"Things can always turn around," Nunes da Costa said.
It’s unlikely last year’s Africa Regional champion, Carla Nunes da Costa, will qualify for the regional in 2014 after being penalized for miscalculating the 185-lb. deadlift weight in Open Workout 14.3.
She submitted a score of 120 reps, but it was later reduced to 90 reps because she had 80 kg on the barbell rather than the required 85 kg (185 lb.) during the set of 25 deadlifts in 14.3.
“They contacted me on Tuesday morning and told me the video submission showed I’d left two 2.5-kg. weights off the bar,” Nunes da Costa said. “By then it was too late to redo the workout.”
Before 14.3, Nunes da Costa was in 19th place overall in Africa. After her score for 14.3 was adjusted to 90 reps, she plummeted to 122nd place overall in the region. With just two workouts to go, she would have a tough fight ahead of her to make it into top 48.
She explained the conditions were less than ideal when she completed the couplet of deadlifts and box jumps. Her judge was a no show and she had to make do.
“The workout was chaos. I had to do it on Friday to give myself time to download it,” she said. “I was stressing because my judge hadn’t arrived and the gym was about to close. I grabbed someone from the gym and explained what I needed him to do. There were so many things I was panicking about that I didn’t even notice that I didn’t put the 2.5-kg weights back on after I took them off to load others.”
She began downloading the video on Saturday morning in order to get it through in time for the guaranteed review, but Internet connection is a lot slower and patchier in Angola than in the U.S.
“It took until Monday night to finally get it through, just before the deadline,” she said. “We don’t get stuff in Angola that other people take for granted. The Internet can be really slow here. People assume that everything here works the way it does by them, but it doesn’t.”
Nunes da Costa appealed to have the penalty reduced or to be given a second chance to do the workout, but the appeal was denied.
“I’m good for the reps,” she said. “I just wanted a chance to do it again.”
She was informed her that since more than 15 percent of her reps were not to the standard, her score could officially be completely invalidated. Since it was communicated it was an honest mistake, it was ruled to a more lenient penalty of reduced reps.
This Open season has been a testing one for Nunes da Costa. She hasn’t seen the inside of an affiliate in more than three months since leaving her coaching position at Cape CrossFit for what was to be a holiday at home in Angola.
“I went home to Angola because I needed to rest,” she said. “I was physically and emotionally exhausted.”
She was still struggling with a back injury sustained at the Games and dealing with personal difficulties. She planned on returning to her coaching position in January, but complications with her work visa got in the way. She was stuck in Angola.
The realities of training and competing in Angola didn’t strike her at first.
“I thought, ‘Surely I should be able to get conditioned for the Open and the Regional anywhere, right?’”
Wrong. The logistical challenges of training in a country with no boxes and little suitable equipment have proved almost insurmountable. There are no CrossFit boxes in Angola, so Nunes da Costa has been doing her Open workouts wherever she can find a gym and people with the necessary equipment.
“I’m relying on people’s goodwill to let me train at their gyms, and I move around. The gyms here just aren’t equipped for CrossFit workouts,” she said. “Pull-up bars are usually against the wall so you can’t kip. The ones that have a place high enough to hang the rings don’t have place to swing either, so you need to do strict muscle-ups. There are no bumpers, no medicine balls, no high-tech skipping ropes, and no rowers, so I have to do without most of the equipment that is standard in a box.”
She continued: “For 14.3 I used a box that was higher than the standard box and the plates that I’ve used are much smaller because no one has bumpers. There’s no dumping of bars so the range of motion is greater too.”
Yet even in Angola’s isolation, Nunes da Costa has received help from the CrossFit community.
“I was lucky that Wynand Appel (from CrossFit PBM in Pretoria, South Africa) was here for work and able to organize a rower for 14.4,” she said. “He even brought chalk and a medicine ball all the way from South Africa.”
For 14.4, friends also customized someone’s backyard gym to give her a place to hang her rings. Without the help from Appel and local friends she wouldn’t have had the equipment to do 14.4.
Nunes da Costa yearns to be surrounded by the community.
“In a box you’re surrounded by people who know and understand CrossFit,” she said. “Here, nothing runs like it would in a box. For example, my judge didn’t show up for 14.2, so I warmed up and prepared mentally and then I couldn’t do the workout so I had to do it all over again. It’s a case of waiting until someone can give me some time and then just going.”
Equipment hasn’t been her only obstacle. About two weeks before the Open she contracted Dengue, a mosquito-borne disease. Symptoms can include a high fever, headaches, joint and muscle pain, vomiting and exhaustion.
“It pretty much destroys you,” she explained. “I was in pain and it felt like I couldn’t move my body properly. I did 14.1 feeling like I was moving through molasses. I think I got through it on sheer stubbornness.”
She is committed to completing the Open, whether or not she qualifies for the regional. Her coaches, Brian Mackenzie and Cody Burkhart, continue working to have her regional ready despite the circumstances.
“They’ve been amazing. They’ve been programming around whatever I have to work with,” she said. “And with the help of some ‘long distance’ physiotherapy from Dustin Dilberg of Painfree Kauai in the States, I’ve pretty much sorted my back out.”
So if she does qualify, Nunes da Costa said believes she’ll be good to go come regionals.
Nunes da Costa’s score of 183 on 14.4 earned her fifth place and places her in 86th overall. Unfortunately, that’s still a good distance from the qualifying cut off.
“I’m going to finish the Open,” she said. “And I’d love to compete at regionals. I feel like I’ve aged this season, but as the song says, ‘There’s reason to believe that maybe this year will be better than the last.’ Things can always turn around.”
There’s still one more workout this Open, which for Nunes da Costa means one final reason to believe the worst is behind and the best still ahead.
