Basically they took a group of would be recruits (29 in total from all walks of life) and put them through a grueling training program with several instructors from elite special forces units, it was always going to be tough from day one, and some of the challenges were just to brutal that six candidates had dropped out by nightfall.
Now in my youth I was always up for the doing a challenge, strong man competitions, charity runs, Arm Wrestling. I even took part in a charity bed push from Mansfield Town Center to Newstead Abbey and back, and always watched programs like 'Superstars and Gladiators that were very popular.
Brain Jacks achieved more national fame for winning the Superstars then he did for being the first person from Britain to ever win an Olympic medal in Judo.
The spit and sawdust Suprstars was replaced by the lights, camera, action Gladiators that ran for eight seasons and names like The Wolf, Saracen, Jet, and Lightning became household names and celebrities.
Yeah, I used to watch all those programs and say "I could do all that" I have never been one to turn down a challenge although I think the last one I did was swim around the Burg Al Arab in Dubai.
But lets get back to this Ultimate Hell Week, because I thought Ninja Warrior had raised the bar until I watched this, this stuff was a whole new ball game that consisted of hooded interrogation, sleep deprivation then digging a three ton vehicle out of a mud pit and push it 200m up a hill, then being woken in the middle of the night and put through a punishing night of stress positions only to be then dropped in the middle of the Welsh country side and chased by a hunter force.
One by one the instructors broke the recruits down to a final three for selection before they announced the winner, and I am in full agreement with there choice.
32 year old Dr Clare Miller, Yep a female who has my 100% respect. She delivered in a process that saw male male competitors drop out because they could not take the pace, and was determined to prove that women are not the weaker sex.
She was tough and could analyse problems in high stress situations, which is something that the Special Forces do.
Everything she did was executed with precision.
While I was watching this program something changed for me, probably during the episode with the Israeli’s elite counter terror unit or if not that one definitely the Russian special forces episode. And that was that I said to myself yeah, maybe in my youth I could have competed in Superstars and Gladiators, but on the best day ever got out of bed I could not do what she did.
Taking a quote from the 1973 film Magnum Force which was the well known the sequel to Dirty Harry in which Clint Eastwood as San Francisco Police Inspector Harry Callahan says ...
A man's got to know his limitations.
R E S P E C T
