The 2019 Reebok CrossFit Games are already shaking out to be one of the most thrilling to date. We’re less than a month out from the Games, which are being held in Madison, Wisconsin, and start on July 28th with formal competition running from August 1st-4th.
CrossFit HQ’s recent press release announced the schedule of individual cuts at the Games which will have the field of individual athletes go from 148 men and 134 women, down to 75 athletes (per division) after just the first event. There will be team cuts as well, however those have not been announced yet.
After the first event the individual athletes playing field is being cut down by roughly 50%, and it will progressively drop to 50, 40, 30, 20, and then 10 athletes following the course of events. The final will feature 10 individual athletes per division.
There’s still no word in regard to which events will serve as cutting rounds for the full competition, but you can check out the flow of the cuts below!
- Event 1: 148 Men / 134 Women
- 75 Men / 75 Women
- 50 Men / 50 Women
- 40 Men / 40 Women
- 30 Men / 30 Women
- 20 Men / 20 Women
- 10 Men / 10 Women
Now that CrossFit HQ has provided details about how the playing field will cut down, we’re still waiting on information about how athletes’ ranks from the CrossFit Open will come into play. What we know from the CrossFit Games rulebook, and the changes made from last year’s Games to this year’s, is that all of the athletes will be ranked based on their placement from the CrossFit Open. So again, we’re still not sure how this will affect, or may not even affect, the cuts.
Last year, Armen Hammer released a video that hinted at the several expected changes for the 2019 Games. Hammer had a phone call with Greg Glassman, the CEO and Founder of CrossFit at the time where the two went over some of the changes in ranking/seeding at the Games, but still, a year later and a few weeks out from the Games, there is no official word as to what this seeding means/how it will benefit the athletes.
The cutting schedule rings a familiar bell from the CrossFit Sanctionals™ Italian Showdown earlier this year, where unlike your typical CrossFit competition, had an elimination spin to it. The CrossFit Italian Showdown went from over 1,000 athletes on day one down to 280 athletes. The 280 athletes that made it to phase two were then trimmed to just three athletes per division over multiple events.
As more information becomes available for the 2019 Reebok CrossFit Games, we’ll be sure to update you accordingly.
Featured image from @mathewfras Instagram page.
