Aline Wirz – This Time It's Good News

Then the news breaks: Gabi Migala withdraws from the CrossFit Games. Her spot goes to the 4th-place finisher of the MAD Fitness Festival. And the 4th-place finisher of the MAD Fitness Festival is Aline Wirz.

Aline Wirz is going to the 2026 CrossFit Games.

If you read our last article, you know what this sentence weighs. In May, it was a phone call that stopped everything: a C6 fracture and a disc herniation touching the spinal cord. Weeks in which it was no longer about placements – but about whether she would ever move normally again. She gave up two semifinals back then. Never the dream.

Or as Aline herself puts it now:

“I guess recovery will have to wait.”

Aline Wirz

How It Happened

The moment could be straight out of a screenplay: Aline is at the physio – an appointment for her neck, of all things – when her coach calls. She texts him that she's in treatment. His reply: It could be something big – or nothing at all. And he sends her a post: Gabi Migala, winner of the MAD Fitness Festival, is withdrawing from the Games.

After her Achilles tendon rupture, Migala isn't aiming to simply return to competition – she wants to return to her level. She is giving herself more time for that. A decision that probably no one understands better than Aline: It's the same one she made herself in spring, when she withdrew from two semifinals.

What Migala's withdrawal could mean for her, Aline already knows in that moment. Her boyfriend had studied the rulebook weeks earlier: This year, a vacated spot goes back to the competition where the athlete withdraws. So it would have to be the 4th-place finisher from MAD. It would have to be Aline. But with CrossFit, things can change last minute – so she and her coach decide: don't celebrate too early, wait for the official email.

It happens faster than expected. That same day, at Barbell Factory, Aline is just explaining that her mailbox sometimes swallows emails – and opens it as she speaks. And there it is. The official invitation to the 2026 CrossFit Games.

“I just started crying like never before.”

Aline Wirz

The 9 points that hurt so much in Madrid? In the end, they were enough.

Not a Gift

You could say: lucky break. Anyone who followed this season knows better.

This spot comes from a 4th-place finish, fought for with a C6 fracture in her neck – including an 85 kg snatch, a personal record, on the competition floor. It comes from an athlete who deliberately gave up the direct Games spot at the Renegade Games because her health mattered more. And who still didn't stop afterwards: nine workouts in four days at the Online Semifinals, 12th worldwide.

And her current form? The Affiliate Battle answered that. 2nd place behind Morgane Thyssens, ahead of a strong European field – winning two of the four events. The neck: no problem. Not once all weekend.

Anyone calling this a gift wasn't watching.

San Jose, July 22–26

The 20th edition of the CrossFit Games takes place at the SAP Center in San Jose, California. The individual athletes start on Wednesday, July 22, and compete through Sunday, July 26. The best athletes in the world – and right among them: Aline.

The evening the invitation arrives, Aline is up until 1 a.m. sorting flights, hotels and bookings. Departure: next Thursday already, leaving a few days of training camp on site. All in all, barely more than a week of preparation – after a season that has long used up every reserve. Optimal looks different.

But maybe that's exactly her strength. “Now it's only bonus,” Aline says. “I will just go and try to enjoy each second.” The biggest pressure – the Online Semifinals, the hoping, the waiting – is behind her. What remains is a spot at the Games. And an athlete with nothing left to prove.

Anything Is Possible

“This year, I don't see any barrier anymore where I think it's impossible. Anything is possible.” That's what Aline told our camera at the start of the season. Then came the diagnosis, and the sentence took on a different meaning. Now, in July, it comes true – differently than planned, harder than expected, but it comes true.

On Instagram, Aline writes: “And just like that… I'm going to the CrossFit Games. It still doesn't feel real, but somehow it is.” And then two sentences that sum up this season better than any statistic:

“Head down. Eyes up.”

Aline Wirz

We at cross equip have been by Aline's side for several years. We documented her Open season, her injury, her comeback. That this story now continues in San Jose is the part no one could have written.

Of course we're curious to see how she performs on the biggest competition floor in the world. But honestly: That's beside the point right now. Above all, we're simply happy for her. After so many setbacks. After it was so close, so many times – close, closer, closest. Now she's going to the Games.

Pure joy, Aline.

Photos: Samuel Veducheau.