GB men miss out on medals on penultimate day of Euro Champs
16th July 2013
Britain’s men couldn’t add to the team medal haul on the penultimate day of the Modern Pentathlon European Championships in Poland today (Tuesday), finishing fifth in the team competition.
Double Olympian Sam Weale was the highest placed GB finisher in the individual competition in 16th with Jamie Cooke finishing 22nd and Nick Woodbridge 23rd.
Woodbridge made the brightest start among the Brits, winning 19 of his 35 fencing points to earn 856 pentathlon points, putting him joint ninth.
Weale won 14 bouts to go to the pool in joint 29th with 736 points, while Cooke’s 13 victories put him joint 32nd with 712 points.
Hungary’s Adam Marosi and Ukraine’s Dmytro Kirpulianskyi shared the lead with 24 victories each. Great Britain were fifth in the team event.
Woodbridge and Cooke were dominant in the pool, setting the two fastest 200m freestyle times of the day.
It was Woodbridge who shaded the battle of the Brits with a time of 1:56.19, with Cooke second in 1:56.28. Both were more than three seconds faster than the next quickest swimmer, Maxim Kustov of Russia.
Woodbridge’s time was more than a second better than his time in the heats – which itself was his best since the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Both Brits earned 1408 pentathlon points, enough to promote Woodbridge to third overall and Cooke to 12th.
Weale’s 2:05.00 was the 14th fastest of the day earning 1300 points, putting him 26th going to the ride. Hungary’s Adam Marosi led the individual competition with his nation leading the team event, from France, with Britain in third.
Woodbridge lost a bit of ground in the ride, dropping 160 points from the maximum 1200, he went into the runs/shoot in sixth place, 22 seconds behind leader Marosi.
It was Weale that produced the best ride of the day among the Brits. On a day when only two of the 36 athletes went clear in the allowed time to bag the perfect 1200 riding points, Weale’s 1160 points was the third best performance of the day and that saw him climb to 17th overall.
But Cooke could only net 1000 points from the ride on a difficult horse, which saw him drop to 24th overall. Britain were still third overall in the team competition.
It was Weale that ended his campaign the strongest, following that ride with a run/shoot time of 11:16.33 to finish 16th overall. Cooke’s 11:19.50 saw him climb a couple of places to 22nd, while Woodbridge’s 12:12.63 put him 23rd as world number one Marosi took gold.
Their combined scores meant that Britain dropped out of the podium places for the team competition, finishing fifth.
Cooke returns to action tomorrow partnering Kate French in the mixed relay – the final event of the championships. French already has two gold medals under her belt – one in the women’s team relay and one for the team event.
European Championship results
Men’s individual
Gold: Adam Marosi (HUN) – 5916 points
Silver: Robert Kasza (HUN) – 5888 points
Bronze: Alexander Lesun (RUS) – 5844 points
16th: Sam Weale (GBR) – 5692 points
22nd: Jamie Cooke (GBR) – 5604 points
23rd: Nick Woodbridge (GBR) – 5576 points
Men’s team
Gold: Hungary (Adam Marosi, Robert Kasza & Bence Demeter) – 17504 points
Silver: France (Valentin Prades, Jean-Maxence Berrou & Christopher Patte) – 17340 points
Bronze: Italy (Pierpaolo Petroni, Riccardo de Luca & Nicola Benedetti) -17016 points
5th: Great Britain (Jamie Cooke, Sam Weale & Nick Woodbridge) – 16872 points
British medals
Gold
Women’s team relay - Katy Burke, Kate French & Samantha Murray
Women’s team – Kate French, Samantha Murray & Mhairi Spence
Bronze
Men’s team relay – Jamie Cooke, Sam Curry & Joe Evans