Dear friends,

As I understand, all of you know two kinds of firefighters involvement in sports.

First is playing tennis, football, hockey and so on.

Second - competitions like Firefighter Combat Challenge.

But in former Soviet Union and some East-European countries where the Firefighting Service used to be mainly the state one and paramilitary, professional training and competitions were transferred into real sport and a thing called Firefighters and Rescuers Sport or Fire-Applied Sport has appeared.

You can see the photos in my album. Video of one of the world championships can be seen here

http://www.interfiresport.com/eng/photo_31.html

Special sport wear and originally firefighters and rescuers operations producing with sportive speeds.

For example, a usual result for a high class competitor to climb on a four-floored training tower, which is 14 meters high, with a hook-ladder, from one windowshill up to the next one - 14 seconds, records are 12 seconds.

There are even master of sportive sciences degrees for Fire-Applied Sport.

So if Firefighter Challenge competition is still competition in professional skills Fire-Applied Sport is a sport competition though competitors are firefighters and rescuers (their special exercises are not yet competed while main international events in FAS). Of course, those who compete in international and grand national competitions are more sportsmen then firefighters and most of their time is training, not firefighting duties. And not all of students and juniors involved in training and competitions become then firefighters and rescuers.

But FAS is a sport discipline practically for all firefighters and rescuers, sport extension of their professional training, based on it. And such training and competitions are part of their life.

I am now among those who suppose that this beautyful sport should become the Olympic one.

As for me I think that it is worth of that not least then curling for example.

But for that it has to become popular worldwide.

Is that necessary, how do you think?