Poland pulls out come-from-behind win at WUC Modern Pentathlon

BUDAPEST —  13 teams lined up for the Mixed Relay event at the FISU World University Modern Penthathlon Championship, and for the third time in three competitions, a different national anthem has been played each time. This time it was the Polish duo of Marta Kobecka and Lukasz Gutkowski who took the title with a come behind with a blistering Laser-Run to score 1447 points and take the mixed team title.

Right behind was a Russia 1 team comprised of Ksenila Fraltsova and Nikolai Matveev who earned the silver medal with a performance just two points behind the Polish contingent. The Egyptian team of Sondos Aboubakr and Sherif Nazeir recorded 1438 points for the final spot on the podium.

In the swimming,  Team Russia 1 showed they would be a team to be reckoned with by recording the fastest swim time of 1:56.08. Poland also started well in the swimming pool, finishing in second, at just .64 seconds back as Team Italy 2 was third after the first of the pentathlon disciplines.

As the competition moved to fencing, it was the Irish team who equipped themselves well by winning 28 out of 48 fencing bouts. But they couldn’t compete with the Egyptians medal-winning duo of  Aboubakr and Nazeir who recorded 32 victory en route to winning the event discipline with a score of 242 points.

For the first time at this championship, the equestrian skills of the competitors was tested in the Mixed Relay. All told, four teams were perfect with Egypt, Italy 2, Polish and Russia 1 scoring a flawless 300-300 points.

Heading into the Laser-Run, team Egypt was atop the leaderboard with 845 points. Team Italy 2 was right in the mix, and found themselves handicapped by 2 points before the event. Team Poland started the run in third with a bit of time to make up  on the leaders with their three-event score totalling 833 points.

In the final competiton, it was Italy 2 who dropped out of podium race due to some shooting woes on the range as the two missed a combined 27 shots. Owing to this inaccuracy, the team finished on the last place in the laser-run.

Meanwhile, it was  Russia 1 making an inspired run for the title during the Laser-Run by putting up the day’s quickest performance.  The Ksenila Fraltsova and Nikolai Matveev duo started in fifth place, and Fraltsova made only two mistakes during her two shooting series. But this performance was not quite enough to win the world championship and the Polish team recorded the second fastest last event time to move up from third to first and hold off a fast-closing Russia.

While you couldn’t tell it by their composed performance, Poland didn’t come into the event necessarily thinking victory, as Gutkowski explained. “This was our first mixed relay at abroad Actually first because two months ago we had a world cup in Kecskemét and then we only swim because of my injuries. But today we could do all of the five disciplines and we won a golden medal. So we are very very happy. My best discipline was the Laser-Run of course and my teammate’s were the riding and the fencing.”

With the Mixed Relay bronze medal, Egypt’s Sondos Aboubakr won her second medal of the championship after also picking up a bronze in the women’s final.

All photos by Virág Buza

• Mixed Relay Shooting Results
• Mixed Relay Overall Results