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Tudor Magda: Quest to Become the World’s Fittest 17-Year-Old

March 31, 2020 by Emily Beers

Credit: @tcmag_cf

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He has become a household name in the sport of CrossFit, and he’s only 17 years old.

We’re talking about Seattle, Washington native Tudor Magda, the unofficial winner of the 16-17 year-old division of the CrossFit Games Age Group Online Qualifier. Not only did Magda win, he all but dominated from start to finish.

Magda — who was third at the CrossFit Games in his age division in 2019 and first in 2018 — finished the six-event online qualifier with just 15 points, winning two events and placing second on three others. His closest competitor, Brazilian Luis Henrique Alves Moreira, finished with 50 points.

Though he dominated the AGOQ, that was never his goal, he said.

“Every year, my intention is just to qualify (to the CrossFit Games). If I win, that’s a cool bonus, but it’s not what I’m focused on,” said the mature-beyond-his-years High School student. Magda is already taking college-level courses and plans to pursue mechanical engineering in college. Although because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he’s currently out of school.

Even more impressive than Magda’s win in the AGOQ: The fact that he placed 1,012 in the worldwide CrossFit Games Open last fall against the fittest men in the world, proving that he can already compete, not just with teenagers in his division, but with the best of the best.

Magda, who started CrossFit when he was just 9 years old, knows there’s a chance the COVID-19 pandemic might halt his chances to compete at the Games this summer, but he’s staying calm and keeping a level head and mature perspective.

“For sure, I’m worried the Games (could be cancelled). The thought crosses my mind, but for now I’m trying to think of it as if I’m training for the Games,” he said. And he knows that his future in the sport of CrossFit is about way more than just this summer.
“It’s not like everything will be cancelled for the rest of my career,” he said.

In the meantime, Magda will train as hard as he can at his home gym — a gym stocked with barbells and plates, a rack, a pull-up rig and a couple of machines — as his CrossFit affiliate is currently closed. It will remain closed until the beginning of April, at which point the owners will reassess.

Magna also knows there’s more to CrossFit than just competing at the CrossFit Games, and he’s incredibly grateful for his parents for showing him the importance of prioritizing your health at a young age. Both his parents, as well as Magda’s 10-year-old brother all train at CrossFit Cascade in Seattle.

“My parents have always helped me with nutrition, helped me make it a habit, helped me get to know what feels good for my body, to recognize that eating a pint of ice cream will make me feel bad,” he said.

That being said, Magda doesn’t monitor his macros closely, like many Games athletes do.

“I just try to eat whole foods as much as possible and keep it as organic as possible. Like we get ground beef that gets shipped in from Montana,” he said.

Magda is also thankful for his coach, Matt Torres of Brute Strength Training, who has been coaching him for the last two-and-a-half years, and for his mental coach Dawn Fletcher.

“She has really helped me. She gives me exercises to do every month, like journaling and breathing work and meditation,” he said. “It really helped me during the online qualifier and at Wodapalooza. I just felt more relaxed and confident. In the past, I’d worry about what other people were doing and compare myself, but she has taught me to be able to look past that.”

This also lets him take the pressure off himself and just relax and enjoy the process.

“I would love to say my ultimate goal is to win the Games (as an individual male) in the future. That would be amazing, but there’s so much that can happen between now and then, and there’s college, too. So I just focus on one season at a time, year by year,” Madga said.

This year, that means attempting to become the fittest 17-year-old in the world in August.