They came, they saw, they competed and they conquered. Well, most of them anyway.It’s the story of the first 36 individuals who took to the National Park tarmac on a hot and sunny day yesterday to test their strength, fitness, flexibility and willpower in the inaugural E-Networks CrossFit Games.

At the end of it all, multi-talented athlete Alisha Fortune ran away with the title of the Fittest Female in Guyana while Joe Rivera took the accolade for the opposite sex, and his team USA, the fittest team on local soil.
Spread over four-team events, USA and the Guyana Defence Force were the fittest, completing most of their events in the shortest time.

After two events, Team USA were in the lead and they never relinquished it, even though they were pushed by the army unit; but when scores were tallied, Team USA amassed 1 376 points for the win leaving GDF second with 1 181and Elite Systems from Berbice a further 20 points behind the Army unit on 1 161.
They were followed by Interline Fitness, Life Fitness, Top End, Bodymaxx, Fitness Paradise and CrossFit Bel-Air, whose quartet were reduced to a trio in the first round when their female teammate threw in the deadlift at 135lb.
But the story of the day was about Fortune, who in a class by herself, competed her events ahead of the men, doing so from the first event – deadlifts and over the bar, burpees. Fortune breezed through the three rounds of 21-15-9 reps.
Event two consisted of 200m of suicide runs, 21 kettle-bell swings and 12 pull-ups times three. Event three was dubbed ‘Triple -5-0’ – 50 reps each of box jumps, thrusters and toes-to-bar for the men, and 60 roman-chair sit-ups for the females.
Event 4 was a 1500m run – once around the inner circuit of the National Park with Event 5 being by far the most grueling, featuring the top 8 males and three females.
It began with a 1500m run then on to 20 cleans (135lb for men and 55lb for women), right into 60 push-ups for men (30 for women), on to loading a wheelbarrow with 8 sand bags each, pushing it for 200m – and get this – fetching one bag out of the barrow (60lb for men; 30 for women) for another 200m for the finish.
Fortune was done before anyone knew it, unchallenged, and ended strong with a run for the last 50m to the finish. The crowd loved it as they cheered and screamed encouragement. She tallied 495 points for the win, ahead of the USA’s Rebeka Moore 460 points and Nadine Taharally of Interline Fitness with 455 points.
The men’s round was not to be discounted.
Rivera was the man to beat. He had long established himself as a force to be reckoned with when he ran away at the qualifying round at Transport Sports Club early last week. With a target on his back, GDF’s Devon Davis and Top End’s Neetzkiel Yisrael battled hard to beat his time.
In event 5 with all three together, Yisrael was the first man into the National Park, onto his cleans, but in came Davis and Rivera and they went to work.
When Davis and Yisrael ran out of steam, Rivera pushed and he was the first to get his barrow loaded and 50 metres out and walking. Yisrael dug deep and ran with his, caught him in time for the individual sandbag carry and ran the 200m, a few metres separating them as Yisrael dumped his bag and lay out flat on the black carpet, with Rivera following suit. Both were helped away from the finish line; fully expended.
However, when the points were tallied, Rivera was a clear winner having been consistent throughout for a commanding 485 points, while USA’s Tim Lombari and CrossFit Bel-Air’s Dillon Mahadeo were tied for second with 413 points.
The chief statistician was then forced to tally their times from the five combined events, for which Mahadeo got the nod, completing the events in one hour 20 seconds, while Lombari was six seconds slower, with Yisrael finishing in fourth position on 416 points.

(By Leeron Brumell)