Aurora has had a number of former, current and future Olympic-caliber athletes pass through in recent years and the city may play a part in the search for the next ones as well.
The United States Olympic Committee and 24 Hour Fitness teamed up to create the Next Olympic Hopeful program, which will find one male and one female athlete in four sports — skeleton, bobsled, track cycling and rugby — through a series of national tryouts and cutdowns to earn spots in U.S. national team training camps.
The Aurora location of 24 Hour Fitness at 15900 E. Briarwood Circle (Parker-Arapahoe Super Sport) is site of one of the competitions, which runs from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. June 24.
Preregister to compete online at 24hourfitness.com/NextOlympicHopeful.
The California-based 24 Hour Fitness and the USOC recently renewed a partnership and looked for something that could be mutually beneficial. They believe they’ve found it in the Next Olympic Hopeful program, which will be run out of select clubs in every state in which there is a 24 Hour Fitness.
In the initial contests, participants go through a battery of tests for strength, mobility and endurance, needing to meet the parameters the USOC has determined for anybody hoping to make the teams in skeleton, bobsled, track cycling and rugby. Tests include 30- and 10-meter sprints, a medicine ball toss, vertical jump and bike watt test to measure peak power, with 24 Hour Fitness professionals overseeing the testing.
The male and female who emerge in each sport from the Aurora location will advance into a pool of qualifiers from across the country, a group that will be narrowed down to 100, 50 men and 50 women, who will be invited to spend five days at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
Competitors’ journeys will be chronicled on a NBCSN show airing in August entitled “Scouting Camp: The Next Olympic Hopeful.” One male and one female in each of the four sports will be crowned the winners and will earn invitations to the national team camps in their respective sports.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. FB: Aurora Prep Sentinel
