Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up. The final week of Semifinals is in the books as the Atlas Games, Strength in Depth and Copa Sur have all wrapped, but don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
Teen Emma Lawson and Jeffrey Adler take Atlas Games win
Khan Porter on the team Games: “Our goal is to win”
Gui Malheiros and Victoria Campos get it done at Copa Sur
Willy Georges is back, Jacqueline Dahlstrom rises to the top and CrossFit Oslo Navy Blue was perfect
The final week of semifinals for the 2022 NOBULL CrossFit Games is in the books, as the Atlas Games, Strength in Depth and Copa Sur are all over. Here’s who qualified, and who is also now in for the Last Chance Qualifier:
Atlas Games
Jeffrey Adler | Emma Lawson | CrossFit Omnia Black
Patrick Vellner | Paige Powers | CrossFit Pro1 Montreal
Guillaume Briant | Elisa Fuliano | Crossfit Aylesbury Team Tap
Copa Sur
Guilherme Malheiros | Victoria Campos | Q21 CrossFit
Pedro Martins | Julia Kato | CrossFit Ribeirao Preto
Last Chance Qualifier
Jonne Koski | Katrin Davidsdottir
Alex Kotoulas | Samantha Briggs
Dumain Antoine | Tayla Howe
Agustin Richelme | Claudia Espinosa
Nicolas Bidarte | Amanda Fusuma
Lucas Da Rosa | Luiza Marques
Austin Spencer | Callista Lang
Connor Duddy | Tori Dyson
Jeremy Vigneault | Hattie Kanyo
Below are a few key articles from our Sunday coverage. For a full list of stories from the entire weekend, go to MorningChalkUp.com, or check out some of our interviews with the winners on our YouTube page.
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A fitting send-off: Rogue Fitness and the Strength in Depth organizers honored two-time Games champion Sam Briggs as she left the competition floor for the final time as an individual. The 40-year-old announced that she would be returning to firefighting–her career before CrossFit.
Heartbroken: Erin O’Donnell, 2019 Games qualifier and winner of the Italian Throwdown Sanctional, was in position to make a run at a 2022 Games berth at the CrossFit Atlas Games but was forced to withdraw after injury.
“It’s an old elbow injury that took months to heal. I felt it pop during the 3rd clean in the complex last night but tried to ignore it and pray it was nothing. Woke up and couldn’t bend or straighten it so I got work done on it all morning but still couldn’t kick up to a handstand in warm ups,” O’Donnell said. “[I’m] heartbroken at the moment.”
Jeffrey Adler, Emma Lawson Edge Out Patrick Vellner, Paige Powers for Atlas Games Wins
It was a fight at the top throughout the weekend for Jeffrey Adler and Patrick Vellner. They were never more than 12 points apart from each other after any event, but the clutch performance by Adler on Sunday winning both workouts pushed him over the top to the win. This is big for Adler who continues to improve competition after competition and year after year.
Vellner finishes second, and although it won’t matter come Madison, it’s likely that this result doesn’t sit well with him. Perhaps it will fuel him in the coming weeks.
Third and fourth positions were mostly locked down throughout the week as well. Alexandre Caron finished third and qualified for his fourth Games in the last five years and will be trying to improve on his 24th place finish last year. Caron is riding high right now after taking second and Wodapalooza and now third here.
Behind him is Alex Vigneault who will be making his fifth CrossFit Games trip. He was pretty steady with finishes all ranging between 4th and 13th. Vigneault generally does well at the Games with three of his four appearances being of 11th or better (the only exception was 2019).
The final spot was the hotly contested one for the men. The legless rope climbs can prove problematic, and big point gaps can easily be overcome. However, when the man in the fifth place position finishes third overall in the event behind the two overall leaders there’s nothing anyone else can do about it. That’s exactly what day one sensation Nycolas Joyal did, and as a result he is going to the CrossFit Games for the first time in his career and as lone rookie amongst these five Canadian men.
Team CrossFit Reykjavik’s Khan Porter on CrossFit Games Expectations: “The goal is to win”
Team CrossFit Reykjavik are fancied to potentially win the CrossFit Games and knock Rich Froning’s Mayhem off their long-held pedestal. But the team from Iceland is not focused on anyone but themselves.
“If you want to put an outcome-based goal on it, it’s winning for sure. But in terms of preparation and as an individual, the goal is to be as prepared as possible,” said Khan Porter.
The team qualified for the CrossFit Games with a clean sweep at the CrossFit Lowlands Throwdown during week one of Semifinals in Holland.
“The focus is on how we can each be the very best team members that we possibly can be. In that, comes its own form of motivation. And it keeps it internally focused rather than being on ‘win win win, beat this person, beat that person’,” Porter said.
“I think that [‘win win win’ approach] is a detrimental way to have your focus. We’re more locked into how we can all improve each time that we are training. I can’t control anyone except myself.”
Willy Georges is Back, Jacqueline Dahlstrom Ascends, and Perfection for Oslo
With so much drama in each division over in London on the last day, we’re taking it event by event for each division setting up for some great finishes:
Men’s Event 5:
It was a tight race, as we expected, the first 18 men were separated by 30 seconds. With a lot of athletes being middle for points, there were quite a few leaderboard shuffle ups to set up the final:
Henrik Haapalainen called his shot on event five and delivered. It put him within two points of Willy Georges for the overall lead with one event to go.
Georges’s fellow countryman Guillaume Briant continued to impress with a fifth place finish propelling him into third overall.
2021 Games vets Andre Houdet and Giorgos Karavis didn’t do great on this event (10th and 19th respectively) but they were holding down the last two Games spots prior to the last event.
Behind them were Karavis’ Greek countryman Alex Kotoulas, yet another Frenchman in Dumain Antoine, and the surging Hungarian Kristof Horvath who placed third on event five and after a dismal day one has gone 1st, 5th, 3rd and gave himself an outside chance on the final.
Breaking Down the Perfect Performances by Mayhem Freedom, Reykjavik and Oslo Navy Blue
All four weeks of Semifinals have come and gone, and impressively there were three teams who went a perfect six for six at their respective competitions. CrossFit Mayhem Freedom and CrossFit Reykjavik did so at the Syndicate Crown and the Lowlands Throwdown in week one. And in the final week, CrossFit Oslo Navy Blue accomplished the same feat.
Here’s a snapshot of just how dominant each team was at their Semi:
Malheiros, Campos and Q21 Finish On Top of the Copa Sur Podium
The inaugural CrossFit Copa Sur Semifinal came to a close on Sunday with little intrigue but a lot of excitement thanks to an elimination-style final workout that kept the capacity crowd packed into the Shopping Vitória Mall outdoor stadium buzzing after the final horn was blown.
The end result was four native sons and daughters from Brazil continuing their 2022 NOBULL CrossFit Games, including three making their first appearance, and Argentina and Brazil sending a team of representatives to Madison, WI as well.
Guilherme Malheiros won his first live, in-person major CrossFit competition in runaway fashion as the 22-year old Brazilian showed he deservedly earned the distinction to be called a podium contender.
For the women, fellow Mayhem athlete and Cookeville, TN resident Victoria Campos will finally make her first Games appearance with a Copa Sur victory. Argentinian team Q21 makes it back-to-back Games invites with their decisive title run through the team field.
Davidsdottir Fails to Climb Leaderboard on Day 3, Moves On to Last Chance Qualifier
With the fastest split on the women’s side at 8:31, nine-time CrossFit Games competitor Katrin Davidsdottir crossed the Strength in Depth finish line with an arm pump to celebrate an Event 6 win.
But her effort was too little, too late.
Starting the final day of competition in sixth place, Davidsdottir needed a big push to qualify for her tenth trip to the Games. Ironically, first up on the docket for Day 3 was the 2014 Regionals rope climb event, the same workout that kept Davidsdottir from progressing her season that year.
In her book Dottir, co-written with Rory McKernan, Davidsdottir remembers the iconic moment in her career as “embarrassing” and wholly negative, but has also said it was the moment that motivated her to get back to the Games.
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Celebrating a PR, hosting a fundraiser, this, that, or otherwise. Send us a highlight.
Craig Richey, content creator and founder of HSTL Made,hit a PR 396 pound/180kg squat clean.
Congratulations to Katie Ferraro from Seabright CrossFit in Santa Cruz, CA on the 177 pound/80kg clean PR.
Kevin Cantrell pulled a 501 pound/227kg deadlift in the Special Olympics (and got a repost from THEE Arnold— a highlight in itself).
Jason Khalipa took on 15 calories for time on the ski-erg, finishing in 23 seconds using what he calls “the butterfly ski”.
Christine Middleton and CrossFit Milford Team Conquer won the Atlas Games team snatch ladder event with a total of 955 pounds/433kg. CrossFit Milford punched their ticket to the CrossFit Games with their fourth place finish overall.
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