Condensed, Extreme Olympics Live on the Internet

Iceland has another world-class athlete to be proud of. I happened to catch in the Icelandic News (Mbl) on Sunday morning, that Anníe Mist Þórisdóttir was leading the fittest female standings at the midway point of the 2010 CrossFit Games.

A brief search on the Internet later, and I was on the CrossFit Live page, watching the event in High Definition - direct from the Home Depot Centre in Carson California - the home of the LA Galaxy for those in the know. This just goes to further qualify the amazing impact and reach of the Internet - that a little known 3 day programme of events can be broadcast seamlessly around the world - enabled by a moderate level of sponsorship, and easily accessible technology that is now available to all. The quality of the video broadcast exceeded that which I witnessed on the BBC and ITV for the World Cup.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with ’CrossFit’ - this is a core strength and conditioning program which aims to utilise every single muscle in the body. It is the training methodology of choice for most law enforcement and fire departments in the US, as well as for many professional sports teams. I had previously thought that the Ironman Triathlon or Olympic Decathlon events were the pinnacle of extreme sports endurance training / testing, but having watched most of Sunday’s broadcast. I can attest to the fact that CrossFit certainly seems to be the most gruelling, intensive test of extreme athletic ability. As an example of an event, competitors were made to do 5 ’burpees’ in a row, scaling over a 6 foot barrier between each, and then climbing a 20 foot rope several times in succession, before repeating this circuit 3 times. This was a mix of running endurance, squatting, thrusting, pushing, pulling, climbing, leaping and straining the body to its absolute limit -and then doing further reps (repetitions) of the same, when you were quite beyond exhaustion. If you recall the obstacle courses from the gyms of your youth, imagine this with added weights, 10 times more difficult exercises, a time limit enforced, with several repetitions of each circuit. Watching this all go down live, was terrifically exciting, and after 3 days of competition, the winners totally deserved the accolade -’The Fittest Male / Female Alive’.

In every competition, the contestants are faced with brand new trials and tribulations to test their mettle, and no matter how well prepared they are, there is likely always some new exercise they had not banked on. In the case of Anníe Mist, it was the Handstand Push-Ups that were really her undoing. Up until that point she had been leading the competition, and slightly shading the favourite - Kristan Clever. Nevertheless, this was an amazing performance by Anníe Mist, winning 4 of the 9 events; Kristan won the other 5, with third place taken by Valerie MacKenzie Voboril.

CrossFit looks like an amazing training regime, and an even more amazing competitive and viewer sport. This is about the most exciting that competitive athletics gets, it would be very interesting to see a version of this as an Olympic Event, as it certainly deserver a larger audience. Well done Anníe Mist, Kristan Clever and everyone involved ...