re: 2011 Crossfit Games (ESPN 2)

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This. Just because a guy can do 100 pushups in a minute doesn't mean he can catch a ball.

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True, but that skill would be among those trained and tested by CrossFit, so the guy/girl who can't catch likely wouldn't win the Games.

One of the skills tested at this year's Games (that wasn't on ESPN) was how far and accurately a competitor could throw a softball (they had to land it within a zone that I think was about 10 feet across). You had two chances to get a score.

Aja Barto, who played baseball at Tulane and later in the minors for the Rangers got no score on that event because he couldn't land it in the zone. The guy who won the first event (Josh Bridges (Navy SEAL)) also got no points on that event.

Most sports require specific skills. The goal of CF is not to make you "the best" at any single skill, but instead to make you "extremely good" at all 10 of the foundational elements of fitness (power, strength, stamina, cardio, endurance, balance, accuracy, coordination, flexibility and agility).

...one other guy who is a fantastic CrossFitter is Paul Smith, former NFL RB (played 8 years). One of the guys from our gym beat him in regionals last year because Paul couldn't do handstand push ups. If Paul had won that event, he would have made it to the Games, instead the guy from our box made it.