Kate French, Jo Muir and World Cup debutant Kerenza Bryson qualified for the World Cup 2 final in Cairo today as Jess Varley narrowly missed out on a place in the final 36.
With temperatures reaching the mid-20s during the afternoon, both qualifying groups started their day with the 200m swim. In Group A, Dumfries’ Muir and Gravesend’s French both got off to strong starts with the 22 year-old Scot recording a time of 2:19.85 and French just 0.3 seconds further back.
In the fencing salle, both British athletes came into their own with former North Kent Modern Pentathlon Club athlete French topping the discipline standings on 20 victories and just 6 defeats from her 26 bouts. Meanwhile Muir, who used to train with Scottish Saltires MPC before moving to Pentathlon GB’s National Training Centre at the University of Bath, also finished inside the top 10 with 15 victories and 11 defeats.
It meant World Cup 1 silver medallist French started the closing laser-run in 2nd with Muir, who is making her first World Cup appearance of the season, 8th. Both athletes list the laser-run as their strongest discipline, and their pedigree showed as both comfortably qualified for Saturday’s final with French crossing the line 2nd and Muir 6th having eased their way around the final 800m loop.
Meanwhile, in Group B, Plymouth’s Brysona began her day with a 2:26.10 swim with Fotheringhay’s Varley recording a time of 2:29.02. Bryson, who is making her Senior World Cup debut in the Egyptian capital, made an extremely strong start in the fencing salle before eventually finishing 9th in the discipline standings on 15 victories and 10 defeats. Varley, who only made her own World Cup debut in Los Angeles last month was well placed halfway through the discipline but unfortunately lost her last 8 bouts meaning she finished with 6 victories and 19 defeats.
As a result, Plymouth Studio School’s Bryson started the Group B laser-run in 15th, the final automatic qualifying position, with Varley in 23rd. Strong laser-runs from both TASS supported British athletes saw 18 year-old Bryson cross the line 17th with 22 year-old Varley 3 positions further back. Bryson’s score was high enough to see her make the final as one of the 6 best placed athletes not to automatically qualify with Varley just 4 positions short of qualifying after a tremendous effort which saw her record the 3rd quickest laser-run of the day across both groups.
French, Muir and Bryson will be back in action on Saturday for the women’s final. Tomorrow sees the Men’s final taking place in Cairo with no Pentathlon GB athletes competing after Myles Pillage unfortunately had to withdraw from qualifying due to illness. However, the 19 year old has now recovered and will fly out to Egypt tomorrow to compete in the Mixed Relay on Sunday.
Report courtesy of Pentathlon GB
