Piecing Together the 2025 CrossFit Games Season Details
Late last week, CrossFit HQ announced “a few changes” to the 2025 CrossFit Games season, which turned out to be a top-to-bottom refresh of the entire season structure.
CrossFit made the announcement on its website and social media accounts, and Dave Castro presented the season overview himself at the monthly Affiliate Town Hall meeting.
While the information shared across these platforms was mostly consistent, there were a few variations that we want to highlight below, especially in the information Castro shared with the select crowd.
- Note: Affiliate owners and coaches with access to the Affiliate Toolkit can view a recording of the Town Hall meeting.
Here’s what we know about the 2025 season so far.
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The 2025 CrossFit Games Qualifying Process
In comparing the announcements, there is general agreement about the total number of athletes who will earn a spot at the CrossFit Games, with one small difference.
- The Games site stated, “30 men and 30 women will advance to the 2025 CrossFit Games where we’ll crown the Fittest on Earth.”
- At the monthly Affiliate Town Hall, Dave Castro said, “From the in-affiliate Semifinal and from those in-person events, there’s going to be a total of 30 athletes going to the Games.”
That appears consistent, but the Crossfit Games’ Instagram post states, “Minimum of 30 Men/Women move on to the Games.” (Fine print on page two; emphasis ours). This could simply be imprecise wording, or it could mean there are scenarios in which more than 30 athletes qualify in a division.
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What Do We Know About In-Person Qualifying Events?
The announcement made by the CrossFit Games on their site and what they shared on social media stated that the in-person qualifying events will occur from April through June and be hosted by premier event organizers around the world.
At the Affiliate Town Hall meeting, however, Castro shared additional details, including information about how many athletes will qualify for the CrossFit Games from these third-party competitions.
- “From April to June, we’re opening up the calendar, and we’re partnering with a number of event organizers. They can conduct events, independent of us, without our programming, with their own timeframes when they want them to happen. They’re going to qualify two athletes for most of them. In the smaller areas, [they] will only get one to the CrossFit Games,” Castro said.
According to Castro’s description, these in-person qualifying events appear to be mostly the same as “Sanctionals” from a previous Games qualification era.
Additionally, from what Castro said, one can reasonably infer that:
- These events will receive no funding from CrossFit (Castro stated “independent of us”).
- Athletes will now qualify for the Games after going through different programming (Castro stated “without our programming”).
- As long as they fall between April and June, it’s possible events may be on the same or back-to-back weekends (Castro stated “with their own timeframes”).
- Most events will qualify two, but smaller areas will only get one Games ticket.
In other words, aside from a few guardrails from CrossFit HQ requested during the bidding process, these events are independent.
How Many Athletes Will Qualify Through In-Person Versus In-Affiliate Events?
Earlier in the Affiliate Town Hall, Castro said that 10-15 athletes will qualify from the in-person qualifying events, while the rest will come from the virtual in-affiliate Semifinal stage.
The math suggests that if each in-person event offers one or two Games spots, the total number of events will be quite small.
Left unsaid and still to be determined, perhaps, is which event organizers will host in-person qualifying events.
- That is starting to take shape as well, though mostly through cryptic statements on Instagram.
Here are the 2025 in-person qualifying events that we can cobble together. This is subject to change and is not official:
- Far East Throwdown (May 30–June 1): Organizers have updated their website to state: “Getting ready for the new 2025 season.”
- French Throwdown (May 9–11) – Daniel Chaffy, CrossFit’s International Director and founder of the French Throwdown, was on the TheShakerShow podcast and alluded to the French Throwdown also being a qualifying event.
- Renegade Games (Dates TBD, but in 2024, the event was May 31–June 2): The manager of Renegade Games, Tommo Cox, stated, “We will make announcements as soon as possible; currently, the dates will be similar to last year.”
- Copa Sur (Dates TBD, but in 2024, the event was May 31–June 2): Copa Sur event organizers have hosted a Semifinal event for multiple seasons and posted on Instagram: “A new season is coming, with a new format, But the same emotion as always. Stay tuned for the news of COPA SUR 2025!” Dates and specifics on hosting a 2025 In-person event have not been announced.
There’s nothing to report yet for athletes in North America and Oceania.
- As of November 26, Torian Pro, Syndicate Crown, and West Coast Classic, which all hosted Semifinals in the 2024 season, have yet to make any announcements. Still, from what we can see from other event organizers, it looks like those discussions are all happening.
Worth noting: While it’s possible we see many of the 2024 Semifinals return for 2025 as in-person qualifiers events, it looks like “Competitive Regions” are a thing of the past. They were not mentioned anywhere in the announcements or by Castro.
Key Information About In-Affiliate Semifinals and the Open
The various announcements made to the public all laid out the same basic structure for the now-second stage of the season for most athletes choosing to compete beyond the Open.
However, Dave Castro again gave a bit more information in the Affiliate Town Hall.
- “This won’t apply to the Teams, but this will apply for every other athlete who does [in-affiliate Semifinals], including age groups. [They] will have to submit video, and so every single video, for all these stages for those qualifying, will be very public,” Castro said.
The public video requirement makes sense.
With the issues that occurred during Quarterfinals last season, one major criticism was the community was only seeing examples of videos from athletes who were penalized for step-ups in Event 1. That lack of “good” videos, including the event winner’s videos, left some wondering what the standard really was.
- We will now be able to see all videos of those trying to qualify to the Games through the in-affiliate Semifinal.
For the OGs: With this many layers of in-affiliate judging and online reviews, could we see a possible Josh Golden / CrossFit Grover Beach 13.2 scenario if Semifinals athletes still get major penalties?
- There is no mention of either in-affiliate Semifinals or the independent in-person qualifying events testing athletes for performance-enhancing drugs.
As the in-affiliate model tracks closely to what we have seen in previous seasons for Masters, we can assume it will follow the same process of only testing at the CrossFit Games.
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Finally, we end at the beginning with the CrossFit Open.
The details of the Open were the same in all the announcements: It will consist of three weeks of three workouts from noon PT on February 27 to 5 p.m. PT on March 17.
However, again, Castro provided an additional layer of detail about the Open and how it relates to the end of the season — the prize money.
- “The Open for all stages, for all athletes, for the community, is fundamentally the foundation for funding the prize money [for the Games season],” Castro said.
Worth noting: CrossFit’s friends at Rogue used a similar model to build the Invitational’s prize purse in both 2023 and 2024. This may not be the best comparison, however, because Rogue ultimately provided more than 50 percent of the overall prize purse directly.
The Bottom Line
As we piece together what was announced via the Crossfit Games website, Instagram, and during Castro’s monthly Affiliate Town Hall meeting, a clearer picture is beginning to take shape.
If previous seasons are a guideline, the 2025 CrossFit Games rulebook will be released late in December or early in January. We may also receive sporadic information between now and then.
More CrossFit Stories
- Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr and Laura Horvath Made History at the 2024 Rogue Invitational
- From Dancing to CrossFit, Australia’s Emily Cairns Takes Center Stage at the Adaptive CrossFit Games
- CrossFit’s New Athlete Council – Learning Lessons From the Past
Featured image: @known_knowable / Instagram
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