Jamie Cooke and Francesca Summers made it two silvers in as many days for Pentathlon GB athletes at World Cup 2 as they finished second after a hugely impressive display in the mixed relay in Sofia. The current World Champion and former Junior World Champion teaming up always looked like a strong partnership and the British duo lived up to their billing as they were within the top four positions throughout the day in a highly competitive field.
After a personal best individual World Cup result of 4th on Friday, it was another major milestone achieved for Summers with the first WC medal of her career. The silver also rounded off a hugely successful week for Pentathlon GB athletes with Joe Choong taking silver in the men’s individual final yesterday and Tom Toolis recording his own World Cup best result of 6th.
Story of the Day
The mixed relay began in the pool where the Brits got off a strong start, clocking a 2:00.93 to sit 4th in the early standings. With 21 nations competing, the fencing discipline was always likely to play an important role in the final outcome and that proved to be the case. However, after a sluggish start, the Pentathlon duo found their form, putting in a hugely impressive final few rounds to end with 24 victories and 16 defeats from their 40 bouts.
Although the Gloucestershire-Surrey partnership didn’t add any more points to their tally in the bonus round, they remained in 4th at the end of the morning and within striking distance of those ahead.
With the horse-riding arena cutting up after the past two days of individual finals, many teams encountered difficulties. However, Cooke and Summers were not to be one of those, a controlled display seeing them score 286 points for their round and moving the Brits up to second heading into the laser run.
With a large number of nations packed in behind them, the pressure was on the Brits throughout the 3200m run-shoot. However, both 22-year-old Summers and 28-year-old Cooke kept their composure to maintain their place in second at the line to add another silver medal to Joe Choong’s from the men’s final yesterday.
The next World Cup takes place in Hungary from 1st-5th. The Pentathlon GB team competing in that event will be announced shortly.
Courtesy of Pentathlon GB
