Imagine a box competition that had great programming, was on time, had plenty of volunteers/judges, but no way to track scores/points!
Sounds like the setup for an epic fail.
Have you thought about Scorecards? Scorecards help your event run smoothly, beyond just tracking scores. At a minimum each scorecard should have the athlete’s name, division, and heat times. They should also have the workout, space for signatures, the judge’s name, and other miscellaneous notes.
Judges like having a quick/easy glance at the scheme of the workout. The scorecard should include the entire workout, weights, and any details needed. Leave extra space if the judge needs to count rounds or do any sort of tick marks. The flow of the scorecard should flow with the workout exactly. Make it child-proof. You want your judge focusing on movement and reps, not spending time trying to figure out the scorecard.
The bottom of your scorecard is a great place for BOTH the judges signature and athletes signature. We prefer to have the judge print their name and initial next to it since the athlete has their name written out on the top portion of the card. This will ensure that any discrepancies can be taken care of easily. Leave plenty of space for signatures; we all know how our writing looks post WOD!
Print your scorecards on colored card stock. Print out 2 scorecards per an 8 x11. We like to color coordinate the scorecards to the workouts. WOD 1 yellow cards, WOD 2 blue, Floater pink, etc. Make the font big and bold; easy to read. Make sure you have multiple pens for your judges; you never know when a pen will fail.
Keep the scorecards at a check in station. Once the athlete checks in for their heat time, they stay near the check in area. A few minutes before the next heat, if an athlete is missing, you can announce the missing athlete by their name. The head judge will take it from there; either handing scorecards to judges or having the athlete take their card to a designated workout area (depends on how you have your competition set up).
We have a template of scorecards to include: AMRAP, For Time, and Max Reps. Feel free to download the template and adjust the details for your next competition.
This article is written by Lindsey Marcelli, co-owner of CrossFit Eminence.