Grit Haus Team Disqualified From 2024 CrossFit Season
CrossFit CLT The Grit Haus is faced with yet another early exit to their team’s CrossFit season. Last year, an injury cut their 2023 CrossFit Games week short, and now they’ve officially been disqualified for the 2024 CrossFit Games season due to a costly mistake during the Open.
The team out of CrossFit CLT in Charlotte, NC, received a notification from CrossFit HQ stating that they were disqualified from Quarterfinals due to an athlete on their team roster performing an Open workout (and submitting the video as an official submission) at a location other than the affiliate.
CrossFit CLT The Grit Haus team manager Kevin Steinhaus and the team as a whole have owned up to the mistake and are disheartened by the situation.
The team made it to the Games last year but had to withdraw after Steinhaus suffered an injury during an event, making this year’s abrupt ending even worse.
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The Details
Steinhaus has spoken out about the incident in hopes of drawing attention to “human error” and expressing to the community that they intended to follow the rules.
Steinhaus tells the Morning Chalk Up he received an email from CrossFit HQ earlier in the week asking for clarification on the members on their team roster. One of those members is Josh Hardin, who ended up redoing 24.1 at his workplace — a fire station in Charlotte.
“I got that email on Tuesday that we were ineligible because John Hardin did the workout for 24.1 outside of the affiliate,” Steinhaus said.
Hardin did the workout originally at the affiliate but redid it later for personal reasons. His score was also not used as part of the team score, but CrossFit HQ stood firm on its rule. The team used a score from one of the alternates on their roster.
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Rule 1.13 in the 2024 CrossFit Games Season Rulebook states that to verify an athlete’s eligibility, teams must be able to provide video evidence that includes “[each] team member’s performance of their submitted score of all of the Open workouts at their team’s affiliate.”
The rulebook states, separately but also in rule 1.13, that “[each] Open workout must be performed in the same physical location as the team’s affiliate.”
What They Are Saying
“We understand that rules need to be followed. But I think there needs to be some wiggle room for certain situations. It just seems that they [CrossFit HQ] have no situational awareness that there could be some human error,” Steinhaus said.
He adds that CrossFit HQ stood firm on the enforcement of the rule and did not accept any of the suggestions made by the team to modify Hardin’s score back to the original score he posted when he performed 24.1 at the affiliate.
The Morning Chalk Up contacted CrossFit HQ for a response, and a spokesperson said the company stands behind its “short and strict” rule.
“Athletes have to be on the team roster, complete the workout(s) at the affiliate that hosts the team they are on, and submit all of their scores through the affiliate,” the spokesperson said. “In Josh Hardin’s case from CrossFit CLT The Grit Haus, his 24.1 score was submitted from his [firehouse] and not through his affiliate, so he’s been deemed ineligible.”
The spokesperson continued, saying, “CrossFit spends considerable time during the review process verifying each team member’s submission to be eligible for Semifinals qualification. Other teams have been ruled ineligible for the same reason and CrossFit will publish the complete list at the close of the Quarterfinals stage.”
The Bottom Line
While this is a disappointing ending for the team, two members are planning on doing the Age Group Quarterfinals and the team hopes to participate in a separate competition together in the near future.
“I just want to make sure people know that we were trying to do the right thing and it was pure human error. We were not trying to skirt the line because that’s just not who we are,” Steihaus said. “We try to follow rules and that’s just who we are as a community at The Grit Haus and that’s who we are as a team.”
Featured image: @the_grit_haus / Instagram