There has arguably been no event more important to the outcome of the Rogue Invitational in the last three years than “The Duel” series.
What Is “The Duel”?
The Duel is a tournament bracket event where athletes advance through rounds.
- The format is simple and exciting — if the athlete is not fast enough to make the cut, they get eliminated.
The Duel concludes with the two fastest athletes in a head-to-head matchup for all the glory.
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We have seen three iterations of The Duel, all of which included a sandbag:
2021: The Duel
- 60 heavy rope double-unders
- 3 squat snatches (Men 205/ Women 145 pounds)
- Sandbag (250/185 pounds) to platform
- 1 legless rope climb
- 10 overhead squats (135/95 pounds)
- sandbag carry (200/150 pounds)
- Log over-under-over
- Field sprint
- 3 sandbags to teeter
Fun fact: No male or female champion in the last three years has placed lower than third in The Duel.
- 2021 Rogue Champions – Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr (first in “The Duel”), Justin Medeiros (third in “The Duel”)
- 2022 Rogue Champions – Laura Horvath (first in “The Duel II”), Justin Medeiros (first in “The Duel II”)
- 2023 Rogue Champions – Laura Horvath (second in “The Duel III”), Pat Vellner (third in “The Duel III”)
Leaderboard Implications
“The Duel” – 2021
Other than 2021, the Duel event has shaken up the leaderboard.
The first iteration showed up as event seven of seven. After the last exciting event of the weekend, the podium remained unchanged as the top three men and women took care of business.
“The Duel II” – 2022
“The Duel II” showed up in the middle of the competition as event six of 10.
Roman Khrennikov held a 10-point lead over Justin Medeiros for first place going into the event.
- Medeiros turned the 10-point deficit into a 60-point lead over Khrennikov, who took 15th in the event.
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The two were separated by 14 places and only nine seconds. Medeiros dove across the finish line with the 200-pound sandbag, sacrificing his body to take the win over Jorge Fernandez.
- “I knew this was another high-execution event…I just wanted to roll the dice and go for it on that last one,” Medeiros said in his post-event interview.
On the women’s side, Laura Horvath had won three straight events going into event six and beat Danielle Brandon in the final round to increase her lead on Gabi Migała from five points to 60.
“The Duel III” – 2023
Considering Horvath won the entire competition by a margin of only 10 points, the 50 points she gained on Tia Clair Toomey-Orr in “The Duel III” turned out to be consequential.
- Toomey-Orr was knocked out in the second round, good for 12th place.
Meanwhile, Horvath moved on to face Dani Speegle in the finale. The latter won the event by eight-hundredths of a second.
- Horvath’s second place to Toomey-Orr’s 12th was separated by a mere 5.6 seconds.
The biggest beneficiaries on the men’s side were Jayson Hopper and Brent Fikowski, who faced off in the final round.
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Hopper took the win, jumping him from 14th to ninth place. Fikowski also catapulted up the leaderboard, moving from seventh all the way to second.
- “My times got a little faster each round. But they were always a little slower than Hopper’s,” Fikowski joked in his post-event interview.
The Bottom Line
“The Duel” has been one of the most entertaining events over the last three years at the Rogue Invitational, rewarding athleticism and precision.
- The name was certainly a nod to “classic Texas street justice,” as Chase Ingraham put it.
So, we may have seen the end of the series with Rogue moving out of Texas this year.
However, could we see a Scottish version of the high-stakes tournament-style event? Possibly with a caber toss or a weight over a bar? One can only hope.
More CrossFit Coverage
- Our 2024 Rogue Invitational Women’s Podium Picks and Dark Horses
- Our 2024 Rogue Invitational Men’s Podium Picks and Dark Horses
- Celebrating the 2024 Rogue Invitational Legends Roster
Featured image: Enrique Villaseñor
