She will be joined at next year’s Game by China's silver medallist Qian Chen, and bronze medallist Yane Marques, the 31-year-old from Brazil who won bronze at the London 2012 Games.

Marques will form an ideal point of interest for the Brazilian public next year in an event not widely known in the country. 

Schoneborn, whose previous best performance in the World Championships earned her silver in 2007, made a poor start in front of her home supporters in the Olympiapark, finishing 28th in the opening event, the swimming.

But the 29-year-old, who won the European title for a second time last year, restored her medal chances in the fencing element, where she produced a world record of 30 wins out of 35 bouts.

Sixth place in the riding sent her into the final combined run/shoot with a nine seconds advantage over the nearest challenger, Marques, who was nine seconds clear of Hungary’s Sarolta Kovacs.

Seventh place in a time of 12min 44.48sec was enough to secure gold.

Schoneborn said: “I am very exhausted, but totally happy to be the new world champion in my home city, in front of my home crowd and my family - it almost made me cry

“It wasn’t a perfect day because of the swim in the morning, but I had a perfect ride and I felt really comfortable.

I almost had a full score and it’s been a while since I did that.

I was obviously nervous going into the run, but I just tried to focus and it worked out.

“With the support of the home crowd it made it a lot easier to go all out and give 110 per cent.

"On the last lap I knew I was going to take it individually, but I knew we were also going for a team medal so I just kept on running as hard as I could.”

Her efforts – along with those of Janine Kohlmann and Annika Schleu – earned Germany team silver behind the Polish trio of Aleksandra Skarzynska, Oktawia Nowacka and Anna Maliszewska, with bronze going to Hungary.

Britain's defending champion Samantha Murray had a topsy-turvy day in finishing fifth.

Having been joint winner of the opening swim, she had a disastrous fencing competition, with just 12 wins out of 35 dropping her to 18th place going into the equestrian event.

Murray managed a clear round with just two time faults, thus moving up to 11th place ahead of the combined run/shoot, 65 seconds behind the leader. 

She managed the third fastest combined time, but still finished a tantalising couple of places from the podium.

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