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    Semifinals: Week 3 Team Predictions

    May 29, 20235 min read

    Image Credit: Athlete’s Eye

    Europe and Asia

    The final 12 of 38 team spots to the 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Games will be handed out this weekend; 10 of those spots will come from Europe, and the last two will come from Asia. 

    Asia Teams Field

    Several returning affiliate teams in the top ten in Europe, but some different composition in terms of athletes on a few of them. The leaders in the clubhouse are still last year’s winners, competing this year as the Crossfit Fly High Kolesnikov Team, this Russian team has relocated to the UAE but has maintained their level of focus. They should be rather dominant in this field and punch a return ticket to the Games. 

    KT CrossFit Games 2022

    Long time Regional competitor Carlos Albaladejo has teamed up with the CrossFit Marvel Black team who has a strong female competitor in Min Sun Kim as well. It won’t be a guarantee by any means, but I like their chances to take the second team spot in South Korea. Stud CrossFit, Red Tower CrossFit, and Soyuz CrossFit Seym will all be in the mix as well.

    Brian’s Asia Team Picks

    Asia: 2 spots
    1CrossFit Fly High Kolesnikov Team
    2CrossFit Marvel Black
    3Stud CrossFit Team Stud
    4Red Tower CrossFit
    5Soyuz CrossFit Seym
    6CrossFit Alioth Dark Horse
    7CrossFit We Can Do It Team Busan
    8CrossFit Mobilus Chinatown Sour Patch Kids
    9CrossFit Erada 1
    10Backstage CrossFit Kolesnikov Team

    Europe Teams Field

    There are a host of very talented and fit teams in Europe, but there have to be two who are considered the favorites. Oslo Navy Blue returns the same roster that took second to CrossFit Mayhem Freedom at the Games last year, while two time individual Games athlete, Andre Houdet, assembled quite a strong No Shortcuts team of his own. Joining him are the fittest woman in Denmark, Julie Hougard, the fittest woman in the Netherlands, Nienke Van Overveld, and a very accomplished team athlete in his own right in Julian Kragh-Maschvitz. If you know these athletes, you may think they have podium potential at the Games, how close they compete with Oslo Navy Blue will give us an insight into how likely that might actually be.

    The last podium spot will likely come down to one of four teams:

    • Third place at the Games two years ago, CrossFit Genas is showing up with an even stronger roster this year than they had in 2021.
    •  Another new team in CrossFit Walleye consists of two previous individual Games male athletes in Sam Stewart (2021) and Joshua Wichtrup (2019) and two previous individual team female athletes in Mia Hesketh and Antonia Falt-Kottulinsky. 
    • A very experienced CrossFit Portti team out of Finland who has the exact same roster for three years running and has finished 12th (2021) and 19th (2022) at the Games the past two seasons.
    • Yet again a team who is newly assembled this season, CrossFit Prestranda features four names you may recognize in Alexander Elebro, Victor Langsved, Hannah Karlsson, and Maria Langfors. The men have a lot of team experience, and the women would both have made individual Semifinals quite handily in Europe. Much like No Shortcuts, we know they’ll be good, just not sure how good yet. 

    Behind those teams seems to be a group of close to ten teams who will be vying for the final four qualifying spots. In making those last picks I favored experience over Quarterfinal performance more often than not. The only exception being what I think is Oslo’s second best team, Oslo Vamos. They qualified two teams last year, and have six total teams at Semifinals, which is impressive regardless of how they all end up doing. 

    Brian’s Europe Team Picks

    Europe: 10 spots
    1CrossFit Oslo Navy Blue11CrossFit Rotherham
    2No Shortcuts CrossFit12CrossFit Aylesbury
    3CrossFit Walleye Athlete13CrossFit Aorta
    4CrossFit Genas14CrossFit Surbiton Motion
    5CrossFit Portti15Blueprint CrossFit Team AOD
    6CrossFit Prestranda16CrossFit Butcher’s Lab Team Flaek
    7CrossFit Trondheim17CrossFit Castanet-Tolosan Kasta
    8CrossFit Merchant18CrossFit Nijmegen
    9CrossFit Butcher’s Lab Kriger19CrossFit Oslo Blackout
    10CrossFit Oslo Vamos20CrossFit Butcher’s Lab Team Bjornefar

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    Brian Friend

    Brian stumbled upon CrossFit in the Fall of 2013. He has been a writer, data analyst, coach, content creator, and served many different roles in the media. He worked with many of the biggest names, companies, and competitions in the CrossFit and fitness world, before launching BFriendly Fitness in May of 2023. Since then he’s been spending most of his time on the road providing livestreams and commentary for competitive fitness events across the US, Europe, and the Middle East- with the goal of expanding into even more countries in the near future. He hopes that through the storytelling he and his team are doing more people are motivated to try hard things, take control of their lives, and become healthier humans.

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