Loddiswell Primary School teams have been regular competitors at the South West Region­al Biathlon for the past three years.

This year they sent their biggest team ever, with no fewer than 10 children and two teachers competing at Mill­field School in Somerset last weekend.

Organised by Pen­tathlon GB, to encourage more youngsters into trying out triathlon and pentathlon events, the biathlon is a two-discipline event consisting of swimming and running.

For ages 12 and under they swim 50m and run 800m, usually with a gap of about one hour in between races.

Competitors score points for achieving times faster than the target times, with the very best competitors scoring 1,000 points or more per event.

The South West Regional Biathlon is also a qualification event for the British Schools Biathlon, which runs in London each spring.

For Gracie Seldon and Jess Baker, this was their third year of competition and both girls pulled out great personal best times.

Jess knocked a massive five seconds off her swim time from last year and seven seconds off her run time.

Gracie pulled off Loddiswell’s fastest swim of the day at 39.13 seconds, and took 18 seconds off last year’s run time, giving her impressive overall points of 1,961 at the end of the day.

Douglas Butler, Sam Brandon and Imogen Kenny were all in their second year of competition and again all three put in great personal best times.

Imogen knocked 10 seconds off her swim from last year, scoring an overall 1,547 points.

Douglas took a really impressive 11 seconds off his swim time from last year. Sam had a brilliant day, taking 13 seconds off his PB swim time and coming in at an amazing 2.51 minutes to take seventh place for his run and score a whopping 1,955 points overall.

The school’s other five competitors, Ben Meek, Arthur Butler, Fin Gordon, Katie Wreyford and Oscar Murray were all competing in their first ever biathlon, with all of them only having started running 800m at the start of this term.

For many of the youngsters it was their first opportunity to swim in a full-size 50m swimming pool before, so it was quite daunting, but they all put in amazing performances and the school is very proud of them all.

Special mention must go to Ben, who ran an impressive 3.07 to score 1036 points in the under 10 age group, and to Arthur who put in a very solid performance in both events and scored 1,502 points overall, also competing in the under 10s.

A quick mention must go to the teachers S-J Baker and Gail Brandon, who were the only two competing in the teachers race.