The 2010 CrossFit Games

1. Sheldon wrote...

The first question that immediately popped into my head is, if a person is signed up as a member of a "team" are they no longer eligible for individual competition? Or will scores basically be counted towards both individual and team results, leaving the competitors the choice to attend Regionals as either a team member or individual, assuming they qualify for both?

27 January 2011 / 11:21 a.m.

2. Chase wrote...

Can individuals sign up to be on the "team" and still qualify as an individual at the regionals? For example if I want to compete as an individual, but a group of people from my gym want to do the team, can I be a member of their team, having my scores count towards their team score, even thought I am going to compete as an individual at the Regional?

27 January 2011 / 11:26 a.m.

3. Chase wrote...

Sorry, Sheldon's comment showed up as I was typing mine.

27 January 2011 / 11:28 a.m.

4. Tony Budding wrote...

Great question. This is run like the 07 and 08 Games. You are competing first as an individual and second as a team member. Your scores count for both.

In terms of Regionals, if your team qualifies and you happen to qualify as an individual, yes, you must choose since you won't be able to compete in both competitions at the Regionals.

Just like last year, the team itself is qualifying, not necessarily the individuals who competed for the team. This is seen in all team sports. The Steelers are still in the Superbowl even if Roethlisberger doesn't play.

27 January 2011 / 11:33 a.m.

5. marcus wrote...

Great info, thanks Tony!

Are the regions the same as last year?

27 January 2011 / 11:46 a.m.

6. Jimmy wrote...

Can someone from the same box who doesn't do some or all of the open sectionals be on the team if the team qualifies?

27 January 2011 / 11:55 a.m.

7. Tony Budding wrote...

The competitors from the Open are qualifying the team for Regionals. Each team's roster for the Regionals (and the Games if they get that far) is up to them and can include anyone from that gym.

27 January 2011 / 12:09 p.m.

8. Nick 'Silver Surfer' Collins wrote...

Tony, can you outline the Regions? Or are the same as last year?
Im from New Zealand - is ours different?

27 January 2011 / 12:27 p.m.

9. Steve wrote...

Hey Tony quick question:

Let's say MUPS comes up week 1 and you don't have that skill and thus, can't do it prescribed knocking you out of the individual competition, can your box still use your scores as one of the top 3 on later WODS in the competition or are you out of both compeitions?

Thanks for any clarification.

27 January 2011 / 12:28 p.m.

10. Tony Budding wrote...

Regions: Most of the world is the same. North America has several changes. We'll be releasing a map probably next week with full details.

The top 60 men and the top 60 women per Region qualify for the individual Regional.

Steve (9) Yes, as long as you enter a result of some kind, you will still be considered in the competition and your result could count toward a team result.

27 January 2011 / 12:56 p.m.

11. Shane Gibson wrote...

What is the point of the "other" teams if you can't qualify for regionals or the games? Wouldn't it make the most sense for you to have every competing athlete from your gym listed on the "official" team? Can there be more than one "official" team per gym?

27 January 2011 / 1:16 p.m.

12. Lisa wrote...

So what is the purpose of the "other" team? They do not go beyond the Open, is that correct?

27 January 2011 / 1:27 p.m.

13. Andrew wrote...

@12 Lisa

I wonder if this is setting the stage for sponsored teams, like a Rogue team and Again Faster team etc. Even with no qualifications there may be other prizes for winning, if not that there is always bragging rights. Just a guess, no idea if there is any validity to that.

Also gives a chance for folks who don't have affiliates to get together with other friends and such who may be in different locations to still get a bit of a team competition going.

27 January 2011 / 1:44 p.m.

14. scott wrote...

Tony,

Do the three men and women have to be designated or can I register all my members to the team and then the highest scores then count?

27 January 2011 / 3:15 p.m.

15. Xi Xia wrote...

Sounds like you can have a team of 100+ athletes if you wanted. Best performing 3 men and 3 women from your team, on any given week, determines your team score for that week. Those 3 men and 3 women could change each week...

@ Tony,

The Steelers are still in the Superbowl if Rothesliberg can't play. However, Rothesliberger HAS to play for the Steelers if he wants to play in the Super Bowl. He doesn't have an option of doing his own thing or jumping to another team.

This complaint has come up before and we'll see how it plays it out this year.

A team makes it to Regionals ranked somewhere between 20-30, however, they loose their firebreather female/male to individual competition. That team could be much weaker now and is not the same team as the one that qualified. This is a weakness by choice, not by bad luck, injury, or some other uncontrollable event.

One could argue the 31st team in the region, the one that didn't make it past the Regionals cutoff, the one with all of their athletes committed to team competition, could actually be better than this team that qualified.

One could PROVE this fact by looking back at the scores for that team, factoring out the performances of the athletes that decided to compete as an individual, and factoring in their next best male and female athletes.

It's like the college BCS...why even go there? Just make it a simple playoff and be done with it.

Why not just make athletes commit on March 15th to team or individual?

27 January 2011 / 4:33 p.m.

16. Andy wrote...

@Xi Xia

Very well said. That exact thing happened to us last year. Our team came in 7th at regionals (top 6 went to the games) just missing the cutoff by 1 rep. The team that took first at our region had one of the 09 games top 10 finishers who didn't have to qualify for regionals and was therefore able to compete in the team competition. Naturally this greatly added to their strength as a team.

There is no doubt that they did beat us and that on that day, they were the better team. There is no way of knowing how they would have performed had that one athlete not competed in the 3 events over the course of the weekend. Also it cannot be known if my team, had we gone to the finals, would have finished any better than that team did using its backup players.

This year though the data will be available to determine the outcome of each event if certain athletes are removed. While I agree that it should be the Team that qualifies and not the people, I think it is a little different when there is the option of leaving your team to compete as an individual. Especially if the athlete never had any intention of sticking with the team in the first place. Many people have criticized the format of the open this year saying it allows too many possibilities for people cheat their way in. These criticisms have always been addressed by stating how badly an athlete will get beat at the next level if he cheats his way in. Isn't having a ringer on your team just to get through the early rounds slightly similar? Sure it's not cheating if the rules say it's allowed but one could make a strong argument for it being unethical.

I think it would be best to leave the Open just as outlined above but if someone chooses to go individual at regionals, their performances should be removed from their teams score thereby giving other teams a chance compete. Exceptions being made only if there is a legitimate reason why a person can't compete on the team (injury, family emergency, etc.)

Just my thoughts...

27 January 2011 / 7 p.m.

17. Steve Liberati wrote...

Yeah I agree that athletes should declare themselves individual or team before the Sectionals and can't do both.

27 January 2011 / 7:36 p.m.

18. Doug wrote...

So what is the point of the new open qualifier if the regions are going to be virtually the same? Is this just an indicator to adjust how many bids each region gets to the games? If this is the case, I think HQ is making a big improvement because a lot of the strongest regions only got 3 or 4 bids last year in comparison to some of the arguably weaker regions that got many more. Take the Central East Regional for example. The density of boxes may be low here, but the quality of athletes in this region is phenomenal, and in my opinion deserved at least 5 spots in the 2010 games. Just look at the numbers separating 1-4 place on the men's side. 4 points separated these 4 athletes and only 3 got bids. Might I add that the 4th place finisher only finished one point behind our current games champ. Hopefully this new system is a better indicator of who is considered among the elite.

27 January 2011 / 8:37 p.m.

19. Andrew wrote...

@ 15, 16, and 17 - I think it should be as it is. I get what you are saying but I look at this the same way I look at my rugby team. We have our team and we all train and work our butts off together to be as good as we can, both as a club and as individual players. We play our league matches and hope to have a good enough record to make it into playoffs and then hopefully go on to the finals. Part of the way into that process we lose a few players because they get selected to the National team. These guys can no longer play with us since schedules overlap. It would be ridiculous if they didn't let us into the playoffs because we aren't as good of a team without those players. We are a team, and we may lose our best players because they make it onto the national team, but their contributions still count. Those players became the quality players they are in part because of their training with our team and the team should reap the rewards of that. Even though it hurts the team to lose players to the national team it is still all of our goal to get as many players selected as possible. I think this is almost an exact parallel to what happens here. We have a gym, we train all our members to be as good as they possibly can and hope to qualify people for the top competition. If one of our members makes it, that is awesome and we are all very proud of that person, but our team should still get the benefit of the performances from that member while they can. A team is more than just the people who step out onto the field on any given day, it's everyone that helped them get there. I think it would suck and be a shame if a top crossfitter was unable to help his/her team qualify just because they are good enough to make it as individual. That's how I look at it anyway.

27 January 2011 / 8:44 p.m.

20. johnson wrote...

It's silly to make them declare before. What if someone who thinks he/she will make individuals, doesn't, but has already declared for it? Shouldn't they and their team still have the option of competing together?
Perhaps, once it has been determined who will be making it to regionals for individuals, they should be forced to choose. Then they can factor out the times of those who are choosing to compete individually, and select the winning teams.

27 January 2011 / 8:52 p.m.

21. Bryan K wrote...

I really like this concept. It will let affiliates or groups of people that train together to show off how effective thier programming has been for the year. It makes sense that in order to qualify your team that each individual must perform in order for the team to perform against other teams. There will have to be decisions made as to whether someone will compete at the Regional as an individual or on a team, but that is a matter of life. I can foresee as many situations in which a strong individual will want to continue on a team as there would be strong individuals that wish to compete as an individual.

Secondly, this qualifying aspect for Regionals is a natural evolution of the Games. The 09 Regionals were open registration to all comers and most Regional competitions rivaled the amount of competitors in the 08 Games. In '10, there was open affiliate team registrations for the Regionals while individuals had to qualify in Sectionals. It makes perfect sense with the exponential growth of the Crossfit Games that each team would have to qualify for regionals this year.

Bring it!

27 January 2011 / 9:13 p.m.

22. Mike S wrote...

CrossFit HQ - You guys should look into changing the Games Website page infoformation so that when we share links it says the correct year in the webpage title.

28 January 2011 / 5:19 a.m.

23. Frank wrote...

A few questions:

Where do we go to register as a competitor for our affiliate?

Does the affiliate have to register the team first and pay the fee before individuals can register for the team event?

If one affiliate places two teams in the top 30, can more than one team from any affiliate go to the Regionals?

Thanks

28 January 2011 / 6:37 a.m.

24. mary wrote...

My only issue w the substitution factor on teams are the affiliates who have games auto-qualifiers who are obviously elite athletes but do not have to compete in regionals, so like last year a few affiliates used these "available" athletes to get a team spot.. then they showed up to the games w sub par athletes. just seems like that should be banned for autoqualified ppl

29 January 2011 / 7:27 a.m.

25. Harold Doran wrote...

I just sent the following text below to members at my affiliate to try and summarize how this will work this year. Am I correct in my thinking or have I misunderstood any part of this process? Thanks for any clarifications as we learn this new format.

Dear Team:

Let me try and summarize my understanding of how the sectionals and affiliate cup will be structured this year. For starters, there is no difference between Affiliate Cup and the individual competition. You must register and compete as an individual to begin with.

Competing as an individual will require the following:

1) Beginning in mid-March, Crossfit will release 1 WOD per week for a period of 6 weeks. You must complete that WOD at a registered affiliate or submit your performance via video. You will be required to complete all 6 workouts over this 6 week period. Your scores will be logged into the main crossfit computer system and your rankings will be computed and compared against others in your region. You will qualify for regionals based on your performance in those 6 WODs relative to how all others in your section are performing.

2) Affiliate Cup teams will qualify for regionals based on the scores of the top 6 competitors. So, each week as we compete as individuals, Crossfit will also be computing an Affiliate ranking based on our top 6 performances from week-to-week.

Now, assume our box qualifies for affiliate cup regionals based on the performances of our top 6 men and women. However, now assume those top 6 people also qualify for regionals as individuals and they want to compete as individuals. That means we have a team that has qualified and we can swap out athletes and put in 6 other athletes on the Affiliate team so long as those 6 other athletes also competed as individuals during the open sectionals competition.

In other words, the people who are members of the Affiliate Cup team at regionals do not necessarily need to be the people who were responsible for the team being qualified. The only requirement is that members of the Affiliate team did compete in the open sectionals.

This will be tricky to maneuver through as all the details unfold. So, here is my advice for now. Forget about Affiliate Cup and how we qualify etc. If you want to compete, either as an individual or as a member of the Affiliate team, you must first be a part of the individual open sectionals competition. Let's worry about that part to begin with and let the other pieces unfold as we go along.

30 January 2011 / 6:55 a.m.

26. Rick wrote...

Harold,
From my understanding, the participants on your affiliate team at regionals do not have to be the same individuals who competed in the opens. Say you have a member who did not compete in any of the opens, he or she would still be an eligible team member if your team qualifies for regionals, but it's still best to have every potential athlete register and perform the workouts. i may be wrong, but Tony's comment #7 stated that the qualified team at regionals "can include anyone from that gym." If I interpreted this wrong, someone please help me out.
Also wanted to clarify for you that it's not the 6 best times from your team that are scored. It's the top 3 male and top 3 female scores that they're looking for.

30 January 2011 / 11:58 a.m.

27. Harold Doran wrote...

Thank you, Rick. I may have misunderstood this point.

Tony's comments in #7 imply that once the team qualifies, anyone from the box may be a part of the affiliate cup at the regionals whether they participated in the open sectionals or not.

30 January 2011 / 1:46 p.m.

28. Dug wrote...

This is starting to shape up pretty nice! It adds a sectionals for affiliate teams. Exciting stuff. Can't wait to see the first wod.

30 January 2011 / 6:23 p.m.

29. Harold Doran wrote...

One more question from our box. The following is just an example of the issue.

Suppose we have an athlete who is a phenomenal runner. Now suppose a 5k run comes up as one of the 6 WODs for the open sectionals.

Now, suppose this athlete participates in this WOD and kills it, but assume he does not participate in any of the other 6 WODs for the open sectionals.

Would his score count for the Affiliate team rank? Or is an athlete's score used in the Affiliate ranking if and only if that athlete completes all 6 of the open sectionals WODs?

I assume it would be the former since the Affiliate rankings are computed week-to-week and if an athlete drops off the radar in the future you cannot go back in time and change the affiliate rankings from prior weeks.

If this is the way it will work, then we can register all members at our box for the open sectionals. Then, if a deadlift WOD comes up in week 1, we can choose our best deadlifters to complete that WOD. If gymnastics comes up in week 2, we can have our best gymnasts complete that WOD, etc.

In other words, we can match our best athletes to the WOD in an effort to get our box to have a high affiliate ranking.

Is this possible? Thanks for any clarifications.

31 January 2011 / 8:39 a.m.

30. Kyle McGuire wrote...

Quick question on sectional qualifing??? Im gonna be out of US the 9th of April thru 22nd for Military training.. Can I somehow make these 2 workouts Im gonna miss the week I get back and just submit them with the following weeks wods? I wont be around any equipment nor have someone to video me. I dont want to miss out this year as last year I missed out because I was gone! I am competing for affiliate. I hope there is something available for us?.

31 January 2011 / 9:17 a.m.

31. Tony Budding wrote...

Harold #29,
The answer to your question is yes with two qualifications. The first and most significant is that only active athletes can count for a team. Anyone who misses a workout is no longer in the running. That said, if someone's performance counts in week one, we won't be tracking their continued performance to make sure. But, anyone who wants to count in week six must have also done weeks one through five.

The second qualification is that these workouts will be designed with a fitness bias, so the top performers in each workout should also be the fittest.

But the key piece of your question is correct. It does make sense to have as many athletes from your box compete. Anyone from your team who has a great day on a workout that favors their strengths can contribute to your teams qualification no matter how well they do in the other workouts.

31 January 2011 / 2:01 p.m.

32. Andrew wrote...

Suppose a workout with muscle-ups comes up and my gym doesn’t have 3 women that can do muscle-ups, will this DQ us from the running? Will there be any sort of official scaling in place for this sort of situation?

31 January 2011 / 3:58 p.m.

33. Harold Doran wrote...

Tony, thank you. This is extremely helpful. Andrew's question #32 gets at what I was also wondering. Would it be possible for you to define any and all actions that would inactivate an athlete?

Three scenarios come to mind for me, but I am certain there are others. The three I think of are:

1) If an athlete scales a WOD, do they remain active?

2) If an athlete DNFs a WOD for any reason, do they remain active?

3) If an athlete submits a video online and those judging the video reject the video for some reason (e.g., maybe they determine ROM was terrible or maybe the athlete is out of frame for a few critical moments). Does that athlete remain active?

Sorry for the barrage of questions and I appreciate any time you have to answer these.

31 January 2011 / 5:05 p.m.

34. Andy Petranek wrote...

Hey Tony -

I think Harold in his last post (33) asked some really good questions... I don't see any activity on this thread since Monday and just wanted to make sure it's still on your radar.

Could you please post the answers to these questions as soon as you know? Thanks!

Andy

03 February 2011 / 6:14 p.m.

35. Daigle wrote...

It's been hashed out 1,000 times at this point guys. The format is what it is. Show up, give it hell, and love every second of it. It's no different to the individual athlete than it was in the past, aside from the format being different. In fact, it's FAR more accessible to the world at large.

http://www.daiglebreathesfire.com/

I ranted it up a little bit about why people need to chill yesterday...check it out, let me know what you think....much too long to post to comments!

04 February 2011 / 5:37 a.m.

36. Harold Doran wrote...

Thanks, Andy. HQ may already have this in the works, but it would be useful to have an official rule book for the open sectionals which defines and clarifies all of the new rules and protocols.

If this is in development, it might be good to have this vetted with some leaders in the crossfit community before its distribution world wide.

04 February 2011 / 7:43 a.m.

37. Jack wrote...

Tony,

It says here the prize of tickets and a years affiliate fee goes to the official team with the most athletes. Am I reading this wrong, a team can only end up with 6 members. Is it supposed to say that the official team with the highest scoring members will get those tickets for their 6 athletes? Just looking for some clarification. Thanks.

05 February 2011 / 11:37 a.m.

38. Tony Budding wrote...

Harold #33,
Anyone can compete in any segment of the Open and have their performance recorded. But not every performance will count toward qualification. Missing a workout, scaling a workout, or DNFing a workout all remove you from qualifying for Regionals.

For an athlete's score to be able to count for their team's qualification efforts in any given week, they must be still "in the running" as an individual. This means that they can't scale or DNF a workout.

There is going to be very little tolerance of slop in video submissions. Count your reps and complete your full ROM as defined in the movement standards. You can make multiple submissions if you want during the week, but once that Sunday at 1700 PDT passes, your best submission is what you are judged by. If that's rejected for not meeting standard, you are no longer "in the running" for qualifying as an individual and thus for contributing further to your team's qualification efforts.

The rules will all be clearly defined and delineated before the competition starts. What everyone serious about competing should be doing now is training hard. The competition will reward the fittest athletes. Everyone should plan on completing every rep to standard as fast as they can. The rest is mostly irrelevant right now.

And, what you may know of us already, our goal is not to create outrageous programming that only the top athletes in the world can complete. Instead, we like a level playing field where the athletes' performances differentiate themselves. Almost anyone in the world can run 100m. What makes it a great competition is the quality of the athlete running. Especially in the Open, the workouts will be able to be completed by all reasonably fit athletes. The fittest among you will differentiate yourselves by faster performances and more work.

07 February 2011 / 9:10 a.m.

39. Tony Budding wrote...

Jack #37,
What I wrote is correct. The entire qualification process is designed to reward the best performing teams. What you're asking about it is a participation award. We are recognizing the affiliate team that is the most inclusive and brings the most athletes to the sport. Teams can have as many participants as they want. Each week, only the top 3 men and top 3 women's performances count, but there's no limit as to how many can attempt.

In other words, if the biggest team has 250 registered athletes, then we're giving away 500 spectator tickets to the CrossFit Games!

07 February 2011 / 9:22 a.m.

40. JAH wrote...

"The competitors from the Open are qualifying the team for Regionals. Each team's roster for the Regionals (and the Games if they get that far) is up to them and can include anyone from that gym."

Tony - if you could clarify. Does this mean that if you qualify your Affiliate Team for the Regional Competition through the Open that the individuals that compete at the Regional Competition do not need to be those who competed in the Open? Or must the Regional Competition Affiliate Team be comprised of only those individuals from the box that competed in the Open?

Thank you!

09 February 2011 / 7:43 a.m.

41. Tony Budding wrote...

JAH,
The athletes that compete for your team in the Regionals can be anyone from your gym. There is no requirement that they have competed in the Open. Now, I don't know why you'd want athletes to compete in Regionals who didn't compete in the Open, but it is allowed by the rules.

09 February 2011 / 5:52 p.m.

42. Dave Picardy wrote...

Tony,
Is it possible to get a line listing of the rules. I want to release a statement to my students and do not want to miscommunicate. See you at the games!

25 February 2011 / 8:44 a.m.