Modern Pentathlon's Jeon Woongtae Stumbles in Shooting... Misses Consecutive Medals [Paris Olympics]

Seochangwan Ranks 7th with 1520 Points

Jeon Woong-tae, the flagship modern pentathlete of South Korea (Gwangju Metropolitan City Hall), failed to win a medal for the second consecutive Olympics.

On the 9th (local time), at the 2024 Paris Olympics Modern Pentathlon men's semifinal held at the Palace of Versailles in France, Jeon Woongtae of Korea is catching his breath after finishing the laser-run event. [Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 11th (Korean time), Jeon Woong-tae finished 6th with a total score of 1526 points in the men's individual final of the 2024 Paris Olympic modern pentathlon held at the Palace of Versailles in Paris, France. Seo Chang-wan, who also participated, ranked 7th with 1520 points.

Jeon Woong-tae, who won South Korea's first-ever bronze medal in modern pentathlon at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics held in 2021, raised expectations for winning a medal for the second consecutive time by maintaining a 3rd to 4th place position in the final of this tournament as well.

On the 9th (local time), after completing the equestrian event in the men's modern pentathlon semifinal at the Palace of Versailles in France for the 2024 Paris Olympics, the athlete is moving. [Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 8th, Jeon Woong-tae ranked 4th with 235 points in the fencing ranking round, higher than his 9th place at the Tokyo Games. He then added 287 points in the first event, equestrian, maintaining 4th place with a total of 522 points. At the 5th obstacle, his horse caught the obstacle and deviated from the course once, resulting in a time penalty that deducted 13 points from the perfect score of 300.

In the fencing bonus round, Jeon Woong-tae consecutively defeated Alexandre Dallenbach (Switzerland), Pavels Svekos (Latvia), and Ahmed Elgendy (Egypt), adding 6 points and leaping to 3rd place in the intermediate total (528 points).

Jeon Woong-tae also recorded 1 minute 59.41 seconds in swimming, ranking 7th overall, adding 312 points to maintain 3rd place overall (840 points), raising hopes for a medal.

In the final event, laser-run, where staggered starts are applied based on the results of previous events, Jeon Woong-tae started the race 17 seconds behind the leader Elgendy. Shooting was the factor that held Jeon back. Although he maintained 2nd to 3rd place in the early stage, he struggled from the middle and fell to 6th place by the end of the race.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Elgendy, the silver medalist at the Tokyo Games, won the gold with a total of 1555 points. Daishu Sato of Japan took the silver medal with 1542 points. The bronze medal went to Giorgio Malan (Italy, 1536 points).