Tia-Clair Toomey


Tia-Clair Toomey is an Australian weightlifter and CrossFit Games athlete. She competed in the women's event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast and won gold. She competed in the women's event at the 2016 Summer Olympics and came in 14th. In the CrossFit Games, she was the winner of the 2017, 2018, and 2019 CrossFit Games after being the runner-up in 2015 and 2016. She is the first three-time consecutive CrossFit women's champion.

Background

Toomey began participating in CrossFit in 2013 after primarily being a runner. She learned the basics of weightlifting through her CrossFit classes. She was approached by the weightlifting coach Miles Wydall after he saw her lift what was then her personal best clean and jerk in a CrossFit competition. He encouraged Toomey and her husband to try to get to the Rio Olympics representing Australia. She qualified for the Olympics after just 18 months of serious weightlifting training. She would also qualify for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

Competitions

She is an established CrossFit Games competitor and has finished second overall in both the 2015 and 2016 CrossFit Games. Because she participated in the Olympics less than a month after finishing the 2016 CrossFit Games, she garnered some criticism for not being a focused sport-specific athlete like many she qualified over. Many CrossFit writers defended Toomey's performance citing that she did as well as could be expected from any competitor within the Australian Weightlifting Federation, a nation that only qualified to bring two weightlifting athletes to Rio. She later won first place in the 2017, 2018, and 2019 CrossFit Games, becoming the first woman to win three titles.
At the 2018 Commonwealth Games, she won gold in the event with a combined total of.

Personal life

Toomey used to own a gym with her husband, Shane Orr, who is also her coach. They sold it in early 2019 to move to Cookeville, Tennessee, to train at Rich Froning's gym CrossFit Mayhem. Multiple CrossFit Games male champion, Mat Fraser, then joined them in Cookeville and Shane coached both of them in preparation for the 2019 CrossFit Games.

CrossFit Games results