Excellence is achieved through hard work, perseverance and commitment to be the best. These traits were clear for everyone to see as South Africa’s fittest soldiers took part in the 10th SA Army Fittest Soldier competition in Potchefstroom from 4-9 September.

The SA Army Intelligence Formation is presenting this year’s competition with the School of Tactical Intelligence and 1 Tactical Intelligence Regiment executing the event under the organisation of commanding officer, Col Johan Brandsen.

The competition focuses on challenging soldiers in various aspects needed to perform at their optimal level. A water crossing, intelligence-based obstacle course, agility T-test and an endurance walk are among the challenges.

Lt Col Louis Janeke, stationed at SA Army headquarters, is the competition director and focuses on the competition elements and whether the protocols are executed.

The main aim of this competition is to test the fitness of the soldiers in their respective categories. The SA Army decided to test the soldiers in a competition that validates the tag of SA Army’s fittest soldier.

“Soldiers need to pass a normal fitness test to be able to compete in this event.

This includes the normal push-ups and sit-ups with a 2.4-kilometre run, as well as testing their battlefield readiness,” said Janeke.   The intelligence     surprise test took soldiers through various obstacles such as tyre flips, jogging with a tripod, climbing over tyres, leopard crawling with a kettlebell and so forth.

“The main idea is to mix up different challenges to break up the rhythm. You cannot specifically prepare for the event,” said Janeke. “When we started the competition in 2007, 126 soldiers competed. Now Z 10 years later Z there are 300 soldiers in different categories. There are men and women of every age category where high standards are met,” he added.

Soldiers are awarded points for each item based on their category, finishing position and difficulty level. The weight attached to each challenge is then multiplied.

An example would be if a soldier came first in push-ups he would get 100 points, but if a soldier came tenth in the endurance walk then his score would be multiplied by 8 because of the difficulty factor involved.

One of the highlights of the competition is the endurance walk that takes     place on Thursday (8 September.)

“This is where generals and senior officers walk 15 kilometres in the training terrain with a 15-kilogramme backpack. This is one of the exciting parts of the competition and it always amazes us to see their level of fitness.”

Photos: Wouter Pienaar