They were the team that got in but didn’t.
In 2015, CrossFit Yas opened the Meridian Regional with three straight event wins, all but assuring itself of a spot at the CrossFit Games. The sextet of expats living in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, finished no lower than 11th over the next four events and took second overall, just 12 points back of CrossFit Solid.
Heartbreak followed in June when Tamarind Robinson was deemed ineligible and the team was officially disqualified.
On the last day of the regional, team members Robinson (Australia), Jamie Greene (New Zealand), Sabine Whitfield (U.K.), Elliot Simmonds (U.K.), Ben McAnnis-Entenman (U.S.) and Antony Monks (U.K) knew an appeal had been filed against them, but they believed they were in the clear.
“At the time, we thought that it had been sorted because we knew Tamarind was coming in in January, but the only reason she didn’t come in December was because her passport expired, but she had signed the contract in December,” Simmonds explained. “And then it turns out … that we just didn’t meet the requirements. So obviously we were all really gutted because we just went and surprised ourselves with our performance last year.
“From there we just decided, ‘Right, next year we’re going team and we’ve got to kind of redeem ourselves.’ So all we’re hoping for this weekend is to try and get a chance to do that.”
Yas won the worldwide Open and is a favorite to qualify this year, but there’s more to the story than a group looking for a second chance.
The team is really a microcosm of United Arab Emirates as a whole. The quickly growing country came into being in 1971, and expatriates significantly outnumber nationals in the oil-rich nation. Of a total 2013 population of 9.2 million, expatriates counted 7.8 million to 1.4 million nationals, according to Guide2Dubai.com.
A number of top CrossFit athletes have been lured into the region for work in the wealthy country, including recently injured 2015 Games qualifier Phil Hesketh, multi-year Games vet Mikko Aronpäa, 2014 Games qualifier Marlene Andersson and others.
It was much the same at CrossFit Yas, where all team members are coaches. Simmonds and Monks joined up to open the gym in August 2014. It was the second in Abu Dhabi, and Map.CrossFit.com now lists five in that capital city and 22 in the larger Dubai to the northeast. Greene, Robinson, Whitfield and Australian Natan Geva—in for McAnnis-Entenman this year—followed as membership grew very quickly.
Simmonds reported the gym went from zero to 500 members in just three months and now boasts about 700, with six people signing up for on-ramps every day. Expatriates originally made up the bulk of the membership, but Simmonds estimates 500 members are now locals.
CrossFit, it seems, showed up at the right time to make a huge impression on the population. Simmonds attributes the quick adoption of CrossFit to a number of factors.
“I think the country is very young … and health and fitness is new to them—and the fact that they’ve got CrossFit so early on into their health-and-fitness journeys also. Because instead of spending years doing the wrong things—bodybuilding—they get to straightaway see this,” he explained.
The box, of course, has some language barriers, particularly in the male population, which is more ethnically diverse. Though Arabic is the official language, Greene said most women at the gym speak English because they tend to be less conservative.
“The traditional ladies might not come to the gym, whereas with the men, we’ve got a mixture,” Simmonds said.
Traditional women generally cover themselves in the Muslim world, but the laws of each country and family views determine the exact customs. Muslim men and women also don’t generally mix outside a family setting, which creates a need for women’s-only CrossFit. To accommodate, CrossFit Inc. hosted its first women-only Level 1 Certificate Course in Dubai in December 2013, as detailed in the CrossFit Journal article “Under Cover.”
CrossFit Yas is on the same program, adapting its offerings to suit the diverse local population. The gym has a mixed kids program, but Whitfield said the teens group is male dominated. They’d consider a females-only teens program if it was needed.
“That’s a bit harder because with teens (the girls are) kind of on the cusp of whether they’re allowed to mix with boys,” Whitfield said.
She continued: “We have boxes where the doors close, and when the ladies come in at their time they can take off their abayas, their sheilas and then can train.”
Yas is also opening a new gym only for women in August.
As for the athlete-coaches who traveled eight hours by plane to represent the gym at the Meridian Regional, they’re actually working hard to replace themselves on the floor. This will be the last year the current sextet competes as a team. They’d like redemption and a trip to the Games after last year’s disqualification, but several of the teammates will compete as individuals next year—including Greene, who finished first in the worldwide Open, and Robinson, who finished 24th. Simmonds was 225th worldwide and seventh in Africa.
The coaches hope to fill the void with their athletes—members they’ve trained from scratch. Simmonds said the local population was initially characterized by great mobility—“probably from praying, I assume”—with improvements in strength and work capacity coming very quickly.
“We want to try and get a team of locals in here next year or two. I think next year we possibly could,” Simmonds said.
In an upcoming November pairs competition, members of the regional team will partner with other Yas athletes as a sort of seeding program. It’s part of increasing competition experience and growing CrossFit in the Arab nation on the south side of the Persian Gulf.
“I do what I do because I’m a coach more than an athlete. I love it. … The fact that you can help someone else along the same journey and goal—not necessarily that you have, but on the fitness journey—is awesome. That’s why we do what we do,” Simmonds said.
Be that as it may, the coaches are athletes this weekend, and they’re representing their adopted nation well. Yas finished ninth in Event 1 and tied for fourth in Event 2. Robinson went touch-and-go on all bars in Event 3, Greene also cleared the snatch ladder, and Whitfield very nearly snatched 175 lb. at the buzzer, giving the team a share of a three-way tie for first in the day’s final event. Yas sits fourth overall with a third of the competition complete.
By Day 3—which features events they figure will be their best—the athletes will know if they’ve accomplished their competition goals for this year. If they haven’t, they’ll be disappointed, but they’ll simply head back to continue their mission in United Arab Emirates.
“We’re trying to build a community,” Simmonds said.
