Brazilian Copa Sur Semifinal Descends into Chaos as Multiple Admissions of Failed Drug Tests Surface

Drug testing admissions and issues continue to plague the sport of CrossFit as the South American Semifinal, Copa Sur, which took place June 10-12 in Brazil does not appear to have any teams who can now go to the 2022 NOBULL CrossFit Games.

Multiple teams from South America recently put forth various comments about failed drug tests and the end of their seasons:

• First place qualifier, Q21 CrossFit posted on their Instagram that Sabrina Dellaiustina failed her drug test at Copa Sur, and has subsequently been kicked out of the team. You can read the athlete’s statement in a post on her Instagram.
• Second place qualifier, CrossFit Ribeirao Preto posted on their Instagram account that a member of their team failed a drug test at Copa Sur. The post noted the substances were supposedly taken outside of the window of competition, however remained in the body as of time of testing.
• Third place finisher, CrossFit Berrini Team Treta posted on the Instagram story (of CrossFit Blacksheep), providing an explanation saying they are not going to the Games as they have not prepared or trained for the Games. Additionally they said they do not have visas and have not received an invite for backfill. Note: this team is also listed as “departed” on the Copa Sur semifinal leaderboard; so they may be ineligible in that regard anyway.
• Fourth place finisher, Kingbull CrossFit Paraguay posted on female team member’s Ines Alviso’s IG  that she was notified of a failed drug test on July 10 and that she is surprised and shocked but cannot pursue an appeal because of cost.

CrossFit has yet to release a statement on any drug testing failures related to the Copa Sur semifinal as of time of publication of this article.

Fallout

If it ends up being the case that all four teams are deemed ineligible, then we have a similar situation to what happened in Africa where teams might be in line for backfill invitations who were not tested at the Semifinal according to CrossFit’s official rulebook, however nothing has been made official at this point.