BRISTOL, Tenn. – The athletes were primed – even those bundled in scarves and blankets against the morning cold.
The competition field was ready – adult-sized tricycles on the field, water buckets on the track and innertubes in the pool.
And the stakes were high – third-year bragging rights in the YMCA Corporate Challenge, a citywide competition to encourage people to
exercise more and adopt healthier lifestyles.
To win, the 46 teams needed to exercise more often than their competition, lose more weight and participate in just about all of the
creative athletic events in the fitness competition staged Saturday at Tennessee High School’s track and pool.
‘They really took it to the next level this year,” YMCA membership director JoAnne Marshall said of Saturday’s competition. The challenge
had only 28 teams last year, Marshall said, adding that the groups in this year’s challenge were not only greater in number but greater in
enthusiasm.
The YMCA started the corporate challenge three years ago to get members of the community looking at ways they can lose weight, get more
exercise and live healthier lives.
“We have got to change our lifestyles,” Marshall said, adding that Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia have one of the highest
obesity rates in the country. Losing weight is a difficult task to accomplish alone, she said, but it’s relatively easy if done in a
situation where people work as part of a team, like they do in the corporate challenge.
The two-month challenge started Sept. 21 and ended with Saturday’s fitness competition, a track-meet-like affair that featured a 4-by-400
relay, a tricycle race, a triathlon that included sack, jump rope and three-legged races, and a tug-of-war challenge. The competition then
moved inside, for a two-person relay swim (any style), an innertube race, and the competition-ending belly buster off the diving board.
Honors were awarded for best splash, best crowd reaction and best style.
Teams earned points for participating in each event, and even more points for winning. The points were added to two other measures for the
challenge – total team weight loss over the 10 weeks and the total number of 30-minute workouts, although only one workout a day per person
could be counted.
Marshall said the challenge’s participants logged a total of 21,998 workouts and lost a combined 1,863 pounds.
The top three overall teams were:
* 1st place – The Strongwell Corporation’s “Super Stackers,” with a total of 135 points;
* 2nd place – The Bristol Tennessee Public Schools’ “Anderson All-Stars,” with 124 points;
* 3rd place – The Bristol Regional Medical Center’s “Fatback to Sizzlean,” with 123 points.
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