POSTED: Monday September 6th 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Belarus Win Modern Pentathlon Men's Relay World Championships

Belarus have beat a strong field to become Men’s Relay World Champions today at Pierre de Coubertin Modern Pentathlon Centre in Chengdu, China.

Belarus have beat a strong field to become Men’s Relay World Champions today at Pierre de Coubertin Modern Pentathlon Centre in Chengdu, China.

The Belarus team of Mikhail Mitsyk, Mihail Propkopenko and Dzmitry Meliakh held off a spirited Korean team made up of Hwonho Jung, Dong-Hun Nam and Soengjin Kim who overcame a 10 second penalty in the Combined Event to grab Silver and a star studded Russian team made up of double Olympic Champion Andrei Moiseev, 2008 World Champion Ilia Frolov and Silver medallist from the individual event Aleksander Lesun who had to settle for Bronze.

Belarus started the day strong coming 2nd in the Fencing event to Lithuania by only 3 victories. They dropped back down the field in the swimming by only managing 10th position behind a super quick Great Britain team. A strong ride brought them back up to 2nd position ahead of the Combined Event where they left 1st after the 1st shoot.

Mihail Prokopenko (BLR) was last up for the Belarus team, producing a tactical run to maintain their lead over Korea who were hot on his heels up until the last 200m of the race.

“I was pretty pleased with my shoot, I got five out of fives shots in the first round. I'm so happy with my guys, they gave me a four second gap on the Korean going into the last lap. I ran the first 500m so slowly and I could feel him behind me. He even touched my leg at one point, but I controlled the pace. We both accelerating going into the last 200m, but I knew I had the power and I just closed my eyes and ran until the last ten metres when I knew my team had won."

Kim Soengjin brought the Korean team up to second position and to the brink of victory, the place they maintained all the way to the finishing line. Jung Hwonho's (KOR) couldn't quite close down Prokopenko (RUS) leaving Korea with the Silver medal.

"This is my first senior event. I'm the youngest in the team, so my teammates are my older brothers and we are all learning from each other."

Ilia Frolov (RUS) pulled the Russian team from fifth place coming out of the last shoot, up to third to claim Bronze medal in an astonishing run on the final lap. Russian coach Andrey Tropin never doubted his team.

"Aleksander (Lesun) did a good job on the shooting and Andrei Moiseev performed to his level. Frolov had a great race. Today he showed that he really is the best runner of all in Modern Pentathlon. The team is extremely strong, all of them top athletes. During the fence, they were not too worried because they knew that if they did not do well individually, their points would be brought up by the other two."

Andrei Moiseev (RUS) was conscious of the fact that he had a poor shoot and that let his team down.

"I really have a problem that is psychological with my shooting. Luckily, this problem didn't affect me too much today and I was happy with the shoot. On the last lap I was just shouting one word to Frolov, PLEASE!"

Review all the action in pictures here http://www.pentathlon.org/media-centre/gallery/category/56-mens-relay

Tomorrow is the final day of the 50th World Championships with the Women’s Final being the last medals awarded at this successful event. Follow all the action at pentathlon.org.

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Keywords · Belarus · Modern Pentathlon · UIPM · World Championships · Korea · Russia · China · Chengdu

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Name: Matt Pound
Organization: Union Internationale De Pentathlon Moderne - UIPM
Email:
Phone: +377 9777 8555
URL: http://www.pentathlon.org

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