A FORMER Giggleswick School teacher died after getting lost in the Arabian desert during a triathlon.

Paul O'Flynn, 40, who owned a cottage in Giggleswick, was taking part in the Sultan of the Desert adventure relay race. He was running alone when he went off course in temperatures of 40 degrees centigrade.

He failed to reach a checkpoint, and it is believed he became disorientated and dehydrated.

Fellow runners went back into the desert when Mr O'Flynn failed to turn up, but he was dead when they reached him. A post mortem revealed he died of natural causes.

The race involved relay teams of three tackling the 30-mile course between Sharjah and Fejeirah in the United Arab Emirates on foot, by kayak and mountain bike.

Mr O'Flynn was a geography teacher and house tutor at Giggleswick in the 1980s.

He took up a post at the Rashid School for Boys in Dubai, and was still working there when he died on Friday.

He still kept in touch with former colleagues at Giggleswick, and returned to the village to bring a party of pupils from Dubai to the Yorkshire Dales Field Centre in January. He was due to return with a group later this year.

Alex Barbour, of the field centre, said: "He was a brilliant geographer and very professional. He was a terribly gifted guy. He played guitar and made music and videos. It is terrible."