LAURA Hook has jumped a place in the national biathlon rankings following her fourth finish in the weekend's national championships in Sheffield.

Saturday's 3,000-metres cross-country run was in appalling weather and she finished eighth.

The 17-year-old Queen Mary's College student from Kempshott said: "The weather posed as much of a challenge to me as the run did with gale-force winds and driving rain.

"The course for the 3,000-metre cross-country was on top of a hill, which meant there was no shelter from the elements."

In contrast was the Ponds Forge pool, the location for the 200m swim on Sunday and Hook finished the weekend in a pleasing fourth place in her youth A, 17-18 age group -- a big improvement on last year's ninth place in the age band below.

In her new category, Hook was one of the youngest competitors. She won the swimming competition in her age group, which meant she got an extra award and also recorded the second-fastest swim in the entire day's competition.

Her finishes produced a jump in the national rankings from fifth to fourth place.

Hook's next biathlon competition is in March, the schools national biathlon championship finals. As a result of finishing second in the southern region schools championships and her progress in the year as a whole she have been asked to consider joining the modern pentathlon world class start and development programme.

That would help her improve further but she is still considering a move which would mean taking on three new sports -- fencing, shooting and riding -- to compete in full modern pentathlons.

"Unfortunately, due to my busy A-level schedule, I am still considering," she said.

Hook has just been confirmed as the world biathle tour champion for 2003 following her performances in the 1,500m run-200 swim-1,500m run event.

She received the youth A category gold medal to complete a cup and double-medal weekend.

Hook started her amazing year with a bronze medal in the national schools biathlon championships in only her third major competition in the sport.

She followed with the gold medal in her British biathle debut in Holland in June.

The following month in the British biathle championship debut in Bournemouth, the Basingstoke Swimming Club member finished fourth to earn selection for the world championships in Monte Carlo in September.

There she again just missed out a medal with another fourth place after claiming a silver medal at Weymouth in the final leg of both the British and world tour season.

A new biathlon season started with Hook gaining a second successive southern region title.

Hook was one of four QMC students who competed in the South-East England colleges swimming championships at Lewes - and three of them qualified for the national championships.

All four swam well although none had been able to prepare specifically for the event.

Hook won the 100 metres butterfly and came a narrow second in the 100m freestyle.

Stephanie Clark had a double breaststroke victory, winning both the 50 and 100m events.

Brendan Guiltinade won his 100m butterfly and narrowly missed a win in the 50m event.

These three go forward, as the fastest swimmers in an event, to Loughborough University to compete in a new state-of-the-art swimming pool, home of the British swimming academy.

Michael Hancey was second in the 100m freestyle and third in the 50m freestyle.