Colten Mertens, Brittany Weiss Win 2024 Crash Crucible

The 2024 Crash Crucible wrapped up this weekend at CrossFit Crash in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Hosted by J.R. Howell and presented by HWPO, this year’s Crash Crucible had the strongest field in its five-year history. Colten Mertens and Brittany Weiss ended up winning the elite men’s and women’s field, respectively, after seven scored events.

Men’s Field

Four athletes stood out as the favorites in the men’s field heading into the event. Many were especially looking forward to see Taylor Self and Colten Mertens face off again following the Northern California Classic last month. Add in CrossFit Games veterans Chris Ibarra and Nick Mathew and the men’s field was definitely top heavy.

Mertens, however, would end up running away with it after he won four straight events beginning Saturday morning. Mertens won Event 3, Pillgatory, and then followed up with two wins in the back-to-back Event 4 & 5 Saturday afternoon. He then came back Sunday morning and won Event 6, Mad Moon, to solidify his 1st place ranking.

Taylor Self would also pull away from the field throughout the week. Self won Event 1, Dumb Standard, and was able to finish every event inside the top 10. Only he and Mertens were able to do that.

Ibarra, who came into the competition saying he was out of shape, had to battle back from a 14th place finish on Event 1. After an event win Friday afternoon, he steadily moved up the leaderboard and finished in 3rd place overall.

Women’s Field

While the men’s leaderboard was top heavy, the women’s field was deep. No female in the field was able to finish every event inside the top 10. In fact, every athlete had at least two finishes 11th or worse out of the seven scored events.

Brittany Weiss was the only woman to win two events, Pillgatory and Mad Moon. No one else in the top 5 overall had an event win. Two event wins came from athletes who finished 14th or worse overall.

Keara Miller (formerly Napoli) won Event 5, Cyclists Delight, but she finished 14th overall. Emma Harvang, who finished 19th overall, won the final event, Thick-N-Thin.

And while the men’s podium didn’t change on the final event, the women’s field had a lot of movement. Fee Saghafi vaulted up the leaderboard with a second place finish on the final event to move into 2nd place overall. In doing so, she passed Lydia Fish and Katelynn Sanders, who were in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively, heading into the event.

Lydia Fish would narrowly hold on for 3rd place overall, ahead of Kyra Milligan who quietly moved into 4th place at the end of the weekend.

P-Score

Crash Crucible has used P-Score (or a variation of) in previous years and this year was no exception. Unlike traditional scoring tables where points are awarded by the order of finish (i.e. 100 points for 1st place, 95 for 2nd, 90 for 3rd), P-Score adjusts the scoring table for each event based on the times an athlete finishes compared to the top athlete.

First place always receives 100 points for an event win. However, after that points are awarded based on relative performance.

For example, in Event 1, Taylor Self narrowly beat Colten Mertens by four seconds. Self finished in 6:57 while Mertens finished in 7:01. Because they were so close in time, Self earned 100 points, but Mertens earned 98.48 points.

But in Pillgatory, Mertens won in a blazing 8:45 while Chris Ibarra, who finished 2nd, came in with a time of 10:17. Because the time gap was so large, Ibarra only earned 82.38 points.

Final Leaderboard

View the complete leaderboard with event results at Local Comp.