Fire brigade sport is a common sport in parts of Europe, with a growing body of popularity. In sports science, no research has been carried out in this field up to date. In consequence, there are no structures for talent scouting in firefighting sports. "100 m obstacle course" is one out of the four disciplines in this sport. For an efficient scouting of talents and training in general the necessary conditional and coordinative abilities must be identified. Dynamic balance, short sprint and motor differentiation ability seem to be promising abilities for determining completion performance.
In 16 elite female fire brigade athletes the Purdue Pegboard Test for motor differentiation ability, a 23 m sprint for basic speed and Backward balancing, representing dynamic balance, were performed. Those results were correlated to the completion performance of those athletes to identify the highest influencing factors on performance in this discipline.
The testing of the 23 m sprint shows the strongest correlation coefficient with r = 0.81. The dynamic balance ability shows a correlation of r = 0.63. Little correlation was observed to the motor differentiation ability (r = 0.18).
A first step was made in identifying necessary abilities for improving performance in the "100m obstacle course" and thus for a performance structure in fire brigade sports. Basic sprint abilities seem to be the most influencing factor on competition performance.