Jess Varley, Georgina Summers and Charlie Follett all finished inside the top 30 at the 2016 Modern Pentathlon Junior World Championships in Cairo on Friday, the first major international at Junior (U21) level for all 3 ladies.
Having all qualified on Wednesday, the GB trio’s day started in the pool. Follett, who currently trains with Dorset Pentathletes, was quickest of the GB athletes in 2:24.38 with Varley, who is based at Pentathlon GB’s National Training Centre at the University of Bath, recording a time of 2:25.83. Summers, who trains at North Kent Modern Pentathlon Club, started her day with 2:26.91 swim.
18-year-old Summers excelled in the fencing salle, placing in the top 10 throughout the ranking round before eventually finishing the discipline standings 5th with 22 victories and just 11 defeats. 19-year-old Follett recorded 15 victories and 20 defeats with 21-year-old Varley securing 10 victories alongside 25 defeats.
In the bonus round, both Varley and Follett picked up an extra point with victories over Egyptian Salma Abdelmaksoud and Italian Aurora Tognetti respectively whilst Summers lost out to German Rebecca Langrehr.
It meant that Summers was the top Brit at the end of the morning, sitting in 11th place after two disciplines with Follett 28th and Varley 36th.
Varley, who became the new British Modern Pentathlon Champion in June went first in the ride and picked up 279 points after knocking down 3 poles before Follett, who finished 2nd in the British Championships, produced a brilliant clear round to pick up the maximum 300 points. Summers, who recorded top 10 finishes in the Budapest Indoor International and Spanish Open International earlier this year also completed a fantastic round, recording just a single time penalty to secure 299 points.
It meant that all 3 Pentathlon GB athletes moved up the standings with Summers starting the closing combined event in 6th with Follett 17th and Varley 31st.
The standings heading into the run-shoot were extremely close meaning there were huge changes in the final discipline. Varley produced a sublime combined event of 13:27 to move up to 23rd in the final standings, narrowly ahead of Summers in 27th and Follett in 30th at the competition’s finish.
The event was won by South Korean Sunwoo Kim who becomes the new Junior World Champion, succeeding Brit Francesca Summers after her victory in Mexico City 12 months ago. Francesca – the older sister of Georgina – unfortunately missed this year’s event due injury.
Another Francesca, Italy’s Tognetti, claimed silver with Russian Sofia Serkina in bronze medal position.
Today (Saturday) sees the men’s final taking place with Rio 2016 Olympian Joe Choong in action for Pentathlon GB.
Harry Sykes, Josh Miller and Bradley Sutton who were all appearing in their debut Junior major international at the age of 18 put up strong performance but failed to qualify for the final 36.
In the Women’s Relay on Monday, Jess Varley and Charlie Follett finished 12th with Harry Sykes and Josh Miller placing 14th in the men’s relay on Tuesday.
Report courtesy of Pentathlon GB
