Final up to date on April 4th, 2025
A quiet but tenacious competitor, Val Voboril has competed on the CrossFit Video games six instances as a person and completed on the rostrum twice, in 2010 and 2013.
Voboril was a continuing presence on the Video games for years, and followers had grown to anticipate the fourth-grade instructor from California to at all times be on the roster and make an impression.
However Voboril did not qualify for the 2015 CrossFit Video games, only one yr faraway from a top-five end in 2014. She then took 2016 off earlier than returning to her sixth Video games in 2017.
Although she anticipated to be among the many prime athletes as common that yr, nobody may have predicted her eventual Thirty second-place end. It was a shock to followers and to Voboril herself, and it raised much more questions than solutions concerning her future within the sport.
A Turning Level
Eight years later, Voboril seems again on that 2017 efficiency as a second that shook her confidence.
- “My ego was a bit of damage after the 2017 Video games, to be fully trustworthy,” Voboril admitted in an interview with the Morning Chalk Up. “I do know everybody says age is only a quantity, but it surely made me really feel outdated, and it made me really feel not match. It made me query myself.”
On the identical time, she wasn’t but able to make the shift to compete within the Age Group Division.
- “I had an all-or-nothing mindset: I’m both a person athlete or nothing in any respect,” she stated of how she felt on the time.
The consequence? Voboril stepped away from the game and didn’t compete within the Open in 2018 or 2019.
An Older and Wiser Perspective Right this moment
In 2024, at age 45, after “working by” all her feelings about turning into a Masters athlete, Voboril determined she wished to return to the CrossFit Video games.
She didn’t skip a beat getting there.
Voboril gained the Open within the Girls’s 45-49 age division, went on to prime the Age Group Quarterfinals, and completed third on this planet on the CrossFit Video games by Legends.
Better of all, her ardour for competing was again.
- “I cherished the game once more. There was some extent the place […] I didn’t love competing. It had grow to be anxious and never enjoyable,” she stated.
Voboril credit her joyful return to competitors primarily to taking part in school exercises at 5 a.m., 5 days per week, with the group at Rising Wave Athletics in El Segundo, CA.
- “For essentially the most half, in the course of the faculty yr, I simply play with the superb individuals at my gymnasium and do courses, and I adore it,” Voboril stated.
As for the 2025 season, Voboril is off to a fantastic begin. She completed second within the 45-49 age group within the Open and plans to return to the Video games as soon as once more. Nonetheless, she stresses that she’s protecting her expectations modest.
- “I at all times really feel the least quantity of strain if I don’t have a plan,” she stated.
As an alternative, she’s going to undertake the identical strategy as final yr, which was to permit herself to completely benefit from the expertise and the camaraderie.
- “It’s enjoyable to be round a bunch of ladies who’re all in the identical boat. Virtually everyone seems to be a mother, and everyone seems to be juggling their job and health,” she stated. “That’s a neat leveling of the taking part in subject that’s type of enjoyable, and there’s a whole lot of camaraderie.”
Accepting The place She Is
Voboril is aware of that a lot of her efficiency numbers aren’t the place they had been when she competed as a person on the Video games 10 years in the past. Nonetheless, she has come to phrases with this and realizes she will be able to nonetheless really feel completed and have enjoyable.
- “Perhaps I’m not chasing the leaderboard, or possibly my numbers aren’t what they was once, however there are nonetheless locations I can develop or the place I shock myself,” Voboril stated.
“The main focus isn’t about out-lifting anyone anymore,” she stated. “Nicely, typically it’s as a result of I’m at all times aggressive, however the shift to specializing in the enjoyable with the individuals in school has made the trail a lot simpler.”
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Featured Picture: @risingwaveathletics / Instagram
