UIPM 2016 World Cup #2 - Woongtae Jun wins in Rio de Janeiro

Woongtae Jun of Korea continued his impressive rise through the elite Modern Pentathlon ranks by securing Men's Individual gold at the second stage of the 2016 UIPM World Cup. At 20, Jun (ranked 7th) is the youngest man in the top 10 of the senior World Rankings and his success at this official Olympic Test Event closely followed his victory in the season-ending 2015 Champion of Champions in Doha, Qatar. His emergence has been so convincing that he is now perhaps Asia's best chance of an Olympic medal when the world's best Modern Pentathletes return to Rio de Janeiro in August. Having embarked on a highly competitive Combined Event today in 6th place with a 25-second handicap, he showed levels of determination, composure and fitness that will certainly befit the ultimate stage if Jun can reproduce them later this year. "I'm so happy because, after the Champion of Champions, I promised myself that I would be better this year," said Jun (KOR) after his victory. "There is a lot of time between now and August, and I will be preparing very hard in Korea for the Olympic Games." Jun (KOR) denied Omar El Geziry (EGY) a gold medal that few would have begrudged him given how consistently he performed all week. But the Egyptian was deliriously happy with his own landmark achievement of silver, with Adam Marosi (HUN) picking up bronze. He said: "It's the first individual World Cup medal of my life, and I can't explain how happy I am. I'm so proud of myself and my brother Amro - we are pushing ourselves hard for 16 years in this sport and it's paying off right now. "He won the first World Cup, and now I have a silver medal. I'm very hungry for more and more - me and him. "It's a huge step towards getting a medal at the Olympics; I'm over the moon. But I can't get too excited because I have to qualify and the season is very long, and we will see." It was Omar El Geziry's brother Amro (EGY) who swam fastest in the morning, his time of 1:57.02 narrowly faster than James Cooke on 1:57.47 and his British compatriot Joseph Choong on 1:58.57. At the end of a Fencing Bonus Round dominated by the Hungarians Bence Demeter, who won six bouts to give himself six extra seconds in the Combined Event, and Robert Kasza, it was Maksim Kustov (RUS) who still led the standings narrowly ahead of Kasza (HUN) and Junli Guo (CHN), with Jun (KOR) in fifth. Inside the Deodoro Stadium, Charles Fernandez (GUA), Omar El Geziry (EGY), Stefan Kollner (GER) and Adam Marosi (HUN) were the four riders who managed a clean round. Guo Jianli (CHN) was heading for a perfect round when he misjudged his approach to the last obstacle and incurred seven penalty points, and the leader Kustov (RUS) had a similar experience. A score of 293 allowed the Russian to remain in a prominent position heading into the Combined Event, albeit conceding a four-second handicap to Omar El Geziry (EGY), who went out first. Guo (CHN) was only a further second behind Kustov (RUS), so it was destined to be a finale fraught with tension. And so it proved, as Guo (CHN) and El Geziry (EGY) exchanged the lead in the early stages before the race developed into a four-way tussle. El Geziry (EGY) clearly had the staying power necessary to win the event, but Jun (KOR) showed exceptional accuracy at the shooting range to put pressure on the leader along with Marosi (HUN) and Fernandez (GUA). Jun (KOR) and El Geziry (EGY) embarked on their final 800m almost neck and neck but the Korean made his move with around 500m to go and put a couple of seconds between them that he was never going to relinquish. Dr Klaus Schormann, President of UIPM, said afterwards: "This Men's Individual Final was such an exciting competition, and at the end when we saw the changes from first to second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth place, always moving and changing, everybody enjoyed it so much. "But I would also underline that the Horse Riding was a great show, and it showed who was really prepared and who was not. It was really an Olympic standard, with everything in harmony between athletes and horses and we saw athletes who are really well educated in riding doing everything in their capacity. "I would say this World Cup men's event was successful - better than yesterday on the women's side in that they had the benefit of the weather - but we all know that for the Olympic Games we will improve some parts. "In principle we can say it was a good test, it was successful, but we will work on some of the details in the next months so we can have a big show in the Games in August 2016." Earlier in the day, Claudia Cesarini (ITA, gold), Lena Schoeneborn (GER, silver) and Donata Rimsaite (RUS, bronze) received their medals. The Mixed Relay brings World Cup #2 to a conclusion tomorrow (Monday). Stay tuned to pentathlon.org and uipmtv.org for updates.