Individual Quarterfinals Plagued by Over 3,000 Scoring Adjustments and Penalties

If you have been watching the individual Quarterfinals leaderboard closing you might have been wondering if you were seeing things correctly as athletes have been shuffling up and down the leaderboard for the past four days. Unfortunately, you were. The Individual Quarterfinal leaderboard has seen a staggering number of scoring adjustments and penalties that is overshadowing the event itself.

Before we get into the numbers, I want to thank Mike Halpin, @known_knowable, and Adam Nash for digging through the leaderboard and providing the data for this article.

As of Thursday afternoon, CrossFit has handed out almost 3,300 penalties (3,298 to be exact) since the close of Workout 5 on Sunday afternoon. This number does not count penalties handed out before Sunday, nor does it include penalties that were ultimately reversed. With approximately 64,000 workout submissions, over 5% of all workouts have received a penalty thus far…and CrossFit has until March 27 to finalize the leaderboard.

Of those 3,298 penalties, 865 have been major penalties (defined a score adjusted by 14% or more, but does not include zeroed out score). 

Here is a breakdown of the penalties handed out by region and test:

Men

The men have received 1,769 total penalties with 692 being a “major” penalty. Test 4, the Row/GHD/V-up workout, has received the most penalties while the Europe region has accumulated the most of any other region, 636.

Women

On the women’s side, there have been 1,529 penalties handed out, with 173 being major. The European region also had the most penalties, 463, but Test 2, the Crossover/DB Snatch/Lunge workout, has been where most women have been penalized.

The sheer volume of the penalties calls into question whether the Quarterfinals format is working. From unclear movement standards, new movements (crossovers, wall-facing handstand push-ups and V-up) and trying to judge video submissions has created a situation where over 5% of all videos (not just the ones reviewed) have received a scoring adjustment.

But beyond the numbers, we have seen numerous examples of penalties being handed out only to be reversed with the athlete receiving a smaller penalty or no penalty at all.

Sam Kwant received a major 15% penalty over the weekend for his V-ups. Kwant appealed the decision and the penalty was reversed due to Kwant’s “intent” of meeting the movement standard for the V-ups. Kwant was not the only one. Several others, including Katelin Van Zyl and Alex Vigneault, have successfully appealed a penalty and have had their score restored.

So far, 28 men and 19 women in the Top 300 of the Worldwide rankings have received a major penalty. Some athletes have even received multiple scoring adjustments.

Here’s the list of notable athletes who have received a penalty during the video review process:

Some of these penalties were very minor and as small as a single rep. However, it illustrates that some of the biggest names in the sport with most experience and large support teams are still getting hit with penalties.

We don’t know how far down the leaderboard CrossFit is going to review the videos, but we know it’s not all of them. But if only a fraction of the total submissions are actually reviewed and we have over 3,000 scoring adjustments/penalties, how accurate is the leaderboard in total?

Of course, the goal of the Quarterfinals is to find the top 30 or 60 men and women in each region to advance to the next state of the competition, Semifinals. And I would argue that once the dust settles the right athletes will make it to Semifinals…there will be a few exceptions, but in general, the fittest in each region will move on.

However, watching the review process unfold and seeing athletes move up and down the leaderboard, it leaves me wondering if this is good for the sport or could there be a better way…