UIPM 2018 Tetrathlon U19 World Championships: Korea on top of the world in Men’s Relay  

Korea demonstrated the strength of their talent pipeline yet again as Lee Minseo and Moon Juseong won gold in the Men’s Relay at the UIPM 2018 Under 19 Tetrathlon World Championships.

Lee & Moon (KOR) topped the standings in Fencing and held on to their advantage under pressure from China (Liu Xinglong & Wang Haoyang), who won a comfortable silver and came within 9sec of gold after an excellent Laser-Run.

The bronze medal went to 2017 champions Egypt (Alyeldin Sewilam & Mohanad Shaban), who showed great determination to deny Hungary (Csaba Bohm & Balint Katona) a prize for their efforts.

The result of that battle for bronze confirmed the occurrence of a rare phenomenon: a UIPM competition podium with no European representation. Russia (Vladimir Zabolotskikh & Egor Gromadskii) finished 5th and Italy (Giorgio Micheli & Stefano Frezza) 6th.  

“We are really tired but this day has been so successful and we can’t believe it,” said gold medallists Lee & Moon (KOR), speaking through an interpreter.

“Fencing was our best performance. “Because of our age, this was our last chance to win the U19 World Championships. Our next goal is to go to the Tokyo Olympics.”

FENCING

With 26V/10D it was Korea (Lee/Moon) who took the initiative in the Ranking Round, with a 13-point cushion over Egypt (Sewilam/Shaban) who scored 24V/12D.

A strong performance on the piste is especially important in Tetrathlon, with no Riding discipline, and the next-best performers with 21V/15D were Argentina (Nereo Polanco & Franco Serrano) and China (Liu/Wang).

Korea (Lee/Moon) added two points in the Bonus Round and there were four additional points for France (Kylian Perrier & Alexandre Touil).

SWIMMING

First to touch the wall in the pool were Argentina (Polanco/Serrano) in a time of 1:51.33, with China (Liu/Wang) not far behind on 1:51.63 and Russia (Zabolotskikh/Gromadskii) also scoring highly with 1:52.02.

LASER-RUN

Korea (Lee/Moon) started with a big advantage of 29sec over Argentina (Polanco/Serrano) and 30sec over China (Liu/Wang), with Egypt (Sewilam/Shaban) only 2sec further behind.

The battle for gold was uneventful although China (Liu/Wang) did manage to reduce the deficit to 7sec at the 4th shoot.  Hungary (Bohm / Katona) were the other notable performers in the Laser-Run and they very nearly denied Egypt (Sewilam/Shaban) that coveted final podium place. But this was destined to be a day of celebration for the Asian and African contingents.

The biggest-ever gathering of teenage pentathletes has assembled for the UIPM 2018 Under 19 Tetrathlon World Championships, with more than 220 athletes registered to take part across seven days of competition.

With only one day remaining of a successful championships, Manuel Barosso, President of the Portuguese Modern Pentathlon Federation, said: “I’m very proud as the Local Organising Committee President to have a competition of this dimension.

“We have made a big effort to host a big competition and I believe it’s the biggest ever in this category, and as a qualifying competition for the Youth Olympic Games I think we made it, with a big help from my team. I think we have created a competition of a high level.

“We have a young generation in Portugal and with these kind of projects we look towards with these future. It’s only because of partnerships that we build these kind of projects, so my mission is to guarantee that we have a future for UIPM Sports in Portugal.”

The action concludes tomorrow (April 14) with the Mixed Relay. For results visit the UIPM website.