Interview: Is It Finally Anikha Greer’s Time?
Anikha Greer is tired.
She is “tired of this circle” she has been living in since 2018, when she first missed qualifying for the CrossFit Games.
She is tired of thinking about how she missed the Games by one spot again in 2021 when she was sixth at the CrossFit Atlas Games Semifinals, and then again last year when she was 12th at the North America East Semifinals.
And she’s definitely tired of us asking her about it.
“I almost said no to you,” she told me politely during our chat about how she debated turning down the interview.
It was nothing personal. She’s just done with all of it.
She’s done with it, but most of all, she’s ready. Ready to break herself free from the cycle of coming close to reaching her CrossFit Games dream.
“I just want to go do it,” she said.
Moving on From Last Season
Shortly after last year’s Semifinals, Greer, now 21, took to Instagram. She admitted the workouts weren’t great for her and vowed that next season, she “will be so good” that the workouts won’t matter.
“It’s certainly not the first time I have been in this position. But it is certainly the last,” said Greer, who is from Prince Edward Island, Canada, but has been living and training at Peak 360 CrossFit in Miami, FL, under Training Think Tank coach Max El-Hag for the last two seasons.
[Related: Haley Adams Talks About Her Year Away From CrossFit Competition]
Ultimately, the experience of coming so close, once again, last season crushed her, leaving her in “not a great headspace,” she said.
Greer was particularly crushed because she had spent the year training with 10-time CrossFit Games athlete Noah Ohlsen. The two of them became good friends, and she was so excited to qualify for her first time as Ohlsen qualified for his 10th and final time as an individual.
“Not getting to do that was really sad,” Greer said.
Angry at herself and at CrossFit, Greer “heavily debated” joining Ohlsen on a team this season for a “mental health break.”
But after some soul-searching, she realized that joining a team would feel like doing herself a disservice, almost as though she were accepting defeat.
“I’m not ready to be a team athlete. It would feel like I’m giving up, so it wasn’t the right choice,” she said.
Instead, Greer and Ohsen found a way to continue to train together by allowing Greer to essentially train with Ohlsen and his three teammates, Tola Morakinyo, Lena Richter, and Matilde Garnes, all of whom currently live in Miami.
Every Sunday, Greer and El-Hag sit down and pick out metabolic conditioning workouts from Ohlsen and his team’s program that complement the rest of her program, allowing her to “blend” her programming to create a plan that works for her.
“I still have stuff I do alone. But a lot of our metcons I have been able to do with them..and it has actually been working out better than I could have hoped…It’s super helpful and having girls push you is very different than having Noah push you. I feel like [Lena and Matilde] have taken my running game to another level, very quickly,” she said.
[Related: CrossFit Athlete Kelly Baker Talks About Raising Awareness for Fertility Issues in Women]
The Results Speak
Greer had a big finish at the Down Under Championships in Wollongong, Australia, in December, placing second behind only four-time Games veteran Madeline Sturt and ahead of Grace Walton, who recently finished second in the world in the Open.
She turned around the following month and finished third in the team competition — with teammates Garnes and 2023 Games rookie Rebecka Vitesson — at the 2024 TYR Wodapalooza in Miami.
Most recently, Greer finished third worldwide in the Open, placing 42nd, 27th, and third on 24.1, 24.2, and 24.3, respectively.
What’s most impressive about these worldwide finishes, however, is that neither 24.1 or 24.2 look like “Anikha Greer-type” workouts.
Greer has been incredibly open about her aerobic capacity or her “engine” being a weakness. She typically struggles with more conditioning-biased workouts, especially those with running.
On the other hand, she excels when the barbell is heavy and the gymnastics is technical.
That said, both 24.1 and 24.2 were not-so-technical, not-that-heavy, conditioning-style workouts, and even Greer was surprised with how well she fared (not to mention the fact that Greer is only 5-foot-2, and 24.2 had a lot of rowing).
[Related: 2024 CrossFit Open Winner Mirjam von Rohr Sets Her Sights on Fort Worth]
“I did not expect that at all. I was definitely surprised to be that high, especially with the first two [workouts],” she said. “If you look at my past Open placings, my worst placings ever, teenage and individual, have been pulling off the floor, double-unders, and burpees.”
This is to say that Greer might just be one step closer to her promise to herself that she would be so good this year that it wouldn’t matter what workout comes up at Semifinals.
The Big Picture
At this point, Greer is just ready to get on with it, and she’s confident she has done everything she can to finally break her cycle of coming close.
“I feel like a completely different athlete…I know what I’m capable of,” she said. “I have no interest in fighting for the last spot [to qualify to] the Games.”
In light of this, Greer is approaching the first part of this season with “a robotic state of mind” and is just ready “to make things happen.”
She hopes her dad is right when he tells her that “it’s inevitable” that her time will come.
But after six years, she is more than ready for that time to be now.
Featured image: @anikhagreer / Instagram