Modern Pentathlon: Samantha Murray among Britons in Euro final

GB modern pentathlete Samantha Murray, from Lancashire, won a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics

Olympic silver medallist Samantha Murray recovered from a difficult start to remain on course for a first individual European pentathlon title.

Murray, 25, who has already secured Rio Olympic qualification, was down in 21st after the fencing round.

Strong swimming and run-shoot combined events helped her climb to ninth and reach Sunday's final in Bath.

She is joined by Great Britain team-mates Kate French, Freyja Prentice and Francesca Summers.

Britain will claim the maximum of two Olympic berths for the women's event if any of the GB athletes - other than Murray - can finish in the top eight in Sunday's final at the University of Bath.

"I sometimes struggle to find that spark and have the same adrenalin that I do in the final during qualification," said Murray, who was fourth in the women's team event alongside Mhairi Spence on Wednesday.

"Hopefully I can step things up at the weekend," she added.

World junior champion Summers, who won Youth Olympic silver in 2014, secured the last automatic qualification place in the first of the combined heats.

"I took lots of confidence from winning world junior gold in Mexico," she told BBC Sport.

"It's a big step-up in standard, but the target was to reach the final and I'm so happy I've done that."

On Saturday Jamie Cooke, Tom Toolis and Joe Choong will compete in the men's final knowing a top-eight finish will attain them a Rio Olympic qualification.