ROME — Egypt has snatched a gold in the U17 Women’s Relay competition at the UIPM 2022 Youth World Championships, which runs from September 4-11 in Italy’s Lignano.
The Egyptian U17 Women team of trio Ganah el-Gendy, Farida Abu Hashim and Sara Amr ranked first with 2,477 points, while the Hungarian team ranked second and the German came in the third place.
In the individuals’ competition of Women U17, El-Gendy won the silver medal with a score of 827 points.
Egyptian athlete Amr ranked fourth in the women individuals competition, while Farida Abu Hashim came in the fifth place and Ritaj Ramadan in the 18th.
Two days ago, Egyptian duo athletes Malak Ismail and Zeina Amer won gold medals at U19 Women races at the UIPM 2022 Youth World Championships.
Ismail and Amer came in the first place with a score of 989 points, while their rival UK duo came second and North Korea’s landed in the third place.
Sumin Shin of Korea and Marwan Allam of Egypt are the new world champions after exceptional performances at the Championships.
Egypt also won a silver medal while Hungary enjoyed a silver-bronze double and Poland claimed the remaining bronze as the first individual medals of the competition were earned.
Thirty-six U17s became the first to compete across three days (Qualification / Semi-finals / Final) according to the new elimination format designed for the Paris 2024 Olympic cycle.
The U17 team medals were also decided, with the prolific Egypt team enjoying a golden double.
Hungary won silver in the women’s competition ahead of bronze medallists Germany, while France won men’s team silver with host nation Italy picking up bronze for their first medal of the week.
More than 260 athletes from 35 nations are competing in the combined championships and the U17 individual titles follow U19 relay titles won by Lithuania, Egypt and Mexico.
Ganah of Egypt advanced an extraordinary 16 places in the Laser Run, after a modest swim, with the day’s best time of 9min 12.80sec. Still it wasn’t enough to defeat Shin (KOR), who finally prevailed by 5sec with a 9:20 Laser Run.
Behind her, there was a thrilling sprint for the medals and Emma Meszaros (HUN) claimed a hard-earned bronze narrowly ahead of team-mates Sarah Mohamed and Farida (EGY). Sixth place went to Zora Zeman (HUN).
Earlier, the winner of Swimming was Ritage Ramadan (EGY) in a time of 2:20,64.
Gold medallist Shin (KOR) said: “I am happy to win this competition. My running was good today, I was excited during the Laser Run. Now I hope to perform well in the U19 competition [in the Semi-finals on Friday].”
Silver medallist Elgindy (EGY) said according to the UIPM official website: “I felt so happy to win my first Youth World Championships medal. My running was the best today and I was thinking what I needed to do in shooting to get the medal, and thank God I shot well and ran well and I got the silver medal.
“Next year I will be in U17 again and after that, U19. My dream is a medal in the Olympics.”
A slender margin of 3sec separated the three individual medallists after an epic race. In the end, new world champion Allam (EGY) was just too good as he held off the challenge of Adam Peter (HUN) and Krystian Trepczyk (POL).
By a tiny fraction Peter (HUN) had the best Laser Run time (8:39.90), with Allam (EGY) recording 8:40.00 and Mathis Idelarge (FRA) claiming 4th after an excellent 8:41.80. The top six was completed by Romulo Vasconcelos of Brazil and Karl Furderer (FRA).
Gold medallist Allam (EGY) said: “I’m so, so happy in this moment. I tried for this for four years and thank God, I was so tired from the Swimming but I slept after that.
“After the second 600m lap I was leading and I knew the gold medal was in reach. My dream is the Olympics in 2028, and I am inspired by Ahmed Elgendy and Joseph Choong.”
Silver medallist Peter (HUN) said: “I can’t put into words how I feel, but I’m very happy. Especially in the last 100m I had to work very hard, but my shooting was excellent and I’m proud of that.
“Next year I will be able to race in U17 again and I will try to repeat this performance. I’d say my favourite discipline is shooting.”
Seventy-six athletes took part in two qualification rounds to determine which 36 would progress to the Men’s Under 19 semi-finals.
The first heat was won in convincing style by Jeongwook Son (KOR) with 1172 points, as he finished 18sec clear of Matteo Bovenzi (ITA) and 27sec ahead of Etienne Clergeau (FRA).
In the second heat, there was yet another success for Asia’s strongest Modern Pentathlon nation as Minjong Yun (KOR) finished first, 3sec ahead of Ugnius Kabelinskas of Lithuania and 6sec ahead of Moutaz Mohamed (EGY).