From barely qualifying for Regionals to five-time podium finishers and now CrossFit Games Champions.

In 2025, we won the CrossFit Games. A fantastic feat led by four world-class athletes: Tola, Victor, Oda, and Kristin.

But this is not just a story about one winning team. It’s the story of 12 years of work building a culture that produces teams and athletes at the highest level, year after year

The History of CrossFit Oslo and KRIGER Training in the Team Division

To understand where we are now, we have to look back at where we started:

2013–2018: Where It Started

When I came to CrossFit Oslo in 2013, the training environment looked very different. It was a true, classic CrossFit affiliate. From the moment I stepped through the doors, I loved it.

The competition culture was intense, but it was inwards. It was more important to be the best athlete in the gym than the best athlete you could be. Back then, people guarded their scores during the Open, afraid that someone in the gym might beat them.. That was the mindset.

As for team competition, we always qualified a team, and the method was simple: the top three males and top three females from the Open made the lineup. No planning for balance, no matching of strengths and weaknesses, just the leaderboard. That also sparked the inward competition at the gym.

Here are our placements at the European Regionals between 2012–2018:

• 2012: 19th
• 2013: 22nd
• 2014: 23rd
• 2016: 20th
• 2017: 30th (DNF due to injury)
• 2018: 17th

2019–2020: Where the Shift Started to Happen

2019 was the year things really started to change, and it started from the front.

1. Bringing Kristin Holte into the daily training environment
   At that point, Kristin had already been to the Games five times. But most of her training had been done alone. In 2019, we made a key shift: we started doing all high-quality sessions together at the gym.

It began as a decision to help her, but it ended up redefining our culture. Training alongside someone like Kristin showed everyone what it actually looks like to be a professional athlete: how you behave, how you train, and what your goals are. If my goal is to be as good as I can possibly be, then it’s good for me to train next to someone who’s better than me at ring muscle-ups. Because I can watch, learn, and improve. You don’t hide your weaknesses, you prioritise them.

That mindset started to spread. It also gave a lot of athletes the courage to go all in.

2. The right athletes showed up at the right time
   We were lucky with the people who joined the core group at that stage. Lena Richter, Ingrid Hodnemyr, Andrea Solberg, Marius Pettersen, and Eivind Ringard became regulars in the high-quality sessions. In later years, athletes like Seher Kaya, Matilde Garnes, and Leah Støren joined in.

Not only were they talented, they brought the right mentality. They didn’t just want to win at the gym. They wanted to become the best athletes they could be. Suddenly, it wasn’t about winning a qualifier in Oslo, it was about placing high on the overall leaderboard. That change in ambition lifted the standard for everyone.

3. Coaching structure
   We also had a solid coaching team. Simen Aaslund in particular helped us stay true to our training principles, bringing more structure and a more data-driven approach. That laid the foundation for everything that followed.
4. The start of KRIGER Training
   Around this time, it became clear that our training philosophy was different from what we saw elsewhere. That’s when KRIGER Training was born.

We started it to help more athletes get quality training without burning out, whether they wanted to compete locally or at the highest level. What we didn’t realise was how much it would develop us and our methodology.

Suddenly, we could compare one athlete’s test results to another’s. We could track progress over time. Most importantly, we started collecting data in a way we’d never done before. That led to our Athlete Profile system, which made our coaching smarter and helped both everyday athletes and top-level competitors with the same system.

2021: First Time at the Games – and the Start of the Podium Run

2021 was our first year where we really believed we had a chance to go to the Games. Gone were the days of using the Open leaderboard to create the team. Instead, we made decisions based on matching strengths and weaknesses.

The team consisted of:

• Lena Richter
• Ingrid Hodnemyr
• Eivind Ringard
• Marius Pettersen

A side note and a big lesson: have good alternates. A week before Quarterfinals, Eivind injured his leg and couldn’t compete. We hadn’t put much effort into finding backups, and the alternate list was basically me and not many others. I had to jump in, and luckily the workouts allowed the others to carry me along. We scraped through Quarterfinals.

By Semifinals, Eivind was back, and that’s when we really saw the team’s potential. We won the German Throwdown Semifinal in dominant fashion and went all in for the Games.

The first taste of our data obsession
That summer, we went deep into analysis. With Simen leading as head coach for the team, we broke down every movement ever programmed in the Team Division. How many times had each movement appeared? Was it more often heavy or light? What’s the average cycle speed of a Worm clean & jerk compared to a thruster? How long does it take to move the Big Bob 10 metres?

All of it lived in what has now become a huge Google Sheets library.

By the time we got to Madison — our first ever in-person competition together because of COVID — the team already looked like veterans. We stayed near the top in our strengths and had solid damage control in weaker events.

We started the season hoping to qualify for the Games. Thanks to four exceptional athletes, Lena, Ingrid, Eivind, and Marius, and a dedicated coach in Simen, we ended it on the podium. That changed everything, not just for us but for every athlete at CrossFit Oslo who now saw what was possible.

2022–2024: From Belief to Structure

After the success of 2021, it felt like a fire had been lit — both at CrossFit Oslo and among the members of KRIGER Training. 

The team had proven it was possible not only to qualify for the CrossFit Games, but to stand on the podium. More athletes than ever wanted to join a team. Luckily, we had built a solid system the year before, and now it was time to put it to work.

2022: Depth and Expansion

In 2022, the Semifinal was live again after being online the year before. This time, we had not only one team but three CrossFit Oslo teams. In addition, we had another team with KRIGER members that we supported: CrossFit Sarpsborg, coached by Jonas Jonassen.

At the Games, not only did CrossFit Oslo Navy Blue qualify (with three returning members from 2021: Eivind, Lena, and Ingrid. plus Nicolai Billaduel), but so did CrossFit Oslo Purple Red, CrossFit Sarpsborg.

Navy Blue proved that 2021 was no fluke, finishing second in an even deeper field. It was also the first year we faced off with Tola Morakinyo for podium spots, and this time we came out on top. (Not the year after, though.)

2022 CrossFit Games Results by Kriger Team:

• 2nd: CrossFit Oslo Navy Blue
• 21st: CrossFit Oslo Purple Red
• 32nd: CrossFit Sarpsborg

2023: Navy Blue Legacy and Transition

2023 was the last year for CrossFit Oslo Navy Blue. We went all in for the win but finished third, beaten by Tola’s team. Still, the legacy was undeniable: three straight podium spots that had inspired countless athletes in Norway.

Depth continued to grow. Six Oslo teams qualified for Semifinals, with three making it to the Games.

2023 CrossFit Games Results by Kriger Team:

 

• 3rd: CrossFit Oslo Navy Blue
• 12th: CrossFit Trondheim
• 14th: CrossFit Oslo Blackout
• 27th: CrossFit Oslo Najs

2024: A Year Overshadowed

The 2024 season felt like a bit of a parenthesis, with the tragic death of Lazar Djukic overshadowing competition. Still, for the record:

• 3rd: Peak 360
• 7th: CrossFit Oslo BLST
• 11th: CrossFit Oslo Rizz
• 16th: CrossFit Prestanda KRIGER
• 20th: CrossFit Oslo PSL

2025: The Year We Finally Won

The 2025 season started tougher than expected. After years of building more and more athletes into the team environment and using the live Semifinals as a springboard into international competition, the rulebook changed. The team division was cut to online-only Semifinals, and only one team per affiliate could go to the Games.

At CrossFit Oslo, we saw the effect immediately. Many athletes lost their primary goal for the year. If a fire had been lit in 2021 after the CrossFit Oslo win, this felt like watching a balloon deflate. Let’s hope the live Semifinal stage comes back for teams. It’s not only vital for team competition, it’s also a launchpad that makes athletes start competing internationally earlier in their careers.

From the previous year, we had coached the Peak 360 team, where both Matilde and Lena from Oslo teamed up with Noah and Tola. In 2025, Matilde wanted to move back to individual competition, Lena was preparing to become a mum, and we were very happy when Tola showed great interest in moving to Oslo to form a new team. Finally, we didn’t have to face him on another roster. Maybe his seventh year in the Team Division could be the one where he finally won.

Building the 2025 Roster

As always for us, it was about combining strengths and weaknesses in the team. The final choice was Ingrid Hodnemyr, Oda Lundekvam, Victor Helsinghof, and Tola Morakinyo.

We were happy with their capacities and their height, and based on that alone, we knew it would be very hard to beat them in any Worm workout.

This year, we kept it simple and methodical. We avoided the trap of endless team WODs. In fact, we only ran 13 unique team sessions all season. Everything else was individual work targeting each athlete’s weakest link. The truth is, it doesn’t matter how many old Games workouts you run if one athlete will stop the team on pressing gymnastics- you’re better off putting all that energy into fixing it.

Flying through the Open and Semifinal + Games Prep

We performed the online stages with very little stress, all focused on the end goal. Both stages still went fantastically, and CrossFit Oslo Kriger won both. For the first time, an Oslo team was the favourite to win the Games

Setback after Setback

After everything had gone smoothly, the setbacks started to arrive at the end of June. Tola’s application for a visa was declined and he had to leave Norway immediately. That stopped the team from training together at all.

During the summer, Ingrid — making her comeback after becoming a mum — suffered several injuries. This was tough to see, because she’s without a doubt one of the best female athletes to ever compete in the Team Division. We hoped until the very last minute that she would recover in time, but it just wasn’t enough.

This time,learning from the 2021 season- we were ready. Our alternate was none other than eight-time Games athlete Kristin Holte. We hadn’t done a single session with the full roster, but we still believed in our chances.

Winning the CrossFit Games

At the Games, the team dominated. It’s rare to see so few mistakes over an entire weekend. Led by head coach Simen off the floor and seven-time team Games veteran Tola on it, they moved with deliberate transitions and made smart, in-the-moment adjustments to rep schemes.

For the sake of drama, there was one disaster: a poor pegboard event where we finished 17th out of 20 teams and lost a lot of points. That put us in chase mode for the rest of the weekend and set up a final showdown with CrossFit Mayhem, both teams tied on points going into the last event. Winner takes the title.

In that last workout, the team stuck to what they had done all weekend: deliberate transitions, perfect sync. That earned them a stress-free 30-metre lunge to the finish line and the right to finally call themselves CrossFit Games Champions.

The Culture Behind the Victory

The 2025 CrossFit Games title belongs to five outstanding athletes – Tola Morakinyo, Victor Helsinghof, Oda Lundekvam, Ingrid Hodnemyr and Kristin Holte. It also belongs to the Kriger Training and CrossFit Oslo community that has worked year after year to get better.

The culture started more than ten years ago as intensely competitive, but not always helpful. It’s still competitive – arguably more than ever – but now we compete to help each other improve. When you get better, I get better. When I break through a limitation, it shows you what’s possible.

This victory validates everything we’ve built our methodology on:

• We train with intent, not just volume
• Our weaknesses come first
• We break everything down to facts
• We share knowledge instead of hoarding it

We’re proud of this team, but also of every athlete, every team and every coach over the years who has built this environment. Winning in 2025 is a milestone, not the finish line. We look forward to the next seasons – in both the Team and Individual divisions. Learn more about how we train and our programs here