Page 86 - RADC 2016

SPORT
The World Medical And Health Games – Slovenia 2016
Major Rich Blake Smith
The WMHG take place each year and see over 2000 Medical Professionals compete across multiple disciplines over a week.
The Medigames present a unique opportunity to compete against your healthcare colleagues from across the World. This year the competition was held
in Marribor, Slovenia. The annual games provide a great focus for the year and offers opportunities across the board whether your sport is athletics, football, golf, mountain biking, squash, tennis or swimming. As an Of cer and Soldier in the RADC maintaining physical robustness is essential particularly where integration into units within the wider Army is concerned.
The week of competition is pitched at exactly the right level to test yourself against your professional peers. You would perhaps be surprised at the overall performance level within the medical community worldwide. There were some fantastic athletes taking part.
I was fortunate enough to win a gold medal in Powerlifting, the 100 metres and 800 metres and took silver in the 400 metres and SuperSprint Triathlon. The week was
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There were some fantastic athletes taking part.
jam packed with sport and inevitably took its toll on the legs.
The event however was fantastically
well organised and had a holiday type atmosphere with social events hosted each evening. Medical CPD lectures were laid on and included Dental topics.
It is not every day you get to swim bike and run with an orthopaedic surgeon,
an endocrinologist, plastic surgeon or a gynaecologist, let alone in one race. I would highly recommend this to the Medical and Dental community at all levels.
Each year the event is hosted in a different Country and the 2017 version is scheduled to take place in Marseille, France. www. medigames.com. If anyone is interested in competing at the World Medical Games then please feel free to contact me to discuss opportunities which at this particular time would be a self-funded venture. Dependent on interest and uptake maybe some funding could be gleaned to reduce personal contribution. In the end, you get out what you put in.