Maybe it was impossible.
Dave Castro, Director of the CrossFit Games, said he initially didn’t expect any athlete to finish 18.3 within the 14-minute time cap.
Finishing two rounds of 18.3—with its hundreds upon hundreds of double-unders and bursts of overhead squats, two kinds of muscle-ups and dumbbell snatches—appeared to be beyond the reach of mere mortals.
MEN
After watching former CrossFit Games competitors and masters athletes Neil Maddox and Kyle Kasperbauer in the Open announcement, Castro changed his mind. He decided it was possible to finish, and he thought two-time Games champ Mat Fraser was the man for the job.
Turns out he was half right.
On Monday as the final scores rolled in, it seemed as if nobody—except for all the people who entered their scores incorrectly—was going to enter a time instead of a rep count for 18.3.
Then score submissions closed, and after setting aside the people who entered their scores in error, two names stood apart. Two men were able to do what no one else in the world could—including two-time Games champ Mat Fraser.
Dakota Rager, who finished 22nd at the 2017 Reebok CrossFit Games, completed 18.3 in 13:25 with more than 30 seconds to spare. It’s clear the 26 year-old is very good at moving quickly. He took 16th in the world in 18.2 with a time of 3:54.
Pure strength events are a challenge for him, at least when compared to his Games-level peers: Rager placed 3,432nd in 18.2a by cleaning 310 lb.
Thirty-five-year-old Josh Bridges, a five-time Games athlete, former collegiate wrestler and U.S. Navy SEAL, turned in a masterful piece of pacing and finished 18.3 in 13:59, one second under the time cap. Like Rager, Bridges did well on 18.2, finishing in 4:06, but took a hit on 18.2a, cleaning 312 lb. and placing 3,195th.
With four scored events complete, the men’s overall leaderboard is starting to take shape. Fraser, who completed 916 reps in 18.3, was close to 300 points ahead of second-place Alex Vigneault after Week 3. If Fraser keeps doing Fraser-like things, he stands a very good chance of winning the Open for the second year in a row.
Teen titan George Sterner was third. The 19-year-old finished second at the 2016 Games in the Teenage Boys 16-17 Division.
THE WOMEN
No woman finished 18.3, but 2017 CrossFit Games champ Tia-Clair Toomey came the closest with an initial score of 918, only 10 bar muscle-ups short of 2 rounds. During the review process, she was penalized two reps for removing her hands off the bar at the top of a couple of bar muscle-ups.
Nevertheless, Toomey was the only woman in the world to get to the second set of bar muscle-ups. This first-place finish is a vast improvement over Toomey’s 401st place finish on 18.1, and the win put Toomey in 14th overall.
Four-time CrossFit Games veteran Emily Bridgers completed 908 reps, taking second, and 2013 CrossFit Games champ Samantha Briggs took third overall, putting up 874 reps after finishing the dumbbell snatches plus 58 double-unders in the second round.
Kara Saunders (formerly Webb), who took second at last year’s Games, finished 18.3 with 804 reps, a score that put her in first overall after the third week of the 2018 Open. Cassidy Lance-McWherter was in second, and in third was four-time Regionals competitor Carolyne Prevost from the Canada East region. Prevost, a teacher at Gaétan-Gervais Secondary School in Oakville, Ontario, finished 56th worldwide in the 2017 Open but missed the Games by five places, finishing 10th at the East Regional. In her fifth attempt to qualify for the Games, Prevost will be fighting for one of five Games-qualifying spots at the East Regional, the region that’s home to former Games champion Katrin Davidsdottir and Games veterans Kari Pearce, Carol-Ann Reason-Thibault, Dani Horan and Chelsey Hughes.
TEENS AND MASTERS
In 18.3, the Rx standards were the same for teens ages 16-17, masters ages 35-54 and athletes ages 18-34. Seventeen-year-old Haley Adams completed 798 reps, which means she got 2 dumbbell snatches in the second round. Adams finished second at the 2017 Games in the 16-17 age group, and she landed in second overall in her category.
Seventeen-year-old Reece Mitchell took the top spot in the Boys 16-17 Division with a score of 787 reps. Dallin Pepper, who won the 14-15 age group at the 2017 Games, is showing dominance in his new 16-17 age group—he was first overall after Week 3, 21 points ahead of second-place Zach Mayer.
Seven women in the Masters 50-54 Division were able to get into the second round of 18.3, led by 50-year-old Eva Thornton from South Africa. The two-time Games athlete has previously competed in the 45-49 Division. She completed 568 reps of 18.3, which is 1 round plus 100 double-unders and 4 overhead squats.
Brian Montgomery, a 51-year-old athlete from Florida, took first in his age group with a score of 635 reps, finishing 50 reps ahead of second-place Mike Egan.
Montgomery has been doing CrossFit since 2008, and he’s participated in every previous CrossFit Games Open competition. He’s made it to the Masters Qualifier three times but never the Games. Now in 20th overall, this might be Montgomery’s year.
