Spence, who is desperate to qualify for London 2012 having missed out on selection by one place for the 2008 Games, finished fifth in an event which held the fencing and swimming events at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre before moving on to the Olympic venue at Greenwich Park for the riding and run/shoot elements.

Team mates Heather Fell, the Olympic silver medallist, and Freyja Prentice finished seventh and 12th respectively to round off a satisfactory weekend for Britain, for whom 20-year-old Jamie Cooke beat his own world modern pentathlon swim record by more than a second, finishing ninth in what was his first World Cup final.

Spence and Fell went into the final run/shoot section in third and fourth places respectively, with Prentice down in 24th place.

Although Spence briefly worked her way into the lead, she slipped back as Germany's Olympic champion Lena Schoneborn and Lithuania's Laura Asadauskaite moved through to take gold and silver, with Elodie Clouvel of France third.

"I was a bit up and down today," Spence said.

"I set myself a goal of finishing in the top six and I've achieved that, but I wanted to win a medal for the home crowd.

"When you start the combined event in a medal position you want to keep it, but my last run/shoot was just a little bit slow.

"But hopefully I'm working my way to the Olympic qualification I want to achieve."

Fell dropped to 12th after a disappointing second shoot but recovered five places with a final run which took her past Russians Yuliya Kolegova and Ekaterina Khuraskina in the final few yards.

She added that competition for the two British Olympic places on offer will be intense.

"If I was a bookie I wouldn't know who to put my money on for London next year," she said.

"But the two who go to the Games have got an amazingly good chance of getting onto the podium and of getting to the top of it."

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