BELARUS COMPLETE SET WITH WOMEN'S RELAY GOLD

They have picked up where they left off.

On the opening day of the first UIPM Pentathlon and Laser Run World Championships in 21 months, all-conquering Belarus claimed gold in the Women’s Relay thanks to a dominant performance by Volha Silkina and Iryna Prasiantsova.

Silkina (BLR) is the reigning individual champion and she also won gold in the team event in 2019 in Budapest (HUN) along with Prasiantsova (BLR) and Antasasiya Prokopenko (BLR). Today’s success means the country holds all three senior women’s world titles – at least until Saturday when the women’s individual and team medals will be back on the table.

The annual flagship competition of Modern Pentathlon and Laser Run has been on hold for almost two years, after failed attempts to stage the event in Xiamen (CHN), Cancun (MEX) and Minsk (BLR). A strong demonstration of class by some of the world’s leading female pentathletes from 11 nations provided a dynamic start to seven days of action in Cairo (EGY).

Finishing 12sec behind the champions, Gulnaz Gubaydullina and Uliana Batashova (RMPF) claimed silver while two starlets from Hungary (Sarolta Simon and Rita Erdos) advanced two places in the Laser Run to win bronze.

Having won gold alongside Mayan Oliver (MEX) in 2019, Mariana Arceo of Mexico had her eye on retaining the title but she and team-mate Tamara Vega could only manage 4th, one place ahead of Korea (Sehee Kim and Sunwoo Kim).

SWIMMING

Gubaydullina and Batashova (RMPF) set the pace in the pool with a fastest time of 2:03.77, ahead of Ukraine (Iryna Boicheniuk & Anastasiia Chyzhova) and Belarus (Prasiantsova/Silkina).

FENCING

The Fencing Ranking Round was dominated by two nations, with Korea (Kim/Kim) emerging on top with 29V/11D and another two points added in the Bonus Round giving them a clear overall lead.

Belarus (Prasiantsova/Silkina) also scored highly with 27V/13D, four more victories than next-best Gubaydullina and Batashova (RMPF).

RIDING

Drama visited the Riding arena as three of the first four pairs suffered elimination, including host nation Egypt (Mariam Amer and Salma Abdelmaksoud).

Clean rounds and perfect scores of 300 enabled Belarus (Prasiantsova/Silkina) and Hungary (Simon/Erdos) to advance their credentials, especially as Korea (Kim/Kim) were toppled from the peak of the leaderboard by the loss of 40 penalty points.

LASER RUN

The overall picture had changed significantly, with Belarus (Prasiantsova/Silkina) now starting Laser Run with a 19sec advantage over Gubaydullina and Batashova (RMPF), who in turn had a 10sec lead over Korea (Kim/Kim).

The Laser Run proceeded with unusual serenity, with very little suspense once Hungary (Erdos/Simon) had confidently overcome a 16sec deficit to move past Ukraine (Boicheniuk/Chyzhova) and Korea (Kim/Kim) into the bronze medal position.

Athletes of the elite calibre of Silkina and Prasiantsova (BLR) and Gubaydullina and Batashova (RMPF) had no issues defending their places, with the latter duo achieving the best Laser Run time of 12:18.00.

MEDALLISTS' REACTION

Gold medallist Prasiantsova (BLR) said: “It’s amazing. Two years without a World Championships and now on the first day we are world champions, so it’s great for Belarus and it’s a good start.

“We are sure that we can achieve the same result [in the individual / team event] and get another gold medal.”

Silver medallist Gubaydullina (RMPF) added: “Of course we’re very tired because today the weather was very hot. In Moscow we don’t have that temperature for training, and when we came here it was so hot and so hard.

“We’re very happy about the medal, and now we have an individual semi-final and final and we need to prepare for that. Of course we want to show that we can get the best results.”

Bronze medallist Simon (HUN) said: “We’re very happy because it was our goal to reach the top three but we didn’t really think about medals at the start of the race so we’re very happy.

“It’s very hot compared to Hungary, but we are trained to manage in different conditions and we figured it out.”