The reigning Fittest Man on Earth™ made one of the heaviest lifts in CrossFit Open Workout 18.2a. The 18.2 workout was just twelve minutes long and had two parts: athletes had to complete an ascending couplet ladder (from 1 to 10 reps) of dumbbell squats and bar-facing burpees, followed by a one-rep max barbell clean. The clean was technically scored separately as 18.2a.
Former weightlifter and 2017 Reebok Crossfit® Games champion Mat Fraser made a seriously impressive lift of 385 pounds (174.6kg) while he still had ninety seconds remaining on the clock. Watch it below.
[Read more: PR like a Pro: The Best Way to Test Your 1-Rep Max.]
While this was the heaviest clean we saw from him, he ultimately wound up submitting 380 pounds, presumably because he got a faster 18.2 time in a different workout. The 380 pounds gave him the 19th heaviest clean and he’s currently coming first in the Open overall.
Ben Smith, the winner of the 2015 Reebok CrossFit Games, also made a 385 pound clean, one of four athletes worldwide who submitted that weight. He placed 13th for 18.2a and 1,056th for 18.2.
The man who is currently placing second in the 2018 CrossFit Open, French Canadian Alex Vigneault, also made one of the heaviest cleans we’ve seen so far. He came tenth worldwide with 375 pounds (170kg).
Twenty-five-year-old Josh Mattes, who trains out of CrossFit St. Robert in Missouri, performed the third heaviest clean of the Open with 400 pounds, or 181.4 kilograms. Then again, there could be an issue with this lift. See if you can spot it:
As you can see, Mattes began the lift before the 12-minute time limit was up, but he didn’t complete it until a couple of seconds after the timer had run down.
The rules aren’t super specific about whether or not this is an issue. In weightlifting meets the lift is good as long as you begin it before the timer runs down, but in CrossFit this isn’t always the case. That said, when athletes did the 1-rep max snatch at the 2017 Reebok CrossFit Games, lifts still counted so long as they began by the time the clock expired. And in any event, it’s been accepted to the leaderboard for now.
Finally, the heaviest lift from all the athletes who completed the 18.2a workout, according to the Leaderboard, was this 402-pound clean from 31-year-old Ioannis Papadopoulos in Greece.
It’s a phenomenal lift. But since he finished 255th in 18.2 and 1,799th in 18.1, one might say that he’s stronger than many of the sport’s top athletes, but he’s not the fittest. And in this sport, the fittest get the spoils.
This article was updated on March 6th to reflect new submissions to the leaderboard.
Featured image via @jon_pap and @mathewfras on Instagram.
