Arapahoe County Deputies Compete In World Police And Fire Games
(CBS4) - Two Arapahoe County Sheriff's deputies are representing Colorado and the United States this week at the World Police and Fire Games in China. Deputies Mateo Montoya-Collis and Bill Litweile are competing in what's essentially the first responder Olympics.
Litweiler will test his speed and strength in an event called "The Toughest Competitor Alive." The event involves a wide range of physical tests.
Montoya-Collis will look for yet another gold medal in several track events. His specialty is short-distance sprinting.
(credit: CBS)
Montoya-Collis allowed CBS4 to join him for a training session last month. Although it was his day off of work, Mateo Montoya-Collis arrived at the track at Regis Jesuit High School at 9 a.m. sharp. The veteran sheriff's deputy typically trains five days a week for two to three hours at a time. That's in addition to his full-time job at the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office.
(credit: CBS)
"This is the stuff that nobody sees -- waking up the old muscles," Montoya-Collis said while stretching.
The training sessions start with a warmup and quickly progress to a grueling workout. Then it's time for countless sprints alongside much younger Olympic hopefuls.
"Those dudes, you know, they're going to be running some of them close to 10.9," he said.
"Spain is out there, Germany, Taiwan," He said. "Any country you can think of that has a police force."
"It's a beautiful thing knowing that you represented and did your best to represent your country so I definitely feel blessed," Montoya-Collis said.
When Montoya-Collis reflects on past trips to the biennial event, it's not the medals that stick out in his mind.
"I also want to reach out and have an ally and a friend in a different country knowing that we're trying to make the world a better place because there's a lot of dedicated people who don't get a lot of credit," he said.
