Captain Harpreet Chandi, popularly known as Polar Preet, made history by being the first woman of colour to trek to the South Pole alone and unassisted. She is a 32-year-old British Sikh Army officer and physiotherapist of Indian descent.
After travelling 700 miles (1,127 kilometres) while pulling a pulk or sledge with all of her equipment and surviving temperatures of - 50 degrees Celsius and wind gusts of approximately 60 mph, Capt. Chandi announced her historic victory on her live blog on Monday at the end of Day 40.
Capt. Chandi said, “I made it to the South Pole where it’s snowing. Feeling so many emotions right now. I knew nothing about the polar world three years ago and it feels so surreal to finally be here. It was tough getting here and I want to thank everybody for their support.”
She further said, “this expedition was always about so much more than me. I want to encourage people to push their boundaries and to believe in themselves, and I want you to be able to do it without being labelled a rebel. I have been told no on many occasions and told to ‘just do the normal thing’, but we create our own normal.”
She posted daily updates as well as a live tracking map of her journey to the snow-capped area.
“Day 40 – Finished. Preet has just made history becoming the first woman of colour to complete a solo expedition in Antarctica,” reads her blog's final entry
She added, “you are capable of anything you want. No matter where you are from or where your start line is, everybody starts somewhere. I don’t want to just break the glass ceiling; I want to smash it into a million pieces.”
As a Clinical Training Officer in a Medical Regiment in the northwest of England, Capt. Chandi's main responsibility is to organise and certify Army medic training.
She is now studying for a part-time master's degree in Sports and Exercise Medicine at Queen Mary's University in London. She's been lugging two massive tyres around for polar training to replace the huge sledge she's been hauling around in Antarctica.
“It definitely feels colder in the last degree where I’m at higher altitude. I haven’t seen anyone here in the last degree and now I’m 15 nautical miles from the South Pole. I can’t believe I’m almost there,” read her entry from the day before her milestone, which was written on Sunday.
Capt. Chandi says she's always wanted to test the human body's boundaries, and she sees her current position as an opportunity to do just that.
As a "endurance athlete," she has competed in marathons and ultramarathons, and as an Army officer, she has participated in large-scale exercises and deployments in Nepal, Kenya, and, most recently, a six-month UN peacekeeping operation in South Sudan.
Before departing for the South Pole in November, she declared, “anything ambitious can feel out of reach at the beginning but every bit of training I complete brings me closer to my goal. My training expeditions in Greenland and Norway have helped prepare me and my goal is now in reach.”
