With the Alliant Energy Center hosting the CrossFit Games for the final time, three new champions were crowned Sunday night. Laura Horvath, Jeff Adler and CrossFit Invictus came out victorious over the four day competition.
All three divisions were anticipated to be close leading up to last week. With Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr and Mal O’Brien not competing this season, we knew a new woman would earn the title Fittest Woman on Earth. On the men’s side two-time defending champion, Justin Medeiros, was favored again, but many thought others would have a shot at the crown. And for the teams, Rich Froning walking away opened the door for a new team to win the Affiliate Cup.
Women
Only five of last year’s top 10 women were returning to this year’s CrossFit Games. Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr, the six-time defending champion, and Kara Saunders were both pregnant this season; Mal O’Brien and Haley Adams took a season off and Brooke Wells failed to qualify for the Games this season.
That meant that Laura Horvath was the only woman in this year’s field to be on last year’s podium. As much as Horvath was the favorite heading into the Games, there were still plenty of women expected to give her a fight throughout the week.
Emma Lawson and Alexis Raptis both held the red and white leader’s jersey during the course of the weekend. Lawson started Sunday morning on top of the leaderboard was still in the red and white Sunday afternoon during Event 11, Parallel-Bar Pull, but Horvath with two straight wins entering the event was closing the gap.
Horvath would win Parallel-Bar Pull for her third consecutive event win to take the lead heading into the final event. The victory for Horvath was not secure, however, as both Lawson and Arielle Loewen were close enough to mathematically pass Horvath.
But that would not happen as Horvath looked strong throughout the final event, Echo Thruster Final, to take 4th in the event to secure her first CrossFit Games title.
Emma Lawson would finish 2nd overall and Arielle Loewen rounded out the podium in 3rd. It was the first time on the podium for both Lawson and Loewen.
Men
Justin Medeiros entered the 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Games looking to be only the fourth athlete in Games history to win three titles. However, those chances started to slip away quickly beginning in the first event, Ride. Medeiros would fall off his bike twice. One of the falls he landed on the handle bars causing several bruises on his chest.
Medeiros followed that up with a 37th place finish on the Pig Chipper and there was more chatter about whether Medeiros would survive the cuts instead of whether he would be on the podium. He would bounce back with a 2nd place finish on Inverted Medley, but he would never break into the top 10 as he ended the weekend in 13th overall.
Last year’s runner-up Roman Khrennikov was in charge from the start. With a 4th place finish followed by an event win on Pig Chipper, Khrennikov took the leader’s jersey and looked dominant through the first two days of competition. Heading into Saturday, Khrennikov held a 100-point lead over Jeff Adler.
But Adler would begin to chip away at Khrennikov’s lead on Saturday with three strong performances. Khrennikov was still in 1st place but Adler was now within striking distance Sunday morning. But then tragedy struck for Roman.
Khrennikov landed awkwardly coming down from one of the logs and fractured his left foot. Last year’s Second Fittest Man on Earth would finish Muscle-up Logs in 4th, but he would be carted off by medical staff following the event.
Adler, who won that event, now took on the leader’s jersey heading into the next to last event. Khrennikov, with a broken foot, limped onto the floor, unwilling to give up. With the chance of winning the Games gone, Khrennikov showed grit and determination as he attempted heavy-rope double-unders on one foot.
Khrennikov would end up scoring zero points on the final two workouts, allowing Pat Vellner to slide past him in 2nd place. Roman, however, would end up hanging onto 3rd place after Brent Fikowski was unable to finish 8th or better in the final event to leapfrog Roman for the podium.
After the dust settled, Adler would be standing atop the leaderboard to become the 2023 Fittest Man on Earth.
Teams
The team competition was anticipated to be a close one with Rich Froning stepping away from the team division. Many expected CrossFit East Nashville PRVN to win the Affiliate Cup this year with last year’s Mayhem women, Taylor Williamson and Andrea Nisler, on the PRVN team. Add in Tola Morakinyo and individual Games veteran Tim Paulson, the PRVN team looked to have everything needed to take the title.
However, last year’s 2nd and 3rd place teams, CrossFit Oslo Navy Blue and CrossFit Invictus, were returning all four athletes and both were hungry to step into the top spot on the podium.
By the close of Day 1 on Thursday night, it was clear that those three teams were going to be fighting for the top spot all week long. But CrossFit Invictus would start to pull away on Friday.
After an 8th place finish on Event 1, CrossFit Invictus’ worst finish of the competition, Invictus would never finish worse than 5th in any event and slowly started to build a lead on PRVN and Oslo Navy Blue.
On Sunday, after an event win on Bob’s A Drag, CrossFit Invictus just had to avoid disaster to win the Affiliate Cup on the final event, something that was not an issue as they would finish the event in 2nd place, only behind PRVN. The event win for PRVN solidified their 2nd place finish with CrossFit Oslo Navy Blue returning to the podium, but in 3rd place this year.
