If you’ve been following the Wodapalooza Online Qualifier, also known as the WZAOC, you might have noticed that the biggest names in the sport are no where to be found. So why aren’t athletes like Pat Vellner and Emma McQuaid (last year’s winners) or Bethany Shadburne, Arielle Loewen, Cole Sager and Noah Ohlsen doing the WZAOC?
Well, Wodapalooza is inviting all of them! On top of the top 20 that will qualify to compete in Miami this January, Wodapalooza is giving the top athletes a free pass at the qualifier and are inviting them instead.
And while that may not be surprising, the actual number of ways an athlete can receive an invite without doing the WZAOC might surprise you. Let’s take a look…
- 2022 CrossFit Games. All 80 individual athletes who qualified for this year’s CrossFit Games are invited. Yep, Justin Medeiros, Roman Khrennikov, Pat Vellner, Tia-Clair Toomey, Mal O’Brien. All of them. If they want to compete, they can just accept their invitation.
- Top 3 at the CrossFit Games between 2016-2021. This is where it starts to get interesting. Some huge names will get an invite because of this. Let’s take a look at who…
- Katrin Davidsdottir
- Sara Sigmundsdottir
- Annie Thorisdottir
- Kristin Holte
- Jamie Simmonds
- Kari Pearce
- Mat Fraser
- Ben Smith
- Lukas Hogberg
- Top 3 at Wodapalooza 2022. Samuel Cournoyer and Bethany Shadburne finished on the podium last year and can compete in 2023.
- Individual winners at Wodapalooza and Granite Games the past 5 years.
- Individual winners at this year’s off-season events:
- Madrid CrossFit Championship
- FITLAND
- Black Challenge
- The Greatness Fit Fest
- Argentina Throwdown
If you’re doing the math, if that’s a lot of automatic invites being sent out. Of course, many of this year’s Games athletes also “qualified” by one of the other criteria listed above. For example, Tia-Clair Toomey gets in by competing at the Games this year, but also by finishing on the podium at the Games every year since 2016 and winning Wodapalooza in 2019 and 2020.
With that said, over 50 women and almost 50 men will receive automatic invites to compete as an individual at this year’s TYR Wodapalooza event.
The organizers at Wodapalooza told The Barbell Spin that there is no cap limit on the number of elite athletes than can accept their invite and compete this year. So if everyone accepted their invite, the elite men’s and women’s field could be near 70 athletes (20 from the WZAOC and roughly 50 from automatic invites).
However, don’t expect to see a field that size. Wodapalooza has extended a large number of automatic invites in the past and the field has always been between 40-50 athletes. Last year, 36 men and 39 women competed in-person in Miami.
As for the WZAOC, the leaderboard is expected to be finalized any moment now. Stay tuned to The Barbell Spin as we bring you news faster than anyone else.
