UIPM 2023 Pentathlon World Cup Cairo: Klunnikova (UKR) and Sotero (ITA) impress in Women’s Semi-finals to claim Final places

Olha Klunnikova’s fairytale World Cup debut reached a new height on Thursday as the Ukrainian led a star-studded field into the finals of UIPM 2023 Pentathlon World Cup Cairo.

Klunnikova (UKR) who is just 20 years old, notched the highest score of all 36 athletes in the Women’s Semi-finals on day three of the competition, winning Semi-final A ahead of Seungmin Seong of Korea and home favourite Malak Ismail of Egypt.

Semi-final B was won by Alice Sotero of Italy with Egypt’s Salma Abdelmaksoud and Sotero’s compatriot, world No.2 Elena Micheli (ITA) in close pursuit. Current World No.1 Michelle Gulyas of Hungary also progressed safely from her Semi-final group.  

UIPM 2022 Pentathlon World Cup Final winner Elodie Clouvel of France will go into Saturday’s Final with an overall lead of 10 points after scoring 25V/9D in the Fencing Ranking Round. 

Other athletes to watch in the 18-strong Final line-up will be Jessica Varley of Great Britain and Rebecca Langrehr of Germany. In total 11 nations and three continents will be represented in the first Women’s Final of the World Cup season. 

UIPM 2023 Pentathlon World Cup Cairo continues tomorrow (March 10) with the Men’s Semi-finals before the Finals on ‘Super Saturday’ (March 11), with the Mixed Relay concluding the competition on May 12. 

Live stream of both Finals will be available on UIPM TV and up-to-date results of all competitions are available at the UIPM website and via the UIPM Central app.

The list of qualified athletes for the Women's Final is as follows: