Competition

World Champions Crowned At iF3 Continental Cup

December 30, 2020 by
Image - Kristin Holte
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The International Functional Fitness Federation closed their 2020 season with the finals of the Continental Cup which were held online from December 19-21. Twenty three individual athletes and ten teams competed for automatic spots for next year’s iF3 World Championships held in Australia on November 12-14. The athlete line-up for the competition featured some of the top international names in CrossFit as they faced six tests across 70 minutes to earn the coveted invitation “Down Under”.

Women: In typical Kristin Holte fashion, she was solid across all six tests as she easily won the women’s division by eight points over runner-up and fellow Games veteran Melina Rodriguez.

  • Holte won two events, tied for the most by any athlete in the women’s field, and never placed worse than fifth in any of the six events.
  • Representing her native Norway, Holte won test three, accumulating 103 burpee box jumps across two four minute AMRAPS.
  • Holte would tie Japan’s Yuko Sakuyama for the victory in test five with 22 ground-to-overhead lifts in one minute.
  • Rodriguez, representing Argentina, and Norwegian Jacqueline Dahlstrøm as expected, were the athletes pushing Holte for the title.
  • Rodriguez recorded four top-three finishes including a win in test four, finishing with a combined 59 reps of free-standing handstand push-ups and ten second unbroken L-sit holds across two four minute AMRAPS.
  • Dahlstrøm just missed silver on the podium, finishing one point behind Rodriguez, thanks to her second place finish in the final test.
  • Sweden’s Mikaela Norman placed fourth and Australia’s Jessica Coughlin finished fifth.
  • Norman matched Holte with two test victories to lead the women’s division. She won the opening event, a 4K row, with a time of 14:26. She ended the competition with a test win as well, completing 469 reps in a nine minute AMRAP that featured power cleans, wall balls and double unders.
  • Coughlin had four top-five finishes including a victory in test two, finishing with a combined weight of 280 kg in unbroken thrusters.
  • Fifteen year old Canadian sensation Emma Lawson tied Coughlin for fifth with 31 points but lost the tie-breaker due to the Aussie’s test two victory.
  • Lawson had four top-five finishes including two third places.
Image – Markus Riva

Men: Uldis Upenieks holds many distinctions in his fitness career, one of those distinctions is being one of a handful of athletes to compete in every iF3 World Championships. Another distinction is that he can finally call himself an iF3 champion after winning this year’s title in his fourth attempt.

  • Upenieks, representing Latvia, finished third at last year’s iF3 World Championships in Sweden before claiming the title this year.
  • A 2019 Games athlete, Upenieks won two events on his way to an 11 point margin of victory. He never finished outside the top four in any of the seven tests.
  • Upenieks won test three, completing 95 reps of burpee box jump-overs, and the final test, completing 414 reps.
  • Canada’s Stephane Cossette finished with the silver behind Upenieks with 26 points on the heels of four top-four finishes including a win in test two.
  • Marcis Mucenieks joined his countryman Upenieks on the podium, finishing third, three points behind Cossette.
  • Mucenieks tied Upenieks with two test wins, winning the opening test with a combined 4K row of 13:08 and taking test five with 27 reps of ground-to-overheads in one minute.
  • Kristóf Horváth, the older brother of Games athlete Laura Horváth, placed fourth despite tying Mucenieks with 29 points with the Slovikian winning the tie-breaker.
  • Horváth had three top-five finishes including a second place in test one.
  • Spain’s Javier González Fernández rounded out the top-five, one point behind Mucenieks and Horváth. 
  • Venezuela’s CrossFit national champion Omar Martinez won test four, finishing eighth overall.
Image – iF3

Team: The Norwegian team carried their dominating showing in the semifinals with a convincing victory in the finals, winning four of the six tests.

  • The Norwegians placed second in the two tests they did not win.
  • The Swedish team, featuring a pair of Regional athletes in Angelica Bengtsson and Oscar Andersson, finished ahead of the United States team in the final event to secure the runner-up finish.
  • Sweden won test five, a workout that featured two athletes alternating one minute AMRAPS of double-unders and power snatches.
  • The US team was able to secure a podium finish thanks to their consistency across all six tests, finishing in the top-five in all the tests.
  • France finished fourth and Argentina finished fifth.
  • The Argentinians were the other team after the Swedes to take a test victory from the Norwegians. They won test two, completing 30 overhead squats in 1:06, :11 seconds ahead of the Norwegians.

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