Jamie Cooke is enjoying a well-deserved holiday in Cancun after his amazing exploits in Mexico City at the end of last week.

The 27-year-old former Balcarras School pupil was crowned modern pentathlon world champion in stunning style, literally snatching gold in the final few strides of the 3,200 metres run.

Cooke, who was brought up in Andoversford, spoke to The Local Answer before flying out to Cancun and he admitted he was still coming to terms with the magnitude of what he had achieved.

“It’s surreal,” he said, “it still hasn’t sunk in.”

But win it he did, helping Great Britain to team silver along the way. Remarkably considering his success in Mexico, it was the first senior medal that Cooke, who finished 14th in the Rio Olympics, has won.

And while he is still getting used to being a world champion, he says he is “slowly getting there”.

“I shared a room in Mexico with Myles Pillage who won a team silver,” added Cooke. “When we woke up on Friday morning our medals were there on the cabinet in our room, that was a special moment.”

Joe Choong was the third member of the successful GB team and while he and Pillage were obviously big players in Mexico, there is no doubt who the star was.

“It’s something I’ve worked so hard for,” said Cooke. “I’ve put 10 years of my life into this and I’ve finally got my reward. To be world champion, the best in the world… it’s amazing.

“I’d never won a senior medal before, it’s something that’s just eluded me. Now I’ve finally got one.”

And as with all top-level, elite athletes, now Cooke has got the taste for success he wants more and more.

“Winning the Olympics, that would be perfect,” he said.

The next Olympics are in Tokyo in two years’ time when Cooke will still be very much in his prime.

He just missed out on selection for the London Games six years ago but said: “Rio was a fantastic experience, roll on Tokyo.”

Before that there are the world championships in Budapest – Cooke would obviously love to successfully defend his crown – and the European Championships in Bath, where Cooke now lives.

Both those events take place next year and Cooke, whose previous best finish in the world championships was fifth in Taiwan, admits he is uncertain what the future holds after 2020.

“I’ll definitely go to the next Olympics and then we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Modern pentathlon is a full on sport – all Olympic events are of course – but to succeed in Cooke’s sport you need to be able to swim, fence, horse ride and shoot as well as run.

Gloucestershire has a proud history of producing modern pentathletes with Gloucester’s Richard Phelps the last world champion from these shores, something he achieved way back in 1993.

Phelps also teamed up with Graham Brookhouse, from Cheltenham, to win team bronze at the 1988 Olympics and both he and Phelps were in touch with Cooke in the hours after his win, a period Cooke describes as “one of the busiest 10 hours of my life!”.

Brookhouse, in particular, has had a big influence on Cooke’s career.

“He was my swimming coach at Gloucester City,” said Cooke. “When my swimming wasn’t going quite as I wanted he suggested I try modern pentathlon. He showed me other sports, I was very lucky.”

That was when he was 15 or 16 when he was still a pupil at Balcarras. “That’s a brilliant school,” he said, “fantastic, they gave me brilliant support, I can’t say enough about them.”

He’s now passed the biggest test of his career so far, of course, but after his holiday in Cancun what’s next for the full-time athlete.

“I start training in October,” said Cooke, “ready to go again.”