The second weekend of Regionals is complete, and while there were great performances from a number of athletes (including Julie Foucher, Rich Froning and Kara Webb), some big names missed out on a top-3 finish. The biggest news came out of the European Regional, where defending women’s champion Samantha Briggs was competing. Despite acquiring three 1st place finishes, a disastrous placing on the handstand walk meant that Briggs would finish the weekend in 4th—and out of the automatic qualifying spots for the Games. Since the news broke, social media has been abuzz with many wondering whether Briggs, as a past champion, would be getting an invite to the Games—or whether CrossFit has nullified this privilege for 2014.
Fortunately, we’re here to clear up the confusion.
So let’s consult the 2014 CrossFit Games rulebook. Page 3, section 3b: Participation Requirements states that “CrossFit, Inc. reserves the right, in its sole and absolute discretion, to invite past winners, guest athletes, Teams or others, to participate in any stage of competition. This decision may be made to preserve the traditions and spirit of the CrossFit Games or for any other reason at the sole discretion of CrossFit, Inc.”
Furthermore, 2014 saw some new additions to the CrossFit Games setup, including the addition of new wild card spots. Forty-three men and 43 women will be awarded spots to the CrossFit Games at the Regionals, but if CrossFit chooses to invite more than 43 athletes, the wild card spots will go to the athletes who performed the best relative to all other Regional competitors. So, say CrossFit had one wild card spot to hand out (for example), and they were trying to decide between Briggs and another competitor from any Regional, they would award it to whomever had the best overall performance.
So it’s quite clear that CrossFit, Inc. can invite whomever they want to compete, whenever they want. Bear in mind this is from the 2014 competition rulebook, so there is no mention of the ‘past champion’ invite being taken out. Rather, it’s quite obvious that CrossFit will be making the final decision on who will be going to Carson outside of the Regional qualifiers. One would imagine that they would want one of their biggest stars to compete, but who’s to say that Briggs would even accept the invitation? We will only know for sure once the Regionals are over and CrossFit announces the invites.
Image courtesy of CrossFit Inc.
I placed 14th at regionals. I hope there is a chance for me to get the wild card!! 🙂
A current Games champion (from year before) should be allowed to defend their title the following year whether or not they qualify at the regionals. This is just the right thing to do. Crossfit should have a spot for all current games champions to defend their title. As a spectator I want to see the prior year champion compete and see how they stack up to the new competition. I know Crossfit is very successful … let’s not let the success go to Crossfit Inc’s head … let’s do the right thing and let the prior year champions compete and try to defend their titles regardless of their regionals results. I really want to see Sam Briggs compete. Her showing at the open was truly inspiring! Even though she had a bad regionals … I want to see what she can do in the Games. Please giver her that opportunity!!!
Going to fight Sam’s case a bit here…Take Thorisdottir who qualified 1st in Europe, and Briggs who qualified 4th in Europe. Here are their overall standings after 8 Regions have competed:
Thorisdottir:
Event 1 – 15th
Event 2 – 4th
Event 3 – 40th
Event 4 – 30th
Event 5 – 12th
Event 6 – 15th
Event 7 – 23rd
Total Points = 139
Briggs:
Event 1 – 17th
Event 2 – 137th
Event 3 – 5th
Event 4 – 9th
Event 5 – 2nd
Event 6 – 2nd
Event 7 – 60th
Total Points = 238
Now in event 2 as we know, Briggs made 1 little mistake that cost her greatly. If we take away this event anomaly as if that never happened the scores look like this: Thorisdottir = 135, Briggs = 101. This is why I believe Sam Briggs should be invited to The CrossFit Games as without that 1 mistake she is actually fitter than the 1st place qualifier in her own region.