CrossFit judge scandal widens as three scores used wrong name

Mahsa Rezaeemanesh, Coşkun Aydın and Ada Merve Pas all submitted Individual Online Semifinals scores with Oleksandra Berezutska listed as the judge, even though Berezutska did not judge any of the three. The overlap inside CrossFit Boomerang turned one paperwork error into a pattern, and it landed in the middle of the final qualifying stage for the 2026 CrossFit Games.

The scores did not change the top seven athletes in the race for qualification, which helps explain why CrossFit did not move straight to formal sanctions. But the bigger issue is not where these three sat on the leaderboard. It is that the judge name on the submission did not match the judge who was actually on the floor, a gap that goes straight to the integrity of an online stage built on video proof and credential checks.

Video evidence showed a man acting as the floor judge, while Berezutska confirmed she had not judged the athletes. That mismatch is exactly the kind of failure CrossFit’s 2026 Individual Online Semifinals FAQ was written to prevent. The rules require both judges to be visible on video, the floor judge to remain on camera throughout the workout, and the judge to hold the proper credentials. CrossFit also says the Judges Course certificate is valid only for the current CrossFit Games season.

The same FAQ makes one more point that matters here: athletes cannot be their own Head Judge. A competing athlete can serve as Head Judge only if that athlete is not judging while performing the workout. In other words, the online format is not just a test of fitness. It is a test of whether the scorecard, the camera and the credential trail all match what happened in the room.

CrossFit had already shown how aggressively it was policing that trail. On June 3, 2026, it published penalties and appeals from the Online Semifinals, including examples of invalid judge names and zeroed scores. It later said a small number of judges in the Age-Group Online Semifinals had expired CrossFit credentials. The Age-Group Online Semifinals were held May 7-11, 2026, and CrossFit’s Semifinals overview states the Online Semifinals are the final qualifying stage for the 2026 CrossFit Games and Divisional Games.

Taken together, the Boomerang case and the earlier penalties point to the same problem: the online qualification stage has become as much a paperwork and proof contest as a workout. Before the next online round, CrossFit will have to show that the judge on the scorecard is the judge on the video, and that the video is enough to hold up when the leaderboard gets reviewed.