Four Plymouth College athletes have been selected to represent Great Britain in the Biathle World Cup Tour this summer.
Jessica Manning (14), Edward Smart (13), Oliver Smart (12) and Annabel Denton (11) won their places on the British team after meeting the qualifying time in their respective age categories in the South West Biathle Championships in April – Oliver picked up a 1st place, Edward 2nd, Jessica 7th and Annabel 13th. All four have been invited to compete in the continuous run-swim-run, multi-nation event series in Italy in June and Portugal in August.
Oliver competed in the World Cup Tour last year bringing home a gold and silver medal for Great Britain. More recently he secured a top 5 finish in the British Schools Modern Biathlon Championships, in which Edward and Jessica finished in the top 15. Annabel also competed in the event. A couple of weeks later, Jessica was part of the Plymouth College U17 team to take bronze in the British Triathlon Championships; she was placed 8th individually as was Annabel in the U13 event.
All four athletes are modern pentathlon scholars.
“I am really pleased to see these young athletes get the chance to represent Great Britain,” said Plymouth College Director of Modern Pentathlon, Andy Hill. “They have put in some good performances so far this season and it is great to see them rewarded in this way. There are still a couple of qualifying competitions between now and June so we may see some more of our athletes selected for the national team.”