What We Know About Dubai Fitness Championship Programming So Far

Image Credit: Athlete’s Eye Photography

*Update November 29

Event 1: Obstacle Course

Original text: The Dubai Fitness Championship (DFC) historically goes long and off site for their opening event. Will that be true again this year? We wait to find out as event 1 has yet to be released. 

We were expecting long, but traditionally Obstacle Courses in CrossFit are short…however, like other events on this list, there are missing details. Given everything else on here, I’m still not ruling out this being longer than it looks on paper.

Event 2: Dubai Elite Lifter’s Clash

Max Snatch

Max Clean and Jerk

Classification:

• WW
• Max Strength
• :20 or less per lift

Event 3: “Altitude and Attitude Test”

10 Rounds of: 

1 Legless Rope Climb

15 Wall balls 10 Thrusters

*updated event announcement

35 Double Unders with heavy rope

Classification:

• GMW
• Triplet
• 11-16 minutes

I have tested a version of this, it took me nearly 20 minutes, though I am nowhere near the condition of these athletes. I still think some can flirt with an EMOM pace depending on floor layout. No easy reps in this workout

Event 4: EMOM Enterprise

15:00 Alternating EMOM

1: 25 Toes to Bar

2: 16/12 Calorie Echo Bike

3: Max Rep Front Squats 

4: Rest

Classification:

• GMW
• Triplet
• 15 minutes

Event 5: UNKNOWN

Events 2-4, and 6-7 have been released, leaving a mystery in the middle of the competition thus far for event 5. 

Event 6: The DFC Original Challenge

50 Cals Machine

40 A-Jumps

30 Single Arm Devil’s Press

20 Deck Squats

10 Bar Muscle Ups

*then back up the ladder

Classification:

• MGWWG
• Chipper
• 13-18 minutes

Event 7: Grit and Grapple

21-15-9 

Power Cleans

Farmers Walk

Classification:

• WW
• Couplet
• 5-9 minutes

Event 8, 9, 10???

Event 7 is the highest numbered event which has been announced, given that the competition is three days and is generally more comprehensive than a Semifinal, we assume there is at least one more event, beyond that, we will have to wait and see. 

General Observations: 

Of the five known events so far we have:

• A max strength test 
• One Couplet
• Two Triplets
• One Chipper

We have: 

• 8 weightlifting implements
• 4 gymnastics implements
• 3 monostructural implements

Taking some liberties, we can assume to see more gymnastics, more monostructural, and not too much more weight lifting of the remaining events. 

Time Domains and What’s Left?

We took some liberties in applying expected time domains to the five workouts without having any time caps yet announced for them. There’s a pretty good spread from short to long so far, and if I was betting on the remaining things I’d expect an opening event of 20 or more minutes, and maybe two short back to back events as a finale, or potentially an elimination style event in the middle of the competition with a machine and an odd object displacement.