Yas, please: United Arab Emirates team wants to go to the Games.
Copenhagen, Denmark—“It’s time to start running!” Damon Killian yelled before firing Arnold Schwarzenegger into a kill-or-be-killed game show in the 1987 flick “The Running Man.”
Killian might as well have been standing in the center of the Ballerup Super Arena and screaming at a host of teams at the Meridian Regional on Saturday. With the self-propelled TrueForm treadmill making its first appearance in regional competition in 2015, squads would be forced to run their way to the CrossFit Games.
About 12 of 30 teams still had a realistic shot at the Games when Day 2 started, and after two Day 1 wins, CrossFit Yas—boasting a strong collection of experienced CrossFit competitors—was looking to put a lock on at least one of the spots.
On the agenda: running and wall-ball shots, max snatches and handstand walks.
In the day’s first test, athletes were graded on the curve, so to speak, with poor runners punished and the graceful rewarded by the TrueForm treadmill. While some athletes shuffled along with short, choppy steps that had them shifting fore and aft on the deck, others lifted heels to butt and ate up the meters with strides that would have had Pose Method creator Nicholas Romanov nodding his approval.
Running aside, it was generally the wall-ball shots that punished the women, who had to heave 14 lb. to 10 feet. The smart strategy had teams communicating with each other to allow their runners to finish just as the wall-ball shots were completed, but splits timed in training could be thrown off by several no reps—and there were a great many of those.
Jenny Jacobsen of Team CrossFit Nordic Alpha was one victim, and the series of misses had Numi Katrinarson pacing madly back and forth behind the treadmill, at one point stopping to look at the ceiling and scream, “What the fuck?”
In Heat 2, Team Butchers Lab was the class of the field and put up the fifth-best time of the event, but it was Tom Wyles of CrossFit 1664 who stole the show by getting Union Jacked for his run and answering the question, “Who wears short shorts?”
“Pretty much everyone wears them when we go out for runs,” said Wyles, an ex Royal Marines Commando.
He said the shorts featuring his country’s flag represented “two things at once: Great Britain and the Royal Marines.”
And Austin Powers?
“Him as well.”
With pressure mounting on the top teams, Heat 3 was hotly contested, but it was the hottest team that won the contest.
CrossFit Yas—made up of expats Sabine Whitfield (England), Tamarind Robinson (Australia), Jamie Green (New Zealand), Antony Monks (England), Ben McAnnis-Entenman (United States) and Elliot Simmonds (England)—took its third consecutive win, stopping the clock about 12 seconds faster than The Dutch, who hail from, uh, never mind.
Yas members constantly communicated with each other, allowing runners to speed up or slow down based on the reps remaining for athletes doing wall-ball shots. The strategy worked well, though a series of no reps for the final female added several seconds to the winning time.
The Dutch didn’t use as much in-event communication but relied on training numbers.
“We went 80 percent, then the last part we sprinted,” Dempsey Tamara said of the pace on the treadmill. “We found how long we could take on the wall balls by practicing that.”
The team avoided any stack-ups on its way to the second-fastest time of the day.
Event 3 Results
1. CrossFit Yas (17:43.9)
2. The Dutch (17:55.8)
3. Idol (18:02.6)
4. CrossFit Fabriken (18:18.0)
5. Team Butchers Lab (18:18.7)
When Event 4 opened, it was clear someone in the crowd had a fever, and the only prescription was more cowbell. Clanging rang above the rapidly filling stands as athletes worked through handstand walks and did some clang and bang of their own with max snatches.
Teams employed a number of loading strategies to maximize lifting time in each 1-minute interval, and perhaps the best found teams pre-loading bars for one of the strongest athletes, then stripping plates throughout the 6-minute event. Others employed other strategies, while some teams seemed to have little strategy, with athletes madly scrambling to load and lift.
Felix Ledin of CrossFit Solid has a snatch PR of about 280 lb. but only hit 225 because he got but one attempt at the bar. A team player, he wasn’t upset at all because the Solid crew didn’t feel a lot of pressure in the snatch event.
“We knew all six of our team members would be strong so we didn’t have to push anything,” he said. The plan was to hit heavy but safe lifts and avoid zeroes, and the plan paid off. Without exerting themselves a whole lot, the crew from Sweden locked out a total of 1,075 lb. to take fourth.
Ledin was conspicuous for a large flower worn in his hair for all three events today.
“The flower, you know, some guys take off the shirt to feel strong. I put on the flower,” he explained. It will reappear tomorrow, when Solid—sitting third after five events—will look to solidify its hold on a Games spot.
“We’re absolutely here to qualify for the Games. We have two good events for us left,” Ledin said.
CrossFit JST Black won the event with a total of 1,140 lb.
In Event 5, which followed hard on Event 4, teams had 7 minutes for all athletes to handstand-walk 100 feet each. If athletes in Europe were generally stellar at handstand walks in 2014, Meridian athletes were even better in 2015, and two groups put up times below the record of 4:26.8 put up in the East Regional by CrossFit Resilience. Both CrossFit Reykjavik Virtuosity and CrossFit Turicum were under that standard, with Reykjavik holding the new mark of 4:17.3.
All but three athletes went unbroken in the first wave of the last heat, and many were very fast indeed. One athlete from CrossFit PBM, torso hidden by the barrier and its banners, gave the crowd a very brief look at a set of legs mystically racing across the floor.
Athletes chose a host of styles to get the work done. Some looked like technical gymnasts, bodies hollow with legs together and toes pointed, while others arched into a scorpion position and forced their arms to keep up with knee socks and Nanos dangling in front of their faces like carrots before horses.
The event combo was noteworthy as it marked the end of CrossFit Yas’ dominance. Still the team from United Arab Emirates finished sixth and 10th to sit atop the leaderboard with 27 points to spare.
Icelandic, Swedish and Swiss teams hold down the other Games spots at the end of Day 2 and will look to be in the same positions—or better ones—at the end of Day 3.
Event 4 Results
1. CrossFit JST Black (1,140 lb.)
2. Team Butchers Lab (1,090 lb.)
3. CrossFit Reykjavik - Virtuosity (1,085 lb.)
4. CrossFit Solid (1,075 lb.)
5. CrossFit Turicum (1,051 lb.)
Event 5 Results
1. CrossFit Reykjavik - Virtuosity (4:17.3 – event record)
2. CrossFit Turicum (4:18.4)
3. The Dutch (4:34.0)
4. CrossFit Fabriken (5:01.8)
5. Team CrossFit Nordic Alpha (5:16.3)
Overall Standings
1. CrossFit Yas (442)
2. CrossFit Reykjavik - Virtuosity (415)
3. CrossFit Solid (409)
4. CrossFit Turicum (403)
5. CrossFit Fabriken (377)
6. Team Butchers Lab (374)
7. The Dutch (368)
8. Idol (362)
9. Team CrossFit Nordic Alpha (359)
10. CrossFit JST Black (352)