European Games: Great Britain win modern pentathlon gold
- Published
Great Britain won three modern pentathlon medals on Saturday
Great Britain won gold in the men's modern pentathlon team event at the European Games.
Joe Choong, Myles Pillage and Charles Brown finished first as Team GB earned a total of nine medals on day 11 in Poland.
Choong, 28, added an individual silver medal to his Olympic and world titles.
The performance secured a Paris 2024 Olympic quota place as did his partner Olivia Green's earlier bronze in the women's event.
Choong finished second to Italian Giorgio Malan, who was 7.7 seconds ahead of him in the final laser run in a time of nine minutes, 58 secs.
"For my last two [Olympic] Games, I managed to get that qualification spot the year before, which means you don't have to travel the world the year of the Games, doing every competition trying to chase the qualification points," said Choong.
"It means you can really focus on which competitions you want and really get in a good block of training without the distraction and pressure of trying to get those points at the last minute."
Fellow Brits Pillage and Brown finished fourth and 11th respectively, meaning Team GB clinched gold with their combined score of 4,548 bettering their French and Italian challengers.
Alice Sotero won the women's event with a world record 1,443 points to complete an Italian double in the individual events, with Spaniard Laura Heredia 14 points back and Green a further point behind
There were silvers for Britain's mixed relay triathlon team of Barclay Izzard, Connor Bentley, Sophie Alden and Sian Rainsley, and in the mixed team trap shooting for Lucy Hall and Matthew Coward-Holley.
Another silver came courtesy of Ben Lane and Sean Vendy who werebeaten15-21 21-19 19-21 in the final of the badminton men's doubles by Danish pair Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen.
Badminton bronze medals were secured by Kirsty Gilmour in the women's singles and Lauren Smith and Marcus Ellis in the mixed doubles.
Team GB flagbearer Joe Clarke took kayak bronze in the men's K1 canoe slalom.
