Biathlon (From News Shopper)

Biathlon

9:49pm Friday 3rd February 2012 in Opinion & Blogs

Last year, Cobham Hall girls Chloe, Teresa and Billie participated in the Schools Biathlon Competition, reaching the final at Crystal Palace coming 4th nationally.

This year, Chloe, Teresa and Justina will be competing in the biathlon again. They have already competed at the regionals, which took place in Kent, where they came 1st as a team. They were also placed individually and have qualified for the semi finals which will be on the 5th February at Crystal Palace. Hopefully, they will qualify for the finals.

In each race, they will be running 1500m then swimming 100m. They have to do it under a certain time and if they go over that time, points will be taken off, so is very important to get the right training. They train twice a week swimming for 2 hours, swimming about 2500m. For running, they run around the school grounds once a week. They also do many after school activities to keep up their fitness.

According to Chloe, “it is a great experience to get involved with, you grow close together as a team, and you learn how to support each other while training and on the day.”

She definitely recommends other people to get involved in biathlon. She said “It’s a very good experience, the feeling of competition and professional environment - it’s something you don’t get every day. It also feels really good when you win. You feel that you have achieved something, that your effort wasn’t wasted. But also don’t forget, even if you didn’t win, the experience you have gained can’t be learnt from a classroom.”

Everyone gets nervous on the day. Chloe talks about how she and her team deal with it. “We talk to each other and remind ourselves that it’s a fun experience, and don't get too stressed out about it because if it gets into you, it might affect your performance. So just be there to have fun and show them what you got.”

“It has inspired me to do pentathlon in the future.” Chloe said.