2022 "The Bear Hug" Rogue Challenge Results | BarBend (original) (raw)

On March 9, 2022, Rogue Fitness released the results of their second “The Bear Hug” Challenge, which tasked athletes to hold a sandbag for as long as possible. After all was said and done, Zachary Kunda and Andrea Nisler emerged victoriously in the Men’s and Women’s divisions. Kunda held on for over 19 minutes, and Nisler went for over 25 minutes. Here are the full results:

2022 The Bear Hug Challenge

Rx’d Men and Women held a 200-pound and a 150-pound sandbag, respectively.

Rx’d Men

  1. Zachary Kunda —19:11
  2. Nani Ourique —17:27
  3. Joel Moore —12:25

Rx’d Women

  1. Andrea Nisler — 25:03
  2. Shayna Wirihana — 22:02
  3. Jessica Pietrzyk — 21:00

Top Gyms

  1. CrossFit Sworn
  2. Dungeon Strength
  3. Rushmore CrossFit

[Related: CrossFit on Ukraine: “We Will Not Recognize the Governments of Russia or Belarus Throughout the Season”]

The Bear Hug Challenge

The first edition of “The Bear Hug” Challenge was one of the first 2021 Rogue Challenges. In that competition, Ourique ranked first overall with a time of 12:18. Although improving upon his performance by over five minutes, it was not enough to fend off Kunda.

Kunda significantly improved upon his performance in the first “The Bear Hug” Challenge, where he scored a time of 8:16. He tacked on nearly 11 more minutes to his score and trained throughout the year to achieve that result. Ten weeks before the 2022 “The Bear Hug” Challenge, Kunda shared a video on his Instagram page wherein he hit a time of 15:04. In addition to first-place prize money, Kunda also took home a full strongman bag set with sandbags ranging from 100 pounds to 400 pounds.

Although Nisler was not on the podium in the first “The Bear Hug” Challenge, she was likely familiar with it as her teammate on CrossFit Mayhem Freedom, Taylor Williamson, won the inaugural contest with a time of 19:04. Notably, that time would not have podiumed this time around, and considering the weights of the sandbags stayed the same, athletes either improved their technique or got stronger in the event. Winning this challenge continues Nisler’s stellar results in competition in 2022 as she helped team MayFem earn second place at the 2022 Wodapalooza contest alongside Williamson and Haley Adams.

Featured image: @roguefitness on Instagram