By Callum Ludwig
The annual Victoria Police and Emergency Services Games were held from Monday 27 March to Monday 3 April and a Hillcrest CFA volunteer was among the chief medal winners.
Yiota Carabourniotis brought home a whopping six gold medals from the event, in high jump, long jump, triple jump, shot put, javelin and discus.
Ms Carabourniotis said it would be nice to get the word out there about the event and encourage more emergency services personnel to get involved with the event.
“It brings people together, you don’t have to be an elite athlete but you try to get competitive with the other agencies. I know Victoria Police are quite competitive in their own little group and they always try to outdo the other agencies if they can,” she said.
“It shows a bit of support for your own agency as well and working with each other as emergency services is a big thing in a lot of the day-to-day jobs, whether you’re a volunteer or you’re getting paid to do the job.”
The games consist of 41 events, with everything from athletics to AFL, lawn bowls to shooting, and darts to sailing.
Ms Carabourniotis said she has done athletics for 19 years, competing at the state level at times.
“I haven’t competed in an Athletics Victoria season for three years, but prior to that, I was competing every year. Only a couple of my scores at the event were close to my personal best but this definitely made me feel like I should get back to doing this for myself and I’m hoping to compete again,” she said.
“Hopefully next year and all the years to come as well, more people might be interested in doing athletics, but athletics isn’t getting as much as it used to and I was told it used to be a bg thing, and a lot of the other sports had plenty of participation.”
For any emergency services personnel interested in preparing themselves for next year’s event, more information on the games can be found at www.emergencyservicesgames.org.au.
