Jamie Cooke continued his fine form by safely qualifying for the Men’s Final at the 2016 Modern Pentathlon World Championships in Moscow today but teammates Joe Choong, Sam Curry and Tom Toolis unfortunately missed out on a place in the final 36.
In the final Qualifying event before the Rio 2016 Olympics, Pentathlon GB’s Performance Director Jan Bartu explained that “Today was a really tough day. It is one of the hardest semi-finals I have ever seen. We’re just a few weeks from the Games and everyone is fighting, on form and going flat out. As a result it was a real test for the boys today.”
Cooke, fresh from back-to-back successes in World Cup 4 and the World Cup Final was placed in Group B, starting his day in the fencing salle. The Cheltenham born athlete openly admits that fencing has been his Achilles heel in previous years, but produced his fifth consecutive positive fence at World Cup and World Championships level with 19 victories and just 12 defeats.
This left him in 6th position after the opening discipline, a position from which he never looked back. Another sub 2 minute swim in the pool, this time 1:59.10 was the quickest in the Group and left him 2nd ahead of the combined event. A controlled run-shoot meant he eased his way into Saturday’s Final.
Bartu commented that “Jamie’s performance today was to a very high standard as we expected. There is still room for improvement ahead of the final but we are confident he will show that. He needs to fight for the top positions again and gain the respect of the other competitors as this could be very important in the Olympics.”
Orpington’s Choong, who has already achieved the Rio Olympic Qualification standard by virtue of his 7th place finish at last year’s European Championships started with his favourite swimming discipline. A great time of 1:59.76 was 4th quickest in the group and provided a positive start to the day. However, he endured a difficult time in the fencing salle, eventually finishing the discipline in 20th with just 14 victories.
It meant he started the combined event in 15th place and despite gaining a position to finish the group in 14th, he missed out on qualification for the final.
However, Bartu was in philosophical mood, stating “Joe had a disappointing second half of the fencing and couldn’t bounce back from that. It put him in the middle of the group fighting for the final qualification places and other people were stronger than him today. However, I believe this will be an excellent learning curve for Joe. He hasn’t been in this position before and he now recognises how difficult it is to become a top athlete in this sport despite his indisputable talent.”
Curry and Toolis were both placed in Group A, meaning they started with the fencing discipline. Both scored some great hits but in a highly competitive group eventually finished 18th and 19th with 14 victories and 17 defeats apiece.
Both produced strong performances in the pool with Toolis’ 2:03.21 the Group’s 4th best and Curry’s 2:04.25 11th. It saw both move up a single place in the overall group standings ahead of their combined event.
Despite their best efforts though, both came up shy of qualifying for the final with Curry finishing the group in 21st and Toolis 28th. Bartu explained that “Neither Sam or Tom started well in the fencing. This was decisive for their competition today as they couldn’t recover to qualify.”
Cooke will be back in action on Saturday in the Men’s Final with Samantha Murray and Kate French taking part in the Women’s Final tomorrow (Friday) after qualifying yesterday.
Report courtesy of Pentathlon GB