Weekly Update - Quarter finals review/Qualification questions/Another new comp

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Europe is coming podcast. I'm joined by John Singleton as ever. My name's Adam Giles. And yeah, hi John, how are you? I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

I'm good. It's uh good to be back. We had Chris on last week for a programming update. How did that go? It was good. I think it's very informative, especially for users. Like it's nice to go through. We because we've been doing the podcast on YouTube. We also then decided to take this, like kind of copy this format on and over. So it you know, for people who are following the program, it's it's just you useful to know a bit of the why behind and some of the structure that we're following.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah, epic. And what's been going on? Um, I I for listeners, I've been I've been away for a weekend, hence uh me not being around, but um, what's been going on in the last last few weeks since our last record?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

There's been a lot of crossfits from from our side. We had uh well the first last weekend we had the Norwegian youth team, so it's from International Functional Fitness. They came over to uh to Mjorca, 10 athletes under 21. That was a really good group and a really good incentive. I put a some a story out about it, but I'm gonna yeah, it's something to talk about actually, maybe. And then we uh we had quarterfinals this weekend.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yeah, I've been catching up on all the quarterfinal stuff since coming back. Seems like there is a bit of chat about that. So do you want to start with quarterfinals and and and kind of wrap up the open go talk about the quarterfinals?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I think it's I think it's a good place to start with the the programming.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah, perfect. So I've actually I've pulled up the pro programming up, so I'll put that on screen for those again who check out our videos. We are live on YouTube, just as a little reminder. So if you do fancy coming on joining us live and adding comments, you can do so 6 p.m. UK time, GMT, uh, or 7 p.m. Spanish time. So so we're on live now, but if you are listening to us on the audio as ever, welcome. You just won't be able to see what we're sharing, and I'll try and read it out as best I can without tripping over my words. So let me share this on the screen. So, quarterfinals 2026, workout one. Before we go into the workouts, what did you think of them as a whole, John? Did you have any thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yes. Um, I we've been speaking about a bit the tendency of CrossFit to go kind of heavier or more complex for a few times. And and the trouble is when CrossFit tend to do it, other people in the ecosystem tend to do it. So that means you know, even even local competitions kind of search to go heavier or complex gymnastics, whatever it may be. And there's really something I I've always enjoyed the old school CrossFit where actually rep speed matter, just pure conditioning, you know, you don't have to be ridiculously strong, or you don't have to be able to string together, you know, or be able to do this kind of weird stuff upside down, whatever it may be, just kind of classic CrossFit workouts. And I think big picture, these really achieve that. They just you know, it's basically kind of rep speed, how quickly you can move, and and I think that's been a bit forgotten. Um, it's been it's just been associated with the open, and I hope that this trend uh would actually continue more into the games as well. Okay, you know, we can talk about some things like you know, is it very similar to open? Yeah, okay. And there's another big factor in this that it doesn't necessarily uh mean that much in terms of 2,000 people go through to the next stage. Okay, there's some competitions like Turian and French are using like specific parts of the leaderboard and various things, but like big picture you know, when 2,000 people qualified to the next stage, it's also not as relevant.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

I think that's a good point. My initial thought when I looked at this, I was like, oh, these look really fun, these workouts. There's four workouts, but I tell you what, my immediate thought was this looks like an open. This looks like like we've done the the open was actually like the pre-open, and this is the real open. These are like four really cool open workouts, and yeah, I was kind of a bit like what's uh to your point as well. If only 2,000 are going through, and then there's also an article to say that which we I'm sure we'll touch on on barbell spin about how some of the semi-finals aren't going to use quarterfinals for qualifying. Yeah, I think the relevancy is a really a really valid point to bring up and and and what kind of what what are these for? And I've seen some people in the community some plugs into kind of getting excited about doing them, but it kind of feels like the more advanced people in the gyms at for open.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, I I also I I would like to see open workouts at games level because I think it's really interesting, and I think it's actually sometimes more impressive when you you know when you see like Colton go through this like like this workout in particular, like how quickly he can do the burpees, how quick his overhead squats are. So, it in general, I have to say that I think it's good that there's not necessarily a big heavy lift, it's good that there's not like some gymnastic factor that's gonna create a bottleneck where if you can do it or can't do it, you get through. Because I think you're just testing ultimately, you're testing like what CrossFit got known for. I mean, this is really where I started CrossFit. Okay, no, even back then the weights were the weights were lighter uh lighter steel, but it's old school CrossFit, and you know, I'm all for this being in later start stages of competition and not just associated with the open.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah, agreed. So for those again, audio, if if you're with us on video, you'll you'll see what we're looking at. But I'll just read out workout one. It's four time, you've got 10 50-foot shuttle runs, then 20 overhead squats, then 30 burpees over the bar, then you risk rest a minute, then another 30 burpees over the bar, 20 overhead squats, and then finishing with 10 50-foot shuttle runs. It's a 12-minute time cap, and it's 80 pounds or 36 kilos for the ladies on the barbell, or 150 pounds, otherwise known as 52 kilos for the gents. So, as you mentioned, not super heavy. I mean, not light, like that they're gonna sting, especially after all the hip hinging we did in the open. Hope everyone's hips have recovered, low and lower backs have recovered from that, because we've got quite a lot, quite a lot going on here as well, some more burpees. But it is uh it is kind of I imagine for like the the the elite people, this is gonna be a full-on sprint.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Yeah, like the movement speed, there's no like just as we're talking about, there's no real point in this where it's like, okay, uh, you know, you're gonna have to break or you have to think about things, it's just moving quickly. I mean, we did this with the athletes on uh Friday, and you know, the the biggest feedback is that the the legs get really pumped on that second set set of uh shuttle runs. And and you know, 40 overhead squats at 52, 36 kilos, that's you know, it's it's still heavy. It would exclude anyone who's just well conditioned.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Yeah, it's that annoying, it's that annoying volume and weight where it's durable, but it the last the last few reps really start to like you get some wobble going on and stuff like that, unless you've got really strong overhead overhead stability.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

And we'll see athletes you know who haven't classically done well in the in the CrossFit ecosystem because they haven't they've been cut off. Like we know in CrossFit right now, if you're not strong enough, you are just punished. You know, you can't lift a certain weight, it's just like you shouldn't even enter into the ecosystem, really, a competitive level, because it for whatever reason strength was just so popular for a period and it really developed really fast. But we'll see like different athletes on the leaderboard do really well at this stuff who we haven't seen before just because they're not limited by the weights now.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

For sure. So that's workout one. Looks good. Sprint, I'm sure it's uh I'm sure it's gassy. Number two, workout number two. I'll be honest, this is my favorite out of the lot of them. I quite like anything with uh anything with like a dumbbell or barbell and some some muscle muscle ups in there as well. So this is four time, and you can complete this anyhow you like. So I love these types of workouts, choose your own adventures. I don't know if it's because I was a nerd when I was a kid and like did those Dyson book games, but I like a choose your own adventure. So it's 80 dumbbell hang squat cleans and then 40 bar muscle ups. Okay, and the time cap is 15 minutes. It's a 35 pound or 15 kilo dumbbell for ladies, which is which is pretty standard stuff, and then a 50 pound or 22 and a half kilo dumbbell for the gents, and the I think the kind of slight rogue factor here is the fact that we've got hang squat cleans. Don't always see a hang squat clean for a dumbbell, it's often often a power clean jerk or something like that, or or we start to see these maybe a bit more in snatches. I I haven't seen a hang squat clean with a dumbbell for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah, it's it's true. And as you say, I like I know I I think it's quite interesting. This it allows people to strategize and think a bit more, and ultimately the outcome ends up being the same no matter which road you uh you take.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Uh like for me, I would probably do this in like break them into sets, like of 2010, just because that way I can kind of flush a little bit and not if I did bigger sets, I reckon I'd probably blow up a bit more, but that's just me personally. But I I I'd I'm I'd love to see some p some of the games' athletes just trying to go unbroken on those bar muscle-ups at the end as a big set.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, you the the tricky thing in this workout for that level is that the bar muscle ups just became irrelevant. It like all was about the hang squat cleans, because for those guys, you know, fresh a lot of them can just do 40 bar muscle-ups unbroken. It's not it wouldn't be that surprising for an athlete to do that at that level, and so it just became about the volume of dumbbell and dumbbell hang squat cleans, and they became tricky, like the people had to go into small sets and it it's a lot of reps, a lot of grip. It's you know, it's just one of those raw movements where you just you're kind of still holding on. It's there's less technique than a barbell in the sense you've got to really grip onto the dumbbells and kind of throw them in position. And I think this is an you know, if we if we kind of nitpick on the workouts, I think this would be an interesting one if you change the bar muscle-ups to ring muscle-ups, because then the importance of the ring muscle-ups would have been been more significant. Whereas now it's like, okay, they use them in some ways as a bit of a break for the dividing up the dumbbell hang squat cleans. But but yes, I I think it was actually is it you know, it's a savage workout. Like doing 80 dumbbell hang squat cleans that's 22.5. It's just uh it's tough. And I think we'll see some quick times coming up through here. It's a bit we uh I think the leaderboard gets finalized in a couple of hours or so. Okay. So it'd be interesting to see the times that come in.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Definitely. Excuse me. One of the things I was I was also thinking with this is I'm I'm really gonna be really intrigued to see how this the standards of the dumbbell hang squat cleans, whether they stay kind of uh in a good position with the speed and the volume of these, because it's a movement that can get a bit squirrely, and I think we'll see some people trying to go fast when maybe we get a few few sneaky no reps kind of creeping in.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

And there's been it's like an interesting one this year where like there wasn't like a it was a strange terminology, but it was like a video wasn't required, but we might ask you to show a video, and and you know, there's like we're announcing the workouts now, but just don't do them now. You know, it's like a weird, it's it's a weird set of rules around the filming and stuff. And actually, one thing I would add on to that, I think it was so good that the floor plans were super simple. It just makes life for this for people setting it up so much easier than having to like measure ropes and do this distance from the rower, this distance to the rope, this distance to the bar, and uh it creates a lot of a lot of filming headaches basically. So I that's another thing, general thing I'd say that the setup was a really nice.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah, yeah, I think it's it's always tricky with with those sorts of things. You don't if you've done a few qualifiers, you've done a few quarterfinals, you'll know the pain of kind of recording everything and then just forgetting to show one bit or or like you haven't measured something on camera, and yeah, it can it when it's easy, it's it's better. But yeah, as you mentioned, this is the one thing I had heard over the last week was the whole video review system, and it sounds like unless you're basically going to be winning money for winning one of the workouts, you don't really need to submit a video, but you could get called to if they question your time, which is very ambiguous. And I think there's been a lot of people that have been frustrated by that. My immediate thought was I feel like the quarterfinals stage, because of the way that people are qualifying to the games and because of how many go through in this stage, and like you said, the relevancy. I feel like the quarterfinals is now more for the people in the box who are competitive but aren't going to get to the latter stages. It's a chance for them to see how they rank against their friends or against people in other gyms. And now you don't have to submit a video. There's going to be a lot of people calling other people out for legitimacy of score, and I think that's a problem. I I kind of think that maybe CrossFit's doing this because of the the the personnel power it takes to check and review all these things and completely understand that, especially when they've had such challenges with resources in the last few years. But I don't know, I think there could be a lot of uh a lot of bad vibes around uh around scores coming out.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Yeah, I also think it just reflects that it's not a great system because you go, okay, well, we're gonna we're we're gonna qualify 2,000 athletes through to the next stage, but you know, we're not really gonna verify if anyone puts their score in, you know. Okay, we may randomly ask the 1500 athlete to to submit. But if you're making semi-finals into like a prestigious thing to go to, well then there should be like some at least some quality control. Yeah, like you know, okay. We just if you want to give a good time, give a good time, and okay, the chances are your video is not going to get submitted, so you'll be a CrossFit semi-final athlete. Which obviously is not I don't think the intended idea of that.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

No, it is uh yeah, it's a bit it's a bit strange, I think. I don't know, we'll see we'll see what the knock-on is, but it that CrossFit have been criticized in the past for doing these stages as ways to make money, and perhaps that is what they're doing, and it's understandable, but at the same time, it's not I don't know, I think it can cause some real bad feels, and uh I feel like we don't really need that at the moment in the space around CrossFit. Anyway, workout three. Workout three. Uh, I'm a big fan of this one as well. I quite like uh anyone who knows me knows I like double unders and deadlifts. So, and and this was kind of one of the things that we talked about with one of the I think it was the third open workout about how it was just two rounds, and actually maybe they could have done something clever with ascending, uh uh descending reps and ascending weight or something, which they've done here, which I quite like this. You got the first one is three rounds of 50 double unders and 10 deadlifts at weight one, which is the lightest weight, then two rounds of 50 double unders and 10 deadlifts at weight two, and then one round of 50 double unders and 10 deadlifts at weight three, and the and that's got a 12-minute time cap. So this is punchy, and then the weights for the ladies are 155, 185, 225, which translate to 70, 83, and 102 kilograms, and then for the gents, it's 225, 275, 315 pounds. And for us Europeans, that is 102, 125, and 143 kilos, so not super heavy, but punchy enough that you'll feel it.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Yeah, well, deal with say CrossFit like have been super weird with their time caps. Like, you know, you've got the open, yeah. You get the open where it's like, okay, only only a few in the the best of the world could be. You've got 30 seconds, go. Yeah. But then here, like the best in the world, we've already known a score like Tudor Magda going sub four minutes, which is you know, it's pretty insane. But you know, you've got then got eight minutes, so it's like there's weird some some workouts they program, so like basically no one has a chance of finishing. Then you've got other workouts where you know, even everyone's gonna have enough time to finish his level. So it's like I don't know how they're you know, presumably not, just randomly making up there's no standardization, so time cap. It's like okay, okay, we don't want people to finish. Okay, fine.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Maybe they're maybe don't maybe Dave's gone back to the hopper. He's literally just pulling out a book with a piece of paper in it for like each component.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Yeah, yeah. But uh again, I really like this workout. I you know, as a bias, I also really enjoy uh doublings and deadlifts, just as long as I don't have to squat. So and you know, Tudor Magda going through at four minutes, and I think this is where again it is it is outrageous, and I think this is where like the old school CrossFit in elite competition is really good to see because it's something that I'm gonna put it out there, like you know, 143 kilos and 102 deadlift, 102 kilo, they're not light, you know. You've got to have done strength training, you've got to you've gone through some years of that development, so it's not like anything, something anyone can do, but as you said, it's it's not a completely unachievable weight for people, and then to see someone go through in in sub-four minutes of this amount of work is so impressive, and I think it's an aspect of CrossFit that should be celebrated more. You know, people talk the classic common uh phrase from CrossFit was like do the commonly uncommonly well. That was something that people spoke about a lot, and this you could argue is more common than snatching 130 kilos and doing some pirouettes on your hands.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah, agreed.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Uh, but yeah, so I I don't know what the quickest times I like sub four minutes. I think it's gonna be hard to beat Judah Magda on this. Yeah, that is rapid. Nur Olsen came into my mind because he's he's amazing at both of these movements as well. Like his doubles are just insanely fast, and and obviously the won't weight won't affect him too much.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Yeah, fun workout. I reckon it's gonna be a fun one to watch some of the videos if people submit them. They don't have to, but hopefully they do because uh I want to see that sub four minute from Tudor Magda. And then last workout, workout four, is another for time. Got a thousand meter row, 30 clean and jerks, a thousand meter row, and then 30 strict handstand push-ups with a time cap of 20 minutes. It's 43 kilos or 95 pounds for the ladies, and 61 kilos or 135 pounds for the men. So basically, Grace with some rowing and handstand push-ups chucked in.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah, yeah, and you know, and a very generous time cap as we just uh spoke about. Yeah. And I think one thing that's interesting about this, you know, none of the workouts are particularly this is going to be the longest workouts, and you know, around 10 minutes. So the longest workout for the guys is or the guys and girls doing courtfinals is basically 10 minutes. You so you don't have anything long, you don't have anything like noticeably short, you don't have anything noticeably heavy, you don't have anything noticeably complex, you have what is classic CrossFit, and I think that's why it's uh it's good that there's certain things change. Like, for example, in this workout, uh ultimately the one thing that matters was the the 30 strict handstand push-ups because no matter the split that you can gain on the row, the speed of which you can move the cleaner jerks and the thousand meter row, just in the nature of handstand push-ups, if you can go unbroken, and and I think the reason I'd argue that handstand push-ups, especially strict, are not a great movement in competition, is because it's it's really determined by your morphology. Like if you've got just long arms or short arms, like look at Colton doing strict handstand push-ups. I mean, I think it's actually um like quicker of him to do strict handstand push-ups than it is normal push-ups, and you know, he's he's obviously an outlier in that, but there's you just put the games field across, watch 40 athletes do, and the amount of distance that some people have to travel is just way more than than other people, and so it's it's maybe not the the greatest movement for what they want to test.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Yeah, definitely. It's the it's it's something I've always had a bit of a struggle with because I've got very long forearms, so very good at deadlifting, hence deadlifting double unders being being a fan of very bad at handstand push ups. I don't know if you remember the standard where we had to put our fist against the wall and measure to our elbow and then add that on top of our head. I can actually clear the line. I was I was in the same boat as some of the other athletes that we. kind of talking about that publicly and I had to do all kinds of weird stuff to get my heels over the line. So I was like, oh this yes, I am really at a disadvantage. I mean that was the good thing about that standard. It really showed who who had the advantage and who didn't when it came to handstand push-ups.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Um and I think this was you know this is the interesting thing. The the rest of the stuff obviously it mattered somewhat but ultimately if you can hit 30 strict handstand push-ups unbroken with no trouble, you're going to do well in this workout. The one thing the guys did note is that the the clean and jerks got a bit heavier than Dan expected. You know they thought that that row took it out of them a bit more than they thought. Yeah you probably row a bit quicker than you want and and so the the accumulated fatigue of both of those but you know the best even still like even if you gained like 20 seconds 30 seconds like 30 seconds gaining on that for that level of athlete would be a lot in a row and clean and jerks like cleaning jerks it's all won or lost on the strict handstand push-ups.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Yeah. So those are the four workouts and I think they look great. I think look great. Personally I know this is a personal thing I think they probably should have been the open charge a bit more for the open do this get rid of quarterfinals would be my would be my uh my suggestion but I think otherwise the workout's literally great and looking forward to talking to people who have been hitting them this week and see what what they've been saying.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

If we pull up the leaderboard let's let's have a look at that we've got is it is there a leaderboard yet hang on let me see if we can find it leaderboard yeah here we go oh there's nothing in at the moment scores wise I don't think no they're still you know it's maybe a good way of doing it when I actually think this would maybe be interesting for the open as well but everyone submits their score and then it just gets released at a certain time. Okay I think it's not the worst.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

Yeah we'll have to come back to to that next week and have a bit of a bit of review of the leaderboard see who does what and and and look at some of the outrageous scores from people like Trude Magda I've got the open leaderboard up as well was there anything I know we kind of went on last week and we we we pretty the week before we pretty much looked at this but the leaderboard wasn't finalized.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Was there anything that stood out to you looking at the leaderboards that you wanted to highlight that we maybe haven't mentioned before we did talk about Miriam von Roy you actually text me like a few days after we recorded saying that she was playing a playing some games kind of putting in psychological warfare yeah on her 26.3 score being around I think it was around 17 minutes or something and then she's she updated to having this uh having this time that came in second I was surprised it was second though I thought it would have been first so I'm not sure who beat her let me see if I can find that quickly so this time from a Greek athl athlete and I'm sorry I'm uh gonna really butcher that name Aphroditi with a with a 1326 just beating Miriam by uh by nine seconds phenomenal time yeah it's always interesting how the top times you know separate so much when you go from first first to second to third you know there's big gaps like relatively big gaps you know because nine seconds and you've got a huge research of 26 seconds then all of a sudden as you then go after like top three then it already bunches together it's just you get these outliers who are just for some reason better than everyone else and it by a significant margin.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah it is always kind of funny to see when you get someone who's just really good at this one or two movements and absolutely smash a workout and create these kind of little little uh score anomalies but it means that Lucy Campbell wins the open which uh I saw that from her What a Palooza that she almost pulled out of Whatapalooza because she was she had a slight injury going into that so to win the open with a slight injury is really impressive as well.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Yeah I mean it was a great weekend for her going Whatapalooza victory and an open win victory I mean it's it gives her a lot of momentum for the season.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Yeah and some funds as well to fund the season which I know is uh is helpful when you're kind of trying to get to the games and book hotels and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

So the funds are always helpful. Yeah absolutely so congratulations to Lucy Campbell and then on the men's side let me pull that up is there anything that stood out on the men's side of the house Colton who uh who got quite a lot of air time in our on our previous episodes taking the win just being super consistent across all three weeks maybe maybe I'm not like super shocked leaderboard like Yonni for example you know he's up there but he's won open and quarterfinals in previous years we have a I think program athlete mentioned Nico who's who's on the leaderboard as well he managed to hold fifth which is very good. Yeah shout out to Nico I got his name right this week yeah and I think one thing that's interesting is that because of the style of programming and I think we'll see this in quarters as well that European guys will do better. And as soon as it gets heavier I think that that leaderboard would change quite significantly and we just see US flags. Do you think I that's what I was kind of thinking because usually quarterfinals is heavier so I I won we wondered if we'd see that but because quarterfinals and open have reflected each other I think we'll see a similar leaderboard. Similar leaderboard but as soon as things get heavy I think that's that leaderboard just it it becomes US flags start seeing like the Dallum Peppers and the Jason hoppers towards the top end of this yeah and then you get like you know a Krenikov or a Garard in there who who in some ways like the the outliers but European guys unfortunately are just they're not at the same level especially when you start going the heavier style of CrossFit.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Yeah well super cool to see uh Jonikowski up there and Harry Lightfoot kind of in seventh and then Nico as you mentioned so good to see some uh of the European athletes doing doing well in this um and yeah looking forward to seeing the quarterfinals leaderboard so one of the other news stories I saw and I just kind of wanted to get your take on this was that let me switch over to this uh Artko and Barbell spent only four of the 10 semi-finals will use CrossFit quarterfinals as a qualifier would what did you make of this? Oh I just think the season's messy you know it's okay well some people use it some people don't it it's really hard to understand I you know it's hard to find people who are more invested in the sport and you you know it's just confusing it's just confusing it is quite a confusing season I'm even like I read it and then I'm like okay I've got it and then I talk to someone and they're like so what's happening and I'm kind of like stumbling for it like trying to explain what's going on and then I'm like well this is how actually is that happening have I got that right so the four I'll just read out the four so threat French throwdown the top 19 men and women on the European leader this is and this is 19s are very funny because of all the Roman Krenikoff drama like you know it's funny they had to put a 19 now yeah so again we mentioned this in a previous episode that Roman Krenikoff got a got a special invite to French throwdown which caused a bit bit of uh a kafuffle online and uh yeah now instead of 20 they're inviting 19 results so 19 of the top men and women on the European leaderboard in quarterfinals will refine invite to compete at the French throwdown backfill invites from the European leaderboard until all 19 spots have been filled so essentially if one of those 19 can't make it backfill to the next person in the on the leaderboard. Legends championships the top 10 men and women from the worldwide quarterfinals leaderboard be invited to compete at the Legends Championship so no consistency again so it's not like the four are going to be the same consistency. So we've got 19 spots then 10 spots then syndicate are going to go top 20 so the top 20 athletes from 2025 CrossFit games received special invites the rest of field review term based on the performance in quarterfinals. So it sounds like there'll be 20 from last year's games that will get invited and then 20 from the leaderboard but again if people don't accept either one so if someone from the 2025 games is going somewhere else already qualified then there'll be backfill so I think it's gonna be well actually I'll I'll explain Torian and then we'll have a bit more of a chat about it but Tori and Pro athletes looking to qualify for Torian Pro must do the quarterfinals workouts and submit their scores on the CrossFit games leaderboard. Athletes must also register for the Torian Pro qualifier on competition corner and enter the same quarterfinals workout scores the top 30 men and 30 women will be invited to compete in the Torian Pro plus an additional two discretionary invokes per division may be awarded so all of these competitions are kind of doing their own things but trying to include the cross of games what I was going to say is that the challenge with this is no one's gonna know what's going on for probably a few weeks because there's going to be athletes trying to pick their favorite comp or if they qualify directly through quarterfinals or whatever it is there's gonna be lots of people going all over the place then we've got obviously semifinals online semi-finals I feel like it's gonna be two weeks of just who's going where and loads of backfills.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Yeah I mean no one's really unfortunately going to follow like I think there's a there's a simple rule you know of having an elevator pitch to be able to explain something and ultimately the CrossFit season should by now be an elevator pitch. You know you do this you do this you do this you go there. Simple. But it just changes all the time and so it's really hard for a fan base to keep up and when a fan base can't keep up they're like well if they don't understand something that they're less likely to follow it.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

And you know it's just I I think an interesting statistic to to check is how far down these backfills have to go to find someone who will accept the spot because I actually think like you know Syndicate legends maybe even French maybe French because of the European specificity of it they end up with with more with more but I think they might have to start going down very far to get athletes who accept these competitions which I think is another interesting sign of the of the space like I think these things should have a certain prestige like back in the day people would do anything to get to a regionals whereas now you're just like backfilling down to a hundred and something just to fill spots yeah and one of the things I heard on another podcast was and I think we got a bit of this last year where people were getting to these levels and then not being able to do some of the movements or some of the workouts because they didn't quite have the strength capacity or skill to be able to perform some of them under fatigue because you're backfilling so far in the end. And it does feel just really messy like the old we've had so many versions of this system I'm not really sure which one I liked the most of I think there was back in the day I quite liked the old regional and sanctional model but then also there were some quite good ones where we had um the separate competitions and you could kind of go anywhere but now we seem to have like this weird amalgamation of the two which doesn't seem to seem to be my least favorite it seems to be the messiest and the hardest to follow and especially with media being again quite fragmented there's no clean kind of like documentation of you know we used to have the the CrossFit put out the weekly update show with with with all the guys at the desk and you they were kind of like show you people's videos and talk about athletes and then tell you who's going through and basically just tell you everything that's going on and then without that it feels all over the place and you you come to different podcasts to try and get a sense of what's going on and it's quite hard to follow. You also think there's something about name recognition of back in the day you you would know all 30 40 European regional athletes and and I I think that's actually a good thing at a certain stage for a sport because it allows consistency it allows a fan base etc etc you know okay obviously you've got new people coming in and surprises happening but the majority you know and now you're like it's just really hard to keep up because and it's honestly got it's got so much easier to be a semi-final athlete than it was because of the format that they're doing that you're having to backfill so far it also takes some of that the the special nature away from it as well very much so it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out I mean perhaps perhaps it does kind of shake out well and and and everything's easy to follow and it's just kind of a bit weird now because we've not done this in this way before but it does feel a bit fragmented and messy and I'm not sure so we'll we'll see how we go.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

One other thing that caught my eye this week or is it sorry John was there anything else you wanted to discuss on this before I move us on to the next thing no I don't think so I mean I think it's it's a pretty good summary that we don't really know like you know us how it's also like trying to remember how you qualified for all these competitions is is is tricky. I mean also to give you a specific example like we obviously are programming Mad Fitness Festival this year. Then a lot of people I know I I I said they shouldn't do this but they decided to close the registration as the workouts release. So basically on like when workouts release they close registration instead of closing registration once you've the submission window has closed and that caused like low we we've been getting loads of messages from athletes saying I want to submit my score but they couldn't because of this discrepancy. And I think this is where you know of this this is where every even event organizers get affected of their own competition because there's no consistency in the season so it's just really hard for in even invested people to understand. And uh how is uh how's the Mad Fitness festival coming along how's the programming coming along a good I mean to give some behind the scenes stuff so everyone had to submit their workouts to CrossFit for review so our workouts and and that deadline was March. So in theory every competition around the around the world who's doing semi-finals have submitted workouts already to to CrossFit.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Do you know when you hear back from them have you got have they given you a time scale or is it TBC?

SPEAKER_01 36:31

T BC see what's what happens there we'll see I mean because of that we've we've making decision to release workouts early because it it you know it's a big thing for us. We took it as like a big privilege to be able to program a semifinal workout to be able to take people through through to games and you know one thing that's really annoyed us over all the years is things being leaked. It's just sad to see and obviously we're not in control of the the full process like we have to submit it to different teams etc but I think one thing we're trying to do to mitigate it is release workouts early so at least it takes away some of the advantage because it's different knowing say a month before than it is knowing two days before because if someone's been able to practice a movement or a workout they've got a huge advantage compared to the field.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Absolutely absolutely I think there'll be a load of athletes that are really pleased and excited to hear that and perhaps we can do a bit of a preview episode soon once uh once they're released as well I'm looking forward to it. Excited to see the workouts nice so one other thing that caught my eye that I thought it would be cool to talk about this week is Fit Stop. There's a there's a it's a functional fitness franchise that originated in Australia and it's been going since 2017 and it's expanded to like 170 locations through Australia New Zealand and US but now it's launching global games which is a new worldwide competition based on its training methodology. So we've got another new competition we mentioned Xenon which we will do a bit more of a deeper dive in in the coming weeks but it seems like I we're hearing about a new competition every every week at the moment that they're popping up all over the place. So what it is is a it's a pairs competition so it's same sex and mixed pairs where teams take on four workouts ranging from strength based endurance based and mixed modality so we've sort of seen some of this stuff before with with other other um comps but it's just a a slightly different twist on that I'll quickly read through the events and then John will obviously get your take on on on this so there are here are the workouts comp competitors will compete in four events over a course of a 74 minute window okay the first workout is perform which is a 14 minute AMRAP. It's you go I go 15 calorie C2 bike 10 American carbon swings 24 and 16 kg and then 10 box jumpovers at 24 inch and 20 inch we have lift which is there's a part A and part B. Part A is a zero to seven minutes to complete a three rep max shoulder to overhead and then lift B is seven to 14 minutes for a three rep max front squat that's my favorite bit so far. So I quite like squatting and then we have condition which is a four time 120 meter run 225 and 175 meter ski erg so slightly different meterage dependent on men or women or mixed team 120 meter run then it's 450 350 meter ski erg 120 meter run then 67525 meter ski erg and then 120 meter run 225 175 meter row and 120 meter run and then 450 350 meter row and then 120 meter run and then 675 525 meter row that's a 14 minute time cap. And then the last one which is sweat which is a 40 meter dumbbell dual dumbbell walking lunge spicy 22 and a half and 15 kilo dumbbells 20 synchro alternating dumbbell snatch same weight 20 synchro line facing burpees 40 meter single dumbbell walking lunge same dumbbell weight 20 synchro alternating dumbbell snatch same dumbbell weight 15 synchro line facing burpees then a 40 meter synchro single dumbbell walking lunge again the same weight and then a 20 synchro alternating dumbbell snatch with the same dumbbell you guessed it and then to finish 10 synchro line facing burpees at 14 minutes and that is it so the fit stop global games will feature three competitions beginning on April 18th 2026 Singapore dates future competent competitions in Los Angeles and Brisbane will be announced soon so nothing in Europe sorry team yeah I mean another one I well I'm gonna just go jump to specific first of all on on the workout three what type of running machine are they using I don't know it does they're doing presumably it's gonna be uh on a machine and this is one thing I would say to Hyrux is that the fact they did the running not on machines is like just way better because I I can pretty much guarantee that the the machines run machines won't be calibrated very well.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

But anyway that's yeah that's a bit of a side issue also what weird meterage uh compared to really weird yeah that's what I was thinking when I was reading out it is a bit it is a bit odd with the kind of 25 increments with the 75 25 75 25 um but that those things aside yeah ultimately it's a race to to the best with this thing you know I mean it's like who can Xenom take it can athletic take it there's like hybrid day there's there's another one in like there's turf games there's there are a huge amount now and I it this is what's frustrating with CrossFit like CrossFit have the opportunity to like completely capitalise on all of these things which they don't seem to be doing and it's just seeming like the market's just going to be flooded and I don't know I don't know if one of them makes it to become the best one because ultimately that's what has to happen now you have to create the excitement of like be it Xenom if Xenom wants to be successful it has to become known as the event not like one of the events and I I don't know how they distinguish themselves to a general population because you know they're all go every one of these companies is going for the volume game they want to get lots of people in. So it's like how do you distinguish yourself like old to me what's the difference between this and ahead and you go okay well the difference between Xenom it's two days and a lot more a lot more volume significantly more volume but is that like uh enough of a distinguishing factor than for like a general public to sign up and pay for it's also interesting though at the pricing point that they're coming in at you know it's like a$170 compared to the Xenom which what is what$900 or something for two people so it's like the world's just trying to figure out where it lands I mean I think that this pricing structure would seem a lot more friendly and realistic to me and this is where the Xenom I suppose has gone for like a two-day thing so you could argue that's the the difference but I'm rambling a bit but the I think ultimately it's a race to the all these guys are just racing to see who can become the event that is the mix between or the in between of CrossFit HyROX and can they fill the middle of the Venn diagram and kind of own that space yeah 100% for me it kind of it just reminds me of when I worked in in mobile tech and you had like Apple with the iPhone and then you had like on the other side of the fence so it's like almost like HyROX is being like the Apple now they've kind of created this brand that

SPEAKER_00 44:00

That that's just a behemoth and they're plowing on, and then everyone all the others are like Android phones where they're just kind of coming out and they're just trying to become like the other the alternative to that, where you've kind of just got like Samsung and HDC and all these other brands, you know, like coming out and bringing out devices. It feels like a bit like that with competitions where higher rocks have established themselves and CrossFit has is kind of just just feels like it's just for the elite, um and then everyone else is like, okay, we need to create the the the HIROX for CrossFit is basically what it feels like.

SPEAKER_01 44:33

Yeah, it's hard to appreciate just how well HIROX is doing. Like they're just getting tens of thousands of people to their events and not and and just continue to make good decisions. Like one of the I wrote uh like a little bit of a thought piece uh to put out and that thought piece was about so the Norwegian functional fitness camp that we had here last week was completely government funded. When I say government funded, it was funded by Norwegian government organization. They're it they're the North Rief, they're called. And because they are government funded, they have memberships, they were able to pay for 10 under 21 athletes to come here to Majorca, do a training camp, have a great experience, and just support the next generation. And that's and that's purely because it's an official sport. That's the reason why they can do it. And even though CrossFit calls itself the sport of fitness or whatever it wants to call itself, it's not a sport. Like in the in the definition of a governmental organization, it's it's not a sport, and that limits the amount of help it can give to people, and especially give to the next generation. Like if you're a sports athlete, you might get time off school, you might get funding for trips, you get funding for competitions, you get all kinds of help that you don't get, even if you're like a professional CrossFit athlete, it means nothing in the eyes of the of the government, even though it might be the biggest sport in the world if that if they're not recognised. And this is what HyROCs has done. I mean, because of their Olympic goals, it's a bit different. But they've already associated with the World Trafalon Association because they have understood the importance of that criteria. And the trouble at CrossFit in the space, you know, you've got the International Functional Fitness Federation, which ultimately are basically a competitor to CrossFit. So it's not they because there's no synergy in the world, really, an International Functional Fitness Federation is another competitor that takes away from CrossFit rather than add to it, and there's nothing all of these things seemingly there's fit games or sorry, the fit stop games or ethics or whatever. I know Xenom's associated with CrossFit, so they've kind of done things in a bit of a different way, but all the other things ultimately dilute the brand. And you know, I understand that they promote the methodology, but you know, to gym goers, because CrossFit's not there on the label, they're not going to associate in ethics with a with CrossFit or you know, they use mixed modality competition, it's a hundred percent a CrossFit thing, but because of the the way it's been managed, none of that is being publicized to a general population, which would then help affiliates grow or whatever. It's just like it's detracting rather than adding it, you know, it's like uh they're not turning things into assets.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Do you have a view of what you think could support that?

SPEAKER_01 47:43

I I think it's the way certain things, like for example, as we as we as we kind of pick this down a bit, but one of the big things was never letting Globo gyms use the word CrossFit. And so this had I like the thought process was, you know, like if you're a big chain, you're kind of they were like anti-establishment, etc. Globo gyms were the establishment. But the trouble was, you know, the gyms are like, well, I don't care, we'll just call it XFIT, you know. And so you had these huge, powerful gym chains that could have all promoted the word CrossFit and made that brand a lot more famous, but instead they just called it XFIT or functional fitness, and then this organization comes in that's the functional fitness, you know, they've got an idea to make CrossFit into a an official sport instead of partnering with them to help support that growth, they then just exclude, you know, basically just ignore them and go against so CrossFit doesn't become a sport. And I'm not saying like the CrossFit games have to officially do that, but a lot like if you look at football, for example, they obviously have a private organization and a public organization, and the public organization is hugely involved with helping support the next generation come through, and the private organization continues as it goes through. So I think that's actually like a fundamental thing of this protection of the name, and I don't think it's managed in the best way, and now it you know, now to change all of this is a whole different topic because I think that's the decisions have gone so far down the road that backtracking on these decisions is now just like a really messy process, and so you know, I think a big thing to to start would be you know trying to create a different structure that allows people to come to in-person events, create community, support dream growth. Because we, you know, one thing is obvious, people want to go and participate in live events and grow community. And though both of those things fit very much in the value of of CrossFit, so it doesn't even go against the uh go against the curve in that way.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

Yeah, and we've talked about it a few times with the sale of CrossFit kind of being on the table, being taken off the table, and and you know, what is the direction of CrossFit? I think until there's some solid stability and solidification around CrossFit, the brand, the business, and and the games. I think this is probably going to be a topic that we keep revisiting.

SPEAKER_01 50:21

Yeah, yeah, I I don't disagree. And I think each month that goes by, the more people you see like don't wave the flag as strongly, and that's a sad thing that goes around and it and the world gets diluted, you know. Someone goes does an ethics, someone goes and does this, and that association with doing CrossFit gets less and less and less as as the brand's not present anymore.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we will keep an eye on that as we go forwards. We're coming to the end of our time this week. Is there anything else you wanted to discuss, John, before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_01 50:58

No, I I don't think so. We have the we'll see the quarter of final results, so what comes through, and then it's it's kind of following following semi-finals. I believe mayhem's up in a couple of weeks, which will be the first one. So it's going to be interesting to see how those pan out. We've got the WFP starting to happen. So that there's a lot, a lot going on. And you've also got to think CrossFit starts to announce something about a new CEO, which will be an interesting decision on which direction they want to take things. You know, do they go, do they just take Castro again? Do they pick someone internally? Do they look outside? It's going to be interesting to see.

SPEAKER_00 51:35

Absolutely. And just an update: I mentioned at the the top of the show that we record these at 6 pm UK time, 7 p.m. Spanish time. And you can come join us live on YouTube. Well, actually, next week we're going to change that. We're going to go back an hour. So we're going to record next week live will be at 7 pm UK time, 8 p.m. Spanish time. Okay. So if you want to come up with it.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

I was actually I was we'll chat about that, but I was actually going to say I'll send a message. Okay, cool. All right, team. Well, but also on on that topic, funnily enough, I believe it's in like one or two weeks, we have an interview with uh Mark, the founder of Athletics. So we will also be able to dive deeper into these questions about like you know how are they going to differentiate themselves and what they think about this this world right now.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

Yeah, absolutely. So gang, we'll we'll confirm time next week when we're when we're live. Um we are just kind of playing around with exactly the best time so that we can get people like yourself logging in and viewing live. And yeah, that interview with Mark is coming soon. So uh keep your eyes peeled for that. That'll be uh that'll be out in a couple of weeks. And as mentioned as always, please do leave likes, comments, and shares and all that good stuff. But you can email us as well. In the description, you'll see there's an email account. You can email us and ask any questions, give us some suggestions of topics you want to talk about or or anything that we've talked about in the last few weeks and months that um you want to add your add your say and your voice to and want us to discuss, then please do email us in. And with that, I'll draw the show to an end. John, thank you very much. It's been good to see you. Thank you. And uh yeah, we'll speak to you next week.