Vellner and Toomey Repeat as Wodapalooza Champions, Mayhem Freedom Wins Team Title
The Wodapalooza CrossFit Festival has billed itself as one of the premier and most exciting CrossFit competitions in the world. It lived up to that billing throughout four days of competition, culminating with a final, action-packed day. With podium spots, big money and the 2020 CrossFit Games invitation on the line, day four was punctuated by nail-biting finishes across all the Elite divisions at Bayfront Park in Miami, Florida.
The men’s division:
For the first time since the Sanctional format was introduced, there was a tie atop the podium. With identical point totals of 714 points, Patrick Vellner defended his Wodapalooza championship by virtue of a tie-breaker over Cole Sager. The tie-breaker was the best event finish in the competition and Vellner tallied three event wins, while Sager had none.
Sager came into the final day with what appeared to be a comfortable 64-point lead over Vellner with two events remaining. The issue for Sager was that the eighth event was one that played right into Vellner’s wheelhouse. Named “Down-Up” it featured deadlifts at 335 pounds and bar-facing-burpees in a 12-9-6-9-12 rep scheme. Vellner, who recorded a deadlift of 595 pounds when he won the “CrossFit Total” at the 2018 CrossFit Games, dominated, recording his second event win of the competition after winning “Luce” to kick-off Wodapalooza on Thursday. He finished over 30 seconds faster than second-place finisher Noah Ohlsen, recording a final time of 4:14.
Meanwhile, Sager struggled with the heavy load, finishing 19th with a time of 5:50. His 19th place finish was his only finish outside the top-ten at the competition. Most importantly, his lead shrunk to just six points over Vellner, 620-614 heading into the finale under the Flagler Stage lights.
For Sager to earn his first career Sanctional victory, he would have to finish ahead of Vellner in the final event — “Celebrate Life” — a grueling chipper that consisted of 50 wall balls, 40 calorie ski, 30 dumbbell snatches, 20 box jump overs and 15 bar muscle ups. Sager and Vellner went rep-for-rep in the first two movements before Sager pulled ahead by three reps heading into the box jump overs. Vellner made up those reps on the box and both athletes got to the pull up bar at the same time. Vellner, a former gymnast, wasted no time getting up on the bar and had two muscle-ups done before Sager jumped up for his reps. The gymnast beat the former college football player Sager off the bar and celebrated as he crossed the finish line, with the raucous Miami crowd cheering the exciting finish and Vellner victory.
- Vellner becomes the third male athlete with multiple Sanctional championships and the seventh athlete overall to do so.
- Vellner also becomes the first athlete to defend his Sanctional championship. Tia-Clair Toomey would join him later on in the evening as she won the women’s division to repeat as Wodapalooza champion.
- Vellner was only the overall leader twice, after winning the opening event on Thursday afternoon and the final event of the competition. He recorded seven top-six finishes in eight events, including three wins.
- Vellner now has eight career Sanctional event wins including five this season. He is tied with fellow Canadian Brent Fikowski for third on the career Sanctional wins list.
- Sager has competed in three Sanctionals in his career, he has finished on the podium in all of them. This is his second runner-up finish after placing second at the Fittest in Cape Town last season.
- Noah Ohlsen finished third at Wodapalooza for the second-straight year.
- Saxon Panchik secured his third-straight Games invitation after finishing fourth. Panchik, who finished ninth at the Games last year, came in fourth in the final event on Sunday and moved past Travis Williams into the Games qualifying spot.
- Spencer Panchik placed sixth and joins Nycolas Joyal (seventh), Adrian Mundwiler (eighth) and Bryan Wong (ninth) as athletes who finished in the top-ten who are still seeking their individual Games invitation.
- “Celebrate Life” was created in celebration and memory of Jacob Morris, a teen athlete at the CrossFit Games last year who passed away in December.
** – Statistical support for this story provided by Chad Schroeder