Closing the Chapter on the Inaugural Sanctionals Season

Good morning and welcome to the weekend edition of the Morning Chalk Up. This is Justin LoFranco, your Editor-in-Chief to bring you a quick wrap-up of the major news items throughout the week.

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“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” — Joshua J. Marine

On Tuesday midday, I’m boarding a flight to France, my final international trip of the 2018-2019 CrossFit Games season. 

It’s been a long season.

We’ve sent reporters to the Middle East, South America, Europe and across the United States. Passports have been stamped. We’ve waited in long lines at consulates. Long lines at airports, and if your name is Tommy Marquez then you had to deplane in São Paulo, Brazil and spend an extra night at the tail end of a three week, three continent journey. 

Sorry about that, Tommy, but such is life.

Despite being a little road weary from time-to-time — this is the most fun I’ve had covering the sport of CrossFit in the three-and-a-half years since I started the Morning Chalk Up. For the first time, it feels like an actual sports season.

Is it longer? Sure. Is it a little more chaotic this season? Definitely. Has it completely turned a corner from the old system? Not quite, but we’re getting there. 

A little more than six months ago, many thought the house was completely on fire. From some perspectives, it certainly did look that way. Heck, even I was having a hard time seeing the end of the tunnel. But here we are at the end of a season that started 193 days ago and spanned 11 countries. 

“Fall in love with the journey,” we often say in the gym. Well here’s to the next one and thanks for coming along for the ride and supporting us along the way.

Justin LoFranco
Editor-in-Chief

Within two weeks, Reebok loses a second headliner and rumor has it Toomey is following Davidsdottir to NOBULL. The news comes just days after the lunch of the new Nano 9.0 and just a month before the CrossFit Games is set to kick off.

Last November, 1st Sgt. Glenn Grabs decided that if the Army was going to recruit the fittest people in America, then they’d need to interact with the fittest people in America. So they built the Warrior Fitness Team, a 15-person elite fitness squad to compete against the fittest athletes in the country and they already qualified one athlete to the CrossFit Games.

Not going to make it to Madison this summer for the CrossFit Games? CrossFit HQ just announced they will be providing a live, open-source feed of the events and allow media partners access to create their own shows and content around the competition. 

CrossFit HQ is hosting a summer summit, inviting more than 800 affiliates that have been open for 10 years or more. The gathering in Whistler, B.C. will give affiliates a platform to share ideas, and discuss challenges and achievements with affiliate owners across the globe. 

Since we’re a week away from closing up the 2018-2019 Sanctionals season, here’s a look back at a few numbers that stood out to us this past year.

$1,236,319: Total prize money paid to athletes this season, minus CrossFit French Throwdown.

869: Total male and female athletes competed in an elite division at a Sanctional. Compared to 714 athletes who competed at regionals last season.

15: Sanctionals in the 2018-2019 season.

11: Countries hosting events. 

7: Female athletes are competing at the CrossFit Games who didn’t do the Open.

17: Athletes from Sanctionals will be competing at the CrossFit Games for the first time as an individual.

2016: The last year that Mathew Fraser placed somewhere other than first in a competition; it was in 2016, where he took 7th worldwide.