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Preet Chandi 2013.
Harpreet Kaur Chandi was born in Derby in 1989. With an ambition to become a professional tennis player, she trained at a school in the Czech Republic before returning home and completing her education. At 18, she took up marathon-running then ultra- marathons on her doorstep in the Peak District.
After serving as a soldier in the TA, Chandi
attended TA Professionally Qualified Officers’
course 132 and was commissioned from
Sandhurst in July 2013 into the Royal Army
Medical Corps as a physiotherapist. Since
then, she has deployed with the UN mission
to South Sudan. In 2019, she completed the
Marathon des Sables, a gruelling 156-mile
ultra-marathon across the Sahara Desert. In
November 2021, she travelled to the other
extreme of the planet to attempt a solo trek
to the South Pole. Starting at the Hercules
Inlet, she pulled a sledge containing 48 days
of provisions which initially weighed 90kg for
the 700-mile distance. During the journey she posted blogs, which soon became a national sensation, including one after the first week, which she said was the longest time she had ever been on her own. Preet completed the journey in 40 days, becoming the third-fastest woman to complete the challenge. For her exploits, she was awarded an MBE in the 2022 Birthday Honours.
In November 2022, Preet set off on another Antarctic challenge to become the first woman to walk solo and unaided across the whole continent. Skiing for up to 15 hours a day and battling temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees and winds of up to 60 mph, she fell agonisingly short of the target. However, when her support team calculated the distance she had travelled, it was a new world record for the longest solo expedition in the Antarctic, covering 922 miles in 70 days. Christened ‘Polar Preet’ by the media, it can only be a matter of time before she breaks more records.
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