Mat Fraser and Tia-Clair Toomey Lead the 2020 CrossFit Games Finals Field

From Men's Health

The 2020 CrossFit Games kicked off its unprecedented two-phase competition over the weekend with a remote competition. The field included the top 20 women and top 20 men from the Open leaderboard, along with the 10 women’s and 10 men’s qualifiers from Sanctionals. Athletes from 16 different countries around the world took part—and now the results are in.

The top five finishers (both for male and female competition) will participate in a final in-person event in Aromas, California, scheduled for October 19 through October 25.

The leaderboard after the seven events are set:

Top 5 Male

1. Mat Fraser

2. Noah Ohlsen

3. Justin Medeiros

4. Samuel Kwant

5. Jeffrey Adler

Top 5 Female

1. Tia-Clair Toomey

2. Brooke Wells

3. Haley Adams

4. Katrin Tanja Davidsdottir

5. Kari Pearce

Four-time Fittest Man on Earth Mat Fraser, who won the CrossFit Games every year since 2019, took the top spot for men over the weekend, and is the front-runner to win his fifth championship. He discussed how he approached the training and how he felt immediately post-qualifying in an interview with Morning Chalk Up from his home gym in Cookeville, Tennessee.

"When there were shutdowns, I built a home gym for the scenario of if I can't go into an affiliate, I don't want to skip a beat, so that's what we've got here," he said.

Then he talked about how the tests went.

"I liked them. Day 1 was four events, and they were all short, fast and heavy. It was cool. Day 2 we got to test some longer time domains," he said. "I'd say something like GHDs, drag rope and really heavy power cleans is not a combination we see too often, so I think that was a really cool test. We all know the regular workout Annie, but this has nothing to do with the regular workout Annie, in terms of stimulus of if you're good at one, it doesn't mean you're good at the other."

Fraser was also was a fan of the new format.

"I thought it was fun... I liked that you're only allowed to do the workouts once. We saw some people that are Open superheroes, but to the people that know them that's because they're doing the workouts three to four times each, so that doesn't translate to competition," he said. "I thought given the tools they had to work with, they ran a great event."

Fraser also shared how he was pleased that some of the simpler events, the 1RM Front Squat and 1K Row were both new PRs for him. He also talked about how useful it was to take on the challenge with his training partner, women's champ Tia-Clair Toomey.

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