Maddie Sturt’s Career – Australian Vet Sits in Third after Opening Day at the CrossFit Games
“I can say now that I want to go to the CrossFit Games and I want to win.”
Those are the words Maddie Sturt told The Morning Chalk Up a month ago. And on Day 1 in San Jose, CA, the now seven-time Games veteran looked like she could.
- Sturt sits in third overall heading into Day 2, 13 points behind Lucy Campbell in second and 51 points behind the current leader, Aimee Cringle.
Sturt’s 2026 Games Day 1
The 29-year-old from Melbourne, Australia, made a statement right from the start, coming out firing on all cylinders in the 2007 Hopper workout, which featured a 1,000-meter row followed by five rounds of 25 pull-ups and 7 push jerks.
- Her time of 8:03 (official) bested all competitors, as she picked her first-ever Games event win.
After that, Sturt was the picture of consistency. She recorded five more top-10 finishes, including third place in the one-rep max deadlift (410 pounds) and fifth in the one-rep max back squat (330 pounds).
Her lowest performance among the seven scored events on Day 1 was 27th in the one-rep max shoulder press. But she finished the day with another top 10 finish (ninth) in the swim event.
The Big Picture
Sturt’s career in the sport has been anything but linear.
She was just 19 when she qualified for her first Games in 2016, an accomplishment she repeated for the next three years. But then things took a turn. Sturt continued competing and performing well at Semifinals (or whatever the stage was between the Open and the Games at the time), but it just wasn’t quite enough anymore.
- For three consecutive years — 2021-2023 — Sturt missed Games qualification, each time by only one or two spots.
It seemed Sturt, who started CrossFit at only 12 years old, was maybe just getting outpaced by the sport.
- “Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing in myself and trusting myself,” Sturt admitted.
Instead of giving up, Sturt switched to PRVN Fitness to be coached by Shane Orr, and it paid off immediately.
Sturt returned to the Games in 2024, achieving her highest finish yet (eighth), and last year she improved on that performance, finishing sixth.
Heading into this weekend, Sturt said she feels more prepared than ever—thanks to her training at PRVN—to handle the demands of the 20-event CrossFit Games and improve on her sixth-place finish last season.
- “The training is often harder than the competition weekends, so I feel like I can now compete and push, rather than being in survival mode at the Games,” Sturt said.
It’s safe to say that whatever survival mode looks like, it wasn’t what Sturt showed on Wednesday in San Jose.
