Killian back at Best Ranger Competition looking to win
Capt. Robert Killian knows that he has showed up at the 33rd Best Ranger Competition with a bull’s eye on his back.
Killian was on teams that finished second the last two years. The 34-year-old world class endurance athlete does not hide the fact that he wants to break the run of second-place finishes and win the competition that pits 50 two-man teams of elite Rangers from across the Army.
The three-day competition will be held at Fort Benning beginning at 6 a.m. on Friday.
“I am hoping a big thing that will give me an advantage over other competitors is my overall knowledge,” Killian said Monday as teams were going over packing lists, taking photos and getting ready at Camp Rogers, the home base of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade. “… The more times you do it, you develop techniques that get you faster.”
Killian, who lives in Colorado, is paired with Pennsylvania Army Reservist Staff Sgt. Erich Friedlein. The two men have been training at Fort Benning since January.
“This competition is pretty hard to win the first time out because experience is so important and the fact that he has the experience at being as good as he is,” said Friedlein, 31. “Even though I have done it before, I am still learning so much from him.”
It is an endurance event of the highest order. The men will move more than 60 miles in 60 hours, traveling as teams and scoring points along the way. There are no scheduled breaks or sleep times.
The events include unknown distance runs, ruck marches, swimming tests, an urban obstacle course, shooting, spot parachute jumps, rappelling and rock climbing.
This year a Spartan Race for non-Best Ranger Competition athletes has been added to the weekend. The Spartan Race, a high-energy obstacle course over 5 miles, will also be part of the Best Ranger Competition with the Rangers doing it Saturday prior to the scheduled start of the race for military personnel and civilians.
This is a bonus for Killian, who is the reigning Spartan Race world champion, winning the title last year in Lake Tahoe, Calif.
“I know they are not going to weigh that event very high, which kind of sucks,” Killian said. “It is a 5-mile run with 30 obstacles, but in reality they will make a nine-minute event tying knots worth more points because that is somehow how the competition is run. It is what it is.”
Friedlein’s best previous finish in the Best Ranger Competition was 11th. In three months of training, they have worked well together, Killian said.
“I have been told a million times not to physically break my partner,” Killian said. “My running ability and my background with endurance events matches well with his ability to shoot, to do soldiering tasks, put weapons together and tie knots. With his upper body strength for pushups, pullups, rock climbing, I think we are going to work well together.”
Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade Operations Sgt. Maj. Colin Boley, who was part of the Best Ranger Competition winning team in 2004, said the event is as difficult as a competitor wants to make it.
“This is not a hard competition to finish,” he said. “But is an extremely hard competition to finish well. You will see the top three or top five finishers really busted it and finished the events hard. They are the ones who asserted themselves.”
The competition is open to the public.
Chuck Williams: 706-571-8510, @chuckwilliams
This story was originally published April 11, 2016 at 5:32 PM with the headline "Killian back at Best Ranger Competition looking to win."