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“I competed in the European Championships before this summer but never in a Worlds, so I don't know what the standard will be”, she admits. “But I want to do the best I can and hopefully I'll be the top Brit.”

It was through her love of horse riding that Prentice tested the waters of multi-disciplinary events in the Tetrathlon before making the full conversion to the Pentathlon.  Now, keeping the five sports of pistol shooting, fencing, swimming, horse riding and running all spinning evenly requires a full time effort on top of schoolwork.

“I was in the Pony Club when I heard about Tetrathlon,” she recalls.  “It's running, swimming, shooting and cross country riding. Pentathlon is a step on from there and all you need to do is pick up fencing.”

It's a classic understatement from a sport whose demands are absolute.  Under the tutelage of an array of coaches, Prentice rides her horse daily, has four running sessions a week, devotes six hours to shooting and the same to fencing.  Swimming, her “weakest” discipline, absorbs a further six hours of the week.

“Horse riding is my favourite because it's the one I've been doing the longest and I don't get nervous at all,” she says. “The riding can be quite unpredictable and sometimes depends on luck - you get given a random horse.”

Although there are few Pentathlon devotees in Scotland and its only events are “little training competitions” organised by Prentice's own coach, the sport was this summer incorporated into the Scottish Area Institute of Sport network.

The network provides high performance expertise to Scotland's potential world class talent, supporting Scottish governing body-identified athletes as they progress along their sporting pathway.  Its expert teams work together to deliver essential support services locally in sports medicine, sports science, strength and conditioning, and career and lifestyle guidance.

As a Grampian Institute of Sport supported athlete, Prentice is in the best position to prepare once the World Championships bring down the curtain on her 2007 schedule.  “I'll be starting Strength & Conditioning training with the Institute as soon as I get back from South Africa, which will be a big help because I've never done anything like that before,” she said.

An Olympic sport since 708 BC, it was the founder of the Modern Olympic Movement, Baron Pierre de Coubertin who re-introduced the event into the 1911 Budapest programme , believing it "tested a man's moral qualities as much as his physical resources and skills, producing thereby the ideal, complete athlete.”   

With a little more work on her swimming, Prentice is heading towards being the complete athlete.

“Long term I'd like to get to the Olympics and get as far as I can,” she added.