GB athlete to start town's green challenge run

An 18-year-old Great Britain athlete has said she is looking forward to starting a fun run ahead of the Reading Half Marathon.

Carys Westcott, from Reading, is a Team GB Biathle champion with multiple junior world and European medals.

She will get runners under way in the town's Green Park Challenge ahead of the half marathon on Sunday.

Ms Westcott said she has "never started a race before" but hopes that "it will be good fun".

She explained she knows lots of people doing both runs.

"It will be really nice to be able to cheer them on afterwards," she added.

"It's really good fun, especially at the end when you get to go into the stadium, it's usually quite thin on the ground about 09:00 GMT but it is still a really great feeling to have people cheering for you."

After excelling at the biathlon, she switched to the triathlon but said "it wasn't easy".

"Basically, all you have to do is ride a bike but I did crash about four times, so it was harder than you might think," she added.

Ms Westcott is at Reading Abbey School and preparing for her final exams.

She wants to go to the University of Leeds as she said they "have great facilities".

Like many athletes she has been inspired by the Olympic medal-winning triathletes, the Brownlee brothers.

She said: "It's incredible how they managed to balance the sport and academics.

"I think you hear a lot of stories of sports people who focus only on sport and for me it's really important to do well in my exams because I want to think about life after sport.

"When they realised it wasn't feasible to go to another area of the country to study they basically started up the triathlon hub at Leeds University and that's where they trained."

Ms Westcott explained that this year "has been a big step up" as she changed age groups compared to last season.

She said: "Basically the distance doubles so it's a big difference."

Her dream is to take part in the Olympics which she said would be "fantastic because it is the pinnacle of any athlete's career".

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