UIPM 2015 Junior World Championships: Oleg Naumov is the Junior World Champion

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - Oleg Naumov has been crowned the Men's Individual champion at the UIPM 2015 Junior World Championships in Mexico City.

The Russian dominated the 36 strong field from start to finish to take gold as the best young male Modern Pentathletes from across the world went head to head on Day Three of the championships.

An enthusiastic Naumov said: "It was a fantastic day. It's not my first time here in Mexico and I really enjoy to compete here.

"Competing in this altitude is not easy and was a very difficult competition. I'm really happy with this result."

Korea's Woongtae Jun took silver with his countryman Lee Jihun third for bronze.

Woongtae said: "Today was a very hard competition. I started the combined event in the first place and I wanted to keep it. I didn't made it but I'm very happy with this result. I'm very young and for sure I will come in the next year for the title."

Russia's Nikolai Dudko (RUS) took first place in the swimming in a time of 02:02.99 with Matteo Cicinelli (ITA) and Korea's Woongtae Jun (KOR) adjudged to be joint second with times of 02:03.69 and 02:03.92 respectively. Jun's fellow countryman Jihun Lee (KOR) took fourth.

On to the fencing and it was a Russian 1-2-3 with Oleg Naumov (RUS) in first with 28 wins from 35 followed by Alexander Lifanov (RUS) in second and Viacheslav Bradyshev (RUS) third while Korea's Jun (KOR) took fourth.

That put Russia very much in the driving seat after the first two events with Naumov, Bardyshev and Lifanov (all RUS) sitting first, third and fourth respectively and Korea's Jun (KOR) in second.

However, after the Riding it was Jun (KOR) who sat first overall, albeit by the slimmest margin of one second as the pentathletes lined up for the final Combined Event.

A disappointing Ride saw previous leader Naumov (RUS) finish 21st, leaving him second overall but still with a great chance at taking the gold.

Guatemala's Charles Fernandez (GUA) moved up to third thanks to a strong round in the Riding arena with a narrow 10 second handicap on Naumov (RUS) whose countrymen Bardyshev and Lifanov (both RUS) were not far behind.

As had happened throughout the Men's Final, it was Russia who held strong with Naumov (RUS) easily overcoming the one second handicap to overtake Jun (KOR) and take gold with the Korean second followed by countryman Lee (KOR) in third.

Also during this event, the Russian Team won gold in the Men's Team event. Oleg Naumov, Viacheslav Bardyshev and Alexander stood on top of the podium alongside silver medallists Korea (Woongtae Jun, Donggi Lee and Jihun Lee) and bronze medallists Germany (Christian Zillekens, Marvin Faly Dogue and Fabian Liebig).

After this superb day of thrilling live modern pentathlon action, UIPM First Vice-President Ivar Sisniega said: "This was a very good final. The facilities here in Mexico City are unique with all the venues in a range of 50m. This makes a very good competition for all.

"We have the opportunity to see here the tremendous level of our Junior pentathletes. We have some of them already qualified to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and this shows the high level of this competition."

He added: "All these athletes from the 23 countries represented are really the future of this sport. We are very happy and confident for the remaining days of the competition."

Also Juan Manzo, President of the Organising Committee and President of the NORCECA Confederation was really happy after this day. He said: "This was a fantastic competition. All the athletes had the opportunity to show their best skills in our venues and, as we saw, everyone is really happy."

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