The women had a day off in the modern pentathlon while the men would compete in two groups (semifinal A and semifinal B). The top nine from each semifinal advance to the final on Saturday.
The new 90-minute format made the event lively and quick in comparison to the old format that used to take over five hours. Egypt’s Ahmed Elgendy withstood a subpar equestrian round to win the first semifinal group. The second semifinal group starts competition at 11:00am and results will be updated.
Men’s semifinal A results
Elgendy won the semifinal with an Olympic record 1516 points. His day didn’t get off to the best start when in the showjumping event his horse refused a jump and he almost fell off. A fall is now an automatic elimination from the discipline and would have ended Elgendy’s medal hopes. Instead, Elgendy managed to stay on the horse and finished 17th with 267 points.
Top competitors Switzerland’s Alexandre Dallenbach, Hungary’s Csaba Bohm and Latvia’s Pavels Svecovs all finished the riding discipline with no penalties and 300 points.
In the bonus fencing round, Mexico’s Emiliano Hernandez and France’s Valentin Prades scored five wins each to earn 10 points in the round. Bohm had a bad fencing round and dropped to 14th after the event.
Entering the swim, Elgendy, Svecovs Prades and Dallenbach were the top four competitors. Dallenbach finished with the top time in the swim, while Bohm and Elgendy faced off in the same heat to finish with the second and fourth-fastest time of the round, respectively.
Elgendy looked in total control during the laser run, the last event of the semifinal, he’d finish with a time of 10:07, the second-fastest of the day. France’s Jean-Baptiste won the round with a time of 9:48, after flawless shooting in front of a lively crowd.
Bohm was under the most pressure during the laser run. He entered the race ninth in the overall standings. He made things interesting in the middle of the run when he missed a few targets opening the door for other competitors, however, he supplemented the subpar shooting with faster runs to finish with a time of 10:04, the third fastest on the day. It was enough to score him 696 points in the laser run and move him to eighth overall and advanced him to the finals.
RIDING RESULTS I BONUS FENCING RESULTS I SWIMMING RESULTS I LASER RUN RESULTS
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