No Quit In Kyle Cant

By: Devan Mighton, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Lakeshore News Reporter

From Aug. 21-24, athletes from around the world gathered in Columbus, OH, to compete at the 2025 CrossFit Games. Among these athletes was Kyle Cant, a LaSalle native and firefighter.

Advancing through remote staging, placing 17th in Stage 1 and 12th in Stage 2, Cant persevered at the Games, finishing an outstanding sixth among athletes aged 35-39 years old.

“I was always into working out and being physical,” admits Cant. “Back in 2013, I came across CrossFit and got really interested.”

When he started, he joined the only CrossFit-specific gym in the city at the time, Windsor CrossFit. “After I went there and I dove headfirst into it.”

Cant says that his favourite thing about CrossFit is the variety of workouts it allows.

“There’s so many different things,” he explains. “From running to weightlifting, metabolic conditioning, Olympic lifting, powerlifting – so, there’s always something to work on. It’s not like an Olympic sport where it’s one specific event, like the 100-metre dash. It’s not specific, it’s so broad, and there’s something about it where you can always be better, you can always be working on something – that kinda drew me to it, it was just so constantly varied.”

Cant says that he started competing as soon as he entered the sport, but this year’s event was his first CrossFit Games.

“I had no real expectations, being my first year of competition,” he explains. “I had to qualify through two different stages, the first one being the CrossFit Open, and then there’s the semifinal.”

Thousands of competitors participated in the first stage, and only 10 percent advanced to the semifinals. That was reduced further to 10 percent to secure the 30 spots at the games.

“I was there competing with a friend that also qualified, so that made it even sweeter!” he explains, saying fellow LaSalle firefighter Jonathon Gibbons was the other qualifier.

“I went in with the mindset that I’m going to approach every workout one at a time and just do the best that I can do and let the chips fall where they may,” says Cant. “I knew that some of the workouts were going to be relatively good for me, but then there were a lot of workouts that where “big guy workouts”, and I’m not really a big guy. I was able to hold my own and focus on what I’m good at and do well.”

A firefighter of nearly seven years, Cant says that regarding further training and competing, he is focused on continuing to have fun and stay as fit as he can.

“A lot of people have told me they really want me to continue to compete,” states Cant. “If my body feels good, if my mind’s in it, then I’ll do it – that’s kind of the approach I have.”