The 2023 CrossFit Games is the 17th edition of the premier competition in the sport of CrossFit held from August 1 to August 6, 2023, in Madison, Wisconsin.[1] The winners were Laura Horvath for the women's competition, Jeffrey Adler for the men's, and CrossFit Invictus for the team's.[2]
The qualification process for the 2023 CrossFit Games was adjusted this season,[3] and a worldwide ranking of athletes was introduced for the determination additional qualifying spots for the CrossFit Games.[4][5] All the workouts for the semifinals will also be standardized and programmed by CrossFit.[6] This Games is the final one to be held in Madison, Wisconsin since it was first held there in 2017.[7] The prize purse increased to $2.945 million this year, with the winners receiving $315,000.[8]
This year a number of top female athletes from 2022 did not compete at the Games, including the women champion Tia-Clair Toomey due to pregnancy,[9] and the runner-up Mal O'Brien.[10]Laura Horvath trailed Emma Lawson for large part of the Games, but managed three consecutive wins in the last four events to capture her first title at the Games.[11] The 2022 runner-up Roman Khrennikov led for most of the Games, but injured his foot in the final day of competition, and finished third to the eventual winner Jeffrey Adler.[12] After several years of absence, ESPN returned as broadcaster for the Games with live coverage on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN+.[13]
Qualifications
There are three qualification stages as before, but the number of competition regions has been reduced from 10 to seven: North American East, North American West, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and South America.[14][15] Athletes are required to compete in their respective competition regions, but special exemptions are awarded to some athletes who applied for them.[16] A new world ranking system was introduced, and athletes can acquire points across all four stages of the competition: the CrossFit Open, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and Games over a two-year period. The ranking was used to determine the strength of field of the semifinals and additional qualification places for the Games would be awarded based on the strength of field of the semifinals.[17][18] The online Occupational Games created in 2021 was removed this year.[19]
Open
The Open began on February 16, 2023, with a live announcement in Madrid, Spain.[20] It lasted three weeks until March 6 and had four scored workouts, with the 23.2 test split into two.[21][22] This year the figure for Open participation increased by around 10% again, to 323,014.[23][24] The Open was won by Mal O'Brien and Jeff Adler.[25][26]
Quarterfinals
As with 2022 season, the top 10% of the Open participants and top 25% of team in each continent qualify for the Quarterfinals.[27] The top 60 women, top 60 men and the top 40 teams in the North American East, North American West and European regions will proceed to the semifinals. For the Africa, Asia, Australia and South America regions, the top 30 women and men, and the top 20 teams, will compete in their respective semifinals.[28]
The Quartfinals started on 16 March 2023 with all five individual workouts released, to be completed and the results submitted by participating athletes on specified time periods until 19 March.[29] The team Quarterfinals followed from March 29 through March 30, and age group from March 31 through April 1.[30] Mal O'Brien and Justin Medeiros were the respective individual female and male overall winners of the quarterfinals.[31][32]
Semifinals
The number of competitions has been reduced from 10 to 7, with the number in North America and Europe reduced to two and one respectively, while the continents of Africa, Asia, Australia and South America would have one each as before. CrossFit itself will run the three competitions in North America and Europe.[3] All the workouts for the Semifinals will also be standardized, a return to the system used for the Regionals.[6] There will be no Last Chance Qualifiers, instead a world ranking system was introduced, and the number of qualifying places will be allocated based on the strength of the field in each of the Semifinals as determined by the ranking system.[17] Five qualification places are guaranteed for each of the North American and European competitions, three for Oceania, two each for Asia and South America, and Africa one.[33] Of the 17 remaining qualifications spots, the D'Hondt method would be used to determine the number of qualifiers of each region based on the top 100 ranking of their participants after the conclusion of the Quarterfinals.[34][35]
The Semifinals are scheduled to take place over four weekends between 28 April and 4 June, starting with the Age Group Semifinal held online. The in-person live competitions for the Individual and Team Semifinals are to be held starting May 18.[36] Due to the higher number of competitors in North America and Europe, the three Semifinals for these regions would be held over four days, while the other Semifinals would be held over three days.[37] The cash prize for the winners of the semifinals doubled to $10,000 this season.[8]
^AOn March 1, 2022, CrossFit announced they will not recognise athletes from Russia or Belarus as a result of Russian violations of the Olympic truce through invasion of Ukraine during the binding truce. Athletes thereby will compete as neutral athletes. This rule continues to be in effect during the 2023 CrossFit Games.[40]
The individual competitions of the CrossFit Games was held starting Thursday August 3, 2023 in Madison. The field was cut from 40 to 30 at the end of Friday, and from 30 to 20 at the end of Saturday.[42][43]
The team competitions of the CrossFit Games was held starting Thursday August 3, 2023 in Madison. The field will be cut from 40 to 30 at the end of Friday, and from 30 to 20 at the end of Saturday.[42][43]
