NINE Leweston Pentathlon Academy athletes travelled to Hurghada, Egypt as part of a 52-strong British team that took part in the World Triathle & Biathle Championships for Great Britain, taking eight medals in the process.

The event started with the biathle and triathle mixed relays with the individual competitions taking place on the final two days.

With more than 500 athletes from 20 countries competing, this was one of the toughest championships ever.

Triathle is a continuous laser shoot, swim and run with each competitor going four times through with various distances depending on age.

Biathle consists of a run/swim/run competition with distances comprising of a 400m to 1,600m run. a 50m, to 200m swim followed by the same distance run again, the distances are varied depending on age.

The relays are the same distances as the individual with a female and one male making up the team, age groups starting at under-11 up to masters 70 plus. All the team that competed had to fund their own way to compete.

Day one and two were the relays with two Leweston athletes winning medals in the mixed triathle relays – Nick and Lily May in the under-11 plus Liz Ryan and Toby Aberdeen in the under-13 both took a silver medal.

Day three was the individual triathle and most of the club athletes were taking part. In the under-11 boys, Nick May got through the heats to the final and finished a strong seventh, while in the under-11 girls, Minnie Murphy also had heats and finished 13th in the final before claiming silver as part of the GB team.

In the under-13 girls, four Leweston athletes took part and all made it to the final with Raissa Vickery fifth, Lucy Hatfield seventh, Nikita Miah ninth and Ryan 12th.

Leweston entirely made up the GB team that earned a silver medal.

In the under-15 girls, Jessica Stevens had her best race of the season to take seventh and team silver, while Natalie Hatfield was seventh in the under-17s.

The fourth and final was the biathle and Hatfield was taking part in her fourth race in four days, and had a great race to take individual bronze in the under-17 with a sprint finish against the Egyptian athlete. Hatfield also won team silver.

In the masters’ 60-plus, team coach Mick Flaherty came out of retirement for the day and managed an individual silver.

This was a great experience for the Leweston athletes with a very hot environment to race in.

A club spokesman said: “Thanks go to team manager Howard Jones for his tireless work putting all the admin and trip together, plus Mick Flaherty and Philip Hobbs for all his coaching support especially on shooting.”

Great Britain and Leweston Pentathlon Academy coach Flaherty believes this was an excellent achievement and was a great opportunity for all those involved to take part in a world championships in another great location and different part of the world.

The training and events start again for next year with the first event in the calendar on Saturday, April 13 being the South West Biathle Championships at Leweston School, with a training camp taking place from April 8-13 also at Leweston.

This is the start of the road for athletes hoping to go to next year’s world championships. This event is open to all schools and is a good event for athletes to have a go at a biathle, for further details contact Mick Flaherty via flaherty121@aol.com

n The club will also be running trainingand entering all other types of events including triathlons, the first days are Sunday, December 16 and Saturday, January 5 at Leweston School.

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