Nerding Out at Semifinals: Day 1 at North America West Semifinals
Just as expected, the North America West Individual Semifinal is as competitive as it could possibly be with no clear leader after day 1.
Although the usual suspects of Patrick Vellner, Justin Medeiros, Brent Fikowski, and Samuel Kwant topped the leaderboard by the end of the day, it is impossible to predict who will win the weekend, especially since multiple athletes have no finishes outside the top 10.
We also had a couple of dark horse athletes who may surprise everyone.
In the same fashion as last week’s Semifinals stats, we have included some of Day 1’s craziest and most interesting numbers:
- Brent Fikowski, Justin Medeiros, Mitchel Stevenson, and Bethany Shadburne all finished both Test 1 and Test 2 in the top 10.
- Justin Medeiros and Bethany Shadburne have still never finished outside of the top 10 in a Semifinals test in their careers (2021-2023). (Note: This changed on Day 2.)
- Patrick Vellner’s Testt 1 finish of 15th was his worst ever finish in a Semifinals test (previous worst: 7th in 2021)
- Only 28% of women at North America West finished Test 1 under the time cap (17/60).
- Only 3 of the top 10 finishers in Test 1 were in the last heat (Emily Rolfe, Katrin Davidsdottir, Olivia Kerstetter).
- Katrin Davidsdottir’s Test 2 finish of 23rd is her worst ever test finish at Semifinals.
- Stacy Lerum’s win in Test 1 was her first ever Semifinals Test win.
- Colten Mertens and Scott Tetlow tied for the world record in Test 2 with 56 total reps, beating Jeffrey Adler’s 55 rep score.
- In Test 1 (57%), 34/60 total men competed without shirts.
- No athlete who finished the Echo Bike first ended up winning their heat.
- When competing head-to-head at Semifinals, Brent Fikowski has only ever finished ahead of Patrick Vellner if he finishes in 1st place.
- The top 5 women from Test 1 all finished 30th or worse in Test 2.
- At the end of day 1, 36-year-old Chyna Cho was sitting in 8th place overall.
Day 1 was a great day of programming that favored bigger, taller athletes in Test 1, while Test 2 was primarily catered to smaller, lighter athletes.
With incredible story lines already developing after just 2 Tests, we can’t wait to see what happens the rest of the weekend.
Make sure to come back and see what incredible numbers stick out.
Get the Newsletter
For a daily digest of all things CrossFit. Community, Competitions, Athletes, Tips, Recipes, Deals and more.
"*" indicates required fields
