Spanish Fork’s Dallin Pepper Wins the Rogue Invitational After Starting CrossFit in His Family’s Garage

• Dallin Pepper, who grew up in Spanish Fork, Utah, won the 2026 Rogue Invitational in Aberdeen, Scotland, with eight top-five finishes over three days.
• Pepper began training in his family’s garage after watching the teen division at the 2015 CrossFit Games, and two years later he won the boys 14-15 division in Madison, Wisconsin.
• Pepper finished on the podium at the 2026 CrossFit Games, and the 2027 CrossFit Open begins on February 18.

A Teenager Who Called CrossFit Dumb Became the Rogue Invitational Champion

Dallin Pepper got choked up when he was crowned champion of the Rogue Invitational. When asked why, he replied: “I think that emotion just came from a very long year being so close at the CrossFit Games to reaching that goal. And now I finally, finally checked one off the list, and it feels pretty good.”

The win came in Aberdeen, Scotland, over a three-day weekend in late October. It also came eleven years after a boy in Spanish Fork, Utah, watched the end of the 2015 CrossFit Games on television and changed his mind about a sport he had called dumb for a year. The road to that floor in Aberdeen ran through a Utah garage, a small-town gym and a summer of six-day training weeks when he was 15.

What the Rogue Invitational Asks of an Athlete

CrossFit is a physical exercise regimen and a competitive fitness sport. The 2026 Rogue Invitational ran from Friday, October 23, to Sunday, October 25, at P&J Live in Aberdeen. It was the third year in a row the event has been held in Scotland, and it marks the end of many athletes’ season, a last chance to compete before they prepare for the year ahead. Not every athlete on the entry list made it to the start: Haley Adams left the Rogue Invitational field as Hyrox became her focus.

Rogue is known for heavy barbell lifts, odd objects and challenging programming, and athletes can use any Rogue equipment. The workouts released before the weekend included the Viking press, the yoke carry, the axle clean and jerk and log muscle-ups. Strongman and Strongwoman events run alongside the CrossFit field all weekend.

A year earlier, Pepper had withdrawn from the 2025 Rogue Invitational with rhabdomyolysis. In Aberdeen he stayed consistent for most of the weekend, with eight top-five finishes. One of them came on the second event of the final day, a workout named Dunnottar with no barbell in it. Athletes walked 100 feet on their hands, did 75 double unders, 25 GHD sit-ups and 50 burpee box jump overs, then worked the same list in reverse: 25 GHD sit-ups, 75 double unders and another 100 feet of handstand walk. Pepper held a competitive but controlled pace and took fourth in 7:32.60, about 12 seconds behind winner Tudor Magda, who finished in 7:20.48.

He held the lead over his friend James Sprague and was crowned champion. “The last event was great movements for me, and I had the cushion I wanted going into the final event, so it wasn’t until then that I felt pretty confident I was going to take it home,” Pepper said in a video on his YouTube page recapping the event. “Before that, it was still the mindset of fighting for every single point you can.”

The men’s field had a different look from the year before. Justin Medeiros and Roman Khrennikov, last year’s Rogue podium finishers, did not compete in Aberdeen, which left the door open for Sprague and other athletes who had come close to the top.

A Skeptical Kid and a Family Garage

Pepper’s story starts far from Scotland. His parents introduced him to CrossFit, and he was not a fan. “They tried to get me to do it for awhile — for like a year, and I was lazy and I thought it was dumb,” Pepper said in 2017, when he was 15.

The 2015 CrossFit Games changed that. He saw the tail end of the competition on TV, and the athletes his own age in the teen division caught his attention. “I saw some of those kids and I thought, ‘That would be really cool,’” he said. Soon after, he began training with his dad in the family’s garage.

Ryan Bagley owns CrossFit in Spanish Fork, and he recognized the starting point. “Just one more 120-pound scrawny kid,” Bagley said. Pepper described the start himself in August 2017. “About a year and a half ago, I was not very good at CrossFit at all, and I was just starting out: couldn’t do a pull-up,” he said in August 2017.

His mother, Jana Pepper, and father, Joe, agreed to let him work with a trainer after he had been training on his own. Dallin told the trainer at Spanish Fork CrossFit that he wanted to reach the CrossFit Games someday, and the trainer treated it as wishful thinking, the kind of dream any child might announce. Pepper kept going. His peers thought it was weird that he stayed fit and ate healthy, and the reaction bothered him at first. “Hopefully, they’ll show more interest in it and start,” he said. As they saw his successes, that changed.

Six Days a Week at Fifteen

In the spring of 2017 the 15-year-old Spanish Fork Junior High student was the best in the Southwest Region for his age. He ranked fifth in the world on the leaderboard for boys 14-15 and first among those who had qualified online. He was also headed to the CrossFit Games in Madison, Wisconsin, in August, and his goal had grown from taking part to winning.

He won. In Madison, Pepper beat competitors from as far away as Abu Dhabi and Europe to take one of the teen divisions and earned the title of Fittest Teen on Earth. It was the first of three first-place finishes in the teen division.

Summer training that year meant six days a week and three to four hours a day. Pepper also helped at the gym, and his mother described the routine. “He comes each weekend and he cleans the gym and he cleans the floors and the bathrooms,” Jana Pepper said. His fitness story became a family affair: mom, dad, four siblings and an extended family of fellow CrossFit enthusiasts. “I’ve turned my kids’ hobbies into my hobbies, and it’s been a lot of fun to have that kind of time with them,” said Jana Pepper, Dallin’s mom.

Pepper described the bond a shared workout creates. “Once you do a workout with someone you create a special bond, and you’re best friends no matter what,” Dallin Pepper said. His mother described his drive. “He has pushed himself and worked hard — (he’s) a very, very driven kid and has worked his way to this point,” Jana Pepper said, noting how proud she is of her son’s accomplishments. “Coaches have helped a ton but he does most of his stuff all on his own.” She also spoke about watching him work. “It’s humbling to see him work so hard,” Jana Pepper said of her son.

Pepper took the lesson from the results in two separate interviews. “It’s kind of crazy when I see my name up there, but it’s really showed that you can do anything you set your mind to if you work hard,” he said. “That’s been a big lesson I’ve learned from all of this.” Three months later, after the title in Madison, he said it again. “Hard work pays off, that’s the biggest thing I’ve learned, and you can do anything you set your mind to,” Dallin said of his path to the title.

Young athletes find the sport in many kinds of rooms. A CrossFit gym in Celina, Ohio, coaches incarcerated Ohio youth twice a week, and Pepper trained at the Spanish Fork gym where a trainer first heard his goal of reaching the Games.

From Teen Titles to the Games Podium

Pepper moved from the teen division to the individual competition in 2022 and began to make a name for himself as a young athlete. He made his Games debut as an individual in 2023 and finished 19th. A leap into the top five followed, and from then on he has placed no lower than fourth. At the 2026 CrossFit Games he finished on the podium, with Sprague, now a two-time Games champion, taking the title.

Matt Torres, now CEO of Brute Strength Training, started working with Pepper early on, as he made the move from teen to individual athlete. Brute Strength athletes stood on the podium this year and also took home first-place finishes.

Training partners share the work. Pepper is best known as the King of the Echo Bike, and he trades friendly, competitive banter on social media with friends and training partners Sprague and Jayson Hopper, the 2025 Games champion. On the competition floor, the three can be seen glancing over to check one another’s pace on a machine or in the middle of a movement.

What Comes Next for a Garage Kid From Spanish Fork

The CrossFit Open, which starts the Games season, begins Thursday, February 18, 2027. Pepper has not shared his plans for the season. In a recent YouTube video reflecting on Rogue and answering viewer questions, he indicated that Rogue is just one win on his list.

For parents of curious teenagers, the Pepper story has a plain outline. A reluctant kid watched the 2015 Games on TV, started training with his dad in the family garage, found a gym in Spanish Fork and kept showing up, six days a week in the summer of 2017. Eleven years after that first look at the sport, he is the Rogue Invitational champion, one item checked off a list that, by his own account, has more on it.