Sam Weale

He missed his chance to qualify for the Athens 2004 Olympics when he suffered a stress fracture to a bone in a foot a month before the qualifying competitions. He missed two years of competition because of the injury.

Weale also produced a terrific performance to win bronze at the World Cup in Millfield, Somerset in March 2008 – his first World Cup medal. After 12 hours of intense competition, he was just beaten to silver by Italy’s Nicola Benedetti in a sprint finish at the end of the 3k run.

He ended 2008 fifth in the World Cup rankings, but didn’t compete in the World Cup Final following his knee operation.

In 2008 Weale also became the first British male pentathlete to reach the finals of each World Cup event of the year for a decade.

He was ranked 22nd in the overall world rankings at the year end, making him the highest ranked British male pentathlete

Weale made a bright start to 2009, finishing fourth at the International Budapest Cup in Hungary at the end of February – a competition run using the combined run/shootformat.

He followed that up by winning the men’s titleat the Bath International in March with a personal best points total of 6044. He went into the run/shoot in second, 13 seconds behind Ondrej Polivka (CZE),but crossed the finish line 20 seconds clear of him.

Then in May he finished agonisingly close to the medals in fourth at the third World Cup of the year, in Budapest - the second best World Cup result of his career.

Weale produced a solid all-round performance two weeks later at the Rome World Cup, going into the run/shoot in third place before dropping down the field to end the day in 12th. That performance meant he finished the 2009 World Cup season ranked eighth.

Weale has a degree in Sports Technology from the University of Bath and combined studying with training at Pentathlon GB’s High Performance Centre at the University. He now trains full-time and is on Pentathlon GB’s World Class Podium Programme

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