Magic City CrossFit Semifinal sends 28 Masters athletes to Games

The Masters-only Magic City Games in Birmingham, Alabama, ended with 28 athletes advancing, and the format made every qualifying line feel sharper than a standard Semifinal. With the field split by age group instead of one open elite draw, the weekend rewarded consistency, clean transitions and the ability to avoid the kind of small mistakes that can erase a Games berth.

The biggest qualifying pools came in the 35-39 and 40-44 divisions, where three men and three women advanced in each bracket. Marquan Jones, Erik Thomas and Austin Nedelcoff earned the men’s 35-39 spots, while Marisa Flowers, Jessica Meek and Sami Scorzelli moved through on the women’s side. In the 40-44 division, Ross Bradley, Luis Perez and Joel Werner qualified for the men, and Megan Apostoleris, Megan Scales and Katrina LaClair did the same for the women. Those deeper brackets created the weekend’s toughest pressure point: with three spots available, athletes still had almost no margin for error.

The cut tightened further as the divisions aged up. Chris Reil and David Johnston qualified in the men’s 45-49 group, with Lauren Cullen and Stephanie Roy advancing for the women. Breck Berry and Mike Kern earned the 50-54 men’s berths, while Christine Hoffmann and Misty Ritter took the women’s spots. Chad Stewart was the lone qualifier in men’s 55-59, with Dana Mather advancing in women’s 55-59. Gregory Weate moved on in men’s 60-64, Angela Yates qualified in women’s 60-64, Wayne O’Hara claimed the men’s 65-69 berth and Nancy Edmonson did the same for the women. Doug Worrall and Betty Hardin closed the board with the 70-plus qualifiers.

That distribution says as much about the 2026 season as it does about Birmingham. CrossFit marked the year as the 20th anniversary of the Games, with the main event set for July 24-26 in San Jose, California, and the Masters CrossFit Games scheduled separately for July 21-23 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. The Age-Group Online Semifinals, which ran May 7-11, were the final qualifying stage for Masters and Teenage athletes, underscoring how many paths still run through the age-group pipeline.

Magic City sat in the middle of a crowded first weekend in May alongside Copa Sur and the Far East Throwdown, but its significance was different. It was a new Masters-only qualifier, and it showed how valuable a single clean weekend has become for athletes chasing San Jose. In a season where Masters athletes in the 35-54 divisions needed top-400 Quarterfinal finishes and 55-plus athletes needed top-300, Birmingham rewarded the competitors who managed the stage with the least waste and the most control.