Do better than your opponents on average across all the events and you win!
This year’s Games are scored just like the 2012 Games. Athletes still get points in each event based on their finish (see the charts to the left). All Individual events use the same 100 Point Chart. The winners are those with the most points in the end.
In the Open and Regionals, the points equaled the place the athlete earned in an event (i.e. first place = 1 point), and the winner had the lowest points. At the Games, first place earns the most points, and everyone else gets fewer. If you look at the charts, you may notice that the margins between places are not constant. There are larger margins near the top and smaller margins near the bottom. This structure lessens the impact of cuts in the final placing of the top athletes.
Going into more detail, first place in a 100-point event gives you 100 points. Second place is 95, third is 90, while 30th is 27 points When athletes tie, they each get the higher placement. For example, if two athletes tie for 10th in a 100-point event, they each get 67 points. The next athlete gets 12th, for 63 points.
Many events have time caps. If an athlete does not complete the event within the time cap, there is a one-second penalty for each rep not completed. For example, if there is a 10-minute cap in an event and an athlete is seven reps away from completing the event, their result will show as 10:07. Therefore, athletes are still ranked according to their performances. Athletes who do more work within the time cap finish ahead of the athletes who do less work, and get the corresponding points.
In a few max effort events, athletes have an opportunity for partial reps after failing. Once they have reached their limit, they have the opportunity to get partial units, typically 0.01 per rep to differentiate themselves from other athletes who failed at the same point. The details of what movements constitute the tie-break and how long they have are unique to each event, and will be detailed in the workout descriptions. It is always better to lift more weight or get additional reps of the original exercise, but the secondary drill is used to break ties.
Teams
For Teams, the competition structure is much different than the past two years. Teams will be scored with the same 100 Point Chart and a 50 Point Chart, depending on the event. The winner is the team with the most points at the end.
In 2011 and 2012, teams used Friday and Saturday events as a qualifier to make it to Sunday where the slate was wiped clean and the top six teams battled in one final event to win the Affiliate Cup. Now, every event matters and the final event will be scored just like the others. No clean slate.
Relative Scoring
For all you scoring geeks out there, CrossFit’s scoring system is relative. This means that points are based on athletes’ relative performances to each other and not on the actual results. The athlete who beats the others gets more points, no matter what the exact scores or margins between finishes. The reason for this is that the Games have so many different types of events that there is no viable way to combine the actual results. So, we just compare finish orders from each event. Do better than your opponents on average across all the events and you win!