The athletes who were good at 18.4 were very, very good.
Five-time Games competitor Austin Malleolo won 18.4—Diane plus heavy deadlifts and handstand walks—with a time of 6:02. The next-closest score was almost 30 seconds slower.
If ever a workout was in Malleolo’s wheelhouse, it was 18.4. He won Open Workout 14.3, an eight-minute AMRAP of box jumps and deadlifts that increased in weight and reps, topping out at 35 deadlifts at 365 lb., and he set worldwide event records for box jump/deadlift events at Regionals in 2011 and 2013. He has a one-rep-max deadlift of 570 lb. with a body weight of 178 lb.
Bartek Lipka of Poland finished 18.4 in 6:34 and took second. He’s competed at Regionals as an individual four times but never qualified for the Games. Josh Mabry, a competitor in the 2016 Atlantic Regional, was third, one second back of Lipka.
Mat Fraser finished in fifth place with a time of 6:39, his second top-10 placing in the Open so far.
At the 18.4 Open announcement, Scott Panchik completed the workout in 7:12 with almost no warning or time to prepare. He kept that score, and it was good enough for 21st place overall. Although Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson improved on his original time of 8:05, also set during the live announcement, his final score of 7:19 still didn’t beat Panchik’s original time.
With only one workout left in the 2018 Open, the overall leaderboard is starting to solidify. Although Fraser has not won a single Open workout this year, he’s in first place overall, almost 300 points ahead of second-place Alex Vigneault, who took third in the 2017 Open but withdrew from last year’s East Regional due to an injury suffered in training. Willy Georges, an athlete from France who has never competed at Regionals, is in third place, about 200 points below Vigneault. He’ll have to work to maintain his spot; Patrick Vellner, third place at the 2017 Games, is only 6 points behind him in fourth.
The Women
In 2016 it looked as if two-time Games champion Annie Thorisdottir was no longer the reigning queen of CrossFit in Iceland. Two new Icelandic women stood on the podium in 2016: Katrin Davidsdottir won the Games and Sara Sigmundsdottir took third. Thorisdottir wasn’t even in the top 10—she finished 13th.
At the 2017 Games, Thorisdottir slowly, steadily made her way up the leaderboard to once again stand on the podium. She took third—the only Icelandic woman in the top three.
Thorisdottir, a former gymnast who also can deadlift 330 lb. multiple times with ease, looks as if she’s continuing the comeback she started last year. However, Thorisdottir finished 36 seconds after the winner of 18.4 for the women Carol-Ann Reason-Thibault, who had a time of 5:58. Reason-Thibault took first at the East Regional in 2017, beating two-time CrossFit Games champ Katrin Davidsdottir, and then went on to place 15th at the 2017 Games.
Rachel Garibay from Texas took second with a time of 6:01. Garibay has never been to the Games, but this could be her year—right now she’s seventh in the world. Anna Fragkou’s time of 6:02 was fast enough for a third place finish in 18.4.
Teens and Masters
The deadlift weight for Teens 14-15 was lighter than for those aged 16-54, but the Open’s youngest athletes got no break on gymnastics—Rx’d competitors still had to perform handstand push-ups and handstand walks.
Fifteen-year-old Paige Powers took first in the Girls 14-15 Division, finishing 18.4 in 6:32. Fourteen girls in this age group finished the workout, which included 45 handstand push-ups, 150 feet of handstand walking, 45 deadlifts at 95 lb. and 45 deadlifts at 135 lb.
Tudor Magda won 18.4 in the Boys 14-15 Division with a time of 5:59, almost a minute ahead of Nolan Pedrick’s 6:55. Magda, from Washington state, is in first overall.
The “Mat Fraser of the 60+ set,” David Hippensteel won 18.4 with a score of 161 reps. Hippensteel, a five-time CrossFit Games athlete and champion of the 2016 and 2017 Masters 60+ Division, was 4 handstand push-ups short of finishing. The win puts the former triathlete and decathlete from Tennessee in first overall.
Another Games veteran, 61-year-old Patty Failla, was top for the 60+ women. She finished with a score of 156 reps, only 9 handstand push-ups away from finishing.
The final workout will be announced from CrossFit Reykjavík in Reykjavík, Iceland, and it will be the battle of the Dottirs. Each with two Fittest on Earth titles, Annie Thorisdottir and Katrin Davidsdottir will be joined by 2017 Games fourth-place finisher Sara Sigmundsdottir.
