KATE Allenby — Tavistock's Olympic hopeful — leaves for the Sydney Games this Saturday in her bid to become the first ever woman pentathlon medalist.

The 26-year-old will compete on October 1 and, in the build-up to the event, she will live in the Olympic village on Australia's Gold Coast with the rest of Great Britain's 360 athletes.

Earlier this year she gave her fans a nail-biting time by leaving it until the last possible moment to qualify for the Sydney 2000 Games. In June, Kate clinched the coveted remaining place in Italy by beating her British rivals to finish in the top 14 in the World Cup

series run over six months.

She joins ten other pentathletes, including former flat-mate Steph Cook, to compete in the first ever Olympic women's modern pentathlon — a gruelling one-day competition involving running, swimming, shooting, fencing and riding.

A former pupil of St Joseph's School, Launceston, Kate started competing in tetrathlon events as a young member of the Spooners and West Dartmoor Pony Club.

Her quest for Olympic gold began when she won a bronze medal in the Junior World Championship in 1995 and a year later a silver medal. Other titles soon followed and in 1997 Kate moved to the senior level winning the European Championship.

The highlight of her career came in 1998 when she took the World Cup Championship. In 1999 she became the World Cup champion in the Germany series and a World Champion qualifier winning the gold medal in Switzerland. This year she became the World Indoor Champion.

Last weekend, she got a huge pre-games boost — she competed in the Essex Open Fencing Tournament at Colchester, finishing in third place against a top class field including the British fencing champion.

Her success followed a one-week fencing training camp in Hungary last month.

'My fencing, which is the least consistent of all the disciplines, has really speeded up,' Kate told the Times. 'When you consider I started riding at the age of six and fencing at 18, there is quite a deficit. So the camp was really helpful.'

On September 15, she will fly down from the Gold Coast to take part in the opening ceremony, dressed in 'a smart team trouser suit' from Marks and Spencer — the giant store chain have sponsored the athletes' outfits.

'We then fly back to train until October 1,' said Kate. 'Our event is the last of the Games and the last medal to be given out.

'I am feeling quite good and things are going well. And it is all there for the taking. But on the day you have to perform well in all the five disciplines.

'But to get this far is a dream come true.'

Her father Tavistock GP James Allenby and mother Gill are travelling to Australia to watch their daughter in what they hope will be the performance of a life-time.

Anyone wanting to send Kate a good-luck card can do so via the following address: Modern Pentathlon, Great Britain Olympic Team, 175 Olympic Village, Newington, NSW 1822, Australia.