Lindemann, 28th in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro last month, had finished first in the junior race for the last two years.

She impressed on her step-up to the tougher level, however, crossing the line first, despite fierce opposition.

On a sunny morning on the Mexican resort island, the German trailed a six-person leading group on the opening swim as Britons Sophie Coldwell and Georgie Taylor-Brown pushed the pace.

Coldwell, together with The Netherland’s Maya Kingma and Russia’s Anastasia Gorbunova, cruised out of the first transition to take a lead of a minute by the second bike lap.

But Lindemann's chasing group were swiftly closing the gap, and a pack of 14 drew level with two bike laps still to go.

The German, along with Estonia's Kaidi Kivioja and France's Leonie Periault, then pushed the pace early-on in the run. 

Kivioja received a 10 second penalty due to an illegal transition, which she opted to serve after lap two.

That left Liedermann and Periault clear and in a race between themselves.

It only ended in the final 500 metres as the Liedermann dropped her gallant rival to win by 15 seconds in 1 hour 59min 18sec.

France ensured they also took the bronze medal as Sandra Dodet finished third in 2:00.05.

There was a US double in the junior races.

Austin Hindman won the men’s event after fighting back to beat Canada’s Charles Paquet as Great Britain’s Ben Dijkstra took bronze.

A dominant bike-run powered Taylor Knibb to the corresponding women's title.

Lisa Tertsch produced a speedy run for second and in a sprint finish, Hye Rim Jeong won South Korea's first ever World Championship medal at any level with bronze.