CrossFitters test their limits at Summer Slam on the Waterfront
Published 12:56 am Monday, August 6, 2018
WASHINGTON — Nearly 100 CrossFit athletes pushed themselves to their limits at Festival Park on Saturday, testing their strength, endurance, gymnastic skills and willpower to prove who was the most fit at the third edition of Summer Slam on the Waterfront.
Event organizer Manny Vidal was pleased with how smoothly Saturday’s competition ran, from how organized everything was, allowing the events to follow one another without delay, to the lack of any serious injuries. The weather even cooperated, after forecasts of rain threatened to disrupt the competition.
“I think it went as good as it could’ve went for us,” Vidal said. “No one got hurt, that I know of, that was anything serious, which is good, always a plus. I don’t know how it happened but the weather stayed nice all day, it was cool.”
49 teams of two competed across seven divisions, completing a variety of exercises, such as pull-ups, muscle-ups, toe-to-bar raises, wall balls, power cleans and burpees. The purpose is to test all types of fitness with the most well rounded athletes rising to the top.
“We tried to test as many different modalities. We have an endurance test, we have a heavy strength test, we had a gymnastic skills test and we had just a straight up metabolic conditioning test,” Vidal said. “That’s kind of the potency of CrossFit; you can’t just be strong, you can’t just be a good gymnast or body-weight mover, you can’t be just a bar bell person, you can’t just be a runner. You have to kind of have everything to win.”
The first-place finisher of the Male Rx division was No Quarter, which placed first in four of the five stages. Queer Eyes and Snatch Thighs edged out Wingin’ It in the Female Rx division, while Team WODBody Bods by Steve took first in the Male/Female Rx division.
Sweat and Beers placed first the Male Scaled division, while BIG-E Smalls won the Female Scaled division by a two-point margin. I’m His Rebound finished first in all five stages to take first place in the Male/Female division. Masters of Tier 1 won the Masters division after winning two stages and placing second in another.
Ever since the first Summer Slam in 2016, charity has played a part in the event. Proceeds from admissions and koozie sales will go to the Marion L. Shepard Cancer Center Foundation this year after donating to Ruth’s House in 2016 and Care-O-World’s summer feeding program last year. Vidal said around $1,000 was raised from admission fees, but that number can still go up, as koozie sales are still ongoing.
“We still have a bunch of koozies that we’re trying to sell and we’ll still try to raise some money and we’ll write a final check,” Vidal said. “That’ll take another week or so before we actually sit down and do a check presentation to them. Right now it’s about $1,000 that we took at the door, which is great.”