UIPM 2015 Junior World Championships: Korea wins the Junior Men's Relay

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - Woongtae Jun and Jihun Lee are the new Men's Relay champions at the UIPM 2015 Junior World Championships in Mexico City.

The Koreans were strong throughout the competition which saw 14 of the best young male Modern Pentathlete pairings from across the world go head to head on Day Five of the championships.

The Junior World Championships Individual Silver and Bronze Medalists were delighted after the end of the competition Woongtae said: "We are really happy with this result. This combined event here in Mexico City is very difficult for us because of the difference of altitude but today the day was fantastic for us.

"The swimming and the fencing were really a good start for us and the good horses that we had helped us to reach the combined event in first place"

Jihun added: "Normally my fencing and riding are now so good but today I was with a good feeling and we worked very well in team. We are really happy with this title."

They finished saying: "Korean team will also compete in the Women's Relay and in the Mixed-Relay. We hope that we can leave Mexico with more medals".

Second place went to Bardyshev and Lifanov (RUS) of Russia with Hungarians Bruckmann and Strobl (HUN) taking third.

British duo Thomas Lees and Luke Tasker (GBR) got off to a good start with victory in the pool with a swim of 1:52.00.

Woongtae Jun and Jihun Lee (KOR) took second while Cuban pairing Ernesto Guerra and Raidel Orama (CUB) clinched third.

Lee and Jun (KOR) took their form into the Fencing where they won 20 of the 26 matches to take first place in the event and in the overall classification.

Likewise, Mexican's Ricardo Vera and Luis Cruz (MEX) came second in the Fencing to go second overall while Russia's Viacheslav Bardyshev and Alexander Lifanov (RUS) sat third at the midway point of the competition followed closely by Gergo Bruckmann and Krisztian Strobl (HUN) of Hungary.

On to the Riding Arena and it was the Russian pairing of Bardyshev and Lifanov (RUS) who came out on top, but a second place finish from Lee and Jun (KOR) kept the Koreans at the top of the overall leaderboard giving them a healthy 42 second head start over their Russian rivals heading in to the final Combined Event.

Another 12 seconds behind in third were Hungarians Bruckmann and Strobl (HUN) with a further sizeable 30 second gap to the start time for the German duo Marvin Faly Dogue and Christian Zillekens (GER).

The Combined Event played out according to the time handicaps with Jun and Lee (KOR) maintaining their sizeable gap to take gold followed by Russians Bardyshev and Lifanov (RUS) with silver and Hungarians Bruckmann and Strobl (HUN) securing bronze.

Juan Manzo, President of the Organising Committee and President of the NORCECA Modern Pentathlon Federation was really happy after this fifth day of competition. He said: "I really think that everything is going really well. The feedback that we are receiving of this event is really good. Good venues, close to each other, good organisation and the general quality of the horses are some of the points that the delegations transmit to us.

He added: "With all of this we can say that the competition is being great. The exciting finals that we had the opportunity to see indicates us that this is the way that we should continue to follow. This sport gives to the audience really an exciting event with great moments and we really think that the conditions that we manage to achieve here in Mexico follow those key points."

Follow all the action of this UIPM 2015 Junior World Championships with our live results of the Women's Team Relay Competition tomorrow at www.pentathlon.org, our updates through Facebook at www.facebook.com/modpen and Twitter at https://twitter.com/UIPM_HQ