It’s fast. It’s furious. It’s intense. And if you look away for a moment, you may miss all the action. But for Australian pentathlete Genevieve van Rensburg, it’s all in a day’s work.
The 20-year-old took to the North Paris Arena for the fencing ranking round in the Women’s Individual competition for Modern Pentathlon, going up against 34 other competitors for vital points ahead of the semi-finals on the weekend.
With 34 individual bouts lasting for a minute each, it can be hard to keep up. But Genevieve showed poise and prowess on her Olympic debut with no signs of fatigue, stringing together a strong performance to finish the day in 13th place.
Genevieve registered 18 wins and 17 losses to score a total of 215 points. Despite her strong ranking, she had hoped for more on the day.
“It's not quite where I was hoping to be,” she said.
“My fencing is my strongest, so usually it's a bit higher, but we're still staying positive.
“You never know what happens on Saturday, so we'll see."
Starting off with two consecutive wins, Genevieve positioned herself as high as ninth throughout the competition, with several consecutive wins coming off the back of several consecutive losses.
Using defensive tactics throughout the majority of the day, she was able to draw counter moves on her opponents in several bouts to land the winning point needed to take the win.
Her biggest bout win of the day came against Elodie Clouvel of France, who ended the ranking round in first place with 260 points.
After a tense standoff, Genevieve pulled a risky foot shot move, landing a hit on her opponent to take the win and draw loud reactions from her coach and support team.
“After hearing the amount of cheering when the French get a win, it's definitely a goal to beat them in front of their home crowd,” she said.
“So to get a foot shot as well, I was on cloud nine."
A total of five sports make up the Modern Pentathlon, with Genevieve also taking part in swimming, show jumping, shooting and running in the semi-final.
The show jumping section of the semi-final begins at 4.30pm AEST on Saturday at the Chateau de Versailles.
This article was originally written for The Australian Olympic Team. You can read the published version here
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