36 male World Cup #3 finalist revealed
Another cracking day of competition at the Pierre de Coubertin Stadium in Chengdu, China, saw the men take centre stage in the two World Cup #3 qualification groups as Hungary’s Robert Kasza and Mexico’s Manuel Padilla were victorious in their respective draws.
A blistering start on the pistes of group A saw an inspired Kasza dominate as the 28-year-old put in a series of impressive performances to record 27 victories and in the process claim 278 points. His closest rival in the fence was Germany’s Steffen Gerbhardt who won 24 bouts. The Hungarians were all in fine form as Bence Demeter was third overall after the first event of the day.
Amro El Geziry unsurprisingly was the fastest swimmer with a sub-2 minutes time as Kasza continued to show he meant business, coming third in the pool to add 331 points to his tally. Demeter made it a Hungarian one-two going into the final discipline of the day after recording 2:06.29 in the water.
Kasza stayed composed in the run/shoot ton win comfortably as Woongtae Jun of Korea came in second, 9 seconds behind the leader. World No.1 Justinas Kinderis finished third overall whilst 24-year-old Ismael Hernandez showed just why the Mexicans are feared around the combined course as he recorded the fastest time, clocked at 11:33.76, to end his day fourth.
Simon Casse of France ended his qualification an impressive fifth as he finished just ahead of the bunch. Gerbhardt unfortunately did not finish.
In Group B, which began with the swim, it was the Asian contingent that made it mark as representatives of that region took all six first places in the pool. Woojin Hwang of Korea the fastest of the lot with a time of 2:01.38 in the 200m freestyle.
Jianli Guo, a winner of the qualification groups at World Cup #2 Cairo a fortnight ago, then won the fence after taking 25 victories with the epee, with Deniss Cerkovskis of Latvia second and Russia’s Aleksander Lesun and Hungary’s Peter Tibolya sharing third place. Guo was comfortably ahead on points before the combined.
In the last event of the day, the incredible pace of a Mexican once again took everyone by surprise as Padilla, who began 25th on the starting grid, went on to cross the finish line first are flying around the course in a time of 11:31.84. Tibolya finished second and Cerkovskis third as the rest finished in close proximity to each other.
Men’s Final line-up Saturday 19 April
Tomorrow sees the Women compete in their Final. You can keep up to date with all the live scores as the unfold on the www.pentathlon.org homepage
Competition schedule:
- Wednesday 16 April – Women’s Qualification
- Thursday 17 April – Men’s Qualification
- Friday 18 April – Women’s Final
- Saturday 19 April – Men’s Final
- Sunday 20 April – Mixed Relay
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