THOUGHTS | PHYSICAL 100: ITALY | THE CHARIOT RACE

The thing about the Physical 100 matches is that most of their challenges favor the CrossFitters and combat athletes.

I mean, it's a given.

After all, the ones who are most likely to get far in the game are the total packages. They get to work on their strength, speed, endurance, and agility. Even the dancers and influencers get their way because they also train their bodies to achieve physical milestones. Basically, they are lean and mean, athletic machines.

That said, let's put emphasis on the word "lean" here.

Because everyone got a big-time strongman workout in the chariot race challenge.

And I like it.

The thing about the typical Physical 100 format is that there are likely two challenges in which there are teams. And most of the time, you get one or two instances when a captain gets ahead of themselves and looks into the future without thinking about the present.

Andrea Minguzzi chose to eliminate Emanuele Bruno from his team, and he ended up with two women on his squad, leading into the challenge. After the Pillars of Hercules challenge, Alvise Rigo eliminated Marco Begalli to keep the two Federicas.

And, oh yeah.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

The last three teams have virtually the same composition. When it came to the challenge, some of them had to act as hard carries to compensate for their weaker teammates.

Again, some of the captains were overthinking their team cuts, as if they could read the future.

And I am not being discriminatory toward the women here because, as it is, how difficult would it be for them to drag a chariot that is basically around or more than their actual body weight?

The Scatizzi siblings actually did well there and chose the right teammate to cut. It's just unfortunate that they were all almost the same size and were at a disadvantage in the challenge.

Fortunately, Daniele Scatizzi was admirable in defeat.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said about Rigo's team.

I thought it was dirty for Federica Pellegrini to suddenly scold Abou Kane for collapsing. If I am going to get angry with Kane, it is because he forgot that he still had to give Alvise Rigo a big push to make things easier for him in the last lap. That said, she could have eased off on him a bit since he also had to help Federica Cesarini.

Again, who's to say whether the old windsurfer would have been vital in this round? But she could have been more graceful in defeat, especially after what she said to Marco after the Pillars of Hercules challenge. Now, I'm on board with Rigo's angst here, especially since he worked his ass off to claim victory.

And here's the other thing I noticed. When Daniele Scatizzi was about to do the final lap, it was his sister who pushed the chariot. This means Pellegrini could have helped Rigo push the chariot when they saw that Abou was gassed from his efforts.

And Physical 100: Italy is really addicted to sacrificing athletes, huh? I mean, I get Sebastian Rodwell's sacrifice, but if there was a woman who did really well in the challenge, it was Semiljana Rexhapi. If this was strategic, then I don't know the rationale behind keeping a muscle-clad man.

But then again, judging from the next challenge, I thought keeping the HYROX athlete could have been advantageous.

Well, at least for Rodwell.

As far as the next challenge goes, I could have seen this challenge in this position, except that they did the same challenge as a classification round for the deathmatch in the first season of Physical 100: Korea. They also did a similar endurance challenge in Physical 100: Mexico, which made the whole revival of participants even more meaningful.

And the rope challenge lasted six hours, which was almost five hours longer than this challenge.

That said, I think that if this is the semifinal match, it's grander than the Mexico version. Even if this is just the quarterfinals, having an American Ninja Warrior / Spartan Race-style challenge that tests all the muscles in their bodies looks better either way.

Inasmuch as I like the triple-threat challenges in four different scenarios, this Final 6 challenge is better because all the athletes basically have to do what the 12 athletes did there.

Anyway, I am bracing myself for the final episode.