And after weeks and weeks of glimpses and guesswork, your first look at the mysterious CrossFit Games obstacle course is here.
They’re calling it the Sprint O-Course, and it’s located at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison. Demo team member and former Games competitor Paul Tremblay recently took it for a spin, and the 82-second race was uploaded to CrossFit’s YouTube channel. Check it out.
So what are we looking at here? For starters, we’re seeing a lot of variety, more than was suggested when we got a glimpse of the course last week. On July 26, Director of the CrossFit Games Dave Castro posted a couple of pictures of the course in its larval stage, showing nothing but a scant framework that only hinted at possibilities. What we thought was going to be a rope climb was in fact a frame for cargo net obstacle, one that appears to be the first that competitors will face.
After the cargo net, we’ve got a rope swing, monkey bars, a wall climb, a few logs to vault, more swinging ropes to traverse, a rope climb, crawl under nets, a ladder to climb, and a lot of balancing on logs interspersed throughout.
It’s awesome.
The CrossFit Games website has also disclosed exactly what the event will look like when it’s performed on Friday:
Athletes will race against each other head-to-head in a 3-round bracketed tournament.
Athletes will race against each other in heats of 5. The first round will have 8 heats, with the top 2 finishers from each heat moving on to the next round. Additionally, the 4 athletes with the fastest times that did not place 1st or 2nd will move on to the next round.
The second round will have 4 heats, with the winner of each heat moving on to the final, along with the athlete with the fastest time that did not win their heat.
Five athletes will race in the final round.
Places 1-5 will be awarded to the athletes in the final round, ranked by their finishing order. Places 6-20 will be awarded to the athletes from the second round, based on their times. Places 21 on will be awarded to the remaining athletes based on their times to complete the course in the first round.
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This is shaping up to be a great event that will definitely test the limits of competitors’ physical fitness, while also providing a nice nod to CrossFit’s support for the military and law enforcement officers.
Right after the Sprint O-Course, athletes will be doing the 1-rep max snatch event and the Triple-G chipper. Then they’re going to need a nap.
Featured image via CrossFit® on YouTube.
