five tests over three days the elite separate themselves in the quarterfinals only the top
300 men and women remain young stars rise while experienced vets lead
a pair of impressive comebacks continue and the defending champs are on the charge
the semi-finals are set that's next on game central
hi everybody welcome to this games central individual quarterfinals recap presented by gowan
the official mobility partner of the noble crossfit games
five workouts have narrowed the field down to the best in the world on the individual
side of the competition as we now head into semifinals and here are your unofficial winners
by continent in africa 37 year old jason smith sits atop the overall leaderboard michelle moran
is there for the women for asia roman krennichoff your top male athlete and sung young choi on the
women's side over in europe gabriella magawa very impressive for the women's competition and then
bjorgevin carl gumminson doing what he does and dominating on the men's side for europe in north
america justin medeiros continues his great early season he will finish in first place unofficial
right now than mallory o'brien how about what she's doing also first in oceania ricky gerrard
the comeback continues we'll have more on him in a second tia toomey no surprise there and in south
america guy my heroes wins for the men and julia cato on top of the overall leaderboard right now
for the women we saw plenty of great individual performances from the athletes who wound up on
top of their respective leaderboards but my top athlete of the individual quarterfinals presented
by monster hydro the official energy drink of the nobel crossing games is ricky gerrard
he didn't win an event in oceania but he had all top 10 finishes except for workout number two he
actually got hit with more than a one minute major penalty for his pistols but he still got eighth
in that workout the comeback is real for ricky as he continues to work his way back to the crossfit
games and tia toomey what can you say about her another dominant performance never finished lower
than second in winning the oceania quarterfinal for the women congratulations to all the athletes
who wound up in first place in their continents in the quarterfinals let's send it now to european
correspondent lauren smith who is taking a look at all the top event performances from the weekend
thank you sean these are my top five performances of the weekend
presented by woop and what i've learned is it's really tough to pick just five
but these are a couple of moments that stood out to me and to start off the weekend the teens made
a huge statement emma lawson picked up a massive event win not just in north america but set a
worldwide record with a score of five minutes 16 seconds in event number one her strategy was just
to go full gas and hold on and it all came down to those strict handstand push-ups in the final round
emma's unbroken set saw her ahead of tia claire to me by 16 seconds she's 17 years old
workout one with the lunges and handstand push-ups um like i knew those ones were
very much in my wheelhouse so that was kind of i didn't really have much of a strategy going into
it to be honest it was just kind of one of those ones where you just kind of go for it and embrace
the pain and just kind of see how things play out so that's exactly what i did and it paid off
in south america sdc crossfit had the top four men on the leaderboard at the end of day one but
no one had a better performance than augustine rochelle me his family who were present must
have acted as great motivation because the argentinian set the third best score in the
world in workout one and a solid workout too saw him going unbroken throughout
only two others had back-to-back wins on day one keelan henry in africa and perhaps unsurprisingly
tia claire toomey and oceania what's better than two of back-to-back wins three wins in
a row tia claire toomey had three continental wins and a second at the end of day two despite
a two-second penalty on the pistols another routine day for the five-time fittest woman on
earth who had the best quarter-final performance across the board all weekend finishing with
seven points now for my favorite of the weekend workout number four and big numbers went up but
mostly they are from heavyweight specialists who were unlikely to see in the semi-finals there was
one they know that jumped off the leaderboard and that's crossfit's thor griffin rolly
he put up a massive 1128 pounds he took third in his continent and his approach was just really
clever he maxed out a 415 pound clean in only two lifts he then spent his time building to
a 353 pound overhead squat and combine that with a 360 pound bench to be throwing those
numbers around and remaining competitive across the board is just so impressive and finally
workout one did not play to laura horvath's strengths she broke up each set of handstand
push-ups and a small mistake on the second round of walking lunges didn't help matters and she
finished in 90th in complete contrast she closed out the quarterfinals by topping europe in the
final two events a miss snatch was the only difference between finished first worldwide
but an unofficial second place overall joint with tierclaire toomey that will do nicely as
well just her ability to put an event behind her and just persevere and come out the other
side that's what's so impressive about laura horvath she also turned 25 this week so happy
birthday laura from all of us here at game central congratulations to all of the athletes who'll be
moving on to the semi-finals i can't believe it's over so soon two stages down one to go
and well then we're just looking ahead to madison aren't we sean back over to you
thanks a lot lauren and lauren mentioned some very familiar names in that segment but one name
you may not know too much about is the woman who right now sits in second place in north america
and that is alexis raptus she is a former teenage competitor at the crossfit games in 2015 and again
in 2016. she took fourth and second respectively in those years and she is now training with the
training think tank crew in georgia she's just 23 years old but has a great crew around her
and looks like she is having a breakout season unofficially second place right now in north
america unfortunately we did have some notable injuries that took place before and during
quarterfinals the first emma carey who made it to the crossing games as an individual last year
she has had to end her season due to a nagging back injury really looking forward to seeing what
she can do once she gets back to full health of course she has her full career ahead of her and
then during the quarterfinals bethany shadburn injured herself while warming up for event number
four the other total she posted on instagram that her back went out and she will be unable
to compete for the rest of the season and if you remember bethany shadburn last year qualified
for the crossfit games but was unable to compete when she tested positive for covid19 right before
the competition we wish the both of them the best and look forward to their comebacks next
year a comeback that is happening this year is brooke wells she is having a great early
part of her season coming off that injury that she suffered at the crossfit games last year
she was fifth in the world wide open and right now she sits in fifth place in north america
i am very confident that i was the fittest that i've ever been
this injury for some people
this can be a death sentence
so my goal for this year is to just overcome my injury i would say with a lot of adversity and
so just more than just physically overcoming it i want to mentally overcome it and just be really
confident this season that i've done everything that i can to be the best that i can brook as an
athlete she's one of the best competitors you'll ever meet there's something that's going to light
her fire and it's going to keep it stoked all year long and that's going to be being a champion
and i think that's the one thing that is going to set her apart moving forward despite having
any injury despite any obstacles that she may face she's going to have a why and a goal
to where she wants to go and that's what's going to make her a different level athlete
as we've come to learn brook's going to come back brooke's going to be brooke and
brook's going to keep doing whatever she has to do to win and be the best athlete
all this stuff before it hurts like doesn't really matter anyone can do that but if you can
push past things when it gets tough that's when it actually matters
i'm brooke wells new year new scar same goal
brook wells made a methodical charge up the leaderboard over the weekend she was
21st after day one then just one day later she moved all the way up for a tie for sixth place
and then right now fifth place unofficially in north america and i spoke with her
about what the last few months have been like as she continues her comeback
rook thanks so much for doing this how are you doing going through quarterfinals right now
uh honestly like i'm so excited just be able to like participate and compete again
obviously i haven't been able to compete since the game so it's been really fun to like
be with my proven training team and kind of all get to do it together what has this journey
back been like for you over the past couple of months honestly it's been a lot of highs and
a lot of lows definitely more highs because it's kind of like when you first come to crossfit and
you get like all these pr's it's almost like starting over again i'll do something and kind
of feel like i have a setback it probably isn't it's just a part of like my elbow healing but
it'll flare up and that's just very discouraging so definitely a lot of like scary moments like is
this realistic to compete this year or um should i take it just like to recover but
then definitely a lot of high moments completing quarter finals is definitely one of those i know
you work with go wad a lot how have they helped you work your way through this rehab process
so i have been go goading so much every single day because i kind of lost some mobility in my elbow
when this all happened so just being able to make sure that my shoulders are ready for each workout
um and my wrists things like that it's just been very crucial and important to get my mobility
back in my elbow for my recovery well brooke besselluck uh moving forward the semifinals
i'm looking forward to seeing you back out on the coliseum floor at the crossfit games
thank you i really appreciate it great to see brook wells back out on the competition floor
and hopefully we get to watch her compete again at the crossfit games this year she
is part of that proven crew with shane orr and tiatoomi you probably know plenty about them
but one training camp that should be on your radar is the program they're based in mallorca
spain and they are run by john singleton out of the uk and three other athletes did extremely
well this past weekend gabriella mcgowan finished first for the women in europe jacqueline dalstrom
another member of that training camp was two spots back in third and then christoph horvath having a
breakthrough season he is moving on to semifinals he finished in 41st place and coach john singleton
talked to us about how this structure that he has put together has helped his athletes excel
so we started the program six years ago or so now and in essence we were traveling around running
camps in lots of different places and a few years ago we really wanted to create a central hub
in essence a place where athletes can come to get better to get stronger together our first
year of that was obviously heavily affected by covid then as soon as we came out of kobe
we realized the the benefits that it was having sometimes it's not easy putting um
a group of competitive people together however i think if we can create the
environment where everyone's focused on the bigger picture goals it's amazing how much more
each individual person can get out of themselves because of the benefit of the group
gabriella magawa was one of the young stars who really had a breakout season last year and we are
seeing that happen once again so far in 2022 in the quarterfinals 16 year old olivia kerstetter
finished in eighth place unofficially in north america she is the fittest teen in the girls
14 to 15 year old division she's coached by games veteran jacob hebner and she got
better with each workout throughout the weekend and finished up with a sixth place finish
in event number five from one end of the age spectrum to another 37 year old jason smith
continues to hold it down in africa unofficially he finishes in first place with 30 points a
seven point lead over rouen duvanage smith did not win a workout but he was the only man in africa
who had all five of his finishes inside the top ten and the guys chasing him
have a lot of work to do to catch up to jason smith so what are the
top takeaways from this past weekend to help us answer that question here's tommy marquez
thanks sean i'm going to be honest individual quarterfinals felt like they came and went in
an instant thankfully i've got some lingering body soreness to remember them by in addition to some
major performances that led to my top takeaways and here are my top three takeaways from the
quarterfinals weekend brought to you by airrosti first up the youth movement that we've seen over
the last year or so continues to grow evidenced by even more athletes showing up on the first page of
the leaderboard in quarterfinals in addition to olivia kerstetter's amazing performance you have
names like alex willis tudor magda jack farlow freya mooseburger ben fowler riley martin grace
walton and more all showing up inside the top 20 of their continent the gen z army is forming
on the horizon you have been warned number two for me is the fact that 2022 is shaping up to
be the year of the comeback for big names of the sport hoping to return to the top jamie simmons
sarah sigma's daughter brooke wells willie george sam quan and ricky gerrard all watched from the
sidelines on sunday at the games last year but are all currently in the top 10 of their respective
confidence and barring any major changes are now moving on to semifinals with a full head of steam
and finally i'm thinking scott panchik maybe should reconsider his retirement plan
after the way the leaderboard shook out on the men's side not only did scott finish fifth overall
in north america but he managed to be out both of his younger brothers as well look we just saw tom
brady change his mind after only being retired for 39 days or so last i checked there were over 200
days between the games last year and the open this year so i think given brady's standard no
one would bat an eye scott if you just casually signed up for semifinals i'm just saying scott
consider it that's all either way the season is certainly picking up some momentum now and
i for one cannot wait to keep the ball rolling and watch things play out over the next few weeks sean
thanks Tommy and i for one really hope we get to see Scott Patrick compete once again
at the semifinals want to thank our sponsors for today's episode GOWOD the official mobility
partner of the noble CrossFit Games designed for athletes with one goal to help you perform
at your best download the app now for a free mobility test and a 14-day trial quarterfinals
are just getting started the teams are up next they will get going on April 7th through the 10th
and then we will close out the quarterfinal stage of competition on April 24th the age
group's getting going on April 21st we have a new season of miles to madison getting set to debut
season 2 starts Thursday march 31st you're going to get three segments the open
quarterfinals and semifinals and the games with new episodes coming out every Thursday
that is going to do it for this quarterfinals individual recap of game central presented by
goad and before we go here is a sneak peek at the trailer for the new season of miles to madison
here we are again I've always wanted to do that are you ready to get the potty starter we're back
baby while the games are fun and exciting to open is the reason that I started doing this
whole thing it's my birthday I feel like I should be able to choose the workout four reps remaining
for Justin Medeiros I want to win the games and the team is all we know they're the best they know
they're the best they can be beat this is what all the workers for all she does is eat sleep dream
everything I do is with intensity and purpose it's kind of a coach's dream I am constantly in pursuit
of helping people reach their maximum potential us together working together and pushing each
other it's going to be scary really scary I want to make it back to the games I wouldn't have my
best year yet I'm ready to run through a wall man let's do it are you all ready let the games begin