Firefighter team in top 32 in world

The Lubbock Fire Department can boast having two of the top relay teams in the world if what happened in Las Vegas Friday doesn’t stay in Vegas. The Lubbock Firefighter Combat Challenge Team’s two relay teams won in first-round level competition’s Friday at the Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge in Las Vegas.

Lubbock’s relay teams lost in second-round competition, but still managed to rank among the top 32 teams in the world out of competitors from countries including Canada, Germany and South Africa said team captain Justin Rhodes. More than 300 teams competed in the four-day competition that ended Friday, he said.

The team, composed of relay groups Team Lubbock and Team Carpet Tech, formed this year to compete in the international event that challenges firefighters’ strength, speed and endurance to simulate real-life demands of firefighters.

“We took a bunch of guys that never ran this before, improved throughout the year, and we were competing with the top teams in the world,” said team member Nathan Klatt.

The team of nearly one dozen fire fighters began practicing for the five events of the world challenge course January at the Lubbock Fire Department training facility. They had to qualify for the world competition during more than a dozen regional competitions around the country.

Rhodes said the competition, known by many as the “toughest two minutes in sports,” requires firefighters run up and down six flights of stairs, pound a 172-pound rectangular steel box five feet with a sledge hammer, and drag a 175-pound dummy dressed as a downed fireman.

The team’s weekly regimen of practice was just as trying as it was inspiring for the firefighters, said team member Phillip Grandon.

“It kind of put a spark in the department for the guys to try out for the team and just to be more physically fit,” he said.

And team members said they’re encouraged by their strong showing during their first year in the international competition.

“We’re fired up for next year,” Rhodes said of the 2010 season that begins in April. “We think we have a legitimate chance to win the whole thing next year.”

Rhodes said he also was encouraged by support the team received from the Lubbock community at home and in Las Vegas. He said 42 of the firefighters’ friends, family and fellow crew members traveled to Las Vegas for the competition held on Fremont Street in front of the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino. Rhodes said he also was appreciative for financial support for equipment and registration fees from team sponsor Carpet Tech and Lubbock fire Lt. Buddy Davis.
By Adam D. Young in The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal