Ellesmere Celebrates Tremendous First Year in Pentathlon

The Ellesmere modern pentathlon club, based at Ellesmere College, has had a fantastic first year competing in the Biathlon, Modern Pentathlon and sports associated with Pentathlon GB.

The club was established due to the demand for the sport in the county and is supported by the local sports partnership Energize and Pentathlon GB. The club began life as an 8 week programme, which has now grown into weekly coaching sessions for swimming, shooting, fencing, and running. The club currently has 30 members.

Rachael Hares, Development Officer for Pentathlon GB, said "The initial idea was to provide a few taster sessions for the children interested in the sport, but as the number grew the opportunity for a club became ever more apparent. It's really pleasing that we have participants from all over the County and as far as field as Wolverhampton coming to train and compete".

"The overall goal is to provide individuals with the opportunity to train and progress into competitions such as the British Schools Biathlon Championships and the National Tetrathlon".

This training programme is proving very effective, improving performances and generating excellent results across all fields of the competition. The club has just taken delivery of two pistols supplied by Pentathlon GB and 10 new fencing starter kits with scoring systems, which have been kindly donated by parents and the alumni from Ellesmere College.

At the Shropshire Closed Fencing Competition held this weekend, the team - who were competing for the first time - came away with three gold, two silver and one bronze medal.

Shooting Academy Coach, Tom Rylands, said "The support we have had is tremendous; the club is a great opportunity for children not generally interested in one sport to experience and compete in three to four different disciplines. We now have the capacity to enhance our fencing coaching with this new kit, and the results we have had at competition level demonstrates the level of the children at the club.

Members of the Ellesmere Modern Pentathlon Club returned with an impressive haul of six trophies in the West Midlands Regional Biathlon Championships. Ellesmere College student Shannon Davies qualified for the British Modern Triathlon Championships after impressing at the Pentathlon GB Midlands regional competition and a number of the athletes from the club, including Shannon, now attend the English Talent Programme for pentathlon. Weekly training sessions take place at Ellesmere College throughout the year.

For anyone who is interested in joining the club please contact tom@rylands.me.uk or Rachael.hares@pentathlongb.org

25th June 2014  Back to News