Jo takes pentathlon championship

Nov 8 2012 by Stuart Gillespie, Galloway News

Haugh of Urr’s Jo Muir was crowned British Junior Modern Pentathlon Champion on Saturday.

The 18-year-old, who is studying at Bath University, took the title at Sandhurst Military Academy in Surrey.

She has moved up an age group to under-22 and the first phase of the day was show jumping. After one knockdown and three time faults on a very tight course Jo was lying fifth.

It was then a quick change for the fencing discipline and with 17 victories and 11 defeats Jo moved up into fourth place, leaving her more than one minute behind the leader ahead of the combined shoot and run.

This event consisted of three sets of five targets to shoot down with a 1,000m run between each set. It is Jo’s strongest event and after the third shoot she found herself coming out right behind the leader, who she managed to overtake in the final run.

The final phase was the 200 yard swim, which Jo headed into with a 32 point advantage over second place. She had an excellent swim of two minutes and six seconds to win the competition by more than 60 points. This was an excellent result as modern pentathlon is very strong at the moment in the UK.

Jo is heading to Hungary soon for a training camp in Tata and will be back just in time for the first of the British team selection competitions.