True Grit

“Pentathlete Jenny McGeever overcomes adversity at French Open”

One of the most satisfying moments of my coaching career came 2 weekends ago, when one of our Excelsior athletes came 13th overall in Paris.

Jenny had been on a training camp with Pentathlon Ireland in Italy. She caught budget airline Vueling to Paris, who kindly lost her bag.

Now, here is what was in that bag:

• Swimming costume and cap
• Swords, breeches, helmet.
• Riding boots.
• Pistol.
• Running shoes, shorts and vest.
• Contact lenses.
• Tolietries, underwear (girls get especially concerned about this stuff).

It would be easy to quit at this point. I know many people who would. Not Jenny. She begged and borrowed kit so that she could compete.

Swimming in a borrowed costume, fencing in borrowed kit and sword: she was in the overall lead after two events.

(You may remember I wrote a post a while back as Jenny made her International debut for GB. This Mid Devon resident has since switched to Ireland.)

2 down, 3 to go

Riding next, and this was a bit more difficult in oversized borrowed boots: tricky to feel the horse, so she lost a couple of points here.

The last event is the combined run/ shoot. This starts with the pentathletes using a laser pistol, aiming at a target 10m away. They have 50 seconds in which to hit the target 5 times, then run 800m and repeat.

As you can see, Jenny uses contacts when shooting. However, she had to use her glasses for the shoot. She tried running, with them, but they kept falling off.

So she ran without them and was getting dizzy due to her bad eyesight! She was also using a borrowed pistol.

She set a personal best despite this.

Jenny’s run is pretty good now, but the shooting is what drops her down to 13th from the overall lead. However, it is improving at every competition.

Funding madness

Now, when it comes to funding, do you want to give the money to someone in the “pathway” where in the words of the GB performance director a “culture of mediocrity” is being created?

Or, do you want to give it to someone who can overcome adversity and is continuing to improve?

I have been coaching Jenny for over 5 years now. From schoolgirl fencer to World Cup competitor and London 2012 hopeful to aspiring Modern Pentathlete.

Someone said to me this week “she’s a talented girl“. I disagree. Jenny is a good overall athlete, who is very well organised, trains like a dog and makes sacrifices. 

I have seen far more “talented” athletes squander their potential through being disorganised, lazy and wanting everything handed on a plate to them.

This Modern Pentathlon competition was a big leap forward for Jenny. I will be supporting her throughout.

Credit goes to Tiverton swimming club and Wellington Swords fencing club too for their support and coaching.