Just One Point In It: Army Units Compete To Be Athletic Champions

Sunshine and blue skies greeted the athletes at the Aldershot Military Stadium for this year's Inter Unit Finals with teams from around the UK and Germany competing to be this year's Major, Minor and Women's champions.

It was a strong Major Units competition with two teams pulling away from the rest of the field, 22 Engineer Regiment and 27 Regiment RLC.

In the end, it came down to the relays with 27 Regiment winning the 4 x 400m relay in 3 minutes 34.61 seconds helped by Private Drammeh, who earlier cruised up in first place in the individual 400m in 50.26 seconds and won the 200m in 22.35 seconds.

Also adding to the points tally for 27 Regt was LCpl McInnis winning the 800m in 2 minutes 05.90seconds and LCpl Tamang winning the 1500m.

In the end, just one point separated the two teams with 27 Regiment the champions on 201 points with 22 Engineers runners-up on 200 points.

In the women’s competition, it was a good day of athletics with five teams entering.

Army Training Centre (ATC) Pirbright did enough to take the title on 74 points, which included Corporal Georgi Price winning the women's 5000 metres in 20 minutes 04.49 seconds which was a surprise to her being her first ever race at that distance.

The runners-up were 5 Regiment Royal Artillery on 69 points.

Three teams did battle in the Minor Units competition with Army Training Regiment (ATR) Winchester winning on 50 points with the runners-up, the Army School of Physical Training (ASPT) on 43 points with Defence Medical Group South East (DMG SE) a distant third on 26 points.

Other notable performances on the day included Private Keston James of 1 Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) winning the Major Units Javelin with a good throw of 50 metres 26 cm, Sapper Bradley Cannon of 22 Engineer Regiment winning the Major Units hurdles in 16.78 seconds.

All in all a great day of athletics. Next competition for the Track and Field Athletes is on Wednesday, June 20 when it is the Inter Corps and Individual Championship at the Aldershot Military Stadium.