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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.
what is going on everybody
welcome to the cloud cell
media podcast my name is
scott switzer I have my
co-host amy radowski with
me and we are privileged to
have with us adrian bosman
the man the myth the legend
oh man I don't know if I'm
deserving of a myth myth
status at this point but I
appreciate it thank you
well one of the one of the
questions I had for you off the top
People have been talking about this,
that in some form or another,
it'd be cool to bring back
Roe versus Boz.
Now,
I know that you may not be able to do
that because of what you do now,
but in some form or fashion,
it gave people a realistic
view of an open announcement.
I mean, I'm all about it.
I love Rory McKernan.
You know, he's a good friend of mine.
We've been friends forever.
And yeah, that would be a lot of fun.
Even if it was just
something that was kind of unofficial,
those were always good times.
You know,
we do have the custom leaderboard
function and I have created
that in the past.
So maybe we can, you know,
just get one of those going
and people can look in on it.
But if I'm perfectly honest about it, dude,
he's fit right now.
I think it might not go so well for me,
but that's okay.
That's not the point, right?
Yeah,
you moved away from California where
you got to hang out with
all your buddies at the gym.
Now you're in Nashville kind
of doing it on your own.
That brings me to like,
what are you doing today to stay fit?
It's a good question.
I would say that the last
year or two have not been
at the highest peak of
fitness for me personally,
but that's all right.
You ebb and flow with such things.
I do a lot of jujitsu these days,
if I'm honest.
That's my three, four days a week routine.
Then I had been catch as
catch can with CrossFit,
but come the new year,
I started getting a little
bit more dedicated that way.
And so right now,
I'm trying to get two lifting sessions,
two kind of more
traditional CrossFit sessions,
and then jujitsu on top of that.
So that's what I've been
doing since January.
Hopefully,
that'll put me in a decent
enough position when the
Open rolls around that I can do okay.
But you will be doing the Open?
Oh, yeah, of course.
I do it every year.
And how many years of the
Open is this for you?
Every one?
Every one, yes.
So this will be 14th year.
Nice.
Nice.
I have a an offbeat question
I know you're a vinyl
collector those are my
favorite kind you're a
vinyl collector you're now
living in Nashville the
music capital of the world
does it make collecting
vinyl harder or easier being there
It's a dangerous tightrope
to walk right by my house.
There's a really cool place
called Vinyl Tap,
which hopefully that
tickles a few people out there.
I think it's pretty great.
But they are a used record
store slash music venue
slash kind of local pub.
And that place is very dangerous,
as you can imagine,
because it's within walking
distance of my house.
So I got to remember I have
a mortgage to pay.
when I get around places
like that so it you know
I've been pretty good
lately um but yeah it's uh
I would say on net it's um
it makes it easier because
there's so much happening
here there's a lot of cool
record stores and frankly
like every second person
you meet is doing something
musically which is really
cool and so I like to
support people that I know
directly like that whenever
I can so that that's always fun
It seems like a nice place
where you can go and
connect with other people
with those similar
interests outside of CrossFit as well.
Yeah, for sure.
Dude, Corey, you know Vinyl Tap?
Oh, no, he's just saying Post 11.
I get it.
Yeah, Grimeys.
Grimeys is a good one, too.
Not a taxidermy deer, says Adrian.
No, that's not the one I wanted.
You don't want to answer that question?
Adrian,
could you be Petra Wood and Helen today?
Can we get a very random showdown?
Would I beat Pat Sherwood and Helen today?
Absolutely.
Yes.
Cause he's like nine weeks
post hip replacement.
So yes, I would beat him today,
but that's not a really a
reflection on Pat's fitness
so much as like,
he's had a major reconstructive surgery.
That's been, you know,
a decade or two in the making.
Um, at Sherwood at his normal,
I would not want that heat.
He's a good runner.
That he is.
Amy, I know you got something for,
for Boz.
hypothetically,
let's just say somebody
who's been coaching
CrossFit around CrossFit
maybe 10 years or so was
thinking about going for
their level three.
What advice would you give
them to pass or to down that pursuit?
Take your time.
I think that for something like that,
especially if you've been
in the game a long time,
everybody does this where
they start to build up a
certain level of kind of
tacit knowledge where they say things,
they do things,
they have certain practices
that they're kind of
automatic at this point and
they don't really think about them.
And for a lot of us,
that means that you can't
really articulate them if
you were to be asked why
you engaged in something.
And by contrast,
I think if you have
somebody who's like really
a little bit fresher and
still kind of has that
first wave of enthusiasm,
they're the people that, in my experience,
tend to be able to answer
questions like that a
little more readily because
it's top of mind and it
hasn't become just kind of
absorbed and automatic.
So for the crew that's been
around a little longer,
I think you need to take
your time and go back to
the drawing board.
Not necessarily with what you're doing,
but just can you explain it
as well as maybe you did in the past?
Have you thought it through recently?
And not only just because I
think that's the right
thing to do to pass the test,
but honestly, I mean,
it might shake some things
loose that you've kind of
ingrained that maybe
they're not serving as well anymore.
Yeah.
But yeah,
I think that's the thing is to
take your time and just
kind of reevaluate, like,
can I still talk about these things, um,
as well as maybe I could in the past?
And, uh,
am I still thinking about them
with the same kind of granularity?
Nice.
So my last question in this
kind of intro part is,
and it kind of goes back to
row versus pause.
You're in a unique situation
in CrossFit where.
the sport is growing.
We want it to grow.
And, um,
but yet everybody wants you to pay
homage to the past.
So how do you balance the
two or are you still trying
to figure that out?
I mean,
I think it's an experiment every year,
right?
I think there's enough
framework and enough
expectation that people
kind of know what they're getting,
even when there's season changes,
et cetera.
You know,
you have a good sense of what the
athletes are going to be
required to do and when.
But it is tricky, you know,
because you can't go back.
And I feel like everybody's
kind of victim of this at
some point where, like sooner or later,
all of us,
we kind of have nostalgia
for a time that maybe never
really existed.
You take a look back and you
kind of idealize it.
But for those of us that lived through it,
you're like, yeah,
there were some amazing times there,
but it was not perfect.
There was some awesome
things that we developed on
the fly that we experimented with.
It worked out well.
But man,
there were plenty of things that
didn't go to plan that
weren't really good
successes that we had to
learn the hard way from too.
So I think for anybody who's
kind of opining for the past,
like you have to take that
good with the bad.
It was not just sunshine and
roses from start to finish.
So I'm rambling a little bit,
but I think it is trying to
find that tightrope of like, hey, man,
it should be classic CrossFit.
It should be classic to the
roots of what we know this thing to do.
But we have to...
know where we are I mean
it's 2024 things have moved
past 2012. uh we're just
not there anymore no matter
how how much somebody might
wish it to be um speaking
of tightrope will we see
one no okay I can I can I
can uh I can absolutely put
that one out there no slack
lines this year no time
we're not going that old
school for those of you
that you know pour over the
old journals looking for
things that we haven't done
yet that are referenced
there no slack rope this year
I love how you said that.
At least in the open, you know.
Yeah, okay.
The open, yeah, sure.
Quarterfinals, no promises.
All bets are off at the quarterfinals.
Yeah, I'm glad you said that because...
I want nothing more than
this sport to grow and move forward.
And I feel like there's this
tug pulling us back.
And in order to grow,
we have to reach a new audience.
So if we keep speaking to
the audience we already have,
we're not going to move
forward in that way.
And so I'm glad that you put it that way,
that the past wasn't perfect.
Yeah.
And, you know,
we were all complaining in
2013 and 14 just as much as we are today.
Maybe about some different things.
Right.
Right.
So talking about a big change,
we're moving to Fort Worth, Texas.
Yeah.
Yeah.
which is a massive change.
Tickets went on sale today.
If you didn't get yours,
they were moving fast last I checked.
So make sure you get out
there and get your tickets.
How does having the CrossFit
Games be 90% indoors affect
the way you're going to
program and tell the story
throughout this year?
Well,
I don't want to put a percentage on it,
but you're right.
I mean,
we are going to highlight that venue.
It's an amazing venue.
It's the nicest venue that
the CrossFit Games have
ever been hosted by, bar none.
It was built in 2019.
So, you know,
that gives you just kind of a
sense of the modernness of it.
And, you know,
one of the things that is unique about it,
number one,
the competition floor is huge.
So that gives us a lot of utility.
But there's also a lot of
technical things in the
back end that the broadcast
team doesn't have to worry
about because the venue is so new.
They can basically plug in and show up.
And so that'll give us some
more opportunities on how
we present the games,
which is kind of nice.
So to answer your question
about programming,
um you know really it's just
trying to maximize that
competition floor that we
do have um and then when we
do go off-site you know for
some of the things that may
occur we just have to be
really conscientious about
when we're doing that and
what effect that's going to
have on the athletes I
think that's everybody's
top of mind right we get
reminded regularly that uh
hey it's hot in texas like
oh we hadn't noticed we had no idea
yeah exactly um and you know
so obviously there's a
responsibility on our part
that we're not putting
athletes in a position
where it's just like
unreasonable to compete
under the conditions they
find themselves in um and
you know we're looking at
ways that we can do that
creatively but yeah the big
the big one is that
competition floor I mean it
is awesome it's a it's a
huge canvas with a lot of options
Yeah,
I talked to Heather at MFC and she
was saying the plug and
play atmosphere or the plug
and play ability,
it just is game changing.
And it's nothing they've
ever had before as you
CrossFit going into a
location and it'll save a
week's worth of time.
Yeah, I mean,
the prospects are really exciting to us.
And again,
it's one of those things where
it's kind of strange to
talk about with an audience that,
you know,
they may never have been
involved with a big event.
And it's difficult to kind
of wrap your head around
what actually goes into
something like that and how
many people it takes to
pull off and the coordination around it.
And so when some of those things are
alleviated,
sometimes people may not notice
that initially because
they're just watching the
competition and enjoying it
as they always have without
maybe as much knowledge as
to how much of a difference
it really made for the team
that has to run it.
So hopefully it translates both ways.
I really hope and I think it will.
that we can do some pretty
spectacular things in there
that we probably wouldn't
have been able to do elsewhere.
And it's also easier for the
team to pull that off.
So in my opinion,
that's what we're all
driving at is kind of this win-win.
So I have a big question
because you told me on a previous podcast,
riding your bike between
the venues was your way of
clearing your mind.
You don't have multiple venues now.
Oh, I hadn't thought about that, Scott.
You're stressing me out now.
So we should figure something out.
Yeah, maybe.
No, no.
The whole point is that you
have to travel.
The echo bike's not going to do it.
Yeah,
I think I'm going to have to figure
something out there.
Maybe it'll just be like a
hot lap around the parking lot.
You know,
just like a fake travel somewhere.
I don't know.
I got to put some thought into that.
Well,
is a venue big enough you can just
ride it through the venue?
It could be.
Yeah,
maybe not when it's in full swing and
everybody's running around.
Whip through Vendor Village real quick.
Dave and I could do races
around the parking lot.
There you go.
Charge admission.
Make some more money.
Yeah, perfect.
Sideshow.
Yeah.
that'd be your rovers boss
right there I i more
confident that I'd be able
to hang with roe on a bike
so maybe that's a maybe
that's an option I don't
know he's there mayhem all
they do is bike now right
yeah but you know he's old
and banged up and he's got
a little little mileage on
him so um my next question is
You had to, you know,
moving to a place where Dave,
and I use the 90% as Dave's
comment from his week overview, right?
To an indoor venue.
When you saw the off-season
events be affected so
tremendously by weather this year, Rogue,
Guadalupalooza,
both got torrential downpour.
Yeah.
And you guys with alpaca in two years ago,
totally changed like the,
the feel of the games that year.
Does that give you more
confidence about your test
going into a place that's,
that's environment controlled?
I wouldn't say confidence.
I mean, it definitely, you know, it's,
validating to some degree, I guess,
but I don't want people to
read into that to think
that me personally,
that I feel that's the
direction that CrossFit
competitions need to go.
I don't feel that personally.
I think that that's one of
the coolest things about
the CrossFit competitions
broadly is that there is a
range of ways to approach them.
And I think the unique
elements that some of these
big events bring to the
table is really what makes
them awesome and what draws
people to them.
And yeah,
some of those things bring some
risk of having to change in
the middle of the stream, so to speak.
But that's OK.
So as far as us, yeah,
it is nice to know that you
have that kind of security
with the venue that you've selected.
But honestly,
I hadn't really thought about
it and framed it in those ways that like,
oh, wow,
look at how difficult it was for
these other events.
Obviously,
it's not easy to navigate your
event that way when Mother
Nature has other plans.
But in some broad stroke,
I didn't take that to like, oh, well,
right choice for us to move
to Fort Worth even more so.
Not in those ways.
On the athlete side,
I could see it being one
less thing than that they
would have to kind of worry about, again,
with the readapting to that.
Yeah, it's interesting, though.
You hear both sides of it.
And I think that's true for
most of the decisions that we make.
You have some people that get it.
They love the direction that you're going.
And then you have others
that are skeptical right away.
And that's fine.
But for this one in particular,
we saw that
and continue to see that
where you know people are
happy I think that we're
choosing to have like a
pretty consistent weather
option but on the other
hand it's like well how are
you going to test all the
things that you need to how
are we going to make sure
that we have a complete
picture of the athlete
that's on the top of the
podium and I think that's a
valid question you know we
do have to solve for that
that not everything that
you want to test in a broad
test of fitness is going to
be available in a coliseum setting
And in taking it a step further,
the spectators, in 21 and 22,
you had to evacuate the campground.
That's right.
To get people and take them
into the Align Energy
Center for safety reasons.
Amy and I were in hotels.
The one hotel,
the water came through the window.
It rained so hard that one night.
And then the second year,
like it woke everybody up
in the hotel because of how bad it was.
It's got to be good from a
spectator's point of view,
knowing you're not going to
be sitting in the rain or
being evacuated from a
campground has got to be a
luxury as well.
I would hope so.
I mean,
that's definitely something that
you never want to have happen.
It makes a good story in retrospect,
but at the time,
it's definitely pretty stressful.
And it is wild that one year we came in,
I think it was Sunday morning,
I believe it was 22.
And, you know,
there are people sleeping in the kind of,
you know,
employee areas of the Coliseum
underbelly because there
was nowhere else to go and
they were all evacuated
from the outdoors.
So, yeah, I mean, it's, yes,
I hope it results in a
better experience for everybody.
So.
Going to this new venue, it has a new,
it's going to have a new feel.
Are you excited about the
prospects of what you guys
are going to be able to do
in that environment?
Anytime you have a new frame
on your picture,
you can do some different things.
Yeah, for sure.
I think it's kind of like I
said when we were talking
about the level three where, you know,
you get into a groove of doing something,
you adopt these habits.
Maybe they're great habits to adopt,
but sooner or later you
might stop thinking about
them in such scrutinizing terms.
And I think that's certainly
true for remaining at a
venue for many years.
You know,
like we've been in Madison since
2017 and we know that venue
really well now.
We know how to operate that
venue really well.
But anytime you move to a new location,
you know,
I've been lucky enough now that
we moved from Aromas to
Carson and Carson to Madison,
now Madison to Fort Worth.
And seeing those transitions,
it's like it always makes
you reevaluate what has
become business as usual
and does it need to be business as usual?
And in doing some of that,
you uncover some things that you're like,
oh,
why didn't we think about it this way
and approach it like this sooner?
That's really cool.
So not only is the venue, I think,
really going to support the event,
it does put our team in a
position to rethink some
things that they may have
been great and an awesome fit for Madison,
but they might not be the
best fit for Fort Worth.
So how can we make that even better?
And that's fun to me.
It's like a giant puzzle.
you get to kind of
re-examine all the pieces again and say,
OK,
does it actually fit together best
this way,
or is there another way that we
can do it?
Well, thinking about your team, you know,
now that Dave's back,
how have things kind of
changed with that?
It's been great.
It's really nice to have
another head that we can
bounce ideas off of.
It's really cool because
there are certain
responsibilities that are
kind of more in my domain,
and obviously he's got his
own responsibilities in his domain.
But every once in a while,
they'll kind of overlap a
little bit and all change.
take something and run with it,
or he'll take something and run with it.
And like,
we had a conversation just the
other day where he's like,
called me up and he's like, Hey,
I'm running with this thing.
Don't do any more work on it.
I want to take the first stab.
I'm like, cool, awesome.
You know?
And other times it'll be the inverse.
Um, and so it's fun.
It's really nice to bounce
ideas off of each other that way.
And.
i mean man dave and I have
had a working relationship
since 2006 and uh you know
dave's a friend of mine um
we get along really well
and we have the type of
relationship where we can
shoot each other really
straight you know there's
not a lot of pulled punches
like if it's a dumb idea
that dave doesn't like he's
going to tell me right away
and same thing like if he's
talking about something I'm
like dude I think there's a
way better way to do this
we're not going to beat
around the bush and we're
going to try to get to that best outcome.
So it's great.
Like I really enjoy.
And I'm actually really
thankful that I get to work
with Dave in that way.
Because I don't, you know,
I got lots of great people
that I work with.
Some of them for a long time,
some of them not so long.
But it's rare that you find
somebody that you can
I don't know,
just kind of be that
unfiltered with to get to
the best result.
I think it's a rarity.
I think that takes a lot of
trust with somebody.
And that takes time to build
that relationship in order
to have that kind of trust.
Yep.
And the other...
dave has admitted that he
never got to mentor anybody
into kind of what he did do
you feel like that's
happening now like he's
becoming more of a teacher
during these times or are
you still just friends and
shooting it straight that's
a great question uh I without
putting it in those terms, yeah,
I guess some of that has happened.
Some of it's just the nature
of Dave's got a lot of
responsibilities and he can't,
no single person can do it all.
And so some of those
responsibilities that I
inherited and have still
maintained since 2022,
there was kind of questions about like,
well, what do you want to pick back up?
What can you pick back up?
And some of those things
that I've retained, it's like, yeah,
it's nice to have that kind of
I don't know if it's
necessarily directly mentorship,
but that sounding board for
from somebody who's been in
that hot seat for that long.
So yeah,
I guess it is kind of a de facto
mentorship.
One time to go through shit together.
True.
Yeah.
You guys have been through a
lot in 1617 years.
yeah it's crazy to think
about that you know when I
first started crossfit and
it was just like a really
awesome thing that I was
fired up on and that's all
I wanted to do with my time
And they started expanding
the seminar team and asked
if I would intern, which I did.
And eventually, they said, hey,
we're going to pay you to show up.
It blew my mind.
I was like, well, awesome.
I'll be here anyway, but yes.
And so the point I'm trying
to make is I never expected
to have a career in anything, period,
never mind
doing this really crazy
thing called CrossFit.
And so like I do look back
sometimes and it's kind of
mind blowing to me that A,
it's been that long and B, like, you know,
I've managed to stick it out.
Yeah, it's been really great.
Couple quick questions from the audience.
Predictions on open signups this year?
Lots.
I bet we get 350,000 people.
Wow.
That's, I think, where we're going to.
That's my hope.
And you can choose to answer this or not.
Do you still talk to Greg?
I don't talk to Greg regularly,
but I did see him at Legends in December.
So that's cool.
He and Sevan showed up,
and so I got to catch up
with him a little bit there.
Yeah, that was great.
I'm trying to think the last
time I talked to him prior to that.
It had been a while.
So, yeah, it was nice to catch up.
Cool.
So the other person that
came into your life about a
year and a half ago is CEO Don Fall.
And I want to ask just the
overarching question,
what kind of support do you,
cause I've been a very
staunch supporter of Don
since he took over.
Um, I like what he says.
I know that some of it is CEO speak,
but I'd like to like dive
into it and try to figure it out.
And I've been a very staunch
supporter of him.
What kind of support do you get from Don?
Um, this is a great question.
And I would say that number one,
Don was put in a really hard spot,
you know, like I think it's, um, man, I,
I could not imagine coming
into CrossFit in the modern
era and being plunked down and said,
and being told, Hey,
you gotta figure this business out,
you know, like this, uh,
there's a lot going on there.
Um,
and he inherited a lot of good things
with that.
And he inherited a lot of things that,
you know,
maybe weren't as smooth as they
could have been.
And so I think to Don's credit,
what he's really tried hard
to do in my eyes is get the
different groups talking to
each other more and
soundboarding off of each other.
Kind of my point about how
important that is between Dave and I,
it's like, yeah,
if you have the seminar
team and they're not
talking to the affiliate team,
that's a real problem.
And so when people have
plans interdepartmentally,
the people inside the
company can't be the last ones to know.
And unfortunately, in the past,
that has been the case.
And so I think he's done a
lot of work to help build
trust within the team that, hey,
we're going to talk about
these things together.
We're going to move forward together.
And in that way,
I think that's very supportive.
because like I said in the
past sometimes it's like
hey you hear something and
the next thing you know
it's out in the open public
and that's the direction
you're moving you're like
wow I didn't work here for
10 years and I didn't know
that that was coming down
the pipe so so I'm going to
try to phrase this in a way
that makes sense but you've
been around since the
beginning well not quite I
I'm like second wave kind of
So this whole thing started with,
with as a barbecue at Dave's ranch.
Oh, we're talking the games.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and through that, as you grew,
there were missteps taken
in the way things were
communicated in the way things were done.
Now we're going through this
wave with Don fall and he's
learning on the fly as well.
And it's almost like a repeat,
in my opinion,
from the early days of the games.
Do you feel that being
inside for both waves?
I'm curious what you mean.
I'm not sure I follow.
It's a repeat from the early days.
In what way?
So I think,
and Don himself has admitted
that communication could
have been better on this
announcement or that announcement.
Sure, yeah.
And it's almost like
Because you almost have to
be ingrained in this
community to understand the
feedback you're going to
get and how instant it is.
And it's almost like he's
going through what you all
went through in the early 2010s.
I see,
meaning he personally may not have
been ready for the kind of
just immediacy the
community brings to the table.
Is that what you're saying?
Correct.
The criticism,
it bounces back on every announcement.
Right.
Well,
I guess that's kind of where our
responsibility, our meaning, you know,
myself,
all of the other old school people
that are still working for CrossFit,
you know,
people that have been through
these kinds of ups and downs.
You know,
I do think that that's part of
our responsibility
professionally is to let them know,
you know,
when things like this can happen
and what's to be expected.
Because yeah,
you can't be privy to all conversations,
especially if you haven't
been there in the past, right?
So I think that's the give and take.
If he's going to be an effective leader,
back to this theme of trust,
it's like the only way that
you can effectively lead is
if you have people under
you that are willing to
work with you and to help you.
Leadership isn't just a one-way street.
It's not a dictate, right?
And if it is,
it's probably not a very
healthy organization.
Yeah, I just,
I want to get to a place
where we're not cleaning up
messes and we're just moving forward.
And not that they're big messes,
it's just when they happen,
it's just frustrating,
especially when you're
embedded in this community
of people who react.
Yeah, it can get loud, that's for sure.
Yeah.
Well, let's move on from that.
I want to get to rule changes,
but real quick,
I just noticed in your background,
the alpaca trophy,
and there's two of them.
Did Roman give you both?
I got to say, I mean, what a sweetheart.
Yes, he did.
He won the one this year and
gave it to me on the field, and he said,
I had the other one with me
so that if I won them,
I was going to give them both to you.
I was like, oh, man, what a guy.
So, yeah, it was really sweet, actually.
At the end of the games this year,
a lot of the athletes had
put like – they took his
locker room sign off of the –
the changing, you know,
athlete area and they all
signed it and they got some
of the key staff to sign it as well.
And they presented it to him.
And then, uh, you know,
we had the spirit of the
games award obviously for him.
And then he had those for me
and we kind of like
exchanged signatures on some things.
Like I signed a spirit of
the games and he signed those for me.
So yeah,
it was a pretty cool moment for sure.
Oh, very cool.
so looking at some of the
changes for the season
we've now changed our
quarterfinals right so now
we're the top 25 percent
with that um so do you
think this is going to push
people beyond their limits
are we going to make it a
more doable thing for the group
A little bit of both.
I mean,
there will certainly be some things where,
I mean, look,
I'm like the perfect
candidate for somebody that
can skin of their teeth,
get into the quarterfinals
and knowing what I know and
doing what I do for, you know,
the competition.
you know,
am I going to be able to make it
through each one of those workouts and be,
you know, just cruising,
but just get beat by
somebody who's faster?
No, you know,
there's going to be some
things that are going to be
difficult and challenging for sure.
So what I've really put out
to our team and what's
really important to me that
we're looking at when it
gets to quarterfinals is, okay, you know,
we want everybody to be
able to get to the start
line and begin the race and
even if not everybody gets
to finish the race.
So if you're a
quarterfinalist and you qualify,
you'll be able to start,
you'll be able to get some
work under your belt,
but there's going to be
some instances where, yeah,
only the best are going to
take it all the way.
Before we move on, Wadzomi asks,
is that a hint that we'll
see Alpaca again this year?
You just have to wait and find out.
A three-peat, you never know.
Um, and, uh, Kenneth has a name for it.
The tribe.
I like it.
Um, so with the 25%,
that's a lot more people.
It was announced recently
that you are putting together a,
an online judging team to
help with review.
Can you briefly walk us
through what their responsibility is?
Is it final decision or just
like a sorting group to get
to the main judges?
Yeah, great question.
So this is something that is
not constant every year.
Like we always look at our
review plans and they're
always evolving based on a
number of factors, right?
How many days do we have to
resolve the leaderboard?
How many reviews can we
support within that time?
How many athletes do we have progressing?
How many people do we have available?
There's all sorts of
questions that go into structuring that.
But broadly,
the process for the person
working is relatively
similar year over year.
So if you're just a review
judge that's on that team,
you are not making final
decisions in most cases,
unless it's complete
catastrophe,
what you are doing is making notes,
making sure that you are
accurately assessing what's
happening in front of you.
And if you believe that a
penalty needs to be levied,
then that's going to be put
up to the next layer of team lead.
And so then the team leads
will take a look and they'll, you know,
make a determination.
If they still can't make a determination,
then it gets pushed up to
one of our senior staff and
they can take a third look at it.
And regardless of the outcome, you know,
the athlete can always
appeal the decision and all
they have to do is contact
us and let us know.
There's a timeframe that
they have to do that.
And if that happens,
then that'll trigger
another review from a
separate person that has
not already been involved
in those initial reviews.
So all that to say,
I think the misconception,
because things happen,
there's no way for somebody
to have full visibility of
that process because of the
decentralized nature of it.
I think that leads people to
fill in the blanks.
with information that's not
correct sometimes, where it's like,
oh yeah,
I just have some judge firing off
a decision on me and it's
just some faceless person
that I'll never get to contact.
It's like, no,
the process is more involved than that.
And there's going to be
multiple people looking at
your video if a major penalty is levied.
So that's really important
for people to understand.
And also important for
people to understand that appeals process,
we take that really seriously.
And we do make sure that
it's not the same person
that was involved in any
step of that review along
the way that fields your
appeal so that it's a fresh pair of eyes.
They get to see it again in
the light of day.
And it does happen sometimes
where there's a disagreement.
The person that fields the
appeal looks at it and they say,
you know what?
Yeah, I think this judge was incorrect.
I think this was the wrong decision.
And it does get overturned.
So yeah.
Speaking of the judging,
this year's judging course, big fan.
Oh, good.
Thank you.
I thought it was great.
It was very comprehensive,
but it just flowed together
so much smoother than the years prior,
I think.
Yeah, credit to the team on that.
Dave Eubanks was a big
driver of that project this year.
And hats off to the team.
That was a big focus was, hey, you know,
we've heard feedback from
the judges course year over year.
And I think the most
frustrating thing about it
is having to retake some of
those sections again and again.
If you get the wrong question,
that can be pretty infuriating.
So how can we alleviate that?
It sounds like from a lot of
the feedback we've got that
we did a pretty good job
with that this year.
I think so for sure.
And just to finish up the online judging,
it's not just like you sign
up and you do it.
It's an application process.
Correct.
These are people that have
done it in the past who
have a history of judging.
And so it's not just me and
Amy in there just picking who we like.
Correct.
Yes.
Right.
Yeah, there's a whole process.
And that's one of the things that, again,
it's a tough part of the
season because of the timing, right?
We,
meaning the team resolving this
competition,
we're always at a bit of a
time disadvantage.
because the scores get
submitted the competition's
over everything's kind of
said and done and then it
takes us a long time to
sort through the volume of
video reviews and to do it
correctly meaning yeah it's
not just a judge making
decisions unilaterally and
there are multiple people
in this process yeah it
takes a long time and
that's why we have this uh
you know period where the
competition's over
But we still have that 10, you know,
sometime shorter,
depending on how quickly we
can through things,
period of time where the
results aren't final.
And I get that that's a
little unsatisfying because you're like,
man,
the competition closed on Sunday or
whenever it was.
And it's now the next
Saturday and we still
haven't gotten final results.
What's the deal?
Well,
that's because we're taking the time
to go through it and, you know,
execute that process.
Sarah Cooper asks,
what are the red flags that
would trigger a review?
It depends on, I mean, there's several,
I mean,
there's the video submission
standards that are outlined
in the rule book.
So if those aren't followed, that's,
that's a red flag right out the gate.
You know,
there's obvious ones like not
doing the workout in the
right order or with the
right weights or with the
right rep scheme.
That's obvious stuff right away.
And then the more routine
stuff is just the movement
quality itself.
Are these repetitions being
done to standard?
You know, and if, if there's a,
a problem there,
then that's going to get
flagged and more people are
going to have to take a look.
So I want to move on to semis real quick.
And that is a couple of
things I really like and
one thing I really don't.
So I'm just going to be transparent.
Yeah, cool.
So semis, first of all,
back to the event organizers.
I love that.
These are people that do
this year over year over
year and are really good at what they do.
You have loud and live doing,
and these are just examples,
loud and live doing, uh,
the Carson semifinal.
You have the 12 labor's crew
doing syndicate crown.
Those guys are good at what
they're incredible.
Yeah.
What,
why was that decision made just after
a year doing it?
We're like, we're done.
I mean, it really just comes down to,
you know, we have people that are,
as you pointed out,
they're skillful at what they do.
They've done it in the past.
They've got a track record
of being able to do these
things really well.
And then the reality of the
size of our team and, you know,
semifinals last year being
involved with the larger
semis that we hosted.
It was a big stretch for the team,
you know,
and there was a lot of impact on
that that we're like,
we had to take a hard look and say, okay,
is this something that we
can realistically support
year over year over year?
And getting back to the
thread that we talked about before, like,
do we need to commit to
doing this the same way?
And, you know,
after re-examining it and looking at it,
you know, a bunch of different ways,
that was the best outcome was to,
let's again,
tap into some of these people
that have a proven track
record of throwing great
events and have them run with it.
at the games dawn during a
press conference said,
you guys are really
financially stable during
the open and really
financially stable at the games.
It's the middle stuff.
And that seems where like
the most changes happened.
And so I love that he said that.
And now the actions taken
are matching that up.
But here's the one I don't like.
Yeah, give it to me.
The cuts in North America
and Europe from 60 to 40.
Yeah, fair enough.
I think that that's a fair criticism,
you know,
especially given the competitive depth.
Totally understand that argument.
I can see where people, you know,
they're going to have issue with that.
You know,
one of the things that Dave was
very big on was, OK,
we've got all these different stages.
Each stage is run a little
bit differently.
Even within each stage,
there's discrepancies from
region to region.
It just makes the whole
thing really hard to follow.
as a fan and, you know,
sometimes as an athlete.
And so one of the big
directions that he gave, you know,
at the end of last year was
we need to look at ways
that we can be more
consistent across the board.
You know,
so you know the number of qualifiers,
you know, the number of seats available.
et cetera, et cetera.
That transcends even to,
if we look at the
competition structure for quarterfinals,
the last couple of years
you had one competition
schedule for the teams and
one for the individual groups,
and they all had slight
variations to them.
This year it's like, no,
we're going to run them all
in a similar fashion.
They open on the same day of the week,
they close on the same day of the week.
There's about as routine
execution of that as possible.
And so we're really kind of
stemmed out of those conversations.
It's trying to make things
more consistent.
But I do understand that argument of like,
hey,
you have a lot of depth in these
regions and there's
athletes that were on the
bubble that they're not
gonna be there this year.
So I do understand that.
Yeah.
And we,
I mean,
this show really embraces the
semifinal athlete.
So I think that- And bubble athletes,
yeah.
It really hits us hard that
that will be taken down a bit.
But you're going back to Carson for semis,
which I really dove in both
volunteering and then media
after you left Carson.
So I've never been.
Oh, wow.
So I'm super excited to finally get there.
But I have this question,
are we gonna have
consistent programming
throughout all the semis again?
Yes.
So the semifinals will all
be the same program.
Yep.
Now, obviously,
there's going to be venues
that have various footprints,
like the Carson Tennis
Stadium is a little bit of
a different size than, say,
maybe a convention center somewhere else.
So there may be minor
concessions given to each
region so that they can fit
it within the confines of their venue,
but the program will be the same.
Okay.
Because in my head, I'm like,
how logistically are you going to be?
One, it's outdoor.
Two,
it's a different shape than like a
basketball court.
And so how are you going to
be able to pull that off?
Yeah.
And again, it's just looking at, you know,
the floor layouts may
change slightly from region
to region based on their
venue restrictions,
but the program itself is
going to be the same.
Okay.
Sounds good.
And I'm excited.
That's going to be a blast.
Uh,
and it's so cool that they're going back,
um, those West coast region athletes,
like that's going to be such a fun event.
I can't wait.
Corey says, in other words,
it'll be regionals.
Exactly, yeah.
That's one of the hidden
most difficult things of
running CrossFit Games season,
in my opinion.
That's always been one of
the hardest things.
Like the games,
you get to the games and
you literally have an army
of people that are willing
to make changes on the fly,
adjust as needed.
It's not to say it always goes perfectly,
but there's a willingness
to adapt and it's only one show.
And so if a change of plan happens,
sometimes people don't even
know because they didn't
know the original plan
until the updated plan was executed.
Right.
When you contrast that with
something like semis or regionals, man,
regionals were very,
very difficult to run
because the game was replication.
You've got, you know,
at one point we had like 12
different semi or regional events,
you know,
and we're running different
venues in different countries,
often in different time
zones with different layouts.
And we're trying to be as,
consistent as possible,
replicating that with different staff,
different volunteers, very,
very challenging thing to do.
And so that's always the
goal is to try to get it to
be as close across the board as you can.
But I think the more mature
approach is like understanding that, yes,
certain venues are going to
have certain limitations.
And that doesn't mean that
we have to try to force it
into the same box.
And the programming can
still remain the same.
It just looks maybe a little
bit different.
It's so funny you talk about
that because my first games
volunteer experience was
very different than regionals, right?
At the games, I was working North Park 17,
Strongman Sphere.
That changed like three
times before we ever took the floor.
And we're back in one of those barns,
like just practicing how to
load the equipment, get it ready.
And then there'd be a change
and we'd have to do it again.
um and you're right there's
just a super team of
volunteers and people all
willing to practice that
and do that on a moment's
notice yeah and again you
know contrast that in the
semifinals regionals um
kind of sphere any decision
like that has such a long
tail you know not only in
executing it on site but
trying to communicate to
the other regions so they can do the same
updating the documentation
so everybody's looking at the same thing.
There's a lot more involved
to try to get that many
people on the same page
across different areas than
it is to have to do it once.
Even if it is on a huge stage,
obviously the games,
doing it once is a different thing.
so we're going to get into
age groups now and Corey
says Scott tell Boz I said
thank you for making
Masters semifinals top 200
again so you're saying
there's a chance yeah right
on Corey go get them um you
did visits to the pit to
Legends um to wheel wad
yeah and I saw Heather at MFC even
What were your takeaways and
what were you trying to
achieve by making those visits,
knowing that they're going
to be split off and running
it for the first time?
Yeah, I mean,
really just wanted to show
some support to those event organizers.
I mean, it's not,
it's a little bit of hubris
to think you're gonna show
up and like help them out.
It's like, they know what they're doing.
That's why we've selected
them as events to take these divisions.
And so really it's like, hey,
if we're onsite and we can
connect the dots on some things,
or if they do wanna talk
and pick our brains about
ways that we approach things,
we were happy to do that.
And in some instances we did.
But really,
it was just about relationship
building and making sure
that they understand that, like, yeah,
we're taking this seriously
and they're really
important partners to us.
And so we're going to show up.
It was as simple as that.
What will your involvement
be with the programming there?
For each one of those events,
they are largely
responsible for their own programming,
but they're going to
soundboard off of us.
And we've already started
that process with a couple of them,
which is really fun.
And, uh,
from the initial conversations we have,
it sounds like it's fun
both ways because you know,
you don't always get to
have people with experience
that love to run events.
Uh, you know,
take a look at your stuff and,
and kind of go back and forth with it.
So, um,
so far it's been a really fun process.
at what point will they pick
up the programming during the season?
Because the Open is their qualifier,
just like it is for the elite athletes.
Yes.
Yeah.
So if you think about,
Wheelwod's a little bit more unique.
They'll run their secondary
stage after the Open,
and it'll be mostly their program,
almost exclusively.
And then the games, they'll do that too.
We'll soundboard with them.
We'll help them review that
as much or as little as they'd like.
The age groupers for both Legends and Pit,
when we get to the semifinal stage,
so that's still online, that's the 200,
like Corey just mentioned,
that'll be a joint effort.
So the Legends and Pit...
They're going to take the first swing,
and then we'll kind of come
back and forth and craft it with them.
We're going to be doing the review on it,
so we want to make sure
that it's something that's
viable for online
competition and makes sense
in that format.
But they're going to take first swing.
And then, obviously,
when they get to the finals,
it'll be them generating
the program with our kind of overview.
this is my personal plea.
It's been my, my thorn in my side.
It,
you guys do it so well and it makes it
so noticeable at other events.
People should always finish
opposite the chaos.
What do you mean by that?
So if at the end of the lane, I mean,
I like it as a statement,
but illustrate it for us.
Finish line.
right so and I've been
critical of legends and mfc
and and all of that because
a lot of times you can't
tell who's going for chalk
or who just finished yeah
because the chaos the chaos
of the workout is going on
in that same spot as the
finish line got it yeah so
rather than have they
should run down the floor
away from the chaos so you
can see who's finishing when
Well, I love that point.
And hopefully,
that's one of the things
that we can help them with
that's kind of adjacent to programming.
A floor layout, ultimately,
if the test makes a lot of
sense and it's appropriate
holistically when you look
at everything else that's going on,
The way it's laid out
probably shouldn't take
priority over some of these
other important factors,
but there's always ways to
approach things that a
fresh set of eyes can help out with.
Again, to Dave's credit,
I think that's something
he's always been very critical of is,
what's the race?
What does it look like to
try to follow this thing?
And so that's one of the
ways that we can help to
support these groups.
Even if we're not like
changing the program per se,
we can at least filter it
that way and say, okay, well,
what does it look like when
we actually have to spectate it?
How can we make that better,
even if the program isn't
really changing?
So here's the difficult question,
and I know you probably
don't have a lot that you can tell us,
but we don't know the dates
for Pit and Legends.
We don't know the location for Legends,
and I know that probably
wasn't your intent at this point.
Yeah, I mean, it's the... Oh, sorry,
I'll let you finish your question.
No, go ahead.
I'll let you answer that part.
Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean,
that's the large event...
difficulty you know like
securing a venue that makes
sense to the organization
financially that supports
the dates that are you know
reasonable from the last
qualifier uh that your
staff can attend that you
can you know have a good
confidence that you'll have
a volunteer pool available
You know, like,
that's not an easy thing to do.
And it's not a decision
that's that's taken lightly,
at least if you want to do it well.
So again,
it's like it's unsatisfying when
you have these divisions
that don't know exactly
where when their final is going to be.
Yeah, nobody wants that for sure.
But do I want the diligence
to be done so that the
right venue is selected for
the right reasons?
Absolutely.
I'd rather that, as imperfect as that is,
that that's not a hasty
decision that's pressured by like, hey,
we need to know immediately.
It's like, no,
let's get to the best outcome first,
and then as soon as we know,
we can announce it.
So I had a talk with one of your coworkers
that said that something
that's exciting them is
that you guys are talking
in blocks of years future
wise as opposed to year to
year so my question about
what's happened with these
dates is are we putting
systems in place so that
we're not dealing with this
year after year
That's the hope.
And that's across the board.
So I think we have to recognize, excuse me,
that the decision to have
these events take on some
of the divisional finals,
it happened pretty quickly.
And we were right before
2024 when everything was
getting finalized.
That's not a lot of time for
an event planning cycle to
secure a venue and to have
all that ready to go.
So yes,
I think now that this is an
established path forward
and we haven't run it yet,
so I'm speculating a little bit.
I think it's going to be a great outcome.
I think it's going to be the
right thing for those divisions.
And so all that being said, yes,
it allows us to be earlier
with all of these types of
decisions in future years.
So I have two good questions
from the crowd.
First one is Wadzombie.
Will there be any changes to
media access for the game
season this year?
Less restrictions, more restrictions?
That's a great question.
I don't have a good answer
yet because we're still
sorting through a lot of that.
So I don't know.
I got to plead the fifth.
Sorry, man.
Clydesdale gets everything.
Everybody else.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Special access for Scott
because he invited me on
and we'll figure the rest
of you guys out later.
Carolyn Prevost.
Hi, Boz.
Hey, what's up?
Just getting on here right now,
wondering if you guys
talked about putting age
group events in adaptive
divisions prior to the
games to showcase it during
commercials or between events.
Yeah, I love that idea.
And no, we hadn't talked about it.
Those event organizers have
looked at dates on both ends of things.
And internally,
we think that either way is
a win for exactly the
reasons that you just mentioned.
It's like if they go earlier
than the individuals and teams, well,
great.
We'll have things to talk
about with those divisions.
And if they go later, well, then great.
They get the entire spotlight.
And we can really hype up
during the games that, hey,
there's more to come.
So either way,
I think it's going to be a good look.
Well,
that's all the grilling I have for
you today.
Oh, man, that's it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What part of the season do
you get most excited for?
Man, that's a good question.
I'd like if I had to pick one,
which that's the question.
The games, for sure.
There's just nothing like it.
And we've been in so many
situations with the games
over the years where it's like, man,
can we even pull this off?
And then we do, and I don't know,
there's something about the
games that's really special.
So if I had to pick one, that's it.
But every stage has its own
really cool aspect to it, in my opinion.
The open is the open.
I love the open.
What's to be said about that?
Just getting that many
people fired up about this
fringe thing I think is so cool.
Quarterfinals is where you
really start to get to see
people separate.
And to me,
that's always fun where you're like, hey,
I do CrossFit and you do CrossFit,
but wait a minute.
maybe you're doing something
a little bit different.
There's levels that start to
emerge at that stage.
And then the semis is just
kind of a continuation of that.
I think the live format
can't be beat in my opinion.
So like getting to that where you're like,
all right,
now we get to see these people
away from their comfortable
training environment,
away from their routine.
How does that play out?
What does it look like when
you get these people all in
the same room competing on
the same floor?
That's really great.
Then culminating in the games is awesome.
So you brought up levels.
So speaking of levels,
are we doing anything with these levels?
We're going to run the same
basic program that we have run.
Meaning, yes,
you'll get a level out of the open.
If you're at that level
where you're moving to the quarters,
you'll be able to refine
your level at quarters.
And we don't have a huge
expansion on that for this season.
But again, we're looking at hopefully...
back to the point about years out,
that this will be something
that we can continue to
slowly evolve over time to the point that
it trickles down into the community,
even with events that maybe
aren't directly tied to us.
Because I do think that
there's a need for local
events to just have a
better handle of who
they're putting these events on for.
I've heard it at the local
level many times where you
have somebody who's like, man,
I was really excited to
compete until so-and-so
showed up and they just
blew everybody out of the water.
And it kind of dampened the effect,
knowing that we're not
really playing the same game.
Exactly.
Yeah,
I think there's lots to be done there
with that system.
We just haven't been able to
prioritize that yet.
Still developing.
Yep.
That's what Amy used to do all the time.
She'd show up at
competitions and crush everybody,
take all the prize money, all the fit aid,
walk away.
Love it.
Yeah, she's ruthless that way.
Hey, man, somebody's got to do it, right?
That's right.
It's tough winning all the time.
Until they get a better handle on it,
I'm going to keep showing up.
Well,
hopefully we get to see Roe vs. Boz
again this year in some form or fashion.
It'd be awesome to see it live again.
Oh, man.
You're giving me all sorts
of anxiety just thinking about that.
Apparently, that's my job this show.
Nobody gets the games.
Roe vs. Boz live.
Yep.
No, I'll recover.
It'll be all right.
Well,
I want to thank you so much for being
on and answering our questions.
I look forward to seeing you
out on the road as we get
through the season this year.
I can't wait to get back to
to get to go to Carson for
the first time ever.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you guys for having me.
I really appreciate it and
appreciate what you guys do.
You know, to anybody out there listening,
hopefully you'll see some
of these events and come
say hi if you're there.
Yeah,
Wadzombie said you ignored him last
year at Semis, and he expects more.
I saw that on some,
I can't remember where he
made that comment,
and I don't recall that.
So it was an unintentional snubbing,
if that was the case.
All right.
Well, we'll let you go, Boz.
Have a great time.
Stay away from the vinyl shops,
because I'm already
spending enough money for both of us.
Just a little, just a little bit.
We'll catch everybody next
time on the Clydesdale Media Podcast.
Bye, guys.