UIPM 2024 Pentathlon U17 World Championships: Egypt continue to dominate in Mixed Relay thanks to Khalil and Abdelhamed

Egypt picked up their fifth gold medal of the UIPM 2024 Pentathlon U17 World Championships in the Mixed Relay, superstar Farida Khalil winning her third gold medal of the weekend alongside Ahmed Abdelhamed in Caldas da Rainha (POR).

Twenty nations participated in this year’s Mixed Relay event, a 25% increase on the number of teams that took part in 2023.

Thanks to strong starts in the Fencing and Obstacle, 13-year-old sensation Khalil completed a gold medal sweep following successes in the Women’s individual and Women’s Team, amassing 1640 points along with teammate Abdelhamed (EGY) who won his second medal of the competition 24 hours after winning Men’s Team gold.

Poland duo Hanna Jakubowska and Maksymilian Dobosz came close to pipping their Egyptian counterparts in the Laser Run having completed the circuit more than 30 seconds faster than the winners, but it was not enough to close the demonstrable gap and they finished the week with silver. Hungary athletes Nemere Szecsi and Ivola Turbucz beat both in the Laser Run, salvaging a bronze medal, a repeat result of last year’s U17 World Championships albeit with a different team.

Gold medallist Abdelhamed (EGY) said: “It was good competing here - we have been training for months and years. It was very good. The atmosphere was good.”

Team-mate Khalil (EGY) added: “It was a very tough competition because it was four days. I started on day one. I did very well in the fencing and the shooting. It was great.”

Egypt began their day with a more than healthy lead, picking up a startling 32V/6D and four bonus points in the Fencing Ranking Round, Germany (Salim El-Masri/ Charlotte Keister) coming closest with 26V/12D.

Egypt (Khalil/Abdelhamed) combined brilliantly once again to win Obstacle in a time of 57.59sec, although their Hungarian rivals received the same number of points (305) having also completed the course in an equally impressive 57.77.

Egypt’s ranked 5th in Swimming, clocking 2min 02.75sec. Bulgaria (Tomas Grigorov/ Antoniya Nacheva) went fastest in 1:57.23, soon followed by Poland (Jakubowska/Dobosz) in 1:58.76 and Japan (Yusei Takano/ Wakana Uchiyama) in 2:00.32.

Junior World Championship bronze medallist Khalil (EGY) would have begun the day with aspirations of topping the podium for the third time this week and it looked likely. She and Abdelhamed (EGY) had a 40sec head start in Laser Run and they were able to race comfortably and minimise risks as they sealed the title.

Hungary’s new U17 pairing of Szecsi and Turbucz completed the podium as bronze medallists, finishing the Laser Run in 8:33.53 and with a total points score of 1622.

The UIPM 2024 Pentathlon U17 World Championships has now concluded and the next competition on the UIPM calendar is the UIPM 2024 Pentathlon U19 World Championships in Druskininkai (LTU) from September 23-29.

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