Thursday 11 November 2010

Continental competitions: Panamerican Championships and Asian Games

The season is almost over, with few competitions left.

The Panamerican Championships will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 19 to 21 November. The event is also a test event for the 2011 World Military Games and the same venue of 2009 World Cup Final and pentathletes can secure a spot in 2011 Panamerican Games (Gadalajara, Mexico). After the World Military Games, the place (Complexo Esportivo Deodoro) will start the changes for the 2016 Olympic Games - the place is supposed to host not only modern pentathlon, but also shooting, mountain bike and canoe and kayak slalom.

Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Chile, Cuba, United States, Guatemala and Mexico will have pentathletes in the men's and women's field, while Panama, Dominican Republic and Venezuela will take part only with male athletes.

The first day of competition will see the men in action, with individual and team prizes. In the second day, it's the ladies' turn to duel, swim, ride, run and shoot. In the final day we will have the relay competition.

The defending champions are Andrei Gheorghe, from Guatemala, and Yane Marques, from Brazil.

Check out the competition website (Only in Portuguese for now): http://www.pentatlomoderno2010.com.br/index.html

Unfortunately I can't go to Rio de Janeiro to watch the competition live.

The XVI Asian Games are going to take place in Guangzhou, China. Modern pentathlon is for the third time in the event (first time was 1994, the competition is held every 4 years but modern pentathlon has been in the program only every 8 years).

China, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Kyrgyztan and Uzbekistan are the participating countries and medals will be handled for individual and team competition (it looks like there's no relay in this event, even though it had in 2002). The women's competition will be on Tuesday, November 23 and the men's competition in the following day.

The current champions are Kim Mi-Sub, from South Korea, and Lada Jiyenbalanova, from Kazakhstan. They both helped their teams to win the team competition too, 8 years ago in Busan, South Korea, while local pentathletes grabbed both relay medals (no mixed relay in 2002).

Check out the participating athletes: http://www.gz2010.cn/info/ENG_ENG/ZZ/ZZE132C_MP@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ENG.html

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