After the Lowlands Throwdown last weekend in Amsterdam -a competition that served as Semifinals to get to the Crossfit Games 2022-, we already have the names of the first European athletes who will go to Madison this year.
The Lowlands highlights included the performances of Laura Horvath, Gabriela Migala, Lazar Djukic, BK Gudmundsson -all in the top 10 of Games 2021-, several rookie competitors and the very powerful teams of CrossFit Reykjavik and CrossFit Zarautz Training Culture -both created this season with great desire to take the throne away from the CrossFit Mayhem Freedom team in the next Games-.
How does the Crossfit 2022 season work?
Let’s review: during the months of February and March the Open took place, the first qualifying phase open to the entire community (3 WODs in 3 weeks). The top 10% of the individual athletes from each continent went on to Quarterfinals, which were held in early April (5 WODs in 3 days), and then came Semifinals (10 competitions spread over the months of May and June) to which in Europe only the top 60 individuals and the top 40 teams go through.
Let’s not forget about the repechage: the Last Chance Qualifier. Individual athletes who do not do well in Semifinals can fight for two last extra places to go to Games, one female and one male. And finally we come to the CrossFit Games themselves, the grand final to be held from August 4 to 7, where a total of 80 individual athletes (40 men / 40 women) and 38 teams from around the world will face each other.
Lowlands Throwdown: first European Semifinal of 2022.
Last May 20, 21 and 22 the Lowlands Throwdown was held in Amsterdam, the first European Semifinals event where 60 athletes (30 men and 30 women) and 20 teams fought to reach the top 5 of the leaderboard and win their direct pass to the CrossFit Games 2022.
| Male category | Female category |
| 1º Lazar Djukic (Serbia, age 26) 2º BK Gudmunsson (Iceland, age 29) 3º Uldis Upenieks (Latvia, age 24) 4º Moritz Fiebig (Germany, age 27) 5º Enrico Zenoni (Italy, age 23) | 1º Laura Horvath (Hungary, age 25) 2º Karin Freyová (Slovakia, age 27) 3º Gabriela Migala (Poland, age 23) 4º Matilde Garnes (Norway, age 26) 5º Lucy Campbell (United Kingdom, age 25) |
Athletes who have placed sixth, seventh and eighth have a second chance in the Last Chance Qualifier. The athletes who will face each other will be:
6th Luka Djukic / Sara Sigmundsdottir
7th Adrian Mundwiler / Elena Carratalá
8th Fabian Beneito / Oihana Moya
In the Team category, the qualifiers for the Games are:
1. CrossFit Reykjavík (Iceland)
2. CrossFit Zarautz Training Culture (Spain)
3. CrossFit Portti (Finland)
4. CrossFit Oslo Purple Red (Norway)
5. CrossFit 2150 Team Norce BL (Denmark)
Summary of the competition
If you weren’t able to follow the Lowlands Throwdown live, here’s a recap of each WOD and their winners in both Individual and Teams.
DAY 1: EVENTS 1 AND 2
INDIVIDUAL
The competition started commemorating Event 5 of Regionals 2014, as it was exactly the same WOD. Serbian athlete Lazar Dukic led the event and finished it in 2:50.59, although he did not beat the 2014 record time (2’48”).
Slovakia’s Karin Freyova (3:44:41) managed to overtake Laura Horvath (3:47:94) and her climbing background, taking the 100 points with her and starting what would be a very close race between the two throughout the weekend.
The 6th Fittest on Earth Gabi Migala won the last WOD on Friday. After placing 16th in the first event, it was thanks to this event that she was able to rebound and finish the first day in 6th position.
As for the men’s category, if there is one thing that has become clear to us is that Uldis Upenieks is good at Deadlifts and that the number 2 seems to be his lucky number: he won the 22.2 and has won the second event of the day as well.
TEAMS
Both WODs were dominated by the CrossFit Reykjavik team, whose athletes swept through with countless Unbroken Thrusters that gave them a 90-second lead over CrossFit Oslo, the team behind them.
DAY 2: EVENTS 3 AND 4
INDIVIDUAL
The third event had us at the edge of our seats, as it was almost impossible to know how many Burpee Box Jump Over each athlete had done until the Heat was over.
Elite Male Winner: Luka Vunjak (56 reps)
Elite Female Winner: Lucy Campbell (50 reps).
Event 4: kilos and more kilos. The complex of 3 Cleans + 2 FSQ + 1 Jerk from the last WOD of the day was quite a spectacle. The fatigue that was accumulated from the Cleans and the Front Squats made the last Jerk quite complicated; even so, Kevin Jurs reached 151 kg and Laura Hovarth 106kg.
TEAMS
CrossFit Reykjavik continued to demonstrate their dominance at the third event, this time with the iconic worm. After months of training together, the synchronicity of their exercises was incredible.
Event 4: in teams there were also kilos – who doesn’t like a Snatch Ladder? CrossFit Reykjavik won again with a total of 432 kg lifted between the 4 members, who didn’t miss a single lift.
DAY 3: EVENTS 5 AND 6
INDIVIDUAL
50 Devil Press opened the 5th event. All the attention went to Iceland’s Sara Sigmundsdottir: after her long knee injury, seeing her win her first WOD of the weekend was really emotional. In the men’s category the fastest was Uldis Upenieks again.
Sixth and last WOD: Echo Bike + BMU + OHS. First place went to Laura Horvath and second place was fought for by Sara Sigmundsdottir and Lucy Campbell. Although Sara got off the bike earlier, Lucy was faster on the Muscle-Ups and OHS, which made her cross the finish line with tears in her eyes.
At this point in the competition, the men’s podium was already secured for Lazar Dukic, Björgvin K. Gudmundsson and Uldis Upenieks, but there were still two more Games tickets to be awarded. The sixth event was won by Germany’s Moritz Fiebig and the fifth Games qualifier was Enrico Zenoni, becoming the first Italian athlete to reach the Games.
TEAM
In the 5th WOD the unbeatable members of CrossFit Reykjavic won again, followed by the athletes of CrossFit Zarautz Training Culture with a minute difference. And what happened in the 6th WOD? Well, CrossFit Reykjavic made it very clear that this year is going to sweep the Games.
CrossFit Zarautz was in the top 5 of all the events of the weekend except this last one, but this did not affect its second position in the final leaderboard.
Want to know more? On the IG of @fittestfreakest you will find more exclusive content from the official Fittest Freakest’s athletes (Alexander Anasagasti, Fabian Beneito, Oihana Moya, Iurii Marincenco, Guillaume Briant…).
Want to see a spectacular CrossFit competition live? Buy tickets for the Fittest Freakest Challenge on July 9 and 10.