THE US FEDERAL Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is to ask their agents to pass a fitness test for the first time in 16 years.

The New York Times today reports that FBI Director James B Comey told agents in an October memo that the lives of other agents and the public depends on their fitness.

“The lives of your colleagues and those you protect may well depend upon your ability to run, fight and shoot, no matter what job you hold,” the paper quotes the memo as saying.

Comey added that the agents were symbols of what is “right and good” about America.

“I want you to look like the squared-away object of that reverence. I want the American people to be able to take one glance at you and think, ‘THERE is a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.’”

The fitness tests started at the end of last year and hark back to the days of J Edgar Hoover, who obsessed over his and his agents weights.

The bureau’s 13,500 agents have until October to complete the tests, with agents allowed time to train. The thresholds to pass are nowhere near those for SWAT teams or military commandos.

The Times quotes a Jennifer Schick, a public corruption agent at the F.B.I.’s Washington field office as saying the test is “really not that hard”.

To pass the test, agents must complete four exercises separated by five minute breaks.

For men aged 20-29, the requirements are:

• 38 sit-ups without stopping
• 29 push-ups without stopping
• Run 300 metres in less than 59 seconds
• Run 1.5 miles in 12.29 minutes

For women aged 20-29, the requirements are:

• 32 sit-ups without stopping
• 15 push-ups without stopping
• Run 300 metres in less than 71 seconds
• Run 1.5 miles in 15.05 minutes

For those aged 30-39 and beyond, the requirements drop off slightly.

Think you could pass? We already know that TheJournal.ie writers could pass the the Garda equivalent.

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