2025 Nationals - WEST Venue Update

Dear Athletes,

For those I haven't met or connected with, my name is Simon Damborg, and after many years of serving on the CFFF board, I was voted in as President of the Federation at the end of 2024 for the next four years. During my time as president, I’ve set some big goals to make major progress toward achieving National Sport Organization recognition through Sport Canada , the IOC, and more. This is a multi-year undertaking, but it will help us secure government grants that are only made available to NSOs. These would eventually allow us to pay high-performance athletes to compete and represent Canada, cover athlete travel costs to competions or training camps, provide paid and professional judges and coaches, and so much more. You can read more about what's required and what the funding can be used for here.

One of the biggest hurdles we face in achieving this goal in North America is simply general awareness of who we are, what we do, what we're trying to accomplish and why our work is not against other variations like CrossFit or Hyrox, but actually in support of them. So, one of the first things I decided as president was to swing for the fences by securing a major venue and trying to make Nationals a large-scale event. For the past six months, I've volunteered hundreds of hours of my time to try to make this happen. But as you can all see by the registration numbers, I have failed to create the awareness and turnout needed to make it the size of event you deserve.

After a lot of difficult conversations, we’ve decided that to best accomplish our goal of providing a top-level competition for our athletes, and to ensure the best Canadians earn their spot to represent Canada on the world stage, we will be removing the FFL/team aspect of the west event, and relocating to a beautiful and well-equipped facility: Hybrid Athletics in Langley, BC.

As a coach and former athlete, I completely understand the frustration of changes this close to the event, and I hope you can accept my sincerest apology for having to make this call at this stage. Up until a few days ago, I was 100% committed to making the PNE Forum work, regardless of the financial cost or personal loss. But I’ve accepted that the focus needs to stay on our long-term goals as a sport and a federation and not saving my ego. Most importantly, I want to ensure we can provide the best experience possible for our athletes and the support they need. For anyone who is unable to change their accommodation, I have already arranged shuttles and drivers to transport athletes from the PNE Forum to the new venue (about 30 minutes away). If there is anything else I can do to ensure you feel supported as an athlete, or to alleviate any burden this change causes - please don’t hesitate to reach out. Although I am a volunteer (like everyone on our board) I will be working on this event full-time for the coming weeks to ensure the federation delivers the caliber of event that you deserve at both event locations.

To the athletes in the EAST: this change should not affect you at all, except that it allows us to reallocate budget toward better medals and prizes for podium finishers and to provide more support to those who qualify for the next stage.

A few other quick updates for all athletes:

Divisions with low registration: You will never have to compete alone. Even if you’re the only person registered in your division at your location, we will ensure you have a full heat of athletes to compete alongside!

Competing across the country: Scores from both EAST and WEST events will be made public as soon as all athletes in both locations have completed the workouts. We understand this isn’t the same as competing side by side, but it's our current best method to reduce athlete travel costs until we can access funding to help with that.

Minimum work requirements still apply: If your division has three or fewer athletes across both locations, you will still need to meet our strict minimum work requirements to qualify. Our programming director is one of the top coaches in Canada, so we can promise qualifying will not be easy, even in a smaller division.

The event details have been updated on the event page: www.cfff.fit/nationals

Please check that page for the latest updates before reaching out. If you have any questions that aren't answered there, don’t hesitate to contact me directly at info@functionalfitnessfederation.ca or through @canadian_functional_fitness on Instagram. Registration is open: If you haven't seen, we have removed the qualifier requirement to register for the event. As we finalize the schedule we may begin to cap total athlete registration, but for now please help us spread the word and increase participation in either location. Even athletes who don't intend to go onto the next stage, participation helps us towards our long term goal of sport recognition. Athlete features: We would love to do athlete features showing you off! Please email media@functionalfitnessfederation.ca with some photos of yourself we can use as well as your @handle, or invite us on instagram as a collaborator so we can help spread awareness.

Once again, I cannot express enough how sorry I am for making such a late change. I promise this decision was not made lightly, but it will allow the federation to deliver a better event, provide stronger support for our athletes, and continue pushing toward our long-term goal of national sport recognition and all the incredible benefits that come with it. Never hestitate to reach out if there's anything I, or the federation can do to make you feel heard and supported as an athlete. Thank you for registering for our event and being a part of the movement towards legitimizing the sport of Functional Fitness in Canada.

Sincerely,

Simon Damborg
CFFF President