Golden moment for Leweston

LEWESTON School at Sherborne has been celebrating golden success - thanks to Year 11 student Victoria Halford.

Victoria has assured her status as an international athlete when she came fourth whilst representing Great Britain at the World Biathle Championships in Dubai earlier this month.   

Victoria’s individual performance helped Great Britain to win the Gold medal in the U16 team event and was especially impressive as she was competing with girls a year older than herself.

Last year Victoria brought home a Gold Medal for team GB and this year’s Gold builds on her international success.  This was Victoria’s 6^th successive year representing Great Britain at these World Championships where she first competed in the U10 category.

The event consisted of a 1000m run, 200 metre swim, followed by another 1000m run and the British Biathle Team took home a total of 21 individual and 11 team medals.  The Great Britain medal haul placed the team first in the medal table, their best ever performance and an outstanding result. 

Earlier in the year Victoria was selected for the Pentathlon GB England Talent Pool Programme.  This is the first formal stage of the talent development pathway for athletes in the sport of Modern Pentathlon, which has the ultimate aim of developing athletes to progress through to the World Class Pathway.  

The National Biathle Coach, Mick Flaherty, who accompanied the team to Dubai, has been the Biathlon, Swimming and Modern Pentahlon coach at Leweston since September.

“It has been a pleasure to work at Leweston with some outstanding athletes such as Victoria who I have been coaching since she was 10,'' he said.

''To be more directly involved with her coaching programme at school and with other up and coming athletes who have the talent and opportunity to follow in her footsteps is a rewarding experience.  It is exciting for me as a coach to be given the opportunity to work with the girls at Leweston and to introduce and develop a modern pentathlon and other ‘athlon’ sports programme.”

Mick will be running a Pentalon/Triathlon training camp for 10 – 18 year olds between April 8-12, 2013, at Leweston.  Please contact the school if you would like more information about this event. 

Tags:
News.