This weekend was the Beach Brawl in Pensacola, Florida. The event attracted some pretty skilled athletes, with Alexis Johnson and ZA Anderson taking home the prize. Other athletes included former teen champion Chloe Smith, along with Cassidy Lance-McWherter and Rachel Garibay. The first place prizes for the Beach Brawl were $5,000.
Lindy Barber posted a sly little ring shot on Instagram. That’s right, y’all! Lindy Barber and her long-time bestie in life Jon Esposito are engaged!
Barber is a long-time CrossFit Games athlete with multiple individual appearances, but notably has two fittest team on earth finishes as a part of Rich Froning’s CrossFit Mayhem Freedom team in 2016 and 2018.
Here’s an interesting story you may have missed. Lindy retired from competition after the 2018 season and will never compete in a CrossFit-sanctioned event again. She says this isn’t because she doesn’t like competing and doesn’t love CrossFit: when she asked to be removed from CrossFit’s randomized drug testing pool, she was told the only way she could be removed is if she never competed again.
And so there will be no Lindy Barber at legends events, sanctionals, or smaller licensed events. I thought I’d share, because this is a story I think many didn’t catch. You can read all about it on Lindy’s blog. The link is in my show notes at bengarves-staging.mystagingwebsite.com.
Anyway, congratulations to Lindy and Jon.
Also in the news today is a unique partnership between the Down Under CrossFit Championship and the Brazil CrossFit Championship. The top three individual athletes and teams in Brazil’s March 6th event will receive invites to Down Under’s May 22nd event. They join the Loud and Live Sports-run events like WODAPALOOZA and the West Coast Classic in implementing a rule like this. Loud and Live has announced their five Sanctionals will send invites to any Sanctional podium athletes from the prior 12 months. With six individual and three team podium finishes across all 28 sanctionals, this builds a pool over about 250 invites.
The CrossFit Italian Showdown has announced a venue change. They’re moving to the Play Hall Sports Center, which boasts almost 19,000 square feet of event space. The event isn’t using a qualifier, instead opting to allow a first come, first serve registration for 1,500 athletes. They had ten thousand spectators attend their event last year, and are excited for the new space.
And that’s it for news about CrossFit on Tuesday, September 24th. Thanks for listening. Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. It’s the best way to give back to the show, because it helps more people find us. I’m Ben Garves.
