Who Won the 2024 CrossFit Games Season So Far?

CrossFit Open > Quarterfinal > Semifinals. 

• 3 Open Workouts
• 4 Quarterfinals Workouts
• 6 Semifinals Events

All 40 women and 40 men who will compete this August in Fort Worth, TX, at the 2024 CrossFit Games have competed in all 13 events from the Open through the Semifinals. 

Now, we can compare them.

• Okay, we know they aren’t all created equal… let’s move past the “TSA line” of the Far East Throwdown vs the “Berm run” at the West Coast Classic in Event 1 at Semis. 

(For the 800-meter truthers out there, we can call it 12 events. More on that below.)

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The 13 events that made up the season so far are all classic CrossFit: WG, MW and MG Couplets, a Fran variation, an MGW Triplet, a Fight Gone Bad-style Triplet, two Oly Weightlifting Ladders, and a 3-2-1 round test of gymnastics skills. 

• Gone are the days of machine-heavy Semifinals, max lifts in the Open, and gimmicks in the Quarterfinals. 

Remind me: The 2023 CrossFit Games included 12 events across four days, three on each day. 

On these 13 events from 2024 so far, we can build a model that clearly illustrates who looks to be at the top of their game going into the Games. 

• The data: Click here for the full rundown of all 13 events of the 40 Games qualifiers utilizing the points scale of the Games, i.e. 1st = 100, 2nd = 97… 40th = 0. 

For the “Semifinals Event 1 run folks,” there are also points and rankings using just the other 12 events further down.

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On his way to victory in our “2024 CrossFit Games, so far” model, Jeffrey Adler wins back-to-back events against the field on Individual Quarterfinals (IQF) 24.4 and Individual Semifinal (ISF) Event 1 and is one of four total athletes with two wins: 

• Gui Malheiros wins ISF Event 5 and Event 6.
• Saxon Panchik wins Open 24.3 and IQF 24.3. 
• James Sprague wins IQF 24.1 and ISF Event 3.

In the Women’s  “2024 CrossFit Games, so far” model, Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr and Laura Horvath battle it out until the final event. 

Through the first 12 scored events, Horvath has 943 points to Toomey-Orr’s 927. In the finale, the six-time champ makes up 10 points on Laura’s 16-point lead. 

2023’s Fittest Woman repeats in 2024 using this model. 

Both Tia and Laura win two events each:

• Toomey-Orr wins IQF 24.3 and ISF Event 1.
• Horvath takes ISF Event 2 and ISF Event 4

From IQF 24.2 onward, Tia’s finishes against the 39 other athletes who qualified for the Games include two third places, four second places, two first places, and an eighth (out of nine total events).

• Her average placement across those nine events is 2.66. The first four events averaged 23rd with a 39th and 37th in Open 24.3 and IQF 24.1.

One big thing: The current Games champs are very good at CrossFit. 

• We can talk ad nauseam about the parity in the men’s division or how Toomey-Orr is a terminator sent back through time to destroy anyone who stands between her and another title, but in our model, using the most up-to-date performance data, Adler wins by almost 100 points across all 13 events, and Horvath holds off a massive comeback to take a win over Toomey-Orr by 10 points.

Okay, now for some caveats, observations, and analysis:

• The Open doesn’t matter and athletes can repeat workouts like five times. True, that’s what makes that portion of the season unique.
• Tia didn’t even complete 24.3 because of a wrist issue. Uhh, wait, she beat three other Games athletes?
• Tia was penalized on IQF 24.1, whereas Laura wasn’t. No athlete seems safe. Laura got a major penalty in 2023. Penalties are part of the sport, whether we like it or not.
• The ISF Event 1 run was different for Ricky Garard, Justin Medeiros, Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr, and Laura Horvath.

Let’s take a deeper dive into that last one. 

Here’s what the leaderboards look like if we remove ISF Event 1:

Without Semifinals Event 1 — Men

Without Semifinals Event 1 — Women

On the women’s side, the most significant change in removing the run affected Alexis Raptis and Emma Lawson, who were on the same run course in Knoxville, so that doesn’t count. 

In the case where it did make a significant difference, the athletes affected were Justin Medeiros and Ricky Garard (and Victor Hoffer). 

• In this case, if ISF Event 1 is removed, Medeiros jumps up to fourth from fifth. This was bound to happen when comparing across competitive regions due to the varying courses, and this model illustrates that. However, the final results across the full scope of the “test” minimize the impact this event has on the overall results. We’re up to debate it, though.

So, how does this reflect on the state of play heading into the CrossFit Games?

Simply put, the Games are much more Unknown & Unknowable. At least, they always have been. 

• We’ve seen workouts announced on the floor, movements and rep schemes (and run distances) announced or changed mid-workout, plus hours-long outdoor events, and things that can’t or won’t be done during the Open through Semifinals.

But will this year be different? 

The CrossFit Games team, primarily through Dave Castro’s Week in Review, has described the plan as being “a majority indoors” event at the Dickies Arena this year, so we may not have the multi-hour outdoor events and may have more variations of Classic CrossFit on the indoor floor. 

Dave Castro speaks to this a bit on his Week in Review this past week. 

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Worth noting: In the clip above, Castro says two things that are worth keeping in mind.

• The statement “the majority of events are inside,” tells us one thing for sure—not all of the event will be indoors.
• But unlike a Semifinal, the floor day-to-day or event-to-event may look completely different at Dickies Arena.

By the way, right before answering this question in the clip above, Castro read and then skipped past a question asking if there would be a swim event this year. 

We are guessing there will be one, also indoors.

Does our “2024 mock CrossFit Games” leaderboard hold true to what we will see in Fort Worth? 

Will both Jeff Adler and Laura Horvath be a repeat? 

We haven’t seen that since Justin Medeiros and Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr in 2022. 

Speaking of Tia, with injury concerns and online penalties behind her, and having just gone five for six at the North America East Semifinal and back on the Games floor, will the six-time Fittest on Earth buck these rankings in her return and get her seventh gold?  

Is there someone else that grabs the top spot? 

Is there anyone who will flounder when the events are in person and they don’t have weeks of event-specific prep before competing live on the floor?

This is a fun model to build and think through, but it will never replace running the races and letting the chips fall where they may. That’s what makes sports sports — you have to play the game.

Featured image: @ironandcastle / Instagram