CrossFit Games

Four Sanctionals Join Second International Online Qualifier

December 17, 2019 by
Enjoying Morning Chalk Up? Access additional exclusive interviews, analyses, and stories with an Rx membership.

This season’s International Online Qualifier (IOQ) was the first of its kind, allowing four Sanctionals to join forces and streamline the qualification process under a unified banner that included six workouts over the course of three weeks. Now in 2020, the IOQ will return for round two, featuring four more sanctioned events happening in the latter half of the season. 

  • The Dates: March 23 – April 1, 2020.
  • The Events: The Granite Games, Asbury Park Summer Games, Madrid CrossFit Championship, Mayan CrossFit Classic.
  • The Cost: $20 per event, $80 total for all events involved. 
  • Registration: Opens January 8, 2020.

The implications: The creation of a second IOQ brings the total number of Sanctionals involved in a qualifier collaboration to eight, or nearly a third of the season’s total. Increased collaboration amongst events has a host of benefits to all that are involved.

  • Dylan Malitsky, Loud and Live VP of Strategic Development: “It allows events and event organizers to save resources, and to amplify the message across multiple unique audiences, social or otherwise.”
  • Four of the five Loud and Live Sanctionals have joined in on the IOQ collaborations, with Wodapalooza being the only one that was involved in the first IOQ.

The bottom line: By having two separate IOQ qualifiers, it allows events to coordinate better based on timing given that the first IOQ took place just a few weeks after the Games in August. All four events take place in the latter part of the season, with Madrid being the first chronologically on May 22-24, 2020.

  • Malitsky on the IOQ: “The IOQ decongests the season so people aren’t forced to do qualifiers every weekend. The focus was on making sure we separated them based on proximity to the event, we didn’t want to have an event doing the first IOQ that was 10 months away.”

Our take: With a significant number of events choosing the collaboration route, including six Sanctionals new to this season, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if more events hopped on the bandwagon for the 2021 season in hopes of improving athlete involvement across the board going forward. 

Get the Newsletter

For a daily digest of all things CrossFit. Community, Competitions, Athletes, Tips, Recipes, Deals and more.

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.