Watching Physical: 100 can often be a bittersweet experience for female viewers. Netflix's international reality franchise has amazed a passionate global fanbase, with its jaw-dropping athletic challenges and heartwarming depictions of determination and sportsmanship. Each season includes several female athletes who become inspiring fan-favorites, but—whether due to challenge design or being disadvantaged in team rounds—these women often fall short of reaching the finale. That is, until Physical 100: Mexico.
The survival show's first North American installment, which debuted on September 16, found an early standout in Mariana Khalil, a CrossFit athlete who was both a fierce competitor in the individual matches and an essential teammate in the group rounds. The first seven episodes ended with a literal cliffhanger during the Gate to the Underworld challenge, as Khalil and Iván Guerrera hung on bars suspended four meters above water pits.
Eventually, Khalil stayed hanging the longest and became the first-ever woman to make it to the finale in a Physical: 100 individual season. (This doesn't include Physical: Asia, which had entirely team challenges, or Physical 100: Italy, which is still airing through October 2.) Though she didn't ultimately win Physical 100: Mexico's prize of 3 million pesos (about $175,000 USD), Khalil represented the women of the show and proved that she was a tough opponent to beat.
Read on to learn more about Mariana Khalil, from the personal tragedy that left her with a scarred arm to her biggest supporter throughout the competition.
Mariana Khalil has won some of the toughest competitions in modern-day sports.
Mariana Khalil is a athlete and fitness coach who does CrossFit, HYROX, kabaddi, and yoga. Per The Cinemaholic, Khalil spent 13 years training as a jazz dancer before discovering CrossFit in college. The sport became a core part of her life, with Khalil even meeting her husband at a competition. She ranked among the top 30 female CrossFit athletes in Mexico across four years, since her competitive debut in 2017.
Khalil is a co-founder and Head Coach of the gym CrossFit Voltage in Aguascalientes, where she coaches and specializes in pregnancy and postpartum fitness. She also has TV experience outside of Netflix. She appeared on the Mexican reality TV show Exatlón in 2021 and earlier this year, competing under the nickname "Voltage."
Mariana Khalil is an outspoken women's-rights activist and burn survivor.
During the Gate to the Underworld challenge in episode 7, Khalil shared the origin of the scars covering her entire left arm and part of her right arm, midriff, and legs. When she was 7-years-old, a gas leak triggered an explosion that left her, her sister, and her mother with severe burns.
"I love my scars," she said in an interview. "I think they make me a very unique person, and they remind me that there's no greater challenge that I've been through."
When she's not sharing fitness tips or personal updates, Khalil also uses her Instagram to speak out about social causes. Earlier this year, she partnered with Telemundo's Mujeres Imparables. The athlete called on women to cultivate their physical and mental strength, saying, "Society has done a lot of harm by making us believe that strength and femininity are contrary."
Mariana Khalil welcomed her first child in 2024.
Khalil has been married to her husband, Rodrigo Guerra, for nine years. On the show, she shared her husband's reaction to seeing her for the first time during a competition. "Why is she standing there so confidently despite her scars, and wearing shorts and a top? I mean, I have to meet her," she recalls him saying to a mutual friend.
Today, the couple work together as coaches at CrossFit Voltage. They welcomed their first child, a son, in early 2024.
In the Physical 100: Mexico finale, Khalil revealed that she worried her relationship to sports would change after she became a mother. When asked if she had seen herself making it to the end of the competition, she said, "Honestly, since my baby was born, I thought there was no room for sports left in my life."
"At some point I said, 'Okay. I'll focus on being a mom. I won't be able to perform at that level," she continued. "[But] I think that as I completed the challenges, I was, like, 'Mariana the athlete still has so much to give.