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Kerenza Bryson will turn her focus to one of her day jobs as she prepares to begin life as a junior doctor following her ninth-placed finish in the women’s modern pentathlon.
The 25-year-old juggled the sport with six years of medical school and being an army reservist in the Royal Logistics Corps, only training full-time as an athlete for the last year.
In December, she will begin work at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, and she said: “I am really looking forward to it. It’s obviously really different to full-time athleting.
“It’s going to be a bit of a shift but in my head even now I’m trying to think about how I’m going to be able to balance all of that and what options I have. Medicine is a passion of mine and I love helping people so being a doctor is important to me.
“I’ve only been a full-time athlete for one year so all the years of hard work before were while I was balancing my three careers. I’m going to try to see how I can do it again.”
Bryson went into Sunday’s final at Versailles sitting in third place after the fencing ranking round and with a medal well in reach but was unable to produce the same form she showed in the semi-final.
Britain had already been dealt a blow with the withdrawal on Sunday morning of defending champion Kate French through illness, and for only the second time since the women’s event was introduced in 2000 they leave a Games empty-handed.
Bryson’s chances were hurt by two fences down in her showjumping round – the last time the discipline will be included in the sport – and she was unable to recover the damage in the fencing bonus round, swim or biathlon-style laser run.
“I’m obviously really disappointed with my performance,” she said. “I came here to try to get a medal and I really thought I was capable of one.
“But I’m also trying to be really positive and remember that I am an Olympian, I’m also a doctor and I’m also an army officer, so I’ve got other things going on, and sometimes you have to remember there’s more to life than sport and medals.”
Bryson’s future in modern pentathlon, like many of the athletes, remains up in the air because of the controversial decision to replace showjumping with obstacle racing.
“We haven’t been allowed to practise it yet because of injury risk,” said Bryson.“It might be that I try it and I’m terrible but we’ll see.
“I’m going to take some time off, have a holiday, decompress and then have a think about the next cycle. But definitely not getting a medal here has made me hungry for another Olympic Games.”
On French’s misfortune, Bryson added: “I’m totally gutted for her. She deserved to be here and is an amazing athlete, she’s Olympic champion, she doesn’t need to prove anything.”
Hungary’s Michelle Gulyas won gold ahead of home favourite Elodie Clouvel, with Seong Seung-min of South Korea taking bronze.
