Weekly Update - Xenom/Hyrox World Champs/CrossFit Online Semi Finals

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Europe Is Coming podcast. Apologies we weren't with you last week. My name is Adam Giles, and as ever, I'm joined by John Singleton. John, you weren't well last week, so we we paused the recording. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:13

No, when I uh when I sent you the message last week, it was it was only the start of the journey. Yeah, I had uh had food poisoning or some kind of stomach virus, and I don't know, you know, I started to know sometimes four, ten years ago I hadn't had food poisoning. Like ten years ago, I remember it like distinctly in New Zealand. We doing some camp, I ate something, boom, I was out. And it was a bit of the same this time. It was like four or five days. I was just it just hits you so hard.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Yeah, so wreck it just wrecks you and then out of it, huh? Well, glad you're glad you're on the ment and feeling better now.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah, well, yeah, this is true. The weight is coming back on.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yeah, you said you lost five kilos before we jumped on, eh?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yeah, it's crazy what the body can go through so quickly, you know. It's like it's kind of like, where's it all how's it all going up so quickly?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah, for sure. Well, um, with you uh with you being a bit unwell, did you manage to uh follow anything that's been going on in the fitness space? Because it's like as you mentioned before we jumped on, there's been quite a lot. Um I was gonna ask, where did you want to start?

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Maybe maybe we go back in order. Maybe we start with Xenon. Okay. And then uh trace trace things back.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Trace things back. Okay, cool. So where do you want to start with Xenon? Because that was this weekend, right? Just gone.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

This weekend, first event, 001, as they uh they're naming it. And I think the reason it's relevant is because you know there's a few a few different ways you can start things. And these guys obviously wanted to start at the top. Big investment money goes in, big partners wanting to start in uh big US city, and so they wanted to make some noise and a splash from the first event, and nothing is relevant to the space right now because events are obviously very popular. I mean, I was at HiWatch Worlds before, which we can go into as well. But yeah, I think it's a relevant thing to talk about because it just shows the amount of people who are trying to make something work.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah, absolutely. I have to say, I was actually uh competing at Turf Games this weekend. Like I got wheeled out of uh sort of not retirement, but haven't really done any competitions for a while. I got wheeled out by my mates, and uh so I didn't get a chance to watch much of or to really see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Well then it was very hard, you couldn't watch. Okay. Um, because there's no live feed or anything like that, which kind of yeah, but yeah, it pin very hard to follow. They they obviously put all their resources in trying to do it via social media. Um we had an athlete competing there, a guy called Chris Chambers, who's he lives in in Spain, he has a Spanish wife, but is originally from Texas, which is why he went back over to to compete. So that was good. And I think you know, um interestingly, it's a good comparison, like somewhere like Turf Games, which has really started, I mean, a number of years ago, grassroots up, see where that will go compared to somewhere like Xenon, which has almost started the other end of the spectrum. You know, they've gone big bang and trying to connect back to the grassroots.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah. Actually, just sort of side side note, we had Chandra Smith and his wife competing uh in the set the same category as I was in this weekend in the mixed elite, and there was some um in the top heat, there were some big old weights being chucked around in the elite category, which is quite quite crazy. But yeah, they were on a march on team. Um so it was it was kind of fun to see them there as well. Um, I will pull up the Xenon leaderboard so we can have a little look through this and just talk through this. Now, the score the one of the things that I'm not super familiar with is exactly how the workout, because it this is, as they say, the sort of decathlon of fitness. So each event is scored by the reps, calories, um, or weight lifted. Do you know what the EPI uh reference at the end is? That that seems to be like an overall scoring dimension.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah, so the EPI is like your your fitness level, basically, what you get, because they these 10 events all accumulate to this EPI, which is I think the elite performance index or something like that, is the acronym, and that's your your fitness score. Um obviously 10 events, each of a thousand, the top top score. I think you can actually go above, ironically, but you know, in essence, top score is then 10,000. And then you go through these different events, so they have something set. So, like the guy, it it's hard, you know, as everything's a bit new, so it's hard to see. But here you see like Jack Farlow, he got 929 points on the snatch and hit a 144 snatch. I believe the 1,000, their top score is 1,000, and that's 150. So as close as you get to the 150, the number of points you get out of a thousand, and that's why these are all going up and down. And I think it's a clever idea. Like I think I think it's important to bring if you're gonna do something new, it's important to try and bring something new to the space rather than just regurgitate what's been done. And I think it's maybe a good or a bad thing, but the one thing that they're doing that is the most unique is this scoring system. Uh which yeah, and I think it's I think it's a good idea to try because athletes can then, you know, the idea is that you're not really you're competing against this perfect person, so to speak, or this perfect score, rather than competing against the people next to you. Um, and then it all therefore means, you know, it just it changes the competition a little bit. But it's gonna be very interesting to see because I think the job they've put everything together so quickly, and none of this has really been tested in live situations. So it's gonna be really hard to get these numbers and what the actual athlete ends up booking because CrossFit's so varied, you know, is it gonna be like a strength bias athlete always does super well at Xenon because it's say easier to accumulate higher points on the strength than it is on the conditioning? So there might be all of these weird factors that come into play after we start seeing a few more events.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

And there are some familiar names on top of the leaderboard. It's interesting that it's kind of one leaderboard as well, just individuals, all ages, all gender.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

You can change at the top. So if you go top male, and then you can put like elite as well. So you can split male-female, you can then put elites. They had pairs competing as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah, and they seem to have a kind of separate leaderboard which which clicks over. But I kind of thought it was interesting that actually you can because the scoring system, they can actually just chuck all the men and women into one kind of overall leaderboard as well, which is kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Um The only thing I would say about this is like these are like in some ways made up top scores. So it's like very hard to compare a female male on this leaderboard. I think you'd almost have to do it like based. Yeah, it's a very hard thing to do to get it to get it like exactly accurate comparing those two on the same lead.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Yeah, for sure. Um uh and this kind of EPI seems to be you know the thing that's driving the placement here. Um, but Abby Domit, who's who's top of the leaderboard, you've got Emily Rolfe in here as well, Jack Farlow, who was obviously with you at the Madrid event, uh Bill Leahy, Riley Martin as well. So a few a few people from the CrossFit World.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Yeah, I think first event, 25k price, I mean like it it did enough to pull some people in. But I would say there are only 10 females competing in the elite category, which I I think this is the big, no, one of the common conversations over the weekend and the stories was I I believe they said the capacity of this was 550 um for their first event. They only had like 375 athletes show up. Um, and obviously the elite categories had very few athletes in as well. And you know, it's the first event but you just I think I'd be personally I'd be like it'd be a I'd be worried. I'd be a bit nervous.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Um just just from the amount of people participating.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Yeah, I I think building momentum and building hype is not an easy thing to do. Um you know, we saw this with WFP. I think that's where ironically WFP they they obviously jumped in as well as one of the things that we speak about. But their first event, they literally managed to get the best athletes in the world to that first event and generate that momentum, which was a very impressive thing to do. It's just gonna be honestly, it's just gonna be super interesting to watch how this plays out because you have a lot of competition uh in terms of you know, you even have the CrossFit games, you have WFP, you you have high rooks, you have Athics, you have Turf Games, you have Lifetime Games, you have I mean, I mean, there's so many events that we can now list. And then you add on top of that all the local events. And you know, I'm not saying what a poloser is like a local event. Let's say you've then got what up a loser, and then name the event that's happening every weekend in every local town. And so your competition of attention for going to compete in these things is pretty huge. And so I think for someone to rise to the top is going to take a bit of time, and you really have to deliver on something that's like why why would I go to this event? And I think that's like, you know, it's got an interesting leaderboard, but obviously that's not like a reason for someone to to go. And I think answering that question, you know, arguably it's the next billion dollar company if you are able to answer that that question and really resonate with people as to why someone's gonna show up to spend their weekend, spend their money on this on this event.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah, for sure. And we're seeing like some sort of routine to market, if you like, being drawn. Are you spectator first, spectator friendly? Are you um participant first, as in general participant, or are you going like pro-athletes straight away? Like, what where are you like where's the positioning for it? Therefore, what's the entrance fee? Or are you paying athletes? Like, there seems to be all these different things. Like WFP went really hard on we're gonna professionalize this and we're gonna pay people, and they're gonna be a pro card and we're gonna pay for their travel, and athletes are gonna get really looked after here. Then you have CrossFit, which is kind of like we have a role model, we're just gonna, you know, people come, they do the thing, we'll have some prize money, there'll be prize money throughout stages, etc. Um, and then like you say, you have lots of different people kind of doing other things, and then Hyrulks comes along and does something completely different. So there's there's lots of different, it's gonna be interesting to see who the consumer, as in the everyday athlete, wants to go and and compete with, who then the fan of sports racing, people going to watch these things where they they're drawn to naturally, and then um the professional athletes, the people at the top of the tree, or the new athletes coming in where they're drawn, because that's something we'll probably touch on with high rocks, just new people coming into these sports as well and disrupting. So it's kind of interesting because it is we're we're starting to see branches from the tree of fitness, if you like, going off in lots of different directions.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

And the feed so I've spoken to a few people at the event, and in general, feedback was really positive, like very well run. People liked that it was a bit of a mix between high rocks and CrossFit in the sense that you had this stadium with different zones. It's just the zones were for a CrossFit workout rather than a wall ball station or whatever that may be. Yeah, and it's just an exciting time for fitness in general. And this is another example of okay, you know, I I think everyone's hoping that it succeeds because everyone realizes that if these events continue to succeed, it's very good for the space in general. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Was there any feedback on like the flow of the event? Obviously, because we haven't kind of seen any any um broadcast from there, it's hard to kind of envisage what it was like. Did you get any feedback of like how it flowed?

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Um, flow not necessarily. Um, I think the feedback was that that in general it did move well between each other. I think as we mentioned before, the programming was a bit savage. Like just when you put that max intensity of say uh the calorie assault bike or calorie echo bike, then having to do things after, it's just very hard, you know, because of the intensity. Crossfit's just all about rewarding that intensity, really. So it's just different compared to other endurance events. And then the rhino deadlift. I mean, I understand about equipment company wanting to promote uh their piece of equipment, but it looked a bit weird. I don't know if you saw any of the rhino deadlift videos. But it's because it seemed to reward a bit of extra range of motion. And so people did this like weird shrug at the end. So it's like you have this deadlift where you stand at the top and then all of a sudden you like bicep curl it or try to get your arms up as high as possible. And it's like I feel it's a bit more of it's a better training aid than maybe competition aid, because it's not necessarily going to reward what we you classically see a deadlift like. Uh, you know, maybe it becomes its whole new technique that you have a basically like a sumo deadlift high pull or or something like that in the end. Uh I'm sure it'll figure itself out. But yeah, it looked a bit weird, the 5RM on that.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Interesting. I mean, and that's the other thing is that as more companies come into the space with more um equipment and how that bleeds into these sports. I actually got a chance to use the C2 Strength Urg, which was one of the events. Never been on it before. It was very odd. Didn't really know what it was kind of interesting as well, being using a new bit of kit on the fly, and and and and kind of everyone who used it kind of said the same thing. I don't know what good looks like because we'd never used it before. So no one really knew if there was a technique to it, what they should be, what what a good score was, how to get the most out of the machine, whether it was better to try and go fast and um or or or more power. So it was kind of interesting having having that experience, and then you know, having a new regard for going to the games and suddenly it's like, here's a new implement, and everyone's like, hang on, what what what am I trying how do I use this?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, I I was actually gonna bring up this the erg um strength erg in comparison because I think it's a bit like that, you can kind of cheat it a bit. Okay. And I think that's why there's some things about a training and message to you on Saturday. Competition figured out how to teach it a little bit. Because you know, the rest of the concept machines, uh, as we have even had the the cool, you know, or the podcast, they're just so well built and they're so well built for competition. They're so refined, as they they mentioned, when anyone tries to kind of cheat the system, they then refine the system, update the software, whatever it may be. But sometimes these new machines, you know, it's like if you had a a cable machine at a gym, I'm sure you'd find some way to get more reps at more weight, or just by doing these weird things that we invent when we have to all of a sudden win. You know, it's like if we if you go, okay, do a five hour build up to a heavy five deadlift on the rhino machine, you'd use it in a very different way to if you go, okay, you've got to try and beat this person to do whatever you can to get the most out of it. It changes the intention of it. And I think therefore choosing equipment or movement selection is good. And this is at the games, I think, are like a perfect example. Sometimes it's worked really well and been like a revolutionary piece of movement or piece of equipment that's all of a sudden happened in the CrossFit space, but then other times it's been a complete failure. So there's like a it's like a double, it's a really double-edged sword in that regard.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Yeah, absolutely. Um, just to pull this up, kind of wrap up with Xenon. Um, you kind of mentioned this already, but uh there were 372 athletes that took part in the catalogue of fitness, and we kind of mentioned this elite performance index, so there's there's a barbell spin-out article on this, but just to kind of pick out that Jack Farlow and Abby Domit won their respective divisions and waterload 25 grand, which is the prize purse for this. And then the pairs, which we kind of didn't really talk about, but there was some there was some CrossFit athletes on the pair side. Um, Mertons and Ibarra, male pair, they they took twelve and a half thousand dollars and Kirstetta and Kira m Kara Milligan also took twelve and a half grand. So a bit of a money opportunity for some of these top athletes, an extra little earner in the middle of the CrossFit season, which is kind of interesting to see um them get involved in.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

And I this is what the athletes, it's their their full-time job, and I think at least this is I think it's the best time for being an athlete right now. I know we're gonna transition into Tigrocks Worlds. But you know, the winner of the High Rocks Worlds basically started doing it six months ago or sometime around that, and she comes in, obviously has an endurance background, comes in, wins, and it's like this transformative, life-changing moment. And there's a lot of athletes right now who have been in some kind of niche in the fitness space and are now able to express it and you know, all of a sudden picking up brand deals and yeah, it's an exciting time in the fitness space.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Absolutely it's yeah, and it's cool to, like you said, to have more opportunities for athletes to to go and make money doing this and travel the world and all sorts of stuff. It it just really means that it also gets out there as well, you know. When you go and see, if you get a chance to go and see some of these professional athletes competing, it kind of really does inspire other people to go and go and do it. I think we talked about this in one of the other episodes about you know, the the World Cup is on at the moment. I imagine there's people in America or kids in America or someone watching the World Cup and being inspired to pick up a football. And the same will happen for all sorts of fitness racing if we have more opportunity exposure to different different people in different groups in different areas of of life.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

One question I did have, which I thought would be quite interesting, is the all the equipment that they have, you know, super super impressive setup. But imagine shipping that. So they just ran the event in Texas, and their next event is London. So have they brought like European, UK, have they brought like different sets of this equipment, or are they now gonna spend all the money to ship that from Texas all the way over? Which I wouldn't be surprised if it's like 50,000.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Yeah, you'd think it would be good maybe in keeping a continent kit, like having an American.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Like buying that specific competition rig, for example. Yeah, I I I do wonder. Um and I don't know if they've announced because they said they were gonna do like 10 events this year, though. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure. I'm just gonna check that because I wonder if they've announced any other events. Just on their website. So we've got Dallas. Um I I went on xenom.com. It's obviously not their website.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Xenom.global slash competitions. So I'll pull it up. Um so we have uh Dallas, which is which has just been the next one, as you mentioned, is London, which is taking place in August, so not too far away, actually. Uh that's at the Olympia, 29th to 30th. Um, and that's all we've got at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Which again, super weird, no? That you've because people are not just gonna rock up to an event, they need time. So realistically, if you're if you're gonna advertise another event, I mean you've gotta want at least six months. It's gotta be the minimum. And therefore you're going, that's December, end of December, if we announce now, basically January. So you've got stretched three events this year from the 10. And then next year, I think they wanted 60 events. Really? Yeah, yeah. They want 60 events. I mean, I don't know, I can't remember exactly if it's like two to three years. So there's like a lot a lot of groundwork to be put in to jump from two to three to sixty, even to getting to ten in the first year. I mean, maybe they count you know, the same as higher rocks, June to June is now their year. And maybe it could be the the reasoning for it. And then you need to start announcing quite a few in order to get The people to have the option to sign up. But the reason I was thinking that is because imagine you go to London and back to the US and you're just paying with these shipping costs back and forth.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah, absolutely. Um and I mean when we talked to the team from C2 when they came and said that they've kind of got kit with um high rocks that just all the time they're travel, they've got like traveling around, like they're it's just one-oil machine that just takes kit around the world, basically. They've got an entire team to do it. So it's super important. But yeah, it's it is a consideration. It'll be really interesting to see how they how they pull it off, what they do.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Just the weight of it. I mean, that rig, you know, the high rocks rig, for example, just a wall ball target. Like it's not really a rig.

unknown 22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

But the just the weight of the size of the steel needed to set up everything is it's pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

And to give you an idea, I mean, we're we're going off topic, but we've had quotes over the years for competitions here in Myorca just for shipping equipment. And just the ferry from mainland to the island uh with a classic competition freight, 10,000 euros. So that's within the same country, just putting on a ship, let alone going across and the UK with Brexit now. There's a there's just it's a very uh complex logistically in there.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Complex Yeah, tax and tariffs and all sorts of stuff that you've got to consider. Yeah, it's it's be interesting. Be interesting to see see how it progresses for them. Um you've mentioned a few times. Should we should we move on to HIROX?

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Yeah, which was I think supposed to be the main uh uh topic from last week. Because I was I I had the opportunity to go to Stockholm and I was there How was it? How was the vibe there? I mean, those guys just like you you just got to applaud what they do. It's just great. And I was thinking as I I was coming in from uh from the plane, going into Stockholm, and you go, okay, we're in a European capital city, going into the capital city, it was just on it was just outside in uh place called Strawberry Arena, just outside of the main capital of Stockholm, and you've got all the brands uh already competing. So as you're driving in from the airport into the main town, you have like Brooks had advertisement, so Adidas were there, Nike were there, and the last world championships I was at was uh two years ago in Nice, and the progress that they have made, just in terms of how it looks, how it feels, it's just so impressive to see. And one thing I would say is I don't think there were that many spectators, you know, it's just not maybe it's not a sport that's gonna be that spectator friendly. Really?

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Because on the broadcast, the elite individuals looked like there was quite a decent crowd for, and then the mixed uh the on and the doubles and the and the quads, it looked like it was very bare. But but the elite men and women did look like it was quite quite busy.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

I would say that this is the same as Madrid, is that it's participating like participation people coming to watch the elites. Right. So, you know, automatically you've you add in like a plus one for each one, like a family member or a friend, whatever. You know, you're at over 10,000 people just in participants and and friends and family. So you already get this really dense crowd because of that, who obviously want to watch the the elites. They had a a really good opening ceremony before. And you can tell that they're putting in that work to become like a really professional Olympic sport. It's uh it's just really well done, and they keep making improvements. And I was speaking to some uh some of the guys from within HyROX, and apparently in the last year, they've had they've made like 200 uh 200 more employees. And within those employees, you know, taking people who have experience in Iron Man, people who have experience in the ATP World Tour, and you're just like when they when they say the things that they're doing, you're like, yeah, this makes sense. You know, okay, there's some some stuff where you're like the crews or pushing that, there's other things that you okay, maybe not. But the large majority of things, you're just like, yeah, fair play. And I don't believe, like having seen some of the numbers and where the participation's from, I don't think the peak is, you know, I don't think we're at the peak of where this is going to go. I believe there's there's still another significant wave upwards of number of people participating. And I think they just keep doing a great job in managing growth.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

And you said that from the last one you entered to this one, it just everything felt bigger and better. Was there anything in particular that stood out? Like, was it the size of the arena, the layout, the um like polish around it, just how smooth the it was on the day? What what what were the major things that stood out that elevated?

SPEAKER_00 27:16

I think it's polish. It's the the attention to detail. And I think it's things that are really hard to appreciate the level of work that's gone on to making it look good. Just for example, the branding on the floor, the black and white that they used. Everything on the arena just looked that bit more polished. And the way that I would describe it, like the vendor village, for example, everyone was in like coordinated vendor tents they'd built up around. There were loads of activations going on site. There was so many athletes from outside of the space because you know, Adidas would bring in athletes, Nike would bring in athletes, Red Bull would bring in athletes. So he had all of these brands, influencers, content creators, really big energy. The way I would probably describe it is, you know, if you've been to any, if anyone's been to watch like professional sports games, when you go to watch in the Premier League or La Liga or somewhere like that, just the the football field almost look greener. You know, the lines look cleaner, lines look whiter, and they're small things, but altogether they just add up to that feeling that you said of being more polished. And that's how I would describe it. It's like you've just gone from like Division II, Division I, start moving up to that Premier League level standard where the grass looks the right colour. The there's no yellow patches, or all the lines are meticulous and and and everything like that. It's just very polished and it added to that feeling of it being professional. The walkout ceremony, for example, the DJ that they had like played a song specific to the the country, and it wasn't like the national anthem, which would be easy to do. It was like, you know, I can't think of an example now, but you know, when England came out, he played Oasis or something along those lines. Or you know, Puerto Rico, they had Bad Bunny, you know, it's like those little things, attentions, and and it made the difference. So yeah, I I'm just just generally positive about how they're they're making decisions, and the reason why I think I follow it so much is you feel like CrossFit. Um I think it kind of just reflects on those decisions that aren't being made.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Yeah, it feels like it certainly feels from an outsider onlooker perspective that HIROC seems to be pushing forward in a very unified approach. Like we're going here, this is where we want to go. We're all kind of pulling in the same direction, and every year it feels like it's getting better and better and better. And it and and kind of to me, that was CrossFit 2018, 2019, 2018 time, where it was like every year it felt like it was gonna get better and better and better until it didn't. Um, but yeah, I think it's that juxtaposition, isn't it, where CrossFit isn't the moment that feels a bit like all over the place and we're not quite sure what's gonna happen next year, we're not even really quite sure what's happening this year, whereas Hyrux just feels like it's like on this march forward every year. It's like, right, we're gonna do a bit more, we're gonna we're gonna get more people doing it.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

And you can tell the brands just leaning in in just such a heavy way. Like the I've never seen in the fitness space the level of activations that are being put on by Adidas and Nike there. Just I mean, the investment that especially Adidas must have made is just significant. They had like three three athlete hotels, they everyone was kitted out, they've all brought out new specific shoes, uh these hybrid shoes, which I think it's the first time you've had like a proper high rocks or hybrid shoe. And you know, it's like CrossFit back in the day when all of a sudden like a nano came out, or you know, the the shoes with the rope climb plastic on or whatever it may be. You know, before everyone was using innovates or vibrant five fingers, it was like they weren't specifically designed for the sport, whereas it's jumped that level. And now that the brands have products in the space, they're gonna keep getting behind it. And I I walked around with a bit of a sensation, I was a bit sad because this is what you feel should be able to happen in the in the CrossFit space. So the brands should be activating in this big way because they see the return, etc. etc. But it's just not the environment for them to to do it. And I I you know, being from the CrossFit space, it's just yeah, it's there's like it was a weird feeling walking around and uh seeing all of these these things happening.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Yeah, well, I think, you know, without going too off the event, CrossFit definitely sort of was one of the first systems of its kind to kind of make a mark and and get people involved and really do that. And now lots of others are looking at what they did and being like, oh, we could do it differently and build it in our own way. And I think with the amount of people that Hyrux got through last year, which we've discussed, like over a million people kind of participating, brands start to take notice of those numbers and being like, oh, we should probably get involved with this because a lot of people are going to want to buy shoes, gonna want to buy clothing that's specific for this culture and this movement.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

And also, you know, the brands are innately competitive as well. They want the world champion. So it's like now you have say Puma, um, Nike, Adidas, Reebok, whoever it may be, all these, and even the people who've just been in running because of this this buy-in with with hybrid, they uh they all see that you know they would like a world champion. And that encourages them to get more athletes. You know, it's just how the competition just evolves the the space and the system, and ultimately it's the the athletes that are going to be the initial benefactors of this of this rise.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Absolutely. Well, should we get on to the competition itself? Um I was actually thinking that start on the women, just because the men's field, yeah, there is some there's quite interesting things to talk about, which I think we should probably come to secondary. Um, but on the women's side, and you mentioned her already, Alyssa McMakleny, I think this was her second race ever, was it, or or something like that? She's very new to the sport. She kind of rocked up recently, second or third race, and just put like everyone was sort of talking about her being kind of top three beforehand in the pre-show, that she's a great runner and she could surprise people, and just she just went out there and absolutely bossed it, like with a smile on her face and kind of came out of nowhere and really was impressive.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Yeah, it it was really impressive to watch. Like to jump back to the race. Lauren Lauren Weeks came out super hot and then just blew up. And Joanna was was close behind her, and you were like, you know, Joanna has the odds of her winning were so high, she'd won every single major easily, and you just thought it was a foregone conclusion, like she's gonna win. But then Selisa, you're like, you know, on which station is she gonna start losing ground? And all of a sudden you realize, like, wow, she's you know got through the sleds, she's got through the machines, and just so impressive to watch. And you could tell. I don't know if you if anyone watched the live stream, just happened like she was smiling, laughing to the camera, singing the songs. It was yeah, it was it was really impressive because this is what happens in such a new sport, you know. At the CrossFit games now, you're not gonna have this happen because the sport's been around so long. Like, you know, maybe you have someone unexpected, but not as unexpected as this to come in and all of a sudden just win the world championships. And you know, it's gonna keep evolving, evolving the space. And it I was I was very happy for her, I think very sad for Joanna because it would have been a very in like tier-level impressive achievement winning every major and then winning the world championships, but it leaves staff's uh Hamsome One Do It question open for the next year now.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Yeah, definitely. Well, it was interesting because I think I I like like we said, it was it was just over a week ago now, but I remember sort of it being really tight, like you say, Lauren came out really hot. Joanna uh Alyssa kind of in in with her as long along with Sinead Benton were kind of all all kind of very close for uh the first half of the race, and then it felt like I can't remember what station it was, but Alyssa kind of came out first, um, and then just sort of kept pulling away a little bit, and Joanna had to like catch her on the wall towards the end, so it was a war balls, but she had like a good league going into like the final two stations.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Yeah, I I I don't know. From the outside, it looked like Joanna went through a bit of a you know, she'd led every race, so I think it was a bit of a tough emotionally to all of sudden be. I think she might have been in fourth or fifth place at some points, and there was like a really mid-race dip where she was just behind and then managed to regain herself and pulled back, as you said.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Um and an impressive outing for Sine Bent. I know she I don't know exactly what it was, but I know she's had some injury concerns this year, and um one of the races didn't race as much as she'd like to, and was a bit nervous coming into this, whether she would hold up and stuff. So had a really solid performance coming in third, and um yeah, Calypso Sheridan in fourth, and unfortunately, as she said, Lauren Weeks kind of blowing up and and and coming in fifth after a really strong start. Yeah. So then if we go on to the men's race, uh and there was a surprise winner on the men's as well. Dylan Scott coming in and uh kind of out of nowhere, really, right at the end of the race. Like um, this at the beginning of the race was uh Hunter McIntyre versus Tim Beanish, sort of that there'd been a lot of jibe throughout the week, kind of friendly banter at all the press conferences and stuff, which was some of the media was quite fun actually, um, and kind of made it I think kind of elevated it a little bit. I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. And and you know, Hunter's known to some of us CrossFitters as well, because he kind of decided to get a bit involved and chirpy in the in the CrossFit space at one point, managed to get himself an invite to the 2019 games. Yeah, they came out super strong, but there was some interesting calls during the race. What was it like on the actually in the stadium? How how how was the race between these guys?

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Uh well it was the fine, so I think the first thing that happened was coal, though, and that was a point of contention because there's apparently a rule, and and this is where I think the important thing for Hyrux, it being in the same event every time, they can keep improving these things. But the rule is basically don't finish a station, you haven't completed the race, therefore you get disqualified. So apparently he stepped off the skier too early, it was really close call, and they disqualified him, which obviously it seems harsh, and I'm sure they'll reflect on that and it happens, but then it all it became more relevant because of the finish of the race, uh, because this now led to some discrepancies in in how the rules apply, and some I I think just stuff you this is the thing with live competition, there's stuff happens that you could never foresee happening, and I think this was the the case here, but yeah, it looked it looked like Tim was gonna go in and be able to take it. Um he was all of these guys, you know, I think they were all aware that they have the opportunity to be able to make it on the last run and be able to take the the spot, so they all ran super hard. Then all around 70 rule balls, they all just imploded, like going to singles, going to doubles, like no one could string it together all the way down to Dylan, who was in fifth place. And Dylan was obviously fresher than the rest of the guys, managed to hold on. All of a sudden, you see this him creeping up, other guys just who were quite far ahead going in, stopping, stopping, stopping. It was going to be a tight race. I think Tim was aware of that. He does his 99th wall ball, thinks he's doing the hundredth, and apparently some judges called him on. He goes to run across the line. Dylan's there just behind him at the same time, manages to overtake. Uh, and then Tim's like in this weird one, he says he has to go back, then gets told he can't go back, and so crosses the line. And it's just, you know, from that point on, it's kind of chaos to know who's come across, who hasn't come across, and what the podium's gonna be. Uh so yeah, from a spectator point of view, you have no idea what happened, but I would say it was very exciting, you know. It was a really exciting finish and shows just how much can happen on the wall ball station and uh in the high rocks race. So it was cool to watch. And it turned out that Tim, for whatever reason, gets a no-rep on the last wool ball. And I think they applied like a 15-second penalty or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

They did, yeah. They did apply a 15-second penalty.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

Um and the rule gets a bit weird because he had finished the race because he crossed the line. Um, but then he hadn't done all the stations, so should he then be disqualified like Cole? So you know, I'm sure these guys debated this back and forth. But anyway, the decision came on that they gave him the time penalty, which then put him head of Charlie. He then sits in uh in third place. And you know, again, someone completely out of the blue, Lewis manages to uh to go in and sneak a second place, which I don't think anyone else saw coming either.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

No, for sure. And Hunter McIntyre was actually in the lead for a lot of this race, and he's come out uh along with a lot of the public actually and been very critical about the judging on this event. And it's sort of blown up a little bit in Hyrule's world at the moment, is is the event's great, but the judging is terrible. And it's you know, you have a lot of CrossFit people as well talking about the judging, the quality of standards, the quality of movement. And if you didn't watch the race, Hunter was Hunter was kind of going for this. Like he had been all week, he he was kind of saying he he'd been changing his training, there was a lot of noise around him, and he really went after the race. And his judge gave him, and I'm still not, I'll be honest, I'm still not sold on this yellow card system for anything other than the sleds, because everything other than the sleds, you can go and do another rep. Like if you if on the sleds you have an infringement, I completely get the card system because the sled has already moved. You can't move the sled back, you can't do another rep, as it were. It's hard, very hard to no rep a sled pull um in that regard. So so I get that they've got standards around that and that the card system seems to work there. But on a burpee broad jump or on a walking lunge, just get them to go and do another rep. Like this card system is I don't I don't I think it's just they're creating a rod for their own back where it gets really subjective and really weird, um, where it's much cleaner just to make them do another rep. Anyway, he gets a yellow card on on the burpee broad jump, I think it was, um, or the walking lunch, I forget which, actually, now off the top of my head, which he disputes shouldn't have been won anyway. He then gets another one, um, which then the head judge comes and overrules. And then his main judge has also said he hasn't done enough work, and then the other the main judge again comes and overrules it. So there's this like whole kerfuffle that goes in that loses him a bit of time. He still gets a 15-second penalty anyway, which if he didn't have, then maybe he could have won the race because he actually comes in seventh. So today on his YouTube channel, he's gone, he's kind of done the basic the vlog of of his him going to Hyrux and stuff, and at the very end, he basically calls out the whole competition for it. And there is, if you go and have a look in the comment section and stuff, there's a lot of people talking about the standards of of Hyrocks now. And I do think until they fix some of this stuff, as exciting as it's getting, and I kind of almost liken it to like this is the the running equivalent of the F1. It's kind of got like overtakes and kind of feels a little bit like that, like Formula One, but for fitnessing, if you like, it kind of got that vibe about it now. It's it's that's the direction it feels like to me. But some of these issues, like someone getting a DQ for not finishing a station, but you know, Tim Venus, who is a what world champion, getting only getting a 15 second penalty, like these things are gonna add up and cause cause issues for them going forward, I think.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

Yeah, and it's not a simple solve because as as objective as you try to make it. It still becomes a very subjective standard. This is why, like, a chest to bar in CrossFit is a lot better movement than a pull-up. Because you take away that subjectivity of the judge saying, you know, is the chin over the bar, which is harder to see. But if the chest touches the bar, it's a lot easier to see. And it's kind of like the same way of like jumping over a line. Or and we think about this a lot when we program CrossFit events, is not putting in movements that are going to have a hard time for the judges. And because of the distance of the Burpee broad junk, like where they land, where they put their hands, this 30 centimetres, whatever the rule is. Like, I don't think it's going to, I don't think it's an easy fix because you have the subjective nature of the judge at the time. And until you put in something that's very demonstratable, like in football, you know, the ball crosses the line, it's in tennis. Ball crosses the line, it's out, whatever it is. And you know, you can set up cameras, you know, and look how extreme it gets in football and tennis and all these things, just for this queer thing. I think the same, you probably need to change the movement in order to be able to get it to become more objective, or at least change the standard of the movement. Otherwise, you just it I don't think that's an easy fix, correct.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

No, I agree, and this is sort of one of the things that I think CrossFit being a bit more mature has has, you know, come up against more and and sometimes done a really good job of kind of resolving, and sometimes, you know, box dumbbell box step-ups being one, not a great job of resolving quit well, and and then therefore we talk about what movements should be in certain competitions on on online versus in person, and I'm sure that is going to kind of rage on. I do think that they can make this it easier for themselves and and get rid of and be a bit think about this card system. I d honestly think if you get if someone doesn't do a walking lunge, just step back, do another walking lunge, a couple of seconds, off they go, rather than a 15-second penalty, which you know ends up really deciding races. You're still there, Adam.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Okay, I think we have technical difficulty. We lost Adam. Okay, I'm gonna try to bring up Oh, you're back, Adam.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

I'm back, yeah. Sorry for that team. Uh my connection.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

I was gonna bring up the high rocks Ludaborn carry on. But I thought it was also an interesting segue uh into the other major thing that has been happening uh related to CrossFit and judging, because I think of the final stage of the CrossFit season was the semifinals. Semifinals were online, and as we have said many times, I really don't think that the online is a is a good way to do things, and I think this especially qualifying people for the games, well, in any way, in any shape or form, but anyway, it's uh it really highlighted something, and I I think this is where you know the CrossFit space as well has its has its troubles. And and I wanted to bring up one of the the issues that had been happening during I don't know how much you followed all the the judging bits.

SPEAKER_01 47:27

I I saw some of the stuff going on, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

So actually I think the leaderboard is going to be finalized in like the next hour or so. Okay. Still going on.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

I thought it had been finalized.

SPEAKER_00 47:41

No, I mean I think people know people are pretty much sure that it's it's set. Okay. A lot of people have had their scores accepted. But I you know, I there was a story going through, and I I'm not on social as much at the moment, uh, but there were some stories going through. And if you go to the the mail leaderboard, yep. Uh so you can see, and if you go down to because really it's you know it's the fringe where where things get interesting. So if you go down, I think you've got Patrick in seven and then Harry in eight.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

Let me see if I get the song. Okay, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

Can you see uh do you want to share my screen?

SPEAKER_01 48:47

Yeah, I've got you.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

Okay sorry about that. So here it's an address. Um so here we have going through, so this is where the fringe, you know, obviously this is where the arguments uh start coming in. But I you know, I started getting forwarded some stuff, and I I want to highlight it because I think it's like when you start calling other athletes out and posting on your social media, it's just it creates this whole you know, it's just not great community and saying things like someone deserves this more than the other. But anyway, I get sent. I don't know if I can present two screens at once, but I think you might have control of what happened. So I got sent this story. Do you see the screen now?

SPEAKER_02 49:31

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Okay, so this is from one of like Harry's coach from the UK. The standard's the standard. And what started happening was everyone starts basically turning into like this popularity contest of like go see this other person's video, vote them down, but then vote me up.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

No way. I missed all of this.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

Okay, so it was quite dry. So, you know, some athletes just put up like, hey, uh go vote good on my videos. And this became really significant because CrossFit actually validated some videos. I saw the email. So they validated some videos based on the community feedback. So if a video had enough good reviews rather than bad reviews, CrossFit are just like, yeah, okay, public thinks it's okay, we let it go through. And so obviously, this became like a whole, well, we didn't necessarily know what would happen with the voting system. But it then meant that the athletes' videos who were downgraded or not upgraded then went into the the judging process. Whereas basically, if you had lots of good votes, you know, you're through and no one seemed to uh want to validate the video. So this is this mark I put up. The standard is the standard. And this is where things I think get really messy with it online and it just heightens things. So we pride ourselves on standards. I'm happy with all five of our submissions down to the rep. Our investigation, this is where it starts, just like getting, you know, throwing shit at others. Our investigation of other athletes, however, has uncovered some extremely poor standards. If you hold the judge's qualification, I would appreciate if you look at it, flag it, and should you agree, I believe this will significantly alter the final leaderboard. Thank you in advance. So basically, Michael's gone on and like just thrown. He basically puts a list of every athlete that is above Harry and tries to find something wrong with their video, and then they go and post about it. They kind of try to do this whole campaign about trying to get all these videos downvoted, who've all done, you know, who've all submitted scores higher than Harry to help him get to the games. But obviously, you know, if you're gonna do something like this, I really feel that you have to, you have to be a hundred percent sure that Harry's video has nothing wrong with it. But of course, on the internet, you know, you start putting these things out, and I don't know if you know, if they're the team were aware of it or not. Either they they were aware of it and decided to lie, um, or they're not as stringent as it or that they can't pride themselves as much on their standards. Because Harry's video then comes up. Uh, or some people start looking at Harry's video because obviously they're throwing shit at others. And it turns out that Harry misses uh a few double unders. Um let me get this. And like I, you know, I don't disagree that a few double unders where does okay, whatever it is, a few seconds. But then in the CrossFit rule book, I don't know if you can share the screen. Yeah. So then if you go on to penalties here, um if the athlete advances before completing specified number of reps, meters, calories, their score will stop at the last correctly completed rep, for example. So it, you know, based on the standard is the standard, then actually Harry's video should be invalidated and he he shouldn't go to the games. And so you just end up with this whole weird scenario. And if I'm honest, like the trouble is this online format. Like, one, I don't think you should start throwing shit at other athletes because you want your your athlete to get through, especially not if there's something wrong in a video and either you've lied about it or you know, you just haven't checked like you you said you checked. But the other thing as well, it's just the nature of this thing being online. You put this thing online, you've got to think that the the athlete has to do it in affiliate, fair enough. They need two judges. The athlete goes through the workout, people can freeze-frame the workout, analyze it in detail afterwards. And also, as we talked about before, you don't get any, even if you get indirect or direct feedback from the judge on the floor, if CrossFit then look at the video, like what happened to Claudia, she all of a sudden gets like loads of no reps for deadlifts, gets taken out of the games, but seems that only athletes have that happen. It's just it's just not a nice sensation. And interestingly, I I sense, you know, you congratulate the athletes as they've as they've made it. But you know, none of the athletes are actually happy at that point because they know how strict the judging can be, and so they want to wait for that email. And it's like a weird way to qualify for the game. So you like you submit your score, you've done enough, but you don't actually get the you know, kind of the the feeling of qualifying from a live competition. And and it turns out like the biggest the biggest sanctions that CrossFit started looking into was more where the, you know, does the judge have the right qualifications? So then all of a sudden start handing out like these two-year bans to the judges who didn't happen to have the qualification. I don't know if you saw that. There's been a number of people, but they got the judge ended up receiving a two-year ban because they they judge the athlete without the right credentials. So they can't compete in the open or anything like that for two years now, which is really savage. Did you had you not seen this? No, that's wild. Yeah, so so like Danny Camacho is like he goes up, he he had a master's athlete that he helped judge for the games. He was the first one to kind of go public with it. And because he didn't have the right credentials, you know, like I don't know, he didn't have his advanced judges or on the time. And this was another thing, is that CrossFit made you complete the course before the start of the competition. So if you tried, if you then did the course afterwards, you missed a deadline and were then invalid. Um anyway, so he didn't have it. So now Danny Camacho's banned for two years because he judged an athlete trying to get like do the qualifier without going to the game. So it's like a really it's just strange to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 56:13

I mean, there's so much to unpack there. Like, and I mean none of it, none of it sounds particularly great. I mean, it unfortunately it does seem that we're in the era of just people calling people out on the internet, which I'm never particularly fond of anyway. Um, and you know, you try and we talk about like judging standards and trying to critique things because we're kind of talking about sports, and unfortunately that's part of sports, but it does seem to bleed into like some crazy stuff. Like I couldn't imagine any other professional sport where other competitors are going out and basically telling you why they've I mean it feels a bit MMA-esque um in a way, but it's like it's kind of a bit MMA-esque without the outlet, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 56:56

Yeah, yeah. It's like the MMA stuff's cool because you go, okay, well, at some point these guys are gonna throw down.

SPEAKER_02 57:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

Whereas this, it's just like a weird, it's just it's just a bit strange. And I don't think it's you know, we talk about the judging in high rocks, which and I think a point is because I do think that they will improve. There were certain things that happened in the season of people not qualifying because of weird rules and stuff. They changed the rules to make it better for the next event, and and they can keep doing that. But you know, unfortunately, we don't have seem to have the same logic going through. And so these weird things. I mean, I don't know, it you speak to most people. Why do we have seven places online for one? Yeah. Two, why I mean, why even have online a tool qualifying through? And then you just end up with this weird, it's it's not the most supportive community, you know what I mean? It's like you just end up not being proud or excited for other people to get through. You just kind of like trying to hate on them to be like, oh, we did we did it better than you, we're better than you. And it's like, well, you know, the case is that there's all these issues and errors, and you know, maybe some people made honest mistakes, and you don't give them that. And obviously, there's blatant there's cheats that have happened in the the online process before, but yeah, it's just it's just a weird, it's a weird space. I imagine for like younger athletes coming in seeing all of this, they don't necessarily want to get involved or or put themselves out there to have this kind of scrutiny.

SPEAKER_01 58:34

Yeah, I mean, or also just kind of for everyone involved, this whole process of online, uh any online qualifier is an immensely stressful, time-consuming thing to do, especially if you're also the athlete who is having to kill yourself effectively to try and get you yourself to the games, which is the big show. And it only happens once a year. And even though, and we were talking about it earlier, that it's great because there's so many more competitions and opportunities to earn money, but this is kind of the one that seems to, by the fact that a load of people pulled out of WFP this year, seems to be the one that everyone still cares the most about. But qualifying for it is a nightmare at the best of times, like you know, this semi-finals are a bit all over the place, they're all completely different in so many ways, and then the online part part is super stressful and fraught with craziness as well. And I mean, yeah, we've spoken about it, and it seems that lots of other people have like, why not put an extra spot on all of the semi-finals and have like one or two spots on the online bit and then you take away half this headache anyway?

SPEAKER_00 59:35

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And you know, yeah, we'll see. I mean, with with Bruce coming in now, you've got to think that maybe some changes. He's obviously not wanting to do things drastically at the start. I mean, it's what been two or three months that he's been in, and we've not seen any external big changes or really even public speaking. I think he's been to a couple of external conferences and answered a few questions, but there's there's been nothing like really pushed forward about what he wants to do or what he wants to try to achieve, and it will have huge impacts on the sport.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:13

Maybe he's trying to get a sense of the layer of the land before coming in making changes. Because I think that's perhaps some of the his previous predecessors have come in and tried to be very front-facing and make changes straight away. And I don't know, perhaps giving him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he's trying to get the layer of the land, certainly waiting for the FD games.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

I actually don't think it's the worst thing not having a public-facing CEO, as long as there's transparency in what's happening, you know. It's I don't think you know it takes a lot of time being on podcasts debating all these things. And and I think as long as the direction's clear, like it'd be nice to know what's happening with with the sports. We have the 20th year this year. I do think the games will be very exciting this year. I think doing, you know, doing the 20 events, like the as long as the programming's not suited to being able to do 20 events, it'd be fun going back to the ranch, all of those things. I I think it will be very exciting. And I'm interested to see, considering this is one thing I was going to mention, but I didn't, is just how much respect all the athletes have for each other. So in the in this training world, I think a lot of like the high walks athletes, for example, really look up to the crossfit athletes because they're like, you know, you can you can run pretty well, but also you're you're super strong. There's not there's not like competition or athletes thinking that they're better than the other. It's just really supportive of one another and what they can achieve. And I think that should be highlighted more as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:48

Yeah. Yeah, it feels like a funny old time in the space at the moment, and uh it's it's hard because you kind of I don't know, having Hunter and Tim Beanish, they're kind of fun banter. Like that's kind of what you want to see. You want to see like you had a bit of it with Matt Fraser back in there, you want to see a little bit of like rivalry, and maybe that kind of comes out in competitiveness. I think it's always hard to say to see that bleed over into like public online disagreements and and things like that that that look looks more at like trying to take someone down rather than trying to compete with them. And and unfortunately, I don't as well CrossFit aren't helping that this that they kind of seem to be exacerbating it by the some of the choices they're making around how they structure the season and and and what they're asking of their athletes and their coaches and things like that in terms of what they need to do to get them to progress. And ultimately we just want to see the best versus the best, really. And and athletes want to, you know, be able to compete at the highest level and all that kind of stuff. And it feels it feels like that all gets lost a little bit in this all this kind of stuff. I mean, I'm sure some of the content creators are loving it because they've got them there's like a well, a well of content to create on at the moment that like, you know, mustn't know what to do with themselves. They've got too many videos to make on uh all the all the craziness going on.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:09

Well, this is the interesting thing. I don't think of all the growth, I feel like the media space has not necessarily grown in the same way. Like there's not like I don't know. It that that's an interesting point. I feel like the media back in the CrossFit day is actually more potent than it is now within in the high rock space.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:29

Yeah, I'd agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

Which is something I'd not thought about, but I think quite interesting. That hasn't got the same, like uh doesn't seem to be growing at the same level.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:42

Agreed. Well, that was a good old, good old chat. Loads going on in the fitness space at the moment. Apologies for dropping out a couple times. It seemed that when I was sharing my screen, it just I could only do one or the other. But but yeah, thank you very much for for the chat. John, was there anything else you wanted to say before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:59

Um no, I don't think so. Like I think it's it's kind of lead like high rock season finish for 26, so the next season starting soon. We have like affits happening, Xenom happening, games coming up in what less than a month, three weeks time. So there's lots of lots of things moving and uh exciting fitness summer.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

Yeah, cool. And we'll have to when's the when's the next crown? What's going on with the program at the moment? We haven't we kind of touched on what what you've got cooking at the moment too much on the pod.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:31

We have we have some exciting news that I can't release publicly yet uh coming up about the crown. So that's gonna be cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

Oh, that's a tease. Okay, so future episodes team. If you if you're interested in the crown, uh we'll be sharing something when I can prize it out, John.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:50

Yeah, but I'm excited for that. Like doing stuff, I think the next generation, sort of all of this stuff to keep moving, the next generation is super important. And you know, ultimately that's the the whole idea and effort behind the crown. Hopefully, we can keep making it work.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:04

Yeah, 100%. Awesome. Well, team, thank you very much for tuning in. And like I said, apologies for technical difficulties. And as ever, if you have any comments, questions, or anything like that, get in touch with us either via the details below or via the socials. And we'll catch you on next week's episode. Thank you very much, John. Awesome, thank you.