The fencing ranking round started the competition in the men’s and women’s pentathlon on Day 13 at the Paris Olympics. France’s Elodie Clouvel took the lead in the women’s event, while Ukraine’s Oleksandr Tovkai and Egypt’s Ahmed Elgendy earned the lead in the men’s event with 245 points each.
The head-to-head round-robin fencing competition was the only event held on Thursday, with the rest of the disciplines to come the rest of the week. Athletes earn points for each victory which then equates to five second intervals in the laser run, so that the top scorer starts five seconds ahead of the next and so forth.
In the men’s field, it’s not shocking to see Tovkai and Elgendy at the top. They each secured 24 fencing wins and 11 fencing defeats on the first day. Latvia’s Pvels Svecovs surprised to earn 23 fencing wins with 12 defeats for 240 points while South Korea’s Jun Woong-Tae rounded out the top four finishers with 235 points.
In a surprising finish, Great Britain’s Joe Choong was outside the top 25 after he won gold in Tokyo and finished first in the fencing discipline.
On the women’s side, Clouvel scored 260 points with 27 wins and 8 defeats to lead the women after the fencing round. Reigning Olympic champion, Kate French of Great Britain sits in third with 240 points.
Lithuania’s Laura Asadauskaite had a disappointing start to her fifth Olympics. She’s the only pentathlete to earn more than one Olympic medal, but finished 23rd after the fencing round.
On the positive side, positions 12 through 26 is a tight race with only 10 points separating the middle group, which translates to a 10 second delay in the laser race.
American Jessica Davis is part of that middle group, she finished with 16 fencing wins and 19 defeats for a total 205 points after Day 1.
The women will have a day off, while the men’s semifinal event will start at 7:00a.m. ET on Friday.
SEE MORE: Olympic modern pentathlon preview: Everything you need to know at the 2024 Games
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