UIPM 2015 Junior World Championships: China wins the Junior Mixed Relay
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - Shuhuan Li and Xiuting Zhong are the new Mixed Team Relay champions at the UIPM 2015 Junior World Championships in Mexico City.
The Chinese duo overcame a 49 second handicap going into the final Combined Event to storm the feld and take top spot on the podium on the final day of the championships.
The new Junior Mixed Relay World Champions were delighted this end of Championship: Shuhuan Li said: "I'm really happy with this result. It was really difficult to win this competition but after the fantastic run and shoot of my teammate I had in my mind that I couldn't let her down."
The 2014 Youth Olympic Champion and now also Mixed Relay Junior World Champion Xiuting Zhong said: "I'm really happy with this title. We trained really hard for this competition and after this week it's a fantastic way to end this Junior World Championships. I'm really honoured with this result."
Silver was won by Colasanti and Tognetti (ITA) with the bronze medal going to Korean's Lee and Kim (KOR).
It was Russian duo Oleg Naumov and Sofia Serkina (RUS) who took first place in the Swimming with a time of 1:59.17 to set the early pace. Second were Brits Thomas Lees and Georgia Pipes (GBR) in 1:59.72 with Jihun Lee and Sunwoo Kim (KOR) of Korea third.
On to the Fencing and with 18 wins Alessandro Colasanti and Francesca Tognetti (ITA) took first place to go first in the overall classification after the first two events.
Similarly, Hungarians Norbert Horvath and Anna Zs. Toth (HUN) were second in the Fencing to move in to second overall whilst a Fencing joint third for Lee and Kim (KOR) along with Lees and Pipes (GBR) saw both pairings slide one place down the leaderboard to third and fourth respectively.
It was the Chinese pairing of Shuhuan Li and Xiuting Zhong (CHN) who took top slot in the Riding to move them to fourth in the overall competition, but they were still a considerable 49 seconds behind the table topping Italians Colasanti and Tognetti (ITA).
Their second place finish kept them in pole position overall and with an 18 second head start on their closest rivals Lees and Pipes (GBR) going into the final Combined Event.
Hungarians Hovath and ZS Toth (HUN) were a further 20 seconds behind the Brits.
The tension was palpable as the Combined Event got underway and as with the yesterday's Women's Relay Final there was drama as the Chinese pairing of Li and Zhong (CHN) overturned their 49 second handicap to take gold.
Silver went to the Italian's Colasanti and Tognetti (ITA) with Lee and Kim (KOR) taking bronze.
Ivar Sisniega, UIPM First Vice President was happy with the way the competition went. He said: "We had a very exciting finish of this week of competition with the top 3 places being decided between China, Italy and Korea in the last 800m. The level was really high during all the week.
"This competition was really sucessful with great conditions to the athletes. It was also challenging for the athletes because of the altitude but in fact we saw that the athletes were well prepared for this.
"This shows that we have a great future generation of pentathletes. Also, some of them are already qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games."
He added: "The UIPM is really happy with this great 2015 Junior World Championships."
Horacio de la Vega, Sports Director of Mexico City and also UIPM Business Affairs Delegate said in the end of another competition in this city: "Personally, as a former pentathlete that had the opportunity to compete in this competition some year ago, it's really a honour to host this competition here in Mexico City."
"Mexico City intends to promote sports during all the year. We have more than 35 international events and more than 420 national events this year in our city and we are sure that UIPM and Modern Pentathlon helped us to raise even more the name of our city."
