Many people in the Crossfit world are concerned with how the level of competition at the Crossfit Games will drastically decrease in 2019 due to all of the recent changes. The primary reason behind most of these concerns is due to each one of the top Open competitors in their respective country receiving an automatic invite to the Crossfit Games.

In 2018 there were 144 countries with active Crossfit affiliates that had a male and female compete in the Open, and even though some of those countries only had a total of less than 10 Open participants they would still automatically be invited to compete at the Crossfit Games.

Rumors have come out in the past couple of days stating that although 144 males, females, and teams will be invited to the 2019 Games only 40 males, females, and teams will actually be competing as usual. The rumors states that the 144 will be cut to 40 by process of a 3 day pre-Games competition in order to ensure that the Games are still testing only the fittest on earth.

If those rumors are incorrect however, we will all witness a vast difference in fitness between countries with elite and average Crossfit athletes.

In order to see how large the gap is between fitness levels we will be looking at what the worldwide rank was for the #1 male and #1 female for each individual country in the 2018 Crossfit Open that has a Crossfit affiliate.

*All data was collected by Crossfit Stats & Metrics. Check out their page for excellent data on all things Crossfit.

Now for the data.

TOP 10 OPEN RANKED COUNTRIES – MALE

*Each rank represents that country’s highest placing male athlete in the Open. This means that individual athlete would be crowned “Fittest in ____” and receive an invitation the Games.

USA – TOP MALE RANK: 1

CANADA – TOP MALE RANK: 2

FRANCE – TOP MALE RANK: 3

ICELAND – TOP MALE RANK: 12

POLAND – TOP MALE RANK: 22

RUSSIA – TOP MALE RANK: 27

AUSTRALIA – TOP MALE RANK: 31

SOUTH AFRICA  – TOP MALE RANK: 34

DENMARK – TOP MALE RANK: 38

SWITZERLAND – TOP MALE RANK: 69

As you can see here it makes sense that the fittest man from each of the top 10 countries in the world would finish in the top 100 worldwide.

Now for the highest ranked athlete from the bottom 10 countries in the Open.

BOTTOM 10 OPEN RANKED COUNTRIES – MALE

*These will be listed from worst to 10th worst.

COOK ISLANDS – TOP MALE RANK: 89,660

MAURITIUS – TOP MALE RANK: 73,046

FIJI – TOP MALE RANK: 71,168

TAJIKISTAN – TOP MALE RANK: 63,233

TURKS & CAICOS ISLANDS – TOP MALE RANK: 62,664

BOTSWANA – TOP MALE RANK: 54,281

NIGERIA – TOP MALE RANK: 53,531

ÅLAND ISLANDS  – TOP MALE RANK: 47,541

SAINT LUCIA – TOP MALE RANK: 46,144

BULGARIA – TOP MALE RANK: 42,911

From comparing these two lists you can definitely see the gigantic difference in “Fittest in” athletes by country. From what we know so far on the recent changes to Games qualification that would mean that the top male out of Cook Islands who finished 89,660th in the Open would be competing at the 2019 Crossfit Games against the top male out of the USA who finished 1st in the world.

Now for the females.

TOP 10 OPEN RANKED COUNTRIES – FEMALE

USA – TOP FEMALE RANK: 1

AUSTRALIA – TOP FEMALE RANK: 2

CANADA – TOP FEMALE RANK: 3

ICELAND – TOP FEMALE RANK: 5

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – TOP FEMALE RANK: 9

NORWAY – TOP FEMALE RANK: 15

HUNGARY – TOP FEMALE RANK: 17

UNITED KINGDOM  – TOP FEMALE RANK: 18

POLAND – TOP FEMALE RANK: 30

MEXICO – TOP FEMALE RANK: 35

The top 10 female countries had higher rankings than the men with 10th place Mexico having their highest female athlete ranking 35th in the world and 1oth place Switzerland having their highest male athlete ranking 69th in the world.

BOTTOM 10 OPEN RANKED COUNTRIES – FEMALE

SAINT BARTHÉLEMY – TOP FEMALE RANK: 83,864

MAURITIUS – TOP FEMALE RANK: 79,996

NIGERIA – TOP FEMALE RANK: 71,265

PAKISTAN – TOP FEMALE RANK: 64,938

FAROE ISLANDS – TOP FEMALE RANK: 62,959

SAINT LUCIA – TOP FEMALE RANK: 51,704

MADAGASCAR – TOP FEMALE RANK: 51,418

TURKS & CAICOS ISLANDS – TOP FEMALE RANK: 48,874

SAN MARINO – TOP FEMALE RANK: 48,722

GUYANA – TOP FEMALE RANK: 37,934

The fittest woman in Saint Barthélemy (83,864th) would be competing against the fittest in the USA (1st).

To see the rankings of the top male and female athlete in each one of the individual 144 countries that competed in the 2018 Crossfit Open as well as the number of competitors by country click HERE.

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