Prince George takes advice from William’s staff as he kicks off athletic career

Prince William and Kate Middleton’s oldest son, Prince George, has just started playing sports.

On Wednesday 1 November, William held an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle after taking some time off from royal obligations while his three children were on a school break. One of the attendees was Non Stanford, a former British triathlon competitor who was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

“He [Prince William] was telling me how George has been doing triathlon at school,” Stanford said, according to PA. “There is also a gentleman who now works for William, who has done a bit of triathlon and has been giving George advice about putting talcum powder in his shoes. George has been sharing his talc with his classmates, and they are all excited about these tips.”

According to Hello! Magazine, the young royal has also taken an interest in rugby, as he’s recently progressed from only playing tag rugby to touch rugby, as he’s being taught how to tackle.

“They are trying to teach him the rules,” Kate said while attending the Wales vs England Six Nations rugby match in Cardiff in November. “They move them around for their confidence. Because he is tall, he has the physique.”

The same interest has also been rubbing off on her two younger children, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. “But then there is Louis coming. Charlotte also does rugby,” she said, according to the outlet.

Following William and Kate’s move from Kensington Palace to Windsor last year, George and his younger siblings - Princess Charlotte, eight, and Prince Louis, five - all began attending the same school together for the first time. The Lambrook School in Berkshire is a co-educational independent day and boarding school for three to 13 year olds near Ascot, just a 10-minute drive from their new home at Adelaide Cottage in Windsor’s Home Park.

The school highlights sports as part of the curriculum, and the campus includes an all-weather surface cricket, football, netball and hockey pitches, a sports hall, a 25 metre indoor swimming pool, squash and tennis courts, dance studio, a nine-hole golf course and cricket squares, according to the school’s website.

The sporty nature of the royal couple’s children appears to go hand-in-hand with their parents, who have previously admitted how competitive they can be when it comes to sports.

The Prince and Princess of Wales appeared on an episode of Mike Tindall, James Haskell and Alex Payne’s The Good, The Bad, And The Rugby podcast, alongside the Princess Royal, Anne. During the conversation, Haskell poked fun at Kate and her husband’s competitiveness by comparing them to one couple’s dynamic on Friends.

“Just how competitive are both of you?” he asked the pair. “Because, Mike, I’m not going to lie, but he has made out [that] both of you are super, super competitive, a bit like Monica and Chandler from Friends.”

Kate chimed in with a laugh, and gave her candid reaction to the claim, responding: “I’m really not that competitive. I don’t know where this is coming from.”

As she made the remark, William proceeded to laugh and poke fun at his wife’s competitive nature by giving her a subtle wink, seemingly in an effort to playfully confirm that she is actually competitive.

During the podcast episode, Haskell proceeded to make jokes about the couple’s behaviour during a game of table tennis, saying: “It will go on for hours and hours, and be like, double or quits.”

However, according to Kate, she’s still excited to see if their children’s competitive side will grow over time or not.

“What I think is really interesting is that they are all obviously different temperaments,” she said. “And as they’re growing and trying out different sports, they’re obviously still really young, it’s going be interesting to see how that grows and develops.”