Legacy Champions Conquered the 2024 Rogue Invitational
The Rogue Invitational went international this year, taking the strength sports competition extravaganza from U.S. soil overseas to Aberdeen, Scotland. The contest, which took place from November 8 to 10, saw athletes from around the globe in different disciplines don kilts and test their fitness and fortitude in what has become one of the premier events for both CrossFit and strongman in its sixth year. Organisers took full advantage of the locale and its legacy in the strength world, staging traditional Highland Games events alongside more contemporary Strongman and functional fitness fare.
The CrossFit podium was filled with familiar faces in both the men's and women's divisions. CrossFit Games 2023 champ Jeffrey Adler of Canada won the men's side with consistently strong performances, placing outside the top five in only two of the eight events and winning one outright, a brutal combo of wall walks and back squats dubbed "Braveheart." He was joined in the winner's circle by countryman Brent Fikowski (who recently announced his retirement, making the Invitational his final event) in second and US competitor Jayson Hopper in third.
Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr added yet another championship to her long list of accolades on the women's side in a dominant performance. The Australian CrossFit GOAT won her fourth Rogue Invitational by sweeping the first four events, then finishing outside the top two in only one of the others. She was followed by 2023 CrossFit Games winner Laura Horvath of Hungary, who won each of the events that Toomey-Orr did not, and American athlete Arielle Loewen in third.
The Strongman competition featured a tight contest between two titans of the sport. Canada's Mitchell Hooper took his second Invitational title, edging out Iceland's Hafthor Björnsson, who returned to Strongman in 2023 after an early retirement and a few years spent focused on boxing and powerlifting. Björnsson won two individual events (including the deadlift ladder, his specialty) to Mitchell's single victory (in the Yoke Escalator, a brutal sprint/lift combo race), but Mitchell posted strong finishes across the board, coming in second in every other event but one, which he finished third. Scotsman Tom Stoltman, the reigning and three-time World's Strongest Man winner competing on his home turf, finished the event in third place to round out the podium.
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