Max Esposito and five athletes secure 2016 Rio Olympics spot

BEIJIN, CHINA Today saw the Men’s Olympic Qualification event for Asia and Oceania for Rio 2016 taking place in Beijing, China, with the top Oceania Athlete and top 5 placed Asian athletes booking qualification spots for the Modern Pentathlon Olympic Event to be held 19/20 August 2016.

World Ranking #12 and 2014 UIPM World Cup Winner Woongtae Jun (KOR) had a rocky beginning to the day placing only 5th in the Fence Ranking Round, which was won by Haihang Su (CHN) one victory ahead of Korea’s Woojin Hwang and Jinhwa Jung, the 2014 Asian Games Simver medallist. Jinhwa Jung was fastest in the Swimming in the only sub-2 minute time of the competition (1:59.83) ahead of Cao Zhongrong (CHN) in 2:01.66 and Woojin Hwang in 2:01.95.

So into the Bonus Fencing Round, Su Haihang and Jinhwa Jung were tied in points at the top of the table but the decisive top matches saw Jinwha Jung beaten by Cao Zhongrong and Haihang Su beaten by Hwang Woojin resulting in the tie remaining into the ride. Hwang and Cao were tied in next place 4 points behind the leaders with Jun just another 4 points further behind.

Poor rides from Jung, Su, Hwang and Jun led to Zhngrong Cao starting the Combined Event 11 seconds ahead of team mate Haihang Su, with Japan’s Tomoya Migushi 4 seconds behind the Chinese pair. Woojin Hwang started 3 seconds behind Miguchi. The only perfect round in the Ride came from Hapeng Wu (CHN) whilst Pavel Ilyashenko (KAZ) also cleared the course but incurred 1 second time penalty.

The Combined run-shoot in the Men’s event proved just as exciting as the Women’s the previous day. Max Esposito (AUS), starting out in 5th place, 24 seconds behind, took an early lead and thanks to accurate shooting and fast running, he kept the lead to cross the finish line in first place. Then came Woongtae Jun, moving up from 7th place to finish in second place whilst his Korean team mate Dongii Lee who had started in 14th place, 1:19 behind the leader, came in 3rd in the fastes Combined Event time of 10:35.

For Oceania Max Esposito (AUS) had respectable performances throughout the day, 13th in the Fence, 7th in the Swim, 3rd in the Ride, to start 5th in the Combined Event and finishing in 1st overall to win the 2015 Oceania Champion title, Max Esposito will join his sister in Rio 2016.

The 6 men who achieved qualification places are: Asia - Woongtae Jun (KOR), Dongii Lee (KOR), Haihang Su (CHN), Zhongrong Cao (CHN), Woojin Hwang (KOR); Oceania – Max Esposito (AUS). As National Olympic Committees are only allowed to enter 2 athletes per gender, this means through the rules of the qualification system a place for Tomoya Miguchi of Japan is guaranteed.