BASINGSTOKE’s Caroline Partner is set to represent Great Britain at the ETU Sprint Distance Duathlon European Championships.

These take place at Targu Mures in Romania from Friday, June 28 to Sunday, July 7.

She will compete in the Female 40 to 44 category and the event will involve a 5km run, followed by 20km bike ride and finishing with a 2.5km run.

Partner qualified for the European Championships by competing in a qualifying duathlon in Bedford last October, which was a very wet and windy day and making the conditions quiet challenging.

Partner, a PACS Administrator within Radiology at Basingstoke Hospital where they deal with images transfers for patients to and from other hospitals said: “I have always been into my running and this started when I was back in high school.

"I used to do sprinting in 100 and 200m events which I really enjoyed.

“I then went on to try 5km and 10km from the age of 18 and this the progressed to half marathon and marathon.

She added: “I then heard about duathlons which is a run/bike/run event and there are three distances you can generally do which are super sprint, sprint distance and the Olympic distance.

“I decided that the sprint distance was ideal for me."

Partner's first taste of the event was back in April 2015, which was made up of 5km run, followed by a 20km bike ride and finished off with a 5kn run.

She finished an excellent fourth in her first outing and from this spurred her on to compete on even more duathlons.

Partner is a member of Basingstoke and Mid Hants AC and Basingstoke Tri Club, as well as been a part of Basingstoke parkrun core team.