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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Good to have a nice irish contingent playing. Would love to see mcgoldrick bag one
great to see long getting a game hopefully he can get a run of games under his belt
Kevin Long needs games, not first choice at Burnley, Championship move might be good idea…..himself and Egan at centre half for Ireland could work,but needs to be playing regularly, anyone agree?
@running man: He must be happy enough as a Burnley sub. He’s been on their bench for about 10 years
@running man: I think Shane Duffy/ Kevin Long are not technical enough to play in the middle of a three so I would look at Egan in the centre of a fit again Clarke with Coleman on the right…Ancelotti tried him there a couple of times, was ok, but he’s intelligent enough to make it work. Getting Stevens and Doherty into their best positions is vital and a ball playing centre back dictating things to cover a weak midfield.
@diarmuid mccarthy: I think Long actually is quiet good on the ball whenever ive seen him anyway to he honest. I would like to see a back 3 though, but it would have to include duffy. He is our best defender. Have to be careful about not getting too caught up on ball players, having our best defender on the field is equally important.
@diarmuid mccarthy: Stevens, Coleman, Egan, Duffy or Long as our back 4. Or maybe Doherty for Coleman, can’t make up my mind….