24.1 Open Announcement – Alex Gazan vs. Alexis Raptis

The women’s side of the 24.1 Open announcement brings us two rising stars of CrossFit, Alex Gazan and Alexis Raptis.  Gazan and Raptis both competed at their second CrossFit Games in 2023 and finished 5th and 6th respectively in the overall standings.

Alex Gazan had a tremendous season in 2023 finishing in the top 5 across the board.  Gazan started the year with a 5th in the 2023 CrossFit Open, then followed it up with a 2nd in North America West Quarterfinals (9th world wide).  At North America West Semifinals, Gazan surprised almost everyone by taking first place, with 2 event wins in the competition.  At the Games, Alex Gazan finished 5th, with 4 event finishes in the top 5.  Then to cap off the season, Gazan finished 5th at the Rogue Invitational with another 2 event wins. 

Alexis Raptis has locked herself into being a perennial top 10 favourite at the CrossFit Games after excellent seasons in 2022 and 2023.  Raptis finished in the top 10 at all events she competed in during the 2022 season, which included a 10th at the CrossFit Games and an 8th at the Rogue Invitational.  In 2023 Raptis earned a 5th place at the North America East Semifinal, which would have been good for 10th place world wide, and a 6th at the CrossFit Games where she wore the white leaders jersey for a portion of the competition.  Unfortunately her ongoing battle with Colitis held her out of the Rogue Invitational in 2023.

Head to Head Competition Results

From a head to head competition standpoint, Gazan took the season at 3 competitions to 1 over Raptis.  

Prior to the 2023 season, Raptis swept all other head to head competition results.

Head to Head Event Results

Looking at the individual event results ahead of 24.1 the 2023 season was fairly close between  Alex Gazan and Alexis Raptis.  Gazan edged out Raptis with 15 events to 13.

When going through the events, a few things stand out.

Alex Gazan beat Alexis Raptis in every event that had rowing, which was in all 4 stages of the season. 23.1, Quarterfinals Test #4, Semifinals Test #6 and Intervals from the CrossFit Games.

Raptis beat Gazan in 5 out of 6 events that had a snatch (23.1, QF Test 2, Semifinals Test 4 & 5 and Helena).  The one event Gazan took was the Olympic Total at the CrossFit Games.  In this event however, Raptis snatched 187 lbs while Gazan lifted 168.  Gazan did fail her second snatch attempt at 178.

Raptis took the 2 pure monostructural events at the Games, Bike and the 5km run. While Gazan took the two events with the sled pull, Semifinals Test #1 and Parallel Bar Pulls.

When it comes to muscle-ups there is an interesting dividing line between the two.  Alex Gazan beat Raptis in 23.1, Semifinals Test #2 and Muscle-Up Logs from the Games, which were 3 out of the 4 events with ring muscle-ups last season.  Raptis on the other hand beat Gazan in Quarterfinals Test #5 and Helena, which were the two Bar Muscle Up events from 2023.

If the workout is heavy, and snatches aren’t involved, count on Gazan to take it.  She won the head-to-head matchups on 23.2B (1 rep max thrusters) Quarterfinals Test #3 (15 185 lbs clean and jerks) and Semifinals Linda.

Unlike the men’s 24.1 match-up there are lots of programming options to make Alexis Raptis vs. Alex Gazan an exciting Open announcement to watch.

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