CrossFit Games Rookie Spotlight: Why Australian Peter Ellis’ “Now or Never” Moment Is His Favorite CrossFit Memory So Far
Australia’s Peter Ellis is still buzzing after finishing fourth at the 2024 Oceania Semifinal and clinching his first trip to the CrossFit Games.
It doesn’t hurt that the whole thing reads like a Hollywood script.
The contest came down to the last event. With the top three spots all but secured, Ellis and fellow Games hopeful Luke De Jonge were sitting tied in points with one event to go.
Whoever crossed the finish line first would earn their first ticket to the CrossFit Games in Fort Worth.
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- “I either do it or I don’t. I wasn’t going to leave it to chance,” Ellis said in an interview with the Morning Chalk Up. “I sent the bike harder than I wanted to. I held onto those rings [unbroken] and then just got straight into the dumbbells and started lunging.”
As he lunged across the finish ahead of De Jonge, Ellis was overcome with emotion.
- “At that moment, I didn’t care where anyone else was, I just knew that I had to be ahead of lane number 2,” Ellis said.
- “It was an unreal feeling. It’s been on my mind every day since I started this. It felt unreal to accomplish it. That was my favorite moment in this sport so far. It was now or never.”
Making it to the Games has been his goal since he made the journey over to the United States to watch the Games in 2019.
- “In 2019, I left thinking, next time I come back here, I want to be an athlete. Now five, six years later, it’s happening,” he said. “Going over there [to the U.S.] and training [beforehand] and competing at the Games is my dream…That’s all I’ve thought about.”
While Ellis has always wanted to make it to the Games, this is really only the start of his CrossFit journey.
- “I want to see how well I can do, and take all that back with me, and then keep on improving and keep getting better,” he said. “I’m not going [to the Games] to just be a competitor. I want to do well. I want to do the best I can possibly do and keep building on that foundation for years to come.”
Besides his laser focus and his gutsy efforts on the competition floor, Ellis is gaining a reputation for ripping off his (and other peoples’) shirts at the end of a competition. It’s become something of a trademark.
- “After I won Down Under [in 2023], at the afterparty, me and my mates were ripping each others’ shirts. And then we started ripping everyone’s shirts,” he said. “Now it’s just a bit of a thing. If I do well, I’ll rip my shirt.”
The bottom line: Ellis is determined to make the most of his opportunity and to show the rest of the world that Oceania is well deserving of the fourth Games spot that was allocated to the region a couple of weeks before Semifinals.
- “The guys in our region are quite strong. If you look at Bayley [Martin], Ricky [Garard] and Jay [Crouch], they’ve all finished in the top 12 in the world,” he said.
“We’ve got quite a strong region, and to be able to claim [Oceania’s fourth Games ticket] was even better.”
Featured image: @peterellis_ / Instagram