Age Group and Adaptive Divisions Will No Longer Compete at the CrossFit Games
On Oct. 11, 2023, CrossFit HQ announced another major change to the 2024 season: The Age Group and Adaptive Divisions will no longer finish their seasons at the CrossFit Games. This announcement comes less than one month after announcing that the Games will be moving from Madison, WI, to Fort Worth, TX.
Adaptive athletes will be separated entirely from the CrossFit season and instead compete in the WheelWOD competition, which will host its 11th annual competition in 2023.
Masters division athletes (ages 35 to 65+) will compete in the CrossFit Open, Quarterfinals, and Semifinals. But instead of moving on to the CrossFit Games, qualifying Masters athletes will battle it out for the top spot at the Legends Championship.
Teen division athletes will also participate in the CrossFit Open, Quarterfinals, and Semifinals. They will finish out their season at the Pit Teen Throwdown in southwest Michigan.
More information about how many athletes will qualify for these separate competitions has yet to be released. The dates for the 2024 competitions have yet to be announced.
[Read More: 2023 CrossFit Games Adaptive Division Results — Who Is the Fittest on Earth?]
2024 Masters Divisions CrossFit Season
CrossFit Masters divisions have been a staple at the Games since 2010 (with the exception of the 2020 CrossFit Games, which only saw Individuals competing at the Games due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
According to CrossFit HQ’s announcement, Masters athletes will compete online during much of the 2024 CrossFit season. The biggest change in competition and venue will occur for the championship.
[After participating in the Open]…[Q]ualifying masters athletes (ages 35-65+) will then move through the online Quarterfinals and Semifinals before advancing to the Legends Championship for an in-person final.– CrossFit HQ
Per the press release, “Since 2020, more than 50 CrossFit Games masters athletes have competed at the event each year and more than 420 will compete in 2023.”
[Read More: How to Get Into CrossFit as an Older Adult]
The 2023 Legends Championship will take place from Dec. 7-10 in Tempe, AZ, before the official partnership with CrossFit begins. As of this writing, details of the 2024 Legends Championship — including how many athletes from each division will qualify, and if they’ll be able to claim the title of Fittest on Earth® — have not been announced.
2024 Teen Divisions CrossFit Season
As with the Masters divisions, many details for the Teen 2024 season have not been announced. The details that are currently available are as follows:
Like Masters athletes, Teens will compete in online Open, Quarterfinals, and Semifinals. From there, an unknown number of the top athletes will move on to compete for the crown at the Pit Teen Throwdown.
[Read More: 2023 CrossFit Games Age Group Division Results]
Per the statement on CrossFit’s website, “[T]he Pit Teen Throwdown offers a highly competitive arena for world-class athletes to test their skill, strength, and stamina against their peers.” The announcement goes on to say:
Big names in the sport have competed in the Throwdown in the past such as 2023 Rookie of the Year Olivia Kerstetter and 2022’s second-Fittest Woman on Earth Mal O’Brien.
– CrossFit HQ
Kerstetter took home 16th place in her first appearance at the Games as a 17-year-old in 2023. The two-time Teen division champion was the youngest Individual athlete on the field.
At 17 years old, O’Brien was the youngest athlete ever to earn an Individual event win at the 2021 Games, where she ultimately finished seventh overall in her rookie season as an Individual. She sat out the 2023 Semifinals and Games.
2024 Adaptive Divisions CrossFit Season
Though the Age Group divisions will participate in the official CrossFit season for most of their competitive year, it seems that the Adaptive divisions will not. Per CrossFit’s announcement: “The entirety of the adaptive athlete competition will be run by WheelWOD.”
In recent years, only three out of eight Adaptive divisions have moved on from the CrossFit season to the Games themselves. The top athletes from Multi-Extremity, Lower Extremity, and Upper Extremity have competed in Madison to tough it out for the crown of Fittest on Earth®.
The remaining Adaptive divisions — Vision, Intellectual, Seated With Hip Function, Seated Without Hip Function, and Short Stature — have had their seasons capped at the Semifinals, with winners crowned there.
That is about to change, according to CrossFit HQ.
Now, in partnership with WheelWOD, the race for the championship will include 15 divisions, and athletes from all 15 will have a chance to advance to the in-person final.
– CrossFit HQ
How these divisions and qualifying standards may change (as well as how many athletes will be eligible to compete for the final crown) remains to be seen.
[Listen: Social Power of Adaptive Athletics (with Jedidiah Snelson)]
2023 CrossFit Adaptive and Age Group Division Controversies
These changes emerged after a controversial 2023 CrossFit season for the Adaptive and Age Group divisions.
One of these controversies played out well before the Games. Per the 2023 CrossFit Rulebook, many Adaptive athletes were rendered ineligible for competition because CrossFit declared that medical diagnoses were no longer enough to allow athletes to participate in Adaptive divisions.
Instead, the Rulebook stated that athletes’ impairments must be “present consistently” and visible on camera at all times if an athlete were to be eligible to compete. The 2022 Neuromuscular (now Multi-Extremity) division champion, Morgan Johnson, and top athletes Leila Ives and Alyssa Kobela in the same division were all disqualified from competition on this basis. Ives and Kobela both appealed the decisions and were denied by CrossFit.
The next controversy in the divisions arose not before the Games, but during them. Adaptive and Age Group athletes and their fans endured the same lack of equitable coverage in the livestreams of their events, which were filmed at a consistent angle that rendered the action and athletes all but invisible to viewers.
[Listen: What You Probably Don’t Know About Adaptive Fitness (w/ Alec Zirkenbach)]
These controversies may be leading some members of the Age Group and Adaptive communities to be excited about the opportunity to have more spotlight on their competitions.
For her part, Kobela reposted CrossFit HQ’s announcement in her Instagram stories soon after the post was published. She wrote, “Cannot wait to have the honor of competing @wheelwod at the end of this year and excited to see oppo[r]tunities to compete grow for all adaptive athletes.”
[Read More: 2023 CrossFit Adaptive Divisions — Who Is the Fittest on Earth® and Who Is Going to the Games?]
It remains to be seen whether other Adaptive athletes will applaud this separation from the Games, and whether these competitors will still be able to claim the title Fittest on Earth® like their peers in the Individual divisions.
2024 CrossFit Season
So far, since the 2023 CrossFit Games, the announced changes to the 2024 season have been big ones. With the big event moving to Texas and three of the major overall divisions moving out of the Games entirely, much about the coming season is up in the air.
BarBend will continue to keep you up to date on the newest developments. In the meantime, check out more CrossFit news below:
Featured Image: @wheelwod / Instagram
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