5 Things We’ll Remember About the 2025 Open

A handful of athletes absolutely dominated this year’s Open.

Last updated on March 26th, 2025

Wall walks, walking lunges, thrusters, snatches — you name it. The 2025 CrossFit Open had it all, and now that it’s over, we can look back on an exciting three weeks.

Each week, thousands joined the CrossFit HQ livestream to view the Open announcement and learn what workout would consume the next three to four days of their life. (Or maybe that was just me?)

The community witnessed big moments in their affiliates and at the elite level. While there were countless memories to take away from this year’s Open, we whittled them down to our five favorites.

Colten Mertens’ Overall Domination

Colten Mertens missed out on the 2024 CrossFit Games by two spots and returned this season with a fire in his belly.

When his score appeared on the 25.1 leaderboard, it was stunning. The scorecard stopped at 10 rounds, but Mertens proceeded to complete round 10 and get 11 reps into round 11. He finished with the winning score of 361 reps.

Mertens’ domination continued into 25.2 and 25.3, where he took first and second place, respectively.

Mertens is setting the bar high for his 2025 season. Fans can see him next at the invite-only Mayhem Classic, which will be held April 5-6 in Cookeville, TN.

Dallin Pepper’s 25.3 Performance

The third week of the Open was a gnarly combination of rowing, wall walks, and barbell cycling.

Dallin Pepper, however, seemed unbothered. The former teen phenom did the 25.3 announcement alongside friends and fellow competitors Jayson Hopper and James Sprague.

Pepper and Hopper both started out hot, but Pepper chipped away at the lead slowly, winning the Open announcement and the event overall.

The most impressive part was that Pepper’s time on the workout held up and beat out every single other person in the men’s division. He finished the workout in 9:21 and took second place in the Open overall.

Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr Plays a Prank

Seven-time CrossFit Games champion Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr posted a suspicious video of her 25.1 effort, in which she stood still for the first three minutes while the clock ran before posting her score to the leaderboard. Not long after it was posted, Toomey-Orr revealed that it was all in good fun.

The video was actually a showdown between Toomey-Orr and her husband, Shane Orr, PRVN’s head coach, who had a three-minute head start. Both of them used the men’s Rx standard of a 50-pound dumbbell to see if she could beat him even with that handicap. She posted a score of 229 reps but later changed her score to 287. She came in 144th place in the Open worldwide.

Mirjam von Rohr Wins Her Second Open

After coming in 13,249th place at the Open back in 2021, Swiss athlete Mirjam von Rohr has made a name for herself by winning the whole thing in 2024 and 2025.

She didn’t just squeak by, either. Von Rohr took first place in both 25.1 and 25.2, with her “worst” finish being 11th in 25.3.

The 2025 Open champion (and HYROX star) is known for her tremendous athletic endeavors, including doing 1,000 wall balls and 100 unbroken thrusters for time.

Von Rohr came to play this season and will be an athlete to watch as the year unfolds.

Fee Saghafi on Her Own Terms

Feeroozeh Saghafi, known to most as Fee, had a phenomenal Open performance, taking second place overall in a stacked women’s field.

In a video on the Brute Strength YouTube page, she shared that she has shifted her mindset and reason for pursuing CrossFit to align better with her goals. She also said she stopped school to pursue the sport full-time.

Her personal shift and move to Naples, FL, to train with Brute Strength paid off. Saghafi was consistent throughout the entire Open and had top-ten finishes in all three workouts. Her top finish was in 25.1, in which she took third place.