The Biggest Names in Strength Sports Dominated the Rogue Invitational
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The 2022 Rogue Invitational took place over the weekend, bringing together some of the world's top-performing athletes from two separate but equally mighty arenas of strength sports: CrossFit and strongman. Each respective field already held their prestige events, the CrossFit Games and World's Strongest Men competitions, earlier in the year, so the Invitational presented an opportunity for a victory lap for some, and another chance at a podium spot for others.
Current reigning CrossFit Games winner Justin Medeiros cemented that triumph with a win at the Invitational in the male CrossFit category, his second in as many years. He topped the podium by a margin of 15 points with a score of 735, while his peers Chandler Smith and Jeffrey Adler rounded out the top three. In the wake of Mat Fraser's retirement from CrossFit, the 23-year-old Medeiros is shaping up to be the sport's newest dominant athlete.
Women's CrossFit mainstay and six-time Games champion Tia Clair-Toomey did not compete at the Rogue Invitational this year, and with the Fittest Woman on Earth conspicuous by her absence, the field opened up considerably. Laura Horvath placed first overall in her first Rogue Invitational Win after dominating in two events.
Ukrainian strongman Oleksii Novikov walked away with the top spot on the strongman leaderboard with a total of 49.5 points, having won the Cyr dumbbell ladder and performed consistently well in the five other events. Novikov previously won the World's Strongest Man title in 2020, and placed second in the Arnold Strongman Classic in May this year. This is his second first place finish of the year, following the Europe's Strongest Man contest in which he excelled despite having minimal time and resources to train due to the ongoing conflict in his home country.
Elsewhere at the event, Thor Björnsson made good on his promise to break his own world record in the weight over bar event, smashing his previous achievement of throwing 55 pounds over a 20'2" bar, setting a new best of 20'3"—and then teasing a return to strongman competition. He's already declared his intention to turn his focus to powerlifting, so don't be surprised if you see more records falling.
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