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Pembrokeshire Herald

5 days ago

WHEN it comes to endurance, Pembrokeshire schoolgirl Carys Rycroft ranks up there with the elite after becoming one of the youngest people in the UK to earn the highly prestigious Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award.
Completing it when she was aged just 17, Carys' achievement was acknowledged this week when she attended a special ceremony at Buckingham Palace in the presence of Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh.
Speaking with Carys, it soon becomes apparent that her motivation levels are exemplary. At six o-clock that morning, she told me that she'd ridden Dewi, the Arab thoroughbred gelding, along a section of the Pembrokeshire Coast path as part of a training schedule for next month's Man versus Horse' endurance race where riders have to cover up to 24 miles of tough terrain, predominantly in the hills around Llanwrtyd Wells, and complete the ride within six hours. Last year Carys galloped her way through 60 riders to finish 15th.
Carys: With a big smile on her face at last year's Man Versus Horse race
To achieve the DofE Gold Award, Carys also had to spend four nights and five days on a residential expedition, which had to be carried out with people she had never previously met. She decided to join a yacht crew and sail from Hayling Island in Plymouth, to Cowes, where she learnt the intricacies of sailing and worked cohesively with her crew.
Hand-in-hand with these extreme challenges, Carys was preparing for her A' levels in physics, chemistry, biology and art after achieving 13 A*s and one A in her GCSEs at Ysgol y Preseli in 2023.
What makes her accomplishments even more pronounced is the fact that she has autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
'Because I've always loved being outdoors, doing the Duke of Edinburgh Award and training for events like the Man versus Horse endurance race is a perfectly natural thing to do,' Carys told The Herald.
'In many ways, I found travelling up to London and going to Buckingham Palace in smart clothes far more scary.
'Yes, having ASD means that mixing socially with people can sometimes be difficult, so sailing with a crew of people I'd never met before was nerve-wracking. But it was as if I'd known them for years and they made the whole experience so easy. In fact the skipper said that it was one of the closest and most fun groups he'd ever had.
'I loved learning how to sail, and I definitely want to do some sailing races, but because of my A levels, this has had to be put temporarily on my to-do list.'
Like so many students as they enter Year 10, Carys promptly signed up for the bronze DofE, choosing music as her skill, (she's a dedicated euphonium player who plays with the Goodwick Senior Brass Band the South Wales Youth Band and the Pembrokeshire Youth Brass Band), horse riding as her physical requirement and litter picking and helping out at Fishguard Cinema for volunteering.
'Watching Carys arrive back from those walking expeditions, when she was doing the bronze and the silver DofE Awards, always made us laugh because there was Carys, skipping or running down the hill, while everyone else was exhausted,' laughed her mother, Sharon Jenkins.
'But this is so typical of her energy levels. Last year she hiked all the way across Wales for her Gold, and now she wants to walk the entire Welsh coastal path for her own personal challenge.
'She really is an incredibly strong person who's achieving so much, but also being so determined to do all these new challenges. Her ASD specialist recently told me that if she hadn't been given the opportunity to take part in all these different things from a very young age, she'd probably be unable to cope with her day to day life.'
Meanwhile Carys is preparing for her next academic venture, with a view to studying medicine and forensic pathology.
'I'm still not sure which universities to apply for, but wherever I end up, I'll most definitely be carrying on with my horse riding and sailing,' she said. 'I'm also trying to find out which universities have brass bands in their area.
'The DofE has been a brilliant way for me to expand on interests I already had, as well as giving me the chance to try out new ones, such as sailing. But most importantly, it's helped me see that once I set my mind to achieve something, dedication and determination will always help me succeed.'