Team Reebok East leads after the first competition of the CrossFit Team Series.
The first competition of the CrossFit Team Series is in the books. Over Labor Day weekend, 980 Rx teams, 880 Scaled teams, and 140 Masters teams completed four events, which tested everything from strength to raw capacity.
Currently, many familiar names dominate the top of the Rx Leaderboard, however, so far their finishing order in the CrossFit Team Series doesn’t track precisely with their CrossFit Games rank.
Rich Froning, Sam Briggs, Jason Khalipa and Julie Foucher of Rogue Fitness Black find themselves in an unfamiliar position: second place, while Camille Leblanc-Bazinet, Lauren Fisher, Josh Bridges and Dan Bailey of Rogue Fitness Red are in third.
Scott Panchik, Ben Smith, Stacie Tovar and Emily Bridgers of Team Reebok East managed to edge out the champion-packed teams through their consistency across the four events—fourth, third, second and first.
Rogue Fitness Black’s second, second and second places and Rogue Fitness Red’s first, first and fifth places look promising when you remove one key event: the 3-rep-max front squats. Neither Rogue team could match Panchik and Smith’s 390-lb. nor Tovar’s 250-lb. squats. Both Rogue teams came 65-lb. short of Team Reebok East’s total, which dropped them to a tie for sixth place on the event.
With such small margins among these three teams, the 4 extra points on Event 3 were enough to push the Rogue teams below Team Reebok East. Team Reebok East leads with 10 points, while Rogue Fitness Black follows with 12, and Rogue Fitness Red with 13.
Affiliate teams have made it clear they’re in it to win it with incredible performances on events that occasionally surpassed those of the super teams.
Reebok CrossFit Tuluka of Buenos Aires, Argentina, claimed the top spot on Event 3 with a massive 1,265-lb. total, which included a 330-lb. contribution from 42-year-old, three-time Olympian Nora Koppel.
CrossFit 417 in Ozark, Missouri, tied Team Reebok East for second on Event 3 with the help of Jared Stevens (405 lb.) and Brooke Wells (245 lb.). Moreover, this team without a single CrossFit Games competitor managed to land in fifth overall after never finishing outside of 10th place on any event.
Some of the fittest teams from the CrossFit Games have made an appearance on the top 20 of the Team Series. Sixth-ranked CrossFit Fort Vancouver has competed at the CrossFit Games for years, and even held the title in 2010, but it doesn’t have a single individual Games athlete on its roster. CrossFit 808, currently in 14th place, was a top-10 finisher at this year’s Games, and 20th-ranked CrossFit CDR Redlands took 17th at the Games.
Many athletes on the 880 scaled teams got their first taste of CrossFit competition. With such modifications as lighter weights and less-technical movements, such as single-unders instead of double-unders in Event 1, the Scaled Division is designed so almost anyone who is interested can join in the game.
There is plenty of room for movement on the Leaderboard over the next two weeks of competition. The next workouts will be released on September 18 and October 9, and the final standings will be tabulated on October 14. The overall result from the first week is just one of three scores that will be tallied in the end. A good start helps, but there is still opportunity for teams to make up ground in the second and third weekends. Let the most consistent, and fit, team win.
Rx. Leaderboard
1. Team Reebok East (10)
2. Rogue Fitness Black (12)
3. Rogue Fitness Red (13)
4. Team Reebok North (27)
5. CrossFit 417 - ProMO417 (29)
6. RedLine Gear (45)
7. CrossFit Fort Vancouver - Green (46)
8. PRGNX DarkHorse (50)
9. Team NFSports South (60)
10. Team PRGNX Force (70)