The 2024 CrossFit Open is just days away and Dave Castro is up to his old tricks again, sharing an obscure hint on his Instagram page.
The former Games director posted a picture of a red mushroom and the caption “24.1”, sparking wild speculation as to what it could mean.
Teasing the hint on his YouTube channel earlier this week, Castro said he was worried it would be “too obvious”, but there doesn’t seem to be much risk of that.
Several commenters, including 10-time Games athlete Scott Panchik, thought the mushroom (if poisonous) could hint at a “death by” format. This would see athletes set a running clock then tackle an increasing amount of work each minute until they couldn’t continue—check out this death by burpees workout as an example.
One popular suggestion for this format was a combination of burpees and rowing, courtesy of CrossFit podcast Coffee Pods & Wods.
Other CrossFit fans linked the red mushroom to the Super Mario video games, suggesting we could be faced with box jumps because the mustachioed plumber has made a career out of jumping on boxes.
In the March edition of the CrossFit Games newsletter, The Hopper, Castro gave further, albeit vague, clues as to what to expect from the workout.
“Programming this year is unique, effective and simply beautiful in the classic CrossFit style,” he writes.
My guess? Fran. Maybe not for the first workout, but I have a hunch we might see this CrossFit benchmark test sometime in the next month.
When Is The CrossFit Open?
The CrossFit Open kicks off on Thursday, February 29, and concludes on Monday, March 18. It’s an annual mass participation event that sees hundreds of thousands of people tackle a workout challenge every weekend for three weekends to test their fitness. For the sport’s top athletes, it’s also the first step to qualifying for the CrossFit Games.
The first weekend’s workout will be revealed on Thursday evening in a live-streamed event, where elite CrossFit athletes go head-to-head as they become the first to officially take the test.
The first live announcement for CrossFit Open workout 24.1 will pit the current fittest man on earth Jeffrey Adler against perennial podium contender Brent Fikowski in an all-Canadian showdown.
Female athletes Alex Gazan and Alexis Raptis (the current fifth and sixth fittest women on earth, respectively) will also face off.
After the release of the workout on Thursday, participants will then have until the following Monday to complete the workout and register their scores on the online leaderboard.
You can catch the action on the CrossFit Games website or the CrossFit Games YouTube channel. The live show starts at 11am PT (7pm GMT).
You can still register for the CrossFit Open 2024 to take part.
