Sevan Matossian (00:01):
Bam. We’re live. Dude, this is cool shit. What a nice surprise.
Brian Friend (00:10):
Yes, it was impromptu at the very least.
Sevan Matossian (00:14):
Where are you at?
Brian Friend (00:16):
Toku Finland.
Sevan Matossian (00:18):
Where?
Brian Friend (00:20):
Toku Finland.
Sevan Matossian (00:23):
Where in Finland? Is that, how far north is that? Is that close to Helsinki?
Brian Friend (00:27):
It’s two hours straight west of Helsinki. It’s on the ocean or the sea, I guess it’s the sea that’s up there.
Sevan Matossian (00:37):
And what are you doing out there? Did you even go home after the games or you went straight there?
Brian Friend (00:41):
I went home for four days or five days.
Sevan Matossian (00:45):
Okay, I see it.
Brian Friend (00:47):
Yeah, there it is. Right on the Baltic Sea.
Sevan Matossian (00:50):
It looks like it’s, so, it’s, what is it, second, third, biggest city in Finland.
Brian Friend (00:55):
It used to be the capital until 1812 when the Russians decided to move it to Helsinki.
Sevan Matossian (01:01):
No shit. That’s true.
Brian Friend (01:03):
I found that out today.
Sevan Matossian (01:05):
Someone told you, or you were doing a little wiki?
Brian Friend (01:08):
Someone told me, and then I asked someone else the trivia question, someone who was from Toku. I asked them if they knew what year that it no longer was the capitol and nobody knew. So we looked it up.
Sevan Matossian (01:19):
I remember when I visited Nico there, that’s when I noticed how close St. Petersburg was Russia. And I said, oh, you guys do a lot of vacationing over in Russia? And he looked at me like I was crazy. Like No.
Brian Friend (01:30):
Oh, Miko.
Sevan Matossian (01:31):
Yeah, Miko, Selo. So at that point I was like, okay, the Fins and the Russians, they don’t do much.
Brian Friend (01:38):
Well, if you zoom out a little bit, I mean, it’s a massive border between Finland and Russia. It goes all the way up north there. Norway sneaks across the top part, so Finland doesn’t go all the way up to the Norwegian Sea or the Bar Sea. But yeah, most of that border is with Russia. And they I’m sure have quite an extensive,
Sevan Matossian (01:59):
Hey, that’s crazy that Finland allowed. It’s crazy that Sweden didn’t get some of this. And it’s crazy that Finland allows this. Norway should just give that shit back to them.
Brian Friend (02:10):
I know they have a massive western coast in Finland and Sweden have none of it.
Sevan Matossian (02:14):
They probably allow them some pretty easy travel through here, I’m guessing.
Brian Friend (02:19):
I mean, from ream to Verba right there. It can’t be very far at all.
Sevan Matossian (02:25):
And dude, I bet you this is just desolate, huh? No one even lives up here.
Brian Friend (02:29):
Well, about that. I mean, first of all, there’s all those cities, but the northern part of Finland is called Lapland, and there’s athletes competing here that are from the northern part of Finland.
Sevan Matossian (02:41):
Oh, crazy. Is it just Finnish people at this comp?
Brian Friend (02:46):
There are three athletes who are not from Finland, one male from Estonia, one female from Germany. She was also at semifinals and one Israeli that was also semifinals. But in Asia on the women’s side.
Sevan Matossian (03:02):
So it’s not exclusive just to Finnish people.
Brian Friend (03:06):
Correct. And I think that they have ambitions of becoming a little bit more international as a competition, which is one of the reasons that they brought me over here.
Sevan Matossian (03:15):
Oh, meaning what? They kind of bring in some more high profile commentators and whatnot.
Brian Friend (03:22):
Just people from outside of Finland. And I was speaking with one of the organizers today, and they mentioned that they think I do kind of a good job of not just focusing on the really mainstream fleets or competitions, but to try to bring some attention to the more global or diverse community of CrossFit. And I’ve also been pretty open this year about the fact that I want to do that even more and more. And then Han knew who I think I’ve spoken to you about before. He’s started running competitions here in Finland as early as 2010. And although he’s not the organizer of this competition, he is working here and pretty much everyone who’s working here knows him or has worked with him in the past. And so he kind of vouched for me and said, lemme see if Brian would be willing to come over. And they seemed to be good about that.
Sevan Matossian (04:14):
And has the first day of competition occurred?
Brian Friend (04:17):
Yeah, so today was day number one for the elite division. And there’s only two days for the RX division. There are only elite and RX divisions here. They only had one event today. It’s actually pretty cool. It’s three day competition. They have three different sites over those three days that they’ll compete at. It’s programmed by yo Koski and has been for I think all five years it has existed.
Sevan Matossian (04:40):
So he’s there.
Brian Friend (04:41):
Yeah, he’s here. Yeah. And his girlfriend, Amelia, who’s a former games athlete, is competing in the women’s division. She’s probably the favorite to win it.
Sevan Matossian (04:50):
So he’s programming. Is Miko there by any chance?
Brian Friend (04:54):
I was told that he wasn’t here today, but I think he has a decent number of athletes that are competing in the RX division. So it seems likely that he’ll be around tomorrow or the next day.
Sevan Matossian (05:04):
And how many athletes in total?
Brian Friend (05:07):
I think the elite divisions have had 20 each male and female. And the RX visions I think have twice that many, maybe 40.
Sevan Matossian (05:16):
Wow. So 120 athletes. So it’s busy. It’s big.
Brian Friend (05:21):
This is the premier elite competition in Finland for the year, and it has been for the last five years. There was, as with most parts of the world, there was a little bit of a gap in terms of competitions being available, but prior to that was the Winter War was the primary one. That’s the one that Hannu ran. And now this one’s kind of taken up the mantle as being the top competition in Finland for Finnish athletes. But they’re starting, like I said, to try to reach outside. Last year, Adrian Moon Violet was the winner here.
Sevan Matossian (05:50):
Adrian Moon Violet is someone I would’ve never heard of if it wasn’t for you and people like that. It’s funny. I was going to a joke earlier about there’s people like Moon Vier, HEPA, linin, Mikel. He’s here. Who?
Brian Friend (06:03):
His girlfriend’s competing. Who? Hepa Linin. He’s not Compet, but his girlfriend is. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (06:09):
Wow. And he’s there after the games too. That’s crazy. I wouldn’t have heard of him. There’s all these people, the Sahara Kais of the world, the Ang, I mean, not that they’re Ty
Brian Friend (06:20):
Jenkins.
Sevan Matossian (06:22):
Who is that? Kake Veni. Who? Who’s who? I remember Jenkins. Jenkins, yes. Yes. Crazy. Hey dude, totally off subjects here. Well, let’s spend two minutes here. How about that kid’s comp the dudes? I didn’t watch any of the girls, but the dudes are savages.
Brian Friend (06:40):
The teenage boys at the games are, yeah, the 16, 17 year old division is always, I mean, they’re intimidating to me physically. Their physiques are crazy at 16 and 17 years old, and the 14 and 15 year olds are super talented. But yeah, by the time some of those guys are 16, 17, they’re massive.
Sevan Matossian (06:58):
And Ty talks,
Brian Friend (07:02):
He’s a pretty, he, I would say he is a very impressive young man. That’s
Sevan Matossian (07:05):
Crazy.
Brian Friend (07:07):
I won’t say too much about him. I know you got a lot of stuff on him that you’re going to share eventually.
Sevan Matossian (07:11):
Yeah. What Brian’s referring to is we were at the CrossFit games, and there were times when literally there were 15 or 20 times where Brian and I would just pass just very quickly, fist bump, hug, whatever, and he would be like, blah, blah, blah. And one of the blah blah blahs he gave me was this Ty Jenkins over there, four straight winds or something. And I just immediately, I think I was going into North Park, I flipped a U and I went straight to the ice bath where he was at or where he was sitting. And of course the story unfolded huge. He has a famous coach who was the fittest nurse in the world at one point, Jessica Griffith. It was great. And I ended up in the behind the scenes. You’ll see he’s one of the minor characters that throughout the weekend I talked to. And that was just from Brian being like, dude, that guy. And it was cool. Before we get back to Finland, do you think any of these boys are going to make the leap the way we saw Mal, Olivia, Kerstetter, Emma Lawson, Emma Carey Make the Leap. Is a boy ready to do that?
Brian Friend (08:10):
I’m so impressed with you. Were calling all four of those women.
Sevan Matossian (08:13):
It was close. I was thinking about maybe throwing one or two more in there. I was like, easy. Be happy with four heavy,
Brian Friend (08:21):
Not in one year. I still don’t think that there’s really much opportunity for a male who’s 17 or 18 years old to make it for two reasons. One is just the overall depth of field, and two is the just drill development pattern of men taking a little bit longer than women.
Sevan Matossian (08:40):
I see Somewhere I see Dick Butter’s. There he is. Dick Butter. Hi Brian. Did you see who happened to take 21st in Heat one? How did you do? What’s he referencing? Oh,
Brian Friend (08:53):
Hold on, hold on. I thought he was talking about a competition and he kind of was. He’s talking about this heat won, and I’m guessing that Dick Water might’ve gotten 21st. I don’t know. Either that or Trish.
Sevan Matossian (09:08):
Hey, for everyone who doesn’t know Heat won the shirt that Brian Friend was just holding up is the fantasy CrossFit fitness app developed by Tyler Watkins just unleashed this year. A bunch of us, Brian and a bunch of other people have gotten behind it quickly, skyrocketed over 3000 people playing the game. They had a hugely successful first run at the CrossFit games is what’s Heat One’s Next event?
Brian Friend (09:33):
I think I talked to Tyler about the chance of doing Madrid. I’m not sure what his decision was on that, but I think Ro and Waap plu are guarantees, and Madrid and Dubai are maybe’s.
Sevan Matossian (09:49):
You can go to the Apple store or to the Google store and download the app. It’s h e a t one. If you have any questions, I can’t promise that they’ll get back to you, but I think you know Brian’s Instagram and then the guy who developed the app, his name is Tyler Watkins, but it’s text T E X X s or something.
Brian Friend (10:10):
Yeah, maybe two X’s and two S’s. But you can also go to the Heat one app and I think they’ll probably respond there. The guy that he’s working with, Adam, he’s quite good and very on top of it.
Sevan Matossian (10:23):
How long are you in Finland?
Brian Friend (10:26):
One week. It was pretty late planning. The logistics were, we had to try to figure ’em out and it was $600 less to fly Tuesday to Tuesday than any other combination of days. So I asked if I could stay a couple extra days and they said yes. And so I’ll have two days on the backend, Sunday and Monday with no competition. And we’re going to go around and see some different parts of Finland, play some disc golf courses here.
Sevan Matossian (10:49):
Check out how there’s disc golf in Finland. Oh,
Brian Friend (10:52):
Played this morning. It’s on my Instagram.
Sevan Matossian (10:54):
And there were some great guys that we used to watch on the Disc golf show.
Brian Friend (10:58):
Yeah. Before cancel it and shattered my dreams.
Sevan Matossian (11:01):
I apologize. It took me a thousand times of trying to smoking before I quit smoking. Maybe we’ll just try again.
Brian Friend (11:09):
I’m going to the United States Disc Golf Championship with my brother this year.
Sevan Matossian (11:13):
Oh, when’s that?
Brian Friend (11:15):
It’s the weekend after I get back from being gone for seven straight weeks.
Sevan Matossian (11:19):
October 9th.
Brian Friend (11:21):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (11:22):
Crazy. Okay. The reason why I’m speaking extra fast is I know it’s very late there. I know at some point Brian’s going to turn into a pumpkin. I do want to talk more about Finland, but I want to get a little more perspective for people. So you’re in Finland, where do you go from there?
Brian Friend (11:38):
Utah, the Iron Games
Sevan Matossian (11:40):
To where, sorry? You broke up
Brian Friend (11:42):
Utah for the Iron Game,
Sevan Matossian (11:44):
Iron Games, is that a rogue thing?
Brian Friend (11:48):
No, the Iron Games existed before Rogue Invitational or the Iron Game as they called it. Rogue did. It’s a competition that’s run by two guys out in Utah. Both of the guys are actually friends with the Buttery Bros. I think one of ’em went to college and might’ve played with Marston, and one of ’em might’ve even grown up with he, those two guys in Tommy have competed there down Pepper and James have competed there. And they actually reached out to me and said that it’s a very well run competition. When they found out I was going and I had already heard that, that’s reasons that I’m going out there.
Sevan Matossian (12:22):
And then after Utah
Brian Friend (12:24):
Pit team throw down,
Sevan Matossian (12:26):
What state is that? In
Brian Friend (12:28):
Michigan.
Sevan Matossian (12:29):
Okay. And that’s a teen event?
Brian Friend (12:33):
Teenage.
Sevan Matossian (12:34):
Oh, teenage. Okay.
Brian Friend (12:36):
I’m excited for that. This year because of the collegiate division, they have introduced a division. It’s for 18 to 22 year olds. You don’t have to qualify for it, you can just sign up. And the idea behind it is that there’s not an organized space for people to compete as if it was a college sport or even a college club CrossFit club or whatever. But in most other disciplines there are. And as you mentioned on this show, it’s very difficult, especially for the men, but even for a lot of the women to actually make it in the elite division, no matter how good they were as teenagers when they’re 18, 19, 20 years old. And that’s basically true in every sport. For every LeBron James that can come out of high school and immediately you have an impact in the N B A. There’s a hundred guys that need one to four years of college to develop before they have a chance to have an N B A career.
(13:22):
And that’s, I think has shown to be true for CrossFit as well. But unlike any other sport or most other sports, there’s no developmental leaks. Once you graduate the teenage division, there’s nothing for those next four years if you can’t make it. And as we’ve seen over and over and over again with some of the best in the teenage world, it’s frustrating to try to stick with it for the entirety of that time until you make it. dLAN Pepper and Tudor, Magda are the youngest guys to do it at 20, and that’s just two guys.
Sevan Matossian (13:54):
How many participants will the teenage event have this pit teen event, and will any of the games athletes go or too soon they’re still
Brian Friend (14:02):
Recovering. I actually, I have the roster. I’m not sure how many. There’s quite a few. They have a JV division, which is for, it’s like first timers and there’s a decent amount of participation there. They have a varsity division and then they have this collegiate division. I know they capped the collegiate division I think at 20 each, but the other divisions are much bigger than that. There’s well over a hundred kids competing.
Sevan Matossian (14:22):
Okay, so the event’s popping.
Brian Friend (14:25):
Yeah. I mean they came onto the scene when Covid happened and the CrossFit games canceled all the divisions except for the elite individuals, which was basically out of necessity or I mean it was very logistically, it would’ve been very logistically challenging to do that. And these guys took, they’re like, you know what? We want to provide something for the kids. And they did that. Mallory O’Brien was the champion there in the women’s division that year. I can’t remember who won for the boys and they’ve it going since then. And I think that while there are other good competitions for teenagers, that these guys are the best in terms of their passion for delivering a great weekend for the kids, to the extent that they even have opportunities for both the kids and the parents of these kids. Because having kids, if you have someone who’s highly competitive in something, it’s a huge commitment for the parents too huge. And it can be really, really difficult to manage the emotional, physical toll that this sport in particular can take. So they have some workshops and they have some activities outside of the competition during that weekend that are meant to foster a community of peers, both parents and kids that can help weather some of those storms.
Sevan Matossian (15:37):
Megan East, just a small hello to say thanks for being great. Audrey. Who gives a fuck about CrossFit? We want Brian Friend part two. Fair enough. I hope we don’t mind. I paraphrase that Kenneth the lap, the Mormon network. It’s real. Exactly, exactly what I was thinking. Audrey, Heidi, I want to come on you. That’s weird. Okay.
Brian Friend (16:04):
I did a live show on Be Friendly last week and someone kicked. They blocked Audrey.
Sevan Matossian (16:09):
No shit. One of your wrenches did. She said, I love you.
Brian Friend (16:13):
I don’t have any wrenches. I don’t have any wrenches.
Sevan Matossian (16:15):
How can you block Audrey? She’s like the most loving giving person ever.
Brian Friend (16:20):
I think it was a genuine mistake. I think Chad Mueller did it on accident, but she does skirt the lines a little bit, so it just made it that much more fun. I
Sevan Matossian (16:27):
Had to wear a rain jacket around her. She kissed me so many times at the games.
Brian Friend (16:31):
Yeah, she assaulted me too.
Sevan Matossian (16:33):
Yeah, that’s awesome. Assault away. It was my favorite part of the games. Okay, so let’s go back. Finland, Utah pit team. What’s next? Pit team. Pit Team.
Brian Friend (16:46):
Spain. Madrid Championship.
Sevan Matossian (16:48):
That’s the big one. That’s the one. Sorry. Going back in. Have any of these three you’ve mentioned so far, h CrossFit, HQ sanction, or does CrossFit CrossFit even do that anymore?
Brian Friend (17:00):
It’s the competition is a CrossFit licensed event at the athlete briefing today, they actually were using specific rules for movement standards and the appeal process from the CrossFit games rule book. Okay. I believe the pit team throw on is I have a document that has all this information for my travel schedule, whatever, but I think Pits and Throwdown is, and I’m not sure, I don’t know about the other ones. I don’t want to say either
Sevan Matossian (17:27):
Way. Brian, you need to come on the show more. You’ve gotten soft, you used to be so ready for just the whole barrage of questions. I would ask you how many hairs are on your head? You knew every and now two have slipped through the cracks.
Brian Friend (17:40):
Two shit.
Sevan Matossian (17:41):
Only two. First live show I’ve caught in a while. Killing it fellas. Good to see Brian back here. Allegra R. Hi. Okay. Spain Madrid. That event has always flirted with making it into what we call sort of the, God, I don’t want to insult anyone. Let’s call it the top tier, meaning the CrossFit Games, rogue, waap, Palooza, and what’s the other one?
Brian Friend (18:10):
Dubai is usually
Sevan Matossian (18:11):
Dubai. Thank you. Spain has always kind of flirted with coming in there in there. Are they out? Where do they sit now?
Brian Friend (18:20):
So a few months ago I released something on my website called a competition framework where I kind of tiered events based on the athletes that participate there. So the thing about those events that you listed is that they have more than half of the field is games athletes. I would say that that’s what kind of qualifies it as separating from the rest of the competition. Madrid’s Elite division is a lot bigger in terms of the total number of participants in the elite men’s and women’s field than those other events. Last year I believe they had 80 something males in the elite division. And obviously those aren’t all games athletes, so I would say it’s lacking the number. It doesn’t have high quality games. Lazar Koski who are finishing top 10 at the games and turning around and competing there five or six weeks later, they have guys that didn’t make the games this year. Like Luka Jugo, Alex Ulis, they have sup next who’s in the top 20 of the games this year. So they have some high colorable athletes, but the field is diluted by the size. So it’s just, I would say it’s like the next step below.
Sevan Matossian (19:24):
Is that an article you were referencing or is it a dropdown tab or can I still find that? You
Brian Friend (19:30):
Probably have to search for it in the top right. I think. I don’t know
Sevan Matossian (19:33):
Where Find, Hey, that might be, has anyone ever ranked events?
Brian Friend (19:38):
Well, I tiered the events based on who they cater to. I didn’t rank them in terms of the quality though.
Sevan Matossian (19:49):
God, your website keeps growing and growing and growing. This is awesome. Well, you’re a busy man. Hey, what do you think about? Proven not did. Proven even make it to the podium.
Brian Friend (20:05):
Yeah, they were second.
Sevan Matossian (20:06):
What do think, how bad did Invictus whoop ’em by
Brian Friend (20:12):
The amount of running that was programmed at the games?
Sevan Matossian (20:14):
Oh, is that a jab?
Brian Friend (20:18):
There was a lot of running on the team side relative to the number of competitions and Invictus was much better, specifically the running portions of those tests than proven. And I think that and the biking test as well, and just the biking and running tests combined I think was basically the margin of difference that they won by.
Sevan Matossian (20:36):
Wow.
Brian Friend (20:38):
When it came to the CrossFit workouts that didn’t have those massive amount of structural components, it was pretty even or even proven might’ve been a little better.
Sevan Matossian (20:49):
Do you think that the wrong champion was chosen for teams? No. Okay. Are you disgusted with the team programming?
Brian Friend (21:00):
No.
Sevan Matossian (21:00):
No. Okay.
Brian Friend (21:02):
I didn’t dive into the team program at the games as much as I do the individuals, not my directive from the broadcast side of things, I look at it and I look over it and I did have a chance to watch some of it this year as it was happening. I thought there were some really cool elements that in some ways I feel like Adrian put more effort into the team side of things this season than the individual. I know that that’s not true, but if it kind of felt that way, they had some kind of cool, the four person seated row pulling the bob, I thought that was very cool. I thought the earthworm was a nice hybrid of the old wooden one and the new cloth one, but with the segmented pieces. So I thought there were some nice features of the team competition.
Sevan Matossian (21:47):
I really enjoyed the worm, just yanking people, members of the team, just straight to the ground, slamming them down. That shit was crazy.
Brian Friend (21:55):
You always do.
Sevan Matossian (21:56):
Yeah. And then I’m like, that’s wrong. They shouldn’t have that. But man did I really enjoy that. Okay. Finland, Utah, pit Teen, Spain, Madrid. So we were talking about how is Spain going to have high level athletes this year? Do we know yet?
Brian Friend (22:16):
Yeah, yeah. I mean I just listed off several on the male side, on the female side. I’ve heard some rumors of some that may join late, but as of now, I would say they actually just put their full rosters out on their Instagram today. And I think Jacqueline Dahlstrom, Annika Greer were towards the top of that list if I remember correctly. But I think that it’s one of those competitions, especially with its proximity to the games where if there are games athletes that are interested in going, they might hold some spots for them. I spoke to Henrik Capal today and he’s like, man, they were doing this pretty cool workout on a velodrome and he’s like, I kind of want to do the workup, but I also dunno how well recovered I am. So there it is. Yeah. So Greer Dahlstrom, compost, Helga Ada being the headliners. Obviously they’re the biggest text, but I think there may be a couple additions late. We’ll see.
Sevan Matossian (23:11):
Hannah Carlson, Andrea Solberg. Where did I
Brian Friend (23:17):
See?
Sevan Matossian (23:18):
Was Hannah Carlson at Zelos? No. Where was she?
Brian Friend (23:22):
Dubai.
Sevan Matossian (23:22):
Dubai, okay.
Brian Friend (23:24):
There’s a bunch of semifinal athletes here.
Sevan Matossian (23:27):
Oh shit. Travis Mayor’s getting back in the mix.
Brian Friend (23:31):
Yes. I spoke to him at the games and he had mentioned he was going to go to Madrid and that he’s obviously a lot of these athletes that didn’t make the games this year. Annika, Jacqueline, Travis, they were in Madison and it was interesting talking to them about how much they wanted to be out there, but also that they’d kind of just rationalize with themselves, okay, I’m not competing and I am going to be there and to try to make the most of the week anyway. And in part that was reinvigorating for them. So Travis I think has a pretty big fire lit.
Sevan Matossian (24:08):
They have Moon Adrian, moon Vier, and Essex in the wrong position. Shouldn’t Ess have his name large and Moon Vier be a little smaller?
Brian Friend (24:19):
Yeah, ESS should be on the top line in my opinion, unless it’s a character count thing. He was in the top 20 at the games, made the final cut, his four straight games appearances, and there’s several guys that are listed ahead of him on that lineup that don’t have as good credentials.
Sevan Matossian (24:34):
Maurice, Phoebe at the top of the comments, insane lineup. That was a cool dude. I really liked meeting him
Brian Friend (24:41):
At the game. Yeah, he’s easy to get along with.
Sevan Matossian (24:43):
Okay. After Spain, where does B friendly fitness go?
Brian Friend (24:48):
Sweden.
Sevan Matossian (24:49):
Sweden. What do you do there? Just vacation?
Brian Friend (24:54):
Nope. I’m going to spend two days in Stockholm with Mads Jacobson and visit some of the athletes that I know there in Stockholm. And then I’m going to go to the Homestead Throwdown, which is a community event. It’s not an elite competition that Roger Grios hosts. It’s one of the seven or eight events that he puts on annually and since I was going to be in Spain anyway, I asked him when all of his competitions were. There was one the next weekend, so I just decided to head up there to check it out. I’ll just help him out a little bit. Maybe I’ll do some Instagram stuff or whatever, but nothing formal. Then he invited me to stay and come to Oslo with him. After that, we’re going to go over to Oslo just to hang out for a few days before I head back to the States.
Sevan Matossian (25:35):
1, 2, 3, 4, 5. When you come back to the States, do you come home or do you go to another competition?
Brian Friend (25:41):
I’m going to Power Monkey Camp and after Power Monkey Camp I’ll go to the Master’s Fitness collective and then I will go home.
Sevan Matossian (25:52):
Masters Fitness Collective, is that the Premier Masters competition?
Brian Friend (25:58):
There are. That legends similar to the, I guess depends who you ask. I feel like both of those competitions also emerged at the same time as the pit team. Throwdown more or less as a opportunity for the masters divisions to compete in the year that they didn’t have the CrossFit games 2020. I think there’s a little bit of a rivalry between the two. I did something last year that it showed the athletes on the podium from the games, masters fitness and masters legends and there was some crossover in all regards. So some of the athletes do both. Some of ’em seem to be partial to one or the other. I think I go to Legend’s main event last year, but I went to one of their qualifying events that Chase Ingram was hosting down in Dallas. And from all the athletes that I’ve spoken to, I think that both organizing parties are pretty passionate about it and it’s mostly been a good experience. I think that the community of Masters athletes is generally grateful that they exist and that they may have created those opportunities for ’em.
Sevan Matossian (27:10):
There was a time, I want to say it was before the 2009 games where I drove back and forth across the country twice just visiting CrossFit games athletes and then I would go to Europe and I was basically the only person that I knew of anywhere in the world who was traveling to visit CrossFit athletes and to film with them. And I was always on the road. And you doing this, I think puts you in a league where you will begin to, if you don’t know more than anyone alive already, you’re going to know more than anyone alive very shortly actually. I think you’re going to be the first dude who has a legit PhD in fucking CrossFit game shit. This is going to take your game to a whole nother level. It’s kind of like you’re going to see nuances between the cultures and their movements and the gym and the people and their athletes and the physiques and you’re going to be taking in so many data points that you don’t even know you’re taking in. You know what I mean? Such from the nuances to the most gross and obvious superficial things. It’s going to be nuts, dude. You must be stoked. Are you stoked or is it a daunting task when you look at your schedule?
Brian Friend (28:26):
I’d say both. I think going back and forth across the Atlantic four times in seven weeks, that’s probably kind of daunting, but I’ve traveled a lot and this because traveled more than I have for sure. You just have to have the right mindset when you’re traveling, get to the airport early enough that you don’t miss your flight. Everything else is out of your control and as long as you just accept it. I mean, look
Sevan Matossian (28:53):
How early do you like to get there? How early? I like to get there two hours early if it says one hour.
Brian Friend (28:59):
Yeah, the first flight that I had from Charlotte to J F K was delayed 90 minutes, eight hours before the plane was even going to take off. And I’m about to embark on this seven week, 10 stop five country journey. And I’m like, and I have a connection in J F K to fly direct to Helsinki overnight. And I’m like, well, if I missed that flight, I don’t know what’s going to happen. And I could immediately start panicking. I could start making phone calls to airlines and whatever, but I can’t do any good show up to there. They know that your flight’s delayed
Sevan Matossian (29:28):
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The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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