Ellis was in commanding form throughout the women’s race and she powered home in a time of 5 hours 24min 25sec, more than seven minutes in front of nearest challenger, Denmark's Camilla Pedersen.

Finland’s Kaisa Lehtonen always looked likely of securing a podium finish and she came through to comfortably take third.

The men’s race was a much closer affair as Viennot recovered from a difficult start in the swimming section of the race to claim the title thanks to a time of 4:54:33.

That proved enough to beat Denmark’s Martin Jensen by 13 seconds, while a perfectly-executed final running lap from Britain’s Joe Skipper saw him take bronze ahead of Switzerland’s Ruedi Wild and home favourite Patrik Nilsson.

The event, which featured a 1.5 kilometres swim, shortened due to water temperatures, a 120km bike ride and 30km run, began with the women’s race and it was Ellis who got off to the perfect start, opening up an early one minute advantage after the swim.

It was a lead she would never relinquish as she went further into the ascendancy with a brilliant bike section, taking a two-minute advantage in the first part of the race before she stepped on the gas, which proved far too strong for rivals.

By the last lap, the gap was over four minutes as Pedersen and Lehtonen struggled to keep pace and Ellis eventually increased her lead before crossing the line streets ahead of the field.

Following the bike portion, it looked as though Sweden would have a medal to celebrate as Annie Thoren appeared in a strong position but she was overtaken by Lehtonen and never managed to quite haul back the deficit.

Viennot in the men’s race was some way off the pace in the early stages and Jensen was able to seize upon his rival’s difficulties, emerging from the water as one of the leaders along with Joshua Amberger of Australia and Russian Nikolay Yaroshenko.

Jensen even managed to stretch his considerable advantage to four minutes over the Frenchman, who set off in sole pursuit of the Dane.

It was the running section where Viennot came to the fore as he halved the deficit after just three laps and he continued to eat into Jensen’s lead.

He was then able to overtake the desolate Dane, who did launch another comeback towards the end of the race but it was to be in vain as Viennot crossed the line in first, while Skipper produced a tremendous late burst to secure the final spot on the podium.

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