Katrin Davidsdottir is a familiar face to CrossFit fans, but before her first CrossFit Games victory she was a relative unknown.
The 1.69m tall, 68kg athlete has a background that is ripe for CrossFit.
A ropy start, then Games success
Davidsdottir qualified for the CrossFit Games in 2012, just a year after taking up the sport. But she was not starting from scratch. She had been a gymnast and her athletic background allowed her to take to the sport like a duck to water.
It has perfect crossover for some of the more gymnastic-esq movements, like kipping pull-ups and handstands.
The Icelander came second and third in the Europe regionals to earn her spot at the Games in her first two years, but her early success did not directly translate to the Games. She finished 30th in 2012 and 24th in 2013.
In 2014, disaster struck. She failed to make it out of the regionals and into the Games. In the build-up, she had worried about her inability to rope climb.
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“Sure enough, a legless rope climb workout showed up. I failed my first climb, broke down, and then didn’t get another rep from there,” she said on a Reebok blog.
“In hindsight, I realise that people fail rope climbs all the time. If I hadn’t broken down and had pulled myself together, forgetting about that first one, I could have made the rest. It’s about only thinking about right now, not past workouts and weaknesses and failures.”
The failure was clearly pivotal. She won the next two CrossFit Games, in 2015 and 2016, claiming the title Fittest on Earth. She cemented herself as a great, following in the footsteps of fellow Icelander Annie Thorsdottir, who won in 2011 and 2012.
Since her victories, she has finished fifth in 2017, third in 2018 and fourth in 2019. The 2020 CrossFit Games format was altered due to Covid-19, so only five women made the final in California. She finished second behind four-time champion Tia-Clair Toomey.
Glassman Boycott
Davidsdottir very nearly did not compete at the 2020 Games. In fact, had corporate decisions played out differently, she may have been lost to the sport entirely.
In 2020, CrossFit was thrown into turmoil when founder and now-former CEO Greg Glassman tweeted, linking the killing of unarmed black man George Floyd and Covid-19, posting “It’s FLOYD-19”. He was replying to a tweet by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation that called racism and discrimination “public health issues”.
He later backtracked, insisting the tweet was “not racist”, but the floodgates had opened. Sponsors began to ditch CrossFit and the community called for him to step down.
Then accusations of sexist practices in the workplace emerged. It was the final straw for Davidsdottir. By this point, Glassman had already stood down as CEO, handing the reins over to Dave Castro, but he remained the owner of the company.
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Davidsdottir wrote on Instagram: “My moral compass and values I stand for make it an easy decision for me to make: I am out. The only way I see forward is for a blank slate. [Former CrossFit CEO] Greg [Glassman] and those who stood by while this happened cannot be a part of CF [CrossFit].”
Other athletes followed suit and Glassman sold the company to Eric Roza. The blank slate was enough and Davidsdottir returned to the sport.
Sled Dog
Davidsdottir is affectionately known as “Sled Dog”. The name refers to her unquenchable work rate. The nickname originates with Ben Bergeron, her coach.
“What separates her more than anyone else is her willingness to suffer,” Bergeron said in The Athlete Daily. “Not just her willingness but her want. She’s like a sled dog without a sled, they are sitting outside the huts just yelping and wanting to do work.
“When she’s not doing work, she’s not happy. And it’s not the way a lot of people do it, she doesn’t want to throw weights around. She wants to get her heart rate to 200 and hold it for 10 minutes. She wants to outwork people.”
Davidsdottir has embraced the nickname.
“I always wanted more – I wanted more events, I wanted more workouts in a day. I just wanted to spend all my time in the gym,” she said in blog Quick and Dirty Tips.
“I just love the work so much and it makes me feel so happy and so accomplished at the end of the day. So whenever I was at training camps, I was always the one who would finish whatever Ben had put up on the board for us.”
