Jamie Cooke produced another impressive performance to claim a top 10 finish in the 2016 Modern Pentathlon World Championships in Moscow today as Frenchman Valentin Belaud snatched gold after a scintillating run-shoot. Cooke’s consistency was key as he remained in the top 10 throughout the day, eventually finishing 9th to record his best World Championships finish since 2013.
The day started in the pool where some blistering performances saw 5 athletes break the 2 minute barrier. Cooke demonstrated his significant prowess in his favoured event, being one of those 5 and the second quickest overall in a time of 1:57.57, over 1.5 seconds quicker than he managed in his semi-final on Thursday.
With the competition representing the last opportunity for athletes to try and qualify for the Rio Olympic Games, the strong nature of the field was demonstrated in the fencing salle with fantastic skills and determination on show from a number of competitors. Cooke was part of this group and eventually finished the ranking round in 13th with a level 17 victories and 17 defeats. An extra point in the bonus round for securing the hit against Latvian athlete Ruslan Nakonechnyi meant the Cheltenham born athlete finished the morning in 9th place.
On a course that has provided many difficulties through the week, Cooke produced an impeccable round on his allocated horse, Ippomey, to pick up 300 points in the ride phase. With some of his rivals faltering, this saw the Brit move up to 5th ahead of the combined event, 36 seconds behind the leader, Egyptian Omar El Geziry. Things were much tighter behind Cooke though with just 30 seconds between the 5th placed Brit and 20th placed Jianli Guo of China.
A thrilling finale developed in the combined event with the lead exchanging hands four times and positions fluctuating behind. The 25 year-old Brit was right in the middle of this pack, eventually crossing the line in 9th, just 9 seconds away from 4th. The 9th place represented another top performance on the international stage for Cooke following victories at World Cup 4 in Kecskemét, Hungary and the World Cup Final in Sarasota, Florida in his last two events.
Meanwhile, at the front, Belaud’s stunning time of 10:41.09, the quickest of the day saw him snatch gold from home favourite Aleksander Lesun on the final 800m loop with South Korea’s Jinhwa Jung securing bronze.
Pentathlon GB’s Men’s Head Coach Marian Gheorghe was extremely pleased with Jamie’s performance, stating “This was a very tough competition with the highest quality field as it was the last chance for athletes to qualify for the Olympics.
“It has also been a very competitive and intensive season with events since February so we were pleased to see Jamie in such good form all day. Our objective for the World Championships for Jamie was to secure Olympic Qualification and we succeeded with that really well.
“To finish 9th in the World was an excellent achievement and Jamie should be very proud. We now have 2 months before Rio where we can focus on final preparations. We want to build upon Jamie’s recent form and performance today to give him the best chance of success at the Olympic Games. ”
Cooke’s finish was the best individual GB performance of the week after Samantha Murray and Kate French finished 16th and 24th respectively in the Women’s Final yesterday. On Monday, Murray claimed silver in the Women’s Relay alongside 21 year-old Joanna Muir, GB’s 10th medal in the last 5 World Championships.
Reflecting on the week as a whole, Pentathlon GB Performance Director Jan Bartu explained “Looking at the top results and medals, we fell behind our expectations. However, we have learned a lot from the experience and now we will start our final preparations for the Olympic Games when everything starts again from zero.
“Jamie deserves recognition for his 9th placed finish today which was a very good performance.”
“There were definitely positives from the week and we’ve seen improvements in individual disciplines during these championships. I’m confident that we are on the right track. We’ll analyse the performances and then plan for the upcoming weeks.”
The GB Modern Pentathlon team for the Olympics will be announced on June 8th.
Report courtesy of Pentathlon GB
