Results of the fairer Regional comparison

Let's get right to it. The ultimate goal of this analysis was not simply to quantify the impact of a week's preparation on the result in a workout. The ultimate goal is to crown a true champion.

Although I don't necessarily consider these results as a "prediction" for the Games results, I think the ideal way to compare these athletes is with the CrossFit Games scoring system. That means assigning 1 point per place in each event and assigning the final ranking based on the sum of those points. It also means ignoring all athletes who did not qualify for the Games. Those other athletes helped us to get to this point, but now it is time to leave them behind.

As mentioned in the previous post, we scaled each athlete's scores based on his/her week of competition. Now, we can compare these times/scores and crown our champion. Note that I did NOT make cuts after event 5. I'm not a big fan of cuts in the first place, and the fact is all of these people completed that workout, so in my opinion, they should all get credit for it. First, for the women. [Update 6/19/2012: Slight changes due to minor calculation error earlier. No athlete moved more than one spot up or down. Julie Foucher did move into a tie for second after being 2 points behind Azadeh Boroumand earlier.]

Due to the size of the table, it's a bit tricky for me to post all the details. I will look into a way to get them up here. In the meantime, here are some observations that may or may not be apparent on the chart.

1) No surprise at the top. Despite competing in week 5, the adjustments did not bring Annie's times back to Earth enough for anyone to catch her. It got a lot closer, though. Without the adjustments, the results, she would have been a full 20 points ahead of second place (in that case, Julie Foucher would have been second).

2) Along those lines, Azadeh Boroumand (competed in week 1), was one of the biggest winners here. She jumped from fourth to second thanks to the adjustments, cutting her point total from 53 to 40.

3) The biggest positive movers because of the adjustments were Talayna Fortunato (15th to 10th) and Candace Ruiz (29th to 24th).

4) The biggest negative mover was Cheryl Brost (17th to 23rd). Sorry, Cheryl.
5) A few world records changed hands. Kristan Clever took back her record on Event 1, Boroumand took back her record on Event 2, Lindsay Valenzuela took back her record on Event 3. No one messed with Julie Foucher's record on Event 4, though. Straight beast mode there.
*Note that no scores from Event 5 and 6 were impacted except Canada East getting added time on Event 6. I believe HQ didn't count Michele Letendre's record on Event 6 anyway.

OK, on to the men. [Update 6/19/2012: Slight changes due to minor calculation error earlier. No athlete moved more than one spot up or down.]

Observations:

1) Rich Froning didn't really make things interesting. He dominated despite competing in Week 3. I was halfway hoping for him or Annie to be displaced to make this analysis a bit more intriguing, but it just wasn't happening. The lesson: if there is a way to bet on the CrossFit Games, do NOT bet against Rich Froning.

2) No shifts at the very top due to the weekly adjustments. The gap got a bit more narrow between Dan Bailey (Week 3) and Jason Khalipa (Week 4), but not enough for Bailey to displace him.

3) The big winners here were Matt Chan, Brandon Phillips and Patrick Burke. Chan (Week 2) moved up from 14th to 7th, Phillips (Week 1) moved from 28th to 19th and Burke (Week 2) moved from 31st to 21st.

4) The losers, unsurprisingly, were from week 5. Austin Stack dropped from 22nd to 32nd, Spencer Hendel dropped from 8th to 17th and Frederik Aegidus dropped from 25th to 33rd.

5) World records? Well, Dan Bailey slipped past Neal Maddox for the record on Event 3, but that was it. Guido Trinidad moved to within a second of regaining the Event 4 record from Rich Froning, but could not quite do it. Again, do NOT bet against Rich Froning.

And there you have it. If anyone is interested in reviewing my work, I can send you the full Excel workbook used to create this. And again, I'll look into a way to get those detailed final results for both men and women. There have to be some other nerds out there like me with an interest in that.

I also welcome any feedback on this. Like I said, these are not my predictions for the Games, just an idea of who truly had the BEST regional performances. Maybe we'll get to the predictions in a later post.