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.