Asian Modern Pentathlon Championship and qualifying competition for the Youth Olympic Games from Asia and Oceania, which took place in the youngest capital of the world - Astana from September 26 to October 4, 2013 is finished. The international sporting event was attended by athletes from nine countries (India, China, Kyrgyzstan, Taipei, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Japan, Australia and Kazakhstan).
Kazakhstani Pavel Ilyashenko in the uphill fight for the title of the winner still snatched the victory from the strongest pentathletes of Asia: "Thank you for your congratulations! This victory was very hard for me. There were strong guys from China, Korea and Japan. I gave them an advantage in show jumping – I didn`t ride well. The horse failed, even though it was ours from Almaty, perhaps it just tired. During the jumping test it was faster. All I needed was to show myself and got more scores in combined event (running and shooting) and I walked around the opponents. I did not allow them to win on our land. I dedicate my victory to the President of our federation Berik Mazhitovich Imashev, who did much for the development of the modern pentathlon in Kazakhstan and created the excellent conditions to its athletes, and we could not let him down!" the athlete said in the interview.
As a result, Pavel Ilyashenko scored the highest points - 5792 and became the champion of Asia in the individual competition. Japanese athlete Shohei Imamoto with 5780 points was the second. The third place went to Chinhva Jeong from South Korea (5748 points).
The teamwork of Kazakh team has also proved successful - the first time the team of Kazakhstan has risen to the highest step of the podium of Asian Championship. Our men's team comprised of Pavel Ilyashenko, Rustem Sabirkhuzin and Andrei Soldatov gained 16,728 points and was ahead of teams of Kyrgyzstan (16528 points) and China (16488 points).
The head coach of Kazakhstan Vadim Chudnovskiy, of course, was pleased with the performance of their charges:
- Pasha is the champion today. I have some points of criticism to him, of course. But, as the saying goes, nobody judges the winners. The whole team performed well. I have no complaints to anyone of athletes. Leonid Zimarev perfomed nice . I feel that he will join the national team. I see good dynamics in Kazakhstan's pentathlon and good prospects. I would like to express our gratitude to the President of the Federation Berik Imashev.
Women's team comprised of Yulia Kolegova, Xenia Alexandrova and Dariya Khalzova took the third place and were behind the teams of China and Korea. It`s such a pity, that the Asian Championship leader Arina Dzhiyenbalanova didn`t take part in women's team, she has just recovered from injury and has only recently started to train. Perhaps with her participation our girls also showed a high score.
On the day of triumph the national anthem of the country sounded twice at the hippodrome "Kazanat". First, it was in honor of Pavel Ilyashenko and then the anthem of Kazakhstan sounded for the national team that won the gold medal of the continental Championship.
Modern Pentathlon is a unique combination of five sports in one complex. It combines so different in focus and spirit competitions as fencing, swimming, show jumping, running and shooting.
To combine such different disciplines was offered by the founder of the modern Olympic movement Pierre de Coubertin, who wrote that such a test like no other "will be a decent test of the moral qualities of the man, his physical abilities and skills and thus gives us the perfect , versatile athlete ".
The profit dignitaries – the President of the International Union of Modern Pentathlon Dr. Klaus Shorman, the President of the Asian Confederation Mr. Lee Jai -Yong , Secretary General of the Asian Confederation of Modern Pentathlon Mr.Choi and other distinguished foreign guests and guests from Kazakhstan came to the Asian Championship. They appreciated the level of athletes training and the time spent in the capital of Kazakhstan. They have left good memories for a long time.
Kazakhstan Federation of Modern Pentathlon is very grateful to the sponsors and partners who have supported in the conduction and organization of such a large sport event.
Modern Pentathlon –be stronger in five times!
Press Service of KFMP