Fourth place finish for coyle in berlin event

Tara woman Natalya Coyle along with Arthur Lanigan-O’Keeffe narrowly missed out on a bronze medal in the mixed relay event at the Modern Pentathlon World Championships in Berlin yesterday.

While they achieved a second place finishes in the swim, riding and combined events a disappointing 12th place finish in the fencing ultimately cost the pair a realistic shot at the gold medal.

Natalie Dianova and Jan Kuf of the Czech Republic were crowned world champions. They overcame a four-second handicap heading into the combined events to get the better Anna Burjak and Maxsim Kustov who took silver.

Coyle won a Meath Chronicle/Cusack Hotel Group Sportsperson of the Month award for January after she claimed bronze at the Hungarian Open Indoor Modern Pentathlon event in Budapest. She also recorded a personal best in the swimming event.

It turned out to be the start of a sustained run of success for Coyle who, along with Lanigan-O’Keeffe took silver in the mixed relay event in the modern pentathlon at the Sarasota World Cup in Florida.

They made it a two-in-a-row with a silver medal at the Modern Pentathlon World Cup in Cairo in March.

The pair pushed on to claim silver at the Modern Pentathlon World Cup final in Minsk early last month. This was Ireland’s first ever medal at the finals.

The pair had reasons to be optimistic that another medal could be won in Berlin but that proved not to be the case.