Week 1 wrapped up in San Antonio, Texas, with some wild finishes in all divisions of the South Regional. Big surprises and major breakthroughs were the highlights of a weekend that felt more like the shootout at the OK Corral than a CrossFit competition.
Complete with cowboy hats and Camille Leblanc-Bazinet dressed like a bandit, the South was a tuberculosis-ridden Val Kilmer away from being a "Tombstone" reboot, and it certainly was a pleasure to watch.
UTAH WANTS ITS CUP BACK
The Affiliate Cup has found a comfortable home within the walls of CrossFit Mayhem the last few years, but in Week 1, a few teams emerged as potential candidates to give the cup some new scenery to look at.
No stranger to winning is the Wasatch Brutes from Wasatch CrossFit in Layton, Utah. The team has Hack’s Pack UTE’s DNA in their ranks.
The team’s captain, Adrian Conway, was on the original Hack’s Pack team that won back-to-back Affiliate Cup titles. Brennan Fjord and Mandi Janowitz both competed on the Hack’s Pack 2.0 team in 2015 that finished third at the Games. Tiffany Hendrickson (11th-fittest woman in 2014), Michaela North, and Mitch Spjut round out the team and are accomplished athletes in their own rights.
The talent of the team is indisputable, but the question coming into the weekend was how it would manifest into performance on the Regional floor. The team’s three event wins and near flawless first two days gave us a decisive answer: the Wasatch Brutes are a legit contender for the cup.
After finishing Event 1 in second, the team rattled off three straight event wins to give it a 60-point lead over second and a whopping 99-point lead over sixth. With a Regional title pretty much in hand by Day 3, the team finished third and fifth in the final events.
It’s very early to be calling shots and making predictions when less than a third of all the teams have taken the Regional floor, but it is reasonable to look at the Brutes’ performance in Week 1 and see that the team has the pieces to contend in Madison.
The Affiliate Cup spent two years in Utah (2012 and 2013). The Wasatch Brutes are ready to bring it back.
LATIN AMERICA IS READY
The potential for a Games qualifier from Latin America added to the excitement of the South Regional.
The top three seeds from Latin America weren’t just showing up for the T-shirt; they planned to make a run at the top 5.
Team BIGG Friends opened the competition with a third-place finish in Event 1, edging out 2016 Games qualifiers CrossFit Omnia and Pillar CrossFit in the process.
Marcelo Bruno, who sparked plenty of curiosity by smashing the Open, came out hot in Event 1, front-running alongside two-time Games qualifier Travis Williams for the first 7 rounds before eventually fading for a still respectable 11th place in the event. Not bad for a first impression at Regionals.
The most lauded Latin American athlete out of the Open, Brenda Castro, took Bruno’s performance and did one better, finishing Event 1 in eighth overall. Castro and Bruno eventually disappeared from the race for the top five, but they went on to finish in 12th and 11th, respectively. Both finishes are the best ever for Latin American males or females under the current Regional format.
BIGG Friends on the other hand, kept the volume turned up all weekend long. The team finished four of the six events in the top three and had only one finish outside the top 10 (11th in Event 2). The team finished third overall, 2 points behind second place, making it the first ever representative from Latin America to qualify under the current Regional format.
FAVORITE, SCHMAVORITE
The biggest thing I learned this weekend is that the word “favorite” is just a fancy term for someone with a target on their back. The presumed favorites for both men and women—Camille Leblanc-Bazinet and Travis Williams—walked away in second place.
The 2017 South Regional champs—Logan Collins and Tennil Reed—put together a spectacular weekend, and their efforts beat the odds as each delivered their best Regional performances yet.
Combined, Collins and Reed only had one finish outside of the top three. Collins took 10th place in the final event, but he had built a big enough lead that his trip to Madison was already clinched by the time he stepped on the floor for the last time. His 22 unbroken muscle-ups (he had 1 no rep that didn’t phase him) to start Event 5 was one of my favorite moments of Regionals.
Reed made a big statement on Day 2, winning Event 3 to give herself a lead she would never relinquish. With Leblanc-Bazinet sitting 5 points back, Reed beat her in two of the next three events to cap off a win over arguably one of the best Regional competitors our sport has ever seen. The big test awaits in Madison, but the indication is that Collins and Reed are ready to move up the Leaderboard at the Games.
