CrossFit 417 sits in first after Day 2 at the Central Regional.
It’s separation Saturday and, after the day’s events, five teams have staked a claim to the Games-qualifying spots.
Team Rollins - QCCF is now in the lead, with Day 1 leader CrossFit 417 following in second overall. CrossFit Maximus, CrossFit Mayhem Freedom, and CrossFit Kilo now round out the top five.
Timberwolf CrossFit, the 4th-ranked team at the 2014 Games, is now on the outside looking in, with a 40-point deficit to make up on the final day of competition tomorrow.
“We’re just going to try our hardest (on) the rest of the events,” said Timberwolf’s Andrea Nisler. “The last events (are) the ones we are looking forward to the most, so we got the scary ones out of the way.”
TEAM EVENT 3
Twenty- and 14-lb. wall-ball shots never felt so heavy.
The TrueForm runner can make one’s legs seemingly disappear; many athletes got to the wall-ball shots only to be surprised by countless no reps. Especially the women, who had to shoot the 14-lb. ball to a 10-foot target.
Mad Apple CrossFit’s teammates had never practiced on the motorless machine before, and their first athlete got off the TrueForm only to catch her first wall-ball shot sideways, and nearly fall over.
“Our hamstrings were blown,” said Mad Apple’s Mallory Shinneman. “If you drifted toward the back (on the TrueForm), it was like running through quicksand.”
CrossFit Murfreesboro’s leading lady made up for her short stature by running all out, holding her elbows in tight. While the sprint gave her a head-start on the wall balls, she apparently redlined too early and collected many no reps. In the end, Murfreesboro would be the last on the floor with their final man finishing the event just 15 seconds before the time cap.
Kilo set the fastest time of any team in the world, breaking the event record set by NorCal CrossFit by 25.6 seconds with a time of 16:47.
Incredibly, Kilo had never practiced on a TrueForm.
“We ran outside and we had a treadmill kind of like a TrueForm, but we knew as long as we pushed to 90 percent, the wall balls would be fine,” said Kilo’s Luke Schafer.
That 90 percent strategy was key. While some teams redlined only to fall apart on the wall ball, Kilo jogged and started each wall ball shot seemingly fresh.
“Our coach made us (practice the event) about eight times, so we knew our times,” Schafer continued. “So we didn’t have to worry about bottlenecking at all.”
Mayhem didn’t follow that same strategy. Their top athletes went hard, only to wait as their weaker athletes worked. Mayhem would drop to seventh on the event, and fourth overall.
Meanwhile, Kilo’s winning strategy moved it up to first overall.
Team Event 3 Results
1. CrossFit Kilo (16:47.0-event record)
2. Team Rollins - QCCF (17:40.4)
3. CrossFit 417 (18:00.9)
4. CrossFit Maximus (18:05.5)
5. CrossFit Grandview (18:14.7)
TEAM EVENTS 4 AND 5
Athletes scrambled to load and strip bars between each teammate’s 1-minute snatch session in Event 4. The most efficient teams began with the males, and simply took off weight for the females to follow.
Other teams sandwiched the smaller weights, slapping extra load on the ends, leaving barbells gap-toothed.
It was CrossFit 417 that had the most efficient—and most risky—plan of all, opting to allow time for just one lift per teammate.
“We knew just taking one lift would be smart; that way we wouldn’t have any stumbles trying to change weights,” said 417’s Jared Stevens.
The team didn’t have much weight changing to do, anyway, since all three men snatched 247 lb., two women snatched 147 lb., and the final woman snatched 137 lb.
Their lifts seemed unremarkable compared to the 275-lb. and 300-lb. snatches that Froning led with across the floor, but 417 still won out thanks to their consistency. Even with a 275 lb. snatch on the books, Mayhem fell 2-lb. shy of CrossFit 417’s 1,172-lb. total.
After the weights were restacked and teams got inverted. CrossFit Grandview’s teammates finished the 100-foot handstand walk relay in 4:14.9, breaking the event record by 2.4 seconds.
“We’re not gymnasts!” Kyri-Ann Gold exclaimed as the team jumped up and down in a sweaty embrace.
The handstand walk event played out a lot like the snatch event, with Mayhem garnering attention for its top athletes but losing out to less flashy teams that were more consistent.
Again, Mayhem claimed the initial spotlight as Froning took a lead of several paces, his star-spangled socks hovering over his head as he handstand-jogged to the finish line. Froning’s teammates, Hobart and Hewett, contested the lead with CrossFit Maximus, but things shifted once Mayhem’s women took the floor. Mayhem’s women fell far behind with short, unsure reaches. Two got stuck at the rig, falling sideways as they struggled to traverse the slightly raised ground.
Eight teams passed Mayhem before the event ended, but Grandview was the only team that sped up as the clock ticked down. Saving its best handstand-walkers for last, all three men made it from start to finish without falling once. When its last man face-planted over the red line just after the 4:10 mark, he sprinted into the arms of his teammates for the Ohio team’s first event win.
“We executed it exactly how we practiced it,” Grandview’s Joey Tortora said. “We wanted to finish Saturday good, that was key.”
With less than a 10-point span between third and fifth places, and only 26 between fifth and sixth, teams who wish to move into—or keep—a qualifying spot will have to prove they can stomach what’s to come tomorrow.
Event 4 Results
1. CrossFit 417 (1,172 lb.)
2. CrossFit Mayhem Freedom (1,170 lb.)
3. On Track (1,155 lb.)
4. CrossFit St Louis (1,152 lb.)
5. CrossFit Maximus (1,150 lb.)
Event 5 Results
1. CrossFit Grandview (4:14.9-event record)
2. CrossFit Maximus (4:31.0)
3. On Track (4:50.4)
4. Team Rollins - QCCF (5:00.4)
5. Koda CrossFit (5:09.1)
Overall Standings
1. CrossFit 417 (453 points)
2. Team Rollins - QCCF (415 points)
3. CrossFit Maximus (411 points)
4. CrossFit Mayhem Freedom (405 points)
5. CrossFit Kilo (401 points)
6. CrossFit Grandview (375 points)
7. Timberwolf CrossFit (361 points)
8. On Track (359 points)
9. Koda CrossFit (328 points)
10. Kilotrained (325 points)