Liepāja hosts Baltic firefighters’ strength championship

Firefighters from across the Baltic states competed for two days at Latvia’s open Strongest Firefighter championship in Liepāja, LSM reported in a TV Kurzeme report. The events included climbing a tower, overcoming obstacles and dragging a 90-kilogram dummy.

Artūrs Rožkovs, commander of the State Fire and Rescue Service’s Dobele unit, was named Latvia’s strongest firefighter after completing the course in one minute and 23 seconds. He said a two-second penalty left him second behind Lithuanian competitors.

Eight Latvian firefighters are preparing for the World Firefighter Championships in Las Vegas at the end of October. The national team comprises seven men and one woman: Annemarija Rivča, a senior inspector in the fire safety supervision and civil protection division of the service’s Riga regional department. Rivča was the fastest of four women in Liepāja. She said the 90-kilogram dummy drag was the biggest challenge, and women receive no concessions in the events.

Rivča’s regular work involves office duties, site visits and inspections. She described firefighter competitions as a hobby and noted that one of the weights competitors must pull up weighs about 20 kilograms.

Until now, Jelgava was the only place in Latvia where firefighters could train fully for the events. A specialist firefighter tower has now been built in Liepāja, making training available there too. The idea to hold the competition in the city came from Elvijs Lankovskis-Ķeģis, an operational duty officer with the State Fire and Rescue Service’s Kurzeme regional department and a member of Latvia’s firefighter team.

Lankovskis-Ķeģis said he first tried the sport five years ago and found it so difficult that he had to be carried away from the mat. He said many people give up after their first attempt.