Pickleball, basketball gold for Austin Fire at Texas Firefighter Olympics

AUSTIN, Texas - The Austin Fire Department competed in the Texas Firefighter Olympics last week and won gold in two of the games. AFD is now home to the best firefighter basketball team and firefighter pickleball team in Texas.

The Texas Firefighter Olympics is an event where firefighters from across the state come together to compete in a bunch of competitive sporting events to raise money for different charities. This year’s games were in New Braunfels.

"With it being so close here in New Braunfels, we have just a huge showing from the Austin Fire Department in the Olympics," said Martin Robertson, an AFD Firefighter.

Robertson competed in this year’s games and also coordinated Pickleball to be played. It was the first time the sport was played at the Texas Firefighter Olympics.

"It was really exciting just to be able to be back, you know, competing and playing again," he said.

In pickleball, 35 teams competed from fire stations across the state. In the intermediate division, an AFD team took silver. In the advanced division, AFD took gold, silver and bronze in doubles.

Robertson and his brother, a fellow AFD firefighter, were the ones to take the gold medal in Pickleball.

"It was really cool," said Robertson.

Pickleball was not the only sport the Austin Fire Department won. The basketball team also did well. AFD’s basketball team took home the gold medal for AFD.

"Just seeing, you know, just the amount of talented athletes that we have here in the Austin Fire Department was just really cool," said Robertson.