By David Brenchley
Qian Chen shocked Crystal Palace to become the first ever Chinese female pentathlete to triumph at the World Championships as the Great British team had mixed fortunes.
Chen took the title ahead of Lithuanian Laura Asadauskaite and Olympic champion Lena Schoneborn and Britain acheived silver in the team event.
Chen was consistent throughout the final and overcame a 16 second deficit in the combined event to take the gold medal comfortably.
Katy Livingston made much of the early running, going into the third event of the day, the horse riding, comfortably in the lead. That was where her day effectively ended.
Having looked perfect until the 10th jump, her progress was halted as the judges decided to ring the alarm because a pole had come out of one of the fences.
She proceeded to knock over the fence in question before being flung over the penultimate fence, costing her 288 penalty points.
To end her tale of woe, the 25-year-old produced another poor run/shoot, ending the day languishing in 23rd place.
“The horse lost its confidence in me and I lost my confidence in it,” she reflected. “My fencing was a personal best and my swim was almost a pb so I thought it couldn’t get any better.”
GB’s team manager Dominic Mahony added: “Katy had such an outstanding first two events and she was riding her horse very well.
“It was completely in the judges’ hands whether they rang the bell and the timing of it was very unfortunate.”
The success story of the games has been the emergence of young Scot Freyja Prentice. The 19-year-old lifted herself into 15th place overall to cap a wonderful debut World Championship.
She said: “I took a while to settle down [in the fencing], having Mhairi [Spence] beside me helped because she has a lot of experience and she helped me through it.
“My first goal was to try and get into the final, then I just wanted to get top 20 and I am thrilled to have done that, I couldn’t have asked for better,” Prentice added.
Mahony was just as thrilled with her progress, despite having a lot to learn: “She is such a prospect. She competed in a very mature way today so I think she will have learnt so much.”
Despite feeling under the weather, world number one Heather Fell recovered from being down in 19th place before the combined to finish ninth and Spence finished a credible 14th.
The British team will want to pick themselves up quickly and put in a good showing for the team relays on Monday.
