Big Summer Games 2018 - České Budějovice. We bring you an extensive report from the biggest crossfit competitions in the Czech Republic including videos and beautiful photos.

On the weekend of 18-19.8. took place the biggest competition of 2018 in functional fitness in the Czech Republic. This is the fourth year that Bcross Challenge & Bcross GYM has held its races. This was the third one this year.

Nearly 200 competitors came to České Budějovice in six categories. For the first time there was a qualification for the race.
The competition was held in individuals and in teams of two boys and one girl.
Both were divided into SPORT and ELITE categories. For the first time we had a MASTERS 35+ category.

We welcomed foreign competitors from Russia, Austria, Slovakia and Germany. Czech top athletes also came to compete for the best positions.

The main judge of the race was Jakub Brichta, active competitor and holder of the title Fittest in Czech Republic for 2017 and 2018!

Let's take a look at the composition of the workouts that Petr Schlegel put together for this race. Competitor and owner of CrossFit Steel Wings gym in Hradec Kralove.
Second in the standings at this year's CF OPEN in the Czech Republic.

This is the second race we have worked with Jakub and Petr, we really appreciate their quality and we are happy to be able to move the races forward with them.

Take a look at what Petr has prepared for the teams.

Each day the competitors had three workouts. The goal is to find the best prepared and most versatile athlete | team. The disciplines consist of gymnastic and athletic elements, strength training, wrestling and endurance.
Mental toughness and preparedness with tactics for the exercise also play a big role.

Come and see what awaited the individuals.

This year we also changed the venue and moved from the stadium to Náplavka, where we got more among the people. It was a bit harder to organize, as we only had a concrete surface without any facilities.

For starters, we used the adjacent swimming pool where the Saturday race day for individuals started. In addition to the two-hundred swim, they completed a one-handed squat and face.

Teams started swimming the next day, in relay form. A 20x snatch to start, followed immediately by a 100m swim, then it was the next team member's turn.

We made a big shift in the racing arena, where everyone fit without any problems. For better clarity the stations were divided. We were happy with Forward Fitness from Slovakia who supplied all the equipment for the race.

After the swim we moved to the arena where the individuals continued with another workout. A combination of walking and lunges with a barbell overhead tested the overall strength of the athletes.
Each round was finished with 15 pull-ups, with a touch of chest trap for the elite category.

After lunch on Saturday, the race began for the teams who had a workout to start the race, literally to warm up.

A 1km run for everyone, with one running and two staying in the arena to row. Everyone had to run a kilometre in relay, the time they ran the km was the result of A. The workout had a time limit of 16 minutes.
If one ran, the others rowed, once they had finished, the whole team could take turns at the oars. Result B was the number of calories rowed.

In the same style, the third wod was arranged by individuals. Who had a time limit of 12 minutes. To start with a 2km run and in the rest of the time a max calorie count on the rower, which was the result of the second part B.

Before that they still had max reps of reposition/clean within two minutes. The athletes were giving well over 30 reps. This was followed by a one minute rest and moving to the start line where the aforementioned run started. This workout ended the first day of competition for the individuals.

Next, another team wod continued, which was only 9 minutes long. Each team was only allowed to choose one exercise, which they had to complete for 30 reps.

C&J, SNATCH and SQUAT CLEAN

The weight for the elite competitors was 60|40 and the sport category had a barbell of 50|30 kg.

These exercises can be found in the crossfit benchmark girls wod. With the same number of reps and the same weights.
They also serve as test workouts for athletes to see improvement over time so they can evaluate their progress.

The last discipline was synchronous 5 rounds. A combination of the popular thrusters (front squat with expression) and the very familiar English squats. 10 reps of each.

Here the interplay of all the athletes was important. The competitors were not helped by the weather, the sun was really strong and took a lot of strength, but again let's be glad for it.

Before the start of the workout we were asked to speak by Zdenda Koza, a competitor from team 42. Mechanized Battalion Tabor. He wanted to dedicate this workout and honor the memory of the soldiers from Tábor who gave their lives on the mission in Afghanistan.

See post from the Czech Army.

This was the end of the first day of racing. Most of the competitors jumped right after the workout into the river, which was cold and refreshing. Recovery began, a proper dinner and rest for the next day. Although fatigue, strategy, positioning did not let the competitors sleep.

The second day for the teams started again at the swimming pool. Individuals were able to sleep longer and rest for the weightlifting, which started for them on the Embankment at 9am.

The market/snatch was on the agenda. The girls had a starting weight of 30 kg and after five they progressed up to 50 kg. They started on 7 reps, each round they had to confirm 7 English facing the axis. They then added weight and subtracted 1 rep. 5 rounds in total.

Sport and masters categories. Ladder weights starting at 40kg. Adding 10 at a time and final weight 80kg. Here you could see that a lot of athletes were focusing on weightlifting. These were new highs for some. Time cap 10minutes.

For the elites the upper limit was 100kg!

David Stroupek and Ondra Starosta fought for the first place in this workout, David came out better and in the last round he got 3x 100kg over his head early. Right behind was Marek Vácha and Adam Zubek. Most of the athletes made it through the ladder to the last weight.

David Stroupek was the first one from us to compete at the Regionals in Berlin so far this year, we are glad that he came to compete with us. He was also one of the candidates for the win.

However, the already mentioned duo Marek and Ondra fought until the last workout, where the decision was yet to be made.

This photo shows the Carver team, who came all the way from Russia. Vasiliy did a great three squats with 130kg overhead!

5 The workout started with one attempt at TTB - toe touch on the trapeze. This doubled the number of results and the teams had to tactical. Each athlete was only allowed to do one exercise. Next was the aforementioned OHS - squat with barbell overhead for 3 reps.
The last exercise was a clean shoulder press overhead PRESS.

This is where the strength of the competitors showed. A few athletes reached the 100kg mark, Renato C., Hajek David, Květoň Martin and Zdeněk Koza. If you lift your weight on the bench press, you are doing very well and can consider yourself strong :)

However, the Havířov athlete Martin Sládeček showed how to get over his head an incredible 110kg!

For individuals, the fifth workout was gymnastically oriented. 20x muscle-ups on the men's trapeze, only the elite competitors had 10 more reps. The women did 40x CH2B - barbell chest touch squats.

You needed callouses here! Each minute started with 6 front squats. The rest of the minute was spent on the trapeze, once the athletes completed the given number of reps the time was timed.

In the sports category, Antonín Radouch and Werner Hartmann competed for the first place. Tondo was the first to finish this workout in the second minute and thus gained the opportunity to fight for the top place in the decisive sixth workout.

For many beginners it was the first successful attempts and a great feeling to be above the trapeze. Ondra Plojhar adds that he gave his first 6 reps in this workout.

The last workout for the teams was also gymnastics oriented.

Walking on hands, muscleups, pull-ups and push-ups in handstand. The athletes on the team could rotate as they wanted. There was a buy-in of 10|5m handstand walk to start, for each member. Then they could move on to the actual trapeze exercises.

The elites had the walk unbroken - i.e. all at once without interruption. For the first musclep, we saw a couple of athletes complete all reps in a row, as for every "change" change the team had to do 15 synchro air squat - squat.

The next exercise was squats for 50 reps. For elite CH2B. Here Miroslav Holý from Random team failed to close the series by 1 repetition, he did an incredible 49 reps UB!

This workout was finished with push-ups in a handstand. Again for the elite a harder variation in strict execution.

The result was the fastest time.

This is where the decision was made and everyone had to leave everything on the set as this was the last workout that all teams and competitors went into.

Nothing was decided for the individuals and in the last 12 minutes workout everyone had to fight.

The sport and masters categories had the same buy-in as the teams. Walking on hands to start.

Then they just needed a trapeze bar, a wall for push-ups in a handstand and a one-handed bar. This AMRAP type workout - as many rounds and reps as possible in the time limit.

12x TTB, HSPU, DB SNATCH

In the last workout, the elite competitors had different exercises.

They were given a 6kg mediciball with which they did TTB - touching the trapeze for 6 reps. The next exercise was a snatch|throw with a one-armed kettlebell 16x.

After each exercise they had to walk 10 by hand. The minimum distance per one was in the middle.

The athletes fought until the last second and really left everything in the arena.

One handed for elite 30kg, sport and masterts 22,5 | 15 kg.

All weekend we were accompanied by DJ ALEX NEIRES, who motivated the competitors with the best songs for the best performance.

Alex is currently with us for the whole year and we are very happy for this cooperation.

He and DJ RAMEL form our main duo.

The whole race was held in a calm and friendly atmosphere. Competitors could taste special coffee prepared for our race by Rituale caffe.

The organizers kept to the set schedule. Those who wanted to replenish their strength could do so at the Donut with You stand. Where steaks were grilled, gourmet sweet donuts were served and refreshing fruity ice cream was swirled.

We were also at the race with our bodybuilding.com booth! We provided competitors with protein and bcaa tastings from Amix. Bcaa drinks from Nutramino and luxurious nut butters from Lifelik.

They also prepared a 6% discount on the shop for us to use until the end of the month "BCROSS".

Let's take a look at how the whole two-day race turned out. Each category was decided in the last workout.

Our biggest "prize money" 65.000,- CZK, we divided among the podium winners, together with other prizes from partners.

Individual categories:

SPORT MEN

1. Radouch
2. Hartmann
3. Ulč

SPORT WOMEN

1. Štědroňská
2. Petráňková
3. Kopicová

MASTERS

1. Heribán
2. Skála
3. Šula

ELITE

1. Stroupek
2. Vácha
3. Mayor

TEAM SPORT

1. NICKYNELLOW
Kičmerová, Sládeček, Pazdiora
2. TWO AND A HALF GUYS
Fuňková, Urban, Pártl
3. ANDY AND HER BOYS
Skolková, Homola Černý

TEAM ELITE

1. AMINO FRESH TEAM
Karásková, Mička, Concolino
2. RANDOM TEAM
Kršková, Holý, Hajek
3. CARVER TEAM
Amosov, Maximov, Magit

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all competitors for their participation. To the fans for their support and constant cheering despite the incredible heat that accompanied us.

Furthermore, I would like to thank the organizing team, which consisted of 56 people and everyone took care of the smooth running of the whole race. To the helpers, referees, masseuses and everyone who participated.

Thanks also to all the partners who supported us financially or materially. A big thank you to workout.eu who helped us to reward all the helpers.

An important person of the whole weekend was SPEAKER Martin Balík from CF Plzeň, who took care of the race. Thanks to him, we kept to the set schedule and everything went perfectly.

Petr Schlegel, the creator of the individual disciplines, also helped us a lot and I hope that we will cooperate again for the Winter Games.

We hope you enjoyed the race as much as we did. This year we have only one last Christmas race planned for 15.12., which will finish the busy 2018 season.

The main organizer and occasional moderator Václav Mráz, who prepared the race intensively for 3 months.