"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
1. Nicole C.. Are you serious? Do you know anything about crossfit? Have you read any bios or have any knowledge about what these athletes do on a daily basis? They don’t just lift heavy shit. They have endurance coaches. They run. They row. They swim. The do cardio every day. And yoga/mobility/stretching is a HUGE part of their training and recovery too. Ever hear of rom wod? Look into these things.
2. They are professional athletes. They know their bodies. If they didn’t think it was safe they pulled out (Annie, Neal) Murph in humid weather seems like cruel and unusual punishment to us average crossfitters but people do this every day in other states (texas) too. They have the choice to participate.
I think Drew has some great points. I love training and coaching crossfit, but found myself at times while watching the events feeling concerned for the athletes wellbeing. You can prepare your body as much as possible by training at competition intensity but you’ll never be able to replicate competition day intensity with all the added external and internal pressures.
Simple things could have been avoided like performing Murph early in the morning, its always ridiculously hot at the Games why would you schedule such a demanding event in the heat of the day?
To me this year it just seemed that every event had to be that extra bit too long, too heavy, too demanding when stacked event after event. I just hope it wasn’t for entertainment sake.
Exactly they are athletes not soldiers!!! Soldiers don’t have the option of saying yes I will do that or no thanks I will pass on this coming deployment and stay with my family instead…… If the feel like it was too hard for them all they had to say is no thanks I’m not going to do this workout and that’s it, or show up in the floor and do as much as they felt like doing without breaking themselves. The only thing is that they won’t get any points and at the end the one with more points wins the title of the fittest woman/man/team on earth. I don’t know see any wrong with that, I believe a good athlete knows his/her body and knows how hard they can go. FYI many of these athletes do only cardio in a regular basis, I also know a lot of these athletes do yoga and stretch A LOT before and after a wod…… Most of these comments are obviously from people who has never don’t Crossfit before and maybe jealous of not having what it takes to start a new sport in which every year more and more people around the world are getting into. I have back problems from when I was in the army and guess what??? I still do CrossFit, I have to scaled a lot sometimes, I know I can do most of the movements and most of the RX weight, but I don’t because I don’t want to mess up my back, that’s when you know you have a good coach, when they always help you finding a way to get a wod done according to your abilities ?
Happy Tuesday!! Be happy!
I saw a posting that Annie thorisdottir had a heat stroke and was having kidney issues by the end of it so that may be what the article is referring too but not sure
At what point were any of the athletes scared of rhabdo? I’ve rarely seen rhabdo in extreme ultra endurance events. Were there that many concerned athletes? Or was it two or there and this author is extrapolating and embellishing for drama sake on paper?
While very intense and taxing over days of competition; the athletes had ample recovery and nutrition down time between events to keep that risk to almost nothing.
Murph is an hour long event. Even done at max effort there is no risk of kidney damage with proper nutrition and hydration. You go into it hydrated and it isn’t even necessary to ingest anything during the event.
I think it’s safe to say that hydration and nutrition were paramount between events and during night time recovery. If it was, I’m not quite sure why anyone was in fear of kidney damage.
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