Pepper, Kerstetter win Legends Championship, earn rare CrossFit Games spots

Dallin Pepper and Olivia Kerstetter did more than win the Legends Championship. They claimed two of the sport’s most valuable prizes, rare individual tickets to the 2026 CrossFit Games, in a semifinal where every point mattered and the margin for error was razor-thin.

Pepper finished with 485 points and Kerstetter with 465 after five grueling events in Del Mar, California, where the Legends Championship served as an official in-person Semifinals stop from April 24-26. CrossFit limited the individual field there to just two Games qualifiers per gender, which meant the weekend was less about style and more about survival. By the time the final scores were posted, Pepper, James Sprague, Kerstetter and Abigail Domit had earned the four individual invitations that will send them to the Games finals in San Jose, California, in July.

That is what made Pepper’s win so meaningful. The 25-point cushion over Sprague was significant in a field this tight, especially with only two men’s spots available. Pepper has now appeared in each of the last four CrossFit Games and has finished in the top five in three straight seasons, a run that places him firmly among the sport’s most reliable headliners. His official athlete profile shows a 4th-place finish in 2025, 2nd in 2024 and 5th in 2023, plus a 3rd-place result in the 2025 Semifinals. This was not a breakout. It was confirmation.

Kerstetter’s victory carried a different kind of weight. Her 465 points were enough to top the women’s field and hold off Domit, whose runner-up finish still delivered the second women’s Games ticket. Kerstetter has already traveled a long way from the teenage divisions, where she won the girls’ titles in both 2021 and 2022. Her official profile also shows a 3rd-place finish at the 2025 Games and a 16th-place result in 2023, proof that she has moved from prospect to contender and now to a legitimate elite force.

Sprague stayed within striking distance throughout the weekend and finished just 25 points behind Pepper, a reminder that the men’s race was never settled until the final scoreboard. The 22-year-old’s 4th-place finish at the 2025 Games already marked him as a rising threat, and this result only sharpened that profile.

The larger story is simple: Legends Championship rewarded consistency, not noise. In a semifinal built to test repeatability under pressure, Pepper and Kerstetter handled the field, the format and the qualification stakes best, and their wins reshaped the 2026 season immediately.