Joe Choong survived an unbearably tense finish to complete an incredible double for Great Britain in modern pentathlon, taking gold in the men’s event 24 hours after Kate French had won the women’s competition on Friday.
Choong, who, in his own words, “messed up” at the Rio Games in 2016, went into this gruelling event involving fencing, swimming, show-jumping, pistol shooting and running as one of the favourites broke down after collecting his medal.
Fighting back the tears, he said: “I was just thinking of my family – my grandad died a couple of years ago, he would have loved to have seen this.
“In 2019, I was in the form of my life – then the Games got delayed by a year, so it’s been on my mind for two years.”
The 26-year-old looked to have let the gold slip through his fingers as the Egyptian Ahmed Elgendy, who had been 50 seconds back, overtook him on the final lap in the concluding laser run before he sprinted away to realise his long-held ambition in the last 200m. Choong was the first Team GB athlete to win a medal in the men’s individual event since its inception in 1912.
The memory of Rio, when Choong had been sitting second before the final laser run when a poor shooting performance dropped him to 10th, had finally been laid to rest.
“I pulled myself together and this time I’ve nailed it,” he said. “I’ve always said I wanted to be the best in the world.
“I’m in shock. I was swearing in my head. There were a couple of heavy jumps on the ride, the swim was good, the fencing was good and the running was pretty tactical. The shooting was pretty sketchy, but I pulled myself together.”
Choong described watching Friday’s events as a rollercoaster, adding the quip: “I couldn’t let Kate have all the limelight. I felt the pressure to keep up with her and get one for the boys.”
Ultimately, Choong, who took up the sport while a student at Whitgift School in Croydon, paced himself to perfection in the laser run having led throughout the competition. He rates fencing and swimming as his two strongest disciplines and he duly lived up to that, topping the table from Thursday’s fencing with 25 victories and 10 defeats. He then finished third in the 200m freestyle swim, just behind his teammate, Jamie Cooke, who was in the mix initially on Saturday but went on to finish ninth overall.
In the showjumping event, Choong was allocated the same horse French achieved a clear round with on Friday, clattered through the first fence but only had one more down to keep his nose in front going into the final event, which combines middle-distance running with shooting.
Choong won the 2019 World Cup Final, which doubled as the test event, in Tokyo two years ago. His 12-second lead going into the laser run was relatively slim but he shot well, missing five shots in his four visits to the range, before holding off Elgendy to secure gold with Jun Woong-tae of South Korea taking bronze.
His mother, Beverley, said training in five sports is “incredibly different” because you cannot just excel at one. “You’ve got to keep fit in so many ways. It’s each muscle group that needs to be fit for a different discipline,” she said.
She has not seen her son for two or three months. “I’ll be looking forward to it because we’ve not been able to see him for a while because of Covid,” she added.
Sara Heath, CEO of Pentathlon GB, said said: “We knew Joe could do it, just as we knew Kate could do it, but for them to go and do it has just been absolutely incredible.”