Qualficiation
Qualfication for the women took place on wednesday. I was allocated to semi final B along with fellow Brit, Katy Livingston whilst Heather Fell and Mhairi Spence lined up in semi final A. We arrived at the International Cairo Stadium and began the day with fencing. The atmosphere in the hall was fairly flat and this was reflected in my score of 776 points. Next was the shooting where I began pretty poorly by making some technical errors scoring only 85 for the first 10 shots. Luckily I was able to control my nerve and found a good rhythm for the second 10, scoring 90. This gave me a total of score of 175. I was in 16th position going into the swimming event. The weather in Egypt wasn't exactly as warm as we'd been expecting which meant that the 50metre outdoor pool was pretty cold. I was pleased with my time of 2.20 considering the fairly strong wind that was blowing about.
I began the run in 13th position, needing to remain in the top 18 to qualify for the final. The run took place within the riding arena and was a 750m loop with conveinetly placed U turns so it was possible to keep a check on runners behind me. After 2 of the 4 laps, there was a clear gap between the runners in 18th and 19th position which meant that the pace was able to slow. I qualified fairly comfortably in 10th position. Katy had begun the run a couple of second ahead of me also qualified with ease. Heather and Mhairi had similar successes through the day and easily qualified within the top 18 from semi final A.

I didn't have a very good start to the fence. I lost my first three hits to my British team mates and took a few more rounds before I began to start fencing with some conviction. I fenced very well for the middle part of the competition and began scoring some very nice hits. I finished with 19victories and 17defeats and a score of 856. Thankfully the sun was shining and the outdoor pool didn't seem as cold as it had been for the semis. I was seeded in the outside lane in fastest swim heat. I swam well but couldn't quite match my time from the semi final, posting a time of 2.21 putting my into 11th position going into the riding. Katy and Mhairi were enjoying slightly better success and went into the ride in joint 2nd place.

I drew a horse that had been ridden clear in the test event. I was warned that my horse didn't like the end of the warm up arena that was near the entrance to the main arena but wasn't sure what that mean. After about 5minutes of the warm up we came to a holt in the area that my horse didn't like. He began rearing up and it took a few of the Egyptian stable men to help guide him away from the area. I carried on warming up away from the end of the arena and cleared all 5 of my allocated practise jumps with ease-he was a good jumper. I was concerned that we would have to enter the 'dreaded area' to access the main arena but my coach assured me that if I trotted positively he wouldn't have a chance to start rearing up. Unfortunately as i came towards the 'dreaded area' another athlete was having control issues with her horse and it backed into mine and started kicking out at my horse. This caused my horse to begin rearing again. He was rearing much higher than before and stepping backwards on his hind legs. My coach advised me to jump off as he was worried for my safety. Unfortunately as I had been called to the main arena there wasn't much I could do and I didn't start the riding event. I've had various disappointments in the riding events over my years of competing but this was the most frustrating as I knew he was a good jumper but I just couldn't get him into the arena. Down and out after scoring 0 points in the ride, I started and finished the run in 35th place too distant from catching any other competitors.

Mhairi also had a disappointing ride and dropped way down the start list for the run. Katy rode well and only knocked down one fence. She began the run in 2nd place, a couple of seconds behind the 2007 World Champion Amelie Caze of France. Katy easily overtook her and was more concerned about the Ukrainian Tereshuk who is one of the quickest in women's pentathlon. Katy began well with Tereshuk only eating up 4 seconds of Katy's 35 second lead on the first lap. By all accounts (I was still running) Katy ran really well and eased to her first individual gold medal. Sometimes it can be hard training with and competing against your team mates as we do but I was so happy to see Katy win took away some of my disappointment. She performed brilliantly in all 5 events and walked away from the first competition of the year victorious, hopefully I can follow her lead for the next competitions.