Six-year-old smashes triathlon raising £1.2k

Pond Park Primary School pupil Jacob Dumigan was inspired to do a triathlon after watching his cousin compete in an Ironman competition.

On entering UK kids Triathlon in Stoke-On-Trent, he asked if he could try to raise some money for a charity.

The charity he chose was JMA (Junior Mission for All) through the family church, Seymour Street Methodist and this year they are supporting a small hospital in rural Ghana. It is called Ankaase Faith Mission Hospital and all money raised is to help with updating the children’s wards and equipment.

Speaking after completing the challenge, the main man himself said: “It was awesome! It wasn’t a challenge, swimming in the lake through the weeds was the hardest. I loved cycling in the mud and the run was fun as it was so slippy!”

Jacob trained hard all summer for the triathlon in all three elements – 25m lake swimming, 1km cycle and 1km run. As part of his preparation he ran the Lisburn fun run in June and he took part in running a daily mile most days at school.

Over the summer he was trained in swimming by coach Eleanor Pollock at Lisburn Leisureplex and completed some outdoor, extremely cold swims with his mum, Rachael. He practiced his running and cycling around Wallace Park with his mum on her bike - as she can’t run fast enough to keep up with him.

She said: “A lot of the excitement of doing his first triathlon was getting there and taking his bike apart to take it on the plane. After the flight, the pilot invited Jacob into the flight deck. Jacob was delighted especially as he is an aspiring pilot.

“He was the youngest competitor on the day and was magnificent. Despite the heavy rain and mud making the course slippy. His support team of myself, grandma, granda, aunt and uncle couldn’t keep up as he sped by. He finished top of his age group.”