ESTEVAN - Fresh Air Fitness hosted a successful Force Competition on Saturday.
The partner athletic competition where teams of two competed against other teams for the best score and time in four events/workouts was held at Woodlawn Regional Park's outdoor gym.
Twelve teams were entered. The weather co-operated, and mid-range temperatures along with a breeze allowed the athletes to get through the tough workouts without passing out due to the heat.
Russel Purdy and Paul Hansen claimed first place in the men's division, while Fred Sheldon and Gene Stephany came in second.
In the women's division, Jennifer Gervais and Karly Garnier were first, Wendy McNaughton and Jenna Toms of Carlyle came in second, and Casey DeRosier and Chantal Cossette claimed third place.
Peggy Rohatyn, who runs Fresh Air Fitness with Debbie Knight, said they were very happy with the event.
"It was awesome. It was so good. I think everybody enjoyed it. We had a couple of different events and it was really fun," Rohatyn said.
Fresh Air Fitness put out a Force Competition for the first time in 2019 during the Rafferty Rumble. The first experience proved that there was an appetite in the community for this kind of event, but COVID put all further plans on pause until this year.
Once it was clear that the 2022 competition could be a go, Rohatyn and Knight, as well as Jennifer Olfert and Natasha Tinant – who are responsible for the physical challenges program – got together to finally fulfil their long-term plans. They decided to make this year's event more challenging and also agreed to group people into teams, so they would feel better.
The competition consisted of four separate events, in which teams had to perform sets of different force workouts such as weightlifting, squats, lunges, heavy ball tossing, burpees, etc., and in some cases use their mind as well to put a puzzle together while carrying heavy sandbags back and forth.
All events were aimed at testing participants' strengths. For the most part, the 2022 competitions differed from what Fresh Air Fitness had in 2019. And Rohatyn said they hope to grow it even bigger and better going forward.
"We feel that it'll grow next year. Depending on what people want, we might change the date a bit just to maybe stay away from when people are on summer holidays and stuff like that," Rohatyn said.
"[Also] we're hoping to do a mixed team next year … We've got some changes coming, hopefully, and we're excited about it … We'll be new and improved and hopefully it'll grow."
