Military Sports Teams

[Levin]

I just read Inner Ring's coverage of the Tro Bro Leon which was won by Corporal Damien Gaudin of Armée de Terre (whose riders are all enlisted men).

Are there any other current militaries that have teams in professionally organised sports? I realise that this might be a little vague as I remember that teams like Steaua and CSKA were 'army' clubs during the cold war but the players weren't really in the military, or am I misremembering?

[ursus arctos]

Military Sports Teams

The players on the Warsaw Pact club teams (which covered all team sports) had active commissions, but generally weren't living in barracks.

The French have always been big on this, in part because of a long tradition of national service. For example, the current French biathlon team almost all have active commissions in a military or quasi-military (customs police, gendarmes, etc) unit.

Here's Simon Fourcade in his military uniform



Italy does this with "minor" sports, with the fiscal police (Fiamme Gialle) hosting a number of world class fencers, etc. They also used to field a team in Women's Serie A. Here's a photo of their 4 x 100 relay team