CrossFit and OCR Square Off in Lake Tahoe

This Saturday, September 28th, the Spartan Race World Championships will be taking place in North Lake Tahoe, California, and obstacle course racers from across the world will compete in a variety of distances, including the Spartan which takes place across 13 miles, and 30 obstacles strewn about Squaw Valley’s prestigious mountainside that was host to the 1960 Winter Olympic Games. 

Joining in on the race this year will be four elite CrossFitters, all of whom were competing at the Games in Madison just a couple months ago, but they won’t be just competing in the race Saturday, they’ll be going head to head with 4 elite obstacle course racers in an entirely new competition from the mind of Hunter Mcintyre called “The Faceoff presented by FITAID.”

The event will be live streamed all weekend, and you can access links to the stream on Obstacle Racing Media. 

The Competition: Four obstacle course racers, battle head-to-head with four CrossFit Games athletes in five events across the day. Points will be awarded based on the finish for each event. At the end a male, female, and team champion will be crowned. 

Team OCR

• Hunter Mcintyre — Six-time OCR world champion, four-time OCR national champion, undefeated champion of the Broken Skull Ranch challenge, 2017/18 Tough Mudder X Champion, and 62nd place at the 2019 CrossFit Games after receiving a wild card entry.
• Isaiah Vidal — Has more OCR podiums, 80 in total, than any other American male in the history of the sport. Finished 306th worldwide in the 2019 CrossFit Games Open. 
• Matt Kempson — Matt has racked up multiple podium finishes across his career in OCR including wins in the 2015 Hawaii Beast, 2016 Montana Beast, the 2017 Vermont Beast, and the 2018 Spartan Boston Sprint. 
• Corinna Coffin — Winner of the 2017 Tough Mudder X, Corinna was also runner-up in the Tough Mudder X in 2018. She was also a member of Salt Lake City CrossFit Black’s 18th place team at the 2018 CrossFit Games.

Team CrossFit 

• Jacob Heppner — A four-time individual CrossFit Games athlete, Heppner has finished inside the top-10 at the Games three times including a 6th place finish in 2019. Heppner also finished 2nd at the 2018 Tough Mudder X. 
• Sean Sweeney — Nicknamed “The CrossFit Cowboy,” Sweeney is a three-time individual competitor at the CrossFit Games as well as the 2018 South Regional champion, and 2019 Fittest in Cape Town champion. 
• Chandler Smith — A West Point graduate, and co-captain of the Army Wrestling Team, Smith made his rookie debut at the 2019 CrossFit Games where he finished 15th. A member of the United States Army, Smith is also part of the U.S. Army Warrior Fitness team. 
• Emma Chapman —  A member of the Central Beasts team that won the 2019 CrossFit Strength in Depth competition and finished 5th at the 2019 CrossFit Games. Chapman is also the winner of the 2018 Tough Mudder X competition. 

The Tests

Event 1:  Spartan Championship Beast Race — All eight athletes will race against each other in the Spartan Beast Race, however, there are some additional rules to reward and/or deduct points from athletes. 

• CrossFit athletes will receive a 30-minute head start on the OCR athletes, and if any male CrossFit Athlete is caught by an OCR athlete they will be penalized 1 point. Each CrossFit athlete can only be assessed the penalty once. Female CrossFit athlete can only be penalized if caught by the female OCR athlete. 
• If a male OCR athlete passes all three CrossFit athletes they will be awarded 1 additional point. 
• If the female CrossFit athlete is not caught, she will receive an additional point. 
• If any athletes is beaten by over 1 hour in the race by any other athlete they will be penalized one point. Failure to finish the course results in an athlete’s disqualification. 

Event 2: The Throw Down

4 rounds for time:

• 12x RAM Thruster (55lbs/33lbs)
•  20m RAM Overhead Lunge
• 2 D-ball Over the shoulder (150lbs/100lbs)
• 2 D-ball Over the Wall
• 4 ft wall traverse
• 6 ft wall traverse

Event 3: Hell’s Hill

4 rounds for time:

• 5x Dball Ground to Overhead (100lbs/70lbs)
• Double Sandbag Carry – 60lbs/40lbs*
  *Carries (and Run To Sandbags) increase in distance each round: 25m, 50m, 75m, 100m.

Event 4: The Lumberjack

3 rounds for time:

• 10 Deadlifts (225lbs/155lbs)
• 4 Log Flips (400lbs/280lbs)
• 10 Log Jump Overs

Event 5: Spartan RAMpage

5 rounds for time:

• 16 Spartan RAM Burpees
• Run and low crawl with Spartan RAM
• 2 Plate drags
  *Note: The Spartan RAM is a weighted training tool similar to a heavy foam roller.

Scoring

The points table for each event is as follows:

Men:

• 1st – 5 points
• 2nd – 4 points
• 3rd – 3 points
• 4th – 2 points
• 5th – 1 point
• 6th – 0 points

Women:

• 1st – 1 point
• 2nd – 0 points

Our take on the event: It’s only the first year of this event, and it was put together pretty quickly, but this has the makings to be a really cool hybrid, crossover event between the CrossFit and OCR worlds. Heppner and Chapman have already podiumed at the Tough Mudder X events, and with Hunter Mcintyre getting a Wild Card for the Games this year, so there’s a precedent for these athletes to dip their toes in the other arena, so it’s only a matter of time before the two worlds collide again.