Name: Mhairi Spence
Event: Modern Pentathlon
Date of Birth: 31st August 1985, Age 26
Career Highlight: Winning individual gold at the 2012 World Championships
Did you Know?: One of Spence’s life long ambitions is to be the host of BBC’s Question of Sport.
26 year old Mhairi Spence moves into the Olympics with every hope of walking away with a medal, after a glorious year to date, which she hopes will get even better at London. The Modern Pentathlon is one of the most testing, yet less featured events of the Olympic schedule, requiring athletes to specialise at five different disciplines.
Not only are athletes physically tested in swimming and cross country running, but they are subjugated to an intense investigation of their skills, as they compete in shooting, fencing and equestrian events, being awarded points for each of the five events. The competitor with the highest total score runs out victorious. Its form has remained largely unchanged since its introduction in the 1912 Olympics.
Spence started training for the pentathlon after the 2000 Olympics, and soon won the British Youth Championships. By 2006 she was successfully competing on both the junior and senior stage, winning medals in European Championships and World Championships. However these were generally in the team competition, rather than for her individual exploits.
Spence met the standards for qualification for the Beijing Olympics, but wasn’t selected since Britain could only choose two athletes, leaving her disheartened. This disappointment was so great that she considered quitting the sport in 2009, before deciding she still had the passion to compete. In 2011 she made her first major breakthrough, as she finished 8th in the individual competition in the World Championships and moved into the 2012 World Championships ranked 5th in the world.
There she excelled winning gold by overcoming a 37 second deficit progressing into the final event. Coupled with a bronze medal from teammate Samantha Murray and a solid performance from Heather Fell, Britain won gold. Meanwhile Spence’s individual gold was the first time a British woman had won the World Championships since 2001.
Spence has now been selected for the World Championships along with Murray and the duo will be aiming for glory in London. Based on her form over the past two years, Spence has every opportunity of walking away with a medal, and potentially gold.
