OW Sam Curry Pentathlete Visits House of Commons

Old Whitgiftian Sam Curry (2005-12) talks of his time at Whitgift on the “Talented Athlete Scholarships Scheme”.

This article by Steve Ballinger has been reproduced in part, with permission, from the Pentathlon GB site. 

“Modern pentathlete Sam Curry will swap his fencing, swimming, riding, running and shooting gear for a smart suit to attend a reception at the House of Commons marking the 10th anniversary of the Talented Athlete Scholarships Scheme (TASS).

Curry (pictured), who received TASS support in 2011/12, will be joined by one of the current crop of TASS athletes, 17 year-old Saffron Salih  and Lawrence Moss, a Pentathlon GB board member at the celebration on Wednesday (13 November).

Curry and Salih are among 60 modern pentathletes to have benefitted from TASS support over the last decade. Their number also includes London 2012 Olympic silver medallist Samantha Murray.

Twenty-year-old Curry, originally from Salfords near Redhill, now trains at Pentathlon GB’s High Performance Centre at the University of Bath, where he is studying for a Politics and International Relations degree.

Currently 13th in the world junior rankings, he received TASS funding in 2011/12 and has featured in some of the publicity material celebrating TASS’s landmark.

He said:  “TASS funding helped me get all of the kit I needed and enabled me to do the training I needed,” he said. “That helped get me to Bath and achieve what I’m doing now.”

TASS began in the autumn of 2003 and since then has given over £30 million in support to over 6000 athletes across 50 sports.

Curry made his senior international debut last year while still a student at Whitgift School in Croydon. He transferred to Bath in 2012 and reached the final on his World Cup debut aged 19 in California in 2013, a season that saw also him win individual bronze and team relay bronze at the European Junior Championships in Bulgaria.”

Sam is pictured here (back row) with Helen Glover, Olympic rowing gold medallist (second from right) and Non Stanford (third from the left), reigning triathlon world champion.