World champion Seong Seung-min, teammate Kim Sun-woo reach modern pentathlon final

Seong Seung-min of South Korea competes in the riding show jumping event of the women's modern pentathlon semifinals at the Paris Olympics at the Chateau de Versailles, France, Aug. 10 . Yonhap

The reigning world champion Seong Seung-min advanced to the final of the women's modern pentathlon at the Paris Olympics, Saturday.

Seong finished fourth in Group A of the semifinals with 1,400 points, safely inside the top nine headed for Sunday's final.

Seong's teammate, Kim Sun-woo, is scheduled to compete in Group B of the semifinals, with the top nine from that group also earning their spots in the final.

The competition took place at the famed Chateau de Versailles, west of Paris.

Seong, 21, emerged as a medal contender at this Olympics after capturing her first world title in June.

In equestrian show jumping to start the semifinals, Seong scored 293 points. Athletes began with 300 points and lost points for faults, refusals or time violations.

The bonus round for fencing featured 30-second bouts with fencers seeded by results of Thursday's ranking round. The winner of each bout stayed on to face the next athlete, and each win was worth two points. The victory for the final bout was worth four points.

Seong lost her lone bout to Elena Micheli of Italy. She failed to add to her ranking round point total of 225 points in fencing.

Seong Seung-min of South Korea competes in the swimming event of the women's modern pentathlon semifinals at the Paris Olympics at Chateau de Versailles, France, Aug. 10. Yonhap

In 200-meter freestyle swimming, a time of 2:30 was worth 250 points, with one point added for every 0.5 second faster and one point deducted for every 0.5 second slower than the target time.

Seong posted the fourth-fastest time in swimming with 2:12.44, which netted her 286 points.

With 804 total points, Seong was in fourth place in Group A entering the final event, the laser run. It combined the running of five 600m laps and four stops at a laser pistol shooting range. The target time of 13:20 was worth 500 points, with one point added for every second faster and one point deducted for every second slower than the target.

Seong picked up 596 points in the laser run after finishing her race in 11:44.13.

Kim Sun-woo of South Korea competes in the riding show jumping event of the women's modern pentathlon semifinals at the Paris Olympics at Chateau de Versailles, France, Aug. 10. Yonhap

Seong said afterward she was not as sharp with her shooting as she would have liked. At her second shooting stop, Seong needed 11 attempts to get her required five hits, which cost her 20.4 seconds. She made up for it by going 5-for-5 at her final stop.

"I was worried about show jumping but I did well there. But shooting didn't go so well," Seong said. "The crowd noise was something else. It hit me that this was the Olympics after all. And I happened to shoot right next to a French athlete. So I was a bit distracted."

Seong said having competed in this environment should help her for the final, Sunday.

"I will make sure I won't make mistakes in the final," Seong said. "My primary goal was to reach the final and finish my show jumping without getting hurt. I took care of those today. I will try to be better at shooting tomorrow."

South Korea has never had a female medalist in the Olympic modern pentathlon. At the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Jun Woong-tae won bronze in the men's competition. Jun and teammate Seo Chang-wan are scheduled to compete in the men's final later Saturday. (Yonhap)