Military patrol at the 1928 Winter Olympics

At the 1928 Winter Olympics, in St. Moritz, Switzerland, a military patrol competition was held. Because of a snowstorm the night before the competition, the start of the event was delayed 45 minutes to the cleaning up of the track. The competition was contested over a 30 km (19 mi) distance with an elevation difference of 1,100 m (3,600 ft). The starting point was on a height of 2,108 m (6,916 ft), the highest point at 2,877 m (9,439 ft), and the goal in the valley at 1,850 m (6,070 ft).^[1] Nine countries with 36 military patrol runners participated in this event.

The German team.

Referees from France, Italy, Switzerland and Poland

The event was held on Sunday, February 12, 1928. It was originally to be a full Olympic event, but its status was downgraded to that of demonstration sport.^[2]

Place	Team	Time
1	Norway (Ole Reistad, Leif Skagnæs, Ole Stenen, Reidar Ødegaard)	3:50:47
2	Finland (Eino Hjalmar Kuvaja, Kalle Tuppurainen, Esko Järvinen, Veikko Hannes Ruotsalainen	3:54:37
3	Switzerland (Franz Kunz,[3] Hugo Lehner, Otto Furrer, Anton Julen)	3:55:04
4	Italy (Enrico Silvestri, Daniele Pellissier, Erminio Confortola, Piero Maquignaz)	4:07:30
5	Germany (Franz Raithel, Stefan Kistler, Josef Rehm, Ludwig Mayer)	4:15:02 ½
6	Czechoslovakia (Otakar Německý, Josef Klouček, Jan Bedřich, Robert Möhwald)	4:15:07 ½
7	Poland (Zbigniew Wóycicki, Władysław Żytkowicz, Władysław Czech, Tadeusz Zaydel)	4:39:45
8	Romania (Toma Calista, Constantin Pascu, Ioan Rucăreanu, Ion Zăgănescu)	5:00:16
9	France (Marcel Pourchier, R. Mandrillon, R. Gindre, M. Perrier)	5:20:26