More Early Sanctionals Invites Earned + Drug Failures
Another round of invites for the 2019-2020 Sanctionals season is going out this week after another local competition wrapped up where winners would receive direct invites to a Sanctional. The winners of Black Challenge MX in Mexico City, Mexico and FitLand in Bogotá, Colombia will also receive elite individual invites to the Mayan CrossFit Classic.
- A total of 10 individual and two team invites have been earned so far this year.
Here’s the kicker: Mauro Acevedo won both competitions, earning him an invite to compete at Mayan, but he failed a drug test at FitLand for Endurobol. His win at FitLand is invalidated, and his invitation revoked. Because there was not a drug test at Black Challenge, his overall win will remain but the Mayan invite is being passed to the number two Eder Carillo.
- Acevedo openly admits to having used steroids when he first started CrossFit, including at the 2017 South Regionals when he competed with BIGG CrossFit Recoleta. They qualified for the Games by taking third at the South Regional.
- As a qualifier, he would have been tested at Regionals but the test did not catch anything in his system.
- “The first years of my career I tried to supplement myself without knowing so much about the subject, just listening and reading things without any advice. As time went by I realized that the use of steroids was not necessary, that it was only a matter of time and training to improve my weaknesses and strengths.” Translation provided by Google Translate.
- “I take responsibility for my actions.”
- He stopped using two years ago according to the Instagram post.
Why this matters: CrossFit has issued sanctions to athletes based on failed tests outside of their competitions. Hinrik Oskarsson and Charis Chan are two notable examples. FitLand also said Juan Ignacio Sforzini failed a drug test as well. Both these tests were handled by Drug Free Sports.
So who’s getting the invites:
- Black Challenge MX: Eder Carrillo and Cecilia Ramirez Villamil.
- FitLand: Beta Mejia and Simona Quintana.
- Beta Mejia is a three-time Regionals athlete from Colombia who placed second in country in the Open.
- Simona Quintana was the 2019 Chilean national champion and finished 37th at the CrossFit Games. She also competed at the Black Challenge and finished second.
- Cecilia Ramirez Villamil placed fourth at the 2019 Brazil CrossFit Championship, but only one spot and 20 points away from securing the invite. The battle between her and Paige Semenza came down to the final event. She placed 18th in the Open in Mexico.
- Eder Carrillo is a relative newcomer who did not compete in the 2019 CrossFit Open but placed 8th in Mexico in the 2018 Open and 27th in the Latin America Regionals.
The bigger picture: As Tommy Marquez wrote last week, this is the start of a growing trend to use more local competitions as a direct pathway to qualification. This system “builds a natural pathway for up and coming athletes to develop and progress their way to a Sanctional outside of the typical qualifier format,” a practice common in other professional sports.
It’s also a great way to support the broader competitive community by giving extra weight to local comps.
Athletes already on the Sanctionals list, should they choose to accept:
- Norwegian CrossFit Championship via Butcher’s Lab: Katrin Davidsdottir, Annie Thorisdottir, Andre Houdet and Julian Kragh-Maschvitsz.
- Norwegian CrossFit Championship via Norwegian Throwdown: Chris Pope, Andrea Solberg and Team Brightside (Sarah Mountain, Nanna Pedersen, John Birkkjaer and Peter Moltesen).
- CrossFit Atlas Games via Element Team Challenge: Team Dioxide Strong (Robert Triano, Nicki Pachis, Curtis Warman and Jena Triano).