An athlete who spent a year training for a gruelling triathlon missed it - because he overslept.

Jody George spent months taking donations and keeping friends up to speed on his preparation for the Challenge Weymouth Triathlon, which would have seen him swim 2.4miles, cycle for 112miles and then run a marathon.

Mr George set his alarm for 3am, giving him plenty of time to drive to Weymouth Bay, Dorset, for the start.

But the 34-year-old, who was due to be raising funds for Devon and Somerset Air Ambulance, after hitting snooze and not waking until 5.55am - far too late to make it in time.

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Jody George spent a year training for the gruelling triathlon in Weymouth only to oversleep and miss it entirely

Mr George, from Othery, Somerset, said the moment he realised he had missed the race was one of the worst of his life.

He said: 'I set the alarm on my phone for 3am. It went off but I hit snooze, as I normally do.

'The only trouble was I hadn't switched on the snooze facility for the new time. I went back to sleep, and the next thing was the alarm going off at five to six.

'I held the phone in my hands and looked at the time for a while in disbelief. I knew instantly that was it.

'I was in total shock. I just went downstairs and made a cup of tea and said to my fiancee PJ, "that's that, I'm not racing today".

'She was the one shouting and swearing, I was in shock for days.

'It took me a good two or three days to recover emotionally to be able to even talk about it.

'I'm still quite upset with myself. I had to apologise to everyone who had supported me, who had sponsored me and donated.

Mr George was forced to admit the embarrassing situation to his friends and family who had sponsored him hundreds of pounds for the challenge, but

'I'd prepared for a year, I'd posted it all on Facebook, giving updates on the training, and everyone was following it and encouraging me.

'In fact, the last post the day before said that I felt quite relaxed about the race the next day - I was obviously a little bit too relaxed.'

Mr George, a manager at a buildings maintenance company, was forced to admit the embarrassing situation to his friends and family who had sponsored him hundreds of pounds for the challenge.

He wrote in a post on his JustGiving page: 'I would like to apologise to everyone that has sponsored me through this page. This morning I failed to start in the event and have let you all down. If you would like me to refund your donation, please let me know. I'm so sorry Jody.'

Determined not to let his friends down, he recreated the triathlon near his home on the Somerset Levels.

Yesterday morning, making the 6:30am start this time, Mr George swam several lengths of the River Sowy, before completing a bike ride and marathon around the village of Burrowbridge, completing the challenge in around 14 hours.

He said: 'There is no way I will miss this now. It's actually helped raise donations - and no one said they wanted the money back.

'Focusing on this has kind of pushed that upset to one side.'