CrossFit Takes Blame as Laura Horvath and Gabriela Migala 23.1 Scores Invalid After Barbells Loaded Incorrectly During Live Open Announcement
The 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Open announcement in Madrid, Spain almost went off without a hitch until Laura Horvath and Gabriela Migala’s barbells were loaded to the wrong weight, making their scores invalid.
The workout (a repeat from 2014): Complete as many reps as possible in 14 minutes of:
- 60-calorie row
- 50 toes-to-bars
- 40 wall balls (20/14 pounds)
- 30 cleans (135/95 pounds)
- 20 muscle-ups
The news was first reported by Mike Halpin, a CrossFit analyst, who shared on his Instagram story a photo of the preloaded women’s barbell with a breakdown of the weights.
“That’s not 95# for Laura and Gabi regardless of Kg to Lb conversions,” Halpin wrote in his post.
He went on to explain that the bar is clearly a 15 kg Rogue barbell loaded with 10 kg Rogue plates and 1.5 kg change plates. This would mean the total was 38 kg or 83 pounds—more than 10 pounds less than the prescribed women’s weight.
CrossFit released the following statement concerning the incident:
- “CrossFit athletes Camila Granizo, Laura Horvath and Gabriela Migala put on an incredible performance kicking off the 2023 CrossFit Open. CrossFit mistakenly misloaded the women’s barbells during the 23.1 Announcement, which resulted in the weights being lighter than prescribed. The barbells in today’s test weighed 38 kg instead of the prescribed 43 kg.
- Despite their efforts, Granizo, Horvath and Migala will not be able to have their scores from this attempt validated.
- It was solely CrossFit’s responsibility to load the barbells to the correct weight and we apologize for the error.”
How the workout went down: Prior to the realization that the barbells had been misloaded, it appeared as though Horvath had bested Sam Briggs’ top time in the world from 2014.
- Horvath became the first woman ever to reach the second set of toes-to-bar, completing six toes-to-bar in the second round and a total of 266 reps, 10 reps more than Briggs nine years ago.
- Meanwhile, Migala’s score of 239 reps in Madrid, including a pulling movement (muscle-ups) that has traditionally been one of her weaknesses, would have been good enough for second in 2014, just ahead of Kara Saunders’ (then Kara Webb) score of 236.
The bottom line: The incident in Madrid is not only an embarrassing start to the 2023 season, but also disheartening to the athletes, who were not responsible for loading their own barbells.
Last week, Migala told the Morning Chalk Up that her plan was to do each Open workout just once, so she could focus on training as normal through these three weeks for her much bigger goals this season.
But it appears that something completely out of her control, something she could never have prepared for and that is in no way her responsibility, means she will be attempting 23.1 one more time before the deadline.
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