Rickey Garard will compete in CrossFit’s biggest event over the next five weeks,
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The Southern Highlands CrossFitter will be among 45 Highlanders from the Benton CrossFit gym in Braemar to compete in the CrossFit Open.
More than 350,000 CrossFitters worldwide will compete in the online CrossFit Open from now until the end of March.
CrossFitters worldwide completing a prescribed workout each week for five weeks (Feb 24-March 28) with all results posted online.
The 35 Crossfitters will compete in the Open section and are aged from 15 to 53.
The top 40 Australian, Asian and New Zealand CrossFitters in the male and female divisions of the Open will compete at the Australian Regional competition in Wollongong in May.
The top five competitors at that event will gain entry to the sport’s flagship event, the international CrossFit Games in the USA in August.
Ricky Garard, 22, finished the 2016 CrossFit Open competition in sixth place in Australia from 6300 athletes and 97th in the world from 110,000 men.
He won his first berth at the Australian Regional competition in Wollongong in May 2016 but narrowly missed out on one of the five top places for a ticket to the CrossFit Games in America.
He visited the CrossFir Games in 2016 as a spectator.
In 2017 Garard has aimed to win one of the five golden tickets to compete in the world CrossFit Games in Wisconsin this August.
“My goal this year is to win the CrossFit Open in Australia and compete at the Games in America for the first time,” Garard said.
“I’d also love to be the first person in history to win the Games at their first appearance at the event – that would be awesome.”
The male and female winners of the CrossFit Games are crowned the fittest man and woman on earth.
Garard said he was in his best shape ever and was confident of a strong result in the CrossFit games program this year.
“I’ve been working on my mental confidence and also weaknesses like swimming to ensure I’m ready for anything,” he said.
Ricky’s last major event was the Dubai Fitness Championships in December when he finished in fourth place, winning $27,000 in prize money.
The male and female winners of the CrossFit Games in America this August will each take home over A$360,000 in prize money. CrossFit was launched as a cross-functional fitness sport in 2000 and is one of the world’s fastest-growing sports. Group workouts include exercises such as pushups, pullups, deadlifts, power cleans, skipping, rowing, push presses and running.
