Sarah Sigmundsdottir: Defeated But Not Broken

The results of the last CrossFit Games-2017 were unexpected for everyone. In particular, a pair of Icelandic athletes - Annie Thorisdottir and Sara Sigmundsdottir - were moved beyond the first two steps of the podium. But both Icelanders are not going to give up and are actively preparing for next year in order to show the new capabilities of the human body, radically changing the principle of preparation for future competitions.

In the meantime, for those who follow the CrossFit community, we present the second "strongest woman on the planet", lagging behind the first place by only 5-10 points - Sara Sigmundsdottir.

Short biography

Sarah is an Icelandic athlete who practices both CrossFit and weightlifting. Born in 1992 in Iceland, she has lived in the United States of America almost from infancy. The whole point was that her father, a young scientist, was forced to move to the United States to obtain a scientific degree, which he could not do at his university. Little Sarah decided to go in for sports at a very young age. She looked for herself in gymnastics, in other dance sports disciplines. But, despite the successes in these areas, the girl quickly retrained for more high-speed and strength sports. At the age of 8, she switched to swimming, reaching the II sports category in a year.

Despite all her athletic achievements, Sarah herself was not very fond of training, which is why she constantly came up with ways to shirk them. For example, she skipped the last most important training session before a big swimming competition under the banal pretext that she was very tired after school.

Find yourself in sports

From 9 to 17 years old Sarah Sigmundsdottir tried about 15 different sports, including:

• beach bodybuilding;
• kickboxing;
• swimming;
• freestyle wrestling;
• rhythmic and artistic gymnastics;
• Athletics.

And only after trying herself in weightlifting, she decided to stay in this sport forever. Sarah does not give up weightlifting even now, despite the exhausting CrossFit classes. According to her, she pays great attention to strength training, since getting new sports achievements in weightlifting is no less important for her than first places in CrossFit.

Despite her significant achievements in sports and good physical shape, Sarah always considered herself fat. The girl additionally signed up for a gym for a very non-trivial reason - her best friend, with whom they studied together at the university, found a boyfriend. Because of this, their friendship began to rapidly disintegrate due to the inability to spend a lot of time together. In order not to get upset and not think a lot about it, the athlete trained hard and after a year she acquired the desired forms, and take off - and many new friends.

Interesting fact. Despite the fact that until the age of 17, Sarah Sigmundsdottir had a very ordinary appearance, now the popular Internet rating of the most beautiful and athletic athletes in the world of CrossFit always puts the Icelandic woman in second place on its list.

Coming to CrossFit

After working out in the gym for about six months and having received her first category in weightlifting, the athlete decided that getting carried away exclusively with “iron” is not quite a woman's occupation. So she started looking for a suitable “hard” sport that could make her slimmer, more beautiful, and sturdier at the same time.

In her own words, the athlete got into CrossFit quite by accident. In the same gym, a girl trained with her who practiced this rather young sport. When she invited Sarah to participate in CrossFit, the weightlifter was very surprised and first decided to look on youtube what this then little-known sport is.

The first crossfit competition

So until the end and not understanding what its essence was, Sarah, after six months of hard training, nevertheless prepared for the first competition in the crossfit games and immediately took second place. Then the girl accepted an invitation from friends to participate in the Open.

In the absence of specialized training, she nevertheless successfully passed the first stage, which was a 7-minute AMRAP. And almost immediately they began to prepare her for the second stage.

To overcome the second stage, Sigmundsdottir had to train with a barbell. Lacking the correct technique for most crossfit exercises, she did all the reps quite successfully. However, here the first failure awaited her, because of which the dream of becoming the first was pushed back for several years. In particular, she used to do barbell snatches in a regular fitness club, where it was impossible to drop the barbell on the floor. After completing an approach with a 55-kilogram barbell 30 times in crossfit competitions, the girl literally froze with it and could not lower it correctly, which means that, due to the extreme load and lack of insurance, she fell to the floor along with the barbell.

As a result - an open fracture of the right arm, with the interruption of all key veins and arteries. Doctors suggested amputating the arm, as they were not completely sure that they would be able to properly sew all the connecting elements after an open fracture. But father Sigmundsdottir insisted on carrying out a complex operation, which was performed by a doctor from abroad.

As a result, after a month and a half, the athlete resumed her training and was determined to participate in the games of 2013 (the first performance was in 2011).

Sigmundsdottir, although she never took first place in key competitions, is considered the fastest growing athlete in this sport. So, Richard Fronning took 4 years before entering the professional level. Matt Fraser has been involved in weightlifting for more than 7 years, and only after 2 years of training in CrossFit he was able to achieve his best result. Her main rival has been practicing for over 3 years.

Moving to Cookeville

In 2014, before the new regional selection, Sarah decided to move from Iceland, where she had lived for the last 5 years, to California. All this was necessary in order to participate in the American crossfit competition. However, before leaving for California at the invitation of Richard Fronning, she briefly stopped in the town of Cookville, which is located in Tennessee.

Arriving for a week, Sarah unexpectedly stayed there for almost six months. And she even thought about leaving individual competitions. Incidentally, it was in that year that Fronning began thinking about putting together the Crossfit Mayhem team and retiring from the individual competition.

However, despite her doubts, the athlete nevertheless made it to California, although she still remembers with great pleasure the period of training in Cookeville.

Richard Froning did not coach Sigmundsdottir during any period of her professional career. Nevertheless, they often conducted joint workouts, and Sarah, with impressive endurance, performed almost all the complexes that Froning himself developed and did. Sarah remembered these powerful training sessions with Rich because she received a severe overtraining syndrome and could not regain her working weights for almost 2 weeks after that. It was then, according to the girl, that she realized the importance of periodization and the correct composition of training complexes in accordance with her current training.

Lifestyle and eating habits

The lifestyle and training process of a professional athlete and a bronze medalist of GrossFit Games is quite interesting. Unlike other athletes, she clearly does not use anabolic steroids in preparation for a competition. This is evidenced by her training regime, which consists of 3-4 workouts per week against 7-14 workouts for men (the same Mat Fraser and Rich Froning train up to 3 times a day).

Sarah also has a very peculiar attitude towards food and different diets that are so popular among athletes. Unlike other athletes, she not only does not adhere to the Paleolithic diet, but does not even consume sports nutrition.

Instead, Sigmundsdottir is actively leaning on pizza and hamburgers, which she has repeatedly admitted in various interviews, confirming this with numerous photos on her social networks.

Despite all these hobbies for junk and useless food, the athlete shows impressive athletic performance and has a magnificent athletic build. This once again confirms the secondary importance of diets and weight loss in achieving high sports results and the paramount importance of training in an effort to get an ideal body.

Through the thorns to victory

The fate of this athlete is in many ways similar to the fate of the athlete Josh Bridges. In particular, in her entire career, she has never yet been able to take first place.

Back in 2011, when Sarah participated in the first Games in her life, she easily took second place, and could update her result in 2012, showing an impressive lead. But it was then that she broke her arm for the first time and received severe injuries, which knocked her back in 2013 much further from the first place.

As for the 14th and 15th years, then the girl could not pass the regional selection at all, despite all the sympathies and indicators. Each time, a new complication or a new complex put an end to her performances, invariably ending with tendon sprains or other injuries.

Due to constant injuries, she simply cannot train as intensely as other athletes do for 11 months a year. But, on the other hand, the way she gets into peak shape in just 3-4 months of training makes you think that in that year, when her success will not be hampered by permanent injuries, we will be able to see an impressive lead over all other athletes. in crossfit.

Despite the fact that in 2017, Sigmundsdottir took 4th place in terms of points, she showed the best Fibbonacci result, namely, the average between all exercises. In fact, she performed better than many other athletes in total. But, as always, she lost the first stages not related to iron, which is why in the 17th year she took only 4th place.

Teamwork at “Crossfit Mayhem”

After the 2017 CrossFit games, she finally joined the “Crossfit Mayhem” team led by Richard Fronning. Largely due to this, the girl is ready to show herself at the next competitions in the best possible way. After all, now she participates not only in individual, but also in team training.

Sara herself testifies that team training under the control of the most prepared athlete in the world is fundamentally different from everything that happened before, they are angrier and harder, which means that next year she will definitely be able to take first place.

Best individual performance

For all her slenderness and fragility, Sarah shows very impressive results and indicators, especially with regard to those associated with heavy exercise. In terms of high-speed execution of programs, it still lags slightly behind its rivals.

As for the execution of her programs, she lags behind in many speed tasks. And yet, its results can still impress most average athletes.

Competition results

Sarah Sigmundsdottir's sports career does not shine in the first places, but this does not negate the fact that the most beautiful girl in the world is one of the most prepared.

Annie vs. Sarah

Every year on the Internet, on the eve of the next competition, controversy is raging about who will take first place in the next CrossFit games. Will it be Annie Thorisdottir, or will Sara Sigmundsdottir finally take the lead? After all, every year both Icelandic girls show results practically "toe-to-toe." It should be noted that the athletes themselves have conducted joint training more than once. And, as practice shows, for some reason, during the performance of training complexes, Sarah usually bypasses Tanya by several orders of magnitude. But during the competition, the picture begins to look somewhat different.

What is the reason for the constant failures and eternal second places of one of the strongest athletes on the planet?

Perhaps the whole point is in the principle of "sports". Despite the best physical condition, Sara Sigmundsdottir burns out in the competition itself. This can be seen from the results of the first stages of crossfit games. In the future, already having a lag, she neutralizes the advantage of her most important competitor in subsequent power competitions. As a result, at the end of the competition, the lag usually no longer becomes important.

Despite their constant rivalry, these two athletes are truly friends with each other. Quite often, they not only conduct joint workouts, but also arrange shopping together or pass the time together in a different way. All this proves once again that CrossFit is a sport for the strong in spirit. It only defines a healthy rivalry that does not prevent girls from being friends outside the sports arena.

Sarah herself keeps repeating that next year she will be able to cope with her excitement and give an impressive start already at the first stages of the competition, which will finally allow her to snatch first place from her rival.

Plans for the future

In 2017, the girls were so carried away by the rivalry with each other that they did not notice new rivals who unexpectedly crept up, dividing the first and second places, respectively. They were two Australians - Tia Claire Toomey, who took first place with a score of 994 points, and her compatriot Kara Webb, who scored 992 points and took the second place on the podium.

The reason for the defeats this year was not the poor performance of the athletes, but the tougher refereeing. The judges did not count some repetitions in key strength exercises due to insufficiently good technique for performing the exercises. As a result, both athletes lost almost 35 points, taking 3rd and 4th places, respectively, with the following results:

• Annie Thorisdottir - 964 points (3rd place)
• Sara Sigmundsdottir - 944 points (4th place)

Despite their defeat and established indicators, both athletes are going to show a fundamentally new level of training in 2018, radically changing their nutrition and training plan.

Finally

Due to fresh, not yet completely healed injuries, Sigmundsdottir took only 4th place in the last competition, losing only 20 points to her main rival. However, this time her defeat did not severely damage her morale. The girl optimistically stated that she was ready to immediately start new intensive training in order to show her best shape in 2018.

For the first time, Sarah changed her approach to training, focusing not on weightlifting, in which she is stronger than ever, but on exercises that develop speed and endurance.

In any case, Sara Sigmundsdottir is one of the most beautiful athletes and physically fit women on the planet.This is evidenced by numerous admiring comments from fans on the Internet.

If you follow a girl's sports career, her achievements and still hope that she will take gold next year, you can follow the process of her preparation for the next competition on the athlete's pages on Twitter or Instagram.

Watch the video: Sara Sigmundsdottir: Perseverance. Part 8 BONUS EPISODE (May 2025).