Open 20.1 Live Stream, NOBULL Podcast, Southwest Champ

Watch the 20.1 live stream with WODDITY. NOBULL has announced their new Behind the Horns podcast. Southwest Championship drama continues with unpaid staff.

Monday, October 7th, 2019

Good morning and welcome to the WODDITY podcast for news about CrossFit. We are a daily podcast, Monday through Friday, doing CrossFit news in five minutes or less.

My name is Ben Garves and today is Monday, the 7th of October, 2019.

You’ve survived the weekend, which means you are only three more sleeps away from being able to watch my live stream of 20.1. The first workout announcement of the 2020 CrossFit Open will feature Scott Panchik and Rich Froning going head-to-head in what Dave Castro promises will be one heck of a workout.

NOBULL went wild last week and isn't about to slow down. They announced later in the day on Friday that they’ve also started a podcast. Called “Behind the Horns”, they say it’s a podcast created for people who train hard and don’t believe in excuses. It’s hosted by NOBULL’s Co-Founders Michael Schaeffer and Marcus Wilson. Three episodes are already live: the first with Michael and Marcus, joined by co-owner Ben Bergeron in the second episode, and Rory McKernan in the third. You can check them out on NOBULL’s website or Spotify. I’ve put a link in my show notes at WODDITY.com

Morning Chalk Up has brought back their handy CrossFit Open movement tracker. It looks at the likelihood of movements appearing in CrossFit Open workouts. Four movements are all but guaranteed: toes to bar, double unders, chest-to-bar pull-ups, and thrusters. I have the link to the full article for you.

We mentioned a rumor last week that Patrick Vellner and Annie Thorisdottir may be going head-to-head for the CrossFit Open 20.5 workout announcement in November. The rumor started after Reebok chose the athletes as the backdrop of their 20.5 trip giveaway page. That has now been confirmed, as the CrossFit Filthy 150 posted details to Instagram. It’s official now, so I’m going to say it: the announcement will be November 7th, hosted at Reebok CrossFit One in Boston, Massachusetts with none other than Patrick Vellner and Annie Thorisdottir. CrossFit Filthy 150 is the first Sanctional event of the 2020 CrossFit Games season and is bringing a little CrossFit action to the gorgeous countryside of Ireland. It’s only fitting they host a workout announcement.

Last week we also reported on the Southwest Championship not issuing prizes to their event winners. This week, Morning Chalk Up has followed up on that story and confirmed staff members at the event have gone unpaid. Controversy looks to largely surround event organizer Chaco Comrie, for a number of reasons. Comrie’s statement on the prize controversy maintains that the athlete prizes are “moving chess pieces”. Athletes have confirmed they’ve received communication about their winnings, but nobody has received the value of the entire promised prize pool.

Jason Jannetti was brought on to the event as the Competition Director, but left two months prior due to concerns about Chaco Comrie. Initially, Jannetti had been promised the role would turn into a full-time position with a salary and equity in the event. Nate Peters was hired as the event’s Director of Staffing and tells a very similar story. 

Also painting a vivid picture about Comrie’s character is a statement from Noor Greene, the head of Sanctioned and Licensed events at CrossFit. Greene told Morning Chalk Up that the Southwest Championship had been rejected early in the Sanctional review process when Comrie had been falsely implying they were about to be named as a Sanctional in order to gain sponsorships and favor within the community. CrossFit then rejected Southwest and Comrie, also withholding a licensee status which would have allowed Southwest to use “CrossFit” in its name. As fallout, USA Functional Fitness has blacklisted Comrie. They told Mprning Chalk Up:

“In light of these recent findings, we believe Mr. Comrie’s behaviors exhibited and described in the article are not in alignment with our core values. Events run in this manner do not have a place within our system.”

And that’s it for news about CrossFit on Monday, October 7th. Thanks for listening. Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. It’s the best way to give back to the show, because it helps more people find us. I’m Ben Garves.