Princess Leonor’s Military Training
Leonor of Spain’s summer holidays ended earlier than usual; on Thursday 17 August, the Princess of Asturias officially became a cadet student of the Military Academy of Zaragoza. Leonor arrived at the Academy with her parents and her sister Sofia. For her, who turns 18 on the 31st of October, it is the first of three years of military training; the second will be at Pontevedra, at the Escuela Naval de Marìn, and the last one in Murcia, at the Academia General de Aire de San Javier. At the end of the course, she will have the rank of Lieutenant in all three military corps. The most emotional one, at least judging by the pictures, was Queen Letizia, who never let go of her daughter’s hand until the moment of goodbye.
The First Days of Orientation
During the first days at the Academy of Zaragoza, Leonor will have an orientation; she will be assigned to her battalion, the cadets’, she will get to know her superiors and her classmates, the other 612 students, of which 140 are girls. Then it will be the turn of the actual training, both theoretical and practical, between simulations and exercises, both individual and collective. Wake-up at 6.30 and classes start an hour later, until 2 pm. After lunch, classes continue until 8 pm, dinner time. Silence at 11 pm. It is also a physical commitment, to which the princess is not completely unprepared.
A Tailored Study Plan
According to Hola!, she has been training for most of the summer at the El Pardo Palace barracks in Madrid. The magazine reports that Leonor did over a hundred push-ups a day, she swam and she practiced a lot of horseback riding, a sport that would not be very much in her favor. All activities suggested by the Physical Education Department of the Academy, also to avoid injuries in the first weeks of training, which are quite common for untrained physiques. For Leonor there will be no special treatment from a practical point of view, but there is a difference with the other cadets: the heir to the throne will follow a study plan tailored for her, which synthesizes the five-year program in three years. A training that will follow the same path as her father. A ritual that Leonor will experience on the 7th of October. A tradition that is repeated, from father to daughter.
