“Realistically, my goal next year is [to place in the] top five – then, hopefully, the year after I’ll be there.
“The standard of competition, even year on year, is just getting crazy.”
Firefighters wear a full kit while competing, including a mask, helmet and air cylinder.
They have to climb six flights of stairs with a 20kg hose pack, haul a 20kg roll of hose up the side of the tower, replicate a forcible entry with a mallet, drag a charged hose and hit a target, then drag an 80kg dummy 33m to the finish.
In Nashville, Grant posted 1m 23s to qualify for the final and followed it up with a 1m 24s, finishing 10th overall in the Division 1 Under 40 category.
He finished eighth in the men’s and co-ed tandem events.
Grant said the Firefighter Challenge League had been ramping up in the US over the last few years, with a push to get airtime on ESPN “and turn it into something kind of like the NBA [US National Basketball League]”.
Last year, he took a break from sheep shearing in the UK to help out at the US championships.
“It was pretty cool to see how far they’re pushing it.
“Obviously, I wasn’t eligible to compete, but they let me have a couple of runs.”
There were more than 400 firefighters from 22 countries at this year’s championships, including 20 from New Zealand.
“The more exposure we have to that level of competition the better, really. It strengthens the competition back home.”
Grant said many American athletes trained on custom-built towers nearly identical to the one used for the world championships.
The Durie Hill Tower in Whanganui will be one of his training courses over the summer.
“My parents live in Turakina, so I can just pop over to train.
“I’m there in my full kit and I get some funny looks, for sure, but you just have to do as much as you can with what you’ve got.”
Grant, who has served as a firefighter at the Linton, Waiōuru and Ōhakea New Zealand Defence Force bases, said he came in at 2m 02s on his first run in the sport but managed to get down to 1m 49s the next time around.
“The time for what they call the ‘Lion’s Den’ [international standard] is 1m 40s – 100 seconds – and I remember thinking, ‘How the heck am I going to shave off nine seconds?’.
“Now, I reckon under 1m 20s is definitely possible.
“I’ll keep doing the circuit here in New Zealand and see where we go from there.”
Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present, his focus is local government, primarily Whanganui District Council.
