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Dr Alan Porter, a specialist in heat illness and a retired GP, said the death of Graham Holmes, 23, at the end of a training run in full battle kit in 1998, could have been avoided. He said the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst has failed to acknowledge the risks and failed to train commanders to deal with soldiers who collapse. He added that it could be open to a legal challenge.

Two weeks after Mr Holmes died in July 1998, after being made to run and march alternately over a 9.6km course, carrying 40lbs (18kg of equipment, five of his colleagues had been admitted to hospital after similar exercises, one to the intensive care unit.

A year later, four ambulances called to Sandhurst found four soldiers in various states of collapse and 20 who said they felt unwell because of the same exercise.

An inquest last year into the death of Mr Holmes, who was 6ft 2ins and weighed about 14
stone, found that he had collapsed with heat exhaustion at the end of a short run nine months before he died. He was never declared unfit to resume training.

Dr Porter, who has studied marathon runners for 14 years, said the key difference with soldiers was that they train in full battle dress, which prevents their sweat evaporating and
cooling them down. That Sandhurst goes to great lengths to ensure cadets on exercises
drink enough water and do not become dehydrated is a "dangerous distraction from the
real issue", he said. 

Dr Porter, whose views are published in today's issue of The Lancet, said yesterday: "The key problem is that if you give someone 18kgs to carry and strap two weights called boots to their feet and make them alternate fast marching and running, they will be fine if they are naked. But they are not naked or even semi-naked. This soldier was wearing double clothing [long trousers, a T-shirt and a combat jacket as well as a pack, rifle and helmet].

"If you can't lose heat through sweating your core temperature will rise," he said.

At the inquest, the Army defended the exercise on the grounds that soldiers could be flown to a war zone such as Kosovo where they might have to march in a hot climate.

Dr Porter said the argument, although "superficially plausible", does not stand up. "I have asked two military audiences to give me an example of when in warfare - ancient or modern - laden foot soldiers dressed and equipped for battle have had to alternate fast marching with running for any distance. I have yet to be offered an example," he said.

The soldiers who carried their equipment across the Falkland Islands during the 1982 conflict never faced the same risks because "yomping" is a less intense form of exercise.

Dr Porter said that Mr Holmes's life might have been saved if he had been undressed and sprayed with water to cool him down when he collapsed. Instead, he was left fully clothed, although he was offered water to drink. He added: "I have great admiration for the training provided by the Royal Military Academy but, on this one programme, they are wrong and obstinately wrong."

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: "It is tragic that this cadet lost his life, but the Army has to train hard to provide the service required of it. We monitor our training fastidiously and take all the precautions we can."