Well, well, well, look who decided to join the party, you bunch of hill-climbing, wall-scaling, rig-flowin', mud-racing lunatics!

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Alright, let’s check out how everyone did in their predictions. It’s already a couple weeks out and I assume you know who won and what the standings looked like, so we’re just going straight into it.

In looking at the charts, we had A LOT of Stijn Legrand & Elsa Ripjstra fans out there.

Both Stijn & Elsa were chosen for 1st place about 70% of the time in both the Short and Standard courses. Stijn helped most of you all out in scoring, with a 2nd and 1st place finish, while Elsa pulled off 1st in the Standard Course, but definitely screwed up some predictions results in the Short Course with a 4th place spot.

For the Short Course on Thursday.
There was an error in the IG story last week, showing Lucas Gardebrand & Gabrielle de Vries having the best Predictions.
Turns out, a few polls ended up in the SPAM folder!
And after a final review, we have Alexandra Katharina Anna with the best score.

For the Standard Course on Saturday.
Rob Shapland skipped the Short Course, but predicted very well in Saturday’s race, with 3 perfect picks and 2 others within 1-2 spots.

If you haven’t checked it out yet. You can watch the Coverage of these events on the Tors Trophy channel here.

Tors Trophy had great content from the weekend, with their live coverage and commentary. 👍

But….
There’s like 5 videos on here from the weekend, all varying between 5 - 9 hours a piece. I did the math guys, and it’s over 30 hours of coverage?!?!

YIKES 😯
They should really do some kind of wrap-up / shorter piece, that highlights the weekend.

I was curious on what stood out about the weekend.
So without watching 30+ hours of footage, I chatted with Dave Perry who was out there.

Lots of positive reactions from people overall ✌
And it sounds like one of the highlights I’ll mention was the Slip Wall.

For most of us here in the U.S., the “Slip Wall” doesn’t sound like a make-or-break obstacle. But over in Sweden they made this thing a legit challenge. The Team Relay racers had to decide what strategy to do on this thing. Either tap and take the penalty, or have a plan and confidence that they could efficiently and quickly get up and over.

It was a big talking point over the weekend and the rain that came through just made any Team’s plans that much harder.

I can’t seem to post videos… But here’s an IG clip from Kevin Thompson and the Green brothers on how they did it (Slide 2), along with some pics of what it looked like from Dave here.

How would you approach this one???

Not officially a “Championship” race. But for many people who head out here year after year, it sure is treated like one!

3 quick things I want to mention on this one.

1.) I was out there this year doing the Ultra. And I ran into quite a few people who didn’t make it last year, and were back out for redemption.
And for the people I checked back in with, they freaking got it 💪
DNF rates were lower this year than last. I believe a big part was the Temps being cooler, along with people just working harder. In training and mental determination. And they made it to the finish line. So congrats to everyone who pushed their limits and got that buckle. 🏆

2.) Surprise Surprise.
The Memory Test is back!
It wasn’t on the Map, but halfway through the Ultra sandbag carry, hidden away in the woods was a large board for the memory test.
For those of you out there, do you still remember your Word & Number?!?!

It’s been a few weeks now and I still remember mine.

3.) Another Surprise…
Spartan Killington has just about always been considered the hardest US Spartan Ultra. But this year?! The stats are actually showing that Cincy was harder 🙃

See the Stats below between the two.
In almost every category, we see Cincy being tougher.
It’s crazy to think about.

Cincy was definitely super unexpected this year, with all the rain that came through, a difficult obstacle layout, and most of all, the fact that it was about 5 miles longer!!!

Can you imagine if Killington was 5 miles more? 😶

Anyway, Cincy looks like it’s winning this year’s “Hardest Spartan Ultra in the US” edition. But I’d put money Killington is back on top next year.

It’s a good time to mention how this NewsLetter is Sponsored.
Clicking Amazon Affiliate Links keeps the lights on and Emails flowing. So click here before you buy ANYTHING on Amazon. It doesn’t have to be this breastmilk bag 🤣

Like Killington, let’s go with 3 quick points about this one.

1.) The competition was old vs. new. And it looks like the young guns still have some room to grow.
Ja Shua Reid and Annie Dubie who have been involved with Elite Level OCR for close to 10 years maybe?? popped in and showed the young kids they still have skills with 1st place finishes. 🏆

2.) What’s up with running a Beast?
The National Series events in the US & in Canada were Sprint’s all year. So pushing PanAm into a Beast course seems odd. Maybe someone can let me know the reasoning?

3.) Athletes standing on a podium with GIANT CHECKS is a cool look.
But the question is… when will these amounts hit their bank accounts?
It seems like every year the topic of Spartan not paying athletes gets brought up. And it wasn’t too long ago this time, where Nicole Mericle caused some uproar in the community.
Are things finally getting better?
If any of the 6 people who got a nice big check out in Seattle see this, let me know when the Real Thing hits your bank account.
Would be cool to track and see if things are improving 🤞

Last week we got two big surprises here. First, the news that OCRWC is changing it’s name and adding “Community” in the middle there. Sounds like they don’t want confusion with the other OCRWC that’s out there.

Good move?
I guess it makes sense to differentiate from other brands with the same initials, Yes.
But the word Community?!?!
It’s a great word. I use it often, as do many others in our little niche sport of OCR.
But to attach the word onto an event you’re calling a “World Championship”?
I don’t like it.
A great word. But it really doesn’t help to push a Pro, Elite Level Racing, World Championship event.

And secondly, the 2026 event will be in Australia.
Last year, we heard the sad news that they were skipping out on 2025, but coming back in 2026 to the East Coast US. And many of us held some hope and stayed patient.
But this change over to Australia has some people up in arms 😐

I put a poll out last week on how people were feeling about the change over to Australia.
Here’s the results of that.

Comments throughout IG look rough 🤮

And I don’t have too much detail on why quite a few people chose “Other”.
But about 50% of people are either glad it’s still getting put on, or even psyched about it.

I think the biggest question is.
Will this be a legit course with unique and challenging obstacles, or a watered-down course from what we’ve loved in the past when it was put on by Adventurey.

Along with…
is there prize money?
And will it get paid?

This weekend, we’ll see Spartan’s Super Championship in Mammoth Lakes, CA.

Follow The OCR Report YT here who will be out there getting Race Coverage.

What can we expect?
Starting with the Negative…. Annie Dubie is fresh off that Pan Am Seattle win and is showing up and appears to be an easy pick for the win.
Faye Morgan’s name is out there, but otherwise, this field is not looking rather weak for the ladies…

On a positive note, Ja Shua Reid, also coming off that Seattle win just a couple weeks ago is primed and ready for championship racing and will be there. Along with Manuel Dufaux, Eugenio Godinez, Tyler Veerman and rumors of Jeremie Gachet coming out, we are gearing up for some good battles to watch on the men’s side. 🏃

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