After significant controversy surrounding Josh Bridges’ world’s-best score on CrossFit Open workout 16.4 (which gave Josh his seventh overall Open victory over the last few years), CrossFit HQ has recalculated the athlete’s score and issued a major penalty. This knocks Bridges’ score from 330 to 280, giving Rich Froning the 16.4 victory.
(CrossFit has also announced some changes to their judging protocol as a result — read more here on the Games website.)
But Bridges, a consummate competitor, hasn’t let the adjustment get to him too much. In fact, he’s responded by posting a truly ridiculous performance on CrossFit Open workout 16.5 at just 7:15. Check it out below; he even has enough left in the tank to celebrate with a fist pump afterward, while most of us turn into puddles on the ground.
Josh Bridges CrossFit Games 16.5 032416 from Invictus Athlete on Vimeo.
If you recall, 16.5 is a repeat of the slogfest that was 14.5, which also happened to be the first Open workout performed for time. (Dave Castro famously threw his watch into the crowd after the announcement.)
Bridges also set the world’s top time on that workout at a now-comparatively pedestrian 7:49, which made our jaws drop back then. Video from 2014 embedded below:
Bridges’ 2016 time would still be at the top of the leaderboard so far in 2016; for comparison, Mat Fraser currently has the #2 time with 8:06, an improvement from his 8:18 in 2014.
Going sub-8 on this workout is pretty insane, and Josh Bridges bested that by a full 45 seconds. His score hasn’t been officially approved yet, but it’d be touch to imagine many competitors coming within spitting distance. This is a workout where shaving seconds off gets exponentially harder as an athlete speeds up.
As far as responding with actions over words, Josh Bridges has made a statement.
