A team of four Eastern Kentucky University students will put EKU in the national spotlight June 30-July 2 when they compete in the 2016 Battlefrog College Obstacle Racing Championship on ESPN.
The competition, which was filmed during Spring Break, will air Thursday, June 30, from 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. (a change from the original 8 p.m. time), and the following two nights from 8 to 9 p.m., all on ESPN.
Brandon Jones, Addison McCoy and Keira McEvoy, all from Richmond, and Jeana Denton, Ashland, comprise the EKU Obstacle Course Racing Team. Only 16 teams nationwide qualified to compete.
“It’s a great achievement and great showcase for this club to represent our university on national television,” said Justin Raymer, assistant director of competitive sports and camps for EKU Campus Recreation.
According to a recent blog entry at On My Way to Sparta by competitive obstacle racer Jeff Cain, McCoy and McEvoy got their first taste of obstacle racing at the 2015 Tough Mudder Kentucky and began looking for further adventures. When Battlefrog’s call for Season 2 applications went out, they gathered some friends and submitted a video that convinced Battlefrog to invite them to Atlanta for the mid-March competition.
The EKU quartet prepared for the event with a mixture of running, bodyweight exercises and CrossFit. “This was the first time,” Denton told Cain, “that I had fallen in love with a sport in a long time.”
Now, as the blog noted, the group has plans for future races, including Spartan Race Indiana, Battlefrog Louisville, Mud Guts & Glory, and potentially the 2016 OCR World Championships.
Brian Clark, assistant professor of recreation and park administration at EKU, is the club’s sponsor.
To view a video preview of the televised event, visit https://vimeo.com/171898228.