Self confessed ÔtearawayÕ is now All-Ireland champion

SOME people have a great story to tell and recently crowned All-Ireland kettlebells long cycle champion Sarah Smith is certainly one of them. From being a self-confessed “tearaway” in her teenage years to becoming a successful entrepreneur in her early twenties, Smith, now a recognised top fitness instructor, has never been afraid to embrace a new and different challenge.

The last week certainly underlines this, having officially opened her new fitness studio in Mulvoy Business Park; launched her own kettlebells application for the smart phone; and, last but not least, rejoiced in her selection on the Irish team to compete in an international event abroad in a sport that she only took up competitively a year or so ago.

Indeed, Smith is just one of two Galway people to make the travelling Irish team to Latvia in September, with her training partner Ronnie Warde, who only started kettlebells six months ago, also selected following his All-Ireland victory in the long cycle 24kgs event recently. 

For those of you not familiar with a kettlebell, it is basically a bowling ball with a handle. However, as Smith reveals, kettlebells has become the “latest fitness craze, with all the celebs doing it now”. That, though, is the more commercial side of the sport, offering rapid weight-loss by working with the kettlebells at a quick pace.

While Smith does teach these classes at her studio, the kettlebells discipline she was crowned All-Ireland champion in is known as Girevoy – or soft style sports training – which focuses on “endurance, slow pace, slow breathing and rhythm”.

This aspect of the gruelling sport – it is as demanding as weight-lifting – was developed by the Russians two centuries ago, according to Smith, but it has only began to gain a foothold in Ireland in recent years. As a fitness instructor, Smith became aware of the commercial side of it some time back but only embraced Girevoy in the past 24 months or so.

Believe it or not, this is the first sport – bar a brief foray into the white collar kickboxing ring to raise money for the Galway Rape Crisis Centre – Smith has committed to. Growing up in Kilbeacanty and going to secondary school in the Convent of Mercy in Gort, she notes that once you weren’t picked for the camogie team, there was little else of a sporting nature to do in the area.

“So, I never did anything really. I was a complete dosser, a tearaway . . . smoked . . . drank . . . lads!” she laughs. “In fact, I think my parents are shocked with my transformation now.”

Yet for all this, Smith had a good work ethic borne, she says, from “a very humble background”. As a teenager she worked in her parents’ health food stores – Open Sesame Health Foods – in Gort and Ennis and when she left school at 17, she got a management position in Evergreen. “So, health was always around me.”

Four years later, she set up her own aromatherapy store in Eyre Square Centre, called Bliss, selling vitamins, herbs, incense and her own range of skincare products. “I had my own logo and I had my own brand and all that.” Her endeavours were recognised by a feature in Woman’s Way magazine and she was also selected as a finalist of the BPW Young Businesswoman of the Year in 2002. 

However, three years on, she yearned for a new challenge and her mum Sally suggested she do a course in fitness. This she did, completing the National Certificate in Exercise and Fitness in Dublin before leaving for Australia where she both managed a health food store and worked in a fitness studio.

“I really got great experience over there but I also had to up-skill. They wouldn’t recognise my qualification so I actually had to spend my backpacking money on re-qualifying. To do this, I had to find people to do a [fitness] video but I didn’t know one person. I did get them, though, and Igot the qualification from the Australian Institute of Sport. They have a very high standard and they are really ahead of everyone else, even more so than the Americans.”

When she returned home in 2005, she subsequently worked in NRG gym in Bohermore and, briefly, in Olympic Physique in Ballybane before NUI Galway’s Clubs and Recreational Officer, Kathy Hynes, took Smith under her wing and encouraged her to pursue various courses in a variety of sporting disciplines.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.