The annual Wodapalooza festival is currently underway in Miami, Florida. It kicked off on January 11th and goes through January 14th. This festival brings thousands of athletes from multiple countries together over the course of a four day span. Within these four days, the Wodapalooza festival holds a weightlifting face off, a 5k, multiple WODs, and other fitness based competitions.
Yesterday, the weightlifting face off kicked off the festival with some big names topping the leaderboard. Both female and male competitors who took home first place also competed at the 2017 IWF World Championships. For the men, Brazilian weightlifter Fernando Reis (105kg+) took home first, and for the women’s side USA weightlifter Alyssa Ritchey won first.
At the World Championships both Reis and Ritchey recorded solid performances. Reis finished 6th in the 105kg+ men’s weight class with a strong 200kg snatch (a new Pan American record) and a 240kg clean & jerk. Ritchey, who was a Worlds rookie this year, placed seventh in the women’s 48kg weight class with a 78kg snatch and 99kg clean & jerk.
The Wodapalooza weightlifting face off is unlike traditional weightlifting competitions where athletes each get three attempts for both the snatch and the clean & jerk. In order to come out on top at the face off athletes must complete four rounds of weightlifting tasks.
The first round opens with athletes being paired head-to-head and alternating minutes of the snatch before resetting and moving to the clean & jerk. After completing these tasks, the athlete with the higher Sinclair score advances to the second round.
For round two, athletes are asked to complete their best snatch, then round three, the clean & jerk. The top athletes after these three rounds advance to the finals where they must complete both lifts again.
Last year’s weightlifting face off winners were Reebok CrossFit Games athlete Matt Rattay, and powerlifter turned weightlifter Taylar Stallings.
Feature image screenshot from @thewodapalooza Instagram page.
