Dallin Pepper: The hardest battle took place outside the arena

Finishing second at the CrossFit Games is a dream result for almost any athlete. For Dallin Pepper, it felt mostly like proof that even the hardest battle is sometimes fought far from the competition floor.

In the public eye, Pepper had his breakthrough year. The 24-year-old American won events, wore the leader's jersey and competed for the title of Fittest Man on Earth until the final day. His second-place finish behind James Sprague confirmed his status as one of the absolute elite in the sport.

Behind the scenes, however, a very different story was unfolding.

While fans watched a confident athlete who seemed to grow stronger week after week, Pepper had been fighting for months against a mental emptiness he could barely explain to himself.

The price of an obsession

In elite sport, sacrifice is a frequent topic. Hours of training, a strict nutrition plan, social compromises and constant physical strain are seen as necessary ingredients for success.

What is less visible is the psychological toll that builds when ambition slowly turns into obsession.

Looking back, Pepper realises he had unconsciously trapped himself inside a single thought: winning.

In interviews, podcasts and conversations he kept repeating the same message. He had to win the CrossFit Games. Not wanted to win. Had to win.

The difference seems small, but in sports psychology it can be crucial.

When performance becomes tied to identity, a dangerous situation arises. The result on the scoreboard becomes more than a score. It becomes a verdict on who you are.

"I kept saying I had to win," Pepper said. "Looking back, I think I tied my identity to it without even realising it."

'Some days I didn't even want to start'

The consequences became more apparent as the season went on.

Pepper describes periods when it was not the training sessions themselves that drained him, but the thought of having to begin them.

Some days he would be standing in the gym, start his warm-up and then just sit down.

Not because his body lacked energy.

But because his mind refused to cooperate.

For outsiders, that is hard to imagine. Pepper was living the life thousands of CrossFitters dream of. He was healthy, successful, married to his partner Corinne and part of the new generation of stars bringing the sport to a wider audience.

Yet for months he did not feel well.

That, he says, was precisely what made it so frustrating.

There was no clear cause to point to. No major injury. No sporting crisis. No obvious reason why the engine had stopped firing.

The loneliness of elite sport

A surprising factor turned out to be his training environment.

Over the past year Pepper trained largely alone. Although he had done so without difficulty in the past, he discovered how important social interaction had become to him.

Where training partners had once been mainly competitors, they now turned out to be a form of mental support as well.

Gradually he began to deliberately involve other people in his sessions. Friends from the gym, family members, his wife Corinne, anyone willing to pick up a barbell or join a workout.

Not because he needed coaching.

But because he needed company.

It is an insight that resonates more broadly in modern elite sport. Individualisation has made athletes more efficient, but sometimes also more isolated. Particularly in sports like CrossFit, where training volumes are enormous and days revolve largely around preparation, recovery and performance.

Asking for help as an elite athlete

Where earlier generations of athletes often kept mental struggles hidden, Pepper chose to seek professional help.

He worked with a sports psychologist and spoke regularly with people in his immediate circle.

That was not always easy.

Like many elite athletes, he admitted to sometimes postponing appointments, not replying to messages straight away and preferring to avoid conversations.

Yet those conversations helped him recognise patterns and regain perspective.

His story fits a broader shift in the sports world, where mental health is increasingly seen not as a weakness but as an essential part of performing at the highest level.

A house fire, a sprained ankle and a silver medal

As if the season itself were not demanding enough, Pepper learned a week before the Games that his parents' house had burned down.

His family was unharmed, but most of the home was lost.

During the Games he also suffered a serious ankle sprain on the trail run at The Ranch. On a rest day between competition days he spent almost all his time on recovery work just to be able to keep competing.

Yet he kept performing.

In fact, he put together the best Games weekend of his career.

That may make his second-place finish more impressive than a championship ever could have been.

Not because he lost to Sprague.

But because he proved that performing at the highest level does not mean doubts disappear.

It means you keep showing up, even when motivation is nowhere to be found.

More than a podium finish

In a sport that often revolves around numbers, scores and final standings, Dallin Pepper may have told the most important story of the 2025 CrossFit Games.

Not that he finished second.

But that even one of the fittest men in the world goes through periods where getting up feels harder than a brutal training session.

And that true resilience does not reveal itself when everything goes smoothly, but precisely when no one sees how difficult the road to the podium really was.