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BEIJING (AP)-Germany's Lena Schoneborn won gold in the women's modern pentathlon Friday.
Schoneborn led after the first four events and held on for the victory despite finishing with the ninth-best time in the 3,000-meter run. She crossed the finish line first because of the head start she got as the leader entering the final event.
She was 20th in shooting before making up ground as the top finisher in fencing. A 10th-place finish in swimming and a fourth-place showing in horse riding -- where the horses are assigned randomly to the athletes -- left her in the overall lead entering the run.
"The big risk is always the horses, so that's what you think about the most," she said. "As for the fencing and shooting, it all depends on your form on the day."
Schoneborn finished with 5,792 overall points, just 40 points better than Britain's Heather Fell.
The final portions of the women's pentathlon.
Fell got the silver with the third-best swim and fifth-best run. The bronze went to Victoria Tereshuk of Ukraine, who was fifth in swimming and fencing and finished with the second-best run. Tereshuk finished with 5,672 points.
American Sheila Taormina, who became the first woman in Olympic history to compete in three sports, was 19th overall. She finished first in the swim, setting an Olympic record with a time of 2:08.86, and tied for the best score in the riding portion. Taormina won a swimming gold medal in 1996, and competed in triathlon at the 2000 and 2004 Games.
Hungarian pentathlete Zsuzsanna Voros, who won the gold medal at the Athens Games in 2004, finished 20th overall.
The evolution of modern pentathlon Modern pentathlon has gone through a number of changes since its debut at the 1912 Olympics but could be in line for the most radical adjustments yet as Pierre de Coubertin's ultimate test of the "complete athlete" reconfigures itself for a new generation.
