CrossFit Regionals Week 3: Experts Predict Top Women (& James Hobart’s Games Picks)

This is it, the last Regional weekend of the season, and our last chance to play our little Regionals speculation game. If you’ve been following along, you may have noticed that some of us are much better at this game than others.  

Looking at the seedings for this weekend, it’s hard not to say that they’ve saved the best for last. The Top 10 East Women have the second best Open rankings of any Regional — behind only the the Top 10 East Men. Equally competitive is the Meridian, overflowing with ‘Dóttirs (minus Katrin, who is competing in the East), and welcoming back Sam Briggs and her biceps to the Region.

With the exception of Events 4 and 5, all other Event Records were set on Regionals Weekend 1 by either Alethea Boon or Kara Webb. Taking into account the depth of the women’s field competing this weekend, I wouldn’t be surprised if most, if not all, of these records fell.

For the last time this season, here are this week’s picks, in alphabetical order. At the end of the article, special guest expert James Hobart also gives his picks for top female finishers at the upcoming 2016 CrossFit Games:

Picks from Jay Adams

(Jay broke the rules, and picked 5 from East and 5 from Meridian)

East

Katrin Tanja Davidsdóttir

Michele Letendre

Kari Pearce

Tasia Percevecz

A photo posted by Tasia Percevecz (@tasiapercevecz) on May 25, 2016 at 5:46pm PDT

Carol-Ann Reason-Thiebault

Meridian

Sam Briggs

Kristin Holte

Mikaela Norman

Sara Sigmundsdóttir

Annie Thorisdóttir

Picks from Liz Adams

Liz Adams

Sam Briggs

Katrin Tanja Davidsdóttir

A photo posted by Katrín Tanja Davíðsdóttir (@katrintanja) on May 17, 2016 at 12:50pm PDT

Sara Sigmundsdóttir

Annie Thorisdóttir

Brooke Wells

Picks from Ian Berger

Kari Pearce

Sara Sigmundsdóttir

Annie Thorisdóttir

Stacie Tovar

Brooke Wells

Good morning friends!! 🌞 This is how excited I am about boarding my flight to Columbus right now! It’s finally my turn 😃🙋🏻💃🏻 See you guys soon! #RoadToRegionals #CentralRegional ••• @lifeasrx @hyperfitusa @nobullproject @killcliff @drivennutrition @purestrength_co @activeliferx @mbslingshot @rxsmartgear @iceagemeals

A photo posted by Brooke Wells (@brookewellss) on May 25, 2016 at 5:54am PDT

Keka Schermerhorn

Sam Briggs

The ‘Dóttirs (including Thuridur)

Kari Pearce

Tasia Percevecz

Stacie Tovar

A photo posted by Stacie Tovar (@stacietovar) on May 15, 2016 at 2:33pm PDT

Brooke Wells/Dani Horan (bonus pick)

Brooke Siem

Samantha Briggs

Annie Thorisdóttir

Sara Sigmundsdóttir

Katrin Tanja Davidsdóttir

Brooke Wells

David Tao

Samantha Briggs

Katrin Tanja Davidsdóttir

Kari Pearce

Tasia Percevecz

Jennifer Smith

And while we over here are still trying to pick The Top Five Women for this Regional Weekend, James “The Baby Faced Killer” Hobart (aka Rich Froning’s CrossFit Mayhem Freedom teammate and a multi-time individual Games competitor) has already picked his Top Five Women in Carson. Here are his picks, in alphabetical order.

James Hobart Picks the Top Women at the 2016 CrossFit Games

Emily Bridgers

Margaux Alvarez/Chyna Cho (not great starts but they finished day 3 aggressively, that’s a good intangible come Games time)

Katrin Davidsdottir (can’t count out a champ)

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet

Kara Webb

Our experts’ most popular athletes from last weekend, Emily Bridgers, and Emily Abbott, performed as predicted, but it was Carleen Mathews — an athlete that only Becca Voigt and I picked as our  Top Five — who won the West Regional.

What do you think of this week’s picks? Should we expect any surprises this weekend? Leave your thoughts below.