New Year’s Challenge: Sports Competition in Camp Slim Lines

Szöveg: First Lieutenant Béla Papp | 2014. január 13. 9:00

The sports competition named ‘New Year’s Challenge’ was organised in Camp Slim Lines, Pristina, besides continuous work during the holidays. The Hungarian and Portuguese soldiers serving in the joint KFOR Tactical Reserve Manoeuvre (KTM) Battalion compared their dexterity, skills and knowledge altogether in twelve events.

One of the events was tug-of-war

The right choice of tactics also constituted part of the contest, as the team-leaders could send their best members in each event. They had to consider however that only a previously set amount of time was available for them for each task, moreover there was also an event where all team-members had to take part.

Six teams – two Hungarian, three Portuguese and one of mixed-composition – embarked upon the New Year’s Challenge with 15-15 soldiers. In the contest, there were football, volleyball, tug-of-war, gummy-rolling events included, but there was an event also, where the correct Portuguese and Hungarian equivalent of English words and expressions was required. They could also try out the Portuguese game named “malha", where from a distance of 20 meters they had to hurl a metal disc at a target object trying to knock it down, or get the disc nearer to it.

Water ditch on the obstacle course

The two most trying events (as being a military competition) were naturally the obstacle race and the running. Three soldiers per team had to get through the obstacle course – the most difficult obstacle element was traversing a neck-deep ditch filled with water by a temperature of around 0 degree Celsius…

In the running race 11 persons had to enter from every team. Each team-member had to overcome the track designated within the camp – once, while six-six racers had to do the second lap, which was closed by the best runner with an extra lap. The race was made even more difficult, that they had to run in uniform, boots, equipped with arms, similarly to the Hungarian patrolling competitions.

One of the teams of the Hungarian infantry company, the ‘Charlie’, finished on the third place, the Portuguese team of the ‘Alfa’ company was placed second, while the mixed composition team won the gold medal.