Josh Bridges and Kenneth Leverich had first and second place practically secured at the Southern California Regional. The battle was for third.
On the final day of competition, two men went head-to-head for the last Games spot: Tommy Pease and Wes Piatt.
“To be real honest, there’s probably going to have to be a couple of people that maybe don’t do so well, and I’m gonna have to do really well, but I think it’s inside of me to do that,” Pease said at the end of the second day.
During Event 6, Piatt fell behind on the handstand push-ups, allowing Pease to pull away for a bit before Piatt caught up on the walking lunges. He beat Pease by 18 seconds to finish the event third; Pease finished sixth. Piatt had climbed three points closer to third place, but Pease was still seven points ahead with one event remaining.
“Piatt needs to dominate Pease here in this workout if we wants that third and final slot,” said commentator Josh Everett.
And that he did, finishing second while Pease tied for ninth. The finish created a tie with 69 points, but Piatt owned the tiebreaker by virtue of a second-place event finish that was better than Pease’s best placing of third.
Director of the CrossFit Games Dave Castro delivered the good news to Piatt, who reacted first by yelling.
“Thank you so much,” he told Castro through tears.
Video by Dave Leys.
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Additional reading: The Sport of Fitness: SoCal by E.M. Burton, published May 28, 2012.