2014 Crossfit Games-Regionals: A Judge’s Perspective

A congratulations are in order for all that competed in this years Crossfit Games- Regionals. For the individuals, it takes a truly special, dedicated athlete to even make it that far.  If you failed to reach your own personal goals, know that making it to Regionals is a huge step in your development. Look back on it with pride and satisfaction as the thousands who watched you over three days marveled at your athleticism and determination. For the Teams, congratulations on putting together a group of like minded and determined athletes who came together to realize their goals of competing at the next level. Some of you may not be “Individual” athletes but a team is the sum of its parts and you were a key cog in getting five other people to the next stage in the Crossfit Games. We all work through WODs together at our local boxes and you folks continued that teamwork and camaraderie on the biggest stage your region has to offer. For the winners, there is work to do. You are now a Crossfit Games Athlete.

As a judge I was able to get up close to the action, interact with other volunteers, athletes, Games support staff and even Dave Castro himself. We get the privilege of going onto the floor before, during and after the events, something that spectators do not. This allows us to see the inter workings and ultimately be part of the experience that only athletes get a taste of. So with that privilege comes great responsibility (kinda like Spiderman….get it?). As judges we are partially, but nowhere near fully responsible for which athletes make it to the Games, which athletes make their own personal goals and which athletes fall short. We judge and enforce the movement standards, we keep teams and athletes in their order and make sure they follow the parameters set by HQ for the competition. We watch for the false starts, the parallel vs. full depth, the full hip and knee extension and the two foot on the mat finish to assist in determining who is going to California. So with that said, should we be doing all of this? and better yet, should volunteers being doing this?

The Judge:

Perhaps we should start at the qualification stage of becoming a Judge. In 2013 you were initially required to have completed the Crossfit Level 1 Trainer Course and then the Online Judges course. Due to a lack of volunteers in our region, the CF-L1 requirement was dropped. I volunteered both last year and this year and because I met both requirements I never looked to see if a CF-L1 was required in 2014. It is entirely possible that someone with a CF-L1 cert and someone who has completed the online judges course is still not properly prepared to judge at such a high level with so much on the line.

The next step would be the experience factor. Let’s say that you have your CF-L1, completed the Judges Course and are part of an affiliate where you attend 3-5 times a week for the last three years. Is this enough experience to make you a great (not kinda Ok, or slightly acceptable, this is friggen Regionals we are talking about) Judge? How are your own movement standards? Have you ever coached someone? When was the last time you applied what you learned in the CF-L1 course to an athlete other than yourself? Maybe Crossfit is your first and only sport and you have never had any sort of education in human kinetics and no athletic background. If not, welcome to the largest faction of Crossfit “athletes.” This lack of experience does not make you a bad person, nor does it make you a bad athlete, but it is entirely possible that it makes you a not so great (remember, we are going for great, not just ok) Judge.

Lets focus on personality….are you an asshole? Good! You are well on your way to becoming a better judge! During the Open did you judge your fellow competitors at your box? How many “NO-REP!!” did you yell out? Or were you one of those athletes who gave that quizzical look to your fellow gym mate when they didn’t reach full extension? You know the look. The slight wince, the shoulders move up closer to the ears, maybe a quick glance around to see if anyone is going to call your no-rep, and then back on counting as if nothing happened? Maybe you say to yourself “oh it doesn’t matter, so-and-so is not going to the games so I’ll just give him/her one” well now so-and-so is going around the gym all ecstatic about their spot on the Leaderboard, or about their new PR that never actually happened. That is not fair to them. So if you couldn’t no rep someone at your box who is certainly not going to Regionals, how in the hell are you going to muster up the courage to no-rep the scary-as-fuck looking Lucas Parker when he is two points away from sealing the deal to California? He is looking for that same little look in your eye and before you can even contemplate reconsidering a no-rep he just busted out the remaining 205# overhead squats like its a de-load week. Too bad, so sad, too friggen late.

So the good thing about all of this….it is not your fault. It is not your fault that you suck as a judge, its HQ’s. They “prepared” you by maybe requiring you to take the CF-L1 course, and had you go online for 60min of judging. They set the parameters of what they require out of you. You as a judge are a volunteer, you are not compensated, not a professional, a volunteer. Their “Head Judges” did their very best to ensure that you were upholding the standards of what is expected but those gentlemen and ladies are compensated and have at some point achieved a higher level of training than you. They are also few and far between. Those “Head Judges” have two of three on the floor to watch upwards of fifty athletes at a time. The expectations of you are absurd given your lack of experience, education, competitive level, personality, ect. because you are just a volunteer. They may not even know that this is your first time ever judging anyone at any Crossfit event and your coming out party just happens to be the most important days of competition in many of the athletes lives.

An aside:

Hey athlete who argued the no-rep on the squat, the ring dip, the burpee, ect., suck it! You are supposed to be a Regionals level athlete. We both went to the athletes meeting where the movement standards were displayed and explained. You had the opportunity to ask any question that came to mind and every chance for you to not get a “NO REP!!” was given. It is not your judge’s (who is volunteering by the way) responsibility to make sure you get to full depth (which was explained earlier does not equal parallel). If it is anyone’s fault, it is your own for not videotaping you own movements during training, and perhaps some piss poor coaching. Oh you say that the judge in the other lane was giving the other athlete the rep? Well we have established that there is a very real possibility that judge may suck. Lucky for you, a full depth squat and a parallel squat takes roughly the same amount of time, but you just wasted it. As they say in boxing, don’t leave it in the hands of the judges. I would love to just sit back, watch you destroy the workout and set an event record. That means we are both done, I can get up off my sore knee a bit sooner, grab a bite to eat and get ready for the next event or maybe even go watch one from the stands. But when you decided to half-ass the movement and then waste time complaining, well you just ruined both of our experiences.

Conclusion:

I wanted to bring up the issue of using volunteer judges because it has been a hot button issue during all the Regional events. In my own region I saw some one get a good rep while using their face and then top of their head to achieve an overhead squat. I saw tons of muscle-ups without full extension and I saw one athlete complete an exorbitant amount of ring dips where they started each single from the dip position rather than lockout-dip-lockout. There were bad rope climbs, strict handstand push-ups, ect ect. This year we even saw an event record in Australia (Team) set by a team who’s judges failed to facilitate the proper flow of the workout by not holding athletes back at each station until the teammates in front of them were completed. It was such an egregious error and yet the result remained unchanged. In a “professional” sport where athletes have to pay for their invites and judges have to volunteer, a lot of much needed changes exist.