A Look Back – The CrossFit Quarterfinals Era by the Numbers
In November, the CrossFit Games team released its first season update for 2025.
- In that announcement, we learned that while the Open, Semifinals, and Games remain generally the same from last season, we can say goodbye to the CrossFit Quarterfinals.
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Remind Me
Quarterfinals was the second stage of the CrossFit Games season from 2021 to 2024.
In the first three iterations (2021-2023), the top 10% of athletes (Individual, Team, and Age Group) on the leaderboard after the three-week Open could advance to compete in online Quarterfinals, with a chance to advance further to the in-person Semifinal round.
- Those who qualified then took on four to five Quarterfinal workouts over a long weekend in April.
In 2024, the “quarter” in “Quarterfinals” took on a new significance as 25% of the athletes in the Open qualified for the second stage.
The Quarterfinals stage was also the point at which athletes from around the world were grouped into their competitive regions: North America East and West, Europe, Asia, Oceania, South America, and Africa, most recently.
- The qualification rules for Quarterfinals stipulated that it was not the top 10% globally who received an invitation but the top 10% — later 25% — from their region to ultimately qualify for their region’s in-person Semifinal.
If your goal was to make Quarterfinals, the change to 25% made it much easier, but you likely didn’t realize that was your last chance at the time.
- Now, with the end of Quarterfinals (and we believe competitive regions), only the top 1-2% worldwide, depending on division, make it to the next stage.
To mark the end of the CrossFit Quarterfinals era, we look back at the key stats and details from the past four seasons.
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Individual CrossFit Quarterfinals – By the Numbers
Registration and Qualification
Qualification Statistics
- 162,792 – Athletes qualified for Quarterfinals from 2021 to 2024: 90,475 men and 72,317 women.
- 80,259 – Athletes qualified for Quarterfinals in 2024 alone: 44,302 men and 35,957 women. This number is nearly half of the total qualifiers across the four years.
Registration Statistics
- 72,231 – The total number of registrations for Quarterfinals from 2021 to 2024: 40,765 men and 31,466 women.
- This includes repeat qualifiers during the four years.
- 32,258 – Athletes registered for Quarterfinals in 2024 alone: 17,817 men and 14,541 women.
- This represents a 232% increase in men’s registration and a 255% increase in women’s registration from 2023 to 2024.
- 50,270 – Unique athletes registered for Quarterfinals from 2021 to 2024: 28,196 men and 22,074 women.
- This number includes all athletes who qualified one time, especially in 2024, as well as athletes who qualified multiple times, but it only counts them once each.
Highlights
- 2,001 – Athletes qualified and registered for all four years of Quarterfinals: 1,201 men and 800 women.
- Those athletes should get a T-shirt.
- 58.28% and 54.64% – The registration conversion rate from 2021. This is the high water mark for both men and women for all four years.
- After this year, the men’s and women’s divisions averaged a 43% conversion rate.
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The Workouts
- 296,304 – Workouts were submitted in total by all competing athletes across all four seasons with Quarterfinals. 167,327 were submitted by men, and 128,977 were submitted by women.
- 255,986 – Workouts were done in an affiliate.
- In total, 86.39% of all Quarterfinal workouts were done in an affiliate, leaving only 13.61% occurring outside of an affiliate.
- 5-5-5-4 – The number of Quarterfinals workouts each season. In the last season of Quarterfinals, only four workouts were programmed, while all other seasons had five workouts.
- In 2021 and 2022, we saw a max lift or set of lifts (the “Other CrossFit Total”), while in the latter season, they were all “for time” or “for reps.”
The Winners
- 6 – The number of athletes who won the CrossFit Quarterfinals worldwide.
- This includes Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr (2021 & 2022), Justin Medeiros (2022 & 2023), Emma Lawson (2024), Mal O’Brien (2023), Jonne Koski (2024), and Travis Mayer (2021).
- 39 – The number of athletes who won their division in their competitive region.
- Two athletes won their region three times: Justin Medeiros (2022 in North America and 2023-2024 in North America West) and Ricky Garard (2022-2024 in Oceania).
- Nine athletes won their region twice, including Guilherme Malheiros, Jason Smith, Kealan Henry, Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr, Laura Horvath, Gabriela Migała, Christina Livaditakis, and Victoria Campos. Twenty-eight additional athletes won their region; the full list is below.
- 27 – The number of athletes who won an Individual CrossFit Quarterfinals workout worldwide.
- Two athletes won four workouts: Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr and Ellie Turner.
- Two athletes won three workouts: Justin Medeiros and Olivia Kerstetter.
- Five athletes won two workouts: Jeffrey Adler, Laura Horvath, Agustin Richelme, Victor Hoffer, and Matt Dlugos.
- Eighteen additional athletes won a workout during Quarterfinals.
Here’s the full list:
The Prize Money
- $8,139,600 – The potential revenue if all qualifiers had registered for Quarterfinals.
- $3,611,550 – The actual total revenue from the $50 registration fee for all men and women registered for Individual Quarterfinals
- $1,617,900 – The revenue from the $50 registration fees for 2024 alone.
- This was 45 percent of the total for all of Quarterfinals registration fee revenue.
- $0 – The total amount of prize money that was handed out for winning Quarterfinals worldwide or winning one of the workouts.
The Bottom Line
The most significant number from the CrossFit Quarterfinals era is four.
- 4 – The CrossFit Games season has changed again after four years. Four years, four quarters. It’s as if they planned it.
We now enter a new era with a season that’s a bit of a remix of the 2019-2020 Sanctionals alongside the Age Group Online Semifinals.
It appears that CrossFit hopes the new Community Cup will fill the potential revenue gap left by the Quarterfinals. Only time will tell.
Goodbye, Quarterfinals era.
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- Semifinal Veteran Alison Scudds Readies Herself for 2025 Season and Another Run at CrossFit Games Glory
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Credit: @crossfitgames / Instagram
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