A young athlete will represent his Newton Aycliffe school in a national biathlon tournament this weekend.
Woodham Academy year 8 student Jake Mendelsohn is preparing to take part in The British Schools’ Modern Biathlon Championships at Crystal Palace on Sunday (20th March).
The national event is organised by Pentathlon GB and athletes have competed in previous regional rounds in order to participate in Championships.
All competitors will do a separate run and swim, with distances determined by age group.
Times for each discipline are then converted to points and the winner is the athlete with the most points after both disciplines.
Jake – a talented athlete who represents both Sedgefield Water Polo Club and the U14 North East Regional Team – currently competes in the U14 age range and must swim 100m and run1600m.
His first event back in October was the Yorkshire U14 Biathlon, which he convincingly won, knocking 20 seconds off his 100m swim.
In preparation for the upcoming Championships, Jake has recently stepped up his training to concentrate on his middle distance running and has shown great commitment to train alongside staff from the PE Department at Woodham Academy every week, developing his knowledge of pace, speed and endurance for this event.
Woodham’s head of PE Mrs Hall said: “Jake is an exceptionally talented student and we are all very proud of him.
“We are sure that the amount of time and effort that he has spent training for these events will pay off.
“He has a natural ability for the modern biathlon and that, coupled with his excellent physical fitness, will stand him in good stead to achieve great success. We wish him all the best!”
