The World Fitness Project finalized their contract athletes this week when the CrossFit Games champions, Laura Horváth and Jeffrey Adler were announced. With the 40 pro card athletes confirmed, it’s a good time to dive into the numbers.
From a field perspective, the World Fitness Project did a good job in selecting athletes who are at different points along their career paths.
- Patrick Vellner and Emily Rolfe are the oldest athletes, they’ll both be 35 this year.
- Olivia Kerstetter is the youngest athlete at 19, while Victor Hoffer is the youngest man at 22.
- In total there are 9 athletes 25 years or younger, while half the field is 30 or over.
- The average age of the men’s and women’s field is nearly identical. The men average 28.55 years old, while the women average 28.65 years old.
- All ages are based on July 14th. Why July 14th? That’s the date CrossFit uses to determine which age division you are in, and the ages they have historically made available.
As a collective group, the World Fitness Project contract athletes have made 184 individual appearances at the CrossFit Games.
- Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson leads the way with 11 individual appearances, while Noah Ohlsen has 10.
- Lucy Campbell, Sydney Wells, Olivia Kerstetter, Aimee Cringle, Manon Angonese, Austin Hatfield and Victor Hoffer have one trip to the Games.
- Victor Hoffer qualified but withdrew from the 2024 Games after travelling to Fort Worth last summer.
There has been at least one World Fitness Project athlete at every CrossFit Games since 2013, when Travis Mayer made his rookie appearance at the Games.
- 33 out of the 40 WFP athletes qualified for the 2024 CrossFit Games.
Out of the group, there are 4 winners of the CrossFit Games in the mix. Justin Medeiros (2021 & 2022), Jeffrey Adler (2023), Laura Horváth (2023) and James Sprague(2024) are all contract athletes in the original season.
35% of the inaugural season’s contract athletes have stood on the CrossFit Games podium, led by Patrick Vellner who has finished on the Games podium 5 times in his career. Laura Horváth leads the way for the women with her 4 podium finishes. Horváth is the only woman to finish on the CrossFit Games podium multiple times amongst the 2025 contract athletes.
On the men’s side of the competition, there are only 4 athletes who have finishes on the CrossFit Games podium in the last 10 years that are not part of the first WFP season:
There are 10 different women who finished on the Games podium during the same time period who are not contract athletes for the 2025 season. In addition to Horváth, Emma Lawson, Emily Rolfe and Arielle Loewen have finished on the CrossFit Games podium.
Going down the leaderboard a bit, 20 out of the 40 athletes have at least 1 top 5 finish at the CrossFit Games. Three quarters of the athletes have at least 1 top 10 in their careers.
The women of the World Fitness Project have won 9 Semifinal competitions, while the men have won 16.
- In the 4 years of Semifinals, there were a total of 34 Semifinal competitions.
The WFP men have won the last 5 Rogue Invitationals, while Laura Horváth is the only woman to claim that title.
The WFP men have also dominated Wodapalooza Patrick Vellner, Ricky Garard and James Sprague have won the last 6 competitions. For the women, WFP athletes Lucy Campbell and Emma McQuaid have won 2 of the last 4.
When the names of the athletes were released, we suspected that the contracted athletes would field a competition to rival Rogue and the Games. Diving into the numbers, that can now be confirmed. I am very optimistic for the first season, and think it’ll be a big step forward for the sport.
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