I thought the cuts down to 20 were really well done and it really felt like a genuine "top 20", but then to cut down to 10 in one short event decided by 100ths of a second really killed the excitement, and then we pretty much spent 2 days watching the same 10 dudes/chicks compete
Yeah, totally agree with this. I really felt the cut to 10 athletes should have come at the end of Saturday's events leaving the top 10 to fight it out on Sunday.
There should be 3 events per day. One cardio/single modality oriented (run/row/swim), another focused on strength/weightlifting, and the last one a mixed modality (pure CrossFit). The cut at the end of each day, so every athlete can be tested in every aspect of fitness.
Yes I agree they should have went with 20 athletes to the end, just look at were the tenth place athletes finished, I know that those bottom ten athletes would have given the top ten a run for there money.
Michael Foster No because it’s exactly what CrossFit is. M-W-G and everything mixed, each week. Then repeat. Plus, a test of fitness should be broad, general and inclusive. Broad time and modal domains, anyone? If the order of the events determines the results, it’s not a test anymore. It’s a show.
Hey rory, thanks for doing these interviews. I'm really enjoying them Also, you're a great interviewer. good questions and you don't come off fake when asking them.
Thank you for putting out these interviews. It was a great perspective to hear from these athletes fresh off the games and allow them to voice their opinions freely.
Cole and Travis are two of my favorite athletes. I’ve been following them this past year on social media (Instagram/RU-vid) and always appear to be upbeat and down to earth. So when they got cut I was super bummed. It’s nice to see they’re keeping everything in perspective and are staying positive. And that makes ME feel better. Which is the most important thing. How I feel. Thanks for the great interview Rory!
Cole, positive as always, thanks for being you.. Travis, same sentiment. Two gentlemen athletes. I agree with the top 20 through the weekend, but the scoring at 10 point difference makes for a great test, the seconds idea take me back to whether the sprint was fair.
Great work Rory, on helping us digest this weekend and digging into finding problems to solve to make the CrossFit games even better for next year. As a UX Designer (& Crossfitter) I really love your design thinking mindset. Great user interviews :)
You have put up some really interesting and intelligent interviews. The perspectives seem thought out and look to be coming from a place of reflection and not fault finding which is very mature given how raw these wounds are. I hope that those responsible for future decisions will be approaching the autopsy of these games with the same thoughtfulness because there is quite a bit to be learned and understood about these games. 2019 Games cannot be repeated unless your aim is to destroy your fanbase. Plus with the present media package, they aren't attracting anyone new either.
The biggest issue I have with the new format is that I want to watch how the top athletes stack up against each other. And when you see people unable to pick up a bar in the first event of the top ten, I don't think I'm watching the top athletes.
The cuts should leave 20 athletes for Sunday. That way there is a chance for a portion of the field to work their way into the top 10, or just improve their position for a bigger pay-day. Now we lost all specialists--big guys and gals--in what felt like one day.
2020 games. 1. Rogue takes over. 2. 5 international comps around the world and 25 male and 25 females qualify. 20 teams 3. Games is a 3 day event with 9-11 events and no cuts. 4. Dave Castro has zero involvement.
I've been watching these games since 2009 and I look forward to them each summer. We've seen the sport blow up and has become mainstream, unfortunately though, the judging and formatting has not kept up. Every year we've seen mistakes by volunteer judges cost athletes placing, prize money, etc... The attempt to make the games bigger and better this year has been a debacle
The Athletes are at the whims of Glassman and Castro. These are the sort of variables that they cannot control that starts screaming that they need an athletes union.
Hey Rory - I would love you to interview Dave Castro and ask him did he think he got it right? I don’t know, would of been nice to keep the 20 there til end of day but also the logistics of that with the work outs made that tough. So I’m sitting on fence. Try interview Castro. Great vlogs Rory, well done.
GREAT INTERVIEWS!!! It's always fascinating getting into the MINDS of these athlete, the REAL OGs of the SPORT!!! I can totally feel their FUSTRATION!!! They train ALL year round to SHOWCASE their God given talent to the WORLD but then get cut short due to bad events before the CUT?!?! T T Not even well rounded EVENTS before they cut them. I can totally forsee them EXCELLING in the other events that came AFTER the cut!!! We can only IMAGINE how well they COULD'VE done?!?!... =(
So not to be funny but what Cole said about the first workout being a 'Sunday morning workout' is totally why everything was chopped and changed around. People got too stuck in the way it has been for years. I don't think that they should have ended on a sprint. But the WODs in general were CrossFit in the box workouts
Cole is Awesome..Great job on these interviews Ro..If you interview Dave find out how Fraser drops a weight and finishes without it and gets a 60-second penalty on a 25 min workout, Wells steps over a lane line and gets a 10-second penalty on a sub 30-second workout?
The depth of talent that has been displayed historically in the games is amazing, but the intense cutoffs virtually eliminated the depth of talent in the field. It felt like if a competitor had any weakness in any of the early events then they were eliminated, but historically that competitor came back. In these games, Rich Froning may not have even placed or made it to the top 10. The games itself is a marathon+ and maybe scoring could be done differently, but the eliminations basically ruined this years games from a fan standpoint. We like to see all the competitors compete. Elimination should have already been done on the road to the games... not at the games in that way. There is no comeback story (maybe a 1-2 place shift) like what we have seen from people like Patrick Velner... It is amazing to see them compete their way to the top. and "Was this a comprehensive test of fitness?" of course the answer is yes, for the individual, but comprehensive in view of the talent in the field... no, it is not. Comprehensive means inclusive and complete, The eliminations that took place took away from that and reduced the level of competition, instead of elevate it.
Study the correlation between placing in the 2019 Games and length of the competitor. You will se smaller athlets placing better than taller (heavier) people. 4 of the first 6 events was to a high degree related to body size and ROM. The new games format with cuts needs smart and well structured programming if we want a well designed test of fitness. Earlier when all competitors made all the events the design part was "easier" for Castro. I dont think anyone at CFHQ are pleased with this years outcome with only the shorter players in the final.
I agree with travis Mayer. I really like Noah and Mat but I cheered for Noah but the 12 event didn't matter because even if he took first.... there was no way there would be enough people going for it to put points between Mat. I don't think you guys are complaining, it's a discussion. P.s. Cole Sager I love watching your channel.
Thank you Rory, all these "post cut(S) interviews" were really good. IMHO, they are the best content of this "4 days CF Games weekend" (Outside of the CF Games themselves, of course!). It's always good to see how Athletes cope with and analyze the situation... Meaning they cope and analyze it much better than the social network(S) crowd #EverbodyIsACoachOrADirectorOfTheGames out there. About analyzing the situation, I think a "Constructing the CF Games, part 2: the 2019 CF Games" by Dave Castro would be really interesting to see the logic behind the cuts vs order of events vs timeline and logistics vs the evolution of CrossFit/the test. I would buy this book :).
They made a good point about putting more people between Olsen and Fraser on those events that Fraser wasn't good at, may have totally changed the outcome. Additionally, those who were good at strength conditioning and could have challenged Fraser in the gym were cut in those early cuts.
Honestly I think that it would go other way around, with Noah loosing points on Matt more rapidly. After cutting to 20 we had 6 events. Fraser finished before Noah on 5 of them, with 4 1st place finishes. It is quite probable that on Clean event or Sprint events which weren't in Olsen's wheel house, the amount of athletes snicking between Matt and Noah would lose him lead even faster then just with 10 people. For swim event that Matt lost to Noah - yeah there would be more people between them but Matt is not a bad swimmer and looking historically into his swim events finishes he had always solid positions.
Athlete’s Union. The NBA says, “The players are our partners.” CrossFit is a small enough community with the top athletes known that they could pretty easily unionize.
The athlete who will improve next year are the ones who place the blame on themselves and not the programming or when the cut took place. It is not the strongest who wins. It is not the smartest who wins. It's the one who quickly adapts wins. Be ready for anything.
I thought that the games were great again this year. I agree that the first event was the perfect event to kick it all off and determine who should be moving forward with a Crossfit workout. However, I think it was cut from 20 to 10 way too quickly in an event that was determined by hundredths of a second. They should've cut down to 10 on Sunday. That would've allowed the "run" to be in the top 10 more interesting. They should've followed the same cut pattern as what they did with the teams. Just my opinion...
None of these athletes are going to say what they REALLY want to say, since their entire careers are connected to the CF Games. Testing is one thing, but Castro is playing with peoples’ careers and I find it manipulative.
Fact is that the fans and athletes would rather see a lot more athletes competing until the last round. So the Games organisers cheated the two most important groups, the fans and athletes. The CFG risk marginalising itself amongst all of the crossfit events around the world, but that is also likely the intention of the crossfit HQ. De-emphasise the games from crossfit
Yup. I'm not paying money to go to feel cheated out of seeing tons of athletes I spend time to following. This wasn't done for the fans. I can't figure out why it was done, but it wasn't for us. The people who help fund this event.
Giovanna Cervantes Thank goodness for the Sanctionals. And hopefully, Glassman and Castro LISTEN to athletes and fans and commentators instead of just PREACHING.
I think the issue around the cuts is not only timing but the point system around the cuts. Athletes who did well early were essentially penalized whereas those who had a bad event early and got a 17th etc. were completely benefited. Wins didn't weigh the same from beginning to end and I have a hard time agreeing with that.
Interesting point you make here, I hadn't thought about it that way but it makes complete sense. Overall I found the weekend quite exciting. I think that there are certainly some issues - cutting half the athletes based on a sprint was a huge mistake. Also cutting that early in the weekend was possibly not the best choice. I did however enjoy the different formats the events could take based on the reduced field, and the huge point differentials made watching super fun towards the end as the stakes got higher. The scoring also got simpler at the end of the weekend you could more easily translate placings to the leader board during events.
Hey Ro! Could you put the mic on a separate pice of furniture next time? My base was thumping every time someone touched the table :) And this was the ONLY thing i had to complain about! a thousand thumbs up!
Not sure how fast = fit so sprinting is cool but not at all a fitness test that should be used for elimination, same with PR lifts. Cuts should be done in the Arena with Crossfit WOD's
Was this a valid test as to the fittest on earth? No, unequally scaled events, the order of events giving us a heavy endurance vs strength events. This was a great test of fitness but not a test of the greatest fitness.
to be fair, none of the crossfit games have ever been a test of the greatest fitness....there are all kinds of fitness and the whole "fittest on earth" title is silly anyways, "best crossfitter" is more appropriate, but less catchy
Nick Peterson I mean saying fittest on earth is a hard claim to make, though historically I think they have done a good job of trying to balance tests of numerous modalities, endurance, speed, strength, etc at very least it has been the best most varied test of fitness that I am aware of.
All I have to say is that if everyone is talking about how this was a disaster with out calling a disaster then it was obviously a disaster lol. I really hope they figure it out for next year.
Wow really enjoy YOUR CONTENT .... BUT am really having a HARD HARD HARD TIME with the cuts to 10 after a SPRINT event SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sad, what a BIG DOWNER never should have happened. I could say so much more, but feel everyone knows were I'm coming from. Really these TOP athletes training and training all YEAR for this EVENT -----just can't say how DISAPPOINTING this was.
@@BernhardKohli well since your trying to distort my comment.. the first workout was fair. I never said anything about the first workout at all. Everyone knows when you have over 100 athletes the first workout has to be balanced to level hlthe playing field. And that's what they did.
El corte de atletas a mediano plazo hara que todos los atletas se especialicen en todas los skills.. mat fraser no se quejara de los workout de inicio o final. El va por todos
Turn off your camera's auto focus when you shoot stuff like this with little movement. Flip to manual focus, set the focus and let it ride. The buzzing sound of the lens focusing is really distracting.
That communication part is big for me. As a spectator I want to know wtf is going on. This surprise shit is getting old. Planning is a part of competition. In REAL sports, teams know who they're playing and what game.
Wheelhouse is all I hear...crossfit is about being good all across the spectrum of physical activity so I'm not really moved by this...the cuts are a different question. True, bit too dramatic in my opinion, but to the raging fans...please we have a ton of sanctions, you can watch your fav compete like potentially 7 times a year, no just 2
Travis says the first few workouts were "not so challenging". Did he even finish the first workout? And if it wasnt so challenging and a real test, then why didnt you move forward in the competition. The fittest will move forward no matter what test. If you're banking on the order of events then try to train harder to not have a wheelhouse such as tia and mat
Sager is a class act. He has the best perspective of all the athletes that didn’t make top 10. There has been so much focus on the athletes out of top 10 than interviewing those that finished in top 10. More societal victim mentality
I think the outrage/upset has NOTHING to do with the cuts(at the root of it all) and more to do with the lack of transparency with all/the majority of the changes. Also, I believe part of the problem is it’s too soon to discuss this for many of them. Give them about a month to process the experience. I’m only saying that because as sound as the conversations have been, I can’t help but hear the underlying emotions in the responses. For example, I hear a lot of “if it was programmed like this” or “that first work out was AWESOME, but we typically wouldn’t see until Sunday morning...” Ok, well, what happened to the “prepare for the unknown and unknowable” aspect of Crossfit? That applies to more than just the workload set in front of you and can, now with this new format, allegedly include how both the events and eliminations are executed as well. So it seems the major unknowable this year was “how does your ability to strategize your effort and ability factor in to how well you perform.” Then they talk about “moving day.” Welp, moving day is now every day. Again, HOW WELL CAN YOU ADAPT AS AN ATHLETE NOW WITH THIS MESS?! I think is just different for them to factor in THIS MUCH strategy with their execution as parts of their adaptation. I also wonder if they knew just HOW (in terms of when, how many folks, etc) and HOW MANY cuts would be done and when the final cut would be and how many athletes the field would be ultimately cut down to. I feel like most of this upset wouldn’t be this potent if it wasn’t so thrust upon them to keep them from being able to prepare/strategize around the cuts (hence the “if you have one event with 3 workouts l, every 10 min, 30 min cap, broader skills tested to give an opportunity to showcase strengths against weaknesses and get a true measure, etc), but THEN AGAIN that takes me back the whole unknown/unknowable paradigm. To me it just sounds like what they didn’t like was the lack of transparency that they’ve been accustomed to in terms of execution of the event itself and that’s what caught them off guard and upset them. Just my take on it after listening to after event interview comments/post elimination interview remarks/etc. 🤷🏾♀️
A lot to do with unnecessary, too early cuts. If I were an athlete cut after 5 events after training for a year and competing all over the world, I'd be "gutted", like some have mentioned. Lack of communication and transparency is on top!
programming changes a few of the people in the top 10 but not by much. if you care about the top 10 then the program didn't test everything but if you only care about first place then the programming doesn't matter honestly.
To get to a top ten order of events really matters. If you go back to stats of leaderboards after each event the leaderboard changes radically until the final day. Thats why Saturday is called "moving day"
