Death at the Games: Sunday musings…8/11/2024
1 Wroth. Angry. Wrathful. Usually used as a predictive: the anger will result in wrathful events. Also stormy, violent, stormy.
Did I mention that a tornado hung out over my house this week?
2 Barbecue. “Barbecue is the only food apart from lobster where a grown man is permitted to wear a bib without criticism. It is intended to be messy, sweet and bad for you.” Doublewide in “Titanium Noir” by Nick Hardaway.
Those are two perfect sentences. I really have nothing to add other than to suggest that “Titanium Noir” is one of the wittiest, most clever Sci-fi novels I’ve read in some time. You would do well to pick you up a copy.
3 Consilience. A jumping together of destinies. I like everything about this word and what this word means. Oh yes, I like it very much.
Do you believe in destiny? Honestly, I’m not really all that sure that I do. Still, the part about destinies coming together, right? Even more than that, destinies JUMPING together! Not slowly merging or casually sliding together. No. JUMPING! As if somehow the fates are impelled to compel the union of the fates.
I honestly have no idea what this might mean if it’s a thing. If it’s real. But still, what if consilience is real? What if we have people with whose destinies are literally going to jump together with ours?
I dunno. That just sounds cool.
4 Games. Turns out the Crossfit Games have been going on this week, overlapping with the Paris Olympics. CrossFit was once upon a time a very central aspect of what I did. Maybe even who I was. In the earliest days of dial-up internet I spent so much time on CrossFit.com my daughter called it “CrackFit”. In earlier days when CrossFit’s founder still held the reins I would have assumed that he planned it this way. Planned to show that his particular spectacle and his particular idea of what constituted elite athletes was more on point and more accurate than even the Summer Olympics. That CrossFit athletes were superior to even the Olympic triathletes.
Betting he still feels that way.
In what has to be one of the most amazing and unlikely things CrossFit and CrossFit Games, the first fatality in an officially sanctioned CrossFit competition occurred on Thursday during the first individual event of this year’s competition. During a Run/Swim/Run event one of the male competitors disappeared under the water and drowned. Maddeningly he was literally yards from two volunteer safety workers on paddle boards (it should be noted that all non-CF HQ personnel at the CF Games are, and pretty much always have been, volunteers). This has unleashed a predictable firestorm of criticism of all things CrossFit, but especially the CrossFit Games. I feel that a bit of perspective is in order.
Let me first say that I have had no contact nor any engagement with CrossFit, Inc., the CrossFit Games, or CrossFit.com since some time in 2019. Prior to then I was deeply embedded in all things CrossFit. My sons owned a gym for 7 or 8 years. I was an invited guest at every running of the Games, and while there, volunteered on the media team in the earliest years and on the medical team for 10 or 11 years. Behind the scenes I was one of a small group of physicians and scientists who worked along with CrossFit founder Greg “Coach” Glassman on projects as varied as defining health and preventing rhabdomyolysis from the workouts. While doing this I was a very active on CrossFit.com, writing a Sunday “column” and supporting newcomers to the movement. At no time did I speak on behalf of, or represent the position of CrossFit or Coach Glassman or anyone on the CrossFit staff; my statements reflected my own opinions only.
Today is no different.
In my opinion it is borderline miraculous that it is in year 18 or so that we have a first Games fatality. It is important to note that every year there are tragic fatalities in marathons, triathalons, ultra-endurance, and adventure races. This is not in any way to minimize the fatality at the Games, only to point out that it’s simply amazing that the first one occurred so long after the first competition. Are you a CrossFitter? Do you remember the cluster of a full, as Rx’d “Murph” complete with weight vests in the midday heat of Los Angeles in the summer? I continue to be astonished at the good fortune that no one died.
Which brings me to today and the aftermath. Things are so very different from even 2019. The reach of social media, with new players like Instagram and TikTok exponentially increasing the effects of FaceBook and Twitter/X. The firestorm is driven by both the hot winds of a wildfire and the kerosene of the fanatic. Could Lazar’s death have been prevented? Sure. Of course. It’s always the cluster of the wrong things happening at the wrong time that concludes in tragedy. One head is turned just a couple of clock hours further 10 or 15 seconds sooner and the story is one of tragedy averted.
I do not seek to absolve CrossFit, Inc. of responsibility. I do, however, believe that those who have been critical of anyone involved in the incident should remember that there are real people here who are horrified that this death occurred on their watch. I have no idea what qualities the folks on the paddle boards possessed. Given my experience on the medical team where my fellow volunteers were ER doctors, ER nurses, and EMT’s (there were a few specialty volunteers such as yours truly who only engaged in our specialties), my assumption would be some similar level of competence for the folks right there until or unless it is discovered that this was not the case.
Should the Games have been cancelled? Again, historically events in other disciplines (marathons, etc.) typically run their course in the face of these tragedies. Under the circumstances the weight of the moment then falls most heavily on the organizers of an event, in this case the owners and executives of CrossFit, Inc. How are they addressing the tragedy? How are they addressing the decision to carry on, again, the default decision for most similar events? I believe commentary on how they are performing is appropriate.
Since his ignominious exit from CrossFit, Inc. Greg Glassman’s company had been run by a series of bean-counters. Despite the presence of CrossFit HQ OG’s such as Dave Castro and Nicole Carrol, you just can’t escape the sense that every decision emanating from CF HQ, including this one, is the outcome of a bloodless financial calculation. Do they deserve that this weekend? I believe that they do. For several years they have serially upended many core aspects of what made CrossFitters, especially Box owners, support the company. They have conditioned the community to believe that they lead from the accounting office. It is up to them to convince the community otherwise.
Greg Glassman did not like the CrossFit Games, at least what they became after they decamped from the Castro farm in Aromas. It was one of the few things that had enough momentum to defy his desires; he, and CrossFit, were simply swept along by the current generated by the Sport of Fitness (TM). A first death could have come at any of those earlier Games. Castro, co-Games director Tony Budding and Glassman have been widely quoted as openly worrying about athletes surviving multiple workouts in a single day. Would Coach Glassman be handling this differently? Meh, who knows. Remember, he’s a guy who was quoted in an interview with the NYT as saying “this stuff (CF) can kill ya.” Would he have handled a death in an earlier version of the Games differently? Again, who knows. I’d like to think that the earlier versions of Greg Glassman might have. Who knows…
All of this is really just a (typically) long-winded lead up to a very small point and plea: please remember that everyone who is involved in the aftermath, whether they were near the tragic death or forced to address any aspect of it afterwards, everyone is a living, breathing, and especially feeling person. Not an avatar. Not an address or an @something, a person who is struggling with the fact that someone died during what was supposed to be celebration of something they in one way or another hold dear. Whether well inside the current world of all things CrossFit as I was once upon a time, or far outside as I and so many others find ourselves, we can seek answers to questions fairly asked without adding to the collective trauma.
It was said that the formation of a community around a fitness program was a complete surprise to the founder of CrossFit. It’s been said that the community was born, grew, and prospered because of the shared suffering of the participants. Members of that community have no say in how the owners of CrossFit, Inc run the company. The community members share the burden of a loss in that community. The private equity owners have no say in how the community will respond.
In that response I simply ask that members of the community remember that what makes them so extraordinary is how they have always lifted each other in the suffering.
I’ll see you next week…
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 11th, 2024 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.