The 12,000-seat outdoor Dell Diamond Stadium in Round Rock, TX, will be home to the third annual Rogue Invitational scheduled for October 29-31, 2021. In addition to the strongman contest that will be featured at the event for the first time, the CrossFit competition will return, and some of the biggest names in the sport will be in attendance.
The current reigning Fittest Man on Earth®, Justin Medeiros, will attend, as will five-time Fittest Woman on Earth® Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr to defend her 2020 Rogue Invitational title. 2021 CrossFit Games runner-up Patrick Vellner who won the 2020 Rogue Invitational, is also slated to return. The other two CrossFit Games podium finishers — Laura Horvath and Annie Thorisdottir — will also compete in Round Rock.
2021 Rogue Invitational — CrossFit Roster
Note: more competitors may be announced for this competition. This article will be updated accordingly.
Women’s Division
- Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr
- Laura Horvath
- Annie Thorisdottir
- Kristin Holte
- Haley Adams
- Gabriela Migała
- Mallory O’Brien
- Kristi Eramo O’Connell
- Amanda Barnhart
- Katrín Davíðsdóttir
- Danielle Brandon
- Emma McQuaid
- Thuridur Erla Helgadottir
- Arielle Loewen
- Emily Rolfe
- Sam Briggs
- Kari Pearce
- Emma Cary
- Carolyne Prevost
- Jacqueline Dahlstrøm
Men’s Division
- Justin Medeiros
- Patrick Vellner
- Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson
- Saxon Panchik
- Guilherme Malheiros
- Alex Vigneault
- Lazar Đukić
- Travis Mayer
- Jeffrey Adler
- Cole Sager
- André Houdet
- Henrik Haapalainen
- Jayson Hopper
- Will Moorad
- Chandler Smith
- Ben Smith
- Alexandre Caron
- Uldis Upenieks
- Jason Smith
- Samuel Kwant
At the 2020 Rogue Invitational, the Men’s Division featured 18 competitors, and the Women’s division featured 17 competitors.
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The 2021 Rogue Invitational marks the return of 2020 CrossFit Games bronze medalist Kari Pearce, who could not compete at the 2021 CrossFit Games due to testing positive for COVID-19. Additionally, Kristen Holte will compete in Round Rock despite announcing that the 2021 CrossFit Games was her final Games.
Three of the top five competitors in the Men’s Division from the 2020 Rogue Invitational return in 2021. In addition to Vellner, Guðmundsson and Panchik are also returning. They finished second and fifth in 2020, respectively.
Rogue Invitational Prize Purse
The CrossFit events are not yet available. However, the prize purse is. The money on the line is a significant bump compared to the 2020 Rogue Invitational. Rogue will pay out a percentage of initial funds ($975,000), Bitcoin ($275,000), and ticket sales to strongman and CrossFit competitors.
Currently, the total prize purse for both the CrossFit and strongman competitions is $1,377,813. If ticket sales increase, so does the payout to the athletes. To simplify that further, Rogue is paying out in both cash and Bitcoin. The breakdown for the CrossFit Invitational is currently the following:
CrossFit Invitational Prize Payout
Note: these prizes may change as more tickets to the event are sold. The numbers below are the prize money and its percentage of the total prize pool for both divisions.
- $236,984 — 17.20 percent
- $82,669 — Six percent
- $44,090 — 3.2 percent
- $33,068 — 2.4 percent
- $24,801 — 1.8 percent
- $22,045 — 1.6 percent
- $19,289 — 1.4 percent
- $16,534 — 1.2 percent
- $11,023 — 0.8 percent
- through 20. $5,511 — 0.4 percent
Going Rogue
It would be hard to imagine a world where the betting odds are not steeply in Toomey-Orr’s favor to win the Invitational. She has been on a dominant run for all of 2021 — winning the 2021 CrossFit Open, the Mid-Atlantic CrossFit Semifinal, and the 2021 CrossFit Games. However, we have seen O’Brien go essentially head-to-head in a battle for the first position in Event Four at the 2021 CrossFit Games and emerge victoriously, so, perhaps, anything is possible.
The battle in the Men’s Division is more likely to be close. The roster will presumably receive more additions in the coming month and the difference between Vellner and Medeiros standing at the top of the podium at the 2021 CrossFit Games was a single event. Additionally, Malheiros is coming into the Invitational with the momentum of his break-out seventh-place performance at the 2021 CrossFit Games.
Feature image: @rogueinvitational on Instagram