Military Ski Patrol, Men

At the 1928 Winter Olympics, in St. Moritz, Switzerland, a military patrol competition was held. Because of a snowstorm the night before the competition, the start of the event was delayed 45 minutes to the cleaning up of the track. The competition was contested over a 30 km distance with an elevation difference of 1100 metres. The starting point was on a height of 2,108 meters, the highest point at 2,877 meters, and the goal in the valley at 1,850 meters. Nine countries with 36 military patrol runners participated in this event. The event was held on Sunday, 12 February 1928. The Norwegian team won comfortably, with almost a 4-minute margin over Sweden. There was quite a gap in level in this event, as France almost 1½ hours behind the winning Norwegians. Several members of the winning team competed in other Olympics events. Reidar Ødegård competed in cross-country skiing at St. Moritz in 1928. Ole Reistad competed in the pentathlon in athletics in 1920, while Ole Stenen would return at Lake Placid in 1932 to compete in Nordic combined and cross-country skiing. They were not unique from this event, as the Pole Bronisław Czech is the only known Olympian to have competed in five different sports (or disciplines), competing in Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and the military ski patrol. He would become a resistance fighter during World War II, and sadly died from typhus while held at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.