Spence 21st at London 2012 as Murray wins silver
MHAIRI Spence finished 21 in the London 2012 modern penathlon – while Team GB team-mate Samantha Murray soared to silver success.
The 26-year-old world champion from Farr, Inverness-shire, performed well amid the 36-strong field throughout the final day of the Olympic Games, but the main home glory was for Murray (22), who was denied gold by world number one, Lithuanian Laura Asadauskaite.
The bronze medal was won by Brazilian Yane Marques.
After finishing 11 in the fencing this morning then moving into the overall top 10 with a superb 200m freestyle swim at the Aquatic Centre, the telling blow for Spence’s medal hopes came in the show-jumping, or show-riding, this afternoon.
On board a grey gelding called Coronado’s Son, which seemed determined to get around the Greenwich Park course with speed rather than accuracy, the 25-year-old racked up a costly 104 penalty points to finish 25 in the riding category with a score of 1,096, despite managing to slow the horse down.
Knocking four poles down meant that ahead of the combined shooting and running contest, she was 14 overall and began a whopping 38 seconds behind joint leaders, Asadauskaite and Marques.
Spence’s Team GB team-mate Murray, meanwhile, was sitting fourth overall and began just eight seconds behind the front-runners and six seconds behind Frenchwoman Amelie Caze.
This morning, Spence won 19 of her 35 fencing contests to sit joint 11overall thanks to her score of 856.
The former Inverness Harrier then swam in a time of 2.16.51 to end in third spot within heat four and rise into ninth spot overall with a score of 2,020.
In the combined running and shooting event, which also took place at Greenwich, Spence finished 28 with a time of 1:40:23 to earn a score of 1,936 for the final competition.
This final effort took her to 21 overall with a total score of 5,052.
Spence, who is based at the University of Bath, had viewers throughout the country, and further afield, tuned into their TVs throughout the day and she and Murray went for medal glory.
The Farr woman’s stunning rise to the top of her sport this year, however, has been impressive and she can take much pride from making it to London, four years after missing out on the Games at Beijing, despite meeting the qualifying standard.
