Crossfit Games: Steriods, Injuries and the Turnover from 2013 to 2014

Much has been made in the past week or so about several big name athletes missing from the leaderboards after 14.1. We posted an article about it, message boards and social media were buzzing and even the Games site posted

their own video addressing the absence. I’ve seen and read too many people instantly bring up the steroid issue as they wonder aloud about so many people dropping out in the first year of Crossfit’s testing policy. While I think it’s ludicrous to jump to such a conclusion, it did make me start wondering about how much turnover there was from year to year, especially among Games’ level athletes. After all, maybe this amount of turnover is normal and it’s just more noticeable this year because it’s names we all recognize. That sent me searching out each and every male and female (individual, non-masters only) athlete from the 2012 Games. Once I had that list, I checked to see how each of them did in 2013, or more specifically to see if any of them completely skipped the Open.

Just to recap there were 91 Games athletes last year and there were 9 who didn't register a score for 14.1 at all. We’ve got four back injuries (Matt Chan, Zachary (ZA) Anderson, Heather Gillespie and Natalie McLain), a pregnancy (Deborah Cordner Carson), an illness (Mikko Salo), a change to weightlifting (Aja Barto), and two unknown reasons (Nicole Tainatongo and Erin Light). I have gotten a report that Tainatongo’s absence is due to personal reasons, including a desire to rest and focus on her family, but I don't have any way of confirming.

The two things that jump off the page pretty quickly are the number of back injuries. Matt Chan posted pictures of his his injury on Twitter and it’s generally considered fairly severe. ZA Anderson posted on his FB page that he hurt his in the process of completing 14.1 and thanks to a comment on this blog; we know that Natalie McLain is dealing with two herniated disks. Four back injuries from a field of 91 athletes would certainly be concerning if that were a trend from year to year but maybe this is just an anomaly. Also somewhat questionable, to me anyways, is that the CFG Update Show addressed four males and four females, but one of the females they addressed wasn’t a Games athlete last year. So basically they didn’t address the two unknowns (Tainatongo and Light). It’s certainly possible HQ doesn’t know why they didn’t sign back up this year, but by not addressing them at all it does make you wonder if there is more to the story. Editor’s Note: We also listed Orlando Trejo and Travis Mayer in our article, but apparently they created new profiles in 2014 instead of just using the same profile from previous years. They are both registered and completed 14.1.

With a turnover rate this year of almost 10%, let’s look at the change between 2012 and 2013. The short and quick version looks like this: In 2012 there were 90 individual Games athletes and of those 90, only two individuals did not compete at all the following year. Jon Pera, 23rd overall at the 2012 Games, chose not to sign up in 2013 after dealing with multiple family issues in the months preceding the Open. Also sitting out in 2013 after earning a spot in the 2012 Games was Denae Brown, who actually found out she was pregnant shortly before the 2012 Games and withdrew. These are only two athletes that fit into the “didn’t compete at all” category one year following their Games appearance. There were others that underwent drastic change in just a year’s time:

• Joey Warren: The northern California competitor had a shoulder injury at the start of the 2013 Open and he completed one rep in 13.1 and two reps in 13.2 before withdrawing from the Open.
• Alicia Gomes: Completed single digit reps in four of the five Open WODs before announcing she was going to ‘team’ in 2013. I couldn’t find an article that explained her decision but looking at the results I think it’s fair to say she was dealing with an injury during the Open.
• Azadeh Boroumand: After dominating her region and finishing 18th in her first Games appearance, Boroumand looked like a rising star in the CF world but she limped through the 2013 Open, eventually qualifying for Regionals but talking herself out of quitting several times. She’d eventually withdraw from the competition one day after the close of the 2013 Open. She is not signed up for 2014 either.
• Jenny Labaw: We all remember Labaw inspirationally struggling through the Open with a cast on one foot. Despite basically completing all five Open WODs on one leg she finished 337th in her region. By the way she’s back healthy now and posted a 392 on 14.1, good enough for 10th in Northern California.

Oddly enough, that’s it. Two complete ‘no shows’ and four that drastically changed their competition level for one reason or another. Is that enough evidence to suggest CF has a problem with injuries or some other unknown factor? As with most things there are two ways to look at this evidence.

First, I think we’d feel quite a bit differently if there were a couple less names on the DNF list already this year, and there probably should be. I doubt Anderson hurt his back doing double unders, which means he most likely completed at least 30 reps (even if he hurt his back on the very first snatch, which is unlikely). If he and a couple of the other “injured” athletes had at least posted some kind of score in 14.1, then it likely doesn’t raise an eye brow and the Update Show doesn’t have to do a special video to address it. Mikko could easily fall into that same category as well, which could mean that he has a really severe case of pneumonia that he doesn’t think he’ll shake in the next week or two. Barto switching to Olympic lifting is something that CF hasn’t had to deal with in the past but will probably become more common place in the future. At 6’5, Barto doesn’t exactly fit the ‘prototypical’ body type of your elite level Crossfitter and he did qualify for the American Open last December.

The other side of the coin, at least I feel like, is an easy yet very flimsy argument to make. It basically takes two facts (1-This is the first year of more rigid PED testing and 2-the turnover rate is very high) and assumes these two facts must be related. That’s it. It’s 100% pure speculation. While I don’t think any sport, or any gym you walk into for that matter, is 100% clean from all PEDs, I do think Crossfit has taken the necessary steps to ensure that it PED’s don’t run rampant. And I say that as opposed to “ensure that their sport is clean,” because I don’t think any sport is clean. They have instituted random, unannounced off season tests of both blood and urine. That’s a strict and tough as any of your other major sports. Will there still be people that attempt to use PED’s? I’m sure there will be and I’m sure that some will be caught and some will slip by the tests. That’s the nature of the cheater (now if Crossfit doesn’t announce someone has failed a drug test within a year, then maybe I’ll get skeptical of their testing procedure).

So is there a conclusion somewhere in this article? I’m not really sure that there is a clear conclusion that we can draw from this data yet. Yes the turnover rate from 2013 to 2014 does appear to be higher, especially on the injury front, which probably isn’t a good thing considering the studies HQ has tried to fight this past year regarding injury rates in the sport. I also wouldn’t be terribly surprised if we continue to get athletes who drop out each year for “personal” reasons simply because of the amount of time and energy it takes to train for the Games, despite very little payoff. Eating right, paying for membership, plus individualized coaching (which most elite level CFers have), equipment, travel and entrance fees to both Regionals and the Games (yes these athletes pay money in order to be a part of these events) is a tremendous investment that for almost all of the field has absolutely zero monetary payoff. I would imagine that’s a very tough pill for most to swallow once the excitement of going to the Games dies down.

In an sport or profession there will be turnover and Crossfit isn't immune to that fact. I believe this year we are seeing a couple of anamolies that are skewing the data. We will continue to see turnover from year to year but I would be surprised if it continues to be as high as the 10% we've seen between 2013 and 2014.