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We cover the sport of CrossFit from all angles. We talk with athletes, coaches and celebrities that compete and surround in the sport of CrossFit at all levels. We also bring you Breaking News, Human Interest Stories and report on the Methodology of CrossFit. We also use the methodology to make ourselves the fittest we can be.
Hey guys, what is going on?
It is Clydesdale Media Roundtable time,
back at our normal time,
and we have been off the
air all weekend by choice.
We want to explain what all that is,
and we wanted to take some
time to remember our friend Lazar Jukic.
I am
i am by no means were we
best friends or anything
like that but we were very
good acquaintances and um I
knew him he knew me we
spoke when we saw each
other and so I want to open
it up to the crew who also
knew lazar and um or lazar
I'm sorry cat I'll get it
right uh lazar and uh open
up to you guys on memories
that you had of him so
whoever wants to take the floor first.
Well,
I know you guys met him first virtually,
so maybe you should start
with that first time you
guys talked with him and Luca.
Yeah,
so we interviewed the brothers the
first time.
This was right after they had qualified
or the games, I guess, back in 2021.
Right.
Um, and I remember it's funny.
I,
I remember my very first sort of bit of
information that I heard
about Lazar that I found
out about was that he
qualified in 2019 and that
he didn't accept his invite.
And my cynical brain went
right to he's doping.
He's gotta be doping.
Like why else would you not
go to the games?
Right.
You must be on drugs.
You gotta cycle off and everything else.
Um,
And we, I guess,
I don't know if we asked
him or someone had
explained to us that he wasn't ready.
And it's funny because I
went back and listened to
the interview that he did
with Dave just a few weeks ago.
And he explained sort of why he did that.
And he didn't want to be
that guy that showed up, you know,
and just like finish last or just,
you know,
or got cut potentially because
he wasn't ready for the big stage.
And that was the year, as you all recall,
that national champions got
invites and a lot of people,
Oh, yeah.
Showed up, you know,
for the apparel and then, you know,
exit stage left after event one, you know,
because of the event.
So that was kind of the first aha moment.
Like it was a lesson to me.
Like you hear about people
and you hear stories and
you just kind of jump to conclusions.
Right.
And then, you know,
after getting to know him.
I thought like,
there's no way this guy cheated, right?
There's no way that he,
this is what he was.
And I even,
it's funny because I saw
pictures of him that I took
from the 2021 games and
then seeing him now, like he's grown,
you know, physically since then.
Like if he was on something,
they weren't very good.
If he was, you know, in 2019,
cause he wasn't that,
he wasn't that developed as he is now,
which I'm sure just comes from, you know,
all the hard work that he put in.
But, you know,
my initial memories of him are just,
like I said before,
He was always very open to talk,
always wanted to talk.
And I remember even during
the games when we saw him,
like no one was really talking to him.
Nobody really knew who he was.
And I was like letting him
in the wrong door in the
arena because he wanted to
get in and watch, you know,
Luca do stuff.
It was just,
he was just like a regular guy.
He never put himself on a
pedestal or acted like he
was too good to talk to us.
And who are we?
Like, we just, you know,
we're not like big names in the space.
He did not, you know, have to,
for the benefit of his career or anything,
treat us a certain way, you know,
because of that.
He just,
he did because that's the kind of
person he was.
What's interesting about
that was we had just
started working with the
Morning Chalk Up.
We were taking over the bottom line.
That was our first interview.
It was?
I didn't know that.
I didn't remember that until
you said that.
And I can tell because the
thumbnail graphic is so bad.
but we took over and we
thought we had this super
cool story of these two
brothers making the games
in the same year.
And we were so excited to
talk to them and how
excited they were to talk
to us was this really cool
kind of vibe that we got from them.
And they were laughing and
giggling the entire interview.
It was sweet.
Um, and,
and he did explain in that
interview to us that he
turned down the 2019 games
because he wanted to be better prepared.
And, uh, I thought that was,
that was really cool of him.
And it's, it's just a really cool memory.
Um, but the other thing,
and I mentioned this in my
post during that time,
Kat had asked him how to
pronounce his name.
And she still has that
message from him where he
did a voice memo telling us
how to pronounce his name.
You played it at dinner on
Sunday night and it took
everything in my being not
to like completely lose it.
Yeah.
And I, it's, I had,
I had gone back to my DMS
on Friday to pull up.
And I think I had posted
like a little excerpt of him.
I had said something like, love you,
buddy.
And it was after,
the 2021 games and where he, you know,
he didn't place as well as
he thought he would.
And he's like, thanks Kat.
You know,
and we were going to talk to him
about a recap and things like that.
And that's as far back as I went for,
for whatever reason,
I didn't go back very far.
And then I was sitting with
my friend Paul at the games
on Saturday and he said, you know,
you knew Lazar, like what, what kind of,
what was your relationship like with him?
And I said, well, you know,
and I just kind of was showing him like,
Oh, you know,
we talked on Instagram and I
was scrolling and then I
started scrolling more.
And I guess I didn't have
service where I was the first time.
And I was scrolling like 10
times like down the page and,
to the very first
interaction where I saw
that screen recording or
the voice recording.
And I knew as soon as I saw it,
like the hair on the back
of my neck stood up.
Cause I was like, I have his voice.
Like,
and I didn't quite remember what the
interaction was,
but I listened to it for
the first time sitting in this,
in the stands.
And I had the same reaction, Scott.
It was just like,
it brought back all these emotions like,
Oh, cause then you hear him talking.
And I remember how
appreciative he was of that
because still no one really, you know,
not a whole lot of people
say his name correctly.
Um,
And he didn't care, but you know,
he didn't care.
I'm I, I put that,
I projected that onto all the athletes.
I,
cause I care when people mess up my name.
And I think if you're going
to say somebody's name,
respect them enough to
pronounce it correctly the
way they would.
And that was really cool.
And I'm pretty sure I
probably sent that to like
Sean Woodland or something.
Cause I remember I'd be
listening to the broadcast
and they would mess up the name.
And I was probably the
asshole sending them a note being like,
Hey, this is how you say it.
And I would record my own
voice saying it the way they should.
And I know the games does
that at the beginning.
They probably have everyone
record their voice so the
announcers know how to
pronounce it correctly.
But it gets lost in translation sometimes,
I guess.
But yeah, that was that was a cool thing.
And I will cherish that.
Right.
It was really cool.
And then I remember I think
it was just that I think it
was the three of us.
Then we interviewed him.
And we talked about later on, like, um,
like a full interview and
talked about Dubai, I think, and,
and some of his, the other competitions.
And then that's really when the first time,
like I had the opportunity to,
to engage with him virtually that way.
And then the funny story
from when we were at the
games that I'll share.
Was that, was that 2021?
22.
It was 2022.
And, and to this day, one of my best,
you know,
prior to this tragedy happening
was one of my best memories of the games.
Yeah.
So it was, so Kat and I were in the media
Like we were in the seats,
not down on the field or in the Coliseum,
but it was the workout
where they had to do single unders.
And then if they, you know,
made it through that, then it was the,
you know, crossovers and all that.
And the pegboard.
Yeah.
So like all of the athletes
were literally like coming
up and lining up in front
of us and right in front of us.
And he had turned around and
he looked at us and, you know,
started talking to us, you know, like, oh,
hey, guys, how's it going?
And I remember to do pull ups on the the
The railing?
The railing, yeah.
He started doing pull-ups and he's like,
I'm just trying to get that
tennis elbow from happening.
Got to get that worked out
before I go into the pegboards.
And then I remember afterwards,
he came up to us and he was like,
did I make it through?
did I make it?
And Kat and I were like,
like right after he got off the floor,
like he legit was hoping we
were going to tell him whether, like,
I thought we turned into
his coaches for a second.
I was like, wait, who are we?
And I was like, I was like, I mean,
we're coaches,
but we're not games coaches.
But it was just like, yeah, he was,
we were trying to be so
respectful of all the athletes.
Like,
even though we had interviewed so
many that were in line there,
we were like, listen, they're,
they're in competition in the zone.
Yeah.
You're not engaging them.
And he's just the one.
Yeah.
Got to do these pull-ups.
Got to, got to work out that, that, uh,
tennis elbow.
And that,
that just his smile and being excited,
like to take the floor.
Yeah.
It was really cool.
My, my final memory.
And that was him all the time.
Like whenever you ran into him,
that was the,
the vibe he gave off every time.
And yeah,
My final memory is in 2021,
when he does finally go to the games,
the event where they ran
around Madison and then
came in and did toes to bar
and then sprinted to the end.
He was winning that event.
And in our recap show during
the toes to bar, he fell off the bar.
And then got up, finished,
and then ended up coming in second.
And he laughed at himself so
much for falling off the bar.
Like instead of like being
upset about it or for
Lauren that he didn't get
an event win or he just was laughing.
Like, can you believe it?
Like of all times to lose my
grip on a toes to bar.
There it was.
And, uh,
And do you remember the
event when he when he wore
the Reeboks that Pat
Villner got for him and he won the event?
With Toes to Mark.
Yeah, with Toes to Mark.
That was in 2021.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very, very cool stories.
And and I was looking back
at our conversations.
There was a time, as you recall, where.
he didn't have a coach that
was traveling with him.
And do you remember we joked
about like getting his
coaches pass at one point in time?
Cause I was like, Hey, if you,
if you need somebody back there,
cause you know,
he wasn't going to have anybody there.
His brother didn't qualify.
I don't think anyone was
going to support him.
And there was,
there was an exchange
between us about something about like,
who's, who's getting your pass.
He's like, Oh, I got, you know,
I got someone to take my pass.
I'm like, Oh, okay.
Darn.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I know we don't want any,
there's not going to be any
hate in this episode at all.
This is about love.
Lazar was always jovial,
was always smiling, was always laughing.
And that's what I want this
show to be so that we can
start to heal and we can
start to move on.
So the next thing I want to
talk about is just the vibe at the arena.
Because I think there's some
misconceptions of what it
was like to be there.
And it was,
and I'll let Kat tell her side as well,
but when I was there and it all went down,
I was there alone.
Kat hadn't got there yet.
It all happened.
And when it all happened, I felt stuck.
I felt like I couldn't go anywhere.
And I want to thank Grant, Kipping It Real,
and Amanda Hari for just
teaming up to get through this weekend.
Because I watched the first
event from my hotel room
because I got in late and
couldn't get media passes.
Yeah.
When I found out what happened,
I rushed to the venue to
get the media passes just
to find out next steps.
And it took everything I
could do to get there.
I can't imagine the stress
that you had just getting there.
Because I know I was on an
airplane when it was all happening.
And I paid for the Wi-Fi so
that I could stay connected.
And it wasn't working properly.
And I was getting texts from
some people and not from
others and trying to get updates.
And you feel so helpless.
I wish...
I wished I was there.
And so I get into the venue.
I go to the media room.
And again,
thank you so much for Grant and
Amanda for that.
We finally hear they're
going to cancel everything.
But there was no
communication for a while.
Like there was nothing going on.
And it just made it more
intense and somber and
everything in that moment.
And then when everything was canceled,
we had to be out of the
arena like fairly quickly.
So we went to a coffee shop
and just kind of hung out
to kind of talk through it.
And at that point,
we didn't know what was happening.
And we didn't know if it was
going to go on or not.
What were we going to do?
We're all stuck there.
We can't get other flights
out until Monday.
And all this while being
extremely sad and trying to
process it all.
Kat, you finally get there Thursday night.
You're too late to get any
kind of media pass.
Yeah.
So you can't even get to
anything until the next day.
The next day comes, everything starts,
and it's just not the same.
I understand why they move forward.
I understand why some people left.
I take nothing away from
anybody that made a choice
because it was just tough.
Thursday,
if I could have jumped on a plane
and got home to my family,
I would have done that.
Yeah.
And I don't even know if
that would have been the right choice.
I don't even know if I would
have regretted it or whatever.
But anyway, we get through it.
And I felt like at that point,
all I could do was love on
the athletes because I knew
they were hurting.
And the only way I could
show love is to be there
and support them.
But I chose to go silent.
This was not a point to
throw up a bunch of social media stuff.
This was not a point to do shows.
You couldn't analyze what
was on the floor because
you didn't know how bad any
of the athletes were hurting.
And so when you see someone do...
Burpee's not as fast as they normally do.
You can't even be critical of that, right?
And so that's why we went
radio silent for the weekend.
And I just loved on
everybody that I had the
opportunity to love on.
Because the spectators were hurting,
the volunteers were hurting,
the athletes were hurting.
and I know there were some
comments about like,
everything's back to normal.
The music's loud.
It was not normal.
It was the farthest thing from normal.
Yeah.
It was, it was, and I never, you know,
these events,
you look forward to seeing your friends,
you know,
the people that you don't see very often.
And for me,
it had been two years since I'd
been to the game.
So I was really,
I didn't go to any semifinals.
I was really excited, you know, to,
to see people again and,
when I did it was you know
just a somber hug it was
just a hug no words and
this we kind of just moved
forward it didn't even feel
right to say like hey how
you doing or oh it's been
it's great to see you like
you don't know what to say
um and and for us at least
my role there at the games
just kind of evaporated
which which was fine like I
didn't care that I didn't
get to do what I wanted to
do when I got there but it
was just I just kind of
became a spectator at that
point in time and I felt
I felt bad for not taking
advantage of the
credentials I had to do a
job that maybe I was supposed to do,
but I didn't feel
comfortable doing that job.
So I didn't know what to do.
You know,
I wasn't about to throw a mic in
an athlete's face and ask
them how they felt because
I w I wouldn't know what to say.
And that's not to take away
anybody that did that.
I understand that, you know,
people did behind the
scenes and all that.
I don't, I didn't have that kind of access,
um, nor was that, um, you know,
my role that weekend.
Um,
but I didn't even,
I didn't even really take many photos.
I think,
I think I took like two photos on
my iPhone and maybe like a
hundred on my camera where
normally it would be thousands, um,
to sift through.
Cause I just felt like I
didn't have a purpose and I'm,
and I'm not like, Oh,
what was me because of it?
Like it just, that's, that's what it was.
I didn't know what else to do.
Um, it just became very, very odd.
Um,
even the way we interacted with people
and,
I know we didn't get to like the last day,
but at the last night when
I was getting ready to leave,
this young woman came up
out of the stands and Mike
and I were getting ready to leave.
And she came up to me and she said, hi,
I'm by myself.
Can I have a hug?
And I just like started
crying and I gave her a hug and I said,
you know, where are you from?
And of course you can have a hug.
And she's like, you look like nice people.
I just need like somebody to talk to.
She was from Oklahoma.
And, you know, she didn't know.
who I was,
I was just a person in the
audience to her, but it was so sweet.
And I thought like, can you,
I can't imagine spending
the whole weekend there by myself.
You know,
the fact that my boyfriend came
with me and Scott was there and, you know,
I know so many people in the,
in the environment to be
able to lean on and talk to.
And I had friends from
another gym in Maryland
here that had a whole row of seats and,
you know, we talked, but, oh, I just,
yeah, it was crappy.
last thing I'm going to say
is um I'm so glad that
kara's team won because the
the speeches that they made
were what we needed to hear
in the arena I don't know
how it went over um on the
stream and all of that but
in the arena we needed to
hear kara say it's okay to
have multiple emotions yeah
We're human and you can be
sad and you can be happy
and you can love on people.
And want change.
And like Megan says up here,
can't we be angry that it
happened while also
supporting the athletes?
Grieve with those who are
hurting and ask for accountability. 100%.
So the part I want to leave
it with today is kind of like,
where do we go from here, right?
And as a sports fan who's
been around several sports,
I just want to give some context, right?
There have been deaths in a lot of sports,
both on the fan side and
the athlete side.
At the Tour de France last year,
there were cyclists that
died during the race.
Dale Earnhardt at NASCAR
dies during a race.
The legend of the sport dies
during a race.
There have been people in
other sports that have
passed away during the event.
And they've all moved on,
but not without massive change.
Right.
It is obvious from social
media that the athletes
want a voice now and it is, and they have,
they are now empowered to
have that voice.
Well, and just to add one piece on that.
And I think the other big
piece is that not about
necessarily moving forward,
but people don't want it to be forgotten.
They don't want,
lazar to be forgotten and I
think that that's an
important piece to that
like yes keep talking about
him keep keep bringing it
up don't let it be
forgotten right yeah the
key point is nothing ever
gets solved with hate right
we need to be constructive
and we need to move forward
here in columbus a little
girl died at a hockey game
And immediately,
immediately netting went up
behind the goals on both
sides of the arena so that
pucks could not get to the stands, right?
Someone died at a baseball game.
Now there's netting the
entire way down both the
first and third baselines
at baseball games.
There has to be massive change.
There has to be.
And now I think the PFAA is
probably going to be as
strong as it's ever been,
probably tenfold.
Yeah.
So I am cool with moving forward,
but there has to be change.
And I believe there's no
option other than that.
Yep.
Yeah, I agree.
And, and, you know, and,
and maybe we can have a
show where we talk about that, like what,
what people's proposed changes are,
because they're not, there's no bad ideas,
right?
And I'm not saying we need
to be critical of what's going on, or,
you know,
call for resignations of people and,
and litigation and all that,
but just like have a little
roundtable of like, what,
What would you do?
How would you change?
Cause I think that's
important for us to talk through and,
you know,
probably somebody's got some
good ideas and I'm sure
maybe not wholesale,
but a lot of them may or
may not get implemented as we go forward,
assuming that we do go
forward with the sport.
But I'd be curious, you know, that to me,
that's just my curious
brain of like trying to fix things.
Like what, what would we do to change?
And, you know,
I've spoken to some people
like off the record that
have been in medical before and, you know,
been in the event,
space in CrossFit that have, you know,
really strong opinions
about what happened or
really strong opinions
about how things could improve.
And I think that's a
constructive conversation
that we could have maybe at a later date.
Because I do think it's
going to be quite some time before,
you know,
we find out details about what
happened and investigations
and all of that.
Andrew, go ahead.
If the games continue,
there will be changes for sure.
I think it's 50-50 whether
the games continue because
you know there will be a
big civil lawsuit.
We don't know what that is.
There are still facts to be determined.
There is an independent
investigation going on.
There is a police investigation going on.
We do not know any of those
facts or findings at this point.
I believe that it's more of
a 90-10 that the games go on.
From all other sports.
So in the same weekend,
two people died during the
Ironman triathlon in Madison, Wisconsin.
That is a very common thing
to happen during a triathlon.
Ironman has not gone away.
Yeah.
um and I've mentioned other
sports where that's
happened and it they didn't
even stop like the tour de
france didn't even stop so
um I think it will go on
but it it will go on and it
did there at the very
minimum there will be a
safety council that will
have to approve all the
events in my opinion
Yeah.
And, you know,
and I don't think any of us
want to see it go away.
I mean, we're all, you know,
we're here because we love the sport.
We make a lot of sacrifices to cover it.
We, you know,
we use our own money to get
there at being a former volunteer,
you know, people spend a lot of money to,
to do this and we love the
athletes and we love the
sports and all that.
And I think we want to see it succeed.
At least I do.
I want to see it succeed.
And I want to be part of the solution and,
and not part of sort of breaking it down.
Um, if that's possible.
While also remembering and
talking about Lazar and yes, yes.
Keeping him, keeping him in the forefront.
And both of those things can happen.
I mean, I hate, I'll be honest with you.
I hate that he is now going
to become the poster child
for safety at the games.
Like that sucks.
Um,
because he's so much more than that.
And that,
that's kind of why I feel like
separating the two sometimes, you know,
like having this discussion
was great and being able to
talk about it.
But I do,
I do think it's important that we
talk about some potential
solutions to the problem while,
while still maintaining his honor,
which is not going to be easy.
Yeah.
No, this is going to be easy.
No.
I didn't want this to be a
long show today.
I just wanted to kind of get
through these comments we wanted to make.
And again,
we'll continue to talk about
Lazar and carry his memory forward.
Yeah,
and we should try to pull up some
clips and things and just
sort of celebrate him as we
can and space him out.
I don't want this whole week
to be all about it and then
a month from now we're
not talking about it.
So we'll try to keep up that
cadence if we can.
Yeah.
Thank you everybody for joining us.
Um, it's been a tough weekend, um,
but I'm ready to heal.
I'm ready to,
to get back to some normalcy.
Um,
but I know that that's going to take
months for that to happen.
Well,
we'll see you next week guys on the
Clydesdale media round table.
Love you guys.
Bye.