Tuesday 7 September 2010

38th South American Championships - Quito, Ecuador - Emmanuel Zapata and Priscila Oliveira are the winners!

Promising Brazilian youngster Priscila Oliveira won the 2010 South American Championships, her first international title in senior level. Priscila finished just ahead of 2008 champion Larissa Lellys and Argentinian Pamela Zapata was third. In the men's competition, Argentinian Emmanuel Zapata was the winner, local pentathlete David Ruales was second and current Brazilian champion Aloísio Sandes finished in third place. In the team competition, Brazil won the both the titles in senior level.

Other winners were: Junior: Ayelén Zapata (ARG) and Esteban Bustos (CHI); Youth A: Mariana Laporte (BRA) and William Muinhos (BRA); Youth B: Nikole Huilca (ECU) and Caio Silva (BRA).

Click here for the results.

New: UIPM report: http://www.pentathlon.org/media-centre/latest-news/1-latest-news/598-2010-south-american-championships

2010 World Senior Championships - Chengdu, China- Relays

Polish pair of Czwojdzinska and Golis won the mixed relay competition on Sunday, Ukraine (Tershuk/Tymoschenko) was second and Lithuania (Rimsaite/Kinderis) was third. Czech Republic and Russia were close to the podium, finishing in 4th and 5th.

On Monday, Belarus surprised and upset the favourite countries. Even without Yahor Lapo, but counting on leader Meliakh, Belarus denied Korea (2nd) the win while Russia (3rd) fought hard to put themselves in the podium and leave Great Britain (4th) out. The Czech relay team had a good combined but started far behind so could only finish in 5th position. The winner relay team of Belarus was composed by Meliakh, Prokopenko and Mitsyk.

Closing the competition, on Tuesday the ladies had their relay competition. The Russian team had Struchtukova, Gretchichnikova and Khuraskina and finished in first position and denied France their third gold medal in the championships. China was placed in third position so the guests could celebrate their only single medal in the competition. The British team finished in fourth, followed by the German team.

Click here for results.

Click here for the news at the competition official website.

Click here for pictures at UIPM website.

Click here for video highlights at UIPM website.

Amélie Caze wins her third World Senior Championships; Rimsaite takes the silver and Schöneborn, the bronze; France wins the women's team competition

The women's final was on Saturday, September 04. In a rainy day in Chengdu, China, Amélie Caze from France, who was recently crowned European champion, won her third World Championships title (she was the winner in 2008 - in Hungary - and 2007 - in Germany).

Cazé finished in the top10 list of every event in the day. In the first event, with 25 wins in 34 bouts, collected 1024 points and was only behind Aya Medany from Egypt, who had an impressive 1048 points after 26 wins. Russia Khuraskina abandonned in first event so 35 pentathletes were left in competition. Schöneborn was third with 22 wins, tied with Rublevska (LAT) and defending champion and crowd favourite Chen finished fencing in 5th position along with Russian Gretchichnikova with 21 wins.

In the swimming event, French Elodie Clouvel was the fastest by clocking 2:07.90 (1268 points) - better than the 2oth best result in the men's final. Hungarian Kovacs and Gyenesei improved their positions in the provisional standings by swimming under 2:12.00 and Caze had the fourth best time of the day and took the lead in the standings, followed by Medany, Clouvel, Kovacs and Schöneborn.

In the riding, Polish Czwojdzinska was the only one of the group of 7 pentathletes that topped the field with 1180 points to lose her points by time penalty (1:22.70), so all the other pentathletes in this group lost their 20 points by minor mistakes in the course. Caze scored 1148 points and managed the lead in a good position for the combined event, with her points converted to a 38 seconds lead in the following and final event over her closest rival, Schöneborn. Medany was the third in the start list, followed by Gyenesei, Pataki and Rimsaite. Defending champion Chen lost 200 points in riding and dropped to 15th position. Fifteen pentathletes failed to score over 1000 points and Natalie Dianová from Czech Republic left the competition before the combined event.

In the combined event, Caze was never in trouble and managed her comfortable lead until the finish line with a time of 12:40.38 (9th best of the day); Rimsaite, whose skills in combined event are well known, managed to jump to second position with a time under 12 minutes, and Schöneborn, even with her pretty decent display (6th best time) was not enough to keep the second position. The only pentathlete to beat Rimsaite's time in combined event was American Margaux Isaksen (11:56.41) which made her move from the 25th to the 12th position. Medany finished in fourth position and Czwojdsinska and Brazilian Yane Marques moved up to 5th and 6th positions, respectively. Defending champion Chen disappointed and couldn't repeat her amazing performance of last year and finished in 19th position.

In the team event, Caze and her team mates Eudes and Arnaud won the competition with 15108 points (could have a bigger lead if Clouvel were in the team); Great Britain, who had two pentathletes in the top 10 in the individual competition, took the silver medal and Germany was the third, leaving Hungary and China out of the podium (all those teams had their three pentathletes in the final).

Friday 3 September 2010

Serguei Karyakin wins the 50th World Championships, Lesun takes the silver and Kinderis the bronze; Lithuania wins men's team competition

The 50th edition of the World Senior Championships (Chengdu, China) had two young athletes from Russia, in their first season in senior circuit, claiming the first two positions in the men's individual final. Both pentathletes impressed in their débuts this year in World Cup events - the winner, Serguei Karyakin, was 2nd in WC1 (Play del Carmen, Mexico), while Aleksander Lesun was 1st in WC4 (Budapest, Hungary) and also finished in impressive 5th position in World Cup Final (Moskva, Russia) and a podium in his first World Cup (WC3, London-UK).

Karyakin and Lesun proved the importance of a good fencing, and led already from the beginning. Lesun collected 1000 points with 24 victories out of 34 duels (Yasser Hefny from Egypt withdrew in first event). Karyakin ended the first event tied with Köllner with 21 victories, worthy 928 points.

Amro El Geziry was the fastest swimmer of the day and gained 1360 points with a time of 2:00.12 (previously he was 7h with 19 wins) and took the lead. Local hope Cao was the second top scorer (1348 points) and put himself in a good position for the next events (in the end of the day he was the fourth to cross the finish line, missing the podium). Karyakin moved to third position in the standings with the ninth best time and Lesun clocked the 17th time, losing the lead but still would be the 2nd last to perform in the riding event. Defending champion Marosi had a good swim after a disappointing fencing and was back on track, while Svoboda, the current European champion and who was second in World Championships in the last two years didn't manage to improve much his position after the 2nd event.

There were two flawless riders in the show jumping event, Karyakin and Mexican Oscar Soto. The perfect ride made Karyakin the provisional leader after 3 events. Lesun lost 80 points on his ride and dropped to 2nd in the standings, while Amro El-Geziry dropped to 3rd by losing 60 points.

Karyakin managed the lead in combined event with a good display (4th overall) and had a comfortable win, computing 5816 points; Lesun also had a good combined event (7th best time) and finished in second and Justinas Kinderis, Zhongrong Cao and Ondrej Polivka moved up to 3rd, 4th and 6th positions (they had the best times in CE of the day), with Krungolcas dropping to 5th position. Favourites Marosi and Svoboda finished the competition beyond the 10th position and Amro finished in the 20th position.

In the team competition, it would be expected Russia to win, however the line-ups are made before the semifinals and double Olympic champion Andrey Moiseev was selected to be part of the 3-men team while Karyakin was left out. Lithuania (Kinderis, Krungolcas and Makarovas) won the gold medal in the team competition, while the Czechs (Polivka, Sedlecky and Svoboda) finished in second position and Hungary (Marosi, Kasza and Nemeth) was third.

Click here for individual results.
Click here for team results.

Thursday 2 September 2010

2010 World Senior Championships - Chengdu, China- Women's Semifinals

We had 56 pentathletes in women's semifinals, divided into two groups. In each group of 28 people, bottom 10 will miss the final in two days. Czech pentathlete Lucie Grolichová had health problems and did not start.


In Group A, French Elodie Clouvel was too consistent in swimming and fencing (1st and 3rd, respectively) and finished the group in first place, her team mate Arnaud was second and British Fell was third in the group. Kuznetsova was fourth after clocking the best time in combined event and world #1 Donata Rimsaite was 8th having topped the fencing event - and probably saved her energy in combined event, where she's a master. The last qualifying spot in the group went to Polish Nowacka, who denied her countrywoman Wojcik a place in the final.

In Group B, current European champion Cazé from France was the fastest swimmer, collecting 1200 points, and also the second best fencer (1 victory behind leader Tóth from Hungary) which helped her to just manage the lead in combined event to finish in the first place. Hungarian Pataki was second and Brazilian Marques was third, finishing just ahead of favourite Schöneborn. Chinese Zhang and Canadian Vakalis had a strong combined event and secured a place in the final. Struchtukova, Burke and Walesa were the biggest names to miss the final in this group, finishing in the last ten positions.

Follow all the action at UIPM and results are being updated first at Cardsys.

Wednesday 1 September 2010

38th South American Championships - Quito, Ecuador (September 02-06, 2010)



The 38th edition of the South American MP Championships will be held in the capital of Ecuador, Quito, in the very next days. 75 athletes from 6 countries will compete in youth, junior and senior level. The countries with representatives are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela (yes, Panama will take part in the event even though it's placed in Central American, but let's remember Panama used to be part of Colombia). Yane Marques, from Brazil, will miss the competition since she is competing in the World Senior Championships in Chengdu, China, so the competiton is wide open, with Larissa Lellys from Brazil and Pamela Zapata from Argentina being the favourites to take the title. In the men's field, members of the strong and leveled Brazilian team might face strong competition from Chilean Cristián Bustos and local David Ruales.

The venue is the Escuela Superior Militar (Esmil) in Quito. In this same place a competition of military pentathlon will be held later this month in the 20th Festival Sudamericano de Cadetes (September 11-16).

Source: lahora.com article (in Spanish)

Brazilian squad: http://www.pentatlo.org.br/noticia_detalhe.php?cod_noticias=333 (in Portuguese)

Venezuelan squad: http://www.mindeporte.gob.ve/galeria/v/PENTATLON/

2010 World Senior Championships - Chengdu, China- Men's Semifinals

And the World Championships has just begun and we already know the 36 pentathletes that will be in the men's final. There were eighty four pentathletes in the semifinals this Wednesday, 1st September, so 3 groups of 28 pentathletes with the top 12 advancing to the finals (as usual, no riding in qualifications).

Group A had Oscar Soto from Mexico finishing first, followed by Kinderis (LTU) and local pentahlete Guo. The top performers in swimming (Woodbridge) and combined event (Tibolya) missed the final, just like Moiseev who had a strong fencing event - was second along with Mordasov, who also will miss the final, and behind Soto - but failed after all to get a spot in the final. Ádám Marosi finished the qualifying in the fourth position of the group.

Group B had Italian Giancamilli, Korean S. Kim and Polish youngster Golis finishing the qualifying with the same score, 4408. As expected, Golis and British Cooke swam under 2 minutes, but the British failed to qualify, finishing in the 14th position because of a poor combined event, since in fencing he surprised by finishing third. Other highlights were Egyptian Hefny leading alone the fencing and favourite Svoboda being the fastest in combined event. Youngster Holyst from France secured a place in the final while P. Kirpulyanskyy, Omar El Geziry, Riker-Fox and Bremer are out of the final (Bremer for some reason didn't start the combined event and we hope he's somehow fine).

Group C was led by South Korean H. Jung, followed by Frolov, Chmielewski and Hilgeholt. Japanese Noguchi had a very poor combined event and missed the final, even after leading the fencing - along with Chmiliewski- and having the second best time in swimming. Top pentathlete who is back after some time out of the circuit, Berrou, from France, had a good display in swimming by clocking the best time, but still will miss the final, as will Meliakh (BLR), Weale (GBR) and Cerkovskis (LAT). Polívka (CZE) showed his good form in combined event by having the best time and finishing in the 6th position in the group.

Click here for results.

Click here for pictures of the first day (championship website).

Click here for timetable and schedule (time zone Chengdu: GMT +8).

Click here to check the news at UIPM.