Livid Livingston insists shoddy technology cost her victory

By George Scott, Sportsbeat, in Crystal Palace

 KATY Livingston slipped from within touching distance of gold to a lowly 23rd-place finish amid controversy at the Modern Pentathlon World Championships in Crystal Palace.

TAKING A TUMBLE: More technical problems hinder Katy Livingston's chance of gold at World Championships 

Livingston - who won individual world championship bronze in 2008 - got off to a superb start, winning her opening seven fencing bouts, finishing with 29 wins and six defeats to earn 1096 points.

And the 25-year-old consolidated her lead in the pool, touching in 2:14.64 minutes to take 2284 points into the show jumping.

But with five fences left and heading for a clear round, Livingston and her 11-year-old mare Cathleen were stopped in their traps as officials sounded the buzzer while officials fixed a broken fence.

With the buzzer sounding again to restart her round, Livingston lost all momentum to suffer both a refusal and a fall at the penultimate fence.

The Beijing Olympian started the run/shoot in fifth place but all focus had left her and she slipped down the rankings to finish nearly two minutes behind gold medallist Qian Chen.

And Livingston believes the mistake may have cost her the world title.

"A pole fell off the jump but I didn't see it because I was going the other way and when I came round the corner there were people in front of the jump," she said.

"I heard the buzzer and had to pull up and when it went again my approach to that fence was terrible and the horse lost confidence in me - it all went downhill from there.

"You can't appeal in that situation because there are a lot of what ifs - would I have fallen anyway?

"I'm also angry at myself because I'm really struggling with this new format.

"A year ago I was at the top of my game and if that had just been a run at the end I could have run myself up into the medal places.

"But if the mistake had not happened in the riding I could be standing here as world champion."

Meanwhile, Olympic silver medallist Heather Fell climbed ten places in the run/shoot to finish ninth, while Mhairi Spence crossed the line 14th and 19-year-old Freyja Prentice 15th.

And Fell - who won only 16 fencing bouts in the morning - revealed she has been suffering from a cold all week.

"I felt absolutely terrible this morning but a lot of it must have been in my head otherwise I wouldn't have been able to run like that," said Fell.

"It's a better finish than I had hoped for - half way through the fencing I felt like giving up but I've had a lot of people come to watch me so I couldn't let them down.

"I would have liked to have finished ninth because that guarantees your funding - I might be in trouble for that."

Qian produced a stunning run/shoot performance to end with 5840 points, while Lithuania's Laura Asadauskaite settled for silver with 5736 and bronze went to Olympic champion Lena Schoneborn.

Read how the final unfolded here.