Two of the biggest names in Obstacle Course Racing will go head-to-head this weekend at the BattleFrog Tri-State (http://battlefrogseries.com/tri-state-2014/) event taking place in Englishtown, New Jersey on Saturday. The race will feature elite athletes Hobie Call and Junyong Pak in the elite heat, in what promises to be a showdown of epic proportions between two OCR legends.
Neither Hobie, nor Junyong, are strangers to BattleFrog. Call took first place in the organization’s inaugural race, held in Atlanta, Georgia, in May, and has been in attendance at every BattleFrog event since. Pak raced – and won – the BattleFrog event held in the Greater DC area a few weeks back, getting his first taste of what the race series has to offer. Hobie was in DC as well, but was there purely to serve as motivation for other participants. This weekend, these two OCR titans will both be competing in the elite wave, and looking for a win.

Since bursting on to the obstacle course racing scene in Atlanta, BattleFrog has quickly built itself a reputation for staging fantastic events on par with some of the bigger names in the sport. That reputation has allowed the upstart organization to attract a number of elite athletes to their races, and this weekend doesn’t look like it will be any different. Joining Hobie Call and Junyong Pak at BattleFrog Tri-State will be Elliot Megquier and Matthew Kempson, as well as Mud and Adventure athletes Sarah Podzol and Nele Schulze.

The elite heat will have a bit of an international flair this time out, as a number of top Canadian athletes will also be in attendance. They’ll include Ben Morin Boucher, who chalked up nine wins in 2013, making him Canada’s top rated OCR racer. He’ll be joined by Olympian Marc-André Bédard and Claude Godbout, both of whom compete in the Biathlon on an international level. Godbout also happens to be a world champion OCR athlete who holds several speed records in other American races. Helene Dumais, will also be part of the Canadian contingent. She has currently put together an impressive string of podium finishes in her last ten events.
Registration for BattleFrog Tri-States is still open, but even if you can’t race in the event, the showdown between Hobie Call and Junyong Pak, not to mention the American and Canadian racers, will be worth watching from the spectator area. The elite wave will take off at approximately 8:00 AM on Saturday, immediately following the customary singing of the National Anthem, and helicopter flyover, which mark the start of every BattleFrog race.
