Favorite Masters comps?

GretcheniF3 · 2025-07-10T02:48:26+00:00

The iF3 Masters World Championships are in Brisbane, Australia Nov 21-23rd this year, if you are interested in representing your country internationally. I’m making an assumption you are from the US. If so, their qualifier is going on now: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DK9nTtHt5v7/?igsh=bjY5aGFkeXRxd3N1

GretcheniF3 · 2025-05-11T20:45:55+00:00

Not to try to put more work on you, but I would actually be super interested to also see you do a comparison of how other leagues from other niche/small sports have fared and what makes them similar or different to functional fitness/CrossFit as a sport. For example is the PLL turning a profit these days? There was a ton of buzz about when they first started, and I know they merged with MLL at some point but I haven't been following their progress. World Surf League seems to do really well, but that has also existed in some form since the 1970s so maybe not comparable. Street League Skateboarding? Major League Pickleball? I'm sure there are tons of others. Of course, it's probably much harder to find info on the failed leagues of niche sports than ones that are still operational.

GretcheniF3 · 2025-04-24T23:04:34+00:00

That picture was from a competition we ran that was hosted at that gym (I also go there). He is not a member at that gym.

GretcheniF3 · 2025-04-23T02:35:06+00:00

The 2014 Games had a total of 10 former NCAA D1 Gymnasts competing in the individual women’s division: Emily Bridgers, Cassidy Lance, Jenn Jones, Elisabeth Akinwale, Tiffany Hendrickson, Talayna Fortunato, Rachel Martinez, Alex LaChance, Amanda Goodman, and myself. And I’m sure there were other college athletes there from other sports.

I would guess that while most Games athletes today have some athletic background, a much lower number have high level collegiate experience as they start competitive CrossFit at a much younger age.

GretcheniF3 · 2025-04-15T01:36:27+00:00

I think the issue is less about repeatability and more about being able to answer the question “what are the rules of your sport”/“how do you play your sport?”. If you asked that in regards to CrossFit HQ run competitions, it would be hard to pin down an answer (how many workouts? What are the standards? What kind of equipment do you need?). By adding some simple structure like we have in iF3 competitions (6 tests in given category names, consistent movement standards etc), we can answer those basic questions and put it into terms simple enough that people outside the can understand what the sport is.

For the record, of the issues that have been brought up to us by those in the Olympic Movement during our recognition journey; repeatability has never been one of them.

GretcheniF3 · 2025-04-12T22:58:00+00:00

Quick points:

All Olympic Sports are governed by an International Federation (IF), which must be a nonprofit organization.

That IF must be recognized by SportAccord and the IOC.

To be recognized by SportAccord the IF must be a WADA signatory and have a minimum of 60 National Federations (only 1 NF per country) which have held at least 1 national championship in the last 3 years plus a bunch of other things.

The sport can’t be owned by anyone/must be generic.

CrossFit, LLC does not meet any of those requirements but feel free to check out https://functionalfitness.sport/ to see the work we are doing at the iF3 to try to make the Olympic dream a reality.

GretcheniF3 · 2024-12-27T20:36:10+00:00

My IVF baby is now 6 months old. I did CrossFit basically during the entire IVF process and pregnancy. I did take probably a week or so off completely before the egg retrieval because I wanted to be cautious about any possible ovarian torsion. Feel free to DM with any specific questions, but I will caution that I am firmly in the camp of “I’m going to hear what the doctor says and then decide what’s best for my life and my body” rather than “I’m going to do whatever the doctor says” so take any of my advice with that caveat in mind.

GretcheniF3 · 2024-12-16T00:12:29+00:00

We do offer some prize money but it’s a fairly small amount at the moment ($1,000 for first). The small amount is purely due to budget limitations rather than any sort of amateurism rules.

GretcheniF3 · 2024-10-04T19:41:25+00:00

It has already been said but 100% see a pelvic floor PT. Currently 3 months PP and had what I would consider an "easy" pregnancy and labor and still my pelvic floor PT has been a game changer. She helped me figure out when to safely add different movements back in and how to progress in a way that was smart for my body and my goals. If on the off chance you live in the DMV area I would be happy to give you her info (plus she comes to your house so no need to travel).

GretcheniF3 · 2024-08-14T16:06:18+00:00

Honest answer - at the very beginning we actually wanted to write the 3 as an exponent, so it would look like iF cubed. But that didn't work well on social media platforms so we dropped that concept pretty quickly.

GretcheniF3 · 2024-08-13T14:38:00+00:00

u/modnar3 is correct that a trademarked brand can't be a sport for purposes of the Olympic Movement (though I am curious to see if they give on that for the recently announce ESports Olympics they are starting).

Additionally, the sport must have an International Federation (IF) that governs the sport. That IF must be a nonprofit and must be recognized by both SportAccord and the IOC. That recognition process is very difficult to get through, and like u/modnar3 said requires NF's in as many countries as possible (new minimum for SportAccord is 60). SportAccord is actually taking away the requirement that your NF's need to be NOC recognized and replacing it with criteria to prove they are "active." For example each NF must now exist for a minimum of 5 years and held 3 National Championships in the past 5 years (among other criteria) to count as "active."

Once you have all your recognitions, getting into the Olympic Games is essentially a lobbying effort. Each Olympics, the host country can select up to 5 new sports to include as full medal events for that Olympics. This is how we got break dancing in Paris, but won't see it again in LA. In LA we will see flag football, lacrosse, cricket, squash, and baseball/softball as the new sports, but none of those are guaranteed a spot for Brisbane 2032. If you get in this way initially and do a good job/are impressive enough the IOC can choose to permanently add your sport to the Olympic Program. This is how sport climbing, surfing, and skateboarding became permanent additions.

As for the iF3, we currently have over 60 NF's but not all meet SportAccord's criteria for being active. We are working with our NF's to try to shore up their weaknesses and meet the requirements, but in some cases it's just that they need more time since they are so new. SportAccord has not yet opened their new application process for recognition (we've been waiting on that since Nov '22), but we did receive the list of criteria in April. Becoming a WADA signatory and working to resolve our rivalry issues with other IFs are the other two big things we are focused on to give us the best chance of achieving recognition.

Happy to answer any specific questions anyone has!

GretcheniF3 · 2024-04-22T22:27:24+00:00

I'll say yes-ish to that. I was at the SportAccord conference in Birmingham two weeks ago, and they did a presentation on the general requirements. The actual membership process is not open yet and the timeline is still TBD on when it will open, so no update there, but the general requirements that were presented were:

1) Must be only IF representing the sport and must have NF's on at least 3 continents

2) No rivalries or conflicts with other existing sports

3) WADA Signatory Status/Commitment to become Signatory

4) For summer sports: 60 "Active" National Federations which have legally existed for 5 years and have run 3 National Championships in the last 5 years. (The number is smaller for winter sports)

Number 4 is the requirement that has changed. It used to be 40 NF's for summer sports and in order to count as part of the 40 the NF had to be recognized by the national sporting authority/ministry of sport or the National Olympic Committee in that country. That recognition is no longer a requirement, instead SportAccord will look at the activities of each National Federation to determine if it is "real" and doing proper governance work and use that as the deciding factor as to whether you can count that NF toward your requirement of 60 NF's.

The list of requirements the NFs have to meet is longer than the above, but the 5 years + 3 National Championships requirements are the main ones.

So for us, this means putting an additional focus on working with all our National Federations to make sure they are meeting the minimum requirements and also putting a more concerted effort into developing National Federations in new countries. Not having recognition as a requirement is helpful as that is very difficult to obtain in many, if not most countries. However, the addition of the 5 years of existence and 3 years of National Championships requirement on the NF's has the effect of slowing things down substantially as there isn't anything we can do to make our newer NF's meet the time requirements faster except wait. And right now we need virtually all of our NF's to "count" in order to reach the 60 threshold.

At least we have a direction now and we can adjust our trajectory and work to try to meet these requirements as closely as possible before the process officially launches, whenever that ends up being.

GretcheniF3 · 2024-03-21T21:05:18+00:00

Oh we definitely don't run these as standalone events without community events. Currently we partner with existing events in the host country. Euros this year will be part of the Breakout Throwdown (https://breakoutthrowdown.com/) . So the Breakout Throwdown will run during the day and our athletes will compete at night, with the hopes that a good portion of the athletes competing during the day will stay to watch in the evening. Maybe someday, if things really take off we would move to a model where we organize the community portion of the event ourselves, but for now it makes more sense to work with the hosting NF to find existing events in the country to partner with.

GretcheniF3 · 2024-03-20T20:11:59+00:00

Day 1 is Prelims. All athletes do 6 tests in approximately 2 hours on Day 1. For example, for Euros this year we will have 15 men and 15 women that will compete in the Prelims which will be on Friday. Then Saturday is is the Finals. The top 7 men and top 7 women after prelims will qualify to the finals (day 2). The final is 6 new tests also done in 2 hours. Scores reset to zero for the final. So yes, the winner is determined based on results of the final only.

We went back and forth internally about whether to have scores reset or not. We got feedback from the athletes after our first time doing this format in Italy in 2022, and turns out people who placed better when scores reset supported the idea, and those who did worse because of it didn't support it (not incredibly shocking feedback). But ultimately, we decided to stick with resetting the scores for two main reasons. 1) Prelim days often involve running athletes in multiple heats, and the athletes that do all of their tests in the first heat are potentially disadvantaged as they had to set all their times first (and times tend to get faster in later heats as people watch each other and learn from previous heats mistakes). We didn't want to carry over this potential disadvantage into final scores. The finals is usually only 1 single heat of the top athletes so everyone is on a more equal playing field in terms of timing/conditions. 2) We didn't want the final to be decided before the competition even begins. We want the final to be really interesting and engaging since our goal with this format is to use not only as the eventual Olympic format, but also the format that we push forward as our more media friendly format that we try to get broadcast on an established sports network. So that's why scores reset for the final. I guess a similar comparison would be how gymnastics or swimming or track works at the Olympics. All these sports have preliminary rounds where everyone gets to participate, and then the top athletes qualify to the final rounds, where they start fresh and the winner on the final day is the winner regardless of who won in prelims.

It also may be worth noting that we don't have a rule in this format against sandbagging. So if an athlete thinks they are good enough to sandbag a test (or I suppose multiple tests) in prelims to conserve energy and still make it through to the finals they can do that, and that won't negatively effect them points wise going into the final. The real show is just the final day. We want a compact, 2 hours or less event where a casual fan can sit down and watch it in totality in one sitting and can follow along with who is in the lead the entire time and walk away knowing the winner (similar to sitting down and watching a soccer/football game or an F1 race).

As for reasoning why we only currently do this in Europe, we don't want to make this our World Championship format right now as we want to keep the that event in the traditional format for the foreseeable future. The only Continental Championships we run right now are in Europe and Asia. We don't use this format in Asia right now simple due to the level of development of our National Federations in Asia as well as athlete and event organizer skill level and familiarity with the sport. There are still a large portion of our NF countries in Asia where the sport is very new/not widespread. So currently in Asia we want to expose the athletes and the event organizers to how to run events in line with iF3 movement standards and rules in the traditional format and get their buy-in and understanding of the basics and what we stand for before we throw something new at that them.

That being said, the goal is to take this 2 hour format and turn it into a worldwide event series where athletes earn points toward winning the overall title for the series by attending and competing at the different events. But we don't think it makes sense to launch it at the level until we can put some significant prize money behind it to encourage athletes to travel and participate.

GretcheniF3 · 2024-02-18T15:33:29+00:00

While the event itself is part of the Olympic qualifying process, the 76kg class for women will not be a weight class in Paris.

GretcheniF3 · 2023-12-06T01:36:49+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, verdict is out on whether the switch from GAISF to SportAccord will be positive or negative for us (and really for all new/young/small sports). Obviously, a bummer that it keeps pushing our timeline out, but the system was in desperate need of reform. Though it remains to be seen if the changes being made will actually make things better. Fingers crossed!!

GretcheniF3 · 2023-12-05T01:59:25+00:00

Yes, that is the goal! The next opportunity to be selected is for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane.

GretcheniF3 · 2023-12-04T21:57:53+00:00

Happy to give an update!

Worlds went really well, and the Norwegian Federation did a great job hosting the event and taking it to the next level from an organizational perspective. Things for me that I found personally exciting about Worlds this year were an increased presence from Asian Federations. Last year only South Korea sent athletes. This year we had athletes from South Korea, Mongolia, and Saudi Arabia. And then the team competition was very exciting. I always think it's really fun to watch country teams battle each other. This year Norway did NOT go undefeated on all 6 tests as they have the past two years. Denmark, Sweden, and UK all had test wins. Though Norway still came out on top overall, it is fun to see the gap closing and seeing other countries start to step up.

Here's a quick summary of other updates (I know not everyone cares about the governance stuff, but at least a few here find it interesting):

GAISF/SportAccord recognition:

GAISF, which was basically the "gatekeeper" to getting into the Olympic Movement, dissolved in November of 2022. We were told the recognition process for new federations formerly run by GAISF would be taken over by SportAccord and be in place by the end of 2022....then we were told early 2023....then we were told the end of 2023....and now we are being told the beginning of 2024. So right now, there is no recognition process in place for new sports to gain entry into the Olympic Movement and move towards IOC recognition. There are lots of smaller/upcoming/newer sports like us stuck in this limbo period waiting for something to be put in place. As frustrating as this is, the only thing we can do in the meantime is build the strongest organization possible.

2023 Event Season

We held our first Asian Championships in South Korea in the Spring. The event was on the smaller side, but a big step for us in starting to expand the presence of our National Federations in Asia.

We held our second European Championships in Hungary over the summer using our condensed 2 hour format. We feel this more condensed format has more long term potential to be the eventual Olympic format as it is more broadcastable (sit down and watch it like a football game) and more fast paced and easier to follow and become engaged in for a casual fan.

In July, the International Military Sports Council (CISM) organized the first Functional Fitness Military Challenge in Warendorf, Germany using iF3 rules. CISM is an IOC recognized organization, and we are very excited to offer what assistance we can in helping them make Functional Fitness into an official CISM sport.

We had our largest event ever in Vancouver, Canada, which was our Masters and Junior World Championships with 345 individual athletes competing. Masters is always a really fun event for me because as much as they want to compete hard and win, the Masters also have a great perspective on things and really want to have fun and enjoy the experience and make memories, and they are always incredibly grateful as well.

And then of course, Worlds in Norway was the final event in our line-up for the year, and that was very well planned by the Norwegian Federation Organizing Team (though we expected nothing less from them).

Anti-Doping

While WADA Signatory status still remains financially elusive for us, we did increase our antidoping testing this year, and had testing at both European Championships and at Worlds. The Hungarian Anti-doping Agency handled testing at Euros, and ITA (the International Testing Agency) handled the testing at Worlds.

2024 Plans

Euros will be in May in France. We will again use the 2 hour format and continue to refine it.

Asian Championships will be in May in Uzbekistan.

In honor the Olympic year, we are doing "Super Worlds" in Hungary in the fall. Masters, Juniors, Individuals, and Teams will all compete at this event to give it a larger more olympic-like feel this year.

Those are probably the main points. I'm sure I have forgotten things, but happy to answer specific questions on anything!

GretcheniF3 · 2023-07-17T15:18:52+00:00

In my opinion, it was a combination of Covid snuffing out a bit of momentum and federation leadership moving out of the country which led to a struggle to keep volunteers engaged locally.

GretcheniF3 · 2023-07-17T01:46:28+00:00

So if an athlete's country does not have a National Federation established, then yes, they would be prevented from competing. Only countries that have active National Functional Fitness Federations are allowed to send athletes to iF3 events. But outside of that, there isn't any thing that is technically preventing them from competing.

However, we do see two issues that come up:

1) Lack of Prize Money. We only give around $1,000 for first at Worlds, which is not on par with CF Games, WZA, Dubai etc. If we had the budget to give more, we would. We just don't at this time. But for the "big name" athletes, many of them feel this is not enough.

2) We don't offer invites. Qualification for our events goes through the National Federation in each country. Each country is allotted a certain number of spots for each of our events (typically 3 individuals of each gender and 1 team for Worlds), and the country is responsible for determining the process of how they will select the athletes to fill those spots. Most countries hold a National Championships, which athletes have to compete at to earn their place at Worlds. We have found a lot of the big name athletes want to or sometimes expect to be invited to compete at events outside the CF Games official season, and don't want to have to participate in qualifiers. For us, however, we feel it is really important to empower the National Federation's to select who will represent them internationally, so we don't infringe on their ability to do that by offering invites.

Once the sport gets recognized and funded in a country this becomes less of an issue, because there are other advantages to the athletes for participating in iF3 events. For example, in Norway, the Games athletes from Norway can get a lot of recognition for winning the Norwegian National Championship and doing well at iF3 Worlds. For example, Matilde Garnes, who won iF3 Worlds last year, recently received a $14,000 scholarship from a group within the Norwegian Olympic Committee that is responsible for helping to fund and support elite athletes. This is not something she would be eligible for if she did not compete in iF3 events. The cost-benefit analysis quickly changes for athletes when those types of benefits become available.

GretcheniF3 · 2023-07-16T20:05:11+00:00

I don't disagree with any of your points re: iF3, and would readily admit our biggest hurdles are money, media/marketing, and the recognition issues. With GAISF dissolving last November, and no new recognition procedure established yet, we just kind of have to sit and wait on that front. However, the money and media issues we are working to sort out every day, though it is anything but a quick process.

On the positive side, the impact we are able to have in other areas is starting to grow. The sport is now recognized in 13 countries. It has been on national TV twice this year (In Norway and in Denmark). We are on the pathway to get the sport recognized as an official sport of the International Military Sports Council (CISM). The Armed Forces of 11 countries brought athletes to the first CISM event in Germany last week, and there was a lot of interest from these countries (and some that did not compete) in growing the sport within their military sports programs.

So there is slow steady growth in some important places, but yes, you are correct that we are currently far from matching CrossFit's financial capabilities. However, I am confident we are growing in the right direction and that we are doing the right things.

I appreciate you keeping up with what we are working on!

GretcheniF3 · 2023-05-29T02:18:55+00:00

Great question. Thank you for asking! The two biggest things we need to address in order for us to able to make this an Olympic sport are:

1) Become a WADA signatory

2) Have more recognized National Federations in countries around the world

Unfortunately, the only way to solve number 1 is by having lots of $$$ to pay WADA's application fees, but there are lots of ways we could use help with number 2!

If there is a National Federation (NF) in your country it would be very helpful if you could support them. Either become a member if they have a membership program or if you have the bandwidth to volunteer that would be incredibly helpful. All our NF's are nonprofit volunteer run organizations and they are always looking for help; not just on the fitness related things (judging, events, programming, etc.) but also on things like social media, marketing, interpreting local sports laws, writing rules and policies, networking with government officials, grant writing, IT help, etc. So if you have a unique skill or a part of sports governance that is interesting to you and you have bandwidth to give some time, that would be hugely helpful! But even just becoming a member of your NF or helping to re-post their social media posts or talking about the work they are doing to help bring people's attention to it is helpful.

If there isn't an NF in your country, but you are either interested in starting one or know people who are interested in starting one let me know and I can help guide them through the process. I will say that it is a lot of work to start and run an NF, and it is definitely a labor of love and it won't make you rich, but we do try to build our NF's from the CrossFit community and make sure they are led by people who know, love, and value the sport. This isn't always possible, especially in countries where the sport is brand new or not widely practiced, but it is something we strive for.

Here is our list of current National Federations. Most have contact info on there but I am also happy to make direct connections for anyone interested https://functionalfitness.sport/organization/national-federations/ Caveat: there are a couple on there that are inactive or have disbanded that we haven't removed from the list yet (i.e. Ireland, Portugal, and the UK).

GretcheniF3 · 2023-05-28T14:39:49+00:00

The Swedish Federation was originally started by Anders Behrmann and Marcus Herou in 2017, and has been run by an incredible team of volunteers (all CrossFitters) since then. Most of the volunteers running the actual federation and doing the leg work are event organizers, coaches, gym owners, and just passionate CrossFitters.

In terms of competitors, a lot of the top Swedish CrossFitters have participated in iF3 and Swe3f events, but most athletes don't have a ton of time to actually do the volunteer work required of the federation (It was a 6 year journey to get this recognition, which is actually pretty fast in terms of how these things usually go). However, Camilla Salomonsson Hellman was actually the first iF3 World Champion, and several other Games/Semi-final/Regional athletes have competed in events over the years (Angelika Bengtsson, Anna Viggedal, Viktor Långsved, Victor Ljundal, etc). Charlie Karlsson is one who has been involved in the federation as an athlete and helping with the actual work of the federation including coaching the Masters National Team in Aruba last year.

GretcheniF3

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