Throughout the last season and a half of this year, national pentathletes competed for important ranking points to get through to the main start of four years. The license period came to an end in early June. Two of our athletes qualified to compete in London, so we'll show you how they have achieved that and what are their chances at the Olympics.
The road to London
The selection of pentathletes started last spring, that's the time when national athletes participated in international rating competitions for the first time. Last year, in May, Rustem Sabirhuzin (pictured left) was close to success at the qualifying Asian Championship in China's Chengdu. He was behind by one position to secure a ticket to London in advance. Nonetheless, the sixth place was not a bad result. But, of course, not good enough to satisfy Rustem’s ambitions. So he arduously trained for another start in order to be selected according to the rankings. However, stable results did not show, he often did not get to the finals at the World Cup and world championships, and therefore Sabirhuzin did not find his name in the preliminary list of participants of the Olympiad presented by the International Federation of Modern Pentathlon. Nevertheless, he will go to his third Olympics, because he found a place in the final list of the lucky ones.
A path to the main start of four years of our other athlete, the youngest member of the men's national team of Kazakhstan Pavel Ilyashenko, has developed differently. We can even say it was much easier. The reason is that he managed to take quite high positions at several important competitions. For example, at last year's World Championship among adults in Moscow he settled on the final 11th place, and at the World Championship among juniors he became a silver medalist. This year for the first time in his career he was the fourth at the World Cup in Rostov-on-Don. Not surprisingly, he immediately got into a preliminary list of the 36 participants in the London games. Thus, the men's national team of Kazakhstan has fully used the Olympic quota, as only two athletes per country may be selected.
A change in the composition of the team
Sure, getting two of our athletes at the Olympics is already a great achievement, as in Beijing, Athens and Sydney Kazakhstan was not present in the men's pentathlon. Only the weaker sex in the face of Ludmila Shumilova, Galina Dolgushina and long-term leader of the women's team Lada Dzhienbalanova defended the honor of our country. Today the situation has changed; after the withdrawal of these famous athletes men came to the forefront. Our boys were able to accomplish their main task - to be selected to London. They did this, of course, not without the help from rivals, or, more precisely, the established international federation rules, as according to the regulations only two can be delegated. Countries that by rating and achievements had 3 or even 4 qualified athletes had to weed out the odd ones. As a result, representatives of other countries received tickets to London, one of them, incidentally, was Rustem Sabirhuzin. We cannot help but recall our third team member Pavel Soldatov, who at times also showed good results. Unfortunately, he failed to be selected to London, making it easier for our coaches, because, if he succeeded, they would smash their heads over the choice of who should go and who should stay home.
What must be, must be
Speaking of chances of Ilyashenko and Sabirhuzin at the Olympic Games, it should be noted that whatever place they take - they are already winners, because getting into the number of 36 best athletes of the world is well worth it. The main favorites for the upcoming Olympics, of course, are the Russians. The Russian national team mentor had to make an uneasy choice, as their four wards were selected to London. They are Andrey Moiseev - two-time Olympic champion (2004, 2008), World champions: Alexander Lesun (2012), Sergey Karjakin (2010) and Ilya Frolov (2008). As a result, the first two best pentathletes of Russia and the world at the moment will compete for gold.
Besides them, our boys’ rivals will be the Italians and Hungarians, who have repeatedly won the World Cup, and more often than that became prize winners. The British drew themselves up in recent times, and had to weed out the current Junior World Champion James Cook. It was him who has surpassed our Ilyashenko Pavel (pictured right) in Buenos Aires (Argentina). But even without James they have a pretty solid composition. We cannot ignore our principal rivals South Koreans and the actively progressing Chinese. We were waiting for the results of the final list of licenses to the last largely thanks to them. Thus, our coaches have not yet articulated their objectives for the Olympic Games; the athletes in their turn promised to perform the best they can. Nonetheless, hitting the top ten for both of our athletes would be the highest achievement for them, especially since they have demonstrated the results on the outskirts to it at the world championships. We will see very soon how it actually goes; the Olympics will start in a month.
Егор Ильин