Ben Sweeney

For the fourth year in a row, Fraser is the Fittest Man on Earth after winning the 2019 CrossFit Games on Sunday. He joins Rich Froning (who also trains at CrossFit Mayhem in Tennessee) as the only men to win the CrossFit Games four years in a row.

Not bad, especially when you consider the challenges that Fraser faced this year. Sure, he started out strongly, but midway through the competition, he made some costly mistakes, and he needed to come from behind to beat Noah Ohlsen on the final day of competition.

Fraser kick off the competition exactly how youd have expected a CrossFit star to start, <a href="https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a28590430/mat-fraser-2019-crossfit-games/" id="075fcdb4-88b2-38ed-aed4-650619012540"> winning the first two events </a> , both of which were in his wheelhouse. Hes a standout Olympic lifter, and the first event included seven squat snatches at 185 pounds (after legless rope climbs and a 400-meter run. He took the second event, too, which was a 800-meter row, 66 kettlebell shoulder-to-overhead lifts, and a 132-foot handstand walk for time.

Things got precarious after that. Event 3 was a 6k ruck event, in which you carried a heavy bag for four laps around a 1,500-meter course. You opened with a 20-pound bag; each lap, 10 pounds was added to that load.

Fraser finished the event in third placeuntil a 60-second penalty was assessed. One of his sandbags had fallen out of his bag while he was running, and he hadnt put it back in, a decided advantage over the field. He fell from third place in the ruck to 17th.

Then he struggled on the fourth event, the Sprint Couplet, which sandwiched 172-foot sled pushes between 18 muscle-ups, finishing 21st, his worst career Games finish. When Ohlsen won Mary, an 20-minute AMRAP of 5 handstand pushups, 10 pistol squats, and 15 pullups, Fraser found himself trailing halfway through.

Fraser started Day 3 with more struggles on the sprint course, finishing in 15th place. That placing is less surprising than some of his other finished, thoughthe sprint was never going to be a top event for him. The sprint course had competitors essentially sprinting down a field, spinning around, sprinting back, and then sprinting around a series of cones. Frasers strength lies in his strength and ability to grind, not in his ability to accelerate or change direction.

Mat Fraser Is the CrossFit Games Champion. Again.

But Fraser rebounded the rest of the day. The final event brought a 1-rep max clean, again, a move that played well for Frasers terrific Olympic lifting technique. He won that with a 380-pound clean, and was just behind Ohlsen in the standings to end the day.

<h1> Day 4: Completing The Comeback </h1>

Fraser entered the final day of competition trailing Ohlsen by a few points, and the champ was going to need some help to come back to complete the four-peat. Hed need to beat Ohlsen in two of the three eventsand see some other athletes beat Ohlsen, too.

That path certainly didnt get off to a good start, as Ohlsen outpaced Fraser in the days first event, a 1,000-meter swim, followed by a 1,000-meter paddle. Ohlsen finished third here, and Fraser finished fifth.

But the champ battled back in the last three events. Ringer 1 and Ringer 2 came next, a pair of lightspeed sprint workouts that tasked competitors with completing all their reps for time. Ringer 1 was three rounds of Airbike work for calories followed by toes-to-rings reps; 30 reps in the first round, then 20, then 10. Fraser won this. He won Ringer 2, as well, a 15-10-5 series of burpees and overhead squats. Ohlsen finished fourth and fifth, respectively.

That gave Fraser the lead heading into the last event, dubbed The Standard. The structure of The Standard was simple: 30 135-pound clean-and-jerks, followed by 30 muscle-ups, followed by 30 snatches, all done for time. This last event was all about pacing.

The key: Not going too hard too early. Both Fraser and Ohlsen did the clean-and-jerks as singles, resetting after every rep. They were more aggressive on the muscle-ups, doing a few reps at a time.

But Fraser separated himself on the snatches, playing to his Olympic lifting strengths again and doing 4 or 5 reps at a time before releasing the bar; Ohlsen did all his snatches as singles. It was all exactly what Fraser needed to finish on top for a fourth straight year.

Fraser wasn't the only CrossFitter who made history over the weekend. On the women's side, Tia Clair-Toomey was the first ever three-time champion, with her own winning streak stretching back to 2017.

This finish makes Fraser undisputedly one of the greatest two CrossFitters ever to compete, and opens up an opportunity to for him to stand alone as the GOAT if he chooses to come back and take a run at an unprecedented fifth straight title in 2020. If you're a CrossFit fan, it doesn't get any better than this.

Mat Frasers done it again.

Mat Fraser Is the World's Fittest Man for the Fourth Straight Year

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Ben Sweeney

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Mat Fraser Is the World's Fittest Man for the Fourth Straight Year