After day 1 of the 2019 Rogue Invitational Mat Fraser was not in first, instead he was trailing his friend and rival Patrick Vellner by 10 points. It is important to note that Fraser was in the lead but was penalized on the first event.
Still Fraser was trailing, a situation he’s not familiar with and this wouldn’t be such a big deal if it was the Crossfit Games where you have 39 other athletes and 4 days of competition to make up points.
What made this competition interesting was that it only included 19 total men and there were only 2 days of competition with a total of 8 events.
With only one day and 4 events to go it wasn’t looking like we would see the dominant champion we’ve come to know.
So how did Fraser end up winning the Rogue Invitational and beating the 2nd place Vellner by a dominant margin of 158 points?
By a combined total of 6:16 split between 6 events.
At the end of day 1 Vellner had a lower, better cumulative rank total with two 2nd place finishes, a 1st, and a 5th for a total of 10 points, while Fraser had a cumulative total of 11 with two 3rds, a 4th, and a 1st.
On day 2 Vellner got worse, scoring a 9th, 4th, 11th, and 3rd, for a total of 27 while Fraser got better, scoring two 2nds and two 1sts for a total of 6.
Fraser obviously dominated day 2 and his closest competition and it all came down to just over six minutes.
Fraser vs Vellner events broken down below:
EVENT 1: GORUCK
Vellner 2nd – 10:53
Fraser 3rd – 10:54 (penalty)
EVENT 2: MULE
Vellner 1st – 5:24
Fraser 3rd – 5:32
EVENT 3: CHIPPER
Fraser 4th – 13:53 (beat Vellner by only 9 seconds)
Vellner 5th – 14:02
EVENT 4: AMANDA .25
Fraser 1st – 3:31 (beat Vellner by only 4 seconds)
Vellner 2nd – 3:35
EVENT 5: BIATHLON
Fraser 2nd – 11:46 (beat Vellner by 1:08 seconds)
Vellner 9th – 12:54
EVENT 6: CYCLONE
Fraser 1st – 5:31 (beat Vellner by 43 seconds)
Vellner 4th – 6:14
EVENT 7: SNATCH & PRESS
Fraser 1st – 6:09 (beat Vellner by 3:54 seconds)
Vellner 11th – 10:03
Fraser was already pulling away but this was the dagger. Not only did Fraser win but Vellner also had a terrible 11th placing that really widened the gap.
EVENT 8: SQUAT CLEAN LADDER
Fraser 2nd – 3:48 (beat Vellner by only 18 seconds)
Vellner 3rd – 4:06
If none of the Crossfit Games veterans could stay close with Fraser at the Rogue Invitational then we can most likely expect another championship repeat at the 2019 Crossfit Games.
That is unless a rookie national champion pulls off the upset.
See the entire Rogue Invitational Leaderboard
READ NEXT: A First Look at the 2019 Crossfit Games Athletes
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