German Lena Schoneborn has shown why she is the current Olympic Champion by winning the Women’s final at World Cup #1 in Playa Del Carmen Mexico.

The Women’s final begun in perfect sunny conditions on the pool deck. Great Britain continued their dominance in the pool with Louise Helyer clocking 2:15.01 to win the event over Russia’s Polina Struchtkova. Pre event favourite Aya Medany (EGY) had a solid swim to finish in 7th position and Lena Schoneborn was left with some making up to do in the other disciplines after finishing in 12th.

The fencing event ended in a 3 way tie for the lead with Evdokia Gretchicnikova (RUS), Elena Rublevska (LAT) and Lena Schoneborn (GER) with 27 wins and 10 losses a piece.  Swimming winner Louise Helyer (GBR) finished the event in 16th to drop down the leader’s board. Polina Struchtkova’s (RUS) second placing in the swimming event and 4th place in the fencing means she goes into the riding event with a 56 point lead over Egypt’s Aya Medany.

The riding event included a remarkable 10 perfect 1200 scores, including Schoneborn, Medany and Struchtkova which displayed the vast improvement by the women in this vital discipline. Elena Rublevska (LAT) had a nightmare ride scoring only  504 to ruin her chances of gold in Mexico. This meant that Struchtkova had a 14 second lead over Medany with Schoneborn a further 4 seconds back.

In the first shoot of the combined event Schoneborn showed her class by only missing one shot to go straight into the lead. Equally impressive was Medany, Struchtkova and Adrienn Toth (HUN) leaving not far behind the German. The first run was dominated by the surprise packet of the event 18 year old American Margaux Isaksen where she forced herself up into 6^th after starting in 8^th position with her blistering speed. In contrast Struchtkova had a poor first leg to fall well off the pace. Schoneborn still led on the second shoot where she used all her experience to stay calm under the pressure and scored 5 from 5 to have a commanding lead. Medany stayed in second with Toth moving up to 3^rd , followed by Gretchichnikova. Isaksen made up more time on the second run to come in to the final shoot in 3rd. However nobody was going to take the title away from Schoneborn, again having an amazing shoot to leave well before the chasing pack. Isaksen battled hard to catch Schoneborn, but it was in vain as Schoneborn added to her growing medal collection by grabbing gold. Isaksen held on for silver to grab her first medal at a World Cup with Gretchichnikova having a strong final run to grab bronze.

After the event Schoneborn said “I couldn’t believe how well I shot, but I had to if I wanted to win because I had the fastest women in Modern Pentathlon after me in Isaksen.”

Video replays of both the Men’s and Women’s final can be found online at www.pentathlon.org