Duo ‘fit’ for success

TWELVE members of CrossFit Strabane took part in a competition at CrossFit Limavady on Saturday, with one local pair picking up a well-deserved category victory, while another sealed a podium finish.

The more traditional CrossFit competition see men and women either competing individually or in teams, but on Saturday there was a different approach with teams of mixed pairs – one man and one woman – battling for glory.

Representing Strabane at the weekend were a host of athletes battling nerves as many competed in the sport for the first time.

Two of the stars of the show were Sarah Duffy, who ripped a tendon off the bone in her ankle just before Christmas, limiting the amount of training she could do until just a few weeks ago, and her competition partner Dan Potts, who won the fitness category in which they were competing against their gym-mates Rebecca Gormley and Mark Lawne.

Meanwhile, in the intermediate category, there was bronze medal success for Aine O’Connor and 20-year-old Brandon McGuigan, who up until recently was the top teenage crossfitter in Ireland.

In fifth place in that category was Caoimhe O’Hagan and Bradley Devine, finishing ahead of the remainder of the Tyrone-baserd participants, Dean Henderson and Tara Love, and Sean Neeson and Hailey O’Connell.

“It was a nice format for a competition,” acknowledged Cross-Fit Strabane coachr, Sean Mills, who runs to facility with brother Stephen.

He continued: “Everyone did brilliantly, they all just pushed themselves to the limit. I told them before hand that I wasn’t too worried about where they placed in the competition because I knew they would all do well.

“I was more interested in the effort they put in because it was about gaining competition experience seeing as, for most of them, it was their first competition and for some it was only their second.”

For the uninitiated, CrossFit is described as ‘the sport of fitness’. It combines Olympic weight-lifting, powerlifting, bodyweight gymnastics and cardio training.

When it comes to competition, participants don’t know in advance what the workouts they will have to excel at will be. They only find that out before the start of the competition and they get 10 minutes to warm-up and strategise before going for glory.

“You have to be prepared for anything!,” admitted Mills, who was keen to point out that CrossFit can be done by anyone, not just people with elite-level fitness.

He added: “You have to be a well rounded athlete when it comes to competition but a lot of people have a bit of a fear of our gym.

“We put up videos on Instagram and the training some of them do is ridiculous, which freaks some people out.

“I’d like to stress that everyone starts from the ground and we build up to that level of training.”