Justin Medeiros finished 5th at North America West Semifinals. It’s the lowest finish for him at Semifinals. In fact, it’s his lowest finish at an in-person competition since the 2018 West Regional where he finished 7th. Looking ahead to the CrossFit Games, can he go from 5th at Semifinals to Fittest on Earth? To see if history was on his side, I looked back to past champions, and their Semifinal/Regionals finish leading to the CrossFit Games. Men’s CrossFit Games Champions Justin Medeiros,...
over 1 year ago • 2 min read
For the Love of the Game Competing at the elite level in CrossFit takes dedication, consistency and a love for the process. With the 2023 Semifinals complete, we saw nearly 600 individual athletes on the competition floor, who have all put in years of work pursuing excellence in the sport. Some of these athletes will only compete at this level once, while others return year after year. Of the 596 individual athletes at Semifinals this year, o309 competed as individuals last year as well. Only...
over 1 year ago • 4 min read
When do CrossFit Games athletes break out? Is there a breakthrough year at the CrossFit Games? A year where athletes show the world their true potential? To dive into this, I looked at all athletes who have finished in the top 10 as an individual at the CrossFit Games since 2017. This amounted to 56 athletes over 6 CrossFit Games seasons. Some of these athletes, like Annie Thorisdottir first made the top 10 well before 2017, while others didn’t have their rookie season until 2022. For each of...
over 1 year ago • 2 min read
Semifinals Wild Cards - Men Earlier this week we talked about 5 women who will shake up the leaderboard one way or another Semifinals, this time let’s talk about the men. Alex Vigneault (North America East) Alex Vigneault is a 5x CrossFit Games athlete. He finished 25th at the Games in 2022 and 8th in 2021. You wouldn’t think an athlete with back to back Games appearances would be a wild card, until you see Vigneault’s 2023 season so far. He started the year with a 602nd place finish in the...
over 1 year ago • 3 min read
Semifinals Wild Cards - Women The outcome of a sporting event is never pre-determined, which is why we love them. When looking at the CrossFit Semifinals fields there are athletes that I see having a pretty narrow range of finish spots. Mal O’Brien for example, if she finishes outside of the top 3 of NA East I would be shocked. Jeffery Adler, he’ll finish somewhere in the top 5 of NA East. On the other hand, there are athletes who could finish 5th in their Semifinal, and I wouldn’t be...
over 1 year ago • 4 min read
The curious case of James Newbury It’s been a year for the Oceania men’s field. First perennial games athletes Royce Dunne (team) and Bayden Brown (family) step back from the individual competition. Then Quarterfinals winner Ricky Garard requires season ending shoulder surgery. Now the Torian Pro is up in the air. On the men’s side, Jay Crouch is the likely favorite. The 3 time CrossFit Games athlete won the 2022 Torian Pro, was 2nd behind Garard in 2023 Quarterfinals and was 13th in the 2023...
over 1 year ago • 3 min read
Semifinalists and the CrossFit Open The makeup of the 2023 Semifinals field is what you would expect when you look at their CrossFit Open finishes. 41 of the top 50 from the CrossFit Open advanced to Semifinals in both the men’s and women’s fields. 206 women, or just over two thirds of the Semifinal field finished in the top 500 of the CrossFit Open. 184 men (61.5% of Semifinalists) had a top 500 finish in the Open this year. On the other side of the equation, only 1% of Semifinalists...
over 1 year ago • 2 min read
What are your chances to make it to the Games two years in a row? To state that making it to the CrossFit Games is an achievement is an understatement. You start at the Open with over 250,000 of your fellow CrossFitters, then through multiple stages 40 men and 40 women step onto the competition floor in Madison. What about making it to the CrossFit Games in back to back seasons, how difficult is that? Looking back: At the 2022 CrossFit Games, we saw 26 men and 22 women return from the 2021...
over 1 year ago • 2 min read
How the top ranked teams did at Semifinals The leaderboard for Team Quarterfinals has been finalized, and we can now look ahead to Semifinals for the team competition. A top spot in Quarterfinals is a good confidence boost, and gives you a good heat placement for day 1, but can last year tell us anything of what to expect for the top teams in 2023. A look back to last year: Taking a look at the top teams from each of the 2022 Semifinals, the likelihood of advancing to the CrossFit Games is...
over 1 year ago • 2 min read