It’s a big news day, so I’m going to talk fast. Rulebook AMRAP. Ready? Go!
CrossFit started registration for the 2020 CrossFit Open a little earlier than planned, including release of the 2020 rulebook. Here are some important notes from the rulebook:
It confirms the CrossFit Open will start with a workout announcement at 5 PM Pacific on Thursday, the 10th of October. There will be five total workouts, released on Thursday, October 10th, 17th, 24th, 31st, and November 7th.
Age groups will still use an Age Group Online Qualifier, which will start Thursday, March 12th. This qualifier will take the top-200 athletes in each age group, based on their CrossFit Open performances.
The qualification process for the CrossFit Open, despite rumors that it’ll decrease or be eliminated, still stands. The top 20 male and top 20 female athletes will receive invites to the 2020 CrossFit Games.
Previously, National Champion spots were not backfilled, but they will be in 2020. This is a part of CrossFit’s hope to get representatives from every nation to attend.
A stipulation has been added that other events can use the CrossFit Open leaderboard as a qualifier. It notes that the 2020 Open leaderboard will be finalized by December 16th.
The top-performing CrossFit affiliates in each country will be recognized.
CrossFit’s idea for cutting down on the shifting of team rosters to aid in qualification is included in the rulebook. If an athlete qualifies for the CrossFit Games as a member of one team and joins another team to qualify at a second Sanctional event, that team cannot qualify and their invite will be passed down to the next team on the event’s leaderboard. It does not, however, prevent athletes who qualified as individuals from joining a team. An example of this would be Rich Froning, who placed 10th in the 2019 CrossFit Open and went on to win the 2019 CrossFit Games as a member of CrossFit Mayhem Freedom.
As for the 2020 CrossFit Games, we also have details on that:
CrossFit is going to keep the wildcard system which resulted in Hunter McIntyre and Ben Smith joining the event this year.
Heat assignments and order will be based on athlete CrossFit Open scores. This provides incentive for athletes to participate in the 2020 CrossFit Open, even if they believe they will qualify through a Sanctional.
CrossFit also made some tweaks to the section detailing their drug testing policies.
Language was added to warn athletes about tainted over-the-counter supplements which will still result in them being sanctioned if they test positive.
This year, CrossFit has announced they will be publishing all breaches of the drug testing protocol.
If you want more details, but don’t want to read the whole rulebook, our friends at Morning Chalk Up did an incredible job taking notes. Zip over there for a quicker read.
The 2020 CrossFit Italian Showdown has released details about their qualification process and it sounds like the event will be epic. They’re accepting the first 1,500 people to register, bucking the trend of using an online qualifier. All 1,500 registrants (which includes individuals, teams, and age groups) will receive an invite and participate in the first day for three elimination events. This is a huge number, making the 2019 CrossFit Games’ 500 athletes pale in comparison. What is Italy doing? Wo don’t know, but we want to watch.
The International Online qualifier announced the fourth workout of their event with a video featuring Brooke Wells. The workout is Karen (150 wall balls for time) and an additional 75 toes-to-bar. Athletes can break this up in any method they see fit. Where do things stand after three workouts? It’s hard to tell because the leaderboard is processing everyone’s entries in real-time. This means athletes who have already submitted workout 4 will rank above the top athletes after workout three who haven’t submitted their score. We’ll just have to wait and see.
And that’s it for news about CrossFit on Friday, August 30th.
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I’m Ben Garves, congratulations on another week. Unless something breaks, I’ll talk to you on Monday
