Top athlete sprints over finishing line to collect top GCSE grades

TOP athlete and former Yorkshire cross country champion Archie Bordewich sprinted over the finishing line to collect a clutch of top GCSE grades.

The keen triathlete, who juggled his studies with 20 hours training over six days a week, including 4.30am swims four mornings a week, achieved eight 9s, one 8 and two 7s.

The 16-year-old, from Burton Leonard, has regularly competed at national level, representing Great Britain at a prestigious European super league triathlon in Jersey last year, finishing tenth.

He also plays rugby and cricket and plans to study maths, chemistry, biology and PE at A-level, followed by medicine or biochemistry at university.

During his GCSE years, he spent one term at a school in New Zealand, where his father was working, but was forced to return abruptly due to the pandemic: “We got the last international flight out of Singapore.”

But he took it all in his stride: “Keeping up with the schoolwork while in New Zealand was pretty easy, the teachers had sent me the syllabus and I had the textbooks,” he says.

“I’m really pleased to have got the results I wanted and now I can go forward with my options open.”