Noah Ohlsen and Nick Anapolsky headline tight 2026 CrossFit Games Masters race

Nick Anapolsky won the 35-39 men’s race in 13:24.369 on July 21, and the result immediately showed how little room the Masters CrossFit Games left for error in San Jose. Noah Ohlsen finished fourth, Travis Mayer was sixth, and the top six men were separated by only 33.762 seconds.

Brendan Willis took second in 13:40.949, while Augustin Vilicnik held third in 13:53.508 and Ohlsen followed in 13:53.630, just 0.122 seconds behind him. Sam Woodhead placed fifth in 13:54.731, with Mayer at 13:58.131 to round out the group. That kind of clustering is championship-grade pressure: one slower turn, one shaky transition, or one bad pacing choice could have moved several names up or down the board.

The setting mattered as much as the stopwatch. CrossFit’s 2026 Games schedule put the full Games in San Jose, California, from July 24-26, while the Masters CrossFit Games ran July 21-23 in the same city at SAP Center. CrossFit’s watch information listed men and women ages 35-39 for Wednesday, July 22, and the event structure also separated the season into the CrossFit Games, Masters CrossFit Games, Teenage CrossFit Games and Adaptive CrossFit Games. The 35-39 men were not on a side stage; they were part of the opening championship week that framed the whole San Jose slate.

The field was built for this level of tension. CrossFit said the 35-39, 40-44 and 45-49 men’s divisions each advanced the top 40 athletes from Semifinals to finals, which put Anapolsky, Willis, Vilicnik, Ohlsen, Woodhead and Mayer into a deep bracket where every place carried weight. That depth is what makes the early masters leaderboard worth watching closely: the athletes at the front already have the names and capacity to separate the division, but the gap between a podium finish and a mid-pack result can vanish in less than half a minute.

For Ohlsen and Mayer, two recognizable CrossFit names inside the age-group field, the opener made the title race feel immediate rather than gradual. Anapolsky’s win gave him the first clear edge, but the margins behind him were so tight that the 35-39 men’s battle already looked less like a single result and more like the start of a week-long fight for control.