Britain’s Jamie Cooke and Tom Toolis finished in a creditable seventh place in the first men’s competition of the 2014 Modern Pentathlon World Championships in Poland on Tuesday.
The British pair climbed two places from ninth in the combined event but couldn’t get among the medals in the men’s relay competition at the championships in Warsaw.
Pentathlon GB Performance Director Jan Bartu said: “They delivered the performances we expected from them today. Realistically a top-six finish would have been perfect, but a top-seven is respectable.
“They gave away a few victories in the fencing, but they had a very good swim, a clear ride and a decent combined event at a top competition,” he added. “It’s a very good start for the men’s team in Warsaw.
“It was also a good warm-up competition for Jamie ahead of the individual semi-finals on Thursday, while Tom confirmed that he has been gradually improving this year.”
Toolis, competing at his first World Championships won a men’s relay bronze at the last month’s European Championships, and Cooke, Britain’s 2011 World Junior Champion, made a steady start, winning 13 of their fencing bouts worth 187 pentathlon points.
That meant they started their campaign in 12th place among the 17 nations in action.
Teams from Belarus, the Czech Republic and France led the way with 19 victories apiece for 229 points.
The British pairing produced the fourth fastest 2x100m freestyle swim of the day – a time of 1:45.36 – adding 384 points to their total. That kept them in 12th overall with a new total of 571 points.
The Russians set the fastest time of the day – 1:44.61 – while the team from Belarus were now leading the field by just two points from the Czech Republic and Egypt.
Cooke and Toolis kept up their momentum by winning the ride. The pair both went clear in the allowed time to bag the maximum 300 points in the riding arena.
Their time of 1:45.36 was the quickest of the 10 teams to go clear in the allowed time. Great Britain climbed to ninth going into the run/shoot with a total of 871 points. They started 32 seconds behind the Belarus pair of Raman Pinchuk and Stanislau Zhurauliou, who continued to lead with 903 points.
Cooke led the GB pair off on the run/shoot, handing over to Toolis. Their time of 10:48.10 were the seventh fastest of the day, earning 652 pentathlon points to cross the line seventh.
Gold went to the French pair of Valentin Prades and Valentin Belaud, who climbed from fifth place in the run/shoot. Belarus took silver with Korea winning bronze.
