Gravesend's Kate French produced a superb display to claim the second modern pentathlon World Cup victory of her career in Sofia.

The Rio Olympian, 27, took time off after last year’s World Championships and only returned to international action earlier this month, but she didn’t show any signs of rustiness in the swim, fencing, riding and laser run events.

It was the fourth World Cup medal of French’s career and the third in the last 15 months, adding to her win in Cairo and silver in Los Angeles last year.

French said: "I'm so happy to have won gold and it was also quite unexpected after having six months off after last season.

"My fencing has been really strong in the last 12 months. I'm incredibly pleased that I managed to hold things together from there in both the ride and laser run."

Fellow Olympian Samantha Murray was 11th, with Jess Varley 22nd and Francesca Summers 33rd.

French swam 2min22.16sec – the second-best time of the British quartet – and got off to a fantastic start in the fencing, winning 15 of her 17 bouts in the opening half of the ranking round.

She maintained her place towards the top of the discipline standings with a strong second half, finishing with 26 victories and just nine defeats, and won the final two bouts against Marie Oteiza and Natalya Coyle to claim bonus round honours.

In the riding discipline French suffered just six time faults to pick up 294 points for second place in the overall battle heading into the laser run, where she closed the gap on leader Coyle in the opening 2,400m.

She took the lead thanks to a perfect 10-second third shoot and went on to win by 13 seconds from Coyle, with Russia’s Uliana Batashova third.