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Who Won the Madrid Championship?

 
Morning Chalk Up

September 12   |   POWERED BY

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Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up.

In today’s edition:

  • Who burst onto the scene at the Madrid Championship?
  • HWPO’s Samuel Kwant is still gunning for a CrossFit Games title
  • The Bottom Line breaks down the Madrid Championship
  • Sam Briggs talks getting back into firefighting: “I feel like I was born to do this”
 
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“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” - Archimedes

 
COMPETITION
  Six Takeaways from the Madrid Championship  

Six Takeaways from the Madrid Championship

Over 120 elite individual CrossFit athletes and 30 elite teams converged on the “Caja Mágica” (The Magic House) in Madrid, Spain this past weekend for the Madrid Championship. Those athletes attempted to crack the code of Mat Fraser’s HWPO programming over the course of the three-day competition with familiar names finishing atop the leaderboard.

Here are six key takeaways as we recap the competition:

No Games hangover

Despite what Lazar Djukic says about his current level of fitness after placing 8th at the Games, the Serbian showed that despite a month off from high-level training he is still one of the fittest men on earth and reasserted himself as the “Fittest” in Europe.

Djukic led at the end of Day 1 and never was threatened as he finished with seven top-10s with his worst finish being 19th. He was one of two athletes in the field with multiple event wins, winning two.

It’s a testament to his fitness that he can take time off after the Games including a week of doing zero fitness and still win at a high-level competition that featured fellow Games athletes.

Comeback season

Emma Tall and David Shorunke didn’t have the most ideal 2022 Games season. For the Brit Shorunke, a 2020 Games athlete, he has been dealing with injuries since the 2020 Games and has been slowly rehabbing from those ailments.

Tall, a two-time Games qualifier, was favored to make her third Games heading into the Strength in Depth Semifinal but ended up withdrawing just days prior to the competition due to suffering from asthmatic bronchitis.

For Tall it was especially disappointing as she was coming off her career-best Open performance (27th worldwide) and sixth in the Europe Quarterfinals. In her words she was in the best shape of her life leading up until she got sick. She was coming off a 19th place finish at the 2021 Games, her best showing in her two trips to Madison.

The two JST Compete athletes, who are also dating, train together and are considered one of the fittest men and women in Europe but had to watch the Games from their home in Sweden.

Madrid offered them an opportunity to have a conclusion to their less-than-ideal 2022 season. Those two certainly capitalized. Tall placed second in the final workout, “Dirty Saiga”, to jump Emma McQuaid for the Madrid title. She was consistent throughout the competition, placing no worse than seventh in any event while winning two events.

Shorunke joined his partner on the podium, placing an impressive third in his first live competition since placing second to Mat Fraser at Strength in Depth on January 26, 2020. He had six top-10 finishes including an event win and was sitting in second place for most of the competition till the final event.

Their results bode well for the upcoming season and both showed that if they are fully recovered they are serious contenders for Games spots in Europe.

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SPEED READS

In case you missed it: Morning Chalk Up’s Lauren Kalil and Preslie Hirsch were at the Madrid Championship and absolutely crushed it. Check out some of their coverage on our Instagram page, and of course, our YouTube channel. Kalil had some great interviews in her videos and Hirsch spoke to the man himself, Mat Fraser, about programming the whole weekend.

Off to Oz: 2022 NOBULL CrossFit Games winner Justin Medeiros will be meeting and greeting at the Down Under Championship, Nov. 18-20 in Australia. 🇦🇺

They’re hiring: PRVN Media is looking to hire a videographer and photographer to join their Nashville-based team.

Local love: Great story about how Skip Chapman kicked off his CrossFit box in Manasquan, NJ after a severe martial arts injury.

 
PROFILE
  New HWPO Athlete Sam Kwant Sets Sights on Topping Games Podium  

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

New HWPO Athlete Sam Kwant Sets Sights on Topping Games Podium

HWPO Training announced last Thursday that Sam Kwant, fresh off his fourth-place finish at the 2022 NOBULL CrossFit Games, has become an HWPO athlete heading into the 2023 season. He joins  Mal O’Brien and Jayson Hopper, as well as three other Games veterans—Katrin Davidsdottir, Thuridur Helgadottir and Amanda Barnhart—on the growing HWPO team.

Kwant will likely continue to train with his long-time personal coach Harry Palley, who announced he joined HWPO Training’s coaching team in July, in his quest to achieve his ultimate goal of winning the CrossFit Games.

“I don’t think I would still be doing it if I didn’t think I had a chance to win. I’m not doing it for fun,” the 26-year-old Kwant told the Morning Chalk Up last week.

Continue Reading...
 
COMPETITION
  New HWPO Athlete Sam Kwant Sets Sights on Topping Games Podium  

Madrid Championship Day 3 Recap: Lazar Djukic and Emma Tall, Madrid Champions

Morning Chalk Up’s Lauren Kalil is boots on the ground at the Madrid Championship and takes us through the final day of competition with our men’s and women’s elite podium, athlete interviews and highlights from the day.

Watch Now...
 
PROFILE
  Sam Briggs on Returning to Firefighting: “I honestly believe I was born to be a firefighter”  

Sam Briggs on Returning to Firefighting: “I honestly believe I was born to be a firefighter”

Looking at it from an outsider’s perspective, Sam Briggs took a rather long break from her initial career to be a CrossFit athlete. From 2004 up until 2013, Briggs, a UK native, worked for the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue service. Briggs held a number of roles at various posts during this time, and as everyone knows, in 2013 she won the CrossFit Games.

Now living in the US, Briggs is back as a firefighter, recently sworn in this August at the City of Hamilton’s Fire Department, so on completion of the academy in December she’ll “be out on the pumps” as a Firefighter slash emergency medical technician.

Briggs explained what it is that makes firefighters so unique, and why she is returning to her previous career that she put on hold to chase her CrossFit Games career dreams.

  • “Not everyone is wired to go into a burning building when everyone else is running out,” said the 40-year-old who is now a nine-time CrossFit Games competitor. “To have the ability to be very aware of the dangers but to be able to zone in on the job in hand and be able to potentially save someone’s life is a special gift that shouldn’t be wasted. Some people are born to be writers or chefs, they have something innate in them that drives them to write or cook, I honestly feel I was born to be a firefighter.”
Continue Reading...
 
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HIGHLIGHTS

Celebrating a PR, hosting a fundraiser, this, that, or otherwise. Send us a tip.

  • 🎂 Happy birthday, Snorri Baron (Sunday) and Sara Sigmundsdottir.
  • Brooke Wells takes to the beach for a vacation workout in Aruba.
  • Congratulations to Katie Ferraro from Seabright CrossFit in Santa Cruz, CA on her jerk PR of 165 pounds/75kg.
  • Syndicate Crown standout Gabby McClelland jerks 270 pounds/122.5kg overhead at CrossFit Decimate in Colorado Springs, CO.
  • 👔 Alexander Mercieca, Grissom High School principal and CF-L3 trainer from Hunstville, AL, deadlifts 585 pounds/265kg …in his tie.
  • William Villaseñor from Mexico and his daughter are the best training buddies— she’s got that barbell drop down.
 
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