2024 Rogue Invitational: Men’s Preview and Predictions

Photo Credits: Athlete’s Eye

By: Brian Friend and Patrick Clark

The sixth installment of the Rogue Invitational is upon us and as always it’s a stacked field with most of the top men’s athletes in competitive fitness this year. It’s arguable the best field top to bottom, particularly on the men’s side, that we’ve ever had at Rogue, which is where our attention is today. 

Jeff Adler

Brian’s Pick: 1st
PC’s Pick: 2nd

Adler debuted at the Rogue Invitational in 2021, he placed 3rd, 3rd, and 2nd in his only three appearances there. He skipped the CrossFit Games this year after what happened on the first day, and thus it is the first time we’ll see him in meaningful action since Semifinals- where he held off both Roman Khennikov and Dallin Pepper despite programming that on paper looked favorable for them. He’s never won it before, so it’s no guarantee, but if you’re making picks and he’s not on your podium it’s difficult to understand.  – Brian

Dallin Pepper

Brian’s Pick: 3rd
PC’s Pick: 1st

I’m dubbing him the future CrossFit Games champion and I know I’m not alone with that sentiment. He’s coming off a runner-up finish at this year’s Games and he’s only getting better at just 22-years old. So why not add future Rogue Invitational champion to his future list of accomplishments, but I’m saying the future is now. Every time I see him compete I leave more impressed, the holes he has in his fitness and strength are shrinking every day. There’s not a single event I see him taking a bottom half finish in anymore. For Rogue programming, he’s almost the perfect athlete. Machine work, he’s one of the best. Pure strength, top-5. Odd-objects, he adapts. Monostructural workouts, he’s in the top half. He placed eighth at Rogue last year in his first appearance thanks to a strong final day of competition where he placed top-5 in the final three workouts including and event win, of course in a workout that featured a echo bike where he is considered the best on that implement. – PC

Patrick Vellner

Brian’s Pick: 2nd
PC’s Pick: 3rd

Vellner is one of two male athletes who has competed at all previous Rogue Invitationals (Chandler Smith is the other). He’s a two-time champion, and only missed the podium in 2022, when he took fourth. Yes he’s getting older, and yes there is a new generation of athletes who can compete for podiums, but Vellner has been amongst the top-3 fittest men for nearly a decade, and that still hasn’t changed. – Brian

Justin Medieros

Brian’s Pick: 4th
PC’s Pick: 4th

When you pick a two-time Rogue champion (and two-time Games champion) outside the podium that’s proof on how talented and deep this field is. Medeiros has only won at Rogue. He’s two-for-two, winning in 2021 by 80 points over Vellner and then Chandler Smith by 15 points in 2022. He took last year off from Rogue but returns to defend a title he never lost on the competition floor. It’s going to be tough, but he will be one of what I predict will be six athletes who can win the 2024 title. He’s actually been more successful as an athlete against the Rogue field than the Games field, winning a total of three events across his two appearances versus just winning two events across four Games appearances. Don’t be surprised to see him winning another event or two this weekend. – PC

Brent Fikowski

Brian’s Pick: 5th
PC’s Pick: 5th

Last year was Fikowski’s first at Rogue, and he placed fourth, on a tiebreaker, behind Vellner, Adler, and Roman (who is unfortunately not able to participate this year). The events he did best on last year were the Circus (with the monkey bars), the Duel III (elimination event), and Texas Heavy (long weighted run)…all three of the critical parts of those seem unlikely to return this year. The three worst events he had were Max Deadlift, Seat at the Bar (heavy back squats), and 10th inning (high volume ring muscle ups)… these types of events are commonplace at Rogue. I believe Fikowski has improved since last year, but I also think the field has. – Brian

Ricky Garard

Brian’s Pick: 6th
PC’s Pick: 6th

Ricky placed fifth last year in what would essentially be his culminating CrossFit event after missing the Games due to his shoulder injury. Despite being less than 100%, he had his best performance at Rogue, placing fifth, an improvement from his 10th place showing in his 2022 debut. Garard is an interesting athlete because on paper he isn’t the first athlete you think of when you consider who the programming favors. But you can never count Ricky out, his performance at the Games where he essentially competed the last two days on one leg confirmed that. The guy knows how to grind, he’s been grinding since 2017 and he doesn’t take his opportunities for granted anymore. – PC

Jayson Hopper

Brian’s Pick: 7th
PC’s Pick: 7th

Three years competing at Rogue, three 7th place finishes. I actually hate picking him here, and I hope he does better, but it’s really hard to put him much higher, yet. There were seven events his first year, he finished 14th on three of them. There were 10 his second year, he had a 19th, two 13ths, and a 12th. Last year he had a 19th on the same event (Ski Bar/Seat at the Bar), a 17th, and two 13ths… he hasn’t shown me that he can eliminate those bottom half finishes at the rate he needs to to move any higher at Rogue. – Brian

Samuel Kwant

Brian’s Pick: 10th
PC’s Pick: 8th

Another even year, another impressive performance by Kwant. The seven-time Games athlete continued his trend of performing well during even years with a sixth place finish at this past year’s Games. This after placing fourth in 2022 and a career-best second in 2020. Kwant has made two previous appearances at Rogue with his best finish being…you guessed it…in 2022. He placed eighth overall that year after placing 13th in his debut in 2021. Will he do better this year? Trends say yes. – PC

James Sprague

Brian’s Pick: 8th
PC’s Pick: 17th

I made this pick before news of his illness, PC’s pick reflects his pneumonia. Sprague exceeded all expectations at the Games. And even if there had been normal circumstances, I believe he would have done that (not won, but exceeded expectations)- he has gotten impressively better; especially his strength. To be succinct, everything worked out for him this summer, Rogue is not the Games, and while I believe he can be in the top half, the podium is a long way off. – Brian

Chandler Smith

Brian’s Pick: 11th
PC’s Pick: 10th

Smith, Vellner and Laura Horvath are the only athletes to compete in all previous five versions of the Rogue Invitational. Counting this year, Smith will have more appearances at Rogue than at the Games (four as an individual, one on a team). This isn’t an issue considering he has thrived under the Rogue programming, with an average placing of 6.4 during that five-year span. The 2022 runner-up regressed last year with his worst finish ever at Rogue, placing 13th. He did add his fourth career event win, tying Vellner and Hopper for the career lead for Rogue. – PC

Jay Crouch

Brian’s Pick: 9th
PC’s Pick: 11th

Don’t be fooled by Crouch’s “finish” at the Games, he placed 12th despite withdrawing before the two-part finale, and he took a 19th (his worst finish) in the event before that. Crouch is undoubtedly amongst the top ten in the world, and if he’s fully healthy throughout the entire competition he could do even better than where we have him. He was 9th at Rogue as a rookie there last year, his worst finish was better than both Hopper’s and Pepper’s, but he doesn’t quite hit the home runs to offset that. If he wants to make significant improvement he can’t just be consistent, he needs a dash of excellence to go with it. – Brian 

Saxon Panchik

Brian’s Pick: 12th
PC’s Pick: 9th

Panchik has three previous Rogue appearances under his belt, unfortunately the results are trending the wrong way for this 28-year old. In 2020 he placed fifth in the online Invitational in his first appearance. He followed that with a 10th in 2021 and then a 16th in 2022. He bounced back from a disastrous 2023 Games season by placing 11th at the Games in August. With 13 career top-10 finishes at Rogue he’s always a threat to contend and I foresee a return to form for him. – PC

Jonne Koski

Brian’s Pick: 13th
PC’s Pick: 16th

Technically Koski has been at three Rogue competitions, but he withdrew last year after event one when he rolled his ankle. In the other two appearances he was 12th and 11th, not as good as his best Games finishes (he’s had five top-10 finishes there). Koski is incredible, but Rogue has never been the best competition for him. If you’re looking for a reason to believe he can rewrite the script, he’s angry; not only did he basically miss Rogue last year, he got off to a horrible start at Semifinals and couldn’t do enough on the last day to get back into a qualifying spot. He’s showing up in Aberdeen to fight. – Brian

Noah Ohlsen

Brian’s Pick: 15th
PC’s Pick: 13th

Ohlsen has never finished outside the top-10 in four Rogue appearances (placed third in 2020 online – tying BKG with 555 points). So why are we picking him outside the top-10? It comes down to the level of athletes ahead of him and also because we don’t know if he’s in individual competition shape after competing on a team in 2024. He’s definitely I shape, coming to Scotland fresh off of competing in a Iron Man, but I think he comes into the weekend beat up from not just the competition but also the training and lack of rest and recovery. – PC

Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson

Brian’s Pick: 14th
PC’s Pick: 12th

This will be Gudmundsson’s fifth consecutive Rogue Invitational. In his first year he took second place (online), he’s gotten worse every year since (4th, 6th, 12th). BKG is still an absolute unit, but he hasn’t seemed to weather the strom of time in the same way some of the other men who have been at the top of the sport for a decade have. He can still reel off some good events, he had four consecutive top ten finishes last year…but then ended the competition with four finishes of 11th or worse, including a 17th and an 18th. – Brian 

Guilherme Malheiros

Brian’s Pick: 18th
PC’s Pick: 15th

Gui may never win Rogue, he may never finish top-10 again, but he will certainly entertain. In his first appearance at Rogue in 2021 he won two events including a win in the Bella Complex that saw him win with a lift of 367 LBs and he didn’t even use his last lift. He would go on to place fifth that year. He makes his return to Rogue after qualifying through the “Q”, finishing in the top-10 in three of the four workouts. – PC

Henrik Haapalainen

Brian’s Pick: 16th
PC’s Pick: 18th

Haapalaien competed at Rogue in 2021 (17th) and 2022 (15th), and as much as I know he is grinding his ass off to improve, this is a very difficult field to show it against. In 2021 he only had one top-ten finish (9th on the Duel), in 2022 he had a 3rd (The Turtle) and a 5th (Texas Oak) which helped him improve by the two places, but every other finish was between 14th and 17th, which simply isn’t going to cut it if he wants to threaten the top 10. – Brian 

Samuel Cournoyer

Brian’s Pick: 17th
PC’s Pick: 14th

In what he announced will be his final competition as a CrossFit athlete, Cournoyer’s career has been filled with much promise but ultimately unfortunate events putting a damper on his individual career. This will be his first appearance at Rogue and is one of five athletes in the field (Medeiros, Adler, Sprague and Jorge Fernandez) to win a Games title. Cournoyer won his title in 2022 as a member of CrossFit Mayhem. – PC

Giorgos Karavis

Brian’s Pick: 20th
PC’s Pick 20th: 

Karavis has been battling for years to have a chance to compete at the Rogue Invitational, and he’s finally done it. He’s the best athlete who has ever come out of Greece in this sport, making it to the Games in both 2021 and 2022. He had a below average Semifinal this year (23rd in Europe), but his two best performances, 4th on event 2 and 9th on event 5, suggest he could have some success at Rogue two- event 2 was the 50 front squats at 225, event 5 was the snatch ladder- barbell cycling at moderate to heavy loads is a strength of his. – Brian

Jorge Fernandez

Brian’s Pick: 19th
PC’s Pick: 19th

As previously mentioned with Cournoyer, Fernandez is one of five athletes with a Games championship on their resume, having won a team title in 2023 with CrossFit Invictus. Before that Games season, the Texan dipped his toe into the individual competition deep end, qualifying for the 2022 Rogue Invitational. He finished 13th that year, solidifying what he felt was his inevitable future as an individual athlete. He recorded three top-10 finishes at Rogue that year including going toe-to-toe with Medeiros in “Duel II” losing to him in the finals by half a second. – PC