Over on the official website of the Reebok CrossFit Games, a new article has been posted detailing several changes we can expect for the 2018 Reebok CrossFit Games Regional format.
Firstly, there will be nine regional events instead of eight. The number of United States Regionals will be reduced to five. European athletes will be divided between the Europe Regional, which combines the Central and North Europe Regions, and the Meridian Regional, which combines South Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
The article describes the new Regions as follows. (We’re quoting from the site here.)
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South Central will include Texas through Mississippi and will only include U.S. States.
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West Coast will include California as well as the North West states from Washington to Wyoming. Alaska and Hawaii are also included.
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Central America will include Mexico through Panama and the islands to the east.
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Europe North will include Aland Islands, Bulgaria, Belarus, Bouvet Island, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Slovakia, Sweden and Ukraine.
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Europe Central will encompass Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, United Kingdom, Greece, Croatia, Isle of Man, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Moldova, Macedonia, Netherlands, Serbia, Slovenia and Kosovo.
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Europe South will include Andorra, Switzerland, Cyprus, Spain, France, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Italy, Jersey, Monaco, Malta, Montenegro, Portugal, San Marino, Turkey and Holy See (Vatican).
This visual representation makes things a little easier to understand.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcIdhCuAd8U/
The caption on the Instagram post simplifies the changes into these bullet points:
- Latin America will have a Regional competition.
- Europe divides into two.
- Competition lines have been redrawn.
- Team competition moves from six competitors to four.
The change in the number of competitors per team is an important one, too. At the beginning of November, Dave Castro announced some of these changes and noted that the change in the number of competitors should make for more exciting competition and result in groups that are closer to “super teams.”
The 2018 Open Season should kick off in February or March next year.
Featured image via @mathewfras on Instagram.