France and Hungary won gold at the 2016 Modern Pentathlon World Championship. The top three ranked athletes in each gender qualified to the Olympics. Should an athlete have already qualified to the Olympics then the quotas will be reallocated to the world rankings which will be published at the end of the month. The Modern Pentathlon World Championship was held in Moscow, Russia from May 23rd to May 29th 2016.
The women’s race saw a new world record in the swimming portion where France’s Elodie Clouvel finished the leg with a time of 2:06.59. The ranking round of fencing was won by Russia’s Donata Rimsaite. Hungary’s Sarolta Kovacs was one of the few people to score a perfect round in the riding portion where she held the overall lead going into the combined running and shooting. Despite several strong runs Kovacs was able to maintain her lead to win gold with a 1386 point total. Clouvel and Germany’s Lena Schoneborn won the silver and bronze medal respectively with a point total of 1374 and 1373 respectively. Since all three athletes have previously qualified to the Olympics the quotas have been reallocated to the world rankings.
The men’s race saw Egypt’s El Geziry brothers start off strong as Amro had the fastest swimming time of 1:56.50 while his brother Omar had the best performance in fencing. A relatively poor performance in the riding left Amro in third place going into the final portion while Omar led the pack. South Korea’s Jung Jinhwa was set to start in second. Amro held the lead for much of the combined running and shooting until the third series of shots where mistakes pushed him out of contention as Russia’s Aleksander Lesun, Jung and France’s Valentin Belaud raced out ahead of him. Eventually Belaud moved into first place and won the overall title with 1514 points. Lesun won silver and Jung won bronze with 1510 and 1504 points respectively. Only Jung qualified to the Olympics as both Belaud and Lesun have previously obtained their own quota. The other two quotas were reallocated to the world rankings
As a reminder a nation can only take two athletes per gender to the Olympics in modern pentathlon. Since South Korea has four men qualified they can only choose two causing the other two to be eventually reallocated. The final stage of qualification will occur over the next few days with the release of the Olympic rankings at the end of the month.
References
- UIPM. 2016 UIPM Senior World Championships. Access on May 28 2016.
Road to the Olympics 