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2021 crossfit games stats

“What If’s?” at The 2021 Crossfit Games

Every now and then after a competition we like to think “What If?” about certain things out of curiosity in order to see if little changes would have made a difference or not.

We decided to do just that with the 2021 Crossfit Games, and we sure did find some interesting things.

Of course everything below is purely speculative and hypothetical, because nothing in sports is ever guaranteed, but a couple of these are definitely interesting to think about.


What if Vellner didn’t finish 35th in Event 1: Swim/Kayak?

The final leaderboard has Justin Medeiros at a total of 1,234 points and Patrick Vellner at 1,152 for a difference of 82 total points.

Since Medeiros finished 5th in event 1 he received 88 points, while Vellner in 35th only received 12 (76 point difference).

This means that Vellner would have had to have finished 3rd place (94 pts.) or higher in event 1 in order to win the Crossfit Games, hypothetically if all other event finishes stayed the same.


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What if Bjorgvin Gudmundsson pushed harder in the last event?

BKG put up a solid performance at the Games, finishing 4th overall, only 24 points behind 3rd place Fikowski.

Going into the final event Fikowski had 998 points and BKG was right behind him with 979 (19 point difference).

In that final event Fikowski finished 15th which gave him 30 points.

This means that Gudmundsson would have only had to finish 11th (50 pts.) or better in the last event in order to secure his spot on the podium instead of Fikowski.


What if Kari Pearce was able to compete?

Kari Pearce was banned from competing due to a positive covid test right before competition began, but how would she have finished if she was able to compete?

She was coming off of her best year ever after finishing 3rd in 2020, improving each year. 10th in 2018, 6th in 2019, and 3rd in 2020.

She also had elite training partners most of the year (Danielle Brandon and Bethany Shadburne). In fact, all 3 of them were on the podium at the CF West Coast Classic Semifinal.

  • 1st: Shadburne (also couldn’t compete due to Covid)
  • 2nd: Pearce
  • 3rd: Brandon

Nothing can ever be guaranteed, but Pearce possibly would have been in the top 5 once again.



What if Brooke Wells didn’t get injured?

This one is especially interesting, because when it comes to total points Brooke Wells actually finished in 13th place without even competing in the last 3 events, but because she had to withdraw due to injury she was given a 20th place finish.

  • 12th place: Emma Mcquaid (868 pts.)
  • 13th place: There Helgadottir (723 pts.)
  • 20th place: Brooke Wells (792 pts.)

Even if she had only scored a low 15th place in the next 3 events (30 pts. each, 90 total) that would have given her 882 pts. and good enough for 12th.

Judging by her past performances she would likely have done better than that, especially in a field of only 20 women.

The final women’s scoreboard was separated by only 55 points from 6th place-11th place. Our guess is that Wells would have likely been somewhere in the middle of that.


These are just a few of the major ones we thought of, but we would love to hear if you had any as well.

If you did, please leave a comment on our instagram post.

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