It has been four months since the last week of Semifinals concluded, yet athletes from three Semifinal competitions are still waiting to receive prize money.
To date, CrossFit has begun issuing prize money to the top athletes for seven of the 10 Semifinals. The three Semifinals that are still in limbo are Fittest in Cape Town, Syndicate Crown and the Far East Throwdown.
All three of those Semifinals had athletes who had failed a drug test. CrossFit’s policy is to hold prize money for a competition until any failed drug tests and appeals have been fully resolved. CrossFit has told The Barbell Spin that this is the reason that the prize money for these Semifinals has not yet been issued.
Currently, there are two drug testing appeals still underway. Stephen Wallace and Nasser Alruwayeh’s appeals are still under review by CrossFit. Wallace competed on the 7th place team, Blues City CrossFit Gold, at Syndicate Crown while Alruwayeh finished 2nd as an individual at the Far East Throwdown.
As for Fittest in Cape Town, there were two failed drug tests on the team side of the competition. Lize Burns and Pieter Smith were on the 1st and 2nd place teams, respectively, and both received 4-year sanctions last month. Because the top two teams received Sanctions, no team from the Fittest in Cape Town Semifinal competed at the 2022 CrossFit Games.
In speaking with a representative from CrossFit, it is standard practice for an athlete or team that was not drug tested to be eligible for prize money. However, only the top two teams at the Fittest in Cape Town were drug tested even though prize money was to be paid to the top 3 teams.
We spoke with a team member of the 3rd place team, BST CrossFit, who said CrossFit told them they would not be eligible because they had not been drug tested and that teams in previous years received prize money even though they were not drug tested at the competition.
But in a statement to The Barbell Spin, upon further consideration of the facts of the Fittest in Cape Town drug testing results, CrossFit has determined that BST CrossFit and CrossFit Firebolt will receive prize money for second and third place, respectively.
BST CrossFit originally placed 3rd overall while CrossFit Firebolt finished 4th, before sanctions were placed on team members of the 1st and 2nd place teams.
CrossFit’s policy and explanation regarding delayed payments for the Semifinals sheds light into the status of the CrossFit Games prize money payouts. In speaking with several individual athletes, no prize money has yet to be paid out. However, we do know that test results have come in following Tommy Tillman’s 4-year sanction handed out September 25. So the question is, were there other failed drug tests that are currently under appeal?
