50 Crazy Stats From the 2023 CrossFit Season

While every year brings its own interesting events, the 2023 CrossFit season was particularly full of drama and surprises from the very beginning. As the year comes to an end, we can thoroughly review the events of the season and examine the most influential moments by gathering the craziest stats from the year.

The following 50 stats and facts are compiled from each point of the CrossFit season.

Let’s dive in.

The Open

1. 2023 marked the third time in the last four years that a Canadian man has won the worldwide Open:

• 2023: Jeffrey Adler
• 2021: Jeffrey Adler
• 2020: Patrick Vellner

2. Laura Horvath’s placing of 185th worldwide in the 2023 Open is the lowest Open placing of any female Games champion in history.

3. By withdrawing from the 2023 season, Haley Adams broke her streak of top-10 overall finishes at the CrossFit Games. Her record was four straight from 2019 to 2022.

4. Open Workout 23.2a was the first time running was ever incorporated in an Open workout.

5. The heaviest thruster lifted by a male in Open Workout 23.2b was 375 pounds. (170kg).

6. The heaviest thruster lifted by a female in Open WOD 23.2b was 240 pounds. (109kg).

Quarterfinals

7. Six of the top 10 women on the worldwide Quarterfinals leaderboard finished in the top 10 at the CrossFit Games.

8. Only three of the top 10 men on the worldwide Quarterfinals leaderboard finished in the top 10 at the CrossFit Games.

9. Quarterfinals Test Four was the first time V-ups were incorporated in a Games season workout.

Semifinals

10. If Brooke Wells would’ve run just one second faster on Test 5 at the North America East Semifinal, she would’ve qualified for the Crossfit Games. 

• Wells finished in 14th place (379 points), just seven points behind 11th-place finisher and last qualifier Paige Semenza (386 points).
• In Event 5, Wells finished in 10th (73 points) with a time of 3:31.85. If she had finished in 3:30.34 or less, she would’ve finished 7th (82 points) in the event and had an additional nine points. These nine points would’ve given her a final tally of 388 points, which would have been enough to qualify.

11. Dallin Pepper got his first-ever Semifinals event win in Test 7 at the North America East Semifinal.

12. Cole Sager qualified for his 10th straight CrossFit Games, but he didn’t clinch it until his third-place finish in the final test at the North America West Semifinal.

13. If Dani Speegle ran just three seconds faster on Test 5 or lifted just five pounds more on Test 4, she would have qualified for the 2023 CrossFit Games.

14. The North America West Semifinals was Justin Medeiros’ first time taking anything other than first place in a live (in-person) competition since Mat Fraser beat him at the October 2020 CrossFit Games.

15. Although Alex Gazan had a 43rd-place finish in Test 4 (800m run and max snatch), she still ended up winning the North America West Semifinal. This is the lowest event finish of any Semifinal champion ever (2021-2023).

16. Alex Gazan won the North America West Semifinal by being less than one second faster than the next athlete in four of the seven tests.

17. Four European men aged 30+ qualified for the Games: David Shorunke, Bjorgvin Gudmundsson, Bronislaw Olenkowicz, and Michal Wesolowski.

18. Four European women aged 30+ qualified for the Games: Annie Thorisdottir, Emma Tall, Manon Angonese, and Emma McQuaid.

19. Laura Horvath won both tests on Day 3, making her the only athlete to win two straight tests among all Semifinal regions.

20. Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson qualified for his 10th Games.

21. Jonne Koski qualified for his ninth CrossFit Games in the last 10 years.

22. Annie Thorisdottir has never had a Semifinal event finish outside of 10th.

23. Arthur Semenov had the most event wins of any athlete during Semifinals with four.

24. The most dominant performance of all the Semifinals was Tudor Magda’s 325-pound snatch in Test 4 at North America West, which was 2.74 standard deviations above the mean in his event. 

GAMES

25. Five of the top 10 women on the 2022 Games leaderboard did not compete at the 2023 Games (Toomey-Orr, O’Brien, Wells, Saunders, and Adams).

26. Patrick Vellner has beaten Brent Fikowski at every in-person competition since 2017. The last time Fikowski beat Vellner was at the 2017 Games when Fikowski finished 2nd and Vellner 3rd.

27. Danielle Brandon won her third straight handstand walk skills test at the Games: The 2023 Inverted Medley, the 2022 Skill Speed Medley, and the 2021 Test 8).

28. Test 1: “Ride” was the fourth time Patrick Vellner has finished in 27th or lower in the first event at the Games (2023: 27th, 2021: 35th, 2018: 35th, and 2017: 36th)

29. Jonne Koski won the opening test of the CrossFit Games for the third time in his career (2023 “Ride,” 2015 “Pier Paddle,” and 2021 “Test 1”).

30. The 510-pound pig for the men in Test 2 was the heaviest “set-weight” implement used at the CrossFit Games since the 560 pound pig in 2015.

31. 2023 was the first year that a non-American man won since Mikko Salo in 2009.

32. Colton Mertens’ win in Test 5: Ski-Bag was his first-ever test win at the CrossFit Games.

33. At least one woman from each region was eliminated during the first cut: Europe, North America West, North America East, Asia, Africa, South America, and Oceania.

34. Laura Horvath’s 265-pound clean and jerk in “Olympic Total” was only 20 pounds below Ant Haynes’ clean and jerk of 285 and only 30 pounds below Jelle Hoste’s 295-pound lift.

35. Three men and three women finished in the top 10 in both the Cross-Country 5K test and the Olympic Total: Emma Lawson, Gabi Migala, Kelly Baker, Jeffrey Adler, Chandler Smith, and Brent Fikowski

36. Out of the 120 total lifts from the men (30 men, four lifts each), there were only a total of 18 missed lifts (15%).

37. Out of the 120 total lifts from the women (30 women, four lifts each), there were only a total of 17 missed lifts (14%).

38. If Jayson Hopper had finished “Ski-Bag” just one second faster, he would have survived the first round of cuts.

39. None of the women on the Games podium won their Semifinal this year (Horvath: 3rd in Europe, Lawson: 4th at North America East, and Loewen: 3rd at North America West).

40. Laura Horvath has won seven of the last 12 odd-object events at the CrossFit Games, and she has finished top three in every single one of them.

41. Patrick Vellner has finished in the top 10 at the Games in seven of the past eight years. He has also finished in the top three five times.

42. Justin Medeiros’ 13th place is the lowest finish at the Games in the following season for a defending male champion ever.

43. Only two out of 12 total tests at the 2023 Games included a barbell, and one was a max lift.

44. Lazar Djukic has never finished outside of the top nine at the Games (2021: 9th, 2022: 8th, 2023: 9th).

45. Canadian athletes won eight events at the Games collectively:

• Event 1: Ride: Emma Lawson
• Event 6: Helena: Jeffrey Adler
• Event 7: Cross-Country 5K: Emily Rolfe
• Event 8: Intervals: Patrick Vellner
• Event 8: Intervals: Emma Lawson
• Event 9: Olympic Total: Jack Farlow
• Event 10: Muscle-Up Logs: Jeffrey Adler
• Event 11: Parallel-Bar Pull: Brent Fikowski

This is the most event wins Canadian athletes have ever had at the CrossFit Games.

46. Canadian athletes occupied 50% of the total Games podium (3 out of 6 athletes):

• Jeffrey Adler, 1st
• Patrick Vellner, 2nd
• Emma Lawson, 2nd

That also happened to be the highest-ever concentration of Canadian athletes on the podium.

The Rogue Invitational

47. The 2023 Rogue Invitational was the first in-person live competition that Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr didn’t win since the 2016 CrossFit Games.

48. All five men in the final heat of Event 9 completed the event in a TYR shirt.

49. This year’s total prize purse was 307% larger than the prize purse in 2019.

50. This is the first year at Rogue that no Icelandic athlete finished inside the top 10 on either the men’s or women’s side.