Batemans Bay is home to two women determined to throw preconceived ideas of aging out the window.
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Jane Mayer, 59, and Linda Ivey, 61, won gold medals at the CrossFit Masters League two-day event at the Gold Coast on Saturday, September 29.
They competed across two categories against 450 elite athletes aged 55 years and older and proved that age doesn’t matter.
“So we are officially winners of the Australasian Masters CrossFit Games,” Ms Ivey said
The Masters League is a relatively new addition to the CrossFit industry. It was introduced to recognise athletes who in their later years are competing but still very much at the top of their game.
The 2018 event began in January with an online competition run over four weeks.
The top five from each age category move onto the next round and then the top two athletes are invited to compete in the Masters League Games.
When they received their invitations to compete the women knew they each wanted a podium finish.
Both have trained in some type of sport all their lives and each was introduced to CrossFit some five years ago.
For Ms Mayer, the new training was a discovery upon moving to the area.
“It was just this little niche that I found,” she said.
“I thought I was fit until I came here and did this. It's a whole different fitness level.”
Ms Ivey describes the grueling workouts as “pretty intense”.
“The beauty of it is you're competing against yourself. You're not competing against anybody,” she said.
“Except when we are competing, then we are competing against other people.”
Neither has participated in anything like the CrossFit games before.
“This is a whole new ball game and it’s so much fun,” Ms Mayer said.
Ms Ivey says, it’s a unique sport that’s usually geared toward younger people.
“They introduced Masters League because they saw there were so many masters out there who had ability but we were no way physically able to compete against 23-year-olds,” she said.
This will be Ms Ivey’s third year competing in the Masters League. It’s the personal challenge that keeps her coming back for more, she says.
“It just keeps getting bigger and better,” she said.
"I believe that I am competitive when it boils down to it and when I'm in competition I'm competitive but I'm more considering my capabilities and how I can improve and get better so I just want to be able to do things like pull-ups and headstand walks.”
This is not how either women pictured aging and neither plans to slow down.
"I'm fitter now than I think I've been in all my life," Ms Mayer said.