The 2016 Reebok CrossFit Games saw many athletes launched into the highest ranks of the sport, but not without some crushing injuries and defeats for others. Alethea Boon is one of the competitors who was dealt a bad hand, suffering a tear of her Achilles tendon during a set of box jumps.
That was barely seven months ago, but the 33-year-old former gymnast has already come back with an incredibly strong showing in 17.2: third place in the entire world. That’s five spots ahead of 2015 and 2016 Games Champion Katrin Davidsdottir and eighty-one places ahead of the world record in pistol squats holder Kara Webb. Overall, after two weeks, Boon is now in nineteenth place in the 2017 CrossFit Open.
Keep in mind that 17.2 was a serious lower body workout that involved hundreds of feet of walking lunges with dumbbells in the front rack position. According to the leaderboard, Boon completed six rounds plus an extra fifty feet of walking lunges and fifteen bar muscle-ups.
In some behind-the-scenes footage released earlier this year, the New Zealand-born athlete was interviewed shortly after her Games injury and had an impressively sunny outlook.
“Believe it or not there was actually a lot of relief which was quite strange, just like, all of the tension in my calf was just let go,” she said. “I’ve had worse before. I’ve had a pulmonary embolism, I know what it’s like to be completely useless and unable to walk, so.”
Her look-on-the-bright-side disposition also shone through during her long months of recovery as she proved that there’s always a way to modify your workouts.
We covered Boon’s recovery just a few weeks after her injury as she completed multiple rounds of single leg/pistol wall balls, single leg burpees, and single leg deadlifts.
Even though she’s done a phenomenal job with her recovery, it was still a nail-biting experience to watch Boon return to box jumps in her 17.1 workout.
Third place worldwide in a high-rep lunge workout barely six months after an Achilles tear. We have a feeling Alethea Boon is going turn a lot more heads before this season is over.
Featured image via @alethea_boon on Instagram.