Tia-Clair Toomey’s sixth CrossFit Games win shows she is strong in mind, and not just body
- Australian crowned ‘Fittest on Earth’ again after overcoming early setbacks, showing she has mental strength as well as physical
- The 32-year-old is now the most decorated athlete in the history of the sport – and what a way to do it
What is the CrossFit Games 2022 prize money?
If 2021 showed she was physically fitter and stronger than everyone else on the floor, 2022 shows she is mentally strong too.
Sitting in eighth place on the overall women’s leader board, Toomey must have felt like she was in unfamiliar territory. The headlines and daily wraps almost all noted that the defending champ was down the pecking order.
With 100 points allocated for an event win, the tables could easily turn. But, normally, whoever is in eighth by the end of day one would not garner an inch of column space.
For Toomey, though, even if the mentions were purely objective observations of her position, the undertone was clear – this is a surprise, and we might be about to see a seismic upset.
Toomey and Medeiros win CrossFit Games again
For some athletes, this might have been overwhelming – it could have fed self doubt, and left the 32-year-old Australian wondering if she wasn’t quite superhuman after all.
Subconsciously, it could have also given her an excuse not to push as hard. After all, what does the record equalling five-times champion have to prove – to herself, or to anyone else?
She could have crumbled under the pressure, or worse still tried too hard to claw her way back to the top, and seen her performance drop – sport psychologists call this “catastrophe theory”.
Instead, Toomey rose to the challenge. She was in third place by the end of day two, first place by the end of day three, and on top of the podium when it mattered.
This was mental strength incarnate.
The way Toomey overcame her setbacks recalled a 2002 paper by the renowned sport psychologist Graham Jones, published in the Journal of Applied Sport Science, which investigated mental toughness in sport, as defined by 10 international athletes.
The athletes came up with 12 distinct attributes, and ranked them in terms of importance. At No 2 was “bouncing back from performance setbacks as a result of increased determination to succeed”.
“This attribute is largely competition-specific, and involved a combination of behavioural persistence, resilience, and enhanced motivation which allowed the mentally tough performer to see setbacks as a stage or process along the road to ultimate success,” the paper read.
Toomey’s performance last week showed buckets of this toughness.
Her 2021 performance was a sight to behold, and one of the most impressive feats of athletics prowess.
But Toomey’s 2022 triumph was impressive for a totally different reason, and one of great mental prowess instead.
