The Olympics are over, but there is another kind of Olympic-like international competition going on right now here in Canada.
It’s a friendly competition, but one with a much more serious purpose, in fact life and death.
It too requires a variety of skills, strength, training, and endurance but adds at the very least three other elements missing in the Olympics.
The 2016 International Mines Rescue Competition (IMRC 2016) is taking place this week in Sudbury, Ontario.
Ted Hanley is the General Manager of Ontario Mine Rescue, and is the chief judge at the 2016 competition.
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In addition to all the other Olympic-like aspects of the mine rescue competition, in real life situations rescuers have to deal with wearing and manipulating a variety of often bulky and heavy equipment.
Also unlike the Olympics, they must perform their tasks under the most difficult of conditions including extreme heat, lack of visibility, lack of oxygen, flooding, and so on.
And it must also be noted that there is a large element of bravery added into the equation putting themselves at great risk as rescuers must go deep into a mine to occasionally deal with life threatening situations, including fires, cave-ins, flooding, and so on.
YOUTUBE 2016 COMPETITION TRAILER
Unlike past international mine rescue competitions which have taken place in above ground scenarios i.e. simulations in an arena for example, for the first time actual mines will be used in certain scenarios.
Sudbury has two inactive mines which will be used to provide a much more authentic environment for the competitions.
While this is a competition, as Hanley points out, it’s also a valuable learning exercise as teams can gain knowledge from the experience and techniques used in other countries and other types of mines.
These include, firefighting, extrication, first aid, knowledge of all kinds of mining equipment, and more.
In fact as Hanley points out, this is one of the most important aspects of the competition as a particular new technique or piece of equipment seen at such a competition may well result in teams from other countries being able to save a life in a future emergency.
In addition to the seven teams from mines in Canada there are
- 3 teams from China
- 1 team from Australia
- 2 teams from Colombia
- A team from Goldcorp Americas
- 2 teams from India
- 1 team from Ireland
- 4 teams from Poland
- 2 teams from Russia
- 1 team from Slovakia
- 1 team from Ukraine
- 1 team from the US
- 1 team from Vietnam
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