Ireland’s Sive Brassil has boosted her chances of qualification for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games by finishing an impressive 16th in the women’s final at UIPM 2020 Pentathlon World Cup Cairo.

The 26-year-old gained vital points in the Olympic qualification ranking list with an impressive performance in a highly-competitive field in the Egyptian capital. Brassil finished just two places shy of her career-best 14th, set in 2019 in Prague.

After achieving the fifth-fastest swim (2mins 14.66secs), she found the fencing tough going, scoring 13 victories from her 35 bouts. But Brassil removed only one obstacle in the riding for a score of 293 that moved up her up to 18th position overall. A solid Laser Run time of 12:31.99 enabled her to move up two places.

Natalya Coyle, meanwhile, had a rollercoaster of a day on the way to finishing 30th.
The two-time Olympian – silver medallist at World Cup Cairo last year – performed strongly in fencing for a tally of 22 victories that put her in contention for the podium.

However, the 29-year-old suffered a rare bad day on horseback, picking up 67 penalty points that detonated her medal hopes.
Arthur Lanigan-O’Keeffe will compete tomorrow (Saturday) in the Men’s Final after an impressive performance in qualification.