The Boot Camp Challenge has entered another dimension. The obstacle course (OCR) from Vigo has been classified as a qualifier for the World Championships (OCR World Championships), which is held every year in the United States. Due to a lag in dates, he not only obtains this seal for the future but also retroactively: the top ten men and women classified in the elite category in 2022 will be able to go to the Californian town of Mammoth Lakes in October 2003. “This gives us a very powerful prestige. It will increase our impact on everything”, celebrates David Suárez, CEO of Diesemm, the organizing company.
OCRs are on the rise. Even its immediate inclusion in the Olympic program as a demonstration sport is debated. It would be in the modality known as ninja, a purer mix of crossfit and running, to the sprint. The Boot Camp Challenge tested this alternative on Saturday, October 1, as a prelude to the main test on Sunday. “We already saw where the shots go,” explains Suárez. The bet will be accentuated in 2023.
But the Boot Camp Challenge, one of the pioneering OCR events in Spain, remains equally faithful to its long version: more than 30 colorful obstacles located along a 6.5-kilometre route on the sand, the pine forest and the urban facilities from Samil. The setting has been one of the attractions that have captured American attention.
RCOs do not have an official international federation. That World Championships is the most prestigious event. It has been unanimously accepted for years as the unofficial World Cup. Its managers scrutinize the planet to choose which careers They serve as a filter. Between 5,000 and 7,000 competitors who have previously gained access attend the World Championships, always in the United States although with a variable venue –in 2022 it was held in Vermont–. “They do not give away the registration,” warns Suárez.
In Diesemm they received a communication from OCR World Championships revealing that the Boot Camp Challenge was under review. They already had videos of the race. They asked for information about the social and corporate project that accompanies sports. “We show them that we are more than a race, as we always say,” David Suárez boasts. Yesterday, after several months of process, they gave their approval. Vigo will be one of the qualifying tests; in Spain, the country that hosts the most OCR races in Europe, barely a dozen can boast of it.
triple ticket
It so happens that the World Championships takes place a few days before the Boot Camp Challenge. So the race from Vigo will become one of the first sieves of the season. And it already has been. The ten best women and the ten best men from last October, in the elite category, will be able to compete in the World Cup. Starting in 2023, the Boot Camp Challenge, which was already qualifying for the Galician and Spanish championships, will also distribute tickets in the age category.
It is a key accolade for a sporting event that is moving towards its ninth edition. Its participation record stands at 2,000 athletes popular –with more lax rules– and 200 elite. It will be in this group that an impulse will be palpable. “Now all the people of Galicia and the surrounding area will have this extra incentive,” says the CEO of Diesemm, who is the founder of OCRA Galicia: the association that governs the eight obstacle courses that are held in the community: “We are interested in everyone do very well. We favor sport with events of interest”.