Brent Fikowski was recently interviewed by Men’s Health and elaborated on the reasonable changes that the PFAA (Professional Fitness Athletes’ Association) wants from CrossFit in order to create a safe environment for all competing athletes.
After the tragic death of Serbian Athlete Lazar Đukić during event 1 of The 2024 CrossFit Games, many athletes have spoken out against the safety standards of the competitions.
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Fikowski stated, “We need change and I, with my colleagues at the PFAA, hope to lead the way on behalf of all athletes, past, present and future to prevent something like this from happening again in a sport we love.”
The Canadian 3rd place finisher elaborated further in the interview, “This statement and these three demands—this is the beginning. We say more must be done to change the cultural, strategic direction of the sport, and that is very important. We emphasized that as we prepared this statement and spoke with multiple athletes, and that was something they wanted to drive home. It cannot just be, “Hey, these are the three demands,” and they abide by them, and both sides go back to operating as we did in years past. That is not our expectation. This is going to be part of a continued effort to force for some very large change in the coming weeks and months.”
“Discussions [about athletes leaving CrossFit] are taking place. When most of the athletes that we help represent are asked, “What do you do?” They’ll say, “I’m a CrossFit athlete.” So that word, that name association, that brand, still has value to us, and we’re not here to try to destroy that brand. That’s not our intent of these demands. We want to save the brand. However, we believe that there are individuals that work at CrossFit and there is a culture there that needs a very large shift. That is our perception, and it’s a perception held by not just athletes, but many others that are involved in this industry. So we’re looking for options where there’s a future that can involve the brand and involve the word CrossFit, but we’re also looking at options that do not if that’s what it comes to.”
Read the full interview here.
