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POLAR PREET INSPIRES CADETS

POLAR PREET INSPIRES CADETS

23 February 2022

  • Kent ACF

*Watch her presentation here*

Tonight over 150 members of Kent ACF were lucky enough to have an up-close-and-personal audience with 'Polar Preet' at 36 Engineers, Invicta Barracks, Maidstone. Between November 2021 and January 2022 Captain Harpreet Chandi skied to the South Pole in an amazing solo expedition that was partly sponsored by BFBS.

Enduring freezing temperatures, white-out blizzards, battered by winds and pulling a 90kg sled for 700 miles over frozen hard snow - she achieved this amazing feat in just over 40 days, nearly creating a new world record for a woman.

Creating history as the first woman of colour to complete a solo crossing on the continent, Preet is also the third fastest skier for this expedition, she is also the first person to reach the South Pole on foot in two years.

Captain Chandi joined the Army Reserves in 2008 (aged 20) and then embarked on a Regular Army career as a Physiotherapist and has served in Nepal, Kenya, and the South Sudan.

She said:

"It's been great to be able to share my experiences with the Kent Army Cadet Force tonight, the ACF's motto to inspire to achieve seems quite fitting and I wanted to talk about how anything can be possible with the right support, training, and mindset.

This expedition was always about so much more than me. I want to encourage people to push their boundaries and to believe in themselves.

You are capable of anything you want. No matter where you are from or where your start line is, everybody starts somewhere. I do not want to just break the glass ceiling; I want to smash it into a million pieces.

I want to say a special thank you to the Army Adventurous Training group, team Army and all of my supporters."