Jeff Adler Adds His Name to Prestigious List of Rogue Champions

Photo Credit: Truth Films

The sixth version of the Rogue Invitational has concluded, and with it we now have the sixth unique Rogue champion.

There are still only two women to have done it:

• Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr 2019, 2020, 2021, and now 2024
• Laura Horvath 2022, 2023

There are now four men who have managed to do it:

• Mat Fraser 2019
• Pat Vellner 2020, 2023
• Justin Medeiros 2021, 2022
• Jeff Adler 2024

Letting Results do the Talking

All week we’ve been keeping track of the rare pursuit of all single digit finishes at Rogue over the years. Prior to this weekend only 7 of 194 athletes had been able to do this (2 of those were Toomey). This weekend she manage it again, and so did Jeff Adler. Meaning that in addition to being the sixth individual athlete to win the Rogue Invitational he’s also now the seventh individual to achieve that feat.

Four Years Coming

While this is the first Rogue Invitational win for Adler, it’s his fourth piece of hardware. In his rookie season, 2021, Adler placed third. That year there were only seven scored events. He opened the competition with a 12th in event 1, which was called Go Ruck, and it would end up being his only finish lower than 9th; he had no event wins that year. At the end of the weekend he’d only be behind Medeiros and Vellner in the overall standings.

In year two, 2022, Rogue had 10 events, the most it has ever had. Of those 10 events Adler had three double digit finishes, 12th on Ski Bar, 11th on DT with a Spin, and 15th on Texas Oak. There were no men in the field that year who managed all single digit finishes. He also got his first Rogue event win that season, Heavy Grace. He would take third again, this time to Medeiros and Chandler Smith. He managed to beat Vellner by 10 points that year, putting an end to Vellner’s podium streak at Rogue. 

Adler’s third time at Rogue, 2023, would be his best one to date. He would continue his streak of podium finishes, this time taking second (to Vellner). He would also continue the pattern of adding more event wins to his resume, placing first on both the opening event, Texas Heavy, and closing event, The Clean Up. His only finish worse than 9th that year came on the Duel III, where he took 11th, missing the top 10 by 0.75 seconds after tripping on the final log over in the beginning of his round of 15 heat. If not for that slight miscalculation, he would almost definitely have achieved the all single digit finishes mark last year, and potentially have gone on to win the entire thing (he ultimately lost to Vellner by 20 points on the weekend). 

Coming into his fourth Rogue Invitational this year, not only was everything at Rogue trending in the direction of a possible championship, he had a little extra incentive after choosing to sit out the 2024 CrossFit Games and foregoing the chance to defend his title as Fittest Man on Earth. In his interview after the final event at Rogue he said he’s been training with one thing on his mind for the last two months, he’s been competing with one thing on his mind for the last three days, and that he got it; it being the title of Rogue Champion, finally. At this point there are less men than years he’s competed at Rogue (Vellner, Medeiros, and Chandler Smith) who can say they’ve actually beaten him at this competition. 

Not only did he win the competition, he added another event win to his career total by winning Braveheart in commanding fashion to close out day one of competition, and his overall placements this year were much more reminiscent of an extremely well rounded champion:

After averaging about a sixth place finish throughout the first three years at Rogue, he averaged just over 4th this year, nearly two places on average better per event than we were accustomed to seeing from him in his first three Rogue competitions. 

Adding to his Legacy

Adler continues to pile on career achievements that are starting to stack up to other names in the top ten of the sport. Adler is a bit old school in his competition approach, he doesn’t do several a year, he picks the big ones, trains with intent, and shows up with purpose. 

In addition to the four consecutive podium finishes at Rogue, he has two 5ths, a 13th, and a 1st at the Games the last four times he’s competed there. His semifinal record during that time is also nearly perfect, he took second in the online Atlas Games to Vellner in 2021 before reeling off three consecutive semifinal victories the last three seasons. 

The only year he competed as an individual at Wodapalooza was 2019, before he’d ascended into the upper echelon of men in the sport, he placed 19th that year. 

He competed for three consecutive years in Dubai from 2017 to 2019 and improved every year climbing from 13th in 2018, to 8th in 2019, and finally 4th in 2021. 

The Fittest Man on Earth 

There has been a lot of talk about how to evaluate what happened from a performance perspective at the Games this summer, and if you pay attention to the messaging in the media, and even at Rogue this weekend, very few are labeling James Sprague as the Fittest Man on Earth; instead they acknowledge him as the CrossFit Games Champion, which he is. I think it’s appropriately done by those taking that line, because at this moment, Jeff Adler, who has won both the CrossFit Games and the Rogue Invitational, the last time he competed at both, is the only man who deserves that title.