Mertens leads tight CrossFit men’s leaderboard after Open tests

Colten Mertens led the men’s CrossFit Open standings with 9 points, and the way he got there explained why the season still felt wide open even after three tests. Mertens finished third in 26.1, fifth in 26.2 and first in 26.3, a balanced run that rewarded consistency under CrossFit’s relative scoring, where lower totals win.

That system made every placing matter. Peter Ellis sat second with 20 points, Jeffrey Adler was third with 26, Jonne Koski fourth with 36 and Nika Maisuradze fifth with 37. The rest of the top 10 showed the same compression: James Sprague had 40 points, Harry Lightfoot 43, Jay Crouch 66, Enrico Zenoni 86 and Saxon Panchik 96. The gap from Mertens to Ellis was small enough to show how quickly one strong finish could change the order, but the jump from the front five to Crouch and beyond also showed that early consistency still separated the athletes who controlled their own fate from those chasing damage control.

The leaderboard mattered beyond bragging rights. CrossFit’s 2026 season marked two decades of finding the Fittest on Earth and the 20th CrossFit Games, and the structure brought Quarterfinals back after the Open. The top 25 percent of individual and age-group athletes advanced out of the Open, while the top 2,000 men and women from Quarterfinals were eligible for Semifinals. That made every point in the Open carry direct qualification weight, not just ranking value.

The final workout, 26.3, helped explain the shape of the board. It was a 16-minute test built around burpees over the bar, cleans and thrusters with increasing barbell loads, while 26.2 mixed dumbbell snatches, overhead walking lunges, pull-ups, chest-to-bar pull-ups and ring muscle-ups. Mertens’ third-place start, fifth-place follow-up and closing win fit the profile of an athlete who could stay efficient across different demands, a trait that tends to hold up as the field narrows.

Lucy Campbell’s women’s win by 2 points reinforced the same season-wide theme: the margin for error was small, and the athlete who stacked solid finishes across all three Open workouts came out in front. With the Individual Online Semifinals set for June 11-15 and the CrossFit Games scheduled for July 24-26, the Open did exactly what it was supposed to do, sort the field early and reveal who had momentum before the real pressure ramps up.