Jamie Cooke has reached the final of the opening Modern Pentathlon World Cup of the year, which takes place in the USA on Friday.
The Andoversford-raised athlete was the highest-placed British qualifier, with team-mates Sam Curry and Joe Evans joining him in the final.
The format for qualifying for the finals has changed this year, with the top-eight from each of the three heats progressing, along with the next 12 highest points scorers – in the past the top-12 in each heat have gone through automatically.
Curry and Evans, both aged 19 and competing at their first World Cups at the competition in Palm Springs, California, came eighth and 10th respectively in qualifier A to go through to the final.
Cooke, 21, Britain's 2011 world junior champion, qualified in seventh from heat B.
Jan Bartu, Pentathlon GB Performance Director, said: "Jamie Cooke fought back after the fencing. It wasn't a particularly good semi for him, but hopefully he will take the opportunity in the final to rectify what went wrong in the semi."
Group B started in the pool, where Cooke, a former Balcarras School student, again set the pace with a time of 1:59.12. Cooke also won nine of his 24 fencing bouts.
Cooke's combined event time of 11:46.03 was third fastest in the heat and saw him climb from 15th overall to seventh to progress to the final.
