Semifinals Spotlight: Can Aussie Mom Erika Palasty Pull Off a Major Upset and Earn a Spot in the CrossFit Games Field?
As the Oceania Semifinal dawns, it’s time to put a spotlight on one of Australia’s fittest moms, Erika Palasty.
Palasty finished Quarterfinals in an impressive fifth place in the Oceania region, including a speedy sub-17-minute score on Workout 2 — three rounds of 50 wall balls and 50 burpee box jumpovers.
- Palasty’s journey to becoming a legitimate contender for a podium spot at this year’s Oceania Semifinal was fueled by her desire to set an example for her children.
It all started when Palasty was teaching her daughter about resilience and trying hard, no matter how difficult something might be. At this moment, however, Palasty realized that she wasn’t doing that in her own life.
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Palasty’s Path
Several years ago, Palasty had two children under two years old at home and a shift-work job that provided her with no joy. Her main outlet was her fitness.
Years earlier, she had tried CrossFit, so she knew the basics, but while her children were young, she trained alone in the cardio machine section at a commercial gym.
Feeling inspired to set a good example for her children, Palasty registered for a local CrossFit competition.
- “This competition came out and it was specifically targeted to people who hadn’t competed before,” Palasty tells the Morning Chalk Up. “I just thought that it was the best place to start. I wanted to build up that example.”
Registering for the competition was Palasty’s first step towards her new life as a CrossFitter.
The next step was to join a CrossFit box.
- “I could barely snatch 30kg (66 pounds),” Palasty says. She quickly came to a realization, “Something’s probably wrong here; maybe I need to go back to CrossFit and get coached before I do this competition.”
A Big Move
From this moment, Palasty was hooked, and she knew that CrossFit was her passion. She now lives, trains, and coaches in Woolgoolga, a coastal town on the mid-coast in New South Wales, Australia. But this wasn’t always the case.
- “[Woolgoolga] hosts a competition called the North Coast Classic, and I signed up with my husband, and we entered as a pair,” she says. “The owners — Lars Kristensen and Paul Chambers — were so inviting and amazing, and they put on a really good competition.”
At the end of the competition, Kristensen mentioned in jest that he could do with a coach like Palasty.
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She went back home but remained in contact with Kristensen. Within 12 months, she and her family relocated to Woolgoolga.
- “I now coach here and I train every day. They’ve kept me, and I’ve been here for three years now,” she says.
Palasty’s confidence in her CrossFit abilities grew after her relocation to Woolgoolga, and being surrounded by like-minded people allowed her to embrace her passion for CrossFit.
- “Lars had all the confidence and all the energy. It was a really good environment to get thrown into,” she says. “The last few years here have been amazing.”
Getting Serious
Palasty made her debut appearance at the Oceania Semifinal in 2023, where she finished 29th. She came away from the experience with two key areas she wanted to work on.
- “I’ve dialed in on my nutrition, and [I started] working with Lisa Hemerik [a nutrition coach] at Performance Nutrition Co,” she says.
- “The other (area I’ve worked on) was my mindset…I had a lot of anxiety about competing. I used to hate online qualifiers. Now I love it. I’ve put the time in to flip the switch and get myself into a better mind frame, and it’s paid off.”
Everything is coming together nicely for Palasty in 2024, despite an early-season knee injury that limited her training.
When she learned about her fifth-place finish in Quarterfinals for Oceania, she was completely surprised, saying she just wanted to “scrape into the 40th spot.”
Palasty is excited to hit the Semifinal competition floor at Torian Pro, and she believes the programming will suit her strengths.
- “I’m not the most skillful athlete,” she says modestly, “so it’s pretty exciting for me that [the workouts] are that real basic, gritty kind of tests. I’m pretty excited.”
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Thinking about her expectations for the Oceania Semifinal, Palasty shared that she’s ready to go out and “see what I can do.”
- “We all want that qualifying spot…I don’t want to walk away thinking I could have done better. If that’s all I had on the weekend, then that’s it,” she says. “If that means a top three, then that’s awesome. But as long as I walk away happy with my performance, that is the expectation I want from myself at the moment.”
The Bottom Line
Can this Aussie mom pull off a huge surprise and secure a top-four finish and a Games berth?
With four spots now up for grabs in both the men’s and women’s divisions, the Oceania Semifinal is sure to be action-packed.
Palasty and the rest of the individual athletes and teams will take the competition floor on May 24-26 at the Torian Pro in Brisbane, Australia.
Credit: @erika_palasty / Instagram