OK, James Sprague, we believe you. You’re that fit.
Sprague joined women’s surprise winner Lucy Campbell to become the 2025 TYR Wodapalooza champions in Miami, FL, on Friday.
Remind me: Sprague is the reigning CrossFit Games champion, but considering all that unfolded last summer — Lazar Dukic tragically died during the first event of the competition, and multiple top athletes withdrew from the competition as a result — there has since been a question of whether last year’s Games really counts. And whether Sprague is truly on par with past champions.
Check out our live 2025 TYR Wodapalooza leaderboard for real-time event coverage all weekend long!
But this weekend in Miami, Sprague proved that he truly is that fit. He cruised to victory against a tough field, including three-time TYR WZA champion and five-time Games medalist Pat Vellner and reigning two-time TYR WZA champion Ricky Garard.
- Rounding out the top three were Vellner in second and 2024 CrossFit Games rookie Austin Hatfield in third.
On the women’s side, it was Campbell — a 2022 CrossFit Games athlete from the UK who has been out of competition for the last two seasons due to a wrist injury that required multiple surgeries — who managed to oust Laura Horvath to take the top spot.
- Horvath finished second, five points behind Campbell. Alexis Raptis finished third.
Sprague and Campbell’s journeys to the title couldn’t have been more different.
Sprague led from start to finish, while Campbell led after Day 1, but then dropped to fourth place on Friday morning before climbing back and eventually winning by just five points over Horvath.
James Sprague’s Weekend
Event after event, Sprague proved sharper than he was when he became the Fittest Man on Earth last August.
- He started the competition with a win in “Two Rounds Too Many” on Thursday. No surprises there, as endurance has long been his strength. He followed that up with two more top-two finishes on Day 1.
But where Sprague really proved himself was on Day 2 during “Worth the Weight,” a weightlifting complex of one clean plus one hang clean. It’s an event he would have struggled with in the past.
This time, though, Sprague lifted 345 pounds, good enough for a respectable 14th-place finish in what would have traditionally been considered a damage-control event for him.
- Sprague then had another second-place finish on Event 5, “Cuban Press,” which largely came down to heavy dumbbell bench press, another movement you wouldn’t expect the 6-foot-2, long-limbed Sprague to excel at.
And in case that wasn’t enough, he finished his weekend with yet another second-place finish on the final event, “Cortadito 2.0,” solidifying his position on top of the podium.
Lucy Campbell’s Weekend
Campbell started the weekend with a second-place finish on Thursday’s first event, a long, running, bike, and box step-up endurance test. She followed this up with another second and a seventh-place finish to end Day 1 in the top spot.
- Day 2 started with a tougher test for Campbell, the heavy clean complex. She finished 36th, earned only 20 points, and dropped into fourth overall.
- Campbell, though, rebounded on Event 5, proving she can handle a heavy dumbbell bench press, logging yet another second-place finish.
Heading into the final event, Campbell was in third place overall, seven points behind Horvath in second and 11 points behind Emma Tall, who sat in the top spot at the time.
Campbell looked possessed from start to finish as she kept up with Horvath throughout the event, eventually taking advantage of Hovath’s missed ring muscle-up reps to log yet another second-place finish behind only Lexi Neely.
Campbell admitted in a post-event interview that her performance was a surprise, even to her.
- “I literally don’t know what to say. That’s not a workout…that I would have put my name on as a top-two workout. I literally don’t know where that came from,” she said.
The Big Picture
The 2025 season is young, with TYR Wodapalooza being the first big competition of what looks like a very eventful year for elite CrossFit athletes. However, this sets the tone and puts both Sprague and Campbell in a position for a successful season.
At the very least, it should go a long way in building their confidence about their chances at this summer’s CrossFit Games.
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Featured Image: Scott Freymond
