Changes for CrossFit in 2015

Some of us knew it was coming and some of us were completely shocked. After the CrossFit invitational wrapped up in November, Dave Castro dropped a bomb on the CrossFit community. To ensure that the future of the CrossFit Games boasts the very best of the best, a reevaluation had to be made. Here’s the basic outline to fill in the gaps about the new information and changes.

1.    Regions to be combined into 8 regional competitions:

Last year there were 17 regions for the Open, this year the top athletes of each region will face at least one other region in the new format.

Here are the combined regions:

1.    Canada West and North West Regions ? West Regional
2.    Canada East and North East Regions ? East Regional
3.    NorCal and SoCal Regions ? California Regional
4.    North Central and Central East Regions ? Central Regional
5.    South West, South Central and Latin America Regions ? South Regional
6.    Mid Atlantic and South East Regions ? Atlantic Regional
7.    Europe and Africa Regions ? Meridian Regional
8.    Australia and Asia Regions ? Pacific Regional

2.    The number of athletes varies from region to region:

• 20 men, 20 women and 15 teams will advance from regions in the U.S. and Canada.
• 30 men, 30 women and 20 teams will advance from Europe and Australia.
• 10 men, 10 women and 10 teams will advance from Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Region combinations:

• 40 men, 40 women and 30 teams at all regionals except the South Regional, which will have 50 men, 50 women and 40 teams.
• 3 days of regionals competitions, top 5 men, top 5 women, and top 5 teams will advance to the 2015 Reebok CrossFit games

3. Region Boundary Changes

Russia will be split along the Ural Mountains into its Western and Eastern halves. The Western half will be included in the Europe Region, and the Eastern half will be included in the Asia Region.

The Middle East will now be included in the Africa Region. This includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

4.    Scaled Division for the Open

CrossFit is for everyone. 2015 will not fail to include the athletes who still want to compete in a division where the programming better fits their abilities.  CrossFit states “One rep of the prescribed version of the workout will be ranked ahead of the best score of the scaled version of the workout—we want to celebrate and reward the hard-earned first-ever chest-to-bar pull-ups, double-unders and snatch PRs.

If you cannot get one rep of the prescribed version of the workout, or simply find the scaled workout more appropriate for you, you’ll be able to opt for scaled. You’ll stay on the overall Leaderboard, but pick up more points.”

5. New Teenage Division

Young Crossfitters between the ages of 14-17 now have their own division. They will be given a different version of the Open workouts and have a chance to be crowned champion on the 5th week of competition.

Teens in this age group will automatically be included in this division unless they elect to compete with adult men and women.

6. Country and State Champions

The adding of crowning country and state champions will still allow there to be “Fittest in Country X”, even if those athletes do not qualify at the ‘Super Regional’ to go to the Games.

The 2015 Open will still sift out and crown the fittest in each country and Australian, U.S., and Canadian state or providence.