UIPM 2015 World Cup #3 - South Korea wins the Mixed-Relay in Rome

ROME, 13 APRIL 2015 - Woojin Hwang and Soo Jin Yang (KOR) took Gold in the Mixed Relay to bring the third leg of the 2015 UIPM World Cup Series in Rome to a dramatic close.

The Koreans claimed first place with a steady performance across all four events and were always within touching distance of a medal.They were joined on the podium by Egyptian duo Amro El Geziry and Haydy Morsy (EGY) who took silver and Jiahao Han and Qian Chen (CHN) who claimed bronze.

A jubilant Soo Jin Yang said: "We are very happy. We had perfect shooting and running round and it was a wonderful end to the competition here in Rome. It is such beautiful surroundings and they inspired us both to put in our best performances."

Haydy Morsy and her partner Amro El Geziry were delighted with their second place, which Haydy put down to her efforts on the Shooting range: "I was worried about the shooting because I shot badly in the Women's Individual semi-finals and that is why I did not enter the finals.

"My shooting today was good though and that is why we took second place. I am so happy because we got the silver medal."

Her partner Amro added: "It has been a fantastic day from the start of the day when we won the Fencing, everything was just good for both of us and it was a perfect ending."

Egyptians Morsy and El Geziry (EGY) were the early leaders after winning 23 bouts in the Fencing. They were followed on the leaderboard by Qian Chen and Jiahao Han (CHN) in second with 22 wins while the Italians Lavinia Bonessio and Tullion De Santis (ITA) and eventual overall winners Jin Yang and Woojin Hwang (KOR) sat joint third.

At the pool, Chen and Han finished first with a time of 1:57.87 just pipping the Koreans by 0.95 of a second and moving into pole position overall.Egypt's Morsy and El Geziry dropped to second with the Koreans now on their own in third.

In the Riding Arena, three teams - Cuba, Argentina and Korea - achieved the maximum 300 points which saw Yang and Hwang (KOR) take a further jump up the leaderboard to second.

Little else changed overall with the top three simply switching around - China's Chen and Han (CHN) held on to first place overall despite a knockdown with a slightly disappointing Riding round saw the Egyptians drop to third.

To the Combined Event and there was a narrow two second gap between Chen (CHN) and Yang (KOR) starting, but it wasn't until the first Men's Shooting station that Hwang (KOR) and El Geziry (EGY) managed to overtake Han (CHN).

A strong run from Han (CHN) however, saw him overtake El Geziry (EGY) at the last visit to the Shooting range, but the Egyptian wasn't in the mood to be outshone and stepped up a gear in the last running loop to take silver crossing the line just behind Korea's Hwang (KOR).

UIPM President Dr. Klaus Schormann was full of praise for the Mixed Relay and its competitors and is calling for more nations to enter the event in future.

He said: "This is a team competition where you can see how the men and the women work together in great harmony.

"We had another really exciting finish here today where it looked like the Chinese would win only for them to be caught up by the Koreans. Then there was the drama of the Egyptians eventually overtaking the Chinese too. I thin k you will agree that the three strongest teams have won the event.

"However, we have also seen the teams from Cuba, Chile and the teams from the Americas in this competition which is wonderful, but I believe that this relay competition is one which the nations should support more and we have to push it forward more in our competitions.

"Relay is a team event that brings both genders together and that is something we want to highlight as it is a sport for both men and women to compete alongside each other and again today here in this marvellous stadium we witnessed another great spectacle of that in the final.

"Thank you again to our friends in Italy for organising such a wonderful event and a special thank you as always to the volunteers who gave so much of their time and energy to make this a special event."