Meet the two KC-area women competing at the 2023 CrossFit Games, starting this week

Two Kansas City-area women will test their mettle at the 2023 CrossFit Games from Aug. 1-6 in Madison, Wisconsin.

Carrie Rieger is competing in the age 45-49 division, while Olivia Kerstetter is a 17-year-old rising senior at Mill Valley High School. They’re at different points in their athletic journeys, but both have experienced success in prior CrossFit events — and they’re looking for more.

Since 2007, the CrossFit Games and related events have sought to determine the fittest athletes in the world through conditioning tests, weightlifting, gymnastics, swimming, road cycling and strongman competitions. Participants include individual men’s and women’s competitors and teams. Competitors are sorted by age group, and there are also three divisions for people with disabilities.

The CrossFit qualifiers were held in February and March, quarterfinals in March and April and semifinals from April to June. It all leads up to the Crossfit Games in August at Alliant Energy Center. The event features 40 men and women from the individual division, 38 teams, and then 10 male and female contestants from each age group.

Rieger, 47, went into the 2023 CrossFit open qualifiers ranked 26th nationally and 44th worldwide in her age division. Ahead of her third trip to Madison, she’s now ranked ninth overall in her group after finishing ninth in her division’s semifinals. Her training program comes from Rich Froning Jr. and CrossFit Mayhem in Cookeville, Tennessee, and she trains at CrossFit Lee’s Summit.

Kerstetter previously finished first in the 16-17 age group at the 2022 games and in the age 14-15 division in 2021. While she remains ranked No. 1 in the girls’ 16-17 division, she decided to compete in the individual women’s division at this year’s games, creating a tougher path to a third straight top finish.

Kerstetter works with a Nashville-based coach, Shane Orr, and trains at Solution 1 CrossFit in Shawnee.

Ahead of their trip to Madison, both Rieger and Kerstetter participated in a Q&A with the Star about their CrossFit journeys. Here’s what they had to say…

Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity

The Kansas City Star: How did you get into CrossFit?

Rieger: Ten years ago is when I got into it. My husband saw it on TV. I had been doing marathons and adventure races and triathlons for fun year-round and was just looking for something to be better at endurance racing. He encouraged me to give CrossFit a try, and I was hooked.

Kerstetter: I was always super active growing up, and I would just go to the gym with my dad a lot and hang on the bars and mess around until I was old enough to actually do the classes. And then I did the kids’ classes for fun, and I was super competitive. My sister and I actually both did it, and so we would compete against each other. And then once I was old enough, I finally competed against people my age.

KC Star: How demanding is your preparation for the CrossFit competition?

Rieger: For me right now, I do two sessions a day, sometimes three depending on my children’s schedules. Being a mom of three, I have to fit them in and make them number one, but usually it’s two or three sessions. So anywhere from a couple hours to, if I’m doing a running workout, obviously that wouldn’t last more than an hour from warmup to cooldown.

Kerstetter: It varies throughout the year, but leading up to the games, it’s very demanding. I work out five days a week, and then one day I just do cardio. So six days a week, and it’s probably for six to eight hours a day. And not just in the gym working out. It’s a lot of out-of-the-gym stuff during the summer, so running, swimming, biking. During the school year, it’s obviously a lot less because I don’t have time for that, so it’s probably more like four hours a day, but it’s a lot.

KC Star: One challenge of the CrossFit Games is you don’t know exactly what activities you’ll be doing until you get there. How do you prepare for that?

Rieger: You train all of the disciplines. You train the weightlifting side, you train gymnastics, you train what we call monostructural — which is like biking, running or skiing. You also are training sprints. You’re training in the 10 to 12 minute range, or you’re training what we consider endurance, which is anything above that. So you train along the different movements, but then you also train along different time domains. You train your body to go really hard. You train your body to be able to sustain in an aerobic manner. It’s just all over the board.

Kerstetter: That definitely is one of the hardest things. I’d say just find a good coach that knows what they’re doing and knows how to program for you and tell you what to do so that you’re prepared for anything. I’m really lucky to have a really good coach, so he will program basically anything so that I’m not surprised when something comes up and I don’t know how to do it, because I’ve been practicing it all.

KC Star: What discipline is easiest for you and what’s one you’re still trying to improve on?

Rieger: I would say my work ethic is what’s gotten me where I’m at. I missed qualifying for the CrossFit Games many years in a row by a handful of places. It took a lot of years of working really hard to beat out some of those girls and earn my spot. I’ve given up a lot. If my kids have a game, I may be at the gym Saturday night at 8 o’clock because that’s what works out for me not to miss something of theirs. But I don’t miss those sessions. And then as an athlete, I’m even across everything. I don’t have any huge glaring weaknesses, which I think is what has played into me being able to make it three years in a row.

Kerstetter: My best event is any weightlifting or anything heavy or with a barbell. I think I’m pretty strong. And then something that I am still working on is just running and swimming, cardio stuff. I was getting better at it for the teenage division, but then when you go up to the elite level, you’re back to the bottom. I’m still trying to improve and get back up there.

KC Star: What are you most looking forward to at this year’s CrossFit Games?

Rieger: It’s definitely going out there and seeing how I compare and how much I’ve improved, potentially, over last year. Something I’ve always kind of been bad at is swimming, so I’m hoping to see a swim event just to see how much I’ve improved there. And then anything on my hands. I like to be on my hands, so handstand walking, handstand obstacles, handstand pushups — anything on my hands makes me happy.

Kerstetter: I love watching other people compete, too, so I’m excited to watch, whether it’s the teenage division or the masters division for older people and the team division and the men. So I guess just watching, and then also meeting a bunch of people is really cool.