UIPM 2024 Pentathlon U19 World Championships: Men’s Qualification

The UIPM 2024 Pentathlon U19 World Championships continued today with an action-packed Men’s Individual Qualification in Druskininkai (LTU).

A cohort of 62 of the world’s best next-generation pentathletes were vying for spots in Saturday’s Men's Final, with the top 18 from each of two Qualification groups making it safely through. Just like their female counterparts the previous day, world records tumbled as the fight for Final places heated up.

Qualification Group A did a good job of summing up the truly global aspect of this competition with the first four qualifiers representing not just four different nations but four separate continental confederations too. Minjun Heo of Korea and Sief Soliman of Egypt crossed the line level with identical tallies of 1,500 points. Behind them came Oleg Rybak of Ukraine and David Garcia of Mexico. In all, 13 countries were represented by the first 18 Finalists.

The highlight of the day for the host nation undoubtedly came in Group B where Lukas Lagunavicius of Lithuania continued his recent record-breaking trend. Having set a new U17 world record for Obstacle just two weeks ago, he smashed the U19 mark with a superb 00:23.02 on home soil. That would prove more than enough to help Lagunavicius (LTU) progress. Group B was also topped by a Korean in the shape of Taegyung Lim (KOR) who scored 1,492 points, 10 clear of Danil Bogdanov of Kazakhstan with Franciszek Dubrawksi from Poland in third. 

The UIPM 2024 Pentathlon U19 World Championships runs from September 24-29, continuing on Friday, September 27 with the Women's and Men's Fencing Ranking Round. Both Individual Finals will then take place on Saturday with the Mixed Relay closing the competition on Sunday September 15.

Visit the UIPM website or download UIPM Central from your app store to keep track of live results throughout the UIPM 2024 Pentathlon U19 World Championships.

The 36 athletes who qualified for the Men’s Individual Final are: