The Czech biathlete had been one of a pack of five, including Canada's Rosanna Crawford, France’s Marie Dorin Habert and the German duo of Laura Dahlmeier and Juliya Dzhyma, who broke away after the second prone stage.

Dorin Habert had skied and shot impressively during the opening stages of the race to start to move clear, but a missed shot at the third shooting station prevented her from opening up a significant advantage on her rivals.

Her challenge ended in disastrous fashion as the Frenchwoman picked up four penalties on the final standing section, with the clean shooting Soukalova taking full advantage to storm into the lead.

It saw her emerge with a 22 second advantage over her nearest challenger Franziska Hildebrand and although the fast finishing German closed on the Czech, she ended 13 seconds adrift of the winner’s time of 41min 13.20sec.

"I could hear all of the Czech fans cheering for me,” said Soukalova.

“It is so great to win today, I had a lot of my family here.

“This is awesome, I do not know what to say.

“I felt really tired after the last competition and thought I needed rest, I did not believe in victory today."

The podium was completed by Dahlmeier, with the German holding off the challenge of Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff.

Gabriela Soukalová also holds the overall World Cup lead with 611 points, which sees her in front of Dorin Habert who has 538 and Hildebrand who has collected 520.

Meanwhile, shooting clean throughout the duration of the competition also proved pivotal to Erik Lesser’s triumph in the men’s 15km mass start.

The German, who is the world pursuit champion, delighted the home crowd by finishing in 40:29.30 to take gold ahead of France’s Martin Fourcade.

Fourcade, who won double gold at Sochi 2014, will rue picking up a penalty which prevented him from earning his sixth World Cup win of the season, as he ended 9.8 seconds behind the winner.

Russia’s Evgeniy Garanichev settled for bronze after finishing in 40:42.40.

The overall lead is still held by Fourcade on 655 points, ahead of Norway's Tarjei Bø on 468 and his compatriot Emil Hegle Svendsen who has 465.

A women's 4x6km relay will conclude the action in Ruhpolding tomorrow.