i was laughing my ass off at work watching them take corners and sprint. it was priceless, from a cycling perspective.

Yes you know it's bad when even triathletes can laugh at their cornering abilities :)

Anybody have a link or can post video?

It was live on FB

I did like the fact that everyone had the same bike brand and components

Thanks! Video's still up so don't even have to watch live.

I felt really embarassed watching these people. They looked like oddly proportioned clowns being asked to do a trick their master's never taught them to do. It made me wonder if thats what outsiders see when looking at us - like what are these people trying to accomplish??

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Was there.

No major crashes, about what to expect for corning skills, some good communication and riding at the front. Lots riding pretty close and able to hold their line and work with each other.

For 40 guys of which I think only 1-2 have only ever done a crit it was good. Had you had 40 triathletes that had never done a crit in that race it might have been ugly.

As ugly as 40 triathletes trying to do fake pull ups? That could have been entertaining too.

First off that was hilarious to watch. Secondly, people absolutely think these same things about us. I hate being in a room with an overly serious cyclist, runner, triathlete, whoever who wants to talk to those with no idea about these sports and brag. We are weirdos to those who are not familiar. Most people just don't give a shit about any of these things.

Facebook video link

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Amateur recreational hobbyist cyclist
https://www.strava.com/athletes/337152
https://vimeo.com/user11846099

LOL, especially with them shirtless wearing their HR monitors.

I disagree. Why would people think that triathletes are out of their element? We swim, bike and run, and we know it. We don’t incorporate power cleans in the middle of a triathlon. I’m sorry, but
Cross fit is a joke and so are the participants. They think they’re good at everything. They’re weightlifters trying
to do sports they suck at. It is funny.

Although I enjoy making fun of crossfitters, kinda like it's fun to make fun of triathletes, I don't think they're a joke. The cult is a bit silly but we are in a country where only 20pct of folks meet the ridiculously low recommendation guidelines for physical activity and these folks work out hard. May not be pretty, may not be science based (often times) but i wouldn't say they are a joke.

While not exactly Athens Twilight, it wasn't as much of a circus as I expected. Although someone needs to tell them that the person on the front is NOT "winning" until the very end of the race.

With how hot it was in Los Angeles and even last year in Wisconsin I never understood why so many women wore leggings...like they're legit making it tougher.

What's more of a shitshow is the commentary...couldn't get some cycling people to talk?

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Almost like IROC

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

why the hate dude? Crossfitters try to be good at all aspects of fitness, not just weightlifting. The games athletes don't try though, they are.

So 18:35 for a 12k crit, working mostly alone, is not a respectable time to you?


.

The races themselves were much better than the commentary, and the guy in black who won the men's race looked like a fairly decent cyclist.

My comment was in response to the comment about people watching us wondering what we are trying to accomplish as well. Most people just don't get it and that is okay.

I'm not a fan of crossfit but making sweeping generalizations saying all crossfit is a joke and so are the participants isn't beneficial to anyone.

Agreed on the hypocrisy belittling of the entire CrossFit community when we dress up in one-piece spandex suits and participate in a competition that arbitrarily combines three different sports.

That's not to say there isn't a toxic attitude conveyed by a lot of people who take part in CrossFit; there is a non-negligible segment that believe results for *any* athletic endeavor are best achieved through a CrossFit style training plan. The number of times I get "Cross Fit-splained" to about general principles of training for *endurance athletics* astounds me, considering I hardly talk about triathlon (or fitness at all!) to somebody who isn't also a triathlete or endurance athlete. But I guess every community has its assholes (triathlon certainly has its share), so noticing CrossFit specifically is probably selective perception.

Last year at a highly competitive 5k here, a cross fit guy won overall in low 15 min, beating experienced runners (d1 track). He made the skin and bones top runners feel pretty demoralized...

That’s about 24 mph for 12k... so no not very impressive.

Well that was a bit of a letdown. No big crashes are crazy attacks off the front. They actually seemed to have some ok racing strategy, the leader would fall back after pulling for a little bit. Though that paceline was pretty strung out so they weren’t optimizing draft opportunities. Not sure how scoring goes, but I would’ve tried to team up with 2 other guys and make a break from the get go.

Guessing the guy who had to swap a bike due to a dropped chain doesn’t ever ride. Also another guy had a pedal break off. Wonder how that even happened (they show it around 1:47). I thought the guy that won (Adrian Mundwiler) actually looked pretty good on the bike. Glanced at his Instagram and it looks like he does some mountain and road biking in some nice locals. And he’s got a Canyon Aeroroad w/ Zipp 303’s and a q-ring. So that should earn him some slowtwitch points.

Top guys covered the 12km course in the 18:30’s. So about 24 mph. Not bad actually, could probable hang on to th group in a cat 4/5 crit if they could get comfortable riding closer together. It’d be interesting to see what a power file from this would look li.e

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Matt

What I don't understand are some of the events they put into the games. Sure crossfitters are fit and can lift weights, but they rarely get on a rowing machine, let alone swim, or ride a bike, so why put a crit, triathlon, or swim/run in the games? They haven't been training for those events, so why highlight them in the pinnacle of your sport, especially when it is 'televised'.

I guess they're going for the 'fittest man' in the world angle, but I'm not sure those events make sense. Though, having said that, those events are the only reason I watch any part of the games.

My understanding is that they know the events early enough and do train for them. The whole idea is to show CrossFit prepares them to do anything and not be totally ridiculous :)

He should drop all that unnecessary muscle and do something in endurance sport with that kind of engine :)

In the past they've only announced the events (and sometimes the location) the day of, or the day before the games.

Otherwise it would make sense that they have the opportunity to prepare, but I don't think they do.

The calorie row seems to be a big thing in Crossfit. Rowers are in every box I've been to...normal gyms have like three...where Xfit boxes depending on size have 10-20.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Perhaps you could take some advice from one of Treks higher ups.

chad brown‏ @chdbrwn
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a quick note to our cycling family this morning as we watch some incredible athletes try our great sport... remember what @Gary_Fisher says... "everyone who rides a bike is a friend of mine."

Checking out the tweets, so CF games included a crit and a iTT? I'm guessing TT was also on same bikes that athletes rode on for crit? So Trek I assume gave CF games likely 100+ bikes for the athletes. #impressed

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I think that is their objective though. As el jefe noted earlier, while they may not specialize or do bike stuff often, their general physical preparedness would allow them to jump in and perform well enough. Which they did.

From what I heard as well, a few Trek employees came out and worked with them all morning yesterday. Demonstrating how to ride in packs, execute a crit, what to do, not to do etc.

Plus the mechanics that built and worked on the bikes, fit them, etc all in the past 2 days.

Great ambassadors for cycling!

The CrossFit games have a purse prize that annihilated any triathlon once except for when Hy-vee was in existence. So them getting sponsorship support like that isn’t surprising.

Definitely awesome and kuddos to Trek but CrossFit games is big league money for a non major sport.

respectable though, no?


The impressive part comes when the same guy goes on to squat 500, Deadlift 550 and then complete a marathon row in the same day.


.

I'm kinda shocked it had both a crit and iTT for a "crossfit" event. I need to go look at all the events and see how much crossover their is beyond just the traditional "crossfit" standard events. Like is there a 5k or 100m sprint type event? 100m swim event? How across the board are these events...I'll have to take a look.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

30 seconds of skipping thru the ladies race.... they ride more legal then age group triathletes.... and it's a crit!!!!!!

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
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These guys were on standard road bikes, shallow training wheels, and I have to imagine average tires and butyl tubes. No spandex either and their torso's punch a pretty big hole in the wind. Wouldn't be surprised if they were giving up 50+ watts compared to your more traditional crit racer who's going to show up with solid equipment and clothing.

So if they did average 24 mph...considering the racing didn't look that hot the first 8 laps...it would actually be very respectable. But at the same time, unless we see some Garmin/Strava files that verifies the length of the course or each lap...you really don't know how fast they were going. All you know with certainty is total time. Wouldn't be a shocker to me if the course was advertised a bit long for the very purpose of inflating average speeds.

ETA: I think they mentioned from the women's race that the clock started once the neutral roll out completed...so the first lap wasn't 1.2 km. It was proably closer to 900 m as they said the women's first lap was 1:29...or something like that. The fastest qualifying TT lap for the women was 1:46.

Seriously?

Every gym I know has a bunch of rowing machines and erg bikes. It's a staple.

My wife does CF 6 days a week and does a ton of rowing. We run and ride together on the weekends to round it out.

So a lot of people here criticize CF for not knowing the depths of endurance training, events, etc.

Here we have an example of someone on ST that does not understand what CF does inside their boxes.

How often is rowing in a WOD? Once a week? Sure they might use it to warm up etc but now they're rowing 42k? And my point really was to the swimming and cycling. Swimming is never in the WOD (unless you're doing CF endurance) and the cycling is token at best.

D'Wife has been flipping tires and spinning ropes lately, as well as hanging out in the free weights room*. She has also discovered the rower

We have our swim-dates on Fridays




* I self-identify as "Runner" so I'm not allowed in there without an escort/sponsor

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

You do realize WOD's are a small part of what CF does inside their gyms and many do not even do WOD's. So that questions is asking a very limited portion of what an athlete in a CF gym does within the full scope.

I crossfit 6 days a week and do plenty of rowing. But the games are not about WOD's they are all about throwing the athletes off their game. The architect of the games says that his goal is to hit them with something they are in no way prepared for, which is why they don't announce what the athletes will be doing until right before they do it. I guarantee no one was preparing for a marathon row, but these athletes will do it, and they will do it well.

The other fact of the matter is, that while an average joe crossfitter like myself will hit the gym for 60-90 minutes per day and do the WOD, these professional crossfit athletes are doing far more than that. They will do multiple metcons in a day, they will lift for a few hours. They will do long cardio workouts on bikes, rowers, running, etc. These people work at it for multiple hours per day, so throwing a run, ride, or swim at them is not as out of their wheelhouse as you might think.

I'd say someone who can hang in most cat 4/5 crits, maybe even some 3's. Can then go deadlift 600lbs, can then go rip of 50 handstand pushups, then row 26 miles is a pretty damn good athlete. I do it because it is fun and because it makes me more well rounded that just riding or running.

How does someone that can run 15min 5km do cross-fit to any decent level i.e lifting heavy shit. You mean he's an experienced runner that "has a go" at crossfit.

I agree. I do like those events, running, swimming, biking etc but it's not a good look if you're touting your sport's athletes as "fittest in the world". They look like gumbies. I think what they need to do, is increase the amount of aerobic stages in these comps, less emphasis on weights. So basically if you can't run to a half decent level, you're going to struggle to podium. As it stands, these events seem like token events, chucked in as an afterthought before they get down to the real business of lifting weights. Either ditch the cardio stuff completely or put a lot more emphasis on it. That would appeal to a wider audience. How many people are genuinely into weights? It was popular in the 80s, 90s in Australia, but not so much anymore.

I don't think triathletes should be lecturing about audiences and popularity to any sport with a CBS media contract and a $2.2M prize purse.

The media contract with CBS is not what you think it is. Look at all of the sports they carry on CBS Sports...they're not paying out the gazoo for those rights. In fact, the President of CBS Sports division stated that they would not get into bidding wars for content.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

To be fair, he did mention Australia. You’re talking about America. Different countries have different interests when it comes to sports and/or activities.

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Matt

I wasn't! This year's games are physically in the U.S., but looking at the current leaderboard, I see only two U.S. men in the top 10. And one U.S. woman. Two Australians. It's not unlike, say, Kona. Eyeballing it, I'd say the participation is no more than 20% U.S. despite being held here.

Like most new alternative sports, we create it in the U.S., and the rest of the world surpasses us by like Thursday.

I'm sure you're right, but whatever it is it's better than most triathlon coverage I've seen (though in the U.S. we don't get great triathlon coverage vs. ITU coverage in Europe).

I was referring to it being an american television company. It would be interesting to know viewership percentage by country. I’d bet Facebook has it

The percentage breakdown could very well be due to qualification uses. I’m betting their are regionals and they have it set up so of the 80 athletes they get a decent representation of different countries. If they’re smart th y bring in more good foreign athletes in hopes of getting more people outside the us to join. Purely speculation, but I’m guessing their isn’t much more growth happening within the US

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Matt

It took me a bit to realize that the first event was a women's race.

Sleeveless jerseys?

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king of the road says you move too slow
KING OF THE ROAD SAYS YOU MOVE TOO SLOW

Are you trolling? Are you talking about just how they look or are you referring to their performance? You never answered my question from the other thread. Gumby performance on the bike?




Did you do any reading on the games at all? That is exactly what they have done over the past few years. Even with weights, almost every event they have at the games taps aerobic capacity. Now they've added events that tap endurance thresholds. Marathon row today following the 12k bike crit and lifting. I know...lumbering gumbies right?


.

I like the idea of Crossfit. I think it could be huge if they tweaked it.

Cross fit is ridiculous. The athletes are not. The events are all weightlifting with a couple endurance events thrown in just so they can say ‘Fittest on Earth’ The model needs work and more balance in the events. I do think it’s stupid watching a bunch of lifters trying endurance sports. I’m not impressed. Some of the events are comical.

Yup. I noticed when they did the run/swim/run last year, there was literally 2-3s of swim footage and that was it. Some careful editing...

watching this live now. I'm rooting for the one in the yellow shoes

https://games.crossfit.com/

You may want to read the events of this year's games before you make uninformed comments like this. First two days of the game this year: 6 events, only 1 of them involves weightlifting.


.

As other posters have stated well, bashing another sport that creatively combines different athletic challenges accomplishes nothing positive. Many of the top CrossFit athletes can run a sub 5-minute mile. That's not sucking in my book. The opening event at last years CrossFit game was a 1.5 mile Run/ 500m Swim/ 1.5 mile Run. I'm willing to bet if many of these "weightlifters" showed up at a Sprint-distance Triathlon event, they'd do very well and nobody would be laughing and calling them a joke. I'd be curious to see how many Watts these athletes push on the Assault Bikes during an event.

Watch a few of the Fittest Athletes documentaries on NetFlix and you'll see that these athletes do a lot more than "weightlifting". Fact is, many CrossFit athletes are absolutely more well-rounded and versatile than us Triathletes who only SBR and only do strength work to support SBR. I don't do any CrossFit, btw.

I can't tell if you are trolling or just that ignorant.

Weightlifting is a sport of the clean and jerk and snatch. However, for the sake of this conversation I'll allow anything with a barbell as that is what most people perceive weight lighting to be.

Today's events:

#1 Bike Crit

#2 30 Muscle-Ups

#3 1RM of Squat, Press, and Deadlift

#4 Marathon Row

Tomorrow is a rest day and then Friday is

#5 Obstacle course (no weightlifting)

#6 Fibonacchi, combo of handstand pushups KB deadlifts, and OH Lunge walks (technically not really weightlifting but I'll give this one to you)

So the first 6 events that have been posted so far 2 (at best) are considered weightlifting, so 30%.

Last years events about 6 were or had components of weightlifting. So 50%.

But I will agree with your statement that CF athletes are no ridiculous, as ridiculous as CF can be, these athletes are absolute top level performers in their made up sport of CrossFit. Similar to how triathlon was just picked out the air as well way back when.

Just watched the women’s race and tbh I thought it was pretty decent considering the inexperience level. The race winner played it perfect, sat on the wheel on the woman who was clearly the strongest rider and then blitzed around her on the finishing straight. The other still got second after sitting on the front for what, the first 5 laps, and then openning her sprint with a full lap to go. Give her some experience with race strategy and I bet she would quickly kick ass on any local race scene.

Definitely some dumbassness out there, that early solo crash had zero to do with road conditions despite what the announcers said, and a lot of folks clearly not comftable with sitting in a draft, but I don’t think taking a bunch of random triathletes and sticking them into a crit for the first time would look any better.

The only really embarrassing thing to me was the announcers. Good god they were clueless. Clearly Trek didn’t send anyone up to explain to them how any of this works.

Fixed, please never call that bike an assault bike. It is an AirDyne.


Olympic weightlifting...weightlifting is just lifting weights. God weirdos gotta change everything in the lingo these days.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Bet most triathlete's couldn't do it. I'm no CrossFit fan, but 80% of most triathlon fields could lose 20kg.

https://www.teamusa.org/usa-weightlifting

http://www.iwf.net

Olympic weightlifting is a summer sport every 4 years of the sport of weightlifting. Yes it's the exact same sport, they are just different events. It's similar to triathlon; half, full, etc. Same sport, different events.

But yeah when people term it olympic lifting its obvious they are not too familiar with the sport just like the average person with triathlon.

We want to see fit people doing stuff on most people can't do, whether it's sprinting 100m in under 10s or bench pressing some crazy weight or whatever. We don't want to see Usain Bolt play tennis.

Which of the athletes can run a sub 5 min mile? Seems extremely unlikely based on what I've seen. There distances also seem short even by triathlete standards, no way the crit was 12k.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

And I bet they really didn't average close to 24mph, but anything to keep up the charade that these people are elite weightlifters AND endurance athletes....

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

Or rather that calling something weightlifting and not putting Olympic in front of it gets most people a cross eye. Whereas people understand what a triathlon is.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Tickets cost $35-$350 to enter the games.

The are the venues cover is pretty big. If they put a supersprint Tri on those grounds (could easily be done) I wonder what the public would pay to watch it....probably not $35-$350.

Which kind?



Or

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

This is their “elite” championship competition so that’s not really a fair comparison. I bet almost anyone under 40 at Kona/ ITU worlds could do well over that for 12 k.

That’s all of 7.5 miles. It’s not even enough time to get a 20 min ftp power.

I’m not saying it’s bad, but these guys are in good shape and it’s not that long of a ride.

It also was a crit right? They should have been drafting not riding solo.

Correct. I haven’t watched more than some clips of the race but it sounds like they weren’t bike racer drafting but still drafting so 24mph just isn’t that impressive.

Now I think on the other thread someone said the person who won the 5k was like mid 15s that’s just insane. So it’s not like they don’t have people there with endurance backgrounds.

A couple of my friends who used to race competitively I think partially own a CrossFit gym now. So people have moved from endurance to CrossFit.

I’m confused, you don’t think reported 24 mph avg is impressive? So what would be impressive?

I have power/farming files from my junior who does a weekly crit training race in a “circle” course and they have different cat levels and they usually at most get up to 26-27mph for 34-35 min ride. And they are getting after it.

24 mph for people using borrowed equipment and likely not used to is is most certainly impressive mph to ride for non-bikers. If it isn’t I don’t know what your standard really is.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Trivia: Kristin Holte (Who won the ladies crit) used to do triathlons, heptathlon and at one point was the reigning Norwegian champion pole vaulter. Really mixed background.

Breaking news. Experienced cyclist not impressed by speed of non-cyclist! Details at 9.

Ben Smith can run a stand alone sub 5 minute mile, Cross Fit champion 2015. I got sucked into watching all the Netflix "Fittest on Earth" series over the last four years. I've never done a single Cross Fit workout, but the level of fitness these athletes have is very admirable. They swim, bike, row, climb ropes, run, run with 20lb vests, traverse obstacle courses. It's impressive. They're events are indeed endurance-based events. The entire Cross Fit championship last 4 days. Our SBR events are ultra-endurance.

The point for me isn't that, it's that this is about the 3rd topic on this forum of the same thing within recent memory. It's getting a bit old.

Not much else going on. Have to freak out about CrossFit.

The rope and yoke is impressive.

These things go in cycles

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

"Experienced" is a stretch. He couldn't do 24 mph in a sprint with aero gear. Bazinga!

Stock / generic bikes, baggy cloths, no experience drafting. I'm moderately impressed with 24 mph.

Yeah, but since we're talking about juicing? I wonder what his steroid cycle is like?

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

There is probably a Olympic weightlifting forum out there where they make fun of Cross fitter's doing those lifts :)

But would you watch Usain Bolt play soccer/football? https://www.nytimes.com/...-bolt-australia.html

I guess Man United didn't want him so he's lowered his standards a tad bit :)

Well more than a tad bit, you'd think MLS would be a better fit, assuming he's at least half way decent.

Nope. He started running after military service. Puts up good lifts

 
Pretty amazing to see a forum full of people who aren't good enough at swimming, biking or running to be competitive in those sports so they go with triathlon to be mediocre at all three, ripping on another sport where athletes try to be good at more than one thing.

Watch "The Redeemed and the Dominant" on Netflix for a good recap of the 2017 games. They athletes are very impressive and work their asses off all year long.

yawn... yup totally can’t, never done 24 mph before. Not even doing a race with tailwind that was all downhill. You’re a brilliant investigator...

24 mph drafting isn’t that fast in my opinion for 18 mins. It may be great for the conditions and using other bikes but it’s not impressive to me I’m very sorry that you were offended by that. If you’re impressed by that, that’s wonderful, but it’s just not that amazing for me

Like I said the performance for the 5k was remarkable. These guys aren’t just sitting there lifting all day so having some capacity for endurance isn’t surprising. But when you rip off a sub 16 5k while doing all the other stuff is obscene.

Any link? All I found from google was he claims a 2:16 800 pr (not equal to a sub 5) and says one of his goals is a sub 8:30 1,5 mile which would be very easy for someone running sub 5.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

It's in his bio (link: https://games.crossfit.com/...veteran-21-ben-smith) and in one of the "Fittest Athletes" series on Netflix he had a list of goals on his board, and "Run a Sub 5-minute Mile" was one of the goals that had a line through it indicating he accomplished it. Considering the guy won the championship and his other athletic accomplishments and his training regiment, I don't see a reason to doubt him. His stats are 5'11", 195 lbs.

Watched "The Redeemed and Dominan" last night. Despite being 2-hours long it kept me engaged the whole time.

It amazes me so many seem to question big athletes and their ability to Swim/Bike/Run .... AND lift weights. Plenty of "big" guys in triathlon as well that are/were competitive at 170 and 180+ lbs: Sindballe, Macca, Matt Reed, Starykowicz. Current CrossFit champion Matt Fraser is 190lbs, which is only 10 to 15 lbs heavier than these big triathletes.

I was actually shocked that Sagan is 160+. I knew they obviously had to be stronger for the sprints but that’s a ton more weight for the mountains compared to the 130lb guys.

An extra 10-20 lbs will cost you on the run but biking probably not that much. Minus the brick house effect.

I was actually shocked that Sagan is 160+. I knew they obviously had to be stronger for the sprints but that’s a ton more weight for the mountains compared to the 130lb guys.

Yup, a pretty big factor in why Kittel (180lb) and Greipel (180) and most of the sprinters missed the time cut once they hit the mountains.

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I wonder how much of that has trended that way the last 10 years because of how strong some of the cylists in tri/ sprint cycling are.

When I started 10 plus years ago. 170 would be huge for a triathlete unless you were 6’6” like Reed or some of the other guys. Now being 160 isn’t a huge deal because everyone else is the same weight to stay relevant on the bike. Obviously there are outliers. But that seems like a trend at least.

They should've trained like Thor! At around 180lbs Thor Hushovd won Stage 13 of the 2011 Tour, in the World Champion jersey, and that stage included the col d'aubisque climb in the Pyrenees!!

Fraser is 5"7" and 190. Big difference to the "only" 10-15lb lighter triathletes you mentioned.

Commendable that they are trying an event outside of their wheelhouse. Still kinda funny to watch, almost nobody using the drops (or trying to get very aero), lots of loose flappy shirts, and a couple of dropped chains. Those that dropped a chain were totally lost in what to do.

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But still further ahead of 95% of all triathletes on time trial bikes. It’s amazing how insecure triathletes are.

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"the trick is to keep losing weight until your friends and family ask you if you've been sick. then you know you're within 10 pounds. if they start whispering to each other, wondering if you've got cancer or aids, you're within 5. when they actually do an intervention, you're at race weight." - Slowman

Being not impressed is not insecure but ok.

Fair dinkum! Yeah I'd watch that :)

Yeah I saw that, it's good.

I'm probably not getting my point across very well. I'm not ragging on the athletes, just saying they're not built and haven't trained for some of these events, subsequently they're not that great at them and it looks a bit comical/farcical, especially when they claim they're the fittest in the world. Don't say you're the fittest in the world then run a 15min 1.5 mile. It damages the credibility of the sport, which is a shame when their athletes are genuinely talented. I really like the CR concept and have enjoyed the docos on Netflix, I think as a sport it has the potential to be huge, it needs to pick events that at least a good proportion of them go OK at. When you have a crit and everyone sucks, it's not a good look for the sport.

CrossFit never claimed to be the best at one given thing, their mantra is to be ready for anything, especially the unexpected. They know they are not the best at anything, any weightlifter will out lift them and any runner/swimmer/cyclist will be better at that one thing (pro level). When they say "fittest" that means the person can handle anything that is thrown at them. Whether it be a crit, a 42k row, rock climbing, strongman carries, etc. Sure the specialist will be better at any of those. But throw a noddle arm triathlete into the CrossFit games and they might look nifty in the crit but they wouldn't make it out of the second round of day 1. They give them shit they know they are going to be bad at so they have to train to be ready for anything.

Oh, and the guy that won the crit rides 8 hours a week. The other thing to remember about the Games is that the overall score wins. Absolutely no reason to lay it all out on the first event of day 1. They likely were capable of higher speeds, but if no one wants to push the tempo why do it? The crit was the easiest thing they did all day.

It's crossfit, it looked like shit when they could have made it better by putting the competitors in full cycling kit.

The winner of the Crossfit Games usually is sucking air on the aerobic stuff when it comes to the men. After watching for so many years I think a lot of the female games athletes are in better total fitness. And for me it's not the cult like behavior or any of that when Crossfit comes on TV. It's out of shape Dave Castro coming up with workouts that will kill people. Let's go from three days to five, it will be cool.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Thanks for posting the FB link of the race. I enjoyed watching it, and I applaud the athletes who tackled a sport that they don't do everyday!

This was pretty funny to watch. I don't know if I looked much better in my first crit, but at least I had joined a cycling team and gotten tips/practice. Just a few of things stood out for to:

1) After Lance, I thought Trek would be trying to distance themselves from doping
2) I know those are some big guys, but pedals falling off!? Who did they get to assemble these bikes...the guy at Walmart off Whitney Way?
3) The old County Colosseum still has a purpose!

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"Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps"
Blog = http://extrememomentum.com|Photos = http://wheelgoodphotos.com

The athletes are impressive. Thought they did a great job given it's not in their wheelhouse.

The commentators were hilarious. Clear they had no clue about cycling.

I have never done much reading on Crossfit, nor will I ever, but from what I can tell it's about pushing outside comfort zones and limits, and the games are meant to test that. Which includes picking events that test physical capabilities they train for (the pre-race talk they said a crit with 10x4 turns is basically 40 intervals FWIW) while also maybe adding in a skill they don't for added challenge

I don't think the course actually was 1200m, and if you even cut 25-50 meters off the course, you're losing about 1-3 kph off the speed that they did. That said, who cares? That race had more hype around it in the cycling community than most cycling races did... which makes me wonder what cycling/triathlon are doing wrong

Let's stop being salty or trying to compare the sports and learn from a sport (or whatever you think Crossfit is) that has tons of coverage on its biggest event. The Crossfit games have been around 5 years and have better live coverage than Ironman has and they're at 40 years of it

Like others have said the men’s winner seemed like a decent cyclist and likely could have gone much faster by dropping everybody earlier , but what’s the point if you can win without using so much energy when you’re rowing a frigging marathon later that day!

You don't have to set a new land speed record, just be faster than the other 39 guys! Beauty of racing

Wel that’s actually pretty simple. Same reason why the main pro sports are popular in the US most people have done them or they can go down to their local gym and do it. Even if you don’t do CrossFit, lifting is still done by a ton of people and they can have a resemblance to know what they are doing and if it’s difficult or not.

If you haven’t ran before or done a triathlon conceptualizing how fast they are going is difficult. People can’t relate so it’s not as entertaining.

The second part is the races are way to long to entertain most people. No one who doesn’t race is going to sit at home on a Saturday or Sunday and watch Ironman for 9 hours. There isn’t enough action in that time frame for people to care.

They also built CrossFit around a team building group environment. Everyone does the same thing during the day, it’s not as individualized as triathlon. Most people want to be working out with a group not out there on their own.

Because Trek is here any ponies up the bikes and money to get a biking event in the games. As long as the games are in Madison, you'll see a bike event.

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~Kevin

The Madison - the tag team bike race - was named after Madison Square Garden, I believe, but yeah

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

This is what Super League Triathlon is trying to accomplish. Make a smaller venue, shorter events and more spectator friendly.

Look at grand cycling tours, they have sprint points, KOM, time bonuses -- "races within the race" to artificially create action. Maybe Ironman needs to do more of this.

Even NASCAR has gotten into the Sprint Points "game"

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

More to do with the fact that Trek is based in Waterloo, Wisc, so "local" to Madison. Not "the Madison" track event.

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Some are born to move the world to live their fantasies...

https://triomultisport.com/
http://www.mjolnircycles.com/

I think they’re on the right track, I haven’t watched much of it but that’s more on me than them I didn’t buy the ITU pass this year either which is the first time in I don’t know how long.

Triathlon just doesn’t have the following to care that much about longer races and races where there isn’t much excitement during the race. ITU even has this problem. Unless there is a breakaway by someone that has a chance, it can be like watching paint dry until people start blowing up on the run.

Ahhhh, right. I knew someone was based up there, but couldn't remember who

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

You make some good points, but I think a really big reason is the coverage of IM absolutely sucks. The CrossFit Games are broadcast live on Facebook, and then the full videos are left up for everyone to watch on their own time. The full 2+ hours for each event videos are readily accessible for anyone. And the coverage actually focuses on the games and what is going on, yes there are fluff pieces available, but not prominent and you don't have to wade through a bunch of bullshit to see what is going on.

IM on the other hand is pathetic when it comes to coverage. First of all the coverage is near impossible to get unless you are willing to pay for TV which no one is these days. Then the coverage has very little to do with the race and what is actually going on. You have to wade through 12 sob stories from birth to IM for age groupers and you get a bit of actual coverage in between. Not even worth trying to track down a way to watch it.

I had no intention of watching the CrossFit games, figured I would hear about it at the gym. But they made it so damn easy that I ended up watching a decent chunk of it.

Good point. Maybe they should add in prizes, for fastest individual split, bike or run lap bonus.

Time bonus on each loop would be interesting to see, ie. First out of the swim +5s, each loop of the bike (assume 4 loops) +2s, half way run +5s.

If you sat in the bike pack you'd need not only to catch the leader, but put 18s into them in the final 5k.

A few reasons crossfit does well from a mass appeal perspective.

1. Sex appeal, people want to look like the crossfit games competitors. In the words of Robert California " All life is sex"
2. Hot takes. Crossfit marketing wants us to have these conversations, at the end of the day people tune in because they claim to be the fittest on earth. This is brilliant marketing and it works.
3.You can walk to your local crossfit box tomorrow and do the same workouts you see on TV. Crossfit has a very low cost of entry.
4. 5-6 hours a week of HIT training appeals to a wide range of people. You have daily competition, no long training hours for busy lives, and the results tend to be very good.
5. Own media, crossfit does an exceptional job of promoting their sports through extensive video series.

The aerobic fitness of the guys in the games is incredible. I served in the military with one of the guys in the games today and he has an aerobic engine that is truely world class. You have to remember who started crossfit and who runs crossfit. This was designed by guys in special operations who needed to be able to maintain fitness in a short period of time during deployments. In essence it started as simple high intensity circuit training and Glassman found a way to market the "system". Dave Castro is weird, but the guys is a true hard man. The crossfit games are childs play to what he has been through.

Dave Castro is another reason not to like crossfit IMO.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Crossfit is anything but low cost.

I can walk down the street and join the local box for 120 a month. To start thats all i need. Sure lifting shoes are nice, but we are talking 200 bucks more.

$120 for a gym with no specific athlete program is trash.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

h2ofun incognito!

What is a specific athlete program?

This thing that I do, this thing is great. That thing you do, that thing it trash.

You know the programming you get from your coach...yeah that thing. Where your coach does an assessment of your abilities in the gym, discusses your goals, builds a program around those goals. Then provides criticism in the gym, takes the data weekly and adjusts...just like a triathlon coach.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Oh, absolutely. That's part of CrossFit. They're very goal-oriented. Improvement and PRs are tracked with apps. Box-members prepare for the specifics up upcoming competitions. There are progressions leading to competition, recovery after.

There are free-form workouts to work on weaknesses with coaching help. There is constant coaching feedback.

It's just like any other coaching-athlete relationship, only a bit more group oriented. Even for endurance athletes, like me, they tailored a schedule for me where I dropped down to once per week during racing season, etc.

If someone's not getting good value, they should find another coach/gym/box. This isn't like Orangetheory group workouts (which are fine, but are much cheaper for a reason).

Must have gone to one of boxes that actually takes themselves serious then...because over 4 a four year period and four different states while I was in the Army I went 9 different boxes looking for that and it wasn't like the "any coach/athlete" relationship. Basically $120-150/month for the WOD class.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Yeah, quality varies a lot. When it got popular gym bros around the world thought they could start up their own box. A lot of them suck, and there are Youtube videos to prove it. But some of them are very good. Of course there are also no shortage of crappy triathlon coaches.

Glad I am still a traditional lifter. :-)
Grandfathered in on a $300 membership.

Several of our best or high level CF competitors train alone in the open gym with the rest of us and not with the CF group at the front of the building. This is typically true as many that reach a higher level stop training with the average joe groups and have to train alone or with another higher level athlete.

Are there trucker hats? 'Cuz it's all about the trucker hat

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

No. Dude, 2012 called and wants its fashion back.

Ah, I so miss that....




NOT.

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float , hammer , and jog

Tia Toomey went to the Rio olympics as a weightlifter and is the current commonwealth games champion, so the olympic weightlifting forum may be a bit more respectful of their lifting, or at least hers.
i expect that also means she gets out of competition testing whether they do it in crossfit or not.

having spent a lifetime around track and field athletes i know most of the muscular sprinter types and many of the female throwers are much smaller than they look on TV, but i was surprised she competed in the 58Kg category. Quite a small woman for all that power.

Tia was on the B standard at Rio. It's more than me of course, but B standard doesn't medal in the Olympics. At the commonwealth games she lifted in A standard and will be top 5 in Japan if not on the podium.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Tia Toomey also won the Triplus event (swim, paddle, run) during the Games, and got into crossfit as a way to train for 400m hurdles.

She is a pretty complete athlete if you ask me.

I have no criticism of her. B Standard qualification for the Olympics is tough enough, she's got a gold Medal at A Standard in the Commonwealth Games and is now 2xCrossfit Champion. She's clearly in the 1% of female athletes and is world class in two different Strength Disciplines. As I said I'm sure she'll be qualifying on the A Standard for Japan and will be top 5...I'm not sure of medaling because that requires her to be perfect, she's capable.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.