Stronger Than a 90s Trend Comes From Behind, Wins Wodapalooza in Down-to-the-Wire Women’s Team Competition

Kelsey Kiel, Kelly Baker, and Emelie Lundberg found themselves trailing the European team, RX Performance, all weekend at the 2024 TYR Wodapalooza in Miami, FL. 

Until it really mattered, that is.

The three women, who all have CrossFit Games team competition experience, did exactly what they needed to do on the final event for their team—Stronger Than a 90s Trend—to make up the 20 points they needed to catch RX Performance. They ended with an event win and finished on top of the podium.

RX Performance—a team made up of individual CrossFit Games athlete Camilla Salomonsson Hellman and Swedish athletes Antonia Fält-Kottulinsky and Maria Längfors, both of whom competed on teams at the recent Games, dropped to second after leading the entire competition.

Team Scandinadian (Matilde Garnes, Rebecka Vitesson, and Anikha Greer) finished third, while Team Ice Barrel (Brooke Wells, Baylee Rayl, and Paige Powers), the heavy favorites to win the whole thing, wound up just off the podium in fourth. 

Worth noting: The only woman who finished on the podium in the Elite Women’s Team competition who also competed in the Elite Women’s Indy division on Thursday and Friday in Miami was Rebecka Vitesson, a 2023 CrossFit Games rookie. She placed fifth in the individual competition.

“Elite Team Event 4: The Sandbag Send” 

The day started with a full send, relay-style sprint event featuring sandbag cleans and sandbag squats sandwiched between a 360-feet sandbag carry.

• Third, going into the event, Stronger than a 90s Trend came out hot, picked up the event win, and jumped into second overall. That being said, they didn’t gain much on RX Performance, who finished right behind them in second. RX Performance still had a 24-point cushion on Stronger Than a 90s Trend heading into Event 5.
• Two other teams who did themselves some favors on Event 4 were Team Scandinadian and Team Ice Barrel. Team Scandinadian picked up a third-place finish, moving them from fourth to third on the overall leaderboard, just 12 points behind Stronger Than a 90s Trend. Meanwhile, Team Ice Barrel finished fourth, moving them from seventh into fifth overall, but still 31 points out of podium position.
• On the other side of things was the South American team, Lycan Gang, who entered the day in second overall. Their 15th-place finish in the event dropped them into fourth overall, 22 points behind Team Scandinadian.

“Elite Team Event 5: Waterfall on the Bay”

Event 5 was a three-round waterfall-style event, starting with 18 calories on the Echo Bike. Because of the rain, however, the other two movements were changed last minute to ensure 

athlete safety. 

Double kettlebell lunges replaced kettlebell step-overs, and double kettlebell shoulder-to-overheads replaced double kettlebell hang snatches.

• This time it was Team Ice Barrel who made a statement that they weren’t going down without a fight. They picked up the event win, moving them into fourth overall, just 11 points behind Team Scandinadian heading into the final event.
• As for the race for the top spot, Stronger Than a 90s Trend edged a bit closer to RX Performance, once again. They finished second and third respectively, closing RX Performance’s lead to 20 points. 

“Elite Team Event 6: Worm Fran”

As the rain continued to pour down in Miami, more last-minute movement substitutions were implemented. Instead of athletes doing a combination of pull-ups, chest-to-bar pull-ups, and bar muscle-ups between worm thrusters, the workout became 27-21-15-9 worm thrusters and 36-27-18-9 strict pull-ups.

• Stronger Than a 90s Trend all but annihilated the event, doing all they could to make a run at the top spot. They finished a full minute ahead of the next fastest time, and their fate was now in other teams’ hands.
• The cards were stacked in their favor, as another nine teams finished between them and RX Performance, who wound up 11th.
• The result: Stronger Than a 90s Trend gained 40 points on RX Performance, giving them the win by 20 points. 
• And in the battle for bronze, it was Team Scandinadian who handled the worm and strict pull-ups more effectively than Team Ice Barrel. They finished fourth in the event, giving them the final podium position.

The big picture: They say the best teams are better than the sum of their parts. This was certainly the case in Miami this weekend, as teamwork and team competition experience proved the big winner over individual talent.