Crossfit Games: The ultimate competition

The CrossFit Gamess represent the culmination of a challenging road to the title of "Fittest on Earth".

This annual event not only tests the athletes' strength, speed and agility, but also their ability to face the unknown, fundamental characteristics of this sport.

Since its inception in 2007, the games have evolved from a small gathering of fitness enthusiasts on a ranch in California into a spectacular global competition that attracts top athletes from around the world.

In this article, we will explore the origins, structure and impact of the CrossFit Games, as well as what is required to compete in this demanding tournament.

In 2024 they are no longer called Nobull CrossFit Games, as they were sponsored by this sports brand. From 2011 to 2021 they were the Reebok CrossFit Games. Before Reebok sponsored this great event, it was simply called the CrossFit Games.

In this competition, athletes must be prepared for anything, including testing themselves with surprise elements.

It is typical for athletes to face tests such as running, swimming, cycling, weightlifting, gymnastic elements, carrying very heavy rare objects, obstacle tests...

Basically, professional athletes spend the whole year training for a competition that is mysterious.

How many people compete?

Over the years the CrossFit Games have evolved tremendously to be as inclusive as possible, growing in the number and type of categories.

The following categories are currently competing:

• individual: male and female
• aged group: teenagers (14-17 years) and masters (35-60+)
• team: 2 men + 2 women of the same affiliated box
• adaptive: athletes with disabilities. Within this group, work continues to expand the division of athletes.

When are they held?

They are usually located during the first week of the first week of August.

This competition usually lasts 4 days, from Thursday to Sunday.

Where are the CrossFit Games held?

At the beginning, they were held at the Ranch, owned by the family of Dave Castrothe former director of the CrossFit Games until 2022.

Seeking to expand the competition, they moved to Home Depot Californiabut for the first time in 2017, they moved to Madison.

In 2024 they move to Fort Worth, Texas.

CrossFit Games Winners

Personalities

History of the CrossFit Games

2024 - New location in Texas and death of Lazar

After several years in Madison, the move to Fort Worth, Texas, is announced. It also marks the end of NOBULL sponsorship.

This edition would be marked forever due to the death of an athlete during the first race, which involved running and swimming.

After the tragic accident that took the life of Serbian Lazar Djukic, many athletes opted to withdraw, which had a significant impact on the competition due to the constant desertions.

2023 - Dave Castro returns to lead the CrossFit Gamess

Shortly after the end of the Semifinals, CrossFit announces the dismissal of Justin Bergh and the return of Dave Castro as director of the Gamess. Castro retains Bosman as the event planner.

In the absence of Tia-Clair Toomey due to the birth of her first daughter, Laura Horvath achieved his first and long-awaited victory in a CrossFit Games.

On the men's side, Canadian Jeffrey Adler wins its first title.

2022 - Justin Bergh new Games director

The season begins with the dismissal of the Games, Dave Castro. He is replaced by his right-hand man Justin Bergh, y delegate to Adrian Bosman, until now the head judge of the competition, the task of planning the season..

2021 - NOBULL

The season began with the announcement of NOBULL's sponsorship.

See implemented the Quarterfinalsa phase that succeeded the Open and of which the qualified for the Semifinals. Although the initial intention was for the Semi-Finals to be in person, circumstances forced 10 events to be held remotely.

Appeared on Last Chance Qualifier that granted one last chance to the athletes who had fallen short of qualifying for the Semifinals: 2 girls and 2 boys got their ticket to Madison.

Tia-Clair Toomey with already 4 titles behind her made history by winning the first 3 events.s, putting him in a good position to defend his title for another year. He also managed to win 9 events, bringing his total number of career wins to 33, breaking the previous record set by Mat Fraser.

Justin Medeiros won the Games and became the youngest male athlete to win the Games to crown the fittest.

2020 - On the ranch again

A year marked by the pandemic, it seemed that the season could not be held. Twenty-eight competitions in 21 countries on six continents were planned, but competitions began to be postponed and eventually cancelled due to the impediments of the global emergency situation..

The solution chosen: to hold a first virtual phase of the Games with the best of the Open. Only the Top 5 men and women ended up competing in person at the finals at the Ranch..

Once again proving that no matter the circumstances Tia Clair Toomey and Mat Fraser won with a margin of 360 and 545 points respectively.

2019 - Sanctioned events

Glassman completely revolutionized the season by drastically changing the Games qualification methodology.. The Open gained much more importance as a direct qualification option to the Games. CrossFit Regionals were replaced by CrossFit-sanctioned events organized by third parties.

While the number of individual athletes multiplied by including representation from all international countries, the number of teams and aged groups decreased.

In order to have a more manageable competition track, there were cuts after each event, considerably narrowing the number of athletes competing. After the 6th event on Saturday morning there were only 10 men and 10 women left..

Although this year was highly criticized by athletes who were left out of that top 10 and supported by a good part of the community, was not an impediment for Tia Clair Toomey and Mat Fraser to win for the 3rd and 4th consecutive time, respectively..

2018 - The rowing marathon

Record participation in the Open with 416 thousand registered.

The first day of competition concluded with the longest event in the history of the Games, a rowing marathon that was won by Lukas Esslinger with a time of 2:43:50 and Margaux Alvarez with a time of 3:00:42..

2017 - New location in Wisconsin

After 7 years at the stadium Home Depot CenterThe Games move to the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin.

This year's regionals were innovative in that not a single barbell was used in any of the 6 events. For the individuals there was a heavy dose of dumbbells and gymnastic exercises. For the teams, the 6-person worm was the star element.

At the Games, Math Fraser wins the competition for the second year in a row in the most dominant manner yetwith the largest margin of victory over the second and accumulating 1132 out of a possible 1300.

Quite the opposite happened with the girls. Tia-Clair Toomey won by just 2 points over fellow Aussie and Kara Saunders being the smallest margin in history.

2016 - Tenth Anniversary of CrossFit Games

This year the athletes were surprised with the message to pack a suitcase to travel by plane, not knowing that they would end up at the Ranch in San Jose for the first events of the 2016 Games.

2015 - New divisions in the Open

A change in the structure of the organization was introduced. The regionals would be 8 in total, and the number of athletes that would reach Games would be 40.

The following were added 2 new divisions for the Open:

• Teenage Division: 14 - 17 years old
• Scaled: adapted version

In creating the scaled-up version Castro saw the opportunity to present the Even more demanding RX WODs.

During the Games, Castro made a voting on Twitter to decide between a Long DT and Heavy DT for the last event on Friday, the winner was heavy.

This year Fraser again came in second place and that marked the before and after of the athlete's sporting career.

2014 - Increases your visibility

For the first time, all the regionals were broadcast in the CrossFit website.

That year marked the end of an era. Rich Froning announced that regardless of his result at the Games, he would retire as an individual athlete. The last day of competition Froning won all events with a significant lead, closing his individual career in style.

The Games began with the Masters division. Before they were over, Castro added an extra day of individual competition by moving up on Wednesday. The athletes swam the ocean at Hermosa Beach Pier.

For the first time, it included a prize for all singles in the top 20. Also born were the titles of:

• Rookie of the Year, which was won by Mat Fraser
• Most Improved Athlete, which was won by Cassidy Lance.
• Spirit of the Games received by Becca Voigt.

2013 - Pig and worm

The Open made record participation so far with 138,000 participants. The duration was reduced to 5 weeks and 5 WODs.

At the Regionals, the athletes faced the WOD Jackie.

That year, the Masters competition included a Nancy among other events that were broadcasted by ESPN. When the masters competition was over, the singles competition got underway in order to use all the space in the sports center.

In this edition we saw two new elements:

• Pig: very heavy structure that had to be rotated around the track.
• Worm: set of 6 mini segments joined by a fabric and recreating the shape of a worm used by the teams.

Rich Fronining won the Games for the third consecutive time.being the first athlete to achieve this feat.

2012 - More competitive regionals

The growth of the CrossFit community accelerated. Open participation reached 69,000 (43,000 more than in the previous year).

They increased the number of formations in L1.

This year the regionals were more, more repetitions, heavier bars and more demanding of skills. One of the events was Diane.

This year, an extra day was added to the competition, beginning at Wednesdays at U.S. Marine base Camp Pendleton. There the athletes faced 700 m swimming in the ocean with fins, 8 km cycling on uneven sandy terrain and more than 11 km of obstacle course through the mountain accumulating 427 meters of elevation gain.

On Thursday, the competition continued at the stadium.

2011 - The Reebok CrossFit Games

This season the 10-year sponsorship of the Games by the multinational company Reebok. This fact makes possible the considerable increase of the economic prize offered to the winners of the competition. The following are distributed a total of 1 million dollars. Individual winners have $250,000 in prize money.

The Open6 WODs in 6 weeks (March 15 to May 1) in which more than 26,000 athletes participated worldwide.

The best 60 (30 women and 30 men) and 30 teams from each regionIn addition, they won invitations to participate in the next phase, the Regionals.

In total there were 17 regionals around the world with 6 events over 3 days of competition (from May 27 to June 19).

Only the best competed at the CrossFit Games July 29-31 at Home Depot Center, California and they are broadcast for the first time on ESPN increasing the exposure of the sport.

2010 - New location in Home Depot Center

To the Regionals a preliminary qualifying phase is added, the Sectionals.

El Rancho remains small and the competition is moved to Home Depot Centera professional sports center in Los Angeles (California).

On July 16, the first event of the new CrossFit Games kicked off in honor of Amanda Miller.

For the first time introduces the Masters category in the competition.

2009 - 3rd year in Aromas

It was the explosion of the Games. What had started out as a local competition came to include a qualifying phase (the former Regionals) at different events around the world.

An estimated 4,000 fans attended to watch the competition in person.

You can get an idea of what the Games were like in their early days at the Ranch with these images:

2008 - Participants multiply

By the next edition, the Games had gained in popularity and some 300 athletes participated.

That year the athletes performed a variant of the famous benchmark Fran.

As a curiosity, that year the need to fully extend the hip was specified for the burpee to be valid.

That year the famous Jason Khalipa appeared out of nowhere and beat the favored candidate Josh Everett.

2007 - The inaugural CrossFit Games

This year marks the first Games at Rancho de Aromas (California), owned by the family of Dave Castrowho has been the director of the CF Games until 2022.

They gather about 70 athletes in total who were chosen randomly, without qualifiers.

The founder of CrossFit, Greg Glassman always believed that athletes should be able to do whatever task they were given, and with that philosophy they randomly chose the first WOD of the competition. They had written different exercises on slips of paper that they had placed in containers.

When randomly extracting papers the result was:
1000 m of row
5 rounds
25 pull-ups
7 push jerks