They Might Be Curly Giants!

As the curtain draws on one of the most successful and spectacular Olympic Games ever, another event has just begun in the North-western English port city of Liverpool, which by the way, is also home to the most successful English football club, Liverpool FC, and probably the greatest band ever, the Beatles!

What major international sporting event am I talking about? Why, it’s the World Firefighters Games 2008, of course! The 10th edition of the bi-annual Firefighters Games, which started in Aukland, New Zealand in 1990, is being staged in Liverpool from the 25th of this month to 3rd September.

About 5,000 highly-tuned, beefy and brawny firefighters from all over the world will be competing in 60 sporting events (the Olympics had only 38 events), ranging from the traditional sporting events like swimming, marathon running, and wrestling, to the more obscure sea angling, arm wrestling, assault course, bucket brigade, fire house cook-off (mmmm!! yummy!!), fire truck challenge, poker, stair run, toughest firefighter alive, treasure hunt, and the ever popular tug of war.

We might not see an Usain Bolt zooming up the stairs in the stair run, nor a Michael Phelps splashing his way to gold in the open water swimming event. We might not even see a single event on TV, but it’s a very important gathering of men and women from the fire services from around the world in a celebration of sports, camaraderie and unity as proud and heroic firefighters that they are.

I wish I could watch the cook-off because I hear firefighters cook a mean steak! Mmmmm ….