Some Basic Facts

Birthday	01/07/86
Age	25
Coaches	Jan Bartu, Philipp Waeffler, Fritci Foldes, Katy Burton
Training Base	University of Bath

PBs

Discipline	Score	Date	Event
Fencing	964
Swimming	1396
Riding	1200
Combined EVent	10:33.40

Career Highlights

Year	Event	Result
2012	World Championships	10th
2012	World Cup #2	6th
2012	World Cup #1	6th
2011	World Cup Final (Olympic Test Event)	Bronze Medal
2008	Beijing Olympics	25th
2007	World Cup 5, Poland	Bronze Medal
2006	World Cup 2, Mexico	Bronze Medal
2004	Youth World Championships	Gold Medal

How I grew into Pentathlon

I was introduced to swimming when I was two and half years old. My Mum was very keen that I should not grow up afraid of the water. I was too young to have swimming lessons so my Mum took me to the pool with my two brothers. At the age of 5, at the first opportunity, I started swimming lessons and then joined Wellington Swimming Club in Telford. Swimming would be my focus until the age of 14.

While I was in nursery Mum took me along to the school running club and then I joined the cross country team at Dawley C of E Primary School. I joined the Telford Athletics Club and trained with them twice a week for 2 years.

At 10 I did my first biathlon (run, swim) and loved it. I went on to do more biathlons and even the odd triathlon (swim, bike, run). From there on I had my eyes on multi disciplined events and started to put a bit more of my time back to running.

Meanwhile my riding was developing. When I was 3 my Mum took me to a friend that taught riding lessons but after about 2 years I stopped going. When I was 7 I started riding again, this time at a local yard and 4 years later, after having two loan ponies, I bought my own horse. She was a skewbald with a lovely temperament. Because my Mum and Dad didn’t know much about horses I joined Pony Club so that I learned properly. At Pony Club I was introduced to pistol shooting so that I could take part in the Pony Club Tetrathlons.

We went to the National Indoor Shooting Centre at Aldersley to try 10m air pistol shooting and after the 20 minute boring safety instruction (relative to an 11 year olds eagerness to get hold of a gun), of course loved it. Which 11 year old let lose with their own pistol wouldn't!?

Having had all the instruction for four of the five disciplines by 11, I did my first tetrathlon in 1997 (swim, shoot, ride, run). I competed in Pony Club tetrathlon for 2 years at which point my Dad introduced me to the idea of adding another event, fencing. I am sure I must have been thinking he was joking. Not at the thought of another event but I was 13 and my parents were actively encouraging me to shoot guns and play with swords!

I went to the Much Wenlock Fencing Club, only 10 minutes from home, which is where they hold the Much Wenlock Games. It was on these Games that Pierre de Coubertin based his idea for the modern Olympic Games.

Only having been to 6 fencing sessions I competed in my first pentathlon in 1999, which was the National Championships, where I came third. I continued to train in all five events but almost gave up on fencing, as coming home every week from fencing club beaten up with bruises wasn't the most fun. I decided to carry on and I soon became the inflictor instead of the inflicted. In 2000 I won the National Championships and was asked to travel abroad to represent Great Britain for the first time in Germany and Switzerland.

 

I have represented GB every year ever since and in 2002 I competed across 3 age groups. That year I came 6th in the European Championships in Paris. In 2003 at 17 I moved to a Pentathlon Sports Academy in Durham where I continued to train for all the disciplines alongside my A levels. In 2004, at 18, I had my biggest success, when I became Youth World Champion in Albena, Bulgaria.

The same year I moved to the National Training Centre in Bath to focus on Pentathlon. A year and a half later in 2006 I won my first World Cup medal, bronze in Acapulco. The following year I won another World Cup bronze in Poland and, with Olympic qualification less than 4 months away, that gave me a great confidence boost.

In the 2008 Beijing Olymics I achieved 25th place. In doing so I broke the Olympic swimming record for modern pentathlon but was just beaten to the touch by Amro El Geziry.

On returning from Beijing I moved to Cardiff to resume my education and undertook a degree in Economics, while continuing to train at Bath.

I produced the best result of my career in front of a home crowd in Greenwich Park when I won Bronze at the 2011 World Cup Final, which was the Test Event for the London Olympics.

Since then I have spent the last 12 months concentrating on achieving my goal of qualifying for the London 2012 Games. I am currently ranked no 8 in the world and am very well placed to qualify.