10-03-2025
Local para climber pursues Olympic dream
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Last October, we told you the story of a former Sioux Falls gymnast who was paralyzed after a terrible fall back in 2003, and how she recently won her 4th national title in Adaptive Crossfit.
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But now Andrea Wilson is climbing her way to the top in another sport.
When you are training for the Olympics, that's a big hill to climb. But that's what Andrea Wilson is hoping for; to make the USA Olympic team in para climbing.
'Crossfit has given me a lot of my strength necessary for the climbing; that's the big pulling muscle strength from it, I need to work a lot on some of the smaller muscles, like my forearms and grip strength that is more unique to climbing and takes longer to develop,' Wilson said.
But she's working on it every day as she pursues that Olympic dream. Wilson recently competed in the Para Climbing Nationals in California and placed second, which qualified her to be on Team USA for the World Cup.
'This year the world cup series is in Salt Lake City, Austria, France and Seoul,' Wilson said. The athletes are scored by how high they can climb; if there's a tie then it comes down to how fast. It didn't take Wilson long to scale a 30 foot wall at Frontier Climbing and Fitness, but as you can see when you only use your arms; it's exhausting.
Wilson says she's still going to compete in Crossfit. In fact, she just competed at an event while she was in California and she currently sits number one in the world.
But for now her focus is going to be on making the US Olympic team; even at the age of 40 it's something that has reinvigorated her competitive nature.
'I think that's a good way of putting it, it's something exciting and giving me purpose that I didn't find at a younger age, so it's really fun whether it's new now at 40 to give me something to strive for and as long as my body is going to let me do it, I'm going to keep pushing for it,' Wilson said.
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