Paris 2024 Olympics - Modern Pentathlon - Men's SF A Riding Show Jumping - Chateau de Versailles, Versailles, France - August 09, 2024. Ahmed Elgendy of Egypt riding Talisman des Noues*IFCE in action. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
VERSAILLES, France (Reuters) - Egypt's gold medal hope Ahmed Elgendy battled back from a show jumping nightmare to reach the men's Modern Pentathlon final with an Olympic record score at the Paris Games on Friday.
Elgendy won silver in Tokyo three years ago but the 24-year-old is hoping to deliver his country's first gold of the 2024 Olympics against the impressive backdrop of the Palace of Versailles.
After scoring joint top in Thursday's fencing ranking round, Elgendy suffered a setback when his randomly-allocated horse, Talisman des Noues, refused a jump and almost threw him out of the saddle -- which would have meant elimination.
"Luckily I didn't fall down, so then I had to think very quickly...to push the horse very hard and just focus on what to do before every jump," said Elgendy, who blamed himself for the refusal.
"We want to correct the mistakes of the riding today and hopefully we can go clear round (on Saturday), so then we are looking for the gold medal."
The Egyptian cleared at the second attempt but picked up penalties for knocking bars off two other fences and for excessive time.
That left him 17th of 18 but he moved up to seventh after the fencing bonus round and went fifth overall after the 200 metres swim.
Elgendy took the lead in the final laser run, featuring laser pistol shooting and a run to the finish in front of thousands of spectators in a stadium erected in the palace gardens.
Elgendy's 1,516 points haul in the new 90-minute format was an Olympic record, although that was to be expected as the running distance was 200m shorter than previously.
The finalists start with a clean slate on Sunday, except for the fencing ranking round scores which carry over to a fencing bonus round.
Switzerland's Alexandre Dallenbach, who had a clear round in the riding, was second in semi-final A and Mexico's Emiliano Hernandez third with both French hopefuls Jean-Baptiste Mourcia and Valentin Prades going through to the final.
The top nine qualifiers in each semi-final go through with the final a farewell to the horse-riding element as the sport switches to obstacle courses from the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
The women were not in action on Friday.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ed Osmond)
