16 Times CrossFit Young Guns Showed Off Their Big Guns with Massive Lifts
If you haven’t noticed lately, teenagers are coming onto the CrossFit scene in fiery fashion. At the 2021 CrossFit Games, two high school athletes — Emma Cary and Mal O’Brien — became the first teenage division athletes to ever qualify as individuals and they finished 16th and 7th, respectively.
Nowadays, kids who haven’t even finished high school are putting up weights that professional CrossFit Games athletes can’t even do. So here are 16 recent lifts from high schoolers — and even some middle schoolers 😩😩😩 — that are downright crazy and show the bright future for younger athletes entering the sport.
- Emma Cary (17) wins Zelos Games Event 0.4 with a 188 pound (85 kg) complex: snatch + hang snatch + overhead squat.
- Emma Lawson (16), 2021 Fittest Teen on Earth, completes this 215 pound (98 kg) complex: 1 clean pull + 1 clean + 3 front squats.
- Olivia Kerstetter (16 now, 15 in the lifts) hit a 245 pound (111 kg) clean and jerk PR during Event 2 of the Wodapalooza qualifier for elite women.
- Olivia Kerstetter (16) doing 2 power cleans and 3 front squats at 200 pounds (90kg).
- Hailey Rolfe (16), Third Fittest Teen in the 14-15 Division, hits a new deadlift PR of 310 pounds (140 kg).
- Olivia Kerstetter (16) with a 250 pound (113 kg) overhead squat.
- Ella Nicholson (15) hits two competition PRs at the Pit Elite Teen Throwdown: a 160 pound (73 kg) snatch and a 200 pound (91 kg) clean and jerk. Ella earned 24th in the 2021 CrossFit Games 14-15 Age Group Online Qualifier.
- Olivia Kerstetter (16) snatches 202 pounds (92 kg) to take the Event 3 win at the 2021 CrossFit Games in the 14-15 Division. This lift would have been good enough to also take first in the 16-17 division by five pounds, and the Individual division by two pounds, surpassing Annie Thorisdottir and Tia Toomey’s 200 pound snatches in Event 12.
- Matthew Ovenden (17) hits a snatch PR at 230 pounds (104 kg). Ovenden took 2nd in Canada in the Open in 2020, and 69th overall in the 2021 16-17 Age Group Online Qualifier.
- Sophie Shaft (16) hit two squat cleans at 210 pounds (95kg). This American Ninja Warrior season 13 competitor was 2021’s fifth fittest teen on earth (16-17 Division).
- Sophie Shaft (16) pulls a 250 pound (113 kg) clean PR off the floor in dominant fashion.
- Olivia Kerstetter (16) push presses 205 pounds (93 kg) like it’s a wall ball🤯🤯🤯 This girl is giving us no shortage of content.
- Nicholas Rodgers (16) clean and jerks 300 pounds (136 kg) in Event 2 of the 2021-2022 Wodapalooza Online Challenge & Qualifier, earning him 8th place in the event. Rodgers finished 25th in the 16-18 Division. (Video on second slide)
- Stella Atwood (12) of Training Think Tank is still two years out of qualifying to compete at the CrossFit Games, yet here she cleans 145 pounds (65 kg) for a new PR. (Second video)
- Brynn Catalano (11) snatches 97 pounds (44 kg). At Brynn’s age I was excited to make the local middle school volleyball team; in 2021 Catalano was a USA Weightlifting National Champion in the 40kg Division.
- Brianna Arisde Marquez (16) puts 240 pounds (109 kg) overhead for a clean and jerk PR. Though she has participated in the Open previously, Marquez is currently shifting her focus to weightlifting for Team USA.
Follow Chalk Up Highlights on Instagram to see more incredible lifts from athletes across the globe.
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