Grid League 2026 Championship – Lions vs Sharks: Lions Tie the Final 16-16 Before the Sprint Relay

The Fort Lauderdale Lions held Cristhian Alvarez Diaz back for one race in the 2026 championship. Fans had voted for a handstand walk with a 10-pound medicine ball held between the legs in the fan-voted ringer point, a one-on-one duel inside the match, and the Lions were two points behind the SWFL Sharks when Alvarez Diaz went upside down. He walked the length of the Grid in 15.38 seconds and finished almost a full quadrant ahead of Roderick Holloway, and the match was tied 16-16 with one race left.

The Sharks won that race, the Sprint Relay, in 3:15.28, and took the championship 19-17 on October 4 in Lakeland, Florida. It was a rematch of the 2025 final, which the Sharks also won, and it made them the first team in league history to win back-to-back championships.

A fast start

Both teams were playing their third match in two days, and the Lions won the first three races. The opening Partner Forward paired kettlebell ground-to-overheads with pistol stick jump-overs, and Briley Smith and Janine Stallings started it for the Lions. The Sharks reached the line first, but the rulebook requires every player to cross the finish line with their entire body, and the referees ruled that a Sharks player’s arm was outside it. The race went to the Lions.

The Mirror, a barbell race of hang snatches at 175 and 115 pounds, went to the Lions by 13 seconds, with Tricia Davis on the bar. Then Smith beat Quentin Ambrioso in the first ringer point, three legless rope climbs to the 15-foot mark and a sprint to the line. The broadcast called Ambrioso a three-time bodyweight MVP and could not remember him losing a ringer, and Smith won it by 2.29 seconds for a 6-3 lead.

The Sharks come back

The Echo is the same race run twice, 45 seconds apart. The Sharks won both. During the first, the Lions were moved to a different bar on the double touches, and the referees confirmed afterward that one of those moves was a referee error. It cost the Lions just under three seconds against a margin of nearly seven, so the result stood. The Lions finished the second Echo inside the time cap and still led 8-7.

The Sharks won the thruster ladder 73-72 to tie the match at halfway. Arcangel Andrade made the second, third and fourth bars for the Lions, and Taylor Sturgis made his lift.

Julio Delgado went clean through five burpee box jump-overs in the second ringer point and finished within 20 percent of the Sharks’ winning time to take a point. Ryan DeMattie spoke to the broadcast right after it.

“Just stay composed. It’s one race at a time, right?”

Ryan DeMattie, Fort Lauderdale Lions

The Sharks won Jack and Jill and the Female Triad to lead 15-12. Janet Durant, back on the Grid after hurting her Achilles the day before, finished the last handstand ramp for the Lions, who stayed inside the cap for a point.

Back to even

The Lions won the Male Triad, a race of kettlebell snatches, pullovers, wall balls, a handstand ramp and hang squat cleans. Eric Cardona, Delgado, Sturgis, Darren Lasso and Smith finished 0.64 seconds ahead. The Sharks challenged a fault called on their side at the handstand ramp, and the call stood, which made it 16-14.

Alvarez Diaz’s handstand walk followed, and the broadcast said the Lions had saved him for it because he had no other role in the match. His two points tied the score.

The Sprint Relay has one player on the Grid at a time across eight elements and pays three points to the winner. The Sharks led from the first element and finished 30 seconds clear.

The Lions won two of their three matches in Lakeland, took the Eastern Conference title and reached their second straight championship. Cardona, DeMattie and Paula Leyes were named Eastern Conference All-Stars during the broadcast.

Race-by-race results