UIPM 2022 Pentathlon World Cup Final: Jun (KOR) still the man to beat

• World-record holder eases into Men’s Final with 10-point lead
• Choong (GBR) and Jung (KOR) in chasing pack in Ankara (TUR)
• Vlach (CZE) and Carrillo (MEX) celebrate Semi-final victories

Woongtae Jun of Korea will be in a familiar position on Super Saturday after performing strongly in the Semi-finals at the UIPM 2022 Pentathlon World Cup Final.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medallist, who set a new world record on his way to gold in the regular season, topped the standings in the Fencing Ranking Round (23V/12D) and crossed the line in Semi-final B just 1sec behind winner Duilio Carrillo of Mexico.

He was accompanied over the line by team-mate Changwan Seo (KOR), with the other automatic qualification spots going to Maksym Aharushev of Ukraine, Ahmed Hamed of Egypt, Csaba Bohm of Hungary and Manuel Padilla (MEX).

Earlier, regular-season gold medallist Martin Vlach of Czech Republic won Semi-final A with a 6sec margin over Balazs Szep (HUN), with Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion Joseph Choong of Great Britain also qualifying for the Final alongside 2017 world champion Jinhwa Jung (KOR), Marek Grycz (CZE), Christopher Patte of France and Pavel Ilyashenko of Kazakhstan.

With the Fencing points the only assets carrying through to the Final, Jun (KOR) enjoys a 10-point overall advantage over 2nd-placed Carrillo (MEX), with Seo (KOR) five points further adrift on 230 points and Choong (GBR) among a clutch of athletes on 225.

Czech Republic, Hungary and Korea will each be represented by three athletes in the Men’s Final.

The UIPM 2022 Pentathlon World Cup Final comes to a climax tomorrow (June 25) with the Women’s and Men’s Finals, followed by the Mixed Relay on June 26.

Live stream of all Semi-finals and Finals is available on UIPM.TV and all competition results are available at the UIPM website.

The list of athletes who qualified for the Men’s Final is as follows: