Modern Pentathlon at Paris 2024 Olympic Games: Gulyas (HUN) wins Women’s Semi-final B

Michelle Gulyas of Hungary performed strongly to win Semi-final B of the Modern Pentathlon at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, pausing to cross the line together with Elodie Clouvel of France and Laura Heredia of Spain.

The other comfortable qualifiers were Blanka Guzi (HUN), Sunwoo Kim of Korea, Gintare Venckauskaite of Lithuania, Ilke Ozyusel of Türkiye and Mingyu Zhang of China.

As so often, there was an epic battle for 9th and it was finally won by Olympic debutante Anna Jurt of Switzerland, who broke the Olympic record for Laser Run set earlier in the day by Laura Asadauskaite (LTU) with a new mark of 11min 07.63sec.

Riding began with an unfortunate misunderstanding as Mariana Arceo of Mexico completed a clear round without realising that she had been eliminated for beginning her round before the start bell.

Otherwise it was a fairly serene round as six athletes – Heredia (ESP), Kim (KOR), Zhang (CHN), Venckauskaite (LTU), Guzi (HUN) and Ozyusel (TUR) – emerged with their 300 points intact.

There was an impressive ride on Olympic debut for 16-year-old Sol Naranjo of Ecuador, whereas the competition leaders did not have everything their own way. Gulyas (HUN) and Clouvel (FRA) dislodged two barriers on their way round the course, incurring 14 penalty points.

Arceo (MEX) responded in fine style to her Riding elimination by winning the first four bouts of the Fencing Bonus Round, and nobody else on the ladder was able to match her haul. Only Valeriia Permykina of Ukraine, Ozyuksel (TUR) and Heredia (ESP) managed a second victory.

Misaki Uchida of Japan was the fastest swimmer by a significant margin, touching in 2:08.56 with Gulyas (HUN, 2:10.39) narrowly defeating Clouvel (FRA, 2:12.74) in the final heat.

In the Laser Run, all eyes were on Clouvel (FRA) in the shooting range and her first delivery did not bode well, with a long freeze allowing Gulyas (HUN) to run clear. But the home favourite improved at every visit to the range, finally nailing her five shots in just 8sec to the huge relief and joy of the crowd.