After two long events to start the 2024 CrossFit Games, it was time to go fast in “Firestorm.” With an aggressive time cap of five minutes for the women and four for the men, there was only one thing to do: go all out.
For the burpees, athletes needed to jump over a barricade made of Rogue ballistics blocks measuring approximately a foot tall.
All individual athletes who took the competition floor wore jerseys to honor Lazar Ðukić.
Individual Event 3 Firestorm
3 rounds for time of:
- Echo-bike calories (15/11)
- 11 burpees over barricade
Final Results
| Place | Women | Men |
| 1. | Grace Walton – 03:03.59 | Jayson Hopper – 02:32.48 |
| 2. | Bethany Flores – 03:09.07 | Dallin Pepper – 02:37.48 |
| 3. | Alex Gazan – 03:11.20 | Patrick Vellner – 02:41.54 |
| 4. | Danielle Brandon – 03:13.68 | James Sprague – 02:42.10 |
| 5. | Emily Rolfe – 03:14.49 | Samuel Kwant – 02:45.07 |
Recap
Women’s Division
In the first heat, five women finished the first round at roughly the same time: Dani Speegle, Shelby Neal, Seungyeon Choi, Andreia Pinheiro, and Kyra Milligan.
- There was little differentiating rounds two or three.
Ultimately, Dani Speegle snuck out the heat win at 3:25.43 by less than a second over Choi. Shelby Neal was a close third.
Heat two also brought a tight race with top-10 favorites Alex Gazan, Emma Lawson, and Danielle Brandon in the mix.
- Gazan took the lead from Brandon on the second set of burpees and didn’t look back, finishing in 3:11.20.
Brandon finished second in the heat, with Lawson third, both ahead of the pace Speegle set in heat one.
In the third heat, Caroline Stanley pushed the pace right out of the gate. She got off the bike first, but it was Aimiee Cringle who got to the bike first to start round three.
Cringle held off a storming Claudia Gluck and took the top time in the heat at 3:20.28.
- This was Cringle’s second heat win on the day as she continued to march up the leaderboard.
Emma Tall, who was in third going into the event, did not take the competition floor and is listed as DNS on the leaderboard.
In the top heat, Grace Walton went full send and built a lead in round one. She was on her fifth burpee in round two before any other athlete got off the bike.
- Walton did not falter in the third round and took the event win at 3:03.59. This is Walton’s first event win in her rookie appearance.
Bethany Flores had her second runner-up finish of the weekend, coming just five seconds behind Walton.
Men’s Division
In the first heat for the men, Alex Caron took an early lead after round one. He was fastest on the bike in round two as well, which gave him a cushion going into the final set of burpees.
Caron’s time to beat was 2:54.03 and gave the field a target to chase.
In the first two rounds of heat two, it was a battle between a Games rookie, Harry Lightfoot, and a Games veteran, Travis Mayer.
- Lightfoot took the lead into round three. However, it was Brandon Luckett who came from the middle of the pack on the last bike to take the lead and the event win at 2:49.25.
Heat three looked like it was going to be Sam Kwant’s through the first two rounds.
That was until Patrick Vellner snuck up and got progressively faster each round and dropped the hammer to take the heat and set the new fastest time at 2:41.54.
In the final heat, Dallin Pepper, Jayson Hopper, and James Sprague continued their battle from event two.
- Going into the final round, it was another come-from-behind victory as Jayson Hopper pulled ahead of Pepper for the event win.
Pepper was fast enough to beat Vellner’s time from heat three to take second overall.
Afterward, Hopper and Pepper put their friendly rivalry on display in an interview with Mike Arsenault. Both men showed their appreciation for each other and the rest of the field as fuel to work hard and go faster in training and competition.
Next Up
The last event of the day is “Track and Field” under the lights at Farrington Field.
In the two-parter, athletes will run 1600 meters, rest, and then take on a series of field sprints carrying a star-shaped sandbag. Strategy will be key as the score is based on the combined ranks between the two portions of the event.
Featured image: Scotty Freymond
