Last year’s CrossFit Open worldwide winner, Jamie Greene, is competing as an individual in 2017. While Greene wasn’t new to the CrossFit world last year (she finished 102nd in the 2015 CrossFit Open), many were not familiar of the athlete that hailed from Dubai in the Africa region.

After winning the Open, however, Greene went ‘team’ and joined her Affiliate Team CrossFit Yas to compete the rest of the season much to the chagrin of CrossFit fans who wanted to see her go head-to-head against the best in the sport. CrossFit Yas went on to finish 2nd in the Meridian Region and finished on the podium (3rd) at the 2016 CrossFit Games.

In speaking with Greene, she said that her decision to compete as an individual was that she wanted a “different challenge.” This decision will excite many who have been waiting to see Greene challenge the likes of the Meridian Regional’s best and possibly compete on the biggest stage at the CrossFit Games.

During last year’s Open, Greene finished no worse than 12th worldwide in any Open workout and had three 3rd place finishes. Greene held off Sam Briggs during the last week in a hotly contested Open. She finished at the top of the Africa region leaderboard in every workout and will look to do the same in 2017.

Should Greene find herself in one of the top 5 spots at the Meridian regional, Greene would be the first athlete from Africa to compete at the CrossFit Games since the ‘Super Regional’ format was put into place in 2015. No athlete from Africa, Asia or Latin America has made it to Carson the past two years. Will Greene be able to change that?