Laila putting Ghana on the
CrossFit map Even the fittest in the world have had to adapt to the Covid-19 pandemic. The annual grand event of ‘the sport of fitness’, the CrossFit Games, in Wisconsin, US, will now take place without the usual thousands of cheering fans and without much of its international contingent of contenders. This is especially heartbreaking for Laila Zangwio, who had been set to be the first person to represent Ghana at the Games. Mark Edwards reveals how the former triathlete had to have a crash course in CrossFit to make it to the Games and how losing the chance to compete on the world stage has only sharpened her desire to improve in the sport and come back stronger at next year’s event.
L
aila Zangwio’s morning alarm is set for 5am. The 26-year-old never hears it, though, because
Laila and Eugene joining the other members of Ghana’s masochistic
she gets up at 4.58am every day and
fitness community in running up the
is out of bed to switch it off before
eye-wateringly steep Aburi hill.
it has a chance to ring. The Accraborn athlete’s body is attuned to her
Being a beginner again
mission – to represent her country at
Fitrip is one of Accra’s newest gyms
the CrossFit Games – and that requires an early start to attack the day’s training regime. By 5.30am she is at the Fitrip gym in Accra’s Dworzulu district to begin the morning’s weightlifting session alongside training partner Eugene Abraham, a Fitrip personal trainer and promising CrossFit athlete with ambitions to make the Games in the future. Once the morning session is complete, Laila heads to her job as assistant to the athletics director at the private Lincoln Community School in the capital. By 5pm she will be back at Fitrip for more training, this time with the emphasis on conditioning and gymnastics. She rarely leaves before 9pm. This is the drill six days a week. Only on Sunday does it vary, 34
when at 6.30am you’ll find both
– it opened at the start of last year –
GHANA’S BIGGEST GYM Fitrip in Accra and (right) Laila at 233 CrossFit
and the only one in the country to be CrossFit affiliated. It is fantastically well appointed with facilities including a squash court, an MMA and boxing mezzanine floor, a spin studio and a free weights and resistance machines area, but Laila focuses her work in the gym’s CrossFit ‘box’. Here there are climbing ropes, pull-up bars, barbells and plenty of floor space for the sport’s hybrid test of total fitness.
background is triathlons, a sport she excelled in, becoming Ghana’s female champion seven times over and coming third at the 2019 African championship and fourth at the same year’s World Championships in her age group. Still, when Fitrip manager Houssam Hamidi introduced Laila to her first CrossFit class in June 2019 what
Laila first turned up at Fitrip in the hope
appealed most was the feeling of
of landing a job as a trainer, but the visit
being a beginner again. The innately
transformed Laila’s athletic journey. Her
competitive Laila relished this new
I’ve come from an endurance background,” she says. “So the long, conditioning workouts feel comfortable, but I had never done weightlifting before…”
