EGYPT'S modern pentathlete Aya Medani won the silver medal at the Women's World Championship in Budapest, Hungary. But it was France's Caze who threw down the gauntlet as the number one women's modern pentathlete by retaining her World Championship crown. With less than two months to go before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Caze put in a tremendous display, across all five disciplines, and will head to the Olympics as gold medal favourite. She finished the day with 5,616 points, just 20 points ahead of silver medalist Medani and bronze medalist Katy Livingston (GBR). In most dramatic fashion the women's final finished to an eruption of cheers and applause. France's Amelie Caze started the run 24 seconds in first and stayed in that position. Medani and Livingston went out in 4th and 5th respectively, close to a minute back. They spent the rest of the run clawing their way toward the lead. There was just not enough runway and they could not make up all the ground, but they did provide us with an incredible race for silver and bronze. Medani, just 300 metres from the finish line, threw in an explosive few strides to pull slightly ahead and the two clammered through the finish line in that order. It was a solid performance from Caze after starting the day with a 179 (1,084 points) in the shooting to be ranked 14th. Twenty-six wins from 35 bouts in the fencing helped her rise to the top of the leader board, where she stayed for the rest of the day. Medani and Livingston both recovered from slow starts in the shooting, to put in top performances throughout the day and put themselves in a good position to run away with the silver and bronze medals. Great Britain's Heather Fill finished strongly, with 5,560 points, for fourth position. An early start to the day saw steady hands and cool heads at the shooting hall. Anna Arkhipenka of Belarus shot her way to the top of the leader board with a new pentathlon record of 194 for 1,264 points. Canada's Monica Pinette and China's Xiu Xiu both put in solid performances to pick up 1,144 a piece before heading into the fencing competition. Caze was the standout fencer. Livingston was next best in the fencing hall. Her 25 wins earned her an important 1,000 points to take her to fifth overall. She was just one win ahead of Lucie Grolichova of the Czech Republic whose 976 points, for a total of 2,060 points, helped her to second on the leader board heading into the swim. With accumulated totals of 2,024 points, the earlier leaders, Arkhipenka and Pinette, were next most consistent. Outdoors at Statue Parc, Caze continued her fine form, clocking a 2:09.59, the third fastest in the pool for 1,368 points. She was only bettered by the 1,376 points scored by Russia's Polina Struchtkova (2:08.67) and Hungary's Leila Gyenesei (2:08.75). But Case's efforts were enough to give her a small break on the rest of the field heading into the riding discipline. With 3,476 points, she led out Struchtkova (3,340 points) and Grolichova (3,332 points). The riding and running disciplines are paramount to a competitor's success at an event like the World Championships. The riding is often the most challenging discipline, but some quality horses ensured a high-scoring round for almost all riders. Struchtkova and Great Britain's Georgina Harland made no mistakes in the riding and headed into the run ranked second and 33rd respectively. Amazingly there were no perfect rounds, with time penalties costing the top riders. With a 24- second start, Caze was first off the blocks into the run as the highest scorer (4,632 points) and she never looked back, striding away to win in 11:24.31. She was chased by Struchtkova, Grolichova and Medani, with 4,536, 4,428 and 4,424 points respectively. But it was Fell who was to prove most dangerous after starting in fifth place. She quickly ran her way into third place and along with Medani put some distance on the rest of the pack. Victoria Tereshuk of Ukraine was the fastest runner in the final, with a time of 10:05.50, ahead of Laura Asaaukaite of Lithuania and Anastasia Samusevich of Belarus. On the local front were Hungarian competitors, the seventh placed Gyensei (5,504 points), 12th placed Adrienn Toth (5,416 points), 17th placed Zsuzanna Vorros (5,368 points) and 25th placed Vivien Mathe (5,268 points). They gave the local crowd plenty to cheer about during the day. But it was team Poland who ran away with the team title, amassing 16,168 points between them to outscore Great Britain (16,060 points) and Hungary (16,052 points). The three individual medalists were presented with their medals by Modern Pentathlon Federation President Klaus Schormann and Prince Albert II of Monaco. Federation Vice President John Helmick and federation member Mauro Tiirinnanzi presented the silver and bronze medals. Schormann and Prince Albert again presented the team gold medal. Federation treasurer Gyula Bretz presented the silver and the president of the European Modern Pentathlon Confederation, Dimitry Svatkovsky presented the bronze. Caze and her fellow pentathletes will now begin their final training sessions for the Olympic Games in Beijing in August.
