On Aug. 3, 2025, Camel City CrossFit became the third-Fittest Team on Earth.
While the 2025 CrossFit Games competitors were celebrating the end of a season, Evan Rogers, Lee Sharum, Stevie Dellinger, and Caroline Kluttz swiftly arrived back home to North Carolina, tucked away their bronze medals, and returned to work.
Outside the competition floor, these four athletes have full-time jobs essential for their community and families.
A Team Built to Serve
Lee Sharum (CF-L2) — Police Officer
Nine years ago, Sharum started CrossFit and set a goal to make it to the CrossFit Games one day. That same year, he also decided he wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps and pursue a career in law enforcement.
Sharum received a criminal justice degree in December 2021 and worked his way up federally before becoming a police officer at the Winston-Salem Police Department in 2023.
For the last two years, Sharum has worked 12-hour shifts of four days on, four days off, while continuing to train CrossFit, not only to qualify for the Games but also to prepare him for the demands of his job.
“With police, we’re chasing after people, we’re in and out of cars, we’re having to move branches that fall across the road,” Sharum said. “Having that base of fitness, of functional fitness, it helps that portion of that be a lot easier.”
Evan Rogers — Firefighter
For the last three years, Evan Rogers has been a firefighter at the Greensboro Fire Department. While working a schedule of 24 hours on, 48 hours off, he also trains at Camel City CrossFit alongside Sharum.
“In 2016, I read the Rich Froning book in study hall in college and thought, ‘This stuff is pretty cool,’ but couldn’t do (CrossFit) yet,” he said. “When I got done playing (baseball), I thought, ‘Let’s give this a try’ … . If I wouldn’t have read the book, I probably wouldn't have done it.”
Rogers officially started CrossFit at the beginning of 2018, and on top of providing a competitive outlet, it has built a baseline of fitness that is essential in his line of work.
“You want to be someone that somebody can rely on, especially in the fire service job,” Rogers said. “Say somebody goes down, and you got to have their back, you’re pulling at least a 300-pound person. The lifting aspect is super important,” he said. “We have to go from sitting still and, in two minutes, being on a scene, ready to do God knows what. To adapt on the fly is pretty important.”
Stevie Dellinger (CF-L2) — CrossFit Coach and Mom
In 2014, after graduating from college, and playing soccer and lacrosse, Stevie Dellinger walked into her friend's CrossFit gym and found her competitive spark again in the box.
Now, 11 years later, Dellinger is a CrossFit Level 2 Trainer, competitive CrossFit athlete, and a hard-working mom of two.
Her days start before the sun rises, coaching the 6 a.m. class at MoTown CrossFit in Morganton, North Carolina. She then rushes home to get her kids to school before returning to the gym to coach at 9 a.m. Then, she sneaks in her own training between 10 a.m.-12 p.m., coaches the 12 p.m. class, then picks up her kids from school.
“I train a lot of moms, and a lot of kids are at the gym,” Dellinger said. “It’s nice to relate to that.”
She knows first-hand how important that one-hour CrossFit class is for moms. It’s a much-needed break that allows moms to focus on themselves.
“My kids are runners, and climbers, and fighters, so they keep me on my toes,” Dellinger said. “But I want to be a big example to them … . They keep me in line just as much.”
Caroline Kluttz (CF-L1) — Registered Dietitian
Caroline Kluttz’s career as a registered dietician came about unexpectedly.
“My undergrad was in journalism and communications. I wanted to write for women’s fitness and women’s health magazines,” she said. “A lot of the contributing writers for these articles were registered dietitians. They had an ‘RD’ after the name, and I was like, ‘Oh, that would make my writing more credible if I have this RD license.’”
So, Kluttz returned to school for another five years to earn her master's degree in human nutrition.
“I did some rotations in the hospital and kind of bit off more than I could chew. Then you’re so far in, you just got to finish it. But now I do enjoy it and I enjoy helping people,” she said.
While finishing grad school in 2018, Kluttz stumbled across a Groupon to a local CrossFit affiliate, and after giving herself a one-month trial, she never stopped.
Since starting CrossFit, Kluttz has qualified for Semifinals eight times and the CrossFit Games three times across the team and masters divisions. She currently trains at CrossFit CLT in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Forming Team Camel City CrossFit
The idea of forming a team for the CrossFit Games first started with Dellinger and Kluttz. The duo had been trying to recruit Rogers and Sharum for years, but because of the demands of their jobs, they continued to decline the offers.
Heading into the 2025 season, once they both passed the fire and police academies and settled into their jobs, Rogers and Sharum were finally ready to take on the challenge.
Team Camel City CrossFit was officially formed just one day before the 2025 CrossFit Open, and due to the new arrival of Rogers' baby girl, Dellinger and Kluttz agreed to make the one-hour commute to Camel City CrossFit to complete the workouts.
The team took 15th place in the Open and went on to take 17th place at the Team Semifinals, earning a spot at the 2025 CrossFit Games.
“It was hard to coordinate four people's schedules and their jobs, and then two of the four have kids, so the kids' schedules too,” Kluttz said.
Signing up as a CrossFit Mayhem-affiliated team, they utilized Mayhem programming to help prepare throughout the season. When the team was not together — which was much more frequent than most CrossFit Games-level teams — they relied on their individual training to prepare.
Despite the challenges, their dedication to training while still serving their communities earned them a third-place finish at the 2025 CrossFit Games.
“I had an incredible team beside me. I wouldn’t have wanted to be out there with anyone else. We fought, we pushed, and we earned it together,” Sharum said in an Instagram post.
Just a mere two weeks after standing on the podium in Albany, New York, Kluttz took first place in the Women’s 35-39 Division at the 2025 Age-Group CrossFit Games.
Join Camel City CrossFit in the 2025 Everyday Hero Service Cup
The 2024 Everyday Hero Service Games | Photo Courtesy of Camel City CrossFit on Instagram
Last June, Rogers and Sharum both competed at the inaugural Everyday Hero Games at CrossFit Mayhem, a CrossFit competition dedicated to service members to honor the men and women who have taken an oath to protect, defend, and educate their country, state, or city at all costs.
“We’re both planning on doing it again this year. It supports the people who do CrossFit and have jobs like we do,” Rogers said.
Join Team Camel City CrossFit in the Everyday Service Cup from Sept. 15-22. This virtual competition is open to everyone and will provide service members and their supporters with an opportunity to compete against other service members and a chance to qualify for an in-person final competition at the end of the year.