Teen wins Oceania fitness competition

A rigorous CrossFit training schedule continues to propel Christchurch teenager Tahlia Vosaki to new levels of success.

The 14-year-old won the teen individual female 14-15 division at the Torian Pro 2025 in Brisbane over the weekend, which is considered the top CrossFit competition in Oceania.

Vosaki won three of her five events and finished second and third in the other two events to give her a significant 74-point winning margin over her closest competitor.

She won the Alfred, made up of three rounds of one kilometre row, 20 chest to bar (pull-ups) and 10 cyclone sandbag squats.

In the Clean Complex, made up of one clean, one hang clean and one jerk, Vosaki lifted a total of 230 pounds (104kg) - which was the most by any female or male competitor in her age group.

Vosaki also won the Double Isabel, made up of 150 double unders on the rope, followed by 30 snatches of a barbell, followed by 150 more double unders.

She finished second in the Move It or Lose It IV, which involved a mix of a calorie ski, dumbbell snatches and burpee box jump overs in a three-minute rotation.

Vosaki finished third in the Hann, which involved a 100-foot handstand walk, a 100-foot walking dumbbell lunge, six legless rope climbs 12 feet, a 100-foot handstand walk, a 100-foot walking dumbbell lunge, four legless rope climbs 12 feet, a 100-foot handstand walk, a 100-foot walking dumbbell lunge, and three legless rope climbs 12 feet.

Vosaki is working towards proving she is the strongest teenager in the world at the global teenage CrossFit Games in the United States in August, where she will compete against the top 30 fittest teenagers in her age group.

Tahlia Vosaki. Photo/Supplied/Morgan and Kaden Gibbons

Following her success in her first major competition in Brisbane, her coach Justin Cotler reflected on the teenager's work ethic on social media.

"In May of last year, I got an email from a 13-year-old named Tahlia Vosaki," Cotler wrote. "She told me it had been her dream since she was eight years old to compete at the CrossFit Games as a teen.

"She didn't ask for shortcuts. She asked for coaching and ever since that day, she's shown up with discipline, heart, humility, grit, and desire… every single session."

Cotler looks forward to what Vosaki can achieve at the CrossFit Games in the United States.

"Tahlia is everything that's right about this sport," he wrote. "Hard-working. Coachable. Grounded. No drama. She's earned every bit of this moment -and it's just the beginning."

Vosaki told RNZ last month she trains five days a week, up to four-and-half hours a day around homeschooling.

"On my training days, I train once in the morning, which would be about one-and-a-half to two hours, then I go home and do my schoolwork, and then in the afternoon I would go back to the gym and have a two to two-and-a-half-hour session," she told RNZ's Afternoons.

She said she got into CrossFit through her parents.

This story was first published on RNZ.