Murray strikes gold in Budapest

British modern pentathlete Samantha Murray continued her impressive start to 2012 by winning the Hungarian Indoor Championships in Budapest at the weekend.

And there was further good news for Great Britain with Beijing 2008 Olympian Katy Livingston taking bronze.

Murray followed up her win at the final national selection competition in Bath last month by taking gold in Budapest, comfortably beating Lithuania’s world number two Laura Asadauskaite into second place.

Murray is originally from Clitheroe in Lancashire but now combining training at the Pentathlon GB high performance centre with studying for a degree in French and Politics at the University of Bath. She said: “It was a good weekend to have a competition and see where I am at the moment.

“Winning was great, but I’m not going to get carried away. It’s good to see some of the changes I’ve made over the winter are working and hopefully I can take this forward to the next World Cup.

“The squad has been training really hard and the hard work has paid off,” she added.

Livingston came home in third place, eight seconds behind the Lithuanian with Kate French seventh and Kerry Prise 18th.

Murray returns to action at the opening World Cup of the year in Charlotte, the USA, from 8 to 11 March. She is joined by Heather Fell, Freyja Prentice and Mhairi Spence in the women’s team, with Jamie Cooke, Steven Mason, Sam Weale and Nick Woodbridge going in the men’s competition.