Team GB’s Kate French has won a gold medal in the modern pentathlon at the Tokyo Olympics.

The 30-year-old was fifth heading into the final event – the laser run – after a strong performance in the showjumping.

French, from Kent, won the 800-metres race – which sees competitors running laps before picking up a laser gun to take five shots at a target – to secure the title.

The leading pentathlete starts first, with each point adrift converted to a one second delay for the remaining women.

The top five were all within 15 seconds of each other at the race start – but French surged into the lead by the end of the first lap.

She never looked back, missing just two of her 22 shots.

Speaking to the BBC she said: “I actually don’t know what just happened – I can’t believe it right now.

“I just knew I had to focus, and I knew I could do it if I focused on my shooting and ran as fast as I could.

“Thanks to my team supporting here and to my family at home. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

French built on her fifth place performance in Rio to become Britain’s second Olympic champion in the event and put Team GB fourth in the medal table with 18 golds.

She follows in the footsteps of Stephanie Cook, who was the first female Olympic champion in Sydney, while Kate Allenby, Georgina Harland, Heather Fell and Samantha Murray have all won medals for Britain.

She performed strongly through the first three events, sitting sixth after the fencing, which was held on Thursday, and then coming eighth with an impressive 200-metres freestyle swim.

For the first time at the Olympics, all the disciplines were held in one stadium, with a pool erected at one end of Tokyo Stadium.

French picked up one extra point in the fencing bonus round and was then one of very few riders to go clear in the showjumping, although she did pick up six time penalties.

Fellow British athlete Joanna Muir, 26, from Dumfries finished in fourteenth place.

Modern pentathlon was devised by Baron Pierre De Coubertin who selected the disciplines to simulate the challenges faced by an infantryman caught behind enemy lines.

A key element of the sport is riding an unfamiliar horse, with athletes given only 20 minutes to bond with their mount before their round.

This element scuppered many of the pentathlete’s hopes in the showjumping, with Ireland’s Natalya Coyle among those to drop right down the field.

Germany’s Annika Schleu, meanwhile, had strong medal chances after setting an Olympic record in the fencing.

But she never got to grips with her horse – the misnamed Saint Boy – and left the arena in tears and with no points after he refused several jumps.

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