"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
I’m glad to see others had some of my thoughts about the games. I was fairly disappointed in the programming this year. With Murph, I think it simply would’ve been better to schedule the event earlier when it’s not quite as hot. They moved the beach event earlier for the benefit of the athletes, why not do the same for Murph? The fact that so many athletes withdrew due to injury or heat problems definitely concerned me (that’s not even including athletes like Kara Webb, who had to be taken off on a stretcher but just didn’t withdraw).
I also think Dave Castro went a little overboard on the odd objects this year. I know that Crossfit is supposed to be about being prepared for anything, but at a certain point it just seemed like Castro just wanted to play with designers at Rogue and fit the stuff in come hell or high water. I liked some of the events, but did we need the special paddle boards AND the sandbags and custom wheelbarrow AND the pig AND the yoke AND the peg board all in the same Games? It further disappointed me that we didn’t even see a barbell (in an individual event) until the end of day 2. I definitely preferred watching the events of 2013 and 2014 more than this year’s.
It didn’t take too long for the athletes to realize that the pegboard event was moot if they hung together and waited for the time to elapse. Shame really. Lat years final events were strong Crossfit movements…rope climbs and Grace, modified to reflect the level of the athlete at the games.
This year, not so much.
It was a shame the ESPN cameras weren’t rolling for the Yoke carry, which turned out to be a great event.
having a CFL1 cert does not guarantee that one will agree with the crossfit methodology or the programming at any given crossfit gym. All CF gym owners go through this cert ( and now more) and guess what…some of them still program completely randomly and not just varied. Are there some decent CF gyms that program intelligently? Yes. But it can be very difficult to find. It is also difficult to convince some people that they are participating in a potentially injurious program. Generally speaking, once someone buys into the “community” they can become pretty blind to facts. irresponsible programming does exist widely and can lead to overuse injury, overtraining, and is potentially harmful in many ways. Crossfit has gotten a lot of people off the couch which is great. But ignorant coaches and those with the same mindset of Castro (a real douche bag) have caused many unnecessary injuries. I have seen it happen many times. I am a crossfitter and a CFL1 active coach who knows that if done intelligently there is minimal risk and it works!! But most (yes most) gyms just don’t get it right.
With that said, the games are a different animal. The athletes that crossfit as a sport and as a career are aware of the risks that are involved with the open, regionals, and esp the games. Castro and HQ don’t care about the long term or short term health of these guys. That is a fact and until the athletes refuse to do some of the idiotic programming it will only progress. As with any other sport, there will be injury jas those athletes push the limits.
In the past, I looked forward to the games but not so much anymore. I did not enjoy watching the programming of this year’s games. In my opinion, there were steps that could have been taken to protect the athletes health that were overlooked or potentially (likely) ignored. I no longer do the open ( for many reasons) and probably won’t watch or follow the games next year as I have progressively gotten bored with castros spectacles. I respect the athletes that work hard to get there but really the games and Castro have lost my interest and respect.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t get to watch much of the games cause I have things to do. What I did see didn’t really concern me as being a safety issue. That being said I saw maybe 4 events. This article does bring up a good point to consider, and makes you question what are the limits to the spectacle? It’s like iPhone or a new car, every year something gets a little bigger or better and for a little extra cash you get this special submarine radar for your phone you don’t need. I’m curious as to how much that is going to play in to programming. The thought of “this is on ESPN and we need to stand up to compete with the MLB and the NFL”.
That also being said I’d like to submit the idea that these workouts were programmed with future games in mind. During the open and the games last year Castro re-programmed previous events from previous years to retest their fitness. The first time those were tested I’m sure there were complaints and concerns, etc. Retested those workouts were no problem. These sort of things push our training and really test what the limits of the human body is. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the peg board and murph make a return in a couple years.
Also, I 100% get the heat concern. However, I am from the South and the definition of “hot” in California and “hot” here in the south. That’s my 2 cents worth.
The way I see it, the crossfit games are about knowing who the fittest on earth is, regardless of the weather or place, you cant get to know who the fittest on earth is without giving them the thoughest events (workouts) on earth
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