CrossFit Open 2019.1 is Over. Now What?

Well, if you’re one of us plebeians, you start training for the second CrossFit Open of 2019.

Yes. That’s right. Missed that little nugget of information?

This year, the CrossFit Open shifts from its longstanding home in the month February. To do this, the competition will return again in October of 2019.

Yes. We all have so many questions:

• What does that make the first workout? 19.1.2?
• Does this start the 2020 CrossFit Games season?
• If that’s the case, is it actually the 2020 CrossFit Open, but in 2019?

Let’s be honest – none of us saw this coming at the end of the 2018 CrossFit Games. It turned out the CrossFit Regionals 2018 season would be the last year of the series.

Ink was settling on the 2018 CrossFit Games results when Greg Glassman hopped on a call. It was with Justin LoFranco, the founder of Morning Chalk Up.

Glassman announced there would be changes for the 2019 CrossFit Games. Those changes would start in February, at the 2019 CrossFit Open. The CrossFit Games Regionals would no longer exist. Sanctioned qualifying events are now the competitive route to a Games berth. CrossFit later trademarked the word “sanctional” to describe these events.

With the first Open of 2019 finished, we’re starting to get a picture of this new CrossFit Games schedule:

• The CrossFit Games Open 2018 event was for the CrossFit Games in 2018.
• The first CrossFit Open 2019 event was for the CrossFit Games in 2019.
• The second (October) CrossFit Open qualifies athletes for the CrossFit Games in 2020.

Athletes, settling into the move of the championship event to Madison, didn’t see it coming. With layoffs of CrossFit’s media staff, fans would lose future CrossFit documentaries.

Don’t worry the likes of Froning and the Fittest on Earth movies are still on Amazon. A total list of MUST WATCH movies, if you haven’t already seen them. Fittest on Earth | A Decade of Fitness | The Redeemed and the Dominant

The CrossFit Games in 2017 looked like it would be a transition year. Now, the 2019 CrossFit Games are, too.

Let’s focus on the things we’re not missing:

• Dave Castro. His programming for the first CrossFit Open of the new format was masterful.
• Competitions. Sanctional events have given us more access to athletes than ever before. Competitors like Dani Speegle and Sam Briggs are making many sanctional appearances.
• CrossFit Games Open Workouts. Again. We get a two-for-one special this year. Didn’t like 19.3? Try 19.3.2..