Fittest in Dubai

- Do you think anyone can beat Mat Fraser? -Yes.

Do you think you could be the man to beat?

I mean, I think anybody can be beaten. Um--

I'm not gonna count myself out.

I see it all the time, of people saying just...

"I'm gonna beat you, I'm gonna..." Okay, okay, it's--

I'll be in Dubai.

One event stands between four athletes.

And with one spread across the floor,

welcome back to the CrossFit Games!

Rumors.

Today, it's rumor mill time.

We're gonna be talking about some potentially huge changes

to the 2019 CrossFit Games season.

After the CrossFit Games in 2018,

there were rumors of changes coming.

No one quite understood what the changes were about

and how it would impact them.

There's gonna be a change.

What that change is, no one knew.

What's crazy is that we have a lot of details.

Just kind of a general idea.

And people had been going nuts.

What really changed between 2018 and today

is the method to qualify for the CrossFit Games.

In the past a CrossFit Games season

was essentially three simple stages.

The first stage was the CrossFit Games Open.

From there the top athletes in each region

would qualify through regional stage

which was in a live competition around the world.

Top five men, women, and teams

would then qualify through the CrossFit Games.

Now it's much different.

You have multiple options as an athlete to qualify

Whether it will be online qualify in the CrossFit Open,

you can qualify as a top 20 athlete,

or as a national champion.

You can also qualify through any of the sanctional events.

Sanctionals replaced Regionals

but also added more chances in more locations

for people to qualify for.

As an athlete you are no longer bound to your region.

You can compete and qualify to the Games

throughout any of these international sanctional events.

After that announcement

that there would be sanctioned events,

it was also announced that the very first sanctioned event

in CrossFit Games history was gonna be

The Dubai CrossFit Championship.

I competed at the DCC 2016,

and it's by far my favorite competition.

It's sort of a well established competition already.

I think the last two years we had a lot of games athletes.

Athletes enjoy coming to Dubai because of, obviously, the prize money.

But also because of the experience they have in Dubai.

Every time I've been here I had a blast.

The city itself, you're just looking around

and everything is a spectacle here. It's pretty wild.

I think this is not only big because of the money.

It's also big because of amount of big athletes that come.

So when you compete against such a high caliber roster.

And you come on top, that gives you bragging rights.

The competition got bigger and bigger.

In 2017 they had Dani, was third place at the Games.

They had Kara Webb, was second place at the Games.

Names are always getting bigger and bigger.

Unbelievable, they gonna come and test themselves

amongst the best in the world.

It's very similar to some of game stuff we have to do.

We can get outside, we can get to the mountains,

we can get to the snow, we can get to the ocean,

or we can be inside the gym.

It's almost like a mini Games.

I'll definitely compete in all the sanctional events.

I love coming here. Also, getting some sun in December

is always good.

It's the number of the game.

Oh yeah?

Is that a good sign?

Yeah, it's a redemption.

The atmosphere on day one was actually really cool.

The setting for it was on a beach,

back dropped by Burj Al Arab,

which is arguably the nicest hotel

in one of the most photogenic spots in Dubai.

The first day at the Jumeirah Al Qasr Hotel

was very exciting.

It's a five star resort.

White sand, blue water.

I was happy 'cause I could lie in the sun

in between the events.

-It's a lot. -It's not like a pool.

-No. Not at all. -Not like on the picture.

It's pretty different than home. It's warmer.

At home it's like zero - minus five degrees,

it's like 27 here, so.

This is awesome, look at those waves.

It's pretty fun.

A little different than Iowa.

We swim in pool.

Yes, I see this first time.

I never see these waves. It's crazy.

Your first day swimming?

First day at least

swimming like outside my bathtub, I guess.

Oh, damn.

Bathtubs count, but I don't know.

I'm pretty experienced, I figure it well.

Like time in the water, it's always different.

So I was taking progressively longer baths, kinda like an overload.

Like I start with 15 minutes, nice warm bubbles,

and then like move to progressively harder baths.

Like with less comfortable water and kinda just longer exposure.

So it got to a point where I can stay in the water for like 24 hours.

Since then I think I'm pretty prepared. I got enough time in the water.

Some of these guys swim like an hour a day or something.

I think just with amount of time I had in comparison to them I'll be a lot more successful.

- You got 'em at 24 hours. -Exactly, so how can I fail?

Do 21 reps where the cut of those are.

A little early start for me.

I'm old now, I have to like sleep in till eight.

-If I'm used to waves? - Yeah.

No, there is no ocean in Hungary whatsoever, so.

Have you done any ocean swim?

Yeah, little bit.

But not in this kind. These are big waves, but I'll be okay.

We're wondering if there's animals in there.

-Jellyfish. -Sharks.

I just told some people if you hear the bells ringing,

it's to keep sharks away.

Yellow is the shark line.

So sharks stay on the other side.

Oh, you told the sharks: "Hey, guys, yellow."

I would see a shark, I would just hit him.

There's no sharks here.

I feel like this swimsuit is so badass.

You know, like a superhero costume, a little bit.

Maybe not!

Intimidating the bad guys.

-Oh my God, Kristof. -Of course no bad guys here.

When the athletes started to see

we were anchoring buoys out in water

they started to realize the water was a lot more

difficult than we had expected.

It felt like I was in a surf event or something.

The setup was so cool, and the waves were massive.

We had the beach for ourselves and I said:

"How cool is it to start a competition on a beach?"

It's 2159.

Double kettlebell snatch.

Double kettlebell front squat.

Followed by a 350 meter swim.

First thought was to jack your heart rate up real high

with kettlebells, and then you gotta get in the water

with the high heart rate. We'll see who's ready for that.

An athlete we saw pull out of competition

at the Games last year is back in competition.

Sara Sigmundsdottir will be in lane number six.

I'm really shocked that he still has a shirt on.

Okay, there we go.

We haven't really been talking a lot about Sara lately.

We've been talking about Laura lately.

That first bit with kettlebells, just get through it

and then it was just try not to drown in the water.

Not always the biggest waves in Dubai,

and they were pretty big that day.

I've never seen the ocean like that.

in these two years I been here until that day.

That changed the event a lot.

If you're comfortable swimming in flat water.

It's complete change.

I've never seen waves that big.

We swam a lot leading up to DCC.

But never, not even half the size.

People were just getting destroyed by it.

There was a point where I thought to myself:

"How do we track those ten people in the water?

Like how do we know someone didn't go under?"

Sigmundsdottir has her feet on the ground.

It's cool to use your fitness in something

that's just in the nature.

Like you mix fitness with kettlebells,

and then you have to be like pure nature,

and it's pretty cool.

Foot race between Briggs and Green,

and depending on who gets to the mat first,

it looks like Briggs will take it!

Did you see me on the way back there?

Like the three waves that crushed me.

I thought: "Stay cool." Then another one.

-It was so hard. - Yeah?

It was so hard.

I've never swim in waves before.

- Oh, really? -Yeah.

So this was the first time.

They told me not to get panicked, so I stayed calm.

- It's the best thing, just relax in water. -Yeah.

-Well done. -Thank you.

Now I know I don't have any glasses for next event.