Kate French and Jamie Cooke teamed up to claim silver in the Kremlin Cup, an invitational mixed relay event in Moscow, today. The Rio Olympians performed well throughout the day in a strong international field, finding themselves in medal contention all day before eventually finishing in second.
Just a week on from the World Championships, the athletes were still on top form, making for a thrilling spectacle in the Russian capital with the top 6 teams separated by just 12 points at the finish. It was the home favourites who came out on top with World Champion-Olympic Champion combination of Gulnaz Gubaydullina and Aleksandr Lesun edging French and Cooke into second with Belarus, including World Championships bronze medallist and European Champion Anastasia Prokopenko, taking third.
The swim was a fiercely contested opening with the 26-year-old British pairing’s time of 1:59.72 making them one of five teams to break the two-minute barrier. It was the fence that propelled the Brits into contention with a stunning display seeing them pick up 28 victories and 16 defeats as French continued her impressive fencing form from the World Championships.
The Bath based duo’s 28 wins put them four clear of anyone else in the field meaning they found themselves at the top of the leaderboard after two disciplines in Moscow.
In the same city of last year’s World Championships where Cooke recorded a top 10 finish on his way to becoming number one in the World, the Brits picked up 275 points from their riding round. It meant they headed into the laser run in 2nd place, 5 seconds behind Russia and level with France who both picked up the perfect 300 in the third discipline.
A thrilling laser run followed with the positions tight at the top throughout. French, who has enjoyed a remarkable season, finishing inside the top 7 in all of her events, showed she was still in fine form as the Brits maintained their second place, finishing just 3 seconds behind Russia and 2 seconds ahead of Belarus in one of the closest competitions of the year.
The competition rounded off the 2017 seasons for both athletes with a medal finish and they will now take the rest of the month off before re-starting training next month with the rest of Pentathlon GB’s National Training Centre based athletes.
Report courtesy of Pentathlon GB
