Is Winning Semifinals a Good Predictor for the Games?

Image Credits: Athlete’s Eye

We’re in the third year of the Open-Quarterfinal-Semifinal-Games season structure. This year does have a few nuances that are different, but the general path is the same. The question we’re after today is, is there any pattern that’s emerged so far about how well Semifinal winners can be expected to do at the Games? 

2021 Semifinal Winners

Keep in mind that in 2021 some of the Semifinals took place online, and online qualifiers in general don’t do as good of a job of filtering the field when it comes to specific skills, not necessarily just things that can be tested in a workout, as live competitions do. 

Men

2021 Season
Competition	Winner	CFG Placement
Atlas*	Pat Vellner	2nd
Lowlands*	Bjorgvin Karl Gudmundsson	4th
Granite	Saxon Panchik	5th
German*	Jonne Koski	6th
West Coast	Cole Sager	14th
Torian	Royce Dunne	16th
MACC	Jayson Hopper	19th
Cape Town	Jason Smith	26th
Brazil*	Agustin Richelme	32nd
Asia*	Stas Solodov	DNS

A triage of sorts when it comes to the predictive success of male Semifinal winners in 2021. Four finishes in the top 6 is excellent. Three finishers in the teens is pretty good. And the bottom three finishers here maybe not as good as you’d hope for, granted the winner of Asia didn’t even show up that year. 

Women

2021 Season
Competition	Winner	CFG Placement
MACC	Tia Clair Toomey	1st
German	Kristin Holte	4th
Lowlands	Emma McQuaid	12th
Granite	Arielle Loewen	14th
Atlas	Carolyne Prevost	27th
Cape Town	Michelle Basnett	32nd
Torian	Kara Saunders	WD
Brazil	Larissa Cunha	DNS
Asia	Svetlana Kubyshkina	DNS
West Coast	Bethany Shadburne	DNS

A pretty brutal season for the women, three of the ten semifinal winners didn’t even start the competition (one drug failure, one didn’t make the trip- she’s also serving a drug suspension now, and the other due to Covid), add in the withdraw from Saunders and that’s nearly half of them that didn’t even have a chance. 

Of the remaining six it was similar to the men: 2 very good, two above average, two near the bottom.

But that’s only one data set.

2022 Semifinal Winners

All Semifinals took place in person this year, and a lot more of the winners ended up competing at the Games. So overall, this should be considered a more valuable set of data for us to draw from.

Men

2022 Season
Competition	Winner	CFG Placement
Syndicate	Justin Medeiros	1st
Far East	Roman Khrennikov	2nd
Atlas	Jeff Adler	5th
Lowlands	Lazar Dukic	8th
Copa Sur	Gui Malheiros	10th
MACC	Saxon Panchik	11th
Granite	Brent Fikowski	16th
Strength in Depth	Willy Georges	17th
Torian	Jay Crouch	28th
Cape Town	Kealan Henry	DNF

The best possible scenario, or a perfect correlate, would be to have the ten Semifinal winners finish first through tenth at the Games. Six of the ten finished 11th or better, two more were still within the top 17, with one finish below that (note that Jay Crouch barely beat Ricky Garard at the Semis, and if Garard were in this list that would make it even more impressive). And then one withdrew due to injury. 

Women

2022 Season
Competition	Winner	CFG Placement
Torian	Tia-Clair Toomey	1st
Granite	Mallory O’Brien	2nd
Lowlands	Laura Horvath	3rd
MACC	Danielle Brandon	4th
Atlas	Emma Lawson	6th
Syndicate	Haley Adams	9th
Strength in Depth	Jacqueline Dahlstrom	15th
Far East	Seungyeon Choi	26th
Copa Sur	Victoria Campos	33rd
Cape Town	Michelle Merand	39th

This looks very good. Six of the top ten. Another finish of 15th. And  three finishes outside the top 25 from the three Semifinals who get the least Games representation. 

Combined that’s 12 of 20 finishers between men and women who were 11th or better. Now, if we take only the North American and European winners those numbers look even better: 

• 4 out of 6 men 11th or better, all of them in the top 17
• 5 out of 6 women in the top 9, all of them in the top 15 

Knowing that, let’s take a look at the Semifinal winners this year. 

2023 Semifinal Winners

Image Credit: Carlos Bown

2023 Season
Competition	Male Winner	Female Winner
NA East	Jeff Adler	Emma Cary
NA West	Pat Vellner	Alex Gazan
Europe	Lazar Dukic	Gabriela Migala
Copa Sur	Kaique Cerveny	Victoria Campos
Torian	Jay Crouch	Ellie Turner
Cape Town	Jason Smith	Michelle Basnett
Far East	Arthur Semenov	Seher Kaya

The safe bets are that the winners of the North American and European Semifinals should be at worst in the top 15 at the Games this year, and more likely than not, within the top-ten. 

As for the winners from the other four Semifinals, they haven’t shown the same consistency, and the expectation therefore should not be as high. 

Knowing that the number of North American and European Semifinals have been reduced from a total of six to a total of three, the second place finishers from each of those should also be in line for an impressive finish at the Games this year: 

2023 Season
Competition	Male Runner Up	Female Runner Up
NA East	Jayson Hopper	Danielle Brandon
NA West	Brent Fikowski	Katrin Davidsdottir
Europe	Henrik Haapalainen	Annie Thorisdottir

If a similar pattern can be expected from last season, we can project 4 or 5 of the top 6 (top 2 at each) finishers in North America and Europe to be in the top ten on both the men’s and women’s side. For some of those athletes that’s expected (Vellner, Adler, Brandon, Thorisdottir etc), for others it would be a nice step forward from last year’s (or two years ago) finishes: (Cary, Gazan, Fikowski, Haapalainen).