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

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"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