UIPM 2025 Pentathlon U17 World Championships: Redemption for Szecsi (HUN) in Men’s Final

Nemere Szecsi added his name to the long list of Pentathlon world champions from Hungary as he clinically won the Men’s Final with a new world record of 1,508 points at the UIPM 2025 Pentathlon U17 World Championships.

Having finished 4th last year, missing out on a medal by 1sec, Szecsi (HUN) left nothing to chance this time and performed consistently across all five disciplines, finally finishing 12sec ahead of silver medallist Arda Meric of Türkiye. It is rare these days to see a medal podium without Egypt and Momen Abdelmgeed duly delivered with an exceptional comeback in Laser Run to claim bronze.

Szecsi (HUN) was celebrating again as he received Men’s Team gold along with Hungary team-mates Aron Herczeg and Domonokos Gyepessy, with silver going to Egypt and Germany claiming bronze.

FENCING

While the Women’s Final was always going to be a case of “can anybody catch Farida Khalil”, the wide-open nature of the men’s competition was immediately underlined in the first disciplines. An incredibly tight Fencing Ranking Round ended with no less than six athletes tied on 23 victories and 12 defeats – Fritz Rasmus Nord and Florian Forste of Germany, Omar Abd El Fattah of Egypt, Liutauras Valeika of Lithuania, Meric (TUR) and Szecsi (HUN). Disappointingly for the host nation, top qualifier Daniel Grove of South Africa was unable to continue after scoring 16V/19D in Fencing.

OBSTACLE

Similarly on the Obstacle course, fine margins separated the best performers with the fastest seven athletes scoring between 371 and 375 points. Herczeg (HUN) ended up being the king of the course with a time of 23.58sec, while Abdelrahman Farouk (EGY) also scraped under 24sec. Valeika (LTU) moved into the overall lead, two points ahead of Szecsi (HUN), by matching the 24.27 achieved by Salim El-Masri (GER) in equal-third.

SWIMMING

Herczeg (HUN) continued to recover from a poor fence with the 3rd-fastest time of 2min 06.47sec, outshone only by Kristian Voros of Slovakia (2:06.02) and the top pool performer, Eyad Abd Allah (EGY) in 2:05.32. In the overall race for the podium, Valeika (LTU) was joined at the top of the leaderboard by Meric (TUR) with Szecsi (HUN) lurking just 6sec behind them on the Laser Run start line.

LASER RUN

Knowing he had the potential to improve on last year’s 4th place and perhaps even take the big prize, Szecsi (HUN) took his opportunity with impressive professionalism, achieving the 2nd-best Laser Run time of 8:38.86 as he danced to a finally comfortable victory margin. Meric (TUR) fared better than Valeika (LTU) in defending their initial lead, holding on firmly to silver with the Egyptian threat looming. A top time of 8:30.07 was achieved by Abdelmgeed (EGY), who made his way from outside the top 10 starters to finally cross 3rd and break the heart of his team-mate Abd Allah (EGY) with Valeika (LTU) and Herczeg (HUN) completing the top six.

WATCH AND FOLLOW

The UIPM 2025 Pentathlon U17 World Championships has now concluded and the next competition on the calendar is the UIPM 2025 Pentathlon U15 World Championships in Alexandria (EGY) from August 13-17.

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