It's down to the final medal of the 2012 Olympics, and it will be awarded to the winner of one of the Games' oldest and yet least understood events, so Richard O'Hagan will shine some light for into it for you...

For an event so rooted in history, modern pentathlon has had a tough recent past so far as the Olympics are concerned. 

Viewed by some as something of an anachronism in the modern era, it has been the first sport in line to be cut every time the International Olympic Committee has sought to introduce a new event.

That is not to say the sport has not adapted over the years. This writer was first introduced to the event as a young child, listening enthralled to the news from Montreal as the British team of Jim Fox, Danny Nightingale and Adrian Parker swam, shot, fenced, rode and ultimately ran their way to gold, all against the backdrop of one of the world's leading pentathletes, Boris Onischenko, being disqualified for cheating in the fencing element.

In those days the event was held over a number of days, so the story played out in a manner guaranteed to catch the imagination of a small child. Nowadays, things are very different and all five elements will take place on the same day, with the men's contest on the final Saturday of the Games and the women's finishing just before the Closing Ceremony begins on the Sunday.

This is, of course, how it should be. The event was designed to replicate the steps that a military officer may have to take in order to escape an enemy and deliver a message and is believed to be the event which would close the games held in Ancient Greece.

In the current version of the sport, competitors begin by having a round-robin fencing contest in which every one of the 36 competitors must fight the other. They then move on to a 200m swim and then a show-jumping round in which they must clear 12 fences on a horse which they have never ridden before and which is selected by the drawing of lots before the event. Each of those performances scores the competitor points and at the end of the showjumping the points are converted into a time handicap ready for the final two events.

Those two events are a 3,000m run broken into three equal sections, before each of which the athlete must shoot at five targets within 70 seconds, with a penalty for each target missed (very similar to the biathlon at the Winter Olympics). Athletes start the race in order of their time handicap and the first across the line at the end of the 3000m is the winner.

British women have won a medal in every Games since the women's event was introduced in 2000 and have strong contenders in reigning world champion Mhairi Spence and Samantha Murray, who was third in the same event. Their big competition will come from reigning Olympic champion Lena Schoeneborn and France's triple world champion Amelie Caze. At Betfair odds of (6.0) Spence is a very long price for someone who is the best in the world and at 2.1 to win any medal she is also a longer price than any of her three rivals in that market, too.

Medal hopes for British men rest with Nick Woodbridge, but he is very much an outsider in an event likely to be dominated by the Russians Andrei Moiseev and Aleksander Lesun. The gold medal is too close to call between those two, so back Woodbridge for bronze at 2.02 instead.

Best Bet @ Betfair
Back Mhairi Spence to win gold @ Betfair odds of (6.0), and why not celebrate the approaching end of the Games with a (2.1) bet on her to win any medal, too?