Last year, in advance of the 2015 Open, CrossFit HQ announced the inclusion of new Scaled and Teen divisions for the competition. These new divisions, alongside the existing Master and Individual groupings, made the Open more accessible to CrossFitters than ever before. This year, CrossFit HQ has added four new categories to the leaderboard to recognize the services of first responders around the world. These categories are:
-Military
-LEO (Law Enforcement Officer)
-Firefighter
-EMT (Emergency Medical Technician)
For the first time ever, the Open will find the fittest in the military, emergency-medical services, firefighting and law-enforcement communities. Athletes whose profession falls in one of these categories will still be able to compete as individuals, but they can now compare their fitness to other first responders around the world. Speaking to Sean Woodland on the CrossFit Update Show, Assistant S.W.A.T Commander Larry Moss discussed wth the new “Fittest in” category for Law Enforcement means to him and his department:
“You know there’s other LEOs out there, but you don’t really know who they are. And you don’t know how you’re going to stack up against the people in your age bracket or in your particular unless you know them personally. This new feature in the Open gives us an option to check out our counterparts worldwide.”
There are several big-name Games competitors, including Jon Pera, Albert Dominic-Larouce and Freddy Camacho, who work as first responders that you should expect to find at the top of the leaderboard in these new categories, but as has always been the case, the Open is for every athlete who is willing to test their fitness.
Registration for the 2016 Open is now live, and the competition starts Thursday, February 25th.
Photo courtesy of Paul Fazzone/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
