Rancho Mirage World Cup: The Modern Pentathlon short by one stop
The World Cup of Modern Pentathlon is to be held in the Coechella Valley later this month, on February 24. This Palm Springs/Rancho Mirage Cup had five destinations that have now been shortened to four.
The second stop was supposed to be Cairo, Egypt that has been struck off by the Egyptian Modern Pentathlon Federation (EMPF) due to the political instability presently residing within the country of Egypt. Instead of replacing the event, which was scheduled
for March 24-27, the international committee preferred to just skip the stop and make use of four World Cup competitions instead of five.
Since 1999, the Rancho Mirage World Cup is the first Pentathlon World Cup that is to be hosted by the United States.
Due to the removal of the second stop, the Valley venue has become all the more important for the athletes because this will be the first competition for them to secure a place in the Olympics Games 2012.
Subsequent to the Coachella Valley, the next stops for the World Cup are Sardinia, Italy; Budapest, Hungary; and Chengdu, China respectively. The World Cup final is set for July in London Summer Olympic 2012 site.
Michel Cintas of Rancho Mirage, a Pentathlon coach told that the opening ceremony is to be held on February 23, at the Agua Caliente Casino resort Spa. There are about 200 athletes from 31 countries (including Egypt) heading towards the valley for participating
in the event. He further stated that the Egyptians are coming but after a lot of struggle it became possible.
Cintas said, “The banks had been all shut down, and the Ministry of Sports had been waiting to get the funding. At this point, they have acquired their new tickets, as their original tickets were to leave on the fourth of February and go directly to Colorado
Springs to the Olympic Training Centre and train there along with the Americans, the Russians and the Brits. That obviously became impossibility with the unrest in Egypt.”
The coach added that the tickets had been paid and all that was left to do was changing the dates. Now, the Egyptian athletes are scheduled to fly from Cairo to New York, then to Palm Springs early next week for their training here. A total of 11 people
are to come from Egypt comprising of four male and female athletes, two coaches and a team manager.
The World Cup is scheduled to begin on February 24 in which five sports events namely Fencing, Swimming, Running, Shooting and Equestrian jumping. On the first day, the Women events shall be instigated followed by the Men qualifying events on February 25.
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