Explainer | Who is CrossFit star Tia-Clair Toomey, and how did she dominate the games?
- Tia-Clair Toomey dominates the CrossFit Games and has won four titles with no one a close second
- She has a Commonwealth Games medal, competed at the Olympics in 2016 and is now targeting the Winter Olympics
Tia-Clair Toomey is CrossFit’s superstar, operating at a level that leaves the rest of the field fighting for second. Her sporting prowess extends beyond CrossFit to the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games, and her day-to-day life with her trainer and husband is followed by thousands of fans on their popular YouTube channel.
The CrossFit Games, the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games
Toomey, from Australia, came second in 2015 and 2016, receiving the Rookie of the Year award at the 2015 Games. She was touted as having a lot of potential in CrossFit, but critics accused her of spreading herself too thin between CrossFit and Olympic weightlifting.
She competed in the Rio Olympics in weightlifting and finished 14th. One review of her performance in The Sydney Morning Herald read: “clearly all that exercise … does not prepare a woman for the snatch and the clean and jerk of Olympic weightlifting”.
