Thoughts on the 2015 Crossfit Games

I was lucky enough to spend the last 5 days back near my hometown with my friends from high school.  It's always good to see them and we end up doing crazy stuff like trying to visit 9 different local ice cream shops in one day (spoiler: didn't quite make it).  It was also an opportunity to mentally recharge.  I didn't spend much time thinking about working out because I was running around doing all sorts of other fun stuff.  Perhaps this is a sign that I need to develop more of a social life when I'm here.

I didn't completely cut myself off from Crossfit though, as I tried to stay on top of what was going on in Carson, CA throughout the week.  I didn't get to watch everything, but I'll give you my thoughts on the week as, like the Open, there seemed to be a lot of strong opinions concerning everything that went down.

Masters/Teens:  The Masters competition is nothing new, but the Teen competition was a new wrinkle this year.  The events for both divisions were the same.  While the Individual and Team competitions seemed to hog the spotlight, I thought the Masters and Teens competitions were fun to watch.  Some of the performances from the Masters participants were simply amazing.  I can't do that stuff now and I'm not banking on time being kind to me in my later years.  As for the teens, having only 10 athletes in each division was probably the right amount, at least for the first year.  It did give us a glimpse of where the future of Crossfit lies.  The only confusing aspect was running the 14-15 year-old division and the 16-17 year-old division at the same time during events.  The commentators struggled to keep track of who was in the lead in each division and they could only show the progress of one division in the on-screen graphics.  I'm guessing next year they will treat the teen divisions like the Masters divisions and take 20 athletes.

Teams:  More than any other year, this was supposed to be the time when the Team competition rivaled the Individual competitions.  I didn't get to watch as much of the Team competition as I hoped, but Crossfit HQ got their dream scenario when the three teams that were hyped up before the competition found their way to the top of the leaderboard.  These three teams were anchored by male competitors who were prominent in the Individual competition last year, most notably Rich Froning, the reigning 4-time champ.  As Jason Khalipa's NorCal team faded late, it was a battle between Froning's Crossfit Mayhem Freedom, Tommy Hackenbruck's Ute Crossfit, and the surprising Crossfit Milford.  In the end, Froning would not be denied, pushing his team to victory.  It was the perfect ending in terms of highlighting the Team competition.  I will say that Team events do not translate as well on TV as Individual events do (although live they are fantastic), but I'm not sure how that problem gets resolved.

Individual Men:  This was supposed to be the crowning of Matt Fraser as the next Rich Froning.  Fraser had pushed Froning to the limit at last year's Games as a rookie and with many of the top guys from last year not returning for this year's competition, he was an overwhelming favorite.  Except one veteran decided that he wasn't ready to start the Matt Fraser era.  Ben Smith has qualified for the Crossfit Games seven times despite only being 25 years old.  He's battled injuries throughout his career, but declared himself injury-free before this year's Games.  Fraser opened up a 100 point lead by the end of Friday's events, but Smith put together a remarkable charge on Saturday, not only erasing the huge lead, but claiming the lead for his own heading into the last day.  Fraser beat Smith in the day's first two events, giving him a 2 point lead heading into the final event.  But he struggled on handstand push-ups while Smith built a huge lead, one that he'd hold on to en route to being crowned the World's Fittest Man.  Again, I think this played out well for Crossfit HQ in that having Fraser dominate would not have made for a captivating final day.  Even Froning had to scratch and claw his way to his titles and there may have been whispers that Fraser's dominance was more the result of the absence of the guys who went Team this year.  Now the other male athletes know Fraser can be beaten.  But Fraser will also be more driven to win it all next year.  Seems very win-win to me.

Individual Women:  The female competition has tended to be more compelling than the male competition as about a dozen of the athletes could feasibly take home the crown as World's Fittest Woman.  We'll have to bump that up to a baker's dozen as this year's winner came out of nowhere to win.  In fact, the runner-up was a complete surprise as well.  The focus before the competition was on previous champions Camille Leblanc-Bazinet, Annie Thorisdottir, and Sam Briggs.  They were expected to be challenged by Kara Webb (Pacific Regional winner who had to withdraw on the final day last year after battling head-to-head with Camille most of the way), Emily Bridgers (top 10 last year and beat Briggs at the Atlantic Regional), Sara Sigmundsdottir (a rookie who beat Annie at the Meridian Regional), Michele Letendre (4th last year, East Regional winner this year), and Brooke Ence (winner of a loaded California Regional).  Webb and Sigmundsdottir jumped out in front of the pack early, but consistency would be the key to victory.  As those two struggled late in the competition, it was Katrin Davidsdottir and Tia-Clair Toomey who kept it together all the way until the finish.  Toomey had an amazing 8 top 10 finishes in the competition, while Davidsdottir finished no worse than 21st in any event.  Davidsdottir still trailed going into the last event, but she found the perfect time to get her first event victory, locking up the title as World's Fittest Woman as Toomey took the runner-up spot.  Crossfit HQ probably wasn't as excited about this result as none of the high-profile women managed to make the podium, but Davidsdottir was a very deserving winner.

Events:  Ah yes, controversy.  There were several topics that generated lots of discussion after the Games had ended.  Let's go through them:

• Difficulty of Programming - early on Friday, athletes had to take on Murph, a famous Crossfit Hero WOD.  Being this was the Crossfit Games, athletes had to wear a weighted vest as well.  Combine an extremely tough workout with a weight vest and California heat and you have a recipe for disaster.  More than a few athletes struggled to get through this one.  Even ones who did finish paid a price (Kara Webb had to be stretchered off after finishing).  Later on in the competition, several athletes withdrew, most notably Annie Thorisdottir.  So was this year's programming too over the top?  I don't think so.  This year, 4 men and 2 women withdrew during the competition.  Last year, 1 man and 4 women withdrew.  (Both years, 1 woman withdrew prior to the competition.)  That doesn't strike me as a huge surge in withdrawals due to extreme programming.  I think the fact that Annie withdrew caused this reaction more than anything.
• Pedal to the Metal - most of the focus here was on Pedal to the Metal 1 (the second to last event), specifically from the women's side of the competition.  Only 3 women in the entire field managed to get through the three peg board ascents to begin the event.  It's pretty difficult to say that you are showcasing the fittest people on the planet when most of them are just standing around (or flailing around) during an event.  Here's a good rule of thumb: if the event is making the athletes look like me during a normal WOD, that's bad.  On the men's side, 17 guys made it through that segment, meaning less than half completed 3 reps. Not great.  But worse than that for me was the idea that a rowing machine and a <gasp> Airdyne was being used in each of the final two events.  Why was that more important?
• Not Ready for Prime Time Players - the Crossfit Games has become a phenomenon and the final events are now televised live on ESPN.  Ok, it's ESPN2, but you know what I mean.  Want to watch the events during the week as they were happening?  Gotta log on to ESPN3.  Commercial breaks?  All about Crossfit, Reebok, Rogue or some other Crossfit Games-related entity.  So we're not only trying to see who the fittest people in the world are, we've got business concerns as well, specifically promoting the product as best as possible.  The Pedal to the Metal events did that about as poorly as possible.  Having athletes in the final heat of the showcase events decide to quit early is not positive.  And you couldn't pick two movements that leave spectators more in the dark than the rowing machine and the Airdyne.  Someone picks things up and puts them down?  You can count along.  Pull-ups, muscle-ups...you know how many reps they did.  Watching someone row doesn't give you an idea of how many calories they have completed.  Same thing with the Airdyne.  Plus it is super boring to watch.  Was this event fair?  Absolutely.  And if they ran it as an event earlier in the week, it probably would have been fine.  But prime time on Sunday night on ESPN?  Just a really poor decision by Crossfit HQ.  Let's jump to a good decision of theirs.
• #communityinvolvement - on Friday afternoon, Dave Castro announced that athletes would be doing DT for their event that evening.  But in an interesting wrinkle, he left it up to a vote as to whether the athletes would do Heavy DT or Double DT for the event.  Great idea.  Gets the Crossfit community involved.  Plus it was a workout where they could easily be flexible with the parameters.  It was also a workout that the Crossfit community could relate to.  This would have been a great way to close out the Crossfit Games.  In general, I'm in favor of a traditional workout capping off a weekend of unpredictability.  The Masters and Teens did Amanda to close out their competition.  Last year's Individual competition ended with Double Grace.  DT (in either format) would have been much better than an Airdyne.

Finally, two last things before I end my recap:

American Ninja Warrior:  Do I think the peg board came out because of American Ninja Warrior?  Absolutely.  Do you know how many times I've told people I do Crossfit and they've asked me if I could do the stuff on American Ninja Warrior?  Happened twice this weekend before the peg board came out.  Both Crossfit and American Ninja Warrior have enjoyed success at the same time and have some overlap.  I get that peg boards have been around for a long time (we have one at KOP!), but I have little doubt that including this in the prime time finale was influenced by ANW.

Brains Beat Brawn:  This one is near and dear to me.  Because it's my only chance of ever beating brawn.  Why else would I have a strategy for every workout I do?  During Pedal to the Metal 1, two athletes used their brains to secure podium spots.  For the guys, Bjorgvin Karl Gudmundsson wasn't sure he could manage the peg board.  So what did he do during the time between the event announcement and his appearance in the final event?  He did what Crossfitters do everyday in an attempt to get better: he watched Youtube videos of the movement.  His study paid off too, as his 7th place finish helped propel him to 3rd and a place on the podium.  Katrin Davidsdottir managed one peg board ascent about 2:30 into Pedal to the Metal 1.  Then she killed time and rested for the remainder of the event.  Go back and watch it.  It's pretty amusing watching her do an assortment of things to pass the time while her two nearest competitors (Sigmundsdottir and Webb) struggle on the wall for another 3 minutes before stopping.  Davidsdottir figured out before anyone else that the extra rest for Pedal to the Metal 2 was going to be way more valuable than getting a second peg board ascent.  Was it a coincidence that she got her first event victory in that final event?  I doubt it.

That's all for the 2015 Crossfit Games!  Back to blogging about my travails tomorrow.  I even do my best impression of Games athletes trying to get up the peg board!  (That's not fair - I'm way worse)