The Hindu : Sport / Olympic Games : Moiseev's first major victory

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 28, 2004

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Sport - Olympic Games

Moiseev's first major victory

ATHENS, AUG. 27. Andrey Moiseev of Russia won the gold medal in the men's modern pentathlon on Thursday, the first major victory of his career.

Moiseev won two of the five disciplines by big margins and held off the field in the final 3-km run under the searing Athens heat. He carried the Russian flag with him as he completed the last lap.

Meanwhile, in the women's category Zsuzsanna Voros of Hungary took the gold on Friday. Jelena Rublevska of Latvia took silver and Georgina Harland of Britain had to be content with bronze.

World champion Andrejus Zadneprovskis of Lithuania won the final event to move up from sixth place to take the silver medal, while Libor Capalini of the Czech Republic took bronze.

``The gold is the ultimate goal for any athlete and I made it,'' said Moiseev. Moiseev, 25, is ranked 10th in the world but only won an individual World Cup event for the first time this year. He was seventh in the World championships in Moscow in May.

Capalini was astonished to win bronze after finishing 13th in the opening shooting discipline and 19th in fencing.

``To make so many mistakes and still come away with a medal — I didn't expect that,'' the Czech said.

Moiseev, too, had to come back after finishing 19th in the shooting, which was won by Dzmitry Meliakh of Belarus.

But he won three more bouts than any other competitor in the round-robin fencing competition, and was more than three seconds ahead of his nearest rival in the 200-metre swim.

He was lucky to survive the unpredictable show jumping round, where competitors must compete on horses provided by the organisers, and draw lots to decide which horse they will get. Moiseev had six gates down, but that was nothing compared with those behind him.

World No. 1 Gabor Balogh of Hungary finished ninth thanks to his second place in the show jumping. The favourite was 17th in shooting and 21st in swimming. — AP

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