Roman Khrennikov in Control After Two Days at Dubai Fitness Championship

With two days down, Roman Khrennikov seems to have everything under control at the 2023 Dubai Fitness Championship.

Khrennikov won the first event of the weekend and has not given the lead away since then.

Meanwhile, his biggest challengers have struggled early on, essentially taking themselves out of championship contention after just four events.

The closest man to him at the moment is last year’s champion, Spaniard Fabian Beneito Selles, who sits 48 points behind Khrennikov after five events.

Surprising Issues

Ricky Garard, who we expected to compete for a spot on the podium continued to have problems on day two, finishing ninth in Event 3 and seventh in Event 4, contributing to his poor performances from day one, but saved the day at the end with a third place finish in Event 5.

Day 2 for Chandler Smith was also a day that he would like to forget, as he essentially eliminated all chances for himself to be on the podium at the end of the weekend.

After sitting in second overall after the first two events, Smith has continued to fall further and further down the leaderboard, falling all the way down to 10th overall, where he currently sits.

Smith had three straight event finishes in 13th or worse (15th, 13th, 22nd) on the day, averaging a finish of 16.7. He now sits 99 points behind third place overall.

Four-time Games athlete Uldis Upenieks from Latvia had a nightmare start to his weekend with an 18th and 22nd finish, but came back strong on day two with a fifth and a 10th place finish, which helped him jump up the leaderboard.

Unfortunately, he had another bad event finish on Event 5 where he took 23rd. Upenieks now sits in 17th overall, 59 points behind 10th place.

Strong Comeback for Fabian Beneito Selles

After an 11th place finish in Event 1, Fabian Beneito Selles has had four straight event finishes in seventh place or better, averaging an event finish of fifth.

Thanks to a seventh place finish in Event 5, along with a bad 15th place finish by Lazar Djukic, Beneito Selles was able to overtake second place overall heading into the last day of competition.

Cuts Are Looming

Dubai announced today on Instagram that the next two events will have cuts, going to 20 total athletes on each side after Event 6, and then to 10 total athletes after Event 7.

By reducing the size of the field and changing the scoring system, event wins will become even more valuable and further separate the best from the rest.

At the moment there are currently two men tied for 20th place, Martin Cuervo and Jorge Fernandez with 200 points each. Whoever does best in the next event will likely earn themselves an opportunity to compete at least one more event.

Many athletes are going to be upset about the decision to have cuts, but we are interested to see how this will change things in a competition that only has eight total events.