The 2025 CrossFit Games season is once again undergoing changes to the season structure. During a Affiliate Town Hall meeting Friday, Dave Castro shared details of the upcoming season.
Many of the rumors are, in fact, true. Some, however, are not.
One overarching principle of the 2025 CrossFit Games season is that it is essentially a three-stage season. For teams, age group and adaptive athletes, it will be the Open to In-Affiliate Semifinals to Games.
For individuals, it has the same structure but with in-person Sanctionals as an additional path to the Games.
Here’s a breakdown of the 2025 CrossFit Games season structure.
OPEN (February 27 – March 17)
Registration for the CrossFit Open will open on January 15.
The 2025 CrossFit Open will remain a three-week competition beginning on February 27.
25.1: February 27 – March 3
25.2: March 6 – 10
25.3: March 13 – 17
After the three weeks, the top 1% of individuals will advance to an “In-Affiliate Semifinals”. This will be an online competition over the course of a weekend.
Registration fees from the Open will tie directly to the prize purse of the 2025 CrossFit Games. During the call, Castro did not go into many details, but it sounds like the more participation in the Open will drive a higher prize purse…or vice versa.
Additionally, affiliates participating in the Open will have the opportunity to win prizes from sponsors or even a cash prize.
IN-AFFILIATE SEMIFINALS (April – May)
The In-Affiliate Semifinals will run over the course of a weekend. Individual, team and age group divisions will compete in this stage.
Age-Group In-Affiliate Semifinals: April 3-6
Team In-Affiliate Semifinals: April 24-27
Individual In-Affiliate Semifinals: May 1-4
Adaptive Semifinals: May 8-11
For individuals, the top 15-20 athletes worldwide will qualify directly to the 2025 CrossFit Games.
The top 20 teams will advance to the 2025 CrossFit Games. One big change, however, is that only one team from a CrossFit affiliate can advance to the CrossFit Games. For example, CrossFit Invictus or CrossFit Mayhem will not be able to send multiple teams to the Games in 2025.
As for age group athletes, the top 2% from the Open will qualify for the Masters and Teenage In-Affiliate Semifinals. Similar to last year, the top age group athletes from this stage will advance to the Masters and Teenage CrossFit Games.
JUDGING & VIDEO REVIEW
At the In-Affiliate Semifinals stage, CrossFit is implementing higher standards for judging and also requiring all videos in the individual and age group divisions to be made public.
In-person judges will be required to hold a current L1 certification, complete the 2025 Judges Course and a new Advanced Judges Course.
The videos that are public will be available for review by anyone who has taken the 2025 Judges Course.
SANCTIONALS (April – June)
For individual athletes who do not qualify to the CrossFit Games via the In-Affiliate Semifinals, there will be Sanctional-like competitions that will run from April through June.
Similar to the 2019/2020 season, these Sanctional competitions will be independently run with their own programming.
In most cases the Sanctionals will qualify two athletes (two men and two women) to the CrossFit Games. In some cases, depending on the size or location, only one male and one female athlete will advance to the CrossFit Games.
Individuals can compete in as many Sanctional competitions as they would like.
CROSSFIT GAMES (August/September)
The 2025 CrossFit Games will still be in August (location still TBA). However, individuals and teams will remain combined and will take place over the same week. Age Group and Adaptive divisions will once again be run by the Legends, Pit Teen and WheelWOD, similar to 2024.
2025 CrossFit Games: August
2025 Masters CrossFit Games: August
2025 Teenage CrossFit Games: August
2025 Adaptive CrossFit Games: September
The individual field at the 2025 CrossFit Games will be reduced to 30 athletes. The number of athletes advancing to the Games via the In-Affiliate Semifinals will vary depending on how many Sanctional competitions there are in the season.
If there are enough Sanctionals to qualify 15 athletes, then only 15 from the In-Affiliate Semifinals will qualify. If Sanctionals only send 10 athletes, then 20 from the In-Affiliate Semifinals will advance.
The Adaptive CrossFit Games will look very similar to the 2024 season. The top 10 athletes from each division will qualify for the 2025 Adaptive CrossFit Games by WheelWOD.
COMMUNITY CUP (June)
In June, CrossFit will also host a Community Cup. Unlike the 2024 CrossFit Quarterfinals, the Community Cup is open to any athlete who registered for the Open.Â
The Community Cup will take place over the course of one weekend.
Athletes who do partake in the Community Cup will be segmented into levels (remember 2022) where they will compete against those athletes who are of similar ability.
PAIRS COMPETITION (October)
New this year is a Pairs Competition. This in-person competition is for individual and masters athletes. Athletes who competed in the Open can partner with another athlete from anywhere in the world. Partners will use their Open scores to qualify.
The top pairs will be invited to compete at the in-person competition hosted by the Masters Fitness Championship in October.
