MOD PENT: Australian pentathlete Chloe Esposito has got her Rio campaign off to a flying start by winning silver at the UIPM Champion of Champions in Doha, Qatar on Friday.
Younger brother Max, 18, followed on Saturday with a fantastic sixth placing and plenty of positives to take away from his 18-man invitational event.
Chloe, 24, who was selected for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games along with 18-year-old Max back in July, recovered from a shaky start in the Fencing to move through the 18-woman field at the prestigious event.
Chloe was 15th after 10 Fencing wins, she then had the third fastest swim (200m, 2:15.59), scored 292/300 for Show Jumping and then produced the fastest Combined (run-shoot) to charge through the field from seventh to second.
German Annika Schleu, who started the day by winning the Fencing and a perfect score in Show Jumping, was almost a minute slower than Chloe in the final event but Schleu’s lead was too great. Lithuanian Gintare Venckauskaite was relegated to bronze by Chloe in the final stages.
The result is a confidence booster for the London 2012 Olympian following a hard training block at her European training base in Hungary.
She said after the medal presentation: “I’m very happy. This was my first competition of the season and I’ve just been training very hard and I have not peaked yet so it’s really nice to know I’m at this level.
“Hopefully I can move forward from here and perform well in the French Open, then the Hungarian Open and the World Cup series early next year.”
Chloe’s most recent competition before Doha was at the 2015 World Championships back in July where she was eighth, and before that she was third in the World Cup Final.
Max also leaves Doha with plenty of positives. He was sixth after the Swimming (200m, 2:03.96), delivered a career best seventh in Fencing, produced a perfect Jumping performance and would have normally have run on to the podium from there, however leg injuries in recent months meant his Combined event was below his normal performance.
He’ll be happy to only be 14 seconds off bronze and 19 seconds behind 19-year-old Korean Woongtae Jun. It was Max who beat Jun for the gold at the Asia/Oceania qualifier back in July.
For many athletes at the Champion of Champions it is the end of their season, where this event for the Espositos was the start of their push for success at Rio 2016. Hard training in Budapest as well as altitude training in Mexico and the Rio 2016 Test Event in March are all scheduled for the next phase of their preparations.
Andrew Reid with UIPM
olympics.com.au