Good evening. Welcome everybody to the Spin
January 17th, 2024. We're back from Miami, at least
I am. It looks like Tyler is as well.
John never left. Never left us.
Tyler, did you, have you ever been able to recover yet?
I'm getting there. It's still.
I think it's going to be like this for a little week.
It it's not as sorry, it's not as painful as it was, but yeah,
it's it's going to take a minute.
I believe I I pushed it to the point where it was, it was
pretty painful while I was there.
So you got to pay the price on the other end?
Yeah, you sounded pretty bad on Sunday and it's it's not not
improved much. I went back and watched some of
those videos and I was like, man, it was pretty bad.
Like my wife didn't believe that it was me on the phone, I
called. I called Sevon while I was there
and he was like, this is not dollar.
And so I didn't think it was that bad, but it was evidently
pretty bad. Maggie met her.
So thank you for becoming a new member.
Appreciate it. I did.
Too. She's really nice.
Yeah, I mean, it was pretty cool.
Met a lot of lot of fans. That was that was pretty fun and
it was not John's fault. So.
It typically is though so like you know, it's not unfounded,
so. Yeah.
All right. We'll get into it.
We'll start off with fewer comments, a little underwhelming
this time, let's say the least. So make sure if you're watching
this, watching back or you're not in the chat live and you
think of something, drop it in the comments.
We'll catch it up next week. A lot of these actually were
coming from the daily behind the scenes, but I want to kind of
read these out, get some reactions if if need be be
Sparks DC. If any of you have met James
Sprague, you know that the dude is the most kind hearted human
being and a fierce competitor only 21 years old to root for
that man he was. He's basically Noah Olson.
I mean, Noah Olson, Cole Sager combined like the dude is about
as. Nice as Do not put Cole Sager in
that court, No. Olson from a from a from a being
nice standpoint, 100 percent, 100%.
Yeah, Springs. Amazing.
I love hanging out with him. So yeah, Sprague was great.
Also, Mr. Meaner one. I love Rebecca.
She's great and funny. Always reading for her to do
well. It's big Becca season.
You blame Hopper? Yeah, I'll.
Take y'all, take that for what you will.
Whatever was going on with that, it's.
Just me, and I'm trying to fight each other the whole time.
Dude Hopper was everywhere. Whether even if he wasn't
competing Thursday, Friday he and Down were just walking
around cracking jokes, laughing. They were both.
They were both tired because they wouldn't go to bed because
they'd stay up screwing around. I could budget a freaking 19
year old. Now, I mean, it was, it was
hilarious. You'd be walking down one of the
vendor areas, all you'd hear is Hopper's voice or or laughter
and you know, he was out there somewhere.
And yeah, those guys were awesome.
Tyler should be on a Marlboro ad.
He's on his way. Ricky and Kotler make such a
good team. Tyler, you spend a lot of time
with, especially with Kotler. Yeah, Kotler, The last two days
we talked a lot and Ricky, Ricky and I kind of made friends after
I asked him if he was a redneck and several other invasive
questions there. I mean, I was skeptical of
Kotler. I, you know, I don't know how
much of people's you know, John. I don't.
You haven't had that much
exposure to hanging out with people live, right.
So you have these ideas of who they might or might not be in
your head And then like I'm sitting there with Kotler on on
the last day during the award ceremony and man, like we're
just chatting it up like we knew each other forever.
I mean that is genuine. And I I just wasn't expecting
that. And then Ricky's the same way.
Like Ricky, I felt like I could take him to Eastern Kentucky and
he'd fit right in, man. He just, he felt like I could
take him to the farm and he could.
I felt like I could take him to a, you know, a five star
restaurant sort of thing. So.
Is this true? Does color make good steaks?
I have no idea. I've been told.
I've been told he's a good cook. And then the last one.
I told you there weren't very many.
At first I thought the Coons was slamming a Miller Lite.
I would have respected him much more so.
Probably some jocko though. If you didn't catch it, I caught
up with the Coons on one of the behind the scenes.
He was hanging out at the CrossFit tent.
Figured I'd go say hi. Caught, caught a few minutes
with him and yeah, I think it was a liquid death that he think
he was drinking, but. Oh yeah, they do look like
Miller Lights. They're tall like Miller Lights,
and they're white. Yeah, they they had the if you
wanted water, that's pretty much the only option you had.
They didn't have a free water station this year, which was
crazy. So if you wanted if you wanted
water, it was basically a $6.50 liquid death.
I was trying to trade. I think I had my Max one day was
like 1500 milligrams of caffeine and I think I had two liquid
deaths for every one of those. So I was just full of liquid the
entire day. Yeah, yeah.
What was the purpose of the CrossFit tent?
So they were doing CrossFit Open registrations.
I was also confused about this PC.
Yeah, they were. They were doing that.
They were having some meetings with affiliates or affiliate
owners were coming over and and chatting with them.
So I don't know all of the details.
It was in a kind of tucked away corner.
So they didn't get as much traction as they had last year.
Last year they had a great location.
They had a pull up rig there. So they were doing some teaching
and stuff. They didn't have that this year.
It was really seemed to be primarily focused around doing
some open signups, meeting with affiliates if they wanted to
stop by and chat. Craig Howard was there on
Saturday, I think. So they're having some meetings.
I can't talk either. It's been rough.
Yeah, I was getting ready to say I was listening to you the other
day and I was like, oh, his voice is kind of cracking.
Oh, Monday I was bad shape for sure.
It started. Happened to everybody, It
happened to PC and it happened to Bella, so I don't know if I I
had something and I gave it to you all or what.
Yeah, should have been giving out free water instead of free
rain. I just That shit kept me going.
All right, let's go look at some predictions.
So last week we left off. We, we shared our predictions.
I think we did better than we thought we did.
Now we didn't do much in terms. Of speak, for speak for
yourself, man. He is speaking for himself.
He got second in the world. Yeah, we'll get to that here in
a second. I've.
Ever had. We'll get to that here in a
second. John, I think we lost your mic,
by the way. Yeah, I think it's on the, you
hear me. It's a little echoey.
It may not be on your headset. Give me.
A But so here's. A look at all that Green, Man.
So the top 10 predictions on men you'll see on the left.
There we have the results of top 10.
And then there are our picks. So if you were green, that means
you were within two spots. So if you picked, if you picked
like Segurard, I have him in 3rd.
He finished first, so he's within two.
Black means you had they're both in the top 10.
Red means you failed. We all had at least two Reds.
Can you all have a every now? Yeah, that's better.
That's better. Roman Krenikoff obviously was
the biggest disappointment from a replacement standpoint, all
picking 1st Alex Vigno for you guys, not even close to the top
ten. You know Nick Matthews, Luke
Parker, Mertens and Hatfield were close but maybe not quite
in 5th so I will call out Tyler Quants. 3rd place pick was
money. Beautiful Tyler.
That might have been your best call of all time.
I got like that might have been your best prediction that you've
ever had because. Which is hilarious because I'm
always low on quant. It just.
Seems poetic, doesn't? It and we're usually higher on
them, you know like or I usually AM and.
After this weekend, see, this is the problem.
I'll start getting biased because I meet people and I
start liking them. I met, I met Quant and he was.
He liked the he liked the fantasy app.
And you know, we chummed it up for a while.
He's a good dude. He's a lot more personable than
you would think. I thought he was very reserved,
not really talkative. That is false for both him and
Jack Farlow. They're very personable people.
So yeah, I don't. I think I met, I talked with
Farlow on Friday night and yeah, he was, you think of it as more
quiet and reserved. But no, he he was very
personable and talking with Quant after that, the deja vu he
he kind of admitted that he didn't he wasn't feeling that
bad after the second interval. He's like I I this is kind of
weird and sounds bad, but I was feeling pretty good, like he
shouldn't have felt that good. So I mean if he has that
capacity, he could be dangerous in 24, which we'll get to in a
bit. Any surprises on this top ten
just looking at it? Did you?
So I kind of tried to poke around Rosa to see what was
going on with Roman. And I did it lightly and it was
at the end of it. It was towards the end of an
event. So they probably weren't really
focused on me, but I was like, hey man, this is, this is
uncharacteristic of Roman. I was like, he's not doing bad.
It just seems like he's a little flat.
And I can't remember the guy that was with them, but he was
basically like that. He's just like, he's a little
tired. He's been traveling a lot.
It's just a bad day. Like that's what they nailed it
up to. Too much traveling from South
Korea? Ricky's been traveling a lot
too. It didn't hurt him.
Yeah, I know Ricky was strong the entire weekend.
I I don't know. I mean, it could be some of it.
The the changes to the workouts, it definitely was a different
type of competition than I think we all expected going into it
because of the weather. I can't imagine that Roman's the
best at 60 pull ups, strict pull ups.
No, it no, the changes, the changes in the workouts hurt
Roman a lot. Like every change that they made
was to his detriment. I I think you could say the same
with Danielle Brandon. Every single change and and they
changed like three of the five workouts were to their
detriment. So like I and then like when
it's only 5 events and you're all one of those events you're
not going to do good period. With the snatch it's it's I I'm
surprised he's that low but it doesn't take away with how he's
going to do it. The games, if they did 15 events
then he would be, in my opinion, I think he'd be up to 3rd place
if they did 15 events and his worst events were in the 1st 5.
But it's, you know, it is what it is in the competition.
I mean he did get 8th place. I do think it makes me think
twice about who I think is going to win the games because you
know, Ricky looks great the whole time.
It's just it's hard not to take that away and I thought they
were one and two coming into this and when one of you is
trash and wanted and and I don't mean that in a mean way like
they're they're this this this whole event water Palooza with
the change of the events was not set up for him to do well and it
was set up for Ricky to do well. So like I take that into
account. It's just I thought he would be
better than eighth. You know they didn't help they
didn't hurt Belner that bad. They didn't hurt quant that bad
those both they got Bukowski. You can't tell me 60 strict pull
up was good for Bukowski and he got second.
You know what I'm saying, But I still think he's going to be top
three at the games, really top two.
I think, well, it's like it just goes, you know, you go into, you
go sort of into The Cave. A lot of the athletes were
saying that after this event it's all focus.
You know, this is the last fun thing they do and it's it's
training time. And a lot of, you know, a few of
them said like, yeah, I'm not really prepped yet, so I don't
disagree, John, I think this is fine.
It's not the best but. Yeah, question for you guys.
How would the field fare if there are 8 events?
Well, I think we'd have a, we might have two mono structural
events, you know, maybe like they maybe they run that trail,
you know, and that'd be one of the events.
Guess who's going to do good in that event?
Holman. But like, he would have been
higher. But I mean, I don't think he
gets past fifth with eight events, you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you look at the people
ahead of them, none of them were showing any weakness.
No, and I mean Jack Farlow, I think Farlow and Sprague are the
biggest surprises of the whole competition.
Farlow, Sprague and venison and you can chop that up to like
they were good events. But I don't think they were
great events for Farlow and Sprague, and they still got 5th
and 7th. I like when they change that
workout to burpees and front squats.
That is a tall man's nightmare compared to short people.
When Martin's kills the whole field by 30 seconds, that means
James Sprague and Brent Fakowski are not having a good time.
That's what that means. And for James Sprague to guilt,
still get 7th in this. And I mean, I know they got set
up good for that swim event, I know, but you're going to have
home run hits and you're going to have events that are bad for
you. But typically that means you're
not going to get top five whenever you're back and forth
the whole time, right? And Farlow and Sprague were the
most impressive people at the whole competition in my opinion.
I think they're coming in 2024 and people need to take notice.
Yeah, I I want to talk on the the recap the last segment.
I definitely want to get your thoughts on Hatfield, but we'll
get short. We'll focus on the the
predictions at this point for the women, Not quite as good as
the men, Nowhere. Close.
Spiegel down in 19th. I did not have her in the top
ten. You guys told me there's a
weightlifting event. It's 20% that didn't.
That didn't pan out. I had her.
I had her 10th spin. I was.
I was with you. I just wasn't asked.
With her in the top ten, you had her in the top. 10 Where did you
have her? 13th You act like we had her
like this. I had her like 20th.
I don't know. You'll never know because I had
her. Didn't have her in the top ten.
Matilda Gardens definitely hurt a lot of people.
What do you make of this? Like why would the Why would the
men be much easier to predict than the women on this?
I'm wondering if, oh, go ahead, John, sorry.
I think the changes in advance affect the women a lot more than
they do the men. I, for instance, especially
because it's strict pull ups, strict pull ups, like all of a
sudden it's just who's the best strict pull ups.
Basically the big girls got no shot because of that.
And you know what, you say that and Gabby McGowan still goes out
there and get 2nd and crushes it, but Gabby McGowan still, you
know, top five fittest woman in the world, right?
So I think when it gets down like the less fit you get, the
lower tier of fitness you get, especially for the women.
That amount of strict pulling I think just plays a role so much
more. And we made our predictions
before the event changes. I just think the event changes
as a whole affected the competition with the women more
than they affected it for the men.
I still think it affects it, period.
But you know, I do. I do think it affected the women
more. Tyler, do you agree?
Did you say programming effects it more than the women?
Yeah, the changes in the events. Yeah, well, also, but I'll add
to the top on top of that. Like, it makes me wonder if the
the men are so tight that it, it almost always truly comes out to
who the fittest is, right? They're all so good at things.
But like with women, there seems to be a little bit more
pigeonholing going on where it's like I'm really good at this one
thing and there's so many. Like all the girls are different
like that. And so the programming changes
can really affect the leaderboard.
That's that's the only thing that makes sense to me on top of
what you said, John. Now we can't hear you at all.
Sorry, I had to go get this. I have myself on mute.
My bad. There you go.
You look at it, the top five that we had, we're all
relatively correct. I mean, except for Tyler's
egregious call with Danny Spiegel.
But like, other than that, like, we're all pretty darn solid.
But that's because, like, when you get to the fittest of the
fit, programming matters less and less.
And then at the bottom five, we're all trash.
I do. I do.
I do want to say I want to give props to Spin and and Brian
Friend. I know we don't want to.
I'm going to give props to him because they both were was it
teams or was it individuals? I.
Got you. Right here, teams.
Yeah, they both the top ten teams.
They tied for first in the whole world with teams and I just
think we should commend both of them because they they beat
everybody. They were they were the best.
They were the best analyst for this competition.
And I just, I want to tip my hat off to them both both the
Bryant's because they killed it and nobody else did.
Yeah, that was one with the changes of the.
Event I I did not look at heat one one time all weekend.
You said it. Forget it.
Yeah, like I did not. I I did 2 for this competition
and I really shouldn't have. Wow.
I. I couldn't with the top ten
right? I couldn't change it, but even
the the event picks, like I was just too busy to to worry about
it and it got to be Sunday before event 5 and I had some
downtime. I I decided to kind of see where
I was and I think I was second and Brian was third and then it
swapped. I moved down the third, he moved
up the 1st and then I caught him on the final event.
But yeah, you're watching that. You're like, there's a lot of
people that were very close there at the end.
And I'm like. How much am I going to move?
And we both moved a couple points and so we ended up tying.
And for those who don't know, what is the tiebreaker, Tyler?
It's the number of correct picks you have.
So based on the scoring system, like you get 10.
So technically you could never, which is impressive because you
did this, you never got a single pick absolutely correct.
You were always off by one or something, but you made-up for
points because Brian had some picks that like, really hit him.
Yeah, I had less zeros I like. I think I had one less 0 than
him. Yeah, he had two absolute
correct picks. So you he took it over you.
Yeah. I don't know what's more
impressive that that he picks two.
Absolutely correct. Or you didn't pick any and still
almost one? Yeah, I.
Think Well, I'm going to say the whoever's first place is more
impressive. Have you said that as a
tiebreaker like? Oh, I.
Know it's more impressive. I agree.
I mean, I set the tie break, but yeah.
It's kind of crazy. You could tie him with that for
sure, but that's. What I'm saying I had, I had a
few that were I mean I had more in the top ten.
I think he had a couple that were out.
The Mayhem group definitely didn't help.
I think they or no. The RX smart gear is one that
never hurt everybody I would think, but your. 90s string your
90s string Girls murder. They did.
They did very well. I had RX performance.
Team please? Yeah, I had to go.
What? Does it just say Kelsey kills
team? Please.
Hey, Kelly, Baker's got the highest credentials on that
team. Or Kelly Baker.
I don't care. Just don't say the name.
I said 93 and I didn't say the whole name.
And then, yeah, like RX performance, like when I started
going through all of the, the picking the teams, what I
noticed was it was all the known names, right?
So like you could tell that people were going through and
they were finding who they knew and they just threw them in
there. And then the problem was, if
they were not known because they were more team based athletes
who've been to the games multiple times, they were
outside that top ten and you had to go searching for them because
their average was like 10.8. And so you had to go look for
them. And I think that's where some
people got got burned is that they were just kind of using
what the average rank was of everybody in the that was
already picking. And some people got left behind
and I moved them up and got extra points.
Yeah, and it was, yeah, it was. It was clear to me that people
didn't or couldn't do their homework on the teams.
I mean, it was really hard. And that was the thing that we
learned more than anything was if you're going to run a teams
competition like this, you need to spend weeks, if not months
talking about who's going, which is difficult because we didn't
know and the teams changed on daily.
I mean, hell, there was a team with two people on it at one
point. But you have to, you have to do
that storytelling. Yeah, And it's tough to follow
who is everybody, right? Like, if there's a team name
like Invictus, you have an idea who it is.
But when they make up their team names, it's really tricky to
know who they are. And yeah, you have to click
through each one of them, think about it, move them up, move
them back, etcetera. So it's a tricky one.
But yeah, I couldn't believe that I was actually tied for
first. I.
Was lost on a tiebreaker. Oh, congratulations Sir.
I had forgotten that that that wasn't the league that won $1000
and I was like, I'm not paying either of them $1000.
It's it wasn't just for Andy. It was Indy, Indy, top ten and
then team shot caller. Yeah.
Oh, OK. Yeah, OK, well guess what's
back? Blind rankings.
This time it is Tiruatapalooza.
What does that mean? It means anything.
At Tiruatapalooza you were going to rank it as the best to worst
of things that have happened or just stuff at Waterapalooza.
What I like about this is that John, I disagree.
We have very different perspectives of Tierwater
Palooza. So you think so?
Well, yeah, 'cause you were at home and I was there.
Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.
You're. With different perspectives.
And again, it has it. It just has something to do with
Tierwater. Pollution, Sure.
That's it. And the the number one is the
best thing that happened at Tierwater Palooza, and the #5 is
the worst. All right, you guys ready?
Got it. Bayside Barge.
Oh, that's I I want to put that too.
It was. It was so incredible looking
like, yeah, I think it was incredible looking.
But then at the same time like I don't know what why you say 4.
This is the thing that they were jumping off of, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I mean everybody slipped
multiple times. It was this is APFAA hazard and
as a as a as a I'm all for safety as we all know and and if
the PFAA is going to get more involved, I'm going to rate
things as such. You know what I mean?
I would rather than just jump off the whole entire Bayside and
they're not even be a ramp and then you got to do a muscle up
to get back on stage. I think that would have been
cool. So I would say 4.
Honestly, I don't think anything of it, but if you say 2, then
let's go. Three.
I'll yeah, I'll compromise at 3:00.
That's fine. I will say that I talked to like
one of the head judges or something and they were told not
to dive off of the the walk down board or to the top.
And I was like, well, what are you going to do if like somebody
like Ricky, cause Ricky was the one who ended up doing it,
Ricky. You're not going to do anything.
You're just going to be like, don't do that, OK?
I won't do it next time. You know what I mean?
Like, like, that's stupid, right?
So. So happy Ricky did it.
I was like, yes. Yeah, the the, the comparison of
Ricky versus Hopper was hilarious.
I I think the difference is, John, if you were there, the
Baselard barge was a lot cooler in person to see it out there.
But yeah, I don't know how that translated onto the live stream,
but all right, compromise #3. All right, you guys ready?
The weather #1. It was a 5.
It He gave us an easy, an easy softball pitch right here.
It was fun. I like, like the moments like
football when I think back about football, like the moments in
the rain when it's just like the elements are really coming at
you and like it was rain, it's it's rare that it ever rains on
a CrossFit event and they were doing, they were working out.
I just thought it was cool. But yeah, it's a five.
It ruined a lot of things. I hate it when the events get
changed and when three of the five of your events get changed,
this is what are we doing. This is ridiculous.
And I mean I I think the best thing about the weather did
create talking points because everybody's talking about should
there be indoor options, blah, blah, blah.
And I mean this is like two or three years in a row or water,
Water Palooza. Water Palooza.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like messes.
Like, I don't know, bro. Like, I just think do it outside
but just have an indoor option available in the case that that
happens. You know what I mean?
I think any gym would host freaking heats after heats after
heats to do the regular event that you have prescribed.
I think you're. Out of your mind, John.
I don't think you realize how many people are there.
No, no, no, no, no. You might.
It might just be like the athletes just go to a gym.
You're going to go to this gym and we're going to film it.
I think it'd be cool. The Texas Stadium or whatever
has that Dome that comes over and covers everything up we
need. Or or do that, you know what I
mean? But like, if you don't like
across the Wynwood, where where Taylor was doing all of his,
where Taylor was doing all of his classes, like just take the
athletes there and say we're going to film it.
You're not going to be able to see it.
It's going to be right here. I I would rather watch that than
watch the rain stop everybody and we're just doing a whole
bunch of strict pull ups. All 2000 athletes to CrossFit.
You got to you got to have multiple CrossFit gyms so you're
able to do this. It's Miami.
There's a lot like this is a team effort.
You want to talk about community.
We could make it happen. You're out of your mind, John.
Yeah, hungry. Talk about contingency plan that
would be in. OK, here's the plan guys.
We're going to spread out over the entire city. 6 Gems.
We're all got a piece of this. Listen, no, you got to have that
stuff. You got to have that stuff
already like. Here we go, the live stream.
I know the live stream is pretty good, I didn't have a problem
with it. I have no idea, so I'm going to
say too. I got to side with you John all.
Right. I mean, I thought I.
Is better than the Bayside barge.
Yeah, I think so. I mean, like people talked about
like the commentary and stuff like that, but I thought the
broadcast team for the most part did a really good job.
I'll say this from my from my perspective, I had to work with
the broadcast team and they were great to work with Eric
Barnhart. Shout out another guy, Chris
Hammerhead, which I thought his name was really just.
This is really cool from a you know, like 1/3.
Year old it deserves 2 alone on Hammerhead.
Yeah, yeah, they were great to work with and that's the only
perspective they let they put my graphics up.
So really, I should go with #1. Yeah, and they like heat one.
Tie it like I say #2. #2 This is good.
We got we got a range here. If we like it, we can put it
one. If we don't like it, we can put
it 4. Here we go.
He's 310 lbs snatch complex. Four, I could care less, Go run.
I don't care how strong you are. Key.
The second you stop sucking, win in intervals, will be whenever I
start rooting for you. But whenever it comes to fitness
things, whenever you're as bad as you are and I know you did
great, you came. Ninth, you're a really good
swimmer and that last workouts a lot of gymnastics that you're
good at. But if you're getting stronger,
I you're not getting fitter. And I I know people can get
fitter and stronger at the same time.
But I you didn't make the games last year, bro.
Like if you would have went out and hit 295 and then like was
like Jack Barlow. I was so much more impressed
with Jack Barlow than I was key. What did he hit?
He hit 285 now is it? And it's nothing impressive.
And I saw somebody say Farlow, what the heck, why are you only
snatching 285, right? In my in my opinion, he's
getting fitter, right? He came in fifth in the whole
competition like, like like. I was so impressed with Jack
Farlow, but he only snatched 285 all of.
It is what? You're.
Yeah, but he only snatched 285. Man, that's what I take away
from you. Gee was still.
Top 10. You're right, he was.
But these were three events that he was going to do good.
Well, at one, he's got an automatic win, He's a good
swimmer and that's what's two out of the five events go.
Look at the other events that he did and how they were.
They're not great. We'll look at those here in a
bit. I I, I talked to Jack a little
bit about that and I I beat up on him because I played him for
that event because I really did Great White Hope and he was
like, man, it just had to do with the Corral.
So I and I can't disagree like if you're able to hit 285 after
being corralled like they were, I think it was like 20 minutes
or something like you're getting fully cold.
And he went out there and hit that.
And so he was like, I did play it a little safer.
I like, I don't know, I was impressed with Jack because he
was calm, cool and collected on it and just hit something that
was decent and walked away. So anyway, yeah, Gee, like you
expect him to hit it, so as far? As if you want go ahead Tyler,
sorry, sorry. As far as best parts, it's like
well you know, you kind of know it's coming.
So I I don't know if it's the best part.
Did you like that part at all spin?
Diamond. Which part?
Geez, no. I I I did.
I liked it because he called a shot a day before it's.
Not hard to call your shot when you're the strongest person and
you know it. Yeah, but the goat.
The dude. Hey, if you weren't doing, you
want to do an event competition with you, me and Tyler, Hey, I'm
going to call my shot. I'm going to win the lift.
That's what it's like. I don't think anybody would have
predicted 310 was going to go up though.
You're you're right. Absolutely.
His 310 is incredible and. That's it.
Can look smooth. Easy and easy, man.
That's awesome. Go snatch 350.
Go do it. I don't care.
Like, like it's expected. You're the strongest dude there.
It's expected. I get it.
Go get fitter, right. I like.
I anyway I I expected it's 310. It is incredible.
I put it at 4:00 because it's expected.
You put if you put James Sprague's swim up there.
I feel the same way. It's expected.
You know what I mean? It's not.
Go ahead. Next one.
Sorry. Helping.
I feel like this number one is going to backfire.
Again, no way John and I are killing this.
You got it. No, but there you go.
It can't be the weather. Hopper's Hopper's Rock, Paper
Scissors strategy. Oh, I mean, that's that's great.
That's great. It's #1 all day.
Listen, listen. When it worked, like I know, I
know it didn't. It wasn't anything, but like
when it worked the first time, Tyler's mind was blown.
He could not believe. It Hopper had this secret mind
technique that nobody knew. He thought Hopper was a Jedi
full-fledged because because it worked that first time and I
want you to watch Tyler. Is this open for people to see
or? Is it just, I'm going to, I'm
going to, I'm going to pull it up.
OK, OK, watch Tyler's face. Watch Tyler.
Space. Here we go, the top screen.
There's a technique in rock paper scissors.
If you ask somebody their shirt color, it's like 70% chance that
they would do scissors because they think of cloth.
I swear, I swear. All right, rock, paper,
scissors. Shoot.
That's crazy. And then it never worked again.
All right. What color did you start?
Rock. Paper.
Scissors. Shoot.
All right, you got one, you got one left.
Look at it and tell me. Rock, paper, Scissors.
Bullshit. Science.
Color. Is it color?
Black is black. Rock, paper, scissors?
Shoot. Never rock, paper scissors.
Shoot. What color?
Is your bra? Ready?
All right, ready, Taylor started.
Chasing is full of shit. Can you hear me?
And then Tyler goes and tries it.
If you're getting tricked by Hopper, that's sad, man.
We had to. We had to work to prove him
right. It was the best thing because it
was the funniest thing that happened all weekend.
It was funny that first time it worked.
Tyler was just blown away. He's such a turd he he he got so
lucky and then he was like, see why?
Why? Why 70%?
No one will ever know. I'm not.
I'm not mad at this list. I do wish.
I do wish Colton's interview was up there, because that would be
a clear #1. But I'm not.
I'm not mad at this list. Oh.
That's a good one, it. Was a great weekend overall.
I like our I like our rankings. All right.
And now we go to our recap. So Wanaploos in general talking
about, we talked a little bit about the weather and the
modified workouts and how that affected the leaderboard,
especially on the women's side. Is there anything you think
other than throwing people into every CrossFit gym in the 25
mile radius that Dylan and crew could do to handle something
like this? And we had three out of four
days that were impacted by rain, Tyler.
Are you asking about the rain? Yeah.
Like, is there what? Is there anything that they
could do or is it just, you know, unfortunate, you just have
to deal with it? Oh, you can call Bill Gates.
I'm pretty sure he has a weather control machine.
No, I mean like if you want to host it in water in Miami, it
you got to be ready for the rain delays and like, but I I go
against John on this. I say you roll the dice and you
know, could you do, you know, program essentially like a rain
delay Waterpalooza and a regular one.
Yeah, I I I like it here. There's there's nothing you can
do and you can just do your best to me.
If you moved Waterpalooza away from Miami, I don't know, you
just sort of break the spirit of it, I think.
But maybe I'm wrong. I agree.
I agree with that sentiment. I do think there is like in an
aura of water palooza, like it's a big party, a big fitness
party. And I think everybody loves that
about it. Everybody knows it's what it is,
Everybody loves that about it. But I just, I think we should
think about hard, like what to do if weather, if weather is
like this, because it ruins the competition.
It really does. It ruins it.
You think so? I do for for for like a viewer
and maybe everybody's different for a viewer.
For me it ruins the competition and maybe it maybe I'm in the
minority on that. I just think that, like, there
needs to be not just contingency workouts, but maybe contingency
time periods where, hey, we got to do this workout at 7:00 in
the morning. I would rather them change the
times that they do the workout and let it know and let us
everybody know a day ahead of time.
Because you know what, weather's coming.
It predicts it pretty well. And then be like, we have to do
this here this year and this year, at least for the elites.
Screw everybody else. Everybody else can work out in
the rain, all right, but like, what?
We're going to watch. Like I think should be the
priority and I think there should be, listen, we might
change the time on this. We don't know.
We don't know whether permitting, hopefully we can do
it the right way. But I would rather than keep the
same work out and then just change the time frame of each
thing and then we can have our competition.
But it's just like I felt like the weather ruined water Palooza
and I felt like that last year too.
And so I feel like we have to figure out how to make it, not
ruin it. And I mean, for the people that
are there, maybe they experience a complete different thing.
But from AI mean and I'm only one viewer and in my opinion
matters nothing. It matters what the majority
thinks. But I just it's hard to watch
workouts and be really in it whenever you're just doing
strict pull ups in the ring. Like, I want to see races, I
don't want to see them have to put the dumbbell down every
single time because of safety, you know what I mean?
People could have made moves on that dumbbell snatch too in the
interval workout and they can't because they have to put it down
every single time. And I just don't like watching
it. Like it's just it's just a
different watch for me and that's just that's how I feel
about the weather. Yeah, the the only thing I heard
that may have helped and I don't, you know, again, the
thing we have to consider is what are you doing Tyler?
Trying to get my my logo in there and it's not going to
work. No, not with our screen.
This way. Is the third event maybe
possibly trying to move that to Friday morning, right?
So then at least one of them wasn't adjusted.
But the the problem is you have so many community workouts, like
Friday was packed starting at 8:00 AM, all the community
events started taking taking shape, and I just don't know
what that entails. Trying to move all those pieces
around to try to squeeze in deja vu Friday morning, 'cause that
was a fairly long workout. I mean it it you had five heats.
For sure. I'm saying you have to move
everything around and prioritize the elite individuals and maybe
that's like the wrong way to look at it because it is a
community. There is so many divisions.
It is a party. It is meant for everybody, for
sure. But what everybody's watching
online or at their homes is the elite individual, you know, So
like, you can and I like, I think if you told everybody in
advance times can get like you need to look every single day at
the updated time slots, we'll give a final time schedule sheet
at 8:00 PM for every individual thing.
I don't see why you can't do that.
And maybe, maybe, I don't know, like I don't know anything,
right. Maybe they know.
Maybe they know they can't do that.
But it's just what they got going on right now.
It's not great. Would you rather deal with what
the with the weather as it is or as Barry says, change the venue?
I personally don't want to see him leave.
I. Don't want to see him leave
Miami either. I don't want to see him leave
Miami either, but I don't think it has to be an either or.
I think we can do a better job at dealing with the elements
than they are currently. I don't disagree.
I I also, I don't I mean maybe there's a world where having
essentially flexible workouts will work or timing schedule
will work that would be really crazy to like try to pull off I
think but like just make rain part of the story.
It it kind of like right now it's like oh shit the rain
happened and now we have to deal with it versus like and then the
rain came and like this is what happened because of it like turn
it into part of what water Palooza is, is the elements and
it's like you know make it an interesting factor in in it and
it sort of is now but it's not played up enough.
It seems like a a detriment instead of an asset and I think
you could play it to to an asset.
I think it's like a heat in Texas or something like that.
Like that's why we used to love Texas football teams.
Like they're they work out in the heat, they work.
And you know, or when you go to Green Bay and you play football
in the snow, like that's cool. And I know that that's a
reiterated thing. But it's like it's part of it's
part of the story. It's cool.
I think part of the problem is I think we all loved the workouts
like as written we all like them.
And then when you modify those, you're not able to do the higher
skilled gymnastics, right. You're not able to do bar muscle
UPS, you're not able to do chest of bar pull ups.
You're not able to do toes to bar because it's so slippery.
And so those all those movements kind of just have to be scaled
down right to the strict pull ups, the front squats, the
burpees. And so it's a tough position.
I think you live with it. My opinion is you live with it
and try to figure out how to how to make it work.
If they can move mountains for a barge, which is an amazing story
from Dylan on get with the program and then they can assess
A canopy over Flagler, they can run American Airlines.
Those things I think would cost a fortune.
I would hate for it to be inside.
A canopy would cause a fortune. Like a retractable canopy, I
think would. Oh yeah, some type of temporary
canopy that 3 tracks or even just as over it the whole time.
I that sounds insanely and. That you would have every single
year, it would just be one time cost expense and then you never
have to worry. About they ran all this
equipment, man, they ran all this equipment that's it's not
owned by them. It's a huge cost every year.
It would be a huge cost every year.
Now is it less than the barge? Like do you get rid of the barge
and and trade off for that. I mean, space is the way it is
now because the pit, like the fountain, is essentially
unusable and unable to be built over.
So it's like you're going to lose Bayside.
They might be stuck with the barge forever.
I don't know. The longer I talk about it, the
more I the more I think they might be forced to move.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it worked, right?
Like if the weather was not a factor, the venue itself, the
barge, Flagler, everything is great.
Sure. But it is.
It has been. It will continue to be.
Maybe. I don't know.
I don't know how often it rains in Miami.
Every day but. Yeah, I mean just.
About rains every day for an hour.
I mean, I don't know. I'm.
I'd hate to see it move, but I. Would too.
But like we're we're also saying like that it has to move out of
Miami. There's got to be another
location in Miami they can use. Maybe it's not going to have as
scenic of a backdrop, but like, come on, it's Miami.
There's. I mean, just have one indoor
venue that you use just in case. John, there's not that that's
going to play worse because people aren't going to make the
hike to the new venue. You're going to have like, like,
Can you imagine? It's like, OK, we have this one
event, we have to do the rain. We have to move to our rain
location. No one's been there yet.
You have to announce it last moment.
Everybody's got to get cars going.
To last the last moment, just it's another venue.
This is our DH venue. I don't know, dude.
I I don't see it. Like in case of rain, we have
this place that we can go to. I think the logistics on that
are harder than the than it's worth.
Speaking of moving, moving events, off site event.
So it's been the first time in a while they've had an off site
event out in Virginia Key, North Point Park, all of the teams and
community divisions except for the only group that did not was
the Elite Individuals and Lat AM Cup.
Do we like the idea of an off site event for something like
this? They did that in Granite Games.
I remember it was almost the exact same thing.
You remember that it was like 2017, eighteen or something like
that. But it was it was televised to
an extent I believe. Yeah, this one was tough.
Like it was a very remote bike trail, lots of tight areas.
I think it'd be really tough to, to televise that.
I mean, do we like the idea of something like that?
Like it tests the athletes in a different way, But again, we're
not seeing anything. I don't mind it, but I want to
see it like you should have some kind of drone out there, video
and everything, and if you can't then, then I don't like it.
I wonder how long it would do be.
I think it would take too long. You could potentially do it if
you had some like a really star film crew that could film it and
then be able to curate through the through the this stuff and
then splice it together so you can create some sort of
highlight reel really fast. That I think that's a compromise
that could work because then you could play it at the event
because we were all just there hanging out for the most part.
It seemed like hours were were passing by.
I mean, hours were passing by, but it was like seemed like
forever. And if they had had that
highlight reel televised that I would have been like, this is
perfect. That would have been a good
compromise I think. But I don't know if that's like
possible from a videography standpoint.
Yeah, I haven't. I mean, other than, you know,
obviously Logan had his broken ankle and there was a handful of
athletes that did get hurt overall, a small majority that
did. I don't know what the athletes
thought of it. I know some thought it was
pretty cool, but I it wasn't. I don't have enough, you know,
yeah, enough consensus or enough opinions from the athletes to
say if they enjoyed that type of of workout or not.
But I think it was a lot of work on Dylan's team's part to try to
do something like that and set it up for sure.
You know, anytime you send send another venue up, it's security,
it's parking, it's everything that goes into making sure
permitting everything is just required.
It's a big undertaking to do that.
See Travis off site where spectators can't go sucks.
We see we pay a lot of money to go and watch that's it's a valid
point. I think I'm about Travis on
that. I think there should be a way
for you. If you do off site, there should
be a way for. People to go out and see it.
People to go out and see it, yeah.
Yeah, let's see. Team competition.
Did we like it? Yeah.
How was it on the live stream? Yeah, it's.
Like how do you mean? It sounds like y'all didn't like
it. So, like, tell me what I'm
supposed to not like and then I'll tell you.
Basically that you know there's 15 teams out there, 3
individuals each. It's 45 people moving around.
How easy was it to follow? Did you like the workout like?
Yeah, I think they did a good. So yeah, if you definitely saw
who was in the lead the whole time, you saw like the top three
teams then in the workout and and for the most part, Sean was
really good about telling you when who finished where.
You didn't see very much outside of the top three teams.
But like the camera was on those 3 pretty much the whole time.
And I mean you you knew what was happening.
It was I was able to follow it the whole time.
It wasn't a cluster, if that's what it look.
If that's what it felt like in person, you could follow it for
sure. It's just you wanted to see how
your team was doing and they weren't one of the top three
teams in the event you didn't see them.
Yeah. Well, was that any different
though, than the individuals? Yeah, because you had the pan
out view and you could see, you kind of see everybody.
So if you knew who you were looking for, like if people
didn't know what people look like, then for sure it would be
like that. But if you knew who you were
looking for, you could see where they are because they they would
pan out. And they did that with teams
too. But teams are such a cluster.
It's hard to see everybody. It's hard to pick out people and
it wasn't like that for individual.
Individual. Once they panned out, if you
knew what you who you were looking for, you could.
You can figure out whoever where they were and then follow them.
Now just might not talk about them, but you could follow them
for sure. Teams other than top three, it
was very hard to see and see what was happening.
Yeah, from our perspective. So they put media over on the
side. It was impossible.
You could see when everybody, when they would move to the next
step, right? Like you could see if they went
from they move the worm up, you know, the next stage or they
move to the barbells, right? Like you saw that and you knew
that they were in the front. But it was hard to keep track,
especially like on the the what was it Saturday night event with
the the barbells cycling, synchro barbell cycling.
It was really tough because, I mean, it was just a sea of
barbells just flying around and you couldn't.
Yeah, that set up was kind of trippy for sure.
Like, roll your own barbells out just where you think you need
them and then and then go ahead and go.
And Melanie, I said for the most part, obviously, he's not
perfect. I said for the most part.
Yeah, I cannot imagine trying to do the commentary for the teams.
There's so many athletes. Trying to keep track of the team
names like that would be very difficult, like it's easier on
the individual side for sure. The one event that I hated, that
I thought could have been great, and I hated it was a sandbag
event, The sandbag event, The way they did that, the way like
that just event was programmed, was just very easy.
Everybody could do it, I think you take me, Taylor and Hiller
and then we're we're we fit, we belong right there.
Like you would have not known we were at a place because of how
easy that workout was. Like I think they should.
Have been heavier weight. No, no, no.
I think they should have done the whole complex, just them.
So your fitness played a part because everybody was within.
It just felt like everybody was within 10 seconds of each other
and obviously the last thing that finished was way or behind
the first thing that finished. But like when everybody could do
everything and nobody struggles with anything, it's just you
like runs the fastest. Like that's a 10 minute workout
that everybody can do. Like nobody's fitness was able
to be shown in that workout. So I know I think they should
have done that. You had to do the 9 cleans, the
9 squats and just then that same person did the seven cleans and
the seven squats, that same person 5 cleans 5 squats and
then you rotate. So it's be it would be 21, yeah,
it'd be 21 total cleans and squats that you had to do before
you rotated and then your part was done until the carry.
But everybody's not going on broken on that.
That's a lot, 21 cleans and 21 squats.
I mean, I don't think very many people at all would go on broken
on that maybe three maybe Kelsey Keel, her team would have still
probably won that. But, but what my point, my point
being is that event was very, I just think poorly done the whole
way around because it's it was just people running back and
forth. That event was such a such a
cluster, you could not tell where anybody was.
You just left. Like the announcers, you just
relied on what they were saying, but you couldn't tell where
anybody was. Like if another team was
catching up on another team, you didn't know because everybody's
just cleaning and running around.
Yeah. Did you like the mix between
individual performance versus team performance?
So there's two workouts with the worm.
There were a couple that were more individually based like the
sandbag one was and like it didn't require too much
teamwork. Like did you like that kind of
mix of it there that it wasn't all team based, there was
individual components to it, some strategy obviously of who
went when but? I thought they did that well.
I thought there were like two kind of individual team events
and then there were three team team events.
And I thought, I mean, I think that went went, I thought that
was programmed well. Do you take look at the team of
team performance and read into it of how good anybody is?
No. Like, do you care that team Ice
Barrel, Whatever. Place it doesn't look good.
Not really like I I think only in a good way.
For instance, like I think, I think more highly of like Tola
and Noah and whatever team they're end up being with.
I think more highly of Kelsey Keel and Kelly Baker and Emile
Bloomberg. I think more highly of them.
Nobody expected them to win. They did great.
The Norwegian team that ended up sticking around and nobody else
thought they were going to stay. Or Swedish.
They were Swedish. Swedish, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. That team that stuck around,
nobody thought they were going to stick around.
They were there the whole freaking time.
The whole time, all right. Like, I thought more highly of
them. And like if any of their names
pop up again like you like, oh, that's another time they pop up,
right. And.
But other than that, no, I take away a little from individuals
still. Not a lot.
For instance, I still think Rome was going to be top two.
It does make me question who I think wins the games.
But he moves to two. That's the lowest he would move,
you know what I'm saying? Like it's just not, you know,
Valerie got 4th and then his team was not great.
I mean, I they got what, 5th, 5th or 6th?
I still think he's going to finish where I thought he would
in the game, so I don't think any less highly of him.
The only like the only takeaways I think you can take are all
good takeaways. I don't think you can take any
negative takeaways from Onapalooza because it can be
explained away with multiple things unless you guys feel
differently. Yeah.
I mean it's hard to tell the mindset of them going into it
like how much really training, how much do they really prep for
it. I do.
I think that some of the they should focus on it.
Like it does speak to some of their strategy or thinking about
how each of them work through it, right, like the the fittest
team most likely of three individuals was Brooke Wells,
Bailey Rail and Paige Powers. Like I feel like they should
have done better than they did 100%.
Right. But they didn't.
And you can. You can wash away the the the
worm workouts, but when it came to the swim ones, when it comes
to the sandbag, any of the other ones like it came down to
fitness and they just weren't there and it and they may have
complete good reasons for it, but it just kind of seems odd.
And I can say the same for Frog grips, like Frog Grips and I
know I had them ranked a lot higher than you did, but you had
them decently high too and they were the same way, just a little
bit less. So you know, I don't think teams
does not play a big part in the how I think of people
individually. Yeah, all right.
So had some interesting interviews while I was there.
One of the big ones was the interview with O'Keefe and Mal
O'Keefe, I guess. That should have been on the
blind rankings. That interview.
Yeah. Some a part of it should have
been on the blind rankings, but it's not appropriate for.
If somebody asked about the mountain, the mountain has been
updated. Brian Spin vetoed it and said
that we will not do another show on it.
So getting. His deal?
No. No.
Not yet. Not yet.
So here we go. What's your other spot?
Is Malcolm winning this? Year.
You know we don't, I don't know, you know.
And Mal is, I'm really proud of Mal and where she's at.
I think you know she'll make that decision and tell people
where she's at with it in her time.
She's you know she loves this. She's here this weekend.
She works out every day. She's training and yeah, I
think, you know, and I'm not speaking for her.
I think she's trying to find her way back on the thrill at some
point will see this year. I don't know.
She's the best person to ask that of I'm just trying to
support her on a daily basis. And I'm damn proud of her.
She's worked so hard on so many things over the last couple of
years. But she's in a great place.
You know, her being here celebrating with this is like,
you know, I mean that's proof of, like she really just loves
this community, wants to be president, she wants to find her
way back, you know, to where she wants to be with this whole
thing. So I don't have any answers for
you. But.
I had to try. I had to try.
Dump, dump, dump. Do you read anything of that or
was it a non answer she? Ain't beating, man.
Did you get it from that or is that just your feeling?
Multiple sources. Multiple sources, OK.
The fact that it's the non answer this late in the game is
an answer in and unto itself. It's time for answers.
I I've, I've been. I've heard that she'll be making
an announcement at some point. Don't know when, don't know what
it will be, Yes. You do?
I don't know. I don't know.
I do not know. Yes you do.
I did not know at some point. I I've been saying this whole
time. I don't think she's coming back.
I know she's been. I've been.
I've been ringing that bell. She's coming back, baby, and I'm
about to look like an idiot. I'm going to change your mind,
yeah. He's going to go on Team Haley.
That's what he's going to do. Speaking of Haley, she was
there. And she she's committed, right?
She committed to competing. As far as we know, I mean, it
sounds like she is. Oh, I thought.
She confirmed it. I mean, I think it's.
No, I mean, I think she obviously is working with Hayley
Murillo. She's made comments about.
I think that she's ready to come back.
I don't think there's not been some Instagram post or something
that's like it's official. I've signed up for the Open yet,
but if I was going to make a guess, I would say Haley's in
Mouth's out. That's fine.
Like if she wants to walk away, that's fine.
I have no problem with that. She doesn't owe us anything.
She owes a sponsor something, but that's not us.
That's not on us that she was. She was there for rain.
And yeah, but Haley, every time I saw her, I didn't talk to her.
But she seemed happy. She seemed smiling, talking with
people. Hey this is a great question and
I know we like are kind of in the weeds with this so if y'all
don't want to answer you don't have to, but I think this is a
great question. Well, why did she leave
Townsend? Because of Matthew Fraser.
So she got starstruck and just saw the bright lights.
Big City. That's AI mean.
It's a good question, right? Like was would training to look
different when she has been home.
There's a lot of things that are different.
You know, they both have both Mal and Haley have returned
home, right? There's something to that to be
when you're that Young, Living at home.
Emma's been living. Emma Lawson's been at home,
right? I think she would have, man, I
don't think she would have gotten the second best in the
world. That might.
But I think, I think she would have been like kind of where
Alexis Raptis is, like I think she would have been like 3rd
through 6th, but like continually, you know what I
mean? Like Emma.
Lawson is essentially. I guess I think Emma Lawson's
better, but I I would say like, OK, OK, how about this?
I would put her in between Emma Lawson and Haley Adams, but her
career would have been long. You see what I'm saying?
Because Haley's kind of routinely like 5th, 5th, 6th,
right in that range. OK, 5th through 7th, That's
where Alexis Raptis is, right? I think she's better than those
girls, but worse than Emma Lawson if she would have stayed
in Iowa. Obviously this is all
speculation, We don't know anything, but I don't think she
would have killed herself as much as she did at hard work
Pays off. And I mean, you heard the
stories like Matt's telling her to back off and she won't do
very like Nah, right? But I don't think that happens
if she stays in Iowa. But maybe maybe it does, you
know, like it's. I think that's a very
interesting question. I hope, like people don't care
that we're talking about it because like if people can get
real, like you shouldn't talk about somebody's mental health.
But I think it's an interesting well.
If you look at, you look at Haley's move back, Sprague's
move back. Hoppers move back home.
Olivia Kerstetter stayed at home and never moved out to Proven
like there's a lot of people that have either stayed where
they are or moved back home just even recently, right?
Like there's probably something to that about living and
training with your, you know, near your family versus
uprooting just for training. Yeah, I don't know.
I don't have a support system, Emma.
Carrie's not home. No.
Just down, down. Pepper's not home.
Daniel. Brandon's not home.
I mean, like, I'm just saying, I'm being playing that what's
happening? There's.
Obviously more that are that are that have gone and moved, but
there's definitely been a lot who have moved back who.
Have moved back. Or or that there are.
Just. To see successful at a young age
who have not left, Yeah, right, They've stayed home and not
pursued that training camp environment.
You don't do who's done it the right way is freaking Sam Quan
because he just trains at home with his brothers and he's a
part of hard work. Pays off.
He's he does, you know, he works with them.
He's got his coach, but he's he's just at home doing his
thing. Made a Barnhart move back back
closer to family. So Speaking of hard work pays
off. Is there anybody in their gym
now as a? Great question.
The strong man, the strong man's there.
The strongest guy. The strongest guy, Kearney.
Kearney and then. But they're.
Some training staff. They're training staff, right?
Like. The training staff is Catherine
Catherine's there, right? No, she's in Idaho.
Yeah. You ever walk?
You ever walked into a Wendy's when, like, no one's in there?
It's like. It's like looking around.
Right now, thank God somebody's in here.
I can make a burger. I don't know.
There's got to be somebody we just started thinking of.
I think just mad just walks in the gym.
Oh, I guess nobody's here today. I'll.
I'll go bench press. Yeah.
There's got to be somebody. That's a great point.
It looks like Friday night at Freddy's.
It's just like they're in there. Just.
Collecting on the coaches. Look at their roster here and
we'll go through and and see here we go at.
Least they got sweaters. Here we go.
All right. David's daughter?
Nope. Idaho.
Hopper, South Carolina, Brooke,
Nashville, Amanda. OH.
IMA. She's in Iowa.
Jake is out in Australia. Yeah, that one.
He doesn't count. Christine somewhere.
In the West, Missouri, he was never.
I don't think she was ever confirmed HWPO athlete, though.
I don't know. Where does Quant live?
Kansas. That's happener.
Where's Quant live? He.
Lives up Washington. Yeah, I think Washington.
We'll say Pacific Northwest just to to not be wrong.
And Jacqueline Dahlstrom is out in Europe cold grey shaver.
I have zero idea where he lives. He's there.
Cold. Grey Shaver is making a monster,
right? Now.
Cold Grey Shaver is in the lab right now, and Fraser is
creating Frankenstein. That's what's happening.
Yeah. He's like, this is my time.
I'm I'm Gree Shaver sign. That's what's about to happen.
Cole Gree Shaver Next CrossFit Games athlete or winner?
Right here. Oh, scratch it.
He's in Kansas City. Patrick says he's in Kansas
City. No.
Well, Cole's going to not. You're trash.
I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
And is there anybody else?
Victor Hoffer in France. So there you go, doing French
stuff. It's a really nice gym for the
fittest guy. You better watch it, John.
Victor's a fan. We don't need to be losing him.
I'm not. What did I say?
He's in France. He's doing French stuff.
That's not. That sounds derogatory to me,
dude. No, it is not.
Somebody was like, I'm in America, I'm doing American
stuff. I'm like, that's cool, man.
Like, yeah, you're doing trashy shit.
That's a That's an insult. No.
No, it's not. No, it's not.
Victor Harper is like the prettiest man there is in Cross.
How do we feel about Merton's doing proven programming?
Pardon. I don't know.
Dude, he programmed for himself for so long.
He's a smart dude. I ain't worried about him at
all. I'm I'm kind of, I kind of feel
the same way. I I don't know how I feel about
it until I see him, you know, in a competition.
He's also he's got enough balls where if he's doing a bunch of
running, but he'll buy in for a couple weeks and he'll be like,
no, this is stupid. Like if it's dumb, he'll tell
him. Colton is very, very smart.
Like I I just, I kind of just kind of like trust whatever he's
doing. He's fine, 'cause like, he's
he's very smart. Yeah, that's not saying that
other people aren't smart. I just know that Colton is smart
is all I'm saying. I know I don't worry about
Colton. I mean, in talking with him, I
mean he, I think he wants maybe more ideas on how to attack his
weaknesses versus. Trying to come.
Up with it on his own and he's been friends with Nick Johnston
since, I don't know 2016, 2015, 17, I don't know whenever the OC
3 Black was around and CrossFit Kilo.
I mean, those guys were basically neighbors battling
each other until they knew each other, so.
Now if he doesn't make the games next year or, you know, comes
31st place or something, some ridiculous spot like that, then
I'm worried about Colton. But until that happens, I'm not
worried about him. Yep.
Yeah. I trust Nick Johnson, who knows
Taylor very well. When you look at the the the
individual field biggest mover that you're going to say changes
your opinion of how he or she would have will do in 2024.
It vitison for sure. Vitison.
That change might be I I mean
like. OK then what she got?
Hold on, she got 25th in the games last year.
Right? Now what I'm saying is nobody
expected her to get 25th in the games.
Nobody picked her for the games and then she made it a last
minute miracle at semi finals and then nobody thought she'd
make the first cut. She did and then and now she's
she was 25th. How significant do you think
she's going to improve based on what she showed you this
weekend? I was not convinced she would
even make the games this year, I thought.
She got 25th last year. I'm saying, you know, like he
said, what Spin said is who's moved in, who in your head has
moved the most. That's going to be in 2024
CrossFit Games. You think she's going to do
better than 25th? So think about think about this.
Way. I'm not saying Paige.
Paige. Think about Paige.
Powers came into water Palooza last year, wins it, obviously.
You know, I don't think that we have a situation like that, but
we all looked at Paige as, oh, OK, I think she's real now.
Like she, we expect her to do really well in the 2023 season.
Do we? Do we think we'll see that jump
from venison, like where she was 25th this past year and now
she's top 10. Is there anybody else that we
think? See, that's what I'm saying.
I don't see that from her. I think she'll be.
I think she'll be the same spot she was last year at the Games
in that range I. Didn't think she was going to
make it back at all. I thought she was going to do
worse this year. That just says how it is.
I'm not saying she was like she would be the most moving
athlete, but she'll be one of the most.
She was the one that surprised me the most and I think she has
a chance now to like if she got over 20th now, like 18th or
something, I'd be like, man, that's amazing.
I was not expecting to see that much improvement out of her is
what I'm saying. What about you all?
I I was going to say I was actually, I I think venison is
probably the one that I think will probably be the one on the
radar of who to keep an eye out for her or Jack Farlow.
You almost expect go ahead. Brian Yeah, I expect Jack
Farlow, like he's the strong guy.
And then when they change it to burpees and they change it to
strict pull ups and he ends up coming in 5th and he's right
alongside those guys. I mean he was, I think he was he
ahead of, he wasn't ahead of quant, but he was right up there
with them throughout the entire thing.
I don't think anybody would have predicted to be that close to a
podium spot in programming where I would say doesn't suit him as
well. Right.
Yeah. And I think you could say the
same about James. Like Jack has that snatch that
he got second in right and he got 5th overall, which is, which
is great. And I agree.
Everything you just said about Jack Farlow, I agree.
But like James has a 265 snatch right?
Yeah. And I mean he was thrilled about
it, right? Great spot for him to make.
But he doesn't have that second place in the snatch and he ended
up 7th. Like he I I I think in the games
when it's 1314 events I think James takes more of a jump than
Jack Barlow does. But I especially from what I've
seen like his like strength gains on Instagram because
that's where he struggles and obviously I can't see Jack's you
know Jack shows me 30 ring muscles.
I'm broken. I'll be saying that about Jack.
But but like I I think James takes a big the biggest jump out
of everybody 20/20/2024, like it like 2023 to 2024.
I think James will take the biggest jump out of anybody, do
you think? He's a lock for the games, then?
Yeah, I think he won't have to worry about it this year.
I don't know. That's not obvious to me.
He has the potential to do what you're saying, but it's not
obvious to me that he's a lock for the games.
I think his his fitness. Is and viticin is.
Who's more likely to make the games Viticin or Sprague?
Sprague. Well, you just got done telling.
Me. OK, that's fine, John.
I was talking about her potential.
Your point about venison does not disprove like your point
doesn't make a point about Sprague.
What I'm saying is, do you think he's a lock for the games and I
don't? I do.
I I I it's so. Tight One thing to think about.
Think about Sprague though, he's he's now living in the West.
I would assume he's going to compete out of.
Yeah, the West has the nobody, man.
The West is the easiest thing there is to make.
I'm joking. Nobody jumped down my throat.
I was Gary, I say. I don't feel like this true.
But spin does make a point. The East is the hardest
conference. Yeah, it is.
I mean I would say from top to bottom it is right And he was
able to make it then and he add back a healthy Saxon like
there's some others that are you know coming up in the East.
I don't know about the same in the West.
So I I would say Sprague probably has the most.
And I think, I think we felt like Sprague was actually kind
of on the move up. Yeah, right.
And and maybe this maybe Tierrawata Palooza's finish kind
of solidifies that thought and that prediction of, yeah, he's
still he's, he's working his way up.
He's doing what he needs to continue to move up that
leaderboard do. You think Philo's allowed to
make the games? Who logged in?
Yeah. Yes.
But you don't think spray is farlow.
I think they both are. I think like so for instance
what what the original question was is who do you think will
take the biggest jump? I think farlow and spray, what
I'm saying from them, they have, they're making the jump where
it's like they're on the line and now I don't think that it
will be a problem. And then potentially they'll be
top 17 ish, right? Like those will be in that 10 to
18 range where you know how there's like a slew of guys
depending on the programming will get 10th to 18th, like the
Travis Mayer range, right. And Travis Mayer's at the top of
that list. But, but you know what I'm
talking about, right, Brian? Like there's like 8 or 10 guys
once you get past the perennial top 10.
Where the it's kind of depends on the programming.
I think those two take the leap into that tier and I don't see
that from anybody else in the whole competition.
Gabby, Ariel and Daniel, Brandon and Mccary are all, you know,
perennial top ten, top five athletes.
Here's the hard part with the East.
If Saxon Panchak is healthy, you have, I mean, Jorge Fernandez.
He's in that that realm. I mean he'll be, I think he'll
be in the competition. I don't know if he'll qualify.
And there's somebody else I was thinking of that's Travis Mayer.
And you have Austin Hatfield like you have.
The East has more athletes now fighting for those spots and I
don't think they're going to get any more right.
So if you want to get stay in there, you've got to keep out a
Saxon. You got to keep out a Travis
Mayer who didn't qualify last year and if Austin continues to
to move up, which Speaking of what did you think of Austin
this weekend? He did fine.
He didn't do great. He did fine.
If you so if he would have just hit and I know this.
Great. I know.
Well, listen, hear me out. Hear me out.
There was a point before the last day, before the last day,
if he would have just hit 280. He went for 285 and he missed
it. And the judge kind of effed him.
And you know, it's it's whatever you got to execute.
He didn't. It's fine if he would have just
hit 285 lbs less, which I know he's capable of, right?
He would have been tied for first place going into the last
day. Now obviously he would have went
down and I did the math on it. He would have been like 8th.
I think he would have been 8th place with the same at the end
of the competition with that point jump in the snatch.
And if he would have got 8th place, I think everybody would
be like dude, Austin Hatfield's going to make the games like
like without a doubt right. He just did not execute in that
snatch work out and it just and he's not a good swimmer and
that's two of the five events and the rest of the rest of the
events. I thought he smoked.
I thought he did fine. You could say he's a poor man's
Colton Merton's, but Merton's beat him by two points and, and
I'm saying he did not, he had a lot of rookie mistakes, is what
I'm going to say. I was going to say that Lyft
was. I want to say it's nerves.
And they got corraled for 20 minutes and that hurt him and
the judge hurt him. There was a whole bunch of stuff
that happened. Experience.
Yeah. I talked to him about it and I
was like, what happened? He was like, I don't like being
corraled 20 minutes before. I tried to throw up my wonder at
Max over my head. He was, he was like, but it is
what it is, he said. That was what was required of me
and I wasn't practiced enough. And then there was something to
do with the plate or something like that.
And he was. He was kind of pissy about that
one. I would be too think about it.
Because they they stopped him right when he was getting right.
Right when he went like right when you're ready about to go
they're like there's this there's this 1 LB.
Plate that somebody else that somebody else threw threw on
your platform that you have to now remove and like didn't start
his lift until 30 seconds into the into the thing and and I
just think it doesn't matter because he didn't do it.
He got what he got. But it doesn't make me think any
less of him. I do think I still think he's
going to make the games. And I do think he has top 20
potential. Maybe he doesn't live to that
potential. And I'm like, I'm my like,
what's the word you want to throw out there?
Fandom for him? I I think it's the wrong word.
Like I'm going to stop like. Pushing.
Him so hard? Yeah, Pushing him so hard
because he did not earn me. Pushing him, continuing to push
him off, that's what I'm saying. But I I still?
Getting off the bandwagon. I no, no, no.
But I still think he has top 20 potential at the games and I
still think he's going to make the games.
It's just two of the five events did not go well for him and one
his own fault. He's just not a good swimmer.
And when 20% of your scoring is swimming, that's rough.
And then the next, then another 20%.
You kind of get after him to snap what you're supposed to be
good at. That's also rough.
Then out of three events, he did fine.
But yeah, I think he did fine. I don't think any highly more
highly of them or more lowly of them.
I'm staying the same, which is already pretty darn high of
Austin. Still on that rookie hill.
And Speaking of another athlete on the rookie hill, Grace Walton
thoughts on her. Yeah, I get.
I mean, it's good to know that she she's in a swim, that she's,
you know probably the best swimmer.
That's good to know. Right?
I I I think Tia's still probably.
I would think I would still pick Tia in a swim.
Depends on what's paired with. If it's swimming, I would
probably take Grace. Dude, I don't know.
Nobody. Nobody's beating Tia forever.
She was a competitive swimmer, John.
I know Tia's beating freaking all the other the competitor
swimmers doesn't matter. I I think Tia may have been a
little beater in this workout just from the other fitness
pieces of it, but swim only Grace Walton.
You think so? Yes.
Regardless, she's going to be in the top if it's swimming.
The I thought she was going to perform a little bit better than
she did. I'll be honest with you, it
doesn't make me think any less of her, but I don't think more
of her so. Gymnastics is obviously her
weakest. Link does.
Is 6 months five months enough time to improve, enough to to
make it to the games with her and gymnastics relative to the
field? All I know is that she's with
the underdogs, right? Yes.
Working with Keith. And and I think underdogs is one
of the best camps as far as people working on their
weaknesses. Oh keepers in the chat, look at
this. I was talking good about
somebody and somebody's in the chat that's that's a that's a
first because usually I'm always talking bad about somebody.
I think they're one of the best camps as far as honestly,
period. They don't have like the athlete
stable that other camps have, but they've shown time and time
again that they know how to work weaknesses over and over and
over and I think she'll be fine. She also has her boyfriend.
Zane, she'll be here. Yeah, who is also hella fit and
so she got to go train. And Zane is the most supportive
guy in the world. Let me tell you about Zane, OK?
Like, Zane is freaking crazy. I was standing next to him the
the last individual event, and I would not be surprised if he
sounds worse than Tyler right now.
That dude was screaming he. Held up.
Yeah, he was all in. Like, yeah, he was everything.
Just pick it up. Pick it up.
Yeah, yeah. Greatest greatest guy.
Yeah, Gracie's just kind of like Hatfield for me.
I feel like I was one of the first ones on these on her and
Hatfield both and. They got to ride that that
train. They didn't.
They didn't perform as good as I wanted them to perform because I
was so high on them and I and like, but and you know like
whenever you like think you're the first of the party and you
really want people to do good to show people be like see I told
you, I told you these people were monsters and then they
don't like perform to a monster level.
It's it's you. You wanted them to, but I don't
think any less of them. Anything on the the bottom side
of the coin where you're just disappointed in what you saw?
Nick Matthew didn't have a great competition.
He did not. I know we kind of thought he
wouldn't. Brian, I think you were on the
same train with me. One of you two were.
I had him in the top 10. OK.
So then it might have been oh. Never mind.
He didn't seem, he was like just kind of like, not bothered.
He was like, he didn't seem like he'd give a shit about.
It, yeah, I mean, talking with him after he hurt his ankle on
the run, I mean he's definitely more focused and worried about
the 24 season, which I think everybody is to some degree.
So, like, like, you just don't know where some of these guys
are, right? Like, where are they in their
training, training cycle? How much are they putting
emphasis on maybe deloading for a week?
Are they just training through it?
Like a lot of that's really hard to tell.
And so I don't know if I really would say too much.
The only one I think where I wanted to see better was Olivia
Kurstetter. I thought she should have been
able to do a little bit better than the 17th spot.
Do you want to talk about it? Yeah, go for it, John.
I'm just saying do, are we talking about it?
I mean. What are your thoughts about?
You know my thoughts on this already.
Don't let you do it. Yeah, she just needs to get
better at gymnastics. And whatever way you want to get
better at gymnastics, whatever you think will help you the best
at getting better with gymnastics, you need to do that.
Would we all agree with that? Yes, yes.
That's and. And you and you know what I'm
saying with that. Yeah, I mean, I think she
finished better at the games than she did at Water Palooza
with a weaker field. I know it's only 5 events, but
she should have that upward momentum.
And I think at this age, like you talk about Nick, Nick,
Matthew, who's been there before, whether you finished 8th
at Watapalooza or 19th, like it's not the end of the world.
But for somebody who is still trying to gain that experience
against the elite feel, I feel like you need to put some more
emphasis into it. And so I could be wrong and
maybe she wasn't and maybe it was just training through it.
What I feel like that doesn't help your confidence.
No, I feel like it. I feel like it's safe to say,
like we expected more of her and we didn't get it.
Yes. Right.
And I think that goes into like what what's been saying about
it's like where are you at in your training?
Like did you take time off like all that stuff?
But like it's fitting in line with with what we've seen from
the other teen women, which is they have a high moment and then
they sort of get backed off a little bit.
And maybe it's just because it's like OK, they get exposed.
They go to the games and they they their hype moment and then
they're like, OK, what are your weaknesses?
Because we have all kinds of time to work on that.
So they they pull back real hard, you know what I mean?
And start building building base more than other athletes would
do. Like I'm not going to do the
same base building with Jake Douglas as I would with her,
right? Jake's nearing the end of his
career, so just get the money while the while the you know why
you can. But with her, like take your
time. You got an athlete right here.
So for sure, for sure, I There's no pressure on her either,
right. Right.
That's not, that's not what I'm saying.
I like these people in the comments like guys.
It's not. It's not.
She competed in the competition. We thought she would be better.
She's not. How did how would she get
better? That's what we're talking about.
It's not letting her be. You know, it's not, you know, if
she wants to compete competitively, then how can we
get better competitively? That's what we're talking about.
If she wants to just be, then don't compete.
That's right, these people. Who you calling these people,
John? I I think.
Hey, listen, listen, when young Jay comes out, it don't matter.
It don't matter who these people are, OK?
But if you're out there on the floor, you're competing, I think
it's fair to talk about what? Are you're up for criticism?
Yes, 100%. Right.
Like we, we see how well she performed at the games.
We weren't even sure a year ago if she was going to be then
going teen or the elite field. She went elite, she did great
and now we're looking to see if she can continue to build that.
You'd expect her to build that with extra time training with
the proven team, training with Hector, and we just didn't see
that, right? And so like, if you're looking
at who underperformed from our expectations, it would be, I
would say it's Olivia, but that's not like the end of the
world, right, that that means we have high expectations of her.
It's not, you know. We don't like Olivia.
I don't like. I don't think we're trashing her
at all. I think people are way too
sensitive. Right.
So, yeah. Any any closing thoughts?
Tyler Heat one. How'd that go?
I don't know. I mean.
Is it for me to judge we just went black?
What just happened? Oh, you want that cancelled?
Cancelled. We're done.
They're coming.
For lights are off. I don't know what did like.
Sporty Bath has come come out to fashion, yeah.
I don't know. I feel like it's your all's
like, what did you all think? I have my idea of how we did.
I think Spin loved it. I couldn't speak for it ended.
Very well. I think the tiebreaker could be
adjusted, but other than that I think it's great.
I thought it was awesome, Tyler, I don't know how you make it
better, honestly. Like, as far as like making
money, I make people pay a dollar for starting a league or
whatever, you know, maybe $20. And I I think people would still
do it and that's how you make money on it.
But I thought it was freaking awesome.
Like, I I really don't know how you improve it.
The speed that y'all get the scores in is money.
I don't think people are waiting for, like, things to update.
It didn't seem glitchy. You know?
Like, I I mean, I just, I don't have anything wrong to say about
it. Sure, there's a way that I'm
sure people can, like tweak things to make it more
accessible or whatever. But But like I for me, I don't
know how you make it better. If you figure out a way to make
it better, go you. But.
What we're constantly doing is go ahead, spin.
I think it helps make it more enjoyable to watch, right?
It's like fantasy football. You sit there, if you watch a
football game and you know you have a wide receiver in there,
you root for that wide receiver to catch the ball.
If you have somebody in as as the the shot caller to win the
event, you watch that athlete and want to see them do well,
like you have some vested interest in it.
It makes it more enjoyable versus just kind of sitting back
and watching like oh who's going to win?
Like you have somebody to root for.
And that's what I really like about it.
And I think Span is super underrated because he just won
our fantasy Football League and then he just got, you know, tied
for first in this fantasy thing. Trust.
Act like he's. I'm, I'm numbered brain.
I know I finance guy. Of course he's good at this
show. I'm starting to get real
intimidated real quick because this.
Yeah, I mean, like, I feel happy.
You know how much I did is negligible.
It was all my my team. It was all adamant, was all
Aaron and it was all Ortega and it.
Was you just being awkward in front of the camera?
Yeah, doing my best. Yeah, who?
What? What was the team decision to
make you like the face of it? Adam Adam's like, I don't want
to be in front of the camera. And I was like, OK, I guess I'll
take this bullet. And Aaron Ortega have the
camera, so it's left. Eye for default.
But by the end of the weekend it started to get better.
I was like, OK, I it's just it's so different, man, I I never
thought I'd be someone who's in front of a camera.
So here we are. There it is.
Has trick love. It puts us in the game.
Yeah, I we're we're constantly thinking the new stuff.
I we only had a couple screw ups.
There was a couple moments where I was where Adam was like having
a full freak out. Like it's over.
We're going to and it's like we'll never be able to talk
about those but like it got scary a couple minutes and we
navigated it every single time. And so I'm happy from that.
I I wanted more people to play. But what we learned from that
was that you have to talk about this early for a long time like.
And so I mean that's where I get help from you guys and from
sevon is like hey let's continue to pump the pump the drama up
about who's playing, why you should play them, why you
shouldn't play them. All those different things, they
make a big difference and that's why I'm so frustrated with the
team competition was we didn't, we didn't and you can't do that
well enough. I think with the current format
I think there are formats where you can do it better.
But it's like if we really want to care and if we really want
people to play and pay attention, we have to put a lot
of work into the team competition.
So no, I honestly the individual like I I was super happy with
how that went. Yeah, you'll have it.
You'll have it now for semi finals, like that'll be great
throughout. So like that'll make those three
weeks even more exciting and interesting to follow.
So good job on that, John. You still making people strong,
JY barbell. Yes, Sir.
Awesome.
All right, guys, I'm going to go.
Yeah, I actually got a fun story.
It'll be quick, it'll. Be.
It'll be quick. There's a girl named Daisy.
She's forties 40s and she walked into a CrossFit gym like 3
months ago and her squat was she couldn't do a squat beginning
beginning in a CrossFit. And then when she started with
me, her Max was 75 lbs and she hit 175 two days ago and it was
the most awesomest thing in the world.
I was so proud of her and I honestly couldn't believe it.
I was hoping for 1:35. I was like we're going to put
our 1:25. I was like we're going to put
one of those big girl plates on and she was like real
intimidated by it. And for her to do 175 like I was
mind blown. And like, she was so happy.
And I just It's more rewarding when you take somebody that's
never touched weights before and shown them and show them that
they're capable of more than they can they can dream of,
rather than somebody who moves great and PRS or snatch.
It's so much more rewarding the other way around.
Not that it's not rewarding the other way.
All right, Melanie, you're a beast and you know it, OK?
You just can't snatch very well. But we're working.
But continue to pay for John Young Barbara, it's.
Very. It's very rewarding.
It's very rewarding and I love, I love all of my athletes.
Oh yeah, sorry. I just wanted to give that story
out there. She'll probably never see this.
She doesn't watch YouTube, she doesn't social media, but I just
wanted to brag on her. That was a good story.
I just thought that was funny. He said it before he He typed it
before he said the story. All right, guys.
Appreciate it. Thank you for following all the
stuff I was doing out there, signing up for Heat One and
listen to John's stories of getting people strong.
So until next week, bye bye.