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OK, so two events went down last night. I could try to track down all the craziness, but instead, I’ll just hit the highlights.

1) The Clean Speed Ladder was awesome to behold for both men and women competitors. Some of the finalists on the women weren’t surprising (Amanda Goodman, Elizabeth Akinwale, Annie Thorisdottir), but the fact that not only did little Camille Leblanc-Bazinet make it to the final round, but came in 5th overall was amazing! The big guys also dominated. It was the Jeff Evans and Neal Maddox show on the final round, but rookie badass Mathew Fraser was right behind them. I watched that guy in the Northeast Regional, and he is the real deal. Further amazing part of that event: Rich Froning didn’t make the final round—he missed the cut by 0.9 seconds! That put him in 9th place by default, but the only person who threatened him in the final round was Scott Panchik who came in 7th, so the damage to Froning was minimal.

2) The Push Pull event was rather unremarkable for the women, I thought, but the men really cranked it up. That 12-year old rookie, Cody Anderson, came out of nowhere with an early heat victory which was very impressive, but the last heat was the Froning/Bridges show. Bridges owned the strict handstand pushups, and Froning owned the sled pull. Bridges just barely beat Froning (by less than 2 seconds), but Froning was already 12 or so points ahead of Bridges. All the people Froning needed to beat, he beat pretty handily. The leaderboard was seriously shaken up after that event.

3) The women’s places appear to be fairly set. Unless Camille or Kara Webb have some serious issues today (always a possibility), then they’ll remain in 1st and 2nd, respectively. Annie Thorisdottir is in 3rd place, but Michele Letendre is only one point behind her and last year’s 3rd place finisher Val Voboril is only one point behind Michele. Annie will likely not win this year and making the podium will be a serious fight. Julie Foucher will need a small miracle to make the podium this year, unfortunately.

4) Rich Froning is back in 1st overall, but only by 5 points over 2nd place Mathew Fraser and 3rd place Josh Bridges is only 7 points behind him. It spaces out a bit more from there, but the men’s side of the house has been so unpredictable, who knows how it’ll shake out?

5) Rich Froning is in 1st place.

6) Rich Froning is winning.