Semifinals Wild Cards - WomenThe 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 surprised. These same athletes could finish 15th, and it also wouldn’t surprise me that much. These athletes are wild cards when it comes to the Semifinals fields, and earning those Games tickets. They also highlight some of the more interesting story lines over the next month. Anikha Greer(North America East)Anikha Greer hit everyone's radar during the 2022 Quarterfinals. After starting the competition with 2 top 20 world wide event finishes she was well on her way to earning a spot at Semifinals, until her 5th score was not submitted/received/accepted by the CrossFit Games platform. In 2023, Greer placed 7th in the World Wide Quarterfinals, and is positioned well to earn her first trip to Madison. Based on the last 2 years of Quarterfinals you would expect Greer to be a lock for the Games. If you look at her 2022 offseason however, some questions arise. Greer won the CanWest Games over Last Chance Qualifier athlete Hattie Kanyo and 2022 Semifinal athlete Gabrielle Spenst in her first offseason competition. But then went on to finish 7th at the Madrid Championship where there was little elite competition outside of the podium finishers. In October, Greer finished 19th as a qualifier at the Rogue Invitational, managing only 2 top 10 finishes. What performance do we see at Semifinals? Bethany Shadburne (North America West)Bethany Shadburne has had a rocky 2 years from a professional standpoint. In 2021 she won the West Coast Classic over top 10 Games athletes Kari Pearce and Danielle Brandon, but then missed the CrossFit Games due to Covid. In 2022 she finished 2nd at Wodapalooza, but suffered a back injury in Quarterfinals and missed the season. In 2023, she enters Semifinals in the first heat after finishing 52nd in Quarterfinals. Based on her performances in 2021 and 2022, she easily has the potential to make it into the top 10 of the North America West field. Her 815th finish in the 2023 CrossFit Open and 227th finish in 2023 World Wide Quarterfinals makes me think otherwise. Was she doing only what it took to make it to Semifinals, or is her back injury still causing her problems? Katrín Davidsdottir(North America West)Katrín Davidsdottir enters 2023 with her third coach/training program in as many years. In 2021, her last year with Comp Train she had her second worst career finish at the CrossFit Games in 10th place. In 2022, while working with The Training Plan, she placed 6th at Strength in Depth, missing the CrossFit Games by 6 points. Entering the 2023 Semifinals, Davidsdottir is working with HWPO and looking to return to the Games. It goes without saying that the two time CrossFit Games champion has top 10 Games potential. Her Quarterfinals results say otherwise. Out of the 5 Quarterfinals test, Davidsdottir only had a single finish in the top 10 relative to the NA West field, while having 3 finishes outside of the top 30. Will the move to HWPO bring Davidsdottir back to the CrossFit Games, or will the 20th finish in NA West Quarterfinals be a sign of what’s to come in Pasadena? Madeline Sturt (Oceania)When Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr and Kara Saunders both announced they would not be competing in 2023, Madeline Sturt was the first name to come to mind as an athlete who would fill the void left by two of the best athletes to hit the competition floor. Sturt, the 4 time CrossFit Games athlete, missed a trip to Madison last year by finishing 4th at the Torian Pro, just 4 points behind Ellie Turner for the last Games ticket. In 2021 she finished 3rd in the Last Chance Qualifier, also missing the Games by one spot. Then in December, she rose above the crowded Oceania field and won the Down Under CrossFit Championship. In 2023 however, Sturt hasn’t had a solid competition. She finished 97th in the Open(11th in Oceania) and 10th in Oceania Quarterfinals. While Saunders and Toomey will be missing this year, the Oceania women’s field still has a competitive field of five women with past individual Games experience fighting for 3 spots(Jamie Simmonds, Laura Clifton, Katelin Van Zyl, Turner and Sturt). While Sturt only had one bad event in Quarterfinals, with a field this tight it’s going to be difficult to dig yourself out of any hole.
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