Mal O'Brien and Saxon Panchik have been officially announced as winners of the 2022 CrossFit® Open. Do you want to know the ironic thing? Both have just changed coaches for this season!
Mal O'Brien announced that now trains with five-time Fittest Man on Earth Mat Fraser at HWPO training and Saxon Panchik, instead, at PRVN Fitness, the programming of coach Shane Orr (husband of Tia Toomey) in Nashville, TN.
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The words of Mal O'Brien
As we anticipated, Mal O'Brien won the Rookie of the Year award last season after having ranked seventh overall at the 2021 NOBULL CrossFit® Games.
In the lasts Open, on the other hand, with amazing results (broke the reps record in 22.1), is became the youngest winner in history at the age of 18.
In recent days, Mal held a press conference talking about the changes and the milestones he is achieving:
“Last year we basically focused on quality. I was still a rookie and I'm young, so it's like I wanted to do as much as I could, I just wanted to keep training all day and there wasn't a lot of strategy behind it, ”O'Brien said of his approach to the old coach.
“What Mat (Fraser) did for me was look at the big picture; we're really focusing on longevity, so right now I'm training to have the longest and most successful career possible. Quality over quantity: this is our main goal right now. At the beginning it was very difficult, but I got into the rhythm so I'm very happy, ”he added.
All the doubts Mal O'Brien might have had about the approach less is more of his new manager were blown away thanks to his recent victory at the Open 2022, a result he said "It wasn't his goal, but that's how it went."
This is also how he said he will continue to experience the 2022 season: with a strategy “Without expectations, just taking things day by day”.
Saxon Panchik's words
Saxon Panchik can now brag to his brothers Scott and Spencer, as he became the sixth men's champion of the 2022 Open.
The four-time Games athlete and fifth most Fittest Man on Earth has long lived in the shadow of his older brother and this win could indicate this could be his year.
His decision to try again on 22.2 less than 24 hours after attending the live announcement, was the key to winning this year's Open.
“When I did that workout, I did everything perfectly, as I had in mind, but then when I finished it I said to myself, 'Okay, I could have done better.'
So, as soon as I got back that night, I thought I'd do it again the next morning. I talked to my coach and said, "I don't feel I have fully exploited my potential in that wod and if you agree I would like to try again and push myself to the limit to see what I can do" and he agreed.
Panchik added that this win is definitely the start of a long journey for him that began when he was young, and he is happy to know that he can now compete with the best of the best.
“It means everything to me, I entered this world when I was 12 and when I was young I was comparing myself with the females of this sport, as I trained with women's loads. Obviously, as I progressed in the sport I switched to men's weights ”.
