2013 CrossFit Games Preview: Latin America Region

With the 2013 CrossFit Open just weeks away, we thought we’d take some time to preview every region taking part this year.

Today we take a closer look at the Latin America Region.

While CrossFit has developed quite rapidly in countries like America, Australia and Iceland, the sport is still quite raw in the Latin America Region.

While there are some world class athletes coming out of the Region, like Orlando Trejo and Tarasa Barnett, the majority of athletes aren’t at the level to be competitive at the CrossFit Games.

To give you an indication, at the 2012 Latin America Regionals, only 15 of the 62 competitors were able to finish all the workouts in the standard needed to qualify for the Games.

That said, here are some of the individuals and teams to look out for in 2013:

Men

Reigning Regional champion Orlando Trejo is the standout performer in Latin America. As well as finishing top two in all events at last year’s Regionals, Trejo also showed the world at the CrossFit Games last year he is able to mix it with the best in the world.

While he was actually disqualified after failing to complete the first swim at Camp Pendleton, he did compete in the next two days of events, performing quite well overall.

Other competitors to watch out for in 2013 include, former CrossFit games competitor Doug Oberbeck (15th at 2012 Regionals) and Giancarlo Vera Ochoa (2nd at 2012 Regionals).

2012 Regional Results:

1. Orlando Trejo
2. Giancarlo Vera Ochoa
3. Chris Irwin

Women

Tarasa Barnett is the women to catch in the females division, being the only woman to have completed all the events to Games standard at last year’s Regionals.

Barnett won five of the six events at the 2012 Regionals and went on to finish 42nd at the CrossFit Games later that year (2nd last overall).

While there aren’t too many competitors to challenge Barnett, other females to keep an eye on include Selene Saldivar (early leader at 2012 Regionals) and runner-up at last year’s Regionals Vivian Sakamoto.

2012 Regional Results:

1. Tarasa Barnett
2. Vivian Sakamoto
3. Ani Wieselmann

Team

Unlike the individual divisions, the Team competition is much more open with a number of CF gyms able to win the title in 2013.

Last year’s Regional champions CrossFit 7 Mile, went on to finish 41st at the 2012 CrossFit Games, beating two other teams. However, they should be the team to beat in 2013.

Other teams to watch out include 2010 Regional champions CrossFit Cayman (2nd at 2012 Regionals) and CrossFit Guayaquil (3rd at 2012 Regionals).

2012 Regional Results

1. CrossFit 7 Mile
2. CrossFit Cayman
3. CrossFit Guayaquil