“My hope is to help the team out. And potentially be back in time to compete on our team this year. I should be good before regionals.”
Photos courtesy of Shaun Cleary
For the past three years, Austin Malleolo has won the North East Regional and Daniel Tyminski has come in second. This year, Tyminski’s spot will be up for grabs.
Tyminski approached Open Workout 14.2 the same way he approaches all the Open workouts.
“I didn’t do anything different warming up,” he said. “I like to get in a couple decent snatches before the Open (workout). I hit 245 lb. for three and felt great.”
Unfortunately, he suffered an injury on his first attempt at the second workout of the 2014 Open competition.
“I felt a vicious pop like my knuckles were cracking but extremely painful,” Tyminski said. “It was the first pull-up on the round of 14s.”
Shaun Cleary was at CrossFit Lindy photographing athletes during 14.2.
“He had nothing going on,” Cleary said. “No pain, perfectly fine warm up. Did the 10s fine, 12s fine, 14 overhead squats fine. It was one of the worst things to ever see. And he says he’s never been hurt in seven years.”
Unsure of how serious the damage was, Tyminski got back on the bar in an attempt to finish the round.
“First time (I got back on the bar), I just hung on it,” Tyminski said. “The second time, I manned up and tried to do a chest-to-bar but only got my chin up. (I) re-tried for a third time and said, ‘Fuck it, I am finished with this WOD,’ and kicked my chair because I had a good feeling that my solo competition was over.”
Tyminski’s performance on 14.1 (378 reps) put him in 64th place in the North East. His performance on 14.2 (103 reps) was 2,884th in the region.
He later found out he had injured his left teres major—a shoulder muscle essential for pull-ups.
“The (physical therapist) says that I have either a grade 1 or 2 strain—probably not a tear,” Tyminski said. “Hopefully a short recovery. Regardless, I will do my best to do 14.3.”
His best turned out to be 175 reps, which meant he completed all 30 deadlifts at 315 lb. and the 15 box jumps following it, before his eight minutes were up. This was the fourth-best score in the North East, 16th-best worldwide and enough to move his team up 20 spots to 36th.
Tyminski’s score, however, was not good enough to put him back in the running for a individual spot at regionals.
The top 30 teams in each region advance past the Open, but unlike previous years, individual competitors will no longer assist team qualification. If Tyminski qualified to compete as an individual, his contributing Open scores would have been removed from the CrossFit Lindy team score.
Now, as he sits in 716th place in the North East, he is optimistic he will heal in time to compete with his team at the regional.
“My hope is to help the team out,” Tyminski said. “And potentially be back in time to compete on our team this year. I should be good before regionals.”
When asked about his injury this week, Tyminski seemed optimistic.
“I am doing OK,” he said. “Still can't hang on a pull-up bar or press overhead. No (physical therapy) yet. It's been a process to get everything finished while trying to run an affiliate. I am trying to see a specialist to see what needs to be done. Hopefully I can continue to contribute to the team as much as possible.”
