Sevan Matossian (00:00):
Mean margaritas down at the beach. Bam. We’re live <laugh>, uh, I, I’m, I’m watching this. Uh, Brian. Hi Chase. Hi, SU Hi. Um, couple day. This is what, what you’re seeing on the screen right now. Here is the, uh, I think this is the writer Die event. Um, it was an elimination event. They started with I think 20 athletes, then 10, and then five, I think this is the final heat of five. I wanted to show, uh, Brian Chase and su this, look at Luca Juke here. Watch what happens here at the beginning. Um, so look at, look at their feet, where their feet are at the starting line. I don’t know if you guys can see that. Um, they’re, they’re over what looks like to be the starting line. We’ve had this happen before in events where we don’t know really what the lines exactly. Yeah.
Chase Ingraham (00:46):
Is it on the line or behind the line? Brian? You know what the
Sevan Matossian (00:50):
Be before we, Brian, hold on one second. We’ll, we’ll give you a bunch of stuff to answer. Give one second and then we’ll get this. And I, I want you to watch Luca Juki what happens here and, and I don’t see any judges. It looks like there’s a field marshal in the back with a sh uh, in that white shirt with kind of the, the, the funny, uh, uh, uh, Groucho Marks mustache. But let me, um, watch Luca here. He’s in between, he’s just, uh, he’s in lane number five. It’s the, uh, 13th widest lane. All the lanes are a little bit wider or narrow than the others, just to keep us on, on. I’d love, I can’t wait to hear how they marked this field. Uh, and okay, now look what happens there. We already have a guy on Lane A who started to go.
(01:33):
Uh, I would’ve loved to seen Matt Frazier come out there and just like gut punch him, but whatever. And then, okay. And then, and then look at that. Then the guy in Lane, uh, six went and, and I, and I, I purposely turned off the sound. So I I, we didn’t get to hear that, so it’s hard to do that. But watch Luca Juju cheer. Watch what happens. Oh, no. This isn’t the right heat anyway. And one of the heats, he takes off and he starts running and he looks, and he stops running, and the rest of the guys keep running and he looks back <laugh>. I’m like, uh, it was, it was like, maybe the prince told him, Hey, put on the breaks, buddy. Don’t, you’re not supposed to do this. <laugh>. Brian. Hi. Uh, absolutely fantastic event, Brian. Um, I, I had to watch all five hours of it in 30 minutes commentating this. Fantastic. You and Derek are great. It was cool to see Matt up, uh, in the, um, in the booth with you guys. And, uh, once you guys got past that first 30 minutes of the heavy lifts, I must say that the, uh, we were really able to see the entire event and follow it. So I, I appreciate, uh, I appreciate the fact that we’re able to see all the athletes.
Brian Friend (02:35):
There’s some weird lighting or something.
Sevan Matossian (02:37):
It’s kind of cool. It’s like you’re stuck in the seventies. You’re like a little jaundice. Little jaice. Yeah, he look good. By the way, Derek doesn’t make you look too small either.
Brian Friend (02:48):
Those words weren’t on there when I got here. I’ve just been kind of bored. So
Sevan Matossian (02:51):
I painted up myself. Beautiful. You did a great job. That penmanship. That’s the Brian friend font. Um, Brian, just to, just to talk about what we just showed quickly. What, what, what are the rules there? Is, is this kind of like more like, is this a serious, I mean, obviously it’s a serious competition. The winner gets $3,000, but is there sort of like a, uh, kind of a gladiator, less Hillary esque and more, uh, uh, you know, gladiator vibe to this? Like, Hey, take what you can. Like in arm wrestling, it’s like, Hey, what, you know, the hand position you gotta fight for
Brian Friend (03:23):
Chase. How many times have you, uh, been out here to Dubai to do the commentary?
Chase Ingraham (03:28):
I think three.
Brian Friend (03:31):
Any patterns over your, uh, experience from
Chase Ingraham (03:34):
The outside looking in? Sounds
Sevan Matossian (03:36):
Like Brian’s lost his Virginia, the
Brian Friend (03:38):
Inside looking in <laugh>,
Sevan Matossian (03:39):
He’s looking for a friend to be like, wow.
Chase Ingraham (03:41):
Incredible. Yeah, I see some things and I’m like, yeah, that sounds, that looks about the same, about as much information as the broadcasters get about what’s going on when it comes to the action or the rules.
Brian Friend (03:52):
Well, I can, you know, I can tell you guys, uh, I think that, um, o ps involvement in this competition was really beneficial for me personally because I was able to work with them a couple weeks leading up to the event, test out many of the workouts, have some feedback and input there. They’re working in collaboration with the, with the event organizers for DFC to put this competition on. And of course, the event is, is funded by, you know, uh, an individual or a family here. And so there’s just some input coming from different areas. Um, something else that, not justifying this, it’s just how it is, is that, uh, being on time and being prepared for things, uh, as opposed to just kind of going with the flow is just different culturally here. And it certainly gets to
Sevan Matossian (04:39):
Like a sub on podcast, like the seven on podcast, 30 minutes before we go on. I send you guys dms. Do you guys wanna or text? Do you guys wanna come on <laugh>?
Brian Friend (04:46):
Yeah, and I mean, uh, I’ve, I made, I knew, I knew that I’ve been here one time before I worked, had a chance to work with Bill and Chase in 2019, and things happened very last minute. So I made up my priority getting ready for this to prepare for the things I could prepare for, which was to know as much about the athletes and the workouts, you know, given the fact that I knew there would be some late changes, which there were many late changes today. Um, but also knowing that I wouldn’t have an opportunity to speak to the director until very close to the event. If I did get to talk to him. He may not speak English. Many of the cameraman don’t speak English. There might be a liaison that’s kind of working between those things. We may not have heat sheets, we may not have graphics, we may not have audio. And that’s just sometimes how it’s, um, so a lot of those things are out of our control. But, uh, I kind of just came down to the point, and I was happy to hear you say that. I said to the guys, I wanna see all the athletes lift. I wanna see all the athletes finish. And if the people at home can hear our voices can be like, at least check those three boxes
Sevan Matossian (05:43):
And, and it, and it is, you guys are doing a great job. And what if they stick to the wide, to the wide shots? We’re golden. We can, we can follow it like a sport. We can follow it like a competition. We can see how close people are. Uh, when you say someone’s name and, and give us the lane number, we can just zoom right in. It’s, uh, it’s fine. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s better than fine. There are some weird quirky things about it, like those feet, like over the starting line. Um, the, the fact that sometimes we see someone take off and then like look back at their judge, like they’re not sure if they got an early start or not. Uh, this whole thing, there’s no chip timers, right? This whole thing is, uh, old school, right? They count claps,
Brian Friend (06:23):
<laugh>,
Sevan Matossian (06:24):
Uh, 87 claps, lane seven,
Brian Friend (06:27):
Man. Yeah, just put a little piece of tape on the Air runner and it’ll do the job.
Sevan Matossian (06:33):
<laugh> And, and why? And are the, is there any, um, is there any reason that the lanes are different widths?
Brian Friend (06:41):
<laugh> not any good reason.
Sevan Matossian (06:43):
That’s not, the lines are straight. The lines are extremely straight. I didn’t go out there with the pro tractor, but it looks like a lot of right angles to me from, I’m no scientist. I know, like, I’m no mathematician, but I see a lot of right angles.
Brian Friend (06:56):
Yeah, the lands are straight. The lands are not even, that’s, those are true facts.
Sevan Matossian (07:00):
And, and have you asked, or is it like, is it like the mil, don’t ask, don’t tell policy of the eighties,
Brian Friend (07:06):
The pick pick your battles type of situation.
Sevan Matossian (07:08):
Okay. Um, the, the workouts. Let, let, let’s talk about just the, the bread and butter. Uh, the workouts look like they are all going off on time with the right athletes, with a very fierce, uh, oh. Did, did I already say something? That’s not true. Did we get some people in the wrong eats? <laugh>. Um, and, and the competition looks fierce and it looks fair. And, uh, you know, we don’t have any weird judges on lane five, you know, always everyone’s getting the penalties. Um, it looks like they’re allowed to perform. It looks like the weights were picked accurately. Uh, even, even though you were mentioning you were surprised, you guys were surprised at how many people did so well at the hand clean. I thought it was fine. I, I, I thought it was a great way for these guys to, uh, showcase their strengths. Um, did everything, is everything else running without a hitch except for these just sort of these quirky things that come with this, uh, this event?
Brian Friend (08:00):
I’d say for the most part, um, and I, and I don’t know exactly what the intent was by H W P and DFC in terms of the number of barbells that they wanted. See, to see athletes lift in the strength ladder there, just taking it on its own. I don’t mind that they’re going, you know, 13, 14, 15 bars deep. They’re, you know, they are getting four minutes before they lift again. And a little bit of fatigue builds up there. It’s very contrary to last year where they only had two attempts at a max lift. So instead of that, you have to earn it over 15 bars. So I think it is a, a different way to test strength and a good way to test strength. But I know that they weren’t expecting, uh, the, especially the women to get that heavy and therefore the event to go that long. And I believe that after that event, we were about 90 minutes behind schedule of what we
Sevan Matossian (08:44):
Expected. Oh, you were, okay. Well, when I went back and watched it, it seemed great to me. <laugh>.
Brian Friend (08:50):
Yeah, I
Sevan Matossian (08:51):
Don’t, hindsight
Brian Friend (08:52):
The pro, like the product I think was really good and fun and enjoyable to watch, but compared to what the, uh, expectation was, um, and just in general about the field of athletes here, you know, there’s been a lot of talk. This isn’t the strongest field that Dubai’s ever seen. I was blown away by the athletes today. I thought that they were incredible, and I was extremely impressed in all three workouts with the caliber and the level of, of, uh, output that we were able to see.
Sevan Matossian (09:15):
Uh, how much time do we have with you right now?
Brian Friend (09:18):
Uh, we’ll see.
Sevan Matossian (09:19):
Okay. I I, I just wanna quickly, I wanna quickly go over day one. Um, I watched all of, uh, Lauren CLEs videos from the Morning Chalkup, uh, chase and Brian, feel free to soon as you too. Feel free to, to jump in wherever you want as I go through my notes here, uh, from the interviews Lauren did, you can watch the full interviews over at the morning Chalkup YouTube page with Lauren Cle. Uh, re FAA said bear.
Brian Friend (09:45):
I just, just went Oh, you’re talking about he won the, the Bur.
Sevan Matossian (09:48):
Yeah.
Brian Friend (09:49):
Oh, okay.
Sevan Matossian (09:51):
<laugh>. Reggie FAA said he bear crawled two flights of stairs. Now, we, as the viewers at home, did get to see Laar, uh, GIK, do a bear crawl on his final flight. And we also saw how damaged he was. And I’d like to know anything, you know, about, um, what actually happened to Laar. It looked like some neurological meltdown the way his legs were, like flapping all over the place. But did anyone else bear crawl? I mean, that, that, that sounds like I’ve never seen an event at the CrossFit games where someone went on all four when they were, when they could have
Chase Ingraham (10:20):
Ran Bill run 2009.
Sevan Matossian (10:22):
Oh, good point. Good point. Chase
Chase Ingraham (10:25):
2020. Good
Sevan Matossian (10:27):
Point. Those were some incredible angles. People got, we got in trouble for some of those shots. That’s right.
Chase Ingraham (10:31):
<laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (10:31):
That’s right. Uh, Bryan. Bryan, did you hear anyone else besides foa and did any of the women go on all four that you know of?
Brian Friend (10:41):
Uh, I don’t think I hadn’t heard otherwise. Um, but I haven’t really asked that question.
Chase Ingraham (10:47):
You know, it’s actually a technique that a lot of stair racers use is Bear Bar serious? Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (10:52):
Oh, mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Oh, shit.
Chase Ingraham (10:53):
Yeah. I’ve done a couple stair races over the last decade just for fun, and I’ve got beat by professionals and they use a bear crawl technique. Maybe not the whole time, but it’s just like switching up positions on a rower. When you’re going a long distance, they’ll switch up, pulling on the rails and bear crawling. They’ll have gloves out there for it specifically.
Sevan Matossian (11:13):
Wow. And is that something that you put into your pacing? So you go, you would do 10 flights of stairs on, on two and then one bear
Chase Ingraham (11:19):
Crawl. It just kind of depends on preference. It’s same thing for like a hill run. Is it best to lean forward and have short, choppy steps and lean into the hill or get on all fours? I mean, oh, think of many people. We saw bear crawling in the 2016 trail run at, uh, in Aromas when they flew everybody down there.
Sevan Matossian (11:35):
That was kind of mandatory though. There’s,
Chase Ingraham (11:37):
Yeah, it was almost like, it, it, uh, it, it makes it decide for you sometimes,
Sevan Matossian (11:43):
Right? Uh, I just going back, I know you guys didn’t see the podcast earlier today, but, uh, Jethro Cardona just like Seon today. Guys just wanna hug girls. Um, I just wanna touch Chase’s beard. Beard. I understand <laugh> we’re people who see things and then want other senses to experience it, and it’s not, I thought about shaving before coming. You’re not the only one who wants to touch chase’s beard. <laugh>.
Brian Friend (12:03):
Um, I’ve, I actually, I’ve already decided that if you go off on one of your tangents that I’m gonna just stare at Chase’s beard instead.
Sevan Matossian (12:10):
Oh, awesome. Awesome. It’s the eye candy. That one’s, that one’s appropriate. Uh, so, um, Brian, what, what did happen, um, did medics, we, we were told, and we saw kind of a glimmer that Laar was on a stretcher on the hundred 60th floor. Can you give us, tell us anything that happened? Was there any conclusive, uh, conclusive, uh, you know, medical evaluation that they’re like, Hey, he was low on electrolytes, or he was dehydrated, or what happened there? Panic attack, which we will get to.
Brian Friend (12:37):
Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, we, we got him water, we got him sugar, apple juice, uh, some, a little bit of food that we had there. Um, and the medics were tending to him, you know, the entire time, uh, everyone else finished the event, uh, and was, and was able to go back on the buses. He stayed with the medics. A couple of event directors saw a doctor got medically cleared. All of his levels were, were normal, and they approved him to come back to the hotel and see his, his girlfriend and his family. Uh, but he definitely wasn’t feeling well. And I don’t really think he was feeling maybe up to, to standards until midday today. So the schedule ended up being favorable for him in, in the fact that there were approximately 30 hours from the finish of that event until the start of the next workout. This, you know, this, this evening. Uh, if there had been less time, I, I’m, I feel like he probably would’ve withdrawn. But given the amount of time that there was there, I think maybe around noon or 1:00 PM today, and Dubai is when he kind of made the decision that he was feeling good enough to, to go for it and wanted to continue on in the competition.
Sevan Matossian (13:36):
Uh, but he did not go to the hospital, and he did not take an IV bag as far as, you know,
Brian Friend (13:41):
As far as I know.
Sevan Matossian (13:43):
Okay. Uh, Jessica Valenzuela is, is commenting on the camera work. You will, it, it only gets better that, that was about, as I recall, that was just the first 30 minutes, and then they go to a, uh, wide shot. So Mike m so sugar saved his life. That’s a fucking leap. <laugh>. <laugh>.
(14:01):
I love you, Mike. I love you. Okay. Um, Alex Tus, uh, uh, one e event one, even though he thought he was going slow, he said his legs were burning and it was mentally tough. He thought about his son’s back in a, uh, Athens with every step. Now, this is something that Chase brought up earlier. The breathing, uh, the hardest part for him was the, the metabolic part. And he said, turning in the staircase, sorry, it was Bill Grundler who said this. He said, turning in the staircase was very dizzy, and I’m paraphrasing what he’s saying, but he said that was one of the most challenging parts for him. He said, metabolically the burning the legs. And he said it was making all of those turns. I’m, I’m surprised we haven’t heard that from more people, Brian,
Brian Friend (14:41):
Actually. And now that I think about it, me too. And that’s a lot of turns to make, and you’re, you’re pretty much always going in the same direction. Left, left, left, left.
Sevan Matossian (14:49):
Uh, he said, uh, when they asked, asked, did you pass anyone? He said he did. He said he passed Koski on the stairs and, uh, told him, sorry buddy. As he passed him, uh, the event was a half mile climb, straight up. The tallest building in the world, uh, starts, were staggered every two minutes, no water, no music railing played a large role as we to said lizard gik was ruined. Um, four minutes separated. The top 10 men. Uh, um, Brian, uh, are you surprised that the women and men were so close in this?
Brian Friend (15:23):
Uh, not necessarily. We’ve seen kind of a pattern emerge over the last maybe decade or so at the games where they’re in these longer events, uh, that are relatively similar or sometimes exactly the same, that there are women that are competitive with the men, long runs, runs and swims sometimes, uh, maybe with a bike or a paddle or something like that. So it’s definitely possible and not unprecedented for the women to keep up with the men on some of the endurance events.
Sevan Matossian (15:45):
I, I wanna say, I don’t have the exact, uh, numbers in front of me, but I think Tyler Watkins or someone sent a spreadsheet, maybe it was, uh, Mr. Spin, but you can see that many, many, many women beat many men. And, uh, and that’s a pretty cool thing. It’d be fun to see something like that with a mass, uh, start. Uh, Khan Porter said he had some minor claustrophobia in the stairwell. Um, he said he loosened his vest and, uh, pushed that out of his mind and got his breathing, uh, straight again. Uh, Koski said he came out.
Brian Friend (16:17):
Say, let’s stay with that comment from Con for a second, because I think that, that this is one of the elements of the workout that is very cool. And this is kind of the thing that I like to see athletes at this level have to deal with. What con I saw, I was there when con finished, and, you know, a couple minutes after, he is able to, you know, gather himself. He said about, uh, two thirds or three quarters of the way in, he loosened his vest a little bit and was able to breathe much better. And he really wished that he’d thought to do that earlier on. But what I meant in the opening is it’s an, it’s an unknown element. You know, no one, no one’s practiced climbing 160 stairs without water, without air, without music, without anyone around them. And so the athletes are forced to adapt on the fly in a situation like that. He figured it out eventually. What, what might help him out? Um, and other people didn’t. You know, I spoke with Luca GI about this workout a few times, and he goes, I should have skipped some stairs. He took every single stare the entire time. And he says he thinks that that cost him several minutes.
Sevan Matossian (17:12):
Oh, Lucas said that.
Brian Friend (17:14):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (17:15):
Interesting. Uh, I will say this, no matter what anyone says was their all time favorite event they’ve ever done in their CrossFit life out of any athlete, there will be no athlete who climbed the world’s tallest building who will ever forget it? It will be, it will, it’ll be hard to say this.
Brian Friend (17:33):
I think actually Laar Juko forgot about that.
Sevan Matossian (17:35):
<laugh>. He definitely forgot. Well, I, I, I heard, I I I’m hearing rumors that he forgot the last 60 floors. Yeah, I was gonna say the best hundred of his life. <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but, but what, what an amazing, amazing opportunity to kind of just say you did there, there’s a, um, it’s, it’s kind of like saying at this point that you got to compete in aromas. You know, it, it, it’s, it’s up there with like a really fun thing to do. I mean, you went and climbed the tallest building in the world, and obviously we know a lot of people, there’s not even, we can’t even find an official world record on who’s done this the fastest. I will say this, and we’ll check with Brian on this. These guys and gals with their vest became very close to breaking what is the speculative world record And what I mean close, I mean less than a minute. Is that correct, Brian?
Brian Friend (18:22):
Well, I’m pretty sure that, that Jamie Simmons has the record for women. I don’t think that that’s something that, that any women had ever done before as far as men. I do think there was a guy who did a faster time in Alex Tus, but I don’t think he was wearing a weight vest.
Sevan Matossian (18:34):
Mm-hmm. So, so Jamie Simmons has done that without a vest before?
Brian Friend (18:38):
No, I’m saying I don’t, I think prior to that event, I don’t think any women had ever done that.
Sevan Matossian (18:43):
Oh, oh, wow. Well,
Brian Friend (18:45):
By default.
Sevan Matossian (18:47):
Wow. That’s like when my mom won the half marathon. Exactly. At the, but she was the only one in her age group. Wow. Okay. That’s right. Hey, it’s still a w though. That’s the only vagina that’s traversed 160 floors in the Khali ver
Brian Friend (18:58):
<laugh>. Well, in the world.
Sevan Matossian (19:00):
What in the world? Yeah. Ever.
Brian Friend (19:03):
Yeah. I think Lena Richter, Lena, I believe started second, but finished first, got to the top first, and in one of her posts she mentioned that she was, or she thought she at least was the first woman to have ever done that.
Sevan Matossian (19:16):
That’s cool. Wow. I wonder if you could have carried something up with you like a Mickey Mantle baseball card and be like, <laugh>, and it’s been up to tallest building in the world on the staircase. <laugh> a flat Stanley. Yeah, this bottle cap from this Pepsi is the only bottle cap that’s ever, uh, Koski came out, said he, uh, said he came out too fast and got frustrated with himself. Uh, Guam, uh, said he used a lot of arm pulling. Um, Brian, did you hear a lot about that at the top? Like, wow, like people were surprised at how much arm the fatigue on the arms?
Brian Friend (19:49):
Yeah. Uh, Fraser had been talking about it. He’d done it a day or two previously, that that was a significant factor, and he was feeling the grip fatigue late in the later flights of stairs. And Gare did speak to him, and he said the same. He said he depended on that pulling strength a lot. The upper body pulling happens to be a strength of his anyway. So he was kind of pleasantly surprised that that factored into it.
Sevan Matossian (20:09):
I wonder if they, you, you would think that the, the, the, do we know if the preferred route was on the inside? So to state of the, the railing that’s always on your right versus the, because, because it’s always the right hand turn, right?
Brian Friend (20:22):
Yeah. But the, it, it wasn’t very wide there,
Sevan Matossian (20:24):
Right?
Brian Friend (20:25):
It was basically you were pulling on both of the railings guiding myself up.
Sevan Matossian (20:29):
Wow. Okay.
Brian Friend (20:29):
And I, you know, I, I did a couple of like, maybe two or three of the flights of stairs at one point. Uh, and that pulling, plus skipping a stairs technique seemed pretty comfortable, but it was only for three flights. A hundred sixties a, you know, very different story.
Sevan Matossian (20:43):
Okay. You did one 50th, you did one 60th of the <laugh>, one 50th to one 60th. But it
Brian Friend (20:50):
Was, the point is the stairwells fairly narrow mm-hmm. <affirmative> and regardless of the height of the athlete, male or female, everyone could reach the railings on both sides and use it to help them move up the
Sevan Matossian (20:59):
Staircase, hence the claustrophobic piece. Yeah, because it could, because it is so narrow. Um, Amy Cringle said she started with the two step techniques skipping a step, uh, and she felt like she also started very hot. Um, Emily Wolf said, floors, uh, from one 20 to one 40 were the hardest. Hmm. And I’m guessing that’s when you’re, you’re kind of in no man’s land, right?
Brian Friend (21:24):
Yeah, I mean, uh, I spoke to ake about it, and he said it was about the 1 20, 1 30 mark that it got, it just got like really, really tough. And it was hard for him all the way in. But maybe for her, she realized, you know, there’s this thing called the stop sign phenomenon and running where like eventually around the corner you see the finish line, and then you get a little like, extra at Burst. So maybe that happened to, for her with about 20 flights left.
Sevan Matossian (21:47):
Uh, su could you bring up the leader board? I think I sent it to you in the private chat, which is Okay, we’ll, we’ll just try, uh, either one. Okay. Just wanna, uh, give the top three for each of event one, and then we’ll move over to event two. Uh, if you could rank them by event one.
Chase Ingraham (22:10):
I was gonna say, this might be my favorite Dubai event ever.
Sevan Matossian (22:14):
It’s pretty cool.
Brian Friend (22:16):
I had a chance to sit down with Saun, one of the organizers here. Yeah. Uh, prior to this and do a little article recapping some of the more, more historic offsite events that they’d had here. They’ve had, you know, 32 kilometer bike, uh, rides in some desert environment. They’ve pushed weights under water, they’ve swam with Li Fest in the ocean. They’ve done a variety of things. But this is such a unique opportunity. I mean, you can’t, you just can’t get up there. Like you can’t do that. Right? And so to be able to do it in a competition like this is likes had a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Sevan Matossian (22:48):
Su can you organize them by the, uh, event number one, Burge, uh, Khali? Yeah. Okay. Uh, Jamie Simmons, first place, Amy Cringle, Emily Wolf. Uh, Jamie’s time was 32 10. If we could switch over to the men and also organize them by event number one. Uh, you have Alex Tus at 30 37. He’s the one who said he thought he was going slow. Uh, an anno, what’s that guy’s name? Anno, aka
Brian Friend (23:15):
An
Sevan Matossian (23:15):
An
Brian Friend (23:16):
Pretty good, pretty
Sevan Matossian (23:17):
Good. An AKA with the 31, 36. He,
Brian Friend (23:20):
By the way, has a very fond memory of something else you’ve called him in the past.
Sevan Matossian (23:24):
Oh, he does <laugh> a and
Brian Friend (23:29):
A couple and a couple of his friends have, uh, adopted that nickname for him.
Sevan Matossian (23:33):
Thanks to you. Oh, I’m, I’m sorry, Kai. I’m sorry. Kai. There was a kid in school. I did that too, and I regret doing it. He was one of the nicest kids ever. And, uh, he, he had to pull me aside one day and be like, Hey, you gotta stop. And so, as I should have known better, I, I’m maturing slowly as the listeners know. Oh, okay. Uh, Brime
Brian Friend (23:54):
Guan,
Sevan Matossian (23:55):
Uh, the, the outlier from France, uh, kind of a miracle. It shows how inclusive CrossFit is, and even a French man can make it a 32, oh wait,
Brian Friend (24:04):
I feel like that’s a slight at Willie George.
Sevan Matossian (24:06):
Uh, it is, it’s slight at all of the, the entire country. And I love you guys, don’t worry. Um, and France, uh, 32 0 9, incredible time. But what’s even more incredible is it is the same time, only by one second different than Miss Jamie Simmons, the fastest woman ever to climb the tallest building in the world. Event number two, the hang clean ladder. Uh, first time we’ve seen hang clean in any major, uh, CrossFit event. Uh, chase, did you get a chance to watch this? I did,
Chase Ingraham (24:38):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (24:38):
What, what were your thoughts about it? Is it hang clean, a viable lift to test strength? Is it Yeah, I
Chase Ingraham (24:43):
Like it. Yeah. I mean, we had to hang snatch at regionals, I think in 2014 as a specific event, but this was, I mean, it’s different. We’ve never really, we’ve never seen the hang clean specifically, and it poses a much different challenge than something from the floor or a power clean from the floor. So I, I really liked having this as the strength event, but I also liked the number of reps. I mean, you guys talked about the top of the show. I liked how many lifts that they had to do because it wasn’t just, okay, we get to this weight, it’s really heavy. We get there in five. Like there was a big element, I think, of stamina and endurance as well as having that top end strength. So I, I enjoyed that.
Sevan Matossian (25:20):
I liked watching ’em also go four or five at a time, whatever they did. And then, and then seeing like holes in the lanes as they went on, like, oh shit. And then there were three and then there was two, and then there was one. Uh, Brian, what, what did you think about the time? Uh, one, one opportunity and only 20 seconds. We good with that.
Brian Friend (25:39):
The, so what I really liked about it was the fact that you had to complete the lift within 20 seconds. And the reason being, because if you have the 20 seconds on 10 seconds transition and you don’t have that guideline in there, then you risk run the risk of people running deep into that ten second transition period and throwing off the entire flow of the event. And then, so because I kind of like that, I’m also okay with the one attempts rule because then you don’t necessarily feel rushed to try and attempt just in case so that I can maybe squeeze another one in. And so you saw really deliberate approaches from the athletes from the beginning all the way through. And I, I don’t think there were very many athletes that had an execution error because they were feeling the pressure of knowing they had to do it. The first time
Sevan Matossian (26:19):
I rushed through the event, I didn’t see a single execution air, like anything. Well, we’ll get to this. There was, there was one major error in one of the tiebreaks. We’ll talk to that in a second. Uh, uh, were, were you okay with the time piece chase 22nd one? Lift love?
Chase Ingraham (26:33):
Yeah. Yeah. One lift, one attempt. Get rid of all the bs. I mean, you think of Matt’s background in Olympic lifting, they get one shot, like they don’t, don’t have a minute to lift on the platform. In fact, they have, I think, what is it, like a 30 or 42nd shot clock as soon as they step onto it and then they have to make the lift. So there’s a little bit of, uh, you see Fraser’s background and Olympic lifting in there. It’s like if you get one shot and one shot only. And I like that.
Sevan Matossian (26:58):
I did see Jamie Simmons catch one in the hole and try to come out of the hole three or four times and then eventually do it. And that was crazy. Do you remember that left, Brian? That was nuts.
Brian Friend (27:09):
I do, and I, you know, it’s, it was one of the elements that you see there in the, in the hand clean seat in just a clean, in general, a full squat clean. But you have to make the decision, are you gonna try to get a little bit of the bounce outta there or are you gonna stabilize and wait and then trust your front squat ability from a dead stop and stand it up? And she was kind of riding the line in between there. She tried to bounce it out. She didn’t make it. Somehow she was able to gather herself, tried again, still didn’t make it, and tried a third time and stood it and stood it up and yeah, was one of the more impressive, which within that competition, yeah,
Chase Ingraham (27:40):
Like that
Brian Friend (27:41):
Didn’t hit the next one. And I
Chase Ingraham (27:42):
Don’t think people know, right? Cuz she did like three max lift run squats before she got that rap. But like, I don’t think people really understand how hard it is to do that. Like, it’s not like a snatch, like for a snatch. You, you receive it at the bottom. The easiest part of the entire lift is standing it up for a hang clean. The hardest part clearly is standing it up and to bounce multiple times. Fian bonito did the same thing. I was like, there’s no way he’s standing up with that and then they get it on the second or third try. I don’t think people really truly can comprehend how difficult it’s to do that.
Sevan Matossian (28:13):
And, and, and uh, what Jamie did was a lot of mental power too, because she got so vertical on her last attempt. She wasn’t just using muscle. I mean, she pushed that bar so far back into, into her, into her neck and her throat. I thought she was actually gonna fall backwards for a second. But I mean, when she finally made it, she was vertical. It was, it was, it was kind, it kind of looked like a, um, not a suspension bridge, but a, like a cantilever. It was nuts. It was fantastic lift. Uh, did anyone not make it past the first bar and the men or the women’s seats? Everyone made it.
Brian Friend (28:50):
I think everyone made it, uh, three bars actually. And I, and I didn’t mind that. I mean, I was actually pushing for a little bit of a lower starting weight because when I, you know, when I looked up the expected lifts for this field, there was nowhere near what they ended up performing or they, as, as a whole, they, both the men and the women exceeded expectations in terms of kind of average, uh, lift before bowing out. And then obviously also some of the, the top end stuff we saw, particularly from Karen free. Um, but I don’t mind the light bars. I don’t mind like grooving that. And you got to see the athletes make a choice. You know, many of ’em were doing power cleans for 4, 5, 6 bars and some who didn’t need to were doing squat cleans. Just to get into the rhythm of the squat clean,
Sevan Matossian (29:31):
What was the first weight for the women?
Brian Friend (29:33):
85 kilos.
Sevan Matossian (29:35):
Uh, do we know what that is in pounds?
Brian Friend (29:38):
It’s about 180 1, about one 90.
Sevan Matossian (29:42):
And, and did, did, and what was the first weight for the men?
Brian Friend (29:46):
Uh, 300, around 300 pounds, 305 pounds, something
Sevan Matossian (29:50):
Like that. Okay. So none of the women beat the men in this because Karen, uh, fray did 2 75, 2 70
Brian Friend (29:57):
Or 2 75. Yeah, right around there.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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