Elite Sports Insider, Gym Closures, Lowlands Cancelled

The last episode of the WODDITY podcast was on Friday, the 21st of February. That means you’ve missed an entire virus outbreak and the cancellation or postponement of every Sanctional remaining in the 2020 CrossFit Games season. I hate to break the news, but there’s been a giant virus outbreak and they’ve cancelled or postponed every Sanctional remaining in the season. See? How did you survive without me?

Good morning and welcome to the WODDITY podcast for news about CrossFit. We are a daily podcast, Monday through Friday, doing CrossFit news in five minutes or less.

My name is Ben Garves and today is Monday, the 13th of April, 2020. I hope you and yours had a great Easter holiday yesterday, whether for religious reasons or just religiously worshiping the gods of chocolate and peeps.

I’m not sure why everyone is afraid of Friday the 13ths, it feels like a Monday the 13th would be a much more dangerous combination.

WODDITY’s Elite Sports Insider

Yesterday was the premier of my new video series, Elite Sports Insider. It’s a weekly live show about CrossFit every Sunday at 12 PM Eastern. You can subscribe by searching YouTube for WODDITY. Every episode will talk about CrossFit news, what’s going on with CrossFit athletes, major stories in the CrossFit community, opinion and editorials, and even details about new gear and equipment.

The premier yesterday delved into the community’s efforts to raise money in support of gyms closed due to COVID-19, everything we know about the Reebok Nano X and its release date, the major hits from athletes on Instagram and TikTok last week, and my thoughts on CrossFit’s financial strength during this outbreak. Again, you can find the show on YouTube, or I’ve put a link to it in my show notes and at WODDITY.com.

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CrossFit Lowlands Throwdown Cancelled

The CrossFit Lowlands Throwdown took to Instagram yesterday to announce they are doing the right thing and cancelling the event this year. I’ll read their post for you. They write:

“We all hoped that the situation would improve, but these are still very uncertain times and we feel that it is not responsible to organize an event during a crisis like this. Therefore we had to make an extremely difficult decision. It is with a heavy heart that we have to announce the decision to cancel the 2020 final event of the CrossFit Lowlands Throwdown.”

Affiliate Closures

Morning Chalk Up is reporting that 96% of CrossFit affiliates in the United States have closed. Those closures are a combination of proper social distancing practices and where legally required by their states and municipalities. That’s a big word. I’m going to say towns and cities. You can’t see it, but I’m shrugging right now.

MCU is also confirming 88% of worldwide affiliates are closed. They’ve been collecting data through online survey submissions recently.

United in Movement Fundraiser

If you haven’t been following Loud and Live Sports’ United in Movement fundraiser, it’s time for you to pay attention. Loud and Live gathered a hot list of athletes, coaches, media members, and other CrossFit celebrities to lead a 24 hour marathon live stream and raise money to support the community during the COVID19 outbreak.

At the time of recording this, United in Movement has raised $238,399 from 13,674 participants. The money is going to Action Against Hunger, the Red Cross, and the CrossFit Foundation. It’s brought in a huge number of big companies who’ve helped or written checks. Some of the cooler names include Competition Corner, NOBULL, Play Sports, CompTrain, Misfit Athletics, LifeAid, Nocco, Bixby, Renaissance Periodization, Hyperice, Foodspring, WOD Proof, GOWOD, Reebok, Nooma, ROMWOD, RPM, Faith RXd, Assault Fitness, Born Primitive, 2Pood, the Buttery Bros, Chestee, MyoPux, Morning Chalk Up, Yeti, BarBend, Topo Chico, O2, the USO, Nuun, Rogue, Chipotle, Brute, SugarWOD, and Strength.com.

I’ll read that again just to make sure you didn’t miss any of those.

Okay, I won’t. Because you’re a very busy and important person and I respect your time. So…

That’s it for news about CrossFit for Monday, April 13th. Thanks for listening. Please be sure to rate, review, subscribe, and share. For WODDITY, I’m Ben Garves. Behave yourselves out there.

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.