Current world champion Volha Silkina teamed up with Iryna Prasiantsova to win the women's relay on the opening day of the UIPM World Championships in Cairo ©Getty Images

Volha Silkina and Iryna Prasiantsova of Belarus won the women’s relay gold on the opening day of the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM) World Championships in Cairo in dominant fashion.

The result means that, for the moment, Belarus hold all three senior women’s world titles as she took the individual gold and was one of the winners in the women’s team event - along with Prasiantsova and Anastasiya Prokopenko - the last time these Championships took place at Budapest in 2019.

The annual UIPM flagship competition has been on hold for almost two years, after failed attempts to stage the event at Xiamen in China, then Cancun in Mexico and finally Minsk in Belarus.

This edition was lacking the competitive element of the British team, which was forced to pull out on the eve of competition when its Government added Egypt to the red list for travelling restrictions due to COVID-19.

Gulnaz Gubaydullina and Uliana Batashova, representing the Russian Modern Pentathlon Federation, finished 12 seconds behind the champions.

Hungary’s up-and-coming pairing of Sarolta Simon and Rita Erdos made up two places in the final laser run to take bronze.

Prasiantsova said of the win: "It’s amazing.

"Two years without a World Championships and now on the first day we are world champions, so it’s great for Belarus and it’s a good start.

"We are sure that we can achieve the same result [in the individual / team event] and get another gold medal."

Silver medallist Gubaydullina added: "Of course we’re very tired because today the weather was very hot.

"In Moscow we don’t have that temperature for training, and when we came here it was so hot and so hard."

Bronze medallist Simon said: "We’re very happy because it was our goal to reach the top three but we didn’t really think about medals at the start of the race so we’re very happy.

"It’s very hot compared to Hungary, but we are trained to manage in different conditions and we figured it out."

Having won gold alongside team mate Mayan Oliver in 2019, Mariana Arceo of Mexico had her eye on retaining the title but she and her new team mate Tamara Vega could only manage fourth place.

South Korea’s Sehee Kim and Sunwoo Kim finished fifth.

The Championships, which are due to conclude on June 14, continue tomorrow with the men’s relay.