If you have been paying attention to the Rogue Invitational Instagram account you have noticed they have been posted athletes who be competing in Scotland this November. But if you look a little closer, you start to see some trends. Most notably, that Emma Lawson will not be competing at this year’s Rogue Invitational.
How did I get to that conclusion?
Let’s start with the field size. Rogue invites 20 men and 20 women to compete at the Rogue Invitational. At least five from The Q are invited…more on this below.
Rogue is also inviting the top 10 athletes from its new Qualifying System this year. From there, Rogue has at least five unallocated spots to extend invites to the athletes of their choosing.
For the online qualifier, Rogue extended invites to the top 6 women whereas only five men from the online qualifier got the invite.
On September 12, Maddie Sturt was the first athlete to be officially announced. Sturt is ranked 29th on Rogue’s new Qualifying System. See…Bill and Caity can do what they want.
That same day the 2024 Fittest Man on Earth was invited. James Sprague is ranked 25th on the Qualifying System. But he won the CrossFit Games, so he gets an invite.
From there, Paige Semenza was announced. She is ranked 16th on the women’s leaderboard. Jonne Koski was the next male athlete. He’s ranked 14th.
Rogue skipped Emma Cary, ranked 15th, and announced Haley Adams who is ranked 14th. Sam Kwant, ranked 13th, was next to be announced.
From there, it is very clear that Rogue is announcing athletes in reverse order of their new Qualifying System. For the men, no one has been skipped. That story is different on the women’s side.
As mentioned earlier, Emma Cary was not announced. The next athlete to have been skipped was Annie Thorisdottir in 8th. After that, Alexis Raptis (7th) and Arielle Loewen (6th) were announced. Then Danielle Brandon (4th) was announced.
So who is ranked 5th?
Yep…Emma Lawson.
When you add up the six female qualifiers from The Q, the confirmed female athletes on the Rogue Invitational Instagram, that leaves two remaining spots. Those will be for Laura Horvath and Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr. Thus, Emma Lawson appears to have declined her invite to compete at the 2024 Rogue Invitational.
As for the men, there are 18 confirmed athletes so far leaving the final two announcements to be for Pat Vellner and Jeff Adler.
So there you have it, the 20-athlete field for the Rogue Invitational is (unofficially) set.
Unless something changes, here is who we will see competing in Aberdeen, Scotland, in two months. Numbers in parentheses () is their rank in the Qualifying System. Athletes with “Q” represents they qualified via the online qualifier.
| Men | Women |
| Jeff Adler (1) | Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr (1) |
| Pat Vellner (2) | Laura Horvath (2) |
| Justin Medeiros (3) | Gabi Migala (3) |
| Roman Khrennikov (4) | Danielle Brandon (4) |
| Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson (5) | Arielle Loewen (6) |
| Jayson Hopper (6) | Alexis Raptis (7) |
| Ricky Garard (7) | Alex Gazan (9) |
| Noah Ohlsen (8) | Brooke Wells (10) |
| Dallin Pepper (9) | Amanda Barnhart (11) |
| Jay Crouch (10) | Emma McQuaid (12) |
| Chandler Smith (11) | Emily Rolfe (13) |
| Brent Fikowski (12) | Haley Adams (14) |
| Sam Kwant (13) | Paige Semenza (16) |
| Jonne Koski (14) | Maddie Sturt (29) |
| James Sprague (25) | Manon Angonese (“Q) |
| Giorgos Karavis (“Q”) | Sydney Wells (“Q”) |
| Sam Cournoyer (“Q”) | Taylor Williamson (“Q”) |
| Gui Malheiros (“Q”) | Emma Tall (“Q”) |
| Henrik Haapalainen (“Q”) | Tayla Howe (“Q”) |
| Jorge Fernandez (“Q”) | Dana Paran (“Q”) |
