2011 CrossFit Games Fittest on Earth?

So I get home from work really late and I turn on the TV to wind down.  I turn to ESPN and I am frozen ... the title above is staring me in the face.  At first, I think that this might be a comical skit.  A bunch of men ranging in body weight from 145lbs to 195lbs have assembled and are climbing up a rope repeatedly.  They then race to the first barbells loaded with 135lbs of weight and proceed to perform the ugliest clean and jerks I've seen in my life.  Upon completion of the fifth rep, the competitors run back to the rope and continue climbing.  Upon completion of the prescribed number of sets, they run to the next barbell which is a little heavier.  This continues for a few revolutions until the men get to the last barbell of 225lbs.  The first one to lift it overhead wins the competition and one of the men does this by lifting the bar, dropping to his knees, and painfully getting up to push it over his head. 

I don't want to ridicule the athletes, because regardless of your sport I respect athletes.  Some of these guys showed real resolve.

I guess I am just a little distraught that my beloved sport of powerlifting -- which seems up on the edge of your seat exciting compared to the endurance race of mediocrity displayed on the screen -- has not received this sort of love from ESPN for quite some time.  It seemed as if ESPN decided to air a sport to create athletes out of Planet Fitness members. 

**I do mean to make fun of Planet Fitness and it's members because anyone that supports an organization that discriminates against people based on appearances deserves my scorn ;-) **

I was horrified and confused.  Please don't misunderstand me.  I'm not some former pro, but if I was ... I might be a little pissed off that some of us can spend a lifetime bleeding for an authentic sport while some other folks can take their gym workouts to ESPN and become a star. 

Even the commercials seemed smaller than life as they peddled gym equipment and other knick knacks in prancing manner around the extreme test of endurance blasting across my screen in HD.  They promoted CrossFit gyms and the announcers kept mentioning how the crowd was full of members that can relate to the pain through their own workouts. 

Ugh ... Let me make something clear and please don't think that it is just a game of semantics.  Athletes don't workout; they train.  I will paraphrase a quote by Dash from the Incredibles because my kid loves that movie ... Saying that everyone is special is the same as saying that no one is special.  Some folks are on TV because they can run non-stop for 20 miles at a blistering pace.  Some are able to lift weights that would break some people's backs and others are on for being able to run 100 meter dashes with refrigerators on their backs. 

Wouldn't the "Strong Men" competitions meet the requirements of Crossfit's "Fittest on Earth" title?  

In the end, I was wholly disappointed with the show though I watch it hoping for a redeeming quality.  Then I realized that the competitors were really rooting for each other.  The only other sport I have ever seen the competitors helping each other out in any way is Powerlifting.  That is one of the reasons I loved the sport. 

So I will withhold my judgment for now

( unlike the judgemental lunk alarm in Planet Fitness that goes off when you do anything that even resembles training ... while we are on that topic how is it NOT ironic that the definition used to judge a lunk states that a lunk is anyone who grunts, drops weights, or judges ). 

Maybe there is something special about CrossFit ... I still don't want to see it on ESPN ... that just seems ridiculous.  So I watched a few minutes of extreme sports to help ease my pain before going to bed and thought seriously about opening a CrossFit gym ;-)