POWER BEHIND THE THRONE
ORR INSPIRING
This mentor has guided two all-time greats of CrossFit. His client for today: you
SHANE ORR’S standout success as a CrossFit coach has carried him a long way from home. A Queenslander raised in Weipa, near the country’s northernmost tip, he smells the roses nowadays in Nashville, Tennessee alongside his wife, the all-conquering Tia-Clair Toomey. At home and in the gym, Orr has been at her shoulder and in her ear for every thrill and spill of a remarkable ride.
No matter how long you’ve been dealing with successful people, meeting someone at the top of their field can be daunting. In this case, you wonder, what’s Orr going to be like? Prickly? Hyper-intense? Time-poor and thus impatient? Short with an interlocutor who’s not a CrossFit afficionado?
Happily, he’s none of these things. His emails suggest he’s keen to talk and happy to do so at the break of dawn to share the burden of an unwieldy time difference. When he answers his phone on a recent Tuesday, his first
