CrossFit sanctions four Open athletes

CrossFit’s Open is supposed to be the sport’s mass-participation front door. Anybody can sign up, do the workouts, and post a score. But that openness creates a basic problem — a lot of the competition happens remotely, and trust has to do a lot of work. This week, CrossFit showed it is still checking after the fact. Four athletes from the 2026 Open were sanctioned for rulebook violations, with penalties ranging from 1 year to 4 years. ### What actually happened? CrossFit issued four sanctions tied to the 2026 Open. Two were for edited video submissions, and two were for falsifying birthdates during registration. The sanctioned athletes were not all in the same division, which matters because this was not one isolated judging dispute — it was a mix of video tampering and eligibility fraud. ### Who were the named athletes? The two named athletes were Ilse Boevink and Angelo Di Milo. Both were sanctioned for edited workout videos, and both received 4-year sanctions. That is the heavy penalty in this batch, which tells you CrossFit is treating manipulated video evidence as a major integrity breach, not a paperwork issue. ### Why is Angelo Di Milo getting attention? Di Milo’s case stands out because his scores were extremely competitive in the men’s 50-54 division. He had posted 285 reps on 26.1, 12:53 on 26.2, and 229 reps on 26.3 — marks that appeared to give him 27 points and 2nd place worldwide in his age group. ### What about the other two athletes? Those were minors, so their names were not disclosed. One registered in the 14-15 division and the other in the 16-17 division, but both had falsified their ages when entering the 2026 Open. Each received a 1-year sanction. That shorter penalty suggests CrossFit is distinguishing between types of violations, but it is still treating false age information as sanction-worthy misconduct. ### Why does video editing matter so much? Because the Open is mostly remote. CrossFit’s rulebook lays out specific pathways for score submission, validation, video review, appeals, and leaderboard ranking. If an athlete can alter a video and still keep a score, the whole online format starts to wobble. It’s basically like using a doctored finish-line photo in a race that nobody watched in person. ### Is this still “during the Open” if it’s May? The workouts were done in late February and early March, but enforcement can come later. The 2026 Open began on February 26 and closed on March 16, 2026. CrossFit’s rulebook also includes sections on video submissions, scoring protocol, submitted scores, appeals, and the leaderboard, so the competition window and the review window are not the same thing. ### Does this change the leaderboard? In at least one case, yes. Boevink is still listed on the Open leaderboard, but with her 26.3 score deleted. Di Milo no longer appears on the 2026 Open leaderboard, even though archived results showed him near the top of his division before the sanction. That means sanctions are not just symbolic — they can erase advancement-level performances after the event ends. ### What’s the real takeaway? CrossFit is sending a pretty clear message: the Open may feel casual because it’s online, but the enforcement standard is not casual at all. If you fake eligibility or manipulate evidence, CrossFit can still come back weeks later, pull the score apart, and hand out long bans.