Weekly Update - French Throwdown review/Torian Pro & Renegade games Preview

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Europe Is Coming Podcast. My name is Adam Giles, and I'm joined, as ever, by John Singleton. How are you, John?

SPEAKER_01 0:06

I'm very well. It was another weekend full of CrossFit.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

It was, it was. I didn't get much of a chance to watch the French, so I'm gonna have to lean on you today, I think a little bit. But yeah, how how did you find this weekend?

SPEAKER_01 0:20

It was exciting when you've got, you know, this is the classic thing of having skin in the game. So when you have athletes go hitting it, it like ups the the um I suppose it's just that excitement level, you know, is you look more invested. So we had uh two of our coaches there, Chris and Dom, and we had two of our like elite athletes competing, Ella and Nico as well, and then some other athletes in different divisions.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Exciting. What did the uh what did the guys say that the the French was like live? Was there any feedback from the floor of of how the comp ran and the vibe and and that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Sometimes we don't always get to see them across the live stream, so yeah, I my general so I I wasn't there, but the general feedback was that things things ran really smooth. Obviously there was bad weather, well not obviously, but there was bad weather on the first day, which I think they obviously had the run, which kind of impacted that maybe a little bit, but I don't think they had to have too many delays. Okay. All in all, pretty smooth, and they managed to get a good turnout of spectators, which is nice. I think it's really important for the sport as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah, and very cool, very cool. And and we'll uh we'll have a bit of a recap of of the weekends. Like I said, I don't think I'd see much. How was the what was the live stream like? Was it was it solid?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

It was good. I was thinking about it as I was watching, but I I'd kind of place it between mayhem and WFP, and I think it's a really hard like the like the WFP stream is really good, you know. It's obviously it put a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of effort into that broadcasting. And I think when you start in that middle ground, you know, it's like it could be really hard to know what's happening in a CrossFit event if you if you don't have the broadcast what broadcast well. So it's like relying on the scoring on the top was was tricky. But they broadcasted every single division, which I think yeah, it's a lot, and I think really good, you know. Peter from Coffee Pods and Wads was on uh was doing the live feed and like long days going through each division, but it's really nice for the friends and family who are who are watching, and then the elites, you know, it's obviously great for us to be able to see see what they're doing. Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Should we have a bit of a recap of the workouts and you can kind of share any highlights from from workout? Okay, cool. Let me bring these up. Sorry, if you're listening to us, I'm just bringing up the uh workouts from French throwdown, so we have them on screen. So if you are joining us for that video, you will be able to uh you'll be able to see them now. So started with you mentioned the run workout. So um it was for time, 900-meter run, thousand-metre row, 1200-meter feedsack bag, um with a run with a feedsack bag, and then a thousand meter row and then 900 meter run to finish. How did this one play? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Well, it was a as expected, and I don't think there were any surprises. That the feed sack run was uh the bag was heavy. Like for guys, it's 45 kilos. So that had a big impact on the workout. Athletes came out hot on the run, and some were able to hold that pace, like Amy Kringle and Jason Hopper, the way they divided the the heats. So they were in the the first heat, and usually in a CrossFit event top athletes are in last heat, but because of the way this, you know, I think they took results from quarterfinals, and those invited athletes got placed last compared to the athletes with the qualifier. So it turned out that Amy and Jason were in were there, and just really impressive, like levels ahead of the rest of the field. Amy Amy kind of looked like in a league of her own. And I think Jason managed, and a few of the guys went out pretty hot, and Jason was really the only one who could sustain that pace. And and I think the the bag was heavy enough to really impact any decent runners of the field. Like Colin Bossard, he's he's a really good runner. We've had him over for camps and different things over the years. He's an excellent runner, but I think the weight, the 45 kilo relative to his body weight, made uh more of a difference there.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

And was it was it an odd object size, like in terms of shape and stuff? Was it sort of like your your the almost like the sandbag, you get a like the traditional feedback where it's slightly longer with the two handles?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Exactly, yeah. And they so I think they've had it at games before, but they haven't had it region or regional sort of semis, if I couldn't maybe they have at some point, but yeah, so it just it's lots of people. I think I think in terms of objects to carry, it's probably one of the nicer ones because you can just let it sit there, you don't have to fight hold it, you know. Obviously, if you did it with a with um a sandbag or something like that, having to hold round becomes very very tricky.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah, I bet was there any other surprises from the workout or anyone else that that caught your eye?

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Um I think in not necessarily, I mean, in these in these first workouts you tend to get people who aren't necessarily the top doing well. Because, for example, you know, there's no strength or or skill in this workout. I would say I think had the sandbag been the feed sack been lighter, then the leaderboard would have been mixed up quite differently. I think we'd have seen I think we'd have seen some a lot more names you don't know entering that top top 10, top 20 of the field, but I think the feed sack stopped that from happening. Yeah, and I think it's also impressive to see just how good the top athletes are across everything. You know, just that it was just very impressive to see. I mean, especially Amy. He was, you know, I I think even at the guy's weight, she could have probably placed quite well in that field.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Which is fun to see because that was always sort of tears. I don't want to call it party trick, but like the her piece of the games was sort of being a large percentage of the boys in in in whatever the the running slash swim or whatever that variation of workout was. So it's kind of cool to see uh Amy kind of maybe picking up that mantle.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

They like showed some of the you didn't couldn't really see the rowing splits very well. Uh-huh. But the few glimpses, they did get a glimpse of Amy's screen, and she was you know like a 155 slightly below. And then on some of the guys, you know, they're rowing at exactly the same splits. So I I wouldn't have been surprised if you know, if you'd have put her in the male field, she'd have still placed quite high, even with that heavier, heavier weight.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Apparently, she's pretty solid at hinge pulling. So I imagine on a row she's doing pretty well. Um, workout two, which which was a fun, fun name for this, the guillotine. Um we're looking at four time. You had two rounds of 20 um calories for guys, 18 calories for ladies on the Echo Bike, 10 snatches, 10 bar muscle ups, then two two rounds followed by two rounds of 20 and 18 calories again on the Echo Bike, 10 snatches, 10 bar muscle ups. Um, and the weights looked like they went up. So for the guys it was 55 kilos and 80 kilos and 55 kilos, and for the ladies it was 60 and 45 kilos. How did this one shake out?

SPEAKER_01 8:14

I think there were no real surprises. I think this time you saw a big difference between guys and girls, with the bar muscle-ups being more of an issue for for the girls. The guys really 10 the 10 bar muscle-ups were a bit of a non non-factor. So it really for the guys came about the the bike, especially, and then how they handled the snatches. And honestly, this weight at this level wasn't too much of an issue, it was more how they could cycle through and what pace they could hold on the Echo Bike to get through. Moritz, Moritz took the win on this one, and like anytime you have Echo Bike and Barber, it's Morritz is so impressive at this stuff. I I remember watching last year in Madrid, and can't remember the workout exactly, but in essence, there was a sprint workout, and you went from Echo Bike into bar muscle ups and then finish. And you know, it was a semi-final, so levels high. We had Krenikoff over, I think Callum was there, a few big guys good on machines, and Moritz just it finishes 20 seconds ahead of these guys. I mean, it's almost like you know when you think something's gone wrong on the bike, like they've not done enough in theories because they're so powerful. So his his ability on the specifically the Echo bike as well is pretty impressive, and I think that gave him a big advantage over the field. So he managed to take a win on that one. And and then the girls as well, with I believe Amy took the win. It was just honestly, just seemed like she had a third long when she was going through. It was just oh, she actually took yeah, she did take uh a win again. I mean, uh and by 25 seconds over over second place. So yeah, she was those first two events, she was so impressive.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah, we're starting to see her sort of extend her legs a little bit in the competitions now, aren't we? Where I I think you see quite a lot of athletes go through this. This is why I was quite excited after when we did our WFP review and saying I think you know her and her and Lucy on the podium is I I think as we get closer to the games, I'm gonna get a bit more confident in my prediction of where Amy and Lucy are gonna finish. But she does feel like one of those years where athletes sort of start to show the signs that they're potentially gonna be a games champion.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's gonna come down. I I don't I don't think there's we're gonna know, even when we see the programming, it's just gonna be crazy to see. Like I think it's gonna be so tight. No, and you also have, I mean, we we kind of get into Miriam uh as we go through the next events, but yeah, she's just no one no one is even close to her in some stuff. So you've got these, and this is where Tia was so impressive because it was across the field. But now you've got girls who are not touchable at certain things, and that's where the programming is really going to matter for who comes out on top. Also the point system. This is something I think we've spoken about it on here before, but again, the I don't know why. There's no standardized point system across these semi-finals. It's also a bit crazy that it's not been implemented. So French, the French point system, it wasn't as bad as WFP, but it did really weight winning. If you weren't inside the top ten on events, you just weren't picking up any points. So you needed to be inside top ten because of the way it worked. And obviously, the further into that top 10, the more advantage you had.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah. And do you know what? I'm surprised that, and and maybe they are, and I'm just kind of missing it, but I'm surprised that the athletes aren't mentioning the differing point systems more. Because it does seem to be quite a bit of a luck of the draw to what point system you you maybe end up getting. But I could just be missing it. Maybe maybe there is a bit of discourse around it, but it seems quite quiet on that front.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

It's just, you know, the the biggest advocate over all these years has been Brent. And he really tried to standardize some things. And I do agree there's an exciting thing about not knowing what's happening, the constantly varied nature. But it does feel like you could probably standardize a scoring system or a point system. There's like I I don't feel it like change the excitement level if you just had a scoring system that everyone agreed on. That you go, okay, in a CrossFit event with 30 people, we you know, we want to reward the winning because okay, it should become I I also don't think that needs to be done, but you know, I I get that that's what's happened over the last 10 years. But there's it's I know as if you mean more incentive to win an event. Yeah, I and I I really feel like the heart of CrossFit is always rewarded consistency. So why in the sport do you then reward winning? It's like a weird approach that I still don't know.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

I I kind of miss that as well when it used to be. I'm pretty sure, correct me if I'm wrong, you're you much goes to this night, but I'm pretty sure it was you get one point for what first, two points for second, and then it was the lowest possible points basically was your score. Um, and do because it was as far as fast as I'm even forgetting now the name of the first documentary, but uh every second counts. And it was because it was like you were trying to go as quick as possible, get the smallest score as possible, it was the smallest score that won. So I kind of missed that system because it was one really easy to follow once you knew it. Obviously, some people looked at the leaderboard and like, hang on, they've got the least points. Why are they top? Once you explained what was going on, it was quite clear.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, and so that so that system changed from 2014 regionals into 2015. No, it's right, it was before that, 2013 into 2014 uh games. And that was the year of triple three. Uh if you know, it's quite a famous workout because you had it was a fun workout at double unders row run, and Froning notoriously did really bad. And if they'd have used the scoring system that they'd have had at regionals that year, he wouldn't have been able to come back. But because they had the biased winning scoring system, he was able to come back on the final day and actually take the win. Um there's a few advantages and disadvantages to it, but I think that if you go off the principle that CrossFits about consistency, go through we've played about uh Chris and I actually quite a lot on we run through a competition and change the scoring system to see which results then differ. The WFP last weekend, or however long ago it was, there were relatively big differences. Like people might shift, say, eight, nine places. But in this, it does change it a bit, but it's not like a drastic overhaul of the leaderboard where you would get things happening. So I think that you you could probably argue the case for having like a consistently scored leaderboard rather than waiting the winning. But you know, trying to get people to agree on something is is not the easiest uh Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

And I even just thinking of a slight counter-argument to what I was just saying, perhaps there is a a school of thought that if you're if you're in second or third and you know you're in second or third, and actually second or third keeps you on top of the leaderboard, then why push for the win? And which, you know, maybe there's entertainment from a spectator point of view, not on show, because it's not getting as competitive. Perhaps there's an argument there, I don't know. But yeah, I I wish it was a bit more simple and that we it was easy to follow because I probably couldn't tell you how the scoring system works on many, if any, competitions.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Um and also because it always changes. So it's very hard to follow along, and probably the only reason that we understand the scoring systems is because we've been calculating at competitions what an athlete needs to do or doesn't do based on this. And so that's probably the only reason that we know it. But as a spectator, you might not be aware even that there are all these changes that happen.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

I mean, I'm not, and I don't know and you know, I consider most of the people I know from a CrossFit sphere. I'm pretty plugged into some of this stuff like as a as a spectator and a fan. But so I mean the casu the casual person at at the box who just like watches the athletes and like watches CrossFit, I'm sure they probably don't know either. Um and it's something we don't really, I guess, discuss all that much.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah, so you can see I mean just to give I mean we're on the subject, just to give you like a bit of an example. So what happens at French is you would go six points, four points, four points all the way down four point drop until tenth. And then you start dropping two points all the way basically until you get to fortieth place, which was zero. So if you uh if you get first over second, you've already gained um six points, which is huge. But then from first to tenth is forty points. But then from uh twentieth or uh up to tenth is then only twenty points. If you see what I mean. I mean I guess a bit a bit confusing, but so from this tenth first up to tenth, you have a 40-point gap. Then from 10th to 20th, you only have a 20-point gap. And what it means is that if you're an athlete that's just really consistent, say you're placing even placing 12th or 15th all the way through the competition, whereas you you really won't be rewarded. Whereas if you're an athlete that can win an event and then do badly, you'll be you'll get a lot more benefit because of the way things are uh playing out.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, I'm sure this is something we'll talk about more and more. It does seem it does seem odd, and having something standardized would be would be a benefit. Also for the athletes to say that they have some consistency in terms of how they compete, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

For Madrid, we requested a more consistent scoring system. So you see in here, for example, there's this like six point four point drop. So we would have a slight bias within the um top five or top ten, and then it's consistent, but only like a one-point bias, which makes it a lot more consistent as you go through. So there's some slight reward for winning because you know, whatever, that's the style at the moment, but it's not so extreme that you know you can do really badly and then really well and place high.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Nice. Maybe something we can talk a bit more about when we do the preview for for Mad. Yeah. Obviously, we talked about the programming last week, so if you joined us for that, it's good to see you. Thank you very much for doing so. It was a fun episode and um excited to excited to see the programming play out. But back to uh the French. Workout number three. I'm not gonna have a go at the pronunciation of this one. My my French is not uh certainly my accent, not great. But workout three, six rounds for time, 15 double dumbbell thrusters, 15 burpee facing over the line, uh, 22 and a half for the gents, 15 kilos for the ladies. A bit of a classic crossfit workout, this one.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah, and I think in some ways it's nice when things are simple. Dumbbell thrusters, line facing burpees.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

I this has got open vibes about it to me.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Yeah. One thing I would say with the programming, I think Mayhem was really nice to follow. Like you could always see where the athletes were, there's a very good logic. But actually, in French, that was one consistent thing. Like it was quite hard on the feed to know where anyone was. Okay, they they did advance the the dumbbells, but then the bird piece took so long that you didn't necessarily, you know, if there was a close race, it'd hard to tell where someone was. You didn't know until they crossed the line. Yeah, basically until they started running going through. Or if they had a a big gap. So from a storytelling point, that was that was a bit tricky. But yeah, I mean, this had Miriam.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

I was gonna say, this has got to be Miriam uh all over it, this one.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Yeah, I don't, you know, there's not even there was I don't think there's ever a doubt. She was just moving, she just moved so quickly. I mean, just so impressive.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Yeah, what about on the Gent side? Any standout performances there?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

This is Colin. So Colin didn't have the best start. I I think he had like he really excelled at what he needed to do. Um but he finished like 11th on the run and then fifth on the on the bike snatch, which is pretty good, but he managed to take the win on the burpee quite a bit over over Jason, who who finished second. So at this point, like Jason's come in and gone one, two, two. So really showing why he's the fittest on earth, you know. It would be said there's a Spanish athlete, Luis, who's who's done very well up to this point as well. So he's taken a third, sixth third. So the guy's leaderboard, you've got like two standout females starting to occur. You've got Amy and Miriam, and you start to realise it's gonna be a fight for the who's gonna win between them. But they're them qualifying seems like almost a given. The third place is gonna be the exciting fight, and on the guys, you've got Jason who who is just standout, doesn't look like he's gonna be touched, and then the so uh the fight for second and third.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Yeah. So with that in mind, we go to work out number four, the Louvre, named after, well, sort of sort of a big part of or CrossFit Louvre, always a big part of French, close ties. And for this, it was another for time. It was 40 toaster bar, 20 dumbbell bench press. The dumbbell bench press, excuse me, put my teeth back in. The dumbbell bench press has made a lot of uh a lot of moves in these semifinals. I feel like we've seen it a lot of them.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

It's uh quite yeah, it's there's definitely consistency with the the mayhem programming coming through. And there's just been a weird coincidence that we have also had these things. There's also been it's from the a games workout with the intervals, and we also use some of these intervals which have also shown up in the Mayhem Prime. So it's been funny to see. I mean, even to the point of having the log burpees over the log, which is something that's never been seen before. And you know, we have no discussions with Mayhem or anything like that. So for it to show up both in both places is quite quite strange.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

It's it's it's kind of yeah, it's real coincidence, and people might not know that they might just assume, oh, they've obviously been talking or CrossFit have told them certain movements that that they want to see. Um but yeah, from talking to you, I know that that's not the case. So it's kind of it's kind of cool. It's cool to see that these themes um because you know, again, before I had a bit more insight into it, I would always just assume, oh, they've obviously there must be some coordination. But no, just just happenstance, which is which is fun. Anyway, back to the workout. 40 toaster bar, 20 dumbbell branch press, 30 box jumpovers to step downs, 20 dumbbell bench press, 10 road clums for guys, eight for ladies, and then 20 dumbbell bench press, 30 box jumpovers, step downs, 20 dumbbell bench press, and 40 toaster bar. Again, 22 and a half kilos, uh, 15 kilos, and a 60 centimetre box for the guys, a 50 centimetre box for the ladies. What do you look at the fuck out?

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Like a fun down and back chipper. I always quite like the down and back chippers. And the the last set of toaster bar became quite exciting. Claudia, who's obviously because being French, like the fan favourite to try and get a ticket. She again also hadn't had the best starts to the to the weekend, but she managed to finish second on event three, the Burpee one, and then take a win here. So there are it is a weird format actually, because you've done uh with the amount of events, you had one event Friday, two events Saturday, and then three events on Sunday. Oh right. So actually, by by Saturday night, when you feel like you're over halfway through the competition, you're not, because there's still that many points left on the table. So this this chipper workout was starting uh Sunday morning. Uh so Cloud, you got off to like start with that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Yeah, I feel like she does well in in chippers. I don't know if that's just recency bias off the back of this workout or if it's it's true, but I do feel like she's often strong in a chipper.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah, I don't think she's been able to maybe express her best fitness in this part. You know, she I think she'd be disappointed not qualifying through through French, even though it's solid. She's definitely one who would have been on the list to to do it. And then on the guys, Jason just walked through it. But it did become some quite interesting foot races at the end because a lot of the a lot of the guys had struggled with the toes to bar, the grip really became a big factor. Yeah. You couldn't see it on the live stream, you just saw like obviously like when people had like five reps to go and then were breaking and going back. So I think it would have been especially being there in person, would have been an exciting one to watch.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Nice. Um, workout, excuse me, through frog in my throat. Sorry for everyone listening. Workout number five, which this says zero to one minute loading. I'm presuming this is loading of the barbell, then the next minute they had to complete six front squats, which was their first attempt at weight one, then rest one minute, um, and then they had a second attempt, and then they had a minute rest again. Um, and then it was in the five to eleven minutes were 120-meter handstand walk, um, which is interesting. Sort of another take, like we talked about this a little bit when we were looking at the mad programming of doing something slightly different for the lifting event. So, this is another slightly different take on finding I uh maybe a max lift is unfair, but like we're starting to see some people play with variations rather than just a ladder or a heavy lift.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Yeah, and obviously, as we always see in CrossFit, there's just big weights being thrown around, like the guys, one of the guys, this Leonardo June uh Italian flag, you know, 170, which is just an insane amount of weight to not only not only clean, but to uh then front squat six times is it's just pretty crazy. And then we saw on the female side, I believe it was Miriam, yeah, Miriam with 113 uh on the barbell, which you know again, she made it look pretty easy as well. I think she she she knew from the previous heat there was a 112, so she knew exactly what she needed to do, pretty calculated, and I I think she had a lot more in the tank.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Did they have to hit the second attempt, or could they just do the first?

SPEAKER_01 27:40

No, sorry. A lot of a lot of them went out um and just did one attempt. This is why I think lifting events in CrossFits, I find like because the big thing is as an event organiser, you need to get hundreds of people through a lifting event, because your community, etc. And okay, you can just give a time window when everyone has to lift, but it's really hard for the fans to follow because if you gave everyone their moment of the lift, it would take ages to go through. So finding this balance is is very hard. That's why I like ladders because they're they're exciting, everyone can go through. It's maybe just you need to get the weights right in order for the ladders to work, but it's a lot more exciting spectacle.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Yeah, agreed. Agreed. How about the hand sandbook? How did that break down?

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Um it it was a bit hard to follow, but some some girls just smashed the layer storing who she she did really well all weekend, but she you know it's just so quick on her hands.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

I mean, they're basically just running. Yeah, it's wild now watching. I remember when sort of handstand walking stock was you know introduced in the games and how everyone could do it, but it was sort of like you had to go in little s it was like me watching me handstand walk had to go in like five meter segments, you know, but now it's just like literally sprinting on our hands and doing tricks in the middle, it's kind of crazy how far it's come.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah, and 120 meters, like the for these guys it's it it's fine, but it's it's a long way. But they you know they they uh made it look pretty easy. I think this is probably the only place uh if Jason were to reflect on the weekend would maybe be his placing in the handstands handstand walk.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Yeah, w where did he come in this event?

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Uh he was let me get up. Yeah, so he finished uh ninth, which you know obviously is uh a top ten finish, but considering like if we look at his his placings through the weekend, he goes first, second, second, first, fifth on the clean. Um he he again like with only a couple of kilos more, he could have got up into uh top two, three, and then ninth on the hands down walk, and then second on the final, and he took a bit of time to uh celebrate on the final because he it was a someone from a previous heat who took the win. So it's like it was pretty solid, uh solid showing he was obviously the fittest man on earth.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Yeah, that's that is solid, and then event six to finish for time again, 21 deadlifts, 16 meter dumbbell regional walking lunges, 15 cleans, 16 meter dumbbell read regional walking lunges, and then nine shoulder to overhead, eight meter dumbbell regional walking lunges. Bit of a bit of a again, a bit of a classic to to kind of finish up. The the walking lunge has made many an appearance in a in a final workout before, so um, so yeah, feels like a good bit of classic crossfit, especially with a 21 15-9.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Yeah, and this became quite different workout for guys and girls because the relative weight for females was a lot higher. Like guys 90 and girls 70. Oh wow. Um, so you saw like Jason went full set um unbroken, but I think the most a female did was maybe like three touch and go, something like that. There's a significant difference with the bar bell for the guys and the girls.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Yeah, that loading is quite heavy for the girls. I wonder why they made that choice.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Yeah, I I don't know. And the race was really exciting for third place. So you know Miriam and and Amy were basically they they were set. They could have it would needed people in between for the first second to turn around, but but third place, Leia was had been in qualifying pretty much all weekend. He had Elisa and Claudia who were like chasing down, and I thought on paper this would be a great workout for Claudia uh to come through, take the victory, and I was putting putting good money on her, but she just didn't seem to have the the fire to get through the cleans and and place, but then Elisa ended up managing to place third, um, and then this like crazy some people coming in, Leia failed to clean, she then comes back, and you you don't quite know how it's gonna play out because you're kind of seeing if there are other people in other heaps who got in, and in the end it was Elisa who got a ticket back to the games. It'd be interesting to see if she I don't know if she's announced, I haven't seen if she's going to the games this year. She won French last year, but didn't go, so I don't know if this year she's going to go.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Interesting. Yeah, I mean I feel like we've still got even with people we do know who've qualified, just a load of we need that one leaderboard where we can see every every everyone's qualified or exactly what's going on. Speaking of leaderboards, here is the leaderboard for the men. Jason Hoppen atop of it. You probably guessed that from us talking about this, or if or if you've seen French, you already know Moritz in seconds, which is great to see him back at the games. And then the third qualifying spot, Nico, who we've mentioned a few times on the pod, obviously works with the programme. But you guys uh were stoked to see him qualify.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Yeah, I was I was really happy. It's it's nice to see someone achieve achieve their goals. He's been trying for years to get through. He's got a really nice relationship with uh coach Dom, and they were there, so he was happy. It was it was like it was good, and it wasn't an easy place to get your ticket. It was definitely not a walk in the park, even till the last minute. You see, here with uh Luis, he was finished fourth on the final workout. So like great finish. He just had a couple of a couple of mishaps throughout the weekend, but apart from that as a solid show. But yeah, Nicker managed to do what he needs to do and get the job done, and he finished he finished well. I mean he was only one point out from uh from Moritz, so it was an exciting race all weekend.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Yeah, and there's some big names underneath him, or some well-known names, I should say. Uh Callum has been to the games before as well. Uh Fabian Hermans, who's a Krieger athlete, Colin Bossart, who's you know, started to become a face in the scene, and and Rico Mzanoni, he's been to the game. So um there's a pretty there's a competitive field in the in the top ten that so pretty pretty tough to get that top three spot.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Yeah, I I we mentioned before, but I think mayhem and French would be the two hardest places to to get the ticket through.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

So we'll go to the elite women's, and again, um probably no surprises that Miriam Vernor and Amy Kringle are your top two. Again, mentioned it. I was a little surprised to see uh see Amy get beaten out by Miriam, but I guess there was just you as you mentioned, John, Miriam's a bit of a home run hitter on certain events, and just she got the rubber the green in terms of programming, perhaps falling a bit more towards her advantages than Amy's.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Yeah, and this is why the games is going to be so interesting. Because you know, you go heavy squatting, okay, that's not great for Lucy, great for Miriam. You take away the heavy squatting, you're okay, Lucy. So how the games is programmed now will have this impact. And and this is one thing that the the top of the sport hasn't really had because we've had such dominant athletes. So it never mattered for Fraser, never mattered for T. I mean, I say never mattered, I'm sure they'd say it would, but we all know how good they were that it it really didn't. It could be heavy biased, it could be squat biased, it could be run biased, it could be whatever, volume biased, and they just always seemed to come out on top.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Yeah, it was interesting actually. Saw that Matt Fraser was on the uh boys interrupted podcast, and they'd sort of talking, they kind of asked him the question, would you still would you still be winning now with with uh the weights and stuff like that? And there was an interesting debate around that.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

An interesting I watched a video on this with I've mentioned him before Mason startup, he does really interesting analytical videos of the sport, and he did the Fraser because after this interview, he followed up and went, okay, well, let's look at it. And he still had Fraser winning even the 26 games or 25 games that he did through, I can't remember. But I would agree, I actually think Fraser um, even in Fraser's shape, okay, he might not be hitting the same weights, but I still think he'd be winning. The same with Tia. Like, I think if Tia comes back, you know, she's she's winning.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Yeah, you don't know how that he would improve if he carried on his improvement as well, whether he would have continued to lift heavier and move more or so. It's always a tricky one, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Because you can only go off the past and Yeah, and these biases, like he might have changed his training a bit more to get strong. I mean, he obviously had a lifting background, so you would think if he wanted to dedicate more time, he could have done that in order to bias the machines and bias the strength more.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Yeah, absolutely. So Amy in second, as you mentioned, Alisa Filiano coming in third, um, Leah Storin in fourth, and Claudia Gluck in fifth, and then Lucy McGonagall as well in sixth. So, I mean she's got um loads of time being so so young and new to the sport, but someone who was at the games last year.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

Yeah, and it probably doesn't represent how she if you'd have taken out the first event, which obviously you can never do, um, she'd have placed very well. But this you know, it's just the running for her is obviously uh it's obviously a big area of weakness that is keeping her out of the games. But I think this is the thing, online she you know, with especially with the top athletes being out, she's probably got a shot of winning online.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Yeah, so French done and dusted. We've got our six athletes going to the games, or at least being given uh I'm sure invites to the games, whether, like you say, whether everyone, uh Lisa or someone like that decides to go, we'll we'll have to wait and see. But yeah, really cool. On to the next one. We've still we've still got more of these to go, which is feels uh a bit crazy.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

This is something we've spoken about in the season for many times, but why not have events spaced out over the years? I I don't even know. I just check how many events are happening next weekend. Uh okay, so it's Torian and Rebel Renegade game. So you've got two one happening in Africa, one happening in Australia.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

And Taurian's sort of one of the biggest, I mean, it always looks outstanding from a from uh quality, from a broadcast. Like they the the Aussies send it.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Um yeah, yeah, 100%. And you just kind of go, why does it all have to be like rushed in? Because I think that I do think there's something to be said for things happening each weekend because it keeps the conversation going, you know, not each when, but at least having a longer season where live events occur.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, this week, weekend, Torian Pro, um, which is in Brisbane, and Robert Renegade Games, which is in Johannesburg. Um, and I'm sure Taurian will be. I haven't seen the full list of athletes that are actually then the weekend after that we've got Syndicate Crown, which will be again a big, um, a big event, big names there. The workouts seem to get quite a lot of traction online. I know uh quite a few people were talking about how they much they liked the workouts for Syndicate, which was interesting. So, yeah, those three, uh certainly Taurian and Syndicate, I think are gonna be uh they're gonna have live streams, they're gonna be you know big events. I'll be interested to see who qualifies out of those two events. I've seen that Justin Madeiros, for instance, is over in Australia.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Um really he's still doing Taurian.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

I haven't seen Yeah, he's doing Taurian, so I think he's he kind of him and Ellie went over there. Obviously, Ellie's got family there, so yeah, it looks like he's there and gonna try and qualify out of Torian. So it'd be interesting to see who qualifies out of Torian. The the the field, I imagine, on the Aussie side and with with the Kiwis is strong.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Yeah, I think they have the thing you start to see there is the top is is very high and then it drops, there's like a big drop. So often getting the games ticket can be very hard, but then the level beneath is not is not the same in the other regions. Yeah, absolutely. But the exciting Rebel Renegade games, interestingly, Rebel Renegade games have nine events over four days, which is is not the semi-norm. So we have Thiago and Jan competing there this weekend. Nice. So I should shout out to Chris, who's probably at the airport again, about to board another flight to Johannesburg.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

It's getting his flight of miles in.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

So I just pulled up the uh Victorian Pro so we could have a look at some of the athletes there. I'll try and um do the renegade rate games as well in a second. So got Bailey Martin on the guy side. I'm just gonna try and shout out a few names that I recognise. Um looks like we've got I I don't know Benjamin Sexton, but from the US as well. There's another US flag there. Please do also shout John out if anyone you recognise.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Uh you've seen this Hico Orte. I believe he was in the teen division, so that might be interesting to see him coming through. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Then you've got Jay Crouch, Justin Medeiros, Carl Porter. Love to see it. Bit of an OG of the of the CrossFit Space, especially in or Pete Bellett. Ricky Grad.

SPEAKER_01 42:09

Yeah, yeah. So this is the thing. Like, you've you've maybe got five five guys vying for three spots. Yeah. Just like we weren't happy to see uh well, not happy, is it's the wrong, but having Jason in Europe took one of those.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

So yeah. And Riley Marson as well, I think Bailey's is Bailey's brother, and I've seen him shift in some tin. So I reckon he's probably uh gonna be interested to see how he's uh how he's shaping up.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Yeah, but that would be it would just be really hard to get that spot. You know, actually I said Madrid and uh mayhem, but it's gonna be stacked in Torian now. Just with those athletes there.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

Having a look on the female side of things, just seeing again Emily Drawch.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Can she come back?

SPEAKER_00 43:00

Yeah, how's her back? She looks last competition. I think she was uh what a Palooza and she seemed to seem to do okay. I know she wasn't sort of fine for the podium, but she was seemed to be seemed to be back in competition. So it'd be interesting to see how uh her back does. She's obviously been out for a while with uh back injury. Uh you've got Emmy DeRoy, Grace Grayson.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

The other Hayley Adams. Kyra Milligan, actually. I didn't know Kyra was there.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Oh yeah. Kyra, Matt Maddie Sturt, so m Marnie Sykes, who's been on team before as well. So uh and then Taylor Howe from the UK.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Taylor gone over. Actually, I was um I was impressed at Taylor last year at Madrid. I I think she's very close to qualifying. So I don't know how she might be a bit of a dark horse depending on the workouts.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

Well, she did really well in the in the open. Um I think she was was she fourth or fifth? I can't remember, but I remember her having a s strong finish. Strong placing. So all right, I'm just trying to see if we've got a leaderboard for in a go games. It doesn't look like we do at the moment. So I can't tell you the athletes. I'm just on their website. I can't see. So apologies if they have got it somewhere and I'm missing it, but I can't see it on their website. So um can't go through who's going to be there this weekend. But yeah. Look out for live streams of that. We'll we'll obviously be checking them out. And I'm sure next Monday we'll be we'll be doing a similar recap for those on top of on top of all the other semi-finals we've covered.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Yeah, I mean we've we'll have uh Jan and Tiago there, so hopefully you know, hopefully they're doing doing well this weekend. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

We wish them the best. One thing I did see I wanted to uh get your thoughts on, John, was I saw this piece of news break this week that the World Fitness Project has launched its own mobile app, which is an all-in-one hub that provides updates, announcements, exclusive offers, and more. Um so it basically tells you everything that's going on with the WFP P season, but it's got a leaderboard, so it can track progress, which is which is good because I I have critiqued a few weeks that sometimes the leaderboard isn't always on the website. It can be a bit hard to find for the workouts and stuff like that. Um so yeah, I thought this was kind of an interesting idea. They've also put putting workouts on there as well. What do you what do you think to this?

SPEAKER_01 45:23

I think it's uh a good idea, you know, something that CrossFit I mean CrossFit have, but it doesn't really get utilized. Um it was just strange with the CEOs that they had over the time being involved in tech with both Eric Rosser and Don Fall, that they didn't implement better technology. Like obviously there's the CrossFit app and the CrossFit Games app, but when do people use them outside of the game? So I you know if WFT managed to do this well, I think it could be be a good idea. It's a great idea. But making it like gaining people's attention on their phones is not easy. So I I'm interested to see outside of competition, how they can make it work.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

Yeah, that is the thing. I I don't think outside of the open I ever opened the CrossFit games ever. Um and then the open rolled round. I was like, oh yeah, there's an app. And then I've got to try and log into it again, and all the rest of it is sort of only used for three weeks of the year.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

Yeah, and there's so many resources that CrossFit have built up over the years that you would think that something like that could have really could really work. I mean, obviously they they have the the dot-com workout of the day with a community that does it. I so you uh see how it got utilized more, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

I guess with a lot of apps coming to deliver programming in gym boxes now, most a lot of people tend to that's kind of like their main app that they use for when it comes to CrossFit. So I'll check it out once uh once it's available. Anything else that you uh had on your mind this week that we want to want to talk through?

SPEAKER_01 47:08

I think it's a good wrap-up. So two more weeks of in-person and then a week break and then the online.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Yeah. And what how how do you what what are your thoughts around the the online piece at this point?

SPEAKER_01 47:24

I think it's weird that they give so many spots online.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

How many is it? Sorry, I can't remember. Seven. Seven.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

Yeah, so you've had all these, you know, you've got probably in in Europe you could have given at least another spot, and mayhem you could have given another spot, Taurian you could give another spot. So, you know, you could quite easily and and these legitimate athletes, like a Taurian, there's gonna be high-level games athletes that don't go through. And then you've got seven online.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Why not make it? I understand you might want a last chance qualifier for someone that doesn't go, and but I'd say three at most.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

Seven seemed a bit like, I'll just throw throw that number out there and yeah, it almost feels like they went, let's do three for all of the semi-finals, and then a semi-final didn't happen or something, and they were like, What should we do now? I'll just track it all online.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

I I would imagine that that is not too far from the truth. Because I do think that there's uh you know, probably some kind of financial agreement to in order to have run a semi-final and get the spots. And then probably one didn't come through, so that was like rather than issue it out to the other semifinals.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

Which seems like a much better option.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

Yeah, it's especially in regions that you know are going to be stacked.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

Yeah. You know, Europe's always stacked. You've got in-person judges that are gonna they're putting it feels like they're putting a lot of pressure on themselves to do video reviews, submissions, get it right. You know, if we end up with a box step up nightmare we had like the other year or something in in this competition and they end up like disqualifying people, it just feels problematic. Like it could be problematic, cause some issues.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Because you can take out, you know, let's say someone doesn't one of the those athletes doesn't qualify from Torian, and then some weird thing happens, as we've seen many a time, with some weird formatting issue, or Jay Crouch even had like a weird penalty for something that was debated. That happens, don't go to games, and you've got a legitimate athlete who should really be at the games. Um and you kind of go, yeah, but they didn't perform at the live competition. But you're like, well, that's because they competed against three podium contenders and there were only four spots, and then the online they kind of had some weird penalty that is debatable. So it's like a weird and there's no well again, we don't know the reasoning. I I think it's a good hypothesis, but you would think that something else could be could be done to allow more in-person.

SPEAKER_00 50:10

Hopefully it's something going into next year that feels a bit more structured and secure because yeah, we've debated a lot. We're not the only people in the space that talks about the format of the season and uh the ups and downs of it. So and with the new CEO, hopefully it's something that gets addressed. Yeah, it does feel a bit weird giving seven for an online competition. Awesome. Well, with that, well, I think we'll wrap it up. So this weekend, Rebel Renegade Games, Torium Pro, next Monday team, we'll be having a recap of those, talking to you about how those competitions played out. Um, and yeah, if you haven't listened to our last episode where we went through the Mad Fitness Championship workouts, definitely do that because it was uh a lot of fun, really interesting to look at the workouts, and we'll have that coming up very soon, which will be exciting. Perfect. Well, John, uh thank you very much. Great to speak to you as ever. And uh team, we'll catch you on next week.