This year is going to be completely different from the previous CrossFit Games. With nearly 150 men and women competing this year, along with several cuts to the field along the way. And while we expect the top athletes to be unaffected by the changes, there will still likely be some impact.
One of our readers, Cameron Tally (@texastally in Instagram) looked at last year’s events and applied this year’s scoring tables for the men’s competition. Of course we don’t know exactly how/when the cuts are going to occur, it does highlight how athletes could be affected by a slow start.
In his analysis, Tally applied the scoring tables over the course of last year’s 14 events. The field and scoring table adjusted every two events with the assumption that all of the athletes would have finished in the top 40 when the field was larger.
Here’s what we found:
- Mat Fraser is still the champ and his margin of victory was nearly identical.
- Patrick Vellner retained 2nd place, but Brent Fikowski broke the point total tiebreak with Lukas Hogberg to move onto the podium.
- Alex Anderson moved up four spots to finish in the top 10.
- Cole Sager and Cody Anderson both fell outside the top 10. Sager started the weekend slow, but came back on Sunday. That tenacity to keep fighting will not pay off this year like it did last year.
- Ben Smith dropped 10 places, similar to what happened to Sager. A strong surge late in the weekend could not be enough to break into the top 10 (or 20).
Overall, the top athletes did as expected. And other than a few spots up or down, the new scoring did not change the outcome that much from last year. Of course, adding 100 more athletes to the mix could create an upset or an athlete missing the cut early.
Event 1 begins Thursday morning at 11am. Stay tuned to The Barbell Spin as we will be in Madison covering the event.
