Awaited by many athletes from all over the world, the competition Wodapalooza 2022 took place this weekend, January 13-16.
Over the course of four days, the event pushed athletes to their limits with intense and explosive workouts. On the most hectic floor in Miami, there were even our own!
To represent Italy in the elite Team, we have seen the Italian Vibes (Antea Longo, Marta Ricottini and Chiara Salandra) and the BHTLABs (Stefano Migliorini, Pietro Anderloni and Manfredi Ottavi), and more! Enrico Zenoni, Marina Novelli, Andrea di Salvatore, Barbara Macaluso and Niccolò Colli (Team Theminutemen).
Index
What is Wodapalooza 2022?
Wodapalooza 2022 for many is one proof of what will be seen at the next Nobull CrossFit Games. After all, many of the competitors who will participate in the main competition in the world decide to compete in this event.
This year the grown-ups were absent 2021 Games champions, Tia Claire Toomey and Justin Medeiros, which in a way made the competition even more interesting.
Without the great champions, the top spot on the podium was free and easier to reach, giving the opportunity for other names on the crossfit stage to shine.
In fact, that's exactly what happened, the vacancy encouraged the competitors even more, who gave their all!
Winner of the Elite Male category
A veteran of the Games managed to prevail; Patrick Vellner has consecrated himself as a great champion. It is, in fact, already the third consecutive victory at Wodapalooza that the Canadian takes home.
However, lots of applause also to Canadian athletes Alexandre Caron and Samuel Cournoyer, that sparked sparks on the last day of the event!
Caron managed to stay in first place for much of the weekend and finished the competition in 2nd place, while Cournoyer spent the first two days in seventh place and entered the final day of racing in fifth. With his excellent results, he managed to close the final with a 3rd place.
A 100% Canadian podium!
Elite Female category winner
In the female elite we understood that the consistency of results is many times more important than winning one or two races and losing many more.
That's exactly how it is Emma Mquaid climbed to the top step of the podium of Wodapalooza 2022. After finishing the first day in sixth place, the athlete made a great comeback on the second day and moved up to second place, but down 36 points from the first in qualifying.
On the third day of competition, she managed to lower that difference to 24 points and on Sunday she achieved two good placings that brought her just 9 points ahead of Bethany Shadburne, who finished in 2nd place, followed by Arielle Loewen.
Team category winners
In the team category we had a different result than usual for those used to always seeing Rich Froening's team at the top of the podium.
Il trio formed by Noah Olsen, Chandler Smith and Travis Mayer (The Boys) managed to oust the team of Froening, Angelo DiCicco and Luca Parker.
Incidentally, the presentation of the Mayhem Paradise team was well below what we commonly see, the trio finished the competition in 7th place, while Olsen's The Boys took the podium, followed by the Thunder From Down Under teams. and Team Herculus.
For the women we had Team Kriger in 1st place, MayFem in 2nd place and Team GOWOD closing the podium.
And how did our Italians end up in the standings?
After an incredible 3rd day for the Italian Vibes girls, unfortunately they had to renounce their participation in the final of the race for personal reasons, finishing in 21st position; the guys from Team BHTLAB managed to take home a 29th place while Niccolò Colli with his Team Theminutemen took 11th place!
instead, Enrico Zenoni took home an incredible 2nd place overall in the RX MEN category; Andrea di Salvatore a 16th place in the Master 40 44 category.
Our representatives in the Master 45 49 category were great! Marina Novelli triumphed on the podium with a beautiful 1st place and Barbara Macaluso finished in 20th position.
What to say? All very good !!