EVESHAM teenager Will Gearey continued his stranglehold on the British Modern Biathlon Championships for boys by claiming a fourth straight national crown.

The 14-year-old, who attends Prince Henry’s School in Evesham and swims for Worcester Swimming Club, successfully defended his title with success at Tudor Grange, Solihull.

Gearey had qualified for this year’s national final as number joint-third seed, having won the West Midlands Biathlon Championship with a solid performance in October.

It has been a successful year for Gearey, who picked up his first medal at the British Summer Championships in July and then was selected for the Swim England Talent Programme held in October and November.

The success has seen him invited to attend the World Class Talent Identification Camp run by Pentathlon GB at Hartpury Modern Pentathlon Academy in December with a trip to Sheffield later in the month to attend his first Commonwealth Games swimming trials held at Ponds Forge.

Moving up an age group this year meant the swim distance increased from 100m to 200m while the run remained the same, with the points allocation slightly weighted in favour of the run.

The 1,600m run proved to be a challenging affair for Gearey but he settled into a good pace in the first few laps, holding fourth position at the 800m point and looked comfortable with a time of two minutes 30 seconds, ahead of his personal best. From there, he managed to hold a good pace for the next 400 metres to keep in sight his main rivals in sight on the last lap.

Heading into the last quarter, Gearey managed to find another gear, moving from fourth to third and crossed the line in 5.07.29, gaining 1,214 points.

At the halfway stage, Gearey had sat 12th, 135 points adrift of winner Daniel Joyce (4.40.27, 1,349 points) with Josh French in second (4.50.25, 1,299 points) and Charlie Cook third (4.51.85, 1,291 points).

Up next was the 200m freestyle swim, with Gearey seeded first and hoping to set a fast time to claw back points on the halfway leaders.

Drawn in the final and fastest heat, he found himself alongside several leading British-ranked swimmers including Marcus Scullion (Wildern School, Southampton), Harrison Barber (Biddulph High School, Staffordshire) and Luke Fowle (Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School, Kent).

Gearey, Barber and Scullion were into an early lead from the gun but the Evesham-based protege turned first at 50m ahead of Scullion and then Barber before extending his lead over the chasing pack by the 100-metre mark with Scullion a couple of body lengths behind.

The final four lengths saw both Gearey and Scullion having to dig deep and despite feeling the effects of the run earlier, both managed to produce personal-best times in the swim.

Gearey's new standard was 2.01.20, yielding a title-winning 1,288 points with the fastest swim ahead of Scullion clocked (2.03.19, 1,270) and Fowle (2.06.36, 1,238 points).

The final leaderboard saw Gearey on 2,502 points, a mere 21 ahead of French for silver with 2,481. Liam Openshaw (Poole Grammar School) was third (2,477).