Colten Mertens and Lucy Campbell Win the 2026 CrossFit Open

Colten Mertens went back-to-back and Lucy Campbell claimed her first Open title as CrossFit confirmed the worldwide winners of the 2026 CrossFit Open, presented by Air National Guard, on March 20. The three-week online competition ran from February 26 through March 16, with athletes submitting video evidence alongside scores for workouts 26.1, 26.2, and 26.3.

The Open uses a relative scoring system: athletes earn points based on their placement in each workout, with first place worth 1 point and second place worth 2, and the lowest cumulative total wins. Mertens finished third in 26.1, fifth in 26.2, and first in 26.3 for a total of 9 points. According to a cfnetworknews headline, his winning 26.3 run came in 13:45, a time described as setting the world record to beat. Last year, Mertens won two of the three Open workouts on his way to a commanding victory; this year he sealed the repeat with a closing surge rather than an early one.

Campbell's path to the women's title was tighter. She posted a second-place finish in 26.1, fourth in 26.2, and tenth in 26.3, ultimately winning the Open by just 2 points over Mirjam von Rohr, the previous year's Open champion. It is Campbell's first Open win. The margin is notable given her trajectory: she finished second overall at the 2025 CrossFit Games, with Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr taking the title ahead of her, and she arrived at the 2026 Open having already won the Gymreapers Wodapalooza Miami Beach for a second consecutive year, finishing that competition with 354 points across five events in early March.

The Open drew hundreds of thousands of participants worldwide, as it does each year, with competitors hoping to crack the top 25 percent in their division and advance to Quarterfinals. That next stage is presented by Velites. Athletes who qualified received invitations and workouts on March 23 and have until March 30 at 12:00 p.m. PT to accept, complete the workouts, and submit scores at Games.CrossFit.com.

Campbell's Open win adds another layer to what has already been a strong early season. Her wrist injury in 2023 threatened to derail her career entirely; the back-to-back WZA title and now an Open crown suggest that threat is well behind her. With Quarterfinals on the immediate horizon, both she and Mertens enter the next phase of the season as the athletes everyone else is chasing.