The details: The live Open announcement is the second installment of the 2023 CrossFit Games season and the world’s largest participatory sporting event. The announcements started in the 2013 season and grew in size and popularity through 2018. CrossFit elected not to host live Open announcements during the 2019 and 2020 seasons, but returned to host them in 2021.
23.2 will be presented by Chipotle and will take place in Midland Park, NJ at CrossFit Bison.
The 2022 Second Fittest Man on Earth, Roman Khrennikov will face off against the the perennial Games podium athlete Patrick Vellner.
How to watch: Tune in to the CrossFit Games website or CrossFit YouTube channel for the live 23.1 announcement on Thursday, February 16 at 12 PM PT.
And as always, the Morning Chalk Up will provide workout strategy guides and full leaderboard coverage and analysis.
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23.2 is here!: Morning Chalk Up’s own Teaganne Finn will be at CrossFit Bison in New Jersey today, so keep your eyes peeled to our competition hub, Instagram and newsletter for everything and anything you need to know about the second workout of the 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Open. 😎
Amazing: Watch Iceland’s Annie Thorisdottir improve her 2014 time for 23.1 by 41 reps.
Interesting: Forbes, an international business publication, has a list of what they think are the best CrossFit shoes.
Interesting read: According to a new study, it’s basically never too late to get physically active to help brain health and cognitive decline.
CROSSFIT GAMES
MEMBER EXCLUSIVE
Why Are So Many Athletes Crushing Their 14.4 Scores?
The first week of the 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Open was a repeat from 2014. Nearly a decade later, Sam Briggs, Josh Bridges, Ben Smith and other OG athletes have posted better scores.
How is it possible to improve despite training less and being older? Experience, technique and pacing are a few of the skills athletes credit to their continued success.
Emma Cary is Back as She Obliterates CrossFit Open 23.1
Eighteen-year-old sensation Emma Cary dominated 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Open workout 23.1, getting first place by 10 reps ahead of Mallory O’Brien. Cary is getting ready to attack the weeks to come as she ramps up her comeback year after a back injury took her out of the 2021 and 2022 season.
CrossFit HQ has yet to verify the scores from 23.1, but unofficially Cary is in first place. She completed 278 reps of the workout, meaning she made it through 1 round of:
60 calories on the rower
50 toes-to-bar
40 wall balls
30 power cleans
20 ring muscle ups
Plus, 60 more calories and 18 toes-to-bar (unofficially). If her score holds, Cary will not only be number one on the women’s side, but it will also be one of her biggest wins since coming back after taking last season off.
Remind me: Cary pulled out of the 2022 season after sustaining a back injury during Quarterfinals in 2021. The injury kept her out of two seasons, but she’s feeling healthy and better than ever.
Her first return to competition was 2023 TYR Wodapalooza where she placed third and put on an impressive performance. Now, she is looking to dominate the Open and make a splash ahead of the 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Games season.
“Seeing something like this and feeling like I’m back to competition. It’s just the best feeling. And it’s a really special way to say that I’m back,” says Cary.
“It’s a testament to myself that this last year, as hard as it’s been, it’s been worth it. And now I’m past it, my back is completely healthy. I’m fitter than I’ve ever been. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been.”
“It’s not like there weren’t several months of kind of an awkward in between stage where I felt mostly healthy. But I didn’t feel super fit and it was more like ‘Will I ever be back,’ and now to be on the other side of that and see actually how much better I am because of that, like that’s a statement that I made to myself, which makes it really special.”
Cary adds, she is analytical when it comes to planning her workout approach and that didn’t differ when it came to 23.1.
She said she watched the live announcement and recorded Laura Horvath’s and Gabriela Migala’s split times. Cary used those figures as a baseline for her own performance.
“I watched the live announcement of course and I timed all their splits, all the rest and I knew that I would be breaking more. But my breaks could be shorter and I knew just with the kind of athlete I am I do better when I break more. So I had to trust that plan.”
“I had my rest planned out. I got to the rower exactly when I wanted to and had a lot more in the tank than I even expected myself to. I mean I was hurting like I was in a lot of discomfort. But I could still produce a lot of power on the rower.”
“And like even that just small win that small little thing in the middle of the workout. I just feel how much better of a rower I was than the last time I did a similar workout to this.”
The next open announcement will be today at CrossFit Bison in Midland Park, New Jersey.
A piece of advice Cary has for those doing the Open for the first time “is to have a couple of super intentional focus points for each movement, instead of trying to worry about doing everything perfectly all of the time because that’s not going to happen.”
She says an example was the power cleans in 23.1. Instead of making sure each clean was perfect, her focus was on getting her hands to the bar as fast as possible for each rep.
“Sometimes it can be overwhelming, but being able to choose where you focus, I think that that’s a really powerful thing, not just during the Open, of course, but like that skill can be practiced in training, but it especially matters in the Open because scores are typically so close,” she said.
NEWS
Supreme Court to Decide on Review of World Jump Rope Champion’s Patent Case Against Rogue Fitness
After filing a patent infringement suit against Rogue Fitness in 2018, world jump rope champion and the owner of CrossFit Untapped in Louisville, CO, Molly Metz, is hopeful she might finally get her moment in court.
On February 24, the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to review Metz’ case against Rogue Fitness, which was dropped when her two patents were invalidated in 2020.
Remind me: Metz is the owner of Jump Rope Systems, LLC, a Colorado-based company that was awarded patents 7,789,809 and 8,136,208 in 2010 and 2012 respectively, and who went on to file a patent infringement suit against Rogue Fitness in 2018 claiming Rogue “stole” their jump rope technology.
The technology: Metz’ technology uses a bearing shaft and pivoting-eye-style design that allows the jump rope handle to spin faster than the traditional rope.
Metz claims she had been in talks with Rogue Fitness founder Bill Henniger about building a partnership between her company and theirs, but then he suddenly “went cold on me,” Metz said, and allegedly went on to steal her patented technology, using it in various Rogue jump ropes through the years.
What happened next: In 2020, Metz’ case was sent to an administrative court (common to patent lawsuits) which led to her patents being invalidated by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), something Metz blames on the America Invents Act, a bill that was passed by Congress in 2011 and has led to thousands of patents being invalidated since 2011.
“Since 2011 until now, over 3,000 patents have been invalidated. Canceled,” Metz said. “Seventy five percent of cases go to this administrative point, where 84 percent of patents are found invalid.”
Ultimately, her unvalidated patents led to the death of suit against Rogue Fitness.
Metz was devastated to lose something she worked so hard for, something she spent four years trying to achieve.
“When you get a patent, you’re very proud. It’s difficult to get a patent,” she said. “You spend your entire life building something…and you (finally) get this protection and so you get your right to go to court should somebody steal it.”
But she never got this right, as her patents were stripped from her before she had the chance to fight.
Where she is today: Metz filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, and today she isn’t trying to regain her invalidated patents, but she is hoping for compensation for the damages incurred during the years prior to 2020 when her patents were valid.
“Our case right now, we’re raising our hand and saying, well if you have canceled our patents today, what about the past? What about Rogue Fitness? They used my technology from 2012 to 2020 when it was a valid patent. Because you can’t cancel something that wasn’t once (in existence),” she said.
This is what her lawyer Robert Greenspoon argued to the Supreme Court on January 21 (That Metz should be entitled to damages done by Rogue Fitness prior to her patents being invalidated in 2020).
His argument did enough to persuade the Supreme Court, so on February 24, Metz is supposed to find out whether the Supreme Court will reconsider her case. If they do, she’s hoping she’ll finally get her day in district court.
Metz’ message: From 2018 until now, Metz has sunk $500,000 of her own money into the suit because she’s passionate about protecting the rights of small business owners and inventors like herself.
What the law is promoting right now, Metz explained, is that “If you’re a big company, you should steal. Because you know if the little guy comes after you and says, they’re just going to put you through that administrative court and say, ‘We’re going to invalidate your patents.’ It is really really really wrong,” she said.
“Running a small business is hard enough. And then when the government says, ‘Hey, give us $40,000 and spend four years in examination and we’ll give you this patent and protect you.’ And then they take it away…I’m broke,” she continued.
But for Metz, the case isn’t just about her. She feels like she’s fighting for all the hard working small business owners who worked hard to build something only to have it stripped away from them.
“Our country is made off of innovation. It’s what brought us to where we are today,” Metz said. “I won’t get my patents back, no. So we’re kind of fighting for everyone else when we go to DC.”
THINGS TO...
...MAKE
Turkey and Mozzarella Stuffed Peppers
You won’t want to miss this week’s Recipe of the Week. Stuffed peppers have never tasted so good than this Butcher Box recipe.
Are You Hydrating Right? (It's Not Rocket Surgery, But Still...)
It's easy to take proper hydration for granted, especially when your body isn't giving you clear signs you're doing it wrong. And, you just may be, especially when it comes to electrolyte replacement. Does going hard give you headaches, make you feel queasy, or cause brain fog? You could be electrolyte light, so to speak.
It’s here. Meet the Nano X3, your new favorite training shoe. With the all new Lift and Run chassis system, you no longer need to stop to change into your running shoes when you see a 400 meter run in a workout. The Nano X3 is the most dialed in Nano yet.
Are you a motorcycle gripper who rips on their palms? What about a suicide gripper who doesn’t wrap their thumbs? Learn how you should be gripping the bar for your pull-ups.
Happy Open Week 2 🥳 Along with any PR, fundraiser, birthday, anniversary, or event, we want to hear your wins from the 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Open! Share your highlight when you send us a tip.
Congratulations Jason Oelke from Iron Flamingo CrossFit in Cocoa, FL on getting his first ring muscle-up.
Congratulations to Becky Fouard from M4G CrossFit in Indianapolis, IN who also got her first ring muscle-up during her second attempt of Open Workout 23.1.
Congratulations Dina Kristoffersen from CrossFit Oslo in Oslo, Norway on the 136 pound/62kg snatch PR.
Congratulations Honda on returning to competition after 6 months of injury to compete in the Egyption National Weightlifting Championship.
🌎 KellyAnn Jenkins from St. Petersburg, FL ran seven marathons on seven continents in seven days to raise money for the MS Happens Foundation that she founded when her sister was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2020.
CrossFit Exodus in Bridgeport, TX has arranged a fundraiser to help a local family that recently lost all of their belongings in a housefire. The family also owns local business, Mas Meats and Produce.
The Mas Reps for Mas Meats fundraiser will run through Friday, March 3rd when gym staff will complete 1 burpee for every dollar donated during their final CrossFit Open week of Friday Night Lights.
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