Sign up for the 2019 Open

2019 is a special year for the CrossFit Open, the qualifying stage for the CrossFit Games. Why? Because this year there will be two Opens, since we are in transition between the old and new ways of qualifying for the Games. But lets not panic quite yet! Signing up for the Open is just the same as all previous years. It only changes what happens at the end for those who qualify. What is the CrossFit Games Open? If you are a new crossfitter, the Open constitutes the starting stage to qualify for the CrossFit Games. It is the first level of qualification that every athlete must go through and conquer in order to advance to the next stage. It is a worldwide event, and happens simultaneously for Rx and scaled athletes alike. Up to last year, the 20 best athletes in each region (with a few exceptions) would qualify to compete at a “Super” Regionals event, and from there, the top 5 (with a couple of exceptions, 4 in the Meridian Region and 1 in the Latin American Region) would then advance to compete in Madison at the world stage. This year everything changed since Greg Glassman decided to change the qualification format, by a couple of main factors:

Regional events were too costly to hold;
There are a lot of affiliates in countries with no representation at the Games, and so this new method will promote inclusion and boost development of CrossFit in these newer countries.

And so farewell Regionals and welcome Sanctionals, the new sanctioned and official events of CrossFit as one the new qualification stages for the CrossFit Games. CrossFit Inc has chosen around 16 competitions worldwide to establish a first round of finalists for the Games of 2019. This means the top man and woman, as well as the top team at each of these sanctioned events will receive an invite to compete in Madison. And for all the rest? Everyone else will need to participate in the Open to try to grab a spot to compete in Madison. What changes in the Open in 2019? The first thing is that in 2019 we will have two Opens:

One in February/March in order to qualify for the 2019 Games
One in October, to qualify for the 2020 Games

As mentioned previously, this is a transition year, meaning going forward, every Open will be held in October. Another change, now that Regionals are gone, the classification will also change. The top man and woman in every country that has at least one official affiliated box, will be invited to compete at the CrossFit Games, provided they performed every Open Workout Rx. It is estimated that there are 160 countries with affiliated gyms. Teams will no longer qualify via the Open, and the sole means for a team to qualify for the Crossfit Games is by winning a Sanctioned event. In order to avoid elite athletes from being excluded (as some countries have a lot of very good athletes and it is not possible for more than 1 athlete to win top in their country, or a santioned event), the top 20 athletes in the Open will also receive an invitation to Madison. Finally, CrossFit Inc reserves the right to invite up to 4 athletes , sort of like a wildcard, should “deserving” athletes fail to qualify by any other means. If you are adding up in your head, you´re probably thinking, Gee how many athletes will there be in Madison this year? Yes it´s true, it is a pretty large number. And for that reason an elimination phase is expected pretty early on, and the “surviving” athletes will go on competing like in years past! These changes promote inclusion and truly gives athletes from all over the World a chance to try to prove they are the Fittest on Earth. How to register for the 2019 Open If this is your first yeart participating this is what you need to know: . You have to register online via the following link: https://games.crossfit.com/cf/login?flow=games&returnTo=%2Fregister%2Fopen Fill in your details and pay our registration fee of $20 You have until the close of the first workout of the Open to register (you may register after as well but you are not able to qualify at that point as you would be missing one workout). . The 2019 Open goes from Feb 21 until Mar 25, a period of 5 consecutive weeks. The WOD is officially announced live Thursday 5PM PST of each week. You are given until Monday 5PM PST to perform the WOD as often as you like and submit your score/video online. You can perform the Open WODS in an affiliated box AND an official judge (anyone that has passed the judges course), or you can video and upload your video in the Open platform for it to be judged and validated. And that´s it! This is the CrossFit Games Open! If you are a CrossFit fanatic, surely you will be doing these 2 things

1. – become an official judge here: https://oc.crossfit.com/course?id=21
2. – Set an alarm so you can watch the live announcement (2am if you are in Spain like us!)

But don´t stress! Many boxes take the Open as a community event and they “celebrate” the Open every weekend so members have a chance to perform the WOD together. This will also ensure you will have all the adequate material to perform the WOD, all the explanations of what it consists, as well as being correctly judged and avoid any issues down the line! Now that you know all the details, go back to training and remember that for 5 weeks you will be suffering through an insane test of fitness, but not alone. No! You will be suffering alongside thousands of crossfitters like you worldwide! Go sign up for the Open!