NOTICING FROM THE GAMES; SCORING POTENTIAL

1          750     Tia-Clair Toomey
2          736     Katrin Davidsdottir
3          703     Kara Webb
4          689     Sara Signmundsdottir
5          681     Sam Briggs
6          661     Chyna Cho
7          636     Lindsey Valenzuela
8          620     Margaux Alvarez
9          616     Amanda Goodman
10        569     Emily Abbott

The rankings above are how the 2015 CrossFit Games COULD HAVE unfolded with MINOR tweaks to scoring methods. If you watched the Sunday finale, suffice it to say, the pegboard proved difficult for the majority of female competitors. Out of the remaining 37-competitior-field, three completed all three pegboard repetitions, two completed two pegboard repetitions, and seven completed one pegboard repetition. This left a MASSIVE tie for 13th-place amongst twenty-five individuals NOT completing a single pegboard repetition.

In an alternative scoring method, where the 13th-place tie is given 0-points versus 54-points in PTTM1, you see how drastically the leaderboard shifts. Notably a different champ is crowned and Kara Webb stands on the podium.

And to be clear, the 13th-place tie is being given 0-points because they failed to complete a single successful repetition.  In previous events, namely the clean and jerk max, when competitors failed to complete a repetition they received 0-points. For instance, Ben Garard, Travis Williams, and Joe Scali all failed to complete a successful attempt. Instead of receiving 8-points on a tie for 36th-place, they all received 0 points. (Side note; imagine if Matt Fraser misses his second attempt on the clean and jerk max. He then joins the other gentlemen with 0-points. All only things being equal Fraser ends the competition with 795 overall points, still finishing second in the Games, mind you. However, the drama around a podium race is negligible as Ben Smith truly walks away with the title at 915 overall points).

I liked the scoring system this year. It rewarded exponential points to top finishers and allowed for major shifts across the leaderboard. I simply think PPTM1 was poorly conceived and no one in Games management saw the tie-breaker coming at that scale. Perhaps even a last minute call was made during PTTM2 in terms of how to handle scoring of 13th-place; 54-points each or 0-points each?

Let me know your thoughts on this.

– Coach Matt Springer