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her academic options open.
“I'd love to go back to uni one day
to study either Medicine or Veterinary Medicine, but for now I'm really enjoying being a full-time athlete,” she said.
“Support from UK Sport and the National Lottery makes it possible for me to purely focus on being the best that I can be.
“I'll continue in modern pentathlon for as long as I can still see myself improving and getting stronger, hopefully for at least another six years!”
Jess – who is still based at the University of Bath, as it houses the Pentathlon GB National Training Centre – is certainly heading in the right direction.
She won the British Open Modern Pentathlon Championships in 2015 and 2016, when she also marked her Junior Modern Pentathlon World Championship debut in Egypt by being the top British female athlete in 23rd place.
She then qualified for the final at her first senior World Cup event in 2017 at Los Angeles and came 22nd in the final of the World Cup competition in Sofia, Bulgaria, earlier this year.
However, at the latter event she suffered a “nasty” injury – a tear in the plantar fascia in a foot – which
Jess with Jamie Harper after finishing third for Britain in the 2017 Modern Pentathlon U24 Junior European Championships in Poland
FEATURE
meant she missed the British Modern Pentathlon Championships in June and the European Championships in August.
Jess also missed the Europeans last year – and the World Championships – due to a stress reaction in a shin, but she was hoping for better fortune this year in the latter competition, which took place in September.
She added: “More long-term, I want to win medals, starting with World Cup medals, but hopefully
culminating in an Olympic gold! I believe wholeheartedly in aiming for the Moon!”
JESS’S TYPICAL WEEK
Monday: run, shoot, swim, fence Tuesday: run, shoot, swim, fence Wednesday: fencing lesson, gym, ride
Thursday: run, swim, fence Friday: run, shoot, swim, gym Saturday: run
Sunday: rest
• Follow Jess on Instagram @jessjvarley for news and updates
THE OLD OUNDELIAN 2017 –2018 <<<RETURN TO CONTENTS 23
Pictures courtesey of: Phil Sutton,Nuno Goncalves, Tomasz Browarczyk, Egyptian Pentathlon Federation, Pentathlon GB