Is The Crossfit Opens Broken??

I came across a series of articles written on this subject. I'm not sure I agree with all of his hypotheses but it did give me some things to think about. Below please find the beginning of the articles:

"The growth of our sport has exploded exponentially. In 2011 when the concept of the CrossFit Games Open was first introduced, approximately 26,000 people signed up to participate. The following year, that number nearly tripled, and in 2013, almost 140,000 people participated in the Open. In 2014, those numbers will likely exceed 200,000 people.

Over the next four weeks, my articles will take an honest look at the CrossFit Open. How it works, how it doesn’t work, and ultimately, some suggestions as to how it can be fixed.

An Overview

The Open, as we now know it, began in 2011. The explosive growth of CrossFit saw the Games go from 2007 where literally anyone who wanted to compete in the CrossFit Games could simply sign up and compete, (much like any weekend box throwdown you may participate in now) to 2011, where an online qualifier allowed sixty individuals and thirty teams to advance to their respective regional competitions. (And twenty Masters in each bracket went straight to the Games.)

Why Is There a Problem?

There is a problem, essentially, because the CrossFit Open doesn’t know what it wants to be. It wants to be the first qualifying step in finding the fittest on earth, but it also wants to be a world-wide community play date, where anyone and everyone, from Rich Froning to your 80-year-old grandfather can participate.

It’s the latter, that all-inclusive worldwide funfest that has forced the Open workouts into a lowest-common-denominator corner. This necessarily compels CrossFit to serve up a limited pool of movements requiring a low skill level to make significant strides. The immense size and scope of the Open leads to judging accuracy issues, and there are multiple additional issues that I will discuss in the coming weeks, such as video standards, leaderboard shenanigans, do-overs, and a little something I like to call “inbreeding.”"

TO CONTINUE THE ARTICLE AND THE REST OF THE SERIES PLEASE CLICK HERE

[Please click on one of these buttons to "like"on Facebook or, to rank this post on Google-thanks so much,it helps my blog rating.]