7 Exciting Stories to Watch on the CrossFit Open Leaderboard

Because you’ve been behaving to well, I think you’ve earned a 2020 CrossFit Open leaderboard update. Submissions were officially due at 5 PM yesterday. That means we haaaaaaave scores! Here are the important caveats. First, affiliates have until Wednesday to accept score submissions for their gym. Second, CrossFit has yet to announce any penalties for the 20.3 onward. Third, CrossFit formally has until mid-December to finalize the leaderboard. That means all of this is subject to change. In fact, the leaderboards were moving around while I was writing this.

Without further ado, let’s go!

7 Exciting Stories to Watch on the CrossFit Open Leaderboard

  1. Patrick Vellner and Jeffrey Adler. These two Canadians are battling for first and second place, pending any penalties. As of 7 AM this morning, the two were locked in a tie with a tiebreaker going to Adler. As of 8 AM this morning, Vellner had pulled one point ahead.
  2. The north Atlantic or the south Pacific, as in Iceland, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand. Sara Sigmundsdottir looks to have won another CrossFit Open, followed by Annie Thorisdottir (both from Iceland) and third place is Kristin Holte from Norway. Tia-Clair Toomey from Australia has her best-ever CrossFit Open finish, trailed by Jamie Greene of New Zealand in fifth.
  3. Mathew Fraser is potentially not going to be the overall winner for the first time in four years. On top of his four consecutive CrossFit Games wins, he has won the Open every year since 2017.
  4. Lefteris Theofanidis was under fire for poor filming and measurements in 20.3 – while he currently sits in fourth overall, CrossFit has yet to dole out penalties for 20.3, 20.4, and 20.5. We’d expect a major penalty to be assessed, pushing Lefteris down the leaderboard.
  5. Canada. On top of Patrick Vellner and Jeffrey Adler in first and second, Jean-Simon Roy-Lemaire, Samuel Cournoyer, Cedric Lapointe, and Alexandre Caron all potentially sit above the cut line. That’s a growing number, with Brent Fikowski sitting a little lower at 34th, but still his best finish in three years. The United States, typically dominating the leaderboard, still has fifteen athletes making the cut. 
  6. There are only seven countries represented above the cutoff line on the men’s side: Canada, the United States, Greece, Finland, Russia, Australia, and Iceland.
  7. The United states is represented by thirteen athletes on the women’s side, with Kari Pearce earning the National Champion status, pending any penalties. Unlike the men’s side, there are fourteen different nations represented by the women. Iceland, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, France, Argentina, and Spain.

Notable athletes just outside the cut line are Madeline Sturt, Rachel Garibay, Alexis Johnson, Jessica Griffith, Bethany Shadburne, and Steph Chung. For men, it’s Sean Sweeney, Scott Panchik, Brent Fikowski, Spencer and Saxon Panchik, Will Moorad, Khan Porter, and Alec Smith.

Athletes like Alessandra Pichelli and Jason Smith are outside the qualifying line, but have earned National Champion status, pending penalties.

You KNOW our friends over at Morning Chalk Up have a deep dive into some analytics. As always, I have a link to it in my show notes at WODDITY. The leaderboard has definitely updated since their article was published, but there’s still plenty of great information in there.

And that’s it for news about CrossFit on Tuesday, November 12th. 

Thanks again for being a loyal fan and listener.  If you’re a fan of the work we do and want to support it, you can become a Patreon member at patreon.com/woddity. You can also give us a five star rating, subscribe to the podcast, and share with your friends and family. For WODDITY, I’m Ben Garves. We will chat tomorrow.

By Ben Garves

Ben Garves is a digital product expert, author, entertainer, and activist. His portfolio of thought leadership in digital marketing and web experiences has included major clients like Microsoft, Google, Twitter, eBay, and Facebook. He’s also a freelance health and fitness journalist with over 400 stories written since 2018, a podcaster with 200 episodes to his name, and runs a YouTube channel with over 100 fitness and activism-oriented videos and live streams. Ben has founded the Fitness is for Everyone™ initiative to raise awareness about social injustice in both racial inequality and socioeconomic disparity in access to quality fitness and nutrition options around the globe.