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The 2020 CrossFit Open national champions are announced. Across the world, 239 individuals have won the right and will receive invitations to represent their country at the 2020 Reebok CrossFit Games in Madison, Wisconsin. This year, CrossFit crowns seven additional champions from countries new to the CrossFit Open, demonstrating the continued international growth of the world’s largest participatory sporting event.

The final workout of the 2020 CrossFit Open was a triplet of muscle-ups, wall balls, and rowing for calories. For the first time in Open history, the final workout didn’t contain thrusters. Athletes were allowed to partition the reps any way they’d like, which introduced a strategic element. Based on performance by country, Spain had the highest percentage of athletes who finished the workout (17 percent) as well as the highest percentage of athletes with at least some muscle-ups (51 percent). Here are some of the key stats from 20.5 from CrossFit Beyond the Whiteboard.

CrossFit Open Workout 20.4 featured box jumps, clean and jerks of increasing weight, and single-leg squats. The workout had a 20-minute time cap, which gave most athletes a chance to get as far as their strength on the clean and jerks would allow. CrossFit Beyond the Whiteboard takes a look at participation and performance by country, division, and workout type.

CrossFit Open Workout 20.3 contained the classic benchmark Diane, followed by heavier deadlifts and handstand walks — all within an aggressive 9-minute time cap. With the introduction of some advanced gymnastics movements in the handstand push-ups and walks, this week didn’t see the same smooth distribution of scores as previous weeks. Nevertheless, the number of athletes who were able to complete some of the handstand push-ups this year was impressive. CrossFit Beyond the Whiteboard presents the data on this and more in this week’s workout analysis.

The second workout of the 2020 Open asked athletes to perform as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of 4 dumbbell thrusters, 6 toes-to-bars, and 24 double-unders. For many, there wasn’t a need to intentionally break up the sets (although many double-under sets were frustratingly broken due to trips and misses). The best performers in this workout breezed through smooth and unbroken rounds, with few if any misses on the double-unders. For those athletes, it was largely a difference of rest and transition time. Here's a look at who participated, which workout versions they chose, and how they fared.

The 2020 Open represents a turning point in the CrossFit Games season, for the first time taking place in October instead of February. Also, with 53% of Open participants living outside the U.S., the 2020 Open marks the first time international participants outnumber their U.S.-based counterparts. In this article, the analysts at CrossFit Beyond the Whiteboard highlight interesting statistics from 20.1. Which countries had the most participants? How competitive were participants around the world? What pace did an athlete need to maintain to finish the workout? How far along were most athletes when the 15-minute time cap hit? Here’s a look at 20.1 by the numbers.

The CrossFit Games Open is the largest fitness competition on Earth. In six weeks, athletes around the world will compete for national championships, rise to unknown challenges for the first time, and celebrate their achievements with a worldwide community, inclusive of all ages and abilities. Registration for the 2020 CrossFit Open is now live. Claim your spot on the leaderboard and prepare for five weeks of fierce and friendly competition against yourself and the global CrossFit community.

The CrossFit Foundation works with public school districts, individual schools, and teachers all over the world, providing scholarships for CrossFit education, equipment grants to set up gyms, and ongoing support for teachers and administrations leading the way in bringing CrossFit to their students. On Aug. 31, 2019, the CrossFit community will come together alongside the Foundation and CrossFit, Inc. to participate in Saved by the Barbell, the Labor Day fundraiser event that supports CrossFit opportunities for children around the world.

"The sound of cheering carried across the Alliant Energy Center as the top athletes from over 100 countries took the field Thursday during the 2019 CrossFit Games opening ceremony. Amongst a sea of U.S. competitors, Lt. Col. Anthony Kurz and Capt. Chandler Smith took it all in as they looked around the crowded North Field. Kurz proudly displayed his Army Special Forces flag as a nod to the Special Forces community. Those cheering included members of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command and Warrior Fitness team who were there to support their teammates and engage with the fitness community."

The CrossFit Games are the world’s premier test to find the Fittest on Earth. The 2019 season exemplified the global nature of this challenge and the community it represents more than any before. On Oct. 10, CrossFit communities around the world will come together again in celebration and competition for the start of the 2020 CrossFit Open. All are welcome to join the world’s largest participatory sporting event. During this five-week competition, ordinary people accomplish more than they thought possible, and the next cohort of national champions will be crowned.

The 2019 Reebok CrossFit Games will be broadcast through an expansive network of amateur and professional partners. Over 30 outlets will receive an open-source feed to freely distribute the program on any platform or channel they choose. The unprecedented move allows traditional broadcasters, niche media sites, and ordinary fans from around the world full creative license to produce bespoke shows for specific audiences, regardless of size or language. The new approach will better serve a global and diverse community increasingly hungry for CrossFit. The CrossFit Games begin Aug. 1, 2019. Watch coverage on YouTube, Games.CrossFit.com, and via the many other outlets that will shape this exciting new chapter in fitness history.

Saved by the Barbell is an annual Labor Day fundraiser workout hosted by the CrossFit Foundation and taking place at participating CrossFit affiliates around the world. All proceeds from the workout support school teachers, students, parents, coaches, trainers, and administrators building CrossFit programs in their schools and communities. Registration for Saved by the Barbell 2019 is now live.

Spc. Ryan Sowder of the 2112th Transportation Company out of Burlington, Kentucky, scored 597 out of a possible 600 points on the Army Combat Fitness Test, the highest score recorded in the U.S. Army so far. He also has earned an invitation to the 2019 Reebok CrossFit Games. Command Sergeant Major John Sampa says, “Spc. Sowder represents full and part-time Soldiers that are physically and mentally prepared for combat operations and homeland responses at any given moment. America is secure because it has Citizen-Soldiers such as this one who is always ready and is always there.”

In this talk from Aug. 1, 2017, during the CrossFit Health Conference at Monona Terrace in Madison, Wisconsin, Professor Timothy Noakes shares his "untestable hypothesis" about the role of self-belief in sports victories. He discusses his then-forthcoming research as well, noting that he found, “If you put two competitors against each other, the instant the one guy goes ahead, the other person’s physiology changes.” The brain, he explains, “regulates the exercise performance … [and] the athlete who wins a close race chooses that outcome.”

Today, CrossFit, Inc. announces the 2020 CrossFit Sanctionals™ season: 28 events in 21 different countries on six continents. From November to the following October, a CrossFit-sanctioned event will take place nearly every weekend somewhere around the world. As in 2019, top finishers at each CrossFit Sanctionals™ event will receive invitations to compete against National Champions and the top 20 Open finishers at the 2020 Reebok CrossFit Games in Madison, Wisconsin.

CrossFit WOD 190513 challenged athletes to perform a 400-meter handstand walk in as few sets as possible (ASFAP). To calculate their final score for the workout, athletes multiplied their time in seconds by the number of sets they required to complete the distance. Congratulations to the two athletes with the lowest scores (one for men and one for women). Each has earned a $1,000 prize.

CrossFit WOD 190505 challenged athletes to test their farmers carry strength and endurance by carrying two dumbbells 400 meters. A $1,000 prize was reserved for the two athletes (one man and one woman) with the heaviest successful carries. The video review process is now complete, and the two winners have been named.

The 2019 Open began Feb. 21, spanning five weeks and featuring five tests of fitness. The Open is the single largest participatory test of fitness on the planet and is open to anyone with garage gym equipment and a will to pursue a challenge. Individuals from all cultures and walks of life unite in competition, drawn to the universality of the CrossFit methodology. It begins in the 15,000 CrossFit affiliates around the world and ends in a celebration of those individuals and communities at the CrossFit Games.

The final workout of the 2019 Open featured a descending ladder of thrusters and chest-to-bar pull-ups, totaling 105 reps of each movement, with a 20-minute time cap. Last year, 18.5 presented athletes with an ascending ladder of the same two movements, so it’s no surprise that nearly the same percentage of Open participants decided to tackle the final Open workout as prescribed in 2018 and 2019. Read on to see how the community fared with this year's rep scheme.

This 2003 CrossFit Journal article captures an early conception of a universal, multi-event test of fitness that laid the foundation for CrossFit competition, including what would become the CrossFit Open and the CrossFit Games. The design requirements for such a test "included but were not limited to the following: quantifiable results; consistency with the CrossFit fitness concept; raising our commitment to improving absolute strength, relative strength, and gymnastic foundations; balancing intrinsic abilities of smaller and larger athletes; emphasizing exercises critical to and foundational to advanced training; mixing training demands within each test and, of course, over the total competition; a design that would identify an athlete’s weaknesses and possibly stand as a workout plan for improving overall fitness; and, finally, we wanted to design a competition that would be 'hard as hell.'"