With tens of thousands of CrossFit Open registrants — more than 90,000 women this year — it’s always a bit of a challenge to nail down the biggest takeaways from the worldwide leaderboard.
- This year, there’s the added layer of many of the world’s top athletes who have chosen to sit out the 2025 CrossFit Games season because they’re unhappy with CrossFit LLC after all that has unfolded since last year’s CrossFit Games.
- Others, such as Arielle Loewen, have told us they’ll do the Open but that their top priority will be the World Fitness Project (WFP) season.
Now that the Open is behind us, time will tell whether more top athletes will sit out the rest of the 2025 season or whether they push to qualify for the 2025 CrossFit Games in Albany, NY.
Controversies aside, there were still plenty of noteworthy performances and statistics from this year’s Open. Here are some that caught our eye.
Let’s Talk About the Top Three Women
It seems only right to begin with the performances at the top of the leaderboard:
- First: Switzerland’s Mirjam von Rohr has likely secured her second straight Open title. We can only assume she’ll be looking to qualify for her first CrossFit Games since failing to do so in the European Semifinals last season, where she finished 18th.
- Second: Competing in her 12th consecutive Open, Fee Saghafi sits inside the top 10 for the first time in her career. After qualifying for the Games in 2023, Saghafi missed out last season when she finished 16th at the North America East Semifinal.
- Third: After sitting out the 2023 and 2024 seasons due to a wrist injury, the UK’s Lucy Campbell burst back onto the scene at the 2025 TYR Wodapalooza, winning the entire thing over 2023 Games champion Laura Horvath. Campbell told the Morning Chalk Up that for her redemption story to be complete, she wants to get back to the Games this summer. Her third-place position in the Open only reminds us that Campbell should not be ignored this CrossFit Games season.
All of Last Year’s Games Athletes Finished in the Top 1,200
As stated in this year’s rulebook, the top 1%, or a minimum of 1,200 athletes, will advance to the In-Affiliate Semifinals.
- Of the 40 women who competed in last year’s CrossFit Games, 28 of them competed in this year’s Open. And every one of those 28 finished inside the top 1,200 and advanced to the In-Affiliate Semifinals this year.
Some 2024 Semifinals Athletes Fell Out of the Top 1,200
Out of last year’s 279 female Semifinals athletes, 206 competed in the Open. Of those athletes, 169 of them finished inside the top 1,200.
- The biggest name in the 37 who didn’t qualify for the In-Affiliate Semifinals was Amanda Barnhart, who completed the Open workouts while pregnant.
Top Names Outside Syndicate Crown Cut Line
Similarly, a handful of Games veterans sit outside the top 20 in North America East, which is the cutline for qualifying for the Syndicate Crown in Knoxville, TN. Up for grabs at this In-Person-Qualifying Event (IPQE) will be two invitations for the top women to this summer’s Games.
- Missing the cut are Shelby Neal (25th), Caroline Stanley (36th), Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr (40th), and Haley Adams (78th).
Toomey-Orr Finishes 144th
Seven-time Fittest Woman on Earth Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr finished the Open in 144th overall. And while this likely isn’t a reflection of her overall fitness level, it might just be a reflection of where her priorities are this season — maybe with HYROX?
- Last weekend, Toomey-Orr teamed up with elite HYROX athlete Joanna Wietrzyk in the Pro Women’s Doubles division at the HYROX race held in Houston, TX, last weekend. Not only did they win, they broke the world record and secured a spot in the Pro Doubles Elite 15 World Championship.
Sara Sigmundsdottir’s Best Open Since 2020
Sara Sigmundsdottir, who has battled numerous injuries in recent years, has failed to qualify for the CrossFit Games since 2020. She finished 15th in the Open worldwide this year, marking her best finish since she won the Open in 2020.
- Could 2025 be the year Sigmundsdottir returns to the Games?
New Blood in South America
The South American women’s leaderboard looks a whole lot different this Open than last.
- Only one of the three athletes who represented South America at the Games last summer competed in the Open this year — Andreia Pinheiro, who finished 45th — while the other two, Victoria Campos and Julia Kato, did not.
The top three in South America in the Open this year are all relative unknowns: Aline Cabral (15th at the 2024 South America Semifinals), Maria Camila Quintero, and Aline Sanefuji, both of whom competed on teams last year.
New Names in the Top 10
Every year, there are a couple of athletes near the top of the leaderboard in the Open who even the die-hard fan doesn’t know much about.
- This year, the two names that jump out, both in the top 10, are Aline Wirz of Switzerland (eighth) and Oda Lundekvam (ninth) of Norway.
Wirz finished 22nd at the Europe Semifinals last year and 29th the previous year, while Lundekvam, with her CrossFit Oslo Kriger BLST team, finished seventh at the Games last summer.
Redemption for Erica Folo in 2025?
Erica Folo experienced a heartbreaking end to her 2024 season at the North America East Semifinals.
- Folo was sitting pretty most of the Semifinals weekend to earn her first ticket to the CrossFit Games, but on the final workout, she was unable to hold onto the 70-pound dumbbells, failing lunge rep after lunge rep, ultimately costing her a Games ticket.
Less than a year later, Folo is back, and it looks like she’s back in a big way. She finished 18th overall in the Open and just might be on her way to redemption in 2025.
Kristin Holte Finishes in the Top 10
Eight-time CrossFit Games veteran Kristin Holte announced she would retire after the 2021 season. She then had a baby and solidified her role as a coach and mentor with Kriger Training.
- Then, Holte returned to competition at the 2024 Dubai Fitness Championship, where she finished fifth. Now, she’s seventh in the world in the Open and just made things a lot more interesting.
While we don’t know what Holte’s plans are this season, a return to the Games could be on the horizon.
The Big Picture
The Open is over, but as always, the leaderboard should be taken with a grain of salt, especially until CrossFit officially locks it in place.
For the top athletes in the world vying for a Games berth, the Open is but a small hurdle to clear to advance to the next stage.
As a result, their Open performances don’t always reflect exactly where they’re at. Further, considering the current climate in the community, it’s still not clear who intends to gun for the Games and who might sit the rest of this season out.
So, we’ll have to wait for the next stage of competition — the In-Affiliate Semifinals and the In-Person Qualifying Events (IPQE) — to gain a better understanding of how the 2025 Games season will shake out.
More CrossFit Stories
- World Fitness Project Seeks ‘Founding Fifty’ for New Affiliate Program
- 2025 CrossFit Open Results — Mirjam von Rohr and Colten Mertens Top the Leaderboard From Start to Finish
- Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr and Joanna Wietrzyk Win HYROX Pro Doubles in Houston, Break World Record
Featured Image: @lucycampbell5 / Instagram
