London: London 2012 was nearly two days old when Great Britain celebrated their first medal, but such has been this country’s success at these Games, even at 6.30pm on the final day there was still a British athlete taking her place on the podium.

Samantha Murray fenced, swam, rode, shot and ran her way to Britain’s 65th medal at London 2012 as the 22-year-old from Clitheroe, Lancashire won silver in the modern pentathlon last night.

“Honestly, if you have a goal - if there’s anything you want to achieve in life - don’t let anybody get in your way,” she said. “You can do it. If I can do it, and I’m a normal girl, anyone can.

“I’m a Lancashire lass - and very proud of it. We’ll have a big party at the end of the summer with some Lancashire hotpot, for sure.”

Now the girl nicknamed Olive - because of her supposed likeness to the character from Popeye - is an Olympic silver medallist; something that looked unlikely at 11am yesterday after Murray lost 18 of her 35 fencing bouts inside the Copper Box on the Olympic Park.

Her swim, though, gave a definite hint of what was to come as she covered four lengths of the Olympic pool in 2min 20.08sec, finishing just an arm’s length behind Sarolta Kovacs of Hungary, who set an Olympic modern pentathlon record. It was Murray’s first time in the water at the Aquatics Centre and she was actually disappointed with her performance, but it put her into third overall.

The Briton then lost a little ground during the show-jumping at Greenwich Park, in which competitors are randomly allocated horses and have only 20 minutes to familiarise themselves with their rides. Murray, on a year-old chestnut gelding called Glen Gold, knocked down two of the 12 fences and conceded a time penalty, but she still entered the combined run and shoot in fourth place, starting eight seconds behind the leader.

She was then into third after shooting five targets twice with a laser gun and starting the second 1,000m lap, before quickly moving ahead of Yane Marques of Brazil, who finished third.

Laura Asadauskaite of Lithuania won the gold medal, but it was a gutsy run from Murray, who has a year left of a degree in French and politics at the University of Bath, almost as passionate as her defence of a sport that is under threat to be withdrawn from the Olympic programme after 100 years. She found modern pentathlon through swimming, then “fell in love” with running.

“I already horse-rode because my grandma had stables,” she added. “Luckily for me there was some shooting going on by my swimming pool so I picked up a pistol when I was 12, then went along to fencing at 13. It’s the ultimate sport for an all-round athlete and I think it’s an important part of the Olympic Games.”

World champion Mhairi Spence finished a disappointing 21st in an event in which Britain has a proud heritage, having now won five medals in the four Olympics women have competed.

“I don’t feel like a world champion,” said Spence, “I feel a bit embarrassed that I couldn’t put on a better show.”

— Daily Mail