Spanish Servicepersons are Pitted Against 30 Countries in Finland

National military penthalon team members (Photo:Central Board on Physical Education and Sports)

Staff Sergeant Jiménez on the obstacle course (Photo:Central Board on Physical Education and Sports)

Corporal Majada throwing a grenade (Photo:Central Board on Physical Education and Sports)

The national military pentathlon team has taken on 30 other countries –from Africa, North and South America, Asia and Europe- in the world championship of this discipline held from 13th to 20th August in Lahti (Finland).
 

In the general classification, the national team occupied sixteenth place.  The efforts of Staff Sergeant Francisco J. Jiménez Sánchez (Royal Guard), Corporal Francisco J. Majada Coito (12th Armoured Brigade ‘Guadarrama’), Corporal Jonatan Echedey Santana, Private Aday López Abellán and Private Aaron Medina León (all from 16th Light Infantry Brigade ‘Canarias’) were in vain in the attempt to place our country in a more visible final place.  At the individual level outstanding was the fine performance of Sergeant Miguel A. Vaquero Agama, from Garrison Support Unit ‘Hoya Fría’ (Santa Cruz de Tenerife), who managed to take third place on the podium in the cross-country event. 
 

The team trained by Sergeant Major Víctor Viguera San Pedro (Canary Island Command), of relatively recent creation, in addition to the high level of the rival athletes, it also had to face a couple eventualities:  the chance interruption during shooting by Private Medina (winner of the international pentathlon tournament held in June), which did not allow him to score; and a severe one hundred point penalisation for the same athlete on the obstacle course, due to stepping on a lane division line on a curve. 
 

Military pentathlon consists of the disciplines of shooting (300 metres), obstacle swimming, obstacle course, grenade throwing and cross-country.