Most people who train CrossFit will never compete at the Games. Most won't even make it past Quarterfinals. But they train hard, they track their lifts, and they want something to show for it beyond a gym PR board. That's the gap XENOM is targeting — and today they made it official.
XENOM (pronounced "zee-nom") launched February 27, 2026 with $15 million in seed funding, a foundational equipment deal with Rogue Fitness, and a CrossFit Partner Event Series license. The pitch is straightforward: a fixed, 10-event competition format that gives functional fitness athletes a consistent global benchmark to train toward, year after year.
The Idea Behind It
CrossFit built its identity on the unknown and unknowable — you don't know what's coming until the workout is announced. That makes for great TV and great athletes, but it also means there's no fixed standard to train toward. Every competition is a different test. Your score from one year means nothing the next.
XENOM flips that completely. The same 10 events — split across two days, 5 events each day — the same scoring system, every single competition. Athletes earn points through a cumulative index inspired by Olympic decathlon scoring — meaning a strong snatch, a solid aerobic engine, and a capable gymnastics game all matter equally. You can't hide a weakness for long.
The result is a benchmark. Something you can actually train for, improve against, and compare across cities, countries, and years. That's new in this space.
The scoring system is called the Elite Performance Index — inspired by traditional decathlon scoring. Each of the 10 events has an elite benchmark worth 1,000 points. Your score in each event is measured against that benchmark proportionally, and all 10 scores are added together into a cumulative total. Beat the elite benchmark and you score above 1,000 for that event. The key is consistency — dominating one event doesn't cover for falling apart in another. You need to be complete.
Who's Behind It
Keith Barlow founded XENOM. He's been a CrossFit athlete for over a decade, holds a CrossFit L2 certification, and co-owns Fittest, a PR and marketing firm that has worked with HYROX, Puma, Red Bull, and other major fitness brands. He knows the community from the inside.
The money comes from WndrCo — an investment firm led by Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-founder of DreamWorks and former chairman of Disney Studios, and Sujay Jaswa, former CFO of Dropbox. Neither investor has a CrossFit background, but that's actually interesting. It means outside money is looking at functional fitness as a genuine growth category, not just a niche.
"There are very few global household name brands left to build. Fitness has become a sport category with true mainstream reach." — Sujay Jaswa, WndrCo
Rogue Fitness rounds out the foundation as the official equipment partner. They'll also be unveiling a brand-new piece of competition-grade equipment tied specifically to XENOM before Season 1 begins. If you know Rogue's history of building gear that defines how people train, that detail is worth watching.
Three Events Announced — Seven More Coming
XENOM has released three of the ten events so far. The rest roll out over the coming weeks before the June debut in Dallas.
Nine minutes on the clock, four attempts spaced at 90-second intervals. One shot at a true max effort snatch. Opens the competition with the most technical lift in the sport.
Three kilometers of running straight into two kilometers on the Echo Ski. No rest, no time cap. This one will expose anyone who's been skipping cardio.
A triplet of toes-to-bar, thrusters, and muscle-ups. Loading and rep counts scale across Elite, RX, and Compete divisions.
Three events in and already the picture is clear: XENOM wants athletes who can lift heavy, sustain long efforts, and move well on a rig. The seven unreleased events will fill in the rest of the picture — and one of them will feature the new Rogue equipment reveal.
Who Can Compete
Each event hosts 2,000 athletes competing across two formats — Individual and Same-Sex Pairs — with three divisions inside each:
- Elite — top-end loading and technical standards for serious competitive athletes
- RX — prescribed competition standards for experienced CrossFit athletes
- Compete — scaled loading for athletes newer to the format who still want the full 10-event experience
The division structure is smart. HYROX built mass participation by making its format accessible at every level, and XENOM is doing the same thing. The person three years into CrossFit and the person chasing a podium can both compete on the same weekend in the same venue.
One detail worth noting if you train at a CrossFit affiliate: XENOM holds an official CrossFit Partner Event Series license, and CrossFit affiliates in good standing receive priority access and preferential pricing on both athlete and spectator tickets. Worth flagging to your coach.
Season 001 Schedule
The debut event goes June 27–28, 2026 inside Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas — the Dallas Cowboys' headquarters and practice complex. After that:
- London, UK — August 29–30, 2026
- Miami, FL — Dates TBA
- Paris, France — Dates TBA
Season 1 includes 11 total stops across the US and Europe. Long-term, XENOM is targeting 60+ competitions per year globally — which would put it on a similar expansion trajectory to HYROX, which now runs hundreds of events worldwide.
How to Register
XENOM is giving away 250 free entries to the Dallas event through a ballot open now through March 13. Winners are notified March 16 and have 48 hours to accept. Enter at xenom.global.
Early bird registration opens March 16 for everyone else. Pricing:
Standard pricing after the early bird window hasn't been announced yet.
Is This the Real Deal?
New fitness competitions launch all the time. Most quietly disappear. XENOM has a few things going for it that most don't: institutional money from investors who've built global brands before, Rogue Fitness's credibility and operational experience, and a format that solves a real problem the community has felt for years — there's no consistent, permanent way to measure yourself against other functional fitness athletes.
The $500 entry fee is steep. The jury is still out on whether the format will feel genuinely different once you're inside it. But if XENOM executes on the Dallas event, builds a clean athlete experience, and releases seven more events that make the full test compelling — this could become something significant for people training in boxes, garages, and gyms who want more than the Open to train for.
Worth watching closely. June isn't far away.
Find a Gym to Train For XENOM
Search 5,784 CrossFit and HYROX gyms across all 50 states — find your training home.
Search the Directory →