Cape Town's CrossFit champion Darren Thomas sets sights on second World Crown

The last time we featured Darren Thomas in our publication, he had just returned from winning a bronze medal at the Wodapalooza Fitness Festival, one of the biggest fitness events in the world with a strong focus on CrossFit.

The event attracts more than 40 000 spectators and competitors, and Thomas became the first adaptive male CrossFit athlete from Africa to medal at this international stage.

More than a year later, Thomas has gone a step further and is now a world champion, not at the same event, but at the Hyrox World Championships held in Chicago back in June.

When speaking to this paper, he was already deep into his training for the upcoming qualifiers in Johannesburg in two weeks, where he hopes to defend his Hyrox world-champion title. Thomas competed in the adaptive “seated without core function’’ category on his way to earning world-champion status.

He is wheelchair-bound after being left paralysed from the chest down following a shooting during a house break-in. That act of violence in his own home could have left many people shattered and without direction, but Thomas had always been a competitor from a young age. He found a new sporting activity with CrossFit.

His dreams of one day wearing the green and gold of the Springboks may have been destroyed by the criminals who broke into his home, but he says fate had other plans for him. Today, he can call himself a world champion in a CrossFit competition.

He never misses a chance to mention his wife and two children, whom he says play a crucial role in inspiring him to keep pushing his limits.

He may be disabled, but he continues raising the standards he sets for himself by competing internationally. It is not only about participating, it is about ensuring his name is etched into the history of every competition he enters.

In fact, this year, not only did he become a world champion, but he also finished ninth at the CrossFit Games held in Las Vegas in September, an event that brought together the world’s best adaptive athletes.

“When I got shot all those years ago, I thought any sporting chance for me was over. I never thought I could be a world champion. This shows that hard work, determination and grit really do bring rewards. The hard work I put into CrossFit has given me an opportunity to travel the world,” said Thomas.

“Regardless of your circumstances, you can achieve great things. Even I didn’t think it was possible, but I had a goal that I worked hard for.”

He says he would have loved to play professional rugby, but when that path was lost, he had to sit down and ask himself, "Now what?"

“It’s about hard work, and I have kids and a wife, so I always have to show them that they must never give up.”

On 29 November, Thomas will again put his training to the test when he begins the qualification process in an attempt to defend his Hyrox world title in Sweden next year.