Event Organizers: Competition Corner Made it Easier to Identify Banned Athletes at Registration

With the new format of the CrossFit Games season, athletes have the ability to compete in more off-season events — including non-licensed CrossFit competitions, of which there are thousands held annually across the globe. As they take advantage of this in hopes of another potential earning opportunity, those serving a ban from the sport are too. But Competition Corner is making it easier for event organizers to know if an athlete currently serving a drug-related sanction registers to compete.

The details: Competition Corner is one of the largest event management and leaderboard technology companies in the CrossFit community, used by events like Wodapoolza and Dubai CrossFit Championship. During registration setup, event organizers can include a question that asks the athlete whether they’re currently serving a CrossFit drug sanction.

• “We’ve had the option since the inception of Competition Corner,” Michael Huynh, the founder of Competition Corner said.
• Event organizers can do this through “custom fields” in registration which will allow them to learn more about the athletes who sign up — in this case — whether they’re serving a drug ban.
• Those using Competition Corner also have the ability to retrospectively amend leaderboards if they learn about an athlete’s ban after the event. This was the case at the Mid-Atlantic CrossFit Challenge in 2019 with Elite Team Invictus X, for example. 

How it works

• Event organizers can add this question within their event under Event Setup > Custom Registration Fields.
• When enabled, it will be presented to the athlete at the time of registration prior to checking out and/or the Athlete may update their response afterward if the event organizer allows athletes to edit their response.

Remind me: As independent non-licensed events, allowing a banned athlete to compete is entirely up to the event organizer — however — what Competition Corner is doing could help create more transparency. This is a topic that’s brought controversy in recent months as some athletes take home prize money.

• Alanna Fisk Colon competed as an individual at the Pensacola Beach Brawl. She stood on top of the podium and took home $4,000.
• Fanny Solis competed on a team at Crash Crucile and took second place earning $2,000.
• Janelle Stites competed at the 2021 Heart of America Team Competition, but did not podium or take home any prize money.

In Colon and Solis’ case, event organizers told Morning Chalk Up they were not aware the athletes were serving a drug ban — and voiced the challenges of looking into athletes who register. Allowing event organizers to openly ask the question from the moment the athlete registers seems like a feasible solution for competitions moving forward.

• “Fair play and good sportsmanship is critical to the integrity of this sport. Every athlete should have a fair chance to achieve their best on that competition floor,” Huynh concluded.
• To help inform organizers, Morning Chalk Up curated a list of all athletes currently serving a drug-related ban from competing in CrossFit.