Additional reporting by Joe Genetin-Pilawa
Each season, we start with some key questions that we hope to answer in the coming year. Then, once the dust has settled and the calendar has turned over, we look back and take stock of how things turned out (and sometimes chuckle at our naïveté).
- Our original thoughts and caveats on each question from last January are below in italics, followed by our answer with the benefit of hindsight.
Now that the 2024 season is officially over, let’s review.
1. What happens in the women’s division with Toomey-Orr (and others) returning in 2024?
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The 2023 CrossFit Games were missing many top athletes from the previous season, including five of the top ten on the leaderboard:
- Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr: First in 2022, not present in 2023.
- Mal O’Brien: Second in 2022, not present in 2023.
- Brooke Wells: Fifth in 2022, not present in 2023.
- Kara Saunders: Seventh in 2022, not present in 2023.
- Haley Adams: Ninth in 2022, not present in 2023.
While we don’t know that all of them will return to competition in 2024, we can count on some of them for sure, including Toomey-Orr. What will the return of these women mean for the top of the leaderboard?
Could we see a three-way battle between Toomey-Orr, O’Brien, and Horvath? Will Brooke Wells make it back to the Games and finally earn a spot on the podium? And what about the women who made a statement in Madison last summer, like Emma Lawson, Alex Gazan, and Arielle Loewen?
In 2023, we wanted to know who would fill the Toomey-Orr vacuum. This year, it feels like there are even more questions as the G.O.A.T returns.
ANSWER
At this point, we can unequivocally say that Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr is the G.O.A.T., and the year that she took off to expand her family did not change that.
Now, we can’t know what would have happened if the 2024 Games had been held without tragedy and a full roster of the top 40 athletes.
- We saw at the Rogue Invitational in November that the 2023 Games and Rogue champ Laura Horvath can push the seven-time Fittest Woman to her limits, but it’s hard to imagine another outcome other than Tia on top of the podium.
Of the five women who placed in the top 10 in 2022 and did not compete at the 2023 Games, two returned to the top 10, with Toomey-Orr winning and Haley Adams placing fifth.
- Brooke Wells finished one spot out of the top 10, and Mal O’Brien has not yet returned to CrossFit competition.
Kara Saunders captained a team and finally got her CrossFit Games victory alongside fellow Aussie superstars James Newbury, Khan Porter, and Emily De Rooy. She made multiple heartfelt speeches in her post-event interviews.
2. Will the Canadian domination continue in the men’s division?
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Last year, Canadian men dominated the sport at every stage of competition, especially in Madison, where they took three out of the top four spots on the leaderboard along with four event wins out of 12 total events (33 percent):
- Jeffrey Adler: First place overall, two event wins.
- Patrick Vellner: Second place overall, one event win.
- Roman Khrennikov: Third place overall, one event win.
- Brent Fikowski: Fourth place overall, one event win.
The more recent Rogue Invitational (2023) leaderboard looked almost the same, with Adler and Vellner swapping places (and Fikowski and Khrennikov tying in points for third; the Russian took the tiebreaker).
Will the Canadian men continue to rule the top of the sport of fitness? Or will other challengers like Ricky Garard (who was injured in 2023), Dallin Pepper, Jay Crouch, and Lazar Ðukić rise to the occasion to battle the kings of the Great White North alongside Khrennikov (who, it’s worth noting, has developed a bit of a rivalry with the Canadians this offseason)?
ANSWER
Jeff Adler did not compete at the 2024 Games after Event 1, so he was not able to defend his title. But he could be starting to separate himself from the pack.
- He backed up his elite season in 2023 with a Rogue Invitational championship in 2024 against the top athletes in the sport, minus an injured Roman Khrennikov.
Fikowski continued his incredible run of top-four finishes at major events with a third place at the Games and a second at the Rogue Invitational in Scotland.
- We have mentioned it multiple times, but it is worth saying again: Since the Dubai Fitness Championship in 2022, he has only placed second, third, or fourth in all nine major competitions he has entered.
Pat Vellner did not have his best season in terms of leaderboard results. A major factor could have been his mid-season move from Western to Eastern Canada. Regardless, the nine-time individual Games athlete still took fourth at the West Coast Classic and fifth at the Games.
Garard, Pepper, and Crouch all had impressive seasons, with Garard and Crouch taking first and third, respectively, at the Torian Pro, then finishing seventh and 12th at the Games.
Pepper had his best season yet, and better than any of his aforementioned competitors, finishing second at both Syndicate Crown and the Games.
3. How will Justin Medeiros respond to the adversity of the 2023 Games?
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After back-to-back wins in 2021 and 2022 (and a podium finish in 2020), many were ushering in the “Medeiros Era,” following in the footsteps of Froning and Fraser.
But a traumatic start with two bike crashes in “Ride” at the 2023 Games and a rough second test in the “Pig Chipper” hindered his campaign for a third straight championship.
In the end, Medeiros took 13th place (actually a miraculous comeback after a 29th and 37th on the first day). However, Medeiros is still one of the best in the game, and the 2024 season will tell us a lot about how he can respond to this adversity.
Will Medeiros come back to rule the division? Or have his fellow competitors eclipsed him?
ANSWER
Justin Medeiros was back on track in 2024 up through the Semifinals. He won the West Coast Classic, edging out Brent Fikowski and eventual Games champ James Sprague.
Heading into the CrossFit Games, Medeiros felt confident that he could make up for his 2023 Games showing, and take back his place atop the podium.
- For many of the athletes, Ðukić’s death in Event 1 changed everything and set their Games weekend on a different course. There’s no way to know how different the final outcome would have been under normal circumstances. He finished the emotional weekend in 8th place overall.
Medeiros did collect his second event win of his career at the CrossFit Games, burning through the “Clean Ladder” in Event 6.
4. What will this new era look like for the Age Group and Adaptive divisions?
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When Dave Castro moved back into his role as the head of the CrossFit Games team, it was only a matter of time before the Age Group and Adaptive divisions were broken out into their own season-ending competitions, separate from the elite men, women, and teams. Castro had hinted at a move like this for some time, and in October, it became official.
The reaction from the community was mixed with some commentators suggesting that this will allow the Masters, Teen, and Adaptive athletes to take center stage in their own CrossFit Games, while others raised questions about media coverage, event accessibility, budgets, and a worry that these events will be seen as lesser than the Games in Fort Worth.
It remains to be seen how the Masters CrossFit Games by Legends, the Teenage CrossFit Games by PIT Teen Throwdown, and the Adaptive CrossFit Games by WheelWOD will unfold. Where will these events take place? Will fans flock to them as they have to the CrossFit Games in past years? Or will they fail to garner the attention and coverage they deserve?
We will know the answers to all of these questions by the end of the season.
ANSWER
The Masters CrossFit Games by Legends was held in Birmingham, AL, and was viewed widely as a success, with fans there to support the athletes. However, the separation from the elite and team divisions impacted the experience for some of the athletes who had competed on the large stage in Madison, WI. With a reduced budget, the crew from Legends was able to highlight the Masters competitors on three concurrent stages, with a professional live broadcast calling the action.
To date, the Masters Games have a total of 246k views on YouTube for all four days.
The Teenage CrossFit Games by Pit Teen Throwdown was held in Three Rivers, MI.
Many of the teenage athletes and their families said the shift was a positive one – an opportunity to grow their community and have the sole focus be on the teenage competitors.
The Teen Games have a total of 117k in the three-day event.
The Adaptive CrossFit Games by WheelWOD, held in San Antonio, TX, was met with mixed emotions – with some athletes craving more of a large-scale experience and others empowered to share the end of the season within the adaptive community.
The Adaptive Games averaged 22.5k each day for the four-day event, with 90k views overall.
5. Will the affiliate landscape shift dramatically due to the affiliation fee increase and new L2 requirements?
Just before the end of the year (2023), CrossFit HQ made another major announcement that sent shockwaves through the community. After 11 years, affiliation fees would be raised, despite earlier assurances that affiliate owners would continue to pay their original fees (ranging from $500 to $3000 annually, depending on when the owner first affiliated).
For most affiliate owners, the fee will top out at $4500, although there are two other fee tiers depending on several factors.
Again, the reaction was mixed, with some affiliate owners stating that it was time for the fees to increase to match inflation and to allow CrossFit to remain profitable in a tough economic climate, while others viewed the move as a cash grab with little to no increased value.
Will affiliate owners renew their contracts in 2024 under the new fee structure? Or will these small business owners choose to go their own ways, trusting that the brands and reputations they’ve built in their local will carry them through?
While no doubt some will choose not to renew, it remains to be seen how many and what impact this will have on the CrossFit brand.
ANSWER
It’s not possible to separate how affiliate owners digested these changes from other
variables in 2024.
- Chief among these, of course, was the impact Lazar Ðukić’s death had on the brand and local gyms. This includes the decision to continue the Games after his death and the fallout from those decisions on social media and national news coverage.
What we can definitively say is that on CrossFit’s global affiliate map, there are 9,950 affiliates listed. The days of using 15,000 or even 12,000 as a ballpark number of affiliates seem to be gone.
6. Will the CrossFit HQ revolving door at the leadership level smooth out in 2024?
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It’s a fair assessment to say that there has been very little stability at CrossFit HQ’s executive level since 2020, and the past year was no different, if slightly less dramatic.
In June, CrossFit CEO Don Faul announced that the company would be parting ways with long-time General Manager of Sport, Justin Bergh. Bergh had been with the company since 2013 and managed the day-to-day operations of the Games as well as major partnerships with brands, media production of the sport, and licensing arrangements with outside competitions. Dave Castro was put in his position.
Then, in October, Faul announced that Jay DeKoons would become the new VP for Affiliate and Operations. DeKoons came in with over ten years of experience in the fitness industry, where he served in leadership roles at YogaWorks and later The Bar Method.
However, almost immediately, YouTuber Andrew Hiller surfaced a video from a panel at South by Southwest in 2018 in which DeKoons referred to CrossFit as unsafe. In an exclusive statement to the Morning Chalk Up, he clarified his remarks, stating, “I don’t think CrossFit is dangerous. Several years ago, I didn’t have a lot of exposure to what goes on inside an affiliate. Over the last five years of doing CrossFit, the level of fitness I’ve achieved has exceeded anything I’ve seen with other programs.”
Will the executive roller coaster end in 2024? Once again, time will tell, but there are reasons to be hopeful.
ANSWER
Again, the answer here is tricky, but that may be, in part, due to how we phrased the original question and its caveats.
On one hand, the DeKoons hire appears to have been very good and affiliate owners and affiliate reps seem happy with his work this year. There has been more stability at the top of the organization.
- Just before the Games, Jenna Huaca joined the leadership team as Chief Marketing Officer, having been most recently the Senior Vice President, Global Head of Marketing and Digital for Barry’s Bootcamp. And her appointment has been well-received across the community.
On the other hand, Ðukić’s death and the events and decisions surrounding it resulted in a deepening of some divisions within the greater CrossFit community — and it even created some new ones.
- There were outspoken critics in both the affiliate community and sport that called for Don Faul and Dave Castro to be fired (the Professional Fitness Athletes’ Association called for Castro to be removed from the Games team, but landed just short of calling for termination.)
As things stand today, it would be difficult to say that there’s any less of a sense that the CrossFit community is on a roller coaster ride, and while there have been fewer individuals hired and fired at the highest levels, it would also be unfair to say that the general community’s confidence in the leadership of the brand is anything other than split.
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Featured image: Carlos Fleury
