ALBANY, GA -- A local team of athletes will be heading to the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, on July 29- July 31, as it competes for the title of the "Fittest Gym on Earth" at the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games. The three-man, three-woman team are all members of Albany's World Camp CrossFit. This past weekend, World Camp defeated 26 other teams to secure its spot to the international competition. 

The CrossFit Games dubs itself as the "world's premier test to find the fittest on Earth." The road to the CrossFit Games began with the CrossFit Games Open in which over 26,000 athletes worldwide participated in a six-week online competition consisting of one workout per week. Athletes could do the workouts at their local CrossFit gym or submit videos. Based on their performance in the workouts, thirty top teams from Georgia, Florida, Alabama and South Carolina were invited to compete this past weekend in the Southeast Regional Games in Jacksonville, Florida.

The Southeast Regional Games consisted of six workouts performed over three days. CrossFit defines fitness as being ready for the unknown and unknowable so the workouts were not announced until a few days before the event. Despite entering the competition in 18th place in the region, team members Walt Foy, Chris Harris, Sam Widman, Brandi Bonifay, Jessica Denney, and Cristy Morrill battled their way to an overall third place finish. The team currently holds the worldwide highest lift record for one of the workouts.  The top three teams received an invitation to the final Games.

"World Camp defeated several Atlanta teams who are veterans to the Games so I can proudly say we are the fittest gym in the state of Georgia," says Kris Morrill, owner and head coach of World Camp CrossFit. CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide. Workouts may consist of a combination of gymnastics, powerlifting, Olympic lifting, jumping rope, climbing ropes, and other grunt work such as sandbag runs and tire flipping.