Spence to defend title as she leads GB team into World Championships

Great Britain’s Mhairi Spence gets the opportunity to defend her World Championship crown when she competes at the most important modern pentathlon competition since the London 2012 Olympics this month. She will lead a formidable GB team to contest the 2013 World Championships in Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei, from 21 to 27 August.

Spence won the title in Rome in May 2012 which were held earlier in the year than usual because of the Olympic Games, so Spence has had the privilege of reigning as World Champion for just over 15 months.

“I was really proud to win the World Championships last year,” she said. “I finally achieved what I knew I could do. It’s nice when you know you’re the best in the world at something, not everyone gets to be a world champion.

“The World Championships have a big meaning for me, because it was also my first individual gold medal,” she added. “I don't think it puts any more pressure on me this time around though. I always go to competitions wanting to do the best I can and wanting to get on the podium.”

Spence, now ranked 10th in the world, is joined in the British team Kaohsiung by another 2012 World Championships individual medallist, Samantha Murray, currently ranked nine in the world.

Murray’s bronze last year was enough to secure her a place on the British team for the London 2012 Olympics, where she won the silver medal, Britain’s last medal of the Games.

Kate French and Freyja Prentice also feature in the GB women’s team for Kaohsiung. Prentice was the highest placed GB woman at this month’s European Championships finishing fourth at her first major competition back from a lengthy spell on the sidelines through injury.

French finished 10th in the individual competition at the Europeans and partnered Spence and Murray to gold in the team event. She won another gold in the women’s relay with Murray and Katy Burke. Burke is non-travelling reserve for the women’s team for the World Championships.

Jamie Cooke, Britain’s 2011 World Junior Champion who won his first World Cup Series gold medal in Hungary in May, is confirmed for the men’s team along with double Olympian Sam Weale.

Joe Evans, the 19-year-old who won bronze at World Cup #1 in the USA in February, has qualified for the team through the Pentathlon GB ranking list.  He will make his senior World Championships debut if he is fit and healthy after next week’s World Junior Championships in Szekesfehervar, Hungary.

Double Olympian Woodbridge will be assessed midway through the forthcoming two-week training camp at altitude at Font Romeu in the French Pyrenees to see if he has sufficiently recovered from injury to contest the championships. Nineteen-year-old Sam Curry is non-travelling reserve.

The Britain train at the Pentathlon GB High Performance Centre at the University of Bath. The University also announced a strengthened partnership with Pentathlon GB. As part of this new agreement, pentathletes will be involved with promoting the University at its open days and when they are competing internationally.