Nadine Broersen shed tears of joy on Friday night as she won gold for the Netherlands with a national record performance in the pentathlon at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Sopot.
Entering the last event, the 800m, with a lead of 101 points from the Ukraine's Alina Fodorova, Broersen did enough to triumph despite finishing only sixth in the race.
It was a superb end to a day of fine consistency for Broersen, 23, who was 13th in the heptathlon at the Olympic Games in London and 10th last summer at the World Championships in Moscow.
But this is her finest moment as she won with 4830 points from Canada's Brianne Theisen-Eaton, second with 4768, and Fodorova, third with a personal best of 4724.
A year on from winning pentathlon bronze at the European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg, Ukraine's Hanna Melnychenko arrived in Sopot as the heptathlon world champion after her success in Moscow.
She was the woman the rest had to catch but in the end finished seventh overall with 4587 points.
Her victory in Russia had come by 56 points from Theisen-Eaton and on Friday, it was the Canadian who took the early advantage when she won the 60m hurdles in 8.13 from Melnychenko in 8.18 and Broersen, who was third in 8.32.
Of the eight athletes, six ran personal bests, including the top five, with Melynchenko on 1088 points, just 12 behind Theisen-Eaton.
Leadership swiftly changed in the second event, the high jump, as Broersen took command with 2202 points. And she achieved it in style, with a national indoor record of 1.93m.
That gave her 1145 points as she won by six centimetres, with Belarusian Yana Maksimava second and Fodorova third with 1.84m.
Theisen-Eaton was back in fifth on countback with 1.84m to drop to second overall with 2129 with Melnychenko, whose high jump was 1.81m, in third with 2079.
With the competition all being completed on this first day in Poland, the third of the events was the last of the morning session, the shot put, which was won by Fodorova with 15.05m.
Broersen was back in fourth with 14.59m but stayed in front overall, with a total of 3035, with American Sharon Day-Monroe second with 2919 after her 14.95m in the shot put.
Broersen stayed in charge, even though she finished fourth in the long jump with 6.17m as Germany's Claudia Rath won it with 6.37m with Melnychenko second with 6.27m.
It meant the Dutch athlete led with 3937 from Fodorova with 3836 with Melnychenko in fifth with 3742 before the 800m.
In that Day-Monroe won in 2:09.80 with Broersen sixth after her run of 2:14.97, a personal best that brought cheers, and then the tears.
After Broersen banked the first gold of the championships, Europe was celebrating another medal as Germany’s David Storl, the double outdoor World champion, won silver in the shot put but was so close to taking this title.
Storl led after the first round with 21.35m, a distance he improved upon in the second round as he reached 21.79m.
But Storl then had three fouls, and it was in the fourth round that American Ryan Whiting, the defending champion, delivered the winning effort of 22.05m to retain his crown.
Storl attempted to overtake him in the last round but he could manage only 21.19m in an event where New Zealand’s Tomas Walsh was third with 21.26m and Poland’s Tomas Majewski was fourth with 21.04m.