The University of Bath-based Britain women’s modern pentathlon team today (Saturday) won the team silver medal at the World Championships in China.

Beijing 2008 Olympic silver medallist Heather Fell was the highest placed British finisher in the individual competition in eighth. Team-mate Freyja Prentice, aged 20, produced the third fastest run/shoot of the day, climbing from 16th going into the run/shoot to end the day in a creditable ninth. Twenty-year-old Samantha Murray, competing at her first senior World Championships. finished 22nd.

The trio all train at the Pentathlon GB high performance centre at the University of Bath, where Prentice is studying for a Biology degree and Murray for a French and Politics degree.

Britain went into the run/shoot in Chengdu in second place in the team competition 292 points behind France and only four seconds ahead of Hungary, but produced solid performances to secure team silver.

France’s Amelie Caze won her third individual World Championship crown and helped her country to team gold.

Fell led the British challenge from the start and was eighth after the fencing with 19 wins and 15 defeats. Prentice won 15 of her 34 fencing contests for 19th place, while Murray’s 14 wins put her 22nd.

Murray climbed up to 16th with the fifth fastest swimming time, 2:14.41. Fell continued to lead the British challenge with 2:18.11, climbing a place to seventh overall, while Prentice’s 2:21.57 saw her drop to 23rd.

Fell dropped 74 points from the perfect 1200 in a riding arena in which none of the 35 athletes went clear in the allotted time. Fell still remained seventh overall going into the run/shoot.

Prentice had four fences down to add another 1120 points to her total, promoting her to 16th going into the run/shoot, while Murray took 1044 from the ride, making her 19th.

Fell climbed to fourth place after the first shooting element of the run/shoot, but had a disappointing second shoot and ended the day in eighth. Prentice’s time of 12:20.61 saw her climb fro 16th place to cross the line just behind Fell in ninth, while Murray dropped three place to finish 22nd.

2010 World Championships women’s results
Individual
Gold: Amelie Caze (FRA) – 5344 pts
Silver: Donata Rimsaite (LTU) – 5272 pts
Bronze: Lena Schoneborn (GER) – 5216 pts
8th: Heather Fell (GBR) – 5072 pts
9th: Freyja Prentice (GBR) – 5048 pts
22nd: Samantha Murray (GBR) – 4756 pts

Team results
Gold: France (Amelie Caze, Elfie Arnaud, Anais Eudes) – 15108 pts
Silver: Great Britain (Heather Fell, Samantha Murray, Freyja Prentice)  -14876 pts
Bronze: Germany (Lena Schoneborn, Annika Schleu, Eva Trautmann) – 14832 pts