The two-time ‘Fittest Woman on Earth’ and her husband Shane Orr sat down with CNN to talk about the first time they met at a local triathlon in Australia. Orr explained the scenario where Toomey was coming out of the water and he was waiting for his leg on the race.
Well, Toomey went ahead of him and now he had to catch up to her as he explained…
“If I catch up to her, just look comfortable, look good, so anyway a 100 meters in I’m feeling good I’m like she could be coming any second now. Sure enough, I go ‘I can’t hold this, I just got to have one good breath in’. So I start trudging, I’m looking down and I hear this ‘keep your head up you can do it’. And then I look up and it’s Tia, she’s encouraging me to get back into the race when my whole game plan was to inspire her and make myself look good“.
But Toomey says she might have cheered on other people too during the race…
“I think I cheered a lot of people on as I went past, so I don’t know if Shane was the only one I encouraged, I can’t really remember specifically“.
Orr jokingly responded with…
“I didn’t know that I thought that we had something then. Everything is built on a lie right now“.
But for the next few years, Toomey was training for track and Orr was in charge of the stopwatch.
He eventually became her coach where both have achieved great success, and they decided to get married after the 2017 CrossFit Games where Toomey won her first championship.
“Everything we do, we do it together, and for me, I’m very lucky to be able to experience that and to travel the World with my work colleague, but my wife is just amazing,” said Orr.
Tia-Claire Toomey also had some kind words to say about her husband Shane…
“I feel like Shane is my secret weapon, he obviously knows how I’m feeling, I can be very open with him as well. He’s going to tell me when I’m wrong or when I’m right. And he’s not afraid to tell me to harden up as well. And there are definitely times throughout training, throughout competition when we do need that hard chat and realization that hey ‘stop feeling sorry for yourself’. But I think that Shane has definitely been able to help me grow not only as a person but as an athlete and competitor, and it’s pretty exciting to see what the future could potentially hold as well“.
When asked if it was hard to give tough love, Orr replied…
“I don’t put out on the line but I am stern, to say the least“.
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I see those two in videos, I know they are edited but they seem to have a genuine respect for each other and a great friendship and caring relationship. It seems to be a relationship where they understand when they work together they are both better even though one may shine more than the other publicly.
I think this is a hard thing for many women to understand. Men and women are not natural enemies, marriage is a team sport.