Sevan Matossian (00:00):
Uh, bam. We’re live. Uh, Matt Burns. Hi Chris. Hi, Renata. Hi. Matt Burns High. Jethro. High Jethro. Hi, Elizabeth. Hi. How’s Jethro? Katelin. Pharrell. Hello, uh, Chris. Love. Hi, Chris. Love Mason Mitchell. Uh, all of you. Sarah Cooper. Jessica Valenzuela. Did Savon ever eat that chocolate dick? If you tuned in this morning, you’d know int Intact. Well, not really. It’s circumcised, but you know what I mean.
JR Howell (00:37):
Um,
Sevan Matossian (00:39):
And, uh, we’ll see if that thing melts this summer just sitting there. Quarter finals are over. Byron Smith. Hey Barry. Late again. Who? Me or you? Brian High.
JR Howell (00:54):
Hey,
Sevan Matossian (00:56):
Mr. Howell High.
JR Howell (00:58):
Hello.
Sevan Matossian (00:59):
Suza High.
JR Howell (01:00):
Yo.
Sevan Matossian (01:04):
We have, uh, spreadsheet from Brian. Friend. We have an article from Michael Hapman. We have rumors pouring in from every nook and cranny. We have articles from the spin, we have training, think tank commentary and thoughts. We have mayhem. Thoughts. You have. Holy shit. It’s chaos. Lemme lemme ask you this before we just jump right into
Brian Friend (01:31):
Don’t forget about Uncle Pat.
Sevan Matossian (01:33):
Uncle Pat. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Why Uncle Pat? I mean, I like it. I’m down. Why Uncle Pat?
Brian Friend (01:39):
No, that’s what Nico called him in the intro, so I was just making a reference.
Sevan Matossian (01:44):
That’s awesome. That, um, but that’s been around for a while, right? Uncle Pat.
Brian Friend (01:49):
Yeah. Other people have used it too.
Sevan Matossian (01:52):
Uh, Lydia, hi. The chick that has a great profile pick, but chopped out her ex-boyfriend. Good evening. Uh, what, what do you think about that? Uh, Jr there’s a picture you really like, your ex is in it and you just crop ’em out. What do you think?
JR Howell (02:09):
I think it’s okay. Right?
Brian Friend (02:10):
Buy a Google Pixel and you can take it out with yourself.
Sevan Matossian (02:13):
Oh, that’s, that’s interesting. Just go
Brian Friend (02:17):
Get it
Sevan Matossian (02:17):
Here. You mean with a Google Pixel phone that those can do that?
Brian Friend (02:21):
I believe so.
Sevan Matossian (02:22):
Sock mom.
Brian Friend (02:22):
Hey, by the way, PC is getting an iPhone.
Sevan Matossian (02:26):
No. Shit.
Brian Friend (02:27):
We might be able to bring back on the show.
JR Howell (02:30):
<laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (02:32):
There he is. Uh, Patrick Clark. Patrick Clark. I have thoughts. Grandpa Pat. Oh, uh, sea Hill. Oh my goodness. Sea Hill. You changed your,
(02:44):
What is that? Sitting in the chair? Is that a person? You changed your pick. Y’all uh, got real jobs or something? We gotta move these shows up an hour. Fair. That’s enough. See more buts. Uh, I can’t do it. Justin Lee Yang. Am I right? Sea Hill. You change your pro, you change your profile picture. Am I right? Um, have, is this the most contentious, I’m open to a different word. I’m totally open to a different word. Uh, online or in-person event that’s been run by the mothership in, in your guys’ memory. I, I’ll be gentle. I was gonna say in the history of CrossFit, but in your guys’ memory,
Brian Friend (03:37):
I think that there, or do you think context needed in Okay. In that conversation? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> for me, what relevant is that, you know, quarter finals is a new part of the competitive season. And usually when I’m doing a, you know, a study and like we’ve talked about this with CrossFit before, like for example, when they were, uh, outsourcing semi-finals, I thought it was kind of ridiculous that they only gave one year contracts because you’re gonna make mistakes in year one. And it’s like, if you’re gonna hold those people to their mistakes from year one and say, so we’re not re-upping you for year two. It’s like, I mean, come on. Like, I thought they should give ’em three year contracts. Uh, they may have known that they weren’t gonna be around for three years, and so they might have had their own reasons for not doing that. But in this case, this is year three of quarter finals. Now. The first year was, uh, no, this is year three of quarter finals. And so by year three, I think things should be running fairly smoothly. And I feel that whether or not the answer to that question is yes, what, what I can, what I feel confident saying is that there haven’t been enough improvements from your one to two and two to three to make me confident in the team that’s administering this portion of the test.
Sevan Matossian (04:48):
Wow. Wow. And when you say confident, um,
Brian Friend (04:55):
The fact that it’s year three and you have to ask that question is really all that you should need to know.
Sevan Matossian (05:00):
Oh, right. If I’m even wondering if it’s in, if it’s, if it’s the
Brian Friend (05:03):
Third year should not be the worst year ever. Okay. Okay. Of, of a thing. And we’re, and in this case I’m only talking about quarter finals because, uh, you know, the other parts of the season are, some of ’em haven’t happened yet and we’re, you know, that’s what we’re focusing on. So I would say that, you know, the fact that this is the third iteration of it and that there are people that are wondering if this is the worst job they’ve ever done with any part of the season. It’s not, that’s not a good sign, regardless of if that’s the case or not.
Sevan Matossian (05:30):
Okay. So you’re saying, okay, so the question, the fact that I’m even asking the question, uh, gets us off on the wrong foot or says a lot, gets popular, says a lot. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it says a lot, uh, JR do you, um, does this seem like a par particularly, um, bogged down year? Hey, could it also be that just, hey, there’s just, this is the most media we’ve had in a while too, that Yeah, I was gonna say, I, I, I think along with the, uh, you got assholes like me and Hillary just chiming in. We got just tons of just shows and
JR Howell (06:02):
Yeah, I think we’ve got a lot more, um, people with opinions that aren’t afraid to express ’em on public, uh, you know, platforms. But I also think that, um, the amount of talk can also be a good thing. And I just think there are a lot of people excited about the start of the season. So when you have this many people talking about it positively or negatively, some would say that’s always a good thing.
Sevan Matossian (06:25):
Or, or, or what about this? Um, maybe we’re all getting puffy ch chested pointing our nipples up in the air because there’s no Dave Castro training. Think talks li training. Think tanks slipping off. You got fucking me over here fired from the company, lipping off got Andrew. Hillary only gives a shit about views. Lipping off. You got Rich over there with Dave gone lipping off. You just got people may, maybe that’s, some of that could be that the, that the fucking bullies that gone right. And we’re all fucking, like, you know, the Alpha’s gone and we’re all just kind of jockeying for position talking or talking to our shit. Maybe we’d shut up if there was someone we thought was a little more in control,
Brian Friend (07:03):
Maybe, or, or maybe not, you know? Right, right. I, I don’t, I don’t really know how Dave feels about the quarter finals. I don’t know really how Dave would, would manage the quarter finals over a period of years. You know, we got to see him take the open from its inception through a decade, or, you know, or, or more. We got to see him take the CrossFit games through 15 years. We got to see him take every version of, uh, a stage of the season through a progression. And for the quarter finals, he was around for only the first version of it. So
Sevan Matossian (07:35):
We, we also saw Joe Alexander, fuck up the damn Bailey Count. Love you Joe, and get fired. And, and then we saw the wrong, and we, and we saw the wrong weights used at, uh, in the opening, uh, workout of the open and a letter was set out, uh, from HQ saying how great their team did. I mean, no,
Brian Friend (07:53):
This
Sevan Matossian (07:53):
Is, uh, that’s a, that’s a big, that’s a pretty crazy fuck up. I g I’ll give Joe his job. I’ll give Joe his job back as a judge. By the way, Joe still works with the company, obviously just got slapped down as a judge.
Brian Friend (08:03):
I mean, I, I have heard from people who worked at CrossFit, uh, you know, in the late two, like 2007, 8, 9, 10, 11 this month. I’ve heard from them, they’ve reached out to me and said, this is insane. Like, I would’ve been, I would’ve been, the punishment would’ve been extreme for something that was much more insignificant than the, the mistakes that are being made by certain people. You know, public mistakes that are being made by cer certain people now. Um, but, but we shouldn’t really limit, limit that to, uh, CrossFit. I mean, the world in general is becoming a little bit more soft in that regard. A little bit more forgiving and lenient and not, and afraid to kind of, uh, hold people to, to certain standards or accountability because of this, uh, culture that’s emerged in the last, you know, few years of, uh, canceling people and, um, rejecting people who are having honest conversations. So CrossFit maybe just caught up in the wave of that. That’s, you know, I would say affecting humanity right now.
Sevan Matossian (09:09):
Susie, you tripping? Is that Brian Friend? Is that an ai? That’s a, we were just looking ATIs today. I showed the eighth Wonder of the World on my morning show. He said it might be an, I’m starting to think you’re an ai. Well said Ryan. Wow. You’re getting, uh, squirrely. Uh, the bully would’ve never let this happen. Okay. Um, let’s, uh, where, where do you, where do you wanna start? I, I’d like to just propose this idea. Let me, let me just propose this idea. If you guys don’t like it, we can start somewhere else. Um, it was an idea I had the other day. When you have 17, uh, regionals, granted it’s a shitload, you have 17, um, different areas where people come up into the games who are first place winners, right? 17. And you have 17 second place guys and you have 17 third place guys. And that, that brings a certain excitement to the games. And I was just thinking about this depth that’s in the, um, semi-finals. Now, the semi-finals might take all the air out of the room, right? Because when they, when when we go, when we go to the games, it’s gonna be, we’re only gonna be thinking that the only person who has a chance of winning the games are the person who took first in Europe. First in North maybe, or Northeast and maybe Northwest.
Brian Friend (10:22):
No, not
Sevan Matossian (10:23):
True. No. Okay.
Brian Friend (10:24):
I do know what you’re saying. Uh, the winner of, uh, the Oceanic region and for the men will also probably have a chance
Sevan Matossian (10:32):
To win the games.
Brian Friend (10:33):
Yes. Okay. Most, most likely. Unless J
Sevan Matossian (10:35):
Crouch, I knew J Beat till
Brian Friend (10:37):
Again,
Sevan Matossian (10:37):
<laugh>. He’s a closet. J Crouch fan. I knew it. I knew it. All right.
Brian Friend (10:42):
All right. Um, I do wanna talk about that. I had, that’s, uh, the, the spreadsheets that I sent you guys earlier today are to that regard. Is that you, you had mentioned that to me or the group of us a few days ago, and I’d been thinking about it. I wanted to wait, and just in case anyone’s not aware, the quarterfinals leader boards are not finalized yet. They are supposed to be finalized on Monday, March 27th. CrossFit does have the opportunity to extend that deadline if they see the need to, but I think that at this point, the leader boards are fairly well-rounded. Where this morning for the first time, I actually looked at them following quarter finals with the, you know, from an analytical perspective to see, okay, what are these fields for semi-finals actually gonna look like? And that’s what I put together today so that we can actually start talking about, um, that question.
Sevan Matossian (11:31):
Um, uh, the, you’re sorry. Uh, the semi-finals le uh, the semi-finals or the leaderboard for the quarterfinals you’re saying isn’t officially closed for another three days looking calendar. Today’s the 24th. They said it would be closed on the 27th, but you’re feeling pretty confident that, that we’re locked in?
Brian Friend (11:49):
Not locked in, but pretty close. Close enough that I thought, especially since we’re doing this show, kind of the, um, wrapping up the online stage of the season for the elite individual athletes, that it, it would be, we would be able to paint a little bit of a picture about what’s happened so far and what’s gonna happen, you know, two months from now.
Sevan Matossian (12:06):
Um, uh, there’s a question here about William Leahy. I think we will be talking about William Leahy, uh, in specific, I got him in my, my notes. Good, good old bill,
Brian Friend (12:15):
But probably would rather put that on hold for a while. Sure. Come back to that towards the end of the show.
Sevan Matossian (12:21):
Sure. Okay. Uh, okay. So where did you wanna start? Where, where do you wanna talk about this? Uh, who’s going? Do you wanna actually just pull up the leaderboard and look at who’s going and why it’s gonna be exciting? Is that what you’re saying?
Brian Friend (12:30):
Oh, I mean, fine. If you were, if you’re desperate to do that, we can do that.
Sevan Matossian (12:33):
Sure. Tell me, tell me, tell me, where do you, where do you wanna start? You wanna look at these, uh, this spreadsheet right here with the, the blue. Hey, this was really nice, these categories you gave games athletes, strong competitor, relevant competitor. Does relevant mean your ass Brian is broken down the field into these three categories?
JR Howell (12:49):
<laugh> no, I think
Brian Friend (12:50):
I’m not the full field, by the way, but
JR Howell (12:53):
I mean, without seeing the spreadsheets, I would think that relative might just mean someone who has the ability to flip the leaderboard.
Brian Friend (13:01):
Um, I did s share them with you, actually, Jr. But I know you’ve had a crazy day.
JR Howell (13:05):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (13:07):
Oh yeah, JR everything good? Yeah, we’re
JR Howell (13:08):
Good.
Sevan Matossian (13:09):
Okay. Good. Uh, j uh, so, okay, so should we pull up the spreadsheet to start with? You wanna do that? You cool with that?
Brian Friend (13:17):
Goodest places any, I guess?
Sevan Matossian (13:19):
Okay. Yeah, let’s do it. Um, are these people in the blue, these people, you know, that are, are all of these people already qualified? These are the qualified people? No, no. No.
Brian Friend (13:27):
Okay. All of, okay. So everyone on this list is currently, everyone in this list that’s not in red, which says, did not qualify, uh, have currently are currently occupying a qualifying position to their respective competitive regions, semi-final, uh, the ones in blue. Well, if we can see the top, you can see the, the actual, um, semi-finals, so you know which ones we’re talking about. And then they’ll have the number of guaranteed spots, and then the number of allocated spots that they will end up having. And we’re pretty confident in those numbers. I’ve been, uh, some of the stuff we’re gonna talk about tonight, I’ve, uh, been vetting with help. And, um, and basically what you’re gonna see here is, is several things. First of all, the worldwide ranking and strength of fields have done exactly what I said that they would do the first time that we talked about ’em, which is nothing at all.
(14:23):
They have, uh, had made little to no impact at all on the distribution of game spots, relatives to the competitive field, which is what they’re supposed to be doing. And we can see that right here. Last year there were 21 spots for North American women because they took one of the last chance qualifiers, and this year they’re gonna get 21 spots. They’ll be distributed 12 and nine, almost definitely. And last year, European women had 11 spots. And this year they’re almost definitely gonna get 11 spots. There’s a, I would say that the maximum plus or minus on any of those is one, you know, so they’ll be within one of whatever number we have listed there. Second part of the Hy or the slash Oceania, south America, Asia and Africa will probably not get any extra spots. Um, and the blue, the women in blue are the ones that competed at the games last year.
(15:09):
So the one, the woman who competed for Africa at the games last year is going on a team this year. So there’s just no one, uh, sang. Young Choi is injured this year, so there’s only one for Asia. Both South Americans are coming back. Obviously Tia and Karara are out, so there’s some new, gonna be some new blood in Oceania in Europe. All, um, there are, I think 10 of the returning 11 in North America. West. There’s nine of the, of the returning whatever there were. And then nine again. So 18 outta 21 on in North America. So all of the spots that were taken away were from North America and Europe. All the spots that we redistributed are from North America and Europe. And, um, what we can see right here is that it’s gonna be pretty competitive. Like, uh, if, if you count down the list of North America east, there’s nine, and then you just look at Emma Carey, we’ll just take three em, Carey, Shelby, Neil Fe there’s your 12. So if you wanna get in, you have to be able to beat one of those people.
Sevan Matossian (16:08):
You know, it’s interesting, uh, originally I thought that the East was gonna be the tougher region, but now that the West is down to nine, I’m thinking the West might be the tougher region,
Brian Friend (16:16):
Especially when you look at that group in Green. Yes. So the group in Green, were not at the CrossFit games last year, and the group in Blue were, and I think that there are a lot of people listening in, and if I said, Hey, if you had a bet on one of these two people to have a better finish at the CrossFit games, would you take Katherine David’s daughter or Bailey Rail, that it would be a pretty even who, even distribution. Who will you take? Lauren Fisher or Rebecca fue? Will you take Bethany Chadburn or Freya Moose Bruger? Will you take Chloe Wilson or Sydnee Mc? We take Kelly. You know, you just keep going down the list, down the list. Kelly Baker’s been crushing it this season. So there’s, there could actually be a ton of turnover in the West. Like of those nine that are in blue, if they only get nine spots, it might, it’s possible that only four or five of ’em make it back this year. And it’s also possible that some of these athletes that thought that going out to the West would be an easy road to, the Games are gonna have, uh, a rude awakening when they come to the semi-finals and realize that there’s a lot of competitors there.
Sevan Matossian (17:13):
Um, let, let me, let me just switch subjects real quick just to, um, mess with JR here for a second. Jr uh, column B is the, um, uh, Northeast, uh, who, who wins that? Mel? Uh, column F is Europe. Who wins that? Laura? Okay, now we got a problem in column D. Go back to North America West. Who wins that? Oh, Nelly. That’s why that’s gonna be a show, huh? I still, I I still think it’s Errol Lo. I don’t you do that. Well, I, I like that. Yeah. That is gonna be a show there. I think
JR Howell (17:48):
She’s by far the most well-rounded in that, in with that group of athletes.
Sevan Matossian (17:53):
Okay.
Brian Friend (17:53):
And she has the most impressive and complete, uh, you know, performances over the past two seasons of anyone on this list.
Sevan Matossian (18:00):
Okay. Now let me say something that’s gonna break my heart going back, Ariel, if you’re listening, is your husband’s listening to a good time to, I don’t know, by the way, go in the other room and water the plants or something. There’s no fucking way Ariel Lowen has a chance against Mal O’Brien or Laura Hrvt. That’s, and that’s what I’m saying, like, there’s a, these are the games they, I I just feel like these are, these are gonna end up being the games. Yes. No,
Brian Friend (18:32):
Who’s gonna win the games?
Sevan Matossian (18:33):
It’s gonna be Mallow Bryant and Laura Hvat. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’d be amazing if Ariel Lowen got up on that podium, but, but there it is. Those are your two right there. And then the rest of those people don’t even matter to the Right.
Brian Friend (18:46):
Well, okay, so this is the line of don’t
Sevan Matossian (18:48):
Do my aerial. Okay. All right. No, this
Brian Friend (18:50):
Is the line of thinking that has been problematic for CrossFit historically. Mm-hmm.
Sevan Matossian (18:54):
<affirmative>,
Brian Friend (18:55):
We got the winner, so we’re good. No, <laugh>. Like, uh, if that’s the line that you’re taking, that’s, then I, then I guess that’s fine. But that’s not what, that’s not what most of the people that are watching and participating in the sport are, are, uh, interested in. They’re interested in finding their ranking relative to the world and knowing how their person is gonna, is gonna fare relative to the field. Yes. There’s obviously a ton of interest in the winner overall for the CrossFit games, but it’s, it’s, you know, to me this a sport is far more interesting if all of the other places also matter.
Sevan Matossian (19:31):
Yeah. And the, I I agree. But wouldn’t it be great if from the Northeast you took Emma Lawson from the Northwest, you took Danny Spiegel and from Europe you took Gabriela Manawa and then maybe went through there one more time and took those six and made another region. And now we have four regions with four people who four first place people, and maybe we just do that more and glorify the athletes a little more. I know, I know, I know it’s cost prohibitive, but I just feel like they’ve narrowed this down so much that, uh,
JR Howell (19:58):
It seems to me like you’re almost worried about,
Sevan Matossian (20:00):
Seems like a step backwards.
JR Howell (20:02):
The athlete’s ability to monetize themselves too. Like you think that after the semi-finals, the ones that finish 7 89, I mean, look who’s at 7 89 on this list, you know? Right, right. Those are big names that you’re almost like, oh, no one’s gonna even be thinking about them because they didn’t finish one or two.
Sevan Matossian (20:20):
Right. And I want some hype like that was, I mean, look at even the Atlas games, no matter how much I shit on it, I was still fucking excited about their 1, 2, 3 over there. Who, who did they end up having? They had Emma Lawson, that was it. Page z Menza who was over there. Page powers. Page powers. Yeah. Page powers got to stand out there. Anyway. Oh, I, it, it’s a, it’s a moot point at this point, but, um,
Brian Friend (20:41):
I, I’m, I mean, no, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a worthwhile conversation, but at the same time, uh, I’m not like that upset that I get to see Justin Maderas and Pat Vener compete head-to-head twice in a season instead of once.
Sevan Matossian (20:53):
Fair enough. Good. Yeah, great point. Great point. Yeah. And I g great point. And I’m excited to see Emma Lawson and Mal go at it, um, uh, more than once too. Great point.
Brian Friend (21:04):
Yeah. And in a big field, uh, you know, with 60 athletes, you know, in those, in those three semi-finals, uh, a lot can happen if, if we, you know, as we look at some of the semi-finals in particular, you’re gonna see that there’s really, really dense group of strong athletes there. And suddenly if you’re an athlete like, um, you know, a, a games athlete that maybe struggles a bit on the strength test, you might take a little bit bigger hit relative to the field than you would’ve in a different format. And that, you know, that we’ve, we’ve, we’ve seen it happen before. I mean, we saw it last year with Haley Adams, which she was in 21st or whatever it was, and had a fighter way back in over the course of the weekend. But, you know, you see what happens in online competitions when there’s hundreds and thousands of people and suddenly you have, you know, people that get, uh, whatever score on the, the strength test and they’re getting like 500th place, uh, when all their other scores are, are like in the top 50. And that’s extremely penalized. And so it will be twice as much penalty potentially for a bad performance, which will have an oppor, you know, and that’ll give, um, keep more people relevant potentially throughout the weekend. Um, and, and with a deeper field, you might get some people coming out of, you know, heats one, two, and three that have, uh, you know, some pretty competitive scores on something that might be right up their, their alley.
Sevan Matossian (22:21):
Uh, h how excited are we that all of these regions will be doing the same workout? It’s great, right?
JR Howell (22:29):
Yeah, I think so. I mean, it gives us, not as much to talk about, but I think we’ll all be reminded of how cool that was week to week, getting to compare, seeing the athletes have another week to prepare, and then they go faster than the week prior and all of us saying things that are not super rational, like, oh, well she beat her time by a minute, so she’s, she’s, she’s gonna beat her at the games. You know, stuff like that. But I mean, I’m just looking at blue while you guys are talking and, and looking at blue all the way across, and like in the east there are six, I don’t wanna say locks, but very high likelihood, six top 10 at the games competitors. You don’t have that at all in the west, maybe one or two the most, I would say one. Wow. So while the west may be exciting for the different reason, they probably will have less spots. It’ll be maybe a lot more jockeying day to day. There may be more movement. It may come down to the last, like, to me, six or seven of the spots in the east are like,
(23:26):
Well, and that’s, unless there’s something programming wise that exposes someone, those are being taken.
Brian Friend (23:31):
Yeah. And the cool thing is, you know, you have an athlete like Paige Powers who’s in that field just coming off of win at Waap Pza crushing basically every workout in the opening quarter finals, except for one. And people are starting to speculate. I mean, I, I, you know, I think people have this, um, they often like jump to massive conclusions that are unwarranted, but she’s doing great. And now she gets to go into a semi-final field with six proven top 10 games athletes if she finishes third in that field. We’ve actually learned quite a bit about her, and she becomes a lot more interesting in terms of podium contender, top 10 contender at the games as well. If she goes in there and there’s a big drop off after the top six and she’s just beating everyone else, which I don’t think is gonna happen, by the way, I think she’s going, going to be competitive with most of the women that are, uh, the, those top 10 womens in the semi-final stage.
Sevan Matossian (24:23):
Yeah, that’s an interesting point. Um,
Brian Friend (24:25):
But even if she is, then we might say, okay, well we saw her do that with Emma Loston last year. She went toe to toe with her in the semifinal, lost by to her by less than 10 points, but she showed up at the games and there was this massive disparity. So even if she’s win wins Wata Palooza, how many work workouts are there? How many days that competition? It’s only two. She wins the open 3, 4, 3, 4 tests over three weeks. She does good in quarter finals, five tests over three days. She does good at semi-finals, seven tests over four days. She still hasn’t proven to me that she can actually compete with the best in the world on 15 tests over four days.
Sevan Matossian (24:58):
Semi-finals is seven tests,
Brian Friend (25:00):
I’m just guessing based on what history has, has been.
Sevan Matossian (25:04):
Uh, and something else that, um, we, uh, have discussed to keep, uh, mind of mindful of is that the northeast, the north, uh, north America, west and Europe will all be taking four days to do the competition. Now we’re not sure if that means they’ll be, have four days to do all of those workouts, or that’s because of the teams, but there could be a different stimulus at those compared to the people who have to do it in three days. Correct.
Brian Friend (25:32):
Yeah, potentially. For sure. And there, and you know, there are several deep details of semi-finals. We don’t know. That’s just one of them.
JR Howell (25:39):
Yeah. I, I, I, I can’t see them having a structure that would have one group of people doing eight and four days, two a day, and then having another group of people do the same amount of tests in less days.
Sevan Matossian (25:53):
Uh, no swimming for sure. Right. Too, too many locations.
Brian Friend (25:57):
Yeah, I don’t think so.
Sevan Matossian (25:58):
Anything else ruled out because of
Brian Friend (25:59):
That? Actually asked, I actually asked Adrian about that in Omaha. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And he said like, I, I would, I would consider programming swimming in the semi-finals, but it’s really, really different, difficult logistically.
Sevan Matossian (26:09):
And, and, and, and what about, um, uh, the, your thoughts of maybe there being at least one semi-final that ends up being different. Would you guys be bummed if you found out South American and Africa had their own that was slightly different?
Brian Friend (26:22):
Um,
Sevan Matossian (26:24):
How, how would you judge CrossFit for that if like two of their workouts were different because of equipment issues?
Brian Friend (26:30):
Oh, uh, well, I mean, we’ve had, we’ve had that happen in the past. Like even this workout that was repeated, um, the regional rope climb rope, like a rope climb workout. The, the original version of that, the Asian semi-final didn’t have a field that could go the, the full distance. So they had a slightly nuanced different version of that. So I guess it’s, it’s possible that it could happen again. Um, it does kind of muddy the waters in terms of cross, cross semi-final comparison leaderboards, uh, and conversations. But, um, again, we, you know, in, in most of those, uh, smaller, uh, regions that are getting less spots to the games, those athletes aren’t really factoring in or competitive with, uh, the more the larger regions anyway.
Sevan Matossian (27:16):
Yeah. Uh, sea Hill know, because they’re irrelevant. Um, the thing I, I wouldn’t judge them either for that. Here’s the thing, I don’t think everyone should be punished because they have trouble getting yolks to fucking Africa. So I I I, I’m totally fine with, uh, Africa, as long as they’re doing their best in that department to get everyone to do the same thing. I think it’s, uh, pretty,
Brian Friend (27:35):
Let’s look at the small, I would like to look at the small, um, smaller continents for, uh, the women though, because as I was going through this, as you’ll see the, you know, the, you see the Oceania gets three South American Asia get two, Africa gets one. And I was going through the leaderboards. I think that most of the people listening though, that I have a fairly good knowledge of the athletes competing in these regions. And so I was pulling out athletes that I thought would be, you know, relevant at least to this conversation. And in Asia, we have Sahara CAA who everyone knows from the games last year coming back. You have Dewan Young who’s been around and competing, and she’s actually, I think the top seed going into the semi-final. And then there’s this girl that I’ve never heard of before, Camilla Tava, who had a pretty competitive quarterfinal relative to anyone else. And I hardly know anyone else on an entire list that’s competing there. None of the Russian women are showing up again this year. Some young Choi is out, and there’s just no depth of field there. And I’m pretty sure that when we run the studies, when helping runs all the studies after quarter finals finish up, that we’re gonna see very few of them filtering towards the top of the leaderboard. And it’s just puzzling to me, um, how they’re, you know, warranted getting two guaranteed spots to the games.
Sevan Matossian (28:45):
Uh, do you think that they should get one spot guaranteed? Yeah,
Brian Friend (28:48):
I think everyone should get one. Everyone should get one, guaranteed. You already know that. And I have an, um, bigger picture, all the conversations I’ve been having during this, the quarter finals and the fallout of it always end at the same point, uh, which is that this is not working and what’s the solution? And that’s something I’d also like to talk about tonight at some point.
Sevan Matossian (29:09):
Uh, Chevon’s, uh, dollar 99 for the African, uh, yoke fund. Uh, p pull that pull. Uh, sorry. Uh, Susan, one more ti one more time. Let’s take a peek over there and I’ll make a note here. Um, changes to, uh, uh, I saw, uh, Louise, uh, just following into the weeds here a little bit, I saw Louise Mar Marquez. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> Marquez, uh, uh, over at Mayhem in the Mayhem video today when I was checking it out. Any chances of her making it, uh, past Julie Cato or Vic Victoria Campos? She’s a brick shit house.
Brian Friend (29:47):
Yeah. I’ve, I got the chance to train with her while I was there. They’re, um, her and, uh, Lucas de Rosa are living there for part of the season and training there. Um, I think they were at least staying through quarter finals, though. I think they were.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
Check out our other posts.
