Volume 2, No. 12. June 28, 2002
A good
sport
What started as a training and camaraderie tool for its lifeguards has turned
into an annual event for triathletes at Wild Rivers Waterpark in Irvine, California.
The Wild Rivers Waterpark Challenge, run in conjunction with an annual 5K race
at the park and its adjacent property, requires competitors to run through Wild
Rivers taking on every slide and ride.
The
program was championed by Jon Colletti, Wild Rivers’ controller, who ran
track and cross country in college. “I like running,” he said, and
as a former lifeguard he enjoyed the park’s olympics. With his knowledge
of organizing such races he teamed with the park's operations staff to turn
the waterpark into a fun-filled steeple chase. Competitors start in groups of
three every 15 seconds from the Hurricane Harbor bodyboard wave pool. Swimming
and then running out through the waves they wind through the whole park, swimming
through the Monsoon Lagoon wave pool, climbing towers and sliding down racing
slides, body flumes, tube slides and chute rides.
“When we started talking about opening it to the public three years ago, I couldn’t believe we were going to do it,” said Kevin Kopeny, director of operations. But competitors came aplenty. Last Saturday’s third annual running drew 500 contestants, twice the number that took on the two-mile course last year. “Everybody is already talking about next year,” Kopeny said Saturday afternoon just hours after competitors ranging in age from 7 to 69 tackled the two-mile course.
Michael
Collins, 36, won the $500 first prize for men with a time of 12:10, 35 seconds
off the record run & slide last year, and 29-year-old Julie Swail bested
all women with a time of 13.55. More impressive was the man who took the $250
second place prize in the Waterpark Challenge, Brad Kahlefeldt, a 22-year-old
from Australia, who earlier had won the 5K race.
That
is one of the unexpected benefits the park has realized in opening its in-house
Lifeguard Olympics competition to the public. Triathletes from near and far
are descending on Wild Rivers to compete, and the local media is noticing. “It’s
good for the waterpark, and for the waterpark industry, because it positions
us as a physical activity, and not just a fun place for families,” Kopeny
said.
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