What we are about to provide you with is a complete statistical analysis, with a very long but very in-depth table of all the male athletes who took part in all 2024 CrossFit® Semifinals.
This is an overall ranking of the entire roster (all nations), placed in series as if they had all participated together.
Fundamental premise: the data are total on the 6 WODs, but the terrain had a very strong impact on the first race; we probably should have eliminated that data (where for example the Europeans had a very fast path), but it would have seemed like an incomplete analysis. We still have the possibility to improve the statistics, if anyone is interested.
The ranking is based on results obtained and reported on games.CrossFit®.com, and to every participant it was assigned a score based on their result.
For example, whoever came first in wod 1 got one point, the second two, the third three and so on. This method was replicated on the 6 workouts and in the end, adding up, whoever scored the least points is the winner.
Index
Let's see the table (qualified athletes in red):
Our reflections
Who could win, if not the Fittest on Earth in Charge, that is Jeffrey Adler who seems ready and excited for the encore?
The Canadian does not win (at world level) any wod, but with 54 points overall (2/6/5/18/10/13) he is 10 and 21 points behind Dallin Pepper and Roman Khrennikov, second and third. The warning is clear: East Coast boys are the men to beat this summer in Texas.
Fourth place for Gui Malheiros, who forcefully returned to the stage after a year's break, while the first of the Europeans is Lazar Dukic, fifth: We expect the Serbian to keep his promises more and better than he did in 2023.
Only twelfth, also testifying to a lower level of his floor, was the multiple champion Justin Medeiros, who won in North America West.
Of the 40 athletes qualified, 6 are outside the top 40: they are Cole Greshaber (45th) and Cole Sager (48th) from NAW, Ruan Potgieter (50th) from Africa, Ivan Kukartsev (56th) and Artur Semenov (81st) from Asia and Peter Ellis (65th) from Oceania.
In their place, in the overall ranking, they would have snatched the pass Seth Stovall of NAE, even 26th overall and very first of those excluded, but also Taylor Self, Dre Strohm and Tyler Christophel always NAE, and above all our Uldis Upenieks and Jonne Koski, the former in particular excluded from the European competition by just one point.
Another interesting fact is to see how the ranking would have changed in the various countries, considering the global ranking; there is only one athlete who can really eat his hands and that is Tudor Magda.
The boy from Seattle, who was looking for the second elite participation (2022) after the three Teen participations, in the hypothetical global ranking ranks eighth on its continent, position with which he would have placed behind both Greshaber (ninth in reality, but also ninth in the global) and Sager, who would have lost his eleventh ticket to the Games, leaving this record to Gudmundsson alone.
By the way, if BKG and Sager are definitely the veterans of the field, the rookies are 9 out of 40: 4 Europeans, 2 North Americans (one from the east, one from the west), one South American, one African and one Oceanic.
Other relevant data
If we wanted to make a small prediction, what we expect the most from is Aniol Ekai. Spanish, he is 14th in the general classification, thanks above all to his exploit in wods 3 and 6.
Last year the Basque had already shown his muscles, in some moments coming close to a valid position for the pass, while this year he traveled to the Semifinals quietly but with great consistency: starting slowly in the first two days (but always in the first 20 ) then made the difference on Sunday, where he took fourth place in an authoritative manner.
He could retrace the path of Reap, who last year reached the semi-finals as a Rookie and then played a fantastic Games, with the title of Rookie of the Year inexplicably not awarded to him.
Among the unskilled, the top presence at the Games is Ben Smith, with 12 participations of which the last, in 2023, in a team. The thirty-four year old also boasts a first place, in 2015.
The other top veterans are Koski and Forte (Oceania) with 9 participations (in various declinations, elite, team and teen).
The disappointments
We usually choose one per competition, but allow us two for Europe, we'll explain why shortly.
Let's start fromAfrica: we definitely expected more from Kealan Henry, only fifth.
In Asia the great absentee is Ant Haynes, who after participating as a re-captured player in 2023 starts off very strong but runs aground at the end due to a accident.
East America we waited with great emphasis Jack Farlow, which seemed to be on the launching pad but which started very badly, ruining an excellent third day.
To the West, The exclusion of Colten Mertens is more of a disappointment than a disappointment, capable of winning two events but being beaten by just one point at the end.
For Oceania, the favorites won, but we will miss Ben Fowler, who finished eighth. In the end in South America, the big disappointment is the eleventh place of Augustin Richelme: the Argentine is practically never in the running for qualification.
coming Europe we feel like naming two names: the first is Uldis Upenieks, already mentioned, capable of winning the first two events but suffering greatly in the others, excluded by just one point. He is an athlete who wrote the history of our sport in Europe, and his Lithuania will be missed among the flags in Texas.
Another name that we cannot fail to mention is that of the Swiss Colin Bosshard: those who know him know what a person and what an athlete he is, and we all cheered for him a little. We look forward to seeing you next year Colin.
And our Italian?
Enrico Zenoni it finishes with a 67th place which, statistics in hand, we feel we can define as excellent, in a context of the highest importance such as the European one. Compared to last year, Zeno hasn't made any mistakes this year, and the average performance of his first 5 wods (26/91/61/77/80) shows great maturity and consistency of performance, not affected by the collapse on the last wod, where awareness of the result certainly played an important role.
We are sure that Enrico will be able to build further on this decidedly excellent base. Furthermore, with his results in Asia he would have qualified as second, even in Africa only first beat him, in Oceania he would have been fifth and in South America eighth, demonstrating how – albeit fair – recognition of other continents, however, takes away the place of many Europeans and North Americans of the highest level.
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Analysis of the age of the participants
We close with an analysis of the age of the participants: the youngest of all is Kaiden Steyn, 17 years old, eleventh in Africa, 160th overall with a peak in event five, finishing 90th- we will hear about him –.
Il the youngest of the qualifiers is the Frenchman Victor Hoffer, who we know well, sixth in Europe and 24th overall, second in the world in event 4.
THEaverage age of those qualified is 27,2 years and the more experienced he is Patrick Vellner, one of the favorites of the entire roster, 34 years old and in his tenth appearance on the floor.
Gudmundsson – as mentioned before – this is his eleventh participation, but he is only 31 years old and has the potential to set a record that is difficult to beat. Most the adult of all is Johann Van Zyl, 39 years old and 25th in Oceania (187th overall).
Our prediction
The winner: The numbers don't lie: currently Jeffrey Adler It seems to have no rivals. Of course, things can change in two months, but the Canadian really seems to have the right maturity to confirm himself.
The contenders: Behind him, Khrennikov and Garard they seem like the right names to complete the podium. The Russian is looking for the first victory that would definitively establish him, even if he has to overcome his main limit which is that of starting too strong and not being able to maintain his level throughout the entire competition.
The Australian, for his part, wants to definitively erase the consequences of the disqualification: he took a walk in Oceania, we'll see if it will be enough.
The Outsiders: two names to focus on as possible surprises: Gui Malheiros and Jelle Hoste. The two boys, with completely different styles, could beat the odds and represent the big surprise in 2024.
Other names: Dallin Pepper, Lazar Dukic, Justin Medeiros, Brent Fikowski, Patrick Vellner. Each at their own level, we are talking about sacred monsters of the floor, much loved by the public and with an incredible level of experience. Each of them could represent a potential winner.
The curiosity: an athlete that we advise you to watch carefully is Jack Rozema. He qualified as a Rookie on the most competitive stage, giving the impression of a solid and mature athlete. He is 28 years old, so he is not very young, but he seems to be really at full strength and this could represent an important factor.
Don't lose sight of it!
Continue to follow us to discover all the statistical data also on the Women category!