Friends of the Week: Icelandic Teens Crowned King and Queen

This week we went through a bunch of candidates and decided to once again choose two talented athletes for the “Friend of the Week”, these two athletes also become the youngest recipients for this weekly honor.

The future of Iceland are this week’s recipients for the week of March 28-April 1, 2024, Bjarni Leifs and Bergrós Björnsdóttir.

The Crown

The two Icelandic teens competed at The Crown, a premier CrossFit licensed competition for teenage athletes. Hosted by The Progrm and programmed by one of the top athlete coaches of all-time in John Singleton on the beautiful island of Mallorca, Spain. It was two teenage athletes from another, very different European island that dominated.

Björnsdóttir, a two-time Games athlete in the teen division, won five events to secure the crown for the teenage girl’s division. Known as a athlete with immense power for a teenager, she placed fifth in the lifting event at TYR Wodapalooza in the elite division women’s field, she showcased that power by winning all the workouts that called upon her to move heavy weight including the max clean and front squat workout with a final lift of 231 LBs (105 KGs), seven pounds over American Delia Moses.

She also recorded a win in the opening workout, a grueling chipper on the beaches of Mallorca that included dumbbell deadlifts, shoulder-to-overheads, alternating lunges, thrusters, devil’s presses and farmer’s carries.

Her power was also put on display in the Prowler sled push and pull workout to end the first day of competition.

On the fourth and final day of competition, Björnsdóttir clinched the title by winning the final two workouts. The last workout was CrossFit Open workout 16.5, 21-18-15-12-9-6-3 reps of thrusters and burpees. She won with a time of 9:24.

Björnsdóttir is one of the favorites in the 16-17 age group division at the Pit Teen Throwdown after placing third last season. She tied for the top score in this year’s Open with American Kendall Gilmore.

Just like Björnsdóttir, Leifs also won five of the ten workouts. Unlike his fellow Icelander, his CrossFit resume isn’t as extensive but he nevertheless was impressive in a field with more accomplished and experienced teenagers. The 19-year old earned his invitation to the competition by winning the online qualifier.

He would start the competition with a workout win in the chipper and followed that with a win in the Prowler push-and-pull to end an impressive opening day.

He added an impressive win in a grueling 2.7k run with 200 meters of elevation change. He continued to show his aerobic capacity with a win in the rowing workout the end the second day of competition.

On the final day of competition he won his fifth and final workout in event nine, a workout that featured a combined 3k of running on a air-runner, a 1k ski, a 2k bike erg with 100 double unders, 200 meters of farmer carries and d-balls over a elevated block.

The CrossFit Reykjavik athlete was crowned king convincingly, winning by 7 points over runner-up Mardi Pla.

Other Notable Performances

• Alexis Raptis (USA) – The Training Think Tank athlete became the inaugural REPS AHEAD Pro division women’s champion with a win over Fee Saghafi at the live event at CrossFit Tailwinds in Jacksonville, Florida. She finished with 663 total reps in the win, the most by any athlete competing in the showcase.
• Alexander Richard (USA) – Richard recorded the only “knockout” during the REPS AHEAD Pro 2 in the opening match of the undercard. He defeated Lee Pinkham by reaching 40 reps ahead of his opponent at the buzzer of round six.

Know a Great “Friend of the Week” Candidate?

If you’d like to submit an athlete to be considered for “Friend of the Week”, please email Patrick Clark at pc@bfriendlyfitness.com or submit through DM on the B.Friendly Fitness Instagram. For athletes to be considered, it must be for accomplishments for the preceding week (Monday-Sunday) and must be received no later than 5:00 p.m. EST the Tuesday after. Please include any verifiable results, links, and a brief explanation of why that athlete should be considered.