Video By: CrossFit HQ
 

Briggs was hungry Thursday night, as she solidified first place in the CrossFit Open WOD 15.5 Announcement, broadcast live from CrossFit Max Effort in Las Vegas—this after training an entire year to get back to the CrossFit Games, after missing her opportunity at the 2014 CrossFit Europe Regional by one spot.

 

The Announcement saw three former CrossFit Games champions—Samanatha Briggs (2013), Annie Thorisdottir (2011, 2012) and Camille Leblanc-Bazinet take center stage to give the final workout of the five-week Open their all—no matter what CrossFit HQ served up.

 

27-21-15-9

Calorie Row

Thrusters (95/65)

 

At the start of the buzzer, the three ladies were off—and from the start, the workout was won on the rower.

 

Despite a recent back injury, Briggs did not appear to break a sweat—as she set her steady pace from the first round of 27, on, with Thorisdottir and Leblanc-Bazinet, on her tail throughout the majority of the workout.

 

While Thorisdottir was the first athlete off the rower from the round of 27, she later said she hit a wall come the round of 15’s.

 

“When I came to 15, I thought ‘Oh my God,’ I have 15 left?! I just had to tell myself to push through,” Thorisdottir said.

 

Down and up, down and up, Briggs did not put the bar down once on each round of thrusters.

 

“Annie’s the same height as me, so rowing we hit the same distance about the same time, and I knew Camille would come smoking out on those thrusters. So as much as I was hurting from the rower, I knew I had to go unbroken, otherwise one of those two would catch me, and it hurt,” Briggs said.

 

 In fact, unbroken was the strategy all three athletes chose to take, powering through the row, and getting back to the bar as quickly as they could.

 

The final standing times were as follows:

 

Briggs: 7:00.4

Thorisdottir: 7:28.7

Leblanc-Bazinet: 7:50.9

 

“Normally, I like to try to win the Opens, but the first week it was actually more about trying to stay in the Open. Just coming off a back injury, it’s good to come out here and show that I may not be able to lift heavy, but I still have my engine. And these two are two of the best in the world, so it’s an honor to throw down with those two in front of all these people,” Briggs said.

 

Following the workout, Briggs, Thorisdottir and Leblanc-Bazinet sat down with Dave Castro and shared their insights for getting through the workout.

 

“I went pretty fast in the beginning, (and my advice would be to pace yourself on the workout),” Thorisdottir said.

 

Leblanc-Bazinet added, “I just closed my eyes and tried to remove my own self from the workout—focusing on just the reps (one rep at a time) to get through it.”

 

Dave Castro’s words of advice?

 

“The big opening with the pull, and the big hip opening with the push—it’s a beautiful thing. This is one of those workouts that when you read it,  the reactions from many people is ‘big deal’, but if you say ‘big deal’, you aren’t going to push hard enough on this workout. You need to go to a place that is uncomfortable,” he said, adding, “The (real) challenge is in between the ears. This workout is designed to be a mental challenge.”

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