Mail Sport Extreme Extra: Seeing twin sister Brooke succeed in CrossFit has been the biggest motivator for Sydney Wells

Siblings succeeding together in sport is far from a rare occurrence. Often they'll share the biggest stage together.

In tennis alone, there are the Murray and Bryan brothers, while the Williams sisters dominated the women's game for years.

Americans Mia and Kristin Hamm made their names in football, while former England and Manchester United full-back Phil Neville 's twin sister Tracey represented her country in netball and now coaches the national team.

Now, however, we can add Sydney and Brooke Wells to the list when they share to competition floor together at this weekend's prestigious Rogue Invitational at the Press and Journal Arena in Aberdeen.

The 29-year-old twins have always competed against each other, racing together from a young age, with Sydney regularly coming out on top when it came to track-and-field events.

Despite now both having competed in CrossFit for several years together, this will be just the second time they have both been in direct competition with each other.

Sydney explains: 'This is actually only my second time competing with Brooke. When I qualified for the Games in 2023, it was the first time she didn't, so we had always looked forward to that. So when she didn't qualify, it was really sad as we wanted to compete together.

'Now we're really, really excited to get to compete together at the Rogue. It's gonna be super fun!

'This is actually my first time travelling internationally, I've never left the States, so it's my first time competing and travelling. I'm really excited to be in Scotland.'

Though there is, naturally, a sibling rivalry that has always been there, Sydney concedes that she couldn't have reached the heights she has achieved in CrossFit without her twin sister, who is eight minutes older than her.

While Brooke was competing at the CrossFit Games - the biggest event in the sport - every year from 2015, Sydney was focusing on her studies and track and field at the University of Missouri.

Now living together in Tennessee, the pair are motivating each other to continue to drive their own standards up and further elevate their name within CrossFit.

'It's super inspiring and crazy to see Brooke's sacrifice and determination,' says Sydney. 'I live with her so I see it every day. It's hard to see someone like that and believe that you can do that too but she helps me believe in myself and to know that if she can do it, I can do it. She's definitely been a huge impact on me.

'It's a very supportive relationship. She's been doing it so much longer, so of course she has a little bit of an advantage. There are some times where we are competitive. We used to train together at PRVN, so it was a bit more competitive as we were doing the same stuff every day.

'Now she trains with HWPO and I'm still at PRVN so they have different programming, so we don't even train at the same gym any more. We're not together every single day like we once were. We're not super competitive; we both want to beat each other but we're very supportive. It's hard to be super competitive with someone who has done it so much longer than you.'

CrossFit may have been the focus for Brooke for 10 years now, but Sydney has most certainly caught up with her twin, with the pair both having reached at least the semi-finals of the Games in three of the last four years, Sydney missing out this year after receiving a penalty in the quarters.

The younger Wells twin's foray into CrossFit was never on the agenda, however. Having spent much of her early adulthood focusing on track and field and her studies, she was always more of a spectator and supporter of her sister until graduating and then accidentally qualifying for the quarter-finals in 2021.

'I started CrossFit in high school to supplement my track - I was a runner - so that's why there's a big gap between my Open scores from 2013 to 2019,' says Sydney. 'Then I took classes and ran track at the University of Missouri, so that's why there's a few years I didn't do the Open.

'Once I was done competing in track and graduated school, I started doing CrossFit classes just to stay in shape. I didn't ever have any desire to compete.

'Brooke has done it for 10 years. I've been to all the CrossFit Games, mostly as a spectator, and I truly never saw myself out there (on the competition floor) and then with the classes I accidentally qualified for the semi-finals in 2021 without purposely doing it.

'It was so crazy and I was like: "Maybe I should give this a shot" and see how far I could take this. I'm so glad that I did!

'Returning to the Games is definitely the goal for next year. CrossFit has become my full-time job.'

The job of being a full-time athlete has not come easily to Sydney. Whilst she has revelled in the fitness side of things, having to create income outside of competitions is where the focus is.

However, as her social media following grew and she focused more on CrossFit, she was able to leave her full-time job and make the switch to professional sportswoman.

'When I started getting back into CrossFit in 2021, and by December 2022, I was able to leave my full-time job and become a professional athlete,' she reveals.

'Being an influencer is kind of how we make an income from CrossFit. You want to be a full-time athlete but sometimes you feel like a you're an athlete and a content creator. And I'm like: "I'm not a content creator - I'm an athlete". It's a whole new avenue that I didn't ever really think I would have to try to master at becoming good at social media and content creating.

'It's essentially like marketing. What makes it a bit easier is I partner with sponsors I use every day and believe in, so I have knowledge and experience to speak on the products.'

Having missed out on a second appearance at the Games, Sydney was left with an urge to compete but no CrossFit competition on the horizon.

Rather than let all the hours in the gym go to waste, she dipped her toe in HYROX, the latest fitness craze sweeping the world.

Just weeks out from the event in Anaheim, Wells took all she had learned in her years of training track and field and CrossFit and managed to place 18th out of 60 in the Pro event, with a time of 1hour 12minutes 33seconds.

She admits, however, she is in no rush to return to that type of test, adding: 'In trying to get to the Games this year, I received a penalty during quarter-finals which kept me out of the semi-finals, so I didn't really have a chance to qualify for the Games. So I'm really excited to compete again as I haven't been able to compete in person since January.

'The HYROX was just to challenge myself in a new way and still compete. I felt like I trained all year for the semi-finals and then I didn't have anything to do with my fitness. So I was just like: "Well, I'll just do something else!". But I never planned to become a HYROX athlete; I just wanted to give it a try.

'Compared to CrossFit, HYROX is very different. It's very running-focused. I'm a decent runner in the CrossFit world, but when you take hybrid athletes, I'm not on their level. I thought I could catch up on the stations but they're really well-rounded athletes. Plus it's a really long workout; it's over an hour of endurance.

'I don't think they're extremely similar but of course there are similar movements but the time domain is completely different to what we're used to.'