FDNY and NYPD vie for bragging rights
in Long Island City CrossFit competition
The FDNY Barbell Club participates in the NOBULL CrossFit Open at Gantry CrossFit in Long Island City. Photos by Gabriele Holtermann
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | MARCH 4 - MARCH 10, 2022 17
BY GABRIELE HOLTERMANN
Competing for bragging
rights, the FDNY Barbell
Club and NYPD CrossFit
kicked off the opening day
of the 2022 NOBULL Cross-
Fit Open at CrossFit Gantry
Gym in Long Island City on
Feb. 24, 2022.
While the FDNY and NYPD
have had other friendly sporting
competitions, it was the
first time New York’s bravest
and finest duked it out in the
world’s largest CrossFit-specific
competition presented by
Northwell Health.
NYPD Captain Ronald
Perez and FDNY Barbell Club
president and firefighter Ricardo
Roman emphasized
that the event was not about
competition but to highlight
the brotherhood between the
two departments.
“This has been a really
hard year for both departments,”
Perez said. “We’re
going to compete for bragging
rights but there’s a lot of
unity going on here and a lot
of people don’t see that. And I
think that it’s important that
people need to see that.”
Ricardo Roman added that
the fierce workout prepared
them for the intense work situations
firefighters and cops
face daily.
“We don’t know what’s
coming at work. So this is a
way to stay prepared,” Roman
said. “It’s a moment for both
departments to come together
in unity.”
First up, eight top athletes
from the FDNY Barbell Club
and the NYPD CrossFit Team
— with NYPD in dark shirts
and FDNY in white shirts —
went head to head. The athletes
compared their stamina
and strength, completing as
many rounds as possible of
three wall walks, 12 dumbbell
snatches and 15 box jumpovers
within 15 minutes.
Jay Hachadoorian, the
owner of CrossFit Gantry,
was excited to donate his
space and time for the event
featuring first responders.
“As a New Yorker, I feel
really honored to be able to
do something for both NYPD
and FDNY,” Hachadoorian
said. “Especially with, you
know, so much of what we
see is sad, and this is a really
amazing thing.”
Psychologist Dr. Steven
Well touched on the mental
health aspect of CrossFit.
Well, who works with city,
state and federal law enforcement,
explained that the most
significant part of CrossFit
was the camaraderie and the
sense of belonging, which
helps with depression, anxiety
and suicide prevention.
“In law enforcement, when
somebody is suicidal, we’ll either
ignore it or we’ll leave it
to someone else to handle,”
Dr. Well said. “In CrossFit,
it’s picked up right away.
‘Something’s up. What’s going
on?’ So, they don’t just
look and say, ‘Oh, you know,
he’s depressed.’ They know
this person as the whole
person.”
The main event featured
FDNY Firefighter Chris
Torres and NYPD Detective
Paul Delanoy. Both are highlevel
athletes and Torres
placed 35th in the worldwide
occupational open in 2021.
Cheered on by the crowd,
both first responders showed
off their fitness level to spectators
during a seemingly
grueling 15 minutes.
While the FDNY Barbell
Club came out on top, it was
a close race with 288 total repetitions
for the FDNY Barbell
Club to 284 for NYPD Cross-
Fit.
The CrossFit Open is the
world’s largest participatory
sporting event, where hundreds
of thousands of athletes
worldwide compete against
one another from their local
gyms in a three-week competition.
Each week, new tests
are announced to challenge
athletes in areas like weightlifting,
gymnastics and
metabolic conditioning.
Top finishers from the
Open advance to virtual
quarterfinals, then live semifinal
events in 10 countries
across the globe, and finally
the NOBULL CrossFit Games
in Madison, Wisconsin, from
Aug. 3-7, where the top athletes
compete for the title of
Fittest on Earth.
Learn more about the
CrossFit Games at games.
crossfit.com.
A member of the FDNY Barbell Club performs dumbbell snatches.
FDNY Firefighter Chris Torres and NYPD Detective Paul Deloney
perform box jump-overs.
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