Samantha "Sam" Briggs (born 14 March 1982) is an English

CrossFit CrossFit is a branded fitness regimen that involves constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity. The method was developed by Greg Glassman, who founded CrossFit with Lauren Jenai in 2000, with CrossFit its registered trad ...

athlete best known for winning the CrossFit Games in 2013. She has qualified for the

CrossFit Games The CrossFit Games is an annual athletic competition owned and operated by CrossFit, LLC. Athletes compete in a series of events at the Games, which may be various standard CrossFit workouts consisting of metabolic conditioning exercises, weight ...

seven additional times: in

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

, and

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

. She finished four of her seven appearances in the top 5 overall. Briggs lived and trained in

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, USA for the 2015 CrossFit season, but now resides in her native

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. Before she found

in 2009, she competed in amateur-level

duathlon Duathlon is an sports, athletic event that consists of a running leg, followed by a cycling leg and then another running leg in a format similar to triathlons. The World Triathlon governs the sport internationally. Distance and format Duathlon ...

triathlon A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of Swimming (sport), swimming, Cycle sport, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the ...

s, and

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

in the Northern Premiership League (as a

centre midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. ...

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

). She worked as a firefighter with West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service. Briggs then took a sabbatical to concentrate on CrossFit fulltime. In February 2022, Briggs announced that she would retire from CrossFit after the 2022 season to return to firefighting in August.

CrossFit Games career

Briggs first qualified for the CrossFit Games in 2010, finishing second at the 2010 Europe Regional behind soon-to-be twice Games champion Annie Thorisdottir. At the 2010 CrossFit Games, Briggs' highest finish was third place on "Pyramid Double Helen", which she completed in 18:30. The only two women to beat her were the overall second and first place Games finishers, Annie Thorisdottir (17:53) and Kristan Clever (18:23). Briggs finished in 19th place overall. By

, Briggs was a more developed athlete and improved to 4th overall. Briggs earned top 10 event finishes on 7 of the 10 events, including two event wins on "The End 2" and "The End 3". In

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

, Briggs was sidelined by a knee injury. She officially withdrew from the competition in March, midway through the CrossFit Open, the first stage of qualifying for the CrossFit Games, citing maltracking of her right kneecap which had been an ongoing issue for a couple of years. She later learned she also had a fractured patella. During her year off, Briggs changed her approach to training. The head trainer at CrossFit 3D, a CrossFit gym that Briggs attended in the past, described her approach to training in the early years as very high volume metabolic conditioning which resulted in her "smashing herself into the ground." With awareness of her injuries, her coach, Steadman, and sports therapist, James Jowsey, were able to program workouts that would not cause further damage. As she laid off many workouts that involved her legs, she spent her time developing her upper body gymnastics skills on the pull-up bar, rope, and gymnastics rings, and also opened her own CrossFit affiliate, Train Manchester.

2013: CrossFit Games champion

In 2013, Briggs returned to competition with the drive of an athlete who had been forced onto the sideline for a year. She won the worldwide Open, and then the Europe Regional to qualify for the 2013 CrossFit Games in Carson. This year the two-time champion, Annie Thorisdottir (2011, 2012), was unable to defend the title that year because of a back injury. At the Games, Briggs put in performances that helped bolster her nickname of "The Engine" such as completing a half-marathon row of 21,097 meters on an indoor Concept 2 rower that Briggs finished in one hour and 27 minutes (1:27:47.9). Briggs had three event wins, and won decisively overall, with a 79 points lead over second-place finisher Lindsey Valenzuela. The next spring, Briggs won the Open yet again but failed to qualify for the Games after placing fourth at the 2014 Europe Regional. Briggs finished in 26th place on the maximum distance handstand walk event, going only , early in the competition and even with three event wins and never finishing lower than eighth on any other event, missed out on qualification by six points. Briggs became the first reigning individual champion to be eliminated at the Regionals.

2015–2016: fourth place finishes

ESPNW named Briggs an "athlete to watch" at the 2015 CrossFit Games. Midway through the CrossFit Open qualifying stage, she injured her

Sacroiliac joint The sacroiliac joint or SI joint (SIJ) is the joint between the sacrum and the ilium bones of the pelvis, which are connected by strong ligaments. In humans, the sacrum supports the spine and is supported in turn by an ilium on each side. The ...

, and prior to the Regionals she broke her foot. Despite the injury, Briggs still managed to earn 2nd overall at the 2015 Atlantic Regional, qualifying for the 2015 CrossFit Games. At the 2015 Games, Briggs was able to finished 4th overall. Her best performance was on Murph, in which the athletes completed in the over temperatures in the afternoon. She won the event in 39 minutes, 10 seconds, more than a minute ahead of the next closest female athlete, Alethea Boon of New Zealand, and quicker than all the male athletes bar one, Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson of

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

. Briggs nearly missed the 2016 CrossFit Games due to an issue with visa. In the first event, the Ranch Trail Run, she beat all the other female athletes, finishing nearly a minute faster than runner-up Kristin Holte, and faster than all of the men except Mat Fraser and Josh Bridges. She also won the Climbing Snail event. She again finished just out of podium in fourth place this year.

2017–2022

At the 2017 CrossFit Games, Briggs started strongly and tied first place with eventual winner Tia-Clair Toomey after the first day. However, she faltered in her weak events, such as 1-RM Snatch, eventually finishing ninth. In 2018, Briggs suffered from a severe elbow injury and had to undergo surgery. Despite the injury, she managed to qualify for the Masters division just before undergoing the surgery. She competed as a Master at the 2018 CrossFit Games, but again nearly missed the Games due to visa issue. She finished second in the 35–39 Masters division. Briggs won the first ever sanctional, the Dubai Crossfit Championship, in December 2018 to qualify for the

2019 CrossFit Games The 2019 CrossFit Games was the 13th iteration of the annual competition in the sport CrossFit Games, CrossFit held from August 1–4, 2019, at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. The men's competition was won by Mat Fr ...

. In 2021, at the age of nearly 40, Briggs finished fourth at the Dubai CrossFit Championship. She managed to qualify for the 2021 CrossFit Games; she finished 6th originally at the German Throwdown, but Emma Tall was penalised in one event in a review and Briggs was elevated to fifth to qualify for the Games. However, At the Games, Briggs was placed 21st after 10 events, just below the cut line and she did not participate in the final five events. In 2022, Briggs announced that she would retire from CrossFit after the 2022 season in August to return to the fire service. She retired after failing to qualify for the 2022 Games at the Strength in Depth semifinal. Briggs, however, continues to compete in the age-group division in 2023.

CrossFit Games results

Autobiography

Briggs autobiography, Start Your Engines: My Unstoppable CrossFit Journey, was released in 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Briggs, Sam CrossFit athletes 21st-century English sportswomen Living people 1982 births