By COLBY STOESZ
After qualifying 19th in the world, Warman’s Isabella Barclay will be competing in the Teenage CrossFit games starting August 29.
The 17-year-old will be travelling to Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she will take on 29 other girls in the 16-17 age division at the highest level of the sport.
The Teenage CrossFit games aim to crown the “fittest” athletes worldwide from 14-15 and 16-17 years old in both boys and girls divisions. This year’s event will be the first time that the teenage divisions compete separately from the older groups, signifying the immense boom in the sport’s popularity. Athletes will compete in three straight days of gruelling workouts that test every aspect of physical ability in search of the fittest athlete on Earth.
“My goal for this season was just to make it to the games because they only take the top 30 worldwide,” said Barclay. “Last year I didn’t even make the semifinals, so making it to the games was my big goal.”
This year, Barclay not only qualified; she finished first in Canada. Now, her goal at the Kalamazoo event is to make the top 15 in the wold and also top Canadian.
Barclay grew up competing in gymnastics and hockey but searched for another sport to scratch her competitive itch. Her dad introduced her to Olympic weightlifting, and in 2019 she began taking CrossFit classes. By 2021, she was competing in online competitions, and in 2022 she went all in on her training.
“This year, I switched to online school, so I could have more flexibility with my training. I would wake up, eat, do school, then I’d have my first session. I’d come home, eat lunch, do more school, and go back into the city for my second session,” said Barclay.
During the summer, Barclay has been putting in up to six hours a day at the gym.
“With the games coming up, we ramp up volume and intensity a lot,” she said. “In the actual competition, you’re going to be doing three or four workouts in the same day, and they’re all at 110%. We’ve been focusing on high-intensity and endurance workouts rather than building strength at this point.”
While she’s set high goals for the competition, Barclay still plans to keep everything in perspective.
“I am going out there to leave no doubt on the competition floor, but also enjoy it and soak it in,” she said. “A lot of people say it goes by really fast, so I want to be able to remember that.”