Meghan Parks finishes ninth at CrossFit games

Aug 2, 2021

MARION — Meghan Parks finished top ten in the world in the 50-54 women’s age groups at the CrossFit Games in Madison, WI.

After three days of intense, scored workouts, Parks — who trains at Seaside CrossFit in Wareham — finished ninth against the best CrossFit athletes from across the globe.

CrossFit is a program of high-intensity interval training that combines cardio, gymnastics and weightlifting. Though the program has many who use it to get fit and stay fit, there’s also a robust, sanctioned competitive scene, in which athletes from around the world compete. The CrossFit games were this year’s international championship.

Parks said she experienced a lot of camaraderie at the games with her international competitors.

“Everybody was unbelievably supportive and unbelievably nice,” Parks said. “I made a lot of friends out there, which was a blessing.”

To make the competition, Parks had to rank top 20 in the world in her age group. Her ninth place finish put her eight places above her entry rank of 17.

“To make the top 10 for me was huge,” Parks said.

After her first day at the Games, Parks was sitting seventh.

Following her second day, which included two high-intensity interval workouts and a 300-meter swim, Parks was in eighth place.

On the final day of the games, Parks’ rank after a high-intensity interval workout including bar muscle-ups, ski machine workouts, and double-unders was enough to earn her entry into the final workout.

“That one was the hardest — it was jumping rope in the grass,” Parks said, referring to the double unders, in which a jump rope flies under the feet twice before each landing.

Parks said that normally, she’s good at jumping rope. But the soft surface made that exercise the hardest of the competition.

“Everything else pretty much went according to how I thought it would,” she said.

In the final workout, Parks completed a ladder workout — 10 reps followed by eight reps, then six, four and two — of a set of one wall walk, in which an athlete pushes up a wall from a pushup-like position to a handstand, and 95 pound thrusters, in which a barbell is brought from shoulder-height in squatting position to overhead in a standing position.

Parks placed seventh in the event, bringing her to a ninth place overall finish.

“It was good,” Parks said. “I had fun, which was my goal.”