OpinionLynne Knapman and William Powell: 59-year-old masters athletes prove age is just a number at the CrossFit Games

An Australian grandmother and an American personal trainer have shown competing at the Games is not just for the young, but the young at heart too

The two will compete this summer in Madison, Wisconsin

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William Powell has become a CrossFit Games stalwart well into his 50s. Photo: Handout

Published: 4:47pm, 8 Jul 2019Updated: 4:50pm, 8 Jul 2019

When someone hears the term CrossFit these days, it’s rather easy to equate it with muscular men and sports-bra clad women. For those who take the time to delve deeper into what CrossFit is about in the long run (being healthy and fit well into old age) there can be an entirely new perspective.

We’re less than a month from the 2019 CrossFit Games. This is the 13th consecutive year very fit individuals from around the world will come together to decide who among them is the fittest. As the Games have grown and expanded in popularity, they’ve also done so in the number of divisions in which athletes are able to prove themselves.

In 2010, the fourth season of the CrossFit Games, the competition moved to a new location which allowed for the introduction of a Masters category. The following year, the Masters divisions were expanded to feature four distinct categories for men and women, grouping athletes by age in five year increments. In 2013, and then again in 2017, those divisions expanded into what we currently have, which is six divisions each for men and women, beginning with the 35-39 year-olds, and finishing with the 60-plus age division.

What’s different this year is the number of athletes qualifying in each division has been cut in half. Historically, the fittest 20 athletes in each division would make it to the Games. This season, you had to finish in the top 10 of the Age Group Online Qualifier to earn the right to compete in Madison, Wisconsin, at the 2019 CrossFit Games.

The typical pattern is that there’s quite an advantage for the younger athletes in each age division. It makes sense, a majority of people will feel better at 45 than 49, or 50 instead of 54. To me, the older the division becomes, the more unlikely it is for an athlete at the upper end of the age range to qualify. And that brings us to two athletes who have been mainstays on the Masters floor at the Games, and who, both at 59 years old, qualified as one of the 10 fittest athletes in the 55-59 divisions for this season.

Lynne Knapman, a CrossFit Games regular and a grandmother. Photo: Handout

Lynne Knapman first showed up at the Games in 2011, placing eighth in the 50-55 age division. Since then she has continued to qualify for the Games in every subsequent season: 2012: sixth, 2013: fifth, 2014: fifth, 2015: second (moved to 55-59 age division), 2016: third, 2017: fourth and 2018: fourth.