Phil Toon Kicks Off Granite Games By Capturing Points Lead
The first day of Granite Games has come to a close with a bang, and there are several top athletes in contention for a spot on the podium and a trip to the CrossFit Games. Phil Toon sits atop the leaderboard after a strong start.
The details: The athletes took on two events to open the Granite Games. The first was Heavy Handstand Reverse Fran that paired barbell thrusters (100/80 pounds) with handstand walks. The second was the barbell complex that has been part of previous Semifinals.
- Timothy Paulson turned in a blistering fast time in the opening event at 2:20.02. He showed off how comfortable he is on his hands by completing the final walk with ease while other athletes had to do it in segments.
- Toon finished second in the opening event with a time of 2:30.80. He locked up 96 points and put himself into position to finish his day on a high note. All he needed to do was complete three cleans, two front squats, and a jerk.
Toon took advantage of the second event to take the top spot on the leaderboard. He completed the barbell complex with 335 pounds, putting him in a tie for third overall with Colten Mertens, Travis Mayer, and Nick Mathew.
- Toon’s third-place finish in the barbell complex moved him to 188 points total for the first day. He took the top spot over Mertens, who has 184 points after back-to-back third-place finishes.
- Paulson, for comparison, dropped to sixth on the leaderboard after the barbell complex. He finished 12th after completing the complex with 320 pounds but failing at 325 pounds.
Paulson: “The clean complex was a little frustrating. My legs felt a little worse than I was expecting, which was… I should have been expecting it. I would have liked to hit a little bit more on the clean complex, but I executed as well as I could have. And then, obviously, the first event was great. That was perfectly executed, and lived up to my training expectations.”
What’s next: There are two more events on tap for Saturday that will test the athletes in different ways. One features gymnastics while the other forces the athletes to run up and down the Minnesota Vikings’ practice field.
- Minnesota Mash-Up starts with 10 wall balls (20, 14 pounds) before forcing the athletes to do 50 GHD sit-ups. The rest of the event features 20 wall balls, 40 single-arm DB overhead squats (70, 50 pounds), 30 wall balls, 30 ring muscle-ups, 40 wall balls, 200 double unders, 50 wall balls, and 10 DB clean and jerks (70, 50 pounds).
- Speed Chipper starts with a 120-yard shuttle run and continues with 16 snatches (175, 120 pounds), 36 chest-to-bar pull-ups, a 160-yard shuttle run, 36 chest-to-bar pull-ups, 16 snatches, and a 120-yard shuttle run.
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