The winner in men’s category is a member of the Croatian Navy, Ensign Ante Jovi\u0107, who ran the fastest time along an exhausting 40-km competition route in the \u201cGakovo\u201c Training Range and in Grubi\u0161no Polje (consisting of 11 work posts and 13 control posts) carrying the 17.6kg full kit.
The first runner-up was Private Zvonimir Tadejevi\u0107, a member of the Special Forces Command, and the second runner-up was Sergeant Dalibor Vondra, member of the Intelligence Division.
The most successful competitor in the Allied\/partner category was French Sergeant Major\u00a0 Lionel Melinard (of JFG Naples).
After the qualifiers in VHS firing, the competition was kicked-off for a total of 145 competitors,a among whom\u00a0 112 members of the Croatian Armed Forces and of\u00a0 a number of representatives of the armed forces of Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Germany, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, Slovenia, Denmark, the U.S., France and Italy.
In the audience waiting at the finish line in the courtyard of the \u201cBartol Ka\u0161i\u0107\u201c Secondary Schoold in Grubi\u0161no Polje\u00a0 were the Deputy Defence Minister\u00a0 Tomislav Ivi\u0107, Deputy and Envoy of the Chief of the General Staff of the Croatian Armed Forces,, Major Drago Matanovi\u0107, the Assistant Defence Minister\u00a0 Zoran Pili\u010di\u0107, the commanders of the services of the Croatian Armed Forces and other representatives of the Ministry of Defence and of the Armed Forces,\u00a0 NATO ACO CSEL, Sergeant Major Davor Petek, the representatives of the diplomatic corps and of the participating countries.
“The competition has demonstrated that the Croatian soldiers were ready for any challenges placef before them, well-trained and capable of enduring all physical and psychological efforts\u201c, said the Deputy Defence Minister\u00a0 Tomislav Ivi\u0107,\u00a0 who also underlined that the international character of the competition added to its high reputation.\u00a0
The competitors were supported by the residents of Grubi\u0161no Polje, who had also the opportunity to see the static display of the weapons and the equipment used by the Croatian Armed Forces ( the Patria, MRAP and M-ATV vehicles and the MiG-21 flight simulator. The members of the Honorary Company of the Honorary Battalion performed a ceremonial sequence, and the members of the Military Police an exercise with the working military dogs. Also presented were the military study programmes of the Croatian Defence Academy and the voluntary military service.
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The victory ceremony held in Grubi\u0161no Polje on 12 May 2016 closed the Best Solidier Competition 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4698,"featured_media":36112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n