🇪🇸 Campbell and Đukić Win Wodcelona

September 17th, 2026

POWERED BY

Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up.

In today’s edition:

  • 🇪🇸 Wodcelona Grows: More than 2,000 athletes descended on Barcelona for functional fitness, weightlifting, adaptive competition, and a new hybrid racing event. Lucy Campbell and Luka Đukić emerged as the elite champions.

  • 💀 Deadly Dozen combines running with 12 functional fitness “Labors” — and in just two years, it has expanded to 35 countries and 160 affiliates. Its founder believes they’re only getting started.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
❝

We’re not trying to replicate what HYROX is doing. We’re trying to do a different vertical within the same space….”

Jason Curtis, Deadly Dozen creator.
COMPETITIONS

“Greatness is Built” at Wodcelona: Lucy Campbell and Luka Đukić Top the Elite Podium in Spain

Credit: @wodcelona / Instagram

The fifth iteration of WODCELONA wrapped up last weekend in Barcelona, Spain, featuring elite athletes and over 2,000 competitors across more than 30 divisions. 

As the event has expanded over the last five years, WODCELONA has come to unite multiple disciplines under one roof – Adaptive Fitness, Functional Fitness, Hybrid Racing, and Weightlifting. Sponsored by Nike and other brands, the event has created a unique environment where diverse communities can connect, compete, and celebrate fitness together.

  • New this year, the event team launched WODCELONA HYBRID – a take on hybrid fitness racing – as one of the workouts. The intention was to attract more competitors and spectators and to bridge the gap between different subgenres of competitive fitness.

Spectators and competitors enjoyed larger activation areas than in years past, more brand interactions, and a strong festival atmosphere throughout the venue. Nike athletes Aniol Ekai and Lucy McGonigle hosted a weightlifting clinic, and athletes could participate in an immersive Nike Mind experience to support meditation and mindset training.

Who competed: The full roster included 17 solo divisions (one elite, two age-group, and 14 adaptive) and five team divisions. 

  • The elite lineup featured some of Europe's finest, including Victor Hoffer, Luka Dukic, Enrico Zenoni, Lucy Campbell, Elisa Fuliano, and Andra Moistus.

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SPEED READS

🚗🏃 HYROX lands another big-name partner: Lexus is joining the fitness-racing boom as HYROX North America’s official vehicle partner for the 2026-27 season, with activations planned at races across the U.S.

📅🔥 The Countdown Is On: CrossFit has announced the dates for the 2027 Open, giving athletes their target as the road to next season gets underway.

❤️‍🩹🤝 More than a workout: Esther Adams trained through three pregnancies, but when postpartum depression hit, her CrossFit Seabright community became a lifeline — even holding her baby so she could keep showing up to train. Her message to anyone hesitant to walk through the doors: “CrossFit is for anyone.”

ICYMI: Reebok Releases the Speedshifters – Its First Full-Length Carbon-Plated Shoe (Rx article)

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

The Deadly Dozen Is Coming for a Piece of the Hybrid Fitness Boom

Credit: @deadly.dozen / Instagram

Few things, if any, have changed the fitness industry quite like CrossFit.

It introduced the world to functional fitness and gave us a measurable, repeatable way to track progress. Because of this, we got competitive fitness.

With this have come new opportunities.

  • Enter HYROX. It’s hard to imagine HYROX growing the way it has—or even existing—without the road CrossFit paved.

The biggest thing HYROX has arguably added to the fitness space is a more accessible form of functional fitness, opening the door to mass participation in hybrid fitness.

Case in point: 1.6 million people participated in a HYROX race in 2026, and more than two million are expected to race this year. By comparison, just over 250,000 people registered for the 2026 CrossFit Open.

Not surprisingly, HYROX’s success has led others to enter the space and create their own spin-off races, so to speak.

  • Last week, for example, we featured the Hybrid Games, a mass-participation race with 10 stations: the eight HYROX stations plus two more. Participants must also run 600 meters before each station, plus a 200-meter sprint finish.

Now it’s time to meet a second brand with CrossFit and HYROX-ish vibes: The Deadly Dozen.

HIGHLIGHTS

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