Disappointed duo Mhairi Spence and Nick Woodbridge urged not to quit
Mhairi Spence and Nick Woodbridge have been urged not to rush into a decision after hinting they may quit modern pentathlon following their London 2012 disappointments.
Spence went into Sunday's event as a gold medal contender following her outstanding World Championship success in May but could only finish 21st overall.
The previous day had seen Woodbridge come tenth in the men's event at Greenwich Park, a venue where he had won World Cup Final bronze in last year's Olympic test event.
Team-mate Sam Weale was 13th but Jan Bartu – performance director at Pentathlon GB's high-performance centre at the University of Bath – said all three should be pleased with their efforts this year.
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"Top ten in the Games and top 13 for both men is not a bad result," he said.
"I'm so sorry for Mhairi because she managed a complete transformation from someone who was probably not a medal contender to someone who won the World Championships this year.
"She worked so hard on it and sacrificed everything to achieve her objective in this competition but that's sport, it wasn't her day."
"We'll have to see what she decides after the dust settles down. I wouldn't take anything for granted, there's a lot of emotion."
Spence was on the back foot after a below-par performance in her best discipline, the fencing, where she placed 11th overall with 19 wins from 35 bouts.
She produced a great response in the 200m freestyle swim, where her time of 2mins 16.51secs was quicker than the one she produced at the World Championships.
However, Spence's medal hopes ended when she was paired with Coronado's Son in the show jumping, with the horse proving virtually impossible to control.
She racked up a costly 104 penalty points, leaving her 38 seconds behind the leaders going into the run/shoot. A fault at the first target range hindered her cause further and Spence eventually finished well down the field.
"I proved a couple of months ago at the World Championships that I'm good enough to stand on the podium but I couldn't do that today," she said afterwards.
"The crowd were amazing and I'm disappointed I couldn't put on a better show for them."
Woodbridge's campaign on Saturday got off to a good start in the fencing but he then lost ground and went three seconds slower than he had aimed for in the Aquatic Centre.
A good show jumping effort on Umberto de Fauquez, in which he dislodged just one fence, left him seventh going into the run/shoot but he lost time on his first two visits to the target range and came home tenth.
"Halfway through the fence I was in the top five," said Woodbridge. "I thought this was going to be my day, with a solid swim to come.
"Then it all fell apart. I was more worried about losing than trying to win.
"I would like to go to Rio but I don't think I want to carry on if I'm not going to improve. I don't want to be continually finishing fifth or tenth, that doesn't really mean anything to me."
Weale, meanwhile, admitted he had struggled with nerves in the early stages of his competition and, despite improving as the fencing went on, finished the discipline in 13th – where he would end the day.
He dropped a place in the pool but knocked down just one fence as he climbed up to ninth in the show jumping, only to fall off the pace in the run/shoot.
"I was confident going into the shooting and my warm-up was really good but I don't know what happened," said the 30-year-old.
"When you stand on the range for 22 seconds, or whatever it was, and miss four or five shots, there is not a chance of catching any places up. I threw it away on the first shoot, really.
"I'm very disappointed to have worked for four years and not improved on my result from Beijing but I've had a fantastic time and I'll see what happens after this."
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