Welcome back, athletes and fans! With a fresh racing season upon us, we are thrilled to bring to you the first World Obstacle Course Racing Rankings of the 2022 season. This year we are joined by a new committee, representing the USA, Canada, Central & South America, and UK & Europe.
Each member in this committee ranks their top 15 female & male athletes, assigning a score of 15 points for their #1 ranked athlete down to a score of one point for their 15th place athlete. These scores are then averaged across all committee members to achieve a final ranking.
Kicking off our first voting cycle of 2022 we see mostly a roster of familiar names, if in slightly different orders to what years past.
Finishing off 2019 we saw Veejay Jones (USA,1) place 5th overall, since then he has gone from strength to strength, with a firm lead of 14.8 points, making him the top ranked male in this season’s initial rankings.
Topping the female leader board with a 14.6 average is super Dane Ida Mathilde Rubens Steensgaard (Den, 1). Ida showed she means business at the OCRWC 2021 and returned to the States in February 2022 with numerous top finishes.
Making the trip from Denmark, Steensgaard won three races in eight days, including the first race in the SavagePro series. She also finished in 4th at the first race in the Spartan North American Elite Series. Whether she returns for more US racing or dominates in Europe, she is one athlete we are keen to follow this year.
Second place in the male rankings is Ryan Kempson (USA, 2) after a 1st and 2nd place at the first two events in the SavagePro Series.
Kris Rugloski (USA, 4) has been making waves for some time now, and despite not placing in our overall 2019 leaderboard, she enters this season in 4th place. At OCRWC 2021 she turned heads, and kicked off the new season with a bang, dominating in her local races in Texas and flying across the country to compete in the Spartan North American Elite Series. She is also a member of Spartan Games Season Two.
Alvaro Vasquez (NIC, 9) has had a strong start and we expect to see his name become a familiar one alongside the rest of the male contingent.
Emma Cook-Clarke (USA, 8) consistently puts up strong performances at big races. She finished second at the first race in the Spartan North American Elite Series, finishing behind only Lindsay Webster (CA, 2). Webster is undoubtedly the most prolific Female OCR athlete of all time, but with her recent announcement of withdrawal from OCR we are unsure how much we will be seeing of her this year, but when she shows up, she performs.
Two other OCR Legends requiring a mention are Jon Albon Ryan and Atkins. Atkins had a slightly disappointing start to the season, but this is not the trend we expect to continue to see after perhaps his best season yet in 2021. Albon is yet to compete, and we cannot wait to see what he does in 2022 against the new wave of athletes.
In the upcoming season we have our eyes on Maszk, Call, and Schadegg, these athletes are part of the next wave of young, fast OCR athletes. If they continue to perform well at high-level races, you can expect them to rise quickly in the rankings.
