The Sevan Podcast - CrossFit Games Update Show EP1 | Live Call In

Episode Date: June 25, 2023

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Welcome to the first ever CrossFit Games Update Show, Episode 1. Friday nights, 6.30 p.m. We'll bring a whole cast of characters through here. We'll bring a whole cast of characters through here Tyler Watkins, Bill Grundler Chase, Spin Pedro The list goes on and on Maybe we'll even drag Will Branstetter

Out of retirement If we get desperate And this is going to be a fun show This will be a wild show. Feel free to call in and interrupt anytime. It's your show. I want it to be fun, and I want it to bring value to everyone who's listening

so you can learn new things, put new data points together, and get new ideas. John has been around for a long time. That's it for his credentials. He works out a little bit strong. Mr. Spin is the founder and creator of the Barbell Spin. He's on Instagram and on YouTube

and all over the internet. In my opinion, and I think in the opinion of many people, it is where the most up-to-date, fastest news comes out if you are interested in following CrossFit. Anyone who's interested in following crossfit so anyone who's interested in the games that's the instagram account you want to follow not even just the games anything in the crossfit space for some reason he is that source and his instagram within

minutes of things happening they happen unless he's doing his fatherly duties which is that's right he did some of that shit too uh my first question for you guys tonight, what died faster, Justin Berg or Justin LeFranco? No, just kidding. I want to thank – I was surfing the web today before we came on, and I was just looking for anything on this subject, the Dave Castro subject. And I saw CF Media, the guy from Europe with the fancy accent. That guy came out of hiding and did a show. I saw John Singleton did a show from the program. I saw that Training Think Tank hasn't done a show on it.

I saw the Froning Posse did a show, Talking Fitness did a couple shows. You guys have done some shows at the spin. But it's not a lot, and that's what made me realize morning chalk up is dead right it's it's toast i went to their youtube station that i mean yeah youtube is is gone and and without youtube i i kind of i mean in this space you're kind of done, right? I mean, don't you need YouTube presence to be some validation? I mean, even Brian Friend, who is at Be Friendly Fitness, who has predominantly been a writer, even he has a YouTube station that's building quickly. Yeah, I mean, that's how you get the news out fastest.

Through video. And I'm growing. You have to have a YouTube channel. Yeah. I mean, that's how you get the news out fastest. Through video. And I'm growing. You have to have a YouTube channel. Crazy. All right. Well, I'm glad John, you don't go start a YouTube channel.

You just feed mine and spins. Please. We appreciate that. I want to say a couple of things that since it's been a week since Dave Castro has been put in charge of the CrossFit Games and Justin Berg has been fired. And I think it's safe to say after listening to all the pundits out there, we basically know why he's been fired. It's a combination of financial reasons, but just of epic failures that have been documented by people like Andrew Hiller from the start of the year to up till now. From the wrong weights being used to the social media that's been a disaster to

inconsistencies in kilograms pounds it just goes on and on we're reffing stuff the the list goes on and on you can go back and see just all of the um the hiccups and so someone has made a decision and i'm guessing there's a financial component too that uh brought dave back i think at some point when we saw Dave get rehired by CrossFit Inc., we thought, okay, for sure, he would be coming back to this role. And it will be interesting with only six weeks or four weeks, whatever's left until the games. How long is it until the games happens?

Five weeks. Okay. What is that, 35 days? Five times seven. Late July. Yeah, five, six weeks. It'll be interesting to see what he – not what he does, but if we'll see his fingerprint on it at all.

I want to say something after listening to all these people talk. I've come to definitely one or two conclusions for sure. talk i've come to definitely one or two conclude two conclusions for sure uh dave please ignore 90 of what all the athletes and um and coaches say they are completely selfish douchebags who uh who should just focus on training and and not be worried about you at all please ignore them just get out there and be the d Dana White of CrossFit that we want you to be. Completely fucking ignore them. And the second thing I want to tell you, and I'm curious how John and Mr. Spinfield about this,

is Dave is the most highly communicative, transparent, and accessible person who's ever worked at the history of crossfit hq savon how can you say that because the guy has a youtube channel where he tells you what he does every single day of the fucking week in his weekly review and he answers questions from ding-dongs on youtube so i kind of don't want to hear any any like is he accessible is he going to be collaborative he's not quiet you remind me of the blm protesters who throw bricks at buildings and yet you haven't written one letter to your congressman just going to the brick is your first move.

Let me see 20 questions in his YouTube comments for him first before I hear one fucking opinion or speculation or criticism about him. And let me be clear, I am a huge Dave Castro fan. He can almost do no wrong in my eyes. I am so biased. He said 100%. 100%. do no wrong in my eyes i am i am seven it's so biased he said 100 100 steven flores savvy can i buy some weed off of you you can have it dude i got bags of this shit laying around i don't even smoke this shit you can have it john you ever seen marijuana before goody goody like you

all right you've held it up before that's the only time i've seen i've seen you hold it up before all right fine we'll break the show can you guys see how much i'm sweating You've held it up before. I've seen you hold it up before. All right, fine. We'll break the show. Can you guys see how much I'm sweating? What? I just worked out. So let that be known. I just watched his most recent weekend review, and you know what I saw? CrossFit, Bill Henniger and Katie Henniger of Rogue and the mayor of Miami were just on a phone call.

And they're setting up some parks in some underserved areas in the community. Whatever the fuck that means. That means we're like gangbangers and people on welfare live, I think. And they're setting up public spaces so people can participate and do CrossFit. That's awesome. It's fucking great. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Bill.

Thank you, Katie. Thank you, Mayor of fucking Miami. I'm not sure if Dave's going to listen to me because I want the temperature at the semifinals to be 81.2 because that's where the best oxygen transfer in the lungs comes from the capillaries to the – Shut up. The best oxygen transfer in the lungs comes from the capillaries to the – Shut up. You just focus on getting more pull-ups and handstand push-ups out of Laura Horvath. You'll be fine.

She'll be with the CrossFit Games champion. Right, John? Absolutely. Okay. Okay. You can go over Did you guys see John Singleton's podcast

Got a thousand views over there It's at the program Did you guys by any chance see that I didn't watch it I saw it I didn't watch it It's kind of trippy right That lady is so unique In her character To the and presence in the games.

You know what I mean? Who is she? I don't know. She sounds smart because she's got the fancy voice. Here she is. And that poster in the background, is that Picasso with a clown nose? What's going on? Who is it?

I was joking. I said it was Trish it could be trish uh the big takeaway from this for anyone who who doesn't have the time to watch this the big huge takeaway is that green looks wonderful on this lady and that those road microphones can be placed on hats look at john singleton's fucking hat look Look where they put the Rode microphone on him. That's incredible. I had no idea it worked like that. Did you guys?

No. I thought that shit had to be down here between your pecs. Does it pick up? Does it pick up his voice fine? He sounds great. He says that the lady's concerned because she says at minute 17 that Dave Castro might have some favorites.

At the 43-minute mark – or at the 19-minute mark, John Singleton says something about there's never been more uncertainty. Watching this, even though I like John Singleton and I do like her and I like the discussion, it's made it – this is where I was like, okay, this is – I don't really – the coaches and the athletes and the pundits like please dave do not listen to them just get up there and fucking run the fucking show that's what we want uh there was a um for 1999 you get to say something thank you fernando uh fernando uh premium services i can't agree with seven more dave ignore all the athletes and coaches yeah it's not like he uh it's not like he let it get to him before though. I believe, I feel like he ignored them, ignored all the noise back in the day as well. I agree. I'm just concerned.

I'm concerned that we're in a different era and that people, yeah, I'm just concerned that people are going to be like, Oh, it's a different era. Dave's matured, blah, blah, blah. blah blah no don't don't have matured please and any thoughts been oh uh steven flores a seve sounds like he drank some spicy watermelon margaritas there is no slur in this voice i had some uh three hours ago i had some no explode and worked out maybe that's what you you're feeling go ahead no i completely agree i mean he's uh he brings interest to the sport right like what he does is intriguing and at times controversial and if he gets and just becomes vanilla nobody wants that or at least give me an example of controversial what you mean by that. You mean like the cornrows or like you mean in like the softball throw or what?

Just how, you know, he did what he wanted to to grow the sport. And he didn't weigh in and just, you know, if something happened, he would own up to it. He took charge. He did what he could to grow the sport. And it wasn't trying to, he wasn't worried about offending somebody. For instance, in 2019, whenever everybody was complaining about the cuts and Brooke Wells didn't make it, he says,

this isn't a popularity contest. I don't care how many Instagram followers you have. She stepped on the line. She's not allowed in. I don't think we hear that from anybody but dave right right and and i'm going to be frank with you i'm a huge fan of dave and i think that that's totally inappropriate but from him i fully accept it i i i mean uh this is going to be uh dana white fucking uh his wife slapped him and he slapped her back in a bar and he survived that not everyone survives that he survives that not not not everyone i mean he he he flourished through it there was a rory mccernan says in the podcast with rich and hopefully i'll have rich on uh next monday

he says something like hey you know it's a different era if you want to grow a sport you have to you have to not say the f-bombs i'm paraphrasing well rory must not be watching the ufc uh fastest growing sport in the history of those two years during the pandemic and the f-bomb comes out of every other sentence uh and it's on espn and it's like hey hey dude this isn't we're not in 2015 anymore and uh this sport and dave can blaze its own path he's never never been one. And every second counts. Someone asks, what do we do if one of the athletes gets injured? And someone says, we should stop the event. That's what they do in the Olympics.

And Dave goes, fuck the Olympics. And like, this is crowning the fittest human being on the planet. Yeah, 100%. The fittest human being on the planet. And we want that. We want that aura back, right? Hey, was that Picasso in the background? Was that Picasso with the clown nose on?

Was that Picasso on that poster? Anyone know? Caleb? Can you know back to it caleb's not just in the uh was not just served uh in the united states military but he also um it was a art uh this this freeze frame on john he's like a conspiracy theorist right now hey john singleton's legit right he's he's he's as legit as they get would you would you how would you rank him up there with uh as coachesleton's legit, right? He's as legit as they get. How would you rank him up there as coaches? He's in the top tier. He's in the elite. Yeah, I mean, he's been around for probably longer than most

of the coaches that we talk about today. And he probably just doesn't get enough credit for what he can do because he's in Europe. And he's kind of a little bit outside of mind, you know, most of the season. He's probably Europe's Ben Bergeron.

Like the way we talk about Ben Bergeron, I feel like not in a negative way, but like how much we talk about Ben Bergeron as a coach. I feel like he's Europe's main coach. Like he's probably their top tier guy. Wouldn't you agree, Brian? He has been. I think there's a lot of upcoming coaches

in Europe right now. He's been around. 100%. Oh my God, that's Trish. John Singleton was Sarah Sigmund's daughter's coach back in the day. Is that correct? Everybody's been daughter's coach back in the day. Is that correct? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And most recently. Everybody's been Sarah's coach at some point. That's okay. Well. And most recently, Gabby Magawa was coached by him but recently left. Yep. And does he have any other big names right now? Ella Wenger is on it, made it to the games.

Jacqueline Ballester. Oh. Okay, so there's no doubt that he cares. And he's passionate. Yeah, more than fighting. Absolutely. Yeah. But I'm going to say gently he is far too focused.

On the athletes and on being a coach. I'm not really interested in his perspective. I don't give a lot of weight to his perspective on what's best for the sport, what's commercially important for it, what's best for CrossFit HQ. I don't care. I agree with that. I feel like those conversations need to be for people in the media or just people who frequently criticize CrossFit headquarters

and coaches and athletes should focus on what's at hand. I mean, they should still have a say. It's not to say that they shouldn't have a say in, you know, the sport that they participate in. But they're distracted if that's bothering them. They have a vested interest, right? Like his athlete was Jacqueline Dahlstrom. There's no way that mic is working, Spin.

There's no fucking way that mic is working. It's probably not. That is a show mic. Spin's like a guy with a 10-inch dick that won't get hard. It's a show mic. It was working when I got on and I jumped on here. I don't think it's working. I have no idea what's going on.

Okay. Go on Jacqueline Dahlstrom. Sorry. Go on. Um, like he's like Kotler, right. In the talking elite fitness interview.

Okay. Right. Like, yeah, yeah. Kotler's very transparent that he's obviously myopic about athletes. Right. All for the athletes.

Right. So they have a vested interest. They have a certain perspective and that's how they are. That's the lens they look through. And so that's all they're going to look for is how it's affected them or how it affected their athletes over the years. And so you have to take a step back, like somebody like Kalipa in that interview, he's been the athlete. Now he stepped back and he can look at it from a different angle and provide two perspectives.

And probably knows Dave better than anybody else that was in that podcast or interview. Kalipa Jason. Oh yeah. By far. Right. Like the closest to him personally and not personally where he's at Dave's will. Right. I mean, Dave is the guy who wouldn't let his team compete when they should have won in 2015. They were destroying Rich's team. Miranda, correct, tears her ACL.

And then they probably still would have won with one person less. And Dave's like, I'm not going to let you compete. You know how pissed offason was from that i mean he freaking he stopped crossfit and called it nc fit and acted like it wasn't crossfit for a while that's how mad he was about that and for him to have castros back the way he did in that interview i feel like speaks volumes uh if you go back to i don't know what that was 2015 if you go to 2015-scenes, you can actually hear there was someone there filming while Dave was on the phone with Jason Kalipa while he was driving in his truck. It's a brilliant segment filmed by a brilliant filmmaker with the most watched minutes-wise content in the history of CrossFit HQ's behind-the-scenes facts. Greatest arm wrestling director I've ever seen too.

Yeah, that too. Thank you. Chris Beesterfield, monthly subscription for the show to buy some tennis balls. Thank you. Dude, my eight-year-old. I think it's done. I think my eight-year-old can beat me at tennis and it's over. He beat me today two games to one.

I don't think I'd come back. It's crazy. He's eight. I don't think I come back. Uh, okay. Anything else you guys want to say, um, uh, about day? Oh, let's say one more thing about Dave. Today, Dave and Don met with the, um, all of the athletes, uh, going to the CrossFit games from what I hear. Um, I am not able to get a word from Dave about it, but what I am hearing is that the individual athletes, men and women, the masters, the teams, everyone, I think even the kiddies, all met with Don and Dave today on a phone call. From what I heard, none of the athletes spoke. It just uh don and dave had spoke have you guys heard anything about that i have not i'm not it's fenn's the guy that would know and if he doesn't then i don't think anybody knows okay i i don't remember those me i don't remember meetings like that in the past i don't know if that's something um not this far out for sure yeah with all the athletes it sounds new to you does it sound new to you too spin you think

this is something like hey you think like basically the ants nest got stirred up a little bit with justin leaving and they're just like hey we're here we're good yeah mommy and daddy are here i think that's exactly what it is yeah okay yep okay uh who does the who does that old behind the scenes stuff great question great

uh fantastic uh question okay uh anything else on um Dave um

no Tyler wants to know if you still want him on right now yeah tell him to come on of course I love Tyler tell him to come on anytime Of course, I love Tyler. Tell him to come on anytime.

He's a great guy. It's a crazy show. Okay, Mr. Spinn, where are we in the game season? We said we're six weeks out, but what's behind us and what are we looking at? Can you paint the scene for us with six weeks out? What's going on here? Yeah, we've narrowed the field down from 300,000 through the open quarterfinals and semifinals, and now we have 40 athletes, 40 men, 40 women, and 38 teams heading to the games in Madison.

So we've changed up the number of people coming through from each semifinal thanks to the worldwide rankings and uh but at the end of the day we still have 40 men 40 women and uh yeah i think it's uh i think we got the right athletes based off of the system that we have in place in in any of the years that the crossfit games have happened, have all 40 men and all 40 women actually arrived on day one, or does it always end up being 39 and 40 or 38 and 36? Have all 40 on both sides ever shown up? Do you guys know?

Or all 30 or anyone who made the roster? Yeah, I think it's commonplace most of the time for all 40 to show up, and then if they're hurt, they'll withdraw in the first event. They'll see if they can make it to the first event. First event's usually long distance. It's running, swimming, and then running. Most of the time, you can make it through that. If you have a chance to go to the games, especially if you're 40th, 38th, that's the spot you're probably going to get, you're still going to go to the games. It's a once-in-a-lifetime feeling for you.

I think most of the time they do show up 40-40, and then it's just a couple withdraw on the first day if that happens. So basically what you're saying is there's a bit of delusion for the injured. They come. They try to keep the dream alive. They enter the first event. They realize that ankle, that shoulder, that wrist, that something can't hold up And they shut it down

I mean, Alexander Caron did it in semifinals And did he make it? Is he going to the games? No, they told him they couldn't compete Right But he showed up He went to Orlando or Pasadena Whichever one he was at And he tried to fake it through

Someone else got, another dude got booted there, right? Yeah. Corby Foxall. Right. Kind of weird that the only two guys that got booted got all semifinals were from the same. It was

that first week, and I think even Berg alluded to that maybe that was a mistake. No shit. Yeah. It sounded like that was part of the interview that they had with Talking Elite Fitness that they never aired. Why aren't they going to show that? Do you think it's inappropriate if they showed it?

Let me change that question. What the fuck does inappropriate mean? Do you think that there's powers outside of themselves for the reason that they won't show it you think that they think it would look bad for hq so they're kind of like trying to protect hq which i'm not digging them for i do things to try to make people look good or bad all the time i think that's that's true i think the problem is that's the problem with having it so polished that they interviewed them last week and they had to wait a week and then things change and you know if they had put it out live or done it right you know quick turnaround

you would have seen it but they had a week delay between the interview and publishing it and we don't get to see it and if they would have put it up i probably wouldn't have watched it but then after justin got, I probably actually would have gone back and watched it. Exactly. Although there's a chance I may have watched it. But it's interesting that they allowed him to have the interview if they knew this was going to happen. I don't think – Justin did not know. Yeah, but generally they go through you know you get approval

for it I don't know if you know maybe he just made the straight call to do it but you know here's my two spins spin I don't think anyone is there's not someone there. I can remember times at HQ when Greg would say, okay, no external media. Everyone stop, meaning you can't – no one can do any podcast. I don't think that that's – I don't think Don or Rose or any of those guys have ever done that, implemented that. I've never heard of that.

or any of those guys have ever done that, implemented that. I've never heard of that. I think that, Justin, I think that Don has actually been pretty explicit in the fact that he doesn't micromanage and that he just wants people to do their duties. I think it's – there's a different word than micromanage. I think that – I don't want to call it something else. If I say I don't micromanage, it sounds like I'm a good leader, right? But if I tell you I don't have oversight on people,

it sounds like I'm a bad leader. But those words are you i don't have oversight on people it sounds like i'm a bad leader but those words are kind of interchangeable right so that's a little scary you follow me on that young so i don't think justin had enough oversight and i don't think justin was giving enough oversight to other people so i think people like adrian or justin or anyone eubanks or anyone who we saw doing podcasts i think anyone could have done podcasts i think anyone can do podcasts i think you can have oversight by delegating to the right people though like you have oversight over the people that you've delegated to for specific jobs that are getting done or not done right but micromanaging checking in on people is not micromanaging no i don't think so and and so there's that nuance there so what i think was happening

was um oh i don't know what happened i can't bring tyler oh there he is hey dude what's up uh i i think i think i i don't what spin is proposing is is that um justin maybe got that podcast cleared i want to propose this i and, and I feel pretty strongly about it, that he had no idea he was going to get fired and that he was the boss and that, except for Don, the only person he ever had to answer to was Don and that he got fired and he did not see it coming at all. You're not buying that spin?

I mean, that has to be the only answer, is that he didn't talk to anybody before going on. I know when I've had Eubanks on, he had to get it. Oh, he did? Yeah, he had to run it up the ladder. I went through their PR guys to get him on. Okay, all right. All right, I stand corrected.

Maybe Justin didn't have the need to because he was the GM of sport. So that's the only thing I can think of is that he can do what he needed to, but Dave had to run it up the ladder. Wow. Uh, uh, Karina rain, uh, just because I like that. If you feel free to throw money at me, just because Jacqueline Robinson, the seven media group bring back behind the scenes, make media seven again. Yeah. I'm telling you it would be fucking awesome i'll do it i'll do it for free a wad zombie for brian to fix his 10 inch mic all right very kind to you how's your mic doing uh mr watkins i don't know how's it sound

oh god so good and look how nice spins mike looks he's ass a hundred dollar. Mike, dude, and your voice sounds a hundred times deeper than mine doesn't. Mine doesn't work. So spin sounds like he's running through a tunnel. Um, uh, wad zombie, uh,

John, Andrew Hiller said, there's no way you can take him in fit wars, bring it on and ring muscle ups and chest to bar. I'll give that. I'll give it to Hiller I think he's got me Even in his roided up state But anything other than that

I think I can beat him Maybe not in a run But we can't film that So that's okay If he beats you You'll just say he was roided up I always don't help you in CrossFit I just help you in strength

And he's still stronger than me So it's all good I saw him Hiller workout at the ranch uh with the running wall ball workout i well maybe roids don't help you at crossfit but he was already good at crossfit and dude i'm telling you the dude is fit he's huge no no he is absolutely i think he had a better shot at beating me before he got on steroids. Wow. Wow.

I think he was fit. He might not be as strong, but I think he's probably fitter before then. He's been podcasting left and right. I don't think he's working out near as much as he used to. Call it out. Athletes, you guys interviewed the guy from Australia. What's his name? Douglas?

Jake Douglas. Jake Douglas. Strongest man in Crocs? True. What's his name? Douglas? Jake Douglas. Strongest man in CrossFit games. True. That's true. He's the strongest man at CrossFit right now. He'll be the strongest guy at CrossFit games. In the CrossFit games, he's one of, if not the strongest guy in the games. We never did ask him

what his squat bench deadlift was. I think he would have said it, though. I think snatch deadlift was like. I think he would have said it. So I think snatch is his best thing. Cause I think he would have said it if it, if it was something crazy, you know what I mean? And he said his three 35 snatch real quick. You know what I mean? So I think snatch is the best thing. And when you say strong is give me an idea what you,

what you're talking about. You're saying like he has a good bench. He's he has a good squat. He he has a good uh squat he he not only just a back squat but front squat overhead squat just all the standard crossfit stuff you're saying good clean good jerk good deadlift the bet not good the best yeah there's different there's different strengths right like it takes a different type of strength and stability to to be well do well in a snatch. There's a lot of guys and women that are really, really strong, but they don't have that ability to have a good snatch.

I think this guy has both. This guy has a what? You died out. He has both, right? He can snatch 335, but he can also, you know, if you give him a sandbag, he's probably going to do really well. He's strong with odd object stuff too. And that's not necessarily the case just by being strong.

Fikowski, I wouldn't say is super strong, but he's very good with odd object stuff. Odd object stuff is one of the strongest in the field, but he's not necessarily strong in a max out other than snatch. Snatch is his best thing. But Chandler Smith's another good one. Chandler Smith's up there for strength athlete too, but he can't Olympic lift the way Jake Douglas can.

The most fascinating thing I got out of that interview is that he's already coming to the States. Were you guys surprised he's coming now? Is he here now? He's in Vermont. He's meeting up with Matt. He's going to be at the HWPO headquarters for five or six weeks prior to the games. He said he was coming next week, I think.

Yeah. Does that surprise you he's coming so early? I was surprised when he said it, but I think it's a great move for him. He's going to have the time of his life because i mean hopper's gonna be there just the athletes he's gonna be around are better than any of the athletes he's ever been around unless he trains with ricky and ricky's over here most of the time uh and who else is do you think a lot of the athletes are coming now what's the conventional wisdom for athletes to come from europe and uh and wherever

wherever they're from australia europe asia the longer you can get used to that time difference the better now it becomes a cost thing like how long can you stay over here and afford it but yeah the longer you can deal with the time change the better yeah that's the big thing the time difference and then weather i mean in austral, it's wintertime right now. So they probably won't get up here. Acclimated, yeah. If anything, it's a vacation for them. The games are going to be in Madison again.

Temperature an issue for any of these guys? I don't remember it being hot enough there to be any. I don't think so. No, but if you come from the winter being in australia and you come up and it's you're used to being whatever 30 degrees and now it's going to be 70 80 it does take a little bit to get used to uh you agree that he's the strongest guy tyler i don't know like spin was saying like there are types of strength to me i people are really good at the skill lifts so snatch and clean and jerk and they might not necessarily be the strongest person in

the field it and so brute strength versus skill strength i don't know i think he's definitely the strongest in the field as far as skill strength brute strength that seems to be determined to me i think Bronislaw and him are neck and neck. I would put him and Bronislaw together. And Jeff Adler is right there too. Sharunk is strong.

He crushed those bench press. That's cool. It's bench press. Maybe something else. Yeah. What's wrong with bench press, John? You don't give validity to that? He's good at it, so he doesn't give any credence to it.

I don't know. I bench press once a year. Just once a year, just to see what happens. I max out once a year. I've done it for about five years straight. One time, bench press a year, and my max is 350. It's not hard to be good at bench press.

I'm not impressed by a crossfitter that can bench press. If you played football in high school, you're good at bench press. It's not – I'm way more impressed with a 300 snatch than a 315 bench press. Bendover, I agree, Tyler. My back squat is 515. My snatch is 260. Raw strength can only do so much. Still, 260 is crazy. Kenneth

DeLapp, there's the John Young I watch for. I'm wondering if John's on steroids. He's been on it terror lately. Test me up. part of the uh do you hear that dave test him up uh part of the uh reason i'm doing this show is because i did have so much

fun with these three guys uh during the semi-finals there it's i would say it's like 90 of the reason i had so much fun i had no idea we were going to do so well we're going to have so much fun and spend so much time together. So it was pretty awesome. Mr. Joyner wants to brag. What if your bench is 405? I'm assuming that's his bench. Man, I want to know your mile time. Ken Walters, come on, John.

I'm old. I'm 60. I'm old. Come on, John. I'm 60 and I do 310 bench. I want you impressed. Honestly, I think my dad has screwed me up on this. My dad's right around 50. He's either 50 or 51. I can't remember. Wait, how old is your dad? Your dad's the same age as me. Your dad might be younger than me.

I think he was 21 when he had me. Holy shit, that's crazy. 49, but he's 49 and he benches 405 he's a power lifting guy um you ever suspect your dad's on roids john no he's a big guy he's he's like he's built big i don't know what happened to me we thought i was gonna be way bigger than i was uh tyler that's a fair question isn't it your dad benches 405 you gotta wonder if he's juicing it's not a bad question i would wonder the same if you saw him in real life you just think you would just think he's a very big guy i had jesse buffano on here he says he deadlifted 600 i said so that's normal for dudes who don't

you think it's like totally possible to deadlift 600 on not juiced and he said yeah i'm not juiced i deadlift 600 look at velner you think he's? And he says, and my goal is to deadlift a 700. Has Vellner deadlift. He deadlifted five 95. Yeah. Five 95. For the total. Six,

six, five, four, uh, deadlift squat bench is like the natty, like you're, you're really good at the natty level. Say it again.

Six for dead. What's the five squat, uh, squat. Uh huh. And the bench press is the hardest to get to yeah those three numbers and the bench is what 400 600 400 bench yeah i mean you're a really good natural lifter at that point what's 300 nothing nothing oh but i would say but if you're doing that you're a power lifter yeah there's nobody there's nobody like in the crossfit space that i mean maybe griffin maybe crossfit thor because i bench in 405 like there's no point in benching 405 if you bench 405 and you're in the game at the games, you should never, ever bench ever in your life ever again.

Wait, wait, say that again, John. Say that again. If what? If you make the games and you can bench 405, there is no point in ever benching ever again. Okay. I don't think there's anybody at the games that's benching 405. That's way, you've specialized way too hard.

Yeah, it's benching 405 that's way you've specialized way too hard yeah it's detrimental um uh caleb can we look at uh laura horvat uh um her instagram maybe even crossfit cryptons and maybe ben smith uh laura horvat uh what is she she's from she's bulgarian what what is she is she bulgarian uh she is also uh in the united states uh I saw a headline somewhere back at Krypton. Did she just... Spin kind of made a wince when I said back in the States. Laura's from Hungary. Oh, yeah. That's what I said.

Oh, it's... What'd you say? That's what I said. Hungary. No, not she's hungry. That's rude, Mr. Spin. She's from Hungary. Look at, like, Hungarian. Thank you. Of course, everyone knows that. I was testing. Oh yeah, because Kristoff is the

Hungarian bear. I forgot. There you go. Manny Spiegel, she's hot as fuck. That's inappropriate. Girls shouldn't be judging other girls. Why is she normal for her? What do you think about the fact she's at Krypton? Why is she... Is this a weird matchup for her, Ben Smith?

Who else trains with Ben Smith? Who goes over there? It's her and Danny Spiegel? No. Danny Spiegel's not with Krypton. I thought she was Invictus. She was there in the offseason. She's good friends with Alex,

so she was just hanging out there. But Alex's not there either, is he? Yeah, they're on the team. CrossFit Crips on the team. You think that's – and this isn't to dig at Ben at all, by the way. Obviously, he's fit as fuck, won the CrossFit Games, crazy longevity, super well-respected for his – not only his ability but his intellect. But it's not a flashy camp.

There's no one there, right? It's just – Neither of them are flashy though think about theirs you mean you mean ben's not ben's never been flashy and laura's never been flashy so so right okay so the connection there do you think that's the connection there they're both the same style of a person yeah and their performances i should not disagree more laura is a power athlete she wins john not not in physicality in the in their swagger in their personality how they act i think even their performances are pretty similar you just don't she doesn't want you talk to her ben might be spicy too no one knows Ben might be spicy too Oh Ben's spicy He is?

He gets mad on his podcast It's funny to listen to So who are these ladies on the outside? Who? Oh Caroline Spencer And I don't know who that is Aaron O'D Yeah O'Donnell

He's O'Donnell They were on a team with Paige Semenza at Wadapalooza and finished top 10. And what Instagram? Oh, that's her Instagram. Okay. Is she going to the game? She's not going to the games as an individual. No, on the team.

On that team that you had. Oh, that's a real team for this year? Ben's going on the team? I didn't even know that. Yep. Yep. No shit. Are they all healthy

yeah i would think so well ben ben had the knee issue that he didn't do individual quarter finals he stopped when it came to was it the lunging or something yeah he did the crossover and he didn't do the lunges yeah i wonder what that's like for the other three of them knowing that there's a dude on your, you're going to put all this work in, and there's a dude on your team who's got, like, a wheel that could fall off the bus. Yeah, but as far as the wheel itself, I'm like,

it's probably fine. It's connected to the best car on the bus, so. Right, right. Hey, where were you, John, where were you going? Let's say you had read Tyler Wright. How are they different athletes? Ben Smith's not a power athlete. He's a power athlete, isn't he? He's strong as shit, isn't he?

No, he is. He is. But Laura is probably the strongest woman at the games. I mean, Danny Spiegel is not there. So Christine Kolenbrander is up there. But if you look at their lifts, did y'all know anybody stronger than Laura? Karen Freova's close. No, she's not.

Laura's the strongest person at the game. If Karen Freova's the person you're coming at me with, then she's not. I want Karen Freova to squat this right here. It would crack her in half, okay? Now, snatch, yes. Karen's got a great snatch. But she ain't Laura Horvath when it comes to total strength around. Machines, Laura's the best at machines.

Laura has so many things that she's just better at than everybody else at the games. As far as home run hitter, you almost don't get better than her. Obviously, it's very specific events but she has she has many things where she is nobody can touch her and honestly even tia can't with some of the things ideas can touch her in lifting but when it comes to machines and just moving objects from a to b even tia can't beat her um the problem is she's got one hole that everybody else in the world can do and she can't uh gregory perry to have a podcast about crossfit seven doesn't know anything about crossfit wild brother that's how shitty the media space is a fucking donkey like myself can have the most popular fucking media in the space that

it's and i agree couldn't agree more what a fucking joke i just i just like look i just into shoes i just i'm really just like the sport because of shoes i'm a connoisseur of the shoe uh amanda barnhart uh judy uh reed wants to know a great question yeah i mean amanda barnhart would be a better comeback than karen pray over i'm i i don't know uh what was that is someone's stomach growling what the fuck is that the one you guys what was would be a better comeback than Karen Prejova. I don't know. Is someone's stomach growling? What the fuck is that? What was that? That's either a UFO or Tyler has diarrhea.

Is that your stomach gurgling? It's a train passing. Okay, go ahead. Sorry, John. All the lifts I've ever seen from Amanda Barnhart, I've seen Laura do more. I can't say she's stronger than Laura because I've never seen her beat Laura in one individual lift. Amanda Barnhart's greatest thing is a clean and jerk, and I've seen Laura clean and jerk 270.

Is Amanda Barnhart really that strong? Is she as strong as she looks? I mean, she really looks the part, too. She's got that whole Tia Toomey action figure thing going on, right? Like if you had to get the action figure doll of a CrossFit female athlete, you'd get the Amanda Barnhart one. That's – I mean, yeah. She's got her –

I mean, she looks strong as shit. That body represents that strength. It's not just all show. That thing goes. She has one of the more impressive physiques in the whole games. And what I'm saying is, does her strength match that? Would you put her in the top five strongest women at the CrossFit Games? Yeah, yeah, I would.

And definitely in this field. What I think is interesting is that, like, we've just spent so long talking about Dani being the strongest woman that we really haven't thought about any of the other women. And there's no – yeah, Laura is the strongest, I would agree. But I don't think she's a standout strong – not in the way that Spiegel is. You know what I mean? She doesn't stand above the rest that far.

Meaning if there's a clean and jerk event, everyone's not going to be like, okay, Laura's won it for sure Right If Danny wasn't there If Danny wasn't there last year Jackie Dahlstrom won the sandbag ladder That's fair yeah Wow

She beat Laura She beat Tia By 20 to 30 pounds But Danny did win that event, right? Yeah. Handedly. Easily, yeah. If Spiegel was here, Spiegel would be the strongest person at the games.

It's the only reason why I'm saying Laura is because Spiegel's not there. Who won it in the men? Was it a tie between Guy and Ricky? Who won that? Nick Matthew. Oh, Nick Matthew. So isn't that interesting? In the women's event, the strongest woman also was the strongest in the odd object.

And in the men's event, Nick Matthew is not the strongest guy there, but he's the strongest with the odd object. Yeah, if you go back and watch that event, though, Bukowski was the closest to getting that sandbag. I think if he would have just hung in there a little more, he would have done that sandbag clean and nobody else had a shot. He tried to pass it off too early. Yeah, it he just yeah just keep shaking he'd have got it uh but yeah can you find that for us caleb can we celebrate uh it was funny it's like oh sandbag wait sorry sandbag ladder they got gee oh he tied okay

okay okay thank you, Caleb. All right, I stand corrected. And why did it say Fikowski was third if he also stopped at 340? Did you see that? There was a lighter sandbag cleaner. Yeah, the tiebreaker. It was a three-light sandbag over the yoke, which that tiebreaker will never make sense to me.

So, wow. It's fine for the event uh i don't know i don't agree either wow that's an interesting point they should have given all those guys first place hopper agreed wow so so basically they all lifted 340 that's not really fair to say nick won that event then wait how could they have a tie if there was a tie break event a tie break they tied on the tie break yeah to the hundredth of a second yeah nick and gee were both like 15.37 seconds wow i'm sorry greg i didn't know that i'm sorry i i know but you're stuck with me is that the guy's name, Greg? Yeah, sure, it is now. You're going to haunt me until tomorrow.

You've gotten in my head. You're living in there rent-free. Greg goes, John said Laura has a hole everyone else can do. I don't think that's what he said. We have the greatest female audience in the history. That's a female, right? That's a female? right? That's a female? Yeah, Grey Ghost. Yeah.

They're a man. They're mad now. Well, that's a keeper if you got a girl who thinks like that. That's fun. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away?

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Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. Alright. Emma Coughlin. I agree. Laura is a freak. I've enjoyed seeing the gymnastics training she's been doing this offseason. Me too. It's been cool. And throughout the season with a gymnastics coach,

hope it can help her out this year. Mr. Spin, have you seen that training she's doing? It's in a legit gymnastic studio with all the gear. And it looks like she's surrounded herself with some gymnasts. I've not seen that specifically, but I mean, that's what she needs to be working on. She just has to get, you know, a deficit handstand pushup. Even just getting from 40th, 39th to

30th, 25th gets her where she needs to be. If she does fill that... That's not going to help her do any handstand pushups, man. That's not going to do things. If she does fill

that hole, That's it right She's unbeatable This year for sure Until Tia comes back Tia's not coming back Oh she's gonna kill Everybody next year It's not gonna be close

Yeah everybody's Mal's gonna come back And everybody's gonna make a big deal Laura's gonna win And then it's gonna be Laura, Mal Can they beat Tia And it's not gonna be close Did you see Mal's going to come back, and everyone's going to make a big deal. Laura's going to win, and then it's going to be Laura, Mal, and they beat Tia, and it's not going to be close. Did you see Mal's story today?

I did not recognize her. Let's pull that up. While Caleb pulls that up, hold that thought one second, Caleb. This is actually pretty good. Jordan Buhat, listen to this. Look, this looks like India's Mario Lopez. By the looks like india's mario lopez by the way this is india's mario lopez by the way you know the guy like you go to your hotel room and like he's telling you what movies to watch this this guy has that same job in india 1.7 billion people

this guy's famous as shit jordan good to have you on the show it's an honor buddy they should time how long it takes to get the bag up if if this event ever happens again. And that would be the tie break? Dude, that's fucking brilliant. You touch the bag, the clock starts. It's complex. What do you guys think? I like it better than, you know, Tyler being on mute. But, um... Sorry.

Go ahead, Mr. Train. Mr. Train train tell us uh you i like that yeah i i i love that i mean i'm this scoring's my thing i like i was just sitting in the stands i remember when that event was happening and it's like why are we doing a fast sandbag clean event to do the tie break when what we care about is how heavy you can lift the sandbag it just makes no sense so yes how fast you can lift the heavy sandbag is what should have been tested or or like a 250 pound bag touch and go whoever gets the most wins no i just don't like the tie breakers like the jerry cans at rogue i just i mean that was heavy lift i break in the world the jerry can thing at rogue that was terrible but i just these lifting events that i just have never had a tiebreaker that they've implemented that i've really liked i just don't understand why we need a tiebreaker

like if you both if you both clean and jerk 350 and then you don't hit 360 like you're both as strong as each other okay next, next test. Move on. We'll sort it out on something else, especially something that's timed or for reps. Why does it have to be on that event? Especially if there's 15 events or 13 events or whatever. Right. It'll sort out. So those four get 100 points

and then fifth place would get whatever fifth place points would be. Correct? Yeah. I mean, I'm not against that at all uh uh where is this there was a comment up here um oh okay let's go ahead go wow wow that's not mal o'brien wow is that really mal o'brien hey i liked i like the smile man i feel like she's always been pretty stoic. She looks pretty happy. Can we go ahead and play that? Good to see her happy.

Hey, wait. Freeze here for a second. What I'm seeing here is a girl who's in her Jeep going to the beach, and she's been at the beach a lot because her hair is getting some blonde streaks in it. I don't think that's natural. Oh. Go back on mute. Fine. Yeah. Go back on mute. Fine.

Yeah. My story all up. What else is there, Caleb? Can we see anything else? She was lifting in the one before that. All right. Well, shit. Good on her.

Okay. This is the Mal we know. That's her natural hair color, by the way. Oh, get bent, Tyler. How do you know? How do you know, Caleb? Somebody sent me a picture from when she was in the team games, and she's like a natural blonde.

So she's just letting it go. She's a natural blonde? You can see it in her roots. You can see it in her roots. She's always had black hair, and you look at it in her roots, and it's blonde. So she was going for a good stay out of it. Oh, so her roots are blonde now. Oh, cool. Well or was it not the rest of it oh so her roots

are blonde now so now oh cool well good i can't wait it'll be the new her i can't have to laugh seven you okay dad you're forgetting a lot of things tonight yeah i'm so sorry i didn't know that there was a four-way tie in the sandbag event i'm really sorry how dare you not remember hey dude two seconds after that event um i had, I had no idea who won that fucking event. I can't even tell you really who won the CrossFit Games last year. Was Tia pregnant last year? I don't even fucking, like, it's not even in my, I know I lost today in tennis to my kid. Two games to one, and he's fucking eight.

And it fucking sucked. I had to in tennis to my kid. Two games to one, and he's fucking eight. And it fucking sucked. I had to pretend like I enjoyed it. I wept a little tear inside. Eaton Beaver, Sevan Matosi, commonly known as Sevan Matosi, is a filmmaker, entrepreneur, former CrossFit employee. He's best known for his work as the director of the CrossFit Games. He's best known for his work as the director of the don't know is eaton beaver i don't think

that's true i do remember that i don't think i was ever the director of the crossfit games but a gray ghost i'm not a sis or whatever fine yeah i didn't know once that you're if you were you're just you're sis you're sis do we want to talk about the first topic for today? I'm glad I didn't miss anything. Scoring is my thing. I was getting ready to wrap this show up. I'm excited. I feel like we've hit some home runs.

I feel like it's been fun. No one's called in. I'm happy. Okay, go ahead. What would you like to bring up, Mr. Young? What was the – I'll go back to the text. I don't know. Oh, those are just things that were just whirling in my head. Oh, I'd like to bring this up while we're looking at old athletes like Mal O'Brien.

Speaking of old athletes, Talena Fortunato, mother of twins, spotted in the wild wearing a CEO shirt on her Instagram. A shout- out to her very very cool she was a very quiet athlete i remember very intense now i see her with the i was i was kind of afraid of her i never never really walked up to her and interviewed her there were these athletes that were like her akhen wali julieouché. They were fucking serious as a heart attack. She beat Noah Olsen at the first Waterpalooza. No shit. In the men's division.

Is she serious? Yeah. Because they didn't have a women's division? Yeah, they didn't have it. It was like just show up. And she beat... I think she finished on the podium if I remember right. Crazy, crazy cool.

Hey, shout out to Noah also. When Dave said that they launched that program with Rogue and the mayor of Miami, there was kind of an inaugural launch of one of these parks where people could do CrossFit. That was before you were on the show. We talked about that, Tyler. And Guy Trinidad And Guido Trinidad

and Noah Olsen went out and represented CrossFit. Very cool. That's cool. All right. Go ahead. I got some people's names. Oh, drug test. Where are we at drug test? Anyone popped yet?

What's going on in South America? Nothing yet. The only thing we have is... Fair. It is fair. If you listen to John, that's what you can do. The only thing we have right now that we know of is

week one drug tests are in and that Angelique Conaway, a member of FBDV Mayhem Africa team, the team that won. She tested positive for GW501516. There you go.

Indurable. Of course I'm going to seem like I have no memory when Spin can say the person's name, country of origin, what their training program is, and the drug they took by the code. I'm fucked. I'm fucked. That came in. They got ahead of of it they're going to appeal and then she decided not to saying that she could not afford

to try to go through all of the testing that's required um so she's gonna end up taking her four-year ban and what else do we know not necessarily athletes who've popped but what is the is there a time that we've been told that all the tests will be would be in what's the latest what's the what's the normal protocol or what's the um what's the it's not conventional wisdom we'll go with conventional wisdom across the games well like could they announce someone popped a day before the games they did basically last year it was like three or four days before oh no shit okay so we wouldn't even know this was happening if michelle mirand or teammate didn't take to instagram to kind of get ahead of the story and share their perspective

of what happened and she was saying that it you know crossfit hadn't announced it. We only know because she said that they popped. Yeah, and CrossFit has not officially announced it. I did get a statement from them telling me that it was indeed true that she withdrew her appeal and that the Cape CrossFit Wolfpack will now take their place. You know why Spinkin knows all that stuff is because he's on drugs. He's juiced to the pills. That's the obvious conclusion. Mish Moran, it is with very heavy heart that I sit and type this message.

Unfortunately, one of our team members yielded a positive drug test. Okay, so only one. So far. Hey, do we even know how many tests they've done? I mean, everyone on the podium everyone makes it yeah and and a few more that's what they've historically done i've heard rumors that they only tested two athletes on each team but i have not verified that man how unlucky if you're the one which is what they did last year right they did had an a and b sample

of every team and that's why south america was so crazy because they tested two people out of the four people and the top six teams popped somebody that's ridiculous say that again guys one more time uh i was looking over the comments you're saying they don't test all four people on the team. They only test two? Randomly select two people from each team. Is it one man and one woman, or it could be two men or two women? I think it's one man and one woman.

See, this is not good. What they should do is they should make them all pee in the same cup, so it's like the whole team fails. We don't know who failed. We don't know who failed. don't know who failed you guys somebody is taking something that would be so good that would be so much fun hey is that legit if you only had one test like if you were trying to save money why would it's still in there it would show up they measure it to the freaking pico leader they could they can they get it um money magnus holmgren uh 50 mx just so people know those are gold bullions each

one of those is worth a thousand dollars that's a fifty thousand dollar donation seven you're just playing dumb to make the rest of us look good the Epicos. I wish that was true. I swear I would. It's not even. It's so easy for me. Plus, I don't believe anything I know. I don't trust my own mind. I need to hear everything 75 times. So what has been the protocol in the past that they would notify us,

that we would learn through Instagram, that there's a page on the game site? I think they are allowed to appeal and then then they start making announcements yeah we won't do we want to know do we care is this one of those things where people are going to be like people in the media are going to be like hi um we want transparency and we need like is there is there some argument that we need to know or it's like fuck you it's their own personal business they tested positive shoe fly they're gone i believe i believe the like usa weightlifting usada they announce when there is a failed test and that they there is has been an appeal and then they update it see i wouldn't even do that so you get it you get it you hear the first news that somebody is

popped but they're appealing it and then whenever they have the final ruling they'll then announce the sanction but you get that kind of same thing that just happened with conaway versus most of the time we don't know until after the appeal process and that's why you don't hear until right before the games so regardless of whatever crossfit's policy is to announce that usada has a policy with anyone who uses them as a drug testing company. Yeah, vendor. Thank you. They will post it.

Positive or negative? Do they post everyone? They have a whole list at the end of every tally of number of times that every athlete has been tested for usada and wada i think even oh okay like so amanda nunez just got her 75th test it was the most maddie rogers yeah maddie rogers gets tested i don't know five six seven times a year it's crazy

look at dean wants to fight who would be your top three then no Dean? No, don't even ask him. Don't even ask him. The only reason why he's not top three is because he's transcended the top. He just sits on top of the top of the tops. Do we want to preview 23?

What do you mean? You have some superlatives. Do you want to talk about those and see if we differ in any of that? What do superlatives mean? What does that mean? Best of. Best in.

Oh, I don't know if I want to do that quite yet. But what I do want to talk about is, Mr. Spin, what is this thing that you've launched here? The other day you were notifying a bunch of us who are on this, what I consider the most most prestigious I don't know, best text thread you could be on If you're interested in CrossFit game shit And Brian let us know Brian Spin let us know that he's doing a It's the Spin Top 25 Games Poll So think of

Just call it the Spin Poll Yeah, that's such a mouthful Oh, by the way, the name's great Don't listen to John John was wrong in that podcast. He called it the spin pole. John is wrong. No, I'm not.

He wants it to be called the spin pole. No, he was saying it was a horrible name. He wanted you to call it something else. Piss your spin brand all over it, I'm telling you. So, yeah, if you follow college football or college basketball, there's an Associated Press poll where they get votes from the top like 61 journalists uh and it's aggregated into that into that poll uh so this is a similar type thing and we have at this point 12 uh growing growing a little bit hopefully by july but it's not a

one-time thing it is going to be recurring monthly. We'll keep doing it. You'll see the updates. And then the cool thing is we've actually going to open it up to fans. So we'll have a top 25 fan poll as well. So fans can sign up for my Patreon and they have the ability to vote, which the first vote is open right now, and it's due on, deadline is on Monday night, so we'll have it for Wednesday.

We'll see how the fans differ from the media. What is the Patreon again? Patreon.com slash thebarbellspin. Is it in your bio? Can we see the rankings, Caleb? You didn't tell us you were going to does the um associated press uh tell you which colleges coaches vote uh you can you can find it and actually they uh they publish the individual rankings which we'll we'll start

doing here next month um this one it was uh really i started out as a a concept to see how it um look amanda harry made it who's dale barclay i don't know who that is barclay dale he's uh he works with my friend and he's worked with tyler um he's a stats guy he's another he's he's probably the best statistical analyst in this board right now just he doesn't have many eyes on him he's but he's much better than me um should i follow him yeah okay yeah uh kayla if you go to uh the barbell spin there's a page now that has the full rankings for both bar clay Barclay Barclay Yeah, Sevan, I was a little bit upset with how this poll went because you are the reason

Danielle Brandon is second. Oh shit, you can see my votes? You can see my votes? I can't. He just knows. I just know there's two first place votes for Danielle Brandon and I know where one of them is coming from.

Oh, this is so good. Yeah, so what you see here, Saban, is the ranking. You can see where they finished in semifinals underneath their name. You have last year's games finish points. Every time that somebody votes for them to be first, they get 25 points. Second gets 24 all the way down to 25th gets one if you're below that you get zero don't get counted and then uh at the top if there's a number with the parentheses that's the number of first place votes that were

placed um uh let me so so let's just to go through here uh number one ranked is justin he took fifth in the semi-final 2022 games He took first, he's the champ His total points are 291 How many people voted again? 11? We had 12 And then 7 people picked him as first place 3 people picked Pat Vellner Someone picked Jason Hopper to take first?

What a fucking ding dong Yeah, what an idiot What I think is weird is no one picked, like we all think Jeffrey Adler is going to do well, but no one picked him to hit first. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. And you see distinct, you just, you see distinct tiers. Like look at the women, the top six, right?

Like there's a drop off in points between Gabby and Alex. Yeah. So like there's clearly, we think that there's six women that are going to vie for the podium. So Annie and Emma had a perfect tie, huh? They did. They did. And so the tiebreaker is the number of first-place votes or the number of podium votes. And Annie got that by, I think, one.

No, it says two and two. Those are first place votes. It goes down to second place votes. Oh, okay, okay, okay. So you didn't consider where they placed at semifinals to decide it? No. Okay. Let me see.

I want to see, uh, I'm looking for the text message I sent you with my rankings. Let me see if I can find it. I was pretty excited to do it. I'll tell you that. And when we have actual rankings for the analyst, like who's has the best rankings,

whoever is last place in the poll will be kicked out of the poll for the analyst like who has the best rankings, whoever is last placed in the poll will be kicked out of the poll for the media. I heard you saying that shit. I didn't agree to it. I heard you. That's all John. I heard you swinging your dick around. I like the idea. It's a good idea, John.

Until Tyler gets kicked out. We hold it out. I don't like that shit at all. Why? If you're the worst ranker, you shouldn't be a part of it. It is true. Okay, I'll tell you my top five. You ready? Yes.

Let me see the list. Can I see the list again? I'm going to tell you my top five for the women. Can we see if we can predict it? Sure. Alright, number one, you got Danielle Brandon. No. You will not guess who i put it number one probably yep i got i who else picked annie can you tell me one of you guys you did i did yeah i got annie thor's daughter then danielle brandon then emma carrie then laura horvath then alex wow those who i got in my top five oh that's why alex kazan is so freaking hot I got Annie Thor's daughter, then Danielle Brandon, then Emma Carey, then Laura Horvath, then Alex Kazan.

Those are who I got in my top five. Oh, that's why Alex Kazan is so freaking hot. And John Young thinks that we have some proximity bias due to Alex's incredible performance at the semifinals. And it's like, yeah, no duh. Right? Yeah. But she had a great semifinal. Like, yeah, no duh. Right? Yeah. She had a great semifinal.

I do think she's improved significantly from last year. I think my most risky pick was I put Shelby Neal, I think, like at 12th. Where did she end up falling? I don't even think so. I think she may have gotten – Yeah, she got an honorable mention down there at the bottom. Oh, so she didn't even make the top 25. I put her in my top 25 too, Sevan. Yeah, I put her in my top 25.

You don't think Shelby Neal is going to do better than Manon Anganese? I mean I like her. What did you rank her? Shelby Neal? Yeah. Probably 12th or 13th. I'm just looking at the list. Those are all your points right there.

I had her 25th. So he had to have her like 13th and I had her 25th. That's so funny. What did you guys do with Shadburn? Bethany Flores. How did you guys deal with her? That was hard.

She's in there, right? Yeah. She's ranked up there in the mid-teens, I think. Yeah, there she is, 19. is how'd you guys deal with her that was hard she's in there right yeah i'm gonna pull it by ranked up there in the mid teens i think yeah there she is 19th 19th wow i i she's a tough one right like if if she performs to her full ability without any back issues uh-huh i think she can be top 10 yeah yeah i got her I think I have her 10th or 11th here and so we all got burned in semifinals during our predictions because it was a tough

pick to make you know to use one of those picks of where she was going to fit as a qualifying spot because of her back she made it through that she performed well if she can do the same with the games, I think she has a great shot at being in the top 10.

I had her at 20th. I think I put her at 15. Yeah. Hey, let me tell you this, Tyler, you know, it's crazy.

What? I, I have Jason Hopper at one, two, three, four, five, six,

seven, eight, nine, 10. I haven't, I haven't met 11th. Wow. This is why seven doesn't want the last person. Now I'm going to 11th. Wow. This is why Savant doesn't want the last person to be picked out.

Savant's going to be the last person in this poll. I got Justin Medeiros, then Adler, then Vellner, then Samuel Quant, and then Roman Krennikoff. I don't mind your top five at all. Okay. But I wonder who's going to – who do you think is going to be – listen, who do you think is going to be closer to Jason's prediction? Tyler saying he's first

Or I'm saying he's 11th I was thinking the same thing Do you think he's going to be in 6th place or 5th place? I think he'll be on the podium Oh, you're out of your fucking mind Why do you say that? There's just no way Because I think he's as unknown as Bethany Shadburn.

I think Hopper's going to get third or fourth place. Okay. I hope he does. He was the most improved athlete last year, and he'll be the most improved athlete again this year. I'm not as hard on him as Tyler is, but I feel very confident in saying third or fourth place. I'm not hard on him.

That's a very trippy way to use the word hard. I would think it would be the other. I would think that that meant push him down, but okay. We'll, we'll run with it. Where'd you have Colton? I don't want to say.

You better say I got murdered for not including Colton. You didn't even include. Okay. I'll tell you where I got him. Shit. Where is he? Uh, I got, I got him. Uh, uh, I got him even include. Okay, I'll tell you where I got him. Shit, where is he? I got him 13th. What are you doing?

It's higher than anybody else. That's great, yeah. I got him at 13th. I got him a little home cooking. Hey, I don't think Noah Olsen beats Colton Mertens at the games. Wait a minute. So you think Jason's going to get 11th and Colton's going to get 13th? Colton and I are going to be right together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're out of your mind. Where does Colton end up finishing up? Where does he end up finishing up? I think I said he was going to be 20th. Oh, yeah, 20th. 22nd on the rankings. I mean, dude, you got Spencer Panczyk at 24th.

The whole group has him down there. Hey, that's the same as putting Alex Kazan up high, is putting Spencer Panchick low. Spencer Panchick low. I mean, don't you think? I think you're thinking of Saxon. No, Saxon. Spencer finished 20th last year i

don't i mean do we think you went back okay okay i i you're right i probably am confusing saxon with spencer a little bit in terms of their performance but that seems a little low for spencer but then again he barely made the semi-finals right he i mean barely did you have luke parker seven or barely made it to the games, I mean. Me? No. No, he had a few. Luke Parker didn't make my top 25. Oh, wow. Okay. I think I had him in the top 24th, 25th, something like that.

I didn't have James Sprague last either. I got him like at 19th or 20th. Yeah, 19th, yeah. I mean, these are some hard names. I mean, I got Nick Matthew and Brent Fikowski down at like 6th or 7th, and I'm not like – I mean – This men's field is tough, and then like they're – like think about Dallin. Dallin's gotten a lot better this year.

And like there's a bunch of guys who've gotten a lot better, and I think we're going to see people fall we don't usually see down on the leaderboard. Kenneth DeLapp, I think Noah retires after event two. Hey, dude. He comes out too hot, and then he's just like, I just can't do it again. I would put money down on that bet if you want to bet, Kenneth.

I think Luke Parker is a dark horse. Yeah, absolutely. For what? For anything. The fact that he made it to the games I think was a dark horse. I mean, I think he's going to be fun to watch. I hope he gets a lot of attention in camera time, but I think he's just a dark horse. I if he makes the top 10 it'll be like holy

shit it's great right i don't think we'll notice i don't think we'll notice luke parker at the games at all he so 30 to 40 in every event 30th to 40 no no i think he'll be better than that but i i 20 to 30 yeah um how how often will you update this ranking, Mr. Spinn? Once a month. Okay. So once we will have one more in July, so we can take a look.

If you realize you made some bad picks, you can adjust them. If you see something on. That's a rhetorical you, right? You're not talking to me directly. Yeah. It was for other 11 11 people um okay all right good and if you see something on social media if somebody gets hurt you can take them out

and then in august we're now looking at 2024 so the first august rankings will be we add back tia we add back ricky brooks back in there danny's available like. So again, we have a whole 12 months now to look at what we think 24 is going to be. So you can see a big shakeup from there, but it's a forward looking of what we think could happen. Spin's mic might be working now. Can we tap your mic? I don't think it's working. I plugged in my old one. Oh, okay.

Sevan ranked them on how many times they came on the podcast. Yeah, was I not supposed to? Wasn't that the – I mean, Hiller votes on social media followers. Yeah, and that actually worked out pretty good for me. Really well. Yeah. I think that's a good run for the show.

There's a lot of topics we didn't touch on. As a matter of fact, almost none of the ones I sent you guys, but lots of fun stuff ahead. Tyler, are you putting together some information? When I sent you my notes, you were like, oh, I like this. I was thinking about doing something like this too. Who's the fastest? It's weird. Who's the most gymnastic-y?

Who has the best strategy? Who has the best mental game? I was thinking more like a college yearbook kind of thing, like this subjective. So I was going to use this to tease it out on other shows. But yeah, I text John right before. So I'm going to work on that with him. You're going to be able to use that in the fantasy app. It's really useful when you're playing people per event.

Who's the strongest? Who's the fastest? Who's the most enduring? Who's the best gymnast? Like utility players, stuff like that. So so yeah we'll have those out soon how how close is the uh is the app going to be run up and running by the games yes no shit yeah you're telling me that there's an app that's going to be in the apple store that i can download to my phone and i can and the four of us are going to be sitting here during the games and be like, hey, dude, we're playing? Mm-hmm.

Against everybody else in the world. Wow. LA, my fantasy championship can't be hidden. Wow, I love that. I think I'll do a group as well just for the squad. Wow, I love it. You know what would be cool, too? Just as iterations come on this thing is

going to get crazy this app yeah yeah oh during gregor's android wow what a what a shitty question also on android yes oh wow okay what a great question oh what's the app called? I'm not going to divulge that yet. Serious? Yep. How come? I can't divulge that either.

It's called Tyler Watkins CrossFit Game. I'm going to let Tyler Watkins Fantasy Fitness now. Tyler Watkins Fantasy Fitness now. Tyler Watkins Fantasy. I let Siobhan name it. He still wouldn't remember what it's called. No, yeah. I always called it what... I just got a text from one of our colleagues who says, wow, Spins Mike

is not connected, but it sure looks great. Yeah, I got it an hour before this thing i got it out like an hour beforehand it was working and then i plug it in jump on the show and it's not working so just so you guys this is episode one guys this is a beta i felt so bamboozled you you're like yeah i plugged in the other one this one's not even working it's not uh brandon gomez uh any other ceo shirts colors coming soon uh what color do you want let's let travis know i'm sure there's something uh sweet coming out for the uh crossfit games i did hear uh some rumblings that there will uh that there will be something special for the CrossFit Games. Some special shirt. All right, guys.

Every Friday night, 6.30 p.m., we will be here. Hopefully next week, it'll be a couple different faces also. We'd like to get Bill Grundler in here. I invited him this week. I think he had some other plans. As we get running the show smoother and smoother, you'll be getting the cast of characters and athletes and all sorts of fun people that we're connected to to pop in on the show.

I'm really excited about this show. I'm always saying how I don't want to do game stuff, but I realized after hanging out with these guys all during semifinals, I actually want to hang out with these guys and shoot the shit. Misa Vamitosian here, the least knowledgeable person about anything crossfit uh john young strong dude uh tyler watkins big brain and mr spin uh barbell spin for all your uh fast news and we will see you guys next week see ya peace