The B.Friendly Fitness Coaches Poll – Powered by PODIUM

In the last few months, The Barbell Spin has solidified a process that has been occasionally used in previous Games seasons, polling selective CrossFit media to rank the top athletes in the sport. Inspired by various polls in NCAA College Sports, the idea emerged to create a new opportunity for polling individuals who possess extensive knowledge about the athletes and their competition – their coaches.

Much like The Barbell Spin is to the AP Media Poll in college basketball and football, The B. Friendly Fitness Coaches Poll is akin to the USA Today Coaches Poll.

With the understanding that we needed to start small and build this process correctly, we established some ground rules. These rules were put in place to respect the athletes and coaches while working within a relatively short timeframe and ensuring privacy and trust with the coaches:

1. Coaches must be associated with a 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Games athlete, such as the coach officially designated by the athlete’s coaches’ band or their primary day-to-day coach for the season.

2. Each coach is allowed only one vote in each poll.

3. Coaches of male athletes receive the Men’s poll, and coaches of female athletes receive the Women’s poll. If a coach has both a male and female athlete in the Games Individual field, they participate in both polls.

4. The polling is completely anonymous to avoid linking a coach’s response directly back to them.

5. In order to safeguard the polling from possible outliers we removed a single highest and lowest ranking from the final results.

The coaches each submit their personal rankings for the top-25 male and/or female competitors participating at the Games. These individual rankings are later aggregated to create a unified ranking. Athletes obtain points based on their rankings, with 25 points for a 1st place vote, 24 points for 2nd place, and so forth, down to 1 point for 25th place.

We will not share directly who was involved. If the coaches choose to reveal their participation that is up to them. We aim to make this a known list in future iterations.

Over the last month, I reached out to the 80 individual athletes and their respective coaches to get their buy-in and go over the process laid out above. The response from coaches was positive, well-known coaches and camps were excited to be involved. Other coaches either did not respond or were hesitant to participate in the initial poll due to their focus on working with their athletes so close to the Games.

We received rankings from roughly 20 coaches for men and 20 coaches for women in the poll. 

Our hope is for this initiative to grow and eventually encompass a closer representation of all the Games athletes and their coaches. After the Games, we plan to expand the polling to include a larger group of coaches representing athletes within the Top 100 on the CrossFit Worldwide Ranking. This polling will be conducted on a recurring basis, both before, during, and after the season and major competitions.

THE B.FRIENDLY FITNESS TOP-25 COACHES POLL — WOMEN

RANK	ATHLETE	SCORE	HIGH / LOW
1	Laura Horvath	438 (12)	1 / 6
2	Danielle Brandon	396 (0)	2 / 6
3	Annie Thorisdottir	387 (0)	2 / 10
4	Gabriela Migała	386 (1)	1 / 13
5	Emma Lawson	372 (0)	2 / 8
6	Emma Cary	333 (0)	3 / 15
7	Alexis Raptis	320 (0)	4 / 19
8	Alex Gazan	311 (1)	1 / 15
9	Arielle Loewen	294 (0)	2 / 17
10	Amanda Barnhart	271 (0)	6 / 17
11	Katrin Tanja Davidsdottir	258 (0)	6 / 20
12	Emma McQuaid	200 (0)	6 / 25
13	Paige Powers	198 (0)	9 / 25
14	Ellie Turner	192 (0)	8 / 22
15	Emma Tall	190 (0)	6 / 24
16	Emily Rolfe	169 (0)	9 / 23
17	Jamie Simmonds	167 (0)	10 / NR
18	Bethany Shadburne	154 (0)	9 / NR
19	Karin Freyová	137 (0)	9 / NR
20	Christine Kolenbrander	111 (0)	14 / 24
21	Matilde Garnes	98 (0)	11 / NR
22	Feeroozeh Saghafi	73 (0)	13 / NR
23	Olivia Kerstetter	64 (0)	15 / NR
24	Baylee Rayl	50 (0)	16 / NR
25	Elisa Fuliano	47 (0)	17 / NR
25	Manon Angonese	47 (0)	19 / NR

‘NR’ means Not Ranked within the Top 25. The count of number 1 overall rankings is in parenthesis next to the total points.

Other athletes receiving votes: Paige Semenza 35, Sydney Wells 23, Emily de Rooy 10, Rebecka Vitesson 9, Caroline Stanley 8, Ella Wunger 8, Seher Kaya 8, Kelly Baker 7, Abigail Domit 6, Victoria Campos 1

Outlier #1 votes that were removed: 1 from Laura Horvath, 1 from Danielle Brandon, 1 from Annie Thorisdottir, 1 from Gabriela Migała, 1 from Alex Gazan, 1 from Emily Rolfe.

Laura Horvath secures the top spot with 13 total out of the possible 20 #1 rankings, followed by Danielle Brandon in 2nd place, and a single point between 3rd Annie Thorisdottir and Gabi Migała. Laura, Gabi and Alex Gazan were the only athletes to receive #1 rankings once we adjusted for outliers.

THE B.FRIENDLY FITNESS TOP-25 COACHES POLL — MEN

RANK	ATHLETE	SCORE	HIGH / LOW
1	Patrick Vellner	361 (4)	1 / 3
2	Justin Medeiros	357 (5)	1 / 4
3	Roman Khrennikov	338 (1)	1 / 6
4	Jeffrey Adler	331 (2)	1 / 8
5	Jayson Hopper	293 (0)	2 / 10
6	Brent Fikowski	283 (0)	4 / 11
7	Lazar Đukić	276 (0)	5 / 13
8	Dallin Pepper	255 (0)	6 / 17
9	Samuel Kwant	246 (0)	6 / 20
10	Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson	225 (0)	6 / 19
11	Noah Ohlsen	211 (0)	9 / 16
12	Samuel Cournoyer	205 (0)	7 / 23
13	Jonne Koski	178 (0)	11 / 17
14	Nick Mathew	173 (0)	10 / 22
15	Chandler Smith	149 (0)	10 / 24
16	Cole Greashaber	127 (0)	9 / 25
17	Cole Sager	108 (0)	12 / 25
18	Alex Vigneault	102 (0)	12 / 25
19	Will Moorad	100 (0)	10 / NR
20	Jay Crouch	99 (0)	14 / NR
21	James Sprague	64 (0)	15 / NR
22	Spencer Panchik	57 (0)	15 / NR
23	Colten Mertens	40 (0)	18 / NR
24	Henrik Haapalainen	39 (0)	16 / NR
24	Luke Parker	39 (0)	16 / NR

‘NR’ means Not Ranked within the Top 25. The count of number 1 overall rankings is in parenthesis next to the total points.

Other athletes receiving votes: Jelle Hoste 35, Uldis Upenieks 27, Bayley Martin 20, Jack Farlow 20, Jake Douglas 10, Moritz Fiebig 6, Fabian Beneito 2, Arthur Semenov 1, Bronislaw Olenkowicz 1, Kalyan Souza 1

Outlier #1 votes that were removed: 1 from Patrick Vellner, 1 from Justin Medeiros, 1 from Roman Khrennikov, 1 from Jeffrey Adler, 1 from Jayson Hopper

At the time of this poll Ant Haynes was not one of the 40 athletes

Pat Vellner captures the top spot with 5 #1 rankings, edging out the defending 2x Champ Justin Medeiros. Roman Khrennikov secures the third position, just 9 points ahead of Jeff Adler. All 4 of these athletes received multiple #1 rankings.

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