A MAJOR milestone has been passed in the local functional-fitness community, as Lucy Dupre became Jersey’s first female athlete to compete at the Functional Fitness World Championships earlier this month.
Taking place in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 5-7 December, Dupre made an impact on the international stage and exceeded her own expectations to place 34th overall out of a stacked Open Female category, making for an “amazing” experience.
“The World Championships were amazing, when I first got there it was quite overwhelming, as it was a big arena with loads of people,” said Dupre.
“The first thing we did was the opening ceremony, where all the teams were flying their flags. It was funny, as it was just me representing Jersey, and I came in straight after Italy, who had more than 30 competitors, but it was awesome.
“I’m really happy with where I placed, as that massively exceeded my expectations and has made me really excited for next year. However, I have noticed a few preventable errors which were a bit disappointing, but hopefully they’ll be some easy wins for next year.”
The preparations for the big event weren’t the smoothest for the Caesarean. Dupre detailed the adjustments she had to make: “In August, I rolled my ankle, which gave me shin splints up the side, so I had to cut out running completely.
“I also had to cut out skipping for a while, which was quite tough because when the workouts were released, they included double unders with a heavier skipping rope than I’ve used before.
“That was a new experience for me, and was way more of a forearm burner than I expected.
“I had to cut out a few other things, such as shuttle runs and farmers carries, as I just had to modify the plan. These modifications meant I could spend more time on the Ergs – the bike, RowErg and SkiErg – as well as swimming, which really came in handy.
“I had good training, but it would have been ideal to have some more time to prepare. The other thing I could have done was try out different equipment at a variety of gyms, because each gym is nuanced. For example, with the rings, the length of the strap greatly affects the swing, and my gym has a lower ceiling so it’s not as long, but it was the complete opposite at the competition and I just couldn’t get in rhythm.”
The supportive atmosphere and “special” community of CrossFit and functional fitness certainly carried over into the competition, which really made an impression on Dupre, as she added: “For me, the community is what makes this sport so special. When you turn up to class, the culture is that everyone supports each other, so it was quite relieving to see that’s exactly what it’s like in competition as well.
“Even tough I’m competing and going up against these girls, we all just want each other to perform to our best ability. The way this sport is, we want all competitors to be at 100% so we can see who is actually ahead, and if someone beats me, then that just gives me something to work on for next year.”
Competition
Day one of competition started strong for Dupre, with the skill workout commencing proceedings. This workout consisted of two parts, where athletes had one attempt at a max L-Sit on parallettes for time, before then getting in the pool to complete several rounds of 50m swims, with each round’s time cap consistently decreasing before the final 10th round was scored for time.
After holding the L-Sit for 30 seconds to score 16.5 points for Part A, her extra work in the pool really came to good use as she took the stage by storm, scoring 44 points to place a remarkable sixth place in Part B.
Following that impactful start, Dupre hoped to maintain the momentum heading into the afternoon’s endurance workout, where competitors had to accumulate as many calories on the SkiErg as possible while performing a shuttle run buy-in every two minutes, which increased by one each time to add to the challenge.
After completing nine rounds, Dupre earned another 17 points, but that result came a little bitter-sweet, as she failed to appeal the judge’s ruling that she didn’t cross the line, despite holding video evidence, which cost her “six places” on the leaderboard.
Heading into the day two, the Caesarean took on the strength segment, which saw athletes have three attempts to find their one rep max for the squat clean and jerk. For someone who never touched weight training before getting into CrossFit in 2020, Dupre has made considerable strides to develop her strength and recorded a 70kg one rep max on the day, just shy of her PB to accumulate another 13 points.
She reflected on her development, saying: “I never did any weight training before getting into CrossFit, so my strength has been something I’ve slowly built up through the years. I found a video recently from when I just started in 2020, really struggling to lift the 15kg barbell with 2.5kg on either side, so I really appreciate how far I’ve come.”
The bodyweight workout was next on the agenda to close the competition’s second day, which was more of Dupre’s strong suit. Competitors had 12 minutes to complete as many rounds as they could of two seated 4.5m rope climbs, a nine metre unbroken handstand walk, eight burpee box jump overs and then another nine metre unbroken handstand walk.
Dupre shone to complete 103 reps to place 28th among the class in that particular workout, making a push up the table heading into the final day.
Day three marked the final day of competition, giving Dupre one last chance to ascend up the leaderboard. The mixed workout was the penultimate event of the competition, bringing an immense challenge for the competitors.
Athletes were tasked with completing three rounds of five ring muscle ups, five deficit handstand push-ups on parallettes and five bar muscle ups for time, before then going straight into a round of 50 heavy double unders, a 500m row and another 50 heavy double unders.
The workout didn’t stop there, immediately moving on to complete three rounds of 10 deadlifts, 10 shoulder to overhead and 10 front rack-in-place reverse lunges. Dupre once again performed well to tally up a total of CAP + 157 reps, adding another 36 points to her total.
Power closed out the championships, which tasked athletes to complete 35 chest-to-bar pull ups, 20 double dumbbell thrusters and a 400m BikeErg, all within a five-minute time cap. After completing the routine in four minutes and seven seconds, that provided Dupre a final 15 points, bringing up her total haul to 179.5 for a 34th place overall in the category.
Looking ahead
Although Dupre is happy with her performance, the Caesarean is still in pursuit of improvement, as she detailed the key things that’ll be worked on going into 2026: “I think the biggest thing for me is my mindset, which is holding me back a bit because when things get tough, my brain just goes. To compete at this level, you have to push past the pain and keep going, so that’s the main thing for me.
“I’ve already reached out to coaches and providers to see what they have to offer, and I’ve spoken with my CrossFit coaches to basically call me out whenever they see me giving up in class, as sometimes you need to be snapped back into it.
“I want to keep improving on my strength and endurance as well, by picking up running after Christmas a bit and also completing a couple Hyrox events in 2026. But really, I’m just going to keep fresh and continue my training.”
Jersey’s functional-fitness community is thriving at the minute, as Dupre continued: “I think the local scene is definitely growing, both Jersey CrossFit and Valiant are very supportive, community-driven organisations. Jersey has a lot of great functional-fitness athletes, I’d love to get a full team out to the championships representing Jersey, as it does add something to the competition.
“CrossFit can come off as quite intimidating for the average person, especially those who haven’t been to the gym for a while, but I think that once you join it, most people will say it’s the polar opposite.
“My recommendation would be to give it a go and turn up to a class, because each exercise is scalable, so just speak to the coach and they’ll work with what’s best for you.”
Lucy Dupre would like to thank everyone who helped her to prepare for the championships, as well as Dominion for their financial support.
