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“By the time you get to the 50th floor you’re ready to throw yourself out of the window!”
That was the take on the gruelling Sky Tower Challenge by Warkworth’s new Fire Fighter of Steel champion Simon Manawaiti.
Manawaiti was a member of the Warkworth Volunteer Fire Brigade team that competed in the annual challenge on August 20.
Each year around 1000 firefighters from all over the country don their gear and head up the iconic 328-metre tall Auckland landmark to raise money for charity. This year, the event raised $1.3 million for people living with blood cancer.
While the standard climb of 51 floors is hard enough, this was Manawaiti’s fifth attempt at the excruciating Fire Fighter of Steel event. This involves competitors being fitted out in their gear weighing around 25kg, including breathing from a heavy steel cylinder, and climbing an extra nine floors to the higher observation deck before their air runs out. About 100 firefighters attempt this difficult and exhausting category each year.
The Warkworth team was almost the last team to take to the stairs around 1pm, which gave them a clear indication of the times they had to beat.
“One of the hardest things is not being able to wear headphones for those 60 floors because you lose your focus,” Manawaiti says. “You have to keep an eye on the clock.”
Manawaiti kept a mental note of the times he had to be under at floor 15, 20 and 30 to have a shot at the title. He came out on top with his climb time of 14 minutes and 1 sec.
Training for the event had seen the team running up Conical Peak in the high range behind Matakana, while Manawaiti also got stuck into rowing, stair climbing and cycling.
Fundraising by the team started last December with selling Christmas trees. By the time the challenge rolled around they had raised $16,885.
The event was an emotional one for the whole team, after the death just a few days earlier of long-time team member at the Warkworth station Gavin Noyer – Crumb or Nord to his mates – from leukaemia.
Noyer’s image was displayed among others on one of the walls at the start of the climb and the team dedicated their climbs to his memory, making the win a particularly poignant one for Manawaiti.
