In pouring rain which began just before the final combined event, Földházi overtook the Lithuanian who started with a 31-second advantage over her, Ieva Serapinaite, who eventually took silver ahead of home athlete Anna Maliszewska.

Britain's trio of Francesca Summers, Jo Muir and Alice Fitton earned the team honours by finishing fourth, eighth and 26th respectively.

Silver medal was taken by Wei Wang, Qi Huo and Xiuting Zhong of China and the bronze medal went to Tamara Vega, Carmen Mayan and Mariana Arceo of Mexico.

"It was raining but I knew I had a chance for the win," Földházi said.

"I won the senior European Championships here last year.

"Maybe it was the first step to today's win."

Zsófia Földházi of Hungary in the riding section en route to retaining her modern pentathlon world junior title ©UIPM

Serapinaite won the opening fencing event, but her Hungarian rival responded with a win in the swimming, just 0.05sec ahead of Fitton.

But the Lithuanian retained her overall lead, and kept it after the riding element, in which her twin sister, Emilija, was third.

Földházi narrowed the distance between herself and the leader during the first two running loops, and was ahead by the time of the final shoot.

Behind the leading pair, Maliszewska won the battle for bronze with the European senior bronze medallist, Anastasiya Spas of Ukraine.

For the 18-year-old Summers, the youngest member of the British team, it was a particularly impressive achievement, coming just a week after she won individual bronze and helped the Pentathlon GB team to team gold at the World Youth A Championships in Budapest.

It was Summers who went into the run/shoot as the highest placed of the British athletes. Her run/shoot time of 13:21.77 was the sixth fastest of day, promoting her to fourth overall, 40 seconds behind Földházi.

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