Weale, 27, finished joint first in his semi-final with 20-year-old Woodbridge joint 10th in the other semi.
 
It means they will both be in action again in Saturday’s final, when they will have the first opportunities to achieve the qualification standard for the Beijing 2008 Olympics Games.
 
But there was disappointment for the third British athlete in the men’s event - Ben Mclean - who missed out on Saturday’s final, finishing 23rd in his semi.
 
Jan Bartu, GB Performance Director, said: “It’s a great achievement to have two out of three of our men reaching the final, where Olympic qualification is at stake.
 
“This is a massive step forward towards the Olympic dream.

 

"Two of our athletes have an opportunity to fight for it again on Saturday and that’s fantastic.
 
“But it was still just the semi-final.

 

"The target today was just to get through to the final with as little damage as possible.

 

 “We’ve now got to move on, regroup and recover as best we can, and go for the big one.”
 
Weale got his campaign off to a bright start with a score of 183 in the shooting for 1132 points to put him into seventh place in semi-final A after one discipline. McLean’s 173 score gave him 1012 points, putting him 24th.
 
Weale climbed a couple of places to fifth in the fencing, where his 20 wins and 13 defeats gave him 916 points. Then he climbed to joint first spot after the third discipline – the swim, with a time of 2:00.17 (1360 points). That put him joint first, level on points with leader Mikhail Prokopenko (BLR) on 3408 with just the run to go.
 
The pair scored an identical points haul of 924 in the run to finish level in semi-final A in a three-way tie with Latvia’s Sandris Sika.

 

All ended with 4332 points. Weale clocked a time of 10:19.67 in the 3k run.
 
McLean dropped to 26th place with an inconsistent fencing performance, scoring 692 points.

 

He produced a strong swim of 1:59.44 (1368 points) as he tried to claw his way back up the field, but that could only push him up to 23rd in semi A with 3072 points after three disciplines. 

 

His run of 9:40.33 was 11th fastest in his semi, earning 1080 points, but it wasn’t enough to book a place in the final.

 

He finished 23rd in semi-final A with 4152 points overall.
 
Semi-final B started with the fencing. Woodbridge recorded 21 wins and 14 defeats to take 904 points from that discipline into the shooting and followed that up with a score of 174 – 1024 points – to put him ninth. 

 

He produced the fastest swim in his semi – 1:57.41 – giving him 1392 points and a total of 3320 after three disciplines.
 
He dropped down the field in a tough run with a big field all pushing to achieve qualification for the final.

 

But Woodbridge made sure of a finish that would achieve goal, crossing the line in 10:05.37 for 980 points, ending with a total of 4300.
 
Weale, Woodbridge and McLean all train at the Modern Pentathlon Assocation of Great Britain high performance centre at the University of Bath.
 
Tomorrow sees for British women go into action in their semis. Athens 2004 Olympic bronze medallist Georgina Harland heads the British challenge and is joined by Mhairi Spence, Katy Livingston and Heather Fell in bidding for a place in Sunday’s women’s final.
 
Eight qualification places for Beijing 2008 are available both for men and women from the European Championships because of the high calibre of modern pentathletes in Europe.
 
But a top-eight finish doesn’t guarantee a place on the flight to Beijing.

 

Further qualification opportunities will follow, including at the World Championships and World Cup final – and only up to two men and two women per country may qualify.

 

A total of 36 men and 36 women will compete in the modern pentathlon at the Beijing 2008 Olympics.
 
Only four of the five modern pentathlon disciplines are contested in the semi-finals.