Lisa Gervais trains at Badlands Training Centre. (Photo Courtesy Chris Brown)

By Chris Brown

'top 10 would be awesome'

City officer to compete at World Police and Fire Games

Jun 21, 2022 | 3:41 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Five days a week, three hours a day you’ll find Lisa Gervais at Badlands Training Centre.

She’s climbing, lifting and running on her way to the World Police and Fire Games July 22-31 in the Netherlands, competing in CrossFit.

“I’ve set some goals for myself to work on gymnastics and to consistently hit high-rep gymnastic movements and I hope that my training with hitting those high-rep gymnastic movements hopefully maybe I place, you know top 10 would be awesome,” she says.

Gervais, currently a constable and an operator with Medicine Hat Police Service’s Tactical Arrest and Control Team, says there will be about 130,000 police and fire services athletes competing in more than 60 different sports.

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Her interest in the Games was sparked immediately after joining MHPS in 2018. Around the same time, she got into powerlifting, representing Team Canada on four occasions and breaking provincial, national and world records.

She went further back in her athletic life when applying for the Games.

“Prior to that was CrossFit,” she says. “So I kind of got bored of powerlifting and decided ‘you know what, I’m going to try doing CrossFit.'”

She first took that sport up about 10 years ago after the birth of her second boy. She says at the time she weighed around 300 lbs and knew she had to change her lifestyle to keep up with her growing boys. She tried CrossFit, fell in love with the sport and competed there for six years before switching her focus to powerlifting for four years.

Brittny Jordan is a friend and training partner. Gervais also calls her a coach.

She says Gervais’ transformation over the past 10 years has been amazing.

“Being a woman and conquering the goals and losing weight getting self-worth is just awesome in itself,” Jordan says. “So seeing Lisa do that and put forth is, yeah, really amazing so she keeps on putting in the great effort and it shows.”

Gervais is also getting support from her gym, which has run raffles and a membership promotion to help with the costs of the trip to Rotterdam. General manager Dallas DeMan calls her a “rock star” and says there’s no better representative.

“Imagine being a 10- or 11-year-old girl come in here and see Lisa and Brittny working out, just role models all the way right. Really polite, always happy to share their wealth of knowledge with the younger generation for sure,” he says.

Gervais admits she’s nervous and doesn’t really know what she’s getting into at the games. But says a lot of policing is being mentally and physically prepared for anything that comes your way.

“You could walk into a mental health call where someone’s suicidal and you’re in the fight of your life you just you have to be ready and prepared mentally, physically to take on anything that comes your way.

She’ll lean on that to calm any nerves in the Netherlands.

“With CrossFit you just never know what your workouts are going to look like and you have to be physically ready to just take on whatever they throw at you and I think that I’m going to be there,” she says.