Modeled after the opening squat snatch event at this year’s regionals, the Squat Clean Pyramid gave fans at the 2016 Reebok CrossFit Games what they wanted: heavy loads moving quickly.
The event was the individual competitors' first in the tennis stadium, whose close quarters and fewer seats gives spectators an intimate experience. Stick out your hand and you can easily get a high-five from an athlete after they've rushed to jump onto the finishing platform.
Squat Clean Pyramid called for increasingly heavy squat cleans that diminished in reps. The caveat was that each of the 5 sets of cleans was time capped. Athletes first performed 10 squat cleans (245/165 lb.) by the 2-minute mark, then 8 squat cleans (265/180 lb.) by the 4-minute mark, 6 squat cleans (285/195 lb.) by the 6-minute mark, 4 squat cleans (305/205 lb.) by the 8-minute mark and finally 2 squat cleans (325/215 lb.) by the 11-minute mark.
Athletes who didn’t complete all the reps at a given weight before the respective time cap were credited for completed reps at his or her final bar and then ranked based on the time at which he or she finished his or her last full segment.
Among the women, Jamie Hagiya laid waste to the barbells in the second heat, finishing with an impressive time of 5:30.55. Just behind her was Michele Letendre who was nearly rep for rep with Camille Leblanc-Bazinet, who was among those predicted to win the event. Letendre was a few seconds faster, though, and hopped on the finishing platform with a time of 6:27.83. It wasn’t until the fourth and final heat that Hagiya’s time was surpassed by Australian Kara Webb—seemingly indomitable on the heavy barbell—who set a world record in the snatch event at the Pacific Regional.
Webb easily moved through the bars with no discernible sticky point as Brooke Wells, Tia-Clair Toomey and Sara Sigmundsdottir nipped at her heels.
But Webb moved smoothly.
“Kara Webb almost seems like she’s moving faster as the weight gets heavier,” said one of the emcees.
She reached the 205-lb. barbell just after 3:30. As she bounced out of the bottom of her first 215-lb. clean, the crowd was moved to its feet to watch Webb nail both reps. Webb’s max clean is more than 257 lb., said her coach, Brian Bucholtz. The 26-year-old secured the event win with a time of 5:17.12—13 seconds faster than Hagiya.
“We felt good going into it, for sure,” Bucholtz said.
At this point in the competition, Webb feels “way better than last year,” he noted.
Last year, Webb admitted that she pushed herself too hard on Murph and never fully recovered for the remainder of the competition.
“She’s not fresh, but she’s feeling really good,” he said.
Bucholtz said he wants Webb to do her best and whatever that puts her on the leaderboard, so be it.
“The goal is gonna be (to be) drama-free this year,” he said, flashing a wide smile.
Taking third was fellow Australian Tia-Clair Toomey with a time of 5:56.92. After this year’s Games, Toomey will travel to Brazil to compete in next month’s Olympic Games in the sport of weightlifting.
When the men took the floor, Canadian Lucas Parker, known for his Olympic-lifting prowess, set the time to beat at 6:36.98. And it stood until the third heat, when Scott Panchik shattered it by 28 seconds.
When it seemed the pace couldn’t be pushed any further, two-time Games competitor Alex Anderson was the first to advance to the second set of cleans at 285 and never relinquished his lead to Mat Fraser, the predicted winner of the event. He tore through the barbells, making reps look easy and smooth.
The 26-year-old won the event with a time of 5:21.09, surpassing Panchik by a whopping 47 seconds. Fraser notched a second-place finish in the event with 5:41.57, while Panchik settled into third in the event with a time of 6:08.22.
“I felt great going in,” Anderson said afterward. “Cleans have always been a good movement for me (since) freakin’ college football.”
He added that he’s also a good squatter. So as long as he could get the barbell racked, he said he was confident he could stand it up.
“My plan was to get movin’ fast on the lighter bars and hold on,” Anderson said.
He said his goal was to win the event.
“That’s what I was goin’ for—go for broke.”
Next up for the individuals: Double DT. The event will end the day of individual competition.
For complete results, visit the CrossFit Games Leaderboard.
U.S. viewers can watch the individual competition on ESPN networks. All events will be streamed online to WatchESPN. International viewers can watch everything on YouTube/CrossFit.
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