With additional analysis by Austin Heaton and Kay Wiese
The 2023 Fittest Woman on Earth, Laura Horvath, proved she’s still at the top of her game against a stacked field at the 2024 CrossFit Games Europe Semifinal in Décines-Charpieu, France.
Horvath dominated Day 3 on her way to victory, finishing the day’s events first, second, and second. She beat out last year’s Europe Semifinal champion, Poland’s Gabi Migala.
Not to be outdone, Serbia’s biggest CrossFit star, Lazar Ðukić — who was tied in points with Jelle Hoste after Day 2 — put forth three more consistent performances to pull himself away from Hoste and secure the overall win.
Third place belonged to Sweden’s Emma Tall and Finland’s Henrik Haapalainen.
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Women’s Division
Laura Horvath started the day three points ahead of Migala, and the neck-and-neck battle continued during Event 4.
- Migala kept herself close to Horvath throughout but ultimately couldn’t keep with Horvath’s rowing pace — sub-1:50/500 meters on all three rows. Horvath won the event 11 seconds ahead of Migala.
After that, it was all Horvath. She won the final heat of Event 5 — an event with increasingly heavy snatches — while Migala had a costly no-rep on the final 175-pound barbell and finished fourth.
- The final event of the day — a triplet of a 22-calorie Echo bike, 15 muscle-ups, and a 72-foot dumbbell walking lunge — belonged to Tall, helping her secure third overall. Horvath was right behind in second, and Migala, who has notoriously struggled with pulling, finished 10th.
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Worth noting: The top time on Event 5, a repeat of the snatch ladder from the 2016 Regionals, belonged to Italy’s Elisa Fuliano in Heat 3. Her time — 5:01.24 — was 28 seconds faster than the top time from all regions in 2016, which was set by Australia’s Kara Saunder (5:29.82).
The rest of the field: Just 15 points separated eighth from 14th heading into Sunday. Though the points were close, nine women who started the day in the top 10 managed to hang on there to earn a Games berth.
- Fuliano was the only woman who wasn’t in the top 10 heading into the day, but she managed to climb into it to earn a Games invite. She finished Day 2 in 13th, but thanks to her Event 5 win and two more top-10 finishes, she climbed to eighth overall.
- On the other side of things was the UK’s Jennifer Muir. She started the day in ninth but struggled on Sunday, finishing the final three events in 27th, 20th, and 18th. This dropped her into 12th overall and outside the Games qualification by two spots.
Claudia Gluck and Linda Keesman were two other athletes fighting on the bubble all weekend. The two would-be Games rookies started the day in eighth and 10th, respectively, and both were impressive on Sunday.
- Keesman didn’t finish below seventh in the last three events, while Gluck placed 12th, eighth, and sixth. This helped Gluck move into sixth overall and Keesman seventh. Both women officially earned their first trip to the Games.
Rounding out the rest of the top 10 in Europe were Karin Freyova (fourth), Aimee Cringle (fifth), and Jacqueline Dahlstrom, who hung on in 10th.
- Cringle will join Gluck and Keesman as first-year Games competitors from Europe, and Dahlstrom will return to the Games for the third time after failing to qualify last season.
In an interview after Event 5, Norway’s Dahstrom said failing to qualify last year actually helped her feel less pressure this year.
- “I think the main thing was that it made me realize that there is so much more to life than just CrossFit, so in some ways, it takes the edge off […] It’s finding a balance, where you’re still fighting on the floor like it is everything in your life, but then still knowing that if it doesn’t play out, I’m going to be OK […] My people still love me,” she said on the competition floor.
Men’s Division
Finishing all six events inside the top eight, Lazar Ðukić earned his third-straight European Semifinals victory, edging out new European rival Jelle Hoste by 12 points.
- Hoste, the top male rookie at the 2023 CrossFit Games, had a chance to win the Semifinal, but the heavy snatch ladder in Event 5 slowed him down enough for Ðukić to jump ahead.
This battle between Ðukić and Hoste is likely to continue into the Games, where the two will fight for the unofficial title of “King in Europe.”
- Worth noting: Ðukić bested Hoste by just six points at the 2023 Games as they both finished in the top 10 on the final leaderboard.
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Henrik Haapalainen of Finland, one of the most unassuming competitors in the field, came in third place to round out the podium.
- Haapalainen is a three-time Games athlete but still manages to slip under the radar every year, much like Sam Kwant does in the United States.
The rest of the field: Uldis Upenieks, who began the weekend with back-to-back wins, ran into a wall on the final day with three straight finishes outside of the top 14.
This dropped him to 11th place and paved the way for Moritz Fiebig to slide into 10th, claiming the final CrossFit Games ticket by a single point.
- Luka Ðukić, Lazar’s brother, also secured a spot in the top 10 and is returning to the Games for the first time since 2021. He is joined by veteran Bjorgvin Karl Gudmundsson, who punched his 11th ticket.
Out of the 10 total European men going to the Games, four of them will be going for the first time, including two men who we recently highlighted as our young guns to watch:
- Aniol Ekai (Spain) — 4th
- Victor Hoffer (France) — 6th
- Harry Lightfoot (UK) — 8th
- Calum Clements (Spain) — 9th
While Hoffer found himself in trouble at the end of Day 2, he finished strong, winning Event 4 and following it up with two more events inside the top 10.
This Semifinal turned out to favor the underdogs and newcomers, eliminating a handful of last year’s veterans, including:
- Uldis Upenieks (Latvia) — 11th
- Jonne Koski (Finland) — 13th
- Fabian Beneito (Spain) — 15th
- Bronisław Olenkowicz (Poland) — 20th
- Michał Wesolowski (Poland) — 27th
The most surprising on this list is Jonne Koski, who missed out on qualifying for his 10th CrossFit Games by just 30 points.
Up until this point in the 2024 season, Koski has dominated both the Open and Quarterfinals, with many of us expecting a similar show here at Semis.
Team Division
The 2024 Europe Semifinal has come to a close, with eight teams punching a ticket to Fort Worth this summer. This was highlighted by CrossFit Prestanda Kriger taking first overall. Here’s what else you need to know:
Oslo runs deep (again): Coming out of Quarterfinals this season, Oslo appeared likely to qualify only two affiliate teams to the Games, but as is the Oslo way, a third squad (CrossFit Oslo Kriger Rizz) performed solidly on the competition floor.
- This weekend, they became the first gym in the history of CrossFit to send three teams to the CrossFit Games two years in a row (not to mention a fourth banner team representing the Kriger training program). For 2024, it’s CrossFit Oslo Kriger PSL, CrossFit Oslo Kriger BLST, and CrossFit Oslo Kriger Rizz.
Last year, Oslo not only sent three teams to the CrossFit Games (becoming the first team to send three teams to the Games from one affiliate) but also placed two teams inside the top 20 and one team on the podium.
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- CrossFit Oslo’s success can, in part, be attributed to eight-time individual Games athlete and 2019 Second Fittest Woman on Earth Kristin Holte, who now leads the Kriger Training program based at CrossFit Oslo.
The battle at the bubble: As always, the fight around the bubble remained fierce this weekend.
- Heading into Saturday’s fifth and final workout, CrossFit Gymert was just 19 points out of the eighth and final qualifying spot.
- In the second to last heat, they set themselves up with a blazing fast time of 11:06.38, which would be good enough for third overall.
The crowd sat on the edge of their seats as CrossFit Holistic took the floor in the final heat alongside Great Britain’s Blueprint CrossFit AOD, who sat just 25 points out of striking distance.
- Unfortunately, CrossFit Gymert’s third-place finish would not be enough to close the gap. Holistic took fifth overall in the event, maintaining their eighth-place position and the final Games ticket.
The Nordic nations do it again: Last year, eight out of 10 Games-qualifying teams out of Europe teams hailed Nordic nations. This year, seven out of eight teams came from Nordic nations (including the three from Norway discussed above and three from Sweden).
- According to CrossFit.com, there are 120 affiliates in Sweden and 75 in Norway.
This means that for every 25 affiliates, Norway is sending one team to the Games, and for every 40 affiliates, Sweden is sending one team to the Games.
To put this into context, for Norway, that would be like the United States sending 200-plus teams to the CrossFit Games, and for Sweden, the United States would need to send more than 125 teams.
Featured image: Dave Shenton / @daveshenton / Instagram
