Individual, Men

The men’s modern pentathlon event in Tokyo was again contested over two days with 36 athletes competing. Of the medallists from Rio only Pavlo Tymoshchenko participated again. As the World Championships are an annual event, there had been four editions since Rio (the 2020 event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic), with the champions being Jeong Jin-Hwa (2017), Jamie Cooke (2018), Valentin Belaud (2019), and Ádám Marosi (2021). The 2021 Worlds were held in June, less than two months before the Olympics, with the other medallists being Aleksandr Lifanov (silver) and Ahmed El-Gendy (bronze). Lifanov (2014) and El-Gendy (2018) had also been the gold medallists at the last two Youth Olympic Games. The leader of the world rankings just before the Games was Marosi, followed by Valentin Prades and Jeon Ung-Tae.

The traditional fencing round-robin was contested on the first day. Joe Choong and Lifanov took the lead with 25 wins each, and behind them were Illia Palazkov and Justinas Kinderis, each with 24 wins. After a break of one day the competition, was continued with the 200 m swimming, which was won by Amro El-Geziry in a time of 1:52.96. The Britons Cook, Olympic record holder in swimming in a 50 m pool in modern pentathlon, and Choong finished second and third. After the following bonus round in fencing, Choong was in the lead with 573 points, with Jeong Jin-Hwa second (554) and Palazkov third (552). The riding element was eagerly awaited, particularly after the dramatic events in the women’s competition the previous day. The best riders were Patrick Dogue, Gustav Gustenau, and Martin Vlach who all collected the maximum of 300 points. The leader Choong showed a solid performance after being drawn with Clntino, the same horse that help compatriot Kate French win gold the day before. Choong was still in the lead after three events with 859 points, and Jeong Jin-Hwa remained second (847 points) and was followed by Jan Kuf (838).

The scored points were converted into times and gave the following gaps for the laser-run: Choong started 12 seconds in front of Jeong Jin-Hwa, while Kuf was another nine seconds behind. Jeon Ung-Tae (+0.28) led the rest of the field with the other athletes close behind with a distance of a few seconds from each other. After the second shooting, Choong was still in the lead followed by Kuf and the two Koreans. Already in fifth position was El-Geziry who started 13th with +0:50 behind Choong. At the 2000 m split Choong was about six seconds ahead of a group consisting of Kuf, El-Gendy, Jeon Ung-Tae, and Jeong Jin-Hwa. Up to the last shooting Choong had controlled the race when El-Gendy caught up the Briton and overtook him. Choong, however, was able to fight back and with a 300 m spurt to the finish line secured the gold medal five seconds in front of El-Gendy. The battle for bronze was a fight between the two Koreans, who had stayed close together for a long time during the race, with the better finish for Jeon Ung-Tae, who was able to make up the 16 seconds his compatriot Jeong Jin-Hwa led him by at one stage, to finally win bronze, four seconds ahead. The best performance in the laser-run was by Vlach with a total time of 10:30.13 to finish fifth overall.

Choong won the first ever individual modern pentathlon medal for Great Britain. El-Gendy, who was the youngest ever competitor in this event, also won the sport’s first ever medal for Egypt, as well as for the continent of Africa, and Jeon Ung-Tae won South Korea’s first ever medal in this sport.