VERSAILLES, France (Reuters) - Annika Zillekens shed tears as her Modern Pentathlon career ended at the Paris Olympics on Saturday but the emotions were very different to Tokyo 2021 when an incident involving the German changed the nature of the sport.
Then, competing under her maiden name of Schleu, she was heading for gold until her horse repeatedly refused -- the rider crying and screaming in frustration while coach Kim Raisner struck the animal with her fist.
The quirky and somewhat obscure five-discipline event, easily dismissed as an Olympic anachronism, was plunged into a global outcry over equine welfare and the use of animals for sport.
Pentathlon was dropped from the 2028 Olympic programme and given a reprieve only after a decision to replace horses with obstacle courses.
Schleu, who abandoned social media after receiving death threats, returned to competition last year after marrying German pentathlete Christian Zillekens.
"Of course it was really emotional," the 34-year-old said of her last ride after failing to qualify for Sunday's final at a stadium erected in the grounds of the 17th century Palace of Versailles.
"I really had the wish to come back to make a happy last result in the Olympics.
"It was a really hard time (after Tokyo) and I was happy that I was able to come back and that all the pentathlon world was so nice to me.
"I made the decision to try another Olympics and I'm really happy with this decision, even if it's not the Hollywood story I wished for.
"For me, mentally, it's a better ending to stop here in Paris than when I would have stopped in Tokyo."
Zillekens collected 25 penalty points for Saturday's show jumping round, eight of them for lost time and the rest for failing to clear fences cleanly, with the randomly-assigned horse refusing one jump.
She blamed herself for that and said she was happy to bow out at the end of one era and before the start of another.
"I always loved the riding in Pentathlon but as we all know there was the time for change, so I think the new generation can live with the new format pretty well," she said.
"I see the younger ones and I see that they have fun in the new format and they have fun in the new sport, so I think it's a good decision."
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ken Ferris)
