WHILE thousands of Australia’s fittest will be sweating it out at this weekend’s CrossFit Pacific Regional in Wollongong, Luke de Jong will be an interested spectator having already booked his ticket to the big dance in Madison, Wisconsin in August.
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The 17-year-old can lay claim to being one of the top teenage CrossFit athletes in the world having qualified for the CrossFit Games, the Super Bowl of the sport.
De Jong, who trains out of Wollongong CrossFit at Fairy Meadow, won his way into the competition by finishing in the top 20 worldwide in the teenage category.
“We started off with the open which is worldwide, any teenager in the world can compete,” de Jong said.
“The open process is five weeks, five workouts. The top 200 after that five-week period go into the online qualifiers which is four much harder workouts over four days.
“From there the top 20 go through the Games.”
Having grown up around a CrossFit gym, de Jong said the sport quickly became an obsession.
“It’s definitely been a way of life for me since I was 13,” de Jong said.
“It all started out just being a bit of a fitness thing but once my fitness got better and I found out it was a sport and I could compete, that made it even better.”
De Jong will be looking to build on his current rank of 18th in the world, and will up his training intensity in preparation for the event
“I’d like to place top 10 so I’ll be upping the volume and training a lot harder, about three-four hours a day from now and then a week before I’ll taper off,” he said.