Khrennikov Dominates, Garard Makes Incredible Comeback at Dubai

The final day at the 2023 Dubai Fitness Championship brought with it a lot of changes on the leaderboard, including a handful of surprises.

One constant, however, was Roman Khrennikov, who not only won the entire competition by 89 total points over runner-up Ricky Garard but also led the competition for the remainder of the weekend after taking the lead in Event 3.

Throughout all eight events, Khrennikov never finished outside of the top eight and had an average event finish of 3.4, including five event finishes inside the top three.

Men’s Top Three:

1. Roman Khrennikov: 717 points
2. Ricky Garard: 628 points
3. Lazar Djukic: 605 points

(It’s worth noting that we correctly predicted the men’s podium pre-event.) 

Let’s now take a look at the main surprises from this weekend.

Incredible Surprises

At the end of Day 2, it looked like Ricky Garard would not finish anywhere near the podium after ending his first four events with an average finish of 11.75.

He finished Day 2 strong with a third-place event placing, but turned on the jets on the last day where he won the last event of the competition along with a second-place finish in Event 6.

Thanks to his dominance in these last three events, Garard was able to leapfrog almost everyone and jump up to second, securing himself a silver.

Chandler Smith, seventh overall at this year’s CrossFit Games, was sitting in 10th at the end of Day 2, but unfortunately continued to have a nightmare performance on Day 3 with two straight event finishes in 15th or worse. 

Cut before the final event, Smith finished 15th overall on the leaderboard, which was much lower than many of us predicted.

Bronislaw Olenkowicz had a rollercoaster weekend in Dubai. After the first two events, Bronislaw was the overall leader on the leaderboard, but then immediately had back-to-back event finishes in 26th and 27th, forcing him to fall way down to the cut line.

On the last day, Olenkowicz came back strong with a ninth, 16th, and fourth, which was good enough to propel him through all cuts to finish in seventh overall.

Quick Stats

This is the third time that Roman Khrennikov has podiumed at the Dubai Fitness Championship, with two of those years being overall victories.

This year’s men’s podium is the exact same as 2021, except that Garard and Djukic switched positions.

This is the third straight competition in 2023 that Khrennikov has finished on the podium:

• 2023 CrossFit Games: 3rd
• 2023 Rogue Invitational: 3rd
• 2023 Dubai Fitness Championship: 1st

This is the second year in a row that Spaniard Aniol Ekai finished inside the top six at Dubai, despite being surrounded by all Games athletes, while he has yet to break through to the Games.