CrossFit Games

Lazar Djukic Leads After Moving Day with Fiebig and Haapalainen Close Behind

June 3, 2023 by
Photo Credit: Ava Kitzi
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Saturday at the Europe Semifinal presented 300 available points across three tests for athletes to make moves heading into the final day of competition. 

The top of the men’s leaderboard started to take shape on Friday evening, but only 38 points separated fourth from 11th heading into Moving Day. 

After two weeks and five Semifinals, we’ve come to expect massive shuffling on the leaderboard during the first two days of competition. The shift from endurance and gymnastics on Friday to stamina, strength and speed on Saturday has proven to test a range of skills that reward the most balanced competitors.  

Test 3: Semifinals Linda continued to be a monkey wrench for several athletes, opening the door for others to capitalize and get themselves inside the qualifying line. Four men who started the day in a qualifying spot fell outside the top 11 after Test 3, one of whom was Bjorgvin Karl Gumundsson. BKG took his second straight 25th place finish on Saturday morning, but it wasn’t quite time for the panic button with him only being 19 points outside a qualifying position heading into Test 4. 

  • The podium remained the same after Semifinals Linda, with Lazar Djukic extending his lead from 18 to 39 points following a third place finish in Test 3. Moritz Fiebig started the day in third, but would leapfrog Henrik Haapalainen after his eighth place bested Haapalainen’s 11th. Fiebig headed into Test 4 with just a three point cushion over Haapalainen. 
  • David Shorunke started Saturday with a dominant win, finishing 47 seconds ahead of second place, helping to move him from 13th to fifth place overall. 
  • Bronislaw Olenkowicz moved from 12th to fourth place overall after Test 3, taking third with a time of 13:13.  
  • Michal Wesolowski started the day in 20th overall, but moved up to 11th after his fifth place finish in Test 3. 
  • Antoine Dumain was the fourth man to shift into qualifying position after Test 3, bumping his position from 14th to eighth overall after a sixth place in Semifinals Linda. 

Test 4: As if the whirlwind of drama wasn’t entertaining enough, throwing a max snatch in the middle of moving day was a sure-fire way to crank up the heat even further. Bjorgvin Karl Gumundsson reminded everyone why he’s a nine-time CrossFit Games veteran, handing his business on the floor and then saying “I ain’t leavin” in a post-event interview. 

  • Bronislaw Olenkowicz’s 295 pound snatch was enough for a test win, making him 100 points richer heading into the final test of the day. 
  • Bjorgvin Karl Gumundsson’s 285 pound snatch was the bounceback he needed, giving him a second place finish and 97 points to begin his charge back up the leaderboard. 
  • Moritz Fiebig and Lazar Djukic tied for third in Test 4 with a 280 pound snatch. This was Djukic’s fourth consecutive finish inside the top three and Fiebig’s fourth straight top 10 finish. 
  • Jonne Koski’s 275 pound snatch fortified his qualifying position, earning him 79 points and an eighth place finish heading into Test 5. 

Test 5: This test is simple, fast and gritty which sets a stage for incredible athletes to put on a show. In the third week of Semifinals, we’d see the world record broken (again) and some bubble athletes take advantage of the extra test on Saturday. 

  • Jelle Hoste’s 2:56.25 finish in Test 5 set the world record by 14 milliseconds, topping Patrick Vellner’s 2:56.39 from last week’s North America West Semifinal. This was Hoste’s second test win of the weekend (first in Test 1).  
  • Victor Helsinghof’s second place finish in Test 5 bumped him up to 15th overall and only 41 points back of a qualifying position. 
  • Michal Wesolowski took his second top five finish on the weekend, finishing third in Test 5 helping to move him a total of 12 places up the leaderboard (20th at the start of the day to eighth overall heading into Sunday). 
  • David Shorunke started the day with a win and ended with another top five finish. His time of 3:10 was good enough for fourth in Test 5, which would be his third top five finish of the weekend. He heads into Sunday sitting in fifth overall leading Jonne Koski by eight points. 
  • Uldis Upenieks did what he needed to do in Test 5, taking fifth place and earning crucial points to move up to eleventh overall heading into Sunday. 

Who is in qualifying position after Saturday: 

  • 1st – Lazar Djukic (446 points)
  • 2nd – Moritz Fiebig (419 points)
  • 3rd – Henrik Haapalainen (395 points) 
  • 4th – Jelle Hoste (366 points) 
  • 5th – David Shorunke (361 points) 
  • 6h – Jonne Koski (353 points) 
  • 7th – Bronislaw Olenkowicz (339 points) 
  • 8th – Michal Wesolowski (334 points) 
  • 9th – Bjorgvin Karl Gumundsson (332 points) 
  • 10th – Antoine Dumain (328 points) 
  • 11th – Uldis Upenieks (316 points) 

The bottom line: Moving day started and ended with the same three men in podium position, while four athletes who started Saturday in a qualifying spot head into Sunday on the outside looking in (Vunjak 11th to 12th, Kotoulas 6th to 13th, Zenoni 8th to 14th and Bosshard 10th to 19th). Only 37 points separates seventh from 12th heading into the final day of competition, so expect a little bit of leaderboard chaos to happen after Test 6’s series of gymnastics roadblocks. 

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