GB women take team gold at The Modern Pentathlon Worlds
GB women take team gold on stunning day at World Champs
The British team are celebrating a stunning day at the Modern Pentathlon World Championships today (Saturday) with the women wining team gold.
The trio of Kate French, Samantha Murray and Mhairi Spence started an outstanding day in Chinese Taipei by successfully defending the title won by Murray, Spence and Heather Fell in Rome last year.
And double Olympian Woodbridge, ranked 22 in the world, rounded off the day by winning Britain¹s first men¹s individual medal at a World Championships for 20 years, following Richard Phelps¹ gold in 1993. The last British men¹s World Championships medal of any kind was a team silver the following year.
There were also strong performances by two younger athletes, with Kate French 10th in the women¹s individual competition and Jamie Cooke fifth in the men¹s.
³It hasn¹t really sunk in yet, but it feels good,² said Woodbridge, whose season has been hampered by injury his previous best performance of the year had been a 16th place at the Rio World Cup in March.
³I¹ve had a difficult year so it¹s nice to finish on a high,² he added. ³I¹ve had a couple of injuries that have prevented me getting the results I wanted and I think I needed this today. Winning silver at the World Championships is by far my best result.²
³I feel like I¹ve worked hard for this for so many years, but I¹ve just missed out for different reasons in the past,² said Woodbridge.
³The shooting was really important today and I knew if I nailed that I would be in with a chance. I was in the zone in the shooting today and I only missed two shots.
³I worked as hard as I could to catch up with Kinderis at the end, but I know he¹s one of the best runners,² he added.
Woodbridge¹s previous best career performances include gold at the 2004 World Youth A Championships and bronze at the 2011 World Cup Final in London.
He was only confirmed for the team for Kaohsiung just over two weeks ago after overcoming health problems.
Jan Bartu, Pentathlon GB Performance Director, said: ³What a day! It¹s been a really tough competition for the girls, but they proved they¹re the best team in the world by winning the World Championships team tittle in consecutive years and the Europeans this year.
³Kate French deserves recognition. She has worked hard in her first full senior year, a year in which she also graduated from the University of Bath, so finishing in the top-10 at this level is a fantastic achievement and is very promising to for the future.
³Ahead of the championships I was looking for a couple of top-10 finishes, so to have three top-10 finishes, a team gold and an individual silver already says everything,² he added.
³A men¹s individual medal has been 20 years in the waiting, so what Nick has done today is fantastic. I should say thanks to the English Institute of Sport support team who helped to get him here,² he added. ³Both of the British boys did well today, they really smashed it.²
The GB women started their day with the riding, having completed the fencing and swimming yesterday (Friday) their final was rearranged to run over two days because of the impact of Typhoon Trami on the host city of Kaohsiung.
French ended the competition as the highest placed Brit in 10th, with Samantha Murray 14th and Freyja Prentice 15th and Mhairi Spence 17th.
The performances by French, Murray and Spence were enough for the British women¹s team to secure back to back team golds.
