It was Haidi Adel who made the first appearance on the podium after clinching the bronze medal in the women's individual competition of the World Youth A Modern Pentathlon Championships in Ireland. Adel, the former world juniors champion and the current world No 3, came behind Italy's Aurora Tognetti and silver medalist Xeina Fralcova of Russia, who later led Russia to team gold. The 16-year-old Adel also led her teammates Mariam Amer and Salma Abdel-Maksoud to winning the silver medal with a total of 3,000 points, only nine points behind the gold medalists Russian team and ahead of the Italians who collected 2,985 points. The Egyptian prodigy Adel has shown real progress this year in both the seniors and juniors world events which has earned her a place in next month's Olympic Games at Rio de Janeiro. Adel was the star of the fencing bonus round. She who won three consecutive bouts and took the scalp of Germany's Langrehr. Interestingly, the fastest swimming performance in the women's individual came from Abdel-Maksoud who in 2:12.34 was second ahead of next fastest Fralcova of Russia while the eventual winner Tognetti of Italy was fourth. The women's team relay of Adel, abdel-Maksoud and Amer then clinched the bronze medal of the women's team relay event. egypt came behind Italy and Germany who won gold and silver. In the men's event, Egypt's Sherif Rashad narrowly missed the chance to step on the podium as he finished fourth in the individual event. First place went to South Korea's Jeong younjin, while the silver medal went to Bulgaria's Ivan Khamtsu and the bronze to Russia's Zuev Andrei. The men's Egyptian team, which comprised Abdel-Rahman Alian, Ahmed Shahine and Rashad, took fifth place behind South Korea, Russia, Bulgaria and Hungary. Egypt's fourth medal was achieved in the mixed relay event and was also bronze. Egypt's mixed team consisted of Adel and Rashad. Russia and Hungary were first and second respectively. The Youth A World Championships was held using the tetrathlon format which includes fencing, swimming and the combined (shooting and running), with riding omitted. President of the Egyptian Modern Pentathlon Federation Sharif Al-Erian was thrilled with the youth victory. “It has been a great year of achievements for Egyptian modern pentathlon athletes on all levels -- seniors, youth and juniors at world cups and world championships and it's all because of real hard work in the past years. “Now, we are ready for the Olympic Games with high hopes for achieving an Olympic medal. That would be the real goal for us and we are looking forward to it,” Al-Erian added.
