The Age Group Online Qualifier Kicks Off Today
What’s happening?
The Age Group Qualifier — or AGOQ for short — kicks off tonight at 5PM Pacific with a live announcement on Facebook. It’s essentially the Regionals equivalent for Teens and Masters. Similar to the Open, workouts are released on Thursday night and athletes have until Monday at 5:00 PM Pacific to submit their scores. The only difference is there are four WODs instead of one, and they’re usually a tad harder. Just a tad. After all, these 200 athletes in each age group are vying for one of 20 spots at the CrossFit Games so that shouldn’t come as a surprise.
There are a total of 3200 athletes across 16 age divisions around the globe completing the AGOQ over the next four days.
#AGOQ: Live Workout Announcement
Check out the release show for the workouts in the Age Group Online Qualifier. Athletes in the top 200 of each of the Masters and Teenage Divisions are eligible to submit workouts. Use #AGOQ #CrossFitMasters and #CrossFitTeens to share your experience.
Posted by The CrossFit Games on Thursday, April 19, 2018
A brief history.
The AGOQ was first introduced in 2014 and it was only for Masters, not teens. Like the individual and team divisions, the Masters divisions have continued to grow to the point where a second stage was needed. Before that, only the top 20 from each age group in the Open were invited to the Games.
- 2010: Masters division first created.
- 2013: 40-44 division introduced.
- 2014: Age group online qualifier created.
- 2017: 35-39 division introduced. Teens divisions added to the AGOC.
So what are the WODs like?
Take a look at last year’s WODs.
We’re talking deficit handstand push-ups, high volume muscle-ups, heavy barbell movements like cleans at (225/155) and heavy deadlifts (315/225). Also, one WOD was a repeat of Open WOD 16.2. Let’s not forget, they have to do all four in four days. We’d be shocked if handstand walking didn’t appear after it was introduced in the Open this year.
What if they also qualify for Regionals?
NBD. Several masters and teen athletes over the years have qualified for both the AGOQ and Regionals — actually 36 masters qualified for both this year. Josh Bridges said ‘thanks, but no thanks’ and is sticking to individuals only. Other notable names over the years have been Sam Briggs, Val Voboril and 17-year-old Haley Adams (she was 16 at the time BTW, and she’s heading back again this year). But if you qualify on a team or as an individual then you have to give up your Master’s spot.
Now all we have to do is wait a few hours for the WODs to be released.