The Nationals has crowned its champions for 2023 with 28 divisions finishing out their weekend of competition in The Netherlands today.
Preteens and teenagers up to Foundation, Scaled, Inter, Rx and Rx+ as well as 12 adaptive divisions took part in 5 workouts over two days. In a fitting end to a week where CrossFit released a statement on their changes to the adaptive field, which had particular ramifications on the Neuromuscular field, Susanne Daalhuizen and Benjamin Fallon (who penned an open letter to HQ appealing them to reconsider changes to his division) stood on top of the podium on Sunday for the Neuro Minor male and female fields.
Hanna Korpela took the Sensory female win with Siemen Scheepsma taking gold in the Intellectual male category after 5 workouts adapted from the workouts being taken on by the open divisions.
Nationals make the distinction of athletes ability to utilize their abdomen rather than hip when it comes to seated divisions as they have ascertained that it impacts performance and ability more. In the Seated With divisions David Delgado Balsa won out for the men with Elana Pietroni winning the female division. Meanwhile, Bram Van Dyck was victorious in the Seated Without competition.
Another interesting point to note in their classifications is that they take into account how many points of contact athletes have if they are in the Upper or Lower extremity divisions. In the Lower Two Point Shane Rossall won for the guys. In the Lower One Point Ross Austen followed up his performance at Battle for Middleground in the UK with a win and Eugeine Van Huijgevoort winning the female comp. In the Upper One Point Frenchman Thibaut Dupré won, while Anneka Allen won the female Upper Two Point.
Asking the organizers, Mandy Loes and Sybille Blitgen for highlights from the weekend produced a, thankfully predictably, long response with a struggle to nail down one moment. Mandy’s personal highlight of the weekend was “the interaction we got to have with the athletes. To me, that was the most important thing, to be able to see everyone and talk in person”.
Sybil said, “Not in a million years did I think we would pull this off when we started it. Seeing everyone, people I had spoken to on Instagram and now I can say I’ve probably made friends for life. Everyone said the workouts were super well adapted, Jacqueline Gottshalk said, ‘you’ve changed my life with what you’ve done here, you’ve shown me adaptive athletes belong, you don’t condescend or tell me I can’t because it’s dangerous’ I think that in itself is a major highlight.”
Pride has been rightfully taken by the organizers for their ability to provide adequate tests for the Elites down to Foundation divisions and adapt those workouts effectively for the adaptive fields.
The athletes themselves meanwhile had first wall walks (Eugenie Van Huijgevoort) or tied to the millisecond finishes like Keven Maijer and Ben Fallon. Vincent Borruto who finished 3rd in the Intellectual Male category said “being third on the podium is just mind blowing. I’m happy to take home a medal for Luxembourg”. Shane Rossall said, “the 16 no reps in the HSPU workout was a highlight” proof, if it was needed that his mindset needs no work, even if his HSPU do, the same can be said of Laurent Blitgen who was proud of his ripped hands during his knee raises.
Athletes could scale adapted workouts if needed, but, only the events that they Rx’d would be counted towards their score on the leaderboard. Any athletes who completed Rx and won their division would win qualification to Wodcelona later in the year too.
Diamond Male (Rx+) saw Dutch man Bram Van Den Hudding win out over Coot Simons and Toby Slager after 9 events, including a carry-over from the online qualifiers. Full breakdown of all categories and winners can be found on the TheNationals app in the app store.
The Nationals plan to return with a full adaptive field once again in 2024. Qualifiers will kick off on September 15th.
