Karl Gudmundsson showed his first sign of weakness this weekend when he took 17th on the Event 4 power clean/pistol couplet. Gudmundsson quickly regrouped, however, and took 2nd in Event 5, locking him into 1st place on the leaderboard again today.

Andrea Barbotti occupies the 2nd place spot. Barbotti finished 31st in the Meridian Regionals last year, but has obviously put in the work over this past year as he hasn’t finished lower than 13th on any event and has three top 5 finishes.

Last year’s Meridian champ started off strong today, finishing 1st and 4th in Events 3 and 4 respectively. The heavy deadlifts in Event 5 slowed him down though, pushing him to a 12th place finish. He settled into 3rd on the leaderboard after today, but in a good position to keep his qualifying spot.

Lukas Esslinger and Lukas Hogberg round out the top 5. Esslingler and Hogber both struggled on Event 3 with 19th and 20th place finishes respectively. So far, their worst finishes of the weekend. They both finished out the day strong though with top 6 finishes in Event 4 and 5.

The race is still fairly tight though as there’s only 38 points between 5th and 9th place. As we’ve seen in the last two weekends, it’s far from over.

LEADERBOARD:

1. ​Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson
2. Andrea Barbotti
   
3. Jonne Koski
   
4. Lukas Esslinger
   
5. Lukas Högberg
   

By Leah Kay
Photo Credit: BK Gudmundsson Instagram (@bk_gudmundsson)