UIPM 2016 World Cup #2 - Germans prevail in the Mixed Relay

Lena Schoeneborn asserted her class once again when she teamed up with Patrick Dogue to win gold for Germany in the Mixed Relay at the second stage of the 2016 UIPM World Cup. The final act of this official Olympic Test Event in Rio became an intriguing tussle between Germany and Egypt, two countries that have already stamped their mark on this year's World Cup with medals both here and in Cairo at World Cup #1 last month. In the end the class of reigning individual world champion Schoeneborn allowed the Germans to comfortably prevail, with Haydy Morsy & Eslam Hamad (EGY) holding on to silver and consigning Natsumi Tomonaga & Tomoya Miguchi (JAP) to bronze. Schoeneborn (GER), who won silver in the Women's Individual two days ago, said: "Finally we are through - it was a lot of effort. It was good to find out how the venues are going to be in the Olympics, it was good for us to try the horses once again although we lost a few points in this discipline today. "Overall, of course we are happy having the gold medal. For me it was good because it gave me some points for the internal Olympic qualifying ranking, which is still going on, and because it gave me some self-confidence to know that I can perform well in these venues. "I'm going to have one more World Cup this season, and then keep training for the summer." Her partner Dogue (GER) admitted the victory was extra satisfying because he had not been fully fit. "It was about having fun. I got a little injury on my finger yesterday, so I was not sure if I could compete but we tried, and it was good - we had a lot of fun." The German duo certainly had fun from the start of the day, as they created a 25-point lead over the rest of the field in the opening two disciplines. In the Fencing Ranking Round, Schoeneborn/Dogue (GER) won 30 of their 42 bouts, with each of the eight competing nations meeting each other seven times on the piste. Swimming did not quite so well for the Germans, whose time of 2:02.96 was only 5th fastest. Tomonaga/Miguchi (JPN) were easily the fastest with 1:54.92, ahead of Wei Danni & Su Halhang (CHN) and Elena Nogueda & Alvaro Sandoval (MEX). Morsy/Hamad (EGY) kept the pressure on the leaders by winning the final bout in the Fencing Bonus Round, and then coming out on top in the Riding. The Egyptians scored highest with 289 thanks to a single seven-point penalty and a four-point time penalty. By contrast, Schoeneborn/Dogue (GER) incurred 31 penalty points overall and this led them to concede most of their advantage heading into the Combined Event. There, despite enjoying a buffer of only 5 seconds, Schoeneborn/Dogue (GER) reasserted themselves and never looked like being threatened. Dr Klaus Schormann, President of UIPM, said afterwards: "We know that many nations already went to Buenos Aires for a big competition, and that other nations went to Rome for a big competition, so only eight nations competed today but for us it's always important to test the Mixed Relay format again, again, again. "This was again a good presentation of our wishes to the IOC ahead of the 2016 Olympic Games." After six days of competition in Rio, the 2016 Olympic venue for Modern Pentathlon has now been fully tested by most of the world's leading pentathletes. Dr Schormann reflected on the Olympic Test Event with satisfaction while acknowledging that work remains to be done on fine-tuning the facilities and the organisational flow of the competition, which will take place in Deodoro Park as it did this week. "Modern Pentathlon will be one of the biggest highlights of the 2016 Olympic Games, thanks to our five disciplines and thanks to the high performance of our athletes," said Dr Schormann. "It will be a big surprise for many people in the media to see the big challenge of Bonus Fencing, and to see that our Combined Event is much better than it was at the London Olympics in 2012. "We will deliver a great pentathlon stadium, knowing that only the swimming is outside of this stadium, so this Test Event was the right time to test the technical parts, to test all of our surroundings and equipment, and very important to find and test the right horses. "Now we have the opportunity to make some modifications - I have discussed it with Celso Silva, the Rio 2016 competition manager, what we have in mind - and we will review the reports from this Test Event and then go forward maybe with some new guidelines for the Olympic Games. The 2016 UIPM World Cup resumes in Rome, Italy (March 30-April 3) before moving on to Kecskemet, Hungary (April 14-18) and culminating with the World Cup Final in Sarasota-Bradenton, USA (May 6-8). Highlights of all finals from World Cups 1 & 2 can now be viewed on uipmtv.org and full results can be found on pentathlon.org.