How Joe Linton and Bob Jennings went from hosting affiliate throwdowns to running events for CrossFit’s best athletes.
In April of 2026, two groups of CrossFit athletes—the elite individuals and the masters— will gather in Del Mar, California at the Legends Championship to earn just a few coveted spots to the 2026 CrossFit Games in July.
The man in charge of this official CrossFit Games Semifinals event, Joe Linton, doesn’t work for CrossFit and he didn’t start out running events with world-class athletes.
He began as a CrossFit affiliate owner and now, 15 years later, he and his business partner, Bob Jennings, are running global competitions for the best in the sport.
“I think that the world of competitive CrossFit is going to be ramping back up,” Joe said about the future of CrossFit competitions.
And if the past few years are any indication, he’ll be an important part of the process.
Joe opened Offshore CrossFit in Carlsbad, California in 2011.
During the 11 years he owned the gym, Joe frequently ran small in-house competitions, including a partner competition called the Dynamic Duo and a coed competition called Beauty and the Beast.
“They were mainly geared toward raising money to buy new equipment, so we would run a competition every three months and have about 100 to 150 competitors,” Joe said.
Each time he and his team would raise about eight to ten thousand dollars, which he would use to buy rowers, runners, new plates, and new barbells.
“I was able to incentivize the members to volunteer for it,” he said, telling them if they helped run the competition he’d have new equipment for them to use at the gym.
“We just ran them out of the gym, using our own equipment, and giving out small prizes from mainly local sponsors,” Joe said.
Then in 2017 Bob Jennings—who was an athlete at Offshore CrossFit—had an idea to start a master's competition. Bob and Joe put the one-day competition together in two months, hosting it at Offshore CrossFit, just like their other competitions. They called it the Legends Championship, and that first year they had 36 athletes who each paid 20 dollars to register.
The next year, in 2018, 60 athletes registered. Then in 2109, the demand was so high they started out with an online qualifier, which four hundred people around the world entered. Fortunately, the gym had eight thousand square feet, so they could keep expanding.
“We had 120 come to the gym, which was great. And that was a three day competition, so a lot of people came into town, stayed for the three days. We had 10 countries and 35 states represented,” Joe said.
In 2020 the competition became a four-day event and finally moved outside of Joe’s gym to different locations around the United States, from Arizona to Tennessee.
Their success caught the attention of CrossFit, and in 2024 Dave Castro reached out.
“He asked me and Bob to run the masters side of the CrossFit Games, and we’ve been running the CrossFit Masters Games and the Legends championship,” Joe said.
Then, in 2025, CrossFit asked Joe and Bob to organize and run an in-person semifinal qualifier for the 2026 season, not just for the masters but for the elite individuals as well. This will be their first year hosting an in-person semifinal, and then they will organize and run the 2026 Masters CrossFit Games.
Going from running in-house competitions to global, CrossFit Games qualifying events was a big adjustment for Joe and his team. He admits it was intimidating at first.
“We had to really learn a lot,” he said. They had to double their staff and volunteers and work with a convention center for the first time when they hosted the Masters Games in Birmingham, Alabama in 2024.
“You definitely learn how to negotiate and find the areas where you can save a lot of money,” he said.
Going into Del Mar, Joe said he’s not worried about the operational side of things, especially because it’s been the site of so many successful CrossFit competitions.
He said he’s excited about bringing a CrossFit competition back to San Diego.
“It's a beautiful venue,” Joe said. “There’s an open air arena, and it’s an epic entrance even when you drive up. San Diego's an amazing space, everyone loves to travel here,” he said, adding that there hasn’t been a large CrossFit competition in this location since 2019.
While Joe and his team have hosted many high-level masters competitions, this is his first time hosting the main CrossFit competitors. He understands that the stakes are higher for these athletes.
“This is their career,” he said, “it's a stepping stone for them to win some big money and get some big sponsors.”
Joe and his team are not only running the logistics of the elite competition, they are also programming the events, working with J.R. Howell, who created the well-known CRASH Crucible competition.
“I’ll get his eyes on it, and have some back and forth, because he has a very good idea of what these elite individuals are capable of,” Joe said.
And while his programming doesn’t have to coordinate with the CrossFit Games events, Joe does run his programming by CrossFit and Dave Castro.
“I want their feedback,” Joe said, “because they have 20 plus years of running competitions at a very high level.”
Competitive CrossFit has always been an important part of the CrossFit experience, even if most average CrossFit athletes don’t follow the competition scene closely. While interest in the CrossFit Games and the semi-finals has waned—especially following the Covid pandemic—Joe thinks the world of competitive CrossFit is ramping back up.
He said if spectator numbers continue to grow, that will then carry over to the sponsors and the vendors.
“I'm already having more sponsors and vendors and people reaching out to be at Del Mar,” Joe said, “and I do think that CrossFit getting more back to the community side of things is going to help CrossFit as a sport.”
About Author, Hilary Achauer