Sam Briggs and Ben Smith Win 15.3

March 17, 2015

CrossFit

With scores of 633 and 630 reps, respectively. 

The top athletes exceeded 4 full rounds on 15.3. 
 

The third week of the 2015 Reebok CrossFit Games Open is in the books.

Last Thursday, Dave Castro announced that 15.3 would begin with muscle-ups. Athletes would have 14 minutes to complete as many rounds as possible of 7 muscle-ups, 50 wall-ball shots and 100 double-unders. That meant to log an Rx’d score, athletes would need to get on top of the gymnastics rings at least once.

Over the last 96 hours, countless athletes got their first muscle-ups.

Every week we award $2,015 to the man and woman who turn in the world’s best scores on the week’s Open workout and back it up with video; this week the prize money goes to Sam Briggs and Ben Smith. 

The 2013 fittest woman on Earth, Briggs set the world’s highest score on the workout by completing 4 full rounds plus 5 muscle-ups for a total score of 633 reps.

That score may sound 1 rep off to you, if you watched the leaderboard over the weekend, and you’re correct. Briggs submitted a 632-rep performance on Friday and turned her video over to CrossFit Games organizers for preliminary review the next day. When she heard she would be docked for wall-ball shots that did not appear to break parallel, she responded by re-doing the workout. Even after celebrating her birthday, she was able to improve her performance by 1 rep.

Briggs—the 2013 and 2014 Open worldwide winner—currently stands uncharacteristically low on the overall worldwide leaderboard in 167th place. She has been dealing with a flare up of an old SI joint injury since the start of the 2015 Open, which significantly affected her performance on the 1-rep-max clean and jerk for 15.1a. (Read more in ‘Whatever It Takes.’)

The week after next, you’ll be able to watch Briggs compete with the two-time Games champion Annie Thorisdottir and reigning champion Camille Leblanc-Bazinet. These three queens of the sport of fitness will face off moments after Castro announces the fifth and final workout of the 2015 Open from Las Vegas, Nevada. The live Open announcement will be broadcast on Games.CrossFit.com Thursday, March 26, starting at 5 p.m. PT.  

Six-time CrossFit Games competitor Ben Smith earned the worldwide Open workout win with 4 full rounds plus 2 muscle-ups (630 reps). The last time Smith won the Open workout it involved the same three movements, but was arranged into a 12-minute AMRAP of 150 wall balls, 90 double-unders and 30 muscle-ups (13.3).  

 

Smith currently sits in third overall on the worldwide leaderboard. Mat Fraser, the silver medalist and rookie of the year at the 2014 Games, is in the lead, pushing the four-time Games champion Rich Froning to second.

On the women’s side, Leblanc-Bazinet leads, followed by the woman who wore the white leader’s jersey for the early part of the 2014 Games weekend, Kara Webb, and last year’s highest-ranked rookie Emily Bridgers.

The next workout will be released Thursday, March 19 at 5 p.m. PT. Come to Games.CrossFit.com to watch Castro announce 15.4 from CrossFit X-Factor in Portland, Oregon, moments before the fourth and fifth-ranked men at the 2014 Games, Josh Bridges and Scott Panchik, face off.