Amalia Ortuño: "I was able to achieve all my goals for this year in the best way"

The Costa Rican adaptive CrossFit athlete has left an indelible mark on the world of competition.

The name Amalia Ortuño has become synonymous with a story of inspiration, determination, and overcoming great adversity. The Costa Rican adaptive CrossFit athlete has solidified her status as a global champion after winning the Wheel Wod world title for the fourth time this December in the United States.

This latest achievement marks a flawless year of sporting success where Amalia reached the pinnacle in three other competitions in her category.

Ortuño secured first place at Wodapalooza last January (Miami, USA), first place at the CrossFit Games (North Carolina, USA) last August, and first place at Wodcelona (Barcelona, Spain) last September.

“I was able to achieve all my goals for this year in the best way," stated the athlete in an interview with Radio Columbia, where she shared the experiences and challenges that led to celebrating the now historic victories.

Watch the full interview in Spanish at Columbia Digital with journalist Alberto Zamora here:

“I learned to dance before I could walk": from ballet to triathlon

Ortuño said it was thanks to her mother's dance academy that she had the opportunity to practice ballet from an early age. That's why she shares that in a way, she learned how to dance before she learned how to walk.

“I have two brothers, and being the only girl, growing up I spent all day with my mom. So, literally since I was born, I went to the academy. At two years old, I started dancing," she said.

Ortuño continued practicing ballet and became a teacher of this classical dance. Physical activity always defined her life, and she began practicing gymnastics and athletics. Later, she started training in swimming, running, and cycling to compete in triathlons. However, a mayor obstacle blocked her ability to continue on this path.

“Your sports life is over": an interrupted career

“We were about to start training for the Iron Man, and that's where I began to have pain and discomfort in my left hip. Well, I thought it was something normal in endurance when you're practicing such a demanding sport.”

After several physiotherapy sessions and realizing that the pain didn't subside, she went to the doctor.

“They did a series of tests and discovered a birth defect in my hips. It's a degenerative disease diagnosed in young adulthood," she explained. It was a developmental hip dysplasia, a progressive degenerative disease.

“And then the doctor tells me ‘I have to perform emergency surgery’ because I had a pretty large injury in the left hip at that moment, which was the one we had examined. They performed surgery, and there was a complication," she said. “It was already known that it was something that could happen”.

The complication resulted in neurological damage to her left leg.

“Two months after I was recovering from the surgery, my other hip started to bother me, and we did the tests. It was exactly the same thing. So, five months after the first surgery, they performed the next surgery. And coming out of surgery, the doctor tells me, “your sports life is over”."

“What I love is to compete": the discovery of adaptive CrossFit

Amalia Ortuño, whose identity was always marked by physical activity, first in dance and then in high-performance sports, faced a devastating moment at the age of 29: the possibility of her sports life being over.

“I entered into a depression because I couldn't really do what I loved so much," she recounted.

After her recovery, she said she tried practicing triathlons in relays, doing the swimming part with her legs tied, but she said it was “too frustrating."

“The other person would start cycling, and I would start crying because I wanted to continue, and everyone was there. All my friends and everyone I knew in triathlons asked me why I wasn't doing it, when I would come back."

Facing the reality that her life had changed, Amalia discovered adaptive CrossFit.

“We went through all the functional classifications for a Paralympic sport where you have to send medical exams, make videos, have an evaluation from a doctor, etc. With that, they assign you a competitive category if you are fit to compete in this sport. So, they assigned me my competitive category, and that's when I started training CrossFit."

The CrossFit athlete competes in the seated category with hip function and has been practicing this discipline for almost five years.

“What I love is to compete. I definitely don't do sports for health; it's for competition. For me, it's the adrenaline of the competition. The 3, 2, 1."

Humanizing success: “I want people to see that we all go through difficult times"

Training twice a day, six times a week, Amalia decided to open up her social media accounts to share her process and life. It’s here she reveals that people should see not only the positive moments but also the challenges and daily struggles.

“One day I said, well, the truth is that I'm going to open up, and I'm going to tell people about this whole process of my illness. That sometimes it's difficult, sometimes it's not. Because people will also feel that this is more human, and they will identify with you more so. Because people started telling me “you're like a superhero” and I said no. I mean, I go through the same things. There are days when I want to train, there are days when I don't want to train. There are days when it hurts, there are days when I cry," she underscored.

Through interactions on her Instagram account @AmaliaOrtuno, the athlete has also taken on an educational role with her followers and fans.

“I like it when people ask me because disability, so to speak, has a taboo or people are afraid to ask because maybe they think they will disrespect you. So, all these myths about disability are created," she expressed.

“For me, the wheelchair, instead of being a limitation as many people think, is something that gives me freedom because I can do sports with my arms 100%, while if I'm using crutches, I can't use my arms or legs. So, it's also an educational issue, and people need to understand," she added.

Rest after glory and the future calendar

After intense competitions, Amalia recognizes the importance of rest and reveals that she took a week to recharge after the last world championship.

Ortuño's agenda and routine are very rigorous and planned. She reveals that she wakes up at 5 a.m. to train for three hours. Then she has breakfast and works as a professional in interior design until 4:30 p.m. when she returns to the gym for a second round of daily training.

Some of the interior space designs that Amalia has shared can be seen on another Instagram account: @amalia_ortuno_diseno, dedicated to these types of posts.

The world champion confirms that with the help of her coach, she schedules her routines thinking about the biggest competitions in her category: Wodzilla, the CrossFit Games, and the world championship at Wheel Wod. However, she insists on participating in other events to keep her abilities at their peak.

“CrossFit is many days of competition, so you have many different scenarios that will happen and you have to be prepared to know how to react in each of those moments," she explained.

At the end of the day, Amalia Ortuño has established herself as the world champion of adaptive CrossFit and continues to demonstrate that true greatness goes beyond the limitations we encounter in life. Her story is not only a testimony of sporting triumphs but also of resilience, humanity, and dedication.

“I want people to see that we all go through difficult times and that a bad day doesn't mean a bad year. The next day, you get up and keep moving forward".

This article was originally published in Spanish on the website www.Columbia.co.cr from an interview done by Alberto Zamora that can be watched here on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBOEmZnFAbk