The 2021 CrossFit Video games was a contest that featured each a widely-predicted landslide victory and a tense battle to make declare on a long-held crown. In a single division, a favourite turns into the game’s most dominant in historical past, and a relative rookie is the brand new champion in one other.
After a two-year hiatus from Madison, Wisconsin, the CrossFit Video games didn’t disappoint. Over 5 days of competitors, which concluded on Sunday, 600 athletes, together with teenagers, groups, masters, people, and the inaugural adaptive division, made a powerful case for being thought of the fittest folks on earth.
As promised, the Video games had been a wide-ranging take a look at of health, from a cardio-heavy first occasion — a mile swim with fins adopted by a three-mile kayak paddle — to the “dwelling run derby” of CrossFit, the one-rep max snatch, to extra traditional chippers, just like the four-rounder of rope climbs, ski erg, and sandbag carries.
As is typical, the Video games additionally included a brand new motion, or relatively, a twist on a well-recognized motion: handstand pushups that, as a substitute of being carried out towards a wall, had been freestanding.
After small units of heavy deadlifts, athletes needed to push up right into a handstand and stroll a number of inches ahead. Including extra issue, they then needed to exhibit management of their descent, a typical that even the occasion winners, Pat Vellner and Annie Thorisdottir, struggled with regardless of their backgrounds in gymnastics.
When it got here to the winner, although, there was nothing shocking on the ladies’s facet. Earlier than the ultimate two occasions even happened, Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr had already scored sufficient level to win her fifth Video games, and within the course of, she broke the all-time file for occasion wins, ending the weekend with 33 complete and 9 in 2021 (out of 15 occasions). The remainder of the rostrum was predictable. Regardless of some sturdy performances by youthful athletes, like Haley Adams, it was the veterans who dominated, with Laura Horváth taking second and Annie Thorisdottir in third.
This was Thorisdottir’s eleventh Video games look, however regardless of her expertise (and two earlier Fittest on Earth titles), she was not sure whether or not she’d even compete this 12 months after a traumatic expertise giving beginning in 2020. Regardless of this hesitations, she was distinctive, shocking herself (as a lot as Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr) with a 200-pound snatch.
On the lads’s facet, the horse race wasn’t sure till the final occasion. All through the weekend, Pat Vellner and Brent Fikowski, each multi-year Video games athletes, traded blows with final 12 months’s Rookie of the Yr, Justin Medeiros. In the end, 22-year-old Medeiros pulled away, successful the ultimate exercise (his solely occasion win of the weekend) and turning into the youngest male champion in Video games’ historical past.
Withdrawals and Covid-19 Issues
Sadly, many different athletes didn’t have the chance to complete the weekend, even earlier than the scheduled cuts on Saturday.
Earlier than the primary day, two athletes examined constructive and had been medically withdrawn. One other, fan favourite Kara Saunders, examined constructive early within the week however was allowed to compete after a detrimental antigen take a look at on-site. Nonetheless, she withdrew on Friday, saying her well being “100% comes first.”
After which there have been the opposite withdrawals. Six particular person athletes left for non-COVID causes, together with Dani Speegle, who rolled her ankle coming off a rope climb, and seven-times Video games athlete Brooke Wells, who dislocated her elbow through the one-rep max snatch.
Wanting ahead, Toomey-Orr stated throughout a press convention after the Video games that she plans to return subsequent 12 months. Contemplating her continued and unchallenged dominance, she’s nearly sure to win barring an harm or an act of God.
Courtesy of CrossFit Inc.
The primary large query, then, is whether or not Medeiros is well-positioned for his personal reign atop the rostrum, probably reaching the identical dynastic success as Toomey-Orr now and Mat Fraser earlier than him within the Males’s division. He’s an distinctive athlete for certain, but it surely’s price mentioning that Vellner, this 12 months’s silver medalist, needed to get well from a weak begin. On the primary occasion, the swim and kayak, he completed thirty fifth, a gap from which not even six top-three occasions finishes may assist him get well.
That stated, CrossFit is a sport of consistency, and Medeiros was remarkably constant. Of 15 occasions, he solely completed the highest 10 solely thrice.
The second large query is what subsequent 12 months’s aggressive season will seem like. Yearly, the format has modified, however the brand new administration appears dedicated to what’s in place, with the Open in March after which a sequence of quarterfinals, semifinals, and last-chance qualifiers.
Regardless of the schedule could find yourself being, this weekend’s Video games proves that useful health is as thrilling to look at because it ever has been. Some faces change, some keep the identical—however the wrestle to crown the world’s fittest will all the time spur unimaginable performances.
