A Historic Year For Canadian CrossFit Athletes

Since Jeffrey Adler won this year’s CrossFit Games, you might be thinking that it was a solid year for Canadian athletes, but you actually have no idea how good a year it truly was.

Not only did they dominate every stage of competition throughout the CrossFit Games season, they also ran the field at off-season competitions. 

We also can’t forget the number of records they set this year.

To give you an idea of just how elite Canadian athletes were this year, let’s take a look at all they accomplished:

2023 CrossFit Games

Jeffrey Adler becomes the second-ever Canadian man to win the CrossFit Games. The first was James Fitzgerald in 2007.

Canadian athletes collectively won eight events at the Games:

• 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.

Jack Farlow set the record for the heaviest Clean and Jerk ever recorded at a CrossFit competition with 395 pounds.

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.

2023 Rogue Invitational

Patrick Vellner won the Rogue Invitational for the second time, it was also the second time a Canadian won the event.

Canadian athletes occupied 50% of the total Rogue Invitational podium (3 out of 6 athletes):

• Patrick Vellner, 1st
• Jeffrey Adler, 2nd
• Emma Lawson, 3rd

2023 CrossFit Open

Jeffrey Adler won the 2023 Open for the second time.

That 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

Final Thoughts

As you can see Canada was not messing around this year, but now the question becomes “Can they get better?”

Will 2024 be the first year that we ever see an all-Canada podium on the men’s side?

Will Lawson be able to overtake the champs Horvath and Toomey-Orr?

We’re just going to have to wait to find out.