How CrossFit Fell Apart
The brand’s female athletes and gym owners spurred the tidal wave of outcry that led to CEO Greg Glassman’s “retirement.”
CrossFit is in turmoil after CEO Greg Glassman, now “retired,” attacked a gym owner via email and made racist remarks on Twitter. Despite the brand’s decision to replace Glassman, many gyms say they will not re-affiliate with CrossFit, which is still owned by the former CEO.
The widespread condemnation that followed Glassman’s behavior — which led to the loss of major brand partnerships with Reebok and Rogue, pledges of disaffiliation from at least 1,300 of its affiliate gyms, and ultimately Glassman’s departure — was prompted largely by women in the CrossFit community.
Rocket Community Fitness, a former CrossFit affiliate in the Seattle area, posted a blog on June 5 about why the gym changed its name and decided to separate itself from the brand. The blog included an email from Glassman from the day prior, berating co-owner Alyssa Royse for telling the company she intended to disaffiliate from the brand because of the company’s history of insensitive public comments and posts.
“You’re doing your best to brand us as racist and you know it’s bullshit,” Glassman wrote. “That makes you a really shitty person. Do you understand that? You’ve let your politics warp you into something that strikes me as wrong to the point of being evil.”
A day after Royse posted the blog, Glassman tweeted “Floyd-19” in response to a tweet from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation that designated racism as a public health issue.
The blog and Glassman’s tweet soon went viral and prompted athletes, gym affiliates, and sponsors in the sport to question their relationship with the brand, whose affiliate gyms blend weightlifting and cardio in constantly-varied, functional workouts. Royse, who co-owns the gym with her husband, Brady Collins, said in an email to The Interlude, “The behavior of [Glassman] and HQ impacts affiliates, whether they want it to or not.”
“Although those look like the catalysts, they were simply the pressure points for a storm that appears to have been brewing for some time,” Royse told The Interlude via email.
Elisabeth Akinwale, who has competed in five CrossFit games according to her website, took to Instagram on June 8 to discuss the lack of visibility of Black athletes in CrossFit and how it fit into a larger picture of racism in the United States. She followed up by reposting a video she filmed in 2017. “Why would I spend $200 a month to feel like an outsider?” Akinwale asked in the video.
“If someone comes in with a shirt that supports a regime that is oppressive to people that look like me, then I’m not gonna feel comfortable being in that environment in my time that I’m choosing where I spend it,” she said in the video. “When I’m on my recreational time, I’m probably not going to choose somewhere that I’m feeling uncomfortable.”
Katrín Davíðsdóttir, who has won the CrossFit Games twice, also took to Instagram to express her anger over Glassman’s behavior: “This is something I DO NOT STAND FOR. This is not leadership. This is not good human nature.”
Others followed suit. “I’ve committed my life to CrossFit,” five-time CrossFit Games athlete Brooke Wells said in an Instagram post. “I’m outraged. I’m embarrassed. I’m incredibly disappointed.”
Affiliate gym owners that The Interlude spoke with echoed that sentiment.
For Priscilla Estrada, co-owner of San Fernando Fitness, the recent break with CrossFit was a long time coming. Ever since CrossFit fired the majority of its media team with little explanation in 2018, Estrada said support for affiliates has gone downhill. “The media team was pretty badass,” she said in an interview with the Interlude. “It helped us with marketing. It was a great tool for us to use with our coaches.”
San Fernando Fitness began to consider rebranding six months ago. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Estrada said she reached out to CrossFit multiple times about paying her affiliate fees, which run about $3,000 a year, in monthly increments instead of a lump sum. Eventually she got a response, but no relief from the June 6 payment. Estrada said that she saw the leaked emails on Rocket Community Fitness’ blog that same day, solidifying her decision to discontinue her affiliation.
“We were very hurt,” she said of her gym, which she described as predominantly Latino, but diverse. “It just felt like it was the cherry on top. That was the final tie breaker for us.”
Jose Morales, owner of Brutal Boxx in the Bronx, saved up for years to turn his small personal training business into a 3,000-square-foot CrossFit affiliate in 2015. “The community is amazing,” Morales said in an interview with The Interlude. “That’s what makes CrossFit.”
When Morales saw Glassman’s tweet, he was deeply offended. “How can I be the face of my gym,” Morales said, “come back and be like ‘oh, yeah, it’s okay,’ like nothing happened?”
“Without your clients, you are nobody,” he added. “And this is exactly why it was so easy for me to disaffiliate.”
Glassman and the brand have a history of discriminatory policies and making offensive statements online. In March, CrossFit took down a post on its Instagram that read: “Some guy eats a bat halfway across the world and now I can’t go to CrossFit.”
The brand still has a controversial pun on its page from an affiliate gym claiming CrossFit can help people flatten their “curves.” The post compares efforts to minimize the spread of coronavirus to losing weight.
And in 2014, a transgender athlete sued CrossFit for not allowing her to compete in the women’s division. CrossFit did not change its policies on allowing transgender athletes to compete in the division with which they identify until 2018. The rule took effect in time for the 2019 games.
The former CEO also stirred controversy after CrossFit tweeted a quote of him saying “Make sure you pour some out for your dead homies,” with an image of a Coke can. The comments garnered public condemnation from singer Nick Jonas, who has Type I Diabetes.
Glassman’s replacement, Dave Castro, has too faced questions and criticism about his attitudes on race. BuzzFeed News found video from a 2019 CrossFit Games presser that shows Castro dodging questions about diversity in the sport. Both Glassman and CrossFit did not immediately respond to The Interlude’s request for comment.
Quoting a post she saw online, Estrada said CrossFit’s decision to put Castro at the helm of the company is “like replacing Miley Cyrus with Hannah Montana.”
Some of the sports’ biggest athletes, including Davíðsdóttir, Wells, Amanda Barnhardt, Kristi Eramo O’Connell, Brook Haas, Chandler Smith, Noah Ohlsen, Travis Mayer, and Jean-Simon Roy-Lemaire, have said that the unseating of Glassman is not enough, and have vowed not to compete in the 2020 CrossFit games unless major changes are made to the organization’s leadership structure.
“The only way I see forward is for a blank slate,” Davíðsdóttir said in an Instagram post on June 12. “Greg + those who stood by while this happened, can not be a part of [CrossFit].”
It appears that many local CrossFitters feel the same way. “We’ve had so much good support from our community,” Estrada said. More people have reached out about joining since her gym made the announcement that it was cancelling its affiliation with CrossFit. “It helped a lot,” she said.
Estrada said that she does hope changes will be made in the organization. “A board of diverse executives would be amazing for the company,” she said. “I think if they had that, they wouldn’t be where they’re at right now.”
“If change happens later on down the line and if we feel that it’s worth it for us to pay and reinvest those $3,000 [in CrossFit], then we will do it,” she said. “But at the moment, we’re okay. We’ll be fine.”
“By rooting out racism, sexism and abusive behavior, we can rebuild something better on a foundation of compassion and empowerment,” Royse wrote in an email to The Interlude. “That’s possible now.”
But for some gyms, the bridge has been burned.
Morales said that the reaction from his clients has been positive and that his decision appears to have strengthened the gym’s sense of community. “I don’t see [CrossFit] getting any better,” Morales said. “I made my choice and I’m gonna stick by it.”
Editor’s note: The author of this story belongs to a CrossFit gym in Manhattan.
