Sevan Matossian (00:00):
Bam. We’re live. Yeah, we’re live. We’ve been live ever since. Daddy. Dave made me go live. We’ve been live, I dunno how long it’s been. It’s Caleb eating some Beaver. I mean, Caleb Beaver eating. Brian, friend, I’m coming to you from the Three Plain Brothers compound training facility for the fittest, smartest, coolest dad in the world. Lives. He thought I was gonna say kids. Ah, I am your host, the humble, most humble, wealthiest, most influential person in the crossroad ecosystem, along with my trusted second brain, Caleb. And he needs no introduction. The most knowledgeable man in the CrossFit ecosystem, CrossFit games ecosystem, knows more, shares more, has more insights. Emotionally stable coming to you from a shithole city named Chicago.
Brian Friend (01:12):
I live a little north of the shithole
Sevan Matossian (01:14):
<laugh>. He’s, he, it’s to balance out his greatness. Brian, friend. What’s up? Dude? I’m actually, I’m pretty excited about this show actually, not because it’s the age group, but it’s just been a while. I, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, and
Brian Friend (01:25):
Chicago does have a nice, uh, skyline.
Sevan Matossian (01:29):
It it does, it does. When it’s burning
Brian Friend (01:32):
From the distance. From a distance,
Sevan Matossian (01:33):
Yeah. From, from very far. Sistas xFi, Jamie qualified for the Masters Semi. Is that true? Jamie? Vladimir,
Brian Friend (01:41):
No one’s qualified yet.
Sevan Matossian (01:43):
Yeah. I take that cock
Brian Friend (01:46):
<laugh>,
Sevan Matossian (01:47):
Take that. Oh, what do you mean by that? Let’s just start right there. What do you mean? No one’s qualified yet? Leaderboards not finalized. Correct.
Brian Friend (01:55):
Correct. Yeah. So, we’ll, you know, we’ll, we will talk about the leaderboard. We’ll talk about a lot of cool things, I think that happened this past weekend. But at, uh, obviously it’s a massive job to review and score and approve scores for, I mean, besides the team division, I think 16 or 18 other divisions this weekend. So they probably need a week or two.
Sevan Matossian (02:19):
How cool is it? How cool is it that CrossFit has a division for old people? How long has it had that?
Brian Friend (02:29):
Oh, um,
Sevan Matossian (02:31):
Let me rephrase that. They’re not old. You’re just not as good as the, the best people because of what, um, being humans. What happens to us? Uh, there’s, there’s a, there’s a sweet spot where we’re the best at physical Shit. That’s better, right?
Brian Friend (02:46):
Yeah. You’re basically asking what year did the Master’s divisions start?
Sevan Matossian (02:49):
Yeah,
Brian Friend (02:50):
They started before the Teenage Divisions. Um, let’s see if they have ’em on here. I thought it was 2012. There’s a woman named Lynn NAPman I want to talk about tonight. Her games profile shows, games appearances from 2012 all the way through 2022 with no interruptions.
Sevan Matossian (03:06):
She’s never 2012, is that what you said?
Brian Friend (03:08):
Yeah. She’s never finished worse than six at the CrossFit games. She will miss the CrossFit games this year for the first time in the history of her career, because she’s gonna do a strict handstand pushup.
Sevan Matossian (03:21):
Uh, Lynn Naman, she doesn’t have an Instagram account, and she, wait, don’t tell me. I’m gonna show off to you now. She is trained by gimme the first letter of his name. It’s, it’s a, it’s a famous guy. See second letter
Brian Friend (03:39):
H
Brian Friend (03:40):
<laugh>,
Sevan Matossian (03:42):
Chase, Ingram.
Brian Friend (03:43):
A
Sevan Matossian (03:44):
Chase
Brian Friend (03:45):
D
Sevan Matossian (03:46):
Chad, Chad Schroeder
Brian Friend (03:50):
From Australia.
Sevan Matossian (03:51):
Oh, Chad McKay. Damn. I knew it was so unfamous. I just saw it popped up in my
Brian Friend (03:56):
Search. Chad is listed as her judge for all of the workouts this year. I think that’s right.
Sevan Matossian (04:01):
Okay. Thank you. That was really cool of you to, to help me out like that. So I look like I still knew something. Chad McKay.
Brian Friend (04:06):
No, you only needed four letters. It’s awesome.
Sevan Matossian (04:08):
Not bad. And, um, not to mention spelling of the complete first name, uh, for those of you who don’t know who weren’t around, Chad McKay was a serious contender for winning the games. There was a year where he was absolutely destroying the first couple workouts, and then he was injured and it was like, there, there he was. He was definitely going to the podium. I’d say it was gonna be hard
Brian Friend (04:31):
To, I think there might have been masters in 2011, now that I think about it. Either 2011 or 12. But yes, Chad was a beast.
Sevan Matossian (04:38):
And he’s a big dude. He’s a big, he’s maybe one of the original big guys. Right? Who is in the, in the, who is good. I’m not talking about like the, the, the guys who were at the ranch.
Brian Friend (04:48):
We’re gonna have a throwback tonight. By the way. Something popped up on my radar on the leaderboard. I can’t wait until see if you, uh, pick up on that.
Sevan Matossian (04:55):
Look at, look at McKay’s calves. That
Brian Friend (04:58):
Pretty good too, you know. Um,
Sevan Matossian (05:00):
That calf on the right looks like a, or our left, but his right looks like a testicle, doesn’t it?
Brian Friend (05:08):
Yeah. And it’s kind of interesting. I mean, when you think about great, great performers at the crossing games from Australia, who pops? Who comes to mind?
Sevan Matossian (05:15):
The great, the great performers from Australia? Yeah. Uh, this guy, Chad McKay. Uh, car Saunders, you’re talking about old
Brian Friend (05:24):
School men’s side.
Sevan Matossian (05:25):
Oh, um, God. There’s this who’s, who’s the guy who is the, he’s the amazing coach too, was a great masters athlete. Gimme the first letter of his name. Swift. Matt Swift.
Brian Friend (05:35):
Matt Swift, but okay. <laugh>. Rob Forte is the one I expected
Sevan Matossian (05:39):
You to speak. Sorry, sorry. Yes, yes. Rob Forte, God, Rob, I’m a piece of shit for that. Sorry, what? Say it again. But here,
Brian Friend (05:45):
This is what’s so interesting about Rob Forte. Rob Forte’s seven games appearances. And his best finish was 12th. One time Chad McKay, which is a lot less well known. Three games appearances. And his worst games finished was 12th.
Sevan Matossian (06:01):
Yeah. He was a savage. I’m telling you, he was gonna probably win one year.
Brian Friend (06:05):
He came, he came, he, he never really broke through to podium contention. He was 12th his first year. He missed year. He was ninth, and then he was 11th. So he was just kinda, he was like, uh, Alex, what
Sevan Matossian (06:15):
Year did he pull out? Does that include the year he pulled out? He must have taken a 40th one year.
Brian Friend (06:20):
Oh, two years after that. He withdrew in 2015. Other withdraws that year were Neil Maddox and Joe Scaly.
Sevan Matossian (06:27):
Oh, scaly was great too. That what a great personality he was. The thing about McKay too, that you knew he was great. He was the kind of guy who had like, the giant posters of them. Like there were three giant posters and one of them, uh, at the game somewhere like the ones that’s like six stories tall, and one of ’em was McKay. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, somebody knew. We knew.
Brian Friend (06:44):
Yeah, no, he is, I mean, three times at the game’s average, a 10th place finish, that’s like, that’s pretty good.
Sevan Matossian (06:49):
And then he fizzled out into, uh, now he’s a nobody. Yeah. Now he’s just dude who trains some old lady.
Brian Friend (06:54):
Yeah. And I mean, you know, there’s, there’s examples like this up and down the leaderboard. You know, there’s a lot of athletes who can only make the games one time. There’s, you know, a smaller percentage that can make it two to four times. And then there’s the, the rarities that can make it, you know, five plus times.
Sevan Matossian (07:09):
Uh, uh, when you mentioned, uh, Lynn, uh, NAPman going to the games 12 or 13 or 14, or since 2012, 10 times consecutive, and that she doesn’t make it this year because of, uh, handstand pushups. Are you angry? Are you bitter? Uh, soccer mom, before you answer that, Brian says, Lynn NAPman is missing the games due to lack of a strict handstand pushup. A cons solo cruise has made the games with a single, single double for double unders and not able to swim. Just saying for information.
Brian Friend (07:39):
Yeah. I’m not sure this is gonna get to, this is gonna get to a bigger picture. We can, we can go, I mean, it doesn’t matter where we go first, but, you know, this is a bigger picture problem, I would say with where Adrian is emphasizing skills being critical as a com, as a part of your fitness early in the season. So he is putting, you know, we have, we have seen athletes miss the games because they were unable to do high level skills at the qualifier for the games. Sam Briggs handstand walking 2014, the year after she won. Katherine David’s shot, or Lego role climbs the year before in 2013 after making 2012. But this is a qualifier. This isn’t a qualifier to the games. Even for these guys, they get a top 30 get to advance. And so when you look at someone like Lynn, you know, so the, the testing that has come out for 12 years in a row, she’s beaten the test every single time and she’s made it to the games and performed top six in her age division.
(08:42):
At every part of that, she’s aged through two complete divisions. And for five years in a row has Maita Anne been in the top six, whether they take 20 or 10, whether she’s the youngest or the oldest, she’s done everything that’s been asked of her. And when Adrian talks how, you know, gimme a couple years and you’ll start to see my emphasis on, on programming and where I, you know, my wrinkle in the nuance of it compared to the previous programmer, well, we’re seeing it right here, is that her performance on the other four workouts would’ve yielded her somewhere between a fifth and 10th place finish, assuming that she had a comparable finish on the fifth test. Um, but she did zero reps. So she has one movement that she can’t do and it’s gonna prevent her from even advancing to the next stage. It looks like. I mean, it’s, how old
Sevan Matossian (09:26):
Is she?
Brian Friend (09:27):
She’s 63. So she’s like right in the middle of that age division now has
Sevan Matossian (09:30):
That
Brian Friend (09:31):
This real quick, she’s still could possibly get through because she’s only two points behind the cut line.
Sevan Matossian (09:36):
Oh, so she’s in 31st
Brian Friend (09:38):
Tied for 31st, but even before, even within the last hour or two, I think that she’s moved up a, a spot.
Sevan Matossian (09:49):
Wow. Wow. A mother of four, grandmother of two. Lynn Naman has been a constant at the CrossFit games this year. Naman qualified for the 13th consecutive games. This is la uh, opposed from last year,
Brian Friend (10:02):
13th consecutive last year. So that would mean that’s 22, 21 20. She went at their co They must be counting that as a qualifier, even though they didn’t count it when they were talking about Rebecca Voigt last week. 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10. I don’t think that there were masters in 2010. We’d have to check that. But, uh, you know, CrossFit games, Instagram regularly is posting inaccurate information so
Sevan Matossian (10:26):
Regularly. Uh, I far too regularly l l far too regularly. Is there an echo in here? Brian? Uh, have the, have the 60 year old, uh, lads. Is it, what do you call women if la uh, men are lads? What are women, ladies, ladies have the 60 year old, uh, lads and ladies ever done, um, handstand pushups before at the CrossFit games.
Brian Friend (10:51):
Oh, at the CrossFit games? Yeah. And, and in and in qualifiers. Um, okay, so the problem with this is she got zero. I mean, does this score last?
Sevan Matossian (11:02):
Uh, some regions get two nights rests, some get one night unfair, where some get four events over three days and others get two. Uh, hold on, Kate, hold on, hold on, hold on. Don’t get all crazy throwing your money around trying to s sue the show. We’ll be right back to you then. Then what? Who cares if she didn’t make it? That’s her fault. If, if this has been, if this has happened before, right? You’ve seen handstand pushups before. Sorry. Figure it out. Girl. You’re s you know,
Brian Friend (11:29):
No, you’re not. I mean, you’re not wrong when it comes to the competition. Yeah. Surely it’s, uh, o obviously that’s a hold that she has now. I, you know, I haven’t gone back and looked to see if it’s something that maybe she’s got an injury this year that’s preventing her from doing it and it’s something that she’s been able to do in the past. I mean, who knows? Um, maybe we could find out. But,
Sevan Matossian (11:47):
Um, no, it’s just like, lemme ask you one more question about, lemme ask you one more question about that division. This one’s gonna be tough. Of the, the, so you’re saying 30 people from the age group of 60 to 64 are about to move on mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and she’s, and she’s not one of ’em, she’s just in the cups of those 30 that made it, do we know if any of them also did, had a zero on the handstand pushups?
Brian Friend (12:11):
Yes. It’s the person who’s in 23rd and the person who’s in 30th.
Sevan Matossian (12:16):
Wow. Wow. But, but you are suggesting that it’s worth looking at that maybe it was too soon in the competition to put handstand pushups in and maybe they should have waited to the semi-finals. Is that what you’re saying?
Brian Friend (12:28):
Hmm. Not necessarily. I do think that there’s some, some elements of that workout that, um, so I, this is again, the, the question is a really nuanced question that’s addressing what I perceive to be a much bigger picture conversation. I would say somewhat of a problem at this point. And that is basically that I’m not su you know, I can’t tell from watching the open to the quarter finals so far this year. What’s the purpose of these competitions? I guess? So, you know what, like we talk about at the open, there’s obviously two main things that are going on is that you wanna appeal to the masses. You want to have something that’s accessible, uh, easy to administer in a, in a group setting, easy to score, fun, challenging, progressive. And also you’re advancing a group of people to the next round. But it’s a really wide net.
(13:20):
And so, like at the, I think that at the, you know, you, you do need to have some skills, some strength element, et cetera, but for the most part, whatever you put there is gonna be fine in terms of advancing those people. However, there should still be some element of the open that’s, um, a barrier to entry for the quarter finals. Like you, you know, that’s why I, last time we were on here, I I told you that I, I had Mike do that study of, um, what were the 15% thresholds and what would that have looked like in terms of qualifiers. And there are far fewer people who are able to finish in the top 15% across the board in the open than finishing the top 10%. Overall, it’s harder to do, but it’s also now you’re finding a more capable field for the next stage of competition.
(14:02):
Even within those parameters, you would’ve had women advancing that did not have the prerequisite skills needed for the next stage of competition. Heavy front squats, heavy cleaning jerks. I mean, this is for the individuals, but it, the same thing applies in the master’s divisions. You know, they had sim similar tests, in my opinion, at least in the design. Um, you know, ring muscle up, spar, muscle ups, unbroken handstand walks, wall facing handstand pushups. Like this test, the test was hard at quarterfinals, but the barrier to entry the open didn’t really do a good job of filtering for people who could do that test. Obviously the top of the top can all can do all the things, but you’re, you’re letting like a big group of people into this competition, rewarding them. Motivating them, and then giving them something where it’s like, I, I mean, I’m done before I even start.
(14:49):
And when you fast forward to the master’s, you know, you see something like the first test that they had this past weekend, which was a progression. You have lunges of three varying difficulties. You have upper body pulling on the rig now, tobar chest to bar, bar muscle up, a natural progression of gymnastics. Pretty much everyone can enter into play three rounds of the easiest stuff, two rounds of the next most challenging, one round of the most challenging. I think that’s great for a quarter final because you’re accomplishing something similar to the open is that everyone gets a chance to start. Cuz you have a huge group of people who are, who are eligible to take this test. And then as it advances, you are weeding everyone out. And at the end of the day, the best people will finish this workout under the time cap because they have all the skills and the capacity and they’ll, they’ll separate themselves from everyone else. You go to the next test, test number two A in this case, and it immediately starts with a movement that none of the people in these divisions have ever been asked to do before. The very first rep, six wall facing handstand pushups strict.
Sevan Matossian (15:52):
Ah, ah, ah.
Brian Friend (15:55):
So I look at this and I say there’s a, there’s a bigger problem with this workout also, which is that they somehow on their computer, on the backend, on their system, they had created something where it was complicated or impossible. I’m not entirely sure which one to enter a score if you got a zero for part A of this workout for part B of this workout.
Sevan Matossian (16:20):
Part B was the clean Yeah, this is the second workout. Workout, yeah. Okay.
Brian Friend (16:27):
And this is an, an in part, this is where the kind person from Australia who gave 7 99, a few minutes ago’s question comes into play, Kate, is that, um, you’re distributing these tests at a fixed time to a variable population. That means that at to, at noon Pacific time when they’re released and everyone in the, in the west coast can have their lunch open up the workouts, nice. Read through them. Pretty much every gym in the world, for the most part is closed in the middle of the afternoon. You could spend an hour perusing through 12 pages of notes for this workout and come up with a plan and go ahead and do it.
Sevan Matossian (17:12):
That’s how much, there’s 12 pages of description for this workout,
Brian Friend (17:15):
Just for work, just for test two.
Sevan Matossian (17:17):
Okay. Wow.
Brian Friend (17:20):
Uh, two A and B. Um, but fast forward two hours, I’m in the central time zone and I have from two o’clock to four o’clock on a, on a Friday afternoon to get workouts done before the gym’s busy for the rest of the night. And if we don’t get it done in that time period, and we wanna do anything else that day, we have to come back in the evening at eight o’clock. Fast forward another, uh, well one hour to the East coast and that time window gets even tighter. Fast forward to being in Europe where now it’s nine or 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock. If you’re in Eastern Europe, all parts of Africa, Asia, middle of the night and Australia. It’s the early morning everyone’s getting these tested a different time. Everyone’s already aware of when the workout that, when the workouts need to be done.
(17:59):
But they have to, like, not every person competing in this competition just has access to a gym that they can use any time of day or night that they want to. So they have to make these plans. And that’s what I thought was like frustrating about this workout in particular was how many nuances there were to it that were different and unnecessarily so different than other things that we’ve already done this or seen this year. Whether it’s the weights, whether it’s the displaying the weights before lifting, whether it’s the, a brand new movement for the handstand
Sevan Matossian (18:34):
Fair is a place where the, uh, they judge pigs
Brian Friend (18:38):
<laugh>. F a r e.
Sevan Matossian (18:39):
Yeah. Yeah. Hey, hold, hold on one second. Brian, you’re, you’re getting ahead of me. Can can you bear with me here? Let me, I’ll get you back on track. Bear with me here. Let, let me uh, contextualize some of this. Uh, is it true that the open is, uh, um, half the participants in the open are master’s age, meaning they’re 35 or
Brian Friend (18:54):
Not pretty close to it? Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (18:55):
Yeah. So this, so this is an important, um, uh, I, I hate to be a a a dickhead, but this is, this goes kind of in line with how that there’s not a, um, occupational games and we had Justin Bergs already say that we’re doing what matters and whether that was an accident that he said that or not. Uh, clearly the first responder community is at the base, uh, of this community. It’s where the um, it is the foundation Without them, this fucking thing falls apart whether anyone there knows it or not. And same thing with the masters. So there’s a little bit, there’s a little bit of neglect here maybe, is that what you’re saying? Or, or not awareness of these guys
Brian Friend (19:33):
Potentially. Yeah. Um, you know, it’s, is there a
Sevan Matossian (19:35):
Fix for that, that time problem?
Brian Friend (19:39):
Well, so no, that’s just the
Sevan Matossian (19:40):
Reality. Or is it just like America?
Brian Friend (19:42):
No, no. That’s the reality that we’re playing within. It’s not a, I don’t think it’s a problem, but knowing that if I was the person who is distributing this test and I knew that, yeah. I would be making an effort to make sure that especially the workouts that were needed to be done in that first 24 hour window were really simple for everyone to understand.
Sevan Matossian (20:00):
Ah, I see what you’re saying. So there’s things we can do to accommodate, maybe we can’t fix the problem, but we can accommodate the problem that’s gonna arise for those people who have shorter time.
Brian Friend (20:08):
Yeah. Right. You know, for example, and, and granted it is true that there was this requirement last year in the age group qualifier or quarter final I believe. But you have to display the weight on a whiteboard or a car or a piece of paper for the one r max clean. Why don’t you just do that for the one r max thrust in the open, just start the season the way that you’re gonna have that carry out throughout the rest of the season that way. Cuz everyone who’s made this stage of the, not everyone who’s competing in the age group, quarter finals this year, competing in the age group, quarter finals last year, there’ll be a lot of people that, you know, they made it for their first time or they took a year off last year, or they just started doing cross in the last year or two. And this is brand new to them. Right. But every one of those people has done the open and you’ve already chosen to have a heavy lift in the open in a almost the exact scenario where there was a metcon and then a fixed five minute window to do a lift. Just if everyone had to do that in the open, no one would think twice about it in the quarter finals.
Sevan Matossian (21:06):
Everyone, well let me, let me ask you this. If they, for let’s say they forgot and they just thought of it now, you think it should, they should have just waited till next year to implement it. What’s the value of having them pull the piece of paper up with the weight on it?
Brian Friend (21:18):
You know, I think that it’s one, actually, I think it’s a great idea for them to do that because it’s a lot less likely that there’s something lost in translation, you know, than like writing the numbers in English is, I would say probably a across the global, you know, spectrum of people that we’re testing here, more likely to have accuracy. Well, <laugh> than saying the numbers out loud where there’s say, you know, so many different languages that people could speak potentially.
Sevan Matossian (21:41):
Well, well you have to also see the weights in the video.
Brian Friend (21:45):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (21:47):
Uh, so, so that could have been something that could have been, if you forgotten, you just thought about it just now that you could have waited to implement until next year.
Brian Friend (21:53):
I think probably the other way around. You already implemented it last year, so you, you’ve had the chance to evaluate whether you liked it or not last year if you liked.
Sevan Matossian (22:01):
They did that last year. Sorry, I misunderstood. They
Brian Friend (22:03):
Did hold quarter finals.
Sevan Matossian (22:04):
Oh, okay. Okay.
Brian Friend (22:06):
In the math, in the age group, quarter finals last year. I, yes they did. Um, you know, it’s, so it’s not the first time, but it’s like, well, if you like it then why didn’t you use it in the open this year? Right. And if you didn’t like it, why’d you use it in the quarter finals?
Sevan Matossian (22:21):
There’s a, uh, there, there’s a, there’s a line in, in your post you made on Instagram, you said, Hey, your biggest supporters are the people who are doing this
Brian Friend (22:31):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Sevan Matossian (22:32):
And so let’s not complicate things for them or let’s not frustrate them. They’re the biggest supporters, they’re the biggest boosters. They’re the ones who are trying the hardest, they’re the ones who’ve committed the largest portion of their life. They’re the ones making, they’re the most vocal about, um, about CrossFit. They’re the ones making the most posts. They’re the ones who have the most followers. So, so you, part of your thing is to accommodate them. Correct.
Brian Friend (22:56):
Yeah. And I, you know, and I have heard, uh, Justin Berg especially I think say that they’re, you know, the, the games team is making an initiative to reach out to different parts of the community to gather information and our con, you know, considering that in their decision making process for the, this year and for years to come. But when I see the way that they’re running these tests, that’s not what it looks like. You know, the way that they’re administering these competitions to me is showing, what I’ve always kind of felt was the case from HQ is that they’re, uh, have elite and, and, um, you know, integral knowledge of what they’re doing, but they’re not actually having a great sense of what’s going on in the global competitive CrossFit space. Uh, and I think that that was is also abundantly clear in the way that they’re distributing and administering the team competition this year.
Sevan Matossian (23:55):
Uhoh, uh, what, what do you mean by that? Do you have examples?
Brian Friend (24:00):
Yeah, I mean, you have there, you know, now this entire conversation’s gonna go back to the same kind of fork in the road conversation that we’ve always had is what is the point of the CrossFit teams? And if the point of the CrossFit teams is to find the single fittest man, woman and team or affiliate, then um, then the rest of the conversation is, is irrelevant. However, in my opinion, if you’re going to find the fittest person, you wanna see them do the best at the best test against the best field of athletes. Meaning that I don’t want the, you know, to say like, oh, well Savon, you, you, you’re the, you you won the competition this week and congratulations and I look around and your opponents were three six year old girls and you were, you won the basketball tournament. It’s like, here’s the best there.
(24:46):
Yeah. But he wasn’t going against anyone that was competitive, so who cares? I wanna see the best against the best. And I also wanna know how they all stack up against each other. That’s why I don’t like cuts. That’s why I don’t like changing scoring systems. Pick one, stick with a, give them 15 tests, let ’em take it, see where the chips fall. And then we’ll know this year with introduction of worldwide ranking and strength to field, CrossFit has made an effort to communicate that their intention is still to represent the global population at the games. And that they wanna have a field that’s at least somewhat reflective of the true competitive nature of competition. Like where the best people are distributed will get more spots so that at the games we have a higher level of competition across the board and they’ve done, and they’ve made an effort to do that on the individual division. I think that they’ve not done a great job in that regard and that there are better ways that they, that they could do that. And I think that, um, you know, as anyone who who know who’s been listening to me about this knows, I think that starting with a clean slate at the start of the year this year would’ve been a good, a good route for that. But what I really,
Sevan Matossian (25:50):
You’re talking about for the worldwide rankings in the strength of field.
Brian Friend (25:53):
Yeah. But what I really think would’ve been cool is to say, um, well let’s try that with the teams, because the teams change every year. So instead of just arbitrarily saying 10 spots here, 10 spots here, two spots there, without having any idea of who’s competing anywhere, because you don’t require them to necessarily sign up or commit to a team in the start of the season, why not let ’em go through two stages? You could still have however many qualifiers you want. I mean, obviously you’re not gonna take 30 teams from North America East, but Savon did you know that 17 of the top 30 teams in the world are from North America east right now and they only get 10 spots to the games.
(26:34):
So if you look, you know, so just like a very, very simple way to do it. You just do the teams. You have ’em do the open, you have ’em do the quarter finals. You look at top 100 teams worldwide after the quarter finals, you already know that no matter what, we’re given one to every continent. Even if Africa doesn’t have a team in the top 1000, they’re getting one. Which by the way, they do, they have a, a good team over there this year and they usually have one or two good teams, but everyone will get at least one. And then based on the top 100 after that, we’re gonna distribute. Um, maybe you, maybe you want to have a couple minimums fine, you know, but I, I don’t even think you need it. I think if you just distributed based on percentages, you’d get a better competition at the games for the team division this year. And you can use it as a case study to see if it might be something you wanna do with the individuals next year.
Sevan Matossian (27:19):
I’m not so lost. Just maybe ha half lost. Um, Brian, I want to go back. Uh, Brian’s just been shot out of a cannon. I’m not lost at all. Wait, uh, I I I’ve been, I’ve been watching, uh, some of these ideas percolate in his head. Um, he’s just not letting me interrupt. He’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s grabbed the, uh, I went to the bathroom and he grabbed the wagon and he’s running with running the horses. Brian, why do, um, why do the masters need, uh, quarterfinals and semi-finals? Why not just give and, and I’m, and I’m not, I’m not, I’m not, uh, voting for one or another, but it seems a little much, why not just go open whatever you want to call it, the, uh, semi-finals and then the games with these guys
Brian Friend (28:04):
Personally, I think that would make a lot of sense.
Sevan Matossian (28:06):
Um, you do, you do like that?
Brian Friend (28:09):
Yeah. If you were gonna have a live semi-final, maybe not, but having three online competitions, I don’t know. I think, and I, and I think that, you know, once again, in addition to, to maybe streamlining the qualifying process a little bit that you need to, uh, you need, this is another example of, of CrossFit just doing things. What, what appears to be arbitrarily without really giving much thought to it. And we, we showed a spreadsheet on here a, a month or so ago that it, you know, de depicted this really nicely, but just look at the men’s 35 to 39 division. Have you looked at that
Sevan Matossian (28:47):
Leaderboard? No. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. I got a whole list of of people by the way that I want to ask you about that I’m excited about. Good. How’s Camille Delan Basse doing this year?
Brian Friend (28:57):
Let’s go to the men’s division first.
Sevan Matossian (29:00):
<laugh>,
Brian Friend (29:01):
I just,
Sevan Matossian (29:01):
What is Sam dancer doing? Let me ask you this. Let’s just start here. Honest. I’m gonna give you, I I you have, you have, you have to go, you have to abstain from your favorite activity, whatever that is.
Brian Friend (29:18):
Disc golf
Sevan Matossian (29:19):
For a year. If you get this wrong.
Brian Friend (29:21):
No, I’m not playing
Sevan Matossian (29:22):
Thinks do I know, but just theoretically, theoretically. Do you think
Brian Friend (29:27):
Thrusters Okay, thrusters I’ll play.
Sevan Matossian (29:29):
Sam Dancer actually makes it, um, uh, finishes the game. Let’s say he ma I I don’t think Sam Dancer makes it past event one at the games. Even if he makes it <laugh>. I, I seriously don’t, I’m, I’m, I’m not even joking. I’m not trying to be mean. I just don’t, it’s like he’s like a, a school bus put together a big yellow old school bus put together with duct tape. It’s cool, but something’s gonna fall off.
Brian Friend (29:52):
And Big Berg did the big Bird, did the duct tape job.
Sevan Matossian (29:55):
I guess, tell me, do you think Sam Dancer actually makes it to the end of the season?
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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