Who Will Win the Inaugural “Top Training Camp Award” at the 2024 CrossFit Games?

In his recent interview with Matt O’Keefe, CEO of HWPO Training,  Dave Castro announced a preliminary version of his new idea for awarding the training camp whose athletes performed best in the Individual Division at the CrossFit Games this year.

• The initial response to his announcement has been mixed, but most have taken a “wait and see” attitude. 

Some have said that it might take away from the Team Division as it celebrates training camp teams in an individual sport vs. celebrating the affiliates’ teams in a team sport. 

• Others have pointed out that it’s fairly limited in its approach as a camp needs three individual athletes who have qualified for the Games, while many have two or fewer. 

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Also, the time an athlete or group of athletes has trained with a given camp is under question. 

In a lot of ways, the training camps function like professional (or college) sports teams. 

Athletes get “traded,” or they follow their coach to a new university or team—there have been some high-profile examples of the latter this season. 

• Pat Vellner is now a HWPO Training athlete because his coach, Michelle Letandre, is an HWPO Training coach. Kyra Milligan is now a PRVN Fitness athlete because her coach, Kiefer Lammi, is now a PRVN Fitness coach. 

Training camps today, like sports teams, have an active roster that changes each season as coaches and athletes change, while some athletes qualify and others do not. 

Worth noting: There isn’t a single training camp that can say their system took someone from their first on-ramp class to the podium at the CrossFit Games. 

• Each of the biggest camps’ top athletes earned most of their achievements before they created the camps themselves—Mayhem Athlete, PRVN Fitness, and HWPO Training are all examples. 

Some Details

In the interview, Castro said that this year’s initial version will be fairly low-key and is still not all figured out: 

• “Yeah it’s not going to be like we’re going to give it on the floor, I’m going to keep it underground this year. We’ll have a trophy for it, and [based on the scoring, we’ll] hand it out.” Castro continued, “What’s not determined yet is the rules around it, but it’ll be completely performance-based.” 

Here’s the plan, as laid out by Castro:

• Athletes will self-identify in the camp they are competing for during check-in.
• The three highest-placing athletes who self-identify with the training camp across the men’s and women’s fields score points for their camp based on their final overall leaderboard placements (i.e first place receives one point, second receives two, and so on down to 40th)
• The top three athletes’ scores from each training camp will then be combined to give an overall score and the lowest score wins.

Who Gets to Compete?

We can’t pick a winner unless we know who is competing and who isn’t.

Under the loose rules that Castro laid out with a three-athlete minimum, only five total training camps would qualify to compete. That is a minimum of three athletes who self-identify in the camp for whom they are competing. 

That last point will be important in a second.

• I reached out to all of the coaches/camps for all of the 2024 Games athletes and was provided official lists of which athletes are on their rosters. In other words, the athlete/camp breakdowns in this article are confirmed by the camps’ rosters.

Here are the five training camps that would qualify for the 2024 Top Training Camp Award and the total number of athletes those camps have on their individual CrossFit Games rosters:

• Mayhem Athlete – 15
• PRVN Fitness – 11
• HWPO Training – 9
• Training Think Tank – 4
• Brute Strength – 3

Let’s look at that last one. 

The athletes Brute Strength reported are Dallin Pepper, James Sprague, and Danielle Brandon.

But, in Brandon’s interview with Castro just a few days before this announcement, the GM asked her “What is your camp or like, what are you doing?” 

• “I have [Coach] El, he lives in Baton Rouge,” Brandon responded. “I live here in Nashville and I train alone every day.

Castro continued, noting, “It seems like the previous few years, you were in a camp? Are you enjoying this? Kind of not being in a camp?” He concluded, “I think the whole camp thing is funny, by the way.” 

• “Me too,” Brandon responded. “I have a lot to say about camps. Um, yeah, I have a lot to say about camps, but that’s like a whole other podcast.

This is not an accusation that Brute incorrectly reported their athlete roster.  

• Putting a title on something can be complicated, Coach El Senouvor is a Brute Strength coach, but does that immediately make Danielle Brandon a Brute Strength athlete? 

We’ll have to see if Danielle selects Brute Strength or “No Camp” when checking in at the Games. 

Here are the rosters for the other qualifying training camps based on direct feedback I received from the programs:

Mayhem Athlete (15 athletes / 9 men / 6 women)

• Roman Khrennikov
• Jack Rozema
• Austin Hatfield
• Arthur Semenov
• Victoria Campos
• Luke Parker
• Karin Freyova
• Guilherme Malheiros
• Samuel Cournoyer
• Saxon Panchik
• Dawon Jung
• Alexandre Caron
• Seungyeon Choi
• Haley Adams
• Daisy McDonald

PRVN Fitness (11 athletes / 5 men / 6 women)

• Kalyan Souza
• Peter Ellis
• Chloe Gauvin-David
• Grace Walton
• Madeline Sturt
• Kyra Milligan
• Bayley Martin
• Caroline Stanley
• Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr
• Jay Crouch
• Luka Djukic

HWPO Training (9 athletes / 5 men / 4 women)

• Chris Ibarra
• Cole Greashaber
• Victor Hoffer
• Jacqueline Dahlstrøm
• Brooke Wells
• Patrick Vellner
• Jayson Hopper
• Samuel Kwant
• Georgia Pryer

Training Think Tank (4 athletes / 1 man / 3 women)

• Bethany Flores
• Alexis Raptis
• Travis Mayer
• Linda Keesman

That’s all of them. 

• Forty-two of the total 79 individual athletes will be in one of these five training camps. 

So, with a majority in the fight — for an award Castro just made up seemingly yesterday — there is a storyline here for the athletes to jump in and battle for their banner, their community (their online training camp community, that is), and their coaches.

But you may ask, what about the rest? 

• Well, let’s get this out of the way:  Arielle Loewen trains alone in her garage, we know. That’s not a camp.

While writing this article, we also received feedback from a few coaches who wanted it specifically noted that while they might train one or two individual athletes, who may or may not work out together, they don’t brand themselves a “training camp.”

So, without using the label “training camp,” here are the groups of athletes/coaches that would sit right outside the arbitrary three-athlete minimum:

• Krypton Athletics – Laura Horvath and Gabriella Migala
• Only Training – Brent Fikowski and Shelby Neal
• The Training Plan – Bjorgvin Karl Gudmudsson and Henrik Haapalainen
• Training Culture – Calum Clements and Anoil Ekai
• Underdogs Athletics – Alex Gazan and Ricky Garard

There are then 27 athletes across the men’s and women’s field who are either coached individually or are the sole qualifier from their affiliate/training camp/coach, which includes Jeffrey Adler, making neither the current Fittest Man nor Woman on Earth part of this award idea.

• All that to say, while it seems like a simple idea, an athlete self-identifies, CrossFit takes their overall ranking, adds it together, and gives the top-ranked training camp an award after the competition, it may be a bit more complicated. 

Who Wins the Inaugural “Top Training Camp” Award in 2024?

Picking a possible winner here is difficult. 

Here are the top three athletes I would select from each qualified training camp (in other words, the three likely highest-placing athletes):

• Mayhem Athlete – Roman Khrennikov | Haley Adams | Saxon Panchik
• PRVN Fitness – Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr | Grace Walton | Jay Crouch
• HWPO Training – Patrick Vellner | Samuel Kwant | Brooke Wells
• Training Think Tank – Alexis Rapits | Travis Mayer | Bethany Flores
• Brute Strength – Dallin Pepper | Danielle Brandon | James Sprague

Honestly, it’s too close to call. 

While I believe Toomey-Orr is a shoo-in for the top spot, PRVN Fitness gets a bit more even in comparison to the field with new PRVN athlete and rookie Grace Walton and fellow Oceania athlete Jay Crouch. 

Khrennikov, Adams, and Panchik are a strong trio for Mayhem Athlete, all looking to make a strong comeback in 2024. 

• Khrennikov will be shooting for a higher podium spot after an injury on Sunday in Madison last year dropped him to third, while neither Adams nor Panchik competed at the Games in 2023.

HWPO Training has the Mount Rushmore trio that most closely resembles a pro sports team: 

• Vellner came over in a trade, Wells was a free agent, and Sam Kwant followed his coach from another program a few years ago after success. 

It’s one of those football storylines where there is no way they can lose if they can just put it all together.

That leaves us with who I think of when I think of the spirit of athletes at training camps in both Training Think Tank and Brute Strength. 

• In both cases, the majority of the athletes there have worked with their training camp’s coaches for years, and while this may be a trivial award that won’t even get announced on the floor at the Games, these are the athletes that I think would fight tooth and nail for their coaches and camps. And they have the skills to do it. 

Raptis, Mayer, and Flores have all been in the top ten at the Games before and look to be returning to form with their finishes at Semifinals. 

The Brute Strength crew, coached by Matt Torres and Coach El, continue an upward trajectory and this could be the top year for all of them individually and as a “team.”

The Bottom Line

Of these five camps, I think it will be anyone’s game, but one that, similar to when the award is slated to be handed out, is an afterthought. 

However, I imagine any training camp would love to advertise “Top Training Camp, 2024 CrossFit Games.” 

What if the “No Camp” athletes in a future year pick a banner to fly? 

Adler, Loewen, and Mederios could give any of them a run for their money. 

What if Only Training and Underdogs combine forces as “Only Underdogs,” Brent Fikowski, Shelby Neal, Ricky Garard, and Alex Gazan… one can dream.

Don’t worry I will totally be tracking this as the week goes on at @known_knowable 

More 2024 CrossFit Games Coverage

• How to Watch the 2024 CrossFit Games
• 2024 CrossFit Games Will Feature New Movements, According to Dave Castro
• Our 4 Favorite Friday Night Lights Moments at the CrossFit Games

Featured image: @ironandcastle / Instagram