the other side of the field when it happened. Oh, you were there at that event? Yeah, and I was on medical staff.

I literally watched it happen. I was like, oh, she's dead. God, that was amazing. I really enjoyed that. I was about to fucking call the ambulance. I watched that 100 or 200 times. Yeah, and then she just popped up, and I was like, oh, thank God.

Oh, look, there's an Armenian girl on there, Jessica Callaghan. What do the colors mean, Brian? So the red is North America, yellow is Europe, pink is South America, and gray, in this case, is Africa. Okay. Can I ask you some questions before you say what you want to say? Sure. Michelle Bassanet.

I think that she is training. She's either a coach or training with Taylor self. Now she's doing the SMT. Taylor's coaching her. She will, I will put her in, in probably be the first born from this list that I'll move into the top 100 in part because I think that that's a really good training environment for her and she'll get better with him. Secondly, because she's a landslide favorite to win in Africa. Okay, awesome.

Well, that's cool. Yeah, I think that I had been guessing that that girl is Armenian. Jay Hartle, Jessica Kaligian. Kaligian, I-A-N. There it is so she was on the mayhem justice team last year but i've been told she's going to make a run as individual this year and that uh she has um i think some like a power lifting or a strong man background um and she's but you know which is i think a decent. She's only 27 or 28 years old and I think can make an impression possibly this year in the semifinal.

Zoe Warren, she's not related to Joey Warren. Is she the guy from the 2010 CrossFit Games? I don't know who that is. Okay. He was in California. That's why you're an A on the knowledge of CrossFit list and I'm a B. Reagan Huckabee. That's a. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know what her intentions are, but she's, you know, she's still very, she has still been good in the past. So I just like peripherally keeping her on my radar in case she ends up competing again this year. Brenda Castro. That's Mexicoxico right right yeah what's her uh is her career over i mean falling off the list when you fall off the list of the

top 100 i just assume you're not going to the games uh so a lot of these athletes are you know um either coming up and don't know necessarily that much about them yet or have been good in the past, and we haven't seen them in a year or two. But if they come back in, they could be relevant again. And how about Nicole, this girl, is that a typo? She has an M, a G, and an H all in a row in her name? Go ahead. She was on Patrick uh list of 20 athletes who's coming back into the individual field this year so we'll see again me again me

i think that's pretty good yeah again and then i sent i did send kayla one other list which is just a small list of women who are all competing on teams this year that uh if they were going individual i would give strong consideration to having in the top 100 and there's some why did i going back to that other list just real quick you don't have to pull it up but there was jordan adcock i know that name too was that a games athlete you know every name that has a cock in it yeah that's true what is it where is she from was she how do i know her was she actually on the She's been around for a while. I mean, she actually used to train with Meredith Root. And they were competing in the West Regionals back in like 2017, 18.

She made maybe top 10 one year there, top 12. And now she's with training Think Tank, I think. And yeah. So just by your name you recognize how how about um uh meredith and alex parker yeah are they still in contention i don't see their names i don't think they're not training to compete okay they're still very fit i think one or both of them maybe does some long distance running races even going team these are some great names right alexis johnson uh britney weiss uh devin kim hannah carlson kyra milligan lena richter oh lena richter really good right is she the best one on the list i don't know i don't know because most a lot of these are team athletes in general um last year the

devon kim i think is going team also by the way i mean she has individual aspirations right i think so yeah so all i would give all of these women consideration for the list some of them i would immediately put in the list but they're all on teams so just to kind of paint a picture that across these three lists we've just shown there's you know 20 to 30 women that could easily be in the top 100 but are not competing this year or um maybe we just don't know enough about them but that you know there were a couple names on the previous list that i think could do something this year to warrant a spot in the top 100 going forward is reagan huck could be going masters i don't know who her intentions are in general but she is eligible for masters yeah

uh michelle moran how do i know that name she won in africa two years ago and we competed at the or last year i mean and competed at the games but i believe she's competing on a team this year uh probably probably the best team in africa so she'll probably be at the games again this year if things go accordingly, just on a team. Why does she get an asterisk? I don't know. Okay. And tell me one more time what the colors mean here. Continents.

Continents, right. Okay. Continents. Okay. Anything else you want to say about these people? Any of these people Mayhem athletes going on Kyra Milligan will be on the Mayhem Independence team And who?

Melina Rodriguez will be on the Mayhem Latin America team So Mayhem Is not going to make the podium this year in the teams I have Some team Rankings and I think their top team is somewhere between eight and 10 on that list currently. Wow.

I wonder if Rich would ever come back. I mean, he didn't do it for individual, but I wonder if he'd ever come back to team. Did he ever take a year off from team and then come back? Has he ever done that? No. My instinct is no.

Yeah. Mine too. If he, if he ever take a year off from team and then come back? Has he ever done that? No. My instinct is no. Yeah, mine too. If he ever competes again, I think he'll be in the Masters division. These two went to Proven yesterday. Brian shared that with us. He's saying they could also be on that list, and he's right. Especially Andrea obviously could be on that list, yeah. Why not Taylor? How come Andrea gets all that individual love?

She's better as an individual. All right, well, that was a simple answer. I mean, Taylor's great on a team, obviously, but when it comes to individual competition, she hasn't shown the same success that Andrea has. I mean, a few have, honestly. Is Carrie Pierce on this top 100? No.

Why not? She's retired. Okay. But she's been flirting with coming back. You at wadapalooza and flirting with coming back in the team division i have not heard any any indication that she's considering another individual run and you are friends with her coach what's up bethany uh shatburn oh well that's a great question um good job ryan we shall see i don't uh i still think that if she does compete that she can do very very well top 10 at the games i'm not sure about top 10 i would say i think she can make the games um

but i don't know if she, I really don't know. I mean, it's one of these things that she's, in the sport of CrossFit, you have to be able to compete when you're not at 100%. And I think that that's hard for her to do. Like mentally, it's hard for her to do that. And she hasn't been at 100% for a year or two now. And I don't know if she can convince herself that she can be great when she's not feeling perfect that he's not in a hotel room carrie uh told us uh i'm assuming as she came on the

podcast she's not coming back team or individual and she's happy with retirement uh bethany uh bethany's marriage killed her aspirations just like her pitbull killed just like her pitbull killed and geez louise that's harsh you know i'm i am so manly my fingers are so rough that when i touch my face it like hurts my face They're amazing. Okay. Let's do it. We got an hour to get through this. Let's do it. Let's not dilly dally. Bring it up. Let's go. Good morning, Mr. Spin. How are you, brother? Brian has someone interesting on the podcast on his show today. Who is he interviewing today? Someone interesting. Dave Eubanks.

Dave Eubanks. That's right. Good luck with that. And don't worry. He is fully vaxxed. You do not have to worry. You can sit as close to him as you want. You'll be fine.

Unless he's shedding. Okay. Number. Oh, so first I want to ask Brian here. He's going to explain to you what these numbers are that you're looking at. Yeah, I have their rank on my rankings, their movement relative to the list from August, obviously their name. And then on the far right column will be their worldwide ranking based on CrossFit's formula for determining that. So from left to the right, their position is where Brian put them. Then their change from the ranking that was done.

When was the last ranking done, Brian? August. August of 2000. 22. 22. And then their name and then their worldwide ranking based on the equation that CrossFit has put out. Hey, what's wrong with Mike Halpin?

He had their CrossFit ID number on there. What's wrong with him? He just likes numbers? What would be the point of that? What's wrong with this guy? Fucking weirdo. He can't even pretend to be normal. The thing is, as we've talked about in the past,

occasionally the games athletes' websites are not reflective of the entirety of their career because if they change their email address then they'll have a new games profile okay so if you look up and i know travis mayer is an example of this if you look up his profile it only goes back so far and then at some point he had a previous email address i think by using the id number you can merge those things okay all right so there is some logic okay all right he's not stalking them it's not some weird chick just thoroughness mike thorough is your your crosshood id number tattooed on his

back on the small of his back uh-huh right in the middle it's healthy number 100 Gracie Walton. Number 99, Sophia Shaft. Great name. 98, Jedizia. Which country? So do the Americans dominate this list? Yeah, 54 North Americans on the list, 29 Europeans, 11 from Oceania, 5 from South America, 4 from Asia, 0 from Africa. But there will be one after I update it later today and put Michelle Bazinet inside the top 100. One African. Carolyn Stanley, Ashley Wozni, Alexandra Bozanova, Svetlana, great name, Alexia. Where is this person from, number 90? Nortje Bleeker, she's from the from? Number 90. Nord, Nord, Nord, Nord, Nord, Nord, she bleaker. She's from the Netherlands. I think that was one of the characters on the Muppets. No beaker.

It was beaker. Linda Kiesman, Lauren Fisher. Okay. Let's start there. Number 88 on the list down 14 spots. What's NR mean? She has no ranking in the worldwide rankings from crossfit because she's been competing on a team okay so she has not she was not in the 2022 quarterfinals last year so and their list only includes people who participated in 2022 quarterfinals at this point once she does the opening quarterfinals this year, she will have some points, and she will show up on the worldwide rankings,

but pretty low. Do you have her on this list because you think she's going individual? Yes. Do you know that for a fact? Fairly confident. And does she still have games aspirations? She's been around forever, right?

What year did she come on the scene? I feel like at least a decade, yeah. But she's had a lot of team years. And yeah, I think she does still have aspirations of being competitive at a semifinal. I don't think she can make the games, but I do think she can make the semifinals in North America. Good on her.

She probably has more Instagram followers than all of these other athletes combined. On this list? Probably. All right. Shall we? Shall we move on? Anyone you want to speak about on here? I'll be curious about the Russian women.

They didn't really compete last year in south korea and there may be even some more besides this that could take some game spots sung young choi has pretty much been the class of the field over there say here kai will try to make a run again but i think if the russian women actually go compete in semi-finals that there'll be threats to qualify for the games again um The, you know, the, the big question always with athletes from Russia is even if they make it, will they come, but they do have some talent out there for sure. And I'm hopeful that they do go compete. You know, I, just like at the games, I always, I want the best at semifinals too.

I think it's the most fun when the best athletes are there. Brian, I'm trying to remember if I saw this correctly, but I think the worldwide rankings for the men went to like 7,500 and the worldwide rankings for the women only went to like 5,500. Why is that? Or am I, did I see that wrong? Most people signed up for the quarterfinals last year. So it just goes down through however many people signed up for last year's quarterfinals. Oh, there were that many more men. I would have thought they were equal amounts. Oh no. Cause it's 10% of the open field. And like, you know, and how, is that what it is? Yeah. And yesterday when we were, you had asked me a question and I mentioned that one of the two factors was just the depth of the field of the men is greater and it's greater at every level. Like there's more guys, uh,

there's more guys competitive for the top 10, top 20, top 40, but there's more guys competitive for the top 10 top 20 top 40 but there's also just more people doing it can is that matt if i see that there's 7 500 men in the quarterfinals can i just do the math on that and be like well there's that means there's 75 000 individual men in the open i mean does that work no that's 7 500 who registered but there were about another 7 500 who qualified for quarterfinals and did not register so it's's closer to 15,000 and 150,000. Okay. Now what I'll be interested this year is what is, if the percentage of registrants for quarterfinals goes up dramatically,

which means a lot more money for CrossFit, because if you don't pay the 50 bucks, you don't get a worldwide ranking. Oh, Oh, Oh. And you know that there's always this wow not just with crossfit which is a lot of throughout history of men is that you want to know the answers follow the money why would the

worldwide the quarterfinals be the determining factor if you get a worldwide ranking because maybe you're more likely to get registrations and therefore more money, which could then yield bigger prize purses in the CrossFit Games season. So if I make it to the quarterfinals, well, I guess I kind of can't blame them for that. If you make it to the quarterfinals and you don't enter, you won't get a worldwide ranking because you won't have a score. And if you want to, why does it cost $50 to enter the quarterfinals? Isn't that an online competition? It costs $20 to enter the quarterfinals? Isn't that an online competition? It costs 20 bucks to enter the open.

Good point. Each stage of the season, there's a registration fee. This is another thing that I would do differently, most likely. I mean, I'd have to have conversations with other people involved. But I feel that if I think there should be a pro track and an amateur track for open registration. Now I'm pissed. I don't like that at all. And if you register for the pro track that you pay one rate upfront for the

entire season and it covers your entry for however far you make it. And that there's no, and there's also a, uh, increased expectation on you. You must film every video. You must, you must submit it.

And that, um, you're, you're more sports centric. I want it to go. I want it to be less, uh, separated, You must submit it. You're more sports-centric. I want it to be less separated. I want to get rid of the scaling options and the disabled and all that. I want to get rid of all that.

The masters, I need to throw it all away. Just one giant pool we all jump in. That's obviously not right. I know. No, not obviously, Brian. Not obviously. No, it is. Come on, man. That would be like saying you go to the CrossFit class and you're like,

whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't give family options to those guys. There can be there. Can't hear that. They're 500 pounds of getting up there and do bar muscle-ups just like me. No, this is, this is, I see what you're, I see your point, but I just like all of us doing the same thing. Like, let's just be a family.

Let's do the same thing. And just tell that to a guy with one arm when you're doing... Figure it out. Figure it out. They do figure it out. They're way more able to adapt to challenging circumstances than us. The only people that should get something different, it should be like over 70 and...

Oh, as soon as you make one exception, then you're going to open up Pandora's box. Okay, fine. Fuck over 70. Just one. Anyway, the reason why I say that is because last year it was a— I would be an RX athlete if the programming was done right and it stayed communal. Go ahead.

Sorry, Brian. It was pretty obvious last year that the season was unmanageable. If you create a pro division, then you— What do you mean by that unmanageable? You mean like people were—you're talking like all that stuff that Hiller talked about, all the fucked up, like inability to get the right scores in the right places and to judge accurately and all that stuff. Yeah. And CrossFit regularly says, hey, we're a small team, you know, so there's only so much that we can do. But if you are a small team, then structure the season so that whatever the size of

your team is, it's something that you can actually manage. So they not necessarily even have a pro team and an amateur track, but basically athletes, we give a fuck about ones. We don't ones that are just here for us to take your money. And those that we're going to judge, I'm not feisty and I'm not next page. Yeah. Next page.

Sorry. 80 through 90 uh lauren fisher uh former great athlete now in her twilight years just hanging on by a thread uh um tory dyson oh tory dyson made an appearance at wadapalooza on one of the teams uh former comp train athlete former training partner with with Katrin David's daughter. Julia Cato, she had a run in with Brian at the games. They worked it out. Brian accidentally said something to insult her. Sasha

Nevis, Elizabeth Withshart, Meredith Swindle, tough name. Linda Porter, Taylor Reber. How do you get that last of your family name to be Swindle? Who's 78, caleb don't hate on the bottom oh my bad all right good to don't get defensive buddy just uh quality control oh shit did we miss ellie ellie too ellie bunt buds uh oh aya wonger is that is that

the wunger? Or no, there's a different Wunger. Allison Scudds. What's going on with Allison Scudds? Oh, look, I see Amy Kringle from the Isle of Man. Allison Scudds, does she have a chance going to the games? I don't think so. Her window, I mean, she went as hard as she could, a couple years ago she was that was her her kind of her window was it last year with uh kotler

uh she i mean she was she went to the semi-finals right and kind of imploded i don't know about imploded i mean look like she she... I just want to make sure I got this right. She went to the easiest semifinal in North America you could go to and she finished 12th. Atlas Games? Yeah. And she finished 12th,

which is not really close to making it. You really like her. You're being tempered. Yeah, I do really like her. You're being tempered. Yeah, I do really like her. She's great. Amy Kringle, where was she last year? How come we don't have a number of her moving up or down? I guess she just kind of stayed the same.

I'd like her to move up. Yeah, I know you would, but I watched her closely in Dubai, and I guess I didn't see the things that I wanted to see there to move her up significantly. So maybe she'll be better at semifinals than she was last year, but I still don't think it's going to be good enough to make the games. Is Amy Kringle the one that John Young accidentally picked? He had her confused for Lucy Campbell.

Do you remember that in the draft? Maybe. That was awesome. How is John Young? You talked to him? John Young and a guy that I train with here are going to compete together on a team at Crash Crescendo in April. Is Crash Crescendo a JR's thing? It's the team competition, which is in April. The individual one is in october uh andrea sober i know you like saying her name any games athletes we've seen so far any any individual athletes on this list andrea has made the games before sasha nevis has made the games before and wasn't sasha nevis on some sort of mayhem team is she the olympian olympic lifter she was fifth place at the games last year with, with Angela's and Luke.

Yeah. And Alexis. And she's doing, you dropped her. Well, she's going to go individually again this year. I think it will be, I think she'll be in probably in the top five South American women,

but I don't know if she'll be the top two again. She's little. She's too little. Actually a bunch of, she not too little, but I don't know if she'll be the top two again. She's little? She's too little? Actually, a bunch of, not too little, but she is little. And how about this Gabby McCleeland? I've seen her name too, down six. Yeah. Where did I see her?

She's got some big-time supporters. She was making an impact at the Syndicate semifinal last year, and kind of the opposite of Alison Scudds. That was a really strong semifinal. I think she finished seventh or eighth when everything was said and done. I do think that she has a chance to make some moves this year, but outside of that performance at semifinal last year, don't have a ton to go on with regards to her.

So she's someone that I'm looking at who could make a, you know, a jump of 20 spots or something in a month or two hey isn't it fun you can just uh point to any name and brian will just start talking about it that's like i'd say 51 of the fun of the show and then 49 is your plant head yes that's the other uh and i'm at danaan, was she at Zellos Games? How do I know her name? Dubai. Dubai, okay.

Is she the Asian chick that's really strong? No. Who's that? She does. She's from the USA, but she does look a little bit Asian, I suppose, and she is very strong. Yeah, I think she got second place to karen fray on the barbell you know barbell heavy workouts in dubai i've outed myself i judge people by their ethnicity and their

strength okay she is asian though oh thank you thank you for correcting them right okay let's uh anyone else uh here that you want to talk about how's your relationship with julian ikeda good julia great and she got a win this year an off-season event in um in saudi arabia there's the one i mentioned last night where several athletes withdrew when they found out about the drug testing she did not withdraw she won the competition and oh good point because that's where the that's where you guys had the hiccup last year she kind of got lumped up with some uh poppers and she wasn't a popper yeah we had heard yeah yeah right we had heard that there was a failed drug test in south america i had assumed incorrectly that it was someone who'd made the games it turns out it was the third place finisher there hey so this event

in saudi arabia said that they were going to drug test and people start pulling out did they actually drug test or did they just say that? They did drug test. Oh. And they'd used WADA for the drug testing. Hey, can I see the list? I want to know the list of those. Is there anyone I know who pulled out? Yeah, we told you last night, Alexander Illin. Oh, yeah.

Anyone else? I don't think you would know any of the others. I can't remember them offhand. That's cool. I'm not judging you, Alexander. Get juiced up and get around the protocol. I'm all for it. Quote me on that.

Hey, have you seen this new feature, Caleb, in StreamYard where you can just pull clips right out of StreamYard and it sends them straight to YouTube? Yeah, I tried messing with it. It's honestly kind of a pain in the ass. uh yeah i tried messing with it it's honestly kind of a pain in the ass but i might fuck around with it some more i appreciate it okay uh 60 uh wow we're cruising uh 60 through 70 here we go oh wow kelly cl. Okay. Now, now I'm seeing some names. I went to Kelly Clark's fundraiser last year in Santa Cruz. Tell us about that, man. That was a crazy semifinal, right?

Who were those three girls that were all what four, fifth and six were all one point away. Well, Brooke Wells, Rebecca Fusile, Kelly Clark, and then only eight points behind that was Shelby Neal, who we'll get to later on in this list. And all four of those, I think, have pretty interesting kind of storylines. But we'll start with Kelly Clark. By the way, both those girls have crazy bodies, Kelly Clark and Kelly Baker. It's like crazy. I recommend going to both their Instagrams and looking at them. They are nuts. Their physiques are crazy.

Kelly Clark is like... I mean, honestly, it's pretty devastating for her. I thought she handled it extremely well given the circumstances. She's been in this for a long time. Who, Kelly Clark handled it well? Yeah. Yeah, she's been in this... I don't know.

Maybe she went home and put a gun in her mouth. I don't know. That was close, dude. That was crazy close. She handled it really well. She was there talking to her and Lance. And they, you know. That was close, dude. That was crazy close. She handled it really well. She was there talking to her and Lance and they, you know, it was heartbreaking, but, um, I commend them for the way they handled it then. And, uh, I don't know.

I mean, it's, it's one that, you know, we've, you talk about it at times that sometimes you can be like, you can only stick with it for so long. And when you get close, uh, a number of times, eventually it's like, man, it's just, maybe it's just never going to happen for me. So one of two things will happen for Kelly is either she's going to not be, you know, that's going to be devastating for her. She's not going to rebound from it.

And we won't ever see her get that close again, or she'll be like, I know I can do this. I was one point away last year and I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen this year. And maybe we see a better version of her. I got the impression that beat her up pretty good that it took a toll on her body. It could have for sure. She's not young either.

Right. She's, she's like 35, 33. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, I want to say one more thing too about her body just real quick.

So there's these people, I live in Santa Cruz and there's a lot of CrossFitters there. And like, I I've been driving down the street before and it's actually the exact same place i've been driving down the street on this street 41st street and seen a guy jogging just in a little pair of shorts and slowed down and said to my wife look at that fucking guy and then as we passed him i tried to look at his face and was greg almondson just running around with the shirt off and a pair of booty shorts just jacked out out of his, and same thing with Kelly Clark. Like I've slowed down.

Don't tell Lance this. I've slowed down and been like, who the fuck is that? And then I like pulled in the front and it's Kelly Clark. I mean, she is something. I think Greg Amundsen would come on the show. Yeah.

He's been on the show a couple of times. I know. I know. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. He just,

I just, he just came out with another book. He writes all these religious books. Like he's like, he's like the Christian version of Ronnie Teasdale. And I bought his book. I need to read it. Yeah, should we have him on?

He is jacked. I think, I mean, here's the thing. I know you've had him on the show before. I think there is a big audience right now that probably wasn't around then and hasn't seen those interviews. And I don't know how accessible you should define they are. So even if it might be somewhat repetitive for you to have those conversations i think there's a lot of people that could learn a lot from having him back on yeah uh yeah lance it would be stupid to mess with lance kelly clark's boyfriend is built like a fucking like

three pitbulls like a pitbull on the thumbnail you can make, the original fire breather. Oh, yeah, that's good. Okay. And when I saw, the last time I saw Kelly and Lance down at the beach too, cold, Lance just did a kickflip on my kid's skateboard, which was pretty fucking crazy just to do cold. He may have even been barefoot. It was nuts. Brian is such a great commentator. Communicator.ator oh communicator i do like it when you just see one word and make it your own word it's just seven doesn't read so well someone someone write that in the next comment

yeah original um okay so one note i think kelly clark's done though i don't think kelly clark or kelly baker have a chance at making it to the games i'm sorry and that ashley shoemaker girl that that must that's the brute strength podcast guys chick yeah but you know if i uh brian spin informed me that she's actually competing on a team this year and their team will actually be good and her team will likely make the games so i will remove her from this list today as well. And the girl from Spain, you've dropped 24. Seher, after all this time learning how to say her name, she's out. No, she's actually Turkish, or she competes as a Turkish athlete in Asia. She trains in Norway with a lot of the top Norwegian athletes. She will be relevant in the Asian semifinal.

I was disappointed, I guess, with how she fared at Dubai against a field that I thought she would have done well in. Like I said, if the Russian women do compete this year, I think it'll be difficult for her to make it back to the games. Brian's so great at hand jobs. Oh, no. Great communicator.

Sorry. Say her name. Sahar Kaya, I think. Sahar. Sahar. My Turkish sister. Okay. That's the inside joke.

Victoria Campos popped up. I learned her name at Guadalupe. She was competing with Ms. Sigmund's daughter, right, or something? Well, she won Copa Sur last year. She went to the game. She did all right. What's Copa Sur? What won Copa Sur last year. She went to the game. She did all right. What's Copa Sur? South American semifinal.

She didn't do great at the games. I thought she looked better at Guadalupe. When you say she didn't do great at the games, you're talking 39th? 33rd. I think she's the top rated one in South America right now for women. I have her, you know, maybe 10 spots ahead of the next, next women there.

And, you know, there's unlike a Guy in the men's side and even, and even Augustine who's proven to be consistently good, the women there are kind of like shuffling around. So I haven't seen a dominant woman emerge from South America yet. I think, I think Victoria could become that though. I think she has some of the skillset and potential to separate herself from the rest of women down there. I don't think the women don't have a gi. That's as I said, I mean, the entire women's class, he's like a special he i mean he's a great character to have in the men's field the women don't have one of those danny spiegel oh that's

a good point okay fair yeah she's not yeah she doesn't have the foreign element that he has but she no but she's great yeah yeah and i like how strong she is and she's freaky. Yeah, okay. I dig it. Yeah, I'll take it. Thank you. I stand corrected. That's cool. Women do have a Gi. Or even better, maybe Danny was before Gi. The men have a Danny Spiegel. Gee was competing in the teenage division and Danny was already in the elite division. And then I think they both kind of made their mark as this standout, freakishly strong, really compelling athlete to watch at a similar time, like two, two years ago.

Yeah. And they're both exciting in the sense that if you, if you see Danny Spiegel walk onto the stage to do something, everyone gets excited. Same with Gee, right? You're like, Oh shit.

Sorry, grandma. I got to go for a minute. I'll call you back after this woman lifts. Yeah, exactly. Well said. Very clean, classy, Brian. I like that. Well, I'm in her house, so I got to give her a shout out. My grandma. Danny Spiegel. Oh yes. He brought your picture with you. All right. Well, let's move on. Nice talking uh nice seeing you kelly and kelly oh caitlin van ziel we uh i learned about her uh recently uh annika greer been on the show down 27

i uh ohana moya that's who i was confusing that's the asian strong girl that's what i was spanish that's a spanish oh is she strong was i using her with d Dana Peran? Yeah, and Oiana is strong, but she... Is she Asian, Caleb? Last time, Brian said Dana Peran wasn't Asian, and you were on my side. How about Oiana Moya? He's saying Spanish, I'm saying Asian again. She's not Asian this time. Fuck me. One and one. We're one and one.

Yeah, so Oiana is strong. um one and one or one and one uh yeah so ohana ohana strong uh i think we'll be again on the fence of possibly making it my my feeling is she'll be just outside like one of the five women that just barely miss and one of those five women that if the strength of field was structured a little bit differently could potentially make the games because i think that europe will still be shorted spots relative to their competitive performance this year. Um, watch this guys,

watch this. Who's better. Jeff Berman as a man or Oyana as a woman, Jeff Berman. You mean Jake Berman? Yes, yes, yes.

Of course. Don't correct me publicly. It's actually a decent question. I think they're in a very similar, um, you know, space relative to their potential to make the games. I would give the edge to Jake. I think that he has a better chance to qualify than Ollana does, given the current landscape of things. Because she got his hair.

She took his hair. That's the only reason you asked that. She does. That's the only reason you asked. There is a, just to acknowledge Scott's question here. Yes. Emily Lundberg is another one that I will be removing from this list today. She is competing with Kelsey Keel this year on a team.

And so I'll take her off the list as well. I just got a text message. Oh, wow. Okay. Wow, that's harsh. Wow. Wow. Wow, wow, wow.

Wow. Wow. Your kids didn't do so well in jujitsu class? Oh, I just got a gnarly text. Someone was telling me about two people in the community uh the the couple from i don't want to say where uh we're banging the living fuck out of each other for months and it's just so that's the thing you hear this stuff this is this kind of stuff that uh hillar and brian and i hear like if you say something and it was off a little bit someone will correct you and sometimes you'll get like some uh interesting

sexual content like so-and-so was banging so-and-so kind of like uh brian knew that christoph was uh gabby's coach like you just you know stuff before you're supposed to one thing i know it's not color coordinated on these this list here here, but in this area, 50 through 60, there's a lot of foreign women in particular Europeans, Oiana, Mary Robin, Taylor Howe, Evie Hollis that are, you know, this is the group of women that I think are being, are having a rough go of it, given the strength of fields allocation system. because those are the women that are most likely going to be in those 10 through 15 spots come semifinals and won't make the games, whereas if it was just a little bit more balanced, I think they would be games athletes. Who did you say besides Oiana?

Oiana? Who else did you say? Mary Robin, Taylor Howe, Evie Hollis from this list here are all also competing in Europe and could have a chance to be in that just outside the line. They have just been in the line in a different format. Is Sidney Wells on your list? Jay Hartle wants to know. Let's go to the next slide. Okay, hold on. Before we do that, Brian, I'm not seeing any huge discrepancies between worldwide ranking and your ranking, like I saw. In the men's, they were just off by thousands.

And I know that happens when people don't have scores in. But it seems like this one is a little low because she went on a team last year. Caitlin Van Steele has been going team for the last two years, so she has no ranking at all. So there's a couple there. I heard a rumor Brian has six girlfriends. Johnny, good sexist. There were some earlier on the list, like Dana Peran, who's ranked

2,042, or Aifa Burke, who's ranked 1,241. And there are some others coming up, or at least one or two on the next page coming up that you'll see are are pretty low down as well uh that number seems low andrew uh trish i didn't even read this i'm just popping this up because i like trish what is the appeal of teams is it because they can still post to social media about crossfit and maintain that

income without having to train as hard geez lou Louise. You want to even take that, Brian? I think there are several reasons that people compete on a team. Some of it is because they realize they're not going to have a chance to make it as an individual, but they want to get an experience at the games. Some of it is that they feel that having that experience at the games early in their career is actually beneficial and will help them eventually make the transition to the individual field. Sometimes people just don't like the pressure of competing on their own and it's more fun to do it with the team. Uh, sometimes people

feel like they perform better in a team environment because they don't want to let their teammates down. I think there's a lot of different answers to that question. Uh, you called me seven oh geez louise oh no i get it funny okay i didn't think he's saying the teams are boring i i don't remember what a palooza too well but i think i really enjoyed the team event there i like really enjoyed it uh katie gannon oh sorry caleb uh katie gannonannon. Brian has one girlfriend. Oh, shit. And she outs her name. Her name is Disc Golf.

Katie sounds bitter. Okay. Just kidding, Katie. Just kidding. I know you're not bitter. You're always happy. Okay. I don't see anyone on here really.

Laura Clifton. How do I know that name? She made the games two years ago out of Australia, and she competed on a team last year. I think she'll return to the individual division this year, and if she does, I think, especially with Tienkara out, that she has, I'd say she's one of seven women that has a chance to take one of the three spots in Oceania this year. Oh, wow. Good job, Laura.

How about those girls that you always like to kind of drop and show off that you know, the Norwegian chicks? Are they going team again? From Oslo? Yeah. Will they be going individual? No, no. Their exact same team is running it back. Oh, that's too bad. Okay.

The unknown chicks. Those girls owe you money money that team owes you money okay you might even be on the take built a nose hair okay let's go on uh elisa fuliano um rebecca foosley oh cool rebecca good to hear up six that's good sign uh shel. Shelby Neal. Her name was mentioned with Kelly Clark earlier. Claudia Gluck. Elena. That's the one that I thought was from...

I confused her with Sahar, right? I think you're just confused. She's also Spanish. Yeah, okay. But Sahar's Turkish. Yeah. Fisi Ghafi down at Brut. Bailey Rogers. Chloe Wilson. Olivia Kerstson olivia kerstetter olivia kerstetter down 34 okay let's stop let's talk about miss kerstetter

anyone to read number 50 since jay hardell asked about sydney wells right smack in the middle i the thing is here the problem here is i don't think't think Sydney has a chance in hell of going to the games than Olivia does, which makes it weird to see them 49 and 50. Yeah, this is a – specifically these 10 women I think is a fascinating group of 10 women. So just take your pick and ask me where to start. Sydney Wells, any chance of going to the games? Up 25. By the way, I really like her. Yeah, I was impressed with

her. I've been impressed with the progressions that she made. I still think she might need one or two more years to actually contend for a game spot, but I think she's making progress, and so I wanted to acknowledge that here. Okay. Kerstetter, down 34.

This has nothing to do with her that was just on me i ranked her too high in august without really having a good pulse of where she would be relative to the um the field of women that she's going to be competing against this year and i think that this is more where she belongs instead of up in the near the top 20 right now and just so people know brian correct me if i'm, she could still compete in the teen division this year. We don't even know. Correct. So you have a teenager who's in the top 50 fittest women in the world. Insane. Yeah.

Are there any other teens on the men or female top 100? Not that are still eligible to compete in the teenage divisions. There are people on the list that are 18 and 19 years old. Like Nate Ackerman. He's not on the list. He wasn people on the list that are 18 and 19 years old. Like Nate Ackerman. He's not on the list. He wasn't on the top 100? Nate wasn't in the top 100? No. He was just on like the crumbs that fell off the bottom list?

I think he was. Sure. Okay. Bailey Rogers, Chloe Wilson. How do I know Chloe Wilson? Bailey Rogers, Chloe Wilson. How do I know Chloe Wilson? Man, Chloe, similarly to Kelly Clark, has been so close to making the games a few times and just hasn't been able to pull it off. I do think she has a chance to make the games this year, though.

This is a good question. Here we go. Five points. She was five points behind Emily Rolfe last year, 40 points ahead of Fisa Ghafi in a pretty good semifinal there. Look at Katie Gannon just throwing you alley-oops. Just throwing you alley-oops. Just a fucking 360 dunk. I think just raw capacity.

What is Kirsten are missing that O'Brien, Emma Carey, and Emma Lawson had at her age? I just think capacity. Like, you know, all of those women have this insane ability to just go dark and stay there. And, you know, from basically the time that they started trying to do it against the best in the world, they were able to put up, you know, top 10 performances here and there. And I think that outside of very specific strength tests, Olivia is not able to do it against the best in the world they were able to put up you know top 10 performances here and there and i think that outside of very specific strength tests olivia is not able to do that yet i didn't think that was a great answer you normally you give great answers i give that an eight

eight out of 20 capacity that sounds like something you'd hear on like the on some like crossFit game show capacity. How's her gymnastics? Let's be more specific. She couldn't climb a rope to save her fucking life. How's that? Right? Didn't she shit the bed at Rogue with one rope climb?

Yeah, she had a lot of struggles at Rogue. I mean, there were a few, like I said, there were a few events she was excellent and on a majority of them she struggled relative to the field that's a very good field though so but that's not a capacity issue not not being able to do a rope climb it's not a capacity issue right just suck at fucking rope climbs well but the thing that okay yes and i guess see katie you gave him an alley-oop and he fucked it up and that's why i'm on the show to just you know you you're choosing to focus on her specifically i was choosing to focus on the other three being elite in okay in workouts that just require you to keep going at a fast pace with a low barrier to entry movements for a long period of time

fair what about this that was a good good response by the way brian also you just forced me to use 12 words to say what i could have said with the word capacity i need things spelled out uh she needs a different coach uh who is her coach it's not it's not hepner she has a training partner a different coach now uh patrick clark olivia is very similar to horvath uh that's her upside i don't know what that means either i thought i thought they was gonna say she sucks when she's upside down either way yeah kerstetter's gonna be so fun to watch i mean the potential there's out of control uh uh-oh uh--oh, J.R. Howell. She also won a legless workout

with a handstand walk obstacle at the Crucible. It was just that test. Kerstetter, was it Crucible? I don't know. He must be talking about someone else. Maybe Laura Horvath? I don't know. He's talking about Shelby Neal. He's talking about Shelby Neal, which we should get to her at some point. Holy shit.

Heidi Kroon with some very technical observations. Sucking upside down isn't as easy as it sounds. God, I was so hoping Katie said that. A seven later this year seems like a capacity issue. Oh, please. I'm never going to steal that line. I will resent Brian for that shit answer forever how dare you uh fuliano uh at 41 um she was the uh is she from spain is she or italy is she the one that everyone was saying oh you can have a

job and make it to the grassroot games and she had arthritis is that her yeah nice and she i was extremely impressed with her at wadapalooza i thought that this was there's a chance that elisa was going to be one of these women who makes it through one year and we never see her make it again i i no longer think that i do think that she'll make the games again this year out of europe which is hard to do she's pretty also uh get with the programming uh next next uh 10 uh please be very get with the programming uh what's up boys chase i want to apologize if you haven't seen last night's show i want to apologize for uh you took some collateral damage okay uh 33 cindy mcillish

love to see her on their bailey rail uh that's tyler christopher's chick over at mayhem right yeah and they're actually pretty similar spots on the respective lists. Climbing up the list, one of my all-time favorites, up 10 spots, Freya Moosebruger. Madeline Sturt down 8. Complete bullshit. There's no evidence for that.

There's no evidence for that. She had an insane semifinal last year. And she lost to Gracie Walton, who's 100th on this list, at a local competition in Australia last month. Oh, fuck, Madeline. How am I supposed to defend you when you do that shit? Did she really?

Mm-hmm. Where did she lose to her? What competition? It was in Perth. I can't remember the name of it. The west coast of Australia. Oh, Madeline was probably high or something. Christine Kohlenbrander, sorry, at the west coast of australia oh madeline was probably high or something uh christine colin brander uh sorry the zealous games a very strong athlete down there with uh man and anganese who's also very strong uh carolyn prevo down one who's not very strong

i guess you got a strong yeah all of the athletes on this list have a great chance to make the games in some cases, uh, be easier than others. I think it's actually, you know, lining up really well for Maddie cert this year to make her return appearance to the games. Why is that?

Because T and Cara aren't there. She was one spot out last year with T Akari and Ellie taking those positions. Most likely it's going to be Ellie, Maddie and Jamie Simmons making the games out of Oceania this year. And Ellie, I think we have a better understanding of what she can do relative to the games field than the other two. But Maddie and Jamie will be on the next page. This is a chance, I think, this season for them to get back into the conversation

and show us if they're still as good as they used to be. Why lower Madeline 8, though? I don't because I think that the competitive field at the top level is accelerating faster than she is. You think Cindy McElishan's better than Madeline Stewart? I love Cindy McAlishan, by the way. I mean, it's close, but yeah. Sung Young Choi.

Yeah. Just wanted to say her name. Yeah, at this point, she has to be respected as the top woman in Asia. And despite the fact that we're, you know, concluding everyone in the world is still ever here in the top 40, she was 26 at the games. I think there are still some women from other parts of the world that didn't make the games that would beat her at the games. So I dropped her about 10 spots from where she finished, but, uh, you know, being the best in your, in your competitive region or continent is

obviously incredible. Um, in the same way that, that um uh patrick brings up a good point in the same way that um cara and t are gone which helps uh madeline i guess it's good that for some people that lucy uh campbell's out of europe also right yeah i mean it opens a spot there yeah uh christine colenbrander uh been on the show great interview cool chick uh zealous games athlete did she win zealous games i i mean were there two there were two winners of zealous games one online and one live competition one oh right that's right that's right um and um that was the one you commentated if you don't There were two winners of Zealous Games, one online and one live competition one. Oh, right. That's right. That's right. And that was the one you commentated.

You had a laptop in your hands and you leaned over the rail and commentated it. Some of your best work there. Any chance of her going to the games? Colin Brander? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely going to be fun to watch in a live competition. She'll make it at semifinals, right? Yeah.

Exciting. Do you need to sip a coffee, Brian? No, I opened something and I was frustrated with myself that I haven't updated it. Understood. Okay. Bailey Rail, training partners with one of our favorite athletes. Who is that over at Mayhem? Paige Powers.

We'll get to her in the next. Oh, Paige Powers. Yes. I knew it was someone. Yes. Bailey. She's going individual. Uh-huh.

Did you have Brittany Weiss on this list? No, because she's going teams. She was on one of the pre-lists. Oh, okay. Would be considered for this list if not going team. Okay. I thought it was her name. Okay.

Patrick Clark, a healthy colon brand will be fun to watch. Had a wrist injury during the games. A. A for A plus for knowledge. Total. Total A plus. You're only an A plus, Patrick, though, because I'm an A. We still don't know what you would be in a vacuum by yourself.

It could be like a C or a D. Don't get all excited. Okay. Next up. Oh, shit. I can't believe we haven't had Jacqueline Dahlstrom on the show. What a fucking mess we are. Have you ever talked to her? her yeah i've trained with her a couple times

she would is she cool yeah like really cool i don't know what that means i think she's cool okay i mean she's not really cool but i think she i could probably think she's really cool uh jamie simmons that's the um that's uh what did she used to be jamie green uh she's going individual and some people last night were asking about uh whether she would qualify for an exemption if she applied for one and it's actually is a great question because she's not lived in oceania for a long time. She lived in the UAE for a while. She lived in London for a while.

She's back in the UAE. So she probably wouldn't quite satisfy the single residency criteria since she's lived in multiple places in the last couple of years, even though none of them have been home. Her home meaning where she's a citizen. But I don't think she applied for an exemption. I think she's fine going back to Australia to compete compete i haven't had her on the show either have you ever talked to her oh my god yeah she she is super cool you should definitely invite her on the show

she's fucking i'm kind of scared of her no no no don't be scared of her she seems like almost like she might be too mature for this show. I think you'd be surprised. Okay, fine. Jamie Simmons. I know that I had reached out to Jacqueline Dahlstrom, and I think I just I think I dropped the ball. I fucked it all up. Yeah, I think it'd be great to invite both of them on. Sarah Sigmund's daughter.

Does she still have it in her? Are you impressed with what you saw at Wadapalooza? Her head seems like it's in the right place. Yeah, I mean, so you got on this, right in this section of the list, we have Bethany Shadburn, Emma Tall, Sarah Sigmundsson, and Jamie Simmons, all four of whom I still think can make the games and have an impact at the games. But as we talked about with Bethany, there's a bunch of unknowns. And for all these athletes, there's a little bit of an unknown.

I mean, it was nice to see Sarah Iwata-Palooza. We talked about that at previous shows. I think she did very well in the individual. I think she tempered her expectations and had fun with the team, which was good, not have a lot of pressure on her. You know, she wasn't that far off of making the games last year. I think a lot of people are writing her off, but I am penciling her in for one of the game spots in Europe,

and same with Emma Tall. Like I said, I think Jamie will be one of the top three in Oceania. So we're going to have some women returning, if that's the case, returning to the field. And I often talk about this with the games field specifically. There will be a big range of possibilities for those women, especially someone like sarah like it's i don't think it's outside of the of reality for her to be something as high as 12th place at the games but she could also be 30th so we just wait to see hope that they compete healthy and if they do make the games

then i think it only adds to the excitement and drama of, of what this game season is going to be. Um, uh, well said, uh, does Patrick Clark, um, represent,

uh, these girls, Jacqueline, Jamie, Freya, uh, maybe, maybe one or two of them.

I agree. I agree. I should have all of those people on the show. God, I would love to have Amy Kringle on the show. I need to stop fool the show. God, I would love to have Amy Kringle on the show. I need to stop fooling around. Danny Spiegel up 10. She's really impressing you, huh? She's coming on strong.

Part of me is like, I want to be like, yeah, fucking Razor. She's the shit. She's killing it. And the other part of me is that she's kind of old and a one trick pony. She's kind of. It's getting, this is getting into it. Like I would say from here on out, maybe 20 from her and up on trick pony. She's got, it's getting, this is getting into it. Like I would say from here on out, maybe 20 from her and up on the list was challenging. This is where I spent a lot of time. Cause I know that, you know, the women's field is top heavy in my opinion. Like they're

the top 30 women in the world are the top 30 women in the world. And they're very good. And the separation between them is often difficult to do. But yes, I've been impressed with Dani this past year, especially think that she has made the next step in her career and she's a legitimate top 20 threat this season and for a couple of seasons still if she wants to be. And she's kind of trying to also give off this vibe. She's kind of like a walking oxymoron. She's trying to give off this vibe

that she could give two fucks about her performance that she's just doing it for fun. Maybe, but I think that being everything to me, winning isn't everything. Maybe. And I mean, look,

it's in some regards, they just do that to let the pressure off themselves. They just have, they have to say that. I mean, fuck, I don't know what kind of pressure is on her. I think athletes will handle that differently,

but in the case of Danny, obviously she has had a lot of success off the field too, in terms of endorsements, sponsorships, opportunities there. I think that's freed her up to invest a little bit more in her training. And even though if she's saying the things, whatever reason she's saying those things for, to me, what I see is someone who has been putting work in, who has been making a committed effort to improve on the things that have held her back in the past. And when you have an athlete like that, that has the financial freedom

to invest in their weaknesses, I guess, to couple with world-class strengths that she has in specific events, that's a dangerous athlete. Or it could lead to, it could be a slippery, well, it could be dangerous in a good way or it could be bad. They could get kids i've seen other athletes collapse because of that

well we haven't seen that from her yet right um jake uh chat wait wait uh no not that uh jake chapman offers to stay in my spare room here in the Isle of Man still stands. Thank you. That's cool. Okay. Uh, Thura, uh, Helga daughter, uh, up three Danny Spiegel. Oh, Alex Kazan, uh, kind of a high glass ceiling, right? She's one of those athletes. We're not sure how good she's going to get still. Right. We need more data, more data. Yeah. And the problem for someone like Alex Kazan is that it's, it's really difficult to move up this list. So she may improve dramatically from last year to this year and not show that much improvement in the rankings at the games. Up nine is good, though. Oh, I see what you're saying.

Those are my rankings in August. What I know and have seen about her since then, I feel like that's pretty good. She was mid-20s in the games last year, 24, 25. So I think that she could have a very similar performance this year, be better, but not necessarily reap the rewards of a 5-10 spot jump at the games. And I could be wrong, but I'm just saying it's, it's difficult to move up in the women's field right now.

I think what's interesting too, is you look at some, look at Emily Rolfe and Danny Spiegel flanking either side of page powers. And you, when I think of Emily Rolfe or Danny Spiegel, I think of athletes who are like maxing out like the capacity of what they can human humanly do which is crazy impressive for both of them but dead smack in the middle you have another uh well you have alex kazan below them and right in the middle of them you have page powers i would throw page powers in that too like holy shit how good can she get like i there might be some not not that she has any massive holes but there might be some things she could drastically improve in that will blow everyone away right

yeah this is a very like a microcosm of the big picture I was telling you about earlier where you have that young generation coming in and they're blending with the older generation who's still relevant and very good, Tariha Agadotter being another one. So you have like almost a little back and forth there. Yeah, wow. Good point. Bethany Shadburn, old school. Alex Kazan, new. Alex Kazan almost has the same vibe as Danny Spiegel. She's just like, I just want to do my best.

Life's fun. I'm just trying to keep my shit together. Thurow Helga daughter, another hardcore veteran. Danny Spiegel, hardcore veteran. And then Paige Powers, newbie. New is she be. Was she a kid athlete, Brian, Paige? Yeah. Teen? and we're gonna

see more did she win wait wait wait wait did she win when teens page hopefully pc can help me out with that uh patrick clark you're up pinch hit okay sorry what were you gonna say when i interrupted you no just so we're gonna see more of that on the next slide. Got it. Hey, let me ask you this. Could you see Page Powers being top three in the next five years? I'm not saying likely or unlikely. I'm saying could you see it? I don't know about top three. Top ten?

Okay. Top ten. Okay. I like you. I like you for that reason. You're very sober. It would be so fun to say top three but you're right it's shit starts getting weird as we get to the top right

like when you got people like fukowski at 16th it's like holy fuck uh she did not thank you patrick uh patrick judged her at the 2018 games i'm judging you right now, Patrick. No, Katie. Come on, Katie. Don't ask silly questions. Let's leave the comments for the serious games. Okay, I'll read it anyway. Brian, could you see Spiegel being top

three in the next five years? Yeah, if the top 50 die. In the West semifinal. Yeah. Katie, Katie, Katie, are you trying to irritate me?

Top three in an event. Top three at the West semifinal. Mark your down for it. Top three in an only fans page. Brian, you're not supposed to laugh at that. You're supposed to stay serious. Top 1%.

Doing your job, Sevan. Thank you. Asking dumb questions. Okay. Let's go to the next list. Emily Rolfe, you got her up 10 at 7. One, I guess we should talk about her because I do think she's pretty fucking amazing. Yeah, she could be even higher on this list.

I think that the bummer for her was the injury that she had at Guadalupalooza. Obviously, she had an unfortunate circumstance last year. So to see something, she would have podiumed at Guadalupalooza if not for that calf strain. But she did have the calf strain. She did have that thing happen to her. And so even though I think that at her optimal, she might be 15th on this list, I can't ignore the fact that she is getting older relative to the field and she's not having a healthy run right now, which is a real a real thing in this sport. I do want to say this about her, though. I do think that like her her window is about to close.

I think she's one of those athletes that it's do or die. What is this? Will Branstetter just said? Oh, shit. He's fucking Katie up. Sorry, Katie. I like you, Katie, but we have to take some shots. I'm pretty sure...

This is crazy. I'm pretty sure Katie is now the lead CrossFit analyst at Morning Chaka and the head of social media. And the head editor. Katie, you're a boss. I love you, Katie. I don't even know you, but you're great.

Okay. Here we go. I wonder if she's getting paid for all three of those jobs. Of course she is. Of course she is. She's eating your breakfast, buddy's she's eating your breakfast buddy well you can't get you can't get situated brian and uh and katie's just snug snug at home in her foxhole comfortable and you're just you're out riding the tides brian getting tossed around

don't hate on her okay uh we talked talked about Carrie Pierce. No, she's. Oh, yeah. Don't forget. And the newest bottom line host. Great. Thank you. Okay. Here we go, people.

Now it's getting good. Amanda Barnhart, one of my all-time favorites. Ariel Loan, also one of my all-time favorites. Christy O'Connell, another special human being. Mat being matilda garns i'm reading from the top down 11 was amanda barnhart and i'm going down to 20. you got lucy campbell down there why why i thought she's toast yeah yeah she'll be off this list starting tomorrow on behalf of brian i apologize for that this list is confusing uh catcher and david's daughter uh down uh one uh anything you like to say about uh miss daughter i think she's gonna have i think she's actually gonna have a good year

yeah i mean i think especially competing in north america west she'll make the games this year and once she does make the games i think she can finish in the top half still. Therefore, I have her 19th. I want to say this too. If for some fucking reason she were to win the games this year, I would put her as the greatest CrossFit athlete who ever lived. I would put her ahead of Rich or Matt or Tia, and here's why.

You can't not make it to the fucking games and then come back and win it. And she's done that once already. And then if she does that again, it's, or at least tied in a four-way tie. I have to put her, I mean, it would be absolutely fucking nuts. It would be a fantastic story.

Come on, Brian. Get my back on this. Come on. I know it's not comfortable. I know it doesn't compute. You got to really let a lot of emotion seep in. If she wins the game this year, it will be nuts. Yeah, it would be nuts.

Yeah. It would not make her the greatest crossfitter of all time. She'd have to be talked about. It's like, holy shit. In the hierarchy of women of all time, I have her third behind Tia and Annie. And I think that if she were to win this year or even podium this year, that there would be an argument to be made that she could usurp Annie but not Tia. Hiller, Andrew, I want to have you on every show, please. I'll send you a link now.

Fuck yes, 100% full steam ahead, catch and for the go. I know. That's the thing. People don't let enough emotion come in. These guys are too mathematical. If it was people like for Brian, we would have never released the vaccine. We'd still be studying it.

People would be getting sick all over. Just let your emotion, just get your emotion wrapped around how insane it would be if Katrin won. Emma McQuaid, Ellie Turner. Wow. What did Ellie take at the games last year? Doesn't she have some monster holes?

She was 7th, 18th. Okay. Well, shit. And similar to Paige Powers, the sky's the limit from what we can tell, right? Certainly hasn't reached her top potentially. Like crazy. She has like an,

and potential for a lot of change and maybe the best training partner on the planet. Well, and again, I mean, top two for sure. And coach, she has the best coach and the best training partner on the planet. Yeah. She has an amazing, amazing situation for training. Yes. But again, don't say that lightly. Best part training partner and best coach on the planet.

How much better does she need to get to make a significant jump up this leaderboard though? I mean, this is like I've been saying, this is a region where you can make big improvements personally, and it's still might only yield one or two spots moving up the leaderboard. If Katrin wins, I'm out. Yeah, me too. Hey, me too.

Hashtag me too. God, you really liked that one, huh? That was great. He really tickled himself, huh? It's the same color as his shirt. God, we have so many great women in this sport. Look at this fucking list, you guys. Emma Carey.

When does O'Connell retire? Is she just going to compete forever? I don't know. I mean, I continue to be impressed by what she's able to do year in and year out. She had a 13th place finish last year, which was a little regression, but she still seems to be amazing and amongst the top 15 in the world. So I'm keeping her there until she's not.

Karin Frejova? Yeah, I think Karin has a chance. Of all of these women in the top 20, she was, I think, 21st last year, 20th last year at the games. I think she and Matilda Garns are the ones that really are at the point in their career where they can make a big jump forward. Because I think some of the things that held them back there were not necessarily fitness related, but just confidence and experience related at the games. And I obviously was blown.

You know, Karen has impressed me in the past, but what she didn't do by was exceptional. I think if she can channel that same confidence and self-belief into the CrossFit game setting that she can make a push up the leaderboard. There was this story with Ariel Lohan. She was on the podcast and she was saying how she trains at her gym and just does the workouts with the classes. And I thought that was so cool. And then I really wanted to do this. And then I was thinking, not that I, this is going to sound bad cool. And then I really wanted to do this. And then I was thinking, not that I, this is going to sound bad,

but not that I really care if her gym is affiliated or not affiliated, like do what you need to do. But let's say if her gym was affiliated, I just thought it would be so cool if everyone in the CrossFit fucking community, like signed up for one,

everyone signed up for one year for a GoFundMe for Ariel, gave her a dollar signed up for one year for a go fund me for ariel gave her a dollar a month for a year and 300 000 of us did it so she makes a million dollars and uh and we do it to basically support because she could be our one true fucking crossfit athlete she does the class at the fucking affiliate five days a week and only supplements her training when they when they don't do the shit that she wants to do i thought that what a fucking cool thing like as a community that could be our athlete but then i found out but her affiliate's not affiliated i'd like so kind of fucks that up but i don't care that they're

not affiliated but you kind of need it for the story to be like button tight, right? Like they're just a regular CrossFit gym struggling. It would be so fucking cool to do that. I would love to get behind that and push that. You just sign up for like the monthly dollar to GoFundMe, and everyone does that for a year, and we get 100,000 or 300,000 of us to do it. It'd be fucking awesome.

Katie Gannon, here we go again katie i don't even read what you wrote first i just pick you because i like you so don't say anything stupid and piss me off i think the ariel lowen not actually trying story was true the first year now she's committed you can't be at this level not that she's not trying i'm not suggesting she's not trying i just like the fact that she's still doing the the um the affiliate classes at the non-affiliate. It's just so awesome because she's one of us. She's got to be doing more volume than that. Because I do the affiliates. She is.

She said she supplements it. She says that she basically does the classes and then supplements it. Listen, are you and Katie not listening to me? You and Katie Gannon? What are you guys not listening to me? No, I'm just saying like, you know, I think that to some degree, like when you say,

but she supplements it with the stuff they're not doing, there's a lot of stuff that they're not doing that she has to be supplementing with to be competing. Are you accusing Ariel Lohan of being on steroids? He's not even going to give me a no. I don't even deserve a no. It's such a bad question. I'm just getting ready for the top ten.

Con Porter is trying to do that. Buying a Con Porter sticker goes to a rookie athlete games fund. Wad Zombie. I think Wad Zombie gives this show the most money out of anyone. She's the new Valerie Voivod and J.R. Howell likes that comment. Yeah, pretty good. Doesn't Spiegel give $19.99 every show? He does.

She does. That's true. Okay. Top 10. Sorry, Matilda. We didn't get to talk to you about you much. Amanda Barnhart didn't get to talk about it. thought that was pretty disrespectful considering how good she's been over the last five years. And she's like Katie Gannon's fault, you think? Yeah, probably.

She's in charge of everything over there. Fucking shit the bed, Katie. No, Amanda's been great and super consistent. She did put up something recently that I thought was intriguing she said we're getting strong this year and one of her recent posts on instagram and it's like well you've already been pretty strong yeah but maybe it's a different kind of strength you know she has to improve a little bit with some of her gymnastic stuff and then um maybe it's a mental strength or a belief. And at this, at this level, that stuff matters. Mal O'Brien and a catcher in David's daughter and Matt Fraser and Jake

Marconi and Jason Hopper. Those are, those are, that's her team. Those are teammates. Sammy, Sammy Monette's that's her crew. She got it. I mean, her cruise tight, right? I think she's her crew. She got it.

I mean, her crew's tight, right? I think she's going to have a good year. Yeah. I know I have her just outside the top 10, but she could definitely sneak into the top 10 once again this year. J.R. Howell, $50. J.R., please stop that. Stop that.

Thank you. I mean, thank you. If you don't accept the god the gifts god gives you then god will stop giving remember that everyone okay here we go this is what you've all been waiting for hour and 39 minutes into the show the brian friend power rankings top 10 you are free to judge him as harshly as you would like 39 minutes into the show. The Brian Friend Power Rankings Top 10. You are free to judge him as harshly as you would like. Wad Zombie, $1.49.

Here we go. We need a drum roll, Caleb. And actually, Amanda will be in the top 10 because we'll have to remove number 10 from the list. Oh, there we go. Amanda Barnhart. By the way, one of the best, one of the most enjoyable, I don't say this lightly, one of the most enjoyable, thank you, Wazami, for the $1.49. One of the most enjoyable podcasts I've ever done was with Amanda Barnhart.

I kind of actually broed out with her a little bit. It was kind of cool. Pastor Matosyan, yes. By the way, that is very true. I'm telling you, this is 100% true. That is very true. I'm telling you this is 100% true. If you do not graciously accept the gifts God gives you, God will stop giving you gifts.

I was going to use a pronoun, but I just used God again. This does not matter. This is irrelevant. Don't be distracted by the word God. Who is God? It doesn't matter. Caleb, what's up? I was waiting for your monologue to stop thank you

holy shit you did it first I want to say is there anything surprising on here when you look at this Brian sorry Caleb Caleb when you look at this is there anything on here that just jumps out at you that you're like I don't think so Daniel Brandon maybe wow okay like for me this is kind of a no duh this is

I mean he nailed it this is it this is the best top 10 list ever assembled I was kind of surprised but kind of not so yeah Cameron 499 thank you That's the only fans guy with the giant penis By the way yesterday he told me He sold his underwear for $350 And he sold the mold of his Cock for $200 I don't know if I was supposed to

Tell you that but on his own chance Isn't that crazy I text with the guy who told me he sold his cock for $200 The top 10 power rankings list for 2023 not the whole year but just where we're at now february 14th 2023 the best female crossfitter in the world al o'brien up one then laura horvat then annie thor's daughter and third really crazy impressive annie crazy impressive annie Left the sport and came back. Had a baby. That right there is going to make, I mean, I'd throw her up in there with like the Catron comeback. I mean, it's nuts. number four.

It's crazy. This sport requires so much fucking discipline. It's insane that we actually have a bad boy. You know what I mean? Do you agree with that, Brian? She's a bad boy, right? Yeah. It's fair to say. She's like a lady Jake Berman. Yeah.

Is Jake Berman a bad boy? I think so. I mean, he dyed his hair, but he hangs out with Noah. That's got to cancel out a lot of the bad boy shit. He gives money to homeless people, too. Emma Lawson, holy, the porcelain doll. I mean, she's like, she was only born 17 or 18 years ago. She's brand new.

Hayley Adams. Brooke Wells at number seven. I'm going to go with Brooke Wells. I'm going to say that's the one. For some reason, I'm still just not bought in, Brooke Wells at number seven. I I'm going to go with Brooke Wells. I didn't say that's the, uh, that's the one I'm for some reason, I'm still just not bought in on Brooke Wells, but, but I think that's just my shortcoming, uh, Gabriella Magawa, uh, Alexis Raptus and, uh, car Saunders who will be taken off. So we'll put Amanda Barnhart in here. This is crazy. Yeah. And I mean, I think, uh, maybe we'll start with nine. So, you know, Alexis Raptus, I think of all of the women on this list is the one we know the least about.

I think she does have potential to move up inside the top 10 further, but she may regress a little bit too. I mean, you know, I think she's the biggest unknown of the women in the top 10 just because we have the least, you know, criteria or data to draw on with her at the highest level. But all of the signs are there. The mentality is there. She had a good season last year, and I think she'll have a good, if not great, season this year. Gabby McGowan has been a bit of an unknown this offseason.

She's relocated. She's got a new coach. She's leaving an environment that she had had a lot of success in before she seems to think that she reached the limit of her success there and so she's you know going back to her roots putting herself in a situation where she can have some more balance in her life that seems to be important to her and certainly there's an opportunity for her to do better than this um i often talk about the fact that the best athletes in this sport usually make their money on consistency. You don't change a lot when you're

already having a lot of success. In the case of Gabby and Haley, they are looking to make some changes because they feel like they're just banging their head against the same ceiling. So I commend both of them for making small adjustments this off season in an attempt to move up this list, but there's a little bit of risk that comes with that. So we'll see if either one of them is able to do it. Small adjustments. In the case of Haley,

you know, the adjustment is not necessarily moving or changing her environment, but she's chosen not to do any off season competitions. In the case of Gabby, a little bit bigger. Yeah. That's fair to say. Moving back home, having a new coach, those are big changes.

Boyfriend is the coach. Johnny Goodless, Brian, thanks for taking your time to make it $4.99. Thanks, Johnny. It's bold, man. It's bold. I would agree with Savan here. I think that Brooke is who I considered putting her as high as four. You know, I think it was really, she sneaks into the games last year, but had a great, great games performance.

I still don't know if we've seen the best version of Brooke Wells and we've seen her obviously do incredibly well for, for several years. You know, Tia's not, not going to be training this year and I don't know how that's going to affect her. Was she always rising because she was constantly chasing Tia? Or is there sometimes an element of like, yeah, it's great that I'm training with Tia, but I'm just losing every workout and I'm never going to have that chance to win. Tia's going to be on the sidelines supporting her in a different way this year.

I think that has a possibility to actually make Brooke better. So, again, we'll see. that has a possibility to actually make Brooke better. So again, we'll see. For me, Emma Lawson is not a mistake. I'm sorry, really quick here. Brandon Lacroix, how do we give Brian money and not Sevan? Just ask your mom to charge him less on Friday nights,

and that'll help Brian out. Thank you, Brandon. Cocksucker. Okay, Brandon. Cocksucker. Okay. Sorry. That was important. I'm glad you took time to address that. Thank you. Thank you.

What I was saying, I don't think Emma Lawson's performance last year was a mistake. I think she is going to be in the conversation for years to come. I'm not sure she can move up very much from where she was last year, just given the other caliber of women in the field right now. But I think we can look for a very similar style performance, some top finishes at the games, not a lot of bad finishes, just consistently right there in the mix. For what Caleb said about Danielle Brandon, I got several comments about Danielle Brandon after putting this list out. She was fourth place at the Games last year, basically being unable to squat.

That is incredible. I think it's hard to accept of how impressive she is. I think that her image and her performance are a lot to coalesce. I mean, she seems to be having fun, be a bad girl, be hot as fuck, and destroy the games. I mean, it's like unfair almost. I want to go back to Brooke Wells real quick, too. What place did she get last year at the games? Sixth, I think.

Yeah, and that was her comeback year. I don't know why I have trouble accepting her at seventh, but she deserves it. She earned it. What she did at the games last year and what Danielle did at the games last year was nuts. Brooke was fifth. Oh, fifth. Yeah, I mean, that's insane. Yeah, all of these women are insane.

She is so fucking good. What? Say it again. All of these women are fucking good what say it again all of these women are insanely talented and good yeah but when you're trying to like this is fine fine tooth comb that you're scraping through the best in the world and trying to look for small things that can separate one from the other right and for daniel brandon if she's able to actually squat heavy this year and she doesn't have a drastic change in her life a month before the games right she's a podium threat like we just gotta call it as what it is so i think having her fourth on this list is very reasonable hey maybe but what about this brian have you thought about this and i'm being dead serious maybe she just um uh flourishes in chaos maybe the switching a month before is

like what daniel brandon needs we i mean we talked about that last year how is that going to affect her there's a lot of athletes that would be very they would struggle to deal with circumstances like that she's she seemed to thrive despite having some setbacks so i mean yeah if you want to put a question mark next to her it'd be like okay if everything goes right for her this year is does that actually mean she's going to be better or does she capitalize on it when things are stacked against her uh this is a very astute uh astute and poignant comment i don't feel bad savon brooke has problems accepting you too uh okay uh so so we have an injury free uh or a healed up danielle brandon with less chaos in her life and and uh and putting together a lot of good wins why do you think she pulled out of

wadapalooza sorry who is that danielle danielle brandon yeah um a couple different reasons maybe just uh didn't feel the need to compete based on how she was feeling physically. And also she had a ton of sponsorship opportunities that weekend, and maybe she didn't want to feel spread too thin. Emma Lawson, can we complete unknown of how good she is, right? No, I think we know she's very, very good. The complete unknown is how good she is, right? No, I think we know she's very, very good. The complete unknown is how good she could be. Right. I want to say, what place did she take last year at the games?

Emma Lawson. We just said that. Was she fifth or sixth? You keep confusing. She was sixth. Brooke was fifth. And two days before the games ended, and she basically had a stumble on the last two days, right?

And still killed it. I'll think about this in the same conversation as Ricky Garrard, Mal O'Brien relative to Roman Krennikoff and Laura Horvath. If you flip the order of events, the story is completely different. I guess my point being is she didn't even look – and I want to say same at rogue. There's almost this just born giraffe element to her. I don't mean that in any way negative, but what I'm saying is, is like, we,

I don't even feel like I'm looking, feel like I'm looking at like a butterfly that's still just the cocoon just fell off of it. Like we, I feel like Emma's like the most obvious, like the wings haven't even opened up. We don't even know what we're looking at yet. Right. athletically gifted, but they didn't necessarily fit in their body yet.

And I would say, call them exactly that big. You got, you're like a young giraffe. Yeah. You know, we're working your way around this barbell and whatever. And two years later,

they were just savages. Yeah. I, I think she's the, um, it seems like she has the most, which is weird to say, cause she's so good already,

but the most potential out of anyone, right? God, what if her and Mal, I don't know about that out of anyone, but she's so good already, but the most potential out of anyone, right? God, what if her and Mal just- I don't know about that out of anyone, but she's got, I think that relative to a lot of women on this list, her potential ceiling is farthest away. Okay, good. I'll go with that.

And it would be great to see her and Mal have like five or 10 years of just wars, right? I mean, yeah, I think if you're just a fan of like pure competition and sport and, uh, over the next seven years, Mal wins three, Emma wins three and someone else wins one. Like that's an incredible, just an incredible era to be following along during. Uh, Danielle is a force of nature. She's an F5 tornado, powerful and wild. If she can focus that, she's going to be on that podium. You know what's crazy about Danielle is if you told me,

oh my God, that one girl slapped the other girl at the CrossFit Games, I would automatically just assume you were saying that Danielle Brandon slapped someone. No one else would pop in. And here's the thing. As good as all of the women on this list are, for me, there is a distinct line, one, two, three, and everyone else. And the reason I say that is because the last two years, Annie Thorisdottir has competed in three major individual competitions, and she's podiumed in all three of them. Rogue, games, rogue. And she obviously competed on a team last year. And she obviously competed on a team last year. When she puts herself in the individual field, she is beating everyone on this list still other than those two women that I have ahead of her. She did beat Mal two years ago at the games, but Mal has taken another step forward since then. So to me, those are the top three. And then the rest of the women below that have to prove to me that they can actually beat one of those before i'm going to give them credit in a rankings that they can

i like that this this is probably going to irritate i hope this irritates brian why are you leaving out laura horvat what does he mean leaving her out she's right there in second i know get him she's i mean tia's obviously there. That's why the plus one for the top three is that they've all just moved up to replace Tia. I think that'll come down to programming between Mal and Laura at the games this year. I think that their fitness is so superior. I think that their strengths are so drastically different. And more importantly, their weaknesses are so distinct that basically the CrossFit Games champion this year is going to come down to whether there's strict deficit handstand pushups at the games or not. Oh, shit.

Oh, shit. And we're going to find out tonight. Well, we can ask JR tonight. Will there be, even though that's not what the show is about, we can ask Nostradamus tonight,r nostradamus and if and if there are not i think that laura will win the games this year i agree but if there are i think now we'll win crazy one movement uh there's a great comment in here from um patrick clark thank you okay you're to see a lot of Daniel Brandon in the media in the next coming months. God, I hope she gets some sort of commercial for Trojan condoms or something. Please, please, please.

She just got sponsored by Rain. Oh, that's the same as Monster, right? She always had them, right? No, I think she just got that but i but she was sponsored by monster i think all the monster athletes are switching to rain or something like that so it's the it's the sugar-free version of monster or something i think god i would like to see her do some crazy shit do you remember those trojan commercials where they were like at the Olympics

and it would be like two athletes and they would always end up in the – did you guys remember that? No. Before your day. All right. Brian, when will this list get updated before the CrossFit Games? How often do you update this? Yeah, I mean, I'll update it

today to take some of those people off of the list. But I mean one where we do another show. I think probably not until August. After the games for the top 100, I think after semifinals I'll rank the games athletes that are remaining. I will be continuously updating it throughout the year. So if you wanted to do one going into semifinals, we definitely could. I guess I'll rank the games athletes that are remaining. I will be continuously updating it throughout the year.

So if you wanted to do one going into semifinals, we definitely could. Yes, I'll have it available. But I think twice a year is okay for this. Once after the games, once before the Open. This man and woman power rankings, is there a living version of it, document, that lives anywhere online?

By living, I mean it's updated as you update it. So tonight before you go to bed, you might get up at 3 in the morning, eating a sandwich and be like, you know what, I'm moving this. And it happens in real time. Well, I'm thinking of creating my own website and then maybe I could have it living there. What would your website be? Working on that. Okay. Uh, Patrick Clark says not yet. So he knows stuff. He knows a little bit of everything. He knows stuff that you don't even know about yourself. That's right. One more time for you guys.

Mal O'Brien is the number one CrossFitter walking planet Earth today. She is the fittest woman, according to the Brian French. She's the number one CrossFitter competing in the game season this year. Doesn't necessarily mean that she'll win. No, that means that T, I still think T is the fittest on earth, but she's not competing. I mean, but T, don't listen to Brian. Don't interrupt me again.

According to Brian French, the power rankings, the fittest woman on earth is Mal O'Brien. Don't let him, ignore Brian if he says it. I know it's his list. Oh, look at this, BeFriendly.com. We got it. Thank you. Someone's already hacked it. It's brilliant. BeFriendly.com.

It's long overdue. I think this should live on your homepage. This list, this top 10, it will be huge. It's a good, it's such good brand value to the Brian friend name. Is Tia going to do the open? I would guess probably she's going to do it.

Wouldn't you guess she'll do it? She told me no. Oh, we'll see. That's weird. We'll know in less than a week. Laura Horvat, number two, some bold predictions. Annie Thor's daughter, number three.

Danielle Brandon, number four. You think Danielle's going to make the podium this year? No. No, I know. I think those top three will make the podium. I would say this. I mean, that's why she's fourth. I think of all of the women behind those top three on the list,

Danielle has this year the best chance to make the podium, yeah. You think Danielle is going to peak this year? Is this going to be her best year ever? Hmm. It's hard to say. I mean, it's possible last year was her best year ever? It's hard to say. I mean, it's possible last year was her best year ever, and I don't really know how good she can get. It's surprising to me that someone who can have a year

of being very limited with something like a back squat can still place fourth at the games. And to me, like I said, that makes her pretty scary. Tia does the open, puts her name as the alternate on the proven team, wins the games on a team. God, anything's possible. Thank you. Fantastic show.

And I guess we'll be doing another show this evening where we start talking. It's our first of trolling the leaderboard. Brian Friend and Jer Howe will be joining us. We'll be talking about what the Open is, who we think is going to win it, what the workouts will be, all things. Open up the phone lines maybe. Yeah, I think we can definitely do that uh if melissa odier if laura loses uh 15 pounds her gymnastics would improve and she would take it

i don't know if she can lose 15 pounds she'd be a fucking stick popsicle stick we i mean we have this this conversation all the time and i i, I, I disagree with that. I mean, I think that she at the current way she's competing, she is so good at so many things and it's one specific thing. And it's more specific than most people even recognize that she struggles with it at that weight. I don't know. And she doesn't maybe know how, how much better that one thing would improve down 10 to 15 pounds. But I think that it would not improve enough to offset how good she is at 10 other events at the way she's currently competing at. I think there's somewhere in the middle of those two.

Eric Y. Seve, how's that punk kid at the skate park? I doubt we'll see him again. What's crazy is he's kind of a family friend. The whole thing is weird. It's weird when you see some parent lose their mind. But anyway. Okay. Brian, thank you.

Thank you. Caleb, thank you. Matt Souza. Thank you. California Hormones. Thank you for giving us the resources to force Brian over here to buy a soul. Oh, make him eat white dog poop.

I've seen the white dog poop. That's the stuff that's been sitting around the yard, like just forever. You know what I mean? It's like, like five, it's been there for five days. No one picked it up.

Fucking insightful. That guy has like three dogs, Patrick Clark, right? Thank you. Bruce Wayne. Thank you very much for everything you've contributed to. You're making wonderful thumbnails. Thank you. Melissa wants to, I'm all for Laura anyways. Yeah. With peace and love.

Okay. Bye-bye.