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[Toomey] I don't want to just go out and win.
I want to go out and dominate.
- [dramatic music] - [seagulls calling]
[Fraser] I don't want to walk away with any regrets this weekend.
[dramatic music]
[Toomey] Being the Fittest on Earth, I'm here to defend my title.
[Fraser] There's only two outcomes:
either I win, or I lose.
[Woodland] It's the final stop on the Road to the Fittest.
Madison, Wisconsin and the 2018 Reebok CrossFit Games.
The cool thing about 2018,
you had all these events that not only were they great tests of fitness,
but they looked spectacular.
If you look at events like the Criterium Race,
it was unbelievable.
- [Woodland] We are underway. - [Ingraham] Oh!
[Woodland] Patrick Vellner has dropped a chain.
But Holte has overtaken Laura Horvath!
And Kristin Holte will win Event Number One.
We had a marathon row. And it was incredible to watch.
[Ingraham] We went from 42,000 meters to 700 meters remaining.
[Woodland] And now he can smile.
You had Battleground.
Fraser takes a nasty spill off of that!
Hoo-ra! Cole Sager takes the Battleground!
We had an event like Chaos, where athletes didn't know what they were gonna do
when you had the slug at the end that they had to pull.
She says she's a sled dog, and she proves it here.
[Ingraham] Look at this guy!
Man!
[dramatic music]
[Marquez] It was really cool to see Mat Fraser continue his dominance.
[Woodland] And Mat Fraser has mathematically clinched.
[Marquez] Patrick Vellner, who's a fan favorite athlete,
and has kind of had to overcome some obstacles on his route
to podium finishes the last couple years.
[Woodland] And Pat Vellner conquers the Chaos
and wins Event Nine!
[Marquez] Tia-Clair Toomey joined the ranks of the all-time elite
by going back-to-back.
[Woodland] Two for Toomey! She is the Fittest Woman on Earth!
And this girl that we had no idea was gonna do as well as she did,
Laura Horvath, she was an actual contender
who might not wind up on the podium, but also might win this whole thing.
[Woodland commentating] Somebody get out there and tell this woman she's a rookie!
[dramatic music]
[Castro] It was a great year. It was something we were completely happy with
and proud of, to say the least.
[dramatic music]
[Woodland] This was as big as it's gonna get.
We have finally arrived.
For the third straight year,
he is the Fittest Man on Earth!
[dramatic music]
[Marquez] Coming off of the 2018 games,
everybody was kind of riding high.
You had this landmark year in terms of participation at the games,
broadcast coverage, media coverage.
Everyone felt like we were just setting ourselves up for continued greatness.
And then, all of a sudden, with like one snap of the fingers,
it was like Thanos in Avengers.
And all of it changed.
[Woodland] I've never seen something so good go so badly so fast.
There were announcements that we're getting rid of regionals.
No one knew what that meant. They just knew regionals were going away.
Okay, what's gonna replace it?
We didn't know what was happening.
You didn't know who to believe, what to believe.
Because it didn't actually come from the horse's mouth.
[O'Keefe] I read it through the morning Chalk Up,
actually, as many of us did.
If I look back, those three to five months
after that announcement were very uneasy.
Certainly, from an athlete's perspective.
Right now, it's October 1st.
The season has changed quite a lot.
We don't really know how it's going to be 100%.
You have your season.
And that's just the way that it's been for a long time.
And suddenly, it's almost like someone took the table and threw it all up,
and... I don't even know what my season looks like.
The way in which information is being given out,
it makes it very difficult for the people that want to compete
to make decisions.
And it is, in my opinion, not respecting their livelihood,
and their careers, and their amount of time.
They're defining fitness.
And that, now, has been diminished on a significant scale
because the athlete now is meandering along going,
"You know what? Where's the guidance?
Where's the direction? What are the rules?"
And that makes it tough.
Then, all of a sudden, we fired half the media staff.
With them laying off all the media people,
every person with a camera is now like the professional blogger about CrossFit.
And they're giving their expert opinion on everything.
So HQ has laid off like 100 people in the past six months.
What the [bleep] is going on?
Okay, well, what does that mean for those of us who are leftover?
What does that mean for the coverage of the sport moving forward?
There was so much confusion, and so much that was unknown,
that it was really difficult to go in every day,
and... do your job not knowing if the very next day
you're gonna be told that you're out.
[Sawyers] So I was in Brazil, I got a phone call.
And they're like, "Mars, you're no longer needed.
Your services are kaput."
I basically was like, "Wow, after ten years of creating all this stuff,
and all this work we've done together, it's over."
It was almost like, you know, The Sopranos,
"It's over, dude." You know?
I panicked.
I think anyone in the media space
that's hoping this sport grows,
and wants to sort of be a part of the future
to see suddenly, cut, immediately.
You're like, "God. Is it over? What's gonna happen?"
But I ultimately saw this as an opportunity.
CrossFit was no longer gonna be creating any media.
I like creating content, and I like this sport.
There's a big pool here that I can jump in and make a big splash with it.
So having created the movies we have in the past,
we set out to make this film.
And we wanted it to be unbiased, untied to other sponsors,
and we needed to basically fund it independently.
So our solution was, let's create our own little show.
What's up, everybody!
We're here, we're at the workin' vacation
In Kauai, Hawaii.
In Aruba!
[Sawyers] Along the way,
we started the Buttery Bros.
Roll the footage!
Roll the footage.
[Sawyers] That turned out to be
like a whole different level of fun
and challenge that we haven't ever done before.
Lettuce to the chest!
[Cannon] We put that show out onto YouTube.
Had a ton of fun doing it.
This is the best thing we've ever done!
What's up, boys? Welcome to Vermont.
[Cannon] We spent a week in Dubai
with three-time Fittest on Earth Mat Fraser.
Guess who's blocking now.
[Cannon] As he secured a ticket to the CrossFit Games
through a new process called a sanction.
Do it first. Get it, bro!
Two-time champ Tia-Clair Toomey,
and three-time podium finisher Patrick Vellner
walked all over the competition at a sanctional in Miami.
That was the competition there.
[Cannon] Spent a weekend in the hills
of Saint Cloud, Minnesota
with Brent Fikowski.
Come on.
[Sawyers] Consistent podium contender Sara Sigmunsdottir
let us train with her in San Diego, and follow her around in London.
Ah!
[Cannon] We thrashed ourselves at camps
with Katrin Davidsdottir, and Annie Thorisdottir,
both two-time champs.
- You guys are impressive. - Yeah.
[Sawyers] Along with contenders Brooke Wells.
[Cannon] Oh, my God! Did you see that?
[Sawyers] Amanda Barnhart, B.K.G., Laura Horvath.
[Cannon] The two-time teen classic champion and 18-year old Haley Adams,
and James Newbury.
[man] That was kind of sick.
[Sawyers] Not to mention, Noah Ohlsen bought us a nice pair of shoes.
You get a pair of shoes, you get a pair,
you get a pair of shoes.
[Cannon] All earned a ticket
to the CrossFit Games
in the season.
But how they qualified
was a little hard to follow.
Prime example, Patrick Vellner.
So I'm pretty sure I qualified through the Open.
[Cannon] Wait, you don't know for sure?
I'm pretty sure it was through the Open.
Well, we go into the season,
with the first sanction event, I think in December.
And there's no rule book.
Again, the theme the entire couple months
after the games was just mass confusion.
And no one knew how that was all gonna work out.
So the CrossFit Games season used to be very linear and easy to follow.
From 2011 to 2018,
it was like a big funnel where athletes started with the CrossFit Games Open.
From there, the top athletes would qualify
for one of nine regional-level competitions.
From that pool of athletes,
40 men and 40 women would then be invited
to compete at the CrossFit Games
to determine who was the Fittest on Earth.
The new way it looks like this.
The top 20 men and women from the Open earn a spot.
If you're a national champion in the Open, you earn a spot.
You win a sanctional event, you earn a spot.
In 2019, there was 15 sanctionals.
Overall, 143 men and 117 women showed up at the CrossFit Games.
I think early on, yeah,
you needed a PhD to figure out who was gonna go to the Games.
With the sanctional system and the back-filling process,
and the fact that the Open was wedged in the middle of the season
between sanctionals,
it really added a lot of confusion
and a lot of...
I don't know, back of the napkin math, I guess, if you will,
on how athletes were gonna get to the Games.
In terms of getting rid of regionals,
replacing it with sanctionals,
I absolutely love that.
It gives the freedom to the athletes
to choose where they want to compete,
when they want to compete.
It allows them more freedom in their own life
of determining out their competition season.
Most years, every couple of years,
we had always had very major changes,
and big changes to the whole process.
So the changes, to me, were not as big of a deal
as one would expect in terms of the new format.
Hey, it doesn't matter, there's a new way to get there,
and the best guys, and the right guys, are going to get to the Games.
And then, once we get to the Games,
we will give them an amazing test,
and find the fittest alive.
You know, like in 2018, and sort of the years before,
you knew you were looking at the best of the best of the best.
2019 we weren't so sure, right?
There were national champions that, you know,
may not be as good as some guys in your boxes.
In the end, you know, that's when the national champions came out,
and the whole parade of champions.
You saw how excited everyone was,
and everyone leaning.
It was awesome.
That was beautiful.
But we didn't know.
We had no idea.
Does this new format
still find us the fittest man and fittest woman?
These are the questions I was asking going into the weekend.
[dramatic music]
[Sawyers] Okay, we're heading over to the Convention Center.
- Checking in. - Athlete check in.
I've been through this, this is your first time.
What's going through your head?
[Sawyers] It feels similar.
I'm curious to see how this goes.
Checking in!
[Sawyers] Checking in.
How many games is this?
Seven.
I had to count the other day,
I was like...
Seven games. That's a lot.
What's up, YouTubers?
[Cannon] What's going on?
- What are we doing? - Checking in.
I'm on PR pace already.
Went by the sound bite, they're like,
"We got your sound bite from last year."
- You can just keep moving. - How are you?
I'm so good. How are you?
- I missed you. - She's all, "I'm so good."
Yes, Kat, we know, we know.
[Davidsdottir] You said, "How are you?"
[everyone laughs]
We're in Madison, Wisconsin.
The venue is right over there for the Games.
It's Tuesday. The competition starts on Thursday.
I... think there's 140, 150 individual males.
I think there's 130-ish individual females.
I don't know what's going on.
We got nothing. Um...
Normally we know like an event or two, or like kind of...
a general idea that we'll be run, swim-running, or something, but...
we know nothin'.
[dramatic music]
- [Sawyers] Day one starts now. - [Cannon] Day one starts now.
They haven't announced officially a workout.
But they posted on dotcom workout that I had heard was a workout,
for the CrossFit Games, two weeks ago.
Which was like 400-meter runs, legless rope climbs, and some snatches?
That's the one.
We'll see if that's it,
but that's the word out on the street.
- [Orr] How are you? - Oh, what's up team?
- [Orr] All right. - Oh, good.
You guys have more luggage than me.
Are all of you guys the team?
- It's so easy to carry yours. - You didn't bring a game?
Intimidation factor.
Until they get kicked out by security.
Do you know where you have like neighbors, and you mow your lawn,
and you mow right down the boundary?
I feel like that's what I've just done.
We know absolutely nothing.
So I pretty much came prepared...
to be here for like 20 hours.
- [Cannon] Gotcha. - 'Cause we have no clue
if we need our running shoes,
if we need weightlifting shoes,
if we need...
I got three different pairs of shoes.
- Turf shoes. - [Cannon] Gotcha.
I'm just trying to think. We absolutely know nothing.
[crowd cheers]
[Fikowski] So what we know right now is after the first event,
they're gonna cut about half the field.
So there's about 140 men, 148 men, and after the first event,
half those men are sittin' in the stands, the other half, 75 or so,
get to continue competing.
[Woodland] I know these people were excited they were gonna get
to come to Madison for the CrossFit Games.
And then, once they booked their trips,
and once everyone has set to come to the CrossFt Games,
the announcement is made that, "By the way...
we're gonna cut down to 75 athletes after the first event."
And I think there were a lot of national champions
who realized that their trip was gonna last one event.
People are like, "What's the deal?
These athletes are gonna go there
and get knocked out after one workout.
That's not a cool thing."
Meeting those people, it's a cool thing.
Like... if you're from...
Jamaica trying to be a bobsledder,
you get it that like you're gonna go there,
you're gonna get your one qualifying event,
and you'll be out. Or, for a lot of...
years ago, like you're a weightlifter from America.
You're lifting on Thursday when the finals,
or everyone else on the A stage go on a different date,
but you get your Olympic rings on a tattoo on your ankle,
it's really cool for these people to be there,
and it made... it made it feel like a world stage.
[Fikowski] It sucks to make this big trip.
I don't think it's super fair that they announced this cut system
well after all the athletes likely have paid a lot of money to come here,
and help grow this sport. I think it's a little disingenuous.
[Castro] You're gonna deal with an incredibly large field,
and how to whittle them down.
And Greg Glassman wanted some cuts at the Games this year.
Some bigger cuts down to some smaller cuts.
And we had to come up with a good creative way to make that happen.
And to get to the size of field that he wanted when he wanted.
Once that announcement is made,
there's gonna be so much riding on the first event,
the big conversation becomes,
"All right, well what is that event
going to be?"
What do you do to cut half the field?
My gut tells me it's gotta be like...
- [Cannon] Four hundred-meter runs. - Like 800-meter run.
Yeah. Half mile.
You know, if that event isn't structured well,
they could lose a lot of great athletes out of there
if it was you know, a 2K row.
[Bailey] I feel like it's gonna be some kind of run,
swim, I don't know, maybe some odd object,
something you get back,
and like you immediately have to jump
into like 30 muscle-ups for time.
And that's a scored event. Immediately into...
Some amount of snatches, or... I don't know.
I feel like you'd have to do something like that...
- Something... - I don't know...
You earn points at each stage. That'd be cool.
[Bailey] Yeah. So you'll have like
300 or 400 points in event one.
The first event had to be something
that was gonna be a legitimate CrossFit core test
to be able to say, "Half of you are gone, half of you are staying."
[Fraser] I know if someone told me the task
of "Hey, you have one day to filter. Cut this field in half."
Oof. All right. A lot of logistics going on.
So we'll see what happens
[Castro] We are going to CrossFit.com
for today's event.
Run 400, 3 legless rope climbs, 7 snatches.
185 for the men, 130 for the women,
four rounds, four times.
[crowd cheers]
The snatches are squat.
Go warm up.
Not too much running, it's a mile, so feeling good.
Feeling really good. [laughs]
Well, you know, I like it, man. I'm excited for this year.
Just trying to soak in it all, and have fun with every event.
This one's gonna be a good one to kick it off.
I mean, now we know the first workout.
Even showing up this morning, we didn't know what it would be.
And I think that's really cool.
That would be so cool if...
The CrossFit Games were that way.
That literally, we don't know,
and we get to know before we have to warm up.
[Fraser] I got messages from other Games athletes that aren't competing anymore,
that said, Event One was the best programmed workout I've ever seen
at the CrossFit Games.
I said, "Yep. I agree."
It was a perfect workout.
[dramatic music]
[Woodland] So far, not a single athlete has finished this event.
[dramatic music]
[Castro] People were capable of doing it.
Most people weren't capable of finishing it in the time cap.
[dramatic music]
It was a statement test.
"For the best in the world,
guys over here,"
they all had no problem finishing.
[Woodland] Ben Smith is in,
and he will take Heat One.
[dramatic music]
[Fraser] I remember watching the first heat of the first event,
and some guys couldn't do a legless rope climb.
And then, if they did happen to get past that,
they couldn't snatch 185.
[Woodland] This event is crushing athletes.
Out of the 100 that have taken the field,
only 14 have managed to finish.
[somber music]
The top athletes from out of the Open will all be on the field,
including the four women who have each won the CrossFit Games.
[Toomey] I wanted to stamp my ground and show that, you know
I'm here, and I mean business.
[dramatic music]
[Woodland] Second Heat of Event One.
First cut is underway.
[Ingraham] Adrenaline is high,
everyone's coming out hot,
but the key is managing your pace in that first round.
[Woodland] Here's the bottom line for these athletes,
you finish this event, you're moving on.
[Vellner] Playing it safe will get you so far.
And I've done that for a number of years,
and I think that now it's time
to sort of play with fire a little bit sometimes.
And, I mean, that's how you're gonna win.
[dramatic music]
[Woodland] Davidsdottir makes it to her first.
Tia Toomey also making the turn.
[Davidsdottir] I did not think
I was going to be breaking so much
on the rope climbs.
And be so close to failure.
[Wells] It was all just making sure you didn't blow up
before the legless rope climbs.
[Ingraham] Tia has been off to an incredibly fast pace,
basically, from the get-go.
[Woodland] The two men we thought would be battling
for the top of the podium are fighting for the top spot
in the final heat of this opening event.
[Vellner] And I was just looking at Mat's back and thinking,
"Screw this guy. I'm gonna try to make a move
and give him something to think about early."
[dramatic music]
I was running behind Annie and Sara.
And then, I looked over on like the third round of rope climbs,
and I had moved ahead of them. And I was like,
"What is happening right now?"
[Woodland] This is more than just an event win,
this is a statement to everyone, including the athletes,
about what's gonna happen over the next four days.
[dramatic music]
I flew too close to the sun, and I was starting to fall apart.
I was mangled in basically survival mode till the end of that workout.
[Woodland] It is lonely out there right now, for Tia Toomey.
She's the only woman on the other side of the field.
One hundred points for Toomey
to start the 2019 Reebok CrossFit Games.
Haley Adams will take fourth.
An impressive start for the youngster.
Different year, different format, different event, same result.
Mat Fraser takes Event One in dominant fashion.
[crowd cheers]
[Newbury] And that gave me a sixth placing overall for that first event.
It was a good start to the weekend for me.
[Fikowski] I finished, you know, as fast as I could.
I think I was a little disappointed that it wasn't good enough
for a higher finish, to be honest.
[Vellner] I crawled across the line in like ninth.
Gave up a bunch of spots in the last movement of the workout.
[Orr] It sort of laid the foundation of what was to come
for the rest of the weekend.
It gave us a strong start,
and that was awesome for me to see.
[Ingraham] If you've never seen Mat Fraser compete,
you would think that there's something wrong with the rest of the field.
[Woodland] It is unbelievable.
[Fraser] Bust my hump, win the event. What's my lead?
Two points.
Tenth place victory on day one is worth 80 points.
Tenth place victory on day four, you get ten points.
Better hope you get your shitty events done on day one.
But at the same time, you don't want your shitty events on day one
'cause you need to make the cuts.
So, yeah, it was stressful.
Oh, [bleep] CrossFit.
Just pushed too hard too early. Tried to chase Mat.
Didn't need to.
Probably could have taken a second or third pretty easy,
but pushed it, failed some reps.
Probably took like maybe a top ten.
Probably seventh.
So that's annoying.
[crowd cheers]
[Davidsdottir] Otherwise I'm really happy.
Out of the ten that I completed,
there were probably five that I was about to fail.
You know, like I was always like on that...
- [Sawyers] But you never failed. - No.
- [Sawyers] Oh, nice. - So, in that...
Of course, I want to do better,
but in that case, I'm like, I nailed it.
Huge sigh of relief. That was low-key. Terrified.
[Sawyers] Really?
It went way better expected.
Every time I've done rope climbs in the past
I haven't gotten a single rep, so.
- [Sawyers] Oh. - Today I got ten.
- [Sawyers] Good job. - Thanks.
- [Sawyers] Talk to... - It was buttery out there.
- [Sawyers] Was it? - Yeah! It was like...
felt like I was just training, like...
just like at home, trying to keep up with the crew.
- [Sawyers] Yeah, pushes you into it. - Yeah.
Just like this. You try and keep up.
I was talking to one girl, and she was like,
"When would I ever like be competing with like Katrin,
and Annie, and Sara, and...
- like myself?" It's like... - Yeah, kind of surreal.
To them, even though it might only be one event,
it's really cool, 'cause they actually got to workout with us.
[Sawyers] Cool.
I got five no-reps in legless rope climb
in the third round.
- [Sawyers] Oh, yeah. - So...
It hurts.
But that's just part of it, right?
They haven't officially put anything on the website now.
So we're just trying to guess who made it through.
There are some... quite surprising results.
We'll go one through ten first.
First name, Tia-Clair Toomey.
[man] First place, Tia-Clair Toomey.
[Fikowski] Yeah, watching the first set of cuts,
we sort of called them the rose ceremony.
It felt a little like an episode of The Bachelor
where they were like separating the group.
Dave's giving the roses out at the front.
The first day, they went through, read 75 men's names.
You get up when you hear your name, walk out to the front.
Once everyone's there they say,
"All right, everyone else, thanks for coming."
[Castro] This was the broadest and deepest attempt ever...
Pretty sure my athlete got cut.
[Thorisdottir] Everyone's that has an...
all the coaches that have an athlete
that didn't make it through, come be with your athlete.
And then, they would come and be with an athlete.
And they would go around and cut their bracelets.
Like you're out. [laughs]
I know it's brutal, but it's also kind of like...
"Oh, that's a harsh reality."
[laughs]
Once those cuts started to happen, even with the first one,
you could see some guys were pretty upset, and it really only got worse from there.
Congratulations. You guys survived the first cut.
One hundred and fifty down to 75.
This event was long, and fun, right?
- Right? - [athletes cheer]
We're gonna switch gears.
And we're gonna do something a little shorter.
But we're gonna keep the triplet format
to make it a balanced event.
And we're gonna make it a triplet chipper
starting with row.
[Sawyers] What was the workout, bro?
So the workout is rowing 800 meters,
66 shoulder-to-overheads,
100 and something-feet handstand walk.
Quick. Move it.
[Woodland] Final heat of the final event here on day number one
for the individuals of the 2019 Reebok CrossFit Games.
Second cut.
[horn blows]
We start with the 800-meter row, and then it is on to the kettlebells.
[Toomey] I knew the workout wouldn't be won in the row,
so I needed to just make sure I got through the row
without getting my heartrate too high.
You can't coast the row,
because if you coast the row
you just lose too much time.
You don't blast the row. You gotta be consistent.
You gotta be working on it.
[rock music]
[Fraser] Everyone's coming off the rower within four seconds
from the first person to the last person.
[Woodland] The row is done.
It's on to the kettlebell push-press.
Mat Fraser and Chandler Smith, 35 pounds in each hand.
They have to do 66 total repetitions.
And now a no-rep for Fraser.
[Fraser] As soon as they briefed it,
and they told us the standards,
I was like, "Oh, this is gonna be messy."
[Castro] It was forcing you to bring your hands
down to somewhere where the judge can, on an easier basis,
see that it's underneath.
[Vellner] I smashed the shit out of my fingers.
Every time it hurt, I was like, "Good, that rep counts."
I'd assume I got about 15 no-reps.
[Toomey] Every judge has a particular standard that they want.
And it's really hard sometimes to make sure that the field is even
when it comes to judging in the movement standard.
You can't be flustered by getting a no-rep.
You just gotta keep cranking them out.
[Woodland] Mat Fraser may have done about 80 of those things.
But he's done, and now the first man onto the handstand walk.
[Fraser] As soon as I kicked up, I was probably ten feet
into my first handstand walk, and went, "Uh-oh,"
I kicked up a little sooner than I should have.
[Davidsdottir] I put the kettlebells down and I kicked up.
I think it took me a couple steps to be like,
"Oh, shit, my hands are not okay."
And then, I kept walking, and then...
[Woodland] Katrin Davidsdottir
is one of the best in this sport on her hands.
I have never seen her struggle this much.
[Fraser] You had significant portions that you have to do unbroken.
Otherwise, you had to go back to the start.
So I went for it on that one, and was feeling really good.
Was right near the front of the pack in the top heat.
[Woodland] Leaders in this heat getting closer to the finish line.
Rookie Danielle Brandon's gonna win the event.
Now, Brooke Wells is in.
And she will take second.
[dramatic music]
[Fraser] Kick down, take a look around, shake out.
The arms got fresher as I went.
[Woodland] Fikowski's starting to creep up on Fraser,
but now Fraser back on his hands.
Looking for another event win.
Two for two for the champ.
Perfect on Day One.
[crowd cheers]
[announcer] Mat Fraser!
[Castro] And at that point you start thinking,
I wonder if he just wins them all. You know what I mean?
But like, at that stage, it's really easy to think that.
Like, "Shit, he just won all of Day One.
Maybe he just wins the whole weekend."
[Woodland] Brent Fikowski looking to wrap up second place.
And now he has fallen. Fikowski's gotta go back.
Koski's across the finish line and he'll take second.
[Fikowski] It felt like I had had it in my ability pretty comfortably
to finish the large last section unbroken.
And my shoulders had other plans for me just in the last few steps.
[Woodland] Now James Newbury is in.
[Newbury] And when I crossed the line, I looked around,
there was only like a couple of people standing there.
I was like, "This is not right. What did I do? Did I miss a step?"
[Woodland] Pat Vellner is across.
He's gonna take 12th in the event.
Brent Fikowski, who was within inches of a top three finish,
is across the finish line.
Fikowski's gonna take 17th.
[Fikowski] Those are the things that unfortunately, you look back on
when the weekend's over and you go,
"Oh, man. That's a lot of points."
[Woodland] Tia Toomey is not gonna be your overall leader after two events.
Right now, unofficially,
it looks like that honor's gonna go to Kari Pearce.
[Toomey] And I placed 12th. I wasn't ideally happy with that.
[Orr] So you go from thinking, "We're on a roll here, baby."
And then we hit the worst workout.
[Castro] You know, with those tests, with those events, and the cuts,
it was in your best interest not to have a bad event.
You really needed to try to stay consistent.
[Dickson] Mat Fraser, he's got the leader's jersey on,
and it's probably gonna stay on him
all the way through this entire competition.
[crowd cheers]
I'm gonna go hang out with Sammy, you know?
[Cannon] Yeah!
Go have some food.
Sip some AC.
Put on some shorts with some pockets.
[Cannon] You got cupcakes in your shorts right now?
No. The shorts are too small,
so the pockets are like flaring out.
So O'Keefe just cut 'em out.
[Cannon] I thought he said he had cupcakes in his pockets.
And I was like, "Awesome. Give me one, please!"
So I believe we're probably gonna go and get all the cuts and everything now.
I do wish that, you know,
everyone could experience the full weekend.
I think everyone wishes that.
But that said, the logistics and everything to actually get
that many athletes, and...
I don't know if you saw.
I literally like I fell over the line.
I wasn't even sure if I got... I look up at my judge, and he was like.
[Cannon] I was like...
give it to her, give it to her!
So I guess they're making some more cuts right now.
So we have to listen to that, and then...
I mean, I'm hoping that we get another workout or something, but...
they didn't say that, so.
I'm not in the hospital yet today, so...
- [Cannon] Yeah, that's good. - Yeah. It's a win.
- Yeah, it's a win. - [Bailey] A win, win.
[Castro] James Newbury.
[applause and cheers]
Ben Smith.
Mekenzie Riley.
Sara Sigmundsdottir.
[Castro] At that point, the people who advanced to the top 50,
now we're talking about well-rounded, complete CrossFitters in that Top 50
based off of those two events.
And if you couldn't get past that, those cuts,
you know, you have a lot of work to do, and you're maybe not ready for that level.
But you should still be there if you earn it via country championship.
[Ohlsen] Looking at all the guys that didn't qualify,
there were a handful of them that I would assume were expecting to,
I could just kind of feel that pain and empathize with them.
So that was tough.
But, obviously, bittersweet,
because I made the cut.
So I'm feeling good about that, but feeling sorry for them.
[Cannon] You made it.
The whole cut thing's fun.
- [Cannon] Did you make the cut? - Made it.
- Barely. - [Cannon] Was it fun?
Yeah.
Fun when you're on that side of the line, I guess.
- I don't know why. - Wild card, baby.
[Vellner] Never know... are you second or fourth?
- Fourth. - [Vellner] Yeah.
[Sammy] Here you are.
When I go to a restaurant, I'm at the point now where I like,
I have the menu, then I just turn to Sammy and go,
"What would I like?" And she'll like tell me.
[Cannon] She'll order for you?
[Sammy] I really do. It's kind of cute.
[everyone laughs]
[O'Keefe] It might be cute to you guys,
but it's annoying.
[laughs]
He's like let's go to the steak list,
like, which one?
You know it's like New York strip,
Sirloin strip, Ribeye, like all the different cuts.
I'm really happy with Event One.
I probably got about 15 no-reps on Event Two.
So that was...
a little annoying.
[Cannon] Are those caramelized apples?
- [Fraser] Yeah, man. - [Cannon] Oh, my gosh.
What, you think we eat raw apples in this household?
[Cannon] Not everyone's got feeding the bravers
Did you say feeding the flavors?
Woo! Feeding them flavors.
[Fraser] So Sammy came in the picture a couple years after Chief Keefe.
[dance music]
[Sammy] Okay, cool.
Then, after that one,
put your hashtag.
What's my hashtag?
Oh, oh, partner kicks.
- Will that... - [Sammy laughs]
It's okay. It's okay. No, no, what are you doing?
[Fraser] When I'm insecure, she's the one reassuring me
that everything's gonna be okay.
That, you know, every year,
a couple days before the Games starts,
it's... "I love you no matter what."
We are making cinnamon bun pancakes.
I mix our wet ingredients together.
And then, our dry ingredients into the wet.
And then, fold in the egg whites.
You want to keep all the fluff.
[Fraser] We don't go too in depth with it.
Win or lose, when I'm coming home,
I'm coming home to the same house.
I'm coming home to the same hug.
Yeah, what you know about that, Chief?
Oh, let me get my name on 'em right now.
- Does this have protein in it? - [Sammy] Yes.
[Fraser] 99% of the time I'm not getting on an airplane
without O'Keefe by my side.
Do it. Do it.
[everyone laughs]
- Yes, Chief! - That is amazing.
He was the first person to ever tell me that I could be world champion.
He told me so early on that I thought he was weird.
Oh, yeah.
- Crepes are heaven, Sammy. - [Mayer] Are they even healthy?
[O'Keefe] Yep, definitely.
[Castro] I said, "Check this out.
What is Mat Fraser in the world?"
He is, not even arguably, he is the fittest man alive.
The best CrossFitter.
And those two workouts were the essence of CrossFit.
Those are pure CrossFit workouts.
And he destroyed those.
He's the best CrossFitter in the world.
After day one, with Mat winning both events,
and then Tia doing really well,
we had, basically,
the last couple of years champions in the front.
We felt like, okay,
this is gonna be
what we're gonna see play out
throughout the rest of the weekend.
Mat in front, Tia in front,
maybe running away with it.
Good morning, individual athletes.
This event is for time.
A 6K ruck run.
So they're gonna do a 6,000-meter ruck.
But every, basically, mile they're gonna increase the weight.
So 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds, which is awesome.
The GoRuck guys approached us and said,
"Hey, would you like to do a GoRuck event at the Games?"
And I said I'd consider it.
I'm exactly where I need to be right now.
[Castro] I decided, well, I think we should do this for both genders.
Instead of having a men's weight and a women's weight,
let's just go with one weight.
And I think that played out brilliantly.
[dramatic music]
[intense music]
[Woodland] Men and women all on the field at the same time here.
One hundred total athletes, and we'll cut down to 40 each
after this event.
One of my least favorite things about like the CrossFit Games
is mass starts.
Which is scary, and like you could easily get trampled.
[Davidsdottir] Mass starts, it's like, you can play a game.
And it's even cooler when the guys are there too.
So I tapped the guy in front of me on the shoulder,
and I said, "Excuse me. I'm coming through."
[horn blows]
[dramatic music]
[Vellner] I think I watched Sager run like a PR400 to get out of the stadium.
And then I think he promptly died shortly after.
[Woodland] This is the opening lap.
Four total here around this 1,500-meter circuit.
[dramatic music]
Tia Toomey, your leader for the women right now,
as she looks to reclaim the top spot on the overall leaderboard.
[dramatic music]
[Vellner] You could run with it for a long time and kind of trot,
but in that event, for 6K, like people ran fast.
[Toomey] It's long, and it just gets harder.
'Cause you keep adding ten pounds to your ruck, and ten pounds to your ruck.
As we transitioned through each round, we had to run into the field.
There were ten-pound bags all over that you had to just run up to,
unzip your backpack, add a sandbag in,
zip it back up, and take off.
[Woodland] Högberg has loaded his bag, is off first.
[Vellner] Lukas Högberg is ridiculous.
He just like holds it like this and runs like he's skipping his way to school.
And he like crushed everybody.
[Fraser] Then you had someone like Chandler Smith
who does rucks all the time with the army.
So he kind of broke away on his own.
[Woodland] Tia Toomey leads for the women,
as she looks to win
her second event of this competition
and put herself right back on top
of the overall standings.
[Toomey] It was about getting out in front,
and getting a really strong start.
Because if you got a good start, you weren't boxed in,
then, you were able to just back it off and hold a solid pace for the workout.
[suspenseful music]
[Woodland] Mat Fraser is in.
And now that pack will go from 30 to 40 pounds.
[Fraser] So I wanted to be as efficient as possible with it.
The one zipper was on the vertical side of the bag.
The other zipper was on the top. And just pull them into the corner.
So it's just one movement with the zipper
instead of having to move both.
Throw the bag and zip it up.
Back with the right arm, hook it with the left,
clip, go.
[Ohlsen] As the bag got a little fuller with the sandbags,
the zippers were getting pulled as the backpack bounced around.
And I thought, "Hmm, if I don't close this all the way,
it's possible that my sandbag will come out,
and I'm sure that that would cost me a lot of time
if I have to go back and get the sandbag."
[Woodland] Lukas Högberg is going to lock up the event win,
and that is huge.
[Ingraham] Looks like he had a walk in the park.
[Woodland] Chandler Smith is across,
and now Mat Fraser has finished.
[Fraser] I crossed the finish line, you know, finished I think sixth.
Was happy with it.
[dramatic music]
[Woodland] Here's the pack of women who are in the lead.
And this is gonna be a great finish.
[Toomey] And it gets to the last corner,
and Emily then breaks off.
[Woodland] Rolfe makes the turn.
Toomey behind her, and it's Holte in third.
And it looks like Emily Rolfe
is going to win her first career event
at the CrossFit Games.
Toomey will take second.
And it's Holte in third.
[Toomey] That was intense. That was a great race though.
I really, really liked that one.
[Vellner] The low back on everybody,
had just massive canvas burn.
So for the rest of the weekend, we had some tender low backs.
[Toomey] Poor Haley Adams.
I don't think I've seen anyone's as worse as hers.
When she turns, we see the back of her white shorts.
And they're red.
I didn't feel it, actually, until I got in the ice bath.
I was just like, "Why is my back stinging? It's on fire."
[Hinshaw] I mean, her back is still jacked up.
It's gonna be permanently scarred.
I don't know if these rucks were meant to be used in that capacity
with that amount of weight.
Fifty pounds is not a ruck anymore.
It's like a... sandbag mile after three miles before that.
Faltering a bit. I'm still getting that top ten placement.
But I need some bigger points,
especially as the point system gets...
a little bit more significant, more drop.
I feel like, so far, I've been playing the middle ground.
I'm hoping that I'll get some that I'll crush it on, and...
get some good scores. Hopefully none that I get too crushed on.
What's up, YouTubers?
[Woodland] The event got done, and...
it wasn't too long after that that we started hearing that,
wait, Mat might be getting penalized. Okay, what happened?
What'd he do?
[Fraser] We get into the athlete briefing
for the next event,
and Dave called me down.
I was like, "Hey, what's up?"
And he's like, "Hey, you lost a sandbag on the run."
What? What are you talking about?
It was like on the last corner before coming into the field.
I felt something brush my right foot.
And so I like turned to look to see what it was.
I didn't know if it was an athlete that hit me, or what it was.
So I turned, and I saw one of the big orange sandbags
that were the weights for the fence,
the legs of the fence.
And I just saw that and was like, "Oh, that's what it was."
I really believe he didn't know.
You're rucking, he's racing, it's the CrossFit Games,
that thing pops out, and everyone's like, "He looked back."
Yeah, he glanced over, so what.
It's not like he stopped and turned around.
He just glanced back and kept going.
I don't think he knew it fell at all.
The scoreboard got adjusted and they gave me a minute penalty.
So it dropped me from sixth place to 17th place.
There was a lot of pressure on our team to go much harder,
but I think this was appropriate for the actual situation.
After that event, looking at the leaderboard,
you start to...
you start to realize that the possibility of you getting cut
is starting to creep in.
What's up, good looking? How's it going, baby?
- Did you hear about the next event? - No, I haven't.
-So it's sled push down, -Yeah.
18 bar muscle-ups for the men, 15 for the women,
sled push back. It's like two, three minutes, maybe.
Yeah, that's a race.
- Gas pedal. - Gas pedal.
The sled dog's about to go push a sled.
Probably gonna smash it. What do you think about that?
-[Sawyers] Let's do it. Sled dog. -Gymnastics sled dog.
- Stop. Stop. - Aw, stop it.
[dramatic music]
[Fikowski] I was excited by that one, but there was definitely some fear.
Because, you know, that was gonna be under three minutes.
That was gonna be an all-out event.
You just needed to send it, as the kids say.
[Fraser] That one was brutal.
I thought it was gonna be a 90-second
ripping off a band-aid type thing,
and it turned into just a trudge.
[intense music]
[horn blows]
[Woodland] Seconds matter in this event.
All these athletes trying to survive the next cut.
[energetic music]
[Fraser] As soon as we started pushing it, I was like, "This is not a sprint sled."
[Vellner] I think I pleasantly surprised myself,
and was one of the first ones across the line on the initial sled.
[energetic music]
[Toomey] Talk about leg burner as well.
[Adams] Just watching all those girls just haul that sled.
That was really hard.
[Woodland] On to the 15-bar muscle-ups.
You can't waste any time here.
You saw in the last heat,
two one-hundredths of a second
could be the difference between first and second place.
You had to make sure you could go on working on those bar muscle-ups.
[Toomey] Those bar muscle-ups might as well not have even been there.
[Woodland] Noah Ohlsen battling with Samuel Kwant.
Jacob Heppner a couple reps back.
[Ohlsen] Hit the bar muscle-ups unbroken. They felt great.
[Woodland] Ohlsen's off! He's back on the sled.
Jamie Greene is in the lead.
But here comes Amanda Barnhart, chewing up real estate in a hurry.
[Toomey] As soon as it was time to come back on the sled,
my sled got stuck on the tape.
It was getting stuck on the thing, and I'm like,
I'm like throwing the sled up and down,
trying to make sure that it would move.
I hope everyone knows that I'm trying my hardest right now.
But it probably looks like I am just stuffing around with this sled.
[Fikowski] There was no running with the sled.
It was trudging.
I was like every single step you take has to be maximum.
And you're not gonna stop. And then, I wanted to stop so bad.
[Vellner] It seemed like some of the big boys
who should be able to push a tiny sled like that very well,
like we couldn't get it up to speed at all.
You look down your lane like to your left,
and somebody's like...
running with it standing up.
And you're like what is that guy, what is he doing?
What is he doing that I'm not doing?
[Fraser] I remember watching Noah run with the sled.
I know he's not that much better at me at pushing a sled.
[Woodland] Noah Ohlsen's gonna take second in the event.
[Ohlsen] Lost the event win by I think .9 seconds.
A little bit bittersweet there,
'cause it would have been my first event win.
But I just tried to celebrate the fact
that I'd done really well.
It was my first major success of the Games so far.
[Woodland] Amanda Barnhart is going to win the Sprint Couplet.
- [Ingraham] Wow. - [Woodland] My goodness!
[Woodland] Tia Toomey looks like she is going to hang on
to the overall lead.
Mat Fraser's still on the field, and Newbury's right next to him.
[Fraser] He was right next to me in points,
so I knew like I need to beat James.
And I was able to just trudge it out a tiny bit faster than him.
[intense music]
We hit the finish line, people were looking around
like, "What just happened?"
[Davidsdottir] What's happening with my legs. It kind of like hits you afterwards.
It's one of those events.
[Toomey] I could not stand
at the end of that workout.
[Vellner] I don't know what it is that
was causing it this year,
but it seemed that there were
clearly certain lanes
that were faster than others.
Some people were pushing 200-pound sleds,
and some people were out pushing a stroller.
There's no chance those sleds were the same.
- [Fraser] Hey. - The lane made a difference.
The way Noah's sled moved? No [bleep] way.
[Mat groans]
You don't have more ice for these things?
No, three, two, one, go, I hit my sled, it just went oops.
- Same. Same. - Bullshit.
On the way back got caught on the tape...
- Yeah, me too. - For like five seconds.
I've never felt a 25-pound sled feel that heavy before.
We had the same issue back in 2014 where it was like,
some of the lanes were in sunlight longer than others,
and so...
some people were able to just
do a straight up 100-meter sprint with their sled.
And there was others of us that it's like we're plowing a field.
When you had that argument in Carson, on the grass,
where there were some sections of grass that were wetter than others,
and some sections that were greener than others,
and some sections that were dried out and dead,
I got the argument there.
When you have that argument on artificial turf,
on a completely level floor,
on completely consistent sleds,
there is no different consistencies of surface or equipment.
Now, we're getting down to those major cuts,
and it's, it made it tough for people, put us in bad positions going in.
That was probably the first time I was scared that, like,
I could get cut.
I found out, oh, you finished 27th out of 40 guys,
and I was honestly kind of in disbelief.
[Marquez] Since he started winning the Games in 2016,
it was the first time that he had back-to-back finishes
outside of the top ten.
A lot of the top guys at the time took a huge hit.
So that shuffled the leaderboard up a ton.
No one was in the lane to my left, and Jake to the right.
Jacob and I hit the sleds, and they were like glued to the ground.
Noah's just [bleep] took off.
For a few guys, I was like, "What the [bleep]?"
They were done when I was like halfway.
- It feels really good. - [Cannon] I bet.
Oh, man, that was awesome.
- I needed a little boost like that. - [Cannon] I would too.
That was a good one. Yeah, I think that got everyone's legs.
- Let's just say, "What legs?" - [Cannon] What legs.
Blew the legs out, that's for sure.
Could have went better for sure.
I took my hands off the bar just to like readjust,
chain came down, so...
that wasn't part of the plan.
I can't keep up with these girls.
Oh, my God.
- [Cannon] You fainting? - I don't know what's happening.
I think I'm just exhausted.
I'm trying, but...
I'm going down fast.
I feel like it should have gone way better, but...
- I'm just exhausted. - [Cannon] Yeah.
And everyone else is just...
I just haven't gone through this before, so...
Don't worry, everyone else feels like that.
I know, I just...
I haven't gone through like, this might sound bad,
but in the teenage division, I didn't really have to...
go that hard. Does that make sense?
It's just... it's just new to me. It's a learning experience.
[Cannon] Absolutely.
My legs are gone. [laughs]
Like I have no idea how it went or anything.
- [Cannon] Sure. - So...
Hopefully it's not bad.
[Castro] So Mary was a test that I was really...
worried about implementing in the Games this year.
[Fraser] I think this is the first time
where we ever had an event at the Games
that was four rounds, it wasn't time capped.
You worked the whole 20 minutes,
and then, whoever had the most reps won.
[Ohlsen] If I could design a workout at the CrossFit Games,
it would probably include those three movements,
and be somewhere in that time domain.
So I was really excited for that workout.
[Vellner] That's a workout that's hard to stay focused in, right?
Like you're doing so many rounds.
I was on the floor; I almost fell asleep.
[Fraser] Most guys are getting over 20 reps.
So it's 300 pull-ups.
[Toomey] You're gonna have like little T-Rex arms the next day.
[Fikowski] It got very real for me.
I think I was sitting in 15th,
I needed to stay in the top 20.
But everyone from 15th down to 25th,
even 30th, was super close in points.
[Woodland] Under the lights here in the Coliseum,
at the Alliant Energy Center, is Event Five, Mary.
Twenty minutes, as many reps as you can do.
Five handstand push-ups, ten one-legged squats with pistols,
and then, finally, 15 pull-ups.
[frenetic music]
The smaller, lighter, gymnastically inclined athletes
are gonna crush this one.
[Vellner] I mean, Mary is a small guy workout.
Everybody kind of knows that.
Some of the bigger athletes
are gonna have to mitigate damage.
Me being a longer body,
and a heavier body,
writing was a little bit
on the wall there that, you know,
I needed to just not look at anyone else.
Go as hard as I could.
And hope for the best.
[Woodland] Noah Ohlsen has never won an event
in his career across the Games.
If he can do it here,
he'll replace that guy as the overall leader.
You knew given what was out there, Noah Ohlsen was gonna do well.
He had a skill set that sets up well for that.
The problem is, is that Noah,
in events that sometimes favor him,
tends to go out a little too hot.
And tends to really attack
when he needs to be a little more strategic.
[Ohlsen] People, I guess, in the stands still thought that I came out really hot.
I felt like I was very in control.
[Woodland] Noah Ohlsen is slightly ahead of Fraser.
Fraser keeping pace. The two of them in nine rounds.
Try not to break a sweat or be out of breath by ten rounds.
Stay controlled, cool, through the first ten,
and then you're halfway.
And then, I can push it.
[energetic music]
[Adams] I was not feeling good before that event.
I was just feeling beat up,
and just laying on the floor, like shivering.
I felt like I was gonna throw up because of the ruck event.
And I was like, "Haley, you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself.
You need to get up, because this is a good workout for you."
[Sigmundsdottir] I'm like, "We probably have five minutes to go."
And then I see the time, I'm like, "We're halfway. We're halfway."
[laughs]
[Woodland] Kari Pearce is the first woman done
with 15 rounds.
She will move to the other end
of the floor and continue to work.
Noah Ohlsen is through 15 rounds.
[Ohlsen] At that point, we only had about five or six minutes left,
so I thought to myself, "Come on, man, you got this.
Just hold on to this for the last five minutes."
[Woodland] Noah has this history of making that big mistake
where he blows up an event, and then he falls off the lead pace.
And it was all right there.
It all looked like it was gonna happen again.
He had the pressure of Mat behind him,
he had the fact that he was in the lead,
and he was keeping an aggressive pace.
I think this is when Noah Ohlsen looks behind him in the water
and sees that giant shark fin following behind him.
[Fraser] In the last two or three rounds, I wanted to keep my pace good,
in case Noah stopped for some reason.
[Ohlsen] I want to say on the last three rounds I broke the pull-ups in half,
and when I came down, Mat had just started to do a few,
and I believe that the crowd saw that as me like opening the door for him
to step in and take the lead.
But I was very, very conscious of his rep count, and my rep count.
[Woodland] It is criminal how easy these women are making this look.
One minute to go, Kari Pearce into Round 23!
Ohlsen done with 22 rounds, back to the handstand push-ups,
30 seconds to go.
Here comes Fraser. Ohlsen to the pull-up bars.
Two seconds. Better late than never!
Noah Ohlsen wins Mary!
He is your new overall leader!
[crowd cheers]
[Ohlsen] That feeling of finishing the workout,
finally getting an event win in front of the Coliseum crowd
was just amazing.
When I finished ahead in that workout,
I realized that I was going to be in the overall lead.
Get the leader jersey back.
It had been five years since I've worn that,
so that was pretty cool as well.
[Woodland] Unbelievable right now for Kari Pearce.
She's been doing her handstand push-ups basically, strict this entire event.
Five more reps for Pearce.
The top individual score that we saw today.
One hundred more points as she wins the event.
Looks to move herself back inside the top three
and put some pressure on Tia Toomey.
[Castro] She beat all the women, obviously, and then she beat all the men.
She had the highest score.
And, incredibly,
she did almost every single one
of her handstand push-ups strict.
That was one of the coolest things
I'd seen at the Games.
Of any year.
Yeah, I asked her the next day, I was like, "How are your arms?"
She just kind of flexed, and she was like, "They're good."
[everyone laughs]
Oh! Wow!
- [Cannon] How does that feel? - So cool. Feels so good.
- [Cannon] First event win. - It's like unrealistic, yeah.
It was. First event win. We talked about it earlier.
Finally locked it up.
How wild is that too?
That after...
being that close to one I just got one.
[Cannon] Dude, that's gotta feel so good.
- It does, it really does. - [Cannon] Excited for you.
Thank you, bro. Appreciate it. I'm stoked.
[Cannon] What was that like, finishing, and then going up,
and having everybody just cheering for you?
Dude, I don't know,
it probably sounds cliché to say, but...
like that's what I train for, that's what we all train for,
and I've been trying six years to achieve greatness out here, so...
to get a little taste of greatness feels so rewarding.
Ah, good God.
Hey, did you walk to the round at 16 slow
- in front of me on purpose? - [Mat laughs]
You did, didn't you? You son of a gun!
I was like, "I'm not gonna run around him.
I'll wait behind; he'll pick it up."
And you're just like...
I was like, son of a biscuit.
Dude, I knew I should have gone left.
And I saw, I didn't see who it was, I didn't know it was you.
And I just got right in front of him, I was like, "Ah!"
[Heppner] All I was thinking was...
- I was drinkin' water. - Mat got me burned.
The cuts for tomorrow
is going to be based on the leaderboard standings
at the end of the competition day today.
So check that before you leave tonight.
It's just scary. Like it makes it to where...
you can't really have a bad workout.
I remember Friday of 2017, I was in 31st place.
- [Cannon] Wow. - So I'd have been cut.
- [Cannon] Yeah. - So it's just crazy.
But like I came back that year and got like 13th place, so...
it just kind of stinks that it takes away like comebacks like that.
- I'm cut, so... - [Cannon] You're cut?
Yeah, I'm 23rd, so I'm done.
It was actually really shocking to see Brent Fikowski cut
at the end of Day Number Two after Mary.
You know, a guy who's been on the podium,
and been in the top five every year at the Games,
suddenly is gone after two days of competition,
and isn't even in the Top 20.
He did poorly on that, he did poorly on some early stuff,
and he ended up getting cut after that point, and like...
he deserved to be cut.
Yeah, it's been good.
I was saying before, like,
it kind of feels like it's getting more like the Games now.
Just with less people, and... what's the time?
Five seconds.
Every second we do will help out for Sunday, okay?
- Three... - [indistinct]
[Orr] Oh, sorry.
One, and out. Woo! We did it.
♪ I'm a survivor, I'm gonna make it ♪
♪ I'm a survivor ♪
[laughs] That's so painful.
I'd rather go do another 20-minute AMRAP.
[groans] Oh, that was awesome.
Now I know how that guy feels every event.
Feels good.
Feels freakin' good.
Actually, the workout, tomorrow morning's workout was announced...
[Orr] Yeah. Do you know what it is?
It's like a sprint.
- Isn't it? - [Orr] Exact sprint.
That's awesome.
I do like lifting, like, finding...
A one hour or more, like just a heavy single of something.
Doesn't matter what it is.
I like doing that because, with the adrenaline and the crowd,
you tend to get closer, or, if not, PB.
- You lift so... - [Orr] Yeah, you...
It's just like quite rewarding.
So I think I would like to see something heavy.
That said, though, like I really don't care what comes up.
For the majority of the 2018, 2019 CrossFit season,
I've been training with the two-time defending champ, Tia-Clair Toomey.
[country music]
My brother from another mother.
That is Mat Fraser to me.
When she knows she's gonna be on camera she puts on base layer...
- You're a liar. - Does her hair.
The fact that Mat knows what base layer is...
- [Fraser] Because you told me. - I never!
I don't even know what base layer is.
Shane, myself, and Mat work so well together.
[Orr] I mean, just to have those two in the same room is
many people's dream to see train.
So I get to live that dream on a daily basis.
I feel like a fierce cheetah.
Cheetahs are tiny.
Shane and Mat gang up on me,
and love to pay me out on a regular basis.
I thought you had on a sweater vest.
I was like, you loser.
You're like bringing like this talk that we're like bad mouthing each other.
Let's make this for the record, I am bad mouthing Tia.
[Toomey] You know, I secretly know that that's his way of showing me affection.
[Fraser] And so it really turned into a team effort
of Shane, Tia, and I every day going into the gym,
trying to create something great.
[all cheer]
[Fraser] Tia, you just gotta do your celebration.
I'll do my celebration.
[yells]
Come on!
It was an absolute game changer this season.
Coming in with that, and that different point of view,
that helped a lot.
[dramatic music]
[suspenseful music]
[Vellner] I wish we were doing something I was a little better at this morning.
[Cannon] How have you felt about the test so far?
I haven't thought... I don't think it's been good.
First event was great.
I think the second event was a cycle speed event
with a new standard that had variable judging.
- [Cannon] Was it too fast? - And it was too fast.
Yeah, it was too fast to really separate people.
It was fine. It was okay.
But the sled one was not great.
The ruck run was a good test.
And then, Mary, I thought, was not a good test either.
I thought there was... it was kind of silly.
It makes it exciting. It makes it like,
tournaments are like that, right?
Like it's a tournament-style sport now.
And like, if you have a bad event, you're out.
Sometimes it doesn't matter
if you're people's favorite athlete.
Like if you have a stumble, then you're out.
It's like, tough, better luck next time.
That's nicer when there's multiple tournaments in a year.
When there's one in the year, it's tough when that's the format.
It's weird to me that you cut to ten after six events, with five left.
[Cannon] I thought they'd let 20 compete all day long.
I thought so too. Then I'd be 100% confident, no problem.
But like with one event that's a sprint,
once you slide one corner, you're cut.
Bubble athletes are Vellner and Annie Thorisdottir.
And I think the community would be devastated
not to have them around for the weekend.
I think Vellner's got a better chance
to make it through than Annie.
Sprinting's not the thing she's gonna excel at.
Katrin's sitting behind Annie, and I think she'll make it in.
But I think she might be the only Icelandic woman who does it.
And that would be a huge upset to only have one Icelandic woman in the Top Ten.
[Woodland] Noah Ohlsen was wearing the white jersey.
And for the first time since Mat Fraser's been on this championship run,
all of a sudden it looked like someone had a legitimate chance of beating Mat
for the first time.
[dramatic music]
Which really gonna have to work to get that title back.
I put the leader jersey on, put on the same shoes
that I'd been wearing all weekend,
and was ready to do what I'd been doing,
being smart about things,
not being too emotionally invested in the end result.
And it was working so far.
[Vellner] Man, the atmosphere and mood was extremely tense,
'cause we just saw it cut to 20 athletes, and now, after the first event,
it's just a short, explosive sprint event.
We're gonna see the field but in half down to ten.
Single elimination, baby.
Twenty to ten, 50% of the field cut after one run,
[Woodland] If you're outside the Top Ten,
and you can't run, you're done.
You have to win this event.
[Castro] There's gonna be some people
that are gonna have to put everything into the sprint
and run faster than they'd ever run if they wanted to advance to the next stage.
And I was okay with that.
We didn't need to have another traditional
CrossFit workout.
Wait, you're gonna use this one event
to determine who's moving on
for the rest of the weekend?
The Top Ten?
[Marquez] Katrin, Annie, Sara,
three of the Dottirs and biggest names in the sport
are on the bubble.
On the men's side you have Patrick Vellner,
second place from the previous year,
three-time podium finisher Cole Sager,
a handful of other big names that... guys we're used to seeing in the top ten
year after year.
They're in danger of going home
before we even get into the meat of the weekend.
That was probably my biggest letdown in the Games.
How can you make such sweeping cuts in something that is...
[snaps finger] like that?
[intense music]
[Woodland] One cut remains here as we get set to start Event Six.
A bracket-style event, The Sprint.
[intense music]
[energetic music]
Holte looks like she may have a step on Toomey.
And now, the race to the finish. This one's gonna be close!
And it looks like Holte may have edged out Toomey
for the heat win.
[intense music]
First qualifying heat for the men is underway.
[Ohlsen] I just opened up and ran as fast as I could at the beginning.
[Woodland] Good cut by Ohlsen in the middle of the field.
[Ohlsen] When I crossed the finish line, they said that I was first in my heat,
I was so shocked.
[Woodland] Ohlsen across, he's gonna take the heat,
and now, we see where everyone else clocks in.
[intense music]
[suspenseful music]
[Adams] I was in ninth.
When they released the sprint event,
my heart like kind of dropped,
because Brooke was like a track athlete.
All those girls are so fast.
[Hinshaw] Haley runs a 5:20 mile.
Incredible distance athlete.
In my opinion, she was not prepared for that sprint event.
But you know what she said?
"I got this."
[Woodland] Haley Adams and Brooke Wells lining up right next to each other
in this heat.
It was something that I knew that I could excel in.
So that's why I was nervous, 'cause just like,
it was important for me to do really well in that event.
[Woodland] Haley Adams in at 28.05.
She'll edge out Brooke Wells by a tenth of a second.
[Adams] I won my heat. I was like, "I literally did it!"
So I knew after that,
'cause I just had to beat the people
that were kind of close to me,
and I did that, I had made it.
[Woodland] I think something happened there.
It looks like Brooke Wells is talking to her judge.
My judge was the only one with his hand raised,
so I walked over, I'm like, "Why is your hand raised?"
And he's like, "You hit the yellow line."
Adrian, when he's in the back, our head judge, briefed,
if you step on the line, that's a ten-second penalty.
[Woodland] If you stepped on the line, you're done.
That is, basically, you're DQ'ed.
[Castro] I didn't think anyone was gonna step on the line.
I didn't think we'd have to address it.
[suspenseful music]
And I felt horrible that that had to happen.
I was like, "This sucks. This sucks that Brooke has to get...
such a big ding for something like that."
But again, it's what we briefed.
We bring the guys out, and I walk up and down the line,
and I tell every single [bleep] guy, "Don't step on the line."
[Vellner] I had a very clear job to do.
I was in tenth place.
The only way I was getting through is that I had to like run for my life.
[Woodland] Vellner's gotta get himself at least into a semifinal heat here.
Gudmundsson across the finish line.
Vellner's gonna get fifth, 26.11.
But that is faster than some of the times that we saw in the prior heat,
so he could be okay here.
I was just carrying too much speed,
didn't give myself enough space on the corner.
Came across and I hit the line before I hit the finish.
Even had they not... had that penalty not existed,
I still wasn't fast enough.
Yeah. He got cut,
and I'm standing on the sidelines with him just like...
"What the [bleep] is happening?"
How are these guys getting cut out of the competition?
[Davidsdottir] I was sitting outside the Top Ten.
I felt like I was running for my life.
[Woodland] Davidsdottir is third at 28.79.
That might get her in.
[Davidsdottir] After that first run was probably
the most stressed I've been the whole weekend.
[Woodland] Sigmundsdottir is 29.55. She may not be advancing.
We're waiting to find out who goes on to the next round of the sprint event.
We were just sitting there waiting, and then, they called the last name.
[Woodland] And there's one spot left.
And it's Katrin Davidsdottir.
[Davidsdottir] That's probably the most relief I've ever felt.
I got to fight for more.
And I got to fight for the rest of the weekend.
[Vellner] I think the only guys I beat were the ones that got DQ'ed
for stepping on that line at the end.
Yep, I'm on the sideline, spectating.
Watching Noah just crush more points.
[Woodland] Noah Ohlsen has a huge opportunity here
to put some more distance between himself and Mat Fraser.
[Ohlsen] I was very vaguely aware that Mat hadn't made the first cut,
and I thought that would bode well for me.
[Woodland] All five athletes take the turn at the same time,
Björgvin Karl Gudmundsson opening up a slight lead
on Noah Ohlsen.
- A sprint to the finish. - [Ingraham] There goes Saxon.
[Woodland] And it's Saxon Panchik
by three one-hundredths of a second.
He's gonna win the event, and that is gigantic!
Winner take all, final heat.
All five athletes dead even.
Halfway through.
Final sprint to the pylon.
And it's Kristin Holte who will win the event.
[Ingraham] Huge win for Kristin.
[Woodland] Tia Toomey will take third.
[crowd cheers]
[Vellner] Weird event to cut ten athletes for.
I bet you now we're gonna start doing some CrossFit.
And it's gonna be really sweet.
It's too bad there's gonna be no CrossFitters left.
I ended up taking third overall,
which I believe makes me the third fastest man in the world.
Probably not.
That cut was the harshest.
It was cutthroat, like no one could look anyone in the eye.
[crowd cheers]
[Thorisdottir] It frustrates me, and I'm disappointed.
But I also know I shouldn't have been in that situation anyways.
I can confidently say that this is the fittest I've ever been in my life.
And I really thought I had a good shot of running like...
to be on the podium this year.
I can't like watch the girls out there
knowing that I should be out there.
It was a hard weekend.
Sara and Sam walk up to me, and they're like,
"Tia, we're rooting for you. Good luck."
You know, "We're gonna be cheering for you."
And I was like, "What are you even talking about?"
And they're like, "We just got cut."
We're looking for other things that are going on this weekend
- that we can sign up for. - [Cannon] Yeah?
There's a Half Ironman.
Only 30 minute drive away.
[Cannon] I think you would smash at Half Ironman.
- I'll come. - Yeah!
When does it start? Tomorrow morning? Let's go!
- It starts tomorrow, yeah. - Give me a bike.
I'll get a swimsuit.
- There's some bikes there! - Yeah. Can we steal these bikes?
[Sigmundsdottir] I keep the blue one.
- You don't need wheels. - It has a chain.
- Yeah. - [both laugh]
We were all pretty shocked how much they cut us.
And like, we trained [bleep] all year for this result.
It's weird with the cut,
I feel like the Games are literally just starting.
- [Sager] They are. - So, it's like...
weird, but...
I think these whole Games have kind of just been like that.
Take it on the chin.
Ah, it sucks.
I can't say I didn't expect it,
'cause I mean, I'm not the best sprinter.
And going into like a single elimination event like that for a cut to ten athletes
I think is unreasonable.
But, I mean, woke up this morning feeling like,
"Well, I'm just gonna send it as hard as I can."
And I did, and that's why I stepped on the line,
because I was pushing as hard as I could to try to get any time I could.
That's the way it goes. Like...
go down swinging at least, right?
So... I don't know, it's a growing year. It sucks.
It feels weird because it's... we're halfway through the competition,
and I feel like we haven't done any meaningful CrossFit yet.
We've run three times.
But like, I want to like
go get my hands on some CrossFit Games events,
and I feel like now we're gonna start doing that.
And, you know, some of the top CrossFit Games athletes
are not gonna be there to do it.
Then, the CrossFit Games tweeted out,
"Now that we found the fittest, I believe,
now we're gonna test strength."
As if strength wasn't a reasonable piece in the filtering process
required to find the fittest up until that point.
I mean, there was a significant criticism
in that there wasn't a good strength component in the programming
up to that point, which calls into question,
legitimately, in my opinion,
whether or not the ten athletes on the floor there
are the ten fittest athletes on Earth.
[Cannon] You think the events we've had so far
have been a fair test to fitness to narrow it down to ten?
[bleep] no.
If you allowed the top 20 to compete
through the whole week,
I'd say...
four or five of the top ten that finished
where they were would still be in the top ten.
I feel like it would have been better CrossFit Games overall
if we would have kept 20 athletes, at least, through all of Saturday.
I would have certainly left it till the end of Saturday.
Maybe played out in my favor.
If they change things next year,
my suggestion would be to save the top ten just for Sunday.
Let a few more people ride it out for the rest of the week.
Top ten right now.
Amanda Barnhart, ten. Going ten to one.
Amanda Barnhart, Katrin Davidsdottir, Bethany Shadburne,
Anna Fragkou, Thuridur Helgadottir,
Haley Adams, Kari Pearce, Jamie Greene, Kristin Holte, Tia-Clair Toomey.
Five point spread between Tia-Clair Toomey and Kristin Holte.
That's gonna be a fun battle to play out.
[Sawyers] Is there Dottirs? I didn't hear you say Dottirs.
Yeah, two Dottirs. Thuridur and Katrin Davidsdottir.
- [Sawyers] Annie's out? - Annie's gone. Sara's gone.
Noah Ohlsen has a significant lead over Mat Fraser.
It is 65 points between Mat Fraser and Noah Ohlsen right now.
There are so many emotions from athletes,
obviously not being happy with the cuts.
But then, they brought in different movements that had never been done
at the CrossFit Games before.
A dumbbell split snatch,
and a dumbbell clean and split jerk.
[Fraser] I'm gonna go out as hard as I can.
Hold onto it as long as I can.
If I crash and burn in the process,
who cares, I'm still a loser.
For me, second place or tenth place is the same thing.
It's not winning.
[Woodland] I am so excited to see Noah Ohlsen in this event.
He's being chased by the three-time Fittest Man on Earth, Mat Fraser.
And you know he's coming out hot.
[horn blows]
[Adams] My very first pegboard, I got up probably three, four, five holes,
and I fell off.
[Woodland] Mat Fraser in the green, Noah Ohlsen in the red shorts.
First two men onto their hang split snatches
at 80 pounds.
[Toomey] When you're out on the competition floor,
you just want to keep going as fast as you can.
But with this particular workout, you actually had to stop and think
about every single movement you were doing.
[Woodland] You have to put the opposite leg forward
than the arm with which you're lifting.
Right hand, left foot, and then transition left hand,
and you have to remember take it out of the hang.
I got my fair share of no-reps on that one.
[Woodland] Fraser and Ohlsen, dead even through Round One.
We move on to Round Two.
[dramatic music]
Tia Toomey is the only woman on Round Three,
and it ain't even close right now.
If Fraser and Ohlsen finish next to each other,
all Fraser can pick up is ten points.
[Toomey] And that was, I would probably say,
one of my favorite workouts I've ever done.
[Woodland] Tia Toomey, picking up her second event win
in the competition.
[Toomey] I really wanted to stamp the ground and be like,
"Nah. I'm gonna do this for everyone that should be out here today."
[crowd cheers]
[Woodland] He's back!
Mat Fraser wins Event Seven!
[crowd cheers]
[Fraser] I'm sitting at the finish line
and B.K.G. and Noah get to the dumbbell about the same time.
[Woodland] Here comes Noah Ohlsen. They're dead even with ten reps to go!
[Fraser] Oh, no! Go faster! Like I need you to middle
between Noah and I.
I can hear the crowd starting to amp up,
and I figured that my last couple I passed him.
[Woodland] Ohlsen has moved ahead of Gudmundsson.
Ohlsen is done, and he will finish second.
[Ohlsen] Jumped up onto the finish line,
knew that I had taken second in that heat,
which would probably fare well for me
on the leaderboard as well.
[Fraser] Oh, good. I won the event by a minute.
And he's right behind me still.
Sweet. Ten points.
[laughs]
On the men's side, I think we're actually lining up
for a spectacular finish.
We don't know how many events are tomorrow,
but everyone's speculating a swimming event.
Noah's a good swimmer.
Assuming that Mat closes the gap on him a little bit
in the heavy lifting event, Noah might, you know...
re-extend his lead, or retake the lead in the swimming event,
and then, with only a couple of events left on the last day,
if Noah's in it, man, this crowd is for him.
The adrenaline's high. I don't think it's out of the question
that he could win.
[Cannon] What did you just see?
I just looked at the women's updated standings.
[Cannon] What's the updated standings?
Tia has extended her lead,
Holte, Greene, and Kari Pearce
were super close for second through fourth.
And I think it's probably gonna stay that way.
The women's field down to ten,
I think, has kind of two clear groups of women.
Katrin being in that group I just mentioned,
and the other five girls, taking nothing against them,
but over, you know, a long weekend, and a bunch of events,
those other five girls, you know, Katrin and that group,
have so much experience.
I think they'll continue to...
To distinguish themselves and pull away.
But if you had told me a week ago
that someone other than Fraser,
anyone in the field other than Fraser,
had a 50-point lead on him
heading into the Saturday night event,
I would have bet you all the cheese curds in the town.
[intense music]
[Davidsdottir] There were so many emotions, that big cut,
and then you have this big One-Rep Clean event.
[intense music]
[Marquez] You're down to only ten athletes,
there's one platform in the middle of the competition floor
in the Coliseum.
And one by one, athletes have to step up to the plate
and outlift their opponent.
[rock music]
[Woodland] Men's start with 315.
You go all the way up to 385
unless you need another barbell or two.
[Fraser]I loved that that's how they programmed it.
[Woodland] Mat Fraser, 55 points back of Noah Ohlsen.
[Fraser] But then, at the same time,
I was petrified
because the most I've cleaned in about a year is 345.
[rock music]
[Woodland] Two hundred fifteen pounds is the opening weight for the women.
[Ingraham] Are you sure that's not the opening weight for the men?
[Adams] Well, when he announced the weights,
I'm like, that's like my one-rep max.
And I'm not gonna be able to do that right now
after a three-day competition...
[Woodland] Shadburne struggling to get out of the hole.
Two fifteen for Kari Pearce.
Ended up tying with two other girls.
[Woodland] And now the tiebreaker
for the three women who couldn't hit 215.
They'll step up with 195 pounds.
They have to clean it five times as fast as they can.
[Castro] It's kind of alarming to me that they're able to squat snatch
what they squat snatched for multiple reps on the first cut.
It didn't translate to being able to clean 205 though.
[Woodland] Shadburne will hit that, so she will take ninth in the event,
and Haley Adams will take tenth.
[Toomey] There was no weight on that bar
that I wouldn't have been able to lift that night.
[Ohlsen] It was just adrenaline going.
The crowd was screaming.
And it's all eyes on you.
[rhythmic music]
[Woodland] Amanda Barnhart and Tia Toomey, going toe-to-toe here.
Two sixty for Barnhart.
If she's gonna put out, like that means that I have to
step up to that level, and I have to put out as well.
[Fraser] I figured some guys would start dropping off at 345, 355.
There was a big group that kept going till 365, 370.
[Woodland] Ohlsen fighting it, and he won't get it,
so now we'll have a tiebreaker between Noah Ohlsen and Saxon Panchik.
Either sixth place or fifth place for Ohlsen.
First of five reps at 295 pounds.
Four reps down, one remains.
This one's gonna come down to the sprint to the finish.
Both athletes with the barbell down.
- Here we go! - [Ingraham] Oh, no way!
[Woodland] Oh, and it's gonna be Noah Ohlsen!
[Ingraham] You gotta be kidding me!
[Woodland] By three one-hundredths of a second.
Keep that in mind tomorrow.
[dramatic music]
[crowd cheers]
- Scott Panchik... - [Ingraham] Yes.
[Woodland] Will stand this up. He will hit that lift.
- Mat Fraser... - [Ingraham] Textbook.
[Woodland] He will make it.
It's gonna be Panchik versus Fraser
for the win.
[crowd cheers]
Two hundred sixty-five pounds for Amanda Barnhart.
[Toomey] Amanda, unfortunately, missed her 265.
All I thought was like, "This is my shot."
[Woodland] And now it's Tia Toomey.
She hits this lift,
she wins her second straight event.
She misses, we go to the tiebreaker.
[Toomey] I knew I could stand that up.
It's just, in the back of your head, you're also thinking,
"Oh, I've also done a ruck run, I've also done so many other workouts,
can I actually stand this up?"
[crowd cheers]
[Woodland] And that will do it!
Two straight event wins
for the defending CrossFit Games champion!
[Ingraham] Ridiculous!
[crowd cheers]
[Toomey] Even thinking about it,
I can feel the goosebumps was coming.
And I just wanted to roar as loud as the crowd.
[Woodland] Tia Toomey will nearly double her lead over Kristin Holte
in the overall standings as she takes yet another event win.
[rock music]
[Sammy] You know, you go to the zoo, and you walk up to the tiger exhibit,
and there's just this one tiger that's like lurking right along the glass,
just kind of looking at all the kids.
[Woodland] Three hundred eighty pounds on the barbell here.
The crowd on its feet as Panchik makes his first attempt.
- And he will not get it. - [Ingraham] Not gonna have it.
[Fraser] Scott missed 380.
[Woodland] If Fraser misses, we go to a tie-break.
I do not want to go into a power clean race
at 295 with Scott Panchik.
He will dust me.
[Woodland] Mat Fraser for the event win.
[Fraser] I haven't cleaned 380 in years.
So I was like, "All right. Let's go."
They say you don't do well under pressure. Let's [bleep] see.
[dramatic music]
[Woodland] Three eighty for the three-time champ.
[Sammy] Cheering so hard, and hoping that like anything I can send out there
was gonna help.
And then, to hear everyone else.
I'm like, "Yes! They want it too!"
[Sawyers] Everybody looking at this one guy
in this one moment.
Can Mat prove to everybody why he's the fittest,
and why he's the best in the sport?
[Woodland] Fraser hits this, he wins the event.
[intense music]
Come on, Mat! Come on, Mat!
- [Woodland] Mat's town... - [Ingraham] Oh!
[Woodland] ...is still Mat's town!
[Ingraham] Yes!
[crowd cheers]
[O'Keefe] His reaction tells the whole story.
That was like pure joy, you know? It really was.
[Fraser] That was the best moment I've ever had at the CrossFit Games.
[crowd cheers]
[Woodland] Get your popcorn ready, everybody,
'cause Sunday is going to be a show at the CrossFit Games.
[Marquez] For Tia and Mat, when the other athlete faltered,
they stepped up to the plate
and knocked that final barbell out of the park.
And when it really mattered most, especially for Mat,
to kind of let everyone know that, "Hey, you may be hanging with me now,
but when it really, really counts, I've got another gear,
and I've got another level, and I'm the best."
Wild out there.
I was ready to run through a wall.
And I need these points. I'm taking these points.
I've like never tried to like get hyped off the audience,
of like intensely trying to get... hype them up.
I was like, I don't care.
I'm putting all pride aside. I'll take whatever I can get.
I think the changes that they started making for the Games, you know,
they're different.
But it will challenge us to be better.
And we will start expecting more from ourselves, in that respect.
But... I'm a little disappointed with the cuts
earlier today, just because...
if that was me, I'd be gutted.
[reporter] Dave at the end.
Are you convinced you have the top ten
best CrossFitters in the world?
Yeah, absolutely.
These guys proved it over a number of events.
He just said something a well-known, popular athlete's not making the cut.
This event isn't about total Instagram followers.
This event is about the [bleep] fittest in the world.
[crowd cheers]
And that's what these guys have proven.
They've stepped up to the challenge,
and have gone through all the tests
that we presented them,
and we have the appropriate
people representing
for the top ten.
- [crowd cheers] - They are the best.
I just want to go home and...
eat a little bit, and relax, I'm probably in bed so early.
I don't know why I'm like exhausted from today.
[Cannon] You don't know why?
It was a mentally draining day.
[Cannon] You're at the CrossFit Games,
- It's gonna be exhausting. - [laughs]
Yeah. It's kind of crazy, but we were done before 4:00.
That's like never, ever happened at the CrossFit Games before, I think.
[boy] Can you sign me and my brother's hat?
We got that chimichurri though.
[laughs]
- That was for you. - Well done, sweetheart.
How are you doing?
- Good. - Oh! Jumped out of my seat!
[Woodland on TV huge for Noah. So Ohlsen's gonna finish fifth.
That gives him 60 points.
[Fraser] Saxon kicked his [bleep]
wrong leg forward.
Oh!
That might be the most electric I've seen that stadium.
You know, we talked about it before he went on the floor,
I was like, "Dude...
use the crowd. Like you've got to."
These guys are on like full tilt right now, right?
Like, you know, they're beat up. But...
That, yeah, we get after it in the box.
We solve all the problems in the world. [laughs]
- [Woodland on TV] Come on, Mat! - [Ingraham on TV] Oh, yes!
[Woodland on TV] Mat's town is still Mat's town!
Two straight wins at [inaudible].
[Sammy] You're hyped up. And then you scream.
And then, you come down, and you're like, ah!
Little faint.
And then, you get about, I don't know,
whatever, two minutes,
and then you do it all over again.
I mean, it's better than lifting the actual weight,
but, yeah, it was amazing.
[Fraser] Tell them about our first year at the Games.
When we had to share a bed.
2014, first night at the CrossFit Games.
Getting ready.
Mat and I snuggled in a double bed.
Not a king size bed.
It was a queen size bed.
[Fraser] I told them.
I told him when we went to bed, I was like, "Hey, man.
Like don't be concerned, if you wake up and I'm cuddling you.
'Cause I'm a cuddler."
[laughs]
And then, he woke up, and I'm just like
latched onto his side.
[laughs]
[Sammy] What the hell?
You are not a cuddler!
I never get cuddled at night.
You liar!
[man] This is the...
[Ohlsen] Uh yeah, this is my squad.
Joann, Guido, Andre, Bijan, Julian,
yeah, just good people.
- Good energy. - [women] Noah! Noah!
- Hey! - [crowd cheers]
I gotta say hi to this dog. What's up, guys?
How's it going?
Man, I appreciate all you guys,
but I'm so interested in this dog.
[everyone laughs]
Can I pet this dog?
Is that okay? Hi, Bud!
Thank you, so much.
You having fun out here?
Can I take a selfie with you?
Can I grab a selfie with you?
[Ohlsen] Yeah, you can.
You're a good boy, huh?
Boy or a girl?
- [woman] A boy. - What's his name?
He's not really looking at me.
He called the Peak line, and I actually answered the phone.
Like very few CrossFit gyms do nowadays.
And it was,
"Hey, I'm interested in whatever you guys got going on."
I said, "Stop by."
I was super into aesthetics back then.
Like every college kid,
I wanted to be ripped and jacked.
And on the poster,
it was Guido running on the beach.
And he was shredded.
I was like, "Oh, my God. I want to look like that guy.
That's what CrossFit does?"
"Hello? Sir, I'm in." So...
You don't even know that that was super photo-shopped.
- [both laugh] - Got me.
Leaving the stadium last night, somebody said,
"Noah, was that the best moment of your life?"
And I said, "Getting engaged, then that."
[clicks tongue] Gotcha babe.
[Cannon] Is that the right answer?
Are we supposed to kiss now?
[both laugh]
Yeah.
You have something in your teeth.
- So you do want to kiss? - [laughs]
- It was the true answer. - Yeah.
- That was sweet. Thank you. - Yeah.
I don't know, that moment was really, genuinely was walking away,
thinking like how can I absorb more of this energy and good feeling
that I feel right now, because, I don't know,
I feel like that could fill me up for the entire year
just based on that moment right there,
and all those people, and that's pretty cool.
[sweeping music]
[dramatic music]
[Marquez] So going into Sunday, the first event was the swim.
Tia-Clair Toomey's at the top, and really kind of running away with it,
and is, you know, establishing herself as, basically, as the champion once again.
The thing we didn't expect was to see Mat Fraser not in first place
going into Sunday.
The last couple years, he's had a monumental lead
going into the final day of competition.
[O'Keefe] Not only does he need to really win
most of the events at this point,
but staring us on the schedule in the face
is that he can't just win, you know, the events.
Unless there's some sort of double event that shows up.
Good morning, dude.
I looked at the schedule, I was like,
"Wow, There's only three events left
for me to try to hold on to this thing."
I know one of them is going to be a swim.
So I was feeling really good. I was excited.
[Castro] Go straight ahead, swim around them, and back.
Swim 1,000. Grab your paddleboard.
Paddle 1,000.
Four times.
You know, that was the one event all weekend
that I wanted to grab the win.
I knew Matty McLeod was a really good swimmer.
And Tia as well.
Like I've swum with Tia a lot.
She's like a fish in the water, so...
[Toomey] This year was 1,000 meters,
and I was pumped.
I was like, "The longer, the better."
[Woodland] Ninth event to kick off
Day Number Four here.
[Toomey] At the start of the event,
the boys got at the start again!
And I'm like, "Man, well, at least I've only gotta get past ten, right?"
Tap Noah on the shoulder, I'm like, "Hey, Noah?
Like, move over, man, I'm coming through."
He's like, "Yep, no worries, Tia."
[dramatic music]
[horn blows]
[energetic music]
[Woodland] Underway with the swim here. This is chaos.
But it's also very violent.
[Toomey] Immediately, as soon as we passed the boys, I'm like,
"I'm out to beat the boys."
[Woodland] Matt McLeod and Tia Toomey
the early leaders here
on this 1,000-meter swim.
Toomey and McLeod, the two Australians,
a sizeable lead
as they make the turn for home.
They will come out of the water, grab their paddleboards,
and get right back in.
[Toomey] And I look over, and I notice, it's Matt McLeod.
I'm like, "Oh, howdy, mate."
[energetic music]
And then, I start noticing, I was like,
"This mate over here, he's dragging behind me,
and I'm doing all the work."
So I was like,
"Matt, get up over here.
Come on."
[Woodland] Noah Ohlsen,
Bethany Shadburne,
and James Newbury making the transition
to the paddleboard,
as is Björgvin Karl Gudmundsson.
Now, Mat Fraser getting set to come out of the water,
but he is way back in the pack.
[Fraser] Try to come in
as closely behind Noah as possible.
Don't panic, don't go out too hot.
[Woodland] Matt McLeod and Tia Toomey continue to lead on the paddleboard.
[Toomey] Obviously, we're both gonna get first if we just play the game right.
And, at the end, we'll just bring it.
And we'll see whoever crosses the line first out of the two of us.
[Woodland] James Newbury, on the orange paddleboard on the left,
has passed Noah Ohlsen.
[Ohlsen] He came up, he's like, "Hey, mate! How ya doing?"
I was like, "Man, I'm great! How are you?"
He's like, "This is so good, huh?"
I was like, "Yeah, man.
How cool is it that this is our job?"
He's like, "Yeah. It's pretty awesome.' See you later."
And I was like, "Dang. All right, see you, bro."
And he took off.
[Woodland] Matt McLeod and Tia Toomey,
the two Australians coming in together,
and they are both going to rack up another event win.
[Toomey] I said, "Hand your board off carefully."
But as soon as our feet hit the ground, we're sprinting to the end.
[Woodland] And they're gonna race each other,
- it's not gonna matter. - [Ingraham] Love it.
[Toomey] And so we're just like running, and I'm like running,
and I'm like elbowing him a little bit, like, "Come on, Matty, let's go."
[Woodland] Matt McLeod and Tia Toomey, Aussie pride on display
as they both win the event.
Here comes James Newbury. He will take second.
Noah Ohlsen, the overall leader after eight events,
is gonna hang on to that white leader's jersey.
[Ohlsen] I ended up finishing third there.
I think that went about as well as it could have gone.
[Woodland] Now, the question is, where is Mat Fraser?
[Fraser] I went, "Oh, shit. This is gonna be rough."
[dramatic music]
[Woodland] Mat Fraser is in.
And he will take fifth place in Event Number Nine.
Heck, yeah!
Hey, puppies!
- Hi, pups! Can I say hi? - Yeah, of course!
Noah just took 20 points on Mat, right?
So... and he was already ahead.
I mean, this one cost him a lot.
Mat can win all the rest of the events,
but there's not enough guys. I don't know.
Came into the swim event 15 points behind.
Came out of the swim event 35 points behind.
So it definitely didn't help my cause.
[O'Keefe] The swim ended, and, you know, where he finished...
put him at what looked like almost near impossible deficit.
[Marquez] Because there aren't enough athletes and enough points on the table
to just beat Noah and win out.
[Ohlsen] In my mind we only had two more events left,
and at that point, when I saw my coach Max in the warmup area,
I looked at him, and I was like, "Dude, we could do this, huh?"
And he's like, "We can do this."
[Fraser] I was doing a lot of, you know, evaluating.
A lot of justifications of, "It's okay. I have an amazing life."
[crowd cheers]
[Ohlsen] They brought us to the Coliseum
to announce the final events of the evening.
Surprise, surprise, the second to last event ended up being a two-piece event,
which, in hindsight, wasn't great for me, 'cause the more scores there were,
the more shift there could be on the leaderboard.
[O'Keefe] I remember sitting next to Shane, and I was like, [bleep] yes.
[Cannon] So with the announcement of two workouts back-to-back,
and then a third one to come, that's very good news for Mat Fraser.
[Fraser] I knew, hammer through this first one recklessly.
I'll be able to punch it harder on the second one
than anyone else.
[crowd cheers]
[horn blows]
[Woodland] Final heat of Ringer 1 is underway,
and look at James Newbury crank away on those 30 calories.
[man] I remember watching James Newbury get on the bike in Ringer 1,
and thinking, "He is going to kill himself."
[Fraser] When I would hit that assault bike
way more aggressively than I ever would have
if I was in the lead.
And he bought in and did so well with like staying present,
and addressing what he could address in each moment.
[Woodland] James Newbury is done.
Thirty-four seconds.
James Newbury hooked in that assault bike.
And that was impressive.
[Newbury] I gave it everything in that first 30 cals,
and then, when I got up on the rings, I knew I had time.
But I knew I couldn't slack off in the 20 cals.
[Woodland] So Ohlsen and Fraser about even.
James Newbury back on the bike, 20 calories,
he's about halfway through this event.
And here comes Fraser. He moves into second.
Gudmundsson now in third.
Noah Ohlsen has some ground
to make up here in this event.
He's off the rings and onto the bike.
James Newbury stays in the lead.
Come on!
[O'Keefe] You know that he's thrown
everything he's got in every moment,
especially with an assault bike.
And he's catching up to James,
and that's ten points
are gonna be the difference between him winning
and not winning the CrossFit Games.
That's that moment.
And his mother, and brother, and father are thinking it.
Sammy's thinking it.
We're uncomfortable too, right?
[Woodland] Watch James Newbury on the left.
Can he finish this?
But here comes Mat Fraser.
[Fraser] Don't be scared. If you fail, you lose nothing,
you're in the same position you're in coming into it.
You have nowhere to go but up.
[Woodland] Newbury's done. Fraser's done.
Ten reps to go!
[crowd cheers]
Newbury's off. He's gonna win the event.
Fraser's off. He'll take second.
[Newbury] I put out pretty much everything I had,
and drained my battery pretty hard.
I was pretty surprised to see Mat
only a second behind me,
or two seconds behind me.
[Woodland] So Mat Fraser cuts 20 points
off of Noah Ohlsen's lead.
Five more athletes remaining to go here in the second and final heat.
And they are your top five.
Katrin Davidsdottir,
she comes in in fifth place overall.
[Davidsdottir] Those are my favorite kinds of workouts.
The ones where you just get to go, it's in the Coliseum.
[energetic music]
[Woodland] How many times has Katrin Davidsdottir
had her back against the wall, and then come out swinging?
Just went out really hard without red lining.
And then, I just held.
[Woodland] Davidsdottir is done with her 30 calories,
and now, onto her 30 toes-to-rings.
[Davidsdottir] We do this a lot in training where we just go really hard.
And then, we recover and see if we can do it again.
And sometimes I can't. Sometimes I go too hard.
But that kind of teaches you about that red line zone.
[Woodland] Katrin Davidsdottir doesn't have a choice here.
If she wants a shot at the podium, she has to win events.
[crowd cheers]
Katrin Davidsdottir doing work. The sled dog wins Event Ten.
I like seeing how people carry themselves in the rest.
Like what are they thinking?
Are they like, "Oh, shit, I'm dying."
Going in too early. Or are they like fired up
for the next one even though their legs are still burning?
Even just sprinting towards the rings, I was like,
"Oh, shit, my legs are like jelly right now."
[Woodland] Sixty total repetitions in this event,
and we start with those 50 burpees, the rings,
and Davidsdottir is off to a great start.
[Ingraham] You need to go full send here.
There is no other option but go.
And Katrin Davidsdottir is doing just that.
[Woodland] And now, ten burpees to rings
for the two-time CrossFit Games champion.
[Davidsdottir] It's always that middle round,
second movement, it always goes.
That's when you're like, "Holy crap. Like this burns."
[Toomey] Those overhead squats were painful.
If anyone tells you otherwise, they are lying.
[Woodland] Final reps for Davidsdottir.
Two for two for Katrin.
Two wins, 200 points inside the Coliseum.
[crowd cheers]
[Davidsdottir] Two hundred points at that time in the Game, that's crucial.
Like I needed that. Like I was there to fight.
I didn't have anything to lose.
I think I recover better than anyone.
You give me a minute rest, and I'm back to 95% of my fresh-ability.
[Woodland] Can Noah Ohlsen hold off Mat Fraser?
Second and final heat of Event 11.
Ringer 2.
[Fraser] I kept telling myself,
"You can do anything for two minutes."
Just hold your breath and go.
I've nothing to lose, so who cares.
[Woodland] Mat Fraser leads. First man to the barbell.
[Fraser] You know, legs were heavy, hands were screaming.
[Ohlsen] I was trying to finish as quickly as I could.
I could tell that my burpees were sluggish,
but my body was hurting,
so I just tried to go through those.
[Woodland] Björgvin Gudmundsson sits in second.
Noah Ohlsen is in third.
Again, if this holds in this event,
regardless of where these men finish,
Mat Fraser is going to take the white jersey
from Noah Ohlsen.
[Fraser] My life resume after this is gonna be different.
Two minutes that I don't want to regret.
Don't leave anything, anything to what if. Just go.
[dramatic music]
[Woodland] And Mat Fraser is zeroing in on the top of the overall leaderboard.
Give me my jersey!
He is your new overall leader.
Mat Fraser wins Event 11.
[crowd cheers]
So now, Noah Ohlsen has got to worry about dropping out of the top three.
He's across the finish line. He will take fifth in the event.
[bleep]
We're all emotional to be honest.
I mean, his back's against the wall.
He needed help.
I mean, it's just things that are out of his control right now.
That easily can take over your performance.
You know?
To be able to go out and just execute
knowing that that's all you can do,
win both workouts in a situation like that.
That's, that's a competitor.
I don't think I've ever had a more stressful two days
in my entire life.
But it shouldn't be easy, right?
So going into the final event, Mat takes the lead.
He's back wearing the white leader's jersey.
Everybody's looking at him.
They're like, does Noah have what it takes?
Does he have that drive, that fire, to be able to best Fraser
when he's trying to get his fourth win in a row?
[Fraser] I went into the final event with a 25-point lead,
ten points per spot.
So I knew if Noah finished ahead of me,
I could only allow one person to middle us for me to still win.
[Marquez] It started with Grace,
which is 30 clean and jerks on the barbell for time.
And it finished with Isabel,
which is 30 snatches for time on the barbell.
But the middle part was kind of the crux of the workout for a lot of people,
which was 30 ring muscle-ups.
Ring muscle-ups were one of Noah Ohlsen's best movements.
So the question now was,
could Noah do enough on the ring muscle-ups
to put enough distance between himself and Mat
in order to be crowned Fittest on Earth?
[Toomey] As I'm walking out, I just got goosebumps.
And I couldn't help but think, "Hell, yeah.
This is my time to rock."
[arena announcer] Toomey!
[Woodland] Tia Toomey has mathematically clinched here.
She's gotta get through this event to make it official.
Kristin Holte's trying to hang on to second place overall.
It would be her first career podium finish at the CrossFit Games.
Katrin Davidsdottir and Jamie Greene, they're gonna have a battle.
Whoever wins the event between the two of them
stands on the podium.
[Fraser] Going onto the floor, I knew...
this is bigger than just...
this Games. This is bigger than just this one victory.
[suspenseful music]
It's winning or nothing.
[suspenseful music]
So I'm not gonna try to play it safe to keep a podium spot.
I'm going for broke.
[suspenseful music]
[horn blows]
[Woodland] One event stands
between Tia Toomey and history. We are underway.
[Ingraham] Tia Toomey going for singles.
Kristin Holte as well.
But on the right side of the floor,
Jamie Greene and Amanda Barnhart
are choosing touch and go reps.
[Toomey] I knew not to get caught up in their race.
But I knew I just needed to get through those muscle-ups,
and then I was going to secure my third title.
[Ingraham] What he's doing is keeping a comfortable distance
between him and Mat Fraser
knowing that his advantage is coming on the rings.
[Woodland] Toomey is done.
Jamie Greene trying to work her way onto the podium,
the battle for third is between her and Katrin Davidsdottir.
Mat Fraser onto the rings.
[Fraser] I knew it was an okay workout for me,
but I knew it was a great workout for Noah.
[Ohlsen] I decided to be smart about it, do sets of five,
keep short, little breaks.
[Woodland] Second set of ten for Mat Fraser.
Tia Toomey, with every rep inching closer to history.
[Toomey] I hadn't just gotten there by myself.
I'd gotten there with a team.
Half of my team is standing right in front of me,
and that's Shane Orr.
He's just like, "Come on."
[Woodland] Ohlsen takes the lead briefly as Fraser hops back up on the rings and gets to work.
And now, another break for Fraser.
And Noah Ohlsen has taken the lead!
[suspenseful music]
Ohlsen, the first man to the barbell, as Fraser will join him.
[Ohlsen] As I stepped forward to the barbell,
I heard everybody go crazy, and from my peripheral,
I could kind of see that I was the only one on the barbell.
I was like, "Sweet, they must be cheering for me."
[Woodland] Thirty reps remain for Tia Toomey.
Ninety-five pounds on the barbell.
Jamie Greene, meanwhile, is trying to hold off a comeback
from Katrin Davidsdottir.
[suspenseful music]
I just stopped, and got the crowd going.
[crowd cheers]
[Woodland] 2017 was the first.
2018 was the second.
2019 is history!
Tia Toomey has done it!
She is the first woman to win three CrossFit Games championships.
[dramatic music]
[crowd cheers]
[Fraser] It wouldn't matter how much pain I was in.
It wouldn't matter how much I was hurting.
I would have to black out.
Collapse on the floor before I let someone else pass me.
[Woodland] And look at Mat Fraser rip through these reps.
He would die.
He'd come off that floor on a stretcher before he'd lose.
[Woodland] Mat Fraser going touch and go again
for another set of five.
[Fraser] I'll hurt more than anyone here.
Without a doubt.
[Woodland] Mr. Froning, you have company.
For the fourth straight time, Mat Fraser is the CrossFit Games champion.
[crowd cheers]
Yeah!
[Woodland] Noah Ohlsen,
for the first time in his career,
will stand on the podium,
and Björgvin Gudmundsson will join him.
[crowd cheers]
[Fraser] Fourth straight victory.
First male athlete to have six podium finishes in a row.
It meant a lot.
It was... this was the Games for me.
[Castro] Ladies and gentlemen, your 2019 CrossFit Games champion!
Mat Fraser!
[crowd cheers]
[woman] Coming in seventh for his rookie season, Matt McLeod!
[crowd cheers]
Happy birthday.
[woman] ...Jacob Heppner!
What is this? [laughs]
[Toomey] I walk across the line,
I find Shane, and I give him the biggest hug.
He's like, "All right, good job. Now, go and cheer everyone else on."
I'm like, "I know. Let me one, catch my breath back.
And two, let's just like embrace this moment."
[Orr] Knowing that she come across the line is awesome, really cool.
You get me every time, Hiba.
[uplifting music]
[Woodland] Jamie Greene is in, and she will join Tia Toomey
on the CrossFit Games podium.
Kristin Holte, she may be wearing a silver medal around her neck
at the end of the evening.
But take nothing away from Katrin Davidsdottir.
She was basically left for dead heading into this win event,
found her way into the top ten.
I think I'm the most proud that I've been.
This weekend was not easy.
There was like a lot of ups and downs,
and I felt like I was able to keep a clear head through all of it.
I'll wait till it's official.
It always feels like something could happen,
they might throw another workout, so I'll wait till it's...
[Castro] Ladies and gentlemen, your 2019 female CrossFit Games champion!
It is our first three-time CrossFit Games champion,
Tia-Clair Toomey!
[Toomey] To be able to win three CrossFit Games championships
in a row, like, that's no easy feat.
And I was going up against such phenomenal athletes.
I was very proud.
[crowd cheers]
[applause]
We did it! [laughs]
Good job, buddy!
[congratulating each other]
That's the sweetest, you know?
I'd rather work for that. He's always worked for me.
I haven't experienced stress like that
in a long time, I don't know, ever.
Just wild. Work so hard, man.
It's just like gut-wrenching.
I see all the blood, sweat, and tears, you know?
It's crazy.
[uplifting music]
[Ohlsen] Been waiting for one of these for a long time.
- [man] How about this one? - I'll take it.
- Thanks, brother. - Cheers.
Got the American flag. Thanks, Jay.
It is what it is. I went with the flow.
I enjoyed the experience. I finished second in the world.
Finally got to stand up on the podium.
I definitely was able to like
really, really appreciate the moment,
and breathe it all in,
and share it with a lot of people that I love, so...
I loved this year at the Games, and I'm excited for more.
[Adams] I literally still look up to these girls,
and they've been my role model since I started,
so the fact that I was beating them, it just makes me want to work so hard,
because I know that I can be one of the best one day,
and I don't even know how to describe it.
You just... they're still my idols, so.
[Fraser] I've given up and dedicated a lot over the last four, five years
to doing this. A lot of sacrifices.
Put a lot of stuff on hold, missing out on a lot of fun things.
Four straight golds, like,
that's something that no one can take away.
That's forever.
[Toomey] I know the hard work that I've had to put in.
I've enjoyed it so much that there's no stopping me now.
I'm going to keep doing it because I love how much I've evolved.
And I love what I've become.
First impression, I'm happy.
There's a lot of little things I need to tweak and work on.
There's a lot of things I've already identified.
I'm not ready to share, but...
A lot of things we could do better. But there always is.
And it wouldn't be getting better if I wasn't thinking of what could be better.
But as far as finding the fittest people for this year,
fittest man and fittest woman, and fittest team,
we accomplished that, no doubt.
I don't think anybody can question that.
Going into the weekend, I was thinking if Mat and Tia don't win,
there's gonna be a lot of questions.
The fittest always end up on top.
[Sawyers] Despite all the craziness of the whole season,
you gotta hand it to them that, you know, it still works.
[Hinshaw] What makes it really incredible,
back to what I said about Tia and Mat,
didn't matter the order for them at all.
They still dominated.
And so maybe,
maybe that's what CrossFit will see is that
maybe all we care about is the first-place person.
And you know what? They persevered anyways.
No matter what order, no matter what format,
no matter where the cuts, they were still gonna come out on top.
So if I look at it, did we find the fittest on Earth?
Absolutely.
[dramatic music]
Usually it's harder to earn your spot at the Games than it was this year.
And then, once you get there, we go on this crazy journey together.
I don't feel like we took that journey together this year,
because it was so short.
People ask me like what did you learn from that?
And I'm like, I mean, I learned not to step on a line
and make a stupid mistake.
But it didn't have anything to do with my performance.
There's a reason that some names are familiar,
and that's because they consistently show up and prove
what we're used to seeing as fitness.
[dramatic music]
The aim is not necessarily to find the fittest... person,
the aim is to find the CrossFit Games champion.
And if that's the aim, then that's the aim.
And it could just be evolving,
and that's what we have to get used to.