By Brian Argabright
The 830 Times
Del Rio’s Jorge Fernandez has a shot to be recognized as one of the best athletes in the world.
Fernandez, 26, and his team earned a spot in the 2021 No Bull CrossFit Games by winning the CrossFit West Coast Classic in Las Vegas June 20. Now, he and his Invictus teammates – Eric Carmody, Jenn Ryan and Brittany Weiss – will travel to Madison, Wis., to face some of the best athletes in the world representing all seven continents.
For Fernandez, who now resides in California, it’s a dream come true. And to think, it all started with an email.
“Once I graduated from college and retired from baseball, I had six months where I didn’t know what I was going to do. So I went into personal training. Around the eighth month I was out of college I found CrossFit. After a month of competitive CrossFit, I fell in love with it and knew that I wanted to compete,” Fernandez said. “I found my best friend out here and we decided we wanted to do this thing, so I emailed my coach. I told him I didn’t know how long it would take to get to the CrossFit Games, but we would do whatever he said to get there. So he put us in a 9 a.m. athletes’ class and away we went.”
Fernandez and his team had a long way to go to qualify for the games. It started with an open competition where teams and athletes competed online and did their workouts in front of a camera for a judge. Only the top 10 percent of that group would advance to the quarterfinals.
The quarterfinals were more online competition, but this time only 120 teams from each continent would advance to the semifinals. Fernandez and Invictus once again made the cut and headed to Las Vegas for the West Coast Classic.
Fernandez had performed well enough in the open and quarterfinals that he was put on the semifinals team.
“This was my first time competing at this event. It was a big process just to get there. I had to go through tryouts for Invictus. They’re big on you making your way up the ladder to make the team. To be honest, no one had a clue if they would make the team, including me. We all tried out until the open,” Fernandez said. “I was showing up every day, doing whatever I could and giving it my all. I didn’t think I made the team because I know it was kind of hard for them to put me on the team because I didn’t have the experience some of the other guys did. The coaches did believe in me. They saw that I kept showing up every day and I proved myself during the open, the quarterfinals and during the semifinals.”
One of the most difficult aspects of CrossFit for Fernandez is the toll it can take on the body. Because of that, he said, athletes have to take a different approach when competing or taking part in workouts.
“It’s more taxing on the body, so the focus isn’t the workouts. The focus is more on recovery, nutrition and sleep. The competitions we’re apart of takes place during a weekend and there are six to 10 workouts involved, so you have to be ready to bounce back right away,” Fernandez said.
Those workouts can vary based on the level of competition, but they mean working all parts of the body at times. The workouts can be competitive, such as carrying a 300-pound sandbag, stopping to do 30 squats and 30 burpees, then resuming the carrying of the bag; a 6K run with weighted backpacks that has additional weight added to it every 1,500 meters; and a clean and jerk, to name a few. Fernandez said he was able to hit a personal record of 360 pounds in that event during his most recent competition.
“The biggest thing is you have to train for everything and be ready for anything. They do a good job. They keep you on your toes. The name of the game is being able to adapt to whatever is thrown at you,” Fernandez said.
As a Del Rio Ram, Fernandez was an all-district baseball and football player. After graduating from Del Rio High in 2013, he played collegiate baseball for San Jacinto and San Diego State before officially retiring from the sport. Now, he has hopes of achieving his newest dream – to be part of the best CrossFit team in the world.
“It honestly feels like I belong. When I was playing baseball, growing up, my overall goal was to make the major leagues. However, the biggest thing that held me back was me. There’s just another notch that CrossFit showed me about myself. I don’t have that self-doubt anymore like when I was playing baseball, wondering if that other person I was facing was bigger, better, stronger than me. Now, I feel so comfortable. I don’t have that self-doubt. I really feel that I can literally do whatever is in my mind. I know the process it takes to succeed, and if I just stick to that process I can do it. I really felt like I belong there, like this is what I’m supposed to be doing,” Fernandez said.
—
Contact the author at drnhsports@gmail.com
