Pan American Championships: second day - women's - Yane Marques defends her title

In the second day of competition in Rio de Janeiro, it was the ladies' turn to fight for medals. No surprise in the competition as local pentathlete Yane Marques and American Margaux Isaksen finished in the first positions, with Yane succesfully defending her title from last year in Buenos Aires. Yane led the event from the very beginning until the finish line quite comfortably, despite Isaksen's good skills in combined event. Upcoming South-American champion Priscila Oliveira, Yane's teammate, finished in third position, denying a podium for best ranked pentathletes, like Canadians Donna Vakalis (5th) and Melanie McCann (6th), who are in the top50 and finished behind of another Brazilian, Larissa Lellys.

There were 24 pentathletes in action on Saturday. Yane won the fencing with 22 wins, areally impressive record; American Caitlin Flathers showed fencing is her best discipline and with 17 wins was the second best fencer of the day, followed by Canadian Melanie McCann (16) and American Isaksen and Guatemalan Marines Garza (15).

In the swimming pool, Yane extended her lead by clocking the fstest time (2:14.29), Oliveira was second (2:17.37), Canadian Vakalis was third (2:17.84) and American Isaksen was fourth (2:19.84).

The riding event didn't have any 1200 top score, but many pentathletes came pretty close. with 1180 points (Yane and Isaksen among them) The unfortunate rides were of Canadian Vakalis  (-260 points), Guatemalan Garza (-220 points) and Cuban Olympic Youth champion Leidis Laura Moya, who didn't score any point at all.

Yane started the combined event with a lead of 1:27 and never was in trouble, managing the lead until the finish line with the 4th best time in combined event of the day. American Isaksen, who is now staring the athlete's blog at UIPM website, where she revealed she's not at her best form in this season, still showed she's a master at combined event and clocked the best time of the day (12:59.84) to finish in second position. Priscila Oliveira had the second best performance of the day in combined event and finished third after starting combined in 5th position, her team mate Lellys also had a strong combined to move up 4 positions in last event and finish in 4th position.


With the solid performances from Marques and Oliveira and Lellys, who was second in Buenos Aires last year, Brazil grabbed another gold in the day in the team competition. The silver went to the Canadian team,composed by Donna Vakalis, Melanie McCann and Mathea Stevens (13th). Cuba clinched its second medal in the competition by finishing third in team competition, with a team made by Katia Rodriguez (8th), Kenia Campos (9th) and Suaima Garcia (15th).