The 22-year-old, the under-23 world champion, suffered a mechanical incident during the first lap of the race and battled a knee injury she had sustained in a training accident just a few days ago. 

Rissveds shook off both, though, to become part of a three-woman breakaway on the third lap, including Switzerland’s European Games champion Jolanda Neff and Poland’s Maja Wloszczowska, the Beijing 2008 silver medallist.

Their move had been aided by Switzerland’s Linda Indergand, who set a blistering pace early on to break up the field, before falling back and out of contention.

As Neff began to fade on the closing laps of the technically challenging 4.85 kilometres circuit, it became a head-to-head battle between Rissveds and Wloszczowska for the gold medal.

An injection of pace by Rissveds on the final lap saw her move clear of her Polish rival and claim victory in a time of 1 hour 30min 15sec to win Sweden’s second gold medal of the Games.

Wloszczowska finished 37 seconds adrift to replicate her second place finish from eight years ago.

"It was a good race,” said Rissveds.

"I came to the start and I thought that I just want to have fun and I want to stay calm and that is what I did today.

"I think we were three or four of us in the beginning.

"I just tried to stay calm, even though we had a gap, I don't know what to say.

"Today I was the strongest and I got the gold medal and it is unbelievable."

Neff gradually dropped down the field in the closing stages, leading to a battle between Canada’s Catharine Pendrel and Emily Batty for the bronze medal. 

The latter nearly caught her team-mate in the finishing straight but Penrdel eventually claimed bronze in a time of 1:31:14 to improve on her fourth place from Beijing 2008.

The men's race is due to take place tomorrow with France's Julien Absalon seeking a third Olympic title.

Road cycling world champion Peter Sagan of Slovakia is also set to feature.