Finnish athlete Saga Vanninen won the world championship in indoor pentathlon in Nanjing, China on Friday.
Vanninen became the first Finnish woman to win a senior global combined events title.
She won the final event, the 800m, ahead of Ireland’s Kate O'Connor and US athlete Taliyah Brooks, who took silver and bronze in the overall five-category event at the World Indoor Championships.
Vanninen, who captured the European championship in the Netherlands earlier this month, took first place with 4,821 points, 79 points ahead of O'Connor.
O’Connor, with 4,742 points, became the first Irish woman to win a global combined events medal. Brooks claimed her first major medal, taking bronze with a personal best of 4,669 points.
Tampere native Vanninen, who turns 22 in May, has previously won a raft of titles in heptathlon. These include two under-20 world championships and the European under-20 and under-23 championships.
She also scored silver at the Glasgow World Athletics Indoor Championships last year.
Historic win
This is the first time in nearly half a century that a Finnish track-and-field athlete has won two gold medals in the same year. The previous record was held by running legend Lasse Virén, who won twice at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. Four years earlier, Virén earned double gold at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
Vanninen is also the first Finnish track-and-field athlete to win a world or Olympic championship since javelin thrower Tero Pitkämäki at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka.
Her win provides some comfort for Finnish athletics fans after the debacle of last summer's Paris Olympic Games, when Finland failed to pick up a single medal for the first time ever.