Modern Pentathlon at Paris 2024 Olympic Games: Men’s Fencing update

The champions of Europe and Africa combined at the top of the leaderboard after a thrilling Men’s Fencing Ranking Round opened the Modern Pentathlon at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Oleksandr Tovkai of Ukraine, who became European champion last month, ended the session with a fantastic haul of 24 victories from his 35 bouts, matched only by Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallist Ahmed Elgendy of Egypt.

Lurking only one victory behind the leaders was Pavels Svecovs of Latvia, while Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medallist Woongtae Jun of Korea also fought his way into a good position on 22V/13D.

With 21 victories, Alexandre Dallenbach of Switzerland and Taishu Sato of Japan completed the top six in the standings, while the France duo of Valentin Prades and Jean-Baptiste Mourcia ranked 11th and 23rd respectively.

Some medal favourites struggled on the opening day, with Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion and two-time world champion Joseph Choong of Great Britain finishing down in 29th, one place ahead of the current world champion and world No.1 Csaba Bohm of Hungary.

Choong (GBR) was in fact one of the early leaders, along with Todor Mihalev of Bulgaria and Lukasz Gutkowski of Poland, but when each of them lost their opening bout things tightened up.

After six rounds of Fencing, Egypt had made a move towards prominence on the leaderboard with Mohanad Shaban (EGY) and Elgendy (EGY) side by side on 13V/4D. But it was Dallenbach (SUI) who topped the standings on 14V/3D.

A few rounds later, the picture had changed again, with the Egyptian duo remaining close to the top but Tovkai (UKR) taking the ascension.

When France faced Great Britain and Egypt on the showpiece piste, Prades (FRA) won three of his four bouts to the delight of home supporters. Mourcia (FRA), to chants of “J-B, J-B” from the crowd, also picked up two more wins until Elgendy (EGY) had the last word in defeating both of the local favourites.

Entering the final round, Elgendy (EGY) was leading from Tovkai (UKR) but with Jun (KOR) now in 3rd place. Svecovs (LAT) defeated both France athletes in the final round.

The Women’s Ranking Round is due to finish at 5.30pm CEST.