Katy Burke equalled her season’s best modern pentathlon World Cup finish at round three in Chengdu with fellow Brit and debutant Rebecca Wain finishing just one place behind her.
Burke placed 21st at the opening World Cup round of the season in Palm Springs in California before ranking 28th in the 2016 Olympic Games host city of Rio in Brazil last month.
She qualified for the final in China after ranking 12th in qualification group A and was to finish 21st again with Wain ending one place behind in 22nd on her World Cup debut.
Both Brits were 21st after winning 16 of their 35 fencing bouts before Burke moved to 15th after the 200m freestyle swim and Wain down to joint 28th.
Burke dropped 120 points from the maximum 1200 available in the riding arena to go into the combined run/shoot in 16th with Wain up a place to 27th.
They then finished 21st and 22nd respectively as Ukraine’s Ganna Buriak took the victory ahead of Chinese home hope Wanxia Liang while Wei Wang was third.
Teenager Joe Evans, who won bronze at the World Cup opener in California, is Britain’s sole representative in Saturday’s men’s final after placing sixth in qualification group B.
© Sportsbeat 2013