NATALYA COYLE AND ARTHUR Lanigan-O’Keeffe have secured a silver medal for Ireland in the UIPM 2019 Pentathlon World Cup Final in Tokyo.
A record-breaking four members of the Irish high-performance team qualified for the final, with Sive Brassil and Eilidh Prise joining Coyle and Lanigan-O’Keeffe.
Three of the group lost out in the riding discipline, with Prise earning the highest finish in 29th place to leave it up to Coyle and Lanigan-O’Keeffe to earn a result for Ireland.
They stayed in touch with the leaders Elodie Clouvel and Valentin Prades of France throughout swimming, fencing and riding. This allowed them to start the Laser Run in second place with a handicap of 15 seconds.
Coyle came through in third place before handing over to Lanigan-O’Keeffe, who battled it out with Justinas Kinderis of Lithuania and Poland’s Daniel Lawrynowicz for the bronze and silver medals.
He edged ahead of the European pair and finished just two seconds off a gold medal in the end.
“The competition was very tough,” Coyle was quoted as saying by RTÉ Sport after Ireland’s silver medal finish.
“It’s quite humid out here as well, so it was a really tough finish. We didn’t have the individual competitions we would have liked after the Riding, so it’s really nice to cap it off with a silver medal.”
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