Page 42 - RADC Bulletin 2018

Judging at the CrossFit Meridian Regionals – Madrid Capt TJG Marriott RADC
I have been a fan of the ‘CrossFit’ style of training for a number of years. Essentially it’s circuit training, but when intensity and speed are applied it becomes CrossFit.
Every year the CrossFit Open allows everyone to compete in 5 weekly workouts. The results are collected and you can see where you measure up against the rest
of the competition. The top 40 men and women are then invited to the CrossFit Regionals. These events are held around the world. From these the top 4 or 5 (depending on the location) men, women and teams are selected to compete in the CrossFit Games.
This year I decided that I would give the scaled Open a go. There are still many movements I am yet to master and so this allowed me to get a good workout as well as being manageable. During this 5 week period I vaguely remember receiving an email about volunteering to work at the Meridian Regional in Madrid. After applying to do pretty much anything, I forgot about the email and finished the Open.
Then in April I received an email from CrossFit: ‘Would you like to be a Judge at the Meridian Regional?’. Without hesitation
I replied. Absolutely. Yes! With leave sorted, and hotels and flights booked, I was in. Then a sense of dread descended. These athletes
spend their whole year training for this. All I could think was ‘Don’t mess it up!’
Gatwick at 05:30 in the morning is a very busy place. Keeping an eye out for other ‘Crossfitters’ wasn’t difficult. Keeping an eye to the ground you simply look for the telling Reebok Nano or Nike Metcon. Unfortunately, as with all airports, there is the usual pushing and shoving. If nothing else, a NI posting
will thicken your skin to delayed air travel and people barging and surging towards the departure gate.
After chatting with some experienced volunteers on the plane I was advised to download the Cabify app. This allowed me to easily book a taxi from the airport to the venue. With very ropey Spanish I asked the taxi driver to take me to the Caja Mágica, The Magic Box. Responding swiftly and too fast for me to understand, I was flummoxed. Thankfully, in perfect English, he laughed and said ‘no problem my friend, it will take us about 20 minutes’. Standard Brit abroad.
Our head judge was Adrian Bozman (Boz). Although he won’t admit it, he is the head judge of all CrossFit. He gave an in- depth brief about what was expected from us. The hand motions were explained for equipment failure, medical intervention and, the famous ‘no rep’. We were required to
meet at 06:00 every morning and wouldn’t be released until 19:00. Any thoughts on attempting to get a tan slowly disappeared. I was going to be very busy.
We then had to sit in on the athlete
brief. Here we met the athletes who were competing. Every exercise and standard was explained. There would be no galumphing here. Their movements needed to be swift, precise and 100% efficient. After a small de-brief we were released to enjoy our night. Needless to say I went straight to the hotel for some swatting up on movement standards.
DAY 1:
My alarm goes off at 04:45. I met some other judges in the hotel reception and
we got our taxi at 05:30. It was very regimented, 06:00 was the meeting time and there was no deviation from this time. If you were late you got burpees and air squats! We went over the workouts for the day. Two team events, two male events and two female events. My first job was
40 RADC BULLETIN 2018
SPORT