Te Puke’s Cooper Purdie twice held an individual world record at the recent World Firefighter Challenge in Texas, and twice had it taken off him.

Competing in the Junior Firefighter/Explorer category of the challenge he exchanged best times with Canadian Zack Giesbrecht who eventually won the category, snatching the world record from Cooper, who finished second.

The punishing firefighter challenge, which ran from October 20-25 in the US, has been dubbed the hardest two minutes in sport.

Five elements

The challenge has five elements: climbing a six-storey tower carrying a length of 70mm 19kg hose; hoisting a 70mm hose coil six storeys, chopping using a 4kg shot hammer to drive a beam 1.5m, extending a charged hose to knock down a disc and dragging a life-sized dummy for 30.5m.

Cooper was there with his mother Jodi Purdie, who also competed and who won gold as part of the over-40 women’s relay team as well as five bronze medals.

One of those bronze medals was in the co-ed mixed tandem that Jodi and Cooper did together as a mother-and-son team.

In her individual run, Jodi placed fourth, two places higher than she did at the world event two years earlier where Cooper was alongside her but too young to compete.

Both mother and son are members of Te Puke Volunteer Fire Brigade.

Cooper Purdie and his mother Jodi Purdie after her son’s two world record setting runs. Photo / Jeffrey Jones

The next world event is in Las Vegas next year, and both are keen to have another go.

“I did want to get on that podium, so I’m going to have to go again,” Jodi said.

Best time

Cooper’s best time was one minute and 57 seconds.

He’ll still be young enough to compete in the Junior FF/Explorer category in 2026 when some of his fellow participants this year will have moved on.

He became good friends with Zack, despite the rivalry, and they teamed up to set a new world best time for a tandem run.

It was a feature of the event that there was plenty of camaraderie among competitors, with many of the adults helping the younger athletes with advice and guidance.

“A lot of people made the comment that it’s such a nice sport because, although you’re competing and trying to get PBs [Personal Bests], everyone’s helping everyone,” Jodi said.

“And everybody celebrates everybody. I think because everybody knows how hard it is, when someone does something exceptional, they celebrate it.”

Tough track

Jodi said while each element of the course has set distances, it was “a tough track”.

“It was hot and the gradient of the concrete and the way it was set up, the hose drag was slightly uphill, which meant the dummy drag was slightly downhill – which was a danger as you are more likely to fall, so that was definitely tough. Most people weren’t hitting their PBs – just a few people made it not look hard at all.”

Now back home, there has been little time for rest – last weekend it was the Gizzy Combat Challenge, a local firefighter challenge competition.

The Purdies will also enter upcoming competitions in Taranaki and Northland before the United Fire Brigades Association North Island and national competitions in April and May 2026 respectively.

Cooper is hoping to better his best time at those UFBA events, using the earlier events as training and to improve.

“I’m trying to get more muscle mass,” he said. “A lot of the people in America, that helped them, they were bigger.”

The excitement

He also learned a lot in terms of technique and experience from the other athletes and got to see how meticulous the elite athletes are when trying to get the best time possible.

Jodi also intended to continue competing.

“The excitement gets you,” she said. “I just need to prevent injury. To carry on I definitely need to get a better programme and probably a trainer and a physio.”

Cooper has also signed up for next May’s Firefighter Sky Tower Challenge and said his main goal for that is raising money for Leukaemia and Blood Cancer New Zealand.

After the world challenge, during a visit to New York, Cooper heard he’d been named as one of the Te Puke High Schools two sports leaders alongside Hayley Dodd.

He would also be part of the school’s touch team at the secondary school nationals and the Tauranga Moana under-18 touch team.