Asadauskaite, fresh from claiming a come-from-behind victory in the second leg of the series in Cairolast moth, found herself 59 seconds adrift of leader Sarolta Kovacs on Hungary and in 20th place going into the run-shoot stage.

But the Lithuanian star showed the rest of the field why she remains the one to beat as she powered past her competitors, which gave her a total of 1,349 points to secure the most unlikely of successes.

Hungary’s Zsófia Földházi took silver by finishing second overall, while the bronze medal went to Donata Rimsaite of Russia as she edged out Iryna Prasiantsova of Belarus, who came in just shy of a podium position.

On an action packed day, Asadauskaite struggled to find her form in the fencing competition as she languished down in 25th place.

Her performance in the swimming was also disappointing by her standards but the Lithuanian managed to recover and give herself a glimmer of hope after the show jumping portion, where she wound up in 11th position.

That still left the 31-year-old with a considerable mountain to climb going into the deciding run but it never looked beyond her, and the London 2012 gold medallist was by far the quickest, posting a time of 11min 49.23secs which gave her an impressive 591, enough to clinch a magnificent victory.

It proved to be a tough day for British athletes Freyja Prentice and Kate French, who had both clinched podium finishes at the two previous World Cup events, as they failed to continue their excellent run of form as they were 17th and 33rd respectively.

The event in the Italian capital continues tomorrow with the men’s final, and the next Modern Pentathlon World Cup leg of the season is due to take place in the Hungarian city of Kecskemét from April 30 to May 4.