21 March 2024 Media Release: GRDM Senior Firefighter Emile Conrad and Team Triumph at Aramco Firefighter Challenge 2024

Media Release: GRDM Senior Firefighter Emile Conrad and Team Triumph at Aramco Firefighter Challenge 2024

For Immediate Release
21 March 2024

Garden Route District Municipality (GRDM) proudly congratulates Senior Firefighter Emile Conrad alongside his wife Bonita, also a firefighter at GRDM and two other firefighters, Baigum Abrahams and Alno Kroon from the City of Cape Town, for their performance at the Aramco Firefighter Challenge 2024.

This challenge was held in Saudi Arabia earlier this month.

The Aramco Firefighter Challenge brings together firefighting professionals, enthusiasts, and teams from across the globe. This year’s event attracted over 87 000 people, including 314 firefighter competitors. Of them, 117 were from 29 different countries.

The South African team participated in the individual as well as the mix-relay challenges.

Conrad secured a 3rd place in his age category and ranked 9th overall. His female team member, Baigum Abrahams’ won a silver medal in stair-running and a 1st place overall in her age category. The other two teammates also performed exceptional and represented RSA well.

“The competition is unique in a sense that all the competitors live and travel together, which in my opinion brings them much closer, so the impact of learning from one another and building camaraderie is much more amplified. We learned a lot from the fellow competitors and how they do things in Saudi Arabia,” said Emile.

Overall the performance of the South African team was exceptional, ‘we made some new friends and met up with old friends we met at the previous competition’, Conrad concluded.