Jeremy Gin shows the pain of competing at the Mount Cross Fit Nationals at ASB Arena on Saturday. Photo / Andrew Warner
Jeremy Gin shows the pain of competing at the Mount Cross Fit Nationals at ASB Arena on Saturday. Photo / Andrew Warner
The booming CrossFit craze has resulted in the largest ever Mount CrossFit Nationals being held at ASB Arena.
With competitor numbers up 170 to 504 and about 3000 spectators rolling up over the two days, there is little doubt the growing sport many dismissed as a fad is showing nosigns of going away.
Visiting teams claimed the silverware - CrossFit NZ of Auckland beat CrossFit Mana of Palmerston North in the top division and Christchurch's Franks CrossFit outlasted CrossFit Quantro of Auckland in the beginners' class.
The popularity of the sport in the Bay has grown at an unrivalled rate.
Mount CrossFit was the first outfit to open four years ago and had since added a Tauranga club to compete against five other businesses that have been established in the region.
"CrossFit has probably almost doubled in the last year - it's quadrupled in our region in the Bay of Plenty," said Luke McGruer of Mount CrossFit.
"This year is definitely bigger than last year and the year before. We've grown by 170 competitors from last year and probably the same amount of spectators as well.
"We're anticipating a bigger growth next year - more teams and more competitors - and plan to use more Tauranga facilities as well, so the competitors get to see a little bit more around the place."
The two-day competition included dead lifts, squats, snatches, pull ups, skipping, muscle ups, a 2.5km beach run and rowing machine exercises. About half were revealed to competitors on the day with the rest announced daily in the lead-up.
Tauranga's performance was the best from a local team, finishing sixth in the top division despite being newcomers.
