Nick Woodbridge closes in on Olympics spot
Nick Woodbridge has taken a giant step towards becoming Shropshire's latest London 2012 Olympian after hitting the modern pentathlon qualifying standard.
Nick Woodbridge has taken a giant step towards becoming Shropshire's latest London 2012 Olympian after hitting the modern pentathlon qualifying standard.
The 25-year-old, from New Works in Telford, finished fifth at the World Cup final of the multi-discipline event in China yesterday. And, while Woodbridge narrowly missed out on a medal, the major consolation came with confirmation he has reached the qualifying mark by virtue of his position on the Olympic ranking list.
Fellow Brits Sam Weale and Jamie Cooke are also eligible for selection and the trio face an anxious wait before the two GB places are announced on June 8.
But an impressive display from Woodbridge so close to the summer showpiece has left him perfectly placed to head to his second Olympics after he finished 25th at Beijing four years ago.
The Shropshire athlete made a steady start to his campaign in Chengdu yesterday, winning 16 of his 35 fencing bouts to lie 18th.
Woodbridge then turned on the style in the swim, his 200m freestyle time of 1min 57.83secs being the third fastest of the day and helping him climb to ninth.
The steady progress up the leaderboard continued in the show jumping.
On a day when none of the riders produced a clear round in the alloted time, Woodbridge produced the goods by dislodging just one fence to move up to the fifth place going into the run/shoot.
The Shropshire ace shot well in his first and final outings on the shooting range but missed four targets on his second visit, crossing the finish line in fifth, 30 seconds behind Russia's Ilia Frolov, who came from third to take gold.
Of his rivals for the Olympic spots, Weale finished seventh while Cooke was down in 19th position.
And British team performance director Jan Bartu was delighted with the display of the trio.
"This is definitely evidence of improvement performances we have achieved with the men's team over the last three or four years," she said.