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Whistler Firefighters Raise over $1,200 for Huntingdon’s Disease Research

Members of the Whistler Fire Dept. Combat Challenge Team participated in the‘Grind in the City charity stairclimb in Vancouver on Sunday, April 8, an event seen as the kickoff to the Combat Challenge competition season.

Members of the Whistler Fire Dept. Combat Challenge Team participated in the‘Grind in the City charity stairclimb in Vancouver on Sunday, April 8, an event seen as the kickoff to the Combat Challenge competition season.

The event consisted of a 34-storey stairclimb in the Bentall Tower on Dunsmuir Street, with an Open Division for contestants in shorts and running shoes, and a Firefighter Division with participants wearing full structural firefighting gear. Contestants raised money by soliciting pledges from the public, with all funds earmarked for Huntingdon’s Disease research.

Huntingdon’s Disease is an inherited degenerative nervous system illness.

Whistler contributors got their money’s worth. The four Whistler competitors posted respectable times, with Jocelyn Harvey setting the pace with a time of 6 minutes, 12 seconds. Normand Harvey came in at 6:46, with Andrew Hanson posting a time of 7:10, and Evan Bryn-Jones coming in at 7:22.

Once done, some Whistler participants ran the course a second time, actually improving on their first, official results, and one even ran a third time, tallying 102 storeys for the day. The team raised more than $1,200 for the cause from local and Vancouver supporters. Donations are still being accepted at the Whistler Fire Hall.

The next event for the Combat Challenge Team is the Go Hard or Go Home event in Tacoma, Wa on May 19, followed by the B.C. Regionals in White Rock on May 27.

Combat Challenge competitions pit participants against a course containing a variety of firefighting tasks. It is a timed event and is dubbed the "Toughest Two Minutes in Sport."