Natalya Coyle fought back tears after her Olympic medal hopes were shattered in Tokyo on Friday morning.
The Meath athlete was in fourth place in the modern pentathlon going into the equestrian leg of the event, but was unfortunate to be paired with an extremely tricky horse.
Constantin, who was the horse allocated to the Meath athlete, refused at a number of fences, with Coyle scoring 234 points out of a possible 300, which essentially shattered her medal hopes ahead of the final leg of the event.
She finished in 24th place in the end after the laser run, which was the final event.
Despite the disappointment, Coyle showed her class in an interview as she backed Kellie Harrington to win gold on Sunday and encouraged people to get involved with her sport.
She told RTE: "We can hopefully watch Kellie go on and win a gold, which would be really nice.
"I kind of wanted to do all my coaches justice today and I don't think I really did so that's a little bit disappointing for me, but hopefully in the future I can look back be happy.
"Boys and girls at home, it's not all tears, generally it's really good. I've been so lucky. I've had an amazing career. I've got to stand on podiums and go to three Games.
"There's lots of rainbows. Hopefully people at home realise, yes it's a little sad right now, but generally it's really good so definitely to encouage people to try."
On her disappointment, she said: "It's just really upsetting because I was coming here to do a lot better, especially after the fencing I really thought I was in with a shout."
She added: "It's not the way I wanted to finish out my career but hopefully I can look back in a day or two and be happy with at least coming third in the fencing."
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