How Strong Are The Crossfit Games Champions Compared To Pro Olympic Weightlifters?

Crossfit Games athletes are obviously strong and know how to handle a barbell, but thats when compared to other Crossfitters.

How do they compare to athletes at the highest levels of Olympic Weightlifting?

The data below is going to compare the strength numbers of the male and female champions at this year’s 2018 Crossfit Games (Mat Fraser & Tia-Clair Toomey) to the strength numbers of olympic weightlifters competing at the national and international levels.

Strength numbers for Fraser and Toomey will be recorded from their lifts completed in competition as follows:

• The back squat completed at the 2018 Crossfit Games event “Crossfit Total”.
• The snatch completed at the 2017 Crossfit Games event “1RM Snatch”.
• The clean completed in the 2018 Crossfit Open workout “18.2a”. (This is not a clean and jerk but it will still be relatively close).

Keep in mind that these lifts were performed either under fatigue or under a time cap so they are likely not true maxes, but in fact around 95%.

All olympic lifter strength numbers will be taken from “Catalyst Athletics Weightlifting Levels” created by Greg Everett (coach of USAW National Championship team).

“Note that these are extrapolations from the former weight classes, which were calculated using actual US national and international competition numbers. Best I can do before we have a few years of actual competition data with the new classes”. – Greg Everett

Since Mat Fraser weighs 190lbs at the time of this post that would be 86kg making him too heavy for the 81kg class so he will be compared to 89kg/198lb weightlifters.

Since Tia-Clair Toomey weighs 128lbs at the time of this post that would be 58kg making her too heavy for the 55kg class so she will be compared to 59kg/130lb weightlifters.

NOW FOR THE DATA. We will use Level 5 and Level 7 weightlifters as our comparisons as Fraser and Toomey are closest to Level 5 and Level 7 represents the absolute best in olympic weightlifting.

MAT FRASER – 89kg

BACK SQUAT – 220kg/485lbs

SNATCH – 132kg/291lbs

CLEAN – 173kg/380lbs

LEVEL 5 WEIGHTLIFTERS – 89kg

BACK SQUAT – 231kg/508lbs

SNATCH – 149kg/328lbs

CLEAN and JERK – 182kg/400lbs

• As we can see above, Fraser under fatigue is very close to olympic weightlifters competing at the top of US National level competition. Under fresh conditions he is probably equal to or above some of these numbers.

DIFFERENTIALS

BACK SQUAT – 11kg/24lbs

SNATCH – 17kg/37lbs

CLEAN and JERK – 9kg/20lbs

MAT FRASER – 89kg

BACK SQUAT – 220kg/485lbs

SNATCH – 132kg/291lbs

CLEAN – 173kg/380lbs

LEVEL 7 WEIGHTLIFTERS – 89kg

BACK SQUAT – 282kg/620lbs

SNATCH – 181kg/398lbs

CLEAN and JERK – 222kg/488lbs

• Now that Fraser is compared to the very best weightlifters in all of the sport there is definitely a bit of strength gap now, but Fraser’s numbers are still very impressive considering he is not a weightlifting specialist as they are.

DIFFERENTIALS

BACK SQUAT – 62kg/136lbs

SNATCH – 49kg/108lbs

CLEAN and JERK – 49kg/108lbs

TIA-CLAIR TOOMEY – 59kg

BACK SQUAT – 150kg/330lbs

SNATCH – 92kg/202lbs

CLEAN – 120kg/265lbs

LEVEL 5 WEIGHTLIFTERS – 59kg

BACK SQUAT – 131kg/288lbs

SNATCH – 84kg/185lbs

CLEAN and JERK – 103kg/227lbs

• Toomey’s strength numbers are ACTUALLY HIGHER than a weightlifter of this caliber (top of US National level and lower international level) and whats truly impressive again is that this data is using her numbers under fatigue, meaning she is likely capable of even more. It is no surprise that she placed 1st at the Commonwealth Games.

DIFFERENTIALS

BACK SQUAT – 19kg/42lbs

SNATCH – 8kg/18lbs

CLEAN and JERK – 17kg/37lbs

TIA-CLAIR TOOMEY – 59kg

BACK SQUAT – 150kg/330lbs

SNATCH – 92kg/202lbs

CLEAN – 120kg/265lbs

LEVEL 7 WEIGHTLIFTERS – 59kg

BACK SQUAT – 166kg/365lbs

SNATCH – 107kg/235lbs

CLEAN and JERK – 130kg/286lbs

• Unlike Fraser when compared to the best weightlifters in the world, Toomey is actually within striking distance and could very well be competitive at the absolute highest levels of olympic weightlifting. It is truly phenomenal that she is able to be within 20-35 pounds of strength specialists and still be the best in the world at Crossfit which involves so many more aspects.

DIFFERENTIALS

BACK SQUAT – 16kg/35lbs

SNATCH – 15kg/32lbs

CLEAN and JERK – 10kg/21lbs

By looking at this data we can see why these two athletes truly are the best in the world. It is entirely possible that if Mat Fraser stopped doing Crossfit and focused all of his training efforts on olympic weightlifting that he could potentially be competitive at the highest levels of international weightlifting and possibly even make the olympics as Tia-Clair Toomey did in 2016.

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