Russia claim victory in first Mixed Relay of 2014

Donata Rimsaite and Dmitry Suslov paired up to great effect in the Mixed Relay at World Cup #2 in Cairo as the Russian duo claimed the first Mixed Relay gold of the 2014 Modern Pentathlon season. The Czech Republic took silver as Italy completed the podium with third place.

The day began with the swimming event and Rimsaite and Suslov got off to the perfect start as they recorded the only sub-2min time in the pool to go top of the leaderboard before the fence with 344 points. Victoria Tereshuk and Pavlo Tymoshchenko came second as Gloria Tocchi and Riccardo de Luca were third.

On the fencing pistes, Germany’s Janine Kohlmann and Marvin Dogue were the best pair after they were victorious in 30 out of their 48 bouts. Second place was shared by three teams as Rimsaite and Suslov, Barbora Kodedova and Jan Kuf from Czech Republic and Isabella Isaksen and Brendan Anderson from the USA claimed 27 victories apiece.

In the riding, four pairs, Russia, Czech Republic, China and Ukraine all achieved the maximum 300 points with the quality of the horses on show of the highest order. Rimsaite and Suslov maintained their lead. Kohlmann and Dogue had two knockdowns and found themselves in third position behind Kodedova and Kuf.

At the start of the combined, the Russians had a 12 seconds advantage over the Czechs and 13 over Germans. This lead was enough as Rimsaite and Suslov kept their nerve in run/shoot. Kuf got his second medal of the competition as he took silver with Kodedova. Tocchi and de Luca were then presented with their bronze. Germany missed out on a podium finish after coming fourth.