Athletes take on skyscraper staircase

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This article was published 28/07/2023 (797 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The World Police and Fire Games (WPFG) isn’t your traditional multi-sport event.

It has the classics you’d find at the Olympics such as track and field, basketball, hockey, curling and soccer, but it also offers competitions that are a bit out of the norm.

Those ones — the stair race, the ultimate firefighter, the toughest competitor alive, and muster (a team challenge where athletes perform various firefighting skills) — are, obviously, targeted towards life as a first responder.

Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service (WFPS) Assistant Chief Jay Shaw has signed up to do the stair race which takes place next Saturday at the city’s tallest building — 300 Main Street. Whoever reaches the top of the 40 flights of stairs in the fastest time will bring home gold. Shaw is competing in the Firefighter Full Gear division in which participants must wear full, approved, structural Firefighting turnout gear. There’s a second category where individuals are allowed to wear whatever they want.

The WPFG, which go for 10 days and takes place all across Winnipeg, kicked off Friday with the opening games ceremony at the RBC Convention Centre and several indoor volleyball matches at Dakota Community Centre.

“I chose to do stair race because firefighters quite often have to climb stairs with heavy equipment and gear and it’s very strenuous… Climbing stairs is physically exhausting, so it’s something that I thought would be an extreme challenge,” Shaw, 50, said. More than 280 WFPS members signed up for the WPFG.

“I’m not guaranteeing that I’m going to do very well, but I’m very excited to be a part of the games and do something.”

Friday morning saw first responders from 70 different countries checking in at the convention centre to pick up their credentials. The Australian rugby team, Polish wrestlers, archers from India and soccer players from Brazil were some of the groups on site. Most of them had to make quite the trek to make it to the Manitoba capital.

It took Nuth Sereyratha, a police officer in Cambodia, 30 hours to get to Winnipeg as his trip required stops in Taiwan and Toronto. Sereyratha is making the most of the journey as he’s competing in bench press, jiu jitsu, judo, push pull and wrestling. It’s his third WPFG as he also competed in 2019 in China and last year in the Netherlands which was originally scheduled for 2021 but was pushed back due to the pandemic.

The WPFG is a biennial event.

“I’m happy to be here because it’s my first time in Canada. For a long I’ve wanted to visit but I couldn’t. But this event has brought us Cambodians here,” said Sereyratha, 38, a former member of the Cambodian national wrestling team. Sereyratha is one of 48 athletes from Cambodia who travelled to Winnipeg.

There are nearly 60 sports, including some unique ones such as angling, bodybuilding, corn hole, crossfit, darts, flag football, pickleball, dodgeball, wrist-wrestling and 10-pin bowling. When it comes to the lanes, watch out for the Hong Kong Police Force’s (HKPF) bowling team as they’re known to reach the podium at the WPFG. The HKPF sent nearly 300 people to Winnipeg. They had a selection committee choose their top six bowlers and 57-year-old Ngan Wai Hung, a senior inspector, made the cut. Hung and his teammates have been practising twice a month.

“This is a tradition. We try to come to every (WPFG),” said 57-year-old Hung. “Of course, we want (sports such as bowling) to be in the Olympics or whatever, but we are happy we can play here and participate here.”

More than 20 bowling teams will start rolling Monday at Chateau Lanes. It’s a different story in women’s softball as only two teams registered, so, they’ll play a best-of-five series over the span of two days to crown a winner. The Los Angeles Police Department sent a ladies team featuring Crystal Garcia, 37, and Cynthia Wada, 39. They’ll be taking on a Canadian squad.

The WPFG is predicting 8,500 people, which includes friends and family of the athletes, to be in Winnipeg.

“We started as a bunch of misfits. Some of us played in high school and some of us played in college,” said Garcia, who’s at her fourth WPFG. Wada is at her third.

“It started out really bad, but now we’ve progressed. We don’t play often, it’s every two years that we play and grab a team together and we’ve been non-stop since then. We develop our skills and get to know each other, it’s like family, so that’s what brings us out here.”

Softball begins today at Buhler Recreation Complex. Bodybuilding, crossfit, cycling, dragon boat, ice hockey, pistol, outdoor soccer, table tennis, tennis and toughest competitor alive also get going on Day 2.

“I just like the fact that you have law enforcement and fire from all over the world in one place,” said Wada. “It’s exciting, and the cities that host it are always so welcoming.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31