Latin America Open Recap

April 2, 2012

Thomas Patton

Men

Orlando Trejo has become the biggest news in CrossFit for Latin America, ever. The 23 year old from CrossFit Peru has put our region on the international map for the CrossFit community since his performance in the CrossFit Games Open. He began 1st in the region in Workout 12.1 with 139 burpees, enough to land him at 57th worldwide.

Trejo came back with another Latin America 1st place in 12.2 with 90 snatches and moved up in the worldwide standings to 4th place, right above Central East’s Dan Bailey. Trejo scored 432 points (12 complete rounds) in Workout 12.3 for a 2nd place in our region behind Doug Oberbeck and moved down a few spots to 7th worldwide. Trejo won, yet again in 12.4 with a full round and moved to 5th place in the world.

After Workout 12.5, he remained 5th worldwide and 1st in Latin America to close the Open. He has raised the bar, shifted probabilities and will put other male competitors to the test at Regionals.

David Andrade from CrossFit Quito in Ecuador follows 33 points behind Trejo. He began in 5th place on the Leaderboard for Workout 12.1 and moved to No. 2 on Workout 12.3, where he remained until the end.

This is the first year of competition for Andrade, just like 3rd place Juan Cruz Sartori form CrossFit Argos in Argentina. Fourth place Jose Over competed in the CrossFit Guayaquil team in last year´s Latin America Regional.

Tiago Lopes (5th), Doug Oberbeck (6th) and Luis Giraldo (7th) are all first year competitors with something to prove.

Mathew Barnett, last year’s Latin America Regionals winner and Games athlete finished in 10th for the Region, but has chosen to go team with his affiliate, CrossFit Cayman.

Andres Danelutto who was 3rd place in last year´s Regional, finished the Open in 21st, whereas Batuque Iribarren, who was 5th in last year’s Regional, finished the Open in 8thplace.

Of the total of 33 male competitors in last year’s Regionals three did not register for this year and 18 did not qualify in top 60. Thus, only 11 athletes from last year will be going to the Latin American Regionals and 49 will be new names.

Women

The real battle for 1st place will be seen in the women’s side. Jennifer Chailler destroyed Workout 12.1 with 140 burpees, 3rd place worldwide. By Workout 12.2, Anita Pravatti, a dark horse from Brazil positioned herself in 1st plaace where she remained until the end. Second and 3rd place were occupied interchangeably by Krista Pell and Marylin Rojas. Wanda Brenton was always following Pell and Rojas in 4th.

Tarasa Barnett finally managed to climb up to 5th place by the end of the Open. She began with only 101 burpees in 12.1, but accumulated only 10 total points in the last four workouts after a few 1st place finishes. The 2011 Regional champion will not let go of that title easily.

The race is tight for the women with just a few points separating 1st through 6th places.

Teams

The team competition will be very interesting this year in Latin America, although the exact members of the teams are still a big suspense. In a region where only 400 men and 140 women completed the Open, most of the competitors want to go to the Regionals, but only to win.

It is very probable the teams this year will be composed of men and women who qualified as individuals. Last year only three teams competed. This year, we could see 19 teams compete.

The Latin American Regional will soon come, and we can already expect a tremendous spectacle and huge battle.