South Korea take mixed relay gold at Modern Pentathlon World Cup

Woojin Hwang (pictured) and his partner Soo Jin Yang won the mixed relay gold medal at the UIPM World Cup event in Rome ©Getty Images

South Korea’s Woojin Hwang and Soo Jin Yang struck mixed relay gold to bring the third leg of the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM) World Cup series in Rome to a dramatic close.

The Koreans claimed first place with a steady performance across all four events and were always within touching distance of a medal.

They were joined on the podium by Egyptian duo Amro El Geziry and Haydy Morsy, who took silver, and bronze medallists Jiahao Han and Qian Chen of China.

“We are very happy,” said Yang.

“We had perfect shooting and running round and it was a wonderful end to the competition here in Rome.

“It is such beautiful surroundings and they inspired us both to put in our best performances.”

El Geziry and Morsy were the early leaders after winning 23 bouts in the fencing, followed by Han and Chen in second with 22 wins, while Italy’s Lavinia Bonessio and Tullion De Santis and eventual overall winners Hwang and Yang sat joint third.

Han and Chen finished first in the pool with a time of 1min 57.87sec, pipping the Koreans by 0.95 seconds and moving into pole position overall ahead of El Geziry and Morsy.

Egypt's Amro El Geziry (pictured) and partner Haydy Morsy took the silver medal ©Getty Images

Cuba, Argentina and South Korea all achieved the maximum 300 points in the riding arena, which saw Yang and Hwang move ahead of the Egyptians, who had a slightly disappointing round.

Heading into the combined event there was a narrow two-second gap between China's Chen and South Korea's Yang starting, but it wasn't until the first men's shooting station that South Korea's Hwang and Egypt's El Geziry managed to overtake China's Han.

A strong run from Han however, saw him overtake El Geziry at the last visit to the shooting range, but the Egyptian was not in the mood to be outshone and stepped up a gear in the last running loop to take silver, crossing the line just behind Korea's Hwang.

"I was worried about the shooting because I shot badly in the women's individual semi-finals and that is why I did not enter the finals,” said Morsy.

"My shooting today was good though and that is why we took second place.

“I am so happy because we got the silver medal."

Her partner El Geziry added: "It has been a fantastic day from the start of the day when we won the fencing, everything was just good for both of us and it was a perfect ending."

The World Cup series is due to continue in Kecskemét, Hungary, from the April 30 to May 5.