CIRENCESTER triathlete Jenny Manners has decided to pursue her own personal goals in the sport knowing it will cost her a serious gold medal chance at the Rio Paralympics in 2016.

As well as being an elite triathlete in her own right, Manners has acted as a ‘guide’ to two visually-impaired para-triathletes, winning world titles in Beijing with Charlotte Ellis (2011) and with Alison Patrick last year in Edmonton, Canada. Manners and Patrick would have been among the favourites to retain their world title in Chicago this season and to earn one of the two places on the GB team for 2016 when para-triathlon joins the Olympic schedule for the first time.

But Manners, 24, has made the tough decision to sever the partnership to focus on her own ambitions.

She has stayed at home while the British Para-Tri squad begin the search for Alison’s new guide at their training camp in Lanzarote this week.

“I have been thinking the decision over for a few months,” said Manners. “The rules don’t allow me to compete in the elite individual races and the para-tri races,” she said. “If I were to go for the Continental Cup races, for example, I would be banned from guiding for a year.

“I have chatted it through with British Triathlon and talked to Alison, who has been very understanding. I have a deep motivation to be the best I can be.”

Following the best individual performances of her career in 2014, including third in the Triathlon Super Series – on one occasion going head-to-head with world No.1 Gwen Jorgensen (US), Jenny undertook winter training for the first time as a full-time athlete with no distractions from lectures and exams. She will continue to live and train in Loughborough, though she has now finished her studies. She enjoyed her own warm weather training camp before Christmas with her Loughborough team-mates at the Las Playitas resort on Fuerteventura in the Canaries.

Encouraged by excellent performances in training and her best results in the local cross country series for Cirencester AC since her return, Jenny is confident she has a lot more to offer – though she accepts she has too much ground to make up to be picked for Team GB’s Rio Olympic squad.

Her objective now is to move up through the top levels of her sport – Continental Cup, World Cup and then the World Triathlon Series. “I’m looking to compete in the Continental Cup races and perhaps a couple of World Cups by the end of the season,” she said. “Then the aim would be to take in the World Triathlon Series in 2016.

“I raced with girls in the Super Series who have competed in those events and I feel I can make the step up.

“I have not ruled out the possibility of going back to guiding in the future but for now Rio 2016 is not on my radar.”

Jenny will continue to race on a bike supplied by Performance Cycles of Poulton but admits she is looking for further sponsorship as she is ‘living off my savings and some prize money from last year’.

She contests a cross country in Cirencester Park on February 1.