Five-time Fittest Woman on Earth® Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr is vying for a spot at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China, from Feb. 4-20, 2022, as part of the Australian Bobsleigh Team. Her most recent race on the ice was in the two-woman bobsleigh division alongside pilot Ashleigh Werner.
The duo competed at the 2022 BMW International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation (IBSF) World Cup in Sigulda, Latvia, on Jan. 2, 2022. They finished in 12th place out of 18 teams with the following times:
2022 IBSF World Cup — Australian Bobsleigh Team | Two-Woman
- Run One — 51.61 seconds
- Run Two — 51.35 seconds
- Total — 1:42.96
Toomey-Orr and Werner’s time was 1.08 seconds behind the first-place team of Elana Meyers Taylor and Lake Kwaza of the USA (1:41.88). Mica Mcneill and Adele Nicoll of the UK finished .22 seconds behind Meyers Talor and Kwaza for the silver medal, and Canada’s Christine De Bruin and Kristen Bujnowski rounded out the podium with a total time of 1:42.12.
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Toomey-Orr won the first two bobsleigh races of her professional career in February 2021 at the New Horizon races in South Korea with Werner as the pilot. For reference, Toomey-Orr’s position is brakewomen, meaning she rides in the rear position of the bobsleigh after push-starting it down the ice at the start of the race. The Australian Bobsleigh Team initially reached out to Toomey-Orr in May 2019 hoping to recruit her for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
It’s incredible the amount of time that goes into sled work and preparing the sled for training and race days. It’s been an incredible experience so far.
If Toomey-Orr qualifies to compete in Beijing, it will be her Winter Olympics debut, but her second time on the Olympic stage. At the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, she competed in the weightlifting competition to a 14th-place overall finish in the 58-kilogram weight class.
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The 2022 Winter Olympic Games finish just four days before the start of the 2022 CrossFit Open. Workout 22.1 is scheduled for release on Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. Toomey-Orr will enter the Open tied with the now-retired Mat Fraser for the most individual CrossFit Games titles in history with five. Should she retain the title of Fittest Woman on Earth® in 2022, it would be her sixth consecutive CrossFit Games victory and cement herself as the all-time winningest individual CrossFit athlete ever.
Australia was first represented in Olympic bobsleigh competition at the 1988 Games in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Since then, they have produced 29 Olympic bobsledders (25 male, four female). Australia has not yet achieved a medal in Olympic bobsleigh competition. Toomey-Orr’s next bobsleigh race will occur at the 2021/22 Europa Cup in Innsbruck, Austria, on Jan. 8, 2022.
Featured image: @tiaclair1 on Instagram