MODERN PENTATHLON: Australian modern pentathletes Marina Carrier and Max Esposito have finished their Youth Olympic Games campaign on a high note after finishing 12th and 15th in the mixed team events on Tuesday.
MODERN PENTATHLON: Australian modern pentathletes Marina Carrier and Max Esposito have finished their Youth Olympic Games campaign on a high note after finishing 12th and 15th in the mixed team events on Tuesday.
Carrier teamed with Hungarian Gergely Regos, and Esposito teamed with Korean Juhye Choi gave it their all in their last day of competition, blitzing it in the pool, on the piste and on the track.
“I’m feeling great and glad that that’s over, it was very exhausting but I am very happy with the results from today,” Esposito said.
“In a funny old way I sort of want to do it again but yeah I am feeling very positive like Max, I sort of tried to improve on the things that didn’t go so well in the individual, my fence was awesome today and my shoot was ten times better so overall I’m feeling really good about my performance,” Carrier added.
With pairings based on their rankings from the individual event, the mixed team event worked as a relay with athletes splitting the load.
The first event of the day was a fencing ranking round which both Carrier and Esposito showed vast improvements in from their individual events.
Carrier who only managed six victories earlier in the week won nine in the teams while Esposito won 12 of his bouts, five better than he achieved in the individual ranking round.
Their success propelled them within one place of each other, Esposito and Choi in 12th and Carrier and Regos in 13th, only five points difference.
“I was actually really pleased with my fencing because that was something that I really wanted to work on from the individual competition,” Esposito said.
In the swim Marina smashed her PB by three seconds helping her and teammate Regos to touch the wall in 2:05.00 to place 19th and add 325 points to their running tally.
Esposito and his teammate clocked a time of 2:04.26 to finish in 16th place in the swim.
After the swim it was back to the International Expo Centre for the fencing ladder system where unfortunately Carrier’s team did not win a bout.
Nevertheless Esposito continued to show improvements winning both his bouts and helping his team gain an extra five points heading into the run.
Starting the combined run/shoot in 12th place, Esposito and his Korean teammate had a handicap of 43s, six seconds ahead of Carrier’s team in 18th position.
Both teams put in the hard yards in humid conditions with Esposito holding onto 12th place with 1150 points while Carrier jumped three places to finish 15th on 1141 points.
“I felt confident heading into the combined run/shot because it is my speciality so I kept a very positive mind and I didn’t let anything hold me back,” Esposito said.
With everything done and dusted Carrier and Esposito, both 17, agree working with mixed team partners from different nations was an invaluable experience.
“It was interesting, definitely the communication was one aspect that was probably a little more difficult...but we worked really well together especially in the fencing we sort of worked off each other and had a lot of positive energy going and that was really fun,” Carrier said.
“My partner was really sweet and... like Marina there were a lot of high fives and cheering each other on,” Esposito added.
Neither athlete is ready to go home but when they do first on the agenda is a well earned rest. Nevertheless the modern pentathlete stars say they are already looking to the future.
“I don’t want it to end, I’ve got two days left but I want it to be two more weeks. It has been so much fun and so much more full on than I expected to what I thought it was going to be in so many different ways and I don’t want this to be the end I just want to keep on do more and meeting more people, it’s just been fantastic,” Carrier said.
“Something like this just gets you going. These big events are so exciting and once you get a taste of them you just want to come back for more.”
“ I will always remember this journey and what I have learnt, I will learn from my mistakes in future competitions,” Esposito said.
“Rio is my goal, I would like to win a medal but I will just focus on each task as it comes.”
Laura Judd
Olympics.com.au
@AUSOlympicTeam