Russia's men won the relay bronze medal at the world modern pentathlon championships in Rome on Tuesday.
The Russian team of Ilya Shugarov, Maxim Kustov and Alexander Savkin fell 12 points short of the Germans in second and gold medalists South Korea, who won the competition with 6,230 points.
"This bronze is a dream come true," said 19-year-old Shugarov in comments carried by the competition website.
Russia is historically strong at the modern pentathlon, which is an Olympic sport comprising pistol shooting, fencing, 200 meters freestyle swimming, show jumping, and a 3 kilometer cross-country run.
On Tuesday, the Russians came second in the fencing, third in show jumping, fourth in swimming and, tellingly, fifth in the combined cross-country and pistol shooting.
"We were close to getting the silver, but sadly we weren't fast enough," said Shugarov, who won the individual event at the fourth World Cup stage on home soil in Rostov last month.
The world championships, which run through Sunday, started on Monday with the women's relay, where the Russians came fifth in a competition won by Germany.
The team of Anna Savchenko, Svetlana Lebedeva and Evdokia Gretchichnikova came joint third with Belarus in the fencing, sixth in the pool, tenth in the riding and fourth in the combined run and shoot.
Germany stormed to gold when Beijing Olympics gold medalist Lena Schoneborn won the combined after her teammates finished second in the fencing and, fifth in the swimming, and eighth in the riding.
The Chinese were just 20 points back in second, the Britons a further 26 points back in third, Belarus a 52 points adrift from them and Russia 14 points back in fifth.
For the London Games, Russia is sending at least two men in double Olympic champion Andrei Moiseev and world silver medalist and double European champion Sergei Karyakin.
On the women's side the country will represented by Gretchichnikova and Ekaterina Khuraskina.
