My trip to Latvia

On the 1st weekend of June I went away with 4 friends from my Pentathlon Club from North Kent, to Latvia (one of the Baltic countries) to compete against Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians in an Eastern European, informal Tetrathlon.

The disciplines were 10m pistol shooting, fencing, swimming, and running.
We left on the Friday morning from Gatwick airport and landed in Latvia at Riga airport in the afternoon where we met our English host families. 

The next morning we went to the shoot which was based at Kleisti Riding Centre – which was a former USSR modern pentathlon training base. We then went to the fencing which was unusual because we fenced everyone in the competition including the boys and everyone who was much older than us. 

On the Sunday we started at the swim in the morning. It was in a 50m pool in a fairly modern building.  I was really nervous before the swim, but achieved my personal best at this event. 

After the swim came the run.  Modern Pentathlon has recently changed its rules: athletes over 15 years old now have to run and shoot in a combined event (not shooting whilst running though!) but unfortunately we did not get to do that we just ran 1000m. 

Everyone was aching and sore and tired afterwards, but it was great fun and a worthwhile competition. 
On the last evening we went to the beach (the FREEZING Baltic sea) and all ran in together holding hands, a perfect way to end a perfect weekend. 

Alice Doughty, Year 8