"These are athletes, not soldiers" - CrossFit Games 2015
I saw the following anonymous post below on reddit and grabbed the text to save it for posterity (controversial reddit posts often get deleted).
Regardless of what you think about the 2015 CrossFit Games, discussion and dissent make our community stronger.
I'm very curious how the 2015 CrossFit Games will be remembered. The below text is not the FringeSport view on the Games, but it reflects a lot of the chatter I heard in the crowd at the Games.
Read on, and let us know what you think in the comments. Please remember that this is not the opinion of FringeSport.
As someone "on the inside" inside the athletes village I can say that the general complaints about the workouts you see here were shared by the athletes as well.
This was a lot more than "having to do Murph when it was hot." This was athletes genuinely concerned about permanent kidney damage.
This wasn't "trouble with pegboards" it was athletes with who literally couldn't put their arms over their heads and asked to perform an event they didn't even have a chance to try before they had to do it live on ESPN.
I coach a multiple year Games athlete who had serious money on the line and straight up had to be convinced to go out for the last day because they were scared for their health. Everyone accepts that they are participating in a sport where injuries are a reality. Chad Mackay injures a rib, and Neal Maddox pulls a hamstring; fine. Those are injuries that you accept as an athlete. But heat stroke and rhabdo (which were genuine and WIDESPREAD fears among the athletes) are unacceptable and worst of all avoidable if the workouts were better programmed.
At the end of the day these are ATHLETES not soldiers. This isn't BUD/S it's a showcase of athletic potential.
The athletes don't want the one who "sucked the least" to win and I HOPE the viewers don't want to see what is tantamount to a modern roman coliseum either. Anyone who says "well so and so #1 completed EVENT 12 just fine and so and so #13 completed EVENT 15 without complaint" needs to look up the definition of confirmation bias.
If a drug trial caused 10% of people to pull out because of adverse side effects it would be considered a failure. If 10% of the "fittest athletes on the planet" pull out voluntarily than this should be considered a failure as well.
IMO: The Games shouldn't be a test of survival it should a showcase of well rounded fitness. If CrossFit and the general public don't learn a lesson from 2015 I'm genuinely scared at what 2016 has in store.
What do you think?
Photo credit to Michael Brian, CrossFit Games
Maybe Castro wants the Games to resemble American Ninja Warrior or Spartan Race? It reminded me of those documentaries on BUDS Navy Seal training in which only a small portion can pass. Crossfit shouldn’t be that extreme I lost much respect for the brand during the 2025 games.
I completely disagree. "Everyone accepts that they are participating in a sport where injuries are a reality. " injuries are a reality in any sport, and in life. worst argument ever.
And if you dont understand the “Pegboard” surprise, you dont understand crossfit philosophy. Crossfit programming is for any circumstance that can emerge, and CF Games are the ultimate crossfit test.
Drew….I am a Crossfit athlete. I started at the age of 12..now 21. I am in college and 2 years ago was a strength and conditioning intern for the football team. D1AA. I can agree with you that some of the classes are random. I can agree with you that the “pull it from a hat” seems a bit strange. However….the strength component to Crossfit and the cycles that we put our athletes on are not random. In order to build strength, we need a set format. A common program used I would say would be “Wendler” allowing athletes to start to get to know their percentages of their squats, deadlifts, press, and so on while not being super complicated. What is random would be the class met cons, which I believe can be chosen at random. People can be rushed to figure out movements yes, but Crossfit has put in place what we call “scaling options” to allow one to build up to say Muscle Ups or Snatches. When it comes to under recovery, that is just a lack of the certain individual listening to their body, the every day athlete is told to say come in 3 days on 1 day off 2 days on 1 day off. The elite athletes, are coached at a different level and perform at a much different level, some being able to complete 60+ pull-ups unbroken while being able to have a 400 + lb back squat and a sub 5:20 mile. The Crossfit Games is just like someone testing an iron man is not meant to be completed day in and day out. You build up for it to do once a year. No other competition is like this one because this does test the fittest in the world. Yes there is risk, but it wouldn’t be fun for the athletes if there wasn’t. The people in the stands for the most part participate in Crossfit, but the ones on the field, they live and breathe it, they love every aspect of Crossfit from the simple workouts like Fran to the ones that blow peoples minds away like Murph when people can complete it sub 40 mins. Talk to a Games athlete, they might disagree with a few things sure, but that might be because something inside is scared to complete it or they are frustrated if they didn’t do as well as expected. This is a sport just like any other, and I am not saying that every gym/box out their is perfect, because just like standard weight lifters and personal trainers their are some that do it wrong and some that do it right. You just need to find the box that coaches you the right way.
I agree with all those who think the programing was full of holes and Murph was potentially hazardous and harmful. The results and repercussion make it blatantly obvious. And then the pegboard was the icing on the cake. Too much thought went into creating a spectacle (to rival ANW, nonetheless). Not enough thought went into actually designing a safe and comprehensive test to showcase elite fitness and athletes.
‘They knew the risks’, ‘only a few got injured’ are facile arguments best left for the cultists.
CF Games is a test of the Elite.
A. It is not reflective of the broader community, no sport is.
B. Athletes being concerned without actual incident are not measurable data points. Just fear…
C. Elite athletes risk injury, Murph – think Iron Man.
D. A load of athletes were drinking beer at the awards ceremony – valid rhabdo concerns I think not.
E. Creating a marketable product for TV is what allows the games to exist at this magnitude, someone needs to pay the bills.
F. Liking the workouts is irrelevant by definition of the very sport and is not scientific
G. CF is not barbell workouts
H. The Games has evolved with the capacity of the athletes, CF as a global sport is not even 10 years old. Organisers only have one opportunity per year to test and reflect. They have a maximum of 9 data points for the past years, 4 at this level of competition. It’s going to take a few more years yet for it to organically find its place of residence.
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