UIPM 2024 Pentathlon World Championships: Korea savour double relay success

Korea lived up to its reputation as the dominant Modern Pentathlon force in Asia by opening the UIPM 2024 Pentathlon World Championships with a memorable golden double.

The Women’s Relay kickstarted the competition with a huge win for Sunwoo Kim and Seungmin Seong, who prevailed by almost 40sec from silver medallists Haydy Morsy and Amira Kandil of Egypt, with Sophia Hernandez and Sofia Cabrera of Guatemala picking up bronze.

Team Korea opted to select their highest-ranked four athletes for the opening day of relays and a second gold was duly delivered in the Men’s Relay by Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medallist Woongtae Jun and his team-mate Changwan Seo.

The European challenge was stronger in the Men’s Relay and Maksym Aharushev and Oleksandr Tovkai of Ukraine came home 24sec behind the champions to seal silver, with Leo Bories and Ugo Fleurot of France coming from behind to snatch bronze.

Host nation China also competed strongly on the day but after winning all three senior gold medals in the UIPM 2024 Laser Run World Championships, had to settle for 4th place in the Pentathlon Women’s Relay (Yewen Gu & Xiuting Zhong) and Men’s Relay (Linbin Zhang & Bailiang Chen).

Champions’ reaction

Jun (KOR) said: “First I want to congratulate our Women’s Relay team. In the Men’s Relay we also managed to achieve a very good position for our team, so we are feeling good.

“Tomorrow we start the individual competition and we will continue to work hard. The weather is a little bit different to Korea, but we are excited to be here for the World Championships and preparing for the Olympic Games. As a pentathlete, I can say we have a great stadium here, and competing always makes me very happy.”

Seo (KOR) added: “This was my first time competing with JW and very nice; he is a very good athlete and made it very easy so we could have a very good position.”

Kim (KOR) said: “I am very happy to have won the gold medal in the Women's Relay at the World Championships for the first time, and it is meaningful because I won the medal together with Seungmin.

“Training hard every day is always the best training. It is difficult because the weather is very hot, but the match venue is so well-made inside the stadium that I think spectators will be able to watch comfortably and have fun.

“Since there are individual competitions left, I hope to do well in the preliminaries and advance to the Finals with the Korean female players.”

Watch and follow

The UIPM 2024 Pentathlon and Laser Run World Championships are available to subscribers on UIPM.TV where annual packages cost €14.99.

Visit the UIPM website or download UIPM Central from your app store to keep track of live results. Follow World Pentathlon on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X or YouTube for additional content.

The UIPM 2024 Pentathlon World Championships runs from June 9-16, based on the following schedule (UIPM TV live coverage times in Central European Summer Time).

• Tuesday, June 11 | Women’s Qualification
• Wednesday, June 12 | Men’s Qualification | Women’s Fencing Ranking Round
• Thursday, June 13 | Women’s Semi-final A (8.45am); Semi-final B (11.30am) | Men’s Fencing Ranking Round
• Friday, June 14 | Men’s Semi-final A (8.45am); Semi-final B (11.30am)
• Saturday, June 15 | Women’s Final (4am) | Men’s Final (10.30am)
• Sunday, June 16 | Mixed Relay (10.30am)