Mount Gambier’s Southside Gym members Jake Bryant, Brady Cooper and Sam Shaw recently competed as one of 16 teams at the Down Under Championships in Wollongong, New South Wales.

Hailed as Australia’s premier CrossFit Event, the event took place over three days and included three sections: elite, intermediate and masters.

The locals placed 12th in the Men’s Intermediate Team section, trained by Southside Gym coaches Zach and Vic Doidge and supported by their own cheer squad consisting of Southside Gym members Brittney Bryant, Tiana Opie, and Hayley Hamilton.

Brittney said the competition focussed on “functional fitness” and comprised components of Olympic lifting and gymnastics.

“They had to qualify online before they could go to the competition,” she said.

“They sign up and then they post all these workouts.

“It is Australia wide so absolutely anyone can try and compete in it.

“Across the country, they release workouts and then they record themselves on an app with a judge and then they obviously get scored with all their workouts.

“They picked the top 16 teams out of the 40 teams in their division.”

Brittney said most competitions were paired so Brady and Jake usually competed together.

“Sam Shaw is quite new to the sport still; he has only been doing it for just under a year, so he has only actually competed once before this,” she said.

“It was a cool opportunity for them to compete in a team of three because they had never done that before.

“If they qualify next year I think they would definitely be doing something like that again because it was probably one of the biggest comps in the country beside the Torian Pro.”

In the elite category, people travelled from the USA, including athletes from the CrossFit games.