Rick Stiebel/News Gazette staff
Winning the Canadian national championship in kettlebell lifting hasn’t slowed Corissa Sivorot from raising the bar in her quest to top her personal best.
Sivorot returned from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in July as the best in her weight and class with her sights already set on improving her performance. She is training 10 hours a week to accomplish that at the International Union for Kettlebell Lifting world championship in Seoul, South Korea in November. Competitors are ranked based on the weight they lift, their body weight category and the specific lift they perform, such as a snatch, jerk or long cycle, she explained. “You have to cover your own expenses,” she said. “So it’s a major commitment financially [as well].”
“Placing first is pretty exciting,” said Sivorot regarding her recent success in Moose Jaw. “As an athlete you’re happy to finish first, but you start thinking right away about the next goal.”
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For the Metchosin resident, that goal would be topping her total of 205 repetitions. “I want to hit 210 on the world platform,” she said. The fact that this year’s event in Seoul marks the first time women will compete in a double kettlebell exhibition adds to her desire to compete internationally again. “Traditionally, that’s been for men only,”she noted.
Her performance at the Canadian championships is even more remarkable considering Sivorot, 34, didn’t begin competing until a couple of years ago. “I had been using kettlebell lifting purely for fitness,” she said. “I went to a fundraising event in 2013 and had a lot of fun. It sparked my competitive fires.”
Although it’s an individual sport, Sivorot competed as part of Team Canada at the worlds in Ireland in 2015, where she placed eighth. “It’s one of those things where you walk away not happy with the results at first,” she recalled during an interview at her studio. “Then you realize you’re eighth in the world, so it’s pretty gratifying.” Sivorot stepped away from competing in 2016 to build her business and focus on other lifts. “A year away added to my motivation to compete again,” she said.
Sivorot is co-owner of the Westshore Warehouse, a private fitness studio offering personal training and fitness classes in Langford. She has been working in health and fitness since 2009, and running her own company, Walk it Out Fitness, for the the past five years, specializing in personal and kettlebell training. Visit facebook.com/westshorewarehouse for more information.