When Darrick Graff describes his preparation for the recent Scott Firefighter World Combat Challenge, he uses an appropriate analogy.
“It’s really a Rocky versus Drago feeling,” he says, referring to the movie Rocky IV, in which the title character trains on a budget while his opponent makes use of every technological advance imaginable.
It’s certainly true that Graff, a Flin Flon native who now works as a firefighter in Thompson, lacked the training luxuries of many of the big-city firefighters against whom he competed.
But just as Rocky brought down Drago, Graff earned a more-than-respectable result at the challenge, finishing 50th out of about 400 international participants.
“You know, it’s good,” says Graff, 27, when asked how he feels about his finish. “I would have liked to have done a little bit better, but it’s pretty good for some of these departments that I was going up against.”
Graff competed in the solo portion of the challenge, held Nov. 3-9 in Phoenix, Arizona, racing through a tiring obstacle course in one minute and 31 seconds, just 12 seconds behind the first-place winner.
Not only was he the lone northern Manitoban at the competition, he was the only Manitoban period.
Stations
The obstacle course saw him race through a series of job-simulating stations, from carrying a 45-lb hose pack up six flights of stairs to dragging a dummy that weighed as much as a grown man.
Though there were prizes on the line, Graff says that wasn’t the point.
“It’s more to really push yourself,” he says. “It gives you something to strive for. Obviously it’s competitive. There’s a lot of bragging rights involved.”
This was Graff’s fifth time at the international challenge. He first entered in 2009, when he was still a volunteer firefighter in Flin Flon, and resumed his annual participation after joining the Thompson Fire Dept. in 2011.
He became a firefighter because the variety and sense of contribution appealed to him.
“I worked in the mine in Flin Flon forever and, not to take away from that or anything, but it was just the same thing every day,” says Graff. “But with this job, it’s something new every day. You get to give back to your community, which is great, and you work with some good people who are all there for the same reason. It’s good teamwork, good environment. It’s good to be able to give back.”
