Olympic silver medallist Heather Fell claimed Britain’s sole top-ten finish in the women’s event at the opening modern pentathlon World Cup of the season.
The 29-year-old battled her way to ninth in California a day after Joe Evans had set the bar high for the British women’s quartet by claiming bronze.
Fell climbed from 27th after the fencing phase to break into the top ten while Kate French was the best of the other British women after finishing 19th.
Katy Burke was just two places behind in 21st while Jo Muir, making her World Cup debut in Palm Springs, came home in 30th place in the final.
Burke was joint tenth after the fencing phase with 19 wins from 35 contests with French 16th, Fell down in 27th and Muir nine places back in 36th.
Fell, who won Olympic silver at Beijing 2008, moved up to 23rd after the 200m freestyle swim however Burke was still the best as she moved up to seventh.
Muir progressed to 33rd while French dropped to 23rd before Fell’s surge up the overall standings gathered further pace in the riding arena.
Dropping only 40 points from the maximum 1200 she was up to 18th and then climbed another nine places after recording the sixth quickest run/shoot time.
Fell clocked 12:31.17 minutes to end ninth while Burke was ninth after the riding only to fall to 21st following a run/shoot time of 13:33.73.
French maintained a position of 19th in the last two events while Muir climbed to 31st and then 30th on her World Cup debut.
© Sportsbeat 2013