Miles to Madison Ep. 01.21: Rich Froning, Haley Adams and Jonne Koski

our job today is to re-establish the confidence in the crossfit community that we can do it better our job today is to elevate to that level and beyond where we were in 2018. this is week one of three and we're only going to get better from here every year hundreds of thousands of people start the same journey but only a select few reach the destination the crossfit games in madison wisconsin this year we give you access to the elite athletes making that journey and for the first time ever an unprecedented look at what goes on behind the scenes every step of the way this is miles to madison [Music] hi everybody we are in santa cruz county california just two days away from the head-to-head matchup between carrie pierce and christy erima o'connell as part of the live 21.1 announcement but first another big last year we didn't have any open we barely had the crossfit games so last year was chaotic from all those angles but now we're we're entering 2021 and we're essentially putting our foot in the ground and saying look here we are here's our season we're doing it it's starting and it's gonna go on the hardest part about putting on an open event is getting all the right people in the right room and on the same sheet of music we have a super small crew that works on the open announcement so a lot of us are doing uh double duty if you will most of those people won't know exactly what the workout is until maybe an hour before air or if ever you know for a lot of people that are on this team so there's a lot of things that have to be done in secret there's also a lot of different things that are happening so it's a big challenge okay are you guys ready to talk format so from the top we'll start a little prior to 4 38 with a countdown to the pre-show that's a graphical countdown clock then come to sean and annie on our set being back and knowing what this an open announcement is going to look like i think it's going to serve as kind of a reminder to everybody that we are all part of something really cool and it is going to get back on track and back to the thing that i know we all loved before it was torn down in 2018. as an affiliate owner and as an athlete i've always been a fan of the sport of crossfit and it's just an honor to be able to be producing and helping bring some of the information to the fans derek will do a quick react to that and toss to rory who will be hopefully in the area where the athletes are warming up the feeling is the same you know like the other side of the lens the people that are watching that are going to get seen in different languages this time it's all speaking to them in the same way that it did 11 years ago when we first did it john and annie take it to talk about the 2021 season how athletes qualify for the games and so on i think we should talk about the season but do the real simple version [Music] crossfit season this year is totally different but that's actually not new we're starting with the open but instead of going straight to the semifinals we've added another stage called quarterfinals quarterfinals is taking the top 10 of the athletes from the open and giving them a another test a more comprehensive test 300 men 300 women move on to semifinals and then from those semi-final competitions you earn a qualifying spot to the crossfit games and if any athlete misses qualifying to the games from the semifinals by a spot or two then they get to go to a last chance qualifier which is actually really cool and exciting for the community 40 men and 40 women remain and they go to madison wisconsin to compete at the crossfit games dave as we throw down to you with about 10 seconds to go and you do do it the way that you always do it 10 seconds and then when you're ready three two one go okay cool so any other questions folks if not i think we're good the team is doing so much work behind the scenes to make this work and seeing everyone come together in spite of the pandemic challenges it really feels like crossfit as a sport has made a big leap forward this year while the rules around the team competition have changed this year one thing has absolutely remained the same and that is the fact that rich froning and company at crossfit mayhem are once again the overwhelming favorites to win the affiliate cup [Music] rich froning won the crossfit games in 2011 2012 2014 in 2015 the fittest man on earth takes crossfit mayhem to the top of the leaderboard and they become your 2015 reba cross against champions in 2014 everybody kind of knows i stepped away from individual to focus on my family but be able to still scratch that itch to compete and team was that way to do that [Applause] crossfit mayhem is a fitness institution it starts obviously with richard froening the founder and owner of craftsman mayhem and him being the four-time individual champion from 2011 to 2014 but then he was also able to parlay that into success at the team level as well rich is at a part of his career where he doesn't have to play anymore he still loves to be a part of the community still loves to compete i still you know have that drive that want to compete but to be the the best in the world at anything you have to be a little bit obsessive there's no balance in life and so i knew my family needed to be at the forefront of that [Music] when the open comes around i just i don't enjoy it because they're all individual workouts and all that stuff and i'm just like not about that life it's the shared suffering it's the beauty of the crossfit community i think it's so much more fun to like you know high-five your teammates and and get fired up for them and see them do things and like i said you watch them sacrifice and see the sacrifice that they they put in and so when we all succeed it's a whole lot more fun and a whole lot more rewarding can't wait for the quarter finals and we get to start doing team stuff again this year the team competition it was announced that we were moving away from super teams and back towards a true affiliate cup so what that means is that team members actually have to live in close proximity to one another within 100 miles and they have to train predominantly with each other so for team mayhem it met three new people i think in addition to the shock that we had as fans i think for rich it was it was the thought that hey does this mean that i'm retired until last year never thought of what my life would be after competing in crossfit and then not having the games for teams last year i was like wow it's kind of nice i honestly really had no intention especially with the way the rules were when they first came out of competing but chase my wife's cousin he wanted to compete and he was like hey you know let's do this our goals uh for the team are always to win the crossfit games i don't think there's any other goal i don't think anybody else on the team has another goal either i think this is is it what we're going for is winning it if you want to get better at fitness you pretty much want to go to cookeville tennessee one of the best things i ever did was come to cookeville because i didn't realize how much your environment like really affected you and just being around so many positive and just amazing people that really care about me and that i consider my friends you know it's so much more than what goes on inside the gym and that's what i've really needed in my life there's a story about when rich knew that haley was going to be a good fit is that she just like on and off day like volunteered to do a marathon row saw the marathon run at the games just like i want to do that haley adams is amazingly proficient at being able to block out all the distractions of the outside world and be a singularly focused competitor even for an athlete at such a young age a couple weeks before the crossfit games we ran a fundraiser for mayhem this was called the legends of the falls benefited mayhem missions and it was a really cool event haley was intrepid about doing it she had never done a trail run before i do need to you know trust myself a little bit more as we get out and do things like that for games training there's certain parts of the season or where things are more of a risk than a reward she was you know i'm gonna twist my head i'm gonna do this and in hindsight i should have shut her down and just told her not to do it i honestly i thought it would have been a good training thing for her to do you know when you're nervous and you're like you're expecting disaster sometimes disaster will come and find you that was the exact scenario that happened i don't have a fear of getting hurt it's just i didn't want to do something and then when i did it like broke my foot we would come to find that she fully tore her tfl it was a very very severe injury and like she had to battle with am i going to even go to the crossfit games or not the 2020 reebok crossfit games are underway at the ranch in aromas california the first time hayley adams is a young athlete that was previously a teenage champion at the crossfit games and who many believe can be the next person to be the fittest woman on earth following tiatumi haley has a ton of grit and she doesn't back down she's not afraid facing the games with that pain and then just the unknown of her ankle on top of that she really got sick after day one very very sick haley adams started with a second place finish and she will end the day with a second place finish and she looks to hang onto second place overall after day one something that would have made any of us whether we had run that trail run or not probably go and stay in the hospital for an extended stay so the poor thing was up virtually all night with a few hours of sleep unable to hold down food she's also now thinking in addition to my ankle i have these stomach issues going on that are potentially going to affect the rest of my life like what do i do and that didn't knock her down she just kept coming forward she's a competitor as soon as the clock starts or three two one go happens like she's gonna make it happen hayley is toughest oh she's a beast tough as nails i've seen so many athletes rip hands like that and go to their knees and cry in their milk and haley hasn't batted an eye she hasn't complained in fact she's doing bigger pull-up sets than she did when we saw earlier this girl is so dang tough watching earthly games with those bloody hands and all the stuff that she did and just she's just she's a psycho haley adams who is hoping to hang onto third place overall and it's looking like it won't happen but what a future ahead for hayley adams i was so close to a podium spot like you know just be so close to that and then just your whole year of hard work right then it felt kind of like a failure it was hard as a friend because i didn't want her to think that she didn't accomplish something amazing like to doubt her how great she was and how incredible she was because she didn't stand on the podium i'm upset because i didn't make it on the podium in the crossfit games like that is insane to me so just to kind of change my mindset to that perspective and just make myself want to work so hard for the next year it was probably the best thing that's happened to me [Music] there you go good big nice i still do pt twice a week but it's not like fixing the injury now it's more making everything strong easy work today i'm running twice a week doing everything that i normally would with like no pain really i feel fitter than i usually do in february or march i'm hitting numbers that i wouldn't dare put on the bar this time last year haley's so young that she hasn't even come close to having her full potential the maturity level that she has as a 20 year old like that's not where i was at so i'm still not there she has that drive driving her where she'll put in no matter what the work is to get it done and we have to be like hey it's time to chill like you need some rest it was really hard last year a lot of people myself included maybe overlooked hayley adams we are not going to make that mistake again in 2021 i think hayley adams 100 has the ability and potential and actually the skill there right now to win the crossfit games today is active recovery day just gonna do it easy easy one hour cross-country ski my name is jonah goski i'm 26 years old and i live in helsinki finland jonakowski is a guy that always seems to be in the crossfit games but just hasn't really gotten to the next level yet i think yonakowski is probably one of the most underrated athletes on the planet i like being in the gym but i also love being outdoors and doing other sports i find it really relaxing or almost like meditative in a way to you know train outside and rather than being in the runner or a rover for an hour and a half so it's really for me it's really enjoyable sometimes i go back to my hometown in corrie and train with my old coach or friend mikko mikkozawa who won the crossfit games in 2009. from 2009 right yeah how much money did you win in 2009 i'm not sure what it might have been two thousand dollars gosh it's always fun to come here usually get pretty good sessions done still extremely fit i'm in like a decent shape for my age i still train quite a lot i have a few limitations for some movements but i still train quite a lot it's been getting a little bit softer now as he gets older [Music] it's always like that with that guy i'm working towards like trying to win the games as hard as i can i wouldn't say i don't care about the open but not gonna put a lot of focus or start any tapering just to be in good enough shape to make sure that i qualify for the quarter finals warm cool combination kind of takes the soreness away a good restart for the next week and get a perfect night of sleep after a hard training week i've broke the top ten three times now so that's not something that would satisfy me anymore like give it my all again this year and we'll we'll see how it plays out it's kind of like really really awesome to see how good he is at the moment and what's what he can do or has done already what can he do he can win the games good morning o'connell i'm from columbus ohio and i'm here for the 21.1 announcement i feel like that's so far up i am carrie pierce i'm from las vegas nevada and i'm here for the open 21.1 announcement in years past we would travel the open and go all around the country and the world doing these announcements but we decided to for everyone's safety just keep it in one location for the span of the three weeks i think i went too far if you get stuck all the instructions are on the board okay i'm here to co-host uh along with a cold cast of characters the worldwide open announcements how many times do we twist five so like just five the first time we did the open there were announcements and they were released in a video format but it was there was no live announcements and there was certainly no uh no big show productions that we were doing oh hopefully that's harder than the workout i feel a lot of pressure more on myself to just really make this good because i think the community deserves it a lot of us have felt disconnected from each other and especially from the greater global community of any of the years that we've had the open this year is probably the most important and that's that oh man so for those of you who have done open announcements before typically what we do now is we walk you through the format step by step i'm not planning to do that because we did that last night with our talent so we are going to start at the top of the show and block cameras and people who are going to be doing things on the field of play we haven't produced a live announcement in three years two months ago we didn't even have a production team in this building all the people you know behind the camera all the people that are on set believing in something and also kind of culturally wanting this to be successful it really really matters i agree i think this has been a really tough year one of the things i think that people they don't realize like how much work and how much preparation goes into pulling one of these things off because i think we've gotten pretty good over the past few years of doing this but the reason why we do it as well as we do it is because we put in the preparation ahead of time and sometimes that can be not very glamorous and very boring but very necessary hello and welcome my fitness family to the 20 years to the open now for the 21.1 presented by fitted and the start of the 2021. after having done over a decade worth of opens it's cool that even at this stage we're still able to have looks and events and formats that are fresh and exciting i think the community will be really pleased with the open this year and i'm excited to get it kicked off and see what everyone thinks of the tests okay let's make it official it's time for the announcement yeah that's fine you all sound like you're very fired up so let's make it official it's time now for the announcement you guys kind of warm up do your one [Music] thing two of the top american athletes in the female division going head to head tonight the two of them with 10 games appearances between them it's really an honor to be here and throw down with christy there's always a little bit of buzz around those announcements so to be part of the first one is slightly terrifying it's also very exciting this is going to be a workout we have no idea what it is until we step out on the stage and find out about 10 minutes prior this is where it's go time carrie pierce finishing third in 2020 and chrissy arima o'connell has been in the top nine at the crossfit games three times in her life get this thing kicked off i have waited a long time to say this the 2021 noble crossfit game season starts now i'm like very nervous to see the workout really yeah 21.1 is and here we go the 2021 noble crossing game season is officially underway this girl is really something special if you thought justin medeiros was going to finish on the podium at the crossfit games you were probably related to him two breaths and then a fast set of three two brass three fast go welcome to the open and welcome to the prone pain that is [Music] 21.1

Channel: CrossFit Games

Views: 342,221

Rating: 4.9215016 out of 5

Keywords: 2021 crossfit games, 2021 crossfit open, 2021 crossfit season, 2021 open, bts, crossfit games, crossfit games 2021, crossfit open 2021, dave castro, haley adams, miles to madison, rich froning, road to the games, sport of fitness, jonne koski, jonne koski crossfit, jonne koski crossfit games

Id: XBq0XmMExHg

Length: 22min 11sec (1331 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 16 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Dealoy]

Give it up for Haley, Tasia, and the OG.

I hope Koski does great!

[u/[deleted]]

OP’s name LOLOLOL

[u/Beatle_Matt]

I don’t know what it is about Rich Froning, but something about him creeps me out or rubs me the wrong way.

I know it sounds awful, but I’ve never liked that guy, and I can’t explain it!!

[u/BlowingTime]

Don't get the Froning hate. Yea he's intense and big surprise man who loves working out really fucking hard doesn't like talking very much. But he was and still is super participatory in the CrossFit community, he's never rubbed his money in people's faces unlike Fraser, and he hosts or participates in a ton of charities.

Honestly, I just think people overestimate how likeable they would come across if they were filmed almost daily for years. I think he's just a small town guy who loves working out and no longer particulary gives a shit to impress strangers.

[u/lobstermanboy]

I'm very confident that this will be a big year for Koski