Meet the ex-rugby star who’s become one of Europe’s leading CrossFit athletes

04/12/2022

This August, a handful of the world’s fittest athletes will travel to the US to compete in the CrossFit Games – a gruelling series of intense workouts designed to push the body to the limit.

More than 144,000 male competitors entered this year’s competition, with around 50,000 of those coming from Europe. Of that figure, just 60 have qualified for the continent’s semi-final. It’s an exclusive club – one that former rugby league star Sammy Wright is proud to be part of.

The 29-year-old, who represented Dewsbury Rams and Featherstone Rovers before calling time on his rugby career, became engrossed in the athletic sport seven years ago. He opened the CrossFit Utopia gym in Leeds and dedicated his career to the discipline – aiming to compete at the highest level.

“Around three years ago I said, ‘Let’s aim for the semi-finals, regionals and bigger events,’” Wright tells Mirror Sport . “I could’ve done smaller, local events and won a lot more – but I’ve never really been interested in that… I wanted to go against the best athletes.

“If I get hammered, it’s on me and I have to work harder… there’s definitely been events that I’ve tried to win and missed out on. That’s been hard to swallow but dealing with that failure has made me train more and pressed on to where I am now.”

CrossFit, a branded fitness routine founded in the US more than two decades ago, has become one of the most popular athletic sports on the planet. Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr – a five-time women’s CrossFit Games winner – boasts more than 1.7million followers on Instagram.

The company’s annual competition started in 2007 and is now established as an exhausting six-month event. The Games start with the Open, a three-week international competition where anyone – regardless of fitness level or ability – can enter. Then come the quarter-finals, an advanced stage to distinguish the very best athletes in each region.

For Wright, his aim was to reach the semi-finals. He came agonisingly close to achieving the feat 12 months ago, finishing 72nd in the European quarter-finals – just a dozen places away from glory. It was hard for the athlete to bounce back from that disappointment, yet he was determined to make the grade this year.

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“I’d done everything that I could’ve done in training… I had a bit of a hard time after that but regrouped – got a new coach – and went, ‘Right, we’ve got to do it this year’ and started actually telling people, ‘I’m going to make the semis.’

“That was a big thing for me because I’ve never really said it openly. It sounds silly, but maybe I thought I wasn’t going to make it, so I didn’t want to say it. If I’d have said, ‘I’m going to make it’ and then I didn’t, people might have said, ‘I thought you were going to go?’

“Putting yourself out there is quite a big thing… I don’t know if it’s a male pride thing. But I just said, ‘Right, I’m going to do it this year.’ I did everything I could and obviously it’s paid off.”

Wright faced an agonising wait to see if he’d made the top 60 and was elated when he discovered his 55th-place ranking. “It definitely took some time to sink in… maybe a bit of disbelief.

“I knew I would be close, I thought I’d be right around there [the top 60], but I didn’t want to think I’d definitely be in. And then the news came through… just a feeling of relief, knowing I’d done the right thing. You can spend a full year training but if the workouts don’t suit where your fitness is at, you’ve wasted a year. It’s a lot of pressure on that weekend.

“It wasn’t until the day after when I started feeling happy and excited… I could tell my parents, ‘I’ve finally done this!’ The sacrifices I’ve made, and I’ve finally got to where I want to be. I can say, ‘All those hours I’m training in the gym or in the garage at night, I’ve got somewhere with it.’ It’s nice to have that recognition, for myself.”

Wright’s sporting story is littered with setbacks. During his time in rugby, he suffered two serious injuries and was forced to accept that he wasn’t going to become a Super League star. It was tough for an athlete born to compete.

“I always thought I’d make it. It didn’t quite work out as I wanted it to. To be fair, I probably wasn’t good enough. I look back now and say that, but at the time you don’t want to admit it.

“I had a couple of injuries. I broke my leg twice in a year. I just signed for the club [Featherstone], got into the team and made my debut… it was literally 10 minutes into the game. Then I rushed back because I didn’t want to lose my shirt – it wasn’t right, but I thought I’d be able to get on with it – and then played in a nine-a-side game and it went again.

“I came back the next year, played and had a pretty good season. But I think I knew in my head I wasn’t the same player. I always thought, ‘Is it going to go again?’

“I don’t know if having a ‘chip on my shoulder’ is the right term. But because I didn’t make it in rugby, I was maybe a bit bitter about it. I’ve always wanted to prove to myself that I can do something – achieve something – in sport.”

The Yorkshireman went on to say: “I missed the competitive aspect of rugby. I’ve always wanted to compete, whatever it is. We could be drinking coffees and I’d want to drink more coffees than you! It’s just silly little things like that.”

One of the biggest challenges in Wright’s journey was the pandemic, which forced his gym to close for around seven months between March 2020 and April 2021.

“I made do in my garage. I don’t want to say I had it any harder than anyone because I probably had it a little bit better with the kit I had, but it’s still not the same as being in the gym.

“The other side of that was my gym was closed and we still had bills to pay. That was a worry in the back of my mind. I was training and thinking, ‘I’m off work and can train – this is great.’ But then you realise [the seriousness of the situation]. Nobody knew what was going to happen in the early days.

“It was definitely tough, but you had to crack on – we didn’t have a choice. I just tried to find the positives. I didn’t have to work – I could sleep a little more and recover in between sessions. I found the positives to make my training as good as it could be.”

Wright will now travel to either Amsterdam or London in May or June to compete in the European semi-final. Just 10 men will progress to the prestigious finals in the US, although Wright isn’t feeling the pressure. His aim is to test himself against the best and enjoy the experience.

“It’s just like when you’re a kid and you’re kicking a football against the wall, you think, ‘I’m going to play for Leeds United.’ You don’t realise what it takes until you get that little bit further and appreciate it’s a big deal to get to the semis.

“But to get to the Games is just… they’re like robots. Everyone who does CrossFit wants to get to the Games, but I’ve always had a realistic goal of getting to the semi-finals or regionals. The Games is like another level. Maybe being realistic, that’s going to be an extremely big push.

“I’m never going to say never, but to have a really good go at the semi-finals is probably where my ability is. I don’t want to take anything away from the semis because it’s a massive achievement for me, but the Games is where your Lionel Messis and Cristiano Ronaldos compete – it’s massive. I don’t feel the pressure now.”

Wright has realised his dream of becoming one of Europe’s fittest athletes. Now an even greater challenge awaits the vindicated competitor – one that could end with a ticket to the States.

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