Pentathlon GB have announced that the British Modern Pentathlon Championships will be held at their National Training Centre at The University of Bath in 2017. The Championships, to be held on the 3rd & 4th of June, will be an Open event for Junior and Senior aged athletes. The best pentathletes from across Great Britain will be competing against each other including Rio 2016 quartet Kate French, Samantha Murray, Joe Choong and Jamie Cooke.
The University of Bath has a rich history when it comes to modern pentathlon with Pentathlon GB’s National Training Centre being based at the university since 1998. In the following 18 years, 5 Olympic medals have returned to the university, starting with Dr Steph Cook’s gold and Kate Allenby’s bronze at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
In addition to becoming British Champion, the men’s and women’s winners of the British Modern Pentathlon Championships will be selected for the 2017 Senior European Championships to be held in Minsk.
The Junior British Champion (ages 19-21) will be selected for the 2017 Junior European Championships which will take place in Barcelona.
The Championships will be open for the public to watch with spectator initiatives planned to encourage people to both watch and try a new sport.
The British Modern Pentathlon Championships headline a busy domestic calendar with The British Youth Pentathlon Championships being held on the 24th & 25th June in Solihull, the home of many of our competitions. The Youth Pentathlon Championships will see many stars of the future in action with athletes aged from 11-18 competing to try and become British Champion in their respective age groups. The popular Masters age category (35+) will also compete on the same weekend.
With Pentathlon GB the governing body for events in modern biathlon, modern triathlon, modern tetrathlon, biathle, triathle and laser-run as well as modern pentathlon, there are numerous other British Championships to be held in 2017.
The first of these will be the British Schools’ Modern Biathlon Championships at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre on the 25th & 26th March. The Schools’ Biathlon Championships will see around 1,500 athletes of school age competing in a separate swim and run competition format, an exciting introduction to multi-discipline sports. The Championships are the culmination of the 2016-2017 modern biathlon series with athletes qualifying for the event at preliminary competitions throughout the country last autumn.
Modern triathlon involves swimming followed by a combined laser-run and the 2017 British Championships will be held at Tudor Grange Leisure Centre in Solihull on Saturday 30th September and Sunday 1st October. The British Modern Tetrathlon Championships, which includes adding the fencing discipline to the modern triathlon, will be held at the same venue on 22nd & 23rd April.
The British Biathle Championships, which have now become a core part of the Pentathlon GB calendar, will be held at Salford Quays on Sunday 30th July. Following a successful inaugural event last year, the British Triathle Championships remain at Leweston School in Dorset – a Pentathlon GB Academy – and will be held on Sunday 9th July. GB athletes have performed extremely well in these two formats internationally in recent years, including at the 2016 World Championships where the team claimed 23 medals to finish 3rd in the medal table.
The final National Championships of 2017 will be the British Modern Biathlon Championships on 25th & 26th November at Tudor Grange Leisure Centre. The Championships will form part of the 2017-18 Modern Biathlon Series and see athletes of all ages competing for the coveted title of British Champion.
Report courtesy of Pentathlon GB
