Some athletes were meant to be champions, even if they had to be discovered like a diamond in the rough. Ask Tia-Clair Toomey and she would tell you that she never expected to podium at the 2015 Reebok CrossFit Games much less, expected to be there in the first place.

Her foray into CrossFit resurrected when a coffee shop owner gave her the guilt trip for not returning to CrossFit after her first trial.

“He made me feel really guilty for not coming back, so.. I signed up for one month, and I was adamant that I was not going to sign up again after that month,” recounted Toomey.

It just so happened that the 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games Open was about to begin.

“They kept bugging me about registering for this competition that I had no idea about…  So finally just to shut them up I registered, and that’s basically when I got the first taste of the competition and that’s when I started getting hooked,” Toomey said.

Fast Forward to 2015

After taking third at the 2015 Pacific Regional in her second regional appearance, she reached her goal a year early and by the start of the final Games event, Toomey was catching up fast with fellow Aussie Kara Webb in third.

“All my focus was simply just to stay at that position. I honestly never went into the Games thinking I was going to win,” she said.

Moments later, she found out she had risen to the second podium spot.

Less than five months later, after Toomey helped the Pacific Team to a third-place finish at the 2015 CrossFit Invitational in Madrid, she lifted her way into the top qualifying spot for the 2016 Australian Olympic Team, snatching 83 kilos (182.9 lb.) and clean and jerking 111 kilos  (244.7 lb.) with a 58-kg bodyweight (127.8 lb.) at the Australian Open in December.

This July, she hopes to compete at both the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and the 2016 Reebok CrossFit Games.

“I always wanted to go to the Olympics; it would be such an honour. And to make the CrossFit Games (also) would be unreal…I would do anything to just be there for both of them,” she said.

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