Three-time Olympian Natalya Coyle has cast doubt on a return for Paris 2024 after her bid for a medal in Tokyo was scuppered by a disastrous horse jumping round in the Modern Pentathlon.
Coyle, 30, was third in the rankings after Thursday's fencing round, then fourth after Friday's swimming and fencing bonus round.
But the Meath woman suffered badly when the horse that she was paired with, Constantin, refused at three fences and Coyle only managed to score 234 points out of the 300 on offer, leaving her 64 seconds adrift of the lead.
Earlier, Constantin had refused at fences for Uzbekistan's Alise Fakhrutdinova.
That dropped Coyle to 19th place and the final leg, the combined run and pistol shooting, was academic as Kate French won gold for GB and Coyle finished 24th overall.
It was a major disappointment to her after finishing ninth in London 2012 sixth in Rio 2016 and she harboured real hopes of going close to a medal here after some excellent results since then.
"It's really disappointing," said Coyle. "It's not how I wanted to end my career.
"I suppose it's just added disappointment because to be third in events and to be so close and to feel like it’s a bit snatched away from you, it's really disappointing.
"That’s Pentathlon, unfortunately. I knew it was going to be tough when I watched the first rider not get around so I knew that was really tough.
"I thought I had made a good plan and it worked a lot in the arena but he just didn’t want to go near it.
"One of the fences beforehand, it was my fault - I should have checked before. But I thought it was all going OK and then it (the horse) stopped and then it stopped again.
"Just disappointing, I've had two good Games and two good horse riding events.
"I put so much effort into doing it, I would have liked to have a nice finish but that’s not sport. It is tough."
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