Olympic silver medallist Heather Fell rates herself as an outsider to make the Great Britain modern pentathlon team for the London Games.
The 29-year-old maintained Britain's record of having won at least one medal at every Olympics since the women's competition was introduced in 2000 when she finished as runner-up to Germany's Lena Schoneborn in Beijing four years ago.
But the competition for the two places available in London is among the toughest in any sport, with six women beginning the year with realistic expectations of qualification.
That has been reduced to four with the confirmation on Tuesday that Fell, Mhairi Spence, Samantha Murray and Freyja Prentice will make up the team for next week's World Championships in Rome, ending the Olympic hopes of Katy Livingston, who was seventh in Beijing, and Katy Burke.
Fell sits ninth in the world rankings, second only to fifth-placed Spence in British terms, but Spence and Murray have both won World Cup medals this season while Prentice is the only British woman to have already met the Olympic selection criteria courtesy of her top-eight finish at the European Championships last year.
Fell told Press Association Sport: "I would put myself as the fourth member of the World Championship team.
"From the way the year has gone I feel like I've crept in there but you've got to be in it to win it and I'm there. I think we're all starting again with a fresh slate so hopefully I can move myself up in the rankings."
Fell can draw on memories of the same process ahead of the Beijing Games, when she also had to contend with the loss of her funding following injury problems.
She said: "I remember back in 2007 when I qualified I never once thought for one minute that I'd be going because there were so many hurdles in front of me. Now we're only a few months away and it still feels the same as it did then.
"I can't envisage that far ahead but I'm one step closer by having the chance to compete at the World Championships and I know I've got the World Cup Final as well so I've just got to focus on those two competitions and hope I can do enough."